honor and safeguard his unrepeatable miracle, and be something on his
own account. This cultural requirement is supplementation and
development of the moral ideal of the great German prophet at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, speaking as he did out of the
blackest night of a people’s life. Fichte, too, would create a folk, no
_Pöbel_. To be folk, all that is _Pöbel_ must be overcome. _Pöbel_, that
is all that lives herd-like, and borrows the impulse of its action and
passion from others, not from itself; or, more accurately, _Pöbel_, to
speak with Nietzsche, is wherever man is not himself, but his neighbor!
_Pöbel_ signifies, therefore, not a human class, not a social layer of
the population, but a _disposition_. Everywhere there are aristocratic
_Pöbel_, wherever men pride themselves on reciprocally surpassing each
other in flunkey-like ways of thinking. There is a political, a partisan
_Pöbel_ which counts it human duty to help increase the great pride that
runs after a leader on the broad way of the herd. There are _Pöbel_ in
science and in art, wherever men do not dare to ally themselves with a
cause, a principle, a work, until some “authority” has pronounced
judgment in the matter. There are pious _Pöbel_ who cock their ears for
what their neighbor believes, who, even in questions of conscience and
of heart, are impressed by large numbers and determined by vast herds.
_Pöbel_ shouts its “hosanna” and its “Crucify him” without knowing what
it does, and blasphemes every body who does not shout with it. To what
shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the
marketplace, who call to their playmates, “We piped to you and you would
not dance, we lamented and you would not beat your breasts.”
We are all influenced by what the medicinal psychologist is wont to call
“suggestion”—influenced, that is, by alien thoughts, alien expressions
of will. What we repeatedly hear comes to lose its strangeness; we come
to think that we have understood it and appropriated it. Our taste, our
moral judgment, our religious faith, these and such as these are
probably far more alien than domestic, far more the life of others than
our own,—in a word, suggestion. We have not tested the alien, elaborated
it, made it our own. We have let these uncritically empty themselves
into the vessel of our spirit where they coalesce, motley enough at
times, with the rest of the content. There is, therefore, something of
_Pöbel_ in all of us, whether we control others or are controlled by
others. To form out of _Pöbel_ strong and free personalities of our very
own,—as a cell is formed from the precellular stuff of life, as the
flowers and fruit of a tree are elaborated from the sap and substance at
their disposal,—this is the first and best service we can render
society. To form out of _Pöbel_ a folk, not a distinctionless mass that
wanders along the broad way to damnation,—a community of men, where each
walks the narrow path of life, no herd in which the individual only has
his number and answers when it is called,—a body with many members, each
member having its own life and its own soul,—_also sprach
Jesu-Fichte-Nietzsche_!
The Prophecy of Gwic’hlan
(_Translated by Edward Ramos from the French of Hersart de la
Villemarque_)
I
When the sun sets, when the sea snores, I sing upon the sill of my
door.
When I was young, I used to sing; and I still sing who am grown old.
I sing of the night, of the day, and none the less I am discontent.
If my head is low, if I am discontented, it is not without cause.
It is not that I am afraid; I am not afraid to be killed.
It is not that I am afraid; I have lived long enough.
When one does not look for me, I am found; and when one looks for me, he
finds me not.
Little import that which advenes: that which ought to be will be.
And one must die three times, before he come to repose.
II
I see the wild-boar that comes out of the wood; he drinks very much,
and he has a wounded foot.
His jaws are drooping, blood-covered, and his bristles are whitened with
age.
He is followed by his tribe, grunting from hunger.[5]
The sea-horse[6] comes to meet him; he makes the river banks tremble in
horror.
He is as white as the brilliant snow; he has silver horns on his
forehead.
The water boils under him from the thunder-fire of his nostrils.
Other sea-horses surround him, close packed as herbs by a swamp.
“Hold fast! hold fast! sea-horse; hit him on the head; hit hard, hit!
The bare feet slip in the blood! harder! have at them! harder!
I see blood flowing like a river! hit hard! hit them! strike harder!
I see the blood rise to his knees! I see blood like a lake!
Harder! have at them! harder! Thou may’st rest thyself tomorrow.
Hit hard! Hit hard, sea-horse! Hit him on the head! Hit hard! Hit!”
