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diff --git a/76625-0.txt b/76625-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb0c2ab --- /dev/null +++ b/76625-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1998 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76625 *** + + + + + + THE LITTLE REVIEW + + + A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS + MAKING NO COMPROMISE WITH THE PUBLIC TASTE + + Margaret C. Anderson + Publisher + + JUNE, 1917 + + Chinese Poems + (translated from the Chinese of Li Po by Sasaki and + Maxwell Bodenheim) + Push-Face jh. + Improvisation Louis Gilmore + Poems: William Butler Yeats + The Wild Swans at Coole + Presences + Men Improve with the Years + A Deep-Sworn Vow + The Collar-Bone of a Hare + Broken Dreams + In Memory + An Anachronism at Chinon Ezra Pound + Imaginary Letters, II. Wyndham Lewis + The Reader Critic + + Published Monthly + + 15 Cents a copy + + MARGARET C. ANDERSON, Editor + EZRA POUND, Foreign Editor + 31 West Fourteenth Street + NEW YORK CITY + + $1.50 a Year + + Entered as second-class matter at Postoffice, New York, N. Y. + + + + + The Little Review + + + VOL. IV. + + JUNE 1917 + + NO. 2 + + Copyright, 1917, by Margaret C. Anderson. + + + + + Chinese Poems + + + Translated from the Chinese of Li Po by Sasaki and Maxwell + Bodenheim + + + Gently-Drunk Woman + + A breeze knelt upon the lotus-flowers + And their odor filled a water-palace. + I saw a king’s daughter + Upon the roof-garden of the water-palace. + She was half-drunk and she danced, + Her curling body killing her strength. + She grimaced languidly. + She smiled and drooped over the railing + Around the white, jewel-silenced floor. + + + Perfume—Remembrance + + When you stayed, my house was filled with flowers. + When you left, all disappeared, except our bed. + I wrapped your embroidered clothes about me, + And could not sleep. + The perfume of your clothes has stayed three years. + It will always be with me. + But you will never come back. + While I think of you yellow leaves outside + Are dropping, and white dew-drops moisten the moss beneath them. + + + Drunk + + When we fill each other’s cups with wine, + Many mountain flowers bloom. + One drink; another; and another— + I am drunk; I want to sleep, + So you had better go. + Come tomorrow morning, hugging your harp, + For then, I shall have something to tell you. + + + Mountain-Top Temple + + Night, and rest in the mountain-top temple. + I lift my hands, and knock at the stars. + I dare not talk loudly, + For I fear to surprise the people in the sky. + + + + + Push-Face + + + jh. + + + I + +It is a great thing to be living when an age passes. If you are born in +an age in which every impact of its expression is a pain, there is a +beautiful poetic vengeance in being permitted to watch that age destroy +itself. + +What other age could have so offended? Instead of pursuing the real +business of life, which is to live, men have turned all their denials +and repressions into the accumulation of unessential knowledge and the +making of indiscriminate things. Other ages have taken out their +repressions in religious frenzies, but this age has taken everything out +in motion. It is an elementary fact of sex knowledge that rhythmic +motion is part of sex expression. Isn’t it ironical and immoral that +those nations which have prided themselves most on their virtue, and +have hugged tightest to themselves the puritanic ideal, are the ones +that have gone maddest over motion? America, being the most virtuous, +obviously has the least sense of humor and has exceeded herself. From +the cradle to the turbine engine, from the rocking-chair to the +spinnings and whirlings of a Coney Island, she has become a national +mechanical perpetual whirling Dervish. + +The wheels became rollers which have rolled life out thin and flat. + +Then Art cried out with all her voices. In the last few years we have +had a return to the beginnings of all the Arts. If there ever comes a +time in the world when men will give their attention to the life of Art +and understand its movement, they will find it alert and inevitable. +Life would follow it trustingly if it were not for the intrusions and +hindrances of men. The Thing had happened: Life had made its protest +through Art. But this consciousness never reached the unendowed mind. It +(the unendowed mind) forced Life to avenge itself by flying into war. + + + II + + “I pray God,” said President Wilson, “that the outcome of this + struggle may be that every element of difference amongst us will + be obliterated—The spirit of this people is already united, and + when suffering and sacrifice have completed this union, men will + no longer speak of any lines either of race or association + cutting athwart the great body of this nation.” + +But the Anarchists, who are never agreeable or content in any country, +no matter how perfect, arranged a non-conscription meeting in a hall in +Bronx Park the night before registration. So “united was the spirit of +this people” that no one attended this non-conscription meeting except +the 5,000 who crowded the hall and the 50,000 who stood outside in the +streets for several hours. + +There were squads of the usual police and dozens of rough raw fellows in +soldiers’ uniforms to hold back the crowd and keep it in order,—a crowd +that scarcely moved and seldom spoke except in low tones or in foreign +languages; a crowd too full for speech, because of this last numbing +disappointment in America. The only demonstration it made was to applaud +when an echo of the applause inside the hall reached it. Any attempt to +get nearer the hall was met with clubs and the fists of soldiers in your +face. Nasty little Fords with powerful search-lights raced up and down +and about the hollow square. A huge auto truck hung with red lights +acted as a mower at the edges. Word went about that it was mounted with +a machine gun. + +As I was pushed about in the crowd I overheard always the same +conversations: + +“Is she there”? + +“Over there where the light is”? + +“Yes, on the second floor.” + +“Are there any people inside”? + +“Oh it’s full since seven o’clock.” + +“Oh!?” + +“Will they let her speak?” + +“Who? Her”? + +Silence. + +“Will they get her, do you think”? + +“Will the police take her”? + +A thin pale Russian Jew, standing on a rock looking over the heads of +the crowd, was spoken to by a stranger. “They’ll get her tonight all +right.” The Russian looked over to the lighted windows of the hall and +said in revolutionary voice: “She’s a fine woman, Emma Goldman.” + +Suddenly in the densest part of the crowd a woman’s voice rang out: +“Down with conscription! Down with the war!” Several other women took it +up. The police charged into the crowd. The crowd made a slight stand. +The soldiers joined the police, and with raised clubs, teeth bared and +snarling, they drove the crowd backward over itself, beating and +pushing. Three times the crowd stood. Three times they were charged. +Women were beaten down and run over. Men were clubbed in the face and +escaped, staggering and bleeding. + +How much of this treatment will it take to obliterate every element of +individuality amongst us? + + + III + +In the same week the plutocrats and artists held an Alley Festa for the +Red Cross. At a cost of $10,000 they turned the stables of MacDougal +Alley into a replica of an Italian street, draped it with much color, +daubed it with much paint, hung it with many lights. I hope there were +pluts there; the artists we saw were not artists. You can easily pick +out the pluts: they look like figures from the wax-works; but the +“artists” looked like Greenwich Village. It was a bastard performance, a +bastard street, a bastard hilarity, bastard plutocrats and bastard +artists, with bastard soldiers guarding the scene. + +Between the acts they all congregated in the Brevoort to have drinks. +The pluts foregathered,—women in up-town clothes, looking like Mrs. +Potter Palmer, with grey marcelled hair and broad stiff black hats, +holding the hands and looking neurotically into the eyes of young men +who resembled bank clerks. Groups of artists came in, costumed like +people fleeing from a fire. I believe they thought they were Neopolitans +or something. They all settled clamourously at one table and fell +amourously upon each other’s necks. There was nothing personal, nothing +unique, nothing imaginative about any of their costumes. One woman sat +in the embrasure of a man’s arm, sharing his chair with him. She had +short hempy hair, she was dressed in street-gamin clothes, she was at +least forty, and her cheek bones were on a line with her nostrils. No +human head should be made that way; it’s intolerable except in fish, +frogs, or snakes. + +The greatest American dancer came in, followed by a little girl and a +train of men—_bummel-zug dritte classe_. She had draped about her a +green plush toga, thrown over her shoulder in a fat knot—not apple +green, nor emerald green, nor sap green, but a green and texture sacred +to railroads. The only other perfect example I have seen of that color +and texture was on the great chairs in the station at Mons. She was +too-young-looking—a type much admired in my childhood when China dolls +lived, with painted China hair undulating above pink and white China +faces. When she looked up in conversation her profile made almost a flat +line, the chin retiring into the neck as if it had no opinions on the +subject, the eyes rolling up but no expression of the face moving up +with them. Oh beautiful people, oh beautiful fête! + +The music and lights drew