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STAN  IS  LAW 

PORTAPOVIT-CH 

MAITRE    DE    DANSE 

INSTRUCTOR 

AND 

PRODUCER 

2-1-3     \A/  ELQT     41Z:nd     STREET 

,NI  E  W     V  C:>  R  K 

THE 
UTTLE  REVIEW 

Vol.  VI.  MAY,  1919  No.  1 


CONTENTS 

The   Valet  Djuna  Barnes 

Advice  to  a  Switch-Engine  Maxwell   Bodenheim 

"Drawing  Room"  Louis  Gilmore 

Prohibition  and  Conversation  •     John   Butler    Yeats 
Ulysses  (Episode  IX)  James    Joyce 

Four  Drawings  James    IJght 

Mary  Olivier:  A  Life,  IV.  May  Sinclair 

Discussion: 

Modern   Piano   Playing  Margaret   Anderson 

Susan   Glaspell's   "Bernice": 

A  Great  Drama  Alfred    C.    Barnes 

An  Important  Play  Philip  Moeller 

Neither  Drama  nor  Interesting  Life      M.  C.  A. 

The    Provincetown    Theatre  jh. 

"Bonds   of   Interest"  jh. 

Two  First  Books  Babette  Deutsch 

Drawings  William  Saphier 

Avis  E::ra  Pound 

Poems  Else  von  Freytag-Loringhoven 

Prologue  II  William  Carlos  Williams 


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1919,  by  Margaret  C.  Anderson. 

Manuscripts   must   be   submitted   at   author's   risk,   with   return   postage. 

Entered  as  second  class  matter  March  16,  1917,  at  the  Post  Office  at  New  York, 
N.  Y.,  under  the  act  of  March  3,   1879. 

MARGARET   C.    ANDERSON,    Publisher 

24  West  Sixteenth  Street,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Foreign  Office:  43  Belsize  Park,  Gardens,  London  N.  W.  3. 


Crane's" 

U4arij  garden  (PhoeolatesT' 

"Qjour  (Phoeohtefaw  really  the  f]ne^Tha\>e 
e\?cr  tasked  am/uj/icfv  in  the  VDorld" 


UTTLE  UYIEW 


THE    VALET 

by  Djuna  Barnes 

THE  fields  about  Louis-Georges  house  grew  green  in  early  spring, 
leaving  the  surrounding  country  in  melancholly  gray,  for  Louis- 
Georges  was  the  only  man  who  sowed  his  ground  to  rye. 

Louis-Georges  was  of  small  stature.  His  face  was  oblong,  too 
pale.  A  dry  mouth  lay  crookedly  beneath  a  nose  ending  in  a  slight 
bulb.  His  long  animal-like  arms  swung  half  a  rhythm  ahead  of  his 
legs. 

He  prided  himself  on  his  farming,  though  he  knew  nothing 
about  it.  He  surveyed  the  tender  coming  green  with  kindly  good 
nature,  his  acres  were  always  a  month  ahead  of  his  neighbors  in 
their  debut. 

Sometimes  standing  in  the  doorway,  breathing  through  the 
thick  hair  in  his  nostrils,  streching  his  gloves,  he  would  look  at  the 
low-lying  sheds  and  the  stables  and  the  dull  brown  patches  of 
ploughed  earth,  and  mutter  "Splendid,  splendid!" 

Finally  he  would  stroll  in  among  the  cattle  where,  in  dizzy 
circles,  large  colored  flies  swayed,  emitting  a  soft  insistent  drone 
like  taffeta  rubbed  against  taffeta. 

He  liked  to  think  that  he  knew  a  great  deal  about  horses.  He 
would  look  solemnly  at  the  trainer  and  discuss  length  of  neck,  thin- 
ness and  shape  of  flank  by  the  hour,  stroking  the  hocks  of  his  pet 
racer.  Sometimes  he  would  say  to  Vera  Sovna:  "There's  more 
real  breeding  in  the  rump  of  a  mare  than  in  all  the  crowned  heads 
of  England." 

Sometimes  he  and  Vera  Sovna  would  play  in  the  hay,  and  about 
the  grain  bins.  She  in  her  long  flounces,  leaping  in  and  out,  screaming 
and  laughing,  stamping  her  high  heels,  setting  up  a  great  commotion 
among  her  ruffles. 

Once  Louis-Georges  caught  a  rat,  bare  handed,  and  with  such 


The     Little    Review 


skill  that  it  could  not  bile.  Ik-  disguised  his  pride  in  showing  it  to 
her  by  pretendintj  that  he  had  done  so  to  inform  her  of  the  rodent 
menace  to  winter  grain. 

V'era  Sovna  was  a  tall  creature  with  thin  shoulders;  she  was 
always  shrugging  them  as  if  her  shoulder-blades  were  heavy.  She 
dressed  in  black,  and  laughetl  a  good  deal  in  a  very  high  key. 

She  had  been  a  great  friend  of  Louis-Georges'  mother,  but  since 
her  death  she  had  fallen  into  disrepute.  It  was  hinted  that  she  was 
"something"  to  Lou  is- Georges;  and  when  the  townsfolk  and  neigh- 
boring landholders  saw  her  enter  the  house  they  would  not  content 
themselves  until  they  saw  her  leave  it. 

If  she  came  out  holding  her  skirts  crookedly  above  her  thin  an- 
kles, they  would  find  the  roofs  of  their  mouths  in  sudden  disap- 
proval, while  if  she  walked  slowly,  dragging  her  dress,  they  would 
say:  "See  what  a  dust  Vera  Sovna  brings  up  in  the  driveway;  she 
stamps  as  if  she  were  a  mare." 

If  she  knew  anything  of  this  feeling,  she  never  showed  it.  She 
would  drive  through  the  town  and  turn  neither  to  right  or  left  until 
she  passed  the  markets  with  their  bright  yellow  gourds  and  squash- 
es, their  rosy  apples  and  their  splendid  tomatoes,  exhaling  an  odor 
of  decaying  sunlight.  On  the  rare  occasions  when  Louis-Georges 
accompanied  her  she  would  cross  her  legs  at  the  knee,  leaning  for- 
ward pointing  a  finger  at  him,  shaking  her  head,  laughing. 

Sometimes  she  would  go  into  the  maids'  quarters  to  play  with 
Leah's  child,  a  little  creature  with  weak  legs  and  neck,  who  always 
thrust  out  his  stomach  for  her  to  pat. 

The  maids,  Berthe  and  Leah,  were  well-built  complacent  women 
with  serene  blue  eyes,  quite  far  apart,  and  good  mouths  in  which 
fine  teeth  grew  gratefully  and  upon  whom  round  ample  busts  flour- 
ished like  plants.  They  went  about  their  work  singing  or  chewing 
long  green  salad  leaves. 

In  her  youth  Leah  had  done  something  for  which  she  prayed  at 
intervals.  Her  memory  was  always  taking  her  hastily  away  to  kneel 
before  the  gaudy  wax  Christ  that  hung  on  a  beam  in  the  barn. 
Resting  her  head  against  the  boards  she  would  lift  her  work-worn 
hands,  bosom  high,  sighing,  praying,  murmuring. 

Or  she  would  help  Berthe  with  the  milking,  throw'ing  her  thick 
ankles  under  the  cow's  udders,  bringing  down  a  sudden  fury  of  milk, 
shining  and  splashing  over  her  big  dean  knuckles,  saying  quietly, 
evenly: 

"I  think  we  will  have  rain  before  dawn." 

And  her  sister  would  answer:     "Yes.  before  dawn." 


The    Little    Review 


Leah  would  spend  hours  in  the  garden,  her  little  one  crawling 
after  her,  leaving  childish  smears  on  the  dusty  leaves  of  the  growing 
corn,  digging  his  hands  into  the  vegetable  tops,  falling  and  pretend- 
ing to  have  fallen  on  purpose;  grinning  up  at  the  sun  foolishly  until 
his  eyes  watered. 

These  two  women  and  Louis-Georges'  valet,  Vanka,  made  up 
the  household,  saving  occasional  visits  from  Louis-Georges'  aunts, 
Myra  and  Ella. 

This  man  Vanka  was  a  mixture  of  Russian  and  Jew.  He  bit 
his  nails,  talked  of  the  revolution,  moved  clumsily. 

His  clothes  fitted  him  badly,  he  pomaded  his  hair,  which  was 
reddish  yellow,  pulled  out  the  short  hairs  that  tormented  his  throat, 
and  from  beneath  his  white  brows  distributed  a  kindly  intelligent 
look.  The  most  painful  thing  about  him  was  his  attempt  to  seem 
alert,  his  effort  to  keep  pace  with  his  master. 

Louis-Georges  would  say  "Well,  now  Vanka,  what  did  they  do 
to  you  in  Russia  when  you  were  a  boy?" 

"They  shot  my  brother  for  a  red,"  Vanka  would  answer,  pul- 
ling the  hairs.  "They  threw  him  into  prison,  and  my  sister  took 
him  his  food.  One  day  our  father  was  also  arrested,  then  she  took 
two  dinner  pails  instead  of  one.  And  once  she  heard  a  noise,  it 
sounded  like  a  shot,  and  our  father  returned  her  one  of  the  pails. 
They  say  he  looked  up  at  her  like  a  man  who  is  gazed  at  over  the 
shoulder."  He  had  told  the  tale  often,  adding:  "My  sister  became 
almost  bald  later  on,  yet  she  was  a  handsome  woman;  the  students 
used  to  come  to  her  chambers  to  hear  her  talk." 

At  such  times  Louis-George  would  excuse  himself  and  shut 
himself  up  to  write,  in  a  large  and  scrawling  hand,  letters  to  his 
aunts  with  some  of  Vanka's  phrases  in  them. 

Sometimes  Vera  Sovna  would  come  in  to  watch  him,  lifting  her 
ruffles,  raising  her  brows.  Too,  she  would  turn  and  look  for  a  long 
time  at  Vanka  who  returned  her  look  with  cold  persistence,  the 
way  of  a  man  who  is  afraid,  who  does  not  approve,  and  yet  who 
likes. 

She  would  stand  with  her  back  to  the  fireplace,  her  high  heels 
a  little  apart,  tapping  the  stretched  silk  of  her  skirt,  saying: 

"You  will  ruin  your  eyes,"  adding:  "Vanka,  won't  you  stop 
him." 

She  seldom  got  answers  to  her  remarks.  Louis-Georges  would 
continue,  grunting  at  her,  to  be  sure,  and  smiling,  but  never  lifting 
his  eyes:  and  as  for  Vanka  he  would  stand  there,  catching  the  sheets 
of  paper  as  they  were  finished. 


T  li  c     Little     Review 


Finally  Louis-Georges  would  push  back  his  chair,  saying: 
"Come,  we  will  have  tea." 

In  the  end  he  fell  into  a  slow  illness.  It  attacked  his  limbs,  he 
was  forced  to  walk  wth  a  cane.  He  complaned  of  his  heart,  but 
he  persisted  in  going  out  to  look  at  the  horses,  to  the  bam  to  amuse 
Vera  Sovna,  swaying  a  little  as  he  watched  the  slow  circling  flies, 
sniffing  the  pleasant  odors  of  cow's  milk  and  dung. 

He  still  had  plans  for  the  haying  season,  for  his  crops,  but  he 
gave  them  over  to  his  farm  hands,  who,  left  to  themselves,  wan- 
dered aimlessly  home  at  odd  hours. 

About  six  months  later  he  took  to  his  bed. 

His  aunts  came,  testing  with  their  withered  noses  the  smell 
of  decaying  wood  and  paragoric,  whispering  that  "he  never  used  to 
get  like  this." 

Raising  their  ample  shoulders  to  ease  the  little  black  velvet 
straps  that  sunk  into  their  flesh,  they  sat  on  either  side  of  his  bed. 

They  looked  at  each  other  in  a  pitifully  surprised  way.  They 
had  never  seen  illness,  and  death  but  once  —  a  suicide,  and  this 
they  understood  :  one  has  impulses,  but  not  maladies. 

They  were  afraid  of  meeting  Vera  Sovna.  Their  position  was 
a  difficult  one:  having  been  on  friendly  terms  while  Louis-Georges' 
mother  lived,  they  had  nevertheless  to  maintain  a  certain  dignity 
and  reserve  when  the  very  towns  folk  had  turned  against  her. 
Therefore  they  left  her  an  hour  in  the  evening  to  herself.  She  would 
come  creeping  in  saying  : 

"Oh  my  dear",  telling  him  long  unheard  stories  about  a  week 
she  had  spent  in  London.  A  curious  week  full  of  near  adventure, 
with  amusing  tales  of  hotel  keepers,  nobility.  And  sometimes  lean- 
ing close  to  him,  that  he  might  hear,  he  saw  that  she  was  weeping. 

But  in  spite  of  this  and  of  his  illness  and  the  new  quality  in  the 
air.  Vera  Sovna  was  strangely  gay. 

During  this  illness  the  two  girls  served  as  nurses,  changing  the 
sheets,  turning  him  over,  rubbing  him  with  alcohol,  bringing  him 
his  soup,  crossing  themselves. 

Vanka  stool  long  hours  by  the  beside  coughing.  Sometimes  he 
would  fall  off  into  sleep,  at  others  he  would  try  to  talk  of  the  revolu- 
tion. 

Vera  Sovna  had  taken  to  dining  in  the  kitchen,  a  long  bare 
room  that  nlea.sed  her.  From  the  window  one  could  see  the 
orchards  and  ihe  i)ump  and  the  long  slope  down  to  the  edge  of  the 
meadow.  And  the  room  was  pleasant  to  look  upon.  The  table,  like 
the  earth  itself,  was  simple  and  abundant.     It  might  have  been  a 


The     Little     Review 


meadow  that  Leah  and  Berthe  browsed  in,  red-cheeked,  gaining 
health,  strength. 

Great  hams,  smoked  fowl  with  oddly  taut  legs  hung  from  the 
beams,  and  under  these  the  girls  moved  as  if  there  were  some  bond 
between  them. 

They  accepted  Vera  Sovna's  company  cheerfully  uncomplain- 
ingly, and  when  she  went  away  they  cleared  up  her  crumbs,  think- 
ing and  talking  of  other  things,  forgetting. 

Nothing  suffered  on  account  of  his  illness.  The  household 
matters  went  smoothly,  the  crops  ripened,  the  haying  season  passed, 
and  the  sod  in  the  orchards  sounded  with  the  thud  of  ripe  falling 
fruit.  Louis-Georges  suffered  alone,  detached,  as  if  he  had  never 
been.  Even  about  Vera  Sovna  there  was  a  strange  quiet  brilliancy, 
the  brilliancy  of  one  who  is  about  to  receive  something.  She  caress- 
ed the  medicine  bottles,  tended  the  flowers. 

Leah  and  Berthe  were  unperturbed,  except  from  overwork; 
the  face  of  Vanka  alone  changed. 

He  bore  the  expression  at  once  of  a  man  in  pain  and  of  a 
man  who  is  about  to  come  into  peace.  The  flickering  light  in  Louis- 
Georges'  face  cast  its  shadow  on  that  of  his  valet. 

Myra  and  Ella  became  gradually  excited.  They  kept  brushing 
imaginary  specks  of  dust  from  their  shoulders  and  bodices,  sending 
each  other  in  to  observe  him.  They  comforted  themselves  looking 
at  him,  pretending  each  to  the  other  that  he  was  quite  improved. 
It  was  not  so  much  that  they  were  sorry  to  have  him  die,  as  it  was 
that  they  were  not  prepared  to  have  him  die. 

When  the  doctor  arrived  they  shifted  their  burden  of  worry. 
They  bought  medicine  with  great  relish,  hurriedly.  Finally  to  less- 
en the  torment  they  closed  their  eyes  as  they  sat  on  either  side  of 
his  bed,  picturing  him  already  dead,  laid  out,  hands  crossed,  that 
they  might  gain  comfort  upon  opening  them,  to  find  him  still  alive. 

When  they  knew  that  he  was  really  dying  they  could  not  keep 
from  touching  him.  They  tried  to  cover  him  up  in  those  parts  that 
exposed  too  plainly  his  illness  :  the  thin  throat,  the  damp  pulsing 
spot  in  the  neck.  They  fondled  his  hands,  driving  doctor  and  nurse 
into  a  passion. 

At  last,  in  desperation,  Myra  knelt  by  his  bed,  touched  his 
face,  stroked  his  cheeks,  trying  to  break  the  monotonous  calm  of 
approaching  death. 

Death  did  not  seem  to  be  anywhere  in  him  saving  in  his  face, 
it  seemed  to  Myra  that  to  drive  it  from  his  eyes  would  mean  life. 
And  it  was  tlien  that  she  and  her  sister  were  locked  out,  to  wander 


The     Little     Review 


up  and  down  the  hall,  afraid  to  speak,  afraid  to  weep,  unless  by 
that  much  they  might  hasten  his  death. 

When  he  finally  died,  they  had  the  problem  of  Vera  Sovna. 

But  they  soon  forgot  her  trying  to  follow  the  orders  left  by  the 
dead  man.  Louis-Georges  had  been  very  careful  to  sec  to  it  that 
things  should  go  on  growing,  he  had  given  many  orders,  planned 
new  seasons,  talked  of  "next  year",  knowing  that  he  would  not  be 
there. 

The  hens  cackled  with  splendid  performances,  the  stables  re- 
sounded with  the  good  spirits  of  the  horses,  the  fields  were  all  but 
shedding  their  very  life  on  the  earth  as  Vanka  moved  noiselessly 
about,  folding  the  dead  man's  clothes. 

When  the  undertaker  arrived  Vanka  would  not  let  them  touch 
the  body.  He  washed  and  dressed  it  to  suit  himself.  It  was  he  who 
laid  Louis-Georges  in  the  shiny  coffin,  it  was  he  who  arranged  the 
flowers,  and  he  finally  left  the  room  on  the  flat  of  his  whole  noisy 
feet  for  the  first  time  in  years.  He  went  to  his  own  room  overlook- 
ing the  garden. 

He  paced  the  room.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  left  some- 
thing undone,  He  had  loved  service  and  order;  he  did  not  know 
that  he  also  loved  Louis-Georges,  who  made  service  necessary  and 
order  desirable. 

This  distressed  him,  he  rubbed  his  hands,  holding  them  close 
to  his  mouth,  as  if  by  the  sound  of  one  hand  passing  over  the  other 
he  might  learn  some  secret  in  the  stoppage  of  sound. 

Leah  had  made  a  scene,  he  thought  of  that.  A  small  enough 
scene,  considering.  She  had  brought  her  baby  in,  dropping  him  be- 
side the  body,  giving  the  flat  voiced:  "Now  you  can  play  with  him 
a  minute." 

He  had  not  interfered,  the  child  had  been  too  frightened  to 
disturb  the  cold  excellence  of  Louis-Georges'  arrangement,  and  Leah 
had  gone  out  soon  enough  in  stolid  silence.  He  could  hear  them  de- 
scending the  steps,  her  heavy  slow  tread  followed  by  the  quick  un- 
even movements  of  the  child. 

Vanka  could  hear  the  rustling  of  the  trees  in  the  garden,  the 
call  of  an  owl  from  the  barn;  one  of  the  mares  whinnied  and,  stamp- 
ing, fell  off  into  silence  again  . 

He  opened  the  window.  He  thought  he  caught  the  sound  of 
feet  on  the  pebbles  that  bordered  the  hydrangea  bushes;  a  faint  per- 
fume such  as  the  flounces  of  Vera  Sovna  exhaled  came  to  him.  Irri- 
tated he  turned  away  when  he  heard  her  calling. 

"Vanka,  come,  my  foot  is  caught  in  the  vine." 


The    Little    Review 


Her  face,  with  wide  hanging  lips,  came  above  the  sill,  and  the 
same  moment  she  jumped  into  the  room. 

They  stood  looking  at  each  other.  They  had  never  been  alone 
together  before.     He  did  not  know  what  to  do. 

She  was  a  little  disheveled,  twigs  from  the  shrubbery  clung  to 
the  black  flounces  of  her  gown.  She  raised  her  thin  shoulders  once, 
twice,  and  sighed. 

She  reached  out  her  arm,  whispering: 

"Vanka." 

He  moved  away  from  her,  staring  at  her. 

"Vanka,"  she  repeated  and  came  close,  leaning  a  little  on  him. 

In  a  voice  of  command,  she  said  simply.  "You  must  tell  me 
something." 

"I  will  tell  you"  he  answered  automatically. 

"See,  look  at  your  hands — "  she  kissed  them  suddenly,  drop- 
ping her  wet  lips  into  the  middle  of  the  palms,  making  him  start 
and  shiver. 

"Look  at  these  eyes — ah  fortunate  man,"  she  continued,  "most 
fortunate  Vanka;  he  would  let  you  touch  him,  close,  near  the  heart, 
the  skin.  You  could  know  what  he  looked  like,  how  he  stood,  how 
his  ankle  went  into  his  foot."    He  ceased  to  hear  her. 

"And  his  shoulders,  how  they  set.  You  dressed  and  undressed 
him,  knew  him,  all  of  him.  for  many  years, — you  see,  you  under- 
stand?    Tell  me,  tell  me  what  he  was  like!" 

He  turned  to  her.  "I  will  tell  you",  he  said,  "if  you  are  still, 
if  you  will  sit  down,  if  you  are  quiet." 

She  sat  down  with  another  sigh,  with  a  touch  of  her  old  gaiety; 
she  raised  her  eyes,  watching  him  . 

"His  arms  were  too  long,  you  could  tell  that — but  beautiful, 
and  his  back  was  thin,  tapering — full  of  breeding — " 


^°  The    Little    Revie  70 

Advice    to    a    Switch-Engine 
by  Maxwell  Bodenheim 

You  poke  your  grimy  snout 

Into  the  flowing  violence  of  night 

And  sidle  down  the  track 

Like  one  who  cares  not  where  he  goes. 

Your  smoke  is  bitter  wine  to  night 

Who  wearies  of  his  roses; 

The  clattering  indifference  of  your  freight-cars 

Charms  away  his  weight  of  music. 

^  0  gloriously  dirty  locomotive. 

You  are  the  black  master  of  all  men. 
They  cannot  steep  themselves  in  motion, 
Seeking  nothing   else. 

*'D  r  a  w  i  n  2  -  R  0  0  m" 
by  Louis  Gilmore 

Rather 
No  mirrors 
Than  to  multiply 
Mammals 
Reproduce 
'Any  rabbit 

The  failure 

Of  a  back 

The  accomplishment 

Of  bosoms 

Equally  to  reflect 

The  assorted  dolls 
Their  glass-eyes 
To  propagate 


The    Little    Review  ii 

PROHIBITION  AND  ART  OF  CONVERSATION 

by  John  Butler  Yeats 

HOW  is  it  that  every  American  whether  man  or  woman,  here  in  his 
own  country  or  abroad  in  Europe,  possesses  the  genius  of  ac- 
quaintanceship; and  why  is  it  that  the  English  possess  so  little  of 
.this  delightful  quality  that  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that 
;there  are  in  England  old  married  couples  who,  living  in  absolute 
loyalty,  are  not  and  never  will  be  real  acquaintances,  neither  of 
them  knowing  or  caring  what  the  other  thinks?  The  answer  is 
that  class  is  an  English  institution  and  has  the  character  of  the 
people,  and  that  it  has  never  been  adopted  in  this  country.  In  an 
American  train  if  two  people  like  each  other's  looks  they  follow  the 
natural  impulse  and  become  acquainted.  In  England  we.  examine 
each  other,  under  such  circumstances,  with  suspicious  criticism, 
because  notwithstanding  appearance,  we  might  not  be  of  the  same 
class.  Every  Englishman  is  of  class,  down  to  the  cats  meal  man; 
and  classes  do  not  associate.  The  inferior  class  would  indeed  fra- 
ternize readily  enough  with  the  higher  class,  but  to  that  the  other 
would  not  consent.  The  social  atmosphere  in  England  is  dark  and 
chilly  as  its  November  skies.  And  this  November,  weather  pene- 
trates everywhere,  not  merely  keeping  men  apart,  because  of  dif- 
ferent class,  but  encouraging  strangeness  and  aloofness  as  a  habit 
and  social  law,  so  that  every  Englishman  remains  solitary,  with 
his  friends,  even  with  his  wife. 

Coming  to  this  country  some  ten  years  ago,  I,  being  of  friend- 
ly and  social  kind  and  a  portrait  painter  interested  in  physiognomy, 
nothing  delighted  me  so  much  as  my  sudden  escape  from  class  res- 
triction. I  found  that  everywhere  I  went  I  could  speak  to  the  man 
whose  face  attracted  me.  He  would  not  rebuff  me.  He  had  neither 
the  sulkiness  of  my  inferior  nor  the  haughtiness  of  my  superior, 
and,  doing  our  best  to  be  mutally  agreeable,  good  manners  flour- 
ished and  often  in  the  train  there  was  good  conversation,  without 
which  life  would  be  unendurable. 

Yet,  these  last  few  weeks,  it  has  been  borne  in  on  me  that 
class,  even  the  rigid  unbending  class  of  England,  has  its  advantages, 
for  it  is  only  too  evident  that  this  country  is  in  its  social  and 
moral  relations  cyclonic;  while  England  enjoys  a  peaceful  mental 
and  moral  climate  :  the  skies  undisturbed,  except  for  an  occasional 
breeze,  a  mere  zephyr,  only  enough  to  ruffle  the  anglican  seas  of 


r  .->  T  //  r     L  }  1 1 1  r     R  r  V  }  r  tc 


stagnation  and  dullness.    Because  of  class  Englishmen  do  not  think 
alike  and  are  resolved  to  resist  as  long  as  possible  every  attempt 
to  make   them  do   so.     A   family  named   Smith   will   not  hold  the 
same  opinion  as  a  family  called  Brown,  if  they're  of  different  class  : 
one  beinjT  in  the  retail  trade  and  the  other  in  the  wholesale:     And 
then  there  is  the  enduring  distinction  between  the  people  who  are 
in  business  and  those  who  are  outside  it;  and  so  it  is  everywhere. 
Before  any  opinion  can  get  possession  of  the  national  mind  it  has 
to  knock  at  so  many  doors  and  explain  itself  so  often  and  meet  this 
and  that  objection  that  the  process  is  long  and  tedious  and  the 
result  a  compromise,  but  one  from  which  every  kind  of  violence 
and  extreme  is  purged  in  the  original  proposition.     In  America  it  is 
different.    Here  the  aim  of  every  American  is  to  think  as  his  neigh- 
bors do.     The  Englishman  thinks  as  his  class  does,  and  he  likes  to 
remember  that  the  aim  of  his  class  is  to  divide  itself  in  forced  hos- 
tility from  every  other  class.     Hence,  it  comes  about  that  America, 
in  its  politics,  in  its  manners,  in  what  it  reads  and  thinks  is  cyclon- 
ic, and  England  anticyclonic.     There  is  plenty  of  gun  powder  in 
England  but  the  grains  are  so  widely  separated  thet  a  general  con- 
tlagration  is  more  than  difficult.     Therefore,  I  say,  sadly,  that  if 
you  will  have  democracy,  democracy  must  guard  itself  against  its 
own  failings  by  establishing  in  its  midst  the  institution  of  class. 
That  Americans  should  be  condemned  to  put  away  their  good  man-- 
ners  and  easy  charm  and  virile   friendliness,  and  adopt  in  their 
place  the  churlishness  and  sulky  hostility  of  English  bad  manners, 
is  a  dreadful  thought.    Yet,  what  other  remedy  is  there  against  the 
ever-recuring  democratic  cyclone? 

We  are  now  in  the  midst  of  a  great  cyclone  and  perhaps  a 
succession  of  them,  for  I  am  told  prohibition  is  to  be  followed  by 
a  movement  against  tobacco.  It  is  a  genuine  cyclone  witli  all  the 
characteristics.  It  has  come  from  nowhere,  and  it  came  swiftly, 
and  it  is  so  violent  that  it  destroys  what  is  good  as  well  as  what  is 
bad.  The  innocent  suffering  with  the  guilty.  The  innocent  who 
are  innumerable  and  the  guilty  who  are  comparatively  few  in  num- 
ber, and,  as  the  years  go  by,  growing  fewer  every  day  that  passes. 
And  this  is  not  at  all,  for  there  are  good  and  prudent  men  who, 
with  their  families,  people  of  the  highest  characters,  as  good  citi- 
zens, must  also  suffer.  For  is  not  their  property  to  be  destroyed? 
Vast  sums  anxiously  put  into  what  seemed  good  investments.  I 
said  just  now  this  cyclonic  movement  has  come  from  nowhere.  Yet 
beyond  a  doubt,  its  birth  has  been  in  the  feminine  mind.     The 


T  It  c     L  i  1 1 1  e     R  e  V  i  e  w  13 

woman  has  no  sense  of  property,  she  has  not  the  feeling  because 
we  have  never  allowed  her  to  own  anything.  If  among  children 
you  give  anything  to  a  little  girl  at  once  she  is  ready  to  give  it 
away;  give  it  to  a  boy,  if  he  be  normal  he  will  carry  it  away 
where  he  can  lock  it  up  in  selfish  security.  He  has  the  sense  of 
property  which  she  is  without.  Again,  the  missionary  spirit,  which 
is  one  of  the  curses  of  America,  and  of  every  society  and  every 
household  into  which  it  enters,  and  of  poetry  itself  which  we  are 
told  must  be  uplifting.  This  desire  to  improve  your  neighbor  by 
making  him  adopt  all  your  ideas  and  be  as  like  yourself  as  possible, 
reaches  its  most  aggravating  form  in  the  female  mind.  There  is 
also  such  a  thing  as  feminine  vengance  .  It  is  a  fact  that  through 
all  the  past  and  every  where  except  in  the  highest  aristocratic  cir- 
cles of  Europe,  woman  has  been  a  subject  race.  Humiliated  and 
crushed  by  husbands  and  fathers  and  brothers.  She  has  at  last 
asserted  herself  and,  being  as  it  is  a  servile  war,  vengeance  is  one 
of  its  objects.    Of  course,  she  she  does  not  say  so. 

Bold  frankness  and  sincerity  are  not  feminine  charac- 
teristics. All  the  same,  all  over  America  in  every  home, 
in  the  big  house  and  in  the  little  cottages,  the  women 
are  triumphant  and  vengeance  smiles  an  their  eyes.  We 
men  are  now  in  our  turn  to  have  a  case  of  subjection.  First 
goes  the  drink,  and  then  tobacco.  It  is  our  consolation,  however, 
to  know  that  they  won't  abolish  themselves.  Perhaps  indeed  they 
calculate  that,  every  other  temptation  being  removed,  they  them- 
selves will  remain  the  one  sovereign  temptation;  and  be  sure  they 
will  not  start  any  sumptuary  laws.  To  the  last  they  will  paint, 
they  will  trick  themselves  out  and  make  themselves  armourously 
delightful.  Nor  shall  we  object;  on  this  matter,  at  any  rate,  there 
will  be  on  our  part  no  resentment.  They  can  never  be  too  charm- 
ing, too  tempting.  We  both  can  say  "Let  temptation  flourish"; 
which  brings  me  to  another  great  distinction  of  man  or  woman. 
We  men  believe  in  temptation  and  would  walk  surrounded  and 
wooed  by  it  in  our  hearts;  we  think  of  temptation  as  invitation, 
w<hich  any  man,  according  to  his  knowledge  and  discretion,  may 
accept  or  refuse.  Wioman  on  the  other  hand  would  clear  life  of 
every  temptation,  making  it  as  bare  as  a  barrackyard  or  a  prison 
dormitory.  And  for  that  matter  I  have  sometimes  met  a  woman 
who,  if  she  had  the  power,  would  abolish  every  other  woman  except 
herself.  Such  an  egotism  lurks  in  the  soul  of  the  seductive  sex. 
We  men  believe  that  we  are  here  to  be  tempted,  that  temptations 
are  the  richness  and  value  of  life  and  that  we  should  be  free  to 


14  The    Little    Review 


choose  among  our  temptations,  —  which  we  should  yield  to  and 
Aviiich  refuse.  And  there  are  cases  where  we  would  make  some 
compromise.  For  in  this  wise  do  men  feather  experience  and  learn 
to  know  themselves  and  find  out  the  will  of  God,  growing  in  stature 
and  in  strength,  and  every  poet  will  tell  you  that  if  temptations 
were  not  numerous  and  powerful  there  Avould  be  no  songs  to  sing  , 
The  whole  movement  is  a  female  origin   .  It  has  the  birthmark. 

I  have  said  that  women  are  without  the  feeling  of  property.  I^t  me 
add  that  they  have  no  feeling  for  conversation.  They  do  not  know 
what  it  means.  For  one  thing  they  lack  the  impartial  intellect. 
Woman  is  a  contradictory  being.  She  is  devoted  in  self  sacrifice 
and  yet  remains  a  hardened  egotist.  For  many  years  I  belonged  to 
a  conversation  society  in  London  where  sometimes,  a  uxorious 
member  would  bring  his  wife.  As  long  as  she  remained  in  the  room 
there  was  no  real  conversation.  We  thought  only  of  pleasing  her. 
It  is  what  she  asked  of  us.  The  woman's  idea  of  conversation  is  a 
something  inspired  by  herself.  To  conversation  that  is  inspired  by 
women  I  prefer  that  which  is  inspired  by  Avine.  Woman-made 
conversation  is  mere  gallantry,  the  talk  of  courts  and  royal  circles, 
Avhere  as  wine,  according  to  the  old  proverb,  is  the  very  spirit  of  truth. 
No  less  is  it  the  spirit  of  friendliness.  I  have  often  dined  in  tetoal- 
ed  houses,  and  though  everything  was  there  that  taste  and  wealth 
could  provide,  the  one  thing  without  which  nothing  mattered  was 
absent.  There  was  no  conversation.  It  did  not  even  begin.  We 
looked  at  each  other,  admired  each  other,  and  the  ice  water  circled 
and  I  was  glad  when  it  was  all  over.  In  contrast  wi±  this,  I  re- 
member, the  first  evening  I  dined  out  in  New  York  :  I  was  only 
a  few  days  in  the  country  and  at  the  house  to  which  I  was  invited 
I  met  a  company  all  strange  to  me  and,  I  fancied,  to  each  other  : 
when,  as  we  sat  together,  in  embarassed  silence  and  constrained 
attitudes,  a  footman  entered,  with  a  salver  on  which  were  cocktails  : 
to  me  at  that  time,  a  novelty.  How  gladly  all  of  us,  men  and  wo- 
men drank  these,  and  with  what  good  will  an  intelligent  acquan- 
tanceship  began  and  talk  sprang  up.  I  observed  afterwards  that 
most  of  the  guests  contented  themseves  with  their  one  cocktail,  yet 
all  talked  with  animation.  The  blessed  effect  of  a  few  cocktails 
handed  to  each  of  us,  by  the  kind-hearted  footman.  For  I  am  sure 
he  had  a  kind  heart. 

Years  ago  I  belonged  to  a  well  known  conversation  club  in 
Ireland.  We  were  a  numerous  company  and  we  met  every  Satur- 
day evening.     It  was  an  important  club,  for  we  discussed  current 


The    Little    Review  15 


events  and  at  that  time  current  events  were  momentous  (when  are 
they  not  so  in  Ireland?) ;  yet,  although  we  met  early  in  the  evening, 
conversation  invariably  started  so  late  that  it  finished  late,  I  my- 
self seldom  getting  home  till  four  in  the  morning.  Why  this  te- 
dious delay  and  these  unseemly  hours?  Because  the  club  was 
tetotaled.  Had  there  been  a  round  of  drinks,  we  should  have  start- 
edand  finished  our  discussion  in  time  for  every  decent  man  to  have 
got  home  and  to  bed  by  twelve  o'clock.  That  club  was  a  fascina- 
tion and  I  remember  it  with  gratitude.  You  heard  the  latest  news 
and  divined  politcial  secrets  and,  to  crown  all,  the  police  suspected 
us:  but  it  spoiled  my  Saturday  night's  sleep  and,  by  the  fatigue 
that  resulted,  all  my  Sunday;  and  all  because  of  its  damned  tetotal- 
ism.  A  little  drink  is  to  conversation  what  a  little  petroleum  is  in 
the  lighting  of  a  fire.  I  am  told  conversation  can  be  started  without 
drink,  exactly  as,  if  you  had  the  patience,  you  might  light  a  fire  by 
rubbing  together  two  sticks.  But  they  must  be  dry  sticks.  Con- 
versation among  shy  strangers,  without  the  kindly  touch  of  gen- 
erous wine  is  just  as  impossible.  Drink  is  one  of  the  conveniences 
of  social  life  as  petroleum  is  of  the  kitchen. 

Have  you  ever  observed  the  tetotaler  among  a  company  who 
took  their  wine.  Was  not  the  good  man  invariably  a  trouble  and 
a  kill -joy?  Drink  quiets  the  critical  facilities.  It  cuts  away  the 
ligatures  that  bind  the  wings  of  the  imagination.  That  is  its  high 
function  for  which  we  thank  it.  For  a  space  it  frees  the  soul  from 
black  care  and  we  are  free  as  the  birds  in  the  sky.  The  tetotaler 
is  all  criticism,  and  it  is  destructive  criticism.  Constructive  crit- 
icism is  with  us  who  taste  the  ruby  grape  and  we  like  paradox,  for 
we  do  historically  know  that  every  great  movement  of  thought  and 
speculation  has  made  its  first  appearance  as  paradox;  and  besides, 
while  it  challenges  constructive  logic  to  do  its  best,  it  baffles  the 
other  sort.  The  man  of  cold  water  hates  paradox  and  loves  him- 
self and,  rejoicing  in  his  diabolical  lawyer-like  faculty  of  destruc- 
tion, proceedes  to  destroy  what  he  cannot  possibly  understand. 
Paradox  embodies  desire  and  of  desire  he  has  none,  except  for  his 
own  egotistical  glory.  The  French  general  who  overcame  the  Ger- 
mans at  Verdune  was  asked  how  he  did  it .  "The  Germans"  he 
said,  "thought  two  and  two  made  four,  whereas  we  Jknew  they 
Inade  five ,  That  is  why  we  conquered  the  Germans."  It  was  a 
famous  man  of  genius  who  remarked  that  "a  glass  of  port  wine 
ripened  thought."  Take  away  wine  from  human  converse,  and 
you  hand  it  over  to  the  pedants  and  —  the  women. 


1 6  The     Little     Review 


Among  the  enemies  of  conversation,  as  of  life  itself,  I  count 
the  drunkards,  as  well  as  the  tctotalcrs;  and  had  I  my  way  I  would 
put  them  all  into  some  large  prison  that  they  might  torment  each 
other:  the  drunkards,  because  they  have  no  drink,  and  the  te- 
totalers,  because  they  have  no  one  to  scold,  no  one  on  whom  to  ex- 
ercise their  missionary  gift.  I  hate  the  drunkard  because  he  in- 
sults rrty  dignity  as  a  man,  and  puts  me  to  shame.  For  the  same 
reason  I  detest  the  prohibitionist,  who  would  turn  our  cities  into 
prison  reformatories.  But  what  do  women  care?  What  have  they 
ever  cared  for  the  dignity  of  human  nature.  That  is  a  Roman 
thought,  quite  beyond  their  scope  .  Alas!  we  have  only  ourselves 
to  blame  and  cannot  wonder  if,  educated  as  slaves,  they  manifest 
the  faults  of  slaves. 

Behind  all  movements  of  this  kind  we  invariably  find  the  idle 
rich,  and  particularly  their  women  .  These  people  leading  empty 
lives  would  fain  persuade  themeselves  that  they  are  not  as  useless 
as  they  seem  to  themselves  and  others.  There  is  besides  to  minds, 
so  constituted,  the  irresistable  attraction  of  a  movement  which  be- 
cause of  its  alleged  importance  offers  them  absolution  for  every 
kind  of  misdeed  in  carrying  it  out.  It  is  only  by  struggling  with  life 
that  people  discover  the  importance  of  scruple  and  the  moral 
life;  and  these  people  lead  lives  in  which  there  is  no  sort  of  strug- 
gle. There  is  the  irresponsible  street  boy  who  will  break  a  window 
merely  because  he  finds  a  stone;  equally  irresponsible  are  the  idle 
rich  and  their  womenkind.  This  whole  movement  is  branded  with 
the  whimsies  and  caprices  and  hysterical  nonsense  of  the  rich  wo- 
men, of  whom  some  are  very  mature  in  years.  Now  finding  their 
charms  vanished  they  would  try  and  recover  a  lost  ascendency. 
Beauty  and  youth  gone  forever,  women  are  still  interesting  because 
of  increase  in  goodness  and  wisdom.  These  withered  women  have 
nothing  except  their  money  and  their  frenzied  partizanship.  It  is 
lamentable  and  it  is  piteous.    Anger  is  drowned  in  pity. 

Turgenieff  said  of  George  Sand  in  her  old  age  that  she  was 
"such  a  good  comrade".  These  matured  women  of  the  idle  rich  are 
not  good  comrades.  For  charm  they  have  only  their  money  and 
their  hard-eyed  partizanship.  They  are  new  without  being  loved. 
This  womanhood  is  wretched. 


The    Little    Review  17 


ULYSSES 

James  Joyce 
Episode   IX 

—  You  were  speaking  of  the  gaseous  vertebrate,  if  I  mistake 
not?  he  asked  of  Stephen. 

Primrosevested  he  greeted  gaily  with  his  doffed  Panama  as 
with  a  bauble. 

They  make  him  welcome. 

Brood  of  mockers:    Photius,  pseudomalachi,  Johann  Most. 

He  Who  Himself  begot,  middler  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  Himself 
sent  Himself,  agenbuyer,  between  Himself  and  others.  Who,  put 
upon  by  His  fiends,  strippd  and  whipped,  was  nailed  like  a  bat  to 
a  barndoor,  starved  on  crosstree,  Who  let  Him  bury,  stood  up,  har- 
rowed hell,  fared  into  heaven  and  there  these  nineteen  years  sitteth 
on  the  right  hand  of  His  Own  Self  but  yet  shall  come  in  the  latter 
day  to  doom  the  quick  and  dead  when  all  the  quick  shall  be  dead 
already. 


r^^ 


Glo-ria  in  ex-cel-sis  De-o. 

He  lifts  his  hands.  Veils  fall.  0,  flowers!  Bells  with  bells, 
with  bells  aquiring. 

—  Yes,  indeed,  the  quaker  librarian  said.  A  most  instructive 
discussion.  Mr.  Mulligan,  I'll  be  bound,  has  his  theory  too  of  the 
play  and  of  Shakespeare.     All  sides  of  life  should  be  represented. 

He  smiled  on  all  sides  equally. 
Buck  Mulligan  thought,  puzzled: 

—  Shakespeare?  he  said.     I  seem  to  know  the  name. 
A  flying  sunny  smile  rayed  in  his  loose  features. 

—  To  be  sure,  he  said,  remembering  brightly.  The  chap  that 
writes  like  Synge. 

'    Mr.  Best  turned  to  him: 

— ^Haines  missed  you,  he  said.  Did  you  meet  him?  He'll 
see  you  after  at  the  D.  B.  C.  He's  gone  to  Gill's  to  buy  Hyde's 
Lovesongs  of  Connacht. 


1 8  The     Little     R  ev  i  eiv 


—  I  came  lhruii;;h  the  museum,  Buck  Mulligan,  said.  Was 
he  here? 

—  The  bard's  fellowcountrymen,  John  Eglinton  answered,  are 
rather  tired,  perhaps  of  our  brilliancies  of  theorising.  I  hear  that  an 
actress  is  playing  Hamlet  in  Dublin.  Vinin-g  held  that  the  prince 
was  a  woman.  Has  no-one  made  him  out  to  be  an  Irishman? 
He  swears  by  saint  Patrick. 

—  The  most  briMiant  of  all  is  that  story  of  Wilde's.  Mr.  Best 
said  lifting  his  lirilliant  notebook.  That  Portrait  oj  Mr.  W.  H. 
where  he  proves  that  the  sonnets  were  written  by  a  Willie  Hughes, 
a  man  all  hues. 

—  For  Willie  Hughes,  is  it  not?  the  quaker  librarian  asked. 
Or  Hughie  Wills. 

—  I  mean,  for  Willie  Hughes;,  Mr.  Best  said,  amending  his 
gloss  easily.  Of  course  it's  all  paradox,  don't  you  know.  Hughes 
and  hews  and  hues  the  colour,  but  it's  so  typical  the  way  he  works 
it  out  .  It's  the  very  essence  of  Wilde,  don't  you  know.  The  light 
touch. 

His  glance  touched  their  faces  lightly  as  he  smiled,  a  blond 
ephebe.     Tame  essence  of  Wilde. 

You're  darned  witty.  Three  drams  of  usquebaugh  you  drank 
with  Dan  Deasy's  ducats. 

How  much  did  I  spend?     O,  a  few  shillings. 

For  a  plump  of  pressmen.    Humour  wet  and  dry. 

Wit.  You  would  give  your  five  wits  for  youth's  proud  livery 
he  pranks  in.     Lineaments  of  gratified  desire. 

There  be  many  mo.  Take  her  for  me.  In  pairing  time. 
Jove,  a  cool  ruttime  send  them.     Yea,  turtledove  her. 

Eve.  Naked  wheatbellied  sin.  A  snake  coils  her,  fang  in's 
k'ss. 

—  Do  you  think  it  is  only  a  paradox,  the  quaker  librarian 
was  asking.  The  mocker  is  never  taken  seriously  when  he  is 
most  serious. 

They  talked  seriously  of  mocker's  seriousness. 

Buck  Mulligan's  again  heavy  face  eyed  Stephen  awhile.  Then, 
his  head  wagging,  he  came  near,  drew  a  folded  telegram  from  his 
pocket.     His  mobile  lips  read,  smiling  with  new  de'light. 

—  Telegram!  he  said.  Wonderful  inspiration!  IVlegram! 
A  pa  Dal  bull! 

He  sat  on  a  corner  of  the  unlit  desk,  reading  aloud  joyfully: 

—  The  sentimentalist  is  he  who  would  enjoy  without  incurring 


The    Little    Review  19 


e  immense  debtor  ship  for  a  thing  done.  Signed:  Dedalus. 
here  did  you  launch  it  from?  The  kips?  No.  Cdlege  Green, 
ave  you  drunk  the  four  quid?  Telegram!  Malachi  Mulligan, 
tie  Ship,  lower  x\bbey  street.  O,  you  peerless  mummer!  O,  you 
estilied  kinchite! 
Joyfully  he  thrust  message  and  envelope  into  a  pocket  but 
^ened  in  querulous  brogue: 

—  It's  what  I'm  telling  you,  mister  honey,   it's   queer   and 
k  we  were,  Haines  and  myself,  the  time  himself  brought  it  in. 

jnd  we  one  hour  and  two  hours  and  three  hours  in  Connery's  sit- 
^g  civil  waiting  for  pints  apiece. 
He  wailed: 

— And  we  to  be  there,  mavrone,  and  you  to  be  unbeknownst 
[nding  your  conglomerations  the  way  we  to  have  our  tongues  out 
yard  long  like  the  drouthy  clerics  do  be  fainting  for  a  pussful. 
Stephen  laughed. 
Quickly,  warningfully  Buck  Mulligan  bent  down: 

—  The  tramper  Synge  is  looking  for  you,  he  said,  to  murder 

3U.    He  heard  you on  his  halldoor  in  Glasthule.    He's  out 

1  pampoe  ties  to  murder  you. 

—  Me!   Stephen  exclaimed.     That  was  your  contribution  to 
terature. 

Buck  Mulligan  gleefully  bent  back,  laughing  to  the  dark  eaves- 
ropping  ceiling. 

—  Murder  you!     he  laughed. 
Harsh  gargoyle  a  face  that  warred  against  me  over  our  mess  of 

ash  of  lights  in  rue  saint  Andre  des  arts.  In  words  of  words  for 
ords,  pala:bras.  Oisin  with  Patrick.  Faunman  he  met  in  Clamart 
oods,  brandishing  a  wine  bottle.  C'est  vendrcdi  saint!  His 
nage,  wandering  he  met.    I  mine.    I  met  a  fool  i'  the  fore&t. 

—  Mr.  Lyster,  an  attendant  said  from  the  door  ajar. 
— in  which_£  very  one  can  find  his  own.    So  Mr.  Justice 

/ladden  in,  his  "Diary  of  Master  William  Silence"  has  found  the 
unting  terms Yes      What  is  it? 

—  Ther's  a  gentleman  here,  sir,  the  attendant  said,  coming 
orward  and  offering  a  card.  From  the  Freeman.  He  wants  to 
iCe  the  files  of  the  Kilkenny  People  for  last  year.' 

—  Certainly,  certainly,  certainly.    Is  the  gentleman ? 

He  took  the  eager  card,  glanced,   not  saw,   laid  down,   un- 

jlanced,  looked,  asked,  creaked,  asked: 

—  Is  he ?    0.  there! 


20  T li  c    Lit  He    Review 


% 


Ki 


i 


Brisk  in  a  galliard  he  was  off  and  out.    In  the  daylit  corridc 
he  talked  with   vohi'ble  pains  of  zeal,   in   duty  bound,  most  faiii 
most  kind,  most  honest  broadbrim. 

—  This  gentleman?  Freeman's  Journal^  Kilkenny  People 
To  be  sure.     Good  day,  sir.     Kilkenny.  .  .  .    We  have  certainly.  . 

A  patient  silhouette  waited,  listening. 

—  All  the  leading  provincial   ....  Northern   Whig.     Cor 

Examiner.    Enniscorthy  Guardian.     1903 Will  you  please... 

Evans,  conduct  this  gentleman.  ...  If  you  just  follow  the  atten.  . . 
Or  please  allow  me This  way.  .  .Please,  sir 

Voluble,  dutiful,  he  led  the  way  to  all  the  provincial  paper! 
a  bowing  dark  figure  following  his  hasty  heels. 
The  door  closed. 

—  The  sheeny!      Buck  Mulligan  cried. 
He  jumped  up  and  snatched  the  card. 

—  What's  his  name?     Ikey  Moses?     Bloom. 
He  rattled  on.    > 

—  Jehovah,  collccto.r  of  prepuces,  is  no  more^  I  found  hir 
over  in  the  museum  where  I  went  to  hail  the  foambom  Aphroditt 
The  Greek  mouth  that  has  never  been  twisted  in  prayer.  Ever; 
day  we  must  do  homage  to  her.    Life  0}  life,  thy  lips  enkindle. 

Suddenly  he  turned  to  Stephen: 

—  He  knows  you.  He  knows  your  old  fellow.  O,  I  fear  me 
he  is  Greeker  than  the  Greeks.  His  pale  Galilean  eyes  were  upoi 
her  mesial  groove.  Venus  Kalipyge.  O,  the  thunder  of  those  loins 
The  god  pursuing  the  maiden  hid. 

—  We  want  to  hear  more,  John  Eginton  decided  with  Mr 
Best's  approval.  We  begin  to  be  interested  in  Mrs.  S.  Till  nov 
we  had  thought  of  her,  if  at  all,  as  a  patient  Griselda,  a  Penelopi 
stay-at-home. 

—  Antisthenes,  pupil  of  Gorgias.  Stephen,  took  the  palm  o: 
beauty  from  Kyrios  Menelaus'  broodmare,  Argive  Helen,  anc 
handed  it  to  poor  Penelope.  Twenty  years  he  lived  in  London  and 
during  part  of  that  time,  he  drew  a  salary  equal  to  that  of  the 
lord  chancellor  of  Ireland.  His  life  was  rich.  His  art,  more  than 
the  art  of  feudalism,  as  Walt  Whitman  called  it.  is  the  art  of  sur- 
feit. Hot  herring  pies,  green  mugs  of  sack,  honeysauccs,  goose- 
berried  pigeons,  ringocandics.  Sir  Walter  Raileigh,  when  they  ar- 
rested him,  had  half  a  million  francs  on  his  back.  The  gombeen- 
woman  Eliza  Tudor  had  underlinen  enough  to  vie  with  her  of 
Sheba.  Twenty  years  he  dallied  there.  You  know  Manningham's 
story  of  the  burgher's  wife  who  bade  Dick  Burbage  to  her  bed  after 


The     Little    Review  21 


e  had  seen  him  in  "Richard  III"  and  how  Shakespeare,  overhear- 
g,  took  the  cow  by  the  horns  and,  when  Burbage  came  knocking, 
iswered  from  the  blankets:  William  the  conqueror  came  before 
Ichard  III.  And  mistress  Fitton,  mount  and  cry  0,  and  his 
inty  birdsnies,  lady  Penelope  Rich,  and  the  punks  of  the  bank- 
je,  a  penny  a  time. 

Cours  la  reine.  Encore  vingt  sons.  Nous  jerons  des  petites 
chonnerise.  .Mnettc?     Tu  veux? 

—  The  height  of  fine  society.  And  Sir  William  Davenant  of 
liford's  mother  with  her  cup  of  canary  for  every  cockcanary. 

Buck  Mulligan,  his  pious  eyes  upturned,  prayed: 

—  Blessed  Margaret  Mary  Anycock! 

—  And  Harry  of  six  wives'  daughter  and  other  lady  friends 
3m  neighbour  seats,  as  Lawn  Tennyson,  gentleman,  poet  sings, 
nt  all  those  twenty  years  what  do  you  supp>ose  poor  Penelope  in 
ratford  was  doing  behind  the  diamond  panes? 

Do  and  do.  Thing  done.  In  a  rosery  of  Fetter  lane  of  Gerard, 
rbalist,  he  walks,  greyedauburn.  An  azured  harebell  like  her 
ins.  Lids  of  Juno's  eyes,  violets.  He  walks.  One  life  is  all. 
le  body.  Do.  But  do.  Afar,  in  a  reek  of  lust  and  squalor, 
nds  are  laid  on  whiteness. 

Buck  Mulligan  rapped   John  Eglinton's  desk  sharply. 

—  Whom  do  you  suspect?  he  challenged. 

—  Say  that  he  is  the  spurned  lover  in  the  sonnets.  Once 
urned  twice  spurned.  But  the  court  wanton  spurned  him  for  a 
rd.  his  dreamy  love. 

Love  that  dare  not  speak  its  name. 

—  As  an  Engl'shman,  you  mean,  John  sturdy  Eglinton  put  in, 
:  loved  a  lord. 

Old  waill  where  sudden  lizards  flash.  At  Charenton  I  watched 
em. 

— It  seems  so,  Stephen  said, *  Maybe,  like  Soc- 

tes^  he  had  a  midwife  to  mother  as  he  had  a  shrew  to  wife.  But 
e.  the  wanton,  did  not  break  a  bed  vow.  Two  deeds  are  rank 
that  ghost's  mind:  a  broken  vow  and  the  dullbrained  yokel  on 
lom  her  favour  has  declined.  Sweet  Ann  I  take  it,  was  hot  in 
e  blood.    Once  a  wooer  twice  a  wooer. 


*Tlie  Post  Office  authorities  objected  to  certain  iiassages  in  the  January  in- 
illment  of  "Ulysses."  which  prevents  our  mailing  any  more  copies  of  tlrat  issue. 
1  avoid  a  similiar  interference  this  month  I  have  ruined  Mr.  Joyce's  story  by 
tting  certain  passages  in  which  he  mentions  natural  facts  known  to  everyone. 
M.    C.   A.) 


2  2  T  li  c    Li  1 1 1  c    Rev  i  e  w 


Stephen  turned  boldly  in  his  chair. 

—  The  burden  of  proof  is  with  you  not  with  me,  he  sal 
frowning.  If  you  deny  that  in  the  fifth  scene  of  "Hamlet"  he  h 
branded  her  with  infamy  tell  mc  why  there  is  no  mention  of  h 
durin,^  the  thirtyfour  years  between  the  day  she  married  him  ai 
the  day  she  buried  him.  All  those  women  saw  their  men  down  ai 
under:  Mary,  her  goodman  John,  Ann,  her  William,  Joan,  her  fo 
brothers,  Judith,  her  husband  and  all  her  sons,  Susan,  her  hi 
band  too.  while  Susan's  daughter,  Elizabeth,  to  use  granddaddj 
words,  wed  her  second,  having  killed  her  first. 

O,  yes,  mention  there  is.  In  the  years  when  he  was  livii 
richly  in  royal  London  to  pay  a  debt  she  had  to  borrow  forty  sh 
lings  from  her  fathers  shepherd.  Explain  you  then.  Explain  t 
swansong  too  wherein  he  has  commended  her  to  posterity. 

He  faced  their  silence. 
To  whom  thus  Eglinton: 

You  mean  the  will. 
That  has  been  xplained,  I  bdieve,  by  Jurists. 
She  was  entitled  to  her  widow's  dower 
At  common  law.    His  legal  knowledge  was  great 
Our  judges  tell  us. 

Him  Satan  fleers. 
Mocker: 

And  therefore  he  left  out  her  name 
From  the  first  draft  but  he  did  not  leave  out 
The  presents  for  his  granddaughter,  for  his  daughter.*^, 
For  his  sister,  for  his  old  cronies  in  Stratford 
And  in  London.    And  therefore  he  was  urged. 
As  I  believe,  to  name  her 
He  left  her  his 
Second  best 
Bed. 

Piinkt. 
Leftherhis 
Secondbcst 
I  .eftherhis 
Bestabed 
Sccabest 
Leftabed. 

Woa! 

—  Pretty  countryfolk  had  a  few  chattels  then,  John  Eglint( 


The    Little    Review  23 

observed,  as  they  have  still  if  our  peasant  plays  are  true  to  type. 

—  He  was  a  rich  countrygentleman,  Stephen  said,  with  a  coat 
of  arms  and  landed  estate  at  Stratford  and  a  house  in  Ireland 
yard,  capitalist  shareholder,  a  bill  promoter,  a  tithefarmer.  Why 
did  he  not  leave  her  his  best  bed  if  he  wished  her  to  snore  away 
the  rest  of  her  nights  in  peace? 

—  It  is  clear  that  there  were  two  beds,  a  best  and  a  second- 
best,  Mr.  Secondbest  Best  said  finely. 

—  Separatio  a  mensa  et  a  thalamo,  said  Buck  Mulligan  and 
was  smiled  on. 

—  Antiquity  mentions  famous  beds,  John  Eglinton  puckered, 
bedsmilng.    Let  me  think. 

—  Do  you  mean  he  died  so?  Mr.  Best  asked  with  concern. 
I  mean 

—  He  died  dead  drunk,  Buck  Mulligan  stated.  A  quart  of  ale 
is  a  dish  for  a  king.     0,  I  must  tell  you  what  Dowden  said! 

—  What?     asked  Besteglinton. 

William  Shakespeare  and  company,  limited.  The  people's 
Willam.    For  terms  apply:  E.  Dowden,  Highfield  house 

—  Lovely!  Buck  Mulligan  suspired  amoroysly.  I  asked  him 
what  he  thought  of  the  charge  of  pederasty  brought  against  the 
bard.  He  lifted  his  hands  and  said:  All  we  can  say  is  that  life  ran 
very  high  in  those  days.    Lovely! 

Catamite. 

—  The  sense  of  beauty  leads  us  astray,  Mr,  Best  with  some 
sadness  said. 

Will  they  wrest  from  us,  from  me  the  palm  of  beauty? 

—  And  the  sense  of  property,  Stephen  said.  He  drew  Shylock 
out  of  his  own  long  pockset.  The  son  of  a  maltjobber  and  money- 
lender he  was  himself  a  cornjobber  and  moneylender  with  ten  tods 
of  corn  hoarded  in  famine  years.  His  borrowers  are  no  doubt 
those  divers  of  worship  mentioned  by  Chettle  Falstaff  who  reported 
his  uprightness  of  dealing.  He  sued  a  fellowplayer  for  the  price 
of  a  few  bags  of  malt  and  exacted  his  pound  of  f!esh  in  interest  for 
every  money  lent.  How  else  could  Aubrey's  ostler  and  callboy  get 
rich  quick?  All  events  brought  grist  to  his  mill.  Shylock  chimes 
with  the  jewbaiting  that  followed  the  hanging  and  quartering  of 
the  queen's  leech  Lopez,  his  Jew's  heart  being  plucked  forth  while 
the  sheeny  was  yet  alive:  "Hamlet"'  and  "Macbeth"  with  the  com- 
ing to  the  throne  of  a  Scotch  philosphaster  with  a  turn  for  witch- 
roasting.     The  lost  armada  is  his  jeer  in  "Love's  Labour  Lost." 


24 


The     Little     Review 


His  pageants,  the  histories,  sail  fullbcllied  on  a  tide  of  Mafeking 
enthusiasm.  Warwickshire  Jesuits  are  tried  and  we  have  a  por- 
ter's theory  of  equivocation.  The  Sea  Venture  comes  home  from 
Hermudas  and  the  play  Rcnan  admired  is  written  with  Patsy  Cali- 
ban, our  American  cousin.  The  sugared  sonnets  follow  Sidney's. 
As  for  fay  Elizabeth,  the  gross  virgin  who  inspired  "The  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor"  let  some  meinherr  from  Almany  grope  his  life 
long  for  deephid  meanings  in  the  depths  of  the  buckbasket. 

I  think  you're  getting  on  very  nicely.  Just  mix  up  a  mixture 
of  theolologicophilolological.     Mingo,  minxi,  mictum.  mingcre. 

—  Prove  that  he  was  a  jew,  John  Eglinton  dared,  expectantly. 
Your  dean  of  studies  holds  he  was  a  holy  Roman. 

Stiff laminandus  sum. 

—  He  was  made  in  Germany,  Stephen  replied,  as  the  champion 
French  polisher  of  Italian  scandals. 

—  A  myriadminded  man,  Mr.  Best  reminded.  Coleridge 
called  him  myriadminded. 

Am  pit  us.    In  societate  humana  hoc  est  maxime  necessarium  ut 
sit  amicitia  inter  multos. 
r       —  Saint  Thomas,  Stephen  began 

—  Ora  pro  nobis,  Monk  Mulligan  groaned,  sinking  to  a  chair. 
There  he  keened  a  wailing  rune. 

—  It's  destroyed  we  are  from  this  day!     It  is  destroyed  we  arc 
surely ! 

All  smiled  their  smiles. 

—  Saint  Thomas,  Stephen,  smiling,  said,  wTiting  of  incest  from 
a  stand  point  different  from  that  of  the  Viennese  school  Mr.  Magee 
spoke  of,  likens  it  in  his  wise  and  curious  way  to  an  avarice  of  the 
emotions.  He  means  that  the  love  so  given  to  one  near  in  blood  is 
covetously  withheld  from  some  stranger  who,  it  may  be,  hungers 
for  it.  Jews,  whom  christians  tax  with  avarice,  are  of  all  races  the 
most  given  to  intermarriage.  Accusations  are  made  in  anger.  The 
christians  laws  which  built  up  the  hoards  of  the  jews  (for  whom,  as 
for  the  lollards,  storm  w\as  shelter)  bound  their  affections  too  with 
hoops  of  steel.  Whether  these  be  sins  or  virtues  old  Nobodaddy 
will  tell  us  at  doomsday  leet.  But  a  man  who  holds  so  tightly  to 
\what  h  calls  his  rights  over  what  he  calls  his  debts  will  hold  tightly 
also  to  what  he  calls  his  rights  over  her  whom  he  calls  his  wife.  No 
sir  smile  neighbour  shall  covet  his  ox  or  his  wife  or  his  manservant 
or  his  maidservant  or  his  jackass. 

—  Or  his  jennyass,  Buck  Mulligan  antiphoned. 


T  h  c    Lit  ll  e    Rev  iew  25 

—  Gentle  Will  is  being  roughly  handled,  gentle  Mr.  Best  said 
gently. 

—  Wlhich  will?  asked  sweetly  Buck  Mulligan.  We  are  getting 
mixed. 

—  The  will  to  live,  John  Eglinton  philosophised,  for  p)Oor  Ann, 
Will's  widow,  is  the  will  to  die. 

—  Requiescat!     Stephen  prayed. 

What  of  all  the  will  to  do? 
It  has  vanished  long  ago.  .  . 

—  She  lies  laid  out  in  stark  stiffness  in  that  secondbest  bed 
even  though  you  prove  that  a  bed  in  those  days  was  as  rare  as  a 
motorcar  is  now  and  that  its  carvings  were  the  wonder  of  seven 
parishes.  In  old  age  she  takes  up  with  gospellers  (one  stayed  at 
New  Place  and  drank  a  quart  of  sack  the  town  paid  for  but  in 
which  bed  he  slept  it  skills  not  to  ask)  and  heard  she  had  a  soul. 
Venus  has  twisted  her  lips  in  prayer.  Agenbite  of  inwit:  remorse 
of  conscience.  It  is  an  age  of  exhausted  whoredom  groping  for  its 
god. 

—  History  shows  that  to  be  true,  inquit  Eglinton  Chronolol- 
ogos.  The  ages  succeed  one  another.  But  we  have  it  on  high  au- 
(thority  that  a  man's  worst  enemies  shall  be  those  of  his  own  house 
and  family.  I  feel  that  Russell  is  right.  What  do  we  care  for  his 
wife  and  father.  I  should  say  that  only  family  poets  have  family 
lives.  Falstaff  was  not  a  family  man.  I  feel  that  the  fat  knight  is  his 
supreme  creation. 

Lean,  he  lay  back.  Shy,  deny  thy  kindred,  the  unco  guid. 
Shy  supping  with  the  godless,  he  sneaks  the  cup.  A  sire  in  Ultonian 
Antrim  bade  it  him.  Visits  him  here  on  quarter  days.  Mr.  Magee, 
sir,  there's  a  gentleman  to  see  you.  Me?  Says  he's  your  father, 
sir.  Give  me  my  Wordsworth.  Enter  Magee  Mor  Matthew,  a 
rugged,  rough,  rugheaded  kern,  his  nether  stocks  bemired  with  dau- 
ber of  ten  forests,  a  wilding  in  his  hand. 

Your  own?     He  knows  your  old  fellow. 

Hurrying  to  her  squalid  deathlair  from  gay  Paris  on  the  quay- 
side I  touched  his  hand  .  The  voice,  new  warmth,  speaking.  Dr. 
Bob  Kenny  is  attending  her.  The  eyes  that  wish  me  well.  But 
do  not  know  me. 

—  A  father,  Stephen  said,  battling  against  hopelessness,  is  a 
necessary  evil.  He  wrote  the  play  in  the  months  that  followed  his 
father's  death.    If  you  hold  that  he,  a  greying  man  with  two  mar- 


26  The    Little     Review 


riageable  daughters,  with  thirlyfive  years  of  life,  we/  mezzo  del 
cammin  di  nostra  vita,  with  fifty  of  experience  is  the  beardless  un- 
dergraduate from  Wittenberg  then  you  must  hold  that  his  seventy- 
year  old  mother  is  the  lustful  queen.  No.  The  corpse  of  John 
Shakespeare  does  not  walk  the  night.  From  hour  to  hour  it  rots 
and  rots^  He  rests,  disarmed  of  fatherhood,  having  devised  that 
mystical  estate  upon  his  son.  Boccaccio's  Calandrino  was  the  first 
and  last  man  who  felt  himself  with  child.  Fatherhood,  in  the  sense 
of  conscious  begetting,  is  unknown  to  man.  It  is  a  mystical  estate, 
an  apostolic  succession,  from  only  begetter  to  only  begotton.  On 
that  mystery  and  not  on  the  madonna  which  the  cunning  Italian 
intellect  flung  to  the  mob  of  Europe  the  church  is  founded  and 
founded  irremovably  because  founded,  like  the  world,  macro-and 
microcosm,  upon  the  void.  Upon  incertitude,  upon  unlikelihood. 
Amor  matris  subjective  and  objective  genitive,  may  be  the  only 
true  thing  in  life.  Paternity  may  be  a  legal  fiction.  WTio  is  the 
father  of  any  son  that  any  son  should  love  him  or  he  any  son? 

What  the  h--l  are  you  driving  at? 

I  know.    Shut  up.    Blast  you!     I  have  reasons. 

Amplius.     Adhuc.    Iteriim.     Postea. 

Are  you  condemned  to  do  this? 

—  They  are  sundered  by  bodily  shame  so  steadfast  that  the 
criminal  annals  of  the  world,  stained  with  all  other  incests  and  bes- 
tialities,  do  not   record   its  breach:    * 

pThe  son  unborn  mars  beauty:  born,  he  brings  pain,  divides  affection, 
increases  care.  He  is  a  male:  his  growth  is  his  fathers  decline,  his 
youth  his  father's  envy,  his  friend  his  father's  enemy. 

In  rjie  Monsieur  le  Prince  I  thought  it. 
, —  What  links  them  in  nature?    An  instant  of  blind  rut. 
Am  I  a  father?     If  I  were? 
Shrunken  uncertain  hand. 

—  Sabellius,  the  African,  subtlest  heresiarch  of  all  the  beasts 
of  the  field,  held  that  the  Father  was  Himself  His  Ov/n  Son.  The 
bulldog  of  Aquiin,  with  whom  no  word  shall  be  impossible,  refutes 
him.  Wlell:  if  the  father  who  has  not  a  son  be  not  a  father  can  the 
son  who  has  not  a  father  be  a  son?  When  Rutlandbaconsouth- 
amptonshakespeare  wrote  "Hamlet"  he  was  not  the  father  of  his 
own  son  merely  but,  being  no  more  a  son,  he  was  and  felt  himself 
the  father  of  all  his  race,  the  father  of  his  own  grandfather,  the 
father  of  his  unborn  grandson  who,  by  the  same  token,  never  was 
born  for  nature,  as  Mr.  Mageo  understands  her,  abhors  perfection. 


The    Little    Review  27 

Eglintoneyes,  quick  with  pleasure,  looked  up  shybrightly. 

Flatter.     Rarely.     But  flatter. 

- —  Himself  his  own  father,  Sonmulligan  told  himself.  Wait, 
m  big  with  child.  I  have  an  unborn  child  in  my  brain.  Pallas 
lena!     A  play!     The  play's  the  thing!     Let  me  parturiate! 

He  clasped  his  paunchbrow  with  both  birthaiding  hands. - 

—  As  for  his  family,  Stephen  said,  his  mother's  name  lives  in 
forest  of  Arden.     Her  death  brought  from  him  the  scene  with 

umnia  in  "Coriolanus".  His  boyson's  death  is  the  deathscene 
Arthur  in  "King  John."  Hamlet,  the  black  prince,  is  Hamlet 
ikespeare.  Who  the  girls  in  "The  Tempest,"  in  "Pericles,"  in 
inter's  Tale"  are  Cleopatra  fleshpot  of  Egypt  and  Cressid  and 
lus  are  we  may  guess.  But  there  is  another  member  of  his  fam- 
who  is  recorded. 

—  The  plot  thickens,  John  Eglinton  said. 

The  quaker  librarian,  quaking,  tiptoed  in  quake,  his  mask, 
ake,  with  haste,  quake,  quack. 

Door  closed.     Cell.    Day. 

They  list.    Three.    They. 

I  you  he  they. 

Stephen 

He  had  three  brothers,  Gilbert,  Edmund,  Richard.     Gilbert  in 

old  age  told  some  cavaliers  he  seen  his  brud  on  time  in  a  play 

d  a  man  on  his  back.     The  playhouse  sausage  filled  Gilbert's 

He  is  nowhere:  but  an  Edmund  and  a  Richard  are  recorded 

the  works  of  Sweet  William. 

JohnegVmfon 
Names!     What's  in  a  name? 

Best 
That  is  my  name,  Richard,  don't  you  know.     I  hope  you  are 
;ng  to  say  a  good  word  for  Richard,  don't  you  know,  for  my  sake. 

(laughter) 

Buckmulligan 

(p  10710,  diminuendo) 

{Then  outspoke  medical  Dick 

To    his  comrade  medical  Davy.  .  . 

Stephen 

In  his   trinity  of  black  Wills,   tlie   villian   shakebags,   lago, 


T  h  c     L  i  U  I  r     R  cv  ic  ic 


Richard  Crookback,  Edmund  in  A'/«/j  Lear,  two  bear  his  brothei    Jifj 
names.     Nay,  that  last  play  was  written  or  being  written  while  |' 
brother  Edmund  lay  dying  in  Southwark. 


Jolinegliuton 
I  give  thanks  to  providence  there  was  no  brother  of  my  nam 
{lau(jhtcr) 


0' 


Fa 


e.1 
W 

eia 


Best 
I  hope  Edmund  is  going  to  catch  it.     I  don't  want  Richar 

my  name 

Quakerlystcr 
(a  tempo)  But  he  that  filches  from  me  my  good  name.  .  .  . 

Stephen 

{stringendo) 
He  has  hidden  his  own  name,  a  fair  name,  William,  in  the  plaj 
a  super  here  a  clown  there,  as  a  painter  of  old  Italy  set  his  face 
a  dark  corner  of  his  canvas.  He  has  revealed  it  in  the  sonneP; 
where  there  is  Will  in  overplus.  Like  John  o'  Gaunt  his  name 
dear  to  him,  as  dear  as  the  coat  of  arms  he  toadied  for,  on  a  ber 
sable  a  spear  or  steeled  argent,  /lonorificabilitndinitatibus,  dear- 
than  his  glory  of  greatest  shakescene  in  the  country.  WTiat's  in 
name?  That  is  what  we  ask  ourselves  in  childhood  when  we  wri 
the  name  that  we  are  told  is  ours.  A  star,  a  daystar,  a  firedral 
rose  at  his  birth.  It  shone  by  day  in  the  heavens  alone,  brig-htl 
than  Venus  in  the  night,  and  by  night  it  shone  over  delta  in  Ca^ 
siopeia,  the  recumbent  constellation  which  is  the  signature  of  h 
initial  among  the  stars.  His  eyes  watched  it,  lowlying  on  the  horizo 
eastward  of  the  bear,  as  he  walked  by  the  slumberous  summer  fieh 
at  midnight,  returning  from  Shottery  and  from  her  arms. 

Both  satisfied.    I  too. 

Don't  tell  them  he  was  nine  years  old  when  it  was  quenche* 

And  from  her  arms. 

Wait  to  be  wooed  and  won.    Ay,  imbecile.    Who  will  woo  you  » 

Read  the  skies.  Aiifontimeriimeiws.  Bous  Stcphanomncno. 
Where's  your  configurations  S.  D:  sua  donna.  Gia:  di  lui.  Gclh 
do  risolve  di  nan  amar  S.  D. 

— What  is  that,  Mr.  Dedalus?  the  quakcr  librarian  aske< 
Was  it  a  celestial  phenomenon. 

—  A  star  by  night,  Stephen  said,  a  pillar  of  the  cloud  by  daj 

What  morc's  to  speak? 

Stephen  looked  on  his  hat,  his  stick,  h-s  boots. 


The    Little    Review  29 


Stephanos,  my  crown.  My  sword.  His  boots  are  spoiling  the 
pe  of  my  feet.  Buy  a  pair.  Holes  in  my  socks.  Handker-. 
ef  too. 

-You  make  good  use  of  the  name,  John  Eglinton  allowed, 
ur  own  name  is  strange  enough.    I  suppose  it  explains  your  fan- 
tical  humour. 
Me,  Magee  and  Mulligan. 

Fabulous  artificer,  the  hawklike  man.  You  flew.  Whereto? 
•whaven-Dieppe,  steerage  passenger.  Paris  and  back.  Lapwing, 
rus  Pater,  ait.  Seabedabbled,  fallen  weltering.  Lapw'ng  you 
Lapwing  be. 

Mr.  Best  eagerquiet'Iy  lifted  his  book  to  say: 
— That's  very  interesting  because  that  brother  motive,  don't  you 
Dw,  we  find  also  in  the  old  Irish  myths.     Just  what  you  say. 
e  three  brothers  Shakespeare.     In  Grimm  too,  don't  you  know, 
fairy-tales.     The  third  brother  that  always  marries  the  sleep'ng 
luty  and  wins  the  best  prize. 
Best  of  Best  brothers.     Good,  better,  best. 
The  quaker  librarian  springhalted  near. 

— I  should  like  to  know,  he  said,  which  brother  you I  under- 

nd  you  suggest  there  was  misconduct  with  one  of  the  brothers. 
.  .  But  perhaps  I  am  anticipating? 
He  caught  himself  in  the  act:  lookred  at  all:  refrained. 
An  attendant  from  the  doorway  called: 
— Mr.  Lyster!     Father  Dineen  wants  ... 
— O!  Father  Dineen!     Directly. 
Swiftly  rectly  creaking  rectly  rectly  he  was  rectly  gone. 
John  Eglinton  touched  the  foil. 

— ^Come,  he  said.  Let  us  hear  what  you  have  to  say  of  Richard 
Edmund.  You  kept  them  for  the  last,  didn't  you? 
— In  asking  you  to  remember  those  two  noble  kinsmen,  nuncle 
:hie  and  nuncle  Edmund,  Stephen  answered,  I  feel  I  am  asking 
much  perhaps.  A  brother  is  as  easily  forgotten  as  an  um- 
11a. 
Lapwing. 

Where  is  your  brother?     Apothecaries'  hall.     My  whetstone. 
Ti.  then  Cranley,  Mulligan:  now  these.    Speech,  speech.    But  act, 
t  speech.     They  mock  to  try  you.     Act.     Be  acted  on. 
Lapwing. 

I  am  tired  of  my  voice. 
On. 


30  The    Little    Review 

— You  will  say  those  names  were  already  in  the  chronicles  fn 
which  he  took  the  stuff  of  his  plays.  Wliy  did  he  take  them  rath 
than  others?  Richard,  a  crookback,  misbegotten,  makes  love  to 
widowed  Ann  (what's  in  a  name?),  woos  an  wins  her.  Richard  t 
conqueror,  third  brother,  came  after  William  the  conquered.  T 
other  four  acts  of  that  play  hang  limply  from  that  first.  Of  all  \ 
kings  Richard  is  the  only  king  unshielded  by  Shakepeare's  reverent 
the  angel  of  the  world.  Why  is  the  undeq^lot  of  ''King  Lear" 
which  Edmund  figures  lifted  out  of  Sidney's  "Arcadia"  and  spate 
cocked  on  to  a  Celtic  legend  older  than  history? 

— That  was  Will's  way,  John  Eglinton  defended.  We  should  i 
now  combine  a  Norse  saga  with  an  excerpt  from  a  novel  by  Geoi 
Meredith.  Que  vonlez-vom,  Moore  would  say.  He  puts  Bohen 
on  the  seacost  and  makes  Ulysses  quote  Aristotle. 

— Why?  Stephen  answered  himself.  Because  the  theme  of  t 
false  or  the  usurping  or  the  adulterous  brother  or  all  three  in  one 
to  Shakespeare  what  the  poor  it  not,  always  with  him.  The  nc 
of  banis'hment,  banishment  from  the  heart,  banishment  from  hon 
sounds  uninterruptedly  from  the  "The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Veron 
onward  till  Prospero  breaks  his  staff,  buries  it  certain  fathoms  in  t 
earth  and  drowns  his  book.  It  doubles  itself  in  the  middle  of  1 
life,  reflects  itself  in  another,  repeats  itself.  It  repeats  itself  agj 
when  he  is  near  the  grave,  vVhen  his  married  daughter  Susan,  c\ 
of  the  old  block,  is  accused  of  adultery.  But  it  was  the  origii 
sin  that  darkened  his  understanding,  weakened  h's  will  and.K 
in  him  a  strong  inclination  to  evil.  The  words  are  those  of  r 
lords  bishops  of  Maynooth — an  original  sin  and,  like  original  s 
committed  by  another  in  whose  sin  he  too  has  sinned.  It 
between  the  lines  of  his  last  written  words,  it  is  petrified  on  1 
tombstone  under  which  her  four  bones  are  not  to  be  laid.  Age  h 
not  withered  it.  Beauty  and  peace  have  not  done  it  away.  It 
in  infinite  variety  everywhere  in  the  world  he  has  created,  in  "Mu 
Ado  about  Nothing",  twice  in  "As  you  Like  It",  in  "The  Tempos 
in  "Hamlet",  in  "Measure  for  Measure" — and  in  the  other  ])la 
which  I  have  not  read. 

He  laughed  to  free  his  mind  from  his  mind's  bondage. 

Judge  Eglinton  summed  up. 

— The  truth  is  midway,  he  affirmed.     He  is  the  ghost  and  t 
prince.    He  is  all  in  all. 

— He  is,  Stephen  said.    The  lx)y  of  act  one  is  the  mature  m 
of  act  five.    All  in  all.    In  "QTiibelinc",  in  "Othello"  he  is  bawd  a: 


The    Little    Review  31 

cuckold.  He  acts  and  is  acted  on.  His  unremitting  intellect  is  the 
lago  ceaselessly  willing  that  the  moor  in  him  shall  suffer. 

— Cuckoo!  Cuckoo!  Buck  Mulligan  clucked  lewdly.  0  word 
of  fear! 

Dark  dome  received,  reverbed. 

— And  what  a  character  is  lago!  undaunted  John  Eglinton  ex- 
claimed. When  all  is  said  Dumas  fils  (or  is  it  Dumas  pere) 
is  right.     After  God  Shakespeare  has  created  most. 

— ^Man  delights  him  not  nor  woman  neither,  Stephen  said.  He 
returns  after  a  life  of  absence- — 'to  that  spot  of  earth  where  he  was 
born,  where  he  has  always  been  a  silent  witness  and  there,  his 
journey  of  life  ended,  he  plants  his  mulberry  tree  in  the  earth. 
Then  dies,  Gravediggers  bury  Hamlet  pcre  and  Hamlet  fils.  If  you 
like  the  last  scene  look  long  on  it:  prosperous  Prospero,  the  good 
man  rewarded,  Lizzie,  grandpa's  lump  of  love,  and  nuncle  Richie, 
the  bad  man  taken  off  by  poetic  justice  to  the  place  where  the  bad 
niggers  go.  He  found  in  the  world  without  as  actual  what  was  in 
his  world  within  as  possible.  Maeterlinck  says:  If  Socrates  leave 
his  house  today  he  will  find  the  sage  seated  on  his  doorstep,  if 
Judas  go  forth  tonight  it  is  to  Judas  his  steps  will  tend.  Every 
life  is  many  days,  day  after  day.  We  walk  through  ourselves,  meet- 
ing robbers,  ghosts,  giants,  old  men,  young  men,  wives,  but  always 
meeting  ourselves.  The  plajrwright  who  wrote  this  world  and 
wrote  it  badly  (He  gave  us  light  first  and  the  sun  two  days  later), 
the  lord  of  things  as  they  are  whom  the  most  Roman  of  catholics  call 
dio  boia,  hangman  god,  is  doubtless  all  in  all  in  all  of  us,  ostler  and 
butcher,  and  would  be  bawd  and  cuckold  too  but  that  in  the  economy 
of  heaven,  foretold  by  Hamelt,  there  are  no  more  marriages,  glorified 
man  being  a  wife  unto  himself. 

—  Eureka!,  Buck  Mulligan  cried.    Eureka! 

Suddenly  happied  he  jumped  up  and  reached  in  a  stride  John 
Eglinton's  desk. 

—  May  I?  he  said.    The  Lord  has  spoken  to  Malachi. 
1        He  began  to  scribble  on'  a  slip  of  paper. 

Take  some  slips  fiom  the  counter  going  out. 

—  Those  who  are  married,  Mr.  Best  douce  herald,  said,  all 
save  one,  shall  dive.    The  rest  shall  keep  as  they  are. 

He  laughed,  unmarried,  at  Eglinton  Johannes,  of  arts  a  bache- 
lor. 

Unwed,  unfancied,  ware  of  wiles,  they  fingerponder  nightly 
each  his  variorum  edition  of  "The  Taming  of  the  Shrew." 


The     Little     Review 


—  YcKi  are  a  delusion,  said  roundly  John  Eglinton  to  Stephen. 
You  have  brought  us  all  this  way  to  show  us  a  French  triangle.  Do 
you  believe  your  o\vt»  theory? 

—  No,  Stej^hen  said  promptly. 

—  Are  you  going  to  write  it?  Mr.  Best  asked.  You  ought  to 
make  it  a  dialogue,  don't  you  know,  like  the  Platonic  dialogues 
"Wilde  wrote. 

John  Eglinton  smiled  doubly. 

—  Well,  in  that  case,  he  said,  I  don't  see  why  you  should  ex- 
pect payment  for  it  since  you  don't  believe  it  yourself.  Dowden 
believes  there  is  some  mystery  in  "Hamlet"  but  will  say  no  more. 
Herr  Bleibtreu,  the  man  Piper  met  in  Berlin  who  is  working  up  that 
Rutland  theory,  believes  that  the  secret  is  hidden  in  the  Stratford 
monument.  He  is  going  to  visit  the  present  duke,  Piper  says,  and 
prove  to  him  that  his  ancestor  wrote  the  plays.  It  will  come  as  a 
surprise  to  his  grace.    But  he  believes  his  theory. 

I  believe,  O  Lord,  help  my  unbelief.  That  is,  help  me  to  be- 
lieve or  help  me  to  unbelieve?  Who  helps  to  believe?  Egomen. 
Who  to  unbelieve?    Other  chap. 

—  You  are  the  only  contributor  to  Dana  who  asks  for  pieces 
of  silver.  Then  I  don't  know  about  the  next  number.  Fred  Ryan 
wants  a  space  for  an  article  on  economics. 

Fraidrine.  Two  pieces  of  silver  he  lent  me.  Tide  you  over. 
Economics. 

—  For  a  guinea,  Stephen  said,  you  can  publish  this  interview. 
Buck  Mulligan  stood  up  from  his  laughing  scribbling,  laugh- 
ing: and  then  gravely  said,  honeying  malice: 

—  I  called  upon  the  bard  Kinch  at  his  summer  residence  in 
upper  Mecklenburgh  street  and  found  him  deep  in  the  study  of  the 
Summa  contra  Gentiles  in  the  company  of  tw'o  gonorrheal  ladies, 
Fresh  Nelly  and  Rosalie,  the  coalquay  whore. 

He  broke  away. 

—  Come,  Kinch.     Come,  wandering  Aengus  of  the  birds. 
Come,  Kinch,  you  have  eaten  all  we  left.     Ay.     I  will  serve 

you  your  orts  and  offals. 
Stephen  rose. 
Life  is  many  days.     This  will  end. 

—  We  shall  see  you  tonight.  John  Eglinton  said.  Notre  ami 
Moore  says  Malachi  Mulligan  must  be  there. 

Buck  Mullgani  flaunted  his  slip  and  panama. 

—  Monsieur  Moore,  he  said,  lecturer  on  French  letters  to  the 


TheLittleReview  33 


youth  of  Ireland.    I'll  be  there.    Come  Kinch.  the  bards  must  drink. 
Can  you  walk  straight? 

Laughing  he 

Swill  till  eleven.  Irish  nights  entertainment. 

Lubber 

Stephen  followed  a  lubber.  .  . 

One  day  in  the  national  library  we  had  a  discussion  Shakes. 
After  his  lub  back  I  followed. 

Stephen,  greeting,  then  all  amort,  followed  a  lubber  jester,  a 
wellkempt  head,  newbarbered,  out  of  the  vaulted  cell  into  a  shat- 
tering daylight  of  no  thoughts. 

What  have  I  learned?    Of  them?  Of  me?  • 

Walk  like  Haines  now. 

The  constant   readers'   room.     In   the   readers'   book   Cashel 
Boyle  O'Connor  Fitzmaurice  Tisdall  Farrell  parafes  his  polysylla- 
bles.    Item:  was  Hamlet  mad?     The  quaker's  pate  godlily  with  a 
priesteen  in  booktalk. 
The  turnstile. 

Is  that?  .  .  .?     Blueribboned  hat Idly  writing 

What?  Looked.  .  .    ? 

The  curving  balustrade,  smoothsliding  Mincius. 
Puck  Mulligan,  panamahelmeted,  went  step  by  step,  iambing, 
trolling: 

.  . —  John  Eglinton,  my  jo,  John, 
Why  won't  you  wed  a  wife? 
He  spluttered  to  the  air: 

—  0,  the  chinless  Chinaman!     We  went  over  to  their  playbox, 
Haines  and  I,  the  plumbers'  hall.     Abbey  theatre!      I  smell  the 
pubic  sweat  of  monks. 
He  spat  blank. 

Forgot:  any  more  than  he  forgot  the  whipping  lousy  Lucy 
gave  him.  And  left  the  jcmme  de  t rente  ans.  And  why  no  other 
children  born? 

Afterwit.  Go  back. 

The  dour  recluse  still  there  and  the  douce  youngling,  minion 
of  pleasure,  Phedo's  toyable  fair  hair. 

Eh.  .  .    I  just  eh.  .  .  wanted.  .  .  I  forgot.  .  .  eh.  .  . 
—  Longworth  and  M 'Curdy  Atkinson  were  there.  .  . 
Puck  Mulligan  footed  featly,  trilling: 

— /  hardly  hear  a  purlieu  cry 
Or  a  Tommy  talk  as  you  pass  one  by 


34  T  li  c     L  i  1 1 1  c    R  e  V  i  e  w 

Before  my  thoughts  begin  to  run 

On  F.  M' Curdy  Atkinson, 

The  same  th<it  had  the  wooden  leg 

And  that  filibustering  filibeg 

Who  never  dared  to  slake  his  drought, 

— Magee  that  had  the  chinless  mouth.  .  . 

Jest  on.     Know  thyself. 

Halted  below  me,  a  quizzer  looks  at  me.    I  halt. 

—  Mournful  mummer,  Buck  Mulligan  moaned.  Synge  has 
left  off  wearing  black  to  be  like  nature.  Only  crows,  priests  and 
English  coal  are  black. 

A  laugh  tripped  over  his  lips. 

—  Longworth  is  awfully  sick,  he  .said,  after  what  you  wrote 
about  that  old  hake  Gregory.  O  you  inquisitional  drunken  jew- 
jesuit!  She  gets  you  a  job  on  the  paper  and  then  you  go  and  slate 
her  book  to  Jaysus.    Couldn't  you  do  the  Yeats'  touchr* 

He  went  on  and  down,  chanting  with  Avaving  graceful  arms: 

—  The  most  beautiful  book  that  has  come  out  of  Ireland  in 
my  time. 

He  stopped  at  the  stairfoot 

—  I  have  conceived  a  play  for  the  mummers,  he  said  solemnly. 
The  pillared  Moorish  hall,  shadows  entwined.     Gone  the  nine 

men's  morrice  with  caps  of  indices. 

In  sweetly  varying  voices  Buck  Mulligan  read  his  tablet* 

Ev&yman  His  Own  Wife 
(a  national  immorality  in  three  orgasms) 
by 
Ballocky  Midligan 

He  turned  a  happy  patch's  smirk  to  Stephen,  saying:        « 

—  The  disguise,  I  fear,  is  thin.    But  listen. 
He  read,  marcato: 

—  Characters: 

Toby  Tostoff  (a  ruined  Pole) 
Crab  (a  bushranger) 
Medical  Dick 

and  (two  birds  with  one  stone) 

Medical  Davy 

Mother  Grogan  (a  watercarrier) 
Fresh  Nelly 

and 
Rosalie  (the  coalquay  whore) 


The    Little    Review  35 


He  laughed,  lolling  a  to  and  fro  head,  walking  on,  followed  by 
ephen:  and  mirthfully  he  told  the  shadows,  souls  of  men: 

—  0,  the  night  in  the  Camden  hall  when  the  daughters  of  Erin 
id  to  lift  their  skirts  to  step  over  you  as  you  lay  in  your  mulber- 

coloured,  multicoloured,  multitudinous  vomit! 

—  The  most  innocent  son  of  Erin,  Stephen  said,  for  whom 
ey  ever  lifted  them. 

About  to  pass  through  the  doorway,  feeling  one  behind,  he 
ood  aside. 

Part.  The  moment  is  now.  Where  then?  If  Socrates  leave 
s  house  today,  if  Judas  go  forth  tonight.  Wihy?  That  lies  in 
)ace  which  I  in  time  must  come  to,  ineluctably.  * 

My  will:  his  will  that  fronts  me.     Seas  between. 

A  man  passed  out  between  them,  bowing,  greeting: 

—  Good  day  again,  Buck  Mulligan  said. 
The  portico. 
Here  I  watched  the  birds  for  augury.     Aengus  of  the  birds. 

'hey  go,  they  come.  Last  night  I  flew.  Easily  flew.  Men  won- 
ered. — Street  of  harlots  after.  A  creamfruit  melon  he  held  to  me. 
1.    You  will  see. 

—  The  wandering  jew.  Buck  Mulligan  whispered  with  clown's 
we.    Did  you  see  his  eye?    He  looked  upon  you  to  lust  after  you. 

fear  thee,  ancient  mariner.  O,  Kinch,  thou  art  in  peril.  Get  thee 
breechpad. 

Manner  of  Oxenford. 

Day.    Wheelbarow  sun  over  arch  of  bridge. 

A  dark  back  went  before  them,  step  of  a  pard,  down,  out  by 
he  gateway,  under  portcullis  barbs. 

They  followed. 

Offend  me  still.    Speak  on. 

Kind  air  defined  the  coigns  of  houses  in  Kildare  street.  No 
)irds.  Frail  from  the  housetops  two  plumes  of  smoke  ascended, 
)luming,  and  in  a  flaw  of  softness,  softly  were  blown. 

Cease  to  strive.  Peace  of  the  druids  priests  of  "Cymbeline" 
lierophantic:  from  wide  earth  an  altar. 

Laud  we  the  gods 
And  let  our  crooked  smokes  climb  to  their  nostrils 
From  our  hless'd  altars. 

{to  be  continued) 


The  New  Venus 


Four   Drawings   by   James   Light 


Bowlegged  Dancer 


40  T  li  c     L  i  1 1 1  e    R  e  V  i  e  w 

MARY   OLIVIER:    A   LIFE 

by  May  Sinclair 

IV 


That  year  when  Christmas  came  Papa  gave  her  a  red  book 
with  a  gold  holly  wreath  on  the  cover.  The  wreath  was  made  out 
of  three  words:  "The  Children's  Prize",  printed  in  letters  th;it 
pretended  to  be  holly-sprigs.  Inside  the  holly  wreath  was  the  num- 
ber of  the  year,  in  fat  gold  letters:   1869. 

Soon  after  Christmas  she  had  another  birthday.  She  was  six 
years  old.  She  could  write  in  capitals  and  count  up  to  a  hundred 
if  she  were  left  to  do  it  herself.  Besides  "Gentle  Jesus''  she  could 
say  "Cock-Robin"  and  "The  House  that  Jack  Built"  and  "The  Lord 
is  my  Shepherd"  and  "The  Slave  in  the  Dismal  Swamp".  And  she 
could  read  all  her  own  story-books,  picking  out  the  words  she  knew 
and  making  up  the  rest.  Roddy  never  made  up.  He  was  a  big 
boy;  he  was  eight  years  old. 

The  morning  after  her  birthday  Roddy  and  she  were  sent  into 
the  drawing-room  to  Mamma.  A  strange  lady  was  there.  She  had 
chosen  the  high-backed  chair  in  the  middle  of  the  room  with  the 
berlin  wool-work  parrot  on  it.  She  sat  very  upright,  stiff  and  thin 
between  the  twisted  rosewood  pillars  of  the  chair.  She  was  dressed  in 
a  black  gown  made  of  a  great  many  little  bands  of  rough  crape  and  a 
few  smooth  stretches  of  merino.  Her  crape  veil,  folded  back  over 
her  hat,  hung  behind  her  head  in  a  stiff  square.  A  jet  necklace  lay 
flat  and  heavy  on  her  small  chest.  When  you  had  seen  all  these 
black  things,  she  showed  you,  suddenly,  her  White,  wounded  face. 

Mamma  called  her  Miss  Thompson. 

Miss  Thompson's  face  was  so  light  and  thin  that  you  thought 
it  would  break  if  you  squeezed  it.  The  skin  was  drawn  tight  over 
her  jaw  and  the  bridge  of  her  nose  and  the  sharp  naked  arclies  of 
her  eye-bones.  She  looked  at  you  with  mournful,  startled  eyes  that 
were  too  large  for  their  lids;  and  her  flat  chin  trembled  slightly  as 
she  talked. 

"This  is  Rodney,"  she  said,  as  if  she  were  repeating  a  lesson 
after  Mamma. 

Rodney  leaned  up  against  Mamma  and  looked  proud  and 
handsome.     She  had  her  arm  round  him,  and  every  now  and  then 


The    Little    Review  41 


she  pressed  it  tighter  to  draw  him  to  herself. 

Miss  Thompson  said  after  Mamma,  "And  this  is  Mary?" 

Her  mournful  eyes  moved  and  sparkled  as  if  she  had  suddenly 
thought  of  something  for  herself. 

"I  am  sure,"  she  said,  "they  will  be  very  good." 

Mamma  shook  her  head,  as  much  as  to  say  Miss  Thompson 
must  not  build  on  it. 

Every  week-day  from  ten  to  twelve  Miss  Thompson  came 
and  taught  them  reading,  writing  and  arithmetic.  .Every  Wednes- 
day at  half-past  eleven  Daniel's  tutuor,  Mr.  Sippett,  looked  in  and 
taught  Rodney  "Mensa,  a  table." 

Mamma  told  them  they  must  never  be  naughty  with  Miss 
Thompson  because  her  mother  was  dead. 

They  went  away  and  talked  about  her  among  the  gooseberry- 
bushes  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden. 

"I  don't  know  how  we're  going  to  manage."  Rodney  said. 
"There's  no  sense  in  saying  we  mustn't  be  naughty  because  her 
mother's  dead." 

"I  suppose."  ,  Mary  said,  "it  would  make  her  think  she's 
deader." 

"We  can't  help  that.     We've  got  to  be  naughty  sometime." 

"We  mustn't  begin",  Mary  sa'd.  "If  we  begin  we  shall  have 
to  finish." 

They  were  good  for  four  days,  from  ten  to  twelve.  And  at  a 
quarter  past  twelve  on  the  fifth  day  Mamma  found  Mary  crying  in 
the  dining-room. 

"Oh,  Mary,  have  you  been  naughty?"  she  said. 

"No:  but  I  shall  be  to-morrow.  I've  been  so  good  that  I  can't 
keep'^on  any  longer.'' 

Mamma  took  her  in  her  lap.  She  looked  pleased,  as  if  Mary 
had  said  what  she  had  wanted  her  to  say. 

"Being  good  when  it  pleases  you  isn't  being  good,"  she  said. 
"It's  not  what  Jesus  means  by  being  good.  God  wants  us  to  be 
good  all  the  time,  like  Jesus." 

"But  —  Jesus  and  me  is  different.  He  wasn't  able  to  be 
naughty.    And  I'm  not  able  to  be  good.    Not  all  the  time." 

"You're  not  able  to  be  good  of  your  own  will  and  in  your  own 
strength.    You're  not  good  till  God  makes  you  good." 
"Did  God  make  me  naughty?" 

.  "No.     God  couldn't  make  anybody  naughty." 
"Not  if  he  tried  hard? 
"No.    But,"  Mamma  said,  speaking  very  fast,  "he'll  make  you 


The     Little     Rrvi  e 


good  if  you  ask  him." 

"Will  he  make  me  good  if  1  don't  ask  him?'' 

"No,"  said  Mamma.  "You  must  want  to  be  good  before  you 
ask  him." 

"I  do  want." 

"Ah!  —  And  What  makes  you  want?" 

Mamma  lowered  her  head  to  you,  holding  it  straight  and  still. 
She  was  watching,  ready  to  pounce  if  you  said  the  wrong  thing. 

"What  —  what  you  told  me.  Miss  Thompson's  mother.  Be- 
cause she's  dead." 

"That  won't  do,"  Mamma  said.  "You  must  want  to  be  good 
because  God  wants  you  to  be  good,  and  not  because  you're  sorry 
for  Miss  Thompson." 

II 

Miss  Thompson  — 

She  was  always  sure  you  would  be  good.  And  Mamma  was 
sure  you  wouldn't  be.  or  that,  if  you  were,  it  would  be  for  some 
bad  reason  like  being  sorry  for  Miss  Thompson. 

As  long  as  Roddy  was  in  the  room  Mary  w&s  sorry  for  Miss 
Thompson.  And  when  she  was  left  alone  with  her  she  was  fright- 
ened. The  squeezing  and  dragging  under  her  waist  began  when 
Miss  Thompson  pushed  her  gentle,  mournful  face  close  up  to  see 
what  she  was  doing. 

She  was  afraid  of  Miss  Thompson  because  her  mother  was 
dead. 

She  kept  on  thinking  about  Miss  Thompson's  mother.  Miss 
Thompson's  mother  would  be  like  Jenny  in  bed  with  her  cap  off; 
and  she  would  be  like  the  dead  dormouse  that  Roddy  found  in  the 
lane.  She  would  lie  on  the  bed  with  her  back  bent  and  her  head 
hanging  loose  like  the  dear  little  dormouse;  and  her  legs  would  be 
turned  up  over  her  stomach  like  his,  toes  and  fingers  clawing  to- 
gether. When  you  touched  her  she  would  be  cold  and  stiff,  like 
the  dormouse.  They  had  wrapped  her  up  in  a  white  sheet.  Roddy 
said  dead  people  were  always  wrapped  up  in  white  sheets.  And 
Mr.  Chapman  had  put  her  into  a  coffin  like  the  one  he  was  mak- 
ing when  he  gave  Dank  the  wood  for  the  rabbit's  house. 

Every  time  Miss  Thompson  came  near  her  she  saw  the  white 
sheet  and  smelt  the  sharp,  bitter  smell  of  the  coffin. 

If  she  was  naughty  Miss  Thompson  (who  seemed  to  have  for- 
gotten) would  remember  that  her  mother  was  dead.  It  might  hap- 
pen any  minute. 

It  never  did.     For  Miss  Thompson  said  you  were  good  if  you 


The    Little    R  ev  ieic 


43 


knew  your  lessons;  and  at  the  same  time  you  were  not  naughty  if 
you  didn't  know  them.  You  might  not  know  them  to-day;  but  you 
would  know  them  tomorrow  or  the  next  day. 

By  midsummer  Mary  could  read  the  books  that  Dank  read. 
If  it  had  not  been  for  Mr.  Sippett  and  "Mensa:  a  table",  she  would 
■have  known  as  much  as  Roddy. 

Almost  before  they  had  time  to  be  naughty  Miss  Thompson 
had  gone.  Mamma  said  that  Roddy  was  not  getting  on  fast  enough. 


The  book  that  Aunt  Bella  had  brought  her  was  called  "The 
Triumph  over  Midian",  and  Aunt  Bella  said  that  if  she  was  a  good 
girl  it  would  interest  her.  But  it  did  not  interest  her.  That  was  how 
she  heard  Aunt  Bella  and  Mamma  talking  together. 

Mamma's  foot  was  tapping  on  the  footstool,  which  showed 
that  she  was  annoyed. 

"They're  coming  tomorrow,"  she  said,  "to  look  at  that  house 
at  Ilford." 

"To  live?"  Aunt  Bella  said. 

"To  live,"  Mamma  said. 

"And  is  Emilius  going  to  allow  it?  What's  Victor  thinking  of, 
bringing  her  down  here?" 

"Tlhey  want  to  be  near  Emilius.  They  think  he'll  look  after 
her." 

"It  was  Victor  who  would  have  her  at  home,  and  Victor  might 
look  after  her  himself.  She  was  his  favourite  sister." 

"He  doesn't  want  to  be  too  responsible.  They  think  Emilius 
ought  to  take  his  share." 

Aunt  Bella  whispered  something.  And  Mamma  said,  "Stuff 
and  nonsense!  No  more  than  you  or  I  ,  Only  you  never  know 
what  queer  thing  she'll  do  next." 

Aunt  Bella  said,  "She  was  always  queer  as  long  as  I  remember 
her." 

Mamma's  foot  went  tap,  tap,  again. 

"She's  been  sending  away  things  worse  than  ever.  Dolls. 
Those  naked  ones." 

Aunt  Bella  gave  herself  a  shake  and  said  something, that  sound- 
ed like  "Goo-oo-sh!"    And  then,    "Going  to  be  married?" 

Mamma  said,    "Going  to  be  married." 

And  Aunt  Bella  said,    "T-t-t!" 


44  T  It  c    Li  1 1 1  e    R  ev  i  ew 


They  were  talking  about  Aunt  Charlotte. 

Mamma  went  on:  "She's  packed  off  all  her  clothes.  Her  new 
ones.  Sent  them  to  Matilda.  Thinks  she  won't  have  to  wear  them 
any  more." 

"You  musn't  expect  me  to  have  Charlotte  Oliver  in  my  house," 
Aunt  Bella  said.  "If  anybody  came  to  call  it  would  be  most  un- 
pleasant." 

"I  wouldn't  mind,"  Mamma  said,  tap-tapping,  "if  it  was  only 
Charlotte.     But  there's  Lavvy  and  her  Opinions." 

Aunt  Bella  said,  "Pfoo-oof!"  and  waved  her  hands  as  if  she 
were  clearing  the  air. 

"All  I  can  say  is,"  Mamma  said,  "that  if  Lavvy  Olivier  brings 
her  Opinions  into  this  house  Emilius  and  I  will  walk  out  of  it." 

To-morrow  —  They  were  coming  to-morrow,  Uncle  Victor  and 
Aunt  Lavvy  and  Aunt  Charlotte. 

II 

They  were  coming  to  lunch,  and  everybody  was  excited. 

Mark  and  Dank  were  in  their  trousers  and  Eton  jackets,  and 
Roddy  in  his  new  black  velvet  suit.  The  drawing-room  was  dressed 
out  in  its  green  summer  chintzes  that  shone  and  crackled  with 
glaze.  Mamma  had  moved  the  big  Chinese  bowl  from  the  cabinet 
to  the  round  mahogany  table  and  filled  it  with  w^hite  roses.  You 
could  see  them  again  in  the  polish;  blurred  white  faces  swimming 
on  the  dark,  wine-coloured  pool.  You  held  out  your  face  to  be 
washed  in  the  clear,  cool  scent  of  the  Vvhite  roses. 

Wlhen  Mark  opened  the  door  a  smell  of  roast  chicken  came  up 
the  kitchen  staris. 

It  was  like  Sunday  except  that  you  were  excited. 

"Look  at  Papa,"  Roddy  whispered.     "Papa's  excited." 

Papa  had  come  home  early  from  the  office.  He  stood  by  the 
fireplace  in  the  long  frock-coat  that  made  him  look  enormous.  He 
had  twirled  back  his  moustache  to  show  his  rich  red  mouth.  He 
had  put  something  on  his  beard  that  smelt  sweet.  You  noticed  for 
the  first  time  how  the  frizzled,  red-brown  mass  sprang  from  a  peak 
of  silky  golden  hair  under  his  pouting  lower  lip.  He  was  letting 
himself  gently  up  and  down  with  tlhe  tips  of  his  toes,  and  he  was 
smiling,  secretly,  as  if  he  had  just  thought  of  something  that  he 
couldn't  tell  Mamma.  Whenever  he  looked  at  Mamma  she  put  her 
hand  up  to  her  hair  and  patted  it. 

Mamma  had  done  her  hair  a  new  way.  The  brown  plait  stood 
up  farther  back  on  the  edge  of  the  sloping  chignon.     She  wore  her 


The     Little     Review  •  45 


new  lavender-and-white  striped  muslin.  Lavender  ribbon  streamed 
from  the  pointed  opening  of  her  bodice.  A  black  velvet  ribbon  was 
tied  tight  round  her  neck;  a  jet  cross  hung  from  it  and  a  diamond 
star  twinkled  in  the  middle  of  the  cross.  She  pushed  out  her  mouth 
and  drew  it  in  again,  like  Roddy's  rabbit,  and  the  tip  of  her  nose 
trembled  as  if  it  knew  all  the  time  what  Papa  was  thinking. 

She  was  so  soft  and  pretty  that  you  could  hardly  bear  it. 
Mark  stood  behind  her  chair,  and  when  Papa  was  not  looking  he 
kissed  her.  The  behaviour  of  her  mouth  and  nose  gave  you  a  de- 
licious feding  that  with  Aunt  Lavvy  and  Aunt  Charlotte  you 
wouldn't  have  to  be  so  very  good. 

The  front  door  bell  rang.     Papa  and  Mamma  looked  at  each 
other,  as  much  as  to  say,  "Now  it's  going  to  begin."    And  suddenly 
Mamma  looked  small  and  frightened.     She  took  Mark's  hand. 
*    "Emilius,"  she  said,  ''what  am  I  to  say  to  Lavinia?" 

"You  don't  say  anything,"  Papa  said.  "Mary  can  talk  to 
Lavinia." 

Mary  jumped  up  and  down  with  excitement.  She  knew  how 
it  would  be.  In  another  minute  Aunt  Charlotte  would  come  in, 
dressed  in  her  black  lace  shawl  and  crinoline,  and  Aunt  Lavvy 
would  bring  her  Opinions.  And  something,  something  that  you 
didn't  know,  would  happen. 

Ill 

Aunt  Charlotte  came  in  first,  with  a  tight,  dancing  run.  You 
knew  her  by  the  long  black  curls  on  her  shoulders.  She  was  shiling 
as  she  smiled  in  the  album.  She  bent  her  head  as  she  bent  it  in 
the  album,  and  her  eyes  looked  up  close  under  her  black  eyebrows 
and  pointed  at  you.  Pretty  —  pretty  blue  eyes,  and  something 
frightening  that  made  you  look  at  them.  And  something  queer 
kbout  her  narrow  jaw.  It  thrust  itself  forward,  jerking  up  her 
smile. 

■No  black  lace  shawl  and  no  crinoline.  Aunt  Charlotte  wore 
a  blue-and-black  striped  satin  dress,  bunched  up  behind,  and  a  little 
hat  perched  on  the  top  of  her  chignon  and  tied  underneath  it  with 
blue  ribbons. 

