excuse for his intrusion into a world already well provided with printed
matter, and if he feels this impulse for expression he cannot satisfy it
if he expresses the conception of his critics, his publishers, or that
inarticulate abstraction called the public. If speaking his own thought,
the public will not buy his wares, then it must go without them, and he
must earn his bread in another fashion. But if this public chooses to
traffic with him at all, it must do so upon his terms and at the price
of some little effort upon its own part. If the reader will expend no
such energy to gain a new idea or a new point of view regarding those
ideas, then the thing he attempts to assimilate so easily will, after
all, profit him nothing. The author is not the servant of his public. He
is a man with something to say. If passers-by choose to listen—good. If
they prefer to ignore him, he may not therefore seek some more alluring
jingle of words to catch their fancy. If he descends to such devices he
is a mere brother of the mountebank. He must paint truth as he sees it
even if he realizes that other and better men cannot accept his pictures
as truth. It is not his function to reproduce other men’s images,
whether better or worse than his own. He must be austere to deny himself
the luxury of preaching. If his work is what it ought to be, the reader
may be stimulated to fashion out his own deductions, but the hedonist
who sets out to point a moral, usually ends most immorally by distorting
a character.
Last of all—for here lies the vital differences between the work of a
mere honest craftsman and a true artist,—I should like to hope that in
my pages, I might now and then capture some gleam of beauty—beauty of
form, or of thought, or of comprehending insight. For without this,
fiction is a thing of effort, dead and mechanical, however well
intentioned. But beauty is the gift of the capricious gods, and no one
by taking thought, or by the exercise of weary toil can feel sure of
counting it among his treasures.
[Illustration: Pío Baroja]
[Illustration: Eunice Tietjens]
CHANT OF THE NURSES
A MODERN GREEK FOLK-SONG
_Translated from the French Version of Antonin Proust
By Eunice Tietjens_
Sleep, my child! For if you sleep you shall have three cities, three
villages and three monasteries. In the cities you shall
command, in the villages you shall walk at leisure, in the
monasteries you shall pray.
Sleep, my child! For if you do not wish to command, nor to walk at
leisure, nor to pray, sleep shall carry you away to the
vineyards of the Sultan. The Sultan shall give you grapes, the
Moons of the Harem shall give you roses and the odalisques
shall make you cakes of sesame.
Sleep, my child, sleep!
A MEMORY OF YPRES[3]
_By H. M. Tomlinson_
As for the city itself you probably know all about it, and wish you had
never heard of it. As for me I had been in it so often that my mouth
didn’t get so dry on wet days, when walking up that Sinister Street from
Suicide Corner to what was once the Cloth Hall. There I was, one summer
day, in a silence like deafness, amid ruins which might have been in
Central Asia, and I, the last man on earth, contemplating them. There
was something bumping somewhere, but it wasn’t in Ypres, and no notice
is ever taken in Flanders of what doesn’t bump near you. So I sat on the
disrupted pedestal of a forgotten building and smoked, and wondered why
I was in the city of Ypres, and why there was a war, and why I was a
fool.
It was a lovely day, and looking up at the sky over what used to be a
school dedicated to the gentle Jesus, which is just by the place where
one of the seventeen-inchers has blown a forty-foot hole, I saw a little
round cloud suddenly appear in the blue, and then another, and then lots
in a bunch, the sort of soft little cloudlets on which Renaissance
cherubs rest their chubby hands, and with fat faces on one side consider
mortals from cemetery monuments. Then came down dull concussions from
the blue, and right over head I made out two Boche ‘planes. A shell case
banged the _pavé_ near me and went on to make a white scar on a wall.
Some invisible things were whizzing about. One’s own shrapnel is often
tactless. There was a cellar and I got into it, and while the intruders
were overhead I smoked and gazed at the contents of the cellar—the
wreckage of a bicycle, a child’s chemise, one old boot, a jam pot, and a
dead cat. Owing to an unsatisfactory smell of many things I got out soon
and sat on the pedestal again.
