om-
mon approval of all, “I would rather spend the
next six months in Hell than here."
FRANK TANNENBAUM.
From a
Hill in France
Beyond the setting of this sun of fate
I see far off dim towered haunts of story;
On pain unmerited and sin elate
Goes down once more its ancient unjust glory.
I see the hills of death, the fields of hate-
So twine the bitter blossoms with the sweet-
Yet all my being surges out to meet
Thy groves and dim blue plains, Immaculate,
My Italy
Oh God that this should be-
Red war and Giotto's tower sweetly strong,
And Rome, the jewel of eternity,
Dear citadel of consecrated song.
Remembering thee, small wonder I could stand
And weep for hopeless love of the one land.
CUTHBERT Wright.


1919
337
THE DIAL
The Lapse to Laissez-Faire
As
the Creator is a being, not only of infinite presidential candidate preaching "the new free-
power and wisdom, but also of infinite goodness, he has
been pleased so to contrive the constitution and frame of
dom” from the gospel according to Jefferson.
humanity that we should want no other prompter to
What led Mr. Wilson to his new laissez-faire it
enquire after. but only our self-love, that uni is impossible to say. One who has thumbed on a
versal principle of action. For he has
insepar-
ably interwoven the laws of external justice with the hap-
Washington desk and tried to read the mind of
piness of each individual. In consequence of which mu the man in the White House just across Lafayette
tual connection of justice with human felicity, he
Park will claim no ability to fathom the mystery of
has graciously reduced the rule of obedience to this one
paternal precept “that man should pursue his own true
presidential contemplation. But, whatever the mo-
and substantial happiness.”—Blackstone, in 1765.
tive, as the matter stood in December, there were
reasons for the President's choice. However seri-
THE RECONSTRUCTION POLICY of the Administra ous the consequences may be, the alternative policy
tion was announced on Monday, December 2, 1918. freshly entered upon at that time would likewise
In an address to the Senate and the House of Rep- have produced serious consequences. A brief state-
resentatives of the United States in congress assem-
ment of the situation will make this clear beyond
bled the President said:
peradventure. In the first place the Administration
was caught by the unexpected end of the war with-
Our people
do not want to be coached and
led. They know their own business, are quick and re-
out a program for a return to peace. At that time
sourceful at every readjustment, definite in purpose, and
the President had not succeeded in giving a content
self-reliant in action. Any leading strings we might put
to the word
reconstruction.” There is little evi-
them in would speedily become hopelessly tangled, be-
cause they would pay no attention to them and go their
dence that he had tried hard; but the mind which
own way.
From no quarter have I seen any gen-
coined the word supplied a cosmic term which he
eral scheme of “reconstruction” which I thought it likely could reject as meaningless. In truth few expres-
we could force our spirited business men and self-con-
scious laborers to accept with due pliancy and obedience.
sions have ever given such genuine satisfaction to
such an assortment of minds. To the exporters it
This statement, blending current fact with obso meant foreign markets; to the politicians, more
lete reason, seems out of place in an after-the-war offices; to the guild socialists, at least industrial
world. The immediate response of the country to councils; to the single taxers, the single tax; and to
it was inharmonious disapproval. The Republican social workers, betterment." The Weeks bill,
politicians, whose intellectual bankruptcy is well robbed by the armistice of its chance to provoke sen-
known, and who are content to take any side of a atorial oratory, meant by reconstruction what
public question the President may leave to them, any banker would mean by it. The Overman bill
pointed to another neglected opportunity. The busi made it a conglomeration of all the things that
ness men, who inconsistently mix a demand for a needed tinkering with which the unimaginative
protective tariff with dreams of a huge foreign mind of its sponsor could call up at the time. The
trade, were sincerely disappointed. The provincials British Ministry of Reconstruction, in the likeness
who make dislike or distrust of the chief executive of which many would have created an American
the major premise of their political reasoning, cried commission, resolved the matter into more than one
out immediate disapproval, though they lacked the hundred inquiries, ranging from the constitutionali-
necessary "therefores." The governmental officials zation of industry to the demobilization of mules.
at Washington were distressed to think of a transi As a minimum it seemed to mean the return to ordi-
tion to peace proceeding without their bureaucratic nary uses of the men and material displaced by the
supervision. The champions of panaceas, who are
As a maximum it connoted an attempt to
always with us, had found the vast and empty con take advantage of the general state of flux to ar-
cept of "reconstruction " much to their liking, and range elements into a more pleasing social order.
were put out to see it taken from them so uncere Even in this variety Mr. Wilson failed to discover
moniously. And even the liberals, who all along a problem of reconstruction to his liking.
have been the President's stanchest friends, were
It may have been design rather than accident
seriously disturbed. To them the voice was the which found him unprepared in November. Cer-
voice of the President, but the speech was that of tainly he had empowered no group of men to make
a younger Mr. Wilson. It suggested the young law
a study and determine the feasibility of a program
student enthusiastic over his Blackstone, the in-
of reconstruction. On the contrary he seems to
structor in the denominational college expounding have settled the matter by assumption, or guess, or
Adam Smith's theory of " the invisible hand,” the the chance advice of a trusted official. The half-
>
war.


338
April 5
THE DIAL
(G
return to
(
hearted assent to the request of the Council of Na-
tional Defense last June to be permitted to look
into the matter can be interpreted as little more
than saying, “ If you think anything can be found
in that vague inquiry, go to it. Far be it from me
to deny you the pleasure.” From the first he seems
to have bothered little with the matter. And it
must be admitted that from the first there was good
reason, if not the best reason, for his reticence. He
could not have thrilled over the accomplishments
of the British Ministry of Reconstruction, which
was held up as a model for us. If he attempted
to find reason in the maze of their reports he dis-
covered that only two significant recommendations
appeared as the result of their countless labors. And,
peculiarly enough, both of these—the scheme for
industrial councils and the plan for demobilization
in terms of industrial needs—were well under way
when the committees having them in charge were
associated with the Reconstruction Ministry. As
for the hundred and more other sub-committees,
each did in isolation its appointed task, each per-
formed its clerical labors undisturbed by what
others were doing. Most of them decided, as did
the sub-committee upon the chemical industry, that
the situation after the war would most likely be a
serious one and that something ought to be done
about it.
Quite likely Mr. Wilson did not busy himself to
find out how much better an American commission
could do. If he had, it is by no means certain that
he would have been greatly impressed. He must
know, perhaps better than anyone else, the unsuit-
ableness of agencies of state for such a task. First
of all, there is neither in Washington nor else-
where an adequate body of knowledge about the
organization of industry, its interrelations with
finance and commerce, and its place in the social
life of the nation. The figures which have been
gathered into - imposing statistical tables relate to
the most immediate and ephemeral of problems.
The scheme upon which they have been gathered
and interpreted is irrelevant to the larger problems
involved in controlling a developing industrial soci-
ety. Second, there is small reason for thinking that
any commission which would have proved accept-
able to the country would have been willing to ap-
proach its problems without bias. At present the
decisions of state rest upon rule of thumb, prejudice,
and the chance bias of the glad-hand administrator
-in fact upon anything except an application of the
methods of scientific procedure to the matter in
hand. Its prejudice against intellect would have
prevented any commission from obtaining the in-
formation without which any action is worse than
no action. And third, even if an adequate program
of reconstruction could have been devised, the spirit
of cooperation necessary to its execution could
never have been attained. The many-sided thing
known outside of Washington as the government
would have prevented that. But, whether by acci-
dent or no, Mr. Wilson was caught in November
without a reconstruction program, and plead per-
suasivelys if not convincingly, for a
laissez-faire.
In the second place, a positive program of re-
construction was bad politics. However we may
insist that the common good must override the ex-
igencies of party strife, Mr. Wilson has always kept
one eye upon the future of his party. Even with
the war on, a cry of "paternalism ” had been raised
against the government; no one knew better than
the President that a reconstructed peace” would
be damned by his political opponents as
“socialism."
At the time of the armistice the government had
just passed the inevitable period of blundering. Its
program of control was just beginning to vindicate
itself in positive results. Evidence of this prelimi-
nary inefficiency was at hand to damn any adminis-
tration which persisted in the policy. In fact Mr.
Wilson's opponents were counting upon a continu-
ance of control, had massed their fire upon this
issue, and were determined to make the most of it.
They were persuaded that the country was pre-
pared to believe with them that what was medicine
in time of war became poison upon the return to
peace. The President's tactics robbed them of a
convincing argument. It is true that he took the
chance of being damned for the ills which attend
the lack of a preparation for peace. But he escaped
condemnation for the evils which would have at-
tended a badly executed program for the transition
period. As between relying upon the knowledge
and wisdom of the gods of chance with whom he
has a passing acquaintance, and the foresight and
discretion of an administration he knows thoroughly,
Mr. Wilson preferred the gods.
His program of a lasting peace for the world
moved him to the same decision. The President's
is “a single-track mind” and he understands that
the nation is made up of like-minded individuals.
The secret of his political art has always been in en-
gaging the minds of the people upon one question at
a time. He is right in rating the issue of an in-
surance against war higher than any domestic mat-
ter. It was easy for him to conclude that whatever
of good or ill the term
reconstruction " veiled, it
could wait. Its intrusion at this time would dis-
turb the mind of a nation at a time when he wanted
it fixed upon the League of Nations. In addition
the peace program must not be allowed to incur
ill will stirred up by a ſeconstruction program.
.
(


1919
339
THE DIAL
return
In the third place a positive program of recon To judge the policy aright we must separate the
struction would have proved most unpopular. The reconstruction” from the demobilization prob-
President is right in saying that the nation at large lem; we must draw some sort of a line between the
was crying aloud for a
to laissez-faire.
emergency and the “constructive” problem.
While the fight was on, our people were willing to The more we have in mind the immediate ques-
make the sacrifices which they regarded as neces tions of readjustment, the less merit we can see in
sary to victory; but beneath the battle there was re laissez-faire. But the more we consider the ulti-
sentment at state interference, which accumulated mate issues of the coming peace the more of good
into a vast volume of unexpressed protest. Manu it seems to hold. In terms of the latter it says that
facturers were less sure of the logic of priorities the government is not the proper agency, and this
than they were of that of a maximum wage; em is not the proper time, to settle the larger issues of
ployers objected to an excess profits tax but would machine industry and human welfare. It insists
welcome a conscription of labor; laborers objected that these are abiding questions which society must
strenuously to profiteering,” but made no applica- attend to in the process of its gradual development.
tion of the word to their own work and wages. The policy prevents much ado and little done un-
Peculiarly enough there was little impatience at der the pretense of reconstructing the country. It
loans, contributions to war charities, and taxes. enables specific problems to be dealt with by proper
The serious burdens imposed by the questionable agencies as they arise. It breaks up the larger prob-
. methods by which the war was financed, which lems into bits which are manageable and permits
found expression in inflation and high prices, pro time for an adequate understanding and an adequate
voked little protest. On the contrary the petty an solution. Upon the "constructive " problem the
noyances connected with state supervision were a President's recommendations seem sound.
constant source of irritation. In general the pub But it seems impossible to overlook the neglect
lic disapproval of governmental departments varied of the
emergency ” problem. It can be justified
directly with their efficiency. It would be hard, only upon one of two distinct theories. The first
for instance, to convince anyone who knew the Food is that the President expected demobilization to be
Administration intimately that its activities consist successfully effected in terms of the ordained ritual
ed in anything more than vain motions. Yet, by of the War Department. The second is that his
flattering the people into believing that their petty
belief in laissez-faire rose to the transcendental
savings made holy martyrs of them, it became the heights of faith in its efficacy for even so great an
most popular of all the government departments. emergency. To make the first the fact is to ac-
The signing of the armistice removed the incentive cuse him of ignorance of the limitations of military
to silence. In November the country demanded in procedure. To make the second his motive is to
no unmistakable terms a return to laissez-faire. And charge him with failing to comprehend what is in-
the President decided, perhaps with a shrug of the volved in demobilization. The latter seems to have
shoulders, to let the people have their way.
been the case.
Nearly four eventful months have gone by since For two reasons the President's reliance upon
the President's announcement of his reconversion to " the simple and obvious system of natural liberty,
laissez-faire. Even now the time is not at hand for exhibited in “spirited business men ” and “self-
a final appraisal of his policy; but the outlines of conscious laborers, was misplaced. In the first
a tentative judgment seem unmistakable. Whether place ordinary business practice cannot be depended
it is because of his proverbial luck, or his foresight, upon to secure the full employment of all produc-
his policy looks better in March than it did in De tive resources. The end of the war brought a threat
cember. This is not because the consequences of to employer's profits, the motive upon which Mr.
laissez-faire have been less serious than were antici Wilson depends for reorganization. The cancella-
pated. On the contrary " the industrial depression tion of government contracts aggregating at least ten
of 1919," as it will be called in history, is coming billion dollars robbed many employers of profitable
more quickly than the foreminded thought. The markets. The threatened loss to these industries
great advantage of the policy has been in allowing held a threat to others supplying them with materials
the public to discover reconstruction for itself. A and a threat of loss of employment to men.
It
nation which requires visible evidence of a problem's discouraged byying, which in turn again threatened
actual presence before it will think about it has been profits. In addition an anticipated. fall in prices
goaded into attention. But the time for antitoxins discouraged business activity, just when expansion
is now past and only medicine or surgery will was required to provide work for the men in the
army. In the absence of a plan designed to accelc-
suffice.


340
April 5
THE DIAL
rate business enterprise, an industrial depression of attempts to formulate principles for the speedy and
greater or less magnitude threatened, attended by discriminating return of men and materials to ac-
idleness of plants, unemployment of labor, and waste tive industry.
of human and material resources.
Whatever justification may be given a neglect of
In the second place ordinary business activity the problems of reconstruction, the failure of the
could not be depended upon to secure within the de Administration to formulate a demobilization policy
mobilization period a proper distribution of men is inexcusable. If the President regarded it as a
and materials among different industries. If each matter of mere manipulations, he should have in-
producer acted for himself and in ignorance of the quired into its nature rather than judge it by
action of others, the immediate result would be the intuition. If he considered the War Department
overproduction of certain goods and the underpro- adequate to handle it, he should have informed him-
duction of others. The losses attending overproduc- self more particularly about the tasks which it can
tion would impose a check upon business enterprise and cannot do.' If adequate knowledge for even
and lead to a still further disorganization of the this smaller task was lacking, he made no attempt
system. Eventually, of course, as any champion of to supply the deficiency. If he had no confidence
laissez-faire can show, matters would all.work in the personnel of the departments and boards which
nicely. Sooner or later business would expand and would have been charged with the execution of a
all the elements of capital and labor would be drawn demobilization program, they held their places sub-
into active work, at least all that survived. Butject to his discretion. If the mind of the nation was
this readjustment by a process of trial and error is to be kept upon the need of a lasting peace, it was
wasteful and slow. Even before the war many eco-
necessary to prevent the distractions which were the
nomists were questioning the ability of business en inevitable consequences of even a temporary lapse
terprise effectively to organize production—and that to laissez-faire. The psychology of one thing at a
without a loss of their orthodoxy. Then the aggre-
gate of change from one line of production to an-
time is unquestioned. But the fact is that the end
of the war brought two immediate and imperative
other could not have been more than two or three problems. Peace had to be made and the industrial
per cent of the total volume of industry per year.
If the efficacy of the magic was questionable then,
system had to be restored to a peace basis. The
what can be expected of it if from twenty-five to
double-track problem required a double-track mind.
thirty-five per cent of the whole is to be diverted
If it was necessary to see to it that the coming peace
from emergency to ordinary uses within a short
be a permanent one, it was no less necessary to take
period of time? At best it is a poor alternative to a
care that abiding values be read into the industrial
carefully formulated plan which approaches demo-
system which is being reestablished.
bilization as a problem in industrial organization and
WALTON H. HAMILTON.
Synge's Playboy of the Western
World
VARIATION
It 's New York, I tell you
I'd have a home
on top of a hill;
there should be roses
from the roof down;
and I'd get up every day
at sunrise.
I should become so beautiful
you would be embarrassed
looking at me.
It's New York I tell you,
a city that lives
with work
for men stronger than I;
with duties
for a different conscience
than mine.
EMANUEL CARNEVALI.


1919
341
THE DIAL
N
On the Nature and Uses of Sabotage
“SABOTAGE” IS A DERIVATIVE of “ sabot,” which is elsewhere, or from the similar tactics of friction,
French for a wooden shoe. It means going slow, obstruction, and delay habitually employed, from
with a dragging, clumsy movement, such as that time to time, by both employees and employers to
manner of footgear may be expected to bring on. So enforce an. argument about wages and prices. There-
it has come to describe any maneuver of slowing fore, in the course of a quarter-century past, the
down, inefficiency, bungling, obstruction. In Ameri word has quite unavoidably taken on a general
can usage the word is very often taken to mean meaning in common speech, and has been extended
forcible obstruction, destructive tactics, industrial to cover all such peaceable or surreptitious maneu-
frightfulness, incendiarism and high explosives, al vers of delay, obstruction, friction, and defeat,
though that is plainly not its first meaning nor its whether employed by the workmen to enforce their
common meaning. Nor is that its ordinary mean claims, or by the employers to defeat their em-
ing as the word is used among those who have ployees, or by competitive business concerns to get
advocated a recourse to sabotage as a means of
the better of their business rivals or to secure their
enforcing an argument about wages or the condi own advantage.
tion of work. The ordinary meaning of the word Such maneuvers of restriction, delay, and hin-
is better defined by an expression which has latterly drance have a large share in the ordinary conduct
come into use among the I. W. W., conscientious of business; but it is only lately that this ordinary
withdrawal of efficiency”—although that phrase line of business strategy has come to be recognized
does not cover all that is rightly to be included as being substantially of the same nature as the
under this technical term.
ordinary tactics of the syndicalists. So that it has
The sinister meaning which is often attached to
not been usual until the last few years to speak of
the word in American usage, as denoting violence maneuvers of this kind as sabotage when they are
and disorder, appears to be due to the fact that the employed by employers and other business concerns.
American usage has been shaped chiefly by persons But all this strategy of delay, restriction, hindrance,
and newspapers who have aimed to discredit the and defeat is manifestly of the same character, and
use of sabotage by organized workmen, and who should conveniently be called by the same name,
have therefore laid stress on its less amiable mani whether it is carried on by business men or by work-
festations. This is unfortunate. It lessens the men; so that it is no longer unusual now to find
usefulness of the word by making it a means of workmen speaking of "capitalistic sabotage” as free-
denunciation rather than of understanding. No ly as the employers and the newspapers speak of
doubt violent obstruction has had its share in the syndicalist sabotage. As the word is now used, and
strategy of sabotage as carried on by disaffected as it is properly used, it describes a certain system
workmen, as well as in the similar tactics of rival of industrial strategy or management, whether it is
It comes into the case as one employed by one or another. What it describes is
method of sabotage, though by no means the most
a resort to peaceable or surreptitious restriction,
usual or the most effective; but it is so spectacular delay, withdrawal, or obstruction.
and shocking a method that it has drawn undue at Sabotage commonly works within the law, al-
tention to itself. Yet such deliberate violence is, no though it may often be within the letter rather than
doubt, a relatively minor fact in the case, as com-
the spirit of the law. It is used to secure some
pared with that deliberate malingering, confusion, special advantage or preference, usually of a busi-
and misdirection of work that makes up the bulk nesslike sort. It commonly has to do with some-
of what the expert practitioners would recognize thing in the nature of a vested right, which one
as legitimate sabotage.
or another of the parties in the case aims to secure
The word first came into use among the organized or defend, or to defeat or diminish; some preferential
French workmen, the members of certain syndicats, right or special advantage in respect of income or
to describe their tactics of passive resistance, and privilege, something in the way of a vested interest.
it has continued to be associated with the strategy
Workmen have resorted to such measures to secure
of these French workmen, who are known as syndi- improved conditions of work, or increased wages,
calists, and with their like-minded running-mates
or shorter hours, or to maintain their habitual
in other countries. But the tactics of these syndi- standards, to all of which they have claimed to
calists
, and their use of sabotage, do not differ, ex-
have some sort of a vested right. Any strike is
cept in detail, from the tactics of other workmen of the nature of sabotage, of course. Indeed, a
business concerns.


342
April 5
THE DIAL
strike is a typical species of sabotage. That strikes the common good. It should not be difficult to
have not been spoken of as sabotage is due to the show that the common welfare in any community
accidental fact that strikes were in use before this which is organized on the price system cannot be
word came into use. So also, of course, a lockout maintained without a salutary use of sabotage—that
is another typical species of sabotage. That the is to say, such habitual recourse to delay and obstruc-
lockout is employed by the employers against the tion of industry and such restriction of output as
employees does not change the fact that it is a will maintain prices at a reasonably profitable level
means of defending á vested right by delay, with and so guard against business depression. Indeed,
drawal, defeat, and obstruction of the work to be it is precisely considerations of this nature that are
done. Lockouts have not usually been spoken of as now engaging the best attention of officials and
sabotage, for the same reason that holds true in the business men in their endeavors to tide over a
case of strikes. All the while it has been recog-
threatening depression in American business and a
nized that strikes and lockouts are of identically
consequent season of hardship for all those per-
the same character.
sons whose main dependence is free income from
All this does not imply that there is anything investments.
discreditable or immoral about this habitual use of
somé salutary restraint in the way of
strikes and lockouts
. They are part of the ordinary sabotage on the productive use of the available in-
conduct of industry under the existing system, and
dustrial plant and workmen, it is altogether unlikely
necessarily so. So long as the system remains un that prices could be maintained at a reasonably
changed these measures are a necessary and legiti- profitable figure for any appreciable time. A busi-
mate part of it. By virtue of his ownership the nesslike control of the rate and volume of output
owner-employer has a vested right to do as he will
is indispensable for keeping up a profitable market,
with his own property, to deal or not to deal with
and a profitable market is the first and unremitting
any person that offers, to withhold or withdraw any condition of prosperity in any community whose in-
part or all of his industrial equipment and natural
dustry is owned and managed by business men. And.
resources from active use for the time being, to
the ways and means of this necessary control of the
run on half time or to shut down his plant and to
lock out all those persons for whom he has no
output of industry are always and necessarily some-
thing in the nature of sabotage-something in the
present use on his own premises. There is no ques-
way of retardation, restriction, withdrawal, unem-
tion that the lockout is altogether a legitimate ployment of plant and workmen—whereby_produc-
maneuver. It may even be meritorious, and it is tion is kept short of productive capacity. The me-
frequently considered to be meritorious when its
chanical industry of the new order is inordinately
use helps to maintain sound conditions in business-
that is to say, profitable conditions, as frequently
productive. So the rate and volume of output have
happens. Such is the view of the substantial citi-
to be regulated with a view to what the traffic will
So also is the strike legitimate, so long as it
bear—that is to say, what will yield the largest net
keeps within the law; and it may at times even be
return in terms of price to the business men in charge
meritorious, at least in the eyes of the strikers. It
of the country's industrial system. Otherwise there
will be "overproduction," business depression, and
is to be admitted quite broadly that both of these
typical species of sabotage are altogether fair and
consequent hard times all round. Overproduction
honest in principle, although it does not therefore
means production in excess of what the market
will carry off at a sufficiently profitable price. So
follow that every strike or every lockout is neces-
sarily fair and honest in its working-out. That is
it appears that the continued prosperity of the coun-
in some degree a question of special circumstances.
try from day to day hangs on a "conscientious
withdrawal of efficiency” by the business men who
Sabotage, accordingly, is not to be condemned out
control the country's industrial output. They con-
of hand, simply as such. There are many meas-
trol it all for their own use, of course, and their
ures of policy and management both in private busi-
ness and in public administration which are un-
own use means always a profitable price.
mistakably of the nature of sabotage and which are
In any community that is organized on the price
not only considered to be excusable, but are de-
system, with investment and business enterprise,
liberately sanctioned by statute and common law
habitual unemployment of the available indus-
and by the public conscience. Many such measures
trial plant and workmen, in whole or in part,
are quite of the essence of the case under the estab-
appears to be the indispensable condition without
lished system of law and order, price and business,
which tolerable conditions of life cannot be main-
and are faithfully believed to be indispensable to
tained. That is to say, in no such community can
the industrial system be allowed to work at full
zens.


1919
343
THE DIAL
capacity for any appreciable interval of time, on the war which has brought them to this state of
pain of business stagnation and consequent privation distress. The common man has won the war and
for all classes and conditions of men. The require- lost his livelihood. This need not be said by way
ments of profitable business will not tolerate it. So of praise or blame. As it stands it is, broadly, an
the rate and volume of output must be adjusted to objective statement of fact, which may need some
the needs of the market, not to the working capacity slight qualification, such as broad statements of fact
of the available resources, equipment and man will commonly need. All these nations that have
power, nor to the community's need of consumable come through the war, and more particularly the
goods. Therefore there must always be a certain common run of their populations, are very much'in
variable margin of unemployment of plant and man need of all sorts of supplies for daily use, both for
power. Rate and volume of output can, of course, immediate consumption and for productive use. So
not be adjusted by exceeding the productive capacity much so that the prevailing state of distress rises in
of the industrial system. So it has to be regulated many places to an altogether unwholesome pitch of
by keeping short of maximum production by more privation, for want of the necessary food, clothing,
or less, as the condition of the market may require. and fuel. Yet in all these countries the staple in-
It is always a question of more or less unemploy dustries are slowing down. There is an ever in-
ment of plant and man power, and a shrewd moder creasing withdrawal of efficiency. The industrial
ation in the unemployment of these available re plant is increasingly running idle or half idle, run-
sources, a conscientious withdrawal of efficiency,” ning increasingly short of its productive capacity.
therefore, is the beginning of wisdom in all sound Workmen are being laid off and an increasing num-
workday business enterprise that has to do with ber of those workmen who have been serving in the
industry.
armies are going idle for want of work, at the same
All this is matter of course and notorious. But time that the troops which are no longer needed in
it is not a topic on which one prefers to dwell. the service are being demobilized as slowly as popu-
Writers and speakers who dilate on the meritorious lar sentiment will tolerate, apparently for fear that
exploits of the nation's business men will not com the number of unemployed workmen in the country
monly allude to this voluminous running adminis may presently increase to such proportions as to
tration of sabotage, this conscientious withdrawal of bring ,on a catastrophe. And all the while all these
efficiency, that goes into their ordinary day's work. peoples are in great need of all sorts of goods and
One prefers to dwell on those exceptional, sporadic, services which these idle plants and idle workmen
and spectacular episodes in business where business are fit to produce. But for reasons of business
men have now and again successfully gone out of expediency it is impossible to let these idle plants and
the safe and sane highway of conservative business idle workmen go to work—that is to say for reasons
enterprise that is hedged about with a conscientious of insufficient profit to the business men interested,
withdrawal of efficiency, and have endeavored to or in other words, for reasons of insufficient income
regulate the output by increasing the productive to the vested interests which control the staple in-
capacity of the industrial system at one point or dustries and so regulate the output of product. The
another.
traffic will not bear so large a production of goods
But after all, such habitual recourse to peaceable as the community needs for current consumption,
or surreptitious measures of restraint, delay, and because it is considered doubtful whether so large a
obstruction in the ordinary businesslike management supply could be sold at prices that would yield a
of industry is too widely known and too well ap reasonable profit on the investment—or rather on
proved to call for much exposition or illustration. the capitalization; that is to say, it is considered
Yet
, as one capital illustration of the scope and doubtful whether an increased production, such as
force of such businesslike withdrawal of efficiency, to employ more workmen and supply the goods
it may be in place to recall that all the civilized needed by the community, would result in an in-
nations are just now undergoing an experiment in creased net aggregate income for the vested interests
businesslike sabotage on an unexampled scale and which control these industries. A reasonable profit
carried out with unexampled effrontery. All these always means, in effect, the largest obtainable profit
.
nations that have come through the war, whether as All this is simple and obvious, and it should
belligerents or as neutrals, have come into a state scarcely need explicit statement. It is for these
of more or less pronounced distress, due to a scarcity business men to manage the country's industry, of
of the common necessaries of life; and this distress course, and therefore to regulate the rate and volume
falls, of course, chiefly on the common sort, who of output; and also of course any regulation of the
have at the same time borne the chief burden of output by them will be made with a view to the


344
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April 5
must be curtailed in the staple industries, on pain tardation of industry at one point or another cannot
needs of business; that is to say, with a view to the of unprofitable prices. The case is not so desperate
largest obtainable net profit, not with a view to the in those industries which have immediately to do
physical needs of these peoples who have come with the production of superfluities; but even these,
through the war and have made the world safe for which depend chiefly on the custom of those kept
the business of the vested interests. Should the classes to whom the free income goes, are not feel-
business men in charge, by any chance aberration, ing altogether secure. For the good of business it
stray from this straight and narrow path of business is necessary to curtail production of the means of
integrity, and allow the community's needs unduly life, on pain of unprofitable prices, at the same time
to influence their management of the community's that the increasing need of all sorts of the neces-
industry, they would presently find themselves dis saries of life must be met in some passable fashion,
credited and would probably face insolvency. Their on pain of such popular disturbances as will always
only salvation is a conscientious withdrawal of effi come of popular distress when it passes the limit of
ciency. All this lies in the nature of the case. It tolerance.
is the working of the price system, whose creatures Those wise business men who are charged with
and agents these business men are. Their case is
administering the salutary modicum of sabotage at
rather pathetic, as indeed they admit quite volubly. this grave juncture may conceivably be faced with
They are not in a position to manage with a free a dubious choice between a distasteful curtailment
hand, the reason being that they have in the past, of the free income that goes to the vested interests,
under the routine requirements of the price system on the one hand, and an unmanageable onset of
as it takes effect in corporation finance, taken on so
popular discontent on the other hand. And in either
large an overhead burden of fixed charges that any alternative lies disaster. Present indications would
appreciable decrease in the net earnings of the busi seem to say that their choice will fall out according
ness will bring any well-managed concern of this to ancient habit, that they will be likely to hold
class face to face with bankruptcy.
fast by an undiminished free income for the vested
At the present conjuncture, brought on by the interests at the possible cost of any popular discon-
war and its termination, the case stands somewhat tent that may be in prospect—and then, with the
in this typical shape. In the recent past earnings help of the courts and the military arm, presently
have been large; these large earnings (free income)
make reasonable terms with any popular discontent
have been capitalized; their capitalized value has
that may arise. In which event it should all occa-
been added to the corporate capital and covered
sion no surprise or resentment, inasmuch as it would
with securities bearing a fixed income-charge; this
be nothing unusual or irregular and would presum-
income-charge, representing free income, has thereby ably be the most expeditious way of reaching a
become a liability on the earnings of the corporation; modus vivendi. During the past few weeks
, too,
this liability cannot be met in case the concern's net
quite an unusually large number of machine guns
aggregate earnings fall off in any degree; therefore have been sold to industrial business concerns of the
prices must be kept up to such a figure as will bring
larger sort, here and there; at least so they say.
the largest net aggregate return, and the only means
of keeping up prices is a conscientious withdrawal public, it is right to take any necessary measures
Business enterprise being the palladium of the Re-
of efficiency in these staple industries on which the
for its safeguarding. Price is of the essence of the
community depends for a supply of the necessaries case, whereas livelihood is not.
of life.
The business community has hopes of tiding things
The grave emergency that has arisen out of the
war and its provisional conclusion is, after all,
over by this means, but it is still a point in doubt nothing exceptional except in magnitude and severe
whether the present unexampled large use of sabo-
ity. In substance it is the same sort of thing that
tage in the businesslike management of the staple
industries will now suffice to bring the business
goes on continually but unobtrusively and as a
community through this grave crisis without a disas-
matter of course in ordinary times of business as
trous shrinkage of its capitalization, and a consequent calling attention to itself. At the same time
, it
usual. It is only that the extremity of the case is
liquidation; but the point is not in doubt that the
physical salvation of these peoples who have come
serves impressively to enforce the broad proposition
that a conscientious withdrawal of efficiency is the
through the war must in any case wait on the beginning of wisdom in all established business en-
pecuniary salvation of these owners of corporate
securities which represent free income. It is a suffi-
terprise that has to do with industrial production.
ciently difficult
But it has been found that this grave interest which
passage. It appears that production
the vested interests always have in a salutary re-


1919
345
THE DIAL
well be left altogether to the haphazard and ill The great standing illustration of sabotage ad-
coordinated efforts of individual business concerns, ministered by the government is the protective tariff,
each taking care of its own particular line of of course. It protects certain special interests by
sabotage within its own premises. The needed obstructing competition from beyond the frontier.
sabotage can best be administered on a compre This is the main use of a national boundary. The
hensive plan and by a central authority, since the effect of the tariff is to keep the supply of goods down
country's industry is of the nature of a compre and thereby keep the price up, and so to bring
hensive interlocking system, whereas the business reasonably satisfactory dividends to those special
concerns which are called on to control the motions interests which deal in the protected articles of
of this industrial system will necessarily work piece trade, at the cost of the underlying community. A
meal, in severalty and at cross-purposes. In effect, protective tariff is a typical conspiracy in restraint
their working at cross-purposes results in a suffi of trade. It brings a relatively small, though abso-
ciently large aggregate retardation of industry, of lutely large, run of free income to the special inter-
course, but the resulting retardation is necessarily ests which benefit by it, at a relatively, and abso-
somewhat blindly apportioned and does not con lutely, large cost to the underlying community, and
verge to a neat and perspicuous outcome. Even a
so it gives rise to a body of vested rights and in-
reasonable amount of collusion among the interested tangible assets belonging to these special interests.
business concerns will not by itself suffice to carry on
Of a similar character, in so far that in effect
that comprehensive moving equilibrium of sabotage they are in the nature of sabotage-conscientious
that is required to preserve the business community
withdrawal of efficiency—are all manner of excise
from recurrent collapse or stagnation, or to bring the
and revenue-stamp regulations; although they are
nation's traffic into line with the general needs of
not always designed for that purpose. Such would
the vested interests.
be, for instance, the partial or complete prohibition
Where the national government is charged with
of alcoholic beverages, the regulation of the trade in
the general care of the country's business interests,
tobacco, opium, and other deleterious narcotics,
as is invariably the case among the civilized nations,
drugs, poisons, and high explosives. Of the same
it follows from the nature of the case that the
nature, in effect if not in intention, are such regu-
nation's lawgivers and administration will have lations as the oleomargarine law; as also the un-
some share in administering that necessary modicum necessarily costly and vexatious routine of inspection
of sabotage that must always go into the day's work imposed on the production of industrial (denatured)
of carrying on industry by business methods and for
alcohol, which has inured to the benefit of certain
business purposes. The government is in a position business concerns that are interested in other fuels
to penalize excessive or unwholesome traffic. So, for use in internal-combustion engines; so also the
it is always considered necessary, or at least expedi- singularly vexatious and elaborately imbecile speci-
ent, by all sound mercantilists to impose and main fications that limit and discourage the use of the
tain a certain balance or proportion among the parcel post, for the benefit of the express companies
several branches of industry and trade that go to
and other carriers which have a vested interest in
make up the nation's industrial system. The pur-
traffic of that kind.
pose commonly urged for measures of this class is
It is worth noting in the same connection, al-
the fuller utilization of the nation's industrial re-
though it comes in from the other side of the case,
sources in material, equipment, and man power; the
that ever since the express companies have been
invariable effect is a lowered efficiency and a waste-
taken over by the federal administration there has
ful use of these resources, together with an increase
visibly gone into effect a comprehensive system of
of international jealousy. But measures of that
vexation and delay in the detail conduct of their
traffic, so contrived as to discredit federal control of
kind are thought to be expedient by the mercantilists
this traffic and thereby provoke a popular sentiment
for these purposes—that is to say, by the statesmen
of these civilized nations, for the purposes of the
in favor of its early return to private control. Much
the same state of things has been in evidence in the
vested interests. The chief and nearly sole means of railway traffic under similar conditions. Sabotage
maintaining such a fabricated balance and proportion is serviceable as a deterrent, whether in furtherance
among the nation's industries is to obstruct the of the administration work or in contravention of it.
traffic at some critical point by prohibiting or penal In what has just been said there is, of course, no
izing any exuberant undesirables among these intention to find fault with any of these uses of
branches of industry. Disallowance, in whole or in sabotage. It is not a question of morals and good
part, is the usual and standard method.
intentions. It is always to be presumed as a matter


346
April 5
THE DIAL
of course that the guiding spirit in all such govern best to disallow such use of the mail facilities as does
mental moves to regularize the nation's affairs, not inure to the benefit of the administration in the
whether by restraint or by incitement, is a wise way of good will and vested rights of usufruct.
solicitude for the nation's enduring gain and security.
These peremptory measures of disallowance have
All that can be said here is that many of these wise attracted a wide and dubious attention; but they
measures of restraint and incitement are in the have doubtless been of a salutary nature and in-
nature of sabotage, and that in effect they habitually,
tention, in some way which is not to be understood
though not invariably, inure to the benefit of certain by outsiders—that is to say, by citizens of the Re-
vested interests-ordinarily vested interests which
public. An unguarded dissemination of information
bulk large in the ownership and control of the and opinions or an unduly frank canvassing of the
nation's resources. That these measures are quite
relevant facts by these outsiders, will be a handicap
legitimate and presumably salutary, therefore, goes
on the Administration's work, and may even defeat
without saying. In effect they are measures for
the Administration's aims. At least so they say.
hindering traffic and industry at one point or an-
other, which may often be a wise precaution.
Something of much the same color has been ob-
During the period of the war administrative
served elsewhere and in other times, so that all this
measures in the nature of sabotage have been greatly
nervously alert resort to sabotage on undesirable
extended in scope and kind. Peculiar and imperative
information and opinions is nothing novel, nor is it
exigencies have had to be met, and the staple means
peculiarly democratic. The elder statesmen of the
of meeting many of these new and exceptional exi-
great monarchies, east and west, have long ago seen
gencies has quite reasonably been something in the
and approved the like. But these elder statesmen
way of avoidance, disallowance, penalization, hind-
of the dynastic regime have gone to their work of
rance, a conscientious withdrawal of efficiency from
sabotage on information because of a palpable
work that does not fall in with the purposes of the
division of sentiment between their government and
Administration. Very much as is true in private
the underlying population, such as does not exist in
business when a situation of doubt and hazard pre-
the advanced democratic commonwealths. The case
sents itself, so also in the business of government at
of Imperial Germany during the period of the war is
the present juncture of exacting demands and in-
believed to show such a division of sentiment be-
convenient limitations, the Administration has been
tween the government and the underlying popula-
driven to expedients of disallowance and obstruc-
tion, and also to show how such a divided sentiment
tion with regard to some of the ordinary processes of
on the part of a distrustful and distrusted popula-
life, as, for instance, in the non-essential industries.
tion had best be dealt with. The method approved
It has also appeared that the ordinary equipment
by German dynastic experience is sabotage, of a
and agencies for gathering and distributing news
somewhat free-swung character, censorship, embargo
and other information have in the past developed
on communication, and also, it is confidently alleged,
a capacity far in excess of what can safely be per-
elaborate misinformation.
mitted in time of war. The like is true for the
Such procedure on the part of the dynastic states--
ordinary facilities for public discussion of all sorts
men of the Empire is comprehensible even to a lay,
of public questions. The ordinary facilities, which
But how it all stands with those advanced
may have seemed scant enough in time of peace
democratic nations, like America, where the gov-
and slack interest, had after all developed a capacity
ernment is the dispassionately faithful agent and
far beyond what the governmental traffic will bear
spokesman of the body of citizens, and where there
in these uneasy times of war and negotiations, when
can consequently be no division of aims and senti-
men are very much on the alert to know what is
ment between the body of officials and any under-
going on. By a moderate use of the later improve lying population—all that is a more obscure sand
ments in the technology of transport and communi-
cation, the ordinary means of disseminating informa-
hazardous subject of speculation. Yet there has been
tion and opinions have grown so efficient that the
censorship, somewhat rigorous, and there has been
traffic can
selective refusal of mail facilities
, somewhat arbi-
no longer be allowed to run at full
capacity during a period of stress in the business of
trary, in these democratic commonwealths also, and
not least in America, freely acknowledged to be the
government. Even the mail service has proved
insufferably efficient, and a selective withdrawal
most naively democratic of them all. And all the
of efficiency has gone into effect. To speak after
while one would like to believe that it all has
the analogy of private business, it has been found
somehow served some useful end. It is all suffi-
ciently perplexing.
Thorstein VEBLEN.
man.


1919
347
THE DIAL
11
A Second Imaginary Conversation
GOSSE AND Moore
II
the house. And the attentions Rochester pays to his
Gosse.
Byron was largely conscious that his daughter's governess become more and more marked,
literary reputation depended on his acts rather than
and culminate in a proposal of marriage. But the
maniac in the distant wing is Mrs. Rochester, and
on his words.
MOORE. But, Gosse, isn't that always so?
the marriage into which Rochester nearly succeeds
Gosse. Shakespeare.
in inveigling Jane is stopped in the church, at the
MOORE. Had Shakespeare in that tiresome
very altar, by the wife's relations. Extenuating cir-
phrase trailed a pike in the Low Countries, his con-
cumstances may be found for the murderer and for
temporaries would have appreciated him as they
the seducer, but it is hard to find any for the
did Ben Jonson; but he did nothing.
bigamist. And Charlotte must have been aware
Gosse. Nor did the Brontes.
of this, and no doubt would have preferred Roches-
MOORE. The Brontes had silhouette thrust
ter to have said, “Jane, my wife is a maniac and
upon
them; and on looking into Jane Eyre after fifty
lives in the distant wing. But if you like to live
years of absence, I have to confess my inability to
with me I will try to make you happy and shall
discover the qualities that compelled you and
succeed, for I love you very dearly.” It is possible
Swinburne to write of it as if it were a master-
to imagine an honorable man speaking these words
piece. In speaking of Wuthering Heights you were
to his daughter's governess. I should not altogether
a little more careful-you glided swiftly; but in
like the bargain, because the parties are not bar-
writing of Jane Eyre you spoke of—I have your
gaining on equal terms—one is a governess and the
other a man of wealth and position. But there can
exact words—“a sweep of tragic passion and the
fusion of romantic intrigue with grave and sinister
be no question that from a moral as well as from
landscape," and will you deny that this is the kind
a literary point of view it would be preferable to
of phrase that the pen drops when we yield to public
bigamy. What happens then?
opinion?
Gosse. Jane returns from the church to the
Hall, and I think I can aver that 'Mr. Rochester
Gosse. I am glad, flattered, that my History of
English Literature was of use to you, but I may
is accepted as a penitent-a penitent inasmuch as he
remark that it was intended primarily for the
regrets his design to inveigle his governess into a
general reader.
sham marriage, and I think he confesses that it
MOORE. I have no difficulty in understanding
would have been wiser to propose that Jane should
that you tried to keep purely personal' opinions out
live with him outside of marriage. Jane - might
of your book, judging, and judging wisely, that
have accepted him on these terms if she had not
these would merely puzzle and embarrass the reader
been deceived by Rochester in the first instance, but
you had in your mind. Jane Eyre was praised having just escaped a sham marriage, she feels she
when you wrote by the best informed, and it is to
cannot remain at the Hall, and runs away without
your credit that you were not deceived by the
clothes or money.
literary babble of the time, nor driven to flouting MOORE. I think so, and takes refuge with Par-
public opinion, as you might well have been, but
And with the help of Parson the story is
with your usual tact judged neither the place nor the somewhat tediously drawn out to the requisite
moment to be propitious, and refrained. But now three-volume length. The maniac sets fire to the
that the Bronte epidemic is over, may I not seek
house. She has to, for it is necessary to be rid of her
to discover what your personal opinion
Gosse. You can ask me any question.
so that Rochester may marry Jane. At the same
time, it behooves the novelist to show a noble soul
Moore. I prefer not to ask any, but tell you
the story of Jane Eyre.
in her hero, and the best plot that Charlotte can
devise is, that in trying to save his wife's life
But what is a book divested of its
Rochester loses his sight from a falling beam. Even
so, Charlotte's difficulties are not cleared up, for,
man is when divested of
Charlotte relates that a widower
from the point of drawing-room entertainment, it
with one daughter engages Jane Eyre as governess,
would be a cheerless sort of story if Rochester did
and that it is not very long before Jane begins to
not recover his sight; and as soon as he has been
notice that Mr. Rochester pays her attentions and
blind a couple of years he says to Jane, “ Jane,
disappears from time to time into a distant part of something seems to glitter on your dress.” “It is
son.
Gosse.
words?
MOORE. As much as
his flesh,
.


348
April 5
THE DIAL
the chain you gave me; your sight is coming back," to her irresistible”—and it was this irresistible im-
or words to that effect. Sensation! I know that pulse that enlarged the Bronte silhouette almost
this story was hailed as a masterpiece; but fifty indefinitely, and the discovery of letters continued
years have passed over, and it appears to me that the enlargement till it filled the entire literary
the time has come for somebody to say that Jane horizon, and Monsieur Hèger, the schoolmaster,
Eyre is our old friend Mother Goose over again. came to supply needy bookmakers with a subject
If you have showed no signs of boredom while suited to popular taste. “If I could only rid myself
listening, Gosse, it is because you feel with me that of my conscience,” she said, on her way to Sainte
Jane Eyre is the typical English novel-the story Gudule. Penitents were passing in and out of the
that every generation rewrites and that never fails Confessional. Charlotte was a Protestant, and it
to attract readers. The details of the story are required an uncontrollable impulse to propel her
many and various, each generation invents its own into the box. At first the Confessor would not hear
vocalization,” but every version I have seen may be her, she being a Protestant; but she would not take
described as a rigmarole with something in it which “No” for an answer; she confessed—what? If we
gives the lady we sit next to at dinner an excuse only knew; if the reporters had been able to get
for talking morality. The original story is written hold of that Confessor, there is reason to suppose
with more intensity than the variants, but nonsense
that we should be discussing Charlotte's morals till
is never really well written, and words avail little we ascended to the Judgment Seat. But if Char-
if the skeleton is not perfect. We who have been
lotte had transgressed? If she had, the veracity of
about a good deal have no difficulty in imagining the
the confession would have been impugned.
number of literary pens that a story like Jane Eyre
Even the present war would not be sufficient to
will set scratching, and the chatter it will set flow-
quench the desire to discuss whether Charlotte held
ing at a dinner-table. As: It was, of course,
the Professor's hand or the Professor held hers.
wrong for Rochester to pass himself off as a bache It broke out again in the Times, and not more
lor. All the same, his plight was a sad one, 'tied to
than two years ago. You saw the correspondence,
a maniac wife; and then the sudden switch off-the
Gosse?
divorce laws ought to be amended. But do you not
GOSSE. No, I didn't, but I like listening to you;
fear that if the marriage laws are loosened much
further they might as well be done away with? And
Moore. Some wandering gossip or a newly dis-
are you quite sure that if he had confided his secret
covered letter blew up the dying embers of this
to Jane in the first instance that she would have controversy-somebody died, somebody confessed,
refused to live with him? If the speakers are ac-
or new letters were discovered. I have forgotten,
quainted with French poetry, one of them is sure to
if I ever knew. I came upon a middle letter, and
quote the lines:
was struck by the almost passionate tenacity with
Gloire dans l'univers, dans les temps, à celui,
which the writer clung to the belief that Charlotte's
Qui s'immole a jamais pour le salut d'autrui!
And the inherent desire of martyrdom in the al- ing had ever happened in it to redeem the monotony
life had always been gray and dull, and that noth-
most ugly, scrappy little woman with burning gray
eyes will be described, and the tale told of her em-
of ill-health and teaching. We know that we are
not virtuous, we know that we cannot be virtuous,
barrassment when she stepped across the threshold
of Smith Elder's drawing-room and found herself
but we are anxious to believe that somebody else is
virtuous.
in the presence of six London celebrities, two of
I suppose it cannot be otherwise, the
these standing on the hearth-rug, their coat tails
doctrine of Atonement having taken such a hold on
lifted so that they might enjoy the blaze more
But this explanation did not satisfy me alto-
thoroughly. The editor of the Cornhill was there.
gether, and at odd times the thought returned that
there must be more in it than the instinct of the
At this moment an intrusive footman
presses some dish on the speakers, and, having I said to myself one day: Of course, the whole
individual, and seeking for the instinct of the hive,
helped themselves, the literary twain fall to think-
ing how the six portly gentlemen must have enjoyed if it could be proved that she had held the school-
putting questions to Charlotte, asking how she had master's hand.
gotten that sufficient knowledge of life which
enabled her to divine a man like Rochester.
Gosse. You're in excellent form today, and I'm
Charlotte and her sister had been to school in
sorry to interrupt you, but I, too, am being poked
Brussels, and they returned home together after a
up by a constantly recurring thought and cannot
year's schooling; but Charlotte was drawn back to
help remembering your saying that I glided swiftly
Brussels, in her words, “ by an impulse that seemed
over Wuthering Heights, like one anxious not to
commit himself to any definite opinion for or
go on,
us.


