Can You Read——?

(In this column will be given each month a resumé of current cant which, as an intelligent being, you will go far to avoid.)

Fiction reviews by Llewellyn Jones in The Chicago Evening Post.

A typical literary judgment from The Dial: “But, in the main, his wholesomely harsh utterances ought to be, and must be, in some degree, tonic and bracing and curative.”

An editorial from The New Republic, a journal of opinion whose function, we believe, is to circulate ideas:

During the past ten months the German Ambassador at Washington has done nothing to promote a better understanding between his own government and nation and the American government and nation. He is consequently all the more to be congratulated upon his behavior at a moment of acute and dangerous contention between the United States and Germany. He has on his own initiative and perhaps at his own risk intervened on behalf of a possibly peaceful solution of the differences between the two governments. He has sought by means of a frank talk with President Wilson to break through the barrier of misunderstanding which the exchange of notes was building up between the two governments and to re-establish a genuine vehicle of communication. The conversation may not lead to agreement, but at the top of a peculiarly forbidding crisis it has at least made an agreement seem not impossible. Everybody who detests war, everybody who hopes that the friendship between the United States and Germany will not be involved in the wreckage of the hideous conflict, will be grateful to Count von Bernstorff for his enterprise.

The Reader Critic

Mrs. Jean Cowdrey Norton, Hempstead, Long Island:

Since coming in contact with The Little Review last December, I have more than enjoyed each issue with your own impulsive, warm-hearted, dauntless personality coming through its pages; and it is for that reason I do not hesitate to ask you for an explanation of a sentence that you wrote in the April number, which led me to subscribe for that horrible output, viz., The Masses. You pronounced it indispensable to intelligent living. On that I sent in a subscription, and whereas I am not so awfully stupid I cannot understand how you, who are evidently an artist with high ideals, could possibly have such a magazine on your desk. The cartoons are so untrue, so damnably vulgar,—which good art never is,—the insistent harping on the shadows of life, the exaggerated outlook which tinges the whole paper—quite as one-sided on its side as other papers are on theirs; all of which I know must be in complete contradiction to your self. It fills me with astonishment. We acknowledge with our ever-increasing complex civilization that we must more than ever perhaps help each other; but I don’t just understand which class this perfectly rotten sheet is intended to reach. If it’s the so-called down trodden, they are apt to have so much unhappiness any way I should say a good brace up does more good than harping on injustice in general; as for the class that “does not think,” its inartistic drawings alone would be enough to queer it. When I am down and out—I happen to be a working woman too—I most decidedly do not want to be made more down and out by more woes, that often spring from lack of intelligence, that both rich and poor suffer alike from. You will see I believe in the responsibility of the individual, that you Socialists rather avoid. I do not expect you to answer this letter, but I shall look in The Little Review for a stray line that will give me some idea of your outlook.

[I have so much to say in answer to this letter, and so little time to say it that I have asked someone who shares my view to do it for me. Mr. Davis says it much better than I could, anyhow. And I must add that I am not a Socialist. I am an Anarchist—which means, an Individualist; which means everything that people think it doesn’t mean.—The Editor.]

F. Guy Davis, Chicago:

I will try to indicate very briefly why I think so much of The Masses. The group that is getting it out are real students who know the crowd with all its hope and despair, much better than the crowd knows itself. They are interpreting the crowd. The mass would never like The Masses. It is too true. It is not got up for them. The Cosmopolitan is the ideal of the mass. The Masses is for the few brave spirits who want to know life as it is, the shadows as well as the flights up into the sunshine. The Masses to my mind has as broad a range of feeling reflected in its pages as any magazine I know of. Humor, tragedy, light, shade, drama, color, yes, and mud too, as you say. But isn’t mud a part of life? In some respects mud is the condition of life. The great need of the sensitive mind of today is contact with the vital life-giving things and ideas which come from the earth. The life of such a mind is like the life of a plant. Its roots must go down beneath the surface or it will die. The Masses to my mind is the spirit of the earth put into magazine form, and to read it understandingly is to put the roots of the soul down into the earth where they should be if a healthy growth is desired. One could get too much of that contact of course, but that is another matter.

