diff options
Diffstat (limited to '78252-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 78252-0.txt | 1502 |
1 files changed, 1502 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/78252-0.txt b/78252-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4651fed --- /dev/null +++ b/78252-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1502 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78252 *** + + + + + THE LITTLE REVIEW + + + A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS + MAKING NO COMPROMISE WITH THE PUBLIC TASTES + + Margaret Anderson + Publisher + + September, 1917 + + Inferior Religions Wyndham Lewis + L’Homme Moyen Sensuel Ezra Pound + Eeldrop and Appleplex, II: T. S. Eliot + The Passion for Experience + Imaginary Letters, IV: Ezra Pound + The Nonsense about Art for the Many + The Children and Judas Robert Alden Sanborn + The Reader Critic: + Yeats’s “Upon a Dying Lady” + Gargoyles + Phases of Crazes + To our Readers + Announcement for October + + Copyright, 1917, by Margaret Anderson. + + Published Monthly + MARGARET ANDERSON, Editor + EZRA POUND, Foreign Editor + 24 West Sixteenth Street + + 15 Cents a Copy $1.50 a Year + + Entered as second-class matter at Postoffice, New York, N. Y. + + + + + THE LITTLE REVIEW + + + VOL. IV. SEPTEMBER 1917 No. 5 + + + + + Inferior Religions[1] + + + Wyndham Lewis + + + I + +To introduce my puppets, and the Wild Body, the generic puppet of all, I +must look back to a time when the antics and solemn gambols of these +wild children filled me with triumph. + +The fascinating imbecility of the creaking men-machines, some little +restaurant or fishing-boat works, is the subject of these studies. The +boat’s tackle and dirty little shell keeps their limbs in a monotonous +rhythm of activity. A man gets drunk with his boat as he would with a +merry-go-round. Only it is the staid, everyday drunkenness of the normal +real. We can all see the ascendance a “carrousel” has on men, driving +them into a set narrow intoxication. The wheel at Carisbrooke imposes a +set of movements on the donkey inside it, in drawing water from the +well, that it is easy to grasp. But in the case of a fishing-boat the +variety is so great, the scheme so complex, that it passes as open and +untrammeled life. This subtle and wider mechanism merges, for the +spectator, in the general variety of Nature. Yet we have in most lives a +spectacle as complete as a problem of Euclid. + +Moran, Bestre and Brobdingnag are essays in a new human mathematic. But +they are each simple shapes, little monuments of logic. I should like to +compile a book of forty of these propositions, one deriving from and +depending on the other. + +These intricately moving bobbins are all subject to a set of objects or +one in particular. Brobdingnag is fascinated by one object, for +instance; one at once another vitality. He bangs up against it wildly at +regular intervals, blackens it, contemplates it, moves round it and +dreams. All such fascination is religious. Moran’s damp napkins are the +altar-cloths of his rough illusion. Julie’s bruises are the markings on +an idol. + +These studies of rather primitive people are studies in a Savage worship +and attraction. Moran rolls between his tables ten million times in a +realistic rhythm that is as intense and superstitious as the figures of +a war-dance. He worships his soup, his damp napkins, the lump of flesh +that rolls everywhere with him called Madam Moran. + +All religion has the mechanism of the celestial bodies, has a dance. +When we wish to renew our idols, or break up the rhythm of our naivety, +the effort postulates a respect which is the summit of devoutness. + + + II + +I would present these puppets, then, as carefully selected specimens of +religious fanaticism. With their attendant objects or fetishes they live +and have a regular food for vitality. They are not creations, but +puppets. You can be as exterior to them, and live their life as little, +as the showman grasping from beneath and working about a Polichinelle. +They are only shadows of energy, and not living beings. Their mechanism +is a logical structure and they are nothing but that. + +Sam Weller, Jingle, Malvolio, Bouvard, and Pecuchet, the “commissaire” +in _Crime and Punishment_, do not live; they are congealed and frozen +into logic, and an exuberant, hysterical truth. They transcend life and +are complete cyphers, but they are monuments of dead imperfection. Their +only reference is to themselves, and their only significance their +egoism. + +The great intuitive figures of creation live with the universal egoism +of the Poet. They are not picturesque and over palpable. They are supple +with this rare impersonality; not stiff with a common egotism. The +“realists” of the Flaubert, Maupassant, and Tchekoff school are all +satirists. “Realism”, understood as applied to them, implies either +photography or satire. + +Satire, the great Heaven of ideas, where you meet the Titans of red +laughter, is just below Intuition, and Life charged with black Illusion. + + + III + +When we say “types of humanity”, we mean violent individualities, and +nothing stereotyped. But Othello, Falstaff and Pecksniff attract, in our +memory, a vivid following. All difference is energy, and a category of +humanity a relatively small group, and not the myriads suggested by a +generalisation. + +A comic type is a failure of a considerable energy, an imitation and +standardising of self, suggesting the existence of a uniform +humanity,—creating, that is, a little host as like as ninepins; instead +of one synthetic and various Ego. It is the laziness of a successful +personality. It is often part of our own organism become a fetish. + +Sairey Gamp and Falstaff are minute and rich religions. They are +illusions hugged and lived in. They are like little dead Totems. Just as +all Gods are a repose for humanity, the big religions an immense refuge +and rest, so these little grotesque idols are. One reason for this is +that, for the spectator or participator, it is a world in a corner of +the world, full of rest and security. + +Moran, even, advances in life with his rows of bottles and napkins; +Julie is Brobdingnag’s Goddess, and figures for intercessions, if the +occasion arises. + +All these are forms of static and traditional art, then. There is a +great deal of divine Olympian sleep in English Humour. The most gigantic +spasm of laughter is sculptural, isolated and essentially simple. + + + IV + +1 Laughter is the Wild Body’s song of triumph. + +2 Laughter is the climax in the tragedy of seeing, hearing and + smelling self-consciously. + +3 Laughter is the bark of delight of a gregarious animal at the + proximity of its kind. + +4 Laughter is an independent, tremendously important, and lurid + Emotion. + +5 Laughter is the representative of Tragedy, when Tragedy is away. + +6 Laughter is the emotion of tragic delight. + +7 Laughter is the female of Tragedy. + +8 Laughter is the strong elastic fish, caught in Styx, springing + and flapping about until it dies. + +9 Laughter is the sudden handshake of mystic violence and the + anarchist. + +10 Laughter is the mind sneezing. + +11 Laughter is the one obvious commotion that is not complex, or in + expression dynamic. + +12 Laughter does not progress. It is primitive, hard and + unchangeable. + + + V + +The chemistry of personality (subterranean in a sort of cemetery whose +decompositions are our lives) puffs up in frigid balls, soapy Snow-men, +arctic Carnival Masks, which we can photograph and fix. + +Upwards from the surface of Existence a lurid and dramatic scum oozes +and accumulates into the characters we see. The real and