The New York Times from New York, New York • Page 69

The New York Time Magazne. January 30. 19 It 17 This War Affected Literature Five Years Ago Says Charles Rann Kennedy, Who Classes Himself with "Prophetic Madmen of Literature and Describes the Destruction of the Superman By Joyce Kilmer. UT of course," said Charles Rann Kennedy" violently, (he says roost things rather violently,) you understand that the war's most impor tant effect on literature was clearly evident long before the war began! I did not understand this statement, and said so. Thereupon the author of "The Servant in the House" and The Terrible Meek" said: "We have so often been told that treat events cast their shadows before that the tremendous truth of the phrase has ceased to impress us.

The war which began in August, 1914, exercised a tremendous influence over the mind of the world in 1913, 1912, 1911, and 1910. The great wave of religious thought which swept over Europe and America during those years was caused by the approach of the war. The tremendous pacifist movement not the weak bloodless pacifism of the poltroon, but the heroic flaming pacifism of the soldier-hearted convinced of sin was a protest against the menacing injustice the war; it was the world's shudder dread. "The literature of the first decade of the twentieth century was more thoroughly and obviously influenced by the war than will be that of the decade following. Think of that amazing quickening of the conscience of the French Nation, a quickening which found expres-: skn in the novels of Ren 6 Bazin, the immortal ballads of Francis Jammes, and in the work of countless other writers! These people were preparing themselves and their fellow-countrymen for the mighty ordeal which was before them.

"It is blasphemous to say that the war can only affect things that come after it; to say that is to attempt to limit the powers of God. There are, of course, i' some writers who can only feel the influence of a thing after it has become evident; after they have carefully studied and absorbed it. But there are -others, the manikoi, the prophetic madmen, who ere swayed by what is to happen rather than by what has happened. I'm one of them. "The war held me in its spell long before the German troops crossed Bel-" gian soil.

I wrote my The Terrible Meek' by direct inspiration from heaven in Holy Week, 1912. I put that in," said Mr. Kennedy, (who looks very much like Gilbert K.Chesterton's suddenly breaking off the thread ol his discourse, "not only because I know that it is the absolute truth, but because of the highly entertaining way in which it is bound to be misinterpreted. New York's dramatic critics, the Lord Chamberlain of England, the military authorities of Germany and Great Britain all these people were charmingly unanimous in finding 'The Terrible Meek' blasphemous, villainous, poisonous. Even the New York MacDowell Club, after two stormy debates, decided to omit all mention of The Terrible Meek from its bulletin.

Perhaps this was not entirely be-' cause the play was sacrilegious'; the dub may possibly have been influenced by the fact that its author was a loud person with long hair, who told unpleasant truths in reputable gatherings. And copies of the published book of the play, which were accompanied by friendly letters from the author, were refused by monarch now at war in Europe! But in 1914 and 1915 The Terrible Meek suddenly found, to its own amazement, that it had become a respectable play! Its connection with the present war became evident. It has been the subject -I of countless leading articles; it has been read and even acted in thousands of churches. On the occasion of the first despised production of the play in New York City, my wife and I received a small pot of rosea from a girls' school which we sometimes visit. In due time this was planted by the porch of our Summer home in Connecticut.

This year three years only after its planting the rose tree covers three-quarters of the big porch, and last Summer it bore thousands of blooms. Now these things are a parable 1 No, the Lord does not have to wait until the beginnings of mighty wars for them vitally to influence the literature of the world. Upon some of us He places the burden of the coming horror, years before. "Although I am and always have been violently opposed to war, I cannot help observing what this war has al- spread over the world, most perniciously influencing all intellectual life. And there were so many things to help Supermanism! There was the general acceptance of the doctrine of biological necessity as an argument for war Bernhardt actually used that phrase, I believe the idea that affairs of the spirit are determined exteriorly.

There was the acceptance of various extraordinary interpretations of Darwin's theory of evolution! Every little man called himself a scientist, and took his own little IP i ft Charles Rann Kennedy. 3 3 ready commenced to do for literature. It is killing Supermanism and I purposely call it by that name, to distinguish it from the mere actual doctrine that Nietzsche may or may not have taught. The damnable heresy, as it historically happened among us, was already beginning to influence very badly most of our young writers. Clever devil ism caught the trick of it too easily.

Now, heresy is sin always and everywhere; and this heresy was a particularly black and deadly kind of sin. It ate into the very heart of our life. And yet there was a reason, almost an excuse, for the power which the Superman idea got over the minds of writers after Bernard Shaw's first brilliant and engaging popularization of it And the excuse is that Supermanism, with its emphasis on strength and courage and life, was to a great extent a healthy and almost inevitable reaction from the maudlin milk-and-water sort of theology and morals that had been apologetically handed out to us by weak-kneed religious teachers. We had too much of the gentle Jesus of the Sunday school. In our maze of evil protestantisms, we had lost eight of the real Son of God who is Jesus Christ.