She  had  got  in  and  was  kissing  everybody  while  Aunt  Lavvy 
and  Uncle  Victor  were  fumbling  with  the  hat-stand  in  the  hall. 

Aunt  Lawy  came  next.  A  long  grey  face.  Black  bands  of 
hair  parted  on  her  broad  forehead.  Black  eyebrows;  blue  eyes  that 
stuck  out  wide,  that  didn't  point  at  you.  A  grey  bonnet,  a  grey 
dress,  a  little  white  shawl  with  a  narrow  fringe,  drooping. 


46  •  T  li  c     Little     Review 

She  walked  slowly  —  slowly,  as  if  she  were  still  thinking  of 
something  that  was  not  in  the  room,  as  if  she  came  into  a  quiet, 
empty  room. 

You  thought  at  first  she  was  never  going  to  kiss  you.  She 
was  so  tall  and  her  face  and  eyes  held  themselves  so  still. 

Uncle  Victor.  Dark  and  white;  smaller  than  Papa,  smaller 
than  Aunt  Lawy;  thin  in  his  loose  frock-coat.  His  forehead  and 
black  eyebrows  were  twisted  above  his  blue,  beautiful  eyes.  He 
had  a  small  dark-brown  moustache  and  a  small  dark -brown  beard, 
trimmed  close  and  shaped  prettily  to  a  point.  He  looked  like  some- 
thing, like  somebody;  like  Dank  when  he  was  mournful,  like  Dank's 
dog,  Tibby,  when  he  hid  from  Papa.  He  said,  "Well,  Caroline. 
Well,  Emifius." 

Aunt  Charlotte  gave  out  sharp  cries  of  "Dear!"  and  "Dar- 
ling!" and  smothered  them  against  your  face  in  a  soft  of  moan.  • 

When  she  came  to  Roddy  she  put  up  her  hands. 

"Roddy  —  Yellow  hair.  No.  No.  What  have  you  done  with 
the  blue  eyes  and  black  hair,  Emilius?  That  comes  of  letting  your 
beard  grow  so  long." 

Then  they  all  went  into  the  diningroom. 

It  was  like  a  birthday.  There  was  to  be  real  blanc-mange, 
and  preserved  ginger,  and  you  drank  raspberry  vinegar  out  of  the 
silver  christening-cups  the  aunts  and  uncles  gave  you  when  you 
were  born.  Uncle  Victor  had  given  Mary  ^ers.  She  held  it  up 
and  read  her  own  name  on  it: 

MARY  VICTORIA  OLIVIER 

1863. 

Tihey  were  all  telling  their  names.  Mary  took  them  up  and 
chanted  them:  "Mark  Emilius  Olivier;  Daniel  Olivier;  Rodney  Oli- 
vier; Victor  Justus  Olivier;  Lavinia  Mary  Olivier;  Charlotte  Louisa 
Olivier."    She  liked  the  sound  of  them. 

She  sat  between  Uncle  Victor  and  Aunt  Lawy.  Roddy  was 
squeezed  into  the  corner  between  Mamma  and  Mark.  Aunt  Char- 
lotte sat  opposite  her,  between  Mark  and  Daniel.  She  had  to  look 
at  Aunt  Charlotte's  face.  There  were  faint  grey  smears  on  it  as  if 
somebod"  had  scribbled  all  over  on  it  with  pencil. 

A  remarkable  conversation. 
,   "Aunt  Lawy!     Aunt  Lawy!     Have  you  brought  your  Opin- 
ions?" 

"No,  my  dear,  they  were  not  invited.    So  I  left  them  at  home." 

"I'm  glad  to  hear  it,"  Papa  said. 


The    Little    Review  47 

"Will  you  bring  them  next  time?" 

"No.  Not  next  time,  nor  any  other  time,"  Aunt  Lawy  said, 
looking  straight  at  Papa. 

"Did  you  shut  them  up  in  the  stair  cupboard?" 

"No;  but  I  may  have  to  some  day." 

"Then,"  Mary  said,  "if  there  are  any  little  ones,  may  I  have 
one?" 

"May  she,  Emilius?" 

"Certainly  not,"  Papa  said.  "She's  got  too  many  little  opin- 
ions of  her  own." 

"What  do  you  know  about  opinions?"    Uncle  Victor  said. 

Mary  was  excited  and  happy.  She  had  never  been  allowed  to 
talk  so  much.  She  tried  to  eat  her  roast  chiken  in  a  business-like, 
grown-up  manner,  while  she  talked. 

"I've  read  about  them",  she  said.  "They  are  dear  little  ani- 
mals with  long  furry  tails,  much  'bigger  than  Sarah's  tail,  and  they 
climb  up  trees.'' 

"Oh,  they  climb  up  trees,  do  they?"  Uncle  Victor  was  very 
polite  and  attentive. 

"Yes.  There's  their  picture  in  Bank's  Natural  History  Book. 
Next  to  the  Oiyiyth'rincus  or  Duck-billed  Plat-ipus.  If  they  came 
into  the  house  Mamma  would  be  frightened.  But  I  would  not  be 
frightened.    I  should  stroke  them." 

"Do  you  think,"  Uncle  Victor  said,  still  politely,  "you  quite 
know  what  you  mean?" 

"I  know,"  Daniel  said.    "She  means  opossums." 

"Yes,"  Mary  said.    "Opossums." 

She  remembered.  / 

"What  are  opinions?" 

"Opinions,"  Papa  said,  "are  things  that  people  put  in  other 
people's  heads.    Nasty,  dangerous  things,  opinions." 

She  thought:  "That  was  why  Mamma  and  Papa  were 
frightened." 

"You  won't  put  them  into  Mamma's  head,  will  you.  Aunt 
Lawy?" 

Mamma  said,  "Get  on  with  your  dinner.  Papa's  only  teasing." 

Aunt  Lavvy's  face  flushed  slowly,  and  she  held  her  mouth 
tight,  as  if  she  were  trying  not  to  cry.  Papa  was  teasing  Aunt 
Lawy. 

"How  do  you  like  that  Ilford  house,  Charlotte?"  Mamma  asked 
suddenly. 

"It's  the  nicest  little  house  you  ever  saw,"  Aunt  Charlotte 


4S  7"  //  (•     Little     Re  V  i  eiv  '  " 

said.  "But  it's  too  far  away.  I'd  rather  have  any  ugly,  .poky  old 
den  that  was  next  door.  I  want  to  see  all  I  cao  of  you  and  Emilius 
and  Dan  and  little  darling  Mary.     Before  I  go  away." 

"You  aren't  thinking  of  going  away  when  you've  only  just 
come?" 

"That's  what  Victor  and  Lavinia  say.  But  you  don't  suppose 
I'm  going  to  stay  an  old  maid  all  my  life  to  please  V^ictor  and  La- 
vinia." 

"I  haven't  thought  about  it  at  all."  Mamma  said. 
"They  have.     /  know  what  they're  thinking.     But  it's  all  set- 
tled.   I'm  going  to  Marshall  and  Snelgrove's  for  my  things.    There's 
a  silver-grey  poplin  in  their  window.     If  I  decide  on  it,  Caroline, 
you  shall  have  my  grey  watered  silk. 

"You  needn't  waggle  your  big  beard  at  me.  Emilius,"  Aunt 
Charlotte  said. 

Papa  pretended  that  he  hadn't  heard  her  and  began  to  talk  to 
Uncle  Victor. 

"Did  you  read  John  Bright's  speech  in  Parliament  last  night?" 
Uncle  Victor  said,  "I  did." 
"What  did  you  think  of  it?" 

Uncle  Vctior  raised  his  shoulders  and  his  eyebrows  and  spread 
out  his  thin,  small  hands. 

"A  man  with  a  face  like  that,"  Aunt  Charlotte  said,  "oughtn't 
to  be  in  Parliament." 

"He's  the  man  who  saved  England,"  said  Papa. 
"What's  the  good  of  that  if  he  can't  save  himself?    Where  does 
he  expect  to  go  to  with  the  hats  he  wears?" 

"Where  does  Emilius  expect   to  go  to,"   Uncle  Victor  said, 
"when  his  John  Bright  and  his  Gladstone  get  their  way?" 
Suddenly  Aunt  Charlotte  left  off  smiling. 
"Emilius,"  she  said,  "do  you  uphold  Gladstone?" 
"Of  course  I  uphold  Gladstone.    There's  nobody  in  this  coun- 
try fit  to  black  his  boots." 

"I  know  nothing  about  his  boots.  But  he's  an. infidel.  He 
wants  to  pull  down  the  Church.  I  thought  you  were  a  Church- 
man?" 

"So  I  am,"   Papa  said.     "I've  too  good'  an   opinion  of   the 
Church  to  imagine  that  it  can't  stand  alone." 
"You're  a  nice  one  to  talk  about  opinions." 
"At  any  rate  I  know  what  I'm  talking  about." 
"I'm  not  so  sure  of  that,"  said  .\unt  Charlotte. 
Aunt  Lavvy  smiled  gently  at  the  pattern  of  the  table-cloth. 


The     Little    Review  49 

"Do  you  agree  with  him,  Lavvy?"  Mamma  had  found  some- 
thing to  say. 

"I  agree  with  him  better  than  he  agrees  with  himself." 

A  long  conversation  about  things  that  interested  Papa.  Blanc- 
mange going  round  the  table,  quivering  and  shaking  and  squelching 
under  the  spoon. 

"There's  a  silver-grey  poplin,"  said  Aunt  Charlotte,  "at  Mar- 
shall and  Snelgrove's." 

The  blanc-mange  was  still  going  round.  Mamma  watched  it 
as  it  went.    She  was  fascinated  by  the  shivering,  white  blanc-mange. 

"If  there  was  only  one  man  in  the  world,"  Aunt  Charlotte  said, 
in  a  loud  voice,  "and  he  had  a  flowing  beard,  I  wouldn't  marry 
him." 

Papa  drew  himself  up.  He  looked  at  Mark  and  Daniel  and 
Roddy  as  if  he  were  saying,  "Whoever  takes  notice  leaves  the 
room." 

Roddy  laughed  first.    He  was  sent  out  of  the  room. 

Papa  looked  at  Mark.  Mark  clenched  his  teeth,  holding  his 
teeth,  holding  his  laugh  down  tight.  He  seemed  to  think  that  as 
long  as  it  didnt  come  out  of  his  mouth  he  was  safe.  It  came  out 
through  his  nose  like  a  loud,  tearing  sneeze.  Mark  was  sent  out  of 
the  room. 

Daniel  threw  down  his  spoon  and  fork. 

"If  he  goes,  I  go,"  Daniel  said,  and  followed  him. 

Papa  looked  at  Mary. 

"What  are  you  grinning  at,  you  young  monkey?" 

"Emilius,"  said  Aunt  Charlotte,  "if  you  send  another  child  out 
of  the  room,  I  go  too." 

Mary  squealed,  "Tee-he-he-he-he-Z/ee./  Te-hee!"  and  was  sent 
out  of  the  room. 

She  and  Aunt  Charlotte  sat  on  the  stairs  outside  the  dining- 
room  door.  Aunt  Charlotte's  arm  was  round  her;  every  now  and 
the  it  gave  her  a  sudden,  loving  squeeze. 

"Darling  Mary.  Little  darling  Mary.  Love  Aunt  Charlotte," 
she  said. 

Mark  and  Dank  and  Roddy  watched  them  over  the  banisters. 
Aunt  Charlotte  put  her  hand  deep  in  her  pocket  and  brought 
out  a  little  parcel  wrapped  in  white  paper.    She  whispered: 

"If  I  give  you  something  to  keep,  will  you  promise  not  to 
show  it  to  anybody,  and  not  to  tell?" 

Mary  promised. 


50  T  li  c    L'l  1 1 1  e    Rev  iew 

Inside  the  paper  wrapper  there  was  a  match-'box,  and  inside 
the  match-box  there  was  a  china  doll  no  bigger  than  your  finger. 
It  had  blue  eyes  and  black  hair  and  no  clothes  on.  Aunt  Charlotte 
held  it  in  her  hand  and  smiled  at  it. 

"That's  Aunt  Charlotte's  little  baby,"  s(he  said.  "I'm  going 
to  be  married  and  I  shan't  want  it  any  more. 

"There  —  take  it,  and  cover  it  up,  quick!"  • 

Mamma  had  come  out  of  the  dining-room.  She  shut  tnc  door 
behind  her. 

"What  have  you  given  to  Mary?"  she  said. 

"Butter-scotch,"  said  Aunt  Charlotte, 

IV 

All  afternoon  till  tea-time  Papa  and  Uncle  Victor  walked  up 
and  down  the  garden  path,  talking  to  each  other.  Every  now  and 
then  Mark  and  Mary  looked  at  them  from  the  nursery  window. 

That  night  she  dreamed  that  she  saw  Aunt  Charlotte  standing 
at  the  foot  of  the  kitchen  stairs,  taking  off  her  clothes  and  wrapjMug 
them  in  white  paper;  first,  her  black  lace  shawl;  then  her  chemise. 
She  stook  up  without  anything  on.  Her  body  was  polished  and 
shining  like  an  enormous  white  china  doll.  She  lowered  her  head 
and  pointed  at  you  with  her  eyes. 

When  you  opened  the  stair  cupboard  door  to  catch  the  opos- 
sum, you  found  a  white  china  doll  lying  in  it,  no  bigger  than  your 
finger.    That  was  Aunt  Charlotte. 

In  the  dream  there  was  no  break  between  the  end  and  the  be- 
ginning. But  when  she  remembered  it  afterwards  it  split  into  two 
pieces  with  a  dark  gap  between.  She  knew  she  had  only  dreamed  about 
the  cupboard;  but  Aunt  Charlotte  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  was  so 
clear  and  solid  that  she  thought  she  had  really  seen  her. 

Mamma  had  told  Aunt  Bella  all  about  lit  when  they  talked  to- 
gether that  day,  in  the  drawing-room.  She  knew  because  she  could 
still  see  them  sitting,  bent  forward  with  their  heads  touching.  Aunt 
Bella  in  the  big  arm-chair  by  the  hearth-rug,  and  Mamma  on  the 
parrot  chair. 

END  OF  BOOK  I. 


THE 
ISTTLE  HEYIE W 


Editor: 

Margaret   Anderson 

Foreign   Editors: 
John   Rodker  Jules   Romains 

Advisory    Board: 
jh 

DISCUSSION 

Playing   the   Piano    as   a    Modern     Art 
by   Margaret   Anderson 

I  HAVE  had  some  twenty-five  letters  asking  me  to  continue  the  dis- 
cussion about  piano  playing  begun  in  the  last  number, — why 
the  ''older  standards"  of  playing  restrict  the  full  vibrations  of  the 
piano.  This  ds  an  unexpected  response  and  I  hasten  to  unburden 
myself. 

Piano  playing  as  it  has  been  taught  for  years  .has  ignorantly 
overlooked  the  necessity  of  adapting  the  mechanism  of  the  body 
to  the  mechanism  of  the  instrument.  I  suppose  because  the  mech- 
anism of  the  body  has  been  considered  the  province  of  physicians 
and  only  lately  have  the  psychologists  begun  to  develop  a  definite 
science  of  the  interdependence  of  mental  and  physical  coordination. 
A  tight  rope  walker  has  always  used  his  whole  body  to  make  his 
feet  do  what  he  wished  upon  a  wire.  Pianists  have  always  been 
taught  to  use  their  fingers  and  hands  and  arms  for  everything  they 
wish  to  achieve  on  the  piano.    Have  any  of  the  teachers  talked  of 


52  The     Little     Review 

back  and  shoulder  muscles,  of  the  rhythms  that  centre  in  the  spine 
and  can  be  set  in  motion  by  a  flexible  waist-line,  or  controlled  by 
tlie  position  of  the  body  on  the  piano  stool  and  the  distribution  of 
weight  and  balance  of  the  feet  upon  the  floor? 

Because  of  all  this  pianists  usually  do  one  kind  of  thing  well 
and  assume  that  the  things  they  can't  do  well  belong  outside  their 
temperamental  eciuipment.  Of  course  much  of  this  is  true,  but  the 
good  modern  pian'st  shows  where  it  does  not  hold  true.  v 

For  instance,  the  older  pianist  will  be  orchestral  in  everything, 
or  delicate  in  everything,  or  brilliantly  hard  in  everything,  or  play 
always  as  if  the  piano  were  a  spinet,  or  always  as  if  it  were  an  organ. 
The  modern  pianist  tries  to  combine  all  these  registers  He  develops 
a  method  of  technique  that  gives  his  instrument  the  range  of  a  ful- 
ly-equipped modern  orchestra.  It  is  this  that  I  like  to  call  his  "key- 
board". It  is  an  entirely  different  idea  of  the  piano:  modern  mu- 
sic has  made  it  necesary,  and  the  intelligent  use  of  the  body  has 
made  it  possible. 

Gabrilowitsch  is  one  of  the  best  examples  I  know  of  the  old 
school  of  playing.  He  is  looked  upon  by  musicians  who  are  an- 
tigonistic  to  "modern"  theories  as  the  pianist  with  a  beautiful  tone. 
He  has  a  beautiful  tone  in  pure  melody  passages;  he  has  no  tone 
at  all  when  he  tries  to  play  the  big  organ  passages  of  Cesar  Franck 
Therefore  we  don't  speak  of  him  as  a  pianist  with  tone;  we  say 
he  has  no  keyboard. 

This  could  easily  be  remedied.  There  is  no  temperamental  bar- 
rier to  prevent  Mr.  Gabrilowitsch  making  the  piano  sound  like  an 
orchestra  when  he  wishes  to.  He  can  conduct  an  orchestra,  and  he 
shows  plainly  that  he  wants  to  make  the  piano  pour  out  orchestral 
sound.  He  works  pitifully  for  these  effects  with  all  the  muscles  of 
fingers,  arms  and  neck;  the  rest  of  his  body  is  tight  and  rigid;  and 
the  result  is  that  he  never  strikes  a  chord  that  is  not  tight  and 
hard,  completely  unresonant. 

Harold  Bauer  is  perhaps  the  best  example  of  the  modern  pian- 
ist in  this  country.  His  keyboard  is  absolutely  comprehensive:  he 
achieves  all  the  gamut  of  sounds  so  far  demonstrated  as  piano  pos- 
sibilities, with  the  exception  of  the  so-called  pearly  tone;  and  this 
is  a  temperamental  preference  rather  than  a  temperamental  limita- 
tion: one  look  at  Mr.  Bauer  will  tell  you  that  he  has  never  been 
interested  in  pearl'ness.  But  since  this  article  is  intended  as  a  peda- 
gogical treatise  I  am  going  to  talk  only  of  how  Mr.  Bauer  produces 
these  tone  qualities,  not  why  he  produces  them,  —  though  of  course 
the  "why''  is  the  cause  of  the  "how." 


The     Little     Review  53 


Harold  Bauer,  seated  at  the  piano,  offers  an  example  of  a  prop- 
erly coordinated  body.  As  he  raises  his  hands  above  the  keys  you 
can  follow  the  movement  of  back,  shoulder  and  arm  muscles  that 
allows  his  fingers  to  strike  the  keys  in  a  certain  way  .  You  can 
watch  him  demonstrating  that  a  tiger  is  stronger  than  an  ox:  he 
shows  you  how  to  get  the  fullest  vibrations  by  pouncing  on  the  keys 
rather  than  by  merely  striking  them.  He  demonstrates  the  thing  a 
carpenter  knows:  that  to  hold  a  hammer  by  the  neck  will  give  no 
force  or  swing  or  rhythm  to  the  blow.  The  sum  total  of  such  a  co- 
ordination is  this:  with  all  the  varied  and  complicated  action  of  the 
fingers  themselves  there  is  a  continuous  up  and  down  legato  move- 
ment of  the  arms,  controlled  from  the  spine,  very  similar  to  the  un- 
dulating arm  movements  of  a  dancer,  by  which  alone  it  is  possible 
to  put  upon  the  strings,  directly  and  uninterruptedly,  the  dramatic 
conception  of  the  music. 


SUSAN    GLASPELL'S    PLAY,    "BERNICE" 
AGreatDrama 

THE  dominant  character  in  the  play,  "Bernice",  lies  dead  in  a 
room  adjoining  the  living  room  of  the  country  house  in  which  the 
three  acts  of  the  drama  take  place.  That  in  itself  is  a  daring  move 
which  imposes  a  severe  task  upon  the  author's  knowledge  and  art. 
But  she  was  dealing  with  the  good  psychological  fundamental  that 
the  past  is  the  richest  in  glamor  and  charm.  The  success  of  the 
play,  for  it  is  a  great  drama,  is  due  to  the  vivid  portrayal  of  the 
admirable  traits  of  Bernice  which  serve  as  a  background  upon 
which  the  weaknesses,  strengths,  foibles,  of  the  other  characters  are 
thrown  in  contrasting  colors:  a  unified  personality  versus  a  series 
of  dissociated  personalities,  all  very  human. 

Bernice,  the  wife  of  Craig  Norris,  a  popular  writer,  who  died 
while  the  husband  was  in  New  York  upon  a  love  adventure  with 
another  woman,  is  shown  as  a  sort  of  earthly  flowering  of  the  Abso- 
lute. The  continual  inspiration  she  was  to  her  relatives  and 
friends  is  felt  by  the  audience  themselves  throughout  the  play. 
She  was  a  typical  "once  born"  of  William  James:  loving,  thoughtful, 
gay,  at  peace  with  life,  free  from  malice,  clear-headed,  unselfish. 
She  knew  about  and  was  indulgent  to  Craig's  amours.  She  loved 
her  associates  for  the  good  in  them  and  laughed  at  their  foibles 
with  a  good  humor  that  even  the  victims  enjoyed.    But  what  made 


54  The    Little    Review 

her  uniquely  lovcal)le  and  inspiring  was  that  her  friends  saw  in  her 
an  embodiment  of  "the  whole  of  life",  with  a  "gift  for  being  herself." 
And  she  wanted  each  one  to  have  a  chance  to  be  himself."  This 
background  is  developed  and  ever-richened  to  suit  the  dramatic 
situations  that  result  when  the  temperaments  of  the  various  charac- 
ters come  in  conflict.  We  see,  love,  and  sympathize  with  Bernice 
from  curtain  to  curtain. 

Craig,  the  husband,  is  an  egoist  who  brings  to  mind  in  the 
drawing — and  with  no  disparagment  to  Susan  Glaspell's  art — 
a  comiDarison  with  Sir  Willoughby  in  George  Meredith's  "The  Ego- 
ist." If  anything  the  lines  of  Craig  are  more  ex]:)ressive  because  of 
the  terseness  of  drama  in  contrast  with  the  verbal  resources  of  the 
novel.  Craig's  egotism  is  supreme:  it  even  triumphs  over  the  re- 
morse that  one  would  expect  from  a  man  who  has  been  led  to  be- 
lieve that  Bernice's  death  was  self-inflicted  because  of  her  love  for 
him.  His  lack  of  power  to  "reshape  Bemcie",  to  dominate  her,  to 
"get  to"  her  who  was  "the  whole  of  life,"  are  some  of  the  egotistic 
manifestations  which  impelled  Craig  to  seek  in  other  and  feebler 
women  the  compensations  which  his  neurotic  character  demanded  to 
j|.ttain  the  feeling  of  security  necessary  to  his  adjustment  to  the 
world.  The  author  plumbs  Craig,  and  his  banal  writings,  thus: 
"Did  you  ever  see  a  child  try  to  do  something — fail — and  then 
turn  to  something  he  could  do  and  make  a  great  show  of  doing 
that?  Your  life  is  a  continuous  attempt  to  appear  effective — to 
persuade  yourself  you  arc  something."  These  lines  are  spoken  by 
Margaret,  the  finest  of  the  living  characters  in  the  play.  Bernice's 
closest  friend,  who  arrives  at  the  house .  without  knowing  of  her 
death.  Margaret,  an  idealist,  uncompromising  in  her  fidelity  to  her 
intelligent  conception  of  morality,  has  devoted  her  life  to  the 
cause  of  freedom  of  thought  and  speech  to  the  extent  of  working 
for  the  people  imprisoned  for  their  ideas.  Her  clashes  with  Craig, 
whose  life  is  known  to  her,  are  frequent, — varied,  dramatic;  she 
exposes  him  to  himself  ruthlessly;  but  rarely  does  she  penetrate  his 
selfish  cover.  Margaret  comes  to  us  as  a  power  when,  in  the  first 
act,  Abbie  the  servant  who  had  loved  and  lived  for  Bernice  all  of 
the  hitter's  life,  tells  Craig  that  Bernice  killed  herself.  Margaret 
accepts  Abbie's  statement  as  true  but  cannot  reconcile  the  act  with 
what  Bernice  stood  for  in  life.  It  seemed  to  her  like  hatred, — 
petty.  Margaret's  intuitions  -were  believed  in  by  herself  and 
everybody  who  knew  her;  her  clairvoyance  put  Abbie  through  a 
third  degree  which  finallv  forced  the  confession  that  Bernice  died 


!  f  he    Lit  tie    Review  55 

'of  natural  causes  but  had  made  a  dying  request  of  Abb'e  to  tell 
[Craig  the  lie  that  would  make  him  believe  Bernice  loved  him  better 
than  her  beautiful  life  itself.  Of  course  Margaret's  impulse  is 
to  judge  Craig  by  her  standards  of  rightness  instead  of  Bernice's: 
to  tell  him  of  the  lie.  This  leads  to  two  of  the  strongest  scenes  in 
the  play:  the  conflicts  beween  two  good  women,  Abbie  and  Mar- 
Lraret,  and  between  Margaret's  goodness  and  Craig's  weakness. 
Al)bie  wins  the  day  for  Bernice  by  the  wisdom:  "And  when  you 
talce  that  away  from  him — what  do  you  give  to  him."  Craig  un- 
consciously helps  in  the  victory  by  flaunting  to  Margaret  his  su- 
])reme  egotism  in  crowing  that  Bernice  killed  herself  for  love  of 
him:  it  proved  that  "every  bit  of  Bernice''  belonged  to  him.  Mar- 
garet saw  that  what  would  have  been  remorse  in  a  normal  person 
was  but  a  highly  sublimated  egotism  in  Craig.  She  yielded  to 
what  she  characterized  as  Bernice's  superior  "insight"  and  "cour- 
age", and  refrains  from  telling  Craig  the  truth  about  the  death. 

The  denouement  is  the  weak  part  of  the  play  if  one  judges  it 
by  the  high  standards  of  knowledge  and  intelligence  which  the  au- 
thor herself  has  set  and  maintained  up  to  that  point.  She  gives  a 
vivid  picture  of  a  man  whose  self-centredness  has  scarcely  an  ex- 
tenuating feature:  the  mechanism  of  his  egoism  is  probably  beyond 
the  therapeutic  effects  of  the  shock  of  his  wife's  death  for  love's 
sake:  it  is  fixated.  However,  this  criticsm  may  possibly  be  more  a 
reflection. upon  human  nature  than  upon  Susan  Glaspell's  art.  Wo- 
men do  love  as  Bernice  did,,  and  sometimes — ^but  very  rarely — 
such  love  as  Craig  thought  Bernice  had  proved  for  him  does  work 
its  cure,  and  sometimes  even  great  characters  like  Bernice  do  resort 
to  acts  incongruous  with  their  general  make-ups.  Granted  all  these 
possibilities,  the  plot  is  still  weak  at  that  point  because  it  fails  in 
the  psychological  ensemble  which  the  author  has  built  up  with  such 
great  knowledge  and  skill  in  practically  all  other  details.  One  is 
inclined  to  the  belief  that  the  play,  after  all,  is  but  an  expression 
of  hope,  woman's  hope,  and  that  in  its  expression  and  exposition 
there  enters  an  element  of  the  operation  of  the  unconscious  self  of 
which  the  author  is  herself  unaware.  At  any  rate  the  play  is  one 
which  will  live!  because  of  itsi  "insight"  or  its  "courage"  combined  with 
skill  in  making  subtle  situations,  often  only  nuances,  dramatically 
moving.  The  Provincetown  Players  have  scored  a  triumph  with  an 
important  play,  superbly  acted. 


56  The     Lit  tie     Review 


An     Important     Play 

by  Philip  Moeller 

My  dear  Margaret  Anderson  ; 

You  ask  me  if  I  am  not  going  to  hold  forth  about  Susan  Glas- 
pell's  play.  I  hasten  to  assure  you  that  such  a  suggestion  is  an  ai^rtaz- 
ingly  dangerous  one.  Never  give  an  enthusiast  the  chance  to  hold 
forth;  rather  hold  him  down,  force  him  to  take  intellectual  breath. 
I  shall  try  to  go  a  quiet  pace  though  my  admiration  for  Miss  Glas- 
pell's  play  urges  me  to  quick  praise. 

It  is  you,  Margaret  Anderson,  who  have  rushed  in  fluttering 
your  mental  wings  into  a  very  hell  of  theory.  You  tell  in  some  few 
sentences  what  is'nt  drama  and  what  makes  a  play.  I  don't  know. 
You  may  be  right  about  it,  though  I've  a  dim  suspicion  that  in  a 
discussion  of  that  sort  there  really  is'nt  any  finality.  In  drama  as 
in  all  things,  a  new  form  creates  its  new  reason,  a  new  reason  forges 
its  new  form.  I  cannot  battle  with  you  about  what  makes  a  play. 
Alas.  I  assure  you  I've  read  far  too  many  to  know.  But  for  a  mo- 
ment, if  you  will  let  me,  I  will  join  issues  with  you  about  "Bernice." 

We'll  both  agree  that  it's  well  writteh.  I  don't  think  Miss 
cilaspell  has  ever  written  anything  but  well,  and  often  spendidly. 
and  in  "Bernice",  to  my  mind,  so  well  and  spendidly  that  her  play 
I  think  takes  rank  amongst  the  pitifully  few  plays  that  count  done 
by  us  Americans  .  So  far  you  and  I  stay  together  and  now  I  begin 
to  quote  you.  and,  quoting,  begin  to  leave  you.  You  write:  "You 
must  either  work  through  cause  and  effect  to  get  drama  or  you  must 
present  dramatically  the  foibles  of  a  human  being."  There's  such 
an  old-fashioned  bit  of  naive  pessimism  here  that  I  can't  resist  hold- 
ing you  up  for  a  moment,  even  though  we  both  fall  strangled  in  a 
het  of  quibbles.  I  suppose,  according  to  the  point  of  view  that  you 
suggest  that  all  strengths  and  virtues,  all  high  and  mighty  heroisms, 
deeds  and  thoughts  are  to  your  mind  but  missread  weaknesses.  Do 
I  missread  you?  Your  pardon  if  I  do.  But  the  sentence  still  both- 
ers me.  I  quote  again:  "You  must  either  work  through  cause  and 
effect  to  get  drama"  .  May  I  be  permitted  to  hint  that  as  I  see  life 
there's  a  clean-cut  distinction  in  your  phras'ng  that  makes  me  a  bit 
nervous.  I  mention  this  here  because  one  of  the  inante  virtues  of 
Miss  Olasspell's  play  is  to  me  more  than  a  hint  of  what  I  am  afraid 
will  be  to  you  the  a])palling  truth  that  cause  and  effect  are  not  so 


T  he    Lit  tie    Re  view  57 

patly  dissoluble  as  you  presume.  "Which  is  what"  I  can  see  often 
3n  tiie  faces  of  those  about  us.  Can't  you  too  sometimes  see  it  if 
yrou  listen  to  people's  eyes?  But  let  us  not  get  too  far  afield  here 
but  on  to  your  finalities  and  then  to  mine. 

And  so  through  my  digression  to  your  paragraph  that  follows. 
You  write:  "Taking  for  her  hero  a  man  without  the  power  she  gives 
lim  power — such  an  idea  that  a  man  without  power  ever  gains  it 
through  any  source  is  a  lie."  If  he's  got  it  he  must  have  attained  it 
or  do  you  mean  that  if  he  has  it — that  is  the  powerful  man — 
that  he  always  had  it  or  in  reality  is  it.  The  dilema  is  too  fraught. 
I  do  not  care  whether  or  not  Miss  Glaspell's  "hero'' — as  you  call 
him  —  has  it.  What  does  concern  me  is  that  her  heroine,  her  Ber- 
nice,  did  have  it,  and  through  the  amazing  art  of  Miss  Glaspell's 
method  we  are  made  thrillingly  conscious  of  the  fact.  There's  the 
theme,  Margaret  Anderson.  The  play — according  to  your  prem- 
ise of  what  is  all  or  nothing  in  a  play, — does'nt  concern  the  hus- 
band at  all.  If  you  must  have  a  character  use  power  to  stir  the 
lives  of  others  why  seek  out  the  powerless  and  say  he  hasn't  got  it 
and  therefore  that  the  play  is  not  a  play?  Who  do  you  thus  strange- 
ly neglect  Bernice?  Is  it  because  you  think  she  isn't  in  the  play? 
As  for  me  I  think  that  what  Miss  Glaspell  really  meant  was,  that 
there  really  isn't  anybody  in  the  play  expect  Bernice.  It's  her  power 
that's  dramatised.  If  you  have  missed  this,  surely,  the  lack  of  power 
isn't  entirely  Miss  Glaspell's. 

But  for  a  moment  back  to  your  hero  and  what 
we  can  deduct  from  the  predicament  your've  left  him  in. 
What  is  to  become  of  all  of  us  if  power  is  not  to  be  attained?  Are 
most  of  us  powerlessly  finished  before  we  are  begun?  That's  the 
ugly  wraith  of  a  determ'nism  that  would  justify  the  picturesque  pro- 
gression of  burnt  babies  with  which  Shelley  regales  us,  I  think  it  is 
in  the  "Revolt  of  Islam."  What  have  you  done,  Margaret  Anderson? 
Sent  to  the  limbo  of  the  not-needed  all  those  nice  old-fashioned 
prophylactics  like  education  and  healing  and  medicine  and  hope,  all 
those  thread-bare  illusions  that  drug  us  with  a  sense  of  power.  The 
issue  in  which  you  print  it  should  be  confiscated.  You  have  robbed 
us  of  our  dreams.  You  have  sat  thirteen  at  the  table  and  in  public. 
You  have  pillfered  us  of  the  beautiful  happy  lie  in  our  souls.  From 
us  who  had  not  you  have  taken  that  which  we  didn't  have.  It 
was'nt  nice  of  you.  Aren't  you  sorry  that  you  said  it?  Pause  a 
.  second  ere  you  smite  us  with  the  hideous  thought  than  we  can  never 
be  better  than  we  are,  that  we  are  powerless  to  gain  power  if  we 


58  The     Little     Review 


are  not  powerful.  'J'hal  destroymcnt  is  too  l)itter  to  gulp  clown  even 
with  the  usual  heroic  smile.  But  there.  I'm  afield  again.  I  haven't 
the  power  to  stick  to  the  highroad  of  the  one  idea  :  these  little 
shadowy  lanes  of  half  truths  I  find  are  altogether  too  beguiling.  But 
for  the  rest  I'll  tic  myself  down  to  one  last  issue. 

You  write:  "You  make  drama  out  of  it — (and  what  you 
mean  by  "it",  I  suppose,  is  all  or  nothing) — by  having  your  hero 
subconsciously  aware  of  what  he  is  doing,  or  you  can  make  hifn  a 
man  who  is  not  on  to  himself  —  but  some  one  must  be  on  to  what 
is  happenine:,  either  a  character  in  the  play  or  you  yourself  when 
you  wTite."  And  here,  Margaret  Anderson.  I'm  forced  to  divide 
against  you  twice.  I'm  perfectly  certain  that  Miss  Glaspell  was  both 
consciously  and  unconsciously  quite  aware  of  what  her  characters 
were  doing,  but  whether  he  was  aware  of  what  she  herself  was  doing 
is  quite  a  different  matter  and  does'nt  in  any  way,  that  is  from  the 
point  of  view  of  aesthetic  criticsm,  touch  on  the  virtues  or  limita- 
tions of  the  ]>lay.  I  don't  for  an  instant  believe  that  any  artist  is 
ever,  in  the  last  analysis  "on  to  himself"  when  he  writes.  We  know 
so  little  about  the  infinite  ramifications  of  the  ])sycholog.y  of  associa- 
tion that  to  presume  that  we  are  —  I  find  it  difficult  to  avoid  your 
phrase — always  "on  to  ourselves"  is  to  presume  a  separateness 
which  to  the  human  mind,  powerful  or  fragile  as  you  will,  is  inev- 
itably imposs'ble.  I'm  ])erfectly  sure  Miss  Glaspell  knew  what  her 
characters  meant,  I'm  certain  that  the  almost  too  pregnant  incisiv- 
ness  of  the  dialogue  was  quite  within  the  holding  rein  of  her  inspir- 
ation; but  what  I'm  equally  sure  of  and  what  gives  the  play  to  my 
mind  its  rare  importance  is  that,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  she 
has  approached  throughout  nearer  than  almost  any  other  dramatist 
I  know  to  those  multitudinous  vast  forces  that  sense  of  something 
beyond  our  small  and  smug  pat  knoAving,  that  she  has.  Avith  be- 
wildering clairvoyancy.  touched  the  suggestion  of  those  infinite 
sources  of  subtle  sly  reactions,  of  those  tremendous  "reasons  why" 
of  which  we  hear  but  the  dimmest  echoes  and  know  but  the  shadows. 

If  most  of  the  plays  of  today  arc  but  arid  wastes  of  words,  but 
the  oft  rewarming  of  stale  and  ancient  hashes,  it  is  because  the  stuff 
has  all  been  chewed  and  chopped  before.  You  cannot  hope  even  for 
the  growth  of  grass  where  the  path  is  trodden  too  often.  Miss  Glas- 
pell in  a  play,  it  seems  to  me,  of  rare  distinction  and  power,  has 
pointed  the  way  to  a  new  and  teeming  field  for  the  dramatist  who 
sensitively  understands  and  can  touch  with  sympathetic  strength  or 
delicacy  the  finer  values  and  nuances  in  the  perpetual  problem  of 


The    Little    Review  59 

the  human  soul. 

And  that  is  why,  my  dear  Margaret  Anderson,  that  Miss  Glas- 
pell's  play  is  something  beyond  the  reason  for  an  age-worn  discus- 
sion of  the  "whats"  of  dramaturgy,  something  beyond  a  driftless  de- 
bate as  to  whether  power  is  possible  to  the  unpowerful;  or  whether 
or  not  we  know  more  or  less  than  we  think  we  know  we  know. 

Thanks  for  letting  me  hold  forth.  I  too  have  "just 'touched 
the  fringe  of  the  discussion  ."  "Bernice"  I  know  is  worthy  of  pro- 
founder  praise  and  a  more  deft  defence  than  mine. 

Neither    Drama    nor    Life 
Margaret  Anderson 

OF  course  I  agree  with  neither  of  these  articles.  Nor  do  I  see 
that  such  criticism  leads  to  anything  but  what  an  intelligent 
Frenchman  might  describe  as  "bla". 

First,  with  the  exception  of  his  last  paragraph  (which  scores  a 
point  that  I  recognize  and  approve),  Mr.  Barnes  has  merely  told 
what  Susan  Glaspell  intended.  I  am  conscious  that  she  intended 
these  things.  I  was  conscious  of  it  when  I  saw  the  play.  What  has 
all  this  to  do  with  my  article?  The  glimmering  of  an  idea  that  I 
tried  to  present  last  month  is  that  she  didn't  do  what  she  intended. 
Or  (since  this  statement  goes  beyond  the  necessities  of  the  present 
argument)  I  will  concede  that  she  achieved  what  she  intended:  and 
then  I  am  forced  to  state  that  as  far  as  I  am  concerned  she  intend- 
ed something  uninteresting,  banal,  sentimental,  undramatic, — some- 
thing, as  I  tried  to  say  before,  without  ''significant''  content,  some- 
thing therefore  outside  Art.  Does  either  of  these  writers  answer  this? 
Does  either  of  them  say  a  word  to  convince  me  that  I  should  have  been 
enthralled  wnth  what  I  consciously  rejected?  No;  just  as  in  all  the 
verbal  arguments  we  have  with  people  in  America  they  begin  back 
behind  the  point  established  and  expect  to  hold  my  attention.  How 
do  they  think  this  is  going  to  interest  me? 

(Of  course  after  this  paragraph  I  have  given  my  opponents 
their  chance  to  utter  the  inevitable  stock  argument,  with  the  inev- 
itable finality,  that  what  is  "significant  content"  to  me  is  not  to 
them:  and  "so  where  do  we  get  to?"  At  intervals,  for  two  years, 
we  have  directed  a  certain  cerebration  against  the  vapidity  of  this 
argument.  I  am  walling  to  devote  a  whole  number  to  it,  with  bril- 
liant dialogue  and  convincing  illustrations). 


6o  The    Little    Review 


Wlell,  I  shall  at  least  begin  with  patience  and  calm.  I  will  say 
that  I  am  used  to  arguments  that  follow  no  sequence,  and  that  1  am 
perfectly  willing  to  go  hack  over  the  ground  again;  I  will  say  that 
I  don't  like  the  feeling  of  having  written  words  which  can't  be  con- 
strued into  meaning,  but  that  the  fault  must  be  mine:  I  must  have 
spoken  with  such  vagueness  as  to  conceal  entirely  what  I  had  to  say. 

So^thcn.  first,  both  these  critics  think  that  Susan  Glaspell  has 
written  a  good  play  because  she  has  shown  them  something  of  life 
that  interests  them.  In  neither  article  does  the  writer  prove  to  mc 
that  what  interests  him  is  bound  to  be  good.  People  can  offer 
such  proof:  a  poet,  for  instance,  is  his  own  best  argument  that 
what  he  believes  in  is  in  some  way  superior  to  what  his  philistine 
opponent  belives  in;  not  because  of  any  knowledge  of  poetry  that 
he  presents  but  because  of  the  existence  of  poetry  in  him.  Mr. 
Barnes  as  a  psychologist  and  Mr.  Moeller  as  a  dramatist  must  offer 
me  ihis  kind  of  proof.  Is  this  clear  enough?  I  mean  that  if  Mr. 
Barnes,  out  of  his  knowledge  of  psychology,  calls  Bernice  a  unified 
personality  he  must  offer  something  beyond  this  statement  to 
thange  my  mind  about  her  being  a  half-grown,  half-conscious,  milk- 
and-water  (and  therefore  ununified)  personality.  And  this  is  what 
gave  rise  to  all  my  objections.  (My  reasons  for  undervaluing  Ber- 
nice later.  I  must  first  dispose  of  Mr.  Moeller's  statement  that  I 
missed  the  significance  of  Bernice  as  the  dominant  character  in  the 
play.  Not  at  all.  I  know  that  this  is  Miss  Glaspell's  idea;  but  I 
am  willing  to  overlook  it:  I  need  not  insult  Miss  Glaspell  by  harp- 
ing on  the  fact  that  she  chose  this  uninteresting  Pollyanna  as  a  per- 
son worth  writing  a  play  about;  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  suspect 
that  she  merely  regarded  her  as  subject  matter;  that  as  a  dramatist 
she  knows  a  jilay  can  be  made  out  of  any  subject  matter,  and  that 
if  she  couldn't  make  her  Pollyanna  interesting  .she  could  make  the 
reactions  of  Pollyanna's  friends  interesting.  This  was  my  contri- 
bution to  Miss  (Glaspell's  idea.  But  it  is  a  mistake  to  make  these 
contributions.  Your  reward  is  merely  to  be  accused  of  knowing  less 
than  a  deaf  and  dumb  mute  about  what  yon  are  observing). 

Now  about  Bernice.  I  want  to  know  how  anyone  can  think  of 
this  character  as  a  complete  and  unified  person.  Miss  Glaspell  has 
drawn  her  in  a  very  life-like  way,  .so  we  will  discuss  her  as  a  human 
being  and  not  as  a  character.  Is  she  really  indicated  as  an  inter- 
esting human  being?  What  is  said  about  her?  'Phat  she  is  loving, 
thoughtful,  gay.  at  peace  with  life?  So  are  a  million  uninteresting 
people.    That  she  is  free  from  malice?    So  are  thousands  of  perfect- 


Th$    Little    Review  6t 

ly  gutless  -peo^Xo..  That  she  is  inspiring?  The  playwright  will  have  to 
show  that.  That  she  is  unselfish?  Unselfishness  is  sometimes  a  hide- 
ous vfice,  land' therefore  interesting,,  but  I'm  afraid  Bemice's  brand  was 
merely  a  mild  virtue.  That  she  loves  her  friends  for  the  good  in 
them  and  appreciates  their  foibles?  To  do  the  first  is  valuable,  if 
you're  a  good  judge;  to  do  the  second  is  to  be  a  civilized  person,  if 
you  choose  interesting  foibles  to  appreciate.  The  playwright  doesn't 
indicate  again.  That  she  has  a  gift  for  being  herself?  I  can  prove 
that  you  can  never  talk  about  a  person  being  himself  until  you 
have  shown  him  as  a  differentiated  person.  Otherwise  he  merely 
belongs  to  a  kind  of  collective  self.  That  she  wants  everyone  to 
have  a  chance  to  be  himself?  Have  you  ever  known  a  civilized  per- 
son who  talked  such  stuff?  No.  The  permanently  adolescent  talk 
it;  the  initiated  know  that  to  give  people  the  freedom  to  be  them- 
selves won't  do  the  trick;  that  to  assume  every  one  wants  to  be  him- 
self is  a  ridiculous  ignorance,  and  to  hope  it  a  delightful  luxury 
which  only  protoplasmic  souls  indulge  in,  with  grotesque, — ^no, 
pathetic — resul  ts. 

I  could  go  on  and  on  talking  about  Bernice's  lacks  of  quality. 
She  hasn't  even  interesting  limitations.  She  can't  be  looked  upon 
as  anything  but  an  "American  girl"  — ^but  "we  are  in  America"  and  I 
must  give  you  right  to  adore  her.  Let  me  say  only  one  thing 
more.  What  does  Bemice  do  by  way  of  proving  her  "insight",  her 
identification  with  "the  whole  of  life"?  She  believes  that  if  her 
husband  thinks  she  has  killed  herself  for  love  of  him  he  will  be 
jerked  up  into  some  power  of  self  that  he  has  never  yet  been  able 
to  attain.  Even  people  without  insight  sometimes  know  that  this 
is  not  the  way  things  happen.  Scorn  is  usually  efficacious  in 
waking  a  person  up  to  his  deficiencies.  But  the  Christ  idea  doesn't 
work,  except  upon  exceptional  people  who  resent  it  strongly.  Craig 
is  certainly  not  made  of  this  stuff,  and  Bernice  might  have  proved 
her  insight  by  recognizing  this  simple  fact. 

There  are  three  other  general  points  that  must  be  covered, 
though  I  am  afraid  I  grow  boring.    I  shall  try  to  be  brief. 

I.  Philip  Moeller  feels  that  my  refusal  to  grant  this  play  the 
distinction  of  drama  has  to  do  with  some  petty  hard-and-fast  theo- 
rizing about  dramaturgy;  2,  that  I  have  destroyed  the  whole  fabric 
of  optimism  by  denying  power  to  the  powerless;  and  3,  that  I  am 
foolish  to  believe  that  a  creator  must  work  with  consciousness.  He 
didn't  say  "art  is  not  conscious  but  spontaneous";  and  for  this  much 
I  thank  him. 


The     Little     Review 


Tcrhaps  I  can  answer  all  ihrec  in  one.  I  was  talking  Ix'vund 
all  "rules''  of  what  is  and  what  is  not  drama.  The  convention  that 
"emotion  expressed  in  motion''  makes  drama  didn't  originate  with 
me;  neither  did  the  convention  that  a  chair  is  a  chair  rather  than  a 
table  have  its  birth  in  my  capable  but,  after  all,  contemporary  mind. 
The  only  thing  I  have  to  do  with  it  all  is  to  discover  or  recognize  or 
decide  whether  any  emotions  have  been  expressed  (granted  that  I 
am  a  touchstone  for  such  matters,  which  is  my  claim) ;  and  when  I 
see  a  play  in  which  none  of  the  characters  has  had  his  feelings  made 
into  emotions,  which  means  that  Susan  Glaspell  cannot  transfuse  her 
own  feelings  into  emotions,  which  only  leacU  to  the  fact  that  nothing 
hves  until  some  emotion  has  been  created  about  it, — well,  then  I 
can  only  say  that  what  Susan  Glaspell  writes  does  not  interest  me. 
She  and  I  live  in  worlds  too  far  removed.  She  believes,  with  Mr. 
Moeller,  that  human  nature  is  interesting.  I  believe  that  it  is  never 
interesting  until  it  has  been  affected  by  consciousness.  She  believes, 
also  with  Mr.  Moeller.  that  the  powerless  can  develop  themselves 
into  power.  That  1  believe  differently  doesn't  seem  to  me  of  much 
significance:  the  fact  remains  that  no  one  has  ever  become  what  he 
is  not:  which  doesn't  mean  that  a  thief  may  not  become  a  minister, 
etc.,  etc.;  it  only  means  that  self-consciousness  is  possible  only  to 
the  few  who  attain  it,  and  that  their  indication  of  it  (at  the  age  of 
birth)  is  the  proof  they  offer  of  being  interesting  people.  Self-con- 
sciousness, or  the  unified  personality,  usually  makes  an  outward  sign 
of  its,  existence:  this  sign  we  call  Art  .  Why  should  such  facts  des- 
troy your  dreams?    They  offer  something  worth  worshipping. 

THE    PROVINCETOWN    THEATRE 

by   jh  I 

THE  Provincetown  Theatre  is  the  most  amazing  of  all  theatres. 
It  is  composed  of  people  of  intelligence  and  of  some  achievement 
in  other  lines,  and  yet  it  spends  season  after  season  giving  plays 
that  arc  not  plays. 

I  have  heard  that  its  slogan  is  "the  play's  the  thing"  —  which 
is  evidently  interpreted  to  mean  the  manuscript  and  not  the  play, 
not  even  insisting  that  the  manuscript  be  formed  words:  literature; 
seeming  to  disregard  utterly  that  drama  has  its  form  as  every  art 
has  its  form. 


T he     Lit  tie    Review  63 

In  its  original  state  as  an  art  drama  was  (and  is,  among  sav- 
ges)  without  words.  iMusic  was  its  first  elaiboration,  verses  the 
ext,  and  finally  speech.  No  art  can  be  developed  by  developing  its 
iaborations. 

The  Provincetow'n  Players  put  on  many  performances  that 
low  time  and  thought  and  much  cherishing,  but  for  the  most  part 
ley  are  stories  illustrated  with  action  and  sometimes  with  very 
Dod  effects  of  lights  and  setting;  or  some  member  puts  on  a  problem 
"om  his  own  little  psychological  laboratory.  But  plays  there  are 
one. 

I  believe  there  is  a  controversy  on  at  present  over  Susan  Glas- 
ell's  "Bernice."  It  isn't  a  play,  it  bears  no  relation  to  drama  as 
11  art.  It  is  quite  patent  that  neither  the  emotional  nor  intellec- 
ml  conception  of  "Bernice"  presented  itself  to  the  author  in  the 
)rm  of  drama  but  as  a  psychological  problem,  a  problem  to  be 
orked  out  in  words. 

With  this  idea  in  mind  I  don't  see  why  the  Provincetown 
■heatre  didn't  start  on  some  basis  different,  from  the  conventional 
leatre:  a  theatre  without  actors  and  scenery,  a  theatre  where  the 
uthor  illustrated  his  play  with  blackboard  diagrams  or  read  it 
loud  as  a  story?  It  must  be  disheartening  for  an  actor  to  find 
imself  a  superfluous  thing  in  a  play. 

However  it  is  the  feeling  of  all  who  attend  the  performances 
lat  the  actors  are  better  than  the  playwrights.  In  spite  of  the  fact 
lat  she  has  never  had  a  play  in  which  She  could  show  her  power, 
da  Rauh  has  been  able  to  convince  audience  after  audience,  and 
ven  some  uptown  critics,  of  that  power  and  of  her  creative  ability, 
he  has  a  distinction  and  gives  a  feeling  of  first  energies.  She  is 
poken  of  as  having  a  "smouldering  fire";  but  it  is  something  more 
abtle  than  this  —  it  is  not  related  to  fire,  but  to  things  which  con- 
iin  their  own  heat:  it  is  like  the  heat  in  spices. 


BONDS    OF    INTEREST" 

y  jh.       . 

"pHE  first  production  of  the  New  York  Theatre  Guild  was  one 
1  of  those  things  which  threaten  to  destroy  one's  youth  and  hope 
t  a  single  blow. 

I  felt  like  Blanco  Posnet  at  the  performance.     I  wanted  to 
hout  every  few  minutes:     "It's  rotten  acting,  it's  rotten  scenery. 


64  The    Little    Review 


it's  a  rotten  play." 

It  was  a  Spanish  play  called  "Bonds  of  Interest",  and  then 
were  times  when  it  was  possible  to  believe  that  perhaps  in  the  origi 
nal  it  was  not  so  "rotten":  it  was  just  possible  to  think  that  th( 
author  had  intended  his  play  as  a  jeer  at  humanity:  at  all  its  types 
at  all  its  activities,  at  a  tattered  threadbare  materialistic  world. 

As  it  was  given  at  the  Garrick  it  had  been  "jazzed  up"  ■'^'itl 
pleasant  scenery  and  costumes,  and  the  love  scene  doped  into  j 
high  sweet  note  of  hope. 

No  one  expects  much  acting  and  interacting  (of  any  kind)  ii 
a  newly-organized  company  of  professionals  and  amateurs.  But  i 
might  remove  some  hindrances  and  produce  less  chaos  if  all  th' 
actors  were  working  on  the  same  idea  of  the  piece.  Helen  Westle; 
somehow  knew  she  was  in  a  farce  and  played  it  as  a  farce.  Augustii 
Duncan  seemed  to  feel  that  it  was  up  to  him  to  give  the  entir  I 
tlown  act  from  the  circus;  Rollo  Peters  soul  fully  struggled  to  giv 
a  sincere  effect  of  Romeo  and  Juliet. 

Here  we  have  a  play  translated  from  the  Spanish:  the  word 
are  vulgar  in  their  uncadenced  commonplaceness,  the  humour  am 
philosophy  embarrassing  in  their  cheapness.  If  this  is  true  in  tbi 
original  why  choose  it  for  production? 

If  it  is  not  true  to  the  original  but  has  been  completely  translatan 
into  American  street  english  with  all  the  manner,  rhythm,  tempera 
ment  of  the  race  and  period  levelled  out  to  meet  the  appreciatio: 
bf  our  untempered  audiences,  why  do  the  producers  feel  any  neces-^ 
sity  to  cling  to  the  costumes  of  the  country  and  period? 

We  have  all  agreed  that  scenery  is  not  painting,  landscape  gar 
dening,  interior  decoration.     There  have  even  been  efforts  to  mak, 
designs  in  the  line  and  rythym  (the  mood)  of  a  play: — designs  crew 
ting   an   ambient    in   which    the   play    lives.      Mr.    Peters   create' 
for  this  rather  sordid  farce  semi-pictorial  scenery  which  would  d* 
for  a  pastoral. 

I  am  interested  in  experiments  .  I  carry  life-long  wounds  fron 
having  gone  over  the  top  with  little  theatres  in  several  sectors, 
ask  you,  where  is  the  experiment  in  this  guild?  To  put  over  a  bai 
])lay  badly  acted?  That  is  done  every  day  on  Broadway.  Is  it  ai 
experiment  in  combining  the  dignified  and  accomplished  settings  o 
the  French  Theatre  with  abortive  p'ctorial  efforts? 

There  is  no  experiment  in  a  thing  that  lies  back  behind  th« 
achievement  of  many  of  the  little  theatres  .  It  is  romantic  and  sen 
timental  because  it  is  merely  a  messing  around  in  the  theatre  thii 


A  . 


The    Little    Review  65 

belongs  to  a  past  condition  of  life:  a  violation  of  tradition  and  of 
mediums  of  expression  instead  of  an  attack  on  tradition  and  an  ef- 
fort to  extend  the  medium. 

I  am  not  asking  for  a  new  theatre,  nor  a  modem,  nor  a  present 
theatre.  I  am  asking  why  is  there  no  experiment  to  reestablish 
the  theatre  in  some  relation  to  art?  Why  is  there  no  experiment  to 
rediscover  the  primary  form  for  the  drama,  —  movements  to  the 
rhythm  of  emotions?  Why  is  there  no  effort  to  purge  acting  of 
sententious  and  restricted  gestures,  of  its  unemotional  and  unintel- 
lectual  elaboration  and  dispersings  of  intensities,  repetitious  to 
flaccidity? 


(The  above  note  was  written  with  a  hope  that  it  could  be  un- 
derstood by  the  Chicago  newspaper  critics.  If  simple  phrases  like 
"eternal  essences"  disturb  the  entire  underbrush,  we  will  "jazz"  one 
article  each  month.  The  little  line  on  our  magazine  which  reads 
"making  no  compromise"  refers  only  to  those  publics  which  have 
heard  of  civilization.    We'll  do  what  we  can  for  the  rest.) 

Two    First    Books 
by  Babette  Deutsch 

To  wander  among  the  delicate  subtleties  of  Bodenheim  and  to 
turn  thence  to  the  harsh  verities  of  Lola  Ridge  throws  the  work 
of  these  two  poets  into  bold  relief.  Their  poems  are  like  the  games 
created  by  foster-children  who  have  one  common  parent.  Both  are 
essoned  in  the  rough  discipline  of  those  who  "eat  dust  in  their  throats 
and  die  empty-hearted.  For  a  little  handful  of  pay  on  a  few  Satur- 
day nights."  They  know  the  kindling  life  of  the  streets,  and  the 
rusty  death  of  the  factories.  They  approach  experience  with  the 
abandon  of  their  lucidity.  But  to  read  Bodenheim  is  to  listen  to 
chimes  and  flutings  in  a  gallery  that  throws  strange  echoes  from 
its  secret  corners.  To  read  Lola  Ridge  is  to  shudder  with  the  throb 
oi  unrelenting  engines  and  the  hammer  on  the  pavement  of  num- 
berless nervous  feet. 

Bodenheim  comes  to  his  moods  like  a  sophisticated  lover.  He 
raresses  them  with  novel  and  exquisite  phrases,  he  bejewels  them 
with  little  raptures;  his  adoration,  like  his  grief,  is  as  deliberate  as 
t  is  acute.  One  feels,  even  in  such  poems  as  "Soldiers"  or  "Fac- 
:ory  Girl",  that  art  is  his  escape  from  life  even  while  it  is  his 
representation    of   life.      As   though    one    should    kill    an    emotion    by 


1 

66  The     Little     Review  ^ 


analysis;  save   that  when   he   has   concluded   his  examination,   his   in- 
struments   are    stained    with    the    colors    of    his    subject.      Perhaps 
that    is    why    certain    words    recur    continually    through    his    poems, ^ 
and  though  they  are  so  usual  as  to  have  got  a  I)ad  name,  he  turns 
them  to  startling  and  refreshing  uses.    Flowers  and  hearts  and  palloij 
make  a  bouquet  that  his  tine  percipience  just  saves  from  the  rococcoJ 
Indeed  it  is  when  he  points  a  moral  and  adorns  a  tale  that  he  failsa 
though    even    here    failure    must    be    taken    rather   as   an    incompl£te| 
achievement.     That  is   why   such   poems   as  "The    Interne"  and  "Toj 
An   Enemy''  are  so  much  weaker  than   poems  whose  intention   may' 
be  less  significant,  such  as  many  of  the  nameless  lyrics  of  "Minna". 
It  is  in  hie  over-tones,  to  use  the  only  adequate  if  much-abused  word, 
that    Bodenheim    gets    his   effect.     The   landscape    suggested    beyond 
the    horizon,    the    person    remembered    behind    the    closed    door,    the 
silence   waiting  under   the   busy  voices,   these   are   his   gifts   and   his 
distinction. 

His  rhythms  have  the  quality  of  his  syml^olism.  Approaching 
the  familiar  iambic  pentameter,  they  escape  it  with  just  sufficient 
resemblance  to  tease  and  please  the  lulled  sense.  They  are  linger- 
ing, quiet  and  slow,  withal  provocative.  More  than  most  poets  writ- 
ing vers  libre  with  any  skill,  Bodenheim  achieves  the  music  of  rhyme 
without  ever  using  so  easy  a  contrivance.  One  hesitates  to  say 
whether  this  is  the  eflfect  of  imagery  which  uses  all  the  gestures 
of  the  dance,  or  whether  it  lies  in  his  skill  with  verbal  nuances, 
such  as  this: 

"A  wind  sprawls  over  an  orchard 
Frightening  its  silent  litany  to  sound." 

To  come  from  these  quaint  alleys  into  the  loud  jostle  of  "The 
Ghetto"  is  to  be  aware  of  the  power  of  the  latter  at  the  cost  of  its 
intensity.  That  may  be  nothing  more  than  the  ultimate  difTerence 
between  the  symbolist  and  the  realist.  But  symbolism  divorced  from 
reality  is  purely  vapid,  and  a  realism  too  stark  is  like  the  barren 
triumph  of  the  intellect  which  M.  Bergson  so  eloquently  deprecates. 
Not  that  Lola  Ridge  is  cither  cold  or  insensitive.  But  her  visiooii 
is  no  less  limited  than  Bodenhcim's,  if  engaged  with  another  scene.i 
and  her  violence  is  sometimes  strident  rather  than  stern.  It  is 
curious  that  one  should  feel  her  the  more  immature  of  the  two,  more 
sincere  in  her  emotions  and  less  earnest,  or  perhaps  only  less  con- 
centrated in  her  art.  There  are  flashes  of  insight  as  clear  as  his, 
but  she  cannot  sustain  her  attack.  She  works  on  a  larger  canvas, 
but  her  colors  arc  all  dull  crimsons,  orange  and  sullen  black.     Bodcn- 


Thi   Lit  tit    Review 


67 


Maxwell     Bodenhcim 


eim's  metaphors  may  come  hurtling  like  seven  astounding  flashlights 
rossing,  braided,  and  swung  through  the  night  sky.  Lola  Ridge 
hrows  the  glow  of  sudden  lamps,  sharp  and  electric,  'but  single  and 
cattered.  She  is  capable  of  such  a  perfection  as  showing  the  Friday 
ight  candles, 

"Coupling  other  lights, 
Linking  the  tenements 
Like  an  endless  prayer." 

)r  of  that  final  arresting  picture,  wherein  Hester  street, 

"Like  a  forlorn  woman  over-born 

By  many  babies  at  her  teats, 

Turns  on  her  trampled  bed  to  meet  the  day." 

^nd    she    is    also    capable    of    such    an    anomalous    confusion    of    New 


68 


Thi    Little    Review 


York's  east  side  with  the  conventions  of  New   England  as  to  speal 
of  an  old  Jew  as 

"...  one  who  holds 

The  wisdom  of  the  Talmud  stored  away 
In  his  mind's  lavendar." 
Nearly  all  her  poems  are  too  long.  Bodenheim  may  pour  a  hrigh 
liquor  into  too  narrow  a  jar,  that  will  overflow  in  sweet  drops  on  it: 
lip.  Lola  Kidge  brews  a  darker  potion,  an  "iron  wine",  but  itNie; 
in  deep  flagons,  heavy  to  lift.  It  is  in  the  brief  glimpse,  the  darl 
vivid  drama  of  a  phrase,  that  she  challenges  ugliness  and  povcrt} 
and  futile  death.  She  should  be  able  to  make  hokkus  that  wouU 
sting  and  rend  as  her  semi-epical  efforts  do  in  sudden  incisivi 
moments.  An  angry  mob  is  terrible,  but  its  anger  is  a  thing  diffuset 
and  obscure  contrasted  with  the  deep  intensity  of  an  individual. 

Both  of  these  poets  are  more  penetrating  when  one  reads  singh 
poems  than  when  one  accepts  an  entire  book.  Bodenheim's  subtlct} 
is  apt  to  become  a  labyrinth  of  crowding  images;  Lola  Ridge': 
vigorous  apprehension  of  life  is  apt  to  descend  to  the  monotonou: 
savagery  of  a  drum.  Each  retains,  however,  a  rare  and  excitinj 
savor;  the  intriguing  strength  of  those  content  to  'be  solitary,  tht 
beauty  of  those  in  whom  the  passions  of  the  body  are  no  more  im 
perative  than  the  passions  of  the  mind. 

"Minna  a'td  Myself  "  by  Maxwell  Bodenheim.  Pagan  Publish 
ing  Company^  New  Y^ork. 

"The  Ghetto",  by  Lola  Ridge.  B.  W.  Hucbsch,  New  York. 


Lola  Ridge,  by  Saphier 


T h e    Lit  tie    Review  69 


AVIS 

Ezra  Pound 

DNCE  again,  before  the  sympathetic  Corona,  the  mild  Richmond 
Gem  delivering  its  still  unprohibited  incense: 
'Certain  hasty  writers  have  attempted  to  obfuscate  my  criticisms 
)f  the  conditions  of  contemporary  letters  by  chauvinistic  and  sec- 
ional  cries.  I  have  seldom  asked  for  fair  play,  and  I  am  no  longer  in 
hat  naive  state  wherein  one  expects  it.  I  only,  therefore,  suggest 
hat  the  next  writer  who  thinlfs  he  answers  some  criti'cism  of  mine  by 
alking  about  my  "flaying  of  America",  my  "contempt  of  America", 
•tc,  ad.  inf.,  will  do  me  at  least  the  courtesy  to  remember,  or  learn, 
)r  consider,  that  I  have  been  much  more  drastic  in  my  condemnation 
»f  English  publicational  destestabilia  and  despicienda  than  ever  I  have 
►een  in  my  remarks  about  America's  contemporary  or  past  produc- 
ion.  Possibly  the  English  have  thicker  hides,  possibly,  since  I  live 
lere,  the  stuff  is  trust  more  frequently  under  my  nose.  At  any  rate 
have  ofTended,  I  think,  quite  as  many  English  matoids  as  I  have 
^Lmerican  rustici. 

And  I  have  been  if  anything  still  more  severe  in  my  handling 
)f  contemporary  French  writers,  though  I  have  written  much  less 
bout  them,  and  feel  that  they  are,  or  should  be,  better  able  to  take 
are  of  themselves  and  heal  their  own  patent  diseases. 

Is,  honestly,  the  American  public  content  with  this  sort  of  thing 
I  quote  from  a  contemporary) : 

"Most  modern  French  poetry  is  mannered  and  bloodless, 
T  think,  but  I  gather  that  Professor  Pound  does  n'ot." 

s^ow  when,  O  reasonable  and  decent  peruser,  have  I  ever  burst 
nto  praise  of  most  modern  poetry  of  any  nation????  I  have  at  my 
vildest  but  put  forth  the  work  of  Rimbaud  and  of  Tristan  Corbiere 

nd  objected  to  the  free  Rocky  Mountain  elan,  the  "splendid  large- 
jiess"  of  inanity  which,  being  too  ignorant  and  too  lazy  to  look  at 

ither  of  these  two  poets,  wops  into  a  general  sneer. 

Most  "modern"  poetry,  French,  English,  Japanese,  German,  Rus- 

ian,   Patagonian,  Eurasian,  etc.,  is  presumably  hog-wash,  but  thank 

jod  a  few  poets  rise  out  of  the  welter. 

Also  a  small  number  of  brilliant  or  passionate  people  have  learned 

omething  about  writing,  their  work  is  subjectable  to  dispassionate 
Analysis  and  their  qualities  may  be  discerned  ....  may  even  be  con- 


70  T  he    Lit  tie    Review 


trasted  witli  llieir  defects  or  with  opposite  virtues  in  others. 

All  1  liave  ever  asked  of  American  writers  is  tliat  they  should  not 
in  utter  and  abject  intellectual  cowardice  seek  to  avoid  international 
standards.  Never  have  I  discriminated  against  them  in  favor  of  Noyes, 
Masetield,  the  contributors  to  Galloway  Kyle's  periodical  or  to  Yokio- 
kukai;  or  the  Societe  des  Poetes  Frangais,  the  Burlat  de  Ferlgord, 
the  Deutsches  Theater,  Marinetti,  Rostand,  Galiriele  D'Annunzio,  or 
any  group,  nation  or  individual.  y 

1  liave  not  rejected  T.  S.  Eliot  because  he  was  born  in  St.  Louis, 
nor  do  I  think  even  Mr.  Hen.  B.  Fuller  will  argue  that  I  would  have 
rejected  Eliot's  work  had  he  been  born  in  Pittsburg,  Soap  Gulch. 
Spokane  or  Peoria.  Have  I  shown  a  leneincy  to  W.  W.  Gibson  thai 
I  have  denied  Robt.  Frost;  or  been  more  amiable  to  Abercrombie 
than  to  Masters? 

No,  let  the  adversary  drop  his  smoke  screen;  let  him  keep  his 
"literary  criticism"  free  from  these  natior^al  enieutes,  Irish.  Indian, 
and  Chitaquan.  Of  course  if  people  prefer  W.  C.  Bryant  to  Fran(jois 
Villon;  if  they  prefer  Emily  Dickenson  to  Laforgue,  we  do  not  wish 
to  interfere  with  their  domestic  enjoyments.  But  the  answer  to  a 
critical  contention  is  not  by  shifting  the  argument  from  the  literary 
and  aesthetic  field  to  the  sectional  and  political. 

A  man's  poems  are  good  or  bad  not  because  he  voted  thei 
Republican  ticket  or  because  he  was  kind  to  his  grandmother,  but 
because  he  wrote  them  well  or  ill.  Parnassus  is  equidistant  from  Ox- 
ford and  from  Terre  Haute,  from  Wilhelmstrasse  and  from  La  Plazj 
de  Isabel  II.  All  of  which  has  been  repeated,  one  would  think,  quitt 
sufficiently. 


Improvisation   of   William   Carlos    Williams,   by   Saphier 


The    Little    Review  1} 

MOVINQ-PICTURE    AND    PRAYER 

With  the  easy  grace  of  a  duke  —  a  little  too  self-conscious  — 
he  disappears  —  chinless  —  behind  the  marblewall  —  leading  to 
the  lunch  counter 

Now  I  remember!     He  is  the  LUNCHCOUNTERMAN! 

Vaguely  I  always  hated  him  — 
Today  I  hate  him  distinctly — so  that  it  pains  me  not  to  abuse  and 
kill  him' 

Ah  —  do  you  understand  me  —  my  pallidfaced  reed  —  with 
the  cynical  droop  of  the  lipcorners  —  eyes  of  devotion  —  never 
been  devoted  —  or  in  being  devoted  —  brought  to  tears  —  unwept? 

Do    not    shift    your    eyes — here — there — close    your    eyes — 
for  we  are  in  America— not  to  get  hurt — we  must  dream — dream 
;ah — If  so  possible  not  before  the  marble  wall  of  a  lunchcounter — 

God  I  pray  Thee  — 

Metaphysical  speculation — logic — consolation 
concerning  love  to  flame-flagged  man 

Know  a  man — red  hair — 

harsh    mouth — harsh    soul — 

flesh  hard  white  alabaster — 

steely  violet-blue  shadows — 

country  of  forbidding'  ice — 

Every  one  fingertip  must  freeze  to  touch 

his    deadly   snowy   waste. 

Ah— why  should  EVERY  ONE  fingertip  YEARN  to  touch  a 
frozen  body — AH — why  should  VERMiILION  body  yearn — ask — 
ask — yearn  to  smash  adoring  bones  upon  walls  of  castle  of  ice^ 

Slippery  it  must  be — I  will  glide — glide — WHERE  TO— 

A-H-H-H— WHERE  TO? 

This    man's    arm — will    it    melt    into    human    muscle — flesh — into 


72  T  he    Lit  tie    Review 


MASCULIXE  inubcle — flesh — tu  aave  my  su-adoring  bones? 

Or  am  I  to  become  a  corpse — vcrmillion  still  in  death — 
affection  oozing  from  me — enveloping  him  in  death — 
freezing  around  him — wall  of  shimmering  ruby  blood — 
CRYSTALBLOOD? 

Will  he  walk  with  shimmering  wall  of  crystal)lood  'aroujid 
him — walk  over  my  'late  adoring  boaes — pitiful  mess — man — red 
hair — tender  mouth — tender  soul — ^palms  of  snowwhite  shimmering 
hands  full  of  emerald  shadows — spices  of  passion — melting  in  lir>t 
pathetic  childlike  gesture  of  contact — tremulous — hesitant — ^breathless 
smile  of  unbelief — ecstasy  flitting  fitful — painful — joyful  over  lips  so 
recent  accustomed  to  holy  joy? 

I  answer  my  question:  ^ 

Not    dost   belief — soul — in    smashing   of   adoring   bones. 

AH-H — soul — !  homeless  wretched  soul — pale — thin — naked — 
without  jewels  and  feathers? 

— Not  yet  has  he  taken  me — not  bedecked  me  with  alabaster 
possessions!!! 

I   in   space — body  in   sorrow  and   dust. 

YET  WILL  I  STEP  INTO  CASTLE  OF  ICE.— 

adoring  bones  clinging  to  me — 

—to  be  DRAGGED— 

not  to^be  smashed  by  glittering  walls 

glit-tering — ^wal-Is — cruel — splen-dor! 

Into  castle  of  ice  I  will  step  BY  CONTACT — seering  fluid 

forcing  passage  into  walls  of  no  approach. 

Inside      glamour — .illumination — adoring     bones      smashed — 
STRETCHED     by     holy     joj^ — adoring     bones — smashed      bones- 
tremulous   bones— weak  :bone.s— NEVER    BEYOND    REPAIR! 
FOREVER  LASTING  IN  STRENGTH   AND  WEAKNESS— HIS 
AND  MY  ADORING  BONES! 

THERE  IS  A  WIRE  OF  CONTACT  IN  THAT  FLAMF- 
FLAGGED  CASTLE  OF  ICE. 

A-H-H-WHAT  ELSE  IS  LOVE— BUT  ELECTRICITY! 

HY— THE  FLAG  OF  MIRTH  AND  PASSION  AND  JOY  ON 
TOP  OF  THIE  TOWER  OF  THE  CASTLE  OF  JOY! 
HAIR— HIS  VERMILLION  HAIR!!! 


The    Little    Review  73 


King    Adam 


Thus  will  be  thine  orbs:  filmy — with  curtains  of  happiness 

Thine    mouth — stern — harsh    muscles    of    thine    jaws    relax    in    pain — 
sweet  as  tears. 

Breathless — thine  heart — breathless — choking  thine   throat — 
Back  it  will  drop   into   thine   chest  pounding  thine   frame!. 
Juggular  vein    behind   thine   vengeful    ears — along    thine   vengeful 
white  neck — fly  like  sides  of  a  bellows. 
Flesh:  crystal — transparent. 

Crimson  joy  in   thine  heart — crimson  thine  orbs! 
Soft  rubber  thine  bones — weak  thou  art — child! 
Brain  leave  thee — Blissful — leave  thee — seconds  eternity. 
Thine    sheen:    brass — -copper — snow — scintillating    moonstone — 
Scin-      lat-      moonstone —  —  —  — 
til-       ing 

Saint  Antony  the  second — wiser  than  first — 

Sawest    unity — necessity — sacrifice —    —    — Joy — battle — death — life — 

G'odsatan — Satangod — 

Saint  Antony  the  second — Wise  Oiicl 

Adam — warrior — smile th    strength — knowledge — 

Adam — New     Man — steppest     lightly — friend     of     serpent — drowsiness 

gone — 

Adam — takest  Earth! 

Such  mine  love:  electric  fluid — current  to  thine  wire — to  make  Light — 
Ah — h — h — such  mine  love! 

Kiss  me upon  the  gleaming  hill * 

Adam — Mine  Love! 

After  thou  hast  squandered  thine  princely  treasures  into  mine  princely, 

lap — there  remains  upon  mine  chest  a  golden  crimson  ball — weighing 

heavily — 

Thine  head — 

King  Adam — Mine  Love. 

Else  Baroness  von  Fveytag-Loringhoven. 


^Donated  to  the  censor 


74  The     Little     Review 


PROLOGUE*    (Continued) 

William  Carlos  Williams 

*  (Prologue  to  a  book  of  Improvisations  now  being  published 
by  the  Four  Seas  Company.) 

I  wish  that  I  might  here  set  down  my  ''Vortex''  after  the  fashion 
I  live  here,  there,  or  elsewhere  or  succeed  in  this,  that,  or  the  other 
s(j  long  as  I  can  keep  my  mind  free  from  the  trammels  of  literature, 
bearing  down  every  attack  of  its  retiarii  with  my  mirmillones.  But 
the  time  is  past. 

I  thought  at  first  to  join  to  each  Improvisation  a  more  or  less 
opaque  commentary.  Instead  I  have  placed  some  of  them  in  the 
preface  where,  without  losing  their  original  intention  (see  reference 
numerals  at  the  beginning  of  each),  they  relieve  the  later  te.xt  and 
also  add  their  weight  to  my  present  fragmentary  argument.* 

I  have  discovered  that  the  tihrill  of  first  love  passes!  It  even 
becomes  the  backbone  of  a  sordid  sort  of  religion  if  not  assisted  in 
passing.  I  knew  a  man  who  kept  a  candle  burning  before  a  girl's 
portrait  day  and  n"ght  for  a  year  —  then  jilted  her,  pawned  her  off 
on  a  friend.  I  have  been  reasonbly  frank  about  my  erotics  with  my 
wife.  I  have  never  or  seldom  said,  my  dear  I  love  you,  when  I 
would  rather  say,  my  dear  I  wish  you  were  in  Terra  del  Fuego. 
I  have  discovered  by  scrupulous  attention  to  this  detail  and  by 
certain  allied  experiments  that  we  can  continue  from  time  to  time 
to  elaborate  relationships  quite  equal  in  quality,  if  not  greatly 
superior,  to  that  surrounding  our  wedding.  In  fact  the  best  we 
have  enjoyed  of  love  together  lias  come  after  the  most  thorough 
destruction  or  harvesting  of  that  which  has  gone  before.  Periods 
of  barreness  have  intervened,  f)eriods  comparable  to  the  prison 
music  in  "Fidelio"  or  to  any  of  Beethoven's  pianissimo  transition 
passages.  It  is  at  these  times  our  formal  relations  have  teetered  on 
the  edge  of  a  debacle  to  'be  followed,  as  our  imaginations  have  per- 
mitted, by  a  new  growth  of  passionate  attachment  dissimiliar  in 
every  member  to  that  which  has  gone  before. 

It  is  in  the  continual  and  violent  refreshing  of  the  idea  that 
love  and  good  writing  have  their  security. 


'T'l?    Ini\)ovisatioiis.    with    notes,    will    ajjijcar    in    the   next    number. 


The    Little    Review  75 


Alfred  Kreymbourg  is  primarily  a  musician,  at  best  an  inno- 
itor  of  musical  phrase: 

We  have  no  dishes 

to  eat  our  meals  from. 

We  have  no  dishes 

to  eat  our  meals  from 

because  we  have  no  dishes 

to  eat  our  meals  from 

We  need  no  dishes 

to  eat  our  meals  from, 

we  have  fingers 

to  eat  our  meals  from. 

Kreymbourg's  idea  of  poetry  is  a  transforming  music  that  has 
uch  to  do  with  tawdry  things. 

It  has  always  amused  and  instructed  me  to  observe  what  a 
)ne  Kreymborg  is  in  the  crop  of  Mr.  Pound.  Ezra  cannot  see 
reymborg.  K.  seems  to  have  a  laudable  desire  to  do  something 
It  he  cannot  write,  has  been  the  burden  of  more  than  one  London 
ter  complainig  of  my  friendship  for  Alfred. 

Kreymborg  believes  in  the  effect  of  music  upon  words  to  trans- 
rm  them.  There  is  a  good  story  of  Pound  the  elder's  visit  to 
ew  York  in  the  summer  of  191 7.  A  few  of  those  acquainted  in 
le  way  or  another  with  Ezra  went  to  pay  homage  to  his  parent  at 
le  Holley  House  on  Washington  Square:  "Why  don't  you  people 
rite  like  my  son?"  Mr.  Pound  is  reported  to  have  said. 

Alfred  has  little  help  from  the  eyes, — "I  once  attended  a  life 
ass  to  improve  my  sense  of  visual  values.  One  day  was  enough, 
couldn't  see  anything.  With  this  handicap,  without  a 
chness  of  phrase  to  help  h'im,  no  "frost  upx)n  the  grassblade",  the 
leer  imparting  of  the  ocular  values  in  nature,  one  cannot  expect 
I  write  like  your  son,  sir. 

Few  people  know  how  to  read  Kreymborg.    There  is  no  mod- 

n  poet  who  suffers  more  from  a  bastard  sentimental  appreciation. 

is  hard  to  get  his  things  from  the  page.     I  have  heard  him  say 

;  has  often  thought  in  despair  of  marking  his  verse  into  measures 

5  music  is  marked.    Oh  well  — 

The  man  has  a  bare  irony,  the  gift  of  rhythm  and  Others.  I 
nile  to  think  of  Alfred  stealing  the  stamps  from  the  envelopes  sent 
>r  return  of  MSS.  to  the  Others  office.    The  best  thing  th:  •  could 


76  The    Little    Review 


js 

happen  for  the  good  of  poetry  in  the  United  States  today  would 
for  someone  to  give  Alfred  Krcymborg  a  hundred  thousand  dolla 
In  his  mind  there  is  the  determination  for  freedom  brought  vc^i, 
relief  by  a  crabbedness  of  temper  that  makes  him  peculiarly  able^ 
value  what  is  being  done  here.    Whether  he  is  bull  enough  for  t 
work  I  am  not  certain,  but  that  he  can  find  his  way  I  know, 

A  somewhat  petulant  English  college  friend  of  my  brome 
once  remarked  that  Britons  make  the  best  policeman  the  world  t 
ever  seen.  I  agree  with  him.  It  is  silly  to  go  into  a  puckersnat 
because  some  brass-button-minded  nincompoop  in  Kensington  fl; 
off  the  handle  and  speaks  openly  about  our  United  States  pri 
poems.  'Pihis  Mr.  Jepson  —  "Anyone  who  has  heard  Mr.  J.  re 
Homer  and  discourse  on  Catullus  would  recognize  his  fitness  as 
judge  and  respecter  of  poetry"  —  this  is  Ezra!  —  this  champi 
of  the  right  is  not  half  a  fool.  His  epithets  and  phrases  —  sli 
shod,  rank  bad  workmanship  of  a  man  who  has  shirked  his  jc 
lumbering  fakement,  cumbrous  artificiality,  maundering  dribb 
rancid  as  Ben  Hur  —  are  in  the  main  well-merited.  And  besic 
he  comes  out  with  one  fairly  lipped  cornet  blast:  the  only  distinct! 
U.  S.  contributions  to  the  arts  have  been  ragtime  and  buck-dancir 

Nothing  is  good  save  the  new.     If  a  thing  have  novelty 
stands  intrinsically  beside  every  other  work  of  artistic  excelleii*' 
If  it  have  not  that,  no  loveliness  or  heroic  proiX)rtion  or  grand  maw 
ner  will  save  it.     It  will  not  be  saved  above  all  by  an  attenuat 
intellectuality. 

Our  prize  poems  have  been  mostly  junk  —  though  there  is 
certain  candid  indecency  of  form  about  Lindsey's  work  that  is  i 
tractive.  But  these  poems  are  especially  to  be  damned  not  becau 
of  superficial  bad  workmanship  but  as  Mr.  J.  again  correctly  a 
judges,  because  they  are  rehash,  repetition — just  as  Eliot's  more  e 
quisite  work  is  rehash,  repetition  in  another  way  of  Verlaine,  Bea 
delaire,  Maeterlinck. — conscious  or  unconscious: — just  as  there  a 
Pound's  early  ]iaraphrases  from  Yeats  and  his  constant  later  cri 
bing  from  the  renaissance,  Provence  and  the  modern  French:  M( 
content  wit  hthe  connotations  of  their  masters. 

But  all  U.  S.  verse  is  not  bad  according  to  Mr.  J:  there  is  tl 
"Love  Song  of  J.  Alfred  Pru frock.'' 

It  is  convenient  to  have  fixed  standards  of  com])arison:   i 
antiquity!     And  there  is  always  some  everlasting  Polonius  of  Ki 
sington  forever  to  rate  highly  his  eternal  Eliot.    It  is  because  Eli 


' 


The    Little    Review  77 

subtle  conformist.  It  tickles  the  palate  of  this  archbishop  of 
curers  to  a  lecherous  antiquity  to  hold  up  Prufrock  as  a  New 
Id  type.  Prufrock  the  nibbler  at  sophistication,  endemic  in  every 
tal,  the  not  quite  (because  he  refuses  to  turn  his  back)  is  "the 

of  that  modern  land"  the  United  States! 

Blue  undershirts, 

Upon  a  line. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  say  to  you 

Anything  about  it  — 

I  cannot  question  Eliot's  observation.     "Prufrock"'  is  a  mas- 
portrait  of  the  man  just  below  the  sumit  but  the  type  is  uni- 
al,  the  model  in  this  case  might  be  Mr,  J. 

INo.  The  New  World  is  Montezuma  or,  since  he  was  stoned 
eath  in  a  parley,  Guatemozin  who  had  the  city  of  Mexico  lev- 
over  him  before  he  was  taken  : 

For  the  rest,  there  is  no  man  even  though  he  dare  who  can 
e  beauty  his  own  and"  so  at  last  live,"  at  least  there  is  no  man 
sr  situated  for  that  achievement  than  another.  As  Prufrock 
ed  for  his  silly  lady  so  Kensington  longs  for  its  Hardanger 
yTnaid.  By  a  mere  twist  of  the  imagination,  if  Prufrock  only 
\  it,  the  whole  world  can  be  inverted  (why  else  are  there  wars?) 
the  mermaids  be  set  warbling  to  whoever  will  listen  to  them. 
kw  and  blind-man's-buff  converted  into  a  sort  of  football. 
But  the  summit  of  United  States  achievement,  according  to  Mr. 
V  who  can  discourse  on  Catullus  —  is  that  very  beautiful  poem 
Hot's  "La  Figlia  Que  Piange":  just  the  right  amount  of  every- 
p  drained  through,  etc. ,  etc. ,  etc.  ,  etc. ,  the  rhythm  delicately 
ed  out  and  —  IT  CONFORMS!  ergo  here  we  have"  the  very 
flower  of  the  finest  spirit  of  the  United  States." 
Examined  closely  this  poem  reveals  a  highly  refined  distillation. 
:d  to  the  already  "faithless"  formula  of  yesterday  we  have  a 
:ious  simplicity: 

Simple  and  faithless  as  a  smile  and  shake  of  the  hand. 

The  perfection  of  that  line  is  beyond  cavil.  Yet,  in  the  last 
;a,  this  paradigm,  this  very  fine  flower  of  U.  S.  art  is  warped 
)f  alignment,  obscured  in  meaning  even  to  the  point  of  an  ab- 
e  unintelligibility  by  the  inevitable  straining  after  a  rhyme! 
,'ery  cleverness  with  which  this  straining  is  covered  being  a 
r  er  token  in  itself. 

E 


(2 


78  The    Little    Review 


I 


And  I  wonder  how  they  should  have  been  together! 

So  we  have  no  choice  but  to  accept  the  work  of  this  fumbU 
conjurer.  ,   *' 

Upon  the  Jepson  filet  Eliot  balances  his  mushroom.  It  is  i 
latest  touch  from  the  literary  cuisine,  it  adds  to  the  pleasant  cm 
look  from  the  club  window.  If  to  do  this,  if  ta  be  a  Whistler 
best,  in  the  art  of  poetry,  is  to  reach  the  height  of  poetic  expressi< 
then  Ezra  and  Eliot  have  approached  it  and  tant  pis  for  th^  r 
of  us. 

The  Adobe  Indian  hag  sings  her  lullaby: 

The  beetle  is  blind 
The  (beetle  is  blind 
The  beetle  is  blind 
The  beetle  is  blind,  etc.,  etc. 

and  Kandinsky  in  his  "Ueber  das  Geistige  in  der  Kunst"  sets  do 
the  following  axioms  for  the  artist: 

Every  artist  has  to  express  himself 
Every  artist  has  to  express  his  eixxrh. 
Every  artist  has  to  express  the  pure  and  eternal 
qualities  of  the  art  of  all  men. 

So  we  have  the  fish  and  the  bait  but  the  last  rule  holds  three  ho 
at  once.  —  not  for  the  fish  however. 

I  do  not  overlook  De  Gourmont's  plea  for  a  meeting  of 
nations  but  I  do  believe  that  when  they  meet  Paris  will  be  re. 
than  slightly  abashed  to  find  parodies  of  the  middle  ages,  Da 
and  Langue  D'Oc  foisted  upon  it  as  the  best  in  United  Stii 
poetry.  Even  Eliot  who  is  too  fine  a  artist  to  allow  himself  to 
exploited  by  a  blockhead  grammaticaster  turns  recently  tow< 
"one  definite  false  note"  in  his  quatrains,  which  more  nearly 
proach  America  than  ever  "La  Figlia  Que  Piange"  did,  Ezra  Poi« 
is  a  Boscan  w<ho  has  met  his  Navagiero. 

One  day  Ezra  and  I  were  walking  down  a  back  lane  in  W' 
cote.  I  contended  for  bread,  he  for  caviar.  I  became  hot. 
with  fine  discretion  exclaimed  :  "Let  us  drop  it.  We  will  ne 
agree,  or  come  to  an  agreement."  He  spoke  then  like  a  Frencihir 
which  is  a  synonym  for  one  who  discerns.  Now  my  old  friend' 
his  army  behind  him  .  ^ 

Imagine  an  international  congress  of  poets  at  Paris  or  Veir 


6)1 


h 


plel 


T he    Little   Revi €w  79 


es,  Remy  de  Gourmont  (now  dead)  presiding,  poets  all  speaking 
ve  languages  fluently.  Ezra  stands  up  to  represent  U.  S.  verse 
d  De  Gourmont  sits  down  smiling.  Ezra  begins  by  reading  "La 
Figlia  Que  Piange."  It  would  be  a  pretty  pastime  to  gather  into 
I  mental  basket  the  fruits  of  that  reading  from  the  minds  of  the 
en  Frenchmen  present:  their  impressions  of  the  sort  of  United 
states  that  very  fine  flower  was  picked  from.  After  this  Kreymborg 
n'ght  push  his  way  to  the  front  and  read  "Jack's  House." 

E.  P.  is  the  best  enemy  United  States  verse  has.  He  is  inter- 
ested, passionately  interested  —  even  if  he  doesn't  know  what  he 
s  talking  about. 

But  of  course  he  does  know  what  he  is  talking  about.  He  does 
lot,  however,  know  everything,  not  by  more  than  half.  The  ac- 
:ordances  of  which  Americans  have  the  parts  and  the  colors  but 
lot  the  completions  before  them  pass  beyond  the  attempts  of  his 
bought.     It  is  a  middle-ageing  blight  of  the  imagination. 

I  praise  those  who  have  the  wit  and  courage,  and  the  conven- 
ionality,  to  go  direct  toward  their  vision  of  perfection  in  an  objec- 
ive  world  where  the  sign-posts  are  clearly  marked,  viz.,  to  London. 
But  confine  them  in  hell  for  their  paretic  assumption  that  there  is- 
10  alterative  but  their  own  groove. 

Dear  fat  Stevens,  thawing  out  so  beautifully  at  forty!  I  was 
)ne  day  irately  damning  those  who  run  to  London  when  Stevens 
:aught  me  up  with  his  mild:  "But  Where  in  the  world  will  you 
lave  them  run  to?" 

Nothing  that  I  should  write  touching  poetry  would  be  com- 
Dleted  without  Maxwell  Bodenheim  in  it,  even  had  he  not  said  that 
he  Improvisations  were  "prefect",  the  best  things  I  had  ever  ctone; 
or  that  I  place  him,  Janus,  first  and  last. 

Bodenheim  pretends  to  hate  most  people,  including  Pound  and 
fCreymborg,  but  that  he  really  goes  to  this  trouble  I  cannot  imagine, 
^e  seems  rather  to  rrie  to  have  the  virtue  of  self-absorption  so  fully 
leveloped  that  hate  is  made  impossible.  Due  to  this  also  he  is  an 
inbelievable  physical  stoic.  I  know  of  no  one  who  lives  so  com- 
)letely   in  his  pretences   as  Bogie   does.     Having   formulated   his 

EWorld,  neither  toothache  nor  the  misery  to  which  his  indolence  re- 
uces  him  can  make  head  against  the  force  of  his  imagination.  Be- 
:ause  of  this  he  remains  for  me  a  heroic  figure,  which  after  all  is 
luite  apart  from  the  stuff  he  writes  and  which  only  concerns  him. 
3e  is  an  Isaih  of  the  butterflies. 


8o  T  he   Lit  tie   Review 

Bogie  was  the  young  and  fairly  well  acclaimed  genius  when  he 
came  to  New  York  four  years  ago.  He  pretended  to  have  fallen  in 
Chicago  and  to  have  sprained  his  shoulder.  The  joint  was  done  up 
in  a  proper  Sayre "s  dressing  and  there  really  looked  to  be  a  bona 
fide  injury.  Of  course  he  couldn't  find  any  work  to  do  with  one 
hand  so  we  all  chipped  in.  It  lasted  a  month!  During  that  time 
Bogie  spent  a  week  at  my  house  at  no  small  inconvenience  to  Flor- 
ence who  had  two  babies  on  her  hands  just  then.  When  he  left, I 
expressed  my  pleasure  at  having  had  his  company.  "Yes,"  he  re- 
plied, "I  think  you  have  profited  by  my  visit."  The  statement 
impressed  me  by  its  simple  accuracy  as  well  as  by  the  evidence  it 
bore  of  that  fulness  of  the  imagination  which  had  held  the  man  in 
its  tide  while  we  had  been  together. 

Charlie  Demuth  once  told  me  that  he  did  not  like  the  taste  of 
iliquor,  for  which  he  was  thankful,  but  that  he  found  the  effect  it 
had  on  his  mind  to  be  delightful.  Of  course  Li  Po  is  reported  to 
have  written  his  best  verse  supported  in  the  arms  of  the  Emperor's 
attendants  and  with  a  dancing-girl  to  hold  his  tablet.  He  was  also 
a  great  poet.    Wine  is  merely  the  latchstring. 

The  virtue  of  it  all  is  in  an  opening  of  the  doors,  though  some 
rooms  of  course  will  be  empty,  a  break  with  banality,  the  continual 
hardening  which  habit  enforces.  There  is  nothing  left  in  me  but 
the  virtue  of  curiosity,  Demuth  puts  it.  The  poet  should  be  forever 
at  the  ship's  prow. 

An  acrobat  seldom  learns  really  a  new  trick  but  he  must  ex- 
ercise continually  to  keep  his  joints  free.  When  I  made  this  dis-s 
covery  it  started  rings  in  my  memory  that  keep  following  one  after- 
the  other  to  this  day. 


i 


THE   STRADIVARIUS   OF    PIANOS 

313    FIFTH    AVENUE 
NEW    YORK 


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UTTLE 


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& 


THE 
UTTLE  REVIEW 

VOL.  VI.  JUNEr  1919  NO.  1 


CONTENTS 

Interim  (Chapter  I)  Dorothy  Richardson 

Advice  to  a  Street  Pavement        Maxzvell  Bodenheim 
Dancing  as  an  Art        •  Emanuel  Carnevali 

Exclamation  over  the  Portrait  of  Mile  Pogany 

Louis  Gilmore 
The  Sin  Ralph  Block 

Whitehall  '  Crelos 

Ulysses  (Episode  X)  James  Joyce 

Hokku:  Evening  Roger  Sergei 

Discussion: 

The  Death  of  Vorticism  John  Cournos 

"The  Jest"  Emanuel  Carnevali 

The  Historical  Play  Giovanni  Papini 

Caricature  William  Saphier 

Improvisations  William  Carlos  Williams 

The  Beautiful  Neglected  Arts  Marsden  Hartley 


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nl'-r  tasted (imjLclierc  in  i/\eVz)orld" 


THE 
UTTLE  REYIEW 

INTERIM 

by  Dorothy  Richardson 

Chapter    One 

MIRIAM  thumped  down  her  Gladstone  bag  on  to  the  doorstep. 
Stout  boots  hurried  along  the  tiled  passage  and  the  door  opened 
on  Florrie  Broom  in  her  outdoor  clothes  smiling  brilliantly  from 
under  the  wide  brim  of  a  heavily  trimmed  hat.     Grace  in  a  large 
straight  green  dress  appeared  beside  her   from   the  open   dining 
room  door.     Miriam  finished  her  fantasia  with  the  door  knocker 
while  Florrie  bent  to  secure  her  bag  saying  on  a  choke  of  laughter, 
come  in.     You've  just  been  out,  said  Miriam  listening  to  Grace's 
eager  reproaches  for  her  lateness.    Shall  I  come  in  or  shall  I  burst 
into  tears  and  sit  down  on  the  doorstep?     Florrie  laughed  aloud, 
standing  with  the  bag.     Bring  her  in  scolded  Mrs.  Philps  from  the 
dining-room  door.    Grace  took  her  by  the  arm  and  drew  her  along 
the  passage.    I'm  one  mass  of  mud. — Never  mind  the  mud,  come  in 
out  of  the  rain,  scolded  Mrs.  Philps  backing  towards  the  fire,  you 
must  be  worn  out.     —  No,  I  don't  feel  that  now  I'm  here,  oh  what 
a  heavenly  fire.     Miriam  heard  the  front  door  shut  with  a  shallow 
suburban  slam  and  got  herself  round  the  supper  table  to  stand  with 
Mrs.  Philps  on  the  hearthrug  and  smile  into  the  fire.     Mrs.  Philps 
patted  her  arm  and  cheek.      — ^Is  the  door  really  shut  O'Hara — • 
said  Miriam  turning  to  Florrie  coming  into  the  room — ^Of  course, 
choked  Florrie  coming  to  the  hearthrug  to  pat  her;  — I'll  put  the 
chain  up  if  you  like. — Sit  down  and  rest  before  you  go  upstairs 
■^said  Mrs.  Philps  propelling  her  gently  backwards  into  the  largest 
of  the  velvet  armchairs.    Its  back  sloped  away  from  her;  the  large 
square  cushion  bulging  out  the  lower  half  of  the  long  woolen  antima- 
cassar prevented  her  from  getting  comfortably  into  the  chair.     She 
sat  on  the  summit  of  the  spring  and  said  it  was  not  cold.    Wouldn't 
you  like  to  come  up  before  supper  suggested  Grace  in  answer  to  her 
uneasy  gazing  into  the  fire.    Well  I  feel  rather  grubby.     Give  her 


The    Little    Review 


some  hot  water  murmured  Mrs.  Thilps  taking  up  the  Daily  Tele- 
graph.    Grace  preceded  her  up  the  little  staircase  carrying  her  bag. 
Will  you  have  your  milk  hot  or  cold  Miriam,  called  Florrie  from  be- 
low— Oh,  hot  1  think  please,  I  shan't  be  a  second  said  Miriam  into 
the  spare  room,  hoping  to  be  left.    Grace  turned  up  the  gas.    M-m 
darling  she  murmured  with  timid  gentle  kisses,  I'm   so  glad  you 
have  come.     So  am  /.     It's  glorious  to  be  safely  here  ....     I  " 
shan't  be  a  second.     I'll  come  down  as  I  am  and  appear  radiant 
tomorrow  —  You're  always  radiant  —  I'm  simply  grubby;  I've  wornf 
this  blouse  all  the  week;  oh  bliss,  hot  water.     Sit  on  the  rocking 
chair  while  I  ablute;   unpack  my  bag — D'you  mind  if  I   don't  • 
Miriam  darling?     Aunt  and  I  called  on  the  Unwins  to-day  and  T 
haven't  put  my  hat  by  yet.    We've  got  three  clear  days — All  righi; 
oh  my  dear  you  don't  know  how  glad  I  am  I'm  here  —  Grace  came 
back  murmuring  from  the  door  to  repeat  the  gentle  kisses.    When 
the  door  was  shut  the  ^eshness  and  quietude  of  the  room  enfolded 
Miriam,  cleansing  away  grubbiness  and  fatigue.    Opening  her  Glad- 
stone bag  she  threw  on  to  the  bed  her  new  cream  nun's  veiling  , 
blouse  and  lace  tie,  her  brushbag  and  sponge-^bag  and  shoes  and  a 
volume  of  Schiller  and  a  bundle  of  note-paper  and  envelopes.     A 
night-gown  was  put  ready  for  her  on  the  bed  frilled  in  an  old-fash- 
ioned way  with  hand-made  embroidery.     Her  bag  went  under  the 
bed  for  nearly  four  days.     Nothing  grubby  anywhere.     No  grubbi- 
ness for  four  days.     In  the  large  square  mirror  her  dingy  blouse 
and  tie  looked  quite  bright  under  the  gaslight  screend  by  the  frosted 
globe.    Her  hair  had  been  flattened  by  her  hat  becomingly  over  the 
broad  top  of  her  head,  and  its  mass  pushed  down  in  a  loose  careless 
bundle  with  good  chance  curves  reaching  low  on  to  her  neck.     She 
poured  the  hot  water  into  one  of  the  large  cream-coloured  basins, 
her  eye  running  round  the  broad  gilt-edged  band  ornamenting  its 
rim  over  the  gleaming  marble  cover  of  the  washstand.  the  gleaming 
tiles  facing  her  beyond  the  rim  of  the  basin  the  highly  polished 
woodwork    above    the    tiles.      She    snuffed    freshness    everywhere. 
While  the  fresh  unscentcd  curdiness  of  the  familiar  Broom  soap 
went  over  her  face  and  wrists  and  hands  she  began  to  hunger  for 
the  clean  supi^er,  for  the  fresh  night  in  the  freshness  of  the  large 
square  bed,  for  the  clean  solid  leisurely  breakfast.     Pushing  backj 
her  hair  she  sponged  the  day  from  her  face  sousing  luxuriouslyv 
in  the  large  basin  and  listening  to   Grace  moving  slowly  about , 
upstairs.       Seizing  a  towel  she  ran  up  the  little  single  flight  and. 
stood  towelling  inside  Grace's  door.    Hullo  pink-face,  laughed  Grace 
tenderly,  smoothing  tissue  paper  into  a  large  hat  box  —  I  say  it 


The    Little    Review 


must  be  an  enormous  one — 'It  is;  it's  huge — smiled  Grace— You 
must  show  it  to  me  tomorrow  —  Miriam  ran  downstairs  and  back 
to  the  mirror  in  her  room  to  look  at  her  clean  untroubled  face.  Don't 
run  about  the  house,  come  down  to  supper,  called  Fllorrie  from 
below. 


Have  they  brought  the  sausages,  asked  Mrs.   Philps  acidly. 

Yes,  scowled  Florrie. 

Don't  forget  to  tell  Christine  how  we  like  them 
done,  said  Grace  anxiously  frowning.  Miriam  took  her  eyes  from 
the  protruding  eyes  of  the  Shakespeare  on  the  wall  opposite,  and 
shut  away  within  her  her  sharp  sense  ol  the  heavy  things  ranged  be- 
low him  on  the  mantlepiece  behind  Florrie,  the  landscape  on  one 
side  of  him,  the  picture  of  Queen  Victoria  leaning  on  a  walking 
stick  between  two  Hindu  servants,  receiving  an  address,  on  the  other 
Ride,  the  Satsmna  vases  and  bowls  on  the  sideboard  behind  Mrs. 
Philps,  the  little  sharp  bow  of  narrow  curtain  screened  windows 
behind  Grace,  the  clean  gleam  on  everything. 

— Ctiustinc? — 

—  Oh  yes  —  didn't  you  know?    She's  been  with  us  a  month  — 

—  "What  became  of  Amelia?  — 

— Oh  we  had  to  let  her  go.    She  got  fat  and  lazy —    •. 
— They  all  do!  they're  all  the  same — Go  on  Miriam — 

—  Well  —  said  Miriam  from  the  midst  of  her  second  helping  — 
they  both  listened,  and  the  steps  came  shambling  up  their  stairs  — 
and  they  heard  the  man  collapse  with  a  groan  against  their  door. 
They  waited  and,  well,  all  at  once  the  man,  well,  they  heard  him 
being  violently  ill — ^Oh  Miriam — Yes;,  wasn't  it  awful?  and  then 
a  feeible  voice  like  a  chant — a-a-a-ah-oo — oo-oo-oo  Kom,  and  hailpe- 
mee  —  Miriam  warmed  to  the  beginnings  of  laughter  and  raised  her 
voice — Oh  Meester  Bell,  Kom,  oh,  I  am  freezing  to  death,  what  a 
pity  what  a  pity — and  then  silence.  She  fed  rapidly,  holding  them 
silent  and  eager  for  her  voice  again  to  fill  out  the  spaces  of  their 
room  —  For  about  half  an  hour  they  heard  him  break  out,  every 
few  minutes,  oh  Meester  Bell,  dear  pretty  Mr.  Bell  Kom.  I  am 
f|||,ezing  to  death  whatta  pity —    whattapity.     The   Brooms   sat 

eaking  one  against  the  other   into  fresh  laughter.      Miriam   ate 
rapidly  glancing  from  face  to  face.     What-eh-pitie  —  what-eh-pitie 
—  she  moaned.    Can't  you  hear  him?     Grace  choked  and  sneezed, 
and  drank  a  little  milk.  They  were  all  still  slowly  and  carefully  eat- 
ing their  first  helping.       —  You  do  come  across  some  funny  people 


The     Little     Review 


— said  Mrs.  Philps  nioi)ping  her  eyes  and  dimpling  and  sighing 
upon  the  end  of  her  laughter.  /  didn't  come  across  him.  It  was 
at  Mag's  and  Jan's  boarding  house.  Mrs.  Philps  had  not  begun  to 
listen  at  the  beginning.  But  Grace  and  Florrie  saw  the  whole  thing 
clearly.  Mrs.  Philps  did  not  remember  who  Mag  and  Jan  were. 
She  would  not  unless  one  told  her  all  about  their  circumstances 
and  their  parents.  Florrie's  face  was  preparing  a  question.  Then 
they  must  have  —  went  on  Miriam.  There  was  a  subdued  ring  at? 
the  front  door  bell.  —  There's  Christine  shall  we  have  her  in 
to  change  the  plates  aunt,  frowned  Florrie.  — No  let  'er  changer 
dress.  We  can  put  the  plates  on  the  sideboard —  Then  they  must 
have  gone  to  sleep  again  —  said  Miriam  when  Florrie  returned  from 
letting  Christine  in  —  because  they  did  not  hear  him  go  downstairs 
and  he  wasn't  there  in  the  morning  —  A  good  thing  I  should  think 
— observed  Mrs.  Philps.  He  wasn't  there — said  Miriam  cheer- 
fully— er — not  in  person.  Oh  Miriam.,  protested  Grace  hyster- 
ically. Oh  —  oh  —  cried  the  others.  Miriam  watched  the  second 
course  appearing  from  the  sideboard  —  she  greeted  the  blancmange 
and  jam  with  a  soft  shout,  feeling  as  hungry  as  when  supper  had 
begun.  Isn't  she  rude — chuckled  Florrie,  putting  do^wn  a  plate  of 
bananas  and  a  small  dish  of  chocolates.  Qoo-ooo  squealed  Miriam 
—  Be  quiet  and  behave  yourself  and  begin  on  that  —  said  Grace 
giving  her  a  plate  of  Wancmange.  Oh  yes  and  then  said  Miriam  in- 
spired to  remember  more  of  her  story  —  it  all  came  out.  He  must 
have  got  down  somehow  to  his  room  in  the  morning.  But  he  lay 
on  the  floor  —  he  told  them  at  dinner  —  all  of  mee  could  not  find 
thee  bed  at  once!  — Oh-oh-oh  —  He  had  been — ^  she  cried  raising 
her  voice  above  the  tumult  —  to  a  birthday  party;    twenty-seex 

vvheeskies  and  sodahs — WTiy  did  he  talk  like  that?    Was 

he  an  Irishman?  Oh,  can't  you  hear?  He  was  a  Hindu.  They 
all  talk  like  that.  "I  will  kindly  shut  the  door."  When  they  write 
letters  they  begin — honoured  and  spanking  sir  —  wept  Miriam  — 
they  find  spanking  in  the  dictionary  and  their  letters  are  like  that 
all  the  way  through  masses  of  the  most  amazing  adjectives.  Why 
did  Mag  and  Jan  leave  that  bo.udinir  house?  asked  Florrie  into 
the  midst  of  Miriam's  absorption  with  the  solid  tears  on  Mrs. 
Philps  cheekbones.  She  was  longing  for  Mrs.  Philps  to  sec  the- 
second  thing,  not  only  the  funniness  of  spanking  addressed  to  a^ 
civil  servant,  but  exactly  how  spanking  would  look  to  a  Hindu.  \l\ 
only  they  could  see  those  things  as  well  as  produce  their  heavenly, 
kughs.  Oh.  /  don't  know,  she  said  wearily;  you  see  they  never 
meant   to   go   there.      'I'hey   wanted   a   place   of   their   own.     If; 


The    Little    Review 


only  they  could  realise  Mag  and  Jan.  There  was  never  enough 
time  and  strength  to  make  everything  clear.  At  every  turn  there 
Was  something  they  saw  differently.  They  are  a  pair  she  breathed 
sleepily.  No,  thanks,  she  answered  formally  to  an  offer  of  more 
blancmange.  She  w'as  beginning  to  feel  strong  and  sleepy.  No 
thanks  she  repeated  formally  as  the  heavy  dish  of  bananas  came  her 
way.  She  wants  a  chocolate  said  Florrie  from  across  the  table. 
Miriam  revived  a  little.  Take  two  begged  Mrs.  Philps.  They're 
so  huge,  said  Miriam  obeying  and  leaving  the  chocolates  on  her 
plate  while  her  mind  moved  heavily  about  seeking  a  topic.  They 
were  all  beginning  on  bananas.  It  would  be  endless.  By  the  tir^e 
it  came  to  sitting  over  the  fire  she  would  be  almost  asleep.  She 
stirred  uneasily.  Someone  must  be  seeing  her  longing  and  im- 
patience. 

