A BRIEF WHO’S WHO

AIKEN, Conrad: Author “Scepticisms,”; b. 1889, Savannah, Ga. m. Educ.: Harvard (1912). Travelled extensively, living at different times in London, Rome and Windermere.

ALARCÓN, Pedro A. de: Author “The Three-Cornered Hat”; b. 10 March, 1833, at Guadix, Prov. of Granada, Spain, m. Doña Paulina Contrera de Reyes, 1866. Educ.: Guadix Seminary. Had a varied career as writer, soldier and politician. Died at Madrid, 19 July, 1891.

ANTONELLI, Etienne: Author “Bolshevik Russia”; b. France, 1879. When the war broke out was professor of political economy at the University of Poitiers. Wounded and decorated with Croix de Guerre, May, 1915. Sent to Russia on his recovery as military attaché at French Embassy.

BAROJA, Pío: Author “Youth and Egolatry”; b. San Sebastian, 28 Dec. 1872. Educ.: San Sebastian schools; Institute of Pamplona; studied medicine at Valencia; graduated as M. D. from University of Madrid, 1893. Practised medicine at Cestona for two years. Went to Madrid where he ran a bakery for six years. Since then he has been writing and publishing regularly.

BEERBOHM, Max: Author “Seven Men”; b. London, 24 Aug. 1872. m. Florence Kahn, of Memphis, Tennessee. Educ.: Charterhouse; Merton Coll. Oxford. Member of Academic Committee. Since 1901 there have been six exhibitions of his drawings. Lives in Italy.

BODENHEIM, Maxwell: Author “Advice”; b. Natchez, Miss., 1892. Educ.: Memphis, Tenn. Schools. Served three years in U. S. Regular Army, and studied law and art for a time in Chicago. Wrote verse for six years before having any accepted by the magazines.

BORDEN, Mary: Author “The Romantic Woman”; b. Chicago, Ill. m. 1st., Captain Turner of the British Army; 2nd., General Edward Lewis Spiers of the British Army, March, 1918. During the war she equipped at her own expense the first mobile field hospital of the French Army, for which she was decorated with the Legion of Honor. Resides in Paris.

BRAGDON, Claude Fayette: Author “Architecture and Democracy”; b. Oberlin, O., Aug. 1, 1866. Educ.: Oswego High School; architectural apprentice in offices of Bruce Price, N. Y., and Green and Wicks, Buffalo; m. Member N. Y. Architects’ League. Lives in Rochester, N. Y.

BRIDGES, Robert: Author “October”; Poet-Laureate since 1913; b. 23 Oct. 1844, m. 3 Sept. 1884, Monica, e. d. of Alfred Waterhouse, R. A.; one s. two d. Educ.: Eton; Corpus Christi Coll. Oxford (Hon. Fell.) After leaving Oxford travelled; then studied medicine at St. Bartholomew’s, London; retired 1882.

BYNNER, Witter: Author “A Canticle of Pan”; b. Brooklyn, N. Y., 1881. Educ.: Harvard (1902). One time Assistant editor McClure’s Magazine and Literary Advisor McClure, Phillips and Co.

CATHER, Willa Sibert: Author “Youth and the Bright Medusa”; b. Winchester, Va., Dec. 7, 1875. Educ.: Univ. of Nebraska, graduating, 1895. Staff of Pittsburgh Daily Leader, 1897–01; asso. editor McClure’s Magazine, 1906–12.

CHENEY, Sheldon: Author “The Art Theatre.” b. Berkeley, California, 29 June, 1886. m. Maud Meaurice Turner, of Berkeley, 1910. Three children. Educ.: University of California, A. B. 1908. In business 1908–11, teaching and writing 1911–16, editorial and critical work 1916–20. Editor Theatre Arts Magazine.

DAVIES, William Henry: Author “The Autobiography of a Supertramp”; b. 20 April 1870, Newport, Mon.; of Welsh parents. Educ.: picked up knowledge among tramps in America, on cattle boats, and in the common lodging-houses in England. Apprenticed to the picture frame making; left England when apprenticeship closed and tramped in America for six years; came back to England and lived in common lodging-houses in London, making several trips as pedlar of laces, pins and needles; sometimes varied this life by singing hymns in the street; after eight years of this published book of poems; became a poet at 34.

DAWSON SCOTT, C. A.: Author “The Rolling Stone”; b. Dolwich near London. Educ.: Anglo-German College in Camberwell. m. Major H. F. N. Scott. Three children. Founded corps to prepare women to take men’s places during war. Later founded Tomorrow Club of which she is now Lecture Secretary.

DAY, Clarence, Jr.: Author “This Simian World”; b. New York City, 1874. Educ.: St. Paul’s School (New Hampshire) and Yale. Has lived at various health resorts and on ranches in the West, has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange and has served as an Enlisted man in the U. S. Navy. Not married. Lives in New York.

DE LA MARE, Walter: Author “The Three Mulla Mulgars”; b. 1873, lives in England.

DELL, Floyd: Author “Mooncalf”; b. Barry, Ill., 1887. Educ.: Left school at age of 16 to work in factory; four years course in journalism in a middle western town. Was for some years Literary Editor of Chicago Evening Post, later Literary Editor of The Masses, and now conducts the monthly literary department of The Liberator of which he is an associate editor.

EASTON, Dorothy: Author “The Golden Bird”; b. London, 1889. Educ.: England, France and Germany. Contributor to Manchester Guardian, The Nation (London), etc.

ELIOT, Thomas Stearns: Author “Poems”; b. St. Louis, Mo., 1888. Educ.: Harvard (A. B. 1909; M. A. 1910); studied subsequently at the Sorbonne, Harvard Graduate School, and at Merton College, Oxford. Master at Highgate School, London, and lecturer under both the Oxford and London University Extension Systems. 1917–19, Assistant Editor of Egoist.

