THE LITTLE REVIEW
Literature Drama Music Art
MARGARET C. ANDERSON
EDITOR
MARCH 1916
Cheap Helen Hoyt
Art and Anarchism Margaret C. Anderson
Stravinsky’s “Grotesques” Amy Lowell
Vibrant Life Sherwood Anderson
Don’ts for Critics Alice Corbin Henderson
Poems: Jeanne D’Orge
The Cup
The Stranger
The Kiss
The Interpreter
The Sealed Package
Memories
The Russian Ballet Charles Zwaska
Editorials
Propaganda
Poems: Richard Aldington
Bloomsbury Square
Epigram
Lollipop Venders Lupo de Braila
Vers Libre Prize Contest
A. Neil Lyons Allan Ross Macdougall
The Reader Critic
Published Monthly
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MARGARET C. ANDERSON, Publisher
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Entered as second-class matter at Postoffice, Chicago
THE LITTLE REVIEW
VOL. III
MARCH, 1916
NO. 1
Copyright, 1916, by Margaret C. Anderson
Cheap
HELEN HOYT
After all, what does a man amount to?
It only takes some twenty—thirty—years or so
To make a man, with everything complete.
Longer, it is true, than growing cabbages
Or currant bushes, or a cow,—
Or a fair-sized hog;
But not so very long, and there’s always time.
When breeding’s good we get them fast enough....
Merely a matter of waiting till they grow....
Some food and clothes must be supplied—
And shelter—and all that—
But it’s surprising (in fact, without statistics,
A person would scarcely believe it possible)
How very little a man can live upon
From birth until he reaches the enlisting age.
For first he has to be born, of course,
And that takes time,—makes us some trouble too—
But it’s a simple matter on the whole,
And not expensive: not at all expensive:
You see, the women are the ones that attend to this
And they work cheap.
They _pour_ men from their bodies.
Always pleased to undertake affairs of this sort,
Women are,—O, most delighted. It’s their way.
Willing and lavish: it doesn’t cost them much.
They only have to give some flesh and bone
And blood; and perhaps, one might say,
A scrap of soul, to make the creature go;
But these things nature furnishes;
They’re free and plenty:
And after a man’s once started, he’s not long growing;
There’s always a generation on the way:
More than we want, sometimes, or there is room for.
Lord, how they swarm! In the cities like flies.
If only horses were so plentiful!
If only horses could be foddered so lightly
And bedded so many to a stall as men!
Certainly, men are less of a bother
And also, think what men do for you that a horse can’t.
You cannot teach a horse to hold a gun.
A horse can’t shoot or burn or pillage or murder well in the least.
And too, a man has this convenient feature,
That you can make him go without whip or lash.
You only have to charm him the right way.
Other animals you charm by dazzling radiance:
With men it’s always colors and bright sounds
(Slogans and bands and banners are the best).
Why, you can play upon them with the beat of drums
Till they are got to an energy and fury fine as a bull’s
How they will fight for you then!
Tigers and wolves and wild-cats
(Considering differences in weight and bulks of meat)
Wouldn’t fight fiercer or longer or more willingly.
You never could train a horse to be so clever.
And therefore it’s curious, when you think of it,
That horses should come so much more dear than men.
To be sure, there isn’t the cheap source of supply
Or the same over-stock as in the case of men:
A horse is harder to raise and more expense—
More trouble; more of a responsibility:
But nevertheless, allowing for all this,
It still is curious, that difference in value....
Now isn’t it?
Rather?
Art and Anarchism
MARGARET C. ANDERSON
When “they” ask you what anarchism is, and you scuffle around for the
most convincing definition, why don’t you merely ask instead: “What is
art?” Because anarchism and art are in the world for exactly the same
kind of reason.
An anarchist is a person who realizes the gulf that lies between
government and life; an artist is a person who realizes the gulf that
lies between life and love. The former knows that he can never get from
the government what he really needs for life; the latter knows that he
can never get from life the love he really dreams of.
Now there is only one class of people—among the very rich or the very
poor or the very middling—that doesn’t know about these things. It is
the uneducated class. It is composed of housewives, business men,
church-goers, family egoists, club women, politicians, detectives,
debutantes, drummers, Christian Scientists, policemen, demagogues,
social climbers, ministers who recommend plays like _Experience_, etc.,
etc. It even includes some who may be educated—journalists, professors,
philanthropists, patriots, “artistic” people, sentimentalists, cowards,
and the insane. It is the great middle-class mind of America. It is the
kind of mind that either doesn’t think at all or that thinks like this:
“Without the violence and the plotting there would be nothing left of
anarchism but a dead theory. Without the romance of it anarchism would
be nothing but a theory which will not work and never can until nature
has evolved something very different out of man. It is cops and robbers,
hare and hounds, Ivanhoe and E. Phillips Oppenheim all acted out in
life. It is not really dangerous to society, but only to some members of
it, because unless every one is against it there is no fun in it.”
There is no fun talking about anarchism to people who understand it. But
it would be great fun to make the middle-class mind understand it. This
is the way I should go about it:
* * * * *
What things do you need in order to live? Food, clothing, shelter. What
things _must_ you have to get life out of the process of living? Love,
work, recreation. All right.
Does the government give you the first three things? Not at all. It
isn’t the government or law or anything of that sort that gives you food
or clothes. It’s the efficient organization between those who produce
these things and those who sell them to you. And it isn’t government
that keeps that organization efficient. It’s the brains of those who
work in it. You will say that government exists to prevent that
organization from charging you too much for food and clothes. _Then why
doesn’t government do it?_ Heaven knows you’ve got all the government
you can very well use and you pay too much for everything.
