THE LITTLE REVIEW
_Literature_ _Drama_ _Music_ _Art_
MARGARET C. ANDERSON
EDITOR
JUNE-JULY, 1915
Literary Journalism in Chicago Lucien Cary
Epigrams Richard Aldington
Education by Children Will Levington Comfort
Notes of a Cosmopolite Alexander S. Kaun
“The Artist in Life” Margaret C. Anderson
Poems Clara Shanafelt
Slobberdom, Sneerdom, and Boredom Ben Hecht
The Death of Anton Tarasovitch Florence Kiper Frank
Rupert Brooke (A Memory) Arthur Davison Ficke
A Photograph of Rupert Brooke by Eugene Hutchinson
To a West Indian Alligator Eunice Tietjens
Epitaphs Witter Bynner
Editorials and Announcements
The Submarine (from the Italian of Luciano Folgore by Anne Simon)
Blaa-Blaa-Blaa “The Scavenger”
The Nine!—Exhibit!
Book Discussion
The Reader Critic
Published Monthly
15 cents a copy
MARGARET C. ANDERSON, Publisher
Fine Arts Building
CHICAGO
$1.50 a year
Entered as second-class matter at Postoffice, Chicago
THE LITTLE REVIEW
Vol. II
JUNE-JULY, 1915
No. 4
Literary Journalism in Chicago
LUCIAN CARY
Nothing succeeds like an indiscretion. I was indiscreet enough last
winter to speak my mind (a little of it) about THE LITTLE REVIEW, _The
Dial_, _Poetry_, _The Drama_, and the audience to which these papers
appeal. The result is that I have been flattered or intimidated into
speaking it ever since. In the present instance both methods have been
used most charmingly—and shamelessly. You see, Miss Anderson and I live
in the same village. And yet I said nothing, and have nothing to say
about any paper except what everybody knows.
Everybody knows that _The Friday Literary Review_ of _The Chicago
Evening Post_ under Mr. Francis Hackett and, later, under Mr. Floyd Dell
gave us the most alert, the most eager, the most intelligent, and the
best-written discussion of literature in the United States. That
eight-page supplement did what had hardly been done west of England
before: it made book reviews worth reading. There was almost as much
difference between the _Friday Review_ and _The Dial_ as there is
between Mr. George Bernard Shaw and Mr. Nicholas Murray Butler, almost
as much difference between the _Friday Review_ and _The New York Times
Literary Supplement_ as there is between M. Anatole France and Mr. Henry
Van Dyke. There was good writing in the _Friday Review_ and good
thinking behind it. It was almost never dull; and if it was young it was
not wholly unsophisticated; and if it was sometimes dead wrong it was
not stupid. If there were half as many persons interested in the
discussion of ideas as most of us like to believe the _Friday Review_
would inevitably have continued. It would, that’s all. But as things are
it was fated. Neither the mechanics nor the economics of daily
journalism permitted it. The _Post_ could not continue to give us—it
quite literally gave us—eight pages of what so few of us wanted so much.
Everybody knows that if a weekly paper dealing not only with literature
but with all the other arts in the spirit and with the journalistic
competence of the _Friday Review_ were established in Chicago everybody
would have to read it.
That is the point I wished to make. It is perfectly obvious that THE
LITTLE REVIEW is not the kind of newspaper of the arts I have in mind.
THE LITTLE REVIEW is published only once a month. It is therefore not a
newspaper, but a magazine. It is three times as good as _The Drama_,
which is published only once a quarter. But my point is that we ought to
have something four times as good as THE LITTLE REVIEW: in short, a
weekly. It may be that THE LITTLE REVIEW has other failings than its
infrequency. But why consider these lesser matters? THE LITTLE REVIEW
has one virtue in addition to its eagerness. It is informal. Informality
is the breath of life to journalism. Nobody can write anything the way
people want him to unless he feels perfectly free to write the way he
wants to. It is far more a matter of manners than a matter of truth. A
journal which insists on formality almost never has any good writing in
it. Good writing is nothing but the artistic expression of a
personality. Scientifically speaking, it can be nothing else. Not that
one must be thinking about expressing his personality in order to write
well. The very point is that he must not be thinking about it. He has
got to be thinking about what he has to say and nothing else. Take the
use of “I” as an apparently trivial but actually significant example. If
the paper for which he is writing regards the use of “I” as a breach of
good form a man will find that one finger of his left hand is
mysteriously drawn to the shift key and one finger of his right hand to
the key between the “u” and the “o” in order to make an “I” all the time
he is punching his typewriter. The least excusable riot of “I’s” I ever
saw in print was in a journal of literary discussion which believes in
the reality of that invention of the old-fashioned logician, “objective
criticism,” and which regards the use of “I” by any but elderly
gentlemen of the walnuts and wine school as impossible. I did it myself
in the absence of the editor. In a paper which does not in the least
object to the use of “I” writers soon forget all about it, and when they
do that they begin to use it only when it is effective. It is the virtue
of THE LITTLE REVIEW that it permits its contributors to use “I” as
often as they please; that it permits them to make fools of themselves
occasionally. This means that it is not impossible to write well for THE
LITTLE REVIEW. I do not say that it is not possible to write badly for
THE LITTLE REVIEW. Perfect freedom to be idiotic does not inevitably
eliminate idiocy.
But I have no more compliments for THE LITTLE REVIEW.
