normally discuss the economics of their enterprises in public, and
nobody wishes that they should. But before the LONDON MERCURY appeared,
we made a special effort to start it on a firm basis by securing a
large number of Original Subscribers. That effort was remarkably
successful; thousands of persons subscribed for a year before they had
seen a copy of the paper. These proved by their willingness to buy a
pig in a poke that they were thoroughly interested in our scheme;
and we are entitled to assume that they will be interested to hear
that our initial success has been so great that our immediate future
is securely guaranteed. In other words (though much ground remains
to be won), we have been spared the wearing and worrying struggle to
obtain a position and a "hearing" which so often embarrasses literary
and artistic periodicals. A direct result of this is that we shall be
under no necessity to experiment hastily, but shall be able to give
due consideration to every possible development that occurs to us. A
direct implication of it is that should we, in the long run, fail to
satisfy the public, we should have nothing and nobody but ourselves to
blame. Either our conception would have been proved unpopular or our
execution would have been deemed inadequate. It is the most comfortable
of situations. That is all we need say on the subject. We have spoken
frankly about it (rather than affect an impassive indifference) simply
because we think our readers would like us to do so.
* * * * *
We have as yet received no great number of detailed criticisms or
suggestions for improvement. But there have been some, both in
the Press and in the letters from our correspondents. Some of the
suggestions that have been made we shall adopt; some we shall not;
one or two of the most interesting are based on a misunderstanding.
The most noticeable of these derive from the notion that the LONDON
MERCURY was intended to be an exact analogue of the _Mercure de
France_, and borrowed its title from that excellent paper. We may as
well explain, once and for all, that the similitude with the _Mercure
de France_, happy though it may be, was reached by accident; our own
title was derived directly from the Mercuries which were the earliest
products of the English periodical Press; and for our scheme we are
indebted to no paper, British or foreign. A Scottish critic observes
that "Belgian literature owed its notable capture of Europe largely to
its [the _Mercure's_] whole-hearted welcome, and the new movement in
Germany associated with the names of Rilke and Zweig found its first
foreign recognition in its pages. Moreover, it surveyed the whole field
of human intellectual achievement--philosophy, science, religion--in
its articles.... The name of M. Davray at the foot of a _Mercure_
article has made more than one British writer's reputation in Paris,
and Europe would have been entirely ignorant that there was a new and
rich literature in Spanish-America had not the _Mercure_ discovered
it and blazoned forth its merits." We might, if we would, make some
remark on the detail of this. Rilke is not a major poet; Zweig is an
unimportant, over-exuberant critic who tried, in vain, to persuade the
late Emile Verhaeren that he was a German; the fame of Spanish-American
literature, trumpeted though it may have been by the _Mercure_, has not
yet reached London. But we prefer to concentrate on the more important
point, and that is that our functions, as we conceive them, are not
those of the _Mercure de France_. We have already published letters
from French and American correspondents; we shall shortly publish
letters from Italian, Russian, and German correspondents; we shall
from time to time publish fuller articles about recent developments
in foreign countries. But there _are_ certain limits to our space,
and there _is_ a centre in our plans. It is an admirable thing to
disseminate the works of good Belgian and Spanish-American authors, and
we hope that we shall not overlook anything really important that comes
from any quarter of the globe. But our principal object is to assist
people to read the good English authors of the past, and to stimulate
the popularity of good English authors of the present. There are those
to whom any foreigner, writing in some mysteriously wonderful language,
like French or Polish or Spanish-American, is a portent; but we are not
amongst them. We desire to keep the British public in touch with all
foreign developments that may be considered likely to be of special
interest to the British public; but we certainly do not intend to
devote to the study of foreign authors space that might more profitably
be given to the examination of a dead or living man who has written
in our own tongue. The _Mercure_ bestows a great deal of attention
on foreign authors; it publishes political articles; it concerns
itself largely with problems of philosophy and religion. Some of these
questions will be ignored by the LONDON MERCURY. Some it will discuss;
regarding some its functions will be purely that of a recorder. But it
does not propose to deflect from its original purpose, which was to
publish the best contemporary "creative work" that it could obtain, to
criticise new books and old, and to minister to the other needs of the
British reader and the British book-collector. It is just as well that
this should be clear.
