THE LITTLE REVIEW
Literature Drama Music Art
MARGARET C. ANDERSON
EDITOR
NOVEMBER, 1914
Lyrics of an Italian Scharmel Iris
Zarathustra Vs. Rheims George Soule
The Cost of War Clarence Darrow
A Social Comedy Lawrence Langner
“The Immutable” Margaret C. Anderson
Poems Maxwell Bodenheim
The Spiritual Dangers of Writing Vers Libre Eunice Tietjens
Tagore’s “Union” Basanta Koomar Roy
War, the Only Hygiene of the World Marinetti
Noise George Burman Foster
The Birth of a Poem Maximilian Voloshin
Editorials
My Friend, the Incurable Ibn Gabirol
London Letter E. Buxton Shanks
New York Letter George Soule
The Theatre
Harold Bauer in Chicago Herman Schuchert
A Ferrer School in Chicago Rudolf von Liebich
The Old Spirit and the New Ways in Art William Saphier
Book Discussion
Sentence Reviews
The Reader Critic
Published Monthly
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THE LITTLE REVIEW
Vol. I
NOVEMBER, 1914
No. 8
Copyright, 1914, by Margaret C. Anderson.
Lyrics of an Italian
SCHARMEL IRIS
The Forest of the Sky
High in the forest of the sky
The stars and branches interlace;
As cloth-of-gold the fallen leaves lie
Where twilight-peacocks lord the place,
Spendthrifts of pride and grace.
The grapes on vines are rubies red,
They burn as flame, when day is done.
The Dusk, brown Princess, turns her head
While sunset-panthers past her run
To caverns of the Sun.
She throws cord-reins of sunbeams wrought,
About the sunset-panthers, fleet,
And rides them joyously, when caught,
Across the poppied fields of wheat—
Their hearts with terror beat.
They reach the caverns of the Sun,
The raven-clouds above them fly;
Dame Night her tapestry’s begun.
High, o’er the forest of the sky
The moon, a boat, sails by.
Iteration
My son is dead and I am going blind,
And in the Ishmael-wind of grief
I tremble like a leaf;
I have no mind for any word you say:
My son is dead and I am going blind.
April
I loved her more than moon or sun—
There is no moon or sun for me;
Of lovely things to look upon,
The loveliest was she.
She does not hear me, though I sing—
And, oh, my heart is like to break!
The world awakens with the Spring,
But she—she does not wake!
Scarlet—White
(_Struck at the double standard_)
The woman who is scarlet now
Was soul of whiteness yesterday;
A void is she wherein a man
May leave his lust to-day.
’Twas with the kiss Ischariot
A traitor bore her heart away;
Her body now is leased by men
That kneel at church to pray.
Three Apples
I who am Giver of Life
Out of the cradle of dawn
Bring you this infant of song.—
He has a golden tongue
And wings upon his feet.
The apple of silver he holds
Once lay at the breast of the moon;
I give him an apple of gold
’Twas forged in the fires of the sun;
This apple of copper I give
That Sunset concealed in her hair.
When from the husk of dusk I shake the stars,
Down slumber’s vine I’ll send him dreams in dew,
And peace will overtake him like a song
Like thoughts of love invade a lover’s mind.
The spear-scars of the red world he will wear
As women in their hair may wear a rose.
On the rosary of his days
He will say a prayer for your sake,
The hounds-o’-wonder will lie at his side,
And lick the dust-o’-the-world from his feet.
The apple of silver will work him a charm
When under his pillow he lays it at night;
The apple of copper will warm his heart
When a heart he loves grows cold on his own;
The apple of gold will teach him a song
For children to sing when he blows on a reed;
The dew will hear and run to the sun,
The sun will whisper it in my ear,
And you, being dead, the song will hear.
Zarathustra Vs. Rheims
GEORGE SOULE
Hauptmann and Rolland have quarreled about the war, Hæckel has
repudiated his English honorary degrees, and now Thomas Hardy has placed
on Nietzsche the responsibility for the destruction of the cathedral of
Rheims. The tragedy of nationalism, it seems, is not content with
ruining lives and art; it must also vitiate philosophy and culture.
“Nietzsche and his followers, Treitschke, Von Bernhardi, and others,”
writes Hardy. In the next sentence he speaks of “off-hand assumptions.”
One is tempted to write, “Christ and his followers, Czar Nicholas,
Kaiser Wilhelm, and others!”
Nietzsche has been claimed as a prophet by hereditary aristocrats, by
anarchists, by socialists, by artists, and by militarists. There is even
a book to prove that he who called himself “the Antichrist” was a
supporter of the Catholic Church. One suspects, however, that the Jesuit
who wrote it had a subtle sense of truth.
The most fundamental truth about Nietzsche is that the torrent of his
inspiration is open to everyone who can drink of it. His value, his
quality, consist not in the fact that he said this or that, but that
life in him was strong and beautiful. This is true of all prophets; how
much more so, then, of the one who threw to the winds all stiffness of
orthodoxy and insisted on a transvaluation of all values! “O my soul, to
thy domain gave I all wisdom to drink, all new wines, and also all
immemorially old strong wines of wisdom,” said Zarathustra.
But even in his teachings we can find no justification of the present
shame of Europe. It was Darwin who laid the foundation for the
philosophy of the survival of the fittest and the struggle for
existence. With the shallow inferences from these conceptions Nietzsche
had no patience. If the fittest survives, the fittest is not necessarily
the best. The brute force which makes for survival had no attraction for
Nietzsche. He called upon man’s will to make itself the deciding factor
in the struggle. When he argued for strength, he argued for the strength
of the beautiful and noble, not strength for its own sake. Of what avail
is a great individual to the world if he makes himself weak and
sacrifices himself to an inferior enemy? The French gunners who defended
the Cathedral of Rheims might justly claim the approval of Nietzsche. If
the Allies had turned the other cheek and allowed their countries to be
overrun by German militarism, they would then have proved themselves
Christian and truly anti-Nietzschean.
