SIGNS OF THE -TIMES
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The greybeards—and not only the greybeards—are apt to shake their heads in disapproval of modern psychologists and modern novelists. They may not have read many of their works, but they vaguely suspect them of plotting stealthy attacks on morals and of providing arguments which feather- headed youth invokes to justify or palliate licence. A modern girl will say to you : " Duty cuts no ice with us—you see, it is so often the result of a complex."
Having, I confess, a dangerously small acquaintance with his doctrines, I went the other day to a lecture by Professor Adler. I entered the room with a certain feeling of expectancy --I wondered if some new revelation was to be vouchsafed. It was therefore not without a sense of surprise and relief that I listened to the Professor expounding the doctrines that we must each of us be " a help and not a burden " and that we must cultivate " a social interest." Not a word about sex, except the observation that these same doctrines apply in the matters of love and marriage. If you love or marry thinking only of your own happiness, you are forgetting that love and marriage are affaires a deux and you are in for trouble.
I left the meeting thinking that these doctrines were surely to the taste of the greybeards, and that they need not be so suspicious of the psychologists. And then a few days later I read the latest novel of Mr. Aldous Huxley, a modern novelist. Now while there could be no doubt that Professor Adler was speaking the truth that was in him, it is not so easy, as we all know, to be sure whether a character in a novel is really the author. But if A. B. in Eyeless in Gaza is really A. H.—and internal evidence points to that—then here again we learn from a modem novelist that what we all need is peace and unity ; that envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness are bad, and that we should practise unselfishness, kindness, generosity and- goodness.
Sir, the tide is turning ; the pendulum swings back. Let the greybeards take heart—their Sauls are among the prophets. Soon the crooners will be crooning, " Life is real, life is earnest." The Headmaster of Rugby will rejoice. He dislikes the crooners' words: I do not know whether he dislikes their tunes. If he does, perhaps he may soon doubly rejoice—in a world of peace there will be no jazz. Conduct and counter- point will have come into their own.—Yours faithfully,
JOHN DAVID.
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