I
438
his day, particularly in the field
of music, with perhaps a few of his
best pages finding their way into
our literary record. Others say that
in writing of music he should have
striven less to produce a prose mu–
sic of his own, and recognized the
limitations of words. Such judg–
ments, though useful, are in danger
of forgetting that his mistakes,
which had a way of calling atten–
tion to themselves, were inevitable
in view of his method--or some–
what intentional lack of method–
which put so much emphasis upon
the reception of impressions and so
. little upon their effective repro–
jection.
Let us stop trying to place him,
therefore, and begin to
try
to un–
derstand him. However useful it
may seem to maintaining a libra–
rian orderliness in our minds, plac–
ing artists is in a sense a parvenu
trick and altogether too prevalent
among even the most secure and
independent of our intelligentsia.
It was natural enough that Paul
Rosenfeld, trustful inheritor of a
Transcendentalist belief in man's
infinite capacities, who came of
age in the hopeful year 1911 when .
young Americans looked forward to
almost limitless
progre~;s
in politics
and art, should make a credo of
defenselessness. He was that kind
of young man and he was living
in that kind of day. He would be
a wax disc on which the wondrous
earth would record its secret music.
His life strategy would be to be
unstrategic. To him there was
nothing remarkable in such a
choice of career; it was simply a
PARTISAN REVIEW
matter of doing what he liked, since
he had an inheritance of five thou–
sand dollars a year. He liked works
of art, especially those
of
his con–
temporaries; he would live among
them, he would encourage them,
he would write about them. That
would be his life.
A great many other young men
have wished for such a life, and
regretted lacking
~he ~oney
to
make it possible. For their benefit
let it be recorded that this one,
after considerable early productiv–
ity and reputation, did not work
out as planned; even given such a
headstart on his difficulties, with
the means to keep economically
abreast of them, Paul Rosenfeld
lost his life-race.·No one who knew .
him well could pretend that he
;won, in any justifiable use of the
word. In later days he talked con–
tinually of his "failure," and every
attempt to remind him of his ac–
complishments was sorrowfully re–
jected. (Meanwhile his income had
shrunk
considera~ly;
the· carefree
rentier
was prey to economic anxi–
ty.) Much neighborly association
with him at that period convinces
me that this state of mind contrib–
uted to the physical condition to
which he finally yielded.
He had failed, however, in his
own eyes and by self-comparison
'with the best. With typical roman–
ticism, innocent of the shrewd–
ness that most artists summon to
avoid facing really high standards,
he had permitted himself no other
scale of self-measurement, and
when· he grew older and his intel–
lectual perceptions deepened and
t)Jrned in upon himself, youthful