the children out of the slums back of +Washington Square: fathers holding babies in their arms, and strings of +little children trimming the edges of the sidewalks at a respectful +distance around the back entrance, were pushed in the face and told to +get out, to move on, by policemen and some more rough fellows in +khaki—because ... this was a fête for humanity. And it’s all right, this +game of push-face: every one plays it. When you’re little children you +play it and call it push-face; nations call it government; the “people” +are playing it now in Russia and call it revolution. + + + + + Improvisation + + + Louis Gilmore + + Your hands are perfumes + That haunt the yellow hangings + Of a room. + + Your hands are melodies + That rise and fall + In silver basins. + + Your hands are silks + That soothe the purple eyelids + Of the sick. + + Your hands are ghosts + That trouble the blue shadows + Of a garden. + + Your hands are poppies + For which my lips are hungry + And athirst. + + + + + Poems + + + William Butler Yeats + + + The Wild Swans at Coole + + The trees are in their autumn beauty + The woodland paths are dry + Under the October twilight the water + Mirrors a still sky + Upon the brimming water among the stones + Are nine and fifty swans. + + The nineteenth autumn has come upon me + Since I first made my count. + I saw, before I had well finished, + All suddenly mount + And scatter wheeling in great broken rings + Upon their clamorous wings. + + But now they drift on the still water + Mysterious, beautiful; + Among what rushes will they build; + By what lake’s edge or pool + Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day + To find they have flown away? + + I have looked upon these brilliant creatures + And now my heart is sore. + All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight + The first time on this shore + The bell-beat of their wings above my head, + Trod with a lighter tread. + + Unwearied still, lover by lover, + They paddle in the cold + Companionable streams or climb the air; + Their hearts have not grown old, + Passion or conquest, wander where they will, + Attend upon them still. + + October, 1916. + + + Presences + + This night has been so strange that it seemed + As if the hair stood up on my head. + From going down of the sun I have dreamed + That women laughing, or timid or wild, + In rustle of lace or silken stuff, + Climbed up my creaking stair. They had read + All I have rhymed of that monstrous thing + Returned and yet unrequited love. + They stood in the door and stood between + My great wood lectern and the fire + Till I could hear their hearts beating: + One is a harlot, and one a child + That never looked upon man with desire, + And one, it may be, a queen. + + November, 1915. + + + Men Improve With the Years + + I am worn out with dreams; + A weather-worn, marble triton + Among the streams: + And all day long I look + Upon this lady’s beauty + As though I had found in book + A pictured beauty; + Pleased to have filled the eyes + Or the discerning ears, + Delighted to be but wise: + For men improve with the years. + And yet and yet + Is this my dream or the truth? + O would that we had met + When I had my burning youth; + But I grow old among dreams, + A weather-worn, marble triton + Among the streams. + + July 19, 1916. + + + A Deep-Sworn Vow + + Others, because you did not keep + That deep sworn vow, have been friends of mine, + Yet always when I look death in the face, + When I clamber to the heights of sleep, + Or when I grow excited with wine, + Suddenly I meet your face. + + October 17, 1915. + + + The Collar-Bone of a Hare + + Would I could cast a sail on the water, + Where many a king has gone + And many a king’s daughter, + And alight at the comely trees and the lawn, + The playing upon pipes and the dancing, + And learn that the best thing is + To change my loves while dancing + And pay but a kiss for a kiss. + + I would find by the edge of that water + The collar-bone of a hare + Worn thin by the lapping of water; + And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare + At the old bitter world where they marry in churches, + And laugh, over the untroubled water, + At all who marry in churches, + Through the white thin bone of a hare. + + July 5, 1915. + + + Broken Dreams + + There is grey in your hair. + Young men no longer suddenly catch their breath + When you are passing; + But maybe some old gaffer mutters a blessing + Because it was your prayer + Recovered him upon the bed of death, + But for your sake—that all heart’s ache have known, + And given to others all heart’s ache, + From meagre girlhoods putting on + Burdensome beauty—but for your sake + Heaven has put away the stroke of her doom, + So great her portion in that peace you make + By merely walking in a room. + + Your beauty can but leave among us + Vague memories, nothing but memories. + A young man when the old men are done talking + Will say to an old man “tell me of that lady + The poet stubborn with his passion sang us + When age might well have chilled his blood.” + + Vague memories, nothing but memories, + But in the grave all all shall be renewed. + The certainty that I shall see that lady + Leaning or standing or walking, + In the first loveliness of womanhood + And with the fervour of my youthful eyes, + Has set me muttering like a fool. + You were more beautiful than any one + And yet your body had a flaw: + Your small hands were not beautiful. + I am afraid that you will run + And paddle to the wrist + In that mysterious, always brimming lake + Where those that have obeyed the holy law + Paddle and are perfect: leave unchanged + The hands that I have kissed + For old sake’s sake. + + The last stroke of midnight dies + All day in the one chair + From dream to dream and rhyme to rhyme I have ranged + In rambling talk with an image of air: + Vague memories, nothing but memories. + + November, 1915. + + + In Memory + + Five and twenty years have gone + Since old William Pollexfen + Laid his strong bones in death + By his wife Elizabeth + In the grey stone tomb he made; + And after twenty years they laid + In that tomb, by him and her, + His son George the astrologer + And masons drove from miles away + To scatter the acacia spray + Upon a melancholy man + Who had ended where his breath began. + + Many a son and daughter lies + Far from the customary skies, + The Mall, and Eadés Grammar School, + In London or in Liverpool, + But where is laid the sailor John + That so many lands had known, + Quiet lands or unquiet seas + Where the Indians trade or Japanese; + He never found his rest ashore + Moping for one voyage more: + Where have they laid the sailor John? + + And yesterday the youngest son, + A humorous unambitious man, + Was buried near the astrologer; + And are we now in the tenth year? + Since he who had been contented long, + A nobody in a great throng, + Decided he would journey home, + Now that his fiftieth year had come, + And “Mr. Alfred” be again + Upon the lips of common men + Who carried in their memory + His childhood and his family. + + At all these deathbeds women heard + A visionary white sea bird + Lamenting that a man should die, + And with that cry I have raised my cry. + + + + + An Anachronism at Chinon + + + Ezra Pound + +Behind them rose the hill with its grey octagonal castle, to the west a +street with good houses, gardens occasionally enclosed and well to do, +before them the slightly crooked lane, old worm-eaten fronts low and +uneven, booths with their glass front-frames open, slid aside or hung +back, the flaccid bottle-green of the panes reflecting odd lights from +the provender and cheap crockery; a few peasant women with baskets of +eggs and of fowls, while just before them an old peasant with one hen in +his basket alternately stroked its head and then smacked it to make it +go down under the strings. + +The couple leaned upon one of the tin tables in the moderately clear +space by the inn, the elder, grey, with thick hair, square of forehead, +square bearded, yet with a face showing curiously long and oval in spite +of this quadrature; in the eyes a sort of friendly, companionable +melancholy, now intent, now with a certain blankness, like that of a +child cruelly interrupted, or of an old man, surprised and +self-conscious in some act too young for his years, the head from the +neck to the crown in almost brutal contrast with the girth and great +belly: the head of Don Quixote, and the corpus of Sancho Panza, +animality mounting into the lines of the throat and lending energy to +the intellect. + +His companion obviously an American student. + +Student: I came here in hopes of this meeting yet, since you are here at +all, you must have changed many opinions. + +The Elder: Some. Which do you mean? + +Student: Since you are here, personal and persisting? + +Rabelais: All that I believed or believe you will find in _De +Senectute_: “... that being so active, so swift in thought; that +treasures up in memory such multitudes and varieties of things past, and +comes likewise upon new things ... can be of no mortal nature.” + +Student: And yet I do not quite understand. Your outline is not always +distinct. Your voice however is deep, clear and not squeaky. + +Rabelais: I was more interested in words than in my exterior aspect, I +am therefore vocal rather than spatial. + +Student: I came here in hopes of this meeting, yet I confess I can +scarcely read you. I admire and close the book, as not infrequently +happens with “classics.” + +Rabelais: I am the last person to censure you, and your admiration is +perhaps due to a fault in