A Pasteurized “Man and Superman”

The Raft, by Coningsby Dawson. [Henry Holt and Company, New York.]

The Raft is based on the same idea as Shaw’s—minus moral shocks, mental exhilaration, and the Superman. The theory is served as strong drink in the one, as good boy’s tea in the other. The same idea receives such different treatment that the person who would pronounce Man and Superman a “corrupt play” might speak of The Raft, as a beautiful story, provided a few courageous truths which it was necessary for the author to state in order to refute, could be forgiven. It is a harmless compromise between the belief that no literature has a right to exist that is not suitable for a girl in her teens, and the conviction that men and women must face life as it is.

In The Raft, we read this figurative suggestion of the theory:

We’re girls adrift on a raft and we can’t swim. Over there’s the land of marriage with the children, the homes and the husbands; we’ve no means of getting to it. Unless some of the men see us and put out in boats to our rescue, we’ll be swept into the hunger of mid-ocean. But they’re too busy to notice us.... Always wanting, wanting, wanting the things that only men can give.... Did men ever want to be married or was it always necessary to catch them?

In Man and Superman we find a more liberal statement:

To a woman, a man is only a means to the end of getting children and rearing them. Vitality in woman is a blind fury of creation. What other work has she in life but to get a husband? It is a woman’s business to get married as soon as possible, and a man’s to keep unmarried as long as he can.... You think that you are the pursuer, and she pursued. Fool, it is you who are the pursued, the destined prey.

During the last few years stories and plays exploiting this doctrine have been hurled thick and fast in the attempt to batter down so-called romantic love, romantic though fortified not only by the fancies of the poets and novelists but also by the analyses of the scientists and the experiences of life. According to these stories, love is nothing more or less than a passion for reproduction, a desire for children. This idea is being emphasized by two very different types for two very different reasons: one tries to make a Don Quixote of romantic love and hopes by ridicule to eliminate it as the great motive and to give some of the other passions a chance in literature; the other considers everything even suggestive of sex unmoral, and so searches for an excuse to justify the gratification of a natural craving. Neither satire nor platitudes can alter nature.

Love, they say, considered as intense personal affection is an idea purely fanciful, romantic. If so to consider it is romantic, scientists are romantic; for such men as Lankester and Pycraft say “the view that the sequel of mate hunger is the dominant instinct has no foundation in fact. Desire for the sake of the pleasure of its gratification, not its consequences, is the only hold on life which any race possesses. Love is the attribute upon which this preservation of the race depends.”

In other words it is a case of cause and effect. That the joy of motherhood is greater than any other joy in a woman’s life has absolutely nothing to do with the question as to whether or not the hope of that joy was the reason for the selection of a mate. The question is not one of superiority but priority; not which is the greater, but which came first; which is the cause and which the effect. If the desire for children is the cause of what we call love, the only logical outcome is that in selection any woman could not refuse any man fit to be the father of her children on the ground that he did not appeal to her personally. Life does not support such a conclusion.

Why woman’s choice is not impersonal is only one of the many things that cannot be explained by the theory that makes her desire for children the sole cause of attraction. It does not explain too many things: faithless wives, some childless marriages, children found on door-steps, abortions, some prostitution, why some women never marry for fear of children, or why man is not the coy, reluctant, elusive creature defined, though not pictured, by Dawson and Shaw.

No wonder it fails to explain; for children, instead of being the whole cause are the result of only a part of the cause, mate hunger—a hunger of body, mind, and spirit. Love is the feeling for the one that seems to supply those needs, the impulse toward that one. The sooner we realize that the attraction between men and women is not all physical any more than it is all mental and spiritual, and that sex is in all three phases, the sooner shall we reach the truth; the sooner shall we hear the last of one type that prudishly denies physical attraction or else tries to “purify” it by making it a means to an end, and of the other type that sees in marriage only physical union.