[5] Wild-boar and his brood—the men of Bretagne and their leader.
[6] Sea-horse—the Norsemen.
III
As I lay soft wrapt in sleep in my cold tomb, I heard the eagle call
in the midst of the night.
He summoned his brood and all the birds of the heavens.
He said to them in calling:
“Rise you quickly upon your two wings!
It is not of the rotten flesh of dogs or of sheep; it is of the flesh of
Christians that we will be eating!”
“Old sea-crow, listen; tell me—what do you hold there?”
“I hold the head of the Chief of the Army; I wish to have his two red
eyes.
I tear out his two eyes, because he has torn out thine own.”
“And you, fox, tell me—what do you hold there?”
“I hold his heart, which was false as mine is;
The heart which desired your death, and long ago plotted your death.”
“And you, tell me, Toad, what do you there, at the corner of his mouth?”
“I, I am put here to await his soul in passage:
It will remain in me as long as I shall live in punishment for the crime
he has committed against the Bard who no longer lives between
Roc’allaz and Porzguenn.”
Editorials and Announcements
_Rupert Brooke on the War_
In her Letter from London two months ago Miss Amy Lowell made a
reference to Harold Munro’s Poetry Book Shop in London which may have
seemed a little unfair to people who know the high aim of Mr. Munro in
that undertaking of his. Miss Lowell did not intend it to be so; in fact
she plans for an early number of THE LITTLE REVIEW an article which
shall set forth the interesting work that is being done there. In the
meantime we have been shown a letter from Robert Brooke, one of the
Poetry Book Shop group, which is certainly not open to the charge of
“preciousness”. Mr. Brooke is in the War; he is a Naval Sub-Lieutenant
for service on land, attached to the Second Naval Battalion and was sent
with the relief force to Antwerp “just too late”. The letter reads:
“There I saw a city bombarded and a hundred thousand refugees, sat in
the trenches, marched all night, and did other typical and interesting
things. Now we’re back for more training. I will probably get out again
by Christmas.... There’s nothing to say, except that the tragedy of
Belgium is the greatest and worst of any country for centuries. It’s
ghastly for anyone who liked Germany as well as I did.... I’m afraid
fifty years won’t give them the continuity and loveliness of life back
again! Most people are enlisting. —— and his brother have gone into
cavalry; I’m here: among my fellow officers being Denis Brown, one of
the best musicians in England; Kelly, the pianist who won the Diamond
Sculls; one of the Asquiths; a man who has been mining in the Soudan; a
New Zealander—an Olympic swimmer; an infinitely pleasant American youth,
called ——, who was hurriedly naturalized “to fight for justice” ... and
a thousand more oddities. In the end, those of us who come back will
start writing great new plays.” Our London correspondent, Mr. E. Buxton
Shanks, sends a note with infinite pathos in it. “I enclose a letter for
December,” he writes. “Unfortunately it may be my last. The greater part
of my regiment went to France last Monday and I expect to follow it
before long, so that this may be not only my last Letter to THE LITTLE
REVIEW, but also my last piece of literature for ever and ever.”
_Russia in Storm_
From Russian newspapers and private letters that have been smuggled
through into this country we learn about the great resurrection that is
taking place in the land of extremes. The war has shaken the dormant
giant, and life is pulsating with tremendous vigor. The abolition of
liquor-trade has had an unbelievable effect on the population; the fact
that this reform was promulgated by the government which has thereby
lost nearly a billion yearly revenue, is of inestimable significance.
The Czar and his counsellors have finally awakened to recognize the
impossibility of reigning over a country without citizens, and liberal
reforms on a wide scope are being announced. Nationalities and parties
are united under a new slogan: “Down with Nationalism! Long live
Patriotism!” Even the reactionary organs have abandoned their
chauvinistic tone, and they preach equality and freedom and the
abolition of the bureaucratic régime which they ascribe to Germanistic
influences. The revolutionary parties, however, are not intoxicated with
the momentary upheaval; they have had too many bitter experiences to be
lulled by promises from the throne. Of all the warring nations the
Russian socialists were the only party to take an openly antagonistic
attitude towards their government. They were demonstratively absent from
the Douma when the war manifesto was announced, and later they gave out
a declaration in which they expressed their condemnation of the
government and its policy. Recently an official communication stated a
discovered conspiracy among the radical members of the Douma. It is
clear that the revolutionists intend to forge the iron while it is hot;
this time affords them a rare opportunity for forcing the Autocrat to
yield to the demands of the people and in defiance of popular sentiments
and drummed up patriotism, the uncompromising fighters brave their way
forward to the ultimate goal. It is great life in Russia!
