1915] on The Russian Idea 421 



eyes to the material world and you realize there are no footlights, no 

 separating river of light between the two worlds of stage and audi- 

 torium. There is a great and wondrous ballet of thoughts and im- 

 pulses, hopes and fears, going forward and across and backward and 

 across again between the priests of the drama and the conspirators, 

 the worshippers. 



The church service and the drama, the church and the theatre 

 have much in common. The Mass has much in common with the 

 mystery play. And the mystery play was originally the Mystery — 

 at which you did not look, but into which you were initiated. You 

 participated in the action. You were the victim sacrificed, or the 

 priest, or one of the conspirators in the orgy. You were made one 

 in the sacrifice, as in the Mass you are made one in the sacraments 

 of bread and wine, symbols of the victim. Share is taken in the 

 sacrifice, we consent unto the death. We are made one. "\Ye get 

 free from the idea of separation, from space and time, reahzing the 

 everywhere-here, the eternal present. 



In such a form is the Russian notion of the world and his con- 

 ception of life. It is such a church, such a theatre, such a mystery 

 play. It has its liturgies of beauty, its many processions, its sacri- 

 fices, its ecstasies ; it is a great phantasmagoria of emblem. Nothing 

 is without significance ; every man has his part ; by his life he 

 divines it and fulfils it. Every common sight and sound is charged 

 with mystery. Exerything is praising, everything is choric, every- 

 thing triumphant. 



To recapitulate and restate this is aphorism : Russian life is 

 remarkable by virtue of its love towards the suffering, towards the 

 individual destiny ; by the absence of condemnation ; by faith in 

 life even if life shouM express itself in meanness, sordidness, crime ; 

 a feeling for the pathos and wonder of life as exemplified in the 

 individual : no love towards " the State " or man's order, but great 

 love towards the individual and individual instinct ; a consequent 

 freedom, amounting at times to seeming chaos, a divine disorder 

 such as the disorder of the starry sky, as opposed to man's order, 

 say the order in which stars might be classified in a book : by 

 disorder such as that of the flowers and shrubs of the forest, rather 

 than order as in a formal garden ; a belief then in instinctive 

 genius and divination impulse of one's place in the kaleidoscope of 

 existence. 



With such natural disorder comes an incapacity for " discipline," 

 ^' efficiency," " progress." Life is a mystery play. 



Whence may be inferred the following differentiation of ideas : 



Instead of the God of the ten commandments, and the consequent 

 ten condemnations, the Russian acknowledges the God whose service 

 is perfect freedom. 



Instead of the simplification of life, love of its complexity. The 

 Russian says " yes " to tlie multiplicity of doctrines ; he does not 