* * * * *
In the present number one or two slight changes are to be observed.
There is a minor, but not insignificant, typographical change, and two
new, and we hope welcome, "features" have been added. These had already
been premeditated, but we made them with all the more satisfaction
in that several correspondents had recommended--we had almost said
demanded--them. We hope, in an early issue, to add to these a section
on Architecture, similar to the sections on Art, Music, and the Theatre.
* * * * *
Several correspondents have written to ask us whether we propose to
devote any attention to the economics of authorship, and two of them
(persons whom we conceive to have a direct and immediate interest
in the subject) make special reference to the question of American
copyright. To all of them we can reply that, although economics in
general, like politics in general, come within the sphere of our
self-abnegation, we shall throw what light we can on the economics
of authorship, just as we shall hold ourselves free to trespass on
politics when politics touch art. American copyright, as a fact, we had
already marked out as one of the matters to which we intend to return
again and again until America puts her laws straight. The British
copyright laws are now, so far as they affect the author, on a very
satisfactory footing. The principal countries of the world have signed
the Berne Convention, and even Russia, had there been no Revolution,
would by this time have agreed that the works of British authors should
be automatically copyrighted in Russia. The more widely the civilised
custom spreads the more glaring becomes what, without offence, we
may call the offence of America. There only--and it is the largest
English-speaking and English-reading community in the world--is the
British author defenceless, there only may he be robbed with impunity
of the fruits of his labour.
* * * * *
Let us recapitulate the elements of the American copyright law as they
at present stand. Copyright in America is defined by a law of 1909.
That Act lays down that a book, to secure legal protection, must be
manufactured in the United States of America; the stipulation was
carried on from an earlier statute. A book published in the English
language may obtain interim protection for one month from the date of
publication if a copy is forwarded to an office in Washington; but at
the end of the month protection lapses. Copyright is lost unless a
book (or a newspaper contribution) has been "set up" in the States and
issued there within a month of its publication in Great Britain.
* * * * *
Now we have no hesitation in describing the present copyright
arrangements as between England and America as immoral and unjust. They
do not greatly handicap authors of international reputation, so far as
their new books are concerned. If--he will forgive us for using his
name as an illustration--Mr. Rudyard Kipling has written a new book,
he will have no difficulty whatever in getting an American publisher
to put it into type in America and issue it at a date approximate to
that of the English publication. But even the eminent and the "arrived"
are put to some trouble and expense by the necessity of "securing
copyright," and on those who are not so eminent the law presses very
hardly indeed. There are famous English authors whose early books are
not copyright in America; there are young English authors who have to
go through the anguish of seeing American copyright expire whilst some
American publisher is debating whether or not he shall take "sheets"
of a book from England; and "first books" of any character published
in England can virtually never be copyrighted in America. It may, and
should, be granted that as a body American publishers are more just and
generous than their laws. We know of many cases in which the English
authors of non-copyright books have obtained from American publishers
precisely the same royalties as they have obtained from their English
publishers. We know also of cases--relatively few, we gladly admit--in
which the works of English authors have been pirated by American
editors and publishers without sanction, thanks, or payment. But the
mere fact that in most instances American publishers are ashamed to
take advantage of the law, and that in other instances they do the
handsome thing in order to secure "favours to come," is no palliation
of the law. It is a harsh and a selfish law; a law unworthy of a great
nation, a nation which is second to none in its professions and in its
intentions with regard to the welfare of humanity at large.
* * * * *
The state of the law is commonly ascribed to the typographical unions.
