Title: The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 5, February 1923)
Author: Various
Language: English
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                      Vol. LXXXVIII          No. 5

                                   The
                         Yale Literary Magazine

                            Conducted by the
                      Students of Yale University.

                             [Illustration]

               “Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque YALENSES
               Cantabunt SOBOLES, unanimique PATRES.”

                             February, 1923.

                  New Haven: Published by the Editors.
      Printed at the Van Dyck Press, 121-123 Olive St., New Haven.

                        Price: Thirty-five Cents.

     _Entered as second-class matter at the New Haven Post Office._

       *       *       *       *       *

THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE

has the following amount of trade at a 10% discount with these places:

    ALEXANDER—Suits                 $32.00
    CHASE—Men’s Furnishings          10.00
    GAMER—Tailors                    32.00
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    KIRBY—Jewelers                   63.00
    KNOX-RAY—Silverware              30.00
    PACH—Photographers               24.00
    PALLMAN—Kodaks                   32.00
    ROGER SHERMAN—Photographers      46.50
    YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS—Books     111.50

If you want any of this drop a card to the Business Manager, Yale
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ESTABLISHED 1818

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    March 7, 8
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       *       *       *       *       *

THE YALE CO-OP.

_A Story of Progress_

At the close of the fiscal year, July, 1921, the total membership was
1187.

For the same period ending July, 1922, the membership was 1696.

On January 18th, 1923, the membership was 1905, and men are still joining.

Why stay out when a membership will save you manifold times the cost of
the fee.



THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE



Contents

FEBRUARY, 1923


    Leader                        WINFIELD SHIRAS    137

    Five Sonnets                MAXWELL E. FOSTER    140

    Girl Friends                NORMAN R. JAFFRAY    145

    Under the Arch I Passed          MORRIS TYLER    146

    A Benediction    WALTER EDWARDS HOUGHTON, JR.    147

    Sonnet                   J. CROSBY BROWN, JR.    148

    Georgiana                RUSSELL W. DAVENPORT    149

    The Artistry of Art         MAXWELL E. FOSTER    164

    Gossip                          W. T. BISSELL    170

    _Book Reviews_                                   174

    _Editor’s Table_                                 180



                       The Yale Literary Magazine

             VOL. LXXXVIII       FEBRUARY, 1923       NO. 5

_EDITORS_

    MAXWELL EVARTS FOSTER
    RUSSELL WHEELER DAVENPORT
    ROBERT CHAPMAN BATES
    WINFIELD SHIRAS
    FRANCIS OTTO MATTHIESSEN

_BUSINESS MANAGERS_

    CHARLES EVANDER SCHLEY
    HORACE JEREMIAH VOORHIS



_Leader_


We appear to have been surrounded in these weeks by a polemic atmosphere.
Tremendous controversies have proved and disproved the validity of
Christianity, the inability of the Faculty and Corporation to make
great men from Yale undergraduates, and whether we should be made to
go to Chapel on Sundays and to recitations on other days. Editorials,
communications, and private discussions continue to feed the maw of this
wholesale argumentative machinery, and to the casual observer, a spirit
of radicalism hovers above the campus, clouding or illuminating it as the
individual chooses to suppose.

There is no place here to discuss the beneficial effect of controversy
upon thought. Nor is there any need for pointing out the possibility
of reform arising from the conviction which thought brings. It is the
controversy itself which is interesting, especially in an institution
where experience and tradition form the basis of the laws and customs.
Controversy at Yale must mean an offensive begun by young minds upon what
time has taught their controlling elders. And consequently, as is being
seen, it takes a ton of controversy to germinate a pound of “reform”.

But young minds are impulsively active. They are impatient, and the
distant hope of a change in a present state of affairs holds in itself
a vast attraction. The philosophy of “all things must change”, applied
to conditions as well as to matter, extends a sweet and optimistic
prospect to youth. And it is to this natural tendency, as well as to any
deep-rooted sincerity concerning evils, that much of our controversy
may be attributed. And when a beginning has been made, a flaming
question raised, there are the additional attractions of being given
an opportunity to turn clever phrases, to appear in the public eye, to
champion or rend in a spirit of battle. The argumentative machinery
clanks frantically, and the sound and rhythm of it beats a false
sincerity into the minds of the controversialists, a kind of belief
founded more upon emotional than mental activity; more upon desire than
knowledge.

A controversy may be said to be worth while to us only when it involves
more thought than impulse. A questionaire has recently been sent
broadcast through the University which is quite definite in its spirit
of controversy, but which falls for no definiteness of thought. Rather,
it requires the impulsive reply, the mere “yes” or “no” form. Do we (yes
or no) think Sunday Chapel should be abolished? Are we (yes or no) in
favor of unlimited cuts from recitations for those whose stand is above
70 per cent.? Although there is certainly no chance to turn phrases
here, the philosophy of change readily asserts itself. It is so easy and
delightful to change things with a slight swift affirmation or negation.
Those who write “yes” to the suggestion of unlimited cuts may be the
identical persons who have been complaining that certain professors
require all cuts, even within the present limited range, to be made up.
Nor do those hasty souls pause to consider that continuous attendance
would be inevitably required under the new system through a more severe
grading and a greater emphasis upon examinations. But it is so easy
and delightful to write “yes”, whereas to reply in the negative would
indicate a desire for the boring continuation of existing conditions!

Then, says the non-University man, what is the advantage of a system
of education which stimulates emotional rather than rational opinion?
The answer is simply we learn through disappointments, and through a
later realization of our childlike wistfulness for new things. This
latter begins often as early as our Senior year, in which we realize
other things as well, including our transience as undergraduates and our
lack of time for conducting many of the new states of affairs which we
advocate so heartily, such as complete student government. There is too
much extra-curriculum activity already in our lives here to allow us to
be administrators as well. Also, in Senior year, we tend to acquire more
or less veneration for the force of experience and for the opinions of
older minds than our own. The greatest lesson of life is dawning upon
us,—that the truest form of living is one which is built upon simplicity,
fundamentals, and a direction of our actions by old example.

University life, operating upon our intelligent spirit, is the emerging
from the sensationalism of thought and action craved by youth, into
the more simple contemplative nature of maturity. In our Freshman and
Sophomore years we seek diversion almost wholly in gaudy forms. Then,—too
soon, it seems—we find that we were wrong, that it is the life of the
Quadrangle, the relationship of friends, the contact with the internal
rather than with the external shows, which are the vital and permanent
attractions. The fire-brand element is prone to vanish.

Whether all this may be considered too conservative in the present day
and place; whether, in itself, it is a turning of phrases, or invites
controversy by _attacking_ controversy, is extraneous. Whether it may
be thought to neglect too much the good influence of controversy upon
right thinking, is another and fairer question. One thing it seeks
to inculcate: a realization of the component parts of undergraduate
controversy, a useful knowledge of the natural emotional forces involved
which veil clarity; so that truth may be found more fully than in the
replies to questionaires and in the disputes revolving about destructive
editorials.

                                                         WINFIELD SHIRAS.



_Five Sonnets_


    1

    Now lift the burden of your pagan hair,
      And shame the sun; now stretch your eager hands,
      And with your lily-fingers fasten bands
    About me. I am Prometheus, and so dare.
    Your eyes are vultures and my heart their fare,
      But you are something no one understands,
      You are the spirit of the falling sands,
    You are the color that is lost in prayer.

    I am Prometheus, but your dreams conceive
    New subtle desolations for desire,
    Holding aloft the gold unbroken bowl.
    What wisdom of black art can so deceive?
    For though it is the guerdon of my soul,
    I cannot reach to steal that Titan fire.

    2

    Let the Hippolytuses make their prayers
      To altars of cold death, and let them take
      The dead results their clear libations make,
    Or with bowed head climb up the golden stairs.
    The glory of their dying is all theirs
      Who have found fire only about the stake,—
      It is a pity we should try to break
    The perfect symmetry of their despairs.