1919
349
THE DIAL
ture
ment.
against the book, and I do not think I am going too
far if I say that your suggestion was that my pri-
vate judgment was held in check by the prevalent
literary opinion of the time headed by Swinburne,
who
MOORE. It seems to me quite reasonable to sup-
pose that a man writing a history of English litera-
must refrain from challenging received
opinions. I thought I had made that sufficiently
clear.
Gosse. Yes; quite plain, and it is no doubt as
you say. I did, of course, try to exclude eccentric
opinions (I use the word in its grammatical sense),
for these would only embarrass and confuse; but
you are in a different position, and will, no doubt,
undo the mischief I have done by a clear pronounce-
How does Wuthering Heights strike you?
As a masterpiece?
Moore. As it appears to me, those who com-
mitted their critical reputations to the pronounce-
ment that Wuthering Heights was a masterpiece
would have done well to consider the word master-
piece. The word is sufficiently explicit—a work
executed by one who is a master in his craft; and
to be a master in any craft, an apprenticeship is
necessary. Emily was born in 1818 and died in
1848, and presumably Wuthering Heights was
written some years earlier-shall we say at six or
seven and twenty? Well, masterpieces are not pro-
duced at that age, not even by Raphael, for the
simple reason that nobody is a master of his craft,
whatever it may be, till he has practiced it for ten
years, not even if it be the humble craft of prose
narrative. And a casual glance into the book tells
those who know how to read that it is just what
a girl of genius, unpracticed in her craft and with-
out experience of life, might write in a lonely par-
sonage over against a Yorkshire heath-wild and
violent imaginings shot through with glimpses of
A glimpse of beauty her vision of
Heathcliff surely is a man haunted by the memory
of Catherine, his enemy's wife, who died many
years ago, more than twenty have passed over,
but
for Heathcliff there is nobody in the world but
Catherine. She is never far away, often by his
elbow; she has come to speak, but she utters no
word, but signs to him, and he rises immediately
from the meal and follows her across the desolate
heath. In vain, needless to say. The hallucination
he sees her in every face he looks upon,
and we feel with him that only death can release
him from the torturé of the deception, forever re-
curring in a hundred different aspects, and always
failing him. Did Emily mean the wraith to stand
for a symbol of life itself? She hardly knew. She
wrote as we dream.
Gosse. You think that Emily was the genius?
MOORE. The word is inapplicable to prose
writers under forty, and more than a single work
is necessary, and there is nothing in Wuthering
Heights to show that Emily Bronte's talent would
have developed.
The one that might have developed into a fine
writer was Anne. She wrote a book called The
Tenant of Wildfell Hall, a baby book, it is true,
but the memory of it lingers in me to this day; a
story of illegitimate love that came to naught, and
for no valid reason that I could discover on my
way to Castle Carra, whither I went not a little
scared lest perchance I had been born into a world
in which nobody transgressed. It is with my boyish
dread of a sinless world that she is associated, and
with pity for her early death coming before any
taste of life. A virgin's death is the very
saddest.
Anne revealed her sadness to me, and I take this
opportunity of paying my debt.
Gosse. You have thrown every sort of stone
against the Brontes, and I can tell by your face
that you think you brought down Jane Eyre with
that last one—a vindictive summary of her book.
A silly story no doubt it is, but many silly stories
abound in beautiful pages and Jane Eyre is not an
exception. It is many years since I read it, but I
am still haunted by a memory of the twain in a
dewy orchard or garden and a dialogue that lasts
all night and that ends, I think, with the dawn.
have forgotten these pages or half forgot-
ten as I have; if so, you will do well to read them
again, for I think you would admire them.
MOORE. Your memory is better than mine
in this instance.
Gosse. Thank you for this tribute, which it is
an honor to receive from one of prodigious mem-
ory, though of slight reading. And now there is
a point of criticism which it seems to me you have
overlooked. It is that of all the novels written in
mid-Victorian years, the Brontes' are the only ones
that retain any faint vitality. You can read Jane
Eyre and Wuthering Heights more easily than
Lytton or Disraeli, more easily than the late Vic-
torians, Trollope, even more easily than Dickens,
Thackeray, and George Eliot. I gather from your
silence that I have guessed rightly. As a critic of
English fiction, it behooves you to consider how this
has come to pass. But you do not seem to be ready
with an answer. Perhaps you will allow me to
tell you your charge against the English novel is
that it has been, from the hour of its birth to the
present year, concerned with the surface of life
rather than with the depths—and need we look
further for the reason why the novels we enjoyed
in our boyhood are rejected by the younger genera-
You may
1
real beauty.
continues;


350
April 5
THE DIAL
tion? The great bulk of men and women know
asus." And a hundred sentences as silly and as
life only by the waves, and the popular novelist ugly could be culled from his prose writings. I
concerns himself with what attracts his public: the quote this phrase though it gives me pain to repeat
surface of life, all the little odds and oddments, it, for I believe that the origin of the monograph
the picturesque follies of the hour, the tricks of on Charlotte Bronte may be traced to his desire to
speech and manner, the ideas of the moment. His write something that would give pain to George
audience is delighted. He is presenting life as it Eliot and to her admirers, rather than to any gen-
appears to them. But all these waves and wave uine admiration of Jane Eyre or Shirley.
lets sink into the deep, disappear, and when they MOORE. He liked Dickens in his youth, and
have gone, the books go with them. Can it be during middle age and old age he read Dickens
else?
through from end to end every three years, from
Moore. But the Brontes were popular during the Sketches by Boz to the Mystery of Edwin
their lifetime.
Drood. You tell us that, and more than that,
Gosse. To some extent, but it was not until that he read Dickens aloud to Watts-Dunton three
the nineties that they met with any intelligent times. The Pines needs a biographer—a subject
appreciation.
made to your hand, Gosse. And now I'll tell you
Moore. I am beginning to see whither your
something you do not know. It was proposed,
argument is tending: that the Brontes wrote about whether by Frank Harris or another I am not quite
life in its essentials, which, like the depths of the
sea, do not change.
sure, but during his editorship, that Swinburne
Gosse. The parsonage over against the lonely
should write an appreciation of Dickens for the
heath excited your derision, but if I may venture
Fortnightly. But the paper was never written, on
account of the rejection of a poem, a ballad with
to say so, unduly. Mr. Arthur Mellows is never
“The wind wears o'er the heather” for refrain.
wholly wrong, but he cannot explain himself. That
Have you met with the manuscript of this poem
parsonage and that heath which he photographed
in your researches ?
so often are not interesting in themselves as he
Gosse. I do not remember it, and Wise and I
thought, but because they saved the Brontes
from the English literary tradition, that in prose
have gone through all the papers carefully. Are
narrative life as only a thin upper crust is, shall
you sure that the poem was by Swinburne?
Moore. I was told it was by Swinburne. It
say, representable.
MOORE. The Brontes, knowing nothing of so-
certainly seemed to me rather casual, and I doubt that
cial life, were forced to look into the depths.
the appreciation would have been of much literary
value if it had been written. It would have been
Gosse. There may be less character in their
books than there is in Lytton or Disraeli, but there's
too much in the Pauline manner, asseveration upon
asseveration. But let us not stray from the point
more humanity.
of dutiful criticism, and as I am a little weary of
MOORE. I see; and that is why Swinburne
fault finding will you confide to me your best
wrote his monograph. But you record the fact
in your biography that when he summoned you to
thoughts on Dickens? I thirst for some whole-
hearted praise.
hear it he wearied in his reading and laid it aside
so that he might read you his novel—a novel that
Gosse. I look upon Dickens as the first man
he never wearied of, but which you and Mr. Wise
of English genius who gave the whole of his genius
have decided shall never be published.
to the novel-reader; he was able to do this, for he
Gosse. Outside his gift no man is very wise;
was without general culture, and as Matthew
and as I have often mentioned in my biography of
Arnold pointed out, two things are necessary for
the birth of art—the man and the moment. You
the great poet, whom I was fortunate enough to
know intimately, Swinburne lost all receptive
have talked to me so much about English prose
power at the age of forty. After forty his mind
narrative that I find it a little difficult to disen-
was closed to new ideas; it was less flexible, less
tangle my ideas from yours. But if you will have
elastic. I think that in my biography the word
patience, I think I shall be able to do so. It seems
ossification almost occurs.
to me certain that in Dickens we got the man of
I have no wish to with-
draw it. In his later critical writings he never
genius, and it seems to me if not as certain, at
argued, explained, or analyzed. He merely ham-
least arguable, that the moment of his coming was
mered. . The noise he made was sometimes ridicu-
not propitious. By the moment we must under-
lous, as is shown in the sentence in which he called
stand not only the literary tradition that prevailed
George Eliot “
an Amazon thrown sprawling over
in his time, but the circumstances of his life. Dick-
the crupper of her spavined and spur-galled Peg-
ens was al man of the people, and was without that
school and university education, which liberated


1919
351
THE DIAL
Landor and Swinburne from the narrow sympathies have written prose narratives worthy of our poet-
and latter prejudices of the Victorian age; added tú ical literature, creating characters that in their
which, he had to get his living, and he could only seriousness would compare with Le Père Goriot
do this by supplying the drawing-room with en and Philippe, in Un Ménage de Garçon. But if
tertainment. You see I accept your definition of the he had gone to France and spent his evenings as
.English novel; if he had not been a man of genius you suggest, we should not have had Dickens but
he would have continued the Lytton and Disraeli
another man. His talent was more natural, more
modes and we should have more Disraeli modes spontaneous, than any he would have met in France.
and we should have had more historical flourishes, He had more talent than Flaubert, Zola, Goncourt,
verbose politics, sentimental rhodomontades, fop Daudet; but he would have learned from them the
pery, and high living. Instead of these, we got the value of seriousness. A quick, receptive mind like
middle and lower classes, of which English litera his would have understood that a convict waiting
ture was hardly aware before Dickens introduced in a marsh for a boy to bring him a file with which
them! You would prefer that he should have laid he may file himself from his irons is not a subject
less stress
on superficial markings—superficial is for humor. He need not have spent the whole of
perhaps unnecessary-on markings, and you will tell his youth on the Boulevard Extérieur. A few
me that whereas Balzac stands head and shoulders
years would have been sufficient to dissipate the vile
above Daumier, Gavarni, and Monnier; such char English tradition that humor is a literate quality.
acters as Micawber, Stiggins, Dombey, and Little He would have learned that it is more commercial
Nell do not represent anything deeper, any deeper than literary, and that, if it be introduced in large
humanity than Cruikshank and Phiz. I answer you quantities, all life dies out of the narrative. A
and I think fairly, that though a great man is always living and moving story related by a humorist very
greater than his environment, he is born of it and soon becomes a thing of jeers and laughter, signify-
shares its qualities, good and evil. Balzac was fa ing nothing. We must have humor, of course, but
vored by circumstance; he lived in a great moment the use we must make of our humor is to avoid in-
of literary revival, one as favorable to French litera troducing anything into the narrative that shall dis-
ture as the Elizabethan age was to English litera tract the reader from the beauty, the mystery, and
ture. But in spite of these magnificent advantages, the pathos of the life we live in this world. Who-
the great Tourainian was not, as yourself will ad soever keeps humor under lock and key is read in
mit, free from melodrama and sentimentality. Hand the next generation, if he writes well, for to write
on your heart, is Vautrin better than Bill Sykes, well without the help of humor is the supreme test.
and are the worst pages in Little Dorrit worse than I should like to speak in my essay of the abuse of
certain pages in La Femme de Trente Ans? humor, but it would be difficult to make this abuse
Moore. Which of Dickens' books do you like plain to a public so uneducated as ours, whose liter-
best?
ary sensibilities are restricted to a belief that some
Gosse. On the whole, Pickwick, for we recog jokes are better than others, but that any joke is
nize the English middle classes in Mr. Pickwick, better than no joke. I do not wish to libel the
and it is an achievement to discover an acceptable daily or weekly press, but it would seem to me that
symbol. In the same book we have Sam Weller, we have not a critic among us who is yet prepared
and we discover in him the mind of the lower to say that humor is but a crutch by the aid of
classes, their humor and good nature.
which almost any writer can totter a little way. I
has set forth two figures as typical as these cannot am afraid I am repeating myself, but the matter is
be dismissed as unworthy of our literature merely of such literary importance that a repetition may
because his Travels in Italy do not fulfill the as be forgiven me. Looking back, I catch sight of the
pirations of the young idea. For the sake of Mr. Athenaeum, our first literary journal in the eigh-
Pickwick and his valet, Dickens is forgiven, at ties, and I am not exaggerating when I say that it
least by me for the somewhat, shall I say lack-luster must have published some hundreds of articles en-
buffoonery, of the breach of promise case—Mrs
. forcing the doctrine that humor is a primary con-
Bardell, Sergeant Buzfuz, all and sundry. We for dition of prose narrative, without its occurring to
get these faults, puerilities, if you will remember anybody, though all the best pens in London were
that if France's gift was the novelist, England re writing for the Athenaeum in the eighties, that
ceived the incomparable poet.
Of what are you Jean Jacques Rousseau attained a unique reality in
literature by abstention from humor; I only remem-
Moore. Do not be so prickly
of ber one smiling sentence in his Confessions and that
what you are saying and that if our novelist had lasts but a minute—at the end of the journey that
spent his evenings in the Nouvelle Athènes, he would Jean Jacques undertakes for the benefit of his health.
A man that
thinking?


352
April 5
THE DIAL
for us.
Gosse. A great book like the Confessions pro Dickens nor Thackeray attracts you. Even so, one
vokes different remembrances in all of us, and I must repel you more than the other:
agree with you that the introduction of humor into Moore. If Dickens had not come into our
the Confessions would have deprived the book of its literature we should lose more than a certain num-
high literary quality. A very little humor would ber of books, something of ourselves, for Dickens
have turned a great and beautiful book into a mere has become part of our perceptions, and as the world
vulgarity. Only a very great writer would have exists in our perceptions, he has enlarged the world
abstained from humor, and one shudders at the
But can as much be said for Thackeray?
thought of what the scene in the garden would have If he had not come into our literature we should
become if Jean Jacques had allowed the faintest lose some books which I will allow to be admirable,
smile to curl the end of a sentence. And what a so that hitches and hindrances in our conversation
feat this scene is! Madame de Wareus calls Jean may be avoided. But I do not think that we should
Jacques into the garden to confide to him her project lose any more. Vanity Fair, for instance, seems to
for his sexual education. She appreciates the boy's me implicit in the literature that preceded it-in
embarrassment, telling him that she will give him Fielding, to whom he has often been compared, and
eight days to think the matter over, and the char not without reason, as it appears to me. Almost
acter that emerges when she folds him in her arms any reader acquainted with the first writer would be
is a new one in literature—the material mistress. struck with the similarity of mind on reading the
MOORE. It is strange that the admirable lesson second, and would feel that Thackeray had modeled
given by Jean Jacques was never laid to heart in his style on Fielding's, adapting it to the temper
England.
of Victorian readers, robbing it of its gusts, and im-
Gosse. I would make good some omissions.
proving the spacing and ordination of the different
MOORE. Pray make good my omissions.
parts. It seems to me that the same interest in the
Gosse. I would point out that we look in vain surface of life marks both writers: both are equally
for humor in the Greek and Latin poets; Aristo-
unable or unwilling to look into the depths; one re-
phanes was an ironist rather than a humorist, and lated Squire Western's drunken bouts and his pas-
the same may be said of Shakespeare. The grave-
sion for hunting, and the other Pitt Crawley's habit
diggers' scene in Hamlet was not written to set
the audience giggling, any more than the scene be-
of talking to Horrocks the butler during dinner.
To look below the surface bored them. Thackeray's
tween Cleopatra and the fruit-seller. These scenes
surfaces are often admirable, but that sense of
and the patter of the porter in Macbeth were writ-
the eternal which gives mystery and awe to a work
ten to delay the action, so that the spectator might
of art was unknown to him, so it seems to me.
have time to meditate on the tragedies that were on
Gosse. You said that Tom Jones was a book
their way to accomplishment. The same cannot be
said of the comic scenes relating to the building of
without seasons, without trees, without flowers,
the wall in the Midsummer Night's Dream. They
without a storm cloud above the - landscape, or a
rag in it. Might not the same strictures be directed
*may have been humorous originally, but I think it
will be allowed that if the authority of Shakespeare
with equal force against Vanity Fair?
MOORE. Yes indeed. Both books lack intimacy
were withdrawn from them they would be resented,
and rightly. But once more we are dropping into
of thought and feeling. No one sits by the fire and
Shakespearean controversy. And to bring the con-
thinks what his or her past has been and welcomes
versation back, I will say we have strayed into Tom
the approach of a familiar bird or animal. I do
Tiddler's ground.
not remember any dog, cat, or parrot in Vanity
No, you must not inter-
Fair, and I am almost sure that Tom Jones is with-
rupt me. You asked me to make good your omis-
A caged blackbird or thrush is a painful
sions.
The desire to giggle is a very imper- sight, but the parrot has chosen domestication, like
sonal quality. But there is another humor, one
which saves us from urging our ideas upon our
the cat and dog. Some of our homebirds love us,
friends with undue insistence, and this is a humor
the jackdaw very often; the raven prefers the warm
which I appreciate, and look upon as the rudder
outhouse to the windy scarp perhaps. However this
whereby we steer our course through life. I should
may be, he who loves animals and birds is more
human than he who doesn't.
like to continue a little further, but we have lighted
our lanterns, and are searching for a man who has
Gosse. Grip loved Barnaby Rudge's shoulder,
written prose narrative in English seriously. So
and was with him always in the Gordon riots and
far as we have gone we have discovered one woman,
afterwards, I think, in prison.
and it will be a pity if we cannot find a literary
what he said ?
Moore.
mate or concomitant for her. I gather that neither
Unfortunately I cannot, it's too long
ago. I have forgotten their names but I am con-
out one.
Can you remember


1919
THE DIAL
353
is her sex.
scious of the presence of dogs and cats in Dickens' Sharpe represents an adventuress prise sur le vif.
pages.
MOORE. An adventuress according to the liter-
Gosse. There is Gyp in David Copperfield, ary canons of the fifties—an adventuress without a
who ekes out the character of Dora very happily, temperament, which is very much the same as a sol-
and we might think of many others.
dier without courage.
MOORE. Dickens' description of Bill Sikes' dog GOSSE. But I can imagine a man - lacking in
shows that the writer had observed dogs and was physical courage, yet a very good soldier.
in sympathy with their instincts. Altogether Dick MOORE. Through a moral courage that over-
ens' mind was richer, more abundant than Thack comes physical weakness. But it is not so easy to
eray's; Thackeray's always seemed to me a meager imagine an adventuress overcoming her distaste for
sandy mind, an essentially ungenerous soil, that pro love from a sense of duty.
duced only starvelings.
Gosse. Madame Re'cannier is reputed to have
Gosse. But this description of Thackeray's mind been a cold woman, yet she attracted men. A cold
is hardly in agreement with his characters-only woman leading men on, making them miserable,
the writing is inferior.
and taking her pleasure in their misery is conceivable.
MOORE. What is in the mind transpires; he was Moore. Quite conceivable; but no such excel-
interested only in life, the drift and letter of social lent and subtle conception of devilish malignity
life, always pleased and proud to relate that a Major crossed Thackeray's' mind, nor had he in mind the
or a Colonel arrived at his club at a certain hour, great adventuress, she whose weapon and defense
and hardly less so to tell us how a lady of high
His mind did not move on grand, nat-
degree is driven to satisfy her milliner and dress ural lines; he imagined a little intriguing, middle-
maker by concluding an armistice, paying something class woman, determined to get on, and he was in-
on account, the foe to wait for full settlement un terested in her tricks, how she won over the women
til the daughter's marriage is brought off. In Pen when they came into the drawing-room after dinner,
dennis and The Newcomes a booby is presented how she bamboozled the younger Sir Pitt. So far
deftly, but the conception of a booby is very com he was in sympathy with his subject; but as it ap-
monplace. Boobies in Shakespeare, Balzac, and pears to me, his interest in human nature did not
Tourgenev are men of genius as well as boobies. compel him to ask himself any essential question
Gosse. Forgive me for interrupting you, but it
about her. In writing once aboạt a celebrated
may be well that I should remind you that the ab passage in St. Paul I said, “No man is known to
sence of interest in Nature which you deplore in us till he has revealed his sex to us,” and with the
Thackeray is not shared by any first-rate writer alteration of one word the same phrase will serve
in modern or antique times. It has become the fash me here. Thackeray in writing of Becky Sharpe
ion to say that we moderns discovered Nature, but followed the English tradition. He observed, and
is this true? Vergil told the story of the fields as abstained from meditation; he was satisfied with
well as Wordsworth, and if the early Irish poets externals, and the human nature that belongs to all
are remarkable for anything, it is for their love of of us—our humanity was unknown to him. It
Nature. The only great writer that I can call to did not occur to him to humanize Becky Sharpe by
mind who never mentioned a tree or fower, a field expatiating in her religious feelings, in her super-
or hill, is François Villon.
stitions. Mankind is incurably superstitious and
Moore. It is true that Aowers and trees and one might almost say therefore Thackeray instinc-
familiar animals find perhaps as small a place in tively avoided the subject. He liked men and women
Villon's poems as in Thackeray's novels. But Vil better than mankind. He liked character better
lon was not lacking in human sympathies. Now if than humanity; but in omitting any superstition
I remember The Newcomes and Pendennis correctly, from Becky Sharpe's character he was sinning
Thackeray's implicit approval of the attitude adopted against the type; no class or type is more likely to
good
women towards Lady Clara High- seek counsel in oracles, believe in their line of
gate and the porter's daughter whom they find luck, than the adventurer and the adventuress; but
nursing Pendennis shows that human beings were never once does he send Becky Sharpe running to
as remote from his sympathies as were the flowers
a Bond Street fortune-teller.
and trees and fields. What he did understand Gosse. You have clung somewhat tediously to
though, were prejudices and conventions, and that your idea that the English novelist never looks into
is why his novels seem old-fashioned to the younger
the depths of life
and I have been wait-
generation.
ing all the while for a quotation from Thackeray
Gosse. But his characters represent something
on this very question. He says somewhere, and in
more than the conventions of his time. Becky Vanity Fair-I will not answer for the exact words
by his “


354
April 5
THE DIAL
of the sentence but he addresses the reader and to defy criticism may be doubted. Landor took
points out to him that nothing appears above the pleasure in reproving the ghost of Cicero for mis-
waves, and that if he choose to look under them, takes in Latin; in the person of Horne Tooke he
well, he, Thackeray is not responsible for what reproved Dr. Johnson, forcing him into an admis-
may be seen there.
sion that he had constructed a sentence negligently;
MOORE. What terrible thing will he perceive? and it was only the other day that you came here
An adultery in Mayfair! The magnificent Raw with a bunch of mistakes gathered from Landor
don overthrowing the Marquis on the hearth-rug, and Pater and myself; if I were to search your
and Ainging the jewels, the tokens of his wife's sin, works I should not return with empty hands. But
in the nobleman's face.
the mistakes of the illustrious ones, and perhaps my
GOSSE. A very theatrical scene, no doubt; alto own obscure errors, are, if I may say so, different
gether false, no doubt, but it is not easy to say what
from the vulgarisms which are to be found in
Rawdon should have done in the circumstances un-
Thackeray, who perhaps is guilty of more than any
less, indeed, he had adopted the grammatical pose
writer of equal importance.
related in the Chronicles of French gallantries touch-
Moore. But is he important?
ing le Marquis de la Perdrigonde who on returning
Gosse. I am afraid we shall have to leave the
home found his wife in the arms of a lover, an
centuries to decide that point. Meanwhile a word
Englishman. I'm wrong, he was a German, and
upon a personal matter, if it be not judged unseemly
it was therefore quite natural that he should strike
to interrupt a purely literary discussion for so slight
an attitude as soon as he was dressed and declare
You reproved me for my praise of Jane'
his intention to leave the room.
Eyre saying that I yielded tó popular clamor, but
m'en aille" he said. “Il fallait que je m'en allasse,
whatever truth there may be in this contention, you
the Marquis de la Perdrigonde corrected. This
will allow that my acceptance of Thackeray as a
grammatical unraveling of an awkward situation is
writer in keeping with the high tradition of our
literature is fainthearted.
not possible in English, owing to the leanness of our Thackeray to Trollope.
verbal system. But though our language is possessed
[To be continued]
of little grammar, the possibility of writing so as
GEORGE MOORE.
a cause.
"Il fallait que je
We pass easily from
Roads to Freedom
of Social Reconstruction—under the misleading and
sensational title, Why Men Fight-Russell lost a
small public and found a large one; for now he was
speaking not only to intellects, which are rare, but
to hearts, which are everywhere. The Haves read
the book because it psychoanalyzed them painless-
ly; the Have-nots read it because here was their
eternal hope come back to them in language elo-
quent as sincerity and clear as the eyes of love. All
the world looked up, like a multiplied Diogenes, at
this Daniel come to judgment; what could such a
naively, honest fellow be doing in this mad world,
at this maddest of all mad times? One almost en-
vied him his honesty; for honesty is a luxury which
most of us can ill afford.
Since then the romance has taken form with the
few items that have slipped through the fingers
of
the censor: that the timid philosopher had all the
governing classes of England scared to pettiness,
and had been quarantined to prevent the spread of
his curious infection; that he had not been allowed
to come again to America, for fear that even an
year, an American publisher brought out Principles philosophy, that in a more or less gentlemanly War
ocean voyage would not make him give up his new
BERTRAND Russell is one of the encouraging
phenomena of this disintegrating age. Some of us
heard him at Columbia in 1915, speaking with a
delicate Emersonian ethereality on Our Knowledge
of the External World: for more than an hour he
assured us that the benches on which we sat really
existed; and then he melted timidly away into a
neighboring office haven. He was a thin, dry speci-
men of a man, innocuously academic; surely not
many of us suspected that this already reverend
epistemolog (he is nearly fifty) would ever perpe-
trate any startling mischief in the political world.
We heard that he belonged to one of the “noblest
families of England; that, being a second son, he
had escaped an earldom by an heir's breadth; and
that he had taken to a weird infinitesimal-calculus
philosophy, presumably because philosophy, being
still for the most part useless, was still for the most
part respectable. And then a year later came Jus-
tice in War-Time, full of unprofessorial passion
and pertinence. Many of us ignored the new vol-
ume; an author's followers do not readily permit
him to deviate from his past. When, after another


1919
THE DIAL
355
He was
he was kept in semi-bondage, like another Galileo, sell inclines much more towards the syndicalism of
also insisting that the world does move.
Pelloutier and Lagardelle than toward the socialism
lost to us for a while, silent in a shouting world; of Hyndman and Wells and Shaw; but he wonders
until last month, when we were told how the whether the solidarity of labor on which the move-
strikers at Glasgow asked Russell to come and ad ment would base itself is not even more of a myth
dress them; how the British Government so feared than the general strike. Many English working-
the little man's power of thought and truth that men, he points out, have been made conservative by
they forbade him to go; how Robert Smillie spoke the investments which they or their unions have
instead (with unwonted purity of diction), reading placed in capitalistic enterprises, as well as by their
from a manuscript; and having finished said, share, however slight, in the benefit accruing from
“That, ladies and gentlemen, is what Mr. Russell the exploitation of backward countries. And in
would have said if he had been permitted to be America the older skilled workers, largely Ameri-
present here tonight."
And now
comes another can born, have long been organized in the American
Russell book, Proposed Roads to Freedom: Social Federation of Labor under Mr. Gompers. These
ism, Anarchism, and Syndicalism (Holt, $1.50), represent an aristocracy of labor. They tend to
and from a stray sentence here and there we per work with the employers against the great mass of
ceive that the philosopher has borne his segrega unskilled immigrants, and they cannot be regarded
tion philosophically: “ Few are able to see through as forming part of anything that could truly be
the apparent evils of an outcast's life to the inner called a labor movement. This statement may
joy that comes of faith and creative hope.”
appear extreme, in the light of the recent semi-
It is a quiet book, dealing though it does with syndicalistic proposals of the American railway
movements that are making no little noise at pres unions; but it is helpful to see how matters Ameri-
ent in the world. There is first a chapter on can look at a distance which lends perspective to
socialism, aptly defined as the advocacy of com the view. Russell concludes that syndicalism takes
munal ownership of land and capital ”; there is a account of men only as producers, just as state so-
critical analysis of the central concepts of Marxism
cialism takes account of men only as consumers;
-economic interpretation, class war, and the con and accepts the plan of the Guild Socialists to recon-
centration of capital; and there is the usual account
cile the two. The system which they advocate is,
of the break-up, of socialism into state capitalism on I believe, the best hitherto proposed, and the one
the one hand and syndicalism on the other. Russell most likely to secure liberty without constant ap-
„points out the difficulties of a socialism resting on peals to violence."
the
democratic" state as at present organized: “To secure liberty "—that to Russell is the su-
“The actual experience of democratic representative preme purpose of all political organization and
government is very disillusioning,” he writes in his thought. He approaches the social question always
polite way; and the notion of the state as universal from the point of view of the artist, and tests each
employer is about as pleasant as the idea of conscrip- plan by asking "What will it do to art?” He con-
tion. Socialists
imagine that the Social tinues to use as the center of his political thinking
ist State will be governed by men like those who the distinction between the creative and the posses-
now advocate it. This is, of course, a delusion. sive dispositions; and his Utopia is a system of
Those who hold power after the reform checks to possession and incentives to creation. Un-
has been carried out are likely to belong, in the der Guild Socialism, he thinks, men will come to
main, to the ambitious executive type which has in be valued not by the quantity but by the quality of
all ages possessed itself of the government of the their product; there will be a minimum wage for
nations. And this type has never shown itself tol all, even for those who will not work; the creative
erant of opposition or friendly to freedom.” impulse, the constructive disposition, may be trusted
There follows
a sympathetic account of anarch to keep all but a few men busy (but, one wonders,
ism as taught by Bakunin and Kropotkin; the indi busy at the work that is most needed, or only at
cations of this chapter are that Russell has, during the work that is most pleasant?); every industry
his domestic exile, re-read Kropotkin, and has al-
will be controlled by the men engaged in it, except
most been carried away by the sweet reasonableness in its external relations, which will fall for adjudi-
of the man. Like Jefferson, Russell thinks that a
lit-
cation to some central body; there will be very
violent uprising now and then is a good national tle government, very little law or compulsion; an
tonic, and has some value as educative drama; but international economic congress will take the place
‘in labor movements generally, success through vio of war as the arbiter in commercial and territorial
lence can hardly be expected except in circumstances disputes; invention will be stimulated by permitting
where success without violence is attainable.” Rus each guild to monopolize for a time the advantages


356
April 5
THE DIAL
are
of any processes which it may introduce; and every social ends; what the relative strength of these
where the artist will be crowned as the most de forces is; and how intelligence may bend them into
serving of men. It is a pleasant Utopia, but not to some progressive synthesis. Indeed, these “ roads to
be had for the asking.
freedom not roads at all, but goals—and
Indeed, if one may now add a word of criticism, thought must find the way.
the impression left by the book is one of oversim To find fault after this fashion is no pleasant
plicity and unreality; it has about it an air of jejune task, and a paragraph of it will do. These deduc-
and ideologic youth. It has all of Kropotkin's
tions made, the book still retains exceptional worth:
gentleness and many of his delusions; but it has
it is refreshingly simple and kindly; here at last our
little of Kropotkin's patient grappling with difficult
yarious economic isms meet without fratricidal
details. It has beauty, such as one has come to ex-
strife; here is an honest estimate of them by a man
pect of Bertrand Russell; but it is a fragile beauty:
who has loved and loves them all. “ Meantime,"
a sentence or two from Nietzsche, one fears, would
smash it into sweet regrets. There is here no con-
says the author, ending in a flash of poetry that dis-
sideration of the powerful competitive impulses of
arms and almost nullifies all criticism, " the world
men, their love of inequality and difference, their
in which we exist has other aims. But it will pass
lust for domination; one would think that " natural
away, burnt up in the fire of its own hot passions;
selection ” and “the will to power" had been quite
and from its ashes will spring a new and younger
annihilated by “mutual aid.” One looks, in such world, full of fresh hope, with the light of morning
a discussion, for some resolute consideration of what
in its eyes.” When that new world comes men will
are the forces, psychological and economic, that not forget to honor Bertrand Russell.
make against, as well as those that make for, our
Will DURANT.
Vox-et Praeterea?
I WILL BE RECALLED that when the Imagists first fore, and will be heard again; it arises from a ques-
came upon us they carried banners, and that' upon tion almost as old as poetry itself—the question
one of them was inscribed their detestation of the whether the poet should be only a drifting senso-
"cosmic,” and of the “cosmic” poet, who (they rium, and merely feel, or whether he should be per-
added)'“ seems to us to shirk the real difficulties of mitted to think. Should he be a voice, simply-
his art." No doubt if the Imagists were to issue
or something beside ? Should he occasionally, to
this particular volume again they would find occa-
sion to alter this and perhaps other statements, for
put it colloquially, say something? Or should he
be merely a magic lantern, casting colored pictures
here as elsewhere they sinned against one of their forever on a screen?
own cardinal doctrines—they failed to think clearly
and, ipso facto, failed also to define with precision. posely leaves out of account all of the minute grada-
The question is put perhaps too starkly, and pur-
Were they quite sure what they meant by the term
tions by which one passes from the one extreme to
cosmic poet? Did they mean, for example, the other. And the occasion for the question is Mr.
Dante-or only Ella Wheeler Wilcox? The point
Maxwell Bodenheim, who, though already well
is trifling, it may be, and yet it is not without its
interest, for it indicates an error characteristic of
known as a poet, has just published his first book,
Minna and Myself (Pagan; $1.25). Mr. Boden-
the moment. It was not unnatural that those of
heim might well, it appears, have been one of the
our poetic revolutionaries who, tired of the verbose
Imagists. None of them, with perhaps the excep-
sentimentalities and ineptitudes of the more medi-
tion of “H. D.,
can equal his delicate precision of
ocre among their predecessors, determined to achieve phrasing. None of them is more subtly pictorial
.
a sharper picturism in poetry should in the first ex-
Moreover Mr. Bodenheim's theories as to the nature
cited survey of the situation decide that anything of poetry (for which he has adroitly argued), such
cosmic, or let us say philosophic, was obviously
beyond the focus of their poetic camera—could not
as that it should be a “colored grace" and that it
should bear no relation to
be "picturized.” It appeared that thought would
have to be excluded—and in fact for a year or more,
fundamental human feelings,” might seem even
under the influence of the Imagists, the markets
more clearly to define that affinity. Yet it would be
were flooded with a free verse in which thought imagist merely because his poetry is sharply priced
a great mistake to ticket Mr. Bodenheim as an
was conspicuously at a minimum.
tion!" was the cry—a cry which has been heard be-
torial, or because he has declared that poetry should
not deal with fundamental human emotions. As a
human beliefs and
"Pure sensa-


1919
357
THE DIAL
(
matter of fact his theory and performance are two points out, if this is true we need not be surprised
very different things. One has not gone very far to perceive that the poet will find greatest scope for
before detecting in him a curious dualism of per this faculty in dealing with ideas, particularly with
sonality.
philosophic ideas.
And we return to our
It is obvious, of course, that Mr. Bodenheim has old friend the cosmic.”
taken out of the air much that the Imagists and Nor need Mr. Bodenheim be unduly rmed.
other radicals have set in circulation. His poems are For when one suggests that the contemplation of
in the freest of free verse: they are indeed quite life as a whole, or the recognition of its items as
candidly without rhyme or metrical rhythm, and re merely minute sand-grains of that whole, or an occa-
solve themselves for the most part into series of lucid sional recollection of man's twinkling unimportance,
and delicate statements, of which the crisp cadences or a fleeting glimpse of the cruel perfection of the
are only perhaps the cadences of a very sensitive order of things are among the finest headlands from
prose. It is to Mr. Bodenheim's credit that despite which the poet may seek an outlook, one is certainly
the heavy handicap of such a form he makes poems. not suggesting that poets should be logicians. It is
How does he do this? Not merely by evoking sharp not the paraphernalia but the vision of philosophy
edged images—if he did only that he would be in which is sublime. If the poet's business is vision,
deed simply an exponent of “colored grace" or he can ill afford to ignore this watch-tower. For if,
Imagism—but precisely because his exquisite pic like Mr. Bodenheim, he desires that poetry shall
tures are not merely pictures, but symbols. And be a kind of absolute music, “unattached with sur-
the things they symbolize are, oddly enough, these face sentiment”-a music in which sensations are
flouted fundamental feelings.”
the notes, emotions the harmonies, and ideas the
Mr. Bodenheim is, in short, a symbolist. His counterpoint; a music of detached waver and gleam,
poems are almost invariably presentations of mood, which, taking for granted a complete knowledge of
evanescent and tenuous—tenuous, frequently, to the all things, will not be so naive as to make state-
point of impalpability—in terms of the visual or ments, or argue a point, or praise the nature of
tactile; and if it would be an exaggeration to say things, or inveigh against it, but will simply employ
that they differ from the purely imagistic type of all such elements as the keys to certain tones—then
poetry by being, for this reason, essentially emo truly the keyboard of the poet who uses his brain as
tional, nevertheless such a statement approximates
well as his sensorium will be immensely greater than
the truth. Perhaps rather one should say that they that, let us say, of the ideal Imagist.
are the ghosts of emotions, or the perfumes of them. The point has been elaborated because, as has
It is at this point that one guesses Mr. Bodenheim's been said, it is one on which Mr. Bodenheim seems
dualism. For it seems as if the poet were at odds to be at odds with himself: the poems in Minna and
with the theorist: as if the poet desired to betray
Myself show him to be an adept at playing with
these "fundamental emotions
to a greater extent moods, an intrepid juggler with sensations, but one
than the severe theorist will permit. In conse-
who tends to repeat his tricks, and to juggle always
quence one feels that Mr. Bodenheim has cheated with the same set of balls. Of the poems them-
not only his reader but also himself. He gives us selves what more needs to be said than that they are
enough to show us that he is one of the most original among the most delicately tinted and fantastically
of contemporary poets, but one feels that out of subtle of contemporary poems in free verse? Mr.
sheer perversity he has withheld even more than
Bodenheim's sensibility is as unique in its way as
he has given. There are many poets who have the
that of Wallace Stevens or of T. S. Eliot or of
vox et praeterea nihil of poetry, and who wisely Alfred Kreymborg. One need not search here for
therefore cultivate that kind of charm; but it is a the robust, nor for the seductively rhythmic, nor
tragedy when a poet such as Mr. Bodenheim, pos for the enkindling. Mr. Bodenheim's patterns are
sessing other riches as well, ignores these riches in cool almost to the point of preciosity; they are, so to
credulous obeisance to the theory that, since it is the speak, only one degree more fused than mosaics
.
voice
, the hover, the overtone, the perfume alone They must be read with sympathy or not at all.
which is important in poetry, therefore poetry is to
And one feels that Mr. Bodenheim is only at his
be sought rather in the gossamer than in the rock. beginning, and that he will eventually free himself
Mr. Bodenheim has taken the first step: he has
of his conventions on the score of rhythm (with
found that moods can be magically described—no
which he is experimenting tentatively) and of
less than dew and roses.
theme-color. In what direction these broadenings
But poetic magic, as
George Santayana has said, is chiefly a matter of
will lead him, only Mr. Bodenheim can discover.
perspective—it is the revelation of “sweep in the
One is convinced, however, that he can step out with
security.
concise and depth in the clear ”—and, as Santayana
CONRAD Aiken.


358
April 5
THE DIAL
Dublin, March 6
TH
66
ment
HE RECORDS OF THE Irish Literary Move- meaningless commotion, although the loyal insurrec-
will be scanned in vain for any reference to tionaries had overpowered the authorities and taken
Mr. Forrest Reid, who has just published A Gar possession of the town. The gun-runners of Larne,
den by the Sea: Stories and Sketches (Talbot and those who emulated them at such cost in Dub-
Press; Dublin)-his first book to appear with an lin later, will scrutinize the pages of A Garden by
Irish imprint. Indeed, there must be many who the Sea in vain for heresies or propaganda. Mr.
have read his remarkable novels of Ulster character, Reid has no passion but that of the writer for his
The Bracknels, Following Darkness, and At the craft. He gives to literature what others have de-
Door of the Gate, without knowing that the author voted to ward politics and geographical patriotism.
is an Irishman, living in Belfast. Although Mr. Even the two camps into which his admirers have
Reid was a contributor to Uladh, the quarterly jour divided will have to agree as to the merits of this
nal of the Ulster Literary Theater in its heroic book, for each will find the necessary material to
period, he has never associated himself with any of
prove that the author is a romantic or a realist.
the groups in Ireland whose regionalism has given Courage, The Truant, and the title-story are perfect
them prominence. In fact, so determined is he to examples of that fanciful, imaginative style which,
escape the stigma which he conceives attaching to while never wholly absent from the work of Mr.
that word, that he surpassed himself by writing an
Reid, predominates so far in certain cases as to mark
excellent study of W. B. Yeats from which all off his stories into the two classes referred to. On
reference to the literary renascence in Ireland is the other hand, his realistic manner is well illus-
omitted. Mr. Forrest Reid is, therefore, a further trated in The Reconciliation, The Accomplice, and
instance of that diversity which, as I mentioned in An Ulster Farm-to mention the more important
my last letter, distinguishes Belfast from Dublin. stories.
One is constantly surprised to discover, isolated here If this selection had been made for the special
and there in that brazenly provincial town, a num-
ber of talented writers who crave neither the sup-
purpose of shaking the assurance of the author's
critics, it could not have been better devised to that
port nor the society of their more widely advertised end. While it is easy to assert—if one incline that
colleagues south of the Boyne.” Where the
way—that The Bracknels and At the Door of the
South is gregarious, the North is unsociable, and
Gate are better than The Spring Song and The
literature is a vice one cultivates unknown to one's
Gentle Lover, the choice is by no means so simple
friends. How unlike the intellectual communism of
the Dublin literati, whose existence excites the half
between, say, A Garden by the Sea and An Ulster
Farm. On the whole, an admirer of the realist must
contemptuous wonder of British explorers!
confess that the romanticist has triumphed in the
It is difficult to obtain the works of Mr. Reid in
present volume. Every story is carefully and beau-
the bookshops of his native city, and as for the pub- tifully written, with the ease and deftness of a prac-
lications of the mere Irish," they are procurable
ticed artist, but of necessity the realist is more de-
only “to order ”—that exasperating formula. One
pendent upon his material for his effects, and as it
can only hope that the Irish imprint will not alto-
gether ruin the author's credit with the suspicious Slight
. At this point precisely, the artistry of the
happens, the substance of the realistic sketches is
vendors of British best-sellers in Belfast. The writer triumphs where the themes are such as must
superstitious fear of these gentlemen lest their
shelves be contaminated with Sinn Fein literature
rely entirely upon craftsmanship for their success.
Such sketches as An Ending, with its evocation of
has even less justification in this case than in that of
the majority of the writers thus boycotted, for there
dying Bruges, or A Garden by the Sea, with its
is not the faintest trace of the national self-con-
reveries over childhood—with what should they
sciousness which is so terrifying to the Carsonian
hold the reader but the suggestive, brooding har-
imagination. Mr. Forrest Reid is, I believe, the
mony of style and mood? The incident narrated de-
only articulate Irishman who has no feeling for poli-
rives in each case its sole interest from the author's
tics, and no interest in any party to the Anglo-Irish
power of investing the subject with the glamour of
struggle. There is an authentic record of the fact-
the moment in which his imagination was stirred.
incredible to us—that he was in Larne when Sir
It is just the faculty of conveying the impalpable
Edward Carson's rebels landed their arms in 1914,
suggestion of a singularly sensitive imagination
but retired to sleep in utter oblivion to the seemingly
which constitutes the beauty of this writing. When,
in Following Darkness, Mr. Forrest Reid
(6
66
as


1919
359
THE DIAL
cessor.
(
has a theme which calls for the employment of all with the mere mechanism of the style, divorced from
his arts, then he gives us what we must so far re real beauty of thought or form. For the one occa-
gard as his masterpiece. None of the qualities which sion when the public has an opportunity of admiring
distinguish the author's contribution to contem the highest expression of Kiltartan speech, there are
porary literature is absent from this miniature of his dozens when only its cheapest manifestations are
and he has emancipated himself from the de- available—notably in the later comedies and melo-
rivative influences which threatened at one time to dramas of the popular peasant playwrights. These
mar the eerie effect of such a conception as The have become almost as dull and unbearable as the
Truant, now presented in an original and truly jargon of the old-fashioned stage Irishman. In fact
characteristic manner, without Machenesque accre we are tiring of a new-fashioned stage Irishman, for
tions.
precisely the same reason as we wearied of his prede-
The latest addition to the greatly prized series of
Both fail to correspond to anything in our
books issued by Miss E. C. Yeats at the Cuala Press experience, and both fail to stimulate the imagina-
is the Kiltartan Poetry Book, by Lady Gregory. It tion. If the folk speech of our present day
is a collection of folksongs translated from the Irish, literature is not quite so horrible as the abominable
and reprinted, for the most part, from Cuchulain of dialect of the earlier writers, it is because it is saved
Muirthemne, Gods and Fighting Men, Saints and by its genuine relation to a cultivated and subtle
Wonders, and Poets and Dreamers. The volume tongue. But this Gaelicized English cannot survive
is a reminder of the changes which have taken place apart from the work it clothes, any more than the
since the works in question first appeared. The lesser Elizabethans could hope to dispute the final
most recent is twelve years old, and all of them pre supremacy of Shakespeare. Purely verbal substi-
ceded the world fame which Synge brought to the tutes for style and matter cannot deceive, and it is
peasant idiom, in which he and Lady Gregory, fol the most short-sighted reaction which prompts this
lowing Dr. Douglas Hyde, created a new literary condemnation of the language of The Playboy, be-
convention. Not the least of time's effects has been cause every imitator is not a Synge.
to produce in Ireland a reaction in certain quarters Those who read Mr. Dermot O'Byrne's Children
against the Gaelicized English which these writers of the Hills, when it was published by Messrs.
employed. We have developed a tendency to speak Maunsel some years ago, will readily understand
disparagingly of Kiltartanese, and if Synge's estab- that his new book of short stories, entitled Wrack
lished glory protects him from the carping of the (Talbot Press), has aroused the Kiltartan contro-
disaffected, the living exponents of the style have to versy in many places. Mr. H. G. Wells once
bear the brunt of hostile criticism. Two influences threatened to publish no more short stories because
have been at work undermining the prestige of Kil of the incorrigible belief of all reviewers that only
tartan speech. To take the lesser first: there have Maupassant could write short stories. The super-
arisen new idols—worshipped, at least, in the circles stition that only Synge could use the peasant idiom of
most loudly anti-Kiltartan—and they are credited Anglo-Irish is a somewhat similar bogey, with which
with an exactness of knowledge of the peasant and Mr. O'Byrne is threatened, but fortunately he has
his idiom beside, which Synge is classed as mere not been afraid to offer the public a second collection
literature. It is solemnly argued that no peasant
of those fine tales, whose imagination, poetry, and
actually talks like The Playboy of the Western dialectical vigor showed that he had mastered for
World—as if Synge had ever undertaken to compile prose narrative the medium of Synge, the dramatist.
a species of Congressional Record of the Aran These six stories illustrate most admirably the
Islands. There is, of course, no virtue in phono author's wide range of imagination, from modern
graphic records of unilluminating talk, whether of realism to historical reconstruction, and including
peasants or politicians. When we have analyzed the visionary phantasy. Mr. O'Byrne's method is au-
technique of Synge, we have by no means disposed thentic; his knowledge of Irish, combined with an
of his art. The writer of genius must know how to
intimate contact with the scenes and people he de-
transform and transcend reality, so that we lose scribes, gives to his work the color and raciness
sight of his convention in the profound beauty of his which cannot be captured by the mechanical Kiltar-
tanizers. His stories are so obvious a demonstration
At this point arises the second, and more serious, of the absurdity of the theory that Anglo-Irish is the
influence in the process of discredit which has threat speech of mere comedy, their power is so challenging
ened the literary use of Anglo-Irish idiom. Like so in its defiant idiomatic technique, that adverse crit-
many other conventions, it has been overworked, icism has taken refuge in the old trench of patriotic
and we are suffering from a prolonged acquaintance puritanism from which Synge was bombarded. Mr.
ultimate effects.


360
April 5
THE DIAL
O'Byrne is accused of calumniating the Gael—and be discreet to quote these words from it. In an-
this in spite of the fact that a recent book of his other chapter the words even now” were deleted
verse, A Ballad of Dublin (Candle Press), which from a reference to the grave of Wolfe Tone,
was suppressed by the Censor, has been described “where he lies, dreaming, even now, of Irish free-
by W. B. Yeats as containing the best poem in-
dom.” The book however does not depend upon
spired by the Rising of Easter Week 1916. these extraneous humors of British government in
Another victim of that functionary is the Ireland for its interest. It is a unique series of
pseudonymous “D. L. Kay,” whose Glamour of “promenades of an impressionist,” who has a de-
Dublin (Talbot Press) has attracted the great- lightful gift of irony and an amazing fund of pre-
est attention, as the most original of the innumer cise topographical lore at his disposal, both of which
able books to which this city has supplied a theme. are so adroitly insinuated that the reader discovers,
It is a collection of impressionistic sketches, some only when he has ceased chuckling, that he has
actual, others historical, many fantastical. The been given an extraordinary glimpse of the sub-
first chapter, which purports to give the impressions tleties of our peculiar history. The description of
of Parnell during Easter Week, as he watched the Queen Victoria and her husband scrawling their
Sinn Fein stronghold in O'Connell Street from his names in ink upon an illuminated page of the price-
pedestal at the top of that thoroughfare, was the less Book of Kells, is a masterpiece, which has
occasion of the Censor's interference. The closing
paragraph was blue-penciled because of the sugges-
been duly appreciated. Out of the purest altruism
tion that Padraic Pearse was not ejected from the
one hopes that The Glamour of Dublin will not
portal of heaven, but was greeted with “ Pass,
be missed by English readers who, it appears, are
friend” as he entered the “seraphic gates, wherever,
looking coldly upon Irish and Russian literature
east of the moon, the jasper hinges turn." As the
because of the political heterodoxy of these two
missing paragraph was printed in an English period-
countries. So, in literature as in politics, our hope
ical, with appropriate comment, it will doubtless
lies with America.
ERNEST A. BOYD.
Visitants
Clothed in delight, these dreams will come
And lean above another's bed,
Nor care whose earthy lips are dumb,
Nor care what dreamer's dead.
Dew-lidded girls, as straight and slim
As poplars are in April—oh!
They will be there to trouble him,
And I shall never know!
And he, perhaps, will rise and stand
Bare-browed beneath the moon and stars,
His will a very rope of sand,
In Night's old lupanars.
You golden temptresses, you fair,
Foam-breasted phantoms of desire,
Give him your cup of sweet despair,
Chasten his flesh with fire!
Draw him a draught of Circe's wine,
Scatter an incense through his sleep-
For then you cannot trouble mine,
That will be far too deep.
LESLIE NELSON JENNINGS.


