The Trouble With Torvald: Plot Contrivances and Torvald's Tsuris in "A Doll's House"

(Above, Young Vic Director Carrie Cracknell's "Nora: A Short Film Responding to Henrik Ibsen's 'A Doll's House'")

Right, sorry; a little breather from the blog. In the week since I last posted, though, I did get to see the Young Vic's extraordinary production of Ibsen's A Doll's House (of which Ben Brantley's review and my theater companion, Karen Clark pretty much say it all).

The production was, as Brantley writes, harrowing:

What we had just witnessed was a harrowing account, directed with breathless momentum by Carrie Cracknell, of a woman pushed to the breaking point by the fear of being found out. Yes, I mean Nora Helmer, the pretty, childlike wife of an adoring businessman and a woman whom no one, not even Nora herself, would believe capable of illicit doings.

As played in a galvanizing, star-making performance by Hattie Morahan, Nora is forced into devastating awareness of just how devious she’s become and how warped she has been by the subterfuge. That’s a revelation from which no one is likely to recover quickly, including anyone lucky enough to see this production, which runs only through March 16.

Don’t go, though, expecting a highbrow equivalent of the latest Liam Neeson nail-biter, or not only that. Working from a sharp new adaptation by the playwright Simon Stephens, which underscores the imprisoning powers of sex and money without sounding didactic, Ms. Cracknell’s canny production knows that the quickest route to the head is through the guts.

Feeling Nora’s concentrated fear forces us to ask just what it is about her situation that turns a comfortable home into a hell. What we have here is visceral consciousness-raising, a venerable form of theater that was the favorite of the ancient Greeks, I believe, but is seldom so successfully practiced these days.

Let me just add that Dominic Rowan, as Torvald, more than holds his end of the play up, turning in a nuanced, three-dimensional--by turns a paternalistic, loving, creepy, terrified, and, ultimately, pitiable Torvald. The added complexity enriched the play, as did the set. As Karen writes:

The "doll's house" quality of the revolving set gained a visual piquancy from our being seated that high up. I was reminded, gazing down, of the dollhouse I'd had as a child, of creating and directing the lives of the small stand-ins for who I thought I was going to be when I attained the coveted status of grown-up, and the twinkling charm of a peek from above at an unreal reality. So must the gods upon Olympus see our lives.

So, an admirable production of an admirable play, yes? Yes. Nothing specially for me to add? We-eelll…

The efforts involved in getting the plotting of Phineas at Bay right has, perhaps made me a little more aware than I used to be of how other writers do it. So, in viewing A Doll's House, which I hadn't seen in some two decades (!), I noticed something I might not have previously: Torvald is indeed a very weak, and quite possibly a stupid man--or Ibsen has blundered, not in his amazing depiction of these characters, but in the contriving of his plot. I'm not sure, and your thoughts solicited. (Let me point out that my beloved Anthony Trollope had made legal errors that undermined his plots, leading him to, in frustration, commission an opinion by counsel to avoid legal errors in The Eustace Diamonds; I dread the pointing out of any errors in my own plotting, come to that.)

But I get ahead of myself. Here is the situation. Torvald is presented as an able young lawyer, with a head for affairs:

Nora. Just fancy, my husband has been made manager of the Bank!

Mrs Linde. Your husband? What good luck!

Nora. Yes, tremendous! A barrister's profession is such an uncertain thing, especially if he won't undertake unsavoury cases; and naturally Torvald has never been willing to do that, and I quite agree with him. You may imagine how pleased we are! He is to take up his work in the Bank at the New Year, and then he will have a big salary and lots of commissions. For the future we can live quite differently--we can do just as we like. I feel so relieved and so happy, Christine! It will be splendid to have heaps of money and not need to have any anxiety, won't it?

(Act I)

On a smaller scale, so too is his former friend, Nils Krogstad:

Nora. Who is it?

Krogstad [at the door]. It is I, Mrs Helmer. [Mrs LINDE starts, trembles, and turns to the window.]

Nora [takes a step towards him, and speaks in a strained, low voice]. You? What is it? What do you want to see my husband about?

Krogstad. Bank business--in a way. I have a small post in the Bank, and I hear your husband is to be our chief now--

Nora. Then it is--

Krogstad. Nothing but dry business matters, Mrs Helmer; absolutely nothing else.

