Shriveled them, with a thought, to a small diamond:
And tried to sell it to men who call it glass.
It was glass in a sense--
Glass which with terrible exactness,
Showed them big, hideous souls
Dwarfed by the splendor of its immense clarity,
Like forests pressed to specks by the height of a mountain.
His first acceptance came from Miss Harriet Monroe, who prints five of
his poems in the August issue of _Poetry_. "My creed," says Mr.
Bodenheim "(if I can be said to have one), is this: Most of the things
which men call beautiful are ugly to me, and some of the things they
call ugly are beautiful. Men and deeds are subjects for prose, not
poetry. I am not concerned with life, but with that which lies behind
life. I am an intense admirer of Ezra Pound's," he always adds; "I
worship him."
_Sade Iverson, Unknown_
We wish the mysterious poet who sent us _The Milliner_--which we liked
profoundly and printed in our last issue--would come in to see us. The
poem arrived one day in April with a modest little note: "Something
about your magazine--perhaps the essential actuality of it--has moved me
to make 'the simple confession' which I enclose. Print it if it is good
enough; throw it in the waste basket if it is not." But though we have
tried various investigations we have not been able to find out who this
remarkable Sade Iverson is. She was the first person to send us a
congratulatory letter about THE LITTLE REVIEW. In it she warned us that
restraint is better than expression; but _The Milliner_ will stand as a
stronger refutation of that advice than anything we can say. We want
very much to know Sade Iverson. After reading her poem Mr. Bodenheim
wrote the following:
_To Sade Iverson_
I wonder if you scooped out your entire melted soul
With shaking hands, and spilled it into this
Slim-necked but bulging-bodied flagon--
So slim-necked that my sticking lips
Must fight for wonderful drops.
"_Blast_"
The typical gamin, the street-urchin with his tongue in his cheek,
crying in an infinitely wise childish treble that the world is an
exciting place after all, and that even if you are so burned out that
you can't taste your gin straight any more you can still put pepper in
it,--this street-urchin has at last invaded the quarterlies. We have
known him already in the dailies, the weeklies, the monthlies, the bound
volume; but up to now the quarterlies have seemed dignified and safe.
But the last bulwark of conservatism has fallen; the march of progress
is unchecked!
_Blast_ is the name of the new magazine, published in London by John
Lane. Let us take it as it comes. The cover--after you have seen the
cover you know all--is of a peculiar brilliancy, something between
magenta and lavender, about the color of an acute sick-headache. Running
slantingly across both the front and the back is the single word BLAST
in solid black-faced type three inches high. That is all, but it is
enough.
Inside there is much food for thought. At least one feels sure there
must be much food for thought, if only one could come near enough to
understanding it to think about it.
First there are twelve pages of what seem to be the rare-bit dream of a
type-setter, but which on closer inspection prove to be a table of
curses, much like the old table which has now been cut from the Anglican
prayer-book. "BLAST" they say "CURSE! DAMN"--"England, France, Humor,
Sport, years 1837 to 1900, Rotten Menagerie, castor-oil." "CURSE" also
"those who will hang over this manifesto with SILLY CANINES exposed."
After these twelve pages come half the number of blessings, again from
the prayer-book. "BLESS" they say "England, all ports, the Hairdresser,
Humor, France, and castor-oil."
Then comes the Manifesto. No woman of the olden times found without a
shift could be more shamed than a new cult today found without a
Manifesto. This one begins: "Beyond action and reaction we would
establish ourselves." It proceeds with jaunty violence to settle the
artistic problems of the world. Nonetheless there is much wisdom in the
Manifesto. But you must read it for yourselves to understand it. This
announcement is signed with eleven names, of which the best-known in
this country are probably Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis (the editor),
Richard Aldington, and Gaudier Brzeska.
A group of poems by Ezra Pound follows. After the mental indigestion of
the first few pages we cannot be too grateful to Mr. Pound for putting
English words together in such a manner that they at least make
sentences. More than that, they make in places excellent satire. Then
follows a long prose play (at least we should guess it to be prose) by
Wyndham Lewis, called _The Enemy of the Stars_. Seven-tenths of it
consists of stage directions. Here is a sample:
Fungi of sullen violet thoughts, investing primitive vegetation.