tenacious +poisons, and sharp forces of vital vitality, do not socially transpire. +Within five yards of another man’s eyes we are on a little crater, +which, if it erupted, would split up as a cocoa-tin of nitrogen would. +Some of these bombs are ill-made, or some erratic in their timing. But +they are all potential little bombs. + +Capriciously, however, the froth-forms of these darkly-contrived +machines, twist and puff in the air, in our legitimate and liveried +masquerade. + +Were you the female of Moran (the first Innkeeper) and beneath the +counterpane with him, you would be just below the surface of life, in +touch with a nasty and tragic organism. The first indications of the +proximity of the real soul would be apparent. You would be for hours +beside a filmy crocodile, conscious of it like a bone in an Ex-Ray, and +for minutes in the midst of a tragic wallowing. The soul lives in a +cadaverous activity; its dramatic corruption thumps us like a racing +engine in the body of a car. The finest humour is the great Play-Shapes +blown up or given off by the tragic corpse of Life underneath the world +of the Camera. This futile, grotesque and sometimes pretty spawn, is +what in this book is Kodacked by the Imagination. + +Any great humourist is an artist; Dickens as an example. It is just this +character of uselessness and impersonality in Laughter, the fibre of +anarchy in the comic habit of mind, that makes a man an artist in spite +of himself when he begins living on his laughter. Laughter is the +arch-luxury that is as simple as bread. + + + VI + +In this objective Play-World, corresponding to our social consciousness +as opposed to our solitude, no final issue is decided. You may blow away +a Man-of-bubbles with a Burgundian gust of laughter, but that is not a +personality, it is an apparition of no importance. Its awkwardness, or +prettiness is accidental. But so much correspondence it has with its +original that if the cadaveric travail beneath is vigorous and bitter, +the mask and figurehead will be of a more original and intense +grotesqueness. The opposing armies in Flanders stick up dummy men on +poles for their enemies to pot at, in a spirit of fierce friendliness. +It is only a dummy of this sort that is engaged in the sphere of +laughter. But the real men are in the trenches underneath all the time, +and are there on a more “decisive” affair. In our rather drab Revel +there is a certain category of spirit that is not quite anaemic, and yet +not very funny. It consists of those who take, at the Clarkson’s[2] +situated at the opening of their lives, some conventional Pierrot +costume, with a minimum of inverted vigour and the assurance of superior +insignificance. + +The King of Play is not a phantom corresponding to the Sovereign force +beneath the surface. The latter must always be accepted as the skeleton +at the Feast. That soul or dominant corruption is so real that he cannot +rise up and take part in man’s festival as a Falstaff of unwieldy spume; +if he comes at all it must be as he is, the skeleton or bogey of True +Life, stuck over with corruptions and vices. He may have a certain +“succès d’hystérie”. + + + VII + +A scornful optimism, with its confidant onslaughts on our snobbism, will +not make material existence a peer for our energy. The gladiator is not +a perpetual monument of triumphal health. Napoleon was harried with +Elbas. Moments of vision are blurred rapidly and the poet sinks into the +rhetoric of the will. + +But life is invisible and perfection is not in the waves or houses that +the poet sees. Beauty is an icy douche of ease and happiness at +something suggesting perfect conditions for an organism. A stormy +landscape, and a Pigment consisting of a lake of hard, yet florid waves; +delight in each brilliant scoop or ragged burst, was John Constable’s +beauty. Leonardo’s consisted in a red rain on the shadowed side of +heads, and heads of massive female aesthetes. Uccello accumulated pale +parallels, and delighted in cold architecture of distinct colour. Korin +found in the symmetrical gushing of water, in waves like huge vegetable +insects, traced and worked faintly, on a golden pâte, his business. +Cézanne liked cumbrous, democratic slabs of life, slightly leaning, +transfixed in vegetable intensity. + +Beauty is an immense predilection, a perfect conviction of the +desirability of a certain thing. To a man with long and consumptive +fingers a sturdy hand may be heaven. Equilibrium and “perfection” may be +a bore to the perfect. The most universally pleasing man is something +probably a good way from “perfection”. Henri Fabre was in every way a +superior being to Bernard, and he knew of elegant grubs which he would +prefer to the painter’s nymphs. + +It is obvious, though, that we should live a little more in small +communities. + +---------- + + [1] [_Editor’s note_: This essay was written as the introduction + to a volume of short stories containing “Inn-Keepers and Bestre”, + “Unlucky for Pringle” and some others which had appeared in _The + English Review_ under Ford Madox Hueffer’s editorship, and in + other English periodicals. The book was in process of publication + (the author had even been paid an advance on it) when war broke + out. The last member of the publishing firm has been killed in + France, and the firm disbanded. The essay is complete in itself + and need not stand as an “introduction”. It is perhaps the most + important single document that Wyndham Lewis has written. Such + stories as had not been previously published will appear in later + numbers of _The Little Review_.—_E. P._] + + [2] _Editor’s foot note_: Clarkson, a London theatrical costumer. + + + + + L’Homme Moyen Sensuel[3] + + + Ezra Pound + + “I hate a dumpy woman” + —_George Gordon, Lord Byron_ + + ’Tis of my country that I would endite, + In hope to set some misconceptions right. + My country? I love it well, and those good fellows + Who, since their wit’s unknown, escape the gallows. + But you stuffed coats who’re neither tepid nor distinctly boreal, + Pimping, conceited, placid, editorial, + Could I but speak as ’twere in the “Restoration” + I would articulate your perdamnation. + This year perforce I must with circumspection— + For Mencken states somewhere, in this connection: + “It is a moral nation we infest”. + Despite such reins and checks I’ll do my best, + An art! You all respect the arts, from that infant tick + Who’s now the editor of _The Atlantic_, + From Comstock’s self, down to the meanest resident, + Till up again, right up, we reach the president, + Who shows his taste in his ambassadors: + A novelist, a publisher, to pay old scores, + A novelist, a publisher and a preacher, + That’s sent to Holland, a most particular feature, + Henry Van Dyke, who thinks to charm the Muse you pack her in + A sort of stinking deliquescent saccharine. + The constitution of our land, O Socrates, + Was made to incubate such mediocrities, + These and a taste in books that’s grown perennial + And antedates the Philadelphia centennial. + Still I’d respect you more if you could bury + Mabie, and Lyman Abbot and George Woodberry, + For minds so wholly founded upon quotations + Are not the best of pulse for infant nations. + Dulness herself, that abject spirit, chortles + To see your forty self-baptized immortals, + And holds her sides where swelling laughter cracks ’em + Before the “Ars Poetica” of Hiram Maxim. + All one can say of this refining medium + Is “_Zut! Cinque lettres!