3 

Miriam  lost  threads  while  Christine  cleared  away  supper,  pon- 
dering the  thick  expressionless  figure  and  hands  and  the  heavy  sal- 
low sullen  face.  She  was  very  short.  They  all  seemed  to  be.  The 
Brooms  watched  her  undisturbed,  from  their  places  by  the  fire,  now 
and  again  addressing  intructions  in  low  frowning  voices  from  the 
midst  of  conversation — Do  sit  down — said  Mrs.  Philps  at  inter- 
vals—  I've  been  sitting  down  all  day —  said  Miriam  swaying  on 
her  toes  —  I  think  we  did  half  believe  it  —  she  pursued  with  biting 
heartiness,  aching  with  the  onset  of  questions,  speaking  to  make 
warmth  and  distraction  for  Christine.  She  had  never  thought  about 
it.  Had  they  half  believed  it?  Had  anyone  ever  put  it  to  them  in 
so  many  words?  Giving  an  opinion  opened  so  many  things.  It 
was  impossible  to  show  everything,  the  more  opinions  you  expressed 
the  more  you  misled  people  and  the  further  you  got  away  from 
'them — Because — she  continued  with  a  singing  animation;  Chris- 
tine glanced;  — we  never  heard  anyone  come  in  — although —  (the 
room  enclosed  her  even  more  happily  with  Christine  there,  every- 
thing looked  even  more  itself)  —  we  stayed  awake  till  what  seemed 
almost  morning,  always  till  long  after  the  ser-m-  our  domestic  staff 
had  gone  to  bed.  Their,  rooms  were  on  the  same  floor  as  the  night 
nursery — Christine  was  padding  out  with  a  tray,  her  back  to  the 
room;  she  had  a  holiday  every  year  and  regular  off  times  and  plenty 
of  money  to  buy  clothes  and  presents;  probably  she  had  some  sort 
of  home.  When  she  had  taken  away  the  last  of  the  supper  things 
and  closed  the  door  Grace  patted  the  arm  of  the  vacant  armchair. 
I  like  this  best,  said  Miriam  drawing  up  a  little  carved  wooden 
stool —  oh  don't  sit  on  that — cried  Mrs.  Philps.  — I'm  all  right 


The     Little     Review 


—  said  Miriam  hurriedly,  looking  at  no  one  and  drawing  herself 
briskly  upright  with  her  eyes  on  the  clear  blaze.  Grace  and  Florrie 
were  close  on  either  side  of  her  in  straight  chairs,  leaning  forward 
towards  the  fire.  Mrs.  Philps  sat  back  in  the  smaller  of  the  arm- 
chairs, its  unyielding  cushion  sending  her  body  forward,  her  small 
chest  crouched,  her  head  bent  and  propped  on  her  hand,  half  facing 
their  close  row  and  gazing  into  the^  fire.  There  was  a  silence.  • 
Florrie  cleared  her  throat  and  glanced  at  Miriam.  Miriam  half 
turned  with  weary  resentment.  —  Did  you  used  to  hang  up  stock- 
ings Miriam?  — said  Florrie  quickly.  Miriam  assented  hastily, 
staring  at  the  fire.  Florrie  patiently  cleared  her  throat.  With 
weary  animation  Miriam  dropped  phrases  about  the  parcels  that 
were  too  big  for  the  stocking,  the  feeling  of  them  against  one's 
feet  when  one  moved  in  the  morning.  Shy  watchful  glances  came 
to  her  from  Florrie.  Grace  took  her  hand  and  made  encouraging 
sympathetic  sounds.  How  secure  they  were,  sitting  with  all  the 
hoiday  aliead  over  the  fire  which  would  be  lit  again  for  them  in 
the  morning.  This  was  oflly  the  fag-end  of  the  first  evening  and  it 
was  beginning  to  be  like  the  beginning  of  a  new  day.  Things 
were  coming  to  her  out  of  the  fire,  fresh  and  new,  seen  for  the  . 
first  time;  a  flood  of  images.  She  contemplated  them  with  eyes 
suddenly  cool  and  sleepless,  relaxing  her  stiff  attitude  and  smiling 
Vaguely  at  the  fire-irons.  —  She's  tired;  she  wants  to  go  to  bed  — 
said  Mrs.  Philps  turning  her  head.  The  two  heads  came  round — 
Do  you  my  sweet?  —  asked  Grace  pressing  her  hand.  —  You 
shall  have  breakfast  in  bed  if  you  like  —  Miriam  grimaced 
briskly  in  her  direction.  —  Did  you  have  a  Noah's  ark?  — she 
asked  smiling  at  the  fire.  Yes;  Florrie  had  one.  Uncle  George 
gave  it  to  her.  —  They  began  describing.  —  Didn't  you  love  it?  ; 
■ —  broke  in  Miriam  presently.  —  Do  you  remember  —  and  she  ' 
recalled  the  Noah's  ark  as  it  had  looked  on  the  nursery  floor,  the  i 
wooden  blankness  of  the  rescued  family,  the  look  of  the  elephants 
and  giraffes  and  the  green  and  yellow  grasshoppers  and  the  red 
lady  bird,  all  standing  about  alive  amongst  the  little  stiff  bright 
green  trees  —  We  had  a  farm-yard  too,  pigs;  and  ducks  and  geese 
and  hens  with  feathers  —  We  used  to  stand  them  all  out  together 
on  the  floor,  and  the  grocer's  shop  and  all  our  dolls  sitting  round 
against  the  nursery  wall.  It  used  to  make  me  perfectly  happy.  It 
would  still  — Everyone  laughed  —  It  would.  It  floes  only  to  think 
of  it.  And  there  was  a  doll's  house  with  a  door  that  opened  and  a 
staircase  and  furniture  in  the  rooms.  I  can  smell  the  smell  of  the 
inside  at  this  moment.     But  the  thing  I  liked  best  and  never  got 


The    Little    Rev  ieiv 


accustomed  to  was  a  little  alabaster  church  with  coloured  glass 
windows  and  a  place  inside  for  a  candle.  We  used  to  put  that  out 
on  the  floor  too.  I  wish  I  had  it  now  ....  The  kaleidoscope. 
Do  you  remember  looking  at  the  Kaleidoscope?  I  used  to  cry 
about  it  sometimes  at  night;  thinking  of  the  patterns  I  had  not 
seen.  I  thought  there  was  a  new  pattern  every  time  you  shook 
it,  forever.  We  had  a  huge  one  with  very  small  bits  of  glass.  They 
clicked  smoothly  when  the  pattern  changed  and  were  very  beauti- 
fully coloured  ....  Oh  and  do  you  remember  those  things — did  you 
have  a  little  paper  theatre?  They  were  all  looking  at  her,  not  at  the 
little  theatre.  She  wislied  she  had  not  mentioned  it.  It  was  so  sa- 
cred and  so  secret  that  she  had  never  thought  of  it  or  even  men- 
tioned it  to  herself  all  these  years.  She  rushed  on  to  the  stereo- 
scope, her  eyes  still  on  the  little  paper  proscenium,  the  sound  of  the 
paper  scraping  over  the  little  wooden  rollers  as  the  scenes  came 
round  backwards  or  forwards.  She  plunged  into  descriptions  of 
deep  views  of  the  insides  of  cathedrals  in  sharp  relief  in  a  clear 
silver  light,  mountains,  lakes,  statuary  in  clear  hght  out  of  doors 
and  came  back  to  the  dolls,  pressing  alone  wearily  on  through  the 
dying  interest  of  her  hearers  to  discover  with  sleepy  enthusiasm 
the  wisdom  and  indifference  and  independence  of  Dutch  dolls,  the 
charm  of  their  wooden  bodies,  the  reasons  why  one  never  wanted  to 
put  any  clothes  on  them,  the  dear  kind  friendliness  of  dolls  with 
composition  heads —  I  don't  believe  I've  ever  loved  anyone  in  the 
world  as  I  loved  Daisy  —  Yes,  I  know  —  we  had  one  too;  it  be- 
longed to  Eve,  it  was  enormous  and  had  real  hair  and  a  leather 
trunk  for  its  clothes  and  felt  huge  and  solid  When  you  carried 
it;  but  it  was  as  far  away  from  you  as  a  human  being  —  yes,  the 
rag  dolls  were  simply  funny  —  I  never  understand  all  that  talk 
about  the  affection  for  rag  dolls.  We  used  to  scream  at  ours  and 
hold  them  by  the  skirts  and  see  which  could  bang  their  heads 
hardest  against  the  wall.  They  were  always  like  a  Punch  and  Judy 
show.  The  composition  dolls  I  mean  were  painted  a  soft  colour, 
very  roundly  moulded  heads,  with  a  shape,  just  a  little  hair,  indic- 
ated in  soft  brown  paint  and  not  staring  eyes  but  soft  bluey  grey 
with  an  expression;  looking  at  something,  looking  at  the  same  thing 

you  looked  at  yourself — Mrs.  Philps  yawned  and  Florrie 

began  making  a  move  —  I  suppose  it's  bed  time  —  said  Miriam. 
They  were  all  looking  sleepy.  —  Have  a  glass  of  claret  Miriam 
before  you  go  —  said  Mrs.  Philps.  No  thank  you,  said  Miriam 
springing  up  and  dancing  about  the  room.  Giddy  girl,  chuckled 
Mrs.  Philps  affectionately.     Grace  and  Florrie  fetched  dust  sheets 


1  o  T  li  c    Little    Review 


fiuin  llic  iuill  ciipinMiu  aiui  iR-.iii  >i<Kucling  ihcm  over  the  fumi 
turc.  Miricmi  pulled  up  in  front  of  a  large  oil-painting  over  the 
sofa;  its  distances  where  a  meadow  stream  that  was  wide  in  the 
fcre-ground  with  a  stone  bridge  and  a  mill-wheel  and  a  cottage 
half  hidden  under  huge  trees,  grew  narrow  and  wound  on  and  on 
through  tiny  distant  fields  until  the  scene  melted  in  a  soft  toned 
mist,  held  all  her  early  visits  to  the  Brooms  in  the  Banbury  Park 
days  before  they  had  discovered  that  she  did  not  like  sitting  with 
her  back  to  the  fire.  She  listened  eagerly  to  the  busy  sounds  of  the 
Brooms.  Someone  had  bolted  the  hall  door  and  was  scrooping  a 
chair  over  the  tiles  to  get  up  and  put  out  the  gas.  Dust  sheets  were 
still  being  flountered  in  the  room  behind  her.  Grace's  arm  came 
round  her  waist.  —  I'm  so  glad  you've  come  sweet  —  she  said  in 
her  low  steady  shaken  tones  —  So'm  I  —  said  Miriam.  —  Isn't 
that  a  jolly  picture  —  Yes.  It's  an  awfully  good  one  you  know. 
It  w-as  one  of  papa's  —  What's  O'Hara  doing  in  the  kitchen?  — 
Taking  Grace  by  the  waist  Miriam  drew  into  the  passage  trying 
to  prance  with  her  down  the  hall.  The  little  kitchen  was  obscured 
by  an  enormous  clothes  horse  draped  with  airing  linen.  She's  left 
a  miserable  fire,  said  Mrs.  Philps  from  behind  the  clothes-horse  — 
She  hasn't  done  the  saucepans  aunt  —  scolded  Florrie  from  the 
scullery  —  Never  mind,  w^e  can't  have  cr  down  now.  It's  neely 
midnicrht. 


Miriam  emerged  smoothly  into  the  darkness  and  lay  radiant. 
There  was  nothing  but  the  cool  sense  of  life  pouring  in  from  some 
inner  source  and  the  deep  fresh  spaces  of  the  darkness  all  round 
her.  Perhaps  she  had  awakened  because  of  her  happiness.  .  .  clear 
gentle  and  soft  in  a  melancholy  minor  key  a  little  thread  of  melody 
sounded  from  far  away  in  the  night  straight  into  her  heart.  There 
was  nothing  between  her  and  the  sound  that  had  called  her  so  gently 
up  from  her  deep  sleep.  She  held  in  her  joy  to  listen.  There  was 
no  sadness  in  the  curious  sorrowful  little  air.    It  drew  her  out  into 

the  quiet  neighbourhood misty  darkness  along  empty  roads, 

plaques  of  lamplight  here  and  there  on  pavements  and  across  house 

fronts blackness  in  large  gardens  and  over  the  bridge  and  in 

the  gardens  at  the  backs  of  the  rows  of  little  silent  dark  houses,  a 
l)ale  laml)ency  over  the  canal  and  reservoirs.  Somewhere  amongst 
the  little  roads  a  group  of  players  hooting  gently  and  carefulh 
slow  sweet  notes  as  if  to  wake  jio  one.  playing  to  no  one,  out  into 
the  darkness.     Back  out  of  fresh  darkness  came  the  sweet  clear 


The    Little    k  evieiv  it 


music the  waits;  of  course.    She  rushed  up,  up  and  out  heart 

foremost.  Her  love  flowed  into  every  turn  of  the  well-known  house 
and  hovered  near  each  sleeping  form,  flowed  into  the  recesses  of 
their  lives,  flowed  on  swiftly  across  a  tide  of  remembered  and  for- 
gotten incidents  in  and  out  amongst  the  seasons  of  the  years.  It 
sent  her  forward  to  tomorrow  sitting  her  upright  in  morning  light 
telling  her  with  shouts  that  the  day  was  there  and  she  had  only  to 
get  up  into  it  ...  .  the  little  air  had  paused  on  a  tuneful  chord  and 

ceased It  was  beginning  again  nearer  and  clearer.  She  heard  it 

carefully  through.  It  was  so  strange.  It  came  from  far  back  amongst 
the  generations  where  everything  was  different;  telling  you  that  they 

were  the  same In  the  way  those  people  were  playing,  in  the 

way  they  made  the  tune  sound  in  the  air  neither  instrument  louder 
than  the  others  there  was  something  that  kneiv.  Something  that 
everybody  knows.  .  .  .     They  show  it  by  the  way  they  do  things, 

no  matter  what  they  say Her  heart  glowed  and  she  stirred. 

How  rested  she  was.  How  fresh  the  air  was.  What  fresihness 
came  from  everything  in  the  room.  She  stared  into  the  velvety 
blackness  trying  to  see  the  furniture.    It  was  the  thick  close-drawn 

curtains  that  made  the  perfect  velvety  darkness Behind 

the  curtains  and  the  Venetian  blinds  the  windows  were  open  at  the 
top  letting  in  the  garden  air.  The  little  square  of  summer  garden 
showed  brilliantly  in  this  darkest  winter  blackness.  It  was  more 
than  worth  while  to  be  wakened  in  the  middle  of  the  night  at  the 
Brooms.  The  truth  about  life  was  in  them.  She  imagined  herself 
suddenly  shouting  in  the  night.  After  the  first  fright  they  would 
understand  and  would  laugh.  She  yawned  sleepily  towards  an 
oncoming  tangle  of  thoughts,  pushing  them  off  and  slipping  back 
into  unconsciousness. 


Miriam  picked  up  the  blouse  by  its  shoulders  and  danced  it 
up  and  down  in  time  to  the  girls'  volley  of  affectionate  raillery  — 
Did  you  sleep  well?  —  broke  in  Mrs.  Philps  sitting  briskly  up  and 
superciliously  grasping  the  handle  of  the  large  coffee-pot  with  her 
small  shrivelled  hand.  Christmas  Day  had  begun.  The  time  for 
trying  to  say  suitable  things  about  the  present  was  over.  All  the 
six  small  hands  were  labouring  amongst  the  large  things  on  the 
table.  The  blouse  hung  real,  a  blouse,  a  glorious  superfluity  in  her 
only  just  sufficient  wardrobe.  —  Yes,  thank  you,  I  did  —  she  said 
ardently,  lowering  it  to  her  knees.  The  rich  strong  coffee  was  flow- 
ing into  the  cups.     In  a  moment  Grace  would  be  handing  plates 


12  The     Little    Review 


of  rashers  and  Florrie  would  have  finished  extracting  the  eggs 
from  flic  boiler.  She  laid  the  blouse  carefully  on  the  sofa  and 
heard  in  among  the  table  sounds  the  greetings  that  had  followed 
her  arrival  downstairs.  The  brown  and  green  landsca])e  caught 
her  eye,  old  and  still,  holding  all  her  knowledge  of  the  li rooms  back 
and  back,  fresh  with  another  visit  to  them.  She  turned  back  to 
the  table  with  a  sigh.  Someone  chuckled.  Perhaps  at  something 
that  was  happening  on  the  table.  She  glanced  about.  'J'he  fra- 
grant breakfast  had  arrived  in  front  of  her  —  Don't  let  it  get  cold 
—  laughed  Florrie  drawing  the  mustard  pot  from  the  cruet-stand 
and  rapping  it  down  before  her.  There  was  something  that  she 
had  forgotten,  some  point  that  was  being  missed,  something  that 
must  be  said  at  th's  moment  to  pin  down  the  happiness  of  every- 
thing. She  looked  up  at  Shakespeare  and  Queen  Victoria.  It  was  ' 
going  away  —  Mustard  —  said  Florrie  tapping  the  table  with  the 
mustard-pots.  —  Did  you  hear  the  waits?  asked  Mrs.  Philps 
with  dreary  acidity.  Tliat  was  it.  She  turned  eagerly.  Mrs. 
Philps  was  s'pping  her  coffee.  Miriam  waited  politely  with  the 
mustard-pot  in  her  hand  until  she  had  put  down  her  cup  and  then 
said  anxiously,  offering  it  to  Mrs.  Philps  —  they  played  —  Help 
yourself  —  laughed  Mrs.  Philps  —  a  most  lovely  curious  old- 
fashioned  thing  she  went  on  anxiously.  Florrie  was  watching  her 
narrowly.  That  was  The  Mistletoe  Hough  —  bridled  Mrs.  Philps 
accepting  the  mustard.  —  Oh  that's  The  Mistletoe  Bough  mused 
Miriam  thrilling.  Then  Mrs.  Philps  had  heard,  and  felt  the  same 
in  the  night.  Nothing  was  missing.  Everything  that  had  hap- 
pened since  she  had  arrived  on  the  doorstep  came 
freshly  back  and  on  into  to-day.  flowing  over  the  em- 
barrassment   of    the   parcels.  ,      There   w-as    nothing    to    say;    no 

words  that  could  express  it;  a  tune That's  the  Mistletoe 

Bough she  said  reflectively.  Florrie  was  sitting  very  up- 
right exactly  opposite,  quietly  munching,  her  knife  and  fork  quiet 
on  her  plate.  Grace's  small  hands  and  mouth  were  gravely  labour- 
ing. She  began  swiftly  on  her  own  meal,  listening  for  the  tune 
with  an  intelligent  face.  If  Florrie  would  take  off  her  attention 
she  could  let  her  face  become  a  blank  and  recover  the  tune.  Im- 
possible to  go  on  until  she  had  recalled  it.  She  sought  for  some  dis- 
tracting remark.  Grace  spoke.  Florrie  turned  towards  her.  Miriam 
radiated  agreement  and  sipi)ed  her  hot  coffee.  Its  strong  aroma 
flowed  through  her  senses.  She  laughed  sociably.  Someone  else 
laughed.  —  Of  course  they  don't  —  said  Florrie  in  her  most 
grinding  voice  and  laughed.    Two  voices  broke  out  together.    Mir- 


T he    Lit  tie    R  e  V tew  13 


iam  listened  to  the  tones,  glancing  intelligenoe  accordingly,  umpir- 
ing the  contest,  her  mind  wandering  blissfully  about.  Presently 
there  was  a  silnce.  Mrs.  Philps  had  bridled  and  said  something 
decisive.  Miriam  guiltily  re-read  the  remark.  She  could  not  think 
of  anything  that  could  be  made  to  follow  it  with  any  show  of  sin- 
cerity and  sat  feeling  large  and  conspicuous.  Mrs.  Philps'  face  had 
grown  dark  and  old.  Miriam  glanced  restively  at  her  meaning.  .  . 
.  .  .  Large  terrible  illnesses  the  doctor  coming,  trouble  amongst  fami- 
lies, someone  sitting  paralyzed;  poverty,  everthing  being  being  dif- 
ferent. ...  —  D'  you  like  a  snowy  Christmas,  Misiam,  asked  Florrie 
shyly.  Miriam  looked  across.  She  looked  very  young,  a  child 
speaking  on  sufferance,  saying  the  first  thing  that  occurs  lest  some- 
one should  remark  that  it  was  time  to  go  to  bed.  Hilarious  replies 
rushed  to  Miriam's  mind.  They  would  have  re-awakened  the 
laughter  and  talk,  but  there  would  have  been  resentment  in  the 
widowed  figure  at  the  head  of  the  table,  the  figure  that  had  walked 
with  arch  dignity  into  the  big  north  London  shop  and  chosen  the 
blouse.  The  weight  in  the  air  was  dreadful  —  There  don't  seem 
to  be  snowy  Christmases  nowadays  —  she  said  turning  deferential- 
ly to  her  hostess  with  her  eyes  on  Florrie's  child's  eyes — 'Christmas 
is  a  very  different  thing  to  what  it  was  —  breathed  Mrs.  Philps 
sitting  back  with  folded  hands  from  her  finished  meal.  —  Oh,  I 
don't  know  aunt  —  corrected  Grace  anxiously  —  aren't  you  going 
to  have  your  toast  and  marmalade?  You  lived  in  the  North  all  your 
young  Christmases.     It's  always  colder  there.     Take  some  toast 

aunt We  used  to  burn  Yule  logs  —  flickered  Mrs.  Philps, 

plaintively  refusing  the  toast.  Miriam  waited  imagining  the  snow 
on  the  garden  where  the  frilled  shirts  used  to  hang  out  to  bleach 

in  the  dew the  great  fiood.  the  anxiety  in  the  big  houses  — 

Yule  logs  would  look  funny  in  this  grate,  laughed  Florrie  —  Oh, 
I  don't  know,  pressed  Grace.  —  We  had  some  last  year.     Haven't 

we  got  any  this  year  aunt? I  ordered  some  wood;  I  don't  know 

if  it's  come  —  Miriam  could  not  imagine  the  Brooms  with  burning 
logs.  Yes,  she  could.  They  were  nearer  to  burning  logs  than  any- 
one she  knew.  It  would  be  more  real  here;  more  like  the  burning 
logs  in  the  Christinas  numbers.  The  glow  would  shine  on  to  their 
faces  and  they  v;ould  see  into  the  past.  But  it  was  all  in  the  past. 
Yule  logs  and  then,  no  yule  logs.  Everyone  even  the  Brooms  were 
being  pushed  forward  into  a  new  cold  world.  There  was  no  time 
to  remember  —  they  don't  build  grates  for  wood  nowadays,  ruled 
Mrs.  Philps.  Who  could  stop  all  this  coming  and  crowding  of 
mean  little  things?    But  the  wide  untroubled  leisure  of  the  Brooms 


14  The    Little    Review 


breakfast — tal)lc  was  shut  away  from  the  mean  little  things 

Are  you  coming  to  church  Miriam?  —  Miriam  looked  across  the 
doomed  breakfast  table  and  met  the  watchful  eyes.  Behind  Florrie 
very  upright  in  her  good,  once  best  stuff  dress,  two  years  old  in  its 
features  and  methodically  arrived  at  morning  wear,  the  fire  still 
blazed  its  extravagant  welcome,  the  first  of  Christmas  morning  was 
still  in  the  room.  When  they  had  all  busied  themselves  and  gone, 
it  would  be  gone.  She  glanced  about  to  see  that  everyone  had  > 
finished  and  put  her  elbows  on  the  table.  —  Well  —  she  said 
abundantly.  There  was  an  expectant  relaxing  of  attitudes  —  I 
should  like  to  go  very  much.  But  —  Grace  fidgetting  her  brooch 
had  flung  her  unrestrained  burning  affectionate  glance  —  when  I 
saw  Mr.  La  Trobe  climbing  into  the  pulpit  —  Florries  eyes  were 
downcast  and  Mrs.  Philps  was  blowing  her  nose  her  eyes  gazing 
wanly  out  above  her  handkerchief  towards  the  little  curtained  bow- 
window  —  Miriam  dimpled  and  glanced  sideways  at  Grace  catch- 
ing her  shy  waiting  eyes  —  I  should  stand  up  on  my  seat.  .  .  .  give 
one  loud  shriek  —  the  three  laughters  broke  forth  together  —  and 

fall  gasping  to  the  ground Then  you'd  certainly  better  not 

go  —  chuckled  Florrie  amidst  the  general  wiping  away  of  tears  — 

—  I  saw  the  Miss  Pernes  at  Strudwick's  on  Friday;  Miss  Perne 

and  Miss  Jenny oh,  did  you?  —  reponded  Miriam  hurriedly. 

The  room  lost  something  of  its  completeness.  There  was  a  coming 
and  -a  going,  the  pressing  grey  of  an  outside  world  —  How  are 
they? They  seemed  very  well  —  They  don't  seem  to  change 

—  Oh;  I'm  so  glad  —  They  asked  for  you  —  Oh T  didn't  say 

we  were  expecting  you  —  Oh,  it's  such  an  age We  always  say 

you're  very  busy  and  hard-worked  —  smiled  Grace  —  Yes,  that's 

it — You  didn't  go  often  even  when  Miss  Haddie  was  alive — ■ 

No;  she  was  ^awfully  good;  she  used  to  come  down  and  see  me  in 
the  west  end  when  I  first  came  to  tow-n.  — --  How  they  like  the  west- 
end  —  Aunt,  I  don't  blame  them.  —  She  used  to  write  to  you  a 
lot  didn't  she  Miriam?  —  She  used  to  come  and  talk  to  me  in  a 
tea-shop  at  six-fifteen  ....  yes  she  wrote  regularly  —  said  Miriam 
irritably  —  You  were  awfully  fond  of  Miss  Haddie  weren't  you?  — 
Miriam  i)cerd  into  space  struggling  with  a  tangle  of  images.  Her 
mind  leapt  from  incident  to  incident  weaving  all  into  a  general  im- 
pression —  so  strong  and  clear  that  it  gave  a  sort  of  desj^eration 
to  her  pained  consciousness  that  nothing  she  saw  and  felt  was  visi- 
ble to  the  three  pairs  of  diffrently  watchful  eyes.  Poured  chaoti- 
cally out  it  would  sound  to  them  like  the  ravings  of  insanity.  All 
contradictory,  up  and  down  backwards  and  forwards,  all  true     The 


i 


The' Little    Review  15 


things  they  would  grasp  here  and  there  would  misrepresent  herself 
and  the  whole  picture.    WTiy  would  people  insist  upon  talking  about 

things  —  when  nothing  can  ever  be  communicated She  felt 

angrily  about  in  the  expectant  stillness.  Slie  could  see  their  minds 
so  clearly;  why  Avouldn't  they  just  look  and  see  hers  instead  of 
waiting  for  some  impossible  pronouncement.  Yes  would  be  a  lie. 
Xo  would  be  a  lie.  Any  statement  would  be  a  lie.  All  statements 
are  lies.  I  like  the  Pernes  better  than  I  like  you.  I  like  all  of 
you  better  than  the  Pernes.  I  hate  you.  I  hate  the  Pernes.  I, 
of  course  you  must  know  it,  hate  everybody.  I  adore  the  Pernes 
so  much  that  I  can't  go  and  see  them.  But  you  come  and  see  us. 
Ves;  but  you  insist.  Then  you  like  us  only  as  well  as  you  like  the 
Pernes;  you  like  all  sorts  of  people  as  well  perhaps  better  than 
you  like  us.  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  anyone.  You  shall  not 
group  me  anywhere.    I  am  everywhere.    Let  the  day  go  on.    Don't 

sit  there  worrying  me  to  death —  They  always  send  you 

their  love  and  say  you  are  to  go  and  see  them  —  Oh  yes,  I  mmt 

go\  some  time They  are  wonderfully  fond  of  their  girls.  .  .  . 

it's  one  of  the  greatest  pleasures  of  their  lives  keeping  up  with  the 
old  girls  —  Fatigue  was  returning  upon  Miriam;  her  face  flushed 
and  her  hands  were  large  and  cold.  She  drew  them  down  on  to  her 
unowned  knees.  A  mild  yes  would  bring  the  sitting  to  an  end.  — 
But  you  see  I'm  not  an  old  girl  — .  she  said  impatiently.  No  one 
spoke.  Florrie's  mind  was  darkly  moving  towards  the  things  of 
the  day.  Perhaps  Mrs.  Philps  and  Florrie  had  been  thinking  of 
them  for  some  minutes.  —  You  know  it  does  make  a  difference  — 
she  pursued,  obsequiously  collecting  attention,  —  when  people  are 
your  employers.  You  can  never  feel  the  same  —  Everyone  hovered, 
—  and  Mrs.  Philps  smiled  in  triumphant  curiosity.  —  I  shouldn't 
have  thought  it  made  any  difference  to  you  Miriam  —  said  Florrie 
flushing  heavily.  —  I  think  I  know  wliat  Miriam  means  —  said 
Grace  gently  radiating  —  I  always  feel  a  pupil  with  them  much 
as  I  like  them  —  Grace,  d'you  know  you're  my  pupil  —  said 
Miriam  leaping  out  into  laughter.  —  I  can  see  Grace  —  she  drove 
on  carrying  them  all  with  her,  ignoring  the  swift  eyes  upon  the 
dim  things  settling  heavily  down  upon  her  heart  —  gazing  out  of 
the  window  in  the  little  room  where  I  was  supposed  to  be  holding 
a  German  class  —  Yes  I  know  Miriam  darling,  but  now  you  know 

me  you  know  I  could  never  be  any  good  at  languages You're 

my  pupil It  seems  absurd  to  think  of  you  as  a  teacher  now  we 

know  you  —  chuckled  Florrie.  —  Aren't  you  glad  it's  over,  Mir- 


i6  The    Little    Review 


jam? I  loved  the  teaching.     I've  never  left  off  longing  to 

go  back  to  school  myself  —  yawned  Miriam  absently.  —  You 

won't  get  much  s\Tnpathy  out  of  Florrie I  was  a  perfect  jool 

—  beamed  Florrie.  Everyone  laughed.  —  I  often  think  now  — 
chuckled  Florrie  rosy  and  tearful  —  when  I  open  the  front  door 
to  go  out  how  glad  I  am  there's  no  more  school  —  Miriam  looked 
across  laughing  affectionately.  —  Why  did  yon  like  your  school  so. 
much  Miriam?  —  I  didn't  like  it  except  now  and  again  terrifically 
in  flashes.  I  didn't  know  what  it  was.  I  hadn't  seen  other  schools. 
I  didn't  kno^v  what  we  were  doing  —  It  wasn't  —  a  —  a  genteel 
school  for  young  ladies,  there  w-as  nothing  of  that  in  it  —  You 
never  know  when  you're  happy  —  reproved  Mrs.  Philps  —  Oh,  I 
don't  knoiv  aunt,  I  think  you  do  —  appealed  Grace,  her  eyes  full 
of  shy  championship.  —  I'm  very  happy,  thank  you,  —  aren't  we 
all  happy  dear  brethem?  —  chirped   Miriam  towards  the  cruet 

stand.  —  Silly  children Now  aunt  you  know  you  are.     You 

know  you  enjoy  life  tremendously.  —  Of  course  I  do  —  cried  Mrs. 
Philps  beaming  and  bridling.  In  a  devout  low  tone  she  added  — 
it's  the  little  simple  things  that  make  you  happy;  the  things  that 
happen  every  day  —  For  a  moment  there  was  nothing  but  the  . 
sound  of  the  fire  flickering  in  the  beamy  air.  —  Hadn't  we  better 
have  her  in  aunt,  muttered  Grace.  Florrie  got  up  briskly  and  rang 
the  bell. 


They  all  went  busily  upstairs.    Even  Grace  did  not  linger.  — 
Let  me  come  and  help  make  my  bed  —  said  Miriam  going  with  her 

to  the  door  —  No,  you're  to  rest I  don't  w-ant  to  rest 

Then  you  can  run  round  the  room  • —  She  turned  back  towards  the 
silent  disarray.  Busy  sounds  came  from  upstairs.  A  hurried  low 
reproving  voice  emerged  on  to  the  landing  ....  —  and  light  the 
drawing  room  fire  as  soon  as  you've  finished  clearing  and  when  the 
postman  comes  leave  the  letters  in  the  box  — Christine  came  dowTi- 
stairs  without  answering.  In  a  moment  she  would  be  coming  in. 
Moving  away  from  the  attraction  of  the  blouse  Miriam  wandered 
to  the  fireside.  Her  eyes  turned  towards  the  chair  in  the  comer 
half-hidden  by  the  large  armchair.  There  they  were,  on  the  top 
of  the  pile  of  newspapers  and  magazines.  Dare's  Annual  lay  up-i 
permost  ils  cover  liright  with  holly.  Her  hands  went  out  ....  to- 
look  at  them  now  Avould  be  to  anticipate  the  afternoon.  But  there' 
would  be  at  least  two  Windsors  that  she  had  not  seen.  She  drew; 
one  out  and  stood  turning  over  the  leaves.    It  would  be  impossible" 


The    Little    Review 17; 

to  look  round  and  say  a  Happy  Christmas  and  then  go  on  reading, 
and  just  as  bad  to  stop  reading  and  not  say  anything  more.  She 
planted  herself  in  the  middle  of  the  hearthrug  with  her  face  to 
the  room.  Why  should  she  stand  advantageously  there  while 
Christine       imwillingly       laboured?  Why       should       Chris- 

tine be  pleased  to  be  spoken  to?  She  thought  a  happy  Christ- 
mas in  several  different  voices.  They  all  sounded  insulting. 
Christine  was  still  making  noises  in  the  kitchen.  There  was  time 
to  escape.  The  drawing  room  door  would  be  bolted  and  that 
meant  getting  one  of  the  hall  chairs  and  telling  the  whole  house 
of  an  extraordinary  impulse.  Upstairs  her  bed  would  still  be  being 
made  or  her  room  dusted.  She  drew  up  the  little  stool  and  sat 
(dejectedly,  close  over  the  fire  as  if  with  a  heavy  cold  in  her  head 
and  anxiously  deep  in  the  pages  of  the  magazine.  Perhaps  Christine 
would  think  she  did  not  hear  her  come  in  ...  .  she  guessed 
the  story  from  the  illustrations  and  dropped  into  the  text  half  way 
through  the  narrative  No  woman  who  did  typewriting  from  morn 
ing  till  night  and  lived  in  a  poor  lodging  could  look  like  that.  .  .  . 
perhaps  some  did  ....  perhaps  that  was  how  clerks  ought  to  look 
..  .she  skimmed  on;  moving  automatically  to  make  room  for  boots 
that  were  being  put  down  in  the  fender;  ready  to  speak  in  a  mo- 
ment if  whoever  it  was  did  not  say  anything;  the  figure  turned 
to  the  table.  It  was  Christine.  If  she  blew  her  nose  and  coughed 
Christine  would  know  she  knew  she  was  there.  She  turned  a  page 
swiftly  and  wrapped  herself  deeply  in  the  next.  When  Christine 
had  gone  away  with  a  trayful  she  resumed  her  place  on  the  hearth- 
rug ready  to  see  her  for  the  first  time  when  she  came  in  again  and 
catch  her  eye  and  say  Good  morning,  I  wish  you  a  happy  Christ- 
mas. Christine  came  shapelessly  in  and  began  collecting  the  re- 
maining things  with  sullen  hands.  Her  face  was  closed  and  expres- 
sionless and  her  eyes  downcast.  Miriam's  eyes  followed  it,  waiting 
for  the  eyes  to  lift,  her  lips  powerless.  It  was  too  late  to  say  good 
morning.  Sadness  grew  for  her  in  the  room.  Her  thoughts  washed 
homelessly  to  and  fro  between  her  various  world  and  the  lumpy 
figure  moving  sullenly  along  the  edge  of  an  unknown  life.  Stepping 
observantly  in  through  the  half-open  door  with  a  duster  bunched 
carefully  in  her  hand  came  Florrie.  Miriam  flung  out  a  greeting 
that  swept  round  Christine  and  cut  into  a  shining  world.  It  brought 
Florrie  to  her  side  in  shy  delight.  Christine  taking  her  final  de- 
parture looked  up.  Miriam  flushed  through  her  laughter  steadily 
meeting  the  brown  expressionless  glitter  of  Christine's  eyes.  — 
Hullo  O'Hara  —  she  defended,  collecting  herself  for  the  ch^lenge 


]R  The    Little    Review 


tliai  would  follow  Flurries  c-ncircknicnt  of  her  waist  —  Hullo 
Link-  Miriam;  you  arc  happy  —  {ground  out  I-lorrie  shyly  —  arc 
you  rested?  —  Vcs — saitl  Miriam  formally—  I  think  1  am  ^  They 
turned,  Florrie  withdrawing  her  arm,  and  stood  looking  into  the 
fire  —  Oooch  isn't  it  cold  —  said  Grace  from  the  doorway  —  have 
you  done  the  hall  chairs?  —  No,  I  came  in  here  to  get  warm  first 
—  It  is  cold  —  said  Grace  coming  to  the  hearthrug  —  are  you 
warm  Miriam  darling?  —  I'm  so  warm  that  I  think  I  ought  to 
run  ui)stairs  for  a  constitutional  and  scrub  my  teeth  —  said  Mir- 
iam briskly,  prejjarini^  to  follow  Flurrie  from  the  room.  —  Grace 
dropped  her  duster  and  put  her  arms  upon  her.  raising  an  anxious 
pleading  face  —  stay  here  while  I  dust  sweetheart.  You  can  scrub 
your  teeth  when  we're  gone.  Dear  pink-face.  How  are  you  my 
sweet?  Are  you  rested?  —  she  asked  between  gentle  kisses  dabbed 
here  and  there  —  Never  berrer  old  chap.  I  tell  you  never  herrer  — 
Grace  laughed  gently  into  her  face  and  stood  holding  her,  smiling 
her  anxious  i)leading  solicitous  smile.  —  I  tell  you  never  berrer  — 
rei)eated  Miriam.  Dear  sweet  pink  face  —  smiled  Grace  and 
turned  carefully  away  to  her  dusting.  Miriam  sank  into  an  arm- 
ch;iir.  listening  to  the  soft  smooth  flurring  of  the  duster  over  the 
highly  polished  surfaces  —  Well?  —  she  asked  presently  —  how 
are  things  in  general?  —  Grace  rose  from  her  knees  and  carefully 
shut  the  door.  She  came  back  with  fear  darkening  the  velvety 
lustre  of  her  eyes  —  Oh  I  don't  know  Miriam  dear  —  she  mur- 
mured kneeling  on  the  hearthrug  near  Miriam's  knees  and  holding 
her  hands  out  towards  the  fire.  It's  all  over  —  thought  Miriam, 
faintly  angered.  —  I've  got  ever  so  many  things  to  tell  you.  I 
want  to  ask  your  advice  —  Remember  I've  never  even  seen  him  — 
said  Miriam  automatically,  figuring  the  surroundedness  the  sudden 
realization  and  fear,  the  recapturing  of  liberty,  the  sudden  evasive 
determined  retreat.  —  Oh,  but  you  always  understand.  Wait  till 
we  can  talk  —  she  sighed  rising  from  her  knees,  and  kissing  Mir- 
iam's f(  rhead.  It  was  all  over.  Grace  w^as  clinging  to  some  "rea- 
sonable" explanation  of  some  final  thing.  She  cast  about  in  her 
mind  for  something  from  her  own  scattered  circumstances  to  feed 
their  talk  when  it  should  cqpie.  She  would  have  to  induce  Grace 
to  turn  away  and  go  on.  .  .  .  the  end  of  the  long  history  of  faith- 
fully remembered  details  would  be  a  relief the  delicate 

dcj/ths  c)f  their  intercourse  would  come  back its  reach  back- 
wards and  forwards;  and  yet  without  anything  in  the  background. 
...  it  seemed  as  if  always  something  were  needed  in  the  back- 
ground to  give  the  full  glow  to  every  day  .  .  .  she  must  be  made  to 


T  h  e    Li  t  tie    Review  19 


see  the  real  face  of  the  circumstance  and  then  to  know  and  to  feel 

that  she  was  not   forlorn;    that  the   glow  was  there first   to 

brush  away  the  delusion  ruthlessly  ....  and  then  let  the  glow  come 
back,  begin  to  come  back,  from  another  source. 


Left  alone  with  silence  all  along  the  street,  Christine  inaudible 
in  the  kitchen,  dead  silence  in  the  house,  Miriam  gathered  up  her 
blouse  and  ran  upstairs.  As  she  passed  through  the  changing  lights 
of  the  passage,  up  the  little  dark  staircase  past  the  turn  that  led  to 
the  little  lavatory  and  little  bathroom  and  was  bright  in  the  light  of 
a  small  uncurtaiined  lattice,  on  up  the  four  stairs  that  brought  her 
to  the  landing  where  the  opposing  bedroom  doors  flooded  their 
light  along  the  strip  of  green  carpet  between  the  polished  balustrade 
and  the  high  polished  glass-doored  bookcase,  the  years  tumbled 
about  her.  Crowding  incidents  set  in  vast  backgrounds  streamed 
in  through  her  consciousness  blotting  out  the  day,  washing 
away  from  future  and  past  all  but  joy.  Inside  her  room — tidied  until 
nothing  was  visible  but  the  permanent  shining  gleaming  furniture 
and  ornaments;  only  the  large  box  of  matches  on  the  corner  of 
the  mantelpiece  betraying  the  movements  of  separate  days,  telling 
her  of  nights  of  arrival,  the  lighting  of  the  gas,  the  sudden  light  in 
the  frosted  globe  preluding  freedom  and  rest,  bringing  the  begin- 
ning of  rest  with  the  gleam  of  the  fresh  quiet  room  —  she  found 
all  the  past,  all  her  years  of  work  set  in  the  air,  framed  and  con- 
templable  like  the  pictures  on  the  wall,  and  beside  them  the  early 
golden  years  in  snatches,  chosen  pictures  from  here  and  there  com- 
municated and  stored  in  the  loyal  memory  of  the  Brooms.  Leap- 
ing in  among  these  live  days  came  to-day the  blouse  belonged 

to  the  year  that  was  waiting  far  off,  invisible  behind  the  high  wall 
of  Christmas.  She  dropped  it  on  the  bed  and  ran  downstairs  to 
the  little  drawing-room.  The  fire  had  not  yet  conquered  the  musti- 
ness  of  the  air.  The  room  was  full  of  strange  dim  lights  coming  in 
through  the  stained  glass  door  of  the  little  greenhouse.  She  pushed 
open  the  glass  door  turning  the  light  to  a  soft  green  and  sat  so- 
ciably down  in  a  low  chair  her  hands  clasped  upon  her  knees,  top- 
ics racing  through  her  mind  in  a  voice  thrilling  with  stored  up 
laughter.  In  her  ears  was  the  rush  of  spring  rain  on  the  garden 
foliage,  and  presently  a  voice  saying  where  are  we  going  this  sum- 
mer?  By  the  time  they  came  back  she  would  be  too  happy 

to  speak.     Better  perhaps  to  go  out  into  the  maze  of  little  streets 


20  The    Little    Review 


and  in  wearying  of  them  be  glad  to  come  back.  As  she  moved  to 
the  door  she  saw  the  garden  in  late  summer  fulness,  the  holidays 
over,  their  heights  gleaming  through  long  talks  on  the  seat  at  the 
end  of  the  gardt.-n,  the  answering  glow  of  the  great  blossoms  of 
purple  clematis  hiding  the  north  London  masonry  of  the  little  con- 
servatory, the  great  spaces  of  autumn  opening  out  and  out  running 
down  rich  with  happenings  to  where  the  high  wall  of  Christmasj 
again  rose  and  shut  out  the  future.  She  ran  busily  upstairs  casting 
away  sight  and  hearing  and  hurried  thoughtlessly  into  her  outdoor 
things  and  out  into  the  street.  She  wandered  along  the  little 
roads  turning  and  turning  until  she  came  to  a  broad  op>en  thorough- 
fare lined  with  high  grey  houses  standing  back  behind  colourless 
railed-in  gardens.  Trams  jingled  up  and  down  the  centre  of  the 
road  bearing  the  names  of  unfamiliar  parts  of  London.  People 
were  standing  about  on  the  terminal  islands  and  getting  in  and  out 
of  the  trams.  She  had  come  too  far.  Here  was  the  wilderness, 
the  undissemfcling  soul  of  north  London,  its  harsh  unvarying  ^all- 
embracing  oblivion Innumerable  impressions  gathered  on 

walks  with  the  school-girls  or  in  lonely  wanderings;  the  unveiled 
motives  and  feelings  of  people  she  had  passed  in  the  streets,  the 
expression  of  noses  and  shoulders,  the  indefinable  uniformity,  of 
bearing  and  purpose  and  vision,  crowded  in  on  her,  oppressing 
and  darkening  the  crisp  light  air.  She  fought  against  them,  rally- 
ing to  the  sense  of  the  day.  It  was  Christmas  Day  for  them  all. 
They  were  keeping  Christmas  in  their  homes,  carrying  it  out  into 
the  streets,  going  about  with  parcels,  greeting  each  other  in  their 
harsh  ironic  voices.  Long  ago  she  had  passed  out  of  their  world  for 
ever,  carrying  it  forward,  a  wound  in  her  consciousness  unhealed, 
but  p>owerless  to  re-inflict  itself,  powerless  to  spread  into  her  life. 
They  and  their  world  were  still  there,  unchanged.  But  they  could 
never  touch  her  again,  ensconced  in  her  v/ealth.  It  did  not  matter 
now  that  they  went  their  way  just  in  the  way  they  went  their  way. 
To  hate  them  for  past  suffering  now  that  they  were  banished  and 

powerless  was  to  allow  them  to  spoil  her  day They  were 

even  a  possession,  a  curious  thing  apart,  unknown  to  anyone  in 
her  London  life  ....  (tear  north  Londoners.  She  paused  a  momenr, 
looking  boldly  across  at  the  figures  moving  on  the  islands.  After 
all  they  did  not  know  that  it  was  cold  and  desolate  and  harsh  and 
dreadful  to  be  going  about  on  Christmas  Day  in  a  place  that 
looked  as  this  place  looked  in  trams.  They  did  not  know  what 
was  wrong  with  their  clothes  and  their  bearing  and  their  way  of 
looking  at  things.    That  was  what  was  so  terrible  though.    Wliai 


The    Lit  tie    Rev  iew  21 


could  teach  them?    There  were  so  many.    They  lived  and  died  in 

amongst  each  other.     What  could  change  them? Her  face 

felt  drawn  and  weariness  was  coming  upon  her  limbs.  .  .  a  group 
was  approaching  her  along  the  wide  pavement,  laughing  and  talk- 
ing, a  blatter  of  animated  voices;  she  turned  briskly  for  the  relief 

of  meeting  and  passing  close  to  them.  .  .  .  too  near,  too  near 

prosperity  and  kindliness,  prosperous  fresh  laughing  faces,  easily 
bought  clothes,  the  manner  of  the  large  noisy  house  and  large  se- 
cure income,  free  movement  in  an  accessible  world,  all  turned  to 
dangerous  weapons  in  wrong  hands  by  the  unfinished,  insensitive 
mouths,  the  ugly  slur  in  the  speech,  the  shapelessness  of  bearing, 
the  naively  visible  thoughts,  circumscribed  by  business,  the  illus- 
trated monthly  magazines,  the  summer  month  at  the  seaside;  their 
lives  were  exactly  like  their  way  of  walking  down  the  street,  a 
confident  blind  trampling.  Speech  was  not  needed  to  reveal  their 
certainties;  they  shed  certainty  from  every  angle  of  their  unfin- 
ished persons.  Certainty  about  everything.  Incredulous  contempt 
for  all  uncertainty.  Impatient  contempt  for  all  who  could  not 
stand  up  for  themselves.  Cheerful  uncritical  affection  for  each  other. 

And  for  all  who  were  living  or  trying  to  live  just  as  they  did 

The  little  bushes  of  variegated  laurel  grouped  in  railed-off  oblongs 
along  the  gravelled  pathway  between  the  two  wide  strips  of  pave- 
ment, drew  her  gaze.  They  shone  crisply,  their  yellow  and  green 
enamel  washed  clean  by  yesterday's  rain.  She  hurried  along  feel- 
ing out  towards  them  through  downcast  eyes.  They  glinted  back 
at  her  unsunned  by  the  sunlight,  rootless  sapless  surfaces  set  in 
repellent  clay,  spread  out  in  meaningless  air.  To  and  fro  her  eyes 
slid  upon  the  varnished  leaves.  .  .  .  she  saw  them  in  a  park  set  in 
amongst  massed  dark  evergreens,  gleaming  out  through  afternoon 
mist,  keeping  .the  last  of  the  light  as  the  people  drifted  away  leav- 
ing the  slopes  and  vistas  clear.  .  .  grey  avenues  and  dewy  slopes 
drifted  before  her  in  the  faint  light  of  dawn,  the  grey  growing  pale 
and  paler;  the  dew  turned  to  a  scatter  of  jewels  and  the  sky 
soared  up  high  above  the  growing  shimmer  of  sunlit  green  and 
gold.  Isolated  morning  figures  hurried  across  the  park,  aware  of 
its  morning  freshness,  seeing  it  as  their  own  secret  garden,  part 

of  their  secret  day 

From  the  sunlit  white  facade  of  a  large  London  house  the 
laurels  looked  down  through  a  white  stone-pillared  balustrade. 
[They  appeared  coming  suddenly  with  the  light  of  a  street. lamp, 
clumped  safely  behind  the  railings  of  a  Bloomsbury  square.  .  .  . 
the  opening  of  a  side  street  led  her  back  into  the  maze  of  little 


22  The    Little    Review 


roads.  The  protective  presence  of  the  little  house  was  there  and 
she  sauntered  hajjpily  along  through  channels  of  sheltered  sunlit 

silence What  was  she  doing  here?     At  Qiristmas-time  one 

should  be  where  one  belonged.  Gathering  and  searching  about 
her  came  the  claims  of  the  firesides  that  had  lain  open  to  her 
choice,  drawing  her  back  into  the  old  life,  the  only  life  known  to 
those  who  srit  round  them.  'J'hey  looked  out  from  that  life,  seeing 
hers  as  hardship  and  gUxim,  j)itying  her,  turning  blind  eyes  ui(- 
willingly  towards  her  attempts  to  unveil  and  make  it  known  to 
them.  She  saw  herself  relinquishing  efforts,  putting  on  a  desperate 
animation,  professing  interests  and  opinions  and  talking  as  people 
talk,  while  they  watched  her  with  eyes  that  saw  nothing  but  a  piti- 
ful attempt  to  hide  an  awful  fate,  lonely  poverty,  the  absence  of 
any  opening  prospect,  nothing  ahead  but  a  gloom  deepening  as  the 
years  counted  themselves  off.  Those  were  the  facts  —  as  almost 
anyone  might  see  them.  They  made  those  facts  live;  they  tugged 
at  the  jungle  of  feelings  that  had  the  power  to  lead  one   back 

through  any  small  crushing  maiming  aperture In  their  midst 

lived  the  past  and  the  thing  that  had  ended  it  and  plunged  it  into' 
a  darkness  that  still  held  the  threat  of  destroying  reason  and  life. 
Perhaps  only  thus  could  it  be  faced.  Perhaps  only  in  that  way;' 
What  other  way  was  there?  Forgetfulness  blotted  it  out  and  let 
one  live  on.  But  it  was  always  there,  impossible,  when  one  looked 
back.  .  .  .  The  little  house  brought  forgetfulness  and  rest.  It  made 
no  break  in  the  new  life.  The  new  life  flowed  through  it,  sunlit. 
It  was  a  flight  down  strange  vistas,  a  superfluity  of  wild  strange- 
ness, with  a  clue  in  one's  hand,  the  door  of  retreat  always  open; 
rest  and  forgetfulness  piling  up  within  one  into  strength. 

8 
The  incidents  Grace  had  described  went  in  little  disconnected 
.scenes  in  and  out  of  the  caverns  of  the  dying  fire.  She  was  wait-, 
ing  tremulously  for  a  verdict.  They  seemed  to  Miriam  so  decisive 
that  she  f(jund  it  difficult  to  keep  within  Graces  point  of  view. 
She  stood  in  the  i^icturesfjue  suburb,  saw  the  distant  glimpse  of 
Highgate  Woods,  the  pretty  corner  house  standing  alone  in  itl^ 
garden,  the  sisters  in  the  dresses  they  had  worn  at  the  dance  talk-^ 
ing  to  their  mother  indoors,  waited  on  by  their  polite  admiringi 
brother;  their  unct)nsciousness,  their  lives  as  they  looked  to  them«* 
selves.  I'A'crything  fitted  in  with  the  leghorn  hats  they  had  worif 
at  the  league  garden  ])arty  in  the  summer.  She  could  have  warned 
Grace  then  if  she  had  heard  about  them.  .  .  Grace  had  not  yet 
found  out  that  people  were  arranged  in  groups.  .  .  .  The  only  hon-;; 


TheLittleReview  23 

I  4  thinp;  to  say  now  would  ho.  —  oh  well  of  course  wilh  a  mother 
and  sisters  like  llial;  don't  you  .v(;t' — what  they  are?  Her  mind 
drew  a  little  circle  round  the  family  {];roup.  It  spun  round  them 
on  and" on  as  they  went  throuj^h  life.  She  frowned  her  cer- 
tainty into  the  fire,  ranging  herself  with  the  unknown  people  she 
knew  so  well.  If  she  did  not  speak  Grace  would  see  in  her  some- 
thing.,' of  the  C|uality  that  was  the  pass])ort  into  that  smooth-voiced 
world.  .  .  .  she  imagined  herself  further  and  further  into  it,  seeing 
everyday  incidents,  hearing  ccjnversations  slide  from  the  surfaces 
of  minds  that  in  all  their  differences  made  one  even  surface,  un- 
conscious unbroken  and  maddeningly  unciuestioning  and  unaware. 
....  They  were  unaware  of  anything,  though  they  had  easy  fluent 
words  about  everything.  .  .  .  underneath  the  surface  that  kept 
Grace  off  they  were.  .  .  .  amocboe,  awful  determined  unconscious 
.  .  .  .  octopi  ....  frightful  things  with  one  eye,  tentacles,  poison- 
sacs  ....  the  surface  made  them,  n(jt  they  the  surface;  rules  .... 
they  were  civilisati(m.  Hut  they  knew  the  rules;  they  know  how  to 
flo  the  surface  .  .  .  they  held  to  them  and  lived  by  them.  It  was 
a  sort  of  game.  .  .  They  were  -martyrs;  with  empty  lives.  ...  al- 
ways awake,  day  and  night,  with  unrelaxcd  wills.  .  .  she  turned 
and  met  frank  eyes  still  waiting  for  a  verdict.  All  the  strength 
of  Grace's  personality  was  quivering  there;  all  the  determined  faith 
in  reason  and  principle.  Perhaps  if  she  had  a  clear  field  she  could 
disarm  them.  .  .  .  anyone,  everyone.  If  she  could  get  near  enough 
they  would  fnid  out  her  reality  and  her  strength.  lUit  they  would 
not  want  to  be  like  her.  They  would  run  in  the  end  from  their 
apprehensitm  of  her,  back  to  the  things  .she  did  not  see.  .  .  .  They 
had  done  so.  He  had;  it  was  clear.  Or  she  could  not  have  spoken 
of  him.  If  you  can  speak  of  a  thing,  it  is  pa.st  ....  S|X'aking 
makes  it  glow  with  a  life  that  is  not  its  own.  -  '{'here's  a  lot 
more  to  tell  you  —  said  Grace  ])ressing  her  hand.  Miriam  turned 
from  the  fire;  Grace  was  looking  as  she  had  done  when  she  began 
her  story.  Miriam  sat  back  in  her  chair  searching  her  face  and 
form  trying  to  find  and  express  the  secret  of  her  indomitable  con- 
viction. Being  what  she  was,  why  could  she  not  be  sufficient  to 
herself?  Entrenched  in  uncertainty  she  seemed  le.ss  than  herself. 
Her  careful  good  clothes,  .so  exquisitely  kept,  the  delicate  f)ld  gold 
chain,  the  little  pearled  cross,  the  f)l(l  fine  delicate  rings,  the  cen- 
turies of  shadowy  ccclesiasticism  in  her  head  and  face,  the  look 
of  waiting,  gazing  from  grey  stone  framed  days  upon  a  jewelled 
si)Iendour,  grew  with  her  uncertainty  sm.all  and  limited.  It  was  un- 
bearable that  they  should  have  no  meeting  ...  Grace  was  ready  to 


24  ThcLittleReview 


take  all  she  possessed  into  a  world  where  it  would  have  no  meaning; 
ready  to  disappear  and  be  changed.  She  was  changed  already. 
She  could  not  get  back  and  tliere  was  nothing  to  go  forward  to, 
Miriam  dropped  her  eyes  and  sat  back  in  her  chair.  The  tide  of 
her  o^^^l  life  flowed  fresh  all  about  her;  the  room  and  the  figure  at 
her  side  made  a  sharply  separated  scene,  a  play  watched  from  a 
distance,  the  end  visible  in  the  beginning  to  be  read  in  the  shapes 
and  tones  and  folds  of  the  getting,  the  intentions  and  statements 
nothing  but  imix>tent  irrelevance,  only  bearable  for  the  opportuni- 
ties they  offered  here  and  there,  involuntarily  for  headlong  escape 
into  the  reality  that  nothing  touched  or  changed.  If  only  Grace 
could  be  forced  to  see  the  unchanging  reality.  .  .  Oh  Miriam  dar- 
ling, breathed  Grace  in  an  even,  anxious  tone.  Miriam  suppressed 
a  desire  to  whistle;  —  Oh  well  of  course  that  may  make  a  differ- 
ence —  she  said  hurriedly,  checking  the  thrill  in  her  voice.  Far 
back  in  the  caverns  of  the  fire  life  moved  sunlit.  She  dropped  her 
eyes  and  drew  away  the  hand  that  Grace. had  clasped.  Life  danced 
and  sang  within  her;  shreds  of  song;  the  sense  of  the  singing  of 
the  wind;  clear  bright  light  streaming  through  large  houses,  quick- 
ening on  walls  and  stairways  and  across  wide  rooms.  Along  clear 
avenues  of  light  radiating  from  the  future  pouring  from  behind  her 
into  the  inner  channels  of  her  eyes  and  ears  came  unknown  forms 
moving  in  a  brilliance,  casting  a  brilliance  across  the  outstretched 
past,  warming  its  shadows,  bathing  its  bright  levels  in  sparkling 
gold.  Her  free  hands  lifted  themselves  until  only  the  tips  of  her 
fingers  rested  on  her  knees  and  her  hair  strove  from  its  roots  as  if 
the  whole  length  would  stand  and  wave  upright.  —  You  see  —  she 
said  to  gain  a  moment.  Suddenly  her  mind  became  a  blank.  Her 
body  was  heavy  on  her  chair,  ill-clothed,  too  warm,  peevishly 
tingling  with  desires.  She  stirred,  shrinking  from  her  ugly,  inex- 
orable cheap  clothes,  her  glasses,  the  mystery  of  her  rigid  stupidly 
done  hair;  how  how  how  did  people  get  expression  into  their  hair 
consciously  and  not  by  accident?  AMiy  did  Grace  like  her  in  spite  of 
all  these  things,  in  spite  of  the  evil  thoughts  which  must  show. 
She  did.  She  had  felt  nothing,  seen  nothing.  She  dissembled  her 
face  and  turned  towards  Grace,  gazing  past  her  into  the  darkness 
beyond  the  range  of  the  firelight.  Just  outside  the  rim  of  her 
glasses  Grace's  firelit  face  gleamed  on  the  edge  of  the  darkness 
half  turned  towards  her.  Leaping  into  her  mind  came  the  realisa- 
tion that  she  was  sitting  there  talking  to  someone  ....  Marvellous 
to  speak  and  hear  a  voice  answer.  Astounding;  more  marvellous 
and  astounding   tlian   anything/  they  could   discuss.     Grace  must 


The    Little    Review  25 

(know  this,  even  if  she  were  unconscious  of  it.  .  .  .  some  little  sound 
they  could  both  hear,  a  little  mark  upon  the  stillness,  scattering 
light  and  relief.  She  turned  her  eyes  and  met  Grace's,  velvety, 
deeply  sparkling,  strahlend  mit  Liebe  und  Bewunderung,  patiently 
waiting  —  Well,  —  said  Miriam,  sleepily  feeling  for  a  thread 
of  connected  thought.  —  D'you  mean  a  difference  about  my  taking 
aunt  to  call,  asked  Grace  with  fear  in  her  eyes.  —  No,  my  dear, 
said  Miriam  impatiently.  —  Can't  you  see  you  can't  do  that  any- 
how?   They've  only  been  there  five  years,  said  Grace  in  a 

low  determined  recitative  —  We've  lived  in  what's  almost  the 
same  neighborhood,  fifteen.  So  it's  our  place  to  call  first  —  Miriam 
sighed  harshly.  —  That  doesn't  make  a  scrap  of  difference  she 
retorted  flushing  with  anger.  —  I  wish  I  had  your  grasp  of  things 
Miriam  dear,  said  Grace  with  gentle  weariness.  —  Well  —  we've 
got  tomorrow  and  Monday,  said  Miriam  getting  up  with  an  ap- 
pearance of  briskness  and  stretching,  and  striking  random  notes 
(On  the  piano.     Grace  laughed.  —  I  suppose  we  ought  to  light  the 

gas,  she  said  getting  up.  —  Why? Oh  well  —  Florrie  will  be 

coming  in  and  asking  why  we're  sitting  in  the  dark What  if 

she  does Oh,  I  think  I'll  light  in  Miriam.    Miriam  sat  down 

again  and  stared  into  the  fire. 

(to  be  continued) 

ADVICE  TO  A  STREET-PAVEMENT 

by  Maxwell  Bodenheim 

Lacerated  gray  has   bitten 

Into  your  shapeless  humility. 

Little  episodes  of  roving 

Strew  their  hieroglyphics  on  your  muteness. 

Life  has  given  you  heavy  stains 

Like  an  ointment  growing  stale. 

Endless  feet  tap  over  you 

With  a  maniac  insistene. 

O  unresisting  street-pavement 

Keep  your  passive  insolence 

At  the  dwarfs  who  scorn  you  with  their  feet. 

Only  one  who  lies  upon  his  back 

Can  disregard  the  stars. 


26  The    Li  t  tie    Review 


DANCING  AS   AN   ART 
by  Emanuel  Carnevali 

To      Henri 

I  AM  thirty.  The  other  day  I  met  a  dancer.  He  had  blue  eyes 
and  a  lady's  mouth  and  his  voice  was  sickening  soft.  His  name 
was  Mr.  Snake.  When  he  lifted  his  arm,  bent  at  the  elbow,  hand 
horizontal  outward,  I  was  afraid;  and  when  of  his  two  legs  he  made 
a  perfect  twist  I  laughed.  In  other  words,  I  enjoyed  his  dancing 
and  was  very  much  interested  in  it. 

— Mr.  Snake,  I  think  I  want  to  learn  how  to  dance. 

— My  dear  man,  dancing  is  art,  every  art — art. 

— That  doesn't  make  much  of  a  difference  to  me. 

— It  made  all  the  difference  in  the  world  to  me. 

— Ah,  you  clever  rascal!  said  I,  with  a  sneer  of  understand- 
ing. Shortly  after  I  went  home.  The  sneer  became  embarrassed 
as  I  was  walking  on  my  way  home.  The  sneer  chilled 
^s  the  stars  laughed  on  top  of  my  ungainly  head.  But 
.t  at  last  assumed  its  ultimate  shape,  becoming  a  grimace 
of  fear,  as  I  saw  moonlight  break  against  a  doorway 
and  smooth  the  wind-swept  sidewalk. — I  must  learn  danc- 
ing. It  would  be  good  for  my  legs,  good  for  my  arms,  for  my  out- 
ward appearance,  and  I  have  often  desired,  I  always  desire  that 
bright  elegance  which  ....  I  must  learn  how  to  dance. — I  felt  my 
knees,  I  looked  down  upon  the  shapeless  bagging  of  my  pants,  saw 
my  feet  sprawling  in  my  too  large  shoes  and  imagined  with  a  quick 
pang  my  worn  out  heels. — I  must  learn  how  to  dance — .  There 
I  was.  with  my  dangling  arms;  my  heavy,  uncontrolled  and  perhaps 
uncontrollable  hands;  my  legs  always  bent  a  little  forward;  my 
belly  pushed  backward;  my  shoulders  rounded  forward;  as  I  w^alked 
my  head  pecked  the  air  like  a  helpless  hen's.  With  the  concen- 
trated despair  of  twenty  years  of  clumsiness  suddenly  revealed, 
I  lifted  a  cursing  hand.  But  the  arm  came  up  slowly  and  disloca- 
tedly,  without  direction,  refusing  to  be  cast  into  a  gesture.  In  the 
name  of  Mr.  Snake,  what  was  this?  WTiere  was  I  going — for,  in- 
deed, my  body  was  not  following!  My  head  this  way,  my  belly 
that,  my  knees  that  way!     W'hat  was  this? 

I  was  in  the  shai)e  of  an  ugliness,  a  drifting  thing,  a  walking 
contradiction.     1  had  been  unconscious  of  a  great  ridiculous  ab- 


T  h  e    Lit  tl  e    Rev  lew  27 

surdity  and  it  had,  without  my  knowing,  moulded  me.  Damn  me! 
I  thought  I  was  going  somewhere — along  ecstatic  streets  crowned 
with  glare  of  lamplight — and  my  body  wasn't  following.  My  form 
wasn't  following,  /  wasn't  following.  I  was  only  a  shadcw,  that 
of  Mr.  Visionary  who  had  so  inspired  me  once,  or  any  other'shadow 
anyway. 

I  was  a  warped  effort  on  a  road  to  the  splendid  somewhere 
which  I  had  conceived  one  day.  .  .  conceived  beautifully  one  day, 
— oh  I  remember  that  gesture,  I  remember  the  dance  I  had  then 
begun. 

God,  I  was  a  thwarted  effort  and  my  own  damnation  and  my 
own  end  it  was  that  twisted  me  down  like  that!  I  couldn't  any- 
more learn  to  dance.  Oh,  if  I  lift  a  finger  now  do  I  not  know  how 
far  within  me  that  motion  begins!  You  couldn't  change  that  far 
within.  Not  at  thirty.  Mr.  Snake,  what  can  you  do  for  me? 
Haven't  I  been  aware  of  that  which  made  me  as  I  am  now?     I 

have,  I  know  I  have.    I  can  be  saved.     Mr.  Snake ah,  the 

hell  with  you,  I  don't  need  you.  I'll  learn,  I'll  learn,  almighty 
stars,  watching  eyes  upon  this  world,  seers,  judges,  WATCH    ME! 

And  I  lifted  myself  up.  I  forced  my  body  into  a  complete 
gesture  of  immobile  contrition,  knowing  that  if  the  gesture  was 
true  it  would  be  the  destruction  of  my  former  clumsiness,  which 
was  a  wierd  root  in  the  sodden  depths  of  me.  Perfectly  immobile, 
in  tears  and  frets,  in  deadly  sweat,  through  every  pore  of  my  body 
the  twenty  years  of  filth  that  had  clogged  me  oozed  out  of  me.  I 
don't  know  how  I  didn't  die.  Then  it  was,  dear  Bill,  that  I  felt 
ashamed  of  every  word  I  had  told  you,  then  it  was  that  the  gross  lie 
of  what  I  had  called  my  "impetuous  naive  nature"  assumed  a  form 
that  frightened  me  beyond  human  words,  then  it  was  that  I  stood 
waiting,  humble  before  the  ash  can  which  open-mouthed  watched 
me  free  myself.  And  the  stars  laughed  insanely — unless  it  was  my 
eyes  were  insane. 

Then,  I  moved.  You  know  there  is  some  greatness  in  me, 
you  know  that  I  always  saw  it,  the  beacon  shining  very  far — a  little 
infinitely  beyond  every  street's  end,  over  the  hump  of  this  street 
that  jumps  down  into  the  abyss,  accompanied  to  its  perdition  by 
the  lamps-posts'  procession, — I  always  saw  it,  dim  as  lit  fog.  thinking 
it  was  probably  nothing  but  lit  fog.  But  now  on  top  of  a  house  a 
star  shone — a  hole  revealing  that  the  sky  is  a  diamond  palace  cov- 
ered with  a  blue  cloth.  Well,  I  had  to  hurry  up,  as  I  was  at  the 
end  of  my  strength.  I  swung  myself  up,  whirled  through  the  air 
writing  a  beautiful  parabola  over  the  skirt  of  Night  and 


! 


28  T  h  e    Lit  1 1  e    Review 


CRACRt'K! 
1   fell  oil  the  side  of  a  hou^o  and  broke  my  bones  in  pieces.     I 
hung  in  shreds  from  several  laundry  ropes  until  they  came  to  get 
me.     The  la.^t  thing  I  saw  on  earth  was  the  horrid  moutli  of  a 
window  which  had  been  gaping  that  way  fifty  years. 


Exclamation    over    the    "Por 
trait    of    Mile.  -Pogany" 
by  Louis  Gilmore 

Original 
Conception 
Of  the  egg, 
Immaculate 
Influence 
Of  a  ghost, 

Unto  stone 

No  trace 
Of  any  pain 
Lingers  .... 


Parts 
Compose 
Into  one  .  .  . 
It  is  Nirvana!  .  . 


The    Little    Review  29 


THE    SIN 

by  Ralph  Block 

IT  grew — slowly,  then  terrifically. 
He  heard  his  father's  voice  sloping  away.  Don't  forget  to  ask 
Grundy  for  eggs.  He  was  eating  eggs  and  the  yellow  yolk  flared 
up  at  him  like  blood.  Atonement  —  blood  atonement  —  he  would 
have  to  make.  It  was  the  only  way  out.  Momentarily  at  his  mother's 
soft  assenting  reply,  he  darted  out  of  the  path  of  his  idea  to  won- 
der where  the  comfort  had  gone,  of  her  voice;  knew  he  was  damned, 
damned  and  apart.  The  supper  lights  made  their  faces  pasty.  He 
felt  sick,  writhed,  and  fear  grew,  keeping  pace  with  the  growing 
knowledge  of  what  sin  made  him  leave  behind.  The  comfortable 
evening  meal,  the  slow  broken  narrative  from  father  to  mother 
and  back,  his  dreaming  over  the  day.  And  there  was  satisfaction 
in  eating,  relaxing  after  play  and  the  warmth  of  pleasantries.  Clip 
the  dog?  came  from  his  father  and  he  almost  rose  in  terror  of 
showing  his  soul.  There  was  the  dog.  Guilty,  still  to  be  master 
of  a  dog.  Outwardly  he  showed  nothing,  swallowed  calmly  and 
answered,  Jasper  said  tomorrow. 

He  could  not  eat,  it  was  fire  in  his  throat.  And  he  could  hear 
his  heart,  felt  it  was  in  an  icy  shell  that  turned  the  sound  into  aj 
thousand  echoes. 

The  shades  were  being  drawn.  He  hated  the  night,  felt  sud- 
den relief  and  breathed  deeply  but  only  for  an  instant.  His  father's 
newspaper  .rustled  and  he  felt  dim  hands  pushing  him  from  the 
room.  There  was  his  bed.  He  flung  away  from  the  idea,  the  naked 
silence,  breathing  in  the  room  next  to  him,  little  sounds,  the  heavi- 
ness of  the  air  and  the  sodden  smell  of  his  bedclothes. 

Outside  he  paused,  forgot  a  moment  and  realized  he  had  no 
cap,  remembered  again.  He  walked  around  the  porch  to  the  side 
door,  hesitated  and  went  down  the  steps  to  the  big  evergreen  in 
the  corner  of  the  lot.  He  stopped  to  listen  to  the  wind  moaning 
-through  it.  A  man  went  by  on  the  walk  whistling.  Something 
bounded  beside  him  and  the  dog's  nose  pushed  into  his  hand.  He 
withdrew  his  hand  fearfully  and  turned.  Then  he  ran,  the  dog 
after  him.  He  slammed  the  gate  and  did  not  look  back,  knowing 
he  was  alone. 

It  was  clearer.  It  would  be  blood,  of  both  of  them.  He  ran 
faster,  was  astonished  to  hear  his  feet  slap  against  the  walk,  and 
turned  across  the  lawn.     The  road  flew  up  at  him.     There  were 


30  T he    Li t  tie    Review 

houses  with  lights,  the  smell  of  meals  in  the  air,  black  shapes  tha: 
were  people.  A  horse  was  drawn  up  sharply  and  he  heard  sounds 
from  the  buggy  and  went  on  through  a  yard  and  crossing  an  alley. 
At  the  board  fence  he  stopped.  He  climbed  over,  landed  on  the 
manure  pile.  The  barn  door  creaked  a  little.  He  paused.  Out 
on  the  driveway  a  match  flickered  brightly  and  went  out.  Another 
flared.  He  saw  the  horse  hitched  to  the  phaeton.  Now  don't  yon 
stay  late,  children.  You  bring  her  home  early,  Roger.  That  was- 
her mother's  voice.  There  was  talking  and  in  a  moment  her  laugh- 
ter. Something  broke  inside.  He  waited.  The  manure  was  steam- 
ing and  warm.  The  phaeton  moved  off,  hesitated  across  the  ditch 
and  turned,  the  lights  flickering  and  jumping.  He  started  up  and 
ran  down  the  driveway.    The  phaeton  was  going  around  the  corner. 

The  light  on  the  porch  went  out  and  he  heard  a  door  inside 
closed  noisily,  as  if  stuck. 

The  bell  clattered  in  his  ears  and  he  was  shocked  by  it,  pulled 
his  hand  away  from  the  button  hastily.  The  door  opened  inside 
and  there  were  footsteps.  Her  mother  appeared,  looked  at  him 
and  smiled.  He  said  nothing.  Is  that  you,  John.  Marjorie's  gone 
to  a  party  with  Roger  Martin.  I'm  sorry.  There  was  a  wait.  He 
stared.  Won't  you  come  in  and  look  at  some  of  Marjorie's  books? 
He  stared,  said  nothing,  turned  and  walked  down  the  steps  to  the 
street.    The  door  slammed.    The  light  went  out. 

Jesus.  The  caqDenter  who  had  one  eye  said  that  when  the 
saw  cut  him. 

Jesus.  He  shivered,  could  not  keep  his  mind  from  rolling  up 
-the  terrible  moment  itself,  the  agony  and  delight  and  her  eyes 
afterward;  shut  it  off  with  his  hand  and  groaned. 

He  walked  on,  suddenly  felt  cold.  Jesus,  he  said  aloud,  over 
and  over. 

It  was  not  sin,  then.  She  had  laughed,  was  laughing  now. 
Nothing  had  happened  to  her.  Nothing  had  happened  to  him. 
People  passed  him  talking.  Nothing  was  changed.  Near  home  the 
dog  came  running,  jumping  and  nipping  at  his  hands.  Everything 
was  the  same.  The  dog,  even.  It  was  not  sin  then.  He  turned, 
took  hold  of  the  dog  and  buried  his  face  in  his  hair,  inhaling  the 
musty  animal  fragrance.     The  dog  whined  and  licked  his  face. 

He  wanted  to  laugh,  to  scream  with  laughter.  .' 

Inside,  his  father  said.  Don't  go  Avithout  a  cap,  my  son. 

He  was  sleepy  and  was  going  to  bed.  His  mother  said,  You 
play  too  hard,  and  looked  at  him  anxiously  when  she  kissed  him. 

A  vast  calm  filled  him.     He  dismissed  everything.     He  un- 

{ 


J 


The    Little    Revie 


31 


dressed  and  started  when  he  saw  his  slim  body  in  the  mirror,  has- 
tened to  slip  on  his  nightgown  before  dropping  his  underclothes  on 
the  floor. 

He  wanted  to  think  about  her,  to  think  all  of  it  over  again. 
He  put  his  mind.at  work  to  shut  it  out.    It  faded  away. 


WHITEHALL 
by  Crelos 


Our  law-makers, 
Galvanometers. 
Their  motions  register 
The  strength  of  the  current 
Of  public  opinion, 
Invisible  God, 
Made  manifest  in  the  Acts 
Of  Parliament. 

II 

I  sit  before  a  table. 

Dull  green  flat  top, 

Red  mahogany. 

I  sit  before  a  table. 

Shining  black  tin  trays, 

"IN"  filled  with  buff  papers 

And  long  buff  envelopes 

Labelled  "URGENT"  in  vermiUion. 

The  labels  may  be  soiled  and  torn, 

Perhaps  the  document  was  marked  "URGENT" 

Many  weeks  ago,  and  has  been  sent 

To  a  dozen  departments  before  it  came 

To  rest  on  my  taible, 

I  shall  send  it  on  if  I  can. 

For  another  official  to  consider 

And  pass. 

"OUT"  cleared  each  hour 


32  T  h  e    Li  t  tie    Review 

By  a  solemn  shaved  old  man 

Holding  his  body  upright 
Beneath  the  hot  weight 
Of  a  thick  blue  coat  with  gold  epaulettes. 
On  my  table  are  devices 
For  keeping  papers  fastened  together, 
Clips  and  pins  and  files  and  toggles. 
I  am  provided  with  ink. 
Thin  red  ink,  thick  black  ink, 
Bright  blue  ink,  and  paper 
Embossed  with  the  royal  arms  of  England, 
Wooden  penholders  and  six  kinds  of  nib  (all  bad) 
For  writing  departmental  English. 
Men  pass  through  the  room- 
To  spend  hours  of  daylight 
Discussing  the  price  of  margarine 
And  the  equivalent  weights  of  meat. 
I  look  at  each  man's  face, 
I  look  at  each  man's  eyes, 
They  fill  me  with  a  passion 
Of  unappeased  curiosity. 
Some  day  I  shall  take  courage, 
I  shall  get  drunk  and  say  to  each  man: 
"What  do  you  see  behind  those  eyes? 
Are  you  forever  picturing 

Slabs  of  yellow  grease  that  weigh  twenty-eight  pounds?" 
But  I  am  afraid. 

Afraid  of  knowing  for  certain  ^ 

That  they  do  not  see  blocks  of  margarine, 
Or  carved  joints  of  butcher's  meat. 
Nothing  but  departmental  English 
Printed  in  black  letters  on  buff  paper. 

Ill 

His  name  is  earmarked  for  a  birth  day  honour; 

He  was  a  boy,  thirty  years  ago, 

A  little  boy  with  a  queer  mind 

That  fished  in  printed  pages. 

And  hooked  up  data. 

Dead  data,  but  carefully  mumified. 

That  is  the  way  to  win  scholarships, 

The  way  to  Baliol  and  the  Bar, 


The    Little    Review 33 

The  way  to  t>ecome  a  manufacturer  of  leaders 
For  the  Morning  Post. 

Troubled  occasionally  by  the  sunlight, 

He  draws  the  blind,  against  the  blue  of  evening 

He  switches  an  electric  lamp. 

The  woman  who  once  agreed  to  marry  him 

But  broke  off  the  engagement, 

Rarely  visits  his  memory 

He  wastes  no  minutes  wondering 

Whether  he  has  missed  anything  that  matters, 

Sitting  at  his  table  he  writes: 

"In  the  case  of  these  individuals." 

IV 

"Temporary    Women    Clerks" 

Restless  tides  pulse  through  their  bodies. 

As  their  hour  of  freedom  draws  near. 

Surging  through  dirty  grey  passages 

They  reach  the  safe  harbour  of  the  lavatory. 

In  two  small  basins  not  more  than  two  pairs  of  hands 

Can  be  washed  together. 

Before  the  single  mirror  not  more  than  one  head 

Can  be  swathed  anew  in  its  hair. 

There  is  time  for  the  ripples  to  overlap. 

Beads  and  rings  and  the  pink  polish 

Of  gleaming  fingernails, 

Compared  transparencies 

Of  imitation  silk  stockings. 

The  moods  and  the  follies 

Of  the  men  they  serve, 

Who  merely  happen  to  be  Englishmen 

And  Civil  Servants. 


34  T  h  e    Lit  tie    Rev  iew 

ULYSSES 

by  James  Joyce 

Episode   IX 

THE  superior,  the  very  reverend  John  Conmee  S.  J.  reset  his 
smooth  watch  in  his  interior  pocket  as  he  came  down  the  pres- 
bytery steps.  Five  to  three.  Just  nice  time  to  walk  to  Artane. 
What  was  that  boy's  name  again?  Dignam,  yes.  Vere  digniim  ct 
istiim  est.  Brother  Swan  was  the  person  to  see.  Mr.  Cunning- 
ham's letter.  Yes.  Oblige  him,  if  possible.  Good  practical  catho- 
lic: useful  at  mission  time. 

A  one  legged  sailor,  swinging  himself  onward  by  lazy  jerks  of 
his  crutches,  growled  some  notes.  He  jerked  short  before  the  con- 
vent of  the  sister  of  charity  and  held  out  a  peaked  cap  for  alms 
towards  the  very  reverend  John  Conmee  S.  J.  Father  Conmee 
blessed  him  in  the  sun  for  his  purse  held,  he  knew,  one  silver 
crown. 

Father  Conmee  crossed  to  Mount  joy  Square.  He  thought,  but 
not  for  long,  of  soldiers  and  sailors  whose  legs  were  shot  off  by 
cannonballs,  of  cardinal  Wolsey's  words:  //  /  had  served  my  God 
as  1  have  served  my  King  He  would  not  have  abandoned  me  in  my 
old  days.  He  walked  by  the  treeshade  of  sunnywinking  leaves: 
and  towards  him  came  the  wife  of  Mr.  David  Sheehy  M.  P. 
— Very  well,  indeed,  father.     And  you,  father? 

Father  Conmee  was  wonderfully  well  indeed.  He  would  go  to 
Buxton  probably  for  the  waters.  And  her  boys,  were  they  getting 
on  well  at  Belvedere?  Was  that  so?  Father  Conmee  was  very 
glad  indeed  to  hear  that.  And  Mr.  Sheehy  himself?  Still  in  Lon- 
don. The  house  was  still  sitting,  to  'be  sure  it  was.  Beautiful 
weather  it  was,  delightful  indeed.  Yes,  it  was  very  probable  that 
father  Bernard  Vaoighan  would  come  again  to  preach.  O,  yes:  a 
very  great  success.     A  wonderful  man  really. 

Father  Conmee  was  very  glad  to  sec  the  wife  of  Mr.  David 
Sheehy  M.  P.  looking  so  well  and  he  begged  to  be  remembered 
to  Mr.  David  Sheehy  M.  P.     Y*es.  he  would  certainly  call. 
— Good  afternoon,  Mrs.  Sheehy. 

Father  Conmee  doffed  his  silk  ha^,  as  he  took  leave,  at  the* 
jet  beads  of  her  mantilla  inkshining  in  the  sun.  And  smiled  yet 
again  in  going.  He  had  cleaned  his  teeth,  he  knew,  with  arecanut 
paste. 


The    Little    Review  35 


Father  Conmee  walked  and,  walking,  smiled  for  he  thought 
on  Father  Bernard  Vaughan's  droll  eyes  and  cockney  voice. 
— Pilate!     Wy  don't  you  oldback  that  owlin  mob? 

A  zealous  man,  however.  Really  he  was.  And  really  did 
.great  good  in  his  way.  Beyond  a  doubt.  Of  good  family  too  would 
one  think  it?    Welsh,  were  they  not? 

O,  lest  he  forget.     That  letter  to  Father  provincial. 

Father  Conmee  stopped  three  little  schoolboys  at  the  corner  of 
M'ountjoy  square.  Yes:  they  were  from  Belvedere.  The  little 
house:  Aha.  And  were  they  good  boys  at  school?  0.  That  was 
good  now.  And  what  was  his  name?  Jack  Sohan.  And  his  name? 
Ger.  Gallaher.  And  the  other  little  ^man?  His  name  was  Brunny 
Lynam.     O,  that  was  a  very  nice  name  to  have. 

Father  Conmee  gave  a  letter  from  his  breast  to  master  Brunny 
Lynam  and  pointed  to  the  red  pillarbox  at  the  corner  of  Fitzgib- 
bon  Street. 

— But  mind  you  don't  post  yourself  into  the  box,  little  man,  he 
said. 

The  boys  sixeyed  Father  Conmee  and  laughed. 
— O.  Sir. 
— Well,  let  me  see  if  you  can  post  a  letter;  Father  Conmee  said. 

Master  Brunny  Lynam  ran  across  the  road  and  put  Father 
Conmee's  letter  to  Father  provincial  into  the  moufh  of  the  brig^ht 
red  letterbox,  Father  Conmee  smiled  and  nodded  and  smiled  and 
walked  along  Mount  joy  square  east. 

Was  that  not  Mrs.  McGuinness? 

Mrs.  McGuinness  stately,  silverhaired,  bowed  to  Father  Con- 
mee from  the  further  footpath  along  which  she  sailed.  And  Father 
Conmee  smiled  and  saluted.     How  did  she  do? 

A  fine  carriage  she  had  .  Like  Mary,  queen  of  Scots,  some- 
thing. And  to  think  that  she  was  a  pawnbroker.  Well,  now! 
Such  a.  .  .  .  what  should  he  say? such  la  queenly  mien. 

Father  Conmee  walked  down  Great  Charles  Street  and  glanced 
at  the  shut  up  free  church  on  his  left.  The  reverend  T.  R.  Greene 
B.  A.  .  .  .  The  incumbent  they  called  him.  He  felt  it  incumbent 
on  him  to  say  a  few  words.  But  one  should  be  charitable.  In- 
vincible ignorance.     They  acted  according  to  their  lights. 

Father  Conmee  turned  the  corner  and  walked  along  the  North 
Circular  road.  It  was  a  wonder  that  there  was  not  a  tramline  in 
such  an  important  thoroughfare.     Surely,  there  ought  to  be. 

A  band  of  satchelled  schoolboys  crossed  from  Richmond 
Street.     All  raised  untidy  caps.     Father   Conmee  greeted  them 


Z^  The     Little     Review 


more  than  once  begnignly.     Christian  brother  boys. 

Father  Conmee  smelled  incense  on  his  right  hand  as  he 
walked.  St.  Joseph's  church,  Portland  row.  For  aged  and  virtu- 
ous females.  F"athcr  Conmee  raised  his  hat  to  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment.    Virtuous:   but  occasionally  they  were  also  bad  tempered. 

Near  Aidborough  house  P'ather  Conmee  thought  of  that 
spendthrift  nobleman.     And  now  it  was  an  office  or  something.        ,. 

Father  Conmee,  began  to  walk  along  the  North  Strand  road 
and  was  saluted  by  Mr.  William  Gallagher  who  stood  in  the  door- 
dvay  of  his  shop.  Father  Conmee  saluted  Mr.  William  Gallagher 
and  perceived  the  odours  that  came  from  baconflitohes  and  ample 
cools  of  butter.  He  passed  Grogan's  the  tobacconist  against  which 
newsboards  leaned,  and  told  of  a  dreadful  catastrophe  in  New 
York.  In  .America  these  things  were  continually  happening.  Un- 
fortunate people  to  die  like  that,  unprepared.  Still,  an  act  of  per- 
fect contrition. 

Father  Conmee  went  by  Daniel  Bergin's  publichouse  against 
the  window  of  which  two  unla'bouring  men  lounged.  They  saluted 
him  and  were  saluted. 

Father  Conmee  passed  H.  J.  O'Neill's  funeral  establishment 
where  Corny  Kelleher  toted  figures  on  the  daybook  while  he 
chewed  a  blade  of  hay.  A  constable  on  his  beat  saluted  Father 
Conmee  and  Father  Conmee  saluted  the  constable.  In  Yonkstett 
the  porkbutcher's  Father  Conmee  observed  pigs'  puddings  white, 
and  black  and  red  lying  neatly  curled  in  tubes. 

Moored  under  the  trees  of  Charleville  Mall  Father  Conmee 
saw  a  turfbarge,  a  towhorse  with  pendent  head,  a  bargeman  with 
a  hat  of  dirty  straw  seated  amidships,  smoking  and  staring  at  a 
branch  of  elm  above  him.  It  was  idyllic:  and  Father  Conmee  re- 
flected on  the  providence  of  the  Creator  who  had  made  turf  to  be 
in  bogs  where  men  might  dig  it  out  and  bring  it  to  make  fires  in 
the  houses  of  poor  people.  I 

On  Newcomen  bridge  the  very  reverend  John  Conmee  S.  J.  ' 
of  St,  Francis  Xavier's  church,  upper  Gardiner  street,  stepped  on 
to  an  outward  bound  tram. 

Off  an  inward  lx)und  tram  stepped  the  reverend  Nicholas 
Du(i!ey  C.  C.  of  Saint  Agatha's  church,  North  William  street,  on  to 
Newcomen  bridge. 

At  Newcomen  bridge  Father  Conmee  stepped  into  an  out- 
ward bound  tram  for  he  disliked  to  traverse  on  foot  the  dingy  way 
past  mud  island. 

Father  Conmee  sat  in  a  corner  of  the  tramcar,  a  blue  ticket 


The    Little    Review  '        2t7 

tucked  with  care  in  the  eye  of  one  plump  kid  glove,  While  four 
shillings,  a  sixpnce  and  five  pennies  chuted  from  his  other  plump 
glovepalm  into  his  purse. 

It  was  a  peaceful  day.  The  gentleman  with  the  glasses  oppo- 
site Father  Conimee  had  finished  explaining  and  looked  down.  His 
wife,  Father  Conmee  supposed.  A  tiny  yawn  opened  the  moutli  of 
the  wife  of  the  gentleman  with  the  glasses.  She  raised  her  small 
gloved  fist,  yawned  ever  so  gently,  tiptapping  her  small  gloved  fist 
on  her  opening  mouth. 

Father  Conmee  perceived  her  perfume  in  the  ccr.  He  per- 
ceived also  that  the  awkward  man  at  the  other  side  of  her  was 
sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  seat. 

Father  Conmee  at  the  altarrails  placed  the  host  with  difficulty 
in  the  mouth  of  the  awkward  old  man  who  had  the  shaky  head. 

At  Annesley  bridge  the  tram  halted  and,  when  it  was  about 
to  go,  an  old  woman  rose  suddenly  from  her  place  to  alight.  The 
conductor  pulled  the  bellstrap  to  stay  the  car  for  her.  She  passed, 
but  with  her  basket  and  a  marketnet:  and  Father  Conmee  saw  the 
conductor  help  her  and  net  and  basket  down:  and  Father  Conmee 
thought  that  she  was  one  of  those  good  souls  who  had  always  to  be 
told  twice  bless  you,  my  child,  that  they  have  been  absolved,  pray 
for  me.  But  they  had  so  many  worries  in  life,  so  many  cares,  poor 
creatures. 

From  the  hoardings  Mr.  Eugene  Stratton  grinned  with  thick 
niggerlips  at  Father  Conmee. 

Father  Conmee  thought  of  the  souls  of  black  and  brown  and 
yellow  men  and  of  his  sermon  on  saint  Peter  Claver  S.  J.  and  the 
African  mission  and  of  the  propagation  of  the  faith  and  of  the 
millions  of  black  and  brown  and  yellow  souls  that  had  not  re- 
ceived the  baptism  of  water.  That  book  by  the  Belgian  Jesuit, 
"Le  Nombre  des  Elus",  seemed  to  Father  Conmee  a  reasonable 
plea.  Those  were  millions  of  human  souls  created  by  God  in  His 
Own  likeness  to  whom  the  faith  had  not  been  brought.  But  they 
were  God's  souls  created  by  God.  It  seemed  to  Father  Conmee  a 
pity  that  they  should  all  be  lost,  a  waste,  if  one  might  say. 

At  the  Howth  road  stop  Father  Conmee  alighted,  was  saluted 
"  by  the  conductor  and  saluted  in  his  turn. 

The  Malahide  road  was  quiet.  It  pleased  Father  Conmee, 
road  and  name.  The  joybells  were  ringing  in  gay  Malahide. 
Those  were  old  worldish  days,  loyal  times,  in  joyous  townlands,  old 
times  in  the  barony. 

Father  Conmee,  walking,  thought  of  his  little  book  "Old  Times 


3^  The    Little    Review 


in  the  Barony"  and  of  the  book  that  might  Ik.'  written  about  Jesuit 
houses  and  of  Ellen,  first  countess  of  Belvedere. 

A  listless  lady,  no  more  young,  walked  alone  the  shore  of 
lough  Qwel,  Ellen,  first  countess  of  Belvedere,  listlessly  walking 
in  the  evening,  not  startled  when  an  otter  plunged.  Who  could 
know  the  truth?  Not  the  jealous  lord  Belvedere,  and  not  her 
confessor  if  she  had  not  committed  adultery  fully,  eiaculatio  sem- 
inis  intra  vas  mnlieris,  with  her  husband's  brother?  She  wmild 
half  confess  if  she  had  not  all  sinned  as  women  did.  Only  God 
knew  and  she  and  he,  her  husband's  brother. 

Father  Conmee  thought  of  that  tyrannous  incontinence, 
needed  however  for  men's  race  on  earth,  and  of  the  ways  of  God 
which  were  not  our  ways. 

Don  John  Conmee  walked  and  moved  in  times  of  yore.  He 
was  humane  and  honoured  there.  He  bore  in  mind  secrets  con- 
fessed and  he  smiled  at  smiling  noble  faces  in  a  beeswaxed  draw 
ingroom,  ceiled  with  full  fruit  clusters.  And  the  hands  of  a 
bride  and  of  a  bridegroom,  noble  to  noble,  were  impalmed  by 
by  Don  John  Conmee. 

It  was  a  charming  day. 

The  lychgate  of  a  field  showed  Father  Conmee  breadths  of 
cabbages,  curtseying  to  him  with  ample  underleaves.  The  sky 
showed  him  a  f!ock  of  small  white  clouds  going  slowly  down  the 
wind.     Moutonnes,  the  French  said.     A  homely  and  just  word. 

Father  Conmee,  reading  his  office,  watched  a  flock  of  mut- 
toning  clouds  over  Rathcoffee.  His  thinsocked  ankles  were  tick- 
led by  the  stubble  of  Clongowes  field.  He  walked  there,  reading 
in  the  evening  and  heard  the  cries  of  the  boys'  lines  at  their  play, 
young  cries  in  the  quiet  evening.  He  was  their  rector:  his  reign 
was  mild. 

Father  Conmee,  reading  his  office,  watched  a  flock  of  mut- 
breviary  out.     An  ivory  bookmark  told  him  the  page. 

Nones.  He  should  have  read  that  before  lunch.  But  lady 
Maxwell  had  come. 

Father  Conmee  read  in  secret  Pater  and  Ave  and  crossed  his 
breast.     Dcus  in  adiiitorium. 

He  walked  calmly  and  read  mutely  the  nones,  walking  and 
reading  till  he  came  to.  Res  in  Beati  immaculati:  Principiiim  ver- 
horum  tuorum  Veritas:   in  cterniim  omnia  indicia  jiistitiac  time. 

A  flushed  young  man  came  from  the  gap  of  a  hedge  and  after 
him  came  a  young  woman  with  wild  nodding  daisies  in  her  hand. 
The    young    man    raised    his    hat    abruptly:    the  young    woman 


The    Little    Review  39 


abruptly  bent  and  with  slow  care  detached  from  her  light  skirt  a 
clinging  twig. 

Father  Conmee  blessed  both  gravely  and  turned  a  liiin  page 
of  his  breviary.  Sin:  Principes  persecuti  sunt  me  gratis:  et  a 
verbis  fiiis  jormidavit  cor  meirni. 

+  + 

Corny  Kelleher  closed  his  long  daybook  and  glanced  with  his 
drooping  eye  -at  a  pine  coffinlid  sentried  in  a  corner. 
He  pulled  himself  erect,  went  to  it  and  spinning  it  on  its  axle, 
viewed  its  shape.  Chewing  his  blade  of  hay  he  laid  the  coffinlid 
by  and  came  to  the  doorway.  There  he  tilted  his  hatbrim  to  give 
shade  to  his  eys  and  leaned  against  the  doorcase,  looking  idly  out. 
Father  John  Conmee  stepped  in  to  the  Dollymount  tram  on  New- 
comen  bridge. 

Corny  Kelleher  locked  his  largefooted  boots  and  gazed,  his 
hat  downtilted,  chewing  his  blade  of  hay. 

Constable  57  C,  on  his  beat,  stood  to  pass  the  time  of  day. 
—That's  a  fine  day,  Mr.  Kelleher. 

Ay,  Corny  Kelleher  said. 
— It's  very  close,  the  constable  said. 

Corny  Kelleher  sped  a  silent  jet  of  hayjuice  arching  from 
lis  mouth,  while  a  generous  white  arm  from  a  window  in  Eccles 
itreet  flung  forth  a  coin. 
What's  the  best  news,  he  asked. 

■I   seen  that  particular  party   last  evening,   the  constable   said 
vith  bated  breath. 

+ 
+  + 

A  onel egged  sailor  crutched  himself  round  MacConnell's  cor- 
er,  skirting  Rabaiotti's  icecream  car,  and  jerked  himself  up  Ec- 
les  street.     Towards  Larry  O'Rourke,  in  shirtsleeves  in  his  door- 
T^ay,  he  growled  unamiably. 
For  England, 

He  swung  himself  violently  forward  past  Katey  and  Boody 
)edalus,  halted  and  growled: 
-hvmt  and  beauty. 

J.  J.  O'Molloy's  white  careworn  face  was  told  that  Mr.  Lam- 
■^    ert  was  in  the  warehouse  with  a  visitor. 

A  stout  lady  stopped,   took   a  copper  coin   from  her  purse 


40  T  ht    Lit  Hi    Review 


and  dropped  it  into  the  cap  held  out  to  her.  He  grumbled  thanks 
and  glanced  sourly  at  the  unheeding  windows,  sank  his  head  and 
swung  himself   forward   four  strides. 

He  halted  and  growled  angrily: 
— For  England, 

Two  barefoot  urchins,  sucking  long  liquorice  laces,  halted 
near  him,  gaping  at  his  stump  with  their  yellow  slobbered  mouthsj 

He  swung  himself  forward  in  vigorous  jerks,  lifted  his  head 
towards  a  window  and  bayed  deeply.  1 

- — Iiome  and  beauty.  f 

The  gay  sw^eet  whistling  within  went  a  bar  or  two,  ceased. 
The  blind  of  the  window  was  drawn  aside.  A  plump  bare  gener- 
ous arm  shone,  was  seen,  held  forth  from  a  white  petticoatbodice 
and  taut  shiftstraps.  A  woman's  hand  flung  forth  a  coin  over  the 
area  railings.     It  fell  on  the  path. 

One  of  the  urchins  ran  to  it,  picked  it  up  and  dropped  it 
into  the  minstrel's  cap,  saying: 
— ^there,  sir. 

+ 
+  + 

Katey  and  Boody  Dedalus  shoved  in  the  door  of  the  close 
steaming  kitchen. 
— Did  you  put  in  the  books?     Boody  asked. 

Maggie  at  the  range  rammed  down  a  greyish  mass  beneath 
bubbling  suds  twice  with  her  potstick  and  wiped  her  brow. 
— They  wouldn't  give  anything  on  them,  she  said. 

Father   Conmee   walked   through   Clongowes  fields,  his   thia 
socked  ankles  tickled  by  stubble. 
— Where  did  you  try?  Boody  asked. 
— McGuinness's. 

Boody  stamped  her  foot,  and  threw  her  satchel  on  the  table. 
— Bad  cess  to  her  ibg  face,  she  cried. 

Katey  went  to  the  range  and  peered  with  squinting  eyes. 
— What's  in  the  pot?  she  asked. 
— Shirts,  Maggie  said. 

Boody  cried  angrily: 
— Crickey,  is  there  nothing  for  us  to  eat? 

Katey,  lifting  the  kettlelid  in  a  pad  of  her  stained  skirt; 
asked : 
— and  what's  in  this? 

A  heavy  fume  gushed  in  answer. 


T  h  e    Little    Review 41 

— Peasoup,  Maggie  said. 

— ^Where  did  you  get  it?  Katey  asked. 

— Sister  Mary  Patrick,  Mlaggie  said. 

The  Lacquey  rang  his  bell. 
— Barang! 

Boody  sat  down  at  the  table  and  said  hungrily: 
— ^Give  us  it  here! 

Maggie,   poured   yellow   thick   soup    from    the   kettle   into    a 
bowl.     Katey,'  sitting  opposite  Boody,  said  quietly: 
— A  good  job  we  have  that  much.    Where's  Dilly? 
— Gone  to  meet  faither,  Maggie  said.  ^ 

Boody,  breaking  big  chunks  of  bread  into  the  yellow  soup, 
added: 
—Our  father,  who  art  not  in  heaven, 

Maggie,  pouring  yellow  soup  in  Katey 's  bowl,  exclaimed:  - 
— Boody!  For  shame! 

A  skiff,  a  crumpled  throwaway,  Elijah  is  coming,  rode  lightly 
down  the  Liffey,  under  loopline  bridge,  sailing  eastward  past  hulls 
and  anchorchains,  between  the  Customhouse  old  dock  and  Georges 
quay. 

+ 

+  + 

The  blond  girl  in  Thornton's  bedded  the  wicker  basket  with 
rustling  fibre.     Blazes  Boylan  handed  her  the  bottle  swathed  in 
pink  tissue  paper  and  a  small  jar. 
• — ^Put  these  in  first,  will  you?  he  said. 
— Yes,  sir,  the  blond  girl  said,  and  the  fruit  on  top. 
— That'll  do,  game  ball,  Blazes  Boylan  said. 

She  bestowed  fat  pears  neatly,  head  by  tail,  and  among  them 
ripe  shamefaced  peaches. 

Blazes  Boylan  walked  here  and  there  in  new  tan  shoes  about 
the  fruitsmelling  shop,  lifting  fruits,  sniffing  smells. 

H.  E.  L.  Y.  S.  filed  before  him,  tall  whitehatted,  past  Tangier 
lane,  plodding  towards  their  goal. 

He  turned  suddenly  from  a  chip  of  strawberries,  drew  a  gold 
watch  from  his  fob  and  held  it  at  its  chain  length. 
— Can  you  send  them  by  tram?     Now? 

A  darkbacked  figure  under  Merchant's   arch  scanned  books 
on  the  hawker's  car. 
— Certainly,  sir.     Is  it  in  the  city? 
— 0,  yes,  Blazes  Boylan  said.    Ten  minutes. 


42  The     Little     Review 

The  blond  jzirl   handed   him   a   dcxkct    and   pencil. 
— Will  you  write  the  address,  sir? 

Blazes  Boylan  at  the  counter  wrote  and  pushed  the  docket 
to  her. 

s— Send  it  at  once,  will  you?  he  said.    It's  for  an  invalid. 
— Yes,  sir.     I  will,  sir. 

Blazes  Boylan  rattled  merry  money  in  his  trousers'  pock<U. 
— What's  the  damage?  he  asked. 

The  blond  girl's  slim  fingers  reckoned  the  fruits. 

Blazes  Boylan  looked  into  the  cut  of  her  blouse.  A  young 
])ulllt.  He  took  a  red  carnation  from  the  tall  stemglass.  — This 
lor  me?  he  asked  gallantly. 

The  blond  gid  glanced  sideways  up.  blushing.  —  Yes,  sir. 
she  said. 

Bending  archly  she  reckoned  again  fat  pears  and  blushing 
poaches. 

Blazes  Boylan  looked  in  her  blouse  with  more  favour,  the 
stalk  of  the  red  flower  between  his  smiling  teeth.  May  I  say  j 
word  to  your  telephone  missy?  he  asked  roguishly. 

+ 
+  + 

— Ma!  Almidano  Artifoni  said. 
/  He  gazed  over  Stephen's  shoulder  at  Goldsmith's  knobby  jwU 
Two  carsfull  of  tourists  passed  slowly,  their  women  sitting  fore 
gripping  frankly  the  handrests.  Palefaces.  Men's  arms  franklj 
round  their  stunted  forms.  They  looked  from  Trinity  to  the  blim 
columned  porch  of  the  bank  of  Ireland,  where  pigeons  roocoocooed 
— Anch'io  ho  aviito  di  qucste  idee,  Almidano  Artifoni  said,  quand 
ero  giovinc  come  Lei.  Eppoi  mi  sorio  conviuio  che  il  niondo  c  ntt 
bestia.  E  pecatto.  Perclte  la  sua  voce  .  .  .  sarehhe  un  cespitc  d 
rendita,  via.     Invece,  Lei  si  sacrifica. 

—  Sacrijizio  incruento,  Stephan  said  .smiling. 

—  Spericimo,  the  round  mustachioed  face  said  pleasantly.    Ma^  dia 
retta  a  me.    Ci  rcjletta. 

By  the  stern  stone  hand  of  Grattan,  bidding  halt,  an  Inchicor 
tram  unloaded  straggling  Highland  soldiers  of  a  l>and. 
— Ci  riflettero.   Stephen  said,   glancing  down   the  solid   trouserlej 
— Ma,  sul  serio,  eh?     Almidano  Artifoni  said. 

His  heavy  hand  took  Stephen's  firmly.  Human  eyes.  The 
gazed  curiously  an  instant  and  turned  cjuickly  towards  a  Dalke; 
tram. 


Th§    Littl$    Review 


43 


— Eccolo,    Almidano   Artifoni    said    in    friendly    haste.      Venga    a 

trovarmi  e  ci  pensi.    Addio,  caro. 

—Arrivederlo,  maestro,  Stephen  said,  raising  his  hat  when  his  hand 

was  freed.    Egrasie. 

— Di  che?    Almidano  Artifoni  said.    Saisi,  eh? 

Almidano  Artifoni,  holding  up  a  baton  of  rolled  music  as  a 
signal,  trotted  on  stout  trousers  after  the  Dalkey  tram.  In  vain 
he  trotted,  signaling  in  vain  among  the  rout  of  barekneed  gillies 
smuggling  implements  of  music  through  Trinity  gates. 

+ 
+  + 

iMiss  Dunne  hid  the  Capel  street  library  copy  of  "The 
Woman  in  White"  far  back  in  her  drawer  and  rolled  a  sheet  of 
gaudy  notepaper  into  her  typewriter. 

Too  much  mystery  business  in  it?  Is  he  in  love  with,  that 
one,  Marion?     Change  it  and  get  another  by  Mary  Cecil  Haye. 

The  disk  shot  down  the  groove,  woibbled  a  while,  ceased  and 
ogled  them:  six. 

Miss  Dunne  clicked  on  the  keyboard: — 
— 1 6  June  1904. 

Five  tallwhitehatted  sandwichmen  between  Moneypeny's  cor- 
ner and  the  slab  where  Wolfe  Tone's  statue  was  not,  eeled  them- 
selves turning  H.  E.  L.  Y.  S.  and  plodded  back  as  they  had 
come. 

Then  she  stared  at  the  large  poster  of  Marie  Kendall,  charm- 
ing soubrette.  Mustard  hair  and  dauby  cheeks.  She's  not  nice 
looking,  is  she?  The  way  she  is  holding  up  her  bit  of  a  skirt. 
Wonder  will  that  fellow  be  at  the  band  tonight.  If  I  could,  get 
that  dressmaker  to  make  a  concertina  skirt  like  Susy  Nagle's. 
They  kick  out  grand.  Shannon  and  all  the  boatclub  swells  never 
took  his  eyes  off  her.  Hope  to  goodness  he  won't  keep  me  here 
till  seven. 

The  telephone  rang  rudely  by  her  ear. 
— Hello.  Yes,  sir.  No,  sir.  Yes,  sir.  I'll  ring  them  up  after 
five.  Only  those  two,  sir,  for  Belfast  and  Liverpool.  All  right, 
sir.  Then  I  can  go  after  six  if  you're  not  back.  A  quarter  after. 
Yes,  sir.  Twenty-seven  and  six.  I'll  tell  him.  Ye:  one,  seven,  six. 
No.  sir.  Yes,  sir.  I'll  ring  them  up  after  five. 
— Mr.  Boylan!  Hello!  That  gentleman  from  Sport  was  in  look- 
ing for  you.    Mr.  Lenehan,  yes.    He  said  he'll  be  in  the  Ormond. 


44  The     Lit  tie     Review 


No,  sir.    Yes,  sir.     Til  ring  them  up  after  five. 

+  +         .         ^ 

Two  pink  faces  turned  in  the  flare  of  the  tiny  torch. 
— Who's  that?    Xed  Lambert  asked.    Is  that  Crotty? 
— Ringabella  and  Crosshavcn.  a  voice  replied,  groping  for  foothold,  y 
— ^Hello,  Jack,   is  that  yourself?     Ked   Lambert  said,  raising  in 
salute  his  pliant  lath  among  the  flickering  arches.     Come  on.  Mind 
your  steps  there. 

The  vesta  in  the  clergyman's  uplifted  hand  consumed  itself 
in  a  long  soft  flame  and  was  let  fall.     At  their  feet  its  red  speck 
died:  and  mouldy  air  closed  round  them. 
- — How  interesting!  a  refined  accent  said  in  the  gloom. 
— Yes,  sir,  Ned  Lambert  said  heartily.     We  are  standing  in  the 
historic    council    chamber    of    St.    Mary's    abbey:    where     silken 
Thomas  proclaimed  himself  a  rebel.     You  were  never  down  here 
before,  Jack,  were  you? 
—No,  Ned. 

