< Page:Poet Lore, volume 31, 1920.djvu
This page needs to be proofread.

150

AUGUST STRINDBERG

Let the fruit of faith be seen to be Humanity, Resignation, Mercifulness. But don't go and count how many glasses of whiskey your neighbor drinks; don't call him a hypocrite if once in a while he gives way to the flesh, or if he is angry and says hard words. Don’t ask how often he goes to church; don't spy on his words, if in an access of ill-humor he speaks otherwise than he would … a white lie or an embellishment of a story is not a deadly sin. An impropriety can be so atoned for by imprisonment that it ought to be forgotten. Don't secede from church because you do not understand some dogma. Do not form a sect with the idea of raising yourself to the rank of Shepherd … One should have a large-hearted Christianity for daily use and a stricter one for festivals.

Again he shows his independence and originality in the following excerpt (op. cit).

It is my duty to fight for the maintenance of my ego against all influences which a sect or party, from love of proselytizing might bring to bear upon it. The conscience which the grace of my Divine Protector has given me, tells me that.

Hence it is perfectly safe as well as just to maintain that in the last analysis, Strindberg's egotism transcended his spirituality

Bjerre (7) voicing the theory of Adler is, therefore, essentially correct. Strindberg's conversion was, as I have already pointed out, to a large degree a strategic retreat, a compromise, a necessary modus vivendi, conditioned in part at least, by his inability as a neurotic to accept enigmatic problems of existence in a pragmatic spirit. Hence his flight into alchemy, magics, mysticism and occultism and then to the Cross, the everlasting symbol, as Bjerre said, of the inability on the part of the individual to cope with and master the problems of earthly life.

To Strindberg God became the greatest of all realities. To try to prove his existence was as foolish as to endeavor to prove a geometrical axiom. The men of science are rustic intelligences who confound intelligence with reason and whose discourses upon things spiritual are worthless (70 p. 1).

The consequence of ambition and of learning he characterizes as follows (op. cit. p. 250):

As soon as a man buries himself in books he gets black nails and dirty cuffs, forgets to wash, to comb his hair and to shave. He neglects his duties towards life, society and man; loses spiritual capacities, becomes absent-minded, short-sighted, wears glasses and takes snuff to keep himself awake. He cannot follow a conversation with attention, can-
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.