The Little Review, December 1914 (Vol. 1, No. 9)

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Title: The Little Review, December 1914 (Vol. 1, No. 9)
Author: Margaret C. Anderson, - To be updated
Language: English
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1914 (VOL. 1, NO. 9) ***

THE LITTLE REVIEW

_Literature_ _Drama_ _Music_ _Art_

MARGARET C. ANDERSON
EDITOR

DECEMBER, 1914

Poems Richard Aldington
A Great Pilgrim-Pagan George Soule
My Friend, the Incurable: Ibn Gabirol
On Germanophobia; on the perils of
Monomania; on Raskolinkov and Alexander
Berkman; on surrogates and sundry
subtleties.
On Poetry:
Aesthetics and Common-Sense Llewellyn Jones
In Defense of Vers Libre Arthur Davison Ficke
The Decorative Straight-Jacket Maxwell Bodenheim
Harriet Monroe’s Poetry Eunice Tietjens
Scharmel Iris Milo Winter
The Poetry of T. Sturge Moore Llewellyn Jones
Amy Lowell’s Contribution M. C. A.
Star Trouble Helen Hoyt
Parasite Conrad Aiken
Personality George Burman Foster
The Prophecy of Gwic’hlan Edward Ramos
Editorials and Announcements
Winter Rain Eunice Tietjens
Home as an Emotional Adventure The Editor
A Miracle Charles Ashleigh
London Letter E. Buxton Shanks
New York Letter George Soule
The Theatre, Music, Art
Book Discussion
Sentence Reviews

Published Monthly

15 cents a copy

MARGARET C. ANDERSON, Publisher
Fine Arts Building
CHICAGO

$1.50 a year

Entered as second-class matter at Postoffice, Chicago.

THE LITTLE REVIEW

Vol. I

DECEMBER, 1914

No. 9

Poems

RICHARD ALDINGTON

On a Motor-Bus at Night

(Oxford Street)

The hard rain-drops beat like wet pellets
On my nose and right cheek
As we jerk and slither through the traffic.

There is a great beating of wheels
And a rumble of ugly machines.

The west-bound buses are full of men
In grey clothes and hard hats,
Holding up umbrellas
Over their sallow faces
As they return to the suburban rabbit-holes.
The women-clerks
Try to be brightly dressed;
Now the wind makes their five-shilling-hats jump
And the hat-pins pull their hair.

When one is quite free, and curious,
They are fascinating to look at—
Poor devils of a sober hell.

The shop-lamps and the street-lamps
Send steady rayed floods of yellow and red light
So that Oxford street is paved with copper and chalcedony.

Church Walk, Kensington

(Sunday Morning)

The cripples are going to church.
Their crutches beat upon the stones,
And they have clumsy iron boots.

Their clothes are black, their faces peaked and mean;
Their legs are withered
Like dried bean-pods.

Their eyes are as stupid as frogs’.

And the god, September,
Has paused for a moment here
Garlanded with crimson leaves.
He held a branch of fruited oak.
He smiled like Hermes the beautiful
Cut in marble.

A Great Pilgrim-Pagan

GEORGE SOULE

Shakespeare in red morocco seems always wan and pathetic. I see him
looking gloomily out of his unread respectability, bored with his
scholarly canonization and his unromantic owners. How he longs for the
irresponsible days when he was loved or ignored for his own sake! Now he
is forever imprisoned in marble busts and tortured in Histories of
English Literature. There is no more tragic fate in the annals of
imagination. Terrible is the vengeance taken by institutional culture on
those who are great enough to command its admiration.

Therefore, a genius who has not been tagged unduly by the pundits
inspires me with a profound delicacy, in a sense akin to the reverence
for a beautiful child. Here is a virtue which the world needs. One would
like to proclaim it from the housetops. Yet there are the rabble, ready
with their election-night enthusiasm, and the scholars, with their
pompous niches. If one could only find all those whom the man himself
would have selected as friends and whisper the right word in their ears!
But, after all, we must speak in public, remembering that even
misunderstanding is the birthright of the genius. It is better that
power should be expressed in devious and unforeseen channels than not at
all.

A flippant friend once told me that he had never had the courage to read
William Vaughn Moody because the poet had such a dark brown name. That
is important because of its triviality. I have no doubt that if the
gospel hymns had never been written, and if we had never on gloomy
Sunday evenings seen those pale books with the scroll-work
Moody-and-Sankey covers, bringing all their dismal train of musical and
religious doggerel, we should have been spared many misgivings about the
evangelist’s vicarious name-sake. Let it be firmly understood,
therefore, that there is nothing dark brown, or evangelistic, or
stupidly sober-serious about the new poet of the Fire-Bringer. May he
never go into a household-classics edition!

But there is a tinge of New England about him, just the same. Only one
who has in his blood the solemn possibilities of religious emotion can
react against orthodox narrowness without becoming trivial. It is the
fashion to blame all modern ills on puritan traditions. We should be
wise if in order to fight our evils we should invoke a little of the
Pilgrim Fathers’ heroism. Too many of us take up the patter of
radicalism with as little genuine sincerity as a spearmint ribbon-clerk
repeats the latest Sunday-comic slang. If you have ever walked over a
New England countryside the endless miles of stone walls may have set
you thinking. Every one of those millions of stones has been laboriously
picked out of the fields—and there are still many there. Before that the
trees had to be cleared away, and the Indians fought, and the ocean
crossed without chart or government buoy. For over two centuries our
ancestors grimly created our country for us, with an incessant summer-
and winter-courage that seems the attribute of giants. What wonder if
they were hard and narrow? We scoff at their terminal morraine; but we
should be more deserving of their gift if we should emulate their stout
hearts in clearing away the remaining debris from the economical and
spiritual fields. In spite of injurious puritan traditions there is
something inalienably American and truly great about old New England. It
is the same unafraid stoutness of heart that is at the bottom of Moody’s
personality. It gives him power; it gives him unconscious dignity.

Yet Moody was indeed a rebel against the religious and social muddle in
which he found himself. Something red and pagan poured into his veins
the instinct of defiance to a jealous god and to pale customs. The best
of the Greek was his; instinctively he turned at last to Greek drama for
his form and to Greek mythology for his figures. There was in him that
σπονδη which Aristotle believed essential for the poet—a quality so rare
among us that the literal translation, “high seriousness,” conveys
little hint of its warmth, its nobility and splendor. He believed in the
body as in the soul; and his conception of the godly was rounded and not
inhuman. Dionysus was every bit as real to him as the man of sorrows. Is
not this the new spirit of America which we wish to nourish? And is
there not a peculiar virtue in the poet who with the strong arm of the
pilgrim and the consecration of the puritan fought for the kingdom of
joy among us? In _The Masque of Judgment_ he pictures a group of heroic
unrepentant rebels against divine grace who have not yet fallen under
the sword of the destroying angel. Of them one, a youth, sings:

Better with captives in the slaver’s pen
Hear women sob, and sit with cursing men,
Yea, better here among these writhen lips,
Than pluck out from the blood its old companionships.
If God had set me for one hour alone,
Apart from clash of sword
And trumpet pealéd word,
I think I should have fled unto his throne.
But always ere the dayspring shook the sky,
Somewhere the silver trumpets were acry,—
Sweet, high, oh, high and sweet!
What voice could summon so but the soul’s paraclete?
Whom should such voices call but me, to dare and die?
O ye asleep here in the eyrie town,
Ye mothers, babes, and maids, and aged men,
The plain is full of foemen! Turn again—
Sleep sound, or waken half
Only to hear our happy bugles laugh
Lovely defiance down,
As through the steep
Grey streets we sweep,
Each horse and man a ribbéd fan to scatter all that chaff!

How from the lance-shock and the griding sword
Untwine the still small accents of the Lord?
How hear the Prince of Peace and Lord of Hosts
Speak from the zenith ’mid his marshalled ghosts,
“Vengeance is mine, I will repay;
Cease thou and come away!”
Or having seen and hearkened, how refrain
From crying, heart and brain,
“So, Lord, Thou sayest it, Thine—
But also mine, ah, surely also mine!
Else why and for what good
The strength of arm my father got for me
By perfect chastity,
This glorious anger poured into my blood
Out of my mother’s depths of ardency?”

So the sanctity of the warrior. And the sanctity of other passions is
there, too. A woman says:

O sisters, brothers, help me to arise!
Of God’s two-hornéd throne I will lay hold
And let him see my eyes;
That he may understand what love can be,
And raise his curse, and set his children free.

But quotations crowd upon me. Most of Moody’s best work bears witness to
his glorification of man’s possible personality in rebellion against
man’s restrictive conception of society and god. We have had many such
rebels; the peculiar significance of Moody lies in the fact that he
lacks utterly the triviality of the little radical, and that his is a
power which springs from the most heroic in American quality.

Of course all this would be worth nothing unless Moody had the authentic
utterance of the poet. His fulness of inspiration, combined with his
sensitive editing, has left us scarcely a line which should have gone to
oblivion. As an example of his magic take three lines from _I Am the
Woman_, in which the woman is walking with her lover:

But I was mute with passionate prophecies;
My heart went veiled and faint in the golden weather,
While universe drifted by after still universe.

Or the woman’s response to Pandora’s singing in _The Fire-Bringer_:

Hark, hark, the pouring music! Never yet
The pools below the waterfalls, thy pools,
Thy dark pools, O my heart—!

Fragmentary, mystic, unrelated with the context; yet who that has heard
perfect music can fail to understand that cry? It is indeed this mystic
richness, these depths below depths, that make a large part of Moody’s
individual fascination. He rarely has the limpid clarity or the soaring
simplicity which make the popular lyricist such as Shelley. There is too
much grasp of the mind in his work for the large public; only those who
have in some degree discovered the beauty of the wide ranges can feel at
home in him. One breathes with the strength of great virility,—an able
and demanding body, a mind which conquers the heights, and those
infinitely subtle and vibrating reaches of spirit which belong
especially to the poet.

To me the thought of Moody is satisfying not only because he typifies
those qualities which I like to think we ought to find in American
literature, but because he exemplifies my ideal of a poet. There have
been many insane geniuses; men whose glory has shone sometimes fitfully
through bodily or mental infirmity. Some of us are accustomed to the
idea that genius is in fact insanity or is akin to it. Certainly the
words “wholesome” and “healthy” have been applied so many times to
mediocre productions that we are wary of them. But is not the insanity
of genius after all merely the abnormal greatness and preponderance of a
single quality in a man? If by some miracle his other qualities could
have been equally great, would he not have been a still nobler artist?
To me the Greek impulse of proportionate development has an irresistible
appeal. To be sane, not by the denial of a disproportionate inspiration,
but by the lifting of all the faculties to its level: that is a dream
worthy of the god in man. To be an artist not by the denial of competing
faculties, but by the fullest development of all faculties under an
inexorable will which unites them in a common purpose: that is a rich
conception of personality. The perfect poet should be the perfect man.
He should be not insane, but saner than the rest of us. Moody not only
expressed this ideal in his life, but in his work. He was strong and
sound, physically, mentally, spiritually. No one who has read his
letters can miss the golden roundness of his humor, his humanity, his
manliness. Yet never for a moment did he make a comfortable denial of
the will to soar. In his poem _The Death of Eve_ he has burningly
expressed the development of personality. Eve, an aged woman, has not
succumbed to the view that she committed an unforgivable sin in
disobeying God to taste the apple. Taking old Cain with her, she
fearlessly enters the garden again to show herself to God before she
dies. In her mystic song she sings:

Behold, against thy will, against thy word,
Against the wrath and warning of thy sword,
Eve has been Eve, O Lord!
A pitcher filled, she comes back from the brook,
A wain she comes, laden with mellow ears;
She is a roll inscribed, a prophet’s book
Writ strong with characters.
Behold, Eve willed it so; look, if it be so, look!

And after singing of her life and of how she had been sensitive to the
love of her husband and children, she goes on:

Still, still with prayer and ecstasy she strove
To be the woman they did well approve,
That, narrowed to their love,
She might have done with bitterness and blame;
But still along the yonder edge of prayer
A spirit in a fiery whirlwind came—
Eve’s spirit, wild and fair—
Crying with Eve’s own voice the number of her name.

Yea, turning in the whirlwind and the fire,
Eve saw her own proud being all entire
Made perfect by desire;
And from the rounded gladness of that sphere
Came bridal songs and harpings and fresh laughter;
“Glory unto the faithful,” sounded clear,
And then, a little after,
“Whoso denyeth aught, let him depart from here!”

And only thus does Eve find god—in her perfect self—

Ready and boon to be fulfilled of Thee,
Thine ample, tameless creature,—
Against thy will and word, behold, Lord, this is She!

Here, indeed, is the religion of our time. A faithfulness that is deeper
than the old faithfulness; and that challenge which of all modern
inspiration is the most flaming:

Whoso denyeth aught, let him depart from here!

This is not the balance of a personality that denies itself! Like
Nietzsche, Moody is shaken with the conviction that the most deadly sin
is not disobedience, but smallness.

There is a striking similarity between the religious attitude of Moody
and that of Nietzsche. Moody mentions Zarathustra only once in his
published letters. Certainly he was not obsessed by the German, or a
confessed follower. Nor did Moody elaborate any social philosophy,
beyond a general radicalism quite different from Nietzsche’s
condemnation of socialism. But, like Nietzsche, Moody was in reaction
against a false and narrow culture. And like him, Moody found in
Hellenic ideals a blood-stirring inspiration. He found not the external
grace of the Greek which Keats celebrated, not the static classical
perfection which has furnished an anodyne for scholars. It was the
deeper, cloudy spirit of Aeschylus, the heaven-scaling challenge of
Euripides, the Dionysiac worship of joy and passion. Take, for instance,
the chorus of young men in _The Fire-Bringer_ which Professor Manly has
called “insolent”—though it seems to me of a divine insolence:

Eros, how sweet
Is the cup of thy drunkenness!
Dionysus, how our feet
Hasten to the burning cup
Thou liftest up!
But O how sweet and how most burning it is
To drink the wine of thy lightsome chalices,
Apollo! Apollo! To-day
We say we will follow thee and put all others away
For thou alone, O thou alone art he
Who settest the prisoned spirit free,
And sometimes leadest the rapt soul on
Where never mortal thought has gone;
Till by the ultimate stream
Of vision and of dream
She stands
With startled eyes and outstretched hands,
Looking where other suns rise over other lands,
And rends the lonely skies with her prophetic scream.

Moody, too, transvaluates values everywhere. _The Death of Eve_ is an
example of it. It is to “The Brute” that he looks for the regeneration
of society. Prometheus is a heroic saviour of mankind; rebellion is his
virtue, not his sin. Pandora is not a mischievous person who through her
curiosity lets out all the troubles on the world, but a divine,
wind-like inquirer, the inspiration of Prometheus. The God of
judgment-day is himself swept away by the destruction of mankind for the
sins of commission. And the insignificance of man compared with what he
might be is satirically shown in _The Menagerie_.

But let me not create the impression that Moody cannot be delicate. From
_Heart’s Wild Flower_:

But where she strays, through blight or blooth, one fadeless
flower she wears,
A little gift God gave my youth,—whose petals dim were fears,
Awes, adorations, songs of ruth, hesitancies, and tears.

From the gentle poem of motherhood, _The Daguerreotype_:

And all is well, for I have seen them plain,
The unforgettable, the unforgotten eyes!
Across the blinding gush of these good tears
They shine as in the sweet and heavy years
When by her bed and chair
We children gathered jealously to share
The sunlit aura breathing myrrh and thyme,
Where the sore-stricken body made a clime
Gentler than May and pleasanter than rhyme,
Holier and more mystical than prayer.

Or from _The Moon-Moth_:

Mountains and seas, cities and isles and capes,
All frail as in a dream and painted like a dream,
All swimming with the fairy light that drapes
A bubble, when the colors curl and stream
And meet and flee asunder. I could deem
This earth, this air, my dizzy soul, the sky,
Time, knowledge, and the gods
Were lapsing, curling, streaming lazily
Down a great bubble’s rondure, dye on dye,
To swell that perilous clinging drop that nods,
Gathers, and nods, and clings, through all eternity.

Here, surely, is an American poet who speaks in eternal terms of the new
inspiration; one who was sane and blazing at the same time; one who in
order to be modern did not need to use a poor imitation of Whitman,
screech of boiler factories and exalt a somewhat doubtful brand of
democracy; one who was uncompromisingly radical without being feverish;
above all, one who succeeded in writing the most beautiful verse without
going to London to do it. When one is oppressed with the doubt of
American possibilities it is a renewal of faith to turn to him. If
Whitman is of our soil, Moody is no less so; through these two the best
in us has thus far found its individual expression.

The temptation to quote is one that should not be resisted. And I can
think of no better way to send readers to Moody in the present world
crisis than to quote the song of Pandora:

Of wounds and sore defeat
I made my battle stay;
Wingéd sandals for my feet
I wove of my delay;
Of weariness and fear
I made my shouting spear;
Of loss, and doubt, and dread,
And swift oncoming doom
I made a helmet for my head
And a floating plume.
From the shutting mist of death,
From the failure of the breath,
I made a battle-horn to blow
Across the vales of overthrow.
O hearken, love, the battle-horn!
The triumph clear, the silver scorn!
O hearken where the echoes bring,
Down the grey disastrous morn,
Laughter and rallying!

If they (men) were books, I would not read them.—_Goethe._

My Friend, the Incurable

II.

On Germanophobia; on the perils of Monomania; on Raskolnikov and
Alexander Berkman; on surrogates and sundry subtleties

Ἑυρηκα!—shouted the Incurable, when I came on my monthly call. I have
solved the mystery that has baffled your idealists since the outbreak of
the War. The puerile effusions of Hardy, Galsworthy, and other Olympians
who in the mist of international hostilities confused Nietzsche with
Bernhardi, are quite explainable. It is well known that our successful
writers have no time or inclination to read other fellows’ books: they
leave this task to journalists and book-reviewers. Hence their splendid
ignorance of Nietzsche. The advent of great events showered upon the
innocent laymen problems, names, and terms that have been a _terra
incognita_ to most of them, and justly so: for what has the artist to do
with facts and theories,—what is Hecuba to him? But of late it has
become “stylish” for men of letters to declare their opinions on all
sorts of questions, regardless of the fact that they have as much right
to judge those problems as the cobbler has the right to judge pastry. To
the aid of the English novelists who wanted to say “something about the
war,” but whose information on the subject was zero, came the dear
professor Cramb. A quick perusal of his short work[1] supplied the
students with an outlook and a view-point, and out came the patriotic
cookies to the astonishment of the world. Such, at least, is my
interpretation of the mystery.

[1] _Germany and England_, by J. A. Cramb. [E. P. Dutton and
Company, New York.]

Professor Cramb’s lectures are not an answer to Bernhardi, as the
publisher wants us to believe, but rather a supplement to the work of
the barrack-philosopher whose theory of the biological necessity of war
is beautifully corroborated with numerous quotations from the most
ancient to the most modern philosophers, historians, statesmen, and
poets. The general splendidly demonstrates the efficiency of German
mind, the ability to utilize the world culture for the Fatherland, to
make all thinkers serve the holy idea of war, from Heraclitus’s πὸλεμος
πατήρ πάντων to Schiller’s Bride from Messina. Yet I, in my great love
for Germany, should advise the Kaiser’s government to appropriate a
generous sum for the purpose of spreading far and wide Cramb’s “Answer,”
as the highest glorification of Teutonia. No German has expressed more
humble respect and admiration for Treitschke, Bernhardi, and other
eulogists of the Prussian mailed fist than this English dreamer of a
professor. For what but a fantastic dream is his picture of modern
Germany as that of a land permeated with heroic aspirations, a mélange
of Napoleonism and Nietzscheanism? Nay! it is the burgher, the
“culture-philistine” that dominates the land of Wilhelm and Eucken, the
petty Prussian, the parvenu who since 1870 has been cherishing the idea
of _Weltmacht_ and of the Germanization of the universe.

Pardon me, friend, I cannot speak _sina ira_ on this question; out of
respect for Mr. Wilson’s request, let us “change the subject.” Come out
where we can observe in silence the symphony of autumnal sunset. The
Slavs call this month “Listopad,” the fall of leaves; do you recall
Tschaikovsky’s _Farewell Ye Forests_? Sing it in silence, in that
eloquent silence of which Maeterlinck had so beautifully spoken. I say
_had_, for my heart is full of anxiety for that Belgian with the face of
an obstinate coachman. His last works reveal symptoms of Monomania, that
sword of Damocles that hangs over many a profound thinker, particularly
so if the thinker is inclined towards mysticism. Maeterlinck, as no one
else, has felt the mystery of our world; his works echoed his awe before
the unknown, the impenetrable, but also his love for the mysterious, his
rejoicing at the fact that there are in our life things unexplainable
and incomprehensible. His latest essays[2] show signs of dizziness, as
of a man who stands on the brink of an abyss. I fear for him; I fear
that the artist has lost his equilibrium and is obsessed with phantasms,
psychometry, and other nonsense. The veil of mystery irritates him, he
craves to rend it asunder, to answer all riddles, to clarify all
obscurities, to interpret the unknowable; as a result he falls into the
pit of charlatanism and credulity.

