Art and Faith (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Art and Faith. An Exchange of letters between Jacques Maritain and Jean Cocteau. New York: Philosophical Library, 1948. Pp. 138. $2.'15. This small book contains an exchange of letters between M. Jacques Maritain and M. Jeail Cocteau, between a philosopher and a poet, concerning the conversion or :return of Cocteau to the faith and certain matters pertaining to a philosophy of art. The two letters were written over twenty years ago, but they have been published in English translation only this year. The quite difficult translation seems well done by Mr. John Coleman . The letters, in rather large measure, are peculiarly French and peculiarly limited to the post-war period in France, a double difficulty the American reader has to overcome to appreciate fully many of the implications in the correspondence. The real merit of the book is in the almost delicate account it gives of the conversion of a soul to God. It is eloquent testimony to the marvelous workings of grace, to the influence of human instrumental causality, and to the genuine catholicity of the Catholic Faith. The latter point is evident by the fact that poetic as the manner is in which the conversion is presented, involving nuances and symbolism in full dress, the actual working of grace is nevertheless as unmistakably dear as in the conversion of a banker. The book is thus one more valuable instance how the faith can and does reach all manner of men in an infinite variety of ways and how, at the same time, it draws from an almost incredible diversity the literal adherence to the one Church and the one Faith and the one Baptism. The working of grace, the human instrumental causality of which Maritain , despite his modest disavowal, is a chief instance, is delicately revealed throughout the book. " I lost my seven best friends," writes Cocteau. " This is as much as to say that God, seven times, bestowed graces on me without my noticing. He would send me a friendship, take if from me, send me another, and so on. I would let go of the bait and fall stupidly back in again. Don't go and think He was sacrificing youth; He was dressing up angels. An illness or war serves them with a pretext to undress " (p. Ql) . And at the critical moment, Cocteau writes, describing the providential disposition of a Father Charles and Maritain himself: "Lightning is disconcerting . Sometimes it can be a ve~y light red baH which comes into a room, moves about, and leaves without harming anyone." " Jacques, was 97 98 BOOK REVIEWS this your trap? Were you awaiting this minute? A heart entered the room; a red heart surmounted by a red cross in the middle of a white form that glided about, bowed, spoke, shook hands. This heart hypnotized me, distracted me from the face, beheaded the Arab's robe. It was the real face of the white form, and (Fr.) Charles seemed to hold his head against his breast like a martyr. . . . It was then, Maritain, that you pushed me. Pushed me in the back by a blow from your soul, which is an athlete; pushed head first. All saw that I was losing my balance. Nobody came to my rescue, for they knew that to help me would have been to lose me. Thus I learned of the spirit of this family, which Faith brings to us instantaneously , and which is not one of the least of the graces of God " (pp. 37-39). To this Maritain replies: "It was then you met Father Charles. If there was conspiracy, it was the angels. A telegram warned me of his arrival the very day you were to dine at Meudon. When he entered we knew at once, by a great eddy of silence in our souls-and which lasted until the end-that he came only for you. This heart that you draw at the bottom of your letters, he was wearing over his chest, but with the cross planted in it. Solitude was sending you a contemplative; contemplatives and poets understand each other: a man accustomed to the ways of Heaven was at ease...