Does the government give you a house? If you happen to be an ambassador
or something like that. Not if you happen to be a mail man. Maybe some
one leaves you a house—which means that he once bought it or stole it or
had it left to him. You can do any of these three things yourself. Or
you can go without, as nearly every one else does. Sometimes the
government helps you to steal one—but not you of the middle-class. What
I want to know is why _you_ are so crazy about the government?
* * * * *
Now, about work. What do you call work?—spending eight hours a day in an
office to help make somebody’s business a success, and incidentally to
earn the money for your bread and butter? But that’s a third of the time
you’re given on earth. Another third has to be spent in sleep, and the
last third in eating your dinner, “spending the evening,” getting
undressed, getting dressed, eating your breakfast, and catching your
train. I call that slavery. Work is something over which you can toil
twenty-four hours a day if you feel like it, because if you don’t your
life will have no meaning. It’s like art. What has the government to do
with your work? About as much as it had to do with Marconi’s brain when
he was conceiving his wireless.
What do you call recreation?—lounging in hotel lobbies, gossiping over
tea tables, going to the movies? All right. But what has the government
got to do with it? Or do you call it walking, riding, reading, lying in
the sun? The government doesn’t give you good legs or a motor car or
books or a stretch of beach to lie on. But it can keep some of the best
books away from you and close up the bathing beaches on the hottest
October day. Maybe you call recreation what it really means:
_re-creation_. That means the time and the leisure to invite your soul.
You’ve got government: have you got either time or leisure?
And as for love.... You love some one who loves you, and the world is
good. Or you love some one who doesn’t love you and the world is hell.
Or you love and love and can find no one to love. Or you love and cannot
give, or love and cannot take, or maybe you cannot love at all. And
where is the government all this time?
The government can bring you a letter from some one you love. But why
must even that be done with graft?
Some one assaults a woman in a dark alley, you say, and where would we
be without the government? What has that to do with love, first? Now
clear up your minds: have you ever imagined why these things happen?
Because some people are vicious, you say. But every one is vicious—every
one who has life in him. You are: only you can take it out on your wife
or on whatever prostitutes you can afford, or in eating large dinners,
or in joy rides, in vulgar parties, in the movies, in luxury, in fads,
in art, even in religion. It just depends upon your type. The point is
that you have your outlets and the other wretch hasn’t. And second,
since these things are always happening and you have plenty of chances
to see how the government deals with them, the only sensible question
left for you to ask is: _Why aren’t they dealt with?_ You’ve got
government and you’ve got crime on the increase. May it be that you will
ever see this: that the thing needs _treat-ment_, not _govern-ment_?
But if you’re talking about love.... In love you will act just like a
cave man or an Athenian or an early Christian or an Elizabethan or a
modern, like a satyr or a traveling salesman or an artist—it depends
upon your type. Governments may come and go, may change or cease to be,
and nothing remains forever except “your type.”
But it’s just here that your government has its functions. It can do
various things. And since the value of your life depends upon the
intensity with which you love something or somebody, you might as well
recognize what your government can do for you in this regard:
If you think that love and freedom ought to go together the government
can put you in prison.
If you marry out of respect for the government, and grow to hate each
other, the government won’t give you a divorce out of respect for you.
If you marry as a concession to the government, because you don’t want
to ruin your business or have your wife insulted, the government will
divorce you—and on the concession basis: but you pay for both the
concessions.
If you believe that love is love, whether it brings you children or not,
you may be happy and prosperous, but you will not be safe. The
government can put your physician in prison.
If you’re very poor or very ill, and ought not have children, the
government can keep information for prevention away from you; and it can
put any one who tries to give you that information in prison.
If you should die from an abortion—and you surely will die if you
contract blood-poisoning; and you surely will do that if you must be
treated in secrecy and without skill—the government can hang your
physician.
* * * * *
Why are you so crazy about the government?
Why do you want to govern anything or anybody?—even your own temper?
Nietzsche said not to preserve yourself but to discharge yourself! Why
not _use_ your temper as well as your nice moods?
Why do you want to govern your child? To give him character? But who
ever told you that life is for the making of character? Even if it were,
you can’t give your child character. He can get it by going through a
great deal. But if you govern him successfully he won’t go through a
great deal. He will just be something that is like something else. He
won’t be himself.
Why do you want to govern human nature? Because you want people to be
good instead of bad? But how can you tell when they’re good and when
they’re bad? Suppose you all agree that Jean Crones did a very bad
thing? If you knew Jean Crones you should probably all see at once that
he is a very good man—if he exists at all. Clear up your thinking!
* * * * *
Who ever told you that an anarchist wants to change human nature? Who
ever told you that an anarchist’s ideal could never be attained until
human nature had improved? Human nature will never “improve.” It doesn’t
matter much whether you have a good nature or a bad one. It’s your
thinking that counts. Clean out your minds!
If you believe these things—no, that is not enough: if you live them—you
are an anarchist. You can be one right now. You needn’t wait for a
change in human nature, for the millennium, or for the permission of
your family. Just be one!
You have seen that “the blind, heavy, stupid thing we call government”
can not give you a happy childhood. It cannot educate you or make you an
interesting person. It cannot give you work, art, love, or life—or death
if you think it is better to die.
