as the Excom- least equivalent to the free trade in things
munication and the Interdict. These of the spirit—in science, for example, or
should be revived. The economic, social, art, or music. It would be fundamental
cultural, or total ostracism of states or for the International Congress to create
portions of states involves tremendously international commissions concerning
less hardship and suffering than actual themselves with the coördination of efforts
military assault and in the long run is to increase and properly distribute the
bound in an industrial society like ours to food supply, to maintain and improve in-
attain the same end, far more than in ternational health, to maintain and keep
earlier, less interdependent ones.
internationally open the world's highways,
What degree of coercive power these to secure the equality of all men before
provisions would have at the outset will de- the law of any land, to expand and inten-
pend of course on the will of the signa- sify the world's sense of community by
tories to any international constitution not internationally coördinated education.
to turn it into a scrap of paper. The gov- Most of these functions have already
ernmental organs of the public will can be been forced on the allied democracies by
regulated only by the public opinion of the exigencies of war; they would need
each state, and the public opinion of each only to be made relevant to conditions of
state can be kept internationally-minded peace. Such are the food and fuel ad-
only by means of the completest publicity ministrations, acting purely in view of in-
regarding all international relationships. ternational needs. Others existed long


184
[February 28
THE DIAL
before the war. Such are the postal union, forces: First, its theme—the growing
and Mr. David Lubin's indispensably serv- child, whose creative spontaneities are to
iceable agricultural institute, now living a be encouraged, whose capacities for serv-
starved life in Italy. Still others have ice and happiness are to be actualized, in-
gone on as voluntary and private enter- tensified, and perfected. Second, the
prises. Such are the various learned so- investigator and inventor who discovers
cieties, particularly the medical and the or makes the material and machinery
chemical societies. These would need en- which are the conditions of the child's life
dowment, endorsement, establishment un- and growth, which liberate or repress
der international rule. In none of these these. Third, the teacher who transmits
enterprises, please note, is a novel ma- to the child the knowledge of the nature
terial necessary. All the institutions exist. and use of these things, drawing out its
Attention needs only to be shifted to their powers and enhancing its vitality by means
coöperative integration, expansion, and of them. Obviously, to the last two, to
,
,
perfection by the conscious joint effort of the discoverers and creators of knowledge,
the nations of the world to turn them into and to its transmitters and distributors, to
a genuine machinery of liberating interna- these and to no one else beside, belongs
tional government.
the control of education. It is as absurd
The most important instrument of in- that any but teachers and investigators
ternationality is, however, education. should govern the art of education as that
Take care of education, Plato makes Soc- any but medical practitioners and investi-
rates say in the “Republic," and education gators should govern the art of medicine.
will take care of everything else. Inter- International law would best abolish this
nationally, education must rest on two external control by making the communi-
principles: one, that it must be autono- ties of educators everywhere autonomous
mous; the other, that it must be unpreju- bodies, vigorously coöperative in an inter-
diced. Regarding the first: We have
We have national union. Within this union the
already seen how, in the case of Germany, freest possible movement of teachers and
the state's control of education laid the pupils should be provided for, exchanges
foundation for the present war. The of both between all nationalities to the
school served the state's vested interest in end of attaining the acme of free trade
the school. From the dark ages to the in habits and theories of life, in letters,
present day the Church has held a vested and in methods.
a
interest in the school, an interest from Regarding the second principle of in-
which events have more or less freed it, ternationalized education—that it must be
but which still makes itself felt. With the unprejudiced: This requires the system-
rise of private educational institutions or atic internationalization of certain subject-
the secularization of theological ones— matters. In the end, of course, all subject-
such as Harvard or Yale or Princeton- matters get internationalized. The proc-
with the elaboration of the public school ess is, however, too slow and too dangerous
systems of the different states of this coun- with respect to some of these, history be-
try or any other, the powers of govern- ing the most flagrant. Compare any col-
ment, visible or invisible, have determined lection of history textbooks with any
largely what should and what should not similar collection in physics, for example,
be taught, what is true and what is false, and you find the latter possessed of a
always from the point of view of the in- unanimity never to be attained in the for-
terests of these powers. Heresy has been mer. Why? Because every hypothesis in
consistently persecuted, with means vary- physics is immediately tested in a thousand
a
ing from the auto-da-fé of the Church to laboratories and the final conclusion is the
the more delicate tools of contemporary result of the collective enterprise of all
university trustees or school committees. sorts and conditions of physicists. In the
Heresy consists of that which is not in writing of history such coöperative verifi-
accord with the interests or prejudices of cation never occurs. Most histories, par-
the ruling power:
ticularly those put into the hands of
Now the art of education involves three children, utter vested interests, not scientifi-


1918]
185
THE DIAL
cally tested results; they utter sectarian or “facts” of history should be attested by
national vanity, class privilege, class re- an international commission. So the sec-
sentment, and so on. Compare any Eng- ond function of education is served.
lish history of the American Revolution With this we have established the full
with any American history! Fancy the pattern of the house of peace an inter-
wide divergence of assertion between national democratic congress, limiting ar-
friends and enemies in the matter of Ger- maments, judging disputes, coördinating
man atrocities! Naturally, the interpre- and harmonizing the great national insti-
tation of historic "fact" must and should tutions by means of which men get food
vary with the interpreter, but the designa- and clothing and shelter and health and
tion of the same "fact” should clearly be happiness, making for a free exchange of
identical for all interpreters. To keep all excellence, punishing default with in-
education unprejudiced requires therefore terdict or excommunication or war, rest-
the objective designation of historic fact- ing its authority upon public opinion and
“historic" to mean the recorded enterprise strengthening it by internationalized edu-
of all departments of human life. The cation.
XI.
EPILOGUE:
HUMAN NATURE AND THE LIMITS OP INTERNATIONALISM
Solemn warnings echo through the land. simply crowd out their rivals by doing bet-
Prophets stalk uncensored, prophesying ter the same things that the rivals are
war and woe unless we arm forever. Sol- doing. War is common only to a small
emn warnings flash across the editorial portion of mankind, for the masses of men
pages of the kept press; and the weighty are driven or persuaded into war and
voices of Colonel Roosevelt and Congress- never have undertaken nor ever would of
man Kahn, of the National Security their own initiative undertake it. War is a
League and the munition manufacturers, class perversion of the universal enterprise
of professors of international law out of of self-expression and self-realization. As
Laputa, and of all the comfortable gentle- an institution it rests upon the plasticity and
men who have passed middle age and are inertia of human nature. Upon the plas-
drawing upon a rich experience with life ticity because war must be carried on either
and light and leading, are crying to us, by driven slaves or mercenaries or de-
,
“Arm, arml or we are lost.” What these ceived free men, and the war-lust is gen-
sapiencies think of human nature is not fit erated in free men by infection from their
to print. And the worst of it is, they are rulers. What moves their rulers when
not without provocation. Who, looking these are dynastic is the vanity or the greed
.
over the history of human conduct, dare of the personage commanding their alle-
say they are? According to the true tes- giance; what moves their rulers when
timony of history war is an institution of these are national states are the same mo-
civilization and an invention of man. It tives, going however by the names "na-
is a blasphemy against Nature and a libel tional honor" and "the balance of trade.”
a
upon animals to say with the militarist Both demand more than is needful or due
philosophy made in Germany that these for the actual free existence of either
live by war. For war is organized mur- princes or states. These are able to infect
der for non-essential purposes.
The men with the war-lust, even when they
struggle for survival is not organized, and realize that war can do them no good
it regards essentials only. Animals do not whatsoever, because of the inertia of hu-
kill for the sake of killing; they kill for man nature. Men live far more by habit
food, nor do they kill their own kind. In and tradition than by initiative and
the botanical world plants do not survive thought. The habits of deference and
by destroying their rivals; they do not re- obedience to the masters, the reverence for
gard their rivals. Plants survive by their the idols the masters are and for the shib-
own inward vigor, striking roots into the boleths they delude men with, reënforce
earth and shoots toward the sun. They initial military infection and plastic re-


186
[February 28
THE DIAL
sponsiveness to the stirred-up herd feel- portents are not unfavorable. Men are
ing. Fear also plays a part, fear of rulers, awake in Russia and in England, and they
fear of neighbors: German privates are need but to take thought in France, and
fighting today because they fear their offi- with open minds and active wills “get be-
cers more than the enemy; Russian pri- hind the President" in America. What
vates are not fighting, because they have is called human nature by the elderly gen-
ceased to fear their officers. War thus rests tlemen who govern the world today and of
on and reënforces the maxims “Every- whose interests and dogmas the Roose-
body's doing it" and "What was good velts are the high priests, is not human na-
enough for father is good enough for me. ture but second nature. Civilization is a
That which originates war and spreads growth, not an eternal form. Customs,
it is not, however, that which nourishes conventions, and habits are things that
it in the mind of the common man. once were not and that ultimately will not
Though it derives from plasticity and in- be. Investment too easily identifies these
ertia in human nature, it is justified by the changing manners and morals of society
soul's initiative. The society we live in
The society we live in with everlasting law, makes of them idols
is basically a system of taboos—taboos set and masters where they ought to be sym-
by class for mass, by property for human- bols and servants. The civilization of
ity, by civilization for the animal as well Europe has gone a long way since the
as spiritual spontaneities within us. Hence days of the Holy Roman Empire, and
war is to society what drink is to the in- what was eternal law then is only super-
dividual. It dulls the sense of repression, stitious survival now. Change, society
breaks up inhibitions, and liberates and does and will, no matter how our interests
satisfies energies and appetites normally and wishes may in idea arrest it, holding
starved. From the point of view of the fast to this or that form or institution.
possessing classes prohibition is suicidal. For the modern world the question has
No doubt it enhances "efficiency''; but the become: Shall we suffer or direct this
stored-up discontents of workingmen, cus- change? Shall we be its victims or its
tomarily dissipated in the irrelevancies of masters? There is only one answer in a
drink, accumulate under prohibition, and world so self-conscious as ours. Human
sooner or later must be discharged rele- institutions are but the mutual accommo-
vantly. By prohibition capitalism is dig- dations of separate human wills. Society
ging its own grave. With regard to war, is more and more what we choose to make
its instinct is less blinded by greed. Hence it. In the forms of human organization
the jeremiads of Mr. Roosevelt and his belief is fact. “If you will it," said Theo-
ilk. In wartimes there is an exaltation in dor Herzl, urging his people toward the
the land: even civilians are lifted out of new Zion, “it is no dream.” Surely the
themselves as by strong drink; their ha- record of new achievement and invention
treds, prejudices, malices, and lusts need in this our world, a record as rich as that
only to be decently cloaked by patriotism of the less conspicuously changing old
to flourish at the acme of propriety, while order which so dominates our attention, is
in the battlefields—frightfulness, regard- sufficient warrant for attempting a new or.
less of race or state.
der which needs no more to make it real
Now it is to be observed that the pres- than a shift of this same attention. Hu-
sure toward peace and internationalism
man nature is not in conflict with lasting
has been a direct function of the spread of peace and a free international order. It
democracy, and the spread of democracy sets no limits to internationalism. Only
has consisted in the removal of political, the perversion of human nature by the
economic, superstitious, and social taboos illusions of exclusive sovereignty, the harsh
upon the panting energies, the creative realities of class vanity and class greed,
spontaneities of the masses of men. They "national honor” and the "rights of prop-
have most to gain from lasting peace and erty" limit and combat it. Regard a free
internationalism; they have it most in their league of free peoples: if you will it, it is
power to make them real.
no dream.
Will they do it? Can they do it? The
H. M. KALLEN.
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1918]
187
THE DIAL
A Happy Ending for the Little Theatre
Understatement was the gravest of while the disagreement over the exact
Duse's errors when she told us that, to facts, the inability which any of the authors
save the theatre, the theatre must be de- would find in arriving at the same total two
stroyed. We have been hopefully watch- months running, ought to demonstrate-
ing the little theatre movement-assisted as all but one of these writers is willing to
by the movies—deliver the coup de grace, admit—the insecurity of this makeshift
only to discover that Duse vastly under- effort to create for America a new sort of
stated the operation. She also missed a theatre, which was a very old sort on the
further epigram and a new demonstration Continent before the war.
of the truth of Christian dogma. To save Unpleasant as the cant phrase has
the theatre, its savior must likewise be de- grown, the little theatre is a "movement.'
stroyed. The salvation of the American It is going somewhere. Three of these
theatre by the birth, suffering, and death four volumes—the three that are really
of innumerable theatres has been going on worth reading—frankly admit it. Each
pretty steadily for the past ten years. It of the three decides that the little theatre
has reached the point—in spite of the war is a step in a different direction—but a
or because of it, one can hardly say- step, not a stop.
Miss Burleigh says
where our wholesale show-shop of Broad that the organization of little theatres is
way and The Road is thoroughly discred- a step towards the "community theatre
ited artistically and scrapped financially,
a house of play in which events
while the little theatre movement hovers offer to every member of a body politic
between life and death, with four literary active participation in a common interest,
executors by the bedside. They are
a theatre where audience and entertainers
Thomas H. Dickinson, author of "The are intermittently one. Sheldon Cheney
Insurgent Theatre” (Huebsch; $1.25); sees the little theatre as an experiment in
Sheldon Cheney, author of "The Art The- petto towards the “higher ideal” of the
atre" (Knopf; $1.50); Louise Burleigh, art theatre, whose products are distin-
author of "The Community Theatre” guished by "spiritual unity, rhythm, style.”
(Little, Brown; $1.50); and Constance Professor Dickinson, who has written by
D'Arcy Mackay, author of "The Little far the most valuable book of the four,
Theatre in the United States” (Holt; sees the little theatre as an insurgent
$2.).
against things as they are, and particu-
The importance and vitality of the little larly a creator and trainer of a new audi-
theatre movement and the insecurity of ence for a new theatre to come. Miss
the factors that compose it are amply dem- Mackay, among a score of other inaccu-
onstrated both by the fact of the almost racies-some of which, to be sure, the
simultaneous publication of these four vol- other writers do not wholly avoid-de-
umes and by the contents of the books clares that the little theatre "can advance
themselves. According to the computa- towards the goal it has set for itself un-
tions of the writers there are anywhere hampered by the difficulties that beset the
from 23 to 51 little theatres in our coun- commercial playhouse. Indeed, all diffi-
try. Miss Burleigh records 51 in the culties are promptly overridden.” Maurice
course of her argument. Miss Mackay Browne, whose Chicago Little Theatre
produces the same total by including 5 very (source of the most consistent and distin-
questionable cases and at least 4 failures. guished work done in America) has been
Professor Dickinson is content to tell us forced to the wall, would doubtless be
of 32, with 9 of these now defunct. The heartened by Miss Mackay's statement-
goodly number included by even the most quite as much as the fellow-writers would
careful of these writers speaks for the re- be interested to learn that the little thea-
ality of the revolt of artists, actors, and tre “is the theatre of the Future." If that
even audiences and authors against the gat- be movement, make the most of it.
ling gun fodder of the regular theatre; The little theatre is a makeshift for


188
[February 28
THE DIAL
It is no
a
people who wish to create a fine, broad, have established the efficacy and the neces-
democratic playhouse, and who find that sity of the true repertory system. Not one
they can no more begin by setting up a of these theatres has been truly a reper-
huge, expensive theatre in competition tory theatre—making productions with a
with the commercial houses, than a sculp- certain regularity and dividing a week of
tor can begin his training by hewing away seven or eight performances among three
at heroic marble. The theatre seating or more different plays.
three hundred is simply a way of getting Outside New York City it is doubtless
round the problems of maintaining a cheap safe to say that the day of the true reper-
theatre for a limited audience. It is a tory theatre must be postponed until grad-
laboratory out of which will come the ual experiment has demonstrated the pres-
evidences of new possibilities—the possi- ence of a large enough audience to support
bility of creating finer art by integral or- steadily a reasonable-sized theatre.
In
ganization of actors, producers, and New York it is now possible, as Grace
artists than by wholesale specialists, and George showed a few seasons ago, to
the possibility of gathering together from make a better sort of theatre financially
the vast heterogeneous public of the reg- feasible if it will cut loose from compari-
ular theatres an audience which wants son with the rest of Broadway. It is phys-
that sort of art and needs a place where ically and spiritually possible to mount in
it is sure of getting it.
one theatre, with one company of actors
The problem of creating the finer sort and stage artists, fifteen productions of a
of art depends of course on individual and high level in a single season.
group ability, but the supposition is that exaggeration to say that each of these pro-
it can be more easily created in a single, ductions—averaging up the successes with
united theatre-laboratory than piecemeal the failures—can be of sufficient interest
all over the country. And it is safe to say to 15,000 people to keep the theatre com-
that Maurice Browne in Chicago, Sam fortably filled for a total of from fourteen
Hume in Detroit, the Neighborhood Play- to sixteen performances of each bill. Some
house in New York, and Stuart Walker would do less well, some phenomenally
in his peripatetic Portmanteau Theatre better. But each would have its chance to
have demonstrated this in varying degrees. be seen by those interested, and none would
Gathering the audience is another mat- be expected to draw the hundred thousand
ter. There even the Washington Square patrons of a Broadway run.
of
Players, with their less exacting standards, a repertory such as this, the season's most
are not an indubitable evidence of success. interesting play and most precipitate fail-
Maurice Browne has failed outright in the ure—“The Deluge,” as presented by Ar-
second city of the country. Sam Hume thur Hopkins—would have drawn back its
and the Neighborhood Playhouse have cost of production very comfortably dur-
succeeded by combining the endowment of ing sixteen scattered performances. It
a rent-free theatre and a limited number could have turned loss into profit if the
of performances with the economy of am- ten or fifteen thousand who would really
ateur acting. There is no available evi- have enjoyed it—and who doubtless in-
dence as to whether Mr. Walker has really tended to see it at sometime during its
made money with his "theatre that comes run—had divined the brevity of its life
to you”—and brings a company of paid and rushed into the Hudson Theatre dur-
players—but it seems safe to say that if ing the two weeks through which its actors
he has been able to solve the problem of appeared before handfuls of people. It
the limited audiences available in smaller is the essential principle of repertory, dem-
cities, it is because he has lumped all these onstrated time after time abroad, that it
audiences together by playing only a few can gather a play's utmost audience eco-
performances in each city.
nomically and efficiently. Our theatre fails
Summed up, the work of the little the- utterly in that important function. Our
atres has demonstrated one truth above all little theatres are making shift towards
others. They have proved the worth of that vitally desirable end.
something that they have avoided. They
KENNETH MACGOWAN.
As part


1918]
189
THE DIAL
>
Our London Letter
to evolve a distinct form of literary English
upon which they can impress their own tradi-
(Special Correspondence of The DIAL.) tions and their own habits; and meanwhile
The Christmas lull in literary production everything that they are doing in this way will
does not last long, but it gives one time to look
react on English literature. Some of Mr. Yeats's
round and see things which would otherwise most characteristic rhythms and images and
escape the harried and bemused attention of the ways of thought are now the commonplaces of
literary observer. And looking round me, I can purely English writers. I have however already
see nothing more remarkable than the astonish- expressed my view that he is chiefly an English
ing literary activity which is going on in Ire- poet; so perhaps this illustration of the argu-
land. It has long been a commonplace of critics ment goes for nothing. On the other hand,
that Anglo-Irish literature ought to be judged John Millington Synge is as exclusively Irish a
as a separate species, that Mr. W. B. Yeats dramatist as one could expect to find. Even
can only be compared with Shelley as vaguely
so, his plays have generated, not an Irish drama,
and as distantly as Villon can be compared with but a type of peasant drama which has four-
Byron, and that not only the ideas but also the ished much more rankly in England than in
images and the rhythms of Dublin are differ- the place of its origin. His plays are not now
ent from those of London. Yet I am not at Irish as opposed to English, but plays in the
all sure that this commonplace has ever been
Wicklow dialect of English which stand side
true. Certainly Mr. Yeats has lived most of by side with other-certainly much less important
his time in Ireland and has used the figures -plays in the Gloucestershire, Westmoreland,
of the Irish mythology in his verse; but he was
Yorkshire, and Heaven knows how many other
also a member of the Rhymers' Club, the asso-
dialects of English.
ciate of Dowson and Symons, and I have a Yet there is, for all this, a very definite and
suspicion that the affinities between him and the independent stirring of life in the literature
English poets of the nineties—absurd and now which can be called, if no more than topograph-
mercifully fading age—are stronger than either ically, the literature of Ireland.
began, I
his affinities with the Irish race at large or those
think, with "Æ," principally because "Æ" was
of his associates with the main stream of Eng-
not in his writing specifically a Celt, in the way
lish literature. The remarkable thing about him
in which other and more flamboyantly Irish
is not so much that he is a great Irish poet as
writers had led us to interpret the word. He
that he is the one considerable new poet thrown
was more Irish than the rest because he was
up by the cosmopolitan and somewhat bloodless simply an Irishman whose fundamental habits
movement of the nineties. It is my impression
of life were settled in his own country, while
that he found material in Ireland, whereas the
his intellectual and spiritual interests, like those
others found it in France, the Roman decadence,
of any intellectual and spiritual man, searched
Catholic theology, Jacobitism, and strange coun-
the world for their nourishment and brought it
tries—the seeking and finding being in all cases
back, when found, to Ireland to consume. His
very much on the same level, the difference was, on one side at least, a literary Sinn Feinism,
appearing only in the use of that material. not by deliberate adoption but by nature. He
But here is some ground for believing that
exalted Ireland, not by denouncing England but
the case is now a little altered or is, at all events, by taking no particular notice of her. He did not
in process of alteration. I doubt if the real carry into literature the cheerful Sinn Fein pre-
Anglo-Irish literature can ever be properly sep-
scription : "Burn everything English, except
arated from pure English literature. Language,
coal.” I have never heard that he organized
after all, is that which determines poetry; and
bonfires of the works of the English mystical
the English language is not a brand-new, en- writers on College Green. But he has never
tirely plastic material which can be handled sought particularly to influence the English pub-
precisely as the poet pleases. It has its tradi- lic or to capture English opinion. He is, one
tions and its habits; though the Irish writer may
has always felt without being able to demon-
wish to compose upon Cuchullain or Diarmuid strate the feeling very clearly, an Irish writer
and Grainne instead of upon, let us say, Rich- who would be just as much and as little affected
ard Cæur-de-Lion or the Black Prince or Robin if he were told that he was read and admired
Hood, his only models are the English writers. in England, as I should be if I happened to
It will take the Irish a good many generations be told that I was read and admired in Norway.


190
[February 28
THE DIAL
no
99
All this leads up to the remark that I have Grief on the death, it has blackened my heart:
on my table at the moment some ten or fifteen
It has snatched my love and left me desolate,
Without friend or companion under the roof of my
books which have arrived there during the last
house
two months or so and almost all of which clearly But this sorrow in the midst of me, and I keening.
have their origin in a centre of literature and
As I walked the mountain in the evening
thought quite independent of the influence of The birds spoke to me sorrowfully,
London. There never has been, since the days
The sweet snipe spoke and the voiceful curlew
Relating to me that my darling was dead.
of Byron's "Scotch Reviewers," any real decen-
tralization in English literature, such as can be
I called to you and your voice I heard not,
I called again and I got no answer,
found in Germany. The last word on every I kissed your mouth, and O God how cold it was!
topic is said in London; and though the provin- Ah, cold is your bed in the lonely churchyard.
cial repertory theatres have attempted some de-
O green-sodded grave in which my child is,
centralization in the drama, their effort Aickers Little narrow grave, since you are his bed,
unsteadily and has not yet produced many results
My blessing on you, and thousands of blessings
On the green sods that are over my treasure.
of enduring value. But Dublin does pour out
a stream of books in an attitude which seems
Grief on the death, it cannot be denied,
It lays low green and withered together-
to proclaim indifference to the opinion of Lon-
And o gentle little son, what tortures me is
don; and this is all to the good, even if it does That your fair body should be making clay!
more than administer a healthy shock to This bears marks of a somewhat alien sentiment,
English criticism. I have here now two vol- which, in the hands of Pearse, almost takes on
umes of the collected works of Padraic H. Pearse, an anti-English tone. Yet, putting my hand
who was executed for his part in the Easter into the heap at random, I can find nothing par-
insurrection, three volumes of sketches and sto-
ticularly exotic or propagandist in Mr. Seumas
ries, two volumes of literary studies, a narrative O'Sullivan's “Mud and Purple," a volume of de-
poem, two or three plays, a study of the career
scriptions of Dublin scenes and persons, or in Mr.
of Dr. Douglas Hyde, and a number of miscel- E. A. Boyd's "Appreciations and Depreciations,
laneous books, such as an account by Pearse of studies of modern Irish writers,
or in Mr.
the methods adopted in the Irish school, “Sgoil Austin Clarke's “Vengeance of Fionn," a beau-
Eanna,” of which he was headmaster.
tiful narrative poem.
I do find evidence of
These are signs of the times; but, of course, w centre of thought and literature—a pro-
the times bristle with signs. It is a curiously
vincial centre, if you will, but still a centre.
significant fact, for example, that the collected
And I cannot but think that we shall all profit
works of Padraic Pearse, whom we shot as a by it.
EDWARD SHANKS.
rebel less than two years ago, have been reviewed
London, February 11, 1918.
in the English press generally with respect, gen-
tleness, and even appreciation. I do not mean
merely in the Liberal and advanced papers.
This curious portent—meaning whatever it may
Haven
mean—has been observed in columns of the
Under these moving tides that pass us by,
“Times." Yet Pearse was a man who sincerely
Or snatch us into maelstroms of profound
detested England, if any Irishman ever did. I
Oblivion where a thousand dreams have
do not pretend to offer any exact interpretation
drowned,
of this phenomenon, though I may be excused
Forgotten of all ports beneath the sky;
for believing that its significance is of something Under these waters, throated with a cry
entirely creditable to us. One does not feel Of old disaster, runs a deeper sound-
inclined to do more than call attention to it. Music the slimed, uncrypted dead have found
Pearse's works, of course, were mainly written In hushed, moon-haunted chasms where they lie.
in ish and have been translated, some by his
Horns have been wound in silence. From the far
own and some by another hand, for the present
Black forests of the sea the shadows glide
edition. They are naturally somewhat foreign
Sunward; nor shall the wrath of storm
in flavor and, by reason of the ruling passion
prevail
of Pearse's life, markedly Irish in sentiment.
Against their keels, or night withhold a star. . .
Apart from this, his translations of his own
In many a bay the white armadas ride,
poems are often beautiful and characteristic, as And winds return to many a straining sail.
in “A Woman of the Mountain Keens her Son":
LESLIE Nelson JENNINGS.
a
.


1918]
191
THE DIAL
Art in Victorian Suburbia two by two, for many of the letters are by wives
of famous subjects who were too busy to write
THOMAS WOOLNER, R.A., SCULPTOR AND Poet.
for themselves and make arrangements for "sit-
His Life in Letters. By Amy Woolner. Dut-
tings." Lady Tennyson, Mrs. Carlyle, Mrs.
ton; $6.
Not in his own letters, altogether, but chiefly
Gladstone, Mrs. Froude take pen in hand more
often than their husbands. It is a very monoga-
in the letters written to him by his greater con-
mous book; and when Woolner, after a really
temporaries; and not the best letters that they
lovely bachelorhood, took to himself as wife the
wrote, but in casual, usually trivial notes whose
beautiful Miss Waugh, the triumphant flutter
only interest is in the signatures. Truly a sec-
ond-hand manner of biography, that inevitably
among the matrons was considerable.
gives the effect of a pallid, second-hand existence.
The book brings out the essentially suburban
Yet one suspects that this is exactly what passed
quality of society among the Victorians. They
for life in the circles which Woolner orna-
are like people who live on the same street, and
mented, and among the contemporaries whose
are good neighbors, thinking well of one another,
faces and figures he earnestly copied in marble
cordial, jocular, sympathetic. Everybody liked
and bronze.
to hear Tennyson read his poetry, and we find
Woolner emerged from obscurity through the
Woolner, from a safe distance, murmuring of
"Merlin": "How I wish I could hear it; I
Pre-Raphaelite Movement. The best letters in
the present volume were written to him by Ros quite envy those fortunates who have.” Mrs.
setti, and it may be inferred that the most vivid
Tennyson is delighted to hear that Kenyon left
and imaginative experience of life came to him
a good deal of money to the Brownings but, with
through his association with the Brotherhood -
regret for an emotional extravagance, confesses,
"I thought the Brownings had been poor, or I
inferred only, for his own testimony is lacking.
A disappointment in a competition for a Words-
should not so much have rejoiced over their
acquisition of money." Woolner stoutly approves
worth monument led him to turn to gold seek-
of Browning's scorn of those who would
ing in Australia, and his own chief contribution
fa-
curry
to his "Life" is a rather dull chronicle of voy-
vor with him by running down Tennyson. There
aging, trekking, and digging. Emigration was
is a kindly bit of gossip about Mrs. Browning's
represented as a cure for all forms of personal
bribing the butler in her old home to leave the
disappointment and discontent in the diluted
blind up a little so that she might get a last
post-Byronism of the fifties (vide "Locksley glimpse of her unforgiving father. One readily
Hall,” “The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich," and
divines which of the group were good neighbors.
“Alton Locke"). Woolner turned from unsuc-
Edward Lear, with his pattering drivel of baby
cessful gold digging to successful commercial
talk, was a general favorite. Matthew Arnold,
work in Sydney and Melbourne.
one fears, was a trifle remote. Woolner writes
After his return we hear little of Pre-Raphael-
Mrs. Tennyson that Arnold “made kind inquir-
itism and artistic revolt. He connected himself
ies after you, who seem to have taken his fancy
with his more eminent contemporaries and
exceedingly. He was a regular swell, in bril-
became the official sculptor of a generation
liant white kid gloves, glittering boots, and cos-
whose standard of portrait art was a good like-
tume cut in most perfect fashion.” Yet even
ness.
this overpowering distinction made someone
He did Tennyson, Carlyle, Palgrave,
Maurice, Cobden, Gladstone, Newman, Palmer-
happy, for “he had a long talk with Patmore,
stone, Darwin, Archdeacon Hare, and Queen
whose countenance the whole time beamed radi-
Victoria. A grave in Westminster Abbey almost
ant joy with the satisfaction of holding inter-
Ruskin
cried out for a statue, bust, or medallion by
course with such a high Oxford don.”
Woolner. It is the rather external or official
was loathed. There is positive malice in Wool-
relation to his age of Woolner the portraitist
ner's note that “Ruskin praised some of the
and mortuary artist, which the letters chiefly
worst pictures in the place; he has made such
commemorate.
an obvious mess of it this year that his enemies
Yet there is something curiously monumental
are dancing for delight. The little despot
about the book and, one might almost say, sig-
imagines himself the Pope of Art and would
nificant. There are the middle-aged Victorians wear 3 crowns as a right, only they would make
all at play. A little wooden they are, like the him look funny in London."
figures in a child's Noah's Ark—and one is There is very little about art in the book-
reminded that the well-behaved animals went in fortunately, for it would have been painful.


192
(February 28
THE DIAL
Lady Tennyson suggests a slight improvement God as Visible Personality
in the medallion of her husband—“the scraping
away of a little of the nose underneath the nos- GOD THE KNOWN AND GOD THE UNKNOWN. By
tril all along to the point so as to shorten the
Samuel Butler. Yale University Press; $1.00.
nose a wee bit; if this would not bother you and
Whatever in the spiritual life of man has the
if you think it right.” Woolner responds with highest potency for him, according to tem-
equal suavity: "I have always taken your hints perament or level of consciousness attained, what-
but in one instance, and now find I was wrong
ever aspect of experience is felt to open the
in not doing so: I refer to making the right portals to the loftiest Aights of creative imag-
jaw of the bust a trifle thicker as you wished, ination, is very apt to be projected into his
and I did not see.” Perhaps the gem of art
God. The essence of God is sought in those
criticism is supplied by Lady Hooker. The com- concepts that liberate the caged self and make
munity was justly incensed at the shocking acci- it supreme in its own world of chosen goods.
dent to Woolner's bust of Sir William Hooker, God is thus the impersonation or source of magic,
which had its nose knocked off on its arrival of power, of immortality, of truth, of art, of
at the exhibition of the Royal Academy, and morality, of ecstatic vision, of annihilation. All
disgusted when that august body showed no wil- gods, at any rate all useful gods, are anthropo-
lingness to pay for the damaged masterpiece. morphic; in so far as the gods of theological and
Lady Hooker suggested that Woolner should philosophical speculation escape the human mould,
exhibit the bust anyway, and adds the com- they reduce to purely verbal formulæ. The
forting suggestion that “the Elgin marbles have Jesus of Christian myth has intense vitality as
well accustomed spectators to this special deform- a symbol of human aspiration, of triumph in
ity, so that the loss of a nose no longer looks degradation; the Holy Ghost can found no cult.
grotesque, but a mark of the real antique.” The God of Samuel Butler is no exception to
Darwin would indeed make art the handmaid the rule. He possesses the attributes of his cre-
of science. He turns to Woolner, as one to ator and incorporates his strongest aspirations.
whom certain matters are all in the day's work, I had come to Butler's essay fresh from “The
to inquire how low down an experienced model Note Books," that curious congeries of brilliant
will blush. He notes the assertion that a "cele- epigrams, dead-ridden hobbies, far-fetched analo-
brated French painter once saw a new model gies, and penetrating analyses; hence I could not
blushing all over her body” but, distrusting the fail to observe the impress of Butler's person-
Gallic verve of this observation, he demands the ality, as revealed by himself in these notes, on
experience of "cautious and careful English his theological speculations. Butler was a man
artists." We are sure that all Woolner's artist of a very definite, though not easily definable,
friends were “cautious and careful."
cast of mind, possessed of very clear-cut likes and
There is but one touch of wholesome vulgar- dislikes, and fond of hugging certain thoughts,
ity in this chronicle of Cranford. Mrs. Carlyle attitudes, and modes of reasoning with a per-
writes to Woolner one day that they had two sistency that is occasionally trying to the reader,
tickets for Charles Dickens's reading, that she but indicative at the same time of their high
could not go, and would he take the vacant seat emotional value for Butler. Some of the sug-
beside Mr. Carlyle? He would be most happy. gestive traits revealed in "The Note Books" are
Carlyle, to do the thing in style, took him in a a pragmatic attitude towards truth that must
cab. The reading was two hours, with a ten have seemed paradoxical to his contemporaries
minute pause during which the two unregener- (in one passage Butler directly states that that
ate males went behind the scenes and had a is true which it is most “convenient” to believe);
drink with the entertainer_brandy and water. a strong disinclination to take account of any
“Each poured out a portion for himself and Car- factors not directly yielded by experience; a dis-
lyle took his glass and nodding to Dickens said: trust of all arguments pushed to their logical
‘Charley, you carry—whole company of actors extreme; a well-nigh amazing reliance on evi-
under your own hat.'” Just for a moment we dence from analogy (as Butler characteristically
are in a real world with human beings—then puts it, analogy is poor ground for an argument
back again among the frustrate but so courteous
but it is the best we have); and, probably most
and gentle ghosts who owed their substance to
deep-rooted of all, a habit of bridging all sorts
Woolner's marble. Perhaps that is why they of opposites, which Butler's ingrained love of
adored him.
ROBERT Morss LOVETT. antithesis of expression leads him to contemplate


1918]
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THE DIAL
with genuine interest, into a continuum, so that Nor will he hold himself austerely aloof in a
all life is seen to harbor death and no death divine empyrean whence issue strange fulmina-
to be altogether lifeless, all mind to be associated tions and prescriptions; he will be our veriest
with matter and no form of matter to be alto- neighbor, squatting on our own domain. He
gether mindless—in short, A to include some- will, like any phenomenon, be content to fit him-
thing of Z and Z something of A. One may, self into the analogical scheme of things. And
indeed, suspect the last two of these traits to he will be as everlasting as life itself, no more
have had over Butler something of the tyran- and no less.
nical sway of compulsive thought-habits. Surely In short, Butler's God is identical with that
not a little in his theories and fancies is attrib- ramified but single personality that evolution
utable to them.
knows, whose being is the totality of life. He
Through Butler's work runs, further, an ear- is the sum total and synthesis of all manifesta-
nest, quietly passionate, longing for eventual tions of life, animal and vegetable. To be more
recognition, a longing now rising to calm assur- exact, he is the personalized energy or principle
ance, now masking itself in a philosophic humor that resides and has, for untold æons, resided in
of indifference that was but half insincere. For living matter and mind—for the two are insep-
the catchpenny recognition of the passing hour arable. The single cell of the animal organism
he had a genuine scorn, though the note of wist- is a perfect and self-sufficient life unit or per-
ful regret is not absent from his contemplation sonality, unaware, or but dimly aware, of the
of the relative failure to achieve literary fame larger whole of which it forms a part, yet exist-
that was his lot. Few men have had such con- ing only for the sake of that whole. In pre-
fidence in the morrow succeeding to the day of cisely the same manner, argues Butler, each indi-
personal identity, few have had such an abiding vidual in the great sum of animated nature, plant
sense of the reality of the unity, biological and or animal or human being, is a life unit or per-
spiritual, which binds the generations inextrica- sonality that is unaware, or but dimly aware,
bly together. The sense of a personality of flesh of the vast personality or God of which it forms
and spirit transcending that of individual con- an infinitesimal fragment and which, we may
sciousness is, indeed, the keynote to much of believe, possesses a consciousness transcending
Butler's thinking. It is at the heart of his evo- ours as this transcends the consciousness of the
lutionary speculations, with his curious identifi- single cell. Cell, organism, God—these form
cation of memory and heredity, as it, in a meas- "three great concentric phases of life.” The vast
ure, also pervades his masterpiece, “The Way personality indwelling in life is the known God.
of All Flesh," a novel of four generations. Per- Whether or not there is a fourth concentric
manence of a something which, in the midst of phase, an unknown God, embracing a multitude
endless dissolutions, unfolds towards an unknown of Gods analogous to the only one we have direct
goal—the concept is rarely absent from Butler's knowledge of, it is useless to speculate. As the
thoughts, it takes shape in innumerable forms. cell knows not our God, so we cannot be ex-
Between the personal fame for which he longed pected to know a super-God. Butler's theology
and the complete submergence of self in a spir- leads to no metaphysical solutions of ultimate
itual humus affording nourishment to those that problems.
follow, Butler found no true opposition. Life, This conception of God differs radically not
organic and psychic, is merely the endlessly rami- only from that of orthodox theism but from the
fied career of a single personality.
all-inclusive God of the pantheists. Both of
This brings us face to face with Butler's con- these lack the fundamental essential of an intel-
ception of God. His God will, above all things, ligible God-personality. Nevertheless it is easy
be one that we can most “conveniently" believe to perceive that Butler's conception lends itself
in as doing least violence to our daily habits of to a readier approximation to the pantheistic God
thought and most readily following as a synthe- than to the sovereign God of religion. In the
sis of actual experience. There will be noth- present work Butler is at considerable pains to
ing mystical about him, nothing that baffles the dismiss the pantheistic conception as unthinkable;
understanding. He will be a modest God, a yet we learn from his editor's note to the chap-
God in man's own image, and he will no more ter on "The Tree of Life" that the separation
hold in his hands the key to the riddle of exist- of the organic from the inorganic, which is at
than does the least of his creatures. the basis of Butler's thesis, was later abandoned
ence