A figure in khaki came straight at me across the square, his boots
sounding like the deliberate approach of Fate in solitude. It stopped,
saluted, and said, “I shoodden stay ‘ere, sir. They’ve been gitten
sights, and they gen’ally begin about now. Sure to drop some ‘ere.”
At that moment a mournful cry went over us, followed by a crash in
Sinister Street. My way home! Some masonry fell in sympathy from the
Cloth Hall.
“Better come with me till it blows over, sir. I’ve got a dug-out near.”
We turned off sharp, and not really before it was time to move, into a
part of the city unknown to me. There were some unsettling noises, worse
no doubt because of the echoes, behind us; but it is not dignified to
hurry when you look like an officer. You ought to fill your pipe. I did
so, and stopped to light it. Once I paused in drawing it, checked by the
splitting open of the earth in the first turning to the right and the
second to the left, or thereabouts.
“That’s a big ‘un, sir,” said my soldier, who then took half a cigarette
from his ear, and a light from my match: we then resumed our little
promenade. By an old motor bus, whose windows were boards, whose colour
was War-Office neuter, but who, for memory’s sake, still bore on its
forehead the legend “Liverpool Street,” my soldier hurried slightly, and
was then swallowed up. I was alone. While looking about for possible
openings, I heard his voice under the road, and then saw a dark mouth,
low in a broken wall, and crawled in. Finding my way by touching the
dark with my forehead and my shins, I found a lower smell of graves
hollowed by a candle and a bottle. And there was my soldier, who
provided me with an empty case, and himself another, and we had the
candle between us. On the table was a tin of condensed milk suffering
from shock, and some documents under a shell-nose. Pictures of partly
clad ladies began to dimmer from the walls through the gloom. Now and
then the cellar trembled.
“Where’s that old ‘bus come from?” I asked.
“Ah! the pore old bitch, sir,” said the soldier sadly.
“Yes, of course, but what’s the matter with her?”
“She’s done in, sir. But she’s done her bit, she has,” said my soldier,
changing the crossing of his legs. “Ah! little did she think when I used
to take ‘er acrorse Ludgit Circus what a ‘ell of a time I’d ‘ave to give
‘er some day. She’s a good ole thing. She’s done ‘er bit. She won’t see
Liverpole Street no more. If Milertery Medals wasn’t so cheap, she ought
to ‘ave one, she ought.”
The cellar had a shocking fit of the palsy, and the candlelight
shuddered and flattened.
“The ruddy swine are _ruddy_ wild today. Suthin’s upset ‘em. ‘Ow long
will this ruddy war last, sir?” asked the soldier, slightly plaintive.
“I know,” I said. “It’s filthy. But what about your old ‘bus?”
“Ah! What about ‘er. She ain’t ‘arf ‘ad a time. She’s seen enough war to
make a general want to go home and shell _peas_ the rest of ‘is life.
What she knows about it would make all them clever fellers in London who
reckon they know all about it turn green if they heard a door slam.
Learned it all in one jolly old day too. Learned it sudden, like you
gen’ally learns things you don’t forgit afterwards.
“And I reckon I ‘adn’t anything to find out, either, not after Antwerp.
It only shows—Don’t tell me, sir, war teaches yer a lot. It only shows
fools what they don’t know but might ‘ave guessed if they ‘adn’t been
fools.
“You know Poperhinge. Well, my trip was between there an’ Wipers,
gen’ally. The stones on the road was enough to make her shed nuts and
bolts by the pint. But it was a quiet journey, take it all round, and
after a cup o’ tea at Wipers I used to roll home to the garage. War? It
was easier than the Putney route. Wipers was full of civilians. Shops
all open. Estaminets and nice young things. I used to like war then
better than a school boy likes Sat’d’y afternoons. It wasn’t work and it
wasn’t play. And there was no rule you couldn’t break if you ‘ad sense
enough to come to attention smart an’ answer quick. Yes, sir.