_Alexander Berkman on the Crime of Prisons_
Mr. Alexander Berkman, author of _Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist_, which
is reviewed in this issue, will deliver two lectures in Chicago, Sunday,
December 6, in Room 512 of the Masonic Temple. His subject in the
afternoon will be _War and Culture_; in the evening _The Psychology of
Crime and Prisons_.
Winter Rain
EUNICE TIETJENS
Winter now has come again;
All the gentle summer rain
Has grown chill, and stings like pain,
And it whispers of things slain,
Love of mine.
I had thought to bury love,
All the ways and wiles thereof
Buried deep and buried rough—
But it has not been enough,
Heart of mine.
Though I buried him so deep,—
Tramped his grave and piled it steep,
Strewed with flowers the aching heap,—
Yet it seems he cannot sleep,
Soul of mine.
And the drops of winter rain,
In the grave where he is lain
Drip and drip, and sting like pain,
Till my love grows live again,
Life of mine!
Home as an Emotional Adventure
MARGARET C. ANDERSON
I was going Home!
It was seven o’clock on a clear, cold, snowless night in December—the
ideal night for a journey. Behind me, Chicago:—noise, jangle, rush, and
dirt; great crowds of people; a hall room of agonizing ugliness, with
walks of a green tone that produces a sort of savage mental biliousness
and furniture of striped oak that makes you pray for destruction by
fire; frayed rugs the color of cold dishwater and painted woodwork that
peels off like a healing sore; smells of impromptu laundry work, and
dust that sticks like a hopeful creditor; an outlook of bare brick
walls, and air through the window that should have been put through a
sieve before entering. All these—and one thing more which makes them as
nothing: the huge glory of accomplishment.
Before me?... It was snowing hard as we steamed in. There came a
clanging of brakes, a cold blast of snowy air through the opened doors,
a rush of expectant people; and then, shining in the glow of a
flickering station light, one of the loveliest faces I’ve ever seen—my
sister’s,—and one of the noblest—my “Dad’s.” Then a whirring taxi, a
luxurious adjustment to comfort in its dark depths, a confusion of “So
_glad_ you’re here,” and “Mother’s waiting at home”; a surging of all my
appreciation at the beauty of young Betty, with her rich furs and
stunningly simple hat and exquisitely untouched face; a long dash
through familiar streets until we reached the more open spaces—the
Country Club district where there are only a few homes and a great
expanse of park and trees; and finally a snorting and jerking as we drew
up before a white house from which lights were shining.
Now this little house is all white, with green shutters and shingles,
with a small formal entrance porch, like a Wallace Nutting print, in
front, and a large white-pillared, glass-enclosed living-porch on one
side. A red brick walk of the New England type leads up to it, and great
trees stand like sentinels at the back. On a winter night, when the red
walk and the terrace are covered with soft snow, when the little cedar
trees massed around the entrance sparkle with icy frost, when the warm
light from the windows touches the whiteness with an amethyst
radiance—well, it’s the kind of house that all good dreamers sometimes
have the reward of dreaming about. And when Mother opened the door,
letting out another stream of light and showing her there against the
warm red background of the hall, I was convinced that getting home was
like being invited to paradise.
Of course we talked and laughed for an hour; and underneath it all I was
conscious, above everything, of the red and white room in which we sat;
of the roaring, singing fire; of the shadows it threw on the luxurious
rugs and old mahogany; of the book-lined walls; of the scattered
magazines on the long table; of the chiming grandfather’s clock; of the
soft lights; and—more than all—of the vase of white roses against the
red wall.