* * * * *
And finally when you see that you can never get all the love you
imagined from life; that you are trapped, really, and must find a way
out; when you see that here where there is nothing is the way out, and
that the wonder of life begins here—when you see all this you will be an
artist, and your love that is “left over” will find its music or its
words.
Stravinsky’s Three Pieces, “Grotesques,” for String Quartets[1]
AMY LOWELL
First Movement
Thin-voiced, nasal pipes
Drawing sound out and out
Until it is a screeching thread,
Sharp and cutting, sharp and cutting,
It hurts.
Whee-e-e!
Bump! Bump! Tong-ti-bump!
There are drums here,
Banging,
And wooden shoes beating the round, grey stones
Of the market-place.
Whee-e-e!
Sabots slapping the worn, old stones,
And a shaking and cracking of dancing bones,
Clumsy and hard they are,
And uneven,
Losing half a beat
Because the stones are slippery.
Bump-e-ty-tong! Whee-e-e! Tong!
The thin Spring leaves
Shake to the banging of shoes.
Shoes beat, slap,
Shuffle, rap,
And the nasal pipes squeal with their pig’s voices,
Little pig’s voices
Weaving among the dancers,
A fine, white thread
Linking up the dancers.
Bang! Bump! Tong!
Petticoats,
Stockings,
Sabots,
Delirium flapping its thigh-bones;
Red, blue, yellow,
Drunkenness steaming in colours;
Red, yellow, blue,
Colours and flesh weaving together,
In and out, with the dance,
Coarse stuffs and hot flesh weaving together.
Pig’s cries white and tenuous,
White and painful,
White and—
Bump!
Tong!
Second Movement
Pale violin music whiffs across the moon,
A pale smoke of violin music blows over the moon,
Cherry petals fall and flutter,
And the white Pierrot,
Wreathed in the smoke of the violins,
Splashed with cherry petals falling, falling,
Claws a grave for himself in the fresh earth
With his finger-nails.
Third Movement
An organ growls in the heavy roof-groins of a church,
It wheezes and coughs.
The nave is blue with incense,
Writhing, twisting,
Snaking over the heads of the chanting priests.
_Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine_;
The priests whine their bastard Latin
And the censers swing and click.
The priests walk endlessly
Round and round,
Droning their Latin
Off the key.
The organ crashes out in a flaring chord,
And the priests hitch their chant up half a tone.
_Dies illa, dies irae,_
_Calamitatis et miseriae,_
_Dies magna et amara valde._
A wind rattles the leaded windows.
The little pear-shaped candle-flames leap and flutter,
_Dies illa, dies irae_,
The swaying smoke drifts over the altar,
_Calamitatis et miseriae_,
The shuffling priests sprinkle holy water,
_Dies magna et amara valde_.
And there is a stark stillness in the midst of them
Stretched upon a bier.
His ears are stone to the organ,
His eyes are flint to the candles,
His body is ice to the water.
Chant, priests,
Whine, shuffle, genuflect,
He will always be as rigid as he is now
Until he crumbles away in a dust heap.
_Lacrymosa dies illa,_
_Qua resurget ex favilla_
_Judicandus homo reus._
Above the grey pillars, the roof is in darkness.
----------
[1] This Quartet was played from the manuscript by the Flonzaley
Quartet during their season of 1915 and 1916. The poem is based
upon the programme which M. Stravinsky appended to his piece, and
is an attempt to reproduce the sound and movement of the music as
far as is possible in another medium.
Vibrant Life
SHERWOOD ANDERSON
He was a man of forty-five, vigorous and straight of body. About his
jaws was a slight heaviness, but his eyes were quiet. In his young
manhood he had been involved in a scandal that had made him a marked man
in the community. He had deserted his wife and children and had run away
with a serious, dark-skinned young girl, the daughter of a Methodist
minister.
After a few years he had come back into the community and had opened a
law office. The social ostracism set up against him and his wife had in
reality turned out to their advantage. He had worked fiercely and the
dark-skinned girl had worked fiercely. At forty-five he had risen to
wealth and to a commanding position before the bar of his state, and his
wife, now a surgeon, had a fast-growing reputation for ability.
It was night and he sat in a room with the dead body of his younger
brother, who had gone the road he had traveled in his twenties. The
brother, a huge good-natured fellow, had been caught and shot in the
home of a married woman.
In the room with the lawyer sat a woman. She was a nurse, in charge of
the children of his second wife, a magnificent blonde creature with
white teeth. They sat beside a table, spread with books and magazines.
The woman who sat with the lawyer in the room with the dead man, was,
like himself, flush with life. He remembered, with a start, that she had
been introduced into the house by the boy who was dead. He began to
couple them in his mind and talked about it.
“You were in love with him, eh?” he asked presently.
The woman said nothing. She sat under a lamp with her legs crossed. The
lamplight fell upon her shapely shoulders.
The lawyer, getting out of his chair, walked up and down the room. He
thought of his wife, the woman he loved, asleep upstairs, and of the
price they had paid for their devotion to each other.
“It is barbarous, this old custom of sitting up with the dead,” he said,
and, going to another part of the house, returned with a bottle of wine
and two glasses.
With the wine before them the lawyer and the woman sat looking at each
other. They stared boldly into each other’s eyes, each concerned with
his own thoughts. A clock ticked loudly and the woman moved uneasily. By
an open window the wind stirred a white curtain and tossed it back and
forth above the coffin, black and ominous. He began thinking of the
years of hard, unremittent labor and of the pleasures he had missed.