    But we who are the children of our birth
    Loving the clay we are, and are to be,
    Find more sufficient life wherein we spawn,
    And eat and drink, mere creatures of the earth,
    And so endure with less fragility
    The sun and starlight of the lonely dawn.

    3

    I cannot watch this dawn with humble eyes,
      Feel the wind on my forehead, and not feel
      My genius and my destiny reveal
    Themselves unto the surge of that surmise,
    Nor with a humdrum and dust-worn surprise
      Can I unveil the λόγος you conceal,
      Or praise the Potter or the Potter’s wheel
    For having made the beautiful that dies.

    It is with a new light I find my way,
    But you have given that; it is your light.
    And if I walked in darkness as of old,
    I should not blame the Gods, nor shall I say
    That they have changed into this day the night,
    Or fashioned of my crown of thorns this gold.

    4

    Could I foresee the Truth gleaming ahead
      Out of our common reach, but in my own,
      I should not go unto that perilous throne
    To lose myself among the famous dead.
    For in the glory where a martyr’s bled
      Lurks a renunciation of the known,—
      His wine is salty, and his bread a stone....
    Mine is a sparkling wine, mine sweetened bread.

    I care not for a deathless imagery
    With you a living image by my side,
    Nor for a visioned truth with you the true.
    I need no Godhood save the gift of pride
    To make my idol my idolatry,
    And me insatiate of only you.

    5

    A moment hold that pose for my applause:
      My heart’s an artist; it would paint its fill.
      Let you the model be the test of skill
    Whether or not your eye or mine’s the cause.
    No need this moment for artistic laws;
    Lost in the poem is the prosaic will—,
      My art is lost in you. And do you kill
      The picture moving so?—A moment pause.

    So goes the brush on canvas, so the rhyme,
    And so mortality. What do we fear
    If there be only a moment, so that lives?
    The aeon passes, and no dream regives
    Its passion repetition in our time.
    Pause for a moment. There is beauty here.

                                                       MAXWELL E. FOSTER.



_Girl Friends_


    On the bench at the piano, playing
      Very close together,
        Fingers touching one another lightly—
      Light as any feather—
        Sat they, smiling to each other brightly
    What their hearts were saying.

    One would turn the sheets of music over
      Gently, for the other,
        As a kind and sympathetic sister
      Helps a younger brother;
        Till at last she bent and swiftly kissed her
    As one would a lover.

                                                       NORMAN R. JAFFRAY.



_Under the Arch I Passed_


    Under the arch I passed
    Out of a blasphemous world
    Into the quiet of years
    And of old lives departed.

    Under the arch I passed
    Out of life’s traffic and din
    Into the playground of youth
    And of ghostly tradition.

    Under the arch I passed
    Out of a turmoil of gain
    Into the light of the truth
    And of days past recalling.

                                                            MORRIS TYLER.



_A Benediction_


    What if the storm to-night
      Drive us on unknown shore?
    What if the morning light
      Never shall bless us more?

    Need we to fear or care
    What is our given share?

    Dawn will bring skies of blue,
      And calm will the waters be—
    Long as I live for you,
      And long as you live for me.

                                             WALTER EDWARDS HOUGHTON, JR.



_Sonnet_


    Free have I wandered over all earth’s lands
      Where paths are windy roads; on stately ships
      I sought my dreams where the Pacific dips
    And swells and breaks its heart out on the sands.
    I found a love of small boats and the sky
      With low swung stars, the friendly tropic rain
      And ebbing tides in haste to flood again,
    A love of Beauty that may not pass by.

    I want not joys of many towered halls,
      Of proud cathedrals or the seats of kings,
        But only stillness to enshadow me
    In places where the world to silence falls
      Wondering at the loveliness of things
        Like sun and starshine on the hills and sea.

                                                     J. CROSBY BROWN, JR.



_Georgiana_


If Helen Trumbull had lived in the 19th, instead of in the 20th century,
there would have been no turmoil in her life and little romance. But
being a child of the Victorian era, rigorously instructed in the
puritanism of old Connecticut, and taught to accept without question the
old moral axioms of her forefathers, she was confronted, at the very
outset of her career, with the conflict between her moral heritage, and
the desire to cultivate her active mind. Of course, at the age of ten
or twelve, no such conflict existed. What the Bible said about lying,
and loving God and your neighbor seemed adequate to cover any of life’s
emergencies. Marriage was taken for granted: it was a straight-forward
compact with God. There was nothing to be concealed in the marriage
relationship. Father and mother were just two people.

These things are all familiar to the modern reader. He has heard about
them. Indeed, most readers have themselves sprung from some such
atmosphere, and know, to their sorrow, how the 19th century prepared
one for life. But Helen, like most of us, thought herself the exception
rather than the rule. When she came home, after commencement exercises in
her twelfth year, bearing the “best scholarship” cup, and a prize for a
theme about the life of Christ, she experienced, for the first time, that
feeling of confidence in her own mental prowess, which was to accompany
her through life. Henceforth, the pleasure of exercising her mind was
among the greatest of all pleasures. Henceforth, she could not be content
with accepting everything on faith. And, perhaps, at this point we may
place the beginning of a conflict in her nature which she never quite
succeeded in solving.

Of course the difficulty grew slowly and imperceptibly. She was confirmed
in the Episcopal Church. She took her vows with the utmost solemnity,
her whole nature responding passionately to the mystery of her religion.
After confirmation there was a deep sense of responsibility toward
God, as well as an appeal, derived from the beauty of the Christian
conception, which aroused a strain of poetry in her. And these things
were only intensified as she grew to understand the prerogatives and the
subtleties of womanhood. At school she was respected for her brilliance
and conscientiousness, and loved for her dark eyes and hair, her slim
figure, and the frank, open-hearted way she had of talking to people. She
was not a “leader”, because her intense religious faith made her a trifle
“different”. Yet the girls felt that they could always go to her when
assistance of any kind was needed. And the boys who fell in love with her
eyes were always treated in the kindest, most sympathetic way. They did
not know how much it thrilled her to have a crowd of them to “manage”,
nor how many hours she had spent scheming for secret and complicated
flirtations.

However, “the truth will out”, and it soon became whispered that Helen
was a “flirt”—although “just in fun”. Indeed, the game held a dual
fascination for her, because it not only satisfied her love of emotional
excitement and mystery, but also supplied a field of activity into which
her mind could overflow. Neither her teachers nor her parents recognized
this. They smiled, in a reminiscent way, and rejected the thought that
Helen was learning to play with fire.

When she was sixteen, she played once too often, with a boy named
Harry McMichael, who was a freshman football hero at Harvard. His
vigorous personality, and the almost savage way he took her hand,
after she had tempted him for several days “in fun”, quite swept her
away, so that her puritanism seemed all afloat in a flood of emotions.
She had never thought of this contingency. Heretofore, she had been
mistress, not only of her lovers, but of herself also. Yet this time
the dams seemed to break. And she found herself leading Harry on, quite
delicately—unsatisfied until he had kissed her. She even made him do it
more than once, although, as it appeared to him, reluctantly.

After this episode her conscience roused itself from a New England
slumber, and asserted the old principles, even to the verge of extreme
asceticism. But there was no longer the old mystery lurking in life; and,
coincidently, there was no longer the old fascination in the communion
service. She wrote Harry a letter saying that they had done wrong; they
must never do it again. But she could not really believe this—what
was there wrong about it, anyway? At the time, it was beautiful. And
there ought to be nothing left for regret save perhaps the memory of
that beauty. It seemed to her extremely narrow to eliminate this kind
of relationship from life entirely—to sit back and wait for a stupid
old husband. She read a good deal of Shelley, and managed, against
all odds, to skim through a book by Havelock Ellis. Reason, she said,
ought to dominate life—reason and beauty. So she smoked a cigarette and
experienced a wild, imaginative thrill—a thrill which only ended in the
old pangs of conscience which seemed to curse her in every new venture.