Nora. Be so good as to go into the study, then. [She bows indifferently to him and shuts the door into the hall; then comes back and makes up the fire in the stove.]

Mrs Linde. Nora--who was that man?

Nora. A lawyer, of the name of Krogstad.

Mrs Linde. Then it really was he.

Nora. Do you know the man?

Mrs Linde. I used to--many years ago. At one time he was a solicitor's clerk in our town.

(Act I)

In all of the interactions between Torvald, Nora, Dr. Rank (their great friend, in love with Nora), or Mrs. Linde, there is nothing to suggest that either Torvald or Krogstad is unintelligent or imprudent, rash or foolish in business or professional affairs--Krogstad's respectability has been ruined due to a scandal, not ineptitude and his work at the bank is unobjectionable. Got that? Good.

Now here is the plot contrivance upon which the marriage of Nora and Torvald is wrecked: Seven years before the action of the play, as Nora relates, Torvald "over-worked himself dreadfully. You see, he had to make money every way he could, and he worked early and late; but he couldn't stand it, and fell dreadfully ill, and the doctors said it was necessary for him to go south." Nora raises the money by a loan from Krigstad (by then, a usurer, after the unspecified scandal that wrecks his respectability--clearly some kind of professional misconduct), but forges the signature of his father as co-signer, mistakenly dating it three days after his death (of which she had not yet received word). When Torvald fires Krogstad from the bank, in part to oblige Nora by hiring Mrs. Linde, but really because his former friend's misconduct rankles him (Act II), Krogstad blackmails first Nora, and then, by a letter describing Nora's fraud, Torvald. As Krogstad describes the letter and its goal:

Krogstad. Besides, it would have been a great piece of folly. Once the first storm at home is over--. I have a letter for your husband in my pocket.

Nora. Telling him everything?

Krogstad. In as lenient a manner as I possibly could.

Nora [quickly]. He mustn't get the letter. Tear it up. I will find some means of getting money.

Krogstad. Excuse me, Mrs Helmer, but I think I told you just now--

…

Nora. What do you want, then?

Krogstad. I will tell you. I want to rehabilitate myself, Mrs Helmer; I want to get on; and in that your husband must help me. For the last year and a half I have not had a hand in anything dishonourable, amid all that time I have been struggling in most restricted circumstances. I was content to work my way up step by step. Now I am turned out, and I am not going to be satisfied with merely being taken into favour again. I want to get on, I tell you. I want to get into the Bank again, in a higher position. Your husband must make a place for me--

Nora. That he will never do!

Krogstad. He will; I know him; he dare not protest. And as soon as I am in there again with him, then you will see! Within a year I shall be the manager's right hand. It will be Nils Krogstad and not Torvald Helmer who manages the Bank.

(Act II)

When Torvald reads the letter, he exclaims "I am in the power of an unscrupulous man; he can do what he likes with me, ask anything he likes of me, give me any orders he pleases--I dare not refuse." So it's blackmail, savvy?

By now, you have probably anticipated where I am going with this. Krogstad can raise a scandal involving Nora and her efforts to protect a dying father whose heir she was and a sick husband by a forgery that, in view of the mores of the time, would probably dish Torvald's career.

And Torvald can send him to jail using the blackmail note. They have mutually assured destruction--if anything, the facts involving Krogstad, thanks to the letter, are much less equivocal, much more recent, and are written in the culprit's own handwriting.

In sum, Torvald has--if only slightly--the upper hand And as lawyers, both he and Krogstad should know it. Yet Torvald, in his panic, is anxious only for himself, abusive to Nora, and utterly mean-spirited in his extremity, which, in fact, is no extremity at all.

So, there you have it. A dazzling bit of character drawing, underscoring Torvald's abject weakness (and it may very well be, if Torvald's breakdown was as much psychological as caused by overwork--Nora is hardly a reliable narrator)? Or a ploy contrivance designed to put the screws on Torvald, which he should have been able to effectively reverse--I mean, who signs a blackmail note?

Well, gentle reader, what say you?

A Moment's Peace

After a frenetic week of work, and diaconal activity, lightened by good news in the world of writing (an article of mine accepted by The Anglican Theological Review, continued progress on the third draft of Phineas at Bay), a break from the snow, hearing this piece at St Barts informal service (not reproduced above, but what would you?) was a needed oasis.