Before his eyes danced visions of white-clad dinner tables, with men and
bare-shouldered women sitting about. Again he walked up and down the
room.
Upon the table lay a magazine, devoted to farm life, and upon the cover
was a scene in a barn yard. A groom was leading a magnificent stallion
out at the door of a red barn.
Pointing his finger at the picture, the lawyer began to talk. A new
quality came into his voice. His hand played nervously up and down the
table. There was a gentle swishing sound of the blown curtain across the
top of the coffin.
“I saw one once when I was a boy,” he said, pointing with his finger at
the stallion.
He approached and stood over her.
“It was a wonderful sight,” he said, looking down at her. “I have never
forgotten it. The great animal was all life, vibrant, magnificent life.
Its feet scarcely touched the ground.”
“We are like that,” he added, leaning over her. “The men of our family
have that vibrant, conquering life in us.”
The woman arose from the chair and moved toward the darkened corner
where the coffin stood. He followed slowly. When they had gone thus
across the room she put up her hand and plead with him.
“No, no!—Think! Remember!” she whispered.
With a low laugh he sprang at her. She dodged quickly. Both of them had
become silent. Among the chairs and tables they went, swiftly, silently,
the pursuer and the pursued.
Into a corner of the room she got, where she could no longer elude him.
Near her sat the long coffin, its ends resting on black stands made for
the purpose. They struggled, and then as they stood breathless with hot
startled faces, there was a crash, the sound of broken glass and the
dead body of his brother with its staring eyes rolled, from the fallen
coffin, out upon the floor.
Don’ts for Critics[2]
(_Apropos of recent criticisms of Imagism, vers libre, and modern
poetry generally._)
ALICE CORBIN HENDERSON
Don’t confuse vers libre and Imagism. The two are not identical. One
pertains to verse, the other to vision.
Don’t attempt to “place” Imagism until you know what it is.
Don’t substitute irritability for judgement.
Don’t attempt to establish absolutes—positive or negative—by precedents
of a half or a quarter of a century, or a mere decade ago.
Don’t be a demagogue.
Don’t try to speak the last word—you can’t.
Don’t be dishonest with yourself. Analyze your own inhibitions.
Don’t believe that beauty is conventionality, or that the classic poets
chose only “nice” subjects.
Don’t forget that the age that produced the cathedrals produced also the
grotesques.
Don’t be afraid to expand.
Don’t deny the poet his folly, or expect him to appear always pompously
on stilts. Think of the poets who have fun in their make-up, and you
think of some of the greatest—Shakespeare, Chaucer, Villon,—(by no means
excepting Lewis Carroll, whose Jabberwock is almost “_pure_” poetry and
the poetic prototype of much excellent modern painting.) Don’t relax
your own appreciation of humor to the soft, easy level of the
newspapers.
Don’t squirm when a poet is a satirist. We need the keen vision. Not all
pessimism is unhealthy, and not all optimism healthy.
Don’t think that Spoon River is more sordid than Athens, Greece, or
Athens, Georgia, than Sparta or Troy, or—the Lake Shore Drive.
Don’t think that the poet must always _copy_ something or somebody, and
that something usually of a recent date. Correspondences, to be
valuable, must be genuine and of the spirit, rather than of the
letter.—When Mr. Powys brackets the names of Chaucer and Edgar
Lee Masters, he is illuminating. When Mr. Hervey or Mr.
Willard-Huntington-Wright discover each a different one of Mr. Masters’
copybooks, and publish their discoveries, the absurdity is manifest.
Picture Mr. Masters sitting with Robinson’s book in one hand, and
somebody’s Small Town in the other, inditing Spoon River with his teeth!
Don’t expect a poet to repeat himself indefinitely, however much you may
admire his earlier work. You may appreciate his later work in time.
Don’t condemn the work of a man whose books you have not read.
Unfortunately there are no civil service examinations for critics.
Don’t think that competition is unhealthy for the poet, or that his
poetry suffers thereby.
Don’t be confident, as Mr. Arthur J. Eddy said at the “Poetry” dinner,
that no good thing is ever lost. Ask Mr. Eddy, who is a lawyer, to prove
that no good thing is ever lost.
Don’t expect poets to refrain from writing about one another—even in
praise. If you don’t enjoy the feast, don’t eat it. When the poets tear
one another to pieces, don’t you enjoy it? But if, like most critics of
poetry, you are a poet also, take warning. Be prepared!
Don’t wait until a poet is dead before you discover him.
Don’t gnash your teeth and expect the public to take it as a sign of
force and insight.
Don’t forget that prosody is derived from poetry, not poetry from
prosody.
Don’t waste your time trying to squeeze exceptions into the rule.
Remember that exceptions in poetry, as in music, are the variations that
give life.
Don’t measure English poetry by English poetic standards alone. Consider
the sources of English poetry, and don’t begin with Chaucer, or stop
with Tennyson.
Don’t think that English or American poetry may not assimilate as much
new beauty and richness from foreign sources in the future as it has in
the past.
Don’t consider rhyme as the be-all and end-all of poetry. Rhyme is
sometimes as beautiful as the reflection of trees in water; it is
sometimes as monotonous as a stitch in time.
Don’t substitute vituperation for the “critique raisonné”—almost an
unknown quantity in this country.
Don’t look first at the publisher’s imprint.