The theory will not stand either a logical or an emotional test. Not only can it not explain this confusion of cause and effect, this mistaking the part of love for its whole; but it also cannot answer why it should look to the future for a cause when love is so vitally a thing of the present; nor why it was ever thought necessary to find any explanation outside of itself for the attraction between men and women. If there is any passion in the world that does not need a justification other than its mere existence, it is love. For though realizing the exaltation of moral passion, the exhilaration of mental passion, no one can deny that it is through love we know intense, vivid personal happiness—happiness that is vibrant, full of color, rapturous.

But it is absurd to try to analyze it; it is even more so to argue about it: but really women have grown very tired of having men tell them why they marry, tired of this confusion of result with cause, of a part with the whole, tired of the belittling of love by people who have never experienced it, tired of this sex obsession. It is doubly absurd to waste time in arguing when the best argument I can offer against the Raft theory is the book itself, where the author spends most of his time disproving his own definitely-stated idea through the actions of his characters. It is interesting to see that both Dawson and Shaw should, by methods diametrically opposite, show how fallacious is their statement by exactly the same circumstance,—that is, by having the woman care passionately for the man, not a man. That fact alone routs the whole theory. Certainly Cherry and Jehane have very decided personal preferences regardless of the next generation; moreover the Golden Woman and “heaps of other well-bred women” will not marry for fear of children; and Peter, Ockey, and the Faun Man insist on being ardent lovers that vainly pursue.

Notwithstanding these contradictions throughout the book, the author keeps on bravely and inartistically reiterating his Raft motives, as if to keep up his courage. Possibly because he realizes that he is losing his theme, he starts another which is really the one consistently developed. This second theme is that love is never reciprocal: that at the best it is a case of one loving, the other allowing; that usually it is a case of one loving and the other not even allowing. He starts an endless chain of unrequited affection: Glory loves Peter; Peter loves Cherry; Cherry, the Faun Man; the Faun the Golden Woman; the Golden Woman, herself—or is it Peter? That is one chain; and another is Ockey loves Jehane; Jehane, Barrington; Barrington, Nan.

These two themes working at cross purposes are typical of the book which is a mass of contradictions of this author’s own definitely expressed ideas, and of life. So many things do not ring true: the labored, morbid, commonplace treatment of Peter, “the ’maginative child,” as an exponent of the artistic temperament; the lack of love as the sole cause of Ockey’s failure, when he needs so many other things to make a man of him; the marriage of Nan and Barrington as the ideal union, when neither one has a nature intense enough to feel a great love, when even such love as they know has never been put to the merciless tests that life uses; the brooding, year in and year out, of the unmarried women over the loss of the joys of motherhood, and their lack of interest in any other phase of life; Jehane’s unworthiness, emphasized by the author in person and through his characters, when her actions with different treatment might have made her almost a heroine; the declared finality of so many things that are really only initial steps; platitudes as answers to the vital questions of life.

Most of these false notes come from the fact that the theories of the author and the actions of his characters are not in harmony. Whenever I hear writers talking of such discords and saying that they are obliged to let their characters work out their own salvations, I always consider the attitude an affectation. But I have changed my mind. Dawson seems to be left alone on his Raft, shouting his untenable theories till he is hoarse; while his characters, ignoring him, have reached land and are living their own lives. I found myself in the absurd position of resenting the author’s interference with those vivid, distinctive, powerful characters he had created; of wanting to tell him to keep his hands off, and let them tell their own story.

And left to themselves they tell it unflinchingly. What if the treatment is obvious and conventional? It is obvious treatment of the great mysteries of life; conventional treatment of its beauties.

The advancement of science at the expense of man is one of the most pernicious things in the world. The stunted man is a retrogression in the human race: he throws a shadow over all succeeding generations. The tendencies and natural purpose of the individual science become degenerate, and science itself is finally shipwrecked: it has made progress, but has either no effect at all on life or else an immoral one.—Nietzsche.

