Part 3 (2/2)
can be easily extended to our sense of humor in caricature. A recent hit upon the variety stage does still more to ill.u.s.trate the problem.
The ”Cherry Sisters” aroused immense curiosity by an act so bromidic as to be ridiculous. Were they rank amateurs, doing their simple best, or were they clever artists, simulating the awkward crudeness of country girls? That was the question. In a word, were they Sulphites or Bromides?
What such artists have done histrionically, Hillaire Belloc has done exquisitely for literature in his ”Story of Manuel Burden.” This tale, affecting to be a serious encomium upon a middle cla.s.s British merchant, shows plainly that all satire is, in its essence, a sulphitic juggling with bromidic topics. It is done unconsciously by many a simple rhymester whose verses are bought by Sulphites and read with glee.
In the terminology of our theory we must, therefore, include two new terms, describing the variation of intensity of these two different states of mind. The extremes meet at the points of Nitro-Bromidism and Hypo-Sulphitism, respectively. Intensity of Bromidism becomes, then, Nitro-Bromidism, and we have seen how, through the artist's, or through a Sulphite's subtle point of view, such Nitro-Bromide becomes immediately sulphitic.
By a similar reasoning, a Hypo-Sulphite can, at a step, become bromidic. The ill.u.s.tration most obvious is that of insanity. We are not much amused, usually, by the quaint modes of thought exhibited by lunatics and madmen.
It cannot be denied, however, that their processes of thought are sulphitic; indeed, they are so wildly original, so fanciful, that we must denominate all such crazed brains, Hypo-Sulphites. Such persons are so surprising that they end by having no surprises left for us. We accept their mania and cease to regard it; it, in a word, becomes bromidic. So, in their ways, are all cranks and eccentrics, all whose set purpose is to astonish or to shock. We end by being bored at their att.i.tudes and poses.
The Sulphite has the true Gothic spirit; the Bromide, the impulse of the cla.s.sic. One wonders, relis.h.i.+ng the impossible, manifesting himself in characteristic, spontaneous ways; the other delights in rule and rhythm, in ordered sequences, in authority and precedent, following the law. One carves the gargoyle and ogrillion, working in paths untrod, the other limits himself to harmonic ratios, balanced compositions, and to predestined fenestration. One has a grim, _naf_, virile humor, the other a dead, even beauty. One is hot, the other cold. The Dark Ages were sulphitic--there were wild deeds then; men exploded. The Renaissance was essentially bromidic; Art danced in fetters, men looked back at the Past for inspiration and chewed the cud of Greek thought.
For the Sulphite, fancy; for the Bromide, imagination.
From the fifteenth century on, however, the wave of Sulphitism rose steadily, gradually dropping at times into little depressions of Euphuistic manners and intervals of ”sensibility” but climbing, with the advance of science and the emanc.i.p.ation of thought to an ideal--the personal, original interpretation of life. The nineteenth century showed curiously erratic variations of the curve. From its beginning till 1815, Sulphitism was upon the increase, while from that year till 1870 there was a sickening drop to the veriest depths of bromidic thought. Then the Bromide infested the earth. With his black-walnut furniture, his jig-saw and turning-lathe methods of decoration, his lincrusta-walton and pressed terracotta, his chromos, wax flowers, hoop skirts, chokers, side whiskers and pantalettes, went a horrific revival of mock modesty inspired by the dying efforts of the old formulated religious thought. And then---- when steam had had its day, impressing its materialism upon the world; making what should be hard, easy, and what should be easy, hard--came electricity--a new science almost approaching a spiritual force, and, with a rush, the telephone that made the commonplace bristle with romance! The curve of sulphitism arose. A wave of Oriental thought lifted many to a curious idealism--and, as so many other centuries had done before, there came to the nineteenth a _fin de siecle_ glow that lifted up the curve still higher. The Renaissance of thought came--came the cult of simplicity and Mission furniture--corsets were abandoned--the automobile freed us from the earth--the Yellow Book began, Mrs. Eddy appeared, radium was discovered and appendicitis flourished.
So there are bromidic vegetables like cabbage, and sulphitic ones like garlic. The distinction, once understood, applies to almost everything thinkable. There are bromidic t.i.tles to books and stories, and t.i.tles sulphitic. ”The Something of Somebody” is, at present, the commonest bromidic form. Once, as in ”The Courting of Dinah Shadd” and ”The d.a.m.nation of Theron Ware,” such a t.i.tle was sulphitic, but one cannot pick up a magazine, nowayears, without coming across ”The ---- of ----”
As most magazines are edited for Middle Western Bromides, such t.i.tles are inevitable. I know of one, with a million circulation, which accepted a story with the sulphitic t.i.tle, ”Thin Ice,” and changed it to the bromidic words, ”Because Other Girls were Free.” One of O.
Henry's first successful stories, and perhaps his best humorous tale, had its t.i.tle so changed from ”Cupid _a la carte_,” to ”A Guthrie Wooing.”
This is one of the few exceptions to the rule that a sulphitic thing can become bromidic. Time alone can accomplish this effect. Literature itself is either bromidic or sulphitic. The dime novel and melodrama, with hackneyed situations, once provocative, are so easily nitro-bromidic that they become sulphitic in burlesque and parody.
Metaphysically, Sulphitism is easily explained by the theory of Absolute Age. We have all seen children who seem to be, mentally, with greater possibility of growth than their parents. We see persons who understand without experience. It is as if they had lived before. It is as if they had a definite Absolute Age. We recognize and feel sympathetic with those of our caste--with those of the same age, not in years, but in wisdom. Now the standard of spiritual insight is the person of a thousand years of age. He knows the relative Importance of Things. And it might be said, then, that Bromides are individuals of less than five hundred years; Sulphites, those who are over that age.
In some dim future incarnation, perhaps, the Bromide will leap into sulphitic apprehension of existence. It is the person who is Absolutely Young who says, ”Alas, I never had a youth--I don't understand what it is to be young!” and he who is Absolutely Old remarks, blithely, ”Oh, dear, I can't seem to grow up at all!” One is a Bromide and the other a Sulphite--and this explanation illuminates the paradox.
The Sulphite brings a fresh eye to life. He sees everything as if for the first time, and not through the blue gla.s.ses of convention. As if he were a Martian newly come to earth, he sees things separated from their environment, tradition, precedent--the dowager without her money, the politician without his power, the sage without his poverty; he sees men and women for himself. He prefers his own observation to any _a priori_ theories of society. He knows how to work, but he knows, too (what the Bromide does never), how to play, and he plays with men and women for the joy of life, and his own particular game. Though his view he eccentric it is his own view, and though you may avoid him, you can never forget or ignore him.
And so, too, using an optical symbolism, we may speak of the Sulphite as being refractive--every impression made upon him is split up into component rays of thought--he sees beauty, humor, pathos, horror, and sublimity. The Bromide is reflective, and the object is thrown back unchanged, una.n.a.lyzed; it is accepted without interrogation. The mirrored bromidic mind gives back only what it has taken. To use the phraseology of Harvard and Radcliffe, the Sulphite is connotative, the Bromide denotative.
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