Don’t cling to convictions that you fear to have upset.
Don’t, because you fail to share the convictions of a fellow critic,
think that he is a bigger fool than you are—unless you can prove it.
Don’t imagine that printing a poem as prose makes it prose. A musical
masterpiece may be distorted by unrhythmic playing, yet the composer’s
rhythm remains intact in the score.
Don’t object to conceptions in poetry that you might find striking and
powerful in bronze or plaster. “The Hog Butcher of the World” is one
picturesque attitude of Chicago.... Is the truth unbearable? One may
still love Chicago in spite of its dirty face.
Don’t try to establish even a distant kinship between poetry and ethics.
The relation is illicit.
Don’t tell the poet what he must, or must not, write about—he doesn’t
hear you.
Don’t be tedious.
Don’t take ten times as much space as the poet to prove that he is a bad
poet. Your sin against the public is more grievous, and your art less,
than his.
Don’t make up your review from the publisher’s advance notice. The poet
might like to know what you think about his work—not what he told the
publisher to tell you.
Don’t expect a poet to punch a time-clock, or record only the emotions
of his fellow townspeople.
Don’t limit a poet to primary emotions, or find decadence in a
refinement that may exceed your own.
Don’t fancy that brutality is strength, or delicacy weakness.
Don’t fancy that the poem that gives up its meaning quickest gives most,
or lives longest.
Don’t make the mistake of believing that vers libre is easier to write
than rhymed metrical verse—or the reverse.
Don’t think because you say a thing, it is so. Your venture is as
uncertain as the poet’s. Authority, unless bestowed by the Mayor, is the
gift of time; and then not unassailable.
Don’t reverence only dead poets or be certain that the dead poets would
think just as you do about contemporary poets.
Don’t discard the past for the future, or the future for the past. We
learn about the earth from the telescope, and about the stars from the
microscope.
DON’T be as negative as this list, or sit on the fence. It is better to
be on the wrong side than to straddle.
----------
[2] See page 23.
Poems[3]
JEANNE D’ORGE
The Cup
My body is no more clay
But rapture—touched and golden:
The Cup—the Cup
From which my lover drinks
And drinking makes immortal.
The Stranger
(_Eleven years_)
Oh you spoil everything!
I am glad you are only my teacher—
My mother would know better:
She would not make me treat my friend badly as you do;
She would let me go to the Park and ride on the Merry-go-round with him;
Even if he is a sailor and a stranger he is grown-up and kind:
What harm can he do me? Would he beat me? Would he run away with me in
his sloop? Would he murder me?
You shake your head and say nothing!
You have nothing to say—
And now you have spoiled everything.
You scared me so that when he came as he promised I edged away and hid
my face and almost cried—
He couldn’t understand and of course he was hurt and went away
And I never shall see him again—
It is all spoiled.
And you spoiled it—by saying nothing—nothing—
You never say anything—
You never speak a true word.
The Kiss
(_Fifteen years_)
I shut my eyes and remember
He kissed me,
My playmate suddenly kissed me
Again and again—
Now I remember all I knew long ago....
And more.
Kisses take your breath, stab to the heart with sweetest, strangest
pain;
Oh, you can grow faint under their sweetness—
What will the Bridal night be....
A rush through terror and fire and death
Into swift heaven.
The Interpreter
(_Sixteen years_)
I wish there were Someone
Who would hear confession:
Not a priest—I do not want to be told of my sins;
Not a mother—I do not want to give sorrow;
Not a friend—she would not know enough;
Not a lover—he would be too partial;
Not God—he is far away;
But Someone that should be friend, lover, mother, priest, God all in one
And a Stranger besides—who would not condemn nor interfere,
Who when everything is said from beginning to end
Would show the reason of it all
And tell you to go ahead
And work it out your own way.
The Sealed Package
I will make it all into a package and put a heavy seal upon it, and
label it “To be destroyed unopened when I am dead.”
These nine black months. These memories that must be cut away—like a
cancer from the breast but without anaesthetics to deaden the pain. Cut
away altogether lest they threaten life and reputation and the honor of
the family.
Here is the signature of the man who caused it all, and the letter he
wrote when he knew the terrible truth.
It includes a perfunctory offer of marriage which I was too proud to
accept.
It also proves that I was virgin when he seduced me and protests that
had he believed in my virtue he never would have touched me.
Here is the paper from the registry office recording the birth of a male
child:—mother unmarried—father’s name withheld.
Here is the receipt for money paid on the adoption of a nameless child,
and the promise in my own handwriting to the woman who adopted
him:—never to make any further claims upon him—a resignation of all the
rights of motherhood.
The rest is misery in black and white.
A diary of stoic days and nights when even dreams were wet with tears.
An account of a secret sojourn in a strange city—veiled walks in
twilight streets—skulking in corners—lies—deceit—trickery—truckling to
convention. The copy of a prayer from Thomas-à-Kempis, and on the
opposite page a character sketch of the drunken and facetious landlady
in whose house the child was born.
Seal up the package.
If I look at it too long I am likely to go blind with rage at my own
weakness.
I am likely to go mad and pull down upon me the pillars of society.
I am likely to go mad and destroy the world—
Seal up the package—hide it away—
Forget—forget.
The incident is closed.
Memories
The Beauty and the Doom of that last day—
No heart was in me but an empty gaping wound
That reddened all the hours.
We were afraid to speak: to look: to touch—
At dusk within the house a dog barked wildly
And at that—I heard a voice—a wizard’s voice
That gave me back my heart.