[2] _The Unknown Guest_, by Maurice Maeterlinck. [Dodd, Mead and
Company, New York.]

If there were no more insoluble questions nor impenetrable
riddles, infinity would not be infinite; and we should have
forever to curse the fate that placed us in a universe
proportionate to our intelligence. All that exists would be but a
gateless prison, an irreparable evil and mistake. The unknown and
unknowable are necessary to our happiness. In any case I would
not wish my worst enemy, were his understanding a thousand times
loftier and a thousandfold mightier than mine, to be condemned
eternally to inhabit a world of which he had surprised an
essential secret and of which, as a man, he had begun to grasp
the least atom.

These words were written by Maeterlinck a few years ago in his essay,
_Our Eternity_. He has surely gone astray since. The last book is
written in a dull pale style, in a tone of a professional table-rapper,
enumerating legions of “facts” to prove the theory of psychometry or
whatever it may be, forgetting his own words of some time ago: “Facts
are nothing but the laggards, the spies, and camp followers of the great
forces we cannot see.” What a tragedy!

Was Dostoevsky a mystic? Undoubtedly so, but not exclusively so. Far
from being a monomaniac, he applied his genius to various aspects of
life and wistfully absorbed the realistic manifestations of his
fellow-beings as well as the inner struggles of their souls. Dostoevsky
is the Cézanne of the novel. With the same eagerness that Cézanne puts
into his endeavor to produce the “treeness” of a tree, brushing aside
irrelevant details, does Dostoevsky strive to present the “soulness” of
a soul, stripping it of its veils and demonstrating its throbbing
nudeness before our terrified eyes. We fear him, for he is cruel and
takes great pleasure in torturing us, in bringing us to the verge of
hysteria; we fear him, for we feel uneasy when we are shown a nude soul.
Perhaps he owed his wonderful clairvoyancy to his ill health, a feature
that reminds us of his great disciple, Nietzsche. I do not know which is
more awesome in Raskolnikov[3]: his physical, realistic tortures, or his
mysterious dreams and hallucinations. In all his heroes: the winged
murderer who wished to kill a principle; the harlot, Sonya, who sells
her body for the sake of her drunkard father and her stepmother; the
father, Marmeladov, whose monologues in the tavern present the most
heart-gripping rhapsody of sorrow and despair; the perversed nobleman,
Svidrigailov, broad-hearted and cynical, who jokingly blows out his
brains—in the whole gallery of his morbid types Dostoevsky mingles the
real with the fantastic, makes us wander in the labyrinth of illusionary
facts and preternatural dreams, brings us in dizzily-close touch with
the nuances of palpitating souls, and leaves us mentally maimed and
stupefied. I think of Dostoevsky as of a Demon, a Russian Demon, the
sorrowful Demon of the poet Lermontov, the graceful humane
Mephistopheles of the sculptor Antokolsky.

[3] _Crime and Punishment_, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. [The Macmillan
Company, New York.]

The tragedy of Raskolnikov is twofold: he is a Russian and an
intellectual. The craving, religious soul of the child of the endless
melancholy plains, keened by a profound, analytic intellect seeks in
vain an outlet for its strivings and doubtings in the land where
interrogation marks are officially forbidden. The young man should have
plunged into the Revolution, the broad-breasted river that has welcomed
thousands of Russian youth; but Dostoevsky willed not his hero to take
the logical road. The epileptic Demon hated the “Possessed”
revolutionists; he saw the Russian ideal in Christian suffering. “He is
a great poet, but an abominable creature, quite Christian in his
emotions and at the same time quite _sadique_. His whole morality is
what you have baptised slave-morality”—this from Dr. Brandes’s letter to
Nietzsche,—a specimen of professorial nomenclature.

I am thinking of a threefold—nay, of a manifold—tragedy of a young man,
who, besides being a Russian and an intellectual, is a revolutionist and
is a son of the eternal Ahasver, the people that have borne for
centuries the double cross of being persecuted and of teaching their
persecutors. What makes this tragedy still more tragic is the element of
grim irony that enters it as in those of Attic Greece: the
Russian-Jewish-Anarchist is hurled by Fate into the country of
Matter-of-Fact, your United States. The boy is poetic, sentimental,
idealistic; imbued with the lofty traditions of the Narodovoltzy, the
Russian saints-revolutionists, he craves for a heroic deed, for an act
of self-sacrifice for the “people.” “Ah, the People! The grand,
mysterious, yet so near and real, People....”[4] He attempts to shoot an
oppressor of the people, is delivered to the Justice, and is sentenced
to twenty-two years of prison confinement. The curtain falls, but does
the tragedy end here? No, it only begins.

[4] _Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist_, by Alexander Berkman.
[Mother Earth Company, New York.]

For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.

Raskolnikov wanted to kill a principle; he wanted to rid the world of a
useless old pawnbroker, in order to enable himself to _live_ a useful
life. He failed; the principle remained deadly alive in the form of a
gnawing conscience. “I am an aesthetic louse,” he bitterly denounces
himself. Alexander Berkman wanted to _die_ for a principle, to render
the people a service through his death. He has failed. At least he has
thought so. The Attentat produced neither the material nor the moral
effect that the idealist had expected. Society condemned him, of course;
the strikers, for whose benefit he eagerly gave his life, looked upon
his act as on a grave misfortune that would augment their misery; even
his comrades, except a very few, disapproved of his heroic deed. The icy
reality sobered the naïve Russian. Was it worth while? For the “people?”

The _Memoirs_ have stirred me more profoundly than Dostoevsky’s _Memoirs
from a House of the Dead_, far more than Wilde’s _De Profundis_: the
tragedy here is so much more complex, more appalling in its utter
illogicality. On the other hand the book is written so sincerely, so
heartedly, so ingenuously, that you feel the wings of the martyr’s soul
flapping upon yours. Berkman becomes so near, so dear, that it pains to
think of him. You are with him throughout his vicissitudes; you share
his anguish, loneliness, suicidal moods; your spirit and your body
undergo the same inhuman tortures, the same unnecessary cruelties, that
he describes so simply, so modestly; you rejoice in his pale prison
joys, your heart goes out to the gentle boy, Johnny, who whispers
through the dungeon wall his love for Sashenka; you weep over the death
of Dick, the friendly sparrow whose chirping sounded like heavenly music
to the prisoner; you are filled with admiration and love for the Girl
who hovers somewhere outside like a goddess, “immutable,” devoted,
noble, reserved; you are, lastly, out in the free, and how deeply you
sympathize with the sufferer when he flees human beings and solicitous
friends.... When I read through the bleeding pages, I felt like falling
on my knees and kissing the feet of the unknown, yet so dear, martyr.
Surely, thou hast known suffering....

Don’t sneer at my incurable sentimentality, you happy normal. The
tragedy of Alexander Berkman is common to all of us, transplanted wild
flowers. It is the tragedy of getting the surrogate for the real thing.
Berkman and the Girl passionately kissing the allegorical figure of the
Social Revolution—isn’t this the symbol of the empty grey life in this
normal land? What do you offer the seeking, striving, courageous souls
but surrogates, substitutes? Your radicals—they are nauseating! They
chatter about Nietzsche and Stirner and Whitman, wave the red flag and
scream about individual freedom; but let one of them transgress the
seventh commandment or commit any thing that is not _comme il faut_
according to their code, and lo, the radicalism has evaporated, and the
atavistic mouldy morality has come to demonstrate its wrinkled face. Has
not John Most repudiated the act of his disciple, Berkman, because it
was a _real_ act and not a paper allegory? Of course, Most was
German....

Hush! Were we not going to observe in silence the purple-crimson
crucifixion of autumnal Phoebus? I have been as silent as the Barber of
Scheherezade. Woe me, the Incurable!

IBN GABIROL.

Sufficience

HELEN HOYT

I wish no guardian angel:
I do not seek fairies in the trees:
The trees are enough in themselves.

On Poetry

Aesthetics and Common-Sense

LLEWELLYN JONES

Poetry, we are often told, cannot be defined but—by way of
consolation—can always be recognized. Unfortunately the latter half of
that statement seems no longer true, especially of latter-day poetry.
Fratricidal strife between makers of _vers libre_ and formalists goes on
merrily, while the people whose contribution to poetry is their
appreciation of it—and purchase of it—are not unnaturally playing safe
and buying Longfellow in padded ooze.

I always thought I could recognize authentic poetry on most themes and
even flattered myself that I had some little understanding of the
psychology of its production. Latterly two voices have come to me, one
affirming that I was right in my prejudice that all durable verse should
have content as well as form, should have meaning as well as
sound—though in closest union with the sound,—that, in short, the poet
should be a thinker as well as a craftsman; an emotional thinker, of
course, if that term be permitted, but not a mere clairaudient wielder
of words. And then I heard a voice which bid me forget all that and list
to

Long breaths, in a green and yellow din.

Hastening to give credit where it is due, let me remind the readers of
THE LITTLE REVIEW that this is the last line of a poem by Maxwell
Bodenheim in the last number of that periodical. I trust that Mr.
Bodenheim will forgive me for using him to point a moral and adorn a
critical article, especially as I shall have to compare him with
Wordsworth before I get through, and shall have to ask him whether he is
not carrying the Wordsworthian tradition just a little too far into the
region of the individual and subjective, into the unknown territory of
the most isolated thing in the world: the human mind in those regions of
it which have not been socially disciplined into the categories which
make communication possible between mind and mind.

The other voice which I have mentioned is that of Professor S. B. Gass,
of the University of Nebraska, who writes on Literature as a Fine Art in
_The Mid-West Quarterly_ for July.

Professor Gass takes the very sane position that words are the
socially-created tools—arbitrary symbols, he calls them—to give us “not
the thing itself, but something about the thing—some relationship, some
classification, some generalization, some cause, some effect, some
attribute, something that goes on wholly in the mind and is not
sensuously present in the thing itself.” And that work, he continues, is
thought, and it proceeds by statement. But undoubtedly words have
sensuous sounds and sensuous denotations and connotations. Professor
Gass admits this, but regards their sensuous properties—and especially,
I imagine he would insist, their sensuous sounds based on physiological
accident—as secondary. Hence, to him, Imagism would be a use of words
for purely secondary results. And that is decadence: “Decadence arises
out of the primary pursuit of secondary functions.” Now Wordsworth and
the romantic school generally used words in this way, and so, logically
enough, Professor Gass classifies Wordsworth as a decadent. In doing so
we fear he exhibits an intellect too prone to dichotomize. He cuts human
psychology up into too many and too water-tight compartments. When he
quotes Wordsworth’s

... I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

he seems to forget that there is more in that poem than its imagism—as
we would call it now; that it is record of a personal experience, that
is not only a trespass on the domain of the painter (to speak as if we
agreed with our critic) but that it is a personal reaction to the
picture painted in those words, that it tells us something that no mere
picture could do. The poem, in fact, is a picture plus a story of the
effect of the picture upon a human soul.

But the point in which I agree with Professor Gass is that—whatever the
ultimate purpose of literature, including the lyric; whether, as he
says, it is “a reflection of human nature, intellectual in its mode,
critical in its spirit, and moral in its function”; or whether it is
legitimate to regard its rhythms in words and “secondary” connotations
and associations of words as materials for an art rather than for a
criticism of life—the point beyond all this that I think fundamental is
that literature does what it does—inform, enlighten, or transport—by
understandable statement.

Certainly all appreciation of literature that dares to voice itself—that
is all criticism—must proceed on this supposition, and it is just this
supposition that is flouted by some of Mr. Bodenheim’s poems.

Take the following, for instance:

TO ——

You are a broad, growing sieve.
Men and women come to you to loosen your supple frame,
And weave another slim square into you—
Or perhaps a blue oblong, a saffron circle.
People fling their powdered souls at you:
You seem to lose them, but retain
The shifting shadow of a stain on your rigid lines.

Now obviously there is no sense in this in the ordinary
intellectualistic meaning of the word sense. Unlike most poetry, it
cannot be analyzed into a content which we might say was expressed
suitably or unsuitably in a form. If, then, it be a good poem, we must
look elsewhere for its excellence. I would hesitate to find that
excellence in the mere sound of the words. Is it then in their
associations? Arthur Ransome, the English critic, accounts for the
peculiar effect of poetry by its use of what he calls potential
language—of words which by long association have come to mean more than
they say, that have not only a denotation like scientific words, but a
sometimes definite, sometimes hazy, connotation, an emotional content
over and above what is intellectually given in their purely etymological
content. Does this help us here? I am afraid not. Personally I have
always associated sieves with ashes and garden-earth (there is also a
little triangular sieve that fits into kitchen sinks). Blue oblongs and
saffron circles remind me of advertising posters and futurist pictures;
while—I admit a certain poetic quality of a sort here—powdered souls
remind me of Aubrey Beardsley.

But, perhaps, the ultimate objection to this poem as it stands is the
fact that I have an uneasy suspicion that some printer may have
transposed some of these expressions. For would it not really have made
better sense if the poem had spoken of a saffron oblong and a blue
square? Certainly if I choose to think that that is what it must have
been originally no other reader, on the face of the matter, could
convince me otherwise. While, if another reader told me that Mr.
Bodenheim had once studied geometry and therefore could not possibly
have written about a “slim square”, I would be quite unable to convince
him otherwise.

But—it will be objected—it is quite unfair to any poem to analyze it
word by word. It spoils its beauty. I challenge the assertion, and even
assert the opposite. As a matter of fact, it is only by analysis that we
can tell good poetry from bad poetry. For instance:

Crown him with many crowns
The lamb upon his throne.

Analyze that and it straightway appears the nonsense that it really is.
But, on the other hand, take this poem of Francis Thompson’s (I quote
only a part):

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air—
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?

Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!—
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places;—
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
’Tis ye, ’tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.

Now that poem, it will be observed, is not unrelated in subject to the
two lines quoted just above it. And yet, how it defies any effort to
analyze it out into anything else than itself. Rhythm, cosmic
picturings, the homely metaphors of the dusty road, all combine to place
us in an attitude toward, to give us a feeling for, reality, which is
different from, and nobler than, those of the man who has either never
read this poem, never read the same message in other poetic language,
or—what is more to the point—never managed to get for himself the same
experience which dictated that poem.

For, after all, if I were to agree with Professor Gass that poetry (as a
part of literature) is not a fine art, it would be because I think it
more than a fine art. Because I think the function of poetry is not
merely to be a verbal picture art or a verbal music art, but to be an
organon of reconciliation between art and life. The best poems, I think,
will be found to be those which alter our consciousness in such a way
that our inward, and even our outward, lives are altered. The poet sees
the world as we do not see it. Consequently, he can put a new complexion
on it for us. The world is pluralistic, and so are we. Intellectually we
may be of the twentieth century, but emotionally we may be born out of
our due season. Then let the poet of that due season mediate to us the
emotional life that we need. Living in America, we may, through him,
reach Greece or India. By his aid we may conquer the real world; by his
aid we may flee from it if it threatens to conquer us. By his aid alone
we may get outside of our own skins and into the very heart of the
world.

What, then, shall we say, when poetry offers to conduct us into a world
of growing sieves, slim squares, powdered souls, cool, colorless
struggles, the obstetrical adventures of white throats, and green and
yellow dins?

I have heard of a book which explains the fourth dimension. If I ever
get a chance to read that book, and if I find that I can understand the
fourth dimension, I shall have another shot at the appreciation of this
poetry. For I have a slumbering shadow of a pale-gray idea (if I, too,
may wax poetic) that in the sphere of the fourth dimension a slim square
would be a perfectly possible conception.

I shall arise and go home now and read some poems by the late Mr.
Meredith who is popularly supposed to be obscure.

In Defense of Vers Libre

ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE

(_A reply to “Spiritual Dangers of Writing Vers Libre” by Eunice
Tietjens in the November issue of The Little Review_)

The properly qualified judge of poetry can have no doubts about _vers
libre_; if he doubts it, he is no judge. He belongs to that class of
hide-bound conservatives who are unwilling to discard the old merely
because it is old. He does not yet understand that the newest is always
the best. Worst of all, he does not appreciate the value of Freedom.

Freedom is the greatest of boons to the artist. The soul of the artist
must not be hampered by unnecessary constraints. The old fixed
verse-forms—such as the sonnet, blank verse, and all the other familiar
metres—were exactly as cramping to the free creating spirit of the poet
as the peculiar spaces and arches of the Sistine Chapel were to the
designing instinct of Michael Angelo. Lamentable misfortune! that his
Sibyls had to occupy those awkward corners. How much would they not have
gained in grandeur could they have had all outdoors to expand in!

All outdoors is just what _vers libre_ affords the poet of today. He is
no longer under the necessity of moulding his thought into an artificial
pattern, compressing it to a predetermined form; it can remain fluent,
unsubjugated, formless, like a spontaneous emotional cry. No longer need
he accept such fatal and stereotyped bondage as that under which Milton
labored when the iron mechanics of blank verse forced him to
standardize, to conventionalize, his emotion in such lines as—

O dark dark dark amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day!...

To be honest, we must admit that there was something sickly and
soul-destroying about the earlier verse-forms. The too-honeyed sweetness
and metrical constraint of _Paradise Lost_ has always secretly repelled
the true judge of poetry; and Shakespeare’s Sonnets have never been
thoroughly satisfactory just because of the fatal necessity under which
the author worked, of rhyming his lines in conformity with a fixed
order. How could spiritual originality survive such an ordeal?

It would be unwise, however, to condemn the whole body of past poets;
for certain of the earlier practitioners did, in their rudimentary way,
see the light. Milton in _Sampson Agonistes_, in the midst of passages
of the old-fashioned regular blank verse, introduced several choruses in
_vers libre_; and these could perhaps hardly be surpassed by any English
or American poet now living. As everyone knows, Walt Whitman (see _The
Poets of Barbarism_ by George Santayana) used _vers libre_ profusely. In
fact, there extends backward from us an unbroken chain of distinguished
_vers libre_ tradition, through Whitman, Matthew Arnold, Southey,
Shelley, Milton, and many others; the chain ends only with that first
“probably arboreal” singer just antedating the first discoverer of
regular rhythm. _Vers libre_ is as old as the hills, and we shall always
have it with us.

The one defect of the earlier practitioners of _vers libre_ was that
they did not have the wit to erect it into a cult. They used the free
form only when it seemed to them essentially appropriate to the
matter:—that is to say, they used it sporadically, desultorily. Today we
know better. Today we know that the free form must be used ever and
always. _In hoc signo vinces!_

As a modern poet admirably says—

Those envious outworn souls
Whose flaccid academic pulses
Beat to no rythms of more Dionysiac scope
Than metronomes,—
Or dollar-twenty-five alarm-clocks,—
They will forever
Cavail at novelty, at beauty, at freshness;
But, hell!—
But, a thousand devils!—
But, _Henri Quatre_ and the _Pont Neuf_!—
We of the new age, who leap upon the mountains like goats upon the
heaps of tin cans in the vacant lots, and butt the stars,—
We know they are liars,
And that we are what we are.

Could that be expressed in a sonnet? I think not. At least, it could not
be expressed so vigorously, so wisely, so well.

There is, however, one obvious peril against which the enthusiast must
guard himself. _Vers libre_ is not of itself a complete warranty of
success; because a poem is in this form, it is not necessarily fine
poetry. “Love is enough,” says William Morris; he would not have said
the same about _vers libre_. A certain power of conception, beyond the
brilliant and original idea involved in the very employing of the free
verse-form, is requisite for real importance in the finished product.

Nor is the statement of the poet’s own unique and terrifying importance
a sufficient theme to constitute the burden of all his work. Several of
our most immortal living _vers librists_ have fallen into such an error.
This “ego über alles” concept, though profound and of a startling
originality, lacks variety if it be indefinitely repeated. Should the
poet, however, feel deep in his soul that there is nothing else worth
saying except this, let him at least take care to beautify his idea by
the use of every artifice. After saying “I am I, and great,” let him not
forget to add variety and contrast to the picture by means of the
complementary idea: “You, O world, are you, and contemptible.” In such
minglings of light and shade lies poetry’s special and proper beauty.

_Vers libre_ has one incontestable advantage over all those more
artificial vehicles in which the poets of the past have essayed to ride
into immortality. This newly popular verse-form can be used perfectly
well when the poet is drunk. Let no one of temperate habits
underestimate this advantage; let him think of others. Byron was drunk
most of the time; had he been able to employ a form like this, how many
volumes could he perhaps have added to the mere seventeen that now
constitute his work! Shelley,—seldom alcoholicly affected, I
believe,—was always intoxicated with ideas; he, equipped solely with the
new instrument, could have written many more epics like _Queen Mab_, and
would probably have felt less need of concentrating his work into the
narrow limits of such formalistic poems as _The West Wind_.

Let it be understood that all the principles suggested in this monograph
are intended only for the true devotee of _vers libre_. One can have
nothing but contempt for the poet who, using generally the old-fashioned
metres, turns sometimes to _vers libre_ as a medium, and carries over
into it all those faults of restrained expression and patterned thought
which were the curse of the old forms. Such a writer is beyond hope,
beyond counsel. We can forgive Matthew Arnold, but not a contemporary.

