should be the last person to abridge, every page is interesting to
readers of Whitman and students of American literature. The first page
of the first volume, for example, contains an allusion to Emerson's
senility that is worth reading--in Whitman's words. Reading at random in
the third volume I found this striking quotation:
Breaking loose is the thing to do: breaking loose, resenting the
bonds, opening new ways: but when a fellow breaks loose or starts
to or even only thinks he thinks he'll revolt, he should be quite
sure he knows what he has undertaken. I expected hell: I got it:
nothing that has occurred to me was a surprise.
Turning back a hundred pages I found this:
I have always had an idea that I should some day move off--be
alone: finish my life in isolation.
This is the thought of the natural man who would die like a man. One
could quote indefinitely from this extraordinary autobiography of the
most outstanding figure in American literature.
DEWITT C. WING.
Midstream
_Midstream_, by Will Levington Comfort. [George H. Doran Company,
New York.]
A direct, big thing--so simple that almost no one has done it
before--this Mr. Comfort has dared. He gives us the story of his own
life to the mid-way mark. It is not an autobiography--one of those
deferential veilings of truth, a blinding of the spectator by the
scattering of fact-dust. After reading it one does not remember clearly
the author's various removals from Detroit to other centers of activity;
one remembers the vital events in his consciousness, the shames,
triumphs, and searchings of his body and soul. Here is a man's life laid
absolutely bare.
There is no use in explaining the value of such a book to those who do
not admit it. People to whom reserve is more important than truth;
people who are made uncomfortable by intimate grasp of anything--these
will not read _Midstream_ through.
The others will see here a chance to understand. And they will emerge
from the book with a sense of the absolute nobility of Mr. Comfort's
frankness. If a thousand writers should give us such books we should
understand better the much-befogged basis of all human problems--"human
nature." Every man draws his own conclusions about vital matters from
just such introspection as this, whether it be conscious or unconscious.
But every man does not have the candor and the hard-won insight of the
trained writer.
It would be possible to enter into futile discussions about the
"artistic" value of such a book--whether naturalism can give us as fine
a work as imagination. Whatever might be the result of such a
discussion, Mr. Comfort's book remains interesting, and interest is the
first value of any written work. He is neither a Wilde nor a Turgenev,
but he is a true writer.
To recapitulate the adventures of the sensitive and often unwholesome
boy, the degradations and victories of the young newspaper reporter, the
soldier, the war correspondent, the husband, and the writer, would be to
undermine the novel itself. If you want to experience them, let Mr.
Comfort be the narrator.
It may not be out of place, however, to quote a few of the conclusions,
in order to give a taste of the book's direction.
This of man:
A man is clean alone, if he is clean at all.
It isn't being superman to learn to listen to the real self--just
the beginnings of manhood proper.
This of publishers and the public:
In many, not all, editorial offices, the producer is paid well
and swiftly alone for that which is common, in which plots are
pictured, and all but greedy imagination put to death.... I saw
that it was not enough for me to get down to the parlance of men,
but to leave all hope behind--not only possible intellectual
authority--but, by all means, any spiritual in sight; that only
frank "down writing" would do.
This of woman's status:
The soul of woman dies if it may not sometimes aspire. A periodic
possession of devils on a man's part will not break the waiting
quiescence of his woman, but the sordid routine of downtown
methods will set her into screaming destruction at the last.
The creature who eight times the year obeys the tradesmen's
instinct for style; who has broken her bearing with centuries of
clothes-bondage, fed her brain upon man's ideas of sex, her body
upon food bought for her and prepared by people whom she does not
respect; who has not yet heard the end of a dollar-discussion
begun when her baby ears first noted sounds; who holds in shame
all that is mighty in her genius, and who has finally accepted as
a mate one of her male familiars--she is a man-made creature, in
whom is buried a woman. She is man's ignorance and effrontery
incarnate--the victim of his mania for material proprieties,
which, from the beginning, have utterly desecrated spiritual
truth.