_” a banished gallic idiom, + Their doddering ignorance is waxed so notable + ’Tis time that it was capped with something quotable. + + Here Radway grew, the fruit of pantosocracy, + The very fairest flower of their gynocracy. + Radway? My hero, for it will be more inspiring + If I set forth a bawdy plot like Byron + Than if I treat the nation as a whole. + Radway grew up. These forces shaped his soul; + These, and yet God, and Dr. Parkhurst’s god, the N. Y. Journal + (Which pays him more per week than The Supernal). + These and another godlet of that day, your day + (You feed a hen on grease, perhaps she’ll lay + The sterile egg that is still eatable: + “Prolific Noyes” with output undefeatable). + From these he (Radway) learnt, from provosts and from editors unyielding + And innocent of Stendhal, Flaubert, Maupassant and Fielding. + They set their mind (it’s still in that condition)— + May we repeat; the Centennial Exposition + At Philadelphia, 1876? + What it knew then, it knows, and there it sticks. + And yet another, a “charming man”, “sweet nature”, but was Gilder, + _De mortuis verum_, truly the master builder? + + From these he learnt. Poe, Whitman, Whistler, men, their recognition + Was got abroad, what better luck do you wish ’em, + When writing well has not yet been forgiven + In Boston, to Henry James, the greatest whom we’ve seen living. + And timorous love of the innocuous + Brought from Gt. Britain and dumped down a’top of us, + Till you may take your choice: to feel the edge of satire or + Read Benett or some other flaccid flatterer. + + Despite it all, despite your Red Bloods, febrile concupiscence + Whose blubbering yowls you take for passion’s essence; + Despite it all, your compound predilection + For ignorance, its growth and its protection + (Vide the tariff), I will hang simple facts + Upon a tale, to combat other facts, + “Message to Garcia”, Mosher’s propagandas + That are the nation’s botts, collicks and glanders. + Or from the feats of Sumner cull it? Think, + Could Freud or Jung unfathom such a sink? + + My hero, Radway, I have named, in truth, + Some forces among those which “formed” his youth: + These heavy weights, these dodgers and these preachers, + Crusaders, lecturers and secret lechers, + Who wrought about his “soul” their stale infection. + These are the high-brows, add to this collection + The social itch, the almost, all but, not quite, fascinating, + Piquante, delicious, luscious, captivating + Puffed satin, and silk stockings, where the knee + Clings to the skirt in strict (vide: “_Vogue_”) propriety. + Three thousand chorus girls and all unkissed, + O state sans song, sans home-grown wine, sans realist! + “Tell me not in mournful wish-wash + Life’s a sort of sugared dish-wash”! + Radway had read the various evening papers + And yearned to imitate the Waldorf capers + As held before him in that unsullied mirror + The daily press, and monthlies nine cents dearer. + They held the very marrow of the ideals + That fed his spirit; were his mental meals. + Also, he’d read of christian virtues in + That canting rag called _Everybody’s Magazine_, + And heard a clergy that tries on more wheezes + Than e’er were heard of by Our Lord Ch.... J.... + So he “faced life” with rather mixed intentions, + He had attended country Christian Endeavour Conventions, + Where one gets more chances + Than Spanish ladies had in old romances. + (Let him rebuke who ne’er has known the pure Platonic grapple, + Or hugged two girls at once behind a chapel.) + Such practices diluted rural boredom + Though some approved of them, and some deplored ’em. + Such was he when he got his mother’s letter + And would not think a thing that could upset her.... + Yet saw on “ad.” “To-night, THE HUDSON SAIL, + With forty queens, and music to regale + The select company: beauties you all would know + By name, if named”. So it was phrased, or rather somewhat so + I have mislaid the “ad.”, but note the touch, + Note, reader, note the sentimental touch: + His mother’s birthday gift. (How pitiful + That only sentimental stuff will sell!) + + Yet Radway went. A circumspectious prig! + And then that woman like a guinea-pig + Accosted, that’s the word, accosted him, + Thereon the amorous calor slightly frosted him. + (I burn, I freeze, I sweat, said the fair Greek, + I speak in contradictions, so to speak.) + + I’ve told his training, he was never bashful, + And his pockets by ma’s aid, that night with cash full, + The invitation had no need of fine aesthetic, + Nor did disgust prove such a strong emetic + That we, with Masefield’s vein, in the next sentence + Record “Odd’s blood! Ouch! Ouch!” a prayer, his swift repentance. + + No, no, they danced. The music grew much louder + As he inhaled the still fumes of rice-powder. + Then there came other nights, came slow but certain + And were such nights that we should “draw the curtain” + In writing fiction on uncertain chances + Of publication; “Circumstances”, + As the editor of _The Century_ says in print, + “Compel a certain silence and restraint.” + Still we will bring our “fiction as near to fact” as + The Sunday school brings virtues into practice. + + Soon our hero could manage once a week, + Not that his pay had risen, and no leak + Was found in his employer’s cash. He learned the lay of cheaper places, + And then Radway began to go the paces: + A rosy path, a sort of vernal ingress, + And Truth should here be careful of her thin dress— + Though males of seventy, who fear truths naked harm us, + Must think Truth looks as they do in wool pyjamas. + (My country, I’ve said your morals and your thoughts are stale ones, + But surely the worst of your old-women are the male ones.) + + Why paint these days? An insurance inspector + For fires and odd risks, could in this sector + Furnish more date for a compilation + Than I can from this distant land and station, + Unless perhaps I should have recourse to + One of those firm-faced inspecting women, who + Find pretty Irish girls in Chinese laundries, + Up stairs, the third floor up, and have such quandaries + As to how and why and whereby they got in + And for what earthly reason they remain.... + Alas, eheu, one question that sorely vexes + The serious social folk is “just what sex is”. + Though it will, of course, pass off with social science + In which their mentors place such wide reliance. + De Gourmont says that fifty grunts are all that will be prized + Of language, by men wholly socialized, + With signs as many, that shall represent ’em + When thoroughly socialized printers want to print ’em. + “As free of mobs as kings.”? I’d have men free of that invidious, + Lurking, serpentine, amphibious and insidious + Power that compels ’em + To be so much alike that every dog that smells ’em, + Thinks one identity is + Smeared o’er the lot in equal quantities. + Still we look toward the day when man, with unction, + Will long only to be a _social function_, + And even Zeus’ wild lightning fear to strike + Lest it should fail to treat all men alike. + And I can hear an old man saying: “Oh, the rub! + “I see them sitting in the Harvard Club, + “And rate ’em up at just so much per head, + “Know what they think, and just what books they’ve read, + “Till I have viewed straw hats and their habitual clothing + “All the same style, same cut, with perfect loathing.” + + So Radway walked, quite like the other men, + Out into the crepuscular half-light, now and then; + Saw what the city offered, cast an eye + Upon Manhattan’s gorgeous panoply, + The flood of limbs upon Eighth Avenue + To beat Prague, Budapesth, Vienna or Moscow,[4] + Such animal invigorating carriage + As nothing can restrain or much disparage.... + Still he was not given up to brute enjoyment, + An anxious sentiment was his employment, + For memory of the first warm night still cast a haze o’er + The mind of Radway, whene’er he found a