—He  rode  down  through  Dame  walk,  the  refined  accent  said,  if  my 
memory  serves  me.  The  mansion  of  the  Kildares  was  in  Thcmias 
court. 

. — That's  right,  Ned  Lambert  said.     That's  quite  right. 
— If  you  will  be  so  kind  then,  the  clergyman  said,  the  next  time 
to  allow  me  perhaps  .... 

— CertainFy,  Ned  Lambert  said.  Bring  the' camera  whenever  you 
like.  I'll  get  those  bags  cleared  away  from  the  windo^vs.  You 
can  take  it  from  here  or  from  here. 

In  the  still  faint  light  he  moved  abouti,  tapping  with  his  lath 
the  piled  seedbags  and  points  of  vantage  on  the  floor. 

From  a  long  face  a  beard  and  gaze  hung  on  a  chessboard. 
— I'm  deeply  obliged,  Mr.  Lambert  .  .   .  the  clergyman  said.     I 

won't  trespass  on  your  valuable  time 

—You're  welcome,  sir,  Ned  Lambert  said     Drop  in  whenever  you 

like.     Next  week,  say.    Can  you  sec? 

— Yes,  yes.     Good  afternoon.  Mr.  Lambert.     \'cry  ]>lcascd  to  have 

met  you. 

— Pleasure  is  mine,  sir,  Ned  Lambert  answered. 

He  followed  his  guest  to  the  outlet  and  then  whirled  his  lath 
away,  among  the  pillars.  With  J.  J.  O'Molloy  he  came  forth  slowly 
into  Mary's  abbey  where  draymen  were  loading  floats 

He  stood  to  read  the  card  in  his  hand. 


Tht    Lit  tit    Review 45 

— The  reverend  Hugh  C.  Love,  the  vicarage,  Rathcoffey.  Nice 
young  chap  he  is.  He's  writing  a  book  about  the  Fitzgeralds  he 
told  me.    He's  well  up  in  history,  faith. 

The  young  woman  with   slow  care  detached  from  her   light 
skirt  a  clinging  twig. 
—I  thought  you  were  at  a  new  gunpowder  plot,  J.  J.  O'Molloy  asid. 

Ned  Lambert  cracked  his  fingers  in  the  air. 
— God!  he  cried.  I  forgot  to  tell  him  that  one  about  the  earl  of 
Kildare  after  he  set  fire  to  Cashel  cathedral.  You  know  that  one? 
I'm  bloody  sorry  I  did  it,  says  he,  but  I  declare  to  God  I  thought 
the  archbishop  was  inside.  He  mightn't  like  it,  though.  What? 
God,  I'll  tell  him  anyhow.  That  was  the  great  earl,  the  Fitzegerald 
Mor.     Hot  members  they  were  all  of  them,  the  Geraldines. 

The  horses  he  passed  started  nervously  under  their  slack  har- 
ness. He  slapped  a  piebald  haunch  quivering  near  him  and  cried: 
— Woa.  sonny! 

He  turned  to  J.  J.  O'Molloy  and  asked: 
—Well,  Jack.  What  is  it?     What's  the  trouble?     Wait  a  while. 
Hold  hard. 

With  gaping  mouth  and  head  far  back  he  stood  still  and,  after 
an  instant,  sneezed  loudly. 
— Chow!  he  said.    Blast  you! 
— The  dust  from  those  sacks,  J.  J.  O'Molloy  said  politely. 

— No,  Ned  Lambert  gasped,  I  caught  a cold  night  before 

blast  your  soul   ,  , night  before  last  .  .  .  and  there 

was  a  hell  of  a  lot  of  draught   ..... 

He  held  his  handekrchief  ready  for  the  coming 

-  I  was  ....  this  morning  ....  poor  little what 

do  you  call  him Chow!    .....  Holy  Moses! 

{To  be  continued.) 


HOKKU:    EVENING 

by  Roger  Sergei 

The  ebbing  day 

has  left 

a  thousand  pools 

of  ydlow  window  light. 


UTTLE  REYIE W 


Editor: 

Margaret   Anderson 

Foreign   Editors: 
John    Rodker  Jules   Romains 

Advisory    Board: 
jh 

DISCUSSION 
The    Death    of    Vorticism 
by  John  Cournos 

— "Where  there  is  no  wit,  there  is  insolence."  As  an  example 
of  this  truth  we  have  Mr.  Ezra  Pound.  If  final  proof  were  wanting 
that  Vorticism  is  dead,  we  have  him  writing  about  it.  We  know 
Mr.  Pound's  predilection  for  the  dead.  The  dead,  having  the  mis- 
fortune to  die  before  Mr.  Pound,  cannot  defend  themselves.  And 
all  the  while  he  has  been  digging  his  own  literary  grave. 

When  a  man  persistently  denies  life,  life  will  end  by  completely 
denying  him.  There  is  Mr.  Pound,  for  whom  the  five  years'  de- 
structive war  have  left  no  dead,  no  ruins.  Can  he  have  been  so 
dead  that  the  great  war  should  have  passed  by  and  over  him  and 
left  him  contemplating  the  year  19 19  with  the  same  eyes  that  he 
contemplated  the  early  part  of  19 14?  Does  he  think  that  by 
"blasting"  he  can  reerect  the  fallen  walls  of  his  Vorticistic  Jericho? 


The    Little    Rev  ie  IV  47 

If  art  were  merely  an  intellectual  formula  (as  Mr.  Pound  would 
ave  us  believe)  this  phenomenon  would  be  understandable.     But 
It  also  has  its  relation  to  the  time,  and  is  bound  up  irrevocably 
ith  the  social  processes  of  the  moment,  whether  the  individual 
istance  be  one  of  action  or  reaction.     This  is  true  of  nations  as 
ell  as  of  individuals.   After  1870  the  French  produced  a  great  art, 
le  Germans  almost  ceased  producing.  Great  wars  usually  kill  some- 
ling,  and  give  birth  to  something.    I  already  have  pointed  out  in 
tides  written  about  two  years  ago*  why  the  war  was  bound  to 
ill  the  sister  arts  of  Vorticism  and  Futurism.     I  will  restate  the 
se  briefly.     In  the  first  place,  because  they  were  primarily  pre- 
ar  arts,  i.  e.,  arts  created  in  the  social  cul-de-sac  preceding  the 
ar.     They  were  moreover  war-like  in  theory  and  in  expression, 
etic  of  war  if  you  like.     You  have  Mr.  Lewis  wanting  to 
augh  like  a  bomb"  (which  sounded  very  nice  before  the  air-raids), 
s  pictures,  "Plan  of  War,"  etc.;  and  you  have  Marinetti's  "glory 
war"  and  "contempt  of  women",  etc.     Having  been  translated 
to  life,  being  after  all  no  more  than  an  integral  part  of  the  social 
ocesses  which  produced  on  the  one  hand  Prussianism  (the  Vortex 
at  failed),  on  the  other,  Bolshevism  (which  is  all  for  scatteredness 
id  dispersion),  Vorticism  (an  off-shoot  of  Cubism)  and  Futurism 
.ve  lost  their  raisbn  d'etre.     There  is  no  liking  war  when  you 
,ve  seen  it,  there  is  no  liking  Bolshevism  when  you  have  seen  it. 
was  still  early  in  the  war  that  the  Rusian  Futurist  Mayakovsky, 
th  an  intellectual  honesty,  which  I  commend  to  Mr.  Pound,  in 
•ferring  to  the  pre-war  art  as  "dia;bolic  intuition,  incarnated  in 
e  stormy  today,"  declared  that  Futurism  was  dead  because  it  had 
come  fully  realized  in  life.     Again,  the  Russian  Futurists,  after 
)lshevism  had  come  into  power,  subscribed  as  a  body  to  the  new 
gime,  proclaiming  that  it  had  realized  their  doctrines.     This  at 
y  rate  is  honest,  if  uncouth. 

I  would  like  to  correct  Mr.  Pound  on  certain  small  details. 
He  prouldy  asserts  that  the  government  has  had  to  apply  to 
J  Vorticist  for  a  successful  camouflage.     That  is  quiet  natural, 
irticism  is  preeminently  a  camouflage  art. 

Again,  Mr.  Pound  asserts  that  the  government  "after  trying 

kinds  of  war  painters  .  .  .  with  lamentable  or  at  any  rate  negligi- 

results.  .  .  has  taken  on  Mr.  Lewis.  .  .  and  is  now  getting  its 


*See  "The  Death  of  Futurism",  The  EgotA,  1917;  and  "Recent 
jidencies  in  English  Painting  and  Sculpture",  The  Seven  Arts, 
tpber  1 91 7. 


48  The    Little    Review 

finest  pictures."    Then  Mr.  Pound  tejls  us  that  "Mr.  Roberts,  the  , 
youngest  member  of  the  Blast  group,  is  also  doing  work  for  the  I 
government,  and  'giving  satisfaction'."    What  Mr.  Pound  does  nol  J 
tell  us  is  that  both  Mr.  Lewis  and  Mr.   Roberts,  as  far  as  theii  J 
work  for  the  government  is  concerned,  have  compromised  with  theij 
art.    In  their  pictures,  painted  for  the  Canadian  War  Museum  anc 
exhibited  recently  at  the  Royal  Academy,  they  have  returned  U 
realistic  representation  to  such  a  degree  that  "the  elderly"  h'Jvt 
indeed  every  justification  for  comparing  their  work  to  Lucca  Sig 
norelli. 

It  is  quite  true  that  "Vorticism  has  not  yet  had  its  funeral." 
The  poor  dear  has  died  on  the  batlefield,  and  no  one  even  know 
where  its  decayed  remains  are.  If  there  is  to  be  a  funeral  it  sha 
have  to  be  over  an  effigy,  which  Mr.  Pound  is  very  busy  puttin 
together. 

As  for  dear  Gaudier-Brzeska,  who  was  a  great  sculptor  and 
great  man,  I  do  not  intend  to  disturb  his  pxK)r  honest  bones  by  er 
tering  into  any  acrimonious  discussion  with  Mr.  Pound,  except  t 
say  that  Gaudier  found  in  me  a  friend  and  appreciator  long  befoi 
Mr.  Pound  had  even  heard  of  him,  or  had  thought  of  writing  h 
miserable  opinions,  which  he  has  the  arrogance  to  call  art  criticigft 
London,  April  19 19. 

[I  am  too  much  at  war  with  the  unenergized  thinking  in  M 
Cournos'  article  (the  "friends-and-enemies-of-art"  attitude,  etc. 
to  go  into  it  again.  Just  at  present  I  don't  feel  tame  enough  to  a 
tack,  for  the  millionth  time,  the  ancient  sentimental  isms  that  maJ 
up  Mr.  Cournos'  view  of  art,  life,  the  war.  etc.  Perhaps  Ez 
Pound  or  Wyndham  Lewis  may  wish  to  take  it  up  with  him.  thou) 
I  can't  imaghie  why  it  should  interest  them  since  they  have  alread- 
in  their  two  numbers  of  Blast,  made  it  embarrassing  for  people  w^ 
can't  think  as  keenly  as  they.  At  least  i>eople  ought  to  be  e^ 
barrased. — Margaret  A  nderson  ] . 

The    Jest    at    the    iPlymouth    Theatr 
by  Emanuel  Carnevali 

THAT  lanky  affair,  with  his  chronic  (holy-golden)  epilepsy,  J6 
Barrymore-  (Jack  to  the  loving  lady-spectators  whose  hea'i 
are  gently  rocking  in  the  cradle  of  their  voluminous  chests,  ^ 
whose  mystical  eyes  are  held  moon-ward  by  the  sweet  basked 


The    Little    Review  49 

pouches)— has  another  fit  which  will  last  a  season  and  is  called 
"The  Jest." 

(Stale  jest  on  the  puhlic  which  lacks  the  sense  of  humor  neces- 
sary to  appreciate  it.) 

"The  Jest",  that  is.  "The  Dinner  of  the  Jests"  (La  Cena  delle 
Beffe),  by  the  Italian  bard  Sem  Benelli,  at  the  Plymouth  theatre — 

45  Street  West  of  Broadway,  get  your  ticket  a  week  ahead. 

Giovanni  Papini  had  written  this  obituary  notice  in  19 14,  in 
the  magazine  Lacerba.  I  give  it  here,  translated,  with  the  hope  to 
keep  a  few  worthy  fellows  from  giving  their  money  to  that  mana- 
ger— and  indirectly  to  Jack — and  indirectly  to  that  translator  who 
wrote  'Jest"  instead  of  "Dinner",  etc.,  with  some  vague  commercial 
end  in  view — and  indirectly  to  Benelli — and  indirectly  to  all  the 
imbeciles  of  the  earth  who  have  and  make  enough  money  only  that 
they  may  enlarge  their  ugliness. — Emanuel  Carncvali. 

The     Historical    Play 
by  Giovanni  Papini 

Along  the  streets  of  Prato  one  sees  nothing  but  doors  of  shops 
by  which  sitting  men  choose  out  from  morning  to  evening  old  rags 
of  every  color.  Sem  Benelli  was  born  in  Prato.  Sem  Benelli  is  the 
rag-picker  of  dramatic  literature:  picker  and  chooser,  washer  and 
dyer  of  the  most  fetid  poetical  and  historical  rags  of  these  last 
years. 

This  Benelli,  whom  a  critic  of  the  weakness  of  Dominick  Oliva 
(author  of  a  bad  "Roibespierre")  has  puffed  up  by  blowing  in  him 
(Jehovah  upside-down)  from  the  back,  to  make  of  him  the  crown- 
prince  of  the  Dannunzian  Kingdom,  is  no  more  than  a  discarded 
slipper  of  Gabriele  D'Annunzio  embroidered  over  again  with  some 
Anoth-eaten  florentine  lace.  If  Benelli  were  something.  D'Annunzio 
in  comparison  would  be  the  greatest  pot  of  poetry  that  ever  was 
baked  in  the  universal  pamassus.  If  Benelli  is  orginal,  D'Annunzio 
is  then  altogether  the  inventor  of  creation. 

In  Benelli  it  isn't  so  much  the  man  that  counts — the  man,  all 
•summed  up,  is  perhaps  unhappy  in  spite  of  his  ephemeral  economic 
and  journalistic  fortune — as  the  genius  he  represents:  The  His- 
torical Play,  the  most  wearisome  literary  masquerade  ever  put  up 
in  contemporary  Italy.  When  the  poor  Benelli,  who  had  till  then 
been  an  humble  reporter  of  the  Rassegna  Internazionale,  translator 


50  The    Little    Review 


of  Sophocles  and  of  french  plays,  wanted  to  quit  the  contempor* 
neous  realism  of  "Earth"  and  "Moth",  where  were  at  least  sorw 
effort  and  observation,  to  write  the  "Mask  of  Brutus''  and  manifci 
facture  the  "Dinner  of  the  Jests",  his  success  began,  and  his  diik 
honor.  All  the  other  rubbish— fortunately  less  fortunate — as  th< 
"Mantellaccio",  "Love  of  the  Three  Kings",  "The  Gorgon",  an 
nothing  but  precipitated  and  spoiled  repetition  of  the  first  thrasb 
In  the  "Mask"  and  the  "Dinner"  there  was  yet  a  last  trace fo 
realism  to  be  found  in  the  fraternal  types  of  Lorenzino  and  GiaB 
netto* — which  are  the  historical  mirrors  of  the  author's  suppress«i» 
psychology,  of  the  same  Sem  Benelli.  That  sort  of  sour  and  bitt^ 
little  macchiavelli  (Giannetto),  echoed  somewhat  Benelli's  soul  an 
acquired,  for  this  coincidence,  some  touch  of  truth. 

But  in  the  other  works  there  isn't  even  this:  there  is  nothin 
anymore  but  the  stubborn  exploitation  of  old  stories,  old  legend? 
old  customs,  of  old  decorations  and  very  old  words  meant  to  giv 
the  bourgeois  and  the  ladies  the  illusion  of  a  great  poetic  and  trap; 
play. 

Sem  Benelli  is  tired  and  ended  also  as  parabolical  sceno-graphi 
of  pantomimes  masques,  with  accompaniment  of  words.  The  hi! 
torical  theatre  opened  for  business  again  by  D'Annunnzio  with  h 
"Francesca"  dies  with  him  and  his  melancholy  rivals:  Moschin 
Pantini,  Pelaez  and  Bonaspctti.    We  know  at  last  the  fonnula: 

Historical  Figure  +  Idiotic  legend  +  Improvised  eruditk 
-j-  Moving-pictures  of  bal  masque  -f-  Costumes  of  Caramba 
Designs  of  Chini  -|-  Electric  light  -f  consumjitive-verses  +  Dep 
lated  images  +  Journalistic  drumming  -f  imbecillity  of  spectato 
-|-  nauseating  sentimentalism  +  misunderstood  patriotism  (- 
Genius — Newness) . 

We  shall  do  all  that  lies  within  our  powers  to  throw  back  tl 
historical  rags  of  Benelli  &  Co.,  into  the  old  shops  from  which  tht 
came.  We  don't  want  to  stand  for  this  dirty  industry  of  herois 
in  blank  verse,  of  the  clinquant  a  tout  prix,  of  talkative  false  ai 
tearful  love,  of  this  junk-shopping  and  mise  en  scene  style  thirt« 
hundred  or  fifteen  hundred  (to  choose). 

Consequently  we  condemn  to  death  said  Benelli  Sem.  by  traj 
poetic   rag-picker   born    in    Pralo   and    domiciled    in   a   castle  I 


the  sea 

We  believe  we  do  him  an  honor  .'ind  a  favor. 

An  honor  because  we  do   not   waste  words  condemning 
* 

Johnny 


1 


The    Little    Revie.w 


51 


citizen  of  the  Literary  Republic,  however  "kissed  by  the  smile  of 
fame". 

A  favor,  because  we  believe  that  Benelli  himself  feels  at  last 
the  disgust  for  his  tricks  and  the  decadence  of  his  vogue.  Better 
to  disappear  today  following  somebody's  sentence  than  smoulder 
slowly  away  into  oblivion. 


Emanuel  Carnevali 


52  The    Little    Review 

IMPROVISATIONS 

by    William    Carlos    Williams 

I 


I 


I. 


THROW  that  flower  in  the  waste  basket,  it's  faded,  and  keep  a 
eye  to  your  shoes  and  finger  nails,  the  fool  you  once  laughed  < 
has  made  a  fortune!  There's  small  help  in  a  clutter  of  leavi 
either,  no  matter  how  they  gleam.  Punctillio's  the  thing.  A  nobb 
vest,  spats!  Lamps  carry  far,  behevc  me,  in  lieu  of  sunshine. 


Despite  vastness  of  frontiers,  which  are  as  it  were  the  fring 
of  a  flower  full  of  honey,  it  is  the  little  things  that  count!  Negle 
them  and  bitterness  drowns  the  imagination. 


T(he  time  never  was  when  he  could  play  more  than  mattre 
to  the  pretty  feet  of  the  woman  who  had  been  twice  a  mother  wit 
out  touching  the  meager  pollen  of  their  married  intimacy.  ^V^ 
more  for  him  than  to  be  a  dandebon  that  could  chirp  with  crick) 
or  do  a  one-step  with  snowflakes:  the  tune  is  difficult  but  not  i 
possible  to  the  middle-aged  whose  knees  are  tethered  faster  to-t 
mind  than  they  are  at  eighteen  when  any  wind  sets  them  clackil! 
What  a  rhythm's  here!  One  would  say  the  body  lay  asleep  and  \ 
dance  escaped  from  the  hair  tips,  the  bleached  fuzz  that  cov< 
back  and  belly,  shoulders,  neck  and  forehead.  The  dance  is  > 
amantime  over  the  sleeper  who  seems  not  to  breathe!  One  woi 
say  heat  over  the  end  of  a  roadway  that  turns  dowjnhill.     Cesa! 


One  may  write  music  and  tnusic  hut  who  will  dance  to  it?  7 
dance  escapes  hut  the  music,  the  music — projects  a  dance  over 
self  ivhich  the  feet  follow  lazily  if  at  all.  So  a  dance  is  a  thing 
itself.  It  is  the  music  which  dances  but  if  there  are  words  '' 
there  are  tivo  dancers,  the  words  pirouetting  with  the  music. 


The    Little    Review  53 


One  has  emotions  about  the  strangest  things:  men.  women, 
mself  the  most  contemptible.  But  to  struggle  with  ants  for  a 
ece  of  meat — a  mangy  cur  to  swallow  beetles  and  all:  better 
slaughter  one's  own  kind  in  the  name  of  peace — except  when 
e  body's  not  there  maggots  swarm  in  the  corruption.  Oh  let  him 
,ve  it.  Find  a  cleaner  fare  for  wife  and  child.  To  the  sick  their 
k.  For  us — heads  bowed  over  the  green-flowered  asphodel. 
an  on  my  shoulder,  little  one,  you  too;  I  will  k:'  vou  to  the 
Ids  you  know  nothing  of.  There's  small  dancing  left  for  us  any 
ly  you  look  at  it. 


A  man  who  enjoyed  his  jood,  the  company  0}  his  children  and 
'tecidlly  his  wife's  alternatr  caresses  and  tongue  lashings,  felt  his 
sition  in  the  town  growing  insecure,  due  to  a  successful  business 
itpetitor.  Being  thus  stung  to  the  quick  he  thinks  magnanimous- 
of-his  oivn  methods  of  dealing  with  his  customers  and  likens  his 
■petitor  to  a  dog  that  swalloivs  his  meat  with  beetles 
maggots  upon  it — that  is,  any  way  so  he  gets  it.  But 
ng  thus  roused  the  man  does  not  seek  to  outdo  his  rival 
\t  grows  heavily  sad  and  thinks  of  death  and  his  lost  pleasures, 
s  showing  himself  to  be  a  person  of  discernment.  For  by  so  do- 
he  gives  evidence  of  a  bastard  sort  of  knowledge  of  that  diver- 
of  context  in  things  and  situations  which  the  great  masters  of 
iquity  looked  to  for  the  inspiration  and  enlivenment  of  their 
npositions. 


II 


If  I  could  clap  this  in  a  cage  and  let  that  out  we'd  see  colored 
igs  then  to  blind  the  sun,  but  the  good  ships  are  anchored 
tream  and  the  gorged  sea-gulls  flap  heavily.  At  sea!  at  sea! 
t's  where  the  waves  beat  kindliest.  But  no,  singers  are  beggars 
worse — cannot  man  a  ship — songs  are  their  trade.     Ku-whee! 

whee!  It's  a  wind  in  the  lookout's  nest  talking  of  Columbus^- 
om  no  sea  daunted^ — Columbus,  chained  below  decks,  bound 
aeward. 


'r  h  c    Little    Review 


You  would  learn — if  you  knew  even  one  city,  where  peopl 
are  a  little  gathered  together  and  where  one  sees,  it's  our  frontier 
you  know,  the  common  changes  of  the  human  spirit — our  husbands 
lire  of  us  and  we — ?    Let  us  not  say  we  go  hungry  for  their  caress- 
es but  for  caresses — of  a  kind.     Oh  I  am  no  prophet,  I  have  n| 
tiieory  to  advance  except  that  it's  well  nigh  impossible  to  know  ♦he 
wish  till  after.     Cross  the  room  to  him  if  the  whim  leads  that  way. 
Here's  drink  of  an  eye  that  calls  you.     No  need  to  take  the  thing 
too  seriously.     It's  something  of  a  will-o'the-whisp  1  acknowledge; 
all  in  the  pressure  of  an  arm — through  a  fur  coat  often;  something 
of  a  dancing  light  with  the  rain  beating  on  a  cab  window.     Here'.' 
nothing  to  lead  you  astray.    What?    Why  you're  young  still.  You;  | 
children?     Yes.  there  they  are.     Desire  skates  like  a  Hollander  a: 
well  as  runs  pickaninny  fashion.     Really,   there's  little  more  t( 
say  than  :   flowers  in  a  glass  basket  under  an  electric  glare;   tht 
carpet   is  red,  mostly,  a  hodge-podge  of  zig-zags  that  passes  fa 
Persian  fancies.     Risk  a  double  entendre!     But  of  a  sudden  th* 
room's  not  the  same!     It's  a  strange  blood  sings  under  some  skin 
who  will  have  the  sense  for  it?     The  men  sniff  suspiciously.     Yo* 
at  least  my  dear,  had  your  head  about  you.    It  was  a  tender  nibbl* 
though  it  really  did  you  credit.    But  think  of  what  might  be!     It' 
all  in  the  imagination,  I  give  you  no  more  credit  than  you  deserv* 
you  will  never  rise  to  it.  never  be  more  than  a  rose  dropped  i 
the  river.    But  acknowledge  that  there  is,  ah,  there  is  a — !   You  ai 
such  a  clever  knitter.    Your  hands,  please.    Ah,  if  I  had  your  hand: 


A  ivoman  of  marked  discernment  finding  herself  among  stran^\ 
companions  wishes  for  the  hands  of  one  of  them  and  inasmuch  <| 
she  feels  herself  refreshed  by  the  sight  of  these  perfections  sl\ 
offers  in  return  those  perfections  of  her  own  whicli  seem  most  ajl 
propriate  to  the  occasion. 

3- 

Truth's  a  wonder.  What  difference  is  it  how  the  best  hea 
we  have  greets  his  first  born  these  days?  What  weight  has  it  tin 
the  bravest  hair  of  all's  gone  waiting  on  cheap  tables  or  the  mo 
garrulous  "ves  lonely  by  a  bad  neighbor  and  has  her  south  window 
pestered  with  caterpillars.     The  nights  are  long  for  lice-combingJ 


^1 


I 


The    Little    Review 55 

ni)Oii  dodging — and  the  net  comes  in  empty  again.  Or — there's 
)L'tii  no  fish  in  this  fjord  since  Christian  was  a  baby.  Yet — up 
urges  the  good  zest  and  the  game's  on!  Follow  at  my  heels  though 
here's  little  to  tell  you  you'd  think  a  stoopsworth.  You'd  pick 
he  same  faces  in  a  crowd  no  matter  what  I'd  say.  And  you'd  be 
i'_'ht  too.  The  path's  not  yours  till  you've  gone  it  alone  a  time. 
an — here's  another  handful  of  the  westwind.  White  of  the  night! 
\  hite  of  the  night!  Turn  back  till  I  tell  you  a  puzzle:  What  is 
r  m  the  stilled  face  of  an  old  mender-man  and  winter  not  far  off, 
nd  a  darkey  parts  his  wool,  and  wenches  wear  of  a  Sunday?  It's 
sparrow  with  a  crumb  in  its  beak  dodging  wheels,  and  clouds 
rossing  two  ways. 


Virtue  is  not  to  be  packed  in  a  bag  and  carried  off  to  the  rag- 
■iU.  Perversions  are  righted  and  the  upright  are  reversed.  Then 
If  stream  takes  a  bend  upon  itself  and  the  meaning  turns  a  livid 
'irple  and  drops  down  in  a  whirlpool  without  so  much  as  fraying 
single  fibre. 

Ill 


I. 


The  brutal  lord  of  all  will  rip  us  from  each  other,  leave  the 
e  to  suffer  here  alone.  No  need  belief  in  god  or  hell  to  postulate 
at  much.  The  dance  then:  hands  touching:  leaves  touching- 
es  looking:  clouds  rising — lips  touching,  cheeks  touching,  arms 
out — .  Sleep.  Heavy  head,  heavy  arm,  heavy  dream  .  .  .  :  of 
nir's  flesh  the  earth  was  made  and  of  his  thoughts  were  all  the 
>omy  clouds  created.    Oya! 


Out  of  bitterness  itself  the  clear  wine  of  the  imagination  will 
pressed  and  the  dance  prosper  thereby. 


2. 


■ '■  '^'^  y^^'  whoever  you  are,  wherever  you  are!  (But  I  know 
*r!lere  you  are!)  There's  Durer's  ''Nemesis"  naked  on  her  sphere 
'        the  little  town  by  the  river — except  she's  too  old;   there's  a 


56 The    Little     Review 

dancing  burgess  by  Tenier  and  V^illon's  maitress — after  he'd  gone- 
bald  and  was  shin-pocked — and  toothless:  she  that  had  him  ducked 
in  the  sewage  drain;  then  there  is  that  miller's  daughter  of  but- 
tocks broad  and  breastes  hig'h; — something  of  Nietzsche,  something 
of  the  good  Samaritan,  something  of  the  devil  himself, — can  cut 
a  caper  of  a  fashion,  my  fashion!  Hey  you,  tJie  dance!  Squat. 
Leap.  Hips  to  the  left.  Chin-ha! -sideways!  Stand  up,  stand  upy  j; 
ma  bonne!  you'll  break  my  backbone.  So.  Again! — and  so  forth  li 
till  we're  sweat  soaked-.  I 

Some  fools  once  were  listening  to  o  poet  reading  his  poem.  It 
so  happened  that  the  words  of  the  thing  spoke  of  gross  matters  of 
the  everyday  world  such  as  are  never  much  hidden  from  a  quich 
iCye.  Out  of  these  semblances,  and  borrowing  certain  members  from> 
fitting  masterpieces  of  antiquity,  the  poet  began  piping  up  his  music, 
simple  fellow,  thinking  to  please  his  listeners.  But  they,  getting 
the  whole  matter  sadly  muddled  in  their  minds,  made  such  a  con-  ^^ 
fused  business  of  listening  that  not  only  were  they  not  pleased  at 
til  poet's  exertions  but  no  sooner  h^ad  he  done  than  they  burst  oui 
against  him  with  violent  imprecations. 

3- 

It's  all  one!     Richard  worked  years  to  conquer  the  descendin|i 
cadence,  idiotic  sentimentalist.     Ha,  for  happiness!    this  tore  th«< 
dress  in  ribbons  from  her  maid's  back  and  not  spared  the  nail' 
eitiher;  wild  anger  spit  from  her  pinched  eyes!     This  is  the  bette 
part.     Or  a  child  under  a  table  to  be  dragged  out  coughing  am 
biting, — eyes  glittering  evilly.     I'll  have  it  my  way!     Nothing  i 
any  pleasure  but  misery  and  brokcnness.This  is  the  only  up-cadenct  | 
'I'liis  is  where  the  secret  rolls  over  and  opens   its  eyes.     Bitte 
words  spoken  to  a  child  ripple  in  morning  light!     Boredom  from  . 
bedroom   doorway   thrills   with   anitcipation!      The  complaints  0 
an  old  man  dying  pieoemeal  are  starling  chirrups.  .  Coughs  go  sing 
ing  on  springtime  paths  across  a  field:  corruption  picks  strawberrie 
and  slow  warping  of  the  mind,  blacking  the  deadly  walls — counte 
and  recounted — rolls  in  the  grass  and  shouts  ecstatically.     All  i 
solved!     The  moaning  and  dull  sobbing  of  infants  sets  blood  tingi 
ling  and  eyes  ablaze  to  listen.     Speed  sins  in  the  heels  at  loilj 
nights  tossing  on  coarse  sheets  with  burning  sockets  staring  ifflj 
the  black.     Dance!     Sing!     Coil  and  uncoil,  wnip  yourselves  abou[ 
shout  the  delivernece  :    an  old  woman  has  infected  her  blossooi 


The    Little    Review 57 

grand-daughter  with  a  blood  illness,  every  two  weeks  drives  the 
mother  into  hidden  songs,  the  pad-footed  mirage  of  lurking  death 
for  music.  And  at  the  end  the  face  muscles  keep  pace.  There's  a 
darting  about  the  compass  in  a  tarantelle  that  wears  flesh  from 
bones.  Here  is  dancing!  The  mind  in  tatters.  And  so  the  music 
wistfully  takes  the  lead.  Aye  de  mi!  Jiiana  la  Loca,  reina  de  Es- 
pana,  este  es  tii  canto,  rcina  mia! 

Notes 

{These  notes  have  been  detached  from  existing  improvisations  for 
their  explanatory  value.) 

6i.  By  the  brokenness  of  his  composition  the  poet  makes  him- 
self master  of  a  certain  weap)on  which  he  could  possess  himself  of 
;n  no  other  way.  The  speed  of  the  emotions  is  sometimes  such  that 
thrashing  about  in  a  thin  exaltation  or  despair  many  matters  are 
touched  but  not  held,  more  often  broken  by  the  contact. 

'  45.  The  instability  of  these  Improvisations  would  seem  such 
■hat  they  must  inevitably  crumble  under  the  attention  and  become 
^articles  of  a  wind  that  falters.  It  would  appear  to  the  unready 
fhat  the  fiber  of  the  thing  is  a  thin  jelly.  It  would  be  these  same 
fools  who  would  deny  tough  cords  to  the  wind  because  they  cannot 
plit  a  storm  endwise  and  wrap  it  upon  spools.  The  virtue  of  strength 
ies  not  in  the  grossness  of  the  fiber  but  :n  the  fiber  itself.     Thus 

poem  is  tough  by  no  quality  it  borrows  from  a  logical  recital  of 
events  nor  from  the  events  themselves  but  solely  from  that  attenu- 
ited  power  which  draws  perhaps  many  broken  things  into  a  dance 
iving  them  thus  a  full  being. 

15.  It  is  seldom  that  anyth'ng  but  the  most  elementary  com- 
nunications  can  be  exchanged  one  with  another.  There  are  in 
•eality  only  two  or  three  reasons  generally  accepted  as  the  causes 
)f  action.  No  matter  what  the  motive  it  will  seldom  happen  that 
rue  knowledge  of  it  will  be  anything  more  than  vaguely  divined 
)y  some  one  person,  some  half  a  person  whose  intimacy  has  per- 
laps  been  cultivated  over  the  whole  of  a  lifet'me.  We  live  in  bags. 
Phis  is  due  to  the  gross  fiber  of  all  action.  By  action  itself  almost 
kothing  can  be  imparted.    The  world  of  action  is  a  world  of  stones. 

39.  Bla!  Bla!  Bla!  Heavy  talk  is  talk  that  waits  upon  a 
leed.  Talk  is  servile  that  is  set  to  inform.  Words  with  the  bloom 
m  them  run  before  the  imagination  like  the  saeter  girls  before 


58  The     Little     Rev  ie  w 


Peer  Gynt.    It  is  talk  with  the  i)iitina  of  whim  ui>un  it  makes  action 

a  bootlicker.     So  nowadays  poets  spit  upon  rhyme  and  rhetoric. 

'  •  t 

95.  The  stream  of  things  having  composed   itself   into  wi^- 

Etrands  that  move  in  one  fixed  direction,  the  poet,  in  desperation 

turns  at  right  angles  and  cuts  across  current  wth  startling  resul' 

to  his  hangdog  mood. 

40.  In  France,  the  country  of  Rabelais,  they  know  that  t 
world  is  not  made  up  entirely  of  virgins.  They  do  not  deny  virtU^ 
to  the  rest  because  of  that.  Each  age  has  its  perfections  but  tl||( 
praise  differs.  It  is  only  stupid  when  the  praise  of  the  gross  ai^ 
the  transformed  w'ould  be  minted  in  unlit  terms  such  as  suit  nothinji 
but  youth's  sweetness  and  frailty.  It  is  necessary  to  know  th» 
laughter  is  the  reverse  of  aspiration. ,  So  they  laugh  well  in  France 
at  Coquelin  and  the  Petoman.  The"r  girls,  also,  thrive  upon  thi 
love-making  they  get,  so  much  so  that  the  world  runs  to  P;.ris  fo 
that  reason. 


41.  It  is  chuckleheaded  to  desire  a  way  through  every  diffi 
culty.  Surely  one  might  even  communicate  with  the  dead  — 
lose  his  taste  for  truffles.  Because  snails  are  slimy  when  alive  _ 
because  slime  is  associated  (erroneously)  with  filth  the  fool  is  cor 
vinced  that  snails  are  detestable  when,  as  it  is  proven  every  da} 
fried  in  butter  with  chopped  parsely  upon  them,  they  are  dcliciou* 
This  is  both  sides  of  the  question:  the  slave  and  the  despoiled 
his  senses  are  one.  But  to  weigh  a  difficulty  and  to  turn  it  asi 
without  being  wrecked  upon  a  destructive  solution  bespeaks  stf' 
imagination  of  force  suffiicient  to  transcend  action.  The  diffici^ 
has  thus  been  solved  by  ascent  to  a  higher  plane.  It  is  energy  c 
the  imagination  alone  that  cannot  be  laid  aside. 

51.  Rich    as  are    the   gifts   of    the    imagination   bitterness  J 
world's  lose  is  not  replaced  thereby.     On  the  contrary  it  is  intei 
sified,  resembling  thus  possession  itself.     But  he  who  has  no  po^ 
of  the  imagination  cannot  even  know  the  full  of  his  injury. 

77.  Those   who   permit    their   senses   to    be    despoiled    of   ^ 
things  under  their  noses  by  stories  of  all  manner  of  things  rem 
and  unattainal)le  are  of  frail  imagination.    Idiots,  it  is  true  nothing^ 
possesed  save  by  dint  of  that  vigorous  conception  of  its  perfecti 
which  is  the  imagination's  special  province  but  neither  is  anythi 
possessed  which  is  not  extant.     A  frail  imaginaton,  unequal  to 
tasks  before  it,  is  easily  led  astray. 


If 


\\\ 


irif 
Kria 


Kr» 


ftcc 

ftlltl 


The    Little    Review  59 

19.  Age  and  youth  are  great  flatterers.  Brooding  on  each  other's 
obvious  psychology  neither  dares  tell  the  other  outright  what  man- 
ifestly is  the  truth:  your  "world  is  poison.  Each  is  secure  in  his  own 
perfections  and  only  the  stupid  hypocrisy  of  a  half-blind  crowd 
prevents  a  just  appreciation  of  this.  Monsieur  Eichorn  used 
to  have  a  most  atrocious  body  odor,  while  the  odor  of  some  girls  is 
a  pleasure  to  the  nostril.  Each  quality  in  each  person  or  age, 
rightly  valued,  would  mean  the  freeing  of  that  age  to  its  own  de- 
lights of  action  or  repose.  Now  an  evil  odor  can  be  pursued  with 
praise-worthy  ardor  leading  to  great  natural  activity,  whereas  a 
flowery-skinned  virgin  may  and  no  doubt  often  does  allow  herself 
to  fall  into  destructive  habits  of  neglect. 


THE    BEAUTIFUL    NEGLECTED    ARTS 

3y  Marsden  Hartley 

Satire    and    Seriousness 

T^HERE  are  a  number  of  artists  I  am  thinking  of  wlio  have  proved 
X.     themselves     from     the     standpoint     of     serious     appreciation     to 

3e   among  the   sadly  neglected,  among  the   creators   of  aesthetic   de- 

ights.     I  shall  name  them  at  once  to  avoid  the  banality  of  mystery, 
have    arranged    them   in    a    careless    sequence    to    suit   the    need   of 

variety.  They  are  as  follows:  the  plumber,  the  wire-walker,  the 
erial    trapezist,    the    bareback    rider,    the    fan-paniter,    the    broncho- 

)uster,  the  indian  dancer  of  the  southwest,  as  well  as  other  types  of 
Hied   and   neglected    contributors    to   our   vagarious    existence. 

You  will  I  think  agree  with  me  that  these  are  several   types  of 
erfect  artists  having  something  so  conspicuously  to  say  to  us,  "say" 

n  the  sense  of  "do",  and  it  will  be  conceded  both  by  the  few  adorers 
f  these  geniuses  and  by  the  artists  themselves,  that  they  are  among 

he  wilfully  neglected  ones  in  the  realm  of  aesthetic  consideration. 
'he  audience  which  they  can  be  sure  of  is  conspicuously  limited, 
otably  in  the  case  of  the  plumber.  These  ladies  and  gentlemen 
re  confined  so  strictly  to  the  few  that  understand  a  perfect  piece 
f  work,  and  have  learned  to  be  satisfied  in  their  respective  instances, 
hat  their  fame  rests  in  the  minds  and  memories  of  those  who  have 
ttempted   the  practice   of   their  arts,    therefore   understanding  thern 


6o  T  h  e     Li  1 1 1  e    R  ev  i  ew 


best.  1  sliould  like  to  take  the  initiative  of  widening  the  area  of  appre- 
ciation for  them,  inasmuch  as  1  am  keen  for  the  arts  of  all  these  ladies 
and  gentlemen. 

I     shall     begin      at     once     with      his      highness.        Lord      Dash- 
down  the  plumber,  this  eminent  and  respectable  gentlemen  who  es- 
says to  enter  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  or  to  penetrate  every  conduit 
of  the  nervous   system  of   one's   ever  so   simple   home,  or  luxuriou'l 
apartment.     It  is  an  exquisite  melody  the  flame  of  the  plumber's  lamp 
creates  for  the  ear,  weary  of  the  modern  struggle  for  maniacal  nuan- 
ces,- the   song  of  the   long  yellow   tongue  with   its   fierce   blue  base 
melting  the  ladles  of  lead  that  shall  seal  your  comfort  forever.     Yoi 
want  to  sing  ditties  of  praise  for  the  goodness  of  this  gentleman,  foi 
the    keen    perception    that    rises    from    the    overalls,    and    the    strong 
face  mottled  with   grease  and  the   condiments   peculiar  to   the  trade 
When  this  gentleman  smiles  up  out  of  the  cavern  of  his  occupation 
you  realize  the  extraordinary  charm   of  a  personality  that  takes  ki' 
ecstasy  out  of  the  joyful  commingling  and  harmonizing  of  lead  pipes 
He  is  an  esthetic  benefactor,  and  you  feel  you  want  to  say  somethinj 
to  him  such  as  "thank  you  sir,  for  the  many  beautiful  half  hours  (o 
hours  it  may  be  if  you  are  so  sensual  in  your  bath),  for  the  perfec 
system  you  have  conferred  whereby  we  satiate  the  needs  of  our  bat 
tered  and  worn  flesh,  after  a  day  or  a  night  of  exquisite  tortures  an 
labours";  and  some  would  have  the  impulse  to  want  to  hand  him  a  tra 
of  gardenias  that  have  been  brought  for  him  from  a  greek  shepherd  o 
the  corner  of  the  Avenue  of  America.     You  regard  him  in  the  light  c 
"donor"   or   "patron    saint"   along   with   the   maker   of   porcelain    tub 
and  the  mirror  maker,  as  also  with  that  ''gentilhomme  merveilleuse 
the  maker  of  locks  and  keys,   they  who   are   so   implicitly   tender  i 
every  regard  toward  the  privacy  of  the  world's  public  confessions. 
Let  us  now  turn  to  our  next  neglected  beauty.     It  is  the  peta 
like  wire  walker  who  dances  on  a  shining  wire  as  a  butterfly  abo\ 
the  ripples  on  a  stream  in  spring.     There  is  but  one,  none  other  .f 
brilliant  as  she,  and  so  I  shall  tell  her  name.     It  is  Bird  Millman.     ; 
you  have  ever  seen  this  'petite  charmante'  of  the  wire,  you  will  hal 
seen  what  the  swan  and  the  cherryblossom  would  come  to  if  unit^ 
and  you  will  have  held  to  the  moment  passing  before  your  eye  li 
pendant  splendour  before  the  gateway  of  the  dawn.     You  are  misgj 
one  of  the  reasons  for  existence  if  you  have  not  watched  the  lov   < 
I.'uly  of  the  frosted  wire,  and  you  will  regret  forever  the  loss  thaF 
yours  if  you  do  not  avail  yourself  of  this  so  precious  ten  or  twc 
minutes  she   gives   you   which    resolve   themselves   into   a   lifetime 
miracled   recollection. 


1^ 


The     Little    Review  6i 


Next   we    sliall   come    to    the   pontifical    Mr.    Broncho-Buster.      If 
you  have  not  seem  him  at  the  high  mass  of  his  soul  of  busting  the 
fractious   broncho,  you  have  sent  another  bliss   to  its   grave  without 
memoriams.     Here  is  all  that  is  lifelike  in  the  art  of  throwing  an  ob- 
streperous universe  into  submission.     You  will  remember  if  you  are 
yourself  alive  the  superb   horseshoe   shape  of  horseflesh  writhing  in 
determination,  his  grace  midair,  legs  rigid  in  stirrup,  sombrero  tearing 
across  a  space  of  wind,  chest  out  like  the  side  of  a  battleship  in  action, 
with  guns  pointed  in  the  direction  of  the  enemy  and  firing  ferocious- 
ly upon  it.     The  whirl  of  dust  that  rises  round  them  is  like  the  belch- 
ing  of   the    smoke    from    the    guns,   and   you   see    them    rise   and    fall 
through  the  clouds  that  envelop  them  precisely  as  you  see  the  half 
laked   gunners    through   the    smoke   on   the   shivering   deck.     It   is   a 
sattle  of  manflesh  and  horseflesh  that  is  as  forceful  as  a  quadrille  of 
he  ball  and  the  projectile  off  at  sea.    They  tear  the  space  around  them 
ivith  the  velocity  of  two  apache  dancers   from   the   old   Montmartre, 
md  with  the   same   frenzy  that  these  would  show  you.     Enter,  into 
:he  ring  of  the  imagination,  the  one  perfect  lady  bareback-rider  of  the 
vorld,  darlingest  bit  of  energy,  and  her  name  is  May  Wlirth.     After 
rou  have  witnessed  for  five  years,  once  a  season,  the  incomparably 
ovely  work  of  this  little  Australian  girl,  you  w'onder  why  there  should 
e  a  drama  of  the  sexes  or  the  soul.     When  she  begins  her  perform- 
mce   with    a   bevy   of   cartwheels   around   the    ring  in   pursuit   of   the 
dorably  white  and  docile  animal  with  the  long  flowing  tail,  then  rises 
vith  a  swoop  to  his  kidneys,  and  takes  another  two  or  thre.e  forward 
omersaults  on  the  small  of  his  back,  you  will  be  certain  that  she  be- 
ongs  to  the  inestimable  group  of  rare  artists  such  as  Mary  Garden, 
fou  will  say  it  is  of  a  perfect  piece  with  the  marvellous  and  as  yet 
mmatched    death    scene    of   "Melisande,"    allowing   naturally    for   the 
ariance  in  the  two  themes.     It  is  an  operatic  gesturing  of  the  body 
his    little   lady   with    the    lovely   english    accent    gives   you,   and   yoti 
ould  wish  for  the  rhythmists  of  time  to  assemble  and  take  pointers 
or  a  new  etude.     There  is  vigour  of  body  and  refinement  of  purpose 
ombined  in  all  these  athletic  artists  which  is  to  the  common  unper- 
eptive  eye  nothing  but  an  array  of  well  understood  gymnastic.    Tt 
""^s  not  conceivable  in  the  case  of  the  bareback  rider  for  instance  that 
allet  dancing  should  ever  be  an  essential  to  this  art,  and  yet  if  you 
ave   the   discerning   eye,   you    see    instantly   that   both   the  men   and 
omen    of   the   horse   are   possessed   of   exceptional   talents   for   poise 
nd  grace  of  figure  in  the  various  attitudes   that  are   a  part  of  the 
icture  when  not  in  actual  performance.      Incidentally  do  not  forget 
at  Mr.  Chaplin,  apropos  of  acrobatics,  is  one  of  the  greatest  artists 


62  The     Little    Review 


i){  paiUuniiiiic  of  this  century,  if  not  the  greatest,  and  that  his  rcpe-" 
titive  lauyhniakiny  exposes  the  genius  of  a  very  gifted  man.  It  is 
gratifying  that  so  great  an  artist  as  Mrs.  Fiske  paid  enthusiastic 
tribute  to  this  clown.  Even  Gordon  Craig  might  gain  stimulus  for 
his  marionettes  from  the  silent  talking  of  this  gentleman's  body.  It 
takes  real  artists  to  understand  Mr.  Chaplin.  He  is  an  excellent 
anodyne  for  the  ills  of  ima^ists,  aird  I  mean  this  most  of  all  esthet'l 
cally. 

Pierrot  the  fan-painter  is  with  us  who  care  for  the  most  fragile 
of  the  painting  arts.  It  is  always  a  "gentleman"  engaged  in  the  por- 
trayal of  the  evanescent  graces.  It  is  the  fan-painter  who  lift* 
the  jaded  sense  from  the  fatigue  that  rises  out  of  the  round  of  innu- 
merable fretty  intricacies  of  a  dull  day  of  busyness  or  a  harsh  nigh' 
of  pleasure.  His  keenest  excitement  is  the  placing  of  shimmery  ra 
diances  in  flower  form  and  body  form,  cloud  and  ocean  laughter  to 
gether  on  little  spaces  of  silk  that  fold  on  sticks  of  ivory  and  of  peart 
You  forget  the  fragrance  of  subways  and  the  irritation  that  lurks  ii 
the  politeness  of  busdrivers  when  you  see  one  of  these  touches  out  o 
the  eighteenth  century,  these  transcripts  of  Watteau  such  as  Condo| 
loved  to  evoke  from  his  candle-lit  deliriums.  I  know  of  one  who  m^ 
be  his  successor  at  the  fan.  He  is  a  tall  and  seemingly  frail,  yet  m(M>  ^, 
tenacious  young  man  who  though  he  might  seem  to  swim  in  the  green  in 
pool  of  pornographic  esthetics,  is  a  quiet  country  boj'  living  on 
calm  island,  drinking  nothing  stronger  than  malted  milk  chocoTati 
loving  tlie  domestic  twitter  of  his  white  Java  sparrows,  and  green  pai 
rokeets. 

Here  we  come  to  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  air  that  swittAf 
and    sway   like   white   peacocks   among   fig   trees   or    smoky    mimoi 
boughs;  white  mackerel  of  the  high  spaces,  lithing  on  a  wave  of  ele»i 
trically  emblazoned  water,  you  see  them  swing  now  like  larks,  noi 
like  birds  of  paradise,  now  like  nacreous  morphos  in  a  mossed  jung' 
where  orchids  radiate  a  cool  indifference.     Climbing  the  ropes,  the* 
ladies>and  gentlemen  of  the  trapeze  have  an  air  of  the  pale  convq 
vulus  opening  in  the  morning,  and  what  they  embroider  for  you 
the  dark  background  of  the  tent  is  a  pattern  of  muscular  shot  si 
They  climb  the  illumined  air  as  do  white  goats  on  a  New  Mexi 
hillside    and  have  the  gaiety  of  young  kids  capering  in  and  out  of 
sage    where    the    darkeyed    mexican    chaporone    watches,    and    hen 
They  are  as  safe  on  their  spaces  as  we  are  on  our  feet,  and  trustj 
with  more  intelligence,  knowing  its  possibilities  and  limitations  be 
than  we  do  our  earth.     They  spin  webs  of  body  design  as  does 
spider  hurrying  to  catch  the  first  dew,  and  jvorship  the  lustre  of  th 


IPI 


The    Little    Review 


63 


elves  as  they  spin.  They  are  a  delectable  crew  of  air  sailors  with 
eautiful  l)odies  that  know  the  danger  of  their  sea,  and  laugh  at  it 
ith  the  beautiful  body  laughter  of  climbing  waves. 

Here  is  the  lonliest  of  the  artists,  and  the  most  diffident,  therefore 
he  happiest  in  that  he  wants  no  other  audience  than  his  own  kind. 
He  looks  for  no  other  salary  than  the  salutation  of  his  own  pulse 
o  the  rhythm  that  invent  themselves  in  him.  It  is  the  American 
lancer,  the  redman  of  the  southwest.  His  only  stardom  in  bright 
ights  is  the  work  of  his  tincly  attuned  body  in  the  clear  sunlight  of 
clear  day,  and  his  only  need  for  audience  is  that  the  men  and 
romen  of  his  tribe  shall  feel  and  understand  the  essential  harmonic 
f  his  and  their  forefathers'  muscular  play.  One  good  hour  01  tnese 
[eniuses  and  you  will  be  willing  to  forego  the  conventional  bacchic 
evelry  of  the  greek  vase  forever.  You  will  dismiss  all  the  Broadway 
emblances  of  grace  and  the  worn  notion  of  rhythmic  movement,  for 
e  takes  his  place  in  your  esteem  along  with  the  buck  and  wing 
plendours,  and  the  fine  performance  of  the  adorable  long  thin 
oys  of  vaudeville  with  their  eccentric  cleverness.  You  would  see  the 
edman  rise  to  the  whirlwind  intelligence  of  Vernon  Castle,  and  you 
ould  never  look  at  the  heavy  imitations  again.  It  finished  for  once 
nd  all,  the  deadest  of  dance  expressions,  the  Chopin-Beethoven  mis- 
pplicalion.  He  interprets  the  eagle,  the  buffalo,  and  the  deer  and  va- 
ous  other  deieties  in  nature  in  ways  that  would  make  them  all 
appy  to  comprehend,  and  comprehending,  to  emulate.  The 
)iaghileff3  of  the  world  would  expire  with  a  single  glimpse  of  this 
asterful  gesturing.  And  yet  he  is  an  unknown  artist,  and  by  the 
rne  vv^e,  the  invaders  of  his  country,  have  begun  to  glimpse  him  in 
erest  outline  he  will  have  disappeared  and  like  the  greatest  of  come- 
ans  and  tragedians  of  time  will  have  left  a  faint  but  precious  mem- 
y   in    the    consciousness   of   human    beings. 

And  then  there  are  the  tumblers,  jugglers,  whole  pyramids  and 
onoliths  of  them  that  do  their  work  while  the  jaded  ones  leave  their 
ats  for  more  drinks  and  eats  and  dancing.  Once  on  a  time  one 
ight  have  included  aviators  and  chauffeurs  among  the  exponents  of 
e  misunderstood  arts.  But  with  the  mania  of  little  girls  of  good 
milies,  and  grownup  women  with  husbands,  and  the  charming  lit- 
tales  thrice  told  in  many  a  garage  and  aerodrome,  these  nifty 
)ys  are  in  nowise  suiTering  from  negelct.  There  is  a  mania  among- 
spectable  girls  for  these  "darling  things"  of  the  air  which  is  posi- 
/ely  disconcerting  both  for  girls  and  "darlings",  and  strong  men  will 
11  you  with  almost  a  tear  that  there  is  no  more  room  for  an  ofificer 
a   soldier  either  marine   or   land,   and   none  whatever   for   the  poor 


64  Thg    Littls    Review 


plain  citizen. 

But,  dear  diHiilcMit  uncs,  do  be  attentive  to  the  sublimely  beautifir 
neglected  arts.  It  will  help  change  your  psychology,  and  put  mar- 
row in  the  spine  of  your  enthusiasms,  once  you  get  going  amon{ 
them.  You  will  love  the  tangle  of  wires  and  trapezes,  lead  pipes  am 
fans,  and  bronchos  in  your  brain.  You  will  even  let  in  the  hordfc 
of  little  huskies  wanting  a  great  though  ephemeral  career  in  the  si 
popular  pink  journal  of  the  barbershop  and  the  clubrooms  where  bajii 
and  the  punching  bag  are  talking  a  new  language.  I  expect  whe 
the  aviators  have  had  their  day  there  will  be  a  mania  for  lightweight 
wanting  "to  meet  all  good  boys  at  a  hundred  and  twenty-two,  prefei 
Patsey  this  of  Kid  that,"  etc.  They  have  their  popularity  somewh* 
but  there  is  an  indication  that  the  roaming  respectables  of  the  AveiW 
of  America  will  take  up  the  newer  type  of  "little  boy",  and  we  sha 
see  society  shifting  its  opera  boxes  to  the  ringside. 

Be  good  then,  to  all  these  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  man 
and  ladylike  sports.  Comfort  them  with  marrons  and  beakers 
champagne  from  your  own  hands.  Give  delicacies  to  the  plumber  ai 
the  broncho-buster,  the  bareback  rider,  for  the  rough  life  they  lea 
Bring  vigoro;is  portions  of  roastbeef  for  the  fan-painter,  the  wil 
walker,  good  wholesome  grills  to  the  trapezists  for  the  gananaa.. 
exquisite  fancies  they  weave  about  your  person.  Think  more  of  tt||^ 
and  less  of  the  proud  policeman  who  is  you  may  be  sure  quite  hap 
with  his  fate.  If  you  know  this  type  of  gentleman,  you  know  tl 
he  mingles  with  the  best  society  either  on  or  off  duty.  They  ha. 
every  fourhundred  attitude  in  their  repertoire,  in  their  daily  beat, 
one  might  better  say,  their  daily  standstill.  They  are  not  among  • 
neglected,  as  any  serious  lady  or  trivial  gentleman  will  tell  y 
They  have  taken  over  the  aristocracy  of  the  boulevard  in  a  most 
gaging  fashion,  and  you  will  find  them,  that  is  the  handsomest  yot 
ones,  very  fastidious  about  their  cravats  and  their  cufflinks  wl 
they  are  not  at  work.  They  have  the  platinum  respectability.  It 
to  the  other  artists  1  would  reccomerd  you,  the  dear  beautiful  a 
lected  things. 


SUNWISE  TURN 

TWO     BOOKS 

THE  INTELLECTUALS  AND  THE  WAGE 
WORKERS :  An  Educational  Study  in  Psycho- 
Analysis,  by  Herbert  Ellsworth  Cory. 

RODIN,  by  Ranier  Maria  Rilke,  translated  by 
Jessie  Lamont. 

A  MODERN  BOOK  SHOP 

1  EASf  $iSr  STItEET  NEiW  TOIIK 


THE   STRADIVARIUS   OF    PIANOS 

313    FIFTH    AVENUE 
NEW    YORK 


THE 
HTTL 


nEYIEW 


y-^-'.  ■■'.', 


A  NAGAZmi  OP  mi  JIR.T/ 

HAKIKG    NO    COHPROHISE    WIfN    fNE    PIIBUC     fASfi 


ANNOU  NC  EN  EN  T  S 


To  appear  r^soot^'-'^ 

FOUR    DRAWINGS    BY    H     G&UOIER-BRZESK A 
POEMS    AND   THEATRE"  MUET    BY    JCfHN    RODKSW' 
DRAWINGS    BY    ANANDA    COOMARASWAMY 


In  an  early  number  w  t  will  publish  im  extr?iordininv 
peroonal  document  by  Sherwood  Anderson  called  .  / 
Nczv  Testament.  "An  autobiography  not  of  the  con- 
<ci^)\is  but  of  the  fanciful  life  of  an  individual". 


JAMES  JOYCE  JEArg    DE    BOSS.CHERE 

EZRA   POUND  MAY   SINCLAIR 

W.    B.   YEATS  DOROTHY   RICHARDSON 

T.   S.   ELIOT  SHERWOOD   ANDERSON 

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JESSIE   DISMORR  W.   CARLOS  WILLIAMS 

ARTHUR   WALEY  EEN    HECHT 

ALDOUS    HUXLEY  "jIV 

DR.   ANANDA  COOM AI^ASWAMV,  etr 


SUBSeniHE    N01¥ 


rxwMM^ccmri^mwwri^jc^rjffai  a|||aiH        IBHIIIi  IIIHHimiWIBI    Hi  HI 


-mfm 


w^\ 


I 


<li   PLAYBOr   # 


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THE 
UTTLE  REVIEW 


VOL.    VI. 


JULY,    1919 


No.   3 


CONTENTS 

Poems  and  Theatre  Muet 
Interim  (Chapter  2) 
Poems: 

Derriere  L'Echo 

The  Dancer  in  the  Mirror 

Atavistic 

Garden  Corner 
Ulysses  (Episode  X) 
Advice  to  a  Blue-Bird 
Discussion: 

Women  and  Conversaton 

Spiritual  Bastinadoing 

The  Poet  of  Maine 
Poems 

The  French  Pepys 
Profiles  and  Afternoons 
Sunday  Afternoon 
Experiments 


John  Rodker 

Dorothy  Richardson 

H.  H.  Bellamann 


James  Joyce 
Maxzvell  Bodenheim 

Muriel  Ciolkowska 

Jesse  Quitman 

Marsden  Hartley 

Wallace  Gould 

N.  Tourneur 

A.  T.  Winters 

Malcolm  Cowley 


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1919,  by  Margaret  C.  Anderson. 

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Entered  as  second  class  matter  March  16,  1917,  at  the  Post  Office  at  New  York, 
N.  Y.,  under  the  act  of  March  3,  1879. 

MARGARET   C.   ANDERSON,   Publisher 

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Foreign  Office:  43  Belsize  Park,  Gardens,  London  N.  W.  3. 


Crane's^ 

'iMary  garden  (9hoeo1atesr 

"Qjour  (PhoeohteS'aw  really  the  ffnc^  7 haOe 
Q^Qr  tasked anULvlien?  in  the  'World" 


I 


THE 

ITTLE  REVIEW 

POEMS   AND  THEATRE   MUET 

11  by  John  Rodker 

iWax   dummy   in   shop   window 

y  Avalanche  pickled  in  splintered  quartzes — Andean. 

A  among  light-cones  that  stalked 

ij]  muttering  above  house-tops  like  gods 

ij  or  a  shrill  pendulum. 

Light  slipped  in  the  wash  of  scuttling  taxis 

Loud  water  rolled. 

Apidistras! 

Squalls  waken  in  fan-whirr. 

Evening — flamingoes. 

Rain — loud  bee  swarm 
Thunder — ^^his  hair  tingled. 

Stalagmitic — fought  to  break  brain  ice 

burst  spar-eyes 

for  women,  buttered — smiling  weakly 

I  Wide  street — a  wide  river  light  streaked, 
green  faces  swim  out,  stare  at  him, 
flatten  roses  protrude  eyes 
recede  in  prisms 

Light  cones  stand  desolate. 

'God!  Pickled  in  splintered  Quartzes. 

Blue  night — green  pavement. 


The    Little    Review 


Wild   West  —  remittance   man 

Schlemihl  no  mother  weep  for 
doomed  for  a  certain  time 

Ryewhiskey — a  fungus 
works  into  each  face-line — 
the  bondstreet  exterior — 
tears  at  his  vitals — 
gravely  the  whisker  droops 
his  eyes  are  cold. 

Immaculate  meteor, 
inside  a  thick  ichor 
outside  a  thick  ether 
quenched  the  bright  music. 

Body  linings  peel  from  the  deep  cave 
in  siroccos  of  Alkali. 
England,  thy  drawing  rooms — 
Sundays — mahogany — 
the  fire  leaps. 

Ryewhiskey! 

shuffle  of  counters. 

revolvers,  marked  cards. 

A  million  tons  of  locust  sirocco 

blasts  and  grinds. 

And  the  cayuse  snorts  by 
Hcy-up — hey-up — 
Shots — the  loud  greeting. 

He  turns  to  the  counters — 
rustling  paper— marked  cards; 
gravely  the  whisker  droops 
his  eyes  are  cold. 


The    Little    Review 


e  Pale   Hysterical    Ecstacy 

White  face  puffs  out — cobra's  hood — 
age  wrinkles  at  lip  corner — 
glands  flash  open  (though  ductless) 
a  black  draught  for  blood  stream. 
The  spate  boils  on  the  dams. 

Perceptions  smash  through  brain — 
a  ball  in  a  skittle  alley 
thrown  by  a  drunk. 
Instincts  shut,  open,  shut — 
the  flute  note. 

That  buddha  squat 

the  alternative 

broods  nobly, 

pointing  upward  and  onward. 

Usual  throat-gulp  and  heart-ache — 
the  sum  o  fthem  flees,  distracted 
through  an  old  forest 
well  known,  but  forgotten  with  agony. 

If  then,  eye-white  turn  up — 

'tic  play  a  devil's  tattoo 

fear  lard  each  limb  with  sweat-ice 

loins  distend  with  pain — 

she  sighs  and  is  justified. 


The    Little    Review 


Theatre  Muet 

6 

The   End   of   the   World 

Amphitheatre. 

Dawn.     Cold  very  cold. 

Men  and  women  in  evening  dress  move  over  the  floor  of 

the  ampitheatre. 
Grouping — regrouping. 
Wandering  distraught  like  those  damned  souls  in  halls  of  E' 

They  form  and  reform  groups. 

Dawn— and  it  is  cold — very  cold. 

Then   a   whispering   wakes   among   them   and    it   is   the   i 

less  stirring  of  dead  leaves. 
Let  us  go  home — they  say— each  to  the  other — 
wandering  distraught  like  damned  souls  in  halls  of  Eblis. 
Let  us  go  home — and  it  is  the  stirring  of  dead  leaves 
Let  us  go  home. 


The    Little    Review 


Theatre   Muet 


II 


The    Bowed   Head 

I  see  the  bowed  head  silhouetted-  on  air. 

There  passs  in  frieze  behind  her,  wrack  of  civilisation, 

murder,  rape,  vast  conflagration. 
The  breast  hangs  withered,  rachitic  children  wail  and 

are  still. 
The  head  is  bowed. 

Ten  thousand  young  men  are  convulsed  in  death. 
Ten  thousand  howl  to  writhing  women. 
They  too  are  still. 
The  head  is  bowed. 
Cold  creeps  from  the  stars. 
Snow  settles  like  a  down. 
Ice  constrains  earth  powerfully  and  for  ever — 
I  see  the  bowed  head  silhouetted  on  air . 


Tht    Lit  tit    Review 


Chryselephantine 
(t  0    C.    D.) 

Comet-dust! 

your  eyes  are  magnificent 

Odilon  Redon's; 

bovine  and  oppressive, 

granite  lips 

forged  steel  nose 

iron  chin 

set  in  their  bronze  sockets 

in  a  chrysoprase  skin. 

White  jade  neck — and  all 

framed   in   blue-black   eyebrows 

and  thunder  of  hair. 

And  five  thrills,  floods,  waves  through  you 

in  subtle  osmoses, 

and  though  you  did  not  know  me  yesterday 

yet  you  have  yielded  in  a  flash — 

and  I; 

why  I  am  english  lady 

and  bow  to  you. 


I 


The    Little    Review 


Dutch   Dolls 
Second  Series* 

I  dislike  you  when  you  dance 

when  all  your  body  shows  out  obvious- 

your  flat  feet 

and  gold  hair  gray  in  the  limes. 

You  will  not  know  I  ever  hated  you — 

and  still  you'll  say — 

Do  you  love  me? 

and  I'll  say  Yes!  and  aJi.  .  .  and 

Do  you  love  me? 

till  you  say.  .  .  oh.  .  . 

clinging  to  me. 

And  when  you've  had  your  fill 

I'll  go  away  and  hate  you, 

till  you  come  murmuring 

Poor  fellow!  he's  sick  for  love  of  me. 

Perhaps  its  true.  \ 


*First  series  appeared  in  Others,  October  1915. 


10  TheLittleReview 


U  n  1  i  t  e  r  a  r  y 

Your  tears  were  nothing  to  me; 
nor  any  woman's  tears. 
The  tears  of  dead  queens 
move  me  profoundly. 

You  know,  after  a  month  or  so  of  spooning 
I  got  rather  tired  of  it  all. 
Your  tears  were  nothing  to  me. 

Do  you  remember  our  walk  in  the  wood? 
we  quarrelled; 

and  I  remembered  the  "Poemes  Saturniens" 
in  my  pocket. 

And  when  I  read  to  myself 
"Je  fais  sou  vent  ce  reve, 
and  you  were  outside  it  all, 
you  were  humiliated. 

I  think  now  I  was  needlessly  cruel. 
Your  tears  were  nothing  to  me. 


The    Little    Review  ii 


NTER I M 

ly  Dorothy  Richardson 
hapter    Two 

MIRIAM  rolled  up  the  last  pair  of  mended  stockings.  She 
looked  at  her  watch  again.  It  was  too  late  now  even  to  go 
)und  to  Kennett  Street.  For  good  or  ill  she  had  spent  New  Year's 
;ve  alone  in  a  cold  bedroom.  Why  could  one  not  be  sure  whether 
was  good  or  bad?  It  was  only  by  sitting  hour  after  hour  letting 
le's  fingers  sew  that  the  evening  had  come  to  an  end.  It  could 
ot  be  wrong  to  make  up  one's  mind  to  begin  the  new  year  with  a 
\ng  night's  rest  in  a  tidy  room  with  everything  mended.  But  the 
ding  that  the  old  year  ought  to  be  seen  out  with  people  had 
ricked  all  the  time  like  conscience.  It  only  stopped  pricking  now 
scause  it  was  too  late.  And  there  was  a  sadness  left  in  the  even- 
ig  .  .  .  .  She  lifted  her  coat  from  her  knees  and  stood  up.  The  room 
lone.  She  felt  in  her  throat  and  nostrils  the  smell  of  dust  coming 
om  the  floor  and  carpet  and  draperies.  But  the  bright  light  of 
e  gas  and  the  soft  light  of  the  reading-lamp  shone  upon  perfect 
der.  Everything  was  mended  and  would  presently  be  put  away 
tidy  drawers.  She  was  rested  and  strong,  undisturbed  by  the 
langes  that  would  have  come  from  social  hours.  No  one  had 
issed  her.  Many  people  scattered  about  in  houses  had  thought 
her.  If  they  had,  she  had  been  there  with  them.  She  could  not 
everywhere,  with  all  of  them.  That  was  certain.  There  was 
thing  to  decide  about  her  ....  The  Brooms  had  missed  her  .  .  . 
ey  would  have  enjoyed  their  new  year's  eve  better  if  she  had  been 
ere.  It  would  have  been  jollly  to  have  gone  again  so  soon,  after  the 
ort  half  week  and  sat  down  by  the  fire  where  Christmas  lingered 
d  waited  for  the  coming  of  the  year  with  them.  It  would  have 
en  a  loyalty  to  something.  But  it  was  too  soon  to  be  sitting  about 
tween  comfortable  meals,  talking,  explaining  things,  making  life 
yp  while  you  looked  at  it  with  time  and  things  rushing  along  far 

ray One  still  felt  rested  from  Christmas  and  wanting  to 

gin  doing  things.  .  .  Perhaps  it  was  not  altogether  through  un- 
cided  waiting  that  the  evening  had  come  and  gone  by  here  in 
is  room.  Perhaps  it  was  some  kind  of  decision  that  could  not  be 
;n  or  expressed.  .  Now  that  it  had  come  to  an  end  in  solitude, 
;re  was  realisation.     Quiet  realisation  of  new  year's  eve;   quiet 


The     Little     Review 


realisation  of  new  year's  eve.  The  resolutions  for  the  new  life  were 
still  distinct  in  her  mind.  She  found  an  exercise  book  and  wrote 
them  down.  There  they  stood,  pitting  the  calm  steady  innermost 
part  of  her  against  all  her  other  selves.  Free  desperate  obedience 
to  them  would  bring  a  revelation.  No  matter  how  the  other  selves 
felt  as  she  kept  them,  if  she  kept  them  every  moment  of  her  life  i 

would  go  out  from  inward  calm The  room  was  full  of  clear 

strength.  There  must  always  be  a  clear  cold  room  to  return  to. 
There  was  no  other  way  of  keeping  the  inward  peace.  Outside  one 
need  do  nothing  but  what  was  expected  of  one,  asking  nothing  for 
oneself  but  freedom  to  return  to  the  centre.  Life  would  be  an  end- 
less inw^ard  singing  until  the  end  came — in  song  and  spring  sun- 
light. But  not  too  much  inward  singing,  spending  one's  strength  in 
song;  the  song  must  be  kept  down  and  low  so  that  it  would  last  all 
the  time  and  never  fail.  Then  a  song  would  answer  back  from  outside, 
in  everything.  She  stepped  lightly  and  powerfully  about  the  room 
putting  away  her  mended  things.  .  .  One  would  move  like  the  wind 
always,  a  steady  human  south-west  wind  alive  and  enlivening,  with- 
out personality  or  speech.  No  more  books.  Books  all  led  to  the 
same  thing.  They  were  like  talking  about  things.  All  the  things; 
in  books  were  unfulfilled  duty.  No  more  interest  in  men.  They 
belonged  to  all  the  fuss  and  flurry  of  the  world.  Women  who  had 
anything  whatever  to  do  with  men  were  not  themselves.  They 
were  astray  in  a  noisy  confusion,  playing  a  part  all  the  time.  .  .  . 
The  only  real  misery  in  being  alone  was  the  fear  of  being  left  out  of 
things.     It  was  a  wrong  fear.     It  pushed  you  into  things  and  then 

everything  disappeared Not  to  listen  outside,  where  there 

was  nothing  to  hear.  In  the  end  you  came  away  empty  with  time 
gone  and  lost  ....  To  remember,  whatever  happened,  not  to  be 
afraid  of  being  alone. 

She  stood  staring  at  the  sheeny  gaslit  brown-yellow  varnish 
of  the  wall-paper  above  the  mantelpiece.  There  was  no  thought 
in  her  silence,  no  picture  of  past  or  future,  nothing  but  the  strange 
thing  for  which  there  were  no  words,  sometliing  that  was  always, 
there  as  if  by  appointment,  waiting  for  one  to  get  through  to  it 
away  from  everything  in  life.  It  was  the  thing  that  was  nothing. 
Vet  it  seemed  the  only  thing  that  came  near  and  meant  anything 
at  all.  It  was  hap])iness  and  realisation.  It  was  being  suspended, 
in  nothing  .  It  came  out  of  oneself  because  it  came  only  when  one 
had  been  a  long  time  alone.  It  was  not  oneself.  It  could  not  be, 
God.  It  did  not  mind  what  you  were  or  what  you  had  done.  It, 
would  be  there  if  you  had  just  murdered  someone  ...  it  was  only^ 


. 


The    Little    Review  13 


there  when  you  had  murdered  everybody  and  everything  and  torn 
yourself  away.  Perhaps  it  was  evil.  One's  own  evil  genius.  But 
how  could  it  make  you  so  blissful?  What  was  one  —  what  had  one 
done  to  bring  the  feeling  of  goodness  and  beauty  and  truth  into 
the  patch  on  the  wall  and  presently  make  all  the  look  of  the  distant 
world  and  everything  in  one's  experience  sound  like  music  in  a 
dream?  She  dropped  her  eyes.  From  the  papered  wall  radiance 
still  seemed  to  flow  over  her  as  she  stood,  defining  her  brow  and  hair, 
shedding  a  warmth  in  the  cold  room.  Looking  a,gain  she  foimd  the 
wall  less  bright;  but  within  the  radius  of  her  motionless  eyes  every- 
thing in  the  brightly  lit  corner  of  the  room  glowed  happily;  not 
drawing  her  but  standing  complete  and  serene,  like  someone  stand- 
ing at  a  little  distance,  expressing  agreement,  a  remark  thrown 
over  the  shoulder  before  a  departure  that  would  in  time  loop  back 

into  a  return Just  in  front  of  her  a  single  neat  warning  tap 

sounded  in  the  air,  touching  the  quick  of  her  mind St.  Pan- 
eras  clock  —  striking  down  the  chimney  ....  she  ran  across  to  the 
dark  lattice  and  flung  it  open.  In  the  air  hung  the  echo  of  the  first 
deep  boom  from  Westminster.  St.  Pancras  and  the  nearer  clocks 
were  telling  themselves  off  against  it.  They  would  have  finished 
long  before  Big  Ben  came  to  an  end.  Which  was  midnight?  Let 
it  be  St.  Pancras.  She  counted  swiftly  backwards;  four  strokes  .... 
Out  in  the  darkness  the  dark  world  was  turning  away  from  darkness 
Within  the  spaces  of  the  darkness  she  saw  the  spread  of  a  landscape. 
Full  daylight  and  early  morning  freshness  gleamed  together  over  it 

Little  sounds  came  snapping  faintly  up  through  the  darkness 

from  the  street  below,  voices  and  the  creaking  open  of  doors. 
Windows  were  being  pushed  open  up  and  down  the  street.  The  new 
year  changed  to  a  soft  moonlit  breath  stealing  through  the  darkness, 
brimming  over  the  faces  at  the  doors  and  windows,  touching  their 
brows  with  fingers  of  dawn,  sending  fresh  soothing  healing  fingers  in 

amongst  their  hair  ....  Eleven  ....  twelve Across  the  rushing 

scale  of  St.  Pancras  bells  came  a  fearful  clangour.     Bicycle  bells, 

cab  whistles,  dinner  bells,  the  banging  of  tea-trays  and  gongs 

of  course  .  .  .  New  Year  ...  It  must  be  a  Bloomsbury  custom 

She  had  had  her  share  in  a  Bloomsbury  New  Year.    Rather  jolly  .... 

rowdy;  but  jolly  in  that  sort  of  way She  could  hear  the  Baileys, 

laughing  and  talking  on  their  doorstep.  A  smooth  firm  foreign 
voice  flung  out  a  shapely  little  fragment  of  song.  Miriam  watched 
its  outline.  It  repeated  itself  in  her  mind  with  the  foreign  voice 
and  personality  of  the  singer.    She  drew  back  into  her  room. 


14  The    Little    Review 


2.  4 

Her  resolutions  kept  her  at  work  on  Saturday  afternoon.  A^ 
steady  morning's  work  disposed  of  the  corres])ondcnce  and  the 
inrush  of  paid  accounts.  After  lunch  she  worked  in  the  sur^^eries 
until  they  were  ready  for  Monday  morning  and  made  an  attack  on 
the  mass  of  clerical  work  that  remained  from  the  old  year.  She 
sat  working  until  she  grew  so  cold  that  she  knew  if  she  stayed  o| 
in  the  cold  window  space  she  would  have  the  beginning  of  a  cold! 
Better  to  go,  and  have  late  evenings  every  day  next  week,  cheered 
by  the  protests  of  the  Orlys  and  ending  with  warm  hours  in  the  den. 
As  she  got  up  and  felt  the  aching  of  her  throat  and  the  harsh  hot^ 
chill  running  through  her  nerves  she  realised  that  anyhow  she  was 
in  for  a  cold.  There  was  no  room  to  go  to  get  warm  before  going, 
out.  There  seemed  to  be  no  warmth  anywhere  in  the  world.  Torpid 
and  stupid,  miserably  realising  the  increasing  glow  of  her  nose  and 
the  clumsy  numbness  of  her  feet  she  put  away  the  ledgers  and  got 
into  her  outdoor  things.  She  resented  the  sight  of  the  bound  volume 
of  The  Dental  Cosmos  that  she  had  put  aside  to  take  home.  Her 
interest  in  it  was  useless,  as  useless  as  everything  else  in  the  freezing 
world.  Sounds  of  dancing  and  chanting  came  up  the  basement' 
stairs.  When  their  work  was  done  they  could  laugh  and  sing  in  a» 
warm  room. 

Turning  northwards  toward  the  Marylebone  Road  she  met  d< 
bleak  wind  and  turned  back  and  down  Devonshire  Street  and  east- 
wards towards  St.  Pancras  through  a  maze  of  side  streets.  The  icy 
vind  drove  against  her  all  the  way.  When  she  crossed  a  wide  thor- 
oughfare it  was  reinforced  from  the  north.  Eddies  of  colourless  dusl- 
swirlcd  about  the  pavements.  At  every  crossing  in  the  many  little' 
side  .streets  there  was  some  big  vehicle  just  upon  her  keeping  her 
shrinking  in  the  cold  while  it  rumbled  over  the  cobbles  overwhelnif 
ing  her  with  a  harsh  grating  roar  that  filled  the  streets  and  the  sky. 
Darkness  was  beginning;  a  hard  black  January  darkness,  utterly 
different  to  the  friendly  exciting  twilights  of  the  old  year.  Stand- 
ing far  far  away  Avith  summer  just  behind  them  and  Christmas 
ahead  .... 

Inside  the  house  a  cold  grey  twilight  was  blotting  out  the  warnji 
broAvnness.  A  door  opened  as  she  turned  the  stairhead  on  thl 
second  floor  and  a  tall  thin  ])rde-faced  young  man  in  dark  cloth 
and  a  light  waistcoat  flashed  ]5ast  her  and  leai)cd  lightly  downstairs  \ 
Miriam  carried  her  impression  up  to  her  room,  going  hurriedly  and 
stumbling  on  the  stairs  as  she  went  ....  Something  hard,  metalliq 
like  a  wire  spring,  cold  and  relentless.    Belonging  to  a  cold  dreadftu 


t 


J. 


The    Little    Review 15 


darkness  and  not  knowing  it;  confident.  He  had  whistled  going 
downstairs,  or  sung.  Had  he?  Perhaps  he  was  the  foreigner  who  had 
sung  last  night?  Perfectly  and  awfully  dreadful  ....  The  whole 
house  and  even  her  own  room  had  been  changed  in  a  twinkling. 
Coming  in  it  had  had  a  warmth  even  in  the  cold  twilight.  Now  it 
lay  open  and  bleak,  all  its  rooms  naked  and  visible,  a  house  "foreign 
young  gentlemen"  heard  of  and  came  to  live  in.  He  must  be  of  the 
"Norv/egian  young  gentlemen"  who  had  lived  in  Mrs.  Reynold's 
boarding  house  in  Woburn  Place  and  this  was  just  another  board- 
ing house  to  him.  Perhaps  the  house  was  full  of  boarders  .... 
She  had  grown  accustomed  to  the  Baileys  having  come  up  from  the 
basement  to  the  ground  floor  and  had  got  into  the  habit  of  coming 
briskly  through  the  hall  with  a  preoccupied  manner,  ignoring  the  in- 
variable appearance  of  a  peeping  form  at  the  partly  opened  door  of 
the  dining  room.  It  was  strange  now  to  reflect  that  the  house  had 
always  been  full  of  lodgers.  What  sort  of  people  had  they  been? 
She  could  not  remember  ever  having  met  a  lodger  face  to  face,  or 
heard  any  sounds  of  their  occupation  of  the  many  downstairs  rooms., 
perhaps  it  had  been  partly  through  going  out  so  early  and  coming 
back  only  when  the  A.  B.  C.  closed  and  being  out  or  away  so  much 
at  week-ends.  .  .  but  also  she  must  have  been  oblivious.  .  .  The  house 
had  been  her  own;  waiting  for  her  when  she  found  it;  the  quiet  road 
of  large  high  grey  mysterious  houses,  the  two  rows  of  calm  balconied 
facades,  the  green  squares  at  either  end,  the  green  door  she  waited 
for  as  she  turned  unseeing  into  the  road  from  the  quiet  thoroughfare 
of  Endsleigh  Gardens,  her  triumphant  faithful  latchkey,  the 
sheltered  dimness  of  the  hall,  the  great  staircase,  the  many  large 
closed  doors,  the  lonely  obscurity  of  her  empty  top  floor.  What  had 
come  now  was  the  fulfillment  of  the  apprehension  she  had  had  when 
Mrs.  Bailey  had  spoken  the  word  boarders.  Here  they  were.  They 
would  come  and  go  and  go  up  and  downstairs  from  their  bedrooms 
to  that  dining  room  where  the  disturbing  disclosure  had  been  made 

and  the  unknown  drawing  room Perhaps  it  would  be  a  failure. 

She  could  not  imagine  Mrs.  Bailey  and  the  two  vague  furitive  chil- 
dren in  skimpy  blue  serge  dresses  dealing  with  the  young  Norwegian 
gentleman.  He  would  not  stay  ....  If  boarders  failed  Mrs.  Bailey 
might  give  up  the  house  altogether  ....  She  found  herself  sitting  in 
her  outdoor  things  with  the  large  volume  heavy  on  her  knees  in  the 
middle  of  the  room  She  felt  too  languid  and  miserable  to  get  up 
and  take  the  small  chair  and  the  large  book  to  the  table  and  began 
wretchedly  turning  the  pages  with  her  gloved  hands.  Here  it  was. 
She  glanced  through  the  long  article,  reading  passages  here  and  there. 


i6  The    Little    Review 


There  seemed  to  be  nothing  more;  she  had  gathered  the  gist  of  it  ; 
all  in  glancing  through  it  at  Wimpole  Street.     There  was  no  need 
to  have  brought  it  home.     It  was  quite  clear  that  she  belonged  to 
the  lymphatico-nervous  class.     It  was  the  worst  of  the  four  classes 

of  humanity.    But  all  the  symptoms  were  hers She  read  once  ^ 

more  the  account  of  the  nervo-biilous  type.  It  was  impossible  to 
fit  into  that.  O'hose  people  were  dark  and  sanguine  and  energetic,  a 
It  was  very  strange.  Having  bilious  attacks  and  not  having  the  ad- 
vantages of  the  bilious  temperament.  It  meant  having  the  worst 
of  everything.  No  energy  no  initiative  no  hopefulness  no  resisting 
power;  and  sometimes  bilious  attacks.  She  was  useless;  an  encum- 
brance; left  out  of  life  forever,  because  it  was  better  for  life  to 
leave  her  out  ....  she  sat  staring  at  the  shabby  panels  of  her  ward- 
robe, hating  them  for  their  quiet  merciless  agreement  with  her 
thoughts.  To  stop  now  and  come  to  an  end  would  be  a  relief.  But 
there  was  nothing  anywhere  that  would  come  in  and  end  her.  Why 
did  life  produce  people  with  lyinphatico-nervous  temperaments?  | 
Perhaps  it  was  the  explanation  of  all  she  had  suffered  in  the  past; 
of  the  things  that  had  driven  her  again  and  again  to  go  away  and 
away,  anywhere.  She  wrenched  herself  away  from  her  thoughts  and 
flung  forward  to  the  sense  of  sunshine,  sudden  beautiful  things,  un- 
reasonable secret  happiness,  waiting  somewhere  beyond  the  black- 
ness, to  come  again.  But  it  would  mean  to  take  them.  She  brought 
nothing  to  anybody.  She  had  no  right  to  anything.  She  ought  to 
be  branded  and  go  albout  in  a  cloak  ....  There  was  no  one  in 
the  world  who  would  care  if  she  never  appeared  anywhere  again. 
She  sat  shrinking  before  this  thought.  It  was  the  plain  and  simple 
truth.  Nothing  that  any  kind  and  cheerful  person  might  say  could 
alter  it.  It  would  only  make  it  worse.  She  wondered  that  she 
had  never  put  it  to  herself  before.  It  must  always  have  been  there 
since  her  mother's  death.  There  were  one  or  two  people  who  thought 
they  cared.  But  they  only  cared  because  they  did  not  know.  If 
they  saw  more  of  her  they  would  cease  even  to  think  they  cared;  and 

they  had  their  own  lives She  had  gone  on  being  happy  exactly 

in  the  same  way  as  she  had  forgotten  there  were  people  in  the 
house;  just  going  lymphatico-nervously  about  with  her  eyes  shut.  I 
But  any  alternative  was  worse.  Insincere.  If  one  could  not  die  one 
must  go  dragging  on,  keeping  oneself  to  oneself.  That  was  why  it 
was  a  relief  to  be  in  London;  surrounded  by  people  who  did  not 
know  what  one  was  really  like.  Social  life,  any  sort  of  social  life 
anywhere  would  not  help.  It  only  made  it  worse.  Being  like  this; 
was  not  a  monbid  state  due  to  the  lack  of  cheerful  society.    People 


Tht    Little    Review 


17. 


jrho  said  that  were  wrong.  The  sign  that  they  were  wrong  was  the 
7ay  they  went  about  being  deliberately  cheerful  and  sociable.  That 
jas  worse  than  anything;  the  refusal  to  face  the  truth..  But  at 
»ast  they  could  endure  people  ....  If  one  could  not  endure  anyone 
ne  ought  to  be  dead  ....  to  sit  staring  in  front  of  one  until  one 
Fas  dead  .  .  the  wardrobe  did  not  disagree.  She  averted  her  eyes 
if  from  an  observer.  They  fell  upon  her  hopeless  person  dressed 
the  clothes  in  which  she  moved  about  in  the  world.  She  was 
tterly  cold.  But  she  sat  on  imable  to  summon  courage  to  turn 
d  face  her  room.  Her  eyes  wandered  vacantly  back  to  the  panels 
d  down  to  the  drawer  below  them  and  back  again.  The  warm 
iet  booming  of  a  gong  came  up  through  the  house.  She  got  to 
r  feet  and  stood  listening  in  amazement.  Mrs.  Bailey  had  inst' 
ted  a  boarding-house  gong!  She  went  out  on  to  the  landing; 
e  gong  ceased  and  rattled  gently  against  its  framework  released 
m  hands  that  had  stilled  its  reverberation.  A  voice  sounded  in 
e  hall  and  then  the  dining-room  door  closed  and  there  was  silence. 
ey  were  having  tea.  Of  course;  every  day;  life  going  on  down 
lere  in  the  dining  room.  Involuntarily  her  feet  were  on  the  stairs. 
e  went  down  the  narrow  flight  holding  to  the  balustrade  to  steady 
|e  stumbling  of  her  benumbed  limbs.  What  was  she  doing?  Go- 
down  to  Mrs.  Bailey;  going  to  stand  for  a  moment  close  by 
rs.  Bailey's  tea-tray.  No;  impossible  to  let  the  Baileys  save  her; 
ving  done  nothing  for  herself.  Impossible  to  be  beholden  to  the 
ileys  for  anything.  Restoration  by  them  would  be  restoration 
shame.  She  had  moved  unconsciously.  Her  life  was  still  her  own 
e  was  in  the  world,  in  a  house,  going  down  some  stairs.  For  the 
sent  the  pretence  of  living  could  go  on.  She  could  not  go  back 
her  room;  nor  forward  to  any  other  room.  She  pushed  blindly 
a  bitter  anger  growing  within  her.  She  had  moved  towards  the 
ileys.  It  was  irrevocable.  She  had  departed  from  all  her  pre- 
ents.  She  would  always  know  it.  Wherever  she  found  herself 
ould  always  be  there  at  the  root  of  her  consciousness,  shaming 
',  showing  in  everything  she  did  or  said.  Half  way  downstairs  she 
trained  her  heavy  movements  and  began  to  go  swiftly  and  stealth- 
Mean,  mean,  mean;  utterly  mean  and  damned,  a  sneaking  evil 
irit.  She  pulled  herself  upright  and  cleared  her  throat  in  a  busi- 
s  like  way.  The  echo  of  Harriett's  voice  in  her  voice  plumbed 
for  tears.  But  there  were  no  tears.  Only  something  close  round 
that  moulded  her  face  in  lines  of  despair.  The  hall  was  in  sight, 
was  going  down  to  the  hall  to  look  for  letters  on  the  hall-table 
go  back.    She  paused  in  the  hall.    If  the  dining-room  opened 


m 


i8  The    Littlt    Review 


she  would  kill  someone  with  a  ccjIcI  blind  glance  and  go  angrily^ 
and  out  of  the  front  door.    If  it  did  not  open?    It  remained  close 
It  was  not  going  to  open.    It  came  quietly  wide  as  if  someone  hi 
been  waiting  behind  it  with  the  handle  turned.     Mrs.  Bailey  w^ 
in  the  hall  with  a  firm  little  hand  on  her  arm.  -  Well,  young  lady? 
Miriam   turned   full   round   shrinking  backwards  towards  the  h; 
table.     Mrs.  Bailey  was  clutching  her  hands  -  Won't  you  comef 
and  have  a  cup  of  tea?  -  -   I  can't  -  whispered  Miriam  brisli 
moving  towards  the  dining  room  door.  -  I've  got  to  go  out  -  s 
murmured,  standing  just  inside  the  open  door.  -  Going  out?  -  ask« 
Mrs.  Bailey  in  a  refined  little  voice  throwing  a  proud  fond  shy  glat 
towards  Miriam  from  her  recovered  place  behind  the  tea-tray.    K* 
cheeks  were  flushed  and  her  eyes  sparkled  brightly  under  the  g? 
light.    Miriam's  glance  elastic  in  the  warmth  coming  from  the  roi 
swept  from  the  flood  of  yellow  hair  on  the  back  of  the  young 
Bailey  girl  sitting  close  at  her  mother's  left  hand,  across  to  1 
far  side  of  the  table.    The  pale  grey  blue  eyes  of  the  eldest  Bai' 
girl  were  directed   towards   the   bread   and  butter  her  hand  % 
stretched  out  to  take  with  the  unseeing  look  they  must  have  \ 
when  she  had  turned  her  face  towards  the  door.    At  her  side  betwi 
her  and  her  mother  sat  the  young  Norwegian  gentlernan.  a  d 
blue  upright  form  with  a  narrow  gold  bar  set  aslant  in  the  soft  m 
of  black  silk  tie  bulging  about  the  uncreased  flatness  of  his  len 
of  grey  waist-coat.    He  had  reared  his  head  smoothly  upright  ; 
a  smooth  metallic  glance  had  slid  across  her  from  large  dark  cl 
easily  opened  eyes.    He  was  very  young,  about  twenty;  the  leani. 
of  his  dart-like  perfectly  clad  form  led  slenderly  up  to  a  lean  dis^ 
guished  head.     But  above  the  wide  high  pale  brow  where  the  b 
stared  squarely  through  the  skin  and  was  beaten  in  at  the  tem; 
the  skull  had  a  snakelike  flatness,  the  polished  hair  was  poor 
worn  and  the  glance  of  the  eyes  was  the  glittering  glance  of  a 
pent.  -  Yes,  murmured  Miriam  abstractedly.  I'm  just  going  oiifc 
Don't  catch  cold  young  lady,  smiled  Mrs.  Bailey.^-  Oh  well,  I'll 
not  to,  said  Miriam  departing.    Thev'll  never  do  it.  she  told  hel 
as  she  made  her  way  through  the  darkness  towards  her  A.B.C 
the  Tottenham  Court  Road.    He'll  find  out.    He  thinks  he  is  lej' 
ing  English  in  an  English  family. 


Mrs.  Bailey  came  up  herself  to  do  Miriam's  room  on  Su0 
morning.  Miriam  wondered  as  she  came  archly  in  after  a  brisk 
on  the  door  how  she  knew  that  her  visit  caused  dismay.    The  ' 


T  h  e    Little    Review I9 

of  the  little  maid  did  not  break  into  anything.  It  only  meant  stand- 
ing for  a  minute  or  so  by  the  window  longing  for  the  snuffling  and 
shuffling  to  be  over.  But  if  Mrs.  Bailey  were  coming  up  every 
Sunday  morning.  .  .  .  She  stood  at  Mrs.  Bailey's  disposal  sheepishly 
smiling,  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  -  You  didn't  expect  to  see  me, 
young  lady  -  Miriam  broadened  her  smile.  -  I  want  to  talk  to  you  - 
They  stood  confronted  in  the  room  just  as  they  had  done  the  first 
time  Mrs.  Bailey  had  been  there  with  her  and  they  had  settled  about 
the  rent.  Only  that  then  the  room  had  seemed  large  and  real  and  at 
once  inhabited,  the  crown  of  the  large  house  and  the  reality  of  all 
the  unknown  rooms.  Now  it  seemed  to  be  at  a  disadvantage,  one 
of  Mrs.  Bailey's  unconsidered  attics,  apart  from  the  life  that  was 
beginning  to  flow  all  around  her  downstairs.  Something  in  Mrs. 
Bailey's  face  when  she  said  I  was  wondering  if  you  would  give 
Sissie  a  few  French  lessons  spoke  the  energy  of  the  new  feeling  and 
thought.  Miriam  was  astounded.  She  called  up  a  vision  oi  Sis- 
sie's  pale  steady  grey-blue  eyes,  her  characterless  hair,  her  thickset 
swiftly  ambling  little  figure.  She  was  the  kind  of  girl  who  after 
good  schooling  could  spend  a  year  in  France  and  come  back  unable 
to  speak  French.  But  if  Mrs.  Bailey  wished  it  she  would  have  to 
learn,  from  somebody So  she  conspired  with  an  easy  con- 
temptuous conscience  and  they  stood  murmuring  over  the  plan,  Mrs. 
Bailey  producing  one  by  one,  fearfully,  in  a  low  motherly  encour- 
aging tone  the  things  she  had  arranged  beforehand  in  her  own 
mind.  Before  she  went  she  bustled  to  the  window  and  tweaked  the 
ends  of  the  little  Madras  muslin  curtains.  Why  don't  you  go  down 
to  the  dron-room  for  a  while  she  asked  tweaking  and  flicking.  - 
You'll  have  it  all  to  yourself.  Mr.  Elsing's  gone  out.  I  should  go 
down  if  I  was  you  and  get  a  warm  up.  -  Miriam  thanked  her  and 
promised  to  go  and  wondered  whether  the  Norwegian's  name  was 
Helsing  or  Elsen.  When  Mrs.  Bailey  had  gone  she  walked  busily 
about  her  affronted  room.  It  must  be  Helsing.  A  man  named  El- 
sen would  be  shorter  and  stouter  and  kindly.  Of  course  she  would 
not  go  down  to  the  drawing-room.  She  ransacked  her  Saratoga 
trunk  and  found  a  Havet  and  phrase  book.  She  would  teach  Sissie 
the  rules  of  French  pronunciation  and  two  or  three  phrases  every  day 
and  make  some  sort  of  beginning  of  syntax  with  Havet.  There 
would  be  no  difficulty  in  filling  up  the  quarter  of  an  hour.  But  it 
would  be  teaching  in  the  bad  cruel  old-fashioned  way.  To  begin 
at  once  with  Piccola  or  Le  Roi  des  Montagues  and  talk  to  her  in 
the  character  of  a  Frenchman  wanting  to  become  a  boarder  would 
be  the  best  ....  But  Sissie  would  not  grasp  that  slow  way.     It 


20  The    Little    Review 


would  l)c  too  long  before  she  1)egan  to  see  that  she  was  learning 
anything  ,  .  .  But  tlie  smattering  of  phrases  and  rules  from  a  book 
■handed  out  without  any  trouble  to  herself  on  her  way  to  her  room 
and  before  she  wanted  to  go  out  was  too  little  to  give  in  exchange 
for  a  proper  breakfast  ready  for  her  in  a  warm  room  every  day 
and  the  option  of  having  single  meals  at  any  time  for  a  very  small 

sum Because  the  Baileys  were  trying  to  turn  themselves 

into  an  English  family  prepared  to  receive  foreigners  who  wanted 
to  learn  English;  and  she  had  promised  the  lessons  as  if  she  thought 

the  plan  good 

She  crept  downstairs  through  the  silent  empty  house,  pausing 
at  the  open  drawing  room  door  to  listen  to  the  faint  far-away  sub- 
terranean sounds  coming  from  the  kitchen.  All  the  furniture  seemed 
to  be  waiting  for  someone  or  something.  That  was  a  console  table. 
She  must  have  noticed  the  jar  on  it  as  she  came  into  the  room,  or 
somewhere  else,  it  looked  so  familiar.  One  ought  to  know  the  name 
of  the  material  it  was  made  of.  It  was  like  a  coarse  veined  agate. 
In  the  narrow  strip  of  mirror  that  ran  from  the  table  high  up  the  wall 
between  the  two  french  windows  stood  the  heavy  self-conscious  re- 
flection of  the  elegant  jug.  It  was  elegant  and  complete;  the  heavy 
minutely  moulded  flowers  and  leaves  festooned  about  its  tapering 
curves  did  not  destroy  its  elegance.  It  stood  out  alone  and  complete 
against  the  reflected  strip  of  shabby  room.  Extraordinary.  Where 
had  it  come  from?  It  was  an  imitation  of  something.  A  reflection 
of  some  other  life.  Had  it  ever  been  seen  by  anybody  who  knew 
the  kind  of  life  it  was  meant  to  be  surrounded  by?  She  backed  into 
an  obstacle  and  turned  with  her  hand  upon  the  low  velvet  back  of 
a  little  circular  chair.  Its  narrow  circular  strip  of  back  was  sup- 
ported by  little  wooden  pillars.  She  took  possession  of  it.  The 
coiled  spring  of  the  seat  showed  its  humpy  outline  through  the  velvet 
and  gave  way  crookedly  under  her  when  she  sat  down.  But  she  felt 
she  was  in  her  place  in  the  room:  out  amongst  its  strange  spaces.  In 
front  of  her  about  the  fireside  were  two  large  armchairs  upholstered 
in  shabby  Utrecht  velvet  and  a  wicker  chair  with  a  woolwork  cush- 
ion on  its  seat  and  a  dingy  antimacassar  worked  in  crewels  thrown 
over  its  high  back.  To  her  right  stood  a  small  battered  three-tiered 
lacquer  and  bamboo  tea-table,  and  beyond  it  a  large  circular  table 
polished  and  inlaid  and  strewn  with  dingy  books  occupied  the  end 
of  the  room  between  the  fireplace  and  the  wall.  On  the  other  side 
of  the  fireplace  stood  a  chiffonier  in  black  wood  supporting  and  re- 
flecting in  its  little  mirror  a  large  square  deeply  carved  dusty  brown 


The    Little    Review 21 

wooden  box  inlaid  with  mother-of-pearl.  Crowding  agianst  the 
chiffonier  was  a  large  shabby  bamboo  tea-talble  and  a  scatter  of 
velvet-seated  drawing-room  chairs  with  carved  dusty  abruptly  curv- 
ing backs  and  legs.  Away  to  the  left  rose  one  of  the  high  french 
windows.  The  dingy  cream  lace  curtains  almost  meeting  across  it, 
went  up  and  up  from  the  dusty  floor  and  ended  high  up,  under  a 
red  woollen  valence  running  along  a  heavy  gilt  cornice  Between 
the  curtains  she  could  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  balcony  railings  and 
strips  between  them  of  the  brown  brickwork  of  the  opposite  house. 
She  stared  at  the  vague  scatter  of  vases  and  bowls  and  small  orna- 
ments standing  in  front  of  the  large  overmantel  and  dimly  reflected 
in  its  dusty  mirror.  Two  tall  vases  on  the  mantelshelf  holding  dried 
grasses  carried  her  eyes  up  to  two  short  vases  holding  dried  grasses 
and  standing  on  the  wooden-pillared  brackets  of  the  overmantel, 
back  again  to  themselves.  She  rose  and  turned  away  to  shake  off 
their  influence  and  turned  back  again  at  once  to  see  what  had  atract- 
ed  her  attention.  Satsuma;  at  either  end  of  the  mantelpiece  shutting 
in  the  scatter  of  vases  and  bowls  two  large  squat  rounded  Satsuma 
basins — with  arched  lids.  On  the  centre  of  each  lid  was  a  little 
gilded  knob.  Extraordinary.  Unlike  any  Satsuma  she  had  ever 
seen.  Where  had  they  come  from?  She  wandered  about  the  room, 
eagerly  taking  in  battered  chairs  and  more  little  tables  and  whatnots 
and  faded  pictures  on  the  faded  walls.  What  was  it  that  had  risen 
in  her  mind  as  she  came  into  the  room?  She  recalled  the  moment 
of  coming  in.  The  piano  ....  the  quiet  shock  of  it  standing  there 
with  the  shut-in,  waiting  look  of  a  piano,  confronting  the  large  still- 
ness of  the  room  ....  Turning  to  face  it  she  passed  into  the  world 
of  drawing  room  pianos;  the  rosewood  case,  the  faded  rose  silk 
pleating  strained  taut,  its  margind  hidden  under  a  rosewood  trellis; 
the  little  tarnished  sconces,  for  shaded  candles,  the  small  leather 
easily  twirling  stool  with  its  single  thick  deeply  carved  leg,  a  lady 
sitting,  twinkling,  flourishing  delicately  through  airs  with  variations; 
an  English  piano,  perfectly  wrought  and  finished,  music  swathed 
and  hidden  in  elegance  ....  "a  little  music"  .  .  .  but  chiefly  of 
the  seated  form,  the  small  cooped  body,  the  voluminous  draperies 
bulging  over  the  stool  and  spreading  in  under  the  keyboard  and  down 
about  the  floor,  the  elegantly  straying  arms  and  mincing  hands,  the 
arch  swaying  of  the  head  and  shoulders,  the  face  bent  delicately  in 
the  becoming  play  of  light.  .  .  .  She  opened  the  lid.  It  went  back 
from  the  keys  till  it  lay  flat,  presenting  a  little  music-stand  folded 
into  the  sweep  of  its  upper  edge,  Mustiness  rose  from  the  keys. 
They  were  loose  and  yellow  with  age.  Softly  struck  notes  shattered 


22 The     Little     Review 

the  silence  of  the  room.  She  stood  listening  with  loudly  beating 
heart.  The  door  would  open  and  show  a  face  with  surprised  eyes 
staring  into  her  betrayed  consciousness.  The  house  remained  silent. 
Her  fingers  strayed  forward  and  ran  up  a  scale.  The  notes  were 
all  run  down  but  they  rang  fairly  true  to  each  other. 

Moskowski's  Serenade  sounded  fearfully  pathetic;  as  if  the  piano 
were  heart-^broken.  It  could  be  made  to  do  better.  Both  the  pedals 
worked,  the  soft  one  producing  a  woolly  sweetness,  the  loud  a  metal- 
lic shallow  brilliance  of  tone.  She  shut  the  heavy  softly  closing 
loose-handled  door  very  carefully.  Its  cold  china  knob  told  her 
callously  that  her  real  place  was  in  the  little  room  upstairs  with 
the  bedroom  crockery  cold  in  the  mid-morning  light.  But  she  had 
already  shut  the  door.  She  came  shyly  back  to  the  piano  and  sat 
down  and  played  carefully  and  obediently  piece  after  piece  re- 
membered from  her  schooldays.  They  left  the  room  triumphantly 
silent  and  heavy  all  round  her.  If  she  got  up  and  went  away  it 
would  be  as  if  she  had  not  played  at  all.  She  could  not  sit  here 
playing  Chopin.  It  would  be  like  deliberately  speaking  a  foreign 
language  suddenly,  to  assert  yourself.  Playing  pianissimo  she 
slowly  traced  a  few  phrases  of  a  nocturne.  They  revealed  all  the 
flat  dejection  of  the  register.  With  the  soft  pedal  down  she  pressed 
out  the  notes  in  vain  attempt  to  key  them  up.  Through  their 
mournful  sagging  the  magic  shape  came  out.  She  could  not  stay 
her  hands.  Presently  she  no  longer  heard  the  false  tones.  The 
notes  sounded  soft  and  clear  and  true  into  her  mind  weaving  and 
interweaving  their  familiar  reverie  of  moonlit  waters,  the  sound  of 
summer  leaves  flickering  in  the  c^rkness,  the  trailing  of  dusk  across 
misty  meadows,  the  stealing  of  dawn  over  grass,  the  faint  vision  of 
the  Taj  Malial  set  in  dark  trees,  white  Indian  moonlight  outlining 
the  trees  and  pouring  over  the  pale  fagade,  over  all  a  hovering 
haunting  consoling  voice  pure  and  clear,  passing  as  the  pictures 
faintly  came  and  cleared  and  melted  and  changed  upon  a  vast  soft 
darkne.'^s.  like  a  silver  thread  through  everything  in  the  world. 
Closing  in  upon  her  from  the  schoolgirl  pieces  still  echoing  in 
the  room  came  sudden  abrupt  little  scenes  from  all  the  levels  of 
her  life,  deep-rooted  moments  still  alive  within  her  challenging  and 
promising  as  when  she  had  left  them,  driven  relentlessly  on  .  .  . 
The  last  chord  of  the  nocturne  brought  the  room  sharply  back. 
It  was  unchanged;  lifeless  and  unmoved:  nothing  had  passed  to  it 
from  the  little  circle  where  she  sat  enclosed  ....  Her  heart  swelled 
and  tears  rose  in  her  eyes.  The  room  was  old  and  experienced,  full 
like  her  inmost  mind  of  the  unchanging  past.     Nothing  in  her  life 


The    Little    Review 23 

id  any  meaning  for  it.  It  waited  impassively  for  the  passing  to 
id  fro  of  people  who  would  leave  no  impression.  She  had  ex- 
])scd  herself  and  it  meant  nothing  in  the  room.  Life  had  passed 
T  by  and  her  playing  had  become  a  sentimental  exhibition  of 
inceded  life  .  .  .  She  was  wretched  and  feeble  and  tired  .... 
;fe  has  passed  me  iby;  that  is  the  truth.  I  am  no  longer  a  person. 
'.  y  playing  would  be  the  nauseating  record  of  an  uninteresting  fai- 
Ire  to  people  who  have  lived  or  a  pandering  to  the  sentimental 
lemories  of  people  whom  life  has  passed  by  ...  .  —  you  played  that 
l:e  a  snail  crossed  in  love — ^perhaps  he  was  right.  But  something 
lid  gone  wrong  because  played  with  the  intention  of  commenting 

(I  Alma's  way  of  playing That  was  not  all.     It  did 

It  end  there.  There  was  something  in  music  when  one  played 
nne,  without  thoughts.  Something  present,  and  new.  Not  affected 
!■  life  or  by  any  kind  of  people  ....  In  Beethoven.  Beethoven 
ns  the  answer  to  the  silence  of  the  room.  She  imagined  a  sonata 
nging  out  into  it,  and  defiantly  attacked  a  remembered  fragment. 
.  crashed  into  the  silence.  The  uncaring  room  might  rock  and 
say.  Its  rickety  furniture  shatter  to  bits.  Something  must  happen 
ider  the  outbreak  of  her  best  reality.  She  was  on  firm  ground. 
'le  room  was  nowhere.  She  cast  sidelong  half- fearful  exultant 
ances.  The  room  woke  into  an  affronted  silence.  She  felt  as- 
tiishment  at  the  sudden  loud  outbreak  of  assertions  turning  to 
s)rnful  disgust.  Entrenched  behind  the  disgust  something  was 
dclaring  that  she  had  no  right  to  her  understanding  of  music;  no 
hsiness  to  get  away  into  it  and  hide  her  defects,  to  get  out  of 
tings  and  escape  the  proper  exposure  of  her  failure.  In  a  man  it 
V  uld  have  been  excusable.  The  room  would  have  listened  with  res- 
p:tful  flattering  indulgent  tolerance  till  it  was  over  and  then  have 
rapsed  untouched.  This  dingy  woman  playing  with  the  directness 
ad  decision  of  a  man  was  like  some  strange  beast  in  the  room.  . . . 
I  was  too  late  to  go  ha.ck.  She  could  only  rush  on  re- affirming  her 
a;ertion,  shouting  in  a  din  that  must  be  reaching  up  and  down 
ti:  house  and  echoing  out  into  the  street  the  thing  that  was 
s  onger  than  the  feeling  that  had  prompted  her  appeal  for  sympa- 
tic. It  was  the  everlasting  parting  of  the  ways,  the  wrenching 
a  ay  that  always  came  ....  The  Baileys  were  going  on  downstairs 
VA  h  their  planning,  the  Norwegian  busy  with  his  cold  watchful  grap- 
png  with  England;  all  of  them  far  away,  flouted.  The  room  be- 
cne  a  background  indistinguisha;ble  from  any  other  indifferent 
b;kground.  All  round  her  was  height  and  depth,  a  sense  of  vast- 
ns  and  grandeur  beyond  anything  to  be  seen  or  heard,  yet  stretch- 


24  The    Little    Review 


ing  back  like  a  sheltering  wing  over  the  past  to  her  earliest  mem- 
ories and  forward  ahead  out  of  sight.  The  piano  had  changed.  It 
came  out  a  depth  and  dignity  of  tone.  By  careful  management  she 
could  avoid  the  abrupt  contrast  between  the  action  of  the  pedals. 
Presently  the  glowing  and  aching  of  the  muscles  of  her  forearms 
forced  her  to  leave  off.  She  swung  round.  The  forgotten  room  waj 
filled  with  friendly  light.  Triumphant  echoes  filled  its  wide  space", 
pressed  gainst  the  windows,  filtered  out  into  the  quiet  street  o\l\ 
and  away  into  London.  When  the  room  was  still  there  was  an  im 
broken  stillness  in  the  house  and  the  street.  Striking  thinly  acros: 
it  came  the  tones  of  the  solitary  unaccompanied  violin. 

