THE LITTLE REVIEW
_Literature_ _Drama_ _Music_ _Art_
MARGARET C. ANDERSON
EDITOR
APRIL, 1915
Etchings (Not to Be Read Aloud) William Saphier
Mr. Comstock and the Resourceful Police Margaret C. Anderson
Wild Songs Skipwith Cannéll
The Poetry of Paul Fort Richard Aldington
The Subman Alexander S. Kaun
Hunger George Franklin
Poems David O’Neil
Musik or Music? James Whittaker
The Critics’ Catastrophe Herman Schuchert
A Shorn Strindberg Marguerite Swawite
Vers Libre and Advertisements John Gould Fletcher
Extreme Unction Mary Aldis
The Schoolmaster George Burman Foster
My Friend, the Incurable Ibn Gabirol
Gabrilowitsch and the New Standard M. C. A.
Bauer and Casals Herman Schuchert
Book Discussion
John Cowper Powys on Henry James
The Reader Critic
Published Monthly
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Entered as second-class matter at Postoffice, Chicago
THE LITTLE REVIEW
Vol. II
APRIL, 1915
No. 2
Copyright, 1915, by Margaret C. Anderson
Etchings Not to Be Read Aloud
WILLIAM SAPHIER
LIGHTS IN FOG
Weak sparkling assertions
In an opal, opaque atmosphere
Sharp suffering and
Kindly whispering eyes
In a wan, olive grey face.
You mean all to a few
And nothing to the rest.
THE OLD PRIZE FIGHTER
A rosy, I-dare-you nose
On a twisted steel-trellice face,
Just some knotty lumber
Without a hint of flower or fruit.
You tingled many a passion,
But never a single soul.
Mr. Comstock and the Resourceful Police
MARGARET C. ANDERSON
I want to write about so many things this time that I don’t know where
to begin. At first I had planned to do five or six pages on the crime of
musical criticism in this country—particularly as focused in the
critics’ antics with Scriabin’s beautiful _Prometheus_ recently played
by the Chicago Symphony. Truly that was an opportunity for the American
music critic! He could be as righteously bourgeois as he wished and his
readers would credit him with “sanity” and a clear vision; or he could
be as ignorantly facetious as he wished and increase his reputation for
wit. It didn’t occur to him that there might be something wrong with his
imagination rather than with Scriabin’s art. How exciting it would be to
find a music critic whose auditory nerves were as sensitive as his
visual or gustatory nerves! Surely it’s not asking too much of people
engaged in the business of sound that they be able not only to listen
but to hear. Well ... there were many other matters I wanted to write
of: For instance, the absurdity of our music schools; the pest of
writers who begin their sentences “But, however,”; the so-far unnoticed
strength of _Sanin_; the fault with George Middleton’s _Criminals_; the
antics of the Drama League; the stunning things in _The Egoist_;
exaggeration as a possible basis of art; the supremacy of Form; the
undefinable standard of those of us who hate standardizations, etc.,
etc. But for the moment I have found something more important to talk
about: Mr. Anthony Comstock.
Of course there is nothing new to say about him—and nothing awful
enough. The best thing I’ve heard lately is this: “Anthony Comstock not
only doesn’t know anything, but he doesn’t suspect anything.” Francis
Hackett can write about Billy Sunday and resist the temptation of
invective. Perhaps he’s too much an artist to feel the temptation. I
wonder if he could do the same about Anthony Comstock. Certainly I
can’t. Even the thought of Billy Sunday’s mammoth sentimentalizations
and the 35,135 people who, according to the last reports, had been
soothed thereby, fills me with shudders of hopelessness for the eventual
education of men. And the thought of Anthony Comstock is ten times more
horrible. His latest outrage is well-known by this time—his arrest of
William Sanger for giving to a Comstock detective a copy of Mrs.
Sanger’s pamphlet, _Family Limitation_. The charge was “circulating
obscene literature.” I have seen that pamphlet, read it carefully, and
given it to all the people I know well enough to be sure they are not
Comstock detectives. There is not an obscene word in it, naturally.
Margaret Sanger couldn’t be obscene—she’s a gentle, serious,
well-informed woman writing in a way that any high-minded physician
might. I have also seen her pamphlet called _English Methods of Birth
Control_, which practically duplicates the leaflet (_Hygienic Methods of
Family Limitation_) adopted by the Malthusian League of England and is
sent “to all persons married or about to be married, who apply for it,
in all countries of the world, except to applicants from the United
States of America, where the Postal Laws will not allow of its
delivery.” These pamphlets tell in simple language all the known methods
for the prevention of conception—methods practised everywhere by the
educated and the rich and unknown only to the poor and the ignorant who
need such knowledge most. Mrs. Sanger says in her preface: “Today, in
nearly all countries of the world, most educated people practise some
method of limiting their offspring. Educated people are usually able to
discuss at leisure the question of contraceptives with the professional
men and women of their class, and benefit by the knowledge which science
has advanced. The information which this class obtains is usually clean
and harmless. In these same countries, however, there is a larger number
of people who are kept in ignorance of this knowledge: it is said by
physicians who work among these people that as soon as a woman rises out
of the lowest stages of ignorance and poverty, her first step is to seek
information of some practical means to limit her family. Everywhere the
woman of this class seeks for knowledge on this subject. Seldom can she
find it, because the medical profession refuses to give it, and because
she comes in daily contact with those only who are as ignorant as
herself of the subject. The consequence is, she must accept the stray
bits of information given by neighbors, relatives, and friends, gathered
from sources wholly unreliable and uninformed. She is forced to try
everything and take anything, with the result that quackery thrives on
her innocence and ignorance is perpetuated.”