EVARTS, Hal G.: Author “The Cross Pull”; b. Topeka, Kansas, 1887. Left school to put in winter trapping. m. One son. Surveyed in Indian Territory; summered three years in Colorado Rustic Mountain landscaping; intervening winters with bond firms and trust company; two years real estate; four in retail shoe business then went back to Wyoming hills; three years fur farming.

FLETCHER, J. S.: Author “The Middle Temple Murder”; b. Halifax, 1863. m. 1884, Annie, d. of late James Harrison; two s. Educ.: Silcoates School and privately. Special correspondent for Leeds Mercury on several occasions; assistant leader writer for same journal, 1893–98; special correspondent for Yorkshire Post at Coronation ceremonies, 1902.

FOLLETT, Wilson: Author “The Modern Novel”; b. North Attleborough, Massachusetts, 21 March, 1887; Educ.: A. B. Harvard, 1909; m. Helen Thomas, 10 June, 1913. Has taught English at Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, Dartmouth College, Brown University, and Radcliffe College.

FORSTER, Edward Morgan: Author “Where Angels Fear to Tread”; b. 1879. Educ.: Tonbridge (day boy); King’s Coll., Cambridge. Clubs: Savile, Oxford and Cambridge Musical.

FRANKAU, Gilbert: Author “Peter Jameson”; b. 21 April 1884; Educ.: Eton. Entered his father’s business, 1904; commenced writing 1910; left England and travelled around the world, 1912–14; first commission 9th E. Surrey Regt. Oct. 1914; transferred to R. F. A. March 1915; appointed Adjutant to his Brigade, and proceeded overseas in that capacity; fought at Loos, Ypres, the Somme; promoted Staff Captain for special duty in Italy, Oct. 1916; invalided from the Service and granted rank of Captain, Feb. 1918.

GIBRAN, Kahlil: Author “The Forerunner”; b. 1883 Mt. Lebanon, Syria. Educ.: Beyrout College, Al-Ki-Hikmat. Studied art in Paris. Exhibition of paintings at Paris Salon, New York, Boston. Has had ten volumes prose and poetry in Arabic published in last ten years; several of them translated into Spanish, French, German, English. Now living in New York.

GRANT WATSON, E. L.: Author “Deliverance”; b. Steynes, N. London, 1885. m. Katharane Hannay, 1919. Educ.: Bedales School, Trinity College, Cambridge. 1st Class Nat. Science tripos 1906. Ethnological Expedition N. W. Australia 1910–12.

HERBERT, A. P.: Author “The Secret Battle”; Educ.: Winchester and New College, Oxford. Enlisted in the R. N. V. R. as Ordinary Seaman, Aug. 1914. Commissioned March 1915 and went with Hawke Batt’n., Royal Naval Division to Gallipoli. Invalided home, Aug., same year. Served in France. Wounded and sent home. Served, 1918 on Naval Staff at Admiralty.

HERGESHEIMER, Joseph: Author “San Cristobal de la Habana”; b. Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 15, 1880; Educ.: short period at a Quaker school, Philadelphia, and at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; m. Dorothy Hemphill, of West Chester, Pa., 1907.

HIGHAM, Charles Frederick: Author “Looking Forward”; M. P. b. 1876; Educ.: St. Albans. Assistant Organizer with Mr. Kennedy Jones, M. P., of the Victory War Loan Campaign of 1917; Freeman of the City of London; Member of the Guild of Gold & Silver Wyre Workers. Clubs: Carlton, 1900, National Sporting, Royal Automobile, Aldwych, etc.

HOOKER, Forrestine C.: Author “The Long Dim Trail”; b. Philadelphia. Raised in 10th U. S. Cavalry during frontier service against Indians; m. E. R. Hooker. Staff of Los Angeles Examiner. Secretary of Los Angeles Humane Society for Children. Investigator on District Attorney’s Staff. Secretary of Los Angeles Auxiliary of League of American Pen Women.

HOWE, Edgar Watson: Author “The Anthology of Another Town”; b. Treaty, Ind., May 3, 1854; Educ.: Common schools in Missouri. Started to work in printing office at age of 12; m. Clara L. Frank of Falls City, Neb, 1875. Published the Golden Globe at Golden, Colo., at age of 19; editor and proprietor of Atchison Daily Globe, 1877–1911; editor and publisher of E. W. Howe’s Monthly since Jan., 1911.

KROPOTKIN, P.: Author “Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature”; b. 9 Dec. 1842. Educ.: Corps of Pages, Petrograd 1857–62, Petrograd Univ. 1869–73. Gold medal Russ. Geographic Soc. for journey across Manchuria 1864. Explored glacial deposits Finland and Sweden 1871. Arrested for labour agitation 1874; confined in St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress; escaped 1876. Founded Le Revolte at Geneva; Expelled from Switzerland 1881; sentenced at Lyons to 5 yrs. imprisonment, 1883; Liberated 1886. Lived in England till Russian Revolution of 1917.

McCLURE, John: Author “Airs and Ballads”; b. Ardmore, Oklahoma, 19 Dec. 1893. Educ.: University of Oklahoma; in Paris, 1913–14. Member of the national Hobo College fraternity, “Quo Vadis”; has tramped about two thousand miles in the South-west. Runs The Olde Bookshop in New Orleans.

MACKAYE, Percy: Author “Rip Van Winkle”; b. New York, 16 March 1875. Educ.: Harvard A. B., Hon. M. A. Dartmouth, Univ. of Leipzig; m. Marion H. Morse of Cambridge 1898. Travelled in Europe 1898–1900, taught private school New York 1900–1904, lectured Harvard, Yale, Columbia on theatre 1904–1919.

