Your brows are calm and virginal,
warming to:
Your mouth is red as red, red roses are.
The sham rake-hells festooned their hectic amours with references to purple breasts, absinthe, Messalina, and Semiramis: the banality was plain to see. But Signor Marinetti and his congeners—we had been gently acclimatised to great obscurity by artists like Mallarmé—provided these poets with a priceless gift. Let rhythm go, let sense go: put down in barbarous sequence any incongruous images that come into your head: even, if you like, put down sheer gibberish: if possible, deceive yourself, and you will deceive others. Produce a work so opaque that it cannot be seen through. The innocents will either wildly protest against these dangerous revolutionaries—a much more pleasing rôle to find oneself in than that of harmless mediocrity—or else they will knit their brows with the reflection "if this young man expresses himself in thoughts too deep for me, why what a very, very, very deep young man this deep young man must be." But we have noticed that most of these dealers in chaos soon tire. Those who have something in them (and any young man is liable to be infected by a current fashion) get through, none the worse: those who have not flag and stop.
In our second number we called attention, as many before us have called attention, to the scandalous state of the American copyright laws whereunder British authors have been put to immense inconvenience and loss, and which have resulted in the early books of almost every important British author being, in America, beyond his control. Since we wrote the American Senate has come to a decision which greatly ameliorates the conditions as they affect books published here since the war. It has been clear that during the war, owing to the delays of mails, it has often been impossible for English publishers and authors to secure American copyright even where American publication could easily be arranged for—copies for deposit could not be got across sufficiently quickly, and the time-limit of thirty days from English publication expired. Under the new decision—which is largely due to the efforts of Major G. H. Putnam—protection is secured for all British books of which the American copyright has been lost during the war. The Act has been amended: friendly alien authors have been given American copyright on works of which copyright lapsed during the war; the concession extends to works issued within fifteen months after the war, whatever the end of the war may be defined to be. During that fifteen months authors may take steps to establish their copyright; after that period, as we understand it, British authors and publishers will have a longer period (i.e., four months) than before in which to secure their rights, provided a complete copy of the English edition has been deposited in the Copyright Office not more than sixty days after publication. We suppose, though we await further information, that the fact that a book, presumed non-copyright, has been published in America during the war will not prevent its being copyrighted; but if this be so what will happen to a pirated edition (assuming such to exist) which was legally permissible before the new amendment?
An important step has been made in the development of the literary relations of the two countries. But these are still far from perfect. It may not be possible to make the domestic copyright laws of the two countries the same, but it should not be impossible for each country to extend to the books of the other a simultaneous and automatic copyright on publication. American books should be automatically copyright here when they appear in America; English books should be automatically copyrighted in America when they appear here. There is room for discussion as to the length of term of copyright to be granted to foreigners; but a basis for mutual agreement would not be difficult to find. We trust that Major Putnam will not flag in the good work, and that English authors will co-operate to the best of their ability.
We printed in our last number a letter from Mr. J. G. Fletcher disputing a statement made by our American correspondent that Mr. Nicholas Vachel Lindsay was the only "live" poet now writing in America, and questioning the justice of the praise given to Mr. Lindsay. On the assumption that our readers will be interested, we are publishing in this issue a work by Mr. Lindsay which illustrates his recent manner. It is a poem which presents some difficulties to English readers. It evokes memories of a Presidential campaign long gone past, and some of Mr. Lindsay's political references (not to speak of his presumably mythical animals) will puzzle people; even those English people who vaguely remember who Mark Hanna was will probably not have the ghost of a vision of Altgeld.