your taste. I should have paid more heed to +DeBellay, young Joachim. + +Student: You do not find him a prig? + +Rabelais: I find no man a prig who takes serious thought for the +language. + +Student: And your own? Even Voltaire called it an amassment of ordure. + +Rabelais: And later changed his opinion. + +Student: Others have blamed your age, saying you had to half-bury your +wisdom in filth to make it acceptable. + +Rabelais: And you would put this blame on my age? And take the full +blame for your writing? + +Student: My writing? + +Rabelais: Yes, a quatrain, without which I should scarcely have come +here. + + Sweet C.... in h... spew up some.... + +(pardon me for intruding my own name at this point, but even Dante has +done the like, with a remark that he found it unfitting)—to proceed +then: + + ......some Rabelais + + To ..... and ..... and to define today + In fitting fashion, and her monument + Heap up to her in fadeless ex ..... + +Student: My license in those lines is exceptional. + +Rabelais: And you have written on journalists, or rather an imaginary +plaint of the journalists: Where s......, s.... and p..... on jews +conspire, and editorial maggots .... about, we gather .... smeared +bread, or drive a snout still deeper in the swim-brown of the mire. + + Where s....., s..... and p..... on jews conspire, + And editorial maggots .... about, + We gather .... -smeared bread, or drive a snout + Still deeper in the swim-brown of the mire. + O .... O ..... O b...... b...... b.... + O c..., ........ O .... O ......’s attire + Smeared with ........................... + +Really I can not continue, no printer would pass it. + +Student: Quite out of my usual ...... + +Rabelais: There is still another on publishers, or rather on _la vie +litteraire_, a sestina almost wholly in asterisks, and a short strophe +on the American president. + +Student: Can you blame ... + +Rabelais: I am scarcely ....... eh..... + +Student: Beside, these are but a few scattered outbursts, you kept up +your flow through whole volumes. + +Rabelais: You have spent six years in your college and university, and a +few more in struggles with editors; I had had thirty years in that sink +of a cloister, is it likely that your disgusts would need such +voluminous purging? Consider, when I was nine years of age they put me +in that louse-breeding abomination. I was forty before I broke loose. + +Student: Why at that particular moment? + +Rabelais: They had taken away my books. Brother Amy got hold of a +Virgil. We opened it, _sortes_, the first line: + + _Heu, fuge crudeles terras, fuge litus avarum_ + +We read that line and departed. You may thank God your age is different. +You may thank God your life has been different. Thirty years mewed up +with monks! After that can you blame me my style? Have you any accurate +gauge of stupidities? + +Student: I have, as you admit, passed some years in my university. I +have seen some opposition to learning. + +Rabelais: No one in your day has sworn to annihilate the cult of greek +letters; they have not separated you from your books; they have not rung +bells expressly to keep you from reading. + +Student: Bells! later. There is a pasty-faced vicar in Kensington who +had his dam’d bells rung over my head for four consecutive winters, +L’Ile Sonnante transferred to the middle of London! They have tried to +smother the good ones with bad ones. Books I mean, God knows the chime +was a musicless abomination. They have smothered good books with bad +ones. + +Rabelais: This will never fool a true poet; for the rest, it does not +matter whether they drone masses or lectures. They observe their fasts +with the intellect. Have they actually sequestered your books? + +Student: No. But I have a friend, of your order, a monk. They took away +his book for two years. I admit they set him to hearing confessions; to +going about in the world. It may have broadened his outlook, or +benefited his eyesight. I do not think it wholly irrational, though it +must have been extremely annoying. + +Rabelais: Where was it? + +Student: In Spain. + +Rabelais: You are driven south of the Pyrenees to find your confuting +example. Would you find the like in this country? + +Student: I doubt it. The Orders are banished. + +Rabelais: Or in your own? + +Student: Never. + +Rabelais: And you were enraged with your university? + +Student: I thought some of the customs quite stupid. + +Rabelais: Can you conceive a life so infernally and abysmally stupid +that the air of an university was wine and excitement beside it? + +Student: You speak of a time when scholarship was new, when humanism had +not given way to philology. We have no one like Henry Stephen, no one +comparable to Helia Andrea. The role of your monastery is now assumed by +the “institutions of learning,” the spirit of your class-room is found +among a few scattered enthusiasts, men half ignorant in the present +“scholarly” sense, but alive with the spirit of learning, avid of truth, +avid of beauty, avid of strange and out of the way bits of knowledge. Do +you like this scrap of Pratinas? + +Rabelais (reads) + + ’Εμὸς ἐμὸς ὁ Βρομίος Εμὲ δεῖ κελαδεῖν + Εμὶ δεῖ παταγεῖν ’Αν ὀρεα εσσάμενον + Μετὰ Ναἲδων Οἷα τε κύκνον ἄγοντα + Ποικιλόπτερον μέλος Τᾶv ἀοιδᾶν.... + +Student: The movement is interesting. I am “educated,” I am considerably +more than a “graduate.” I confess that I can not translate it. + +Rabelais: What in God’s name have they taught you?!! + +Student: I hope they have taught me nothing. I managed to read many +books despite their attempts at suppression, or rather perversion. + +Rabelais: I think you speak in a passion; that you magnify petty +annoyances. Since then, you have been in the world for some years, you +have been able to move at your freedom. + +Student: I speak in no passion when I say that the whole aim, or at +least the drive, of modern philology is to make a man stupid; to turn +his mind from the fire of genius and smother him with things +unessential. Germany has so stultified her savants that they have had no +present perception, the men who should have perceived were all imbedded +in “scholarship.” And as for freedom, no man is free who has not the +modicum of an income. If I had but fifty francs weekly.... + +Rabelais: Weekly? C..... J....! + +Student: You forget that the value of money has very considerably +altered. + +Rabelais: Admitted. + +Student: Well? + +Rabelais: Well, who has constrained you? The press in your day is free. + +Student: C..... J....! + +Rabelais: But the press in your day is free. + +Student: There is not a book goes to the press in my country, or in +England, but a society of ....... in one, or in the other a pie-headed +ignorant printer paws over it to decide how much is indecent. + +Rabelais: But they print my works in translation. + +Student: Your work is a classic. They also print Trimalcio’s _Supper_, +and the tales of Suetonius, and red-headed virgins annotate the writings +of Martial, but let a novelist mention a privy, or a poet the rear side +of a woman, and the whole town reeks with an uproar. In England a +scientific work was recently censored. A great discovery was kept secret +three years. For the rest, I do not speak of obscenity. Obscene books +are sold in the rubber shops, they are doled out with quack medicines, +societies for the Suppression of Vice go into all details, and thereby +attain circulation. Masterpieces are decked out with lewd covers to +entoil one part of the public, but let an unknown man write clear and +clean realism; let a poet use the speech of his predecessors, either +being as antiseptic as the instruments of a surgeon, and out of the most +debased and ignorant classes they choose him his sieve and his censor. + +Rabelais: But surely these things are avoidable? + +Student: The popular novelist, the teaser and tickler, casts what they +call a veil, or caul, over his language. He pimps with suggestion. The +printer sees only one word at a time, and tons of such books are passed +yearly, the members of the Royal Automobile Club and of the Isthmian and +Fly Fishers are not concerned with the question of morals. + +Rabelais: You mistake me, I did not mean this sort of evasion, I did not +mean that a man should ruin his writing or join the ranks of procurers. + +Student: Well? + +Rabelais: Other means. There is what is called private printing. + +Student: I have had a printer refuse to print lines “in any form” +private or public, perfectly innocent lines, lines refused thus in +London, which appeared and caused no blush in Chicago; and vice-versa, +lines refused in Chicago and printed by a fat-headed prude—Oh, most +fat-headed—in London, a man who will have no ruffling of anyone’s +skirts, and who will not let you say that some children do not enjoy the +proximity of their parents. + +Rabelais: At least you are free from theology. + +Student: If you pinch the old whore by the toes you will find a press +clique against you; you will come up against “boycott”; people will rush +into your publisher’s office with threats. Have you ever heard of “the +libraries?” + +Rabelais: I have heard the name, but not associated with strange forms +of blackmail. + +Student: I admit they do not affect serious writers. + +Rabelais: But you think your age as stupid as mine. + +Student: Humanity is a herd, eaten by perpetual follies. A few in each +age escape, the rest remain savages, “That deyed the Arbia crimson.” +Were the shores of Gallipoli paler, that showed red to the airmen flying +thousands of feet above them? + +Rabelais: Airmen. Intercommunication is civilization. Your life is full +of