“I knew so little about war then that I’m sorry I never tried to be a
milertary expert. But my education was neglected. I can only write
picture postcards. It’s er pity. Well, one day it wasn’t like that. Not
by a damn sight. It dropped on Wipers, and it wasn’t like that a bit. It
was bloody different. I wasn’t frightened, but my little inside was.
“First thing was the gassed soldiers coming through. Their faces were
green and blue, and their uniforms a funny colour. I didn’t know what
was the matter with ‘em, and that put the wind up, for I didn’t want to
look like that. What the ‘ell was up? We could hear a fine rumpus in the
Salient. The civies were frightened, but they stuck to their homes.
Nothing was happening there then, and while nothing is happening it’s
hard to believe it’s going to. After seeing a Zouave crawl by with his
tongue hanging out, and his eyes like a choked dog’s, and his face the
colour of a mottled cucumber, I said good-bye to the nice lady where I
was. It was time to see about it.
“And fact is I didn’t ‘ave much time to think about it; what with
gettin’ men out and gettin’ reinforcements in. Trip after trip.
“But I shall never have a night again like that was till all I’ve ever
done is called out loud, and I get thumbs down on the last day. Believe
me, it was a howler. I steered the old ‘bus, but it was done right by
accident. It was certainly touch and go. I shoodden ‘ave thought a
country town, even in war, could look like Wipers did that night.
“It was gettin’ dark on my last trip in, and we barged into all the
world gettin’ out—and gettin’ out quick. And the guns and reinforcements
were comin’ up behind me. There’s no other road in or out, as you know.
I forgot to tell you that night comin’ on didn’t matter much, because
the place was alight, and the sky was bursting with shrapnel, and the
high explosives were falling in the houses on fire, and spreading the
red stuff like fireworks. It was like driving into a volcano. The gun
ahead of me went over a child, but only its mother and me saw that, and
a house in flames ahead of the gun got a shell inside it, and fell on
the crowd that was mixed up with the army traffic.
“When I got to a side turning I went up, and hopped off to see how my
little lady was getting on. A shell had got her estaminet. The curtains
were flying in little flames through the place where the windows used to
be. Inside, the counter was upside down, and she was lying among the
glass and bottles on the floor. I couldn’t do anything for her. And
further up the street my headquarters was a heap of bricks, and the
houses on both sides of it alight. No good looking there for any more
orders.
“Being left to myself, I began to take notice. While you’re on the job
you just do it, and don’t see much of anything else, except with the
corner of yer eye. I’ve never ‘eard such a row, shells bursting, houses
falling, and the place was chock full of smoke, and men you couldn’t see
were shouting and women and children, wherever they were, turning you
cold to hear them.
“It was like the end of the world. Time for me to hop it. I backed the
old ‘bus and turned her, and started off. Shells flashed in front and
behind and overhead, and, thinks I, next time you’re bound to get caught
in this shower. Then I found my transport officer, ‘is face going in and
out in the red light. ‘E was smoking a cigarette, and ‘e told me my job.
‘E gave me my cargo. I just ‘ad to take ‘em out and dump ‘em. ‘Where
shall I take ‘em, sir?’
“‘Take ‘em out of this, take ‘em anywhere, take ‘em where you damn like,
Jones, take ‘em to hell, but take ‘em away,’ says he.
“So I loaded up. Wounded Tommies, gassed Arabs, some women and children,
and a few lunatics, genuine cock-eyed loonies, from the asylum. The
shells chased us out. One biffed us over on to the two rear wheels, but
we dropped back on four on the top speed. Several times I bumped over
soft things in the road, and felt rather sick. We got out o’ the town
with the shrapnel a bit in front all the way. Then the old ‘bus jibbed
for a bit. Every time a shell burst near us the lunatics screamed and
laughed and clapped their hands, and trod on the wounded. But I got ‘er
going again. I got ‘er to Poperhinge. Two soldiers died on the way, and
a lunatic had fallen out somewhere, and a baby was born in the ‘bus; and
me with no ruddy conductor or midwife.