The text:

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joyes in love.

A new week begins. Let be what has past; embrace what is to be.

The Impossible Dream: A Sermon on Matt. 5:48 (For Sunday, February 23, 2014)

“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

When I was a boy, the song “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha moved me. It seemed to carry a nobility of purpose, a call to something higher than ordinary getting by. Don Quixote may be ridiculous, but he attains a certain grandeur as he assures us that

The World will be better for this/
That one man, scorned and covered with scars/
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage/
To reach the unreachable stars.

Beautiful, right? However, if you think about it, things don't work out too well for Don Quixote. His reach exceeds his grasp. He fails at his quest. The thing can’t be done in a fallen world.

We all know that the Gospels have what are widely called “hard sayings” in them, and today’s gospel gathers several of the hardest together.

Seriously, who can live up to these standards?

*Turn the other cheek?

*Give your cloak when someone tries to steal your coat?

*Give to every beggar on the streets?

And, most of all, love your enemies? Oh, and if that’s not enough, be perfect, as our heavenly father is perfect.

Is this just another version of the impossible dream?

Later in the same Gospel, Jesus is asked by the rich young man—a young man who keeps the commandments, and loves his neighbor as himself—what he is lacking. Jesus’s answer is telling: “If you would be perfect, go and sell all that you have, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me.

The young man doesn’t, of course. He slinks off, sadly, not able to rise to the call. The Impossible Dream is too much for him to bear.

So what are we to do with this teaching? The New Jerome Biblical Commentary says we should think of it not as the only legitimate rule for Christians in conflict situations, but as the “summit”; the earlier stages of biblical ethics “represent a permanent resource for believers when appropriate,” and that “it depends on the moral level of the opponent “which level of biblical ethics should be employed. These hard teachings represent “the summit” of ethics, and are reserved only for the most worthy adversaries. [1] Since earlier biblical ethics include smashing the heads of babies against the rocks, the New Jerome is right to conclude that under its interpretation, the believer has a pretty wide “range of options.”

But that’s pretty slick, isn’t it? And basically waters down Jesus’s teachings into the very “return the favor” ethics he explicitly rejects. If all he is saying is do good to those who deserve it—well, what’s so special about that?

An unbeliever, George Bernard Shaw, took it to the other extreme. He thought that in these teachings you could find a blueprint for a functioning just political order. As Shaw sees Jesus,

He lays no stress on baptism or vows, and preaches conduct incessantly. He advocates communism, the widening of the private family with its cramping ties into the great family of mankind under the fatherhood of God, the abandonment of revenge and punishment, the counteracting of evil by good instead of by a hostile evil, and an organic conception of society in which you are not an independent individual but a member of society, your neighbor being another member, and each of you members one of another, as two fingers on a hand, the obvious conclusion being that unless you love your neighbor as yourself and he reciprocates you will both be the worse for it. [2]

For Shaw, it’s an impossible dream if we leave it on an individual-by-individual basis. We can only succeed in realizing Jesus’s vision of a good society if we do it en masse, and with government redistributing income —which is to say, not at all, in America in 2014.

Is there no better way to come to terms with this difficult gospel?

Maybe. Maybe if we start by asking the question the other way around. Instead of trying to domesticate this gospel, and make it easier, let’s try admitting that it’s uncomfortable. In fact, it’s impossible. We can’t be perfect. Even in the Lord’s Prayer, we are told, in the same sentence as asking for our daily bread, to ask for forgiveness of our sins—immediately coupled with a promise in return that we will forgive others their sins against us. So what does that tell us?

That Jesus knows that we will need forgiveness daily; that we won’t measure up. But that we can believe that our mistakes, our errors, our moments of selfishness, of cruelty even—we will be forgiven, seventy times seven times. But that we have to do our part, and forgive those who hurt us.

And maybe, just maybe, Jesus is setting so very high a standard that we cannot meet it not to frustrate us, not to make us feel like spiritual failures, but to keep us right-sized. To remind us that we need God’s forgiveness, even though we are doing our very best to live up to Christ’s call to us.

If we can hold that in mind, then that makes forgiveness of others easier; I can concentrate on the beam in my own eye, and not the mote in my brothers, or sister’s.

