1. I oppose to what is passing this ramrod of beaten steel. I will
not submit to this aimless passing of billycock hats and Homburg hats and
all the plumed and variegated head-dresses of women . . . and the words that
trail drearily without human meaning; I will reduce you to
order.
As Louis sits in the eating-shop in the third section, he watches the
people around him, contrasting their lives with the idealized world of the
poems he reads. His own poetic project is conceived in terms of resistance,
order, and rigidity. He thinks of poetry as a steel ramrod that he will use
to straighten out the crookedness of reality. Louis’s tone is defiant,
almost angry. He refuses to “submit” to the chaos around him and will
“reduce” it to order. However, he still desires to include the details of
modern life in his art. In contrast, Bernard becomes dissatisfied with
stories precisely because they “reduce” life too much, while “reduction,” in
the sense of the elimination of the ugly or mundane, is the secret of
Neville’s creativity. Louis, meanwhile, intends to take a ramrod to reality.
The human activity he is so captivated with seems like an ocean of chaos;
the people are “aimless,” and their “dreary” words lack meaning. Louis wants
to state the meaning these passersby will never see for
themselves.