_Poetry_ is another matter. Miss Monroe’s magazine has printed some bad
verse. But this is not, as its most envious critics imagine, its
distinction. Every magazine prints bad verse. _Poetry_ has printed
poetry that nobody else dared to print. _Poetry_ has boldly discussed
the poetic controversy when everybody else hid behind language. _Poetry_
introduced us to Rabindranath Tagore, to Vachel Lindsay, in a way, to
Edgar Lee Masters. _Poetry_ printed Ford Hueffer’s poem _On Heaven_.
_Poetry_ has heard of Remy de Gourmont and the _Mercure de France_—an
incredible achievement for a Chicago literary journal. _Poetry_ has done
more than any other paper to furnish a meeting ground for writers in
Chicago. If _Poetry_ were concerned about novels it would not decide two
or three years after intelligent people had discovered _Jean Christophe_
that M. Romain Rolland is a successor to Tolstoi and, for the first
time, print a few paragraphs about him. If _Poetry_ were interested in
psychology it would not ignore Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. But _Poetry_
is not interested in these things. Its great wealth is devoted only to
poetry and it comes out only once a month.
It is a pity. For the spirit of _Poetry_ is nearer to the spirit of the
old _Friday Literary Review_ than anything else in Chicago. That is the
spirit I like, that seems suited to the place and the occasion. But it
needs a weekly paper of wide scope to express itself.
A man is an artist to the extent to which he regards everything
that inartistic people call “form” as the actual substance, as
the “principal” thing.—_Nietzsche._
Epigrams
RICHARD ALDINGTON
Blue
(_A Conceit_)
The noon sky, a distended vast blue sail;
The sea, a parquet of coloured wood;
The rock-flowers, sinister indigo sponges;
Lavender leaping up, scented sulphur flames;
Little butterflies, resting shut-winged, fluttering,
Eyelids winking over watchet eyes.
The Retort Discourteous
They say we like London—O Hell!—
They tell
Us we shall never sell
Our works (as if we cared).
We’re “high brow” and long-haired
Because we don’t
Cheat and cant.
We can’t rhythm; we can’t rhyme,
Just because their rag-time
Bores us.
These twangling lyrists are too pure for sense;
So they chime,
Rhyme
And time,
And Slime,
All praise their virtuous impotence.
Christine
I know a woman who is natural
As any simple cannibal;
This is a great misfortune, for her lot
Is to reside with people who are not.
Education by Children
WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT
A little girl of eleven was working here in the study through the long
forenoon. In the midst of it, we each looked up and out through the
barred window to the nearest elm, where a song-sparrow had just finished
a perfect expression of the thing as he felt it. The song was more
elaborate, perhaps, because the morning was lofty and glorious. Old
Mother Nature smelled like a tea-rose that morning; one would know from
that without the sense of direction that the wind was from the south.
The song from the sunlight among the new elm leaves was so joyous that
it choked us. It stood out from all the songs of the morning, because it
was so near, and we had each been called by it from the pleasant mystery
of our tasks.
The little girl leaned toward the window. We heard the other bird answer
from the distance, and then _ours_ sang again—and again. We sipped the
ecstacy in the hushes. Like a flicker the little bird was gone—a leaning
forward on the branch, and then a blur ... and presently the words in
the room:
“... sang four songs and flew away.”
It was a word-portrait, and told me much that I wanted. The number, of
course, was not mental, clearly a part of the inner impression. However,
no explanation will help if the art of the saying is not apparent. I
told the thing as it is here, to a class later in the day, and a woman
said:
“Why, those six words make a Japanese poem.”
I wonder if it is oriental? Rather I think it belongs especially to our
new generation, the elect of which seems to know innately that an
expression of truth in itself is a master-stroke. Somehow the
prison-house has not closed altogether upon the elect of the new
generation. There are lines in the new poetry that could come forth, and
have their being, only from the inner giant that heretofore has been
asleep except in the hearts of the rarest few whose mothers mated with
Gods, merely using men for a symbol and the gift of matter....
As I believe that the literary generation which has the floor in America
today is the weakest and the bleakest that ever made semi-darkness of
good sunlight, so I believe that the elect of the new generation
contains individuals who are true heaven-borns; that they bring their
own light with them and do not stand about stretched for reflection;
that they refuse to allow the world-lie to shut the passages of power
within them, between the zone of dreams and the more temperate zones of
matter. They have refused to accept us—that is the splendid truth.
The new generation does not argue with us. They are not a race of
talkers. They do not accept what they find and begin to build upon that,
as all but the masters have done heretofore. They are making even their
own footings and abutments. And to such clean and sure beginnings magic
strength has come. The fashions and the mannerisms which we knew and
thought of as the heart of things; the artfulness of speech and written
word, the age of advertising which twisted its lie into the very
physical structure of our brains; the countless reserves and covers to
hide our want of inspiration (for light cannot pass through a twisted
passage)—all these, the new age has put away. It meets life face to
face—and a more subtle and formidable devil is required for its workers
than that which seduced us.
The few great workmen heretofore have come up in the lie, and in
midlife, the sutures closing—they were warned because they had labored
like men. For their work’s sake and for their religion, which is the
same to great men, they perceived that they must tear the lie out of
their hearts, even if they bled to death. We call it their illumination,
but it was a very deep and dark passage for them. _Except that ye become
as little children_—that was all they knew, perhaps, but quite
enough.... And the old masters invariably put their story down for us to
read: Rodin, Puvis de Chavannes, Whitman, Balzac, Tolstoi—only to
mention a little group of the nearer names—all have told the story. In
their later years they told no other story.