THE DIAL
GEORGE DONLIN
ROBERT MORSS LOVETT, Editor
CLARENCE BRITTEN
In Charge of the Reconstruction Program:
THORSTEIN VEBLEN
HAROLD STEARNS
JOHN DEWEY
HELEN MAROT
men,
BOLSHEVISE
BVISM IS A MENACE TO THE VESTED INTER-
farm and household industry in case of urgent need.
ests of privilege and property. This is the golden It follows that any protracted continuation of the
text which illuminates the policies pursued by the existing blockade of imports will scarcely starve
statesmen of the Great Powers in all their dealings Soviet Russia into submission. In fact it could
with Soviet Russia. Not that this axiom of im- scarcely do more than starve the remnants of the
perialist statecraft is formally written into the Cove vested interests in Russia. This would hold true
nant of the League. It is only that the policies even in the improbable event that the Great Powers
pursued by the Elder Statesmen of the Great should succeed in closing the ports of the Pacific,
Powers have impeccably followed its line. What is Baltic, and Black Sea to all sea-borne trade. To
formally written into the documents is the broad hold such a country in a perpetual stage of siege
principle of self-determination. But in the measures would scarcely be a profitable enterprise, since there
taken by the Elder Statesmen, unasked, for the reg is no prospect of a favorable outcome, and since a
ularization of Soviet Russia there enters no shadow perpetuation of this state of siege would bring no
of regard for the principle of self-determination. gain to the vested interests in whose behalf the en-
All of which appears quite reasonable and regular terprise is undertaken. At the same time an exten-
so soon as it is illuminated by this golden text of sive campaign of occupation and forcible control
the Elder Statesmen, that Bolshevism is a menace promises no better solution, inasmuch as the Soviet
to the vested interests of privilege and property. Republic is proving to be quite formidable in the
The high merit as well as the high necessity of the field, and since the amorphous country on which it
resulting maneuvers of repression may be taken for draws is not vulnerable in any vital part. It has
granted as a matter of course. No question of the the defects of its qualities, but it has also the quali-
merit of these maneuvers is admitted either by the ties of its defects. It is incapable of serious aggres-
substantial citizens or by their safe and sane states sion, but it is also incapable of conclusive defeat by
But it may still be in order to entertain a force.
question as to what measures had best be taken in Meantime Soviet Russia offers an attractive mar-
these premises, considering the means in hand and ket for such American products as machine tools
the circumstances of the case, considering the diffi and factory equipment, railway material and roll-
culties of any effectual intervention and the uneasy ing stock, electrical supplies, farm implements and
temper of the underlying peoples with which these tools, textiles, wrought leather goods, certain food-
Elder Statesmen will have to make up their account. stuffs and certain metals; and at the same time there
The Russian situation is by no means simple and is waiting a large volume of export trade, including
its details are sufficiently obscure. Yet the outlines such things as grain and other foodstuffs, flax,
of it are visible in a large way, and it is not without hemp, and lumber. Should the blockade be main-
a certain consistency. And it is a perplexing sit tained for any time it is not to be doubted that the
uation that faces the Elder Statesmen of the Great illicit trade into Soviet Russia in all these things
Powers. By and large Soviet Russia is self-support- will rise to unexampled proportions—to the very
ing, beyond any other considerable body of popula- substantial profit of the Scandinavians and other
tion in Europe, and it is correspondingly difficult to
regulate by forcible measures from outside. The
expert smugglers and blockade runners. Meantime,
too, the Great Powers whose national integrity has
Russian people at large are still in a
backward
now been provisionally stabilized by America's de-
state.” industrially. So that they are used to de cisive participation in the war are placing an em-
pending on a home-grown food supply and on local bargo on the import of many articles into the Euro-
and household industry for the ordinary necessities pean market-in practical effect an embargo on the
of life in the way of clothing, shelter, fuel, and importation of these American products for which
transport. At the same time they also have the use Soviet Russia is now making a cash offer. Soviet
of something appreciable in the way of a machine Russia is today the only country that places no ob-
industry, widely scattered both along their borders stacles in the way of import trade. So it becomes
and through the country inland—enough to serve an interesting question: How long will those Amer-
somewhat sparingly as a sufficient auxiliary to their ican vested interests which derive an income from


362
April 5
THE DIAL
open covenant
foreign trade have the patience to forego an assured understood by the latter and thus became a part of
profit from open trade with Soviet Russia in order that political, or rather moral, offensive which con-
to afford certain European vested interests a dubi tributed to their undoing. Above all they were ad-
ously problematical chance to continue getting some dressed to his fellow countrymen as the interpreta-
thing for nothing in the way of class privilege and tion of the cause for which they were fighting. To
unearned income?
all-allies, enemies, and fellow-citizens—President
Wilson assumed obligations of the most solemn
DURING
kind, involving not only his own personal honor but
URING THE WAR THE FABLE OF THE SYBILLINE the honor of his country. He knows this, as he
books was frequently quoted, always with reference knows the result if he fail. The fateful words of
to the diminishing opportunity afforded the Central his Boston speech were spoken in solemn remem-
Powers for a peace of repentance and pardon. It is brance of the power which he has invoked: “ They
the irony of history that the fable has acquired a [the people]
are,
in the saddle, and they are
new application—this time to the victorious powers going to see to it that if the present governments do
themselves. It is to them that the fateful figure ap not do their will, some other governments shall."
pears offering her books of prophecy, nine, six, three.
And the question with each diminished opportunity
: A
SINISTER NOTE IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE
“The fundamental necessity for a better world is a Conference is the fact that the four leading partners
sacrifice of the instinct for possession. . If have taken frankly to the practice of secret negotia-
predatory instincts sway the Conference to concern tion, and it is significant that this is coincident with
itself chiefly with demands for territory, indemnity,
the revolution in Hungary. They are confronted
and commercial privilege on the part of the victors-
then indeed the rulers of the world will have proved
by a second people choosing the path of immediate
self-determination, and their decision what course to
once more their unfitness, and this time the people take is apparently not to be an
cannot be deceived." The events of the past two
openly arrived at." But this case differs from the
months seem to have justified the second part of this Russian situation in that the secrecy cannot long be
prophecy. Unquestionably predatory instincts have maintained, and the action of the representatives at
governed the Conference. The talk which has
Paris will be subject to quick consideration and re-
emanated from Paris has been of how much Ger-
vision by the people whom they represent. Should
many can pay, of shutting her off from raw ma the conferees undertake the forcible suppression of
terials, of granting the Saar Valley and the left
bank of the Rhine to France, Danzig to Poland,
Soviet and other efforts at self-determination there
and of extending the Italian frontier to the Bren-
will be war, unorganized war as well as organized.
ner. Even the Covenant of the League of Nations,
In such war the bitter-enders will fight. If a reign
which should have been a means of reconciliation,
of terror overwhelms Europe the responsibility will
was presented in the guise of an alliance of the vic-
fall on the Supreme Council for its failure to recog-
torious nations, and the generous interpretation
nize that the real forces of reorganization are to be
which should have relieved it of this character has
found within the movements of the people. These
not been forthcoming. And the inevitable has hap-
movements are not comparable, as the Councilors
pened. Hungary, frightened by an unwarrantable
seem to believe, to a general strike in one or more in-
extension of the terms of the Armistice, and threat-
dustries. The colossal proportions of the movement
ened with_dismemberment, has followed the ex-
as a whole have to do not only with its extent but
with its character.
ample of France in 1792, has committed her na-
tional existence directly to her people. Whether the
people know what they want and, as they are op-
social solvent of the Soviet form of government will
posed, will arm and fight to get it. Military
suffice to hold in solution the various races with
repression of this particular kind of want intensifies
nationalistic ambitions which Hungary includes is
the desire for it and induces the support of those
not yet certain. But in any case the moving finger
who were neutral. Blockades become boomerangs,
has written another syllable of the mene, mene,
since hunger and deprivation feed such movements
.
tekel, upharsin on the walls within which Belshazzar
The present movement in Central Europe and Great
keeps his feast at Paris. Upon President Wilson,
Britain is an indication of an international con-
as upon no other of the Allied statesmen, the re-
sciousness of common interest. Before the people
sponsibility rests. It is fair to say that all the ques-
have had time to recover themselves from the ex-
haustions of war they are faced with the startling
and
fact that the self-determination for which they
statement of war aims which he gave to his allies
and to his enemies.
Conference nor the Supreme Council has given a
They were accepted by the
former with full acquiescence, in spite of his invita-
sign of granting it. When the statesmen who rep-
tion to them to discuss or dissent. They were
resented the old order directed their appeal to the
people in terms of altruistic patriotism they little
It is a movement in which
Babel of discord were settled in principle by the fought'l has thot been won; that neither the Peace


1919
363
THE DIAL
ABOTAGE
assets
guessed the forces with which they were conjuring. they seem all the while to have been familiar
The people answered the appeal to arms and fought enough. It may have been because the facts of
for a different kind of world, a world in which graft and sabotage, however massive and wide-
democracy was to be lived for rather than died for. reaching they doubtless were in those past times,
This current which is rising with uncontrollable did not, after all, then stand out in such bold relief
power is free of old diplomacy and political domi on the face of things. But things have moved
nation; to dam it means world catastrophe. What forward since then. And quite plainly now, since
it needs is time; a chance to harness and generate the price system and all its ways, means, and ends
power more potent in human welfare than devices have reached that mature development which is
of statecraft hatched in the capitals of the old world, familiar to this generation, both of these terms
which is passing.
have become indispensable in common and current
speech.
"S
IS ONE OF THE LATE AND FORMID-
able loan-words of the English language. At the IN CONGRESS THE PRACTICE OF SABOTAGE HAS
same time it has also some currency in other lan- long enjoyed another imported and figurative name,
guages, as would be expected in the case of a loan- also drawn from footgear—" filibuster," the onoma-
word which fills so notable a place in common topoetic equivalent of “freebooter.” Respectable as
speech, since the facts which call for the use of
familiarity has made this political device, it is by in-
such a new word are sure to range beyond the
tent and effect sheer sabotage. Witness the pres-
frontiers of any one language. In all this the word
ent plight of the Railroad Administration and other
has the company of such other late comers as
bureaus, deprived of their necessary and in most
"camouflage" and " bolshevism."
bolshevism.” And - not much
different is the case of such late-come; home-bred
cases unopposed appropriations because the late
terms as
graft” and “goodwill,” and “intangible Congress, in order to force an extra session in which
and “vested interests." Whether they are
to protect its constitutional function in foreign af-
borrowed from abroad or are made over from
fairs, deliberately refused to perform its domestic
innocent home-grown words, all these half-technical
functions and adjourned without providing funds to
terms that are making their way into common use
keep the governmental machine running during its
to describe notable facts lack that sharp definition
absence. With a touching solicitude the Congress-
that belongs to words of the ancient line. There men provided for the salaries of their secretaries,
is always something of metaphor or analogy about but they made no provision for their wage-workers
them, and the meaning attached to their use in in the lobbies of the two chambers. And while they
common speech is neither precise nor uniform. They take the spring air in cities whose street-cleaning de-
are still more or less unfamiliar; they seem uncouth partments do not depend upon federal appropria-
and alien, but they make good their intrusion into tion, the government clerks they have left behind in
the language by becoming indispensable. They are Washington walk to work that is, in many cases,
needed for present use to describe facts which are temporarily unpaid, through streets that are un-
very much in evidence and which are not otherwise swept because Congress went on strike. Nobody
provided for.
believes, of course, that the governmental machine
Of
course, the facts described by such late word will stop for lack of the withheld fuel; and in most
growths as
graft," " sabotage,” “ camouflagę,” or departments the results of the Congressional strike
bolshevism" are not altogether new, nor nearly so; will be more ludicrous than important. One bureau
but they count for more now than they have done however has been throttled in its hour of utmost
in the past, and so it has become necessary to find need. The Federal Employment Service suddenly
words for them. As a fact of history, graft is at finds itself with funds to operate less than sixty of
least as old as the early Egyptian dynasties, and its seven hundred placement agencies, and must ap-
sabotage is quite inseparable from the price sys-
peal to states and municipalities to keep open as
tem, so that its beginnings can scarcely fail to be many of these offices as possible. Its personnel, re-
as ancient as the love of money. It is perhaps cently assembled at great pains, is again scattered,
the first-born of those evils that have been said to
and its training school closed. Meanwhile demobil-
At
be rooted in the love of money. Doubtless graft and
ization continues and unemployment mounts.
sabotage have been running along together through
best we have taken too little interest in finding jobs
human history from its beginning. We should all
for our war workers and returned soldiers. And
find it very difficult to get our bearings in any
congressional tactics that slow down our all too in-
adequate machinery for returning these hands to
period of history or any state of society which might productive industry is really—no matter at whom it
by any chance not be shot through with both. Still is directed nor how it is dignified in parliamentary
those ancients who passed before the last quarter parlance-straight sabotage on business, on labor,
of the nineteenth century had not the use of these and on the people at large, the form of sabotage
technical terms to describe the facts, with which known as striking on the job.


364
April 5
THE DIAL
MY DEAR Miss WATSON; Your letter of
January 23 has been referred to me.
The War Department immediately upon having
conditions at the Disciplinary Barracks called to its
attention, instituted an investigation. The report
of that investigation disclosed the fact that the
trouble at Leavenworth, which centered entirely
about two or three men, was due, not at all to the
administration of the prison, but to the regulations
which were ill adapted to the unusual type of pris-
oner that the Selective Service Act brought to mili-
tary prisons. The Secretary at once made some
appropriate modifications of those regulations and
has called a conference to consider further changes
in disciplinary regulations, not only to meet this
unusual condition but to bring the Army's disciplin-
ary methods up to the most modern penological
standards, in case they shall be found to be deficient.
The conference will also consider ways of meeting
the immediate emergency of the overcrowding of
disciplinary barracks due to the increased size of
the Army during the war. The conference will
come to its conclusions in the near future and you
may be assured that action leading out of its con-
clusions will be promptly taken.
F. P. KEPPEL,
Third Assistant Secretary.
Washington, D. C., Jan. 28, 1919.
go the
Communications
To the SECRETARY OF WAR
My Dear Mr. BAKER: I enclose a clipping from
a report of the discharge of 113 military prisoners
from Fort Leavenworth. A well-known woman, a
publicist of note, and, I may add, a member of one
of the largest and most progressive churches in this
city, has just returned from there, where she talked
with a number of the prisoners. She reports that
the city is one of the vilest in the country. That
conditions in the prison are vile goes without say-
ing. Fine, idealistic, clean young men are forced to
sec before their eyes at all hours of the day the
most revolting phases of sodomy; are forced to live
in filth; to say nothing of being subjected to the
autocratic and brutal activities of men who are not
worthy to black their shoes, but who, by virtue of
military authority vested in them, can
limit" in the endeavor to break the men's spirits!
A young man recently discharged from Fort
Leavenworth, speaking to a group recently (with
no bitterness of spirit, no exaggeration, but with an
almost unbelievable restraint), said that when the
military authorities had broken a man's spirit they
felt that they had done their duty.
That was
success as they saw it; but think of what it means
to the individual, and think of the loss to the man-
hood of the nation! The man who will suffer for
conscience's sake is, as President Wilson said, of
unusual spiritual fiber or intellectual independence.
And what have we done to hundreds of such men?
Some have died; others will never recover physically
from the treatment that has been meted out to
them—and our government stands before the world,
responsible for these crimes!
Is it not time that we, as well as Russia, recog-
nized the worth of human beings in general, and
acknowledged the particular worth of these splendid
young men who are standing for liberty of con-
science-for the democracy that our Constitution
outlines, but which our authorities disregard in the
most barefaced manner imaginable?
The machinery of release of these political pris-
oners (to recognize whom, officially, would be to
deny the democratic ideals that we have got so far
away from) has been some time starting. However
can it not be speeded up?
A large audience of relatives and friends gath-
ered last week to hear two speakers on this subject.
They want their husbands, and brothers, and sweet-
hearts, and friends back, and they should have them
as soon as is humanly possible! A few days' delay
may mean death to some, now nearly broken! Two
great souls have recently gone-physically too frail
to stand the treatment; spiritually too strong to
desert their ideals. How many more are to go the
same way? The people of the country are putting
this question up to you.
BLANCHE WATSON.
New York City, Jan. 23, 1919.
a
Dear Sir: The communication received in reply
to my letter from the third Assistant Secretary of
the Department of Jan. 23 is, may I say, most un-
satisfactory, and it is a perfect example, moreover,
of the official inefficiency and stupidity that has char-
acterized the activities of the War Department
during the past two years.
In the first place it is
form" letter, supposed
to reply to all communications, and in reality reply-
ing to none.
In the second place the form is nobody knows
how old. Note the phrase “ due to the increased
size of the army during the war!”
In the third place it wholly ignores the main
content of my letter-the speedy discharge of all of
the so-called political prisoners, whether in Leaven-
worth or anywhere else.
Public sentiment is
thoroughly aroused on this subject, and letters such
as the one to which I refer above are not going to
temper it any. The matter is much too serious, and
it is one that too deeply concerns the honor of the
United States government, to permit the treatment
that the War Department seems inclined to give it
.
The imprisonment of these men and women is in
defiance of the law of the land and in complete
violation of the spirit of our American democracy.
The War Department cannot, I realize, recog;
nize” them without admitting that our boasted
democracy no longer exists; but it can free them,
at once, one and all, and permit tardy reparation to
atone, insofar as is possible, for outrageous mal-
administration, and an official shortsightedness and
stupidity that borders on criminality.


1919
365
THE DIAL
This, permit me to say, is a personal communica-
tion, but it expresses a countrywide demand for
justice.
BLANCHE WATSON.
New York City, Jan. 30, 1919.
My Dear Miss Watson: Your letter of Jan.
30 has been referred to me. You evidently did not
understand the letter which I wrote to you on
January 23. The increased size of the Army during
the war still influences the size of the present popu-
lation of the Disciplinary Barracks, as you will
realize upon consideration.
The only group of the so-called political prisoners
who come under the War Department is composed
of that small per cent of the drafted men professing
conscientious objections who have been court mar-
tialed and are serving sentence in Disciplinary Bar-
racks. Representatives of the Secretary are reviewing
all such cases at present and 113 of these men have
already been discharged on their recommendations.
However, the War Department has decided that it
would not feel justified in extending on the basis of
conscientious objections the same immediate clem-
ency to the men who refused all service for their
country that has been extended to those who by
error or accident were not given the opportunity
for such service.
F. P. KEPPEL,
Third Assistant Secretary.
Washington, D. C., Feb. 13, 1919.
Sir: After reading in the New York Times of
January 23 the memorandum of Secretary Baker
concerning the release of some conscientious ob-
jectors from Fort Leavenworth, one finds himself
somewhat perplexed over the policy of the War
Department in this respect.
According to this statement the released men
comprise two groups. The first consists of those
men who had been recommended for farm furloughs
which they had not received because of delay in the
execution of the plan. The second is composed of
those men whom the “ Board of Inquiry now find
to be sincere, and who in their judgment would
have been recommended for furloughs if they had
had the opportunity of being examined by the Board
of Inquiry before the court-martial proceedings."
But, one asks, what does the Board of Inquiry con-
sider necessary to establish the sincerity of a con-
scientious objector? Surely the steadfastness with
which he has clung to his declaration of objections
can be but a small part of the test, for every ob-
jector in Fort Leavenworth was there because he
had maintained his position in spite of threats, ridi-
cule, court-martial, and even physical torture—and
only 113 of them were released. If the Board took
cognizance of the reasons given by the men for
their refusal to accept military service, what reasons
did it consider of sufficient validity to establish the
sincerity of the person advancing them? If, as has
been done in some cases, the War Department is
following the definition of the conscientious objector
which distinguishes him from a political objector in
that his motives are purely religious, it is obvious
that only those men whose attitude was based on
religious convictions were given a chance to prove
their sincerity. In that event are all the men who
derive their views from political theory to be con-
sidered in a later hearing, or are they to be labeled
“insincere" and left to serve long prison terms
because, in the eyes of military law, no man can
conscientiously hold political opinions varying from
those of the majority ?
But perhaps it is not a man's philosophy, or his
steadfastness in maintaining a course of action in
conformity with his belief, that proves his integrity
of purpose and fitness to resume the duties of a
citizen. Possibly this second group is composed of
only those men who were able to answer in the
affirmative the hypothetical question: “If you had
been offered a farm furlough before you were court-
martialed, would you have accepted ?” But why
should willingness to accept a farm furlough be
made the criterion for judging which of our polit-
ical prisoners should be granted amnesty? Could
not a man be “sincere" in holding the position that
all assistance to war is wrong, even such forms of
non-combatant service as farm labor ?
To be brief, is there anything in this memoran-
dum of Mr. Baker's that can be taken as an indi-
cation of a liberal policy on the part of the War
Department toward a large group of objectors who
have based their opposition to the war on political
convictions, and who have, or would have, refused
all forms of non-combatant as well as combatant
service?
JEAN SAUNDERS.
Washington, D. C.
How To DISPOSE OF INTELLECTUALS
SIR: I have read the communication from Mr.
E. C. Ross in regard to the intellectuals who are
always stirring up trouble. There is one point
which he left out, and that is the method of gather-
ing up and disposing of such persons, taking into con-
sideration the fact that this is a democratic country.
In ancient and barbarous times these people were
handled very roughly. They were shut up in dun-
geons, tortured, and many of them burned alive;
but in our highly civilized and humanely democratic
time, this sort of punishment should not be allowed.
These intellectuals should be rounded up, shipped
in cattle cars to some centralized stock yards-
Chicago, for instance—and there be allowed to vote
on the question as to where the penal farm should
be established, the majority to decide. They should
be given several choices—say, Montana, Alaska,
Lower California, or Death Valley. Democracy.
That's me all over.
A. L. BIGLER.
Norfolk, Virginia.


366
THE DIAL
April 5
Notes on New Books
and Peter, must be aware how unfitted by training
is the average reserved English girl of the upper
OLD-Dad. By Eleanor Hallowell Abbot. classes to cope with the varied phases of passion.
Dutton; $1.50.
She is brought up to despise, deny, and suppress
Victorian damsels in pattens could boast no more
her emotions, to taboo romance and sentiment as
impenetrable innocence than the heroine of this
* soppiness,” and to aim, above all things, at self-
story; but given the most romantic of them, and
control. Fortunately there are forces at work in
she in a gold-lined nightmare of an even less cred-
human nature that counteract such one-sided train-
ible swiftness, one might hope in vain for such
ing and insist on some sort of self-expression, but
colossal idiocy. Daphne Bretton, aged eighteen, is
the training bears fruit in inhibitions that are diffi-
suddenly expelled from a prim little college for
cult to overcome and that lead frequently to mis-
“having a boy in her room—at night.” After tell-
adjustment and misunderstanding. One of Phyllis
ing her father of her disgrace, she gasps, What is
Bottome's heroines marries the typical Englishman
it about boys that makes it so wicked to have them
who fears“
a scene," but who needs one to bring
around?" pitching headlong-quite consistently
him to his senses; while the other marries the
with her role—in a dead faint at his feet. Then
typical Frenchman who would rather enjoy one.
follows a fantastically saccharine kaleidoscope of
Each story shows the suffering that comes from the
adventures, punctuated with kisses and revelations, personal feelings, but the solution of each is due
wife's unselfish but mistaken suppression of her
which flash across a vivid landscape in Florida.
And all this time the heroine goes blithely along,
to the exercise of the same virtue, prompted by a
trailing clouds of the densest ignorance of every
deep and moving passion. The lightness and charm
situation about her, adoring and running away
of the style in which they are told, and the un-
from her clever father, wondering at and running
obtrusive epigrams that are to be found here and
away with a dissipated young stranger. Fortu-
there, cover a sound and serious psychology which
nately she is rescued from this fate, and on page
gives these otherwise somewhat slight stories a
230 we are given a conversation between her and
very real value.
her eventual consort which brings to mind a
famous column in a Chicago paper-nine consecu-
YASHKA: MY LIFE AS PEASANT, OFFICER
tive remarks are ushered in by the nine interlocu-
tory verbs: pawed, shivered, scoffed, worried,
AND EXILE. By Maria Botchkareva. Stokes;
stammered, winced, apologized, purred, acqui-
$2.
esced. Seriously, this is the sort of book which, by
The story of Maria Botchkareva, as set down by
reason of vague and romantic amorality, is nearer
Isaac Don Levine, may be recommended to all
perversion than many a less aspiring volume. The lovers of a thrilling tale. To enemies of the Bol-
book is advertised as a sure cure for the blues,"
sheviki it has the added charm of painting a blood-
when the very suggestion that half a dozen such
freezing picture of Bolshevism. A scene like that
people inhabit the same sphere is depressing in
of the Bolshevik death-trap” is, from both points
itself.
of view, almost too good to be true: a field heaped
with the corpses of murdered men; Yashka lined up
HELEN OF TROY AND Rose. By Phyllis
with twenty officers to be shot; a humane Bolshevik
Bottome. Century; $1.35.
(there are such, it seems) trying to persuade
These two studies of women's temperaments
bloodthirsty fellow-officer to grant a reprieve to
are handled with the delicacy and insight that mark
Yashka; dramatic recognition of Yashka by a sol-
much of Phyllis Bottome's work.
dier whose life she had saved; his noble gesture,
With deft,
swift touches she suggests atmosphere and situa-
“ If you shoot her, you will have to shoot me first!”
tions that other writers might take pages to pre-
-Yashka is saved, the twenty officers brutally mur,
sent and thus these stories that might each have
dered. Scarcely less exciting is the account of
filled a volume can be included in a book rather
Botchkareva's early life, a story reminiscent of
shorter than an ordinary novel. Although they
Gorky in its scenes of poverty, hard labor, floggings,
are strongly differentiated in plot and treatment,
drunkenness, brutality. Obeying
each of them deals with fundamentally the same
“Go to war to save thy country!" -Botchkareva
theme—the matrimonial problems of an English-
exchanged the dreariness of Siberian exile for the
One is inclined to stress the point of na-
miseries, the heroism, and the comradeship of the
tionality, because the difficulties of the heroine seem
trenches. Alarmed at the crumbling of discipline
to come from traits largely inherent in their na-
under the flood of talk released by the Revolution,
tionality and training. Anyone acquainted with
she conceived and carried out the organization of
the educational ideal in England as it concerns the
the Women's Battalion of Death, in the hope of
emotions, or who has read Mr. Wells' study of
shaming the men.
education in that country before the war in Joan
the pathetic story of a lost cause.
was swamped, together with “all that was good
a
an inner voice-
man.
The story of that battalion is
The enterprise


1919
367
THE DIAL
STRUGGLING RUSSIA
“Many
Typewriters
In One"
A New Weekly Magazine Devoted to Russian Problems
The Issues of March 22d and March 29th are Out
AMONG OTHER ARTICLES THEY CONTAIN:
Struggling Russia and Russia's Inevitable
Resurrection-Editorials
A. J. SACK
What is Bolshevism? and Allied Help and
Intervention in Russia CATHERINE BRESH KOVSKY
Russia and the Allies ALEXANDER KERENSKY
Russia and the Peace Conference
NICHOLAS TCHAIKOVSKY
Did Paul Miliukov "betray" the Allied Cause?
An interview with the former Minister of Foreign
Affalrs in the Russian Provisional Government.
Russia's Struggle for Unity and Freedom
PAUL MILIUKOV
The Bolsheviki and the Socialists of Europe
and America
PAUL AXELROD
The Voluntary Army in Southern Russia
A. A. TITOV
A United Russia from the Economic Point of View
N. NORDMAX
News from Russia (weekly cable letters)
VLADIMIR BOURTZEV
Cable News
From the Russian Telegraphic Agency at Omsk
Russian Documents:
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Note these 5 of over 365 different type-sets, including
all languages, available on the Multiplex.
In the issue of March 22d
1. Zinoviev's speech before the Petrograd Soviet,
about the Prinkipo Conference; 2. Red Terror in
Russia, as told by the Bolsheviki themselves;
3. Civil Liberties in Russia under Bolshevist rule;
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Vladimir Lebedeft, Alexander Titov and other
representatives of Revolutionary Russia; 2. A
Memorandum of the Political Parties and Groups
in Southern Russia to the Allied Governments;
3. The Russian Workingmen against the Bolshe-
vikl; 4. The Siberian Zemstovs and Municipal-
Itles on Allied Intervention; 5. Did the Socialists-
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368
THE DIAL
April 5
92
66
as a
book make it of considerable value to those who
would take advantage of the commercial opportuni-
and noble in Russia," in the tide of " destruction voyage, and he brings us his early cargo in a series
and ignorance."
One did not want to live.” But of studies of the careers and characters of those
Yashka nevertheless fought gallantly for her life Latin American leaders—Miranda, Hidalgo, Itur-
in all her subsequent hair-raising adventures, and bide, Moreno, San Martin, Bolivar, and others-
finally escaped from Vladivostok to plead in Amer who in the years from 1808 to 1831 succeeded in
ica and England for the assistance of Allied arms forming independent republics out of Spain's vice-
against the Bolsheviki.
royalties and captaincies general. There is—one
Those who enjoy mystifying themselves over the should remark it first off-an admirable propriety
interpretation of the Russian soul may join Mr. in this author's mode of procedure. It is a bit old.
Levine in regarding this “phenomenal rustic fashioned nowadays to be writing history in terms
symbol of the Russian people. The rest may re of the biographies of heroes, the Plutarchian mode;
joice with an easy conscience in the fascinating we are all for ethnical and physiographical and eco-
record of human experience.
nomic interpretations. But if there is a portion of
the world where the biographical foundation is
justified, it is surely Latin America. Its first con-
BLIND: A Comedy in One Act. By Seumas
O'Brien. Flying Stag Plays.
Flying Stag Plays. Washington
quests were by men of overpowering wills and vis-
ionary ambitions—Cortes, Pizarro, Columbus him-
Square Bookshop; 35 cts.
self, and that maddest of extravagants, Lope de
The SLAVE WITH Two FACES: An Allegory Aguirre—and its later history has won for the whole
in One Act. By Mary Carolyn Davies. Fly continent, if not the name, at least the flavor of a
ing Stag Plays. Washington Square Book Paradise of Dictators. The History of South Amer-
shop; 35 cts.
ica is a standing refutation of the economic inter-
Seumas O'Brien has attempted to do a Lady
pretation, and a standing invitation to the enthusi-
Gregory comedy, but alas his talent is not suf-
asms of hero worship; and no period of it, in this re-
ficient. The Davies play is better. It is indeed
gard, is superior to that which Professor Robertson
one of the justifications for the work of the Prov- treatment will themselves ensure him readers
here makes his own. The subject and the mode of
incetown Players. At a time when allegories are
far-fetched and literary, she has evoked a simple original investigations, in South America and else-
which his book deserves no less for the results of
fresh allegory of life in decent dramatic form.
Life is a slave who behaves towards us as a will-
where, which he has incorporated in it.
ing submissive bondsman if we adopt a high-
handed courageous attitude, or as a cruel murdering SANTO DOMINGO, A COUNTRY WITH A FU-
brute if we falter and conciliate him. Therefore
let us always wear our royal crowns in the presence
TURE. By Otto Schoenrich. Macmillan; $3.
of the slave, Life. Such is the theme, a theme capa-
Santo Domingo, or the Dominican Republic as
ble of being worked into a masterpiece by a writer
it is officially termed, has had a career which, ever
with more patience, more depth, more power-
since the island of which it is a part was discovered
someone more like Andreyev, let us say—than the by Columbus and brought under Spanish rule, has
prolific and hasty Mary Carolyn Davies.
bordered on epilepsy. The historical sketch with
which this book is begun covers nearly a hundred
pages, in which revolts, guerilla warfare, murders,
RISE OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN REPUBLICS:
and conspiracies follow each other with amazing
As Told in the Lives of Their Liberators. By
rapidity. The really eventful period of Santo
William Spence Robertson. Appleton; $3.
Domingo's career ended with the military occupa-
The American side of Spanish history is for us-
tion by the United States beginning in November
and must eventually become for the whole world-
1916, so that in two pages—such is the tranquilizing
effect of Uncle Sam-the history is brought up to
the important side. As a European state Spain will
live long and be remembered; but it is as an Amer-
date. The remainder of the book is devoted to a
ican civilization that she bids fair to become great. phy, Climate, fauna and Aora, religion, governmente
somewhat detailed study of the country—its topogra-
Spanish histories, limited as is Chapman's, glance
with too indirect an eye at the Indies; the interest
commerce, finance, and kindred subjects. One
and intention are present, and the publishers very
noticeable feature is the author's faculty of impar-
tial exposition; he writes almost with the detach-
America must be founded in an aunderstanding of admitted
, with little more imaginative insight ho tina
ment of a financial reporter, and, it must be
Spain; but it is impossible for a historian who is
dealing with a mother country to see centrally her
this day of the development of foreign trade
, how-
colonial empire-the colonies must find their own
ever, the qualities possessed by Mr. Schoenrich's
historians. Professor Robertson is among those who
have of late embarked upon the Latin American
ties offered.


1919
369
THE DIAL
Why
Readers of THE DIAL should
have upon their bookshelves
THE GREAT HUNGER
THE FLAIL
THE WOMEN WHO
MAKE OUR NOVELS
OUR POETS OF TODAY
THE THEORY OF
EARNED AND UNEARNED
INCOMES
By Harry Gunnison Brown
Professor of Economics, University of Missouri
Alarums and excursions! A college professor has written a
book that Justines the theory and affirms the practicallty of the
single tax. And that professor occupies the chair of economics
in the University of Missouri.
The volume is as interest-
ing a book on economics as I have read in many years. It is &
singularly well articulated, closely knit, logical performance.
(Wm. Marion Reedy in Reedy's Mirror).
This book is one of the new era. It is like a breath of fresh air
in the musty realm of economics and sociology. Those who think
they have fixed notions respecting Marxian socialism, birth control
and single tax, should read the author's criticism of their favorite
economic theories. His mental attitude is fair and what he has
to say will not aggravate, but will help, it the reader himself has
an open mind. (Duluth Herald).
This book should be welcomed not only by philosopbic radicals
but by all who seriously wish to understand the nature of the germ
behind the lever of discontent which now threatens tho tle of our
civilization. (The Public).
The debate will be with those whom the author describes as
"economists whose social sympathies (of the influence of which
they are not always conscious) or whose training by thelr former
teachers, incapacitates them for seeing any distinction between
land and capital." To these Mr. Brown's work comes as a virile
challenge, made in such terms that it must be taken up. The
fundamental issues raised affect the economic policy of the country
too profoundly to be ignored. The style of the work is clear, easy.
and its vocabulary untechnical; while on every page it is provocá-
tive of thought. (Single Tax Recteu).
The Great Hunger, by Johan Bojer, is man's
search for self-understanding; The Flail is a first
novel that will make the name of Newton A.
Fuessle live; and in The Women Who Make Our
Novels and Our Poets of Today, Grant Overton
and Howard Cook present racy biographies and
facts for book lovers.
AT ALL BOOKSTORES
MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY
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New York
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The League of Nations
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to know what has been said, recently, for and
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No one book, no one magazine, can give
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OF NATIONS.
Into its 350 pages, Miss Phelps has collected 70
of the most important speeches and writings
which appeared in books, magazines and news-
papers and has grouped them under the plan they
advocate or condemn. The third edition (just off
the press) includes the twenty-six articles of the
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The Handbook, A LEAGUE OF NA.
TIONS, is priced at $1.50, so that every
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By WILLIAM HENRY WARNER
and DE WITTE KAPLAN
With Frontispiece. 12mo. Cloth, $1.60 not.
This is a story of a gallant and noble young
man and a beautiful girl, of different na-
tionalities, who loved each other before the
war, and whose love conquered despite the
war.
"Whither thou goest, I will go; and
where thou lodgest, I will lodge;
thy people shall be my people."
How nobly she answered the test of that
saying, even though fate had set her coun-
try against his country in enmity, is beauti-
fully and dramatically told in this moving
tale.
A FINE NOVEL WITH A GREAT MESSAGE
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370
April 5
THE DIAL
THE SKY PILOT IN No Man's LAND. By tion. Occasionally, it is true, one is enabled to shake
Ralph Connor. Doran; $1.50.
off this impression, for Mr. Weaving gives a sym-
Ralph Connor has taken a safe course in his
pathetic setting to a number of his themes. When
latest venture in fiction. He has yoked the inspira-
he is content to sing, he is most sure in his art.
tional and the martial, and hitched them like a
Emotional undercurrents have a trick of churning
team of exen to the solid but lumbering cart which
his verse into choppy waves.
has served him all these years as the vehicle for
literary expression. Structurally, his story creaks;
PORTRAITS OF WHISTLER: A Critical Study
of freshness of style there is none. His material and an Iconography. By A. E. Gallatin.
abruptly to change the figure—is of that tested
Lane; $12.50.
weave which beguiles the ready-made mind, and Altogether fascinating is Gallatin's Portraits of
the cutting and fitting has been carried out along Whistler, from its marbled boards to the collection
ultra-conservative lines. Mr. Connor invests his
of various and engaging portraits within. The
hero, a young missionary who has the physical attri-
butes of Apollo, with a verbal reliance upon God
Critical Study, if not noteworthy for its originality,
which assures a marked religious flavor. Depend-
is interesting for the lights it throws on Whistler's
ing upon that, he naturally leaves the finer demands
own estimates of these portraits and caricatures. It
of craftsmanship to providence, and as a conse-
contains among other good things Beerbohm's defi-
nition of the latter as that which“ with the simplest
quence the narrative is littered with nearly all the
means most accurately exaggerates to the highest
outworn counters of conventional novel writing point the peculiarities of a human being, at his most
which one can recall: “ From the furious scorn in
his voice and in his flaming face she visibly shrank,
characteristic moment, in the most beautiful man-
almost as if he had struck her."
ner.” The volume concludes with literary por-
Silent she stood,
as if still under the spell of his words, her eyes
traits by Arthur Symons, Frank Harris, and others
devouring his face."
of a clever, sensitive, imperious creature, with the
Her hand held his in a
Alight of a butterfly and the thrust of a rapier.
strong, warm grasp, but her eyes searched his face
as if seeking something she greatly desired.”
Whether for the sake of the reproductions of oils
and dry-points and charcoal sketches by such
HEARÐ MBLODIES. By Willoughby Weaving.
worthies as Boldini, Rothenstein, Charles Keene.
and Whistler himself, or for the rounded figure of
Longmans, Green ; $2.
the man one gets from such different views of him,
The poet who allows himself to be distracted by
the gallery is full of brilliance and charm. It
a sheer multiplicity of verse forms fashions a hobble
invites more of its kind, though it may be doubtful
which is almost certain to trip him. If he dips
if another artist will repay his biographer in por-
first into one form and then into another, and fails
traiture as richly as the autocrat of the ten o'clock.
to fasten upon any inner guiding rule to steer his
muse, the creature becomes tangled in the rhythmic
AFRICA AND THE WAR. By Benjamin Braw-
underbrush, and comes out scratched and unhappy.
ley. Duffield; $1.
This appears to have been the frequent fate of
Mr. Weaving's muse. He tackles so many little
This is a slight volume of a hundred odd pages,
twists of rhyme, and splits his lines in so many
a half given to a few slight essays, the other half to
unexpected ways, that one seldom is able to fathom
the subject-title. The author Sketches the Africa
the inner harmony which may lie somewhere in the
of today, the great prize for the imperialist and the
wreckage. Intelligibility, though it sometimes seems
exploiter, and asks that the German colonies be
to have lost caste among the majority of contem-
placed under an international tribunal, believing
poraneous verse-makers, still has some rights, It
that this will not only work well for the Negroes
may be snubbed, but it can't be utterly ignored, as
in German Africa, but will benefit all the Negroes
of the continent.
Mr. Weaving seems to have tried to do in these
England and France, the chief
stanzas, called Robins:
possessors, and America, whose aid really decided
the war, will find themselves working together in
Small robing cheer the end of the year
colonization, missions, and education on a scale
When need for cheering is.
never before contemplated.” The African should
What bird doth sing so sweetly through the spring?
be wisely educated, trained in mechanics, farming,
My heart, aread me this.
engineering, even in the professions, especially
Richer maybe those songs of glee
medicine.
Those preeminently fitted to do this
And wilder well I wis;
work, Mr. Brawley believes, are the Negroes of
But sweeter none than sing small robins dun
the United States, and he ends his book with a plea
When all things are amiss.
for the training of American Negroes in the higher
There is so much dashing about from one thing brings western civilization to the black men of the
professional and technical studies that they may
to another in Heard Melodies that the volume al-
most gives the impression of exercises in versifica-
African continent.
The book is written in a delightful style. Es-
.


1919
THE DIAL
371
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buy to replenish. This is your chance to sell us
Contents: The Origin of International Society
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372
April 5
THE DIAL
T
24
pecially noteworthy is the chapter on Livingston, AFTERGLOW. By James Fenimore Cooper,
one of the greatest of explorers and most humane Jr. Yale University Press; $1.
of men.
If his spirit had dominated the white
Thrice fitting is the title Afterglow for the slen-
men who went later to Africa, we should have seen,
der collection of poems by Captain Cooper. The
instead of the monstrous and cruel exploitation of
the last fifty years, a fine, intelligent development
book is a posthumous publication; it contains vague,
of native industry and power.
sweet, and delicate expressions of quiet moods; and
it truly serves as an evanescent afterglow to the
bulkier work of the poet's great-grand father. Oc-
The Curious Quest. By E. Phillips Op-
casionally there is a poem to be grateful for; such
penheim. Little, Brown; $1.50.
a one is An Answer, a neat rejoinder to those scien-
tific ones who attempt to mark out all life with lens
We do not know whether Mr. Oppenheim is bent
upon forging his own five-foot shelf, but certainly of metrical verse lack rarity and subtlety and depth
,
and rule. But because these gracefully turned bits
he has made a brave beginning: by the testimony
one is forced to conclude that the Cooper literary
of a list published in the back of the present novel
it is the latest in a brood of forty-four. Facing such
talent, emerging from underground in the fourth
in record, one is tempted from the critical highroad generation, remains still only a talent. The best
into speculative bypaths, there to marvel upon the
pages of the volumes are not poetry, but an essay
methods of literary incubation which make possible
at the back, on Religion, in which a forthright state-
so prolific an output. This assiduous production, at
ment of values and of the need for self-realization
any rate, throws light upon the author's occasional
is given in a manner worthy of Randolph Bourne.
slump in inventiveness. It doubtless accounts for
Books of the Fortnight
the framework of the present novel, in which Mr.
Oppenheim has turned to a device that is beginning
The following list comprises The Dial's selec-
to creak from overwork—the devious adventures of tion of books recommended among the publications
a millionaire who wagers with his physician that he received during the last two weeks:
can start with a five-pound note and live for a year
on his own resources.
Proposed Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism,
From this familiar spring-
board, we dive into a narrative which whirls the
and Syndicalism. By Bertrand Russell
. [2mo,
218 pages. Henry Holt & Co. $1.50.
young idler through the usual difficulties attending
these eccentric figments of the best-selling imagina-
Altruism: Its Nature and Varieties. By George
tion. Our hero meets the usual types and the usual
Herbert Palmer. i2mo, 138 pages. Charles
typist, and comes through the delightful ordeal in a
Scribner's Sons. $1.25.
manner befitting a gentleman and a millionaire.
Richard Cobden, The International Man. By J.
The complications are ample for the purposes of
A. Hobson. Illustrated, 12mo, 415 pages.
light entertainment; the manner is tailored to the
Henry Holt & Co. $5.00.
matter. The characters are artificially warmed into
Musings and Memories of a Musician. By George
existence; their relation to life is about as intimate
Henschel. 8vo, 398 pages. Macmillan Co. $5.
as that of the egg to the incubator.
Voltaire in His Letters: Being a Selection from
His Correspondence. Translated, with an in-
Tales Of An Old SEA Port. By Wilfrid
troduction, by S. G. Tallentyre. Illustrated,
Harold Munro. Princeton University Press.
8vo, 270 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $3.50.
$1.50.
In the Key of Blue, and Other Prose Essays. By
John Addington Symonds. 12mo, 302 pages.
The wild adventures of Simeon Potter, Norwest
Macmillan Co.
John, and De Wolf Hopper's ship Yankee have
stimulated the romantic fancies of many generations
Essays, Irish and American.
Mac-
Yeats.
of Bristol, Rhode Island, youth. The outsider is
Illustrated, 12mo, 95 pages.
millan Co. $1.50.
given an intimate introduction to these historic
characters in Tales of an Old Sea Port.
The Wild Swans at Coole. Verse. By W. B.
Mr.
Munro has published the Yankee's log, the remi-
Yeats.
I 2mo, 114 pages.
niscences of Norwest John-one of the first Amer-
$1.25.
icans to encircle the world via Siberia—and a letter
Look! We Have Come Through. Verse. By D.
about Simeon Potter, the most interesting of the
H. Lawrence. 8vo, 163 pages.
three. In 1740, while on a privateering expedition
Huebsch. $1.50.
against the French, Captain Potter captured a mis-
Civilization, 1914-1917.
sionary father whom he kept prisoner for a few
Duhamel. 12mo, 288 pages.
days. Father Fauque has reported the incident in
$1.50.
a charming letter that serves as a corrective to the The Amethyst Ring.
exaggerated tales of Potter's strength as recorded
by tradition.
France. Edited by Frederic Chapman. 8vo,
304 pages. John Lane Co. $2.
By John Butler
Macmillan Co.
B. W.
Sketches. By Georges
Century Co.
A novel. By Anatole


1919
373
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A delightfully human book on the Omar Khayyam of the Bible
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almost the best novel that has been published this
year."--Westminster Gazette.
THE PELICANS
BOOK REPAIR and RESTORATION
By Mitchell S. Buck
A manual of practical suggestions for Bibliophiles.
Clear and reliable instructions for removing stains, re-
backing, repairing and preserving old bindings, remarks
on rarity in books, auctions, and a chapter on Greek and
Latin classics in translation. With 17 illustrations.
1000 copies from type. Net $2.00
By E. M. DELAFIELD
Now ready. At all bookshop8, $1.75 net
ALFRED A. KNOPF, New York
NICHOLAS L. BROWN 80 Lexington Ave.
CI V I L I ZA TION
By Georges Duhamel
Won the Goncourt Prize for 1918. Masterly fiction presenting the French
soldier as he is. Price $1.50.
Published by THE CENTURY CO., New York
REPRESENTATIVE
BRITISH DRAMAS:
Victorian and Modern
ONE OF THEM
By Elizabeth Hasanovitz
The pilgrimage of a Russian girl to the
Land of Freedom and her life in the gar-
ment factories of New York. *$2.00 net.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY, BOSTON
Edited by
MONTROSE J. MOSES
The League of Nations, Today
and Tomorrow
By H. M. Kallen-$1.50 net
MARSHALL JONES COMPANY
212 Summer St., Boston
A Series of Dramas which Illustrate the prog-
ress of tbe British Dramatist, and emphasize
the important features of the History of the
British Tbeatre.
This Volume contains the complete teat of 21
plays. Mr. Moses bas been fortunate in securing
the most notable English Dramas, from Sheridan
Knowles down to John Masefield; and the most
representative Irish Dramas from William Butler
Yates down to Lord Dunsany.
873 pages.
$4.00 net.
LITTLE, BROWN & CO.: Publishers, Boston
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374
April 5
THE DIAL
Current News
Early Illustrated Books: A History of the Decora-
This month Stephen McKenna's novel, Midas
tion and Illustration of Books in the 15th and 16th
and Son, will be brought out in this country by the
Centuries (Dutton; $2). The original text of
Dorans.
this delightful landmark in bibliography has been
The Macmillan Co. have now imported at $1.50
changed only to admit corrections, in which the
author has had the assistance of Mr. Victor Schol-
The Candle of Vision, by “A. E.” (George W.
derer, of the British Museum. The numerous
Russell), which the English Macmillans published
late last year and which Ernest A. Boyd reviewed in
illustrations are excellently reproduced. The other
The Dial for January 11.
is an essay by Wilbur Macey Stone on The Divine
Under the title The Atlantic Monthly and Its
and Moral Songs of Isaac Watts, which was origi-
nally published in 1715 and was the first
Makers M. A. DeWolfe Howe has written an an-
song
book
ecdotal historical sketch of the magazine and the
written and printed for children. Before its popu-
eight editors that have directed it since its founding
larity passed, a century and a half later, the little
in 1857. The volume, which is illustrated, is pub-
book ran to nearly six hundred editions, a tentative
lished by the Atlantic Monthly Press at $1.
list of which is appended to Mr. Stone's rather
The United States Catalogue Supplement, a
precious historical essay. The volume is published
cumulative index of books published in the United
by The Triptych, 15 Park Row, New York City,
States from 1912 to 1917, listing 81,000 volumes,
in a limited edition at $2.50.
has just been issued by the H. W. Wilson Co.
The Report of the Librarian of Congress for the
The next issue in the series will be bound June
year which ended last June (Government Print-
30, 1919 and will cover the publications of the
ing Office: 45 cts.) affords an index of the war's
previous eighteen months.
effect upon book publishing in this country. Ac-
Vincent Starrett has made Arthur Machen the
cessions by copyright fell off more than a thousand
subject of a thirty-one page monograph published
titles from the 1917 figure—13,713 as against
in Chicago by Walter M. Hill. The essay, which
14,738. The total accessions were 32,638 fewer
is rather popularly written, is not unfairly charac-
than in 1917. In fact, the only sources that pro-
terized by its sub-title: A Novelist of Ecstasy and
vided more titles than in the previous year were the
Sin. Two hitherto uncollected poems by Mr.
public printer, the state governments, and the
Machen—The Remembrance of the Bard, and The
Library's own publications. Probably the most in-
Praise of Myfanwy—are appended.
teresting purchases were twenty-eight additions to
The Department of Labor has now published a
the collection of first or early editions of dramas
supplementary List of References which adds 460 Farquhar, Fletcher, Ford, Gascoigne, Heywood
,
and romances, the list including plays by Dekker,
titles to the 415 titles of its Reconstruction Bibliog-
raphy, compiled by Laura A. Thompson, issued last
Massinger, and others. A notable gift, in view of
December. Another valuable bibliography has been
the approaching Whitman Centenary, was that from
prepared by the Library War Service of the Ameri-
Mr. Thomas B. Harned, consisting of
a large por-
can Library Association, a list of books on subjects scrapbooks
, pamphlets, periodicals, various editions,
tion of the literary remains of Walt Whitman
taught in re-education hospitals.
There is strange bottling in The Wine of Aston-
manuscript, and clippings.
ishment, by Mary Hastings Bradley (Appleton;
$1.50). The author keeps both her hero and her
Contributors
heroine in the vineyard of virginity against all odds.
For this purpose the man vanquishes temptation in
Frank Tannenbaum joined the army last summer
,
repeated encounters, while the girl is fenced about
and his military experience has included three dif-
marriage of friendship,” from which she
ferent branches of the service and training in two
is finally released. The Wine of Astonishment is camps.
redolent of pungent puritanism.
Cuthbert Wright, an editor of the Harvard
Essays Irish and American, by John Butler
Yeats, originally published by the Talbot Press, the A. E. F. in France. He is the author of One
Monthly before his induction into the army, is with
Dublin, has now been imported by the Macmillan
Company at $1.50. The volume—which includes
Way of Love (Brentano, 1916; $1), and was one
Recollections of Samuel Butler, Back to the Home,
of the contributors to the anthology Eight Harvard
Why the Englishman Is Happy, Synge and the
Poets (Gomme, 1917; $1).
Irish, The Modern Woman, Watts and the
Emanuel Carnevali was born in Florence. He has
Method of Art, and an appreciation by “A. E.”-
contributed to several magazines and has won one
was_reviewed by Ernest Boyd in the December
of the annual prizes of Poetry: A Magazine of
14. DIAL.
Verse. His first book, The Rhythmical Talk of
Bibliophiles of the erudite sort will welcome two
E. C., will soon be published.
recent books about books. One is a second edition,
after a quarter-century, of Alfred W. Pollard's ously written for The DIAL.
The other contributors to this issue have previ-
with a