A more trying experience arrived a year later, when she met John Emerson,
from Williams, flirted with him in her usual manner, and was for a
second time overcome by her emotions. In this case, however, she had
been even more the aggressor than in the former, and poor John, who had
himself a puritan ancestry and a dim belief in the ways of God, could
do nothing but respond to her clever insinuations. Four or five times
they met, during the summer. Each time, it seemed to Helen that a new
world had been opened up before her. Each time, the old world receded a
step, though tearing with it part of her heart. Yet John announced one
night, passionately, that he loved her and wanted to marry her. She was
overwhelmed. She had not thought of love—like that. She did not love
John. She wept.

Here at last common sense came to perform a function which religion
seemed powerless to perform. John held her tightly and stroked her dark
hair, but she writhed inwardly. A kind of agony petrified her. This was
her work—her damnable thoughtlessness. She had made him love.

Of course it all ended in a tragedy, and she had to send John away,
definitely. The old religion was sought as a refuge from strife.
It afforded immeasurable comfort. God seemed clothed in His truest
light—that of the forgiver—the comforter. Her heart could not worship
Him enough, and her lips could not satisfy all that she had to say in
prayer. True, she never gave up her flirtations. They seemed to be an
indispensable outlet to her nature. But experience had taught her the
boundary lines which lie between men and women. This, and a refreshed
enthusiasm for the church guided her life successfully for the ensuing
six or seven years.

She was twenty-four when she met Roger Lockwood. It was at a fancy dress
ball in Hartford, to which she had come a trifle reluctantly, since the
prospect of a repetition of familiarly identical scenes did not stimulate
her imagination. However, once having arrived, she found herself enjoying
the gayly colored dresses and the jazz music. She quite lost herself in
the crowd of faces before her. As in her coming-out year, she allowed
her consciousness of self to be swept away, and, urged on by the music,
confronted one partner after another with a rapid-fire of conversation
and glances from her eyes. She seemed almost to dominate the room at
times—especially to-night—although she could have given no very definite
reason for it. Perhaps it was merely that her ever active nature was
seeking some new and more thrilling experience.

Roger, on the other hand, was not participating to any great extent in
the dancing. He was something of a ludicrous figure—calm, passive, tall,
and dressed as a young Southern gentleman of the thirties, in brown plaid
trousers, high collar, and black bow tie. He wandered listlessly from
one corner of the room to another, keeping his eyes upon the figures
of the dancers, but rarely cutting in. He seemed to be searching for
something intangible—so intangible that he did not know what it was. He
could merely contemplate the faces around him, and follow the rhythm of
the music in an imaginative way. Roger was a visitor at Hartford. He was
up there seeking merely for diversion. He wanted to divert his mind from
the constantly recurrant thoughts of his fiancée, who had gone with her
family to Europe for the winter.

Stolidly he “looked over” the girls as they went past. He was surprised
to find so many of them really beautiful. There was one in particular who
was dressed in the costume of the harem,—scarlet with spangles,—and whose
fair, almost childish, face suggested moonlight and a kind of misplaced
romance. Her light hair hung prettily over her forehead. She talked with
her partners in an intimate way. He was introduced to her. But he could
proceed no more than a few steps before some one cut in; and although he
repeated this process several times, he found at last more satisfaction
in gazing at her from a distance and experiencing a tantalizing feeling
in the unattainableness of her beauty. After all, it did not matter
much since he was engaged to a girl fully as beautiful. Besides, there
were plenty of others to dance with. And presently he became aware of a
slim, dark-haired figure, in a gipsy costume, which often swept by him.
He looked more closely at the face; and once he caught the mischievous,
half-serious glance of her eyes.

“Who is that?” he asked his friend, standing beside him.

“Who?”

“That girl in a gipsy dress.”

“That’s Helen Trumbull. Want to meet her?”

“Yes.”

His friend dragged him by the arm into the midst of the dancers. Roger
could not help thinking how ridiculous his brown plaid trousers must
appear.

“Mr. Lockwood—Mr. Trumbull.”

They danced. Roger experienced a slight thrill in the way she held him.
Her touch was very delicate. But she kept her hand perhaps a trifle too
far toward the back of her neck.

“Here I am at last,” he said. “I have been looking for you all evening.”

“How tragic, to be kept in such agony of suspense for three hours!”

She said it so quickly that he was put on his mettle. “Has it only been
three hours? It seemed like six!”

She laughed. “May I ask _why_ you delayed so long?”

“I was stuck.”

“Oh, too bad. With whom?”

“With Dorothy Hollingshead.” He referred to the girl in the scarlet harem
costume.

“Oh, really! How exceptional! I suppose you are still stuck.”

“No,” he replied; “I’m free at last.”

They looked at each other and laughed. But Roger thought, “Hell, this
is platitudinous”; and felt that there was more to be found in her
personality than these rather strained mental gymnastics. “Let’s sit
out,” he suggested on the spur of the moment.

“Already? Why I hardly _know_ you!”

“You might get to know me better.”

“Would it be worth while?” she looked up at him, on the verge of
laughter. He nodded solemnly. And presently she stopped dancing and led
him by the arm out of the room.

“This,” she said, as she sat down in a large gilt-edged arm-chair, “is
the most _un_conventional thing I have ever done.”

“Really? You must be something of a model of excellence.”

“Oh, do you think I could be? I should like to be.”

He wondered how seriously to take this remark.

“Oh,” said she, “you’re a skeptic. You don’t believe any woman is a model
of excellence.”

“I have never found one.”

She turned away prettily.

“Well,” said Roger, “it isn’t a question of models; it’s a question of
more or less.”

“And where would you put me—more or less?”

He hesitated, seeking for a clever twist to give the words.

“Oh there! You see! I have made a wrong impression.”

“I was going to say _more_. But sometimes my first impressions are wrong.”

“And I suppose you would _like_ to have them wrong?”

How cleverly she had touched upon a forbidden subject!

“Yes,” he said, “I would.”

They both laughed then, for it seemed that they had already attained a
kind of intimacy. He was aware that her charms emanated not only from the
way she spoke these, but also from the whole expression of her face and
her body, which was tantalizing—a vague innuendo. He compared her, not
unfavorably, to Georgiana, his absent fiancée. But then he cursed himself
for a fool. Georgiana and he had grown up together.

They returned to the dance, chatting easily, arm in arm. But when supper
came, which was an informal affair, he found himself leading her into
a secluded corner of the room, where they settled themselves into their
chairs, and sipped coffee luxuriously.

“I think you’re a fast worker,” she said, right in the middle of a
silence.

He smiled. “I was about to say the same thing of you.”

“Oh, but it wouldn’t be true—of a girl.”

“No?”

“No.”

The finality of her voice would have been convincing, had it not been for
the expression of her mouth. But it was easy, from this point, to branch
off into a more serious discussion about the relative functions of girls
and boys. In order to ascertain her reaction, he ventured the theory that
a woman was always justified in her flirtations; that the beauty of the
moment, in love, was all that really counted; and that an engagement was
really not binding if either party should lose interest. She disagreed
with this, and said:

“I think an engagement is sacred. Flirting—well, that’s the food of life,
you know. But it’s one of my principles never—”

She paused, fearing that she was becoming a trifle too frank with this
comparative stranger.

“Well, go on. Never—”

“No, I don’t know you well enough to tell you.”

He laughed. “Well, it’s quite obvious what you were going to say.”

She bit her lip and colored, with a flush of anger.

“I suppose you think me a fool,” she said.

“I don’t. I admire you. I think an engagement _is_ sacred—of course. But
what I meant was that often men are carried away—in a moment—by a look or
a gesture—by anything. And I can’t exactly blame them for it. I can’t see
how a man is expected to live up to his ideal, in a case like that.”

“No.” She seemed to ponder the question carefully. “But don’t you see,
it’s the woman’s fault—when men are carried away?”

They looked at each other, then, each recognizing the potentialities of
their own situation. The look was intense. It sent a flush across Helen’s
cheek.

“Perhaps you are engaged. How little I know about you! Are you?”