"Protection for Printers": books should have no rights in America
unless American typographers have been employed upon them. Beneath this
argument lies the naked, brutal fact that at present, America having
not yet produced the great universal literature that she is destined
to produce, America imports much more from us than we do from her. If
"sheets" were copyright, whenever sent, we should get the better of
the exchange; we produce ten Masefields for one O. Henry, and England
would print far more for America than America would for England. This
may determine the printers' attitude; though even the printers might
realise that a time might come when the boot would be on the other
leg, and British publishers will be in a position to squeeze American
authors to any extent, and British printers will insist on printing
books which might more conveniently and economically be printed in
America. But surely, in a matter like this, the law ought not to be
dictated by the selfish and shortsighted conceptions of a trade. We
have never met an English author who has had, or who has contemplated,
relations with America who has not been bitterly contemptuous of the
American attitude towards the copyright law. We have never spoken
to an American author or publisher who has not admitted that it was
a disgrace to America. Authors may be a small body, but they are as
entitled to their rights as anybody else; these, also, are God's
creatures. President Wilson himself, for all we know, may under the
present regime have lost English copyright in his early works; and
the irony of the law is that it presses most hardly on those who have
still their fortunes to make, for the celebrated, or their agents, can
successfully cope with it.
* * * * *
These lines will, as we are happy to know, meet the eyes of many
Americans who write and many who do not. We appeal to them to agitate
for a change in their law. That the American copyright law should be
placed on precisely the same basis as the English copyright law we do
not ask, and have no right to ask. But that English authors should
automatically enjoy in the United States the same privileges as are
enjoyed by native authors is a reasonable proposition. Cannot somebody
move the Legislature?
* * * * *
We shall return to this subject at greater length. Meanwhile, if we
may hark back for a moment to the point from which our digression
started, may we say that we shall welcome any suggestions our readers
may make as to the development of the paper within the limits we have
defined? Particularly we desire to hear--though we should not be human
if we pretended to enjoy--objections, provided they are conceived
in a friendly spirit, to anything in our present arrangements which
may strike readers as unsatisfactory. It was another god who sprang,
perfect and in full panoply, from the head of Jove.
LITERARY INTELLIGENCE
The death of Mr. Bruce Cummings on October 22nd, at the age of thirty,
brought to an end a literary career which was singular alike in its
character and in its brevity. He did not expect to live to see the
publication of his book, _The Journal of a Disappointed Man_, and
himself inserted the last and the only falsity in it, except the
name he gave himself: "Barbellion died on December 31st." But he did
actually witness its remarkable success on its appearance in the early
part of this year; and it is impossible not to feel that this must, to
some extent, have alleviated his disappointment. He was remarkable,
not only in his personality and his gifts, but also in the fact that
he was fully and frankly conscious, at all events for some years
before his death, that his journal would be published and would be
examined as a literary composition. He compared it with the journals
which were already famous, he speculated on the reception it would
have, he experienced a thrill in discovering a sister-soul in Marie
Bashkirtseff. And it is hardly doubtful that his expectations will be
realised. His career was one of struggle under almost overwhelming
difficulties. His earliest ambition was to be a naturalist; and
without training or assistance of any kind he had almost achieved
it, when the breakdown of his father compelled him to earn a more
substantial, though still meagre, living as a reporter on the staff of
a provincial newspaper. He struggled out of this pit, and eventually
succeeded in obtaining a position at South Kensington, which, in view
of the obstacles in his way, was an extraordinary performance. Through
all this battle against odds he was handicapped by an ill-health
which seems to have affected almost every organ in his body--a weak
heart, susceptible, if not actually tubercular, lungs, dyspepsia, and
disordered nerves; and these ailments were accompanied and intensified
by a perpetual brooding over his health which, had it had no basis,
might have been called acute hypochondria. But it was only after
his marriage that he discovered, by a dramatic and extraordinary
accident, that he was already condemned to death by a more terrible
malady than any of these. Under the rapidly-approaching shadow of this
end, he continued his work and his journal as long as his strength
permitted, and survived, though but for a little and in a state of
complete collapse, the success which had been so persistently denied
him before. His journal tells an extraordinary story and reveals an
extraordinary person. Its confessions are frank, quiet, and obviously
truthful; and neither his introspective habit of mind nor his belief
that his journal would be published seems ever to have vitiated his
powers of observation and notation. But he was something more than a
remarkable personality and a veracious reporter of himself. He was also
a writer and a critic of great ability. His notes on literature and
music, here and there through the diary, show considerable penetration
and judgment; and his descriptions of persons and places are vivid,
fascinating, and often humorous. A volume of his remains has just been
issued under the title, _Enjoying Life, and Other Essays_; and this
includes the paper on the great journal-writers to which he alludes
more than once in his diary.