Groping hands strummed Byzantine organ of his mind, producing
monotonous black fugue.
The plot unfortunately escaped our perusal, hiding itself in verbiage.
But undoubtedly there is one.
The number also contains the beginning of a serial story by Richard
Aldington, a remarkably vivid short story by Rebecca West called _The
Indissolubility of Matrimony_, and _Vortices_ by the editor. The whole
is copiously sown with Cubist drawings which must be seen to be
appreciated.
So the quarterly street-urchin makes his bow on the literary stage. How
much of his singular make-up will prove to be juvenile spleen and how
much genuine integrity only time can tell. In the meanwhile his tongue
is in his cheek.--E. T.
_The Stigma of Knowing It All_
One of the most exasperating things that can happen to a thinking person
is to be told this: "You would be much more forceful if you weren't so
sure you knew it all." How much time we all waste in vague, unthoughtful
generalizations of this sort! The only person who really thinks he
"knows it all" is that misguided soul who is always asking for advice,
always giving advice, and eternally ignoring both that which he gives
and which he receives. He is as muddled as a clear pool that has been
stirred up with a stick; but the ripples convince him that the
stirring-up has touched many shores. The person to whom the stigma of
"knowing it all" is most often attached is he who believes that he knows
something about himself and very little about anybody else. He is that
person who takes care of his own problems with a certain ardor, with a
sense of keen clearness, like the shining of a star through his deep,
unmuddled pool. He has realized Arnold's _Self-Dependence_. But the
muddled ones can never forgive him for that joy with which the stars
perform their shining; nor can they ever understand the stupor of
helplessness which descends upon him when he is asked to direct some one
else's shining. Therefore, they argue, he is self-sufficient; and the
adjective is a curse. Some one has said, quite untruly, that people
never know the important things about themselves. But the only thing in
the world a man can _really_ know is himself; and it is his chief
business to push self-knowledge beyond its obvious boundaries to those
reaches where even change becomes a comprehended element. The gist of
the whole matter is this: People who know themselves are the only ones
with whom we are wholly protected from that stupid and offensive
practice of dictatorship; also, they are the only ones capable of
receiving counsel with intelligence.
My Middle Name
My middle name rhymes not with satchel,
So please do not pronounce it "Vatchel."
My middle name rhymes not with rock hell,
So please do not pronounce it "Vock Hell."
My middle name rhymes not with hash hell,
So please do not pronounce it "Vasch Hell."
My middle name rhymes not with bottle,
So please do not pronounce it "Vottle,"
My name is just the same as Rachel,
With V for R;
Please call me Vachel.
_Nicholas Vachel Lindsay._
"Baboosya"
Catherine Breshkovskaya is a legendary woman even for Russia. She is now
seventy-three years old; about half of her life has been spent in prison
and exile; in 1910 she was once more arrested on the ground of her
revolutionary activity, but thanks to the intercession of prominent
European and American liberals, the verdict was mild:--Siberia, but
without hard labor. Last year the ever-young Babooshka ("little
grandmother," her pet name among the revolutionists) attempted to
escape, failed, and was subsequently transferred to the terrible Yakutsk
region, where she is now slowly dwindling away. The _Russkoye Bogatstwo_
prints two letters--two human documents--miraculously smuggled through
the rigid net of the Siberian police system. One is a letter written by
Breshkovskaya to a friend; it reveals a great woman--great even in
little things. She speaks at length on the miserable life of the exiles;
on her plans to mitigate their sufferings by planting vegetables to be
used for food and also to be sold on the market; and on other apparently
little matters--little when we consider the grandiose activity of the
gray revolutionist in the recent past. Her letter is full of love and
anxiety for her comrades, but she refers very little to herself. The
only plaintive note is heard in these lines:
My wanderings around the little island have come to a stop. I
seldom see mountains, water, and woods, and on the streets there
is either dust or mud--which I have no desire to look upon. Soon
the steamers will discontinue their course. The mail comes only
once a week.