(to  be  continued) 


POEMS 

by  H.  H.  Bellamann 

Derriere    L'ficho 

Regnier  wrote  of  you: 

You  are  that  one  who  stands  behind  the  echo; 

Your  hair 

Is  like  a  gold  wind, — 

My  heart  dances  the  inescapable  bacchanalia 

Of  spring 

.  .  .  You  nod  to  mc  over  the  cash  register 
And  straighten  the  jonquils  on  your  georgette  waist 
As  I  leave  the  restaurant, — 

It  was  jonquils  made  me  think  of  Regnier. 
There  is  sleet  on  the  pavement  outside. 


The    Little    Review 


25 


The     Dancer    in    the    Mirror 

Your  eyes  are  green  mirrors  of  Venetian  glass. 

They  rememlber  pageants 

And  festivals; 

I  can  see  transparent  shapes  pass  there 

Dressed  in  brocade,  laced  with  pearls; 

I  can  see  tall  poplar  trees 

And  blue  mantled  equerries  on  White  horses. 

— There  is  always  a  little  dancer  in  the  green  mirrors 

Who  dances  out  of  time. 

The  dancer  is  a  dwarf 

Like  that  one  Velasquez  painted 

With  the  Infanta. 


Atavistic 

You  stand  under  a  Yiddish  sign 
Listening  to  an  automatic  piano 
That  rattles  in  the  arch 

of  a  cinema  entrance. 
You  sway  from  the  hips  .... 

The  king's  eyes  glaze 

And  the  courtiers  stir  uneasily 

Your  white  body  curves 

in  a  fringed  and  glittering  mist- 
Its  slow  bending  concavities 
Elicit  sharp  drawn  breaths. 


The  revolving  electric  sign  scatters 

ruiby  and  emerald  lights  over  your  small  head 

and  into  your  gold  brown  eyes. 


26  The    Little    Review 


Garden    Corner 

Three  white  peacocks, 

Idle,  elegant,  poised, 

Stroll  beneath  the  pagoda  shape 

Of  a  Himalayan  fir. 

They  are  serene; 

Their  je^velled  heads 

Are  regal. 

Chrysanthemums, 

Like  neighbors'  children 

'iWith  curiosity  on  their  faces. 

Peep  over  the  box-hedges 

And  listen, 

But  they  cannot  understand 

What  the  peacocks  say. 

Into  this  retreat 

Where  philosophy  and  fashion 

Meet  in  delicate  conversation, 

Comes  a  sudden  flirt  of  blue. 

Gesture  of  self-assurance 

A  flood  of  common  talk, 

Chatter. 

And  slang. 

A  Gascon  jay 

With  a  cocksure  eye 

And  a  loud  loose  tongue 

And  a  mocking,  arrogant  air. 

Laughs  at  fashion. 

And  hoots  at  learning. 

And  boasts  of  the  leagues  he's  traveled. 

He  jeers  at  repose, 

And  sneers  at  foes, 

And  hopes  the  world  will  learn 

That  those  who  talk, 

And  those  who  walk 

In  shady  old  places  like  this, 

Make  a  very  small  stir 


The    Little    Review 27 

And  are  never  known 
Outside  a  garden  wall. 

He's  witty  and  bold, 
Biut  his  glance  is  cold; 
And  he  sprinkles  his  talk 
With  some  very  bad  words. 

A  Gascon  jay 

With  a  cock-sure  eye 

And  a  flood  of  common  talk. 

Three  peacoclvs  turn  enquiring  eyes 

In  haughty  wondering  glances; 

But  they  do  not  understand, 

For  they  only  speak  in  Old  Chinese, — 

Ancient,  pure,  and  correct  Chinese. 

So  the  gibes  and  jokes 

And  the  modern  slang 

Of  a  gascon-minded  jay, 

Are  lost  on  ears 

That  only  know  Chinese, — 

Ancient,  pure,  and  correct  Chinese. 

The  loud  street  laughs 

At  the  loose  tongued  jay, 

His  jests 

And  his  very  bad  words; 

But  three  jeweled  heads, 

In  conscious  pride, 

Nod  in  grave  and  assured  assent 

As  they  delicately  hold  converse. 

On  maxims  old. 

And  proverbs  gold, 

In  ancient,  pure,  and  correct  Chinese. 


2S The     Little     Review 

ULYSSES 

by  James  Joyce 
Episode    X    {Continued) 

)M  ROCHFORD  took  the  top  disk  from  the  pile  he  clasped 


'TX)! 


against  his  claret  waistcoat.  ' 

— See?     he  said.     Say  it's  turn  six.    In  here,  see.     Turn  Now  On. 

He  slid  into  the  left  slot  for  them.  It  shot  down  the 
groove,  wobbled  a  while,  ceased,  ogling  them:  six. 

Lawyers  of  the  past,  haughty,  pleading,  beheld  pass  to  Nisi 
Prius  cout-t  Richie  Goulding  carrying  the  costbag  of  Goulding,  Colles 
and  Ward. 

— See?  he  said.    See  now  the  last  one  I  put  in  is  over  here:    Turns 
Over.  .  .  The  impact.    Leverage,  see? 

He  showed  them  the  rising  column  of  disks  on  the  right. 
— Smart  idea,  Nosey  Flynn  said,  snuffling  .  So  a  fellow  coming  in 
late  can  see  what  turn  is  on  and  what  turns  are  over. 
— See?     Tom  Rochford  said. 

He  slid  in  a  disk  for  himself:  and  watched  it  shoot,  wobble, 
ogle,  stop:  four.    Turn  Now  On. 

— I'll  see  him  now  in  the  Ormond,  Lenehan  said,  and  sound  him. 
One  good  turn  deserves  another. 

— Do,  Tom  Rochford  said.    Tell  him  I'm  Boylan  with  impatience. 
— Goodnight,  McCoy  said  abruptly,  when  you  two  begin 

Nosey  Flynn  stooped  towards  the  lever,  snuffling  at  it. 
— But  how  does  it  work  here,  Tommy?  he  asked. 
— Tooraloo,  Lenehan  said,  see  you  later. 

He  followed  McCoy  out  across  the  tiny  square  of  Grampton 
court. 

— He's  a  hero,  he  said  simply. 
— I  know,  McCoy  said.     The  <Jrain,  you  mean. 
— Drain?    Lenehan  said.    It  was  down  a  manhole. 

They  pas.sed  Dan  Lowry's  musichall  where  Marie  Kendall, 
charming  sonbrette,  smiled  on  them  from  a  poster  a  dauby  smile. 

Going  down  the  path  of  Sycamore  street  Lenehan  showed  Mc- 
Coy how  the  whole  thing  was.  One  of  those  manholes  like  a  bloody 
gaspipe  and  there  was  the  poor  devil  stuck  down  in  it,  half  choked 
with  sewer  gas.  Down  went  Tom  Rochford  anyhow,  booky's  vest 
and  all,  with  the  rope  round  him.    And  be  damned  but  he  got  the 


The    Lit  tile    Review  29 

rope  round  the  poor  devil  and  they  two  were  hauled  up. 
— The  act  of  a  hero,  he  said. 

At  the  Dolphin  he  halted. 
— This  way,  he  said,  walking  to  the  right.     I  want  to  pop  into 
Lyaan's  to  see  Sceptre's  starting  price.     What's  the  time  by  your 
gold  watch  and  chain? 

M'Coy  peered  into  Marcus  Tertius  Moses  sombre  office,  then 
at  O'Neill's  clock. 

— After  three,  he  said.    Who's  riding  her? 
— ^0  Madden,  Lenehan  said.  And  a  game  filly  she  is. 

While  he  waited  in  Temple  bar  M'Coy  dodged  a  banana  peel 
with  gentle  pushes  of  his  toe  from  the  path  to  the  gutter.  Fellow 
might  damn  easy  get  a  nasty  fall  there  coming  along  tight  in  the 
dark. 

The  gates  of  the  drive  opened  wide  to  give  egress  to  the  vice- 
regal cavalcade. 

— Even  money,  Lenehan  said  returning.  Bantom  Lyons  was  in 
there  going  to  back  a  bloody  horse  someone  gave  him  that  hasn't 
an  earthly.     Through  here. 

They  went  up  the  steps  and  under  Merchants'  arch.    A  dark- 
backed  figure  scanned  books  on  the  hawker's  cart. 
— There  he  is,  Lenehan  said. 

— Wonder  what  he  is  buying,  M'Coy  said,  glancing  behind, 
— Lcoipoldoor  the  Bloom  is  on  the  Rye,  Lenehan  said. 
— He's  dead  nuts  on  sales,  M'Coy  said.     I  was  with  him  one  day 
and  he  bought  a  book  from  an  old  one  in  Liffey  street  for  two  bob. 
There  were  fine  plates  in  it  worth  double  the  money,  the  stars  and 
the  moon  and  comets  with  long  tails.    Astronomy  it  was  about. 

Lenehan  laughed. 
— I'll  tell  you  a  damn  good  one  about  comet's  tails,  he  said.    Come 
over  in  the  sun. 

They  crossed  to  the  metal  bridge  and  went  along  Wellington 
quay  by  the  river  wall. 

Master  Patrick  Aloysius  Dignam  came  out  of  Mangan's,  late 
Fehrenbach's  carrying  a  pound  and  a  half  of  porksteaks. 
— There  was  a  big  spread  out  at  Glencree  reformatory,  Lenehan 
said  eagerly.  The  annual  dinner  you  know.  The  Lord  mayor  was 
there,  Val  Dillon  it  was,  and  Sir  Charles  Cameron  and  Dan  Dawson 
spoke  and  there  was  music.  Bartell  D'Arcy  sang  and  Benjamin 
Dollard 


30  The     Little     Review 


—  I  know,  M'Coy  broke  in.    My  missus  sang  there  once. 
— Did  she?     Lenehan  said. 

He  checked  his  tale  a  moment  but  broke  out  in  a  w'hcezy 
k'lugh. 

— But  wait  till  I  tell  you.  he  said,  Delahunt  of  Camden  street  had 
the  catering  and  yours  truly  was  chief  bottlewasher.  Bloom  and 
the  wife  were  there.     Lashings  of  stuff  we  put  up:  port  wine  and 

sherry  and  curacoa.     Cold  joints  galore  and  mince  pies 

— I  know.  M'Coy  said.     The  year  the  missus  was  there  .'....... 

Lenehan  linked  his  arm  warmly. 
— But  wait  till  I  tell  you,  he  said.  We  had  a  midnight  lunch  after 
it  too  and  when  we  sallied  forth  it  was  blue  o'clock  in  the  morning , 
Coming  home  it  was  a  gorgeous  winter's  night  on  the  featherbed 
mountain.  Bloom  and  Chris  Callanan  were  on  one  side  of  the  car 
and  I  was  with  the  wife  on  the  other.  We  started  singing  glees  and 
duets:  Lo,  the  carh  beam  of  morning.  She  was  Avell  primed  with 
a  goot'.  load  of  Dclahunt's  port  under  her  belly  band.  Every  jolt 
the  bloody  car  gave  I  had  her  bumping  up  against  me.  Hell's  de- 
light!    She  has  a  fine  pair,  God  bless  her.     Like  that. 

He  held  his  caved  hands  a  cubit  from  him,  frowning: 
— I  was  tucking  the  rug  under  her  and  settling  her  boa  all  the  time. 
Know  what  I  mean? 

His  hands  moulded  ample  curves  of  the  air.  He  shut  his  eyes 
tight  in  delight,  his  body  shrinking,  and  blew  a  sweet  chirp  from 
his  lips. 

— The  lad  stood  to  attention  anyhow,  he  said  with  a  sigh.  She's 
a  gamcy  mare  and  no  mistake  .  Bloom  was  pointing  out  all  tlie 
stars  and  the  comets  in  the  heavens  to  Chris  Callanan  and  the  jar- 
vey:  the  Great  bear  and  Hercules  and  the  dragon  and  the  whole 
jingbang  lot.  But,  by  God,  I  was  lost,  so  to  speak,  in  the  milky 
way.  He  knew  them  all,  faith.  At  last  she  spotted  a  weeny  one 
miles  away.  And  what  star  is  that,  Poldy?  says  sihe.  By  God,  she 
had  Bloom  cornered.  Th^at  one,  is  it?  says  Chris  Callanan.  sure 
that's  only  what  you  might  call  a  pinprick.  By  God,  he  \vasn't  far 
wide  of  the  mark. 

Lenehan  stopped  and  leaned  on  the  riverwall,  panting  with 
soft  laughter. 
— I'm  weak,  he  gasped. 

Mc'Coy's  white  face  smiled  about  it  at  ihstants  and  grew  grave 
Lenehan  walked  on  again.  He  lifted  his  yachting  cap  and  scratched 
his  hindhead  rapidlv.  He  glanced  sideways  in  the  sunlight  at 
Mc'Coy. 


The    Little    Review  $i 


— He's  a  cultured  chap,  Bloom  is,  he  said  seriously.     He's  not  one 

of  your  common  or  garden you  know There's  a  touch 

of  the  artist  about  Bloom. 

+ 

+  + 

Mr  Bloom  turned  over  idly  pages  of  Maria  Monk,  then  of 
Aristotle's  Master-piece.  Crooked  botched  print.  Plates:  infants 
cuddled  in  a  ball  in  bloodred  wombs  like  livers  of  slaughtered 
cows.  Lots  of  them  like  that  at  this  moment  all  over  the  world. 
All  butting  with  their  skulls  to  get  out  of  it.  Child  born  every  minute 
somewhere.    Mrs.  Purefoy. 

He  laid  both  books  aside  and  glanced  at  the  third.     Tales  of 
the  Ghetto  by  Sacher  Masoch. 
—  That  I  had,  he  said,  pushing  it  by. 

The  shopman  let  two  volumes  fall  on  the  counter. 
— Them  are  two  good  ones,  he  said. 

Onions  of  his  breath  came  across  the  counter  out  of  his  ruined 
mouth.  He  bent  to  make  a  bundle  of  the  other  books,  hugged  them 
against  his  imibuttoned  waistcoat  and  bore  them  off  behind  the  dingy 
curtain. 

Mr.  Bloom,  lone,  looked  at  the  titles.  Fair  Tyrants  by  James 
Lovebirch.     Know  the  kind  that  is. 

He  opened  it.     Thought  so. 

A  woman's  voice  behind  the  dingy  curtain.    Listen:  The  man. 

No:  she  wouldn't  like  that  much.     Got  her  one 'once. 

He  read  the  other  title:  Sweets  of  Sin.  More  in  her  line.  Let 
us  see. 

He  read  where  his  finger  op)ened. 
— All  the  doUarbiUs  her  husband  gave  her  were  spent  in  the  stores 
on  wondrous  gowns  and  costliest  frillies.    For  him!    For  Ramd! 

Yes.     This.     Here.     Try. 
— Her  mouth  glued  on  his  in  a  luscious  voluptuous  kiss  while  his 
hands  felt  for  the  opulent  curves  inside  her  deshabille. 

Yes.     Take  this.     The  end. 
— You  are  late,  he  spoke  hoarsely,  eyeing  her  with  a  suspicious  glare. 

The  beautiful  wom,an  threw  off  her  sahletrimmted  wrap,  dis- 
playing her  queenly  shoulders  and  heaving  embonpoint.  An  inper- 
ceptible  smile  played  round  her  perfect  lips  as  she  turned  to  him 
calmly. 

Mr.  Bloom  read  again:  The  beautiful  wcman  .... 

Warmth  showered  gently  over  him,  cowing  his  flesh.     Flesh 


32 T  ht    Lit  tit    Review 

yielded  amply  amid  rumpled  clothes:  Whites  of  eyes  swooning  up 
His  nostrils  arched  themselves  for  prey.  Melting  breast  ointments 
ijor  him!  For  Raoul!)  Armpits'  oniony  sweat.  Fishgluey  slime. 
{her  heaving  embonpoint!)  Feel!  Press!  Chrished!  Sulphur 
dung  of  lions! 

Young!     Young! 

Phlegmy  coughs  shook  the  air  of  the  bookshop,  bulging  out 
the  dingy  curtains.  The  shopman's  uncombed  grey  head  came  out 
and  his  unshaven  reddened  face,  coughing.  He  raked  his  throat 
rudely,  spat  phlegm  on  the  floor.  He  put  his  boot  on  what  he  had 
spat,  wiping  his  sole  along  it  and  bent,  showing  a  raw-skinned 
crown,  scantily  haired. 

Mr.  Bloom  beheld  it. 

Mastering  his  troubled  breath,  he  said: 
— I'll  take  this  one. 

The  shopman  lifted  eyes  bleared  with  old  rheum. 
— Sweets  of  Sin,  he  said,  tapping  on  it.    That's  a  good  one. 

+ 
+  + 

The  lacquey  by  the  door  of  Dillon's  auctionrooms  shook  his 
handbell  twice  again  and  viewed  himself  in  the  chalked  mirror  of 
the  cabinet. 

Dilly  Dedalus,  listening  by  the  curbstone,  heard  the  beats  of 
the  bell,  the  cries  of  the  auctioneer  within.  Four  and  nine.  Those 
lovely  curtains.  Five  shillings?  Cosy  curtains.  Selling  new  at 
two  guineas.  Any  advance  of  five  shillings?  Going  for  five 
shillings. 

The  lacquey  lifted  his  handbell  and  shook  it: 
— Barang! 

Bang  of  the  lastlap  bell  spurred  the  halfmile  wheelmen  to  their 
spirit.  J.  A.  Jackson,  W.  E.  Wylie,  A.  Munro  and  H.  T.  Gahan, 
their  stretched  necks  wagging,  negotiated  the  curve  by  the  College 
library. 

Mr.    Dedalus,   tugging  a  long   moustache,   came   round   from 
William's  row.     He  halted  near  his  daughter. 
— It's  time  for  you,  she  said. 

■ — Stand  up  straight  for  the  love  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  Mr.  Dedalus 
said.  Are  you  trying  to  imitate  your  uncle  John  the  cornetplayer, 
head  upon  shoulders? 

Dilly  shrugged  her  shoulders,  Mr.  Dedalus  placed  his  hands 
on  them  and  held  them  back. 


The    Little    Review 33 

— Stand  up  straight,  girl,  he  said.     You'll  get  curvature  of  the 
spine.    Do  you  know  what  you  look  like? 

He  let  his  head  sink  suddenly  down  and  forward,  hunching  his 
shoulders  and  dropping  his  underjaw. 
— Give  it  up,  father,  Dilly  said.    All  the  people  are  looking  at  you. 

Mr.  Dedalus  drew  himself  upright  and  tugged  again  at  his 
■nmoustache. 

— Did  you  get  any  money?    Dilly  asked. 

— Where  would  I  get  money?     Mr.  Dedalus  said.    There  is  no  one 
in  Dublin  would  lend  me  four  pence. 

— ^You  got  some,  Dilly  said,  looking  in  his  eyes. 
Kow  do  you  know  that?     Mr.  Dedalus  asked,  his  tongue  in  his 
:heek. 

Mr.  Kernan,  pleased  with  the  order  he  had  booked,  walked 
)oldly  along  James's  street. 
—I  know  you  did,  Dilly  answered.    Were  you  in  the  Scotch  house 

fow? 
-I  was  not  there,  Mr.  Dedalus  said,  smiling.     Was  it  the  little 
|iuns  taught  you  to  be  so  saucy?    Here. 

He  handed  her  a  shilling. 
'—See  if  you  can  do  anything  with  that,  he  said. 
—I  suppose  you  got  five,  Dilly  said.     Give  me  more  than  that. 
Wait  awhile,  Mr  Dedalus  said  threateningly.    You're  like  the  rest 
f  them,  are  you?     An  insolent  pack  of  little  bitches  since  your 
cor  mother  died.    But  wait  awhile.    You'll  get  a  short  shrift  and 
I H  long  day  from  me. 

He  left  her  and  walked  on.    Dilly  followed  quickly  and  pulled 
is  coat. 
Well,  what  is  it?  he  said,  stopping. 

The  lacquey  rang  his  bell  behind  their  backs. 
njB-Barang! 
geJ-Curse  your  bloody  blatant  soul,  Mr.  Dedalus  cried,  turning  on 

The  lacquey,  aware  of  comment,  shook  the  lolling  clapper  of 
(sbell:  but  feebly: 
-Bang! 

-You  got  more  than  that,  father,  Dilly  said. 
-I'm  going  to  show  you  a  little  trick,  Mr.  Dedalus  said.    I'll  leave 
)u  all  where  Jesus  left  the  Jews.    Look,  that's  all  I  have.     I  got 
iro  shillings  from  Jack  Power  and  I  spent  two  pence  for  a  shave 
[r  the  funeral. 


34  The    Little    Revie  w ^^^ 

He  drew  forth  a  handful  of  copper  coins  nervously. 
— Can't  you  look  for  some  money  somewhere?     Dilly  said. 

Mr.  Dedalus  thought  and  nodded. 
— I  will,  he  said  i^^ravcly.  I  looked  all  along  the  gutter  in  O'Connell 
street.     I'll  try  this  one  now. 
— You're  very  funny  Dilly  said,  grinning. 

— Here.  Mr.  Dedalus  said,  handing  her  two  pennies.  Get  a  glass 
of  milk  for  yourself  and  a  bun  or  a  something.  I'll  be  home 
shortly.  |. 

He  put  the  other  coins  in  his  pocket  and  started  to  walk  orr 

The  viceregal  cavalcade  passed,  greeted  by  obsequious  police 
men.  out  of  Park  gate. 
— I'm  sure  you  have  another  shilling,  Dilly  said. 

The  lacquey  banged  loudly. 

Mr.  Dedalus  amid  the  din  walked  off,  murmuring  to  himsel 
with  a  pursing  mincing  mouth. 
— The  little  nuns!     Nice  little  things!     O,  sure  they  wouldn't  d( 
anything!     0.  sure  they  wouldn't  really!     Is  it  little  sister  Monica 

From  the  sundial  towards  James'  Gate  walked  Mr.  Kernan 
pleased  with  the  order  he  had  booked  for  Pullbrook  Robertso? 
boldly  along  James's  street.  Got  round  him  all  right.  How  do  yc 
do,  Mr.  Crimmin?  First  rate,  Sir.  How  are  things  going?  Jus 
keeping  alive.  Lovely  weather  we  are  having.  Yes,  indeed.  Goo 
for  the  country.  I'll  just  take  a  thimble  full  of  your  best  gii 
Mr.  Crimmins.  A  small  gin,  sir.  Yes.  sir.  Terrible  affair  thj 
General  Slocum  explosion.  Terrible,  terrible.  A  thousand  casua 
ties.  And  heartrending  scenes.  Men  trampling  down  women  an 
children.  Most  brutal  thing.  What  do  they  say  was  the  causfr 
Spontaneous  combustion:  most  scandalous  revelation.  Not  a  sini 
lifeboat  would  float  and  the  firehose  all  burst.  What  I  cann't  u; 
derstand  is  how  the  inspectors  ever  allowed  a  boat  like  that  .  . 
Now  you're  talking  straight.  Mr.  Crimmins.  You  know  whj 
Palm  oil.  Is  that  a  fact?  Without  a  doubt.  Well,  now,  look 
that.  And  America  they  say  is  the  land  of  the  free.  I  thought  ^ 
were  bad  here. 

I  smiled  at  him.  America,  I  said,  quietly,  just  like  that.  Wh 
is  it?  The  sweepings  of  every  country  including  our  own.  Is! 
that  true?    That's  a  fact. 

Graft,  my  dear  sir.  Well,  of  course,  where  there's  money  goii 
there's  always  someone  to  pick  it  up. 

Saw  him  looking  at  my  frock  coat.     Dress  does  it.     Nothl 
like  a  dressy  appearance.    Bowls  them  over. 
— Hello,  Simon,  Father  Cowley  said. 
— Hello,  Bob,  old  man,  Mr.  Dedalus  answered. 


The    Little    Review 35 

Mr.  Kernan  halted  and  preened  himself  before  the  sloping 
lirror  of  Peter  Kennedy,  hairdresser.  Stylish  coat,  you  know, 
cott  of  Dawson  street.  Well  worth  the  half  sovereign  I  gave 
4^early  for  it.  Never  built  under  three  guinas.  Fits  me  down  to  the 
round.     Some  Kildare  street  club  toff  had  it  probably. 

Aham!  Must  dress  the  character  for  those  fellows.  Gentle- 
len.  And  now,  Mr.  Crimmins  may  we  have  the  honour  of  your 
ustom  again,  sir.  The  cup  that  cheers  but  not  indbriates,  as  the 
Id  saying  has  it. 

North  wall  and  Sir  John  Rogerson's  quay,  with  hulls  and  an- 
hor  chains,  sailing  westward,  sailed  by  a  skiff,  a  crumpled  throwa- 
^ay,  rocked  on  the  ferrywash,  Elijah  is  coming. 

Mr.  Kernan  glanced  in  farewell  at  his  image.  High  colour,  of 
ourse.  Grizzled  moustache.  Returned  Indian  officer.  Bravely  he 
ore  his  stumpy  body  forward  on  spatted  feet,  squaring  his 
boulders. 

Aham!  Hot  spirit  of  juniper  juice  warmed  his  vitals  and  his 
reath.  Good  drop  of  gin,  that  was.  His  frock's  tails  winked  in 
right  sunshine  to  his  fat  strut. 

Down  there  Emmet  was  hanged,  drawn  and  quartered.  Greasy 
lack  rope.  Dogs  licking  the  blood  off  the  street  when  the  Lord 
eutenant's  wife  drove  by  in  her  noddy  . 

Let  me  see.  Is  he  buried  in  Saint  Michan's?  or  no  there  was 
midnight  burial  in  Glasnevin.  Corpse  brought  in  through  a 
2cret  door  in  the  wall.  Dignam  is  there  now.  Went  out  in  a  puff. 
^ell,  well.    Better  turn  down  here. 

Mr.  Kernan  turned  and  walked  down  the  slope  of  Watling 
;reet.  Denis  Breen  with  his  tomes,  weary  of  having  waited  an 
our  in  John  Henry  Menton's  office,  led  his  wife  over  O'Connell 
ridge,  bound  for  the  office  of  Messrs.  Collis  and  Ward. 

Times  of  the  troubles.  Must  ask  New  Lambert  to  lend  me 
lose  reminiscences  of  Sir  Jonah  Barrington.  When  you  look  back 
n  it  all  now  in  a  kind  of  retrospective  arrangement.  Gaming  at 
)aly's.  No  cardsharping  then.  One  of  those  fellows  got  his  hand 
ailed  to  the  table  by  a  dagger. 

Somewhere  here  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald  escaped  from  major 
irr.    Island  street.    Stables  behind  Moira  house. 

Damn  good  gin  that  was. 

Fine  dashing  young  nobleman.  Good  stock,  of  course.  That 
jffian,  that  sham  squire,  with  his  violet  gloves,  gave  him  away. 
!ourse  they  were  on  the  wrong  side.  They  rose  in  dark  and  evil 
ays.     Fine  poem  that  is:   Ingram.     They  were  gentlemen.     Ben 


36  The    Little    Review 


Dollard  does  sing  that  ballad  touchingly.     Masterly  rendition. 
At  the  siege  oj  Koss  did  my  father  jail. 

A  cavalcade  in  easy  trot  along  Penbroke  quay,  passed,  oul 
riders  leaping  gracefully  in  their  saddles.  Frockcoats.  Creai 
sunsheds. 

Mr.  Kernan  hurried  forward,  blowing  pursily. 

His  Excellency!  Too  bad!  Just  missed  that  by  a  hair.  Daril 
it!     What  a  pity! 

+ 
+  + 

Stephen  Dedalus  watched  through  the  webbed  window  tl 
lapidary's  fingers  prove  a  timedulled  chain.  Dust  webbed  t? 
window  dust  darkened  the  toiling  fingers  with  their  vulture  nail 
Dust  slept  on  dull  coils  of  bronze  and  silver,  lozenges  of  cinnaba 
on  rubies,  leprous  and  winedark  stones. 

Born  all  in  the  dark  wormy  earth,  cold  specks  of  fire,  e\ 
lights  shining  in  the  darkness.  Muddy  swinesnouts,  hands,  ro' 
and  root,  gripe  and  wrest  them. 

She  dances  in  a  foul  gloom  where  gum  burns  with  garlic, 
sailorman,  rustbearded  sips  from  a  beaker  rum  and  eyes  her. 
long  and  seafed  silent  rut.    She  dances,  capers,  wagging  her  sowi? 
haunches  and  her  hips,  on  her  gross  belly  flapping  a  ruby  egg. 

Old  Russell  with  a  smeared  shammy  rag,  burnished  aga^ 
his  gem,  turned  it  and  held  it  at  the  point  of  his  Moses'  bear 
Grandfather  ape  gloating  on  a  stolen  hoard. 

And  you  who  wrest  old  images  from  the  burial  earth!  Ti 
brainsick  words  of  sophists:  Antisthenes.  A  lore  of  drugs.  Orie 
and  immortal  wheat  standing  from  everlasting  to  everlasting. 

Two  old  women  from  their  whiff  of  the  briny  drudged  throuj 
Irishtown  along  London  bridge  road,  one  with  a  sanded  unbrell 
one  with  a  midwife's  bag  in  which  eleven  cockles  rolled. 

The  whirr  of  flapping  leathern  bands  and  hum  of  dynai 
from  (he  powerhouse  urged  Stephen  to  be  on.  Beingless  being 
Stop!  Throb  always  without  you  and  the  throb  always  witht 
Your  heart  you  sing  of.  I  between  them.  WTicre?  Between  tt 
roaring  worlds  where  they  swirl,  I.  Shatter  them,  one  and  bot 
But  stun  myself  too  in  the  blow.  Shatter  me  you  who  can.  Ba.v 
and  butcher,  were  the  words.  I  say!  Not  yet  awhile.  A  lo( 
around. 


The    Little    Review  37 


Yes,  quite  true.  Very  large  and  wonderful  and  keeps  famous 
me.     You  say,  right  Sir,  a  Monday  morning.     Twas  so,  indeed. 

Stephen  went  down  Bedford  row.  In  Clohisey's  window  a 
ded  print  of  Heenan  boxing  Sayers  held  his  eye.  Staring  backers 
th  square  hats  stood  round  the  ropering.  The  heavy  weights  in 
:ht  loincloths  proposed  gently  each  to  other  his  bulbous  fists, 
id  they  are  throbbing:  heros'  hearts. 

He  turned  and  halted  by  the  slanted  bookcart. 
Twopence  each,  the  huckster  said.     Four  for  sixpence. 

Tattered  pages.     The  Irish  Beekeeper.    Life  and  Miracles  of 

Cure  of  Ars.    Pocket  Guide  to  Killarney. 

I  might  find  here  one  of  my  pawned  schoolprizes.  Stephana 
?dalo,  alumno  Optimo,  palmam  fcrenti. 

Father  Conmee,  having  read  his  little  hours,  walked  through 

hamlet  of  Donnycarney,  murmuring  vespers. 

Binding  too  good  probably.  What  is  this?  Eighth  and  ninth 
ok  of  Moses  secret  of  all  secrets.  Seal  of  King  David.  Thumbed 
ges:  read  and  read.  Who  has  passed  here  before  me?  How  to 
"ten  chapped  hands.  Recipe  for  white  wine  vinegar.  How  to 
1  a  woman's  love.  For  me  this.  Say  the  following  talisman 
ee  times  with  hands  folded: 
Se  el  yilo  nebrakada  femininum!  Amor  me  solo!  Sanktus!  Amen. 

Who  wrote  this?     Charms  and  invocations  of  the  most  blessed 
bot  Peter  Salanka  to  all  true  believers  divulged.    As  good  as  any 
ler  abbot's  charms,  as  mumbling  Joachim's.    Down,  baldynoddle, 
we'll  wool  your  wool. 
iVhat  are  you  doing  here,  Stephen? 

Dilly's  high  shoulders  and  shabby  dress. 

Shut  the  book  quick.    Don't  let  see. 
iVhat  are  you  doing?     Stephen  said. 

A  Stuart  face  of  nonesuch  Charles,  lank  locks  falling  at  its 
es.  It  glowed  as  she  crouched  feeding  the  fire  with  broken  boots, 
old  her  of  Paris.  Late  lieabed  under  a  quilt  of  old  overcoats 
;ering  a  pinchbeck  bracelet,  Dan  Kelly's  token.  Nebrakada 
lininum.  . 
Vhat  have  you  there?    Stephen  asked. 

bought  it  from  the  other  cart  for  a  penny,  Dilly  said,  laughing 
vously.    Is  it  any  good? 

My  eyes  they  say  she  has.    Do  others  see  me  so?    Quick,  far 

daring.    Shadow  of  my  mind. 

He  took  the  coverless  book  from  her  hand.     Bue's  French 
Tier. 


38  The    Little    Review 


— What  did  you  buy  that  for?     He  asked.     To  learn  French? 

She  nodded,  reddening  and  closing  tight  her  lips. 

Show  no  surprise.    Quite  natural. 
— Here,  Stephen  said.     It's  all  right.     Mind  Maggie  doesn't  pav 
it  on  you.    I  suppose  all  my  books  are  gone. 
— Some,  Dilly  said.     We  had  to. 

She  is  drowning.  Save  her.  All  against  us.  She  will  drof 
me  with  her.  eyes  and  hair.  Lank  coils  of  seaweed  hair  around  ir 
my  heart,  my  soul.     Salt  green  death. 

We. 

Misery!    Misery! 

+ 
+  + 

— Hello,  Simon,  Father  Cowley  said. 

— Hello,  Bob,  old  man,  Mr.  Dedalus  answered,  stopping. 

They  clasped  hands  loudly  outside  Keddy  and  Daughtei 
Father  Cowley  brushed  his  moustache  often  downward  with 
scooping  hand. 

— What's  the  best  news?     Mr.  Dedalus  said. 
— WTiy  then  not  much  Father  Cowley  said.     I'm  barricaded  • 
Simon,  with  two  men  prowling  around  the  house  trying  to  effect 
entrance. 

— Jolly,  Mr.  Dedalus  said.     Who  is  it? 

— O,  Father  Cowley  said.    A  certain  gombeen  man  of  our  acqua 
tance. 

— With  a  broken  back,  is  it?     Mr.  Dedalus  asked. 
— The  same,  Simon,  Father  Cowley  answered. 
— Reuben  of  that  ilk.  I'm  just  waiting  for  Ben  Dollard.   He's  gO 
to  say  a  word  to  Long  John  to  get  him  to  take  those  two  men 
All  I  want  is  a  little  time. 

He  looked  with  vague  hope  up  and  down  the  quay,  a  big  ap 
bulging  in  his  neck. 
— I  know,  Mr.  Dedalus  said,  nodding.  Poor  old  bockedy  B* 
He's  always  doing  a  good  turn  for  someone.     Hold  hard! 

He  put  on  his  glasses  and  gazed  towards  the  metal  bridge 
instant. 
— There  he  is,  by  God,  he  said,  arse  and  pockets. 

Ben  Dollard's  loose  blue  cutaway  and  square  hat  above  If 


The    Little   Review 39 

slops  crossed  the  quay  in  full  gait  from  the  metal  bridge.    He  came 
towards  them  at  an  amble,  scratching  actively  behind  his  coattails. 
As  he  came  near  Mr.  Dedalus  greeted: 
-Hold  that  fellow  with  the  bad  trousers. 
— Hold  him  now,  Ben  Dollard  said. 

He  stood  beside  them  beaming  on  them  first  and  on  his  roomy 
clothes  from  points  of  which  Mr.  Dedalus  flicked  fluff,  saying: 
— They  were  made  for  a  man  in  his  health. 

— Bad  luck   to  the  jewman  that  made  them,   Ben  Dollard  said. 
Thanks  be  to  God  he  is  not  paid  yet. 

— And  how  is  that  hasso  projondo,  Benjamin,  Father  Cowley  asked. 
Cashel  Boyle  O'Connor  Fitzmaurice  Ti:,dall  Farrell,  murmuring, 
glassy  eyed  strode  past  the  Kildare  street  club. 

Ben    Dollard    frowned    and,    making    suddenly    a    chanter's 
mouth,  gave  forth  a  deep  note, 
— Aw!  he  said. 

—That's  the  style,  Mr.  Dedalus  said,  nodding  to  its  drone. 
-What  about  that?     Ben  Dollard  said.     Not  too  dusty?     What? 
He  turned  to  both. 
— That'll  do,  Father  Cowley  said,  nodding  also. 

The  reverend  Hugh  C.  Love  walked  from  the  old  Chapterhouse 
of  saint  Mary's  abbey  past  James  and  Charles  Kennedy,  rectifiers, 
attended  by  Geraldines  tall  and  personable,  towards  the  Tholsel 
beyond  the  Ford  of  Hurdles. 

Ben  Dollard  with  a  heavy  list  towards  the  shopfronts  led  them 
forwar^,  his  joyful  fingers  in  the  air. 

— Come  along,  with  me  to  the  subsheriff's  office,  he  said.     I  saw 
John  Henry  Menton  in  the  Bodega.     We'ie  on  the  right  lay,  Bob, 
believe  you  me. 
-For  a  few  days  tell  him,  Father  Cowley  said  anxiously. 
Ben  Dollard  halted  and  stared,  his  loud  orifice  open. 
— What  few  days?  be  boomed.     Hasn't  your  landlord  distrained 
for  rent. 

-He  has.   Father  Cowley  said. 
— Then  our  friend's  writ  is  not  worth  the  paper  it's  printed  on, 
Ben  Dollard  said.    The  landlord  has  the  prior  claim. 
-Are  you  sure  of  that? 

-You  can  tell  Barabbas  from  me,  Ben  Dollard  said,  that  he  can 
put  that  writ  where  Jacko  put  the  nuts. 

He  led  Father  Cowley  boldly  forward  linked  to  his  bulk. 
-Filbert's  I  believe  they  were,  Mr.  Dedalus  said,  as  he  dropped  his 
glasses  on  his  coatfront,  following  them. 


40  The    Little    Review 


+ 
+  + 

—The  youngster  will  be  all  right  Martin  Cunningham  said,  as  they 
passed  out  of  the  Castle  yard  gate. 

The  policeman  touched  his  forehead.  I 

— God  bless  you,  Martin  Cunningham  said,  cheerily. 

He  signed  to  the  waiting  jarvey  who  chucked  at  the  reins  and 
set  on  towards  Lord  Edward  street. 

Bronze  by  gold,  Miss  Kennedy's  head  with  Miss  Douce's  head, 
appeared  above  the  crossblind  of  the  Ormond  hotel. 
—Yes,  Martin  Cunningham  said.     I  wrote  to  Father  Conmee  and 
laid  the  whole  case  before  him. 

—You  could  try  our  friend,  Mr.  Power  suggested  backward. 
—Boyd?     Martin  Cunningham  said  shortly.     Touch  me  not. 

John  Wyse  Nolan,  lagging  behind,  reading  the  list,  came  after 
them  quickly  down  Cork  hill. 

On  the  steps  of  the  City  hall  Councillor  Nannetti  descending, 
hailed  Alderman  Cowley  and  Councillor  Abraham  Lyon  ascending. 

The  castle  car  wheeled  empty  into  upper  Exchange  street. 
—Look  here  Martin,  John  Wyse  Nolan  said,  overtaking  them  at 
the  Mail  office.     I  see  Bloom  put  his  name  down  for  five  shillings. 
— Quite  right,  Martin  Cunningham  said,  taking  the  list.     And  put 
down  the  five  shillings  too. 

— ^Without  a  second  word  either,  Mr.  Power  said. 
— Strange  but  true,  Martin  Cunningham  added. 

John  Wyse  Nolan  opened  wide  eyes. 
— I'll  say  there  is  much  kindness  in  the  Jew,  he  quoted  elegantly. 

They  went  down  Parliament  street. 
— There's  Jimmy  Henry,  Mr.  Power  said,  just  heading  for  Kava- 
nagh's. 
— Righto,  Martin  Cunningham  said.    Here  goes. 

Outside  la  Maison  Claire  Blazes  Boylan  waylaid  Jack  Mooney's 
brother-in-law,  humpy,  tight,  making  for  the  liberties. 

John  Wyse  Nolan  fell  back  with  Mr.  Power,  while  Martin 
Cunningham  took  the  elbow  of  a  little  man  in  a  shower  of  hail  suit 
who  walked  uncertainly  with  hasty  steps,  past  Nicky  Anderson's 
watches. 

— The  assistant  town  clerk's  corns  are  giving  him  some  trouble, 
John  Wyse  Nolan  told  Mr.  Power. 

They  followed  round  the  comer  towards  James  Kavanagh's 
winerooms.     The  empty  castle  car  fronted  them  at  rest  in  Essex 


Thi    Little    Review 41 

gate.     Martin  Cunningham,  speaking  always,  showed  often  the  list 
at  which  Jimmy  Henry  did  not  glance. 

— And  long  John  Fanning  is  here  too,  John  Wyse  Bolan  said,  as 
large  as  life. 

The  tall  form  of  long  John  Fanning  filled  the  doorway  where 
he  stood. 

— Good  day,  Mr.  Sheriff,  Martin  Cunningham  said,  as  all  halted 
and  greeted. 

Long  John  Fanning  made  no  way  for  them.  He  removed  his 
large  Henry  Clay  decisively,  and  his  large  fierce  eyes  scowled  in- 
telligently over  all  their  faces. 

— Are  the  conscript  fathers  pursuing  their  peaceful  deliberations? 
he  said,  with  rich  acrid  utterance  to  the  assistant  town  clerk. 
— Hell  open  to  Christians  they  were  having,  Jimmny  Henry  said 
pettishly,  about  their  damned  Irish  language.  Where  was  the  mar- 
shal, he  wanted  to  know  to  keep  order  in  the  council  chamber.  And 
old  Barlow  the  macebearer  laid  up  with  asthma  and  Harrington  in 
Llandudno  and  little  Lorcan  Sherlock  doing  locum  tenens  for  him. 
Damned  Irish  language,  language  of  our  forefathers. 

Long  John  Fanning  blew  a  plume  of  smoke  from  his  lips. 

Martin  Cunningham  spoke  by  turns  to  the  assistant  town  clerk 
and  the  subsheriff,  while  John  Wyse  Nolan  held  his  peace. 
— That  Dignam  was  that?     Long  John  Faninng  asked. 

Jimmy  Henry  made  a  grimace  and  lifted  his  left  foot. 
• — O,  my  corns!   he  said  plaintively.     Come  upstairs  for  goodness' 
sake  till  I  sit  down  somewhere.    Uff!     Ooo!     Mind! 

Testily  he  made  room  for  himself  beside  Long  John  Fanning's 
flank  and  passed  in  and  up  the  stirs. 

— Come  on  up,  Martin  Cunningham  said  to  the  subsheriff!     I  don't 
think  you  knew  him.,  or  perhaps  you  did  though. 

With  John  Wyse  Nolan,  Mr.  Power  followed  them  in. 
— ^Decent  little  soul  he  was,  Mr.  Power  said  to  the  stalwart  back  of 
Long  John  Fanning,  ascending  towards  Long  John  Fanning  in  the 
mirror. 

— Rather  lowsized,  Dignam  of  Menton's  office  that  was,   Martin 
Cunningham  said. 

Long  John  Fanning  could  not  remember  him. 

Clatter  of  horsehoofs  sounded  from  the  air. 
— What's  that?     Martin  Cunningham  said. 

All  turned  where  they  stood;  John  Wyse  Nolan  came  down 
again.     From  the  cool  shadow  of  the  doorway  he  saw  the  horses 


42 The    Little    Review 

pass   Parliament   street,   harness   and   glossy   pasterns   in   sunlight 

shimmering.     Gaily  they  went  past  before  his  cool  unfriendly  eyes, 

not  quickly. 

— What  was  it?     Martin  Cunningham  asked,  as  they  went  on  up 

the  staircase. 

— The  lord  lieutenant  general  and  general  governor  of  Ireland,  John 

Wyse  Nolan  answered  from  the  stairfoot. 

+ 
+  + 

As  they  trod  across  the  thick  carpet  Buck  Mulligan  whispered 
behind  his  hat  to  Haines. 
— Parnell's  brother.     There  in  the  comer. 

They  choose  a  small  table  near  the  window  opposite  a  long- 
faced  man  whose  beard  and  gaze  hung  intently  down  on  a  chess- 
board. 

— Is  that  he?    Haines  asked^  twisting  round  in  his  seat. 
— Yes,  Mulligan  said.     That's  John  Howard,  his  brother,  our  city 
marshal. 

John  Howard  Parnell  translated  a  white  bishop  quietly,  and 
his  grey  claw  went  up  again  to  his  forehead  whereat  it  rested. 

An   instant  after,  under   its  screen,  his  eyes  looked  quickly, 
ghostbright,  at  his  foe  and  fell  once  more  upon  a  working  corner. 
I'll  take  a  melange,  Haines  said  to  the  waitress. 
— Two  melanges,  Buck  Mulligan  said.     And  bring  us  some  scones 
and  butter,  and  some  cakes  as  well. 

Wihen  she  had  gone  he  said,  laughing: 
— We  call  it  D.  B.  C.  because  they  have  damn  bad  cakes.    O,  but 
you  missed  Dedalus  on  Hamlet. 

Haines  opened  his  newbought  book. 
— I'm  sorry,  he  said.     Shakespeare  is  the  happy  hunting  ground 
of  all  minds  that  have  lost  their  balance. 

The  onelegged  sailor  growled  at  the  area  of  17  Helson  street: 
— England  expects. 

Buck  Mulligan's  primrose  waistcoat  shook  gaily  to  his  laughter. 
— You  should  see  him,  he  said,  when  his  body  loses  its  balance. 
Wandering  Aengus  I  call  him. 

— I  am  sure  he  has  an  idee  fixe,  Haines  said,  pinching  his  chin 
thoughtfully  with  thumb  and  forefinger.  How  I  am  speculating  what 
it  would  be  likely  to  be.    Such  persons  always  have. 

Buck  Mulligan  bent  across  the  table  gravely. 


The    Little    Review 43 

-'hey  drove  his  wits  astray,  he  said,  iby  visions  of  hell.    He  will 

'?r  capture  the  attic  note.    The  note  of  Swinburne,  of  all  poets, 
I  white  death  and  the  ruddy  birth.    That  is  his  tragedy.    He  can 

e?r  be  a  poet.     The  joy  of  creation 

-  ternal    punishment,    Haines    said,    nodding    curtly.      I    see.     I 

lied  him  this  morning  on  belief.     There  was  something  on  his 
'  cl,  I  saw.    It's  rather  interesting  because  Professor  Pokorny  of. 

ina  makes  an  interesting  point  of  that. 

lick  Mulligan's  watchful  eyes  saw  the  waitress  come.    He  helped 
etc  unload  her  tray. 

-e  can  find  no  trace  of  hell  in  ancient  Irish  myth,  Haines  said. 
n:l  the  cheerful  cups.    The  moral  idea  seems  lacking,  the  sense  of 

;ii\',  of  retribution.  Rather  Strang  he  should  have  just  that  fixed 
,..    Does  he  write  anything  for  your  movement? 
He  sank  two  lumps  of  sugar  deftly  longwise  through  the  whipped 

T!      Buck  Mulligan  slit  a  steaming  scone  in  two  and  plastered 
over  its  smoking  pith.     He  bit  off  a  soft  piece  hungrily. 

en  years  he  said,  chewing  and  laughing.     He  is  going  to  write 
■)  ething  in  ten  years. 


ms  a  long  way  off,  Haines  said,  thoughtfully  lifting  his  spoon. 
t:,  1  shouldn't  wonder  if  he  did,  after  all. 
He  tasucu  a  spoonful  from  the  creamy  cone  of  his  cup. 
his  is  real  Irish  cream  I  take  it,  he  said  with  forbearance.     I 
t  want  to  be  imposed  on. 

Elijah,  skiff,  light  crumpled  throwaway,  sailed  eastward  by 
aks  of  ships  and  trawlers,  beyond  new  Wapping  street  past  Ben- 
)is  ferry,  and  by  the  threemasted  schooner  Rosevean  from  Bridg- 
a;r  with  bricks. 

+ 
+  + 

Almidano  Artifoni  walked  past  Holies  street,  past  Sewell's  yard. 
eind  him  Cashel  Boyle  O'Connor  Fitzmaurice  Tisdall  Farrell  with 
iatmbrelladustcoat  dangling,  shunned  the  lamp  before  Wilde's 
)^e  and  walked  along  Merrion  square.  Distantly  behind  him  a 
i:l  stripling  tapped  his  way  by  the  wall  of  College  Park. 

Cashel  Boyle  O'Connor  Fitzmaurice  Tisdall  Farrell  walked  as 
LUs  Mr.  Lewis  Werner's  cheerful  windows,  then  turned  and  strode 
K'  along  Merrion  square,  his  stickumbrelladustcoat  dangling. 

At  the  corner  of  Wilde's  house  he  halted,  frowned  at  Elijah's 


44  The    Little    Review 


name  announced  on  the  Metropolitan  Hall,  frowned  at  the  dista 
pleasance  of  duke's  lawn.    His  eyeglass  flashed  frowning  in  the  si 
With  ratsteeth  bared  he  muttered: 
Coatus  volui. 

He  strode  on  for  Clare  street,  grinding  his  fierce  word. 

As  he  strode  past  Mr.  Bloom's  dental  windows  the  sway  of  J 
dustcoat  brushed  rudely  from  its  angle  a  slender  tapping  cane  I' 
swept  onwards,  having  buffeted  a  thewless  body.  The  blind  str 
ling  turned  his  sickly  face  after  the  striding  form. 
— God's  curse  on  you,  he  said  sourly,  whoever  you  are!  You 
blinder  nor  I  am,  you  bitch's  bastard! 

+ 
+  + 

Opposite  Ruggy  O'Donohoe's  Maszer  Patrick  Aloysius  Digng 
pawing  the  pound  and  a  half  of  Mangan's,  late  Fehrenbach's.  pc 
porksteaks  he  had  been  sent  for,  went  along  warm  Wicklow  dawdli' 
It  was  too  blooming  dull,  sitting  in  the  parlour  with  Mrs.  St 
and  Mrs.  Quigly  and  ma  and  the  blind  down  and  they  all  at  th 
sniffles  and  sipping  sups  of  the  superior  old  sherry  uncle  Ban 
brought  from  Tunney's.     And  they  eating  crumbs  of  the  cott:  | 
fruit  cake,  jawing  the  whole  blooming  time  and  sighing.     Al  i 
Wicklow  lane  the  window  of  Madame  Doyle  court  dress  milli  i 
stopped  him.     He  stood  looking  in  at  the  two  puckers  stripped  i 
their  pelts  and  putting  up  their  props.     From  the  sidemirrors  1  | 
mourning  Masters  Dignam  gaped  silently.     Myler  Keogh,  Dubli  | 
pet  lamb,  will  meet  Sergeant  major  Bennett,  the  Portobello  bruii  j 
for  a  purse  of  twelve  sovereigns.     Gob,  that'd  be  a  good  puck  )i 
match  to  see.     Myler  Keogh,  that's  the  chap  sparring  out  to  t  \ 
with  the  green   sash.     Two  bar  entrance,   soldiers  half  price, 
could  easy  do  a  bunk  on  ma.    Master  Dignam  on  his  left  turned 
he  turned.    That's  me  in  mourning.    W^en  is  it?    May  the  twen 
second.    Sure,  the  blooming  thing  is  all  over.    He  turned  to  the  ri, ) 
and  on  his  right  Master  Dignam  turned,  his  cap  awTy,  his  col 
sticking  up.    Buttoning  it  down,  his  chin  lifted,  he  saw  the  image  ^ 
Marie  Kendall,  charming  soubrette,  beside  the  two  puckers.     ( '' 
of  them  mots  that  do  be  in  the  packets  of  fags  Stoer  smokes  that  *^ 
old  fellow  welted  hell  out  of  him  for  one  time  he  found  out.       '• 

Master  Dignam  got  his  collar  down  and  dawdled  on.  The  b 
pucker  going  for  strength  was  Fitzsimons.  One  puck  in  the  w: 
from  that  fellow  would  knock  you  into  the  middle  of  next  we 
man.    But  the  best  pucker  for  science  was  Jem  Corbet  before  Fi 


The    Little    Review  SfS 


I  ons  knocked  the  stuffings  out  of  him,  dodging  and  all. 

In  Grafton  street  Master  Dignam  saw  a  red  flower  in  a  toff's 
ijth  and  a  swell  pair  of  kicks  on  him  and  he  listening  to  what 
:i  drunk  was  telling  him  and  grinning  all  the  time. 

+ 
+  + 

No  Sandymount  tram. 

Master  Dignam  walked  along  Nassau  Strret,  shifted  the  pork- 

iks   to  his  other  hand.     His  collar   sprang  up   again  and  he 

n  d  it  down.    The  blooming  stud  was  too  small  for  the  buttonhole 

shirt,  blooming  end  to  it.    He  met  schoolboys  with  satchels. 

not  going  tomorrow  either,  stay  away  till  Mondy.     He  met 

choolboys.    Do  they  notice  I'm  in  mourning?    Uncle  Barney 

le'd  get  it  into  the  paper  tonight.     Then  they'll  all  see  it  in 

I  iper  and  read  my  name  printed,  and  pa's  name. 

His  face  got  all  grey  instead  of  being  red  like  it  was  and 

ue  was  a  fly  walking  over  it  up  to  his  eye.     The  scrunch  that 

a  when  they  were  screwing  the  screws  into  the  coffin:  and  the 

a  ps  when  they  were  bringing  it  downstairs. 

Pa  was  inside  it  and  ma  crying  in  the  parlour  and  uncle  Barney 

'  !i  the  men  how  to  get  it  round  the  bend.     A  big  coffin  it  was 

igh  and  heavylooking.     How  was  that?     The  last  night  pa 

oosed  he  was  standing  on  the  landing  there  bawling  out  for 

oots  to  go  out  to  Tunney's  for  to  boose  more  and  he  looked 

and  short  in  his  shirt.    Never  see  him  again.    Death  that  is. 

dead.    My  father  is  dead.    He  told  me  to  be  a  good  son  to  ma. 

Idn't  hear  the  other  things  he  said  but  I  saw  his  tongue  and 

eth  trying  to  say  it  better.    Poor  pa.    That  was  Mr.  Dignam, 

lather.    I  hope  he  is  in  purgatory  now  because  he  went  to  con- 

m  to  father  Conroy  on  Saturday  night. 

+ 
+  + 

William  Humble,  earl  of  Dudley,  and  Lady  Dudley,  accompa- 
by  lieutenant-colonel  Hesseltime,  drove  out  after  luncheon  from 
iceregal  lodge.  In  the  following  carriage  were  the  honourable 
Paget,  Miss  de  Courcy  and  the  honouraibl  Gerald  Ward  A.  D.  C. 
endance. 

The  cavalcade  passed  out  by  the  lower  gate  of  Phoneix  Park 
xi  by  obsequious  policemen  and  proceeded  along  the  northern 
The  viceroy  was  most  cordially  greeted  on  his  way  through 


46  T  h  e    Lit  tie    Rev  tew 


the  metrojjolis.     At  bloody  bridge  Mr.  Thomas  Kernan  beyond 
river  greeted  him  vainly  from  afar.     In  the  porch  of  four  cc 
Richie  Goulding  with  the  costsbag  of  Goulding  Colles  and  V, 
saw  him  with  surprise.     From  its  sluice  in  Wood  quay  wall  Vfn 
Tom  Devon's  office  Poodle  river  hung  out  in  fealty  a  tongn 
liquid  sewage.     Above  the  crossblind  of  the  Ormond  Hotel,  hr 
by  gold.  Miss  Kennedy's  head  by  Miss  Douce's  head  watched: 
admired.    On  Ormond  quay  Mr.  Simon  Dedalus.  on  his  way^ 
the  greenhouse  to  the  subsheriff's  office,  stood  still  in  midstreer 
brought  his  hat  low.     His  Excellency  graciously  returned  Mr. 
dalus'  greeting.      From  Cahill's  corner  the  reverend  Hugh  C.  ! 
made  obeisance  unperceived  mindful  of  lords  deputies  whose  h 
benignant  had  held  of  yore  rich  advowsons.     On  Grattan  Ir 
Lenehan  and  McCoy,  taking  leave  of  each  other,  watched  the 
riage  go  by.    From  the  shaded  door  of  Kavanagh's  winerooms 
Wyse  Nolan  smiled  with  unseen  coldness  towards  the  lord  liuti 
general  and  general  governor  of  Ireland.    Over  against  Dame 
Tom  Rochford  and  Nosey  Flyrm  watched  the  approach  of  the  c 
cade.    Tom  Rochford,  seeing  the  eyes  of  lady  Dudley  fixed  on 
took  his  thumbs  quickly  out  of  the  pockets  of  his  claret  wais 
and  duffed  his  cap  to  her.    A  charming  soubrette,  great  Marie 
dall,  with  dauby  cheeks  and  lifted  skirt  smiled  daubily  froin 
poster  upon  William  Humble  ,earl  of  Dudley,  and  upon  lieuVi 
colonel  H.  G.  Hesseltime,  and  also  upon  the  honourable  Gerald ' ' 
A.  D.  C.     From  the  window  of  the  D.  B.  C.  Buck  Mulligan 
and  Haines  gravely,  gazed  down  on  the  viceregal  carriages  ov« 
shoulders  of  eager  guests,  whose  mass  of  forms  darkened  the  < 
board  whereon  John  Howard  Parnell  looked  intently.     In  Foi 
street,  Dilly  Dedalus,  straining  her  sight  upward  from  Bue'j 
French  primer,  saw  sunshades  spanned  and  wheelspokes  spi 
in  the  glare.    John  Henry  Menton.  filling  the  doorway  of  Comm 
Buildings,  stared  from  winebig  oyster  eyes.     Where  the  forel 
King  Billy's  horse  pawed  the  air  Mrs.  Breen  plucked  her  hast 
husband  back  from  under  the  hoofs  of  the  outriders.     She  sh 
in  his  ear  the  tidings.     Understanding,  he  shifted  his  tomes 
left  breast  and  saluted  the  second  carriage.    The  honourable  ( 
Ward  A.  D.  C,  agreeably  surprised,  made  haste  to  reply.    At 
sonby's  Corner  a  jaded  white  flagon  H.  halted  and  four  talD 
white  flagons  halted  behind  him.  E.  L.  Y.  S,  while  outriders  pi 
past  and  carriages.     By  the  provost's  wall  came  jauntily  ] 
Boylan,  stepping  in  tanned  shoes  and  socks  with  skyblue  clo 
the  ^efrain  of  My  girl's  a  Yorkshire  girl. 

Blazes  Boylan  presented  to  the  leaders'  skyblue  frontlel 


The    Little    Review 47 

high  action  a  skyblue  tie,  a  widdbrimmed  str9,w  hat  at  a  rakish  angle 
and  a  suit  of  indigo  serge.  His  hands  in  his  jacket  pockets  forgot 
to  salute  ibut  he  otfered  to  the  three  ladies  the  bold  admiration  of 
his  eyes  and  the  red  flower  between  his  lips.  As  they  drove  along 
Nassau  street  his  excellency  drew  the  attention  of  his  bowing  consort 
to  the  programme  of  music  which  was  being  discoursed  in  College 
park.  Unseen  brazen  highland  laddies  blared  and  drumthumped 
after  the  cortege: 

BiU  though  she's  a  factory  lass 

And  weaves  no  fancy  clothes 

Baraabiim 

Yet  I've  a  sort  of  a 

Yorkshire  relish  for 

My  little  Yorkshire  rose 

Baraahwm. 
Thither  of  the  wall  the  quartermile  flat  handicappers,  M.  C. 
Green,  H.  Thrift,  T.  M.  Patey,  S.  Scaife,  J.  B.  Joffs,  G.  N.  Morphy, 
F.  Stevenson,  C.  Adderly,  and  W.  C.  Huggard  started  in  pursuit. 
Striding  past  Finn's  hotel,  Cashel  Boyle  O'Connor  Fitzmaurice 
isdall  Farrell  stared  through  a  fierce  eyeglass  across  the  carriages 
at  the  head  of  Mr.  M.  E.  Solomons  in  the  window  of  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  vice-consulate.  Deep  in  Leintser  street,  by  Trinity's 
postern,  a  loyal  King's  man,  Hornblower,  touched  his  tallyho  cap. 
As  the  glossy  horses  pranced  by  Merrion  square  Master  Patrick 
Aloysius  Dignam,  waiting,  saw  salutes  being  given  to  the  gent  with 
the  topper  and  raised  also  his  new  black  cap  with  fingers  greased 
by  porksteak  paper.  His  collar  too  sprang  up  .  The  Viceroy,  on 
his  way  to  inaugurate  the  Mirus  bazaar  in  aid  of  funds  for  Mercer's 
Hospital,  drove  with  his  following  towards  Lower  Mount  street.  He 
passed  a  blind  stripling  opposite  Broadbent's.  In  Lower  Mount 
street  a  pedestrian  in  a  brown  mackintosh,  eating  dry  bread,  passed 
swiftly  and  unscathed  across  the  viceroy's  path.  At  the  Royal 
Canal  bridge,  from  his  hoarding,  Mr.  Eugene  Stratton,  his  blub  lips 
agrin,  bade  all  comers  welcome  to  Pembroke  township.  At  Hadding- 
ton road  corner  two  sandled  women  halted  themselves,  an  umbrella 
and  a  bag  in  which  eleven  cockles  rolled  to  view  with  wonder  the  lord 
mayor  and  lady  mayoress  without  his  golden  chain.  On  Northum- 
berland road  his  excellency  acknowledged  punctually  salutes  from 
rare  male  walkers  the  salute  of  two  small  schoolboys  at  a  garden 
gate  and  the  salute  of  Almidano  Artifoni's  sturdy  trousers  swallowed 
by  a  closing  door. 

{To  be  continued.) 


48 The    Utile    Review 

ADVICE  TO  A  BLUE-BIRD 

by    Maxwell    Bodenheim 

Who  can  make  a  delicate  adventure 
Of  walking  on  the  ground? 
Who  can  make  grass-blades 
Arcades  for  pertly  careless  straying? 
You  alone  who  skim  against  these  leaves 
Turning  all  desire  into  light  wliips 
Moulded  by  your-  deep  blue  wing-tips. 

You  who  shrill  your  unconcern 
Into  the  sternly  antique  sky. 
You  to  whom  all  things 
Hold  an  equal  kiss  of  touch. 

.Mincing,  wanton  blue-bird, 

Grimace  at  the  hoofs  of  passing  men. 

Only  you  can  lose  yourself 

Witiiin  a  sky  that  does  not  trouble  you, 

And  rob  it  of  its  blue. 


iSTTLE  REVIEW 


Editor: 

Margaret   Anderson 

Foreign   Editors: 
John    Rodker  Jules    Romains 

Advisory    Board: 
jh 

DISCUSSION 

Women    and    Conversation 
y  Muriel  Ciolkowska 

N    the    floral    number    of    j'our    magazine     (May)     Mr.    John    Butler 

Yeats  wrote : 

"I  have  said  that  women  are  without  the  feeling  of  property.  Let 
le  add  that  they  have  no  feeling  for  conversation." 

[By  the  way,  if  a  woman  were  to  write  in  that  spirit,  men  would 
p  and  exclaim,:  How  assertive  women  are!  Mr.  Hueffer,  to  the 
scue,  please]. 

Is  the  art  of  conversation,  in  Mr.  Yeats's  opinion,  practised  more 
iccessfully  in  men's  clubs  than  it  is  supposed  to  have  l)een  in  the 
oman-governed  salons  of  France  in  the  17th,  i8th,  and  early  loth 
jnturies? 

In  those  days  the  presence  of  woman  proved — we  have  always 
:lieved— as    active   a    stimulant    to    the   exercise   of   conversation   as 


50  T  h  c    Lit  tl  e    Review 

that  other — undeniably  useful — stimulant  whose  beneficial  influenc 
acknowledged  by   Mr.   Yeats. 

But    since    there    seems    to    have    been    little    of    "drink"    in 
French    salons    referred    to    and    a   great    deal    of   "woman"    one  j 
be   entitled   to   consider   the   former  as  a   substitute   for,   rather**! 
as  an  improvement  upon   the  latter.  . 

Bellcvtie,  France. 

Spiritual    Bastinadoing 

by  Jesse  Quitman  [ 

A'S  you  know  ,  I  have  been  hopeful  rather  than  enthusiastic  a 
your  work.    But  the  genuiness  of  my  solicitous  regard  for 
success  is  beyond  questioning.     It  is  not  as  one  of  those  who  w 
destroy  you  that  I  am  saying  my  little  say  herein. 

Shall  I  begin  by  asking  a  question?     Is  anything  added  to  the 
ute  aggregate  of  beauty  in  the  world  by  sneering  at  the  multitude 
boasting  of  a  self-acclaimed  mystical  insight  into  the  secret  shrir 
art? 

Surely  you  do  not  feel  that  spiritual  bastinadoing  will  oper 
soul  of  the  aesthetically  recalcitrant?  Even  were  it  possible,  wot 
be  justifiable  to  whip  mankind  to  cultural  salvation? 

You  recognize,  for  1  have  heard  you  say  so,  that  beauty  need  1. 
Beige  to  the  heart  of  the  true  artist.    It  is  an  authentic  case  of  lo 
first  sight.     Why   then,   this   petulance,   this   irritable   screeching? 
you  the  fond  mother  trying  to  marry  off  a  homely  duckling?     If 
child  is  what  she  should  be,  she'll  get  her  proper  admiratipn. 

Let  us  stop  the  old  torture  of  burning  people  at  the  stake  i: 
name  of  art.  Not  that  it  hurts  the  people,  but  it  hurts  us.  Or, 
continue,  let  us  throw  off  all  pretence,  and  frankly  concede  ths 
yearn  for  the  plaudits  of  the  mob,  that  it  rankles  in  our  heart  that 
pass  us  by,  that  their  indifference  is  an  agony  to  us,  that  the  epi 
we  hurl  at  them  are  to  compel  attention,  that  if  they  will  not 
us,  we'll  scratch  them. 

I  am  not  scolding;  but  I  deeply  feel  the  need  of  loving  beauty 
out  hating  stupid  people. 

I  I  am  the  first  to  admit  that  it  is  neither  possible  nor  des 
to  f)pen  the  souls  of  the  aesthetically  recalcitrant.  I  have  trie 
being   of   the   ecclesiastical    type.      But    I    must   beg   exemption 


The    Little    Review  51 

your  verb  "sneer".  I  have  not  sneered.  The  sneer  is  one  of  the 
finest  things  in  nature,  and  a  weapon  of  incomparable  eflfect.  I  have 
not  achieved  it. — M.  C.  A.] 

The     Poet    of    Maine  ^ 
by  Marsden  Hartley 

THIRTYSEVEN  years  ago  a  tidal  wave  washed  up  on  the  shores 
of  Maine  a  titan.  It  left  him  sitting  on  a  rock,  and  never  re- 
turned. 

Instead  of  a  rock  to  sit  upon,  the  whim  of  the  world  changed  rock 
to  piano  stool,  and  for  the  last  eighteen  years  or  more  said  titan  has 
been  drumming  out  everything  ever  written  for  piano  that  could  be 
transcribed  or  multilated  for  movie  purposes,  from  silver  threads 
among  the  gold,  goodbye  summer,  on  down  to  the  last  march  or  aria 
in  the  field  of  opera. 

Six  hours  a  day  on  a  piano  stool  for  eighteen  years  is  not  exactly 
the  most  inspiring  occupation  for  a  poet,  much  less  for  a  man  of  power- 
ful imagination,  with  the  tension  of  a  Balzac  in  his  brain. 

Wallace  Gould  is  the  titan  the  sea  brought  up,  and  it  left  him  pon- 
dering on  a  shore  that  he  understands  now  so  perfectly,  hardly  ever 
having  left  it,  as  to  make  him  truthfully  the  voice  of  Maine  in  modern 
poetry. 

The  promising  Seven  Arts  of  two  years  ago  which  perished  cer- 
tainly too  soou  to  show  what  it  could  do,  brought  out  the  first  printing 
of  a  series  of  poetic  pieces  of  this  original  poet.  I  met  Waldo  Frank 
on  Fifth  Avenue  one  day  at  the  time  the  Seven  Arts  was  flourishing. 
Waldo  queried,  "Marsden,  can't  you  help  find  us  some  new  poets  for 
our  magazine"?  I  replied,  "I  happen  to  know  a  genuine  one  at  this 
moment  who  has  waited  years,  and  still  waits  for  the  proper  chance 
to  appear."  I  gave  the  address,  and  the  Seven  Arts  published  five 
[pieces  from  Wallace   Gould's  first  book,  "The   Children  of  the  Sun." 

Braithwaite  of  Boston  wrote  Gould  to  ask  for  permission  to  reprint 
Ihim  in  his  Anthology  of  poetry  for  that  period,  and  also  at  the  same 
time  the  Cornhill  Publishing  Co.  sought  him  out  with  a  view  to 
I  publication. 

"If  you  publish,  you  do  so  entirely  at  your  own  risk,"  replied  Gould. 
iThey  were  eager  apparently,  and  "The  Children  of  the  Sun"  made  its 
lappearance  duly  in  flagrant  orange  boards  with  black  buckram  back.    It 


52  The    Little    Review 


was  reviewed  lengthily  by  Braithwaite  in  the  Boston  Transcript,  am 
a  few  minor  issues  gave  it  scant  attention,  mostly  to  sneer  or  condemn 
with  a  faint  smattering  of  praise. 

Possibly  the  book  had  faults,  but  the  faults  did  not  lie  in  the  qual 
ity  .  The  Boston  Shops  subscribed  for  a  few  copies,  and  one  deale 
ordered  twenty-five  copies  and  in  a  week's  time  returned  them  sayin 
the  book  was  decidedly  too  flagrantly  of  the  sun,  that  it  was  too  inci 
cent,  or  something  of  that  sort.  Other  retailers  quietly  cancelled  thei 
orders.  And  the  titan  sits  upon  a  rock  still,  with  not  even  a  leakin 
ferryboat  to  get  him  to  shore,  much  less  a  solid  ship,  as  it  ought  to  b 
Wallace  Gould  sits  on  his  piano  stool  drumming  for  an  existence,  ac 
after  the  labours  of  eighteen  years  (for  Gould  has  been  a  mercile* 
pruner  of  his  pieces)  his  second  book,  "The  Drift  of  a  Year,"  li« 
ready   for  consideration,  or  possible  neglect. 

This  has  happened  before  in  Maine,  to  that  other  and  very  disti 
guishcd  poet,  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson,  so  the  poets  from  Maine  a 
ironically  trained  to  The  habit  of  neglect.     During  the  last  year  or 
several  reviews  have  been  on  the  way,  but  nothing  has  quite  come  c  g^ 
owing  to  illness  or  the  pressure  of  events,  and  the  matter  of  maki 
Gould  known  outside   of  his  printed  work  has  been  inadvertently  Ctjks 
ferred.     Tlie   titan   sits  upon   a  rock  and  waits  for  the  tidal  wave' 
deliverance   to  come   and   show  him   something  besides  a  piano  anAltini 
reel  of  movie  with  the  background   of  the  solemnity  of   Maine  as  1  •«( 
clue  to  human   experience.     At  present   Gould   is   playing  piano  in  'pfciii 
mill  town  of  Madison,  Maine,  on  tlie  banks  of  the  majestic  Kennel 
River.     He   draws   all   of   his   material   naturally    from   the   mountai 
lakes,  rivers,  rocks,  tides,  skies,  and  oce^n  movements   of  Maine 
is  therefore  literally  the  poet  of  Maine,  as  well  as  its  first  modern 
in  poetry.     We  allow  here  for  Robinson  who  is  one  of  the  best  p6 
America  has  so  far  produced ;  we  all  of  us  know  the  plight  of  his 
istence,  and  know  that  but  for  the  few  discerning  poets  and  friends  ^ha 
his   nme,  and   the   efforts   at   a   later   time   of   Theodore   Roosevelt, 
might  still  be  suspended  in   the  limbo  of  neglect. 

But  Robinson  is  not  Maine  in  precisely  the  sense  that  Gould 
Maine,  for  Robinson  made  a  stiff  abstraction  out  of  it,  while  Gc 
has  given  the  flavour  of  the  place  and  the  characteristics  of  the  p" 
with  a  poetic  fidelity  that  might  be  called  by  some  rough  roali 
but  it  is  a  realism  that  is  in  no  sense  photography.  It  is  rather 
life  of  things  and  people  and  places  in  Maine,  the  life  of  Maine 
it  is,  unchanged,  untransmutcd.  Gould  knows  the  state  in  the  ac 
sense  as  Nero  knew  his  Rome.     He  possesses  it,  and  presents  acftui 


tos 

ie"a 

irit  to 
an 

■if  and 
But  I 


San  ex 


The    Little    R  eview  53 

of  substance  with  a  fine  virility  of  handling.     He  is  behind  every  shade 
of   its   significance,   its    majesty,    its    dramatic    brilliance,    its    queer    hu- 
mours, and  its  fine  fantasy  ,as  well  as  its  history.    I  am  myself  a  native 
of  Maine,  though  having  lived   there  but  little  in   the  sense  of   native, 
yet  I  know  the  degree  in  which  Gould  has  produced  his   values.     His 
methods  may  be  quarreled   with.     I    suppose    the   eclectics   would    find 
Gould  this  or  that  impossible,   and   the   others  would-  find   him   this   or 
that  brutish  or  flagrant,  or  lacking  in  sentimental  delicacies.     Well,  it's 
rugged  poetry,  and  there  is  the  difference.     It  is  the  poetry  of  a  titan 
on  a  rock  with  the  salt   spray   still   on   his   flanks,   and   with   mountain 
winds  and  the  rush  of  great   rivers  around  him,   the  terror  of   the   si- 
lences of  deep  woods,   and   the    thunder   rumbling   in   his    hair.     When 
Gould  talks  of  the  seasons,   they  are  the  seasons  of   Maine,   and   when 
he  talks  of  events  they  are  the  events  of  Maine.     He  is   Maine  inside 
ind  out  in  his  poetry.     No  state  has  ever  been  so  voiced  in  poetry  as 
Maine  is  voiced  in  the  work  of  Wallace  Gould.     There  is  lyric  beauty 
n  all  of  Gould's  poems  and  rhapsodies,  and  there  is  dramatic  intensity 
born  out  of  a  fierce  simplicity,  and  there  is  most  of  all  a  fine  grip  of 
he  substance  around  him.     H  you  want   to  get  the  flavour  of   Maine, 
yon  shall  find   it  in  the  poetry  of  Wallace  Gould.     Frost  is  of  New 
Hampshire,  and  that   is    New   England,    and    it    is    New    England    with 
oetic  vengeance.     This  is  argument  only  for  the  virile  sense  of  place 
hat  underlies  the  work  of  modern  poets,  or  at  least  the  best  of  them, 
ould  must  be  counted   among   the   very  best   poets    of   America   today 
3y  virtue  of  his  personal   distinction,   and   by   the   feehng    for   his   own 
pecific  soil,  and  his   work   will   bear   him    out   to    the    end.     The    end, 
lowever,   no   one   worried   about,    or   the   beginning,   for   that   matter, 
t's  the   deadly  middle  ground  upon  which   everything  is   fought  out 
hat  distracts  and  bores,   and  nauseates.     If  Gould's  poetic  piece   "Out 
f  Season"  is  the  moral  eyesore  in  the  "Children  of  the  Sun,"  if  it  is 
00  much  for  polite  and  virtuous  eyes,  and  if  it  is  too  much  for  Bos- 
on to  see  in  print  that  "buttons  is  a  castrated  to,m",  what  happens  with 
he  "Children  of  Adatn",   or   do   people   draw   the  jalousie   when   they 
(rant  to  read  section  nine  -  of   that   group   in   "Leaves   of    Grass,"   and  ^Z 

lUU  up  the  blind  again  on  "Captain,  my  captain?" 

I  am  amused  and  delighted  when  I  hear  of  one  individual  who 
yent  traveling  for  the  recovery  of  health  and  took  as  diversion  the 
ible  and  a  copy  of  Rabelais. 

But  real  books  are  read  by  real  people,  and  I  am  certain  there  are 
lore  threadbare  volumes  of  the  fascinating  wit  of  this  french  genius, 
lian  there  are  of  the  bible.  At  least  Rabelais  is  closer  to  the  average 
uman  experience.     And   so  the  adorably   immoral   city  of   Boston  had 


54  T//C    Little    Review 

to  give  back  Wallace   Gould's   orange   book   because    it   was    too    filled 

with  things  in  universal   sunlight.     The   exposure   is   loo   much    for    tlic 

so  highly  respected  violet  glass  windows  of  the  best   families  of   Stale 

House  hill.     It  couldn't   have   a   book   with   lines    telling  of    performing 

duties  which  make  men   shudder, 

"the  dressing, 

the  washing, 

the  feeding, 

And  other  things  which  make  men  shudder." 

People  are  shuddering  at  James  J_qyce  now.  Joyce  speaks  of  un- 
mentionable loves  in  "Exiles"  I  belive;  I  suppose  Joyce  has  unfolded 
the  lily  too  far.  Gould  has  the  dagger  well  in  hand,  and  doesn't  hate 
to  use  it  to  rip  up  the  sleek  bowels  of  nature. 

I  expect  "The  Drift  of  a  Year'  will  be  hailed  as  an  interesting 
book  by  some.  So  it  is.  It  will  not  be  shut  by  Boston  for  Boston  is 
too  near  Maine.  It  may  not  even  be  opened  by  Boston,  but  there's 
Chicago,  and  there's  the  rest  of  the  world.  I  hear  the  Gould  is  being 
spoken  of  across  the  water  t;o  the  french  moderns.  Lets  hope  the 
frenchmen  find  a  go  that  sounds  like  virility  and  American  originality. 

Meanwhile   Gould    sits    sitrumming    everything    from    Over    There, ' 
Over  There,  to  the  Meditation  from  "Thais"  and  beyond  to  anything 
that  would  suit  the  exquisite   pantomine   of   Charles    Chaplin   or  »^om 
Mix,  or  the  sadly  passing  Wm.   S.   Hart. 

With  Gould's  two  hundred  and  eighty  pounds  averdupois  and  most 
of  it  in  his  brain,  he  at  least  crowns  his  six  feet  two  with  the  intelli- 
gence one  might  expect  of  a  titan  washed  up  on  a  tidal  wave. 

Gould  is  of  the  big  school  of  Sand,  Balzac,  and  Byron  in  his  en- 
thusiams,  and  wonders  if  the  world  will  ever  see  such  masters  again. 
Gould  was  born  out  of  place,  geographically  speaking.  He  needs  a 
Russia,  or  an  Egypt  or  earlier  times  for  his  playground.  He  needs  a 
Paris  of  the  Louis's  and  an  Italy  of  the  Borgias  and  of  Cellini.  He 
is  wasting  large  material  on  small  spaces  for  lack  of  room  to  make 
titantic  gestures  in.  He  has  been  tied  to  Maine  by  circumstance. 
Nature  does  all  sorts  of  things  to  moles  and  mastodons.  Now  and 
then  it  sets  one  free.  Gould  has  the  power  l)ut  not  the  space.  Piano 
stools  are  trivial  in  the  long  run. 

But  there  is  "The   Drift^  pf_  a  Year"  just   ready   and   somewhat   in 
print,   and   there   are   "Kennebec    Portraits"    and    dramatic    projects    on 
the  way.     Maine  at  least  has  its  original   poet.     Gould   will   not   rhyme  | 
you  to  death,  and  he  will  not  exalt   you   to   extinction   with   triteness.  | 
He  may  nauseate  you  with  his  vitality.  \ 

You  shall  take  your  chance  with  Wallace  Gould.     You  can't  "see"'* 


1 


The    Little    Review 


55 


)  first  and  hear  kim  afterward.     He  must  be  listened   to,  or  given 
.  He  doesn't  inspire.     He  demands. 

!    jtrint  this  article  as  a   good   example  of  what  passes   for  crit- 

II    America.      Mr.    Hartley    has    simply   made    up    words    about 

aact'  Gould.     Almost  nothing  that  Gould  has  written  justifies  any 

r.   Hartley's  praise.     Wlallace  Gould  is  a  writer  who  has  not  yet 

to  write.     I   have  seen  a  few  of  his  newer  prose  things  and 

■  better;  they  show  Wallace  Gould  at  that  point  in  his  devel- 

where  he  can  select  what  may  be  called  significant  material, — 

1  n   this  respect  they  bear  out  Mr.   Hartley's  idea  of  Gould  as  a 

ncant  human  being.     But   this   fact   is   not   necessarilly   followed 

le    conclusion    that   he    has   grasped   his    material   as   an    artist.— 

M.  C.  A.] 


POEMS 

by  Wallace  Gould 


22. 

I  send  these  violets,  Madame, 
for  you  to  wear  upon  your  breast. 
I  send  these  violets,  Madame, 
without  desire,  without  request. 
Wear  them,  Madame,  upon  your  breast. 

Wear  theni,  Madame,  where,  on  a  time  — 
one  summer  night  —  I  pressed  my  head. 
Don't  put  them  in  a  vase,  cherie, 
but  wear  them  near  your  heart,   instead. 
Wear   them  where  once  I  pressed   my  head. 

I  did  not  know  that  you  were  ill, 
till,  yesterday,  you  told  me  so. 
You  have  been  silent  all   these  days, 
charmante,  so  how  was  I  to  know? 
I  suffered,  when  you  told  me  so. 


I 


56  T  Ii  e    Li  t  tl  e    Rev  lew 

Yet,   yesterday,   cherie  charmante, 

I  gloried  more  than  I  can  tell. 

I  gloried  in  the  sight  of  you 

against  the  new,  pure  snow  that  fell 

the  night  before, 

for  you  were  then  so  lovely  in  your  violet  coat,  the  broad, 

furred  collar  raised  about  your  face;  / 

your  broad,   plumed,  violet  hat   and  violet  veil  — 
within  the  veil  those  black,  black,  gleamins^  eyes  that  forty 

years  have  failed  to  dim, 
and,  from  within,  the  voice  of  a  young  girl  happy  and  pro 

in  her  first  of  loves — 
yes,  yesterday,  cherie  charmante, 
I  gloried  more  than  I  can  tell. 
I  gloried  in  the  sight  of  you 
against  the  new,  pure  snow  that  fell 
the  night  before. 

I  caimot  tell 
my  ecstacies,  not  even  one. 
*  To  me,  you  beggared  violets. 
In  truth,  when  all  is  said  and  done, 
't  is  merely  to  express  regrets, 
that  I  have  sent  these  violets. 

Wear  them,  Madame,  where,  on  a  time  — 
that  summer  night  —  I  pressed  my  head. 
Don't  put  them  in  a  vase,  old  dear, 
but  wear  them  near  your  heart,  instead. 
Wear  them  where  once  I  pressed  my  head. 


30. 

I  should  have  struck  you  between  the  eyes, 
peroxide  trollop  with  the  voice  of  a  man  — 
Irish  queen  with  the  head  of  a  tomcat, 
I  should  have  made  you  sprawl  in  the  gutter. 

Nevertheless,  I  salute  you,  as  one  salutes  the  great. 


hh 


T  he    Lit  tie    Rev  iew  57 

For  you  are  a  great  and  glorious  queen.  Your  wileness  is  so 
resplendent 

that  to  comprehend  is  to  gaze  at  the  sun. 

Not  pearls,  but  emeralds,  are  the  tears  you  shed 

over  the  man  who  tries  to  escape  you 

and  whom  all  women  should  escape. 

Your  great  voice  bellows  its  ribald  truths  and  hoarsely  howls 
its  bellicose  lies. 

Your  mind  is  the  source  of  massive  inventions,  lewd  de- 
ductions, perverse  conjectures,  nauseating  insinuations. 

Your  bosom  is  great. 

Your  hips  are  great. 

Everything  about  you  is  great. 

I  should  have  struck  you  between  the  eyes, 

to  leave  an  hieroglyphic  in  the  language  that  you  love  — 

that  you  best  understand. 

If  I  had  done  this  thing, 

and  you  had  sprawled  in  such  a  place 

as   that   which   England's   virgin   queen 

once  shunned  as  being  unfit  to  tread, 

you  would  have  been  more  gracious  than  Elizabeth, 

and  I  could  have  laughed  at  the  man  who  spread  his  cloak. 


17- 

It  is  a  losing  game,  old  dear. 

Ele  doesn't  love  you  any  more. 

Let  the  tears  run  down  your  cheeks,  heavy  tears  that  are  callid, 
brilliant  — 

through  the  powder, 

iown  the  wrinkles. 

Let  your  powdered  bosom  heave. 

Sigh  as  only  one  as  old  as  you  can  sigh,  mocking  the  slur  of 
the  violoncello,  the  wind  of  a  desperate  autumn  v  storm,  the 
hiss  of  a  wounded  lucivee.  \ 

[!ry  out, 

:o  the  moon, 

:o  the  sunset,  , 


I 


58  Tlic    Little    Review 


to  a  god, 

to  me  — 

clenching  your  fingers. 

Lift  your  arms  outward,  • 

cursing  loudly. 

Roll  your  staring,  bloodshot  eyes. 

What  does  it  matter  -what  you  do? 

He  doesn't  love  you  any  more. 

Don't  tell  me  that  he  is  a  sneak,  a  coward,  a  liar. 
Don't  tell  me  that  he  is  too  lazy,  dear,  to  earn  an  hones' 

livelihood. 
Don't  tell  me  that  he  is  a  traitor 
to  his  god, 
to  his  flag, 
to  you. 
Don't  tell  me  about  the  times  he  has  stolen  money  from  yo 

purse 
Or  has  denied  you  as  his  wife 
or  insulted  you  beyond  belief. 
Don't  tell  me  all  these  things  — 
for  that  is  because  you  love  him, 
and  I  am  tired  of  knowing  that  people  love. 

What  if  he  crept  like  a  lost,  lame  animal  into  your  hcai 

What  if  you  could  have  had  a  career? 

What  if  you  have  forgiven  him  many  times,  when  he  has  reti 

to  you  penniless,  penitent,  clever,  magnetic? 
What  if  you  love  him  even  now? 
He  doesn't  love  you  any  more. 


The    Little    Review  59 


THE  FRENCH  PEPYS 

by  N.   Tourneur 

SAMUEL  PEPYlS,  man-about-tov/n,  dilettante,  connoisseur,  book- 
man, and  Secretary  to  the  Admiralty  of  Charles  Second,  is  usu- 
ally taken  to  be  the  prince  of  diarists.  But  across  the  British  Channel 
there  is  another  whose  diary  if  and  when  it  is  ever  published,  in 
selections,  will  be  found  to  stand  very  close  alongside  "Mr.  Peeps'  ", 
as  his  contemporaries  called  him.  Indeed  in  some  things  he  is  sur- 
passed by  the  surprising  wealth  of  details,  if  not  by  the  meticulous 
care  the  French  diarist  took,  after  the  labours,  and  the  jests,  and 
the  news-tellings,  and  the  eatings  and  drinkings  and  gallantries  of 
each  day  and  night,  to  write  up  his  most  voluminous  tell-tale. 

His  work  has  been  described  as  "un  des  monuments  les  plus  etran- 
ges  de  la  manie  humaine,"  and  it  is  certainly  all  that  and  more. 
Before  it  could  appear  to  the  public  eye  it  would  require  a  much 
more  drastic  expurgation  than  even  the  Memoirs  of  Jacques  Casano- 
va and  others  of  that  ilk,  for  much  o^f  Henri  Legrand's  diary  deals 
with  "histoire  des  femmes  que  j'ai  connuesr^'"Buf""then,  Legrand 
moved  in  the  highest  circles  at  a  time  when  women  made  history  in 
France. 

His  dairy  was  rescued  some  forty  years  ago  from  a  bookseller's 
stall  on  the  Quai  Voltaire,  and  consists  of  a  manuscript  in  forty-five 
volumes  written  apparently  in  Oriental  characters.  For  some  time 
it  puzzled  many,  both  as  to  contents  and  writer,  until,  on  the  cipher 
being  decoded  at  last,  it  was  found  to  be  the  diary  of  one  Henri  Le- 
grand, an  architect,  born  in  France  of  a  good  family  in  1814,  and 
married  at  Madrid  in  1847  to  an  illegitimate  daughter  of  the  third 
Earl  of  Clarendon.  From  1835  and  for  thirty  years  onward  Le- 
grand reports  in  his  diary  everything  that  happens  to  him,  and  deals 
minutely  with  great  events  in  France.  He  not  only  outdoes  Pepys 
in  voluminousness  but  also  in  minuteness  and  abundance  of  detail. 

He  throws  light  on  wellknown  and  notorious  facts  and  names, 
and  transcribes  certificates  of  birth,  marriage,  death,  official  papers, 
and  passports.  Every  document  or  letter  is  fullly  commented  on,  ■ 
together  with  description  of  seals,  postal  marks,  and  stamps,  the 
writing  and  paper.  Nothing  escapes  Legrand's  attention.  Very 
handsome,  and  with  a  deep  knowledge  of  occultism,  he  was  a  favour- 
ite in  Government  circles  and  the  best  society  in  Paris,  and  made 
full  use  of  his  opportunities  for  commitment  to  his  diary. 


6o  The     Little    Review 


He  had  a  liaison  with  a  young  lady  of  one  of  the  great  historic  - 
French   families,   and  her  confidences' supplied  him  with   intimate 
stories  and  all  the  scandal,  most  circumstantially  related,  of  the 
courts  of  Louis  Phillipe,  Isabella  Second,  and  the  Tuileries  under 
Napoleon  Third.     She  not  only  wrote  most  fully  and  confidentially  - 
to  him  but  allowed  him  to  read  her  friends'  letters,  and  some  10,000 
of  them  are  to  be  found,  copied  in  full  into  the  diary.    In  it  also  are  | 
faithful  transcriptions  of  numerous  documents  bearing  on  the  secret 
history  of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  which  the  fires  of 
the  Paris  Communists  so  effectually  destroyed,  and  much  other  mat- 
ter throwing  light  upon  apparent  mysteries. 

The  cipher  Legrand  used  has  been  stated  to  be  comparatively 
simple,  but  to  add  to  outsiders'  difficulties  in  reading  it  he  multi- 
plied its  intricacies  by  often  writing  in  three  languages,  and  his 
handwriting  is  small  almost  to  minuteness.  As  another  obstacle  in 
the  Avay  of  elucidation.  Legrand.  though  he  wrote  to  be  read  from 
left  to  right,  ran  the  letters  of  each  word  from  right  to  left.  But, 
the  French  Pepys  also  has  had  to  render  up  his  secrets,  and  in  one 
aspect  of  human  nature,  nigh  the  sorriest  and  nastiest  of  all.  he  far 
surpasses  the  genial  free-living  "Mr.  Secretary"  who  did  so  much 
to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  British  Admiralty  of  today. 


PROFILES  AND  AFTERNOONS 

by  A.  Y.  Winters 

Prelude 

I  watched  her  from  the  garden. 

Her  fingers 

Flickered  idly  on  the  sill 

With  the  motion  of  yellow  leaves  .  .  . 

She  turned  away. 

And  so  I  make  designs 

For  my  diversion; 

Not  as  a  sea-bird 

That  dives  beneath  its  image, — 

An  autumn  leaf  that  sinks 

To  meet  its  shadow. 


The    Little    Review  6i 


SUNDAY  AFTERNOON 

by  Malcolm  Cowley 
(after    Jules     Laforque) 

Sunday  in  my  bedroom  staring 
Through  the  broken  window  pane, 
I  watch  the  slanting  lines  of  rain, 
And  since  I  have  an  empty  purse 
Turn  to  philosophy  again:   —  , 

The  world  is  a  potato  paring, 
The  refuse  of  the  universe 

And  man  excrescent. 

Adolescent. 

Oh  for  some  drunken  luxury, 
For  a  divine  intoxication. 
For  love  that  rises  suddenly  — 
The  ordinary  dull  flirtation 

That  lasts  a  day 

And  dies  away 
Leaves  life  too  barren  of  sensation. 

Weeks  melt  to  weeks;   the  summer  season 
Passes  without  any  reason, 
And  marriage  cannot  make  things  worse; 
For  some  fine  morning  I  shall  see 

My  progeny, 

What  ecstacy! 
My  progeny  in  diapers. 

At  twenty  they  will  grow  to  be 

Like  me; 
They  too  will  cultivate  the  Mind 

And  find 
In  some  hall  bedroom.  Tragedy. 
Until,  unheralded  by  drums 
At  last  the  undertaker  comes. 


62  The     Little     Review 


Creeps  in  this  wtary  pace  from  day  to  day 
To  the  last  syllal)le  of  appointed  time; 

Since  life  will  play 

'J'he  dull  repeater, 

I  turn  its  meter 

Into  rhyme. 

In  seven  billion  years,  the  sun. 
Grown  cold,  will  slaughter  every  one. 
The  cosmos,  tired  of  innuendo, 
Will  play  glissando,  dccresccndo  — 

My  seven  million  progeny 

In  seven  billion  years 

Will  pay  arrears 

And  follow  me. 

Boredom  that  had  accumulated 
Since  Eve  and  the  Pleistocene 

Though  belated 

Will  be  done. 
Leaving  a  constellation  clean 

Of  grief  and  schism 

And  organism 
Lying  cold  under  a  cold  sun. 


EXPERIMENTS 
The  Commandments  of  the  Somewhat 

(Unfinished) 
by  John   Ketch 

Those  who   liang  onto  walls   of   rain 
Like  sporadic  one  thoughts, 
Sift  like  fish  through  the  net 
Which   hangs   from   the   great   brain. 

All  the  magniticient  yellow  electric  blooms 
Of  an   indefinite   amount   of  souls, 
Reveal  the  contour  of  this   lover's   lips 
As  beautiful  as  granite  tombs. 


The    Little    Review 


63 


A   discardment   of  tendencies  to  burlesque 
Prohibits  ravishment  in   the  sombre. 
As  if  one  holds  the  sides  of  his  head 
Lest   something  escape  of   the   grotesque. 

Mary  said  perhaps  an  interlude  is  too  long 
To  waste  ibetween  special  seconds; 
Just  as  time  has  been  proved  useless 
To  interject  between  a  song. 

The  lamp  lights  yield  in  vestibules 

Of    unutterable    movements 

That,  disilluminated,  become 

As  tawdry  as  hanging  breast  globules. 


one    in    the    House 
4elen  West  Heller 

ce-r-punctuated  by  sharp  sounds:  martens  click  as  they  swing, 
ock  chortles  from  cooo,  rat  skitters  home  to  woodpile.  Song- 
irds  coasting  down  long  smooth  air  ways  bring  up  against  low 
heltering    cherry    trees.      Tall    ragweed    folds    behind    its    large 

hite  palms,  leaning  helpless  on  the  in-sucked  tide  of  air.  Light 
oes  and  fireflies  flare  care-free  across  the  lurid,  cloud — golden- 
range    brush-strokes    on    red-purple.      Far    white    houses    blare 

irough   copper-green   glare. 

agweed  petulant  turns  now  white  palms  down,  strained  from  the 

orm.      Strong  gusts   insult  the   gazing  face, — slap — slap! 

IL 

in-doors  and  close  an  open  window,  lock  and  go   to  up-stairs, 
lest,   white   window   and   rest  white   chin   on   sash. 
Igh  locked  doors  at  height  of  storm  THE  INSIDIOUS  THING 
111  come. 

intly.  the  wind  and  the  rain  roar  through  bended,  thrashing 
;es.  I  do  not  breathe.  Autos  rumble  down  the  road  nearer  and 
ider  but  never  pass — nearer  and  louder.  A  spark  of  fire  blows! 
lance  to  the  barn  and  back  to  the  spark.  It  sinks  on  a  pool, 
Immers  green  and  goes  out.  The  fireflies  draiv  yellow  care- 
\e  lines  on  hirid  sky.  By  winking  light,  green  wickets  in  the 
rden, — the  unripe  fruit  hangs  white.     What's   that! 


64 


Thi    Lit  tit    Review 


THE     INSIDIOUS     ONE  passed  the  corner  of  the  house! 

The  combined  roars  change  key:  up  and  higher,  higher  yet  till 
voices   screech    high    C.     By   now  all   the   fruit   will    be   briiis 
Tomorrow  in  the  sun  it  will  rot  where  it  hangs.     What  matti 
Men  and  women  are  rotting  where  they  hang. 

The  tree  leans  to  me  (cliin  on  sasii,  face  wet,  hair  dripping  into  nee 
swipes  green  wet  fingers  over  brow.  Sign  of  the  cross  in  unh 
water.  Snap,  snarl,  its  bones  give  in  the  strain,  crash  on  "' 
roof.     No  answering  crunch.     It   seems   the   roof-comb   holds 

There!      The    step    on    the    stair,    soft — slow — up — up — higher — hig 
the    first    turn — up— up — the    second    turn — near — nearer — in 
doorway!    It    is    not    white,    it    is    moon-color.      It    is    moon-co 
I  do  not  scream  nor  wait  for  it  to  cross  the  room  and  touch 

flesh;  knuckles  pressed  tight  in  the  other  palm,  I  step — to  met 
this  THING.  My  thought  questions.  The  eyes  reply,  hard.  Cy 
crneir    A  slight  smile.     INDIFERENCE. 


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i 


lilTLE  «YIEW 


VOL.  VI.       AUGUST,  1919 


No.  4 


CONTENTS 


Poems 

Interim    (Chapter   Three) 

A  Sentimental  Scheme 

Advice   to    a   Butter-Cup 

God   Bless  the   Bottle 

Poems 


Jessie  Dismorr 

DorotJiy  Richardson 

Emanuel    Camevali 

Maxwell  Bodenheim 

John   Rodkej- 

Mark  Turbyfill 


Discussion: 

Aldington's  Images    of    Desire           Mary  Butts 

A    Maker  William  Carlos  Williams 

Notes  John   Rodker 


Pastoral 

Ulysses    (Episode   XI) 


Louis  Gilmor^ 
James  Joyce 


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I 


Crane's^ 

U4arij  garden  (9hoeolatesr 

"Qjour  (PhocoJatefaw  really  the  fine^  7 haOe 
cv'cr  ta^ed  anxjiohctv  in  the  VDorld  " 


J 


UTTLE  REYIEW 

POEMS 

by  Jessie  Dismorr 

Spring 

THE  excessive  sweetness  of  bird's  singing  pierces  the  thin  epi- 
dermis of  inattentive  thought. 
Pale  poison,  it  creeps  along  the  channels  of  the  nerves,  thrilh 
in  the  finger  tips,  becomes  diffused  in  the  blood. 

Because  of  it  all  appetite  for  appearances  turns  to  nausea; 
the  senses  reject  their  diet  of  accustomed  joys. 

Only  essential  seems  that  singular  stabbing  of  edged  notes,  ir- 
regular, mercilessly  unsubdued  to  music. 

TheEnemy 

The  microbe  that  inhabits  my  body  makes  me  sick;  but  it  is 
he  that  pushes  me  to  impossible  and  exasperated  feats  of  skill. 

He  drinks  my  strength,  then  pushes  me  to  unwilling  explora- 
tion. 

romenade 

With  other  delicate  and  malicious  children,  a  horde  bright 
yed  whose  bodies  easily  tire,  I  follow  Curiosity,  the  refined  and 
naidenly  governess  of  our  adoration. 

I  am  surprised  to  notice  in  an  emerging  thoroughfare  H'un- 
er,  the  vulgar  usher,  whipping  up  his  tribe  of  schoolboys,  who, 
luesting  hither  and  thither  on  robust  limbs,  fill  the  air  with  loud 
nd  innocent  cries. 

The  suspicion  quickens  within  me  that  there  is  an  understand- 
ng.  We  are  being  led  by  different  ways  into  the  same  doubtful 
nd  prohibited  neighborhood. 


4                                The    Little    Review 

Islands 

In   that    restless   sea   which    is   eternity   the   little 

islands   of 

event  float  among  the  waves. 

(Are  they  water  blossoms  with  roots  continually  shaken,  float- 
ing their  petals  on  the  pulsating  water? 

Are  they  a  flotilla  of  frail  'boats  trembling  to  the  touches  (| 
interminable  ripples?) 

Even  at  flood  time  when  from  some  ocean  of  inconceivablt 
vastness  the  great  tides  pour  into  the  brimming  sea,  the  imperish- 
able islands,  fragile  and  obstinate,  achieve  their  breathless  equil- 
ibrium. 


Twilight 

Erect  and  of  a  curious  emaciation  the  tall  virgin  paces  th 
sands  at  nightfall. 

Around  her  limbs  the  wind  twists  her  sinuous  garments,  th 
locks  are  whirled  about  her  bossy  temples. 

The  treasure  within  her  bosom  is  the  fmely  selected  materii 
that  fits  into  a  little  space. 

The  talisman  is  discreet  but  absolute.  She  is  immune  fror 
dissolution  forever. 

(Oh  Sorrow,  Oh  Penalty,  Life  has  eluded  her  contact). 

The  pain  that  is  her  heart,  the  swiftness  of  her  limbs,  the 
are  the  last  gift  of  civilization. 

But  her  arbitrary  erectness  is  eternally  menaced. 

Sea  and  sand  and  the  bars  of  sinking  cloud  do  not  cease  1 
urge  her  to  the  level  of  Nature's  indiscriminate  embrace. 


Landscape  ^ 

The  immense  gray  sky,  wheeling  towards  me  and  on  to  m 
against  it  I  have — what  resource? 

In  the  swarthy  limbs  of  the  trees  that  march  over  me  as 
lie  pallid,  holding  to  the  earth,  what  danger! 

Nevertheless  a  creature  thus  drugged  and  bound  by  immortjj 
ity,  am  I  not  already  destroyed  by  the  rigorous  onrush  of  time?* 


kn 


iL 


The    Little    Review 


S— D— 

Having  pricked  the  polished   surfaces  of  life  and   defaced  them 

and  having  dammed  in  thin  close  limits  of  expediency 

the  perilous  tides  of  affection 

she  now  for  sole  occupation 

cherishes  a  little  pure  flame,  thin  as  a  mist  without  heat. 


INTERIM 

by  Dorothy  Richardson 
Chapter    Three 

''^OMING  in  at  nine  o'clock  on  t)he  day  Sissie  had  had  her  first 
French  lesson  Miriam  was  quietly  scuffing  her  muddy  shoes  on 
he  mat  in  the  gloom  of  the  doorway  with  her  eyes  on  the  opposite 
gloom  where  beyond  the  glimmering  gaslight  about  the  hall-table 
nd  the  threatening  dining-room  door  the  dim  staircase  beckoned  up 
nto  darkness,  when  she  was  roused  by  the  sound  of  a  laugh  coming 
rom  the  far  end  of  the  passage.  There  was  a  line  of  bright  light 
here,  coming  through  the  chink  of  the  little  door  usually  hidden  in 
he  darkness  beyond  where  the  Baileys  disappeared  down  the  base- 
nent  stairs.  Then  there  was  a  room  there.  The  little  door  was 
)ushed  open  and  a  man's  figure  •stood  outlined  against  the  bright 
ight  and  disappeared,  shutting  the  door.  There  had  been  a  table 
nd  a  lamp  upon  it.  .  .  .the  sound  of  the  laugh  rang  in  her  head;  a 
ingle  lively  deep-chested  note  followed  by  a  falsetto  note  that' 
urved  hysterically  up.  Men;  gentlemen.  How  long  had  they 
een  there?  They  would  not  stay.  How  had  they  come?  Where 
ad  Mrs.  Bailey  found  them?  Had  they  already  found  out  that 
was  not  their  sort  of  house?  Who  were  they  afraid  of  shocking 
i?ith  their  refinement  and  freedom?  They  were  making  a  bright 
ittle  world  in  there  by  feeling  themselves  surrounded  by  people 
irho  would  be  shocked.  They  did  not  know  there  was  someone 
here  they  could  not  shock.  .  .  .She  imag'ined  herself  in  the  doorway 
.hullo!  Fancy  you  here  .  .  .  .The  dining-room  door  had  opened 
nd  Mrs.  Bailey  was  standing  in  the  hall  with  the  door  open  behind 
er.  Miriam  was  not  prepared  with  a  refusal  of  the  invitation  to 
ome  in.     She  glanced  over  Mrs.  Bailey's  shoulder  and  saw  the 


The    Little    Review 


two  girls  sitting  at  the  fireside.  Two  letters  on  the  hall-table  ad- 
dressed to  the  Norwegian  told  her  that  the  Baileys  were  alone.  She 
yielded  to  Mrs.  Bailey's  delighted  manner  and  went  in.  She  would 
stay,  keeping  on  her  outdoor  things,  long  enough  to  hear  about  the 
new  people.  'J'hc  close  sickly  sweet  air  of  the  room  closed  oppres- 
sively round  her  heavy  garments  -  Here  you  are  young  lady  sit. 
here  -  said  Mrs.  Bailey  piloting  her  to  a  chair  in  front  of  the  fire. 
There  was  a  stranger  sitting  at  the  fireside  -  Mr.  Mendizzable  -  mur- 
mured Mrs.  Bailey  as  Miriam  sat  down.  Miriam's  affronted  eyes 
took  in  the  figure  of  a  man  sitting  on  the  wooden  stool  between  the 
lintel  of  the  mantlepiece  and  the  easy  chair  occupied  by  Sissie;  a 

man  from  a  cafe a  foreign  waiter  in  his  best  clothes,  sheeny 

stripy  harsh  ]iale  grey,  a  crimson  waistcoat  showing  up  the  gleam 
of  a  gold  watch-chain,  and  crimsoiii  cloth  slippers;  an  Italian,  a 
Frenchman,  a  French-Swiss.  He  was  sitting  bent  conversationally 
forward  with  his  elbows  on  his  knees  and  his  hands  clasped;  quite 
at  hom^.  They  had  evidently  been  sitting  there  all  the  evening. 
The  air  aibout  the  fireplace  was  dense  w'ith  their  intercourse.  Mir- 
iam received  an  abrupt  nod  in  response  to  her  murmur  and  her  stifl 
bow  and  followed  with  resentful  curiosity  the  little  foreign  tune  th( 
man  began  humming  far  away  in  his  head.  He  had  not  even  glanccc 
her  way  and  the  tune  was  his  response  to  Mrs.  Bailey's  introduction 
The  remains  of  a  derisive  smile  seemed  to  snort  from  the  firmb 
sweeping  white  nostrils  above  his  tiny  trim  bushily  upward  curvin; 
black  moustache.  It  moulded  the  strong  closed  lips  and  shone  be 
hind  the  whole  of  his  curiously  square  evenly  modelled  f^ce.  Tht 
Bailey  girls  were  watching  him  with  shiny  flushed  cheeks  and  brigh 

eyes.    His  skin  was  white  and  clean mat;  like  felt un  f H 

touched  and  untried  in  the  e.xhausted  air  of  the  shabby  room.  Ai 
insolent  waiter.  He  had  turned  away  .towards  the  fire  after  his  nod 
From  under  a  firm  black-lashed  white  lid  a  bright  dark  eye  gaze< 
derision  into  the  flames. 

(lo  on  Mr.  Mendizzable  -  smiled  Mrs.  Bailey  brushing  he 
skirt  with  her  handkerchief  -  we  are  most  interested.  , 

Hay,  madame  that  is  all.  he  laughed  derisively  in  rich  singiO^ 
swaying  tones  towards  the  middle  of  the  hearthrug  -  I  skate  froBJ 
one  end  of  their  canal  to  another,  faster  than  them  all.  T  win  the! 
prize.    Je  m'en  fiche  - 

You  skated  all  the  way  along  the  canal.  - 

leeea  skate  their  canff/.  That  was  Amsterdam.  I  do  man; 
things  there.  I  edit  their  newspaper.  I  conduct  a  cafe.  I  play  t 
their  theatre. 


ll 


ai 


The    Little    Review 


You  have  had  some  adventures  - 

That  was  not  adventures  in  Amsterdam  mon  dieu!  he  squealed 
musically,  swaying  from  side  to  side,  his  thrust-out  face  pointed  .  .  . 
like  Mephistopheles.  He  was  like  Mephistopheles.  Had  he  really 
beaten  those  wonderful  skaters?  Perhaps  he  had  not.  She  glanced 
at  his  'brow  calm,  firm,  dead  white  under  the  soft  crisply  ridged 
black  hair.  Perhaps  he  was  Dutch;  and  that  was  why  he  looked 
common  and  also  refined. 

