ch was genuine in scholars, but was
an affectation of the followers. There was also an affectation of pagan
philosophy and of alienation from Christianity. The euphuists in England
in the sixteenth century, the _precieuses_ of Moliere's time, the
_illuminati_ of the eighteenth century, are instances of groups of
people who took up a whim and exaggerated conduct of a certain type,
practicing an affectation. There are poses which are practiced as a
fashion for a time. Fads get currency. Dandyism, athleticism, pedantry
of various kinds, reforms of various kinds, movements, causes, and
questions are phenomena of fads around which groups cluster, formed of
persons who have a common taste and sentiment. Poses go with them. Poses
are also affected by those who select a type of character which is
approved. The dandy has had a score of slang names within two centuries
corresponding to varieties of the pose and dress which he affected. He
has now given way to the athlete, who is quite a different type. The
Byronic pose prevailed for a generation. Goethe's Werther inspired a
pose. They would both now be ridiculed. Favorite heroes in novels have
often set a pose. Carlyle inspired a literary pose ("hatred of shams,"
etc.). He and Ruskin set a certain cant afloat, for every fad and pose
which pretends to be sober and earnest must have a cant. Zola,
D'Annunzio, Wagner, Ibsen, Gorky, Tolstoi, Sudermann, are men who have
operated suggestion on the public mind of our time. They get a response
from a certain number who thus cluster into a self-selected union of
sympathy and propagate the cult of a view of life. Gloom and savagery,
passion and crime, luxury and lust, romance and adventure, adultery and
divorce, self-indulgence and cynicism, the reality of foulness and
decay, are so suggested as to become centers on which receptive minds
will organize and congenial ones will combine in sympathy. It is the
effect of a great and active literature of belles-lettres, which is
practically current throughout the civilized world, to multiply these
sects of sentimental philosophy, with the fads and poses which
correspond, and to provide them with appropriate cant. The cant of the
voluptuary, the cynical egoist, the friend of humanity, and all the rest
is just as distinct as that of the religious sectarian. Each of the
little groups operates its own selection, but each is small. They
interfere with and neutralize each other, but a general drift may be