adoption of their methods by
artists in general. One takes the Futurist movement seriously, indeed,
only because various clever men have joined it, and because young
Italians, more than most of us, seem to be justified in some form of
violent reaction against a past that oppresses them. Whether Futurism
is merely the growing pains of a rejuvenated Italy, or whether it is a
genuine manifestation of the old passion for violence which first
showed itself on the day on which Cain killed Abel, it is difficult at
times to say. Probably it is a little of both. "We wish," says
Marinetti, praising violence like any Prussian, in a famous manifesto,
"to glorify war--the only health-giver of the world--militarism,
patriotism, the destructive aim of the Anarchist, the beautiful ideas
that kill, the contempt for women." And, again: "We shall extol
aggressive movement, feverish insomnia, the double quickstep, the
somersault, the box on the ear, the fisticuff." It is very like Mr
Kipling at the age of fourteen writing for a school magazine, if you
could imagine a Kipling emancipated from religion and belief in
British law and order. Later, as Marinetti proceeds to foretell the
day on which the Futurists shall be slain by their still more
Futuristic successors, the schoolboy wakes once more in him. "And
Injustice, strong and healthy," he writes,--how one envies the fine
flourish with which he does it!--"will burst forth radiantly in their
eyes. For art can be naught but violence, cruelty, and injustice."
One need not be too solemn with writing like that. It may be growing
pains, or it may be a new jingoism of the individual, but, whichever
it is, it is amusing nonsense. One begins to swear only when people
above the school age insist upon taking it seriously as though it
might contain a new gospel for humanity. It contains no new gospel at
all. It is merely an entertaining restatement of an egoism of a kind
that man was trying to discard before the days of bows and arrows. It
is a schoolboyish plea for the revival of the tomahawk. It is a
war-song played in a city street on the bottom of a tin can. It has no
more to do with art than a display of penny fireworks, an imitation of
barking dogs at the calves of old gentlemen, or the escapades of
Valentine Vox. It has no relation to art whatsoever except from the
fact that Marinetti himself is an exceedingly clever writer, as one
may see from almost any of his manifestoes. One may turn for a