Moreover, Nietzsche uncompromisingly opposed the supremacy of mere
numbers, the supremacy of non-spiritual values. He argued after the war
of 1870 that the victory of Prussian arms endangered rather than helped
Prussian culture. Culture is a thing of the spirit; it was undermined by
the tide of smug satisfaction in the triumph of militarism.
“You say that a good cause will even justify war; I tell you that it is
the good war that justifies all causes,” wrote Nietzsche. It is the
logic of the newspaper paragrapher which makes this statement a
justification of militarism. _The good war_—what is that? It is the
quality of heroism, the unreckoning love of beauty, the pride of the
soul in its own strength and purity. It is the opponent of mere
contentment and sluggishness. It is the militant virtue which has
inspired great souls since the beginning of the world; it is the hope of
future man. If a cause is not justified by the good war what can be said
for it? It is a pathetic absurdity to think that Nietzsche would have
found the good war in the present struggle for territory and commercial
supremacy. No, gentlemen of letters, fight the Kaiser if you must, but
do not aim your clods at the prophets in your hasty partisanship!
For it is in this very Nietzsche and his good war that mankind will now
find its spirit of hope. We who see that wars of gunpowder are evil, we
who intend to abolish them, cannot do so by denying our own strength and
appealing helplessly to some external power in the sky. We must say with
Zarathustra,
“How could I endure to be a man, if man were not also the composer, the
riddle-reader, and the redeemer of chance!
“To redeem what is past, and to transform every ‘It was’ into ‘Thus
would I have it!’ that only do I call redemption!
“Will—so is the emancipator and joy-bringer called: thus have I taught
you, my friends!”
In _Ecce Homo_ the word “German” has become something like his
worst term of abuse. He believes only in French culture; all
other culture is a misunderstanding. In his deepest instincts
Nietzsche asserts to be so foreign to everything German, that the
mere presence of a German “retards his digestion.” German
intellect is to him indigestion. If he has been so enthusiastic
in his devotion to Wagner, this was because in Wagner he honored
the foreigner, because in him he saw the incarnate protest
against all German virtues, the “counter-poison” (he believed in
Wagner’s Jewish descent). He allows the Germans no honor as
philosophers: Leibnitz and Kant were “the two greatest clogs upon
the intellectual integrity of Europe.” No less passionately does
he deny to the Germans all honor as musicians: “A German _cannot_
know what music is. The men who pass as German musicians are
foreigners, Slavs, Croats, Italians, Dutchmen, or Jews.” He
abhors the “licentiousness” of the Germans in historical matters:
“History is actually written on Imperial German and Antisemitic
lines, and Mr. Treitschke is not ashamed of himself.” The Germans
have on their conscience every crime against culture committed in
the last four centuries (they deprived the Renaissance of its
meaning; they wrecked it by the Reformation). When, upon the
bridge of two centuries of decadence, a _force majeure_ of
genius and will revealed itself, strong enough to weld Europe
into political and economic unity, the Germans finally with their
“Wars of Liberation,” robbed Europe of the meaning of Napoleon’s
existence, a prodigy of meaning. Thus they have upon their
conscience all that followed, nationalism, the _névrose
nationale_ from which Europe is suffering, and the perpetuation
of the system of little states, of petty politics.—_George
Brandes in “Friedrich Nietzsche.”_
The Cost of War
CLARENCE DARROW
Along with the many other regrets over the ravages of war is the sorrow
for the destruction of property. As usual, those who have nothing to
lose join in the general lamentation. There is enough to mourn about in
the great European Holocaust without conjuring up imaginary woes. So far
as the vast majority of people is concerned, the destruction of property
is not an evil but a good.
The lands and houses, the goods and merchandise and money of the world
are owned by a very few. All the rest in some way serve that few for so
much as the law of life and trade permit them to exact. At the best,
this is but a small share of the whole. All the property destroyed by
war belongs to the owners of the earth; it is for them that wars are
fought, and it is they who pay the bills. When the war is over, the
property must be re-created. This, the working men will do. In this
re-building, they will work for wages. Then, as now, the rate of wages
will be fixed by the law of demand and supply—the demand and supply of
those who toil. The war will create more work and less workmen.
Therefore labor can and will get a greater share of its production than
it could command if there was less work and more workmen. The wages must
be paid from the land and money and other property left when the war is
done. This will still be in the hands of the few, and these few will be
compelled to give up a greater share. The destruction of property,
together with its re-creation means only a re-distribution of wealth—a
re-distribution in which the poor get a greater share. It is one way to
bring about something like equality of property—a cruel, wasteful, and
imperfect way, but still a way. That the equality will not last does not
matter, for in the period of re-construction the workman will get a
larger share and will live a larger life.
As the war goes on, the funds for paying bills will be met in the old
way by selling bonds. These too will be paid by the owners of the earth.
True, the property from which the payment comes must be produced by
toil, but if the bonds that must be paid from the fruits of labor had
never been issued this surplus would not have gone to labor, but would
have been absorbed by capital. This is true for the simple reason that
the return to labor is not fixed by the amount of production, the rate
of taxation, the price of interest and rents, but by the supply and
demand of labor, and nothing else.
If labor shall sometime be wise enough, or rather instinctive enough to
claim all that it produces, it will at the same time have the instinct
or wisdom to leave the rulers’ bonds unpaid.
But all of this is far, far away; in determining immediate effects we
must consider what is, not what should be. And the jobless and
propertyless can only look upon the destruction of property as giving
them more work and a larger share of the product of their labor. Chicago
was never so prosperous, or wages so high, as when her people were
re-building it from the ashes of a general conflagration. San Francisco
found the same distribution of property amongst its workmen after the
earthquake and the fire had laid it waste, and her people were called
upon to build it up anew.