And this of the future:
By every observation, law and analogy in life, the constructive
purpose at work in the world is toward the end of the increase of
spiritual receptivity in every creature, a continual heightening
vibration toward the key-rhythm.
G. S.
A Defense of the Grotesque
_Sonnets from the Patagonian_, by Donald Evans. [Claire Marie, New
York.]
It has become the fashion, even among intelligent people, to fling
tawdry sneers at something not understood--especially the intensely
grotesque. The indulgent smile has disappeared, and the little peevish
joke has taken its place. Perhaps this is obvious, but some obvious
things cannot be made too obvious.
_Sonnets from the Patagonian_ is a type of book which will be almost
universally laughed at. Yet it is something like a gold nugget: one must
use his mind as a pick with which to isolate streaks of poetry from the
coarse rock. The rock is simply grotesqueness. The gold is protesqueness
mixed with unconscious simplicity.
I took out my pick one night and started the mental manual-labor. At the
end I had extracted six of the most startling, clutching, beautiful
lines of verse ever written in English. Perhaps the twisted dreariness
of their surroundings made them stand out more vividly, gave them a
false value to me. I shall let the reader judge.
And life was just an orchid that was dead.
Her hidden smile was full of little breasts.
Gnawed by the mirage of an opening night.
And a fawn-colored laugh sucks in the night.
And like peach-blossoms blown across the wind,
Her white words made the hour seem cool and kind.
Six lines almost lost in the mirage the poet speaks off, but well worth
finding.
M. B.
Patriotism is a superstition artificially created and maintained
through a net-work of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that
robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his
arrogance and self-conceit.--_Emma Goldman._
The Reader Critic
_Emma Goldman, Los Angeles_:
_Readers have a legitimate interest in the truth of critical
articles. We therefore believe they will welcome these comments
by Miss Goldman on the article about herself. If Miss Goldman had
been displeased, we should have printed her letter with equal
frankness._
A Chicago friend sent me THE LITTLE REVIEW for May, which contains your
very excellent article on _The Challenge of Emma Goldman_. I cannot
begin to tell you how much I appreciate what you have to say about my
work and myself, not because of your sympathetic interpretation but
because of your deep grasp of the purpose which is urging my work and
permeating my life. I hope you will not mistake it as conceit on my part
when I tell you that more has been written about me than perhaps about
any other woman in this country, but that most of it has been trash. The
only person who came near the fundamental urge in my personality was
William Marion Reedy of _The St. Louis Mirror_, who wrote _The Daughter
of the Dream_. I do not know whether you have ever seen it, but even his
splendid write-up does not compare with yours, because it contains much
more flattery than understanding. You can, therefore, imagine my joy in
finding that it was a woman who demonstrated so much depth and
appreciation of the cardinal principles in my work.
_S. H. G., New York_:
It's getting banal for me to praise the magazine--I'm sorry, but I can't
help it. The thing has assumed the nervous importance to me of an
emotional experience foreseen and inevitable. And now that I've finished
reading the June issue I can truthfully say there isn't a line in it I
wouldn't have been poorer without. That couldn't be said of any other
magazine ever published.
Your June "leader" is not only true and big, but absolutely timely. The
essentially immoral thing should be the thing which does not contribute
in some way, however obscure, to the main current. You call it "waste."
The reason vice is disgusting is because it turns human stuff off into
an inescapable pocket. My idea is a sort of spiritual utilitarianism,
you see. Yet without the flat associations of utilitarianism because it
recognizes so many things as means to the end--joy and pain and
rebellion, for instance.
Dr. Fosters' article is superb! The fallacy of all ethical systems is
that they set up an abstract word as a virtue under all conditions.
"Unselfishness," for instance. Sometimes a fine virtue--sometimes not,
according to circumstances. We must decide, not the rigid word. Almost
all present-day fallacies proceed from a failure to recognize the fact
that the world is fluid. The individual is worthless except for his
dynamic. The static (vice) leads to death; death is merely
disorganization of the individual, so that life may be cast in new forms
better fitted to proceed.