convenience. + +Student: And men as stupid as ever. We have no one like Henry Stephen. +Have you ever read Galdos’ _Dona Perfecta_? In every country you will +find such nests of provincials. Change but a few names and customs. Each +Klein-Stadt has its local gods and will kill those who offend them. In +one place it is religion, in another some crank theory of hygiene or +morals, or even of prudery which takes no moral concern. + +Rabelais: Yet all peoples act the same way. The same so-called “vices” +are everywhere present, unless your nation has invented some new ones. + +Student: Greed and hypocrisy, there is little novelty to be got out of +either. At present there is a new tone, a new _timbre_ of lying, a sort +of habit, almost a faculty for refraining from connecting words with a +fact. An inconception of their interrelations. + +Rabelais: Let us keep out of politics. + +Student: Damn it, have you ever met presbyterians? + +Rabelais: You forget that I lived in the time of John Calvin. + +Student: Let us leave this and talk of your books. + +Rabelais: My book has the fault of most books, there are too many words +in it. I was tainted with monkish habits, with the marasmus of allegory, +of putting one thing for another: the clumsiest method of satire. I +doubt if any modern will read me. + +Student: I knew a man read you for joy of the words, for the opulence of +your vocabulary. + +Rabelais: Which would do him no good unless he could keep all the words +on his tongue. Tell me, can you read them, they are often merely piled +up in heaps. + +Student: I confess that I can not. I take a page and then stop. + +Rabelais: Allegory, all damnable allegory! And can you read Brantôme? + +Student: I can read a fair chunk of Brantôme. The repetition is wearing. + +Rabelais: And you think your age is as stupid as mine? Even letters are +better, a critical sense is developed. + +Student: We lack the old vigour. + +Rabelais: A phrase you have got from professors! Vigour was not lacking +in Stendhal, I doubt if it is lacking in your day. And as for the world +being as stupid, are your friends tied to the stake, as was Etienne +Dolet, with an “Ave” wrung out of him to get him strangled instead of +roasted. Do you have to stand making professions like Budé?!! + + Vivens vidensque gloria mea frui + Volo: nihil juvat mortuum + Quod vel diserte scripserit vel fecerit + Animose. + +Student: What is that? + +Rabelais: Some verses of Dolet’s. And are you starved like Desperiers, +Bonaventura, and driven to suicide? + +Student: The last auto-da-fe was in 1759. The inquisition reestablished +in 1824. + +Rabelais: Spain again! I was speaking of.... + +Student: We are not yet out of the wood. There is no end to this +warfare. You talk of freedom. Have you heard of the Hammersmith borough +council, or the society to suppress all brothels in “Rangoon and other +stations in Burmah?” If it is not creed it is morals. Your life and +works would not be possible nowadays. To put it mildly, you would be +docked your professorship. + +Rabelais: I should find other forms of freedom. As for personal morals: +There are certain so-called “sins” of which no man ever repented. There +are certain contraventions of hygiene which always prove inconvenient. +None but superstitious and ignorant people can ever confuse these two +issues. And as hygiene is always changing; as it alters with our +knowledge of physick, intelligent men will keep pace with it. There can +be no permanent boundaries to morals. + +Student: The droits du seigneur were doubtless, at one time, religious. +When ecclesiastics enjoyed them, they did so, in order to take the +vengeance of the spirit-world upon their own shoulders, thereby +shielding and sparing the husband. + +Rabelais: Indeed you are far past these things. Your age no longer +accepts them. + +Student: My age is beset with cranks of all forms and sizes. They will +not allow a man wine. They will not allow him changes of women. This +glass.... + +Rabelais: There is still some in the last bottle. DeThou has paid it a +compliment: + + Aussi Bacchus.... + + Jusqu’en l’autre monde m’envoye De quoi dissiper mon chagrin, + Car de ma Maison paternelle Il vient de faire un Cabaret + Où le plaisir se renouvelle Entre le blanc et le clairet... + On n’y porte plus sa pensée Qu’aux douceurs d’un Vin frais et net. + Que si Pluton, que rien ne tente, Vouloit se payer de raison, + Et permettre à mon Ombre errante De faire un tour à ma Maison; + Quelque prix que j’en puisse attendre, Ce seroit mon premier souhait + De la louer ou de la vendre, Pour l’usage que l’on en fait. + +Student: There are states where a man’s tobacco is not safe from +invasion. Bishops, novelists, decrepit and aged generals, purveyors of +tales of detectives.... + +Rabelais: Have they ever interfered with your pleasures? + +Student: Damn well let them try it!!! + +Rabelais: I am afraid you would have been burned in my century. + + END OF THE FIRST DIALOGUE + + + + + Imaginary Letters + + + (Six Letters of William Bland Burn to his Wife) + + Wyndham Lewis + + Petrograd, February, 1917. + +My dear Lydia: + +Once more to the charge= In your answer to my letter I feel the new +touch of an independent attack. Villerant comes in, but I feel this time +that you have set your own dear person up for a rebuff. You have not +sent me any Aunt Sally, but my Grecian wife. I will take two things and +answer them.=First, you object to my treatment of the Gentleman, because +you sharply maintain, more or less, that I by no means object to being a +gentleman myself.=On that point, my dear girl, you have _not got_ me. +For many purposes, on occasion I should not hesitate to emphasize the +fact that I was not born in the gutter. If, for instance, I was applying +for a post where such a qualification was necessary, Harrow would not be +forgotten. The Gutter generally spoils a man’s complexion in childhood. +He grows up with sores around his mouth and a constantly dirty skin. His +eyes, unless he has them well in hand, become wolfish and hard, etc. Who +would not be better pleased that he was born on the sunny side of the +wall? All that has nothing to do with my argument. Those things are in +themselves nothing to linger round, although the opposite, squalor and +meanness, it is more excusable to remember and lament. + +But in your last letter you reveal an idea that seems chiefly to have +struck you, and which is at the bottom of your present obstinacy. In +your letter of last month you kept it in the background, or did not +state it in so many words. + +(In once more reading through your present letter, I find you have not +even stated it _there_. But I see, I believe, the notion that has found +favour with you.) I will give you my opinion on it in the form of a +criticism of an article I read yesterday in an English paper (one of +those you sent me). + +A Russian war-novel is discussed. The writer of the article “does not +care much for Russian books,” he finds that “the Englishman begins where +the Russian leaves off.” The Russian book seems to deal with the inner +conflict of a Russian grocer on the outbreak of War. The Russian grocer +is confused and annoyed. He asks what all this bloody trouble has to do +with _him_—the small grocer. He cogitates on the causes of such +upheavals, and is not convinced that there is anything in them calling +for his participation. But eventually he realizes that there is a great +and moving abstraction called Russia=the _old_ abstraction in fact, the +old Pied Piper whistling his mournful airs, and waving towards a +snow-bound horizon. And—_le voilà_ in khaki=or the Russian equivalent. +At this point he becomes “noble,” and of interest to the writer of the +article—But there, alas, the book ends.= Now, (of course the writer of +the article continues) _we_ in England do not do things in that way. We +do not portray the boring and hardly respectable conflict. No Englishman +(all Englishmen having the instincts of gentlemen) admits the +possibility of such a conflict. _We_ are _accomplished_ beings, _des +hommes, ou plutôt des gentlemen faits_! We should begin with the English +grocer already in khaki, quite calm, (he would probably be described as +a little “grim” withal) in the midst of his military training on +Salisbury Plain. A Kiplingesque picture of that: Revetting would come +in, and bomb-throwing at night. He next would be in the trenches. The +writer would show, without the cunning, hardly respectable, disguise of +any art, how the Balham grocer of to-day was the same soldier, really, +that won at Waterloo= You would not get a person or a fact, but a piece +of patriotic propaganda (the writer of course being meanwhile a shrewd +fellow, highly approved and well-paid). + +Now glance at Tolstoi for a moment, that arch Russian bore, and at his +book of Sebastopol sketches. He was an hereditary noble, and it is +rather difficult to say that an hereditary noble is not a gentleman. But +can the English journalist in his “_fort interieur_” admit that Tolstoi +was a gentleman, all things considered? These foreign “nobles” are a +funny sort of gentlemen, anyway. For let us see how Tolstoi writes of +the Russians at Sebastopol.= He arrives at the town of Sebastopol. He +has read in the Moscow newspapers of the “heroic defenders of +Sebastopol.” His first impression is one of astonishment and +disappointment of a sort. For there is nothing noticeably heroic about +the demeanour of the soldiers working at the quays or walking in the +streets. They are not even heroic by reason of the ineffable +“cheeriness” of the British Tommy—(No journalist would be tolerated for +a moment who did not, once in every twenty lines, remark on this +ineffable national heroism of humour.)