by

Jansen Estrup

“The cultural era of Europe, and that includes America, is finished. The next era belongs to the technician; the day of the mind machine is dawning. God help us.” Henry Miller, Sunday After the War, 1943

Henry Miller thought that the artist was one of three magical pilgrims on the roads to reality. He ranked them as the middle link between the saint and the hero, all three vital in any culture.

He lamented that Europe, where he was an ex-patriot between the wars, would rebuild in America's image. There, he writes, artists were appreciated no matter what their level of skills, notoriety or success. Penniless, he could easily find cafe owners anxious to feed him just to have a writer, even an unknown one, on his premises. With artists, dancers, writers, musicians there was always a creative atmosphere, a simmering of ideas and good will among those with divergent allegiances and philosophies.

Strangers offered precious coins, even during the Depression and a place to stay for a few nights. Those who'd sold a piece or secured a job were just as generous with each other and debts were so common that no one even remembered who owed what to whom … nor cared.

The saint, artist and hero were friends … travelers, pilgrims, adventurers on the road to … of reality.

He could and often did simply sit and watch the people of Paris, of a day or night, watch them play, dance, quarrel, all the while accepting the certainty that Nazi Germany was just there on the border, and Il Duce was yonder, on that one, and the other, still hotly contested by Church and atheist, was yet another tyranny.

He wanted to visit Greece before it died. He did, but escaped only by a hair. And when he returned to Brooklyn, he wrote ...

“The time of the assassins” has come. And with it the great split. The world is no longer able to contain its anguish. Fear, nameless and uncontrollable has broken loose. The world egg totters on its precarious balance. Do we face a period of total chaos? Or will the gods come forth again in all their splendor through the shell of the egg.” Henry Miller, Remember to Remember, 1941