— Adventures  I  can  tell  you  for  a  week- 

Mts,  sighed  Mrs.  Bailey. 


I         At  ten  o'clock  the  youngest  girl  was  sent  to  bed.     Miriam 
scornfully  watched  herself  miss  her  opportunity  of  getting  away. 
She  sat  fascinated,  resenting  the  interruption;  enviously  filching  the 
gay  outbreaking  kindness  that  robbed  the  departure  of  humiliation 
and  sent  the  child  away  counting  on  tomorrow.     He  went  out  of 
his  way  to  make  Polly  Bailey  happy.  .  .  .  and  sat  on  by  the  dying 
fire  unwearied,  freshly  humming  to  himself  towards  the  dingy  hearth 
scattered    thinly   with    sparse   dusty    ash.      Mrs.    Bailey   returned, 
raked  together  the  remains  of  the  fire  and  settled  herself  in  her 
chair  with  a  shiver.    In  a  moment  she  would  begin  her  questionings 
and  the  voice  would  sound  again.  -  You  cold  mother  darling?    Come 
learer  the  fire.    Mrs.  Bailey  pulled  her  chair  a  few  inches  forward 
rching  her  neck  and  smiling  her  bright  sweet  smile  -  Oogh,  its 
arky  upstairs  -  Miriam  implored  herself  to  go  -  parky  -  reiterated 
Irs.   Bailey  uncertainly,  glancing  daintily  from   side  to  side  and 
miling  away  a  yawn  behind  her  small  rough  reddened  hand  -  Parky? 
at  is  parky?  -  Parky  -  said  Mrs.  Bailey  -  cold;  like  a  park  -  Ah, 
see.    That  is  good.    When  I  go  upstairs  I  go  to  Hyde  Park.  ...  I 
ihall  have  in  my  bedroom  a  band,  and  a  mass  meeting,  and  a  police- 
nan.    Salvation  Army  Band  -  Miriam  sat  stiffly  through  the  laughter 
)f  the  Baileys.    Her  refusal  to  join  brought  the  discomforting  reali- 
ation  of  having  laughed,  several  times  during  the  past  hour.     She 
lad  laughed  in  spite  of  herself,  flinging  her  laughter  out  across  the 
learthrug  towards  the  dying  fire,  leading  the  laughter  of  the  Bail- 
ys,  holding  them  off  and  herself  apart.    Now  suddenly  by  refusing 
0  share  their  laughter  when  they  led  the  way  she  had  openly  sepa- 
ated  herself  from  them.     Then  they  knew  she  stayed  on  under  a 

R~harm.    They  had  witnessed  her  gathering,  in  the  garden  they  them- 
elves  "had  provided,  clusters  of  vivid  things  for  memory.     They 


8  '  Tki    Littlt    Review  > 

had  seen  her  eagerness  and  her  hunger  and  gratitude.  It  was  the 
price.  It  stung  and  tried  to  humble  her.  She  sat  steadily  on,  flout- 
ing it.  The  grouping  would  not  recur.  Why  did  not  Mrs.  Bailey  - 
make  him  go  on  talking?  A  cold  gloom  spread  sideways  from  the 
polished  arch  of  the  grate,  encroaching  on  the  corner  where  he  sat  | 
drumming  and  humming.  She  drew  her  eyes  with  conscious  ab- 
sorption towards  the  dying  fire.  Its  aspect  was  uncndurably  bleak. 
Her  mind  shrank  from  it;  to  meet  the  sense  of  the  cold  darkness 
waiting  upstairs.  Mrs.  Bailey's  voice  bridged  the  emptiness.  Some 
inner  link  was  restored.  Somewhere  in  her  voice  was  something* 
that  rang  restoringly  round  the  world.  The  disconnected  narrative 
was  flowing  again.  The  chilly  hearth  glowed  with  a  small  sombre 
brilliance.  .  .  .  The  foreign  voice  went  on  and  on.  narrative  dialogue 
commentary,  running  flowing  leaping  in  the  voice  that  rang  what- 
ever its  burden  in  bright  sunshine.  She  listened  openly,  apologizing 
in  swift  affectionate  glances  for  her  stiff  middle-class  resentment  of 
his  vulgar  appearance  .  Was  he  vulgar?  She  tried  in  vain  to  recall 
her  first  impression.  That  curious  blending  of  sturdy  strength  and 
polished  refinement  in  the  handsome  head  was  like  .something  well- 
known  in  the  head  of  a  friend.  She  forced  her  friends  to  apologize 
and  submit  to  the  charm 


It  was  nearly  midnight.  The  grey  of  tomorrow  morning  kept 
pressing  on  her  attention.  She  gathered  herself  together  to  go  and 
rose  reluctantly.  The  outer  chill  came  down  to  meet  her  rising 
form.  The  glow  of  life  was  left  there  at  the  heart  of  the  circle  by 
the  fire.  The  little  man  leapt  up  -  Hah,  good  night  all  -  and  pushed 
past  her  and.  out  of  the  room.  Mrs.  Bailey  had  made  some  remark 
towards  her  as  she  neared  the  door.  She  professed  not  to  hear  and 
went  slowly  on  in  the  wake  of  the  footsteps  leaping  up  the  dark 
flights.  On  the  landing  next  below  hers  light  blazed  from  a  wide- 
open  door,  When  she  rounded  the  stairs  a  little  melody  sounded  for 
an  instant  in  a  smooth  swaying  falsetto  at  the  oj^en  door.  As  soon 
as  she  had  passed  the  door  was  violently  slammed  ....  all  those 
stories  were  true.  And  the  fir.st  one  about  the  skating.  She 
imagined  the  white  brow  under  a  fur  cap  and  the  square  short 
strong  well-knit  form  swaying  strongly  from  side  to  side,  on  and 
on,  ironically  winning. 


The    Little    Revie 


IV 


4- 

Sissie  read  her  set  of  phrases  in  heavy  docility.  Her  will  and 
the  shapeless  colourless  voice  murmuring  from  the  back  of  her 
throat  were  given  to  the  lesson;  but  the  kindly  sullen  profile  smoul- 
dered in  slumber.  Miriam  pondered  at  ease,  contrasting  the  two 
voices  as  they  placed  one  after  the  other  the  little  trite  sentences 
upon  the  dreaming  air.  That  Sissie  should  speak  her  French  in 
the  worst  kind  of  English  way  did  not  really  matter.  But  why  was 
it?  What  did  it  mean?  They  all  had  something  in  common  -  all 
the  people  who  spoke  French  like  that.  ...  a  slender  young  man 
darted  noiselessly  into  the  room  and  began  busily  dusting  the  side- 
aboard.  He  was  wearing  a  striped  cotton  jacket.  Mrs.  Bailey  had  en- 
gaged a  manservant  ....  It  was  impossible.  He  would  not  be  able  to 
kept.  It  was  like  a  play.  He  was  like  a  character  in  a  farce,  rush- 
ing on  and  whisking  things  about.  It  was  a  play;  amateur  theatric- 
als, Mrs.  Bailey  rushing  radiantly  about,  stage-managing.  It  was 
pretending  things  were  different  when  they  were  not;  breaking  up 

the  atmosphere  of  the  house.    Where  did  she  get  her  ideas? 

Coming  back  to  her  surveillance  she  listened  intently.  Wait  a  min- 
ute, she  said,  we  will  begin  all  over  again.  I  see  exactly  what  it  is. 
There's  no  difficulty.  You  can  learn  all  about  pronunciation  in  a 
few  minutes.  Sissie  had  started.  Controlling  herself  she  took  her 
attention  from  the  book  long  enough  to  give  Miriam  a  sympathetic 
glancing  smile.  Let  them  ring  in  your  head,  into  your  nose  and 
against  your  forehead.  Sissie  sat  back  smiling,  and  5at  watching 
Miriam's  face.  It's  we  who  speak  through  the  nose.  And  mouth. 
In  gusts,  whoof,  whoof,  from  the  chest;  all  emptiness  and  no  pro- 
nunciation. Sissie's  eyes  were  roving  intently  ^bout  Miriam's  face. 
They  stop  the  breath  at  the  lips  and  in  the  nose.  Bong.  That's 
through  the  nose.  Bon!  D'you  hear;  like  a  little  explosion.  Hold 
the  lips  tight  before  the  b  and  explode  the  word  up  into  the  nose 
partly  closing  the  back  of  the  throat  and  mouth.  It's  all  like  that 
and  the  pronunciation  does  not  vary.  When  you  know  the  few 
rules  and  get  the  vowels  pure  and  explode  the  consonants,  that's  all 
there  is.  Sissie  waited,  controlling  an  apologetic  smile.  She  had 
realised  nothing  but  the  violent  outburst  and  was  secretly  laughing 
over  the  idea  of  explosions.  .  .  .  Say  matin,  suggested  Miriam  pa- 
tiently. Mattong,  murmured  Sisise.  Say  mattah,  persisted  Miriam. 
The  youth  came  flourishing  in  with  the  coal  box.  That's  right. 
Now  try  forcing  the  ah  up  into  your  nose  and  shutting  your  nose  on 
it.     It's   time  to   lay   the   table   Emyou,   said   Sissie   reprovingly 


10  The    Little    Review 


I 


towards  the  hearthrug.  Pliz?  -  The  young  man  reared  a  mild 
fair  crested  head  alx)ve  the  rim  of  the  table.  -  Lay  the  table,  tarb, 
paw  dinnay  -  snapped  Sissie.  I  shall  have  to  go  Miss  Henderson  - 
she  added,  getting  gently  up  and  ambling  to  the  door.  The  young 
man  shot  murmuring  from  the  room.  They  appeared  to  collide  in 
the  hall.  Miriam  found  herself  in  the  midst  of  a  iirain  of  thought # 
that  had  distracted  her  during  her  morning's  work.  Cosmopulic, 
she  scribbled  in  her  note-book.  The  world  of  science  and  art 
is  the  true  cosmopolic.  Those  were  not  the  wo^tls  in  "Cosmo- 
polis"  but  it  was  the  idea.  Perhaps  no  one  had  thought  of  it 
^fore  the  man  who  thought  of  having  the  magazine  in  three  lan- 
guages. It  would  be  one  of  the  new  ideas.  Tearing  off  the 
page  she  laid  it  on  the  sofa-head  and  sat  contemplating  au  imagined 
map  of  Europe  with  London,  Paris  and  Berlin  joineo  ay  a  triangle, 
the  globe  rounding  vaguely  off  on  eitJier  side.  All  over  the  globe, 
dotted  here  and  there  were  people  who  read  and  thought,  making 
a  network  of  unanimous  culture.  It  was  a  tiring  reflection;  but  it 
brought  a  comforting  assurance  that  somewhere  beyond  the  hud- 
dled hurrying  confusion  of  everyday  life  something  was  being  done 
quietly  in  a  removed  real  world  that  led  the  other  world.  People 
arrived  independently  at  the  same  conclusions  in  different  lan- 
guages and  in  the  world  of  science  they  communicated  with  each  other 
other.  That  made  Cosmopolis.  Yet  it  was  an  awful  thought  that  the 
might  gradually  become  all  one  piece;  perhaps  with  one  language; 
perhaps  English  if  those  people  were  right  who  talked  about  Anglo- 
Saxon  supremacy.  "England  and  America  together  could  rule 
the  world."  It  sounded  secure  and  comforting,  like  a  police-station; 
it  would  be  wonderful  to  belong  to  the  race  whose  language  was 
spoken  all  over  the  world.  All  the  foreigners  would  simply  have 
to  become  English.  But  that  idea  brought  a  dreadful  sense  of  loss. 
Foreign  languages  had  a  beauty  that  could  not  be  found  in  English, 
and  the  world  would  be  ruled  by  the  kind  of  English  people  who 
could  never  get  the  sound  of  a  foreign  word  and  who  therefore  had 
all  sorts  of  appalling  obliviousness;  the  kind  of  shouting  prospercras' 
English  people  it  was  a  relief  to  get  away  from  in  Germany.  The 
kind  who  said  "I  say.  What?"  And  who  could  only  feel  confident' 
as  long  as  someone  else  was  in  some  way  at  a  disadvantage. 

"You  write  that  miss?" 

Yes.  said  Miriam  leaping  through  surprise  and  indignation  to 
delight.  Sissie  and  Emile  were  back  again  in  the  room  hurrying  and 
angry;  the  little  man  bid  them  a  loud  good-evening;  a  tablecloth 


■?■ 


/ 


The    Little    Review  ii 


was  flountering  out  across  the  large  table.  Miriam  returned  to  her 
note-book.  He  was  ivriting,  with  a  scrap  of  pencil  taken  from  his 
pocket,  on  her  piece  of  paper,  lield  against  the  wall.  There  miss  he 
yshouted  gruffly,  handing  it  to  her.  — Lies — she  read;  scribbled  in 
a  rounded  hand  across  her  words,  and  underneath — there  is  NO  Cos- 
mopolis.     Bernard  Mendizabal. 

"Oh  yes,  there  is  a  cosmopolis"  argued  Miriam  looking  up  and 
out  from  a  confusion  of  convincing  images.  He  was  walking  about 
in  the  window  space  in  his  extraordinary  clothes,  short  and  somehow 
too  square  for  his  clothes,  making  his  clothes  look  square.  His 
square  roundly  modelled  head  was  changeably  sculptured  by  the  gas- 
light as  he  paced  up  and  down.  His  distinction  seemed  to  be 
sharpened  by  her  words  as  she  said  vous  avez  tort  monsieur.  She 
had  a  sense  of  Emile  and  Sissie  glancing  and  affronted  while  she  slid 
down  her  sentence  to  leap,  flouting  them,  forsaking  her  thrusting 
visions,  and  catch  at  any  cost,  the  joy  of  saying  and  hearing  no  mat- 
ter what,  in  foreign  speech.  She  would  pay  for  the  moment  any 
price  to  make  it  sound  and  keep  it  sounding  in  the  room.  The 
paces  of  her  separate  life  in  the  house  had  become  a  background 
f6r  this  familiar  forgotten  joy  so  unexpectedly  renewed. 

'■"No  miss!"  shouted  Mr.  Mendizabal.  She  cast  a  fierce  general 
sCOwl  towards  his  promenading  figure.  He  was  another  of  those 
"oreigners  who  care  for  nothing  in  England  but  practising  English. 
Then  she  would  fight  her  theory.     * 

"Je  n'ai  pas  tort"  he  thundered,  standing  before  her  with  his 
lands  in  his  pockets.  He  was  taking  her  French  for  granted.  In 
ler  thankfulness  she  sat  docile  before  a  torrent  of  words  taking  in 
lothing  of  their  meaning,  throwing  out  provisional  phrases,  ac- 
:ording  to  his  tone  of  question  or  assertion.  The  Baileys  coming 
n  and  out  of  the  room  would  see  "an  animated  French  conversa- 
ion"  and  Sissie  and  Emile  would  forget  her  desperate  onslaught  in 
heir  admiration  of  the  spectacle.  The  more  she  kept  it  glowing  and 
imphatic  and  alive  the  further  in  their  eyes  she  was  redeemed. 
>he  gave  no  glance  their  way.  Dinner  must  be  almost  ready.  Soon 
he  would  have  to  go.  The  gong  w'ould  tell  her.  Till  then  she 
ould  remain  immersed  in  the  tide  of  words.  The  little  man  was 
arnest  and  enraged,  he  used  his  French  easily  and  fluently.  It  was 
lot  wonderful  to  him  suddenly  to  become  French,  to  feel  the  things 
e  expressed  change,  become  clear  neat  patterns,  lose  some  of  their 
leaning,  fall  open  to  attack;  the  pain  of  the  failure  of  words  so  set 
ut  was  made  bearable  by  the  wonder  of  the  journey  from  speech 
0  speech.    He  remained  himself,  apparently  unaware  of  the  change 


t2  The    Little    Review 


of  environment,  or  indifferent  to  it.  .  .  .     Fm  dcclic,  what  did  that  , 
mean?     Vous  devez  me  voir  en  dcl-che.     You  ought  to  see  me  en  ,. 
deche.     That  seemed  to  be  his  summing  up.  the  basis  of  his  denial  ; 
of  a  cosmopolis.     She  attended.     'I'he  only  way  he  declared,  as^ 
if  recalling  an  earlier  assertion,  of  proving  the  indifference  of  every- j^> 
one  to  everyone  else  is  to  be  en  deche.     Smiling  comprehensively 
just  before  he  turned  on  his  heel  and  swung  round,  she  drifted  out  ' 
of  the  room  amidst  the  clangour  of  the  gong  ...  en  deche  .  .  . 
decheance?    .   .   .   somehow  at  a   disadvantage.     She   thought  her 
written  phrases  in   French.     They  sounded  a  little  grandiloquent. 
Someone  seemed  to  be  declaiming  them  from  a  platform.     He  prob- 
ably had  not  realised  what,  she  was  trying  to  say.     But  he  was  a 
cosmopolitan,  he  denied  that  there  was  any  cosmopolis,  any  sym- ' 
pathy  between  races,  even  between  individuals.    He  was  a  pessimist. 
With  all  his  charm  and  zest  he  believed  in  nothing  nobody.     And 
he  spoke   from  experience.     Perhaps  it  was  only  in  thoughts  not 
in  life  that  these  things  e.xisted.     People  talked  about  cosmopolis 
.because  they  wanted  to- believe  it.     Had  he  said  that? 

Chapter     iv. 

After  the  first  wonder  of  hearing  an  echo  of  a  Queen's  Hall 
Wagner  night  in  Mrs.  Bailey's  dining  room,  Miriam  forgot  the 
music.  Mr.  Bowdoin  had  passed  on  from  the  overture  to  Tann- 
hauser  to  unfamiliar  fragments.*unmelodious  but  haunted  by  sug- 
gested melody  and  with  a  curious  flattened  abrupt  intimate  message 
in  their  phrases;  perhaps  Russian,  or  Brahms.  She  could  not  listen 
to  them  here  in  the  midst  of  the  inattentive  group  sitting  so  closely 
round  the  piano.  He  had  played  the  overture,  imperfectly,  but 
self-forgetfully,  in  the  foreign  way,  getting  it.  and  rendering  it, 
so  that  she  had  had  sitting  near  the  broken  down  piano,  witnessing, 
his  difficulties  and  makeshifts,  the  whole  orchestral  impression  from 
end  to  end  and  the  hope  that  perhaps  if  Mr.  Mendizabal  stayedj; 
he  would  come  again.  Perhaps  the  Baileys  would  ask  him  to  coni6< 
again.  It  would  not  occur  to  them.  They  were  drowned  in  thw 
occasion  sitting  like  strangers  in  their  own  dining-room,  with  th| 
wonderful  evening  going  on  all  round  them.  She  consulted  Sissio'a 
expression,  and  probed  enviously  for  the  dark  busy  sulkily  hiddefl 
thoughts  going  to  and  fro  behind  her  attitude  of  sullen  listening  a 
painfully  resented  her  opportunity  of  drawing  pictures  of  Mr.  Bo^ 
doin's  appearance  and  his  movements  at  the  piano.  Passing  swifti 
to  Mrs.  Bailey  she  found  her  still  in  a  tumult  between  her  pri 


The   Little    Review  13 


in  the  visitor  and  her  circling  contemplation  of  the  things  Mr.  Men- 
dizabal  had  told  them;  looking  proudly  at  the  slender  shalbby  form 
and  the  back  of  the  thatch  of  soft  fine  fair  hair  she  saw  the  disor- 
derly roomful  of  men  slowly  painting  second-rate  posters,  the  sud- 
den arrival  of  Mr.  Mendizabal,  their  envious  resentment  of  his  quick 
clever  work;  the  posters  he  thought  of  in  the  night  and  executed  in 
^the  last  hour  before  the  office  closed;  Mr.  Bowdoin  forced  by  him 
to  play  a  sonata  on  the  typewriter  with  his  hair  in  curl-papers  .  .  . 
perhaps  she  would  be  too  distracted  by  these  things  to  think  of  ask- 
ing him  to  come  again.  Mr.  Mendizabal  lounging  back  in  his 
chair  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  had  a  pleased  proud  wicked 
smile  hovering  about  his  face.  He  respected  Bowdoin's  playing. 
He  respected  music  ...  He  was  showing  him  off.  It  was  charming, 
like  Trilby.  Mr.  Bowdoin  had  an  English  profile,  a  sort  of  blunted 
irregular  aquiline,  a  little  defaced  about  the  inouth  and  chin  by  the 
influence  on  the  muscles  of  his  common  way  of  speaking.  But  the 
back  of  his  head  was  foreign,  the  outline  of  his  skull  fine  and  deli- 
cate, a  delicate  arch  at  the  top  and  the  back  flattened  a  little  under 
the  soft  fall  of  hair.  He  was  stopping.  He  •  sat  still,  facing  the 
piano.  There  were  stirrings  and  murmurs  and  uncertain  attempts 
at  applause.  Mr.  Mendizabal  rose  and  stood  over  him,  as  if  to 
smite  him  on  the  shoulder.  What  do  you  think  about  when  you  play 
Beethoven? — said  Miriam  hastily.  His  face  came  round  and  Mr. 
Mendizabal  turned  hilariously  away  to  the  room.— By-toven  him- 
self I  think  said  Mr.  Bowdoin  quietly. — If  /  get  a  Beethoven's  So- 
natas would  you  play  one? — I  will  play  one  for  you.  But  not  this 
evening  I  think — He  turned  back  to  the  piano  and  Miriam  gazed  at 
his  indrawn  profile.  He  was  quite  English  and  had  all  the  English 
thoughts  and  feelings  about  the  little  group  gathered  behind  him  in 
the  room.  But  there  was  something  besides.  He  was  a  musician 
and  that  made  him  understand.  He  knew  the  room  was  impervious 
to  music  and  was  ill  at  ease  after  the  first  joy  of  playing,  and 
could  not  convince  his  hearers  by  vitality  and  exuberance  as  a  for- 
eigner would  do  even  with  quite  fragile  subdued  delicately  con- 
trolled music.  If  you  care  about  music  he  said  towards  the  piano, 
will  you  come  one  evening  and  let  me  play  to  you  on  my  own 
piano?  I  should  like  it  more  than  anything  said  Miriam,  quiver- 
ing and  clenching  her  clasped  hands. 

It  will  be  an  honour  and  a  great  peasure  to  me  if  you  will 
come  he  said  in  his  quiet  weary  voice.  I  will  take  the  liberty 
of  writing  to  suggest  an  evening.  Miriam's  abrupt  rising  and  blind 
movement  left  her  standing  opposite  the  lady-help,  who  was  stand- 


14  The    Little    Review 


iiig  with  a  foot  on  the  fender  and  an  elbow  on  the  mantelpiece, 
on  the  other  side  of  the  hearthrug.     After  only  two  days  in  the 
house  she  seemed  already  more  at  home  than  the  Baileys;  talking 
derisively  across  at   Mr.   Mendizabal   who  was  marching  up   and, 
down  the  far  side  of  the  room  with  his  hands  in  pockets  shouting 
raillery  and  snorting.     D'you  like  London  Miss  Scott?  said  Miriam 
uncontrollably  to  her  averted  talking  face.     Miss  Scott  completeo/ 
her  sally;   the  Baileys  were  talking  to  Mr.  Bowdoin,  just  behind, 
at  the  piano.     Perhaps  no  one  had  w'itnessed  her  wild  attack.     But 
she  could  not  take  her  eyes  of  Miss  Scott's  face.    It  turned  towards 
her  still  wearing  its  derisive  smile.    What  was  that  you  said  Miss 
Henderson   I   beg   your   pardon,   she   stated   encouragingly.      She 
was  not  in  the  least  impressed  by  being  spoken  to.     Her  single 
swift  glance  flashed  a  glimmer  of  amusement.     She  seemed  to  be 
holding  laughter  in  her  throat.     Her  person  w'as  the  centre  of  a 
barricade  of  derision,   casting  an   immense  shadow.     Miriam  re- 
peated her  question,   fearfully  consulting  the  small  sheeny  satin 
dress,  with  the  lace  collar,  the  neat  slip])er  on  the  fender,  the  heavy 
little  fringe  stopping  abruptly  at  the  hollow  temples  above  higt 
cheekbones  and  slightly  hollow  cheeks  and  leading  back  to  a  tinj 
knot  at  the  top  of  the  head.     Perhaps  she  was  a  lady.     Ye  se( 
so  little  of  it  unless  yerra  wealthy,  she  said  in  curious  tonguey  gut 
tural  tones,  standing  upright  on  the  hearthrug  and  flinging  bad 
her  head  with  every  other  word  as  she  backed  away  with  a  littl< 
balancing  movement  from  foot  to  foot.     She  was  Scotch.     It  was 
impossible  to  classify  her.    She  laughed  on  her  last  word  and  stoo* 
shaking  with  laughter  her  elbow  on  the  far  corner  of  the  maff' 
telshelf  and  her  foot  once  more  on  the  fender.     Perhaps  she  wa 
still  laughing  at  some  jest  of  Mr.  Mendizabal's.     Arrya  fond  o 
London  Miss  Henderson,  she  chuckled  and  went  on  without  wait 
ing  for  an  answer,  with  rhythmically  flinging  head,  its  ahl  very  we 
if  ya  can  go  out  to  theeaturras  and  consurruts  and  out  and  about 
but  when  the  season  comes  and  the  people  are  in  the  parruk  and  i 
thayre  grand  houses  having  parrties  and  gaities  and  yew've  just  gC 
to   do   nothing   I    think   its   draydcfle. — She   laughed  consumecttj 
throwing  back  her  head.    Miriam  moved  away.     Everyone  seerfli 
to  be  talking.    She  escaped  to  the  door.  ^ 

There  was  a  letter  from  Kve  in  the  hall;  a  thick  one.  In  hi 
cold  room  Miriam  read  that  .she  would  be  surprised  to  hear  \}9 
Eve  had  made  up  her  mind  to  give  up  governessing  and  learn  | 
be  a  lady  florist.  She  sat  stupefied.  It  seemed  impossible,  tert 
fying,  that  Eve  penniless,  with  her  uncertain  health  should  \ea^ 


The    Little    Review 15 

the  wealthy  comfort  of  the  Greens  after  all  these  years.  Too 
excited  to  read  word  by  word  she  scanned  the  pages  and  learned 
that  Madame  Leroy  a  friend  of  Mrs.  Green  who  had  a  flower 
shop  in  Bruton  Street  had  engaged  her  ...  I  decorated  the  table 
for  dinner  each  night  when  she  was  here  at  Christmas.  .  .  .  the 
Greens  have  been  charming,  quite  excited  about  the  plans.  .  . 
the  children  .  .  .  school  .  .  .  coming  up  next  week  .  .  .  Miriam 
leapt  to  her  feet  and  began  hastily  putting  on  her  things.  "Eve  is 
coming  to  London  for  a  six  months  course  in  floral  decorations. 
She  is  putting  up  at  a  hostel."  She  pulled  on  her  cold  sodden  shoes. 
"Eve  is  going  to  be  an  assistant  in  a  flower  shop  at  fifteen  shil- 
lings a  week.  She  has  taken  a  cubicle  at  a  branch  of  the  Young 
Women's  Bible  Association."  By  the  time  she  was  ready  she  felt 
she  must  have  dreamed  the  news.  Eve,  not  a  governess,  free,  in 
London,  just  as  she  was  herself.  Another  self,  in  London.  Eve 
being  led  about  and  taught  London,  going  about  under  the  same 
skies,  in  the  same  streets,  feeling  exactly  as  she  felt.  Nothing 
ivould  have  changed  before  she  came.  The  rain  gently  thudding 
on  the  roof  and  rattling  against  the  landing  skylight  was  Eve's 
rain.  She  was  listening  to  it  and  hearing  it  in  exactly  the  same 
way  .  .  .  The  girls  did  not  realise  the  news  at  all.  They  kept 
going  off  into  questions  about  details  until  the  fact  of  Eve's  coming 
disappeared  altogether  and  only  Eve's  point  of  view  and  Eve's 
courage  and  her  possible  difficulties  remained.  One  had  told  it  the 
wrong  way.  Better  not  to  have  given  any  facts  at  all  but  just  to 
have  said  Eve's  coming  to  London;  isn't  it  weird?  But  then  they 
would  have  said  is  she  coming  to  London  to  see  the  Queen?  The 
Queen.  That  would  have  been  true.  She  was  coming  to  London 
partly  to  see  the  Queen.  Perhaps  the  trouble  was  that  they  had 
been  cheated  by  not  being  told  exactly  how  Eve  was  only  just 
managing  to  come  at  all  and  how  slender  everything  would  be. 
But  at  least  they  realised  that  one  had  people  belonging  to  one 
who  made  up  their  minds  and  did  definite  things,  like  other  people. 
It  was  amazing  to  decide  to  come  to  London  and  be  a  florist; 
like  Napoleon.  They  realised  that  and  nothing  else.  She  would  be 
able  to  tell  Mr.  Hancock  on  Monday;  first  him,  first  thing  in  the 
morning  and  the  Orlys  during  the  day. 

Mr.  Hancock  understood  at  once,  making  no  response  at  all 
at  first  and  then  standing  quietly  about  near  her  as  she  busied 
herself  with  her  dusting  really  giving  himself  to  taking  in  the  sim- 
ple stupendous  fact;  and  really  realising  it  before  asking  any 
questions  and  asking  them  in  a  tone  that  showed  he  knew  what 


i6  The    Little    Review 


it  meant  and  going  on  showing  all  day  in  his  manner  that  he  knew 
what  it  was  that  kept  her  so  joyously  brisk  about  her  work.  He 
was  divine;  he  was  a  divine  person.  She  would  never  forget  being, 
able  to  say  just  anyhow,  h'm.  I've  got  a  sister  coming  to  Londort; 
and  his  immediate  silent  approach  across  the  room,  drying  hi* 
hands.  Of  course  the  Orlys  immediately  said  Oh  how  nice  for  yoi|i 
you  won't  be  so  lonely.  What  did  people  mean  about  lonelinessi 
It  was  always  the  people  arranged  in  groups  and  seeming  so  lo» 
and  isolated  and  lonely  who  said  that  .... 

Everyone  in  London  had  been  told.    There  would  be  the  W^ 
sons  to  write  to  about  it  and  the  Brooms  to  tell.     That  couli 
wait.     To-night  she  would  begin  turning  out  her  room  for  Eve* 
reception.     No.     It  was  the  Dante  lecture  ....     The  day  Ev 
came  she  would  buy  some  flowers.     She  understood  now  why  pec 
pie  wanted  to  put  flowers  in  their  rooms  when  people  were  coming 
She  would  be  a  hostess  for  the  first  time.     Some  people  bough 
flowers  and  carried  them  home  when  they  were  alone.  ...    It  mus 
be  like  inviting  a  guest  to  keep  you  company.     Like  saying  yo 
were  alone  and  not  liking  being  alone  and  putting  flowers  about  t 
tell  you  all  the  time  that  you  did  not  want  to  be  alone  but  wen 
People  talked  about  these  things.     "I  always  buy  flowers  when 
am  alone."    Like  suddenly  taking  off  all  their  things  and  showir 
that  they  had  a  crooked  spine.    If  they  were  really  miserable  abo» 
being  alone  they  would  be  too  miserable  to  buy  flowers.     If  thfi 
really  wanted  the  flowers  enough  to  buy  them  they  were  already  n 
alone.    If  they  bought  the  flowers  in  that  fussy  excited  thoughtle 
way  people  seemed  to  do  things  they  were  neither  really  ever  aloi 
or  ever  really  with  people.  .  .  .  they  were  in  that  sort  of  state  tb 
made  social  life  a  talkative  nothingness  sliding  about  on  nothing  I 

At  the  end  of  the  afternoon  she  wandered  forgetfully  into  ^ 
warmth  of  the  empty  waiting  room.  The  house  was  silent.  I 
footsteps  made  no  sound  along  the  carpeted  hall  and  were  lost 
.  the  thick  turkey  carpeting  of  the  waiting  room  floor.  The  roo 
was  lit  only  by  the  firelight.  From  its  wide  clear  core  striped  I 
black  bars  a  broad  rose-gold  shaft  glowed  out  across  the  n 
reaching  the  copper  vessels  on  the  black  oak  sideboard  in 
with  the  door  and  the  lower  part  of  the  long  mirror  between 
windows  where  the  midmost  i)iece  of  copper  gleamed  again  in 
flection.  She  stood  still,  holding  the  warm  air  in  her  nos 
everything  on  a  sudden  blotted  out  and  restored  to  its  place  .. 
what  place,  why  was  it  good,  what  was  she  trying  to  remember?  . 
In  the  familiar  fire-lit  winter  darkness  amidst  thesecret  famil 


The    Little    Review  17 


glow   of   copper   on   darl^  oak   was    faint   dry   warm   scent   .   .    . 
mimosa.     It  was  a  repetition.  ...     It  had  been  there  last  year, 
suddenly,    drily    fragrant — in    the    winter    darkness   of   the  warm 
room  preparing  for  the  light  and  warmth  of  the  evening.     It  had 
seemed  then  like  some  wealthy  extravagance,  sudden  and  rootless, 
bringing  a  sense  of  the  freedom  of  wealth  to  have  things  out,  of 
season  and  a  keen  sudden  mertiory  in  the  dark  London  room  of 
the  unspoken  inexpressible  beauty  of  Newlands  ....  its  whole 
soft    toned    softly    carpeted    and    curtained    effect    fragrant    with 
clusters  of  winter  flowers,  stealing  secretly  forward  with  her  in  her 
life,  standing  complete  somewhere  in  the  secret  black  spaces  of 
her  mind  ....     But  now  here  it  was  again,  just  at  the  same 
moment,  just  before  the  winter  darkness  began  to  give  way.    Per- 
haps mimosa  came  at  this  time  of  year  suddenly  in   the   shops, 
before  the  spring  flowers  and  careful  people  like  Mrs.  Orly  could 
buy  it.  .  .  .  then  in  London  mimosa  was  the  sign  of  spring.     It 
was  like  the  powdery  fragrance  of  a  clear  warm  midsummer  even- 
ing, like  petal-dust;  like  pollen-dust;  the  whole  summer  circling  in 
the  glow  of  firelight.    Then  Eve  would  not  come  this  winter.    The 
darkest  secret  winter-time  of  London  was  over  again.     It  would 
come  again  in  single  moments  and  groups  of  days,  but  its  time  was 
gone.  The  moment  of  keenest  realisation  of  spring  had  come  by  sur- 
prise; there  lay  All  the  spring  days  ahead  leading  on  tb  summer  spread 
out  for  anyone  to  see,  calling  to  Eve  or  to  anyone  who  might  have 
come  into  the  room  and  to  whom  one  could  have  said  doesn't  the 
smell  of  mimosa  make  you  realise  the  winter  is  over;   and  here, 
within,  Ut  up  as  if  by  a  suddenly  switched  on  electric  light  was 
one's  own  best  realisation,  going  back  and  back;  pictures  that  grew 
richer  and  clearer,  each  time  something  happened  that  switched  on 
a  light  within  the  black  spaces  of  your  mind.     Things  that  no  one 
could  share,  coming  again  and  again  just  as  some  outside  thing  was 
beginning  to  interest  you,   as  if  to  remind  you  that  the  inmost 
•  reality  can  be  shared  only  with  yourself.     The  prospect  of  Eve's 
coming  was  changed.     The  pang  of  the  mimosa  came  nearer  than 
anything  she  could  bring.     Perhaps  it  would  be  possible  to  tell 
her  about  this  moment?     Perhaps  her  commg  had  made  it  more 
real.    Yet  now  it  did  not  seem  to  matter  so  much  whether  she  came 
or  not.     In  a  way  it  seemed  as  though  the  fact  of  her  coming 
[threatened   something.  ^ 


A  note;   brought  by  hand;    scrawling  rounded  formally  re- 


i8  Thg    Little     Review 


served  handwriting  covering  nearly  the  Avhole  of  the  envelope 
filling  the  hall-lablc,  bringing  disturbance  into  the  crowded  evening: 
She  read  it  hurrying  to  the  station.     Mr.  Bowdoin. 

She  had  forgotten  him.  .  .  .  'J'hc  note  did  not  bring  an> 
renewal  of  the  hours  of  music.  Its  request  in  formal  courtly  olc 
fashioned  phrases  for  her  fulfilment  of  her  undertaking  put  im 
enterprise  amongst  those  social  occasions,  offering  only  dread  ir 
anticipation,  and  to  be  lived  through  like  a  scene  from  a  play  ir 
which  she  had  in  a  moment  of  confidence  risked  being  asked  to  take 
part.  The  "few  friends"  had  been  gathered  expressly  that  she  might 
go  and  hear  him  play.  She  would  have  to  sit,  conscious  of  this 
not  really  hearing  him,  and  afterwards  find  something  to  say.  Ar 
Englishman,  solemn  and  ])olite  playing  foreign  music,  with  English 
friends  politely  and  solemnly  sitting  round.  There  was  no  wore 
of  Mr.  Mendizabal.  He  was  not  going.  If  he  had  been  Mr.  Bow- 
doin would  not  have  said  I  will  call  at  six  thirty  for  the  purposf 
of  escorting  you  to  my  rooms.  He  was  like  a  goaler.  Perhaps  the 
walk  would  be  an  opportunity  of  getting  over  nervousness.  There 
would  be  music  at  once,  no  meal  to  get  through.  She  would  thank 
him  very  much  for  the  great  treat  and  when  it  was  over  thert 
would  only  be  Eve  and  the  accomplishment  of  having  heard  a 
good  piano  played  by  a  musician.  He  could  be  dropped.  .  .  . 
He  could  be  asked  to  come  just  once  and  play  fo?Eve.  That  woulc 
be  a  great  London  evening  for  her.  The  sense  of  a  complex  Lon- 
don life  crowded  with  engagements  made  her  pace  in --spite  of  hei 
weariness  up  and  down  the  platform  at  Gower  Street  station.  Its 
familiar  sulphurous  gloom,  the  platform  lights  shining  murkily  from 
the  midst  of  slowly  rolling  clouds  of  grey  smoke,  the  dark  forms 
and  phantom  white  faces  of  waiting  passengers  emerging  sud- 
denly as  she  threaded  the  darkness  revived  her.  By  the  time  the 
train  rolled  slowly  in  behind  its  beloved  black  dumpy  high-should 
ered  engine  with  its  large  unshrieking  mushroom  bell-whistle  the 
journey  had  changed  from  its  first  character  of  an  expedition  to  a 
spot  within  five  minutes  walk  of  Sarah's  unconfessed  to  Sarah,  and 
had  become  a  journey  on  the  Metropolitan;  going  indeed  outside 
the  radius  into  blackness,  but  going  so  far  only  because  the  Dante 
lecture,  wandered  out  of  London  <was  waiting  there;  and  to  be 
repeated  at  the  end  of  the  evening  safely  Returning  through  in- 
creasing gloom  until  the  climax  of  Gower  Street  was  reached  again. 

She  reached  the  little  hall  in  the  suburban  road  in  good  time 
and  sat  in  a  forward  row  staring  at  the  little  platform  where 
presently  the  educative  voice  would  be  standing.     She  was  con- 


The    Little    Review 19 

scious  of  a  stirring  and  buzzing  all  about  her  that  had  been 
absent  in  the  London  hall.  The  first  series  of  lectures  had  not 
brought  any  sense  of  an  audience.  Here  the  many  audible  cen- 
tres of  culture,  the  eager  discussions  and  sullen  incisive  remarks, 
the  triumphant  intensity  on  the  faces  of  some  of  the  women  caught 
as  she  glanced  now  and  then  fearfully  about,  the  curious  happy 
briskness  of  the  men,  had  her  feel  that  the  lecturer  was  super- 
fluous. All  these  people  were  the.  cultured  refined  kind  who  did 
not  trouble  much  about  their  clothes.  There  were  no  furs  to  be 
seen;  the  women  wore  large  rather  ugly  coats  or  ulsters  or  capes 
and  bashed  muddly  looking  hats  and  had  mufflers  or  long  scarves. 
In  the  London  audience  herself  and  her  clothes  had  been  invisible, 
here  they  were  just  right,  a  sort  of  hall-mark.  In  her  black  dress 
with  her  clumsy  golf-cape  throvm  back  from  her  shoulders,  her 
weather-worn  felt  hat  softened  perhaps  to  harmony  with  her  head 
in  the  soft  light  she  could  perhaps  pass  for  a  cultured  person. 
^  Bianchi  and  Neri  whispered  her  neighbour  eagerly  in  the  midst  of  a 
-long  sentence  addressed  to  a  ^irl  at  her  side.  She  was  an  English- 
woman. But  her  mind  was  so  at  home  in  the  middle  ages  that 
she  spoke  the  names  and  used  the  Italian  pronunciation  without 
a  touch  of  pedantry,  and  as  eagerly  and  interestly  'as  anyone  else 
might  say  "they're  engagedr'  The  clergyman  in  the  row  in  front 
would  drawl  out  the  words  with  an  unctuous  suggestion  of  superior 
knowledge.  He  would  use  them  to  crush  someone.  Most  of  the 
'  men  present  were  a  little  Jike  that,  using  their  knowledge  like  a 
""  code  or  a  weapon.  But  the  women  were  really  interested  in  it, 
they  were  like  people  who  had  climbed  a  hill  and  were  eagerly 
intent  on  what  they  could  see  on  the  other  side.  It  was  refreshing 
and  also  in  some  way  comforting  to  be  with  them.  They  represented 
something  in  life  that  was  going  to  increase.  Perhaps  it  would 
increase  too  much;  they  seemed  so  headlong  and  unaware  of  any- 
thing else.  Did  she  want  a  world  made  up  of  women  like  this? 
If  she  spoke  to  them  they  would  assume  she  was  one  of  themselves 
and  look  busily  at  her  with  unseeing  eyes,  fixed  only  on  all  the 
other  things  they  thought  about,  until  they  perceived  that  she 
was  a  fraud.  Long  intercourse  with  these  might  make  her  able  to 
talk  as  they  did,  but  never  to  think  in  the  way  they  did.  Never  to 
have  the  extraordinary  busy  assured  appearance  presented  by  their 
persons  when  you  could  not  see  their  eager  faces;  a  look  that  made 
them  seem  to  be  going  very  fast  in  some  direction  that  completely 
satisfied  them,  so  that  if  a  fire  broke  out  behind  them  suddenly  they 
would  regard  it  not  as,  an  adventure  that  might  have  been  expected 


20  The    Little    Review 


but  as  an  annoying  interruption,  like  tripping  over  a  stone.  .  .  . 

She  could  see  that  when  he  read  the  sonnets  he  forgot  how 
learned  he  was.  The  little  lecture  had  had  its  own  fascination. 
But  it  was  a  lecture;  something  told  by  a  specialist  to  an  audience. 
This  was  Danjte's  voice,  and  they  all  listened  as  they  could;  the 
lecturer  as  well.  All  his  knowledge  was  put  aside  and  he  listeneci 
as  he  read.  She  sat  listening,  her  shocked  mind  still  condemning 
her  for  not  having  discovered  for  herself  that  it  was  wrong  to  have 
a  post-office  savings  account  and  that  betting  and  gambling  and 
lotteries  were  wrong  because  they  produced  nothing.  For  a  time 
she  flashed  about  with   the  searchlight  of   the   new  definition  of 

vice money  can't  produce  money.  .  .  .  then  all  trade  was 

wrong  in  some  way.  .  .  dissipation  of  value  without  production.  .  .  . 
there  was  some  principle  that  all  civilisation  was  breaking.  .  .  . 
how  did  this  man  know  that  it  was  wrong  to  imagine  affection  if 
there  was  no  affection  in  your  life,  that  dreaming  and  brooding  was 
a  sort  of  beastliness.  .  .  love  was  actual  and  practical,  moving  all 
the  spheres  and  informing  the  mind.  That  was  true.  That  was  the 
truth  about  everything.  But  who  could  attain  to  it?  Dante  knew 
it  because  he  loved  Beatrice.  How  could  humanity  become  more 
loving?  How  could  social  life  come  to  be  founded  on  love?  How 
can  I  become  more  loving?  I  do  not  know  or  love  anyone  but  my- 
self. .  .  it  did  not  mean  being  loved.  It  was  not  anything  to  do 
with  marriage.  Dante  only  saw  Beatrice.  But  this  is  the  awful 
truth;  however  one  may  sit  as  if  one  were  not  condemned  and 
forget  again.  This  is  the  difficult  thing  that  everyone  has  to  dOj 
Not  dogmas.  This  man  believes  that  there  is  a  God  who  loves  and 
demands  that  men  shall  be  loving.  That  is  what  will  be  asked, 
That  is  the  judgment.  It  is  true  because  it  breaks  into  you  and 
condemns  you.  Everything  else  is  distraction  and  evasion.  The 
humble  yearning  devotion  in  the  voice  reading  the  lines  made  it 
a  prayer,  the  very  voice  a  prayer  to  a  spirit  waiting  all  round, 
present  in  himsef,  in  everyone  listening,  in  the  very  atmosphere, 
It  was  there,  to  be  had.  It  was  like  something  left  far  behind 
one  on  a  dark  road  and  still  there;  to  be  had  for  the  asking,  tfi 
be  had  by  merely  turning  towards  it.  .  .  She  looked  into  the  eyes 
of  Dante  across  the  centuries  as  into  the  eyes  of  a  friend.  Bul 
then  these  people  were  the  same.     It  was  the  truth  about  every** 

body  "the  struggling  goodwill  in  all  of  us" 

She  travelled  back  towards  London  in  a  dream.  Her  comi 
partment  was  empty.  All  the  people  in  the  world,  full  of  goodwill 
without  troubling  or  even  thinking  about  it  were  away  somewhert 


The    Little    Review  21 


else.  Just  as  she  had  learned  what  people  were  there  was  nobody. 
There  was  no  love  in  her  nature.  If  there  were  any  she  would  not 
have  been  sitting  here  alone.  If  a  man  love  not  his  brother  whom 
he  hath  seen  how  shall  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen? 
There  was  a  catch  in  that  like  a  riddle.  Heads  I  win  tails  you 
lose  ....  If  you  keep  that  quiet  and  gentle,  asking  for  nothing,  not 
being  anything,  not  holding  on  to  anything  in  your  life,  nor 
thinking  about  anything  in  your  life  there  is  something  there  .... 
behind  you  .  .  .  that  must  be  God  the  way  to  Christ;  the 
edge  of  the  way  to  Christ.  Keeping  quiet  and  coming 
to  that  you  feel  what  you  are  and  that  you  have 
never  begun  being  anything  but  your  evil  natural  self.  You  feel 
thick  with  evil.  .  .  oh.  .  .  that  was  prayer.  One  could  become  more 
loving.  It  is  answered  at  once.  Just  turning  towards  that  some- 
thing in  a  desire  to  be  different  begins  to  change  you!  At 
Praed  Street  the  carriage  began  to  fill  with  seated  forms.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  new  life.  .  .  .  Keeping  perfectly  still  and 
looking  at  no  one  she  realised  the  presence  of  her  fellow  travellers, 
all  just  like  herself,  living  from  within  by  the  contact  with  the 
edge  of  Christ.  ...  all  knowing  the  thing  that  to  her  was  only  a 
little  flicker  just  dawning  in  a  long  life  of  evil.  It  made  them 
kindly  in  the  world  and  able  to  understand  each  other.  Perhaps 
it  was  the  explanation  of  all  the  fussing.  Everyone  in  the  world 
was  bathed  in  the  light  and  love  except  herself.  .  .  It  was 
not  certain  that  a  whole  lifetime  of  prayer  and  gentleness  and 
self-control  would  destroy  enough  of  the  thick  roots  of  evil  in  her 
to  bring  her  through  into  the  Paradiso.  .  .  But  if  prayer,  just  the 
turning  away  from  all  one  knew  begging  to  be  destroyed  and  made 
loving  brought  such  an  immediate  sense  of  the  evil*  in  oneself 
and  the  good  in  everyone  else,  there  was  no  end  to  what  it  might 
do.  Prayfer  was  the  work  to  do  in  her  life,  nothing  else.  But  the 
turning  to  the  unseen  God  of  love  and  giving  up  one's  self-will 
meant  being  changed  in  a  way  one  could  not  control  or  foresee; 
dropping  everything  one  had  and  cherished  secretly  and  having 
things  only  in  common  with  other  people.  It  would  mean  going 
forward  with  nothing  into  an  unknown  world;  always  being  agree- 
ble,  and  agreeing.  I  love  all  these  people  she  murmured  in  her 
mind  and  felt  a  glow  that  seemed  to  radiate  out  to  all  the  corners 
of  the  compartment.  It's  true.  This  is  life.  This  is  the  only  way 
in.  It  may  be  that  I  am  so  bad  that  I  can  only  sit  with  all  my 
evil  visible  silent  amongst  humanity  for  the  rest  of  my  life,  learn- 
ing to  love  them,  and  then  die  out  completely  because  I  am  too 


22 The     Little     Review 

bad  to  be  quite  new-born.  .  .  her  eyes  were  drawn  towards  the  face 
of  the  woman  sitting  opposite  to  her;  a  shapeless  body,  a  thin  rav- 
aged face  strained  and  sheeny  with  fatigue  •and  wearing  an  ex- 
pression of  undaunted  sweetness  and  patience.  Children  and  house- 
work and  a  selfish  husband  and  nothing  in  life  of  her  own.  She  was 
at  the  disposal  of  everyone  for  kind  actions.  She  would  be  rtally 
sympathetic  and  shocked  about  an  earthquake  in  China.  Was  that 
it?  Was  that  being  inside?  Was  that  all  there  was?  She  did 
not  see  the  wonderful  gold  trown  light  in  the  carriage;  nor  the 
beauty  of  the  blackness  outside.  In  her  brain  was  the  pain  and 
pressure  of  everything  she  had  to  do.  She  was  good  and  sweet; 
perfectly  good  and  sweet.  But  there  was  something  irritating 
about  her.  .  .  .  her  obliviousness  of  everything  but  "troubles," 
other  people's  as  much  as  her  own.  Yet  she  would  love  a  day  in 
country.  The  fields  and  the  flowers  would  make  her  cry.  It  was 
her  obliviousness  that  made  one  afraid  of  associating  with  her. 
Being  in  conversation  with  her  or  in  any  way  associated  with  her 
life  there  would  always  be  the  dreadful  imprisoned  feeling  of  know^ 
ing  she  did  not  think.  .  .  .  Her  glance  slid  over  the  other  seated 
forms  and  fell,  leaVing  her  struggling  between  her  desire  to  feel 
in  loving  union  with  them  and  her  inability  to  ignore  the  revela- 
tions pouring  from  their  bearing  and  shapes,  their  clothes  and 
the  way  they  held  their  belongings.  They  were  terrible  and  hate- 
ful because  all  their  thoughts  were  visible.  The  terrible  madden- 
ing thing  about  them  was  the  thoughts  they  did  not  think.  ^It  made 
them  worse  than  the  woman  because  to  get  on  with  them  one 
would  have  to  pretend  to  see  life  as  they  saw  it.  It  would  be  so 
easy  and  deceitful  with  each  one  alone,  knowing  exactly  what  line 
to  take.  She  wrenched  herself  back  to  her  prayer.  .  ,  .  instantly 
the  thought  came  that  all  these  people  far  away  in  themselves 
wanted  to  be  more  loving.  She  drew  herself  together  and  sat  up 
staring  out  towards  the  darkness.  That  was  an  answer  to  prayer! 
A  stale  of  mind  that  came  from  the  state  of  prayer.  But  then 
one  would  need  always  to  be  in  a  state  of  prayer.  It  would  be 
very  difficult  it  would  be  almost  impossible  even  to  re- 
member it  in  the  rush  of  life  .  .  .  it  would  mean 
being  a  sort  of  fool  .-.  .  .  having  no  judgments  or  opin- 
ioins.  It  would  spoil  everyhting.  'inhere  would  be  no  time  for  any- 
thing. Nothing  beyond  one's  daily  work  and  all  the  rest  of  the 
lime  being  all  things  to  all  men.  It  meant  that  now  at  this 
moment  one  must  give  up  the  sense  of  the  train  going  along  in  the 
darkness  and  the  sense  of  the  dark  streets  waiting  lamplit  under 


The     Little     Revie  IV  23 


;he  dark  sky  and  go  out  to  the  people  in  the  carriage  and  then 
m  to  the  people  at  Tansley  Street  .  .  .  she  thought  of 
people  she  knew  who  did  this,  appearing  to  see  nothing 
ii  life  but  people  and  recoiled.  Places  to  them  were  nothing  but 
people;  there  was  something  they  missed  out  that  could  not  be 
^iven  up.  Something  goes  if  you  lose  yourself  in  humanity.  You 
:annot  find  humanity  by  looking  for  God  only  there.  Making  up 
f'our  mind  that  God  is  to  be  found  in  humanity  is  numanism.  .  . 
[t  was  Comte's  idea.  Perhaps  Unitarians  are  all  Comtists.  That 
&  why  they  dress  without  style.  They  are  more  interested  in  social 
reform  than  the  astoundingness  of  there  being  people  anywhere. 
But  to  see  God  everywhere  is  pantheism.  What  is  Christianity? 
l\^here  are  Christians?  Evangelicals  are  humanitarians;  rushing 
vbout  in  ulsters.  Anglicans  know  all  about  the  beauty  of  life  and 
ike  comfort.  But  they  are  snobs  and  afraid  of  new  ideas.  .  .  . 
onvents  and  monasteries  stop  your  mind.  But  there  is  a  God  or  a 
Christ,  there  is  something  always  there  to  answer  when  you  turn 
iway  to  it  from  everything.  Perhaps  one  would  have  to  remain 
ilent,  for  years,  for  a  lifetime,  and  in  the  end  begin  to  understand. 


At  Gower*  Street  it  wai  eleven  o'clock.  She  was  faint  with 
lunger.  She  had  had  no  dinner  and  there  was  nothing  jn  her 
com.  She  wandered  along  the  Euston  Road  hoping  to  meet  a  po- 
ato-man.  The  shopfronts  were  black.  There  was  nothing  to  meet 
ler  need  but  the  empty  stretch  of  lamplit  pavement  leading  on 
md  on.  .  .  .  Rapid  walking  in  the  rain-freshened  air  relieved  her 
aintness  but  she  dreaded  waking  in  the  night  with  gnawing  hun- 
ger to  keep  her  awake  and  drag  her  up  exhausted  in  the  morning, 
faint  square  of  brighter  light  on  the  pavement  ahead  came  like 
m  accusation.  Passing  swiftly  across  it  she  glanced  bitterly  at 
he  frosted  door  through  which  it  came.  Restaurant.  Donizetti 
Brothers.  The  whole  world  had  conspired  to  leave  her  alone  with 
;hat  mystery  shut  in  and  hidden  everyday  the  whole  of  her  Lon- 
ion  time  behind  its  closed  frosted  doors  and  forcing  her  now  to 
,dmit  that  there  was  foofl  there  and  she  must  go  in  or  have  the 
cnowledge  of  being  starved  through  fear.  Her  thoughts  flashed 
painfully  across  a  frosted  door  long  ago  in  Baker  Street  and  she 
saw  the  angry  handsome  face  of  the  waiter  who  had  shouted  roll 
md  butter  and  whisked  away  from  the  table  the  twisted  cone  of 
serviette  and  the  knives  and  forks.  That  was  in  the  middle  of  the 
iay.    It  .-would  be  worse  at  night.    Perhaps  they  would  even  refuse 


24  The    Little    Review 


to  serve  her.     Perhaps  it  was  impossible  to  go  into  a  restaurant 
late  at  night  alone.     She  was  coming  back.     There  was  nothing  to 
be  seen  behind  the  steamy  panes  on  either  side  of  the  door  but 
plants  standing  on  oil  doth  mats.     Behind  them  was  again  frosted 
glass.     It  was  not  so  grand  as  Baker  Street.     There  was  no  menu 
in  a  large  brass  frame  with  Schweppe's .  at  the  top.     She  pushed  / 
open  the  glass  door  in  angry  hatred  and  was  confronted  by  another 
glass  door  blankly  frosted  all  over.     Why  were  they  so  secret? 
Inside  the  second  door  she  found  herself  at  the  beginning  of  a 
long  aisle  of  linoleum.     On  either  side  people  were  dotted  here 
and  there  on  short  velvet  sofa  seats  behind  marble  topped,  tables. 
In  the  close  air  there  was  a  strong  smell  made  up  of  all  kinds  of 
meat  dishes.     A  waiter  flicking  the  crumbs  from  a  table  glanced 
sharply  round  at  her  and  went  off  down  the  room.    He  had  seen  the 
shifts  and  miseries  that  haunted  all  her  doings.  They  were  apparen; 
in  the  very  hang  of  her  cloak.    She  could  not  first  swing  down  the 
restaurant  making  it  wave  for  joy  as  it  did  when  .she  walked  across  - 
Trafalgar  Square  in  the  dark  and  then  order  a  roll  and  butter. 
After  this  it  would  never  wave  for  joy  again.     A  short  compact 
bald  man  in  a  white  apron  was  hurrying  down  the  aisle,  towards 
her.     He  stopped  just  in  front  of  her  and  stood  bowing  and  in- 
dicating a  near  empty  table  with  his  short  arm  and  stood  silently 
hovering  while  she  dragged  herself  into  place  on  the  velvet  sofa. 
The  waiter  rushing  up  with  a  menu  was  gently  waved  away  and  the 
little  man  stood  over  the  side  of  the  table  blocking  out  the  fuller 
end  of  the  restaurant.    Hardly  able  to  speak  for  the  beating  of  her 
heart  she  looked  up  into  a  little  firm  round  pallid  face  with  a  small 
snub  nose  and  curious  pale  waxy  blue  eyes  and  said  furiously  oh  \ 
please  just  a  roll  and  butter  and  a  cup  of  cocoa.     The  little  man  . 
bowed  low  with  a  beaming  face  and  went  gently  away.     Miriam   ' 
watched  him  go  down  the  aisle  bowing  here  and  there  right  and  ^^ 
left.     The  hovering  waiter  came   forward   questioningly   to   meet   j 
him  and  was  again  waved  aside  and  she  presently  saw  the  little   ' 
man  at  a  speaking  tube  and  heard  him  sing  in  a  chalky  high  mono- 
tone.  Un  cho-co-lat.     He  brought  her  things  and  arranged  them 
carefully  about  her  and  brought  her  an  INustrated  London  News 
from  another  taWe.     She  sipped  and  munched  and  looked  at  all 
the  pictures.    '^Phe  people  in  the  pictures  were  real  people.    She  im- 
agined them  moving  and  talking  in  all   manner  of  circumstances    • 
and  suffered  their  characteristics  gently,   feeling  as   if  some   one    ,, 
were  there  gently  half  reproachfully  holding  her  hands  tied  behind 
her  back.     The  waiter  roamed  up  and  down   the  aisle.  •  Peojile 


M  "   '■  I    i"  1 


The    Little    Review  25 

came  in,  sometimes  two  or  three  at  a  time.  The  little  man 
was  sitting  writing  with  a  stern  bent  face  at  a  little  table  at  the 
far  end  of  the  restaurant  just  in  front  of  a  marble  counter  holding 
huge  urnsand  glass  dishes  piled  with  buns  and  slices  of  cake.  He 
did  not  move  again  until  she  rose  to  go  when  he  came  once  more 
hurrying  down  the  aisle.  Her  bill  was  sixpence  and  he  took  the 
coin  with  a  bow  and  waited  while  she  extricated  herself  from  the 
clinging  vdvet  and  held  the  door  wide  for  her  to  pass  out.  Good 
evening  thank  you  very  much  she  murmured  hoping  that  he  heard, 
in  response  to  his  polite  farewell.  She  wandered  slowly  home 
through  the  drizzling  rain  warmed  and  fed  with  a  glowing  heart. 
Inside  those  frightful  frosted  doors  was  a  home,  a  bit  of  her  own 
London  home  bought  with  terrors.  All  the  way  home  the  little 
scene  kept  playing  itself  through  her  mind. 

4. 

The  hall  gas  was  out.  The  dining  room  door  was  ajar  show- 
ing a  faint  light  and  light  was  coming  from  the  little  room  at  the 
end  of  the  passage.  Miriam  cautiously  pushed  open  the  dining 
room  door.  Mrs.  Barley  was  sitting  alone  poised  socially  in  a  low 
armchair  by  the  fire  with  the  gas  turned  low.  Miriam  came  duti- 
fully forward  in  response  to  the  entrancement  of  her  smile  and 
stood  on  the  hearthrug  enwrapped  in  her  evening,  played  over  by 
the  sense  of  beginning  it  anew  with  Mrs.  Bailey.  When  had  she 
seen  Mrs.  Bailey  last?  She  could  tell  her  now  about  Eve  in  great 
confidential  detail  and  explain  that  she  could  not  at  present  afford 
to  come  to  Tansley  Street.  That  would  be  a  great  sociable  con- 
versation and  the  engagement  with  Mr.  Bowdoin  would  remain  un- 
touched. She  stood  in  a  glow  of  eloquence.  Mrs.  Bailey  preened 
and  bridled  and  made  little  cheerful  affectionate  remarks  and 
waited  silent  a  moment  before  asking  if  it  rained.  Miriam  forgot 
Eve  and  gathered  herself  together  for  some  tremendous  communi- 
cation. Was  it  raining?  She  glanced  at  the  outside  London  world 
and  was  lost  in  interchanging  scenes,  her  mind  split  up,  pressing 
several  ways  at  once.  Mrs.  Bailey  saw  all  these  scenes  and  felt 
and  understood  them  exactly  as  she  did.  There  was  no  need  to 
answer  the  question.  She  glanced  stonily  towards  her  and  saw  the 
downcast  held-in  embarrassment  of  her  waiting  form.  In  a  dry 
•professional  official  voice  she  said  gazing  at  the  hearthrug  with  an 
air  of  judicial  profundity,  no,  at  least  oh  yes,  I  think  it  is  raining 
and  drifted  helplessly  towards  the  window.    The  challenge  was  be- 


26  The    Little    Review 


hind  her.    She  would  have  to  face  it  again.    A  borrowed  voice  saido 
briskly  within  her  yes  its  pouring,  1  hope  it  will  be  fine  tomorrow^^ 
what  weather  wc  have  had;  well  goodnight  Mrs.  Bailey.     I  haver 
been  to  a  lecture,  she  said  in  imagination  to  Mrs.  Bailey,  standing ' 
by  the  window.     It  was  what  any  other  boarder  would  have  said'j 
and  then  so  fine,  such  a  splendid  lecturer  and  told  the  subject  and 
his  name  and  one  idea  out  of  the  lecture  and  they  would  have 
agreed  and  gone  cheerfully  to  bed,  with  no  thoughts.    To  try  and 
really  tell  anything  about  the  lecture  would  be  to  plunge  down  into 
misrepresentations  and  misunderstandings  and  end  with  the  lecture 
vanished.     To  say  anything  real  about  it  would  lead  to  living  thi 
rest  of  her  life  with  the  Baileys  helping  them  with  their  plans 
she  turned  and  came  busily  back.     It's  veryjate  she  murmured. 
Mrs.  Bailey  smiled  and  yawned.     At  least  not  so  very  late,  not 
quite  tomorrow — she  pursued  turning  round  to  the  clock  and  back, 
again  to  consult  the  pictures  and  the  wall  paper.     Just  staying, 
there  was  answering  Mrs.  Bailey's  question.     Suddenly  she  laughed] 
out  and  turned,  laughing,  as  if  she  were  about  to  communicate  som^r 
mirthful  memory. — It's  too  absurd — she  said  distracted  between  th^ 
joy  of  her  lingering  laughter  and  the  need  for  instantly  inventing(i. 
an   explanation.     Mrs.   Bailey  was  laughing  delightfully.     Ther« 
was  a  most  absurd  thing — chanted  Miriam  above  her  laughter;  ^ 
gentle  tap  took  Mrs.  Bailey  scurrying  to  the  door.    May  I  have  aV 
candle  Mrs.  Bailey  murmured  a  low  voice  in  a  curious  solidly  curv-^ 
ing  intonation.     Certainly  doctor  answered  Mrs.  Bailey's  voice  iifc 
the  hall.     She  scurried  away  downstairs.     Miriam  turned  toward! 
the  window  and  stood  listening  to  St.  Pancras  clock' striking  mid- 
night.   Then  those  men  in  the  little  back -sitting  room  were  doctors. 
How  pleased  and  proud  Mrs.  Bailgy  must  be  and  how  wonderful 
of  her  to  say  nothing  about  them.       Can  I  have  a  candle  missuz 
Bailey.     Wrapped  away  in  the  suave  strong  courteous  voice  were 
the  knowledge  and  the  fineness  of  a  world  no  one  in  the  housfi;^ 
knew  anything  about.     Mrs.  Bailey  dimly  knew^  and  screened  i|| 
fearing  to  Jose  it.     She  had  the  wonderful  voice  all   to  herselm 
"Good-evening."    The  voice  was  in  the  room.     Miriam  turned  inf 
stantly;   a  square  strong-looking  man  a  little  over  middle  heigh^ 
with  flat  pale  fair  hair  smooth  on  a  squarish  head  above  gravi 
,  bluntly  moulded  features  was  moving  easily  forward  from  the  dooi 
They  met  at  the  end  of  the  table  standing  one  each  side  the  angl 
of  the  fireside  corner,  smiling  as  if  her  murmured  response  to  hi 
greeting  had  been  a  speech  in  a  play  ready-made  to  bring  theil| 
together.     Miriam  felt  that   if  she  had   said  oh   I'm  so  glad  h^ 


The    Little    Review  ^7 


would  have  responded  yes;  so  am  I.  My  name's  von  Heber  he  an- 
nounced quietly,  his  restraind  uncontrollably  deepening  smile  send- 
ing out  a  radiance  all  round  her.  It  was  as  if  they  had  met  before 
without  the  opportunity  of  speaking  and  here  at  last  was  the  op- 
portunity and  they  had  first  to  smile  out  their  recognition  of  its 
perfection.  They  stood  in  a  radiant  silence,  his  even  tones  making 
no  break  in  fheir  interchange.  She  felt  a  quality  in  him  she  had 
not  met  before;  in  the  ease  of  his  manner  there  was  no  trace  of  the 
complacent  assumption  of  the  man  of  the  world.  His  deference 
was  no  mask  worn  to  decorate  himself.  It  was  deliberate  and 
yet  genuine.  It  was  the  shape  in  which  he  presented  to  her,  per- 
sonally, set  above  and  away  from  her  ugly  clothes  and  her  weari- 
ness, the  gust  of  delight  which  had  been  his  inward  greeting.  The 
completeness  and  confidence  of  his  delight  his  own  completeness 
and  security  revealed  to  her,  a  joyous  reading  of  life  that  she 
longed  to  hold  and  fathom.  She  proferred  in  ireturn  as  a  measure 
of  her  qualification  the  laughter  she  had  laughed  to  Mrs.  Bailey, 
"hoping  he  had  heard  it.  I  find  this  custom  of  putting  down  the 
light  at  eleven  very  inconvenient  he  was  saying.  Miriam  smiled 
and  listened  eagerly  for  more  of  the  low,  even,  curiously  curving 
intonations.  I  propose  to  take  the  London  medical  examination 
in  July  and  I've  a  good  deal  of  hard  work  to  get  through  prior  to 
that  date.  He  had  not  been  going  to  stop  speaking  but  Miriam 
found  an  immense  welcoming  space  for  the  word  she  summoned  in 
vain  desperately  from  far  away  Wimpole  Street.  The  conjoint 
she  declared  at  last — eagerly,  almost  before  the  word  reached  her 
consciousness.  The.  Conjoint  he  repeated  and  as  his  voice  went  on 
Miriam  contemplated  the  accumulation  they  had  gathered.  She 
felt  as  if  they  were  talking  backwards,  towards  something  already 
said  and  when  he  had  said  I'm  taking  the  post-graduate  course  at 
your  great  hospital  near  here,  she  tried  in  vain  to  resist  the 
temptation  of  leading  their  talk  down  into  detail.  The  way  to  pre- 
serve the  charm  unbroken  would  be  to  let  him  go  on  talking.  She 
might  learn  more  about  the  post-graduate  course  and  find  out  what 
it  meant  and  what  part  of  the  London  medical  world  it  was;  the 
whole  of  the  London  medical  world  was  being  transformed  by  this 
man  into  something  simple  and  joyful.  But  the  eager  words  had 
escaped  her — oh;  that's  the  one  with  the  glorious  yarn — Tell  me 
the  yarn  he  chuckled  gently,  showing  a  row  of  strong  squarish 
brilliant  teeth.  Well,  she  said  the  big  surgeons  were  operating 
and  the  patient  was  collapsing  and  one  said  I  think  it  is  time  we 
called  in  Divine  aid.     Nonsense  said  the  other  I  don't  believe  in 


28  The    Little    Review 


unqualified  assistants.  'J'hat's  great  he  declared;  that's  one  of 
the  greatest  yarns  I've  heard.  I  shan't  forget  it.  He  was  not 
shocked  and  she  had  told  the  story  as  evenly  and  as  much  without 
emphasis  as  he  would  have  done  himself.  She  suddenly  realised 
that  this  was  the  way  to  say  things.  It  made  no  pause  and  did  not 
disturb  anything.  She  was  learning  from  him  every  moment.  He 
was  utterly  different  to  the  men  she  knew.  He  did  not  resent 
her  possession  of  the  story  nor  attempt  to  cap  it.  You've  got 
some  very  great  men  over  here  he  said;  some  of  the  very  greatest. 
When  Mrs.  Bailey  came  up  at  half  past  twelve  he  accepted  his 
candle  and  thanked  her  gravely  and  gravely  took  his  leave.  When 
the  door  of  the  little  back  room  had  closed  Miriam  confronted 
Mrs.  Bailey  again.  They  stood  smiling  at  each  other.  Well  we 
must  go  to  bed  said  Miriam  at  last.  Mrs.  Bailey  turned  out  the 
gas  v/ith  a  laugh.  They  moved  into  the  hall  and  hurried  off 
laughing  in  oi)positc  directions.  Mrs.  Bailey  trotted  down  the 
basement  stairs  humming  a  tune.  Your  Barker  and  your  Horsley 
mused  Miriam  slackening  her  speed  on  the  stairs.  The  sound  of 
the  low  quiet  glad  confident  voice  steadying  the  aspect  of  the  world 
and  a  strange  new  sense  of  the  London  medical  world  dotted  by 
men  who  were  world-famous  approached  from  afar,  reverently,  for 
specialist  training,  by  already  qualified  medical  men,  competed  to- 
gether within  her  as  she  prepared  for  bed,  going  serenely  through 
all  the  tiresome  little  processes.  Something  in  the  centre  of  life 
had  steadied  and  clarified.  It  sent  a  radiance  like  sunlight  through 
all  the  endless  processes  of  things;  even  a  ragged  tooth-brush  was 
a  part  of  the  sunlit  scene;  not  unnoticed,  or  just  dismal  and  threat- 
ening, but  a  part  of  the  sunlit  scene. 

{to  be  continued) 


. 


The.  Little    Review 


29 


A   SENTIMENTAL   SCHEME 
by  Emanuel  Carnevali 

SHE  is  a  sweet. 
It's  the  man  w^ho  is  ferocious  and  a.  savage,  poor  sad  man,  they 
didn't  give  him  any  motherly  care  at  all. 
But  she's  a  sweet. 

He  wants  to  drag  her,  ferociously,  into  his  cave — you  must 
excuse  him:  he  wants  to  make  a  statue  of ^ Death  and  there  is  no 
other  model,  there  was  no  other  model  when  the  open  sun  had 
burnt  out  or  scorched  or  melted  all  the  other  girls. 

But  she  went  around  on  a  morning  and  having  found  a  simpli- 
fied little  flower  she  sat  down  'by  it  and  she's  smiling  still,  sitting 
down  by  the  flower. 

Flowers  and  chips  of  sunlight  and  grey  pebbles  shame  the  fu- 
rious will-to-do  of  the  man,  so  he  hides  his  head  in  the  day  and  at 
night  only  he  lifts  a  frowning  face  to  the  stars.  Poor  boy,  he  loved 
"the  stars  and  they  deceived  him,  and  as  he  loves  them  still  he  frowns 
at  them  in  the  night  and  shrieks  "Flirts!"  He  shrieks,  but  his 
heart  is  as  lonely  as  a  leafless  tree  standing  companionless  over  the 
shroud  of  the  dunes. 

Now  the  time  has  come  for  the  last  fight.  He  has  the  good 
chance  of  seeing  a  darkness  in  the  eyes  of  her  and  from  that  dark- 
ness images  of  death  arose  'before  the  hungry  hands  of  the  man. 
That's  the  only  reason  he  is  still  after  her. 

Once  she  stood,  shamefully  naked,  before  the  cave  of  the  man 
and  sang: 

I  shall  laugh  until 

your  heart  be 

a  dark  accompaniment 

to  the  shrill  and  thin  music  of  my  teeth. 

Then  I'll  go, 

then  I'll  go 

away. 

I'm  shaking  this  bouquet, 

I'm  shaking — ^don't  you   see? — this  bouquet; 

to  make  you  come  out  of  there. 

Then  you  can  have  tha  bouquet, 

spoiled  for  your  sake, 

and  I'll  go  gather 

other  and  more  flowers. 


30  The    Little    Review 


I'll  make  a  kid  of  you, 

yDu'll  follow  me; 

Follow,  follow, 

in  the  cortege 

of  the  Fairy  Queen 

whom  children  follow. 
Hut  the  time  for  Fairy  Queens  was  shut  in  the  graves  of  books, 
so  the  man  smiled  pleasantly.  And  he  smiled  well.  Because  he 
knew  .no  Fairy  Queen  to  have  ever  had  legs  as  beautiful  as  the 
old  whore  Death.  He  was  proud  of  his  love,  his  unrequited  love, 
and  he  was  waiting  for  his  love.  His  old  love  would  come  and  lie 
down  by  him  and  say  not  a  word,  his  old  love  would  be  a  rock  to 
echo  his  last  word — that  is  what  he  thought. 

He  thought  so.  and  he  waited,  his  last  word  gripped  within  the 
fist  of  his  dry  heart,  smiling. 

It  takes  indeed  a  strong  man  to  smile  in  such  circumstances, 
and  the  girl  knew  she  was  beaten  at  her  own  game. 


ADVICE  TO  A  BUTTER-CUP 
by  Maxwell  Bodenheim 

Undistinguished  butter-cup 
Lost  among  myriads  of  others. 
To  the  red  ant  eyeing  you 
You  are  giant  stillness. 
He  ])auscs  on  the  boulder  of  a  clod, 
■  liaffled  by  your  nearness  to  the  sky. 
But  to  the  black  loam  at  your  feet 
You  arc  the  atom  of  a  pent-up  dream. 

Undistinguished  butter-cup. 
Draw  your  lone  breath  of  contemplation 
Undisturbed  by  haughty  tricks  of  space. 
Form  is  but  a  loftily  clownish  gown 
U]>on  the  limbs  of  stillness. 


I 


The    Little    Review  31 


GOD  BLESS  THE   BOTTLE 
by  John  Rodker 

A  REMOTE  and  hitherto  untouched  aspect  of  man  is  his  relation 
to  the  bottle  as  vehicle.  The  philosopher,  engaged  in  an  instinc- 
tive process  of  denigrating  his  fellows  ,begins  to  see  man  as  a  more 
than  laborious  ant  appurtenance  of  an  indubitable  egg;  occasion  for 
sudden  alarms  and  heroisms.  Story  has  it  that  ringed  by  fire  in- 
stinctive processes  madden  him,  make  him  swallow  his  burden, 
knowing  that  still  it  will  persist  in  the  heart  of  the  race.  The 
unexpected  oblation  fills  him  with  strange  intoxication.  Whether  the 
brain  grew  spongier  or  sudden  contractions  exuded  new  and  never 
^before  envisaged  possibilities  is  the  problem  set  before  us. 

Nevertheless  there  would  seem  to  be  no  occasion  of  life 
without  its  bottle.  In  at  the  front  door,  out  at  the  back,  life  itself 
could  not  be  more  simple.  These  bottles  are  of  as  many  species 
as  they  who  minister;  relieving  them  of  the  burden  of  a  self-suf- 
ficient existence.  From  the  expansible  djinn  of  a  carboy  to  the 
drawf  (atom  moulded  to  bottle  shape  for  the  dolls'  service)  they 
range  with  an  equal-relative  density,  the  thousandfold  refined  essen- 
ces of  science  attain  to  an  homeopathic  dose.  To  all  these  man 
responds.  This  test  of  man  as  G.  C.  M.  should  once  and  for  all 
prove  his  adaptibility  placing  him  anywhere  in  an  infinite  descend- 
ing and  ascending  series.  Des  Esseintes  has  never  been  that  exotic 
the  90's  found  him,  for  all  men  are  his  peersT 

As  a  detonator  for  the  dramatic  that  jigger  embedded  by  a 
benign  providence  so  close  under  the  skin  of  strong  and  weak 
the  bottle  is  of  course  without  parallel.  The  little  heart  begins 
pumping,  the  moderately  large  blood  streams  race,  the  little  brain 
flops  all  over  the  place;  a  corner  begins  to  chatter  like  the  whir- 
ring of  a  dynamo.  One  is  flung  off  at  a  tangent  plotted  equidistant 
to  time  and  space  with  geometrically  increasing  velocity.  This 
you  will  admit  is  considerably  more  to  the  point  than  all  the  bombs 
improvised  out  of  empty  bottle,  powder  and  rusty  nails,  and  the 
mode  of  ingestion  is  by  so  much«the  more  dignified.  The  analqgy 
is  that  of  a  water  mattress.  What  was  empty  swells,  assumes  the 
vertical,  rigidity,  even  gives  itself  airs;  is  no  longer  the  creature 
of  circumstance.  It  has  become  rock-like  in  comparison.  Why  in- 
troduce a  brain  which  now  assumes  merely  its  real  and  eternal  func- 
tion of  emanation.    That  is  so  much  to  the  good. 


32 T  h$    Lit  tig    Review 

Divagations  in  the  manner  of  the  Purple  Pilens  need  not  de- 
tain us,  but  half  a  dozen  bottles  passed  out  of  the  back  door  with 
a  hollow  gurgle  of  the  belly  is  more  dispiriting  than  any  carcase — ■ 
for  here  was  that  indubitable  afflatus  which  makes  man  so  rare  a 
creature,  just  as  the  completeness  of  its  lack  makes  man  more  vege-  ^ 
table  than  phanerogams,  more  salt  than  a  mineral.  '  • 

And  there  are  certain  human  essences  Science  would  do  well 
to  bottle.     Musk  is  not  so  far  removed  as  certain  flower  essences. 

I  have  met  people  whose  essences  attain  vast  proportions  in 
rooms,  themselves  as  tight  as  any  spider  in  the  centre  web  de- 
ployed around  them. 


POEMS 

by    Mark    Turbyfill 

A    Young    Man     Talking    About    a 

Woman 

{To  J.  S.) 
I 

SHE  is  touched  with  a  beauty  the  sere  of  reeds  by  an  old  water.  > 

Her  being  is  of  a  duality:   the  idea  that  waits  unconquered,  ; 

in  and  beyond  a  vast  ice;  of  the  fine  sharp  green  which  wakes  in  .' 

young  shoots  at  the  base  of  trees  she  is  impelled,  and  given  motive.  ^ 

Slowly  we   have  walked   together,   knowing   the  meaning  of  ''., 

earth,  and  small  twigs.  i 

II 

I  am  the  surprised  young  man,  light  walker  on  night-lawns. 

My  mind  is  the  mould  into  which  has  fallen  the  beauty  of 
things. 

Pour  into  me  your  metal,  your  tears,  and  phases  in  queer 
places,  and  I  will  give  them  back  to  you  in  little  shining  shapes 
and  patterns. 


T ke    Little    Review  33 


III 

She  is  a  woman  older,  and  more  wise  than  L 

Her  mind  is  the  channel  without  form,  through  which  beauty 
has  raged. 

Through  her  no  kindling  thought  has  crytalized  in  jewel  or 
phrase. 

Yet  I  can  not  say  that  the  storm  has  eluded,  or  defied  her, 
for  she  is  of  the  storm. 

IV 

Our  moments  have  tangled  themselves'  in  odd  rhythms,  and  in 
resolving  cadences  we  have  spent  our  days. 

How  many  hours  have  we  dreamed  to  the  curve  of  this  or  that 
song! 

How  many  dreartis  woven  in  the  color  of  a  red  persimmon 
moon! 

When  shall  we  have  unravelled  the  strange  cadence  of  love  as 
we  have  known  it?.  .  .  . 

V 

As  for  me,  the  months  have  brought  no  added  wisdom. 
(I  have  suffered  the  malady  of  becoming  mature!) 
Already  resignation — willingness  a  little  mellow — comes  sub- 
tly, secretly,  working  its  ravages.  .  .  . 

A  little  wearing  away,  and  a  little  wearing  down.  .  .  . 
Will  the  sense  of  form  endure? 

VI 

She  is  wise  but  unfettered  with  wisdom. 

(Somewhere  white  violets  are  springing  large  and  single  on  a 
hill. 

I  should  like  to  find  a  sort  that  grow  stark  amid  ice.) 

Somewhere  in  her  consciousness  repose  the  isolated  virtues  of 
duality.        ^ 

Violets  and  daisies  there  do  not  together  bring  forth  the  hya- 
cinth; but  each  is  each,  single,  shape  for  shape,  and  primitive. 


34  T  he    Lit  tie    Review 

Fragment    of    Vision 
^  {To  J.  S.) 

Creation  is  the  thought  of  spring: 
Loveliness  falling,  "  i 

Calling  a  semi-circle  of  action 
To  respond  in  completion: 
Flowers  ascending  through  rain. 

The  texture  of  your  mind 

And  the  flavor  of  your  consciousness 

Intact  remain.  ' 

We  walked  in  a  broad  space 
And  to  us  it  was  revealed:  that 
Afted  the  rainbow  fades. 
After  the  fringe  of  rain, 
After  cloud-shapes  vanish, 
Their  imprint  clings  forever. 

It  was  not  the  stripped  plane  of  land, 

Nor  the  stretch  of  sea  beyond, 

Nor  the  sting  of  lime  from  sand  and  shell 

That  fell  on  everything — 

Not  the  fierce  unheeded  sweep 

Of  two  convergent  figures 

Meeting  by  chance  against  the  sky. 

These  physical  things 
Have  shifted  now  to  other  springs. 
Only  the  untouched  forms  of  daisies 
Resist  translation  to  changing  phases. 


liTTLE  REVIEW 


Editor: 

Margaret  Anderson 

Foreign   Editors: 

John    Rodker  Jules   Romains 

Advisory    Board: 
jh 

DISCUSSION 

^dington's    Images    of    Desire 
y  Mary  Butts 

rHE  images  of  Mr.  Richard  Adlington's  desire  shows  the  per-, 
ceptipn  that  the  chief  value  of  love  is  not  the  loved  one  but 
le  unique  state  of  being,  tlie  sense  of  power  she  evokes  in  us. 

Women  put  on  hats  and  gowns  with  trains,  men  create  theo- 
gies  and  the  ritual  of  games  to  the  same  end,  the  extension  of 
rsonality;  and  to  enjoy  the  series  of  states  from  well  being  to 
jStasy  this  extension  gives.  Love  is  the  best  device,  but  among 
tain  lovers  this  "grande  egoisme  seul"  is  crossed  with  a  divided 
ention.  There  is  a  curiosity  as  to  the  real  nature  and  habits  of 
beloved,  even  a  generosity  which  would  enquire  whether  the 
,n  or  the  woman  is  satisfied. 
Out   of   a  sincere   passion   of   this  quality   these   poems   are 


36  The    Little    Review 


made.  Conceptions  of  love  and  proportions  are  in  transition.  Ec- 
stasy is  modified  by  affection  made  hesitant  by  a  modesty  of  mind. 
In  the  dedication  he  writes — "Though  I  have  given  you  all 
of  myself,  what  have  I  gained?.  .  .  Can  I  be  glad  seeing  the  life 
weariness  in  your  eyes?."  This  turns  into  an  evasion  of  sentimenr" 
"fjuiees  comme  les  vieux  gants!"  "To  be  loved  is  nothing,  to  re-/ 
ceive  is  nothing.  If  you  seeks  happiness,  love  and  give".  .  .  In 
"An  Interlude"  he  has  oibserved  the  stations  of  a  passions,  but  the 
naive  poems  that  follow  are  spoilt  by  sophisticated  phrasing.  To 
write  plainly  about  the  body  of  one's  lover  it  should  not  be  neces- 
sary to  use  images  which  are  Museum  pieces  of  literary  associa- 
tion— crushed  flowers  and  asps  and  Lesbia's  eyes. 

Her  body  is  honey  and  wheat 

The  taste  of  her  mouth  is  delicate 
Her  eyes  overcome  me  with  desire 

Her  feet  are  a  woman's. 

This  poem  is  a  good  moving  piece  of  sentiment.     It  is  Solomocj 
speaking  with  the  "all  in"  rhetoric  of  Hebrew  erotics.     It  has  pre- 
cision and  weight  and  conveys  longing.     In  "Daybreak"  he  use] 
the  Flecker ised  "ghazel": 

Not  all  the  blood  of  all  our  dead,  the  bright  gay  blood  so  gaily  she 
Shines  with  so  cleaf  a  glow  as  gleams  your  breast  flower  from  ou 

candid  bed  w^ 

So  on  to  the  war.    Passion  hurries  through  the  paces  of  the  poerffe 
to  its  finale.    The  pleasure  is  broken  off  clean,  the  emotion  is  ba 
and  carries. 


I  would  not  have  her  pine  and  weep, 
I  would  not  have  her  love  again — 
Whatever  comes  after  I  die 
There  will  be  only  pain  and  pain. 


pill 


In  the  decent  stoicism  of  the  epilogue  pleasure  is  buried  with  a  ho  I 
of  recurrence.  It  will  recur.  Similar  things  will  be  said  about 
But  in  the  epilogue  the  most  sincere  and  competent  poet  of  11 
group  has  summarised  with  an  emotional  sincerity  that  gives  bejj 
ty.  his  realisation  that  this  is  a  very  bad  universe  whose  chf 
mitigation  is  love.  It  is  something  to  say  of  love  poetry  that  thil 
is  not  a  poem  in  the  book  which  has  not  the  same  quality  of  sf^^'o 
cerity. 


The    Little    Review  37 

A    Maker 

by  William  Carlos  Williams 

IT  never  fails  to  anger  me  when  I  have  read  ten  paragraphs  of 
hair-splitting  argument  in  this  or  that  modern  paper  of  literary- 
pretensions  to  come  to  the  end  and  find  it  is  a  book  boost.  The" 
trick  seems  to  be  to  air  a  nurhber  of  more  or  less  pleasant  fancies 
and  then  to  refer  casually  at  the  end  to  a  new  book  by  Mr.  Soandso. 
I  have  a  definite  and  constant  determination  to  set  up  in  hisr 
place  the  man  whom  I  find  to  be  a  poet  and  to  revile  and  beat 
down  endemic  critics  such  as  the  Louis  Untermeyrs  who  leave  their 
pock  marks  wherever  they  are  given  an  inch  of  entry  and  who  are 
opposed  to  my  excellences.  What  if  I  do  not  succeed?  What 
if  I  am  wrong  in  my  judgments?  To  the  full  of  my  power  I  intend 
to  maintain  my  fight  as  long  as  I  live.  This  is  no  time  to  quibble 
over  nice  merits  or  demerits. 

Wiallace_Goul_d  is  an  exquisite  performer  upon  his  instrument. 
By  his~mstrument  I  mean  his  Maine.  I  have  said  my  say  against 
"the  chance  lovely  singers"  who  pipe-  up  and  do  conventional  dit- 
ties in  Wyoming  or  Texas  or  Delaware  or  Nebraska,  taking  in 
the  ready  scenery  of  the  place,  and  whose  poetry  is  judged  to  be 
excellent  by  the  "connoisseurs"  because  it  is  so  charming.  Wallace 
Gould  is  not  one  of  these.  Yes,  he  sticks  to  what  he  sees,  what  he 
knows,  but  the  quiet  scorn  of  his  music  has  set  him  free.  He  is 
free  in  form,  since  any  other  freedom  for  an  artist  does  not  exist, 
free  to  turn  his  emotion  into  the  use  he  sees  fit  to  put  it  to  with- 
out a  thread  to  bind  it  upon  some  sterile  track. 

If  he  is  lovely  in  his  portrayal  of  a  landscape,  always  a  pure 
Vlaine  landscape,  one  had  better  be  on  his  guard  for  that  pigment 
s  in  the  hands  of  a  master.  If  you  dare  to  praise  him  for  his 
oveliness  you  will  find  out  that  he  has  perhaps  turned  you  around 
n  the  dark  and  soon  you  are  out  of  the  house  by  the  back  way. 
The  artist  throughout  everything  is  conscious  and  working  at  his 
mages  with  unerring  leisure  and  often  with  horrid  intention. 

This  is  the  thing  that  no  tissue  paper  critic  can  stand.     That 
tn  artist  should  be  a  man  of  power;  that  he  should  use  a  catbird 
0  proclaim  the  death  of  the  whole  world;  that  he  should  be  such 
mean  fellow  as  to  befool  the  poor  critic  who  has  been  trying  so 
ard  to  explain  things — 

I  am  not  writing  of  a  book,  though  book  there  must  be  when  a 
ublisher  shall  have  emerged;  I  am  writing  of  certain  manuscripts 


38 The    Lit  tie    Review 

of  Gould's  which  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  hold  in  my  hands  and 
read  through  and  more  especially  to  poems  published  in  Others 
and  the  Little  Review. 

An  artist  of  immaculate  craft  Gould  is.  But  I  have  another  ^ 
reason  for  praising  him.  It  is  because  he  has  stuck  to  what  he 
'  knows  for  his  songs.  No  artist  cares  a  damn  where  a  matu  comes 
from  or  how  he  comes  by  the  knowledge  of  perceptive  values  he 
uses  in  his  work.  But  to  me  there  is  an  overwhelming  satisfaction 
in  feeling  that  a  man  can  be  a  poet  under  any  circumstances  and 
that  this  has  not  removed  him  from  his  world  but  has  fastened  him 
upon  it  with  such  a  deadly  grip  that  he  has  transformed  it  in  spite 
of  itself. 

It  is  for  the  poet  to  announce  that  no  condition  can  change 
him,  that  be  he  American,  Russian  Chinese,  Jew  he  is  poet  first, 
last  and  always.  But  one  way  of  announcing  this  is  to  take  any- 
thing, take  the  land  at  your  feet  and  use  it.  It  is  as  good  material 
as  another.  It  is  no  better  but  it  is  as  good.  In  fact  the  material 
is  nothing.  But  to  prove  it  is  nothing  one  must  no  depend  on 
special  circumstance,  one  must  use  it. 

It  might  one  day  become  imperative  for  a  man  to  write  of  some 
environment  foreign  to  his  own  provided  the  use  of  his  own  had 
grown  to  be  a  fetish;  but  Gould's  heroic  battle,  his  determination  to 
use  nothing  but  his  Maine,  at  least  in  the  poems  I  speak  of,  gives 
me  an  additional  sense  of  joy  in  his  mastery. 

Poetry  is  made  by  the  hands  of  the  poet  out  of  nothing: 
This  must  be  continually  proclaimed.    Not  only  must  the  assertion 
be  made  to  a  possible  public  but  there  must  be  a  proclamation  by 
the  poet  to  himself  which  is  far  more  important.     Then  for  God'f 
sake  let  us  proclaim   to  ourselves   that   it   isn't   made   out   of   th« 
brains  of  Frenchmen,  Englishmen  or  dead  Greeks.     Poetry  is  as 
fully  at  home  in  the  woodsy  brain  of  Wallace  Gould  as  in  anothe; 
man's  living  in  Teheran.    I  for  one  am  inspired  to  feel  the  presenc<||)f 
of  so  capable  an  artist  north  of  me,  a  man  full  of  quietness  agi 
love  and  bitterness  and  infinite  bravery  and  pointed  scorn  for  th* 
world  of  jackasses.  , 

—  I  have  nowhere  said  that  Gould  is  a  great  poet.     I  wish 

could  find   the  material   for  making  such   an  assertion.     I   dojii 
know  the  man's  range.    I  only  begin  to  feel  the  depth  of  his  inte^ 
sity,  but  that  he  is  a  splendid  artist  I  declare  now  as  well  as  iJ"; 
am  able.  'M^^ 


The   Little   Review  39 


[Editor's  no\e:  Disagreeing  with  most  of  Dr.  Williams's  ar- 
'ticle,  as  with  Marsden  Hartley's  last  month,  I  shall  try  to  carry  for- 
ward this  discussion  in  the  September  number;  not  that  I  wish  to 
use  Wallace  Gould's  poetry  as  a  special  point  of  debate,  but  that  I 
am  interested  in  "putting  over"  certain  abstractions  about  art  which 
most  people  in  this  country  seem  to  look  upon  as  unintelligible. 
—M  C.  A.^ 


N^o  t  e  s 

by  John  Rodker 

THE  end  of  the  war  sees  a  great  deal  of  artistic  activity  on  this 
side,  but  of  an  excessively  diffuse  nature.  Art  and  Letters 
which  made  some  stir  with  a  first  number  containing  Wjmdham 
Lewis's  long  story  "The  War  Baby,"  in  its  second  number  dished 
up  a  feeble  mush  of  Beardsley's  Venus  and  Tannhauser.  A  newer 
"venture,  Coterie,  contains  an  excellent  poem  by  T.  S.  Eliot,  and 
one  or  two  other  names,  among  them  T.  W.  Earp,  though  badly 
represented.  The  Athenaeum  is  a  rather  solid  weekly  now  being 
edited  by  J.  Middleton  Murry  and  contains  good  critical  stuff  by 
Eliot,  James  and  Lytton  Strachey  and  Aldous  Huxley.  It  is  about 
the  only  weekly  with  some  constructive  literary  standard. 

In  the  theatre  the  newest  upstarts  are  the  Art  Theatre,  directed 
by  Madame  Donnet,  and  tfife  Everyman  Theatre.  The  former  made 
its  debut  with  a  first  performance  of  Tchekhoff's  "Seagull."  After 
a  manifesto  which  reads 

"The  aim  of  the  Art  Theatre  is  to  unite  under  one  roof  and 
under  one  direction  all  the  various  allied  arts  necessary  for  the 
proper  expression  of  Drama.  In  the  productions  equal  care  will 
be  bestowed  upon  ensemble  and  upon  the  individual  interpretation 
of  each  part."  .  .  .  the  show  was  trifling.  The  play  was  badly  pro- 
duced; the  cast,  drawn  from  revue  and  musical  comedy,  worked 
badly  together — there  was  no  ensemble  in  fact  and  the  setting  was 
paltry.  One  hopes  the  wealthy  patron  was  pleased.  This  waste 
of  public  money  is  however  very  trying.  The  Everyman  Theatre 
is  anxious  to  raise  a  preliminary  8000  pounds  apparently  to  produce 
Dunsany's  plays  and  those  of  others  unspecified — Ibsen  seems  to  be 
indicated  and  Rann  Kennedy.  John  Drinkwater,  Gilbert  Cannan 
and  Bernard  Shaw  have  been  lecturing  for  the  venture  so  no  doubt 
they  are  to  be  included.     They  have  a  paper  called  Theatrecrajt, 


40  The    Little    Review 

a  symposium  of  ill  assorted  names  with  no  coherence  of  aim. 

'J'he  Arts  Lcaj^ue  of  Service  will  it  is  hoped  do  better.  Wynd- 
ham  Lewis  and  Wadworth  are  on  the  committee,  though  the  other 
names  seem  chiefly  to  be  distinguished  by  a  benficient  liberalism. 
The  preamble  says  the  usual  things.  As  an  artistic  Trades  Union 
it  should  be  powerful. 

PASTORAL 

» 

by  Louis  Gilmore 

That 

Is  inimitable 

Pantomine 

Of  the  cage 

And  this 

Figure 

All  melancholy 

In  the  corner 

Is  Florizel 

01;)serve 
That  Florizel 
Is  no  child 
And  he  no  longer 
Scratches   for  fleas 

Either 
^  He  is  in  love 

.  '  Or  it  is  spring 


(, 


T  he    Lit  tie    Review  41 


ULYSSES 

by  James  Joyce 
E  p  i  s  o.d  e    XI. 

Bronze  by  gold  heard  the  hoofirons,  steelyringing. 

Imperthnthn  thnthnthn. 

Chips,  picking  chips  off  rocky  thumbnail,  chips. 

Horrid!     And  gold  flushed  more. 

A  husky  fifenote  blew. 

Blew.     Blue  bloom  is  on  the 

Gold  pinnacled  hair.  ' 

A  jumping  rose  on  satiny  breasts  of  satin,  rose  of  Castile. 

Trilling,  trilling:  Idolores. 

Peep!     Who's  in  the peepofgold? 

Tink  cried  to  bronze  in  pity. 

And  a  call,  pure,  long  and  throbbing.    Longindying  call. 

Decoy.     Soft  word.     But  look!     The  bright  stars  fade.     O  rose! 

Notes  chirruping  answer.     Castile.     The  morn  is  breaking. 

Jingle  jingle  jaunted  jingling. 

Coin  rang.     Clock  clacked. 

Avowal.     Sonnez.     I  could.     Rebound  of  garter.     Not  leave  thee. 

Smack,    La  cloche!     Thigh  smack.    Avowal.    Warm.     Sweetheart, 

goodbye !  \ 

Jingle.     Bloo 

Boomed  crashing  chords.     When  love  absorbs.  War!     War!     The 

tympanum. 

A  sail!     A  veil  awave  upon  the  waves. 

Lost.     Throstle  fluted.     All  is  lost  now. 

Horn.     Hawhorn. 

When  first  he  saw.    Alas! 

Full  tup.     Full  throb. 

Warbling.     Ah,  lure!     Alluring. 

Martha!     Come! 

Clapclop.     Clipclap.     Clappyclap. 

Goodgod  henev  erheard  inall 

Deaf  bald  Pat  brought  pad  knife  took  up. 

A  moonlit  hightcall :   far:   far. 

I  feel  so  sad.     P.  S.  .     So  lonely  blooming. 

Listen ! 

The  spiked  and  winding  cold  seahorn.     Have  you  the?     Each  and 


42         The    Little    Review 

for  other  plash  and  silent  roar. 

Pearls:  when  she.    Liszt's  rhapsodies.    Hissss. 

You  don't? 

Did  not:  no,  no:  believe:  Lidlyd.    With  a  cock  with  a  carra. 

Black. 

Dcepsounding.     Do,  Ben,  do. 

Wait  while  you  wait.    Hee  hee.    Wait  while  you  hee. 

Buf  wait! 

Low  in  dark  middle  earth.  Embedded  ore. 

Naminedamine.     All  gone.     All  fallen. 

Tiny,  her  tremulous  fernfoils  of  maidenhair. 

Amen!     He  gnashed  in  fury. 

Fro.    To,  fro.    A  baton  cool  protruding. 

Bronzelydia  by  Minagold. 

By  bronze,  by  gold,  in  oceangreen  of  shadow.    Bloom.    Old  Bloom. 

One  rapped,  one  tapped  with  a  carra,  with  a  cock. 

Pray  for  him!     Pray,  good  people! 

His  gouty  fingers  nakkering. 

Big  Benaben.     Big  Benben. 

Last  rose  Castile  of  summer  left  bloom  I  feel  so  sad  alone. 

Pwee    Little  wind  piped  wee. 

True  men.     Lid  Ker  Cow  De  and  Doll.     Ay,  ay,  like  you  men. 

Will  lift  your  tschink  with  tschunk. 

Fff!  Oq^; 

Where  Sronze  from  anear?    Where  gold  from  afar?    Where  hoofs? 

Rrrpr.     Kraa.     Kraandl. 

Then,  not  till  then.    My  eppripfftaph.    Be  pfwritt. 

Done. 

Begin!  > 

Bronze   by  gold,   Miss  DoUce's   head  by   Miss   Kennedy's  head, 
over  the  crpssblind  of  the  Ormond  bar  heard  the  viceregal  hoofs 
go  by,  ringing  steel. 
— Is  that  her?     asked  Miss  Kennedy's  head. 

Miss  Douce  said  yes,  sitting  with  his  ex,  pearl  grey  and  eau 
de  Nil. 
— Exquisite  contrast.  Miss  Kennedy  said. 

When  all  agog  Miss  Douce  said  eagerly: 
— Look  at  the  fellow  in  the  tall  silk. 
— ^Who?     Where?  gold  asked  more  eagerly. 
— In  the  second  carriage,  Miss  Douce's  wet  lips  said,  laughing  in 


I  The    Little    Review  a'x 

,i ^ — 1^ 

fl  the  sun.    He's  looking.    Mind  till  I  see. . 

j         She  darted,  bronze,  to  the  backmost  corner,  flattening  her  face 
•  against  the  pane  in  ai  halo  of  hurried  breath. 
;  Her  wet  lips  tittered: 

J — He's  killed  looking  back. 
I        She  laughed : 

f| — O  wept!     Aren't  men  frightful  idiots 
jj        With  sadness. 

ij        Miss  Kennedy  sauntered  sadly  from  bright  light,  twining  a 
loose  hair  behind  an  ear.     Sauntering  sadly,  gold  no  more,  she 
:wisted  twined  a  hair.     Sadly  she  twined  in  sauntering  gold  hair 
behind  a  curving  ear. 
It's  them  has  the  fine  times,  sadly  then  she  said. 
A  man. 

Bloom  went  by  Moulang's  pipes,  bearing  in  his  breast  the 
eets  of  sin,  by  Wine's  antiques  in  memory  bearing  sweet  sinful 
ords,  by  Carroll's  dusky  battered  plate,  for  Raoul. 

.The  boots  to  them,  them  in  the  bar,  them  barmaids  came, 
or  them  unheeding  him  he  banged  on  the  counter  his  tray  of 
attering  china.     And 
There's  your  teas,  he  said. 

Miss  Kennedy  with  manners  transposed  the  teatray  down  to 
upturned  lithia  crate,  safe  from  eyes,  low 
What  is  it?  loud  boots  unmannerly  asked. 
Find  out,  Miss  Douce  retorted,  leaving  her  spyingpoint. 
Your  beau,  is  it? 

A  haughty  bronze  replied: 
I'll  comolain  to -Mrs.  de  Massey  on  you  if  I  hear  any  more  of 
ur  impertinent  insolence. 

mperthnthn  thnthnthn,  bootsnout  sniffed  rudely,  as  he  retreat- 
as  she  threatened  as  he  had  come. 
^'  I    Bloom. 
Moij|    On  her  flower  frowning  Miss  Douce  said: 

ost  aggravating  that  young  brat  is.     If  he   doesn't  conduct 
self  I'll  wring  his  ear  for  him  a  yard  long. 
iif''^|       Ladylike  in  exquisite  contrast. 

ake  no  notice.  Miss  Kennedy  rejoined. 

She  poured  in  a  teacup  tea,  then  back  in  the  teapot  tea.  They 

ered  under  their  reef  of  counter,  waiting  on  footstools,  crates 

rned,    waiting    for    their    teas -to  draw.     They    pawed  their 

cs,  both  of  black  satin,  two  and  nine  a  yard,  waiting  for  their 

iP'-n?"'!  to  draw,  and  two  and  seven. 


44  T  h  e    Lit  tie    Review 


Y€s,  bronze  from  anear,  by  gold,  from  afar,  heard  steel,  from 
anear,  hoofs  ring,  from  afar,  and  heard  steel  hoofs  ringhoof  ring- 
steel. 
— Am  I  awfully  sunburnt? 

Miss  bronze  unbloused  her  neck. 
— No,  said  Miss  Kennedy.     It  gets  ^rown  after.     Did  you  try  the 
borax  with  the  cherry  laurel  water? 

Miss  Douce  halfstood  to  see  her  skin  askance  in  the  barmirror 
where  hock  and  claret  glasses  shimmered  and  in  their  midst  a 
shell. 

— And  leave  it  to  my  hands,  she  said. 
— Try  it  with  the  glycerine,  Miss  Kennedy  advised. 

Bidding  her  neck  and  hands  adieu  Miss  Douce 
— Those  things  only  bring  out  a  rash,  replied,  reseated.     I  asked 
that  old  fogey  in  Boyd's  for  something  for  my  skin. 

Miss  Kennedy,  pouring  now  fulldrawn  tea,  grimaced  and 
prayed : 

— O,  don't  remind  me  of  him  for  mercy'  sake! 
— But  wait  till  I  tell  you,  Miss  Douce  entreated. 

Sweet  tea  Miss   Kennedy  having  poured  with  milk   plugged  \ 
both  two  ears  with  little  fingers. 
— No,  don't,  she  cried. 
— I  won't  listen,  she  cried. 

But  Bloom? 

Miss  Douce  grunted  in  snuffy  fogey's  tone: 
— P'or  youf  what?  says  he. 

Miss  Kennedy  unplugged  her  ears  to  hear,  to  speak:  but  said  J 
but  prayed  again:  '4 

— Don't  let  me  think    of  him    or  I'll    expire.      The  hideous    oldjj 
wretch!     That  night  in  the  Antient  Concert  Rooms. 

She   sipped    distastefully   her   brew,    hot    tea,    a    sip,    sipp 
sweet  tea. 

— Here  he  was.  Miss  Douce  said,  cocking  her  bronze  head  thr€ 
quarters,  ruffling  her  nosewings.     Hufa!     Hufa! 

Shrill  shriek  of  laughter  sprang  from  Miss  Kennedy's  throa(;(iJ 
Miss  Douce  huffed  and  snorted  down  her  nostrils  that  quiverc 
imperthnthn  like  a  snout  in  quest.  Ips 

— O!    shrieking,  Miss  Kennedy  cried.     Will   you  ever   forget  h«Ji 
goggle  eye?  f|H: 

Miss  Douce  chimed  in  in  deep  bronze  laughter,  shouting: 
— And  your  other  eye! 

Bloom's  dark  eye  read  Aaron  Figatner's  name.     Why  doj 


The    'Little    Review  45 

always  think  Figather?  Gathering  figs  I  think.  And  Prosper 
Lore's  huguenot  name.  By  Bassi's  blessed  virgins  Bloom's  dark 
eyes  went  by.  Bluerobed,  white  under,  come  to  me.  God  they 
believe  she  is:  or  goddess.  Those  today.  I  could  not  see.  That 
fellow  spoke.  A  student.  After  with  Dedalus'  son.  He  might  be 
Mulligan.  All  comely  virgins.  That  brings  those  rakes  of  fellows 
in:  her  white. 

By  went  his  eyes.    The  sweet  of  sin,  Sweet  are  the  sweets. 

Of  sin. 

In  a  giggling  peal  young  goldbronze  voices  blended.  Douce  with 
Kennedy,  your  other  eye.  They  threw  young  heads  back,  bronze 
by  gold,  to  let  freefly  their  laughter,  screaming,  your  other,  signals 
to  each  other,  high  piercing  notes. 

Ah,  panting,  sighing,  sighing,  ah,  fordone  their  mirth  died 
down. 

Miss  Kennedy  lipped  her  cup  again,  raised  drank  a  sip.  Miss 
Douce,  bending  again  over  the  teatray,  ruffled  again  her  nose  and 
rolled  droll  fattened  eyes.  Again  Miss  Kennedy,  stooping  her  fair 
pinnacles  of  hair,  stooping,  her  tortoise  napecomb  showed,  splut- 
tered out  of  her  mouth  her  tea,  choking  in  tea  and  laughter,  cough- 
ing with  choking,  crying: 

■ — 0  greasy  eyes!  Imagine  being  married  to  a  man  like  that,  she 
cried.     With  his  bit  of  beard! 

Douce  gave  full  vent  to  a  splendid  yell,  a  full  yell  of  full 
woman,  delight,  joy,  indignation. 
— Married  to  the  greasy  nose!  she  yelled. 

Shrill,  with  deep  laughter,  after  bronze  in  gold,  they  urged 
each  each  to  peal  after  peal,  ringing  in  changes,  bronzegold  gold- 
bronze,  shrilldeep,  to  laughter  after  laughter.  And  then  laughed 
more.  Greasy  I  knows.  Exhausted,  breathless  their  shaken  heads 
they  laid,  braided  and  pinnacled  by  glossycombed  against  the 
counterledge.  All  flushed  (0!),  panting,  sweating  (O!),  all 
breathless. 

Married  to  Bloom,  to  greaseaseabloom. 
— O  saints  above!     Miss  Douce  said,  sighed  above  her  jumping 
rose. 

I  wished  I  hadn't  laughed  so  much.    I  feel  all  wet. 
— O,  Miss  Douce!     Miss  Kennedy  protested.    You  horrid  thing! 

And  flushed  yet  more,  (you  horrid!),  more  goldenly. 

By  Cantwell's  offices  roved  Greaseabloom,  by  Ceppi's  virgins, 
bright  of  their  oils.  Nannetti's  father  hawked  those  things  about, 
wheedling  at  doors.     Religion  pays,     Must  see  him  about  Keyes's 


46 The    Little    Review 

par.  Eat  first.  I  want.  Not  yet.  At  four,  she  said.  Time  ever 
passing.  Clockhands  turning.  On.  Where  eat?  The  Clarence, 
Dolphin.  On.  For  Raoul.  Eat.  If  I  net  five  guineas  with  those- 
ads.    The  violet  silk  petticoats.    Not  yet.    The  sweets  of  sin. 

