Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1910 (Heft 29))

universe of things is alive. But Mr. Shaw would have us bow down before an
unrelated, isolated, frozen brazen image of a god which does not even possess
feet of clay. Before such a “Hocus-Pocus” the eye is sightless and the mind
blank. This worship of Fact is but another of the many stupid forms of the
old enslaving and enchaining materialism, which never bred an artist because
it never flowered an ideal.
In this same lecture Mr. Shaw spoke of the nineteenth century as “the
most disgusting century of all.” I do not like the use of the word disgusting
in so serious and solemn a connection. I would rather say it was the most
materialistic and mean what Mr. Shaw says. The nineteenth century was the
most materialistic century,not for the reason that Mr. Shaw calls it disgusting,
but because, like Mr. Shaw, it de-spiritualized the world of things; because it
imposed a belief which denied to all things their living values; because it
jeered and sneered at the visions of the creative imagination. The conse-
quence of this de-spiritualization is a despair born of arrogance—an arrogance
that is the outcome of making the possession of dead things the measure of
life. People who despair see no visions; they who see no visions cannot look
forward and dare not take heart. They have lost faith and in losing faith
have lost hope, and with this loss of hope they have lost the power to create
new ideals out of the wreck of their experience. With Mr. Shaw they see no
Juliet in Miss Wilkins and, as a result, they no longer see the fairies playing
under the greenwood tree. The primrose in the crannied wall is but a prim-
rose to them, with a botanical name added to show their materialistic piety and
orthodoxy. Finding no abiding joy in life they turn to the angelic hosts of the
materialistic heaven to help them—to Scientism, Spiritualism, Eddyism, Social-
ism, Slumism, Suffragetism and any other form of fetichism that waves the
old “Hocus-Pocus” Standard of Truth. “Hocest Corpus,” cries Mr. Shaw,
pointing to the model and the object there in the distance, and the welkin rings
again with the clamorous shouts from the thousands about him, drowning
the still, small voice of the soul within them. Some day, perhaps, a child will
look at them, as once a child did look, and whisper: “Hie est Spiritus.”
Then, it may be, they will once again become soldiers of the Lord singing
psalms of joy as they fight to bring about their own salvation. Then, it may
be, they will have found the truth that shall make them free, for in finding this
truth they will have found themselves, and in finding themselves they will
have saved their souls, delivered from the enslaving bondage of Mr. Shaw’s
terrible truthfulness of the dead object without.
It may seem a far cry from Mr. Shaw’s lecture on photography to this
business of saving souls; but Mr. Shaw is a good Salvationist, and he will
agree with me that a photographer even like a philosopher has a soul to be
saved.
Temple Scott.

20