“I met our chaplain, and says he: ‘Jones, you want a drink. Come with me
and have a Scotch syrup.’ That was a good drink. I ‘ad the best part of
‘arf a bottle without water, an’ it done me no ‘arm. Next mornin’ I
found I’d put in the night on the parson’s bed in me boots, and ‘e was
asleep on the floor.”
ON THE ADVANTAGES OF BEING BORN
ON THE SEVENTEENTH OF JUNE
[TO ALFRED A. KNOPF, JR.]
_By Carl Van Vechten_
The disadvantages of being born on any day at all are sufficiently
obvious, and every mortal must occasionally experience moments of envy
for those vice elementals who exist in the eldritch fourth dimension
outside the limits of Time and Space. But there are certain days on
which it seems particularly unpleasant and discouraging to be born:
Christ’s birthday, for instance, whose sharers must face the fate of
either receiving their Christmas presents on their birthday or else
their birthday presents on Christmas, and the twenty-ninth of February,
which by some is not regarded as a day at all. Any cold day in Winter is
sufficiently cheerless in a land where Rum Punch, Mulled Claret, and Tom
and Jerry are not to be readily procured; any hot day in Summer is
scarcely suitable for celebration in a country which prohibits the sale
of Amer Picon, Sloe Gin, and White Absinthe. No one really wants to be
born in the Spring, which is a period of hope, or in the Autumn, which
is a season of death and depression. I could, indeed, find many reasons
for not being born on three hundred and sixty-four days. Fortunately
there is one day in every year which is in every way worthy of being a
birthday.
I say in every way, and then I remember that John Wesley was born on
this day ... but that, after all, was probably an accident. Nor do I
linger over the name of Charles Gounod, but the birth of Igor Stravinsky
on June 17 was pre-ordained. There have been those who have chosen this
as a suitable date on which to die: Joseph Addison on June 17, 1719, and
Henrietta Sontag (in Mexico), on June 17, 1854. The Battle of Bunker
Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, and the Battle of Waterloo on June 18
(not 1775!) so that the celebrated ball held on its eve, described so
vividly in _Vanity Fair_ fell on the seventeenth. And Abraham Lincoln
was nominated on this day in 1860.
The Saints of the day bear fascinating, if somewhat unfamiliar, names:
Nicander and Marcian, Saint Prior, Saint Avitus, Saint Botolph, Saint
Molingus or Dairchilla. I like to think that some child carries one of
these names, or that several children respectively carry them all.
The Stars are friendly. Gemini, the Twins, of the Air Triplicity, are in
power. Mercury is the governing planet. The Astral Colours are Red,
White, and Blue, which permit the child the choice of several
patriotisms or gently dedicate him to polyglottism. The cabalistic
stones of the day are blue, beryl, acquamarine, lapis lazuli,
chalcedony, and sapphire.
The Twins endow those who fall under their sign with a genius for
vacillation. They symbolically indicate a dual temperament, the eternal
struggle between Psyche and Eros, which nowadays is of such interest to
Freudian professors that these savants are said to pray many long hours
each night that more children shall be born between May 20 and June 21.
In the children of the Gemini one trait of character contradicts
another. These lads wish to travel and they wish to stay at home. They
are nervous and phlegmatic, happy and unhappy, serious and frivolous,
satisfied and dissatisfied, affectionate and cold, generous and selfish.
They are fond of colours and perfumes and rich foods. They delight in
the Arts and Sciences, but as artists they will accomplish their best
work through inspiration and not through study or preparation. They are,
I am happy to observe, impatient and untruthful.