In the beginning they served men, as they fancied men wanted to be
served, but after they confronted the lie of it, they dared to listen to
reality from their own nature. They fought the fight for that cosmic
simplicity which is the natural flowering of the child mind, and which
modern education patronizingly dresses down at every appearance. The
masters wrenched open with all their remaining strength the doors of the
prison-house, and become more and more like children unto the end.
* * * * *
... I do not ask a finer fate than to write about the _New Age_ and
_Children_ and _Education by Children_ for THE LITTLE REVIEW. I think of
_you_ as one of its throbbing centers. I can say it better than that—I
think of you as a brown Arabian tent in which the world’s desire is just
rousing from sleep. I would like to be one of the larks of the morning,
whose song makes it impossible for you to doze again. I would not come
too near—lest you find me old, the brandings of past upon me. Yet
because of the years, I think I know what will be that “more formidable
and subtle devil” waiting to make you forget your way.
He is not a stranger. He is always near when people dare to be simple.
There are many who call him a God still, but they do not use their eyes.
You who see so directly must never forget that bad curve of him below
the shoulders. Forever, the artists lying to themselves have tried to
cover that bad curve of Pan as it sweeps down into the haunches of a
goat. Pan is the first devil you meet when you reach that rectitude of
heart which dares to be naked and unashamed.
Whole races of artists have lied about Pan because they listened to the
haunting music of his pipes. It calls sweetly, but does not satisfy. How
many Pan has called—and left them sitting among the rocks with mindless
eyes and hands that fiddle with emptiness!... Pan is so sad and
level-eyed. He does not explain. He does not promise—too wise for that.
He lures and enchants. He makes you pity him with a pity that is red as
the lusts of flesh.
You know that red in the breast! It is the red that drives away the
dream of peace, yet the pity of him deludes you. You look again and
again, and the curve of his back does not break the dream, as before.
You think that because you pity him, you cannot fall; and all the pull
of the ground tells you that your _very thought of falling_ is a breath
from the old shames—your dead, but as yet unburied heritage, from
generations that learned the lie to itself.
You touch the hair of the goat, and say it is Nature. But Pan is not
Nature—a hybrid, half of man’s making, rather. Your eyes fall to the
cloven hoof, but return to the level steady eye, smiling with such soft
sadness that your heart quickens for him, and you listen, as he says:
“All Gods have animal bodies and cloven hoofs, but I alone have dared to
reveal mine.” ... “How brave you are!” Your heart answers, and the throb
of him bewilders you with passion.... You who are so high must fall far,
when you let go.
... And many of you will want to fall. Pan has come to you because you
_dare_.... You have murdered the old shames, you have torn down the
ancient and mouldering churches. You do not require the blood, the
thorn, the spikes, but I wonder if even you of a glorious generation, do
not still require the Cross?... It is because you see so surely and are
level-eyed that Pan is back in the world for you; and it is very strange
but true that you must first meet Pan and pass him by, before you can
enter into the woodlands with that valid God of Nature, whose back is a
challenge to aspiration, and whose feet are of the purity of the saints.
To M.
Beautiful slave,
I kiss your lips abloom—
Do you not hear the surging voices
Beyond the tomb
Wherein you guard the candles of the dead?
Do you not hear the winds that crown
The towers with clouds
Dancing up and down,
Fluttering your shrouds?
Do you not hear the music of the dawn,
The strong exultant voices swelling,
Welling like the sweep of eager birds
Beyond your somber dwelling
Where each somber wall enclosing flings
Back in your ear
The moaning passion of dead things?
Beautiful slave,
I kiss your parted lips abloom.
O the splendor of the voids beyond
The stifling tomb
Wherein you keep your vigil by the dead.
You are too weary-spirited
To look at dawn, too tired-eyed to look upon the sun,
Too weak to stand against the winds.
What then? Farewell? No, let me—
I will find the face of God
With you among the worms.
ANON.
Notes of a Cosmopolite
ALEXANDER S. KAUN
Mit dem Nationalhaß ist es ein eigenes Ding. Auf den untersten Stufen
der Kultur wird man ihn immer am stärksten und heftigsten finden. Es
giebt aber eine Stufe, wo er ganz verschwindet, wo man gewissermaßen
über den Nationen steht und man ein Glück oder Weh seines Nachbarvolkes
fühlt, als wärs dem eigenen Volk begegnet.—_Goethe._
_Uncle Sam vs. Onkel Michel_
You remember the story of the king parading every morning before his
meek subjects who expressed their great admiration for the sovereign’s
gorgeous raiment, until a certain simpleton shouted: “Why, the king is
nude!” I do not recall the end of the story, nor how the impudent
sceptic was punished; but the part I do remember recurs to me every time
some elemental power comes along and sweeps away the ephemeral figments
from the body of mankind. Mars has more than once played the part of the
rude simpleton; this god has neither tact nor manners; with his heavy
boot he dots the i’s and compels us to name pigs pigs. His first victim
falls the frail web of diplomatic niceties. Talleyrand’s cynicism about
the function of the diplomat’s tongue to conceal truth has become
bankrupt: who takes seriously nowadays the casuistry of the manicolored
Books issued by the belligerents? Even Tartuffian England has had to
doff the robe of idealism and to admit through the _Times_ that it would
have fought regardless of whether the neutrality of Belgium had been
infringed upon or not. Good. One of the salutary results of the war (let
us hope there will be more than one good result) has already been
realized in the wholesale unmasquing of international politics; it will
do immense good for mankind-Caliban to see his real image.