=Tolstoi, that is, does not _want_ +to see heroes, but men under given conditions and, that is, sure enough, +what he sees. He also, being an hereditary noble and so on, does not +want to make his living. One more opportunity of truth and clearness! +Next, when Tolstoi gets up to the bastions, he again sees no heroes with +any ineffable national cachet. The “heroes” of his sketches and tales, +in fact, stoop and scurry along behind parapets in lonely sectors, and +when they see another man coming straighten themselves out, and clank +their spurs. They kill people in nightmares, and pray pessimistically to +their God. You cannot at the end apply _any_ labels to them. Tolstoi’s +account of their sensations and genuine exploits would not strike terror +in the heart of future enemies of the Russian race; it is not an +advertisement, or the ordinary mawkish bluff thrown over a reality. He +had the sense to see human beings and not Russians. And _Russians_ are +chiefly redoubtable, and admirable, because of this capacity of +impersonal seeing and feeling. Where they are least Russian in fact. + +The discriminating enemy in reading these sketches, would fear that more +than he would any unreal or interested gush. + +There always remains the question as to whether, by gush and bluff and +painting a pretty picture of a man, you cannot make him _become_ that +picture=and whether, politically, it may not be desirable to manufacture +illusions of that description. But what have we got to do with +politicians? + +Again, I am not saying that Russians have not a national gush. Tolstoi +himself indulges in it. Everybody indulges in such things. It is a +question only of the scale of such indulgence; of the absence per head +in a population of the reverse. + +So then, what the paper-writer’s point amounted to was that only +_gentlemen_ (or, sententiously, _men_) were worth writing about=or only +at the moment when a man becomes a “gentleman” is he interesting, worth +noticing, or suitable for portrayal. We all, however, know the simple +rules and manifestations of this ideal figure. There is not much left to +say on the subject. Ah yes, but there is such and such a one’s ineffable +_way_ of being a gentleman!— + +In London you will meet few educated people who really are willing or +able to give Russian books their due. Dostoevsky is a sort of epileptic +bore, Tolstoi a wrong-headed old altruistic bore, Gorky a Tramp-stunt +bore, Turgenev, even, although in another category, in some way +disappointing.—All Russian writers insist on discovering America, +opening discussions on matters that our institutions, our position in +society, our Franco-English intelligence preclude any consideration of. +There is something permanently transcendental and disconcerting about +the Slav infant, and he pours his words out and argues interminably, and +is such an inveterate drunkard,—as though his natural powers of +indecorum and earnestness were not already enough. + +What really could be said of the Russian is this=Shakespeare is +evidently better than any Russian novelist, or more permanently +valuable. But the little Russian Grocer could rival Hamlet in +vacillation; or any Russian, Shakespeare, in his portrayal of the +_machinery_ of the mind. Dostoevsky is not more dark and furious than +Shakespeare’s pessimistic figures, Lear, Macbeth, etc. _But we are not +Englishmen of Shakespeare’s days._ + +We are very pleased that in the time of Elizabeth such a national +ornament existed. But Shakespeare would be an anachronism to-day. + +Dostoevsky and Co. were anachronisms as contemporaries of Tennyson and +Napoleon III. _Had they been embedded two centuries back in Sixteenth +Century Russia_, they would not be read, but would not cause annoyance +and be called epileptic bores. Epilepsy would have been all right in +those distances.—There is nothing dévoué about epilepsy to-day, any more +than there is about a King! + +I think I have been lucid, if rather long-winded= + +How I look on these Christian Demi-Gods of the Steppes you know. I like +them immensely. For a single brandyish whiff from one of Dostovesky’s +mouths, at some vivid angle of turpitude I would give all English +literature back to Shelley’s songs. Turgenev’s _Sportsman’s Sketches_ +enchant me. They are so sober, delicate and nonchalant; I can think of +nothing like them. Gogol’s Tchichikoff is back with Cervantes, Sterne +and the others who have not any peers in these days. + +_Today_=the requirements of the little man, especially of this day, are +a similar thing to the _Russian_, the _Englishman_, etc. We must +disembarrass ourselves of this fetish or gush, as of that other.—I want +to live with Shakespeare and Cervantes=and I have gone to war for good +with all things that would oppose a return to those realities. + +I feel you, in my absence, becoming enmeshed in environing +respectability and its amiable notions. I feel that this letter may +require another fervour to drive home, or excuse, its own=_A coup de +poing_ is the best method of enforcing an idea (or a shell)=the mouth is +similarly a more satisfactory aperture than the ear for introducing a +philosophy into another body. Yorke is the embodiment of my philosophy. +I love Yorke in exactly the way that I love a character in Molière or +Turgenev. Yorke is the only _living thing except yourself_, that I know +or find alive to the same extent. + +I shall stick here a little longer, and see what comes of my new +venture. There have been lots of delays and difficulties which I will +recite to you when we meet. I can, I am afraid, say absolutely nothing +definite about my return. But I will write to you in a few days and tell +you more certainly. Meantime, much love, my dear girl. I wish you were +here with me. But on seeing how active the Germans are, it is out of the +question your crossing the North Sea. + +I am looking forward to your next letter. Much love. + + Yours, + W. B. Burn. + +(_Next letter of series will appear in July number._) + + + + + The Reader Critic + + + From James Joyce + +James Joyce, Zurich, Switzerland: + +I am very glad to hear about the new plans for _The Little Review_ and +that you have got together so many good writers as contributors. I hope +to send you something very soon—as soon, in fact, as my health allows me +to resume work. I am much better however, though I am still under care +of the doctor. I wish _The Little Review_ every success. + + + Approval + +Alice Groff, Philadelphia: + +Never has _The Little Review_ pleased me, from cover to cover, as in the +May number. I cannot imagine finding any one to express me for myself, +but Mr. Ezra Pound in his editorial comes the nearest possible to doing +this, as far as he goes. + +What he says about the Christian religion is delicious in its gentle +tolerance; about organized religions, is the last word; about “the +formation of thought in clear speech for the use of humanity,” a +religion in itself. He utters my whole voice on “codes of propriety” in +asserting that “they have no place in the arts.” I would add “nor in +life, other than as subject matter.” + +His rallying cry to _The Egoist_ stirs my egoist soul to its depth. Ever +since I have known this journal I have felt it to be the finest, freest, +frankest, bravest avenue of expression in English ever opened to the +creative literary mind, in all its variety of faculty, without having +the least bias or prejudice as to any one variety. That _The Little +Review_ should respond to this rallying cry would add a still deeper and +stronger point to my already deep and strong interest in this brave +little (?) magazine. + + + Fear Not + +Mrs. O. D. J.: + +I have great faith in the artistic life of America and I don’t think +Ezra Pound’s notions of it are very healthy. I sincerely hope the trend +of it will not emulate the “smart” or dissipated literature which seems +to please London and which can hardly come under the head of “good +letters.” America must not necessarily be content with jejune flows of +words. Really the only half interesting articles that appeared in the +May number were Eliot’s and Pound’s—the former because it was about as +good as _The Smart Set_ and the latter on account of auld lang syne. My +harshness is really flattering because it shows that I expect better +things from the “cultured” English. + +[We will take this opportunity of answering all those who have verbally +or in letters expressed the fear that _The Little Review_ will entirely +change its nature and be influenced in the future by its Foreign Editor. +I do not want to be flippant, but indeed little faith is shown in us by +all those who have known our struggle to be what we believe, and our +financial struggle to be at all. Fear not, dear ones. We have learned to +be penny wise; we will not be Pound foolish. We agree with Pound in the +spirit; if we don’t always agree with him in the letter be sure we will +mention it. And Pound didn’t slip up on us unaware. A mutual misery over +the situation brought us together. + +And you, dear Mrs. O. D. J., what made you think that Ezra Pound and T. +S. Eliot were “cultured” English? Because geese are white and float upon +water they are not necessarily swans. Pound too seems to have enough +faith in “good letters” to spare a little for America and share +“cultured” English with her. Healthy? The unhealth is in the artistic +life of America; and whatever the ailment, bitter and acid medicine +seems necessary to cure it. America must