The result of this propaganda was Margaret Sanger’s arrest last fall.
I’ve forgotten the various steps by which “that blind, heavy, stupid
thing we call government” came to its lumbering decision that she ought
to spend ten or fifteen years in jail for her efforts to spread this
knowledge. But Mrs. Sanger left the country—thank heaven! However, I
understand that when she has finished her work of making these pamphlets
known she means to come back and face the imprisonment. I pray she
doesn’t mean anything of the kind. Why should she go to jail for ten
years because we haven’t suppressed Anthony Comstock? Last year his
literary supervision was given its first serious jolt when Mitchel
Kennerley won the _Hagar Revelly_ suit. But that was not nearly so
important as the present issue, because _Hagar Revelly_ was rather
negative literature and birth control is one of the milestones by which
civilization will measure its progress. The science of eugenics has
always seemed to me fundamentally a sentimentalization—something that a
man might have conceived in the frame of mind Stevenson was in when he
wrote _Olalla_. Because there is no such thing, really, as the
scientific restriction of love and passion. These things don’t belong in
the realm of science any more than one’s reactions to a sunrise do. But
the restriction of the birth-rate does belong there, and science should
make this one of its big battles. Many people who used to believe that
love was only a means to an end, that procreation was the only
justification for cohabitation, now realize that if there is any force
in the world that doesn’t _need justification_ it is love. And these
people are the ones who refuse to bring children into the world unless
they can be born free of disease and stand a chance of being fed and
educated and loved. Havelock Ellis sums it up well: “In order to do away
with the need for abortion, and to counteract the propaganda in its
favor, our main reliance must be placed, on the one hand, on increased
foresight in the determination of conception and increased knowledge of
the means for preventing conception; and on the other hand, on a better
provision by the State for the care of pregnant women, married and
unmarried alike, and a practical recognition of the qualified mother’s
claim on society. There can be no doubt that in many a charge of
criminal abortion the real offence lies at the door of those who failed
to exercise their social and professional duty of making known the more
natural and harmless methods for preventing conception, or else by their
social attitude have made the pregnant woman’s position intolerable.”
But the immediate concern is William Sanger and his trial, which is to
take place some time in April, I believe. His friends are trying to
raise $500 for legal expenses, and contributions may be sent to Leonard
D. Abbott, President of the Free Speech League, 241 East 201st Street,
New York City; to the Sanger Fund, _The Masses_ Publishing Company, 87
Greenwich Avenue, New York City; to _Mother Earth_, 20 East 125th
Street, New York City, or to _The Little Review_.
* * * * *
Another thing that must not be forgotten is the “dramatic” attempt to
blow up St. Patrick’s Cathedral last month, and all the deep plots to
destroy the rich men of that city—what was it the headlines said?
Everybody of normal intelligence who read those headlines suspected a
police frame-up—which it proved to be. The psychology of the police is
something I don’t understand, let alone being able to write about it so
that any one else will understand. So I will quote the story of this
quite unbelievable crime—police crime, I mean—as it appeared in _The
Masses_. (_The Masses_, by the way, is one of the magazines
indispensable to the living of an intelligent life). The story is called
“Putting One over on Woods”:
When Commissioner Woods took office as head of the New York
police force a year ago, he brought with him some enlightened
ideas about the relation of the police to the public. A week
before a meeting had been held at Union Square which by police
interference had been turned into a bloody riot. A week later
another Union Square meeting took place, with the police under
orders to “let them talk.” The meeting passed off peaceably.
Thus the enlightened views of the new commissioner of police were
vindicated. The right of free speech, and of free opinion, was
conceded as not being a menace to civilization.
But a police force which is enabled to exist and enjoy its
peculiar privileges by virtue of protecting the public against
imaginary dangers, could not see its position undermined in this
way. It was necessary to persuade the public that Socialists,
Anarchists, and I. W. W.’s were plotting murder and destruction.
The public was prone to accept this melodramatic view, but
Commissioner Woods, being an intelligent man, was inclined to be
cynical. So it became necessary to “put one over on Woods.”
They framed it up in the regular police fashion. A clever young
Italian detective named Pulignano, it appears from the evidence,
was promised a raise of salary and a medal if he would engineer a
bomb-plot. Pulignano got hold of two Italian boys—not anarchists
or socialists, but religious fanatics—and urged them on to blow
up St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He planned the deed, bought the
materials of destruction for them, and shamed them when they
wanted to pull out of the plot the night before. The next
morning, at great risk to an innocent public, the bomb was
carried into the cathedral, _lighted_, and then the dozens of
policemen and detectives, disguised as scrubwomen, etc., rushed
in to save civilization.
And Woods fell for it. He swallowed the whole sensational
business. They have got him. He is their dupe, and henceforth
their faithful tool.
Reaction is in the saddle. “All radicals to be expelled from the
city,” says a headline. A card catalogue of I. W. W.
sympathizers. Socialism under the official ban. Free speech
doomed.
So they hope. At the least it means that the fight has for the
lovers of liberty begun again. But one wonders a little about
Arthur Woods. He is on their side now—the apologist of as
infamous and criminal an _agent provocateur_ as ever sent a
foolish boy to the gallows. But will Woods fail to see how he has
been used by the police in this latest attempt to crush freedom
in the interest of a privileged group? Is he as much a fool as
they think?