pair of purple stays or + Some other quaint reminder of the occasion + That first made him believe in immoral suasion. + A temperate man, a thin potationist, each day + A silent hunter off the Great White Way, + He read _The Century_ and thought it nice + To be not too well known in haunts of vice— + The prominent haunts, where one might recognize him, + And in his daily walks duly capsize him. + Thus he eschewed the bright red-walled cafés and + Was never one of whom one speaks as “brazen’d”. + + Some men will live as prudes in their own village + And make the tour abroad for their wild tillage— + I knew a tourist agent, one whose art is + To run such tours. He calls ’em .... house parties. + But Radway was a patriot whose venality + Was purer in its love of one locality, + A home-industrious worker to perfection, + A senatorial jobber for protection, + Especially on books, lest knowledge break in + Upon the national brains and set ’em achin’. + (’Tis an anomaly in our large land of freedom, + You can not get cheap books, even if you need ’em). + Radway was ignorant as an editor, + And, heavenly, holy gods! I can’t say more, + Though I know one, a very base detractor, + Who has the phrase “As ignorant as an actor”. + + But turn to Radway: the first night on the river, + Running so close to “hell” it sends a shiver + Down Rodyheaver’s prophylactic spine, + Let me return to this bold theme of mine, + Of Radway. O clap hand ye moralists! + And meditate upon the Lord’s conquests. + When last I met him, he was a pillar in + An organization for the suppression of sin .... + Not that he’d changed his tastes, nor yet his habits, + (Such changes don’t occur in men, or rabbits). + Not that he was a saint, nor was top-loftical + In spiritual aspirations, but he found it profitable, + For as Ben Franklin said, with such urbanity: + “Nothing will pay thee, friend, like Christianity”. + And in our day thus saith the Evangelist: + “Tent preachin’ is the kind that pays the best.” + + ’Twas as a business asset _pure an’ simple_ + That Radway joined the Baptist Broadway Temple. + + I find no moral for a peroration, + He is the prototype of half the nation. + +---------- + + [3] [_Note_: It is through no fault of my own that this diversion + was not given to the reader two years ago; but the commercial + said it would not add to their transcendent popularity, and the + vers-libre fanatics pointed out that I had used a form of + terminal consonance no longer permitted, and my admirers (_j’en + ai_), ever nobly desirous of erecting me into a sort of national + institution, declared the work “unworthy” of my mordant and + serious genius. So a couple of the old gentlemen are dead in the + interim, and, alas, two of the great men mentioned in passing, + and the reader will have to accept the opusculus for what it is, + some rhymes written in 1915. I would give them now with + dedication “To the Anonymous Compatriot Who Produced the Poem + ‘Fanny’, Somewhere About 1820”, if this form of centennial homage + be permitted me. It was no small thing to have written, in + America, at that distant date, a poem of over forty pages which + one can still read without labour. _E. P._] + + [4] Pronounce like respectable Russians: “_Mussqu_”. + + + + + Eeldrop and Appleplex + + + T. H. Eliot + + + II + +The suburban evening was grey and yellow on Sunday; the gardens of the +small houses to left and right were rank with ivy and tall grass and +lilac bushes; the tropical South London verdure was dusty above and +mouldy below; the tepid air swarmed with flies. Eeldrop, at the window, +welcomed the smoky smell of lilac, the gramophones, the choir of the +Baptist chapel, and the sight of three small girls playing cards on the +steps of the police station. + +“On such a night as this”, said Eeldrop, “I often think of Scheherazade, +and wonder what has become of her”. + +Appleplex rose without speaking and turned to the files which contained +the documents for his “Survey of Contemporary Society”. He removed the +file marked _London_ from between the files _Barcelona_ and _Boston_ +where it had been misplaced, and turned over the papers rapidly. “The +lady you mention”, he rejoined at last, “whom I have listed not under S. +but as Edith, alias Scheherazade, has left but few evidences in my +possession. Here is an old laundry account which she left for you to +pay, a cheque drawn by her and marked “R/D”, a letter from her mother in +Honolulu (on ruled paper), a poem written on a restaurant bill—”To +Atthis”—and a letter by herself, on Lady Equistep’s best notepaper, +containing some damaging but entertaining information about Lady +Equistep. Then there are my own few observations on two sheets of +foolscap”. + +“Edith”, murmured Eeldrop, who had not been attending to this catalogue, +“I wonder what has become of her. ‘Not pleasure, but fulness of life ... +to burn ever with a hard gem-like flame’, those were her words. What +curiosity and passion for experience! Perhaps that flame has burnt +itself out by now.” + +“You ought to inform yourself better”, said Appleplex severely, “Edith +dines sometimes with Mrs Howexden, who tells me that her passion for +experience has taken her to a Russian pianist in Bayswater. She is also +said to be present often at the Anarchist Tea Rooms, and can usually be +found in the evening at the Cafe de l’Orangerie.” + +“Well”, replied Eeldrop, “I confess that I prefer to wonder what has +become of her. I do not like to think of her future. Scheherazade grown +old! I see her grown very plump, full-bosomed, with blond hair, living +in a small flat with a maid, walking in the Park with a Pekinese, +motoring with a Jewish stock-broker. With a fierce appetite for food and +drink, when all other appetite is gone, all other appetite gone except +the insatiable increasing appetite of vanity; rolling on two wide legs, +rolling in motorcars, rolling toward a diabetic end in a seaside +watering place”. + +“Just now you saw that bright flame burning itself out,” said Appleplex, +“now you see it guttering thickly, which proves that your vision was +founded on imagination, not on feeling. And the passion for +experience—have you remained so impregnably Pre-Raphaelite as to believe +in that? What real person, with the genuine resources of instinct, has +ever believed in the passion for experience? The passion for experience +is a criticism of the sincere, a creed only of the histrionic. The +passionate person is passionate about this or that, perhaps about the +least significant things, but not about experience. But Marius, des +Esseintes, Edith....” + +“But consider”, said Eeldrop, attentive only to the facts of Edith’s +history, and perhaps missing the point of Appleplex’s remarks, “her +unusual career. The daughter of a piano tuner in Honolulu, she secured a +scholarship at the University of California, where she graduated with +Honours in Social Ethics. She then married a celebrated billiard +professional in San Francisco, after an acquaintance of twelve hours, +lived with him for two days, joined a musical comedy chorus, and was +divorced in Nevada. She turned up several years later in Paris and was +known to all the Americans and English at the Cafe du Dome as Mrs Short. +She reappeared in London as Mrs Griffiths, published a small volume of +verse, and was accepted in several circles known to us. And now, as I +still insist, she has disappeared from society altogether.” + +“The memory of Scheherazade”, said Appleplex, “is to me that of Bird’s +custard and prunes in a Bloomsbury boarding house. It is not my +intention to represent Edith as merely disreputable. Neither is she a +tragic figure. I want to know why she misses. I cannot altogether +analyse her ‘into a combination of known elements’ but I fail to touch +anything definitely unanalysable. + +“Is Edith, in spite of her romantic past, pursuing steadily some hidden +purpose of her own? Are her migrations and eccentricities the sign of +some unguessed consistency? I find in her a quantity of shrewd +observation, an excellent fund of criticism, but I cannot connect them +into any peculiar vision. Her sarcasm at the expense of her friends is +delightful, but I doubt whether it is more than an attempt to mould +herself from outside, by the impact of hostilities, to emphasise her +isolation. Everyone says of her, ‘How perfectly impenetrable!’ I suspect +that within there is only the confusion of a dusty garret”. + +“I test people”, said Eeldrop, “by the way in which I imagine them as +waking up in the morning. I am not drawing upon memory when I imagine +Edith waking to a room strewn with clothes, papers, cosmetics, letters +and a few books, the smell of Violettes de Parme and stale tobacco. The +sunlight beating in through broken blinds, and broken blinds keeping out +the sun until Edith can compel herself to attend to another day, Yet the +vision does not give me much pain. I think of her as an artist without +the slightest artistic power”. + +“The artistic temperament—” began Appleplex. + +“No, not that”. Eeldrop snatched away the opportunity. “I mean that what +holds the artist together is the work which he does; separate him from +his work and he either disintegrates or solidifies. There is no interest +in the artist apart from his work. And there are, as you said, those +people who provide material for the artist. Now Edith’s poem ‘To Atthis’ +proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that she is not an artist. On the +other hand I have often thought of her, as I thought this evening, as +presenting possibilities for poetic purposes. But the people who can be +material for art must have in them something unconscious, something +which they do not fully realise or understand. Edith, in spite of what +is called her impenetrable mask, presents herself too well. I cannot use +her; she uses herself too fully. Partly for the same reason I think, she +fails to be an artist: she does not live at all upon instinct. The +artist is part of him a drifter, at the mercy of impressions, and +another part of him allows this to happen for the sake of making use of +the unhappy creature. But in Edith the division is merely the rational, +the cold and detached part of the artist, itself divided. Her material, +her experience that is, is already a mental product, already digested by +reason. Hence Edith (I only at this moment arrive at understanding) is +really the most orderly person in existence, and the most rational. +Nothing ever happens to her; everything that happens is her own doing.” + +“And hence also”, continued Appleplex, catching up the thread, “Edith is +the least detached of all persons, since to be detached is to be +detached from one’s self, to stand by and criticise coldly one’s own +passions and vicissitudes. But in Edith the critic is coaching the +combatant.” + +“Edith is not unhappy”. + +“She is dissatisfied, perhaps”. + +“But again I say, she is not tragic: she is too rational. And in her +career there is no progression, no decline or degeneration. Her +condition is once and for always. There is and will be no catastrophe”. + +“But I am tired. I still wonder what Edith and Mrs Howexden have in +common. This invites the consideration (you may not perceive the +connection) of Sets and Society, a subject which we can pursue tomorrow +night”. + +Appleplex looked a little embarrassed. “I am dining with Mrs Howexden”, +he said. “But I will reflect upon the topic before I see you again”. + + + + + Imaginary Letters + + + IV + + (Walter Villerant to Mrs. Bland Burn) + + Ezra Pound + +My dear Lydia: + +Your rather irascible husband asks for “Aunt Sallys”[5]; with the +Pyrenees before me and at this late date, it is difficult to provide +them. I agree with at least half he says. I am, with qualifications, +Malthusian. I should consent to breed under pressure, if I were +convinced in any way of the reasonableness of reproducing the species. +But my nerves and the nerves of any woman I could live with three +months, would produce only a victim—beautiful perhaps, but a victim: +expiring of aromatic pain from the jasmine, lacking in impulse, a mere +bundle of discriminations. If I were wealthy I might subsidize a stud of +young peasants, or a tribal group in Tahiti. At present “_valga mas +estar soltero_”, I will not take Miss J., nor her income, nor the female +disciple of John. + +There is no truce between art and the public. The public celebrates its +eucharists with dead bodies. Its writers aspire to equal the oyster: to +get themselves swallowed alive. They encompass it. + +Art that sells on production is bad art, essentially. It is art that is +made to demand. It suits the public. The taste of the public is bad. The +taste of the public is always bad. It is bad because it is not an +individual expression, but merely a mania for assent, a mania to be “in +on it”. + +Even the botches of a good artist have some quality, some distinction, +which prevents their pleasing mass-palates. + +Good art weathers the ages because once in so often a man of +intelligence commands the mass to adore it. His contemporaries call him +a nuisance, their children follow his instructions, include him in the +curricula. I am not lifting my voice in protest; I am merely defining a +process. I do not protest against the leaves falling in autumn. + +The arts are kept up by a very few people; they always have been kept +up, when kept up at all, by a very few people. A great art patron is a +man who keeps up great artists. A good art patron is a man who keeps up +good artists. His reputation is coterminous with the work he has +patronized. He can not be an imbecile. + +There are a few more people capable of knowing good art when they see +it. Half of them are indifferent, three fourths of them are inactive, +the exceeding few side with the artist; about all they can do is to feed +him. Others, hating his art, may from family or humanitarian motives, +feed and clothe him in spite of his art ... and attempt to divorce him +from it. + +These statements are simple, dull. One should write them in electric +lights and hang them above Coney Island, and beside the Sarsaparilla +sign on Broadway! The Biblical Text Society should embellish them upon +busses. + +Unfortunately the turmoil of yidds, letts, finns, esthonians, cravats, +niberians, nubians, algerians, sweeping along Eighth Avenue in the +splendour of their vigorous unwashed animality will not help us. They +are the America of tomorrow.... + +(The good Burn believes in America; the naive English, mad over +apiculture, horticulture, arboriculture, herbiculture, agriculture, +asparagriculture etc., always believe in America ... until they have +seen it.) + +The turmoil of Yidds, Letts, etc., is “full of promise”, full of +vitality. They are the sap of the nation, our heritors, the heritors of +our ancient acquisitions. But our job is to turn out good art, that is +to produce it, to make a tradition. + +“My field must be ploughed up, but the country has need of quiet” (La +Famille Cardinal). “I admire Epicurus. He was not the dupe of +analogies”. Need I give references for all my quotations? + +This nonsense about art for the many, for the majority. J’en ai soupé. +It may be fitting that men should enjoy equal “civic and political +rights”, these things are a matter of man’s exterior acts, of exterior +contacts. (Macchiavelli believed in democracy: it lay beyond his +experience). The arts have nothing to do with this. They are man’s life +within himself. The king’s writ does not run there. The voice of the +majority is powerless to make me enjoy, or disenjoy, the lines of +Catullus. I dispense with a vote without inconvenience; Villon I would +not dispense with. + +Bales are written on the false assumption that you can treat the arts as +if they were governed by civic analogies. The two things are not alike, +and there is an end to the matter. + +It is rubbish to say “art for the people lies behind us”. The populace +was paid to attend greek drama. It would have gone to cinemas instead, +had cinemas then existed. Art begins with the artist. It goes first to +the very few; and, next, to the few very idle. Even journalism and +advertising can not reverse this law. I have scribbled a very long +letter, and not answered half the good William’s diatribe. My regards to +Mrs Amelia. + + Yours, + WALTER VILLERANT. + +---------- + + [5] “Imaginary Letters”, by Wyndham Lewis. _The Little Review_ + for May. + + + + + The Children and Judas + + + Robert Alden Sanborn + + It was dawn upon the fields of Heaven, + The dew upon the fence-rail twinkled, + And there were seven + Stars upon the sky that beamed; + And in the grass the cow-bells tinkled, + And daisies dreamed, + And sweet smells streamed + Over the tasselled corn. + + God lay dimmed in slumber, + And Jesus’ warm hair was pillowed on His Father’s breast; + Seven disciples like seven points of a star + Were rayed about the sleeping Majesties, + And Judas was brighter than the rest, + Because his spirit had a fiercer sin to burn. + His ruddy hair was rimmed with dew, + And what he was to me he is to you. + + There was no sound + But the lyric murmur of a Mary, singing + Low upon the ground, + Where a brook ran upon a secret errand + Like a silver hound + Slipping beneath the unbound hair of trees; + Mary was singing to the least of these, + Some Children. + + All listened, + For the breath of her caressed the silence + With curves of melody; + And hence the very corn awoke to hear, + And to inhale the healing psalmody. + So because the grass, the daisies, stirred + Pleasantly, and light wings whirred + As birds arose from nests, + And quests of dew and honey went upon, + The Children, one by one, moved about, + And some would run up the hill, + And back again; another seemed to pout, + But changed and blew a glad shrill whistle out + That pleased the sailing stars. + + Then Mary ceased her song, + And silence fell like shadow on them all. + + Now amongst the ones who slept + Judas raised his head; + Sleep never touched his eyes with cool forgetfulness, + Instead his soul was fed with sin + That never flickered out within. + + He yawned and bent his knees, + And the tongue of a silver bell + Shivered above the sleeping Majesties + Within the ring of seven, + Because there were but six + When Judas vaulted the fence-rail + Out of the fields of Heaven. + + And now you could hear Jesus breathe, + And God murmur peace upon the wakeful corn. + + “God!” + A spire of frail sound rose from a boyish will, + “See God, He’s walking down the hill, + See, Mary!” + + And Mary looked up + And saw Judas coming toward them, + The sweet hand of a Child in the cup of either hand. + + “Shall I tell them the truth, Judas, + That you are far from God,” said she, + “Or will you burn them with your sin, + You who are no kin to such as these, + And drive them back to me, + Crying bitterly?” + + A smile struggled with his twisted face, + But could not give it grace, + And the two Children, wary + Of the lurid tumult in his breast, + Wrested their twined fingers from the gnarled hold of him, + And their eyes dim with tears, + Ran back to Mary. + + Judas, the silent shadow of a man, + His will as heavy as a fallen tree in a wood, + Stood upon the hill, + And watched the Children as they ran, + Saw them nestle into Mary’s arms, + Seeking in the cloudy charms + Of her loosened hair, + The peace they knew was there. + + Words crowded in his throat, + And he sat upon the hillside + With his face between his knees. + + Now when his face was hidden + From the least of these, + One, bidden by the helplessness + Of the man on the side of the hill, + Came from the shelter of Mary’s hair, + And minding not her warning touch, + Nor her sounding of his name, + Knowing he was not chidden much, + Went winding an idle way + Up the hill, and around and away + From the still bowed man. + + And first he picked a flower + Which he threw higher toward the fence-rail. + + God smiled in His sleep, + And Jesus opened His eyes, + Put forth a hand for the plucked flower, + And hid it in His breast, + Yet did not rise nor cease His rest. + + The Child, + Keeping a moody soft eye upon the grey humped figure, + Betrayed his mischief in a smile + That waxed bigger, bubble-like, and broke into a laugh, + And like a thief in the night + Crept up the hill to the fence-rail, + And peeked. + + The fence-rail creaked + As Jesus turned His face to him: + “Poor man, dear boy,” he whispered silverly, + “Until he learns to play, + To dress his dusty head + With ribbons of the rosy day, + Never can he share + Your early morning passion, + Flecked with foamy curls of hair. + Would you give him back again + To my bosom, cleansed of pain, + Spill your living ways of laughing + In his muffled ears; + At him, and beset him! Splash him, little dears, + In your fun,” Jesus bade the boy. + “Run!” + + And the Child winked, Yes, + Turned about and ran, + Put his flying hands upon the shoulders of the man, + And while a star blinked + At what he saw, + The Child broke the law of sin + As he leaped over Judas in the old, old game; + Ran screaming down to Mary’s covering hair, + But did not linger there; + Sped back and bounded over once again, + And others captured by the first one’s joy + Were startled into rapture + And followed, girl and boy, + In the glamour of the game, + Until the sunken man became + Bathed and spattered, + Shaken, shattered and half-hidden, + In the breaking foam of Children. + + There came a pause + When the Little Ones, breathing + Hard about Judas, saw him raise his head, + Saw a smile like theirs, wreathing + His face, washed with sleep, + As though he waked in his bed + From the keep of angels. + + In his eyes remembrance shone + Of when he was a boy + And looked upon the face of God everywhere; + Of when he was himself a toy, + A plaything of a God who dreamed + Everywhere and everything. + + And when the Children saw + Upon his face the broken law + Of sin dissolve like shadows + In a ruined wood; + When they saw the sun come up + Within him, fill his face as the cup + Of the world is filled, + They spilled their bubbling laughter on the air, + And cuddled to his knees + As though he, too, were of the least of these. + + His greedy arms inarticulately stuffed + With bloomy charms, + His roughed voice sweet + With honey of his joy, he began: + + “Now when I was a boy + I had as little as you to give me joy, + And made as much of it, + Made a world of many mansions + Each great enough for God to dwell in; + Yes, mansions of my little joy, + Even as do you.” + + “Do we?” asked one thoughtfully, + And, “What is mansion?” said another. + “And who put the shadows in your face?” + “And who took them away again?” + + “A great light put the shadows in my face.” + Said he; + “Because I hoarded it within, + And boarded it up with sin + Of my importance; + Because I would not dance with joy of it + Like a brook prancing to the sea, + But in a deep dark well + Sealed the living spirit up; + What grace of it