not be content for a great +while with the stuff produced here—jejune flows of words about +popularizing art, home-town poets and great American novelists, and +never-been-abroad painters. This seems to content it well enough now. + +But I congratulate you on being able to read _The Smart Set_ as +literature. Maybe the audience will after all produce the art. I +wonder....] + + + A Poet’s Opinion + +Maxwell Bodenheim, New York: + +Ezra Pound writes in his editorial which headed your last number that +“the two novels by Joyce and Lewis, and Mr. Eliot’s poems, are not only +the most important contributions to English literature of the past three +years, but are practically the only works of the time in which the +creative element is present, which in any way show invention, or a +progress beyond precedent work.” + +It is easy to make statements of this kind, but, having made them, a +critic should tell us on what he bases his dictum. The trouble with +criticism of art, today, is that it isn’t criticism. The critic writes +statements of untempered liking or disliking, and does not trouble to +support them with detailed reasons. We are simply supposed to take the +critic’s word for the matter. I haven’t sufficient belief in the +infallibility of Ezra Pound’s mind to require no substantiation of his +statements. I have several faults to find with his methods of +criticising poetry. He’s a bit too easily swayed by his personal +emotions, in that regard. I happen to know that in an article of his, +which appeared in _Poetry_, some time ago he omitted the name of a very +good modern American poet, from the “American-Team” he was mentioning, +merely because he has a personal dislike for that poet. + +He has also, too great a longing to separate poets into arbitrary teams, +of best and worst. Poets are either black or white to him—never grey. + +In speaking of Harriet Monroe he says that she has conducted her +magazine in a spirited manner, considering the fact that she is faced +with the practical problem of circulating a magazine in a certain +peculiar milieu. But he does not add that those are not the colors in +which Miss Monroe, herself, comes forth. If she admitted that she was a +practical woman, trying to print as much good poetry as she can, and +still gain readers, there would only be the question of whether one +believed that compromise is always the only method of assuring the +existence of a magazine. But she refuses to admit that she is a serious +compromiser. She stands upon a pedestal of utter idealism. Mr. Pound did +not mention this aspect. + +His claim that Eliot is the only really creative poet brought forth +during recent times is absurd. H. D., Fletcher, Marianne Moore, +Williams, Michelson at his best, Carl Sandburg, and Wallace Stevens are +certainly not inevitably below Eliot in quality of work. Eliot’s work is +utterly original, attains moments of delicate satire, and digs into the +tangled inner dishonesties of men. But many of the poets I have +mentioned are as good in their own way as Eliot is in his, in addition +to their being just as original as he. I have not Mr. Pound’s fondness +for making lists, so I’m afraid I may have omitted the names of some +American poets entitled to mention, even from my own limited view point. +But I will say that at least the number of poets I have mentioned are +fully the equals of Mr. Pound’s nominee for supreme honors—T. S. Eliot. + +[I get very tired of the talk about the establishment of two autocracies +of opinion, and the claim that since each is the opinion of a capable +brain each has therefore the right to serious artistic consideration. +Now it is a fact that one particular kind of brain can put forward this +claim and establish its legitimate autocracy. It is the brain that +functions aesthetically rather than emotionally. Most artists haven’t +this kind. Their work drains their aesthetic reserve—and they usually +talk rot about art. There are thousands of examples—such as Beethoven +treasuring the worst poetry he could find. There are notable exceptions, +such as Leonardo, such as Gaudier-Brzeska. Ezra Pound seems to have this +kind of brain. I am not familiar with all his judgments, but those I +have read have always been characterized by an aesthetic synthesis which +means that he can rightly be called a “critic.” + +To this kind of brain things _are_ black and white—which means good or +bad of their kind. If by grey you mean that a poet is almost good, then +the critic will have to call him black, meaning that he is a bad poet. +There is no middle ground. If by grey you mean that he is a grey poet +doing good grey work, then the critic will call him white—meaning that +he is a good poet—_M. C. A._] + + + Complaint + +New York Subscribers: + +We have read the first installment of the much-advertised London stuff +and our comment is that unless “And ...” and “The Reader Critic” are +restored, and at once, we withdraw our moral and financial support. + + + For the Archeologist + +That great journal, _The New Republic_—I cannot say that great +contemporary journal: it is here with us in the flesh, but in the spirit +it abides with the Bible, the Koran, the Books of Maroni, and all great +and ancient works of prophecy, truth and revelation—that great journal, +mentioning even the least of us, spoke thus: “There was _The Little +Review_ which began in high spirits, published some interesting +experiments and a few achievements, and in the course of three years has +sunk to pink covers with purple labels and an issue ecstatically +dedicated to Mary Garden.” + +When these quaverings of senility reached us we were laid waste and +brought to silence. We knew not whether Isaiah or Hosea or Mohamet had +spoken. + +But now from the archives of _The New Republic_ comes this fragment in +the form of a rejection of some Chinese poetry: “Our expert on Chinese +poetry does not think that these translations are ... etc.” We feel that +we have come upon something of great interest to archeologists and to +all our readers who are excited over the Mysteries of History. Is it +possible that Li Po himself may be on the staff of _The New Republic_, +now too old to create but still retained on its board of experts? + + + Mary MacLane’s Criticism + +Mary MacLane, Butte, Montana: + +All your bits of criticism of my book are true—but didn’t I say them +first? Don’t I say I have a conscience? Don’t I say it’s an exasperating +book—don’t I say it’s all incongruous? Don’t I tacitly tell you fifty +times it is not creative but photographic? I call it a diary of human +days: just that. Not artist days nor poet days. Human days must include +the teakettle, the smoking chimney and the word Refined. Refined is not +my word at all. In my bright lexicon there’s no such word. I use it +because I am living human days and perforce encountering such words now +and again. Have you the courage, jh, to tell me I am too subtle, too +sub-analytic, for you? I set apart the word Refined to show it’s “their” +word, not mine. Yet you solemnly take me to task for questioning the +“refinement”, the “sincerity,” of my mountain shower-bath emotions. I +don’t question anything. I’m saying what “they” do: In “someway the +Lesbian” chapter I maintain I doubly prove, not “refute,” my analytic +freedom. The book being human days includes the domestic thing. I live +in a house and like it. I write as a human being not as an artist. You +can’t get away from your tooth-brush. “Human days” includes satyrs and +sisters looked at from exactly the same vantage—unless you’re a +Christian Endeavor. You write justly, jh, but why label me with that +“sexual”? I wrote also of my shoes: I contributed also the theory of +Shoes. + +[Dear “I Mary MacLane”: All you have to say about my “criticism” of your +book sounds just to me. Yes, you said them first and fifty times at +least; that’s why I mentioned them at all. I thought perhaps the reason +you said them so often was because you hoped it otherwise. Perhaps you +are too “subtle,” too “sub-analytic,” too educated for me. I am just a +painter. While I know, from the aching of the heart to the sickness of +the stomach, what human days must include, I haven’t yet got to the +point where I am willing to believe that writing a book doesn’t come +under the same laws as painting a picture, sculping, or making music. If +subject is not transformed into design by some inevitable quality in the +artist then you have not made a book; you have merely helped to clutter +up the place. I may be narrow-minded but I can’t quite see any art as a +common activity or a household duty, indulged in or performed as an +either=or. “I will clean off the snow or paint a picture; I will milk +the cow or do a little modelling.” I haven’t been about enough to have +found it so in any families; nor have I read enough to have found it so +in many families, except perhaps the Da Vinci family. + +“Refined is not my word,” you say. I think the book exonerates you; but +why your concern with it at all was my point, not my criticism. + +As to the label “sexual,” I meant shoes and all,—the whole hereditary +attitude, in your case intriguing because neurasthenic. + +Sorry: but I did not solemnly take you to task. One must even criticize +with joy.