Carlyle records that during the long days of destruction in the French
Revolution the people were more prosperous and happy than they had ever
been before. True, the Guilotin was doing its deadly work day after day,
but its victims were very few. The people got used to the guilotin, and
heeded it no more than does the crowd heed a hanging in our county jail,
when they gayly pass in their machines.
After the first shock was over, during the four years of our Civil War,
wages were higher, men were better employed, production greater, and
distribution more equal than it had been at any time excepting in the
extreme youth of the Republic. Then land was free.
Then again, this world has little to destroy. After centuries of
so-called civilization, the human race has not accumulated enough to
last a year should all stop work. The world lives, and always has lived,
from hand to mouth. This is not because of any trouble in producing
wealth, but because things are made not to use, but to sell. And the
wages of the great mass of men does not permit them to buy or own more
than they consume from day to day.
It is for this reason that half the people do not really work; that the
market for labor is fitful and uncertain, and never great enough; and
that all are poor. After a devastation like a great war, the need of
re-creating will turn the idle and the shirkers into workmen, because
the rewards will be greater. This will easily and rapidly produce more
than ever before. From this activity, invention will contrive new
machines to compete with men, going once more around the same old
circle, until the world finds out that machines should be used to
satisfy human wants and not to build up profits for the favored few.
One may often regret the impulses that bring destruction of property,
but before any one mourns over the destruction of property, purely
because of its destruction, he should ask whose property it is.
Wedded:
A Social Comedy
LAWRENCE LANGNER
CHARACTERS
MRS. RANSOME.
JANET RANSOME: Her daughter.
REV. MR. TANNER: A Clergyman.
SCENE
(The “best” parlor of the Ransomes’ house, in a cheap district of
Brooklyn. There is a profusion of pictures, ornaments, and miscellaneous
furniture. A gilded radiator stands in front of the fireplace. Table,
center, on which are some boxes and silver-plated articles arranged for
display. Over the door hangs a horseshoe. White flowers and festoons
indicate that the room has been prepared for a wedding. To the left is a
sofa, upon which lies the body of a dead man, his face covered with a
handkerchief. There is a small packing-case at his side, upon which
stand two lighted candles, a medicine bottle, and a tumbler. The blinds
are drawn.)
AT RISE
(Janet, dressed in a white semi-bridal costume, is on her knees at the
side of the couch, quietly weeping. After a few moments the door opens,
admitting a pale flood of sunshine. The murmur of conversation in the
passage without is heard. Mrs. Ransome enters. She is an intelligent,
comfortable-looking middle-aged woman. She wears an elaborate dress of
light gray, of a fashion of some years previous, evidently kept for
special occasions. She is somewhat hysterical in manner and punctuates
her conversation with sniffles.)
MRS. RANSOME. My dear child, now do stop cryin’. Won’t you stop cryin’?
Your Aunt Maud’s just come, and wants to know if she can see you.
JANET. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to see nobody.
MRS. RANSOME. But your aunt, my dear—
JANET. No, mother, not nobody.
(_Mrs. Ransome goes to door and holds a whispered conversation with
somebody outside. She then returns, closing the door behind her, and
sits on chair close to Janet._)
MRS. RANSOME. She’s goin’ to wait for your father. He’s almost crazy
with worry. All I can say is—thank God it was to have bin a private
wedding. If we’d had a lot of people here, I don’t know what I should
have done. Now, quit yer cryin’, Janet. I’m sure we’re doin’ all we can
for you, dear. (_Janet continues to weep softly._) Come, dear, try and
bear up. Try and stop cryin’. Your eyes are all red, dear, and the
minister’ll be here in a minute.
JANET. I don’t want to see him, mother. Can’t you see I don’t want to
see nobody?
MRS. RANSOME. I know, my dear. We tried to stop him comin’, but he says
to your father, he says, “If I can’t come to her weddin’, it’s my duty
to try to comfort your daughter”; and that certainly is a fine thing for
him to do, for a man in his position, too. And yer father—he feels it as
much as you do, what with the trouble he’s been to in buying all that
furniture for you and him, and one thing and another. He says that Bob
must have had a weak heart, an’ it’s some consolation he was took before
the weddin’ and not after, when you might have had a lot of children to
look after. An’ he’s right, too.
JANET (_Talks to body_). Oh, Bob! Bob! Why did you go when I want you
so?
MRS. RANSOME. Now, now! My poor girl. It makes my heart bleed to hear
you.
JANET. Oh, Bob! I want you so. Won’t you wake up, Bob?
MRS. RANSOME (_Puts her arms around Janet and bursts into sobs_).
There—you’re cryin’ yer eyes out. There—there—you’ve still got your old
mother—there—there—just like when you was a baby—there—
JANET. Mother—I want to tell you something—
MRS. RANSOME. Well, tell me, dear, what is it?
JANET. You don’t know why me and Bob was goin’ to get married.
MRS. RANSOME. Why you and Bob was goin’ to get married?
JANET. Didn’t you never guess why we was goin’ to get married—sort of
_all of a sudden_?
MRS. RANSOME. All of a sudden? Why, I never thought of it. (_Alarmed._)
There wasn’t nuthin’ wrong between you and him, was there? (_Janet weeps
afresh._) Answer me. There wasn’t nuthin’ wrong between you and him, was
there?
JANET. Nuthin’ _wrong_.
MRS. RANSOME. What do you mean, then?
JANET. We was goin’ to get married—because we _had_ to.
MRS. RANSOME. You mean yer goin’ to have a baby?
JANET. Yes.
