The Yale Literary Magazine
| Vol. LXXXVIII | JUNE, 1923 | No. 9 |
EDITORS
| WALTER EDWARDS HOUGHTON, JR. | ||
| LAIRD SHIELDS GOLDSBOROUGH | DAVID GILLIS CARTER | |
| MORRIS TYLER | NORMAN REGINALD JAFFRAY | |
BUSINESS MANAGERS
| GEORGE W. P. HEFFELFINGER | WALTER CRAFTS |
Leader
Probably one in every ten men brought up in a cultured environment has written, at some youthful period or other, sentimental verse. Such product is in any prep.-school paper; a few brilliant or hard working youngsters win prizes each year for the best “poems” of their classes. But too many of these prodigies, because they are one in ten, are convinced that they are endowed with the powers of a poet. They cannot realize that riming is to be outgrown at adolescence, just as other games are. Since some grown men continue to write poetry, and no one continues to rollerskate, they put off rollerskating as a childish thing, but they keep puttering away over platitudes “To ——” and to Spring. They have not yet come fully into their manhood.
Personally, I should prefer them to become professional rollerskaters, for then they could do no harm. Instead, they join the group of “younger litterati” of college, and play the artist as an extra-curriculum means to distinction, bringing down an undeserved indictment upon whatever men there happen to be with music in their hearts, and with something to say. The university which most desires to honor its true artists finds itself rewarding a kindergarten Greenwich Village for sentimentality that will be forgotten before the quickness of time has killed it. “Litterati” thus has become to others a name of derision, and “he heels the Lizzie Club” is a taunt. Especially, a magazine founded for the sincere promotion of literary expression is in danger before these men with the trick of verse and a desire for prominence.