You spoke—and words were wands that touched and changed
Passion to glory—thistles into palms
You even made the silly barking of a dog
Eternal in mine ears.
So now the mangiest pup that howls about the world
Has voice and power and magic
To rend my heart in twain
Or bid it rise and forth again.
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[3] See page 24.
The Russian Ballet:
It Sojourns in a Strange Land
CHARLES ZWASKA
We were disappointed—and we had no right to be. Authorities say this
organization brings the music of the nineteenth century to its logical
conclusion. Logical—see? Authorities are always that. So let’s be
logical and philosophical and reason that what belongs to the nineteenth
has no place this far into the twentieth century. Granted. “Well, then,
what _do_ you want?” they question. I should answer _The Faun_ or
something beyond this, finding its manner and inspiration in this
form—interpretive, impressionistic, compressed, emotional. Of all the
Ballets presented by Diaghileff’s Ballet Russe that is, to me, the most
indicative of what the future is to be, so far as ballet and ballet
music is concerned. We’ve had Isadora Duncan, and Jacques Dalcrose has
been at work. Following are some impressions.
* * * * *
L’OISEAU DE FEU.—The setting an irritating green: scroll-work gates in
the background. Mere finical, petty child’s scribbling in its
conventionalized balancing. The characters and their work about on the
same level. Bakst costumed them, but the strength of the Hunter’s garb
is not carried into his action—he’s a most unvirile huntsman. And the
finale! a coronation: quite the proper climax for this. Rather
interesting though to have curtain fall on the incoming procession. The
music—Stravinsky’s—fascinating.
* * * * *
SCHÉHÉRAZADE.—“Barbaric” they say—yes, it’s a harem scene, you know. But
broad and daring as Bakst’s color is it’s not _very_ far from the
_usual_ harem scene. The lighting was not as good as it should have
been. A serious offense, for the shadows interfered with the action
several times; but they aided the bizarreness of the kaleidoscopic whirl
at the height of the “barbarities.” This is known as “good ensemble
work”—good, yes, but unusual? No longer so. They say there are no
“principals” in this very modern ballet, but it seems that _one_ person
gets the “principal parts”—I refer to Bolm. Right here I’d like to
quarrel with his work—he is “principaled” too often to escape notice.
His Le Negre was lithe, one necessity of the role, but it was nothing
else! His supposedly ecstatic whirls would break annoyingly. A tiny
dressed-up monkey. The end of his leap to Zobeide’s couch was most
ungraceful, awkward. These same broken whirls, leaps, and evident
stumblings—they seemed nothing else—appeared in _Prince Igor_. Seeing
these two ballets on the same bill emphasizes this persistent failing.
He, as the Desired One and the Desiring in _Schéhérazade_, made the
infatuation rather absurd, inhuman. The Grand Eunuch, strange to say,
was the human one—his wavering and final surrender of his duty to the
caresses of the females! As a whole: all the passion, all the “lust,”
superbly expressed human-ness—“barbaric,” perhaps, but human.
* * * * *
CARNAVAL.—A deep blue background—a background that _backs_. Two settees,
weak spots they seemed. But nevertheless, against and into this blue
came Pierrot, Schumann music, and Colombine. Pierrot seemed grotesque,
absurd—lovers usually do. Excellent pantomime, then other lovers come
upon the scene. Pierrot steps out of the picture into the dark outer
stage, his white and spots of springtime green lying in a heap in the
center. The lovers maneuver. After their not vain pursuits, momentary,
yet so poignant, Colombine returns to a most itching, subtle, ecstatic
melody—and with her is Arlequin!! The knave! see the curve of his back
and the curve of his thighs and legs! Pierrot must be in on this! and
_Carnaval_ proceeds. Arlequin is now and then out of the picture posing
on the frame, the dark fore-stage, looking on: and in such moments we
have all—everything for our eyes, our ears and our hearts: color,
movement, sound, in themselves emotions but also emotions of hearts that
are seeking.
* * * * *
LES SYLPHIDES.—Genee. In what years was she at her height? And how many
generations preceded her as exponents of her particular form of the
Dance? I dare say “in those days” when the “people wanted” such things
they wanted them well done. “People” still want it, but evidently not
done well. The background—Belasco!—well, never mind that. The
_Chopiniana_ that Rabinoff’s Russians did had at least finesse; this one
has terrible ragged edges. Even the solo works, waltzes, and prelude
seemed chosen with little taste—the presenting of the thing at all was
offensive taste.
* * * * *
PRINCE IGOR.—The red of the tents not “barbaric,” the paganism of the
costumes a trifle faded, and the leaps of the warriors (Bolm, the “chief
warrior,” you remember) not convincing. The mob, or “ensemble,” if you
must, properly wild and abandoned. The music is the kind that you beat
time to with your feet, you know—primitive I think they call it. Well,
the “very moderns” failed us again—do you see?
