Part 1

THE LITTLE REVIEW

_Literature Drama Music Art_

MARGARET C. ANDERSON EDITOR

JANUARY, 1915

The Allies Amy Lowell The Logical Extreme George Soule Little Flowers from a Milliner’s Box Sade Iverson My Friend, the Incurable: Ibn Gabirol On Personalities: Villon, Verhaeren, Parnell, Rolland, Dostoevsky A Note on Paroxysm in Poetry Edward J. O’Brien The New Beauty Nicolas Beauduin The Artist as Master Henry Blackman Sell Evolution versus Stagnation Herman Schuchert Dawn in the Hills Florence Kiper Frank The Bestowing Virtue George Burman Foster Editorials and Announcements Mrs. Havelock Ellis’s “The Love of Tomorrow” Herman Schuchert London Letter Edward Shanks New York Letter George Soule I Am Woman Marguerite Swawite Albert Spalding Herman Schuchert Book Discussion Sentence Reviews The Reader Critic

Published Monthly

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MARGARET C. ANDERSON, PUBLISHER FINE ARTS BUILDING CHICAGO

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Entered as second-class matter at Postoffice, Chicago.

THE LITTLE REVIEW

Vol. I

JANUARY, 1915

No. 10

Copyright, 1915, by Margaret C. Anderson.

The Allies

(_August 14th, 1914_)

AMY LOWELL

Into the brazen, burnished sky the cry hurls itself. The zigzagging cry of hoarse throats, it floats against the hard winds, and binds the head of the serpent to its tail, the long snail-slow serpent of marching men. Men weighted down with rifles and knapsacks, and parching with war. The cry jars and splits against the brazen, burnished sky.

This is the war of wars, and the cause? Has this writhing worm of men a cause?

Crackling against the polished sky is an eagle with a sword. The eagle is red and its head is flame.

* * * * *

In the shoulder of the worm is a teacher.

His tongue laps the war-sucked air in drought, but he yells defiance at the red-eyed eagle, and in his ears are the bells of new philosophies, and their tinkling drowns the sputter of the burning sword. He shrieks, “God damn you! When you are broken the world will strike out new shoots.”

His boots are tight, the sun is hot, and he may be shot, but he is in the shoulder of the worm.

(_Over_)

A dust speck in the worm’s belly is a poet.

He laughs at the flaring eagle and makes a long nose with his fingers. He will fight for smooth, white sheets of paper and uncurdled ink. The sputtering sword cannot make him blink, and his thoughts are wet and rippling. They cool his heart.

He will tear the eagle out of the sky and give the earth tranquility, and loveliness printed on white paper.

* * * * *

The eye of the serpent is an owner of mills.

He looks at the glaring sword which has snapped his machinery and struck away his men.

But it will all come again, when the sword is broken to a million dying stars, and there are no more wars.

* * * * *

Bankers, butchers, shopkeepers, painters, farmers,—men, sway and sweat. They will fight for the earth, for the increase of the slow, sure roots of peace, for the release of hidden forces. They jibe at the eagle and his scorching sword.

One! Two!—One! Two! clump the heavy boots. The cry hurtles against the sky.

* * * * *

Each man pulls his belt a little tighter, and shifts his gun to make it lighter. Each man thinks of a woman, and slaps out a curse at the eagle. The sword jumps in the hot sky, and the worm crawls on to the battle, stubbornly.

This is the war of wars, from eye to tail the serpent has one cause:

PEACE!

The Logical Extreme

GEORGE SOULE

(_The first of a series of three Dramatic Extravaganzas to be called “Plays for Irascibles.”_)

CHARACTERS:

GENERAL HEINRICH VON BUHNE MARYA RUDINOFF

SCENE:

A private dining room in the General’s house in Berlin. It is decorated in black and white, and designed to impress one with the luxury of austerity. A chaotic but strong cubist bust in black onyx is at the left. The dining table, right center, is prepared for a meal. The effect of the room is that of a subtle beauty compressed and given terrific force by a military severity. There is a door at the rear and an entrance for servants at the left.