The United States holds fast to its tradition of lagging behind the rest
of the world. Messrs. Wilson and Bryan still employ the rusty weapon of
“putting one over” through transparent bluff. “Too proud to fight” has
become a classic _mot_ the world over, to the sheer delight of European
humorists and cartoonists after their wits had been exhausted over the
memorable “Watchful Waiting.” The admirable English of the President has
demonstrated its effectiveness time and again: nearly each eloquent Note
has been responded to by a German torpedo. “America asks nothing for
herself but what she has a right to ask for humanity itself”—what
obsolete verbosity! Who is this Mme. Humanity in whose name we demand
the right to send shells to Europe unhampered by the intended victims of
those shells? An American weekly, outspokenly pro-British, has cynically
summed up the situation: “The British government will not allow a German
woman to obtain food from the United States with which to feed her
children, in spite of the fact that it is buying rifles in the United
States with which to kill her husband.” We can neither blame England for
her practical purposes, nor reproach the United States for her desire to
accommodate a good customer: business is business; but why these appeals
in the name of humanity? Why the indignant outcries against Germany’s
successful attempts to check the supply of ammunition for her enemies?
The brutal Lusitania affair has merely proved the consistent and
consequential policy of Germany; had she not carried out her threats she
would have found herself in the ridiculous position of our government
which seldom goes beyond threats. Talk about the murder of women and
children in time of war! I heard of a polite Frenchman who hurled
himself from the top story of the Masonic Temple and removed his hat to
apologize before a lady on one of the balconies whose hat he happened to
brush on his downward flight. Well, the Germans are not polite.
What is the significance of Mr. Bryan’s resignation? Let us hope it is
of no import; let us hope it may cause a change in tone, but not in
action. For this country to be dragged into the whirlpool of the world
war would be a more unpardonable folly than the puerile Vera Cruz
affair. Our entrance into the war would change the actual situation of
the fighting powers as much as the solemn declaration of war by the
Liliputian San Marino has changed it; in the absence of an army
deserving mention we could depend solely upon our navy which would be
able to accomplish nothing more than joining in some calm bay the
invincible fleet of the Ruler of the Waves and indulge in philosophical
watchful waiting. On the other hand official war against Germany will
doubtless produce internal friction of the gravest importance. I say
_official_, for unofficially we have been on the side of the Allies for
many months despite our theoretical neutrality. Think of the sentiments
of the German soldiers when they are showered upon with shells bearing
the labels of American manufacturers. Had we not supplied England and
France with ammunition, who knows but that they would have found
themselves in the same predicament as Russia, that is, in the position
of an orchestra without instruments? When we shall have declared war
against Germany we shall hardly be in power to harm her more than we
have done heretofore; the Allies will do the killing, and we, the
manufacturing. But the cat’s-paw-game is ungentlemanly, especially when
it is done officially. To be sure, Mr. Wilson is a gentleman; hence our
firm hope that he will do nothing more grave than enriching English
literature with exemplary Notography.
_Vincisti, Teutonia!_
In his Frankfurt letters Heine wrote:
I have never felt inclined to repose confidence in Prussia. I
have rather been filled with anxiety as I gazed upon this
Prussian eagle, and while others boasted of the bold way in which
he glared at the sun my attention was drawn more and more to his
claws. I never trusted this Prussian, this tall canting hero in
gaiters, with his big paunch and his large jaws, and his
corporal’s stick, which he dips in holy water before he lays it
about your back. I am not overfond of this philosophical
Christian militarism, this hodge-podge of thin beer, lies, and
sand. I utterly loathe this Prussia, this stiff, hypocritical,
sanctimonious Prussia, this Tartuffe among the nations.
Can you blame Wilhelm for opposing the erection of a Heine monument in
Düsseldorf? Those lines were written nearly four scores of years ago, a
time sufficient for turning epithets obsolete. No longer is Prussia
labeled hypocritical and sanctimonious; it is rather accused of rude
frankness and insulting tactlessness. Yet the hatred for Prussia has not
abated, but has been greatly enhanced. Heine died before the planting of
the atrocious Sieges-Allee, that symbol of the triumphant pig; it is in
the last forty years that the world has witnessed the development of
Prussian forbearance, narrowness, machine-like preciseness, and
soullessness. We have always preferred to distinguish Germany from
Prussia; we have found delight in the thought that there is a Munich as
well as a Berlin, a Nietzsche as well as a Haeckel, a Rheinhard as well
as a Bernhardi.... Today we witness the hegemony of Prussia, a hegemony
political as well as spiritual, for the great war has crowned with
triumph not only the Krupp guns but also the Prussian idea of efficiency
and preciseness. Our amazement at the achievements of the lightning-like
army that has been almost invariably victorious during the eleven months
of fighting and has held in its iron grip two hostile fronts, and our
astonishment at the diabolical accomplishment of the submarines which
have driven the English fleet to rest in North Scotland and have become
the Flying Dutchmen of the seas, pale before our admiration for the
wonderful spirit displayed by the German people within their country.