Giovannitti’s Italian magazine, _Il Fuoco_, states that the bomb was
made of caps and gravel—the kind of thing children use on the fourth of
July. I know that _Mother Earth_ has started a fund to prevent the two
boys from being railroaded. Will there never be an end of these ghastly
things?...
As too much light may blind the vision, so too much intellect may
hinder the understanding.
—_Romain Rolland._
Wild Songs
(_From “Monoliths”_)
SKIPWITH CANNELL
IN THE FOREST
I am not alone, for there are eyes
Stealthy and curious,
And they turn to me.
I will shout loudly to the forest,
I will shout and with a sob
Griping my throat I will cower
Quickly
Beneath my cloak.
For the old gods stand silently
Behind the silent trees,
And when I shout they step forth
And I dare not
Look upon their faces.
THE FLOOD TIDE
The red in me
Lives too near my throat.
My heart is choked with blood,
And a rage drives it upward
As the moon drags the flood tide
Raging
Across the marshes.
I will dance
Somberly,
In a ritual
Terrible and soothing;
I will dance that I may not
Tear out his throat
In murder.
THE DANCE
With wide flung arms,
With feet clinging to the earth
I will dance.
My breath sobs in my belly
For an old sorrow that has put out the sun,
An old, furious sorrow ...
I will grin,
I will bare my gums and grin
Like a grey wolf who has come upon a bear.
The Poetry of Paul Fort
RICHARD ALDINGTON
It is said that there are only three honors in the world really worth
accepting. The first is that of Pope of Rome, the second Prime Minister
of England and the third Prince des Poètes. Monsieur Paul Fort is Prince
des poètes, a sort of unofficial title conferred upon him by the
affection and admiration of the young poets of Paris. Paul Verlaine,
Stephen Mallarmé and Leon Dierx were M. Fort’s successors, and in the
ballot which took place when he was elected M. Henry de Régnier was an
excellent second.
Paul Fort is indeed a prince of poets, the essence and the type of the
poetic personality, princely in the extraordinary generosity with which
he scatters largess of poetry and princely in his disdain for any
occupation but that of poet. If I were king of England I believe I would
ask Paul Fort to be my Prime Minister, but he would refuse, for he has a
better and more interesting kingdom of his own. He should have been
Grand Vizier to Haroun-al-Raschid, and when the Sultan went to war or to
love, when he was idle or busy, vainglorious or craven, happy or sad,
wanton or grave, M. Fort, Grand Vizier, would have made a poem to
express or correct the Sultan’s mood.
Critics are fond of making epigrams on Paul Fort. They say he is “genius
pure and simple”; that he has a nature continually active and awake. It
would be simpler to say he is a poet. Everything he lives, everything he
sees, everything he hears or smells or touches or experiences is matter
for poetry. Everything from Louis XI. to the “joli crottin d’or” goes
into his varied subtle rhythms. He is the only living poet who can
gracefully introduce his own name into a poem without appearing
ridiculous. He is continually interested in himself and notes with
pleasure the interest of others:
“Cinq, six, sept, huit enfants me suivent très curieux du long
nez éclairant la cape au noir velours, ‘de ce monsieur tombé de
la lune, avec des yeux de merlan frit!’ dit l’un d’entre eux.”
He writes that in the midst of a poem describing a visit to the village
of Coucy-le-Chateau. I have no doubt thousands of other people have been
to Coucy-le-Chateau, among them many poets, but Paul Fort is the first
to make a poem of it:
Les sires d’autrefois portaient: _Fascé de vair et de
gueules._ Pour supports: _deux lions d’or_. Au cimier: _un
lion issu du même_. — Or voici que, premier, notre gai
souverain, missire le soleil,
porte un écu vivant! “_Sur champ de vert gazon_, Paul Fort couché
près d’une amoureuse Suzon mêle distraitement cent douze
violettes à sa barbe, et Suzon rêve sous sa voilette.”
There you have the “familiar style” over which so many gallons of ink
have been shed. Observe how perfectly naturally the author speaks of
“Paul Fort”; can you hear Tennyson doing it, or Keats or Francis
Thompson or the disciples of Brunetière? One might make a pleasant
little literary sketch on poets who possess the familiar style to the
extent of using their own names in their verse. Thus, that admirable
man, Browning:
And Robert Browning, you writer of plays,
Here’s a subject made to your hand.
And old Walt:
I, Walt Whitman, a Cosmos, turbulent, fleshly, sensual,
Eating, drinking and breeding.
It is, at least, agreeable to find poets who consider themselves as
human beings instead of very inflated, somewhat simian demi-gods. Better
a thousand times have desperate vulgarity than the New England pose au
Longfellow and Emerson, or the still more horrible old England pose au
Wordsworth, Tennyson, Shelley. Heaven preserve me from saying M. Fort is
vulgar, but if to hate pomposity and moral pretentiousness be vulgar,
then let us be vulgar, as M. Fort is. Better be obscene than a ninny.
Those who have not read M. Fort’s work and who suspect from the
foregoing quotations that he is really a prose writer impudently palming
off his productions as “sweet poesy,” are asked to read the following
poem with attention:
LA RONDE
Si toutes les filles du monde voulaient s’ donner la main,
tout autour de la mer
elles pourraient faire une ronde.
Si tous les gars du monde voulaient bien êtr’ marins, ils
f’raient avec leurs
barques un joli pont sur l’onde.
Alors on pourrait faire une ronde autour du monde, si tous les
gens du monde
voulaient s’ donner la main.
That is said, I don’t know with what truth, to be the most popular of M.