MRS. RANSOME. Are you sure? D’ye know how to tell fer certain?
JANET. Yes.
MRS. RANSOME. Oh, Lor’! Goodness gracious! How could it have happened?
JANET. I’m glad it happened—_now_.
MRS. RANSOME. D’ye understand what it means? What are we goin’ to do
about it?
JANET (_Through her tears_). I can’t help it. I’m glad it happened. An’
if I lived all over again, I’d want it to happen again.
MRS. RANSOME. You’d _want_ it to happen? Don’t you see what this means?
Don’t you see that if this gets out you’ll be disgraced ’till your dying
day?
JANET. I’m glad.
MRS. RANSOME. Don’t keep on sayin’ you’re glad. Glad, indeed! Have you
thought of the shame and disgrace this’ll bring on me an’ your father?
An’ after we’ve saved and scraped these long years to bring you up
respectable, an’ give you a good home. You’re glad, are you? You
certainly got a lot to be glad about.
JANET. Can’t you understand, mother? We wasn’t thinking of you when it
happened—and now it’s all I have.
MRS. RANSOME. Of course you wasn’t thinkin’ of us. Only of yourselves.
That’s the way it is, nowadays. But me and your father is the ones
that’s got to face it. We’re the ones that’s got to stand all the
scandal and talk there’ll be about it. Just think what the family’ll
say. Think what the neighbors’ll say. I don’t know what we done to have
such a thing happen to us. (_Mrs. Ransome breaks into a spell of
exaggerated weeping, which ceases as the door-bell rings._) There!
That’s the minister. God only knows what I’d better say to him. (_Mrs.
Ransome hurriedly attempts to tidy the room, knocking over a chair in
her haste, pulls up the blinds half-way and returns to her chair. There
is a knock at the door. Mrs. Ransome breaks into a prolonged howl._)
Come in.
(_Enter Rev. Mr. Tanner. He is a stout, pompous clergyman, with a rich,
middle-class congregation and a few poorer members, amongst which latter
he numbers the Ransomes. His general attitude is kind but patronizing;
he displays none of the effusive desire to please which is his correct
demeanor towards his richer congregants. The elder Ransomes regard him
as their spiritual leader, and worship him along with God at a
respectful distance._)
TANNER (_He speaks in a hushed voice, glancing towards the kneeling
figure of Janet_). Bear up, Mrs. Ransome. Bear up, I beg of you! (_Mrs.
Ransome howls more vigorously; Tanner is embarrassed._) This is very
distressing, Mrs. Ransome.
MRS. RANSOME (_Between her sobs_). It certainly is kind of you to come,
Mr. Tanner, I’m sure. We didn’t expect to see you when my husband
’phoned you.
TANNER. Where is your husband now?
MRS. RANSOME. He’s gone to send some telegrams to Bob’s family,
sir—_his_ family. We’d planned to have a quiet wedding, sir, with only
me and her father and aunt, and then we was goin’ to have the rest of
the family in, this afternoon.
TANNER. It’s a very sad thing, Mrs. Ransome.
MRS. RANSOME. It’s fairly dazed us, Mr. Tanner. Comin’ on top of all the
preparation we’ve bin makin’ for the past two weeks, too. An’ her
father’s spent a pile o’ money on their new furniture an’ things.
TANNER (_Speaking in an undertone_). Was he insured?
MRS. RANSOME. No, sir, not a penny. That’s why it comes so hard on us
just now, havin’ the expense of a funeral on top of what we’ve just
spent for the weddin’.
TANNER. Well, Mrs. Ransome, I’ll try to help you in any way I can.
MRS. RANSOME. Thank you, Mr. Tanner. It certainly is fine of you to say
so. Everybody’s bin good to us, sir. She had all them presents given
her—most of them was from _my_ side of the family.
TANNER. Did he have any relatives here?
MRS. RANSOME. Not a soul, poor fellow. He came from up-state. That’s why
my husband’s gone to send a telegram askin’ his father to come to the
funeral.
TANNER. How long will your husband be? (_He glanced at his watch._)
MRS. RANSOME. I don’t think he’ll be more than half an hour. He’d like
to see you, if you could wait that long, I know.
TANNER. Very well. I have an engagement later, but I can let that go if
necessary.
(_Tanner and Mrs. Ransome sit down in front of the table._)
MRS. RANSOME. It certainly is a great comfort havin’ you here, Mr.
Tanner. I feel so upset I don’t know what to say.
TANNER. Bear up, Mrs. Ransome. You are not the greatest sufferer. Let me
say a few words to your daughter. (_He rises, goes to Janet, and places
his hand on her shoulder, but she takes no notice of him._) Miss
Ransome, you must try to bear up, too. I know how hard it is, but you
must remember it’s something that must come to all of us.
MRS. RANSOME. She takes it so bad, Mr. Tanner, that the Lord should have
took him on their weddin’ mornin’.
TANNER (_Returning to his chair_). We must not question, Mrs. Ransome,
we must not question. The Almighty has thought fit to gather him back to
the fold, and we must submit to His will. In such moments as these we
feel helpless. We feel the need of a Higher Being to cling to—to find
consolation. Time is the great healer.
MRS. RANSOME. But to expect a weddin’ (_Sobs_) and find it’s a
funeral—it’s awful; (_Sobs_) and besides—Mr. Tanner, you’ve always been
good to us. We’re in other trouble, too. Worse—worse even than this.
TANNER. In other trouble?
MRS. RANSOME. Yes, much worse. I just can’t bear to think about it.
TANNER. Your husband’s business?
MRS. RANSOME. No, sir. It’s—I don’t know how to say it. It’s her and
him.
TANNER. Her and him?
MRS. RANSOME. Yes, sir—I’m almost ashamed to tell you. She’s goin’ to
have a baby.