I could not keep + I would not give away + In play, like you.” + + “Do we?” asked one closer than the rest. + “And who is Grace?” from another troubled breast. + “And what is sin?” + + “Sin is a stone,” + Dreamed Judas, his chin on a silky head, + “Which when a seed is blown + Upon it, harbors not + The desire of a flower in the seed, + But must be broken by the shower, + And a deal of shining, + And the bold clutch of cold; + Grace is the flower + Of desire in the seed, + And sin is the stone that will not feed the flower.” + + “Here is a flower,” + Said a Child with a daffodil. + “And here is a stone, + Will you show us how + The stone won’t feed the flower?” + “Yes, will you _now_?” chattered all. + + Judas took the stone in one hand, + And in the other raised a black leather bag + That sagged from the girdle at his waist. + “There is little grace in either, + As much in one as in the other,” + Murmured Judas, hefting the leather bag. + + “Oh, I hear something jingle,” said a little blond brother. + “Are they sins?” said his sister. + + “NO!” spoke a voice like the beat of a great wing + On the air behind Judas. + + Then a white light shone upon him, + Through him spread the light + So that no shadow of him fell + Like night around the Children. + And Judas looked up, + And saw Jesus standing there. + + “See, Children!” cried Jesus, with many smiles, + “What the good Judas has brought you all these years; + See, my dears, what he has saved all the stony hilly miles, + For you!” + + And Jesus opened the black leather bag, + And brought forth hands full of sweet bread + Which he fed to the Children. + + Then Judas, his hands sticky + With crumby kisses of the Little Ones, + Went up the hill with the great Lover, + Under the cover of His arm, + All harm gone from him. + + + + + The Reader Critic + + + Yeats’s “Upon a Dying Lady” + +J., New York: + +I wonder how many of your readers know that the Seven Poems by William +Butler Yeats in the August number of _The Little Review_ were inspired +by and written about Miss Mabel Beardsley, the sister of Aubrey +Beardsley? I remember when Yeats was writing them. She was dying of a +lingering illness. She was a Catholic, and it is of course well known +that Aubrey Beardsley became a Catholic before he died. Artists, poets +and writers like Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts, W. B. Yeats, and +other old friends of her brother and herself, used to take turns in +visiting her. Some of them made points of collecting their best and in +some cases most improper stories for her. I hope that she kept a diary +and entered some of the stories in it. W. B. Yeats was tremendously +moved by her fine spirit and gaiety. The Seven Poems were the result. + +The story is one that Meredith would have loved. And she was a joyous +creature that Meredith would have loved had he known her. There was no +wearing of black there, no making a luxury of her grief, no flaunting it +in the faces of others, even though they might sympathize with or share +her feelings. It was all quite French, what a spirited French woman +would do. She would have enjoyed the story published in the Letters of +Meredith that an old Cornish woman told him: + +“A hunting Squire in her neighborhood had a very handsome wife, whom he +valued less than the fox’s tail. One of the Vivians eyed her, admired, +condoled, desired and carried her off. Some days after, she was taken +with compunction or compassion, and about midnight the forsaken squire, +sitting in his library, heard three knocks at the window. ‘That’s Bess,’ +he said, and let her in. She was for weeping and protesting repentance, +but he kissed her, taking the blame on himself, rightly, and the house +was quiet. Old Lady Vivian, like many old ladies, had outgrown her +notions of masculine sentiment in these matters; she said to my friend: +‘What are the man’s family making such a fuss about! My son only had her +a fortnight!’” + + + Gargoyles + +An Old Reader: + +I have never been a real subscriber. The only copy of _The Little +Review_ I ever bought was the memorable March issue with Galsworthy’s +letter in it. For a long time after that _The Little Review_ was my +religion; it converted me to a faith in New America, it inspired me to +dreams and creative work. It was my first American sweetheart, and as +long as it remained such it aroused in me the whole gamut of love +emotions, from passionate admiration to passionate hatred. It would pain +me to become just a subscriber, to manifest my attitude through a dollar +and a half. Better leave the ashes undisturbed by profane poking. + +Of late I have thought a good deal about the magazine. I have been +camping near the ocean, and have spent some time in your various haunts +of last summer where the natives still gossip about the _Little Review_ +crowd. Plunging at night into the phosphorous surf and other delightful +sins, mingled with communion with some _Little Review_ worshippers, has +disturbed my academic calm and provoked my reveries. One night I was +awakened and perceived an apparition moving from the roaring sea toward +my gigantic fire. I heard a voice, a wail: “Help! Margaret Anderson is +murdering me!” Was it the spirit of _The Little Review_? + +For surely the spirit of the old _Little Review_ is dead. You seem to be +proud of your evolution, of the graves of your old gods that loom in +your eyes like stepping-stones to those heights where you bask in the +wisdom of the Ezras. I hope your new faith is as sleeve-deep as your +former acquired creeds. For the beauty of the old _Little Review_, the +secret of its magnetism and appeal to Young America, lay in its +youthfulness, its spontaneity, in its puerility, if you wish. For +puerility mates with originality. The Ezras know too much. Their minds +are black, scarcely smouldering logs. They are yogis; you remember how +Galsworthy hoped that you would escape the danger of becoming yogis? + +An Ezraized _Little Review_ will have no appeal to Young America. Shall +I tell you that in my summer class I had students from various western +states to the University of California because they saw my name in the +catalogue, and they associated my name with the old _Little Review_? +These worshippers are cold to the recent issues. And I sympathize with +them. The new _Little Review_ is gargoylitic, monotonously so. We can +still enjoy a passage in Wyndham Lewis, although Remy de Gourmont has +said the same things more beautifully and less flippantly. We are still +grateful for such a jewel as Maxwell Bodenheim’s “Poet’s Heart”: +Bodenheim is the greatest of all the Others, for he does not suffer from +self-consciousness, from too-much-knowing. But it is Ezra who sprawls +all over _The Little Review_ and bedecks it with gargoyles. Mr. Pound is +digestible only in the early miniatures: + +“Oh fan of white silk, clear as frost on the grass-blade”.... + +I hope that you will soon tire of your over-sophisticated associates and +drive them out of the sanctuary. After all you are a rock ... you are +still persisting at the impossible and the miraculous. I am looking +forward to the next stage in your evolution. And I send you my hearty +greeting, over the gargoylitic heads of your miseacres, for the next +fresh, spontaneous _Little Review_. + +[This letter I think will find an echo in the minds of many of our first +subscribers. I have several faults to find with its point of view, but +one especially: I cannot see why personal qualities such as freshness, +spontaneity, enthusiasm, etc., are in any way a guarantee for an +interesting or important magazine. Being temperamentally spontaneous, my +actions will always be characterized by impulsiveness, etc. But I know +that spontaneity will never help me to write an immortal poem. You must +keep things in their proper correspondences. + +I very spontaneously accept the cooperation of a group of writers who +can really write. Literature is their medium. Playing the piano is mine. +When I play the piano very beautifully to the original _Little Review_ +“worshippers” they will know it is not because I am young and fresh and +enthusiastic but because I know a great deal about how the piano should +be played. I can’t do such things to words. Wyndham Lewis does it in +this issue in a passage—“Leonardo’s beauty consisted in a red rain on +the shadowed side of heads”.... That is a matter of great prose. And the +only reason for a magazine of the Arts to be published is that it shall +produce great prose, great poetry, great reproductions of sculpture, +painting, and music. We are going to have the latter as soon as +possible.