1919
THE DIAL
375
Are You Different?
Here are random sentences from our morning mail
Some of these letters are from old subscribers
Some are from new acquaintances
Some of the writers are lawyers, some are women of affairs, one is the president
of a college, another a United States Senator and one a “ returned soldier
99
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tainly doing great work in the guidance of our best American
thinking.–Beloit, Wis.
Be assured that I highly appreciate The Dial and renew my sub-
scription, hoping there will be no abatement of the analysis of
Thorstein Veblen.—Hot Springs, Mont.
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376
THE DIAL
Apr.3
IMPORTANT SPRING BOOKS
THE CITY OF COMRADES
UYU
THE DESERT OF WHEAT
By ZANE GREY
“ Zane Grey has the secret of writing a rat-
tling good story. He has always had a keen,
appreciative sense of literary standards, and,
besides, has lived up to them sincerely in every
one of the many volumes of Western stories
he has written. Dumas did not compose more
steadily nor more elaborately." —New York
Sun.
" Mr. Grey has written no finer work of fic-
tion than this heart-gripping, romance of the
wheat country.
It is a fascinating,
an impressive, a great book."—New York
Tribune.
Illustrated. $1.50
By BASIL KING
The story of a down-and-outer who found his
soul. With a vision and mercy–Basil King
has handled the problem that interests us more
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years has made his books not merely good
stories, but inspiration to the spirit-food for
the soul.
It is the drama of souls laid bare by a master.
It will grip you.
Illustrated. $1.75
HUMORESQUE
GREGG
By FLETA CAMPBELL SPRINGER
“A book of distinction.
The ulti-
mate audience for this fine novel should be in
the tens of thousands. People become aware
of such a story slowly. People once aware can
no more be restrained from telling others about
it than they can be restrained from breath-
ing."-N. Y. Sun.
$1.50
$1.50
THE PRIVATE WIRE TO
WASHINGTON
By HAROLD MacGRATH
This is a mystery so exciting — so deep-
schemed that even the Secret Service couldn't
unravel it. So cleverly is the mystery con-
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to stand out brightly in the list of this year's
best-sellers
Never before has Harold MacGrath written
a story so brilliant-so enthralling—so grip-
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$1.35
By FANNIE HURST
In this day of short stories, the name of
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she tells the truth about them. She knows
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human understanding. This new book is the
best, the finest thing she has ever done. If
you liked her earlier stories, you will like
these even more.
If you don't know them at
all, begin now.
HIS FRIEND, MISS
McFARLANE
By KATE LANGLEY BOSHER
A delightful new story by the author of “ Mary
Cary.
As only Mrs. Bosher can, she has
woven a fascinating girl into a sparkling, un-
forgettable story. Once more she has given
the world a book that warms the heart—that
glows with her human touch. Once more she
has written a delightful romance of smiles
behind tears-of youth and sunshine.
$1.50
THE HIGH FLYERS
By CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND
The flavor and the color and the heart of
America are in this story of a boy who found
his soul through a spiritual struggle more
thrilling than the duel he fought in the clouds
--more mysterious than the baffling German
plot he unravelled-more dramatic than the
big chance he risked for his country's honor.
EXPERIMENTS IN
INTERNATIONAL
ADMINISTRATION
By FRANCIS BOWES SAYRE
“It is quite obvious that such a book as this
is just about the most timely and useful that
could possibly be put forth, now that the ques-
tion of a league of nations to enforce peace is
the dominant question in the mind of the
world. We owe great thanks to Mr. Sayre."
-- New York Tribune.
Post 8vo. $1.50
$1.50
GUARANTEES OF PEACE
By WOODROW WILSON
This timely volume presents, in a convenient
and permanent form, the public messages and
addresses of the President, from January 31,
1918, to December 2, 1918. It supplements
the two earlier collections of “Why We Are
at War” and “In Our First Year of War."
Post 8vo. $1.00
KEEPING FIT ALL THE
WAY
By WALTER CAMP
Mr. Camp here preaches the gospel of health
to middle-aged men. He points out the danger
to health in a man's allowing himself to get
out of good physical condition, and he tells him
how he may recover his
impaired vitality.
Profusely Illustrated. Post 8vo. Cloth, $1.15
HARPER & BROTHERS Established 1817 NEW YORK
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THE DIAL
How to Secure the German Indemnity
A FORTNIGHTLY
VOL. LXVI
NEW YORK
NO. 788
APRIL 19, 1919
Spring Educational Number
.
.
How to SECURE THE GERMAN INDEMNITY
John S. Codman 385
THE END OF APRIL. Verse
Allen Tucker 387
Peace IN ITS ECONOMIC Aspects
.H. J. Davenport 388
UNIVERSITY RECONSTRUCTION AND THE CLASSICS Royal Case Nemiah 390
A SECOND IMAGINARY CONVERSATION
George Moore 394
Gosse and Moore, III
COBDEN, THE INTERNATIONALIST
Robert Morss Lovett 399
LIVING DOWN THE HYPHEN
401
PATRIOTISM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
Lewis Mumford 406
A VINDICATION OF FIELDING
Helen Sard Hughes 407
LIBERALISM INVINCIBLE
Harold Stearns 409
LABOR CONTROL OF GOVERNMENT INDUSTRIES
Helen Marot' 411
EXPERIMENTAL SCHOOLS
Caroline Pratt 413
A PERSPECTIVE OF DEATH
H. M. Kallen 415
LONDON, FEBRUARY 20
Edward Shanks 417
I Watch ONE WOMAN KNITTING. Verse
David Morton 418
EDITORIALS
419
FOREIGN COMMENT :
The Soviets and the Schools
422
COMMUNICATIONS:
A Noble Translation.-A Change of Name
423
NOTES ON New BOOKS: The Flail.—The Vocational Re-education of Maimed Soldiers. 424
-The Vocational Education of Girls and Women.—The Tragedy of Tragedies.-The
Cambridge History of American Literature.--Forced Movements, Tropism, and Animal
Conduct.—The English Poets.—The Poets of the Future.
SPRING EDUCATIONAL List
434
CURRENT NEWS
.
.
436
THE DIAL (founded in 1880 by Francis F. Browne) is published every other Saturday by The Dial Publishing Com-
pany, Inc.-Martyn Johnson, President-at 152 West Thirteenth Street, New York, N. Y. Entered as Second Class
matter at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., August 3, 1918, under the act of March 3, 1897. Copyright, 1919, by
The Dial Publishing Company, Inc. Foreign Postage, 50 cents.
$3.00 a Year
15 Cents a Copy


378
10
THE DIAL
April 19
MR. HUEBSCH has just published these books whose
profound significance at this juncture is obvious:
The British Revolution and the American Democracy
by NORMAN ANGELL
N interpretation of British Labour Programmes" is the subtitle, but the book is far more comprehensive
“A
than that suggests. It is an examination into social, economic and industrial reconstruction as abruptly
focused by the war. It explains the relegation to the past of political and national issues and the rise oi
issues based on new systems. It explains the presence of issues for which we are pitifully unprepared. Then,
for guidance in our bewilderment, the author recounts British labor history, discusses its programme and relates
it to our own problems. As if for good measure--but really because the questions are indispensable to a healthy
readjustment of this weary world—Mr. Angell adds a section under the significant title, “The Dangers," con-
sisting of these three chapters: A Society of Free Men or the Servile State?; The Herd and Its Hatred of Free-
dom; Why Freedom Matters. There are two appendices: The Report of the British Labour Party on Recon-
struction and the little known (on this side) but importa nt Lansbury-Herald Proposal.
(Cloth, $1.50)
be
The Covenant of Peace
by H. N. Brailsford
In the confusion of partisan criticism
and indiscriminate advocacy it will
prove instructive to examine this con-
cise account of the broad general prin-
ciples that must govern a valid consti-
tution for a League of Nations. The
English Review offered £100 for the
best essay on the subject and the dis-
tinguished jury included such men as
H. G. Wells, John Galsworthy and
Professor Bury. The vagaries of fate
caused the best man to win, for Mr.
Brailsford is concededly the most
capable exponent of the plan which, if
carried out honestly, will make a
decent peace possible. Mr. HERBERT
CROLY writes an introduction to the
pamphlet.
(25 cents)
CONCERNING
MORAL
OBLIGATIONS
Publishing books, besides
being a commercial enter-
prise, may a public
service.
A publisher who does not
recognize his responsibility
runs the same risk of be-
coming a shyster, quack or
hypocrite
lawyer,
physician or priest.
The degree in which a pub-
lisher fails to discharge his
obligation to society may
be measured by the number
of perunas that bear his
imprint.
as
The Taxation of Mines in
Montana
by Louis Levine
A title may be misleading. This is not
a dry book. It is so closely related to
the educational and political life of
our time as to have caused the Univer-
sity of Montana to suspend its author
who was professor of economics, on
the day after publication. Here is the
first intensive study of the constitu-
tion and laws, as they relate to taxa-
tion, of a state in which monopolized
natural resources preponderate in the
taxable property; of the merits of the
system; of the defects in the laws; of
the exhaustibility of the mines. In
fine, all of the facts are presented im-
partially. Remembering the relation
of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co.
to the state of Montana, the volume
acquires a lively interest for students
of politics and government as well as
for those whose immediate activities
lie in the field of economics.
(Paper covers, $1.00)
(Cloth, $1.00)
And these books, though not so new, are equally important:
The Restoration of Trade Union Con- The Aims of Labor
ditions by Sidney Webb. (Paper, 50c.)
by Arthur Henderson
“Without exception the wisest and weightiest pronounce
ment on these issues that has come from an English publi-
“Mr. Henderson has done a great public service.
cist."-H. J. LASKI in The New Republic.
Broadly speaking, what he has done is to search out the dif.
ficulties a democracy must encounter in its efforts at self-
Women and the Labour Party
realization and to state the means by wbich British labor
hopes to surmount them."--The Bookman.
by Marion Phillips and others. (Paper,50c.)
“ For the purpose of awakening women to a knowledge of
Jean Jaurès
the problems of the old world, as they affect women, carried
over into the new, we think this book will serve a useful
by Margaret Pease
purpose. The variety of subjects it treats makes it adapted
to women of the professional as well as the wage-working
class."-JAMES ONEAL in The New York Call.
“A timely book and a difficult task excellently performed."
-J. B. KERFOOT in Life.
OBTAINABLE AT BOOK STORES OR, BY ADDING 10% FOR POSTAGE, OF
(Cloth, $1.00)
B. W. Huebsch
Publisher
32 WEST 58th ST., NEW YORK
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1


1919
379
THE DIAL
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
Announces A New Book on the Greatest Writer of To-Day
ANATOLE FRANCE
By Lewis Piaget Shanks
Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures in the University of Wisconsin.
This book is of great present interest because this Frenchman long ago responded to problems
of social reorganization, democratic world-policy, war and a lasting peace-foreseeing many of
the rational solutions now everywhere discussed. Ready April 15th.
Cloth, $1.50
Education in Ancient Israel
By FLETCHER H. SWIFT
From the earliest times to 70 A.D.
Professor of Education in the College of Education, University of Minnesota
The book attempts to explain what are the fundamental characteristics of Hebrew religion and
morals, and what part education played in the development of the religious and moral con-
sciousness of that race.
Cloth, $1.25
Virgil's Prophecy on the Saviour's Birth
The Fourth Eclogue
Edited and translated by Dr. Paul Carus
Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, which is pre-Christian, proves that the hopes of Christians and
pagans had many ideals in common, and such were the return of the golden age, i.e., the
coming of the Kingdom of God and the advent of a Saviour.
Price, 50c.
What Is a Dogma
By EDOUARD LE ROY
Translated from the French
A brilliant criticism in Catholic doctrine by an eminent priest.
Price, 50c.
Balder's Death and Loke's Punishment
By CORNELIA STEKETEE HULST
A free verse rendering of two of the chief incidents recorded in the Eddas. The illustrations
are selected from the rare series with which Frölich illustrated the Eddas. Boards, 75 cents
Boole's Collected Logical Works
By GEORGE BOOLE
Vol. II. The Laws of Thought
With the recent revival of the study of philosophical and mental origin of mathematics,
George Boole's Collected Logical Works. attempts an intricate survey of the laws of thought.
445 pages. Price, $3.00
A Modern Job
By ETIENNE GIRAN
Translated by Fred Rothwell
This little volume is a welcome indication of the direction in which the human mind is
turning nowadays for the solution of the deepest problems, pain and evil. Cloth, 75c.
TWO BOOKS BY EUGENIORIGNANO
Essays in Scientific Synthesis On the Inheritance of Acquired Characters
Translated by J. W. Greenstreet
Translated by Basil C. H. Harvey
Rignano's studies lie in the borderland be-
Old theories under the searchlight of mod tween physical chemistry and biology and in-
ern scientific experiment. Compares and ana dicate a possible road to the understanding of
lyzes results obtained by the direct experiment the physical nature of living substance as dis-
of the specialist.
tinguished from the non-living substance.
250 pages. Cloth, $2.00
413 pages. Cloth, $2.00
OPEN COURT PUB. CO., 122 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago
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380
April 19
THE DIAL
A Collected Edition of the Novels of
LEONARD MERRICK
First Printing from entirely new plates limited to 1,500 copies of each volume. No-
table among special editions because of the prominence in literature of the men who have
written the prefaces to the separate volumes.
The Novels included:
With Prefaces by:
Conrad in Quest of His Youth.... Sir JAMES M. BARRIE
The Actor-Manager... WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
Cynthia.
MAURICE HEWLETT
The Position of Peggy Harper ......Sir ARTHUR PINERO
The Man Who Understood Women...... .W. J. LOCKE
When Love Flies Out of the Window. Sir W. R. NICOLL
The Worldlings.
.NEIL MUNRO
The Quaint Companions.
.H. G. WELLS
One Man's View..
GRANVILLE BARKER
The Man Who Was Good.
.J. K. PROTHERO
The House of Lynch...
G. K. CHESTERTON
A Chair on the Boulevard.
A. NEIL LYONS
The First of the Above Volumes is Now Ready. $2.00 net
Conrad in Quest of His Youth
Edward Garnett describes this whimsical picture of a man returned to his early home after
years of absence, striving to recapture remembered zest and charm, as "perhaps the most
piquant and appetizing dish of fiction that our generation will taste."
Net, $2.00
Others to follow as soon as possible. Send for a descriptive circular
AUTHORIZED AMERICAN EDITIONS OF NOVELS BY
.
VICENTE BLASCO IBANEZ
Net, $1.90
THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
Translated by CHARLOTTE BREWSTER JORDAN
Everywhere recognized as the one truly
great novel of the war, which 95% of the dealers
reporting
book sales name as the novel in greatest demand in the United States.
BLOOD AND SAND
Translated by Mrs. W. A. GILLESPIE,
Just ready, Introduction by Dr. ISAAC GOLDBERG
powerful
, rising to an intensely exciting climas, and under the surface an unequaled interpretation
A brilliant panorama of the bull-ring, in all its relations to the social life of Spain. Tremendously
of Spanish character.
THE SHADOW OF THE CATHEDRAL
Translated by Mrs. W. A. GILLESPIE. Introduction by W. D. HOWELLS
A study of struggle against the lethargy of literacy and superstition, set against a background.96
wonderful majesty and beauty.
IN PREPARATION
LA BODEGA (The Saloon)
Translated by Dr. I. GOLDBERG
Under the stirring plot of love and intrigue is a study of the effects and causes of drunkenness in Spain.
MARE NOSTRUM (Our Sea)
Translated by CHARLOTTE B. JORDAN
A powerful story of the German submaríne warfare in the Mediterranean.
ORDER FROM ANY
BOOK SELLER OR
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1919
381
THE DIAL
NO AMERICAN'S EDUCATION ON THE GREAT QUESTIONS
OF THE DAY CAN BE COMPLETE WITHOUT THESE BOOKS
Labor and Reconstruction in Europe. By ELISHA M. FRIEDMAN.
With an Introduction by the Hon. W. B. WILSON, Secretary of Labor.
The only yolume which includes description of the machinery set up in sixteen countries, belligerent
and neutral, to deal with the effects of the war and with the programs of reconstruction in labor mat-
ters. The book is of especial value to employment managers, directors of corporations, and all students
of labor problems. The author has no scheme to forward, but aims to give needed information. Secre-
tary Wilson commends it as "compact, brief, coherent, and clear."
Net, $2.50
American Problems of Reconstruction. Edited by ELISHA M. FRIEDMAN.
A National Symposium by experts with a Foreword by FRANKLIN K. LANE, Secretary of the Interior.
Third and Revised Edition with an added chapter by Dr. F. W. Taussig, chairman of the U. S. Tariff
Commission on “ Tariff Problems." “ Able and scientific," says the Amer. Pol. Science Quarterly, “as
is to be expected when such names as Irving Fisher, E. W. Kemmerer, A. D. Noyes, E. R. A. Seligman,
Frank A. Vanderlip and Lewis B. Weble are among the contributors."
Net, $4.00
Russia's Agony. By ROBERT WILTON, Correspondent of the Times
(London) in Russia.
The author is beyond question the best qualified of the many writers on the Russian situation. Truth
calls it: “ Incomparably the most opportune, interesting and instructive book of its kind." The New
York Tribune says: "His detalled and comprehensive narrative of events is of intense interest and in-
estimable value; but if possible still more to be prized is his keen analysis and judicious estimate of
Bolshevism
of exceptional value."
Net, $5.00
Russian Revolution Aspects. By ROBERT CROZIER LONG.
The author was in Russia in 1917 as Correspondent of the Associated Press. Where Mr. Wilton
explains and analyzes Mr. Long describes the Revolution as one of the great and terrible episodes of
human history.
His narrative, full of color, speed and fascination, should be read along with Mr. Wil-
ton's invaluable interpretation.
Net, $2.50
The Rise of Nationality in the Balkans. By R. W. SETON-WATSON;
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THE DIAL
A FORTNIGHTLY
How to Secure the German Indemnity
E
VERY MAN WHO WILL allow his reason full sway the Allies therefore would have to pay it themselves,
rather than his passions and emotions, every man merely securing the advantage of free access to Ger-
who cares more about the restoration of Belgium many's natural resources.
and France and the other countries devastated by In addition, in so far as the Germans were de-
the Germans than he does about punishing the Ger- prived of access to their natural resources, their
mans for the devastation, must realize that the only mines, their agricultural lands and so on, they would
practical way to secure the great financial indemnity become unable to help themselves and would there-
demanded on behalf of the devastated countries is fore starve or become the objects of Allied and
to set the German people to work in productive en American charity. Neither of these alternatives
terprise. There is, however, a real fear that if this can be considered. On humanitarian grounds alone
be done the payment of the indemnity may turn out
the first alternative is out of the question; and
to be a boomerang injuring those who receive it more further, in either case, a stupendous army of oc-
than those who pay it. This fear among the states cupation would be required to war upon the German
men of the Allied nations is well expressed by Lloyd people whether the object were to pauperize them
George in a speech made at Newcastle on Nov. 29 or to starve them. We cannot avoid, therefore, giv-
last, in which he said that Germany must pay the ing employment to the German people if we desire
cost of the war up to the limit of her capacity, and the indemnity paid, and the larger the indemnity de-
then uttered these words: 'But I must use one manded the greater must be the opportunities af-
word of warning. We have to consider the question fordeď to German labor.
of Germany's capacity. Whatever happens, Ger It might be thought, however, that if German
many is not to be allowed to pay her indemnity by labor must be employed, then at least it should not
dumping cheap goods upon us.
That is the only be employed for the profit of German capitalists, but
limit in principle we are laying down. She must should be employed directly in the service of the
not be allowed to pay for her wanton damage and
Allied nations; and it might be suggested, therefore,
devastation by dumping cheap goods and wrecking that Allied capital, or confiscated German capital,
our industries.” In other words, the danger appears
or both, should be used in the employment of Ger-
to be that if the Germans are allowed opportunity mans in Germany. But to this suggestion of directly
to produce and exchange, their competition will diverting capital to the employment of Germans in
wreck the industries of other nations, causing unem-
Germany all the laboring men in every Allied coun-
ployment and disaster. Already with the end of try would protest. They will insist that, at this
war, unemployment is becoming a serious problem
time of all times when employment appears to be
everywhere. How then can the Germans be put to scarce, all capital available shall be employed at
work without lessening, the opportunities of em-
home.
ployment for the peoples of the Allied nations? Another plan of securing reparation, which has
There is one way, perhaps, of side-stepping the actually been suggested, is that German laborers
whole question of giving Germans employment. It shall be forced to go into Belgium and France and
can be done by excluding them altogether, or in part,
there be made to repair the actual damage done,
from access to the natural resources of their own rebuilding the shattered cities and towns, repairing
country and then securing the indemnity by develop- the damaged mines, and restoring the devastated
ing those natural resources by means of Allied and fields. This would look like stern justice to some
American capital and labor. To be sure, we could people, who fail to consider that the particular Ger-
hardly say that under such circumstances the Ger mans forced into this slavery would almost surely be
mans would be paying the indemnity. They would those least responsible for the outbreak of the war
simply be deprived of the opportunity to pay it, and
and the atrocities committed in carrying it on. Jus-


386
April 19
THE DIAL
tice aside, however, it is certain that any such plan The first objection to this suggestion is that
would be condemned at once by the laboring classes wrecking German industries would hinder the pay-
of the devastated regions. They would no more ment of the indemnity. Second, however, and more
permit their jobs to be taken away from them in this important, the plan would not work out as above
way by Germans than they would permit the gov supposed because if the Germans could not export
ernment to use conviets as strike breakers. This anything they would have no means of paying for
plan too is entirely out of the question.
the imports, and for that reason no imports would
It appears then that after all it will be necessary there be.
to permit the Germans to exploit their own resources To some it would seem that the best plan would
by their own labor and capital; and that the more be to allow nature to take its course, or in other
quickly and effectively they are able to produce, the words to permit trade between the Germans and
more quickly will the Allies receive the indemnities other peoples without governmental interference. It
demanded.
is certain that if this were done, trade would soon
But does it follow that the Allied nations and our spring up not only between Germans and English,
selves should trade with the Germans? If it will between Germans and Americans, but also even be-
enable the Germans to produce more quickly and tween Germans, and French. Unless trading is
effectively, it would seem that the Allies ought to mutually advantageous to the traders, it will not
allow trade with them, and we also, if we desire take place. On the other hand, if mutually advan-
to help the Allies; but if, as Lloyd George seems tageous, nothing will stop it except direct govern-
to think, the dumping of cheap goods will wreck mental interference. Perhaps the interference of
British industries, or our industries, then surely we
government with the trade of its citizens may not
ought to think twice about it. How to secure in-
always be harmful, but at all events it is certain that
demnity to a nation, without injuring the nation if the Allied governments are all going to put re-
getting the indemnity, seems in truth to be a real strictions on German trade, the Germans will not
puzzle despite the apparent absurdity of the idea be able to pay the indemnity as soon as they other-
at first thought. It may be that Lloyd George, in wise could. Unless they can import raw materials,
warning against the dumping of cheap goods, refers their industries cannot prosper, and unless they can
only to the practice of selling goods in a foreign
export their manufactures to pay for the imports,
country at less than the cost of production. This
then they cannot obtain the raw materials. They
seems unlikely, however, since any goods cheap
will have to be sufficient unto themselves, using only
enough to be imported from Germany, whether sold
their own raw materials which are limited in char-
at less than cost or not, would if imported displace acter; thus their productive powers will be stunted
similar goods in the markets of the importing coun-
and the indemnity will be hard to exact. Moreover,
try and would therefore be just as likely to wreck
too much economic pressure on the German people
home industries.
will drive them into a bloody revolution and then
What is more, it would seem that cheap goods all hope of getting reparation for Belgium, France,
from France or Italy or from this country would Serbia, Poland, and Roumania will be gone.
also wreck the industries of Great Britain. If, there-
fore, Lloyd George is to allow the importation of
The conclusion seems to be unavoidable that the
Allies ought, for their own sake, to permit the Ger-
such goods, he is in the position of permitting the
mans to exploit their own natural resources with
destruction of British industries out of deference
their own labor and capital, and ought to accord
to his Allies; or if, on the other hand, the danger them also liberal trading privileges in order to in-
from cheap goods is imaginary, he is then in the
position of penalizing the Germans for no reason
crease their productive power. The Allies might
at all—with the result that they will be less able
very wisely go even further, however, and in order
to pay the indemnity.
to insure that the productive power of the Germans
In fact, if the cheap goods argument is not a fake,
shall be increased to a maximum, they might dictate
to them just how the revenue required to run the
suggested that a good way for the Allies
to deal with Germany would be to prevent her from
Government and pay the indemnity should be raised,
The Allies may well insist that the method adopted
exporting anything to the Allied countries and at
the same time to forbid the German government to
be one that will stimulate productive effort, that will
establish a tariff on Allied goods imported into Ger-
encourage the enterprising and industrious Ger-
many. In this way it might be argued that the cheap opportunities.
mans, and will prevent the monopoly of economic
thus it would be the German industries that would agricultural land, of mines, of water power
, and he
This can best be done by making all owners of
be wrecked rather than those of the Allies.
valuable urban sites pay over for the benefit of the
it might


1919
387
THE DIAL
resources.
Allied governments as indemnity the full rental value markably short time, and the fear, moreover, that
of the exclusive privileges enjoyed through such Germany might become a plague spot of revolution
ownership. These payments should not include and anarchy, or be restored to its former autocratic
rental for agricultural improvements, nor for mine masters, would soon fade away.
shafts and machinery, nor for hydro-electric installa At this point, however, the reader may protest
tions, nor for buildings of any kind, but only rental that if this plan be carried out, the German people,
for the privilege of exclusive access to natural freed from the shackles of monopoly, will be on the
high road to becoming the most prosperous and
Such a plan ought to be welcome to the great mass happy people in Europe, if not in the world—and
of the German people. Sentimentally, it would this as a reward for their guilt in bringing on the
make little difference to the factory hands, to the most criminal assault on civilization in all history.
peasants, to the tenant farmers, to the employers, True, but nevertheless the Allied peoples will have
and to the owners of German capital if the rent got what they wanted, namely, quick payment of
which had in any case to be paid to the discredited
the indemnity to the unfortunate people of the dev-
Junker and landlord class were simply passed on to astated regions and at the same time a stable gov-
the allies to settle the indemnity. Practically, how ernment in Germany, one neither aggressive nor
ever, the plan would be of great advantage to the anarchistic because of the happiness and content-
productive and enterprising classes since, in the first ment of its people.
place, they would be relieved of taxation to just the
If, finally, the question arises, how then should
extent that the Junkers had to pay; and—what is
the Allied peoples gain an equal prosperity and con-
more important—access to natural resources would
tentment, the answer is plain: Let the Allied peo-
no longer be open to them only at exorbitant prices, ples, also, break the back of the monopoly of their
or closed to them altogether. The power of the
natural resources by forcing the holders of those
land owning class to withhold natural resources from
natural resources to pay in full for the value of
use or to demand for their use industry-prohibit-
their privileges, payments not to be made to any
ing rentals would be broken. Being obliged to pay foreign governments, but to their own governments
over to the Allies the full rental values of the natural
to be used for the benefit of all the people. Then
resources, whether used or unused, the land owning
the preposterous phenomenon of unemployment will
class would be under the imperious necessity of rent-
disappear from among the Allied nations as well as in
ing or selling to the industrious classes, or of giving Germany; the laboring classes, freed from the com-
them employment. No longer would it pay to own
petition of the unemployed, will secure the full
land and other natural resources merely to draw
value of their labor; and the great captains of in-
tribute from others.
dustry, freed from monopolistic exactions, will be
The plan would redound enormously also to the able to establish greater industries than the world
advantage of the Allies. With free access to the
has yet seen, in which the savings of the workers
natural resources and raw materials of industry, un-
will be invested.
employment among the German people would
Then will the time come when a League of Free
largely disappear. With the German people all
Nations will be in truth a permanent reality and the
busily engaged in productive enterprise, the indem-
peace of the world will be definitely assured.
nity which the Allied nations desire to obtain as
quickly as possible would be forthcoming in a re-
John S. CODMAN.
The End of April
When on a blue, pale night in coming spring,
The little leaves are breathing to the stars,
The crescent moon with burning tips hangs in the tender sky;
The world enveloped by enchantment
Seems dipped in beauty.
I see the wonder and amazing mystery of it all,
Then suddenly I feel the terror,
And wish that I could die.
ALLEN TUCKER.
_ ....


388
THE DIAL
April 19
1
Peace in Its Economic Aspects
THERE
IERE ARE VARIOUS interpretations of Bolshevismn, political democracy as they intend is only as a means
each easy, all insecure and tentative, some of them to a new distribution of wealth and opportunity.
frankly conjectural. But it is safe to say that, in its Such political democracy as the West will consent
beginnings at least, the Bolshevist movement was a to is likewise to be submitted to the perpetuity of
protest against the political and economic aristocracy the economic order that the West holds good. But
of feudal institutions. In this sense it was pro the East is probably right in its conviction that such
foundly democratic in spirit, no matter how auto political democracy as it cares for—if it securely
cratic it may have become in its later methods. If, cares for any–will, under eastern conditions, stand
then, it is finally to align itself against the Entente or fall with the economic democracy on which the
Powers, it will be in the essential conviction that, East is wholeheartedly determined. The West ap-
so far as the East is concerned, the Western war pears to be in the way of demonstrating its entirely
for peace and for the safeguarding of democracy has secondary interest in political democracy—to the
become transformed into a war for the preservation extent even that it will deny it to other peoples,
of economic aristocracy.
unless as conditioned on that economic organization
Adequate understanding of the Bolshevist pro within which its own ideals find their expression
gram requires complete abstraction from all its and their determining influence.
immediate economic fatuities and from its current
Such quite obviously must be the Bolshevist inter-
excesses and cruelties. The facts become, then, so pretation of Western policies as they seem now to
far plain in Bolshevist thinking: from a new political be developing. World peace takes on importance
order there is no hope for eastern Europe. What- chiefly in its property aspect. And more significant
ever new thing may come, it will not be worse than still, such also appears to be the essential character
what has been and still is. Therefore the powers
of the Entente policies as they are implicitly
that stand for economic aristocracy intend nothing reported in the formulation of the peace terms to be
that can be good in its bearing on the peasant and
imposed on Germany—the Central Powers. How
the artisan of the East. For them there is ultimately
far in the prosecution of the war have the interests
but one thing to gain; in the failure to gain it they of the common people been regarded ? In the peace
lose all. Their war is against feudal institutions, settlement how far are they fostered? In what de-
primarily in their economic aspect, and only secon gree
is there basis for the Bolshevist interpretation
darily in their political aspect. For them political and for the Bolshevist growing attitude of antag.
domination depends solely on its economic leverage. onism?
With the economic situation unchanged, nothing
Germany is, no doubt, to make reparation and
essential will change. Thus Bolshevism inevitably
indemnity to the limit of what is possible. It is
challenges the West, if the West is committed to therefore held that the German people are to be
the maintenance of the present property institutions
saddled with all the debt they can carry—due
of the East.
allowance, however, made for the war claims
If, then, the victors in the war are more interested
already existing in favor of the investing classes of
in the protection of the vested rights of a landed
proprietorship, and in the privileges of wealth, than
Germany against the taxpaying public. Not incred-
ibly, indeed, these rights of German wealth may be
in a new democratic political order in the East so
postponed, in order of payment and of right, to the
conditioned on a new economic order as to democra Entente claims—the total always, however, to be
tize the participation in wealth and opportunity, the conformed to the debt-carrying power and the debt-
issue is drawn, the conflict inevitable. For the
purposes of this issue, the West will have declared
paying tolerance of the German people. Otherwise
that it wants only such political democracy as is
there might be socialistic agitations and menace to
possible within the setting of a feudal economic
the security of property rights. The entire discus-
aristocracy—that its ultimate ideals are economic
sion assumes that whatever the penalties that may
rather than political, and are economically aristo-
be imposed, these shall be exclusively at the charge
cratic rather than democratic. In thus allotting to
of the German taxpayer. The property rights of
property institutions the first rank, its error will be
the privileged classes in Germany are in no wise in
so far greater than that of the revolutionaries. They
question or in jeopardy. Peace shall mean that all
also do not take their democracy at all too seriously.
property, even Junker and Warlord property, shall
With them also economic ends are first-political
be sacred. About this fixed stake all other interests
democracy a subordinate or tributary interest. Such
are made to turn; against this bulwark all other
purposes beat and shatter. As America was prompt


1919
389
THE DIAL
to conscript life for war, but up to the end pre we still enact that the German debtors shall account
served in the main for wealth its option between not to our own children, but to the children of the
investment and complete nonparticipation, so now, Junkers, the industrial captains, the banking mag-
when war indemnities are to be provided, the future nates, the hereditary nobility, and the political aris-
generations of Germany shall be mortgaged, in the tocracy of Germany? Why not, in short, expropri-
full solicitude that German wealth go unchallenged ate the wealth owners in discharge of the penalties.
and unpunished. Nor shall there be any slightest for their crimes and in the protection of the inno-
reference to the guilt that has attended the wealth, cent, who else must bear the penalties? Why must
or to the innocence that will attach to the life. the future Entente generations pay in place of the
Thus, by assumption, the Entente peoples are to German, or any German in place of the finally re-
continue in the travail of their tremendous war sponsible and bountifully solvent criminals? In terms
indebtedness—France in particular staggeringly fac of present prices and of present income resources,
ing fiscal debacle and possible or probable future the wealth of Germany alone totals upwards of
revolutions in revolt against intolerable fiscal bur 160 billions of dollars. Eighty-five per cent of the
dens. But even for France, only such indemnitics German lands are in holdings of over 15 acres.
are contemplated from Germany as can be provided For plainly the Entente bonds have to be dis-
through bond issues for the future taxpayers of charged by some one. So much we provided for ine
Germany to bear and meet.
the financing of the war. It is, however, clear
From all of this the Bolshevist draws fatally easy enough that in terms of immediaté cash payment no
inferences. Not only is Entente thinking more con policy of expropriation would retire the bonds. But
siderate of Russian wealth than of Russian life, but there is no need. The obligations do not so run. It
logically sosince it is more considerate of German needs merely that the German properties, the titles
wealth than of its own life or of its own institutions of proprietorship, be sold out to German small in-
of political democracy. As earlier, when victory vestors or to the peasants and artisans, on long-time
was still in doubt, it financed its war by allotting to amortization payments. True, the working people.
domestic wealth mortgages against its future domes would finally discharge the debt-not, however, as
tic life, so in precise parallel now, with victory taxes, but as purchase money to be advanced in the:
achieved, it goes about to prescribe the war settle- acquisition of their economic and political independ--
ment. Not only as between German wealth and All the hardships would rest with the guilt..
German poverty is the poverty to bear the burden, The kept classes of Germany, shorn of their
but even as between German wealth and Entente potencies of harm with the loss of their economic
poverty it shall still be the poverty that is to pay. leverage, could then go to work or starve—fortu-
Not only shall your grandchildren and mine be nate even at this, in comparison with the victims
paying war legacies of taxes to domestic bond that they plundered and massacred where they did!
holders, but meanwhile the German Junker shall not starve. If the guilty are excused from payments.
be collecting his rent rolls, the while also that he is the innocent—their wives, their daughters, their
cutting coupons from the bonds issued to finance the descendants in general-must pay instead. A Ger--
war that his progenitors contrived, and mortgaged man aristocracy living off its rent rolls and its
others to themselves to pay for. Why is it—if in interest collections, while the rest of the world is
the sacredness of all property these German bonds busy paying off war debts, is nothing short of mon-
must be recognized—that our children's children strous.
shall not have the benefit of them to meet their tax It is, in fact, quite clear that a covenanted peace
obligations? Why are not the rent rolls left at the is of little worth if it leaves with the classes in
disposal of the children of the victims rather than Germany that contrived the war the will and the
of the children of the aggressors? Why perpetu power to contrive another, and leaves everywhere
ate the menace of this ruthless aristocracy even at among the masses of common people neither the
the cost of all this monstrous and hazardous injus will nor the ability to endure the terms of the cov-
tice? Assume that innocent future generations must enated peace. Both these errors the peace plan as it
make their payments to some one that in this peace is now formulated clearly commits. It matters little
of justice we shall not move to protect the victiin whether the war was won more in the interests of
from the criminal in Germany—that, so far as may
peace or in the interests of democracy, if with victory
be, and in the interests of peace, all war-wagers shall
once achieved the record sums up into little or noth-
be secure in their plunder, so long as our withers ing accomplished in the interests of peace, and a good
remain unwrung-why must it be also true that deal less than nothing in the interests of democracy.
with our own welfare at stake, our own children the In the long run and ultimately, peace is subject to
own poverty the burden bearer, two conditions that nowhere shall there be an
ence.
sufferers, our


390
April 19
THE DIAL
irresponsible ruling class to plan more wars abroad
and nowhere subject peoples goaded by economic
exploitation into revolution at home. Economic
democracy with its working correlative of political
democracy provides these basic conditions. The
peace that we are covenanting provides neither, no
matter how ingenious and adequate may be—and, as
I think, actually is—the specific detail of organiza-
tion.
There are, in truth, in human affairs other and
greater sanctities to be recognized than those of
wealth and property. In grave emergencies it be-
falls that even the sanctity of life must make way
for higher issues. Just this is what conscription
rightly means. Humanity may one day revolt
against wealth grown intolerable in its demands and
its privileges. For my own part, I accept the social
expediency of individualism and of property-hold-
ing, however, neither of them as sacred, but each
as wise within the limits of its social service. To
my view, then, it is surpassingly tragic if either
stands at the hazard of being done to death in the
house of its friends.
H. J. DAVENPORT.
--
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1
1
University Reconstruction and the Classics
I. 18 A STRANGE THING to write an apology for
gentleman is also disappearing. The materialistic
the Classics. One might as well write in defense champion of the ancient languages argues that a
of the springtime dancing gaily northward in a knowledge of them will help him in a medical or
mad riot of birds and flowers; as well argue in de legal career to grasp more easily the difficult term-
fense of sunsets, a Beethoven symphony, or the colors inologies of those professions, as also the ever-in-
of a New England autumn.
creasing vocabulary of modern books and periodicals.
To attack the Classics is not so simple a thing as A thorough knowledge of the grammar of modern
it would seem at first sight; it is an attack upon all languages is said by some to be obtainable only
literary art. The folly of those who maintain that through acquaintance with the classical languages.
too much time is spent in the learning of the ancient All these arguments have become as wearisome as
tongues, and that Greek and Latin literature can the chatter of magpies, and when we hear them we
be read as advantageously in English translations, is instinctively put our fingers in our ears and hasten
as obvious as that of the person who tries to convince
us that it is sufficient to read the score of an opera
away. Much time has been spent by classical prop-
agandists in reiterating these arguments, thinking,
without hearing it, or to see a photograph of the
Matterhorn without taking the trouble to go to
forsooth, that by quantity of reasoning rather than
Switzerland. Such an argument may be properly
by quality they could prove their contentions. But
the interest in the Classics has become less and less
styled an argumentum pigritiae, and is like the story as time has sped by, until only the faintest vestige
of the boy who said that at the school which he at-
of their former glory remains. The war with its
tended they were never taught to make the capital
strident tones has almost succeeded in drowning
letter Q ; first because it was a very difficult letter
their timid voice; though not entirely, for immortal-
to make, and then because it didn't occur very often
ity has been given them by the homage of countless
in English anyway. It is the flattest kind of truism
poets of all nations and all times. May it not be
to assert that in considering it as a work of art the
literary form of a book is as important as the
that our old methods of teaching and our thread-
bare arguments in favor of the Classics may perish
thought, but that is precisely what countless people
disregard when they maintain that Homer or the
in the present holocaust, and that, like the Phoenix,
Greek lyric or Plato can be read as profitably in
a new creature may arise, vigorous and strong, from
modern English as in the language with which these
the ashes of the old ? Vivat, floreat, crescat!
authors beautified their ideas.
It is instructive to notice the effect of the war on
To enumerate all or even a fraction of the reasons
the Classics in one of our large Eastern universities.
which have been brought forward for studying the
The course in Freshman Latin, which ordinarily has
Classics would be but a weariness of the flesh. The
a registration of over three hundred, this year has a
ancient fetish that the study of them constitutes a
total of fifteen. In the Sophomore Latin course one
good mental discipline is, by some dispensation of
student is enrolled instead of the usual one hundred.
Providence, dying away. (I should suggest Turk-
The percentage of loss in the Greek department is
about the same.
ish or Chinese as a better discipline for the mind.)
At first it might seem as if the
The predatory conception that a knowledge of the
materialists had conquered, and that the Classics had
Classics is the distinguishing mark of every true
perished; but on the other hand, it may be quite as
true that the war will prove to be beneficial to the


1919
THE DIAL
391
2
Classics. In intellectual matters as well as in po scend into the forum and prove that the Classics are
litical, war not only arouses hatreds and prejudices of value to the whole world. It is pathetic to think
which never existed before, but also breaks down of all the generations of men who have come with
many preexisting traditions and smooths away many youthful eyes gleaming, eager to learn of the treas-
an international and intellectual antipathy.
ures locked in ancient books; and then to think of
When I say that the war may be beneficial to the how they have turned away with dull eyes and
Classics I do not refer to those well-meaning prop wondering hearts, finding in their mouths nothing
agandists who read papers at conventions on Latin but dust instead of the promised honey.
versus German.” For the gain in numbers which There must be no half way measures in the class-
would accrue to Latin from any such purely nega ical teaching of the future; there must be no luke-
tive cause would be valueless to the Classics and warm convictions about the value of the Classics;
what is vastly more important—would be valueless for the youth of America does not partake of the
to the student. What I do mean is that certain time nature of the ancient Laodiceans, and will believe a
worn traditions and prejudices may be broken down. thing only when he is shown vigorously and beyond
These exist both in the mind of the man on the all cavil that it is so. The greater the prejudices to
street and in that of the teacher. The average busi be broken down, the more insuperable the difficulties
ness man, for example, thinks that the Classics are to be overcome, the more eagerly will the classicist
uninteresting, and that they have no relation to mod- apply ủimself to his task, if he really believes in the
ern affairs. The truth of the matter is that they are importance of it.
uninteresting to him because he has never been shown It is now high time that we turn our attention to
what their relation is to modern affairs. The the statement of a definite program. In so doing we
teacher of the Classics, who is usually a specialist in must, of course, differentiate between the teaching of
a narrowly circumscribed field, presents the works the Classics in secondary schools and that in univer-
of a particular author in a way which is broad sities. In the secondary schools the main object must
enough for him—for does he not see at each step always be the mastery of the formal and syntactical
a score of alluring problems which await solution ? elements of the language, without which no advanced
but pitifully narrow from the point of view of the work in the literature would ever be possible; but
student who is to share in the burdens of commercial inasmuch as this discussion has to do with univer-
and political life. It sometimes happens that the sity problems it is permissible to pass over those
qualities of a great scholar and a great teacher are which have to do with elementary instruction. For
to be found in one man; but this is rare. The university teaching two precepts may be stated which
scholar and the teacher differ in kind as the dynamo should be observed in teaching the Classics—the one
differs from the motor.
being self-evident, as it applies to the teaching of
Now that the war is over, educational reconstruc any literature, and the other being implied by what
tion is as important, though not so much discussed, has already been said in this discussion. The first
as physical and economic reconstruction. Students of these precepts is: So teach that you will reveal
returning to their books from the battlefield and the to the student the maximum amount of beauty-
training-camp are looking upon things with a more
beauty of thought, and expression, and structure.
exacting materialism; they have obtained a wider And the second is equally important: So teach that
and fuller perspective of the world and of their needs you will reveal the significance of a given work in
in it; they have learned to conceive the world as a the history of thought, that there may be no discon-
great army, each part helping and explaining the nected fragments of learning seething about in the
other, in which isolated facts and theories, those hav student's mind. For in education, as in other fields
ing no connection with anything else, have no place.. of endeavor, union fait la force, and isolated bits
At the present moment, then, the Classics are in un of information are as worthless for the molding and
stable equilibrium. The classicist stands at the part- guiding of a man as the asteroids would be for his
ing of the ways, one of which leads through the dry habitation.
deserts of pedantry—trodden, alas, much too often It is this second precept which I wish to make the
in the past !—the other leading amid the ways of
basis of the constructive part of this discussion, a
men who lived and loved and died without refer discussion largely encyclopedic in nature, but based
ence to the ablative absolute.
on empirical fact-my own experience.
Autocracy in education must be banished as well A certain professor of music in a New England
as political autocracy; and the classicist, instead of college once said that, although he enjoyed reading
superciliously assuming that his subject will and
the Classics and considered the time he had devoted
must be studied by gentlefolk everywhere, must de-
to them as well spent, he had never been able to dis-


392
THE DIAL
April 19
broad view of many peoples and many lands, the trayal of the best man that the Greeks ever knew
cover any rational argument in favor of studying nary parsing of verb and noun, or the fixing of the
them, any convincing proof which he could use in de attention upon a single isolated work without refer-
fense of them against the attacks of the ever-pres ence to any others of the same type.
ent Philistine. An analogy finally occurred to him The obvious objection to such a program is that
from his own profession. It was this: just as Bach lack of time would forbid it. Of course it would be
is the basis of modern music, and in just the same impossible for each member of a class to read all
way that a knowledge of Bach is necessary for the of these books, but it is perfectly possible for each one
musician if he wishes to understand modern music to read a different book and report on its contents.
thoroughly, so are the Classics the basis of all Euro In this way a synoptic conception of the whole mat-
pean literature.
ter is gained. Furthermore an interest in reading
The insistence on considering a work of art in its is aroused in this way such as would scarcely come
historical setting is tantamount to saying that that about in any other, for the integration of the sep-
work of art should be considered simply as one stage arate parts, the focusing of the attention upon a
in the development of a type, and obviously one must single fact from varying angles, holds the interest of
have some conception of the type as a whole in order the student as no disconnected reading ever could.
to appreciate the importance and meaning of each In like manner the lyric may be studied compara-
particular stage in that development. Let us take tively. It is interesting, for example, to trace the
as an example an actual university course, containing development of one type, namely the elegy, from its
works of various authors, each representative of a
Greek origin where it was distinguished by its coup-
different literary type: the Odyssey, the Greek lyric, lets of alternately long and short verses, and was
Plato's Apology, and Lucian's True History. First used for themes of love, war, and moral admonition,
let us consider the epic. Passing over all controver into its later Greek use, where it expressed sorrow
sial definitions, all will agree, I think, that this is one
at the death of the beloved one, then into its Latin
of the earliest forms of literary expression, at least environment, where it was still distinguished by the
one of the earliest forms that was written down and
same form but was used merely for themes of love.
thus acquired a certain degree of permanence. It is
In English the elegy is not confined to any rigid
possible to find examples of the primitive epic in the
form of versification but in content follows the late
early stages of most of the European languages. Greek elegy as its model.
Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied, the Cid and the
Chanson de Roland are full of tales of personal Thyrsis, Swinburne's Ave atque Vale, Spensers
poems as Milton's Lyčidas, Matthew Arnold's
prowess which are only more modern versions of Astrophel, and Shelley's Adonais.
the combats of Diomedes and Achilles. The Finnish
Plato's Apology requires consideration from two
epic, the Kalevala, is more primitive than any of
these, containing the myth of creation as well as the study Socrates" significance in the history of phil-
different points of view. First of all one should
exploits of a great hero. Later in the development Osophy, his changing of the center of gravity from
of a nation's literature come epics which are less purely cosmological questions external to man to
vigorous in spirit and more formal in structure and
ethical and social questions concerning man as an
diction. Of these scores could be named: the
Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, Lucan's Phare of the pre-Socratic philosophers and their principal
individual and in groups. To do this a knowledge
salia, the Italian epic of chivalry, such as those of
doctrines is essential. Secondly, one may study the
Tasso and Ariosto, and we might include here Apology as a type of biographical literature of a
Spenser's Faery Queen, the historical epic such as
Voltaire's Henriade and Camoens' Lusiads, and the
very distinct kind. In the Apology we have an ac-
religious epic represented by Klopstock's Messiah.
count of a real human being, who lived unselfishly
,
Midway between the primitive epic, hewn out of liv-
who spent his days and nights teaching his followers
to lead a rational life and therefore, according to
ing rock, and the more modern, at times decadent,
epic, there is a type which combines the vigor of the
his doctrines, an upright life. From the people as
primitives with the felicity of expression of the mod-
a whole he received nothing but jeers and curses
erns. Such are the Aeneid, the De Rerum Natura, humor
and a sense of justice, he chose to die rather
and finally, due to a combination of a sense of
Paradise Lost, and the Divine Comedy. Such a
than give up his teaching. Here we have the por-
This we see in such
variety of ideas and yet the astonishing similarity of
and it differs from their portrayal of that other
great unselfish figure in Greek literature, Prome-
of widely separated countries and ages deserves moucherheit
, in that the latter was a hero of the far-des-
more to be called a liberal education than the ordi-
tant past and consequently was credited with cer-


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393
1919
THE DIAL
tain divine or at least superhuman characteristics, just as with one's friends or with one's native coun-
whereas Socrates was portrayed by his own disciple, try, a knowledge of its history, of its struggles
with a certain amount of idealism, no doubt, yet toward perfection, of its, successes and failures,
free from all the trappings of divinity. How illum makes it all the richer and more full of meaning.
inating it is to compare this life with the life of The appreciation of art is, of course, subjective, as
Jesus as given in Luke's gospel! In these two ex one will readily admit if one consider the difference
amples we have summed up one of the fundamental in effect of some supremely beautiful thing on a
differences between the Greek and the Christian Francis Thompson and on a Fiji Islander. If this is
conceptions of life. The Apology represents a man so it is obvious that the wider and deeper the experi-
who, by the exercise of his intellect, was raised far ence of a man—and what is reading but a short-cut
above his fellow men. The gospel shows us a man to experience?—the greater will be his appreciation
who, by some mystical connection with God, became of a given work of art. The historical or compara-
something more than man. The one is a glorifica tive method, then, not only is of value in itself but
tion of the intellect; the other a glorification of the it reacts upon and increases the esthetic enjoyment,
spirit.
which, after all, is the main thing in art.
Lucian's True History is representative of a type Although much space has been devoted in this dis-
which has been popular in all ages—the romantic cussion to a theoretical treatment of the reasons for
adventure. The literary progenitor of the type is approaching the study of the Classics from a his-
Homer, particularly in that part of the Odyssey in torical or comparative point of view, we must not
which Odysseus is represented as descending to the let matters rest on a theoretical basis alone. Theories
underworld. This type is of a two-fold nature: the in teaching just as in any other art must stand or
one aims to delight through the sheer incredibility fall by their effectiveness in actual practice. Teach-
of the tale, the other uses the narrative merely as ers far too often have recourse to the mock logic of
an instrument of satire. To the first division be baffled parents: if you do not see now why you
longs that part of the Odyssey already mentioned, should do this, my child, do it because I ask you
as well as many of the Greek romances of the Alex to, and when you have grown to be a man you will
andrian and Byzantine periods. Here also belong see that I am right. This is shifting the respon-
a large number of medieval French romances and sibility to the future instead of proving to the student
the modern scientific extravaganzas of Jules Verne that the Classics are worth while studying now.
and H. G. Wells. To the second and much more The teacher must respect the mind of the student
important division, the satirical, belong a host of if he will have the student respect the Classics. It
works which have been of the utmost importance in is not necessary to descend to the intellectual
the history of literature. Here one must place level of the university student, and if the teacher
Lucian's True History and the Golden Ass of does this the student will have no incentive to as-
Apuleius; here also Rabelais' Gargantua and Pan-
cend to the level of the teacher. The teacher must
tagruel. Don Quixote, which strove by satire to take the student into his confidence and fulfill in
put an end to the romances of chivalry, finds a place the present all the promises whose fulfillment has cus-
in this group, as also Gulliver's Travels. Voltaire's tomarily been reserved for the future. Teaching of
Candide, which held up to ridicule the optimism of the Classics, as here advocated, has aroused a more
Leibnitz, and Samuel Butler's Erewhon 'and vigorous interest not only in the Classics but in all
Erewhon Revisited, with their ridicule of Mrs. literature. The conclusions here stated are the re-
Grundy and the Church of England, must both be sult of my own teaching, proved in the class-room,
included in this type. By the very nature of com the only laboratory which the teacher of literature
edy, which consists partly in hyperbole, and by the
has at his command.
very nature of satire, which strives to destroy a thing University reconstruction must be directed toward
by making it ridiculous, the romantic adventure has the reconstructing and reconciling of the nations,
been frequently employed as an instrument of reform. and this can most thoroughly and most speedily be
To the reader whose interests are primarily brought about by realizing the essential oneness of
esthetic and who believes that the value of literature
the human race.
The teaching of the Classics in
consists in its intrinsic beauty, irrespective of the
the method here described is one approach to this
time and place in which it was created, this historical end, for it shows the similarity of the aims and
treatment may seem entirely beside the point. But strivings of all peoples. Is not this the great func-
the esthete's point of view does not seem to coincide tion of teaching—that it should give a broader and
with the actual facts of experience. The knowledge deeper, and consequently more liberal view of the
of the history of a work of art illumines it and makes world in which we live?
it more beautiful and more precious to the individual,
Royal Case NEMIAH.