Read their press; you find nothing bombastic or boasting, but calm
reserve, set teeth, clenched fists, and deadly determination to fight
for life, even if it be a fight against the whole world. “_Weder
Schlafpulver noch Tonics!_” admonishes Maximilian Harden against
drumming up illusionary hopes. “_Stirb und werde_,” he closes up one of
his terse articles in the most virile publication I know of, the
_Zukunft_. Bernhardi’s alternative—a World Power or Downfall—is not any
longer a mere jingo-rocket but an imperative axiom uniting all Germans
in a desperate decision to preserve their national existence in face of
a universal hatred and complete isolation. They are not geniuses, those
perseverant Teutons; rather are they the reverse of geniuses. They do
not rise above reality; they adapt themselves to facts. They refuse to
be Quixotic knights; they prefer to emulate Mahomet who went to the
mountain when the mountain declined to go unto him; not to ride on the
back of conditions and circumstances, but to hold tight their tail and
be dragged after them. Herein lies the Teutonic victory, the victory of
Blond Beast over Superman, the triumph of mediocrity over uniqueness, of
fact over idea, of efficiency over idealism, of state over individual.
_The Prophecy of Rimbaud_
Arthur Rimbaud, the close friend of Verlaine, the “ruffian,” according
to Mr. Powys (this I shall never forgive him), was capable not only of
perceiving the color of vowels but also of foreseeing the political
situation forty-five years ahead. _L’Eclaireur de Nice_ prints an
interesting statement made by Rimbaud in 1871, a few lines of which I
shall reluctantly attempt to translate:
The Germans are by far our inferiors, for the vainer a people is
the closer it approaches decadence—history proves it.... They are
our inferiors because victory has besotted them. Our chauvinism
has received a blow from which it will not recover. The defeat
has freed us from stupid prejudice, has transformed and saved us.
Yes, they will pay dearly for their victory! In fifty years
envious and restless Europe will prepare for them a bold
unexpected stroke, and will whip them. I can foresee the
administration of iron and folly that will stifle German society
and German thought, in the end to be crushed by some coalition!
_George Brandes’ Neutrality_
There has been a good deal of misapprehension concerning Brandes’
attitude towards the war. His refusal to answer the interpellation of
his friend Clemenceau, his condemnation of the Russian policy in Finland
and of the cowardly and treacherous treatment of the Jews by the Poles,
have given cause for suspecting him of pro-German sentiments. In a
recent interview with the correspondent of the Paris _Journal_ the
Danish critic avows his full sympathy for France. Although his statement
is reserved and plausibly neutral, one easily discerns his dislike for
Germany, in whose _Deutschland über Alles_ motto he sees a Jesuitic
excuse for all means that may lead to her end. “German brutality is not
instinctive; it is a scientific one, a theory.” The cause of the war he
epitomizes in the _mot_ of Pascal: “Pourquoi voulez vous tuer cette
homme?”—“Il est mon ennemi: il habite de l’autre côté du fleuve.”
Brandes expresses himself more frankly in the Danish _Tilskueren_, where
he interprets the war as the struggle between liberalism and personal
government, between civil spirit and militarism, between a people
(England) which accords others commercial freedom and self-government
and a country overridden with economic protectionism, junkers, and
bureaucracy. “England has an independent press and a government which
voices the parliament and public opinion; in Germany the press is
semi-official, the government is responsible solely before the Kaiser,
and the Kaiser only before God.”
_Germanophobia ad Absurdum_
The French Immortals, too old for actual participation in the war, have
found an outlet for their patriotism in shedding red ink of ridiculous
chauvinism. It has become a matter of course to meet a name of some
“Membre de l’Academie” signed under such outbursts as this: “Nothing of
the Barbarians, nothing of their literature, of their music, of their
art, of their science, nothing of their culture, of anything Made in
Germany!” Another Academic gives vent to his ire against those Frenchmen
who still find certain German things worth admiring, and he vehemently
advocates the prohibition of the Barbarian music and art “by law, by
persuasion, by force, by violence if necessary!” The octogenarian
Saint-Saens has written a series of articles venomously attacking
Wagnerian music, labeling traitor any Frenchman who favors the art of
the arch-foe of his country. Even the semi-official _Le Temps_ was
shocked by the violent tone of the old composer; it quoted Saint-Saens’s
articles of the year 1876, in which the author appeared to be an ardent
Wagnerite and appealed to his compatriots for broad-mindedness and
toleration for “the greatest genius of our times.” As a substitute for
the atrocious Wagner Saint-Saens recommends the return to Haydn and
Mozart, even to Meyerbeer; Schumann’s Lieder he would ban for Gounod and
Massenet; he favors even Dussek, for he is “only a Bohemian.” Patriotic
as he is, he refuses to sanction the modern French composers, since
Debussy, Fauré, D’Indy, and the rest are Wagnerians in his estimation.
It is a case of “senile reactionarism,” as the _Mercure de France_
rightly observes.
_Comparative Morale_
It is very interesting to compare the barometer of public morale in the
European capitals, judging from their amusements. Here is one day’s bill
taken from the London _Daily News_, the Petrograd _Ryech_, the _Berliner
Tageblatt_, the Vienna _Neue Freie Presse_, and the Paris _Figaro_; I
have omitted the movies, which bear for the most part ultra-patriotic
titles, and the vaudevilles. The London bill is quite poor: _Veronique_,
a comic opera; _Mme. Sans-Gene_; Gaby Deslys in _Rosy Rapture_,
presented by Charles Frohman; _The Girl in the Taxi_; Frondai’s _The
Right to Kill_; _For England, Home, and Beauty_; and our old friends,
the Irish Players, in the Little Theatre. Still more meager is the Paris
bill: outside of _Cavalleria Rusticana_ (the chairman of the Walt
Whitman dinner pronounces it Keyveleeria Rohstikeyna), it abounds with
such tit-bits as _La Petite Fonctionaire_, _Mam’zelle Boy Scout_,
_Mariage de Pepeta_, and so forth. Berlin has on that day three
operas—_Don Juan_, _Elektra_, _Lohengrin_; three dramas—_Faust_, _Peer
Gynt_, _Schluck und Jau_ (the last one in Rheinhard’s Deutsches
Theater), not counting the minor affairs. Vienna’s bill took away my
breath: a Schönberg-Mahler Abend, a Schubert-Strauss Abend, a
Beethoven-Brahms Abend, a Brahms Kammermusik Abend, a concert under
Sevcik; _Carmen_; a play by Fulda after Molière; Ibsen’s _Master
Builder_ and _Ghosts_; Kleist’s _Kätchen von Heilbronn_. As for the
Petrograd bill, I had better not say what emotions it has aroused in me.
