IV
WHAT, THEN, WERE THE NEW MORAL PROBLEMS, WHAT WAS THE FRANK OUTLOOK,RAISED AND ADOPTED BEFORE THE WAR?
What are their effects, for good and evil, upon modern literature?
We recognize the physical expression of love as itself no way impureor unclean: but as a part of true passion. We know that sin means astate of mind or emotion, a false conception of moral values; and thatvirtue is not secured by legal sanction. We recognize, frankly, man'sweakness and the complexity of social life; wherefore the dangers andtemptations of ill-doing must be faced and understood.
Finally, we believe that _knowledge brings strength_; and, therefore,these "difficult" questions cannot, and should not, be ignored inconversation or in books: above all, not by those who, whetherintentionally or not, do influence thought by their power to createcharacter in fiction.
This awakening to a new view of Truth, however, has produced anatmosphere in modern novels which—whatever the aim or intention ofmodern novelists, leads to grave evil.
1. The determination to call a spade a spade, complete frankness in words, too often ignores the relative importance of things or deeds thus exposed. It tends, unavoidably, to over-emphasize the physical, no less than our grandparents exaggerated the romantic.
2. A recognition of the unmarried mother and the refusal to boycott a whole class, produce detailed and frank pictures of "gay life," in which the pleasures and even the moral conquests are so brought into prominence as to convey the totally false impression that such conditions are freer, and therefore better, than prosaic domesticity.
3. The gospel of self-expression in emotion, itself a fine ideal inspiring sincerity, is too often so violently proclaimed as to ignore any consideration for others and the "consequences" to oneself:—the inevitable weakening of the will.
4. In particular, the glorification of burning passion which (as a physical fact) cannot be continuous, is revealed to justify the lie that, as the _nature_ of love changes or grows, it also turns cold and dies. Therefore, they seek to show that the noblest love does not last, that men and women alike need constant change in emotion, that marriage is not a bond but bondage.
Everywhere, they confound the abuses of truth with truth itself;proclaim an ideal false simply because it has been degraded andmisunderstood. They condemn because we cannot attain.
Obviously, however, the novelists may still reply, "We are concernedwith life not with ideals. If these things be sin, we must write ofsin." That we all admit. The novel with any ambition towards truth darenot ignore temptation or the failure to resist. It must reveal humannature, no less at its worst than its best; face the struggle betweenfaith and disloyalty to oneself; picture life's cruel ironies and thetyranny of fate.
_But that can never excuse doubt, or confusion between right and wrong,exalting evil, or perversion of the truth._
Moral Poison in Modern Fiction Page 4