394
April 19
THE DIAL
A Second Imaginary Conversation
GOSSE AND MOORE
.
III
have come, crinolines, blue chamber ware, pink
M
OORE. With Trollope I can shake hands more
decanters, rep curtains, blue fingerbowls. These
cordially than with Scott, for it was not he who
things Trollope represents, and is endeared to us
turned literature into a trade; and in view of your
thereby.
pronouncement that every man writes as well as he
Gosse. If his fame rests only upon these
can, I will ask you if it would not be hard to
things.
discern a line more adapted to the abilities Trollope
Moore. His fame rests on a much more solid
brought into the world than the line these same
foundation. Trollope, in spite of his name, and his
abilities discovered for themselves.
He rose at
temperament which was in strict accordance with
six, and followed the road that leads to the par-
his name, was a great revolutionary.
sonage until it was time to go to the post office.
Gosse. Your paradox puts me in mind of a line
The Bishop, the parson, and the Squire appear in
of Hugo's: Des revolutions dans les écailles
suitable parts; the young girl and the lover are
d'huîtres.”
supplied with admirable consciences and chaperons;
Moore. I would not have you speak disrespect-
and between whiles there are pages, sometimes chap-
fully of Trollope, to whom we owe our freedom.
ters, devoted to the subjects most likely to interest We always count upon a reaction, and Trollope
his readers—sport, farming, the housing of the poor,
carried commonplace further than anyone dreamed
and the condition of the junior clergy written about
it could be carried. And it was when Nature
in a way that all may read without any disturbance seemed to have been expelled definitely from art,
of their preconceived opinions. In Barchester that Nature began to return to art.
You have
Towers his admiration for nice conduct exceeds wandered over many seashores with your father the
Thackeray's, whose style he is supposed to have con-
naturalist, and you can remember the drift and
tinued. The Widow Bold is perchance kissed at litter of seaweed with here and there a dying star-
a party by a man she is not in love with an un fish and many other derelicts of the sea that you
fortunate accident no doubt, but one that hardly
could enumerate. You can therefore appreciate the
warrants the solo and tears which he deems it comparison : Nature had retired like the sea; only
necessary to measure out to her, and the soul search the faintest blue line remained on the horizon; in-
ings that rack her: did she by look or word encour-
I think, the year was '48—in '48 three men met one
age the horrid creature to suspect that I cared night in a studio in a street off Oxford Street,
for him? No, I certainly did not." In the fifties
Berners Street, or Newman Street-John Everett
tears were more common than they are today. But
Millais, Holman Hunt, and Rossetti, to preach and
it may be doubted whether even in the fifties the to instigate the necessity of a return to Nature, and
young ladies looked upon parties in which kisses
the following year the tide was then breaking over
never exchanged as altogether successful. the evil-smelling pools.
Tears are sometimes in fashion and sometimes out
Gósse. There's generally something in what you
of fashion, but kisses, so the proverb tells us, are
say, and it may well be that the return to Nature
always in fashion, like the gorse flower.
which began in '48 was brought about by the stifling
Gosse. He drones like an old lady to her niece
atmosphere of Victorian conventions. Millais illus-
after tea.
trated some of Trollope's books.
Moore. It is not difficult, it is impossible, to
write for the parsonage in good prose.
Moore. The drawings he contributed to Orley
A good
Farm are the very best spirit of sense, and in his
writer adventures himself into windy Pontic seas,
best Pre-Raphaelite manner, and persuade us almost
and the dangerous straits of Abydos, where the
that we have read the book.
oyster is reared.
Gosse. I did not know you as a Vergilian.
Gosse. You overestimate their power. Beautiful
MOORE. Héloïse led me to Vergil—I am writing the listless amble of that prose.
as they are they cannot persuade me to bear with
Héloïse and Abelard—but we must abide with
Trollope
MOORE. An amble listless as that of Stevenson's
for the moment. Out of date
Suranne
Modestine, that no sapling cut from the hedge could
The wake of the vessel has not
yet disappeared into the gray expanse of water,
urge into a trot—an exasperating walk that tends
and we catch sight still of those coasts whence we
to fall into a crawl, and that you fear will end in
a nap by the roadside.
were


1919
395
THE DIAL
.
my mind.
Gosse. It would be interesting to know if the have done me a service that I shall always remember.
book Orley Farm dropped on Millais' knees, and if, Gosse. One moment. You have forgotten Pater.
looking through the studio he said to himself, “ My Moore. Whose Marius, the Epicurean is the
drawings are the condemnation of the text.” only English narrative that men of letters will turn
MOORE. He was too eagerly concerned with his to in the years that lie ahead of us.
own work to give a thought to the merits or de Gosse. He applied himself to the art of writ-
merits of Orley Farm, and acquiesced in the belief ing.
that novels were like that, and probably regretted MOORE. He wrote the only prose that I never
that he could not illustrate without reading. Paint weary of; but it was not of the beauty of his prose
ers are excellent judges of literature.
that I was about to speak, but of something which
Gosse. He must have thought it strange.
is perhaps as important. He wrote more about
MOORE. Thought what strange? Continue to humanity.than character. You remember the chap-
put questions to me for every one helps to clear ter entitled White Nights. He allowed Marius to
pass before us almost without distinguishing trait as
Gosse. But Wordsworth broke the conventions a typical young man of all time; and as a foil to the
before the painter.
almost abstract Marius, he set Flavian, whom the
MOORE. It was the turn of the painters to do casual reader prefers, for character rather than
something for art, and by Jove, they did it. Moral humanity—this was Pater's intention in his portrait
ity was always less suspicious of painting than of of Marius' friend. You have set me thinking again,
literature. The naked woman banished from the Gosse. English literature is not without a late-
one art was welcome in the other, and you must not letter. If we look across the Atlantic we find one,
forget that the novelist in the fifties wrote almost and a marvelous one, Poe.
at the dictation of the circulating library. His Gosse. It is indeed a surprise to me to hear that
works were published at 3/6 and distributed and you admire a writer so essentially unhealthy as Poe,
collected by a service of carts. If the librarian did one so concerned with the very hypertrophy of emo-
not think that his book made agreeable drawing tion. The very names of his characters seem to
room entertainment it never was heard of again. lead you out of the world of humanity—one is at
The librarian was an autocrat, and no one dared to once in a region of ghosts: Ligeia, Morella, Bere-
be original, even if he could.
nice, Eleonora.
Gosse. Do you think that this censorship has MOORE. I have sufficient faith in antiquity to
prevented the addition of a prose epic to our litera believe it would have understood that all the poetry
ture?
of life is in the fact that it is always passing from
MOORE. A prose epic implies the existence of a I will go further and ask you if it is possible
man of genius, and genius, I suppose, cannot be for poet or peasant to love a woman in life's daily
censored. It will find a way out, so it is said, usage as he does in remembrance, and if this be so
though all the doors and windows are barred-up why should they blame Poe for setting forth so
the chimney, through the keyhole. And if that be representative of human life many beautiful symbols
true, a first-rate genius did not exist in the fifties. bearing women's names ? Not content with the
Gosse. You will perhaps agree with me that surface of life like Trollope, Poe sought a finer
the Russians have on the whole produced the distillation.
best story-tellers—Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gosse. Do you not think we should be drawn
Gorki, are all story-tellers, Tchekhoff too.
to art to praise life?
MOORE. Yes, indeed. The instinct of story MOORE. I would avoid dogmatism, and the mere
telling is in the Russians more than in any other revival of the theologian's formula seems too simple
race—more than in the French, who have only had an expedient.
Balzac on the big canvas, and Maupassant on the
Gosse. What would you put in place of it?
ivory tablet. Story-tellers differ so widely among
Moore. The artist is without dogma, or if you
themselves that it is impossible to define the gift, but like to put it differently, he is his own dogma; and
it is always recognizable. We perceive it in Tcheh to tell the story that life brought to him.
koff and miss it in Trollope. I will try to assimilate GOSSE. Leaving out all philosophy ?
and compose our conversations into the form of an MOORE. A philosophy is implicit in every well
essay, stopping at Trollope, for it would be useless
and perhaps unkind of me to continue my search Gosse. What philosophy would you extract.froni
for a story-teller among my contemporaries, but of the Iliad ?
the dead we may speak as plainly as we please. You Moore. That beauty is worth our pursuit.
have no idea how you have helped me, Gosse. You
Gosse. Stevenson!
us.
told story.


396
April 19
THE DIAL
MOORE. Stevenson is a butterfly content to enjoy lation. “Ma fiancée et ma compagne d'étude et
the warmth of the sun and follow the scent of the enfin l'éspouse de mon coeur seems commonplace
flowers, and his enjoyment of these is so delightful and trite when compared with “my friend and my
that we join in the chase, children once again, led by betrothed, who became the partner of my studies
a child; and after a long day in the open air we and finally the wife of my bosom,” and we are con-
return to relive our adventures in drowsy dreams. scious of a drop when we read, “Si jamais la pâle
Gosse. As you yourself pointed out in A Story- Ashtophet de l'idolâtre Egypte aux ailes téné-
teller's Holiday Stevenson dropped into superficial breuses,” and remember the beautiful English
thinking when he said that Catholics remained al-
“The wan and misty winged Ashtophet of idola-
ways Catholics and Protestants always Protestants. trous Egypt.” And so on, through the beautiful
He should have looked upon Catholicism and Prot-
pages of Ligeia, we can detect a delicate rise and
estantism as eternal attitudes of the human mind.
fall, the original and the translation having the
MOORE. Indeed I think he should.
upper hand in turns.
Gosse. In the pages that do not meet with your GOSSE. As is usual, a good deal of what you
approval
MOORE. In the pages that I ventured to con-
say is true, and I am with you so far that it cannot
sider, to measure, and to weigh
be seriously maintained that a translation that fol-
lows the original, comma by comma, full stop by full
GOSSE. There is a good deal that you must have
recognized as true: the pleasure, for instance, that
stop, can be said to possess great beauties of style
Stevenson felt on finding himself once again in a
that are not discoverable in the original. All the
Protestant atmosphere could not have been told at
same, I think something happened in the transla-
all by Poe, who was not so great a master of words
tion; but you will allow that a less favorable ex-
as Stevenson.
ample of Poe's style might have been selected? In
the story of William Wilson Poe tells how the
Moore. A very inadmissible statement, Gosse, struggle between good and evil continues in the same
for how else but by the beauty of the words can individual till the evil overpowers the good.
you explain Poe's poetry—and that he wrote better
poetry than Stevenson will be conceded by all men
Moore. And he tells his story without the help
of letters, and if you fail to nod your head approv-
of magic potions.
ingly I'll write to Sir Sidney Colvin who, though
Gosse. You have Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
bewitched by his edition of Stevenson's correspond-
in your mind.
ence as he undoubtedly is, will not deny
MOORE. Stevenson's story is no more than a
Gosse. So you look upon Poe as a master of
popular version of Poe's, and I have always
words, and his English as equal to Baudelaire's
thought Poe is himself implicit in the story
French.
William Wilson. Poe was a poet and a man of
of
MOORE. You must have forgotten the beautiful
science, and although the poet was the stronger
opening of Baudelaire's introduction; let me recall
the two, the man of science makes himself felt in the
it to your memory. Is there a devil Providence that
prose.
Gossé. Baudelaire's service was to attenuate the
bends over the cradles to choose its victims, and with
malice prepense
diagrams.
throws the purest spirits into hostile Moore. There are diagrams in Poe's prose
regions like martyrs into the arenas; are there then
souls dedicated to the altar who walk to death and
sometimes, and festoons and astragals in Steven-
son's always.
glory through their ruined lives? Baudelaire asks
this question, for in view of Poe's life and his own
Gosse. As a writer you place Hawthorne higher
than Poe.
he is minded to believe in this devil Providence. To
know the lives of these two men is to share their
Moore. A young man cannot overlook Poe, but
mutual conviction that they were victims of such a
he can Hawthorne-Hawthorne's genius not being
evident as
Poe's—but if our young man be
Providence, Poe even more than Baudelaire, for to
this very day the ill luck that presided at his birth
worthy of our consideration he will return to Haw-
has not ceased—it is implicit in your question: Is
thorne in later life, and without losing any of his
Poe's English equal to Baudelaire's French?
admiration for Poe.
The
gift of the good fairy—the beautifullest transla-
other, our estheticism should be wide enough to
tion, she said, that a man ever had shall be thine-
include Michael Angelo and Phidias. When I
was overheard by the bad fairy who returned down
enter The House of the Seven Gables I walk about
the chimney and said, I cannot take away the gift
admiring the absence of accent.
that the good fairy has given thee, but it shall be
Gosse. Is it not one of your little perversities to
said commonly that thou canst only be read in trans-
consider Hepzibah Pyncheon as Greek sculpture
rather than Gothic?
of
so
One does not exclude the


1
1919
THE DIAL
397
Moore. As for Gothic and Greek, a truce to
the discussion regarding their characteristics, for have
I not seen little medieval virgins from Rhenish towns
as ungainly as Greek maidens, and though there
is nothing in Greek art as ungainly as Hepzibah,
there is nothing that I can remember at this moment
as modest in Gothic. But it matters nothing to me
whether
you
call her Greek or Gothic if you admire
her; and as the two styles mingle in her I would
that our twain admiration of her should 1 irn to one
this summer afternoon.
GOSSE. Your talk of her the last time you were
here caused Sylvia to take the book from the s elves.
It is on the table by you.
MOORE. I should like to read to you the de-
scription of the old maid and her agony of mind ...
Gosse. The morning that she descends the old
timbered stairs to open the shop for the first time.
It is many years since I read it and it will come
upon me quite fresh.
The old maid was alone in the old house. Alone, ex-
cept for a certain respectable and orderly young man, an
artist in the daguerreotype line, who, for about three
months back, had been a lodger in a remote gable,-quite
a house by itself, indeed,—with locks, bolts, and oaken
bars on all the intervening, doors. Inaudible, conse-
quently, were poor Miss Hepzibah's gusty sighs. In-
audible, the creaking joints of her stiffened knees, as she
knelt down by the bedside. And inaudible too, by mortal
ear, but heard with all-comprehending love and pity in
the farthest heaven, that almost agony of prayer-now
whispered, now a groan, now
a struggling silence-
wherewith she besought the divine assistance through the
day! Evidently this is to be a day of more than ordinary
trial to Miss Hepzibah, who for above a. quarter
of a century gone by, has dwelt in strict seclusion,
taking no part in the business of life, and just as little
in its intercourse and pleasures. Not with such fervor
prays the torpid recluse, looking forward to the cold,
sunless, stagnant calm of a day that is to be like innum-
erable yesterdays!
The maiden lady's devotions are concluded. Will she
now issue forth over the threshold of our story?
Not
yet, by many moments. First, every drawer in the tall,
old-fashioned bureau is to be opened, with difficulty and
with a suggestion of spasmodic jerks; then, all must
close again, with the same fidgety reluctance. There is
a rustling of stiff silks; a tread of backward and for-
ward footsteps, to and fro across the chamber. We sus-
pect Miss Hepzibah, moreover, of taking a step upward
into a chair, in order to give heedful regard to her ap-
pearance on all sides, and at full length, in the oval,
dingy-framed toilet glass, that hangs above her table.
Truly! well, indeed! Who would have thought it!
Is
all this precious time to be lavished on the matutinal
repair and beautifying of an elderly person, who never .
goes abroad, whom nobody ever visits, and from whom,
when she shall have done her utmost, it were the best
charity to turn one's eyes another way?
Now she is almost ready. Let us pardon her one other
pause; for it is given to the sole sentiment, or, we might
better say,-heightened and rendered intense, as it has
been, by sorrow and seclusion-to the strong passion of
her life
. We heard the turning of a key in a small lock;
she has opened a secret drawer of an escritoire, and is
probably looking at a certain miniature, one in Mal-
bone's most perfect style, and representing a face worthy
of no less delicate a pencil. It was once our good for-
tune to see this picture. It is a likeness of a young man,
in a silken dressing-gown of an old fashion, the soft
richness of which is well adapted to the countenance of
revery, with its full, tender lips, and beautiful eyes, that
seem to indicate not so much capacity of thought, as
gentle and voluptuous emotion. Of the possessor of such
features we shall have a right to ask nothing, except that
he would take the rude world easily, and make himself
happy in it. Can it have been an early lover of Miss
Hepzibah? No; she never had a lover-poor thing, how
could she?-nor ever knew, by her own experience, what
love technically means. And yet, her undying faith and
trust, her fresh remembrance and continual devotedness
towards the original of that miniature, have been the
only substance for her heart to feed upon.
She seems to have put aside the miniature, and is
standing again before the toilet-glass. There are tears
to be wiped off. A few more footsteps to and fro; and
here, at last-with another pitiful sigh, like a gust of
chill, damp wind out of a long closed vault, the door
of which has been accidentally set ajar-here comes Miss
Hepzibah Pyncheon! Forth she steps into the dusky, time-
darkened passage; a tall figure, clad in black silk, with
a long and shrunken waist, feeling her way towards the
stairs like a near-sighted person, as in truth she is.
MOORE. How restrained and how full of seri-
ousness and dignity, a portrait that Balzac would
read twice over, recognizing in it a vision as in-
tense as his own and better balanced, and Turgenev
would have recognized in Hawthorne's portrait
genius akin to his own.
Gosse.' It is a pleasur
sure to listen to prose like
that.
MOORE. . And it is a pleasure to me to hear you
express approval as I read to you on a balcony on a
summer afternoon. You do think with me that no
writer of English prose narrative has written like
that before?
Gosse. I would agree with you with more alac-
rity if I were sure that my acquiescence would not
provoke you to some unpleasant gibes. There is
still George Eliot to be considered. And I would
willingly dispute the truth of some of the evil
things that have been said about her if I were not
altogether and utterly overcome by the graceful
proportions and the temperate dignity of Haw-
thorne's portraiture. And we are conscious of his
beautiful mind as we are of the sun behind yon
cloud, illuminating it, filling it with poetry, of a
beautiful summer afternoon. Hawthorne was the
first to understand the Pre-Raphaelites, and none
has explained their art better than he. He wrote
out of a well cultivated intelligence, and he recalls
Pater inasmuch as his desire, like Pater's, was to
make each separate sentence a work of art in itself.
Nor are his gifts of vision and comprehension of
human life exhausted in his portrait of Hepzibah;
it breaks my heart that I cannot quote Clifford's
portrait, for as it seems to me it stands on as high
a level, in some ways on a higher level than any-
thing accomplished by Balzac or Turgenev, and to


398
April 19
THE DIAL
compare it with the work of any English novelist to visit Italy and part of France and Germany too.
would be as absurd as to draw a comparison be At a later period he had even spent some months in a
tween Rembrandt and Frank Hall, but it would community of Fourierists, and still more recently he
take half an hour to read it aloud, and I will accept had been a public lecturer or mesmerist, for which
your promise that you read these pages when I leave science he had very remarkable endowments; and
you, in lieu of your attention. I turn down the a few pages later we learn—this time without sur-
leaf at the place. I must exact a promise from you prise—that he is a frequent contributor to the maga-
that you read Phoebe too. A portrait of a young
zines, and that he has an article in his pocket into
girl in her teens can never be carried further than a which he has put an incident of the Pyncheon
sketch, she being herself no more than a sketch. family. He would like to read it to her, and hence-
But was there ever a more beautiful sketch, one forth the truth, if it must be spoken, is that the
more instinctive with awakening life? The book story evaporates in the literary prejudices and con-
drops on our knees and we ask ourselves what her ventions for which Scott and his ilk are responsible.
womanhood will bring forth in fateful happiness It is all very sad, and how this came about I am
or blunder. It seems to have been part of Haw afraid will never be thoroughly explained. To
thorne's problem to stir the reader to musings of whom are we to assign Judge Pyncheon, who is
this sort, and very admirably he does, with Phoebe's stricken suddenly in death while sitting in an arm-
voice rising and falling to the pathetic tinkle of a chair facing the portrait of the original Pyncheon,
harpsichord, pathetic always to our ears from its the witch burner? Nor is this all behind the por-
very inadequacy of sound—and doubly pathetic are trait is the document he has long been in search of,
the tones of Hepzibah's harpsichord, in this old tim for the discovery of it would put him into possession
bered house.
of the larger part of the state of Ohio. To whom
He, Clifford, would sit quietly, with a gentle pleasure
are we to assign this plot? The claimants are so
gleaming over his face, brighter now, and now a little
numerous that I think we had better assign it to
dimmer, as the song happened to Aoat near him, or was
more remotely heard. It pleased him best, however,
the English literary tradition of what a novel should
when she sat on a low footstool, at his knee.
be, and we should rather wonder that Hawthorne
Gosse. Then we have come upon the narrative
succeeded in writing beautiful openings rather than
we are in search of ...
that he failed to write perfect works.
Moore. The harmony is not less expressive
Gosse. 'I am glad that you think that the age
than the souls that fulfill it, and not less when
a man lives in influences his art as much as his indi-
vidual talent.
we meet them in the torn uncouth garden, en MOORE.
croached upon by the back yards of some near
I remember that you say somewhere
streets, and the speckled fowls, and the patriarchal
that had Tennyson been born in 1550 he would
cock that scuttles away from approaching footsteps,
have possessed the same personality, but his poetry,
creeping through broken box hedges, than they were
had he written verse, would have had scarcely a
in the falling house; and in keeping too are the
remote resemblance to what we have now received
words that Phoebe speaks to the daguerreotypist in the habit of describing a man's originality as
from his hand; and you go on to say that we are
in the garden, revealing her pretty soul and to its
very depths. The daguerreotypist, Holgrave, is the
merely an aggregation of elements which he re-
lodger; he was there from the beginning before the
ceived by inheritance. If this be so it follows that
arrival of Phoebe and Clifford, and he too might
the congenital commonplace of the English novelist
is also an aggregation of elements that he receives
GOSSE.
by inheritance. We need not seek further for the
So we have come to the might have
beens.
extraordinary lack of art in English prose narra-
Moore. You seem relieved by the prospect that
tive. Our heredity is bad.
our search may end in failure, thinking perhapssion, unless we accept the alternatives that the perce
Gosse. There is no escape from that conclu-
that it would not be in keeping to come upon per-
fect art in a world that has outlived beauty. Hol-
fect molding of a story is alien to the genius of the
grave is of the unfortunate class in story-books—the
class that the author cannot keep himself from in-
Moore. A somewhat cruel conclusion, one that
tellectualizing; Holgrave has been heavily intellec-
I shrink from accepting, but it would be vain to
tualized, and when he has finished his disputations
pretend that it is not supported by facts—and one
with Phoebe the reader is informed that, he had
of the most significant is Hawthorne, who failed
visited Europe and found means before his return
to carry a story through. The Blythedale Ro-
mance opened on a prospect of story that I read
have been ...
race.


1919
399
THE DIAL
tremulous with fear lest Hawthorne's strength said, he may be saved, and so vivid was his telling
should fail him as it had done in the conclusion of of the disquiet and sense of spiritual loneliness that
his House of the Seven Gables. The story rose comes over us on our return to the multitudes that
higher, beautiful it seemed to me as a bird on wing; it began to seem as if he had hit upon a way out of
and I said, on the two hundredth page, we are in the difficulty. My hopes were at pitch and I
Eldorado safe, for he will not commit so potent a waited, almost breathless, for the loosening of the
mistake as to allow him who joins the community clutch. Alas! he walked to the window, and on
to return to New York or Boston till the end of looking across a courtyard saw against the lighted
the story. And asking myself if his art were suffi panes forms that he could not doubt were Zenobia's
cient to continue the story in the community, I -I have forgotten the other woman's name. They,
looked to see how many more pages there were to too, had come up to town. After that the book
read. About two hundred, I said. It was in the drifted out somehow as inconsequently as The
middle of The House of the Seven Gables that he House of the Seven Gables.
broke down. The strain became greater at every Gosse. Have you read The Scarlet Letter?
page, and after the splendid scene between the two
MOORE. No; and it isn't probable that I ever
men he could not do else but leave—there was no
shall.
other issue. But so great is an artist's desire of the
Here ends the second conversation.
masterpiece that I continued to hope the impos-
sible might happen; by some miracle of genius, I
GEORGE MOORE.
Cobden The Internationalist
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY showed its trust in
bust for the library, reproducing the outlines of the
history by the fact that the monuments which it heroic statue which Morley erected for the cathedral
erected to what it recognized as greatness took his or public square. Even so we might be grateful, for
toric form. Instead of confiding immortality to the highways of the world no longer lead past the
marble and bronze or poetry the Victorians erected memorial places where the last century honored
the great structures of interpretation and documents its dead. In fact, however, Mr. Hobson's life is
known as Lives and Times,' or Lives and Letters. more than this. By shifting the emphasis from
Lockhart's Scott, Masson's Milton, Moore's Byron, Cobden's early and best known activities in connec-
Froude's Carlyle, Forster's Dickens, were followed tion with the repeal of the Corn Laws to his later
by Purcell's Manning, Liddon's Pusey, Morley's application of his principle of free trade to foreign
Cobden and Gladstone, and with Moneypenny's affairs during the period from the opening of the
Disraeli and Gosse's Swinburne the fashion goes on.
Crimean to the close of the American Civil War,
As the death of a rich man provokes the immediate Mr. Hobson has given us a new view of his subject,
question to whom does he leave his wealth, so that with a modern attitude and expression, and above
of a famous one moves men to ask to whom does he all has placed his figure where the world cannot
confide his reputation. The documented biography fail to pass and see. The timeliness of the book is
became a definite form of literary art and craftsman astonishing. It is as if the spirit of Cobden had
ship which the nineteenth century made peculiarly returned to take his place beside Lowes Dickinson
its own. Some of its subjects live for us the more and Bertrand Russell.
splendidly because of the monumental skill of their Mr. Hobson was fortunate in having new docu-
biographers, while others have suffered through a ments to supplement those of which Lord Morley
frankness or a clumsiness which has sometimes made such conscientious use. The correspondence
seemed a betrayal.
with Mr. Richard, of the Peace Society, and that
Of the great mortuary artists of the Victorian with Charles Sumner occupy most of the present
School John Morley may be accounted the chief. volume. The biographer contents himself with a
His Cobden in 1881 was a high achievement, and his few pages here and there of connecting narrative,
Gladstone twenty years later established his rank. and for the rest lets Cobden speak for himself—the
The completeness and justice of these works would protagonist of non-intervention, internationalism,
seem to leave little scope for his successors, and one and pacifism in the years 1850-1865. These were
approaches the new life of Richard Cobden by J. A. the years of the supremacy of Palmerstone in the
Hobson (Holt) with the feeling that it can be
councils of the British government, and with him,
little more than a replica, a figurine or portrait in the House of Commons, on the hustings, and in


400
April 19
THE DIAL
the press, Cobden carried on a long and splendid ministers to agree to this pacific measure at the very
duel. With John Bright he threw himself directly moment when Palmerstone was rousing England to
across the path which England under the bad genius renewed armament against them. Twice he re-
of her leader was following and dragging the world ceived offers from the Whigs to take office, once
after her to its ruin. He fought the mischievous from Palmerstone himself, but he rejected the
intrigues of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe at Con specious argument of the good which he might
stantinople, the attempt to isolate Russia, the re accomplish in the Cabinet. In this respect of utter
peated and, foolish war panics founded on the imag integrity his career offers a contrast, of which he
inary danger of invasion by France and resulting was not unconscious, to the brilliant opportunism of
always in increase of armament, the bullying of the Gladstone.
United States, the disgraceful aggressions against
Cobden's doctrines of non-intervention and paci-
China and the border state of India. He recognized
fism were the direct result of his faith in free trade
this policy as one of cowardice as well as selfishness as the solvent of war. As early as 1842 he wrote
and cruelty, and he did not hesitate to express his to Mr. Ashworth:
condemnation of the imperial part which his country
had played, and of which Palmerstone's activity
Free trade by perfecting the intercourse and securing
the dependence of countries one upon another must in-
seemed to him the culmination. His comment on
evitably snatch the power from governments to plunge
their people into war.
recent English history is worth quoting-indeed he
thought so himself for he used practically the same
With the example of free trade in England the
language to two correspondents—o Mr. Thomassen
Manchester School thought that it had provided the
September 27, 1852 (quoted in M rley), and
world with a solid basis of international peace, a
to Mr.
Richard two days later :
basis of utilitarianism. Cobden saw clearly that
the structure of international economic service and
I wish we had a map, on Mercator's projection, with
a red spot printed upon those places by land and sea
advantage which he had planned would be wrecked
where we have fought battles since 1688. It would be
by tendencies already manifest to replace the legiti-
seen at a glance that we have (unlike any other nation
under the sun) been fighting foreign enemies upon every
mate methods of gain by exchange of goods for the
part of the earth's surface excepting o’r own territory
get-rich-quick device of exporting capital, be-
-thus showing that we have been the most warlike and
cause, as Mr. Brailsford has pointed out, while
aggressive people that ever existed.
the exporter of goods has a natural interest in
And again :
the prosperity of his customer, the exporter of
capital, like any other money lender, often finds
We shall do no good until we can bring home to the
conviction and consciences of men the fact that, as in
his advantage in the bankruptcy of his client,
the slave-trade we had surpassed in guilt the whole
To the safety of this financial penetration of
world, so in foreign wars we have been the most ag-
gressive, quarrelsome, warlike, and bloody nation under
weaker and undeveloped countries Palmerstone's
Civis Romanus doctrine of protection to the
Nor did he confine his opposition to private cor-
property of British citizens in foreign lands, was
essential. It appeared, a cloud not bigger than
respondence. With the prestige which he had won
a man's hand, in connection with the case of Don
by the prosperity which followed the repeal of the Pacifico, a Levantine Jew naturalized Englishman
,
Corn Laws he addressed his countrymen fearlessly,
even in times of actual warfare, defying the popular
whose house was sacked by a mob in Athens and
for whose avenging Palmerstone sent the British
psychology, putting his reputation, his party, and
fleet to blockade Greece—and Cobden denounced
almost his life at stake. He won a signal triumph
of reason in the House of Commons in carrying a
him. Thirty years later when the cloud had grown
vote of censure against the Palmerstone government
to cover half the heavens with menacing blackness,
Mr. Gladstone at the behest of the creditors of the
for the outrageous bombardment of Canton because
Khedive sent the English fleet to bombard Alexan-
of the seizure by Chinese authorities of the lorcha
dria and put down the Egyptian nationalists—and
Arrow, but in the election which followed Palmer-
Cobden's friend John Bright resigned from the
stone set the country aflame with patriotism, Cob-
Cabinet.
den and Bright were defeated for Parliament, and
the Manchester School was almost wiped out.
Of the fact that in his war against war Cobden
carried through to success the difficult negotiation
He anticipated the experiences of present day statesman-
of a commercial treaty with France, to the immense
ship, Mr. Hobson's pages contain many reminders
.
Therein consists the timeliness of his volume. The
advantage of both nations. Nothing speaks so ele dishonesty necessary to maintain the war spirit wat
quently of the impressiveness of Cobden's character
and the strength which sheer conviction gave him as
the theme on which Cobden began his speech (at
the fact that he brought Louis Napoleon and his
Leeds) against the Crimean War:
My first and greatest objection to the war, gentlemen,
the sun.


1919
THE DIAL
401
has been the delusive, I had almost said fraudu-
lent, pretences under which it has been made popular
in this country. I mean that the feelings of the people
have been roused into enthusiasm in favour of the war,
by being led to entertain the belief that it was to effect
objects which I know and felt, at all events, it never
was intended to effect.
The mischievous influence of the press on the public
mind was a frequent subject of his .attack.
He
quotes Lord Aberdeen as saying:
“ It was not the Parliament or the public, but the Press
that forced the Government into the war. The public
mind was not at first in an uncontrollable state, but it
was made so by the Press.”
In his arraignment of Palmerstone he declares:
There is not the least doubt that Palmerstone has, as
Disraeli said the first night of the session in reference
to his use of the Press, made greater use of that means
of creating an artificial public opinion than any other
Minister since the time of Bolingbroke.
He suggests a method of combatting this public
enemy which Mr. Henry Ford has applied:
My object in writing is more especially to suggest a
plan which I have often thought of—that of going
through The Times for about three years and taking
out enough for a short pamphlet of its inconsistencies,
false assumptions, unverified predictions, and bombastic
appeals to the momentary passions and prejudices.
Epher
He recognized the difficulty of dealing with pre-
paredness :
The money power, created by the vast sums voted for
the support of the standing armaments of Europe, is
the greatest difficulty we have to encounter in trying
to reduce those peace establishments.
He was heartily in favor of the freedom of the
seas, with limitation of the right of blockade and
immunity of private property at sea. He repeatedly
advocated a League of Nations. Except in the field
of industrial relations there is scarcely a topic before
the would-be makers of the new world today on
which Cobden did not hold advanced views. Indeed
it is with something like despair that one comes to
see in our world only the realization of Cobden's
antipathies and fears, and to recognize that he
fought the battle for peace more honestly, bravely,
and consistently than any successor has done, but
in vain, while the diplomacy of Palmerstone was
writing the death warrants of English boys at the
Alma and Inkermann, and of American boys at
Chateau-Thierry and in the Argonne.
ROBERT Morss LOVETT.
ole
Living Down the Hyphen
CAME TO AMERICA as I came into the world, molested. And together we hungered for the com-
involuntarily. I have not always been able to re panionship of our fellows. Those who have not
joice over the initial journey, but my gratitude for experienced it can have no conception of the isola-
being taken on the second one when I was five years tion of an immigrant unsupported by a colony of his
old has increased with the years. It is this gratitude kind. The situation should have drawn us to-
which now prompts me to relate something of my gether but it did not. It did not because very dif-
experience as an American of German birth. Per ferent emotions were aroused in us by these early
haps my story may help a little toward a better experiences: in him, a feeling of bitter disappoint-
understanding of one of the most serious and com ment; in me, an acute sense of shame. The wildest
plicated problems brought on by the war.
tales of conditions and opportunities in America had
My first years in America were not happy. Un brought my father to this country, and he suffered
like many foreigners, my parents settled among disillusions of which I then understood nothing. As
American neighbors instead of in a district pre a result Germany, transformed by the magic of
dominantly of their own nationality. As a result distance, had never seemed so fair. If going back
I was the butt of ridicule and the object of petty to the country he came from were as simple a propo-
persecution whenever I appeared in the street. sition to the immigrant as those assume who glibly
Fights without number, in which I was almost suggest a return trip to the disappointed foreigner,
invariably worsted and ignominiously chased home, I am sure my father would have died in the land of
seem, as I look back, to have made up the record of his birth. I, on the other hand, had come with no
my days. Sometimes my father took a hand, swoop illusions, and being a child, lived forward. I had
ing down upon a gang of tormenters like a terrible but one wish: to be rid of every trace of German
Nemesis
, collaring some of the leaders and giving about me—in clothes, in manner, in speech; to be
them.a ringing box on the ears. Then others would free from the guilt which made boys and girls call
be drawn in-fathers or mothers or big brothers Sauerkraut," and yell after “Nix kom'
and we had tumults on a larger scale. Once in 'rouse Von der Dutchman's house."
deed shots were fired, though no one was hit.
In my childish extremity I called upon my gods,
Thus we fought side by side, my father and I, for the angels. They could manage it, I knew, so that
the simple privilege of going about our business un I would be liked instead of tormented. Then one
me
me,


402
April 19
THE DIAL
night I was awakened by cries of pain. I could Which was fortunate for me, but it intensified the
tell it was my mother, and I faintly remember conflict between us. I had a keen appetite for
quivering all over and drawing myself together in history and biography, and so devoured with avidity
physical sympathy. But presently I was sound the romantic story of the settlement of America,
asleep again, blissfully ignoring her agonies. And and the dramatic founding of our nation. My
the next morning I had a new sister.
mental furniture was soon as completely American
My new sister brought an illumination. I still as my love of country was fervent and intense.
remember how clear it all seemed. The way out And how I hated the English! The same process
of my difficulty was to become a baby again. And which made me American made me anti-British.
so I prayed to be started over as a baby, an Amer And of course I liked the French. They had helped
ican baby like my sister, with the power to grow so
us win the Revolution. As for all other nations,
fast that before anyone would notice what had even Germany, they were names. My head knew of
happened, I would be as big as I was before, only their existence, but not my heart. And what did it
free from all trace of German. I had the most matter?
There was
one country transcendently
fantastic ideas as to how it was to happen, and
great and glorious, “the land of the free and the
enjoyed ecstatic moments when it seemed to me home of the brave," my country!
the change was beginning. And when the scheme of The crisis came when I was fourteen. For a
becoming a baby again had to be recognized as a
year my father had threatened to take me out of
failure, I invented a variety of others, with always school and now he said the fatal word. And my
the same objective to be an American, and con father did not change his mind in such matters.
sequently to be liked, instead of tormented. Thus How vividly I recall the closing exercises of that
while my father was looking wistfully back to the
year. They were to be my last. In the midst of
old country I was using what ingenuity I had to them, while the speaker of the occasion was urging
become one with the new country. Such was the
upon us the advantages of continuing in school, I
beginning of the separation between us which was to burst into tears and rushed from the room.
become in time a spiritual chasm.
Going to work was easy enough. I had been
Just when or how my father first became accustomed to working after school and in the sum-
aware of my state of mind I do not know.
mer. Indeed, my last year in school was purchased
When he did, he took drastic measures to keep
me German in soul. I was never permitted to
by working in a restaurant nights, sleeping when
there were no customers. But a dull dread of Sep-
utter an English word in the house or in his tember grew upon me as the summer wore on.
hearing outside, and if he discovered my dislike
stood it well into August. Early in the morning
for anything because of its German associations it
of the sixteenth, however, they found my good
immediately became his chief concern to see that I
mother in a dead faint in the kitchen. She had
was most punctilious in my loyalty to that thing, just learned that the
secret confided to her was out;
whatever it was. Not very good psychology, but
I had left in the night
gone to try myself out in
he followed the method rigorously. To lose me too
the world.”
was the last straw of failure. He could not bear it.
Consequently, as my Germanism came gradually to
When I saw my father again much had happened.
Instead of fourteen I was twenty-six, and he did
be less of an occasion for annoyance out of doors,
I began to be punished at home for signs of Amer-
not know me as we met. I had intended to do him
icanism. And my father did not punish psychically.
the courtesy of talking in German, but my purpose
Of that the scars I still bear are witness. When in
to cut myself off from everything German had
the grip of the passion which seized him at every
worked too well. My attempts only called at-
new sign of my defection, he lost all sense of justice
tention to the thoroughness of my naturalization.
Sentences begun in German were soon snarled and
and all humanity. But why go into details of
cruelty and brutality? He is locked away forever
had to be unraveled in English. It was evident, too,
from my praise or blame in the hillside he loved.
that my loss of the German tongue was merely the
where the unrivaled redbud blooms in May and the
outward manifestation of a complete spiritual
change within. He did not seem to mind. We
pawpaw is heavy with strange fruit in October.
Moreover, that miracle-woman, my mother, re-
talked far into the night, seated in the old grape,
arbor overlooking the river. Long streamers of
deemed and glorified even those horrible experiences
. dancing light—red, green, yellow—were Aungowe
I remember them now without bitterness.
My father was strongly opposed to church
us from the dark bank across the stream.
religion, and one consequence of this was that he
and then the deep-toned whistle of a river packet
favored public as against parochial school education.
would announce that it was about to take "the
Bend,” and bear down upon the city; and soon
I


1919
403
THE DIAL
to mc
com-
thereafter a puffing monster with two
rows of
echo. Quick to appreciate any sign of mental vigor,
fiery teeth, and one red and one green eye, would but holding me to high standards of workmanship,
glide out from behind the black hills, just as when generous in his endorsement, but straightforward
I was a boy and could tell each steam-boat by its and penetrating in his criticism where he thought
whistle. We talked far into the night, but not me wrong, what he did for me in the field of in-
about those days, the days that were uppermost in tellect alone would be difficult to overemphasize.
our minds. Somehow we could not manage it, or And his influence upon my mind only partly repre-
else we thought the reestablished relationship too sents the spiritual tradition which came
precious to risk. Nor did we talk as father and son, through him and which I have tried to pass on to
but as men between whom some tragedy in the past others. For our association was not merely a matter
has created a bond which holds them together while of brains. Together we enjoyed music, together we
it keeps them apart. As I walked to the depot championed what we thought better ideals in edu-
through the summer night, with the katydids dis cation, together we worried over the prospect of art
puting in the willows along the river, and the in America. Moreover, his influence was suffused
Pleiades just visible over the eastern hills, I was by a rare personal quality. I was welcomed to his
conscious that I had experienced one of those ele family circle in town and by lake side, and we were
mental moments of life that introduce men to a companions again and again in walking trips
new level of being; and I learned afterwards that through some of the loveliest country my eyes have
he continued to pace slowly back and forth in the ever looked upon. Uplands warmed by the first
garden until daylight. And so it remained to the breath of spring, great valleys asleep in the embrace
end. There was something big about our relation of Indian Summer, bonfires with their trails of blue
ship, but also something somber. We approached, smoke, the smell of pine, the sound of waters, yellow
but did not meet.
That was the tribute we paid moons and red suns such are the first memories
to the foe of compromise enshrined in the heart of my thought of him recalls. I have heard it said that
father and son.
the ideal relation between man and man is
Well, as I was saying, much had happened in radeship in the achievement of glorious plans.” If
those twelve years. For on thing, I had graduated that is true, we were headed in the right direction.
from college, doing major work in American his So year was added on year until when the war
tory. Lack of preparation and lack of funds made broke out in Europe I was myself a professor, proud
college a rash adventure, but youth does not take of the privilege of calling my teacher my colleague.
counsel of obstacles. I began to dream of it while And I was accepted for what I was—an American.
still an office boy in New York, and in time the Few people, to be sure, knew that the two thinkers
dream had its way, as dreams will. When the pre most intimate to my inner life were Emerson and
paratory work was somehow accomplished, a far William James. Not many more were aware that
seeing friend guided me to a college which was just I had returned from a stay abroad, where I had
then in a period of creative glory. It was at once responded profoundly to the influence of the past,
a shrine and a work-shop. Inspired by a new vision more alive than ever to the glory of a possible future
of life and guided by new ideals of service, pro America. But I was also American by outward
fessors, administrators, and students were cooperat-
signs. The fact of the matter is that there was
ing to make the institution a laboratory of social nothing about me to raise the question of nationality.
reconstruction. It was just the environment needed My name, while German, was not obviously so, and
to clarifiy and illuminate my intense but uninformed there was no trace of German accent or construction
Americanism. Here, too, in one of the professors, I in my speech. I had no affiliation with German
found the man who gave the intellectual tone to societies. My habitual associates, my intimate
my life which will, I suspect, remain its dominant friends, my manner of life, everything marked me
quality to the end. As my teacher he introduced as thoroughly American. Of the number who in
me to spiritual treasure of which I had not even one way or another chanced to discover my German
suspected the existence. It was as if he had raised extraction I do not recall a single person who was
the blinds and opened the windows upon a new
not greatly surprised, and many were even in-
world. And if, looking out upon that world, I at
credulous. There is absolutely nothing German
first failed to see things which he thought it of
about him but his name,' once said a German in
most importance to see, and then gradually showed disapproval of me, and that's only half German.”
an interest in things which in his judgment were
The outbreak of the war brought a great change.
to be ignored because they were of slight importance, All my speculative thinking had prepared me to
he did not, like the typical professor, lose interest see in the European struggle the threat of destruc-
in my career. He wanted me to be a voice, not an tion to Western civilization, and I became more and


404
April 19
THE DIAL
It was
(
more pacifistic in my convictions as the war increased
in bitterness and brutality. Doubtless my early dis-
like of the British was an influence too.
not easy for me to accept the English statement of
the case at its face value. And perhaps something
was due to subconscious ties which bound me to the
land of my birth. I examined myself repeatedly on
this matter and always came to a negative con-
clusion, but such influences may be
very
subtle. All
that I am sure of is that I fervently hoped the strug-
gle might soon come to a deadlock, and that our
country might act as mediator in the interest of a
better international arrangement.
I found en-
couragement in the writings of Bertrand Russell,
G. Lowes Dickinson, and Norman Angell, and
with their aid I was able to translate my faith into
a program.
To my surprise, though not at all unnaturally
under the circumstances, my attitude was inter-
preted by many of my colleagues as pro-German.
At first I paid little attention to these suspicions.
They seemed so absurd, so obviously without foun-
dation. Moreover I discovered that some of my
critics were satisfied with nothing less than absolute
moral and intellectual surrender. The expression
of the slightest difference of opinion as regards the
correct policy for America, was branded by them
as pro-Germanism, and any concession made in the
I might have expected that under any circum-
stances I should have been slow to apprehend his
meaning. I fear, therefore, that I made some such
silly reply as,
Is that so ? That's interesting."
* You seem to take it lightly,” said my colleague,
turning upon me. “I assure you this is no time for
joking. I was never more serious.”
His frigid tone, rather than what he said, pene-
trated my preoccupation. I felt as if ice-water had
been poured down my back.
What is the matter ?" I managed to say.
What have I done?”
It isn't anything you've done,” he replied, “ it's
what you are.
At last the crisis is upon us. From
today on Germany and America will be at war.
Unpleasant as it may be, no true American can any
longer condone the divided allegiance of the Ger-
man-Americans.
a case of for us or
against us."
That afforded me a clue, of course, but only
. a
clue; for he had never given me the slightest in-
dication that he suspected me of divided allegiance,
and strange as it may seem, I had never thought of
myself as German-American. At first I thought of
myself as German, then as American. Never, as far
as I know, did I represent that complex of mental
preferences and attitudes properly called German-
American. Not that I retained no admiration for
It's now
interest of harmony only led to their demanding anything German. What I mean is that my delica
tion to American life and ideals was ardent, en-
thusiastic, and whole-hearted. For a moment I
thought my colleague was speaking in general and
in the abstract; that he did not have reference to
me at all. But his face, white and tense with sup-
pressed emotion, recalled his first remark and I un-
derstood it in all its tragic import.
“You have known me now for ten or twelve
years,” I ventured. 'If, as result of that ac-
quaintance or because of something you have just
learned, you have concluded to strike me from the
list of those you care to associate with, I can only
bow to your wish in the matter; hard as I shall find
it. But it seems to me that I am at least entitled
my
to know what you are basing your action upon.”
“I have already told you," he said, “ that it isn't
anything you've done. It's your attitude, it's what
you are, and that's what counts in a crisis like this.
I have come to feel that just as a Jew is a Jew—
an exception here and there doesn't matter—so a
German is a German."
I have not the art to describe the effect these
words had upon me,
There was a feeling in my
of it (I had not yet heard the newsy, the thing through my brain and out into the roots operating
head as if myriads of tiny arrows were shooting
hair. My throat was dry; I could hardly speak;
others. Moreover, some of these colleagues were
outspokenly pro-British, and others actually Cana-
dians or Englishmen who, although at home in the
United States for years, had never felt it desirable
to become American citizens. It was foolish, per-
haps, but I resented their attempt to instruct me in
Americanism. Instinctively I assumed an attitude
of aloofness and thus made matters worse.
Then came the explosion which aroused me to the
seriousness of my situation and made it clear to me
that I was once more called upon to fight for the
privilege of being an American. The day on which
the papers announced our entrance into the war is
one I shall not forget. The morning sun was
streaming in through the window as I reached the
office at the university which I shared with
teacher-colleague, and he was standing in the flood
of it looking out over the campus. Apropos of my
"good morning ” and without turning around he
said, “I regret that hereafter our relations cannot
be what they have been in the past.”
My mind was preoccupied with the lecture I was
about to deliver, so that I did not appreciate the
real import of his remark. Besides, had I noticed
his excited state of mind and had I known the cause
was so completely out of harmony with anything


1919
405
THE DIAL
-
us
and my whole body seemed rigid and cold. It was to me. But I failed to catch its significance. I re-
a strange, hard voice that said:
garded it as a personal matter, as a misunderstand-
And what are we to do? If your words could ing between him and me. Since then, however, I.
blast us into nothingness, or if you could spit us have become well aware that the clash between us
out of the country as you might some nasty taste was symbolic of a national situation. And this is
out of your mouth, well and good. But here we my justification for telling the story. For if the
are, by the hundreds of thousands, even if you con public mind is such that a keen, judicially-minded,
vince us that we have no right here. What are we cultured man is impelled to smother a whole class
to do?”
of his countrymen under one blanket of suspicion,
“That is for you to decide,” was his reply. what can be expected of men as they run? And if
I wish I had given free rein to the feelings which one so completely Americanized as I falls under
surged within me. I wish I had spoken the words the common suspicion even in the mind of a friend,
that were on my lips: that he had no right to ex what chance have those who are less Americanized,
clude me or any other so-called German-American especially those who are at the mercy of enemies?
from the us " for or against which every citizen Here is the seriousness of the situation. As far as
was now called upon to take a stand; that until I a am concerned there has been nothing like per-
we removed ourselves from that “ by un secution. Nor has anything that has happened suc-
American sentiments or acts we were as vitally part ceeded in making me feel that I am German or even
of it as he; that I resented his arrogating to him a German-American. I resented it, I confess, when
self the right to decide my status. I wish I had told I found that my German birth closed the door to
him that his Scotch antecedents no more made him service in a Red Cross unit, and that even the Y. M.
an American than my German birth kept me from C. A., badly in need of men for France, could not
being one; that we were what we were, regardless send me out if it would. But I scored it up against
of origins-a doctrine which in better days he him- “military necessity,” and thus somehow—the psy-
self had taught me. It would have cleared the air, chology of it is obscure—-escaped the feeling that
and who knows what good might have come of it? I do not truly belong. As for the proposal (which
One thing stood in the way, the same thing that we hear in our town as elsewhere) that all who
is responsible for serious facial antagonisms now have German blood in their veins shall hereafter
developing in our country. That one thing was regard themselves, unless specifically approved, as
pride—a pride which in him assumed a holier than spectators of rather than participators in American
thou attitude, and in me was too holy to defend life, although it still arouses a temporary bitterness
itself. I said nothing at all. Looking back from I find it more and more possible to ignore,
this distance, it is clear that my colleague's patriotic while I go on doing my work and planning to take
self-righteousness was the element of dross in a deep a not unworthy part in the great task to which I
love of country. He unfortunately confused it with believe my country to be dedicated. One cannot, I
love of country itself, a confusion which, sad to say, know, set bounds to what a man may be persuaded
is at present not uncommon. Only the most pro of: I remember that in preparatory school we
found emotional upheaval can account for his action. formed a conspiracy to make a Freshman believe
I have never met a man temperamentally more fair he had the measles, and that he finally took to bed,
minded. Again and again I have marveled at his a very sick boy, while the panic-stricken conspirators
ability to arrive at an objective judgment in situa hastened to find a doctor. But somehow I have no
tions where most of us were twisted to one side by fear whatever of being convinced that I am not an
an emotional bias. His performance in this case was
American. It is acknowledged to be impossible for
so fundamentally unlike him, so out of harmony a leopard to change his spots or an Ethiopian his
with what for years he had shown himself to be, skin; how then shall a man change his personality
that I should have paid' no attention to it. I didn't and be someone else? I am, however, afraid that
and couldn't. I have but this to say for my conduct, many Americans of German ancestry who have not
and that not at all by way of justification. My been as completely Americanized as I and who have
reaction was essentially a struggle—random and thus been peculiarly open to suspicion and peculiarly
unintelligent if you will
, but sincere and vital -- liable to the unjust treatment which suspicion often
against being de-Americanized. If a man has any
breeds, will, unless we change our method of dealing
spirit he cannot go through what I had gone through with them, be made in fact what we have already
to become an American and then calmly suffer him-
made them in our imagination—a group apart, a
foreign substance in the body of our national life,
It goes without saying that I deeply regretted the
and so the germ of a new and stubborn social
interruption of a relation which had meant so much
disease.
in me,
self to be hyphenated.