Sentence Reviews

Gustave Flaubert, by Emile Faguet. Balzac, by the same author. [Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.] Emile Faguet is a critic of the old school, an academician. He analyzes the writers thoroughly, profoundly, comprehensively, applying a uniform scholarly method. He gives the biographies of Flaubert and Balzac, reviews their works, and finally discusses their general importance for literature. You do not find any sparkling revelations or extraordinary insight, but you form an adequate opinion of the chief characteristics of the two great Frenchmen. The translations are good; Mr. Thorley, who did the Balzac, has proved that in the rôle of a translator he runs less risk than when undertaking to interpret Verlaine.

Bahaism: The Modern Social Religion, by Horace Holley. [Mitchell Kennerley, New York.] Another example of overestimation of Oriental thought. The success of Tagore’s second-rate allegories gave Mr. Holley the idea of displaying before the ever-thirsting Western mind another Eastern “great”. Bahaism, as interpreted by the writer, is one of the “57 varieties” of the blessed Christian Socialism. The world must be reformed, nicely, humbly, altruistically, without causing any damage to State and Society. Naive and dull like a Sunday sermon at an Ethical Society.

Woman and War, by Olive Schreiner. [Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.] A timely pamphlet, reprinted as a fragment from the famous book Woman and Labor. The author claims that woman can carry on war as well as man, considering modern war implements; but as a sculptor would resent the idea of hurling his creations on the ramparts to stop the breaches made by the enemy, so does the human child-bearer instinctively antagonize the reckless destruction of that which she has at so much cost produced; for “men’s bodies are our woman’s work of art.”

Appearances, by G. Lowes Dickinson. [Doubleday, Page and Company, New York.] The title vindicates the author’s superficiality. Impressions of India, China, Japan, America, are bewilderingly crowded in a dazzling bouquet, revealing charming brilliance on the part of the observer, but lack of profound insight. A rapidly-changing panorama of faces and places, a cinematograph. “All America is Niagara. Force without direction, noise without significance, speed without accomplishment.” Such aphorisms lavishly scattered throughout the pages make the book ideal train reading.

Psychology General and Applied, by Hugo Münsterberg. [D. Appleton and Company, New York.] This new text-book by the Harvard professor summarizes various aspects of psychology and will be of help to the student who seeks facts rather than speculation. Mr. Münsterberg is at his best when he deals with a college audience; his reputation and prestige would be quite safe if he limited his activity to that field and did not indulge in pro-German pamphleteering.

The Story-Life of Napoleon, by Wayne Whipple. [The Century Company, New York.] The life of the “Man of Destiny” is an inexhaustible source for historians and biographers. Mr. Whipple has compiled a new biography of the Corsican, based exclusively on stories and anecdotes as related by various authorities. Those for whom Napoleon is the grandest phenomenon in history will feel grateful to the author for his enormous work performed lovingly and inspiringly.

Stories from Northern Myths, by Emilie Kip Baker. [The Macmillan Company, New York.] I enjoy reading Greek mythology in spring, Hindu legends in summer, the Bible at any time, Norse sagas in winter nights. This book is a skillful composition of the most interesting myths of the North, written with irresistible charm. It is ideal reading in the blissful moments of mental relaxation, when you dismiss temporarily all “problems” and plunge into the enchanting abyss of the Non-Real.

The Architecture of Humanism, by Geofry Scott. [Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.] A cold, merciless wielding of the scythe that the author admits is dogmatic criticism. Even the crucified Ruskin has more thorns added to his crown; but still we fail to see the object of this book in holding up all architectural ideals as “fallacies”.

Father Ralph, by Gerald O’Donovan. [Mitchell Kennerley, New York.] Ralph O’Brien was born to be a priest. One might almost say, considering his mother’s attitude, that he was a priest before he was born, and his bringing up was single-eyed to that end. Only as he grows older does he begin to find flaws in the supposedly flawless church of God. Then as he brings his keen young mind to these problems he fights against the religious decadence of Ireland, and causes the author’s pen to rush along through a torrent of socialistic and revolutionary indignation.