194
(February 28
THE DIAL
by him and that he felt impelled, in consequence,
Mr. Garland is inevitably, of course, the his-
to reconstruct his essay. This work however torian of his own consciousness, so far as he can
he left undone. It is difficult to see how Butler call back the materials of it; and he recovers
could in the end have avoided the pantheism even from the dimness of his fourth year the
he had opposed. It would have had to be, need- memory of a midsummer evening and the rescue
less to say, a pantheism arrived at by a series of by his mother of a “poor, shrieking little tree
concentric phases of some sort of evolutionary toad” from the jaws of a long and wicked
process.
snake. The finer, certainly the more pleasing,
In his critical study on Samuel Butler Mr. parts of this history are those devoted to childish
Gilbert Cannan somewhat petulantly remarks: and boyish impressions; these memories are “of
“I cannot believe in his God, simply because he the fibre of poetry," unshadowed by the preoccu-
does not write about his God with style. He pation which clings too closely to the author's
writes not as one passionately believing, but as mature consciousness—the preoccupation of the
one desirous of accounting for a phenomenon, "man who has been there," the "competent wit-
in this instance faith. Since there is faith there ness," who is determined to set forth the "en-
must be God, panpsychic.” This is not alto- forced misery of the pioneer.” The prairie land-
gether fair. There are not a few passages in scapes, “the radiant slopes of grass,” “the brant
Butler's little book where the dialectic flames and geese pushing their arrowy lines straight into
into imaginative diction. Moreover his God the north," "the cloudless, glorious Maytime
embodies, in the only way possible for Butler, skies," "transcendent sunsets," "the fields that
his desire for spiritual perpetuation. Yet, on the run to the world's end," "the fairy forest" of
whole, there is small doubt that the quest of the wheat—all the fair things of nature are
God had not the burning necessity for Butler's inimitably done. And there are numberless brief
ironical and eminently level-headed tempera- but adequate etchings of childhood: rich harvests
ment that it has for certain other natures. Mr. of nuts and berries, bold explorations of the wil-
Cannan could hardly have expected him to write derness, breathless climbing of tall trees for
of God with the passionate conviction and the grapes, the soldier pride of standing sentinel over
love that are due His especially favored mani- new sown grain to guard it from wild pigeons.
festation, Handel.
EDWARD SAPIR.
Whenever he speaks of these things, Mr. Gar-
land's voice carries with the excellent timbre of
>
romance.
But the convictions of the “man who has been
Background Without Tradition
there" assert themselves apace. Even his mem-
A SON OF THE MIDDLE BORDER. By Hamlin Gar- ories of “the twelve year old son of a Western
land. Macmillan; $1.60.
farmer" frequently become memories of unre-
Mr. Garland, in this story of his own life, mitting toil and desperate fatigue; and he speaks
seems hardly to be writing a confession, unless it emphatically of his seventeen year old bitterness
be a confession or rather avowal-of faith. He
when his family moved from town back into the
does not read like a man who has anything to country. The farm even then had become to
recant or even abate; he lays down his cards him the synonym for loneliness, dirt, and drudg-
very assuredly; he gives the reader, without re- ery. That note in his theme continually gathers
serve, not a finished and consequently more or burden as he proceeds; avowedly it becomes his
less inscrutable product, but himself the artist, theme; it is clearly the source of the emotionaliza-
together with the material of his art.
tion not only of this but of all his work. His
sents the Middle Border with both vivid par- friends apparently found it necessary to warn him
ticularization and panoramic completeness of against the violence of his truth-telling; and the
view; he has a filially sensitive eye for the menace reader of this autobiography and of much of his
and rigor of the frontier as well as for its splen- other work will probably say that they advised
dor and charm. He sets himself before the him well, for while his art has become neither
reader with detachment—the actual detachment satire nor caricature, it smells of vengeance. In-
of time, for he stops his narrative at his thirty- deed from this admirable picture, both panoramic
first or thirty-second year. The picture is a large and detailed, which the author spreads out, the
and broad one, occasionally too sardonic in its reader derives the contradictory impressions not
fidelity to fact.
only of the splendor and poetic suggestion of the
He pre-


1918]
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THE DIAL
a
frontier itself, but also of the wretchedness, the public recognition and appreciation, and if these
pain, the futile inadequacy of life on the frontier. do not come before youth advances to that vague
One cannot, however, infer from this wretched- borderland where it is lost, the modern poet
ness and inadequacy any inferiority in the indi- gives the best of himself to other things.
viduals who lead such wretched lives; these At first glance this position—assumed by Mr.
pioneers may be more or less unlettered, but there Braithwaite as it has been assumed also, with
can be no dispute as to the rugged power of the differences, by Miss Monroe, editor of “Poetry"
men or the strength and beauty of the women. -appears reasonable enough. No one will for
It is the corrosive monotony, the loneliness, the a moment question the desirability of a large
blank unending labor, the bleak conditions of audience for poetry, as for any art, nor the use-
life that so preoccupy the author's mind. And
fulness, to that end, of extensive publicity. But
perhaps the unsuspected element which, for the
if we examine the doctrine more deliberately, we
purposes of art, makes this wretchedness doubly see certain flaws of logic in it. We all agree
tawdry, is the fact that it is raw and new; it has with Mr. Braithwaite that everything possible
no tradition; it is unhistoric. In England it should be done to encourage the art of poetry
might have had the impressiveness of prescription in America-we all desire to see it developed to
-
-might have been the material of such a mel- the highest degree of excellence. But many of
ancholy as Thomas Hardy's; even in New Eng-
us, as Mr. Braithwaite intimates in the paragraph
land much might have been done in Puritan dark quoted above, are beginning to doubt whether he
gray; but in Dakota it seems to have been, to the
;
has hit upon the best method for bringing this
artist whose inheritance it is, chiefly the material about. Mr. Braithwaite's method, as is now
of exasperation. He explains its existence not well known, is a simple one. It consists in carry-
by any splendid and gloomy conception of a Blind
ing individual recognition for the poet to such
Power in whose grip humanity is helpless, but a universal degree-trawling, so to speak, with
rather prosaically as the result of social injustice,
so vast a net—that no poet can conceivably be
of institutions not founded in accordance with lost. For the poet whose work is not represented
the principle of the single tax.
in the "Anthology," and whose book is not en-
One may well wonder if this result is not thusiastically reviewed either there or in the
unfortunate. Has it not partially impaired the "Boston Transcript," one would have to go far
artist's perception of the dignity and antiquity indeed. To find such poets in any quantity, one
of his material? Human tribulation is an old would have to look among the very poorest of
and impressive story. Has his emotionalization books published at the author's own expense.
of the frontier not been crowded down to a lower
Now if by practicing this method Mr. Braith-
level than it might otherwise have attained ? Has
waite aims at making fame and fortune for his
not the determined actualism which Mr. Garland poets (and incidentally, we may properly assume,
here so sternly reasserts, really been the refuge in
at helping poetry to evolve to an always clearer
adversity of a strongly romantic talent, a talent
excellence) we may at once question whether
thwarted by the barrenness of its material? he does not in reality sharply defeat both of his
C. K. TRUEBLOOD.
purposes. Among all artists there has always
been and always will be a merciless struggle,
silent, unconscious, uncalculated, for the sur-
Yet Once More, O Ye Laurels!
vival of the fittest. In every generation there
is a terrific and unremittent competition among
ANTHOLOGY OF MAGAZINE Verse: 1917. William
them for recognition, and for the consequent re-
Stanley Braithwaite. Small, Maynard; $2.50. wards of fame or money. Unfortunately, the
"All the glamour about our present Renais- judge who awards the prize in this struggle is
sance of poetry," says Mr. Braithwaite in the
that most capricious and indiscriminate of judges,
introduction to his latest anthology, “carries with the public; the public, which, swayed too easily
it a palpable danger, the danger of disintegrating by considerations of the moment, carried away
criticism.. If the public heeds such criti- too easily by its common denominators of sen-
cism, audiences will diminish, and the consequent timentalism and conventionality, from genera-
discouragement of the poets themselves will pro- tion to generation, with a divine inevitability,
duce a decline in creativeness.
Fame and takes to its bosom the ephemeral, commonplace,
fortune for the modern poet are the gifts of and merely lusty; the cheerful and unreflecting


196
[February 28
THE DIAL
public, which, left to itself, and many times among us preaching, in the æsthetic world, what
even despite the desperate efforts of the intelli- is clearly a Christian ethic, a doctrine of live
gent few, ignores genius and permits it to die. and let live, a doctrine which, purporting to
The survival of the best in literature is there- aim at the betterment of the species, Alies in the
fore forever dependent on the efforts of these face of nature, since it encourages the weak to
heroic few. Without them genius would be propagate as freely as the strong. And the re-
ignored, or largely ignored, during its lifetime, sult is rapid and sure: in the consequent pullula-
lost in the blattering welter of the mediocre; and tion of mediocrity the excellent is lost or stifled.
after its death wholly forgotten. It is this band Conducted on this principle, the world of let-
of ästhetic pioneers, relatively small in every ters will suggest nothing so much as a forest
generation—this band of the fastidious, the aloof, in which the growth is so rank that few of the
the difficult—which awes the public by degrees trees can attain their proper stature; and if
first into accepting its discoveries, later into un- here and there individuals contrive by special
derstanding them, and finally into loving them. endowment to out-top the rest, it will be literally
Nor is the essential reality of this process vitiated true that we shall be unable to see the tree for
by the fact that the public is itself the final and the forest.
absolute arbiter of what is vital and what is not. In other words, to speak more precisely in
In these circumstances, it should be obvious terms of poetry, Mr. Braithwaite by awarding
that if here and there in this colossal combat an laurels to a hundred poets indifferently good,
individual desires to assist the best in its struggle delays, if he does not prevent, the emergence of
for survival, then his task will be to do, con- the poets who partake of genius. The genius
sciously, what nature in her simpler world does must stand in line while Tom, Dick, and Harry
unconsciously to discriminate. Since, in the get their doles; and when his own turn comes,
world of ideas, the law of natural selection works he too will get only the same dole. Where then
imperfectly and tardily, and encounters the sullen are the fame and fortune which Mr. Braithwaite
hostility of indifference and ignorance and char- hopes to guarantee him? They have, alas, ceased
latanism, he must help to make it work more to exist except in fractions.
perfectly. If fortunate, he will occasionally find Of Mr. Braithwaite's actual performance in
the beautiful and subtle, the worthy-of-praise, the present “Anthology" not much need be said.
and for this he will do all in his power to secure It is more copious than ever. Here and there
honor and comprehension; but far more often in it are goodish poems, inevitably—"A Bather,"
will he find himself in the role of the surgeon by Amy Lowell; “To My Friend,” by Eunice
who must be cruel in order to be kind. Benign Tietjens; "The Interpreter," by Orrick Johns;
cancers are common in the body literary, and "A Girl's Songs," by Mary Carolyn Davies;
occupy valuable space; and the malignant can- "Tomorrow Is My Birthday," by Edgar Lee
cer is not rare. The intelligent critic must, in Masters; "Return," by Willard Wattles; "In
“
other words, add his own power of destruction Tall Grass," by Carl Sandburg; "The Sons of
to the fracas and destroy ruthlessly, secure in the Metaneira,” by John Erskine; and perhaps a
knowledge that only the worthless can be truly half dozen others—but of the important figures
destroyed and that only the fine can long sur- in contemporary poetry what ones are not hope-
vive. What mistakes he makes will be auto- lessly obscured here? Mr. Frost, Mr. Masters,
matically undone. A Jeffrey cannot kill a Keats, Miss Lowell, Mr. Sandburg are dwarfed, if not
nor even deflect him. Is anyone prepared to lost; and among those who do not appear at all
maintain that Poe was too severe a critic? Yet are Edwin Arlington Robinson, John Gould
there have been few severer. Potentially far Fletcher, T. S. Eliot, Maxwell Bodenheim, and
more dangerous to the recurring Keats of the Wallace Stevens. In his critical summaries of
literary world is the recurring Leigh Hunt, the the books of verse published during the year Mr.
sort of Leigh Hunt, be it understood, who is Braithwaite is less discriminating than ever.
more given to praise than to appraisal. He, truly, Forty-five are listed, and a few of them are
is the destroyer.
worth reading; but Mr. Braithwaite's enthusiasm
It is to this category, unfortunately, that Mr. is glibly uniform and affords no clue. “This is
Braithwaite belongs, and it is to this tendency all poetry!" says Mr. Braithwaite in effect. .
that American letters, and conspicuously Amer- and escapes his duty as a critic.
ican poetry, seem to be at the present moment In the end, one wonders whether such methods
helplessly surrendered. Mr. Braithwaite comes will not frighten away the audience far more
a


1918]
197
THE DIAL
pers; $2.
surely than a carefully selective criticism and tioned. If Professor Ogg plays favorites, it is
whether, moreover, it will not also cheapen the only in the case of Roosevelt, whose picturesque
audience, and in consequence the art. Ideals figure and spectacular performances do, indeed,
would certainly be kept higher—and would not command attention. Of Bryan and his vast
the public interest be keener?—if Mr. Braith- farmer following the author is not especially fond,
waite's "Anthology" consisted annually of thirty although he does not deny him and them their
instead of a hundred-odd poems, and of five due, especially in the working of the miracle by
instead of forty-five eulogies of books. . . Mr. which Woodrow Wilson was made the nominee
Braithwaite would then be contributing towards of the Baltimore convention in 1912 and after-
the survival of the best. As it is, he merely
As it is, he merely wards elected President.
insures the meteoric evanescence of all, and by The election of 1908, the corporations and
encouraging the unimportant many, discourages the trusts, tariff controversies, injunctions, party
the important few. It is melancholy to suspect unrest, and Taft reaction are the subjects which
that Mr. Braithwaite's method is not so much a occupy the earlier chapters. The canal, Latin
matter of will as of ability. Is it conceivable America, the election of 1912, and our growing
that in asking him to discriminate we are ask- colonial empire come next in the story. Wood-
ing him to do something of which he is incap- row Wilson, the Democratic reforms, and the
able?
CONRAD AIKEN. great war close the story.
According to the author the large issues were
the curbing of industrial overlordship, the rise
Our Changing Permanence
of labor to a commanding position in September,
1916, and the entrance of the United States into
NATIONAL PROGRESS, 1907-17. By Frederic Aus-
international affairs. And these are the subjects
tin Ogg. (Vol. 27 in "The American Nation”
in which most men will be interested, at least
series, edited by Albert Bushnell Hart.) Har-
for the next half dozen years. Roosevelt came to
Professor Ogg has endeavored to write a his- office when McKinley's name was a shibboleth
tory of the last decade of American history. That
and when exploitation of the country was the
is, he has written the last installment of the now
right and proper thing for business men. He
well-known series to which most of the scholars
had a delicate task, to make the great men of
of repute in their respective fields in this country
his party (to whom the historic rôle of the Re-
have contributed volumes. It is a valuable series, publican party had become almost semi-sacred)
which needed to be brought down to date, and
see that there was a new rôle, that public leader-
the work before us is worthy to stand beside the ship was a public trust, not a group trust. The
others.
vigorous young President did not wholly succeed.
Of course there are scores of works on the He divided the party, secured a sort of Demo-
great war and the part of the United States in cratic support, and drove some things through
that war, and in recent years we have had many
Congress—for example, the Elkins railroad bill.
books on our own life which have traversed most
But the rift which was bound to come did not
of the subjects touched upon in this volume; but
appear till Taft entered the White House as
there is nothing that gives such an even distribu-
Roosevelt's protegé. - Taft was helpless in the
tion of emphasis, such a just estimate of forces,
situation in which his friend had placed him.
and such full and satisfying references and bib-
For Roosevelt had made the President the inter-
liographies. Every student of recent events will
preter of public opinion and as the interpreter he
be grateful for the list of good documents, picked focused his powers upon Congress. Congress, un-
from the tons of Government publications, of
der the leadership of Cannon and Aldrich, did
satisfactory articles from the thousands of studies
not like interpretation; they liked still less to
in periodicals, and of the best books on various
be driven. Since Taft did not know how to
topics of interest. The mechanism of this work interpret the thoughts of ninety million people
is, I think, beyond all praise.
and had no mind to drive Congress, he tried to
On the score of selection, of omissions and govern according to constitution. He failed.
inclusions, hardly less can be said. No really
The failure became tragic in the Republican
important subject has been overlooked. And the convention of 1912, and Roosevelt appeared as
space allowed to the dominating figures-Roose- the angry opponent of his former friend. It was
velt, Taft, and Wilson; Bryan, Root, and Harri- like Douglas in 1857 fighting the President
man; or Gompers and his group is well appor- whom he had done almost as much to put


198
[February 28
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a
>
into office as Roosevelt had done for Taft. cause she thought that to do something would
Buchanan was a Taft; Taft was a Buchanan. throw the United States into the arms of England
But this must not be understood as disparaging and the English-French entente.
the reputation of either the living or the dead Open-minded people, if there are such in the
President. Both sought to be guided by the con- world, read books about current issues and living
stitution; both failed, because the constitution
statesmen in the hope of learning a bit about the
failed. Neither of them should have been de- future and their duty in the premises. This book
nounced for not doing what they were by law makes it appear that Labor has at last won its
as good as forbidden to do. But it is generally long battle with capital and that working men
the president who keeps his oath to the letter will, in the future, dictate national policies. Did
who violates the spirit of his oath most tragically. not Labor compel the President of the whole
Nor must the Roosevelt idolaters consider the people to jam through Congress the Adamson
comparison with Douglas invidious. It is a just law? And does not British Labor give orders
comparison. Roosevelt resembles Douglas quite to Lloyd George? The world, thinks Professor
as much as Taft resembles Buchanan. And Ogg, is starting upon a new era with day-laborers
Douglas had the same sort of qualities that Roose- in command. And Mr. Charles M. Schwab of
velt has—political agility and remarkable insight. the Bethlehem Steel Company, formerly a worker
The work of each enters most creditably into the with his hands, confirms the view. The day of
history of our country. Still, this is not strictly capital is done.
in point in a review of Ogg's book. I only hope Although the present status of Labor is
that neither of our distinguished ex-Presidents strongly set forth in this book and the appearance
may see these lines. Not because the compari- of the present-day world supports the same con-
sons are unjust; but because a living man is not clusion, it may be well to ask ourselves a question
a good judge of himself in history.
before we fall into line. The farmers thought in
The Monroe doctrine and the Latin American 1801 that their day had come and that commerce
situation are burning questions; or they would and finance had been relegated to secondary
be burning questions if the present war would places among the great forces which then drove
but come to an end. Professor Ogg thinks in this country toward the future. But seven years
terms of a mild and benevolent imperialism, a had not passed before the farmer's president had
moderate Monroeist, one might say.
He sees
been definitely checkmated. In 1829 the farm-
that concessions and loans and public utilities ers came back again, but they did not long control
are the forces behind our Monroe professions. affairs. And the case was not very different in
He thinks Wilson made a poor spectacle in Mex- 1860; yet three years had not elapsed till finance
ico; yet he sees that if he had done otherwise and industry were in the saddle. Now it would
he must have made a poorer spectacle. To set seem that labor has won.
the neighbor's disorderly house in order would The existence of a great war gives laboring
have been quite as bad a business as not to set men, especially skilled men, an advantage that no
it in order. So the President concluded to wait other class has ever had. They will keep this
"watchfully," which was about all that anyone advantage till arms are stacked on the western
who knew the facts and saw historically could front. On that day finance and industry and
have done. It may be doubted whether Roose- trade will return to their former position.
velt, who had so much to say, would have done A few hundred thousand men who run rail-
otherwise, for somehow or other that eminent road trains or make munitions of war may now
man had a wonderfully shrewd way of waiting stop a great battle. The rulers of great nations
"watchfully” when difficult matters were afoot
who are fighting these battles have to give heed;
--for example, his tariff silences in many lan- under other circumstances they might let strikes
guages. When one cannot do anything without
come and railroad trains stop. No, it is not so
doing worse, one is likely to do nothing; only bad as some think, nor half so good as others hope.
the Mexicans would not let Wilson do nothing. The world is very much the same it has ever
Perhaps when ten more years have passed and been. Can the man who has not a week's sup-
historians review this period they will say that plies in his cupboard rule mankind ?
Wilson kept still because he thought a European Having noticed the high status which this book
war would be precipitated if he did otherwise; gives to Messrs. Roosevelt and Taft, the reader
and that Germany did nothing in Mexico, be- may wonder what the place of Wilson is thought


1918]
199
THE DIAL
>
to be. Professor Ogg is not sure that Wilson the same situation can only be meant, of course,
represents a new era. The reforms of 1913-6 a similar situation.
were all on the road in 1901-8 and the then
This is what Hugh Walpole has done in "The
vigorous reform President is thought to have Green Mirror." He has written, at great length
been the real author. In other words, Wilson
.
and with profuse wordiness, the story of a self-
is the heir of his brilliant critic. If one were satisfied, smug English family, of their inherent
to say that Lincoln was the fore-worker of Wil-
inability to admit the intrusion of a "stranger,"
son, one would be quite as near the truth. Every of the actual intrusion of a genuinely undesirable
thing that Wilson has carried into the realm of
stranger—a stranger with a "past”-and of
reality was fought for by George Pendleton or the effects upon this family. Mr. Walpole's
Samuel Tilden or Bryan in those days of emo- most irritating fault is his adherence to the court
tionalism which the author rather condemns, or reporter's method of observing and recording.
by Roosevelt. If comparisons were not odious, I This is the fault of many of the contemporary
should venture to say that Wilson, although born
novelists. It is their belief, apparently, that the
of a line of gentle forbears, is more nearly like
mere writing down of lists of things, whether
Lincoln, the son and grandson of backwoodsmen,
dishes of food, toilet articles on the heroine's
than is any living leader of our country. But
dressing-table, books and objets d'art on the
being like Lincoln has got to be somewhat com-
drawing-room tables, or the furnishings of a
monplace, and I shall not press the point.
This book helps one understand oneself and
room, constitutes vivid literature. Maybe they
feel that this is reality. But the effect upon the
points the way, even if a little hesitatingly, to a
better future. For this, as for the many other
reader of such cataloguing as this is possibly not
helps and suggestions, the reader must be duly always what the author intended:
grateful.
Further away in the middle of a clear space was a
WILLIAM E. DODD.
table with a muddle of things upon it-a doll half-
clothed, a writing-case, a silver inkstand, photographs
of Millie, Henry, and Katherine, a little younger
than they were now, a square silver clock, a pile of
If This Be Literature Give Me socks with a needle sticking sharply out of them, a
little oak book-case with “Keble's Christian Year,”
Death
Charlotte Yonge's “Pillars of the House,” two volumes
of Bishop Westcott's “Sermons," and Mrs. Gaskell's
THE GREEN
"Wives and Daughters." There was also a little
MIRROR. By Hugh Walpole.
brass tray with a silver thimble, tortoiseshell paper-
Doran; $1.50.
knife, a little mat made of bright-colored beads, a
Memories of Meredith are provokingly incon- reel of red silk, and a tiny pocket calendar. Beside
venient when one comes upon the younger Eng-
the bed there was a small oaken table with a fine
silver Crucifix and a Bible and a prayer book and
lish novelists of the stenographic school. “The
a copy of “Before the Throne" in dark blue leather.
Ordeal of Richard Feverel" dealt with the gulf
In this one description there are still two more
between the generations, presented the hideous-
paragraphs of things listed in just the same way
ness of the smug family circle, and showed glo- and there are perhaps hundreds of similar pas-
riously young love breasting the barbed wire
sages. For example, after a statement which
entanglements of old conventions. All this Mer-
reminds one of the cook-book—“Sunday supper
edith did brilliantly, with the penetration which
should be surely a meal very hot and very quickly
only the greatest possess, and with that under-
over"-we are regaled with the following bill
standing of human nature which endures as
of fare:
fame. To say that a thing has been done "once
A tremendous piece of cold roast beef was in front
and for all” has always seemed an amusing utter- of Mrs. Trenchard; in front of Henry, there were two
ance in a world where nothing is permanent
cold chickens. There was a salad in a huge glass
dish, it looked very cold indeed. There was a smaller
except change. There is nothing irreverent in glass dish with beetroot. There was a large apple-tart,
imagining a better novel than "Richard Fev- a white blancmange, with little "dobs” of raspberry
jam round the side of the dish. There was a plate of
erel," nothing particularly daring in hoping that
stiff and unfriendly celery-item a gorgonzola cheese,
the "parent problem” will be presented in an item a family of little woolly biscuits, clustered to-
even more universal manner. Yet so long as
gether for warmth, item a large "bought” cake that
had not been cut yet and was grimly determined that
that masterpiece exists and is read, younger nov- it never should be, item what was known as “Toasted
elists, if they handle the same situation, will have
Water" (a grim family mixture of no colour and a
faded, melancholy taste) in a vast jug, item, silver,
to submit to a devastating comparison. And by
white table-cloth, napkin-rings quite without end.


200
[February 28
THE DIAL
If this be literature give me death. And so
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS
it goes with the whole book, not only with things
ANNE PEDERSDOTTER. A drama in four
but with emotions, conversations, meals, the
acts. By H. Wiers-Jenssen. English ver-
details of nature, everything. There is no abso-
sion by John Masefield. Little, Brown;
lute law that says things must not be listed, but
$1.00.
there is a demand on the part of the reader that
In the theatre, familiarity breeds not contempt
if things come in they must mean something in
but interest, and old, popular dramatic themes,
the mosaic the author is constructing. This is treated in quite the orthodox manner, have often
not the case with “The Green Mirror.” There
won extravagant contemporary praise for medi-
are 416 pages, of which it is not bold or unkind ocre playwrights. On the other hand, more than
to say that 100 might be eliminated by the wel- one great dramatist who has dared to handle
come reduction of mere lists.
traditional material in his own way has won
Psychological details, at best the most fasci-
harsh adverse criticism even from those who
nating development in the modern novel, become
should be the first to welcome dramatic original-
under this method little more than mere statis-
ity. For nothing demands of a dramatist such
tics. If you chance upon a chapter headed
robust originality as a new treatment of old
material; yet his very strength is his handicap,
“Katherine,” you may be sure that somewhere
since nothing is so disconcerting to an audience
early in that chapter there will be pages of lists,
as to see from a new point of view a character,
giving all the emotions Katherine has had since
a plot, or a setting which it knows well. Even
childhood, and in such flat continuity as to the intelligent audiences of Mr. Ames's Little
deaden the liveliest interest. This is mechan- Theatre could not reconcile the tremendous
ical writing, and the most vital human beings, originalities of "Anne Pedersdotter" to their nat-
composing a situation of intense interest, are ural expectations. The first production in Amer-
slowly crushed in the machine. Mr. Walpole's ica was not a popular success; but it is strange
characters are the losers. Externally you know
that publication in book form has not brought
everything about them, spiritually almost noth-
this remarkable play deserved recognition.
ing. It is not that he does not let them think
Mr. Wiers-Jenssen's conception of a sympa-
and feel before you; they are at it most of the
thetic psychological study of the tragedy of
witchcraft was a boldly original idea, but he has
time. But you never get really into them. You
even more tellingly proved his powers by build-
are always moving around and about them,
ing his play almost wholly out of old materials.
watching them, observing and wondering, but
His action-plot, the love of a young wife (Anne
caring not a whit what their fate may be. This
Pedersdotter) for her step-son (Martin), was
is because their creator did no selecting, no con- a favorite story of the medieval chronicle plays
centrating. With your friends in real life there long before Racine wrote “Phèdre.” Several of
are ways and means of ignoring or escaping those his lesser characters-notably the drunken cler-
characteristics found annoying. With Mr. Wal- ical colleagues of Anne's husband, his old mother,
pole's people you must endure everything.
and her servants—are perilously typical figures.
The realistic dialogue and modern motivation
The total result of this manner of writing is
in a play of the sixteenth century, which so baf-
to produce a story without concentration, a story
that wearies the reader in spite of his feeling that
fled our newspaper critics, is no “startling nov-
elty" in Denmark, where Strindberg's historical
the author is earnest and interested in his people.
dramas are widely known. Even the psycholog-
When it is possible to skip whole pages without ical analysis of the strong, repeated suggestion
loss, there is something wrong; when there is that she has inherited the evil powers of witch-
the desire to skip, even the good qualities are in craft from her mother, by which Anne is first
danger. That desire is unquestionably provoked thrown into the arms of her lover and finally
by Walpole's novel. After you have read five
becomes convinced that she is truly a witch, is
or half a dozen conversations that echo the dicta- not an original explanation. The Danish play-
phone, there is an impulse to shy at quotation wright could hardly have known Barrett Wen-
marks. Later you openly balk. No amount of
dell's illuminating essay on the witches of Salem,
hoping or arguing that all this may be necessary
but the hypnotic power of public opinion, sup-
atmosphere does any good; the author himself ported by unlucky coincidences, has been a popu-
convinces you that he is "writing," and that he
lar dramatic theme since Ibsen-a theme that
is going to write, come what may.
Brieux, Shaw, and Echegaray have all effectively
employed. Mr. Wiers-Jenssen has used all these
B. I. KINNE. familiar materials finely to his own purpose and,


1918]
201
THE DIAL
aided by a masterly technique, has given us a appears, was the characteristic Prussian failure
great character, his heroine.
to allow for the human equation. The German
For centuries witches have appeared on the peasant did not coöperate as wholeheartedly as
stage in comedy and in tragedy, surrounded had been expected in carrying out the govern-
always by an elaborate machinery of the super- ment orders to reduce his herds to the number
natural especially designed to render them that could be kept on domestic feed, and to
un-human. But Anne Pedersdotter is a living reserve all wheat and rye for human consump-
human being. She is a woman first and a witch tion. The government was not able to secure the
only incidentally-in fact, even at the end, when
"equitable distribution of food stuff throughout
she confesses herself a witch, she is supremely a
all classes of society ... because the producer
woman, a woman cheated in love by her mar-
class consumed more than their pro rata
riage, tricked to give herself to a love which did diverted a portion of the food stuffs to the feed-
not stand the test, for it is Martin's suspicion ing of domesticated animals and sold to the well
that she has seduced him by witchcraft that to do classes in disregard of the regulations. . .
makes inevitable for her her self-conviction. In a
That the restrictions in the diet ... have fallen
plot so unsympathetic, to have won our sym-
almost entirely upon the industrial workers of
pathy for Anne Pedersdotter with no appeal to
the cities is fully realized by the industrial classes
sentimentality is a fine artistic accomplishment;
and represents a casus belli between them and
to have made her a very real human being and the agrarians that will be the occasion of bitter
yet to make us feel the eerie powers of the medi- political contests after the war." Germany has
eval Satan is a rare triumph of dramatic skill. succeeded in keeping down the price of bread
and sugar by the appropriation of state funds to
The Food PROBLEM. By Vernon Kellogg cover the actual extra cost, and the milk supply
and Alonzo E. Taylor. Macmillan; $1.25.
has been reserved for the use of the children.
Most of us have thus far felt the pressure
The important part psychology plays in nutri-
of war chiefly through war's interference with tion is revealed by a study of the dietary habits
certain favorite habits of diet. . Coöperating housewife, deprived of milk and cooking fats,
of different nations and classes. The German
cheerfully with the Food Administration, the
average citizen is still somewhat mystified as to
cannot make things "taste good” and the result
is a diet which is unsatisfying even when it is
just why he is urged to eat more of this and
less of that, and dubious as to what effect, if any,
scientifically balanced and adequate in calories
his individual sacrifice may have towards win-
and protein. In France practically all of the
ning the war. Both authors of “The Food Prob-
bread is purchased from the baker and must be
lem” are members of the United States Food
such as to keep well, whereas in the United States
Administration and well equipped to answer his
more than half is baked at home; it is conse-
quently easier for us here to combine other grains
questions. Professor Kellogg is a member of the
Commission for Relief in Belgium, and Dr. Tay-
with wheat in the making of quick breads which
lor has made a special study of the food situation
need not keep so long. The importance of table
in Germany and was attached to Col. House's beverages and of a sufficient amount of fats in
the diet of the working classes is emphasized as
party at the recent Paris Conference of the
Allies. The record of England, France, and
a means of avoiding those conditions of unrest
Italy's mistakes in attempting to control and
which are certain to arise in our large cities if
save food ought to keep us from trying those
the diet is not satisfying. The technology of
methods which have already been proved unsuc-
food use is discussed in relation to four factors:
cessful. In the regulation of public eating places
"the psychology of nutrition, the psychology of
in London, for instance, there was tried out a
alimentation, the supply of food stuffs, and the
influence of trade.” There is included a brief
plan for the limitation of courses, which permit-
statement of the essentials of dietetics which will
ted only two courses, or their equivalent, to be
served at lunch, and three courses at dinner.
be appreciated by the unprofessional reader. It
is made clear that the food problem is not a
With half courses one might assemble a menu
condition which will disappear with the ending
which would be safely within the letter of the
of the war—that the war has made it an inter-
law and away outside its intention. Since the
national problem which will demand our coöp-
result of this order was a heavy increase in the
eration for many years to come. The book's only
consumption of meat and staples, instead of the
defect is in its tendency to overstate the difficul-
hoped for reduction, it was shortly revoked.
ties of the food situation in order to emphasize
Germany's experience has elements of special the necessity for drastic reduction in certain types
interest, in view of the scientific care which be- of consumption. But this is a forgivable propa-
forehand she devoted to preparing for the emer- gandist accent at a time when we are witnessing
gency. The defect in the prearranged plan, it an approach to something like a world famine.
a


202
[February 28
THE DIAL
a
PORTRAITS AND BACKGROUNDS. By Evan- by his disciples to change his tattered tunic for a more
geline Wilbour Blashfield. Scribners; $2.50.
decent habit and who answered: “I am keeping my
new robe to appear before my Saviour.” In a remote
For most readers the interest in Mrs. Blash- Nitrian convent the adventurous traveller is shown
field's new book will centre in the initial study today the body of the “Holy Maximus,” son of the
of Hrotsvitha, the playwriting Benedictine Emperor Valentinian, clothed in purple and gold tis-
sue, the costume of an imperial prince, though Maxi-
nun of Gandersheim in the tenth
century-
mus, who Aed the court and became a monk, wore
and particularly in that part of it dealing with during his lifetime the coarse brown garb of his fel-
her play "Paphnutius," which is the source of lows.
Anatole France's “Thais.” Curiously enough The richness and beauty of a secular dress, there-
M. France has never acknowledged his indebt- fore, prove nothing against the asceticism or sanc-
edness in this instance, though usually by no tity of the wearer:
means averse to making a display of his erudi-
That of Thais may have been the “glorious habit"
tion. How great the indebtedness is may be of pious legend, which every Christian tried to pro-
judged from a comparison of the situations and vide for his triumph in death over the sorrows and
characters in "Thais" with those of the original
snares of life; it may have been the garments which
the penitent wore when she received the favor of
play, from which copious extracts are given by heaven through St. Paphnutius, and bade farewell to
the author of this book. They reveal only one the theatre and her mourning lovers. There is no
notable change; namely, the transformation of
mundus muliebris buried with this Thais; no mirror,
no jars of nard or stibium, no lute or embroidery
the holy hermit, St. Paphnutius, into an “eroto-
frame; hers is the funeral baggage of the eremite.
maniac.” “It seems curious,” comments Mrs.
The chaplet, the cross-still recalling in form the ankh
Blashfield, “that a lover and writer of history of the Egyptians—found by the side of the body; the
like M. France should feel justified in smirch- rose of Jericho, symbol of resurrection, held between
the skeleton fingers; the basket and goblet case of
ing the reputation of an irreproachable saint, to
woven palm fibres to contain the Sacrament, which the
whom many churches and monasteries are dedi-
Oriental Christians buried with the dead; the palm
cated, and whose intercession is daily sought by branches, martyrs’ attributes, in which she lies as in
thousands of Eastern Christians. M. France a nest of verdure, all testify to the exceptional holi-
would have hesitated to take away the character
ness of the "blessed Thais” of Antinoë and impart
to her sepulchre a distinctly religious character, dif-
of a French saint, or one nearer home. But ferentiating it from the other tombs of the same
St. Paphnutius is an Egyptian; like 'Punch's' necropolis. In any case, without attaching undue
collier M. France has no hesitation in "eaving importance to it, the “find” of M. Gayet lends vitality
’arf a brick at a stranger.'” Mrs. Blashfield-
to the legend of the courtesan-saint, and provides cos-
tume and properties for the winning figure of the
who, in our opinion, makes too much of the
repentant actress.
matter—apparently forgets the storm of protest
The three other studies in Mrs. Blashfield's
aroused by the same author's "Jeanne d'Arc"!
book deal respectively with Aphra Behn, the nov-
More interesting is the question, renewed by her,
elist and playwright of the Restoration; Aïssé,
whether the body of a holy woman named Thais,
the Circassian girl who loved and suffered in
discovered by M. Albert Gayet in the Christian
France under the Regency; and Rosalba Car-
necropolis of Antinoë in Lower Egypt, is actu-
riera, the Venetian miniaturist and pastellist of
ally that of the Thais of history and of fiction.
the eighteenth century.
The archæologist himself refuses either to affirm
or to deny, and Mrs. Blashfield offers a very
The LAND WHERE THE SUNSETS Go.
complete résumé of the evidence on both sides:
By Orville H. Leonard. Sherman, French;
Although the costume of Thais is not that of a
$1.35.
recluse, yet the position of the tomb, which was found
in the midst of the cemetery, surrounded by sepulchres "Granted that they did not find the riches of
of the fourth century; the inscription on its wall,“Here which they had been told, they found a place in
reposes the blessed Thais"; and the articles found
which to search for them."
with the body favor the hypothesis that in the Musée
Guimet lies the blackened husk of the bewitching mime
Such is Castañeda's characterization of the
who inflamed the youth of Alexandria, listened to the Southwest in his stately and spirited history of
preaching of Paphnutius, burned her treasures, and Coronado's search for the Seven Cities, written
followed the hermit into the Thebaid to save her soul.
Those who would play the devil's advocate and
nearly four hundred years ago. For the reviewer
unsaint this poor shell argue that the dress—the
the world is divided into two great classes: the
coquettish wreath-like hood, borrowed from the roguish class of those whose view of the Southwest is
Tanagrian Loves, the rich-toned draperies that warm
like that of the traveler on the Santa Fé whom
the eye like the tints of sun-soaked nectarines-
is that of a child of the world, provoking rather than
someone noticed looking rapidly from side to side
repelling glances. To this objection M. Gayet replies
of the observation platform and remarking in a
that saints who passed their lives in sordid rags were dreary, bored tone, “As far as the eye can see-
often buried in rich clothing and hoarded their festal
nothing—nothing," and the class of those for
garments to enter the Presence bravely; quoting the
words of St. Macarius of Thebais, who when sum-
whom the great plateaus, their mesas and cuestas
moned before the governor of Antinoë was advised
and arroyos, their cave-cliffs and cañons, painted
)