MAUGHAM, William Somerset: Author “The Land of the Blessed Virgin”; b. 1874; m. Syrie Barnado; one d. Educ.: King’s School, Canterbury, Heidelberg University, St. Thomas’s Hospital.

MENCKEN, Henry Louis: Author “Prejudices”; b. Baltimore, Md., Sept. 12, 1880. Educ.: Balt. Poly. Inst., graduating 1896. Unmarried. Reporter, 1899, city editor, 1903–5, Baltimore Morning Herald; editor Evening Herald, 1905; on staff Baltimore Sun, 1906–17; literary critic Smart Set, 1908, and editor (with George Jean Nathan) since 1914. War correspondent in Germany and Russia in 1917.

MILNE, Alan Alexander: Author “First Plays”; b. 18 Jan. 1882; assistant editor of Punch 1906–14; Royal Warwickshire Regt., Feb. 1915–19; m. Dorothy, d. of Martin de Selincourt. Educ.: Westminster; Trinity College, Cambridge. Edited The Granta, 1902; started journalism in London, 1903.

NATHAN, George Jean: Author “Comedians All”; b. Fort Wayne, Ind., Feb. 15, 1882; Educ.: Cornell University, graduating 1904. Unmarried. Editorial staff N. Y. Herald, 1904–6; dramatic critic and asso. editor Bohemian Magazine and Outing, 1906–8, also Burr McIntosh Monthly, 1908; dramatic critic for Phila. North American, McClure’s Syndicate and Cleveland Leader since 1912; dramatic critic Puck (with James Huneker) 1915–16; editor Smart Set (with H. L. Mencken) since 1914.

NYBURG, Sidney: Author “The Gate of Ivory” etc.; b. Baltimore, Md., Dec. 8, 1880; Educ.: Baltimore City College; LL. B. Univ. of Maryland, graduating 1901. m. Jan. 9, 1907. Practised law in Baltimore since 1902.

OPPENHEIM, James: Author “The Book of Self”; b. St. Paul, Minn. 24 May, 1882. Educ.: Two years of special courses at Columbia University. Assistant editor Cosmopolitan Magazine; later taught in an East Side Technical school. At age of 24 he began free-lancing. Was editor of The Seven Arts.

PERTWEE, Roland: b. Brighton, 15th May 1885; m. Advice Scholtz of Capetown, South Africa, 1910. Educ.: London and Paris. Started as a portrait painter; abandoned painting in favour of the stage; left stage and became a writer in 1914. Served in Heavy Artillery Mechanical Transport in France during war.

RUSSELL, John: Author “The Red Mark”; b. Davenport, Iowa, 1885; son Charles Edward Russell. Educ.: Brooklyn schools and North-Western University; much foreign travel. Reporter N. Y. Herald and special correspondent Panama and Peru. Now lives in New York.

SHAFER, Don Cameron: Author “Barent Creighton”; b. Charlotteville, N. Y., Oct. 7, 1881; Educ.: Public Schools; m. Janeth E. Mitchell of Roxbury, N. Y., Jan. 10, 1910. Learned printer’s trade; reporter Schenectady Union, 1903; later, special writer for N. Y. World, Sun, Press and Times; also contributor to magazines. Advertising manager for General Electric Co.

SITWELL, Osbert: Author “Argonaut and Juggernaut”; b. London, 6 Dec. 1892. Educ.: Eton. Served in France as Officer in the Grenadier Guards 1914–15–16.

SQUIRE, John Collings: Author “Books in General”; b. Plymouth, 2 April 1884; m., 1908, Eileen H. A., d. of Rev. A. Anstruther Wilkinson; three s. Educ.: Bundell’s; St. John’s College, Cambridge (Historical Scholar, 1903; B. A. 1908; M. A. 1919); Literary Editor New Statesman since 1913; Acting Editor, 1917–19; contested Cambridge University (Lab), 1919. Editor the London Mercury, since 1919.

TIETJENS, Eunice (née Hammond): Author “Body and Raiment”; b. Chicago, Ill., 29 July, 1884. Educ.: France, Switzerland and Germany. Has travelled extensively in all parts of the world. Two years on the staff of Poetry in Chicago, the second as Associate Editor. For one year war correspondent in Paris for Chicago Daily News; m. 2nd Cloyd Head, Chicago, 1920.

TOMLINSON, H. M.: Author “Old Junk”; b. 1873. Joined the editorial staff of the Morning Leader, 1904, and the Daily News when the two papers amalgamated; War Correspondent in Belgium and France from Aug. 1914, and an Official Correspondent at General Headquarters of the British Armies in France, 1915–17. Assistant Editor The Nation (London) since 1917.

TRIDON, André: Author “Psychoanalysis and Behaviour”; b. France 8 May, 1877. Educ.: Paris, Clermont, Heidelberg and New York; m. 1903. Practising analyst in New York. First psychoanalyst in U. S. to deliver lectures on psychoanalysis open to the general public.

TURNER, George Kibbe: Author “Hagar’s Hoard”; b. Quincy, Ill., 23 Mar. 1869. Educ.: Williams College, graduating, 1890; m. Julia Hawks Patchen of Bennington, Vt., Oct. 19, 1892. Began newspaper work 1891. Editor and staff writer on McClure’s Magazine, 1906–17.

VAN VECHTEN, Carl: Author “The Tiger in the House”; b. Cedar Rapids, Iowa 17 June, 1880; m. Fania Marinoff. Ass’t Musical critic New York Times 1906–7, Paris correspondent same 1908–9, Editor program notes Symphony Society, New York 1910–11, Dramatic critic New York Press 1913–14.