“_On court, hélas! après la vérité;
Ah! croyez moi, l’erreur a son mérite._”
It is, you may see, a day on which charming people are born, who do what
they please and lie about it afterwards to save their credulous dear
ones needless perturbation. A Fish, a Water Bearer, a Lion, or a Virgin
is allowed no such zodiacal privileges. His course is plain before him
and he must follow it. But the Gemini! Each one of them is two! Nothing
can be expected of him (or them), and everything! He can pleasantly make
his way in the world, singing with Walt Whitman:
“_Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself._”
Roses bloom and strawberry shortcake is in season. The date is six
months removed from Christmas in both directions so that a plentitude of
presents may be looked for. The weather is usually delightful anywhere
on the seventeenth of June and the day may be suitably celebrated in
several climes. A wise young man of twenty-one, however, who claims this
superior birthday, would, I think, celebrate it in London. When I say
London, I mean the River: Windsor or Hampton Court or Richmond will do.
He will take a nice girl with him, a neat flapper in a frock with a
Liberty pattern, American boots, a French hat, and a Japanese sunshade.
Later he may marry her if he likes, but it is better that he defer the
ceremony until after the celebration.
The two will sit on the balcony of some old inn with a romantic name
like the Star and Garter and observe the gay scene on the Thames over
the obstruction of flower boxes brimming over with pansies, fuschias,
mignonette, heliotrope, feverfew, daisies, petunias, geraniums,
portulaca, phlox, verbenas, candytuft, and other mid-Victorian posies.
The girl will be perfumed with Coty’s Vertige and the young man of
twenty-one will be garbed in white serge. His tie will be Chinese blue
and through its folds will gleam a sapphire. The two will smoke
Demetrino cigarettes and the two will drink Scotch whisky and soda, just
as if nothing had happened. Presently hunger will become an emotion and
I should suggest an English mutton chop, with the kidney, _Pommes
frites_, and large English green peas. There will be some conversation
but not too much.
After luncheon the fellow will engage a boat and, placing the young lady
in the prow, her sunshade held at the right angle, he will punt her up
or down the river, skilfully manoeuvring his craft between the
intricacies of rival punts, all of which bear rival young ladies with
equally peerless sunshades. Then the young man, if he still be wise and
twenty-one, and if his circumstances and his acquaintanceships and the
soviet government permit, will motor the young lady to a country house
where they will drink tea on the sloping lawn under the spreading trees,
casting lengthening shadows. So they may celebrate, if such peaceful
celebrations in the restful aristocratic manner are possible in 1939,
and they will both be very happy when night, the warm embracing English
night, wraps the lawn in darkness. And about the night I shall give them
no advice.
June 17, 1920
New York
THE MASTER OF THE FIVE WILLOWS, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
_Translated by Arthur Waley_
It is not known where he came from nor what was his real name. But
because five willow-trees grew beside his house he was called the Master
of the Five Willows. He was a quiet soul, content to pass through life
without comment or ambition.
Though he loved reading he never probed for hidden meanings; but when
they revealed themselves to him his joy was such that he forgot his
dinner.
He loved wine, but could seldom afford it. His friends knew this and
used to send for him whenever they had opened a cask. On such occasions
he went on drinking steadily till he felt himself getting fuddled; then
he went away. For he never stayed anywhere longer than he wished to nor
left sooner than he chose.
The walls of his ruined house protected him neither from wind or rain;
his short jacket was tattered and tied in knots; his bowl was often
empty and his platter bare.
Yet his books—written only to please himself and give the world a few of
his ideas—brought him happiness enough.
Thus heedless of failure, scornful of success, the Master lived and
died.
_By T’ao Ch’ien,
Called the Master of the Five Willows._
PART TWO
A BRIEF
WHO’S WHO
OF WRITERS
PARTICULARLY IDENTIFIED
WITH
THE BORZOI
A BRIEF WHO’S WHO
AIKEN, Conrad: Author “Scepticisms,”; _b._ 1889, Savannah, Ga. _m._
_Educ._: Harvard (1912). Travelled extensively, living at
different times in London, Rome and Windermere.