406
THE DIAL
April 19
Patriotism and Its Consequences
The war, By The Law of its being, produced this was merely oratorical camouflage : no sensible
13
as
in
conse-
articles which have no conceivable use in a civil officer would arrest such authentic “patriots
community, and which could not be stored away by Henry W. Wood or W. H. Hobbs. During the
such a community without grave menace to its ex war men were sent to jail for their convictions; they
istence. In the case of poison gas the War De were asked to lecture upon patriotism for—their
partment set an excellent example by dumping large suspicions.
quantities of the noxious compound into the sea. It
Now the war animus revealed in Professor
is unfortunate that no administrative authority has Hobbs' work was one of the most important psy-
power to deal with the fuscous states of mind which
chological by-products of the war, and to those who
were likewise manufactured for purely bellicose pur accept the liberal point of view it appears at long
poses. A community that had an intelligent regard last the most dangerous. The virulence of this ani-
for the hygiene of its mental processes would con mus was not sufficiently accounted for in the liberal
sign vast quantities of its war books, pamphlets, prospectuses, and the difficulty of handling it proved
newspapers, and judicial decisions to the ignomini so great that within the executive department itself
ous depths of the ocean rather than let the rising the spirit of the President's first exhortation to fight
generation run the danger of contamination through without rancor was broken within a few weeks
contact on library shelves and bookstore counters. of the declaration. Perhaps the only writer who
Foremost among books awaiting such disposal would
be The World War and Its Consequences, by
gauged this imponderable element at its full worth
was the late Randolph Bourne. Whereas in Ger-
Professor William Herbert Hobbs (Putnam). many "patriotism " helped provoke the war,
This series of lectures on patriotism which Pro America the war succeeded in evoking an uncon-
fessor Hobbs tardily publishes points to
trollable quantity of
patriotism." This patriot-
quences of the war that the lecturer was hardly ism of blind faith must be distinguished boldly from
introspective enough to explore. The doctrine of that genuine patriotism of good works whose other
the single indivisible nation, the cult of the united name is public spirit. To practice real patriotism
front, the operation of the “ patriotic” inquisition, is the first duty of a citizen; to inculcate an in-
the imprisonment and torture of heretics, and the stinctive and servilé loyalty to the group, right of
like, are all phenomena worthy of attention in any wrong, hell-bent or heaven-bent, is the first sub-
exhaustive discussion of either the world war or
terfuge of a commercial imperialist. Both varieties
patriotism. Toward topics of this nature, however, were stimulated by the war. The problem before us
Professor Hobbs is opaque, for the reason that it
would lead to an examination of the state of mind
is to do away with “patriotism ”—the blind habit
of running with the pack and following the leader
which he, and the late ex-President, and a number
of other worthy and honorable gentlemen not mere-
on predatory expeditions and to maintain public
spirit. It is a sufficient comment
ly accept but would like to perpetuate. The Hobbs' beautiful opacity that in the course of more
"patriotism " complex has made the name of peace
loathsome to Professor Hobbs: it literally passeth
than four hundred pages he does not once attempt
to make this elementary distinction.
his understanding. His mind is at home only in
Unless this war complex can be broken up the
that fumy war atmosphere which destroyeth all
prospects for a civil polity are not hopeful. The
understanding, for it is in this element that all institutions of peacedom function freely only on a
to be black traitors, and all
“ patriots" shining heroes of chivalry. One of the
basis of divided loyalties and dispersed interests.
humors of the situation is that the wind which can
Civil life means association, with the family, the
trade union, the grange, the chamber of commerce,
carry.the poison gas against the foe can also waft
it back upon the friend. If the Industrial Work-
the, professional institute, the church, the theater,
and the forum intermediating between the life of
ers are disloyal to the established government, what
the individual as an individual and his life as the
about the National Security League? Hence, it is
amusing to see Professor Hobbs close his last lec-
member of a political (military) state. The war
ture with an unseemly attack upon the President
brought the individual face to face with the state
and divested him of all associative interests, and in
whilst (with an eye that searches the audience for
a Department of Justice agent) he invites the gov-
order for a state to continue on a footing ready for
ernment to make the most of it. But of course
warlike emergency this intolerance of voluntary
groups which refuse to merge themselves in the life
on Professor
pacifists appear


1919
THE DIAL
407
of the state will continue. In particular, the uni- products of the war into a realm where its presence
versity, with its extensive criticism of the prevailing is not merely useless but dangerous. By sanction-
order in the economic and political worlds, is threat ing this philosophy Professor Hobbs has done a
ened with the same fate in this country as it met in dubious service as a citizen, and he has committed
Germany if the military conditions which operated
a traitorous act as a scholar, a member of that wider
in Europe come into existence here. Dr. Claxton,
republic of science and letters. He places himself
the Federal Commissioner of Education, has ration-
in that group of “hirelings in the camp, the court,
alized the instinctive war complex by saying that
and the university, who,” according to Blake,
the government of the United States recognizes no
would, if they could, forever depress mental and
groups. It knows only individuals.” To accept
his creed would be to carry one of the necessary
prolong corporeal war."
LEWIS MUMFORD.
(6
to mean:
A Vindication of Fielding
IN
N A CONVERSATION in Fielding's A Journey from tematizing the results of the researches of other re-
This World to the Next, Shakespeare is seen
shak cent scholars, he compared these data with the state-
ing his sides” and exclaiming: “On my word, ments of earlier biographers, testing and reenforc-
brother Milton, they have brought a noble set of ing his conclusions with the testimony in the writings
poets together; they would have been hanged erst of Fielding himself. The result is the story of Field-
have convened such a company at their table when ing's life year by year, often month by month and
alive.” So Fielding himself might have enjoyed the day by day, from boyhood to his death in the forty-
incongruous position of mannerly critics who have eighth year of his age, a record supplemented by nine-
bestowed post mortem commendation upon his art teen photogravures of great beauty, and a bibliog-
while they gave scant courtesy to his person. To raphy (in part the work of that indefatigable Field-
the rescue of such uneasy persons, caught upon the ing student, Mr. Frederick S. Dickson), which not
horns of a prudential dilemma, now comes Pro only adds new data concerning familiar works but
fessor Wilbur L. Cross with a portrait of “ Field also contributes new items to the Fielding canon.
ing as He Was " which reconciles art and the The angle of Professor Cross' approach to his sub-
bourgeois concern with the artist's private life. To ject is as far as possible Fielding's own. In his
Fielding's love of nature and truth, however, the title, like Fielding, he uses History
mass of apocryphal legend which has accumulated a biography, either fictitious or real, that places in
about the facts of his life history would be abhor the proper social background all the incidents in the
rent; and welcome to his love of fair play would be life of a man essential to knowing him, in conjunc-
Professor Cross' loyal labors to remove
from the tion with a sufficient account of the persons who
shadow of Arthur Murphy,” Fielding's personal bore upon that life for good or evil.” This placing
reputation.
of the man in his milieu in such a way that the two
In this History of Henry Fielding (3 vols., Yale shall be mutually interpretative, requires that a mas-
University Press, New Haven.) Professor Cross hás tery of the facts of both the physical and spiritual
added another to the little group of great biographies life of an age shall be put at the disposal of a con-
in English literature. He has reconstructed with structive imagination quickened by emotion. This
much detail the life of a man who has left almost no vitalizing of scholarship by warm personal sympa-
personal documents. Lockhart, Trevelyan, Mrs. thies is the source of the strength—and of certain
Gaskell not only stood in intimate personal relation
amiable weaknesses, I think—which Professor
to the subjects of their studies but they had also the
Cross' work displays.
documentary aid of voluminous letters, journals, and What Viscount Morley's Recollections do for
other records. Not so Professor Cross. Over a
Victorian England, in its upper social reaches, what
century and a half after the death of his hero, a
the Letters of Charles Eliot Norton do for the Cam-
period during which, unexplainably, nearly all Field- bridge group of the mid-century, revealing con-
ing's letters had disappeared and other contemporary cretely the currents and eddies of political, social
evidence had become scattered and blurred, he un and literary life as they are felt by a man who is a
dertook the task whose patent difficulties had de-
part of what he has seen, such service The History
terred earlier biographers. Collecting laboriously of Henry Fielding renders to England, especially
the contemporary records here and there in letters, London, from about 1730 to 1754. The inside his-
memoirs, magazines, newspapers, and archives; sys-
tories of the theaters
managers, actors, play-


408
THE DIAL
April 19
wrights, and critics of the Haymarket and Covent man playing in his day many parts. As Professor
Garden and Grub Street close by; the personal and Cross writes in his final chapter: Fielding's “de-
factional conflicts of the Walpole ministry waged invelopment under the stress of changing circum-
pamphlet and journal and on the stage, until the stances was perfectly natural and logical, like the
Licensing Act put an end to the activities of Field development of a great character in a great novel.
ing and his fellows; the study and fellowship of the He had a mind most responsive to his immediate
lawyers of the Middle Temple; the sordid, arduous, surroundings; and therein lay the prime element of
and serviceable labors of the Bow Street Justice's his genius.
court; murder and robbery in the dark city streets, This unity of effect, together with certain per-
diseases, doctors and their nostrums, brothels and sonal qualities essential to the portrait, distinguish
masquerades, prisons and constables and thief-takers, this from earlier biographies. Yet in the midst of
lawbooks and lodgings, Salisbury, Bath, Lyme an admiring mood the reader pauses occasionally, as
Regis, and London, all these items enter as naturally he reads through the volumes, to ask, at first hesi-
and inevitably into this tale of real life as do the tantly and then with more assurance, whether now
Flat-Iron Building and Montgomery Ward's Tower and then Professor Cross does not commit the very
into pictures of New York or Chicago today. Such fault for which Frederick Lawrence and others
landmarks of Fielding's physical world, like the stand condemned, that of letting “fixed preposses-
inns and roads from Salisbury to Holborn which sion ” influence unwittingly his selection and inter-
mark the stages of Tom Jones' progress, are at the pretation of facts. Frankly he tells us in his pre-
same time the explanation of his inner life. For face that the work began with a prepossession, “a
such a reconstructed world of eighteenth century surmise which soon grew into a conviction that the
London many students will be grateful, for it is the author of Tom Jones could not have been the kind
explanation not only of Harry Fielding and Tom of man described in innumerable books and essays."
Jones but of other personages, historical or fictitious, The biography is surcharged with this thesis, which
of those times.
involves the destruction of that Fielding legend,
Through this every-day world Professor Cross initiated in the rhetorical essay which the incom-
follows Fielding; he portrays "the handsome boy
who comes to London in 1727, perhaps, quickly win-
petent Arthur Murphy prefixed to the 1762 edition
of Fielding's works. Two items in the legend are
ning his way in the theaters and also in the favor of the chief objects of attack: the charge that Fielding
Lady Mary Wortley Montague his kinswoman;
led a life of dissipation, to which was due his
the student, not of law but of ancient letters, at
Leyden in 1728-29; the anti-Walpole dramatist, and
poverty, sickness, and premature death; and the
statement that his works were written in haste in
editor; the romantic lover and husband, the affec-
the intervals between the riotous incidents of his
tionate and anxious father of a family growing while
the income seems to shrink; the faithful friend of
rich and poor; the tireless and humane Justice of
Led into paths of controversy here and there, Pro-
the Peace laboring until sick unto. death for the
fessor Cross gives short shrift to critics of his hero.
reform of men and of laws; and finally, the social
Of Richardson-always anathema to your true
censor and lover of his kind, the same voice speak. Jones " set his shrunken heart boiling with rage and
lover of Fielding—we hear that praise of Tom
ing sentiments much the same in drama, journal,
essay, pamphlet, and novel.
envy"; Mrs. Barbauld's essay is "a thoroughly
The last years of Fielding's life Professor Cross
feminine production "; Leslie Stephen is "the last
describes with a profound sympathy which dramatic-
of the brilliant defamers,” after whom come " the
ally foreshadows the end with feeling of Nemesis.
twenty sane years from Dobson to Henley,” fol-
He shows us a gallant spirit adventuring bravely
lowed by a period of recent scientific research into
through the Valley of the Shadow which closes about
the facts of Fielding's life history, culminating in
him with the inevitableness of a tragedy of fate. We
the present work.
finish the story of The Voyage to Lisbon in a sad
Though Mr. Cross agrees in the main with the
and exalted mood, which is our ultimate tribute
conclusions of these later scholars, readers will be
to Henry Fielding and to the art of his latest
startled at times by the ease with which statements
biographer.
of Fielding's contemporaries are brushed aside when
From this narrative Fielding's personality and
incompatible with Professor Cross' thesis; puzzled a
his work emerge with periking unity. There are no
little too as to the exact basis of selection between
violent or incredible transitions. H. Scriblerus Se-
those facts in Fielding's novels which may justly be
considered autobiographic, and those which are not
Drawcansir, and Henry Fielding, Esq., are, one
his art." In many cases readers will assume that
career.
cundus, Sir Hercules Vinegar," Sir Alexander autobiographic but *"essential dramatic elementshirt


1919
409
THE DIAL
the biographer has at hand data not evident to them,
justifying certain procedures and assertions in Field-
ing's defense which appear captious or dogmatic.
And they will conclude with the conviction that the
truth about Henry Fielding lies perhaps far above
the level of personal character Arthur Murphy de-
scribed, yet—since God made man a little lower
than the angels—just a bit below the amiable per-
fection of the hero of Professor Cross.
But after all the great value of The History of
Henry Fielding lies not in its defense of Fielding's
morals but in its realism in the presentation of the
man and artist against the background of his times.
As a rule it is the novel of manners, not the novel of
purpose, which has the universal qualities which
make for immortality. So it is often with bio-
graphical writing, and especially is it true of the
present work, that the qualities which give it charm
and insure it permanence derive not from the
author's thesis, not even from his personal analysis
of his hero and his hero's works, discriminating and
delightful as these are, but from the portrait of this
hero playing a credible part in a fully peopled world
reconstructed with the veracity and the imaginative
sympathy of the creative scholar. Of such creative
scholarship, remote from the genre of the average
doctoral dissertation, American universities have
hitherto given us too little.
HELEN SARD HUGHES.
Liberalism Invincible
PER
ERHAPS NO WORD has so diminished in prestige chafes at the artificiality of it all—apathetic and
since the beginning of the war as the word liberal dull. Competent observers in Europe, even today,
ism. This has been due not merely to the extraor months after the signing of the armistice, speak with
dinarily facile collapse of supposedly liberal leaders growing concern of the atrophy of political minded-
before the emotion-provoking shibboleths of bellig ness, the huddling back of the herd to smaller and
erency, but also to the deliberate creation of a popu more understandable groups than the abstract State
lar temper and attitude sharply hostile to all that for which they have already sacrificed almost beyond
the adjective liberal connotes. Modern war invari any limit of human endurance. This apathy of
bly brings to the fools and chauvinists of any social awareness in the individual is especially nota-
country a glamour and prestige which they cannot ble in Germany and the half-starved, neurasthenic
hope to achieve in the more rational atmosphere of small nationalities of south-eastern Europe; but it
peace. Consequently they have a kind of vested has not left even the victors untouched. It is a type
prestige interest in seeing to it that the mass of the of spiritual dullness before any other than immedi-
people are kept at the same low intellectual level ate and material issuesma by-product of the bigotry
which is their own customary habitation. It goes
and intolerance (as truly as of the suffering) of the
without saying that all the great instruments of war. It has brought the fact and the word, liberal-
publicity—the press, the universities, the church, ism, into disrepute.
the stage—are at their entire disposal, far from For the true definition of liberalism would be a
unwilling to help them in their attempt to reduce definition of a temper and an attitude towards life
the national atmosphere to the desired temperature
as a whole rather than an explication of a program.
of warm and unthinking animal emotion. The It would include the neglected virtues of candidness,
independent and fearless mind is cowed into silence willingness to examine the unpopular view, toler-
or twisted by the social pressure into mere erratic-. ance, intellectual detachment, the desire for social
ism. The union sacrée tends irresistibly to become,
experiment, humility before facts, historical back-
so to speak, the union degradée, for when a nation
ground. Liberalism is good-tempered and non-
turns homogeneous in its thinking—as it has to in
partisan. It despises the role of hired attorney for
war-time-it must maintain its concepts at the
any cause—however meritorious the cause may
lowest common denominator. Political heresy (in intrinsically be. It is frankly au-dessus de la melée,
normal times, a mere personal idiosyncrasy) becomes
not through arrogance but through a pretty thor-
a crime punishable by penalties more severe than ough conviction that perhaps the most valuable
were visited upon the religious heretics of the in-
social service. possible is the inculcation of the liberal
Protest is greeted by savage and
attitude of mind. It is less concerned with the
summary repression; intolerance becomes the normal achievement of specific objects than with the crea-
and accepted thing. Even a few months of this anti tion of that tolerant and intelligent social atmos-
liberal nationalistic hysteria is usửally long enough phere without which the achievement of any object
to shatter the thin resistances of the intellectuals, is valueless. Consequently the liberal temper is
and to render the popular temper—which inwardly seldom encouraged and usually not even allowed by
quisitorial age.


410
April 19
THE DIAL
ܦ
on
to
governments in time of war. It is subversive and time or to the apathy of peace. It puts the reader
disturbing; it breaks up the national unity—and in the frame of mind where discussion is possible.
seldom yet has a nation gone to war with its cause It really does induce in one the first act of intellect-
so spotless that it could afford to be good-natured ual honesty—being fair to one's opponents. Tem-
about its minority opposition. Certainly in this porarily at least, it makes the reader a liberal.
present war, which seems to be transforming itself, Especially is this true of his latest book, The
despite formal armistices, from nationalistic rivalry British Revolution and The American Democracy
into a bleak class struggle, the suppression of all (Huebsch). The specific task of exposition which
kinds of minority opinion has been especially ruth he attempts is not very pretentious. He merely tries
less and far-reaching. It takes more than mere in to show how in Europe the war has raised questions
tellectual conviction to withstand the passions of the which go far beyond those involved in merely politi-
herd today; it takes more even than the sudden, defi cal democracy, and the relevancy of these new ques-
ant courage of the irreconcilable.
tions to our own immediate social and political
It takes, in a word, what a genuine liberal like future in the United States. He gives an excellent
Mr. Norman Angell has never relinquished, no analysis of the program of British Labor, showing
matter what social pressure the war has focussed how beneath the formal demands runs a new note-
him—the power of character remain the desire for an entirely novel social order. He
rational, sensible, fair-minded. Mr. Angell is the shows how.industrial democracy has come to be the
enduring, the Socratian type of liberal. He does real question in Europe; how the conscription of
not allow the revelation of the appalling stupidity life has raised inevitably the moral issue of the con-
and prejudice of the mob which the war has given scription of income and even the whole concept of
us to shake his belief in the final ability of the aver private property. He points out that merely state
age man to see the rational course of action. He socialism has come to be regarded with even more
has a passion for reasonableness, “not," as he once suspicion by the workers desirous of a new status
said to the present writer, “because I do not recog than the old capitalistic individualism. He explains
nize the extent and massiveness of unconscious how the questions involved in state socialism cannot
motives in the acts of people, but because the reason, be escaped by America after the drastic war legisla-
slight and capricious though it is, is all that we tion. And finally he reveals how, as during the
have.” He has been called the incomparable pam-
Reformation it was the common man's feeling for
phleteer, but this hardly does him justice. His writ ordinary justice and humanity which finally de-
ing is all of a piece. It is one extended and detailed stroyed religious bigatry, so, in all likelihood, it will
attempt to persuade the person of ordinary intelli be the common man's new feeling for the community
gence to see the rational scheme of politics and of interest of all who labor and suffer that will
affairs. What emotional drive it possesses comes
finally destroy modern political bigotry.
from his democratic faith in the ultimate good sense
Mr. Angell's new book concludes with an essay
of the common man and woman. It is sharply dif-
which is of its kind a classic: Why Freedom Mat-
ferentiated from either the incisive bitterness of so
It is temperate and just and unanswerable.
penetrating a critic as Bertrand Russell, or from
Our author puts his case so that it cannot be chal-
the fanatical and courageous doctrinairism of a
lenged: human happiness ultimately depends upon
leader like Liebknecht, or from the somewhat sneer-
the quality of the society which men have made for
ing petulance of a skeptic of war's values like
themselves, and that quality depends upon the ideas
Macdonald or Snowden. It is more akin to the
of the individuals who compose it—those ideas, in
quality of H. B. Brailsford's writing, although with
less emotional intensity and likewise with less back-
turn, upon freedom and independence of judgment.
Without the latter a land Aowing with milk and
ground of European history. For Mr. Angell's honey is spiritually a waste. Perhaps the one great
method has the defect of its virtues: it is sometimes
est evil resulting from this war, even counting all
careless of minor facts, however sound may be the
the physical and material suffering and loss, has
main contentions; it has the somewhat thin and
ratiocinative quality of all predominantly hortatory sanship, the willingness to kill and imprison because
been its evocation of the spirit of intolerant parti-
writing. But it is infinitely patient before stupidity;
its feeling for justice and integrity is never once
men could not agree with you. Men have been
deflected by the plea of immediate expedients; it is
taught to rely upon the wisdom of blind majorities.
never bitter; it never descends to invective; it is
Mr. Angell can look back with pride upon his record
in this war.
always lucid and simple and non-patronizing and
He has done nothing to encourage
straightforward. Almost any book of Mr. Angell's
and much to destroy this ancient and most tragic
is a fine corrective to either the passions of war-
of human delusions.
ters.
HAROLD STEARNS.


1919
4II
THE DIAL
Labor Control of Government Industries
1,
A MON
MONG A NUMBER OF THINGS which we may lose native to state administration, no provision was
through the general shuffle in international adjust- made for labor control. Control and management
ment of affairs and exchange of thought, is the of railroad operations was vested in a board of direc-
depressing idea which was gaining headway before tors which was to be elected with due precautions
the war, that public utilities could be administered against power of rank and file. Management was
by the state to the satisfaction of the common peo to be centralized, as it is commonly in the business
ple; that by some hocus pocus this transfer from arrangement of affairs. The election of the direc-
private to public operation would confer benefit on torate was divided between the federal government,
the wage earners involved. The idea of state social the classified officials, and the employees as distin-
ism gained friends and made progress as it began to guished from officers. Having given the rank and
appear that the movement in that direction was not file a voice in the determination of the directorate,
revolutionary, that it did not contemplate a greater ample provision was made for the overwhelming of
control by labor or offer new opportunities for labor it. In this way the scheme of organization denied
expression. It was essentially a revisionist proposi at the outset its cardinal and avowed principle, the
tion, since it accepted the modern scheme of machine one that gave it validity, that operating rights
production, the division of labor, and routine
should be awarded on the basis of ability to operate.
employment as unalterable, and offered nothing in If ability is in reality the asset of an operating
its stead or supplementary which might open up the scheme, it follows that provision must be made for
environment to the common people so that they its exercise. In the case of a business enterprise it
could take part more freely in the reshaping of it. is necessary to show ability to pay and provision
The spirit of the movement was to make the best for payment. In the case of a cooperative enter-
of a bad thing and carry routine employment to its prise it is necessary to measure the capacity of indi-
consummation by eliminating, further than had yet viduals and to give that capacity the best possible
been done, the workers' responsibility through the
conditions for expression and expansion. If the
centralization of management of enterprise. The promoters of the railroad scheme should ever be
idea seemed to be that if the direction of industry
called on to submit their asset—that is their abil-
could be vested in the state the tendency in modern ity—to appraisement, they would be obliged to
enterprise to eliminate interest in the processes prove that their association was a well coordinated
would be advanced, and energy and thought could organization composed of members who were techni-
be saved for better things.
cally equipped, conscious of their ability, their inter-
The conspicuous loss of confidence of American dependence in the promotion of the enterprise; that
socialists in state administration was occasioned by they were informed and intelligent as to the details
the war against Germany and all that it represented. of administration and the purpose and the policy
That loss of confidence was increased by the discus of the enterprise. Having shown so much it would
sions which center around the Russian Revolu then follow, but not until then, that executive
țion and the movement among the workers of Eng- officers could represent the ability of the member-
land for status and control. As these events have ship and from this ability they would derive their
emphasized the abortive results of state administra sanction. An enterprise could not be run by a board
tion the workers of America have become more of directors, in fact, if the membership of the asso-
conscious of the limitations which are inherent in
ciation represented ability to any important extent,
civil service.
Up to the present time neither and if it had the chance to exercise it.
American socialists nor trade unionists have offered Our national psychology at the moment is more
any concrete working program which would replace
favorable than it has ever been for the kind of
bureaucratic management in public works. The
reorganization which is implicit in the events. A
syndicalist program of the Industrial Workers is year ago the proposition which I here submit would
put forth in opposition to state-socialism, but that have appeared Utopian, but it will be recognized
program has not been worked out along lines which at the present moment that it has its bearings on
relate in practical application to actual problems of the current situation and its relation to institutional
administration. I referred in a recent issue of The practices with which we have become familiar. I
DIAL to the proposition of the railroad workers for submit the proposition to the special consideration of
the administration of the roads. I alluded to the fact civil servants who are employed in public service.
that while the proposition was presented as an alter To secure the maximum service from such public


4 1 2
April 19
THE DIAL
utilities as railroads, telephones, telegraphs, mer charge for service such as the public schools, or in
chant marine, street railways, gas, electric light the case of the post office which is run with a deficit,
ing, power and water supply. The federal gov the franchise would be awarded the association to-
ernment in respect to the federal utilities named, gether with a grant determined as now on the basis
and the state government in respect to the state of approximate cost.
utilities, and the municipal government in respect It is not possible to imagine a public service insti-
to the municipal utilities, shall issue short term tution organized on these lines that would not radi-
operating franchises to self-governing associations ate some of the warmth and human interest which
which are made up of individuals technically com-
is now
so conspicuously absent from all public
petent and necessary in the promotion of the utility employment. In the case, for instance, of the char-
in question. These franchises shall: 1, fix charges tered post office association each local postmaster
for service in consultation with the operating and local postal clerk would be responsible to his
association, consistent with the costs of operation peers, as he would be elected by them and kept in
and with the welfare of the association member his office on their sufferance instead of "holding
ship and with the needs of the public; 2, require down his job ” through “ bluff" or "pull.” The
from the association a rental based on the per bungling efforts of civil service reform, appoint-
centage return of the net income, which repre ment by competitive examinations, political patron-
sents in some approximate measure the value of age would fall by the way, for self-government
the franchise which the community creates. (No would look after hiring and firing in the interest
association could be forced to accept terms dis of the enterprise and the association. Such a
advantageous to the enterprise or to the members, scheme of organization would offer local postmas-
but the board granting the franchise could hold ters the chance to work out methods of economy
open its offer until it was evident that no compe which would result to their own advantage and to
tent association would accept the terms.) 3, fix the the advantage of their fellow workers in the saving
minimum requirement for upkeep and extension.
of time and expense. Under the present arrange-
ment there is no inducement for a post office
The association receiving the franchise would be employee ever to concern himself with efficiency.
granted credit by a federal reserve or other public The public institutions which have been the most
banking institution. It would be desirable for the
seriously perverted by centralized administration
franchise board to fix service charges, rent, and up-
and quantative standardization are the public
keep, not only to protect the public against extor-
schools. A recent Superintendent of Schools of a
tion, but so that the net income would revert in its
large city was in the habit of observing that it was
entirety to the membership in the shape of earned
a matter of extreme satisfaction to be able at any
income and not by wages arbitararily fixed. The
income could be divided pro rata among the mem-
time during school hours to consult his watch and
bers as the association from time to time determined.
to know at that particular moment that thousands
of children were being drilled in some one lesson
If an operating association holding a franchise
on a certain page in some textbook to which he
failed to give satisfactory service, the franchise
would be renewed only on conditions of reorganiza-
could at the moment refer. For this satisfaction
tion. As the management of these organizations
the thousands of teachers and the hundreds of thou-
would be decentralized the temptation
sands of children paid 'a colossal price in spiritual
to play and intellectual vassalage. This example may illus-
politics ” with the situation or within the organiza-
tion could be largely avoided because under a
trate bureaucracy gone mad or centralized admin-
scheme of decentralized government the "plums
istration carried to perfection. It is extreme but none
the less it tells the story of bureaucratic management.
of office holding would not exist as they do
The responsibility and the consequent
It indicates, in the varying degrees of its imposition,
power would be diluted as it was divided and
the inhibiting results for teachers and children. If
shared. It would be to the advantage of the whole
the schwols in any measure meet the needs of educa-
membership to secure members on the basis of ability,
tion they must represent conditions which are as
on the basis of technical equipment, responsibility,
changing as the conditions of growth. This can only
experience, and general intelligence. Charges for
be assured when the teachers coming in direct contact
service would be fixed of necessity by the franchise
with the individual children and their changing needs
board, together with the association, as price is a
are free to meet and take up the problems. Teachers
matter of interest to consumers as well as to the
will not experience this freedom until they are suf-
workers.
ficiently alive to the fact of their own enslavement
In the case of public utilities which make no
in the system, and until they are ready to assume
the responsibility of promoting a school organiza-
now.


1919
413
THE DIAL
to
tion which responds to the needs of the children and
which translates their own present dull and thank-
less job into a creative adventure.
It would be unfortunate to leave the impression
that bureaucratic management results exclusively
from state administration. I have mentioned the
proposition of the railroad brotherhoods which was
opposed to state administration and in favor of an
alternative which was no less bureaucratic in its
promised results. The grave danger in England at
the present moment is that the opposition to the
movement of the rank and file of workers toward
decentralized administration of all enterprise, will
be able to convert the established trade unions into
extra-legal organizations as much concerned
retain centralized power as any state or business cor-
poration. It is not necessary to remark in closing
that the executive council of the American Federa-
tion would assume such position, if the occasion of-
fered, with a sense of their mission fulfilled and
their efforts crowned in royal fashion, Will the
rank and file in America take care?
39
Helen MAROT.
20
*71
Experimental Schools
IN STRANGE CONTRAST to the turbulent efforts of
control which they commonly do during babyhood,
men to reorganize old institutions is the peace, if they are confronted with the organized world
peace means quiescence, which continues without around them. But their natural method of experi-
serious disturbance in the educational world below mentation with this organized material is constantly
the university line. If some day the teachers of the inhibited, as their experimental handling of it inevi-
lower schools are fired with a desire to experiment tably comes into conflict with some adult possessive
they will discover that they must take the adminis interest. Their activities are curtailed and regu-
tration of the schools as well as the formulation of lated at home and their experiments are supplanted
policy and methods over into their own hands. and forestalled at school. Experimental schools, in -
That is what has been done by a few teachers here opposition to this practice, undertake to protect the
and there throughout the country who have realized
environment of the children so that they may carry
that the school systems and education are irreconcil on their experiments with confidence and freedom.
able. The experimental schools which these teachers It is important to realize that the environment from
have promoted may have their relation some day to babyhood to the sixth year must yield to the child's
the general reorganization of the lower schools, as method of play, and that play is the child's applica-
they show that if the method of growth of children tion of the trial and error method of science to peo-
is discovered and followed a larger field in a shorter ple and to the things about him. The kindergarten
period of time can be covered by the school. Such was founded on the play idea, but the kindergarten
demonstrations will sow seeds of dissension in the is a system of teaching the children how to play.
world of the lower schools and even now, if the The kindergarten acknowledges the play activities
material which these 'experimental schools have of children in general, but not recognizing their
brought to light could be assembled, something desire to experiment, it undertakes to socialize the
might be done to disturb the peace.
activities of a period which is distinctly individual.
To begin with, the experimental method is pre The Montessori, distinguished from the kinder-
eminently the method of little children. If we were garten method, is a system of training. "It gives the
at all observant we should not have to be told that children more freedom to move about in their en-
the method is in good working order among babies vironment and to choose what they will do, but the
up to the age of four or before they are consigned material from which they have to choose is designed
to some educational institution. Up to that time to train. The odium of teaching is transferred from
they are occupied with growing. They have experi the teacher to blocks, to bits of fabric, to weights,
mented with their own small bodies to such advan to sandpaper letters, and to figures. The children
tage that they have acquired the art of walking, talk may not use this material to carry out purposes of
ing, and the use of their hands. They have learned their own, but only for the purpose for which it
these complicated operations more rapidly than they was originally designed. As the children's use of
will be allowed to learn anything else in the future.
material is limited, so is their development. Purpose
Why is it that schools bent on getting children and purposefulness are the striking signs of growth
over ground at a maximum pace reverse the lead in the period which follows babyhood. In the Mon-
which the children themselves give?
tessori schools the children's activities do not func-
After children have acquired the degree of motor tion from their own point of view. The children


414
THE DIAL
April 19
value of this academic matter as they experience its
build a stair but they cannot put it to use.
The to observe and are forming habits of work. The
adult intention lying back of each of the Montes- pupils learn by living over in their play the experi-
sori training sets is completed when the object is ences which their inquiries excited. In this play
complete. Putting the object to use might become they need building material, carpenters' tools, and
a practice and so the adult intention would be lost. toys which are representative. They require draw-
Both the teaching system of the kindergarten and ing material, and outdoor space where they can dig
the training system of the Montessori are opposed and build. - They will use all material, if they are
to the method of the children's experimentation. given free access to it without suggestion, to try
An experimental school, on the other hand, under out on their own scale of operation what they have
takes to be a part of the children's environment, to seen going on in the world about them.
watch the children while they grow, to discover and Somewhere between the seventh and eighth year
meet their growth requirements as they appear.
the interests of children and their methods of expres-
Children cannot be taught to grow, but they can be sion undergo changes. Up to this time they have
furnished with conditions which are conducive to reproduced adult existence by the method of play.
growth. They cannot be trained to grow; our As they have made their acquaintance with material
knowledge is necessarily insufficient, and always their desire play with it is modified; it does not
must be. If we undertake to train some one of fully satisfy them as it did. They want in part to
the senses we may be stultifying others. Normal turn the material or their activities to some real use.
growth does not break up in this or the other direc This does not mean that children at this time have
tion; it takes place as a whole.
turned from the world of phantasy to a world of
In the experimental schools the teachers and the reality; they have always been interested in reality,
children are both the experimenters. The teachers but they have acquired a greater familiarity with it,
are continuously trying out the value to the child of and with the familiarity comes the desire for better
different kinds of materials and situations, and the workınanship. They want now for the first time
children are continuously experimenting with the
some training and some teaching. There has been
materials which are available and learning through
a general recognition that children were ready for
these at first hand to make adjustments, generali- both at this time, and the formal schools have under-
zations, and conclusions. The teacher directs the
taken to meet this requirement by giving them
child to sources of information as well as material academic material; but the acquisition of the three
so that he may have the stimulating experience of
R's is merely the acquisition of tools, and these are
answering himself the questions the experience
tools which fail to give children of this age the help
excites. The questions and the answers point con-
they want in their translation of the real world.
stantly to new fields and opportunities.
All this academic matter, which few children can
The character of these opportunities is more or
less dependent upon the location of the school. It visionary, less comprehensible and real; its tendency
put to any use, has the tendency to make life more
it is a country school the teacher's problems are sim-
is to make adjustment to the actual environment
plified. The environment is replete with raw mate-
more difficult and the environment itself more remote.
rial, that is, with matter which has not been made
Many of the formal schools, in place of books
The child's interests and processes in this
and in place of hours of listening to the words of a
environment naturally follow more or less physical teacher, are trying to meet the real needs of the
laws of growth and are less complicated than those
children through first-hand experience in different
which he will meet in the city. But it is possible forms of handwork. Whether the real need is met
in the city to give children under six years oppor-
depends upon whether the applications are to things
tunity to answer the queries which the actual prob-
which are real to the children. Mere handwork
lems of transportation turn up, and to follow with
does not suffice. It must be handwork with a pur-
intense interest, if they are given the chance, the
transfer of material by rail, water, or through the
pose which the children understand. Incidentally
the children
city streets. They will observe and inquire into
cars
, wagons, tug or river boats, trains, delivery schools
, as they discover here and there that books
which they are exclusively fed in the regular
carts, with curiosity and with ability to understand
the major part of the progression of such vehicles.
and figures are helpful tools. They learn the actual
Where are they going? what makes them go? what
are they carrying and why? are questions which
result in lessons in economics, geography, and
As children advance toward adolescence the ex-
physics. But the actual knowledge gained is less
perimental method of dealing with environment has
important than that the children are learning how
the same significance. The indication of growth at
this time is the shifting of the children's interest
over.
turn to the formalized material on
use.


1919.
415
THE DIAL
a cres-
from the things which serve them individually, to
what as well serves others, and particularly what
serves the adult purpose. Through this period social
desires and realization are advancing on
cendo scale. Teachers have more to guide them in
fórmulating their school work for this period, for
they are more in sympathy with the children's minds.
Having said so much for the experimental
method, I must add that the contribution of the
experimental schools is as yet negative rather than
positive in character. They can, for instance, dem-
onstrate that the regular school systems which
handle children in the mass and standardize proce-
dure on the factory principle dwarf as well as retard
the children. The experimental schools hope to set
up standards, but when they do they will not be
standards which can be standardized. They repre-
sent a never ending line of experiences to be pooled.
and they indicate advances which have goals which
are as various and as changing as the goals of in-
dividuals whether those are adult or juvenile.
CAROLINE PRATT.
For peace
A Perspective of Death
D
EATH IS THE LASTING aspect of a world at That he has made a communication of Lucretius
peace no less than of the world at war.
Mr. Leonard may be well assured. He has uttered,
times, however, death is the contingency of the ad in his own measure, something of both the beat and
venture of living, a sudden enemy springing from the passion of the Roman verse.
His diction repro-
the dark; while to men at war, death is the whole duces the Lucretian abbondanza, and his pieties and
adventure—the hazard, and the purpose no less, of perhaps his temperament are not alien to the Lucre-
both the slayer and the slain. There are casualty tian conspectus of life and death. Yet it is by no
lists only in times of war. Then the eyes of death means certain that the excellences of his abound-
stare all men in the face, its nearness hurts, and we ing verse make up for its limitations. Its metrical
turn from it, and our poets and prophets extol the necessities have often stood in the way of clearness,
vigor and the passion of the life of battle, and and have, perhaps more than anything else, caused
orphans and widows and mothers are told to think us to miss that justness and adequacy of expres-
only of the glories which their dead have saved, and sion with which Lucretius so many times captures
not of the peace of the tomb. Rarely, in war time, the mind and which prose translation has managed
do peoples look upon death undisguised. And in
to set down. Pick at random one of the oft-quoted
no other time, perhaps, have they greater need so
passages, such as the rendering of is a true test-
to observe it and so to know it. Only the remote
say that at the close of the third book-
in time and spirit appear able for this, able to desig-
lam iam non domus accipiet te lacta, neque uxor ...
nate its being and to find its right perspective. Four
years of much war literature has brought us noth-
Mr. Leonard renders it:
ing out of the immediate worthy the dignity of
Thee now no more
death. So far as I know, there have been printed
The joyful house and best of wives shall welcome,
Nor little sons run up to snatch their kisses
but two works adequate to the high call of the
And touch with silent happiness thy heart,
world's tragedy, and both are evocations from the Thou shalt not speed in undertakings more,
past. One came, early in the war, from the hands
Nor be the warder of thine own no more.
“Poor wretch,” they say, one hostile hour hath ta'en
of the poet laureate. It was an anthology of the Wretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons,"
serenities and high places of the soul, of its quietude But add not, “yet no longer unto thee
and self-possession.
Its collector called it The
Remains a remnant of desire for them."
If this they only well perceived with mind
Spirit of Man. The other was an English version
And followed up with maxims, they would free
of the noblest confrontation of death that litera Their state of man from anguish and from fear.
ture knows—the poem of Lucretius, called Of
“O even as here thou art, aslumber in death,
So shalt thou slumber down the rest of time,
the Nature of Things (Dutton), done into Released from every harrowing pang.
blank verse by William Ellery Leonard. “He has,” We have bewept thee with insatiate woe,
says Mr. Leonard of himself, "loved Lucretius for
Standing aside whilst in the awful pyre
Thou wert made ashes; and no day shall take
many years, and the mighty spirit of the Roman For us the eternal sorrow from the breast."
has helped him, to sustain many of the burdens of But ask the mourner what's the bitterness
life. He can but hope that he has not altogether
That man should waste in an eternal grief,
If, after all, the thing's but sleep and rest?
failed to communicate him to English and American
and set it beside this prose of Mackail's:
readers ignorant of Latin. Lucretius is indeed a
Now no more shall a glad home and a true wife wel.
voice for these supreme times.”
come thee, nor darling children race to snatch thy first
But we,


416
THE DIAL
April 19
selfhood for its period and its proper worth, and
kisses and touch thy heart with a sweet and silent con the kindliness and simplicity of elemental living to
tent; no more mayest thou be prosperous in thy doings
and a defense to thine own; "alas and woe !" say they,
the cruelties, the complexities, the wars, the enslave-
one disastrous day has taken all these prizes of thy life ments, and the other inhumanities men call civiliza-
away from thee,”—but thereat they do not add this, and tion. They drive and compel him because he is
now no more does any longing for these things beset thee."
This did their thought but clearly see and their speech
ignorant of their nature and of his own powers
follow, they would release themselves from great heart and limitations. Let him learn to know them, and
ache and fear. “Thou, indeed, as thou art sunk in the he is set free of them. He sees them then in their
sleep of death, wilt so be for the rest of the ages, severed
from all weary pains; but we, while close by us thou didst
true measure and proportion, incidents in the effec-
turn ashen on the awful pyre, made unappeasable lament tuation of inexorable law; his mind identifies itself
ation, and everlastingly shall time never rid our heart of
anguish.” Ask we then this of him, what there is that is
with this law, his love of life relaxes, and when his
so very bitter, if sleep and peace be the conclusion of the
love of life relaxes, the fear of death falls away.
matter, to make one fade away in never-ending grief? For the fear of death is the greatest of all fears,
Beside this, Mr. Leonard's verse gives one a sense, the ruling passion in the life of the sons of man,
not altogether correct, of literalness without ac the energy of all the tragedies men infict upon
curacy, of passion without elevation, of clamor. each other. Yet it rests upon ignorance and upon
Mackail's key is too subdued for Lucretius, as illusion. The fear of death is the fear of nothing;
Leonard's is too strident. Both miss the Lucretian the fear merely of the sleep and peace which are
poignancy, that eager deliberation and passionate "the conclusion of the matter." The fear of death
,
quietude of his verse, which render it so truly the in a word, is the instinct toward living, against
voice of his vision.
which argument cannot prevail. Its follies and
But such is the fate of translators anywhere. The absurdities may be exposed, its foundation laid bare
,
marvel is rather that they should at all, in Mr.
and its setting discovered, and that is all. Once
Leonard's suggestive analogy, have re-enacted any-
this is done, however, as Epicurus has done it, the
thing of their original's being and have caused it to intensities of life are weakened; the spirit has
live in the new body they have given it. With changed its role from actor to spectator. It is fire
Lucretius this is particularly difficult, so spiritual and at
rest above the battle, serene and self-
and uncustomary a thing is his vision. An almost sufficient.
unknown poet, of a despised philosophic sect, with
nought
a courage about ultimacies men hate each other for,
There is more goodly than to hold the high
his one poem passed, preserved by a single manu-
Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise,
script, down the Christian ages, with a stigma upon
Whence thou may'st look below on other men
And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed
its worth and the life of its author at the hands of a
In their lone seeking for the road of life;
sainted chronicler of a Christian church.
Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank,
Dante
does not mention him, nor does he figure noticeably
Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil
For summits of power and mastery of the world!
in the thoughts of men until the imaginings of
philosophers have become the truths of science, and
This is, of course, essentially asceticism. But it
the face of the world has had stripped away the
has nothing in it of the asceticism of tradition. No
mask which the Church had drawn over it. Since
medieval skeleton, with memento mori upon its lips.
then his lovers have become myriads, but his temper
No mortification of the true normalities of life.
has
It is a withdrawal rather of the mind's attention
our Christian
to the ardent indifferences, the dynamic im-
ping revealed. It was, by and large, that which
Lucretius had seen-a universe of atoms and space,
are all one:
"Nature for herself harks after noth-
bound by inexorable law in a single process of
ing.” It is the antipodes of Stoicism, for the Stoic
alternate integration and dissolution; of worlds
accepts everything, and this is a great rejection. It
made and unmade under the alternate sway of
is the antipodes of Christianity because to Christian
Venus and Mars, poetic personifications of two
materialism death is the gate to hell or paradise
,
.forces, really the flow and the ebb of the one cosmic
and its memento mori is a minatory warning of a
tide which is existence.
world to come.
To Lucretius and the purer Epi-
Foam and spindrift of this tide, man shares its
curean tradition death is a thing not to be remem-
character and destiny. The Nature which breeds
bered but, because of its very inevitability, to be
him destroys him also, and all his life is a battle
disregarded. A mind contemplative of Nature's
with death. Indeed, the love of life and the fear
eternal laws is a free mind. It accepts its span of
of death are in him one and the same thing. They
make his pieties, his patriotism, his acquisitiveness,
when it ends, it ends. The rest is silence.
his ambition, and his love. They drive him from
tines. Why, may be gathered from what the strip- partialities of ra Nature to which living and define
H. M. Kallen.


1919
417
THE DIAL
London, February 20
LIFE IN LONDON HAS BEEN rather fiat during the admiration of men of letters, and particularly
In 1912
.
the past month. I judge this from the fact that of novelists, and with the certainty of enduring
we are all inclined to buzz a little about the elec fame. These are not despicable rewards; but some
tion of Sir Aston Webb to the Presidency of the fortunate writers manage to add to them others of
Royal Academy. Sir Aston is the first architect a more physically satisfying character.
who has ever received this distinction; and, what or 1913, however, a Civil List pension was granted
ever may have been the motives which the electors to Mr. Conrad, a grant which does not usually
imagined as persuading them, I assume that the come the way of the “best seller.” Then at the
cosmic purpose in the matter was to assure us that end of 1913, or the beginning of 1914, he pub-
the Royal Academy was as dead as architecture or lished Chance, and suddenly the scene was changed.
that architecture was as dead as the Royal Academy I suppose the idea that Mr. Conrad was a great
-it does not much matter which. Several painters novelist had been slowly germinating for years in
of the modern school have raised a yelp of protest. the breasts of the persons who really sell novels;
Apparently they were still hoping that the Academy and at this opportunity it burgeoned forth. The
might earn their approval by electing Mr. Sargent. newspapers were filled with immense reviews, the
If an architect must be elected, they said, why not book's name
was on everyone's lips—you know
Lutyens, who is a good and progressive architect? what I mean when I say "everyone”—and several
But the Academy goes its own way without refer editions were printed. Now, Chance, though a
ence to the modern school. It chose the man most fine book, is not in my judgment Mr. Conrad's
representative of its own spirit—the man who de- best; but since its appearance he has been a popular,
signed the Victoria Memorial and refronted Buck as well as a famous, novelist. He is not, if I esti-
ingham Palace, a man who knows what is expected mate his character correctly from his writings,
of an eminent architect and who invariably fulfills much moved by the change. It is an event which
expectations. The correct attitude in the affair was will rejoice his colleagues more than himself; but
observed by the Academy itself and by Mr. Jacob in years of doubt and depression it is an event which
Epstein. Mr. Epstein, being questioned, replied rejoices his colleagues very considerably.
that he had nothing to say, that the Academy was A little while ago I referred to the probability
a business house and had no connection with art, that the old wearisome discussions about the Higher
and that he had, therefore, no concern with its
Drama would be revived with the end of the war.
proceedings. It seems to me quite clear that the Now I am told that the Higher Drama is in for a
younger artists who ostentatiously decline to have very bad time indeed. This is due to two facts.
any dealings with the Academy are a little ridicu- In the first place, Western theaters have grown so
lous when they betray a benevolent interest in the exceedingly costly that only a syndicate, and a very
choice of its President. But young painters in re- wealthy syndicate at that, can possibly hope to
volt always tend to be a little ridiculous. Mean undertake the risks involved in leasing them. In
while the Academy is inviting the laughter of man the second place, two such syndicates have arisen
kind by discussing the proposition that
Academicians and are gradually swallowing up theater after
shall retire at the age of seventy-five.
theater. The old actor-manager, whose demand for
Another event of interest is the appearance of
a place—a permanent place in the limelight used
the first pages of a new serial by Mr. Conrad. The so much to irritate the exponents of the Higher
history of this writer's reputation is one of the Drama, has already almost disappeared; and the
curiosities of modern literature. He has been "be- Higher Dramatists are beginning to miss him. He
fore the public," I suppose, for more than twenty was, they say, a creature of strange tastes and
years, and almost from his first book his reputation methods and preposterous vanities; but there was
was assured with all the mighty persons whose
a strain of idealism in his character. He did not
He combined, moreover, a fine care wholly for loot, he cared something for artistic
creative imagination and an exquisite prose style success and a good deal for his reputation. But
with a choice of characters, incidents, and settings the new syndicates are mere caterers, on the same
that would have made the fortune of a writer of level as the proprietors of multiple tea-shops. They
"penny bloods.” Nevertheless, he proved to be a
will find out what the public is prepared to pay for,
delight only for the few; and, as time went on, it and they will give it precisely that, indifferent to
seemed to be obvious that he must be content with
any other qualities in the goods they handle. More.
opinions count.