Flushed  less,  still  less,  gpldenly  paled. 

Into  their  bar  strolled  Mr.   Dedalus.     Chips,  picking  chips 
off  one  of  his  rocky  thumbnails.     Chips.     He  strolled. 
— 0  welcome  back,  Mi^s  Douce. 

He  held  her  hand.    Enjoyed  her  holidays? 
— Tiptop. 

rie  hoped  she  had  nice  weather  in  Rostrevor. 
—Gorgeous,  she  said.     Look  at  the  holy  show  I  am.     Lying  out 
on  the  strand  all  day. 

Bronze  whiteness. 
— That  was  exceedingly  naughty  of  you,  Mr.  Dedalus  told  her  and 
pressed  her  hand  indulgently.     Tempting  poor  simple  males. 

Miss  Douce  of  satin  douced  her  arm  away. 
-O  go  away,  she  said.    I'm  sure  you're  very  simple. 

He  was. 
— Well  now,  I  am,  he  mused.    I  looked  so  simple  in  the  cradle  thej 
christened  me  simple  Simon. 

— Yes  I  don't  think.  Miss  Douce  made  answer.    And  what  did  tlH 
doctor  order  today? 

— Well  now,  he  mused,  whatever  you  say  yourself.  I  think  11 
trouble  you  for  some  fresh  water  and  a  half  glass  of  whisky.   | 

Jingle. 
— With  the  greatest  alacrity,  Miss  Douce  agreed. 

With  grace  of  alacrity  towards  the  mirror  she  turned  hersdi 
With  grace  she  tapped  a  measure  of  gold  whisky  from  her  crysti 
keg.  Forth  from  the  skirt  of  his  coat  Mr.  Dedalus  brought  pouc 
and  pipe.  Alacrity  she  served.  He  blew  through  the  flue  tw 
husky  fifenotes. 

— By  Jove,  he  mused.  I  often  wanted  to  see  the  Moume  moui 
tains.  Must  be  a  great  tonic  in  the  air  down  there.  But  a  Ion 
threatening  comes  at  last,  they  say.    Yes,  yes. 

Yes.  He  fingered  shreds  into  the  IdowI.  Chips,  Shred 
Musing.     Mute.  ; 

None  not  said  nothing.    Yes. 

Gaily  Miss  Douce  polished  a  tumbler,  trilling: 
— O,  Idolares,  queen  of  the  eastern  seas! 
— Was  Mr.  Lidwell  in  today? 

In  came  Lenehan.     Round  him  peered  Lenehan.     Mr.  Bl 


-I 


The    Little    Review  47 

reached  Essex  bridge.     Yes,  Mr.  Bloom  crossed  bridge  of  Yessex. 
To  Martha  I  must  write.     Buy  paper.     Daly's  Girl  there  civil. 
Bloom.    Old  Bloom.    Blue  bloom  is  on  the  rye. 
—He  was  in  at  lunchtime,  Miss  Douce  said. 

Len£han  came  forward. 
-  Was  Mr.  Boylan  looking  for  me? 

fie  asked.    She  answered: 
— Miss  Kennedy,  was  Mr.  Boylan  in  while  I  was  upstairs? 

.^he  asked.    Miss  voice  of  Kennedy  answered,  a  second  teacup 
poised,  her  gaze  upon  a  page. 
— No.     He  was  not. 

Miss  gaze  of  Kennedy,  heard  not  seen,  read  on.     Lenehan 
round  the  sandwichbell  wound  his  round  body  round. 
— Peep!     Who's  in  the  corner? 

No  glance  of  Kennedy  rewarding  him  he  yet  made  overtures. 
To  mind  her  stops.  To  read  only  the  black  ones:  round  o  and 
crooked  ess. 

Jingle  jaunty  jingle. 

Girlgold  she  read  and  did  not  glance.  Take  no  notice.  She 
took  no  notice  while  he  read  by  rote  a  solfa  fable  for  her,  plapper- 
ing  flatly: 

■ — Ah  fox  met  ah  stork.     Said  thee  fox  too  thee  stork:     Will  you 
put  your  bill  down  inn  my  troath  and  pull  upp  ah  bone? 

He  droned  in  vain.     Miss  Douce  turned  to  her  tea  aside. 

He  sighed  a  sigh: 
— Ah  rne!  O  my! 

H(.  grerled  Mr.  Dedalus  and  got  a  nod. 
— Greetings  from  the  famous  son  of  a  famous  father. 
— Who  may  he  be?     Mr.  Dedalus  asked. 

Lenehan  opened  most  genial  arms.    Who? 
— ^Can  you  ask?  he  asked.     Stephen,  the  youthful  bard. 

Dry. 

Mr.  Dedalus  famous  father  laid  by  his  dry  filled  pipe. 
—I  see,  he  said.     I  didn't  recognise  him  for  the  moment.     I  hear 
he  is  keeping  very  select  rompany.     Have  you  seen  him  lately? 

He  had. 
—I  quaffed  the  nectarbowl  with  him  this  very  day,  said  Lenehan. 
In  Mooney's  en  ville  and  in  Mooney's  sur  mer.     He  had  received 
the  rhino  for  the  labour  of  his  muse. 

He  smiled  at  bronze's  teabathed  lips,  as  listening  lips  and  eyes. 
-The   elite   of   Erin   hung  on  his  lips.    The  ponderous  pundit, 
Hugh  MacHugh,  Dublin's  most  brilliant  scribe  and  editor  and  that 


48  The    Little    Review 


minstrel  boy  of  the  wild  wet  west  who  is  known  by  the  euphonious 
appellation  of  the  O'Mudden  Hurke. 

After  an  interval  Mr.  Dedalus  raised  his  grog  and  j 

— That  must  have  been  highly  diverting,  said  he.     1  see.  's 

He  see.    He  drank.    Set  down  his  glass.  ' 

He  looked  towards  the  saloon  door.  1 

— I  see  you  have  moved  the  piano.  '  i 

— The  tuner  was  in  today,  Miss  Douce  replied,  tuning  it  for  the 
smoking  concert  and  1  never  heard  such  an  exquisite  player. 
— Is  that  a  fact? 

— Didn't  he,  Miss  Kennedy?     The  real  classical,  you  know.     And" 
blind  too,  poor  fellow.    Not  twenty  I'm  sure  he  was. 
— Is  that  a  fact?     Mr.  Dedalus  said. 

He  drank  and  strayed  away. 
— So  sad  to  look  at  his  face,  Miss  Douce  condoled.  ^ 

God's  curse  on  bitch's  bastard.  'V, 

Tink  to  her  pity  cried  a  diner's  bell.  To  the  door  of  the; 
djningroom  came  bald  Pat,  came  bothered  Pat,  came  Pat,  waiter  ofi 
Ormond.'     Lager  for  diner.     Lager  without  alacrity  she  served.  ' 

With  patience  Lffiehan  waited  for  Boylan  with  impatience, 
for  jingle  jaunty  blazes  boy. 

Upholding  the  lid  he  (who?)  gazed  in  the  coffin  (coffin?)  at 
the  oblique  triple  (piano!)  wires.  He  pressed  (the  same  who 
pressed  indulgently  her  hand),  soft  pedalling  a  triple  of  keyes  tC 
see  the  thicknesses  of  felt  advancing,  to  hear  the  muffled  hammer 
tall  in  action.  , 

Two  sheets  cream  vellum  paper  one  reserve  two  envelope 
when  I  was  in  Wisdom  Hely's  wise  Bloom  in  Daly's  Henry  Flowe 
bought.  Are  you  not  happy  in  your  home?  Flower  to  console  nn 
and  a  pin  cuts  lo.  Means  something,  language  of  f!ow.  Was  it 
daisy?  Innocence  that  is.  Respectable  girl  meet'  after  maat 
Thanks  awfully  muchly.  Wise  Bloom  eyed  on  the  door  a  postal  j,^ 
a  swaying  mermaid  smoking  mid  nice  waves.  Smoke  mermaids 
■  coolest  whiff  of  all.  Hair  streaming:  lovelorn.  For  some  mar 
For  Raoul.  He  eyed  and  s;iw  afar  on  Essex  bridge  a  gay  ht 
riding  on  a  jauntingcar.     It  is.     Third  time.  •  Coincidence. 

Jingling  on  supple  rubbers  it  jaunted  from  the  bridge  to  O. 
mond  quay.  Follow.  Risk  it.  Go  quick.  ■  At  four.  Near  no^ 
Out. 

— Twopence,  sir,  the  shopgirl  dared  to  say. 
— Aha  ....  I  was  forgetting  .  .  .  Excuse  .  .  . 
— And  four. 


The    Li  t  tl  e    Rev  lew  49 

At  four  she.  Winsomely  she  smiled  on  Bloom.  Bloo  smi  qui 
go.  Ternoon.  Think  you're  the  only  pebble  on  the  beach?  Does 
that  to  all.    For  men. 

In  drowsy  silence  gold  bent  on  her  page. 

From  the  saloon  a  call  came,  long  in  dying.  That  was  a 
tuning  fork  the  tuner  had  that  he  forgot  that  he  now  struck.  A 
call  again.  That  he  now  poised  that  it  now  throbbed.  You  hear? 
It  throbbed,  pure,  purer,  softly  and  softlier,  its  buzzing  prongs. 
Longer  in  dying  call 

Pat  paid  for  diner's  popcorked  bottle:  and  over  tumbler  tray 
and  popcorked  bottle  ere  he  went  he  whispered,  bald  and  bothered, 
with  Miss  Douce. 
— The  bright  stars  fade  .  .  . 

— A  voiceless  song  sang  from  within,  singing: 

— . the  morn  is  breaking: 

A  duodene  of  birdnotes  chirruped  bright  treble  answer  under 
sensitive  hands.     Brightly  tlie  keyes,  all  twinkling,  linked,  all  harp- 
sichording,  called  to  a  voice  to  sing  the  strain  of  dewy  morn,  of 
youth,  of  love's  leavetaking,  life's,  love's  morn. 
— The  dewdrops  pearl 

Lenehan's  lips  over  the  counter  lisped  a  low  whistle  of  decoy. 
— But  look  this  way,  he  said,  rose  of  Castile. 

Jingle  jaunted  by  the  curb  and  stopped. 

She  rose  and  closed  her  reading,   rose  of  Castile.     Fretted 
forlorn,  dreamily  rose, 
— Did  she  fall  or  was  she  pushed?    he  asked  her. 

She  answered,  slighting: 
• — Ask  no  questions  and  you'll  hear  no  lies. 

Like  lady,  ladylike. 

Blazes  Boylan's  smart  tan  shoes  creaked  on  the  barfloor  where 
he  strode.     Yes,  gold  from  anear  by  bronze  from  afar.     Lenehan 
heard  and  knew  and  hailed  him: 
— See  the  conquering  hero  comes. 

Between  the  car  and  window,  warily  walking,  went  Bloom,  un- 
conquered  hero.  See  me  he  might.  The  seat  he  sat  on:  warm. 
Black  wary  hecat  walked  towards  Richie  Goulding's  legal  bag,  lifted 
aloft,  saluting. 

■ — And  I  from  thee 

— I  heard  you  were  round,  said  Blazes  Boylan. 

He  touched  to  fair  Miss  Kennedy  a  rim  of  his  slanted  straw. 
She  smiled  on  him.  But  sister  bronze  outsmiled  her,  preening 
for  him  her  richer  hair,  a  bosom  and  a  rose. 


50  The    Little    Review 

Boylan  bespoke  ix)tions. 
— What's  your  cry?     Glass  of  bitter?     Glass  of  bitter,  please,  and 
a  sloegin  for  me.     Wire  in  yet? 

Not  yet.    At  four  he.    All  said  four. 

Cowley's  red  lugs  and  Adam's  apple  in  the  door  of  the 
sheriff's  office.  Avoid.  Goulding  a  chance.  What  is  he  doing  in 
the  Ormond?     Car  waiting.    Wait. 

"Hello.  Where  off  to?  Something  to  eat?  I  too  was  just. 
In  here.  What,  Ormond  Best  value  in  Dublin.  Is  that  so?  Din- 
ingroom.  Sit  tight  there.  See,  not  be  seen.  I  think  I'll  join  you. 
Come  on.  Richie  led  on.  Bloom  followed  bag.  Dinner  fit  for 
a  prince. 

Miss   Douce  reached  high  to   take   a  flagon,  stretching  her 
satin  arm,  her  bust. 
— O!  O!  jerked  Lenehan,  gasping  at  each  stretch.    O! 

But  easily  she  seized  her  prey  and  led  it  low  in  triumph. 
— Why  don't  you  grow?     asked  Blazes  Boylan, 

She  bronze,  dealing  from  her  jar  thick  syrupy  liquor  for  his 
lips,  looked  as  it  flowed  (flower  in  his  coat:  who  gave  him?),  and 
syrupped  with  her  voice: 
— Fine  goods  in  small  parcels. 

That  is  to  say  she.    Neatly  she  poured  slowsyrupy  sloe. 
— Here's  fortune,  Blazes  said. 

He  pitched  a  broad  coin  down.    Coin  rang. 
— Hold  on,  said  Lenehan,  till  I  .  .  .  . 
— Fortune,  he  wished,  lifting  his  bubbled  ale. 
— Sceptre  will  win  in  a  canter,  he  said. 

— I  plunged  a  bit,   said  Boylan.     Not  on  my  own,  you  know, 
Fancy  of  a  friend  of  mine. 

Lenehan  still  drank  and  grinned  at  his  tilted  ale  and  at  Mi 
Douce's  lips  that  all  but  hummed,  not  shut,  the  oceansong  her  11 
had  trilled.    Idolores.    The  eastern  seas. 

Qock  whirred.  Miss  Kennedy  passed  their  way(  flower,  won- 
der who  gave),  bearing  away  teatray.    Clock  clacked. 

Miss  Douce  took  Boylan's  coin,  struck  boldly  the  cashregister 
It  clanged.  Clock  clacked.  Fair  one  of  Egypt  teased  and  sorted 
in  the  till  and  hummed  and  handed  coins  in  change.  Look  tC 
the  west.  A  clack.  For  me. 
— What  time  is  that?    asked  Blazes  Boylan.    Four? 

O'clock. 

Lenehan,  small  eyes  ahunger  on  her  humming,  bust  ahumming 
tugged  Blazes  Boylan's  elbowsleeve. 


3 


The    Little    Review  51 


— Let's  hear  the  time,  he  said. 

The  bag  of  Goulding,  Colles,  Ward  led  Bloom  by  ryebloom 
flowered  tables.  Aimless  he  chose  with  agitated  aim,  bald  Pat 
at  ending,  a  table  near  the  door.  Be  near.  At  four.  Has  he  for- 
gotten? Perhaps  a  trick.  Not  come:  whet  appetite.  I  couldn't 
do.     Wait,  wait.    Pat,  waiter,  waited. 

Sparkling  bronze  azure  eyed  Blazes'  skyblue  bow  and  eyes. 
— Go  on,  pressed  Lenehan.     There's   no-one.     He  never  heard. 
— •  • to  Flora's  lips  did  hie 

High,  a  high  note,  pealed  in  the  treble,  clear. 

Bronzedouce,  communing  with  her  rose  that  sank  and  rose 
sought  Blazes  Boylan's  flower  and  eyes. 
— Please,  please. 

He  pleaded  over  returning  phrases  of  avowal. 

— /  could  not  leave  thee   

— ^Afterwits,  Miss  Douce  promised  coyly. 
■ — 'No,  now,  urged  Lenehan.     Sonnez  la  cloche!     0  do!       There's 
no-one. 

She  looked.  Quick.  Miss  Kenn  out  of  earshot.  Sudden 
bent.    Two  kindling  faces  watched  her  bend. 

Quavering  the  chords  strayed  from  the  air,   found  it  again, 
lost  chord,  and  lost  and  found  it  faltering. 
• — Go  on!  Do!     Sonnezf 

Bending,  she  nipped  a  peak  of  skirt  above  her  knee.  De- 
layed. Taunted  them  still,  bending,  suspending,  with  wilful  eyes. 
- — Sonnez! 

Smack.  She  let  free  sudden  in  rebound  her  nipped  elastic 
garter  smackwarm  against  her  smackable  a  woman's  warmhosed 
thigh. 

— La  cloche!  cried  gleeful  Lenehan.     Trained  by  owner.     No  saw- 
dust there. 

She    smilesmirked    supercilious,    (wept!    aren't    men?),    but, 
lightward  gliding,  mild  she  smiled  on  Boylan. 
— You're  the  essence  of  vulgarity,  she  said  in  gliding. 

Boylan  eyed,  eyed.  Tossed  to  fat  lips  his  chalice,  drank  off 
his  tiny,  chalice,  sucking  the  last  fat  violet  syrupy  drops.  His 
spellbound  eyes  went  after  her  gliding  head  as  it  went  down  the 
bar  by  mirrors,  hock  and  claret  glasses  shimmering,  a  spiky  shell, 
where  it  concerted,  mirrored,  bronze  with  sunnier  bronze. 

Yes,  bronze  from  anearby. 

— sweetheart,  goodbye! 

— I'm  off,  said  Boylan  with  impatience. 


52  The    Little    Review 


He  slid  his  chalice  brisk  away,  grasped  his  change. 
— Walt  a  shake,  begged  Lenehan,  drinking  quickly.     1  wanted  to 
tell  you.    Tom  Rochford  .  .  . 
— Come  on  to  blazes,  said  Blazes  Boylan,  going. 

Lenehan  gulped  to  go. 
— Got  the  horn  or  what?    he  said.    Half  a  mo.    I'm  coming.  ' 

He  followed  the  hasty  creaking  shoes  but  stood  by  nimbly  by 
the  threshold,  saluting  forms,  a  bulky  with  a  slender. 
— How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Dollard? 

— Eh?  How  do?  How  do?  Ben  Bollard's  vague  bass  answered^ 
turning  an  instant  from  Father  Cowley's  woe.  He  won't  give  you 
any  trouble,  Bob.  Alf  Bergan  will  speak  to  the  long  fellow 
We'll  put  a  barleystraw  in  that  Judas  Iscariot's  ear  this  time. 

Sighing,  Mr.  Dedalus  came  through  the  saloon,  a  finger  sooth- 
ing an  eyelid. 

— Hoho,  we  will,  Ben  Dollard  yodled  jollily.  Come  on,  Simon 
give  us  a  ditty.    We  heard  the  piano. 

Bald  Pat,  bothered  waiter,  waited  for  drink  orders.  Power  foi 
Richie.  And  Bloom?  Let  me  see.  Four  now.  How  warm  this 
black  is.  Course  nerves  a  bit.  Refracts  (is  it?)  heat.  Let  nw 
see.     Cider.     Yes,  bottle  of  cider. 

— What's  that?  Mr.  Dedalus  said.  I  was  only  vamping,  ma^^ 
— Come  on,  come  on,  Ben  Dollard  called.  Begone,  dull  care 
Come,  Bob. 

He  ambled  Dollard,  bulky  slops,  before  them  (hold  tha 
fellow  with  the:  hold  him  now)  into  the  saloon.  He  plumped  hin 
Dollard  on  the  stool.  His  gouty  paws  plumped  chords.  Plumpeo 
sropf)ed  abrupt. 

Bald  Pat  in  the  doorway  met  tealess  gold  returning.  Both! 
cred  he  wanted  Power  and  cider.  Bronze  by  the  window  watchei^ 
bronze  from  afar. 

Jingle  a  tinkle  jaunted. 

Bloom  heard  a  jing,  a  little  sound.     He's  off.     Light  sob  0 
breath  Bloom  sighed  on  the  silent  flowers.     Jingling.     He's  gopi 
Jingle.     Hear. 
— Love  and  war,  Ben,  Mr.  Dedalus  said.    God  be  with  old  ti 

Miss  Douce's  brave  eyes,  unregarded,  turned  from  the  en 
blind,  smitten  by  sunlight.  Gone.  Pensive  (who  knows?),  smitt^l 
(the  smiting  light),  she  lowered  the  dropblind  with  a  sliding  cotj 
She  drew  down  pensive  (why  did  he  go  so  quick  Vhen  I?)  aboj 
her  bronze,  over  the  bar  where  bald  stood  by  sister  gold,  in  exquiJ 
ite  cgntract,  contrast  inexquisite  nonexquisitc,  slow  cool  dim  sei 


The    Little    Review  53 

green  sliding  depth  of  shadow,  eau  de  Nil. 

Poor  old  Goodwin  was  the  pianist  that  night,  Father  Cowley  re- 
minded them.  There  was  a  slight  difference  of  opinion  between 
himself  and  the  Collard  grand. 

There  was, 

— A  symposium  all  his  own,  Mr.  Dedalus  said.  The  devil  wouldn't 
stop  him.  He  was  a  crotchety  old  fellow  in  the  primary  stage  of 
drink. 

God,  do  you  remember?     Ben  bulky  Dollard  said,  turning  from 
the  punished  keyboard.    And  by  Japers  I  had  no  wedding  garment. 
They  laughed  all  three.     He  had  no  wed.     They  all   three 
laughed.     No  wedding  garment. 

Our  friend  Bloom  turned  in  handy  that  night,  Mr.  Dedalus  said. 
Where's  my  pipe  by  the  way? 

He  wandered  back  to  the  bar  to  the  lost  chord  pipe.     Bald 
Pat  carried  two  diners'  drinks,   Richie  and  Poldy.     And   Father 
Cowley  laughed  again. 
— I  saved  the  situation,  Ben,  I  think. 

You  did,  averred  Ben  Dollard.  I  remember  those  tight  trousers 
too.     That  was  a  brilliant  idea.  Bob. 

Father   Cowley   blushed    to   his   brilliant   purply   lobes.      He 
saved  the  situa.     Tight  trou.     Brilliant  ide. 

— I  knew  he  was  on  the  rocks,  he  said.  The  wife  was  playing 
the  piano  in  ihe  coffee  palace  on  Saturdays  for  a  very  trifling  con- 
sideration and  who  was  it  gave  me  the  wheeze  she  was  doing  the 
other  business?  Do  you  remember?  We  had  to  search  all  Holies 
street  to  find  them  till  the  chap  in  Keogh's  gave  uS  the  number. 
Remember? 

Ben  remembered,  his  broad  visage  wondering. 
By  God  she  had  some  luxurious  operacloaks  and  things  there. 

Mr.  Dedalus  wandered  back,  pipe  in  hand. 
Merrionsquare    style.      Balldresses   by    God,    nd   court    dresses. 
He  wouldn't  take  any  money  either.    What?     Any  God's  quantity 
of  cocket  hats  and  boleros  and  trunkhose.     What? 
—Ay,  ay,  Mr.  Dedalus  nodded.     Mrs.  Marion  Bloom  has  left  off 
lothes  of  all  descriptions. 

Jingle  jaunted  down  the  quays.     Blazes  sprawled  on  bounding 
Lyres. 

Liver  and  bacon.     Steak  and  kidney  pie.     Right,  sir.     Right, 
pat. 

Mrs.  Marrion  met  him  pike  hoses.     Smell  of  burn  of  Paul  de 
ock.    Nice  name  he. 


54 The    Lit  tie    Review 

—What's  tliis  her  name  was?    A  buxom  lassy.    Marion  .  .  . 

— Tweedy. 

— Yes.    Is  she  alive?  ; 

— And  kicking.  / 

— She  was  a  daughter  of ' 

— Daughter  of  the  regiment.  ' 

— Yes,  begad.     I  remember  the  old  drummajor. 

Mr.  Dedalus  struck,  whizzed,  lit,  puffed  savoury  puffafter. 
— Irish?     I  don't  know,  faith.     Is  she,  Simon? 

Puff  after  stiff,  a  puff,  strong,  savoury,  crackling. 
— Buccinator  muscle  is  .  .  .  What?  .  .  .Bit  rusty  .  .  .  O,  she  is  .  .  . 
My  Irish  Molly,  O. 

He  puffed  a  pungent  plumy  blast. 
— From  the  rock  of  Gibraltar  ...  all  the  way. 

They  pined  in  depth  of  ocean  shadow,  gold  by  the  beerpull, 
bronze  by  maraschino,  thoughtful  all  two,  Mina  Kennedy,  4  Lismore 
terrace,  Drum?:ondra  with  Idoiores,  a  queen,  silent. 

Pat  served  uncovered  dishes.  Leopold  cut  liverslices.  As 
said  before  he  ate  with  relish  the  inner  organs,  nutty  gizzards, 
fried  cods'  roes  while  Richie  Golding,  Colles,  Ward  ate  steak  and 
kidney,  steak  then  kidney,  bite  by  bite  of  pie  he  ate  Bloom  ate 
they  ate. 

Bloom  with  Goulding,  married  in  silence,  ate.  Dinners  fit  for 
princes. 

By  Bachelor's  walk  jogjaunty  jingled  Blazes  Boylan,  bachelor, 
in  sun  in  heat,  mare's  glossy  rump  atrot,  with  flick  of  whip,  on 
bounding  tyres:  sprawled,  warmseated,  Boylan  impatience,  ardent- 
bold.  Horn.  Have  you  the?  Horn.  Have  you  tlie?  Haw  haw 
horn. 

Over  their  voices  Dollard  bassooned  attack  booming  over: 
bombarding  chords: 

— When  love  absorbs  my  ardent  soul  ... 
— War!     War!  cried  Father  Cowley.    You're  the  warrior. 
— ^So  I  am,  Ben  Dollard  laughed. 

He  stopped.  He  wagged  huge  beard,  huge  face  over  his  blun-^ 
der  huge. 

— Sure,  you'd  burst  the  tympanum  of  her  ear,  man,  Mr.  Dedalus 
said  through  smoke  aroma,  with  an  organ  like  yours.  ,^ 

In  bearded  abundant  laughter  Dollard  shook  upon  the  key-^ 
board.    He  would.  * 

— ^Not  to  mention  another  membrane,  Father  Cowley  added.    Halt; 
time,  Ben.    Amoroso  ma  non  troppo.    Let  me  there.  \ 

Miss  Kennedy  served  two  gentlemen  with  tankards  of  cool: 


The    Little    Review  55 


stout.  She  passed  a  remark.  It  was  indeed,  first  gentleman  said, 
beautiful  weather.  They  drank  cool  stout,  did  she  know  where  the 
lord  lieutenant  was  going?  And  heard  steel  hoofs  ring  hoof  ring. 
No,  she  couldn't  say.  But  it  would  be  in  the  paper.  O,  she 
needn't  trouble.  No  trouble.  She  waved  about  her  outspread  In- 
dependent searching  the  lord  lieutenant  her  pinnacles  of  hair  slow- 
moving  lord  lieuten.  Too  much  trouble,  first  gentleman  said. 
O,  not  in  the  least.  Way  he  looked  that.  Lord  lieutenant.  Gold 
by  bronze  heard  iron  steel  , 

my  ardent  soul 

I  care  not  foror  the  morrow. 

In  liver  gravy  Bloom  mashed  mashed  potatoes.  Love  and 
war  someone  is.  Ben  Bollard's  famous.  Night  he  ran  round 
to  us  to  borrow  a  dress  suit  for  that  concert.  Trousers  tight  as  a 
drum  on  him.  Molly  did  laugh  when  he  went  out.  Threw  herself 
back  across  the  bed,  screaming,  kicking.  With  all  his  belongings 
on.  show.  O,  saints  above,  I'm  drenched!  O,  the  women  in  the 
front  row!  O,  I  never  laughed  so  much!  Well,  of  course,  that's 
what  gives  him  the  base  barreltone.  For  instance  eunuchs.  Won- 
der who's  playing.  Nice  touch.  Must  be  Cowley.  Musical. 
Knows  whatever  note  you  play.  Bad  breath  he  has,  poor  chap. 
Stopped. 
Stopped. 

jeorge  Lidwell,  gentleman,  entering.     Good  afternoon.     She  gave 
ler  moist,  a  lady's,  hand  to  his  firm  clasp.    Afternoon. 
Your  friends  are  inside,  Mr.  Lidwell. 

George  Lidwell,  suave,  solicited,  held  a  Lydia's  hand. 
Bloom  ate  liv  as  said  before.     Clean  here  at  least.     That 
hap  in  the  Burton,  gummy  with  gristle.     No-one  here:   Goulding 
d  I.     Clean  tables,  flowers,  mitres  of  napkins.     Pat  to  and  fro, 
aid  Pat.     Nothing  to  do.     Best  value  in  Dub. 

Piano  again.  Cowley  it  is.  Way  he  sits  in  to  it,  like  one 
gether,  mutual  understanding.  Tiresome  shapers  scraping  fid- 
les,  sawing  the  cello,  remind  you  of  toothache.  Night  we  were 
the  box.  Trombone  under  blowing  like  a  grampus,  other  brass 
hap  imscrewing,  emtying  spittle.  Conductor's  legs  too,  bags- 
•Qusers,  jiggedy  jiggedy.  Do  right  to  hide  them. 
Jiggedy  jingle  jaunty  jaunty. 

Only  the  harp.  LovelyGoId  glowering  light.  Girl  touched 
Poop  of  a  lovely.  Gravy's  rather  good  fit  for  a.  Golden  ship. 
Irin.  The  harp  that  once  or  twice.  Cool  hands.  Ben  Howth,  the 
lododendrons.    We  are  their  harps.     I.    He.    Old.    Young. 


56  The    Little    Review 


— Ah,  I  couldn't,  man,  Mr.   Dedalus  said,  shy,  listless. 

Strongly. 
— Go  on  blast  you,  Ben  Bollard  growled.     Get  it  out  in  bits. 
— M'appari,  Simon,  Father  Cowley  said. 

Down  stage  he  strode  some  i)aces,  grave,  tall  in  affliction,  his 
long  arms  outheld.  Hoarsely  the  apple  of  his  throat  hoarsed  ;, 
softly.  Softly  he  sang  to  a  dusty  seascape  there:  A  Last  Farewell. 
A  headland,  a  ship,  a  sail  upon  the  billows.  Farewell.  A  lovely 
girl,  her  veil  awave  upon  the  wind  upon  the  headland,  wind  around 
her. 

Cowley  sang: 

— M'appari  tutt'amor: 

II  mio  sguardo 

She  waved,  unhearing  Cowley,  her  veil  to  one  departing,  dear 
one.  to  wind,  love,  speeding  sail,  return. 
— Go  on,  Simon. 
— Ah,  sure  my  dancing  days  are  done,  Ben  .  .  .  Well  .  .  . 

Mr  Dedalus  laid  his  pipe  to  rest  beside  the  tuningfork  and, 
sitting,  touched  the  obedient  keys, 

— No,  Simon,  Father  Cowley  turned    Play  it  in  the  original.     One 
flat. 

The  keys,  obedient,  rose  higher,  told,  faltered,  confessed, 
confused. 

Up  stage  strode  Father  Cowley. 
— Here,  Simon.     I'll  accompany  you.  he  said.     Get  up. 

By  Graham  Lemon's  pineapple  rock,  by  Elvery's  elephant 
jingle  jogged. 

Steak,  kidney,  liver,  mashed  at  meat  fit  for  princes  sat  princes 
Bloom  and  C^ulding.  Princes  at  meat  they  raised  and  dranfc 
Power  and  cider. 

Most  beautiful  tenor  air  ever  written,  Richie  said:  Sonam 
btila.  He  heard  Joe  Ma»s  sing  that  one  night.  Ah,  what  M'Guckin! 
Yes.  In  his  way.  Choirboy  style.  Maas  was  the  boy.  Massboy 
A  lyrical  tenor  if  you  like.     Never  forget  it.     Never. 

Tenderly  Bloom  over  liverless  bacon  saw  the  tightened  fca 
turesstrain.  Backache  he.  Bright 's  bright  eye.  Net  item  on  tin 
programme.  Pills,  pounded  bread,  worth  a  guinea  a  box.  Stave  ito^ 
awhile.  Sings  too:  Down  among  t/ic  dead  men.  Appropriate.  Kid 
ney  pie.  Sweets  to  the.  Not  making  much  hand  of  it.  Best  value  in 
Characteristic  of  him.  Power.  Particular  about  his  drink.  Feck 
ing  matches  from  counters  to  save.  Then  squander  a  sovereign  ii 
dribs  and  drabs.    And  when  he's  wanted  not  a  farthing.     Curious 


s 


nt 


111 


The    Little    Review  57 


types. 

Never  would  Richie  forget  that  night.  As  long  as  he  lived, 
never.  In  the  gods  of  the  old  royal  with  little  Peake.  And 
when  the  first  note. 

Speech  paused  on  Richie's  lips. 

Coming  out  with  a  whopper  now  .  Rhapsodies  about''  damn 
ill.    Believes  his  own  lies.    Does  really.    Wonderful  liar. 
—Which  air  is  that?     asked  Leopold  Bloom. 
All  is  lost  now. 

Richie  cocked  his  lips  apx)ut.  A  low  incipient  note  sweet 
Tiurmured:  alia  thrush.  Athrostle.  His  breath,  birdsweet,  good 
jteeth  he's  proud  of,  fluted  with,  plaintive  woe.  Is  lost.  Rich 
ound.  Two  notes  in  one  there.  Blackbird  I  heard  in  the  haw- 
horn  valley.  How  is  that  done?  All  lost  now.  Mournful  he 
vhistled.     Fall,  surrender,  lost. 

Bloom  bent  leopold  ear,  turning  a  fringe  of  doyley  down 
jnder  the  vase.  Order.  Yes,  I  remember.  Lovely  air.  In  sleep 
he  went  to  him.  Innocence  in  the  moon.  Still  hold  her  back. 
3rave,  don't  know  their  danger.  Call  name.  Touch  water.  Jingle 
aunty.  Too  late.  She  longed  to  go.  That's  why.  Woman.  As 
asy  stop  the  sea.    Yes:  all  is  lost. 

—A  beautiful  air,  said  Bloom  lost  Leopold.     I  know  it  well. 
Never  in  all  his  life  had  Richie  Goulding. 
He  knows  it  well  too.     Or  he  feels.     Wise  child  that  knows 
ler  father,  Dedalus  said.     Me? 

Bloom  askance  over  liverless  saw.     Face  of  the   all  is  lostt 
Sollicking  Richie  once.     Jokes  old  stale  now.     Wagging  his  ear. 
™  ^apkinring  in  his  eye. 

Piano  again.  Sounds  better  than  last  time  I  heard.  Tuned 
robably.    Stopped  again. 

DoUard   and    Cowley    still    urged    the    lingering  singer    out 
vith  it. 
With  it,  Simon. 
It,  Simon. 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  am  most  deeply  obliged  by  your  kind 
olicitations. 
—It,  Simon. 

I  have  no  money  but  if  you  will  lend  me  your  attention  I  shall 
ndeavour  to  sing  to  you  of  a  heart  bowed  down. 

By  the  sandwichbell  in  screening  shadow,  Lydia  her  bronze 
nd  rose,  a  lady's  grace,  gave  and  withehld:  as  in  cool  glaucous 
au  de  Nil  Mina  to  tankards  two  her  pinnacles  of  gold. 


58 The    Little    Re  view 

The  harping  chords  of  prelude  closed.     A  chord  longdrawn, 
expectant  drew  a  voice  away. 
— Wlicn  first  I  saw  that  jorm  endearing, 

Richie  turned. 
— Si  Dedalus'  voice,  he  said. 

Bloom  signed  to  Pat,  bald  Pat  is  a  waiter  hard  of  hearing  to 
set  ajar  the  door  of  the  bar.     The  door  of  the  bar.     So.     That 
will  do.     Pat,  waiter,  waited  to  hear  for  he  was  hard  of  hear  by 
the  door. 
— Sorrow  from  me  seemed  to  depart. 

Through  the  hush  of  air  a  voice  sang  to  them,  low,  not  rain, 
not  leaves  in  murmur,  like  no  voice  of  strings  or  reeds  or  what  do 
you  call  them  dulcimers,  touching  their  still  ears  with  words,  still 
hearts  of  their  each  his  remembered  lives.  Good,  good  to  hear: 
sorrow  from  them  each  seemed  to  from  both  depart  when  first  they 
heard.  When  first  they  saw,  lost  Richie,  Poldy,  mercy  of  beauty, 
heard  from  a  person  wouldn't  expect  it  in  the  least  her  first  merci- 
ful lovesofl  word. 

Love  that  is  singing:  love's  old  sweet  song.  Bloom  unwound! 
slowly  the  elastic  band  of  his  packet.  Love's  old  sweet  sonne::  la 
gold.  Bloom  wound  a  skein  round  four  forkfingers,  stretched  it, 
relaxed,  and  wound  it  round  his  troubled  double,  fourfold,  in  octave: 
gyved  them  fast. 
— Full  of  hope  and  all  delighted  ... 

Tenors  get  women  by  the  score.  Jingle  all  delighted.  He 
can't  sing  for  tall  hats.  Your  head  it  simply  swurls.  Perfumed  for 
him.  What  perfume  does  your  wife?  I  want  to  know.  Jing. 
Stop.  Knock.  Last  look  at  mirror  always  before  she  answers 
the  door.  The  hall.  There?  How  do  you?  I  do  well.  There? 
What?  Or?  Phial  of  cachous,  kissing  comfits,  in  her  satchel. 
Yes?     Hands  felt  for  the  opulent. 

Alas!     The  voice  rose,  sighing,  changed:   loud,  full,  shining, 
proud. 
— But  alas  'twas  idle  dreaming  .  .  . 

Glorious  tone  he  has  still.  Silly  man!  Could  have  made 
oceans  of  money.  Wore  out  his  wife:  now  sings.  But  hard  to  telli 
Only  the  two  themselves.  If  he  doesn't  break*  down.  Drinki 
Nerves  overstrung.  .  Must  be  abstemious  to  sing. 

Tenderness  it  welled:  slow  swelling.  FtiU  it  throbbed.  That^ 
the  chat.    Ha,  give!     Take!     Throb,  a  throb,  a  pulsing  proud  eredt 

Words?     Music?    No:  it's  what's  behind.  ] 

Bloom  looped,  unloopcd,  noded,  disnoded. 


A 


The    Little    Review 59 

Bloom.  Flood  of  warm  jimjam  lickitup  secretness  flowed 
to  flow  in  music  out,  in  desire,  dark  to  lick  flow,  invading.  Tup. 
Pores  to  dilate  dilating.  Tup.  The  joy  the  feel  the  warm  the. 
Tup.  To  pour  o'er  sluices  pouring  gushes.  Flood,  gush,  flow 
joygush,  tupthrob.    Now!     Language  of  love. 

ray  of  hope 

Beaming.  Lydia  for  Lidwell  squeak  scarcely  hear  so  ladylike 
the  muse  unsqueaked  a  cork. 

Martha  it  is.  Coincidence.  Just  going  to  write.  Lionel's 
song.  Lovely  name  you  have.  Can't  write.  Accept  my  little  pres. 
She's  a.  I  called  you  naughty  boy.  Still  the  name:  Martha. 
How  strange!    Today. 

The  voice  of  Lionel  returned,  weaker  but  unwearied.    It  sang 

again  to  Richie  Poldy  Lydia  Lidwell  also  sang  to  Pat  open  mouth 

car  waiting  to  wait.     How  first  he  saw  that  form  endearing,  how 

orrow  seemed  to  part,  how  look,  form,  word  charmed  him  Gould 

Lidwell,  won  Pat  Bloom's  heart. 

Wish  I  could  see  his  face,  though.  Explain  better.  Why 
he  barber  in  Drago's  always  looked  my  face  when  I  spoke  his  face 
n  the  glass. 

— Each  graceful  look   •  • . . . 

First  night  when  first  I  saw  her  at  Mat  Dillon's  in  Terenure. 
i^^ellow,  black  lace  she  wore.  Musical  chairs.  We  two  the  last. 
Fate.  After  her.  Fate.  Round  and  round  slow.  Quick  round. 
We  two.  All  looked.  Halt.  Down  she  sat.  Lips  laughing.  Yel- 
ow  knees. 

Charmed  my  eye   ••.... 

Singing.  Waiting  she  sang.  I  turned  her  music.  Full  voice 
)f  perfume  of  what  perfume  does  your  lilactrees.  Bosom  I  saw, 
)oth  full,  throat  warbling.  First  I  saw.  She  thanked  me.  Why 
lid  she  me?  Fate.  Spanishy  eyes.  At  me.  Luring.  Ah,  alluring. 
—Martha!     Ah,  Martha! 

Quitting  all  langour  Lionel  cried  in  grief,  in  cry  of  passion 
o  love  to  return  with  deepening  yet  with  rising  chords,  chords  of 
larmony.     In  cry  of  lionel  loneliness  that  she  should  know,  must 
lartha  feel.     For  only  her  he  waited.    Where?     Somewhere. 
— Co-ome,  thou  lost  one! 
Co-ome  thou  dear  one! 
Alone.     One  love.     One  hope.     One  comfort  me.     Martha, 
hestnote  return. 
Come! 
It  soared,  a  bird,  it  held  its  flight,   a  swift  pure  cry,  soar 


6o The     Little     Review 

silver  orb  it  leaped  serene,  speeding,  sustained,  to  come,  don't  spin 
it  out  too  long  long  breath  he  breath  long  life,  soaring  high,  high 
resplendent,  aflame,  crowned  high  in  the  effulgence  symbolistic, 
high  of  the  cthcrial  bosom,  high,  of  the  high  vast  irradiation  every- 
were   all   soaring   all   around   about    the   all,    the    endlessnessness- 

ness 

— To  mc! 

Consumed. 

Come.  Well  sung.  All  clapped.  She  ought  to.  Come.  To 
me,  to  him,  to  her,  you  too,  me,  us. 

— Bravo!  Clapclap.  Goodman,  Simon.  Clappyclai)clap.  Encore! 
Clapclipclap.  Sound  as  a  bell.  Bravo,  Simon!  Clapclopclap. 
Encore,  enclap,  said,  cried,  clapped  all,  Ben  Bollard,  Lydia  Douce. 
George  Lidwcll,  Pat,  Mina  two  gentlemen  with  two  tankards, 
Cowley,  first  gent  with  tank  and  bronze  Miss  Douce  and  gold 
Miss  Mina. 

Blazes  Boylan's  smart  tan  shoes  creaked  on  the  bar-floor,  said 
before.  Jingle  by  monuments  of  sir  John  Gray,  Horatio  one- 
handled  Nelson,  reverend  father  Theobald  Matthew,  jaunted  as 
said  before  just  now.  Atrot,  in  heat,  heatseated.  Cloche.  Sonne:: 
la.  Cloche.  Sonncz  la.  Slower  the  mare  went  up  the  hill  by  the 
Rotunda,  Rutland  square.  Too  slow  for  Boylan,  blazes  Boylan, 
impatience  Boylan,  joggled  the  mare. 

An  afterclang  of  Cowley's  chords  closed,  died  on  the  air 
made  richer. 

And  Richie  Goulding  drank  his  Power  and  Leopold  Bloom  his 
cider  drank,  Lidwell  his  Guinness,  second  gentleman  said  they 
would  partake  of  two  more  tankards  if  she  did  not  mind.  Miss 
Kennedy  smirked,  disserving,  coral  lips,  at  first,  at  second.  She 
did  not  mind. 

— Seven  days  in  gaol,  Ben  Dollard  said,  on  bread  and  water.  Then 
you'd  sing,  Simon,  like  a  garden  thrush. 

Lionel  Simon,  singer,  laughed.  Father  Bob  Cowley  played. 
Mina  Kennedy  served.  Second  gentleman  paid.  Tom  Kcrnan 
strutted  in  .     Lydia,  admired,  admired. 

Admiring. 

Richi«\  admiring,  descanted  on  that  man's  glorious  voice 
He  remembered  one  night  long  ago.  Never  forget  that  night.  SI 
sang  'Twos  rank  and  fame:  in  Ned  Lambert's  'tv\|is.  Good  God 
he  never  heard  in  all  his  life  a  note  like  that  he  never  did  thei 
false  one  we  had  better  part  so  clear  so  God  he  never  heard  sin^ 


\t 


Pr< 


^ The    Little    Review 6i 

love  lives  not  a  clinking  voice  ask  Lambert  he  can  tell  yoti  too. 

Goulding,  a  flush  struggling  in  his  pale,  told  Mr.  Bloom,  face 
of  the  night,  Si  in  Ned  Lambert's,  Dedalus  house  sang  'Twas  rank 
and  fame. 

He  Mr.  Bloom,  listened  while  he,  Richie  Goulding,  told  him, 
Mr.  Bloom,  of  the  night  he  Richie  heard  him,  Si  Dedalus,  sing 
'Twas  rank  and  fame  in  his,  Ned  Lambert's  house. 

Brothers-in-law:  relations.  Rift  in  the  lute  I  think.  Treats 
him  with  scorn.  See.  He  admires  him  all  the  more.  The  night 
Si  sang.  The  human  voice,  two  tiny  silky  cords.  Wonderful,  more 
than  all  the  others. 

That  voice  was  a  lamentation.  Calmer  now.  It's  in  the 
silence  you  feel  you  hear.    Vibrations.    Now  silent  air. 

Bloom  ungyved  his  crisscrossed  hands  and,  with  slack  fingers 
plucked  the  slender  catgut  thong.  He  drew  and  plucked.  It  buzz, 
it  twanged.  While  Goulding  talked  of  Barraclough's  voice  pro- 
duction, while  Tom  Kernan,  harl<ing  back  in  a  retrospective  sort 
of  arrangement,  talked  to  listening  Father  Cowley  who  played  a 
voluntary,  who  nodded  f.s  he  played.  WTiile  big  Ben  DoUard  talked 
with  Simon  Dedalus  lighting,  who  nodded  as  he  smoked,  who 
smoked. 

Thou  lost  one.  All  songs  on  that  theme.  Yet  more  Bloom 
stretched  his  string.  Cruel  it  seems.  Let  people  get  fond  of  each 
other:  lure  them  on.  Then  tear  asunder.  Death.  Explos.  Knock 
on  the  head.  Outtohelloutofthat.  Human  life.  Dignam.  Ugh, 
that  rat's  tail  wriggling!  Five  bob  I  gave.  Corpus  paradisum. 
Corncrake  croker:  belly  like  a  poisoned  pup.  Gone.  They  sing. 
Forgotten.  I  too.  And  one  day  she  with.  Leave  Ker:  get  tired. 
Suffer  then.  Snivel.  Big  Spanishy  eyes  goggling  at  nothing. 
Hair  uncombed. 

Yet  too  much  happy  bores.  He  stretched  more,  more.  Are 
you  not  happy  in  your?     Twang.     It  snapped. 

Jingle  into  Dorset  street. 

Miss  Douce  withdrew  her  satiny  arm,  reproachful,  pleased. 
— Don't  make  half  so  free,  said  she,  till  we're  better  acquainted. 

George  Lidwell  told  her  really  and  truly:  but  she  did  not 
believe. 

First  gentleman  told  Mina  that  was  so.  She  asked  him  was 
that  so.    And  second  tankard  told  her  so.    That  that  was  so. 

Miss  Douce,  Miss  Lydia,  did  not  believe:  Miss  Kennedy, 
Mina,  did  not  believe:  George  Lidwell,  no:  Miss  Dou  did  not:  the 
first,  the  first:  gent  with  the  tank:  believe,  no,  no:  did  not.  Miss 


62  The    Little     Review 

Kenn:  Lidlydiawell:  the  tank. 

Better  write  it  here.  Quills  in  the  postoffice  chewed  and 
twisted. 

Bald  Tat  at  a  sign  drew  night.  A  pen  and  ink.  He  went,  A 
pad.  He  went.  A  pad  to  blot.  He  heard,  deaf  Pat. 
— Yes,  Mr.  Bloom  said,  teasing  the  curling  satgut  line.  It  cer- 
tainly is.  Few  lines  will  do.  My  present.  All  that  Italian  florid 
music  is.  Who  is  this  wrote?  Know  the  name  you  know  better. 
Take  out  sheet  notepaper,  envelope:  unconcerned.  It's  so  char- 
acteristic. 

— Grandest  number  in  the  whole  opera,  Goulding  said. 
— It  is.  Bloom  said. 

Numbers  it  is.  All  music  when  you  come  to  think.  Two 
multiplied  by  two  divided  by  half  is  twice  one.  Vibrations:  chords 
those  are  One  plus  two  plus  six  is  seven.  Do  anything  you  like 
with  figures  juggling.  Always  find  out  this  equal  to  that,  symmetry 
under  a  cemetery  wall.  He  doesn't  see  my  mourning.  Callous: 
all  for  his  own  gut.  Musemathematics.  And  you  think  you're  lis- 
tening to  the  etherial.  But  suppose  you  said  it  like:  Martha, 
seven  times  nine  minus  x  is  thirtyfive  thousand.  Fall  quite  flat, 
It's  on  account  of  the  sounds  it  is. 

Instance  he's  playing  now.  Might  be  what  you  like  till  you 
hear  the  words.  Want  to  listen  sharp.  Hard.  Begin  all  right: 
then  hear  chards  a  bit  off:  feel  lost  a  bit.  Time  makes  the  tune 
Question  of  mood  you're  in.  Still  always  nice  to  hear.  Excep) 
scales  up  and  down,  girls  learning.  Milly  no  taste.  Queer  because 
we  both  I  mean.     Ought  to  invent  dummy  pianos  for  that. 

Bald  deaf  Pat  brought  quite  flat  pad  ink.  Pat  set  with  ink 
pen  quite  flat  pad.     Pat  took  plate  dish  knife  fork.     Pat  went 

It  was  the  only  language  Mr.  Dedalus  said  to  Ben.  He  hearc 
them  as  a  boy  in  Ringabella,  Crosshaven,  Ringabella,  singing  theft 
barcaroles.  Queenstown  harbour  full  of  Italian  ships.  Walking 
you  know,  Ben,  in  the  moonlight'  with  those  earthquake  hata 
Blending  their  voices.     God,  such  music,  Ben.     Heard  as  a 

Sour  pipe  removed  he  held  a  shield  of  hand  beside  his  lip! 
that  cooed  a  moonlight  nightcall,  clear  from  anear,  a  call  from  afar 
replying. 

Down  the  edge  of  his  Freeman  baton  ranged  Bloom's  yo^^jj 
other  eye,  scatming  for  where  did  I  see  that.     Callan,  Colemaa  ,, 
Dignam    Patrick.      Heigho!      Heigho!      Fawcett.      Aha!      Just 
was  looking  ... 

Hope  he's  not  looking,  cute  as  a  cat.     He  held  unfurled  '. 


i)U 


L 


The    Little    Review  63 


Freeman.  Can't  see  now.  Remember  write  Greek  ees.  Bloom 
dipped,  Bloom  mur:  dear  sir.  Dear  Henry  wrote:  dear  Mady. 
Got  your  lett  and  flower.  Hell  did  I  put?  Some  pock  or  oth. 
It  is  utterly  imposs.    Underline  imposs.    To  write  today. 

Bore  this.  Bored  Bloom  tambourined  gently  with  I  am  just 
reflecting  fingers  on  flat  pad  Pat  brought. 

On.  Know  what  I  mean.  No,  change  that  ee.  Accept  my 
poor  little  pres  enclos.  Hold  on.  Five  Dig.  Two  about  here. 
Penny  the  gulls.  Elijah  is  com.  Seven  Davy  Byrne's.  Is  eight 
about.  Say  half  a  crown.  My  poor  little  pres:  p.  0.  two  and  six. 
Write  me  a  long.  Do  you  despise?  Jingle,  have  you  the?  So 
excited.  Why  do  you  call  me  naught?  You  naughty  too?  0,  Mairy 
lost  the  pin  of  her.  Bye  for  today.  Yes,  yes,  will  tell  you.  Want 
to.  To  keep  it  up.  Call  me  that  other.  Other  world  she  wrote. 
My  patience  are  exhaust.  To  keep  it  up.  You  must  believe. 
Believe.     The  tank.     It.     Is.     True. 

Folly  am  I  writing?  Husbands  don't.  That's  marriage  does, 
their  wives.  Because  I'm  away  from.  Suppose.  But  how?  She 
must.  Keep  young.  If  she  found  out.  Card  in  my  high  grade  ha. 
No,  not  tell  all.  Useless  pain.  If  they  don't  see,  Woman.  Sauce 
for  the  gander. 

A  hackney  car,  number  three  hundred  and  twentyfour,  driver 
Barton  James  of  number  one  Harmony  avenue,  Donnybrook,  on 
hich  sat  a  fare,  a  young  gentleman,  stylishly  dressed  in  an  indigo- 
lue  serge  suit  made  by  George  Robert  Mesias,  tailor  and  cutter,  of 
umber  five  Eden  quay,  and  wearing  a  straw  hat  very  dressy, 
ought  of  John  Plasto  of  number  one  Great  Brunswick  street, 
atter.  Eh?  This  is  the  jingle  that  joggled  and  jingled.  By  Dlu- 
acz'  porkshop  bright  tubes  of  Agendath  trotted  a  gallantbuttocked 
are. 

Answering  an  ad?  Keen  Richie's  eyes  asked  Bloom. 
Yes,  Mr.  Bloom  said.  Town  traveller.  Nothing  doing,  I  expect. 
Bloom  mur:  best  references.  But  Henry  wrote:  it  will  excite 
e.  You  know  how.  In  haste.  Henry.  Greekee.  Better  add 
ostscript.  What  is,  he  playing  now?  Improvising  intermezzo. 
S.  The  rum  tum  tum.  How  will  you  pun?  You  punish  me? 
rooked  skirt  swinging,  whack  by.  Tell  me  I  want  to.  Know.  0. 
ourse  if  I  didn't  I  wouldn't  ask.  La  la  la  ree.  Trails  off  there 
d  in  minor.  Why  minor  sad?  Sign  H.  They  like  sad  tail  at  end. 
''^'%.  P.  S.  La  la  la  ree.  I  feel  so  sad  today  La  ree.  So  lonley.  Dee. 
PW      He  blotted  quick  on  pad   of  Pat.     Envel.     Address.     Just 


64 


The    Lit  tit     Review 


copy  out  of  paper.     Murmured:     Messrs  Callan,  Coleman  and  Cc 
limited.     Henry  wrote: 

Miss  Martha  Clifford 
c|o  P.  O.^ 

Dolphin's  barn  lane 
Dublin 

Blot  over  the  other  so  he  can't  read.  Right.  Idea  prize  titbi 
Something  detective  read  off  blottingpad.  Payment  at  the  ra. 
of  guinea  per  col.  Matcham  often  thinks  the  laughing  witcl 
Poor  Mrs.  Purefoy.  U.  p:  up. 

Too  poetical  that  about  the  sad.  Music  did  that.  Mus 
hath  charms.  Shakespeare  said.  Quotations  every  day  in  tl 
year.    To  be  or  not  to  be.    Wisdom  while  you  wait. 

In  Gerard's  rosery  of  Fetter  lane  he  walks,  greyedaubur 
One  life  is  all.    One  body.      Do.      But  do. 

Done  anyhow.  Postal  order  stamp.  Post  office  ]»wer  dow 
Walk  now.  Enough.  Barney  Kiernan's  I  promised  to  meet  tha 
Dislike  that  job.    House  of  mourning.    Walk.    Pat!     Doesn't  he 

Car  near  there  now.  Talk.  Talk.  Pat!  Doesn't.  Settlr 
those  napkins.  Lot  of  ground  he  must  cover  in  the  day  .  .  Wi 
they'd  sing  more.     Keep  my  mind  off. 

Bald  Pat  who  is  bothered  settled  the  napkins.  Pat  is 
waiter  hard  of  his  hearing.  Pat  is  a  waiter  who  waits  while  y 
wait.  Hee  hee  hee  hee.  He  waits  while  you  wait.  Hee  h: 
A  waiter  is  he.  Hee  hee  hee  hee.  He  waits  whVe  you  Wf 
While  you  wait  if  you  wait  he  will  wait  while  you  wait.  Hee  1 
hee  hee.    Wait  while  you  wait. 

{to  be  continued) 


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BTTLE  REVIEW 

VOL.  VI.       SEPTEMBER,   1919       No.  5 


CONTENTS 

The  Cast-iron  Lover    Else  von  Freytag-Lorninghoven 
Rouge  Ben   Hecht 

Happy    Families  Aldous   Huxley  $ 

Grotesklinien  des  Claviers  Alfred  Stone 

Discussion: 

Critical    Suggestions  Jessie    Dismorr 

Four  Foreigners  William  Carlos   Williams 

D.  H.  Lawrence  Margaret  Anderson 

Dorothy    Richardson  John    Rodker 

La    Sorella  Esther    Kohen 

Kiss  Emanuel    Carnevali 

Ulysses    (Episode   XI    continued)  James    Joyce 

Interim    (Chapter   Five)  Dorothy   Richardson 

The  Chinese  Written  Character  as  a  Medium    for 

Poetry         Ernest    Fenollosa    and    Ezra    Pound 

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and   copyriglited,    1919   by   Margaret    C.    Ander.soii. 

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Crane's^ 

31an/ garden  (9hoeoIatesr 

QJour  (Phoeolatefatv  really  the  /jne^Thm>e 
eOer  ta^ed  aniJivheiv  in  the  VDorld  * 


BTTLE  REYIEW 

MINESELF—MINESOUL— AND— MINE- 
CAST-IRON  LOVER 

by    Else    Baroness    von    Freytag-Loringhoven 

Mine    Soul    Singet  h — T  bus    Singetb 

M  i  n  e    S  0  u  1— T  bis    Is    What    Mine 

Soul    Singetb: 

His  hair  is  molten  gold  and  a  red;    pelt — 
His  hair  is  glorious! 

Yea — mine  soul — and  he  brushes  it  and  combeth  it — he  maketh 
it  shining  and  glistening  around  his  head — and  he  is  vain  about 
it — but  alas — mine  soul — his  hair  is  without  sense — ^his  hair 
does  not  live — it  is  no  revelation,  no  symbol!  HE  is  not  gold — 
not  animal — not  GOLDEN  animal — he  is  GILDED  animal  only — 
mine  soul!  his  vanity  is  without  sense — it  is  the  vanity  of  one  who 
has  little  and  who  weareth  a  treasure  meaningless!  O — mine  soul 
— THAT  soulless  beauty  maketh  me  sad! 

"His  nostrils" — singeth  mine  soul  — "his  nostrils!"  seeest  thou  not 
the  sweep  of  the  scythe  with  which  they  curveth  up  his  cheek 
'  swiftly? 

Iron — ^mine  soul — cast-iron!  his  nosttils  maketh  me  sad!  there  is 
no  breath  of  the  animal  that  they  may  quiver?  they  do  not  curve 
swiftly — the  scythe  moveth — mine  soul — they  are  still — they  are 
motionless  like  death!  NOT  like  death — in  death  has  been  life— 
they  are  iron — mine  soul — cast-iron!  a  poor  attempt  to  picture 
life — a  mockery  of  life — as  I  see  cast-iron  animals  and  monuments 


The    Little    Revie'iv 


a  mockery  of  life alas — mine  soul — HIS  soul  is  cast-iron! 

"Iron"  singcth  mine  soul — "iron  thou  canst  hammer  with  strength — 
iron  thou  canst  shape — bend — iron  thou  canst  make  quiver — iron 

alive  to  flame 

ART  THOU  FLAME?" 

Mine  soul— alas— I  COULD  BE!      ' 

And  WHY— mine  body— dost  thou  say:  "I  COULD  BE"  and 
WHY— mine  body— dost  thou  ALL  THE  WHILE  SAY: 
"ALAS"?    Thine  "ALAS"  maketh  me  sad! 

Mine  soul  dost  not  be  mischievious!  THOU  KNOWEST  we  are 
One! — thou  knowest  thou  ART  flame!  it  is  THOU — mine  soul — 
and  thine  desire  to  flare  by  thineself  which  maketh  thine  body 
say:  "alas"!  thou  hast  so  changed!  dost  thou  not  hinder  mine 
wish  to  touch — mine  right  since  olden  times  which  was  granted 
me  ever?  because  thou  art  now  very  strong — I  gave  thee  much 
fuel — NOW — ^mine  soul — thou  art  stronger  than  I  and  thou 
mocketh  thine  body!  and — mine  soul — are  we  artisans — are  we  not 
artists  who  flare  by  themselves^FOR  themselves?  we  do  not  bend 
any  more  out  of  our  way  to  catch  and  touch — to  mold  be  molded — 
to  feed  be  fed we  flare  HIGH — mine  soul — we  are  SATIS- 
FIED!   '  s 

i 

And  yet — mine  body— thou  saycst  "alas"! 

Ha— mine  soul — I  say  "alas"  and  I  say  "alas"  and  "alas"  and 
"alas"!  because  I  am  thine^BODY!  and  this  is  mine  flaming  de- 
sire to-day:  that  he  shall  step  into  THEE  through  ME  as  it  was 
in  olden  times  and  that  we  will  play  again  that  old  WONDERFUL 

play  of  the  "TWOTOGETHER"! mine  soul— if  thus^it  will 

be — willst   thou    flare   around  him — about    him — over   him — hide 

him  with  shining  curtain hiss  that  song  of  savage  joy — 

starry-eyes   —   —   willst   thou   heat — ^melt — make   quiver — ^break 

down— dissolve— build  up SHAKE  HIM— SHAKE  HIM— 

SHAKE  HIM~()  mine  starry-eyed  soul?  • 

/ 
Heia!     ja-hoho!  hissos  mine  starry-eyed  soul  in  her  own  language. 

I  see  mine  soul-  we  still  understand  each  other!     I  LOVE  THEE 

thou  very  great  darling!  we  must  wait  and  smile PER-  o 

HAPS    SARDONICALY mine  very  great  soul j 


\ 


The   Little    Review 


because    we    now 
MATTERS  !   !   ! 


are    artists 


—    —    and:      NOTHING 


M  i  n  e  s  e  1  f — M  i  n  e  s  o  u  1 — A  r  g  u  i  n  g 

1  Minesoul — why  hast  thou  awakened  thine  body  with  thine  great 
■^ I  song?  now  I  am  desirous  for  possession! 

;i 

i  Mine  body  thou  art  wrong — THOU  madest  sing  mine  song— thine 
t  eyes  are  mine  fingers — THEY  TOUCH!  guard  thine  eyes  mine 
jpody  guard  thine  sensual  eyes! 

JMine  soul — HQlW? — shall  I  go  blind — senseless?  I  see — I  smile — 
|l  suffer!  J  MUST  TOUCH!  HERE  MINE  EYES— HERE  MINE 
IHANDS!  why  not —  wise  soul?  am  I  not  child — ^playfull — full  of 
llaug'hter?  it  is  not  mine  wish  to  smile  sardonicaly — THOU — 
Imine  soul — smileth  thus — thou  dost  not  wish  thine  body  to  touch 
-thou  giveth  up  beforehand — surrender  to  keep  thine  body — 
surrender  to  NOTHINGNESS!   thou  art  jealous!! 


^las — mine  soul — thou  maketh  me  sad — thou  maketh  sad  thine 

)ody!   thou  maketh  me  smile  sad  lying  smile — smile  triumphant 

^n  emptiness!  it  is  NOT  the  smile  of  thine  body — THOU  art  wise 

-mine  soul — not  thine  body — I   am  tired  of  thee — let   me   go! 

lias— mine  soul  I  AM  TIRED  OF  WISDOM! 


FUl 


[lit 


m 


Lrt  not  thine  eyes  mine  fingers — mine  body — did  they  not  touch 
mtil  they  form  his  image  in  me? 

[MAGE  IN  THEE?     I  DO  NOT  WANT  IMAGE!!!     here  are 
PINE    fingers — piine    soul — alas — ^mine    soul — here    are    MINE 

ANGERS!  MINE  FINGERS  SUFFER—!  they  are  MINE  eyes 
-their  touch  is  SIGHT — ^mine  fingers  wish  to  touch — caress — 
line  fingers  will  caress  with  soft  pious  look ' —  look  full  of 

laughter look  full  of  motion look  full  of  dizziness 

-insanity which  maketh  steady  and  sane — maketh 

^teady  and  sane  thine  body! 
las — mine  soul — thine  body  is  shaky — the  fingers  of  thine  body 

lint! 
^hey  are  filled  with  tears they  are  BLIND! 


The    Little    Review 


Alas — mine  body — use  thine  fingers  desirous  to  see!  pray — caress 

—flame — burn  deep — mark  the  place dance  in  laughter 

and  dizziness come  back  with  fingers  strong — steady — wise. 

— siiining  stars! 

Go — give  and  take! alas— mine  body — thou  maketh  me  sad! 

Mine  soul — mine  soul — is  it  not  so alas — mine  soul- 
is  it  not  so— mine  eyes — thine  fingers — grew  unsteady — dim 

— ^limp 

Mine  body — thou  maketh  me  sad —  —  — thou  VERILY  hast 
made  sad — thine  soul  —  —  — !  mine  body — alas — I  bid  thee 
—GO!!! 

THOU— mine  soul?! 

/ — mine  body.  5 

Heia! — mine  soul — hoho! — ^brave  soul — ^but — alas — strong  soul — 
I  have  no  wings — no  money!  thine  body  stayed  poor  in  giving 
treasures   to  thee; — now  thou  art  weak — I  weakened  thee  with 

mine  desires!   thou  art  filled  with  treasures  — thou  willst 

break!  thou  art  supple — not  robust  —  —  —  from  childhood  I 
know  thee!  let  us  be  strong  together  with  strength  of  the  last!!! 
hast  thou  teeth?  bite  into  MINE  flesh  I  will  bite  into  THINE! 

—we  totter — but  will   not   drop! WE   MUST   WAIT 

AND  SMILE — mine  soul — in  waiting  thus  not  can  I  smile  very 
much  any  more — nor  successfully  thine  sardonical  smile — it  died  from 
emptiness — our  triumph  was  rash — I  deceived  thee — smiling  thus! 
I  am  thine  body— mine  soul— thine  REVOLTING  body  !  !  !  let 
us  have  understanding: 

There  is  no  touch ALL  OUR  FINGERS  SUFFER!  there 

is  no  sight ALL  OUR  EYES  SUFFER! 

let  me  sing  that  song  of  what  mine  eyes  saw — thine  fingers  touched 
— our  senses  remember!  —  —  —  let  me  sinr  MINE  song  after 
thine  !    !   ! 

I  Sine  Mine  Sou  1 — T  h  u  s  I  S  i  n  g  — M  i  n  e 
Soul— This    is  What    I   Sing  Mine  Soul: 


The   Little   Review 


Frail  steel  tools — reddish  complexion — pale  ivory talons — 

finely  chiseled — finely  carved  animal! 

Thus  his  hands — I  saw  his  hands — I  love  his  hands — I  believe  in 

hands — mine  soul! 

ANIMAL— mine  body— CAST-IRON  ANIMAL? 

CHISELLED  animal — mine  soul  aloof !   those  hands 

LIVE — never  came  to  life are  afraid — never  were  BORN! 

I  touch  th/em: they  quiver! 

I  kiss  them: —  —  — they  grasp — clutch — tear — draw  blood  — 
— Steeltools — reddish  complexion — chiseled  talons — carved  ani- 
mal— pale  animal — caveanimal- — animal  of     shadow 1   it 

blushes  CRIMSON  around  its  edges — around  its  edges  it  runs  over 

with  crimson —  its  ears  shells  before  flame! THUS 

I  know  it  to  be! 

"THUS  thou  knowest  it  to  be"  — !   dost  th^v^Jtnow  his 

heart — mine  body? 

NEVER !  mine  soul! 

He  should  NOT  be  crimson  around  his  edges — nor  shell  before 

flame!   in  the  MIDDLE  should  he  be  crimson HEART 

flare  crimson ears  crimsoned  by  heartsblood! ! !  will  he 

wear  crimson  flame  like  star  in  his  middlechest or  willst 

thou  hold  him  before  thee— pale— lifeless— to  SHINE  THROUGH 
HIS  LIFELESSNESS  ONLY mine  body? 

MINE  SOUL— MINE  SOUL— thou  maketh  me  shiver —  thus 

can  it  not  be!   dost  thou  remember  that  song  of  his  hair  which 
made  mine  eyes  thine  fingers? 

Thine  eyes  made  mine  song — mine  body — thine  eyes  TOUCH  I 
guard  thine  eyes — mine  body — guard  thine  sensual  eyes! 

Sing  thine  sensual  song — ^mine  soul thus  it  ran: 

'HIS  HAIR  IS  MOLTEN  GOLD  AND  A  RED  PELT 

HIS  HAIR  IS  GLORIOUS! " 


The    Little    Review 


Thou  hast  strong  colorsense — mine  body — thou  loveth  red!' — thou 
paint  pale  animal  crimson! 

IT  IS  CRIMSON!  I  paint  pale  animal  with  its  crimson  blood! 
to  arouse  it  I  will  probe  deep;  should  it  have  no  blood? 

I  must  kiss  his  hands — mine  soul — his  hands  to  arouse  crimson — 
crimson  in  reddish  pale  palms — violet  veins  of  his  temples — he  will 
run  over  with  crimson  —  —  — !  crimson  lamp  of  ivory — ^shell 
with  heart  of  flame! 

SEEEST  HIS  NOSTRILS— mine  soul— shining  with  crimson- 
flaring  with  breath? THE  SCYTHE  MOVETH!  — 

crimson  scythe — bloody  scythe — curving  up  his  cheek  swiftly  !  !  ! 
MINE  SOUI^SO  BEAUTIFUL  HE  IS  !  !  ! 

EYES golden  eyes  of  the  toad! 

Sawest  thou  eyes — mine  body? 

I  saw  HIS  eyes — mine  soul — ^hidden  behind  shining  surfaces  of 

glass! 

He  is  hidden  like  the  hidden  toad hidden  animal — cave- 
animal — chiseled  animal — animal  of  shadow!    —  —  goldrimmed 
pupils  narrowing  in  light — blinking — thinking  dark  dreams! 
Hidden — 'lightshy — skinpale-^does  not  perish  in  flame — I*  remem- 
ber old  witchword;  * 

Jewels  hidden  in  its  head hidden — hidden — hidden  animal! 

Splendid — proud — majestic — immobile —  —  — when  it  feeds  it 
moveUi  swift  like  thoughtJ 

Eyes  closing  in  passion — opening — ^not  knowing  passion — bowels 
dancing — eyes  stony  jewels  in  its  head! 

The  toad — proud — majestic — immobile — never  treacherous  —  — 
—  should  it  not  be  loved? 

I  love  the  majestic  toad — fed  ashamed  before  its  mastery  of  emo- 
tion— scarcely  of  motion!     I  gaze  into  its  stony  eyes — goldrimmed 
glimmering — centerdark — with  mystery  of  dark  honest  dreams — ' 
thinking  heavily — unwinkinglyl 

MINE  SOUL— TOAD  HE  IS yet  he  does  not  DARE 

TO  BE  TOAD!      HIDDEN  IN   HIMSELF— HIDDEN   FROxM 


The    Little    Review 


HIMSELF— HIDDEN  ANJMALf 

Toadsoul  hidden  by  glare  of  roadside; 

thinking^  himself  a  BEE  !   !   ! 

fluttering  like  bee — on  roadside! 

toadeyes  hidden  by  shining  surfaces  of  glass! 

not  to  blink  on  roadside  like  toad! 

flutter  he  must — squirm — smile — polite  smile  of  bees  and  multi- 
tude— to  find  food — not  to  be  exposed  a  toad— toadking — 

thinking  dark  dreams  behind  shining  surfaces  of  glass! 

ALAS— MINE  SOUL— HE  IS  NOT  HAPPY! 

Mobile  he  is — not  immobile!  fidgety — not  majestic!  usurperpride 
— full  of  suspicious  fear — looking  for  disrespect!     STIFF  pride — 

not  proud  enough such  pride  is  his! 

No  certainty  of  station — quietness  of  inheritance!   no  ease — dig- 
nity— ^serenity — aloofness ! 
Much  restless  fidgeting  there  is! 
He  has  no  rest! 

Feeds  too  much — moveth   too  much — turns — ^bows  his  head  too 
often — smileth — strained  smile  of  bees  and  multitude. 
His  shellpale  skin — his  goldrimmed  eyes  ITCH  with  pain  of  light! 
Cry    out    for    darkness — shadow — mystery — loneliness —   — dreams 
— TOADDREAMS!  ^ 

Should  eat  less— dream  more — alas — mine  soul — he  does  not 
know — has  not  found  out — not  found  his  toad-nature! 

Young  and  human  he  is HUMANS   FIND   THEIR 

PLACES  WITH  THEIR  BRAINS! 
In  glasshouse  he  sits — not  in  oave— fire  he  fears! 
IMMUNITY   FROM   FIREDEATH  is  not  his  knowledge— nor 
flame  as  pleasure  to  skin! 

MAY  SQUAT  IN  CENTER  OF  CRIMSON  THRONE  —  CRIM- 
SON HE— CRIMSON  CROWN— KING  IN  STATE— UN- 
BLINKING! 

THINKETH  HIMSELF  A  BEE! 

LIVETH  a  bee-^liveth  WITH  bees—  in  hustle— on   roadside! 
Every  day  shrinketh  from  light — chiselled  lips  twitching — 
toadeyes  hidden  behind  shining  surfaces  of  glass!  * 


10  The    Little    Review 


HIS  CROWN  HE  WEARETH  BOLDLY  ON   ROADSIDE>-in 

hustle — in  dust — in  glare his  crown  he  weareth  SHAME- 
LESSLY! 

SO  MUCH  he  dareth  to  differ  from  bees — to  be  costly —  — not  - 
TOO  costly!  not  to  be  exiled— a  toad— TOADKING! 
Weareth    his    crown    without    magnitude — solitude — a    trinket — a 
LITTLE  thing! 

Thinking  himself  GOLDEN  BEE—2X  UTMOST— thinking  him- 
self costly — not  too  costly not  to  arouse  Bcehatred! 

WITHOUT     BEES  feareth  loneliness — famine —  covering 

every  day  little  golden  trinket  with  little  black  hat! 

Thus  the  custom  of  bees; 

Chiselled  lips  harden — shellpale  skin  coarsens — toadblood  OOZES 

in  reddish  pale  palms — sweating — crying  for  darkness — crimson — 

solitude! 

BLOOD  RIGHT BLOOD  WISHES he  docs 

not  know! 

Weareth  the  stamp  of  the  toad  and  the  kin^  upon  his  head  in 
broad  daylight — thinking  it  a  trinket  to  be  costly  before  bees! 
Covering  with  little  black  hat  every  day A  CROWN! 

YEA HE  DOES  NOT  LOOK  COSTLY  TO  THINE 

BODY ALAS— mine  soul— not  THAT  WAY! 

,  Costly  he  looketh  a  toad — creature  that  IS — demands  bloodright 

and  balance has  it — finds  it — SQUATS  on  it! 

Costly  he  looketh   in  grandeur — magnitude— eyes  stony — darkcen- 

terd gazing  undisturbed  at  good  and  evil  for  him ^^ 

thinking  ceaselessly unwinkingly dreams  - 

TOADDREAMS! 
SQUATING     IN     SHADOW     DARKNESS     UPON     CENTER* 
OF     CRIMSON     THRONE     —     —     _     SQUATING     CON- 
TENTEDLY —  FEEDING  SWIFTLY  —  EYES  CLOSING  IN 
PASSION— OPENING    NOT    KNOWING    PASSION— BOWELS 
DANCING— EYES  STONY  JEWELS  IN  ITS  HEAD! 
TOADKING! 

BEE  IS  BEE TOAD  IS  TOAD WE  —  MINE 

SOUL  —  THE  CRIMSON  THRONE! 

FROM  US  NO  TOAD  SHRINKETH JUMPETH  AWAY 

—SHRIEKING!    UPON  US  IT  JUMPETH SQUATETH 

.— BASKETH! 
FROM  US  NO  TOADKING  SHRINKETH  I  I  ! 


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Patient  soul — dost  thou  notice :  he  is  curious? 

Smelleth  smoke — suspecteth  flame — draweth  near jumpeth 

far? 

TOADBLOOD    STIRRING    —    —    —    BEESENSE    SHRIEK- 
ING! 

TOAD  HE  IS thrown  young  onto  bees  at  roadside! 

fearing  its  element! 

MINE  PROUD  SOUL is  he  crippled— DISGUISED  TO 

HIMSELF     ONLY?     NOT  is  he   disguised  to  thine  body— nor 

— wise  patient  soul — to  THEE! 

WILL  PUT  HIM  UPON   CENTER  OF   CRIMSON  THRONE 

-SHALL   SQUAT  AND   BASK OR   PERISH   AND 

BURN! 

THINE    BODY    AND    THOU— MINE    SOUL— WE    DO    NOT 

LIKE  CRIPPLES! 

UPRIGHT  WE  STAND    _    _    —    SLANDER    WE    FLARE 

— ■ THINE  BODY  AND  THOU— MINE  SOUL 

HISSING!— 


THUS— MINE  SOUL— IS  MINE  SONG  TO  THEE THUS 

ITS  END. 


12  The    Little  Review  ^ 

ROUGE 

by  Ben  Hecht 

MY  friend  lived  with  a  dwarfed  and  paralytic  nigger  boy  on  the 
fourth  floor  of  an  apartment  building  where  the  city  achieves 
the  air  of  a  fat  and  elaborately  corseted  dowager.  This  was  a 
dumb,  rectangular  and  virtuous  building,  a  symmetrical  monument 
to  the  great  and  undisturbed  nonn  of  the  city.  It  was  full  of 
diHnb,  rectangular  and  virtuous  people  who  walked  solemnly  up 
and  down  the  carpeted  stairs,  inspired  no  doubt  by  the  quaint 
hallucination  that  they  were  a  living  folk.  In  and  out  of  this 
building  and  this  street  they  passed  with  the  dignity  of  the  uncuriouS 
dead  who  nightly  promenade  the  catacombs.  From  the  windows 
of  his  home  my  friend  overlooked  the  funereal  ^  elegancies  of  a 
boulevard. 

"It  is  much  simpler  than  suicide,"  he  explained  to  me  when 
he  had  given  me  his  address  and  invited  me  to  walk  home  with 
him.  "I  give  that  as  an  off-hand  reason  when  people  ask  me  why 
I  live  in  this  neighborhood.  It  is  not  the  real  reason.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  I  have  my  philosophy  of  backgrounds.  You  remember 
what  Maldor  wrote  of  me,  that  I  was  a  creature  unworthy  of 
my  genius?" 

My  friend  laughed.  As  we  walked  he  continued  talking.  It 
was  autumn  and  the  air  was  colored  like  the  face  of  a  sick  boy. 
Upon  the  street  rested  a  windless  chill.  The  pavements  were 
sombre  as  diving  rain.  There  was  an  absence  of  illusion  about 
the  houses  that  we  passed.  They  stood,  great  meaningless  piles 
of  red,  brown  and  yellow  brick  etched  geometrically  against  a 
denuded  sky.  The  trees  in  the  street  were  without  leaves  and 
thrust  their  gnarled  and  intricate  contours  into  the  shadowed  air, 
A  pallor  lay  upon  the  roofs  and  there  was  a  moon-like  loneliness 
ab(jut  the  windows  beneath  them.  Altogether  a  perversion  ol^ 
springtime  was  this  day,  like  some  morbid  afterglow  of  May. 

"Most  of  all  I  like  the  trees  when  they  are  empty  of  leaves,' 
said  my  friend.  "'Their  wooden  grimaces  must  aggravate  these  pre- 
cisely featured  houses.  People  who  see  my  work  for  the  firsll 
time  grow  indignant  and  call  me  sick  and  artificial.  But  ^o  an 
these  trees.  People  think  of  art  in  terms  of  symmetry.  With  I 
most  amazing  conceit  they  have  decided  upon  the  contours  o:| 
their  bodies  as  the  standards  of  beauty.     Therefore  I  am  please(| 


The   Little   Review  13 


to  look  at  trees  or  at  anything  that  grows  and  note  how  twisted 
and  contorted  such  things  are." 

My  friend  laughed.  He  rubbed  his  hands  together  in  a 
nervous  way. 

"It  is  unfortunate,"  he  continued,  "that  I  am  a  sculptor.  I 
should  have  been  a  God,  eh?  Then  I  could  have  had  my  way  with 
people.  I  would  have  made  their  bodies  like  their  thoughts, 
crooked,  twisted,  bulbous,  horrible.  I  would  have  given  them  faces 
like  their  emotions  and  converted  the  diseases  of  their  souls  into 
outline." 

Again  my  friend  laughed  and  his  voice  grew  somewhat  sad. 

"What  pleasing  little  cylindrical  creatures  we  humans  are! 
With  our  exact  and  placid  surfaces  that  we  call  beauty.  And 
these  grave  and  noble  houses  we  erect!  Yes,  I  should  have  been 
a  God.  I  would  have  had  my  way  with  people  then.  As  it  is 
I  have  to  content  myself  with  clay." 

We  came  to  a  tall  red  brick  building  ornamented  with  grey 
stone,  and  my  friend  motioned  me  to  enter.  -The  corridor  was 
clothed  in  chaste  gloom  and  into  the  nose  came  the  odor  of  tur- 
pentine, an  excellent  preservative.  The  air  was  heavy  with  a  be- 
nign inertia.  We  mounted  four  flig:hts  of  stairs.  My  friend 
knocked  on  a  door  and  waited.  After  a  pause  the  door  was 
opened  by  a  dwarfed  and  paralytic  nigger  boy  dressed  in  a  res- 
plendent red  and  gold  livery. 

"This  is  Goliath,"  said  my  friend,  "my  servant." 

Goliath  answered  in  a  childish  giggle.  I  watched  him  amazed 
as  he  moved  away.  He  had  enormous  feet  and  his  legs  were  two 
pipe  stems  that  touched  at  the  knees  and  formed  a  wide  inverted 
V  to  the  floor.  When  he  walked  these  legs,  encased  in  tight  red 
breeches  and  red  stockings,  strained  and  overlapped  as  they  dragged 
the  great  lifeless  feet  along  in  an  imperceptible  shuffle.  The  mis- 
shapen body  leaned  forward  almost  parallel  with  the  floor.  This 
gave  him  the  unique  air  of  a  creature  continually  rising  from  some 
mysterious  seat.  His  long  bony  arms  vividly  outlined  in  the 
tight  sleeves  of  a  red  and  gold  braided  monkey  jacket,  hung  in 
complicated  posture  from  his  bulbous  shoulders.  His  hands  were 
huge  and  swollen  and  rested  on  the  floor  like  an  ape's  when  he 
was  motionless.  Upon  the  body  was  set  a  great  black  head.  As 
he  crept  away  from  us  the  head  lolled  about  as  if  struggling  to 
detach  itself.  His  mouth  remained  opened  and  his  eyes  rolled 
toward  me.  I  caught  glimpses  of  his  face,  regarding  me  between 
the   tumblings  of  his  head,  with   a  curious  paralytic  leer.     He 


14  The   Little   Review 


seemed  to  me  at  first  an  idiot.  But  as  he  drew  away  I  acquired 
another  impression.  The  tortuous  gesture  of  his  walk  gave,  him  an 
air  of  cunning  and  gravity.  My  friend  was  smiling  at  me.  I 
shrugged  my  shoulders  and  said:  "What  an  ingenuity  of  move- 
ment." 

The  dwarf,  already  half  way  down  the  hall,  twisted  his  body 
around  and  became  motionless.  His  face  remained  lifted  toward 
me.  It  was  seemingly  a  boneless  face,  its  black  features  flattened 
into  the  outlines  of  a  malicious  caricature. 

"Go  on,  Goliatli,  "said  my  friend  softly.  A  giggle  came  from 
the  dwarf  and  he  resumed  his  shuffle  down  the  hall.  I  entered 
after  my  friend  into  a  room  which  made  me  think  of  the  inside  of 
a  burgundy  bottle.  Heavy  red  curtains  hung  over  the  windows 
and  the  afternoon  sun,  filtering  through,  cast  a  rouged  and  sombre 
glow  upon  the  wall  and  furniture.  It  lighted  with  strange  car- 
nelian  tints  the  monstrous  clay  figures  that  stood  upKDn  black 
pedestals.  For  a  number  of  moments  my  eyes  refused  to  focus 
upon  these  figures  which  lay  like  niello  confusions  in  the  red 
gloom  about  me.  In  this  unfamiliar  light  they  had  the  air  of 
things  hurled  into  being.  They  arose  from  their  pedestals  like 
some  company  of  inert  monsters  balancing  themselves  up>on  the 
red  air.  Slowly  their  outlines  became  fixed  for  me,  figure  upon 
figure  in  tortuous  postures  each  like  some  inaudible  shriek. 

I  approached  one  of  them  and  looked  at  it  closely.  It  was  a 
thing  four  feet  in  heig"ht  but  massive  seeming  beyond  its  dimensions. 
Its  legs  were  planted  obliquely  upon  the  pedestal  top,  their  ligaments 
wrenched  into  bizarre  muscular  patterns.  Its  body  arose  in  an  an- 
atomifcal  spiral.  From  its  flattened  pelvis  that  seemed  like  some 
phallic  bat  stretched  in  flight,  to  its  giant  neck,  the  figure  pre- 
sented an  agony  to  the  eye.  But  despite  its  emaciation  and  the- 
terrific  imreality  of  its  contours,  the  thing  bore  the  inconceivable 
stamp  of  a  man.  Its  arms  were  crowded  and  folded  over  the 
chest,  the  hands  clutching  talon-like  at  the  lower  part  of  the 
face.  Its  head  was  thrown  back  as  if  broken  at  the  neck  and 
the  mouth  was  flung  open  in  a  great  skull-like  laugh.  It  was  on 
the  whole  the  flayed  and  monstrous  caricature  of  a  man  done  so 
cunningly  that  through  the  abortive  hideousness  of  its  outlinfl 
its  human  character  became  more  and  more  obvious  as  I  stared. 

"I  call  him  'The  Lover',  said  my  friend  behind  me. 

I  moved  toward  another  figure.  Here  the  contours  achieved 
a  morbidity  surpassing  the  first.  I  sought  for  some  likeness  tff 
judge  it  by,  gargoyles  I  had  seen  and  curious  Belgian  etchings 


'* 


.k 


The  Little  Review  15 


But  the  violence  of  its  design  approached  a  horror  I  had  never  en- 
countered before.  There  was  an  abominable  elation  about  the  thing. 
Its  bird-like  arms  were  wrapt  about  it  in  frenzied  embrace.  It  had 
breasts  that  hung  like  curved  hands.  Like  the  other  I  had  regarded 
its  body,  despite  the  epileptic  distortions,  was  unmistakably  human. 

"I  call  her,"  said  my  friend,  'A  Virgin.'  " 

For  half  an  hour  I  moved  from  pedestal  to  pedestal  observing 
the  strange  monstrosities  my  friend  had  achieved.  Undoubtedly 
they  bore  the  stamp  of  genius.  In  the  rutilant  glare  of  the  room 
they  seemed  more  than  frenzies  in  stone,  contrived  to  bewilder 
and  nauseate  the  eye.  About  each  I  noted  .the  same  elation  *that 
the  figure  called  "A  Virgin"  possessed,  an  elation  like  the  inverse 
of  rapture.  I  turned  at  last  toward  my  friend  and  smiled.  He 
was  watching  me  from  a  divan  against  the  red  hangings.  His 
thin  face  was  serious  and  the  light  of  his  eyes  shone  vividly, 

"What  do  you  think,"  he  asked. 

I  searched  about  for  adjectives  and  answered  him  finally.  "I 
Would  like  nothing  better  than  to  describe  these  things.  They 
arouse  delightful  word  patterns  in  my  thought.  They  would  trans- 
late  well  into  black  phrases  and  grotesque  images.  It  is  more 
difficult  to  tell  offhand,  though,  what  I  think  of  them.  They  have 
the  virility  of  some  hideous  disease.  They  are  not  symbols  but 
rather  depravities." 

My  friend  nodded  his  head,  "They  are  like  trees,"  he  said. 
"Entirely  natural.  People  who  see  them  regret  that  I  do  not  use 
my  talents  in  saner  and  lovlier  directions.  They  mention,  Rodin. 
Ha,  I  don't  often  answer  them.    But  I'll  tell  you." 

He  had  lighted  a  pipe  and  was  blowing  violet  snarls  of  smoke 
into  the  red  air  of  the  room. 

"I'll  tell  you,"  he  went  on,  "I  have  no  ambition  to  be  an  ar- 
tist. I  prefer  imagining  myself  a  God  and  having  my  way  with 
people."  My  friend  laughed.  His  hand,  quivering,  touched  my 
arm. 

"These  things  aren't  nightmares,"  he  whispered.  "The  one 
over  there,  the  virgin,  is  a  little  girl  who  lives  on  the  floor  be- 
neath. And  the  man  I  call  the  lover  comes  whistling  home  from 
work  every  evening  and  I  sometimes  meet  him  on  the  stairs.  And, 
of  course,  there's  Goliath  the  little  nigger  you  saw.  I  shape  them 
all  like  Goliath  because  I  penetrate  the  accident  of  their  contours." 

He  became  silent.  I  had  previously  thought  him  sane.  I  be- 
gan to  feel  now  that  he  was  not.  Usually  deft  and  whimsical, 
he  had  become  shot  with  passions.    He  startled  me  by  resuming 


1 6  The   Little   Review 


suddenly,  "People  often  speak  of  what  they  call  my  insanity. 
There  are  so  many  beautiful  things  in  the  world,  they  tell  me,  why 
do  you  pick  out  only  the  ugly.  I  seldom  indulge  myself  in  ar-- 
guing  with  them.  I  might  say  that  beauty  in  art  is  the  individual 
distortion  that  each  worker  brings  into  his  work.  But  I  don't 
actually  believe  that  .  Fm  actually  not^  an  artist  but  an  experi- 
menter in  divinity." 

He  jumped  abruptly  to  his  feet  and  cursed.  His  head  was 
flung  back  as  he  talked  and  his  words  came  in  a  chant. 

•'I  live  in  this  red  Hght.  I  live  in  this  painted  gloom  because 
I  hate  the  sunlight.  I  hate  even  my  rivals  the  trees.  I  live  in 
this  house  because  about  me  here  I  find  an  almost  complete  an- 
nihilation of  life.  The  damned  and  placid  surfaces  of  f>eople  who 
talk  to  me  fill  me  with  hate.  There's  a  rottenness  on  the  earth 
called  humanity,  creatures  full  of  miserable  lusts  and  decays  who 
go  about  smiling  and  obeying  laws  which  protect  them  from  each 
other.  They  tell  me  of  health  and  sanity.  Good  God,  man,  sanity 
is  the  m'erciful  blindness  which  keeps  us  from  seeing  each  other." 
Health  is  the  artifice  of  our  bodies  which  keeps  us  from  loathing 
each  other.  I  have  neither.  I  see  and  I  loate.  I  could  live  among 
people  like  these." 

He  swept  the  pedestals  with  his  arm. 

"People  shaped  like  dead  trees.  People  freed  from  the  mono- 
tonous hypocrisy  with  which  nature  endows  their  outlines.  You've 
seen  lobsters  and  crabs  and  beetles  and  spiders  and  all  the  crusta- 
cean monsters  that  abound.  These  aren't  abnormal  accidents  of 
creation.  They're  the  things  that  a  God  intent  upon  truth  fash- 
ioned in  the  beginning.  Each  thing  to  seem  as  each  thing  was. 
But  the  courage  of  this  God  deserted  him  and  he  grew  frightened 
when  he  came  to  give  body  to  the  human  brain.  And  he  compro- 
mised, ask  the  devils  how  he  compromised.  Yes,  I  could  live 
among  people  like  these  and  be  content.  And  as  there  would  be 
no  need  of  sanity  I  would  be  quite  sane.     Goliath,  eh, 'Goliath." 

Hi^  voice  had  risen  to  a  shout.  He  stopped  and  stared  at  the 
far  part  of  the  room.  I  turned  and  saw  the  black  dwarf  moving 
in  the  doorway.  His  body  was  flopping  about  and  his  legs  sprawl- 
ing under  him.  His  rolling  eyes  were  fastened  ujwn  my  friend  and 
with  desperate  fjestures  he  crept  forward. 

"Come  here,  good  little  Goliath,"  whispered  my  frjend.  "God 
had  courage  for  an  instant  when  he  fashioned  you.  He  did  ndt 
compromise  when  he  gave  you  outline.     Come  here,  little  one." 

A  high  pitched  giggle  came   from  the  dwarf's  open  mouth 


The  Little  Review  17 


Goliath  stood  at  length  before  my  friend  who  caressed  his  huge 
head  with  trembling  hands. 

During  the  several  months  that  followed  I  saw  my  friend 
infrequently.  Once  I  visited  him  '  at  night.  Goliath  the  dwarf 
admitted  me.  My  friend  lay  naked  on  the  red  divan.  Red 
painted  lamps  burned  in  the  room  and  the  air  was  colored  as  it 
was  during  the  day.  At  another  time  I  found  him  in  a  wonder- 
fully elated  mood.  We  drank  together  and  he  talked  for  hours. 
Beneath  the  generalities  he  had  given  me  at  first  I  soon  realized 
lay  a  consistent  and  erudite  philosophy.  I  had  convinced  myself 
that  he  was,  as  standards  go,  insane  and  yet  during  this  and 
several  subsequent  visits  his  genius  for  giving  the  contortions  of 
his  brain  outline  in  stone  caused  me  to  doubt  so  simple  a  diag- 
nosis. Always  I  noted  that  he  talked  best  and  most  vividly  when 
Goliath  his  dwarf  stood  humped  before  him  while  his  nervous 
hands  played  over  the  huge  head  and  bulbous  face  of  the  creature. 

It  was  to  inform  him  that  I  had  arranged  for  a  private  exhib- 
ition of  his  work  in  an  art  store  that  I  came  to  visit  my  friend  for 
the  last  time.  A  cool  spring  light  illuminated  the  morning.  The 
mild  sweet  wind  seemed  to  have  bathed  the  stone  of  the  houses 
and  pavements.  On  the  trees  innumerable  points  of  green  crawled 
like  fat  little  insects  through  the  air.  I  mounted  the  stairs  with 
the  ambitions  of  a  Samaritan.  What  my  friend  needed,  ■  I  told 
myself,  was  a  change,  a  trip  into  the  country.  Closeted  in  his 
red  room  with  his  hideous  servant  and  the  figures  on  the  black 
pedestals,  there  was  danger.  I  knocked  at  the  door  and  waited. 
There  was  no  response.  It  was  early  and  I  thought  perhaps  my 
friend  and  his  servant  slept.  As  I  waited,  however,  I  heard  the 
sound  of  the  dwarf's  voice  rising  in  a  high  pitched  giggle.  The 
crooked  little  laugh  continued  and  the  door  remained  unopened. 
I  knocked  again  and  then  turning  the  knob  found  the  door  was  un- 
locked. 

The  room  was  flooded  as  always  with  red.  inundated  in  gar- 
nets and  carmines  and  azalean  tints.  On  the  divan  against  the  red 
hangings  lay  my  friend  naked.  His  arms  hung  to  the  floor.  The 
red  shadow  of  the  curtains  seemed  deeper  on  his  skin  th^n  else- 
where in  the  room.  But  as  I  looked  I  saw  he  was  covered  with 
blood,  his  flesh  hacked  into  wet  ribbons.  Over  his  face,  body  and 
legs  this  deeper  shadow  in  the  rouge  of  the  room  moved  cloudilv. 

"Goliath,"  I  cried. 

The  dwarf  lay  on  the  floor  in  the  center  of  the  room.     A 
long,  ivory-handled  knife  was  at  his  side.     He  had  toppled  over 


i8  The    Little    Rctiew 


one  of  the  pedestals  and  lay  with  his  long  twisted  arms  embracing 
the  figure  of  a  virgin  that  my  friend  had  made  oiU  of  clay.  His 
Aands  as  they  clutched  at  the  thing  left  red  marks  upen  it.  He 
continued  to  wTithe  land  gpggle,  his  face  pressed  against  the 
taloned  breasts  of  the  figure,  as  I  approached  him. 


HAPPY  FAMILIES 
by  Aldous  Huxley 

THE  scene  is  a  conservatory.  Luxuriant  tropical  plants  are  seen 
looming  through  a  greenish  aquarium  twilight,  punctuated 
here  and  there  by  the  surprising  pink  of  several  Chinese  lanterns 
hanging  from  the  roof  or  on  the  branches  of  trees,  while  a  warm 
yellow  radiance  streams  out  from  the  ballroom  by  a  door  on  the 
left  of  the  scene.  Through  the  glass  of  the  conservatory,  at  the 
back  of  the  stage,  one  perceives  a  black  and  white  landscape  under 
the  moon — expanses  of  snow,  lined  and  dotted  with  coal-black 
hedges  and  trees.  Outside  all  is  frozen  and  dead;  but  within  the 
conservatory  all  is  palpitating  and  steaming  with  tropical  life  and 
heat.  Enormous  fantastic  plants  cncu-mber  it;  trees,  creepers  that 
writhe  with  serpentine  life,  orchids  of  every  kind.  Everywhere 
dense  vegetation;  horrible  flowers  that  look  like  bottled  spiders, 
like  suppurating  wounds;  flowers  with  eyes  and  tongues,  with  mov- 
ing sensitive  tentacles,  with  breasts  and  teeth  and  spotted  skins. 

The  strains  of  a  waltz  float  in  through  the  ballroom  door,  and 
to   that  slow  soft  music  there  enter,  in  parallel  processions,   the 
two  families  which  are  respectively  Mr.  Aston  J.  Tyrrell  and  Miss  ^ 
Topsy  Garrick. 

The  doyen  of  the  Tyrrell  family  is  a  young  and  perhaps  too 
cultured  literary  man  with  ratfver  long  dark   brown   hair,  a  face   | 
well  cut  and  sensitive,  if  a  trifle  weak  about  the  lower  jaw,  and  a  j 
voice  whose  exquisite  modulations  could  only  be  the  product  of  | 
education  at  one  of  the  two  Great  Universities.     We  will  call  him  :, 
plain  Aston.      Miss  Topsy,  the  head  of  the  Garrick  famiily,  is  a  ", 
young  woman  of  not  quite  twenty,  with  sleek  yellirw  hair  hatiging, 
like  a  page's,  short  and  thick  about  her  ears;  boyish,  too,  in  her   ^ 
slenderness  and  length  of  leg— boyish,  but  feminine  and  attractive   ' 
to  the  last  degree.      M^iss  Topsy  paints  charmingly,  sings  in   a 
small  pure  voice  that  twists  the  heart  and  makes  the  bowels  yearn  ■: 


IF 


The    Little    Review  19 


in  the  hearing  of  it,  is  well  educated  and  has  read,  or  at  least  heard 
of,  most  of  the  best  books  in  three  languages,  knows  something,  too, 
of  economics  and  the  doctrines  of  Freud. 

They  enter  arm  in  arm,  fresh  from  the  dance,  training  behind 
them  with  their  disengaged  liands  two  absurd  ventriloquist's  dum- 
mies of  themselves.  They  sit  down  on  a  bench  placed  in  the  middle 
of  the  stage  under  a  kind  of  arbour  festooned  with  fabulous  flowers. 
The  other  members  of  the  two  families  lurk  in  the  tropical  twilight 
of  the  background. 

Aston  advances  his  dummy  and  makes  it  speak,  moving  its 
mouth  and  limbs  appropriately  by  means  of  the  secret  levers  which 
his  hand  controls. 

Aston's  dummy 
What  a  perfect  floor  it  is  to-night! 

Topsy's  dummy 
Yes,  it's  like  ice,  isn't  it.    And  such  a  good  band. 

Aston's  dummy 
Oh  yes,  a  very  good  band.  ' 

Topsy's  dummy 
They  play  at  dinner-time  at  the  Necropole,  you  know. 

Aston's  dummy 
Really!     {A  long  uncomfortable  silence) 

From  under  a  lofty  twangum-tree  emerges  the  figure  of  Cain 
Washington  Tyrrell,  Aston's  negro  brother — for  the  Tyrrells,  I 
regret  to  say,  have  a  lick  of  the  tar-brush  in  them  and  Cain  is  a 
Mendelian  throw-back  to  the  pure  Jamaican  type.  Cain  is  stout 
and  his  black  face  shines  with  grease.  The  whites  of  his  eyes  are 
ike  enamel,  his  smile  is  chryselephantine.  He  is  dressed  in  fault- 
less evening  dress  and  a  ribbon  of  seals  tinkles  on  his  stomach. 
He  walks  with  legs  wide  apart,  the  upper  part  of  his  body  tlirown 
back  and  his  belly  projecting,  as  though  he  were  supporting  the 
weight  of  an  Aristophanic  actor's  costume.  He  struts  up  and  down 
in  front  of  the  couple  on  the  seat,  grinning  and  slapping  himself 
on  the  waistcoat. 

Cain 
What  hair,  nyum,  nyum!  and  the  nape  of  her  neck;  and  her 
3ody — how  slender!    and   what  lovely  movements,   nyum,   nyum! 
{approaching  Aston  and  speaking  into  his  ear)  Eh?    Eh?     Eh? 

Aston 
Go  away,  you  pig.     Go  away.     {He  holds  up  his  dummy  as 
I  sJneld:     Cain  retires  discomfited)  . 

Aston's  dummy 


20  The    Little    Review 


Have  you  read  any  amusing  novels  lately?  .  .^ 

Topsy  f 

(Speaking  over  the  head  of  her  dummy)  No;  I  never  read  novels. 
They  are  mostly  so  frightful,  aren't  they. 

Aston 
(EnthusiastieaUy)    How  splendid!      Neither   do   I.      I   only  write 
them  sometimes,  that's  all.     {They  abandon  their  dummies,  which 
fall  limply  into  one  another's  arms  and  collapse  on  to  the  floor  with 
an  expiring  sigh). 

Topsy 
You  write  them?    I  didn't  know  .... 

Aston 

Oh,  I'd  very  much  rather  you  didn't  know.  I  shouldn't  like  you 
ever  to  read  one  of  them.  They're  all  a\^ful:  still,  they  keep  the 
pot  boiling,  you  know.    But  tell  me,  what  do  you  read? 

Topsy 

Mostly  history,  and  philosophy,  and  a  little  criticism  and  psycho- 
logy, and  lots  of  poetry. 

Aston 

My  dear  young  lady!  how  wonderful,  how  altogether  unexpectedly 
splendid!  (Cain  emerges  with  the  third  brother,  Sir  Jasper,  who  is 
a  paler,  thinner,  more  sinister  and  aristocratic  Aston)  . 

Cain 
Nyum  nyum  nyum  .... 

5/V  Jasper 

What  a  perfect  sentence  that  was  of  yours,  Aston:  quite  Henry 
Jamesian!  "My  dear  young  lady" — as  though  you  were  fort> 
years  her  senior;  and  the  rare  old-worldliness  of  that  "altogethei| 
unexpectedly  splendid!"  Admirable.  I  don't  remember  your  ever 
employing  quite  exactly  this  openihg  gambit  before;  but  of  course] 
there  were  things  very  like  it.  (  to  Cain)  What  a  nasty  spectacle 
you  are,  Cain,  gnashing  your  teeth  like  that! 

Cd'in 
Nyum  nyum  nyum. 
(Aston  and   Topsy  are  enthusiastically  talking  about  books;  thii 
two   brothers,  finding  themselves  quite  unnoticed,  retire  into   tkt\ 
shade  of  their  twangum  tree.     Belle  Garrick  has  been  hovering  be 
hind  Topsy  for  some  time  past.    She  is  more  obviously  pretty  tJm^ 
her  sister,  full-bosomed  and  with  a  loose  red  laughing  mouth.    Un 
able    to    attract    Topsy' s    attention,    she    turns    round   and   calls\ 
"Henrika." 

A  pale  face  with  wide  surprised  eyes  peeps  round  the  trur^\ 


I 


The    Little    Review  21 


hairy  like  a  mammoth's  leg,  of  a  kadapoo  tree  with  magenta  leaves 
and  flame-coloured  blossoms.  This  is  Henrika,  Topsy's  youngest 
sister.  She  is  dressed  in  a  little  white  muslin  jrock  set  off  with 
blue  ribbons)  . 

Henrika 
{Tiptoes  forward)  Here  I  am;  what  is  it?    I  was  rather  frightened 
of  that  man.     But  he  really  seems  quite  nice  and  tame,  doesn't  he. 

Belle 
Of  course  he  is!     What  a  goose  you  are  to  hide  like  that! 

Henrika. 
He  seems  a  nice  quiet  gentle  man;  and  so  clever. 

Belle 

What  good  hands  he  has,  hasn't  he  {approacldng  Topsy  and  whis- 
ering  in  her  ear).  Your  hair's  going  into  your  eyes,  my  dear 
Toss  it  back  in  that  pretty  way  you  have.  {Topsy  tosses  her  head; 
Ike  soft  golden  bell  of  hair  quivers  elastically  about  her  ears). 
That's  right! 

Cain 

Bounding  into  the  air  and  landing  with  feet  apart,  knees  bent  and 
hand  on  either  knee)  .    Oh  nyum  nyum! 

Aston 

>h,  the  beauty  of  that  movement!  It  simply  makes  one  catch  one's 
)reath  with  surprised  pleasure,  as  the  gesture  of  a  perfect  dancer 
?ight. 

Sir  Jasper 

beautiful,  wasn't  it:  a  pleasure  purely  aesthetic  and  aesthetically 
Bure.    Listen  to  Cain. 

Aston 

to  Topsy)  And  do  you  ever  try  Avriting  yourself?  I'm  sure  you 
ught  to. 

Sir  Jasper 
es,  yes,  we're  sure  you  ought  to.    Eh,  Cain? 

Topsy 

Tell,  I  have  written  a  little  poetry — or  rather  a  few  bad  verses — 
;  one  time  or  another. 

Aston 
eally  now!     What  about,  may  I  ask? 

Topsy 

ell  .  .  {hesitating)  about  different  things,  you  know.  {She  fans 
rself  rather  nervously).  ■.     ■'■ 

Belle 
saning   over   Topsy's  shoulder   and   addressing   Aston   directly). 


2  3  The    Li  lite   Review 


Mostly  about  Love.  (She  dweU^  long  and  voluptuously  on  the  last 
iL'ord,  pronouncing  it  "low"  rather  than  litvv"). 

Cain  ^ 

Oh,  dat's  good;  dat's  dam  good.  {In  moments  of  emotion  Cain's 
manners  and  language  savour  more  obviously  than  usual  of  the  Old 
Plantation) .    Did  yeh  see  her  face  den? 

Belle       • 
{repeats,  slowly  and  solemnly)   Mostly  about  Love. 

Henrika 
Oh,  oh.     {She  covers  her  face  with  her  hands).     How  could  you? 
It  makes  me  tingle  all  over.     {She  runs  behind  the  kadapoo  tret 
again). 

Aston 
{very  seriously  and  intelligently)  .     Really.     That's  very  interest- 
ing.   I  wish  you'd  let  me  see  what  you've  done  some  time. 

Sir  Jasper 
We  always  like  to  see  these  things,  don't  we,  Aston.     Do  you  re- 
member Mrs.  Towler?     How  pretty  she  was!  and  the  way  we  cri- 
ticized her  literary  productions  .  .  . 

Aston 
Mrs.  Towler  .  .  .  {He  shudders  as  though  he  had  touched  something 
soft  and  filthy)  .    Oh  don't,  Jasper,  don't! 

Sir  Jasper 
Dear  Mrs.  Towler!     We  were  very  nice  about  her  poems,  weren'  |* 
we.    Do  you  remember  the  one  that  began 

My  Love  is  like  a  silvern  flower-de-luce 

Within  some  wonderous  dream-garden  pent: 

God  made  my  lovely  lily  not  for  use, 
But  for  an  ornament. 

Even  Cain,  I  believe,  saw  the  joke  of  that.  |  J 

Aston 
Mrs.  Towler  ...  oh  my  God!     But  this  is  quite  different:   thi|-™ 
girl  really  interests  me. 

Sir  Jasper 
Oh  yes,  I  know,  I  know.    She  interests  you  too,  Cain,  doesn't  sh< 

Cain 

{Prances  tivo  or  three  steps  of  a  cake-walk  and  sings)  .     Oh  njl^ 
honey,  oh  ma  honey.  ^~ 

Aston 
But  I  tell  you,  this  is  quite  different. 


Nt 


The    Little    Review  23 


Sir  Jasper 
Of  course  it  is.    Any  fool  could  see  that  it  was.     I've  admitted  it 
already. 

Aston 
{to  Topsy)  You  will  show  them  me,  won't  you.    I  should  so  much 
like  to  see  them. 

Topsy 
{covered  with  confusion).    No,  I  really  couldn't.    You're  a  profes- 
sional, you  see. 

Henrika 
{from  behind  the  kadapoo  tree).     No,  you  musn't  show  them  to 
him.    They're  really  mine,  you  know,  a  great  many  of  them. 

Belle 
Nonsense!      {She  stoops  down  and  moves  Topsy* s  foot  in  such  a 
way  that  a  very  well-shaped  white-stockinged  leg  is  visible  some 
way  up  the  calf.      Then,  to  Topsy.)     Pull  your  skirt  down,  my 
dear.    You're  quite  indecent. 

Cain 

(Putting  up  his  monocle).  Oh  nyum  nyum,  ma  honey!  Come  wid 
me  to  Dixie  Land  .  .  . 

Sir  Jasper 
Hm,  a  little  conscious,  don't  you  think. 

Aston 

But  even  professionals  are  human,  my  dear  young  lady.  And  per- 
haps I  might  be  able  to  give  you  some  help  with  your  writings. 

Topsy 
That's  awfully  kind  of  you,  Mr.  Tyrrell. 