ALARCÓN, Pedro A. de: Author “The Three-Cornered Hat”; _b._ 10
March, 1833, at Guadix, Prov. of Granada, Spain, _m._ Doña Paulina
Contrera de Reyes, 1866. _Educ._: Guadix Seminary. Had a varied
career as writer, soldier and politician. Died at Madrid, 19 July,
1891.
ANTONELLI, Etienne: Author “Bolshevik Russia”; _b._ France, 1879.
When the war broke out was professor of political economy at the
University of Poitiers. Wounded and decorated with Croix de
Guerre, May, 1915. Sent to Russia on his recovery as military
attaché at French Embassy.
BAROJA, Pío: Author “Youth and Egolatry”; _b._ San Sebastian, 28
Dec. 1872. _Educ._: San Sebastian schools; Institute of Pamplona;
studied medicine at Valencia; graduated as M. D. from University
of Madrid, 1893. Practised medicine at Cestona for two years. Went
to Madrid where he ran a bakery for six years. Since then he has
been writing and publishing regularly.
BEERBOHM, Max: Author “Seven Men”; _b._ London, 24 Aug. 1872. _m._
Florence Kahn, of Memphis, Tennessee. _Educ._: Charterhouse;
Merton Coll. Oxford. Member of Academic Committee. Since 1901
there have been six exhibitions of his drawings. Lives in Italy.
BODENHEIM, Maxwell: Author “Advice”; _b._ Natchez, Miss., 1892.
_Educ._: Memphis, Tenn. Schools. Served three years in U. S.
Regular Army, and studied law and art for a time in Chicago. Wrote
verse for six years before having any accepted by the magazines.
BORDEN, Mary: Author “The Romantic Woman”; _b._ Chicago, Ill. _m._
1st., Captain Turner of the British Army; 2nd., General Edward
Lewis Spiers of the British Army, March, 1918. During the war she
equipped at her own expense the first mobile field hospital of the
French Army, for which she was decorated with the Legion of Honor.
Resides in Paris.
BRAGDON, Claude Fayette: Author “Architecture and Democracy”; _b._
Oberlin, O., Aug. 1, 1866. _Educ._: Oswego High School;
architectural apprentice in offices of Bruce Price, N. Y., and
Green and Wicks, Buffalo; _m._ Member N. Y. Architects’ League.
Lives in Rochester, N. Y.
BRIDGES, Robert: Author “October”; Poet-Laureate since 1913; _b._ 23
Oct. 1844, _m._ 3 Sept. 1884, Monica, _e. d._ of Alfred
Waterhouse, R. A.; one _s._ two _d._ _Educ._: Eton; Corpus Christi
Coll. Oxford (Hon. Fell.) After leaving Oxford travelled; then
studied medicine at St. Bartholomew’s, London; retired 1882.
BYNNER, Witter: Author “A Canticle of Pan”; _b._ Brooklyn, N. Y.,
1881. _Educ._: Harvard (1902). One time Assistant editor
_McClure’s Magazine_ and Literary Advisor McClure, Phillips and
Co.
CATHER, Willa Sibert: Author “Youth and the Bright Medusa”; _b._
Winchester, Va., Dec. 7, 1875. _Educ._: Univ. of Nebraska,
graduating, 1895. Staff of Pittsburgh _Daily Leader_, 1897–01;
asso. editor _McClure’s Magazine_, 1906–12.
CHENEY, Sheldon: Author “The Art Theatre.” _b._ Berkeley,
California, 29 June, 1886. _m._ Maud Meaurice Turner, of Berkeley,
1910. Three children. _Educ._: University of California, A. B.
1908. In business 1908–11, teaching and writing 1911–16, editorial
and critical work 1916–20. Editor _Theatre Arts Magazine_.