This is all she says about her own existence in the dead land, but we
hear more about it from the second letter, written by a young exile:
... Her flight was discovered, she was recaptured, and she is
imprisoned now in Irkutsk. She holds herself bravely, but I know
this bravery. I fear that this flight will kill the Baboosya; she
has been ill so often and has had to suffer for herself and for
others.... Yakutsk will completely ruin her health.
Most of the exiles feel bereaved. Despite the sharply-defined
individuality of each of them, the Babooshka appeared as a
spiritual mother to them all, able to encourage, to lift up, to
console. The weak asked her for strength; the strong--for
counsel. How much endurance and patience she must have had to
assist each and every one, to appeal for money, for clothes, etc.
Her heart went out to the hapless exiles, oppressed, moneyless,
bootless, under the grim Siberian conditions. And how great was
her joy at the receipt of a package from some good friends! She
spread out the things, looked at them, and sang "Oy, how full,
how full is the coffer" (a popular folk-song), with tears of joy
in her eyes. Then she proceeded to distribute the bounty: to one
a warm shirt, to the other woolen stockings, or a fur-hat. To the
children she sent milk....
What a simple tale, friends.
I recall a few lines from a clumsy poem written by an American woman
after the trial of Breshkovskaya. Upton Sinclair considered it one of
the twenty-five greatest!
In all the world this day there is no soul
Freer than you, Breshkovskaya....
For you are free of self and free of fear....
... You are too great for pity. After you
We send not sobs but songs; and all our days
We shall walk bravelier knowing where you are.
Obituary of a Poet
FLOYD DELL
Adonais is dead--dead in the flush of youth, with all of life before
him.
Yes, but perhaps that is not such a bad thing.
"He had so much of promise!" That's the trouble. When the promise
petered out--as it usually does--what then?
As it is, he will never have to see his great hopes dwindle. He will
never have to bolster himself against disillusion.
Adonais has known the sweet of life--he has known the glory of youth,
and the gay companionship of men, and the taste of good liquor in the
mouth. He has known the joy of hard work, and the joy of roaming the
streets, idle and curious, feeling the beauty of the world; he has known
the joy of love.
Fortunate Adonais!
He did not know that it was possible for the love of women to become to
him a cheap article, to be appraised with practiced eye and perhaps
tossed carelessly aside; he was a lover--
And now he will never be cruel or careless about love, an exploiter and
parasite of women. He will never have to emerge, with false hope and
courage, from the humiliation of the Keeley cure. He will never parade
the streets with a dyed moustache--a broken-down boulevardier.
He will never read with secret malignant envy the enthusiastic words of
reviewers about the writings of younger men. He will never foregather
with other has-beens in the charitable precincts of a club, to exchange
compliments and listen hungrily to the accents of praise. He will never
be a perambulating tombstone to a forgotten poet.
He is dead in the flush of youth--
Lucky Adonais!
Humbugging the Public
HENRY BLACKMAN SELL
In the palmy days of the sideshow P. T. Barnum let fall a pat little
phrase which might be called the Great American Excuse: "the public
likes to be humbugged." The showman referred directly to the
amusement-seeking public, and applied his half truth to that rural
pageant, the circus; but it was an easy phrase, it suited the purpose of
men who were anxious to deceive and to mountebank, and it was snapped
up. Today, when a man is caught with a shameful misrepresentation he
laughs sheepishly and repeats that the public likes to be humbugged.
But does it?
We are The Public, you are The Public, and none of us likes to be
humbugged!
Then how is it that this proverbialism has gained such credence in this
country?
We are a new people. Our country is a great international whirlpool of
ideas. New music, old music, new theories, old theories, new pictures,
old pictures, new standards, old standards meet here and are spun about
us with hysteria-like speed.
We do not want to appear ignorant of the newest thought or the oldest
convention. We strive for an impossible universalism, and we accept many
a mountebank at his face value because we are unable to settle his true
worth, immediately, and because we feel that we must give a decision
immediately.
Our credulity is stretched almost to the breaking point every hour of
every day of the year, for wonders seem never to cease and the quality
of the genuine has given rise to the quantity of the false.