TANNER (_Astounded_). She’s going to be a mother?
MRS. RANSOME. Yes. (_Sobs._) Oh, you don’t know how hard this is on us,
Mr. Tanner. We’ve always bin respectable people, sir, as you well know.
We’ve bin livin’ right here on this block these last ten years, an’
everybody knows us in the neighborhood. Her father don’t know about it
yet. What he’ll say—God only knows.
TANNER. I’m terribly sorry to hear this, Mrs. Ransome.
MRS. RANSOME. I can forgive her, sir, but not him. They say we shouldn’t
speak ill of the dead—but I always was opposed to her marryin’ him. I
wanted her to marry a steady young fellow of her own religion, but I
might as well have talked to the wall, for all the notice she took of
me.
TANNER. It’s what we have to expect of the younger generation, Mrs.
Ransome. Let me see—how long were they engaged?
MRS. RANSOME. Well, sir, I suppose on and off it’s bin about three
years. He never could hold a job long, an’ me and her father said he
couldn’t marry her—not with our consent—until he was earnin’ at least
twenty dollars a week—an’ that was only right, considerin’ he’d have to
support her.
TANNER. I quite agree with you. I’m sorry to see a thing of this sort
happen—and right in my own congregation, too. I’ve expressed my views
from the pulpit from time to time very strongly upon the subject, but
nevertheless it doesn’t seem to make much difference in this
neighborhood.
MRS. RANSOME. I know it’s a bad neighborhood in some ways, sir. But you
got to remember they was going to get married, sir. If you’d bin here
only an hour earlier, Mr. Tanner, there wouldn’t have bin no disgrace.
(_Points to official-looking book lying on table._) Why, sir—there’s the
marriage register—Mr. Smith brought it down from church this morning—all
waiting for you to fix it. If you’d only come earlier, sir, they’d have
bin properly married, an’ there wouldn’t have bin a word said.
TANNER. That’s true. They might have avoided the immediate disgrace,
perhaps. But you know as well as I do that _that_ isn’t the way to get
married. It isn’t so much a matter of disgrace. That means nothing. It’s
the principle of the thing.
MRS. RANSOME (_Eagerly_). Oh, Mr. Tanner, do you mean it? Do you mean
that the disgrace of it means nothin’?
TANNER. Well—not exactly nothing—but nothing to the principle of the
thing.
MRS. RANSOME. An’ would you save her from the disgrace of it, if you
could, Mr. Tanner, if it don’t mean nothin’?
TANNER. I’ll do anything I can to help you, within reason, Mrs. Ransome,
but how can I save her?
MRS. RANSOME (_Eagerly pleading_). Mr. Tanner, if she has a child, as
she expects, you know that respectable people won’t look at us any more.
We’ll have to move away from here. We’ll be the laughing stock of the
place. It’ll break her father’s heart, as sure as can be. But if you
could fill in the marriage register as though they’d bin married, Mr.
Tanner, why, nobody’s to know that it isn’t all respectable and proper.
They had their license, and ring, and everything else, sir, as you know.
TANNER (_Astounded_). _Me_ fill in the marriage register? Do you mean
that you want _me_ to make a fictitious entry in the marriage register?
MRS. RANSOME. It wouldn’t be so very fictitious, Mr. Tanner. They’d have
bin married regular if you’d only come half an hour earlier. Couldn’t
you fill it in that they was married before he died, sir?
TANNER. But that would be forgery.
MRS. RANSOME. It would be a good action, Mr. Tanner—indeed, it would.
Her father an’ me haven’t done nothing to deserve it, but we’ll be
blamed for it just the same. It wouldn’t take you a minute to write it
in the register, Mr. Tanner. Look at all the years we’ve bin goin’ to
your church, and never asked you a favor before.
TANNER. My good woman, I’m sorry; I’d like to help you, but I don’t see
how I can. In the first place, don’t you see that you’re asking me to
commit forgery? But what’s more important, you’re asking me to act
against my own principles. I’ve been preaching sermons for years, and
making a public stand too, against these hasty marriages that break up
homes and lead to the divorce court—or worse. The church is trying to
make marriage a thing sacred and apart, instead of the mockery it is in
this country today. I sympathize with you. I know how hard it is. But
for all I know, you may be asking me to help you thwart the will of God.
MRS. RANSOME. The will of God?
TANNER. Mind you, I don’t say that it is, Mrs. Ransome, but it may very
well be the Hand of the Almighty. Your daughter and her young man, as
she has confessed herself, have tried to use the marriage ceremony—a
_holy_ ceremony, mind you—to cover up what they’ve done.
MRS. RANSOME. Oh, don’t talk like that before her, Mr. Tanner.
TANNER. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. I’m sorry I can’t
help you. It wouldn’t be _right_.
MRS. RANSOME. But they was goin’ to get married, sir. You got to take
that into consideration. My girl ain’t naturally bad. It isn’t as though
she’d pick up any feller that happened to come along. Hundreds and
thousands do it, sir, indeed they do, and most of them much worse than
she and him, poor fellow.
TANNER. Yes, there you are right. Thousands _do_ do it, and I’ve been
making a stand against it in this neighborhood for years. I may seem
hard, Mrs. Ransome, but I’m trying my best to be fair. I sincerely
believe that no minister of the Gospel should ever legalize or
condone—er—misconduct—that is, before marriage.
MRS. RANSOME (_Pleading hard_). You can’t know what this means to us,
sir—or you’d pity us, indeed you would. Her father’ll take on somethin’
dreadful when he hears about it. He’ll turn her out of the house, sir,
as sure as can be. You know him, sir. You know he’s too good a Christian
to let her stay here after she’s disgraced us all. And then, what’s to
become of her? She’ll lose her job, and who’ll give her another—without
a reference—an’ a baby to support? That’s how they get started on the
streets, sir (_Sobs_), an’ you know it as well as I do.