FREE POETS v. FREE VERSE.

[As Mr. Carter suggests in the following letter, reprinted from The Egoist, I hope The Little Review agree with Mr. Aldington’s point of view. I hope the latter may be induced to answer Mr. Carter at length in the same issue.—The Editor.]

To the Editor, The Egoist

Madam,—I notice that in his contribution to the Imagist number of The Egoist Mr. Harold Monro, writing on the history of the Imagist movement, states that the movement owes its origin to the large discovery of “Poetry as an art” [my italics]. He then proceeds to point out that the Imagist verse fails as poetry not because the writers love poetry less, but because they love expression more. Being what it is it would be no better if Tennyson had written it, and no worse if it proved to be by, say, Mr. Rudyard Kipling. Indeed, it is not poetry any more than little Congreve’s tiresome stream of depreciation is comedy, despite what certain hopeless apprentice play critics assert to the contrary. Poetry, I suppose Mr. Monro would say, is not expression but the thing expressed. All this is good and true. But Mr. Monro fails to make one thing quite clear. The Imagists have been mistaken in their very conception of poetry which lives alone by the power to see it as Art and not as “an art.” I am convinced that some at least of the Imagists are not without the secret of this power, and if they will be guided by the vision they gain thereby, to the extent of forgetting their literary erudition, it will transform their conception of poetry. The strict literature at which they aim is not proper poetry. In fact, literary technicians do not, as a rule, write poetry for the simple reason that even if they dream the poet’s dream of reality they at once proceed to smother it under literary form. We must look to those rich in poetical experience, and free to express it, for the true expression of poetry. In plain words, “Poetry as an art” (that is, as expression or form) is not the same as Poetry as Art (that is, the thing expressed). The distinction is so big and vital and so necessary to be maintained at this moment, that I propose to consider it in an article in The Little Review. I hope to prove that what poetry needs nowadays is free poets, not free verse.

Huntly Carter.

[As the nearest available Imagist, perhaps I may be permitted to comment (without prejudice to the other Imagists) on Mr. Carter’s letter. I am not quite sure that I know what Mr. Carter means, but I think he means that it is useless for a man to study classic quantity and mediaeval rhyme and modern free verse, if he has no particular impulse or mood to make those studies valuable as a means of expression. If that is what Mr. Carter means I agree with him. I will also agree that it is useless to try and teach a dumb man to lecture or a lame man to break the hundred yards record. If a man is to lecture, if he is to be an athlete, we take for granted that in the first case he has ideas and a certain eloquence, and in the second a good physique and an aptitude for sprinting. Mr. Carter would be a rotten trainer if he didn’t make his man diet, take cold baths and long walks and an occasional sprint; he ought even to make him do a little boxing. I feel, somehow, that Mr. Carter never went in for violent exercise or that he relied upon his “Soul-Flow” or “Art-Ebb” to get him through.

Now poetry is not so very unlike athletics. You may have no aptitude for it, and then all the training in the world won’t get you in first; you may shape very well, but if you don’t train you will be an “also ran.” I believe in having an aptitude and in training it; Mr. Carter believes in having an aptitude and not training it.

I object to Mr. Carter informing us of the existence of our “of courses.” We take for granted that a man is sincere, that he has lots of impulses and that he is “free.” All that is the stuff out of which poetry is made. The making of it, the “training” is what we are immediately interested in. We take for granted that we have the essentials of poetry in us or we should not attempt to write it. We are now after clarity of form, precision of expression. Mr. Carter, like the majority of our fellow citizens, does not value these things; we find them present in every work of art which is beautiful and permanently interesting; hence our anxiety to attain by practice that clarity and that precision which practice alone can give.]