1918]
203
THE DIAL
deserts and sand-blown trails, their wild Spanish- professional, will enjoy its picture of a fascinating
American and Indian history are, as for Coro- circle in London life. The book is richly supplied
nado's companions, a place in which to search with well-chosen maps and views of London, and
for riches.
has an index and very complete bibliography.
To that enchanted place “The Land Where
the Sunsets Go" will convey the interested reader. THE CLIMAX OF CIVILIZATION.
The book will be prized by lovers of the South- SOCIALISM.
west for its power of evoking her wide-lined FEMINISM. By Correa Moylan Walsh.
landscape, her brilliant, inexpressible, changing Sturgis and Walton; the three, $4.50.
colors and storied human scene of failure and
An interesting and curious, though not con-
success—especially her tale of successes of the
sistently dependable, example of modern pessim-
spirit. The prose sketches of the collection excel
ism is this work in three connected volumes.
in precision and originality the contributions in
The first develops a cyclical theory of civiliza-
verse. Beautiful is the impression of the terrible
tion and decay, maintaining that we have reached
Devil's Gate, its narrow, steep, dangerous road,
a position near the climax and apparently that
where wagon-hubs almost graze the sides of the
we are destined to inevitable decay. There are
sheer high rock-walls and "for a little while at
two great groups of causes of decay—the mate-
noon a sword flash drops down from the sun to
rial, and the moral or social. The material
cut the gloom, then all is purple-dark again.”
causes derive from the exhaustion of the natural
Yes, the book tells you of a place where riches
resources from which we draw our wealth; the
may be sought, and gives you something better
moral causes, from the degeneration produced by
than a treasure trove, a treasure yet to find, some-
an excess of wealth among the leaders of civili-
thing lost behind the ranges.
zation and the struggle of the masses for equal-
ity without merit to justify their pretensions.
SHAKESPEAREAN PLAYHOUSES. By Joseph
The masses are aroused by the evils which afflict
Quincy Adams. Houghton Mifflin; $3.50.
them as the result of corruption at the top and
It is rather surprising that nobody else has
by the growing restriction which the depletion
recently tried to do what Professor Adams has
of our resources imposes upon an over-expanded
here so well done; probably scholars have not
consumption. Their mistake is in aiming at a
realized how rich the harvest could be. But
part in the spoils without making a compensating
since Fleay's "Chronicle History,” 1890, unsound contribution.
and self-contradictory in so many of its particu- The most conspicuous signs of this present-day
lars, and Ordish's "Early London Theatres in
moral decay, so far as the struggle for specious
the Fields,” 1894, incomplete by intention, this
equality is concerned, are to be found in the
field has been left almost unworked in any com- movements known as socialism and feminism.
prehensive way.
But in these twenty or more Each is, according to the author, individualistic
years, much new material has been discovered,
and anti-social, struggling merely for the satis-
especially by Professor Charles W. Wallace, and
faction of the parties concerned without an
it is of this material that Professor Adams has understanding of either the foundations of so-
made particularly good use. What he has sought
ciety or of the necessity for a coöperative con-
to do is to give a chronological account of each
tribution to social welfare. The author's chief
of the playhouses of Pre-Restoration London, its
abomination is the tendency among many—he
erection, the principal events in its history, and
would say most—socialists and feminists to dis-
its final disposition. So far as his material per-
mits, Professor Adams describes the structure of
pense with the family as an antiquated institu-
tion enforced by superstition and repugnant to
each theatre, its business management, the com-
panies that occupied it, and its location, for the
the modern desire for maximum enjoyment with-
last point making effective use of the various
out social responsibility. The author's reading
contemporary views and maps of old London. has been very extensive, but his patent prejudices
Professor Adams's principal original contribution
-such as his assumption of the native mental
is the identification of certain sketches of Inigo inferiority of women--have often prevented him
Jones's as plans for the Cockpit-in-Court, built from presenting a clear and well balanced inter-
in 1632 or 1633, at Whitehall, of the existence pretation of the two movements to which he
of which scholars have not previously known. devotes his attention. In spite of the fact that
But every chapter shows more or less important he hits tellingly upon some of their major weak-
fresh conclusions based on a careful study of the nesses, he signally fails to grasp the highly social
sources. Scholars will find the book invaluable and idealistic aims back of both socialism and
for its accuracy and comprehensiveness; the feminism in their best expression. To ignore
reader whose interest in literary history is less these disqualifies him as a competent critic.
>


204
(February 28
THE DIAL
MEMORIES DISCREET AND INDISCREET. By not overrated the altruistic initiative of the
a Woman of No Importance. Dutton; $5. manufacturer in promoting beneficent factory
Someone has said that it is necessary to be legislation in the past. To the manufacturer,
indiscreet to be interesting, but the anonymous rather than to the worker, she now turns for the
writer of "Memories Discreet and Indiscreet" development of normal working-conditions in the
manages to interest without fulfilling the prom- factory and in the factory-worker's home. To her
ise of the last word of her book's title. In spite the welfare worker is—what he should be the
of the fact that she devotes a large part of her
institution's social secretary. But as inspector,
fat volume to dull and garrulous gossip about disciplinarian, employing agent, timekeeper, res-
people whose names, to the average American at taurant-manager, recreational director, and a
least, have no significance whatever, she offers
score of other things which quite hopelessly
what must be regarded as a distinct contribution combine service to master and servant, how can
to contemporary history. The book is rich in he be considered the friend of both in a capital-
intimate glimpses of such personages as Garibaldi, istic system of industry, when the system is a
Parnell, De Lesseps, Cecil Rhodes, Lord Roberts, battle field? Yet in the best-managed factories
Lord Kitchener, Sir laan Hamilton, and a dozen he is just that. The author believes that under
or so others—royalties and smaller fry—whose proper conditions he may be such in all. The
names are already historic. It affords, in addi- worker believes he cannot, preferring the free-
tion, “inside” gossip concerning certain famous dom and errors of democracy in industry to
British campaigns in the East. But its chief efficiency with mistrust of industrial paternalism.
value lies, not so much in its “close-ups” of the
We shall not attempt to settle the question at
great or its analysis of past events, as in a pano- issue, preferring to leave it to the reader, but
rama, not altogether flattering but certainly we commend the book both for its information
faithful in detail, of the English haut monde. and because it is so well written.
The manners revealed are probably already the
manners of a past age (the war will have seen PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY OF VITAL PHENOM-
to that) but the revelation has a very present
ENA. By J. F. McClendon. Princeton
interest. The student of history, of society, of University Press; $2.
politics, and the dilettante in the curious ways This is a compendium of biochemistry for the
of humanity as well, can find much that is
use of students and investigators in the biological
nificant in what the writer says of other people and medical sciences. It is the outgrowth, pri-
and, more or less unwittingly, of herself. marily, of instruction of medical students in this
relatively new and rapidly developing field on
WELFARE WORK. By E. Dorothea
the frontier of biology. It deals with the efforts
Proud, with an introduction by Lloyd
to interpret the processes of life in the terms of
George. Macmillan; $3.
the physicist and chemist. From the study of the
An Australian by birth and nurture goes to decomposition products of once living cells and
England to study and makes her return con- from the analysis of the exchanges which such
tribution in the form of this volume. Evidently cells make with matter and energy of their en-
she takes the capitalistic state as a permanent vironment, the investigator seeks to determine
fact, and her effort therefore is not toward re- the actual composition of the living cell and to
placing it with a more ideal social order but describe the changes which go on within its sub-
toward making it as workable as possible for stance during its functional activity. Hence we
those who live in it. Welfare work is one of find here discussions of ionic concentrations, os-
these means.
Despite the workers' distrust of motic pressure, electrolytic dissociation, surface
welfare work, the author finds in its proper tension, absorption, colloids, enzyme action, per-
development the key to the promotion of the meability, polarization, anæsthesia, amceboid
workers' best interests. She frankly recognizes motion, and many other topics which reflect the
its paternalistic character-possibly believing triumphs or propose the hypotheses of those who
—
that the worker has not yet developed sufficient attack the problems of physiology with the weap-
intellectual and political initiative to advance ons of the physical chemist. A terse, almost tele-
alone—and seeks to direct this in the best pos- graphic, style leaves the reader at times to supply
sible channels. Her study of welfare work
his own transitions and detect relations of the
in England shows many signs of reasonable disjunct items. The specialist, who needs none
thoroughness, so far as an analysis of the best of these aids to comprehension, finds here a com-
examples is concerned. It certainly is to be pact and suggestive array of fact and theory,
doubted whether she sees equally clearly its un- annotated to indicate both the territories of ex-
favorable aspects under less ideal conditions. ception or debate and the fields for further in-
Nor can one help wondering whether she has quiry.
sig-


1918]
205
THE DIAL
a
NOTES ON NEW FICTION
in November. No one can question the sincerity
of Mrs. Atherton's prophecy-propaganda, for
It is Mrs. Atherton's purpose in “The White
obvious reasons, it cannot be. It is clearly one
Morning" (Stokes; $1.) to show that assistance
of several good guesses as to what is just now
to the Allies may come almost any day from the in Pandora's box-Germany. More than one
German women themselves, rising in rebellion writer has also laid claim to a private peep.
against the government. For in the years before
And our hope is father to the thought that Mrs.
the war, when women's personal liberty had
Atherton may be correct in her surmise.
been ignored by the autocratic heads of German
The angels of Mons might testify that in
households, a growing distaste for marriage had
"The Terror" (McBride; $1.25) Arthur Ma-
been aroused in the women of the empire. Now,
chen knows how to play with states of mind,
according to Mrs. Atherton, as soon as the fun-
especially credulity. In this case he has added
damental truth that they have been waging
neither a defensive nor a victorious war pene-
to credulity, horror. He mentions one dreadful
event after another in an offhand manner-mur-
trates to the German women, they will, “driven
ders and sudden death in a war-swept and terror-
to desperation by suffering and privation and
ized England. Each one he orients with the
disillusion,” suddenly "arise and overthrow the
matter-of-fact exactitude of newspaper narration.
dynasty." The republic which they will then
He reports suspicions and surmises about these
set up can be depended upon to put an instant
horrors, even to the conversation of bores.
end to the war and to conclude a fair peace.
He goes so far as to gag the British press on
This is demonstrable perhaps as a thesis. It is
the subject, this being one of the most realistic
regrettable, however, that "The White Morn-
touches in the book. He pretends himself to be
ing” resembles a thesis more than it does a novel, humbly ignorant; he cannot account for the mys-
especially in its brevity, its rather gaunt, undis-
terious horror that has descended on the land.
tinguished style, and its logical impersonality.
All this is to sustain the mood. A few charac-
Whether the prophecy is sound or not—and a
ters are sketched in to enrich the picture. For
cogent note appended to the novel by Mrs. Ath-
erton makes it at least seem plausible the reader
those who love mystery and that titillation of
the emotions that comes of something dreadful
is not moved by the story itself. One can under-
about to be explained, who have, too, some crav-
stand the author's impatience to put into circu-
ing for the lurid as it is to be found in good
lation an original and encouraging notion like
description of crime and sudden death, “The
this; yet the fact remains that the growth of a
Terror" will have fascination. Its imaginative
great popular movement with the depth and
quality-halfway between the exaggeration of
breadth of the French Revolution is reported in
gossip and the extravagance of tradition-gives
a slender novel of 174 pages. To attempt within
it its slight value. But it remains a sketch, an
these limits to depict even a few chosen charac-
exercise in evoking horror, which is so well done
ters and to imply their participation in such a
as to leave nothing to be said in its favor.
revolution, almost dooms a writer to give his
“Four Days,” by Hetty Hemenway (Little,
story that cursory hearsay accent of the twice
Brown; 50 cts.), is yet another record of the
told tale of colloquial narration. Evident marks
intensity which these years of war have brought
of a too zealous haste mar the book.
-a record of a snatched bit of honeymoon, a
"I have been asked," states the author, "to torn uniform, a few poignant days of sunshine,
set forth my authority for writing 'The White the bitter brevity of the parting. Originally
Morning'; in other words, for daring to believe published as a short story in the “Atlantic
that a revolution conceived and engineered by Monthly,” it does not, in book form, wholly
women is possible in Germany.” Mrs. Ather- justify the striking impression that it first made.
ton explains that her authority is based on what In other words, although clear and coherent and
she had an opportunity for observing during a tragic, it is not the type of story that gains by
seven years' residence in Munich. There she re-reading.
saw what seemed to be a pretty general dis- Cecil Sommers's "Temporary Heroes" (Lane),
content with marriage on the part of women of a series of letters from the front during a period
the intellectual class. The idea of its growing of eighteen months, is notable for two things:
into a definite rebellion was Mrs. Atherton's the letters are readable; and, though probably
own, although since the novel was begun con- true, they are not horrible. One suspects the
firmation of the possibility has come in two arti- author of indulging a proclivity for amusing
cles published in this country, one by Mr. A. C. description, but at the expense merely of time.
Roth, ex-consul in Plauen, and another by Herr Surely in the rush of horrors there should be
J. Koetiggen, a refugee from Germany whose appreciation for this light-hearted chronicle of
article appeared in the New York "Chronicle" the trenches.


206
[February 28
THE DIAL
.
.
CASUAL COMMENT
an opportunity to guide their children through
the mischances of a life that need not be so brief.
FOR PRINTING A POEM in place of a leading
Let them “carry on 1917 into 1918”—and
article there is no precedent in the history of
beyond ; let them distribute emphasis more impar-
THE DIAL, but in so doing the publisher feels
tially between the newer and the older members
that he is living up to his declared editorial pol- of their families; in short, while they are making
icy: "to try to meet the challenge of the new
a market for today's book let them remember to
time by reflecting and interpreting its spirit- extend the market for the excellent book of yes-
a spirit freely experimental, skeptical of inher-
terday. The responsibility for this economy must
ited values, ready to examine old dogmas and
rest upon the publishers' advertising; but its ben-
to submit afresh its sanctions to the test of expe-
efits would reach beyond the dealer and the
rience.” The publisher believes that "The
publisher himself, in whom the "Weekly” is pro-
Young World” is of the utmost significance at
fessionally interested, to every reader whose
the present time in that it gives so vivid an
pleasure or profit interests him in the conserva-
expression to a spirit which many of us already
tion of good books.
see emerging from the war conflict, the spirit
of internationalism. There are rumors on every
side of spiritual awakening
even we in
The RUSSIAN REVOLUTION has now prac-
America have not been unmoved. In such crises tically completed the first year of its erratic and
the poet is the truest prophet. In this connec-
thrilling progress. So speedily do we adapt our-
tion it is interesting to quote Ralph Adams Cram, selves today to new social conditions that already
who says in his recently published “The Sub-
the autocratic Russia of romance and fiction
stance of Gothic": "Unless there is behind him
[the artist] a communal self-consciousness, unless
seems something of the dim legendary past. For
the air is quick with the impulses and desires
the historian and psychologist the sudden collapse
of a whole people eager for the expression of
of the older myths about Russia and the forma-
their own spiritual experiences and emotions.
tion of new ones must be a fascinating contem-
then the art of the individual, however great he porary record of how ideas and concepts about
may be, is a fond thing, vainly imagined, and a nation are destroyed and remade. Very likely
no part of any life save only his own.” It is the immediate picture of Russia as a country torn
not too soon even now to anticipate this social to pieces by anarchy, violence, and fanatical ideas
self-consciousness which the war will bring to is as false to reality as the picture in the pop-
America. Once that consciousness has become
ular melodramas of ten years ago.
Even in
articulate, it will be served only by those who peace-time it is not easy to get a cool, historical
move unflinchingly forward toward the future. perspective; in time of war, almost the attempt
alone seems presumptuous. Yet it is an attempt
worth making. For some sense of the movement
A SANE WARTIME ECONOMY is urged by the of history would probably have checked us, at
"Publishers' Weekly” in its recent summary of the beginning of the revolution, from indulging
the 1917 book field. Now is the time, says the in too fantastic hopes for a speedy Russian utopia,
editor, to resist the fetish of the new book
just as some sense of the movement of history
Sharper and sharper competition in the produc- would probably today check us from too great
tion of novelties has brought the bookseller to a despair at the current course of events. Let
the point where "he dares not order all that a
us remember that nations seldom die when they
new book might warrant for fear that a newer have the vitality for anarchy.
book will take the wind out of its sales before
his counters are cleared.” The publisher, too,
can scarcely "give each new title a push” into THE REPORT ON RECONSTRUCTION after the
the hazardous world before he must father its war, prepared by the sub-committee of the British
successor. And the reader, it should be added, Labor party, is a document of remarkable elo-
is increasingly harassed by the fear that if for quence and vigor. Compared with this clear and
a moment he relax vigilance some deserving vol- courageous programme for a new social order,
ume, thus orphaned, may slip past him into obliv- the tepid and rhetorical generalizations about
ion. Such conditions, observes the “Weekly," the necessity for coöperation and burying the
make the business of publishing (and of reading) hatchet between capital and labor for the period
one of "continual speculation and waste." Now of the war, which have emanated from American
that production is somewhat reduced and fiction Labor organizations, seem really pitiful. Is there
is selling less than non-fiction, so that time is no boldness, no intellectual back-bone, no social
less of the essence of the business, publishers have thinking in the leaders of American Labor?


1918]
207
THE DIAL
Could a passage like the following be found in plan constructively, in wise and temperedly rad-
any of their pronunciamentos?
ical leadership. This programme for reconstruc-
It [the Labor party) calls for more warmth in poli- tion is the fine result of the growth and union
tics, for much less apathetic acquiesence in the miseries of those enlightened and vital forces. It is the
that exist, for none of the cynicism which saps the
life of leisure. On the other hand, the Labor party
programme at last for a real democracy.
has no beliefs in any of the problems of the world be-
ing solved by good will alone. Good will without
knowledge is warmth without light. Especially in all
Now if THIS HIGHLY EFFECTIVE ALLIANCE
the complexities of politics, in the still undeveloped between the intellectuals and the laborites in
science of society, the Labor party stands for increased England has its obvious political and moral les-
study, for the scientific investigation of each succeed-
ing problem, for the deliberate organization of re-
son for American trade-unionism, it has equally
search, and for a much more rapid dissemination a lesson for the American professor. Not only
among the whole people of all the science that exists. must our own labor organizations "go into poli-
No labor party can hope to maintain its position un- tics” with a purpose and a programme and re-
less its proposals are, in fact, the outcome of the
best political science of its time; or to fulfil its pur-
model their antiquated craft-unionism structure,
pose unless that science is continually wresting new but our own university men must make a more
fields from human ignorance.
vigorous attempt to establish a real political and
Obviously this passage was not written by a intellectual partnership with the leaders of or-
Welsh miner or a Liverpool dock-worker, and ganized labor. The time is now ripe for the
perhaps the clue to the discouraging feebleness organization of some kind of non-exclusive La-
and conventionality of the social vision of Amer- bor party, with a touch of healthy opportunism
ican Labor lies ultimately in that simple fact. in politics perhaps, yet with a definite, conscious
Between the British laborer and the intellectual programme. Such a party might utilize the
man, the scientist, the Oxford or Cambridge rad- brains of the Socialist party, the scientific help
ical, the scholar like Graham Wallas, the pub- of the university men; capitalize the discontent
licists like Ramsey Macdonald and J. A. Hobson, of the middle class; get vitality and direction
the patient investigator like Sydney Webb, the from the trade-unions. Already our professorial
mathematician and philosopher like Bertrand type tends more and more to the timid recluse,
Russell, the artist and poet like John Masefield, the jejune well-mannered and over-cultivated.
the popular novelist like Wells, the satirist like Our Labor organizations still think mostly of the
Shaw-between men of this type and the British main chance for themselves, still regard politics
laborer there has always been a friendly rap- as a game where clever bargainers know how to
prochement. For example, the "Home Univer- gain special legislative privileges. Our Socialists
sity Library" series, selling for a shilling a still shriek in impotent, dogmatic rage, garner-
volume, brought art and science and history and ing the votes of the miserable and the disinher-
religion to the humblest household. The men ited. Have we no leaders with the wisdom and
and women who wrote these books knew how ability to gather these forces together and focus
to be popular without becoming patronizing; they them on a common democratic purpose ?
could be informative without also being dull.
Since the nineties, too, it had been a kind of tra-
dition for the young radical to join some wing
The INCORRIGIBLE ANTHOLOGIST, like the con-
of the Socialist party or the I. L. P. The lead- firmed toper, is never without plausible occasions
ers of the Labor party, although at first the mere
for indulging his vice. Though the day of
business agents for selfish and snobbish crafts unblushing lists of "the hundred best books" now
unions, came more and more to look to the lib- seems as remote as the day of the candid remark
eral university men for guidance and help instead that passed between the governors of the Caro-
of regarding them suspiciously as the special linas, listing no more abates in the face of out-
pleaders for a privileged class. Socialism was a
raged public opinion than (unless statistics lie
living theory then, not the doctrinaire rigidness
and there is no truth in eye-opened witnesses)
of immigrants and the industrially exploited, as
alcoholic consumption diminishes in the con-
too often with us. British Labor leaders had genial, but now “dry,” Southland. The devotee
less and less of our morbid fear of the "high-
has merely transferred more and more of his
brow.” Even before the war there was the be-
ingenuity from the compiling of lists to the devis-
ginning of a genuine alliance between those who ing of new occasions for lists. It was a genius
worked with their hands and those who worked
in his day who first posed that seductive query,
with their brain. Since the war, accompanying “If you were cast away on a desert isle what
the accelerating deliquescence of traditional Lib- score of books would you select . . .?" How
eralism, the Labor party has grown not merely many of us escaped his lure? But we are warier
in political power and actual membership but in now and will not be intrigued by any but the
steadiness of purpose, in the power to think and most cunning adepts at the vice. One such has


208
[February 28
THE DIAL
"It's a Queer Feller
umes.
lately drawn up a full net from the sophisticated
waters of the New York “Sun.” His technique
is inimitable:
Sir: You were choosing, let us suppose, some books
to put on a guest room shelf. Many of your
guests are of the male sex and have the habit of
reading in bed. You keep a reading lamp by the
bed, of course, and a bookshelf. What thirty vol-
.? May I tell you my. . .?
The thing is diabolical! It is not enough to
pillory this offender—Mr. Christopher Morley,
Oxonian, author of “Songs for a Little House,
and (so brazen is the cult!) an editor of “The
Ladies' Home Journal"; such crimes evoke emu-
lators. The wise, therefore, are hereby warned
to give neither comfort nor aid to anyone solic-
iting help in the selection of "a simple library
-say three score titles—for the butler's pantry"
or "a shelf of thrillers for the telephone
booth, to while away the hours of waiting"
or "a half dozen duodecimos, on India paper,
for the bird house under the eaves."
19
seen by a queerer feller.”
Such is Mr. Tarkington's
good-humored description
of Mr.Holliday's new book.
A striking portrait of the
man and a keen analysis
of his work, without any
of the hero-worship that
sometimes crops out in
such books. Booth Tark-
ington's progress is traced
from the spacious Prince-
ton days to the later Pen-
rod era.
There are en-
lightening anecdotes ga-
lore and engaging pas-
sages of critical insight.
You will realize why this
man has gathered one of
the most enviable follow-
ings in America when
A VIVID DESCRIPTION OF THE SAMMIES in
France appears in a recent number of "Inter-
America,” a new monthly magazine of Pan-
Americanism published by Doubleday, Page and
Company which is printed alternately in Spanish
and in English. The quotation is from an article
by Antonio G. de Linares, Paris correspondent of
the Argentine “Caras y Caretas”:
Large, slow, phlegmatic, the Americans filed through
the streets of the city without being affected in the
least by the “parade.”
They are countrymen or sportive citizens, dressed
rather as cowboys than as soldiers, and they savor
of the Far West. Among them there is no display
of gold lace, no fine trimmings, and barely an oak
leaf, an eagle, or a star shows on their collars or
shoulders to indicate their rank. They are strong
and healthy, and they are not warlike. They give the
impression of being good, frank, well trained boys;
and they will get themselves killed-since this is what
they came for—and they will die in the Dantesque
waste of No Man's Land with great valor and with
ever greater surprise, while seeking with their almost
infantile blue eyes the maternal bosom of their native
heavens and the soft horizon of the prairies.
you read
BOOTH
TARKINGTON
By Robert Cortes Holliday
Net, $1.25
The GOLD MEDAL of the National Insti-
tute of Arts and Letters returns to sculpture
after nine years. It was first awarded to Augus-
tus Saint-Gaudens; it now comes to Daniel Ches-
ter French. Meanwhile, however, it has almost
as often gone out into the by-ways and hedges
as it has decorated men whom the nation must
delight to honor-Riley, Howells, or Sargent.
Perhaps it only imitates the inscrutable ballot of
election. This year Franklin Henry Giddings,
Edward Sheldon, Frank Vincent Dumond, Fred-
erick Law Olmsted, Douglas Volk, and John
Alden Carpenter have become immortal.
AT YOUR BOOKSELLER'S
DOUBLEDAY,
PAGE & CO.
D.P. GARDEN CITY
80 NEW YORK


1918]
209
THE DIAL
COMMUNICATION
RECENT BOOKS
9
BOOKS ON PALESTINE.
(To the Editor of The DIAL.)
The recent capture of Jerusalem by the British
and the declaration of the British government in
favor of the reëstablishment of a Jewish state in
Palestine has created a great revival of interest in
books bearing on the Holy Land and the world-
wide movement among the Jews to recover their
homeland. The Jews of the United States are rais-
ing a fund to restore Palestine and accomplish the
repatriation of their people. It is predicted that
a great revival of Hebrew culture will follow the
reëstablishment.
A list of easily obtainable books published in
English in recent years, dealing with Palestine and
its people, and describing the modern Jewish colo-
nies already established in Palestine, may interest
your readers:
“Palestine, the Rebirth of an Ancient People.”
By Albert M. Hyamson; Alfred A. Knopf, 1917.
“Zionism and the Jewish Future." By various
writers, edited by H. Sacher; John Murray, Lon-
don, 1917.
“Zionism-Problems and Views.” By P. Good-
man and Arthur D. Lewis; T. F. Unwin, Ltd.,
London, 1916.
"Recent Jewish Progress in Palestine." By Hen-
rietta Szold; Jewish Publication Society of Amer-
ica, Philadelphia, 1915.
"Zionist Pamphlets." London, 1915. Published
by “The Zionist.”
"Zionism." By Richard Gottheil; Jewish Pub-
lication Society of America, Philadelphia, 1914.
"Palestine and the Jews." By F. G. Jannaway;
Birmingham, 1914.
“The Haskalah Movement." By Jacob S. Rai-
sin; Jewish Publication Society of America, Phila-
delphia, 1913.
"Jews of Today.” By Dr. Arthur Ruppin.
Translated from the German by Margery Bent-
wich, with an introduction by Joseph Jacobs; G.
Bell and Sons, London, 1913.
"Zionist Work in Palestine.” By various
authorities, edited by Israel Cohen; Judæan Púb-
lishing Co., New York, 1912.
“The Story of Jerusalem.” (Historical.) By Sir
C. M. Watson; J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., Lon-
don, 1912.
"The Land That Is Desolate." By Sir Freder-
ick Treves; E. P. Dutton & Co., 1912.
"Palestine and its Transformation.” By Ells-
worth Huntington; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1911.
"Selected Essays." By A. Ginsberg (Achad
Ha'am); Jewish Publication Society of America,
Philadelphia, 1910.
“The Historical Biography of the Holy Land.”
(16th edition.) By George Adam Smith; London,
1910.
"A Jewish State.” By Theodor Herzl; D. Nutt,
London, 1896.
HAROLD KELLOCK.
Provisional Executive Committee
For General Zionist Affairs
New York City.
YOU SHOULD EXAMINE
The United States and the War. The
Mission to Russia. Political Addresses
By the Honorable ELIHU ROOT $2.50
Of special interest are those speeches indi-
cating the attitude of the United States to
the war, both before and after her entrance
into it, and the addresses delivered by Mr.
Root as head of the Mission to Russia.
All of his public utterances in that capacity
are included.
Norman Institutions
By CHARLES HOMER HASKINS, Gurney
Professor of History and Political Science
and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts
and Sciences in Harvard University. Har-
vard Historical Studies, Vol. XXIV. $2.75
A comprehensive study of the institutions of
Normandy in the formative period, consid-
ered particularly in relation to the develop-
ment of English law and institutions.
Trade and Navigation between
Spain and the Indies in
the Time of the Hapsburgs
By CLARENCE HENRY HARING, As-
sistant Professor of History in Yale Univer-
sity. Harvard Economic Studies, Vol. XIX.
Special stress is laid upon the period of the
Catholic Kings and Charles V. $2.25
The State Tax Commission
By HARLEY LEIST LUTZ, Professor of
Economics in Oberlin College. Harvard
Economic Studies, Vol. XVII.
$2.75
An investigation of the actual operation of
the state taxing systems under the guidance
and direction of such tax commissions as
became popular about 1891. The emphasis
is placed upon methods and results.
The Russian Revolution
By SAMUEL N. HARPER, ALEXANDER
PETRONKEVITCH, FRANK A. GOLDER,
and ROBERT J. KERNER. Ready in March
Papers presented at the annual meeting of
the American Historical Association, 1917.
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri
The Italian Text with a Translation into
English Blank Verse and a Commentary,
By COURTNEY LANGDON, Professor of
the Romance Languages and Literature in
Brown University. Vol. I. Inferno. $2.50
The first of four volumes which should
prove extremely satisfactory to modern
readers.
The Self and Nature
By DE WITT H. PARKER, Assistant Pro-
fessor of Philosophy in the University of
Michigan.
$2.00
“An earnest and suggestive study of some
of the basic problems of metaphysics.”—
Philosophical Review.
At all leading bookstores
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
23 Randall Hall
280 Madison Ave.
Cambridge, Mass.
New York, N. Y.


210
[February 28
THE DIAL

NOTES AND NEWS
ISHRS
P.EE ELLERS
ELURG
BOOK
LCRB
QT
"
James Oppenheim, whose poem “The Young
World” leads this issue of The DIAL, is the author
of several volumes of fiction and verse. His bet-
ter known books of poetry have been: “Monday
Morning, and Other Poems" (1909), "The Pi-
oneers” (a play in verse, 1910), and “Songs for
the New Age" (1914). In March Huebsch will
issue another collection, which will include and
take its title from “The Young World." Mr.
Oppenheim has been a frequent contributor to peri-
odicals and was editor of “The Seven Arts.”
C. K. Trueblood is a graduate in science of both
Earlham and Haverford colleges. In 1915 he re-
“I visited with a natural rapture the
ceived an A.M. from Harvard. He is now an in-
structor in English at the University of Wisconsin.
largest bookstore in the world."
The other contributors to this issue have previ-
ously appeared in the columns of The DIAL.
See the chapter on Chicago, page 43, "Your
United States," by Arnold Bennett
January 17 this column published an announce-
It is recognized throughout the country
ment by The Poetry-Lovers of New York City
that we earned this reputation becanse wo
regarding a prize contest in which Ridgely Tor-
rence was included among the judges. Mr. Tor-
have on hand at all times a more completo rence writes that he is not serving in that capacity.
assortment of the books of all publishers than Harper & Bros. have announced "A History of
can be found on the shelves of any other book-
Architecture,” by Fiske Kimball and G. H. Edgell.
dealer in the entire United States. It is of
Sully & Kleinteich, publishers, have now become
George Sully & Co. Their address is 373 Fourth
interest and importance to all bookbuyers to Avenue, New York City.
know that the books reviewed and advertised Rand McNally & Co. are the publishers of a
in this magazine can be procured from us with vest-pocket manual on "The United States Army,
the least possible delay. We invite you to
Facts and Insignia," by Valdemar Paulsen.
visit our store when in Chicago, to avail your-
The cumulated annual “Readers' Guide" for
1917 is just off the press of the H. W. Wilson Co.
self of the opportunity of looking over the The Dial is among the periodicals regularly in-
books in which you are most interested, or to dexed in the “Guide."
call upon us at any time to look after your
Stanton & Van Vliet are offering “Aeroplane
book wants.
Construction and Operation," by John B. Rathbun
-a manual for constructors, students, aero-mechan-
ics, flight officers, and schools.
Special Library Service “The Pilgrims of Hawaii," an account of the
first American missionaries in the Pacific islands,
We conduct a department devoted entirely
by Rev. Orramel Hinckley Gulick and his wife,
to the interests of Public Libraries, Schools,
has just been published by the Revell Co.
The World Book Co., Yonkers-on-Hudson, New
Colleges and Universities. Our Library Do York, have recently published a blank-book designed
partment has made a careful study of library to assist farmers in keeping necessary daily rec-
requirements, and is equipped to handle all ords, the "Farm Diary," designed by E. H. Thom-
library orders with accuracy, efficiency and
despatch. This department's long experience March 1 the Association Press, which prints gen-
in this special branch of the book business, eral religious works and some fiction as well as
combined with our unsurpassed book stock,
the publications of the Y. M. C. A., will move
enable us to offer a library service not excelled
to the new Equitable Trust Building, 45th Street
elsewhere. We solicit correspondence from
at Madison Avenue, New York.
Mr. Christian D. Larson announces that in
Librarians unacquainted with our facilities.
March "Eternal Progress" will resume publica-
tion. It will appear monthly from San Francisco.
9)
9
son.
A. C. McCLURG & CO. Communications should be addressed to Mr. Lar-
Retail Store, 218 to 224 South Wabash Avenue
Library Department and Wholesale Offices:
330 to 352 East Ohio Street
Chicago
.
Edgar Middleton, author of "Airfare of Today
and of the Future" (Scribners), plans to accompany
the aviator Herbert Sykes in a projected Aight from
London to New York by aeroplane. They expect
to leave Feltham, Middlesex, at dawn and reach
New York before dark.


1918]
211
THE DIAL
1-1/40
ht
OLD STATE HOUSE, SPRINGFIELD
LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS
H. M. Kallen's series of papers on "The Struc-
ture of Lasting Peace," which are concluded in this
number of THE DIAL, are to be issued in book form
by Marshall Jones this spring. Next month Mof-
fat, Yard & Co. will publish his “Book of Job,”
a Greek tragedy.
“Great Britain at War" is the title under which
Jeffery Farnol has collected his pen pictures of the
French battle-fields, the grand fleet, the training
camps, and the English munition plants and ship-
yards which he has visited. The volume will
shortly be brought out by Little, Brown & Co.
Mr. Philip Goodman announces that the title of
H. L. Mencken's volume which he will publish
March 15 has been changed from "Forty-Nine
Little Essays” to “Damn! A Book of Calumny."
Mr. Goodman has another Mencken book listed
for May 1—“The Infernal Feminine."
E. P. Dutton & Co. now have ready the sec-
ond volume of James Ward's "History and
Methods of Ancient and Modern Painting," which
is devoted to Italian art from the twelfth to the
fifteenth century. The third volume will continue
with Italian art of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.
The “Collected Works” of Padraic Pearse will
be issued in this country next month by the Fred-
erick A. Stokes Co., who also announce three
March additions to their "New Commonwealth
Series": “The World of States,” by C. Delisle
Burns; "The Church in the Commonwealth,” by
Richard Roberts; and "Freedom," by Gilbert
Cannan.
The Page Co. have issued this month two addi-
tions to their "See America First” Series: “Flor-
ida, the Land of Enchantment," by Nevin O.
Winter, and “Colorado, the Queen Jewel of the
Rockies,” by Mae Lucy Baggs. For spring pub-
lication they announce a novel of business life,
"Dawson Black,” by Prof. Harold Whitehead of
Boston University.
Mrs. F. L. Coolidge has offered a prize of $1000
for the best original string quartet submitted in a
competition to be judged by Franz Kneisel, Fred-
erick A. Stock, Georges Longy, Kurn Schindler,
and Hugo Kortschak. Inquiries should be ad-
dressed to Mr. Kortschak at Aeolian Hall, New
York.
Among the books promised on the spring list
of the Yale University Press are: “The Method
of Henry James," by Joseph Warren Beach ; "The
History of Henry Fielding,” by Wilbur L. Cross;
"An Outline Sketch of English Constitutional His-
tory,” by George Burton Adams; "The Processes
of History,” by Frederick J. Teggert; and “Human
Nature and Its Remaking," by William Ernest
Hocking.
Last year St. Andrew's University, Edinburgh,
established prizes for essays on prayer. The first
competition brought out 1700 contestants and the
five prizes were divided between England, India,
Switzerland, and America. The American win-
ner ($500) was the Rev. Samuel McComb of
Baltimore, author of “A Book of Prayers,” of
which Dodd, Mead & Co. recently got out a new
edition.
By OCTAVIA ROBERTS
Illustrations by LESTER G. HORNBY
The author of this notable book is a native
of Springfield, Illinois. From her childhood,
she has been steeped in traditions and anec-
dotes of Lincoln's life there, and by good
fortune has recently obtained a manuscript
diary kept by a neighbor of Lincoln's dur-
ing his Springfield life, which contains many
vivid pen pictures of the President. From
this material and from her own memories
and investigations, she has constructed a
most interesting, readable, and illuminating
book.
Recognizing the importance of the ma-
terial, Mr. Lester G. Hornby, the famous
illustrator, consented to go to Illinois and
make for the book a permanent pictorial rec-
ord of the scenes associated with Lincoln.
The result is a volume as attractive as it
is important, and one that has fixed for all
time-pictorially and textually—the details
of Lincoln's life in Illinois.
Royal 8vo, Large-Paper Edition, limited
to 1,000 copies for sale, at $5.00 net, each.
Other Recent and Notable
Books on Lincoln
HONEST ABE
By ALONZO ROTHSCHILD
Illustrated. $2.00 net
LINCOLN: MASTER OF MEN
By ALONZO ROTHSCHILD
With frontispiece. $1.75 net
UNCOLLECTED LETTERS OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Now first brought together by GILBERT
TRACY. With introduction by IDA M. TAR-
With photogravure frontispiece.
$2.50 net
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
THE LAWYER-STATESMAN
By JOHN T. RICHARDS
Illustrated. $3.00 net
Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston and New York
BELL.