—_M. C. A._] + + + Phases of Crazes + +H. L. C., Chicago: + +I have just read your circular letter in which you state your aims and +set forth your plans for the future. It is the best-written letter of +the kind I have ever read. + +But I don’t like your promises, so I am going to risk your Reader Critic +(that at least is always interesting: no one ever seems to be safe from +you) and tell you why. + +I wish you didn’t have such a craze for foreigners and self-exiled +Americans. I think you have missed your chance right here in your own +country. I am sure there are writers if you would go after them who, if +they couldn’t write so well, would on the other hand be writing in a +familiar manner about subjects known to us and in so doing be creating a +literary tradition of our own. + +I am tired of these floods of Russian, French, Scandinavian, Irish and +Hindoo stuff that have swept the country. The war will probably reduce +the importation of foreign books, and I for one think this will be a +good thing.... + +[I should think there might be room in America for one magazine which +will print work just because it is good, no matter where it is produced. +All we ask in this is to be allowed a choice of crazes. + +To us is seems that there is an indiscriminate craze in the theatre, in +books, in magazines, and even in exhibition rooms, for the American +product with all its sins upon it. Let your fears for the contamination +or stifling from abroad of American letters be at rest. Congress and the +established publisher have attended to all that. Ignorance is protected +from invasion far better than the country itself. + +Each generation in this country is spared the shock of contemporary +foreign masterpieces. When a masterpiece reaches America, a generation +late, Time has tempered it to the shorn. I happen to know something of +Tagore’s experience with this protection. When Tagore was first +“discovered” in America—(he had been published in London and had with +him only a few personal copies of his work)—he sent to his London +publishers for extra copies to meet the requests of his friends. Aside +from a terrific tariff, the red tape and the questioning as to the +integrity of his purpose in importing his own books proved too wearing +an experience: the idea was abandoned. On his recent trip he brought +with him a small collection of very gentle Indian water colours, with no +other motive than to create if possible an understanding of Indian art +in this country. His pictures were held up at the port of Seattle, he +was called again and again before inspectors, made to swear all kinds of +oaths, and to deposit a fabulous sum (some forty thousand dollars, as I +remember) to assure the government that his intentions were all right. + +As he was leaving the country some one asked him if he ever intended +making another visit,—(there had been some agitation before this about +including the Hindoo in the Oriental Immigration laws)—and Tagore +replied, “I do not know. You will make a law against the Hindoo coming +to your country. You have now a law against books. It may be you will +make a law against poets coming too?” + +When the western nations have finished making the world safe for +democracy, if it wouldn’t be too satirical the Orient might wage a world +war to make the world safe for Art.—_jh._] + + Bury bloody Bodenheim + Bury bloody Bodenheim + Bury bloody Bodenheim + And Johnny Rodker too. + + —_E. J._ + + + + +To Our Readers + + +Do you know anything more annoying or more ageing than to have your +friends discover for you those cherished things in Art which you should +have discovered for yourself? + +_The Little Review_ is giving its readers an opportunity to make their +own discoveries. There is no magazine in America which has on its staff +such an important line-up of known genius and the “yet unknowns”. + +If you have any friends who are not entrenched in mediocrity, definitely +protecting themselves against good literature, tell them to subscribe to +_The Little Review_. Or send us their names and we will mail them sample +copies. + +_The Little Review_ is doing some intensive growing this autumn. We have +great plans for enlarging our format and giving you the best creative +work that is being produced here and in Europe, written without an eye +on the established publisher, and not garbled in editorial rooms to meet +the taste of the average mind. + +Send us the names of any people you think will be interested. We will +appreciate it. + + + Mason & Hamlin + + + THE STRADIVARIUS OF PIANOS + + + + + Mason & Hamlin Co. + + 313 FIFTH AVENUE + NEW YORK + + + + + OLD + CHELSEA + + 51 West 16th Street + New York City + + + Rooms, Suites, Floors + + furnished or unfurnished. Intelligent service for busy men and + women. + + + Table d’hote + dining-room + + noted for fine home cooking. + + “_A bit of Old Chelsea in little old New York_” + + + Ruth Stout says, + + ... “And now remember, it’s Special Dinner for half-a-dollar on + Wednesday at 7.00; and on Sunday it’s luncheon a la carte.” + + + THE KLICKET + + 163 West Fourth Street, + The Village, New York. + + + + + THE LITTLE REVIEW + + MARGARET C. ANDERSON, _Editor_ + EZRA POUND, _London Editor_ + + _For October_: + + A POEM, by T. S. ELIOT + PO-CHÜ-I, versions by ARTHUR D. WALEY + CANTLEMAN, by WYNDHAM LEWIS + IMAGINARY LETTERS, V., by EZRA POUND + BARBARA ROSCORLA’S CHILD, by ARTHUR SYMONS + AN EDITORIAL ON SOLICITOUS DOUBT + + _For November_: + + HANRAHAN’S OATH: A PLAY, by LADY GREGORY + + Editorials in The Little Review will respect no vested interests, + no publishers’ interests, no aged magazines and reviews, nor + staffs of the same. + + Yearly Subscription, U. S. A., $1.50; Canada, $1.65; + Great Britain and other Countries, 7/- + + + THE LITTLE REVIEW + + 24 West 16th Street, New York City + Foreign Office: 5 Holland Place Chambers, London W. S. + + Enclosed find $1.50 for one year’s subscription, beginning + .......... + + Name ...................... + Address ................... + ................... + + + + + 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]: + ... there is certain category of spirit that is not quite + anaemic, and ... + ... there is a certain category of spirit that is not quite + anaemic, and ... + + [p. 7]: + ... man’s festival as a Falstaff of unwieldly spume; if he + comes at ... + ... man’s festival as a Falstaff of unwieldy spume; if he comes + at ... + + [p. 12]: + ... Yet saw on “ad.” “To-night, THE HUDSON SAIL”, ... + ... Yet saw on “ad.” “To-night, THE HUDSON SAIL, ... + + [p. 29]: + ... Murmured Judas, helfting the leather bag. ... + ... Murmured Judas, hefting the leather bag. ... + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78252 *** |