Balshazzar Court; or, Village Life in New York City, by Simon Strumsky. [Henry Holt and Company, New York.] These eight connected essays concern the modern apartment house filled with strange families which become linked together by the telegraphy of domestics; the street, Broadway, teeming with its interest in unnatural things; with the show which one knows perfectly beforehand through the kindness of the newspaper reporters; and others. The author sees the unimportant trifles that make up urban life, and lifts them into whimsical prominence.

The Wonderful Romance, by Pierre de Coulevain. [Dodd, Mead and Company, New York.] “To America, country of new thoughts”—thus does the author dedicate her last book. Almost as if she could foresee her death, Mlle. Fabre (Pierre de Coulevain was her pen name) wrote of conclusions and impressions long stored up in her brain. Like her previous books, this is a collection of thoughts and observations set down in a charming but desultory way.

To-Day’s Daughter, by Josephine Daskam Bacon. [D. Appleton and Company, New York.] To-Day’s Daughter is an utterly American book dealing with our peculiar present-day problems. Mrs. Bacon forces no conclusions upon the reader, for each case is “different.” The author limits her modern woman in no way except to make her choose one purpose and to show her that she cannot be a dozen different women and achieve success in all directions. She proves that woman must have a cohering line, a central motive to which other things are subservient, and a due regard to the environment where Fate has placed her.

Lucas’ Annual, edited by E. V. Lucas. [The Macmillan Company, New York.] Of course, the correct literary pose toward even the best “collections” is one of indulgent condescension. Nevertheless, we must admit that in Lucas’s collection Ruskin’s criticism of one of Browning’s poems gives us a good laugh and an intellectual challenge; that Barrie’s Hyphen and the prize novel, Spoof, are clever satires on literary style; that Browning’s letter emphasizes what we felt while prying into the Browning Letters: that our self-respect could never again be the same;—that as a whole the book appeals to our sense of humor and to our literary taste.

Nothing Else Matters, by William Samuel Johnson. [Mitchell Kennerley, New York.] That jaded epithet, “like champagne,” should have been reserved for this novel, for it bubbles and sparkles and leaves a luxurious taste in one’s literary mouth; and, while under its pleasurable influence, one is eager to declare that heroines of today should all bear resemblance to the charming little human who laughs and loves through these pages.

The Bird-Store Man, by Norman Duncan. [Fleming H. Revell Company, New York.] The old, Sabbath-scented story, practically told by the title, is in this case partially redeemed by a binding of tan, cream, and pale green.

Altogether Jane, by Herself. [Mitchell Kennerley, New York.] When a sane, intelligent woman speaks frankly and cleverly, with neither lush nor morbidity, the public owes itself the pleasure of hearing her; and, given that hearing, Jane, in this healthy chronicle, will be found convincing.

Personality Plus, by Edna Ferber. [Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.] One or two personalities plus slang raised to the nth power minus profundity gives the readable, salable unit which Edna Ferber presents in this story of a blossoming college chap.

The True Ulysses S. Grant, by Gen. Charles King. [J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.] Some patriotic hawker should get the idea and the permission to sell this informative volume at that sight-seen tomb on Riverside Drive, for Grant can’t have too many friends.

Nancy the Joyous, by Edith Stowe. [Reilly and Britton, Chicago.] Nancy, one animated beam of bookish sunlight, is just too sweet and frank and “wholesome” for anything—even to read.

The Torch Bearer, by Reina Melcher Marquis. [D. Appleton and Company, New York.] Once again the reader is asked to consider a married woman with a talent—a situation which has become epidemic. In this case the plot is too big for the writer’s ability and the whole story is shallow and sketchy.