VAN WESEP, Hendrikus Boeve: Author “The Control of Ideals”; b. 30 October, 1888, Amsterdam, Holland. Moved as a child to one of the Pioneer Dutch settlements in the Middle West. Educ.: Calvin College Preparatory School, Grand Rapids, Michigan; University of Michigan. Chief study philosophy; grad. 1912. Graduate work at Princeton University; Ph.D. 1917, in ethics and Greek Philosophy. Now employed by the Rockefeller Foundation for research work in philanthropic, public health, and sociological problems; m. Aleida Sophia van Vessem, 1917.

WALEY, Arthur David: Author “More Translations from the Chinese”; b. Tunbridge Wells, 1889. Educ.: Rugby and Kings’ College, Cambridge. Travelled in France, Germany and Spain. Entered Print Room of the British Museum in 1913. In the same year became assistant of Mr. Laurence Binyon, head of the oriental Section of the Print Room. Lives in Cartwright Gardens, London. Has never been outside Europe, but learnt Chinese and Japanese from native teachers in London.

WALLAS, Graham: Author “The Life of Francis Place”; b. Sunderland, 31 May 1858; m. 1897, Ada Radford; one d. Educ.: Shrewsbury School, 1871–77; Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1877–81; Lecturer at London School of Economics since 1895; University Professor in Political Science, 1914; Lowell Lecturer, 1914.

WILKINSON, Louis Umfreville: Author “Brute Gods”; b. Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England, 17 Dec. 1881; son of late Rev. W. G. Wilkinson, formerly Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. Educ.: Radley; St. John’s College, Cambridge; M.A. Cantab; Litt.D., St. John’s College, Annapolis; m. 1912, Frances Josefa Gregg; one s. one d.

WILLIAMS, James Mickel: Author “The Foundations of Social Science”; b. Waterville, N. Y., 1876. Educ.: A.B. Brown University 1898; B.D. Union Theolo. Sem., 1901; Ph.D. Columbia, 1906; m. Lucinda Chamberlain Noyes of Rochester, N. Y., 1913. Lecturer on Economics Vassar 1907–8; prof. econ. and soc. Hobart College 1908–1920.

[1]. This paper appeared in “Land and Water” [London], but has never before been published in the United States.

[2]. See [Bibliography].

[3]. This paper appeared in The Clarion [London] but has never before been published in the United States.

PART THREE
SELECTED PASSAGES
FROM
BORZOI BOOKS

HOW HE DIED[[4]]

By Conrad Aiken

When Punch had roared at the inn for days

The walls went round in a ringing haze,

Miriam, through the splendour seen,

Twinkled and smiled like Sheba’s Queen,

Jake was the devil himself, the host

Scratched in a book like a solemn Faust;

And the lights like birds went swiftly round

With a soft and feathery whistling sound.

He seized the table with one great hand

And a thousand people helped him stand,

“Good-night!” a thousand voices said,

The words like gongs assailed his head,

And out he reeled, most royally,

Singing, amid that company.—

Luminous clocks above him rolled,

Bells in the darkness heavily tolled,

The stars in the sky were smoothly beating

In a solemn chorus, all repeating

The tick of the great heart in his breast

That tore his body, and would not rest.

Singing, he climbed the elusive street,

And heard far off his footsteps beat;

Singing, they pushed him through the door,

And he fell full length on the darkened floor....

But his head struck sharply as he fell

And he heard a sound like a broken bell;

And then, in the half-light of the moon,

The twittering elvish light of June,

A host of folk came round him there,—

Sheba, with diamonds in her hair,

Solomon, thrumming a psaltery,

Judas Iscariot, dark of eye,

Satan and Faustus and Lorraine,

And Heliogabalus with his train....

The air was sweet with a delicate sound

Of silk things rustling on the ground,

Jewels and silver twinkled, dim,

Voices and laughter circled him....

After a while the clock struck two,

A whisper among the audience flew,

And Judy before him came and knelt

And kissed him; and her lips, he felt,

Were wet with tears.... She wore a crown,

And amethysts, and a pale green gown....

After a while the clock struck three

And Polly beside him, on one knee,

Leaned above him and softly cried,

Wearing a white veil like a bride.

One candle on the sill was burning,

And Faustus sat in the corner, turning

Page after page with solemn care

To count the immortal heartbeats there.

Slow was the heart, and quick the stroke

Of the pen, and never a word he spoke;

But watched the tears of pale wax run

Down from the long flame one by one.

Solomon in the moonlight bowed,

The Queen of Sheba sobbed aloud;

Like a madonna carved in stone

Judy in starlight stood alone:

Tears were glistening on her cheek,

Her lips were awry, she could not speak.

After a while the clock struck four,

And Faustus said “I can write no more:

I’ve entered the heartbeats, every one,

And now the allotted time is done.”

He dipped his pen, made one more mark,

And clapped his book. The room grew dark.

At four o’clock Punch turned his head

And “I forgive you all,” he said....

At five o’clock they found him dead.

FROM “YOUTH AND EGOLATRY”[[5]]

By Pío Baroja

Goethe

If a militia of genius should be formed on Parnassus, Goethe would be the drum-major. He is so great, so majestic, so serene, so full of talent, so abounding in virtue, and yet, so antipathetic!

Chateaubriand

A skin of Lacrymae Christi that has turned sour. At times the good Viscount drops molasses into the skin to take away the taste of vinegar; at other times, he drops in more vinegar to take away the sweet taste of the molasses. He is both moth-eaten and sublime.

Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo, the most talented of rhetoricians! Victor Hugo, the most exquisite of vulgarians! Victor Hugo—mere common sense dressed up as art.

Balzac

A nightmare, a dream produced by indigestion, a chill, rare acuteness, equal obtuseness, a delirium of splendours, cheap hardware, of pretence and bad taste. Because of his ugliness, because of his genius, because of his immorality, the Danton of printers’ ink.

Poe

A mysterious sphinx who makes one tremble with lynx-like eyes, the goldsmith of magical wonders.