—_jh._] + + + From “The Dial” + +“A quaint manifestation of editorial ethics crops out in the April issue +of _The Little Review_. It is in connection with a vers libre contest, +this being the issue in which the awards are made. There was a regularly +constituted board of judges—three people sufficiently competent and +sufficiently well known in their field; but the editor has chosen to +indulge in some disclosures as to the lack of unanimity amongst her +aides and even in some pointed animadversions on their tastes and +preferences. Of the first choice of one of them, she says: What is there +in the ‘subtle depth of thought’? Almost every kind of person in the +world has had this thought. And what is there in the ‘treatment to make +it poetry?’ And the poem itself follows. Of the two chosen for prizes by +another judge, she observes: ‘These two poems are pretty awful’—and she +prints them, with the authors’ names, as before. The third judge plumped +for a pair of others—‘provided Richard Aldington wrote them; otherwise +not.... If he wrote them they are authentic as well as lovely; but if he +did not, so flagrant an imitation ought not to be encouraged.’ A +perfectly sound position to take. Here again the poems follow—and they +are under a name not Aldington’s. Query: has the judge, whose name is +given too, exactly made a friend? Then comes, of course, a succession of +poems approved by the editor but ignored by her helpers.... If such a +system spreads, the embarrassments and even perils of judgeship will +grow. Hereafter few may care to serve as judges, except under +stipulations designed to afford some protection. And as for the poor +poets themselves, such treatment should act to keep them out of +‘contests’ altogether.” + +[Here is the old _Dial_ showing them all up. So there is an American +editorial association just like the American Medical Association with +all its criminology of professional ethics! + +We thought that the idea of that verse libre contest (it wasn’t our +idea) was to stimulate interest in and more understanding of free verse, +not to offer an operation for judges nor a fee for poets. Taking it +simply as a free verse contest, the editor thought the only concern was +with free verse. Since when has Art to do with ethics or with taste? If +the poets and judges in the contest were as impersonal, direct, and +sincere in their attitude toward poetry as the editor, the fussy anxiety +of _The Dial_ over their plight is needless. But of course if to serve +poetry is to serve yourself there isn’t much point to a contest except +the money. On the other hand, if a contest is to be run on the “tastes +and preferences” or sensitiveness of the judges then it is clear that +the neatest poem chosen by the touchiest judge should win, provided the +poet who wrote it was also easily offended and needed the money badly. + +“And as for the _poor_ poets” there should be _something_ to keep them +out of contests—and also out of any other literary activity.—_jh._] + + + You Do Us Too Much Honor + +Louis Puteklis, Cambridge, Mass: + +... You see it is a fact that your “art for art’s sake” cannot exist +without supporters: nothing is free from economic conditions which are +the creators and destroyers of people’s tendencies and deeds. + +Although I appreciate your surprising efforts, I must confess that I +cannot yet agree with your dictum as to “the two most important radical +organs of contemporary literature.” Until you strike your roots deeper +you cannot soar so high. As for me, I am in touch already with many +other radical magazines in English and in other languages. Radicalism +does not consist in vers libre which murmurs about green grass, soft +kisses, clinging limbs, ecstasy and faintness, the surprises of +passionate intercourse. There is too much of such sensual poetry: +Solomon long ago played the changes on that theme. Such poems come +perilously near the emanations of diseased sexual appetites. There is +neither life nor originality in them. When I read “green grass,” I know +that I am close upon “clinging limbs.” Drink deeper of the Pierian +fount; don’t disturb the grasshoppers! + +I think that _The Little Review_ must scatter more sensible seed in the +future and throw away the tares. It will do better, I believe, to take +for its province: Literature, Life, Science; all the fine arts are too +much for its scope; each has its own organs. + +Still _The Little Review_ is doing good. Long life to it and may it do +better! + +[You see, we said that _The Egoist_ and _The Little Review_ are radical +organs of contemporary literature. That’s all: not economic, social, or +religious. As we have stated a number of times: since all the arts are +from the same source we are not getting out of our province or making +our scope too wide by keeping to Art. Your advice about reducing to +Literature, Life, Science, is a great compliment to our scope, but—well, +for the present we can’t take up such limited and special subjects as +Life, or such obvious and untaxing ones as Science.—_jh._] + + + + + The Little Review Book Shop + + +You may order any book you want from us and we have the facilities for +delivering or mailing it to you at whatever time you specify. + +You may come in and look over our stock and take your selections with +you. + +Some of the books you will want are these: + + James Joyce’s _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_. $1.50 + + Nexo’s _Pelle the Conqueror_. Four volumes, $5.00 + + Gilbert Cannan’s _Mendel_. $1.50 + + Romain Rolland’s _Jean Christophe_. Three volumes, $5.00 + + D. H. Lawrence’s _Prussian Officer_ and _Twilight in Italy_, + $1.50 each. + + Ethel Sidgwick’s _Promise_ and _Succession_. Each $1.50 + + Ezra Pound’s _Memoir of Gaudier-Brzeska_. $3.50 + + _The Imagist Anthology, 1917._ 75 cents + + _Verharen’s Love Poems_, translated by Flint, Arthur Symons, etc. + $1.50 + + Willard Huntington Wright’s _Modern Painting_ and _The Creative + Will_. $2.50 and $1.50 + + Tagore’s _Reminiscences_ and _Personality_. Each $1.50 + + The complete works of Anatole France. Per volume, $1.25 + + The Works of Henri Fabre. 6 volumes. Each $1.50 + + The Works of Mark Twain. 25 volumes, $25.00 + + _Creative Intelligence_, by John Dewey and others. $2.00 + + Carl Sandburg’s _Chicago Poems_. $1.25 + + Joseph Conrad’s _The Shadow Line_. $1.35 + + Maurice Hewlett’s _Thorgils_. $1.35 + + Andreyev’s _The Little Angel_, _The Crushed Flower_, etc. $1.35 + and $1.50 + + Kuprin’s _A Slave Soul_. $1.50 + + Tchekoff’s _The Kiss_, _The Darling_, _The Duel_, _The Black + Monk_. Each $1.25 + + Gorky’s _Confession_ and _Twenty-Six Men and a Girl_. $1.35 + + Dostoevsky’s _The Eternal Husband_. $1.50 + + Gogol’s _Dead Souls_, _Taras Bulba_, _The Mantle_. $1.40, $1.35 + + Sologub’s _The Sweet-Scented Name_. $1.50 + + Artzibashef’s _Sanine_, _The Millionaire_, _The Breaking-Point_. + Each $1.50 + + The Works of Freud and Jung + + Max Eastman’s _Journalism versus Art_, _Understanding Germany_. + $1.00 and $1.25 + + John Cowper Powy’s _Confessions_, _Suspended Judgments_. $1.50 + and $2.00 + + Paul Géraldy’s _The War, Madame_. 75 cents + + Amy Lowell’s _Men, Women and Ghosts_. $1.25 + + H. D.’s _Sea Garden_. 75 cents + + D. H. Lawrence’s _Amores_. $1.25 + + W. W. Gibson’s _Livelihood_. $1.25 + + The Stories of A. Neil Lyons. Each $1.25 + + Sherwood Anderson’s _Windy McPherson’s Son_. $1.40 + + _I, Mary MacLane._ $1.40 + + + + + The Little Review + + +THE JULY NUMBER will have poems by T. S. Eliot; a Dialogue by Ezra +Pound: “Aux Etuves de Wiesbaden”; and several other things of interest. + +THE AUGUST NUMBER will have at least seven more poems by Mr. Yeats, an +Editorial and Notes on Books by Mr. Pound, etc., etc. + +PLEASE SUBSCRIBE and help us to make The Little Review a power. + + + Subscription Form + + Please send me _The Little Review_ for the twelve-month beginning + ......................, for which I enclose $1.50 + + Name ......................................... + Address ...................................... + ............................................... + ............................................... + + THE LITTLE REVIEW + 31 West 14th Street + NEW YORK CITY + + + Eugene Hutchinson + + + + + Photographs + + FINE ARTS BUILDING, CHICAGO, ILL. + + + Mason & Hamlin + + + The Stradivarius of Pianos + + + + + Mason & Hamlin Co. + + 313 FIFTH AVENUE + NEW YORK + + + + + COLONY ART SHOP + + + Artists’ Materials + + Oil and Water Colors + Brushes and Canvass + Smocks to Order + + Interior and Exterior Decorating + Paper Hanging + Polishing and Refinishing + of Wood Work + + + + + ADOLPH KLAFF + + 132 Sixth Ave., NEW YORK CITY Chelsea 1285 + + + STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, + CIRCULATION, ETC., REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF + CONGRESS, OF AUGUST 24, 1912. + + Of THE LITTLE REVIEW, published monthly at New + York, N. Y., for April 1st, 1917. State of New + York, County of New York—ss. + + Before me, a Notary Public in and for the State + and county aforesaid, personally appeared + Margaret C. Anderson, who having been duly + sworn according to law, deposes and says that + she is the Publisher, Editor, Owner, Business + Manager of THE LITTLE REVIEW, and that the + following is, to the best of her knowledge and + belief, a true statement of the ownership, + management (and if a daily paper, the + circulation), etc., of the aforesaid + publication for the date shown in the above + caption, required by the Act of August 24, + 1912, embodied in section 443, Postal Laws and + Regulations, printed on the reverse of this + form; to wit: + + 1. That the names and addresses of the + publisher, editor, managing editor, and + business managers are: + + Publisher, Margaret C. Anderson, 31 W. + Fourteenth St., New York; Editor, Margaret C. + Anderson, 31 W. Fourteenth St., New York; + Managing Editor, Margaret C. Anderson, 31 W. + Fourteenth St., New York; Business Manager, + Margaret