Selina, by George Madden Martin. [D. Appleton and Company.] Like so many writers who achieve a first success, Mrs. Martin has not done nearly so well with Selina as she did with Emmy Lou. Selina is natural but colorless. The Mid-Victorian setting (which is repeatedly emphasized) is of Mid-Victorian mediocrity. The plot is merely a series of unstartling incidents.

Essays.—Political and Historical, by Charlemagne Tower. [J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.] Those who have been taught to believe government is the most important thing in our existence and is an institution founded on truth, justice and human needs will if they read this book at all sincerely, close it in wonder. Despite the “skill and thoroughness” with which the book is written one cannot help questioning the meaning of all this petty, diplomatic scheming and complicated governmental legislating.

Coasting Bohemia, by J. Comyns Carr. [The Macmillan Company, New York.] Essays, some of which appeared in an English daily, the real value and literary worth of which compel us, who live in America, to realize our lack of journalistic criticism. Millais, Alma-Tadema, Burne-Jones, Whistler, and many others are written about in a manner that surely must have aided in public understanding and appreciation.

Anne Feversham, by J. C. Snaith. [D. Appleton and Company, New York.] “Delightful,” “charming,” “entertaining,” and all the rest of the usual publishers’ adjectives for usual books. They try to justify this one because of its historical background, which, however, is too slight to save it.

The Commodore, by Maud Howard Peterson. [Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Company, Boston.] A lean-on-me-Grandpapa little boy, plenty of sentiment, a style which some people consider adorable, incidents of wholesome morality pinned to a background of naval stations and marine affairs, make this a book which the young may read with impunity—and, if young enough, with satisfaction and a grim resolve to go and do likewise.

The Grand Assize, by Hugh Carton. [Doubleday, Page and Company, New York.] Milton built a heaven for his highest imaginings; Dante dug a hell and cast all his personal enemies into it; the author of The Grand Assize puts the Last Judgment into a municipal court room and tries the Plutocrat, the Derelict, the Daughter of Joy, the Drunkard, and all his other pet aversions. This he does with an intellect less alive to the essence of human nature than that of the most biased, graft-elected judge of the last decade, for he treats life as a theory and people as classified emotions.

Wintering Hay, by John Trevena. [Mitchell Kennerley, New York.] This tragedy of weakness will hold everyone who has ever tried to pour success into some sieve-like character, too negative to stand alone. So well is Cyril Rossingall depicted that the reader loses the consummate art of the author in his seeming artlessness. Its setting is life in London and Dartmoor; its plot is life as lived by English gentlefolk; its theme is the reflex effect of events on life; its essence is simply—life.

The Story of Beowulf, translated from the Anglo-Saxon by Ernest J. B. Kirtland. [Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York.] Once again the ancient Anglo-Saxon manuscript, treasured through centuries in the British Museum, has been made over into up-to-date English with all the trimmings of introduction, foot-notes, appendix and frontispiece. As a mere layman, we believe it to be well done.

Stories without Tears, by Barry Pain. [Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.] Trivial of plot, sometimes hardly more than an incident, these stories capture some poise, pose, or feature of life and cast it masterfully into a medallion of delightful symmetry. Sad, gay, amusing, pathetic, they have the de Maupassant twist with all its perennial fascination.

Marta of the Lowlands, by Angel Guimera. [Doubleday, Page and Company, New York.] What Lady Gregory has done for the Irish, Angel Guimera has done for the Catalan drama (Catalonia is a province in Spain) by picturing the characteristics of the people in various dramatic situations. In Marta of the Lowlands he has shown the tragic and absolute ownership of the landed proprietor over the peasants who live on his territory.

A Soldier of The Legion, by C. N. and A. M. Williamson. [Doubleday, Page and Company, New York.] The Williamsons know Northern Africa and if you know them—you surely do, this being their fifteenth book—you will know what to expect here. Those people who still can find time for nothing but war “literature” may be interested to know that the Legion described in this book is fighting in France for the Allies in the present war.