_W. M., New York_:
I am reading THE LITTLE REVIEW month by month with much interest, and
have found many things that gave me pleasure. I admire the intellectual
standard. There is plenty of good, earnest thought in each issue. I
should like, however, to see a little more of what, for want of a better
word, I term "human." THE REVIEW is still in the colder currents of
intellectualism. I think it can stand a little more warm feeling, even
if you get it in the way of a controversy.
_F. R.-W., New York_:
I am distinctly of the opinion that THE LITTLE REVIEW is worth while. It
is one of the very few periodicals I read through from cover to cover.
If this can be made to go it will be a greater triumph for the American
people than for you. So many magazines of this type have been based upon
unsound premises. They have become the vehicle for irrepressible self
expression; they have followed freak paths of every variety; they have
turned Pegasus into a mechanical hydro-aeroplane and have flattered
themselves that, Icarus-like, they were scaling the summits to the sky
and endangering their pinions near the sun, when, as a matter of fact,
they were plunging through the sloughs below and the only evidence of
the sun was its reflection upon the mud by which they were surrounded.
With THE LITTLE REVIEW, however, I have a fine sense of clarity.
_F. D., New York_:
Not long ago I wrote you a long, long letter about THE LITTLE REVIEW.
But I didn't send it, because who am I to dogmatize about criticism?
Anyway, I was severe upon you, because I was disappointed. I really
don't think THE LITTLE REVIEW is critical at all. It is exuberantly
uncritical--enthusiastic about the wrong things. But you will probably
get tired of just being enthusiastic after a time, and start in to
criticise. I'm sorry I don't like it better. It has had some good things
in it. What I principally object to is your own editorial attitude.
_Constance Skinner, New York_:
I have just read your first issue and want to send my godspeed to this
magazine that _feels_. I am so sick of callousness and sneers and
flippancy.
Your Paderewski article touches me nearly. Shall I send you a brief
little picture of Paderewski playing one summer morning at Modjeska's
home in St. Ana Canon, California? Her face so fine, so sweet, with the
"so be it" and imperishable sounding memory of broken harp chords, as
she sat by silent and listened and looked across the years to Poland, to
the heart of humanity as she had held it and shaped it in those days of
her own power, ere she picked this starving boy from his attic and said
to Warsaw: "_Ecce homo_." Her husband listening better, because watching
her, to what the long fingers, like lights flashing, were bringing from
the depths. His (the player's) beautiful wife leaning upon the piano,
where he always wished to have her, where he could see her face as he
played. Outside the sloping canyon wall beginning in a rare rioting,
rose garden and reaching to a silver and blue rugged granite where
mountain lions sometimes pace restlessly. A great clump of live oaks,
four monster trees, their size ranging from ninety to one hundred and
twenty feet from bough to bough, roofing with bronze and green leafage
this last retreat of the woman who had been hailed greatest of all in
three countries. Among the roses by the low open windows of the piano
alcove the Polish maid standing, weeping, and the old lame man, her
brother, limping along from his work, taking off his hat and standing
there, too, unashamed of the tears flooding. And when he had finished
playing they came in and caught his hands and kissed them and spoke. The
lame man said: "I was in church, but it was holier. It was a rosary, but
every head was a light." The maid said: "Poland is not dead." This madam
translated to me, and the fire and mist in her eyes--surely the most
wonderful eyes ever made--was something I could not look away from. She
added: "Poland is not dead while Poles can weep. We must bless grief, it
has given us our art."
_H. G. S., Chicago_:
I am going to ask you to please discontinue my subscription to THE
LITTLE REVIEW, as your ideas which you set forth in your leading
articles are so entirely crude and so vastly different from my own that
I do not care to be responsible for its appearance in my home any
longer.
[_This reader has the honor of sending in the first cancellation.
