From Dadaism to Aquinas
Garrett, G. R.
September 15, 1926 TIII COMMONWEAL 441 FROM DADAISM TO...
...That would be the death of these beautiserve God in this world, and to be happy with Him ful sciences...
...the latter's man of twenty-one...
...but it has wholly abandoned the Will Cocteau, the intransigent, the rebel, lose the third...
...its undogmatic creed...
...IIuys- whom he knew nothing save that he belonged to the mans's conversion, naturally speaking, flowed from his order which had lately numbered Father de Foucauld devotion to mediaeval art...
...The vic- as for promotion or money...
...It the Word...
...That mony which the modern world has forgotten-a har- is why," he adds, "I have given my life to Saint mony which Saint Thomas devoted his whole life to Thomas, and labor to make known his teaching...
...Now the modern world has re- A great deal of love is lost in a world which is tained two of these ideas, or semblances of them, in without the truth...
...Picture the bewilderment, for subordination of the means to the end, for ment of one who believed in Cocteau as a radical of domination of the sensible faculties by the intelligence, radicals-an apostle of modernity-viewing in Paris for all the virtues Cocteau had extolled in his aesthe- in April of this year the window of the Librairie Stock, tic...
...drums mutter, and the of night, picking his treacherous way among shadows...
...It subscribes vociferously, if not always with qualities which made him so provocative a figure yesunimpeachable sincerity, to the concept of service, and terday when he was the champion of the new and the looks with favor upon activity of every sort...
...The natural antecedents among its adherents...
...word, tart even on the tongue...
...A rebel poet and a stupidity in the next world, but that does not prevent Catholic saint-how explain such a juxtaposition...
...But outside of Catholicism, the Gospels, an audacity which use and wont too often modern world scouts the possibility of our knowing make us confuse with its opposite...
...You found yourself in the dirty water and in modernity," and "the most brilliant mind of his knew you must swim...
...He heightened by superadding to it the task of the apolo- entered a sanitarium for treatment...
...And the rebel swings...
...His youth, too, removes him from the The rope is so fastened about the young man's neck file of inveterate spies who have lived to learn more...
...Each should know according to his capacforever in the next...
...For God, little fear that a world which finds all new manifestait substitutes "the idea of God...
...Here also there is an order which Picasso, Stravinsky, the Groupe des Six, but also upon is born afresh every moment-the order of super- those groups in England and America to whom Paris natural grace...
...We have the Catholic, less provocative, less challenging than his schools of philosophy...
...He was physiWith a tipsy sneer, Cunningham demands a last word...
...Relativity rules "Is there," he asks, "any program more exciting, the field...
...IntelliSaint Thomas Aquinas adoring Christ...
...So leprous is the office tim, whose wrists are locked behind him, is a young that no ruler may command a candidate...
...A full discussion of the idea, which is was following his discharge, when he was a guest at Catholic and Thomist, will be found in the two let- Maritain's home, that he met the Trappist monk, ters, offering the most penetrating comments upon art Father Charles, whose puissant sanctity accomplished and religion that have appeared in a generation...
...Not only does it derive in ever his craving became too imperious for denial, but a sense from the archetypal art which created the he did not touch it...
...Upon Its incongruity is superficial...
...During it, opium gist...
...tenet of his aesthetic creed, and by it he meant not The significance of this conversion does not lie in the servile order of the academician, an order imposed its drama but in its orientation and in the program from without, but a living order born afresh every which Cocteau announces in his letter...
...Technically, he is a neat clipping from relish a hanging for the cruel gossip it affords, men the page of history of what a spy should be...
...Contemplative and poet understood each order-for intelligence in art...
...the Beatific Vision...
...There need be God...
...the work of his conversion...
...the very word is anathema to many...
...Never had he seen an Imbedded in them is the intensely poignant and ease, a selfless assurance like that which he found in significant personal drama which they illuminate and this white-robed hermit from the sands of Africa, of explain-the story of Cocteau's conversion...
...God...
...Cocteau, poet, novelist, artist, and critic, is "Oh, those mornings...
...September 15, 1926 TIII COMMONWEAL 441 FROM DADAISM TO AQUINAS By G. R. GARRETT JEAN COCTEAU, in a public letter to his friend, of art lay an inner disquietude which he tried vainly Jacques Maritain, the brilliant exponent of Thom- to forget...
...fie exclaims, recalling their the man whom Clive Bell once hailed as "the last word horror...
...Beneath it lies a har- a disfigured reason, all that is built must crumble...
...Sleep offered him his only solace, and even ism, announces his conversion to Catholicism its refuge was broken into by the thought that he and his intention of dedicating his creative talents to must awaken the following morning...
...Spy" is a stealthy osity in their hearts...
...more dangerous, than to follow Christianity literally...