* * * * *
As a token of their admiration for a master in their craft, a number
of poets recently united to make a presentation to Mr. Thomas Hardy,
O.M., on the occasion of his entering his eightieth year. Their tribute
took the form of a manuscript volume in which each of the poets wrote
one of his own pieces and which was prefaced by an address written,
it is understood, by the Poet Laureate, with whom are joined in the
volume the Hon. Maurice Baring, Mr. Hilaire Belloc, Mr. Laurence
Binyon, Mr. G. K. Chesterton, Mr. W. H. Davies, Mr. Walter de la Mare,
Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. Maurice Hewlett, Mr. Ralph
Hodgson, Mr. A. E. Housman, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, Mr. John Masefield,
Mrs. Alice Meynell, Mr. Sturge Moore, Professor Gilbert Murray, Sir
Henry Newbolt, Mr. Alfred Noyes, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Mr. G. W.
Russell ("A. E."), Mr. Arthur Symons, Mr. Herbert Trench, Sir William
Watson, Mr. W. B. Yeats, and many of their younger fellows. A sentence
from the address, "We would thank you for the pleasure and increasing
delight that your art has given us," explains the purpose of the gift
and supplies a text on which a discourse might be pronounced. For if
it is a delight for an established master to receive the homage of his
juniors, it should be, and is, an especial delight for them to be able
to offer it. We think it probable that some of the younger contributors
to this volume will live to remember with wonder and gratitude the fact
that they were able, while he still lived, to express their gratitude
to one of the greatest of modern English poets.
* * * * *
Mr. Edmund Gosse, the doyen of English critics, celebrated his
seventieth birthday in September, and, through Lord Crewe, a
presentation was made to him accompanied by a memorial of almost
unexampled length and distinction. Each of the signatories has since
received a beautifully printed "memento." Those who saw Mr. Gosse's
paper on George Eliot will not need to be told that his powers seem,
if anything, to increase with age. Great and diverse as have been
his services to literature since his first book was (when he was in
his early twenties) published, his finest work, both "original" and
critical, has appeared in recent years; and it is easily conceivable
that the decade between his seventieth and his eightieth birthdays
will be his most productive. A man of letters can be paid no higher
compliment: Mr. Gosse has retained, and will retain to the end, the
energy and the freshness of youth, whilst his knowledge and experience,
in the natural course of things, broaden and deepen.
* * * * *
The death of Leonid Andreef removes the most savage pessimist of all
the pessimists who have come out of modern Russia. But the author of
_The Life of Man_, _The Seven that Were Hanged_, and _The Red Laugh_
was not a pessimist for pessimism's sake: he suffered and he expressed
his suffering sincerely. One of his short stories--that which tells
of a student and his girl who were overtaken by a band of ruffians in
a wood--is perhaps the most ghastly story that has ever been written;
yet the most revolted reader could not suppose that the author had been
less revolted than himself. Andreef had refused enormous offers to work
for the Bolsheviks, and died, in great poverty, from shock induced by a
rain of Bolshevik bombs near his house.
POETRY
_Ishak's Song_[5]
[5] _This song comes from Flecker's unpublished drama
_Hassan_, which those who have seen it consider
immeasurably the finest thing that he ever wrote. It
has remained in manuscript since his death, awaiting
stage production. His _Yasmin_ is another song from
the play, and his well-known _Golden Journey_ to
_Samarkand_ is its epilogue. Ishak is the Court poet
of Haroun-al-Raschid._
Thy dawn, O Master of the World, thy dawn,
The hour the lilies open on the lawn,
The hour the grey wings pass beyond the mountains,
The hour of silence when we hear the fountains,
The hour that dreams are brighter and winds colder,
The hour that young love wakes on a white shoulder,
O Master of the World, the Persian dawn!