We might take his denunciation more seriously if it were not for
our suspicion that what he really meant to say was this: "Your
ideas are entirely crude because so vastly different from my
own."--The Editor._]
_The following is typical of the older generation's response to
the new order. It is a perfectly consistent letter, a perfectly
sincere one, and a perfectly impossible one. But it is not to be
taken so lightly as it deserves: first, because it has all the
poison the younger generation hates most; second, because its
perplexities are perfectly natural ones; and third, because
education, in order really to be effective, must begin upon just
such attitudes. It may be as well to answer at least one of the
writer's arguments by quoting Shaw. In his new preface, in a
chapter called The Risks of Ignorance and Weakness, he says very
neatly: "The difficulty with children is that they need
protection from risks they are too young to understand, and
attacks they can neither avoid nor desist. You may on academic
grounds allow a child to snatch glowing coals from the fire once.
You will not do it twice. The risks of liberty we must let
everyone take; but the risks of ignorance and self-helplessness
are another matter. Not only children but adults need protection
from them." Following the mother's letter is one from a boy which
ought to throw some light on the subject from the young
generation's standpoint._
_Margaret Pixlee, Indianapolis_:
I feel impelled to reply to your article entitled _The Renaissance of
Parenthood_. I wonder what could have been the home-life of such a girl
as you quote from, that she should write that kind of a letter. Shaw
says, "there is nothing so futile or so stupid as to try to control your
children." Your opinion that Shaw's ideas are "glorious" shows at once
that you have only touched the surface of what motherhood is. Can you
honestly believe that a parent is doing his duty if he allows a child to
rush in front of a moving automobile attracted by the bright lights,
knowing nothing of the danger ahead--which certainly would mean death if
the child had its own way? Irrespective of what Shaw or Ellen Key write,
it is the parents' absolute duty to train and educate a child until he
is capable of using his own reasoning powers. And, too, there is but one
way. Principle and Truth with Love and Charity are the only way. Let me
here quote from your article on Emma Goldman. If you do not agree with
Emma Goldman, you say in effect, let us at least be broadminded and see
both sides. But are you doing this? From my point of view, you seem to
take the side only of free thinking, and, as you call it, independent
thought. There is no independent thought, except doing right. I can see
your point of view. As we look about us among the people of the social
world, many are indeed selling their children in marriage to some man
for the petty consideration of high social position and money. Many
times when an engagement is announced the first question is how well off
is the man, instead of what are his principles and is he worthy of the
girl. These poor children are indeed the offspring of foolish parents,
and are to be pitied. If as they advance on life's highway they are
given to see what principle means, then is it right to separate and go
their own way? We all must develop the spiritual within; but to break
loose from home ties, as this girl seems to desire, from selfishness
alone, will lead to a worse death than that of being crushed by the
automobile. I have admitted that to sell a child in wedlock to a man
whose only attraction is a fat bank account and social position is crime
of the blackest. But taking the other course is equally as bad, for
passionate love is always selfish and soon burns out. Let us consider
for one moment a child born out of wedlock. As I understand it,
so-called free thinkers consider this right. They disregard the law, and
honestly think they have done a fine thing. "All for love and the world
well lost." A daughter is born, and from some remote ancestor she
inherits a love of the conventional. Can you picture to yourself what
the suffering would be to see the daughter you love an outcast always
from the things she cares for through what you call the grand
passion--nothing more or less than the supreme selfishness of two human
beings, no matter what you and the girl you are privileged to quote from
"think you believe"? It will not be possible to do the deeds you write
about as they are portrayed by free thinkers. Truth will be revealed to
your innermost self. You cannot do otherwise than follow the Divine
Revelation, which alone leads to real happiness, for all material
pleasures are swept away sooner or later.
_A boy reader, Chicago_:
In the preface of his latest _Quintessence of Ibsenism_, Shaw expresses
his astonishment that the book changed peoples' minds. He has perhaps by
now collected abundant evidence that his books really have changed
peoples' minds and whole life courses. What would, perhaps, be more
astonishing to him is the fact that the first hearing of one of his
plays did it--and without the aid of a preface.
_Fanny's First Play_ started me thinking about family relationship. Long
before the play was published, with the lengthy preface on parents and
children, the very things he advises were happening. The preface was
undoubtedly written after long contemplation of the play--as was my
action; proving that the generalizations he makes are not as impossible
or absurd as the family egotist so pathetically argues.
