Mr. Harold Monro’s new book, Children of Love, which he has published himself at the Poetry Bookshop, contains also four gloomy war poems as far removed from Mr. Hewlett’s as from the verse of the newspapers. They are vivid and real impressions of fighting and, as appeals for recruiting, enormously inapt. But poetry does not exist for that. The title poem is a lovely piece, Mr. Monro’s very best, the composition which settled, or should have settled, all our doubts concerning his genius. The others display that sombre misery which is the characteristic note of his writing, which is extremely uncomfortable and, after a little while, extremely impressive.
I may seem to have devoted too much space to the publications of the Poetry Bookshop. But I think that, with luck, as time goes on, it may bulk yet more largely in English letters. Mr. Monro, if he is careful, may have the position that the Mercure de France held in Paris until quite recently: that is, he may publish about ninety per cent of all the good poetry that is published.
The war—again—disturbing our lives as a great tidal wave disturbs sea and shore, has brought to the surface, as waves will, many things of beauty. Among these, one that is not regarded, is Thomas Hardy’s Dynasts, which has been abridged and produced by Mr. Granville Barker. It is printed in three volumes and nineteen acts, with innumerable choruses and semi-choruses. Mr. Barker has reduced the play to three acts and the chorus to two persons who sit enthroned, one on each side of the stage. Mr. Henry Ainley sits at a reading-desk lower down in front and declaims the descriptive stage-directions. The setting is a conventional design in grey to which slight additions are made from time to time, but which remains for the most part unchanged. Thus you see the men and women of Wessex in fear of invasion by “Boney,” the victory and death of Nelson, the death and burial of Sir John Moore, Wellington at Salamanca, Napoleon signing his abdication at Fontainebleau, Wellington and Napoleon at Waterloo. The Napoleon was bad: he laughed sardonically in the fashion of melodrama, but the play transcended him. The tragedy was profoundly moving, the comedy not less so. It is an extraordinary work, written in Mr. Hardy’s graceless style, and probably the greatest of his compositions. One thing only was wanting—an audience. That which is essentially impressive must have something to impress—the listeners have a place in a good play—and the grandeur of the occasion was sensibly diminished. When we went, we asked the box-office attendant if we might go in at half-price, on account of our uniforms, and he answered indifferently that “we might if we liked.” When we got in, we understood. There were about two rows in the stalls and two more in the pit. The boxes were empty as far as I could see. I cannot understand the English public. What more do they want now than to see Nelson on the Victory and Wellington at Waterloo? Is it a cause of offence to them that the play is by a great man?
New York Letter
George Soule
If I were a Japanese journalist looking for notoriety, I should translate sections from Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Richmond P. Hobson, et al., and publish them under the title “America and the Next War.” There is no question that these gentlemen put together are ten times as influential in the United States as von Bernhardi was in Germany. And there is no question that their utterances are just as inciting to militarism. If to them were added editorials from the Hearst newspapers, with their millions of circulation, and the books of certain prominent army officers, no one could convince the Japanese that the United States is not a conceited, hot-headed, and militarist nation. After the outbreak of a war we should plead in vain that we are peace-loving and fight only in self-defence. “Have you not the second largest navy in the world?” the Japanese would say. “Was any nation threatening you? Did you not capture the Philippines by force and subdue them against their will, practicing against the innocent natives horrible atrocities? Would you not do the same to Japan if you had the chance? Fortunately we are forewarned, and seize a favorable occasion to free the Philippines, since you have broken your promise to give them independence.” And we should feel that the Japanese were monsters hiding their aggressive spirit under humanitarian humbug.
Most of us have forgotten the spasm of “divine mission” that swept over this country at the time of the Spanish-American war. We were appointed by God to conquer or absorb the world, and bestow upon it, willing or unwilling, our American Kultur. “Civilization” was, indeed, the precise word we used, although we sometimes varied it with “free institutions.” At the same time the beef trust was furnishing “embalmed beef” to the army, and our economic system was at its very depth of unsavoriness. The Spanish papers cartooned us, quite justly, as “the American hog,” and the cartoons were reproduced broadcast over this country to feed the fires of hate. A Spaniard became to us the very impersonation of demoniacal cruelty. The country ran high with the spy fever, while the Atlantic coast waited in some trepidation for the imagined approach of Cervera’s squadron. We were prey to all the grinning illusions of war.
European opinion was at this time largely against us. To most Europeans we seemed a combination of pious humbug and bumptious conceit. To be actively dangerous we should have needed only a powerful armament. As it was, they regarded us with only distant apprehension. But they were not for a moment deceived by our high-sounding phrases. We were the most dollar-worshipping nation in the world, had often proved ourselves so. They recalled the unpleasant experiences they had had at the hands of Americans—vulgar tourists. The thing was perfectly obvious. We had little fineness of feeling. What we were fighting for was really dollars and cents, not the freedom of subject peoples. At this time they set themselves to watch us very carefully. Canada and the rest of America shared their feelings, with more bitterness.
Since then there has been little visible and striking change. We still live under an inchoate and un-idealistic commercialism. The world can thank us for very few treasures of literature, philosophy, or art. Not a single great nation has any particular occasion to love us. To most of them we are blasphemous and hateful. Hearst has more millions and more newspapers than ever, and we are still subject to strong popular hysteria—such as the recently-shown hatred of Germany. We sit as judges on the world. We calmly assume that we could do no such terrible things as other nations; that our Kultur is the best. At any time we may again be ready to spread it by force of arms.
Now all the powerful nations of the world, except us, are weakening each other in a terrific struggle. The occasion is seized in America by the armament makers and a political party without an issue. To defend ourselves we must arm! they say. Anyone who has taken the trouble to read Bernhardi’s books will know that it is the precise argument he employed. Political parties under commercialism are unscrupulous, and we shall doubtless see the agitation raised to a national issue. Anything to get the Democrats out of office. The probability is that the hysteria will succeed. The only hope to the contrary is that it may be allayed, not by opposition, but by prompt action on the part of the administration which shall mend our present fences without committing us to any definite policy of armament.