Dickens

At once a mystic and a sad clown. The Saint Vincent de Paul of the loosened string, the Saint Francis of Assisi of the London Streets. Everything is gesticulation, and the gesticulations are ambiguous. When we think he is going to weep, he laughs; when we think he is going to laugh, he cries. A remarkable genius who does everything he can to make himself appear puny, yet who is, beyond doubt, very great.

Sainte Beuve

Sainte Beuve writes as if he had always said the last word, as if he were precisely at the needle of the scales. Yet I feel that this writer is not as infallible as he thinks. His interest lies in his anecdote, in his malevolent insinuation, in his bawdry. Beyond these, he has the same Mediterranean features as the rest of us.

Ruskin

He impresses me as the Prince of Upstarts, grandiloquent and at the same time unctuous, a General in a Salvation Army of Art, or a monk who is a devotee of an esthetic Doctrine which has been drawn up by a Congress of Tourists.

A Word from Kuroki, the Japanese

“Gentlemen,” said General Kuroki, speaking at a banquet tendered to him in New York, “I cannot aspire to the applause of the world, because I have created nothing, I have invented nothing. I am only a soldier.”

If these are not his identical words, they convey the meaning of them.

This victorious, square-headed Mongolian had gotten into his head what the dolichocephalic German blond, who, according to German anthropologists is the highest product of Europe, and the brachycephalic brunette of Gaul and the Latin and the Slav have never been able to understand.

Will they ever be able to understand it? Perhaps they never will be able.

Love of the Workingman

To gush over the workingman is one of the commonplaces of the day which is utterly false and hypocritical. Just as in the 18th century sympathy was with the simple hearted citizen, so today we talk about workingman. The term workingman can never be anything but a grammatical common denominator. Among workingmen, as among the bourgeoisie, there are all sorts of people. It is perfectly true that there are certain characteristics, certain defects, which may be exaggerated in a given class, because of its special environment and culture. The difference in Spanish cities between the labouring men and the bourgeoisie is not very great. We frequently see the workingman leap the barrier into the bourgeoisie, and then disclose himself as a unique flower of knavery, extortion and misdirected ingenuity. Deep down in the hearts of our revolutionists, I do not believe that there is any real enthusiasm for the workingman.

When the bookshop of Fernando Fé was still in the Carrera de San Jerónimo, I once heard Blasco Ibáñez say with the cheapness that is his distinguishing trait, laughing meanwhile ostentatiously, that a republic in Spain would mean the rule of shoemakers and of the scum of the streets.

FROM “THE ROMANTIC WOMAN”[[6]]

By Mary Borden

Now that I’ve got back to the beginning, the night of the 10th of September, 1913, I find that I’ve told you all sorts of things, almost everything of importance, except just what happened that night. I’m afraid, in telling the story, I’ve got into rather a muddle. It’s so difficult to keep distinct what I felt and knew at various times, and what I feel and know now. Now the war is on us, and my chief feeling is one of fear, not any definite fear of Zeppelins or invasions, but a vague, dreadful fear, an acute sense of insecurity. The world is shaking, and its convulsions give one a feeling of having, to put it vulgarly, gone dotty. It’s as though I saw all the tables and chairs in my room moving about and falling over. Everything that was stable and was made to hang on to, and sit down upon, and lean against, is lurching. The great business of life seems to be to sit tight, but one has a suspicion that even the law of gravity may be loosed and that we shall find ourselves falling off the earth. Before the 4th of August, people in their secure little houses were enjoying their miseries and making capital out of their difficulties, and splendidly gambling on the future—the dark future that seemed so possible. Now it is all changed. It appears that the conduct of life is largely a matter of unconscious calculations. One says good-bye and calculates that the chances are a hundred to one, that one will meet this friend again. But when I said good-bye to Binky the other day at the one o’clock from Victoria, the chances were a hundred to one against his coming back. It’s a curious thing to have all the mathematics of life upset. It makes one feel like being in a mad-house. The laughter of Arch and Humpy rising in shrieks from the gardens seems incredible and wonderful. The security of childhood becomes the most precious thing on earth.

So you see how difficult it is to remember what my feelings were in 1913. I have told you about how the American quartette descended on us at Saracens, and I’ve told you about my clairvoyant moment at dinner, when I saw through them all as though an X-ray machine had been turned on them. I don’t want to go into all the complex impressions of their personalities and the queer, surcharged atmosphere that their minds altogether there, created in the house, because Louise’s wretched mind dominated them all for me as the evening went on, just as her voice drowned their voices and her tragedy eclipsed their little troubles. Phyllis and Binky may have been under a strain; no doubt they were. Pat may have been uncomfortable, though I don’t believe he was. Claire, undoubtedly, drew a certain sinister satisfaction from Phil’s helplessness. But all those things scarcely count at all compared to the dreadful tension stretched over Louise and Jim. I had a feeling of something drawn round them, very tight, enclosing them in a space like the inside of a balloon, where the gases of their misery and distrust swelled to bursting. And the final act was just the bursting of a bubble that had been strained too long. And it seems, now, scarcely more important in the sum total of the world’s tragedy than the bursting of a toy balloon, buyable for a penny, and in competition with the roar of armaments, scarcely more noisy.

And yet, if we are immortals, all of us, then it was, of course, much more than that, and the amount of pain that was mine afterward, and the cowardly giving in to the hopeless boredom of life that resulted from it, all that will be balanced up against me, I suppose. I suppose my giving in to Ruffles, when I knew there was nothing in it, will be laid up against me. I don’t know. I don’t care very much. It’s so difficult to decide whether that sort of thing really matters. To my father it would matter so terribly, and to Binky it would—it did—matter so little. I could never tell from his manner whether he accepted it in knowledge or was altogether unaware. But it’s curious that Louise should have accused me of the thing that hadn’t happened and was not going to, because my father came to see us.