Jesus reminds us of what true goodness is—perfection, like that of the Father. But then, when the rich young man approaches him, he addresses Jesus as “Good Teacher.” Jesus brings him up short: “Why do you call me good? There is no one who is good but God.” Jesus will not claim for himself the perfection he urges us to strive for. There is a lesson for us here, isn’t there?

When the rich young man leaves sorrowing at the thought of losing his possessions, the disciples, stunned at the notion that the Kingdom may be inaccessible to the wealthy, the privileged, exclaim: Then who can be saved? Jesus answers, “With men, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Like Jesus, maybe we should not worry about being called good, and focus instead on doing the good works we are called to do. And not presume to think that those works make us good, since only God is good.

And maybe that is our answer. To do our part. Answer the call. Not be afraid of looking a little ridiculous. And to acknowledge that, in our own small way, we are trying to contribute to a dream that is not impossible, whatever Shaw or Cervantes might think, because we are not the dreamer—God is, and what is not possible for us alone is possible for Him.

So reach for that unreachable star. And fail. Fail again. Fail better.


Notes

[1] Benedict T. Viviano, “The Gospel According to Matthew,” in Fr. R. Brown, et al, eds. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (New York: Prentice Hall, 1990) at 644.

[2] Shaw, “Preface to Androcles and the Lion,” in Bernard Shaw, Complete Plays With Prefaces, vol. 5 at 344 (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1963).

NB: Text from Matt. 19 does not exactly correspond to the NRSV link, because I was, in writing the sermon, working with a KJV, and modernized the language on the fly. I have left that ersatz update stand, because that is how I delivered the sermon.

Getting and Spending: The "Bishop of Bling"

Remember Newark Archbishop John Myers, who covered up for and defended a sexually abusive priest who violated his plea bargain, to which the Archdiocese was a party? Well, he's back, now as the "Bishop of Bling":

There's a growing public backlash, both in New Jersey and within the Catholic community, over the Newark Archdiocese's plans to build a $500,000 addition to the retirement home for Archbishop John J. Myers.

The 3,000-square-foot expansion to the home, replete with a host of luxurious amenities, is unseemly to many.

The Bergen Record ran a devastating editorial on Tuesday that called on the archdiocese to sell Myers' "princely palace."

"Let the profits from the sale fund something more important than Myers' desire to live like one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey," the editorial read.

A day later, New York Times columnist Michael Powell blasted the archdiocese for building the home's expansion two years after it closed one of its Catholic schools due to a lack of funding.

Actually, Powell did rather more than that; he pointed out that:

So many leaders of the church have served it so badly for so many decades that it’s hard to keep track of their maledictions. Archbishop Myers provides one-stop shopping. He is known to insist on being addressed as “Your Grace.” And his self-regard is matched by his refusal to apologize for more or less anything.

It was revealed last year that a priest seemed to have broken his legally binding agreement with Bergen County prosecutors to never again work unsupervised with children or to minister to them so long as he remained a priest. When next found, he was involved with a youth ministry in the Newark Archdiocese.

Parishioners in Oradell, N.J., also discovered that the archdiocese had allowed a priest accused of sexual abuse to live in their parish’s rectory. A furor arose, and last summer the archbishop sat down and wrote an open letter to his flock. He conceded not a stumble. Those who claim, he wrote, that he and the church had not protected children were “simply evil, wrong, immoral and seemingly focused on their own self-aggrandizement.”

As I pointed out at the time, Fugee patently violated the plea agreement, and the Archdiocese defended him.

Between Myers's palatial aspirations, and his shielding of malefactors, he seems to be taking his lead not from Pope Francis, but from a very different Francis, who sets out his views here:

House of Cards Addendum: The Growing Darkness

One thing I had meant to include in my prior post regarding the American House of Cards was that its sensibility is different from the more stylized, play-like original, but that the montage accompanying its opening credits, with a growing darkness overspreading various portions of D.C., from monuments to polluted riverbanks, was a splendid metaphor.

It reminds me of the end Simon Raven's "Alms for Oblivion" series. In the last novel, The Survivors, at the memorial service for one of the few steadfastly moral characters in Raven's opus, Daniel Mond, all of the compromised, blackguardly, roguish, and even occasionally good characters are gathered together in Venice. As all of the characters stand about, exchanging witty banter, seeking to advance their own interests, or find a partner, Raven writes, "a curious thing happened." He provides capsule descriptions of the various conversations, involving all present, except for Piero, a young Italian prostitute, and adds:

while all this was going on:

A dark stain crept up the creek towards the landing stage, at first just a trickle of black, then spreading until it covered the entire width of the creek, coming fast and strong with the tide as more and more poured in behind it, lapping against the banks where the birds nested, lapping round the shining boats, finally coming right up to the steps of the landing stage and settling there, barely an inch below the bottom rung, silent, filthy and opaque.