418
April 19
THE DIAL
over, it is obvious that the more theaters the syndi to stir its blood. But, though you would not gather
cates control, the more secure they will be against it from hearing the Higher Dramatists talk, these
the chances and misfortunes that commonly assail genres do not really exhaust all the possibilities.
theatrical enterprises. The Higher Dramatists do It is not a fact, as is often believed, that the public
not look for much help from the syndicates, and dislikes a thing to be good. The public dislikes in-
they are in consequence very unhappy.
tensely to be bored; and it sometimes finds good art
But I can see two possible mitigations of the so difficult to follow as to be boring. But a thing
doom they anticipate. The greater the success of is not necessarily good art because it bores the pub-
the syndicates the more powerful is likely to be lic. The gloomier works of the Higher Dramatists
the inevitable reaction against it; and I can see that attracted nobody but a few persons desirous of ap-
reaction taking the shape of a National Theater in pearing intellectual. The public were repelled by
London, and numerous and enterprising municipal the dullness of the stuff, and persons of taste were
theaters in the provinces. The theater is, in all repelled simply because it was not good art. But
conscience, bad enough; and, perhaps, it must be
I can see, if only faintly, a type of play that we
worse before it can be better. On the other hand, shall all equally like and respect; and that type of
it does seem to me possible that unity of control play, I dare to affirm, is the play in verse. The
may involve greater diversity of production. At public, though it has had few recent opportunities
present what happens is this: a manager makes of finding it out, likes good verse well spoken. It
a hit with a farce containing a slightly risque scene
in a bathroom; and promptly every other manager
is at present immensely enjoying a production of
Twelfth Night, which is particularly distinguished
in London rushes on to the stage a new farce also
by the beautiful elocution of some of the perform-
containing a scene in a bathroom. But the syndi The Elizabethan drama sprang' out of this
cate, when it makes a hit of this kind, will not, if I public appetite; if enough of our young poets will
may so express myself, put all its eggs in one bath turn their attention to the stage and make up their
It will find it more profitable to reserve
minds to try and to fail and to keep on trying, they
certain theaters for certain kinds of plays, and so
may stimulate this appetite anew. Stephen Phillips
tap all sections of the public at once. Thus the
succeeded; but he was not good enough either as
Higher Drama, which really has a following, if not
a poet or as a dramatist for his success to last; and
a large one, will get its innings after all.
practically all the other poetic dramatists of recent
And I am persuaded that the public which will
times have been well intentioned, and sometimes
pay to witness artistically serious drama is larger
excellent, poets without the slightest notion how to
than anyone has yet been able to demonstrate
. The work on an audience. I suppose really that I am
public was never enthusiastic about the gloomier the only person in London who looks on the pros-
plays of Mr. Galsworthy and his followers—it had
no great interest in tragic seductions in the country;
pects of the Higher Drama with a cheerful eye.
the darkness of life in the industrial districts failed
The exponents of it do not, nor do those who have
witnessed its performances.
ers.
room.
EDWARD SHANKS.
I Watch One Woman Knitting
The lamplight rings her in a golden space,
And isles her in from all the eager dark;
She cannot see me where I sit and mark
The disappearing pageant on her face:
Those swiftest thoughts, and moods, and whims like lace,
Impermanent as winds across the grass
One after one they rise and change and pass,
One after one, and leave no slightest trace.
Her's is the peace of a cathedral close.
The lamp's warm glow has walled her all about
In deepest quiet from the world without-
Until I cannot think how well she knows
That just beyond this circle where she sits,
They clash and curse and die, for whom she knits.
DAVID MORTON.


THE DIAL
E-
GEORGE DONLIN
CLARENCE BRITTEN
ROBERT MORss LOVETT, Editor
In Charge of the Reconstruction Program:
JOHN DEWEY
THORSTEIN VEBLEN
HELEN MAROT
IN NO DEPARTMENT OF THE MODERN WORLD HAS
leges by trustees, of state institutions and public
the tendency toward democracy been more pro schools by regents and school boards, results in a
nounced than in education. An analysis of the
limitation of its natural democratic tendencies. In
process into its factors clearly shows the change the direction of subject matter political have taken
from the Renaissance to the modern school. These the place of literary or religious conventions. A
factors are three—the subject matter, the teacher,
conventional political economy, political science, and
and the pupil. In respect to each the education of history have been imposed, and any attempt by the
the Renaissance was aristocratic. The subject mat teacher or the pupil to break through this shell and
ter was conventionally prescribed, a group of classics touch the core of human experience within is bitterly
whose value was a matter of authority, not of ex-
resented by those who represent the social control of
perience. The teaching was autocratic; the posses vested interests. Similarly the method of experiment
sion of the text in a dead language gave the teacher
and testimony is ruled out as soon as it is applied
an absolute control over his pupils. The fact that the to current political and social phenomena. The
subject matter was remote from the immediate needs teacher is prevented from joining his pupils in a
and interests of ordinary existence automatically
search for truth, but is compelled to resume his
restricted its followers to a special caste. Culture old papal seat of authority. Of all these types of
was the concern of an institution—it was academic,
limitation and impediment the relations of the New
as religion was ecclesiastic. The appearance of
York Board of Education with the teachers during
Comenius, almost contemporary with that of Bacon the past year afford ample illustration. The in-
and the scientific Renaissance, marked the beginning
fluence of war psychology was a natural and reason-
of the modern tendency; the exclusion of purely
able excuse for the attitude shown by the Board and
conventional learning, the use of the vernacular, the
its superintendents while the country was at war,
introduction of an objective method, above all the
but it is significant that with the return to peace
concept of a school system which should extend the feeling which was developed for nationalistic
education to the people—these ideas projected by purposes has been transferred to social ends. In-
the seventeenth century reformer are gradually being
stead of Germany, Russia is the object of patriotic
achieved. In the last few years the progress has
animadversion. The investigations and trials of
been notable. No longer is the teacher an autocrat.
teachers held by the Board of Education are pitiful
From the earliest experimental school to the univer spectacles. On the one hand is the teacher, ac-
sity seminar the teacher works with his classes in cused of something which in most cases amounts to
a spirit of cooperation. No longer is the subject making personal reservations of opinion in regard
matter prescribed, conventional, remote from life. to the phenomena of the world instead of enforcing
The defense of the study of the so-called classics is arbitrarily the official view, and of inviting his
now based on their vital quality as a record of ex-
pupils to make use of the method of experiment and
perience. Practical study of the world, technical
testimony. On the other hand there is the organi-
study of the arts are part of every curriculum. In
zation, aided by the officious zeal of its servants to
method, experiment has replaced authority. These
whom the espionage habit has become second nature.
changes in subject matter and method have made
Between them stands a flock of pupils, their minds
education necessarily democratic in appeal. It has
driven this way and that by examination and cross-
become an initiation into life of which all men feel
examination, victims of the war as certainly as if
the need, and resent the lack—for themselves and
they had been drafted and sent to the front. It is
their children.
nothing short of sabotage of education. Similar re-
ports come from Washington where a teacher, ex-
But in this triumphant movement of education in pressing the opinion that “ the Soviet Government
the direction of democracy there is one point of in Russia was better for Russia than was the ab-
friction. It is the point at which the system of solutism of the Czar” was charged with “unpatri-
education is in contact with that of society and otic utterances " and suspended. The superintendent
government. The control of education by persons has barred discussion of the League of Nations to-
outside the system, of endowed universities and col gether with Bolshevism, in spite of the fact that the


420
April 19
THE DIAL
teaching of current topics is required, and it is a
literal impossibility to exclude these subjects from
discussion in classes in modern history and eco-
nomics.
The remedy for this maladjustment is immediate
and obvious. It is simply to give teachers control
of education, to restrict the functions of school
boards and trustees to business management. It is
to be noted that this is the demand everywhere of
labor that respects itself-responsibility for produc-
tion. Responsibility is the only way of introducing
that esprit de corps which has been defined as con-
sisting in thinking in terms of the enterprise rather
than of the job. It is characteristic of workers that
under. a system of responsibility they make few mis-
takes in choosing their leaders—men and women of
initiative and originality. But the true analogy is
not between teachers and labor, but between educa-
tion and other professions. To quote Dr. Kallen
(The Dial, Feb. 28, 1918): “To the discoverers
and creators of Knowledge, and to its transmitters
and distributors, to these and to no one else beside
belongs the control of education. It is as absurd
that any but teachers and investigators should gov-
ern the art of education as that any but medical
practitioners and investigators should govern the
art of medicine."
tively in that experience. At the same time it is
clear that no merely passive attitude on the part
of a people will stand against powerful forces
working to subvert it, and a democratically organ-
ized people is peculiarly liable to attack by such
forces through the institution of representative
government. It seems probable that the issue of
universal military service will appear well to the
front in the next presidential campaign, and mean-
while the sponsors for it are active in the various
states. In these the method is to make military
training a part of the high school course, and the
question thus becomes an educational one. A law
to this effect, in New York, hastily conceived and
irregularly enforced, is now undergoing scrutiny
as to its educational value. Similar bills are pend-
ing in the legislatures of Pennsylvania, Missouri
,
and California. In Oregon such a bill has failed;
in New Jersey the adverse report of the legislative
committee on military drill in high schools has
probably proved decisive. The organizations which
for one purpose or another are seeking to carry such
bills in the several states, as the basis of a plan of
national military service, have placed the question
squarely on educational grounds. The Security
League sent its most brilliant orator to the last
meeting of the National Education Association to
clamor for its endorsement. It is altogether proper
that the opinion of teachers should be decisive on
this phase of the matter.
If teachers have little
influence with local authorities in which control of
education is specifically vested, at least they have
the power of organized citizens to secure political
action which shall be representative of the com-
munity, and of themselves, in a matter on which
they have a supreme right to be heard.
IT IS CLEAR THAT
ANY COVENANT OF PEACE
among nations will depend for its validity upon the
activity of its supporters in all countries in taking ad-
vantage of the opportunity offered for international
cooperation to remove the causes of war. No one
need be told today that of these causes armament and
military training are two of the most immediate. It
is not too much to say that every country may test
its will to end war by its readiness to disarm, and
the weakness of this will is revealed by the feeble
and uncertain character of the provisions of the
Covenant in this matter. There is all the more
reason, therefore, that believers in international
peace should manifest their faith by national action.
The principle is recognized by the Covenant of
armament graduated according to the geographical
circumstances of the contracting parties. Clearly
the part is suggested to the United States of lead-
ing the way in showing confidence in reason and
good will instead of bayonets and iron-clads. And
the part should not be a difficult one. The people
of the United States are normally pacific and they
have had enough experience of the spiritual rav-
ages of war to recognize the symptoms of the dis-
ease. They have never built the system of general
military service into their social structure, or
crowned the edifice with a military caste. The re-
sult of the recent mobilization seems on the whole
to have given the people a pronounced distaste for
military experience, and this distaste is apparently
strongest among those who participated most ac-
THE
HE VICTORY LOAN SHOULD BE THE OCCASION
for the exhibition of a new spirit if the League of
Nations is to be worth the paper on which it is
drawn up. The Liberty Bonds were sold largely
on hate. The appeal carried to the ear of the
people by four-minute oratory, or to the eye of the
people by posters and moving-pictures, was sup-
ported by lavish representations of the malevolence
of the enemy. That these were in part false was
indicated by the action of General Pershing in with-
drawing from active salesmanship a sergeant who
was telling atrocity stories unwarranted by any.
thing in the actual experience of the troops. At the
same time this popular feeling was used as a measure
of coercion against citizens who did not manifest
the degree of financial patriotism demanded by the
standards of the community. The Secretary of the
Treasury fulminated against pacifists. The extent
to which organized coercion was practiced under the
direction of local managers is revealed in an article
in The New Republic for March 29, enitled Bor-
rowing with a Club. It is hardly necessary to point


1919
421
THE DIAL
"-
out that such methods, emphasizing division in pub their record show the full apprenticeship exacted by
lic opinion, will not serve to advance the prospects an ancient and jealous guild, they have not yet-
of the present loan. The government has been un except here and there, and in inconsiderable num-
able to secure, so far as we know, the punishment bers—the opportunity to teach on equal terms with
of a single person for illegal proceedings in connec men. They may clerk in libraries, drudge in ad-
tion with the sale of Liberty Bonds. It is not to be ministrative offices, mark themes, correct exercises,
expected that it will be able to mark its disapproval and aspire to infrequent instructorships; but—ex-
of their methods by relieving these active patriots cept here and there, and in inconsiderable numbers
from the management of the present loan. As in —they may not enter the faculty proper and achieve
the case of leaders and inciters of mob violence, the the rewards, niggardly enough, that men finally re-
energy and aggressiveness shown by such persons ceive for the apprentice years of overwork and
are qualities with which the government will hesi underpay. Before the war this situation was an
tate to dispense. But the spirit and method of their anachronism: today, when women have convinced the
appeal must be totally different if the distinction world of their capacity to perform nearly all tasks
between the Liberty Loans and the Victory Loan is that men perform, it is becoming a peril. Attracted
to be maintained. The victory, which is properly by the current demand in other fields, with better
to be celebrated by new sacrifices, was a victory wages and nearer approximation to sex equality,
won for the whole world. The fruits of that' vic large numbers of the more independent (and by
tory are to be found in a reunion of the world the same sign more valuable) women are being
toward which nothing can contribute so much at drawn away from academic life. If the colleges find
the present time as the feeding of the starving, the it difficult to retain the services of men of initiative,
clothing of the naked, wherever they may be, among how can they hope to keep their women teachers
our late enemies as among our allies.
Is it too unless they level the humiliating and indefensible
much to suggest emphasis upon this generous aspect barrier of sex discrimination ? There is a certain
of the sacrifice? The victory was won for democ type of academic mind that professes indifference
racy at home as well as abroad. The fruits of that to the breaches made in university personnel by the
victory are to be found in a reunion of Americans
greater attractiveness of secular pursuits. It finds
on the basis of their freedom, toward which re something unworthy in the teacher who is swayed
union nothing can contribute so much at the at all by considerations of wage or working hours.
present time as the release of those in prison for But it is a mind that is increasingly incongruous in
conscience' or opinion's sake. In many cases a re-
the world for which our colleges are preparing our
calcitrant attitude toward the Liberty Loans was youth. Sooner or later it must give way before
one of the indictments brought against those con modern demands, just as sooner or later the col-
victed under the Espionage Act. To what extent leges must accept the modern world's estimate of
this attitude was engendered and reenforced by the women's sphere. But will it be so late that we
illegal methods of the managers of the loans is a shall yet witness the spectacle of educators arguing
matter deserving honest inquiry. The withholding before women legislators that woman's place is in
of supply has been a time-honored weapon by which the home?
the Anglo-Saxons have maintained their liberties,
and to some citizens the Liberty Loans were doubt-
less presented as a form of taxation, as unjust and UNDER THE ACID TEST OF EVERYDAY PSYCHOLOGY
illegal as Ship Money or the Stamp Tax. The
our pedagogy still shows a considerable blind-spot.
government could manifest the spirit of victory and
One of the minor evidences of its existence is the
confidence in the results of the war in no way more
eloquently than by opening the drive for a Victory prevailing practice of writing two distinct prefaces
or "forewords” in our high school and collegiate
Loan by a general amnesty to all victims of laws en-
acted for the emergency of war.
textbooks—one labeled To the Teacher, and the
other To the Pupil. To the discerning student
this bifocal adjustment is apt to appear in the
THE
nature of an implied condescension. It is like com-
PROMISES TO
ing to the branching of a road, with one fork
citadel of sex privilege. The granddaughters of the winding upward to the instructor and the other
women who won from prejudice the opportunity to sloping slightly down grade for the assumed mental
study in college on equal terms with men have yet convenience of the student. With a modicum of
to secure the same opportunity in the better pro ingenuity it ought to be possible for the author of a
fessional schools. During most of these years, more-
textbook to merge these separate messages—to start
over, the public, and many of the private, colleges with a salutary "meeting of the minds” of teacher
have been conferring degrees on women, admitting and pupil—and thus pave the way for a more unified
them to the “ fellowship of educated men "—the approach to the stuff of his ensuing chapters. The
fellowship, but not the profession. For though their innovation would certainly be more adroit—and
scholarship carry the academic seal of approval and therefore better psychology.
HE UNIVERSITY
BE THE LAST


4.22
THE DIAL
April 19
Foreign Comment
sonality of the cadet Minister of Education, whom
sists of the creation of a continuous school system,
which was in the process of creation already in No-
vember, as one may judge by copies of Russian news-
The SovietS AND THE SCHOOLS papers which came to hand. To an American who
always had a continuous school system this reform
An editorial on Americanism and Bolshevism ap is not quite clear, for it is difficult for him to picturę
peared in the Chicago Daily Tribune on February the Russian schools as they were during the Czar's
.6. The whole of it shows how poorly informed the regime. Until the very outbreak of the revolution
editors are on Russian affairs. I was especially the Russian statutes divided the Russian “subjects"
astounded by the following passage: We build into two classes: the privileged (3 per cent), and
schoolhouses. The Bolsheviki shoot school teachers. the tax-paying (97 per cent). For each of these
The school teachers know too much."
classes there were separate schools. For the former
In reality, the first order of the Soviet power there were gymnasiums (high schools), universi-
which reached the villages in November, 1917, was ties, and polytechnical institutes; for the latter, vil-
a decree for the increase of the salaries of village lage and city schools. The completion of a course
teachers almost fourfold. Further orders of the in these schools did not give the pupil the right to
Soviet power abolished directors and inspectors of enter high school. Furthermore, the admission of
public schools—those Czarist agents of public “ un-
children of tax-paying “subjects” was prohibited
enlightenment” who have through some misunder- altogether in some high schools. And those who,
standing survived the Provisional Governments. In according to the law, had the right to enter high
their places elected Soviets of People's Education schools were deprived of this right by all sorts of
were organized in every county. And finally, on circulars of the Czar's ministers, who recommended
August 26, 1918, an All-Russian Convention on the directors not to heed this right.
Education was called in Moscow. When opening By a continuous school system we mean the right
this convention the Commissar of People's Educa of the pupil, who has been graduated from grammar
tion, Lunacharsky, thus characterized the problems school-city or village—to enter high school and
of the Government in regard to schools:
after that a university or a polytechnical institute.
This reform involves the increase of the number of
The revolution of October 25 (November 7] made the
school problem one of the most important problems. The
high schools and the revision of the program
struggle of the people is carried on in three directions:
grammar schools.
(1) for state power, (2) for economic power, (3) for It is also worth while to say a few words about
knowledge. . . Never was the work on this planet as
fruitful as that of the past ten months. The same with
this latter program under the old regime. The city
the school. The people cannot direct the economy and
schools with a six-year course and the zemsky vil-
the life of the country if they are not educated. The
lage schools with a three-year course were compara-
school is subject to revolutionary reforms.
tively good, although even there much time was de-
be built anew, it must only be rebuilt radically. . . We
want the maximum development of the schools. The
voted to the memorizing of prayers and of all titles
wish of the present power is to give greater and better
not only of the Czar, but of his seventy relatives as
educational opportunities. . . It is already possible to
well. But the zemsky schools have long since been
work more normally. We have not passed the danger
looked upon suspiciously because of their liberal ten-
yet; the military struggle is still on, but this period is
comparatively normal and there is a possibility of get-
dency, and they were being replaced therefore by
ting to work in the rear. The Commissariat is almost
church schools. The latter had the largest number
complete; the pedagogues are with us and the school
of pupils. Some of these schools had a one-year
reform must be realized this year.
course, others, a two-year course.
What does this reform consist of? In spite of the
in these was paid to choir singing and to the memo-
opinion of the Chicago Daily Tribune it consists of
rizing of prayers. Reading was taught in such a
nothing more than the Americanization of the Rus-
way
that the reader should not understand what
sian schools. The American schools are undoubtedly
he reads." You will no doubt think that this is a
the best and Free Russia makes great use of this ex-
joke. But no, this is a quotation from one of the
periment. At the present time the following has
secret instructions of the Holy Synod to the prelates
.
already been accomplished:
Such a state of affairs was quite natural under the
(1) The schools have been taken out of the hands
autocratic regime. No wonder that its ideologist
of the clergy and religion as a compulsory sub-
and inspirer, Pobiedonoszeff, said: “ Especially do we
ject has been abolished.
fear popular education." But it is an enigma to me
(2) All schools are free.
why both Provisional Governments overlooked the
(3) Coeducation of boys and girls has been intro-
school problem. Perhaps the fault lies in the per-
duced in all schools,
(4) The participation of the pupils in some school
even Boublikoff calls “ absurd” in his book entitled
affairs is permitted (school republics).
The Russian Revolution.
But the main reform of the Russian schools con-
GEORGE V. LOMONOSSOFF.
New York City.
of the
must not
Most attention


1919
423
THE DIAL
Communications
with real people in an actual discussion of living is-
sues. And this gives the book great and permanent
value for intelligent readers everywhere.
A NOBLE TRANSLATION
The translation has an additional value however
for those who know the circumstances of its creation.
Sir: Yesterday was one of those golden days
For it represents the dedicated labor of years on the
that have been so unusually numerous this extraordi-
part of a man who had not only retired after long
nary winter. An accumulation of tasks kept my
and honorable service at the University of Wiscon-
rebellious body at my desk but my mind was for-
sin, but who had reached a period of life when all
ever tramping the frozen fields. And when a
but the rarest spirits consider themselves out of the
great wedge of honking wild geese pushed north-
race. Indeed the last third of the translation, accom-
ward over the housetops, even my body deserted. plished after the author was over eighty-five and
But at the door I met the postman with a package practically blind, was done by ear and dictation. The
from The Dial, which was just enough to send fact that in spite of this the freshness and clarity of
me sneaking back to duty.
style and the accuracy of scholarship are maintained
I spare you any account of the pleasantries I in-
to the end, so that it is quite impossible to discover
dulged in at the expense of the editor who had thus
any weakening of powers, to say nothing of detecting
tripped up adventure. My animus all came to this: where the blindness set in, demonstrates the author's
What were you thinking of to send me another book extraordinary physical and intellectual vigor. Those
to review? Didn't you know that I was already acquainted with the book were not surprised at the
hopelessly buried under other unfinished work?
tribute recently paid in a speech at the Madison
You should have the package back unopened. You Literary Club, by Chief Justice Winslow, himself a
should be told, politely but firmly, to go hang. scholar, to the fine quality of the work and the fine
Alas, curiosity! There could be no harm in just
courage of the action.
looking to see what the book was. Perhaps I might
Please accept my thanks then for The Republic of
even want to read a little of it. I could easily Plato, translated by Alexander Kerr, Litt. D., Emer-
enough wrap it up again, and still tell you go hang itus Professor of Greek in the University of Wiscon-
which, after all, was the important thing. But once sin, our sturdy Scotch townsman, now ninety years
having seen the familiar and magni ent head of the
old. It is not only a noble work of translation but
author on the wrapper, the book
was mine—mine by a translation of a noble work, one that should be
the divine right of appreciation. Why, sir, I have better known by a people who have assumed the task
lived with that work for years. As Professor Kerr of making the world safe for democracy.
has issued, book by book, his translation of Plato's
Republic, I have read and reread the immortal dis-
Madison, Wisconsin.
M. C. OTTO.
cussion. All my favorite hilltops and glens and lake-
retreats know Socrates and Glaucon and Adeiman-
A CHANGE OF NAME.
tus and Thrasymachus. I have had them debate
in villages before audiences gathered about that great Sir: The Seventh Annual Report of the Na-
American institution, the base-burner; in towns by tional League on Urban Conditions among Negroes
the glow of the hospitable open fire; in cities when shows the universal hand of war affecting all its
the reader's tremulo had to be reduced by a seat on activities. The spread of the work incident to these
the radiator. These little booklets, now worn and extensive war activities has made it so well known
soiled from much traveling in knapsacks, have short to the public, that it feels this a good time to ab-
ened the hours of illness, have kept alive the hope breviate its rather cumbrous title, and wishes to
of a better social order, have encouraged philosophic make its bow to its contributors and friends this
temper and imaginative identification with alien year as the National Urban League.
times and alien creeds. No, you shall not have The year's work shows the organization of four
back the volume which now gathers them together new cities, so that a total of thirty cities now carry
in durable, well printed form. Instead I send you on the work of community betterment among urban
two words about it, or rather one about the book and Negroes. The national office has been chiefly con-
one about the author.
cerned with giving supervision and advice in these
Of course there are other good translations of the cities and with visiting others asking for organiza-
Republic. Professor Kerr's work excels in the clear tion; with attendance at the many national con-
ness, strength, and limpid flow of his style. He has ferences held this year, especially those interested in
assimilated the Platonic diction and movement. The social welfare; with placing welfare workers in in-
translation is agreed to be impeccable in accu dustrial centers and with securing and training wel.
racy, and it is colored all through by a wide acquaint fare workers for the various kinds of social work
ance with the scholarly queries and cruxes pertain- needed in the community development which the
ing to the subject. But the striking quality of the Urban League is constantly seeking to enlarge.
achievement is the absence of all academic Aavor.
One carries away the impression of having engaged
New York City. LILLIAN A. TURNER.


424
THE DIAL
April 19
time required under ordinary business conditions.
Since the educatiön of the pupil is the first considera-
tion, his training follows a logical progression from
unfortunate that the attitude of patronage char-
Notes on New Books
of an alien Prussian ancestry is that the most
genial character in The Flail is the rough old
THE FLAIL. By Newton A. Fuessle. Mof-
unlettered peasant, Biltmeier, who without palter-
fat, Yard.
ing lends the hero a thousand dollars for his college
tuition. Where American associations and Ameri-
In computing the damages inflicted by Germany can ideals are set forth, on the contrary, they do
during the war, the transformation of sound lit-
not come out very creditably, and the reader is led
erary materials into the "timely” propagandist impiously to question whether the white napery
of
nonsense of The Flail should doubtless be taken
middle-class reputability, the liveried coaches on
into account. Before the Hun gave Mr. Fuessle Dearborn Avenue, and the gaudy delicacies of the
strabismus he had recorded in his sharp, unsmiling cabaret are very potent elements in conveying to
way the realities of lower middle-class adolescence the unassimilated foreigner the qualities of that
in the backwaters of Chicago, of business enterprise traditional ideal of America that one associates with
on LaSalle Street, and of the forced and furtive Jefferson, Paine, Walt Whitman, and Lincoln
. An
dissipations that ran below the surface of life at author who sets out to prove the putative virtues
the University. In the transition from the timid, of our civilization in relation to a fictitious national
dreaming public-school boy to the successful man problem ought to be able to stack the evidence
of business the author had the opportunity to show more competently.
how the demands of contemporary business tech-
nique may develop a personality whose native
endowments run to softness and sentimentalism,
THE VOCATIONAL RE-EDUCATION OF MAIMED
into the triumphant, self-assertive model of the
SOLDIÉRS. By Leon de Paeuw, translated by
Economic Man. However well Mr. Fuessle's ob-
The Baronne Moncheur and Elizabeth Kemper
servation had provided him with the details of such
Barrott. Princeton University Press.
a novel, his psychology was not sensitive enough,
The VOCATIONAL EDUCATION OF GIRLS AND
nor his humor keen enough, to grasp the possibili-
WOMEN. By Albert H. Leake. Macmillan.
ties of a realistic criticism of life. Lacking insight
into Rudolph Dohmer, his hero, as an individual,
The suddenly increased interest in vocational ed-
the author falls back upon his hero's ancestors; and
ucation, responding to the demand for training war-
since hịs squalid and embittered parents happen to
crippled soldiers, has brought this subject out of the
be of German stock, every bit of theft, rapine, ruth-
field of academic discussion into the open
immed-
lessness, and lack of principle that Rudolph shows
iately practical policies.
is fastened extenuatingly upon his hateful forbears.
M. de Paeuw is Inspector General of primary
Thus the interesting exploration of a new social
education in Belgium and pedagogic inspector in the
milieu is makeshifted into an excursion into the
institutes for vocational re-education of wounded
realms of quack anthropology and quack social
soldiers. His book gives an account of what Bel-
psychology for the purpose of raising the question
gium, in spite of her upset condition, has accom;
of alleged pertinence during the period of recon-
plished in vocational re-education since 1915, and
struction: "Is it Rudolph Dohmer's power to sub-
presents an object lesson in what can be done when
merge through American association and American
the state whole-heartedly stands behind an educa-
ideals the hereditary instincts of the German? It
tional project. The Belgian National School for
is this warped mirror of pseudoscience which Mr.
Maimed Soldiers at Port-Villez includes courses of
Fuessle holds up to life, and the consequence is a
training with apprenticeship in forty-eight trades, an
systematic perversion of values and a distortion of
Auxiliary School for assistants in commerce, trade,
images. That there is any distinction between the
and administration, and an Agricultural School
.
racial inheritance common to all Western Euro-
peans and the cultural heritage peculiar to a region
The apprenticeship system, through which pupils
or to a technology, the author simply does not grasp.
get their training in work on actual orders, secures
an added value from the war-time shortage in pro-
Whenever the results of the American milieu be-
come a little too painful for candid appraisal, his
duction; and the profit on these orders, which are
defense reaction is to vapor murkily about the Hun
chiefly for the state, reduces the cost of the training
in Rudolph. The Hun is the scapegoat upon which
course. To secure the pupil's best allround develop-
the sins of the American business regime are fas-
ment the work is organized under three departments
-the medical, the pedagogic, and the technical. It
thesis,
is noteworthy apprentice-
strategists whose habits of masterly chicane Ru-
dolph successfully acquires, are not tainted Teu-
tons, but patriotic, liberty-loaning, dyed-in-the-wool
Americans. What pushes Rudolph forward in his
career is not that he is by accident a Hun, but by
one completed process to another, while the work
accident a human being. The saddest commentary
produced is of merely incidental importance. It is
upon this drastic exposure of the terrible handicap
acteristic of the French military mind in relation to
Nesseth and Stone and Shattucky the advertising ship in the trades proves to be much less than


1919
THE DIAL
425
-
New Spring Publications of the Yale University Press
AUTHORITY IN THE
MODERN STATE
By Harold J. Laski
Author of “Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty"
Political obedience is the ground of Mr. Laski's
discussion. He examines the main theories of the
state in the light of certain famous personalities,
emphasizing the unsatisfactory character of any
political attitude which does not consider the rela-
tion of obedience to freedom. Cloth, $3.00.
WORLD-POWER AND
EVOLUTION
By Ellsworth Huntington, Ph.D.
Author of "Civilization and Climate," etc.
Dr. Huntington's interesting theory of the in-
fluence of climate upon human affairs is here applied
to present-day world problems. Features of the
discussion are a study of the health of 60,000,000
people in America, Europe and Asia; a new inter-
pretation of business cycles and financial depression
based on health; and an explanation of Germany's
power of resistance. Cloth, illustrated, $2.50.
IDEALISM AND THE
MODERN AGE
By George Plimpton Adams, Ph.D.
Of the University of California
The underlying mental structures which have
found expression in the characteristic social struc-
tures of civilization, such as nationalism, capitalism,
and democracy, are here analyzed and discussed in
their relation to each other. Cloth, $2.50.
courses
MORALE AND ITS ENEMIES
By William Ernest Hocking, Ph.D.
Author of "Human Nature and Its Remaking,” etc.
“Professor Hocking presents a significant picture,
not hardened in detail, but broadly suggestive."-
The Nation. Cloth, $1.50.
WAR AIMS AND
PEACE IDEALS
Edited by Tucker Brooke, B.Litt. (Oxon.), and
Henry Seidel Canby, Ph.D.
Selections in prose and verse illustrating the as-
pirations of the modern world, as voiced by their
foremost spokesmen. Suitable for
in
political science, history, English, etc. Paper
boards, $1.80.
LES TRAITS ÉTERNELS
DE LA FRANCE
By Maurice Barrès. With an Introduction and
Notes by Fernand Baldensperger, Litt.D.
of the Sorbonne and Columbia University
"In these few pages M. Barrès gives us a sense
we can never lose of French patriotism and heroic
devotion to an ideal which is national, and more
than national. A little book of compact feeling,
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426
THE DIAL
April 19
10
practice and precepts of the ancients. Mr. Hill.
the workingman is so obvious in M. de Pauew's dis The TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES; or, The Life
cussion. Nevertheless, as a report of work actually and Death of Tom Thumb the Great, With
being done, the book has an immediate interest to the Annotations of H. Scriblerus Secundus.
advocates of vocational education in general.
By Henry Fielding. Edited by James T. Hill-
Mr. Leake opens up in stimulating fashion the house. Yale University Press.
whole question of education in its relation to recon-
struction. We seem gradually to have accepted the
We may speculate as to Fielding's own emotions
idea that after the war we are to have a reform in
could he perceive the scholarly attention lavished
education as an essential element in the whole scheme
upon his life and works in handsome -volumes
of economic readjustment. For a number of years
emanating recently from New Haven. In his Mod-
in disconnected situations we have been making ex-
ern Glossary Fielding makes “ Pedantry a syn-
periments and trying our methods urged by one or
onym for “ Learning”; “self-taught commentators
another specialist seeking a scheme of education
are objects of his ridicule; text editing and emenda-
which would bridge the constantly widening gulf be-
tions he satirizes more than once in the Covent
tween the academic methods of the school and the
Garden Journal and elsewhere. In his Journey
immediate attractions of industry. That so many
from This World to the Next (published in 1743)
children prefer to go to work at the end of the com-
he lets Shakespeare announce the critical doctrine
pulsory school period must be charged against the
which is apparently Fielding's own—a doctrine bred
school, which has failed to take advantage of the
of his scorn of the Shakespearean scholarship of
spirit of restlessness of children at this age and their Rowe, Theobald, Warburton, et al:
growing demand for independent expression. In our
"I marvel nothing so much as that men will gird
American environment, and in the particular indus-
themselves at discovering obscure beauties in an author.
trial state in which we find ourselves, the “motor-
Certes the greatest and most pregnant beauties are ever
minded ” child who learns by doing things is pre-
the plainest and most evidently striking; and when two
dominant, and the successful school will reckon with
meanings of a passage can in the least balance our judg-
his needs and taste no less than with those of his
ment which to prefer, I hold it matter of unuestionable
certainty that neither of them is worth a farthing."
studious-minded brother. We want a scheme of ed-
ucation which shall recognize the industrial regime
So on turning to Mr. Hillhouse's competent edi-
in which we live and cooperate with it without being
tion of The Tragedy of Tragedies one is inevitably
dominated by it. We do not want our children, in
bound, despite his appreciation of the uses of the
Prussian fashion, assigned and trained to some form
work, to imagine Fielding's honest mirth could he
of industry which will turn them out skilled workers
behold his own burlesque of scholarly editing sol-
without consulting their individual inclinations or
emnly treated to preface and notes replete with
abilities. Neither do we want them put through a
parallel passages and editorial opinions, with dis-
course of book knowledge unrelated to the world of
cussions of date and edition, of sources and imita-
work in which a large part of their lives will be
tions and altered versions. There seems, then, a
spent. The schools must decide whether they will
humorous premonition in the concluding sentence
adapt themselves to the needs and taste of the child
to H. Scriblerus Secundus' mock preface:
and so hold him a few years longer, or will hand
I have a young Commentator from the University, who
him over to industry. Raising the compulsory school
is reading over all the modern Tragedies, at Five Shill-
age to sixteen years, it is true, will do much, and
ings a Dozen, and collecting all that they have stole from
enforcing compulsory attendance will do more; but
our Author, which shall shortly be added in an Ap-
pendix to this work.
neither method is a substitute for the sort of school
which will appeal to the parent as too valuable, and
The Commentator in the present case however,
to the child as too attractive, to give up for a few
besides reading many tragedies of the species Field-
early dollars in industry.
ing burlesqued and culling apt parallels for his notes,
As inspector in the government service for the
has set forth in initial chapters the complicated stage
Province of Ontario, Mr. Leake has made a study
history of the play in its earlier and later versions,
of school conditions on the Continent, in Great
and of the interpolations and adaptations to which
Britain, and in the United States. His book is a
it was subjected. He expounds the nature of Field-
report, authoritative but condensed, of the present
ing's burlesque of the heroic play—a type of trag-
state of women's education for homemaking and in-
edy still popular with the playgoers at that time,
dustrial pursuits, excluding the professional field.
though discarded by the playwrights in favor of the
His treatment of homemaking as an industry, but
classical play.
In the mock critical preface and the
still women's chief industry, is entirely sound, and
burlesqued annotations of the longer version of the
his analysis of the domestic-servant problem is
play, as he shows, Fielding attacks the critics for
illuminating. The book contains a harvest of well
their mechanical application to tragedy of established
selected information that will be of special value to
rules, in justification of which they resort to the
anyone who has been so busy digging in one corner
of the field that he has lost perspective and needs
house points out that in such attacks on Dennis,
to recover his view of the whole field.
Theobald, Bentley, and other critics, Fielding was
following the fashion set by Pope in the Dunciad,


1919
THE DIAL
427
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428
April 19
THE DIAL
estimate of Whittier's essential influence on his day ganism comes to orient itself in symmetrical rela-
the muscles connected with the more strongly illumin-
in the symmetrical muscles, but a stronger one in the
muscles turning the head and body of the animal to the
a work which—together with the earlier satire on a distinctly American development, is presented in
heroic plays, The Rehearsal, and an anonymous its early and middle stages by Professor Pattee; and
pamphlet entitled A Comment upon the History the volume closes with an entertaining chapter on
of Tom Thumb (1711)-probably served as his Books for Children, which runs the gamut from
model.
Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes to Huckleberry
Like Professor Cross, Mr. Hillhouse is interested Finn.
in demolishing the legend of the dissipated Fielding
and finds in the careful workmanship of this play
evidence “in refutation of the commonly accepted
FORCED MOVEMENTS, TROPISM AND ANI-
theory that Fielding's youth was woefully misspent MAL CONDUCT. By Jacques Loeb. Lippincott;
in an uninterrupted sowing of wild oats, and that
Philadelphia.
his plays were dashed off over night on stray tobacco
wrappers. In the case of this play, at any rate,
This is the first of a series of Monographs on Ex-
such a theory cannot stand.” The composition of
perimental Biology under the editorship of Dr. J.
the play meant time and drudgery: “the citations
Loeb, Dr. T. H. Morgan, and Dr. W. J. V. Oster-
and references with which the notes are
thickly vestigations in a number of subjects now in the foret
hout. The aim is to present the results of recent in-
scattered are practically all correct.” Such accuracy,
together with the “careful burlesque of the char-
ground of interest among students of biological
acters, situations, and diction of tragedy give ground
science. Dr. Loeb's book offers a cypical illustration
for the assumption that he lavished a great deal of
of the application to animal behavior of the methods
attention on the Tragedy of Tragedies.”
of investigation employed by modern students of
experimental embryology, genetics, and the psysio-
The CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF AMERICAN
logical activities of the body, and these are essen-
LITERATURE. Vol. II. Putnam.
tially the methods of the physicist and the chemist.
The author says:
This volume enjoys, like its predecessor, a pre-
ponderance of bibliography—some two hundred
Animal conduct is known to many through the romantic
tales of popularizers, through the descriptive work of
pages out of a little over six hundred. It is this biological observers, or through the attempts of vitalists
elaborate feature which has led to publication in
to show the inadequacy of physical laws for the explana-
three volumes rather than in the two originally de-
tion of life. Since none of these contributions are based
signed, and which now brings from the editors an
upon quantitative experiments, they have led only to
explanation to the effect that the division into vol-
speculations, which are generally of an anthropomorphic
or of a purely verbalistic character.
umes is " fortuitous ” and not to be taken as offering
this monograph to show that the subject of animal con-
a “classification of the subject.” Book III, thus,
duct can be treated by the quantitative methods of the
begins somewhat past the middle of the present vol-
physicist, and that these methods lead to the forced move-
ment or tropism theory of animal conduct.
ume, and the line is drawn between Lowell and
Whitman, though they were exact contemporaries-
For the analysis of animal behavior much im-
Lowell closing the earlier day and Whitman open-
portance is attached to this phenomenon of forced
ing the later one.
Animals with certain unilateral in-
bia, on the former
, is one of the high successes
of the juries to the brain are no longer able to proceed in
present volume. Antecedent to Lowell we find,
a straight line and are compelled to travel toward
among other items, a sharp and clear-seeing chapter
one side. This is explained as a result of the un-
on Thoreau; one on Hawthorne, with especial refer-
equal tension or tonus of the symmetrical muscles
ence to his relations to Emerson; a restrained chapter
on the two sides of the body.
on Poe; a grateful one on Daniel Webster as a lit-
animals with asymmetrical brain injuries suggests
erary man, treated with breadth and simplicity by
that the movements classed as tropisms are also
Senator Lodge, and studies of those two diminish-
forced, although in the latter case the turning is
ing lights, Longfellow and Whittier. The latter,
temporary, lasting only so long as the two sides
by Dr. William Morton Payne, is a judicious blend
of the body are unequally affected by the external
of biography and criticism; it is judicious too in its
stimulus. The term tropism covers a variety of
of animals and plants the
and in its observance of the pieties that the
of the elder generation looks for and likes. Pro-
tions to some cuter stimulating agency. For the
fessor Trent, on Longfellow, takes, though with less
explanation of tropisms the symmetry of the body
decisiveness, a not unrelated tone. Among the his-
is an important feature. In an insect illuminated
torians, Prescott and Motley are well represented;
more on one side than on the other
Bancroft too, and in a rather better piece of writing.
In the field of verse, chapters on the poets of the
Civil War, both Northern and Southern, will catch
ated eye are thrown into a stronger tension, and if now
the eye and reward the attention in days when war
impulses for locomotion originate in the central nervous
system, they will no longer produce an equal response
poetry is strikingly to the fore. The short story, as
It is the aim of
movements.
The behavior of


1919
429
THE DIAL
The Spirit of Reconstruction
in the teaching of history means original
inquiry into the ultimate purposes of historical
instruction and concentration on those ends.
THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
by Beard and Bagley
sets a new standard and lives up to it. The great masses of the people rather than
a few shadowy names; movements and problems and adjustments rather than
petty politics and forgotten wars; the twentieth century instead of the eighteenth:
—these topics deserve stress and receive it. (For seventh and eighth grades.)
" It gives that interest in American progress that makes for intelligent pa-
triotism, genuine loyalty, and willingness to accept responsibility.” (John C.
Almack, University of Oregon.)
Write for our biographical booklet on the authors of this new text.
EARLY EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION
MODERN EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION
by R. L. Ashley, Pasadena High School
This series, now winning wide recognition, is the fruit of many years of
class-room experience. Mr. Ashley is a pioneer in the newer type of high school
history course-a course in which history is made the background for an under-
standing of world problems of today rather than a handmaid to the study of
ancient languages.
Mr. Ashley's style is always within the grasp of the high school student.
He is fearless in his elimination of traditional detail, broadly constructive in
his correlation and interpretation, thoroughgoing in his subordination of the mili-
tary and the political to the social and the economic.
SUPERVISED STUDY IN AMERICAN HISTORY
by Mabel E. Simpson
is as important a contribution in the pedagogy of history as the above texts are in
its subject-matter.
Supervised study is one of the most widely discussed themes in the entire
field of modern education. For the first time, Miss Simpson has formulated,
concretely, the application of generally accepted theories to detailed practice in one
definite department of the curriculum.
Miss Simpson's oral demonstrations of supervised study in this field are
exciting nation-wide interest. This book covers the same ground, and is indis-
pensable to teachers of history.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64-66 Fifth Ave., New York
Chicago
Boston
Dallas
Atlanta
San Francisco
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430
THE DIAL
April 19
ing on the excellence of the anthology as a whole.
source of light. The animal will thus be compelled to The last chapter, Memory Images and Tropisms,
change the direction of its motion and to turn to the
sets fórth a mechanistic interpretation of associative
scource of light. As soon as the plane of symmetry goes
through the source of light, both eyes receive again equal
memory and describes the modifications of tropisms
illumination, the tension (or tonus) of symmetrical mus by memory images. Only a brief excursion is made
cles becomes equal again, and the impulses for locomo into the field of the psychology of higher animals and
tion will now produce equal activity in the symmetrical human beings, and that with the purpose of showing
muscles. As a consequence,
the animal will move in a
straight line to the source of light until some other
the possible application of the tropism theory to
asymmetrical disturbance once more changes the direction
human psychology
of motion.
This statement embodies the essential features of
THE ENGLISH POETS. Edited by Thomas
Loeb's theory of tropisms. With certain modifica-
Humphrey Ward. Vol. V. Browning to
tions the explanation of the orientation of an in-
Rupert Brooke. Macmillan.
sect to light may be extended to the phototropism
of other animals, and to the tropic responses of or-
When the four volumes of Ward's English Poets
ganisms to gravity, contact, the electric current, and were published in 1880, one might have predicted
many other sources of stimuli. Tropisms are thus
that a fifth would at some time be necessary; for
resolved into reflex acts, or actions essentially re-
Tennyson and Browning, Swinburne and Morris
,
flex in character, which take place as involuntarily
not to mention Matthew Arnold, though they had
as the reaction of a nerve-muscle preparation of
done almost all the work by which they were to be
an isolated frog's leg.
remembered, were alive and therefore not to be
One of the most important features of the trop-
included, and without them the representation of
isms theory is that it affords a mechanistic explana-
the nineteenth century verse was almost absurdly
tion of many so-called instincts. Dr. Loeb appears
inadequate. Now, almost forty years later, this
not to be daunted by the wonderful complexity and
necessary volume appears, with every mark of being
perfection which instinctive performances sometimes
meant to conclude the series. One may congratulate
exhibit. In the short chapter on instinct he shows
Mr. Ward on surviving to complete his now classic
how some relatively simple activities which are com-
anthology. He has chosen a fitting point at which
monly described as instinctive may plausibly be re-
to close it; for by the death of Rupert Brooke in
solved into tropisms. But anyone who attempts to
1915 nearly all those who had helped to shape the
prove that instincts in general are tropistic reac-
character of the previous century were available
,
-tions” has undertaken a large contract, and the
and Brooke himself, as one complex of the forces
reader of the chapter on instinct can scarcely fail to
that set in with the turn of the new century, was
be impressed with the intrepidity with which the
happily qualified to carry on without suggesting any
author enters upon his task. Dr. Loeb is in the habit
necessary venture into the later field. A great
of thinking of phenomena in terms of their simplest period was rounded out and its sequel hinted at
manifestations, and he has an especial fondness for
As you look down the table of contents you miss
simple explanations. Despite its apparent shortcom-
few names that you would care greatly
ings, his method of procedure may be justified in
included, and those mostly of Nestors like Austin
that it has so often led to significant discoveries; yet
Dobson. One gap there is however which is start:
one cannot but think that in his unduly simplified ling. By any fair estimate Oscar Wilde should
treatment of the problem of instinct he has been be-
have his place in the list, if only for the Ballad
trayed into an inadequate analysis by his habitual
of Reading Gaol. One hopes that his exclusion was
assumption of the irrelevancy of the complex. Many
due to copyright difficulties and not, as one suspects
,
instincts such as nest building, comb making, cocoon
to a British sense of decorum, unwilling to revive
spinning, or orb weaving, are not resolvable into
disquieting memories.
acts which may properly be termed tropisms. Often
As for the selections by which the various poets
complex instincts may be analyzed in terms of re-
are represented, one has to remember that no an-
flexes to outer stimuli, but in other cases the prompt-
thology has ever entirely satisfied readers who have
ings to action arise from within instead of from with-
opinions of their own. In the present volume many
out the organism. In either case the behavior may
will be surprised that Stevenson should be allotted
tion quite as much as if it were a mere Cartesian
more than three times as much as Fitzgerald, who
automaton. Doubtless tropisms afford important
gets less than Thomas Gordon Hale or any one of
component factors of instinctive behavior, and they
half a dozen respectables. Many others will feel
may constitute the phylogenic roots of elaborate and
that to represent Calverley without either The
specialized reactions; but this in no wise justifies us
Cock and the Bull or Forever or the Ode to Top
in the conclusion that instincts are properly describ-
bacco is a mockery, as also to print eleven pages of
able as merely “tropistic responses.” They may be
Christina Rossetti with never a one of her thrilling
mechanistically explicable, but tropisms, are not the
only types of response into which they may be
Criticism of this kind however is always
construed.
inevitable and, in this case, has only incidental bear-
to have
bio the expression of the creature's inherited organizar nearly twice as much space as George Meredith who
sonnets.


