32
LIONel TRILLING
wholly contained the attack. The chief exceptions are the few
who simply do not comprehend, although they may be awed by,
the categories of our discourse. In their papers, like poor hunted
creatures in a Kafka story, they take refuge first in misunder–
stood large phrases, then in bad grammar, then in general in–
coherence. Mter my pedagogical exasperation has run its course,
I find that I am sometimes moved to give them a queer respect,
as if they had stood up and said what in fact they don't have the
wit to stand up and say: "Why do you harry us? Leave us alone.
We are not Modern Man. We are the Old People. Ours is the
Old Faith. We serve the little Old Gods, the gods of the copy–
book maxims, the small, dark, somewhat powerful deities of
lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants. With them is neither
sensibility nor
angst.
With them is no disgust-it is they, indeed,
who make ready the way for 'the good and the beautiful' about
which low-minded doubts have been raised in this course, that
'good and beautiful' which we do not possess and don't want to
possess but which we know justifies our lives. Leave us alone and
let us worship our gods in the way they approve, in peace and
unawareness." Crass, but-to use
t~at
interesting modem word
which we have learned from the curators of museums-authentic.
The rest, the minds that give me the A papers and the B papers
and even the C+ papers, move through the terrors and mysteries
of modem literature like so many Parsifals, asking no questions
at the behest of wonder and fear. Or like so many seminarists
who have been systematically instructed in the constitution of
Hell and the ways to damnation. Or like so many
readers,
enter–
tained by moral horror stories. I asked them to look into the
Abyss, and, both dutifully and gladly, they have looked into the
Abyss, and the Abyss has greeted them with the grave courtesy
of all objects of serious study, saying: "Interesting, am I not?
And
exciting,
if
you consider how deep I am and what dread
beasts lie at my bottom. Have it well in mind that a knowledge
of me contributes materially to your being whole, or well–
rounded, men."