He hesitated. “No,” he said at length. What did it matter?—this one
evening!

“Ah then,” she replied, “the sky’s the limit.”

“No; the stars!”

They both laughed and proceeded with their coffee. Somehow the
conversation turned upon religion. They grew more and more serious. He
respected her beliefs, although he did not hold them himself.

“There was only once in my life,” she said, alluding vaguely to the
past, “when I didn’t believe. But I was growing up at the time. I was
fascinated by Byron’s character and used to picture him as an ideal
lover. Then I read some of Mathew Arnold. Have you ever read him.”

“Yes—long ago—at college.”

She smiled. “Long ago?”

“Well, four or five years ago—I don’t remember exactly.”

“Oh, you _must_ read him again. He will give you a new point of view.”

“Did he give you that—that theory about engagements?”

“No.”

“Where did you get that?”

“Oh—why—from myself, I guess. It’s common sense, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Isn’t that the way morals are made—from common sense? Don’t your
principles, as you call them, come mostly from your own common sense,
rather than from your religion?”

She hesitated. “Well, put it this way: I think out my principles, and
religion gives me the strength to live up to them. There now—that’s
almost like Mathew Arnold.”

There was quite a long silence.

“My, but we’ve gotten serious,” she said at last, and looked at him, as
though to see if he were playing with her. But it was evident that he was
not.

Presently they returned again to the dance.

Roger decided to prolong his visit to Hartford, and in the course of the
next few days he saw her several times. She did not live very far out of
town. For her part, Helen found herself dangerously fascinated by him.
Whenever she was with him, she was led to suggest things “in fun”—things
which would actually be quite contrary to her puritanical principles. And
he always seemed to respond, up to the very limit, although he had not so
much as tried to take her hand. She reflected that she had never flirted
quite so violently with any man, without having him spoil the excitement
by an attempt to leave the realms of the intellectual, and burst into the
physical. Roger almost satisfied her highest ideal.

She asked Mary Waterworth about him one night, and Mary told her that he
was engaged. Mary even showed her a picture of Georgiana, which Helen
gazed at for a long time. Georgiana had light hair and large eyes, which
were probably brown, and almost classic features. She was very lovely,
Helen thought. The expression of her face seemed to say, “I understand
Roger. I belong to Roger. There is more to bind _us_ together than a
night’s flirtation. There is the whole past.” Helen was jealous in spite
of herself. The picture, which was mounted in a large silver frame, and
which gazed out at the world innocently enough, fascinated her. She could
with difficulty remove her eyes from it.

“What are you looking at?” asked Mary.

“Nothing—I—I thought the face seemed familiar.”

Why, _why_ had Roger lied to her? What could be his motive in telling her
that he was not engaged? It seemed altogether despicable of him—after her
direct question.

The awful thought came to her that he had been playing with her. She had
always feared this—that some man would see through her superficialities,
and _play_ with her. She drew a mental picture of Roger’s calm, ironical
smile, and his conceit in his own success. Oh!

That night they were to drive out to the country, to a barn dance. Roger
arrived in his roadster at the appointed hour. Helen stepped into the
car frigidly, not deigning to take his extended hand. She was going
to punish him—punish him—for leading her on as he had. But no sooner
had the car started than he made her laugh at some foolish joke; and
half of the frost was thawed. Then, too, he was sitting very close to
her. And he had that damnably attractive look in his eyes. She decided
to defer the punishment—for a number of “reasons”. It would spoil
the whole evening—their last evening, since John was bound for New
York the next day. There would be so much fun for both of them—to go
ahead—to-night—just as they had been going. Finally—and this decided
her—by holding her knowledge of his engagement secretly in the back
of her mind, she would be able to inflict a subtler and much more
severe punishment upon him when he was not expecting it. She would be
in the position of an opportunist, with hidden weapons ready for the
emergencies. So she sat back comfortably in the seat beside him, and
talked in the most fascinatingly intimate way that she knew.

They stopped at the top of a long hill, and he swung the car to the
side of the road, so that they could see far out across the moonlit
Connecticut valley.

“We’re out of gas,” he said with a smile, “and besides, I want to look at
the view.”

Helen rather liked the way he said it, since the engine was still turning
over healthily. Still, she hesitated. As he reached for the switches
and turned out the lights, she knew, deep in her nature, that she could
not control _this_ situation. They had better drive on. But then, there
was the thrill of excitement, of the new experience. Again she found
“reasons”. Why, it would be all right. John was in love with Georgiana.
There was no danger. He was a sane, honest man. He desired, like herself,
merely the thrill of the moment. Men who are engaged are safe. Yet even
as this thought flashed into her mind, she felt his hand upon hers, and
his arm around her shoulders. For a moment the picture of Georgiana
flashed before her eyes. She saw, again, Georgiana’s beautiful hair and
her supreme expression. Then it was that she gave herself up to Roger
entirely, for the vision of the other girl made him seem even more
intensely romantic.

Her principles! Where were they now? After Roger had started up the car
again, the whole past seemed to cry out to her that she had been unworthy
of herself.

“Roger,” she said, holding his arm, “we ought not to have done that?”

“Why not?”

“Because—you—I know you are engaged.”

He turned upon her, a little fiercely. “_How_ did you know that?”

“Some one told me.”

“Well, what if I am?” he said. “I suppose you think me insincere—and a
beast.”

“No, I was thinking of myself. I knew you were engaged. I ought not to
have allowed you to go ahead.”

“Hell,” he said, “it isn’t your fault. It’s Georgie’s fault. I didn’t
want her to go abroad. I told her that I couldn’t stand it. But she
laughed, not being able to understand a man’s point of view. She laughed
and said that if I really loved her, it would be easy. But it isn’t easy,
and I do love her.”

“Have you loved her—long?”

“All my life. We were brought up together. I can’t remember any girls at
all, without having the impression of Georgie mixed up with them somehow.”

“And you have done—this—before?”

“Occasionally. You see, Georgie is a peculiar character. She is too
exacting. She sails serenely on—like an angel—imagining that everyone
else is an angel also. Sometimes, when she deserts me for a long time, I
don’t live up to scratch. I always complain to her, and tell her about
it. But she laughs, and calls me silly.”

“How long have you been engaged?”

“Actually, only about six months.”

“Oh.” The problem fascinated Helen. And it was, for her, an important
problem, since she wished to ascertain how much evil she had done. She
began to feel extremely unhappy, not only because she had broken her
principles, but mainly because she had lost her supremacy as mistress
of the situation. Artistically, she had failed. And she writhed at the
thought of how the punishment which she had intended to inflict upon
Roger had turned itself back upon her.

On the other hand, she told herself inwardly that neither was Roger
really in love with Georgiana, nor Georgiana with Roger. She reiterated
this several times. It gave her comfort. And she justified her
presumption on the grounds that Roger was too easily led astray, and
Georgiana apparently too casual, for any very lasting relationship to
exist between them.

Toward the close of that evening she began to feel more the mistress of
the situation again.

Of course, after Roger had gone back to New York, she experienced some
qualms. Indeed, there were times when it made her utterly miserable, to
think what she had done, and when Georgiana’s picture would come before
her eyes again to arouse a poignant feeling of remorse. Her flirtations
had not only been unfair to Roger: they would be considered despicable by
Georgiana. And somehow she loved and admired Georgiana. At such times,
religion seemed the only outlet to her emotions, and the altar the only
pedestal upon which she could place her heart. Thus she was comforted.

Nevertheless, that winter proved to be a period of emotional ups and
downs. Roger visited Hartford more and more frequently. Each time he
came the same scenes were enacted, alone, somewhere, in the little
roadster, on the highway. It was simply inevitable. To begin with, he
had kissed her once; and ever after that his kisses seemed not sinful,
but natural. She found, also, that he filled a definite place in her
life. She needed him. And this need was only the more strengthened by the
gradual association of him with her religious emotions. Starting from the
feelings of remorse, her prayers gradually changed from fervent requests
for strength to keep Roger away, to pleas, as fervent, that he come back
again soon. Georgiana was thrust into the background. Although she did
not admit it, Helen was in love. In a sense it was only her just share of
the spoils that she have these short hours with Roger, while Georgiana
was gallivanting about Europe.