Richard Aldington.

If only every Celt will refuse to fight for anything but the freedom of his own country, the English will soon destroy themselves altogether, and we shall inherit their language, the only worthy thing they have, and which their newspapers have not yet succeeded in debauching and degrading beyond repair. There are still universities in England. However, they have made it a crime in England to write good English—for style itself is a form of truth, being beauty; and truth and beauty are as welcome in England as detectives in a thieves’ kitchen.—Aleister Crowley in The International.

THE DRAMA

for May Contained This Interesting Material

THE CLASSICAL STAGE OF JAPAN Ernest Fenollosa’s Work on the Japanese “Noh.” Edited by Ezra Pound.

“Noh” Dramas (from the Fenollosa Manuscript).

Sotoba Komachi.
Kayoi Komachi.
Suma Genji.
Kumasaka.
Shojo.
Tamura.
Tsunemasa.
Kunasaka.

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE CENSORSHIP, by Thomas H. Dickinson

MAURICE MAETERLINCK by Remy de Gourmont Authorized translation by Richard Aldington.

THE “BOOK OF THE PAGEANT,” AND ITS DEVELOPMENT by Frank Chouteau Brown

ON THE READING OF PLAYS by Elizabeth R. Hunt

A PYRAMUS-AND-THISBE PLAY OF SHAKESPEARE’S TIME, with notes by Eleanor Prescott Hammond

THE PUBLISHED PLAY by Archibald Henderson

THE THEATRE TODAY—AND TOMORROW, a review, by Alice Corbin Henderson

THE GERMAN STAGE AND ITS ORGANIZATION—Part III, Private Theatres by Frank E. Washburn Freund

ASPECTS OF MODERN DRAMA, a review, by Lander MacClintock

THE JAPANESE PLAY OF THE CENTURIES by Gertrude Emerson

A SELECTIVE LIST OF ESSAYS AND BOOKS ABOUT THE THEATRE AND OF PLAYS, published during the first quarter of 1915 compiled by Frank Chouteau Brown

The Drama for August will contain Augier’s Mariage d’Olympe, with a foreword by Eugene Brieux; an amusing account of his experiences with Parsee drama, by George Cecil; a paper on the Evolution of the Actor, by Arthur Pollock; a discussion of Frank Wedekind, by Frances Fay; a review of the work of the recent Drama League Convention; a plan for an autumn community festival; an outline of the nation-wide celebration of the Shakespeare tercentenary, and an article entitled Depersonalizing the Instruments of the Drama, by Huntly Carter.

The Drama, a Quarterly
$3.00 per year

736 Marquette Building
Chicago

The most difficult business in life is to get advertisements for an “artistic” magazine—particularly for one that has the added stigma of being a free lance. We will give a commission of $5.00 to every one who secures a full-page “ad” for The Little Review. Write for particulars.

On the following pages you will find the “ads” we might have had in this issue, but haven’t.

Mandel Brothers might have taken this page to feature their library furnishings, desk sets, and accessories—of which they are supposed to have the most interesting assortment in town. I learned that on the authority of some one who referred to Mandel’s as “the most original and artistic store in Chicago.” If they should advertise those things here I have no doubt the 1,000 Chicago subscribers to The Little Review would overflow their store.

Marshall Field and Company might have used this page—but they wouldn’t. I have been to see them at least six times. They have a book department where you can actually find Nietzsche when you want him without having the clerk say, “We’ll be glad to order it.” Such a phenomenon ought to be heralded.

Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company ought to advertise something, though I don’t know just what. The man I interviewed made such a face when I told him we were “radical” that I haven’t had the courage to go back and pester him for the desired full-page. The Carson-Pirie attitude toward change of any sort is well-known—I think they resent even having to keep pace with the change in fashions.

A. C. McClurg and Company could have used this page to advantage. They have lots of books to advertise and they ought to want to advertise them in a Chicago magazine. I am willing to wager that they will: I plan to interview them once a week until they succumb.