Fort’s poems. It certainly was, I am told, in everybody’s mouth in Paris
when it was first published—rather as _Dolores_ was in London in the
sixties. The cadence of the poem is, of course, obvious and marked, as
it should be in a “chanson.” It is rather a good poem to start on, as M.
Fort’s way of printing rhymed and accented verse as prose is there
forcibly exemplified. M. Fort has not abandoned the Alexandrine; but he
is not its slave. Confident in his theory that most poetry is a matter
of typography he writes rhymed alexandrines, rhymed vers libres and
rhymed and unrhymed prose in exactly the same manner; the effect is
curious and charming. It is of course not the very commonplace device of
daily newspapers when they want to be funny, but a genuine artistic
principle. The effect is very different from that received from a
perusal of tedious quatrains written as prose; in the latter case one is
disgusted immediately, knowing that no man, not even a paid journalist,
is such a fool as to write such stuff in prose; in M. Fort’s case the
typographical arrangement prevents the ear becoming fatigued with the
stressed rhymes of linear verse and at the same time gives a richness to
the apparent prose that no real prose possesses.
For example, this quotation from the Roman de Louis XI., one of Paul
Fort’s finest poem-novels.
Comtes, barons, chevaliers, capitaines, tous gentilshommes de
grand façon, et le plus fier, le plus grand, le plus beau,
Charles de Charolais, qui les dépassait tous, entrèrent un beau
matin d’azur pure et de cloches, dans Rouen, la bonne ville, et
c’était doux plaisir de voir briller les casques, les cuirasses
et les housses; les belles housses, de fin drap d’or étaient, et
d’autres de velours, fourrées de pennes d’hermine, et d’autres de
damas, fourrées de zibeline, et d’autres, qui coûtaient moult
cher, d’orfèvrerie; et c’était doux plaisir de voir courir les
pages, les beaux jeunes enfants bien richement vêtus, et le voir
danser, devant les personnages, des hommes en sauvages et de
belles femmes nues, et sautiller autour des chevaux, en cadence,
des nains rouges, roses, verts, et des filles en bergère, et de
voir flotter aux toits les étandards bleus, semés de feux d’or,
rouges, avec un lion noir, qui se mêlaient avec les bannières
toutes blanches, et de voir venir de la cathédrale, sur le
parvis, le clergé violet, venir à la rencontre du roi Louis le
pâle, que représentait un si beau comte, et le ciel bleu passait
dans les clochers à jour, toutes les cloches battaient, de joie
ou de douleur, que les crosses luisaient! que les lances étaient
belles!... et c’était doux plaisir d’aller voir les fontaines
jeter vin, hypocras, dont chacun buvait; et y avait encore trois
belles sirènes, nues sur une estrade, comme Ève au paradis, et
jouaient d’instruments doux, jolis et graves, qui rendaient de
suaves et grandes mélodies; et c’étaient sur le grand pont, sur
la Seine, écuyers lâchant oisels peints en bleu, et dans toute la
ville c’étaient moult plaisances, dont le tout avait coûté moult
finance.
I quote that long passage in full to give a clear notion of M. Fort’s
extraordinary fertility and precision in description. It is better than
Hugo’s descriptions in _Notre Dame de Paris_, chiefly because it is more
natural and familiar.
In this little article I have barely touched the rim of Paul Fort’s
work. He is prodigious; he is not one poet, he is twelve, a whole school
of poets; he is his own disciples, for none dares to imitate him, just
as none dares to imitate Browning. He is the poet who has written
everything: Chansons, Romans, Petites Epopées, Lieds, Elégies, Hymnes,
Hymnes Héroiques, Eglogues et Idylles, Chants Paniques, Poèmes Marins,
Odes et Odelettes, Fantaisies à la Gauloise, Complaintes et Dits,
Madrigaux et Romances, Epigrammes à Moi-même. If he has not written
plays, he has been a theater director, producing work which delighted
literary Paris and annoyed the “boulevardiers”—this at a fabulously
early age.
It may interest some readers to know what M. Fort has been doing since
the war. He is an inhabitant of Rheims, born opposite the beautiful
“cathédrale assassinée”; and he sits in a room at 125 Boulevard St.
Germain writing, writing, poems against the invading Germans, poems to
cheer on his heroic countrymen, poems mourning friends fallen on the
battlefield, poems against H. I. M. the Kaiser, against the Prussian
officers, against the “Monstrueux général baron von Plattenberg”
(commanding the army which bombarded Rheims), poems to the English, to
Joffre, and on the Battle of the Marne. The odd thing is that they are
so good. I quote this one, from national vanity:
LA MANIERE[1]
ON meurt: l’Anglais s’élance et le Français le suit.... Il
bondit, le Français!... L’Anglais court apres lui.... L’Anglais
vif le rattrape. Qui, c’est même vaillance. Il me revient un mot,
la fleur des mots guerriers. L’Anglais stoppe, et avec une grâce
de France: “Messieurs de France, à vous de tirer les premiers.”
[1] This poem is printed by permission of M. Fort, from his
periodical, “Poèmes de France,” published fortnightly at 25
centimes the number, 125 Boulevard St. Germain, Paris.
