Youth
BY AN ELDER CRITIC.
SOME few elder people who regard themselves as exceedingly tolerant, far seeing, and wide-minded, declare that the years have brought no essential cleavage between the generations. They refuse to judge young people by what they say.
" Mere. talk ! " they exclaim, " as it was in our time so it is now." These veterans are far more amiable than the bitter critics who constantly proclaim a change for the worse, but they are hardly, perhaps, more wise. The former may take a jaundiced view of the situation, the latter shut their eyes to it altogether. The fashion- able expression of feeling known as " mere talk " has always existed and has never represented the literal truth. It is no more than a symbol, a sign of the times, but it is a sure sign and when it changes it shows that the prevalent attitude of mind is no longer what it was.
But " mere talk " is not the only thing by which we can judge of modern improvement or decline ; something even more important has to be taken into consideration which we will call " mere silence." We of the older generation were brought up to have great reserves, they became as second nature to us, and the younger sort very generally misinterpret them. Some- times they put them down to hypocrisy, sometimes to wilful ignorance, more often to a kind of spartan deter- mination to see life as we incurable idealists wished it to be. They also have their silences. Many of us say that they come of a new hardness of heart, a new con- tempt of conscience, a new disregard of natural affections, even a new atheism. That is tit for tat, and as such certain to be wrong. It may be that they are less fair to us than we were to our fathers and grandfathers, but their sympathetic difficulties are very much greater than ours were. The scenery of life has changed entirely. We began life where our fathers began theirs, but our children, and grandchildren have been carried a long way from us, whether up hill or down it is too soon to be sure in the broken and uneven country which surrounds us all alike. Anyhow, they seem to themselves to be looking back to us, and not up to us : the reverence has gone out of their eyes, but has the affection ? Without stressing this point, which we should like to enlarge upon at a later date, it is obvious that a new way of judging is coming into the world ; we need not be so touchy because we have lost deference. The young people do not weigh merit as we weighed it. The Victorians, whatever their vices, never forgot their homage. They adored virtue and a large part of their enthusiastic ritual consisted of condemnation.
Listen to the " mere talk " of the young. You will hear no set of people damned. They divide their acquaintance into the lovable and the unlovable, not into the worthy and unworthy. Loyalty, from their point of view, does not consist in assigning good qualities to their friends or in passing over their doubtful doings in silence, but in genuinely upholding their likeableness. They have not, or they do not choose to display in talk, much gift of expression ; they can't, or they won't; explain their own indignation when some older person asks what can possibly be said for so and so, considering his or her conduct. They are angry, but they deny nothing. He or she is " a dear " they assert with the heartfelt partizanship of youth. If they should vouchsafe a few more words in their friends' defence, they will leave an elder critic with the impression that certain of the most lovable qualities are confined to those whom he, in his Victorian legality, has been accustomed in his heart, if not openly, to regt rd as " the bad." • With the young people of to-day the first are last and the last first. Is there not perhaps a touch of,the Divine in this wilful kindness ? The point of view has, of course, great dangers, but to reach the greater moral heights one must live dangerously. There is no denying that they do " touch pitch," these young people of what we used to call the better classes. Even the best of them keep what seems to us amazingly bad company, if not in actual practice, at least in print ! They choose to live in fancy among the horridest sinners ! Why do they do it ? Here it seems to the present writer they have got actually out of sight, so far as we elders are concerned. We cannot see what they are at. However humbly we ask for an explanation, we receive nothing but a banal snub. They do not, they say, " choose to be ostriches," they see " no innocence in ignorance," or most. absurd of all, they have some feeling for literature. Well !
having been roundly told to " shut up " we can but ease an anxious breast by reflecting that many of the young women whose reading makes our hair stand on end, do seem to drink in the deadly stuff without much hurt, and retain the " modest eyes and clean hearts " which we imagined to require such careful preservation ! There is this to be said in favour of the future happiness of the new generation, the book of life will show them nothing more than they are prepared to see ! Indeed, it may be hoped that they will sometimes find in its pages a splendid disappointment.
How do the generations compare for sincerity and frankness ? That such a question should be asked at all will seem comic to any young man or woman who may take up this paper. Frankness is their great subject of boast. Certainly there is no pretence about them. There are, however, fashions in candour. In the old days many deceptions were of the nature of formalities. It was not conventional to call a spade a spade but there has been little conscious deception in English society at any period. For our part we think that where the smaller sincerities of life were concerned formality acted as a great protection. When we wrote notes expressing our entire inability to do what we did not want, we were using a simple form. Now a startling request over the telephone is replied to by any lie that comes handy. The simplicity with which entirely erroneous statements are made, stuck to, and finally disproved, without the slightest disturbance of serenity, is startling to the followers of another tradition, but no doubt the speakers understand one another. -Again, the intimacy, the Freemasonry which exist between young con- temporaries make it difficult to be sure from the outside who likes who. In the old days of more formal manners, friendship and acquaintance could be distinguished. At first sight a certain falsity is suggested by modern familiarity, but again the impression probably implies a want of understanding.
A more serious puzzle is set by the way the new generation regards contract. Where individuals are concerned their honesty is past praise. Where, on the other hand, they are what they call " up against '? the State or any " Company " large enough to be considered as an abstraction, they do not appear to have half the conscience of their forbears. The Revenue Office, or the railway are fair game. Much of this " talk " may mean very little—but it shows a shifting point of honour— in other words, a less compelling pride than that which used to constrain the multitude who counted themselves among the upper classes—in the plural.
All great changes in the public mind count back in the long run to a change of religion. The religion of the present generation has been very seriously affected by the rejection of all authority. Parents have no authority, precedent has no authority. The Bible is not known. The Authority of the Church touches only a growing few. Those of the old who have the temerity to discuss with the new generation the things of the Spirit will usually find that their premises are not admitted. There is no discussion possible. If they talk, they talk among themselves. It is through their silence that we must try to understand their position, indeed, silence would seem to play a large part in their worship. For two minutes upon one day in the year we may see them at their prayers. Could the unaccustomed to' Spiritual exercise be so instantly absorbed ? Is this State-imposed moment of tecollection singular to their souls ? Sometimes one wonders if the' Quaker theory of religion has uncon- sciously conquered the new world. Their appetite for pleasure would seem to deny such a 'theory, but too much should not be made of that appetite. We must remember that they have none at all for sloth, which was a pleasure in the past. The Quakers say no creed, make no use of any sacrament, acknowledge no tangible authority, or at least have no body of doctrine or rule of morals which one man can quote to another as final, yet they remain Christians. Do the mass of educated young people of to-day so remain ? One can but surmise. One thing their silence makes certain. They are listening. It is not for us to interrupt them by our curiosity.
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