But such a state of affairs couldn’t last long. Helen had completely
rationalized her principles, and Roger had completely ignored his duties
toward Georgiana. He woke up to this fact one day. He was at first
disturbed, but later cleared up the matter a little, with a grin, by
saying that for a lover there were really no _duties_. The mere fact that
it seemed to be a _duty_ for him to leave Helen alone, proved a great
deal—proved, in fact, that he was no longer in love with Georgiana. What
a stupid ass he had been, all this time. He was in love with the past,
but not with Georgiana. He had allowed a childish emotion to dominate
his maturity. Georgiana was a lovely dream; but she could never be his
wife. Ah! Who else—who else—but Helen? His mind fluctuated. It hovered
indecisively for several weeks. He saw Helen again. They parted, almost
tearfully. And then the only course seemed to be to write Georgiana, and
break the engagement.

Here was a small tragedy. But he accomplished the task. And the tragic
feelings aroused were transferred over to Helen’s personality, making his
love for her all the more compelling.

Then he told her, one night, what he had done.

For her, it was very much like a pitcher of cold water poured on one who
is half asleep. With a gasp she was roused from her rationalized dreams.
The most terrible aspect of it was that the deed was already done. It was
irretrievable. She had instigated it. She had allowed the whole affair
to drift to this conclusion. She could articulate nothing, but held
closely to Roger, sobbing—torn by the conflicting passions within her.
Never before had she actually seen God face to face. But now He came to
her, as a terrible, revengeful angel, out from the past; while Roger, who
sat there, seemed to represent the other extreme of her being—her mortal
love. Call it casual love—you Christian hypocrites; call it anything you
will; it was nevertheless present, in the person of this man, and its
power over her was irresistible. It seemed to her that her nature would
break in two. Especially after she had sent Roger away, with her promise
to give him an answer on the morrow—especially then, alone in her room,
she experienced a terrible feeling of being cut in half. The God of her
ancestors was simply merciless. “Why—why? What have I done?” she cried.
The answer was that she had flirted; she had forgotten her principles—one
moment—one fleeting moment; she had rationalized; she had debased her
own self-respect. Yet she was in love, now, and he was in love with her.
There was only one course to be taken.

Perhaps two lovers never embraced more passionately than these two when
Roger learned the next day what her decision had been. He understood,
almost as well as she, the tremendous storm within her. He understood
that he alone could create a haven where the storm might not enter, and
where this delicate, fitful ship could lie happily at anchor.

They were married quite peacefully in an old New England church, and she
went with him to live in New York.

Winter passed. Spring came. Georgiana returned. It is only after some
such calm as this that one can look back and contemplate the true causes
of a storm. Helen found, after she had lived intimately with Roger for a
short time, that there were a great many things yet to be learned about
each other’s characters. Not only this. There were a great many things
to be forgiven in each other’s characters—more things, perhaps, than the
average man and wife can forgive. In the first place, she was vivacious;
he was stolid. She had a quick mind, essentially French; his mind was
slow and Anglo-Saxon. She was loath to recognize these things; she tried
to rationalize them. But they were there continually to remind her that
she had a very difficult situation to manage, if she were to maintain her
supremacy. Of course she loved Roger. But it was not the same as in the
days when she had flirted with him.

Georgiana had come back—that was the difficulty. One day she heard Roger
return from work, and since he did not go directly to greet her as
usual, she started toward the parlor to greet him. Yet at the door she
paused, for she saw him in front of the window, bending over something.
Helen slipped behind the curtain and peered through the crack. He held a
picture in his hand; and as he went over to the light to look at it more
intensely, she saw who it was.

“God, but she was a beautiful girl!” said her husband, as he gazed for a
long time into those deep eyes.

Presently he turned, went over to a drawer in the bottom of the
book-case, and started to put the picture away. Helen retired quickly
from the curtain. What troubled her most of all was Roger’s queer
psychology, which concealed these things. Then, too, there was the
distasteful, though emotional, necessity of obtaining the picture, and
destroying it, without discovery.

                                                    RUSSELL W. DAVENPORT.



_The Artistry of Art_


When we speak of an artist we do not think of a day-laborer. Somehow
there is a connotation of long fingers and delicate features, an
implication as of flowers, a suggestion of the super-fine. About him as a
halo is the word beauty.

Whatever materials he lays hold of, he plucks out of it beauty: out of
the dung-hill the flower, out of the chill moon passion, out of the night
light, out of the noon-tide shade. If he is found lying in the gutter, as
Oscar Wilde has remarked, he will at least be looking at the stars.

The artist is primarily a temperament. He is a point of view. Life may be
a dome of many-colored glass, and the white radiance of eternity thrown
through it to our minds in varying colors, but the artist sees them all,
and so sees white, or sees none of them and sees black. He looks at life
comprehensively, and seeks a unity. Where another is content with detail,
the artist demands structure. The general are genial enough to take life
as it comes, and are not concerned that it is chaos. The artist either
goes forth to meet life, or evades it utterly in both cases for the
purpose of making it cosmos. While others are content with a moderate
dividend of experience, the artist must have all of experience, or none
of it. He must be either a Pan or a Narcissus, a universalist, or an
egoist.

The Philistine world talk of artists as something not undesirable
certainly as past events, but undesired as present calamities. There is
in the air a sense of anxiety concerning them. They make the complacent
so uncomfortable. So has the world damned them as unique, apart from the
majority, being fearful of their destiny, and has evolved, because of
this fear, the false dogma of spontaneous creation in art. A Dante is
born the author of the Divine Comedy; a Shelley rises a child from the
womb the inevitable father of the Prometheus and the Cenci; a George
Meredith is given a somewhat humbler birth in a fashionable tailor’s
shop the fated creator of the “Egoist” and Modern Love.

At any play, novel or poem in which destiny played such an omnipotent
part the world would turn up its nose, and say: “Absurd! That’s not real,
that’s not life.” But in the case of the world’s artists it pleases the
general to say: “Well, well, life is stranger than fiction, is it not?”

A modern philosopher has written, and it seems to me most wisely, “Our
temperaments are in some sort our destinies”. Now let me admit thus far
the world’s conclusion. The true artist is born like the rest of us with
a certain temperament, which is in some sort his destiny. But it is at
this point we must leave the world. For if it were only this birthright
that was required, certainly there would be in this present day a
plethora of geniuses.

The artist is primarily a temperament, but secondarily he is an artist.
The importance I attach to this secondary cause of creative ability is
the importance of the unknown, or at best the unrecognized. For it is in
the world’s tradition to ignore this fact. Only the geniuses themselves
have spoken for the artistry of art.

Let us consider this paradox for a moment. The world’s idea of an artist
as born the child of destiny, conceived in the womb of Fate, fore-doomed
a priori; and the world’s idea of all other men as free, at least in
part, to form and fashion their own daily lives.

When we speak of an artist we do not think of a day-laborer, nor of
labor. We are amused at Whistler’s famous repartee to Ruskin’s lawyer
when he asked him how he dared charge so much for an hour’s work, and
Whistler replied, “Not for an hour’s work, but for the knowledge of a
lifetime,” but as a jury we are not convinced by it. And yet in following
the development of certain great poets I am more and more capable of
imagining what I know to be true, that, granted the temperament, genius
is made by intense industry; and that it is labor which causes the
difference between the great man and the unhappy dilettante.

Dante’s “Vita Nuova” is merely a promise of the Divine Comedy. His
greatness consists not in his having made, but in his having kept that
promise. You have in this little book a beautiful example of the artistic
temperament, and a brilliant statement of the methods of greatness:
“Then it came to pass that, walking on a road alongside of which was
flowing a very clear stream, so great a desire to say somewhat in verse
came upon me, that I began to consider the method I should observe....
Then I say that my tongue spoke as if it moved of its own accord, and
said, ‘Ladies that have intelligence of Love.’ These words I laid up in
my mind with great joy, thinking to take them for my beginning; wherefore
then, having returned to the above-mentioned city, after some days of
thought I began a canzone with this beginning.”