Private Affairs, by Charles McEvoy. [Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.] It is human to be curious, and when we get a chance we like to know all about the intimate affairs of other people. In this book the affairs are told in such a direct, interesting manner, without the pettiness of gossip, that we find sufficient excuse for our human weakness.

The Reader Critic

George Middleton, New York:

I read Wedded with much interest and really want to congratulate you upon your courage in producing it. As I told the author, whom I recently met, I do not think technically it is perfect: he has overdrawn the minister and made an author’s comment in his lines. I feel the last line absolutely out of key; for the effect, in my judgment, would have been much stronger if the minister had been less obviously the hypocrite. Aside from a little bungling in the opening, I think, however, that its sincerity is much more important than this captious criticism. I feel he put over quite clearly a situation in human life which should be presented. And it was courageous of you to affront public opinion, as you no doubt have, and give place to such a sincere little piece of life. I wonder when the world is going to let us talk about all the things we now smirk over and know. Once we can place these sex matters on the same plane of conversation as we do pork and cheese then they will really cease to be important. I believe in the reticences of taste and proportion—but not those of subject matter. And sooner or later the question of birth control must be given wide publicity, so that only wanted children will come into the world. So long as functionally the woman must bear the labour and thus suffer unequally in parenthood, so should we do everything through education to arm her against assuming unwilling burdens. When children are born of free choice in marriage then they will partake of a higher dignity, and parenthood itself will mean more than a functional disturbance and a matter of rebellion it now is with many. Any play which makes us question our nice polite functions about morality should be accessible to those not afraid of new ideas. It is curious how little faith the innate conservative has in human nature and the finer things of life. So afraid are they that they would bind people by old traditions and not personally-achieved opinions. Wedded presents in vivid phrase a fragment of life which has no doubt come to many a woman, and I heartily congratulate you for the courage which prompted you to give the author a hearing.

S. H. G., New York:

The November number is the best yet. I don’t like Iris’s work as well as I do Bodenheim’s; judging by these poems I think he has been too much praised. Bodenheim makes some superb contributions to language and imagery. Langner’s play doesn’t escape the querulous note in spots, but it is worth doing and is done well on the whole. Darrow’s article is well-knit and presents an idea. The best thing in the issue is Kaun’s translation. And I dislike very much your article on Emma Goldman, because it falls so far below the hardness of thought it should have had.

I have taken much to heart two articles in the first New Republic: Rebecca West’s The Duty of Harsh Criticism and the editors’ Force and Ideas. We who are saying things in public have a simply tremendous responsibility not only to feel, but to know, and to use the acid test on everything we say. Your article shows that you have been carried away by a personality to approval of a social program, and is the most convincing proof I have ever seen that belief in anarchism is a product of the artistic temperament rather than the result of an intelligent attempt to criticise and remould society. I know you did not intend it to be so; that is the reason it annoys me so much. It was a wise and necessary thing to correct misapprehensions about Emma Goldman’s personality; that you have done fairly well; though even that is marred by too much protesting and a substitution of a somewhat sentimental elation for power of mind and emotion. But your offhand generalities on the top of the third page are just the sort of shoddy thinking that justifies conservatives in dismissing social theorists with a sneer, and imprisoning them when they get dangerous. These generalities do not even accurately represent Wilde’s essay. It is not that I disagree with you; I recognize a fundamental truth in these things if it could only be disentangled, made definite, and applied. But to a discerning and unprejudiced reader it is quite evident that in order to save yourself the trouble and unromantic grind of doing this, you have made a lot of meaningless assumptions without really knowing very much about history or anthropology or psychology or any of the other wonderful tools which modern heroes have put at the service of the human will. You have the blind faith of a Catholic saint in divine revelation; the only difference is that the terms of the revelation are altered.