II 3771
THE DIAL
1919
431
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THE DIAL
April 19
cessors.
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Besides, one does not turn to this work solely for Italian model—and one ode to Spring, the latter cor-
the poetical extracts. One great value of the original rect enough to have been written by Grey or Collins.
four volumes was in the introductions to the separate For the rest, the verse is loose rather than free. The
parts, themselves an anthology of the most judicious good workmanship to which Swinburne and Tenny-
criticism of that day. In this matter the present son devoted their lives seems to be an ideal either
volume may fairly court comparison with its prede above or below the majority of these our younger
Most of the names, of course, are new; poets.
for the forty years that have brought so many poets The blame for a volume of such low standards
into the collection have also eliminated many critics. must rest either with our colleges or with the anthol-
Mr. Ward has survived to continue the tradition, ogist. As far as the students go, one can allege the
and so has Mr. Gosse; in place of the others we war. Yet the war had little effect outside of the
have a new set, among whom may be noted Sir sentimental—on the young women of our univer-
Richard Jebb for Tennyson, Sir Henry Newbolt sities, who have always played a large part in the
for Brooke, Professor Mackail for Morris, Thomas junior poetic movement. One suspects the much-
Hardy for Barnes, Canon Beeching for Dixon, advertised renaissance of poetry. On the other hand,
Charles Whibley for Henley, and John Drinkwater although one has no way of checking up Mr. Schnitt-
and Aldous Huxley for various poets each. One
kind, and although he is perhaps the only man who
regrets that some of these should not have been has read the magazines of all the 96 colleges repre-
given more scope. No one however is likely to
sented, one does come to question his work through
regret the prominence of John Drinkwater, whose a knowledge of a few of the student periodicals.
critical introductions are among the pleasures of this
The basis of selection is much fairer than in the past
excellent volume.
two anthologies, yet the anthologist persists in his
Braithwaitian love of the sentimental. And there are
THE POETS OF THE FUTURE. Edited by
still curious lacunae. Though the one poem he chose
Henry T. Schnittkind. The Stratford Co.
from Yale is excellent, there was much other good
verse in the Yale Literary Monthly. The best work
When President Wilson said that young people, represented. At the same time there is much atelia
of Princeton and Williams and Harvard is hardly
instead of being radical in their views, are inclined
to be very conservative, he enlisted what had once
cious poetry from the University of Southern Cali-
been a daring paradox into the ranks of our favor-
fornia and Agnes Scott College. Perhaps Mr.
ite platitudes. If the statement needed any further
Schnittkind's choice was geographical rather than
proof, one could find plenty in Mr. Schnittkind's
literary. If he was hard put to it to make up a book,
latest anthology of our college poets. The 108
he might have taken 108 poems by Stephen Vincent
poems he has chosen from 96 colleges are old-fash-
Benét and arrived at a much better result than he
ioned almost without exception. Modernity, with
did. At any rate, one can see little use for the
the exception of a good piece of imagism by Royall anthology he has published. It is either a libel.com
Snow, is represented solely by an odd two-score of
the poetry of the American college, or else the poetry
poems about the war. These however incline to
of the American college does not deserve an
be Mid-Victorian and sentimental. The lyrical
anthology.
realism of Conrad Aiken and the whimsical realism
of T. S. Eliot are represented only by one poem of
Books of the Fortnight
Stephen Vincent Benét's; the starker realism of Mr.
Masters is reflected through a romantic prism.
The following list comprises The Dial's selec-
There is hardly anything in the whole volume that
tion of books recommended among the publications
could not have appeared—the doubtful assent of the
received during the last two weeks:
editors being granted—in the first issue of the Har-
vard Monthly, back in the eighties.
The Chronicles of America: Dutch and English on
Along with the almost universal conservatism
the Hudson, by Maud Wilder Goodwin; The
goes a certain technical carelessness. The theory so
Old Northwest, by Frederic Austin Ogg;
assiduously spread abroad by Sara Teasdale and
The Anti-Slavery Crusade, by Jesse Macy; The
H. L. Mencken—that poets are best when young,
Cotton Kingdom, by William E. Dodd;
and require almost no training—has evidently been
bearing fruit. One symptom of it is the quantity of
free verse written by people who have apparently no
drik; The Fathers of New England, by
idea of the difference between free verse and the sort
Charles M. Andrews; The Day of the Con-
of stuff that Professor Patterson calls
prose.” Another symptom is the number of nursery
spaced
federacy, by Nathaniel W. Stephenson; The
quatrains. Yet another, the quantity of poems
Old Merchant Marine, by Ralph D. Paine;
rhymed sloppily. There are two or three sonnets
in the collection—sonnets very far from the strict
Richman.
vols. ready. Yale University Press.
The Boss and the Machine, by Samuel P. Orth;
The Age of Big Business, by Burton J. Hen-
To be complete in 50 vols. 20


1919
THE DIAL
433
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434
THE DIAL
April 19
Spring Educational List
Religion and Culture, by Frederick Schleiter. (Columbia
The Second Coming of Christ, by James M. Campbell.
A Short History of Rome. Vol. II: The Empire The American Language. By H. L. Mencken.
from the Death of Cacsar to the Fall of the 8vo, 374 pages.
Alfred A. Knopf (New
Western Empire, 44 B.C.-476 A.D. By Gug York).
lielmo Ferrero and Corrado Barbagallo. 12mo, Convention and Revolt in Poetry. By John Liv-
516 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons.
ingston Lowes. 12mo, 346 pages. Houghton
The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916: Its Creation, Devel Mifflin Co. (Boston).
opment and Work. By Admiral Viscount Jel- . Dramatic Technique. By George Pierce Baker.
licoe. Illustrated, 8vo, 510 pages. George H.
Doran Co.
12mo, 531 pages.
Houghton Mifflin Co.
Last and First: Being Two Essays—The New
(Boston).
Spirit, and Arthur Hugh Clough. By John
The Living Corpse (Redemption). A drama. By
Addington Symonds. 12mo, 137
Leo Tolstoi. Translated by Anna Monosso-
pages.
Nicholas L. Brown (New York).
wich Evarts. 12mo, 98 pages. Nicholas L.
Field and Study. By John Burroughs. Illustrated,
Brown (New York).
12mo, 337 pages. Houghton Mifflin Co. Martin Schüler. A novel. By Romer Wilson.
(Boston).
12mo, 313 pages. Henry Holt & Co.
The following is The Dial's selected list of the
Psychological Principles, by James Ward. (G. P. Put-
most notable spring issues and announcements in
nam's Sons.)
the theory and practice of education, in science, and
Studies in Electro-Physiology: Animal and Vegetable
,
in philosophy and religion. Reprints, new editions,
by Arthur E. Baines, illus.-Studies in Electro-Pathol-
new translations, textbooks not of general interest,
ogy, by A. White Robertson, illus. (E. P. Dutton &
Co.)
very technical books, and works of reference have
War Neurosis, by John T. MacCurdy. (Cambridge Uni-
been omitted. The list is compiled from data sub-
versity Press.)
mitted by the publishers.
A Source Book of Biological Nature-Study, by Elliot R.
Downing. (University of Chicago Press.)
Education
The Elementary Nervous System, by G. H. Parker. (J.
B. Lippincott Co.)
Historical Papers of the Late Henry Adams: A Letter
Aircraft: Its Origin and Its Development in War and
to Teachers; Phase, edited by Brooks Adams.-Edu-
cational Psychology, by Daniel Starch.—Modern Ele-
Peace, by Evan John David, illus. (Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons.)
mentary School Practice, by George E. Freeland.-
Management of the City School, by A. C. Perry-Va-
The Secrets of Animal Life, by J. Arthur Thompson,
illus. (Henry Holt & Co.)
cational Agricultural Education, by Rufus W. Stimson.
(Macmillan Co.)
The Mason-Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre. (Dodd, Mead
The Pronunciation of Standard English in America, by
Co.)
George Philip Krapp.—Modern Punctuation: Its Utili-
Outlines of Economic Zoology, by Albert M. Reese. (P.
Blakiston's Son & Co.)
ties and Conventions, by George Summey, Jr. (Ox-
ford University Press.).
Philosophy and Religion
Psychology of the Normal and Subnormal, by Henry H.
Goddard, illus.—The Child's Unconscious Mind, by
Christian Internationalism, by William Pierson Merrill.
Wilfred Lay. (Dodd, Mead & Co.)
Prophecy and Authority, by Kemper Fullerton.-
Lewis Theobald: His Contribution to English Scholar-
The Coming of the Lord: Will It Be Premillenial? by
ship, with some unpublished letters, by Richard Foster
James H. Snowden. ---Our Immortality, by Daniel P.
Jones. (Columbia University Press.)
Rhodes. (Macmillan Co.)
Educational Experiments, by Evelyn Dewey. (E. P. Dut-
History of Religions, by George F. Moore, vol. II.-Al-
ton & Co.)
truism: Its Nature and Varieties, by George Herbert
History of Education, by Charles C. Boyer.
Palmer.-Mind and Conduct, by Henry Rutgers Mar-
Scribner's Sons.)
(Charles
shall. (Charles Scribner's Sons.)
The Colleges in War Time and After, by Parke Rexford
Animism, by George William Gilmore. -The Mythology
Kolbe, illus. (D. Appleton & Co.)
of, All Races, vol. XI.—by Hartley Burr Alexander.
The University of Pennsylvania: Franklin's College, by
Horace Mather Lippincott, illus. (J. B. Lippincott Co.)
Moral Values and the Ídea of God, by William R. Sorley.
Mental Hygiene in Childhood, by William A. White.
(G. P. Putnam's Sons.)
(Little, Brown & Co.)
Naturalistic Ethics and Sociology, by Edward Gary
Hayes. (D. Appleton & Co.)
Science
Neo-Platonists
, by Thomas Whittaker. (Cambridge Uni-
Medical Contributions to the Study of Evolution, by J. G.
versity Press.)
Adami, illus.—Pellagra: A Study of Its Etiology, Path-
ology and Treatment, by H. F. Harris, illus.-Hysteri-
University Press.)
cal Disorders of Warfare, by Lewis R. Yealland.
Redemption: Hindu and Christian, by Sydney Cave.
(Macmillan Co.)
(Oxford University Press.)
A Century of Science in America: With Especial Refer-
The Modern Expansion of Christianity, by Edward Cald-
ence to the American Journal of Science, 1818-1918,
well Moore. (University of Chicago Press.)
illus. (Yale University Press.)
(Methodist Book Concern.)


1919
THE DIAL
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435
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436
THE DIAL
April 19
Sinclair well known there. As a matter of fact, the
list of very admirable English translations, with the
Current News
The Macmillans have recently added three titles
to their Rural Manuals: a Manual of Home-Mak-
Appleton's Annual American Year Book: A ing, compiled by Martha van Rensselaer, Flora
Record of Events and Progress for 1918, edited by Rose, and Helen Canon; a Manual of Tree Dis-
Francis G. Wickware, is now ready.
eases, by W. Howard Rankin; and a Manual of
The Holts are to bring out on April 10 Walter Vegetable Garden Insects, by Cyrus Richard Crosby -
Lippman's The Political Scene: An Essay on the and Mortimer Demarest Leonard.
Victory of 1918.
The Scribners have now issued the tenth volume
Charles Edward Russell's Bolshevism and Our (Picts—Sacraments) of their Encyclopaedia of Re-
United States is announced for early issue by the ligion and Ethics, edited by James Hastings
, and
Bobbs-Merrill Co.
the second and final volume of the same editor's Dic-
Boni and Liveright have ready for immediate pub-
lication Upton Sinclair's Jimmie Higgins, an
tionary of the Apostolic Church. An evaluation of
American novel of the war period.
the Encyclopaedia, based on Volumes II and VIII,
Don Seitz has written introductory comment on
was published in The Dial of December 28, 1916.
The Putnams have republished, in one volume
the text of The Tryal of William Penn and Wil-
liam Mead, for Causing a Tumult, a reprint of
each, Letters of Washington Irving to Henry Bre-
which is soon to be put out by Marshall Jones.
voort, and Letters of Henry Brevoort to Washing-
ton Irving (together with other unpublished Bre-
The Prang Co. publishes in The Theory and
Practice of Color, by Bonnie E. Snow and Hugo B.
voort papers), both edited by George S. Hellman.
Froehlich, a valuable handbook copiously illus-
The original appearance of these books, in 1915 and
trated with color charts and diagrams.
1916 respectively, was in limited editions of two
volumes each.
The Kiltartan Poetry Book: Prose Translations
A Trade Union College has been inaugurated in
from the Irish, by Lady Gregory, of which the Irish
edition was reviewed by Ernest Boyd in the previ-
Boston under the auspices of the Central Labor
Union. For its first term, April 7 to June 14 of
ous issue of The Dial, has just been imported by
G. P. Putnam's Sons.
this year, it offers courses in English, Labor Organi-
Clarence C. Dill is editor and publisher of a new
zation, Law, Government, Economics, and Science
.
The faculty includes Roscoe Pound, Irving Fisher
,
monthly called Let the People Vote on War, of
first is
William Z. Ripley, Felix Frankfurter, R. F. Alfred
lished from 1311 G Street, N. W., Washington, George Nasmyth
, Francis Bowes Sayre, Harold J.
Hoernle, Horace M. Kallen, Henry W. L. Dana,
D. C.
Laski, and others.
An autographed edition of Woodrow Wilson's
A History of the American People has just been
The American Branch of the Oxford University
issued by Harpers
. The edition is in ten volumes
, ful works of reference. Modern Punctuation: Irs
Press has just published two authoritative and use-
printed on Japanese vellum, illustrated in photo-
gravure, and limited to 400 sets.
Utilities and Conventions, by George Summey, JT,
The University of Chicago has published, as
is exhaustive without being pedantic or impractical
,
Number 11 of its Supplementary Educational Mon-
and is generously illustrated from contemporary
ographs, Educational Legislation and Administra-
usage. The Pronunciation of Standard English in
tion in the State of New York from 1777 to 1850, exacting set of symbols,
which however make possible
America, by George Philip Krapp, employs a rather
by Elsie Garland Hobson.
a valuable exactitude of transcription. The mate-
School has just issued a pamphlet of Bibliographica rulings is neither dogmatic
on the one hand not too
terial is conveniently arranged; the spirit of the
Notes on Some Books About Reconstruction, by
catholic on the other.
Aksel G. S. Josephson, of the John Crerar Library,
Chicago.
Those of us who enjoy seeing ourselves as others
see us can find much of interest in Regis Michaud's
Richard Aldington, T. S. Eliot, Wyndham Lewis, Mystiques et Realistes Anglo-Saxons (Colin, Paris);
Lytton Strachey, Siegfried Sassoon, and some others
propose, if properly encouraged, to publish Art and
for of the nine, authors considered, only two-Pater
Letters as a new and larger quarterly. They ask
and Bernard Shaw-are not American. Naturally
for 5,000 subscribers at 10/6 a year. The address
the French are interested in Emerson and Whitman;
is 9 ,
one is pleased to learn that the fame of Henry James
The Newark Free Public Library has prepared as perhaps surprised to find Jack London and
Uptere
and Mark Twain is secure on the Continent; one
the fourth revision of its pamphlet, A Thousand of
the Best Novels. The criterion of the list is a
simple one—“those things which have pleased the
most people for the longest time are the better "-
comments are always engaging, often-as here-
and, in full harmony with the vagaries of popular
valuable.
taste, choice ranges from Robert W. Chambers and
The Loeb Classical Library has added to its
Myrtle Reed to Galsworthy and Barrie.
original text on parallel pages, new volumes in each


1919
THE DIAL
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Edward F. Fox, Notary Public, Bronx County, N. Y.; New York County
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438
April 19
THE DIAL
bonds to be used as bail for the thirty-seven men
twenty years. Some of these men are seriously ill
and most of them have families. The granting of
of the following editions of classical writers:
Contributors
Pausanias' Description of Greece, six volumes, trans-
lated by W. H. S. Jones; The Theological Tract-
John S. Codman was born in Boston, and was
graduated from Harvard in 1890 and from the
ates of Boethius, translated by H. F. Stewart and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1893. In
E. K. Rand, together with I. T.'s" translation
of the Consolation of Philosophy, revised by H. F.
connection with his work in engineering he has pub-
Stewart; a three-volume edition of Cicero's Letters
lished numerous technical articles, and he has also
to Atticus, translated by E. O. Winstedt; Virgil's
contributed to various periodicals articles on eco-
Aeneid, and the Minor Poems, translated by H.
nomic subjects, especially taxation.
Rushton Fairclough, two volumes; and Bernadotte
Herbert J. Davenport is a specialist in political
Perrin's translation of Plutarch's Lives, in eleven
economy who has pursued his study in the Univer-
books. This notable series is published in this coun-
sity of Leipzig and the Ecole des Sciences Politiques.
try by G. P. Putnam's Sons.
He has been Professor of Economics at Cornell since
The J. B. Lippincott Co. has just published the
1916, and is the author of a number of volumes.
second Monograph on Experimental Biology-
Royal Case Nemiah (Yale: B.A., 1912; Ph.D.,
The Elementary Nervous System, by G. H. Parker,
1916) studied at Göttingen in 1913-1914, was In-
Professor of Zoology at Harvard. The first volume
structor in Greek and Latin at Yale from 1915 to
of this series—Forced Movements, Tropisms, and
1918, and is now teaching the classics at the Rox-
Animal Conduct, by Jacques Loeb—is reviewed in
bury School, Cheshire, Connecticut.
this issue of The Dial (page 428). To the series
Helen Sard Hughes (Ph.D., University of Chica-
the publishers are preparing to add the following
go) was formerly an instructor in English at
volumes: The Nature of Animal Light, by E. New-
Wellesley College and is now an Assistant Profes-
ton Harvey; The Chromosome Theory of Heredity,
sor at the University of Montana.
by T. H. Morgan; Inbreeding and Outbreeding:
Caroline Pratt founded and has charge of The
Their Genetic and Sociological Significance, by E.
Play School, New York City. She is a member of
M. East and D. F. Jones; Pure Line Inheritance,
the executive council of the Bureau of Municipal
by H. S. Jennings; The Experimental Modification
Experiments and has done pioneer work on toys as
of the Process of Inheritance, by R. Pearl; Locali-
educational material. Miss Pratt is a graduate of
zation of Morphogenetic Substances in the Egg, by
Teachers' College of Columbia University, and was
E. G. Conklin; Tissue Culture, by R. G. Harri-
formerly a member of the faculty of the Philadel-
son; Permeability and Electrical Conductivity of
phia Normal School.
Living Tissue, by W. J. V. Osterhout; The Equi-
Allen Tucker is a painter who has recently been
librium Between Acids and Bases in Organism and
writing prose and verse for the magazines.
Environment, by L. J. Henderson; Chemical Basis
David Morton (Vanderbilt University, 1909)
of Growth, by T. B. Robertson; and Coordination
teaches history and English in the Morristown,
in Locomotion, by A. R. Moore.
New Jersey, High School.
In their Handbook Series the H. W. Wilson Co.,
In compliance with the ruling of the post office
League of Nations, compiled by Edith M. Phelps. Prices Of bookis mentioned in the text matterof the
The Dial will henceforth be unable to indicate the
Structure of Lasting Peace, by H. M. "Kallenjoblishers, whose addresses, unless otherwise spring
which originally appeared in The Dial (October hired, may be assumed to be New York. In making
25, 1917 to February 18, 1918) and was subse-
quently published by the Marshall Jones Co. There
inquiries concerning volumes issued by several pub-
is a list of organizations devoted to the furtherance
lishers the reader will probably find it more con-
of the League idea and a valuable bibliography.
venient to write to any of the following booksellers:
Paul Elder, San Francisco; A. C. McClurg & Co.,
been edited by Sir Augustus Cakes Fanden
Sie u Chicago, and Wanamaker's, Brentano's dei put
Erle Richards the Great European Treaties of names and Baker and Taylor, New York Times
the Nineteenth Century (Oxford University Press).
Here the editors have assembled the texts of
Arrangements have been made at The Dial of-
the important European treaties since the Napo-
fice for Helen Marot to receive real-estate or other
in Leavenworth who have just been granted the
of each, and a number of maps are included. The
Atlantic Monthly Press has imported the Oxford
University Press pamphlet The Idea of a League of
Nations, by H. G. Wells, and collaborators, who
the appeal implies a reasonable doubt and is the firs
include Viscounts Grey and Bryce, Gilbert Murray,
sign that the prejudice against these men is giving
and William Archer.
way. Everyone who can help in giving them liberty
with help break through that prejudice.


-
1919
439
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Direct Action and Democracy
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THE DIAL
Bertrand Russell on Direct Action
A FORTNIGHTLY
VOL. LXVI
NEW YORK
NO. 789
MAY 3, 1919
DEMOCRACY AND DIRECT ACTION
Bertrand Russell 445
SEA-HOARDINGS. Verse
Cale Young Rice 448
FACTUALIST VERSUS IMPRESSIONIST
Wilson Follett 449
PAUL CARUS
William Ellery Leonard 452
The IMPENDING REVOLUTION IN ITALY .
Flavio Venanzi 455
THE MONTAGU-CHELMSFORD REFORM PROPOSALS Sailendra nath Ghose 457
The PASSING OF CLASSICISM
Richard Offner 460
The ARMY AND THE LAW
Charles Recht 461
MARY IN WONDERLAND
Robert Morss Lovett 463
LONDON, APRIL 10
EDITORIALS
Robert Dell 465
467
COMMUNICATIONS:
German Indemnity.
Withdraw from Russia.—Military Training as Education.—The
470
Notes On New BOOKS: Civilization.—The Power of Dante.—The Early Years of the
Saturday Club.—The Salmagundi Club.—Government and the War.-The Valley of
Vision.— The Valley of Vision.—Domus Doloris.—The Gilded Man.
472
CURRENT News
478
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Others Say
Notable Spring Books
THE NATION:
A sheaf of sketches-vignettes of character,
little glimpses of the human background to
that vast organized madness called war-
which, though cast in the form of fiction,
yet bear upon every page the impress of
undubitable veracity. They are pitched in
various keys; but whether the prevailing
note be that of tragedy or humor or satire,
there throbs through all of them a ground-
tone of intense, tender pity and limitless
admiration for the humble and heroic men
whom he has come to know in the dressing
stations and hospitals of France. And
the knowledge thus gained he conveys to
us, as far as the printed word is capable of
conveying it, in a book which is literature
of a fine and enduring sort.
NEW YORK TIMES:
It is a fine, a noble book. ... Pathos,
tenderness, irony, vivid description and
stinging satire are all in this book.
The Goncourt prize for 1918 was well and
worthily bestowed.
BOSTON HERALD:
What better evidence of the serene in-
telligence of France than award of the
Goncourt prize to Dr. Duhamel's
war
sketches called “ Civilization."
NEW YORK SUN:
Each chapter is a story in itself. Sil-
houettes of hell. Cameos of beauty. Etched
ironies. Always the right word in the
right place the word that is vascular, to
use Emerson's phrase; the word that leaps
at you; the word that coins a terrible
image; the word that drops like a sun into
your mind; the word that haunts you.
NEW YORK TRIBUNE:
No man can read this book without weep-
ing for utter pity. But we should pity him
who could read it without feeling a mighty
inspiration and a joy that the human soul
can SO tire and torture time,” and can
triumph over the very powers that were
put forth to overthrow true civilization.
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS:
Dr. Duhamel reaches the heart of tragedy
and brings before his readers some of the
most poignant incidents I have yet come
across. They are described as personal en-
counters by a man of obviously great sym-
pathies and perceptions. It is so human,
so real, so tragically beautiful. .
A Frenchman'. View of
PRESIDENT WILSON
By DANIEL HALÉVY
Translated by Hugh Stokes. Cloth, $1.50 net.
“ Within the limits of a volume inevitably destined for
an immediate interpretation of Mr. Wilson to the people
of France, Mr. Halevy has bere produced wbat is little
less, in its way, than a
masterplece."--The New
Republic.
THE LETTERS OF
ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE
Edited and with an Introduction by EDMUND
GOSSE, C.B., and T. J. WISE
Two Volumes. Cloth, $5.00 net.
This is the first comprehensive collection of the noble
poet's letters to be made, and they cover practically the
whole period of his adult life from February, 1858, to
January, 190
DOMUS DOLORIS
By W. COMPTON LEITH
Author of " Sirenica," “ Apologia Difidentis," etc.
Cloth, $1.50 net.
new volume by the eminent essayist, whose beauty
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America's Miracle in France
S. O. S.
(Servicos of Supply)
By ISAAC F. MARCOSSON
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Illustrated Cloth, $1.50 net.
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closes for the first time the romance
the Services of
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Brothers in Arms
LIVING BAYONETS
A Record of the Last Push
By LIEUT. CONINGSBY DAWSON
Author of "Carry On," "Out to win,” “The Glory of
the Tronches,” etc. Third Edition.
Cloth, $1.25 mol
“ Lieutenant Dawson's writings have been among the
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The Epic of the Poilu
THE “CHARMED AMERICAN”
A Story of the Iron Division of France
By GEORGES LEWYS
Frontispiece. Cloth, $1.50 net.
“We have seen no more vivid war scenes than these,
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glories of the truth.
It is tremendously dramatic, too,
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PRINTS AND DRAWINGS
By FRANK BRANGWYN
With Some Other Phases of His Art
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trated, with colored collotypes, full color plates, engrat
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achievements in etching. Wood-engraving. Iltbography,
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Leacock Soldes the Kaiser Problem
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IN AMERICA
And Othor Impossibilitios
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CIVILIZATION
By Dr. Georges Duhamel
Price $1.50
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ale nel senso The Century Co. No
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1919
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443
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Labor and Reconstruction in Europe
By ELISHA M. FRIEDMAN, Editor of “Problems of American
Reconstruction"
With an Introduction by Hon. W. B. WILSON, Secretary of Labor, who says:
“ The great value of such a work as Mr. Elisha M. Friedman has undertaken is tbat he brings together, in
consecutive order, a vast amount of useful information at an opportune time, when those who most desire
to avail themselves of it would be too busy to assemble it themselves. He has arranged historical fact and
commentary with rare skill and judgment. He sets forth his subject matter after a plan that has these
great merits : It is,-notwithstanding the wide range of considerations dealt with, --compact, brief, co-
herent, and clear."
MR. FRIEDMAN'S book describes impartially the means undertaken or proposed in sixteen countries,
belligerent and neutral, to deal with reconstruction in labor matters. It is of value to employment man-
agers, directors of corporations, and students of labor problems and of the effects of the war.
Cloth, 8vo, $2.50 net, postage extra
Russia's Agony By ROBERT WILTON, Correspondent for many years of the
London Times in Russia
There is probably no term of equally recent origin so often in print as Bolshevik_and its derivatives.
Readers of the London Times do not need to be told that Mr. Wilton's knowledge of Russia is equalled by
that of very few persons. "No such comprehensive and straight-forward account has yet been given," says
the New York Times, " of the conditions in Russia which led to the outbreak of the revolution and the
emergence of Bolshevism.” No definition of that term, by the way, is more clear-cut and definite than
Mr. Wilton's.
Net, $5.00
Russian Revolution Aspects By ROBERT CROZIER, Correspondent for
the Associated Press
Familiar with the country, and speaking Russian fluently, Mr. Long in Russia during 1917, had oppor-
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The Economics of Progress By J. M. ROBERTSON, M.P.
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read not a few.
The chapter on Capital' sbould be learned by rote by our Treasury Depart-
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citizen, married or about to marry. Books on economics are, as a rule, dull and discouragingly technical.
This book is pever dull and most encouragingly expla natory. It is one of the few books produced by the
war for wbich I, for one, am deeply grateful."
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France Facing Germany By GEORGES CLEMENCEAU, Premier of France
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one of the best ways, is to study the minds of the men who lead that people and the nature of the elo-
quence that really moves them. And so without under-valuing the many excellent interpretations of the
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one may say that
no work of more lasting significance as atřording insight into the soul of the nation' bas appeared than
this."
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A Society of States By W. T. S. STALLYBRASS, M.A. (Oxon.)
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lawyer. Fellow and Vice-Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law.
Net, $2.00
The Clash A Study in Nationalities By WILLIAM H. MOORE
A study of the Canadian Government's conflict with French-Canadians and of the rights of an alien minor-
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Creative Impulse in Industry By HELEN MAROT
A forward-looking and stimulating book which shows that productive force really, depends (among free
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$1.50
Comparative Education A Survey of the Educational System in each of Six
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The Surveys included are: The United States, by WM. F. RUSSELL, University of Iowa ; Germany, by
I. L. KANDEL, Ph.D., Teachers' College, Columbia University ; England, by the Editor; France, by
ARTHUR H. HOPE, Headmaster of the Roan Scbool for Boys, Greenwich, England; Canada, by the
Editor; Denmark, by HAROLD W. FOGHT, Ph.D., Specialist In Rural Education, ú. S. Bureau of
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444
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THE JERVAISE COMEDY
JIM: THE STORY OF A
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nii,
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THE BLIND
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EDUCATION BY VIOLENCE
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The racial and spiritual differences and agreements
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The problems arising out of the war and the re,
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The story of the leading Quakers who controlled the
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THE DIAL
1
A FORTNIGHTLY
OK
OG
Democracy and Direct Action
The battle for political democracy has been settled policy, embody nothing but the momentary
won: white men everywhere are to live under the balance of forces and the compromise most likely to
regime of parliamentary government. Russia, which secure temporary peace. The weapon of labor in
for the present is trying a new form of constitution, these contests is no longer the vote, but the threat
will probably be led by internal or external pressure of a strike“ direct action.” It was the leaders of
to adopt the system favored by the Western powers. the Confédération Générale du Travail during the
But even before this contest was decided a new twenty years preceding the war who first developed
one was seen to be beginning. The form of govern this theory of the best tactics for labor. But it is
ment in the United States, Britain, and France is experience rather than' theory that has led to its
capitalistic or plutocratic democracy: the democracy widespread adoption—the experience largely of the
which exists in the political sphere finds no counter untrustworthiness of parliamentary Socialist leaders
part in the economic world. The struggle for eco and of the reactionary social forces to which they
nomic democracy seems likely to dominate politics are exposed.
for many years to come. The Russian government, To the traditional doctrine of democracy there is
which cares nothing for the forms of political democ- something repugnant in this whole method. Put
racy, stands for a very extreme form of economic crudely and nakedly the position is this: the organ-
democracy. A strong and apparently growing party ized workers in a key industry can inflict so much
in Germany has similar aims. Of opinion in France hardship upon the community by a strike that the
I know nothing, but in this country the workers community is willing to yield to their demands
who desire to obtain control of industries subject things which it would never yield except under the
to state ownership, though not sufficiently strong threat of force. This may be represented as the
numerically to have much influence on the personnel substitution of the private force of a minority in
of Parliament, are nevertheless able through organi- place of law as embodying the will of the majority.
zation in key industries to exert a powerful pressure On this basis a very formidable indictment of direct
on the government and to cause fear of industrial action can be built up.
upheavals to become widespread throughout the There is no denying that direct action involves
middle and upper classes. We have thus the spec grave dangers, and if abused may theoretically lead
tacle of opposition between a new democratically to very bad results. In this country, when (in 1917)
elected Parliament and the sections of the nation organized labor wished to send delegates to Stock-
which consider themselves the most democratic. In holm, the Seamen's and Firemen's Union prevented
such circumstances many friends of democracy be them from doing so, with the enthusiastic approval
come bewildered and grow perplexed as to the aims of the capitalist press. Such interferences of minor-
they ought to pursue or the party with which they ities with the freedom of action of majorities are
ought to sympathize.
possible; it is also possible for majorities to interfere
The time was when the idea of parliamentary with the legitimate freedom of minorities
. Like all
government inspired enthusiasm, but that time is use of force, whether inside or outside the law,
past. Already before the war legislation had come direct action makes tyranny possible. And if one
to be more and more determined by contests between were anxious to draw a gloomy picture of terrors
interests outside the legislature, bringing pressure
ahead one might prophesy that certain well-organ-
to bear directly upon the government. This ten ized vital industries—say the Triple Alliance of
dency has been much accelerated. The view which Miners, Railwaymen, and Transport Workers-
prevails in the ranks of organized labor—and not would learn to combine, not only against the em-
only there—is that Parliament exists merely to give
ployers, but against the community as a whole. We
effect to the decision of the government, while those shall be told that this will happen unless a firm
decisions themselves, so far from representing any
stand is made now. We shall be told that, if it


446
THE DIAL
May 3
This brings us to the second of the two questions
does happen, the indignant public will have, sooner of the produce that we choose to allow to the land-
or later, to devote itself to the organization of owners and capitalists who at present own and
blacklegs, in spite of the danger of civil disturbance manage the collieries, all these are internal concerns
and industrial chaos that such a course would in of the coal trade, in which the general public has
volve. No doubt such dangers would be real if it no right to interfere. For these purposes we de-
could be assumed that organized labor is wholly mand an internal parliament, in which those who
destitute of common sense and public spirit. But are interested as owners and capitalists may have
such an assumption could never be made except to one vote each, but no more." If such a demand
flatter the fears of property-owners. Let us leave were put forward it would be as impossible to resist
nightmares on one side and come to the considera on democratic grounds as the demand for autonomy
tion of the good and harm that are actually likely on the part of a small nation. Yet it is perfectly
to result in practice from the increasing resort to clear that the coal trade could not induce the com-
direct action as a means of influencing government.
munity to agree to such a proposal, especially where
Many people speak and write as though the be-
it infringes the “ rights of property," unless it were
ginning and end of democracy were the rule of the sufficiently well organized to be able to do grave
majority. This, for example, is the view of Pro injury to the community in the event of its proposal's
fessor Hearnshaw in his recent book Democracy at
being rejected—just as no small nation except Nor-
the Cross-Ways. But this is far too mechanical a
way, so far as my memory serves me, has ever
view. It leaves out of account two questions of
obtained independence from a large one to which it
great importance, namely: (1) What should be the was subject, except by war or the threat of war.
group of which the majority is to prevail? (2) The fact is that democracies, as soon as they are
What are the matters with which the majority has well established, are just as jealous of power as
a right to interfere? Right answers to these ques-
other forms of government. It is therefore neces-
tions are essential if nominal democracy is not to
develop into a new and more stable form of tyranny,
sary, if subordinate groups are to obtain their rights,
for minorities and subordinate groups have the right
that they shall have some means of bringing pressure
to live, and must not be internally subject to the
to bear upon the government. The Benthamite the-
malice of hostile masses.
ory, upon which democracy is still defended by some
doctrinaires, was that each voter would look after
The first question is familiar in one form, namely
that of nationality. It is recognized as contrary to
his own interest, and in the resultant each man's
interest would receive its proportionate share of
the theory of democracy to combine into one state a
attention. But human nature is neither so rational
big nation and a small one, when the small nation
so self-centered as Bentham imagined. In
desires to be independent. To allow votes to the
citizens of the small nation is no remedy, since they
practice it is easier, by arousing hatred and jeal-
can always be outvoted by the citizens of the large of others than to persuade them to vote for their
ousies, to induce men to vote against the interests
nation. The popularly elected legislature, if it is
own interests.
to be genuinely democratic, must represent one
nation; or, if more are to be represented, it must be
this country very few electors remembered their
by a federal arrangement which safeguards the
own interests at all. They voted for the man who
smaller units. A legislature should exist for defined
showed the loudest zeal for hanging the Kaiser, not
purposes, and should cover a larger or smaller arca
because they imagined they would be richer if he
according to the nature of those purposes. At this
were hanged but as an expression of disinterested
hatred. This is one of the reasons why autonomy is
moment, when an attempt is being made to create
a League of Nations for certain objects, this point
important: in order that, as far as possible, no group
does not need emphasizing.'
shall have its internal concerns determined for it by
But it is not only geographical units, such as
those who hate it. And this result is not secured
nations, that have a right, according to the true
by the mere form of democracy; it can only be
theory of democracy, to autonomy for certain pur-
secured by careful devolution of special powers to
poses. Just the same principle applies to any group
special groups, so as to secure, as far as possible,
which has important internal concerns that affect
that legislation shall be inspired by the self-interest
the members of the group enormously more than
of those concerned, not by the hostility of those not
they affect outsiders. The coal trade, for example,
concerned.
might legitimately say: "What concerns the com-
munity is the quantity and price of the coal that we
mentioned above a question which is, in fact, close-
supply. But our conditions and hours of work, the
ly bound up with the first. Our second question
technical methods of our production, and the share
was: What are the matters with which the democ-
racy has a right to interfere? It is now generally
nor
In the recent General Election in


1919
447
THE DIAL
AN
recognized that religion, for example, is a question rent to those who invoke majority-rule against direct-
with which no government should interfere. If a actionists; yet it is absolutely in accordance with
Mahometan comes to live in England we do not the principles of democracy. It must at best be a
think it right to force him to profess Christianity. long and difficult process to procure formal self-
This is a comparatively recent change; three cen government for industries. Meanwhile they have the
turies ago, no state recognized the right of the indi same right that belongs to oppressed national
vidual to choose his own religion. (Some other groups, the right of securing the substance of auton-
personal rights have been longer recognized: a man omy by making it difficult and painful to go against
may choose his own wife, though in Christian their wishes in matters primarily concerning
countries he must not choose more than one.) themselves. So long as they confine themselves to
When it ceased to be illegal to hold that the earth such matters, their action is justified by the strictest
goes round the sun, it was not made illegal to principles of theoretical democracy, and those who
believe that the sun goes round the earth. In such decry it have been led by prejudice to mistake the
matters it has been found, with intense surprise, empty form of democracy for its substance.
that personal liberty does not entail anarchy. Even Certain practical limitations, however, are impor-
the sternest supporters of the rule of the majority tant to remember. In the first place, it is unwise
would not hold that the Archbishop of Canterbury for a section to set out to extort concessions from
ought to turn Buddhist if Parliament ordered him the government by force, if in the long run public
to do so. And Parliament does not, as a rule, issue opinion will be on the side of the government. For
orders of this kind, largely because it is known that a government backed by public opinion will be able,
the resistance would be formidable and that it would in a prolonged struggle, to defeat any subordinate
have support in public opinion.
section. In the second place, it is important to
In theory, the formula as to legitimate interfer render every struggle of this kind, when it does
ences is simple. A democracy has a right to inter occur, a means of educating the public opinion by
fere with those of the affairs of'a group which inti- making facts known which would otherwise remain
mately concern people outside the group, but not more or less hidden. In a large community most
with those which have comparatively slight effects people know very little about the affairs of other
outside the group. In practice, this formula may groups than their own. The only way in which a
sometimes be difficult to apply, but often its appli group can get its concerns widely known is by afford-
cation is clear. If, for example, the Welsh wish to
ing “copy
” for the newspapers, and by showing
have their elementary education conducted in Welsh, itself sufficiently strong and determined to command
that is a matter which concerns them so much more respect. When these conditions are fulfilled, even
intimately than anyone else that there can be no
if it is force that is brought to bear upon the gov-
good reason why the rest of the United Kingdom ernment, it is persuasion that is brought to bear
should interfere. Thus the theory of democracy upon the community. And in the long run no vic-
demands a good deal more than the mere mechani tory is secure unless it rests upon persuasion, and
cal supremacy of the majority. It demands: (1) employs force at most as a means to persuasion.
division of the community into more or less auton-
The mention of the press and its effect on public
omous groups; (2) delimitation of the powers of opinion suggests a direction in which direct action
the autonomous groups by determining which of has sometimes been advocated, namely to counteract
their concerns are so much more important to them the capitalist bias of almost all great newspapers.
selves than to others that others had better have no One can imagine compositors refusing to set up some
say in them. Direct action may, in most cases, be statement about trade-union action which they
judged by these tests.
In an ideal democracy 'in know to be directly contrary to the truth. Or they
dustries or groups of industries would be self might insist on setting up side by side a statement
governing as regards almost everything except the of the case from the trade-union standpoint. Such
price and quantity of their product, and their self a weapon, if it were used sparingly and judiciously,
government would be democratic. Measures which might do much to counteract the influence of the
they would then be able to adopt autonomously they newspapers in misleading public opinion. So long
are now justified in extorting from the government
as the capitalist system persists, most newspapers
by direct action. At present the extreme limit of are bound to be capitalist ventures and to present
imaginable official concession is a conference in ' facts,” in the main, in the way that suits capital-
which the men and the employers are represented
istic interests. A strong case can be made out for
equally, but this is very far from democracy, since the use of direct action to counteract this tendency.
the men are much more numerous than the em But it is obvious that very grave dangers would
ployers. This application of majority-rule is abhor attend such a practice if it became common. А


448
May 3
THE DIAL
as
censorship of the press by trade unionists would, in certain cases, for example where there has been
the long run, be just as harmful as any other censor infringement of some important right such as free
ship. It is improbable, however, that the method speech, it may be justifiable. The second of the
could be carried to such extremes, since if it were, above uses of the strike, for the fundamental change
a special set of blackleg compositors would be of the economic system, has been made familiar by
trained up, and no others would gain admission to the French Syndicalists. It seems fairly certain
the offices of capitalist newspapers. In this case,
that, for a considerable time to come, the main
in others, the dangers supposed to belong to the struggle in Europe will be between capitalism and
method of direct action are largely illusory, owing some form of Socialism, and it is highly probable
to the natural limitations of its effectiveness. that in this struggle the strike will play a great
Direct action may be employed: (1) for ameliora part. To introduce democracy into industry by any
tion of trade conditions within the present economic other method would be very difficult. And the
system; (2) for economic reconstruction, including principle of group autonomy justifies this method
the partial or complete abolition of the capitalist so long as the rest of the community opposes self-
system; (3) for political ends, such as altering the
government for industries which desire it. Direct
form of government, extension of the suffrage, or action has its dangers, but so has every vigorous
amnesty for political prisoners. Of these three no
one nowadays would deny the legitimacy of the first,
form of activity. And in our recent realization of
except in exceptional circumstances.
the importance of law we must not forget that the
The third,
except for purposes of establishing democracy where
greatest of all dangers to a civilization is to become
it does not yet exist, seems a dubious expedient if least
, industrial unrest is likely to save us.
stereotyped and stagnant. From this danger, at
democracy, in spite of its faults, is recognized as
the best practicable form of government; but in
BERTRAND RUSSELL.
Sea-Hoardings
My heart is open again and the sea flows in;
It shall fill with a summer of mists and winds and clouds and waves breaking,
Of gull-wings over the green tide, of the surf's drenching din,
Of sudden horizon-sails that come and vanish, phantom-thin,
Of arching sapphire skies, deep and unaching.
I shall lie on the rocks just over the weeds that drape
The clear sea-pools, where birth and death in the sunny ooze are teeming.
Where the crab in quest of booty sidles about a surly shape,,
Where the snail creeps and the muscle sleeps with wary valves agape,
Where life is too grotesque to be but seeming.
And the swallow shall weave my dreams with threads of fight,
A shuttle with silver breast across the warp of the waves gliding;
And an isle far out shall be a beam in the loom of my delight,
And the pattern of every dream shall be a rapture bathed in light-
Its evanescence a beauty most abiding.
And the sunsets shall give sadness all its due;
They shall stain the sands and trouble the tides with all the ache of sorrow.
They shall bleed and die with a beauty of meaning old yet ever new;
They shall burn with all the hunger for things that hearts have failed to do,
They shall whisper of a gold that none can borrow.
And the stars shall come and build a bridge of fire
For the moon to cross the shoreless sky, with never a fear of sinking.
They shall teach me of the magic things of life never to tire,
And how to renew, when it is low, the lamp of my desire-
And how to hope, in the darkest deeps of thinking.
CALE YOUNG RICE.


1919
449
THE DIAL
Factualist Versus Impressionist
2
Ś
(G
war
N A CERTAIN prodigious year of beginnings and speculation that the multitude must have changed
endings, now unspeakably remote, the novel read overnight-graduated from its mere occasional will-
ers of this country might have discovered them-
ingness to receive a grain of wheat along with
selves to be the richer by a simple romance called bushels of chaff, and joined the cults and the coteries
The Lay Anthony. No great multitude appears to in their preference for that which is nothing if not
have performed the exploit. By a recent calcula "art.” Preposterous, of course, yet a more nearly
tion of Mr. Joseph Hergesheimer, the author of tenable theory than that Mr. Hergesheimer has by
that romance —who seems to have a modest im-
intention or accident sought the multitude where it
pression that his first book was not, perhaps, the is customarily at home.
signal event of 1914—the copy now open at the
title-page on this desk is one solid nine-hundredth
It is not my wish to represent The Lay Anthony
of all that were sold. Beside it there lies, in as in itself a masterpiece, or even a strikingly
this the month of its appearance, a copy of Java eminent piece of fiction. But it is promissory of
Head (Knopf) inscribed : “First and second masterpieces, and in kind if not in degree it claims
printings before publication. Published January, kinship with the most eminent work its author has
1919.” Moreover, the conservative novel reader done. This is a judgment which can derive its sanc-
who prefers to take his pleasure from between tion only from some general view of what Mr.
covers—seemingly he still exists—was not vouch Hergesheimer is about. Even for the reader who
safed a glimpse of this particular delight until the has not yet discovered this author, or who, having
tale, serialized in a weekly of circulation so stag blundered upon him, is not aware of having scaled
gering that the actual figures sound like those of a
any very notable peak in Darien, I can give the
drive” by some organization of immense
argument significance and scope by saying that what
prestige, had unfolded itself to eyes countable only
Hergesheimer is about is precisely what the art of
in hundreds of thousands of pairs.
fiction itself has been about during the thirty years
It is a screaming contrast, that here denoted. If past, whenever its manifestations have been most
one has the cynicism of experience, the first effect arresting and distinguished. However sweeping his
of such a contrast is to set one hunting for clues claims to blissful ignorance about the technicalities
in the author himself. There must have gone on in of his art, it is clear that he has read the right things
him, one figures, some process analogous to that very understandingly, and kept himself sensitive to
which went on in Mr. Robert Chambers between currents and eddies in the air round him. He is of
The King in Yellow and, say, The Danger Mark the moderns; and without any elaborate and self-
-some conscious or unconscious adulteration of the
conscious repudiations of the past—without, for in-
genuine with the spurious. The author of The
stance, having to go through the process of audibly
Lay Anthony, like the hero thereof, was good and, despising the Victorians just because he is quite
duly, lonesome: it is simple to conclude, then, that unlike them—he avails himself, in a quite natural
the author of Java. Head, to whom crowds flock and urbane and effortless way, of the most impor-
and profits accrue, must have turned meretrix.
tant structural and tonal changes that have made
Well, cynicism hunts in vain. Java Head is in fiction a finer art now than it ever was.
the same straight line with The Lay Anthony, and What are the chief of these changes ? All of
it is the line of an almost prohibitively austere ideal them, I think, can be grouped under the spacious
pursued with inflexible fidelity. Search as you word “impressionism.” The difference between
will the two volumes which delimit his career the more and the less distinguished in present fic-
thus far, you find no increase in the recognized tion is the difference between impressionistic real-
marks of that commercially potent thing, popu ism and factualistic realism. A factual realist is a
larity. You find, if anything, a decrease: it is the narrator who adopts life itself as his selective prin-
austerity that increases. For the austerity of The ciple and, on the assumption that whatever is is
Lay Anthony is merely that of the remote ideal
artistic, determines the material of his tale solely
proposed, sought, clutched at, honestly missed, per by its accord with what actually does, or easily
haps despaired of for the moment; whereas the
could happen. But the impressionistic realist
austerity of Java Head is that of the same elusive chooses his material in accordance with the inherent
ideal attained, captured, crystallized in a lovely need of his subject to be developed in a particular
form of words. It is almost enough to provoke a
way, and while remaining faithful to the general


450
THE DIAL
May 3
art; and Taou Yuen is the natural symbol of the
making motions they hardly know the sense of.
duct of the next, exactly like a realistic novel;
whereas Taou Yuen is living, at every moment, as
for eternity. This is why the fine gesture with
which she chooses death, being the ultimate affirm-
cating non-essentials, has in itself immortal love
behind that, to this day, there does not exist in print incompletion, unfulfillment, because the others are
be cut off. But her life is always complete from
the sense of his theme. Even Meredith approached, actly expresses Hergesheimer's ideal for his own
laws of how things occur in human nature, and wrote Feverel under the influence of Dickens, but
perhaps even to the specific details of how they he wrote Lord Ormont and His Aminta under the
occur in human civilization, he regulates the shape same Zeitgeist that wrought The Spoils of Poyn-
and size and color of his product by requirements ton and The Red Badge of Courage and Conrad in
which exist rather in his theme than outside it. Quest of His Youth and Heart of Darkness. The
The difference in result is like that between a para critics, some of them, seem still not to know which
sitic vine which follows slavishly the contour of
way the wind blows—but a few artists know, and
whatever happens to support it, and a bud which the author of Java Head is clearly one of them.
follows simply an inner compulsion to unfold into
a particular kind of flower, and must be either that The title-page of Java Head quotes: " It is only
flower or nothing. To make the long story short, the path of pure simplicity which guards and pre-
it is the difference between Mr. Howells and serves the spirit.” The direct literal application of
Henry James; between J. D. Beresford or Gilbert the proverb is presumably to the moral life of Taou
Cannan and Mr. Galsworthy; between Arnold Yuen, the wondrous Manchu lady whom Gerrit
Bennett and Conrad. It is also the difference be-
Ammidon, a hot-tempered individualist, marries
tween Alice Brown or Zona Gale or Rupert and brings into the staid New England Salem of
Hughes or Isabel Paterson-conscientious factual the days when Mr. Polk was President and clippers
ists mainly-and Joseph Hergesheimer, impres-
were brand new in the China trade. Taou Yuen,
sionist.
by uttermost simplicity of spirit, finds her way un-
There are two chief symptoms of this difference. erringly–her way to beauty and to the preserva-
One of them is the presence or absence of unity in
tion of her own exquisite serenity-first through all
the point of view, either throughout the whole or
the deviousness of social Salem, against the back-
throughout each chapter. Henry James reached,
ground of the Ammidons' commercial greatness
by 1890, the point where this kind of unity be-
and general prestige; then through the complica-
came an indispensable canon of his art; Mr. Gals-
tions of an astounding intrigue of which she be-
worthy in nearly all his work, and Conrad in, the
comes, innocently, the center. Clinging faithfully
best of his, have followed him.
The other symp-
in her bewilderment to the few simple ideals of
tom is the presence or absence of absolute single-
conduct which scores of generations have bred into
ness or centrality in the whole work—singleness of
her blood as well as her mind, maintaining to the
situation, of purpose, of accent, of impression;
end the poise of her own fatalistic philosophy, she
such singleness as belongs to the ideal short-story.
The first of these developments puts the stress, not
gives a sense of living exclusively with fundamen-
tals and essentials, in the midst of a society preoc-
on what happens in the story, but on the signifi-
cupied with trivial externals.
cance of the happenings to some sympathetic ob-
who lives at the center of the life she has entered,
serving consciousness. The second fuses action,
working her way with a patient simplicity to the
character, setting, dialogue, all the physical in-
gredients of the tale, into the same unity of effect
core of its realities, while the others, the indigenes
-even Gerrit the individualist and rebel-live, by
which Poe demanded in ballad or lyric, and which
even pundits now clamor for in the short tale. The
comparison, unreally and at the fringe of things,
short tale has had that singleness for fifty years;
what is significant is that, in the last twenty-five,
They exist, as it were, from hand to mouth, letting
the novel has discovered that it cannot live up to
the effect achieved in one moment supply the con-
its privileges without exactly the same totality.
Years ago Henry James wrote, in The Sacred
Fount, a parable of this necessity, in the form of a
crucial instance of the war between factualism and
impressionism—that is to say, between raw “life”
ation of her pure serenity and disregard of compli-
and fictional composition. Criticism is still so far
liness. The death of any other character would be
an intelligible analysis of The Sacred Fount, one of
the great documents of esthetic theory.
living in a more or less straight line, and a line can
Henry
James began, obviously, as an externalist, a fac-
tualist, saturating himself with life; he came out an
moment to moment: she is living in a sphere, and
impressionist, saturating himself with nothing but
a sphere is always as round as it can be.
Now the Chinese proverb about
It is she, the alien,
less understandingly, the same consummation: he


1919
THE DIAL
451
.
ito, il
Ti
66
goal toward which his writing has progressed since fascination for him—the nature and effects of re-
he began to publish it. Taou Yuen is a simple im ligious fanaticism.
pressionist forced into a society of complicated These are, I think, the only serious aberrations.
factualists, and emerging from it without im In The Three Black Pennys (1917) he binds to-
pairment to the inner principle of her being. gether into fundamental unity the parts of a story
Hergesheimer's career thus far shows a similar as disjointed, from the merely factualist point of
contention of elements and a similar culmination view, as a story could be, with three protagonists in
the logical completion of a natural bent toward three quite separate generations: He is able to
impressionism.
accomplish this because his real protagonist is not
One evidence that his art has indeed found the
a person at all, but a recrudescent family trait and
path of pure simplicity is his present instinct to its modifications over a century and a half. It 'is
interpret into his earlier work an impressionistic for the sake of that trait, a sort of creative indi-
unity which is not completely there, through simple vidualism and rebellion which crops out at inter-
inability to tolerate the thought that he was ever vals in the Penny family, against its wonted back-
actuated by any impulse except the only one now ground of sober rectitude, that the whole spectacle
possible to him. He summarizes the theme of The is conjured into existence, an impressive documenta-
Lay Anthony (1914) as “a boy's purity—in a tion of the social and economic history of America.
world where that quality is a cause for excruciat Wild Oranges, the first tale of Gold and Iron, is
ing jest;" and that of Mountain Blood (1915) as a piece of atmosphere entirely appropriate to a
the failure of an aged man to repair a spiritual writer who had once gone out of his way to make
wrong with gold.” The Lay Anthony is indeed a a character remark that Heart of Darkness is
winning and faithful likeness of youth as it is, with the most beautiful story of our time;" Tubal
its queer fits and starts of quixotism, the tremors Cain, the second story of the volume, is unified by
of its response to beauty, its oscillation between a a trait of character, an idée fixe, as Wild Oranges
fantastic idealism and a still more fantastic prac is by its atmosphere; and there is an exquisite felic-
ticality. The physical purity of Anthony Ball is ity in the title which brackets the three stories to-
preserved by a combination of forces; sheer acci- gether into an idea. And now, - Java Head, a
dent wearing at times the aspect of sheer fate, and thing so consummate of its kind as almost to make
also something boyish, inhibiting, and virginal in one tremble for the author of it, in the wonder how
himself. But through the theme, because it was he can either excel it or endure failure to excel it.
imperfectly grasped as an idea which should have Here at last is the matchless integrity once glimpsed
engendered the details making up its own
and missed by ever so little in The Lay Anthony,
phere, there stick the most oddly irrelevent and almost lost sight of in Mountain Blood, recovered
jarring minutiae—baseball, chewing gum, differ in the spirit but obscured by the amorphous body
entials, fashions in collars, thirty-one dollars and of The Three Black Pennys. In Java Head the
seventy cents—put in, not because they are true to spirit creates the body after its kind. There is both
the theme, but because they are locally and tem singleness of esthetic effect and singleness of con-
porally true, because the author knows them, be crete situation. The ten chapters, each from the
cause the artist distrusts the creator in himself and point of view of one of the chief personae, succeed
leans on the copyist. In Mountain Blood, a story one another like a string of delicately tinted pearls
of a primitive community in the West Virginia clasped round the neck of Taou Yuen in her
mountains, this tyranny of actuality over imagina- strange situation; and for her exist too the ma-
tion is carried to a point which means the practical chinery and the scholarship, the re-created Sa