There is least excuse of all for the Cable Piano Company. They know what we think of the Mason and Hamlin Piano and they know, whether they advertise or not, that we will keep on talking about it whenever we feel like appreciating a beautiful thing—which is rather often.

This page might have been used very profitably by Mr. Mitchell Kennerley to announce the publication of a book of poems by Florence Kiper Frank. I think it is to be out this summer—though of course I can’t pretend to give the details accurately, not having been provided with the “ad.” But The Little Review readers will want the book nevertheless.

Poetry

A Magazine of Verse

543 Cass Street
Chicago

Padraic Colum, the distinguished Irish poet and lecturer, says: “POETRY is the best magazine, by far, in the English language. We have nothing in England or Ireland to compare with it.”

William Marion Reedy, Editor of the St. Louis Mirror, says: “POETRY has been responsible for the Renaissance in that art. You have done a great service to the children of light in this country.”

CAN YOU AFFORD TO DO WITHOUT SO IMPORTANT A MAGAZINE?

POETRY publishes the best verse now being written in English, and its prose section contains brief articles on subjects connected with the art, also reviews of the new verse.

POETRY has introduced more new poets of importance than all the other American magazines combined, besides publishing the work of poets already distinguished.

THE ONLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO THIS ART.

SUBSCRIBE AT ONCE. A subscription to POETRY is the best way of paying interest on your huge debt to the great poets of the past. It encourages living poets to do for the future what dead poets have done for modern civilization, for you.

One year—12 numbers—U. S. A., $1.50; Canada, $1.65; foreign, $1.75 (7 shillings).

POETRY
543 Cass Street, Chicago.

Send POETRY for one year ($1.50 enclosed) beginning .........
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Name ........................................................
Address .....................................................

RADICAL
BOOK SHOP

Headquarters for the sale of radical literature representing all phases of libertarian thought in religion, economics, philosophy, also revolutionary fiction, poetry and drama. All current radical newspapers and magazines.

Mail orders promptly filled.
Send for catalogue.

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Chicago, Illinois

If Civilization, Christianity, Governments, Education, and Culture have failed to bring peace and well-being to humanity, isn’t it time for you to listen to the message of Anarchy?

Anarchism and Other Essays

By Emma Goldman

$1.00; postpaid $1.15

With biographical sketch and twelve propaganda lectures showing the attitude of Anarchism towards social questions—economics, politics, education, and sex.

The Social Significance of the Modern Drama

By Emma Goldman

$1.00; postpaid $1.15

A critical analysis of the Modern Drama in its relation to the social and revolutionary tendencies of the age.

Prison Memoirs of An Anarchist

By Alexander Berkman

$1.25; postpaid $1.40

A powerful human document discussing revolutionary psychology and portraying prison life.

Selected Works

By Voltaireine de Cleyre

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America’s foremost literary rebel and Anarchist propagandist. Poems, short stories and essays.

10c a copy

$1.00 a year

Mother Earth Magazine

Anarchist Monthly

FOR SALE BY

Mother Earth Publishing Association
20 East 125th Street, New York, New York

RADICAL
BOOK SHOP

Headquarters for the sale of radical literature representing all phases of libertarian thought in religion, economics, philosophy, also revolutionary fiction, poetry and drama. All current radical newspapers and magazines.

Mail orders promptly filled.
Send for catalogue.

817½ North Clark Street
Chicago, Illinois

Transcriber’s Notes

Advertisements were collected at the end of the text.

The table of contents on the title page was adjusted in order to reflect correctly the headings in this issue of The Little Review.

In the poem [Les Condoléances], the line [Qu’il est sous les mers] was moved from the end of the stanza beginning with [“Je n’insiste pas. Je suis venu vite,] to the end of the stanza beginning with [“Si notre avenir—souffrez que je cache] where it most likely belongs.

The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical errors were silently corrected. All other changes are shown here (before/after):