We had lost the terrible and lovely doctrine of the wrath of the Lamb. And so a great many writers turned to Supermanisaa with a shout of relief. They were sick of milk and water, and this seemed te be strong wine. But Supermanism irt Wresy, and it rapidly potterings-about very seriously. Everything had to be a matter of observation, these litjlc fellows said; they would believe only what they saw.

They didn't know that real scientists always bcin a priori, that real scientists always know the truth first and then set about to prove it. "Well, all these people helped the heresy of Supermanism along. But the people who helped it along chiefly were the apologetic Christians, who should have combated it with fire and sword. It was helped along by the sort of Christian who calls himself 'liberal and the sort of Christian who says Of course, I'm not orthodox. When any on? says that to me, I always answer him in the chaste little way which so endears me to my day and generation, 4 Hell, aren't you? I hope I This sort of so-called Christian helps Supermanism in two ways.

Inf the first place, the 'progressive' Christians are great connoisseurs of heresy, they simply love any new sort of blasphemous philosophy, whether it comes from Germany or Upper Tooting. They love to try to assimilate all the new mad and wicked ideas, and graft them on Christianity. I suppose it's their idea of making the Lord Jesus Christ up to date and attractive. They love to try to engrave pretty patterns on the Rock of Ages. And Supermanism was to them a new and alluring pattern.

Of course a Supermanism might be worked out on strictly Christian lines, the Superman in that case being the Christ. But that is not the way in which the theory has historically worked out. No! Mr. Superman as we've actually known him in the world recently is the beast that was taken and with him the false prophets that wrought miracles before him, with which he had deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that had worshipped his image. And these, in the terrible symbolism of St.

John, you will remember, got fire and brimstone for their pains! As now! Then there was your Christian Supermanism that tried to get up a weak little imitation of the wrath of the Lnmb. This was your bastard by theatricality and popularity out of so-called muscular Christianity. Not the virile muscular Christianity of Charles Kingsley, mind you a power he won almost alone, by blood and tears; but the safe thing of the after generation, the 4 all things to all men' when success was well assured. This is your baseball Christianity, the Christianity of the of the piled-up heap of dollars, of the commercially counted conversions and the rest of the blasphemies! Christ deliver us from it, if needs be, even by fire! "Well, Supermanism cast its shadow over all forms of literary expression. The big and the little mockers all fell under its spell they had their fling at Christianity in their novels, their plays, their poems.

In the novel Supermanism was evident not so much in direct attacks on Christianity as in a brutal and pitiless realism. Perhaps some of this hard realism was a natural reaction from the eye-piping sentimentality of some of the Victorian writers. But "most of it was merely Supermanism in fiction pessimism, egotism, fatalism, cruelty. One thing to be said for the Christian Scientists, the Mental Healers, the New Thought people generally, is that they did a real service through all this bad time by refusing to recognize any such heresy as biological determinism as applied to things spiritual. They really did teach man's freedom up there in the heavens where he properly belongs.

They refused to be bound by the earth, and all the appearances and the exterior causes thereof. Their Superman, if they ever used the phrase, was at least the Healer, the spirit spent for others, not for self. If you were to as.k me what were the war's most conspicuous effects on literature just at present, I would say conviction of sin, repentance and turning to God. There can be no suggestion of Supermanism in our literature now. We have rediscovered the Christian virtues.

If a man writes something about blonde-beasting through the world for his own good, all we have to do is to stick up in front of his eyes a crucifix. For the world has seen courage and self-abnegation of the kind that Christ taught it has seen men throw their lives away. The war has shown the world that the man who will throw away his life is braver and stronger and greater than the man who plunges forward to safety ever the lives of others. The world has learned that he who loses his life shall gain it. The war has thrown a clear light upon Christianity, and now all the little apologetic progressive Christians see that the world had never reacted against orthodox Christianity as such, but only against the bowel-less unbelief which masqueraded as Christianity.

We have had so many ministers who talked about Christ as they would have talked about kippered herrings even with less enthusiasm. But now any one who speaks or writes about Christianity after this will have to know that he has to do with something terribly real. Of course, during the war the only people who can write about it are those who are ix the red-hot period of youth. Young meu af genius write in times of stress. The war forces genius to flower prematurely that is bow we got the noble sonnets of Rupert Brooke.

"And after the war will come to the making of literature the man who has.