* * * * *
L’APRÈS MIDI D’UN FAUNE.—Green. Some how I was expecting purple, the
hazy opaque purple of a woodland when the sun enters it from one side;
and still I think that purple would have fitted the Debussy music and
the mood of the faun,—a mood, of course dependent on the music. But it
was green, with rather weak spots of red. This scene framed by a Greek
border of pale and dark blue and white. In front of this frame, looking
into the picture at the languid, piping faun, moved nymphs. They seemed
part of the border—a decoration from an urn or from the walls of some
temple. The faun leaves his knoll and moves into the decorative sphere
of the maidens. Beautiful movement, repressed, conventionalized. A scarf
is left by one of the maidens; they have all left the faun. He has
nothing but this to remember them by. Returning to his mossy rock he
possesses the scarf. No lover more delicately held the body of his love
or with more reverence knelt toward her. The curtain lowers here—the
faun is left to dream. “Now, look here, my friends,” as _the_ Lecturer
would say, stamping across the stage; “away with all this nonsense and
hypocrisy, this clatter about ‘indecent,’ ‘revolting,’ ‘vicious,’
‘offensive,’ ‘decadent,’ and such blabber! Admit that your life, you
critics, living for art as you pretend to, is made up of just such
things—in fact if you were honest you’d admit your entire life is
wholly, first and last, rooted, aye, _dwelling_ on just this episode,
and yet you cry aloud unto the heavens ‘indecent,’ ‘revolting,’
‘offensive’ when it is beautifully simple and much more perfectly
presented before you than you’ll ever experience it yourself. And as for
the substitution of the scarf, well, the psychology of the incident is
perfect and the whole thing is heightened by art, my friends, _art_—and
you of course, living as you do amongst the fleshpots and the Market
Place and knowing not of the Groves of Dionysius and the Temples on the
hillsides at Athens—can’t see it. Well. The gods have pity on you and
may you be shown joy in the hereafter—God knows your chastity will keep
you from it here.”
* * * * *
LE SPECTRE DE LA ROSE.—Fragmentary concession to those who “loved” _Les
Sylphides_ and, botanically speaking, a “shoot” from that ballet and the
(unpresented here) _Papillons_ of Schumann. Necessary, no doubt, to
remind us of our ballet history and, like historical data, necessary but
uninteresting. Bakst’s bedroom setting _does_ justify the presenting of
this, however.
* * * * *
SOLEIL DE NUIT.—M. Leonide Massine—_Youth!_ If you were present at
creation’s turmoil perhaps _les Bergers_ would always have been
delightful and _les Paysannes_ always happy and colorful—and, of course,
we would have had many more serious and glorious Bouffons! The _purity_
of this ballet—color, music (Rimsky-Korsakov), dancing and pantomime—is
astounding, and beautiful!
* * * * *
CLEOPATRE.—_I_ have been to Egypt! All ages have known Cleopatra—her
evil and magnificence; and none will forget that she had slaves. No age
since hers can know of her allurements and the grandeur of her reign of
the souls of two of her slaves as the Russians have shown them to ours!
A temple in Egypt: of pillars once believed eternal, along the then
sacred Nile. Amoun, one of her slaves, loving and loved by another,
Ta-or, craves the caresses of the great Cleopatra! He succeeds: they are
granted midst colorful revels, music made by Assyrians and dancing by
dancers from Greece. The moment is too short ... he pays for it with his
life. The revelers leave, and none in their indifference so cold as the
Queen herself. In the thickness of a red evening, the hall deserted, one
heart still beats. Ta-or grieves over her lost love—alone. I have been
to Egypt ... learned the ways of women—and the world!
* * * * *
PETROUCHKA.—Primary things: red, blue, yellow; love, hate, jealousy;
people and artists. All told together in a ballet whose dramatic
unification finds its remarkable inspiration in the music. No doubt
Stravinsky’s most important music for the stage. Pétrouchka, eternal
paradox of beauty encased in ugliness. His jealousy of the Moor, who
also loves the Ballerine, is the ballet, and the music. Foremost the
music! Pétrouchka, in whirling frenzy alone with night and the stars;
the Ballerine haunting him with piercing notes blown from a silver horn;
his discovery of the Moor with his love; and the mannekins entering into
the public square, halting the folk-music of the peasants and squires;
Pétrouchka’s death in the snow and the appearance of his spirit. All
these episodes are _music_. Here one gets the ingenious use of an
orchestra, extraordinary combinations of instruments. Carpenter
attempted this, you remember, in his _Perambulator_. Igor Stravinsky has
accomplished it. He with Leon Bakst, is the most important figure of the
Russian Triumph. They worked together to achieve _Pétrouchka_.
* * * * *
The agonizing lack of an audience excuses Diaghileff in laying aside a
completely perfect matinee program in favor of one that would attract
modern children with their innocent parents, but, artistically, there is
no justification of this bowing to the “public” and to “morals” in the
reasoning that moved them to tone down the color of the slaves in
_Schéhérazade_. The contrast was needed: black was in the color plan,
especially for Le Negre. This makes us suspicious that the other uneven
and faulty spots were caused by just such managerial schemings. Seeing
some the second and third times strengthened these suspicions! The
journalistically “notorious faun” on its third performance (a matinee)
moved less lithely and, that there be no “effrontery of good taste,”
posed stupidly, stiffly, while the tense vibrating music panted for
_movement_—for entry into life. And _Cleopatre_! Much as it was
Americanized by being “less sensuous, etc.,” the second performance
descended to mere Grand Opera pageantry, or nearer, to a Grand Opera
Gala Performance vaudeville. The actual center of interest, the Queen’s
couch, was draped by a still, unamourous—yet Decency and the Parents’
League be praised!—unoffensive lover.
In a strange land; so strangely treated! That prophets might be
understood in another land their priests distort them that barbarians
may comprehend!