We are gullible because we as a nation are alive to the possibility of
the impossible.
We have gained a reputation for loving to be cheated because we have the
almost national virtue of being able to lose, smile, and again strive,
BUT we do not love it. And in the end the only one who really loses is
the charlatan who sooner or later awakens to a realization of the bare
hollowness of his false and petty philosophy, "the public likes to be
humbugged."
The New York Letter
GEORGE SOULE
The future of _The Century_ is the engrossing topic among the writers
and publishers in New York. No startling change in editorial policy is
contemplated. Possibly the perception of the modern and future world
which the magazine has begun to show under the guidance of Mr. Yard will
be more apparent. The principal topic for speculation, however, is
whether a "high-class" illustrated magazine selling for thirty-five
cents can be a financial success, or even self-supporting. It is an open
secret that none of them has been making money for some time. With this
question readers who are interested in the contents of _The Century_
have no concern except the single rather important one that if present
conditions continue long enough the magazine will cease to exist, at
least in its present form.
Here, as in every other literary field, the strengthening of the
machinery of commerce has enabled the product of transient popularity to
interfere seriously with the thing that is done for its own sake. The
"lowbrow" rules. An illustrated magazine is made possible by its
advertising, and the advertisers want large circulation. Some of them
do, it is true, look also for "quality" of circulation, but their
standard of quality has nothing to do with taste, literary or otherwise;
it measures merely "spending power." And the aristocracy of intellect
has only a shadowy identity with the aristocracy of wealth. There are
thousands of "automobile owners" who would never think of wading through
even an _Atlantic Monthly_ article.
Are there enough people in the United States who will buy an ably edited
"high-class" magazine to attract a profitable number of advertisers?
That is the question which remains to be answered. A probable answer is
that there may be enough, but that it will be a herculean task to get
them all buying the same magazine. The people who will pay thirty-five
cents for the privilege of reading literature of real thought and ideals
are now pretty well divided into parties, ranging all the way from
old-line republicans to anarchists. Twenty years ago we had a much more
homogeneous culture:--people who had any consciousness of their minds
were allied in their fundamental ideals. If an intelligent magazine
prints anything vital now, it is bound to offend a large portion of its
public. Quite possibly in ten more years there will be only two kinds of
general magazines left--those which are frankly "lowbrow," and those
which do not care for large profits, depend on uncommercial writers, and
are manufactured so cheaply that they do not need much advertising in
order to exist. Mr. Yard has a strong belief in the success of his
attempt to prove the contrary. It will indeed be a glorious victory if
without compromise _The Century_ can weld together a large, intelligent
public.
The plight of the theatres is strictly analogous to that of the
magazines. The moving-pictures have wiped out their galleries and
decimated their balconies. A well-filled orchestra is not quite enough
to support the usual production. The managers have either capitulated to
the films entirely by putting "movies" on their stages, or have
attempted to get the deserters back by competing with the films through
the use of cheapened drama. Melodramatic farce, with an abundance of
action, is the only form of play which is not now a drug on the
managerial market. That is, to be sure, a respectable form of amusement,
but there are some of us who would like occasionally to see something
else. Perhaps the little theatres, like the little reviews, will become
our refuge. Some of us believe that the managers who still stick to live
actors would be better off if they would stop trying to compete with the
moving-picture on its own ground and produce solid work for which the
legitimate stage is alone adapted. We can substantiate our theory by the
fact that at one time this spring nearly the only successful plays in
New York were the revivals of Fitch's _The Truth_ and Wilde's _Lady
Windermere's Fan_. But the temper of most managers and playwrights is
not encouraging. Not many days ago a group of successful writers were
gathered for the week-end at the house of a producer. One of them was
reading a new manuscript. Another interrupted him to say quite
seriously: "That's not right, old chap. You ought to get a laugh
two-thirds of the way down that page." Whereupon the reader inserted a
"joke" about a Ford car and an automobile.
