_Lee J. Smits, Detroit_:
We are disgusted and impatient with “peo-pul” just to the extent that
our realization of superiority fails us. That impatient attitude reminds
me of the ordinary attitude of the white toward the black. The white man
is not sure of himself; history and biology do not give him sufficient
support. So he bullies negroes at every opportunity. Some men even are
impelled to contend for their superiority by abusing dogs.
The sense of superiority abides in all living things of necessity, else
no form of life would stand out against any other. Wild creatures never
need argue, each with himself, as to his place in the world. His right
to exist and to express himself is paramount in the animal’s soul. Only
man ever doubts.
Really “peo-pul” do not doubt. They with the artist’s mark on them do
the doubting. When it is very faint, their doubting asserts itself in
strange ways and the crude egoism thereof revolts us. “Peo-pul” crawl
along self-satisfied.
And why do you ask so much of artists? Why is it so important that they
should use their strength in vain strivings to make butterflies of worms
never destined to be butterflies or to amuse other artists who should be
able to amuse themselves? If they get joy out of creating and preaching,
let them preach and create—let them soar. If they get joy out of being,
out of exultant living and watching, let them live, and do not scold.
The most beautiful butterfly I ever saw (some kind of “Emperor”) merely
rested on a lump of mud in the forest shade and very languidly moved his
wings. That is all he did while I looked at him. He knew that he could
fly, I knew that he could fly, and he either knew that I knew or else he
didn’t care.
We all know what impatience with “peo-pul” is. In the hush of a great
flash of dramatic power from the stage, they giggle, and it would be
good to fasten your fingers in the pulpy throat of one. They applaud
idiotic vaudeville, and it would be glorious to arise, automatic in
hand, and slay and slay.
That is your distrust of yourself—we all have it as much as we deserve
it.
“So I belong to this species!” you say.
I do not hate my dog when he seeks out carrion. I wash him with strong
soap and try to explain him. I feel quite sure—most of the time—that I
have come a little further than he has.
“Peo-pul” are even more interesting than dogs, when taken individually.
We even have more in common with them than with other animals.
Some of them are beautiful in their simplicity, like children—unspoiled
in their loves and hates, and it is entertainment to behold them; to be
with them, yet not of them; to be the arch-snob, of such perfect
snobbishness that it is indistinguishable from perfect humility, perfect
democracy.
All the mighty ones have been artists in life; like unto children they
have walked their ways, so everlastingly sure of themselves that rarely
have they been betrayed into petulance by the wobbling of their sense of
superiority.
_Susan Quackenbush, Portage, Wisconsin_:
May one who has read your every issue with joy and enthusiasm be
permitted to enter protest against that gross libel on the human race
labeled _The Artist in Life_, in your June number?
Please—oh please—_be_ an artist-in-life, in human life, as well as in
sunsets and Paderewskis and Imagism, and see for one creative moment, in
“terms of truth and beauty,” the wonderful, aspiring, suffering, loving,
smouldering, flaming beautiful souls of that great living, growing,
winged group of creations you have called—may the great human God
forgive the phrase—a “mass of caterpillars!” Come and see how its soul,
and the souls of its separate creations “spring from the rock” just as
truly as the brook’s or your own. If they can not _yet_ spring as far,
it is because the weight above them is as yet too heavy.
When all the humans look like caterpillars to any one human, the trouble
is with that one’s viewpoint. From an aeroplane, even the Himalayas look
like anthills. Come down from your remote altitude and lose yourself in
the beautiful, glorious psychic of the crowd—be one of them, and see
what you will find!
THE LITTLE REVIEW proclaims itself bent on the adventure of beauty. Is
there any beauty like that of the “sad, sweet music of humanity?” What
is the glow of the most gorgeous sunset ever splashed against the
western skies beside the glow of the divine in the human which hurls
itself upon you—and _into_ you if you will let it—in a thousand
beseeching, inviting, intoxicating flames from the midst of any crowd?
But only, of course, if you are _in_ the midst.
Is there any adventure like the “adventure of being human”—and _with_
humans? and _of_ them? Go with Whitman into the heart of
humanity—struggle _with_ them—not from far above them—to lift from off
their backs the crushing weight of wealth and masters and idle snobs and
false gods so that they may get _room_ to spread their wings—for they
_have_ wings, and then you will know them as they are, and yourself but
as one of them.
If some of them still try to clip the wings of those who have struggled
free from the crushing pressure, it is because of the maddening agony of
their own atrophying wings. If a few seem even to be unaware of the need
for wings, it is because the clamor of more insistent needs—the cries of
hungry children, of bruised and broken and unsatisfied men and of
suffering and degraded women—has silenced for every shame their own
soul’s wing-cry.
But I think that you will find that those who perform the wing-clipping
are the other butterflies whom money or position or callousness has set
above the people—not those who are really of the crowd. They of the
crowd _love_ wings, and those who truly use them.
I am not daring to attempt reply to the statement which inflames me
most, lest I become profane and entirely incoherent. I mean, of course,
the statement that the estimate of four or five thousand living artists
would be too optimistic because that would mean four or five thousand
who “have nothing in common with caterpillars.” That’s a worse libel on
artists than the rest of it is on people. But I’ll try to stop with one
remark and one question. The estimate is entirely too pessimistic; I
positively refuse to believe there are four thousand persons alive who
have or even who think they have “nothing in common” with the great
splendid mass of folks; if there are, the gods have pity on them!
And—has there ever been one single real and great artist, whether of
brush or pen or tone, whose art and whose very greatness was not
absolutely dependent upon and because of the fact that he had, and knew
he had, _everything_ in common with, and indeed included in his being,
the beings of these whom you term “caterpillars”?—these whose life and
living are and always have been and through ages will continue to be the
most worth while content of all art? Of course you reply: _Nietzsche_;
but he was an intellectual and spiritual Rockefeller—not an
artist-in-life.
And Individualism? When _all_ have been set free to use their wings,
then the few may feel free to strive toward the super-butterfly. And
when they arrive, perhaps,—oh, just perhaps—they will find all the other
“caterpillars” there too, and with quite wonderful wings. There are
wings, and wings, and if they but serve to bear us free of the disaster
of meanness and cruelty and snobbishness and injustice, who shall say
they are not super-wings?
_Witter Bynner, Windsor, Vermont_:
I wish I could honor the Imagists as you do. Hueffer wrote _On Heaven_
(not imagistic); and Pound wrote well before he affected a school ...
Pound has a rhythm he can’t kill. But none of them, except Hueffer, says
anything worth mentioning. They build poems around phrases, usually
around adjectives. George Meredith has thousands of imagist poems
incidental to each of his novels. But he knows their use and their
beauty. These people wring tiny beauties dry. I can imagine a good poet
using their methods on occasion, but he wouldn’t be so damn conscious
about it. On the whole, the Imagists strike me as being purveyors of
more or less potent cosmetics, their whole interest being in the
cosmetic itself, not even in its application. Poetry gave signs of
becoming poetry again and of touching life—when these fellows showed up,
to make us all ridiculous.