Frozen Thought and Frigid Phrases

Do you remember the day of the Artistic? We plumed ourselves on our artistic drawing-rooms, gowns, and modes of coiffure; plays, books, decoration were artistic or not as the case might be fancied to be. Apply the term to the bizarre and you brought it within the pales of the possible; apply it to the uncomprehended, and all was solved. When, for instance, a drama or novel ended sadly, why ’t was more artistic so. Why not? For what is there that more appropriately can be called artistic than art?

Then came the hour of the Fascinating. We did not attend a reception or convention, or visit a seaside resort, without meeting the most fascinating people, ‘my dear, simply fascinating!’ That every new book should be fascinating was a foregone conclusion. One pictured the up-to-date individual held spell-bound by a snaky-eyed, hypnotic universe.

What is upon us now? Verily the era of the Interesting. Perhaps there is a subtle current of cause underlying these waves of catchwords, a change in the educational ideal, a change in the standard of criticism. It would seem as though successive decades discovered in works of art qualities of special, timely appeal, and applied to art henceforth in praise the possession merely of the particular quality. It has engaged my interest, at any rate, to ponder the appeal of the quality of interestingness. Have you heard the word uttered? It comes out with an air of high, sad finality. ‘She’s an interesting girl.’ ‘ Yes, not a beautiful work, but very interesting.’ That’s all there is to it. The listener wriggles and murmurs. And when the adjective is intensified by the prefix vitally or fundamentally, his jaw drops.

What do we mean anyway? That that book came home to us in some way, stimulated us, challenged us, made us, in short, think — or think we think. That certainly is commendable, and therein the adjective shows the modern tendency. Art is challenging us; we want it to reflect our present problems, to give us life interpreted. To say then that something does that for us should constitute high praise. But I am inclined to think the pitch of the word has been lowered through unskillful use. Would you for instance think of calling Shakespeare ’interesting’? You are reminded of the Howells heroine. ‘Don’t you think he is fascinating?’ said she. ‘Yes,’ said the hero, ‘but I should want a good many words to say it in.’ You can’t dismiss greatness so summarily —you have been taught to say a great deal more about it. But if you really believe in the word, you ought to find him increasingly ‘interesting’ from year to year!

What is it then that we label thus? Only the newest, latest things do we favor. Genuine power of interest there is in all things for the person keyed to it. Must we wait for the newest opera or the last translated play to arouse our faculties? Sometimes I suspect that we are getting nouveau riche intellectually. And once aroused, are we even sure t hat we have n’t lost and buried our impression of the passing show forever when we have labeled it interesting at to-morrow’s dinner-party? If you were to discipline yourself for a week, would you be helpless without your talisman? You find you have really been using it as a shield to screen your thoughts unthought? It is an eminently correct judgment — so noncommital. But what do you really think of that play? Modern art is chaotic, experimental, unsifted; you know it to be not all good, are you even sure that it’s all interesting? Some day the lady on your left may turn her clear eyes upon you and say, ’But none the less, was n’t it deadly dull?’ It behooves you to be prepared to defend it.

It is really a question of critical responsibility. We read of authors discouraged into silence by the discriminating, genteel indifference of their audience. It is possible to live in a colony of theatre-goers without hearing a judgment passed beyond ’fairly good show,’ ‘interesting comedy.’ Should such things be?

In moments when we are purists we rail at our reliance on slang to convey our meaning. Yet slang, as has been often asserted, is a muscular, virile, expressive medium;

Is it not rather these cultural catchwords, stiffening thought into convention, that constitute critical stagnation? Surely it. is only intellectual snobs who can afford to be so haughty — and so lazy!