There is a danger, however, in the little theatre idea. Little theatres
may grow to have the same sort of insincere "style" and disgusting
appeal to social snobbery which are the characteristics of magazines
like _Vogue_. As in the case of the magazines, the best thing that could
happen would be the appearance of a genius of so much life and power
that he could drive the crowds before him and produce his plays in the
open air of real public appreciation. The coming of the moving-picture
has only aggravated a problem which was previously acute. The crisis is
here; for that we must be grateful to the films and the cheap magazines.
Shall the rule of the people produce nothing better than a race of
commercial craftsmen whose only thought is to make money by exploiting
the least worthy instincts of the people? Or shall we produce at least a
few courageous leaders who, speaking out of their own authority, shall
lead the people after them? The faithful can, while they are waiting,
keep alive the sacred fires and scan the horizon for the new prophet.
His victory can come, not by compromise, but by aggressive power.
There is one growing form of drama which is genuine in its art and may
become popular in its appeal; the development of this is being carefully
watched by those who are alert. It is but a step from a moving-picture
such as D'Annunzio's Cabiria to a spectacle such as Reinhardt's _The
Miracle_. The latter is coming to us next winter; Madison Square Garden
will be its stage. Sheldon has written an unusual spectacle play which
George Tyler will produce. Let these things not be confused with such
orgies of stage-setting as _The Garden of Allah_; it is quite possible
to use the visual element as a principal means of "getting over" the
dramatic expression without doing so badly. To condemn all such
productions because some of them happen to be over-realistic, is to
condemn all painting because of Meissonier.
May it not be that a great trouble of our drama has been the failure to
recognize the fact that the picture is just as important an element of
the stage as the dialogue? Every French actress receives a thorough
training in pantomime; in America anyone with a sensitive eye will
squirm under the inept and ugly line-compositions presented by our
actresses in their gestures. And as for stage-setting, the height of our
ambition has seemed to be to get a door that will really slam, or to
fill the stage with pink apple-blossoms--the audience will always
applaud pink. The resolution of these crude attempts into something that
really makes a good appeal to the eye is no new thing; but for a long
time we have not been ready for the work of Reinhardt or Gordon Craig on
the one side or of the Russian Ballet on the other. Now the
moving-pictures are at once educating our eyes to watch drama, and are
undermining the support of old-fashioned plays which, through their very
excellent mediocrity, prevented the encroachment of new ideas. Let us go
to the theatres next fall prepared to trace the beginnings of a new
stage art in this country; in the meantime, however, not hoping to
escape the flood of cheap and artistically vicious stuff with which the
commercial managers and producers will attempt to drown our
sensibilities.
There is more active charity in the egoism of a strenuous,
far-seeing soul than in the devotion of a soul that is helpless
and blind.--_Maeterlinck._
Book Discussion
The Gospel According to Moore
_Ave_, by George Moore. [D. Appleton and Company, New York.]
Mr. George Moore has finished his autobiographic triology, _Hail and
Farewell_, and has shaken the dust of Ireland from his feet. The Celtic
Renaissance must make its way without his help or hindrance. He came, he
pondered, he withdrew. In these astonishing volumes we have the whole
story of his adventures and his thoughts, and an unrivalled series of
impressionistic portraits of his friends. We see Yeats in his long
cloak, looking like a melancholy rook; Lady Gregory, the poet's devoted
disciple; Edward Martyn and his soul; Plunkett and Gill, the Bouvard and
Pécuchet of real life; AE "who settles everybody's difficulties and
consoles the afflicted"; Colonel Moore, the author's brother; and we
catch an occasional glimpse of Arthur Symons, Synge, James Stephens, and
many others. But the book is very different from the ordinary _Sunlights
and Shadows of My Short Life_. It is a remarkable piece of
self-portraiture and an explanation of the author's attitude toward art
and the Christian religion.
It was during the composition of the stories contained in _The Untilled
Field_ that Mr. Moore came to realize that the Celt was but a herdsman,
and that art had steadily declined in Ireland since the Irish Church was
joined to Rome. But what was the reason for this decline? Was it due to
the race or to Catholicism? Mr. Moore and his friends discussed this
question at length and considered the history of literature in relation
to the Roman Catholic Church. Their discoveries astonished him, for the
case against Catholicism was even stronger than he had hoped for.