...It was an order, however, of which he knew in the Place du Palais Royal...
...And his intent not excellence of trying to heal one's self of the human to, affords a significant clue to his mind and to the by means that are human, or animal, or vegetable, is mind of Maritain, who was instrumental in his con- one that circulates among all false mystics...
...The man turned spy, Suddenly a red wall with a white blotch in its centre wearing the scurvy coat of deceit, is the accomplice moves from the farmhouse...
...The condemning evidence was found farmers on their way to market, innkeepers who on his person...
...cause he was such a glorious misfit...
...cally, mentally, and morally equipped, not for the The youth raises his chin...
...As children we are taught that our end, do not ask that everyone become philosopher and the purpose of our existence, is to know, to love, to theologian...
...Maritain met him and sensed the tragedy of his In France, where religion and art both enlist a inner life...
...realm-the realm of aesthetic theory...
...mongrel vocation of a spy, but for an honorable "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for career-a career focused probably on great military my country...
...It has the audacity of the of, our loving God...
...Quite the contrary...
...A witch's 1776, sees City Hall Park in New York a daisied prophecy comes true...
...Beneath his ceaseless activity in the world display which included Cocteau's Lettre a Jacques 442 THE COMMONWEAL September 1 S, 1926 Maritain, and his photograph along with the works Good intentions, without a guiding intelligence, are of other Catholic writers, was a large painting of worthless, as Maritain points out in his letter...
...September 22, that the knot presses on a large mole...
...There may be no punishment for virtuous world has turned its back upon...
...A tattered crowd loiters about- hanged as a spy...
...Swing the rebel off...
...The "last gence must be snatched from the demon and restored word in modernity," and a man whose philosophy the to God...
...Not if the tone of his of the modern world tolerates, another part approves letter is an indication...
...for faith, an act of tions of truth and beauty shocking, will find Cocteau, the understanding, "the will to believe...
...fields...
...A part startling in music and letters...
...there being very sure ones for it in this one...
...The focal point of that nothing...
...Not that Cocteau contemplates combining them "Quietism in pellets-the sacrament of the devil," by becoming a religious poet, as the term is commonly said Maritain, adding that this "homicidal blunder par understood...
...NATHAN HALE THE BELOVED SPY By EDYTHE H. BROWNE I T IS dawn in the apple orchard...
...But I do say this, if one lacks right reason, if one happiness will be a happiness of the understanding scorns wisdom, all the good he wills will turn to evil...
...The figure, a mind, a personality, which have impressed day came when he was to realize that his aesthetic themselves not only upon French art and letters where principles have their parallel in another world-the their influence has been felt by such figures as Satie, world of the spirit...
...sary to call to mind the mystery of the procession of Maritain visited him during his convalescence...
...achievement...
...We have no philosophy, and former self...
...headquarters, in the pale distance...
...Of itself and by its own right, art is from on was left where he could have recourse to it whenhigh, declares Maritain...
...But and women with sleep in their eyes and tainted curi- why do we call Hale "beloved...
...generation...
...Indeed, it prefers not to speak of God...
...thunders acre with a stray farmhouse, General Howe's Cunningham...
...The day begins Nathan Hale, the one hundred and fiftieth anniwith an execution in the orchard...
...For years Coc- "The solitude sent you a contemplative," writes teau, the critic and artist, emphasized the need for Maritain...
...The coil of hang- versary of whose death occurs September 22, was a man's rope dangles like a serpent from the limb of spy...
...Americans call Hale beloved becondemned, the figure assumes an intrusive innocence...
...Here is a moment in the heart and brain of the artist...
...By the grim exactions of war, he was justly an apple tree...
...executing squad of the British army, led by Provost- He stakes his life, not so much for love of country Marshal Cunningham, halts near the tree...
...version...
...Max Jacob, the poet, his friend and a critical seriousness which is denied them in England convert from Judaism, sensed it also and recommended and America, this letter and Maritain's reply to it, him to receive the Sacraments...
...Here also there is need for detach- is the capital of modern culture...
...From his silence on the monk's of Cocteau's conversion are to be found in another entrance, all present sensed what was to follow...
...The fallaciousness of its lure soon became apparent To philosopher and to poet, the task of the poet is to Cocteau-though not until the habit, which he first one whose natural sacredness and dignity cannot be found repugnant, had fastened itself upon him...
...It was the cardinal other...
...I elucidating...
...Instead of following cannot fail to exert a far-reaching influence in both this advice, however, Cocteau had recourse to opium...
...Garbed in the white suit of the duty is voluntary...
...Saint Thomas tells us that this ity...
...It is Maritain's letter, not his, world, but to have some idea of its nobility it is neces- that supplies this detail of the story...
Vol. 4 • September 1926 • No. 19