The Subman
Life and Literature in Russia are interdependent forces to such a degree
that in approaching a phenomenon, whether in book-form or in reality, we
can hardly discern the line of demarcation between cause and effect. If
it is true that a number of Russian writers have mirrored actual life in
their works, it is more significantly true that many powerful authors
have influenced life and have moulded it in accordance with their views
and ideas. And it is to be noticed that the less artistic the writers
have been, the more obvious has been their tendency to preach and
sermonize, the stronger their influence upon the young minds; more than
Gogol and Dostoyevsky have such second-rate writers as Chernyshevsky and
Stepnyak succeeded in shaping the creeds of their readers. We must
remember that literature in Russia, although gagged by bigoted
censorship, has been the only medium for expressing and moulding public
opinion throughout the past century, and to a great extent this holds
true to our very day. Revolutionism, terrorism, socialism, have been
propagated through the mouths of novel heroes and heroines for the
ardent emulation of the seeking susceptible youth.
The furor produced in Russia by the appearance of Artzibashev’s _Sanin_
some eight years ago has had no parallel even in that country, where a
new word in belles-lettres has always taken on the significance of a
national event. The importance of this novel is partly due to
chronological circumstances—the fact that it came as a luring will o’
the wisp in the post-revolutionary gloom of Russian life. The young
generation was on the verge of despondency; the collapse of the
Revolution brought to nought the long struggle, the thousands of
sacrificed lives, the high aspirations; the Constitution, which had been
the ideal of generations, the religion of all pure-minded Russia, had
degenerated into a mocking buffonade, the subservient Duma. At such a
time Artzibashev steps forward offering the disillusioned youth a new
type—the strong, sane Sanin, who derides the altruistic strivings of his
compatriots and advocates simple animalistic life, sans principles, sans
standards, with the sole aim of satisfying one’s impulses. So strong and
timely was the appeal that it immediately created a large following;
clubs and societies were formed for the promulgation of the new
religion, Sanin’s ideas were hotly discussed from the lecture platform
and in the press—in short, such a formidable movement burst forth that
the government, which has usually welcomed any sign of deviation from
revolutionary thought, became alarmed and withdrew the book from
circulation.
But the importance of _Sanin_ has been far more than local. In Germany
it was translated and even dramatized, and has created a literature.
Even France, oversatiated with pornography, was for a moment stirred at
the appearance of the sensational novel, until a new scandal captured
the limelight. Finally, with the customary Anglo-Saxon retardation, we
have the book in English.[2] The universality of Artzibashev’s appeal is
thus evident, and the question arises: What is the underlying force that
makes the book arouse interest, admiration, and indignation in various
tongues and countries? To my mind, this is the answer: The author, a
typical representative of our age, has performed a purely subjective,
introspective study—hence he has voiced the ideas of his contemporaries,
hence he is so readily understood and appreciated by the children of our
civilization.
Francis Hackett, who, when he writes on books, has no equal in this
country, has remarked with his usual insight: “It is plain that for
himself Artzibashev has made not a man, but a hero, a god.” To this true
statement I wish to add that when we humans erect a god, we endow him
with those qualities and virtues which we ourselves lack, which to us
are but unattainable desiderata. Artzibashev glorifies Sanin because he
himself is Sanin’s antipode, the whining, impotent Yourii, whom he
paints with obvious disgust. This is no sheer presumption; I have
followed the author’s career since his early short stories written in a
Tolstoyan, idealistic vein, where he revealed a restless,
self-questioning, self-analyzing spirit of the sort that he
caricaturizes in Yourii: “Perpetual sighing and groaning, or incessant
questionings such as ‘I sneezed just now. Was that the right thing to
do? Will it not cause harm to some one? Have I, in sneezing, fulfilled
my destiny?’” But the idealist-Artzibashev-Yourii lived not in the
clouds, but in the midst of the St. Petersburg Bohème, with the decadent
crowd of the restaurant “Vienna”—a life of questionable virtuousness and
of dubious hygiene. He conceived the idea of _Sanin_ when he had become
almost a physical wreck, forced to spend his time, when not in “Vienna,”
in a resort in Crimea. Incapable of enjoying carnal life any longer, yet
morbidly craving to empty the cup of sensuous pleasures to the dregs, he
creates for himself a fetish, an ideal male, stripped of all human
weaknesses, doubtings, and questionings, free of all principles but the
principle of professing no principles, living to the full the life of a
healthy animal.
In order to accentuate the superiority of his god, Sanin, the author
surrounds him with sentimental weaklings, vegetating in a small
provincial town, engaged in petty philosophizing and whimpering, bored
with one another and with the general ennui of their life, aimlessly
pining, striving purposelessly. In such a setting the figure of Sanin
naturally looms up as the least boring individual. But try to transfer
the hero from this stage of marionettes into real Russian, or, for that
matter, into any life full of struggle and love and passion, and what a
platitudinous, uninteresting figure he will make! In what he says is
nothing strikingly new; his discourses on Christianity or on morality
could have been borrowed from any modern rank-and-file radical. As to
what he does—well, it is zoology. A witty critic has endeavored to pin
to him the label of Superman; what an insult for our hero, who after a
feast of vodka, cucumbers, and cheap cigarettes, “undressed and got into
bed, where he tried to read _Thus spake Zarathustra_ which he found
among Lida’s books” (an interesting detail about the intellectual status
of the provincials who read Ibsen, Hamsun, Nietzsche). “But the first
few pages were enough to irritate him. Such inflated imagery left him
unmoved. He spat, flung the volume aside, and soon fell fast asleep.”
Artzibashev is obviously an erotomaniac. His men and women think of one
another only in sexual terms, dream of possessing and being possessed.
Broad shoulders, strong muscles, intense virility; ample bosoms, swaying
hips, supple bodies—these are the _ne plus ultra_ attractions of his
heroes and heroines. Even nature appears to his characters through a
pathological prism; under the influence of moonlight or sunshine they
dream of nude bodies, white limbs, yielding mates.