Editorials
_THE ESSENTIAL THING._
THE LITTLE REVIEW is a magazine of Art and Revolution. If you ask me
which it believes in most I shall have to say—Art. Because there is no
real revolution unless it is born of the same spirit which produces real
art.
A man like Bill Haywood doesn’t agree with this. “Why do you ask why
some one doesn’t start the revolution?” he says; “don’t you see that
we’re in the midst of a revolution now?” No, I don’t see it. I see
evolution at work in labor—not revolution. But I see something more than
evolution at work in the arts—music, painting, poetry.
“... to obtain victory over man and circumstance there is no other way
but that of feeding one’s own exaltation and magnifying one’s own dream
of beauty or of power.” You can argue that D’Annunzio, who said this, is
neither a very great man nor a very great artist. Nevertheless it is
what Beethoven did; and it is what Jeanne d’Arc did.... It is what Bill
Haywood does; but it is not what most labor leaders do, or what most
radicals do. It is not what the laborers themselves do. How horrible it
is to realize that when a man is slaving for his very life he can not be
selective in what he does, that he has no dream left to magnify, and yet
that he must have or perish....
This is why I would go to hear John Cowper Powys even if he spoke in
such a benighted place as the Hebrew Institute. Boycotts are important,
but they will not help a revolution as a dream will. Mr. Powys will help
you to find both an exaltation and a dream....
“_DON’TS FOR CRITICS._”
I went to a meeting of the Friday Club the other day, where Mary Aldis
was to read a very good paper which she called “A Passionate Inquiry
into Imagism.” After she had finished, Harriet Monroe rose to defend the
poetry of H. D.—poetry which Mrs. Aldis had confessed left her unmoved.
Miss Monroe “explained” the miracle of such poetry as H. D’s _Oread_ so
that even those who don’t “get” these things ought to have understood.
And still—what is the use? I am convinced that the secret and the beauty
of the Imagists lies somehow _in the look of the words_, and that if you
have only a feeling for the sounds of words you will never love Imagism.
Witter Bynner, who was also there, made an amusing little speech about
how the Imagists substitute color for sound, sensation for emotion, and
concentrate upon technique instead of upon that for which technique is
intended. And then Alice Corbin Henderson had the last word. “After all
the discussion about Imagism I am surprised to find that no one really
seems to know what it is!... When Mrs. Aldis told me the title of her
paper I said that what I should like would be a dispassionate inquiry.
She said she didn’t think that possible—apparently it isn’t; but as I
was thinking over the many heated criticisms of Imagism and modern
poetry that have appeared lately, I began to make a list of Don’ts for
the critics.” (They are printed on another page). “Of course, if the
critics can’t find out what Imagism is there isn’t any need telling
them; though it might be well to point out again that it isn’t a matter
of technique: it is a matter of vision.”
_A TRIBUTE._
Jeanne D’Orge, who makes her first appearance in print in the present
issue, has the semblance of a fountain laced with colored flames.... But
you dip a hand in the laced water and—it is chilled and edged. There is
a defiant, battered God with many swords beneath her casual flow of
words—a God that sometimes suddenly cries out, as at the end of her
_Sealed Package_. The poems she has in the present number are part of a
series called _The Torch_, in which with sledge-hammer, burning
accurateness she paints the emotions of a woman, from childhood to
womanhood—a woman who is an utter wistful-lipped pagan.
M. B.
Propaganda
_BIRTH CONTROL_
Margaret Sanger’s case has been dismissed, “because she is not a
disorderly person”—and what has been gained for the issue of birth
control? Nothing, except perhaps a little education through publicity;
and that appears to be very little when you reflect what has just
happened to young Dr. Long, now lying in jail in Chicago because of an
abortion which resulted in the death of his wife. Think of a society
that dares to meddle in people’s lives to the extent of making them face
death rather than face a scandal. Think of a doctor (the cad by the name
of Goldstine, I believe) who _notifies the police_ as the proper agents
to deal with such a tragedy. Think of a public which makes it a crime
for these operations to be performed intelligently and without danger of
blood poisoning. Think of physicians who will not fight for their right
to do this. And think of splendid Dr. Haiselden!
Margaret Sanger has been “forgiven” by the government, but the statutes
regarding family limitation remain the same. Any unfortunate unknown can
be whisked into jail for propagating birth control, just as usual. Mrs.
Sanger didn’t even demand redress for her husband, who spent a month in
prison. Surely he was entitled to a dismissal on the same grounds—more
entitled to it, even in the eyes of the law: he had never circulated the
pamphlets or in any way agitated for birth control. He is an artist, not
a propagandist. But he served his sentence, and nothing was done or is
being done about it. Mrs. Sanger means to go on with her work. What does
the government mean to do about it?
Emma Goldman is about to stand trial for the same “offense.” In her case
there will be no “influential” women rushing back and forth to
Washington to interview the President in her behalf. I only wish there
would be. It would insure her freedom for the next year, and it would be
so amusing to figure out on what grounds the Good Presbyterian could
effect the release of the Arch Anarchist. But Emma Goldman will fight
her case alone, and on its merits. If she does not succeed in effecting
a revision of the penal code regarding the whole matter of birth control
she will spend the next year in prison, I understand. You can all help
by sending your protests to Magistrate Simms and also by giving your
support to Dr. Long and Dr. Haiselden or any other person who gets
involved in these laws of the dark ages.
“_THE BEAUTIFUL GESTURE_”
Why do you object to Jean Crones’ reasoning? I reprint his second
letter, transposed into English: