Generosity Versus Grudgingness in Men
With a consideration of the chief character—Julien Sorel—in Stendhal's classic novel, The Red and the Black. First presented in a public seminar at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, New York City.

In an Aesthetic Realism class in 1988, Ellen Reiss asked me: "Do you think you are generous or grudging?" The question had my whole life in it—these opposites had battled in me.

For example, in 1973 I was cast in a play at a summer stock theatre. I had always wanted to be an actor, and this desire, I later learned from Aesthetic Realism, comes from a generous impulsion: to see meaning in the feelings of someone not yourself—the character—and try to be fair to him. But in rehearsals I began to feel a deep reluctance to give myself to the part. One way it showed was that people could barely hear my voice as I said my lines.

In The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, Eli Siegel explains, with deep comprehension of all humanity and some of the most beautiful prose I ever read, the two directions in people:

Man is selfish; but being, in his fashion, the oneness of opposites, he is also magnanimous, noble, altruistic, large. Man is a heel who can write of the stars. Man is a mean creature who can measure oceans. Man is an instance of cheapness who can be honestly moved by a Hallelujah of Handel. It is all trouble and opportunity.

Aesthetic Realism taught me that the most truly generous thing in men and women is equivalent to our deepest desire, to like the world—this desire has us see value in what is not ourselves. The most grudging thing in us is contempt, the hope to make less of people as a means of building ourselves up. Contempt makes us narrow and contracting, and it's the biggest interference in a person's life.

I'll speak about what I learned about generosity and grudgingness, including the central, kind things Class Chairman, Ellen Reiss, has taught me, about a young man having Aesthetic Realism consultations, and about a great novel of France—The Red and the Black—written by Stendhal in 1830. The main character, Julien Sorel, about whom Stendhal once said "Julien is myself," comes to have a tragic life because he cannot make sense of himself as grudging and generous, both loving and fighting the world.

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