TANNER. Yes, I know. I wish I could help you. It’s very distressing—but
we all have to do our duty as we see it. But I do pity you, indeed I do.
From the bottom of my heart. I’ll do anything I can for you—within
reason.
MRS. RANSOME (_Almost hysterical, dragging Janet from the side of the
body_). Janet, Janet! Ask him yourself. Ask him on your bended knees.
Ask him to save us! (_Janet attempts to return to side of the body._)
Janet, do you want to ruin us? Can’t you speak to him? Can’t you ask
him? (_Mrs. Ransome breaks into sobs._)
TANNER. It is as I feared, Mrs. Ransome. Her heart is hardened.
JANET (_Rises and turns fiercely on him_). Whose heart’s hardened?
TANNER. Come, come. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I can’t tell
you how sorry I am for you, and your parents, too.
JANET. Well, I’ll tell you flat, I don’t want none of your pity.
MRS. RANSOME. Janet, don’t speak like that to him. You’re excited. (_To
Tanner_). She don’t mean it, sir—she’s all worked up.
JANET (_Her excitement increasing, and speaking in loud tones_). All
right, mother—I’ll tell him again—I don’t want none of his pity. I c’n
get along without it. An’ if you and him think that writin’ a few words
in his marriage register—or whatever he calls it—is going to make any
difference, well—you’re welcome to.
TANNER. My dear girl. Don’t you understand, if it was merely a question
of writing a few words, I’d do it in a minute. But it’s the principle of
the thing.
JANET (_Bitingly_). Huh! Principle of the thing! I heard it all. You
preached against it, didn’t yer? It’s a pity you never preached a sermon
on how me and him could have gotten married two years ago, instead of
waiting till now, when it’s too late.
TANNER. Others have to wait.
JANET. We did wait. Isn’t three years long enough? D’ye think we was
made of stone? How much longer d’ye think we could wait? We waited until
we couldn’t hold out no longer. I only wish to God we hadn’t waited at
all, instead of wastin’ all them years.
MRS. RANSOME (_Shocked_). Janet, you don’t know what you’re sayin’.
JANET. I do, an’ I mean it. We waited, an’ waited, an’ waited. Didn’t he
try all he could to get a better job? ’Twasn’t his fault he couldn’t. We
was planning to go West, or somewhere—where he’d have more of a
chance—we was savin’ up for it on the quiet. An’ while we was waiting,
we wanted one another—all day an’ all night. An’ what use was it? We
held out till we couldn’t hold out no longer—an’ when we knew what was
goin’ to happen, well—we had to get married—an’ that all there’s to it!
TANNER (_Making a remarkable discovery, supporting all his personal
theories on the subject_). Ah! Then your idea was to marry _simply_
because you were going to have a baby!
JANET. Of course it was. D’ye think we wanted to marry an’ live here on
the fifteen a week he was getting? We’d have bin starvin’ in a month.
But when this happened—we had to get married—starve or not. What else
could we do?
TANNER. Well, I don’t know what to say. It seems to me that you should
have thought of all this before. You knew what it would mean to have a
baby.
JANET. D’ye think I wanted a baby? I didn’t want one. I didn’t know how
to stop it. If you don’t like it—it’s a pity you don’t preach sermons on
how to stop havin’ babies when they’re not wanted. There’d be some sense
in that. That’d be more sense than talkin’ about waitin’—an’ waitin’—an’
waitin’. There’s hundreds of women round here—starvin’ and sufferin’—an’
havin’ one baby after another, and don’t know the first thing about how
to stop it. ’Tisn’t my fault I’m going to have one. I didn’t want it.
TANNER. Miss Ransome, your views simply astound me.
JANET. I can’t help it. People may think it wrong, an’ all that, but it
ain’t his fault and it ain’t mine. Don’t you think we used to get sick
of goin’ to movies, an’ vaudeville shows, an’ all them other places—time
after time? I wanted him to love me, an’ I ain’t ashamed of it, neither.
MRS. RANSOME. Janet, how dare you talk like that in front of Mr. Tanner?
(_To Tanner._) She don’t mean it, Mr. Tanner. She don’t know what she’s
saying. I’ve always brought her up to be innercent about things. She
must have got all this from the other girls at the store where she
works. She didn’t get it in her home, that’s sure.
JANET. No, that I didn’t. Nor nothing else, neither. You was always
ashamed to tell me about anything, so I found out about things from
other girls, like the rest of ’em do. I’ve known it for years and years,
an’ all the while I suppose you’ve bin thinkin’ I didn’t know anything,
I’ve known everything—all except what’d be useful to me. If I’m going to
have a baby it’s your fault, mother, as much as anybody. You only had
one yourself—but you never told _me_ nothin’.
MRS. RANSOME. Janet!
TANNER. Miss Ransome, this is not a subject I ordinarily discuss, but
since you know what you do know, let me tell you that there is nothing
worse than trying to interfere with the workings of nature, or—if I may
say so—of God.
JANET. Well, Bob said the rich people do it. He said they must know how
to do it, because they never have more’n two or three children in a
family; but you’ve only got to walk on the next block—where it’s all
tenements—to see ten and twelve in every family, because the workin’
people don’t know any better. But I don’t want no pity from anybody. I
can take a chance on it. I got a pair of hands, an’ I c’n take care of
myself.
TANNER. Mrs. Ransome, it’s no good my talking to your daughter while
she’s in this frame of mind. She appears to have most extraordinary
views. Mind you, I don’t blame you for it. She _seems_ to be an
intelligent girl. There’d be some hope for her if she’d show a little
penitence—a little regret for what’s been done and can’t be undone. You
know I don’t like preaching out of church, but you’ve often heard me say
in the pulpit that God is always willing to forgive the humble and the
penitent.