Now I do not think that walking along a road by a river and thinking
of a girl one loves, and speaking, as if one’s tongue moved of its own
accord, a line of verse concerning her is an unusual performance. In
fact, given the temperament, it seems a very natural one. I venture to
say that no one who has ever written poetry has not done the same. And
Dante’s resulting poem is not extraordinary. It certainly could not at
the time have suggested by itself its author as a compeer of ὁ ποιήτη. It
exemplifies the artistic temperament, and is indicative of it. By it we
know Dante to be a poet. Of his greatness as yet we know nothing.

It is fortunate that at the close of this book of his youth this young
and intense Italian mentions a vision by which was disclosed to him a
secret: “After this sonnet, a wonderful vision appeared to me, in which
I saw things which made me resolve to speak no more of this blessed one,
until I could more worthily treat of her. And to attain to this, I study
to the utmost of my power, as she truly knows. So that, if it shall
please him through whom all things live that my life be prolonged for
some years, I hope to say of her what was never said of any woman.”

Dante was born a poet, but only after seeing this vision of Beatrice
which revealed to him the necessity of artistry did he enter upon his new
life of greatness in the middle of the way of which he wrote the Divine
Comedy. His method was as simple as truth. He studied to the utmost of
his power, as she truly knows. You will remember the creation of the
Divine Comedy made him lean for many years.

So Dante, so Shelley; Shelley who is the example par excellence of the
genius born to make his life an infancy, and sing his fill, pouring
forth his soul in profuse strains of unpremeditated art. For when we
read critically Queen Mab, we are forced to admit that it is at best a
mediocre creation of little weight in the scales of beauty or of truth.
The development to the Prometheus is swift, but it is achieved by the
method of industry.

You will remember how Shelley read all day every day, how he read on long
walks in the country-places, how he read in London streets walking down
Piccadilly, crossing Pall Mall. You will remember how Trelawny describes
him in Italy standing all day leaning against the mantelpiece of his
living-room, not moving, intensely reading, and not stopping to eat, not
even when Trelawny left a plate of food by him, and went out. You will
remember how he worked on the Revolt of Islam, leaving Mary, and going
off to a little island, and writing all day without food or distraction,
undisturbed by the attractions of nature, being part of them, and as them
lost in the existence of his art.

Queen Mab was the work of a young untutored artistic mind. The
Prometheus, the Cenci, the Defence of Poetry are the creations of a
genius. The change is unusual, but not miraculous. His industry was
more intense than most, for he accomplished in less than ten years that
for which most geniuses require a lifetime. From the stage in 1811 when
“Reason is all in all”, and “poetical beauty ought to be subordinated to
the inculcated moral” to the stage in 1820 in the “Defence of Poetry”
where “There is no want of knowledge respecting what is wisest and best
in morals, government and political economy.... But we want the creative
faculty to imagine what we know,” and to the contemporaneous Hymn to
Intellectual Beauty, where Reason is no longer all in all and “the awful
shadow of some unseen power” is

    “Like aught that for its grace may be
    Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.”

From the early stage to the late there is a long road of intense labor
over which Shelley in his mad and impetuous way ran like Pheidippides at
top-speed the race of death and immortality.

“No doubt Shelley’s bad health in the autumn of 1817,” writes one of his
biographers, “was partly caused by overwork, for in that year he had
written as much poetry as would take ten years in the life of a less
impetuous writer.”

All his life Shelley spent in piling up knowledge from forbidden mines
of lore. With more energy than any other poet Shelley performed the
Herculean labors of greatness, and so swiftly was it done that the
world has fallen into the error of considering him as a bird who sang
inevitable songs.

In these two cases I have shown what seems to me to be powerful evidence
of the fact that, although artists are born, geniuses are made. I have
shown the methods of greatness as applied to the lives of two great men.
Actually, perhaps, I have been talking about the artistry of the artist.

Let us turn for a moment to evidence of this same method of industry as
applied to an individual work, more strictly, perhaps, the artistry of
art.

“Love in the Valley” is unquestionably one of the great lyrics of English
literature. As unquestionably, I think, in its first published form, it
was a very mediocre, if not an utterly bad poem. Let me quote you the
first verse as it stood in the early edition:

    “Under yonder beech-tree standing on the greensward,
    Crouch’d with her arms behind her little head,
    Her knees folded up, and her tresses on her bosom,
    Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
    Had I the heart to slide one arm beneath her,
    Press her dreaming lips as her waist I folded slow.
    Waking on the instant she could not but embrace me,
    Ah! would she hold me and never let me go?”

This is indeed a supple young lady. Consider that she is standing, and
crouching with her knees folded up, while she lies asleep in the shade. I
fancy it is a troubled sleep. Consider, too, that in this verse there is
an unhappy repetition of the word folded,—the last mention of that word
being in the wrong tense. Consider that this is the first version of the
first verse of one of the few great lyrics. It is a poor thing, at best.
There are flashes of talent, but so are there in a thousand lyrics of
young poets, nothing of whose work is counted immortal.

But George Meredith was great. With the industry of the great he came
back to this poem. Lo! it has arisen from the grave.

    “Under yonder beech-tree, single on the greensward
    Couch’d with her arms behind her golden head,
    Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly,
    Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
    Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her,
    Press her parting lips, as her waist I gather slow,
    Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me,
    Then would she hold me and never let me go?”

The artist is primarily a temperament, but secondarily he is an artist,
and his artistry, and the artistry of his art are what determine his
greatness. Geniuses are born, and are made? But many are born, while few
are made.

I think it is our duty to encourage greatness, even, if we, ourselves,
have not the creative ability to imagine what we know.

                                                       MAXWELL E. FOSTER.



_Gossip_


Whenever, on a trip abroad, I went into one of the famous galleries to
discover my reactions to the great works of art therein exhibited, I was
struck by the realization that this was quite impossible. I found that
I was confused by all that I heard about these things beforehand. The
critics I had been advised to read, the inevitable guide-books, and my
friends with their free scraps of information seemed all in a conspiracy
to bewilder me; I was jealous of having my privilege of praising and
condemning taken away and of being permitted only to ratify.

It is useless to say that one may rid oneself of such encumbrances.
Coldness toward the official guides and an active disdain for the
guide-books will not solve the problem; for Mr. Baedecker is, after all,
one of the last to introduce us to the arts,—we do not arrive at his
authoritative though concise eulogies totally uninformed by any means.
While one may not have been made ready by intensive courses, the report
of fame is not published merely for those who take them, and you cannot
escape hearsay and the wealth of criticism that passes on the tide of
conversation. Even curt phrases such as, “You must go and see this!” or
“Oh, you _would_ love that!” are to me insidious, and the type of gossip
which they represent makes a premature effect inevitable. In fact, an
educated person wandering in a well-known exhibition needs no guidance,
other than names and authors, to recall everything to him.

I suppose those schoolgirls one meets abroad, daughters of the wealthy
studying “art” in its habitat, are the worst off in this respect. You
see them marching in herds through the museums led by their formidable
teachers, stopping to gaze and murmur and look at the people passing
while they are furnished with the necessary facts. By the time they
are finished with text-books, scrap-books, and, lastly, exhaustive
studies of the originals, no saint can hide a toe from them. They know
everything, particularly dates. Leonardo was great; the primitives
“have such feeling and are so naïve”; the teacher’s favorites are
their favorites. I sometimes wonder why they don’t carry it all a step
further. Why not organize it? Why not “Three long cheers for Raphael
now, girls! One—two—three—?” The middle-aged English maidens who form
so large a part of the tourist mob in Italy are another set of victims.
Steeped in their tawdry little enthusiasms, they always go at things
hard and correctly. If they like a thing, their appreciation is like
squirting a hose on it. One sees them make a mistake once in a while and
admire an atrocity. Nothing could be more serene than their correction
of such mistakes. I saw it happen once before a statue of Hercules. It
appears that the god was not doing what he should be; he was looking for
a giant to wrestle with instead of sweeping the stables or something of
the kind. They had attended to the wrong statue, obviously, but their
waste of five important minutes was their only chagrin and the hose was
simply switched, perhaps squirting with a little less force now—as though
punctured somewhere.