I do not doubt that this play, the beginning of my knowledge of Shaw,
was the most important event of my youth. It is, of course, most
important as a woman's play, but why Margaret Knox's revolt could not be
mine I do not see.
The family in which I was being "brought up" was all that Shaw says the
present day family is--and worse, for there were also brothers and a
sister to aid in the "bringing up." These were all brought up in dutiful
submission to mother's influence and father's care. They had "arrived"
or gone just as far as they ever thought of going just as I was starting
for my goal. Their present condition had received parental commendation;
but what I saw, on looking about me, made me shudder--and think. I would
find out the reason for their condition and see if their fate was to be
mine. Of one thing I was certain:--if "family duty" or "filial piety"
were responsible for the state of things I would have none of it--and I
said so.
"You'll see--you'll bump your head some day; you'll see what good it
does to have foolish visions or dreams; you just do what you're told and
you'll be better off. Mother and father know more than you--they're
older." All this I had patronizingly handed out to me. Somehow all this
was horrible to me--this idea of contemplating a future such as
theirs--a colorless life built on "doing what you're told" and not
"having foolish dreams." For it struck me as an existence that mocked
the very system that was responsible for it. The only thing by which I
could judge the worth of the advice was the finished result.
Of course when I presented my case to my parents I was met with that
attitude always displayed toward youthful self-assertion. To make my
case clear to their somewhat bewildered minds I drew up a list of
grievances: there were thirty-three concrete faults in the existing
order that must be stamped out or radically changed.
They fell into four groups. Foremost was my education; there were ten in
that group:--all as unintelligent and old as thinking that a city
grammar school education was enough for any boy. As soon as I was old
enough to work it would be useless to educate myself any further. I
wouldn't need it any way. It would be wasting time that should be spent
in learning a trade. They had decided that the "building line" was the
safest to work in and therefore I must become a bricklayer or a
carpenter or something that "pays good." That I should have some say as
to what I should take up for life they thought foolish--I would only
pick out something that wouldn't bring enough salary. "Look at your big
brother--he's got a nice steady job as a mailman; he didn't need any
extra, expensive schooling."
Next were my religious and spiritual ideals. There were four in that
group. They were quite as dogmatic in their "thou must nots" as those in
the church ritual they wished us to believe explicitly. Superstition
played a big part in the religion they wanted us to believe. Theirs was
a Sunday religion, and, not practicing it themselves, it was absurd for
them to ask our respect on that score.
Economically they were quite positive that only they were capable of
taking care of things. We were not able to spend our own money in a
sensible way and were not to be trusted with deciding what should be
done with what was saved or earned. As to their ideas on the subject,
there were six ways in which I showed them where I differed.
The longest and most significant group was that dealing with the way
things were being run in the home. Methods that were retarding my
growth--mentally and physically. There were thirteen of them, each with
their minor details--such as the one "My Room." Without being meanly
selfish I asked for at least a little privacy while studying or at
sleep; that the room not be used as a wardrobe for quite the entire
family; and that I be allowed to take care of it, as to arrangement,
decorations, and airing. Which last word reminds me that their ideas of
hygiene were quite antiquated, and must be changed and enlarged upon.
Absurd as it may seem, they still insisted that night air was dangerous;
that one towel, tooth brush, bar of soap, and brush and comb were enough
for one family (those I got for my personal use were immediately
appropriated by the rest of the family); that too much bathing is
dangerous; and as for swimming, mother heard of a boy drowning with the
cramps when she was a girl,--therefor her son must not go near the
water; that exercising is "nonsense"; that _menus_ must contain meat and
numerous other heavy foods at every meal; and that children, no matter
how young, are able to digest whatever adults can. These are a few
instances of parental ideas that were useless so far as I was concerned.
Was a rebellion necessary? It was in my case and I may as well add that
it has already had results--to give the details would, I fear, be
getting too personal. I have been so already, perhaps, but it may induce
those who called the Preface absurd to read it again.
_Significant Books of the Season_
WHAT MEN LIVE BY
By
Dr. Richard C. Cabot