I repeat my statement: _Sanin_, or rather Artzibashev, is typical of his
age—the age of the oversatiated enervated urbanite, the age of
civilization overdeveloped at the expense of culture. You see them in
the big cities (perhaps to a lesser degree in this young country), on
the streets, among society, among professionals—those over-ripe men and
women whose senses have become dull, who are driven by ennui and
imbecility to seek the piquant, the bestial, the “healthy.” But the true
healthy men and women do not talk health, sex, muscles, virility, for as
long as our natural faculties are sound we are hardly aware of them. The
healthy, those who are pulsating with life, strive to surpass
themselves, strive towards the Superman; it is the pathological, the
incapacitated, the withered, who impotently yearn for a retrogradation
towards the Subman-Sanin.
[2] _Sanine, by Michael Artzibashef._ [_B. W. Huebsch, New
York._]
There is hardly any danger of the book being persecuted by
Anthony Comstock, for whatever pernicious influence it might have
had has been splendidly neutralized through the wretched
translation which evidently was rendered from the French version,
in its turn a poor translation from the German; this
explains—does it justify—the cosmopolitan transliteration of the
proper names and the numerous nonsensical errors. The publisher
threatens to present the public with Artzibashev’s _Millionaire_;
let us hope that this time the author will be spared the
atrocious mutilation by the hands of the humoristic Percy
Pinkerton.
Hunger
GEORGE FRANKLIN
The moment seems due. Fashion had better take care. Beggars can spit
very venomously. Weird-looking jumbles of bones in rags are leering and
grinning, jostling and hustling very defiantly. Men are blowing their
noses on doorsteps and wearing their hats in church. Hunger is no more
passive. Time comes, and with it the fulfillment of every destiny
prophesied by a fact. Hunger is sickly till Frenzy quickens it. Hunger
has no brain, and does not consider. It curses and swears, is blear-eyed
and croaks. It sneers, mocks, jeers, coughs. It spits and throws filth
on fine linen. It pours out from cesspool haunts and stinks out the most
respectable of neighborhoods. Hunger has no morality—is devoid of all
shame. In highest moods hungry knaves will hurl stones, smash windows,
pinch, eat, drink, tear down altars, stretch the necks of the
Respectable between the head and the shoulders, use guns, laugh, grin,
joke, mock, stick grass in mouths of their victims, use pikes, uproot
bastiles, and without ceremony lop off heads with every consecutive
second of the clock. Hunger startles the world from its slumber, with a
shock. Beware, Friends! Hunger is lynx-eyed and sees behind every fact.
It sniffs and can smell out anything suspicious. Hunger will hurt no man
except he smell or look a little of Tyranny. Does Tyranny wear a
powdered wig, talk good French and say “Monsieur”—Hunger looks, sniffs,
finds it, and sends its head rolling into a bushel basket. Does it look
like a New York banker, have crease in pants, talk grammatical English,
wear gold chain, wipe nose with clean handkerchief, wear feathered
plumes and fashionable gowns—Hunger noses it out and despatches it
without delay. Respectability with its disdain; Education with its
stupidity; Fashion with its vanity; Wealth with its luxury; all exhale
the same odor to the sniffings of Hunger. When Hunger sniffs, it is time
for Fashion to drape itself in rags and give to its body a smell of
dung. If Hunger cannot taste food, it will drink blood. There is only
one passion stronger than Love—Hatred. Love will Sacrifice, but Hatred
will live, though it torture the world with all the machinations of
hell. Hatred and Hunger are dogs of the same kennel.... Hunger Hounds,
starved, snarling, bloodshot eyes, fangs bared, straining at their
chains—Friends, Beware!... Hunger—lean, bony, naked, and grimy—with
talons and claws. Hunger with fever and mad. Hunger goaded. Hunger
grinning. Hunger in consort with Death. Hunger—hideous, impalpable.
Hunger that cannot die. Hunger, blood-smeared, ghastly, and sallow, with
rotting teeth. Hunger that spits and leers. Hunger—devilish nightmare to
all Tyrannies. Hunger, the fiendish torment of all Fashions and
Respectabilities. Hunger without Reason—mad and demoniac. Hunger!
Hunger! Hunger! Hunger! Friends, Beware! The moment seems due. Time will
fulfill the destiny of a Fact.
To follow the impulses of my heart is my supreme law; what I can
accomplish by obeying my instincts, is what I ought to do. Is
that voice of instinct cursed or blessed? I do not know; but I
yield to it, and never force myself to run counter to my
inclination.
—_Richard Wagner._
Poems
DAVID O’NEIL
APATHY
The bodies of soldiers
Come floating down the river
To the green sea,
Rich in amber,
Waiting to embalm them;
All is splendid silence
In this pageantry of wanton glory
Awed
By the setting sun.
ONE WAY OUT
In this terror of blood-spilling lust,
Why throw it in a ditch,
This boy’s beautiful body,
When his spirit might rise like steam from the soup
And stir the live ones to vengeance?
Disease will deter you?
Ah, but boil it well
And the thought will give it a spice.
Cannibalism, you say?
Why stop when you have gone so far?
He that died
Would rather his body
Gave life to his fellows,
Than be trampled over,
Shot over,
Shoveled like offal away.
Why throw it in a ditch?
VICTORY
I see captured shot-rent flags
Dancing with the wind,
Flying high to glory.
Why not anchor them
With a pyramid of bones,
Those of our own men?