OCTOBER[[7]]

By Robert Bridges

April adance in play

met with his lover May

where she came garlanded.

The blossoming boughs o’erhead

were thrill’d to bursting by

the dazzle from the sky

and the wild music there

that shook the odorous air.

Each moment some new birth

hasten’d to deck the earth

in the gay sunbeams.

Between their kisses dreams:

And dream and kiss were rife

with laughter of mortal life.

But this late day of golden fall

is still as a picture upon a wall

or a poem in a book lying open unread.

Or whatever else is shrined

when the Virgin hath vanished;

Footsteps of eternal Mind

on the path of the dead.

“LETTERS OF A JAVANESE PRINCESS”[[8]]

By Louis Couperus

When the letters of Raden Adjeng Kartini were published in Holland, they aroused much interest and awakened a warm sympathy for the writer. She was the young daughter of a Javanese Regent, one of the “princesses” who grow up and blossom in sombre obscurity and seclusion, leading their monotonous and often melancholy lives within the confines of the Kaboepatin, as the high walled Regent’s palaces are called.

The thought of India, or as we now say, perhaps more happily, Java, had a strange fascination for me even as a child. I was charmed by the weird mystery of its stories which frightened even while they charmed me. Although I was born in Holland, our family traditions had been rooted in Java. My father began his official career there as a Judge, and my mother was the daughter of a Governor General, while my older brothers had followed their father’s example and were officials under the Colonial Government.

At nine years of age I was taken to the inscrutable and far off land round which my early fancy had played; and I passed five of my school years in Batavia. At the end of those five years I felt the same charm and the same mystery. The thought of Java became almost an obsession. I felt that while we Netherlanders might rule and exploit the country, we should never be able to penetrate its mystery. It seemed to me that it would always be covered by a thick veil, which guarded its Eastern soul from the strange eyes of the Western conqueror. There was a quiet strength “Een Stille Kracht”[[9]] unperceived by our cold business-like gaze. It was something intangible, and almost hostile, with a silent, secret hostility that lurked in the atmosphere, in nature and above all, in the soul of the natives. It menaced from the slumbering volcanoes, and lay hidden in mysterious shadows of the rustling bamboos. It was in the bright, silver moonlight when the drooping palm trees trembled in the wind until they seemed to play a symphony so gentle and so complaining that it moved me to my soul. I do not know whether this was poetic imagination ever prone to be supersensitive, or in reality the “Quiet Strength,” hidden in the heart of the East and eternally at war with the spirit of the West. It is certainly true that the Javanese has never been an open book to the Netherlander. The difference of race forms an abyss so deep that though they may stand face to face and look into each other’s eyes, it is as though they saw nothing.

The Javanese woman of noble birth is even more impenetrable. The life of a Raden Adjeng or a Raden Adjoe is a thing apart. Even the Dutch officials and rulers of the country know nothing of the lives of these secluded “princesses,” as we like to call the wives and daughters of the Regents, though they themselves lay no claim to a title which in Europe ranks so high.

Suddenly a voice was heard from the depths of this unknown land. It rose from behind the high protecting wall that had done its work of subjection and concealment through the ages. It was gentle, like the melodious song of a little bird in a cage—in a costly cage it is true, and surrounded by the tenderest care, but still in a cage that was also a prison. It was the voice of Raden Adjeng Kartini, which sounded above the walls of the close-barred Kaboepatin. It was like the cry of a little bird that wanted to spread its wings free in the air, and fly towards life. And the sound grew fuller and clearer, till it became the rich voice of a woman.

She was shut in by aristocratic traditions and living virtually imprisoned as became a young “princess” of Java; but she sang of her longing for life and work and her voice rose clearer and stronger. It penetrated to the distant Netherlands, and was heard there with wonder and with delight. She was singing a new song, the first complaint that had ever gone forth from the mysterious hidden life of the Javanese woman. With all the energy of her body and soul she wanted to be free, to work and to live and to love.

Then the complaint became a song of rejoicing. For she not only longed to lead the new life of the modern woman, but she had the strength to accomplish it, and more than that, to win the sympathy of her family and of her friends for her ideals. This little “princess” lifted the concealing veil from her daily life and not only her life, her thoughts were revealed. An Oriental woman had dared to fight for feminism, even against her tenderly loved parents. For although her father and mother were enlightened for noble Javanese, they had at first strongly opposed her ideas as unheard of innovations.

She wanted to study and later to become a teacher to open a school for the daughters of Regents, and to bring the new spirit into their lives. She battled bravely, she would not give up; in the end she won.

Raden Adjeng Kartini freed herself from the narrow oppression of tradition, and the simple language of these letters chants a paean “From Darkness into Light.”[[10]] The mist of obscurity is cleared away from her land and her people. The Javanese soul is shown simple, gentle, and less hostile than we Westerners had ever dared to hope. For the soul of this girl was one with the soul of her people, and it is through her that a new confidence has grown up between West and the East, between the Netherlands and Java. The mysterious “Quiet Strength” is brought into the light, it is tender, human and full of love and Holland may well be grateful to the hand that revealed it.

This noble and pure soul was not destined to remain long upon earth. Had she lived, who knows what Raden Adjeng Kartini might not have accomplished for the well being of her country and her people; above all, for the Javanese women and the Javanese child. She was the first Regent’s daughter to break the fixed tradition in regard to marriage; it was customary to give the bride to a strange bridegroom, whom she had never seen, perhaps never even heard of, until her wedding day. Kartini chose her own husband, a man whom she loved, but her happy life with him was cut short by her early death.