Judge for yourselves: five operas—_Traviata_, _Faust_, _Pagliacci_,
_Ruslan and Ludmilla_, _Eugene Onegin_; a ballet by Mlle. Krzesinsky;
two ballets by Fokin’s company; plays by Ibsen, Mirbo, Andreyev, beside
_Potash and Perlmutter_ and other importations; an exhibition of
paintings by Lancerè and Dobuzhinsky; a Poeso-Evening by Futurist poets
with Igor Severyanin as leader; an Evening of Poetry under K. R. (Grand
Duke Konstantine, whose play _King of the Jews_ recently appeared in an
English translation); public lectures on _The Blue Bird_ in Our Days, on
Dostoevsky and Nietzsche.... Allow me to stop. Are you inclined to draw
conclusions and comparisons between the stage of war-ridden Europe and
that of peacefully complacent America? I beg to be excused.
_Edmond Rostand on the Lusitania_
Rostand is a member of the Academy; perhaps this affliction is
responsible for his growing hoarseness as a Chantecler. Yet as of all
recent war poems his is the best, I feel justified in citing it:
Les Condoléances
Bernstorff, pour aller à la Maison Blanche,
S’est mis tout en noir.
(L’onde a pris, là-bas, la dernière planche
Dans son entonnoir.)
Il entre, affigé, refuse une chaise
D’un geste contrit.
(Des femmes, là-bas, heurtent la falaise
De leur sein meurtri.)
Il tousse une toux de condoléance.
Il s’essuie un oeil.
(Les enfants noyés tournent en silence
Autour d’un écueil.)
Il se mouche. Il dit—son mouchoir embaume:—
“Je viens de la part
De Sa Majesté l’Empereur Guillaume
Vous dire la part....”
Derrière Wilson, dont on aime à croire
Que tout le sang bout,
Lincoln, la Vertu,—Washington, la Gloire,
Se tiennent débout.
Le comte Bernstorff ne peut les connaître.
Il ne les voit pas.
S’il pouvait les voir, il aurait peut-être
Reculé d’un pas.
“... Vous dire la part....”—O mornes allures!
Touchant trémolo!
(Les pêcheurs, là-bas, voient des chevelures
Ouvertes sur l’eau.)
“... Vous dire la part que nous daignons prendre
A votre malheur.”
(Les flots verts ont-ils d’autres morts à rendre?
Demandez-le-leur!)
Bernstorff pleure et dit: “J’ai su ce naufrage
Et je suis venu.
Ils n’ont pas souffert. Ayez du courage.
Ils en ont bien eu.
“Je n’insiste pas. Je suis venu vite,
Et puis je m’en vais.
Mais vous sentez bien que, cette visite,
Je vous la devais.
“Nous plaignons le sort des enfants, des femmes,
Cela va de soi....
Ah si vous voyiez tous les télégrammes
Que Tirpitz reçoit!
“C’est un grand succès pour notre marine.
Je suis désolé.
Veuillez constater que sur ma marine
Ce pleur a coulé.
“Un pleur magnifique, en cristal de roche.
Voyez, c’est exact.
Je ne comprends pas que l’on nous reproche
De manquer de tact.
“Berlin se pavoise.—Hélas!—On décore
Le moindre faubourg.
Ah je le disais tout à l’heure encore
A Monsieur Dernburg.
“Si notre avenir—souffrez que je cache
Quelques pleurs amers—
N’est plus sur les mers, il faut que l’on sache
Qu’il est sous les mers.
“Ceux qui malgré nous voyagent sur l’onde
Sont les agresseurs.”
(Là-bas, l’eau rapporte une vierge blonde
Avec ses trois soeurs.)
“Les _Tipperary_ que chez vous on siffle
Nous ont agacés,
Et quand Roosevelt joue avec son rifle
Nous disons: Assez.
“Qu’allaient donc chercher en cette aventure
Vos Princes de l’Or?”
(Là-bas, pour avoir donné sa ceinture,
Vanderbilt est mort.)
“Il ne faudra pas que ça recommence.
Ils sont bien punis.
Veuillez exprimer ma douleur immense
Aux Etats-Unis.”
(Il se fait, là-bas, d’horribles trouvailles
Qu’on met sous un drap.)
Et Bernstorff reprend: “Pour les funérailles,
On me préviendra.
“Ce désastre a fait, en Bourse allemande,
Monteur les valeurs.
On me préviendra pour que je commande
Les plus belles fleurs.”
Et comme Wilson dit, d’une voix sombre:
“Nous verrons demain,”
Et sent Washington et Lincoln, dans l’ombre,
Lui prendre la main,
Bernstorff, en pleurant, regagne la porte ...
(Il y a, là-bas,
Deux petits enfants qu’une femme morte
Serre entre ses bras.)