It would tell
Of the price that was paid
To have these flags here,
Whipping in the wind.
OUR SON JACK
Our son Jack,
Wild with life,
Went through
When law and nature
Said, “Go around.”
Thus he died.
THE OAK
Gaunt,
Stripped of leaves,
Death-defiant,
Yet triumphant
In this thought:
There is nothing more to lose.
MOODS AND MOMENTS
I.
In dreams
I have been swept through space
On a star-hung swing,
Like a silkworm
Upheld by a slender strand,
Tossed about in the gale.
II.
His life was well ordered
And monotonously clean
As an orchard with white-washed trees.
But he felt not the cool
Of the sun-splotched woods
Nor the mad blue brilliance
Of the sea.
III.
I see green fields
In the first flush of the spring,
And little children playing,
Clustered as patches of white flowers.
Musik or Music?
JAMES WHITTAKER
Despite its two world-cities our America is still a vast unattached
province, subject now to the influence of London, now to that of Berlin
or Paris, and again in a period of disaffection and unrestraint. Our
taste is childish,—a capricious, intermittent taste—good once in a
while, never lasting, and by no means frequent. Such a taste gives a few
pleasures but not the developed one of judgment. It never lasts long
enough to be imposed. We are unable to pair two congenial traditions and
get a tendency. There is nothing for it but to welcome another
generation of incomprehensible foreigners in the hope that among them
will be found a mate for our very real desire for fine things.
One country has sent us little inspiration. Her natives do not willingly
leave her soft sky for our harsh brilliant western sun. They have a
proverbial preference for her gentle manner and speech. For our youth
she has the admiration and envy of age, for our red knuckles and large
ankles she has the indulgence of one who has been beautiful for many
lovers, but for our loud-mouthed demand for adulation she has the
aloofness of one who has still many courtiers. If we go fearfully as
befits our youth and humbly as befits our awkwardness to Paris, instead
of waiting for Paris the beautiful to come to us, perhaps we shall
receive what Berlin and London have not yet given us.
London came to us willingly with a scholarly something that was better
than our previous nothing. Berlin forced on us a manner of strong
professionalism that was better than our previous weakness. Now we are
beyond the age of facile conquests and we must, at the risk of being
rebuffed and made unhappy, seek the favor of a lady who stays at home.
Since the spirit of Mozart and Beethoven and Schubert left Vienna, Music
has loved no city. We shall soon agree that she did not love Weimar
greatly nor Munich at all nor Leipzig enough. As for the lusty person
who flaunts a passion for Berlin, we must call her a maid masquerading
in her mistress’s cloak if, indeed, we concede her a resemblance to
music at all.
The joy of loveliness admired, the frankness and naivete, the “jeu
perle” and natural melodiousness that were the life of Viennese Music
vanished utterly with the death of Schubert unknown. It seemed that he
and his predecessors must have brought music into a cul-de-sac from
which it would have to extricate itself. German music did and received
new impetus from the professionalism of Weber, the literary romanticism
of Liszt, the savoir-vivre of Chopin, and the cosmicality of Wagner.
France, meanwhile, entertained loyally the older manner, nursing it
through its unpopularity into the convalescence it now enjoys. When we
come to discover that the spirit of Berlin is rather of something
hyphenated to “Kultur” than of music purely, we shall also discover the
spirit of Vienna,—vigorous and slightly Frenchified, in the
Conservatoire and the Schola Cantorum.
Somehow, without the least effort or merit, we have strolled into the
position of the “distinguished amateur.” It is an eminence from which
one may see everything if one but keep a clear eye and a doubting mind.
What fools we should be to view the road before us as we can only this
once, wearing a prejudice like a pair of smoked goggles. To doubt is a
privilege which the wise will make a duty. We should doubt what has
given us our artistic existence, and if it can only stand by our faith
it will fall—but we shall not fall with it. We should doubt the things
we desire so that when we abandon them we cannot be reproached with
broken faith. We _must_ doubt the strength of organized professionalism
that Berlin would teach us, the value of hard work the contrapunctalists
of the Royal Academy preach;—we _must_ doubt the superiority of art and
the artist, the inviolability of tradition, the legitimacy of the
Beethoven-Wagner-Strauss succession for the reason that they have been
so freely offered if for no other. Surely such eagerness to be accepted
does not prove great worth. Let us pooh-pooh all these magnificent
“Pooh-Bahs” of music to see if their threats to have our heads off are
real or bluff. Then with our tongues still in our cheeks, let us
continue on to other courts.
If we have enjoyed the simple and fine art with which Beethoven and
Schubert enlivened and refined the salons of Vienna, we shall enjoy
Franck. If we should prefer our Mozart livelier by a notch of the
metronome and lighter by one-half of the strings than we hear it now, we
should be pleased by Chabrier and Faure and the way they are played by
the half-dozen youngsters who get their premier prix at the end of each
year’s work in the Conservatoire. From pure inertia we have out-stayed
our pleasure in modern German music. A bit of animation and on to Paris!
The Critics’ Catastrophe
(A Probable Possibility)
HERMAN SCHUCHERT
The scene is a dining-room of the “Cave Dwellers,” Chicago’s most
exclusively stupid club. At one table are seated four musical
critics, and one ex-critic, of the daily papers. That this
gathering is unique is attested by numerous hushed conversations
at other tables; the critics’ table is a center of half-concealed
interest. A waiter has just cleared away the dishes; cigars are
brought. The youngest critic, of the Worst Glaring Nuisance (witness
the yellow acre of illuminated sign at the foot of Michigan avenue)
speaks as if to reassure his natural timidity:
DONALD WORCESTER. I suppose it will be eminently respectable. (The
others appear not to have heard his remark, until a reply is carefully
chosen by
CARBON HATCHETT. Her advance notices would lead one to suppose that she
has something of a prestige.