As a thing entirely apart from the above objection, the sporadic violence of the anarchists is puerile and ridiculous. The whole muddle in which the anarchists find themselves on account of their disagreements as to violence is an example of the necessity of efficient and intelligent organization—which is exactly what government in its essence is, to me (but is not now). My own position on anarchism has become more clearly defined than before. I stand fundamentally with Montessori on the position that the beginning and the end of revolution is improvement of the individual. I should be prepared to endorse a brutal autocracy if that bred better human stock. I am thoroughly convinced that Emma Goldman could preach until she lost her voice without producing an appreciable effect. The world has had too much preaching. There would be something finally tragic about the waste of such a personality as hers unless there were a better way of accomplishing her object. She has been working for years, yet ninety-nine per cent of Americans regard her as a sort of Carrie Nation. The more we long for her success the more we appreciate her personality, the more keenly we must criticise her method.

The question of how race hygiene must be applied is a profound and complex matter, impossible of solution by any individual. It will be solved gradually, and as a resultant of honest intellectual work by all forward looking people—more especially by your despised scientists. It will be a matter of inspired scientific education, of proper industrial conditions, of profound art stimulus, of sex reform, in short, of most of the things advocated today by the socialist party. I have a fair-to-middling imagination, but I totally fail to see how these things may properly be put into action without intelligent governmental organization. We simply must not narrow our minds by perfectionist generalities. It is the duty—and the inspiration—of the poet to understand and use science, of the scientist to develop the poet in himself, of all to face grimly every fact which concerns him and banish forever from his mind sentimentalism. Sentimentalism about ribbons and candy is sometimes pretty, but sentimentalism about the human race is a terrible form of blasphemy and the greatest of the sins of pettiness.

Now that I have spoken honestly, don’t think I have joined the ranks of irascible conservatives, and that I yell because I’ve been prodded. No one realizes more than I the necessity of greater emotion, or more sweeping vision. But let’s not make our vision sweeping by the simple process of cutting off our view!

OBLOMOFFDOM

Minnie Lyon, Chicago:

We are told by literary authorities that a certain Goncharoff occupies the place next to Turgeniev and Tolstoy in Russian literature. As to this I cannot vouch, but I can say that he has written a most profound and wonderful book called Oblomoff wherein he has depicted in convincing terms the enthralling bondage of Russia’s intellectuals in her days of stagnant inactivity. From this book was coined the phrase—“Russian Malady of Oblomoffdom”, so well did it dissect her diseased and irresolute will—a malady so universal as to make one feel that Oblomoff was written for us as well as for Russia. It certainly is a direct emphasis upon a condition which prevails so largely both in our personal and social life that few can read this inimitable pen portrait without a sneaking feeling that some of his own lineaments are limned therein.

Goncharoff writes of his hero: “The joy of higher inspiration was accessible to him—the miseries of mankind were not strange to him.... Sometimes he cried bitterly in the depths of his heart about human sorrows. He felt unnamed, unknown sufferings and sadness, and a desire of going somewhere far away,—probably into that world towards which Stoltz had tried to take him in his younger days. Sweet tears would then flow upon his cheek. It would also happen that he would feel hatred towards human vices, towards deceit, towards the evil which is spread all over the world; and he would then feel the desire to show mankind its diseases. Thoughts would then burn within him, rolling in his head like waves in the sea; they would grow into decisions which would make all his blood boil; his muscles would be ready to move, his sinews would be strained, intentions would be on the point of transforming themselves into decisions.... Moved by a moral force he would rapidly change over and over again his position in his bed; with a fixed stare he would lift himself from it, move his hand, look about with inspired eyes ... the inspiration would seem ready to realize itself, to transform itself into an act of heroism—and then, what miracle, what admirable results might one not expect from so great an effort! But—the morning would pass away, the shades of evening would take the place of broad daylight—and with them the strained forces of Oblomoff would incline towards rest—the storm in his soul would subside—his head would shake off the worrying thoughts—his blood would circulate more slowly in his veins—and Oblomoff would slowly turn over and recline on his back; look sadly through his window upon the sky, following sadly with his eyes the sun which was setting gloriously.... And how many times had he thus followed with his eyes that sunset!”