“But you must hear the new Victrola records!” Mother cried. And so I lay
back in a deep chair with my face to the fire, and listened—listened
with my soul, I think, to some of the world’s great music: Sembrich and
Melba and Homer and Gluck; Paderewski and Pachmann, orchestras, operas,
and old, old songs; and finally my favorites—the violin ones. There was
Kreisler, with his perfect art, playing old Vienna waltzes, haunting
Provence folk songs, quaint seventeenth-century gavottes and dances;
Maud Powell putting new beauty into the Schubert _Ave Maria_, and that
exquisite tone-picture of Saint-Saëns called _The Swan_; and last of all
Mischa Elman, with his deep, passionate singing of Bach’s _Air for the G
String_ and Tschaikovsky’s _Ye Who Have Yearned Alone_. There’s a beauty
about those last ones that is almost terrible, so close is it to the
heart of human sorrow.
“Well,” said Dad, a little later, “I don’t know about the rest of you,
but _I’m_ going to bed. And first I mean to have some milk and a piece
of pumpkin pie. Does that attract a city girl?”
It did—to the extent of three glasses of milk, besides the pie. “You’ll
not sleep,” warned Mother; but I retorted that I didn’t care; I was too
happy to sleep, anyhow. And, besides, the kitchen, in its immaculate
gray and whiteness, was so refreshing that I wanted to stay there
awhile. Large baskets of grape fruits and oranges and red apples stood
on the pantry shelves; the stove was polished until it looked like a
Sapolio advertisement; and a clock, ticking loudly, gave the room that
curious sense of loneliness that a kitchen needs. I can conceive of a
library without books, or a fireplace without a fire, but never of a
kitchen without a loud-ticking clock.
After a while we all trooped up to bed—up the white staircase with the
mahogany rail, and into fresh white bedrooms in such perfect harmony
with the snow outside.
“This house is positively sensuous!” I told Mother. “It’s an emotional
adventure just to come into it....”
I climbed into a big mahogany four-poster; but not to sleep—oh no! I sat
bolt upright with the silk comfortlet (oh luxury of luxuries!) around my
knees, and gazed out the windows: for from both of them I saw a
fairyland. It was all white—all except the amethyst shimmerings of
boulevard lights; and white flakes dropped one by one through the
amethyst. Away in the distance on both sides were faint outlines of
woods—bare, brown woods now covered warmly with snow. And over it all a
complete and absolute stillness. Just as in spring I used to feel
fairies leaping from every separate violet and tulip and hyacinth for
their twilight dance on the wet grass, so now I felt a great company of
snow fairies dancing in the faint rays of amethyst that darted into the
woods—dancing and singing and glittering in their silver frostiness. And
then a slow quiet wind would sound far off in the branches of the oak
trees; and gradually the fairy carnival ceased and I went ecstatically
to sleep.
The next morning, after breakfast in a dining-room of old blue and white
and mahogany, I stated my ideas of what one ought to do in such a house.
“I don’t want to go anyplace or see anyone or do anything. Don’t plan
luncheons or teas or other things. It will take a week to store up all
the impressions I want to. So please just let me stay here quietly and
absorb the atmosphere.”
And so my precious week began. In the mornings I’d put on boots—for the
snow was deep by this time—and take long tramps through the woods. Then
each afternoon had its distinct adventure: sometimes it would be a mere
wandering about from room to room standing before a specially-loved
picture or buried in a favorite old book. And what an enchanting thing
it is to read in such a setting: to look up from your book knowing that
wherever your eyes fall they will be rested; to feel your imagination
sinking into the soft depths of a reality that is almost dream stuff!
Sometimes the afternoon would have its hard-fought game of cards between
Dad and me—with the table drawn close to the fire, and Bertha running in
from the kitchen with a hearty offering of cider and hot doughnuts.
(Bertha always seemed to sense the exact moment when we declared, with
groans, that to wait another hour for dinner would be a physical
impossibility.) Sometimes at four o’clock I’d conceal myself in a mass
of cushions in the big swing on the porch, and wait for the darkness to
come on, loving every change of tone in the grayness until the boulevard
lights blossomed like flowers and made another fairyland. And always
we’d have tea by candle-light—on the porch in deep wicker chairs, or
before the leaping fire.
Sometimes after tea I’d take a two-mile tramp down town, stopping at the
post-office (because a post-office in a small town is a place worth
seeing at five o’clock in the evening) and trying deliberately to get
cold and tired before reaching home again, so that the warmth and
comfort would come as a fresh shock and joy. And then a quite wonderful
thing would happen: namely, the miracle of a superlatively good dinner.