Granted, at any rate, that you do not come empty handed to the feast,
some are of the opinion that if you have studied an object, it is only
reasonable to suppose that you will be the more interested: that research
enhances its appeal. This appears to be logical. A full appreciation is
to be achieved only through an understanding of methods—of the points of
view required to get at the stirring qualities a thing possesses.

On the other hand, one hears that painting and the rest of the arts
hold the mirror up to nature, and it seems strange that we are not
furnished handbooks to the current exhibitions of the latter. “You ought
to know something about them!” we are told when we go to the galleries.
Well, if this predigestion may be furnished us by our betters for our
sight-seeing, why may we not have it ready at hand for our days in the
country? Why not look up the good and bad points of a sunny day before
leaving the house, for instance? Or know from a greater, deeper Ruskin
in exactly what the “strength” of winter, as an artist, lies and where
to look for his weaknesses? Why, in other words, cannot both types of
aesthetic appreciation be dealt with in the same free manner?

Thus the problem is made real by the seeming validity of both points of
view. And I do not see a solution.

I believe that the modern idea of education is an enemy of individuality
in the average person interested in works of art. Not that any man is
insincere, though it goes hard against the grain for him to throw aside
the sophistication he has been a long time acquiring and be simple: to
kick his education out of the way as it were and make a path for himself.
To be caught overtaxing our slim knowledge of the world and thereby to
appear ridiculous is no doubt disagreeable enough; but far more do we
fight shy of exposing any virgin soil. It seems so silly not to appear
well informed, particularly when one has the proof at hand. Besides,
it is a temptation in a more complicated sense. Why should not a man
bend every effort to see in fine works the things that many minds of
a brilliancy sharper than his own have seen? Perhaps it is best just
to ratify, or to satisfy ourselves that we are at one with the great
concensus of judgments—that all’s well with _our_ souls, at any rate. But
if we come to judge for ourselves, we are as judges who before seeing
the evidence have listened to the unanimous verdicts of countless others
ranked wiser than themselves.

As I see it, to be in sympathy with truth in this form or in any other is
a paradox except by natural inclination. To struggle against it until we
_reconcile_ ourselves to something that may, or, in the last analysis,
may not be so, does not seem entirely satisfactory. And I believe that a
person cultivated according to modern standards is unable to arrive at
a definite conclusion of the kind in question by following his natural
inclination. He may survive the temptation, more subtle in action than
in its abstract nakedness, that I have outlined, but if he does so
it is a resistance fraught with effort and as such harmful. The very
determination of a person to do justice to his individuality spoils the
adventure. The joy of a clear reaction is lost: that is the truth of the
matter.... If I see this statue by so and so all I have ever heard about
it and him flocks in upon me. At once I am all at sea. I am impressed by
its reputation; my knowledge of it is large and solid before me. Either
I notice things which otherwise would not have been obvious, or, more
probably, I fight my prejudice and go too far in the opposite direction,
wildly exclaiming that I _will_ be independent. I am trying to get my
balance. I know that this may be done, but if I succeed in it, it is
tedious work and to be accomplished only by making a series of involved
compensations; and above all, it is hard to keep from doubting the truth
of the result. Would I have been so impressed?—I say in my search for a
genuine emotion;—if only I were unhampered! The delicate mechanism of my
appreciation has been tampered with.

I find that if I go to look at some new work concerning which the
criticism of the many is not yet crystallized, it is with relish and a
fine sense of relief. I have the same feeling when, after studying under
tedious tuition some novel of a great author, I pick up another book of
his to read alone. Now then, I wonder, what is he like after all? For
I am my own final arbiter whatever happens; and I enjoy to the full my
privilege of judging what I see. This new thing at least I face as a free
individual, as one would like to face men, shorn of their reputations. I
can discover a swift, imperious dislike of it or love it vigorously, and
not share any orthodox enthusiasms. Lavish spontaneity is briefly in the
throne.

                                                           W. T. BISSELL.



_Book Reviews_


_The Cathedral._ By HUGH WALPOLE. (The Macmillan Company, 1922.)

There are two classes of men who attain a piercing perception of the
fundamental truths beneath the mantle of social usage which is loosely
termed culture, a mantle which only serves to detract the senses from
the real goal of human activities. One of these types is the stoic
mentalist, to whom everything is mind and reason. The other is the
emotional, uncontrolled realist, who lives for pleasure and dreams of
ideals. Both of these divergent types are able to see clearly the foibles
which permeate the life of mankind; the first because he realizes human
weaknesses and thereby refrains from falling into indulging in them,
while the second delves into the experiences and pleasures of the senses
and comes to a realization of the futility of it all.

Mr. Walpole has taken this antithesis as the principal theme in his
latest work, and the result is Canon Ronder and Davary. The power of
these two characters, however, is suggested rather than described, and
Mr. Walpole’s genius of omission is as commendable as his power of
description. The perpetual controversy of the Church—between that which
was once new and that which is ever rising to become the newer—is treated
dramatically by attaching the teachings of both to human characters
and having them live lives according to their interpretation of such
teachings; the relative superiority of the opposing doctrines is thus
put to the test. The splendor of the Church is seen by eyes from under
different points of view, and discord arises between the officers of
the Church. Worldly ambitions and thwarted passions are well depicted
by Mr. Walpole, while an intensely dramatic strain is refreshed by the
youthful love affair between the Bishop’s daughter and her sweetheart.
“The Cathedral” is a work of fiction which deserves to be ranked among
the best—because it is so unlike fiction.

                                                                 H. H. S.


_The Hill of Dreams._ By ARTHUR MACHEN. (Alfred Knopf Company.)

This book is new only to the American public. Since its first appearance
in England a number of years ago, its popularity and power has grown
phenomenally; Knopf could scarcely have left it out of his collection of
best modern books. It is sure to make a lasting impression here upon all
those who are able to love and appreciate the remarkable beauties of a
real prose style.

But, withal, I believe the book to be weaker than Carl Van Vechten would
admit. I believe it to be weak in the same manner, and for the same
reasons, I am inclined to decry the theses of many modern writers. In a
way, “The Hill of Dream” is a study in the Psychology of Insanity. In
a way, books like “Ulysses” and “Babbitt” are studies in Sociology and
Psychology and whatnot. And, frankly, I do not like my science with my
literature.

All this sort of intellectualism strives honestly for the truth; “The
Hill of Dreams” attains a unique and unrivalled beauty, but any plot
which selects one human specimen, and insists upon our microscopic
interest in him, following the author’s experiments to the bitterest of
ends, asks of us a little too much. These things are like too-lengthy
poems, which cannot sustain our emotions through all their tomes,
howsoever clever and beautiful they may be. Our complex minds require
more complexity in our literature, more variation, less study and more
story, than they give us. Personally, again, I prefer “Vanity Fair” to
the most beautiful “-ology” ever to be written.

But that is far afield from “The Hill of Dreams”, and I should be truly
sinful to lose a reader for it by rhapsodizing. It _is_ beautiful prose,
it _is_—after its own fashion—an interesting story, and it is certainly
true to a peculiar little minority of human life. In these days when
dramatic value must be subjective to be great, it is a great book.

                                                                 D. G. C.


_A Hind in Richmond Park._ By W. H. HUDSON. (E. P. Dutton.)