How easy to fall back upon a soft bed of concessions—and drift into a world of forgetfulness! It is just into terrible inertia—this every day and every day humdrum conservatistic acceptance of things as they are—that The Little Review comes with its laughter of the gods; it is so joyous, so fearless, so sure of its purpose, and hurls itself against it with its vital young blood and its burning young heart, and pleads with it for a re-creation of ideals in living, life, and art, and a bigger comprehension of what life and art can mean to the individual and to the race, if the individual will only open his heart and mind to these limitless freedoms. And it does not say: “Look, this is the only way;” but “come all ye who have something to offer—only let it be sincere, true, and unafraid.” And because of this big inclusiveness, we sometimes hear our friend, the sophisticated critic, say: “It lacks sophistication.”—What is sophistication anyway? Isn’t it something that has been baked and dried a long time? I wonder if every thoughtful reader does not grow weary of petty criticism! It is the twin sister (it has not the virility to be a boy twin) of Oblomoffdom, and lives as a parasite upon the brains of others. (I like that word Oblomoffdom; it covers such a multitude of indictments with an economy of words.) Let us have criticism—yes, by all means; but let it be criticism—critical in values, illuminating in meaning, clear in exposition, telling us how and why. Then we’ll give you our respectful and unbiased attention. Too much of the stuff that passes as criticism is merely a “personal attitude,” a channel for expressing a prejudice for (often) something too big for the critic’s grasp. How often, too, does one grow a bit heart-weary on hearing some big personality, some fine intellect limit itself to one vision—its own.

Why not throw that attitude aside as an outworn garment, and welcome any force, simply and gladly, that can stimulate a spark of life-urge within us? A more courageous and intense love of truth, of men, of life.

And so, we welcome you, Little Review, with a Happy New Year and a long life—as a Rebel spirit amongst us, fighting our deadly Oblomoffdom.

Statement of Ownership, Management, Circulation, Etc., required by the Act of August 24, 1912

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The Winter Number Contains

SIX COMPLETE PLAYS

THE WITNESSBy Jaroslav Vrchlicky
THE VENGEANCE OF CATULLUSBy Jaroslav Vrchlicky
SANCTA SUSANNABy August Stramm
THE BRIDE OF THE MOORBy August Stramm
SHAMBLESBy Henry T. Schnittkind
WARBy J. E. Fillmore

“HUMILIS”

His Art—His Story—His Poems

EIGHT NOTABLE POEMS

BY
“HUMILIS” GEORGES TURPIN STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ
MADISON CAWEIN RUTH McENERY STUART

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Vol. IV PRICE 15 CENTS No. IV

Poetry

A Magazine of Verse

Edited by Harriet Monroe

The Troubadour Madison Cawein
Poems Edith Wyatt
Annie Shore and Johnnie Doon}Patrick Orr
In the Mohave
The Lost Kingdom Ethel Talbot Scheffauer
Conquered}Zoë Akins
The Wanderer
Epigrams Remy de Gourmont
Pageant}Frances Gregg
To H. D.
Qualche Cosa Veduta Hall Roffey
The Musicmaker’s Child Miriam Allen de Ford
Modern Music Alice Ormond Campbell
The Temple}Lee Wilson Dodd
Only Not to Be Too Early Old
The Comrade
Prose:
Modern German Poetry Reginald H. Wilenski
French Poets and the War Remy de Gourmont

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Transcriber’s Notes

At the bottom of [page 1], within Amy Lowell's The Allies, there is the centered word

(Over)

which seems out of place and is not found in later editions of the text. Speculating whether this was printed on purpose, e.g., to inform the reader to turn over the page to read the rest, we decided to reproduce it here as it was printed.

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):