212
[February 28
THE DIAL
BUSINESS BOOKS
Business books are helping to solve
the economic problems caused by
the war.
Men and women every-
where are seeking practical help
to carry on increased business with
fewer workers. The demand for
helpful books has quadrupled with-
>
in the year.
D. Appleton & Company publish the
business books people want.
Pi-
oneers in the field, they have built
up a great, varied list of authori-
tative, up-to-date PRACTICAL
books. Every branch of business
is represented. Every librarian,
every teacher of business subjects,
every business man and woman
will find it profitable to examine
the Appleton list. Write to D. Ap-
pleton & Company, 35 West 32d
Street, New York, for a copy of
their special Business Book Cat-
alog. Appleton Business Books
may be had at all booksellers.
When You Think of Business
Books Think of APPLETONS'
Joseph Pennell's “Pictures of War Work in
America,” the publication of which has been de-
layed from December, is among the forthcoming
Lippincott books. "The Training and Rewards of
the Physician,” by Richard C. Cabot, and “The
Organization of Thought,” by A. N. Whitehead,
are announced for early publication by the same
house.
Late this month Henry Holt & Co. are issuing
"Leon Trotzky as Revealed in his Writings and
Life," which will contain a translation of his “Our
Revolution" (secretly published in Petrograd be-
fore the revolution), his essays and articles written
between 1904 and 1917, and biography and notes
by the translator, M. J. Olgin, author of “The
Soul of the Russian Revolution.”
Another new book which reflects recent history
in Russia is “The Life and Confessions of the
Mad Monk, Iliodor–Sergius M. Trufanoff,” which
the Century Co. publishes. Father Iliodor pre-
pared Rasputin for the priesthood and was for sev-
eral years the friend and confidant of the "holy
devil.” Later on he discovered the latter's intrigues
and led a campaign against him, for which he was
unfrocked and imprisoned. He escaped to Nor-
way and is now living in New York.
The mid-February Houghton Mifflin list in-
cluded “Lincoln in Illinois,” by Octavia Roberts, in
a limited, large paper edition illustrated by Lester
G. Hornby; the “Life of Naomi Norsworthy,” of
Teachers College, by Frances Caldwell Higgins; a
new book of verse by Jessie B. Rittenhouse, “The
Door of Dreams"; and another contribution to
the rapidly growing literature about contemporary
Russia—“Trapped in Black Russia,” by Ruth
Pierce, who was for six weeks detained as a spy.
Upton Sinclair has issued the first number of a
monthly magazine “to advocate a just and perma-
nent peace settlement.” It is called “Upton Sin-
clair's" and is issued from his home at Pasadena,
California. In this magazine he will publish seri-
ally the sequel to "King Coal"_"The Coal War,"
a novel about the Colorado coal strike; and “The
Profits of Religion, an Essay in Economic Interpre-
tation,” being a study of supernaturalism “as a
source of income and a shield to privilege.”
The following religious works are among those
announced as nearly ready by Longmans, Green &
Co.: "The Mount of Vision: Being a Study of
Life in Terms of the Whole,” by the Right Rev.
Charles H. Brent; “The Cross,” by Rev. Jesse
Brett; “Christianity and Immortality,” by Vernon
F. Storr; “Religious Reality,” by Rev. A. E. J.
Rawlinson; “Social Problems and Christian Ideals,
by a few Northern Churchmen.
Five years ago “The Publishers' Weekly" pre-
pared its list of 1200 private book collectors. Two
years later the work was extended to 1800 names;
and an alphabetical list, as well as an index to the
various subjects represented by the collectors, was
added to the geographical arrangement. For fall
publication another revision is planned, to bring the
list down to date. Book collectors not hitherto
included, if they desire to be registered—with their
hobbies-should write to the “Weekly" at 241
West 37th Street, New York.
"A Philadelphia Pepys"
The Homely Diary
of a Diplomat in the East
By THOMAS S. HARRISON
THA
"He author of this delightful volume was
American Diplomatic Agent and Consul-
General in Egypt in the late nineties. A
man of means and culture, with a charming
wife, he had a high position in diplomatic
society at one of the most cosmopolitan of capi-
tals, and this fresh and intimate record of
experiences and of his acquaintance with many
notabilities makes a most readable narrative.
“The student of social history, browsing
through the libraries of the year 2020, who
discovers Colonel Harrison's Homely Diary will
exclaim with delight at the treasures he will
find buried there."-Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Lavishly illustrated. $5.00 net. At all bookstores
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston
New York


1918]
213
THE DIAL
“Better than Bombs!”
says Eleanor Gates, play-
wright and novelist, about
GERTRUDE ATHERTON'S
stirring new novel
THE
WHITE MORNING
"What better material for propaganda in the
Kaiser's realm could the United States desire than
Gertrude Atherton's
novel? Better than
bombs! This volume will do more good than its
author will ever guess, or her publishers be able
Net $1.00.
new
to trace.'
THE HOUSE OF CONRAD
By ELIAS TOBENKIN
Author of "Witte Arrives."
What America has done to the German brand
of socialism that came to our shores in the '60's
and how the labor movement, once nearly dom-
inated by foreigners, has become a truly American
movement, are vividly shown in a novel that is
as interesting as it is significant. Net $1.50.
THE GIRL FROM KELLER'S
By HAROLD BINDLOSS
Author of "Carmen's Messenger," etc.
In this vital story of pioneer grit conquering
the wilderness, Harold Bindloss has excelled his
previous novels of the Northwest. He tells of
swift action, and alert men and women turning
success into failure in the bracing atmosphere
of the Great Northwest. Net $1.40.
LIST OF NEW BOOKS
[The following list, containing 81 titles, includes
books received by The Dial since its last issue.]
THE WAR.
The United States and the War: The Mission to
Russia; Political Addresses. By Elihu Root.
Collected and edited by Robert Bacon and James
Brown Scott. 8vo, 362 pages. Harvard Univer-
sity Press. $2.50.
The Voices of Our Leaders. A Collection of Ad-
dresses Delivered by Statesmen of the United
States and her Allies in the Great War. Com-
piled by William Mather Lewis. Introduction
by Secretary Baker. 16mo, 159 pages. Hinds,
Hayden & Eldredge. $1.
South-Eastern Europe. By Vladislav R. Savic. In-
troduction by Nicholas Murray Butler. With
frontispiece and map. 12mo, 276 pages. Fleming
H. Revell Co. $1.50.
A Diary of the Russian Revolution. By James
Houghteling, Jr. Illustrated, 12mo, 195 pages.
Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.25.
Our Schools in War Time and After. By Arthur D.
Dean. Illustrated, 12mo, 335 pages. Ginn & Co.
$1.25.
A Second Diary of the Great Warr. From January,
1916 to June, 1917. By Sam'l Pepys, Jun'r., Es-
quire, M. A. With effigies by John Kettelwell.
12mo, 304 pages. John Lane Co, Boards. $1.50.
Cavalry of the Clouds. By “Contact” (Capt. Alan
Bott). With an introduction by Major-General
W. S. Brancker. 12mo, xxii + 266 pages.
Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.25.
Headquarters Nights. By Vernon Kellogg. 12mo,
116 pages. Atlantic Monthly Press. $1.
Conscript 2989. Experiences of a Drafted Man.
Illustrated, 12mo, 124 pages. Dodd, Mead &
Co. $1.
Camion Letters. From American College Men, Vol-
unteer Drivers of the American Field Service,
1917. 12mo, 100 pages. Henry Holt & Co. $1.
Army French. By Ernest H. Wilkins and Algernon
Coleman. 16mo, 186 pages. University of Chi-
cago Press. Paper. 40 cts.
The University of Louvain and Its Library. By
Theodore Wesley Koch. Illustrated brochure,
12mo, 28 pages, paper. J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.
A Bibliography of the War Cripple. Compiled_by
Douglas C. McMurtie. 8vo, 41 pages. The Red
Cross Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men.
Paper.
FICTION.
My Uncle Benjamin. By Claude Tillier. Translated
by Adele Szold Seltzer. Illustrated, 12mo, 295
pages. Boni & Liveright. $1.60.
Children of Passage. By Frederick Watson. 12mo,
308 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.50.
A Family of Noblemen. By Mikhail Y. Saltykov
(N. Shchedrin). Translated by A. Yarmolinsky.
12mo, 422 pages. Boni & Liveright. $1.50.
Impossible People. By Mary C. E. Wemyss. 12mo,
332 pages.
Houghton Mifflin Co. $1.50.
The Lost Naval Papers. By Bennet Copplestone.
12mo, 286 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.50.
Eastern Red. By Helen Huntington. 12mo, 289
pages. G, P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50.
Revoke. By W. de Veer. 12mo, 343 pages. John
Lane Co. $1.40.
The Girl from Keller's. By Harold Bindloss. With
frontispiece, 12mo, 328 pages. Frederick A.
Stokes Co. $1.40.
Gudrid the Fair. By Maurice Hewlett. 12mo, 262
pages. Dodd, Mead & Co. $1.35.
His Daughter. By Gouverneur Morris. With front-
ispiece. 12mo, 326
pages. Charles Scribner's
Sons. $1.35.
Humanity and the Mysterious Knight. By Mack
Stauffer. 12mo, 295 pages. Roxburgh Publish-
ing Co. $1.35.
The Great Modern French Stories, A Chronological
Anthology. Compiled and edited by Willard
Huntington Wright. 12mo, 409 pages. Boni &
Liveright. $1,50.
The Path of Error, and Other Stories. By Joseph
M. Meirovitz. 16mo, 128 pages. The Four Seas
Co. $1.
The Finding of Norah. By Eugenia Brooks Froth-
ingham. 16mo, 94 pages. Houghton Mifflin Co.
75 cts.
MISTRESS OF MEN
By FLORA ANNIE STEEL
Author of "On the Face of the Waters,"
"Marmaduke," etc.
The glamour of India is the background of
Mrs. Steel's new novel, one that is told with all
the skill that gave "On the Face of the Waters"
such fascination. Net $1.40.
ARMY AND NAVY
UNIFORMS AND INSIGNIA
By COL. DION WILLIAMS
Absolutely the standard book on the subject-
every detail of the uniforms and insignia, medals
and ribbons, flags, ensigns and pennants of the
U. S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, etc., and of
every nation at war fully described and illus.
trated. 117 full-page illustrations and 8 full
color pages.
Net $1.50.
LETTERS TO THE MOTHER
OF A SOLDIER
By RICHARDSON WRIGHT
Author of "The Russians: An Interpretation," etc.
Inspiring letters of a wise, kindly elder brother
with a big heart and great_mind to a mother
whose son is at the front. This is the mother's
manual of arms, her handbook of courage in the
face of despondency and doubt. Net $1.00.
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY


214
[February 28
THE DIAL
F. M. HOLLY Authors and Publishers'
Representative
156 Bitth Aveu., New York (Inablished 1905)
UND ADD TULL INFORMATION VILL BB SENT ON LOUEST
THE NEW YORK BUREAU OF REVISION
Thirty-eighth Year. LETTERS OF CRITICISM, EXPERT
REVISION OF MSS. Advice as to publication. Address
DR. TITUS M. COAN, 424 W. 119th St., New York City
ANNA PARMLY PARET
291 FIFTH AVBIUR, NEW YORK
After many years of editorial experience with Harper & Brothero,
Miss Parot offers to criticise and revisc manuscripts for writer.
Fees reasonable. Terms sent on application.
A CATALOGUE of books and pamphlets relating to the Civil
War, Slavery and the South (including a number of scarce
Confederate items) will be sent to collectors on request.
W. A. GOUGH, 25 WEST 420 STREET, NEW YORK
-
For the Book Lover Rare books –First edi
.
of print. Latest Cata-
C. Gerhardt, 25 W. 420 St., New York logue sent on request.
BOOKS, AUTOGRAPHS, PRINTS. Catalogues Free.
B. ATKINSON, 07 Sunderland Road, Torest HM, LONDON, ING.
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2west 45 st I move. N. Y.
Book Buyers
Just west
who cannot get satisfactory local service, are
urged to establish relations with our bookstore.
We handle every kind of book, wherever
published. Questions about literary matters
answered promptly. We have customers in
nearly every part of the globe. Safe delivery
guaranteed to any address.
Our bookselling
experience extends over 80 years.
POETRY AND DRAMA.
The Social Plays of Arthur Wing Pinero. The Sec-
ond Mrs. Tanqueray; The Notorious Mrs. Ebb-
smith. Edited by Clayton Hamilton. 12mo, 366
pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $2.
The Master Builder, Pillars of Society, Hedda
Gabler. By Henrik Ibsen. (Modern Library
Series.) With frontispiece, 16mo, 305 pages.
Boni & Liveright. Limp croft leather. 60 cts.
Anatol, and Other Plays. By Arthur Schnitzler.
Translated by Grace Isabel Colbron. (Modern
Library Series.) With frontispiece, 16mo, 226
pages. Boni & Liveright. Limp croft leather.
60 cts.
Robin Goodfellow, and Other Fairy Plays for Chil-
dren. By Netta Syrett. 16mo, 139 pages. John
Lane Co.
Dreams and Images. An Anthology of Catholic
Poets. Edited by Joyce Kilmer. 12mo, 286
pages. Boni & Liveright.
The Poets of the Future. A College Anthology for
1916-1917. Edited by Henry T. Schnittkind.
12mo, 320 pages. Stratford Co. $1.50.
A Manual of Mystic Verse. Being a choice of med-
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[February 28, 1918
THE DIAL
OUR
REVOLUTION A
By Leon Trotzky
ESSAY ON WORKING CLASS AND INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTION (1904-1917)
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Olgan, author of “The Soul of the Russian Revolution.”
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unrealized by most of the world outside Russia, with which it behooves English read-
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Trotzky's book "Our Revolution" published in Russia in 1906 in defiance of censor-
ship and immediately suppressed. This is Trotzky's clearest exposition of his views.
The present translation is from one of but two or three copies of the original in
America.
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known Trotzky intimately for ten years); essays written in 1904, before the
abortive revolution of 1905; predicting revolution; an essay written ten days
after the revolution of 1905; an essay on the Workingmen's Council of 1905
of which Trotzky was Chairman; the preface to Trotzky's "My Round Trip,”
an account of his exile to Siberia, expressing his ironclad certainty of a Rus-
sian revolution; and several essays written in New York before Trotzky left
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THE DIAL
VOLUME LXIV
No. 762
MARCH 14, 1918
CONTENTS
.
.
.
.
.
.
·
.
.
.
.
A STUDY OF AMERICAN INTOLERANCE Alfred Booth Kuttner . 223
LETTERS TO UNKNOWN WOMEN Richard Aldington 226
To the Slave in “Cleon.”
John BARRYMORE'S IBBETSON
Marsden Hartley · 227
To RUPERT BROOKE . Verse Maurice Browne . 229
OUR PARIS LETTER
Robert Dell
230
ESTABLISHING THE ESTABLISHED Henry B. Fuller
. 233
A VANISHING WORLD OF GENTILITY Randolph Bourne 234
DEMOCRACY BY COERCION
Clarence Britten
235
POETRY VS. POLITICS IN THE UKRAINE Louis Untermeyer 238
"MILLION-FOOTED MANHATTAN" Harold Stearns
239
THE SOUL OF CIVILIANS.
Myron R. Williams . 241
BRIEFS ON New BOOKS .
243
Voyages on the Yukon and Its Tributaries.—The Life and Letters of Robert Col-
lyer. - The Odes and Secular Hymn of Horace.-A Short History of Rome.-
Professionalism and Originality.—The Art of George Frederick Munn.—Brah-
madarsanam or Intuition of the Absolute.
CASUAL COMMENT
246
BRIEFER MENTION
248
COMMUNICATION
249
Why Critics Should Be Educated.
NOTES AND News
. 250
List of New Books
. 252
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
GEORGE BERNARD DONLIN, Editor
HAROLD E. STBARNS, Associate
Contributing Editors
CONRAD AIKEN
VAN WYCK BROOKS
H. M. KALLEN
RANDOLPH BOURNE
PADRAIC COLUM
KENNETH MACGOWAN
WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY
HENRY B. FULLER
John E. ROBINSON
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a year. Yearly subscription $3.00 in advance, in the United States, Canada and Mexico. For-
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Entered as Second-class matter Oct. 8, 1892, at the Post Office at Chicago, under the Act of
March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1918, by The Dial Publishing Company, Inc.
Published by The Dial Publishing Company, Martyn Johnson, President; Willard C. Kitchel,
Secretary-Treasurer, at 608 South Dearborn Street, Chicago.


222
[March 14, 1918
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THE DIAL
a fortnightly Journal of Criticism and Discussion of Literature and The arts
A Study of American Intolerance
PART ONE:
THE UNACKNOWLEDGED HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
case.
After we are through wringing our the situation if we regard it as merely a
hands over our intolerance we shall still thing of today. The war has simply
have to face the fact. We shall have to brought out what has long been latent.
answer how it came about that a country We are, of course, inclined to sentimen-
which claims the highest development of talize.
talize. We like to look back romantically
democracy could at the same time be so to the heyday of tolerance and free speech
crudely and often so savagely intolerant. of the New England town meeting, con-
We shall have to answer the unpleasant veniently forgetting the social and reli-
question of how mob rule, and the intel- gious intolerance which tainted so much
lectual atmosphere that goes with it,
with it, of our early history. Yet our past intol-
should suddenly have become good form. erance never really mattered so much,
For it is gravely doubtful if even the most because the issue could always be evaded.
optimistic of us can agree with John Dew- The ultimate test of tolerance does not
ey's amiable explanation. We cannot, come until people are compelled to live
after all, be content with the idea that our together in close and vital relations. The
democratic deterioration is merely part tolerance that is worth while is usu-
of that swift and widespread de-civiliza- ally found in mature and settled and fairly
tion which invariably accompanies all well populated communities where the geo-
wars. Nor can we accept the barren con- graphical evasion has become so difficult
solation which tells us that the evil is only that it is no longer thought of except as a
apparent-an excess of our youth and last resort. With us that was never the
inexperience that somehow will make for We were always free to move on
our ultimate integration. First of all, too if social conditions did not suit us; or if
many invidious comparisons can be made we did not suit, we were told to move on.
with other belligerents, which, as Mr. Just as the intolerance of Europe popu-
Dewey himself testifies, have shown con- lated our Eastern seaboard in the first
siderably less bitterness and savagery than place, so our own intolerance progressively
we. Furthermore, the historical evidence populated the country from the East to
that intolerance is perhaps the most effec- the Pacific coast. The history of our
tive agent of disintegration in a common- Westward movement is the history of
wealth is far too striking. We too easily people who moved on in order to be able
recall that it was the disintegrative force to do what they pleased not only econom-
of intolerance in European countries ically but socially and in religion. Intol-
which helped to populate these shores. erance is notoriously slow in teaching
If our intolerance were merely an inci- tolerance to the persecuted. In every new
dental unpleasantness of war-time, as too community the new schismatists moved on
many of us like to imagine, the urgency in turn. Tolerance did not become an
for our understanding it would not be issue with us until the country had filled
great. It is, however, a bad heritage and up, until the wave turned east again.
a menace for our future. We are dealing While this was taking place two social
with something much more than the nor- and racial factors entered into
mal intolerance to be expected in times of national life which completely upset the
war. The problem is really a specific one natural development of tolerance. One
to be treated in terms of the social and was the aftermath of the Civil War and
racial conditions that exist among us. Cer- the other was the sudden large influx of
tainly we shall miss an understanding of diversely alien immigrants which began
our


224
[March 14
THE DIAL
during the seventies and the eighties of the Indeed, we have been loath to see it at all
last century. The first of these is the more and have put a taboo upon any discussion
fundamental, and to a great extent it of it. Acute foreign observers have not
explains the second. The Civil War gave failed to remark this reticence. They
us the negro problem, perhaps the great- looked upon it as the blind spot in our
est racial problem which any nation has social thinking. They accused us,
if I
may
ever had to face. Before the negro fall into the jargon of the new psychology,
acquired a civic status he did not so much of having a negro complex. It was very
live with us as under us. But as soon as
difficult for us to see this because we were
he entered our lives and made a bid for so hysterically unaware of it.
equality we began to develop the typical Generally speaking, we do not think
psychology of a superior race in intimate about the negro problem at all; we merely
contact with an inferior one. This psy- relieve our feelings about it. Yet we can-
chology is well known in every European not altogether fail to observe how it has
settlement in the Far East and finds its tensed the whole South, imposed an incubus
most complete expression in the attitude upon social progress there, and made for
towards the Eurasian on the part not only absolutism in morality. It is an attitude
of the superior race but also of the inferior which has not failed to infect the North
race—which, of course, does not consider wherever similar conditions have arisen,
itself inferior. It is expressed in a general and the South has much justification for its
tightening up, a codification of the forms "tu quoque.” The
"tu quoque.” The emergence of the negro
of social intercourse. Both races accept a race problem thus marked the beginning
number of social taboos to which they of a new intolerance in this country just at
strictly adhere. There must not be too
.
the time when the fine spirit of forgive-
much intimacy or a too sympathetic ex- ness which ended so disastrously with Lin-
change of thoughts and emotions. The coln's death seemed about to inaugurate
restraint falls most heavily upon all forms the development of a genuine tolerance in
of social intercourse which might lead to a community of united Americans.
an approach between the sexes. For this The second disturbing influence began
is, of course, the great danger point and almost before the first had been fully de-
represents the fear of absorption on the veloped. The influx of immigrants af-
part of the superior race. That is why ter the Irish and the German tide, was
the Eurasian is treated as an outcast. at first scarcely noticed. A large part of
It would be out of place here to discuss them remained itinerant and roamed
the ultimate sanction or necessity of such about the country in response to the call
an attitude. Its effect upon tolerance, for labor, as in the case of the Italian
however, is unmistakable. The restraint railroad builders. Few of them were
imposed upon social and emotional rela- skilled laborers or commercially trained,
tions is bound to be extended to the intel- so that they were not impelled to settle
lectual sphere. Where men go about with down at once in the cities, like the Ger-
a constant check-rein upon their spontane- mans or the sociable Irish. It was only
ous social instincts the atmosphere can
after they became part of the urban popu-
hardly be favorable to any intellectual lation and, either through raising their
exchange. New and vital thought upon standard of living or becoming tools of
religion, democracy, or philosophy is not the political machines, entered into the
likely to flourish in such a divided commu- community life, that the situation grew
nity. Religion and democracy will tend to more acute. A good many of these immi-
exclude the inferior race, and philosophy grants maintained a lower standard of liv- .
will be perverted to justify the exclusion. ing than ours and presented differences of
Man will tend to become harsh and intol. race, morals, and manners which a more
erant because he is uneasy and unsure. intimate intercourse could not avoid bring-
It is not now difficult to see how these ing home to us. The alarm caused by our
considerations apply to our negro prob- inability to assimilate the alien newcomer
lem, reluctant as we may hitherto have expressed itself in a movement to restrict
been to admit the problem in this light. immigration. We began to talk of “the


1918]
225
THE DIAL
us.
melting-pot," but contented ourselves with expresses itself in constant modifications
a metaphor whose aptness we never under- of unequal value. Sometimes, to take a
took to probe. And once more where we special instance from law, our negro com-
failed to face a problem our community plex and the influence of alien races may
feeling registered a change of attitude. combine to bring about a joint result. It
We tensed ourselves again and moved is entirely plausible that the almost vested
more uneasily than before against a back right of the South to kill negroes and the
ground of explosive racial forces.
spread of crimes of passion among South
For this attitude towards alien races may Europeans have helped to establish our
well be viewed as merely an extension of unwritten law, a development essentially
the psychology which the negro problem foreign to Anglo-Saxon legal traditions.
has bequeathed to Our hostility The whole process is one which the
towards the foreigner was fostered by a upholders of an entrenched tradition can-
comparison with the relations already not view with equanimity, and their resist-
existing towards a people in our midst, ance must express itself in intolerance.
who were infinitely more alien to us Considerations such as these do not pre-
than any immigrant, with the possible tend to give a complete explanation of our
exception of the Oriental, could ever be. intolerance. All wars breed intolerance
Our instinctively self-protective attitude and this one is no exception. A fuller
towards the negro could thus be readily treatment of the subject would require
extended to any race differing from us. further discussion of those specific factors
And the situation becomes infinitely in the psychology of modern war which
more complicated in the case of the immi- make for intolerance. But the point is
grant.
Our attitude towards the negro that what I have called the normal intol-
was largely instinctive and dealt with erance of war fell upon fertile ground.
primitive racial fears. The difference It could swell to such fanatical propor-
between the two races was so great that tions only with the aid of a native intoler-
there could never be anything approach- ance already created by our complex social
ing a direct comparison. It is otherwise problems. A parallel puts the matter into
with the immigrant. He often represents simple terms. Just as the world war may be
a different civilization, the inferiority of looked upon, from one psychological point
which is in many ways debatable. His of view, as a struggle for Anglo-Saxon
coming represents a challenge. He finds prestige, so our domestic war of intoler-
himself in a country in which everything, ance is really a struggle for prestige on the
formally at least, conforms to the Anglo- part of the dominant class in America
Saxon standard. With all his gift for which consciously and by inheritance is
adaptation he also exhibits a stubbornness Anglo-Saxon. It is the integration issue
which is not entirely to his discredit. This in its most fundamental form, and the
tendency to assert himself, or rather not vehemence of its champions shows that
to desert everything that is native in him, they have instinctively recognized that
seeks out the weak spots in the Anglo- fact. Their resentment and alarm look
Saxon structure. The pressure he exerts beyond the mere handful of disloyal Ger-
is a criticism which, according to the per- man-Americans in our midst. Their feel-
fect melting-pot theory, ought to become ing extends to all who in spirit or in race
a contribution. It does not always work are alien to them. They crave a national
out that way. Often it helps merely to identity which we have not yet attained
increase the antagonism of the dominant and cry with an arrogance more divine
classes, as one can easily ascertain by liv- than democratic that all who are not with
ing in the atmosphere of a New England them must be against them. We have
mill town where foreign immigration has thus a double war and a doubled intoler-
replaced native labor. The attack which
It is a task fit for the mettle of
the immigrant was thus fated to make statesmen to prevent this war of intoler-
extends to law, to custom and manners, to ance from continuing among us long after
the arts, to language—from the most pro- the world war shall have ceased.
saic to the most intangible things—and
ALFRED Booth KUTTNER.
ance.
.


226
[March 14
THE DIAL
Letters to Unknown Women
THE SLAVE IN “CLEON"
a
To:"One lyric woman, in her crocus vest.” We do not pity you overmuch, Melitta,
Helen the queen and Sappho the poet for being a slave; we are all slaves in our
are "unknown” to us because their legends day and unhappily we do not have philos-
have been altered and overlaid by so many ophers as masters. We pardon Cleon the
men of different personalities that we have sin of owning you, being sure that a Greek
difficulty in deciphering the true character would love beauty too much to do any-
from the additions. Like all very great thing but honor it. We feel sure that you
people they have become what men wished lived as happily as a woman may, with no
them to be, and those who seek the truth extravagant desires or despairs, in that
about them must search for it among a calm philosophy of hedonism we cannot
thousand lies. But you are fresh, unal- recapture, and that the gods loved you
tered by tradition, clear as on the day when enough for you to die while you were
the poet's brain made you live for us. still beautiful.
For all that, we know little about you; We think of you as a child in Lydia,
save that you were beautiful, that you learning the art of beauty, being instructed
were white, that you were a slave sent by in the modes of music, in the meaning of
Protos the tyrant with a cup to Cleon poetry, in the significance of form; per-
the poet, that you were clothed in a crocus haps, even, you were not unacquainted
vest woven of sea-wools, and that for love with the sacred book of Elephantis. Me-
you turned from the overwise poet to the litta, if you could but return to us and
young rower with “the muscles all a ripple teach us something of what you knew, we
on his back.” We know also that you would promise to distress you as little as
lived some three and a half centuries after possible by our uncouth ways and unre-
Alexander. For the rest we must invent fined manner of living!
you.
Then we think of you as a girl in the
“Protos in his tyranny" can only have king's palace, wearing your chiton and
been some small potentate in Lydia or peplum folded like those we see in the
Cappadocia or some other inconsiderable little, painted figures from Tanagra, and
semi-Asiatic state. We will make you a with jewels “heavy with weight of gold”
Lydian, half Greek, half Syrian, like the -an Attic figure in the midst of eastern
poet Meleager, who lived during your luxury. And as a young woman you cross
lifetime. We can think of you as being the sea to the poet's island, clothed in your
half oriental, like Chryseis, but your name crocus vest, and we see you most plainly
shall be pure Greek-Melitta.
at this moment standing wistfully upon
Melitta, because you were beautiful the black and white pavement, gazing back
men loved you. Protos, the king, sent you at the sea, not heeding the fluttering of
to the great poet as his choicest gift. Alas, doves' wings in the warm afternoon air.
Melitta, that kings no longer send such You cannot conceive how vividly your
gifts to poets! You would be very un- beauty affects us, for in that world of
happy in our world, more unhappy even beauty yours was not specially remarkable;
than when King Protos's ship carried you but we are so starved, so utterly alien to
away from the lovers and friends you our time, that beside the memory of you
had in Lydia. But if we could recall you the living women we know become as
for a few hours from the grave, it would shadows. That is why we wish so yearn-
give us a pleasure unique and marvelous ingly to bring you back from death—to
to hear from your lips what life was led know if indeed the beauty we dream of
in those days of the warm sunset of Hellas, did exist, to hear from you of your days
to see in you what manner of loveliness and nights. We are curious about the
it was that refined upon the beauty of life which Hellas lived in its wise autumn;
Cleon's youth.
we have been told, it is true, by our stoics


1918]
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THE DIAL
to consider yours an age of decadence, Melitta; like our own, yours was not an
but for all that we are anxious to know age of faith, but we will persuade our-
what manner of life it was in those days selves that you were that loveliness we
-days which always seem to us golden imagine, that you were that understanding
with late afternoon sunlight, heavy with we covet. The flowers of our land are
the scent of grapes and musical with slow alien to you, our rites for the dead maimed
fountains.
and full of promises which would terrify,
Our wishes are unavailing; we cannot not console, you—but we strew wild roses
know whether you indeed realized our in- and hill thyme upon your unknown grave,
tense dream or whether you were merely and may the dust of earth lie lightly upon
a white courtesan with a trick of grace un-
your frail dust!
known to ours. Forgive us our scepticism,
RICHARD ALDINGTON.
John Barrymore's Ibbetson
The vicissitudes of the young boy along ocre play with true charm by the distinc-
the vague, precarious way, the longing to tion he lends it, by sheer discretion, and
find the reality of the dream—the heart by a power of selection. All this he brings
that knew him best—a study in sentimen- to a play which, if it had been written
tality, the pathetic wanderings of a "little nowadays, would certainly have convicted
boy lost” in the dream of childhood, and its author, and justly too, of having writ-
the “little boy found” in the arms of his ten to stimulate the lachrymal effusions of
loved mother, with all those touches that the shop-girl, a play about which she
are painful and all that are exquisite and might telephone her girl friend, at which
poignant in their beauty—such is the pic- she might eat bon bons, and powder her
ture presented by John Barrymore, as nose again for the street. No artist, no
nearly perfect as any artist can be, in accepted artist, has given a more sugges-
“Peter Ibbetson.” Certainly it is as fin- tive rendering than has Barrymore here.
ished a creation in its sense of form, and It would be difficult to say where he is at
of color, replete with a finesse of rare his best, except that the first half of the
loveliness, as gratifying a performance, to play counts for most in point of strength
my notion, as has been seen on our stage and opportunity.
for many years. Perhaps if the author, A tall frail young man, we find him,
recalling vain pasts, could realize the scum blanched with wonder and with awe at the
of saccharinity in which the play is utterly perplexity of life, seeking a solution of
submerged, and that it struggles with things by means of the dream, as only the
great difficulty to survive the nesselrode- dreamer and the visionary can, lost from
like sweetness with which it is surfeited, first to last, seemingly unloved in the ways
he would recognize the real distinction boys think they want to be loved; that is,
that Barrymore lends to a rôle so clogged the shy longing boy, afraid of all things,
by the honeyed sentimentality covering and mostly of himself, in the period just
most of the scenes. Barrymore gives us this side of sex revelation. He is the neo-
that "quickened sense” of the life of the phyte-the homeless, pathetic Peter, per-
young man, a portrayal which takes the plexed with the strangeness of things real
eye by “its fine edge of light," a portrayal and temporal-vision and memory count-
clear and cool, elevated to a fine loftinessing for all there is of reality to him, with
in his rendering.
life itself a thing as yet untasted. Who
The actor has accomplished this by shall forget (who has a love for real
means of a nice knowledge of what sym- expression) the entrance of Peter into the
bolic expression means to the art of the drawing-room of Mrs. Deane, the pale
stage. He is certainly a painter of pic- flowery wisp of a boy walking as it were
tures and moods, the idea and his image into a garden of pungent spices and herbs,
perfectly commingled, endowing this medi- and of actions so alien to his own? We


228
[March 14
THE DIAL
are given at this moment the keynote of her, of the rapt amaze as he stands by the
mastery in delicate suggestion, which never mantel-piece looking through the door
fails throughout the play, tedious as it is into the space where he sees her in the
overdrawn on the side of symbolism and midst of dancers under a crystal chande-
mystical insinuation.
lier somewhere not very distant? Or the
One sits with difficulty through many of moment when he finds her bouquet neg-
the moments, the literary quality of them lected on the table in the drawing-room,
is so wretched. They cloy the ear and the with her lace shawl not far from his
mind that has been made sensitive, desir- hands? Or when he finds himself alone,
ing something of a finer type of stimula- pressing his lips into the depth of the
tion. Barrymore has evoked, so we may flowers as the curtain gives the finale to
call it, a cole method—against a back the scene with the whispered “l'amour"!
ground of what could have been over- These are moments of a real lyrist, and
heated acting or at least a superabundance would match any line of Banville, of Ron-
of physical attack—the warmth of the sard, or of Austin Dobson for delicacy of
play's tender sentimentalities; yet he cov- touch and feeling, for freshness, and for
ers them with a still spiritual ardor which the precise spiritual gesture, the “intona-
is their very essence, extracting all the del- tion” of action requisite to relieve the
icate nuances and arranging them with a moments from what might otherwise re-
fine sense of proportion. It is as difficult vert to commonplace sentimentality.
an accomplishment for a man as one can Whatever the prejudice may be against
imagine. For it is not given to many to all these emotions glacé with sugary frost-
act with this degree of whiteness, devoid ing, we feel that his art has brought them
of off colorings or alien tones. This per- into being with an unmistakable gift or
formance of Barrymore in its spiritual refinement coupled with superb style.
richness, its elegance, finesse, and intelli- How an artist like Beardsley would have
gence, has not been equaled for me since reveled in these moments is easy to con-
I saw the great geniuses Paul Orleneff and jecture. For here is the quintessence of
Eleonora Duse.
intellectualized aquarelle, and these
It is to be at once observed that here is touches would surely have brought into
a keen pictorial mind, a mind which visu- being another "Pierrot of the Minute"-
alizes perfectly for itself the chiaroscuro a new line drawing out of a period he
aspects of the emotion, as well as the spir- knew and loved well. These touches
itual, for Barrymore gives them with an would have been graced by the hand of
almost unerring felicity, and rounds out that artist, or by another of equal deli-
the portrayal for the eye from point to cacy of appreciation, Charles Conder-
point. It is a portrayal which in any other unforgettable spaces replete with the es-
hands would suffer, but Barrymore has the sence of fancy, of dream, of those farther
special power to feel the value of reticence recesses of the imagination.
in all good art, the need for complete sub- Although technically and historically
jection of personal enthusiasm to the force Barrymore has the advantage of excellent
of ideas. His art is akin to the art of sil- traditions, he nevertheless rests entirely
ver-point, which, as is known, is an art of upon his own achievements, separate and
directness of touch, and final in the instant individual in his understanding of what
of execution, leaving no room whatever constitutes plastic power in art. He has
for accident or untoward excitement of a peculiar and most sensitive temper, which
can arrange points of relation in juxta-
We shall wait long for the silver sug- position with a keen sense of form as well
gestiveness such as Barrymore gives us as of substance. He is, one might say,
when Peter gets his first glimpse of Mary, a masterly draftsman with a rich cool
Duchess of Towers. Who else could con- sense of color, whose work has something
vey his realization of her beauty, and the of the still force of a drawing of Ingres
quality of reminiscence that lingers about with, as well, the sensitive detail one finds
nerve.


