_The Egoist_ is about to publish Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man” in volume form (since no grab-the-cash firm will take it) and
do Lewis’s “Tarr” as a serial. I think you will be interested in the two
novels, and I hope you will draw attention to them, and to the sporting
endeavor of _The Egoist_ to do in this dark isle what the _Mercure_ has
so long done in France, i. e., publish books as well as a magazine.
Incidentally, Chicago should not depend on New York for its books.
_Anonymous_:
Will you ask that Lollipop Vender man, in the March issue, what happened
to his little dirigible? He was sailing along dropping bombs, hitting
the mark every time, when something seemed to happen and he came limply
wobbling down to—nothing.
I hope the last half of that article was not meant to be satire or wit
or anything like that. He speaks with too much authority to have much
sense of humor, and—ye gods!—the situation is far too desperate for
wit—of that kind. Now there’s Bartlett—read what he says of Bartlett!
Haven’t we answered all attacks for years with “There’s Bartlett”? It
was only intuition and self-preservation on our part at first,
perhaps—but now hasn’t Bartlett proved that he is a “real artist”? He is
off to New York to live.
How he does wobble when he comes to his list of “able and honest”.
Poor Parker! that he should have to go into the list of best men,
too—that list! The man _can_ paint—technic seems to be only a
superstition now but it once had a place in Art. Parker has that at
least. Wendt, Buehr, Ravlin, and Davis should be rescued from the “able
and honest” before your critic collapses completely in referring to
Clarkson and Oliver Dennet Grover as some of “their best men.” Ask him
anyway—what happened?
_Alice Groff, Philadelphia_:
Why did not Sherwood Anderson write up “Vibrant Life” clean and true?
Why did he not have the courage to paint every one of those emotions in
clear color—to outline every one of those actions in the beauty of
naturalness? Why does he artificialize everything? Is he afraid of the
crouching tigers of conventional morality?
Why should not vibrant life assert itself after its kind, even in the
presence of death? What desecration was there in this man and woman
coming together in such presence, drawn by the invincible magnetism of
sex? What of falsity to life was there in the lawyer’s giving and
answering the call of life as to this woman, even though he had a wife
whom he loved?
Why conjure up an atmosphere of guilt that neither man nor woman felt?
Why suggest such hair-bristling horror as to the accidental overturning
of a dead man’s body, any more than over the accidental upsetting of a
vase, or a statue, in the course of a dance? Why such strained effort to
make that specialized expression of vibrant life which is the very
pivotal centre of all life appear as the degradation of degradation,
degrading everything else, even death?
Will you answer that there is an eternal and universal sense of the
fitness of things with which every soul may be lightened that cometh
into the world? Shall I not reply to you that this is a lie against
life—that life is sacrificed every day to this lie? Shall I not say to
you that vibrant life must not allow itself to be sacrificed to such
lies—that vibrant life must create anew continually a sense of the
fitness of things for itself and for its every new expression—that it
must do this with authority, shaking itself bravely free from the clutch
of the dead hand, whether as to traditions, standards, customs, morals,
ideals or love even? Shall I not say to you that Life must assert its
right to Live? Shall we not organize life on such basis?