The General enters rear, followed by Marya. He is tall, with a large mustache and gray hair; his face and figure are in striking harmony with the room. A man of high intellectual quality; the lines and angles of his jaw, his mouth, his brows, are almost terrifying in their massiveness. He is in evening dress, and wears a single crimson order. Marya likewise is tall, a young woman with dark hair, and of a tense beauty. She is subtle, yet apparently lacks utterly fear and the softer qualities. She moves about with an unemphasized superiority over her surroundings. She wears a red evening gown, low cut to show her superb shoulders, yet without daring for its own sake. One feels that she would be equally at ease as a nude Greek goddess.

The General seats her at the right of the table, bows, and sits opposite her. Two servants enter with appetizers; they continue serving the dinner as the dialogue progresses.

GENERAL VON BUHNE (_lifting his glass_). To a good day’s work. (_She touches hers to her lips_) Fräulein Rudinoff, you are superb! I do not refer to your beauty; any dog could see that. I don’t believe in praise. But as a sculptor to his statue, allow me to say that of the many secret agents I have employed, you are the most subtly efficient—cold as ice and blazing as fire.

MARYA. Please, Heinrich! I don’t believe in praise either.

GENERAL. Not even when it is for myself? But you are right. Man does not become strong until he ceases to wonder at his strength.

MARYA. That is your secret, I believe.

GENERAL. My secret, Marya? I do not have secrets. A secret is something guarded, kept. My mystery, perhaps, yes. That is something which the many are incapable of discovering—even when it is flaunted in their faces.

MARYA. But we flaunt nothing, you and I.

GENERAL. No, we stand for everyone to see. My enemies think you are their spy, and I—know what you are.

MARYA. And so, we have them at last where your iron fist can close on them.

GENERAL. Yes, I have them, thanks to you. The poor visionary fools shall not assassinate the chancellor and blow up the churches.

MARYA. You know, we women are supposed to worship the poets. Well, we do, but we are fascinated and held by men like you. I loved the comrades, but—as you see——

GENERAL. You are right, Marya. I love them, too; that is why—I crush them. (He laughs shortly.) And perhaps that is why I dominate you. It is not an effort; it is an instinct. There is something—inevitable—about our love. That, I think, is because I—am inevitable.

MARYA. When I first came to you, Heinrich, I hated you. I think I do still, a little. There is always the zest of hate about the greatest love.

GENERAL. How you echo me! (_A silence_) Would it surprise you, my beautiful one, to know that I, like you, was once an anarchist?

MARYA. You!

GENERAL. Yes, I, the bugaboo of the democrats, the great reactionary, the militarist, the apostle of repression, the fortress of the German Empire. I was once a revolutionist, and I plotted to kill your Czar!

MARYA. And yet you failed!

GENERAL. I am in a whimsical mood tonight. Shall I explain to you the paradox?

MARYA. Tell me!

GENERAL. When I was a young chap I was restless, full of that driving spirit all healthy youngsters have. The methodical occupations they gave me in the Fatherland disgusted me. I had money, and I traveled. So I came to Russia and took up with one of your artistic groups in an interior city—I won’t tell you which. Believe me, I was fascinated, lifted out of myself! The great, clean spirit of your intellectual anarchists, the daily dangers they thrived on, the nonchalance with which they met death or exile, their daring minds, which ripped the veil from the future, their beautiful art productions—these things carried me to the height of inspiration. They represented the highest human quality of which it was possible to dream.

MARYA (_covering her eyes with her hand_). You have known that, too!

GENERAL. Yes, and love along with it. It was a boy-like worship. And when my beloved one went to the scaffold it burned into me a white-hot scar of fearlessness and severity I shall never lose. The love, I see now, was ephemeral; the scar is eternal.

MARYA. And why did you leave them? Why did you leave them?

GENERAL. I had heard of America; I wished to go there and study the freedom we desired to create in Russia.