C. Anderson, 31 W. Fourteenth St., New + York. + + 2. That the owner is, Margaret C. Anderson. + + 3. That the known bondholders, mortgagees, and + other security holders owning or holding 1 per + cent, or more of total amount of bonds, + mortgages, or other securities are: None. + + 4. That the two paragraphs next above, giving + the names of owners, stockholders, and security + holders, if any, contain not only the list of + stockholders and security holders as they + appear upon the books of the company but also, + in cases where the stockholder or security + holder appears upon the books of the company as + trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the + name of the person or corporation for whom such + trustee is acting, is given; also that the said + two paragraphs contain statements embracing + affiant’s full knowledge and belief as to the + circumstances and conditions under which + stockholders and security holders who do not + appear upon the books of the company as + trustees, hold stock and securities in a + capacity other than that of a bona fide owner; + and this affiant has no reason to believe that + any other person, association or corporation, + has any interest direct or indirect in the said + stock, bonds, or other securities than as so + stated by her. + + MARGARET C. ANDERSON. + + Sworn to and subscribed before me this 9th day + of April 1917. + + WALTER HEARN, Notary Public. + (My commission expires March 30th, 1918.) + + + + + THE ARTISTS’ GUILD + + A NATIONAL ORGANIZATION INCORPORATED ON A + “NOT FOR PROFIT BASIS.” + + + Paintings, Sculpture + AND + Handwrought Objects + + As security for the purchaser and to ensure merit, all works + are approved by a jury. + + + Exquisite and Rare Gifts + + The Artists’ and Craft Workers’ own organization + + GALLERIES, EXHIBITION AND SALESROOMS + FINE ARTS BUILDING CHICAGO, ILLINOIS + + + + + THE PAGAN + + is something like _The Masses_ and _The Little Review_ because it + contains original stories, plays, essays, also translation from + the Europeans; as well as drawings and etchings. + + But how is it different? + + _Buy a copy and see. $1.50 a year; 15 cents a copy_ + + THE PAGAN PUBLISHING COMPANY + 174 CENTER STREET + NEW YORK CITY + + TINY TIM MAKES CANDY. + TINY TIM MAKES _GOOD_ CANDY. + TINY TIM MAKES _PURE_ CANDY. + TINY TIM _ORIGINATES_ EVERY VARIETY. + VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE. + + _P. S._ Mary Elizabeth, Martha Washington, Park & Tilford, + Huylers, and the Mirror Stores make good candy, but they haven’t + any thing on TINY TIM for originality. + + _P. S._ (_2nd._) TIM’S place is small and hard to find. It is + hiding out on Sixth Avenue, on the corner of Milligan Place, + between 10th and 11th Streets. If you ever find the place + remember the _special directions_ for opening the door. Grasp the + handle firmly—push to your right steadily. NOTE: The door slides + North. + + _P. S._ (_3rd._) TIM or Mrs. TIM and the candy will probably be + there. If not, call again. + + + “Hello Huck!” + + Recall that golden day when you first read “Huck Finn”? How your + mother said, “For goodness’ sake, stop laughing aloud over that + book. You sound so silly.” But you couldn’t stop laughing. + + Today when you read “Huckleberry Finn” you will not laugh so + much. You will chuckle often, but you will also want to weep. The + deep humanity of it—the pathos, that you never saw, as a boy, + will appeal to you now. You were too busy laughing to notice the + limpid purity of the master’s style. + + + + + MARK TWAIN + + When Mark Twain first wrote “Huckleberry Finn” this land was + swept with a gale of laughter. When he wrote “The Innocents + Abroad” even Europe laughed at it itself. + + But one day there appeared a new book from his pen, so spiritual, + so true, so lofty that those who did not know him well were + amazed. “Joan of Arc” was the work of a poet—a historian—a seer. + Mark Twain was all of these. His was not the light laughter of a + moment’s fun, but the whimsical humor that made the tragedy of + life more bearable. + + + A Real American + + Mark Twain was a steamboat pilot. He was a searcher for gold in + the far West. He was a printer. He worked bitterly hard. All this + without a glimmer of the great destiny that lay before him. Then, + with the opening of the great wide West, his genius bloomed. + + His fame spread through the nation. It flew to the ends of the + earth, until his work was translated into strange tongues. From + then on, the path of fame lay straight to the high places. At the + height of his fame he lost all his money. He was heavily in debt, + but though 60 years old, he started afresh and paid every cent. + It was the last heroic touch that drew him close to the hearts of + his countrymen. + + The world has asked is there an American literature? Mark Twain + is the answer. He is the heart, the spirit of America. From his + poor and struggling boyhood to his glorious, splendid old age, he + remained as simple, as democratic as the plainest of our + forefathers. + + He was, of all Americans, the most American. Free in soul, and + dreaming of high things—brave in the face of trouble—and always + ready to laugh. That was Mark Twain. + + + The Price Goes Up + + 25 VOLUMES Novels—Stories—Humor Essays—Travel—History + + This is Mark Twain’s own set. This is the set he wanted in the + home of each of those who love him. Because he asked it, Harpers + have worked to make a perfect set at a reduced price. + + Before the war we had a contract price for paper, so we could + sell this set of Mark Twain at half price. + + Send the Coupon Without Money + + L. R. 5 + HARPER & + BROTHERS + + Franklin Sq., N. Y. + + Send me, all charges prepaid, a set of Mark Twain’s works in 25 + volumes, illustrated, bound in handsome green cloth, stamped in + gold, gold tops and untrimmed edges. If not satisfactory, I will + return them at your expense. Otherwise I will send you $1.00 + within 5 days and $2.00 a month for 12 months, thus getting the + benefit of your half-price sale. + + Little Review + + _Name_.............................. + + _Address_........................... + + The last of the edition is in sight. The price of paper has gone + up. There can be no more Mark Twain at the present price. There + never again will be any more Mark Twain at the present price. Get + the 25 volumes now, while you can. Every American has got to have + a set of Mark Twain in his home. Get yours now and save money. + + Your children want Mark Twain. You want him. Send this coupon + to-day—now—while you are looking at it. + + HARPER & BROTHERS, New York + + + + + Special Offer + + + JAMES JOYCE’S _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young + Man_ and a year’s subscription to _The Little Review_ for + $2.50. + + We are glad to announce that through the courtesy of Mr. Huebsch + we are able to make the following unusual offer, open to any one + who sends in a subscription (or a renewal) to _The Little + Review_: + + Mr. Joyce’s _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_, the most + important and beautiful piece of novel writing to be found in + English today, retails for $1.50. The subscription price of _The + Little Review_ is $1.50. We will cut the latter to $1.00, for + this special offer, and you may have the book and the + subscription for $2.50. Or you may have Mr. Joyce’s _Dubliners_ + instead. + + + + + ORDER FORM + + + “A PORTRAIT OF THE + ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN” + + _Please send me_ ________ _cop_ ________ _of_ + + A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce, published + by Mr. B. W. Huebsch, for which I enclose ________. + + Name __________________________________ + Address _______________________________ + _______________________________________ + + _Orders, accompanied by remittance should be sent to_ + + THE LITTLE REVIEW + 31 West 14th Street, New York City + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + +Advertisements were collected at the end of the text. + +The table of contents on the title page was adjusted in order to reflect +correctly the headings in this issue of THE LITTLE REVIEW. + +The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical +errors were silently corrected. All other changes are shown here +(before/after): + + [p. 7]: + ... woman sat in the embrazure of a man’s arm, sharing his + chair ... + ... woman sat in the embrasure of a man’s arm, sharing his + chair ... + + [p. 10]: + ... My great wood lecturn and the fire ... + ... My great wood lectern and the fire ... + + [p. 16]: + ... winters, L’lle Sonnante transferred to the middle of + London! ... + ... winters, L’Ile Sonnante transferred to the middle of + London! ... + + [p. 21]: + ... Jusqu’en l’autre monde m’envoye Dequoi dissiper mon + chagrin, ... + ... Jusqu’en l’autre monde m’envoye De quoi dissiper mon + chagrin, ... + + [p. 21]: + ... Où le plaisir se renouvelle Entre le blanc et el clairet... ... + ... Où le plaisir se renouvelle Entre le blanc et le clairet... ... + + [p. 21]: + ... Et permetre à mon Ombre errante De faire un tour à ma + Maison; ... + ... Et permettre à mon Ombre errante De faire un tour à ma + Maison; ... + + [p. 21]: + ... Quelque prix que j’eu püsse attendre, Ce seroit mon + premier souhait ... + ... Quelque prix que j’en puisse attendre, Ce seroit mon + premier souhait ... + + [p. 30]: + ... courage, jh, to tell me I am too subtle, to sub-analytic, for + you? ... + ... courage, jh, to tell me I am too subtle, too sub-analytic, + for you? ... + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76625 *** |