IN MY HOMETOWN LIVES an old schoolteacher—one of the good ones—who writes to me once a year. He goes on living quietly and contemplatively in his little hermitage with garden, and when someone is buried in the town it’s generally one of his former pupils. This old gentleman recently wrote to me again. And although I have a totally different opinion from his, and contradicted him vehemently in my response, nevertheless his views on the old days and the present seem to me well worth reading, and so I shall reproduce this extract from his letter. He writes—
… I can’t help thinking that the present world is separated from that which still existed effectively in my youth by a greater gulf than that which normally separates the generations. I can’t know it for sure, and history seems to teach us that my view is an error to which every ageing generation is prone. For the flow of progress is constant, and at all times the fathers are overtaken by the sons and can no longer make themselves understood. And yet I cannot change my feeling that—at least in our nation and country—during the last few decades everything has changed much more radically, as if our history has accelerated far more swiftly than in former times.
Shall I tell you what seems to me the most fundamental aspect of this revolution in the Zeitgeist? In a nutshell, I sense a ubiquitous decline in respect and in modesty. I don’t wish to sing the praises of the old days. I know that in every age there has been just a small proportion of good and useful things, one thinker for every thousand talkers, one true believer for every thousand of the soulless, one gentleman for every philistine. Perhaps basically there were no individual matters that were better then than now. But on the whole it seems to me that until a few decades ago there was in our general way of life more decency, more modesty than today. Now everything is done with far more noise and far more self-love, and the world resounds with the certainty that it stands on the threshold of a Golden Age, whereas in fact no one is happy.
All around people talk, preach and write about science, culture, beauty, personality! But awareness that all these valuable things can only thrive in silence and can only grow in the night seems to have disappeared completely. Every branch of knowledge and learning is in such a hurry to bear fruit immediately, and to see concrete and successful results.
Knowledge of a natural law, which in itself is such a sublime, internal event, is rushed with questionable haste into practice—as if one could accelerate the growth of a tree once one had fathomed out the law governing its growth. And so everywhere people are burrowing round the roots, experimenting and exploiting the work, and that makes me suspicious. Neither for scholars nor for poets is there anything left that people are prepared to remain silent about. Everything is discussed, laid bare, illuminated, and every study wishes immediately to take on the status of knowledge. A new fact, a new discovery has already been popularised and exploited by the newspapers even before the researcher has finished his work. And every little snippet of information gleaned by the anatomist or the zoologist immediately has the arts trembling with fear! A particular statistic influences the philosophers, a microscopic discovery changes the spiritual teaching of the theologists. And in no time you also have an author writing a novel about it. And those old, sacred questions about the roots of our existence are currently material for entertainment, affected and influenced by every breeze of fashion in the arts and sciences. There seems no longer to be any silence, any ability to wait, or any distinction between big and small.
That is how it is in visible daily life. Rules for living, health guidance, forms of houses and furniture and other items for long-term use which used to be endowed with a certain stability change as swiftly today as clothing fashions. Every year people have reached the peak of every subject—they’ve achieved the ultimate. In the lives of individual families it all leads to a great gulf between the inside and the outside, between the facade and the interior, and hence to a decline in ethics and in the art of living, whose basic feature is an astonishing lack of fantasy.
It seems to me almost as if this is the real disease of our time. Fantasy is the mother of contentment, of humour, of the art of living. And fantasy can only flourish on the foundations of an inner understanding between man and his material surroundings. These surroundings need not be beautiful, nor strange, nor charming. We just need the time to integrate with them, and that is what is missing everywhere today. Anyone who wears nothing but brand-new clothes which he has to change and renew as often as possible will thereby lose a piece of the ground on which fantasy rests. He doesn’t know how alive, lovely, friendly, amusing, exciting and full of memories an old hat, an old pair of riding breeches, an old waistcoat can be. And it’s the same with an old table and chair, a tried and trusted old cupboard, fire screen, bootjack. And the cup you’ve drunk from since childhood, grandfather’s chest of drawers, the old clock!
Of course you don’t have to go on living in the same place in the same rooms with the same objects. Someone can live his whole life travelling and without a home and yet still be blessed with the richest imagination. But he too will certainly carry some favourite item around with him, from which he will never allow himself to be separated, even if it’s only a ring, a pocket watch, an old knife or wallet.
But I’m digressing. I just wanted to say that this hankering after change makes people poorer and does damage to the soul by encouraging dislike of stability, whether it be in one’s world view or in one’s household objects; it becomes difficult for children to write, create, cope with material things if they are confronted with an overabundance of toys and picture books. And it becomes difficult for adults to adhere to any belief, to hold on to any inner conviction if every stall can make things easily and cheaply available to them that should be acquired slowly and through their own dedication. Now everyone thinks he must grab hold of everything, and there is nothing easier for him than to switch from the Church to godlessness, from there to Darwin, from him to Buddha, and from him to Nietzsche or Haeckel or whoever else, without needing to make much effort or do much studying. It has become so easy to know without having to learn.
Of course this will not bring about the end of mankind. And of course today as always there are those good-hearted, hard-working folk who turn their backs on the easy ways and cheap successes. But it has become more difficult for them. As has life in general, in which the average level of culture both at home and at work has fallen. It may have seemed trivial and silly in the old days when many family men pursued their pleasant hobbies, when one played the flute, another practised calligraphy, or took watches to pieces and put them back together again, or made models out of paper and cardboard. But such things did no harm and people were happy. And even if for the genius, for the individual with great aspirations, an ever thirsty discontent is necessary and even beneficial, for the vast majority of lesser folk, contentment is no less necessary and no less beneficial if things are to remain in balance.
In former times families and even wider communities shared intimate memories, were attached to little things in the outside world which went on exerting a powerful inner influence and gave rise to a wonderful feeling of home. There was recognition of tiny connections which must have been dangerous for men of reason, but for men of fantasy was a source of inner relatedness and also a treasure trove for jokes and cheerfulness. There were so many ‘characters’, because people enjoyed little oddities and took note of them, and as this was the practice on all sides, it created a tone of merriment and goodwill in communication and conversation. Of course even today every real family has its own tone, its secrets, its forms of teasing and its own particular language, and that will always be the case. But beyond the confines of the family, for the most part modern societies lack such colour and cheerfulness, and this lack of contentment cannot be replaced by expensive clothes and meals …
This was what my old teacher wrote to me. As I said, I don’t share all his views. But it seems to me he does have a point.
1907