MARYA. So you went; what then?

GENERAL. I found a country without a hereditary ruler, one rich in opportunity, where all men are theoretically equal before the law. I found a country where even the peasants read and have their magazines, a country without a state church. It was a land won from the wilderness by heroic struggle, whose freedom men had died to create, and whose unity men had died to preserve.

MARYA. Did you not breathe more freely there?

GENERAL. Ah, Marya, that was the tragedy! I suffocated! For it was also a country without a poet, without a musician, without a sculptor, without a philosopher. The cities were run for loot, and the people, in whose power everything lay, could not seize the reins. And business—business—business, everywhere. As I went along the railroads I saw nothing beside the track but dirty wooden shanties in the cities, nothing in the country but ugly advertising signs. What do you think was the best paid and most highly honored profession? Advertising!

MARYA. Are you lying to me!

GENERAL. No, it is the truth. Heroism, the love of beauty, the love of truth—except convenient truth—any sort of high endeavor for its own sake, was laughed at and crushed in those people by the dull weight of prosperity. That whole nation was an ugly monument to the triumph of the commonplace, a stone over the grave of godlike aspiration.

MARYA. But surely they have improved since then?

GENERAL. Do you know why they put up new buildings? Because some millionaire who sells worthless things for five and ten cents wishes to make money renting offices; because some railroad or insurance company wishes to get advertising space in the papers without paying for it. Do you know why the clergymen preach honesty? So that business conditions may not be disturbed! Do you know for what purpose the magazines accept stories and articles? So that they may gain the largest possible public to offer up to their advertising men! Whenever an artist appears, he is either ignored or scoffed at by that bestial monster, the majority! It is like a prehistoric animal taking up the whole earth with his vast bulk, seizing everything beautiful for food with which to stuff his maw, and poisoning the air with the breath of his indigestion. (_He rises and goes to the sideboard, where he busies himself selecting a cigar. As his back is turned, Marya quickly empties a powder into his glass. As he comes back and seats himself, she lifts her glass._)

MARYA. Then let us toast Russia, General! (_They drain their glasses._)

GENERAL. Would you mind telling me, Marya, how long I have to live? (_He lights his cigar._) You are surprised? But that does not suit you. You should have known me better than to think I did not know what you would do when I turned my back tonight.

MARYA (_rising, pale_): About a minute, General.

GENERAL. Then let us use the time well. Now we can be perfectly frank. Why have you—(_He waves his hand in the direction of the empty glass._)

MARYA. Because I am true to my cause! Because you are the scourge of Germany; you represent everything we hate, every cruelty, every oppression, every evil thing of the past. I have lived for this moment for years!

GENERAL. Ah, you are beautiful! In you is my reward! And do you renounce your love, too?

MARYA. I have loved you—more than I knew how to bear. Do not think I shall live after you. And yet—I had to kill you!

GENERAL. Now I am ready to die. My work is done. I have produced the beauty I desired!

MARYA. You? What do you mean?

GENERAL. You, who know how to kill what you love, can ask that? To produce the rebellion in Germany, to make heroes with the scourge—that has been my life! I, too, have lived for this moment! To be loved by a woman with a flaming soul, a woman who is greater than her love!

MARYA (_Springing to him as he weakens_): Stay with me! Come back to me! O Heinrich, Heinrich, I have wronged you!

GENERAL. No, Marya, you would have wronged me if you had not carried your faith to its end. I—I—am the greatest anarchist of you all! (_He dies. She looks at him a moment, puts her arms across her eyes, then rises and speaks levelly to the servant who enters._)

MARYA. Peter, I have killed your master. No, do not be afraid, I shall sit here quietly. Lock me in, if you like, and send for the authorities. (_The servant stands stupidly staring at her._) Do as I say, at once! (_He tumbles out. She sits slowly at her place, her elbows on the table, looking dumbly into the distance._)