_The Downfall of the International_
Another result of the war, already sufficiently crystallized, is the
bankruptcy of the illusionary spirit of internationalism. In his
remarkable book[1] Mr. Walling has taken the trouble of quoting
resolutions of national sections of the Socialist party the world over,
before and during the war. With a few significant exceptions the
Socialists of the warring nations have had to exchange their erstwhile
slogan “Workers of the world, be united!” for the less noble motto
“Defend your country!” Even when the European armies had already been
mobilized the Socialists held protest meetings at which they threatened
to call a general strike if war should be declared. But with the first
cannon boom the theoretic brotherhood evaporated and gave way to
patriotic sentiments. The workers declared that they were Germans,
Russians, etc., first, then Socialists. True, in the beginning the
German Socialists claimed that they were fighting against the
reactionary Czardom, while the Socialists of the Allies tried to justify
the international carnage as the struggle against Prussian militarism;
but ultimately such clear-headed thinkers as Kautsky and some of the
English Socialists came to see the futility of endeavoring to discover
idealistic causes for the mutual slaughter. The country is in danger,
consequently we must defend it, regardless of the rightness or wrongness
of its policy—this is the prevailing sentiment among the workers. The
grandiose structure of the International has fallen in ruins; the
“scientific” theories and calculations of the Marxians have received a
blow by the underestimated imponderabilia, that of primitive patriotism.
On the other hand, “applied” Socialism has won a considerable victory
with the development of the war. Nearly all the belligerent countries
have adopted State-Socialism in such measures as the nationalization of
railways and means of production. The capitalists are evidently shrewd
enough to utilize the doctrines of their opponents in time of need and
thus to neutralize the sting of that very opposition. What will become
of Socialism when at least its minimum-program is accepted and put into
practice by the _capitalistic_ order without the aid of a social
revolution, the inevitability of which has been scientifically proven by
Marx and his disciples?
[1] _The Socialists and the War, by William English Walling. New
York: Henry Holt and Company._
Artists should not see things as they are; they should see them
fuller, simpler, stronger: to this end, however, a kind of
youthfulness, of vernality, a sort of perpetual elation, must be
peculiar to their lives.—_Nietzsche._
“The Artist in Life”
MARGARET C. ANDERSON
“People” has become to me a word that—crawls. If you have ever heard Mr.
Bryan pronounce it you will know what I mean. He says it “peo-pul”....
And that is the way they act. Sometimes I see peo-pul in this kind of
picture: a cosmic squirming mass of black caterpillars moving first one
way and then the other, slowly and vaguely, not like measuring worms who
cover the ground or like ants who have their definite business, but
heavily, blindly, in the stunned manner peculiar to caterpillar
organisms. They peer and poke and nod and ponder and creep and crawl and
scramble and grow dizzy and turn around and around, wondering whether
they shall go on the way they started or go back the way they came or
refuse to go at all. Once in a hundred years one of the caterpillars
breaks his skin and flies away—a butterfly through the unfriendly air.
Then the black mass writhes in protest and arranges that the next
butterfly shall have his wings well clipped. I know my metaphor is not
scientifically intact, but what does it matter? It satisfies my
impulse—which is simply to call names. So I might as well say “People
are caterpillars” and be done with it.
* * * * *
I have a painter artist friend who says that to talk about the artist in
life is simply to repeat one of those silly phrases that mean nothing.
But it means entirely too much, I think—which is the reason there are so
many of the species in evidence: about two in a million perhaps—and I
know that is far too optimistic. That would mean some four or five
thousand people in the living world who have nothing in common with
caterpillars. The count is too high!
For really there are no artists among us. Living picturesquely,
artistically, has nothing to do with being an artist in life; and even
living with the poise that marks a good piece of art hasn’t necessarily
anything to do with it. If you ask me to choose a type of the real
artist in life I shall say Nietzsche rather than Goethe. For the artist
in life has inevitably to do with prophecy rather than with holding up
the mirror; and that means chiefly—to have strength!
Now where are the strong people? Of course “strength” is an indefinite
term. Sometimes it seems a matter of dominating the superfluous;
sometimes it seems the power “to meet fate with an equal gaze”; and
sometimes the resource or the daring to push one’s fate to a farther
goal. But these are beginnings! If you pick up what is known as your
soul from a wreckage and make it march on you think you are very strong.
If you manage to make it march with pride and joy you think you are a
Superman. But this is easily within the effort of Everyman. I am talking
of artists now and of the radiant possibility that such beings may
develop in this uninspired land; and, in these terms, to be strong is to
help create the farther goal!
It’s disgusting to realize that the people we know are not this sort.
Take any twenty of your friends and classify them briefly as types.
Perhaps there are five who have “personality”: but one of them has no
energy, one no will, one no brains, one no imagination, and the other no
“spirit;” there are five who have “intellect”: one of them has no
“character,” one no strength, one can’t see or hear or feel, one sees so
inclusively that he has no goal, and one sees so “straight” that he
misses the road on both sides; there are five who have a capacity for
art: one is lazy, one is ignorant, one is afraid, one is vain, one has a
lie in him; and there are five who have a capacity for living: one can’t
think, one can’t work, one can’t persevere, one can’t stand alone, one
wastes his gift on others and never realizes himself. You can work out
such combinations _ad infinitum_ and you can excuse them to the same
distance by calling it all a matter of having the defects of your
qualities. Why not call it a matter of having the complacency of your
defects?
