Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1910 (Heft 32))

to be blind to palpable facts, the “stains of experience,” and the seduction of
the senses, they very nearly established the kingdom of heaven upon earth.
And yet from the viewpoint of impartiality we cannot help admiring some
traits of their theory of life. No doubt we would not particularly enjoy to sit
at the same table with Rev. Mather or Jonathan Edwards. They would prove
exceedingly dry and obstinate reasoners, pulling up our souls and their own to
see how the roots are spreading, and permit us no reference to diffident kisses,
yellow moons, and windblown hair. Nevertheless we might feel something
akin to sympathy for their manly vigor, their austerity of purpose and precise-
ness of action.
The truth of this is brought home to me whenever I make an excursion to
the New England States. I merely have to look at the faces of the passersby as
I wend my way through the quaint towns of Newport or Gloucester. In the
larger cities all faces seem to resemble each other. They only express energy
and eagerness. The desire to better their material welfare seems to have blotted
out and wiped away all finer traits of facial construction. In a New England
village nearly every face has a distinct physiognomy, its angular features reveal
breed, character, independence, a distinct type and individuality. This is
refreshing but scarcely profitable to the artist, as their owners have inherited
the shortcomings of their forefathers, and despite an increase in worldly culture
and milder maxims of conduct, are still very practical and prosaic and affect
to be moral at any cost. The New England conscience, morbid and over-
sensitive, yet inexhaustible in patience and sacrifice, still troubles them.
Vows of chastity and corporeal penance have gone out of use. The sing-
ing of psalms, family prayers and religious exercises have retreated to their
proper place in church and homes.
But alas, the hand of God and the claw of the devil are still upon us. The
menaces of the prophets, the pitiless doctrine of Calvin, still seem to linger in
the air and work havoc in our midst. Half of our difficulties in public and
private life are due to the puritanic spirit. And the former belief of predestina-
tion to eternal damnation has changed into a rigid sense of propriety that
is prohibitive, dismal, and destructive to art and all higher intellectual
pursuits.
There is no happy beauty, no warmth, music, color in our art, no splendid
flashes, no stormy splendor, no indignation, and no revolt. It is the old fight
of reason against imagination. Art is dominated by decency, propriety,
regularity. The Sunday laws and all the other prohibitive measures have made
cowards of us all. In sculpture we only meet with frock-coated and well-
booted men. In painting, scarcely a breath of the great passions is palpable.
In literature there is much pretense, but no deep thought and lofty imagination,
and no trace of realistic truth. The painter does not dare to paint a nude.
The writer is afraid of writing a realistic love story. The artist as well as the
public bear the troubled conscience of sinners. The slightest trespass may
scandalize the taste of the drawing room and forfeit success. Puritanism still
deals out banishment, confiscation, punishment to unfettered poetic souls.
The nude has no place in the home, but is relegated to the bar room for the grati-
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