And yet nobody noticed except Piero, who was staring down from infirmary window and saw that the black stain was all over the lagoon, whichever way he turned his eyes.

(Alms for Oblivion, vol. III, at pp. 510-511).

I'm not suggesting any direct influence; rather, its that the sensibility of the US version of House of Cards reminds me of that of Raven's series--the sort of deep cynicism, coupled with a sad recognition of the damage done by the show, irreversible tide of corruption caused by the characters we are following. In both Alms and House, that sensibility pervades the story, but is, in powerful imagery, made manifest in the physical setting.

House of Ricardus

I'm seeing a certain amount of criticism of the practical and ideological politics in House of Cards (see here, especially in the comments, and here--the latter rightly pointing out that Underwood "persuades his fellow Democrats to go along with his plan by arguing—incorrectly, as our recent history has demonstrated—that the Democrats alone would be blamed for a shutdown."

The politics are incredible, of course--the Democrats casually offering up "entitlement reform" to avoid a shutdown is so contrary to the recent past, and the notion that such a move would credibly be seen as a Democratic win, is so contrary to our recent experience and current ideological stances of the parties as to be make the show risible as a political commentary on our times.

Just as well, then, that that isn't what the show is.

House of Cards has a peculiar DNA, one that in part predetermines its contours, and possibly even its outcome.

It originated, of course, as a novel, published in 1989, a result, the author writes, of a bruising election in which Dobbs, Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, observed that "Margaret Thatcher won that election comfortably, but she made many enemies while doing so – too many, I thought." This, and "a furious row" with Thatcher, led him to write "a novel based around the dark political arts." He chose as his subject a fictional plot to get rid of a Prime Minister. The novel depicts its protagonist, House Whip Francis Urquhart, using all the secrets he has garnered (and favors he is owed) in rescuing errant MPs from their own follies in his years of faithful, neglected service for his own political gain.

It's a pretty good read--though many elements we associate with House of Cards do not exist--Urquhart's wife (Miranda in the novel) is essentially a walk-on part, there is no affair with Mattie Storin, the journalist who unravels the skein of Urquhart's plots, and, far from killing her, Urquhart's nerve fails him in his final confrontation with Mattie, and he instead kills himself, throwing himself off the roof of the House. Urquhart not only lacks the steel of his later incarnations, he also lacks the charm, and the story is told in an omniscient third person voice.



As to the BBC television adaptation, Dobbs informs us, "during a week that had the nation holding its breath in astonishment, the first episode of the television series aired almost on the day she was forced to resign. It seemed almost impossible, but she was gone." The casting of Ian Richardson (whose performance as Urquhart, by his own account, drew from his portrayal of Richard III), the addition of a perverse--very perverse--sexual affair between Urquhart and Mattie Storin (parallel to the seduction of Lady Anne over her husband's tomb), and most of all Urquhart's mix of scheming and charm are redolent of Shakespeare's Richard III. Andrew Davies's brilliant contribution to the story is just that--he took an entertaining political thriller, and buffed it, re-shaped it, and drew from it, the stuff of Shakespeare's history plays. The adaptation even features a catchphrase that has entered the political lexicon:



As in Richard III, Davies has Urquhart address us, the viewer, and makes us complicit in his crimes:



A genuine soliloquy, that--one of many dotting the BBC trilogy--and in as close to Shakespeare's own form as one could get away with in the 1980s.