1918]
229
THE DIAL
in a Redon, like a beautiful drawing on which is the precise method of approach.
stone. An excellent knowledge of dra John Barrymore has mastered the evasive
matic contrasts is displayed by the broth- subtlety therein, which makes him one of
ers Barrymore, John and Lionel, in the our greatest artists. The future will
murder scene, one of the finest we have surely wait for his riper contributions, and
seen for many years, technically even, we may think of him as one of our fore-
splendid, and direct, concise in movement. most artists, among the few, “one of a
Every superfluous gesture has been elim- small band,
small band," as the great novelist once
inated. From the moment of Peter's lock- said of the great poet.
ing the door upon his uncle the scene is
MARSDEN HARTLEY.
wrapped in the very coils of catastrophe,
almost Euripedean in its inevitability. All
of this episode is kept strictly within the
To Rupert Brooke
realm of the imagination. It is an episode
of hatred, of which there is sure to be at I give you glory, for you are dead.
least one in the life of every young sensi- The day lightens above your head;
tive, when every boy wants, at any rate
The night darkens about your feet;
somewhere in his mind, to destroy some Morning and noon and evening meet
influence or other which is alien or hate. Around and over and under you
ful to him. The scene emphasizes once
In the world you knew, the world you knew.
again the beauty of technical power for
its own sake, the thrill of discarding all Lips are kissing and limbs are clinging,
Breast to breast in the silence singing
that is not immediately essential to simple Of unforgotten and fadeless things,
and direct realization.
Laughter and tears and a beat of wings
Little can be said of the play beyond Faintly heard in a far off heaven;
this point, for it dwindles off into senti- Bird calls bird; the unquiet even
mental mystification which cannot be Ineluctable ebb and flow,
enjoyed by anyone under fifty, or appreci- Flows and ebbs; and all things go
ated by anyone under eighteen. It gives Moving from dream to dream, and deep
Calls deep again in a world of sleep.
opportunity merely for settings and some
rare moments of costuming, the lady with
There is no glory gone from the air.
the battledore reminding one a deal of a
Nothing is less. Nay, as it were,
good Manet. This and, of course, the A keener and wilder radiance glows
splendid appearance of the Duchess of Along the blood, and a shouting grows
Towers in the first act—all these touches Fiercer and louder, a far-flung roar
furnish more than a satisfying background Of throats and of guns; and your island shore
for the very shy and frail Peter.
Is swift with smoke and savage with flame;
This performance of Barrymore holds And a myriad lovers shout your name,
for me the first and last requisite of organ- Rupert! Rupert! across the earth;
! !
ized conception in art-poise, clarity, and And death is dancing, and dancing birth,
perfect suggestibility. " Its' intellectual And a madness of dancing blood and laughter
soundness rules the emotional extrava-
Rises and sings, and follows after
gance, giving form to what—for lack of And dance no more, and dance no more.
All the dancers who danced before,
form—so often perishes under an excess
of energy, which the ignorant actor sub-
You will dance no more; you will love no more;
stitutes for the plastic element in all art. You are dead and dust on your island shore.
It has the attitude, this performance,
almost of diffidence to one's subject-mat- A little dust are the lips where
ter, except as the intellect judges clearly Laughter and song and kisses were. .
and coolly. Thus, in the sense of æsthetic And I give you glory, and I am glad
reality, are all aspects clarified and made For the life you had, and the death you had;
real. From the outward inward, or from For the heaven you knew and the hell knew
the inward outward, surface to depth or
And the dust and the dayspring that were you.
depth to surface—it is difficult to say
MAURICE BROWNE.
you


230
[March 14
THE DIAL
Our Paris Letter
hostile to any idea of a League of Nations or
international organization, which he ridiculed in
(Special Correspondence of THE DIAL.) his paper up to the moment that he took office,
Nearly four months ago—in the letter pub-
and it is unlikely that he has changed his mind.
lished in The Dial of November 8—I said that
There can be no indiscretion in noting the fact,
the war was almost forgotten here. That is still
since the press of the Left has openly discussed,
more true now. The papers contain hardly a
and regretted, the obvious difference of opinion
word about the military operations except the
between him and Mr. Wilson-a difference
official communiqués which nobody reads, and
shown, moreover, by the failure of the Allies to
one rarely hears them mentioned in conversation.
agree on a common declaration. The peace nego-
tiations between Russia and the Central Empires
There are so many other subjects to talk about.
First of all there is the Caillaux affair, which
likewise hold public attention. The surrender
has been the chief subject of conversation since
of the Ukraine is a severe blow to the French
M. Caillaux's arrest on January 14 and has filled
Government, which had given the Ukrainians a
columns of the newspapers. Then there is the
loan of about thirty million dollars and sent last
trial of M. Malvy and all the other “affairs” of
week a military mission to carry its salutations
treason and espionage. These lead to new arrests
to the Republic of the Ukraine and to accom-
every other day, some of them unexpected, like
pany the Ukrainian army in its expected cam-
that of M. Hanau, who had been correspondent paign under Generals Korniloff and Kaledines.
here of a Genoese paper for twenty years and
The fact that it is the Maximalists of Petro-
has been given a vote of confidence, since his grad, who have, after all, made some stand
arrest, by his Italian colleagues.
against the Central Empires, while the more
moderate Ukrainians have hastened to make a
Questions of internal politics thus hold the
field, and political passions run very high. The
separate peace, seems to confirm M. Marcel Sem-
bat's view that it was a mistake to refuse to
acute tension in the country was reflected in the
violent scene of January 18, when Socialists and
enter into contact with Lenine and Trotzky and
Royalists fought on the floor of the Chamber
to suggest that perhaps M. Clemenceau and M.
Pichon put their money on the wrong horse.
of Deputies and a Royalist deputy from the
The various "treason” affairs should not be
tribune aimed his revolver at the Socialists.
taken too seriously in America, at any rate those
Those whose knowledge of the Chamber goes
in which prominent politicians are concerned.
farther back than mine say that nothing like it
has been known since the stormiest days of the
Accusations of treason are very easily made in
France, especially against political opponents,
Dreyfus affair some twenty years ago. There is
because the French public has a traditional ten-
serious unrest in the labor world and we hear
of strikes and threatened strikes in different parts
dency to scent treason in war-time (and some-
of the country.
times even in time of peace) when things are not
going quite as well as they might. Few people
In these circumstances it will be understood
have probably taken the trouble to read the
that a war which has lasted three years and a
account of the trial of Marshal Bazaine. I went
half has ceased to be a topic of conversation. It
conscientiously through it some years ago and
is again that lively paper the “Euvre” which
was convinced that although he was an income-
sums up the situation in the daily side-note that
tent general and had made grave blunders, he
it prints alongside its title: "The war must
was unjustly convicted of treason. Public opin-
have stopped without anybody's noticing it; for
ion demanded a scape-goat in 1871. Nearly
nobody talks about it any more.”
thirty years ago, at the time of the Panama and
On the other hand, people find time to talk Cornelius Hertz scandals, ninety-nine out of
about peace. President Wilson's last speech,
every hundred Frenchmen firmly believed that
with its definite peace conditions, was more favor- M. Clemenceau was a traitor to his country.
ably received by the public than it appears to For three years (1889-92) public opinion was
have been by the Government, for M. Pichon's just as hostile to him as it is now to M. Cail-
references to it during the debate in the Cham- laux-indeed, he had a much smaller number
ber on January 11 were distinctly reserved and of defenders than has M. Caillaux, on whose
ambiguous, and M. Clemenceau refused to open side are the whole Socialist party and the Trade
his mouth. M. Clemenceau has always been Union organizations. M. Clemenceau was ac-


1918]
231
THE DIAL
cused of being bought by England, which was impression of living in a roman feuilleton poli-
at that time the popular enemy. He was howled cier, so incredible have been some of these "trea-
down in the Chamber and driven out of public son” affairs, in which it has been difficult to dis-
life for some years. And M. Clemenceau had tinguish the spy from the counter-spy, or either
in fact received money for his paper,
the from the agent provocateur. During the last
"Aurore," from Cornelius Hertz, who did not, week "The Mystery of the Florentine Safe" has
like Bolo, see the inside of a prison, because he been published serially in the newspapers. M.
fled to England and died there. Undoubtedly Caillaux appears in it as a masked conspirator
M. Clemenceau was in good faith and did not of the operatic stage. We have been told of his
know what Hertz was doing, but the fact told scheme for a coup d'état, with the list of emi-
against him. So strongly was he suspected even nent persons that he proposed to remove, which
later by the Government that during his visits he committed to paper, no doubt, lest he should
to England Waldeck-Rousseau, who was prime forget any of them. The worthy bourgeois, see-
minister from 1899 to 1902, had him watched ing the guillotine already erected on the Place
,
by French detectives, whose reports are among
de la Concorde, has shaken in his shoes. Then
the papers found in the now famous safe at there was the untold wealth that M. Caillaux
Florence. Yet M. Clemenceau completely recov- had taken to Italy to escape his own income tax;
ered his position and is now Prime Minister for the amount was $400,000 according to some
the second time. It is, therefore, without sur- papers, $600,000 according to others—it must
prise that on opening an evening paper, "La be remembered that in France a man who pos-
Vérité," I find the title of its leader to be "If sesses $200,000 is called a “millionaire.” This
M. Caillaux Again Became Prime Minister." allegation, too, does not seem supported by the
Nobody who has closely followed French poli- unromantic facts. The question of the money
tics for many years would be surprised; it is has had far more influence on public opinion
never possible to say that a political reputation is than all the alleged conversations at Buenos
ruined in France.
Aires or at Rome, although it has nothing at all
As in all these cases, the feeling against M. to do with the charges against M. Caillaux.
Caillaux is vague and its causes are complicated. The whole affair is an interesting study in popu-
The public is in a mood to find a really promi- lar psychology.
nent traitor and M. Caillaux is offered to it as If the war is in the background, it may be
M. Clemenceau was in 1889. The Bernstorff imagined that literature and art are still more
telegrams have had little effect; the French are so. We are making the material for the litera-
quick-witted and saw at once that if M. Cail- ture of the future—not perhaps the near future,
laux had really been disposed to help Germany for I am afraid that neither literature nor art
in France, Count Bernstorff would never have will flourish immediately after the war. A period
urged that the Araguaya should be captured, of cataclysm is favorable to men of action rather
for M. Caillaux as a prisoner would have been than to writers, painters, or sculptors, and we
useless to Germany. This second telegram dis- are entering on a period of cataclysm in which
counts the secondhand information of the first, most European governments and institutions
which merely reports statements alleged to have seem likely to be swept away; the Russian revo-
been made by M. Caillaux to anonymous per- lution is only a beginning. One has the sensa-
sons. Nobody is disposed to accept Count Lux- tion of living at the end of a régime in France;
bourg's word as gospel.
all the symptoms that heralded the break-up of
The real reasons for M. Caillaux's unpopular- the ancien régime are recurring. The bourgeois
ity are quite different. The principal ones are Republic, like the old monarchy, is foundering
that he is supposed to be enormously rich (which in a whirlpool of scandals. But this time the
seems unfounded), that Mme. Caillaux was ac- change will be far more profound, for it is the
quitted in 1914, and that M. Caillaux is a little whole economic system on which society has been
inclined to be a "crâneur"; that is, to put on based since the Revolution, that is threatened.
side. The alleged contents of the safe at Flor- And the rest of Europe is in the same case.
ence have attracted far more attention than the M. Henri Barbusse has revised "L'Enfer,"
Bernstorff telegrams, and the accounts of them which made some stir when it was first pub-
in the papers have been worthy of Gaboriau. lished a few years ago, and a final edition of it
For the last couple of months one has had the has just appeared (Albin Michel, Paris). It is


232
[March 14
THE DIAL
a book of extraordinary originality and insight made more acute by a fact which M. Passelecq
into human nature, which explains how M. Bar- does not mention, namely that the racial and
busse came to write “Le Feu,” the book which linguistic division coincided to a great extent,
shows a penetration into realities unique even although by no means exactly, with the religious
among those who, like himself, have written and political division of the country. Although
about the war from personal experience. The there were many Catholic and Conservative
idea of "L'Enfer” is itself original: it is the his- Walloons and many Socialist and Anti-clerical
tory of a room in a hotel, written by a man who Flemings, Flanders was the stronghold of the
had the room next to it. A chance hole in the Church and the Conservative party, and Wal-
partition wall enables him to survey all the lonia of the forces of the Left. Moreover the
actions and hear all the conversations of his suc- Catholic Flamingants made a vigorous campaign
cessive neighbors. The book is the record. It against French influence and French literature,
is the whole human tragedy that passes before which was manifested by such proposals as the
us—life, love, death, joy and sorrow, the hopes unsuccessful attempt to put import duties on
of youth and the regrets of old age. The new books imported from France.
edition reached me one evening and, although I Nevertheless M. Passelecq shows that the
had read it before, it was three o'clock in the
German thesis that there is no Belgian nation
morning before I could put it down. From be- is false historically and actually. His historical
ginning to end it holds one with the grip of
chapters will be found particularly interesting
stern reality. It is not a "pleasant" book; how
by foreign readers, most of whom have not an
could it be? Life is not pleasant. Many read- exact knowledge of Belgian history. Artificial
ers will say of it what many of the audience said as modern Belgium seems, it is nevertheless the
at the first performance of M. Paul Géraldy's creation of the Belgians themselves, who in 1830
"Noces d'Argent" at the Comédie Française revolted against the really artificial arrangement
"
some months ago: “C'est dur.” Which means of the Congress of Vienna, which had annexed
that the author leaves us no illusions, veils no them to the kingdom of the Netherlands. The
nudities, however shameful. It is not a book Germans, during their occupation of Belgium,
for boys and girls, unless they are too young to have naturally tried to exploit the racial and lin-
understand it, and in that case they would not guistic division (more linguistic than racial) by
read it; the first few pages would put them off. the administrative division of the country, by
It is a psychological study, not a romance. The the "Alamandisation" of Ghent University, and
puritan should avoid it, for its frankness will other similar measures. M. Passelecq gives
shock him terribly. But the man or woman who sound reasons for his opinion that the Belgian
will face life as life is will find it of poignant Flamingants who have supported this policy are
interest, not least because M. Barbusse reveals
only a small minority and that the policy itself
his own point of view about the great problems has not taken root and has had very poor re-
of life. Inevitably it recalls Zola, who, if he be sults. He quotes protests from such leading
suffering a temporary eclipse, will again come Flamingants as M. Camille Huysmans, Secre-
into his own; but it is in no sense an imitation tary of the International Socialist Bureau, against
or even a following of the great naturalist. M. the German policy and its Belgian supporters.
Barbusse is entirely himself. "L'Enfer" is beau-
Of the solution of the Flemish problem after
tifully written in a limpid French, whose de-
the war M. Passelecq takes a hopeful view. His
ceptively easy flow covers no fatal facility. Like
book, although it does not perhaps meet all the
“Le Feu," so different in many respects, it is a
difficulties of the case, gives an excellent and
on the whole impartial account of the internal
In "La Question Flamande et l'Allemagne"
situation in Belgium and should be widely read.
(Berger-Levrault, Paris) M. Fernand Passelecq
Things move so quickly that German war aims
gives an interesting account of the way in which
are probably not quite the same as when the
Germany had tried to apply in Belgium the
book was written; for it seems certain that Ger-
maxim “Divide and conquer.” Before the war
many has abandoned all intention of retaining
the Flemish question had been a subject of keen
a "sphere of influence" in Belgium.
political strife in Belgium and there can be no
doubt that the feeling between Flemings and
ROBERT DELL.
Walloons was a grave national problem. It was Paris, February 7, 1918.
great book.


1918]
233
THE DIAL
a
Establishing the Established can fiction of the day is slighter than the British-
which it may be in depth, density, perspective
SOME MODERN NOVELISTS: Appreciations and Es- and background, and value of social intention;
timates. By Helen Thomas Follett and Wilson
or that our present critics are reluctant to waste
Follett. Holt; $1.50.
good work (and their work is good) on people
Recall to mind the forceful and absorbed
who may presently turn out not to have justi-
youth who, at street fairs or in summer parks,
fied it. Safer and more satisfactory to exercise
buys a handful of balls and lets fly at the "nigger
oneself on standard subjects.
babies." How completely he concentrates on
The book includes a dozen reprinted essays
the target provided! With what docility he
which are reshifted and relighted by means of a
accepts that row of puppets as a be-all and end-
table of contents and an introduction. The
all—as constituting the established and recog-
table of contents betrays a Gallic hankering
nized mark at which he is to fire! He never
oks about him to notice whether other puppets
after form, however come by, and a Gallic love
of the label for the label's own sake. It is
may be aspiring for recognition and for a place natural enough to pair Henry James and Mr.
in the row—aspirants who might even reach it
Howells under the head "Cosmopolitan and
if he would only give a little friendly help. Still
Provincial"; but it is less natural to bracket
less is he conscious of any near-by, inchoate striv- George Meredith and George Gissing under such
ings amongst rags, paint, and stuffing such as
a head as “The Will to Believe and the Will
might evidence the struggle to achieve form and
to Doubt.” On the other hand, some pairings
place—which might be reached would he but
that seem especially artificial at first view justify
deign to cast an encouraging eye. No, le jeu est
themselves on inspection. To bring together
fait, and he continues to blaze away at the con-
Eden Phillpotts and Arnold Bennett under such
ventional target: his record depends on his suc-
a caption as “The Five Counties and the Five
cess with that, and just that.
Towns," seems like a mere tricksy piece of ver-
So with the Folletts—as one may unceremo- balism; yet it works out in a way to satisfy the
niously call them, for brevity's sake. Or, if the
sense of the reader, even if it ends by outraging
crude simile offends, another may be substituted
the loyalty of Phillpotts's followers.
But to
for it. Let us figure an amiable and interested
oppose Hardy as "the specialist in place" to De
booklover, standing before tiers of well-filled
Morgan as "the specialist in time” comes rather
shelves. The books are by “established authors"
close to running one's system into the ground.
-or at least by authors who, by now, have been The introduction is a sheet of red glass run
sufficiently commented upon to be "ranged." He
in to give a "timely" new coloring to old mat-
takes down one here and there, ruffles its leaves,
ter-or, rather, to matter produced previously
dusts it a bit, if required, and-puts it back
and in independence of its aid. On what ground
about in the same place. The glorious company
it asks, can one justify the production and perusal
of leaf-rufflers has now been enlarged, and the of fiction in such days as these? In other words,
established authors are established more firmly what is art's place in the world? Well, art goes
abreast of war, as all history shows—and outlasts
This is about what the Folletts—still speak- it. Another point stressed by the introduction
ing with unceremonious brevity-do. To be per- is the growing "sense of community, the social
fectly fair, they do rather more: they slightly conscience, human solidarity": a commonplace of
shift their authors to bring them into new rela- present-day thought, in the air as a matter of
tions, and they throw upon the general body of
New social forms and groupings may
them a different and novel light. Their authors arise as the result of war—and then internal
are put into pairs and the pairs are arranged into struggles and oppressions return with the coming
groups; and the light thrown upon them all is the
red light of war.
All this, however, is but grudging recogni-
They do one thing more. At the bottom of tion of a book which, essentially, is good and
the rack, by way of appendix, they place a sound. In fact, one feels a little like starting
younger and somewhat inferior row of babies, all over again. “Dear Sir and Madam:" one
selected-save for one brief exception—from would say, "your twelve essays constitute one
among the recent fictionists of England. This of the best books of literary criticism yet pro-
tends to depress the native author. It seems to duced in America. You might indeed have
tell him one of two things: either that the Ameri- shown a slightly sharper awareness of the im-
>
than ever.
course.
of peace.


234
[March 14
THE DIAL
verse.
cesses.
mediate Here and Now, and you might well who ever got himself recognized as a man of
have dispensed with certain vestibules and letters. He gazed at life with no Indian hau-
façades; but your house is a house of life, and teur, but with a never sated enjoyment in the
save for these certain exceptions we are com- pleasant comedy of clubs and theatres and liter-
pletely with you. You enjoy the sound bene- ary associations equally at home in London,
fits of right feeling and right thinking. Your Paris, and New York-incorrigibly anecdotal,
diction, even if more to be noted for a self- genial, and curious. And it was no Sophoclean
conscious trimness than for freedom and unc- tragedy upon which he gazed, but the second-rate
tion, is really a pleasure, page by page; your imitations of Scribe and Augier, and the cleverly
concern with form, though rather overdone in turned short-story, and the wittiness of familiar
the compilation of your table of contents, often
Sarcey, Coquelin, divided his worship
comes out very handsomely in the papers them- with Austin Dobson, Bunner, and Locker-Lamp-
selves —quite splendidly in your remarkable char-
son. How fortunate he was to live in the era
acterization of the four principal novels of of well-made plays, and of ballades and ron-
Galsworthy. Your sense of a worthy and service- deaux! He took to them all like a fish to water.
able relation between life and literature is im- And he recalls his own half-dozen acted plays
manent everywhere-a relation varying through with a justifiable pleasure that is undimmed by
the years and through your varying subjects- the realization that no one now remembers that
and requires no supplementary demonstration. In at least two of them had long and popular suc-
short, you have stepped within that choice circle
of criticism which contains no more than half-a-
In his youth, he had a significant era of skill
dozen significant writers, all told; and the coun-
as an acrobat and gymnast, and he tells with
try—so far as it concerns itself with such matters
glee of his being invited to go out on the road
at all—should feel gratified with you and your "under canvas.'
It was always the acrobatics
work. Your wine is good; you could do with
of literature that Mr. Matthews responded to,
less bush at your door.”
and always the circus of the social and literary
HENRY B. FULLER.
world which enthralled him. He achieved a
wide acquaintance among the lions, and he prac-
ticed all the tricks, in verse and play and story.
A Vanishing World of Gentility But he is so completely objective that scarcely
one of the writers whom he knew is characterized
THESE MANY YEARS. By Brander Matthews.
Scribners; $3.
with any precision whatever, except perhaps
What more cordial welcome could the re-
Andrew Lang, for whom he had a prodigious
viewer ask than this “Que pensez-vous de cette
admiration, and W. E. Henley, for whose at-
tack on Stevenson he has an unexpectedly sym-
comédie?” from the bookplate designed for Mr.
Matthews by Abbey, and reproduced on the
pathetic word. Otherwise the contacts and oc-
cover of these "recollections"? The bookplate,
casions pass before our eyes like dates in Mr.
symbolizing Mr. Matthews as "an American in-
Matthews's diaries, carried along by his own
terested in the drama," represents an Indian gaz-
pleasure in their abundance and their notability.
There is plenty of mild gossip, and we are pres-
ing into the face of a Greek mask. Our author
will scarcely realize how much better a joke this
ent at the founding of innumerable clubs, and at
least one Academy. His anecdotes sound better
is than any contained within the cover of his
in the classroom. The compulsion to autobi-
book. For anything less Indian or less Greek
ography sprang, in Mr. Matthews's case, less
than the particular comedy of his life cannot
from a sense of personal flavor and distinctive
well be imagined.
quality in what he saw than from a boyish de-
Deliberately and expensively bred to follow
sire to get down a record of his passing life.
the profession of millionaire, he was released,
Anyone so completely extroverted as Mr. Mat-
just as he came of age, by the wiping-out of his
wiping-out of his thews could not be immodest. He is as little in-
father's fortune, for the profession that his heart terested in the processes of his own soul as in those
craved—that of writing plays and seeing them of the brilliant and complex peronalities whom
acted on the stage. His unexpected translation he has known. He does not think of himself as
to the professorial sphere did not transform him an absorbing person, to be detachedly studied and
from being about the most naively worldly soul analyzed as a type of man, nor as a person of


1918]
235
THE DIAL
critical essays.
romantic significance to be interpreted from the that is the man revealed in this book. He seems
innermost core of his soul. His diary treatment to have known everybody, and to have felt noth-
of life is so pure as almost to make these "recol- ing. His genial youthfulness is infectious. But
lections” interesting. But there are too many it is not the youth of idealism and aspiration,
passages such as this, where he reflects on his but of Peter Pan, writing stories of treasure-
university life:
trove for "St. Nicholas." I know there's the
So far as I have been able to form an opinion, “Molière," and the “Shakespeare," and the
there is no university in the United States where the
But that's not the mind that
position of the professor is pleasanter than it is at
Columbia. The students, graduate and undergradu-
writes “These Many Years." Turned on itself,
ate, are satisfactory in quality; and their spirit is it creates a tell-tale commentary of a literary era
excellent. The teaching staff is so large that it is
that never grew up. The puzzle to us now is
generally possible for each of us to cover that part
of his field in which he is most keenly interested. Our
that these bons viveurs have not made life more
relations with each other and with the several deans exciting, that these dear old romancers and real-
and the president and the trustees are ever friendly.
So long as we do our work faithfully we are left
ists of Mr. Matthews's generation have not made
alone to do it in our own fashion. And we have all life more romantic and realistic. What on earth,
of us the Lernfreiheit and the Lehrfreiheit, the lib- I repeat, are we going to do with these people
erty of the soul and of the mind, which was once the
boast of the German universities, but which has been
who blissfully never even knew what a world of
lost of late under the rigidity of Prussian autoc- horizons and audacities they lived in?
racy.
RANDOLPH BOURNE.
“God bless us every one!” said little Tim.
Anyone who gets the full flavor of this pas-
sage, recalling all there is to be said on these
matters, will be near the secret of that American Democracy by Coercion
race of men of letters of whom Mr. Matthews is
FIGHTING FOR PEACE. By Henry Van Dyke. Scrib-
one of the naiver specimens, a race to whom litera-
ners; $1.25.
ture was a gesture of gentility and not a compre- The High Call. By Ernest M. Stires. Dutton;
hension of life. There is a fascination about that
$1.50.
THE COMMONWEALTH AT WAR. By A. F. Pollard.
brilliant literary world of the seventies and
Longmans, Green; $2.25.
eighties when the "Nation" and the New DEMOCRACY AND THE WAR. By John Firman
York “Tribune" and "World" monopolized the
Coar. Putnams; $1.25.
younger generation of critical talent. But what At first glance the four authors here grouped
on earth can a younger generation of today do together would seem to have little enough in
with the remains of this gentility? In his account
common: the littérateur who was for three years
of the atrocious college education that the best
United States Minister to the Netherlands, the
of money could buy in America in 1868, Mr. Rector of St. Thomas's in New York, the Pro-
Matthews gave me a guess at the secret of the
fessor of English History in the University of
continuance of this genteel tradition. Was it London, and the Professor of German in the
because you could get no education at all unless University of Alberta at Edmonton. Yet it hap-
you got it from foreign travel or from cultivated pens that for the moment their points of
relatives? Only the genteel, apparently, had resemblance are more striking than their wide
these opportunities, so that the creation of a differences in background.
proletarian man of letters in America became It is perhaps least important, though the
automatically impossible, until universities and reader will find it unsatisfactory enough, that
libraries improved and diffused the raw materials all four books are of the nature of fugitive
of the spirit.
journalism. Three-quarters of Dr. Van Dyke's
What do I think of this comedy? I like the volume is a sketchy account of the origin
slight pugnacity with which Mr. Matthews went and the earlier course of the war-not vividly
into the contest for the copyright bill and for illuminated by the reminiscences of one who in
simplified spelling. I like the candor with Antwerp marveled over tennis-court emplace-
which he confesses his relief at being freed from ments for those big German guns which Pro-
the dread possibilities of practicing the profes- fessor Pollard assures us were really fired from
sion of millionaire. But if there was ever a man their own carriages; another eighth is devoted
of letters whose mind moved submerged far be- to such interludes as "A Dialogue on Peace
low the significant literary currents of the time, between a Householder and a Burglar”; and a


236
[March 14
THE DIAL
a
residual eighth has any vital bearing upon his explicit: the fall of the Hohenzollerns will not
subject. "The High Call" is a series of fourteen be enough; he wants us to reject "courageously"
sermons concerning our entry into the war, of all peace terms that may be proffered before the
which two or three, winging the serene empyrean enemy have been “converted to the faith of the
of the fashionable church, let fall feathery ideas democratic nations"; that time will come "when,
calculated to tickle the drowsy layman. Pro- and only when, the German people realize that
fessor Pollard's nineteen reprinted papers (chiefly their national fate lies in the hands of the
from the Thunderer's “Literary Supplement") Allies"; before that time the Allied forces must
are dated all the way from January, 1915 to break the last line of defense and "penetrate the
August, 1917 and contain so many anachronisms heart of Germany's industrial activity, the Rhen-
and ungrateful Alings at American neutrality that ish province and Westphalia."
one wonders why they should have been reprinted Yet not one of these advocates of a war to
at all, or being reprinted should have been im-
the bitter end purposes at its close a "crushed”
ported. Finally, Professor Coar says of his much
Germany! All are deeply, even passionately,
more coherent book that it “is based on addresses
concerned for a “right conclusion” to the war,
delivered in the United States and Canada since
a just and (according to their several lights) a
the fall of 1914." Volumes thus assembled can democratic peace, and after peace some inter-
scarcely develop consistent theses.
national arrangement for the forestalling of war.
More significant similarities are those of temper What they do purpose at the close is a victorious
and opinion. A newspaper recently announced democracy magnanimously bestowing the “pax
a new serial as follows: "She married a German. humana” upon a people defeated but not em-
Read it! It will make you mad!” All four of bittered, powerless longer to do wrong and
our authors, though in descending degrees, have therefore "free" at last to do right-a criminal
been made "mad” by what they have read or punished, penitent, regenerate. To that con-
have observed about the Germans. / The first summation they know only one course.
dilates upon "the Werwolf at large"; the second Let our authors be granted the dubious pos-
tells us that God "sees in the home of modern
sibility of a peace dictated either in Berlin or in
atheism
the crucifixion of humanity"; Paris a clear cut “victory or defeat.” Assum-
the third discusses "the moral insensibility of ing that their course to a democratic peace is, if
Prussia," finds not one vestige "of moral scruple not the only course, at least one that is open,
or enlightenment" in the history of the Junkers, can we avoid seeing the impasse at which they
and adds that "the problem before the civilized arrive? It is a dilemma each of them might
world, during and after this war, is how to deal have foreseen but for the devious meanderings
with a parvenu who declines to observe any of the journalistic method. For (pace Professor
rules in the society into which he has thrust his Pollard) the question is not of "victory or de-
unwelcome presence"; and the last would "grasp feat,” but of victory and defeat. The proponents
by the throat and throttle to death the autocratic of the knock-out blow somehow forget that the
beast
befouling the temple of human-
shield of peace with victory has for reverse peace
ity.” It is not so much an olive branch as with defeat, and that defeat is not only bitter
an olive rod that is thus extended. For the but—as witness the unreconstructed South-em-
authors are unanimous in their insistence upon bittering. Has Dr. Van Dyke reflected that the
the knock-out blow, even if they do not quite reverse of his shield of "peace with righteousness
endorse the dictum of Marse Henry Watterson, and power” may well be peace with ignominy
that perfect jusqu'auboutiste: "If any power is and impotence? A defeated Germany may not
left intact in Germany to make treaty with any seem to us necessarily crushed and ignominiously
other power, we are lost.” With Dr. Van Dyke facing annihilation, but she will seem so to
the sine qua non is "repentance"-"to talk of herself. Do we desire for partners in that
any other course is treason, not only to our international democratic experiment to which we
country but to the cause of true Peace." The stand committed—and for which, as Messrs.
Reverend Mr. Stires insists that "the beast Stires and Coar recognize, we are ourselves
must be conquered.” “When once the none too fit-a people broken, embittered,
sword has been drawn,” says Professor Pollard, shamed, and consciously dependent upon their
"the day of persuasion is past.
It is a military masters for their economic existence?
question of victory or defeat." Professor Coar is (That would be anything but democracy!) If
.
.


1918]
237
THE DIAL
the German people are not now ready for a
Professor Pollard's learning and sound critical
democratic peace-a peace negotiated between habits, and of Professor Coar's constructive analy-
equals upon clear programmes of social recon- sis, not one of these four really understands
struction—will they be more ready when the democracy; otherwise he would understand that
Allied armies are in Westphalia, dictating democ- a democratic peace must be a peace by democracy
racy from the mouths of cannon? These mili- if it is to be a peace for democracy.
tant gentlemen who have assured themselves that Failing to understand democracy in this essen-
the German people are not ready; who would tial, the four naturally fail to agree in what they
prevent as useless, enervating, or downright expect of it. The democracy that satisfies Dr.
treasonable all discussion (except, of course, this Van Dyke is a childish thing beside that envisaged
of theirs) that looks toward clarifying our pro- by Professor Pollard in his view of a world
gramme; who to that degree fail to get behind
where national wars are no more, but economic
the President in his attempts to elicit our aims, wars forever threaten. The democracy that the
the aims of our allies, and the aims of our Reverend Mr. Stires invokes to stay the greed
enemies—are they not retarding the very creation of socialism and make the world safe for the
they desire? A victorious peace they might get, bourgeoisie, his parishioners, is a quaint sister to
but what is their guarantee that it will be the
the democracy that shall build Professor Coar's
truly democratic peace "that alone can validate
towering edifice of state socialism. Such are the
victory"?
relatively unimportant differences between the
Obviously the Junkers are not ready for a
authors.
democratic peace. But whether there is in Ger-
many any considerable body of opinion that is
Relatively unimportant, that is, as against
ready we cannot discover, and these advocates
what is after all the common method, temper,
of international understanding would prevent us
and premise of their books. Nor would those
from discovering. Suppose such a body of
common denominators be of much significance in
liberal opinion does exist—what is their method
our more considered literature on the subject if
of encouraging it? First, to refuse recognition they were not pretty generally the common de-
of its existence; and, second, to bring it into
nominators of the man in the street. Like these
existence by the sword. Theirs is the method
authors the man in the street thinks in journal-
of the parent who tells his child, "Now that the istic patches, warms his thoughts with that tem-
rod has been drawn, the moment of persuasion
per of “righteous indignation” which for the
is past; it is now a question of your exhaustion purposes of war behaves exactly like hate, and
or mine.” They would retort that Germany accepts the premise that the war must be won.
has had ample opportunity to respond to persua-
But by winning the war he does not yet mean
sion. Perhaps—yet that is far less important all that his more cultivated advisers mean: where
than that the course they urge upon us would they emphasize a defeated Germany, he em-
postpone any further persuasion until victory is phasizes a democratized Germany, a democratized
secured and persuasion become coercion. With world, and the discrediting of war forever. Are
one hand they would close all the avenues to
the proponents of military victory, then, his
understanding, while with the other they would only advisers? Might he not listen also to a
labor to increase the fear that now most prevents
British soldier, talking in his dugout, as reported
understanding. For the Germans know that a
by a correspondent to the London "Nation"?
knock-out blow knocks out, and that a bitter end
A victorious war (in the old-fashioned sense) still
leaves war a reasonable thing, a thing by which ends
is bitter. If these, and these alone, be offered can be achieved. A stalemate leaves war discredited.
them they will inevitably concentrate their ener-
To win a war (in the old-fashioned sense) is to per-
petuate war. The loser would say, "Never mind! A
gies upon resistance.
war, it seems, can still be won. We will win the
But all this falls in a blind spot in the vision next." But let it be clear that a war cannot be
“won” nowadays in the way in which the old wars
of these authors, whose gaze leaps from fighting
were won, and you really have ended war. Let it end,
for peace to the millennium of peace secured as all ugly things should end, in collapse and squalor,
and democracy enthroned. As if democracy were
and the thing is dead. But let it end in triumphant
marches through cities, in proud speeches, in the ring-
a paradisal consummation instead of a method, ing of bells, and the challenging music of bands
an end instead of a means. In spite of Dr. Van and war is still on its pedestal.
Dyke's eulogy, of Mr. Stires's pious hopes, of
CLARENCE BRITTEN.


238
[March 14
THE DIAL
Poetry vs. Politics in the Ukraine other untranslated bits of the vernacular, these
might be the folk-songs of Bohemia, or of Bes-
SONGS OF UKRANIA. Translated by F. Randal sarabia, or of Baluchistan. Such poems as “Far
Livesay. Dutton; $1.25.
and high the cranes give cry,” “Long ago when
The question of Russian solidarity has become
I was still free," "Where the Tisza's torrents
increasingly vital. Ever since the most fertile
through the prairies swell,” might well be true
and accessible section of Russia has signed a sep-
types of Ukrainian folk-literature—were they
arate peace with the Central Powers, the atten-
not three of the most characteristic examples of
tion of a great part of the Western world has
been centred in the Ukraine. Is the Rada really and Francis Korbay, the composer. Had some
Hungarian melodies translated by J. S. of Dale
expressing the will of the people? we ask. Or
one done for the music of these Ukrainian songs
are the masses, under the threat of German
what Korbay has done for the Hungarian ones,
domination, becoming more and more socialistic?
we might have had a more valuable document.
In the prevailing atmosphere of revolution has
For it is in the emotional quality of the music,
what was originally a nationalistic movement
its mixture of rudeness and tenderness, its savage
been turned into an attempt to solve a provin-
impulse singing through its sad and even senti-
cial land question? No one can yet be sure
mental modulations, that is more expressive than
that the Ukraine will, as the New York “Trib-
the import of the words, which for the most
une" puts it, continue to isolate itself against the
part are the reflection of emotions common to all
contagion of restlessness and make "a bold stand
countries. The greatest of all Hungarian folk-
against the spread of anarchy.” Who can say
songs ("Mohac's Field”) is a feeble thing con-
whether the Ukrainians will be slaves or masters
sidered as a piece of written literature. But
in their own home? Whether or not that home
nothing could be more stark and stirring, more
will be eventually incorporated in a federal Rus-
revolutionary and somehow resigned, more full of
sian republic? Whether or not the Ukrainians'
national cry and color than this same song when
desire for the "self-determination of peoples” will
it is given with the vigorous melody that is its
end in self-extermination as the dependent mili-
natural accompaniment. True folk-songs are the
tary ally of the Central Powers?
perfect blend of two arts; it is impossible to sep-
While we are waiting for time to answer these
arate words and melody. Whenever this separa-
questions with something more definite than our
tion is attempted, as in the present volume, we
desires, it might be informing as well as inter-
esting to turn to some of the literature produced
get not only an inadequate half but a misrepre-
not by the politicians of the Ukraine but by the
sentative one. I have never heard the melodies
people. And, since the soul and aspirations of a
that are played on the kobza and sung to these
nation are rooted in its folk-poetry, we may
Cossack and robber songs, but I am certain that
come somewhat nearer to the people of little they create sterner feelings than are evoked by
Russia by a consideration of "Songs of Ukra- such colorless quatrains as:
nia," selected and translated by Florence Randal On the blue sea waves are roaring,
Livesay and published when the phrase "self-
Mountain high_they tower.
Crying in their Turkish dungeon
determination of peoples" was nothing except the
Wretched Cossacks cower.
shibboleth of harmless hack-writers, presumably
in the employ of the Wilhelmstrasse.
"Why, O gracious God, this torture?
Two years now we lie here;
The first impression is disappointing. There With the chains are hands are heavy-
seems to be little that is deeply indigenous in
Wilt Thou let us die here?"
this collection, little that is racially marked. or the "Song of Victory—1648," that begins:
There is much talk of pagan gods and goddesses; Hai, all ye good people! list what I tell ye,
of Haidamaky and Oprishki, the Ukrainian
What's done in Ukraina's plain-
There under Dashiev, across the Soroka,
Robin Hoods; of the sighs of the married
What numbers of Poles now lie slain.
woman, once a free Cossachka, now the slave of
Hai, Perebiynees! But seven hundred
her husband, with no rights of her own; of the
Cossacks he asked for that day.
Dunai listening to nuptial revelry or to a young Then he with sabres smote the Poles' heads off-
girl confiding her loneliness to its ripples. And The rest swept the river away.
the first impression persists. There is
The wordless dances from "Prince Igor," the
national revelation here. With the exception of chant of the Volga boatman, or the single
a few kabatys, hutzuls, serdaks, widra, and “Hopak” of Moussorgsky say more and say it
1)
no


1918]
239
THE DIAL
a
far more clearly than a hundred such stanzas. phrase about New York and chance on it one's
National feeling is expressed by something less reputation for perspicacity comes from a dim
definite but deeper than a list of ancient victories, recognition that details will confuse the im-
faithless lovers, and dreams of forgotten king- pression. The city almost invites to briskness.
doms. These verses, with the exception of the There is a possibility for characterization, one
hints of quaint rituals and superstitions found in feels, in a quick glance over the vast jungle of
the wedding songs and a few others, tell us little its multiple life. But a long acquaintance will
that is distinctively Ukrainian. Or rather, they produce a kind of bewildered literary humility.
tell us only of the Ukrainians of yesterday; they The voice of the city, which even so fond a lover
reveal nothing of what has come between them as O. Henry could not help making seem archaic
and their old visions. As historical memories,
As historical memories, today, will speak not only in siren-whistle tones
they contain many points for the statistician but, and softer accents, but in many strange tongues
lacking their original impelling magic, they are and alien whisperings. The most careful explorer
only occasionally informing and rarely interpre- can never be sure there are not some clusters of
tative. After all, if we want an authoritative life and custom and speech that he has missed.
answer to the Ukrainian puzzle we shall not get Turn East from the Avenue above the Plaza
it through Miss Livesay. We are far more and you might for a moment believe yourself in
likely to get it through the soviets.
Moscow. Home-sick travelers in the most
Louis UNTERMEYER.
bizarre cities of the Near East may comfort them-
selves with the reflection, “I have seen nothing
so much like Mulberry Street on a Saturday
“Million-Footed Manbattan”
night.” Around Washington Square there are
moments when it is easy to fancy onself in Boston
The Book of New York. By Robert Shackleton.
or Paris or London. Morningside and Columbia
Penn Publishing Co.; $2.50.
and the Drive—who dares to say this is as dis-
A LOITERER IN New YORK. By Helen W. Hen- tinctively New York as the Avenue between
derson. Doran; $4.00.
Thirty-Third and Fifty-Ninth on
GREENWICH VILLAGE. By Anna Alice Chapin.
sunny
Dodd, Mead; $2.50.
October day? Weakly we accept the cliché "a
No city seems to provoke epigrams from its city of contrasts,” and evade the difficulty of
observers so readily as New York. Henry James characterization. For hardly any hundred know
caught its many physical aspects in the net of identically the same New Y
identically the same New York, as hundreds of
his sensitive undulating prose, summarizing its thousands must know the same glamorous Lon-
external quality in his description of the long, don of autumn haze and the same gray vistas
shrill city, the "jagged city," with its skyscrapers and wet, shining boulevards of Paris.
like the teeth of a colossal hair-comb. Who for- There are coils upon coils of life in the city
gets Walt Whitman's pæan: "When million- that sends its ships out so proudly to the old
footed Manhattan unpent descends to her world from the new. Huddled upon the lower
pavement"? Dickens's mordant caricatures are island is the new America of triumphant finance,
forgotten, yet it is comforting to remember that arrogant in its stone and steel and towering
although the Harlem goats have long since given massiveness, and the pathetic remnants of an
up their feeding-grounds to duplex apartment older, more gracious colonialism-little refuges
houses, one can still see an occasional survivor in the teeming swamps of the new immigrants,
cavorting on the slopes of Bolton Road at In- who cling together for protection against the un-
wood. More recently the epigrams have taken known and build their churches, their theatres,
on a sociological flavor. Julian Street tells us their market places, crowding down into them
that an American in New York is nowadays at from the vast wilderness of tenements and
the mercy of the Greeks, Italians, Irish, Rus- cluttering the streets. There are here, as well,
sians, French, Germans, and Swiss with no the architectural hints of other cities, the inter-
American consul to appeal to! And a less amia- secting avenues of middle-class commercial Amer-
ble observer hit off the economic and social ica, with its steam-heated, bath-room apartmented
geography of the city when he wrote of New clientèle, the dreary wastes of factory and ter-
York, "An island of sin and misery divided by minals, an occasional shame-faced park and
an avenue of wealth.”
aggressive settlement house. Further up the
Perhaps the impulse to write a single succinct island are the Broadway of lights-of-love, and