EDWARD MORLESS. That guff! I saw it. Awful! What I want to know is: what
the devil does she mean by beginning her program with Debussy. I just
wonder what’s become of Beethoven—ha, ha!
DONALD WORCESTER. I suppose she imagines she’s going to revolutionize
program-making.
BEN DULLARD KRUPP. Gentlemen, when I give my piano recital on March
twentieth, you’ll hear the best possible way to start a program. Debussy
is altogether too weak to lead; he’s scarcely able to get in at all
(chuckle) but I’ve found a leader that is a leader—Archibald Shanks. If
I know anything, and I do, this Shanks is going to become _the_ American
composer. Why, he’s so much better than MacDowell with all his Scotchy
junk that there’s no comparison. I found Shanks in Rolling Prairie,
South Dakota; and when I play his _March of the Rock-Spirits_ at my
recital on March the twentieth, you’ll hear the real thing—it’s music, I
tell you.
XILEF BOWOWSKI. Hmh! Ah-hmh! I remember looking over compositions by
Archibald Shanks, sent me by a certain New York publisher, to get my
opinion before taking them; and in one of them—I forget the title—I
think it was _Through the Marsh_—some such title—hmh!—it doesn’t really
matter—I found seven consecutive fifths and twelve parallel octaves
within the space of a few bars. Positively inexcusable!
BEN DULLARD KRUPP. Blgh-h! That belongs to his early period. _Through
the Marsh_ is simply a practice-stunt, done when he was about fifteen—a
mere youthful exercise. You can’t judge by—blgh-h!
DONALD WORCESTER. I read in the _Artists’ News_ that young Shanks is
only seventeen at the present time.
EDWARD MORLESS. Probably means his son—Waiter!—What do you want, boys?
I’m dry as a bone. And we’ve got a long afternoon before us. However,
for my part, I shan’t be in any hurry about getting there. What’ll it
be?
XILEF BOWOWSKI. A little plum brandy for me.
BEN DULLARD KRUPP. Bring me some Haig and Haig.
CARBON HATCHETT. Manhattan cocktail.
DONALD WORCESTER. A large beer.
EDWARD MORLESS. Good! Let’s have some Green River, Tim. Krupp, do you
think she’ll be any good at all?
BEN DULLARD KRUPP. A woman? From Budapest? On a Thimble piano? Starting
in with Debussy? And you ask if she’ll be good! How could she be?
DONALD WORCESTER. I was reading the other day——
BEN DULLARD KRUPP. All she plays is trash, of one kind or another.
Debussy never does anything but move up and down the whole-tone scale;
no melody, no counterpoint, no music at all. And take the Tchaikowsky
thing, for instance. Everybody knows that Tchaikowsky always carried a
whip in one hand and a gun in the other, and when he wasn’t using one,
it was the other. It’s proverbial, and makes such a handy remark when
thinking would take too long. And his piano-style: he simply hasn’t got
any; it’s pathetic. I see you don’t get my joke on the sixth
symphony—the Pathetique. I say, America won’t stand for that sort of
thing. Some kindly person should have informed this Madame Frizza
Bonjoline before she made a complete fool of herself.
CARBON HATCHETT. She hasn’t played yet, and maybe it won’t be so bad
after all.
DONALD WORCESTER. A friend of mine tells me that Mr. Debussy is one of
the greatest living melodists.
BEN DULLARD KRUPP. Blgh-h!
No further imbecility is displayed for the time being. Soon the
party breaks up, and a natural modesty prevents the critics from
seeing each other again until after the piano recital by Madame
Frizza Bonjoline, an artist who is but slightly known in the
United States, but one who has achieved recognition throughout
Europe, South America, and Australia. She has just given an
unusual program, which she could not close with less than seven
encores. While the five critics wait outside the green-room, they
hold a restrained conversation.
HATCHETT TO KRUPP. It’s good to have you among us again, Krupp. Although
I do have a terrible time steering my thoughts through the mazes of the
English language I feel like the only live one left, since the Trib
dropped you. The town needs you, and I’m glad you have an opportunity
again to mould public opinion. We need more strong-minded men like you.
KRUPP (fiercely). I know it, but the cattle don’t recognize good
criticism when they see it.
HATCHETT TO KRUPP. How did the Madame strike you? Plenty of emotion, I
thought.
KRUPP (to all). Impossible program—good God!—did you ever hear such a
medley? And she hasn’t the strength of a kitten.
HATCHETT TO KRUPP. Of course, she didn’t seem quite vital enough, but
that may have been because of her choice of numbers. They were somewhat
“outre.”
KRUPP (sourly). Altogether too girlish, I say.
EDWARD MORLESS. Splendid personality, but a rotten technic, don’t you
think?
DONALD WORCESTER. As near as I can tell, she wears marvelous silk hose.
They were the most striking thing about the whole concert.
BEN DULLARD KRUPP. Blgh-ggh-h!
XILEF BOWOWSKI. I suppose then, Mr. Worcester, one doesn’t require any
ears to get the good or bad out of a concert—only eyes.
EDWARD MORLESS. Well, Bowowski, ears were a nuisance today, at any rate,
don’t you think? The optic impressions were far the best—easily. I
wonder when we’re going to get in here.