I shall never forget those dinners! Not the mere physical pleasure of
them, but their setting: Mother feeling a little gossipy, and talking
cozily of the day’s small happenings; Dad in a mood of tolerant
amusement at our chatter; and Betty, usually in white, looking so
adorable that even the roses on the table couldn’t rival her.
But most perfect of all were the long evenings! First we’d read aloud a
little Pater, just for the ravishing music of his language, and then
Betty would sing. I don’t know any lovelier singing than Betty’s; it’s
so young and fresh and wistful. And when she’d finish with the Brahms
_Lullaby_ I could have cried with the beauty of it all. Later, when
everyone had gone to bed, I would creep downstairs again to lie by the
fire and have the obliging Mr. Mischa Elman play me another concert. _Ye
Who Have Yearned Alone_ was the thing he’d play most often, for it has a
surging sadness that keeps one humble in the midst of happiness.
Everything of yearning is in it: the agonies of countless tragic loves;
the sad, sad strivings for joy and comprehension; the world-old miseries
of “buried lives”; hopes and fears and faiths—and crucifixions;
ecstacies dying out like flames; utter weariness of living—and utter
striving to live.
* * * * *
Oh, you people who have homes! Why _don’t_ you realize what they might
yield you! When you find yourself uneager, stupefied with contentment,
ashamed of your vicious comfort—why not share your homes?... Back in
Chicago, I have a vision strong and soothing, like a poppy seed that
brings sleep. I close my eyes at night; and suddenly my bare walls are
lined with books; soft lights are lighted; in a great fireplace burns a
crackling fire that has in it sometimes soft sounds like bird-singing;
and out of the rumble of elevated trains, drowning the roar of traffic
and bringing a deep stillness, come the singing tones of a violin,
rising and falling over an immortal melody—_Ye Who Have Yearned Alone_.
A Miracle
CHARLES ASHLEIGH
If the gods of Greece walked abroad,
The sun blazing their splendor to all eyes,
It would not amaze me.
If the court of Solomon, the king,
In clashing storm of color,
Were to descend into the murk of the city,
I should not be surprised.
For I have conversed with a stripped soul
And its grandeur and wonder have filled me.
London Letter
E. BUXTON SHANKS
_London, September 29th._
Enough of war poetry. An industrious statistician has calculated that
three thousand pieces have been printed since the beginning of August.
When our poets are unanimous in the choice of a subject, their unanimity
is horrible. We have had lyrical outrages from railway porters,
dairymen, postmen, road scavengers, and what not, with their names and
professions duly appended, in the delectable fashion set some time ago
by _The English Review_. Meanwhile, in France, young poets are killing
one another. We must arrange a balance-sheet of gains and losses when
the war is done. M. Charles Péguy is gone already; that is a loss which
makes one fear for Jules Romains and the rest who must be at the front
in one army or the other. The French and German casualty lists are not
published in the English papers: when the smoke clears off again the
arts of the continent will show a different complexion.
Meanwhile we are beginning to ask, prematurely of course, what effect
the war will have indirectly on our own arts. The war of ’70 caused an
epoch of literary ferment in Germany and was at the back of much good
poetry. To that war we owe Detter von Liliencron, Richard Dehmel, and
Gerhart Hauptmann, who is, I freely admit, a great dramatist, though I
cannot abide him. In France it produced the tired subtleties of Kahn,
Régnier, and the other Symbolists. In Austria, a century of humiliation,
which has become almost a national habit, has evolved the tired elegance
of Hofmannsthal and the weary tenderness of Schnitzler who is so
obviously so sorry for all his characters as almost to make the reader
weep with him. If we win this war, what may we expect? We can be certain
that the English arts will react to the strain: the reaction will not
necessarily be a good one, unless the efforts of those who sit about at
home and vulgarize war are neutralized or ignored. The tone of our
newspapers—and these mould our minds, whether we like it or not—is now
most insufferably ugly. And as a result of victory, I fear a blatant
hollow tone of exultation in our poetry that—from a literary and social
standpoint—is almost worse than the languors of defeat. It will be well
if we achieve victory when every person in the country has been made to
feel the cost of it. Three days knee-deep in flooded trenches—our arts
must draw strength from that dreadful experience.