240
[March 14
THE DIAL
lights of fiction, the Drive and the Avenue, both minster Abbey and having his epitaph written by
the latter distinctively New York. Yet if you none other than Dr. Samuel Johnson. There is
care to go down the short gridiron streets on the romantic story of Richmond Hill and Aaron
either side to the two rivers you can find Detroit Burr and, in later times, of "Tom Paine, Infidel,”
or Cleveland or Chicago even, in little. There whose shade perhaps hovers hospitably over the
are microcosms of all our industrial centres merry young atheists of nowadays. The last
scattered along these water-fronts. And due part of her book Miss Chapin devotes to the
north are infinite replications of all our homes, villagers of today and to their many restaurants,
with their aura of families, from even the front- for heavy eating and light talk are still the
door shade tree to the box-like “Aat," and from favorite in-door amusements. In spite of Miss
the panoply of new and splendid apartment Chapin's earnest desire to be friendly and to
houses to the more seemly brown-stone. Thread- picture the villagers as impetuous, but youthful
ing this strange motley the New Yorker, tolerant and ambitious, Arcadians in a sort of play-world
yet provincial, unmoved by the Aux of heaving of camaraderie, I think she has really missed
new subways and the perpetual tearing-down and the point of the modern village. It is true that
building-up, yet curiously conventional in his there is a kind of youthful eagerness to make a
pleasures and rigid in his beliefs, finds his way to personal try at life instead of accepting anyone's
the fringe of real American suburbia which en- say-so. It is true that there is a tolerance (at
velops the almost denationalized cluster of lives least in speech and action), an easy willingness
and buildings called New York. It smiles down to forgive mistakes, a sense that there is always
in friendly protection from the Jersey shores; another day coming, a kind of perennial Micaw-
stretches through the wastes of Brooklyn and ber optimism. But there is little real intellectual
Queens to the further Long Island of medieval life, although much pretense at it and a fierce
country estates of the uncomfortably rich. It dogmatic passion of approval for any idea which
reaches down from the lovely rolling landscape has the pure-food certificate of novelty. And
of "up-State" through the Bronx and Harlem although there are a few disorganized creative
to the island itself, where the rivers ceaselessly forces emerging out of the liberating leaven of
wash this greatest of experiments in community the Square, they quickly transfer their centres of
life.
gravity to other sections of New York when they
What author, except the casual visitor, would
gain momentum and discipline. For Miss Chapin
have the presumption to attempt to harness the seems to forget that although all Bohemia is
kaleidoscope of all this in a few phrases, even parochial enough, it is hardly the parochialism
in a single book? Who, except as the intuition of people who have roots and a natural history.
from a brief trip, could make so bold, yet so In Bohemia one's origins are one's disabilities;
profoundly wise, a comparison between our two
they are the points from which one has "reacted"
largest cities as, “Chicago is self-conscious and or rebelled. It is the creed that one's future
New York is not"? Miss Chapin, for instance, shall be tremulous and uncertain. To act as if
in her attractively illustrated volume, “Green-
moulded by any end greater than six days ahead
wich Village,” avoids the problem by confining is rank apostasy. It is the mood of adventurous-
her attention to one of the many little com-
ness, of expectancy, of the fun of repudiating
munities of New York. She writes of the
tomorrow what one cherishes today, the thrill
district with great affection and a rather re-
of really assuming that it is a pluralistic world,
freshing naïveté, with something of the embar-
rassed exhilaration the conventional man feels on
ecstasy before the flux. It is hardly a mood for
his first introduction to an actress. Yet on the
gray-beards or a programme for the ambitious.
The most pathetic people in Bohemia are the
whole it is a friendly accent after the over-
"real" Bohemians—those who have been there a
featured and over-adjectival publicity of indus-
trious “special story” bandits, who do their best long time. They have confused a mood with a
to rob our cities of what bloom is left them, by
career; they are as absurd as middle-aged men
calling too shrill attention to the happier sur-
with the chicken pox or a father with the whoop-
vivals. Miss Chapin calls her book "the ing cough.
chequered history of a city square," and dwells Nor does Miss Henderson in her larger and
on the gallant days of "The Green Village," the in appearance only, not in intention-more pre-
career of old Sir Peter Warren, who was a true tentious volume, with its slightly ironical title,
villager of those times in spite of achieving the "A Loiterer in New York,” attempt to “do"
too classic distinction of being buried in West- New York. She attempts merely to chronicle


1918]
241
THE DIAL
the more conventional art and architecture of The Soul of Civilians
the city, with just enough of friendly gossip and
historical anecdote and background to clothe the NINE TALES. By Hugh de Selincourt. Dodd,
narrative engagingly. It would be a disconcert-
Mead; $1.50.
POTTERAT AND THE WAR. By Benjamin Valla-
ing lesson in appreciation for the traditionally
ton. Dodd, Mead; $1.50.
indifferent and unobserving New Yorker to read In the past month an American publishing
Miss Henderson's estimates (and the estimates house has brought to our shores two works of fic-
of others, for the author is generous in quotation) tion which merit a cordial welcome. The first
of the statuary of Macmonnies, French, Karl of these, a collection of stories by a young Eng-
Bitter, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens; the archi- lish writer, introduces a company of characters
tecture of McKim, White, Nash, Carrère, La wholly eligible to meet, let us say, those in Henry
Farge, and Hastings; the many treasures of James's "The Better Sort." "Potterat," on the
“
the Museum; the paintings of Blashfield, Par- other hand, serving as a French Mr. Britling
rish, Redfield, and John La Farge. One can or a Mr. Dooley, introduces us to the point of
easily fancy the younger men sniffing a bit at these view of the Swiss bourgeoisie, and exhibits the
academic names; yet after all it is from these
type of middle-class philosophy by which they
men that the greater number of New York's explain the causes and interpret the events of the
citizens get their fleeting glimpses of art and
war. Of the two books, Hugh de Selincourt's
their conceptions, so far as they may be said to
"Nine Tales" is the finer piece of work. The
have any, of formal beauty. Such a study has
year, indeed, will be an exceptionally lucky one
real social value as a presentation of the æsthetic
if for charm and subtlety it sees these stories
background of the majority. Miss Henderson's surpassed.
volume gives us a successful and entertaining The work of Mr. de Selincourt, so far edi-
performance in a task which perhaps few others torially unrecognized, for the most part, in this
would care to undertake. It may be many years
country, is of the type and format customarily
-now that the war has made art, except as it
attributed to a "young Englishman.” By this
ties itself to the chariot wheels of belligerency,
one is led to expect stirring stories of contem-
a kind of capricious irrelevance-before New
poraries, told with a kind of satiric realism
York will break through what we may call the
which suggests an Oxford fluency in Greek and
external shell of imported excellence, and will
Latin, the languages and the literatures. The
develop enough of its own particular and indi-
expectancy is gratified, and the book reads like
vidual æsthetic expression to justify a book.
brilliant, offhand table talk by the old gods, who
Even Mr. Shackleton in his businesslike and
yet have their fingers in the latest pie.
• informative volume, "The Book of New York,"
That America's contribution to literature is
does not attempt himself to give an interpretation
the short-story is a lesson not likely to be for-
of the "soul" of New York. To be sure, in the
gotten. The proof begins with Irving, Poe,
course of his narrative, which he keeps really Hawthorne, and ends with O. Henry-four in-
interesting throughout by a shrewd blend of
ventors of four types. It seems probable that
description and drama and history, he quotes Mrs. Wharton's name will be added, both be-
many summaries of the essence of the city from
cause of her distinguished work and because fol-
men of literary fame, many brilliant insights.
lowers have made her special method into an
However, he makes no pretense to express a invention. Candidly, Mrs. Wharton is now al-
coherent and highly individualized reaction to
most the only presentable member of the family
New York as a whole, the kind of articulation
to send to the front door. We are so busy with
which comes from long seeping in of the city
our own concerns, reading and collating maga-
and from loving acquaintance with its cross-
zine stories, that like Mark Twain's islanders
currents of life (as in some of Lamb's essays,
we are eking out a precarious livelihood by tak-
for instance, London itself seems to be exhaled
ing in one another's washing.
from the pages). That kind of book about
On our opening “Nine Tales," any resentment
modern New York has yet to be written. Mean-
toward a possible usurper turns to admiration
while any one of these highly creditable per-
for a friend. For these stories are what may
formances will furnish agreeable hours to the
be termed "pleasant," and most soundly so. One
many of us who never tire of hearing sung
exception, “The Sacrifice," because its powerful
the glories of our beloved Manhattan.
theme makes it the most striking in the collec-
HAROLD STEARNS. tion, deserves to be retold. Of Mr. Wellfield,


242
[March 14
THE DIAL
>
the first character, the author says that his all- trace the influence of De Cassagnac's historical
absorbing love for Shakespeare was based on two exploit in the middle of the last century, along
motives—gratitude and patriotism. "Other things, through his imitators, down to our own Mr.
however, undoubtedly told; such as the suste- Dooley. But "Potterat" also is fiction. The
nance of the reputation which he had gained for novel consists of a series of chapters in which
apt quotation, and the size of the volumes, the genial old optimist is seen tending his bees,
which happened to fit perfectly into the book working in his garden, fishing with his cronies
rest of his armchair."
on the lake, and gossiping with his neighbors in
On this morning the squire, sustained by a the lake-side country to which he had retired
patriotic quotation from Richard II. and pleased after thirty years of service. The encroachments
by good news from his son at the front, allowed of a real estate boom eventually sent him back in-
Rosa, carrying her child in her arms, to pass on to the town of Lausanne and an apartment house
up the road after a perfunctory offer of alms, there. The old man's comic misery in the taw-
which she refused. Rosa had left her husband, dry luxury of Madame Potterat's new drawing-
and her lover had been killed a few days before. room is no less human than his very genuine
Next, the vicar, thrilled by a regiment of recruits sorrow at leaving Eglantine Cottage. It was in
and then by the sight of Rosa and her baby, their town quarters that the outbreak of the war
preached her a sermon on patriotic sacrifice. This and the orders for mobilization overtook the
he terminated by calling her "blesséd among family, sending them in company with hordes
women," but made only another offer of assist-
of fellow townsmen scurrying for stores of food
ance. Eventually Rosa, physically wearied and in the face of the impending famine. From the
mentally unstrung by fatigue and the vicar's
first the cry was, “The Germans," and in the
rather heady eloquence, determined to sacrifice three official letters which Potterat wrote just
her baby by strangling him with her bootlace. before his death the same note of alarm and
That scene of mad renunciation stands out, with patriotic resistance is repeated. Little master-
a similar one from "Jude the Obscure," as pieces of common sense are these letters: one to
among the 'most genuinely pathetic in English. General Joffre, one to King Albert, and one to
The story ends—but not at this point—with “a the supreme federal council of Switzerland.
sense of rhythm and inevitableness which is al- “Neutrality,” as Potterat said to his little son, "is
ways indicative of genius," as Mr. George Moore a sort of Labyrinth; you go in, but you can't
,
defines a short-story.
come out again. A month ago you were neu-
The distinguishing qualities of Mr. de Selin- tral, but you didn't know it."
court's style are his unforgettable characteriza- The value of this novel, the last in a series of
tions and his restraint in permitting the reader three in which Potterat is the central figure, lies
to preach his own sermons. “Here is a char- in its description of the thoughts and emotions
acter; this happened” is enough. This ecce of a people threatened with invasion. It em-
homily method gives the tales an extraordinary phatically cannot be considered as embodying un-
sense of finish and finality. For brief characteri- officially the sentiments of the Swiss nation as
zation, none is better than this from “The Sense a whole. It must be remembered that this is
of Sin.” “He had lately bought a complete edi- the point of view of a French Swiss, for both
tion of the works of William Morris, the pages Potterat and M. Vallaton are Vaudois. Re-
of which it gave him great pleasure musingly peated and melancholy evidences imply the domi-
to cut with an immense ivory paper-knife, very nation in Switzerland of the German Swiss.
smooth and cool to the cheek.”
Chiding the supreme council for inaction at the
The change now to M. Vallaton's book is like invasion of Belgium, it is Potterat himself who
the change from chess to checkers. Quite as writes: “It is William Tell's country, and no
good a game in its way, but the lay-out of the other, which ought to take the lead in doing
board is not the same and the rules differ. Here the right thing; for no one will ever convince
an ample personality dominates the book, after me that our neutrality absolves us from the
the manner of nineteenth century novelists. It claims of humanity. There are thousands
is the author's purpose to summarize the popular of people who think as I do, especially amongst
feeling of the Swiss at the outbreak of the war the mass of the people, who are the backbone
in the persons of Potterat, retired superintendent of the nation.” The diction of this anonymous
of police, and his friends. It would be an enter- translation is most agreeably Auent English.
prising subject for investigation, by the way, to
MYRON R. WILLIAMS.
()
а
.


1918]
243
THE DIAL
BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS
villages, of Pennsylvania farms and their tillers,
of strenuous Chicago in its marvelous growth,
VOYAGES ON THE YUKON AND ITS TRIBU-
and of the great and bewildering metropolis with
TARIES. A Narrative of Summer Travel in
its cosmopolitan population. This heroism and
the Interior of Alaska. By Hudson Stuck.
With maps and illustrations.
this romance are set forth with literary skill,
Scribners;
and also with the charm of homely reality, in
$4.50.
the biography faithfully compiled from abundant
Readers who followed the Archbishop of the autobiographical and other authoritative sources
Yukon across the white wastes of wintry Alaska by the famous preacher's colleague in the closing
in his "Ten Thousand Miles in a Dog Sled"
years of his long ministry. Fortunate is the
will be eager to ship with him on his “Voyages biographer to whom is assigned, as to Mr.
on the Yukon.” They will recognize old friends Holmes was assigned by the Collyer family, so
of the snowy trails, and meet anew the ever- worthy and inspiring a theme; and fortunate is
present and never-solved problem of the corrod-
he whose life-story is told with so warm a sym-
ing and disintegrating influence of our vaunted
pathy and so true an understanding as have
civilization upon the simple and sturdy savages been brought to the present task.
-so-called-of Alaska's forests and steppes. The
lure of gold brings the adventurer whose mush- The ODES AND SECULAR HYMN OF
room cities linger on the map long after the HORACE. Translated by Warren H. Cud-
weight of the winter's snows has crushed to the worth. Knopf; $1.50.
earth vacated saloon and flimsy dance hall, and
To most readers Horace means two things.
summer's floods have washed away the litter
He is the amiable prophet of a genial philosophy;
with which the birds of passage have fouled the
and he is the writer of verse never surpassed in
wilderness. But changing seasons bring no re-
lief to the native peoples from the ills which
grace, dignity, and point. An English translation
of Horace is successful so far as it preserves
the white man has left in the village, nor will
the lapse of centuries redeem the now mongrel
at once his formal perfection and the spirit of
his philosophy. Mr. Cudworth has set himself
stock. Bishop Stuck portrays Alaska as it is, a
a high standard of formal execution, to which
land where nature and man alike are elemental
he adheres to a remarkable degree. Though he
and at times catastrophic. The sordid and the
does not keep the metres of the original poems,
heroic mingle here and crowd one another, for
he systematically substitutes for them strophes
not all men have gone to Iditarod and Circle
which usually approximate in effect the Latin
City for gold alone. The book is well illus-
forms, and he wisely makes use of rhyme with
trated, and full of interest from cover to cover.
unvarying accuracy. He demonstrates, what
It is revealing for one who plans a summer in
many would not have believed, that English verse
Alaska for business or pleasure and should be
is capable of as great compactness and brevity
read by every one who concerns himself with our
of phrasing as is Latin verse. In some cases
national obligations to the people of this much
however Mr. Cudworth has been unfortunate
neglected country.
in his choice of metres; his unrelieved iambic
lines are too heavy to carry the effect of the
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF ROBERT COLL-
Sapphic and the Alcaic strophes; one waits in
YER. By John Haynes Holmes. Dodd,
suspense for the tripping dactyls which one asso-
Mead; $5.
ciates with the originals.
On first opening these inviting volumes, so full Perhaps, indeed, it is Mr. Cudworth's faith-
of interests and ideals calculated to induce a fulness to his principles that has at times pre-
blessed if momentary forgetfulness of our present vented him from conveying the tone of Horace.
subjection to the tyranny of war, one found “There are occasions, as every scholar knows,"
this passage: "We are full of the war. The
writes Martin, "where to be faithful to the let-
whole country is a great camp and drill ground.
ter is to be most unfaithful to the spirit of an
The spirit that has been called out
is
author.” Mr. Cudworth has by no means been
the grandest thing ever seen in the country, per-
unfaithful to Horace; but he might with advan-
haps in the world.” And more in similar strain.
tage have allowed himself a little more elasticity
Of course it is the Civil War that is re-
of treatment. His rendering of the first strophe
ferred to, and most heartily did the "blacksmith
preacher" throw himself into the cause of free-
of “Integer Vitæ" is as near the words of Horace
dom, as he doubtless would to-day, were he alive,
as is that of Martin; it is perhaps more fluent
into that of a vastly larger emancipation. Hero-
English:
ism and romance were not wanting to that full The man of upright life and conduct clean
Needs neither Moorish javelin nor bow,
and varied life, with its successive experience of
Nor quiver, Fuscus, stuffed with arrows keen
the Yorkshire moors and unlovely manufacturing Whose tips with venom flow.
a


244
[March 14
THE DIAL
Yet its movement does not suggest so well that there was no longer a commonwealth sustained
of the original as does Martin's version:
by a body of citizens, but instead a chaos out of
Fuscus, the man of life upright and pure
which emerged an autocrat supported by an
Needeth nor javelin, nor bow of Moor,
army. One wishes that more space might have
Nor arrows tipped with venom deadly-sure, been given to the peculiarly subversive effects
Loading his quiver,
of Greek thought upon the traditions of Rome,
It is of course unfair to judge either translation
both political and religious; but the limitations
by a quotation of four lines; but Mr. Cudworth's
imposed upon a single volume are severe, and
work sustains such an even level that one may
the composition as a whole is admirable. Mr.
turn almost at random for examples that illus-
George Chrystal, the translator, has done his
trate both his merits and his short-comings. In
work well.
a field where success can at best be only rela-
tive, he has in large measure attained success;
PROFESSIONALISM AND ORIGINALITY: With
where he has fallen short, the defect has been
an Appendix of Suggestions on Professional,
in part inevitable, and has been the result of his
Administrative, and Educational Topics.
rigid adherence to a preconceived notion.
By F. H. Hayward, D.Lit., B.Sc. Open
The prefatory sonnet "To Horace" shows
Court; $1.75.
sympathy with the poet. It is a pity that it con-
tains the noun “uplifts”--that word of unhappy
Life, Dr. Hayward argues, is a series of im-
pulsions and compulsions. Some spark of genius
memory. Horace, though in his way a moralist,
would not have relished the word with its pres-
is in each of us, while even the greatest genius
ent associations.
cannot entirely escape the commonplace. The
antinomy is most evident in those pursuits which
A SHORT HISTORY OF ROME. By Gugli-
have become most highly specialized and in
elmo Ferrero and Corrado Barbagallo. Vol.
which society is wont to repose most faith. The
I: The Monarchy and the Republic. Put-
professions-law, medicine, teaching—are exam-
ples of such departmentalized compulsions. The
nams; $1.90.
In this first volume Ferrero and Barbagallo professional ethics is designed to protect the
member of the profession against those blunders
present us with a brilliant and coherent account
for which the public should hold him responsible.
of the history of Rome from the foundation of
Worse still, by its insistence on the common-
readers who are familiar with Ferrero's larger place in its “Specialists” it tends to strangle orig-
readers who are familiar with Ferrero's larger inality and hamper progress
. The original man
work will be interested by the attitude which
he now adopts towards the traditional records.
is one who responds most alertly to those impul-
With few exceptions, he defends the tradition
sions not shared by his fellows and, because he is
different and apart from them, is frowned upon
against the conjectural emendations which have
as an innovator and an enemy to the common
been so popular with the Germans and with
Ferrero's own compatriot Ettore Pais; and per-
So true is this that his merited recog-
haps the only startling novelty for which he is
nition comes only with posthumous fame; the
partly responsible is his suggestion that Rome
present generation cannot recognize the stigmata
under the later kings “ardently pursued a com-
of genius possessed by its contemporaries. By
mercial career.” If this expansion of Schweg-
way of reform let the various professions formu-
ler's theory is sound, and if it is true that the
late their respective programmes and express defi-
establishment of the republic was caused by a
nitely the tenets of their faith, the goals of their
efforts. This will at once sweep away the cob-
reaction of the Latin aristocracy against the com-
mercial policy of Etruscan kings, we should
webs of mysticism that now conceal their real
indeed have a partial explanation of the slight missions and will admit an understanding criti-
cism from which they, as well as a larger society,
amount of Greek influence discernible in the
first centuries of the republic.
will reap a benefit.
Ferrero devotes some of his best pages to the
Mr. Hayward shows his own originality in
discussion of the reasons which at the beginning
his incisive and sometimes caustic arraignment
of the second century B.C. made Rome averse
of his own as well as other professions, but his
to the further extension of her empire. Such a
uniform way of pigeon-holing his data is a det-
policy is, as Ferrero says, almost incomprehen-
riment to the presentation. The elfishness of a
sible to those who are accustomed to the "insa- genius of a Shaw, for example—would have
tiable lust of territory which for two hundred
shattered these formal classifications and offered
years has possessed the states of Europe and a more varied and enticing argument. But the
America"; and his account of the relation criticism is usually solid, the thought is original
between corruption and progress proceeds with at many angles, and the arraignment of profes-
great dramatic power down to the time when sionalism contains many practical suggestions for
cause.


1918]
245
THE DIAL
reform. Though its tone may not make it popu- BRAHMADARSANAM OR INTUITION OF THE
lar with professional men, the professions, should ABSOLUTE. By Sri Ananda Acharya. Mac-
they heed its counsels, would certainly gain in millan; $1.25.
popularity with the uninitiated.
Western culture has shown a singular lack of
interest in the philosophy of ancient India. This
THE ART OF GEORGE FREDERICK MUNN.
has been due partly no doubt to linguistic ob-
Edited by Margaret Crosby Munn and
stacles, but partly also to Western provincialism.
Mary R. Cabot. With an introduction by
Aside from books by missionaries who were ob-
Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson.
Dutton;
viously special pleaders for the occidental plan
$2.25.
of salvation, Hindu philosophy was, until re-
It seems odd to read the biography of an cently, practically inaccessible to all but a few
American artist of the present generation, who linguistic experts and those who could read the
received his art education or the greater part of language of the commentators. Of late, however,
it-in London instead of in Munich or Paris, books dealing with the characteristically Hindu
and whose earliest formative influences were view of life, written by native scholars and in-
those of Ruskin and the South Kensington Art tended for laymen in the western world, have
Schools rather than of the boulevard and the been making their appearance in gratifying num-
atelier. It is true that, as Sir Johnston Forbes- bers. Sri Ananda Achārya's "Brahmadarsanam"
Robertson tells us in his brief but sympathetic belongs to this class.
introduction, Munn, a fellow-student of Frank In spite of one's more or less vague appre-
Dicksee and Percy Macquoid among others, be- ciation of the age of the civilization of the far
came dissatisfied with the opportunities offered by East, one is surprised to find well-developed
the Academy Schools and went to Paris. There Hindu systems of thought many centuries before
he pursued his studies for a time at Julien's and the rise of philosophy in Greece. And one is
Munkácsy's studios; but he soon returned to pleased to come upon the germs of doctrines with
London, where he attracted the attention of which one has been long familiar in their devel-
G. F. Watts (as he had previously of Leighton), oped form. The author of the present volume
who gave him work, and his associations thus does the reader a genuine service by pre-
remained, on the whole, with English art and disposing him to examine further. He also
artists, as long as his health, permanently broken succeeds in showing that 'underneath external
by an attack of typhus in Venice in 1883, per- differences of approach, terminology, and style
mitted him to live abroad. Yet he never entered of argument, Hindu philosophy concerns itself
wholly into the English tradition. His strong with one problem, employs one method, and
admiration for Velasquez and Whistler saved comes to one conclusion. The central problem
him from that. There is a literary flavor to much is the escape from the prison of finitude; its
of his work—it was the poetic sentiment of his method is concentrated introspection; the solu-
“In Chancery” that appealed to Hon. Stephen tion is the vision of the self as one with the soul
Coleridge, one of his principal patrons—but he of the infinite. .
consciously eschewed the anecdote; and in land- In spite of its excellencies, however, the book
scape he early came under the spell of the great fails to arouse enthusiasm. Like our own his-
Barbizon painters, the spirit of whose work he torians of philosophy the author feels it necessary
interpreted in his own naïve, naturalistic, Ameri- to say something about so many things that he
can manner. Yet his paintings often have also can say only a little about anything. Then, too,
a fine decorative feeling. Most of his pictures are his words often lack flesh and blood meanings.
owned in England; so that, in spite of one The introduction of numerous Hindu terms, to-
memorial exhibition in New York, shortly after gether with their definitions, adds to the diffi-
his premature death in 1907 at the age of fifty- culty of reading intelligently, for one can hardly
six-he had, however, long ceased to produce digest the ordinary philosophic terminology, and
-there has been little opportunity for his powers consequently one leaves the book with one's mind
to be recognized in his own country. But the in a confused state. The author is, moreover, in-
late Russell Sturgis contributed a warm appre- clined to mistake vigorous assertion for logical
ciation of him to "Scribner's Magazine" in demonstration, and his assertions regarding West-
1908; and this, reprinted in its entirety, with a ern philosophies and philosophers often rest upon
brief memoir giving the essential facts of his nothing more solid than a string of ambiguities.
brilliant promise and his broken career, might Nevertheless, the reader of the book carries away
have served Munn's posthumous fame better than a distinct feeling of the age of Hindu specula-
the present book, with its rather miscellaneous tion and of the significance of soul in Hindu
and turgid tribute to his art, character, con- philosophy-perhaps just what the author in-
versation, and personal charm.
tended to accomplish.
a


246
[March 14
THE DIAL
a
a
CASUAL COMMENT
hardly be so easy for the smaller fry. If you are
brilliant and amusing you may talk atheism in a
WAR
OFFERS SMALL OPPORTUNITY FOR
theological seminary, write in the most conserva-
laughter, but the zeal with which certain gen-
tlemen have undertaken their self-appointed task
tive and patriotic magazine something that would
land a less clever author in jail for disloyalty, or
of censorship has reached a pitch which brings discuss the social value of sabctage in the "Wall
their activities almost into the realm of opéra Street Journal.” Give us Shaw's wit and
bouffe. One of the most amusing recent in- dramatic sense and intellect, and we guarantee
stances is that of Mr. Henry A. Wise Wood, that we could advocate polygamy in a staid relig,
chairman of the Conference Committee on Na-
ious weekly or non-resistance in the report of
tional Preparedness, who exhibited a bad attack
the National Security League. To be unham-
of hysteria in the New York “Tribune." Mr.
pered in what you say, it is only necessary-to be
Wood sent the “Tribune" a statement denounc-
as clever as Shaw. But for most of us, who are
ing “The Nature of Peace," by Thorstein Veb-
duller and probably less serious, the number of
len, as “the most damnable piece of pro-German magazines that will welcome our polemic writ-
propaganda that the Federal authorities have
ings will never seem so large as to furnish an
overlooked"! This misrepresentation he fortified
embarrassment of journalistic riches.
with a series of quotations so clearly divorced
from the context that one can only marvel at the
spectacle of his intellectual blindness. It is no WILL THE PEDAGOGUES LEAVE US NO cozy
secret that Mr. Veblen's book is an extremely
corners in the house of letters, neither closet nor
ingenious and powerful argument for the theory attic to explore and lounge in unoppressed by
that until the menace of German militarism has
some prim guide to the world's best literature?
been utterly destroyed it is not possible to think
Is there to come a time when no good old book
of world peace. A similar spectacle is furnished
by one Dr. William H. Hobbs, of the University
can be reprinted without the editorial meddling
of Michigan, whose highly strung nerves caused
of a diplomaed mentor, long on culture but short
him to publish in the Detroit "Free Press"
on "juice de vivre," whose foreword, hindword,
equally unwarranted and perverse conclusions
notes, and bibliography-quaintly paginated in
concerning "The Nature of Peace." A few days lower-case Roman-must needs obscure the text
after publishing Mr. Wood's letter the New they pretend to illumine? These queries are
York "Tribune,” in retracting, sadly observed prompted by a recent pedagogical invasion of that
that the incident had caused them to lose faith in last intimate retreat where children might forget
the intuitive habit of thought. It is to be hoped the impertinence of school—"Alice in Wonder-
that this and similar incidents will cause a long land.” William J. Long conducts this drive,
patient public also to lose faith in these "in-
munitioned by Ginn & Co. and reluctantly con-
tuitive" zealots, who seem to have determined voyed by Oliver Herford, who (to do him jus-
that nobody except themselves shall say anything.
tice) has no stomach for the sorry business. The
The country ought soon to be thoroughly weary
illustrator's heart, one conjectures from his prefa-
of these half-baked alarmists.
tory "Apology" in verse, is in Tenniel's boots
along with his feet. But the editor is shameless
IN GEORGE BERNARD SHAW'S RECENT RE-
in spoliation of Carroll's province. There he
view of "The Free Press," by Hilaire Belloc, he turns things topsy-turvy, installing on page iïi a
concludes with the following characteristically
“Finale” and on page 205 a "Foreword.” Then
provoking paragraph:
he violates the good don's Oxford privacy and
My own most polemical writings are to be found pulls from its decent niche the skeleton of Car-
in the files of the "Times," the “Morning Post," the roll's double life. Meanwhile, inevitably, there
“Daily Express,” the "World," and the “Saturday
have been "notes"_"Notes and Harmonies," an-
Review." I found out early in my career that a Con-
servative paper may steal a horse when a Radical
nounces the editor. Listen to a few of the sweet
paper dare not look over a hedge, and that the rich, harmonics with which Mr. Long accompanies
though very determined that the poor shall read noth- Lewis Carroll:
ing unconventional, are equally determined not to be
preached at themselves. In short, I found that only
A hookah is a kind of machine or thingumajig which
for the classes would I be allowed, and indeed tacitly
the Turks use for smoking. Like most wild sea
required, to write on revolutionary assumptions. I
birds, the dodo was quite tame. Still, he was never,
filled their columns with sedition; and they filled my
as you might say, a dodomestic bird. • They
pockets (not very deep ones then) with money. In
call one creature a tortoise because he has crooked
the press, as in other departments, the greatest free-
feet, and another creature they call a porpoise be-
dom may be found where there is least talk about it. cause he looks something like a porcus or hog. And
sailors twist the twisted tortoise till he becomes turtle,
Why provoking? Because although this may be
but they can't twist the untwisted porpoise till he
quite true of Shaw and his experiences, it can becomes purple.
>


1918]
247
THE DIAL
serve.
.
This is not nonsense; nonsense is always serenely For once magazines come to be discriminated
unconscious that it is not the whole sense. Any against on the ground of their intrinsic merit,
child will at once recognize this for a stilted, who is going to be the judge? The literary man
patronizing imitation by a self-conscious "Olym- who dislikes trade journals? The business man,
pian” and will politely draw away from it, at the who thinks that the "movies” already take up
same time (more's the pity!) drawing away from enough of his employees' time without devising
Wonderland. Nor is it education, of which our for them further distractions from their job in
editor spreads a hopeful report:
magazines with pictures and "stories" of their
Language is queer; there's no telling what some
favorite heroines? The conservative who dis-
words really mean. It's just a fashion of speak- likes all radicalism? or the radical who would
ing, with no sense to it.
If a child ate too
many [comfits), there might come fits. Hence the
cheat us from the pleasure of seeing the “North
name, to scare you properly. But you will not find American Review"? Really, none of us would
any such reasonable explanation in the dictionary. be safe in such a capricious world, and who can
If you bother with such books, you may have to
learn (our italics] that “to comfit” means to pre-
say whether or not the "Bellman" itself might
Nowadays, in proper schools, he (the
not be excommunicated? Perhaps the censor, if
Mouse] would read five or six history books, all exceptionally intelligent, would rule that a maga-
different, and not learn anything in particular; which zine could attack anything it wished so long as it
is, you see, the great advantage of modern education.
was just to its opponents. Under that test the
Yet, after all, the heinous crime of "Alice's"
“Bellman” would not fare any too well. For it
editor is to spoil transparent nonsense with silly
explanations and to rub the bloom off words of
does not even touch the real objection to the
glamor which children love because they only of freedom of communication, guaranteed by the
“Zone System,” which is simply the ancient one
half understand them. Criticizing Carroll for
Government. Is it necessary in this day of en-
parodying “Star of the Evening,” Mr. Long lightenment to point out that the true function
quotes a stanza of the mawkish original and adds, of the Post Office is not to ape a corporation, in-
"Some things should be let alone, especially things terested primarily in dividends, but to provide a
that have the two virtues of being old and being cheap and easy means for the interchange of ideas
good." They should indeed! The Dial be-
and the free circulation of opinion? Democracy
speaks for this outrage the attention of the So-
grows on its foolishness almost as much as on its
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
wisdom. Until people have been interested in
If, while yet in school, its officers had "Robinson
Crusoe,” “The Pilgrim's Progress," "The Child's reading soap advertisements and sentimental
Garden,” and alas! how many other golden books stories, they can hardly be expected to be inter-
ested in the kind of literature the "Bellman"
thus tarnished for them, they will find a way to
would wish to see them reading. It is through
deal with these insatiable pedagogues.
this kind of progress that we gradually emerge
from petty localism into a broader tolerance, a
THB "BELLMAN" RECENTLY LAUNCHED A
better taste, and a more general spread of ideas.
tirade against the selfish publishers who want to
The “Zone System” would tend to keep us pro-
have repealed the War Revenue Act of October vincial.
3, 1917—the so-called "Zone System" measure-
solely because the new postal rates rob them of “IT IS WELL TO BE CAUTIOUS IN STATEMENT
profits. Of course, in so far as publishers as a about any contemporary book.” “A half-truth
class are trying to evade their just contributions is often of extreme simplicity; but the whole
to the cost of the war, they merit all the invec- truth is usually of such complication that the
tive which can be hurled at them. No one wants, utmost effort is necessary in order merely to state
any more than the “Bellman," to see poor maga-
it.” The Dial might safely offer a large prize
zines “subsidized” by the Post Office. But it is a to the first reader to guess the author of these
singularly ungracious remark of the editor's that sentiments. Some backward looking doctor of
it would be a good thing if half the magazines in
deliberation? Some hesitant meticulous assem-
the country were put out of business. Perhaps bler of metaphysical gear? Dear reader, not at
they should be; we should be the last to sing their all. Those words were written by none other
literary or intellectual merits. Yet undesirable than our national apostle of the contemporary
as it may be that certain publishers should get and practitioner of the snap-judgment, the Hon.
what might be called strategic profits, or that Theodore Roosevelt. They may be found in a
trivial magazines should flourish in the land, it recent "Outlook” in a "notice”—which some-
is far more important that America should not how escaped being a preface-of Henry Fair-
see introduced the principle of discrimination. field Osborn's "Origin and Evolution of Life."
9


