CEREMONIAL EMOTION.
THE highest aim of an artist is to rouse a noble emotion. To arouse it in an immense concourse of people is perhaps his greatest achievement. To make men cry out : " I also conceived that thought, but I could not bring it forth," is to have genius, and whoever can give expression to the dumb heart of the ordinary man can by that expression reinspire it with those speechless thoughts which develop into action. By hie poetry, his music, his oratory, his building, or his picture he may do all these things ; but they can be done by other men than artiste. It is not they only who have this wizardry. It is the divine gift of every hero, of every man, that is, who is recognized as a hero by many or by few. The extent of his recognition cannot make him more a hero, it can do him no good, it may even by possibility do him harm, but it is for the good of the world that he should be known. How much right even the best man has to receive praise and gratitude is a matter for dispute. The greatest misdoubt their title, but the public has an absolute right to give it, and it is a right which an inde- pendent and idealistic people will always claim. They desire to crown with admiration the man whose deeds they admire, and in some subtle way which they do not understand they identify themselves with him. " What I have dreamed this man has done," sighs the old man. " What this man has done I shall do," dreams the boy. " So will my lover act," says the
girl to herself. " Mysori may be like that," whispers his mother. Just now is a time for welcoming great men, and it is a great time.
It is the duty of every individual, of every community, and of every State to hold up some deeds and some men to admiration. It is a wrong act to pass them over. Every man who fails to publish a fine action, or neglects so far as in him lies to honour the doer, robs the race of its spiritual food. This is true whoever did it. "If ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others ?" Eagerness to be- little anything worthy of admiration that may come to our notice even in an enemy is to deny ourselves a benefit. On the other hand, the inevitable corollary of praise is blame. We must condemn because we must differen- tiate. There is nothing so divine as forgiveness, nor so wise as tolerance, but to call evil good and good evil, while it may be devilish, is at beet simply foolish. " But what is the use," says the cynic, "of all this ceremonial emotion ? It is no more worth than the tears which spring to a woman's eyes when she hears the regulated tramp of many feet or the rhythm of martial music. To crowd to see a man about whom you, after all, know but little because you think he has performed, or conceived, or intended, or directed certain great actions ; to cheer, to enjoy an absurd pleasure in seeing him feted and hearing him acclaimed, is nothing else than a form of moral dissipation. There is great danger in all this flogged-up emotion." We disagree entirely with the cynic. There is far more danger in allowing our finer emotions to be by ridicule flogged down. Not that that is the only danger by which we are beset. It is not mock heroics and aentimentalities of which we have to beware, but false objects of admiration. The man—too often be is a journalist—who puts unscrupulous fearlessness in place of courage, who makes a hero of a bold villain, calls cunning ability and brute force right, does endanger the public conscience. To confuse men's moral sense by demanding admiration for things which only call for amazement is to do them a frightful wrong. It is tantamount to offering poisonous food to hungry people. Just because they are hungry they do not stop to examine what is given them. The public desires objects for its admiration, concrete symbols expressing its aspirations, and it is a black art to satisfy it with that which is not bread.
But to return to the subject of ceremonial emotion. It is obviously unfair to confuse it with affected emotion because it lasts long and apparently the recollection of it never dies. How constantly is this proved in recent memoirs. " I remember being taken to see" such-and-such a great man come home, such-and-such a great man buried. " I remember that I went as a child to" such-and-such a ceremonial in such-and-such a cathedral or church. Again and again like recollections are related with a sort of reverence as though they had made a grand and indelible impression, and were out of all proportion to the short space of time that they filled. We are, or we seem to our friezes to be, a reserved people. Americans find us over- reserved, and openly regret a reticence which strikes them as " side." Some ceremonial occasions for emotion arc surely good for us, and just because they are ceremonial we need not fear that they will lead us into indulgence. Opportunities for the cultivation of the finer feelings are at this particular juncture specially desirable. The mass of the people no longer go to church. The feasts of the Christian year are commemorated by the public at large only as holidays. The loss is grievous, though doubtless its religious significance may be exaggerated. Upon far lower grounds we may deplore that the heart of the country no longer beats more quickly to the sound of the finest English of the finest period, forming, as to those who still love the Prayer Book it seems to form, an almost perfect expression of the noblest hopes and truest consolations offered to the world in the Christian faith. It has ceased to awaken the moral emotion of the crowd, which is looking for newer, or possibly for older, symbols. Meanwhile it needs corporate expression for its better self, and those in authority will do well to encourage every adequate outlet, To turn to smaller matters, we are inclined to think that not a little good and happiness results from the " keeping " of certain anniversaries, and the preservation, even the resuscitation, of old and cheerful customs. They do certainly lay up happy recollections, and it is obvious therefore that they give some not quite explicable pleasure to young people. They necessitate, at any rate in the old, a small amount of pretence. How far is it legitimate to simulate happiness However worldly it may
sound, we should say—just aa far IS8 it can be done with success, and truth would oblige us to add that that is not very far. A forced gaiety is a grim thing if it is recognized, but where it is graced by unselfishness it may be almost beautiful, and at least it is always excusable. How far sympathy excuses pretence where sorrow is concerned it is not so easy to say. A decent appearance of distress is, however, a proper homage for content- ment to pay to grief, and we do produce in ourselves by our own demeanour some sort of far-away echo of what our neighbours feel. It would be sad to see an undue worship of frankness utterly sweeping away all time-honoured expression of cere- monial emotion from private life. All the same, we think it would militate less against the well-being of society than would its disappearance from public life. It must be admitted that ceremonial mourning is a custom the gradual disregarding of which comes as a relief, but we should like to see family festivals less neglected. Birthdays and wedding-days, christenings and Christmases, make peasant breaks in the inevitable monotony. It is a mistake to rule the red-letter days out of the calendar because a few people are bored by any ceremonial at all. Children love ceremonial, and complain if they are balked of it. There is something in human nature which not only tolerates but demands emotion to order. We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced ; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented," is the ingenuous complaint of the children of the marketplace now as nineteen hundred years ago.
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