This hour, O Master, shall be bright for thee:
Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea,
The braves who fight thy fight unsheath the sabre,
The slaves who toil thy toil are lashed to labour,
For thee the waggons of the world are drawn--
The ebony of night, the red of dawn!
JAMES ELROY FLECKER
_The Buzzards_
When evening came and the warm glow grew deeper,
And every tree that bordered the green meadows
And in the yellow cornfields every reaper
And every corn-shock stood above their shadows
Flung eastward from their feet in longer measure,
Serenely far there swam in the sunny height
A buzzard and his mate who took their pleasure
Swirling and poising idly in golden light.
On great pied motionless moth-wings borne along,
So effortless and so strong,
Cutting each other's paths together they glided,
Then wheeled asunder till they soared divided
Two valleys' width (as though it were delight
To part like this, being sure they could unite
So swiftly in their empty, free dominion),
Curved headlong downward, towered up the sunny steep,
Then, with a sudden lift of the one great pinion,
Swung proudly to a curve, and from its height
Took half a mile of sunlight in one long sweep.
And we, so small on the swift immense hillside,
Stood tranced, until our souls arose uplifted
On those far-sweeping, wide,
Strong curves of flight--swayed up and hugely drifted,
Were washed, made strong and beautiful in the tide
Of sun-bathed air. But far beneath, beholden
Through shining deeps of air, the fields were golden
And rosy burned the heather where cornfields ended.
And still those buzzards wheeled, while light withdrew
Out of the vales and to surging slopes ascended,
Till the loftiest-flaming summit died to blue.
MARTIN ARMSTRONG
_The Moon_
_(To Maurice Baring)_
1
I waited for a miracle to-night.
Dim was the earth beneath a star-swept sky,
Her boughs were vague in that phantasmal light,
Her current rippled past invisibly.
No stir was in the dark and windless meadows,
Only the water, whispering in the shadows,
That darkened nature lived did still proclaim.
An hour I stood in that defeat of sight,
Waiting, and then a sudden silver flame
Burned in the eastern heaven, and she came.
2
The Moon, the Summer Moon, surveys the vale:
The boughs against the dawning sky grow black,
The shades that hid those whispering waters fail,
And now there falls a gleaming, lengthening track
That lies across the wide and tranquil river,
Burnished and flat, not shaken by a quiver.
She rises still: the liquid light she spills
Makes everywhere quick sparkles, patches pale;
And, as she goes, I know her glory fills
The air of all our English lakes and hills.
3
High over all this England doth she ride;
She silvers all the roofs of folded towns,
Her brilliance tips the edge of every tide,
Her shadows make soft caverns in the downs;
Even now, beyond my tree serenely sailing,
She clothes far forests with a gauzy veiling,
And even as here, where now I stare and dream,
Standing my own transfigured banks beside,
On many a quiet wandering English stream
There lies the unshifting image of her beam.
4
Yes, calm she mounts, and watching her, I know
By many a river other eyes than mine
Turn up to her; and, as of old, they show
Their inward hearts all naked to her shine:
Maids, solitaries, sick and happy lovers,
To whom her dear returning orb discovers
For each the gift he waits for: soft release,
The unsealing of imagination's flow,
Her own sweet pain, or other pain's surcease,
The friendly benediction of her peace.
5
I gaze as they: as kind she is, as fair,
As when long since a younger heart drank deep
From that sweet solace, while, through summer air,
Her lucid fingers hushed the world to sleep.
O as I stand this latest moon beholding,
Her forms unresting memory is moulding;
Beneath my enchanted eyelids there arise
Visions again of many moons that were,
Fair, fleeting moons gathered from faded skies.
Greeted and lost by these corporeal eyes.
6
Unnumbered are those moons of memory
Stored in the backward chambers of my brain:
The moons that make bright pathways on the sea,
The golden harvest moon above the grain;
The moon that all a sleeping village blanches,
The woodland moon that roves beyond the branches,
Filtering through the meshes of the green
To breast of bird and mossy trunk of tree;
Moons dimly guessed-at through a cloudy screen
The bronze diffusion shed by moons unseen;
7