It is sometimes granted to those whom the gods love to bring their work to fruition in all the splendour of youth, in the springtime or the summer of their lives. To have worked and to have completed a great task, when one is young, so that the world is left richer for all time—is not that the most beautiful of all the gifts of the gods?

APRIL’S CHARMS[[11]]

By William H. Davies

When April scatters coins of primrose gold

Among the copper leaves in thickets old,

And singing skylarks from the meadows rise,

To twinkle like black stars in sunny skies;

When I can hear the small woodpecker ring

Time on a tree for all the birds that sing;

And hear the pleasant cuckoo, loud and long—

The simple bird that thinks two notes a song;

When I can hear the woodland brook, that could

Not drown a babe, with all his threatening mood:

Upon whose banks the violets make their home,

And let a few small strawberry blossoms come;

When I go forth on such a pleasant day,

One breath outdoors takes all my care away;

It goes like heavy smoke, when flames take hold

Of wood that’s green and fill a grate with gold.

CHAPTER V[[12]]

By this time, it was plain, Thimble and Thumb had found something to raise them to the window-hole, for Nod, as he glanced up, saw half of both their astonished faces (one eye of each) peering in at the window. He waved his lean little arms, and their faces vanished.

“Why do you wave your long thumbs in the air?” said the old Gunga uneasily.

“I wave to Tishnar,” said Nod, “who watches over her wandering Princes, and will preserve them from thieves and cunning ones. And as for your filthy green-weed soup, how should a Mulla-mulgar soil his thumbs with gutting fish? And as for the Water-midden’s song, that I cannot teach you, nor would I teach it you if I could, Master Fish-catcher. But I can catch fish with it.”

The old Gunga squatted close on his stool, and grinned as graciously as he could. “I am poor and growing old,” he said, “and I cannot catch fish as once I could. How is that done, O Royal Traveller?”

BURBANK WITH A BAEDEKER; BLEISTEIN WITH A CIGAR[[13]]

By T. S. Eliot

Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile est; caetera fumus—the gondola stopped, the old place was there, how charming its grey and pink—goats and monkeys, with such hair too!—so the countess passed on until she came through the little park, where Niobe presented her with a cabinet, and so departed.

Burbank crossed a little bridge

Descending at a small hotel;

Princess Volupine arrived,

They were together, and he fell.

Defunctive music under sea

Passed seaward with the passing bell

Slowly: the God Hercules

Had left him, that had loved him well.

The horses, under the axletree

Beat up the dawn from Istria

With even feet. Her shuttered barge

Burned on the water all the day.

But this or such was Bleistein’s way:

A saggy bending of the knees

And elbows, with the palms turned out,

Chicago Semite Viennese.

A lustreless protrusive eye

Stares from the protozoic slime

At a perspective of Canalotto.

The smoky candle end of time

Declines. On the Rialto once.

The rats are underneath the piles.

The jew is underneath the lot.

Money in furs. The boatman smiles,

Princess Volupine extends

A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand

To climb the water-stair. Lights, lights,

She entertains Sir Ferdinand

Klein. Who clipped the lion’s wings

And flea’d his rump and pared his claws;

Thought Burbank, meditating on

Time’s ruins, and the seven laws.

FROM
“WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD”[[14]]

By E. M. Forster

Harriet, meanwhile, had been coughing ominously at the drop-scene, which presently rose on the grounds of Ravenswood, and the chorus of Scotch retainers burst into cry. The audience accompanied with tappings and drummings, swaying in the melody like corn in the wind. Harriet, though she did not care for music, knew how to listen to it. She uttered an acid “Shish!”

“Shut it,” whispered her brother.

“We must make a stand from the beginning. They’re talking.”

“It is tiresome,” murmured Miss Abbott; “but perhaps it isn’t for us to interfere.”

Harriet shook her head and shished again. The people were quiet, not because it is wrong to talk during a chorus, but because it is natural to be civil to a visitor. For a little time she kept the whole house in order, and could smile at her brother complacently.

Her success annoyed him. He had grasped the principle of opera in Italy—it aims not at illusion but at entertainment—and he did not want this great evening-party to turn into a prayer-meeting. But soon the boxes began to fill, and Harriet’s power was over. Families greeted each other across the auditorium. People in the pit hailed their brothers and sons in the chorus, and told them how well they were singing. When Lucia appeared by the fountain there was loud applause, and cries of “Welcome to Monteriano!”

“Ridiculous babies!” said Harriet, settling down in her stall.

“Why, it is the famous hot lady of the Apennines,” cried Philip; “the one who had never, never before—”

“Ugh! Don’t. She will be very vulgar. And I’m sure it’s even worse here than in the tunnel. I wish we’d never—”

Lucia began to sing, and there was a moment’s silence. She was stout and ugly; but her voice was still beautiful, and as she sang the theatre murmured like a hive of happy bees. All through the coloratura she was accompanied by sighs, and its top note was drowned in a shout of universal joy.

So the opera proceeded. The singers drew inspiration from the audience, and the two great sextettes were rendered not unworthily. Miss Abbott fell into the spirit of the thing. She, too, chatted and laughed and applauded and encored, and rejoiced in the existence of beauty. As for Philip, he forgot himself as well as his mission. He was not even an enthusiastic visitor. For he had been in this place always. It was his home.