If you’ve not got imagination you can’t help it; if you’ve not got
strength you can get it. It won’t make you an artist but it will make it
impossible for you to be confused with the caterpillars. If you’ve got a
vision—an Idea—and can find the strength to fly toward it you’ll be an
artist in life. This is not to confuse the artist with the prophet. You
can’t very well do that because the terms are so interdependent. There
has never been an artist without the prophet in him, and there has never
been a prophet who was not an artist. It’s a different thing if you’re
talking about priests or about inferior artists. And then of course you
have to remember that there are no such things as inferior artists.
Priest and demagogue are the names for those who fail as prophets or as
artists.
And what is the use of such a harangue? There is very little use. People
won’t be artists. Peo-pul don’t change. But the individual changes, and
that is the hope. Individuals are persons who can stand alone. There
ought to be Individuals coming out of a generation brought up on
Nietzsche. Such an upbringing has taught us at least two things: first
that he who goes forward goes alone, and second that it is weakness
rather than nobility to succumb to the caterpillars. Yes, and something
else: that it is from superabundance rather than from hunger that
creation comes. We start out fortified with all this. We don’t need to
wrestle with our gods every time the old laws threaten to submerge us;
our universe doesn’t totter when the caterpillars groan that we will be
lonely if we go alone or hurt if we are misunderstood or tragic if we
don’t compromise. We don’t mind these things.
It really all comes to one end: Life for Art’s sake. We believe in that
because it is the only way to get more Life—a finer quality, a higher
vibration. This bigger concept doesn’t mean merely more Beauty. It means
more Intensity. In short, it means the _New_ Hellenism. And that is a
step beyond the old Greek ideal of proportion and moderation. It pushes
forward to the superabundance that dares abandonment.
Art and nothing else! Art is the great means of making life
possible, the great seducer to life, the great stimulus of
life.—_Nietzsche._
The tree that grows to a great height wins to solitude even in a
forest; its highest outshoots find no companions save the winds
and the stars.—_Frank Harris._
Poems
CLARA SHANAFELT
Fantastic
I have no thoughts, no more desires—
It is green and gray like a garden
Stirred by apple-scented wind,
Quick with the sense of cool and silver joys
That come in a rainy dance
When soft hands of clouds have pushed away
The round red stupid face of the sun.
In one day, I think, the wind
Will not have had his will of the gleaming rain—
They run about with tossed hair,
The garden is silvered with their pleasure,
Cool and sweet, shining
As with arch laughter a beloved face.
The musing pool
Shattered in glancing flight by a sudden wing—
This, which no words can name,
This is my heart’s delight,
Winging I know not whither;
It has no measure.
Interlude
To sink deeper yet
In the green flood of twilight—
I grope for the rich chord of the full darkness
That drowns the piping cries of light,
For silence fretted by cadent rain
And the monotonous cries of insects
That lull the tortured sense in drowsy veils.
I am weary of lights dancing
In limpid streets,
Lemon and gold and amethyst,
The jewelled laughter and the scent,
Weaving of uneasy colors.
I would rest now in green and gray
Of an abandoned garden
Where no more flowers are,
Only grass and crabbed trees,
Night—
And the bitter aroma of herbs
Trod out by myriad, whispering feet of the rain—
Night and no stars.
Slobberdom, Sneerdom, and Boredom
BEN HECHT
It is the custom of inspired opinion to pay little attention to
mediocrities, to dismiss them with a shudder. I understand THE LITTLE
REVIEW to be an embodiment of inspired opinion, an abandonment of mental
emotion—Youth. Like some of the people who read it and even some of them
who write for it, it flies at the throats of contemporary Chimeras and
leaps upon the Pegasi of the moment. It slashes and roars, hates and
loves. It never considers the right and never considers the wrong. It
does not endeavor to be just and fair. This is at once a great crime and
a great virtue. It is criminal to be unjust and it is virtuous to be
truthful. To me THE LITTLE REVIEW is always both. I sympathize with its
spirit and share it. Leave justice to the greybeards. Why should a soul
which has the capacity for inspiration quibble in prejudices?
I think, however, that shuddering at mediocrities is a grave error. Evil
is the monopoly of the few as well as genius. Hating and loving them are
luxuries. Therefore it is that this writing is not composed in the
luxurious spirit of THE LITTLE REVIEW. My opinion is not an inspired
one, my emotion is not an abandonment. I write with a photographic
dispassion of the three great divisions of mediocrity—Slobberdom,
Sneerdom, and Boredom.
Slobbering is not an art and it is not an evil. It is not even important
except as an object of analysis. True, if encountered in print or in the
flesh it is likely to have a nauseous effect upon sensitive souls; but
then one can easily avoid encountering it. One does not, for instance,
have to attend a Walt Whitman dinner. When one hears that a Walt Whitman
dinner is to be given on a certain night in the Grand Pacific Hotel all
one has to do to remain happy and free from suffering is to stay at
home. My friend K—— and I went to a Walt Whitman dinner because we were
young and curious and hungry, and because Walt, after all, is a great
artist.
The dinner proved to be like most dinners of its kind—a glorious
opportunity for saccharine drool at the expense of a great name.
Appreciation and love of an artist—a poet—are highly commendable
qualities if practiced in private, if put into proper print. It is the
same as with love of a woman. But to stand up in a public place, to shed
tears of ecstasy, wave one’s arms, pull at one’s hair and strike at
one’s bosom—these are, as they always have been, the slobbering methods
of egotistical mediocrity. It is simply a prostituting of the emotions.