JANET (_With fine scorn_). “God” indeed. Don’t make me laugh. (_Points
to body of Bob._) Look at him lyin’ there. God? What’s God got to do
with it? (_She kneels again at the side of the couch, rigid and silent.
After an uncomfortable interval, Tanner rises._)
TANNER. Well, I’m afraid I must be going. I feel very pained by what
your daughter has said, Mrs. Ransome. You know I have a deep regard for
you and your husband. I’m frank to say that if your daughter had shown
some signs of penitence—some remorse for what has happened—I might even
have gone so far as to have made the entry in the register—seeing the
punishment she’s already had. But as she is now, I don’t see what good
it would do. Really I don’t, so I think I’d better go.
MRS. RANSOME (_Appealingly_). Oh, don’t go, Mr. Tanner. Wait just a
minute while I talk to her, please. Janet, can’t you say you’re sorry
for what you done? Can’t you see that Mr. Tanner only wants to be fair
with you? Come, do it for our sakes—your father and me. You know how
hard he’s worked, how he’s keep teetotal an’ everything. You don’t want
to ruin us, do you? Can’t you see it isn’t only yourself that’s got to
be considered? Think of what we’ve done for you. Tell him you’re sorry
for it, _do_!
TANNER (_Rising_). It’s no use, Mrs. Ransome. I can see it’s of no use.
I really must go.
MRS. RANSOME. Just one minute more. Please wait one minute more. Janet,
what’s the matter with you? Can’t you see the disgrace it’ll be to all
of us? Can’t you see it will ruin us to our dying days? They’ll all
laugh at us—an’ jeer at us. It’ll follow us around wherever we go. You
know how the folk round here make fun of your father—because he keeps
himself respectable—an’ saves his money. Do you want them to laugh at
him? Do you want them to be laughin’ at you an’ talkin’ about you? Do
you want them to be making fun of your baby—an’ calling it a bastard—an’
asking who it’s father was?
JANET (_Nervously_). They wouldn’t.
MRS. RANSOME. Yes, they would. An’ all the time he’s growin’ up, the
other children in school’ll be tormentin’ him, and callin’ him names.
Didn’t the same thing happen with Susan Bradley’s boy? Didn’t they have
to go an’ live out in Jersey, cos she couldn’t stand it no longer? You
know it as well as I do.
JANET (_Defiantly_). They went away ’cos he was always gettin’ sick.
MRS. RANSOME. Of course he was always gettin’ sick—with all them devils
makin’ fun of him—an’ makin’ his life a misery. Didn’t we used to see
him goin’ down the block—with the tears runnin’ down his cheeks—an’ all
of ’em yellin’ names after him. Just think of the baby you’re goin’ to
have. D’ye want that to happen to _your_ baby? D’ye want them to make
_its_ life a misery—same as the other one?
JANET (_Lifelessly_). They wouldn’t.
MRS. RANSOME. Of course they would. They’ll tease an’ torment it, just
like the other—an’ when he’s old enough to understand—who’ll he blame
for it? He’ll blame _you_ for it. (_Inspired_) He’ll blame Bob for
it—he’ll hate him for it. D’ye want your boy—Bob’s boy—to be hatin’ his
own father? What’d Bob say? What’d _he_ think of you—ruinin’ his baby’s
life—an’ all just because you’re obstinate an’ won’t listen to reason.
Can’t you see it? Just think—if you’d only say you was in the wrong—an’
do what Mr. Tanner asks you—he’d forgive you an’ make everything all
right. Oh, Janet—can’t you see it? Ask him—beg him!
JANET. Oh, dear. Well—how c’n Mr. Tanner make it all right?
MRS. RANSOME. You know what I mean. Oh, Janet, it won’t take him a
minute to write it. If he don’t, can’t you see it’ll ruin us all our
lives?
JANET. Only a minute to write it—or it’ll ruin us all our lives.
MRS. RANSOME. Oh, Janet, this is your last chance. Tell him you’re
sorry. (_To Tanner, who has edged towards the door, and is about to
leave._) Oh, Mr. Tanner, please don’t go. Just wait another minute.
TANNER. Really, I must go.
MRS. RANSOME. Oh, sir! I can see she’s sorry. You won’t go back on your
word, sir?
JANET (_Unwillingly feigning remorse_). Let me think a bit. Oh, Mr.
Tanner, I suppose I’m in the wrong—if you say so. It didn’t seem to me
to be wrong—that’s all I got to say. I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m sorry
for the way I spoke—and what I done.
TANNER (_Returning_). My child, it’s not for me to forgive you. I knew I
could appeal to something higher in you, if you’d only listen to me. Are
you truly repentant—from the bottom of your heart?
JANET. Yes, sir.
TANNER. As I said to your mother just now, I don’t like preaching
sermons, but I hope this has taught you that there can be no
justification for our moments of passion and wilfulness. We must all try
to humble our pride and our spirit. I won’t go back on my word, but when
you start out afresh you must try to wipe out the past by living for the
future.
JANET. I’ll try to, sir.
TANNER. And now, Mrs. Ransome, I suppose I’ll have to make the entry as
though it had happened an hour or so ago. I know I may seem soft-hearted
about it. But I feel I am doing my duty. This may save your daughter
from a life of degradation. I think the end justifies the means. But
first, let me ask you, who knows that the ceremony wasn’t performed
before he died?
MRS. RANSOME. Only me—an’ her father—an’ my sister outside.
TANNER. Can she be relied upon to hold her tongue?
MRS. RANSOME. She surely can, sir.
TANNER. Well, you understand this is a very serious thing for me to do.
If it becomes public I shall be faced with a very unpleasant situation.
MRS. RANSOME. Oh, I promise you, Mr. Tanner, not a soul will know of it.