James Cappio, in "If Richard III Had Married Lady Macbeth" has pointed out that House of Cards has not one but two Shakespeare plays in its DNA:

Very much like Richard, Urquhart so thoroughly seduces us that we root for him in spite of ourselves. That is largely due to Ian Richardson’s indelible performance. Richardson, one of the great Shakespeareans of his generation, had just played Richard III for the Royal Shakespeare Company before taking the role of Urquhart; by letting Richard influence him, he created one of the most iconic characters in all of British television. Urquhart’s signature phrase—“You may think that. I couldn’t possibly comment”—is still widely recognized in Britain even today.
House of Cards borrows from the Scottish play even more blatantly than from Richard III. When it’s first suggested to Urquhart that he could be Prime Minister, he actually says “Glamis, and Cawdor, and King hereafter” and shortly his wife is insinuating that he should topple his leader. To be fair, he doesn’t need nearly as much persuasion as Macbeth did. Diane Fletcher’s movie debut was in Roman Polanski’s bloody Macbeth, so her brilliantly menacing performance as Elizabeth Urquhart can be said to have Shakespearean roots.

Indeed, at the end of the Trilogy (the second installment is To Play the King (1993), the finale is 1995's The Final Cut; interestingly, Dobbs again in the novel ends with Urquhart primed for a fall; the television adaptation changes the ending again. Only in the third novel and series do the story lines essentially coincide), Elizabeth Urquhart surpasses her husband in villainy. With Urquhart's "house of cards" at last beginning to collapse, his powers beginning to fail, and his last ambition, to surpass Margaret Thatcher as the longest-serving Prime Minister of Great Britain, Elizabeth arranges a special gift for her husband on the day he does so.

[HERE BE SPOILERS, albeit for a nearly twenty-year old series]



Note how, as Urqhart dies, Elizabeth is there to--comfort him? Seek absolution? And Cordor (Cawdor mixed with cordite, yes?) offers his services to Tom Makepeace--presented as a good egg, but, as Corder informs him "You'll be in charge now," we hear the strains of "Francis Urquhart's March", as the theme is titled, suggesting that the new regime will be much more like the old than expected.

All of this makes up the DNA of the new series. Kevin Spacey, of course, is also an actor noted for his Richard III:



Set in America, without a Parliamentary system and its tools that the Whip would more commonly have, and two full decades after the novel, the creative staff had its work cut out for it. With Dobbs, Davies and Spacey as Executive Producers, their vision is deeply embedded in the new show. Dobbs in his novels was interested primarily in intrigue--means, and stratagems, and much less so in policy; he kept trying to craft a moral ending (indeed, had the BBC accepted his ending, the parallel to Shakespeare's play, in which the natural order is restored, the usurper vanquished, would have been even more clear).

The American show takes the most intriguing new dimension to the BBC's ersatz-Shakespearean history play--the partnership of Francis and (in the US) Claire Underwood, played with astonishing discipline, and cool-banked fire, by Robin Wright--and places it firmly front and center. It's pace is at once quicker, cinematically very much so, and slower--halfway through season 2, we have not yet reached the equivalent point of the ending of the first series of the BBC adaptation--which only had four episodes; I have just finished watching episode twenty-two of the U.S. version. So, yes, there's some filler, but there is also much more character development, and some twists we don't expect--last season I was faked out into thinking at one point that, unlike his UK counterpart, Peter Russo was going to survive the season. So Beau Willimon deserves a lot of credit for doing more than an extended dance remake of the BBC original. He has translated the history play into an American milieu, and made it work.

Did he get the politics wrong? Well, yes. But then, so did Shakespeare.

Here I Stand...

If I had to pick a quotation to summarize the philosophy that has led to my political views, it wouldn't be from Holmes, Douglas, or Brandeis; it wouldn't be from the Framers, either, or even dear old John Stuart Mill, who rocked my world when I was a Fordham student. No, perhaps underscoring my fundamental unseriousness as a political thinker, it's from a novel.

It's from C.P. Snow's The Light and the Dark (1948), making the point that self-knowledge, stripped of arrogance is crucial to those who hold power. Here's Snow's stand-in Lewis Eliot, debating the balance of power in 1937 with a young Nazi:

"No one is fit to be trusted with power," I said..."No one. I should not like to see any group of men in charge--not me or my friends or anyone else. Any man who has lived at all knows the follies and wickedness he's capable of. If he does not know it, he is not fit to govern others. And if he does know it, he knows also that neither he nor any man ought to be allowed to decide a single human fate, I am not speaking of you specially, you understand; I should say exactly the same of myself."

Our eyes met. I was certain, as one can be certain in a duel across the table, that for the first time he took me seriously.

"You do not think highly of men, Mr. Eliot."

"I am one."

The Light and the Dark (first ed.), at pp. 148-149.

I buy that. I believe that, even today.