Moral Poison in Modern Fiction. R. Brimley Johnson
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that, seeming an integral part of civilization, was eating away the very heart of humanity and condemning, with grim cynicism, the complacency of the old code.
II
THEN CAME THE WAR!
—Which meant that thousands of boys and girls were suddenly snatched away from their homes and parents, flung out into the heat of life, under conditions of abnormal, and wholly vile, excitement. They had to act and think for themselves without guidance, training, or experience: to face problems almost entirely new to young and old alike.
Practically, there were no safeguards.
It was not that men rebelled against and defied the established traditions: these simply did not apply to life as it burst upon our sons and daughters. Normal existence was wiped out by a flash of lightning. The old duties, habits, manners, responsibilities, were rudely cast aside: for what seemed, and perhaps was, a higher call. The whole of life was revised in a few hours; and it is no exaggeration to say that none knew their way about the new world.
Only a clear understanding of what war really meant for us, can reveal the special problems of to-day in their relation to the permanent, which are the only real, emotions and instincts of human nature.
To a large extent, the mental and moral growth of all young men was abruptly stopped short. Those who have come back, physically fit, are—in all the essentials of character—five years younger than by the calendar, though more "fixed" in their few ideas. Many are further hampered and—in a sense—abnormal; maimed, diseased, or nerve-shattered; definitely unbalanced in some way; only half themselves, liable to sudden loss, or defiance, of self-control.
For five years they were not men, but screws in a vast evil machine. They had, indeed, experience of death; none of life. They had, practically, no responsibility towards, or for, themselves; no sense of duty before them except obedience; no aim beyond a standardized efficiency. They lost every influence of home, neighbourliness, citizenship, and above all the refinement and sanctity of love. To live for the moment became their Ideal; in a vision of noble patriotism and sublime self-sacrifice. It was not for them to plan, look forward, build up life and character for themselves.
This unnatural and irresponsible existence, moreover, was to be spent among scenes of appalling savagery and the worst primitive passions.
"The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs
High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps;
And trunks, face downward, in the sucking mud,
Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled;
And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair,
Bulged, clotted heads slept in the plastering slime."
Only devils can serve the Devil of War; and the supreme sacrifice our sons made for us was the sacrifice of their humanity.
To "do their bit," they put away themselves.
But this abnormal, unreal existence, these lives in the Flame of Hate, hardened and coarsened by the day's work, positively had to discover some outlet; quick, sure ways to forget. Quite unused to the normal "decencies," without experience in "ordering" themselves, the sex-instinct became explosive, a sense-riot unrestrained. Remember, that to men (and women, for that matter), hard working at high pressure, leading a strained and feverish life, the sex-thirst springs out. There is no drug for worn-out bodies and souls so easy and so sweet-savoured, so prompt in its effects, for the moment so complete. In those days few stopped to count the cost, face the consequences, or note the weakening of the will. With death "round the corner," why stop to think? Life was all snatching; action meant a shrewd blow, careless of what, in ourselves or in another, we killed by the way.
And for girls and young women there was one Rule of Life—"give the men a good time." I know the inspiring motive, however little conscious in some, was a generous self-forgetting. To give is always ennobling, and God forbid one should ever, by thought or word, belittle the selfless heroism born in woman.
But then, our daughters had no chance to know and choose, no test between real emotion and fevered desire—their own or another's. Inheriting a beautiful home-womanliness, the flower of sheltered innocence, they had to make and be themselves in the open of a new world. Nobility shone out among us in those days, miracles beyond belief of what woman can do and suffer for big, or small, men: a new vision of the mothering of humanity that brought God to our side. Also, alas, terrible shattering of English girlhood, ugly staining of the pure in heart, feverish unrest, a fury of overdoing, a hard glitter of cold joy. Always haste, never growth. Wherefore to-day our morality is an ash-heap, which some weep over, others kick up.
Dare we refuse to face the black awakening to disillusion?
III
BECAUSE WHILE THEY LIVED VIOLENTLY, YOUTH ALSO THOUGHT HARD.
What was their "food for thought"? Largely away from, and independent of, personal influence from the intimacies of home life; almost entirely freed from authority even in daily conduct, and from the restraints of an accepted moral code; they talked and read. All the rebellions and revolts of before 1914 were conspicuously abroad. Above all, then and to-day, the novels (devoured for distraction) had forced sex-problems upon the most thoughtless; demanded for all on the threshold of life full licence for self-expression; analysed what they called the soul in undigested detail; lingered over body-contact, flushes and fires of the flesh; loudly proclaimed new Laws of Love.
The whole experience of mankind, our most sacred instincts, are flouted with contempt. The conflicting claims, which none can avoid, between young and old, have been flung off. The old distinctions between wrong and right are categorically denied; all now demand an absolutely fresh start based on universal knowledge of sin, absolute freedom for the individual, frank discussion of physical intimacies, full rights to the Egoist—"a commonplace promiscuity that masquerades as liberty, as courageousness, as art. A slimy, glittering snail-track threaded through all society."
And we have not, even yet, gone far enough! since, it is said, "Conversation is over-sexed, the novel under-sexed, therefore untrue, therefore insincere." By this creed, there is only one real thing in life—physical passion.
I do not suggest that contemporary thought is all evil, unclean or false. Many of our writers are serious, pure-minded men and women, rightly indignant with old falsehoods, honestly seeking new light. Much of their work, too, reveals both sincerity and truth, a finer instinct for the ideal than the Victorians ever knew. Their courage is heroic, their frankness most wise.
But they are, on the whole, prone to haste. They denounce often without understanding; eager to knock down, without preparation to build up. There is a large body of new doctrine, or interpretation of life and manhood, which is false, morbid, and poisonous in its effects.
Above all, the message has taken youth unprepared—just when (more than ever before in the history of the world) they needed quiet patience for complete understanding. And it has, naturally, proved an attractive instrument for cheap sensation-mongers to feed novelty and excitement, in second-rate, widely read, novels. The appeal here is far more dangerous, because it lacks thought or any sense of responsibility in the writers. These insincere books, written for success to catch the crowd, even when slightly more veiled in phrase, are far more suggestive and unclean. They present conclusions without reasons, gospels without faith. They partly create, and largely reflect, life as it is for the moment. Taking evil for granted, they do devil's work.
Such are the prevailing influences of the day; very mixed, of grave peril, that have already done much to prolong the crime of war.
But the following pages shall not be given to mere abuse, idle complaints, or dogmatic