_Slow curtain_

Little Flowers From a Milliner’s Box

SADE IVERSON

Reminders

I have been making a little hat; A hat for a little lady. Red and brown leaves edge it, And the crown is like brown moss. If I might, I would say to her: “Pay me nothing, pay me nothing— I have been paid in full, lady— I have been paid in memories. Ah, the sweep of the sun-burned meadow Rising above the woodland! Ah, the drift of golden beech-leaves, Fluttering the still hour through! I can hear them falling, softly, Softly, falling on the tawny ground. The nuts, too, are falling, pad-pad, Mischievously on the earth. Never was sky so blue, so deep, So unbearably perfect! I throw up my hands to it, I fling kisses heavenward, To Something, to Somebody, Who made beauty—who made Youth! Take your hat, little lady, Wear it smilingly; It is all sewn with dreams, And looped with memories. Little dead joys, like mists, Float about it invisibly, Making it miraculous. You lack the money to pay for these things. It is I who owe you for the little hat You commissioned, made of red and of brown leaves, With a crown like sun-dried moss In the woods where I once wandered.” But I cannot afford to be kind, Or strange, or mad, or merry. She will give me purse-worn bills For the little dream hat, the fairy-sewn hat, And I shall say with formality: “Thank you, madam; I am glad You are pleased with the little hat.”

Stale, stale, flat, flat!

Will there never again come a day When I shall be throwing kisses to the sky, Hoping they will reach up to Him Who made beauty, and little golden leaves, And brown nuts falling in the Autumn woods?

Eidolons

I have been looking at the sun-ball, Red as a Japanese lantern Swinging low in the West On a bed of saffron sky. And now I have come into my room With grey and lonely walls all about me, And everywhere I look, behold, Little wonderful bright balls are swinging! My room is gay with them, My wall is dancing. Who could guess this little grey room could be so gay?

Voices

I awake in the night to the sound of voices— Voices of strangers passing in the street. I cannot hear what they are saying, But it is easy to see that they are happy. Perhaps they have been to a party, Dancing to music—or remembering the birthday Of some one whom they love. I am glad to have heard them, Glad they were laughing. It fretted the silence As the bright balls of a rocket Fret the black sky of night. As for me, I am shut up in silence, Like a fly in odorous amber. No one hails me, no one calls me; No one tells me the day is fair Or wishes me happy dreams.

Sometimes I fall to wondering, What if I should run out onto the street, Crying to some passerby: “I would make a good friend to you! I am one who understands friendship; Try me and see!” Oh, what would happen? Should I be scorned? Oh, silence, silence, You are but a grey bubble, and I could break you With one breath of impatience. Yet I dare not. Something witholds me. Still must I waken In the lonely night-time, Taking joy from the voices of strangers Passing in the street, talking, laughing. Joy? It mocks me like the sound of falling water That tricks the ear of the thirst-mad wretch Dying in the desert.

My desert is Silence! It covers the bleak rotundity of the earth.

Ten Square Feet of Garden

Did you ever see my garden? See my mallow? See my larkspur? My petunias like censers, snowy white and full of honey? And my phlox, a summer snow-bank, and my haughty purple asters?

Did you ever see my flocks and herds, all my little golden creatures? Dusky honey-bees in plenty, golden bumble-bees a few? Have you never seen them feeding on my larkspur and my mallow?

Some day I shall have a fountain, or a tiny pool for lilies. And I’ll sit there, hidden safely, all alone and full of fancies, Playing I’m a lovely princess, resting by her carven fountain.

I shall like to be a princess, to have friends and lovers by me! I can praise them, I can chide them, tell them secrets if I like, Flinging back their happy laughter like a handful of clear water.

Oh, my little treasured garden, ten square feet of haunting perfume, Ten square feet of tossing blossoms, all my feoff and own dominion, How I love you, with your old-gold, noisy, honey-bearing herds!

My Friend, the Incurable

III.