Harriet, like M. Bovary on a more famous occasion, was trying to follow the plot. Occasionally she nudged her companions, and asked them what had become of Walter Scott. She looked round grimly. The audience sounded drunk, and even Caroline, who never took a drop, was swaying oddly. Violent waves of excitement, all arising from very little, went sweeping round the theatre. The climax was reached in the mad scene. Lucia, clad in white, as befitted her malady, suddenly gathered up her streaming hair and bowed her acknowledgment to the audience. Then from the back of the stage—she feigned not to see it—there advanced a kind of bamboo clothes-horse, stuck all over with bouquets. It was very ugly, and most of the flowers in it were false. Lucia knew this, and so did the audience; and they all knew that the clothes-horse was a piece of stage property, brought in to make the performance go year after year. None the less did it unloose the great deeps. With a scream of amazement and joy she embraced the animal, pulled out one or two practicable blossoms, pressed them to her lips, and flung them into her admirers. They flung them back, with loud melodious cries, and a little boy in one of the stage-boxes snatched up his sister’s carnations and offered them. “Che carino!” exclaimed the singer. She darted at the little boy and kissed him. Now the noise became tremendous. “Silence! silence!” shouted many old gentlemen behind. “Let the divine creature continue!” But the young men in the adjacent box were imploring Lucia to extend her civility to them. She refused, with a humorous, expressive gesture. One of them hurled a bouquet at her. She spurned it with her foot. Then, encouraged by the roars of the audience, she picked it up and tossed it to them. Harriet was always unfortunate. The bouquet struck her full in the chest, and a little billet-doux fell out of it into her lap.

“Call this classical!” she cried, rising from her seat. “It’s not even respectable! Philip! take me out at once.”

DOROTHY EASTON’S “THE GOLDEN BIRD”[[15]]

By John Galsworthy

The sketch is, I take it, commonly supposed to be the easiest form that a writer can use, and the bad sketch probably is. The good sketch, on the other hand, is about the hardest, for there is no time to go wrong, or, rather, in which to recover if one does go wrong. Moreover, it demands a very faithful objectivity, and a rare sensitiveness of touch. The good sketcher does not bite off more than he or she can chew, does not waste a word, and renders into writing that alone which is significant. To catch the flying values of life, and convey them to other minds and hearts in a few pages of picture may seem easy to the lay reader, but is, I do assure him, mortal hard.

The sketches in this, the first book of a young writer, are so really good, that they should require no preliminary puff. But the fact is that the reading public in America and England get so few good sketches, indeed so few volumes of sketches at all, that even the best work of this kind has unfairly little chance.

If I know anything and I am not alone in my opinion, the writer of this book has a sympathetic apprehension of life, and a perfection in rendering it which is altogether out of the common. Those readers who want not snapshots but little pictures, entirely without preciosity, extraordinarily sensitive and faithful, and never dull, because they have real meaning and truth, will appreciate this volume.

Those who don’t know the southern countryside of England, and the simpler people thereof, will make a real acquaintanceship with it through some of these unpretentious pages. And the French sketches, especially, by their true flavour of French life, guarantee the writer’s possession of that spiritual insight without which art is nothing worth.

I will beat the drum no more; for if the reader likes not this mental fare, no noise of mine will make him.

—Foreword to “The Golden Bird.”

WAR AND THE SMALL NATIONS[[16]]

By Kahlil Gibran

Once, high above a pasture, where a sheep and a lamb were grazing, an eagle was circling and gazing hungrily down upon the lamb. And as he was about to descend and seize his prey, another eagle appeared and hovered above the sheep and her young with the same hungry intent. Then the two rivals began to fight, filling the sky with their fierce cries.

The sheep looked up and was much astonished. She turned to the lamb and said,

“How strange, my child, that these two noble birds should attack one another. Is not the vast sky large enough for both of them? Pray, my little one, pray in your heart that God may make peace between your winged brothers.”

And the lamb prayed in his heart.

A FIRST REVIEW[[17]]

By Robert Graves

Love, Fear and Hate and Childish Toys

Are here discreetly blent;

Admire, you ladies, read, you boys,

My Country Sentiment.

But Kate says, “Cut that anger and fear,

True love’s the stuff we need!

With laughing children and the running deer,

That makes a book indeed.”

Then Tom, a hard and bloody chap,

Though much beloved by me,

“Robert, have done with nursery pap,

Write like a man,” says he.

Hate and Fear are not wanted here,

Nor Toys nor Country Lovers,

Everything they took from my new poem book

But the flyleaf and the covers.

JOE WARD[[18]]

By E. W. Howe

I was lately making a little automobile journey and met Joe Ward, a high-priced man. We were passing through the town of Centerville and stopped a moment to inquire the road to Fairview.

It happened that the man we addressed was Joe Ward himself, who said he was just about to leave for Fairview and would show us the way if we would give him a ride.

So he sat beside the driver and turned round and told us about the farms we passed. He knew every farmer on the way; how his crops were turning out and many other interesting facts, for this man was a clerk in the New York Store in Centerville and had been so employed nine years.

When we came to a crossroad he would say “Straight ahead” or “Turn to the right” to the driver and then tell us something of interest about his work in the New York Store. It seemed he was a very popular clerk; so popular, indeed, that the proprietor of the Boston Store, the principal opposition, had long wanted him.

“But I said to him frankly,” Joe Ward explained, “if you get me you’ll have to pay a man’s wages. I’m no cheap skate. I was born over on Cow Creek and no citizen of that neighbourhood would think of going to Centerville without trading with me.”

“Here,” I thought, “is a very high-priced man.”

I began wondering how much would induce him to leave the New York Store. And he proceeded to tell us—he couldn’t keep a secret.

“Besides the pull I have on Cow Creek, my grandfather is the leading farmer out the Fairview way and everybody knows I control the best trade round Fairview. So I says to Persinger, of the Boston Store: ‘If you get me you’ll get the best, but you’ll have to pay me. I’m human like everybody else; if you pay me I’ll work for you and do you all the good I can, but we might as well understand each other first as last—if you get me you’ll have to pay me. I’m no amateur. If you get me you’ll have to pay me twelve dollars a week.’”

But it developed before we reached the next town that Persinger, of the opposition store, wouldn’t stand an innovation like that, so Joe Ward got out at Fairview and said he was going back next morning to resume his work at the New York Store.