Reading “A Hind in Richmond Park” is like going on a long walk over
rolling fields and hillsides in the face of a stiff breeze. There is a
tang and freshness in the book which is exhilarating. You feel as if you
were with Mr. Hudson in his wanderings. As you open the book he smiles at
you and takes your hand and you are his. He takes you walking in England
or riding across the Argentine pampas and talks to you about the sights
and sounds en route, rambling smoothly from one thought to another.

He calls himself a field naturalist, but he is much more than that word
implies even in its best sense. He is a poet of nature; a sort of modern
Chaucer in his whole-hearted delight in and appreciation of the minute
details in nature. The reader will find scattered through the pages many
of his own inarticulate musings set down with charming simplicity and
depth of feelings. Mr. Hudson talks to you about smells, winds and sounds
and you find that you are listening to an expression of many of your own
thoughts.

The material of the book is a strange admixture of anecdotes, science,
and common sense which every now and then reaches an almost poetical
plain of thought. It is neither a collection of essays, nor a journal,
nor a narrative; it is really a set of printed conversations—a member of
that delightful species that may be picked up for a half-hour’s reading,
and laid aside again without the charm being broken. Nor is this because
the subjects fail to arouse interest. Anyone who has caught nature off
her guard, who has walked abroad after a thunder shower in dry weather,
or who has tramped past newly-ploughed fields, or lain among the cowslips
on a crystal-bright May morning with the fresh south wind in his face,
will find a source of quiet pleasure in “A Hind of Richmond Park”. He
will forget that there is ice and snow outside and too much tobacco smoke
within, and will shut his eyes and dream of pleasant summer days of long
ago.

                                                                    M. T.


_The Waste Land._ By T. S. ELIOT. (Boni & Liveright, 1922.)

Any poem hailed by most of the really important critics of this country
and of England as “the most significant of the generation” would
naturally compel our attention. “The Waste Land” does not cease to do
that even after constant re-reading. Although we are eventually convinced
of the opinion just quoted, our peculiar conception of its significance
may vary a great deal. It would seem to me it lies in its relation to the
future of poetry. Mr. Eliot has led poetry to the cross-roads and offered
her a choice. She must either follow him along the path which he has
demonstrated with eloquent conviction is disfigured beyond hope by the
tracks of many centuries or else branch off to a new untravelled road.
The poem is enormous and epochal by virtue of its aesthetic implications.
It is pathetically foolish to find justification for its vast
incongruities and obscurities in its broad design or in isolated passages
of beauty. Those who are doing the latter give it an interpretation which
its author manifestly did not intend. If his purpose had been to create
simple lyricism there would be little sense in drowning it in a maelstrom
of references to over thirty books, written in several languages, and
ranging from Sanskrit maxims to American “rags”.

There can be no denial, however, that there is a definite and organized
pattern in the crazy-quilt. Even such lines as,

    “When lovely woman stoops to folly and
      Paces about her room again, alone,
    She smooths her hair with automatic hand
      And puts a record on the gramophone.”

are an integral part of the general plan. Superficially, that plan has to
do with the sterility of emotion in modern life and the futility of human
aspirations in all ages. But his most subtle proof of the latter is to be
found in the very form of the poem itself with its concrete negation of
all the most cherished ideals of aesthetics. Eliot has shown us in this,
as in his other work, that he is capable of writing perfect verse in any
number of conventional modes. In “The Waste Land” he gives us a sample
of each with the implication that there is not one of them but is as
worn-out and vulgarized as the London desert.

This is my reason for believing the most profound significance of the
poem consists in the threat it throws in the face of poetry. Will she
continue to adorn herself in motley made up of the battered fabrics
of past triumphs? Or, on the other hand, will some one come offering
her what she most needs to survive, something beautiful in its very
freshness? Perhaps we should be thankful for “The Waste Land”, as we
are always thankful for a warning signal. But we have no need to desire
another.

                                                                    W. T.


_The Forcing House._ By ISRAEL ZANGWILL. (The Macmillan Company.)

Reading Mr. Zangwill we are often reminded of a rhyme which Olive
Herford appended to a cartoon of that author in his “Confessions of a
Caricaturist”:

      “This picture, though it is not much
      Like Zangwill, is not void of worth;
    It has one true Zangwillian touch—
        It looks like nothing else on earth.”

In “The Forcing House”, the ever-original “Izzi” has attempted an even
more impossible task than the one he set for himself in “The Cockpit”, to
which it is the sequel. He has attempted to dramatize the main feature of
the Russian Revolution and the confusions of an attendant Bolshevism. The
dramatist has proceeded in the conventional style of an allegory, but an
allegory peculiar to Mr. Zangwill. Though the whole is vastly confused,
each impression is clear enough and we finally emerge from the long,
bewildering maze of plots and counterplots, anarchies and despotisms to
find to our astonishment a remarkably precise and clear understanding of
the political and social conditions of present day Eastern Europe. The
chronicler offers no illusions. The whole is plainfully plain.

At the very beginning the author scents the weakness of the radicals. The
Jewish Banker and the fanatic Riffoni are talking:

    “Gripstein: ‘But why is printing so dear? See how these trade
    unions cut one another’s throats! So the proletariat won’t pay
    for your ideas.’

    “Riffoni: ‘They can’t afford to.’

    “Gripstein: ‘Not four soldi? But think what they spend on
    cinemas and cigarettes!’”

But it is not until the third act that the Duke D’Azolls lays bare the
full misconception of the Doctrine Lenin: “Not a paradise of blossoming
brotherhood, not a natural growth under God’s heaven, but a Socialism
ripened prematurely under the heat of compulsion and watered with blood;
a Socialism under a sky of glass, unstable, sterile.... And forced—good
God!—from what seed? Constricting figs in greenhouse pots will
precipitate them artificially, but there is high authority for doubting
if they can be gathered from thistles.”

Mr. Zangwill has taken upon himself a monumental task. That he has had
any success at all is remarkable.

                                                                    M. W.



Editor’s Table


“Here we are,” exclaimed Richard Cory tritely; “the usual archaisms.”

“Do you mean _us_?” asked little Bukis innocently.

“No, you fool!” this from Ahaseurus, who was still wearing goloshes. “He
is referring to the manuscripts.”

Bukis flew into a passion at this and started seething through the book
reviews. There was a blare of trumpets, a rush of wind, and in burst the
red-faced Benson.

Benson started throwing poems all over Bukis, who objected. He then took
Richard Cory into a corner, and the two of them decided to go over to the
Elizabethan Club to hear Steve Benét. Bukis had a meeting of Christians.
They all left. The Egoist had resigned, anyway, and was not to be found.
They had all gone.

All but Ahaseurus. He sat there meditatively with his hands in his
overcoat pockets. Shivering, he bent over the piles of cold, white paper.
And, in the grey silence of the shadows, he made up the LIT.

                                                               AHASEURUS.



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NEW HAVEN CONNECTICUT

522 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK CITY

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

_Announces the Publication of_

Poems of Arthur O’Shaughnessy

Selected and Edited by

WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY

Mr. Percy says in his remarkable Introduction: “The Yale University
Press, thinking perhaps, with me, that even the most beautiful things
perish if the opportunity for reading or seeing or hearing them is not
offered the vexed and hurrying children of men, has undertaken here
the pious task of making O’Shaughnessy’s finest poems accessible to
readers of English poetry.... His best is unique, of a haunting beauty,
a very precious heritage.... He had, as Palgrave put it, ‘The exquisite
tenderness of touch, the melody and delicacy’ of his favorite composer,
Chopin.... If I were passing the Siren Isles, one of the songs I know I
should hear drifting across the waves would be that which Sarrazine sang
to her dead lover in _Chaitivel_:

    ‘Hath any loved you well, down there,
      Summer or winter through?
    Down there, have you found any fair
      Laid in the grave with you?
    Is death’s long kiss a richer kiss
      Than mine was wont to be—
    Or have you gone to some far bliss
      And quite forgotten me?’”

O’Shaughnessy died in 1881. Until the publication of this admirably
edited volume, no considerable part of his work has been commonly
available for many years.

_Price_ $2.00.



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 5, February 1923)" ***

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