Personalities: Villon; Verhaeren; Parnell; Romain Rolland; Dostoevsky

How do you do? Or, as Oscar Wilde preferred it, How do you think? It is so much more interesting. Tell me, if you can, spontaneously, freely, about your thoughts, reveal your personality, and we shall enjoy a most engaging conversation, as charming as any good novel or essay. Speak about yourself; people do this so much better than when they discuss others. To me the most enchanting reading has always been literature of Personality, such as subjective lyrics or chatty essays of the Montaigne category; but I am particularly interested in Letters and Memoirs, where the writer reaches transparency, unless he deliberately uses his pen as a masque for self-concealment, as is the case, to my mind, in _De Profundis_. True, an artist reveals his best in his artistic creation; you discover autobiographical contours of Goethe in Faust and Werther; Tolstoy’s restless searchings are mirrored in Besukhov, in Levin, in Nekhludov; Zarathustra and _Ecce Homo_ allow you a glimpse into the very crater of Vesuvius-Nietzsche. Yet through this medium you see the artist in his royal garb, so to speak, in his regalia; he seldom appears to you in his unceremonious morning-gown and slippers, to let you contemplate him not at his _best_ but in his quotidian intimate aspect. Exceptions? I admit a legion.

To be sure, Francois Villon[1] wore no stage array. His childish frankness and spontaneity account for the fact that he is to this very day an outcast among _bon ton_ salons, and even Robert Louis Stevenson stooped to condemn him. Of course he is a disgrace for the fraternity of writers: a thief, a robber, a murderer, a tramp, a debauchee, who possessed less tact than even his by-no-means puritanic confrère, Rabelais, and chanted most exquisite verses on most base topics. Villon is not in the least detached from his poetry: he is it, his very life was a song, a ballad. Filthy fifteenth century Paris, licentious monks, mercenary courtesans, tavern sages, knights of the road and candidates of the gibbet—in such an atmosphere the poet breathed, lived, and sang in the old picturesque French. Every adventure, every experience, impression, and emotion, Villon reflected in a ballad or a rondel, with equal beauty and sincerity; with equal compassion and loyalty he chanted to his religious mother and to the faded courtesan, to the duck-thief and to the creaking gibbet; and he poured a world of tender humor and sympathy into his greatest _Ballade des Pendus_, an epitaph for himself and his companions expecting to be hanged. You may love him, you may condemn him, but you cannot deny his absolute truthfulness, for his soul is unreservedly denuded, a quivering, appealing, humane soul.

[1] _The Poems of Francois Villon_, translated by H. DeVere Stacpoole. [John Lane Company, New York.]

Ayez pitie, Ayez pitie de moy. A tout les moins, si vous plaist, mes amis!

Villon is justly called “the father of French poetry”; his influence has been felt for nearly five centuries, from Rabelais to Verhaeren. Indeed, in the savage cosmic rhythm of the “enormous” Belgian I often hear the echo of the medieval “_Pauvre Villon_.” Verhaeren.... I must close my eyes when I think of this Titan. You cannot gauge him, you cannot see him in his entirety: an Atlas, bigger than our planet, detached from it. I think Verhaeren has been best loved, and perhaps best understood in Russia,—a land where realities are looked upon as symbols, else life would become a horrible absurdity. There he is endeared as the lyricist of the modern soul rent with eternal contradictions in the great task of transvaluation of values: a mystic with no God, a prophet with no blessing, a positivist without faith in man, a socialist without a political program, an anarchist without “action,” an urbanite longing for his village, a villager craving for the city. Verhaeren destroys rather than creates, wills rather than believes, yearns rather than attains. His movement lacks gracefulness; his attack, firmness; his flight, lightness; his love, tenderness; his architecture is without system, his system without method. And the more profound, the more palpitating and irresistible is the chaos of his titanic images heaped in masses, the more sincere are his wails, the more burning his tears. I think it was the admirable French critic, René Ghil, who observed that to Verhaeren the world appears as if in a flash of lightning, in an enormous, exaggerated form, and as such he embodies it in his work—also exaggerated, also enormous; that his poetry resembles the genius of Rodin hewing his Balzac out of marble and powerful dreams.