OCR Text |
Show THE CLASSIC AND THE MODERN SPIRIT Three radical difforoncs In character charac-ter and temperament mark off the people of tho classic world from the representatives of tho "modem" splr-w iL The moderns aro primarily and defiantly individualistic, and the ancients an-cients were not Ibsen and Shaw and Wells and D'Annunzio aro enor mously self-conscious, and the ancients an-cients were not. Finally, tho pagans were very good fighters, whereas Shaw and Wells and the others, first appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, notwith-standing, are not After cutting loose from conventional religion, conven-tioal conven-tioal ethics, and conventional social airagements, the modernists may formulate for-mulate a system of their on, but thoy will find no model for their new institutions cither at Athens or at Rome Neither Solon nor Plato nor tho Roman system knew anything of the sacred rights of the Individual which Nietzsche, Ibsen and Shaw have for their main fulcrum to topple over society Whon these men assert the right of the person to live his own life in defiance of a wornout Christian system of ethics and family organization, they are warring against the great influence which first turned the center of human Interest from the stato to the Individual. It Is quite certain that G. B. S. would never have enjoyed the liberty of speech or action under the Gveek or Roman republics re-publics that he enjoys under Mrs. Grundy and George V. New York Evening Post |