We’ll take our dyin’ oaths, sir, all of us.
TANNER. All right. But first let me lend your daughter this prayer-book.
(_Takes prayer-book out of pocket; addressing Janet._) Here’s a
prayer-book, Miss Ransome. I’ll go with your mother now into the
back-parlor, and meanwhile I want you to read over this prayer. Try to
seek its inner meeting. Come, Mrs. Ransome, you can carry the register,
and we’ll come back later and discuss the funeral arrangements.
MRS. RANSOME (_Takes the marriage register_). Oh, Mr. Tanner, I don’t
know how to thank you.
TANNER. Well, Mrs. Ransome—I shall expect your husband to send us
something for our new mission to spread Christianity amongst the
Chinese.
(_Exit Tanner and Mrs. Ransome. Janet closes the door. She walks towards
the couch, looks at the prayer-book, then at the couch. She flings the
prayer-book to the other end of the room, smashing some of the ornaments
on the mantle-shelf, and throws herself upon the side of the couch,
sobbing wildly._)
SLOW CURTAIN.
“The Immutable”
MARGARET C. ANDERSON
In a world where flippancies arrange an effective concealment of beauty
there are still major adventures in beauty to be had beneath the
grinning surface. One of them is the discovery of those rare persons to
whom flippancies are impossible—those splendid persons who take life
simply and greatly. Several months ago I tried to write an impression of
Emma Goldman, from an inadequate background of having merely heard two
of her lectures. Since then I have met her. One realizes dimly that such
spirits live somewhere in the world: history and legend and poetry have
proclaimed them, and at times we hear of their passing; but to meet one
on its valiant journey is like being whirled to some far planet and
discovering strange new glories.
Emma Goldman is one of the world’s great people; therefore, it is not
surprising to find her among the despised and rejected. Of course she is
as different from the popular conception of her as anyone could be. The
first thing you feel in meeting her is that indefinable something which
all great and true people have in common—a quality which seems to
proceed on some a priori principle that anything one feels deeply is
sublime. Then a sense of her great humanity sweeps upon you, and the
nobility of the idealist who wrenches her integrity from the grimest
depths. A terrible sadness is in her face—as though the suffering of
centuries had concentrated there in some deep personal struggle; and
through it shines that capacity for joy which becomes colossal in its
intensity and tragic in its disappointments. But the thing which takes
your heart in a grip, and thrusts you quickly into the position of the
small boy who longs to die for the object of his worship, is that
imperative gift of motherhood which is hers and which spends itself with
such utter prodigality upon all those who come to her for inspiration.
Emma Goldman has ministered to every kind of human being from convicts
to society women. She has no more idea of conservation than a lavish
springtime; and where she draws courage and endurance and inspiration
for it all will remain one of those mysteries which only the artist can
explain. A mountain-top figure, calm, vast, dynamic, awful in its
loneliness, exalted in its tragedy—this is Emma Goldman, “the daughter
of the dream,” as William Marion Reedy called her in an appreciation
written several years ago. “A dream, you say?” he asked, after sketching
her gospel. “Yes; but life is death without the dream.” In that rich
book of Alexander Berkman’s, _Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist_, she is
given a better name. “I have always called you the Immutable,” is the
way the author closes one of his letters to her. And this is the quality
which distinguishes Emma Goldman—a kind of eternal staunchness in which
one may put his fundamental trust.
This is the woman America has hated and persecuted, thrown into jail,
deprived of her citizenship, and held up as an example of all that is
ignorant, coarse, and base. America will recognize its failure some day,
after the brave spirit has done its work—after the spasm of the new war
has ushered in quite simply some of the changes which Emma Goldman has
been pleading for during her years of fighting. But it takes education
to produce such awakenings, and there is no immediate hope of such a
general enlightenment. The stupidity of the situation regarding Emma
Goldman is that other prophets have raised their spears to the same
heights and have been misunderstood or ignored but not outraged by the
peculiar ignorance which Americans alone seem capable of. Had Ibsen
appeared among us to lecture on the rightness of Nora’s rebellion or to
denounce the pillars of society as he did in his writing, he, too, would
have been thrown into prison for free speech or accused of a president’s
assassination. The cruelty of the situation regarding Emma Goldman is
that she has so much work to do which so many people need, and that she
cannot break through the prejudice and the superstition surrounding her
to get at those dulled ones who need it most. Ten years ago she was
preaching, under the most absurd persecution, ideas which thinking
people accept as a matter of course today. Now the ignorant public still
shudders at her name; the “intellectuals”—especially those of the
Greenwich Village radical type—dismiss her casually as a sort of good
Christian—one not to be taken too seriously: there are so many more
daring revolutionists among their own ranks that they can’t understand
why Emma Goldman should make such a stir and get all the credit; the
Socialists concede her a personality and condone her failure to attach
herself to that line of evolutionary progress which is sure to establish
itself. “Unscientific” is their damning judgment of her; her Anarchism
is a metaphysical hodge-podge, the outburst of an artistic rather than a
scientific temperament. And so they all miss the real issue, namely,
that the chief business of the prophet is to usher in those new times
which often appear in direct opposition to scientific prediction,
and—this above all!—that life in her has a great grandeur.
How do such grotesque misconceptions arise? Why should it have happened
that all this misapprehension and ignorance should have grown up about a
personality whose mere presence is a benediction and whose friendship
compels you toward high goals you had thought unattainable? There is no
use asking how or why it happened; it is a perfectly consistent thing to
have happened, for it happens to everyone, in greater or less degree,
who strives for a new ideal. But if I could only get hold of all the
people who are unwilling to understand Emma Goldman and _force_ them to
listen to her for an hour:—what a sweet triumph comes with their “Oh,
but she’s wonderful!”