Certain devoted American friends of poetry have been trying for some
time to encourage poetry in this country; and I think they are on the
right track when they go about it by way of encouraging _vers libre_. No
other method could so swiftly and surely multiply the number of our
verse-writers. For the new medium presents no difficulties to anyone;
even the tired business-man will find himself tempted to record his
evening woes in singless song. True, not everyone will be able at first
trial to produce _vers libre_ of the quality that appears in the
choruses of _Sampson Agonistes_:

This, this is he; softly a while;
Let us not break in upon him.
O change beyond report, thought, or belief!
See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused,
With languished head unpropt,
As one past hope, abandoned,
And by himself given over,
In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds
O’er-worn and soiled.
Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he,
That heroic, that renowned,
Irresistible Sampson? whom, unarmed,
No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could withstand?...
Which first shall I bewail,
Thy bondage or lost sight,
Prison within prison
Inseparably dark?

That is indeed admirable, and not so easy to write as it looks. But some
kind of _vers libre_ can be turned out by anyone; and to encourage the
use of this medium will be to encourage and vastly increase that
multitudinous body of humble and industrious versifyers who are at
present the most conspicuous ornament of American literature.

The Decorative Straight-Jacket: Rhymed Verse

MAXWELL BODENHEIM

The clamping of the inevitable strait-jacket, rhymed verse, upon the
shrinking form of poetry has been the pastime of centuries. Those who
would free poetry from the outworn metal bands and let her stretch her
cramped limbs are labeled decadent, slothful, and futile. How easy it is
to paste disagreeable labels upon the things one happens to dislike.

I admit that poetry freed from the bonds she has so long worn may become
vulgar and over-demonstrative. A convict who has just been released from
a penitentiary is perhaps inclined to caper down the road, and split the
air with good red shouts. But after his first excesses he walks slowly,
thinking of the way before him. With some poets free verse is still the
boisterous convict; with others it is already the sober, determined
individual. But I rather like even the laughing convict, looking back
and flinging huge shouts at his imposing but petty prison.

Suppose I were a Bluebeard who had enticed a young girl into my dim
chamber of poetic-thought. Suppose I took the little knife of rhyme and
coolly sliced off one of her ears, two or three of her fingers, and
finished by clawing out a generous handful of her shimmering,
myriad-tinted hair, with the hands of meter. I might afterwards display
her to the world, saying: “Look! Is she not still beautiful, still
almost perfect?” But would that excuse my butchery? The lesson is
perhaps fairly clear. Rhymed verse mutilates and cramps poetry. It is
impossible for even the greatest poet completely to rise above its
limitations. He may succeed in a measure, but that is due to his
strength and not to the useless fetters he wears. But, say the defenders
of the fetters, rhyme and meter are excellent disciplines. Does Poetry
or does the Poet need to be disciplined? Are they cringing slaves who
cannot be trusted to walk alone and unbound? These are obvious things,
but one must sometimes be obvious when speaking to those who still
possess a childish belief. Poetry is not determined by the monotonous
form in which it is usually clothed, but by the strength or weakness of
its voice. Because men have foolishly placed this voice in the mouth of
a child, wearing a dress with so many checks on it, and a hat the
blackness of which matches the ebony of its ugly shoes, it does not
necessarily follow that the voice becomes miraculously changed when
placed in some other mouth, whose owner wears a different garb. Then
there is the rhythm difficulty. If the little child, Rhyme and Meter,
does not swing his foot in time to what he is saying, adding rhythm, his
words, according to some, change from poetry to prose. What delightful
superstitions!

Poets can undoubtedly rise to great heights, in spite of the fact that
they must replace stronger words with weaker ones, because “passion”
does not rhyme with “above,” but “love” does. But how much higher could
they rise if they were free? I do not say that to eliminate rhyme,
meter, and rhythm is to make the way absolutely clear. The Poet must
still be a Poet to climb. Nor do I say that if the Poet finds that
rhyme, rhythm, and meter happen almost to fit his poetic thoughts, he
must not use them. I only say that the poet who finds that the usual
forms of poetry confine and mar his poetic thoughts should be able to
discard them without receiving the usual chorus of sneers, and that if
he does he is not miraculously changed from a poet to a writer of prose.

Harriet Monroe’s Poetry

EUNICE TIETJENS

_You and I_, by Harriet Monroe. [The Macmillan Company, New York.]

Right here in Chicago, under our very noses, there is dwelling
personified a Real Force. It is done up in a neat and compact little
package, as most real forces are that are not of the Krupp variety, and
it works with so little fuss and fury that it takes some discernment to
recognize it for a force at all. Nevertheless it is a power which is
felt throughout the length and breadth of the country, in California, in
Florida, in Canada, and in England. And wherever it is felt it is a
liberating force, a force that ruthlessly shatters the outworn
conventions of the art in which it operates, that tears away the tinsel
trappings and bids art and beauty spring forth clean and untrammeled, to
forge for themselves new forms that shall be fitting for the urge of
today.

The name by which this force is known in every day parlance is Miss
Harriet Monroe, and its manifestations are twofold—as poet and as
editor. As editor she has created and kept alive the courageous little
magazine _Poetry: A Magazine of Verse_, which might almost, so far as
Chicago is concerned, be called the spiritual older sister of THE LITTLE
REVIEW. It, too, in its own field, stands for the revolt of today
against the hide-bound spirit of yesterday, and it, too, is a thorn in
the side of the Philistines.

The most recent manifestation of Miss Monroe’s influence is, however, in
her character as poet. She has collected together a large number of
poems, most of which have already appeared in the leading magazines and
have been widely copied, and has brought them out under the title _You
and I_. Seeing them so collected, one is much better able to get a
perspective on the poems themselves, and on the very interesting
personality behind them. And they bulk large. Unquestionably this is one
of the most important of the recent books of poetry.

_You and I_ is essentially modern in spirit and in treatment. Miss
Monroe has the power of looking with the eyes of the imagination at many
of our modern institutions. _The Hotel_, _The Turbine_, _The Panama
Canal_, _The Ocean Liner_—these are some of the subjects she treats with
a real understanding and a sweep of vision that quite transfigures these
work-a-day objects. And she is equally at home when writing of the great
emotional complexity of _State Street at Night_ or the simpler but more
profound poignancy of the _Elegy for a Child_. Indeed, one of the
noticeable things about the book is the unusually large range of themes
treated.

There is also in this book the primal, but unfortunately rare, gift of
wonder. This is one of the essential qualities of true poetry, and it
furnishes Miss Monroe with the key-note of the book, an open-eyed,
courageous facing of fate, and an unshakable belief in the redeeming
power of beauty.

This little lyric may serve as an introduction to the spirit of the
book:

THE WONDER OF IT

How wild, how witch-like weird that life should be!
That the insensate rock dared dream of me,
And take to bursting out and burgeoning—
Oh, long ago——yo ho!——
And wearing green! How stark and strange a thing
That life should be!

Oh mystic mad, a rigadoon of glee,
That dust should rise, and leap alive, and flee
Afoot, awing, and shake the deep with cries—
Oh, far away—yo hay!
What moony mask, what arrogant disguise
That life should be!

Scharmel Iris: Italian Poet

MILO WINTER

Scharmel Iris, the first of the Italians in America to write poetry in
English is a Florentine who was brought to Chicago when but an infant.
Before his tenth year his poems attracted attention and were warmly
praised by such men as Ruskin, Swinburne and Gosse. Later Francis
Thompson and Richard Le Gallienne expressed appreciation. These poems
which originally appeared in leading publications of England and America
are gathered together for the first time and printed by the Ralph
Fletcher Seymour Company (Fine Arts Building, Chicago; $1.00 net). The
volume, entitled _Lyrics of a Lad_, contains his most desirable and
characteristic lyrics and is a serious contribution to our poetic
literature. These poems came to be respected as art through their
freshness and originality—there are no trite, worn-out, meaningless
phrases, or words of an abstract, generalized significance. Immortal
beauty is a vision in his eyes and a passion in his heart, and he has
labored to reveal it to the world. Art is a creation of men’s minds, and
because Mr. Iris’s creation is direct and spontaneous it becomes greater
art. This volume is not post-Miltonic or post-Swinburnian or
post-Kiplonian. This young poet has the good sense to speak naturally
and to paint things as he sees them. Because this book is Scharmel Iris
it is distinctive. It is without sham and without affectation. The
announcement of its publication and his poems in THE LITTLE REVIEW
brought the publisher three-hundred orders. The book, slender and
well-printed, has more real poetry than any volume of modern verse it
has been our good fortune to read.

It is difficult to do an important book justice in a short article.
Perhaps a miscellaneous quotation of lines will help:

The thrush spills golden radiance
From boughs of dusk;

The day was a chameleon;

In sweat and pangs the pregnant, Night
Brings forth the wondrous infant, Light;

Within the sunset-press, incarnadine,
The sun, a peasant, tramples out his wine;

You are the body-house of lust;

Where twilight-peacocks lord the place
Spendthrifts of pride and grace;

And lo, at Heaven’s blue-windowed house
God sets the moon for lamp;

The sunbeams sought her hair,
And rested there;

These mute white Christs—the daily crucified;

Lucretia Borgia fair
The poppy is.

The sunbeams dance in dawn’s ballet;

While sunset-panthers past her run
To caverns of the Sun;

When from the husk of dusk I shake the stars;

O dusk, you brown cocoon,
Release your moth, the moon,

Ah, since that night
When to her window, she came forth as light,
Have I been Beauty’s acolyte;

and there are many other striking lines. In _The Visionary_ a poet
steals the pennies on a dead man’s eyes to buy himself bread, and, after
his death, the money denied him in life is in turn placed on his
sightless eyes. It is irony of the bitterest sort. _Late January_ is an
excellent landscape—interpretive rather than descriptive.
_Scarlet—White_ is struck at the double standard, and is a strong and
powerful utterance. _April_, _Canzonette_, _Lady of the Titian Hair_ are
exquisite and charming lyrics. Three graceful compositions are _The
Heart-Cry of the Celtic Maid_, _Tarantella_ and _Song for a Rose_. _The
Ugly Woman_ will cause discussion, but it is good art. The trio of
_Spring Songs_ and _Her Room_ are well nigh perfect. _Mary’s Quest_ is
very tender, as is also the _Twilight Lullaby_. _The Leopard_, _Fantasy
of Dusk and Dawn_, _The Forest of the Sky_ are wonderfully imaginative,
and were written in Chicago,—in the grime and barrenness of Halsted
Street. There is a poignant thing of five lines, a mother who is going
blind over the death of a son. Her despair is hopeless and tragic—she
makes a true and awful picture of realism in her grief. _Heroes_ treats
of the nameless heroes, daily met and overlooked. The love poems are
sincere as all love poems must be. In _Foreboding_ the note of sadness
is emphatic—almost dominant; but there is more than mere sadness in it;
it is not a minor note. It is tragedy, really, that speaks in such
poetry:

Her cold and rigid hands
Will be as iron bands
Around her lover’s heart;

and

O’er thee will winter through the sky’s gray sieve
Sift down his charity of snow.

_The Mad Woman_ (printed in _Poetry_) is as excellent as it is unusual,
and few finer things have been done in any literature.

There is a fine flowing harmony about the poetry of Scharmel Iris that
denotes a power far beyond that revealed by many of today’s singers. The
poems are colorful and certainly musical and they display an adequate
technique. Such a gift as his, revealed in a number of very fine
achievements, gives promise of genuine greatness. After many years of
discouragement and the hardest work, he has at last found a publisher
who bears the cost of the edition, purely on the merit of the work. It
contains a preface by Dr. Egan, American minister in Copenhagen, an
attractive title-page decoration by Michele Greco, and a photogravure
portrait of the author. By advancing the work of living poets like Mr.
Iris one can repay the debt he owes to the old poets. This poetry (as
THE LITTLE REVIEW remarked) is not merely the sort which interests or
attracts; it remains in your mind as part of that art treasure-house
which is your religion and your life.

The Poetry of T. Sturge Moore

In an early number of THE LITTLE REVIEW a correspondent remarked that an
article I had the honor of contributing sounded a rather curious note
inasmuch as it was a piece of pure criticism in a magazine deliberately
given over to exuberance.

Well, it is now my turn to stand up for exuberance as against a
contributor, A. M., who gives the poetry of T. Sturge Moore criticism
only, and, in my humble opinion, criticism as unfair as would be a
description of Notre Dame rendered altogether in terms of gargoyles and
their relative positions.

Would it not be more in the spirit of THE LITTLE REVIEW to point out in
the title poem of Mr. Moore’s book, _The Sea is Kind_, such passages as
the two following:

_Eucritos_—

Thou knowest, Menalcas,
I built my hut not sheltered but exposed,
Round not right-angled.
A separate window like a mouth to breathe,
No matter whence the breeze might blow,—
A separate window like an eye to watch
From off the headland lawn that prompting wink
Of Ocean musing “Why,” wherever he
May glimpse me at some pitiable task.
Long sea arms reach behind me, and small hills
Have waded half across the bay in front,
Dividing my horizon many times
But leaving every wind an open gate.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

There is a sorcery in well loved words:
But unintelligible music still
Probes to the buried Titan in the heart
Whose strength, the vastness of forgotten life,
Suffers but is not dead;
Tune stirs him as no thought of ours nor aught
Mere comprehension grasps, can him disquiet.

And these are parts of a dramatic poem full of fresh figures, colorful
glimpses of the romance of ancient life, and what a school-boy would
describe as a “perfectly corking” description of a sea fight with dead
men slowly dropping through the green water—

As dead bird leaf-resisted
Shot on tall plane tree’s top,
Down, never truly stopping,
Through green translucence dropping,
They often seemed to stop.

And how, again could any thorough searcher of this book fail to mention
that delightful recipe for wine “Sent From Egypt with a Fair Robe of
Tissue to a Sicilian Vine-dresser, 276 B. C.” And surely no obscurity
nor any uncouthness of figure—such as your critic objects to, as if
poets did not have the faults of their virtues—mar those beautiful child
poems:

That man who wishes not for wings,
Must be the slave of care;
For birds that have them move so well
And softly through the air:
They venture far into the sky,
If not so far as thoughts or angels fly.

Were William Cory making a prediction rather than “An Invocation” when
he ended his poem of that title with the line:

Two minds shall flow together, the English and the Greek.

I would feel like nominating Mr. T. Sturge Moore as its fulfillment.

LLEWELLYN JONES.

Amy Lowell’s Contribution

_Sword Blades and Poppy Seed_, by Amy Lowell. [The Macmillan
Company, New York.]

... And Amy Lowell’s new volume of verse refutes all the critical
disparagement of _vers libre_, imagism, or “unrhymed cadence,” as Miss
Lowell herself chooses to call her work. For she demonstrates that it is
something new—that it is a clear-eyed workmanship which belongs
distinctly to this keener age of ours. Miss Lowell’s technical debt to
the French—to the so-called Parnassian school—has been paid in a
poetical production that will put to shame our hackneyed and slovenly
“accepted” poets. Most of the poems in her book are written in _vers
libre_, and this is the way Miss Lowell analyzes them: “They are built
upon ‘organic rhythm,’ or the rhythm of the speaking voice with its
necessity for breathing, rather than upon a strict metrical system. They
differ from ordinary prose rhythms by being more curved and containing
more stress. The stress, and exceedingly marked curve, of any regular
metre is easily perceived. These poems, built upon cadence, are more
subtle, but the laws they follow are not less fixed. Merely chopping
prose lines into lengths does not produce cadence; it is constructed
upon mathematical and absolute laws of balance and time. In the preface
to his Poems, Henley speaks of ‘those unrhyming rythms in which I had
tried to quintessentialize, as (I believe) one scarce can do in rhyme.’
The desire to ‘quintessentialize,’ to head-up an emotion until it burns
white-hot, seems to be an integral part of the modern temper, and
certainly ‘unrhymed cadence’ is unique in its power of expressing this.”

Take Miss Lowell’s _White and Green_, for example:

Hey! My daffodil-crowned,
Slim and without sandals!
As the sudden spurt of flame upon darkness
So my eyeballs are startled with you,
Supple-limbed youth among the fruit-trees,
Light runner through tasselled orchards.
You are an almond flower unsheathed
Leaping and flickering between the budded branches.

Or _Absence_:

My cup is empty tonight,
Cold and dry are its sides,
Chilled by the wind from the open window.
Empty and void, it sparkles white in the moonlight.
The room is filled with the strange scent
Of wistaria blossoms.
They sway in the moon’s radiance
And tap against the wall.
But the cup of my heart is still,
And cold, and empty.

When you come, it brims
Red and trembling with blood,
Heart’s blood for your drinking;
To fill your mouth with love
And the bitter-sweet taste of a soul.

—M. C. A.

Star Trouble

HELEN HOYT

A little star
Came into the heaven
At the close of even.
It seemed not very far,
And it was young and soft.
But the gray
Got in its way,
So that I longed to reach my hand aloft
And push the clouds by
From its little eye,
From its little soft ray.

Parasite

CONRAD AIKEN

Nine days he suffered. It was in this wise.—
He, being scion to Homer in our time,
Must needs be telling tales, in prose or rhyme;
He was a pair of large blue hungry eyes.
Money he had, enough to live in ease;—
Drank wine occasionally; would often sit—
Child and critic alternate—in the Pit:
Cheap at a half-crown he thought feasts like these.
Plays held him by the throat—and cinemas too—
They blanched his face and made him grip his seat;
And oh, fine music to his soul was sweet—
He said, “His ears towards that music _grew_!”
And he kept watch with stars night after night,
Spinning tales from the little of life he knew.—
Of modern life he was the parasite.

Subtle his senses were—yea, like a child,
Sudden his spirit was to cry or laugh;
Strange modern blending of the tame and wild;
As sensitive to life as seismograph.
His sympathies were keen and sweet and quick,
He could play music subtly in your mood;
Raw life, to him, was often strange and rude—
Slight accidents could make him white and sick.
Unreasoning, but lovable was he;—
Men liked him, he was brave; and yet withal
When brute truth stunned him, he could cringe and crawl;
When most he loved the world, he least could see.
Now let him speak himself, as he well can,
In his queer modern style of poesy.—
Then judge him, you, as poet and as man.

* * * * *

There was a woman lived by Bloomsbury Square,—
She was not all that womankind can be,—
Yet she was good to me, I thought her fair,—
I loved her, she was all the world to me;
O, I was adoration, she divine,
And star or moon could not so sweetly shine.

I will say little—it was neither’s fault—
Yet to a bitter time my loving came,
A time of doubt, of faltering, of halt,
A time of passionate begging and of shame,
When I threw all life’s purpose at her feet,
And she stood strange to me, and cold and sweet—

Child that I was! for when it came, that hour,
It was in no wise as my heart had thought—
For comic devils had me in their power,
She laughed at me, we wrangled, and I fought,
And there was hot breath gasped in murderous words....
It was at dusk, when sweetly sang the birds....

Then there was silence—oh, how still and cold!
Without good-bye I went; for she had said—
“Young fool!”—that was a rapier-turn that told;
I could have killed her, for she knew I bled—
And smiled a little, as I turned away;
We have not known each other since that day.

I had expected, if my love went wrong,
The world in sympathy; I suffered pain
That evening when I heard the birds in song,
And stars swam out, and there was no hope for rain,
And the air was dense with lilac-sweet.... I walked
In sullen way; fierce with my soul I talked—;

And knew what knave I was; yet I devised,
Being still too angry for sincerer grief,
Some pain,—appropriate for a soul despised,—
In simulated venom crushed a leaf,—
And glared at strangers, thinking I would kill
Any that dared to thwart my casual will.

So, passing through dark streets, with heedless eyes,
I came upon a beggar, who had drawn
Pictures, upon the stones, of ships, and skies;
The moonlight lay upon them, grey and wan—
And they seemed beautiful, alive they seemed;
Beside them, cap in hand, their maker dreamed.

Above him there a long, long while I stood,
Striving to go, like dream-stuff, to his heart;
Striving to pierce his infinite solitude,
To be of him, and of his world, a part;
I stood beside his seas, beneath his skies,
I felt his ships beneath me dip and rise;

I heard his winds go roaring through tall trees,
Thunder his sails, and drive the lifted spray;
I heard the sullen beating of his seas;
In a deep valley, at the end of day,
I walked through darkness green along with him,
And saw the little stars, by moon made dim,

Peer softly through the dusk, the clouds between,
And dance their dance inviolable and bright;
Aloft on barren mountains I have seen
With him the slow recession of the night,
The morning dusk, the broad and swimming sun,
And all the tree-tops burn, and valleys run

With wine of daybreak; he and I had kept
Vigil with stars on bitter frosty nights:
The stars and frost so burned, we never slept,
But cursed the cold, and talked, and watched the lights
Down in the valleys, passing to and fro,
Like large and luminous stars that wandered slow....

Rising at dawn, those times, we had no fire,—
And we were cold,—O bitter times were those,—
And we were rained on, and we walked through mire,
Or found a haystack, there to lie and doze;
Until at evening, with a let of rain,
We shivered awake, and limped, with crying pain,

To farms, and begged a meal.... if they were kind
We warmed ourselves, and maybe were allowed
The barn to sleep in.... I was nearly blind,
Sometimes, with need to sleep—sometimes so cowed
By pain and hunger that for weeks on end
I’d work in the fields,—and maybe lose my friend:

Live steady for a while and flesh my bones,
And reap or plough, or drive the cattle home,
And weed the kitchen patch, and pile up stones;
But always it must end, and I must roam;
One night, as still as stars, I rose, was gone,
They had no trace of me at come of dawn,

And I was out once more in wind and weather,
Brother of larks and leaves and dewy ferns,
Friends of the road I had, we begged together,
And slept together, and tended fire by turns:
O, they were rare times, bitter times were they,
Winding the open road day after day!

And then I came to London.... Sick, half dead,
Crossing a street I shocked with dizzy pain,
With fury of sound, and darkness ... then in bed
I woke; there was a long white counterpane;
I heard, impassively, the doctors talk.
From that day, without crutch, I could not walk.

O, the sick-hearted times that took me then!
The days, like vultures, sat to watch me dying.
It seemed as if they lived to feed on men.
I found no work, it seemed so useless trying.
And I got sick of hearing doorbells ring:
Begging in London was a hopeless thing.

Once I had driven: I tried to get a job
At driving ’busses, but there wasn’t any;
Sometimes, by washing wheels, I earned a bob;
Sometimes held horses for a stingy penny;
And it was hard to choose between the bed
That penny paid for, and a bite of bread.

Often I hid in parks, and slept on benches,
After the criers had wailed and passed me by;
And it was cold, but better than the stenches
Of ten men packed in one room like a sty.
Twice, I was caught and jailed. It wasn’t bad,
Come to think of the cot and bread I had.

But O the weariness, day in, day out,
Watching the people walking on so cold,
So full of purpose, deaf to even a shout,—
It was their utter heedlessness that told;
It made me white at heart and sick with hate.
Some guiltily looked away; some walked so straight

They never knew I lived, but trod my shadow,
Brushed at the laces that I tried to sell....
O God, could I but then have seen a meadow,
Or walked erect in woods, it had been well,
These wretched things I might have then forgiven,
Nor spread my shadow betwixt them and heaven....

I failed at hawking.... somehow, I never sold....
I wasn’t shaped for it by Him that makes.
I tried with matches, toys, sham studs of gold,—
I failed; it needs a fakir to sell fakes.
The bitter pennies that I saved for buying
Were going to hell, and my whole soul was dying.

I tried to steal a sleep, without my penny,
One night at John’s. I hadn’t fed all day.
It was a shrewish winter night, and rainy.
John found me out and swore. I said I’d pay
Next afternoon, or die—he said I’d die....
O, I was longing for a place to lie!...

He pushed me to the door and opened it,
His stinking arm was smothered round my face,
And then I raged and swung my crutch and hit,
He only laughed and knocked me into space.
When I came to, Joe Cluer bathed my head,
And he had paid my penny, so he said.

Joe Cluer was a man—God help him now,
Pneumonia got him down last year and took him.
But he had colored chalks, and taught me how
To draw on stones; sometimes the d.t.’s shook him
So hard he couldn’t draw, himself, but show
The way it’s done.... That’s how I made a go.

And we’d steal out together, he and I,
And draw before the crowds began to come.
At first he helped me. But as time went by
Drink made him worse, and I would help him some:
I drew him six on paper, in the end,
And he would take them out, and just pretend

To draw a little on the dewy stones....
But it was useless, for the stones were wet,
And he just wasted chalk, and chilled his bones,
His hand shook ... O, I can see him yet ...
Cramping his fingers down with hellish pain
To write out “My Own Talent,” large and plain.

Sometimes, to go out early, it was fun,
When it was not too cold, on autumn days
When leaves were rustling downward, and the sun
Came rising red and paley through the haze....
The streets were fairly quiet, the people few,
There was a smell of dead leaves damp with dew....

And I’d draw, singing, places I had seen,
The places that I walked when I was free,
And of my colors best I loved the green,—
O, it would break my heart to draw a tree
Growing in fields, and shaking off the sun,
With cattle standing under, one and one....

And roads I loved to draw,—the white roads winding
Away up, beautifully, through blue hills;
Queer, when I drew them I was always minding
The happy things, forgetting all the ills,
And I’d think I was young again, and strong,
Rising at smell of dawn to walk along....

To walk along in the cool breath of dawn,
Through dusk mysterious with faint song of birds....
Out of the valleys, mist was not yet gone,—
Like sleeping rivers; it were hard for words
To say that quiet wonder, and that sleep,
And I alone, walking along the steep,

To see and love it, like the God who made!...
And I would draw the sea—when I was young
I lived by sea. Its long slow cannonade
Sullen against the cliffs, as the waves swung,
I heard now, and the hollow guttural roar
Of desolate shingle muttering down the shore....

And the long swift waves unfurled in smother of white,
Snow, streaked with green, and sea-gulls shining high,—
And their keen wings,—I minded how, in flight,
They made a whimpering sound; and the clean sky,
Swept blue by winds—O what would I have given
To change this London pall for that sweet heaven!

And I kept thinking of a Devon village
That snuggled in a sea-side deep ravine,
With the tall trees above, and the red tillage,
And little houses smothered soft in green,
And the fishers talking, biding for the tides,
And mackerel boats all beached upon their sides.

And it was pleasure edged with lightning pain
To draw these things again in colored chalk,
And I would sometimes think they lived again,
And I would think “O God, if I could walk,
It’s little while I’d linger in this street
Giving my heart to bitterly wounding feet....”

And shame would gnaw me that I had to do it.
O there were moments when I could have cried
To draw the thing I loved—and yet, I drew it;
But how I longed to say I hadn’t lied,
That I had been and seen it, that I wanted
To go again, that through my dreams it haunted,

That it was lovely here, but lovelier far
Under its own sky, sweet as God had made.
It hurt me keenly that I had to mar
With gritty chalk, and smutchy light and shade,
On grimy pavings, in a public square,
What shone so purely yonder in soft air!

And yet I drew—year after year I drew;
Until the pictures, that I once so loved,
Though better drawn, seemed not of things I knew,
But dreamed perhaps; my heart no longer moved;
And it no longer mattered if the rain
Wiped out what I had drawn with so much pain.

I only care to find the best-paid places,
To get there first and get my pictures done,
And then sit back and hate the pallid faces,
And shut my eyes to warm them, if there’s sun,
And get the pennies saved for harder times,—
Winter in London is no joke, by crimes.

It’s hellish cold. Your hands turn blue at drawing.
You’re cramped; and frost goes cutting to your bones.
O you would pray to God for sun and thawing
If you had sat and dithered on these stones,
And wanted shoes and not known how to get them,
With these few clothes and winter rains to wet them.

You come and try it, you just come and try!
O for one day if you would take my place!
If we could only change once, you and I,
You, with your soft white wrists and delicate face!
One day of it, my man, and like Joe Cluer,
Pneumonia’d get you and you’d die, that’s sure.

O God, if on dark days you yet remember
So small and base a thing as I, who pray,
Though of myself I am but now the ember—
For my great sorrows grant me this, that they
Who look upon me may be shaken deep
By sufferings; O let me curse their sleep,

A devil’s dance, a demon’s wicked laughter,—
To haunt them for a space; so they may know
How sleek and fat their spirits are; and after,
When they have prospered of me, I will go;
Grant me but this, and I am well content.
Then strike me quickly, God, for I am spent.

Yet,—lift me from these streets before I die.
For the old hunger takes me, and I yearn
To go where swelling hills are, and blue sky,
And slowly walk in woods, and sleep in fern;
To wake in fern, and see the larks go winging,
Vanish in sunlight, and still hear them singing!

So die; and leave behind me no more trace
Than stays of chalkings after night of rain;
Even myself, I hardly know their place
When I go back next day to draw again;
Only the withered leaves, which the rain beat,
And the grey gentle stones, with rain still sweet.

* * * * *

So for nine days I suffered this man’s curse,
And lived with him, and lived his life, and ached;
And this vicarious suffering was far worse
Than my own pain had been.... But when I waked,
His pain, my sorrow, were together flown;
My grief had lived and died; and the sun shone.

There was a woman lived by Bloomsbury Square—
She is no more to me; I could not sorrow
To think, I loved this woman, she was fair;
All grief I had was grief that I could borrow—
A beggar’s grief. With him, all these long years,
I lived his life of wretchedness and tears.

Personality

GEORGE BURMAN FOSTER

A powerful appeal to peoples, especially to the German peoples, it was
with this that the nineteenth century began. Still in the eighteenth
century there were no peoples, only dynasties, courts. All life revolved
around these courts. On the crumbs that fell from royal tables, peoples
lived. For the sake of these crumbs, peoples crawled and crouched and
cringed. Then came the Corsican! He trod under foot all these gracious
sovereigns. The greater selfishness of the giant swallowed up the
selfishness of the pygmies. Germany was still but an historical memory.
Europe seemed to have but one will: the will of Napoleon. In the
collapse of dynasties, peoples began to consider themselves. Preachers
of repentance arose who interpreted the sufferings of the people in a
way that could be understood. The Napoleonic thunder awoke them from the
sleep of centuries. There came the prophet Fichte with his
ever-memorable _Reden an die deutsche Nation_. A living divine breath
blew over the dead bones of the Fatherland until they became alive
again. And as the people considered and reflected upon themselves, and
showed the astonished world that they were still there, the judgment
that was executed against the royal courts was turned against their
executor. The German phoenix arose from its ashes, the people revealed
their unwithering power, their eternal life. A rebirth of the people’s
life, this was the program of the major prophet Fichte. Folk culture,
folk education, this was to create a new self within the folk, a free
self, dependent upon a life of its own, instead of a self that was
unfree, dismembered, unsettled. And all the best, freest, noblest
spirits went about the work with a will to renew the folk life in head
and heart and hand.

Did this work succeed? Was even an auspicious beginning made? Or, was a
false path taken from the very start? Confessedly opinions deviate most
widely as to all this. But among those who consider this work as
abortive and bungling, no one has aired his displeasure—if not, indeed,
his disgust and distemper—so energetically as _Friedrich Nietzsche_. The
Germans grew proud of their folk schools, where every one could learn to
read and write, if nothing more. But Nietzsche raged: “Everybody can
learn to read and write today, which in the long run ruins not only the
writing, but the thinking as well!” The Germans founded libraries, built
reading halls, and art institutes, that the spiritual treasures of
humanity might be as widely available as possible. But Nietzsche
scoffed: “Once there was the Spirit of God, now—through its introduction
into the masses it has become _Pöbel_, the vulgar plebeian mob!” He even
called the whole German culture _pöbelhaft_, vulgar, coarse, plebeian;
German manners, unlike French, inelegant and unrefined; ochlocracy or
mobocracy, the democratic instinct of modern civilization—to Nietzsche,
the grave of all genuine human life.

In the tendency of the times there is undoubtedly the danger of leveling
men, of uniformizing their culture, consequently of externalizing their
culture. Nietzsche’s aversion to this tendency is understandable, and is
well worth laying to heart. For example, religion ecclesiasticized is
disspiritualized; morals conventionalized are degraded; so is art; so is
even science, as is seen in the “science made easy” cults and courses.
Nietzsche made it the special business of his life to dam back this
current in the affairs of our modern world. To him, the preaching of the
equality of all men was the most dangerous lie of the last century.
Therefore, he preached the inequality of all men; required of men that
they should not be ironed out to the same smoothness, that they should
not all be hand and glove with each other, but on the contrary, that
they should be aware of their manifold inequalities, keep their
distances, and that thus great and small might be clear as to their real
differences. _Not_ liberty, equality, fraternity, but the _Eigenheit_,
the peculiarity, the uniqueness, the _own-ness_ of the human
personality, the right of man to his _Eigenheit_, the pleasure in its
unfolding and formation—this was to be the watchword of the new culture.

This was what Nietzsche required. He based his requirement upon the fact
that every man is an unrepeatable miracle. He never was before, he never
will be again, except in his own self. This fact is almost self-evident.
It must be kept in mind especially when we place a man into relation
with his surroundings. A man cannot possibly be explained merely as a
result of his environment. No man can be so explained, least of all a
superior individual who has awakened to a self-conscious life, of
distinctive personality, and who is inwardly aware of the mystery of his
own person. Here scientific inquiry, with its descriptions and
explanations, halts. At this point science ceases and we must resort to
intuition and interpretation of life’s deepest mysteries.

Nietzsche was right in his requirement. Man is an unrepeatable miracle.
But may we not go even further than Nietzsche did? All life is peculiar
and singular and unique. Behold the billowy field of grain! Countless
stalks bend to the breeze. The whole seems to be but a great homogeneous
mass. But take any two of these stalks and consider them more minutely,
compare them with each other. Each is something special, something with
an individual life of its own. Pluck an ear from the stalk. One grain is
side by side with another, one looks for all the world just like
another. But, in fact, no one is just like another. And from each grain
a special stalk grows, so special that the like of it was never in the
world before. Or, you wander along the beach. Innumerable are the grains
of sand on the shore of the sea. The multitude of grains form indeed a
uniform mass, so uniform that its very uniformity wearies and pains the
eye, if it is looked at for long. But look sharply, consider any two of
these grains of sand. Each is something for itself. In the whole
illimitable mass, you find no second grain just like the first. What is
true of the little grains of sand is true of every drop in the wide and
deep sea; true of every mote in the air, of every least particle in vast
shoreless cosmic spaces. Then, too, there are the stars—one star differs
from another star in glory, as Paul saw and said long ago.

All this I call the wealth of nature, the wealth, if you will, of God.
In this eternal life, nothing is ever repeated or duplicated. This I
call infinite creative power. Never and nowhere does the weaving and
waxing world deal with copies. Everywhere and everywhen the world
creates an original fontal life of its very own.

Then should not man be awakened to such a life—man in whose eyes and
soul all this singular and peculiar life is mirrored? Should it be man’s
lot alone to be excluded from all this superabounding fulness of
original life? Should he be offended at what is a blessing to all other
creatures, fear their fulness, find the true task of his life in the
renunciation of this fulness? To be sure, the centripetal, solidaric
forces of life do indeed awaken in man. With the breadth of his spirit
man spans the greatest and the least, compares the likest and the
unlikest, combines the nearest and the farthest. But, for all that, he
would sin against life, he would commit spiritual suicide, were he to
use this systematic power of thought to overpaint gray in gray the
variegated world with its colorful magnificence, to make everything in
his own world so similar, so uniform and so unicolored, everything that
was divinely destined and created for an existence of its own. From
everything that was repeated or duplicated in the world would ascend an
accusation to God in whose life all human life was rooted. We who would
thus be only a repetition of another would have the feeling that we were
so much too much, that we were superfluous in the world! For the proof
that we are not superfluous in life is to be found in the fact that no
one else can be put into our place, can be confounded with us, that
there is a gap in life, in the heart, into which no one else can fit,
and that if ever another does occupy our place in life, the gap abides,
surviving as the only trace of our existence in the human heart,
corresponding to our image and our nature. To be superfluous in the
world, to fill therein no place of one’s own, to drift and drag about
with this feeling—the feeling of all this is alone the real damnation of
life, the worst hell that there is in this or in any other world. But
the feeling, even with the minimum capital of life, which yet we may
call our own—the feeling that one makes a necessary, organic,
irreplaceable contribution to the possessions of humanity, this is life
indeed; who has this life, and keeps it alive, knows more joy and bliss
than any other heaven can guarantee.

A life of one’s own that shall yet serve the life of all—there is the
consummation devoutly to be wished! In these days we hear much about
decadence and the decadent. What does that mean? At bottom, the decadent
seeks to escape the diremption of the modern man between the individual
and the social, by affirming the former and negating the latter. The
individual, the social cell, detaches itself from the whole
organization, from the social body, without considering that he thereby
dooms himself to death. The cell can just as little exist without the
organism, as the organism without the cell. Decadence is the last word
which anti-social individualism has to say to our time. The history of
this individualism is the judgment of this individualism. The man who
fundamentally detaches himself from society cuts the arteries of life.
Still the man must be his own man, and not another, even that he may
give a service of his own to society, as a cell must be its own cell and
not another if it is to construct and constitute the organism of which
it is so small a part. Besides, man is not entirely like a cell. He is
in an important sense a supersocial being, as the cell is not
super-organic. So we may as well go on with our discussion of the
Nietzschean uniqueness and _own-ness_ of personality. Personality is
both super-individual and supersocial. We have its truth in
value-judgment and not simply in existence-judgment.

Somewhere in the old forgotten gospels there is a grim stirring word:
Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is broad and the road is wide
that leads to destruction, and many enter that way. But the road that
leads to life is both narrow and close, and there are few who find it.

Yes, indeed! It is a narrow, a very narrow gate through which men enter
into life; a small, a very small path that leads to this narrow gate.
There is room for only one man at a time—only one! There is one
precaution with which man must sharpen all his wits, if he is to have
regard for the way, so that he may at no moment lose sight of the way;
or if his feet are not to lose their hold and slip, if he is not to grow
dizzy and plunge into the abyss. This is not every man’s thing; it costs
stress and strain and tension; it needs sharp eyes, cool head, firm and
brave heart. It is much easier to stroll along the broad way, where one
keeps step with another, where many wander along together; and if there
but be one that is the guide of all, then of course all follow that one
step by step. On this broad way no one need take upon himself any
responsibility for the right way. Should the leader mislead his blind
followers, the latter would disbelieve their own eyes rather than their
leader, would “confess” that the false broad way was nevertheless the
right way, rather than condemn their own blindness and indolence. These
are the _Herdenmenschen_, the herd men who cannot understand that there
is a strength which only the man feels who stands alone. These are the
men who have no stay in themselves and seek their stay, therefore, in
dependence upon others; possess no supplies of their own, and ever
therefore only consume the capital which others amass.

Friedrich Nietzsche summoned men out and away from this herd. Friedrich
Nietzsche warned men of the broad way and guided their minds to the
solitary paths which are difficult and perilous indeed, but along which
the true life is to be lived. These small paths, these are the paths of
the creative: “Where man becomes a new force, and a new law, a wheel
rolling of itself, and a first mover!” There every force of his being
becomes a living creative force. No thought is repeated, no feeling, no
decision, is a copy of something which was before. This is a new faith
in man. He does not need to live by borrowing. There is a stratum in his
own soul, in whose hidden depths veins of gold are concealed, gold that
he needs but to mine in order to have a worth of his own, a wealth of
his own. This is a new love to the man who conceals undreamt of riches
underneath his poor shell, divine living seedcorn preserved with
germinating power underneath all the burden of the dead that overlay
him. Here Nietzsche, the godless one, chimes with the godly Gallet who
values the error which man of himself finds more highly than the truth
he learns by rote. To be sure, man possesses this that is his very own,
this power of the creator, in his soul, not in his coat, not in his
manners, not in life’s forms of social intercourse. The man is still far
from having everything his very own, if he be only different from
others, if he only says “no” to what others say “yes.” There are people
enough whom one might call reverse _Herdenmenschen_. They esteem
themselves original because they act, think, speak differently from what
they see everybody else doing, and yet they are only the counterpart of
others, they receive the impulse of their life, not from what is living
in their ownselves, but from opposition to what they themselves are not.
What they call beautiful is not beautiful to them because it grips their
souls, fills their hearts with the free joy of vision, but because
others cannot endure it, and call it ugly. The good for which they
strive is not good because they have themselves thereby become stronger,
greater, better, and will always become stronger, greater, better
thereby, but a caprice which they follow, making it a law to themselves,
because others may not do so. As if anyone could live on negation, or
create by digging mole tracks in the fields and meadows of men! Even the
small path is path, and every path has a goal, and the goal of every
path is a “yes” and not a “no!” Therefore, Friedrich Nietzsche,
Contemner of _Pöbel_, of the plebeian mass, would count all as _Pöbel_
who held themselves aloof from the broad way purely because they saw how
many there were that trod it. He would also call the most select and
sought-after exclusivists _Herdenmenschen_ were they to derive the
reason of their action and passion merely from the mania and disease to
be different from the herd.

Plain, indeed, then, is Nietzsche’s great requirement. Let every man
honor and safeguard his unrepeatable miracle, and be something on his
own account. This cultural requirement is supplementation and
development of the moral ideal of the great German prophet at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, speaking as he did out of the
blackest night of a people’s life. Fichte, too, would create a folk, no
_Pöbel_. To be folk, all that is _Pöbel_ must be overcome. _Pöbel_, that
is all that lives herd-like, and borrows the impulse of its action and
passion from others, not from itself; or, more accurately, _Pöbel_, to
speak with Nietzsche, is wherever man is not himself, but his neighbor!
_Pöbel_ signifies, therefore, not a human class, not a social layer of
the population, but a _disposition_. Everywhere there are aristocratic
_Pöbel_, wherever men pride themselves on reciprocally surpassing each
other in flunkey-like ways of thinking. There is a political, a partisan
_Pöbel_ which counts it human duty to help increase the great pride that
runs after a leader on the broad way of the herd. There are _Pöbel_ in
science and in art, wherever men do not dare to ally themselves with a
cause, a principle, a work, until some “authority” has pronounced
judgment in the matter. There are pious _Pöbel_ who cock their ears for
what their neighbor believes, who, even in questions of conscience and
of heart, are impressed by large numbers and determined by vast herds.
_Pöbel_ shouts its “hosanna” and its “Crucify him” without knowing what
it does, and blasphemes every body who does not shout with it. To what
shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the
marketplace, who call to their playmates, “We piped to you and you would
not dance, we lamented and you would not beat your breasts.”

We are all influenced by what the medicinal psychologist is wont to call
“suggestion”—influenced, that is, by alien thoughts, alien expressions
of will. What we repeatedly hear comes to lose its strangeness; we come
to think that we have understood it and appropriated it. Our taste, our
moral judgment, our religious faith, these and such as these are
probably far more alien than domestic, far more the life of others than
our own,—in a word, suggestion. We have not tested the alien, elaborated
it, made it our own. We have let these uncritically empty themselves
into the vessel of our spirit where they coalesce, motley enough at
times, with the rest of the content. There is, therefore, something of
_Pöbel_ in all of us, whether we control others or are controlled by
others. To form out of _Pöbel_ strong and free personalities of our very
own,—as a cell is formed from the precellular stuff of life, as the
flowers and fruit of a tree are elaborated from the sap and substance at
their disposal,—this is the first and best service we can render
society. To form out of _Pöbel_ a folk, not a distinctionless mass that
wanders along the broad way to damnation,—a community of men, where each
walks the narrow path of life, no herd in which the individual only has
his number and answers when it is called,—a body with many members, each
member having its own life and its own soul,—_also sprach
Jesu-Fichte-Nietzsche_!

The Prophecy of Gwic’hlan

(_Translated by Edward Ramos from the French of Hersart de la
Villemarque_)

When the sun sets, when the sea snores, I sing upon the sill of my
door.
When I was young, I used to sing; and I still sing who am grown old.
I sing of the night, of the day, and none the less I am discontent.
If my head is low, if I am discontented, it is not without cause.
It is not that I am afraid; I am not afraid to be killed.
It is not that I am afraid; I have lived long enough.
When one does not look for me, I am found; and when one looks for me, he
finds me not.
Little import that which advenes: that which ought to be will be.
And one must die three times, before he come to repose.

I see the wild-boar that comes out of the wood; he drinks very much,
and he has a wounded foot.
His jaws are drooping, blood-covered, and his bristles are whitened with
age.
He is followed by his tribe, grunting from hunger.[5]
The sea-horse[6] comes to meet him; he makes the river banks tremble in
horror.
He is as white as the brilliant snow; he has silver horns on his
forehead.
The water boils under him from the thunder-fire of his nostrils.
Other sea-horses surround him, close packed as herbs by a swamp.
“Hold fast! hold fast! sea-horse; hit him on the head; hit hard, hit!
The bare feet slip in the blood! harder! have at them! harder!
I see blood flowing like a river! hit hard! hit them! strike harder!
I see the blood rise to his knees! I see blood like a lake!
Harder! have at them! harder! Thou may’st rest thyself tomorrow.
Hit hard! Hit hard, sea-horse! Hit him on the head! Hit hard! Hit!”

[5] Wild-boar and his brood—the men of Bretagne and their leader.

[6] Sea-horse—the Norsemen.

III

As I lay soft wrapt in sleep in my cold tomb, I heard the eagle call
in the midst of the night.
He summoned his brood and all the birds of the heavens.
He said to them in calling:
“Rise you quickly upon your two wings!
It is not of the rotten flesh of dogs or of sheep; it is of the flesh of
Christians that we will be eating!”
“Old sea-crow, listen; tell me—what do you hold there?”
“I hold the head of the Chief of the Army; I wish to have his two red
eyes.
I tear out his two eyes, because he has torn out thine own.”
“And you, fox, tell me—what do you hold there?”
“I hold his heart, which was false as mine is;
The heart which desired your death, and long ago plotted your death.”
“And you, tell me, Toad, what do you there, at the corner of his mouth?”
“I, I am put here to await his soul in passage:
It will remain in me as long as I shall live in punishment for the crime
he has committed against the Bard who no longer lives between
Roc’allaz and Porzguenn.”

Editorials and Announcements

_Rupert Brooke on the War_

In her Letter from London two months ago Miss Amy Lowell made a
reference to Harold Munro’s Poetry Book Shop in London which may have
seemed a little unfair to people who know the high aim of Mr. Munro in
that undertaking of his. Miss Lowell did not intend it to be so; in fact
she plans for an early number of THE LITTLE REVIEW an article which
shall set forth the interesting work that is being done there. In the
meantime we have been shown a letter from Robert Brooke, one of the
Poetry Book Shop group, which is certainly not open to the charge of
“preciousness”. Mr. Brooke is in the War; he is a Naval Sub-Lieutenant
for service on land, attached to the Second Naval Battalion and was sent
with the relief force to Antwerp “just too late”. The letter reads:
“There I saw a city bombarded and a hundred thousand refugees, sat in
the trenches, marched all night, and did other typical and interesting
things. Now we’re back for more training. I will probably get out again
by Christmas.... There’s nothing to say, except that the tragedy of
Belgium is the greatest and worst of any country for centuries. It’s
ghastly for anyone who liked Germany as well as I did.... I’m afraid
fifty years won’t give them the continuity and loveliness of life back
again! Most people are enlisting. —— and his brother have gone into
cavalry; I’m here: among my fellow officers being Denis Brown, one of
the best musicians in England; Kelly, the pianist who won the Diamond
Sculls; one of the Asquiths; a man who has been mining in the Soudan; a
New Zealander—an Olympic swimmer; an infinitely pleasant American youth,
called ——, who was hurriedly naturalized “to fight for justice” ... and
a thousand more oddities. In the end, those of us who come back will
start writing great new plays.” Our London correspondent, Mr. E. Buxton
Shanks, sends a note with infinite pathos in it. “I enclose a letter for
December,” he writes. “Unfortunately it may be my last. The greater part
of my regiment went to France last Monday and I expect to follow it
before long, so that this may be not only my last Letter to THE LITTLE
REVIEW, but also my last piece of literature for ever and ever.”

_Russia in Storm_

From Russian newspapers and private letters that have been smuggled
through into this country we learn about the great resurrection that is
taking place in the land of extremes. The war has shaken the dormant
giant, and life is pulsating with tremendous vigor. The abolition of
liquor-trade has had an unbelievable effect on the population; the fact
that this reform was promulgated by the government which has thereby
lost nearly a billion yearly revenue, is of inestimable significance.
The Czar and his counsellors have finally awakened to recognize the
impossibility of reigning over a country without citizens, and liberal
reforms on a wide scope are being announced. Nationalities and parties
are united under a new slogan: “Down with Nationalism! Long live
Patriotism!” Even the reactionary organs have abandoned their
chauvinistic tone, and they preach equality and freedom and the
abolition of the bureaucratic régime which they ascribe to Germanistic
influences. The revolutionary parties, however, are not intoxicated with
the momentary upheaval; they have had too many bitter experiences to be
lulled by promises from the throne. Of all the warring nations the
Russian socialists were the only party to take an openly antagonistic
attitude towards their government. They were demonstratively absent from
the Douma when the war manifesto was announced, and later they gave out
a declaration in which they expressed their condemnation of the
government and its policy. Recently an official communication stated a
discovered conspiracy among the radical members of the Douma. It is
clear that the revolutionists intend to forge the iron while it is hot;
this time affords them a rare opportunity for forcing the Autocrat to
yield to the demands of the people and in defiance of popular sentiments
and drummed up patriotism, the uncompromising fighters brave their way
forward to the ultimate goal. It is great life in Russia!

_Alexander Berkman on the Crime of Prisons_

Mr. Alexander Berkman, author of _Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist_, which
is reviewed in this issue, will deliver two lectures in Chicago, Sunday,
December 6, in Room 512 of the Masonic Temple. His subject in the
afternoon will be _War and Culture_; in the evening _The Psychology of
Crime and Prisons_.

Winter Rain

EUNICE TIETJENS

Winter now has come again;
All the gentle summer rain
Has grown chill, and stings like pain,
And it whispers of things slain,
Love of mine.

I had thought to bury love,
All the ways and wiles thereof
Buried deep and buried rough—
But it has not been enough,
Heart of mine.

Though I buried him so deep,—
Tramped his grave and piled it steep,
Strewed with flowers the aching heap,—
Yet it seems he cannot sleep,
Soul of mine.

And the drops of winter rain,
In the grave where he is lain
Drip and drip, and sting like pain,
Till my love grows live again,
Life of mine!

Home as an Emotional Adventure

MARGARET C. ANDERSON

I was going Home!

It was seven o’clock on a clear, cold, snowless night in December—the
ideal night for a journey. Behind me, Chicago:—noise, jangle, rush, and
dirt; great crowds of people; a hall room of agonizing ugliness, with
walks of a green tone that produces a sort of savage mental biliousness
and furniture of striped oak that makes you pray for destruction by
fire; frayed rugs the color of cold dishwater and painted woodwork that
peels off like a healing sore; smells of impromptu laundry work, and
dust that sticks like a hopeful creditor; an outlook of bare brick
walls, and air through the window that should have been put through a
sieve before entering. All these—and one thing more which makes them as
nothing: the huge glory of accomplishment.

Before me?... It was snowing hard as we steamed in. There came a
clanging of brakes, a cold blast of snowy air through the opened doors,
a rush of expectant people; and then, shining in the glow of a
flickering station light, one of the loveliest faces I’ve ever seen—my
sister’s,—and one of the noblest—my “Dad’s.” Then a whirring taxi, a
luxurious adjustment to comfort in its dark depths, a confusion of “So
_glad_ you’re here,” and “Mother’s waiting at home”; a surging of all my
appreciation at the beauty of young Betty, with her rich furs and
stunningly simple hat and exquisitely untouched face; a long dash
through familiar streets until we reached the more open spaces—the
Country Club district where there are only a few homes and a great
expanse of park and trees; and finally a snorting and jerking as we drew
up before a white house from which lights were shining.

Now this little house is all white, with green shutters and shingles,
with a small formal entrance porch, like a Wallace Nutting print, in
front, and a large white-pillared, glass-enclosed living-porch on one
side. A red brick walk of the New England type leads up to it, and great
trees stand like sentinels at the back. On a winter night, when the red
walk and the terrace are covered with soft snow, when the little cedar
trees massed around the entrance sparkle with icy frost, when the warm
light from the windows touches the whiteness with an amethyst
radiance—well, it’s the kind of house that all good dreamers sometimes
have the reward of dreaming about. And when Mother opened the door,
letting out another stream of light and showing her there against the
warm red background of the hall, I was convinced that getting home was
like being invited to paradise.

Of course we talked and laughed for an hour; and underneath it all I was
conscious, above everything, of the red and white room in which we sat;
of the roaring, singing fire; of the shadows it threw on the luxurious
rugs and old mahogany; of the book-lined walls; of the scattered
magazines on the long table; of the chiming grandfather’s clock; of the
soft lights; and—more than all—of the vase of white roses against the
red wall.

“But you must hear the new Victrola records!” Mother cried. And so I lay
back in a deep chair with my face to the fire, and listened—listened
with my soul, I think, to some of the world’s great music: Sembrich and
Melba and Homer and Gluck; Paderewski and Pachmann, orchestras, operas,
and old, old songs; and finally my favorites—the violin ones. There was
Kreisler, with his perfect art, playing old Vienna waltzes, haunting
Provence folk songs, quaint seventeenth-century gavottes and dances;
Maud Powell putting new beauty into the Schubert _Ave Maria_, and that
exquisite tone-picture of Saint-Saëns called _The Swan_; and last of all
Mischa Elman, with his deep, passionate singing of Bach’s _Air for the G
String_ and Tschaikovsky’s _Ye Who Have Yearned Alone_. There’s a beauty
about those last ones that is almost terrible, so close is it to the
heart of human sorrow.

“Well,” said Dad, a little later, “I don’t know about the rest of you,
but _I’m_ going to bed. And first I mean to have some milk and a piece
of pumpkin pie. Does that attract a city girl?”

It did—to the extent of three glasses of milk, besides the pie. “You’ll
not sleep,” warned Mother; but I retorted that I didn’t care; I was too
happy to sleep, anyhow. And, besides, the kitchen, in its immaculate
gray and whiteness, was so refreshing that I wanted to stay there
awhile. Large baskets of grape fruits and oranges and red apples stood
on the pantry shelves; the stove was polished until it looked like a
Sapolio advertisement; and a clock, ticking loudly, gave the room that
curious sense of loneliness that a kitchen needs. I can conceive of a
library without books, or a fireplace without a fire, but never of a
kitchen without a loud-ticking clock.

After a while we all trooped up to bed—up the white staircase with the
mahogany rail, and into fresh white bedrooms in such perfect harmony
with the snow outside.

“This house is positively sensuous!” I told Mother. “It’s an emotional
adventure just to come into it....”

I climbed into a big mahogany four-poster; but not to sleep—oh no! I sat
bolt upright with the silk comfortlet (oh luxury of luxuries!) around my
knees, and gazed out the windows: for from both of them I saw a
fairyland. It was all white—all except the amethyst shimmerings of
boulevard lights; and white flakes dropped one by one through the
amethyst. Away in the distance on both sides were faint outlines of
woods—bare, brown woods now covered warmly with snow. And over it all a
complete and absolute stillness. Just as in spring I used to feel
fairies leaping from every separate violet and tulip and hyacinth for
their twilight dance on the wet grass, so now I felt a great company of
snow fairies dancing in the faint rays of amethyst that darted into the
woods—dancing and singing and glittering in their silver frostiness. And
then a slow quiet wind would sound far off in the branches of the oak
trees; and gradually the fairy carnival ceased and I went ecstatically
to sleep.

The next morning, after breakfast in a dining-room of old blue and white
and mahogany, I stated my ideas of what one ought to do in such a house.
“I don’t want to go anyplace or see anyone or do anything. Don’t plan
luncheons or teas or other things. It will take a week to store up all
the impressions I want to. So please just let me stay here quietly and
absorb the atmosphere.”

And so my precious week began. In the mornings I’d put on boots—for the
snow was deep by this time—and take long tramps through the woods. Then
each afternoon had its distinct adventure: sometimes it would be a mere
wandering about from room to room standing before a specially-loved
picture or buried in a favorite old book. And what an enchanting thing
it is to read in such a setting: to look up from your book knowing that
wherever your eyes fall they will be rested; to feel your imagination
sinking into the soft depths of a reality that is almost dream stuff!

Sometimes the afternoon would have its hard-fought game of cards between
Dad and me—with the table drawn close to the fire, and Bertha running in
from the kitchen with a hearty offering of cider and hot doughnuts.
(Bertha always seemed to sense the exact moment when we declared, with
groans, that to wait another hour for dinner would be a physical
impossibility.) Sometimes at four o’clock I’d conceal myself in a mass
of cushions in the big swing on the porch, and wait for the darkness to
come on, loving every change of tone in the grayness until the boulevard
lights blossomed like flowers and made another fairyland. And always
we’d have tea by candle-light—on the porch in deep wicker chairs, or
before the leaping fire.

Sometimes after tea I’d take a two-mile tramp down town, stopping at the
post-office (because a post-office in a small town is a place worth
seeing at five o’clock in the evening) and trying deliberately to get
cold and tired before reaching home again, so that the warmth and
comfort would come as a fresh shock and joy. And then a quite wonderful
thing would happen: namely, the miracle of a superlatively good dinner.
I shall never forget those dinners! Not the mere physical pleasure of
them, but their setting: Mother feeling a little gossipy, and talking
cozily of the day’s small happenings; Dad in a mood of tolerant
amusement at our chatter; and Betty, usually in white, looking so
adorable that even the roses on the table couldn’t rival her.

But most perfect of all were the long evenings! First we’d read aloud a
little Pater, just for the ravishing music of his language, and then
Betty would sing. I don’t know any lovelier singing than Betty’s; it’s
so young and fresh and wistful. And when she’d finish with the Brahms
_Lullaby_ I could have cried with the beauty of it all. Later, when
everyone had gone to bed, I would creep downstairs again to lie by the
fire and have the obliging Mr. Mischa Elman play me another concert. _Ye
Who Have Yearned Alone_ was the thing he’d play most often, for it has a
surging sadness that keeps one humble in the midst of happiness.
Everything of yearning is in it: the agonies of countless tragic loves;
the sad, sad strivings for joy and comprehension; the world-old miseries
of “buried lives”; hopes and fears and faiths—and crucifixions;
ecstacies dying out like flames; utter weariness of living—and utter
striving to live.

* * * * *

Oh, you people who have homes! Why _don’t_ you realize what they might
yield you! When you find yourself uneager, stupefied with contentment,
ashamed of your vicious comfort—why not share your homes?... Back in
Chicago, I have a vision strong and soothing, like a poppy seed that
brings sleep. I close my eyes at night; and suddenly my bare walls are
lined with books; soft lights are lighted; in a great fireplace burns a
crackling fire that has in it sometimes soft sounds like bird-singing;
and out of the rumble of elevated trains, drowning the roar of traffic
and bringing a deep stillness, come the singing tones of a violin,
rising and falling over an immortal melody—_Ye Who Have Yearned Alone_.

A Miracle

CHARLES ASHLEIGH

If the gods of Greece walked abroad,
The sun blazing their splendor to all eyes,
It would not amaze me.

If the court of Solomon, the king,
In clashing storm of color,
Were to descend into the murk of the city,
I should not be surprised.

For I have conversed with a stripped soul
And its grandeur and wonder have filled me.

London Letter

E. BUXTON SHANKS

_London, September 29th._

Enough of war poetry. An industrious statistician has calculated that
three thousand pieces have been printed since the beginning of August.
When our poets are unanimous in the choice of a subject, their unanimity
is horrible. We have had lyrical outrages from railway porters,
dairymen, postmen, road scavengers, and what not, with their names and
professions duly appended, in the delectable fashion set some time ago
by _The English Review_. Meanwhile, in France, young poets are killing
one another. We must arrange a balance-sheet of gains and losses when
the war is done. M. Charles Péguy is gone already; that is a loss which
makes one fear for Jules Romains and the rest who must be at the front
in one army or the other. The French and German casualty lists are not
published in the English papers: when the smoke clears off again the
arts of the continent will show a different complexion.

Meanwhile we are beginning to ask, prematurely of course, what effect
the war will have indirectly on our own arts. The war of ’70 caused an
epoch of literary ferment in Germany and was at the back of much good
poetry. To that war we owe Detter von Liliencron, Richard Dehmel, and
Gerhart Hauptmann, who is, I freely admit, a great dramatist, though I
cannot abide him. In France it produced the tired subtleties of Kahn,
Régnier, and the other Symbolists. In Austria, a century of humiliation,
which has become almost a national habit, has evolved the tired elegance
of Hofmannsthal and the weary tenderness of Schnitzler who is so
obviously so sorry for all his characters as almost to make the reader
weep with him. If we win this war, what may we expect? We can be certain
that the English arts will react to the strain: the reaction will not
necessarily be a good one, unless the efforts of those who sit about at
home and vulgarize war are neutralized or ignored. The tone of our
newspapers—and these mould our minds, whether we like it or not—is now
most insufferably ugly. And as a result of victory, I fear a blatant
hollow tone of exultation in our poetry that—from a literary and social
standpoint—is almost worse than the languors of defeat. It will be well
if we achieve victory when every person in the country has been made to
feel the cost of it. Three days knee-deep in flooded trenches—our arts
must draw strength from that dreadful experience.

It is true perhaps that we do wish to feel the cost. We are supposed to
live in fear of a Zeppelin raid. In my opinion, half the inhabitants of
London constantly though secretly hope it. We feel that with a bomb or
two tumbling about our heads we shall be “in it.” To read the newspapers
is like having a surfeit of the kind of book which is called “The Great
War of 19—.” I have read dozens of them and they move my imagination
almost as much as the reports—some of them, such as are well-written,
like Mr. Wells’s _War in the Air_, even more.

The result that we must pray for is a greater concreteness and reality
in our writing. We have developed an inhuman literary point of view
which is fundamentally insincere and which is never more ugly or less
convincing than when our poets try to be “modern.” Such poets as Emile
Verhaeren—now a refugee in London—treat factories and so forth, the
typical products, they think, of modern life, purely as romantic
apparitions, much as the romantic writers treated mountains and deserts,
excuses for rhetoric and flamboyant description. They have never felt
the reality of them, because modern life in its rapidity has
outdistanced the poet’s mind in his attempt to conceive it.

I hold no brief for “modern poetry” in that sort of sense: I do not hold
it necessary to write about these things. But if you will compose upon a
factory or a railway-station, you must feel what factories and
railway-stations really are; you must not take refuge in a romantic
description of lights and roaring machinery. The perpetually breaking
high note of the Futurists is merely a rather useless attempt to deal
with a difficulty that we all know. Perhaps the war will bring us rather
suddenly and jarringly in touch with reality. It is certain that the
young men of the class from which literature chiefly comes, have now in
their minds a fixed and permanent thought which from time to time comes
up onto the surface of consciousness. This thought is the thought of
violent death. We have grown physically and morally soft in security;
but, as I write, affairs are reaching a crisis in France, fresh
regiments are being sent abroad. We each of us wonder which may be the
next to go.

This honest and undisguised fear—a man is wonderfully insensitive if he
does not feel it and a braggart if he will not admit it—has a powerful
and purifying effect on the spirit. Its spiritual action is comparable
to that of violent and maintained physical exercise. The flabby weight
of our emotions is being reduced and hardened: we have sweated away a
great many sick fancies and superfluous notions. The severe pressure of
training for war induces in us a love of reason, a taste for hard
thinking and exactitude and a capacity for discipline.

The art of war is fortunately an art that allows itself to be definitely
judged. Either you win your battles or you lose them. It is of no use to
say that Warmser was a great general whose subtle and esoteric methods
of making war have never been appreciated by a numskulled public.
Napoleon thrashed him and there is an end of argument. A soldier cannot
resignedly appeal from the fortunes of the field to the arbitrament of
the future.

The consideration of these facts leads us to wish that poetry were in
the same case; and we are beginning to feel both that poetry may become
a more active factor in normal life than hitherto and that a careful
criticism may remove it from the desert space of assertion and
undefended preference which it now inhabits. Possibly the war may help
to cure us of our ancient English muddle-headedness. We have awakened
with surprise to find our army an admirable and workmanlike machine. The
South African war rid us, in military affairs, of the incompetent
amateur and the obstructive official. Vague rumors of what the army had
learnt there even reached other departments of activity: possibly this
war will infect us all with a new energy and a new sense of reality. We
may learn how to reach our ends by taking thought and by cherishing
ideas instead of plunging on in a sublimely obstinate and indisciplined
muddle. As for our war-poetry—I must end where I began—it is merely a
sloughing of the old skin, a last discharge of the old disease.

New York Letter

GEORGE SOULE

Nature flowers in the spring, man in the fall. With the first of
November comes a bewilderment of elections, concerts, books, plays, new
magazines, bombs, exhibitions, and all the other things that seem to
have blossomed so futilely year after year. To set about the task of
discovering the significant in it all is more confusing than to attempt
to trace the origin of new species in a single May countryside.

Take the theatres, for instance. There is the usual increase in plays
which are so bad that even visiting travelling salesmen begin to suspect
their artistic integrity. There is Shaw’s _Pygmalion_, which some think
is second-rate Shavism well acted by Mrs. Campbell, and others believe
is a good play badly acted. There is Molnar’s _The Phantom Rival_, an
amusing and slender satire which is understood by one-quarter of the
audience, and applauded for its faults by the other three-quarters.
MacDonald Hastings, who aroused hopes with _The New Sin_, has descended
to a very bad second-rate in a vehicle for Nazimova called _That Sort_.
Elsie Ferguson has made a hit in _Outcasts_, written by Hubert Henry
Davies,—the author of the fascinating _Cousin Kate_,—as a vehicle for
Ethel Levey, the former star of unspeakable musical comedy in America
who has become a great actress in London. It is a play of sordid
“realism,” whose principal function seems to be to raise an almost
academic question of morals and then disclaim any moral intent by a
solution which in the opinion of most of the audience is either grossly
immoral or disgustingly moral. Everything is topsy-turvy.

Early in the season the Schubert organ created some amusement by
demanding the abolition of dramatic critics. Here are the managers, ran
the argument, responsible business men who put large sums of money into
new productions. Along comes your newspaper critic to the first night,
with a somewhat exalted standard of taste, a jaded appetite, and a
reputation for wit. Before the play is over he leaves, hastily writes a
column in which he exploits his own cleverness at the expense of the
play, and turns away many possible customers. This is not good business
ethics. If the play really is bad, let the public find it out gradually.
They may never find it out at all. If it is good, we really don’t need
the critics for publicity. The article was ingenuous and engaging. Most
of our critics are so undiscerning that we were glad to see them baited.
Perhaps as a result of this, Alan Dale and Acton Davies both left their
respective papers. But as if to heap coals of fire, the critics united
in a roar of praise for _The Beautiful Adventure_, a play so truly awful
that the most ingenious and expensive pushing could not even bluff the
public into liking it. It failed after a few precarious weeks.

Just now The Catholic Theatre Movement has created a diversion by
issuing their “White List” of plays and threatening to prosecute by law
the producers of “unclean” drama. They take occasion to compliment the
newspaper critics for abandoning to some extent artistic standards of
criticism and substituting moral standards. The movement will
undoubtedly tell against much undesirable filth, but it is needless to
say that it would be used with equal effectiveness against most works of
genius which might by some strange chance be produced.

Little Theatres are sprouting up by the handful. The Punch and Judy
Theatre is a clever imitation of the theatrical prototype, with benches
for seats, wall boxes for two only, and boy ushers. It is the personal
enterprize of Charles Hopkins, a Yale graduate who shows his enthusiasm
by combining not only the rôles of actor, manager, and producer, but
owner and playwright as well. He has not yet, however, put on any of his
own plays. Mrs. Hopkins, a really talented graduate of Ben Greet’s
company, plays the feminine leads. The Neighborhood Theatre is a
quasi-philanthropic undertaking with enough money behind it to aspire to
the new stage art in all its magnificence of the concrete dome and more
expensive settings. Perhaps the most interesting of all will be a new
theatre planned by the Washington Square villagers under the leadership
of a committee among whose members are Mr. and Mrs. Max Eastman and
Charles and Albert Boni. It will be supported principally by its own
subscribers at a very moderate expense, and will be as far as possible
from a philanthropic attempt to “elevate the stage.” It is the result
merely of a belief that here is a group of people who want to see more
intelligent drama than is ordinarily supplied, and that the dramatic
material and acting and producing ability are available. Plays by
American authors will be used as far as possible, but the standards will
not be lowered for the sake of encouraging either authors or propaganda.
Such a thing cannot avoid being at least a healthy experiment.

Pavlowa opened in the Metropolitan a week after Genée had given a
Red-Cross benefit in a vaudeville theatre. The conjunction was a
striking example of the marked inferiority of a romantic form to a
classic unless the romantic vehicle is done honestly and supremely well.
Genée gave in ten minutes more genuine æsthetic pleasure by her
perfection of line than Pavlowa in a whole evening of half-done work.
Pavlowa has proved often enough that she can be one of the goddesses of
the dance. Last year she had with her Cecceti, her ballet master, and
practiced with him constantly. Only by such external vigilance can
perfection be maintained. This year, presumably for reasons of economy,
Cecceti is not present. The company is much weakened by the absence of
the principal character dancers. The opening ballet was a second-rate
concoction with almost no real dancing in it. And to top off the insult,
a third of the program was devoted to ordinary ball-room dances, which
any number of cabaret performers in the United States can do better than
trained ballet people. It was the usual tragedy of the artist who tries
to popularize his work. An enthusiast sitting next me said: “We are now
seeing the funeral of good dancing in America. Those who want this sort
of thing will go to the restaurants. And the others will say, ‘If this
is ballet, give me baseball.’” But there is still hope. The original
Diaghilew company which plays yearly in London and Paris is coming next
season. Then we shall see romantic ballet at its highest.

Only one other event must be mentioned now. While various discontented
persons, perhaps anarchists, have been leaving bombs about public
buildings, the socialists have elected Meyer London to Congress. In
itself this is not of great significance. It is interesting to see,
however, that twelve thousand people went to the public reception to him
in Madison Square Garden. It is still more interesting to compare what
was said there with ordinary political buncombe. Mr. London began by
calling President Wilson one of the ablest men this country has
produced. He went on to say “The business of socialism is to give
intelligence to discontent.... When I take my seat in Congress I do not
expect to accomplish wonders. What I expect to do is to take to
Washington the message of the people, to give expression there to the
philosophy of socialism. I want to show them what the East side of New
York is and what the East side Jew is. I am confident that I will get
fair play. I will be given my opportunity, and I do not intend to abuse
it. Do not let yourselves be deceived by this victory. You are good
noise-makers, but you are poor organizers. Organize now for the next
campaign. Organize for victory, not by violence, but by the greatest of
all forces, the force of the human intellect. Give the people your
message clearly and make them think about it.”

If the ballot fails because of lack of intelligence, is it reasonable to
suppose that violence will succeed with the same material? Or that any
arrangement under the sun for the welfare of human beings can take the
place of individual human quality? “My friends, mankind is something to
be surpassed!”

The Theatre

“The Philanderer”

(_Chicago Little Theater_)

The most interesting thing about Shaw’s _Philanderer_ as it was put on
at The Little Theater the latter part of November, was the new treatment
it received at the hands of the scenic artists of that precious
institution. One is tempted to use the trite but pretty figure and say
that it was an instance of an old gem in a new setting, only modifying
it by the statement that _The Philanderer_ is merely a fake gem. The
luster it may have had in the eighteen-nineties is now almost entirely
worn away. In short, its fun is pointless. Ibsen, thanks largely to Mr.
Shaw’s active propaganda, is a household pet. Ibsen clubs are as
obsolete as Browning clubs; while the “new” woman as embodied in her
present-day sister, the feminist, is too familiar and too permanent a
figure to be the subject of effective satire. That the play still has
appeal for a modern audience is due wholly to its characters, and yet
these stage people are not real. They are no more than caricatures, each
effectively distorted and exaggerated in the drawing, each effectively
touched off in monochrome. To use another overworked phrase, they are
typically Shavian in that they are not characters but traits of
character. They are not real people; they are perambulating states of
mind, as are almost all of Shaw’s creations, and the more emotional,
rather than intellectual, the state of mind, the wider its appeal.

But neither Shaw nor the play is the thing in this discussion. The
setting of the play, subordinate, no doubt, in intention, but
predominating because of its novelty, is what interested most the eyes
of the layman brought up for years on the familiar conventions of the
ordinary-sized theater. The action demands interior settings, but
instead of the realistically-painted canvas walls and wooden doors, The
Little Theater gives us tinted backgrounds with rectangular openings for
entrances and exits. The first act is done in gray, the second and third
in blue, and the fourth in a soft green. The effect of people,
particularly of women, moving against such plain unrelieved tints is
pictorial in the extreme. Each successive movement, each new position is
a new picture. The curtains parting on the last act, showing the copper
tint of a samovar, a vase of delicate pink flowers, a white tablecloth,
a handsome dark woman pouring tea, all against a soft glowing green,
gave one the feeling of seeing an artfully-composed, skillfully-colored
canvas at a picture gallery. And it suggested, more successfully than
any other setting I have ever seen, the home of a person of refinement
and restraint. Less successful was the setting for the second and third
acts. The use of indigo in representing an Ibsen club may be satirical
and it may be subtle, but its effect on the spectator after an hour or
so is depressing, and in the general atmospheric gloom that increases as
the act goes on the sparkle of some of the brightest dialogue is lost.

On the whole, the workings out of this new idea in scenery is suggestive
in its effect and lovely in its pictorial quality, but until the novelty
wears off it obtrudes itself upon the interest that belongs rightly to
the play. Its cheapness should ingratiate it to the professional
producer. Naturally, the effect of one unrelieved tint in the settings
of a theater of ordinary size would be deadly in its monotony, but the
idea suggests of itself endless variation and improvements. After
leaving _The Philanderer_, with its obvious limitations, with its
uneven, at times amateurish acting, one cannot help wishing that our
every night plays had half the thought, half the taste, half the
imagination in their production that The Little Theater plays seem to
have.

SAMUEL KAPLAN.

Music

The Kneisel Quartet and Hofmannized Chopin

... And in the meantime war went on beyond the ocean. Strange, but this
absurd thought accompanied me as a shrill dissonance throughout the
concert. I could not help conjecturing what would be the result, if all
the warriors were brought together to listen to the Kneisel Quartet:
Would they not become ennobled, harmonized, pacified, humanized? Could
they go on with their dull work—for modern war gives no thrills for the
individual fighter—after Mozart’s Quartet in E Flat Major, which has the
soothing effect of a transparent vase? They might have found Brahms’s
Quintet suffering from this artist’s usual weakness—lack of sense of
_measure_,—but the Scherzo would certainly have elated the most avowed
anti-German. The four instruments performed their work so artistically
that one forgot their existence and heard “just music.” The only number
that could have aroused international complications was the insincere
grotesque of Zoltan Kodaly, who succeeded in misusing an excellent
source, Danuvian motives. “But this is Modern”, I was shrapnelled. Well,
call me a conservative, but if this is modern music, then, in the name
of Mozart and Beethoven, _Pereat!_

Still imagining a Marsian audience I was not dismayed even by the
appearance of the effeminate Chopin. For Josef Hofmann took the artistic
liberty of interpreting the gentle Pole in his own way, and the Scherzo
in B Flat Minor sounded as a virile volcanic charge. The pianist refuses
to take Chopin sentimentally, and he puts charming vigor even into the
moon-beamed, tear-strewn D Flat Nocturne, even into the frail ephemeral
E Minor Valse.

Hofmann’s Concert

The spoiled child of the world’s pianism—Josef Hofmann—played Schumann’s
A Minor piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at two
concerts during the first week in November. Both performances were
masterly and splendid in musical values.

Since he left his cradle, Hofmann has had the world sitting at his
pianistic feet and fingers so that he has come to take the most vigorous
and sincere homage as a matter of fact; and, perhaps for this reason, he
occasionally fails to merit it. He is insolent to his worshippers and
furious with his critics. Long and copious praise has gone to his head.
His insolence is less poetic and far less handsome than Paderewski’s,
and Hofmann’s playing needs to reach magnificent proportions before one
is able to forget his bad-boyish disposition.

But one does forget. For his musicianship and key-wizardry are things of
great beauty. Despite the fact that his scorn sometimes leads him to
abuse the piano, in the way of crude smashing blows, there is (in the
Schumann work, for instance, which displays him at his best) never a
moment in which he loses a rythmic grasp that is deeply satisfying. And
when he chooses, and doesn’t lose his temper, he can bring forth
remarkable tonal beauties from the box of wood and wire. There is an
admirable drive in his art. It is vital and powerful. One’s regrets are
swallowed and quite forgotten in listening to his artistic qualities of
tone, rhythm, piano-color, and, in fact, of genuine music.

HERMAN SCHUCHERT.

Art

Rose Madder or Red?

WILLIAM SAPHIER

Physical usefulness predominates in the make-up of every real piece of
craftsmanship. Its lines and the beauty of its decoration make up its
value.

Art does not rely on physical usefulness, form, or decoration. It is its
suggestiveness, its appeal to the imagination, its drawing out of
sympathy or hatred, its arousing of new and deep emotion—this is what
gives the fine arts their importance in life. Art should act as a screen
for fine tragic acts, for great emotions. Nature should be the pigment
for the painter’s brush, but not his aim. He should dilute it with his
blood and marrow and fling it on the canvas with determination.

Thus I pondered as I entered the twenty-seventh exhibition of American
Oil Paintings and Sculpture at the Chicago Art Institute. Wandering from
canvas to canvas, from one prize-winner to another, I felt all my hope
for a miracle vanish. They are so real, so true to life, so bereft of
imagination, that one wonders why anybody ever took the trouble to paint
them.

Just look at these flowers, trees, cows, and nudes. I have seen them
many, many times exactly the same way and under the same circumstances
in life. They are “pretty” and will undoubtedly make a good decoration
in a middle-class home. This may be a worthy thing to do, but why should
it be called art? I think this is our punishment for great achievements
in the industrial field. No nation can go on building the fastest
railroads, the tallest skyscrapers, the largest factories, the fastest
automobiles, without paying for it by a loss of its finer æsthetic
senses.

But I am getting away from the exhibition. It has become the fashion to
be disappointed with exhibitions both here and abroad—and with good
reason. As there are few good artists, the chances of getting them on a
jury is slight. The result is apparent: good pieces of craftsmanship are
hung along with fine pieces of art, and the prizes intended for fine art
go to good craftsmanship. In saying this I do not wish to join the
popular sport of hitting the jury and getting a round of applause. But
how can one escape these conclusions if he compares the prize-winner, _A
Nude_, by Richard E. Miller, with “_Under the Bough_,” by Arthur B.
Davis, whose rhythmically-moving figures and beautiful colors transport
one to fairyland? The figures remind me of Hodler, the foremost painter
today in Switzerland, who is sixty years old and younger than the
youngest. Or compare the prize with _Thomas and his Red Coat_, by Robert
Henri. What simple forms and colors—what a thorough understanding of a
child and his world! Or _The Widow_, by Charles W. Hawthorne. These are
works of great simplicity, understanding, imagination, and
individuality; they are monuments to some fine feeling, dream, thought,
or incident in the life of their creators.

As for the other prize winners—the disjointed color spots serving as
garden flowers and the chocolate box cover-design—I shall not discuss
them. The meaning of such stuff and the reason for awarding is too
obscure.

Outside the pictures mentioned above the following are worth seeing:
_The Venetian Blind_, by Frederic C. Frieseke; _Dance of the Hours_, by
Louis F. Berneker; _Winter Logging_, by George Elmer Brown; _Through the
Trees_, by Frank T. Hutchins; _The Harbor_, by Jonas Lie; _The Garden_,
by Jerome S. Blum; _Procession of the Redentore Venice_, by Grace
Ravlin; _The Ox Team_, by Chauncey F. Ryder; _Smeaton’s Quay, St.
Ive’s_, by Hayley Lever; _The Fledgling_, by Grace H. Turnbull. _A
Hudson River Holiday_, by Gifford Beal, looks much like a department
store. In fact you may find everything in this exhibition from a flag to
a mountain—and all the popular colors. The only thing that is missing is
a “For Sale” sign, with a “marked-down” price.

Seven pieces of sculpture by Stanislaw Szukalski, whose work the readers
of THE LITTLE REVIEW had a chance to see reproduced in the last number,
make up the most interesting part of the exhibition.

The original obscuring of the works of Grace Ravlin, Grace H. Turnbull,
Johansen, and Blum by the hanging committee deserves praise. But I think
if they really wanted to do something unusual they might have thought of
something better. For instance, hang all the rejected ones in separate
rooms, marked “rejected,” and let the visitors see and judge for
themselves. This would give the exhibition a bigger meaning. As it is,
it means confusion; and confusion asks persistently in this case: are
the fine arts anything in particular or just a mixture of craftsmanship,
cleverness (the usual companion of emptiness) and some undigested ideas?

Life is a learning to die.—_Plato._

Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!—_Dostoevsky._

Book Discussion

A Watteauesque Enthusiast

_The Enchantment of Art_, by Duncan Phillips. [John Lane Company,
New York.]

To Mr. Phillips life is a _Fête Galante_ in Watteau’s style. He sees
nothing but the elegant, the poetic, the joyous, the enchanting. I
picture him in a powdered wig, clad in a gorgeous costume of the Louis
XV. period, playfully lorgnetting life and art, and raving ecstatically
over everybody and everything. I confess, an all-loving person looks
suspicious to me; but Mr. Phillips’ book is so sincere, he adores things
so pathetically, that I cannot help enjoying him. He becomes irritating
only at such moments when he tries to be very much in earnest and breaks
into absurd generalization. His credo is Impressionism—in life and in
art—but what an elastic term is Impressionism to our dear enthusiast.
Giotto, Titian, Da Vinci, Velasquez, Corot, and Dégas were
impressionists, and so were Shakespeare, and Browning, and Keats, and
Yeats, and Robert Bridges and who not! He loves them all, loves
beautifully, touchingly, but he fails pitifully to define his beliefs.
Why should he define? Why not be happy in enjoying good things without
giving reasons, without strained endeavors to form classifications and
definitions? Oh, those definitions! But we easily forgive the author his
absurd statements, we can even sympathize with the pain he gets when
contemplating the Futurists, whom he terms “lawless.” We forgive a lover
everything, for we feel grateful to him for the moments of bliss that he
generously shares with us. Truly, it is a book of religious joy.

Old Virtues in New Forms

_The Age of Mother-Power_, by C. Gasquoine Hartley (Mrs. Walter M.
Gallichan). [Dodd, Mead and Company, New York.]

One is compelled to take Mrs. Gallichan seriously in her visioning of
the future social status of men and of women in the world of sex; for
the results of close observation, research, and computation strengthen
the most reasonable prophecies. She is modest enough to state her big
idea in simple terms. She points out that, since society had in its
primitive days a long and up-tending period of mother-power, or female
dominance; and, following that, a protracted season of masculine rule,
which is only now awakening to feminine rebellion; it is clearly
apparent that a new era is commencing, in which all the old virtues of
mother-right will be re-established in new forms, with the
distinctly modern addition of that solitary virtue of male
despotism—father-protection. This is a theory—only a theory, if one
wishes to preen one’s own prejudice—which the writer approaches and
develops from various angles. She has fruitfully studied history,
legend, folk-lore, savages, and other departments of human life. Her
deductions are carefully and lucidly thought out, strongly original, and
entirely worthy of attention.

HERMAN SCHUCHERT.

A Handbook of the War

_The Great War_, by Frank H. Simonds. [Mitchell Kennerley, New
York.]

The European war threatens to become a prolonged phenomenon. To the
Trans-Atlantic public it is a keenly-felt tragedy; to us here it is an
interesting spectacle, the audience being requested to remain neutral,
to refrain from applause and disapproval. Even so, we are in need of a
libretto. Frank H. Simonds supplies us with a comprehensive account of
the first act of the drama. The lay reader is getting acquainted with
the complexities of the pre-war events and with the further developments
of the conflict down to the fall of Antwerp. The simple maps and the
lucid comments make the book not only instructive, but also readable.
You must read the book if you do not want to play the ignoramus in
present-day floating, cinematographic history.

The New Reporting

_Insurgent Mexico_, by John Reed. [D. Appleton and Company, New
York.]

“Who is John Reed?”, asked the newspapers when, forgetting for the
moment their name-worshipping arrogance, they discovered that the best
reports from Mexico were coming, not from the veteran correspondents,
but from an unknown. The answer is that John Reed is the only
“correspondent” that the Mexican mix-up or the present European struggle
has yet brought to light, who has a really new and individual method of
reporting. These are not dogmatic, cock-sure, crisis-solving “articles”
from the front, but simple, vivid reporting of scenes and actions that
have some reason for being reported. And John Reed is about the only
reporter who has shown us that the Mexican people have visions of a
future. The newspapers and those whose duty it seems to be to uphold the
old idea are now crying that Reed’s simple realism is too slight to be
of value as history, and that he does not “get beneath the surface”—but
these people have still to see which kind of reporting can endure as
history.

Incorrect Values

_Life and Law_, by Maude Glasgow. [G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.]

A secondary title—“The Development of the Exercise of the Sex Function
Together with a Study of the Effect of Certain Natural and Human Laws
and a Consideration of the Hygiene of Sex”—is evidence _per se_ that the
book is inadequate and superficial. In less than two hundred pages no
writer can more than hint at all these topics, and in trying to cover so
much ground the author really covers nothing. She tells over old facts
and frequently gives them what are now accepted as incorrect values. Her
statements are as sweeping as the scare heads of the old quack medicine
almanacs. She describes men as ignorant, intolerable, immoral monsters;
and women as being universally down-trodden and the sexual victims of
man’s unbridled appetite. The book is as full of “musts” and “shoulds”
as the rules of an old-fashioned school master. The author tells nothing
new; veers from science to sentimentality in a most disconcerting way;
and adds nothing to the constantly-increasing library of valuable sex
books.

MARY ADAMS STEARNS.

Sentence Reviews

_Abroad at Home_, by Julian Street. [The Century Company, New York.] So
far as what he will write is concerned we don’t give a rap whether Shaw
visits America or not. Yes, we don’t believe even _he_ could lay out the
statisticians as Street does when he advises us on the purchase of pig
iron; or display such fiendish glee at the chance of hurting the
feelings of a professional Fair booster: or—well, every paragraph of
every chapter is worth reading.

_Reminiscences of Tolstoy_, by Count Ilya Tolstoy. [The Century Company,
New York.] The book is richly illustrated; this is its main value.
Nothing is added to what we have known about Tolstoy’s personality; we
have had numerous, perhaps too many, works on his intimate life;
Sergeyenko nearly exhausted the subject. True, we gain considerable
information about the great man’s son, Count Ilya, but, pray, who is
interested in it?

_American Public Opinion_, by James Davenport Whelpley. [E. P. Dutton
and Company, New York.] The name is misleading: the book presents a
series of articles on American internal and foreign problems, written
from the point of view of a conservative. Why call Mr. Whelpley’s
personal opinion “American Public Opinion”? The articles on our foreign
diplomacy are valuable; they reveal our infancy in this peculiarly
European art.

_Jael_, by Florence Kiper Frank. [Chicago Little Theater.] The
production of this play was treated subjectively in the last issue of
this magazine. In the reading of it the verse impresses one in much the
same manner as the viewing of the production. The two effects are so
similar as to impress one with the coherence and wonderful worth of the
Chicago Little Theatre in harmonizing the value of the play as
literature with the importance of the production.

_The House of Deceit._ Anonymous. [Henry Holt and Company, New York.]
Maurice Sangster had a “conviction in his heart that he was born to make
a conflagration of the Thames”. He came to London and proceeded to
attack the religious, political, and social institutions of the present
day. He serves merely as a blind for the author, who, attacking almost
everything under the sun, is not courageous enough to reveal his
identity.

_The Mystery of the Oriental Rug_, by Dr. G. Griffin Lewis. [J. B.
Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.] To the lover of Persian and Caucasian
rugs the book will surely bring moments of exquisite joy. The author
possesses both knowledge and taste, and he tells us curious things about
the history of the oriental rug.

(_A number of reviews of important books are held over until next
month because of lack of space._)

_You will receive_

THE LITTLE REVIEW

_with heartiest Christmas Greetings_

_From_ ................................

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We will also mail them the December number, to be delivered on
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_FOR THE HOLIDAYS_

VAUDEVILLE

By Caroline Caffin and Marius de Zayas

_8vo. Cloth, richly illustrated in tint and in black and
white. $3.50 net_

Lovers of vaudeville—and they are legion—will find this a book of
rare fascination.

Caroline Caffin knows vaudeville from the inside; she loves it
too, and she writes with understanding of the men and women who,
season after season, bring joy to so many people in all of the
larger cities. Mr. De Zayas, one of the cleverest of living
cartoonists, furnishes almost two score of his inimitable
caricatures of our most popular vaudeville stars.

Among those who flit through these pages are:

Nora Bayes
Eva Tanguay
Harry Lauder
Yvette Guilbert
Fay Templeton

Ruth St. Denis
Gertrude Hoffman
The Castles
Bernhardt
Elsie Janis

Marie Lloyd
Annette Kellerman
Frank Tinney
McIntyre & Heath
Al Jolson

THE NEW MOVEMENT IN THE THEATRE

By Sheldon Cheney

_8vo. Cloth, with sixteen plates and explanatory tissues.
$2.00 net_

A most comprehensive book. There is not an aspect of the
tremendously interesting new movement in the theatre upon which
Mr. Cheney does not touch. And to every chapter he brings a
wealth of knowledge gathered from a great variety of sources—most
of it at first hand. Furthermore, he writes with charm and
distinction: his book never fails, before all else, to interest.
Gordon Craig, Max Reinhardt, Bakst, and the Russian Ballet; Shaw,
Galsworthy, the German, French and American contemporary drama;
David Belasco, the influence of the Greek theatre, the newest
mechanical and architectural developments in the theatre—all
these and others are in Mr. Cheney’s dozen brilliant chapters.
Numerous interesting illustrations add to the value of his book
and make it one that no lover of the theatre can afford to be
without.

_Order from Your Bookseller_

MITCHELL KENNERLEY, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK

“THE RAFT”

BY CONINGSBY DAWSON

Author of “The Garden Without Walls,” “Florence on a
Certain Night,” etc.

“Life at its beginning and its end is bounded by a haunted wood.
When no one is watching, children creep back to it to play with
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of their journey lengthens, they return more rarely. Remembering
less and less, they build themselves cities of imperative
endeavor. But at night the wood comes marching to their walls,
tall trees moving silently as clouds and little trees treading
softly. The green host halts and calls—in the voice of memory,
poetry, religion, legend, or, as the Greeks put it, in the faint
pipes and stampeding feet of Pan.”

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
34 West Thirty-third Street
NEW YORK

IMPORTANT NEW SCRIBNER BOOKS

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By THEODORE ROOSEVELT

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Half Hours

_By_ J. M. BARRIE

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_“Pantaloon,” “The Twelve Pound Look,” “Rosalind” and “The
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HENRY VAN DYKE

has written a new volume of poems:

The Grand Canyon

And Other Poems

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Robert Frank

By SIGURD IBSEN

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Artist and Public And Other Essays on Art Subjects

By KENYON COX

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In Dickens’ London

By F. HOPKINSON SMITH

The rare versatility of an author who can transfer to paper his
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Path-Flower and Other Verses

By OLIVE T. DARGAN

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The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

With an Introduction by E. C. STEDMAN and Notes by
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Entirely reset in larger type.

_Half morocco, $4.00 net; half calf, $3.50 net; cloth, with
portrait, $2.00 net._

The Diary of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson

The Cruise of the “JANET NICHOL” Among the South Sea Islands

There can be no greater inspiration and pleasure for lovers of
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_Fully illustrated from photographs taken during the trip.
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Memories

By JOHN GALSWORTHY

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_Illustrated with four full-page colored illustrations and
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The End of the Trail

By E. ALEXANDER POWELL, F.R.G.S.

A narrative of the most remarkable journey ever made by
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The British Empire and the United States

A Review of Their Relations During the Century of Peace
Following the Treaty of Ghent, by WILLIAM ARCHIBALD
DUNNING. With an Introduction by the RIGHT HONORABLE
VISCOUNT BRYCE and a Preface by NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

This is the psychological moment for the appearance of a book
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Edited by M. P. PRICE, M.A.

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Una Mary

By UNA A. HUNT

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Notes on Novelists With Some Other Notes

By HENRY JAMES

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The Man Behind the Bars

By WINIFRED LOUISE TAYLOR

To gain the confidence of convicts, to know their inner lives,
and through this knowledge to attempt to better prison conditions
and methods of punishment throughout the country is Miss Taylor’s
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Fables

By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

“I am very much struck with Mr. Hermann’s drawings to the
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_Illustrated with 20 full-page illustrations, 20 initials,
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One Woman to Another And Other Poems

By CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON

“Mrs. Robinson has a gift of poetic thought and expression and an
ear for the music of poetry which rarely permits a discordant
line, but it is this constant impression of deep sincerity which
is her most appealing and distinguishing quality.”—_Springfield
Republican._

_$1.25 net; postage extra._

Criticism

By W. C. BROWNELL

This suggestive essay is a systematic exposition and defense of
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_75 cents net; postage extra._

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TALES OF TWO COUNTRIES

By MAXIM GORKY

$1.25 net; weight about 18 oz.

After a number of years, the potency of the great Russian’s pen
is again exercised. This commanding volume of stories discloses
varied aspects of the foremost living writer among those who
attracted universal attention to modern Russian literature. The
folk and psychology of Italy, to which country he retired in
exile, supply the themes of thirteen of the twenty-two tales, the
others are of Russian life. Gorky’s admirers will find in the
collection a reaffirmation of the art which secured his high
place among interpreters of life through fiction.

DRAMATIC WORKS: Volume V

By GERHART HAUPTMANN

$1.50 net; weight 22 oz.

CONTAINS: “SCHLUCK AND JAU;” “AND PIPPA DANCES;”
“CHARLEMAGNE’S HOSTAGE.”

The second group of Hauptmann’s Symbolic and Legendary Dramas
gains unity by a recognizable oneness of inspiration. The poet
has become a seeker; he questions the nature and quality of
various ultimate values; he abandons the field of the personal
and individual life and “sends his soul into the infinite.” [A
special circular, with contents of the preceding volumes, will be
mailed upon request to the publisher.]

WISCONSIN PLAYS

$1.25 net; weight about 18 oz.

CONTAINS: “THE NEIGHBORS,” by Zona Gale; “IN HOSPITAL,” by
Thomas H. Dickinson; “GLORY OF THE MORNING,” by William
Ellery Leonard.

A noteworthy manifestation of the interest in the stage and its
literature is the work, both in writing of plays and their
performance, of the gifted band organized as the Wisconsin
Dramatic Society. The three one-act plays in this volume are
fruits of the movement. Having met with success in the theatre,
they are now offered to the creative reader to whose imagination
dramatic literature is a stimulus.

SELF-CULTURE THROUGH THE VOCATION

By EDWARD HOWARD GRIGGS

50 cents net; weight about 8 oz.

This new book in the Art of Life Series deals with work as a way
to culture and service. When the cry everywhere is vocational
education, it is worth while to stop and ask, What of the
education that is possible through the vocation itself? This
question is studied in six chapters, with a lightness of touch
that saves the teaching from didacticism and gives it universal
human appeal. The book is a companion study to the author’s
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life, and the new book should be of special value to young people
and to men and women longing to make each day yield its full
return in culture and wisdom.

THE DEATH OF A NOBODY

By JULES ROMAINS

$1.25 net; weight about 18 oz.

An amazingly perfect production of incomparable restraint and
power; it reveals with a quality enchaining the attention, the
interwoven web of human revelations, romantic from their very
prosaicness. The life of one in other’s minds—the “social
consciousness” about which the sociologists have developed
abstruse theories, is here portrayed explicitly, with a
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suggested by the fact that the “Nobody” about whom the action
revolves dies in the second chapter. Though fiction, it will
supply convincing arguments to believers in life after death. It
is not only a masterpiece of literary art, but might well be used
as the concrete text of the mind of the crowd. Translated from
the French by Desmond MacCarthy and Sydney Waterlow.

All of these may be obtained from booksellers or from the
publisher. Upon application to the latter, a list of interesting
publications of 1914 may be obtained.

B. W. HUEBSCH, 225 Fifth avenue, New York

“BOOK CHRISTMAS” SUGGESTIONS

The Pastor’s Wife

By the Author of “Elizabeth and Her German Garden”

A delicious and timely piece of satire on German and English ways
by the Author of “Elizabeth and Her German Garden.” A story of an
English girl who marries a German pastor, and of her laughable
attempts to Germanize herself and Anglicize her children.

_Illustrated by Arthur Litle. Net $1.35._

Bambi

By Marjorie Benton Cooke. Bubbling over with good cheer and fun,
with little side-glimpses into New York Literary and Theatrical
circles. Fourth Large Printing. Illustrated. _Net $1.25._

A Soldier of the Legion

By C. N. and A. M. Williamson. A romance of Algiers and the
famous Foreign Legion, now fighting at the front. _Net $1.35._

The Grand Assize

By Hugh Carton

If you were judged today what would the verdict be? In this
volume, Lawyer, Minister, Actor, Author, Plutocrat and
Derelict—all stand before the Judgment Bar. It is a book of
extraordinary character which you will not forget in a long time.
_Net $1.35._

The Drama League
Series of Plays

Already Issued.

I. Kindling.

_By Charles Kenyon_

II. A Thousand Years Ago.

_By Percy MacKaye_

III. The Great Galeoto.

_By José Echegaray._

IV. The Sunken Bell.

_By Gerhart Hauptmann._

V. Mary Goes First.

_By Henry Arthur Jones_

VI. Her Husband’s Wife.

_By A. E. Thomas._

VII. Change. A Welsh Play.

_By J. O. Francis._

VIII. Marta of the Lowlands.

_By Angel Guimerá_

COMING

IX. The Thief.

_By Henry Bernstein_

_Bound in Brown Boards. Each, net, 75c._

_Art and Literature_

The Art of the Low Countries

By Wilhelm R. Valentiner _of the Metropolitan Museum, New
York_.

Translated by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer

A survey of Dutch art from the earliest time to the present,
written by the greatest authority in this country. _Illustrated.
Net $2.50._

Country Houses

By Aymar Embury II

Plans with photographs inside and out of a number of houses
designed by the author. _Illustrated. Net $3.00._

Joseph Conrad

By Richard Curle

The first adequate appreciation of Conrad, the man and his works.
_Frontispiece. Net $1.25._

Early American Churches

By Aymar Embury II

A book of pictures and descriptions of historic American
churches, by a well-known architect. _Illustrated. Net $2.80._

Joseph Conrad

The Deep Sea Edition

Bound in sea blue limp leather.

TITLES:

Chance.
Falk.
The Nigger of the Narcissus.
Almayer’s Folly.
An Outcast of the Islands.
Youth.
Typhoon.
’Twixt Land and Sea.
Romance.
Lord Jim.

_10 Volumes. Boxed. Net, $15.00. Single Volumes, net,
$1.50._

A Handbook to the Poetry of Rudyard Kipling

By RALPH DURAND

Mr. Kipling has personally helped prepare this book, which clears
up the many obscure allusions and unfamiliar expressions in his
verses. A book for every lover of Rudyard Kipling. _Net $2.00._

Illustrated Children’s Gift Books

Myths Every Child Should Know

Edited by Hamilton Wright Mabie

Illustrated by Mary Hamilton Frye

These imperishable tales, which have delighted children the world
over, receive fresh and original treatment in Miss Frye’s hands.

_10 illustrations in color, 10 in black and white. Boxed,
net $2.00._

Andersen’s Fairy Tales

Illustrated by Dougald Stewart Walker

Mr. Walker’s illustrations for these fairy tale classics, by
reason of their poetic quality and exquisite detail, make this
volume one of the most truly artistic gift books of the Holiday
Season.

_12 illustrations in color. Many in black and white. Net
$1.50._

Published by DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO., Garden City, N.Y.

PERCH OF THE DEVIL

By GERTRUDE ATHERTON

_Author of “The Conqueror,” “Tower of Ivory,” etc._

In this novel, which gives the romance of mining in Montana,
appears _a new figure in American fiction—Ida Compton_—so real,
so true to America as to make her almost a national figure. The
story of her growth from a crude, beautiful girl to a woman of
fire and character makes a wholesome, satisfying novel. _$1.35
net._

“For other novels written by a woman and having the scope and
power of Mrs. Atherton’s we must hark back to George Eliot,
George Sand, and Madame de Stael. It is hard to discover American
men equaling Mrs. Atherton in width of wisdom, depth of sympathy,
and sense of consecration.”—_American Review of Reviews._

ART

By CLIVE BELL

A clever, pungent book which accounts for and defends the
Post-Impressionist School, showing it to be allied with vital art
throughout its history. It is by a man who has a keen interest in
life and art, and can express himself tersely, with flashes of
humor. It has created a lively discussion in England.
Illustrated. _$1.25 net._

S. S. McCLURE’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

“Goes on the same shelf with Jacob Riis’ _The Making of an
American_, Booker Washington’s _Up from Slavery_ and Mary Antin’s
_The Promised Land_.”—_Brooklyn Eagle._ The Scotch-Irish boy who
came here to do his best tells of his rise in a simple,
fascinating way. As the editor who introduced to us Kipling,
Stevenson, and others equally famous, and first brought American
magazines into national affairs, he gives a remarkable inside
view of our letters and national life. Illustrated. _$1.75 net._

GERMAN MASTERS of ART

By HELEN A. DICKINSON

The first adequate history of early German art—the masterpieces
as yet untouched by war. The author has made a special study of
the original paintings and writes with insight and inspiration.
Special attention is devoted to von Byrde, Cranach, Grünewald,
Moser, the two Holbeins, Dürer, etc. 4 illustrations in color and
100 in monotone. Cloth, 4to, _$5.00 net_.

_BOOKS ON THE WAR_

TREITSCHKE

Selections from Lectures on Politics

The first English edition of the words of the great professor so
often cited by Bernhardi. Here is what the great spokesman of
militarism really said. _Cloth. 12mo. 75 cents net._

RADA

By ALFRED NOYES

Christianity vs. War is the theme of this powerful play whose
action takes place in a Balkan village on Christmas Eve. It
pictures with almost prophetic exactness scenes which may now be
taking place in the field of conflict. _Cloth. 12mo. 60 cents
net._

WOMAN and WAR

By OLIVE SCHREINER

This part of that classic, “Woman and Labor,” written after the
author’s personal experience of warfare, is the best and most
eloquent statement of what war means to women and what their
relation is and should be to war. _Boards. 12mo. 50 cents net._

Publishers—FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY—New York

_Appleton’s Newest Publications_

Washington, The Man of Action

Text by Frederick Trevor Hill

Pictures in Color by JOB (J. O. de Breville)

A splendid holiday biography of George Washington, by the well
known American historian, superbly illustrated by the famous
French artist, Comte J. Onfroy de Breville, known to art lovers
the world over as JOB. There are forty-eight full page pictures
(including several double-page pictures), each covering the
entire page, printed in the French style without margins, and
reproduced in five colors. Altogether the volume is the most
attractive and probably the most interesting and authoritative
pictorial life of Washington which has been made.

Handsomely bound in green and gold. Quarto. Boxed, $5.00
net.

Love and the Soul-Maker

By Mary Austin, author of “_The Arrow Maker_”

In this new book the author makes one of the strongest pleas for
the home that has ever been voiced. Mrs. Austin discusses frankly
the problems of sex differences that are being encountered
everywhere today in our social life, and proves that the balance
of the social relations can be accomplished only by the same
frank handling of the so-called problem of the double standard of
morality. Every serious minded man and woman should read it.
_Cloth, $1.50 net._

Hail and Farewell—

“Ave,” “Salve” and “Vale”

By George Moore

In these three volumes the author brings us into very close touch
with very many men and women who have helped to make the history
of art and literature during the last decade. “It is a wonderful
tour de force in literary art, with scarcely a parallel since
Rousseau’s Confessions.”—_North American_, Philadelphia. _Cloth,
gilt top, $1.75 each vol._

Insurgent Mexico

By John Reed

This is the true story of the Mexico of today; showing the peon
in war and in peace; intimately portraying the character of this
little understood people and their leaders; describing many of
the scenes along the march of Villa’s victorious army, and
offering to the reader the only up-to-date and accurate account
of the Mexican situation available. _$1.50 net._

Americans and the Britons

By Frederic C. De Sumichrast

A timely book discussing the differences between American and
British social order; The American Woman; Education; Foreign
Relations; Journalism in America and Britain; Militarism;
Patriotism; Naturalization, and many other important subjects of
interest to all English speaking people. The author is a strong
believer in Democracy, though he sees many faults in it. These he
discusses frankly, with a hopeful outlook for the future. _Cloth,
$1.75 net._

_Notable New Novels_

Anne Feversham

By J. C. Snaith. A splendid picture of the Elizabethan period. By
the author of “Araminta.”

_$1.35 net._

Achievement

By E. Temple Thurston. The third volume in the trilogy of Mr.
Thurston’s character study of Richard Furlong: Artist.

_$1.35 net._

Selina

By George Madden Martin. A delightful story of a bright little
girl and her first venture in the business world. By the author
of “Emmy Lou.”

_Illustrated, $1.30 net._

Kent Knowles: Quahaug

By Joseph C. Lincoln. The quaintest and most romantic of all Mr.
Lincoln’s novels. The love story of a very quiet young man.

_Illustrated, $1.35 net._

Sinister Street

By Compton Mackenzie

An Oxford graduate’s experiences in London’s moral by-paths.

_$1.35 net._

To-Day’s Daughter

By Josephine Daskam Bacon

The story of a modern young woman who discovers a romance while
in search of a career.

_Illustrated, $1.35 net._

The Torch Bearer

By Reina Melcher Marquis

The story of a woman’s wonderful sacrifice and what came out of
it.

_$1.30 net._

Maria

By the Baroness Von Hutten

The romance of a beautiful opera singer and a Balkan king.

_$1.35 net._

D. APPLETON & COMPANY :: PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK

THE TRUE ULYSSES S. GRANT

By GENERAL CHARLES KING

_24 illustrations. Octavo. Buckram. $2.00 net. Half levant.
$5.00 net. Postage extra._

This new volume in the True Biography and History Series is the
work of a writer peculiarly fitted to deal with Grant. Not only
Grant, the general, but Grant the man, and Grant, the president,
are treated with the same regard for truth that characterizes all
the volumes in the series.

ESSAYS, POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL

By CHARLEMAGNE TOWER, LL.D.

_Former Minister of the United States to Austria-Hungary.
Ambassador to Russia and to Germany._

_$1.50 net. Postage extra._

Essays upon vital subjects by one of our greatest figures in the
diplomatic world will demand instant attention. Mr. Tower knows
whereof he speaks when he treats such subjects as “The European
Attitude Towards the Monroe Doctrine,” etc. The book will be
widely read for its important revelations in the light of the
present disturbed conditions.

THE MYSTERY OF THE ORIENTAL RUG

By Dr. G. GRIFFIN LEWIS.

_Frontis in color and 30 full-page plates. $1.50 net.
Postage extra._

This charming book is compact with information and no one should
buy rugs without its aid.

Books for the Holidays

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA

_ILLUSTRATED HOLIDAY CATALOGUE MAILED ON REQUEST_

THE PRACTICAL BOOK OF OUTDOOR ROSE GROWING

By GEORGE C. THOMAS, Jr.

_96 perfect reproductions in full-color of all varieties of
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The rose-lover and the rose-grower should be keenly interested in
this beautiful and comprehensive book on roses. The exquisite
illustrations and general attractiveness of the volume make it a
practical gift book for any one engaged in flower-culture.

THE PRACTICAL BOOK OF PERIOD FURNITURE

By HAROLD DONALDSON EBERLEIN and ABBOT McCLURE

_250 illustrations. Octavo. Cloth. In a box. $5.00 net.
Postage extra._

A practical book for those who wish to know and buy period
furniture. It contains all that it is necessary to know about the
subject. By means of an illustrated chronological key (something
entirely new) one is enabled to identify the period to which any
piece of furniture belongs.

OUR PHILADELPHIA

By ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL. Illus. by JOSEPH PENNELL.

_(Regular Edition). 105 illustrations from lithographs.
Quarto. In a box. $7.50 net. (Autographed Edition). Signed
by both author and artist, with ten additional lithographs.
Special buckram binding in a box. $18.00 net. Carriage
charges extra. (This edition limited to advance
subscribers)._

An intimate personal record in text and in picture of the lives
of the famous author and artist in the city whose recent story
will be to many an absolute surprise. Mr. Pennell’s
illustrations, made especially for this volume, are the greatest
he has yet accomplished.

HEROES AND HEROINES OF FICTION

By WILLIAM S. WALSH.

_Half morocco. $3.00 net. Postage extra._

Mr. Walsh has compiled the famous characters and famous names in
modern novels, romances, poems, and dramas. These are classified,
analyzed, and criticised and supplemented with citations from the
best authorities. A valuable, interesting reference book.

COLONIAL MANSIONS OF MARYLAND AND DELAWARE

By JOHN MARTIN HAMMOND.

_Limited edition, printed from type, which has been
distributed. With 65 illustrations. Octavo. In a box, $5.00
net. Postage extra._

Uniform in style and price with others in the Limited Edition
Series—“Colonial Homes of Philadelphia,” “Manors of Virginia,”
etc., all of which are now out of print and at a premium.

THE AMERICAN BEAVER

By A. RADCLYFFE DUGMORE

_Illustrated with photographs. $2.50 net. Postage extra._

Few people possibly realize that the American Beaver is one of
our most interesting native animals. Mr. Dugmore tells everything
worth knowing about them, and this new work will delight the
stay-at-home as well as the out-of-doors man.

PUBLISHERS
PHILADELPHIA

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

THE STORIES ALL
CHILDREN LOVE SERIES

This set of books for children comprises some of the most famous
stories ever written. They are beautifully illustrated in color.
Be sure to ask for this series. Each $1.25 net. The 1914 Volume
is

_8 illustrations in color. $1.25 net._

This is one of the most delightful children’s stories ever
written.

In the same series: “THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON,” “THE PRINCESS
AND THE GOBLIN,” “AT THE BACK OF THE NORTH WIND,” “THE PRINCESS
AND CURDIE,” “THE CHRONICLES OF FAIRYLAND,” “HANS ANDERSEN’S
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Boys! Girls!

Send 14 cents for this Beautiful Twelve Page Calendar in color.

Books for the Holidays

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS PHILADELPHIA

_ILLUSTRATED HOLIDAY CATALOGUE MAILED ON REQUEST_

_TWO CHARMING CHRISTMAS BOOKS_

BETTY’S VIRGINIA CHRISTMAS

By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL

_Four illustrations in color by Henry J. Soulen. Page
Decorations. 12mo. Cloth, decorated in green and gold,
$1.50 net. Postage extra._

A Southern story that carries the true spirit of Christmas to the
hearts of young and old. To the tune of Dixie fiddles there is a
rout of festive dances, early morning fox-hunts, and spirited
feasts of turkey, egg-nog and the other delicious dishes for
which Virginia cooks and Virginia farms are rightly famous.

OUR SENTIMENTAL GARDEN

By AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE

_Illustrated in color by Charles Robinson. Head and tail
pieces and decorative lining papers. Octavo. Cloth. $1.75
net. Postage extra._

This book is a sheer delight, filled with the whims and fancies
of garden-lovers. The authors have caught the note of family life
in a picturesque old English dwelling, where grown-ups and
children live largely out of doors, and where birds and animals
and bees and flowers become of a most human comradeship. If one
cannot own such a sentimental garden the next best thing is to
know all about one.

_GIVE A BOY ONE OF THE TRAIL BLAZERS SERIES_

BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL

By EDWIN L. SABIN.

_Illustrated. $1.25 net. Postage extra._

An inspiring, wonderful story of the adventures of a boy during
those perilous and exciting times when Buffalo Bill began the
adventurous career that has indissolubly linked his picturesque
figure with the opening of the west to civilization. They were
the romantic days of the Overland Trail, the Pony Express, and
the Deadwood Coach. In the same series, “WITH CARSON AND
FREMONT,” “ON THE PLAINS WITH CUSTER,” “DAVID CROCKETT; SCOUT,”
“DANIEL BOONE; BACKWOODSMAN,” “CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH.”

_GOOD FICTION FOR THE CHRISTMAS FIRESIDE_

THE WARD OF TECUMSEH

By CRITTENDEN MARRIOTT.

_Illus. $1.25 net. Postage extra._

_PHILADELPHIA PRESS_:

“Historical romance will never lose its fascination as long as
such vivid, picturesque, and wholly entertaining tales as this
are forthcoming. For ‘The Ward of Tecumseh’ combines the thrill
and excitement of a red-blooded Western story with the compelling
interest of historic narrative.”

THE THREE FURLONGERS

By SHEILA KAYE-SMITH.

_Frontispiece. $1.25 net. Postage extra._

_NEW YORK TIMES_:

“Her story is written with such sincerity of feeling and
appreciation of moral beauty and contains so much human truth
that the author deserves warm commendation. An achievement worth
while.”

THE DUKE OF OBLIVION

By JOHN REED SCOTT.

_Frontispiece. $1.25 net. Postage extra._

_NEW YORK TIMES_:

“There are plots and counter-plots, hand-to-hand fights, and many
thrilling adventures ... until the end the reader is kept in a
high state of doubt as to whether or not they will all escape in
safety.”

PUBLISHERS
PHILADELPHIA

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

WORTH WHILE BOOKS

RECOLLECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS OF A JAPANESE ARTIST

By YOSHIO MARKINO, Author of “A Japanese Artist in London.”

8vo. Cloth. Fifteen illustrations in color and monochrome.

$2.00 net

The charming intimacies which were given in the author’s previous
book are here continued. Mr. Markino’s style is indescribable;
frankness, originality of expression and spontaneity are the
chief characteristics.

THE WAY OF THE STRONG

By RIDGWELL CULLUM, Author of “The Night Riders,” etc.
12mo. Cloth. Wrapper in color and four illustrations by
Douglas Duer.

$1.35 net

It tells the story of a MAN—of powerful build and powerful
spirit. In his clash as a capitalist with labor; in his frenzied
love for his wife; in his every undertaking, this man is a
character of force and power.

A MANUAL OF PLAY

By WILLIAM BYRON FORBUSH, Ph. D, Author of “The Boy
Problem,” etc. 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

$1.50 net

Designed for parents and all having the care of children. It
deals with play with dolls, play with balls, imaginative play,
constructive play, laughter plays, play for girls, Sunday play
and neighborhood play, etc.

DANIEL WEBSTER

(American Crisis Biographies)

By FREDERIC A. OGG, Ph. D., Professor of History in the
University of Wisconsin, and author of “The Governments of
Europe.” 12mo. Cloth. With portrait.

$1.25 net

The _man_ Webster is brought out in strong contrast to the
statesman and publicist.

HOW TO WIN AT AUCTION BRIDGE

By EDWIN ANTHONY. 16mo. Limp cloth. With rules and specimen
hands.

75 cts. net

An up-to-date work dealing with the game in its most interesting
form, “Royal Spades,” and giving a brief exposition of the nullo
count.

REDUCING the COST of LIVING

By SCOTT NEARING, Ph. D., Wharton School, University of
Pennsylvania. Author of “Wages in the United States,”
“Social Adjustment,” etc.

12mo. Cloth. With numerous tables.

$1.25 net

A comprehensive discussion of the problems that enter into the
ever-increasing cost of living. The book is clear, concise and
logical. The author’s conclusions are based upon facts.

SHEAR NONSENSE

A book for the after-dinner speaker. 16mo. Cloth. 75 cents
net. Limp leather, boxed.

$1.25 net

The best humor that has appeared in the last two years. The same
discrimination and refinement that have been responsible for the
success of “That Reminds Me” and “That Reminds Me Again” are
features of this volume.

ULYSSES S. GRANT

(American Crisis Biographies)

By FRANKLIN S. EDMONDS, Author of “A Century’s Progress in
Education.” 12mo. Cloth. With portrait.

$1.25 net

A careful study of the great general, furnishing some interesting
information heretofore unknown.

MORE ABOUT COLLECTING

By JAMES YOXALL, Author of “The A B C About Collecting.”
8vo. Cloth. One hundred and nine illustrations.

$2.00 net

Gives detailed information for the amateur and semi-amateur
collector of furniture, earthenware, glassware, porcelain,
pictures, books, autographs, etc.

_For sale by all booksellers or by the publishers_

GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO., Philadelphia

_Many possibilities for gift
selecting offered in_

The Rare Book Department

In a room set quite apart from our general stocks are housed the
precious jewels of bookdom—thousands of rare volumes, finely
bound and extra-illustrated, beautiful books such as collectors
love to possess.

Continuously new book treasures are coming in to take the places
of those which are going out into private hands. Knowing that the
books in this little corner of the book world are usually but one
of a kind, book-lovers make a point of dropping in often to
assure themselves that nothing desirable slips by them.

We invite you to be our guest at your early convenience—to make
use of not only the Rare Book Department, but the whole McClurg
store, whether you have any purchase in mind or not.

McClurg’s is more than a book store, it is a public institution.

at McClurg’s
on Wabash Avenue, between Adams and Jackson

_The New Poetry_

SWORD BLADES _and_ POPPY SEED

_By_ AMY LOWELL

Author of “A DOME OF MANY-COLOURED GLASS,” Etc.

_In “The Boston Herald” Josephine Preston Peabody writes of
this unusual book_:

“First, last and all inclusive in Miss Amy Lowell’s poetic
equipment is vitality enough to float the work of half a score of
minor poets.... Against the multitudinous array of daily verse
our times produce ... this volume utters itself with a range and
brilliancy wholly remarkable.... A wealth of subtleties and
sympathies, gorgeously wrought, full of macabre effects (as many
of the poems are) and brilliantly worked out ... personally I
cannot see that Miss Lowell’s use of unrhymed vers libre has been
surpassed in English. This breadth and ardor run through the
whole fabric of the subject matter.... Here is the fairly
Dionysiac revelry of a tireless workman. With an honesty as whole
as anything in literature she hails any and all experience as
stuff for poetry. The things of splendor she has made she will
hardly outdo in their kind.”

_Price $1.25 net. At all bookstores._

PUBLISHED
BY

64-66 5th Avenue
NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

_Madame
Melba’s
Pretty
Compliment_

Before Madame Melba went abroad last June, her concert tour being
over, she stepped into the factory warerooms to select a Mason &
Hamlin piano for her own personal use.

She tested them herself, for she plays as well as sings. Rising
from before a beautiful parlor grand, she said with all of an
artist’s enthusiasm: “This is the piano for me—it’s just like my
voice!” Then and there she bought one of those beautifully toned

Mason & Hamlin Pianos

ordering it sent to her home in Melbourne, Australia.

What a pretty compliment: “It’s just like my voice”—and you can
easily forgive the little conceit in it, for singing tone was
exactly what she was looking for, and it is exactly what Mason &
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the best is none too good for you, then by all means call and
hear the Mason & Hamlin, the Stradivarius of pianos.

_Cable Piano Company_

_Wabash and Jackson_ _CHICAGO_

CHRISTMAS BOOKS

_For the Little Folk_

TIK-TOK OF OZ

By L. Frank Baum

The “Children’s Favorite Author” has here a jolly story in his
best vein of humor and invention. All the old favorites whose
reappearance children demand, and many new ones of droll
interest. A story to keep the youngsters guessing and to bring
them back again and again. Illustrations in great number by John
R. Neill.

$1.25

THE MOTHER GOOSE PARADE

By Anita de Campi

A great big book, 11×17½ inches, giving the ever-popular Mother
Goose jingles new settings and new utility. Humorous
interpretations in gay colors. A combination painting-in and
cut-out book for child entertainment and for practical nursery
decoration. Illuminated boards.

$1.50

_For Girls_

AZALEA AT SUNSET GAP

By Elia W. Peattie

Charm and vigor and wholesome girl interests, in a story of the
Blue Ridge. Mrs. Peattie thoroughly understands the American girl
and what she likes in the way of reading. “Azalea” has made many
friends.

75c net

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT PINE-TREE CAMP

By Margaret Love Sanderson

A new narrative interest for girls. An outdoor story bright with
things “doing.” A Camp Fire Girls story of more than ordinary
merit and interest. For any girl who likes reading.

75c net

AUNT JANE’S NIECES OUT WEST

By Edith Van Dyne

The ninth title of one of the most successful series of girls’
stories in recent years. Distinguished by more than usual plot,
brisk action, cheery, vivacious girl characters.

60c

_For Boys_

THE PIRATE SHARK

By Elliott Whitney

The thrill of big game hunting and capital adventure, with plenty
of action and suspense. Not sensational, but decidedly diverting.

60c

THE BOY SCOUTS OF THE AIR ON THE GREAT LAKES

By Gordon Stuart

The outdoor boy will read this Boy Scout story with eager
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treasure hunt at the end of it, carries promise of adventure well
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60c

_For Grown-Ups_

NANCY THE JOYOUS

By Edith Stow

The charm of simplicity and naturalness, and the infectious good
cheer of a heroine of a whimsical humor and hopefulness, make
this novel more than merely entertaining. You will recommend it
to your friends. 12mo; illustrated.

$1.00 net

DIANE OF THE GREEN VAN

By Leona Dalrymple

The $10,000 Prize Novel—an outdoor love story, refreshing in
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originality. A surprising plot—a captivating heroine—a satisfying
story of love, laughter, adventure, mystery.

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MISS MINERVA AND WILLIAM GREEN HILL

By Frances Boyd Calhoun

Each copy sold averages at least half a dozen readers, and as
many friends. Well over 160,000 copies in circulation. Strong in
the humor of childhood and the love of a good laugh. The pure
gold of innocent fun, presented with remarkable insight and
sympathy.

$1.00

_At All Bookstores_

_Publishers_ _Reilly & Britton_ _Chicago_

Houghton Mifflin Company’s

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IMPRESSIONS AND COMMENTS

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ON THE COSMIC RELATIONS

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THE COLLEGE COURSE AND THE PREPARATION FOR LIFE

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THE LIFE OF A LITTLE COLLEGE

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BYWAYS IN BOOKLAND

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THE READING PUBLIC

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CIVILIZATION AND HEALTH

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THE ABOLITION OF POVERTY

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BIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS

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A CENTURY’S CHANGE IN RELIGION

By GEORGE HARRIS. A comparison of religious beliefs and practices
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IS CONSCIENCE AN EMOTION?

By HASTINGS RASHDALL. In three able and scholarly lectures, this
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THE LAW AND USAGE OF WAR

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For full description of the above and other books send for our
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Transcriber’s Notes

Advertisements were collected at the end of the text.

The table of contents on the title page was adjusted in order to reflect
correctly the headings in this issue of THE LITTLE REVIEW.

The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical
errors were silently corrected. All other changes are shown here
(before/after):

[p. 16]:
... In doing so we fear he exhibits an intellect too prone to
dichrotomize. He ...
... In doing so we fear he exhibits an intellect too prone to
dichotomize. He ...

[p. 20]:
... they used is sporadically, desultorily. Today we know better.
Today we ...
... they used it sporadically, desultorily. Today we know better.
Today we ...

[p. 20]:
... Whose flaccid accademic pulses ...
... Whose flaccid academic pulses ...

[p. 20]:
... Then metronomes,— ...
... Than metronomes,— ...

[p. 22]:
... things, but one must sometimes he obvious when speaking to
those who still ...
... things, but one must sometimes be obvious when speaking to
those who still ...

[p. 41]:
... worth laying to heart. For example, religion ecclesiasticized
is dispiritualized; ...
... worth laying to heart. For example, religion ecclesiasticized
is disspiritualized; ...

[p. 46]:
... Hit hard! Hit hard, sea-horse! Hit him on the head! Hit hard!
Hit! ...
... Hit hard! Hit hard, sea-horse! Hit him on the head! Hit hard!
Hit!” ...

[p. 47]:
... It is not of the rotten flesh of dogs or of sheep; it is of
the flesh of Christians that we will be eating! ...
... It is not of the rotten flesh of dogs or of sheep; it is of
the flesh of Christians that we will be eating!” ...

[p. 52]:
... After while we all trooped up to bed—up the white staircase
with ...
... After a while we all trooped up to bed—up the white
staircase with ...

[p. 57]:
... in London. It is a play of sordid “realism,” whose
principle function seems ...
... in London. It is a play of sordid “realism,” whose
principal function seems ...

[p. 59]:
... confident that I will get fair play. I will be given my
opportunity, and I ...
... confident that I will get fair play. I will be given my
opportunity, and I do ...

[p. 63]:
... hung along with fine pieces of art, and the prizes intended
for fine art goes ...
... hung along with fine pieces of art, and the prizes intended
for fine art go ...

[p. 65]:
... and definitions. Oh, those definitions! But we easily forgive
the author his ...
... and definitions? Oh, those definitions! But we easily forgive
the author his ...

[p. 67]:
... those whose duty it seems to uphold the old idea are now
crying that Reed’s ...
... those whose duty it seems to be to uphold the old idea are
now crying that Reed’s ...

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Little Review, December 1914 (Vol. 1, No. 9)" ***

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