248
[March 14
THE DIAL
BRIEFER MENTION
"That Rookie from the 13th Squad,” by Lieut.
P. L. Crosby (Harpers; 75 cts.). These cartoons
A unique little volume of its kind is an “In- would make a Rookie's Progress from initial re-
troduction to Political Philosophy," by H. P. Farrell veille to appointment as private of the first class
(Longmans, Green; $1.25), outlining the mas- (with increased pay), but for one fact-Mr. Dubb
terpieces of political thinking from the days of does not progress.
It was in October that he
Plato through the historical and ethical schools of hung two bright stars on either shoulder because
the past generation. Aside from a brief introduc- he thought they looked “awfully snappy" on an
tory chapter, there is little comment by the author, officer he had seen; in January he was found in
the greater part of the text being taken up with a possession of a full line of officers' insignia—“I
remarkably lucid outline of the theories of Plato, heard there was going to be some promotions and
Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and the analyti- I want to be ready for such emergencies.” Sentry-
cal and historical jurists. At one point the author de- go he cannot master. In October he offered to
parts somewhat from this method in criticizing shake hands with a colonel he had halted; in
rather sharply the "great error in political phil- December he halted and unhorsed a mounted
a
osophy" perpetrated by the contract theorists. As colonel, though nobody had posted him in the road
a handbook and guide the volume is valuable, but -he was “just practicing”; and only the other
the diligent student will wish to go much farther night he kept the officer of the post waiting in the
afield, especially into modern theories of society rain while he vainly tried to remember what fol-
and the state.
lows "Advance and be recognized !" in the sentry's
Greenwich Village runs true to form in “The ritual. Not that Dubb's life is monotonous. On
Lady of Kingdoms" (Doran; $1.50), the newest parade, in barracks, at mess, under the pup tent,
novel by Inez Haynes Irwin. Disguising a zeal- at the hospital, on the rifle range, in bayonet or
ous dose of feminism under a veil of modern grenade or gas mask drill, encountering the fair
romance, Mrs. Irwin guides the reader through sex while on duty or on leave, and trotting to head-
500 pages of alternate thrills and heart-searching quarters to “be measured for a horse," Dubb suf-
conversations to a triumphant conclusion. There fers every mischance that simplicity can invite,
seems to be a subtle conviction in the mind of enduring all with a fetching good-nature-not un-
every Village Dweller, no matter how kindly, that mixed with wonder.
he or she is divinely appointed to open the eyes of American financial administration has been like
the plodding conservative; and to this end we are
that of a spendthrift with superabundant resources.
bidden to watch the antics of their almost plaus-
A necessary war economy will, however, popularize
ible puppets. These, in the present instance, are
a demand, hitherto confined to observant individ-
happily provided with money, clothes, looks, edu-
uals, for a complete reform in our system of
cation, and docile relatives, and they dance very
governmental estimates, appropriations, and expen-
gracefully into each other's arms, or out of them, ditures. While we cannot blindly adopt a foreign
without mishap. Two young ladies in a Cape Cod
system of financial administration, an understand-
hamlet, each with a sex problem, are the principal
ing of the excellencies in English methods will
actors. To them are added, during a summer
afford a proper basis for the reconstruction of our
holiday, the Real Villagers; the problems are
own methods. William F. and Westel W. Wil-
brought forward, discussed, and solved by the un-
loughby and S. M. Lindsay, the authors of "The
fettered City Dwellers, and at the end of the System of Financial Administration of Great Brit-
book everybody has developed into superman be- ain” (Appleton; $2.75), are thoroughly conversant
hind the gloriously falling curtain. The effort
with American governmental methods and are con-
of sustaining two stories of almost equal interest
sequently well fitted to conduct an investigation
proves here, as often, too great. The effect is
of the English system. They have succeeded in
patchy, and each career loses verisimilitude., De, stating their results in non-technical language and
scriptions of scenes and occasions are varied and
in a form intelligible to the general reader. They
striking, though the recurrence of “butter-colored
discuss the fundamental principles which underlie
lace" and taxis “boiling up to the curb” palls upon
public finance. They then trace the financial pro-
the reader.
cedure of Great Britain, beginning with depart-
James Lane Allen's “Kentucky Warbler" mental preparation of estimates, describe the
(Doubleday Page; $1.25) is a pallid attempt at subsequent incorporation of these in a general par-
a reproduction of the crystallizing point of ado-
liamentary budget, the action of the House of
lescence. This delicate feat is reserved for the very Commons upon the same, the functions performed
few to accomplish with anything like perfection; by the Bank of England, and finally the methods of
Mr. Allen's sun-parlor methods leave the reader
expenditure and accounting. In a concluding chap-
convinced that no serious encroachments have been ter of the book the results of the investigation are
made on hallowed ground. The book contains a summarized with direct reference and application
very interesting biography of Alexander Wilson,
to American conditions. Another important finan-
the naturalist, around which the story itself is cial book is "Foreign Exchange Explained," by
built, and there is effective vocational material Franklin Escher. (Macmillan ; $1.25.) A practical
there for those who can use it.
and at the same time a sound economic, and not
Private Dubb, whose exploits at camp have been too academic, discussion of foreign exchange has
delighting the devotees of newspaper comics, now long been needed, and this book by one acquainted
shows his insouciant baby stare between boards in both with actual business and with university


1918]
249
THE DIAL
teaching must prove of value to the economic stu- sequently he remarks that “our greatest thoughts
dent and to the business man as well. Its value are seldom known," and concludes that these me-
lies in the fact that it elucidates the underlying teorites are “God's presence." This curious and,
principles of foreign exchange as well as the actual it would almost seem, unconscious denial of the
conditions existing today. The most valuable chap- intellect is repeated less rhetorically in the various
ters in the book are perhaps those on international sentimental jingles of which the book is full. It
banking, pars of exchange, principal rates of ex- is probably at the root of the author's belief that
change, the foreign exchange market, gold and its poetry can be the work of idle hours, that it can
movement, and bankers' long bills. The question do with anything less than the complete fusion of
is discussed whether or no the dollar is to replace emotion and intellectual passion.
the pound sterling as the dominant factor in world
exchange. Not the least valuable part of the book
is an appendix in which is given in outline the
COMMUNICATION
monetary systems of the world. A book of this
kind is a sign of the times and shows that the WHY CRITICS SHOULD BE EDUCATED.
trade of the United States is rapidly becoming
(To the Editor of The DIAL.)
international in scope.
For the information of those of your readers
“State Sanitation,” by George Chandler Whipple who may have read Mr. Untermeyer's article in
(Harvard University Press; $2.50), is a chrono- your issue of February 14, permit me to state that
logical series of reprints and abstracts of papers most of the verses in my "First Offering” were
selected by the editor from the annual and special written before I had any connections with a uni-
reports of the Massachusetts State Board of versity. I don't know where your critic obtained
Health. Owing to the fact that this board was his information that I have been “brought up at a
a pioneer in this country in undertaking thorough- university"; however, he should be congratulated
going and scientific work in public health and sani- upon having picked out for quotation as a speci-
tation, the papers constitute a series of classics men of my art the worst eight lines I have ever
on the subject. The volume contains articles on written. He could not possibly have done better.
water supplies, sewage disposal, stream pollution, Mr. Untermeyer argues that a poet should not
filtration, microorganisms of water and air, typhoid be educated. Certainly he has not permitted an
fever, diphtheria, and infantile paralysis. Addresses education to spoil his own work, and his method
on the relation of the state to public health; on
of criticism is an eloquent argument on “Why
the liquor problem; on milk, food, and drug in- Critics. Should Be Educated.” It is really unnec-
spection; and on preventive medicine and kindred essary to offer a defense of scholarship in Poetry:
topics in the social relations of medicine are to it would be as superfluous to emphasize that as to
be found here from men eminent as authorities and emphasize the need of a knowledge of the sea in
contributors to medicine and sanitation. Municipal the training of a sailor. Mr. Untermeyer belongs
and sanitary engineers, physicians, public health of- to a curious group of writers who possess what
ficials, and others having responsibilities in these one might call a talent for self assertion, which,
fields will find both information and incentive in in the absence of a vigorous art, has been accepted
these carefully selected and informing treatises. as literary genius. This group has even attained a
The lines in "Verses of Idle Hours,” by O. Ches- certain yellow-press distinction. Mr. Untermeyer
ter Brodhay (Frederick C. Browne, Chicago; $1.),
writes vigorously in defense of his group; but no
are said to have been written in the "idle hours" amount of such argument will make their temporary
which the author has snatched "from his active prestige tenable in the presence of the development
duties in the business world.” They are not, it is
of a real poetic art in this country.
true, the effusions of the well-known T. B. M.;
SAMUEL ROTH.
but the platitudinous thoughts expressed in stere- [EDITORS' Note: Mr. Roth may properly feel
otyped phrases, the cloying sentimentality, and the aggrieved that his book of verse, "First Offering,”
poor workmanship support the view that the man
should have been judged by Mr. Untermeyer as
in the street has never been able to tame Pegasus.
a post-University product instead of as an ante-
The technique is slip-shod: rhymes like "born"
University product, which it really was, although
the intrinsic merit of the volume is not in any
and "storm" abound; and a scheme as loose as the
following is not rare: а, B, C, D, e, d, f, d, g, D,
way lowered or raised by this irrelevant fact.
And, as Mr. Roth himself tacitly admits, Mr. Un-
h, B-the capitals signifying the use of the same
termeyer's judgment was not wholly incorrect; he
word. Here is a couplet typical in form and
does, indeed, congratulate his critic on selecting
content:
for quotation “the worst eight lines I have ever
What happy, happy days, gentle Mary dear!
written." In other words, what Mr. Roth dis-
”
Memory has not failed me through many a year.
closes in his letter may be somewhat damaging for
A reader opening the book at random might be
Mr. Untermeyer's paradoxical theory, but it hardly
tempted to consider it satirical, but careful perusal makes out a case against Mr. Untermeyer's taste.
of its pages discloses a solemn puritanism and such As for the amiable weakness of blowing one's own
cloudy metaphysics as no keen ironist could imagine. horn, which has been commonly supposed to be a
In one long ode, an ambitious "transposition" of characteristic of poets in general, would Mr. Roth
"Thanatopsis,” the author declares that “Life is contend that he departs from the normal in this
God, the One Intelligence, the only Power.” Sub- particular?]


250
[March 14
THE DIAL
NOTES AND NEWS
READY MARCH 15
United States Army,
Facts and Insignia
By VALDEMAR PAULSEN
Illustrated with 27 half-tones from photographs,
United States Army Insignia and flags of the nations
in colors. Cover in colors showing coat of arms of
the United States. Paper, vest pocket size, 25 cents ;
cloth 50 cents. 96 pages.
A little book for which the whole country has been
clamoring. Built upon official government data. Treats
of organization, arms of the service, staff corps and
departments, units of fighting forces, rank, pay, war
risk insurance, military schools, insignia and salutes.
A host of up-to-the-minute facts about fighting forces
that every American should know.
Alfred Booth Kuttner, who contributes the first
of two articles on American intolerance to this
issue of The Dial, is a graduate of Harvard and
the author of many essays and studies which have
appeared in various newspapers, magazines, and
technical journals. He has long been a student of
psychological problems, especially of the so-called
"Freudian psychology,” and most of his writing
has been in the nature of an exposition of the
new psychological method of approach and the
implications of this approach for conventional esti-
mates in literature, art, and politics. His home
is in New York City.
Richard Aldington, one of the leaders of the
English Imagist group, is represented in the vari-
ous Imagist anthologies and is the author of "Im-
ages Old and New” (Four Seas; 60 cts.). Much
of his work, especially in the “Egoist” and the
“Little Review," has consisted in verse and prose
evocations of the spirit of antiquity. His letter to
the Slave in “Cleon" in this issue is the first of a
series of "Letters to Unknown Women” which
The Dial will print from time to time. Succeed-
ing “Letters” will be addressed to Helen, Sappho,
Heliodora, Amaryllis, and La Grosse Margot.
Marsden Hartley, who contributes the lyrical
appreciation of John Barrymore's acting in "Peter
Ibbetson," has had several of his appreciative and
descriptive essays published in periodicals. Be-
sides his literary work he is a painter of consider-
able distinction, especially of landscapes, and the
effect of this artistic work upon his prose style is
clearly discernible. He travels in search of sub-
jects for his brush, but his present residence is in
New York City.
1918 Rand-McNally
Juveniles
Wholesome and Pleasing
Little Brothers to the Scouts
Little Lame Prince
Loraine and the Little People
Pied Piper of Hamelin
Overall Boys
Story Teller's Book
Sunbonnet Babies Book
Sunny-Sulky Book
When I Was Little
When Little Thoughts Go Rhyming
Billy Robin and His Neighbors
Adventures of Sonny Bear
Bobbie Bubbles
Butterfly Babies Book
Doings of Little Bear
Flower Fairies
Goody-Naughty Book
Grandad Coco Nut's Party
Kipling's Boy Stories
Jolly Mother Goose Annual
Muffin Shop
Land of Don't-Want-To
Japanese Fairy Tales
Kidnapped
Mother Goose Village
Paddy-Paws
True Bear Stories
War of Wooden Soldiers
Goosey Goosey Gander Series, each
Dotty Dolly's Tea Party
Real Mother Goose
Stories of the Pilgrims
I Wonder Why?
Flower Babies Book
Child's Garden of Verses
A. B. C. Mother Goose
How the Animals Came to the Circus
Jackieboy in Rainbowland
King Arthur and His Knights
Alice in Wonderland
$0.50
1.25
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1.25
.75
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1.00
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"Special Libraries" for February contains a list
of dictionaries of commercial commodities and sim-
ilar books.
E. Phillips Oppenheim's novel of German in-
trigue, “The Pawns Count,” will be issued March
27 by Little, Brown & Co.
The George H. Doran Co. have in preparation a
new book by Frank Swinnerton—"Nocturne," to
which H. G. Wells has contributed a critical in-
troduction.
The Boston "Evening Record" has been sold by
Francis W. Bird to a syndicate headed by Louis
Coues Page, president of The Page Co., publishers.
It will be continued as a Republican newspaper.
.76
.80
1.00
.25
.50
.25
1 an-
1.50
1.00
.50
1.00
.75
1.00
.50
.50
1.00
1.50
other volume of poems by Conrad Aiken, whose
"Nocturne of Remembered Spring" they recently
published. It will be called “The Charnel Rose.”
The Grolier Club, of New York City, is now
installed on East 60th Street, where its new rooms
have been arranged to give the effect of a library
in an English college.
"Ambulance 464," by Julien H. Bryan; a book
of stories by Alice Brown, "The Flying Teuton";
Professor John Spencer Bassett's “The Lost Fruits
of Waterloo"; and “War Time Control of In-
dustry,” by Howard L. Gray, are among the forth-
coming Macmillan volumes.
For sale at all leading book and department stores
Rand-McNally & Company
CHICAGO


1918]
251
THE DIAL
Books of the Moment
Principles of American
Diplomacy
By John Bassett Moore
Do you know where your own country stands on
the great questions of international relations ? Per-
haps you think that this has nothing to do with
you. But in these days when the eyes of the whole
world are turned upon America, when everyone is
relying upon her to stem the Teuton tide, surely
you should know the place she has taken in the
council of nations. Prof. Moore's book will give you
& clear understanding of our relations with foreign
powers.
$2.00
National Progress, 1907-1917
By Frederic Austin Ogg, Ph.D.
Have you a clear idea in your mind of the various
steps America has taken, as a nation, during the
last ten years ? Are you familiar with the policies
of the three Presidents who were in office during
that time? The governmental problems? The rela-
tions of the United States in the Pacific, the Carib-
bean and elsewhere?
In this book Prof. Ogg has given us information
on every phase of national advancement, even
far back as 1900.
$2.00
ag
Harper and Brothers are about to publish "A
Flying Fighter," by Lieut. E. M. Roberts, R.F.C.;
"The Road that Led Home," by Will E. Inger-
soll; “Long Ever Ago,” by Rupert Hughes; and
"Skinner's Big Idea,” by Henry Irving Dodge.
Among the books announced for immediate issue
by D. Appleton & Co. are: “The War Cache," a
novel by W. Douglas Newton; "American Women
and the World War," by Ida Clyde Clarke; and
“The Great Sioux Trail,” by Joseph A. Altsheler.
This spring Doubleday, Page & Co. will publish
the companion volume to “Jerusalem,” by Selma
Lagerlöf-"The Holy City," translated by Velma
Swanston Howard. The present book deals with
the Dalecarlians in Jerusalem, where they work
with the Gordon Colony of Americans.
The John Lane Co. announce that March 22
they will issue the second of Lieut. Coningsby
Dawson's three war books, “The Glory of the
Trenches.” The third will be called "Out to Win"
and will discuss the entry of the United States
into the war. “Carry On: Letters in War Time"
was the first volume of the trilogy.
The Dutton list for early March includes "Use
Your Government,” by Alissa Franc, and “State
Services,” by George Radford-two books that
deal with the services of the state to the individual.
The former is an exposition of the government
departments of the United States; the latter, a
plea for the nationalization of certain factors of
national wealth in England.
March 15 Boni & Liveright will publish a trans-
lation of “Men in War," by Andreas Latzko, an
Austrian army officer. Other books on their March
list are:
"The Unbroken Tradition,” by Nora
Connolly, daughter of James Connolly—a record
of her experiences during the Irish rebellion, which
led to her father's execution; "The Hand of the
Potter,” Theodore Dreiser's four-act play which
is to be produced in New York this month; "Mari-
ana,” by the Spanish dramatist Jose Echegary;
“Erdgeist” and “Pandora's Box,” by Frank Wede-
kind; "The Sanity of Art," by George Bernard
Shaw; and (by arrangement with the American-
Scandinavian Foundation) “Marie Grubbe," a his-
torical romance of the seventeenth century, by Jens
Peter Jacobsen.
Egmont Arens is publishing, at the Washington
Square Book Shop, New York, the “Flying Stag
Plays for the Little Theatre.” This series, he
announces, will include the best one-act plays pro-
duced by the Washington Square Players, the
Provincetown Players, the Greenwich Village Play-
ers, and other companies. The numbers now issued
are: "The Chester Mysteries, a Passion Play,"
as played on Christmas Eve by the Greenwich Vil-
lage Players; “The Sandbar Queen,” by George
Cronyn, as played by the Washington Square
Players; and “Night," by James Oppenheim, as
played by the Provincetown Players. Those in
preparation are: for March, “The Angel Intrudes,”
by Floyd Dell; for April, “Barbarians,” by Rita
Wellman; for May, “The Slave with Two Faces,"
by Mary Caroline Davies-all from the repertoire
of the Provincetown troupe. The price is 35 cts.
an issue (monthly) and $3. a year.
9)
TRAVELING UNDER ORDERS
A Guide-Book for Troops en route to France
By Major William E. Dunn, N. A.
Before you start for the front-buy this book! It
will save you days of endless worry and discomfort.
It tells you what you need to equip yourself for
foreign service and is written by a field officer who
knows and no detail for safety or comfort is over-
looked.
16mo. Khaki Cloth, 50 cents
In Our First Year of War
By Woodrow Wilson
That the public desires to possess in permanent
form these important State papers is proved by the
success of "Why We Are At War," and by the
many requests which have come to us for a war
volume of the President's messages which have ap-
peared since the earlier book was published. The
book opens with the second inaugural address and
contains the President's messages and addresses in
the first calendar year of the war, including the
latest, “The Terms of Peace."
Portrait. $1.00
A French-English Military
Technical Dictionary
By Cornélis De Witt Willcox, Colonel U. S. A.
If you really want to know the meanings of the
innumerable terms in French used daily in connec-
tion with the discussion of war, this book will be
invaluable. It is not merely a handbook for the
soldier, but a volume comprising every known phrase
used in military circles, and is as essential to the
civilian reading the dispatches in the daily paper as
to the officer going abroad. Crown 8vo. Cloth, $4.00
>
Harper & Brothers Established New York


252
[March 14
THE DIAL
LIST OF NEW BOOKS
[The following list, containing 84 titles, includes
books received by The Dial since its last issue.]
GREAT WAR, BALLADS
By Brookes More
Readers of the future (as well as today) will
understand the Great War not only from pe-
rusal of histories, but also from Ballads-having
a historical basis-and inspired by the war.
A collection of the most interesting, beauti-
ful and pathetic ballads.-
True to life and full of action.
$1.50 Net
For Sale by Brentano's; The Baker & Taylor Co., Now
York; A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago; St.
Louis News Co., and All Book Stores
THRASH-LICK PUBLISHING CO.
Fort Smith, Arkansas, U. S. A.
50 Books on the War at
Bargain Prices
War books by Conan Doyle, Hall Caine, Pierre Loti,
and John Reed are among the 750 titles in our newly
issued Catalogue of Book Bargains. Recent fiction, travel
books, and works of almost every description from our
overstock are also included-all at considerable reduc-
tions from original prices.
FREE ON REQUEST
THE WAR.
Wonderful stories. Winning the v. C. in the Great
War. Illustrated, 8vo, 280 pages. E. P. Dutton
& Co. $2.50.
The Great Crime and Its Moral. A Connected Nar-
rative of the Great War. By J. Selden Willmore.
8vo, 323 pages. George H. Doran Co. $2.
Deductions from the Great War. By Baron von
Freytag-Loringhoven. 12mo, 212 pages.
G. P.
Putnam's Sons.
The Story of the Salonica Army. By G. Ward Price.
With an introduction by Viscount Northcliffe.
Illustrated, 12mo,
311
pages. Edward J.
Clode. $2.
Under Four Flags for France. By George Clarke
THE BAKER & TAYLOR Co.
Wholesale dealers in the books of all publishers
354 Fourth Ave. NEW YORK At 26th St.
The putnam
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who cannot get satisfactory local service, are
urged to establish relations with our bookstoro.
We handle every kind of book, wherever
published. Questions about literary matters
answered promptly. We have customers in
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BOOKS
We carry a large stock of First Editions
of Modern Authors, viz.:
Galsworthy Meredith Swinburne
Gibson Moore Symons
Hardy
Musgrave. Illustrated, 12mo, 264 pages. D.
Appleton & Co. $2.
America at War. A Handbook of Patriotic Edu-
cation References. Edited by Albert Bushnell
Hart. 8vo, 425 pages. George H. Doran Co.
$1.50.
World Peace. A Written Debate Between Wil-
liam Howard Taft and William Jennings Bryan.
Illustrated, 12mo, 156 pages. George H. Doran
Co. $1.25.
In Our First Year of the War. Messages and Ad-
dresses to the Congress and the People, March
5, 1917 to January 8, 1918. By Woodrow Wilson.
With frontispiece, 16mo, 166 pages. Harper &
Bros. $1.
Two War Years in Constantinople. By Dr. Harry
Stuermer. Translated from the German by E.
Allen and the author. 12mo, 292 pages. George
H. Doran Co. $1.50.
First Call. By Arthur Guy Empey. Illustrated,
12mo, 369 pages. G. P. Putnam's Sons. $1.50.
The Canteeners. By Agnes M. Dixon. Illustrated,
12mo, 176 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.50.
Trapped in Black Russia. By Ruth Pierce. 16mo,
149 pages. Houghton Miffin Co. $1.25.
Soldier Men, By “Yeo." 12mo, 238 pages. John
Lane Co. $1.25.
The German Terror in France. By Arnold J. Toyn-
bee. Illustrated, 8vo, 220 pages. George H.
Doran Co. $1.
The New Spirit of the New Army. By Joseph H.
Odell, 12mo, 121 pages. Fleming H. Revell Co.
75 cts.
That Rookie From the 13th Squad. By Lieut. P. L.
Crosby. 8vo. Harper & Bros. 75 cts.
The All Highest Goes to Jerusalem. Translated
from the French by Frank Alvah Dearborn.
Illustrated, 12mo, 88 pages. George H. Doran
Co. Boards. 50 cts.
Traveling Under Orders. By Major William E.
Dunn, N. A. 16mo, 80 pages. Harper & Bros.
50 cts.
The Fourth Year in Belgium. How Help is Reach-
ing the Lowlands through the American Red
Cross. By Paul U. Kellogg. 12mo, 32 pages.
American Red Cross, Paris. Paper.
Shaw Wells
Masefield Stephens Yeats
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104 High Street, New Haven, Conn.
Importers
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FICTION.
The Bag of Saffron. By Bettina von Hutten. Il-
lustrated, 12mo, 451 pages. D. Appleton & Co.
$1.50.
Sunshine Beggars. By Sidney McCall. Illustrated,
12mo, 302 pages. Little, Brown & Co. $1.50.
An Orkney Maid. By Amelia E. Barr. With frontis-
piece, 12mo, 308 pages. D. Appleton & Co, $1.50.
The Hope Chest. By Mark Lee Luther. With
frontispiece, 12mo, 334 pages. Little, Brown
& Co. $1.50.
The Biography of a Million Dollars. By George
Kibbe Turner. Illustrated, 12mo, 356 pages.
Little, Brown & Co. $1.50.
The Best In Life. By Muriel Hine. 12mo, 365 pages.
John Lane Co. $1.50.
My Two Kings. By Mrs. Evan Nepean. Illustrated,
12mo, 473 pages. E. P. Dutton & Co. $1.50.
The Lucky Seven. By John Taintor Foote. 12mo,
309 pages. D. Appleton & Co. $1.40.
The Long Trick. By "Bartimeus." 12mo, 278 pages.
George H. Doran Co. $1.35.
Twinkletoes. By Thomas Burke. 12mo, 259 pages.
Robt. McBride & Co. $1.35.


1918]
253
THE DIAL
“AT MCCLURG’S”
It is of interest and importance
to Librarians to know that the
books reviewed and advertised
in this magazine can be pur-
chased from us at advantageous
prices by
Public Libraries, Schools,
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In addition to these books we
have an exceptionally large
stock of the books of all pub-
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store in the entire country. We
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our facilities.
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-
.
Israel Zangwill on “The
Dilemmas of the Diaspora”.
Jacob H. Schiff on “At the Gate of the
Promised Land”—Justice Irving Leh-
man on "Our Duty as Americans" -
President Emeritus Eliot of Harvard
on "Three Lines of Action for Amer.
ican Jews"-Jacob Billikopf on “The
Treasure-Chest of American Jewry”
- Prof. M. M. Kaplan on "Where
Does Jewry Really Stand Today?"
-a stirring poem by the Menorah poet,
Martin Feinstein: “From a Zionist in
the Trenches”-and the literary sen-
sation of the year, “Pomegranates," a
series of "acid” comments on Jewish
topics by a brilliant anonymous writer,
-all in the current number of THE
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number FREE to you with a trial $1.00
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number, if subscription is mailed
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The Key of the Fields and Boldero. By Henry Mil-
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The Gossip Shop. By_J. E. Buckrose. 12mo, 317
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The Man with the Black Cord. By Augusta Groner.
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The Return of the Soldier. By_Rebecca West, Il-
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Kitty Canary. By Kate Langley Bosher. With
frontispiece, 12mo, 190 pages. Harper & Bros. $1.
POETRY.
The Broadway Anthology. By Edward L. Bernays,
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Murdock Pemberton. 12mo, 60 pages. Duffield
& Co.
Hill-Tracks. By Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. With
portrait, 8vo, 65 pages. Macmillan Co. $1.75.
Wraiths and Realities. By Cale Young Rice. 12mo,
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Wings in the Night. By Alice Duer Miller. 12mo,
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Sonnets, and Other Lyrics. By Robert Silliman
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GENERAL LITERATURE.
The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert. Edited
by Joseph Quincy Adams. With frontispiece,
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Per Amica Silentia Lunae. By William Butler
Yeats. 12mo, 98 pages. The Macmillan Co.
$1.50.
Hearts of Controversy. By Alice Meynell. 12mo,
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Charles Scribner's Sons.
HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.
Mexico: From Diaz to the Kaiser. By Mrs. Alec-
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A History of the Pacific Northwest. By Joseph
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12mo, 323 pages. The Macmillan Co. $2.25.
Lincoln in Illinois. By Octavia Roberts. Illus-
trat 8vo, 119 pages. Houghton Mifflin Co. $5.
The Mad Monk of Russia, Iliodor. Life, Memories,
and Confessions of Sergei Michailovich Truf-
anoff. Illustrated, 8vo, 363 pages. The Century
Co. $2.
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Travels in London. By the late Charles Morley.
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Alone in the Caribbean. By Frederic A. Fenger.
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The Sunny South and Its People. By C. W. Johns-
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PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.
Theories of Social Progress. By Arthur James Todd.
12mo, 579 pages. The Macmillan Co. $2.25.
The Question: "If a Man Die Shall He Live Again?”
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Evolution in Modern Thought. By Haeckel, Thom-
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Boni & Liveright. Limp croft leather. 60 cts.
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Income Tax Law and Accounting. 1918. By Godfrey
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The Theory and Practice of Scientific Management.
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pages.
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The Fat of the Land. The Story of an American
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12mo, 406 pages. The Macmillan Co. $1.50.


254
[March 14
THE DIAL
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Giotto, and Some of His Followers. By Osvald
Sirén. Translated by Frederic Schenck. In 2
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versity Press. Boxed. $12.
Francisco de Zurbarán. His Epoch, His Life, and
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lated by Nellie Seelye Evans. Illustrated, 4to,
158 pages.
Frederic Fairchild Sherman (pri-
vately printed). Boxed. $12.
Japanese Art Motives. By Maude Rex Allen. Illus-
trated in colors. 12mo, 273 pages. A. C. Mc-
Clurg & Co. Boxed, $3.
Rubens: The Story of His Life and Work. By
Louis Hourtica. Translated by Frederick Street.
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The Head Voice and Other Problems. Practical
Talks on Singing. By D. A. Clippinger, 12mo,
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EDUCATION AND TRANSLATION.
The Quarter-Centennial Celebration of the Univer-
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The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. With a
translation in blank verse and a commentary.
By Courtney Langdon. Volume I. "Inferno."
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The Greek Anthology: With an English translation
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Plautus. With an English translation by Paul
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Plutarch's Lives. With an English translation by
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Dio's Roman History. With an English translation
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Selections from the Novelas Ejemplares La Gita-
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and vocabulary, by Hugo A. Rennert. 16mo, 218
pages. Henry Holt & Co.
A School Grammar of Modern French. By G. H.
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La France: French Life and Ways. By G. Gui-
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French Primer. By W. E. M. Llewellyn. Illus-
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Honsfield's New Practical Method for Learning the
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1918]
255
THE DIAL

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256
[March 14, 1918
THE DIAL
THE UNWILLING VESTAL
A Tale of Rome under the Caesars
By EDWARD LUCAS WHITE, Author of “El Supremo.” Net, $1.50
9
No institution of any country or period was more notable, more peculiar or more interesting than that of
the Order of Vestal Virgins of Ancient Rome. The book embodies all the existing information concerning
the Vestals and their life, and anyone reading this book will, without effort, merely in the process of reading an
absorbing story, assimilate all the extant knowledge relating to these wonderful princesses of a vanished democ-
racy, their powers and privileges, and the Roman beliefs and customs which created and maintained the order.
MY TWO KINGS. A Novel of the Stuart Restoration.
By MRS. EVAN NEPEAN
Net, $1.50
The most brilliant historical novel of recent years. The author is certain that she is the present day re-
incarnation of a certain Charlotte Stuart, cousin of the "Merry Monarch," and that there have come to her in
this life details of events and conversations from her earlier one. Thus her story has the impression of vivid
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cardinal and warrior of mediaeval Rome.
TO ARMS! (La Veillée des Armes)
Translated from the French of Marcelle Tinayre by Lucy H. Humphrey.
Introduction by John Finley.
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THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS. A Story of Secret Service
By BENNET COPPLESTONE
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CHILDREN OF PASSAGE
By FREDERICK WATSON
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more
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PRESS OF THE BLAKELY-OSWALD PRINTING CO., CHICAGO.


THE DIAL
VOLUME LXIV
No. 763
MARCH 28, 1918
CONTENTS
.
• 279
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
TRAPS FOR THE UNWARY
Randolph Bourne
277
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV.
Paul Rosenfeld
A STUDY OF AMERICAN INTOLERANCE Alfred Booth Kuttner . 282
OUR LONDON LETTER
Edward Shanks
. 286
To Dorothy
Verse
Maxwell Bodenheim . 288
A HINT TO ESSAY-LOVERS
B. I. Kinne
· 288
SUPERSTITION Become RESPECTABLE Joseph Jastrow
. 289
THE POETRY OF CONRAD AIKEN John Gould Fletcher . 291
A YEAR OF MISTAKES
Harold Stearns
293
New PLAYS AND A New THEORY Padraic Colum
295
"A Queer FELLOW"
William Aspenwall Bradley 297
REBECCA WEST-NOVELIST
Henry B. Fuller.
299
BRIEFS ON New BOOKS
. 300
Colorado, the Queen Jewel of the Rockies.—Florida, the Land of Enchantment.
-A Diary of the Russian Revolution.-Creators of Decorative Styles.-Organic
Evolution.—The Note Book of an Intelligence Officer.-Hearts of Controversy.
-A Literary Pilgrim in England.-Medical Research and Human Welfare.—The
Spell of China.-The History of Medieval Europe.-An Introduction to Political
Parties and Practical Politics.
CASUAL COMMENT
304
Notes AND News
. 306
SELECTIVE LIST OF SPRING BOOKS
. 307
List of Books Received
. 320
.
.
.
.
.
.
GEORGE BERNARD DONlin, Editor
HAROLD E. STEARNS, Associate
Contributing Editors
CONRAD AIKEN
VAN WYCK BROOKS
H. M. KALLEN
RANDOLPH BOURNE
PADRAIC COLUM
KENNETH MACCOWAN
WILLIAM ASPENWALL BRADLEY
HENRY B. FULLER
JOHN E. ROBINSON
THE DIAL (founded in 1880 by Francis F. Browne) is published fortnightly, twenty-four times
a year. Yearly subscription $3.00 in advance, in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. For-
eign subscriptions $3.50 per year.
Entered as Second-class matter Oct. 8, 1892, at the Post Office at Chicago, under the Act of
March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1918, by The Dial Publishing Company, Inc.
Published by The Dial Publishing Company, Martyn Johnson, President; Willard C. Kitchel,
Secretary-Treasurer, at 608 South Dearborn Street, Chicago.


276
[March 28, 1918
THE DIAL
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THE DIAL
a fortnightly Journal of Criticism and Discussion of Literature and The arts
a
Traps for the Unwary
What place is there to be for the decisive, and in America today they seem
younger American writers who have less decisive than ever. Mr. Sherman, an
broken the "genteel” tradition with a arrant philistine, in that he defends the
sudden violence that elicits angry cries life lived through the conventions, is dan-
of pain from the critics, so long regarded gerous because he makes philistinism
by the significant classes as guardians of sound like belles lettres. Mr. Mencken,
our cultural faith? Read Mr. Brownell on the other hand, deserves everything
on standards and see with what a be- Mr. Sherman says about him, because in
wildered contempt one of the most vigor- his rather self-conscious bluster he makes
ous and gentlemanly survivals from the literary art sound like vulgarity. The best
genteel tradition regards the efforts of the thing that can be done to these contending
would-be literary artists of today. Read critics is to persuade them to kill each other
Stuart P. Sherman on contemporary litera- off. Both are moralists before they are
ture, and see with what a hurt panic a critics of literary art.
Both have an
young gentleman, perhaps the very last exaggerated respect for Demos, which one
brave offshoot of the genteel tradition, re- expresses by means of a phobia, the other
gards those bold modern writers from by a remarkable process of idealization.
whom his contemporaries derive. One Mr. Mencken is as much a product of the
can admire the intellectual acuteness and genteel tradition as is Mr. Sherman, for
sound moral sense of both these critics, he represents a moralism imperfectly trans-
and yet feel how quaintly irrelevant for cended.
our purposes is an idea of the good, the Let us look for the enemy of the literary
true, and the beautiful, which culminates artist in America today not among the
in a rapture for Thackeray (vide Mr. philistines or the puritans, among the ani-
Brownell), or is a literary æsthetic (vide mal-obsessed novelists or the dainty pro-
Mr. Sherman) which gives Mr. Arnold fessors who make Mr. Mencken profane.
Bennett first place as an artist because of The real enemy is still the genteel tradi-
his wholesome theories of human conduct. tion which tends to smother the timid
Mr. Sherman has done us the service of experiments of a younger generation that
showing us how very dead is the genteel is not satisfied with husks. For the deadly
tradition in our hearts, how thoroughly the virus of gentility is carried along by an
sense of what is desirable and absorbing up-to-date cultivated public—small per-
has shifted in our younger American life. haps, but growing—who are all the more
But he has also shown us how gentil- dangerous because they are so hospitable.
ity in literary attitude lingers on. Pro- The would-be literary artist needs to be
fessors of literature still like it, and those protected not so much from his enemies
pioneer rebels who hate it have tended to as from his friends. Puritan and profes-
hate it not wisely but too well. Crusaders sor may, agree in their disgust at the
like Mr. Dreiser and Mr. Mencken have creative imagination at work in America,
dealt loud enough blows, but they beat at a but it is not their hostility which keeps
straw man of puritanism which, for the it from being freer and more expressive.
.
younger generation, has not even the vital. The confusing force is rather an undis-
ity to be interesting. Art always has to criminating approval on the part of a
struggle with the mob, and Mr. Mencken's public who want the new without the un-
discovery that it has to struggle in America settling. The current popularity of verse, ,
is a little naïve. The philistine and the the vogue of the little theatres and the
puritan are troublesome, though never little magazines reveal a public that is


278
[March 28
THE DIAL
1
A new
a
almost pathetically receptive to anything slightest evidence that into the domain of
which has the flavor or the pretension of literary art has the war penetrated, or will
literary art. The striving literary artist it penetrate. Nothing shows better than
is faced by no stony and uncomprehending her attitude how very far the younger
world. Almost anyone can win recogni- generation is beyond those older counsel-
tion and admiration. But where is the ors who hope that the war will “get under
criticism that will discriminate between our skins”—perhaps to make a few bad
what is fresh, sincere, and creative and poets write worse poems, and to give many
what is merely stagy and blatantly rebel- mediocre writers a momentary patriotic
lious? The Brownells profess to find no and social glamor, but not to touch a
nuances in this mob of young literary "young world” which has its treasures for
anarchists. The Shermans cannot degrade other heavens!
themselves to the level of treating seriously The problem of the literary artist is
a crowd of naughty children.
how to
to obtain more of this intel-
criticism has to be created to meet not only ligent, pertinent, absolutely contempora-
the work of the new artists but also the neous criticism, which shall be both severe
uncritical hospitality of current taste. If and encouraging. It will be obtained when
anything more than ephemeral is to come the artist himself has turned critic and set
out of this younger school, outlawed by to work to discover and interpret in others
the older criticism, the new critic must the motives and values and efforts he feels
intervene between public and writer with in himself. The “high seriousness" of
an insistence on clearer and sharper out- Miss Lowell's own critical attitude towards
lines of appreciation by the one, and the the artistic problems of the six poets sug-
attainment of a richer artistry by the other. gests, I think, that there is a promise of a
That is why a study such as Miss Amy rich and vibrant literary era before us.
Lowell's on recent tendencies in American No one pretends to be satisfied with the
verse is so significant. The intelligent re- novels and plays and interpretations now
viewers who saw in the book only a puff being turned out by the younger intel-
for Imagism disclosed how very novel is lectuals. Least of all must they them-
an intelligent attempt to place our current selves be satisfied. After all, very little of
literary art not merely against the spirit- their work really gives voice to the ambi-
ual background of tradition, but in the tions, desires, discontents, and spiritual
terms and in the spirit of the contemporary adventures of the all too self-conscious
imagination itself. Her very tone is revo- young American world. Moreover, there is
lutionary. She is neither sentimental nor for this healthy dissatisfaction an insidious
apologetic. Poetry appears for the first trap the terrible glamor of social patron-
time on our critical horizon as neither a age which so easily blunts idealism in the
refined dessert to be consumed when the young prophet. The other day, reading
day's work is done, nor as a private hobby “My Literary Friends and Acquaintances,
which the business man will deride if he I shuddered at Howells's glee over the
hears about it, but as a sound and im- impeccable social tone of Boston and Cam-
portant activity of contemporary Ameri- bridge literary life. He was playful enough
Some people who habitually about it, but not too playful to conceal the
,
patronize Miss Lowell complain that in enormity of his innocence. He does not see
her book she patronizes Carl Sandburg. how dreadful it is to contrast Cambridge
Actually she makes him a powerful figure, with ragged vagabonds and unpresentable
with his brave novelty of the America that authors of other ages.
To a younger
is in the making. Her sound intuition gets generation which feels that the writer
the better of her class-feeling even in her ought to be at least a spiritual vagabond,
attitude towards the war. For, having a de-classed mind, this gentility of Mr.
orthodoxly registered her sense of the Howells and his friends has come to seem
complete bouleversement which it is mak- more alien than Sologub. We are acquiring
ing in the spiritual life of the world, she an almost Stendhalian horror for those
calmly proceeds as if it were not. Neither correctnesses and tacts which wield such
in her criticism nor in her verse is the hypnotic influence over our middle-class
can life.
.
a
.


1918]
279
THE DIAL
a
life. "Society," we say, whether it be in are fortunate enough to see Copeau's
the form of the mob or the cultivated theatre seem to remark there a fusion of
dinner-circle, is the deadly enemy of the fervor and simplicity with finished work-
literary artist. Literary promises can be manship, a sort of sensuous austerity of
seen visibly fading out in the warm beams tonean effort of creative novelty work-
of association with the refined and the ing with all that is vital in a tradition.
important. And social glamor was never Do we not want these values in our Ameri-
so dangerous as it is today when it is can effort ? Should we not like to see from
anxious to be enlightened and liberal. this younger generation a literary art
Timidity is still the reigning vice of the which will
combine a classical and puritan
American intellect, and the terrorism of tradition with the most modern ideas? Do
"good taste” is yet more deadly to the we not want minds with a touch of the
creation of literary art than is sheer bar- apostolic about them and a certain edge-
barism. The literary artist needs protec- a little surly, but not embittered—with an
tion from the liberal audience that will intellectual as well as an artistic conscience,
accept him though he shock them, but that with
with a certain tentative superciliousness
subtly tame him even while they appreciate towards Demos and an appalling hatred
.
If this literary promise does not fulfill
for everything which savors of the bour-
itself, it will be because our younger geois or the sentimental? Now while
writers have pleased a public too easy to
please. As we look around at those who everything that is respectable in America
have ideas, our proper mood is not joyful perversity, into the technique of
seems to be putting its effort, with a sort of
pleasure that their work is so good, but destruction, are there no desperate spirit-
discontent that it is not better. It will
not be better unless certain values are felt ual outlaws with a lust to create ?
more intensely. Those Americans who
RANDOLPH BOURNE.
Rimsky-Korsakov
The music of Rimsky-Korsakov is like that the parents find it as amusing as the
one of the books, full of gay, pictures
, children.
which are given to children. It is perhaps But though the music is the loveliest of
the most brilliant of them all, a picture. picture-books, it is nothing more. It is as
book illuminated in crude and joyous if Rimsky-Korsakov had ignored the other
colors—bright reds, apple greens, golden and larger functions of his art, and been
oranges
and yellows—and executed with content to have his music only picturesque
genuine verve and fantasy. The Slavonic and colorful; as if the childish Czar in
and Oriental legends and fairy tales are "Le Coq d'Or," who desires only to lie
illustrated astonishingly, with a certain abed all day, eat delicate food, and listen
humor in the matter-of-fact notation of to the fairy tales of his nurse, had been
grotesque and miraculous events. The per- something of a portrait of the composer.
There is a curious coldness and objectivity
sonages in the pictures are arrayed in
in the music, for all its gay and opulent
bizarre and shimmering costumes, de-
lightfully inaccurate, and if they represent forth had been very small, very easily
exterior, as if the need that brought it
kings and queens, are set in the midst of a
satisfied. There is no page of Rimsky's
fabulous pomp and glitter, and wear
crowns incrustated with large and impos- great experience, straining to formulate
many scores that reveal him heavy with a
sible stones. Framing the illustrations are
it. The music is never more than a grace-
border-fancies of sunflowers and golden ful arrangement of surfaces, the competent
cocks and wondrous springtime birds, presentation of matter chosen for its
fashioned boisterously and humorously in exotic rhythms and shape, its Oriental and
the manner of Russian peasant art. In-
peasant tang. The form is ever a thing
deed, the book is executed so charmingly of two dimensions. The musical ideas


280
[March 28
THE DIAL
are passed through the colors of various equipped to solve it. None of them, for
timbres and tonalities, made to undergo a instance, had so wide an acquaintance with
series of dexterous deformations, and are the folk_song, the touchstone of their
contrasted, superficially, with other ideas labors. For Rimsky-Korsakov was some-
when the possibilities of technical varia- thing of a philosophical authority on the
tion have been exhausted. There is no music of the many peoples of the Empire,
actual development in the sense of made collections of chants, and could draw
volumnear increase. The form extends on this fund for his work. Nor did any
only in time; in “Scheherazade," for in- of them possess his technical facility.
stance, the climaxes are purely voluntary Moussorgsky, for instance, had to dis-
and physical. And it is only the virtue of cover the art of music painfully with each
the component elements, the spiciness of step of composition, and orchestrated
the thematic material, the nimbleness and faultily all his life, while Rimsky-Korsakov
suavity of the compositional arrangements, had a natural sense of the orchestra, wrote
and chiefly, the sensuous quality of the treatises on the science of instrumentation
orchestral speech that save the music and on the science of harmony, and de-
of Rimsky-Korsakov from banality and veloped into something of a doctor of
give it a certain limited value.
music. Indeed, when finally there de-
It is just this superficiality which makes volved upon him, as general legatee of the
the place of the music in the history of nationalist school, the task of correct-
Russian art so ambiguous. Intentionally, ing and editing the works of Borodin
to a certain extent, Rimsky's work is and Dargomijsky and Moussorgsky, he
autochthonous. He was one of those com- brought to his labor an eruditeness that
posers who, in the middle of the last cen-
bordered dangerously on pedantry. Nor
tury, felt descend upon them the need of was his learning only musical. He had a
speaking their own tongue and gave them- great knowledge of the art and customs
selves entirely to the labor of discovering that had existed in Russia before the in-
a music essentially Russian. His material, Auences of western Europe repressed them,
at its best, approximates the idiom of the of the dances and rites and sun worship
Russian folk song, or communicates cer- that survived, despite Christianity, as
,
tain qualities—an Oriental sweetness, a popular and rustic games, and he could
barbaric lassitude and abandon-admit- press them into service in his search for a
tedly racial. His music is full of elements national expression. Like the Sultana in
--wild and headlong rhythms, exotic his symphonic poem, he "drew on the
modes/abstracted from the popular and poets for their verses, on the folk songs
liturgical chants or deftly moulded upon for their words, and intermingled tales
them. For there was always within him and adventures one with another."
the idea of creating an art, particularly Yet there is no score of Rimsky-Kor-
an operatic art, that would be as Russian sakov's, no one of his fifteen operas and
as Wagner's, for instance, is German;
the dozen symphonic works, which has, in all
texts of his operas are adopted from Rus- its mass, the living virtue that informs a
sian history and folklore, and he con- single page of "Boris Goudonow," the
tinually attempted to find a musical idiom virtue of a thing that satisfies the very
with the accent of the old Slavic chroni- needs of life and brings to a race release
cles and fairy tales. Certain of his works, and formulation of its speech. There is
particularly "Le Coq d'Or,"are deliberately no score of his, for all the tang and
an imitation of the childish and fabulous luxuriousness of his orchestration, for all
inventions of the peasant artists. And the incrustation of bright strange stones
certainly none of the other members of on the matter of his operas, that has the
the nationalist group associated with deep glowing color of certain passages of
Rimsky-Korsakov—not Moussorgsky, for Borodin's work, with their magical evoca-
all his emotional profundity; nor Borodin, tions of terrestrial Asia and feudal Mus-
for all his sumptuous imagination—had so
,
firm an intellectual grasp of the common Timbres d'or des mongoles orfèvreries
problem, nor was technically so well Et vieil or des vieilles nations !
covy, their


1918]
281
THE DIAL
For he was in no sense as nobly human of travelers. Though as the foreigner he
stature, as deeply aware of the life about perceived only the superficial and pictur-
him, as Moussorgsky, nor did he feel with- esque elements of the life of the land—its
in himself Borodin's rich and vivid sense Orientalism, its barbaric coloring—and
of the past. “The people are the creat- found his happiest expression in a fantasy
ors,” Glinka had told the young national. after the “Thousand Nights and a Night,
ist composers, "you are but the arrangers. he noted his impressions skilfully and
It was precisely the vital and direct con- vividly, with an almost virtuosic sense of
tact with the source of all creative work his material. If he could not paint the
that Rimsky-Korsakov lacked. There is a spring in music, he could at least embroider
fault of instinct in men like him, who the score of "Sniegourochka" delightfully
can feel their race and their environment with birdcalls and all manner of vernal
only through the conscious mind. Just fancies. If he could not recreate the spirit
what in Rimsky's education produced his of peasant art, he could at least, as in "Le
intellectualism, we do not know. Cer- Coq d'Or," imitate it so tastefully that,
tainly it was nothing extraordinary, for listening to the music, we seem to have
society produces innumerable artists like before us one of the pictures beloved by
him, who are fundamentally incapable the Russian folk—a picture with bright
of becoming the instrument every cre- and joyous dabs of color, with clumsy but
ative being is, and of discovering through gleeful depictions of battles and caval-
themselves the consciousness of their fel- cades and festivities and banqueting tables
lows. Whatever its cause, there is in loaded with fruits, meats, and Aagons. It
such men a fear of the unsealing of the is indeed curious, and not a little pathetic,
unconscious mind, the depository of all to observe how keen Rimsky-Korsakov's
actual and vital sensations, which no effort intelligence ever was. It is within the
of their own can overcome. It is for that limits marked by his work that Russian
reason that they have so gigantic and un- music developed. There is no work of
shakable a confidence in all purely con- Strawinsky's, for instance, that is not
scious processes of creation, particularly simply the successful handling of a material
in the incorporation of a priori theories. Rimsky attempted to employ. The opera
So it was with Rimsky. There is patent in based on a fairy tale and composed with
all his work a vast love of erudition and the naïveté of a child, the burlesque scenes
a vast faith in its efficacy. He is always
He is always from popular life, with their utilization of
attempting to incarnate in the flesh of his vulgar tunes and dance rhythms, and the
music, laws abstracted from classical reconstruction of ethnological dances and
works. Even Tchaikowsky, who was a rites are all foreshadowed in Rimsky's
good deal of an intellectualist himself and work. And when finally “Les Noces Vil-
found "perfect" each one of the thirty lageoises,” Strawinsky's new ballet, is pro-
practice-fugues that Rimsky composed in duced it may well appear the complete
the course of a single month, complained realization of the matter the older man
that the latter "worshipped technique” employed only picturesquely in "Le Coq
and that his work was “full of contrapun- d'Or." Even in his science of orchestra-
tal tricks and all the signs of a sterile tion—the sense of the instruments that
pedantry. It was not that Rimsky was makes him seem to defer to them, to let
pedantic from choice, out of a wilful per- them have their will rather than to impose
versity. As in all inhibited artists, his em- a music from without upon them-Straw-
ployment of intellectual formulas is
is insky has simply materialized Rimsky's in-
only his fear of opening the dark sluices tention. It is not only because he was for
through which the rhythms of life surge. a while Rimsky's pupil. It is because
If Rimsky-Korsakov was not absolutely fortune has given him the power to take
sterile, it was because his intellectual qual possession of a chamber outside of which
ity itself was vivacious and brilliant. the other stood all his life, and could not
Though he remained ever a stranger to enter, and saw only by peering furtively
Russia and to his fellows, as he did to through the chinks of the door.
himself, he became the most observant of
PAUL ROSENFELD.
a
>


282
[March 28
THE DIAL
A Study of American Intolerance
PART TWO:
HOW THE WAR HAS SHARPENED OUR DIFFERENCES AND PUT OUR DEMOCRACY
UPON ITS METTLE
The study of our domestic intolerance interests against the “muckraker,” just
is so fascinating that I am tempted to pur- when muckraking had outgrown its sensa-
sue it a little further in one or two direc- tionalism and was about to begin con-
tions before examining the contributive structive criticism.
structive criticism. Our magazines soon
intolerance which the atmosphere of war resumed the more congenial task of chant-
has inevitably created in this as well as in ing our achievements and ignoring our de-
all other warring countries. This will at fects. The almost complete absence of
the same time put us in a better position sarcasm and irony in our more permanent
to understand the combined effect of these literature is certainly significant in this con-
two currents of intolerance now so widely nection; most of our writers dispense with
manifest in our public life.
these forms of criticism altogether, and
In times of peace we should answer the those who cling to them soon find them-
charge of intolerance by referring to our selves exiled from the general reading
constitution, to our state charters and su- public. Intellectual exchange among us
preme court decisions, to all the splendid is constantly impeded by this amazing hos-
declarations of our political literature tility to criticism. We act like people who
where our sense of liberty and the rights are afraid to sit down and discuss things
of free speech have been so frequently ex- lest the discussion bring out deep and ir-
pressed. We should make naught of the reconcilable differences.
accusation by reviewing the guarantees This same feeling about criticism is re-
which, as we conceive it, put our tolerance flected in many of our most current say,
beyond debate. But it might well impressings. Our greatest national slogan, “mind
an acute observer that we were citing all your own business," undoubtedly echoed
our formulations on the subject and very an earlier defiance of the inquisition of
few of our practices. And yet that is the state and church authorities which the
vital point of the discussion. For toler- American pioneer had discarded. But the
ance is at bottom a spiritual and intellect- hostile note in it also helped to solidify the
ual matter which can never be wholly antisocial isolation which became typical
expressed in fixed forms. Its presence or
of American life until it grew to be an
absence is always most clearly registered anachronism and an impediment at a time
in the intellectual atmosphere and social when vast economic changes called for a
sanctions of the community.
degree of social interaction hitherto un-
If we apply this more searching, internal dreamed of. For it is well to remember
standard instead of making a purely that we have been isolationists not only in
formal defence, we may bring ourselves to external policy but in our internal life as
realize that we have been curiously intol. well. A less classic saying from the Far
erant of many of the things which toler- West, which enjoins to be able to "look
ance ought to breed. The tolerance of the other fellow in the eye and tell him to
criticism, for instance, is not as native to go to Hell,” betrays a similar attitude.
us as we like to imagine. We resent crit. One cannot help imagining that anyone
icism with a passion that makes any real who urged his fellowship so defiantly must
criticism impossible because it breaks off have had something to conceal.
all communication between the critic and Here again we must consider the social
the person criticized. Nobody is so cor- background. These Western communities
dially hated among us as the "knocker," a were composed of the most extraordinarily
term which of itself shows that the func. heterogeneous groups of men, with some-
tion of criticism is not understood. It was times a criminal record to live down or a
this almost instinctive resentment which failure not altogether of their own doing
was so skilfully played upon by powerful to make up for. The tolerance they craved


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was entirely of a negative sort; they capable of being tolerant towards himself;
wished to be left alone. They could not he cannot trust his spontaneity and must
help emphasizing their own positive in- therefore fortify an inner psychic fear by
tolerance, because they had to guard not external formulations, which may take the
only against inquiry from without but also shape of wall mottoes, or of a series of
against any inner impulses from their past commandments which he constantly repeats
which might threaten assertion. The to himself, or of any other artificial con-
scarcity of women among them was an- trivance; and, conversely, he cannot per-
other fertile source of intolerant codifi- form any positive action without reference
cations. For the hard and fast division to a series of precedents and justifications.
of women into the infinitely good and the A free man gets along with a minimum of
eternally bad, with its peculiar combina- regulations. A free nation does the same.
tion of sentimental reverence and cruel A nation which is inwardly constrained, on
sexual exploitation, is one of the uncon- the other hand, takes refuge in legalism,
scious sources from which intolerance and displays a naive and superstitious
spreads to the social and intellectual life. faith in legal devices.
So primitive a society is never tolerant; Both in the individual and in the nation
it is built up on rigorous taboos and can- this excess breeds its own reaction. With
not admit any sophistications. An interest- all our great reverence for law we also
ing parallel to colonial conditions here show a dangerous contempt for it. The
suggests itself. These Western mushroom magic of law has become parlor magic.
communities were by no means so unlike We are all for doing things legally rather
our earliest European settlements on the than justly. Where a law forbids we
Atlantic coast as tradition would prefer us quickly pass another one which will permit,
to believe. After all, did not these first and thus destroy the sanctity of the law by
immigrants number among them, aside using it to cloak a social violation. From
from the religious and political exiles, being an instrument, law has become for
many "undesirable citizens”'? and did not us merely instrumental, something trivially
this state of affairs cause much uneasiness conceived and without the deeper social
among the righteous majority? If we sanctions which alone give weight and per-
may credit the scant social records of those manence to law. But these are again con-
early days, the answer is surely in the ditions which allow a dominant class to
affirmative. Here too conditions made for indulge its intolerance towards inferior
a negative tolerance, an avoidance of any classes of lesser prestige.
classes of lesser prestige. That this form
issues that might reveal deep-seated differ- of intolerance ending in sheer injustice is
Thus our immigrant psychology in danger of spreading can hardly be
was, in one sense, with us from the be- doubted. We may put ourselves above
ginning
the startling accusations of Russian immi-
But the uneasy sense of anarchic dif. grants, recently returned to Russia, about
ferences to which I have referred in all legal and other oppressions suffered here,
these connections and the resulting atmos- but we cannot ignore that astonishing docu-
phere of tension, so hostile to the flexible ment of Governor McCall's to the Gov-
requirements of any true tolerance, are ernor of South Carolina in which it is
nowhere so subtly reflected as in our atti- stated as a notorious fact that at least
tude towards the law. We are renowned three immigrant races beside the negro
for the number of laws and statutes which do not receive justice in some of our states.
our legislatures grind out every year. In If I have been somewhat over elaborate
fact this excessive legalism is really in the in painting the background of a native in-
nature of a symptom. In the sphere of tolerance in this country from indications
neurotic afflictions, we often encounter a that are perhaps novel to the reader, I
man who is so afraid of his impulses that may now count upon a swifter under-
he finds it necessary to protect himself by standing of what the psychology of war
means of all sorts of self-imposed restric. adds to these conditions.
Little as we
tions. Such a sufferer, the compulsion know in this comparatively unexplored
neurotic par excellence, is not free or field, we may at least record a tendency
ences.


284
[March 28
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which for want of a better name I have internal state morality to revive in the
called the principle of degradation. Be- murderer when it condemns him to death,
fore man can become a killer he must first should by no chance be aroused. Every
degrade his opponent to the point of utter possible form of difference, beginning with
worthlessness. Where the issue is of life differences of
differences of race, color, religion, or
or death we reduce the value of our morality, is exaggerated to the greatest
enemy's life to zero and raise our own possible extreme.
possible extreme. The process extends by
value to infinity. In the most naked form imperceptible degrees to such subtle mat-
of strife, when we slay for the sake of ters as philosophy or manners or even diet,
food or for sexual rivalry, the process is as when cockney mobs threatened the “frog
transparent. We destroy our rival, reduce eaters” across the Channel over the Fash-
him to nothingness, in order that we may oda affair. In the end these differences
live on, either in ourselves or in our prog- may become sheer fictions unless it be
eny,
live forever, in that infinite expansion assumed that they express instincts so
of ourselves for which we all instinctively elusive that they cannot be put into words,
strive. In such a case the comparison is as in the proverbial case of the two Irish-
direct : we compare our enemy to our- men who began to fight as soon as they had
selves and condemn him to death in prefer- been introduced to each other. The neu-
ence to ourselves.
Where the cause of tral spectator, himself removed from the
strife is more abstract, the comparison workings of this tendency, here helplessly
becomes indirect: we then measure our
witnesses that most abominable camou-
enemy against an idea compared to which Aage of war which obscures man's common
his value ceases to exist, as when we slew humanity.
the Saracen for the greater glory of the In a comparatively homogeneous na-
Lord. The well known tendency to re-
tion such as England or France
or
duce our enemy to an automaton—to Germany this process runs off smoothly.
think of him in mechanical terms as an The “enemy'' is entirely without, so that
object whose plans, movements, and ulti- the whole psychological mechanism of
mate defeat can be predicted-is merely alienation works outward beyond the
a different aspect of this same process. boundaries of the country. Lack of actual
For there is, of course, nothing more contact with one's enemy is an advantage
degrading to a personality than to reduce under these circumstances: the chasm
it to the status of a thing. We need only which must open between two nations be-
to visualize the collapse of the body when fore they can bring themselves to fly at
a person has been shot.
each other's throats can be created in the
This process of degradation, with its shortest possible time. This projection of
allied automaton theory, is an essential aggressive emotions upon the enemy be-
psychological step in every form of killing, yond the boundary line tends to reduce the
however sordid or exalted. We should aggressive tendencies within the country
find it inconceivable to kill anybody whom to a minimum. All the clashes between
we valued as we do our own person, for castes and classes, the normal domestic
this would be equivalent to killing our- group hostility, are temporarily suspended.
selves. The sense of human identity must A fictitious sense of alienation from the
first be destroyed. The process then enemy without is echoed by a fictitious
develops somewhat as follows. When a sense of likeness and identity within the
wave of national hostility arises over some nation. The "solid front" towards the
specific issue, and the possibility of aggres- enemy accompanies an internal solidarity.
sion moves into the foreground, the ten- It is the failure of that process in this
dency to degrade the opponent immediately country which we are now witnessing. The
sets in. The aim is to divorce him from most primitive incentive to a solid front,
human fellowship, to render him utterly an attack at close quarters, was absent.
alien, so that we can slay him with a good We did not go into the war for the prosaic
conscience. It is essential that the danger- motive of self-preservation as the term
ous sense of having killed somebody like would be understood by the average sen-
ourselves, which it is the very object of sual man, but for the sake of an inter-


1918]
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a
a
national idea complicated in its nature and upon themselves anything more than
slow to penetrate through large masses of resentment which, though fierce and scath-
the people. There was therefore a natural ing, still retains a predominantly political
retardation of the movement towards in character. With us that has not been the
ternal solidarity, quite aside from the case. Our “best people” have approved
obstacles which I have outlined. But in the some of our worst excesses, or else excused
absence of incentives to a solid front the them as being inevitable. These countries,
result was not internal apathy, such as if I may again be permitted to use a
would be certain to settle upon a compara- medical figure, had a sounder psychological
tively homogeneous country, but a violent constitution to stand such differences of
increase in every form of internal hostility opinion. People could differ without
and intolerance. Our certified Americans, utterly forfeiting their sense of identity or
educated in the theory that the world war being classed as "alien" or "enemies with-
was a struggle for Anglo-Saxon prestige in” on the easy analogy drawn from the
and bitterly concerned to preserve their presence of large groups of psychologi- ,
own domestic prestige, were quick to see cally "alien" groups.
,
Differences could
the issue. Their sure instinct discovered thus be discussed at a more intellectual
the “enemy within," a phrase which in
a phrase which in level with a much greater degree of toler-
itself shows an intuitional genius of no ance, for tolerance consists in the recog-
mean order. Balked in their desire to get nition that people like ourselves may after
at the foreign enemy, they turned upon all have different points of view. To
those whom they had long sensed as hos- excommunicate for difference of opinion is
tile forces in their very midst. To take the easiest, and in a way the most natural,
one example from hundreds: at a recent thing to do. But it reveals a primitiveness
meeting of the teachers of New York of intellectual processes which is directly
City to consider the question of loyalty, inimical to any civilized order.
a speaker declared it to be an easy matter One of the most mischievous results of
to discover disloyalists by inspecting the such a condition is that it effectually pre-
names of the teaching staff. After point vents the expressions of any moderate
ing out some of the names he remarked, point of view.
The real alien enemy
"Do these sound as if they came of New among us is rightly prevented from voic-
England stock ?” This is the issue of ing his opposition to the war by the penalty
Anglo-Saxon prestige in its most naked of his liberty and his life. But all over
form. To raise it is to inaugurate a system the country there are large blocks of public
of private warfare within the state. It is opinion which for the present are con-
the culmination of an intolerance long strained to remain inarticulate for fear of
latent and now privileged to break forth being automatically classified with groups
with the excuse that war inevitably breeds which they themselves most patriotically
such a condition.
detest. Our bitter-enders have temporarily
Yet it has not bred it to a similar degree acquired a tremendous leverage.
in other countries. An English mob may Yet this is, after all, a condition which
sometimes, as recently in the case of Mr. cannot last. As soon as our moderates
Russell, attempt to burn a church over a can again contribute to a sane public
philosopher's head as if to show its con- opinion about our war aims, it will become
tempt for the two things which it has apparent that the war has opened many
never understood; but it is still to be large questions. It will then be seen that
recorded that any considerable part of the the “enemy within” is really a class opposi-
British Empire applauded the act. In al- tion to a true cosmopolitan democracy.
most all the warring countries on the Our internal racial differences are really a
Entente side large bodies of reputable part of the human situation. The “enemy
people have stood out against the govern- within" is our enemy only because we make
ment—on platforms varying all the way him so.
him so. He is part of the problem of liv-
from out and out pacifism to definite
schemes for immediate negotiations-
ing together, of democracy put upon its
mettle.
without utterly losing caste or drawing
ALFRED Booth KUTTNER.


286
[March 28
THE DIAL
9
>
Our London Letter
of his work lay in its symbolism. Yet for me
the second of his plays, “Passion's Furnace," and
The English literary public has learned by ex- the first act of the third, “Reconciliation,” are
perience to feel some distrust of new great foreign
the clearest and most enjoyable, because they can
authors and, in particular, of new great foreign be taken simply as immensely vigorous pictures
dramatists. These articles of export have come of peasant life, extraordinarily alive with the
to us, in the past, mainly by way of Germany; peasant's love of land. The end of “Reconcili-
and the German critics, who are to be commended
ation" is highly mystical in character, and the
for their omnivorousness, are hardly to be com- first play, "The Woman,” and the last, "The
mended for their judgment. If I may use a vig-
Invincible Ship," are almost wholly symbolical.
orous phrase, they have, at one time and another, “The Invincible Ship" seems to be Mr. Kosor's
sold us a great many pups. Nevertheless the favorite. It is, he says, more lyrical than the rest ;
English literary public is just preparing to take and it does at least give me some sort of total
an interest in a great foreign dramatist, whose impression, which I cannot analyze or describe.
reputation up till now has been principally gained The real trouble, I suppose, springs from the
in Germany. Mr. Josip Kosor, whose four plays gulf which divides Slav from European. After
have just been translated into English under the all, the Slav is the link between Europe and
title “People of the Universe,” is a Serbo-Croat Asia; and our difficulty in apprehending Slav
who fled from the Austrian province of Dalma- poetry, though not so great as our difficulty in
tia, in which he was born. This, no doubt, will apprehending Asiatic literature, is at least analo-
help to efface the Teutonic associations of his gous to it. At the same time that I met Mr.
fame. What we shall make of him in the end Kosor I met also a compatriot of his with
I cannot tell; nor can I very clearly express what whom I discussed certain Russian authors who
I think of him at the moment. One thing have recently made a stir in London. In par-
at least is obvious: he is a writer of extraor- ticular I asked him what he thought of Sologub;
dinary power in the rendering of unrestrained and he told me that Sologub had poetry, could
passion. His characters are both terrible and create beauty, and was in fact an æsthete, but
painful to behold, for they Aing themselves about had no depth of thought. Now to me those of
in their world as a bird does when it has got itself Sologub's books which I have read are simply
unawares into a room. Whether mere demo- inexplicable nightmares, to which this criticism
niac energy of this sort is enough, or whether gave me no key at all. It seemed like judgment
in Mr. Kosor it is supported by deeper intuitions moving on another plane of thought than mine.
of life—these are questions which as yet it is dif- On the other hand, both Mr. Kosor and his com-
ficult to answer. Only very timid criticism patriot found it amusing and characteristically
refrains from approaching new work until it is English when I confessed that to me Turgenev
ready with a settled judgment; yet only very and Chekhov were ultimately the most satisfying
shallow criticism judges before it is ready. The of Russian writers.
plays do at least demand notice and examination. I find that I must embark on yet another con-
A few days ago I met Mr. Kosor, who is now fession of inability to deliver judgment. Not
in London; but I must confess that I got little long since in these pages I had to apologize for
enlightenment from him. It may have been the confusing Mr. Yeats's new volume of verses
feebleness of my apprehension, although I pre- with another book by him which was announced
ferred to believe that it was the uncertainty of at the same time under the title “Per Amica
his English. I had hoped to find some bridge Silentia Lunæ.” This second book, rather long
over the gulf which still divided me from a delayed after its announcement, is now pub-
thorough understanding of his work. I found lished; and it has raised again my question as to
none however; nor could I foist upon him any what Mr. Yeats really is. I am certain that
literary affiliations such as one naturally clutches he is a fine, perhaps a great poet-surely a very
-
at when one is thoroughly puzzled. He rejected clever one. He himself claims to be a mystic,
the suggestion of any influence from Strindberg, and I wish I could make up my mind as to
saying that he had never read Strindberg; whether he is not also something of a charlatan.
and he affirmed that the sole influence of which The study of charlatanry is a fascinating busi-
he was conscious came from the Gospels. He ness, though the meaning of the word is not
also maintained that the real essence and worth very clearly understood. A charlatan is not a


1918]
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THE DIAL
we
plain humbug; if he were, I should not have subjects of these essays are interesting in them-
thought of the word in connection with Mr. selves, I am nearly sure that they are to Mr.
Yeats. A charlatan is a man whose success in Yeats only "subjects” on which he can string
deceiving others flows from the fact that he has phrases and images.
phrases and images. It seems probable, in my
first deceived himself. And I sometimes won- judgment, that they have to him no more intel-
der whether Mr. Yeats is not mistaken in sup- lectual significance than the ballad-themes had to
posing that he is mystical by nature, and whether the balladists or the story of “The Eve of St.
the mystical element in his writings is not merely Agnes” to Keats. Yet he has made out of them
a magnificent pretense to which he has fallen two beautiful pieces of prose and a mysterious
the first and most complete victim.
but moving poem which acts as a sort of preface
Mr. E. A. Boyd in his book on “Ireland's to the volume.
Literary Renaissance" leaves no doubt as to his In Mr. Yeats's prose I always find sentences
own judgment in the matter:
and incidents related by way of illustration over
Vision comes only as the reward of severe mental which I linger with peculiar pleasure. He han-
discipline, after study as vigorous as that demanded
dles words as a dancer manages and varies his
by any of the so-called exact sciences. But there is
no trace of this in Yeats, who cannot properly be steps in an intricate figure; and one is fascinated
described as an intellectual poet. His appeal is by the unconcerned precision with which he
primarily sensuous. Mysticism to Yeats is not
an intellectual belief, but an emotional or artistic
expresses his meaning, as when he says that he
refuge. His visions do not convince us, because they
closes a book because his thought has over-
are obviously, literary rather than spiritual. The brimmed the page, or that “even the most wise
concepts which are realities to Blake, or to Yeats's
contemporary, "Æ,” are to him symbols, nor do they
dead can but arrange their memories as
strike the reader as being anything more.
arrange pieces upon a chessboard, and obey
And after some misgivings and hesitations, I remembered words alone,” or that:
come to the same conclusion. Mysticism and The dead living in their memories are, I am per-
magic, with all the apparatus of dreams, and suaded, the source of all that we call instinct, and it
is their love and their desire, all unknowing, that
divination, trances, automatic writing, materiali-
make us drive beyond our reason, or in defiance of
zation, and what not are to Mr. Yeats, in the our interest it may be; and it is the dream martens
end, just so many poetical “properties.” His that, all unknowing, are master-masons to the living
martens building about church windows their elab-
real greatness lies, as Mr. Boyd says, in his sensu-
orate nests; and in their turn the phantoms are stung
ous appeal, in the images he creates, and in the to a keener delight from a concord between their
luminous pure vehicle and our strong senses.
extraordinary beauty and exactness of his phrases
and rhythms. I am fortified in this opinion by a
But the pleasure one finds in such passages is
careful perusal of his new book. I do not believe purely literary and Mr. Yeats is here a fine
he would give his life for any of these ideas,
poet, not a mystic. However, so long as the
although he might well give his life to persuade
belief produces such passages from him there is
himself and others that he really held them.
no reason for us to quarrel with him for think-
The book consists of two essays. One is enti-
ing himself a mystic.
tled "Anima Hominis," the other "Anima
These two books are on the whole the most
Mundi.” The first expounds the theory that interesting of recent publications. One or two
the poet, and the man of genius generally,
more, however, may be briefly mentioned. Mr.
expresses in his work not his own self but his anti- Hugh Walpole has just brought himself to allow
self, the antithesis of his real personality. Thus
a pre-war novel to be printed, with an apology
Dante, says Mr. Yeats, “celebrated the most pure
to the effect that all this will seem very old-fash-
lady poet ever sung and the Divine Justice, not ioned and long out of date. Mr. Gerald Gould,
merely because death took that lady and Florence
the most indefatigable, wrong-headed, and read-
banished her singer, but because he had to strug-
able critic of novelists ever known, has protested
gle in his own heart with his unjust anger and
that whatever was fit subject for artistic treat-
his lust." This is at least an attractive theory;
ment before the war must necessarily remain fit
and it is newer than that of the second essay, even now. Here he is, of course, right for once;
which deals with the "great memory passing on
and I should find it hard to believe, what I was
from generation to generation" and Henry assured the other day, that our promised post-
More's "soul of the world,” which receives the
bellum revival of literature will take the form
spirits of the dead and from which knowledge of our poets', novelists', and dramatists' writing
comes inexplicably to living men. Although the exclusively for that abominable and formless


288
[March 28
THE DIAL
A Hint to Essay-Lovers
By
myth or phantasm, the Business Man. But I
must protest that the theme of “The Green Mir-
ror,” which is the conflict between a long-
founded family and new disruptive ideas, has
been treated too often lately for any except a
man of great genius to avoid the clichés of
thought, phrase, and situation which the subject
has gathered round it. I am sick of the conflict
between the old and the new generations; and
here, at any rate, I am all for peace by nego-
tiation.
Verse has been very quiet, as they say in the
financial columns. Mr. Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
has published a collection called “Whin,” in
which the use of proper names for poetical pur-
poses has been pushed, I suppose, further than
ever before in the history of literature. There
is little else that is remarkable about it. Two
more interesting volumes are promised to us:
Mr. J. C. Squire's “Poems: First Series” are in
the press and will appear sometime during the
summer; Mr. Walter de la Mare's new book,
"Motley; and other Poems," may come at any
moment. It is eagerly awaited (this is neither a
cliché nor an over-statement) by many who have
waited, with varying degrees of impatience, on
Mr. de la Mare's pleasure for some two years,
during which the book has been promised. Hav-
ing read his latest pieces scattered in periodicals,
I believe that from being a fine poet he has
become a great poet; but we shall know within
a month or so. No certain report exists as to
how Mr. de la Mare was induced to allow the
book to go to the printer. Some of his follow-
ers had given up all hope; but it is credibly
stated that a committee of admirers burglariously
entered his house and removed the manuscript
from his custody.
EDWARD SHANKS.
London, March 7, 1918.
There's PIPPINS AND Cheese TO Come.
Charles S. Brooks. Yale University Press; $2.
The essay-reader does not have to explain to
another of his kind why he enjoys essays. There
is an understanding between them, and while
they do not constitute a secret brotherhood, a
closed corporation, there is that aspect about
their communion. Lamb has an exquisite philo-
sophical outlook, he has a quizzical sense of
humor, he is lovable and he is kindly. But the
essay-phile enjoys and likes Hazlitt! He is cer-
tainly not lovable in the way Lamb is; in fact
it might be said that if Lamb is lovable Hazlitt
is not. One loves Lamb in a personal manner,
as though one had known him through the many
years of devotion to “Bridget"; one would have
found Hazlitt difficult, intensely interesting but
demanding a great bit of intellectual and spir-
itual endurance. One might have loved him,
but not for his faults. And so it goes. There
is Stevenson, and there is Macaulay; Carlyle,
Montaigne, and Bacon all have their person-
alities, as different in their essays as they were
in the flesh. It is their essays that endear them
all to the devotee; under that banner they march
side by side, congenial and attractive. We will
have no invidious distinctions. Either you are
an essay-phile or you are not.
While it might be possible and conventional,
therefore, to say that “There's Pippins and
Cheese to Come" names a book of essays by the
man who wrote "Journeys to Bagdad," Charles
S. Brooks, and to rest assured that the sales of
the one will at least equal those of the other,
there remains the desire of the discoverer to pass
along the good news:
“There is another essay-
ist!” It cannot satisfy the heart of the real essay-
lover to hope that a man's first book will guar-
antee the success of the second. One must do
something to help.
There is Lamb in these essays, not imitation,
not even subconscious aping of style. But in
charm of spirit, quiet humor, whimsical phrase-
ology in these characteristics one feels Lamb.
In “A Plague of All Cowards” one comes on
this:
And yet-really I hesitate. I blush. My attack will
be too intimate; for I have confessed that I am
not the very button on the cap of bravery. I have
indeed stiffened myself to ride a horse, a mightier
feat than driving him, because of the tallness of the
monster and his uneasy movement, as though his legs
were not well-socketed and might fall out
change of gaits.
To Dorothy
An old moon hunts for the edge of sky,
And finds it is but the rim of a dream
He carried within himself.
Yet, he spreads his dream-line to a horizon,
And searches once more.
Then, when at last he seats himself
With falling head, he feels his dream-edge
Driven against his breast
These things I have done, seeking you.
MAXWELL BODENHEIM.
.
on
a


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Superstition Become Respectable
Even the seasoned rider will not have forgotten count for the soda fountain, or know quite how it had
come into my life. Presently an interne
asked
this feeling. And though you must wade back
me what I'd have. Still somewhat dazed in my dis-
through memory to childhood you will respond composure, having no answer ready, my startled fancy
when you read this:
ran among the signs and labels of the counter until I
recalled that a bearded man once, unblushing in my
But if your companion is one of valor's minions
presence, had ordered a banana Aip. I got the fel-
a dizzy plank is a pleasant belvedere from
low's ear and named it softly. Whereupon he placed
which to view the world. The bravery of this kind a dead-looking banana across a mound of ice cream,
of person is not confined to these few matters. If
poured on colored juices as though to mark the fatal
you happen to go driving with him, he will—if the
wound, and offered it to me. I ate a few bites of the
horse is of the kind that distends his nostrils-on a sickish mixture until the streets were safe.
sudden toss you the reins and leave you to guard
There you are.
If, after that, you have no
him while he dispatches an errand. If it were a
motor car there would be a brake to hold it. If it desire to own the book, my aim has been frus-
were a boat you might throw out an anchor. A
trated and you are the loser. For-I shall be
butcher's cart would have a metal drag. But here you
sit defenceless-tied to the whim of a horse-greased
quite frank about it—it has been my conscious
for a runaway. The beast Dobbin turns his head intent to write that sort of review which would
and holds you with his hard eye. There is a con-
make the reader want the book. It is the kind
vulsive movement along his back, a preface, it may
be, to a sudden seizure. A real friend would have of volume you keep handy to read to your
loosened the straps that run along the horse's Alanks. friends; somebody says something which reminds
Then if any deviltry take him, he might go off alone
and have it out.
you of Brooks, and away you rush to get the
One o