Henrika. 
I  Oh,  don't  let  him  see  them.    I  don't  want  him  to.    iDon't  let  him. 

Aston 

Hwith  heavy  charm)  It  always  interests  me  so  much  when  I  hear 
of  the  young — and  I  trust  you  won't  be  offended  if  I  include  you 
lin  their  number — when  I  hear  of  the  young  taking  to  writing.  It 
lis  one  of  the  most  important  duties  that  we  of  the  older  generation 
lean  perform — to  help  and  encourage  the  young  with  their  work. 
Ill's  a  great  service  to  the  cause  of  Art. 

Sir  Jasper^ 
i'hat  was  what  I  was  always  saying  to  Mrs.  Towler,  if  I  remember 
rightly. 

Topsy 
can't  tell  you,  Mr.  Tyrrell,  how  delightful  it  is  to  have  one's 
rork  taken  seriously.    I  am  so  grateful  to  you.     May  I  send  you 
ay  little  efforts,  then? 


24  The    Little    Review 


Cain 
{Execuics  a  step  dance  to  the  furious  clicking  of  a  pair  of  bones). 

Sir  Jasper 
I  congratulate  you,  Aston.     A  most  masterful  bit  of  strategy! 

Belle 
I  wonder  what  he'll  do  next.     Isn't  it  exciting.     Topsy,  toss  your 
head  again.     That's,  right.     Oh,  I  wish  something  would  happen! 

Henrika 
What  have  you  done?    Oh  Topsy,  you  really  mustn't  send  him  my 
poems. 

Belle 
You  said  he  was  such  a  nice  man  just  now. 

Henrika 
Oh  yes,  he's  nice,  I  know.     But  then  he's  a  man,  you  must  admit 
that.    I  don't  want  him  to  see  them. 

Topsy 
(firmly)     You're  being  merely  foolish,  Henrika.     Mr.  Tyrrell,  a 
very  distinguished  literary  man,  has  been  kind  enough  to  take  an' 
interest  in  my  work.     His  criticism  will  be  the  greatest  help  to  me. 

Belle 
Of  course  it  will,  and  he  has  such  charming  eyes.  {A  pause.  The 
music  which  has,  all  this  while,  been  faintly  heard  through  the  ball- 
room door,  becomes  more  audible.  They  arc  playing  a  rich 
creamy  waltz)  .  What  delicious  music!  Henrika,  come  and  have 
a  dance.  (She  seizes  Henrika  round  the  7oaist  and  begins  to  waltz. 
Henrika  is  reluctant  at  first,  but  little  by  little  the  rhythm  of  the 
dance  takes  possession  of  her  till,  with  her  half-closed  eyes  and 
languorous  trance-like  movements,  she  might  figure  as  the  visible 
living  symbol  of  the  Waltc.  Aston  and  Topsy  lean  back  in  their 
seats,  marking  the  time  with  a  languid  beating  of  the  hand.  Cain 
sways  and  swoons  and  revolves  in  his  own  peculiar  and  inimitable 
version  of  the  dance)  . 

Sir  Jasper 

{who  has  been  watching  the  whole  scene  with  amusement).    What 
a  ])retty  spectacle!     'Music  hath  charms  .  .  .  ' 

Henrika 
{in  an  almost  extinct  voice).    Oh  Belle,  Belle,  I  could  go  on  danc- 
ing like  this  for  ever.    I  feel  quite  intoxicated  with  it. 

Topsy 
{to  Aston)  What  a  jolly  tune  this  is! 

Aston 
Isn't  it.    It's  called  'Dreams  of  Desire',  I  believe.  n 


The    Little    Rcviciv  25 


Belle 
What  a  pretty  name! 

Topsy 
These  are  wonderful  flowers  here. 

Aston 
Let's  go  and  have  a  look  at  them. 

{They  get  up  and  walk  around  the  conservatory.     The  floivcrs  light 
up  as  they  pass;  in  the  midst  of  each  is  a  small  electric  globe) . 

Aston 
This  purple  one  with  eyes  is  the  assafoetida  flower.^  Don't  put 
your  nose  too  near;  it  has  a  smell  like  burning  flesh.  This  is  a 
Cypripedium  from  Sumatra:  It  is  the  only  Man-eating  flower  in 
the  world.  Notice  its  double  set  of  teeth.  (He  puts  a  stick  into 
the  mouth  of  the  flower,  which  instantly  snaps  to,  like  a  steel  trap). 
Nasty  vicious  brute!  These  blossoms  like  purple  sponges  belong 
to  the  twangum  tree:  when  you  squeeze  them  they  ooze  blood. 
This  is  the  Jonesia,  the  octopus  of  the  floral  world:  each  of  its 
eight  tentacles  is  armed  with  a  sting  capable  of  killing  a  horse. 
Now  this  is  a  most  interesting  and  instructive  flower — the  patch- 
ouli bloom.  It  is  perhaps  the  most  striking  example  in  nature  of 
structural  specialisation  brought  about  by  evolution.  If  only 
Darwin  had  lived  to  see  the  patchouli  plant!  You  have  heard  of 
flowers  specially  adapting  themselves  to  be  fertilized  by  bees  or 
butterflies  or  spiders  and  such-like?  Well,  this  plant  which  grows 
in  the  forests  of  Guatemala  can  only  be  fertilized  by  English  ex- 
plorers. Observe  the  structure  of  the  flower;  at  the  base  is  a  flat 
projecting  pan.  containing  tbe  pistil;  above  it  an  overg,rching  tube 
ending  in  a  spout.  On  either  side  a  small  crevice  about  three- 
quarters  of  an  inch  in  length  may  be  discerned  in  the  fleshy  lobes 
of  the  calix.  The  English  traveller  seeing  this  plant  is  immediately 
struck  by  its  resemblance  to  those  penny-in-the-slot  machines 
which  provide  scent  for  the  public  in  the  railway  stations  at  Home. 
Through  sheer  force  of  habit  he  takes  a  penny  from  his  pocket 
and  inserts  it  in  one  of  the  crevices  or  slots.  Immediate  result — • 
a  jet  of  highly  scented  liquid  pollen  is  discharged  from  the  spout 
upon  the  pistil  lying  below,  and  the  plant  is  fertilized.  Could  any- 
thing be  more  miraculous?  And  yet  there  are  those  who  deny  the 
existence  of  God.    Poor  fools! 

Topsy 
Wonderful!     (sniffing)  What  a  good  scent. 

Aston 
The  purest  patchouli. 


2  6  The    Little    Review 


Belle 
How  delicious.    Oh  my  dear  .  .  .  {she  shuts  her  eyes  in  ecstasy). 

Henrika 
(droivsily)  Delicious,  'licious  .  .  . 

Sir  Jasper 
I  always  like  these  rather  canaille  perfumes.     Their  effect  is  ad- 
mirable. 

Aston 
This  is  the  leopard-flower.  Observe  its  spotted  skin  and  its  thorns 
like  agate  claws.  This  is  the  singing  Alocusia — Alocusia  Canta- 
trix — discovered  by  Humbolt  during  his  second  voyage  to  the 
Amazons.  If  you  stroke  Hs  throat  in  the  right  place,  it  will  begin 
to  sing  like  a  nightingale.  Allow  me.  (He  takes  her  by  the  wrist 
and  gtiides  her  fingers  towards  the  palpitating  throat  of  a  gigantic 
jlowcr  shaped  like  a  gramophone  trumpet.  T/i€  Alocusia  bursts 
into  song;  it  has  a  voice  like  Caruso's)  . 

Cain 
Oh  nyum  nyum!     What  a  hand!     Oh  ma  honey.     {He  runs  a 
thick  black  finger  along  Topsy's  arm)  . 

Topsy 
What  a  remarkable  flower! 

Belle 
I  wonder  whether  he  stroked  my  arm  like  that  by  accident  or  on 
purpose  . 

Henrika 
{giving   a   little   shiver).     He's    touching   me,   he's   touching   mz\ 
But  somehow  I  feel  so  sleepy  I  can't  move. 

Topsy 
{She  moves  on  towards  the  next  flower:  Belle  does  not  allow  her 
to  disengage  her  h-and  at  once).     What  a  curious  smell  this  one 

has! 

Aston 
Be  careful,  be  careful!     That's  the  chloroform  plant. 

Topsy 
Oh,  I  feel  quite  dizzy  and  faint.     That  smell  and  the  heat  .  .  . 
{She  almost  jails:  Aston  puts  out  his  arm  and  holds  her  up). 

Aston 

Poor  child! 

Cain 
Poh  chile,   poh  chile!    {He   hovers  round  )ier,   his   hands   almost 
touching  her,   trembling  with   excitement:    his  white   eyeballs   roll 
horribly)  . 


I 


The    Little    Review  27 


Aston 
I'll  open  the  door.  The  air  will  make  you  feel  better.  {He  opens 
the  conservatory  door,  still  supporting  Topsy  with  his  right  arm. 
The  wind  is  heard,  fearfully  whistling;  a  flurry  of  snow  blows  into 
the  conservatory.  The  flowers  utter  piercing  screams  of  rage  and 
far;  thair  lights  flicker  wildly;  several  turn  perfectly  black  and 
and  drop  on  to  the  floor  writhing  in  agony.  The  floral  octopus 
agitates  its  tentacles;  the  twangum  blooms  drop  blood;  all  the 
leaves  of  all  the  trees  clap  together  with  a  dray  scaly  sound). 

Topsy 
(faintly)  Thank  you;  that's  better. 

Aston 
(closing  the  door).     Poor  child!     Come  and  sit  down  again;   the 
chloroform  flower  is  a  real  danger.     (Much  moved,  he  leads  her 
back  towards  the  seat). 

Cain 
(Executes  a  war  dance  round  the  seated  couple)  .    Poh  chile,  poh 
chile,  nyum  nyum  nyum. 

Sir  Jasper 
One  perceives  the  well-known  dangers  of  playing  the  Good  Samari- 
tan towards   an  afflicted  member  of  the  opp)Osite  sex.     Pity  has 
touched  even  our  good  Cain  to  tears. 

Belle 

iOh,  I  wonder  what's  going  to  happen.  It's  so  exciting.  I'm  so  glad 
Henrika's  gone  to  sleep. 

Topsy 
It  was  silly  of  me  to  go  all  faint  like  that. 

Aston 
I  ought  to  have  warned  you  in  time  of  the  chloroform  flower. 

Belle 

But  it's  such  a  lovely  feeling  now* — like  being  in  a  very  hot  bath 
with  lots  of  verbena  bathsalts,  and  hardly  able  to  move  wiA  limp- 
nesis,  but  just  ever  so  comfortable  and  happy.  » 

Aston 

^How  do  you  feel  now?    I'm  afraid  you're  looking  very  pale.    Poor 
child! 

Cain 
Poh  chile,  poh  chile  .  ., .  . 

Sir  Jasper 
I  don't  know  much  about  these  things,  but  it  seems  to  me,  my 
dear  Aston,  that  the  moment  has  decidedly  arrived. 


The    Little    Review 


Aston 
I'm  so  sorry.    You  poor  little  thing  .  .  .  {He  kisses  her  very  gently 
on  the  forehead)  . 

Belle 
A-a-h, 

Henrika 
Oh!     He  kissed  me:     but  he's  so  kind  and  good,  so  kind  and  good. 
(5//C  stirs  and  falls  back  again  into  her  drowsy  trance). 

Cain 
Poh  chile,  poh  chile!  {He  leans  over  Aston's  shoulder  and  begins 
rudely  kissing  Topsy's  trance-calm,  parted  lips.  Topsy  opens  her 
Cycs  and  sees  the  black  greasy  face,  the  chryselephantine  smile,, 
the  pink  thick  lips,  the  goggling  eyeballs  of  white  enamel.  She 
screams.  Henrika  springs  up  and  screams  too.  Topsy  slips  on  to 
the  floor,  and  Cain  and  Aston  are  left  face  to  face  with  Henrika, 
pale  as  death  and  with  wide  open  terrified  eyes.  She  is  trembling 
in  every  limb)   .         , 

-^  Aston 

{Gives  Cain  a  push  that  sends  him  sprawling  backwards  and  falls 
on  his  knees  before  the  pathetic  figure  of  Henrika).  Oh,  I'm  so 
sorry,  I'm  so  sorry.  What  a  beast  I  am.  I  don't  know  what 
can  have  been  thinking  of  to  do  such  a  thing. 

Sir  Jasper 

My  dear  boy,  I'm  afraid  you  and  Cain  knew  only  too  well  wliat 
you  were  thinking  of.    Only  too  well  .  .  . 

Aston 
Will  you  forgive  me?     I  can't  forgive  myself. 

Henrika 

Oh,  you  hurt  me,  you  frightened  me  so  much.  I  can't  bear  it.  {She 
cries) . 

Aston 

Oh  God,  oh  God!  {The  tears  start  into  his  eyes  also.  He  takes 
Henrika's  hand  and  begins  to  kiss  it)  .    I'm  so  sorry,  I'm  so  sorry. 

Sir  Jasper 

If  you're  , not  very  careful,  Aslon,  you'll  have  Cain  to  deal  with 
agaip.  {Cain  has  picked  himself  up  Mnd  is  creeping  stealthily 
towards  the  couple  in  the  centre  of  the  conservatory)  . 

Aston 

{turning  round)  .  Cain,  you  brute,  go  to  hell!  (Cain  slinks  back). 
Oh,  will  you  forgive  me  for  having  been  such  a  swine?  What  can 
I  do? 


I 


The    Little    Review  29 


Topsy 
{wJio  has  recovered  her  selj-posscssion,  rises  to  her  feet  and  pushes 
Henrika  into  the  background).     Thank  you,  it  is  really  quiet  all 
'right.    I  think  it  would  be  best  to  say  no  more  about  it,  to  forget 
what  has  happened. 

Aston 
•Will  you  forgive  me  then? 

Topsy 
Of  course,  of  course.    Please  get  up,  Mr.  Tyrrell. 

Aston 
{climbing  to  his  feet)  I  can't  think  how  I  ever  came  to  be  such  a 
brute. 

Topsy 
{coldly)  I  thought  we  had  agreed  not  to  talk  about  this  incident 
any  further.     ( There  is  a  silence)  . 

Sir  Jasper 
Well,  Aston?     This  has  been  rather  fun. 

Belle 
I  wish  you  hadn't  been  quite  so  cold  \Vith  him,  Topsy.    Poor  man! 
he  really  is  very  sorry.    One  can  see  that. 

Henrika 

But  did  you  see  that  awful  face?  (5//^  shudders  and  covers  her 
eyes)  . 

Aston 

{picking  up  his  dummy  and  manipulating  it).  It  is  very  hot  in 
here,  is  it  not.    Shall  we  go  back  to  the  dancing-room? 

Topsy 
{also  takes  up  her  dummy).    Yes,  let  us  go  back. 

Aston' s  dummy 
Isn't  that  'Roses  in  Picardy'  that  the  band  is  playing? 

Topsy' s  dummy 
I  believe  it  is.    What  a  very  good  band,  don't  you  think. 

Aston' s  dummy 

Yes;  it  plays  during  dinner,  you  know,  at  the  Necropele.  {To  Jas- 
per). Lord,  what  a  fool  I  am.  I'd  quite  forgotten;  it  was  she 
who  told  me  so  as  we  came  in. 

Topsy's  dummy 
it  the  Necropole?    Really. 

Asian's  dummy 
|A  very  good  band  and  a  very  good  floor. 

Topsy's  dummy 
lYes,  it's  a  perfect  floor,  isn't  it.     Like  glass  .  .  .   {They  go  out, 


30  -  The    Little    Review 


followed  by  their  respective  families.    Belle  supports  Henrika,  who 
is  still  very  weak  after  her  shock). 

Belle 
How  exciting  it  was,  wasn't  it,  Henrika. 

Henrika. 
Wasn't  it  awful — too  awful!     Oh,  that  face  .  .  , 
{Cain  follows  Aston  out  in  silence  and  dejection.    Sir  Jasper  brings 
up  the  rear  of  the  procession.    His  face  wears  its  usual  expression 
of  slightly  of  bored  amusement    He  lights  a  cigarette). 

Sir  Jasper 
Charming  evening,  charming  evening  .  .  .  Now  it's  over,  I  wonder 
whether  it  ever  existed.  {He  goes  out.  The  conservatory  is  left 
empty.  The  flowers  flash  their  luminous  pistils;  the  eyes  of  the 
assafoetida  blossoms  solemnly  wink;  leaves  shake  and  sway  and 
rustle;  several  of  the  flowers  are  heard  to  utter  a  low  chuckle,  while 
the  Alocusla,  after  ivJiistling  a  few  derisive  notes,  finally  utters  a  loud 
gross  oriental  hiccough.    The  curtain  slowly  descends)  . 


G ro t e s kl i n i e n    des    Claviers 

{zvith   apologies  to  M.   I.) 
by   Alfred   Stone 

Your  loins 

cut  across  the  surbassed  wood 

are  wan 

as  on  a  leaden  water. 

Esurient  teeth  of  a  carkled  roue 

are  the  gestures 

of  each  ivory  segment. 

Every  tenuous  note  threads  the  amative  air 
over  the  chased  silver  balconnade 
and  breaks  against 
an  etoliate  moon. 


These  things  weary  me 
with  the  monotony   • 
of  white  upon  white. 


GTTLE  HEYIEW 


Editor: 

Margaret  Anderson 

Foreign   Editors: 

John    Rodker  Jules   Romains 

Advisory    Board: 
jh 

DISCUSSION 

Critical     Suggestions 
by  Jessie  Dismorr 

A  sceptic,  doubtful  o'f  the  actuality  of  artistic  presentment,  might 
be  the  agent  needed  to  clarify  aesthetic  thought.  It  is  the 
atheist  with  his  intellectual  integrity  who  has  defined  the  shapes 
of  religious  conceptions.  Against  such  an  attitude  the  discounted 
imagination  with  all  its  force  rises  inevitably  in  self-justification. 

Art,  like  religion,  suffers  chiefly  from  the  itoo-eager  belief  and  im- 
pressiblity  of  its  devotees  and  from  their  too  low  intellectual 
standard. 

It  is  surely  under-estimated  the  part  that  suggestibility  plays 
in  our  acceptance  of  fonns  of  beauty.  We  submit,  not  only  to 
the  suggestion  of  contemporary  taste  but  of  inherited  modes. 
There  is  nothing  so  easily  evolved  as  aesthetic  predilections  in  ac- 


The    Little    Review  K 


tivc  minds  :  but  has  not  the  time  come,  not  for  new  predilections   ;^ 

but  for  a  new  mentality?  *;' 

The  European  critic  should  purify  himself  from  occidental  pre-    , 
judices,  the  eastern  from  oriental  ones;  above  all  should  the  wester- 
ner be  free  from  partiality  for  the  Orient. 


J 


The  whole  technique  of  painting  is  a  business  of  minute  sym-  ■> 
bolism  .     The  finished  representative  i)iece  of  any  diplomaed  artist 
is  nothing  but  that;    the  symbolism  however  is  of  the  cheapest 
quality. 

Bad  art  represents  a  poor  mentality  :  in  other  words  an  in- 
vention of  poor  symbols. 

A  disposition  of  mauve  and  grey  in  gradation  upon  a  flat  pink 
surface  does  not  connec/t  it  with  the  actual  roundness  of  an  arm 
more  closely  than  would  the  untouched  space.  Shading  however 
is  the  occidental  writing  for  roundness  . 

« 

Despite  the  strictures  of  our  drawing-masters,  a  picture  can- 
not be  right  or  wrong  :  it  can  only  be  good  or  bad. 

Representative  art  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 

Has  the  man  in  the  street  who  believes  that  a  picture  should  be 
"exactly  like  nature"  realized  the  essential  nonsense  of  the  phrase?  In 
his  favorite  oleographic  piece  even  those  qualities  common  to  the 
subject  and  its  presentment  are  of  the  least  obvious.  Weight, 
substance,  size,  effect,  position,  for  instance,  differ  completely. 
His  phrase  requires  that  the  portrait  of  a  man  should  be  the 
twin-brother  of  the  model. 

There  is  nothing  more  enlightening  than  the  strict  examine, 
ntion  of  critical  terms.  "The  Soul,"  "spiritual,"  are  terms  fot't 
the  use  of  theologians,  they  cannot  be  rightly  used  in  connection- 
with  the  plastic  arts.  ^ 

That  which  the  soul  is  to  the  body,  beauty  lis  to  the  plastic; 
experiment. 


The    Little  Review  33 


No  aesthetic  achievement  was  ever  the  outcome  of  a  meta- 
physical idea.  Pictures  of  Faith,  Hope,  Charity  are  por'-.raits  of 
women. 

All  art  has  a  physical  basis. 

So-called  "abstract  art"  is  equally  involved  in  this  law.  It  is 
open  to  the  artist  to  make  so  wide  an  imaginative  detour  from 
the  original  starting  point  ithat  he  alone  may  realize  from  whence 
he  has  come.  A  certain  superfineness  of  intellect  might  disdain 
anything  like  literalism  in  translation,  and  seek  by  indirections  the 
plastic  equivalent  to  the  original  fact. 

^  Abstract  art  implies  nothing  vague  or  lill-defined:  on  the  con- 
trary an  extreme  liberation  of  essentials  from  the  obscurity  of 
literalism. 

Beauty  is  the  result  of  a  certain  arrangement  of  forms.  All 
beauty  is  accidental.  It  is  a  surprise  chiefly  to  the  craftsman  of 
whom  lit  has  been  the  aspiration. 

The  strongest  aesthetic  impulse  needs  the  curb  of  the  most 
exact  technique. 

A  display  of  emotion  and  physical  abandon  in  a  "bold"  tech- 
nique is  merely  vulgarity.  It  corresponds  to  the  manner  of  a 
gourmet  who  too  obviously  enjoys  his  meal. 

There  is  that  in  most  good  art  that  is  the  counterpart  of 
"breeding"  iin  fine  persons:  it  may  be  replaced  by  the  naivete 
and  simpleness  that  is  the  "breeding"  of  peasants. 

An  artist  can  no  more  create  new  forms  than  a  musician  can^ 
invent  hitherto  non-existent  tones.  There  is  no  shape  that  he 
can  mentally  conceive  which  has  not  already  been  made  use  of 
by  Nature. 

A  picture  void  of  content  is  an  limpossibility. 

The  least  advanced  student  in  a  Cubist  atelier  has  more 
knowledge  of  the  elements  of  form  than  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 
The  whole  of  the  eighteenth  century  school  crumbles  to  dust 
when  subjected  to  the  tests  by  which  a  student's  work  would 
be  judged. 

There  are  certain  artists  whose  work  should  be  greatly 
praised,  but  in  a  particular  way.     They  are  not  the  producers 


34  The    Little    Review 


uf  indiviidual  masterpieces,  they  are  technical  analysts. "  Of  such 
are  the  Impressionists,  Monet,  Renoir  and  their  school;  of  such 
also  are  the  Cubists,  Fauconnier,  Metzinger  and  others. 

All  color  can  be  reduced  to  the  primary  tints,  all  form  to  the 
basic  geometric  shapes. 

There  are  a  thousand  clever  artists  to  one   intelligent  one. 

Good  art  lis  concerned  with  the  making  of  gods  or  of  toys — 
creations  of  almost  equivalent  power.  Cimabue  and  the  Egyptians 
realized  the  former  achievement.  In  our  own  day  some  excellent 
toy-makers  are  the  painters  Picasso,  Wadsworth,  Herbin,  Braque, 
etc. 

The  love  of  things  delivers  from  the  tyranny  of  the  love  of 
persons.  Aesthetic  delight  is  the  most  complete  rest  from  per- 
sonal claims. 

Superior  minds  value  beauty  for  litself  and  discount  associa- 
tion. 

Art  that  is  one  step  beyond  the  level  of  taste  charms  like 
a  novelty,  art  that  is  two  steps  ahead  hurts  like  an  outrage. 

It  is  not  sufficiently  realized  that  the  qualities  of  Michelan- 
gelo are  as  esoteric  as  those  of  Picasso,  and  are  understood  of  as 
few  in  proportion  of  those  who  see  the  work. 

The  finest  characteristics  of  all  great  art  are  difficult  to  ap- 
preciate, though  its  minor  charms  will  be  recognized  at  once. 
Great  art  at  first  sight  is  often  austere  and  repellant,  and  if  it  is 
an  advance  in  a  strange  direction  must  be  so. 

Picasso  is  a  type  of  the  most  restless  and  unconvinced  artistiic 
intelligence;  lacking  in  character  as  all  experimentalists  of  his 
type  are  lacking;  perhaps  an  aestethic  Pascal.  > 

Frequenters  of  galleries  are  fond  of  saying:  "I  like  this," 
"I  don't  like  that."  But  how  irrelevant  are  such  remarks.  The 
approbation   of   those  persons  was   the   painter's   least   concern. 

The  artist  who  works  for  fame  is  less  an  artist  than  a  human- 
itarian. 

Obscure'  leisure  is  an  artist's  daily  bread,  fame  is  his  wine. 
Dninkenness  is  a  common  vice. 


The    Little    Review  35 


It  is  possible  that  a  fine  artistic  intelligence  may  be  yoked 
with  a  halting  executive  faculty.  Blake  and  possibly  Cezanne 
are  artiists  of  this  type.  Nothing  however  can  finally  affect  great- 
ness; obscurity,  cleverness,  fame,  clumsiness  destroy  'only  the 
second-rate. 

One  must  differentiate  between  the  recipe  maker  such  as 
Brangwyn  whose  every  picture  must  succeed,  so  knowing  is  the 
use  of  tone  and  line,  and  the  medium  of  intuition  such  as  Gauguin 
whose  pictures  have  the  good  fortune  of  possiible  failure. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  judge  an  artist  by  one  or  by  ten  of  his 
works.  A  show  of  landscapes  by  Cezanne  may  exhibit  not  one 
of  first  excellence:  yet  if  nine  tenths  of  his  work  were  unsuccessful 
it  would  scarcely  affect  his  legacy  to  the  age. 

Egyptian  artists  touched  priests,  queens,  kings,  animals  and 
they  became  gods:  *^z  Greek  could  not  touch  the  gods  without 
turning  t^^^T.  mto  fellow  citizens. 

By  his  admirations  is  the  rank  of  a  man  eventually  estab- 
lished. 

The  mess  and  muddle  of  an  artist's  personal  life  is  the 
chaos  from  which  evolves  the  order  of  creation  . 

[I  have  been  amazed  at  Miss  Dismorr's  alphabetical  statement 
of  aesthetic  ideas.  It  seems  to  me  that  she  is  either  obvious  (as  in 
her  paragraph  about  the  frequenters  of  galleries),  or  confused  (as 
in  her  talk  of  the  intellect  and  the  intellegence) ,  or  untrue  (as  in 
her^alk  of  the  intellect  and  the  intellegence) ,  or  untrue  (as  in  her 
statement  about  art  having  a  physical  basis  and  "the  love  of  things 
delivering  one  from  the  tyranny  of  the  love  of  persons."  There  is 
no  appreciable  difference  ibetween  the  love  of  things  and  the  love 
of  persons  :  both  deliver  into  the  same  tyranny.  Etc.,  etc.,  etc. — 
M.  C.  A.\ 


36  The    Little    Review 


I 


Four      Foreigners 

by  William  Carlos  Williams  ] 

FOR   my   present   purpose    it    is    not    necessary    to    distinguish 
between  the  poet  and  the  prose  artist.    One  should  know  when 
a  thing  is  worthless  whether  it  be  prose  or  verse. 

I  speak  of  the  work  of  Aldington  and  D.  H.  Lawrence  (as 
represented  in  the  July  issue  of  Poetry),  and  of  the  work  of  Joyce 
and  Dorothy  Richardson  (  as  represented  in  the  Little  Review  of 
the  same  month).  The  first  two  offer,  to  me,  an  indecent  exposure, 
the  second  two  have  managed  to  endow  their  work  with  the  bloom 
of  excellence. 

But  what  I  am  really  at,  always,  is  a  statement  of  those 
things  which  not  only  every  man  writing  today  must  know  but 
which  any  man  writing  or  talking  in  any  age  has  had  to  know, 
not  only  to  know  but  to  feel.  If  one  must  name  names  it  is  merely 
the  tag  to  one's  vision.  What  is  one  to  see?  Is  it  a  colofed 
sunset  of  words  twisted  into  nameless  patterns  as  if  spewed  from 
a  stone  mouth,  or  is  it  greatness  or  mediocrity  as  they  appear  in 
the  toil  of  a  living  creature?  I  do  not  try  to  illustrate  my  remarks 
with  passages  from  men's  work.     The  work  they  do  is  my  speech. 

The  poems,  the  work  of  Aldington  and  Lawrence  relate  to  the 
great  war.  Aldington  has  decidedly  gone  backward  in  these  poems. 
Lawrence  fails  because  he  has  not  lifted  himself  above  his  own 
excellences.  It  is  perhaps  the  war  that  has  reduced  them.  In  any 
case  one  looks  in  vain  for  a  glimpse  of  distortion,  a  glimpse  of 
agony,  a  glimpse  of  flame  to  rise  counter  to  the  gross  flame  of 
mud  even  that  enveloped  the  armies  in  the  field.  I  do  not  say 
it  was  possible.  I  say  merely  that  the  thing  is  absent  from  these 
poems.  They  are  empty  nonsense  having  no  relation  to  the  place 
or  the  time  they  were  written  in.    They  have  no  existence. 

It  has  been  said   that  no  man  could  exist  during  the  war. 
It  is  rated  as  a  virtue  that  a  man  could  for  a  moment  think  of  any- 
thing at  all  that  had  any  worth  in  it.     Then  Aldington's  work  is , 
perhaps  the  work  of  a  genius  of  fortitude. 

No  poet  was  able  to  exist  during  and  in  the  war  as  far  as 
I  have  been  able  to  find  out.     But  that  does  not  mean  that  thei 
work  of  good  men  who  went   into   the  war  and   were   rendered  i 
mediocre  by  it  is  to  be  accepted  as  excellent.  | 

Nevertheless  one  must   imagine  some  iron  genius  in  whomjj 


The    Little    Review  37 


cannon  fire  found  an  echo  in  hiis  own  stomach.  If  no  human 
mechanism  is  strong  enough  for  that  then  indeed  we  had  better 
know  it  once  in  all  its  terrible  significance  and  kill  ourselves  or 
murder  the  cannon  makers. 

But  one  must  judge  the  situation  as  it  exists:  have  the  poets 
in  this  case  mounted  to  the  impossible  height  of  housing  a  war 
in  their  hearts  equal  to  the  hellish  filthiness  of  a  war  of  tedium 
and  ennui  such  as  we  knew?  No,  no,  no.  Beautiful  and  of  fragmen- 
tary excellence  as  these  poems  (which  I  have  not  the  space  to 
quote)  may  be,  they  are  utter  failures. 

What  is  this  silly  invocation  to  love  and  loveliness — of  Al- 
dington's especially, — this  address  to  doves  flying  over  the  horrid 
trenches?  It  is  the  invitation  to  amnesia,  it  fogs  over  the  values 
of  the  scenes  as  represented,  the  things  exist  not  more  fully  but 
less.  And  of  course  this  is  what  is  intended.  Reading  these 
poems  the  effect  is  the  annihilation  of  a  section  of  the  man's 
existence  which  Villon's  or  Sappho's  poetry  never  is.  It  is  a  denial 
of  that  existence.  Reading  them  one  sees  nothing;  nothing  exists. 
But  since  one  does  not  see  the  very  things  which  the  amnesic  invo- 
cation to  love  befoggs  one  does  not  see,  neither  feel,  the  love  the  poet 
speaks  of.    For  that  reason  the  poem  is  anew  empty. 

A  poet  enkindled  in  his  heart  by  love's  desolateness  or  fruit- 
fulness  would  see  the  light  shine  on  the  parapet  at  so  acute  an 
angle  that  the  representation  of  it  would — be  a  love  poem. 

A.  and  L.  say  one  thing  over  and  over:  modern  or  ancient, 
war  or  no  war,  love  is  always  love  and  poetry  is  poetry.  And  they 
say  it  as  might  be  expected  of  them  in  a  lovely  manner,  in  sweet- 
free  verse  and  in  quatrains  and  so  forth,  which  is  appropriate. 

Have  I  lost  her  lost  her  indeed? 

Lost  the  calm  eyes  and  eager  lips  of  love. 

The  two-fold  amorous  breasts  and  braided  hair, 

This  is  good  writing,  it  is  charming  verse,  but  it  might  as  well  be 
a  translation  from  the  Chinese  as  it  is  intrinsically  a  translation 
from  the  Greek.  The  devotees  of  Beauty  may  clatter  and  scold 
about  the  head  of  a  man  but  he  must  nevertheless  voice  his  dis- " 
gust  at  that  which — agh.  I  prefer  Aldington  to  all  the  "men"  in 
the  world.  It  is  not  that.  I  am  objecting  to  a  certain  work  of 
art  that  it  is  not  what  it  is  not.  I  know  I  am  a  fool.  I  have 
the  fellow  in  my  arms! 

I  do  not  ask  for  cannon  in  a  poem  but  I  do  ask  for  more  than 
a  drugged  swig  of  loveliness.  I  ask  for  existence,  for  wide  open 
eyes   into  which  shells  pass   and   explode   with   all   their  havoc 


38  The    Little    Revieu> 


sucked  from  them  for  secret  purposes.  Or  if  death  is  triumphant 
then  more  than  ever  let  a  fellow  die  like  any  other  stupid  numb- 
skull. Poetry  is  not  a  despairing  cry  of  defiance.  It  is  not  a 
bottle  to  nurse.  It  is  an  assertion:  I  am  here  today  in  the  midst 
of  living  hell!  I  equal  to  any  hell  of  gas  or  noise  or  sniper's 
bullet  or  disease  and  its  fith.  Ah,  I  know  that  I  am  a  fool.  It 
is  easy  for  me  to  write.  I  have  never  been  in  the  trenches.  I 
have  never  seen.  All  the  more  reason  then  for  me  to  speak  at 
once. 

In  these  poems,  the  present  form  of  this  war  as  opposed  to 
all  others,  the  inventions,  the  "I  am,  I  here  today"  bewilders  me 
by  its  absence.  The  poet  must  use  anything  at  hand  to  assert 
himself.  If  he  cannot  do  so  he  is  less  than  great.  The  proof 
that  I  am  I  is  that  I  can  use  anything,  not  a  special  formula 
but  anything.     That  is  the  first  necessity. 

To  be  alive  now,  here  today  to  the  full  so  that  one  does 
not  wear  mental  snowglasses.  Love!  It  is  not  rice  powder.  It 
is  a  thing  one  carries  everywhere.  It  puts  a  light  on  the  point  of 
a  bayonette,  it  does  not  dim  the  bayonette  out  of  existence.  Or 
if  it  does,  to  hell  with  such  love. 

Joyce  and  Richardson  do  not  err  in  the  way  I  have  indicated. 
Of  course  they  are  not  writing  of  the  war,  nor  is  their  work  in- 
fluenced thereby  but  I  cannot  help  that.  Their  form  lives!  It 
is  not  a  bed.    It  is  not  to  put  one  to  sleep.    It  lives  in  its  today. 

They  plunge  naked  into  the  flaming  cauldron  of  today.  In- 
sofar as  their  form  goes  the  war  exists  in  it.  carries  its  own  mean- 
ing. It  is  a  different  war,  it  is  not  like  other  wars,  it  is  modern, 
it  exists,  it  is  not  a  thing  to  spitlick.  These  two  overlook  or  place 
in  its  proper  corner  the  God  damned  insolence  of  sex,  of  love  as 
against  the  moment.     Does  one  wish  to  exist  anesthetised?  , 

What  can  one  care  if  Joyce  is  lewd  and  in  the  street,  if 
Richardson  is  charming  and  in  a  girl's  bedroom?  They  are  there 
and  it  escap>es  notice. 

Where  is  the  genius  to  touch  the  world  and  change  it,  to 
reveal  the  truth  among  the  lies  so  that  the  world  will  shine  for 
old  and  young,  female  and  male?  A  vision  will  do  this  and  not  a 
love-potion.  Love  is  great  but  it  is  nothing  unless  it  enkindle 
the  sense  of  sight,  of  smell,  of  hearing.  In  Solomon's  Song  the 
poet  saw  her  belly,  her  navel  and  the  rest  of  it  in  terms  of  his 
day  .so  that  he  revealed  not  only  her  but  his  love  of  her.  There 
is  no  such  vision  in  Aldington's  songs.  There  is  a  running  com- 
mentary about  chalk  trenches,  etc.,  but  where  is  the  fusion  of  his 


The    Little   Review  39 


love  with   the  whiteness   of  the   chalk  of  the  trenches,   the  rum- 
bling of  the  love  with  the  rumbling  of  the  cannon — if  you  will? 

Life!  not  under  certain  conditions  but  all  the  time,  under  all 
conditions.  That's  what  they  would  answer  me  with:  Love  under 
all  conditions.  Perhaps  ft  is  temperamental.  It  is  that  life  to 
me  is  first  and  love  only  exists  when  it  is  a  dynamo  or  a  leaf.  And 
I  still  insist  that  unless  they  embody  the  special  condition  in 
their  form,  the  form  of  what  they  say,  they  are  not  expressing 
their  love,  they  are  simply  fooling  themselves.  Both  poets  have 
done  better  work,  far  better,  let  it  go  at  that.  Aldington  in  the 
July  English  Review: 

But  these  things  pass  over,  beyond  and  away  from  me 

The  voices  of  the  men  fade  into  silence 

For  I  am  burned  with  a  sweet  madness 

Soothed  also  by  the  fire  that  burns  me 

Exalted  and  made  happy  in  misery 

By  love,  by  an  unfaltering  love — 

— and  there's  the  whole  thing  again. 

Sappho  is  to  be  praised  not  because  she  was  a  lover  but  be- 
ause  she  was  a  poet.  The  form  of  her  verse,  the  music, — it 
portrayed  the  fidelty  of  her  "vision".  It  is  not  that  she  sang  of 
ove  that  made  her  great,  not  because  love  soothed  her  but  because 
ove  gave  her  VISION,  it  burned  for  her  in  the  delicate  vision  she 
had  of  her  boy's  cheeks  and  hair  and  walk  and  manner.  It  was 
3nly  a  pseudo-madness.  And  that  is  her  greatness — and  that  is 
why  she  cannot  be  imitated. 

D.  H.  Lawrence 
3y  Margaret  Anderson 

I  agree  with  Dr.  Williams;  but  I  want  to  say  something  further 
about  the  poe'iy  of  D.  H.  Lawrence, — particularly  the  love 
joetry  in  "Look!  W  e  Have  Come  Through."  To  me  Mr.  Aldington's 
'ines  and  flowers  and  loveliness,  etc.,  are  so  preferable  to  Mr.  Law- 
ence's  heavy  humanness!  The  blind  welter  of  the  human  struggle 
las  no  necessary  place  in  love, — nothing  burns  more  dimly  than 
his  perfectly  typical  expression  of  perfectly  average  six  reactions. 
ft's  the  Whitman  feeling,  intellectualized.  I  have  never  known  why 
iVhitman  has  been  considered  a  voice  on  love,  any  more  than  I 
jave  known  why  Henry  James's  love  stories  have  been  considered 


40  The    Little    Review 


love  stories.  One  seems  as  sterile  to  me  as  the  other,  in  relation  to 
any  conception  of  love.  The  "great  human"  view  is  certainly  al- 
ways accompanied  by  some  utter  absence  of  quality.  I  know  it  is 
considered  by  most  i)eople  as  the  infallible  sign  of  "vision"  in  love,-^ 
this  tortured  turning  and  twisting  of  the  soul,  this  obvious,  direct, 
untempered  expression  of  the  purely  human  need,  the  elementary 
human  impulses.  This  is  the  essence  of  Mr.  Lawrence's  feeling  about 
love,  his  idea  of  love.  This  is  as  far  as  he  h,as  "seen".  It  is  identical 
with  nothing  in  the  world  but  the  "vision"  of  the  man  in  the  street, 
— I  don't  mean  the  man  who  neither  thinks  nor  feels,  but  the  man 
who  talks  about  beauty  and  means  the  worship  of  very  pink  sunsets. 

DOROTHY    RICHARDSON 

by  John  Rodker 

Dorothy  Richardson  appears  in  this  new  instalment  of  her 
cycle  to  have  made  a  tiresome  practise  of  what  was  originally 
a  rather  engaging  manner.  One  feels — and  perhaps  that  is  what 
one  is  expected  to  feel — that  nothing  now  will  ever  be  able  to  inter- 
pose between  herself  and  this  Juggernalh  of  her  WORK.  With 
extraordinary  and  arachnoid  patience  she  persists  in  still  rebuilding 
her  web  under  some  strange  persecution-delusion  that  the  observing 
scientist  has  destroyed  it.  This  is  absurd;  the  original  statcmeni 
stands — the  additional  respinning  only  results  in  what  was  a  brigh: 
and  not  unoriginal  conception  becoming  thickened  to  the  diametei 
of  a  hawser. 

In  this  welter  of  material  the  reader  feels  like  a  Kafir  care 
fully  searching  for  the  diamond  swallowed  the  day  before.  Mud 
is  irrelevant,  sundry  sparkles  attract  but  they  are  not  the  indubit- 
able article.  Still  he  cannot  conceive  of  the  stone  being  else 
where  and  the  search  is  protracted  indefinitely. 

Read  for  a  brief  half  hour  Miss  Richardson  is  interesting,  he 
perception  is  just,  her  comments  show  a  lively  mind;  but  whiH" 
the  writer  with  a  fresh  mind  on  several  consecutive  mornings,  shal 
we  say,  worked  out  in  a  thousand  words  or  more  the  passage  o 
Miriam  through  a  front  door,  the  reader  can  hardly  be  expectei 
to  consider  it  relevant,  or  in  any  case  to  remember  it.  The  methw 
of  whipping  up  enormous  masses  of  material  to  coagulate  a  skele 
ton  may  be  new;  it  may  be  even  e.xciting  in  an  age  where 
our  curiosity  is  a  kind  of  sunday-morning-paper  society  gossip 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  anything  in  life  may  be  said  ti 

J 


The    Little    Review  41 


be  a  waste  of  time  this  kind  of  gossip  is  it.  Carefully  avoiding 
all  hills  Miss  Richardson  keeps  brilliantly  to  exotic  valleys  so 
full  of  life  that  one  is  suffocated. 

For  myself  I  would  rather  have  an  impression  created  in  one 
phrase  than  in  ten.  Miss  Richardson  will  probably  say  "yes!  if 
vuu  can  get  the  same  impression,"  but  when  one  gets  no  impression 
one  has  a  legitimate  grievance.  The  best  literature  allows  a 
very  small  latitude  but  certainly  there,  i,  e.  from  indications  given, 
one  is  allowed  a  real  if  circumscribed  manoeuvring  ground,  but 
Miss  Richardson  is  a  too  familiar  familiar,  her  jogging  elbow  is 
always  in  your  ribs — disaster  waits  you  on  either  side.  But  no 
brain  could  want  all  this  detail.  Yet  Miss  Sinclair's  article  re- 
tiKiins  true:  there  is  quality  in  this  work,  sympathy  even,  but  as 
1  scientific  study, — else  why  so  ponderous. — it  is  fairly  valueless 
^ince  with  every  appearance  of  allowing 'herself  a  free  rein  Miss 
Richardson  has  a  particularly  firm  hand  on  the  reins.  Her  method 
has  been  compared  to  that  of  Joyce.  This  is  mere  footling  since 
anyone  with  a  sufficiently  sympathetic  and  cultured  brain  can 
follow  Joyce  and  be  moved  by  him;  but  Miss  Richardson's  asso- 
ciations are  as  free  as  a  choppy  sea  and  with  the  same  effect. 
Mss  Richardson  is  too  intellectually  subtle  It's  a  very  clever 
ne;  a  very  dreary  analysis.  Reverberation  of  thought  carried 
u  a  certain  point  has  no  further  value — "he  knew  she  knew  he 
vnew  she  knew — ." 


KISS 

by   Emanuel   Carnevali 

You  think  you  can  leave  the  matter  to  your  lips 
and  they  don't  work  right 

and  then 

it's  two  deadmen"  shaking  hands 

saying  "Howdy do  Sir?" 


42  The    Little    Review 


LA  SORELLA 
by  Esther  Kohen 

THE  Little  Mother  is  sitting  by  the  window  in  a  wicker  rocker. 
The  morning  room  opens  into  a  ckimber  of  grapevines  trained 
by  my  father  who  is  dead.  He  had  to  have  his  grape  vine  though 
my  father  who  is  dead.  He  had  to  have  his  grape  vine  though 
he  knew  it  would  not  blossom;  it  was  a  peasant  instinct  in  him 
to  train  a  vine.  After  he  came  here,  he  bargained  in  apples  and 
potatoes,  alien  fruits  to  the  currant  and  peach  blooms  he  remem- 
bered. But  he  soon  began  bargaining  in  big  carloads,  in  train  load- 
fuls,  and  now  we  have  a  morning  room,  a  cheerful  guest  parlor  for 
the  invitation  of  the  sun  and  the  blithe  lightnesses  of  the  morn- 
ing. But  it  is  evening,  not  morning  now.  We  sit  in  the  morning 
room  because  it  is  fragrant  in  the  shadows. 

The  little  blood  pricks  one  sees  in  ripe  apricots  are  in  my 
mother's  cheeks.  She  has  grown  old  as  do  flowers  and  fruits  on 
stems,  so  prettily,  so  naturally,  the  lines  and  new  flavor  of  flesh 
came  on  stealthily  and  were  becoming. 

"Play  me  something  elegant  and  running  away,"  she  asks. 

"I  cannot  play,"  I  tell  her,  but  I  will  set  the  victrola  to  work. 
She  is  laughing  with  a  shimmering  irradiation  of  her  body — so 
foreign,  so  entirely  foreign. 

"The  Berdon's  next  door  have  bought  a  new  car,"  she  tells  me. 
"Mrs.  Berdon  will  have  things  sumptuous  even  though  the  spindle 
breaks." 

I  look  up  and  fondle  her  with  my  eyes.  What  a  mixture  oi 
idiom!  When  there  is  too  much  flaS  on  the  spindle  it  may  break, 
but  what  a  jump  from  spindles  to  motors. 

My  mind  encroaches  upon  secret  back  things  with  an  eagei 
craving.  I  feel  playful  and  would  like  to  put  a  kerchief  with  a 
red  crossstich  on  mother's  hair.  I  hoard  a  sweet  secret  against 
her.  Her  white  hair  is  making  a  petal  frieze  against  the  arm  supc 
port  of  the  rocker.  Fragrant  little  aristocrat!  The  rocker  U 
soughing  against  the  arbor  and  the  stout  stems  weigh  and  bend  al 
if  breathing  with  a  fecund  tenancy  of  birds.  | 

Mother  Rosa  peers  through  the  vines.  ' 

"The  Berdon's  car  is  a  very  big  one,"  she  comments  and  in- 
clines forward  with  a  glow  of  movement. 

I  have  started  a  Choi)in  waltz  on  the  victrola.  The  music 
comes  from  an  interior  room,  and  only  the  high  vocative  notes 
speak  aloud. 


The   Little  Review  43 


"It  maks  a  pretty  murmur,  I  like  the  evenings  in  the  quiet," 
Mother  Rosa  says. 

It  is  very  still  in  our  street.  The  lampman  walks  by  with  a 
high  torch  and  the  lighted  lamp  in  front  of  the  lawn  makes  our 
arbor  shed  changing  liquids  of  silver  and  shadows.  I  should  like 
to  talk  to  mother  of  some  of  the  things  I  know.  Memories  filter 
back  complete  in  conception  with  all  the  mysticity  of  sound  and 
feeling  in  which  I  received  them.  I  have  the  entire  pungency  of 
Mother  Rosa's  youth  within  me.  But  I  cannot  tlel  her.  I  cannot 
unravel  myself  sufficiently.     How  go  back? 

A  trumpeting  breeze  is  pulling  at  the  rocker.  She  smiles  at 
its  mood.  Mother  Rosa  is  an  alien  in  the  pretty  mid-western  city 
where  we  live.  She  is  from  a  landowner's  cottage  on  the  Danube 
— always  an  alien— but  this  she  does  not  know.  She  has  tried  hard 
to  live  the  life  of  her  neighbors.  She  is  smiling  with  a  restful  guile 
at  the  tease  of  the  breeze.  Life  has  pulled  as  freakishly,  but  she 
does  not  seem  to  remember.  The  present  is  lovely  to  remember — 
the  present  alone.  The  rocker  weighs  slowly.  The  evening  is 
pleasant. 

"Mother  Rosa!"  I  breath  softly.  I  say  it  as  one  would 
utter  a  sigh.  I  have  the  feeling  of  the  lover  who  carries  with  him 
some  precious  talisman  of  the  past;  and  the  romantic  madness 
that  the  memory  is  whole,  unblown,  unchanged  is  mine.  How 
could  it  have  changed;  things  age  by  release,  and  I  have  never  re- 
leased my  image  of  Mother  Rosa  of  thirty  years  ago. 

Mother! 

She  stirs  from  within  the  matrice  of  shadows  made  by  the 
vines.  But  I  cannot  go  on,  and  I  hide  my  pass  to  begin  talk  by 
gurgling  a  fond  smile.  She  has  taught  me  odd  little  love  move- 
ments of  my  head;  she  thinks  I  am  coquetting  with  her.  "Child — " 
she  murmurs. 

Has  she  entirely  forgotten?  People  walk  past  with  conscious, 
clear  tread,  as  folk  do  in  small  towns.  These  intermittent  sounds 
fall  like  the  drop  of  hard  rain  on  the  deck  of  a  ship. 

"Do  you  remember  our  ocean  voyage.  Mother?"  I  ask  embold- 
ened. 

There  is  a  silence.    "Yes,  yes,"  she  murmurs. 

I  think  I  will  mention  the  word  sailor  to  her — le  Matelot 
Eudore!  Eudore!  Where  is  Eudore!  And  that  blessed  ship  the 
Fantasie,  so  luscious  in  my  memory.  It  all  seems  to  have  vanished 
away  like  veritable  phantasy.  Is  Mother  Rosa  entirely  unsuspect- 
ing?    Why  will  she  not  allow  me  an  entity  with  her  past.     She 


44  The    Little    Review 


cannot  have  entirely  forgotten. 

I  remember  so  many  things.  There  was  the  nobleman  Con- 
stantin,  don't  you  remember,  Mother?  Why  did  he  wear  the  nail 
on  his  little  finger  two  inches  long? 

Two  storks  grandfather  had,  and  because  it  worried  him  not 
to  know  whether  it  was  his  own  storks  that  came  back  each  year, 
he  stole  on  top  of  the  farm  barn  one  year,  and  painted  with  bright 
red  the  wings  of  the  storks.  "Ah,  but  it  worried  me  not  to  know,"  he 
used  to  say  gravely.  Grandfather  was  very  tall  and  had  a  sandy 
beard.  He  talked  little,  but  when  he  did  he  liked  to  repeat  sev- 
eral times  what  he  had  said. 

"Well,  so  I  stopped  my  worry  by  painting  the  storks'  wings, 
and  sure  the  same  two  storks  came  back." 

My  blood  pulsates  warm  and  beautiful.  I  see  a  big  field 
odprous  in  the  hot  autumn.  The  corn  is  standing  in  tall  yellow 
windrows.  The  peasant  women  are  scattered  over  the  field.  There 
is  a  cry.  A  big  eagle  has  swooped  down  to  the  ground.  The 
women's  shouts  echo  through  the  hollow  corn  stalks,  and  one 
woman  tears  the  air  in  wild,  anguished  lament.  Did  the  peasant 
woman  Sara  ever  find  the  infant  with  which  the  vulture  made  off? 

Mother  Rosa  welcomes  my  yearning  gaze  as  one  does  the 
breath  of  flowers  sprung  anew  on  one's  trees,  as  a  casual,  out- 
pouring. I  feel  the  plaintiveness  and  the  infinite  breach  that 
suggestion  is.  "I  am  of  older  acquaintance,  of  much  older  ac- 
quaintance," I  should  like  to  cry  out  to  her. 

"I  wonder  why  the  Berdon's  go  out  so  much,"  Mother  Rosa 
speaks  up;   and  rocks.     She  turns  and  faces  me  directly  because^ 
the  wind  has  loped  her  shawl  away  from  her  body. 

"Why  do  you  look  me  through  in  this  way." 

There  comes  upon  me  a  great  hate  for  the  walls  of  the  house. 
Perhaps  if  I  had  talked  with  her  ten  years  before,  twenty  years  ago! 

I  go  back  to  the  vanished  ship  Fantasie  and  to  Eudore  alone. 
Eudore!     Those  funny  pumpkin  legs! 

We  had  been  eighteen  days  out  at  sea.  The  ship  had  one 
boiler  cold  since  the  sixth  day.  Into  our  big  steerage  room  each 
night  came  the  sailor  Eudore.  He  is  fifty-four  years  old.  I  know 
that  because  he  made  that  number  of  xo\>q  knots  for  me.  "That 
is  for  the  sprightly  years  of  old  Eudore,"  he  said.  He  made 
eleven  knots  in  honor  of  my  years  ui)on  the  earth. 

The  night  which  I  remember  as  the  eighteenth  day.  Eudore 
came  into  the  big  steerage  for  the  night  watch,  swaying  and  tum- 
bling on  his  legs.    The  ship  wallowed  in  savage  jets  that  tolled  the 


The    Little    Review  45 


I  ship  like  a  wanton  buoy. 

"When  will  the  end  of  this  journey  come,"  Mother  Rosa 
asked  in  great  fear. 

"What  do  you  say,  madam,  if  we  stop  asking  each  other!" 
Eudore  answered. 

The  steerage  room  occupied  a  third  of  the  hold.  We  were 
two  hundred  people,  there  or  more. 

Later  that  night  I  awoke  giddy  with  the  billing  of  the  boat. 
I  lay  in  a  net  next  to  Mother  Rosa  with  my  brother.  There  was  a 
great  clatter,  the  foolish  boat  reeling  like  a  top  spinning  down. 
The  tin  plates  which  had  been  left  on  the  long  tables  in  the  middle 
of  the  room  scurried  and  danced  in  a  crazy  festival.  A  noisy, 
boiling  stream  of  water  had  poured  in.  The  steerage  was  full  of 
sailors  shouting  to  each  other,  and  there  was  crying  and  wailing 
from  the  huge  circle  of  beds.  The  water  swished  in  gullies  un- 
derneath our  bed  nets.  I  watched  the  sailors  work  a  long  time, 
and  then  I  fell  asleep  watching  them. 

I  don't  know  how  much  later  I  awoke,  but  the  racket  and 
I  the  pounding  was  quieter.  Someone  was  singing  and  I  saw  that 
old  sailor  Eudore  dancing.  Such  comical  dancing  I  have  never 
seen.  Eudore  pranced  to  keep  his  legs  from  slipping,  and  twirled 
himself,  his  fat  body  going  round  like  the  hoops  of  an  old  barrel. 
Those  funny  pumpkin  legs!  His  face  beamed  and  sweated,  and 
raised  itself  into  a  red  moustached  moon,  so  pervading  it  seemed, 
and  obliterated  the  room. 

"You  are  my  best  beloved — my  La  Sorella,"  a  voice  was  sing- 
ing in  lulling  sweetness. 

"Mamma,  look"!  I  cried.  "Mamma!  Mamma!"  I  leaned 
over  and  pulled  at  her  blanket.    "Mamma!" 

But  mother  did  not  answer  me:  it  was  she  who  was  singing. 


46  The    Little    Review 


ULYSSES 

by  James  Joyce 

Episode    XI    (continued) 

Douce  now.    Douce  Lydia.    Bronze  and  rose. 

She  had  a  gorgeous,  simply  gorgeous,  time.  And  look  at  the 
lovely  shell  she  brought. 

To  the  end  of  the  bar  to  him  she  bore  lightly  the  spiked  and 
winding  seaborn  that  he,  George  Lidwell,  solicitor,  might  hear. 
— Listen!  she  bade  him. 

Under  Tom  Kernan's  ginhot  words  the  accompanist  wove 
music  slow.  Authentic  fact.  How  Walter  Bapty  lost  his  voice. 
The  husband  took  him  by  the  throat.  Scoundrel,  said  he.  You*ll 
sing  no  more  lovesongs.  He  did,  sir  Tom.  Bob  Cowley  wove. 
Tenors  get  wom.  Cowley  lay  back. 

Ah,  now  he  heard,  she  holding  it  to  his  ear.  Hear!  He  heard. 
Wonderful.  She  held  it  to  her  own  and  through  the  sifted  light 
pale  gold  in  contrast  glided.    To  hear. 

Tap. 

Bloom  through  the  bardoor  saw  a  shell  held  at  their  ears. 
He  heard  more  faintly  that  that  they  heard,  each  for  herself  alone, 
then  each  for  other,  hearing  the  plash  of  waves,  loudly,  a  silent 
roar. 

Bronze  by  a  weary  gold,  anear,  afar,  they  listened. 

Her  ear  too  is  a  shell,  the  peeping  lobe  there.  Been  to  the 
seaside.  Lovely  seaside  girls.  Skin  tanned  raw.  Should  have  put 
on  cold  cream  first  make  it  brown.  Buttered  toast.  O  and  that 
lotion  mustn't  forget.  Fever  near  hef  mouth.  Your  head  it 
simply.  Hair  braided  over:  shell  with  seaweed.  Why  do  they  hide 
their  ears  with  seaweed  hair?  And  Turks  their  mouth,  why?  Hei 
eyes  over  the  sheet,  a  yashmak.  Find  the  way  in.  A  cave.  No  ad 
mittartce  except  on  business. 

The  sea  they  think  they  hear.  Singing.  A  roar.  The  blood 
it  is.  Souse  in  the  ear  sometimes.  Well,  it's  a  sea.  Corpuscle 
islands. 

Wonderful  really.  So  distinct.  Again.  George  Lidwell  helfj 
its  murmur,  hearing:  then  laid  it  by,  gently. 


II 


i\ 


il  The    Little    Review  47 

/-What  are  the  wild  waves  saying?     he  asked  her,  smiled. 

Charming,  seasmiling  and  unanswering  Lydia  on  Lidwell 
miled. 

Tap. 

By  Larry  O'Rourke's,  by  Larry,  bold  Larry  0',Boylan  swayed 
nd  Boylan  turned. 

From  the  forsaken  shell  Miss  Mina  glided  to  her  tankard  wait- 
ig.  No,  she  was  not  so  lonely  archly  Miss  Douce's  head  let  Mr. 
idwell  know.  Walks  in  the  moonlight  by  the  sea.  No,  not 
lone.  With  whom?  She  nobly  answered:  with  a  gentleman 
iend. 

Bob   Cowley's  twinkling  fingers   in   the  treble  played   again. 

he  landlord  has  the  prior.     A  little  time.    Long  John.     Big  Ben. 

lightly  he'played  a  light  bright  tinkling  measure  for  tripping  ladies, 

ch  and  smiling,  and  for  their  gallants,  gentleman  friends.     One: 

lie,  one,  one:   two,  one,  three,  four. 

I  Sea,  wind,  leaves,  thunder,  waters,  cows  lowing,  the  cattle 
rket,  cocks,  hens  don't  crow,  snakes  hissss.  There's  music  every- 
tiere.  Ruttledge's  door:  ee  creaking.  No,  that's  noise.  Minuet 
Don  Giovanni  he's  playing  now.  Court  dresses  of  all  descrip- 
ms  in  castle  chambers  dancing.  Misery.  Peasants  outside, 
reen  starving  faces  eating  dockleaves.  Nice  that  is.  Look:  look, 
ok.  look,  look,  look:  you  look  at  us. 

That's  joyful  I  can  feel.  Never  have  written  it.  Why?  My 
y  is  other  joy.  But  both  are  joys.  Yes,  joy  it  must  be.  Mere 
;t  of  music  shows  you  are.  Often  thought  she  was  in  the  dumps 
I  she  began  to  lilt.     Then  know. 

M'Coy  valise.  My  wife  and  your  wife.  Squealing  cat.  Molly 
quis  est  homo:  Mercadante.  My  ear  against  the  wall  to  hear, 
ant  a  woman  who  can  deliver  the  goods. 

J^E  jig  jogged  stopped.  Dandy  tan  shoe  of  dandy  Boylan 
ne  to  earth. 

O,  look  we  are  so!  Chamber  music.  Could  make  a  kind  of 
1  on  that.  'Tis  kind  of  music  I  often  thought  when  she.  Acous- 
that  is  Tinkling.  Because  the  acoustics,  the  resonance 
mges  according  as  the  weight  of  the  water  is  equal  to  the  law  of 
ling  water.  Like  those  rhapsodies  of  Liszt's,  Hungarian,  gipsy- 
)d.  Pearls.  Drops  Rain.  Diddle  some  iddle  addle  addle  oodle 
le.  Hiss.  Now.  Maybe  now.  Before. 
One  rapped  on  a  door,  one  tapped  with  a  knock,  did  he  knock 
1,(1  il  de  Kock,  with  a  loud  proud  knocker,  with  a  cock  carracarra- 
ra  cock.    Cockcock, 


48  The    Little    Revieiv 


t 


b 


Tap. 
— Qui  sdegno,  Ben,  said  Fatlicr  Cowley. 

— No,  Ben,  Tom  Kernan  intcrferred.     The  Croppy  Boy.  Our  nativ. 
Doric. 

— Ay  do,  Ben,  Mr,  Dedalus  said.     Good  men  and  true. 
— Do,  do,  they  begged  in  one. 

I'll  go.     Here,  Pat.    How  much? 
— What  key?     Six  sharps? 
— F  sharp  major,  Ben  Dollard  said. 

Bob  Cowley's  outstretched  talons  griped  the  black  deep-sounc 
ing  chords. 

Must  go  prince  Bloom  told  Richie  prince.  No,  Richie  sak 
Yes,  must.  Got  money  somewhere.  He's  on  for  a  razzle  backacb 
spree.  Much?  One  and  nine.  Penny  for  yourself.  Here.  Gjv 
him  twopence  tip.  Deaf,  bothered.  But  perhaps  he  has  wife  an 
family  waiting,  waiting  Patty  come  home.  Hee  hee  hee  he 
Deaf  wait  while  they  wait. 

But  wait.  But  hear.  Chords  dark.  Lugugugubrious.  Lo> 
In  a  cave  of  the  dark  middle  earth.     Embedded  ore.    Lumpmusi 

The  voice  of  dark  age,  of  unlove,  earth's  fatigue' made  gra> 
approach,  called  on  good  men  and  true.  The  priest  he  soug^ 
With  him  would  he  speak  a  word. 

Tap. 

Ben  Dollard's  voice  base  barreltone.  Doing  his  level  be 
to  say  it.  Other  comedown.  Big  ships'  chandler's  business  1 
did  once.  Remember:  rosiny  ropes,  ships'  lanterns.  Failed  to  i 
tune  of  ten -thousand  pounds.  Now  in  the  Iveagh  home.  Cubic 
number  so  and  so.    Number  one  Bass  did  that  for  him. 

The  priest's  at  home.  A  false  priest's  servant  bade  hi 
welcome.     Step  in.    The  holy  father.     Curlycues  of  chords. 

Ruin  them.  Wreck  their  lives.  Then  build  them  cubicles 
end  their  days  in.    Hushaby.    Lullaby.    Die,  dog.    Little  dog,  d 

The  voice  of  warning,  solemn  warning,  told  them  the  you 
had  entered  a  lonely  hall,  told  them  how  solemn  fell  his  footste 
there,  told  them  the  gloomy  chamber,  the  vested  priest  sitting 
shrive. 

Decent  soul.  Bit  addled  now.  Thinks  he'll  win  in  Ansuft 
poets'  picture  puzzle.  Bird  sitting  hatching  in  a  nest.  Lay., 
the  last  minstrel  he  thought  it  was.  Good  voice  he  has  still.  | 
eunuch  yet  with  all  his  belongings. 

Listen.     Bloom  listened.     Richie  Goulding  listened.     And 


BV 


las 

!or 
kp 

\k 


. 


The    Little    Review  49 


the  door  deaf  Pat,  bald  Pat,  tipped  Pat,  listened. 
,!     .  The  chords  harped  slower. 

The  voice  of  penance  and  of  grief  came  slow,  embellished 
rremulous.     Ben's  contrite  beard  confessed:  in  nomine  Domini,  in 
[jod's  name.     He  knelt.     He  beat  his  hand  upon  his  breast,  con- 
essing:  mea  culpa. 

Latin  again.  That  holds  them  likg  birdlime.  Priest  with  the 
ommunion  corpus  for  those  women.  Chap  in  the  mortuary,  coffin 
>r  coffey,  corpusnomine.    Wonder  where  that  rat  is  by  now.    Scrape. 

Tap. 

They  listened:  tankards  and  Miss  Kennedy,  George  Lidwell 
yelid  well  expressive,  fullbusted  satin,  Kernan,  Si. 

The  sighing  voice  of  sorrow  sang.  His  sins.  Since  easter 
le  had  cursed  three  times.  You  bitch's  bast.  And  once  at  mass- 
ime  he  had  gone  to  play.  Once  by  the  churchyard  he  had  passed 
nd  for  his  mother's  rest  he  had  not  prayed.    A  boy.    A  croppy  boy. 

Bronze,  listening  by  the  beerpull,  gazed  far  away.  SoulfuUy. 
)oesn't  half  know  I'm.     Molly  great  dab  at  seeing  anyone  looking. 

Bronze  gazed  far  sideways.  Mirror  there.  Is  that  best  side 
f  her  face?  They  always  know.  Knock  at  the' door.  Last  tip  to 
itivate. 

Cockcarradarra. 

What  do  they  think  when  they  hear  music.  Way  to  catch 
attlesnakes.  Night  Michael  Gunn  gave  us  the  box.  Tuning  up. 
hhah  of  Persia  liked  that  best.  Wiped  his  nose  in  curtain  too. 
Custom  his  country  perhaps.  That's  music  too.  Tootling.  Brasses 
raying  asses.  Doublebasses  helpless,  gashes  in  their  sides.  Wood- 
binds mooing  cows.    Woodwind  like  Goodwin's  name. 

She  looked  fine.  Her  crocus  dress  she  wore,  lowcut,  belongings 
n  show.  Clove  her  breath  was  always  in  theatre  when  she  bent 
D  ask  a  questnion.  Told  her  what  Spinoza  says  in  that  book  of 
por  papa's.  Hypnotised,  listening.  Eyes  like  that.  She  bent. 
3iap  in  dresscircle,  staring  down  into  her  with  his  operaglass  for 
U  he  was  worth.     Met  him  pike  hoses.     Philosophy.     O  rocks! 

All  gone.  All  fallen.  At  the  siege  of  Ross  his  father,  at  Gorey 
11  his  brothers  fell.  To  Wexford,  we  are  the  boys  of  Wexford,  he 
fQuld.    Last  of  his  name  and  race. 

I  too,  last  of  my  race.  Milly  young  student.  Well,  my  fault 
erhaps.  No  son.   Rudy.  Too  late  now.  Or  if  not?  If  not?  If  still? 

He  bore  no  hate. 

Hate.    Love.    Those  are  names.    Rudy.    Soon  I  am  old. 


50  Thi    Little    Review 


Big  Ben  his  voice  unfolded.  Great  voice  Richie  Goulding  s^ 
a  flush  struggling  in  his  pale,  to  Bloom,  soon  old  but  when»wa 
young. 

Ireland  comes  now.  My  country  above  the  king.  She  listen; 
Time  to  be  shoving.    Looked  enough. 

— Bless  me,  jather,  Dollard  the  croppy  cried.     Bless  me  and  I 
me  go. 

Tap. 

Bloom  looked,  unblessed  to  go.  Got  up  to  kill:  on  eightee 
bob  a  week.  Fellows  shell  out  the  dibs.  Want  to  keep  ypx 
weather  eye  open.  Those  girls,  those  lovely.  Chorusgirl's  r< 
mance.  Letters  read  out  for  breach  of  promise.  From  Chicki 
biddy's  own  Mumpsypum.  Laughter  in  court.  Henry.  Tl 
lovely  name  you. 

Low  sank  the  music,  air  and  words.  Then  hastened.  T 
false  priest  rustling  soldier  from  his  cassock.  A  yoeman  captai 
They  know  it  all  by  heart.    The  thrill  they  itch  for.    Yeoman  di 

Tap.  Tap. 

Thrilled,  sh^  listened,  bending  in  sympathy  to  hear. 

Blank  face.  Virgin  should  say:  or  fingered  only.  Wr 
something  on  it:  page.  If  not  what  becomes  of  them?  Declif 
despair.  Keeps  them  young.  E-\fen  admi^re  themselves.  S»^ 
Play  on  her.  Lip  blow.  Body  of  white  woman,  a  flute  alive.  Bl» 
gentle.  Loud.  Three  holes  all  women.  Goddess  I  didn't  s 
They  want  it:  not  too  much  polite.  That's  why  he  gets  the 
Gold  in  your  pocket,  brass  in  your  face.  With  look  to  look:  s<M 
without  words.  Molly  that  hurdygurdy  boy.  She  knew  he  me< 
the  monkey  was  sick.  Understand  animals  too  that  way.  Gift 
nature. 

Ventriloquise.     My  lips  closed.     Think  in  my  stom.    Whi 

Will?    You?    I.    Want.    You.    To. 

With  hoarse  rude  fury  the  yoeman  cursed.  Swelling  in  £^ 
lectic  bitch's  bastard.  A  good  thought,  boy  to  come.  One  ho« 
your  time  to  live,  your  last. 

Tap.    Tap. 

Thrill  now.     Pity  they   feel.     For   all  things  dying,   for 
things  born.    Poor  Mrs.  Purefoy.    Hope  she's  over.     Because  fli 
wombs  . 

A  liquid  of  womb  of  woman  eyeball  gazed  under  a  fei 
of  lashes,  calmly,  hearing.  See  real  beauty  of  the  eye  when  : 
not  speaks.  On  yonder  river.  At  each  slow  satiny  heaving  bo9(M 
wave   (her  heaving  embon)   red  rose  rose  slowly,  sank  red  « 


k 
k 


\\ 

Clio 

ii 
!»ni 

•l(t: 


The    Little    Review  51 


Heartbeats  her  breath:  breath  that  is  life.    And  all  the  tiny  tiny 
fernfoils  trembled  of  maidenhair. 

But  look.    The  bright  stars  fade.    O  rose!     Castile.    The  morn. 
Ha.    Lidwell  that  is.    For  him  then,  not  for  me  she.    His  eyes 
infatuated.     I  like   that?      See  her   from   here   though.      Popped 
corks,  splashes  of  beerfroth,  stacks  of  empties. 

On  the  smooth  jutting  beerpuU  laid  Lydia  hand  lightly, 
plumply,  leave  it  to  my  hands.  All  lost  in  pity  for  croppy.  Fro, 
to:  to,  fro:  over  the  polished  knob  (she  knows  his  eyes,  my  eyes, 
iher  eyes)  her  thumb  and  finger  passed  in  pity:  passed,  repassed 
jand,  gently  touching,  then  slid  so  smoothly,  slowly  down,  a  cool 
iirm  white  enamel  baton  protruding  through  their  sliding  ring. 
With  a  cock  with  a  carra. 
Tap.     Tap.    Tap. 

I  hold  this  house.  Amen.  He  gnashed  in  fury.  Traitors 
swing. 

The  chords  consented.    Very  sad  thing.    It  had  to  be. 
Get  out  before  the  end.    Pass  by  her.     Can  leave  that  Free- 
man.   Letter  I  have.     Suppose  she  were  the?     No.    Walk,  walk, 
vvalk. 

Well,  I  must  be.  Are  you  off?  Yes.  Bloom  stood  up.  Soap 
feeling  rather  sticky  behind.  Must  have  sweated  behind:  music. 
That  lotion,  remember.  Well,  so  long.  High  grade.  Card  inside 
/es. 

By  deaf  Pat  in  the  doorway,  straining  ear,  Bloom  passed. 

At  Geneva  barrack  that  young  man  died.     At  Passage  was 

lis  body  laid.    The  voice  of  'the  mournful  chanter  called  to  prayer^. 

By  rose,  by  satiny  bosom,  by  the  fondling  hand,  by  slops, 

>y  empties,  by  popped  corks,  greeting  in  going  past  eyes  and  maid- 

nhair,  bronze  and  faint  gold  in  deepseashadow,  went  Bloom,  soft 

31oom,  I  feel  so  lonely  Bloom. 

Tap.     Tap.     Tap. 

Pray  for  him,  prayed  the  bass  of  Bollard.     You  who  hear  in 
)eace.     Breathe  a  prayer,  drop  a  tear,  good  men,  good  people, 
ie  was  the  croppy  boy. 

Scaring  eavesdropping  boots  croppy  bootsboy  Bloom  in  the 
)rmond  hallway  heard  growls  and  roars  of  bravo,  fat  backslapping, 
heir  boots  all  treading,  boots  not  the  boots  the  boy.  General 
horus  off  for  a  swill  to  wash  it  down.  Glad  I  avoided. 
-Come  on,  Ben,  Simon  Dedalus  said.  By  God,  you'ie  as  good  as 
ver  you  were. 
-Better,  said  Tomgin  Kernan.     Most  masterly  rendition  of  that 


52  The    Little    Review 


ballad,  upon  my  soul  and  honour  it  is  . 
— Lablache,  said  Father  Cowley. 

Ben  Dollard  bulkily  cachuchad  towards  the  bar,  mightib 
praisefed  and  all  big  roseate,  on  heavyfooted  feet,  his  gouty  finger 
nakkering  castagnettes  in  the  air. 

Pig  Benaben  Dollard.     Big  Benben.     Big  Benben,         , 

Rrr. 

And  deepmoved.  all,  Simon  trumping  compassion  from  his  nose 
all  laughing,  they  brought  him  forth,  Ben  Dollard,  in  right  goo 
cheer. 
— You're  looking  rubicund,  George  Lidwell  said. 

Miss  Douce  composed  her  rose  to  wait. 
— He  is,  said  Mr.  Dedalus,  clapping  Ben's  fat  back  shoulderblad 
He  has  a  lot  of  a  adipose  dispose  tissue  concealed  about  his  persor 

Rrrrrrsss. 
— Fat  of  death,  Simon,  Ben  Dollard  growled. 

Richie  rift  in  the  lute  alone  sat:  Goulding,  Colles,  War 
Uncertainly  he  waited.     Unpaid  Pat  too. 

Tap.    Tap.    Tap. 

Miss  Mina  Kennedy  brought  near  her  lips  to  ear  of  tanka 
one. 

— Mr.  Dollard,  they  murmured  low. 
— Dollard,  murmured  tankard. 

Tank  one  believed:  Miss  Kenn  when  she:  that  doll  he  WJ 
she  doll:  the  tank. 

He  murmured  that  he  knew  the  name.  The  name  was  fan 
liar  to  him,  that  is  to  say.  That  was  to  say  he  had  heard  1 
name  of  Dollard,  was  it?     Dollard,  yes. 

Yes,  her  lips  said  more  loudly,  Mr.  Dollard.  He  sang  tl 
song  lovely,  murmured  Mina.  And  The  last  rose  of  summer  wai 
lovely  song.  Mina  loved  that  song.  Tankard  loved  the  song  tl 
Mina. 

'Tis  the  last  rose  of  summer  dollard  left  bloom  felt  wind  won 
round  inside.  I  j 

Gassy   thing   that  cider:    binding  too.     Wait.     Postoffice  ni|  j. 
Reuben  J's  one  and  eightpence  too.     Get  shut  of  it.     Dodge  roi 
by  Greek  street.     Wish  I  hadn't  promised  to  meet.     Freer  in  il  [', 
Music.     Gets  on  your  nerves.     Beerpull.     Her  hand  that  rw 
the  cradle  rules  the.    Ben  Howth.    That  rules  the  world. 

Far.     Far.    Far.  Far. 

Tap.    Tap.    Tap.    Tap. 


^ 


fn 


The    Little    Review  53 


Leopold  Bloom  with  letter  for  Mady,  naughty  Henry,  with 
sweets  of  sin  with  frillies  for  Raoul  with  met  himpike  hoses  went 
Poldy  on. 

Tap  blind  walked  tapping  by  the  tap  the  curbstone  tapping, 
ap  by  tap. 

Cowley,  he  stuns  himself  with  it:  kind  of  drunkenness.  In- 
itance  enthusiasts.  All  ears.  Not  lose  a  semidemiquaver.  Eyes 
hut.  Head  nodding  in  time.  Dotty.  You  daren't  budge.  Think- 
ng  strictly  prohibited.  Always  talking  shop.*  Fiddlefaddle  about 
lotes. 

All  a  kind  of  attem^)t  to  talk.  Unpleasant  when  it  stops 
)ecause  you  never  know  exac.  Organ  in  Gardiner  street.  Old 
jlynn  fifty  quid  a  year.  Queer  up  there  in  the  cockloft  alone 
nih.  stops  and  locks  and  keys.  Maunder  on  for  hours,  talking 
0  himself  or  the  other  fellow,  blowing  the  bellows.  Growl  angry, 
hen  shriek  cursing  (want  to  have  wadding  or  something  in  his  no 
lon't  she  cried),  then  all  of  a  soft  sudden  wee  little  wee  little 
>ipey  wind. 

Pwee!  A  wee  little  wind  piped  eeee.  In  Bloom's  little  wee. 
-Was  he?    Mr.  Dedalus  said,  returning  with  fetched  pipe.    I  was 

nth  him  this  morning  at  poor  little  Paddy  Dignam's 

-Ay,  the  Lord  have  mercy  on  him. 

-By  the  bye  there's  a  tuning  fork  in  there  on  the  ...  . 

Tap.    Tap.    Tap.    Tap. 
-The  wife  has  a  fine  voice.     Or  had.     What?     Lidwell  asked. 
O,  that  must  be  the  tuner,  Lydia  said  to  Simonlionel  first  I  saw, 
orgot  it  when  he  was  here. 

Blind  he  was  she  told  George  Lidwell  second  I  saw.  And 
layed  so  exquisitely,  treat  to  hear.  Exquisite  contrast:  bronzelid 
linagold. 

Shout!     Ben  Dollard  shouted,  pouring, 
-'lido!  cried  Father  Cowley. 

Rrrrrr. 

I  feel  I  want  .... 

Tap.    Tap.    Tap.    Tap.    Tap. 
•Very,  Mr.  IDedalus  said,  staring  hard  at  a  headless  sardine. 

Under  the  sandwichbell  lay  on  a  bier  of  bread  one  last,  one 
mely,  last  sardine  of  summer.    Bloom  alone. 
^Very,  he  stared.    The  lower  register,  for  choice. 

Tap.    Tap.    Tap.    Tap.    Tap.    Tap.    Tap.    Tap.  ' 

Bloom  went  by  Barry's.    Wish  I  could.     Wait.     Twenty  four 


54 The    Little    Review 

solicitors  in  that  one  house.  '  Litigation.    Love  one  another.    Piles 
of  parchment.     Goulding,  CoUes,  Ward. 

But  for  example  the  chap  that  wallops  the  big  drum.  His 
vocation:  Micky  Rooney's  band.  Wonder  how  it  first  struck  him 
Sitting  at  home  after  pig's  cheek  and  cabbage  nursing  it  in  tht 
armchair  Pom.  Pomf)edy.  Jolly  for  the  wife.  Asses'  skins.  Weli 
them  through  life,  then  wallop  after  death.  Pom.  Wallop.  Seem; 
to  be  what  you  call  yashmak  or  I  mean  kismet.    Fate. 

Tap.  Tap.  A  stripling,  blind,  with  a  tapping  cane,  cam« 
taptaptapping  by  Daly's  window  where  a  mermaid,  hair  all  stream 
ing,  (but  he  couldn't  see),  blew  whiffs  of  a  mermaid  (blim 
couldn't),  mermaid,  coolest  whiff  of  all. 

Instruments.  Even  comb  and  tissuepaper  you  can  knock 
tune  out  of.  Molly  in  her  shift  in  Lombard  street  west,  hair  dowr 
I  suppose  each  kind  of  trade  made  its  own,  don't  you  see?  Hunte 
with  a  horn.  Haw.  Have  you  the?  Cloche.  .Sonnez  la!  Shepher 
his  pipe.  Policeman  a  whistle.  All  is  lost  now.  Drum?  Pompedj 
Wait,  I  know.  Towncrier,  bumbailiff.  Long  John.  Waken  tb 
dead.  Pom.  Dignam.  Poor  little  nominedomine.  Pom.  It  : 
music.  I  mean  of  course  it's  all  pom  pom  pom  very  much  wti? 
they  call  da  capo.    Still  you  can  hear. 

I  must  really.     Fff.    Now  if  I  did  that  at  a  banquet.    Just 
question  of  custom  shah  of  Persia.    Breathe  a  prayer,  drop  a  tea 
AH  the  same  he  must  have  been  a  bit  of  an  natural  not  to  see 
was  a  yeoman  cap.    Muffled  up.    Wonder  who  was  that  chap  at  tl 
grave  in  the  brown  mackin.    O,  the  whore  of  the  lane! 

A  frowsy  whore  with  black  straw  sailor  hat  askew  fame  glazi 
.in  the  day  along  the  quay  towards  Mr.  Bloom.  When  first  1 
saw  that  form  endearing.  Yet,  it  is.  I  feel  so  lonely.  Wet  ni^ 
in  the  lane.  Off  her  beat  here.  What  is  she?  Hope  she.  Pss 
Any  chance  of  your  wash.  Knew  Molly.  Had  me  decked.  Sto 
lady  does  be  with  you  in  the  brown  costume.  Put  you  off  y<y 
stroke,  that.  Sees  me,  does  she?  Looks  a  fright  in  the  day.  Fa 
like  dip.  Damn  her!  O,  well,  she  has  to  live  like  the  rest.  Lot 
in  here. 

In  Lionel  Mark's  antique  window  Lionel  I^opold  dear  Hen 
Flower  earnestly  Mr.  Leopold  Bloom  envisaged  candlesticks  mel 
deon  oozing  maggoty  blowbags.  Bargain:  six  boh.  Might  lea 
to  play.  Cheap.  Let  her  pass.  Course  everything  is  dear  if  y> 
don't  want  it.  That's  what  good  salesman  is.  Make  you  bl 
what  he  wants  to  sell.    She's  i^assing  now.    Six  bob. 

Must  be  the  cider  or  perhaps  the  burgund. 


Hj 


The    Little    Review  55 


Near  bronze  from  anear  near  gold  from  afar  they  chinked 
beir  clinking  glasses  all,  brighteyed  and  gallant,  before  bronze 
ydia's  tempting  last  rose  of  summer,  rose  of  Castile.  First  Lid, 
e,  Cow,  Ker,  Doll,  a  fifth:  Lidwell,  Si  Dedalus,  Bob  Cowley, 
ernan  and  Big  Ben  Dollard. 

Tap.    A  youth  entered  a  lonely  Ormond  hall. 

Bloom  viewed  a  gallant  pictured  hero  in  Lionel  Mark's  win- 
)W.  Robert  Emmet's  last  words.  Seven  last  words.  Of  Meyer- 
(cr  that  is. 

-True  men  like  you  men. 
■Ay  ay,  Ben. 
■Will  lift  your  glass  with  us. 

They  lifted. 

Tschink.    Tschunk. 

Tip.  An  unseeing  stripling  stood  in  the  door.  He  saw  not 
onze.  He  saw  not  gold.  Nor  Ben  nor  Bob  nor  Tom  nor  Si  nor 
!orge  nor  tanks  nor  Richie  nor  Pat.  Hee  hee  hee  hee.  He  did 
t  see. 

Seabloom,  greaseabloom  viewed  last  words.  Softly.  When 
I  country  takes  her  place  among. 

Prrprr. 

Must  be  the  bur. 

Fff.    Oo.    Rrpr. 

The  nations  of  the  earth.  No-one  behind.  She's  passed. 
len  and  not  till  then.  Tram.  Kran,  kran,  kran.  Good  oppor. 
ming.  Krandlkrankran.  I'm  sure  it's  the  burgund.  Yes.  One, 
Let  my  epitaph  be.    Kraaaaaaaa.    Written.    I  have.     . 

Pprrpffrrppfff.  ,  ' 

Done.  * 

(to  be  continued) 


\ 


5^ Tlie    Little    Review 

INTERIM 

by    Dorothy    Richardson 

Chapter    Five 

Mr.  Bowdoin  ushered  Miriam  through  the  almost  paintU 
door  of  a  blank  looking  house  and  downstairs  into  a  large  co 
twilit  basement  room  in  which  nothing  was  visible  but  the  outlii 
of  a  long  table,  lit  from  the  end  by  a  low  window.  I  will  light 
lartp  for  you  in  a  moment  he  said  in  his  half-cockney  monoton 
my  friends  will  be  arriving  soon  and  until  they  come  I  should  li' 
to  show  you  the  sketches  I  made  on  my  holiday.  She  sat  doi 
silently.  It  had  been  difficult  to  talk  coming  along  the  extraordina 
Farrington  Road  grappling  with  the  idea  of  paying  a  visit  the" 
In  this  still  stranger  room  she  felt  nowhere.  A  heavy  blankni 
seemed  to  lie  over  everything  and  with  his  slow  quiet  speech  A 
Bowdoin  seemed  here  to  reproach  her  more  strongly  for  talk: 
vaguely  and  excitedly  about  Devonshire  than  he  had  with  his  si 
den  searching  look  of  surprise  in  the  Farrington  Road.  As  he 
a  little  lamp  on  the  comer  of  the  table  she  glanced  at  the  back 
his  head  and  imagined  him  sitting  at  a  typewriter  with  it  in  c 
papers  and  determined  to  be  at  ease.  What  a  jolly  room 
exclaimed  with  forced  animation  as  the  light  went  up  on  bare  wa 
Windsor  chairs  were  distributed  sparsely  about  the  spaces  unoc 
pied  by  the  table;  a  cottage  piano  stood  in  a  corner  at  right 
gles  with  the  wide  low  window  space.  Above  it  was  some  sort 
picture,  the  only  one  in  the  room  although  he  was  a  sort  of  art 
the  floor  was  covered  with  rough  matting  and  there  was  no  mil 
above  the  empty  mantlepiece.  It  is  quite  bohemian  said 
Bowdoin  lighting  the  piano  candles  with  the  rest  of  the  match 
had  used  for  the  lamp.  Let  me  take  your  cloak.  Miriam  dives 
herself  with  swift  Obedience  of  her  golf-cape  with  which  he  dijj^f 
peared  between  high  hung  curtains  screening  the  end  of  the  n 
opposite  the  window.  This  was  bohemia!  She  tried  to  remen 
something  about  bohemia  and  thought  of  Trilby  with  her  yodel 
milk-call.  It  would  be  an  outrage  she  felt,  in  this  cold  empty  rcjjf 
There  must  be  a  special  way  of  behaving  in  English  bohemia.  I 
haps  when  the  friends  came  she  would  find  it  out.  But  by  " 
time  she  would  be  worn  out  with  looking  at  sketches  and  tr 
to  think  of  things  to  say  about  them.  1  have  the  sketches 
drawer  here  said  Mr.  Bowdoin  coming  back  through  the  curtaB»er 

I'S  SI 


^ 

IDC 


^ 


I 


The    Little   Review  57 


f  turning  up  an  end  of  the  table  cloth.    Miriam  sat  silent  think- 
the  voice  of  the  French  artist.  .  .    Ah!  C'est  le  pied  de  Trilby. 
e.     D'apres  nature?     Nong.     De  memoire  alors.  .  .  .  and  the 
le  poem.  .  .  .  ou  rien  ne  troublera.  .  .  Trilby,  qui  dormira.  .  .  . 
1  was   presently   taking   one   by  one   faint   little   water-colour 
tches  and  listening  to  Mr.  Bowdoin's  explanations  of  the  sub- 
Why  don't  you  put  them  about  the  room  she  asked  insin- 
ily.     Well,  they're  just  beginnings,  hardly  worthy  of  exhibition, 
ope  to  attain  to  something  better  in  the  future.    She  could  see 
hing  she  liked  and  stared  obediently  and  silently  at  sketch 
r  sketch  until  her  eyes  ached.    A  knocking  at  the  door  brought 
strain  to  an  end.    Mr.  Bowdoin  went  upstairs  and  came  down 
in  bringing  a  tall  lady.    When  he  had  performed  introductions 
lady  divested  herself  of  her  outdoor  things  which  he  stood 
ering  to  accept  and  sat  briskly  down  on  a  Windsor  chair  facing 
aids  the  piano  and  at  some  little  distance  from  Miriam  who  sat 
iou.sly  resenting  her  assurance.    She  sat  drawn  up  in  her  chair 
ting  very  tall  and  thin  in  a  clumsy  dress  with  a  high  stiff  col- 
land.     Her  head  and  hair  above  her  thin  dingy  neck  were — 
mon.    Undoubtedly.    She  looked  like  a  post-office  young  lady, 
was  most  extraordinary.     She  was  quite  old,  twenty  seven  or 
ity  eight.      While  the  other  people  came  in  she  sat  very  still 
self-possessed,  as  if  nothing  were  happening.     Was  that  dig- 
• — -not  attempting  to  hide  your  peculiarities  and  defects,  but 
keeping  perfectly  still  and  calm  whatever  happened?     There 
e  two  men  and  another  woman.    They  stood  about  in  the  gloom 
r  the  door  while  Mr.  Bowdoin  carried  away  their  things  and 
e  back  and  mithnured  Miss  Rogers  and  Miss  Henderson  and 
sat  down  in  a  row  on  the  Windsor  chairs  in  line  neaP'the  piano, 
ir' faces  were  above  the  reach  of  the  lamplight.   "Their  bodies 
the  subdued  hushed  manner  of  the  less  important  sitters  in  a 
sh  church.     Mr.  Bowdoin  was  putting  the  little  lamp  on  the  ^ 
of  the  piano.    The  light  ran  up  the  wall.     The  picture  was  a 
e  portrait  of  Paderewski.     It  was  amongst  Miriam's  records  of 
en's  Hall  posters,  coming  and  going  among  other  posters  of 
icians,  passed  by  with  a  hurried  glance,  soon  obliterated  by 
oncoming  of  the  blazing  flower-baskets  as  she  hurried  down 
^am  Place  sore  with  her  effort  to  forget  the  reminders  of  mu- 
)eyond  her  reach.    Looking  at  it  now  she  felt  as  if  all  she  had 
ed  were  suddenly  brought  to  her;  her  sense  of  thwarting  and 

was  swept  away.     She  sat  up  relieved,  bathed  in  sunshine. 

room  was  full  of  life  and  warmth  and  golden  light.     She 


5^  The    Little    Review 


eagerly  searched  the  features  for  their  secret;  the  curious  con 
scious  half  pleading  sensitive  weakness  of  the  mouth  and  chin; 
sort  of  nakedness,  as  if  a  whole  weak  nature  were  escaping  ther 
for  everyone  to  see  and  were  suddenly  reined  in,  held  in  and  bac 
in  some  way  by  the  pose  of  the  reined  in  head.  The  great  aurec' 
of  fluffy  hair  was  shaped  and  held  in  by  the  same  pwwer.  Tl 
whole  head  soft  and  weak  in  all  its  deails  was  resolute  and  strong.  . 
it  was  listening.  The  face  did  not  matter,  except  as  an  interestir 
Polish  face,  the  pose  of  the  head  was  everything,  with  its  gri 
on  the  features  and  the  hair;  a  face  listening,  intently,  from 
burning  bush.  There  was  some  reason  not  yet  understood,  why  mi 
sicians  and  artists  wore  long  hair.  The  lamp  had  come  off  tl 
piano,  but  the  pale  outline  of  the  face  shone  clearly  down  fro 
the  gloom  and  Mr.  Bowdoin  was  seated  at  the  piano  murmurii 
I  will  give  you  a  sonata  of  Beethoven.. 

The  long  sonata  came  to  an  end  while  Miriam  was  st 
revolving  amongst  her  thoughts.  When  Mr.  Bowdoin  sat  ba< 
from  the  piano  she  returned  to  the  point  where  she  had  begun  ai 
determined  to  stop  her  halting  circular  progress  from  group 
group  of  interesting  reflections  and  to  listen  to  the  next  thing 
might  play.  She  was  aware  he  was  playing  on  his  own  piano  bett 
than  he  had  done  at  Tansley  Street  but  also  more  carefully  ai 
less  self-forgetfully.  Perhaps  that  was  why  she  had  not  listene 
She  could  not  remember  ever  before  having  thoughts,  about  defi 
ite  things,  while  music  was  going  on  and  felt  afraid  lest  she  w 
ceasing  to  care  for  music.  She  found  it  would  be  quite  easy 
speak  coolly,  with  an  assumption  of  great  appeciation  and  ask  \a 
to  play  some  definite  thing.  Just  as  she  was  about  to  break  io 
the  silence  with  a  remark,  one  of  the  big  curtains  was  sudden 
drawn  aside  by  a  little  old  lady  bearing  a  tray  of  steaming  cu} 
She  stood  just  inside  the  curtains  her  delicate  white  haired  lat 
capped  head  bowing  from  side  to  side  of  the  room  graciously, 
bright  keen  smile  on  her  delicately  shrivelled  face.  My  mothf 
murmured  Mr.  Bowdoin  as  he  went  down  the  room  for  the  tre 
Slender  and  short  as  he  was  she  was  invisible  behind  him  as 
bent  for  the  tray  and  when  he  turned  with  it  to  the  room  she  b 
disappeared.  Miriam  gsized  at  the  dark  curtains  hoping  for  I 
return  and  fearing  it.  Nothing  suitable  to  an  enthusiastic  | 
hemian  evening  could  be  said  in  a  courtly  manner  ....  She  accej^ 
a  cup  of  coffee  without  a  word  as  if  Mr.  Bowdoin  had  been 
waiter  and  sat  flaring  over  it.  She  felt  as  if  nothing  could 
said  until  there  had  been  some  reference  to  the  vision.    She  hof 


i 
h 


The    Little    Review  59 


veryone  had  bowed  and  remembered  with   shame  that  she  had 

nly  stared.     Everyone  seemed  to  be  stirring,  but  the  beginnings 

f  speech  went  forward  as  if  the  little  old  lady  had  never  appeared. 

Ir.  Bowdoin  had  sat  down  with  the  men  on  the  other  side  of  the 

)om  and  the  woman  had  crossed  over  to  a  chair  near  Miss  Rogers 

id  was  in  eager  conversation  with  her.    Miss  Rogers  had  only  lately 

)ined  musical  circles  she  heard  Mr.  Bowdoin  say  in  an  affectionate 

idulgent  tone.     That  accounted  for  the  way  she  deferred  to  "him 

id  sat  in  a  sort  of  complacent  exclusive  rapture,  keeping  her  man 

ichanged  before  tfte  onslaught  of  the  eagerly  talking  woman.   The 

oman  was  in  the  circle  and  did  not  seem  to  think  it  strange  that 

iss  Rogers  should  be  a  candidate.     She  was  talking  about  some 

•chestra  somewhere.   ,   .   of  something  she  wanted  to  play,   "/^e 

)nducting,"  she  finished  in  a  tone  of  worship.     Her  voice  was  re- 

led  and  she  talked  easily,  but  she  also  had  the  common  uneduca- 

d  look.  .  .  .  and  she  was  talking  about  Camberwell.    Mr.  Bowdoin 

IS  a  conductor  of  an  orchestra.     Those  people  played  in  orches- 

as,  or  wanted  to.     The  three  men  were  talking  in  eager  happy 

ntences  and  laughing  happily  and  not  noisily.     There  was  some- 

ing  here  that  was  lacking  in  Miss  Szigmondy's  prosperous  musi- 

1  people,  something  that  kept  them  apart  from  the  world  where 

ey  made  their  living.  .  .  .    They  worked  hard  in  two  worlds.  .  .  . 

len  Mr.  Bowdoin  was  at  the  piano  again  they  all  sat  easy  and 

home,   in   easy   attitudes,   affectionately   listening.      The   room 

smed  somehow  less  dark  and  their  forms  much  more  visible  and 

?ger.     The  empty  white  coffee  cups  standing  about  on  the  table 

ught  the  light.     Miriam's  stood  alone  at  the  end  of  the  table. 

r.  Bowdoin  had  taken  it  from  her  but  without   entering  into 

versation  and  she  was  left  with  her  prepared  remark  about  the 

no  and  her  plea  for  a  performance  of  the  Tannhauser  overture 

ng  unsaid  round  and  round  in  her  mind     She  sat  ashamed  be- 

'e  the  determined  restrained  impersonal   enthusiasm  that  filled 

room.     Even  Miss  Rogers  was  sitting  less  stiffly.     Her  own 

*■  ffness  must  make  it  obvious  that  she  was  not  in  a  musical  circle. 

isical  circles  had  a  worldly  savoir-faire  of  their  own,  the  thing 

It  was  to  be  found  everywhere  in  the  world.     To  be  in  one 

uld  mean  having  to  talk  like  that  eager  worshipping  woman  or 

be  calm  and  easily  supercilious  and  secret  like  Miss  Rogers. 

en  here  the  men  were  apart  from  the  women;  to  join  the  men 

uld  be  easy  enough,  to  say  exactly  what  one  thought  and  talk 

mt  all  sorts  of  things  and  laugh.    But  the  women  would  hate  that 

i  one  would  have  to  be  intimate  with  the  women,  and  rave  about 


6o  The    Little    Review 


music  and  musicians.     Mr.   Bowdoin  had  probably  thought   she 
would  talk  to  those  women.     But  after  talking  to  them  how  could 
one  listen  to  music?     Their  very  presence  made  it  almost  impos- 
sible.    She  was  unable  to  lose  herself  in  the  Wagner  overture.    11 
sounded  out  thinly  into  the  room.     Paderewski  was  looking  awa> 
to  where  there  was  nothing  but  music  sounding  in  a  wooden  room  jus" 
inside  an  immense  forest  somewhere  in  Europe.     She  began  think- 
ing secretly  of  the  world  waiting  for  her  outside  and  felt  painfull) 
that    she    was    affronting    everyone    in    the    room;    treacherouslj 
and  not  visibly  as  before.    She  had  got  away  from  them  but  the} 
did  not  know  it.     Mr.  Bowdoin  passed  from  the  overture  whicl 
was  vociferously  applauded  and  went  on  and  on  till  she  ceasec 
altogether  to  try  to  listen  and  he  became  a  stranger,  sitting  ther< 
playing  seriously  and  laboriously  alone  at  his  piano.  .  .  she  wishei 
he  would  play  a  waltz — and  she  suddenly  blushed  to  find  hersd 
sitting  there  at  all.  .  .  .    They  all  seemed  to  get  up  and  to  go  a 
the  same  moment  and  when  they  drifted  out  into  the  street  seemei 
all  to  be  going  the  same  way.    Miriam  found  herself  walking  alon 
the  Farringdon  Road  between  Mr.  Bowdoin  and  the  shorter  of  th 
two  other  men,  longing  for  solitude  and  to  be  free  to  wander  slowl 
along  the  new  addition  to  her  m^p  of  London  at  night.     Eve 
with  bohemians  evenings  did  not  end  when  they  ended,  but  led  t 
the  forced  companionship  of  walking  home.    The  tall  man  and  th 
two  women  were  marching  along  ahead  at  a  tremendous  pace  an 
she  was  obliged  to  hasten  her  steps  to  keep  up  with  her  compai 
ions'  evident  intention  of  keeping  them  in  view.     Perhaps  at  tt 
top  of  the  road  they  would  all  separate.    We  will  escort  Miss  Hei 
derson  to  her  home  and  then  I'll  come  on  with  you  to  Highgatu 
To  HighgdXt — exclaimed  Miriam  almost  stopping.     Are  you  gob 
to  walk  to  Highgate  tonight}     They  both  laughed.     Oh  yes  sai 
Mr.  Bowdoin  that's  nothing.     Highgate.     The  mere  thought  of  i 
northern  remoteness  seemed  to  be  an  insult  to  London.     No  woi 
der  she  had  found  herself  a  stranger  with  these  people.    Walkii 
out  to  Highgate  at  night  and  getting  up  as  usual  the  next  mornini 
Magnificent  strong  hard  thing  to  do.     Horrible.     WaJking  out  I 
Highgate,  "talking  all  the  time".  .  .  .  they  could  never  have 
minute  to  realise  anything  at  all;  rushing  along  saying  things  till 
covered   everything   and   never   stopped    to   realize,   talking   abo\ 
people  and  things  and  never  being  or  knowing  anything,  and  pe 
petually  coming  to  the  blank  emptiness  of  Highgate  ....  their  ui 
consciousness  of  everything  made  them  the  right  sort  of  peofi 
to  have  the  trouble  of  living  in  Highgate.     They  probably  wall(( 

(■ 


I 


The    Little    Review  6i 


ibout  with  knapsacks  on  Sunday.    But  to  them  even  the  real  coun- 
try could  not  be  country.    All  'circles'  must  be  like  that  in  some 
vay;    doing  things  by  agreement.     The  men  talking  confidently 
ibout  them,  completely  ignorant  of  any  sort  of  reality.  .  .  .     She 
:ame  out  of  her  musings  when  they  turned  into  the  Euston  Road 
md  ironically  watched  the  men  keeping  up  their  talk  across  the 
lontinual  breaking  up  of  the  group  by  passing  pedestrians.     YouHl 
lave  to  walk  back  jhe  interrupted,  suddenly  turning  to  Mr.  Bow- 
loin;    the  buses  will  have  stopped.     I  never  ride  in  omnibuses 
rowned  Mr.  Bowdoin.    I  shall  be  back  by  two.  .  .  Miriam  waited 
,  moment  inside  the  door  at  Tansley  Street  listening  for  silence, 
^'he  evening  fell  away  from  her  with  the  departing  footsteps  of  the 
ivo  men.     She  opened  the  door  upon  the  high  quiet  empty  blue- 
it  street  and  moved  out  into  a  tranquil  immensity.    It  was  every- 
where.    Into  her  consciousness  of  the  unpredictable  incidents  of 
3-morrow's  Wimpole  Street  day,  over  the  sure  excitement  of  Eve's 
rrival  in  the  evening  flowed  the  light-footed  leaping  sense  of  a 
duf  new  begun,   an  inexhaustible  blissfulness,   everything  melted 
way  into  it.    It  seemed  to  smite  her,  calling  for  some  spoken  ac- 
nowledgement  of  its  presence,  alive  and  real  in  the  heart  of  the 
ondon  darkness.    It  was  not  her  fault  that  Eve  was  not  coming 
)  stay   at   Tansley    Street.      It   came   out    of   the   way   life    ar- 
Higed  itself  as  long  as  yoyi  did  not  try  to  interfere.     Roaming 
long  in  the  twilight  she  lost  consciousness  of  everything  but  the 
assage  of  dark  silent  buildings,  the  drawing  away  under  her  feet 
\  the  varying   flags  of   the   pavement,   the   waxing   and   waning 
ong  the  pavement  of  the  streams  of  lamp-light,  the  distant  mur- 
uring  tide  to  a  happy  symphony  of  recognizable  noises,  the  sud- 
le  gradual  approach  of  a  thoroughfare,  the  rising  of  the  mur- 
uring  tide  to  a  happy  symphony  of  recognisable  noises,  the  sud- 
;n  glare  of  yellow  shop-ilight  under  her  feet,  tiie  wide  black  road, 
le  joy  of  the  need  for  the  understanding  sweeping  glance  from 
ght  to  left  .as  she  moved  across  it,   the  sense  of  being  swept 
;ross  in  an  easy  curve  drawn  by  the  kindly  calculable  swing  of 
e  traffic,  of  being  a  permitted  co-operating  part  of  the  traffic, 
e  coming  of  the  friendly  curb  and  the  strip  of  yellow  pavement, 
raying  her  on  again  into  the  lamplit  greyness  leading  along  to 
onizetti's. 


{To  be  continued) 


62  The    Little    Review 


THE    CHINESE    WRITTEN    CHARACTER    A: 

A    MEDIUM    FOR    POETRY 

by  Ernest  Fenollosa  and  Ezra  Pound 

[This  cssoy  ivas  practically  finished  by  the  late  Ernest  Fenollosa; 
have  done  little  more  than  remove  a  fczv  repetitions  and  shape  a  f* 
sentences. 

We  have  here  not  a  bare  plnlogical  discussion  but  a  study  of  t 
fundamentals  of  all  esthetics.     In  his  search   through   unknown  art  F 
nollosa,   coming   upon   unknown   motives  and  principles   unrecognised 
the  IVcst,  was  already  led  into  many  modes  of  thought  since  fruitful 
"n&w"   western    painting    and    poetry.     He    was   a   for/crunner    rvitho 
being  known  as  such. 

He  discerned  principles  of  writing  which  he  had  scarcely   time 
put  into  practice.    In  Japan  he  restored,  or  greatly  helped  to  restore, 
respect  for  the  native  art.    In  America  and  Europe  he  cannot  be  look 
upon  as  a  mere  searcher  after  exotics.     His  mind  was  constantly  fUi 
rvith  parallels  and   comparisons  between   eastern   and  western  art. 
him  the  exotic  was  always  a  mean  of  fructification.     He  looked  td 
American  renaissance.     The  vitality  of  his  outlook  can  be  judged  fr. 
the  fact  that  although  this  essay  was  written  some  time  before  his  dei 
in  1908  /  have  not  had  to  change  the  allusions  to  western  conditions.   1 
later  movements  in  art  have  corroborated  his  theories. — Ezra  Pound 

This  twentieth  century  not  only  turn's  a  new  page  in  the  book  of 
world,  but  opens  another  and  a  startling  chapter.     Vistas  of  strange 
tures  unfold  for  a  man,  of  world-embracing  cultures  half  weaned  fr 
Europe,  of  hitherto  undreamed  responsibilities  for  nations  and  races. 

The  Chinese  problem  alone  is  so  vast  that  no  nation  can  afford 
ignore  it.  We  in  America,  especially,  must  face  it  across  the  Pad 
and  master  it  or  it  will  master  us.  And  the  only  way  to  master  it  is 
strive  with  patient  sympathy  to  understand  the  best,  the  most  hope 
and  the  most  human  elements  in  it. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  England  and  America  have  so  long  igoS 
or  mistaken  the  deepr  problems  of  Oriental  culture.  We  have  misc 
ceived  the  Chinese  for  a  materialistic  people,  for  a  debased  and  WO 
out  race.  We  have  belittled  the  Japenese  as  a  nation  of  copyists, 
have  stupidly  assumed  that  Chinese  history  affords  no  glimpse  of  cha 
in  social  evolution,  no  salient  epoch  »of  moral  and  spiritual  crisis, 
have  denied  the  essential  humanity  of  these  peoples;  and  we  have  to 
with  their  ideals  as  if  they  were  no  better  than  comic  soni 
an  "opera  bouflfe." 

The  duty  that  faces  us  is  not  to  batter  down  their  forts  or  to  exp 


The    Little    Review  63 


leir  markets,  but  to  study  and  to  come  to  sympathize  with  their  hu- 
lanity  and  their  generous  aspirations.  Their  type  of ,  cultivation  has 
jen  high.  Their  harvest  of  recorded  experience  doubles  our  own.  The 
hinese  have  been  idealists,  and  experimenters  in  the  making  of  great 
inciples ;  their  history  opens  a  world  of  lofty  aim  and  achievement, 
rallel  to  that  of  the  ancient  Mediterranean  peoples.  We  need  their 
!St  ideals  to  supplement  our  own — ideals  enshrined  in  their  art,  in 
eir  literature  and  in  the  tragedies  of  their  lives. 

We  have  already  seen  proof  of  the  vitality  and  practical  value  of 
iental  painting  for  ourselves  and  as  a  key  to  the  eastern  soul.  It 
y  be  worth  while  to  approach  their  literature,  the  interest  part  of  it, 
eir  poetry,  even  in  an  imperfect  manner. 

I  feel  that  I  should  perhaps  apologize*  for  presuming  to  follow  that 
ies  of  brilliant  scholars,  Davis  Legge,  St.  Denys  and  Giles,  who  have  . 
aited  the  subject  of  Chinese  poetry  with  a  wealth  of  erudition  .to 
ich  I  can  proffer  no  claim.  It  is  not  as  a  professional  Hnguist  nor 
a  sinologue  that  I  humbly  put  forward  what  I  have  to  say.  As  an 
husiastic  student  of  beauty  in  Oriental  culture,  having  spent  a  large 
tion  of  my  years  in  close  relation  with  Orientals,  I  could  not  but 
athe  in  something  of  the  poetry  incarnated  in  their  lives. 
I  have  been  for  the  most  part  moved  to  my  temerity  by  personal 
.«iderations.  An  unfortunate  belief  has  spread  both  in  England  and 
America  that  Chinese  and  Japanese  poetry  are  hardly  more  than  an 
[usement,  trivial,  childish,  and  not  to  be  reckoned  in  the  world's  ser- 
s  literary  performance.  I  have  heard  well-known  sinologues  state 
|ti  save  for  the  purpose  of  professional  linguistic  scholarship,  these 
nches  of  poetry  are  fields  too  barren  to  repay  the  toil  necessary 
their  cultivation. 

Now  my  own  impression  has  been  so  radically  and  diametrically  op- 
d  to  such  a  conclusion,  that  a  sheer  enthusiasm  of  generosity  has 
en  me  to  wish  to  share  with  other  occidentals  my  newly  discovered 
Either  I  am  pleasingly  self-deceived  in  my  positive  delight,  or 
there  must  be  some  lack  of  aesthetic  sympathy  and  of  poetic  feeling 
he  accepted  methods  of  presenting  the  poetry  of  China.  I  submit 
causes  of  joy. 

Failure  or  success  in  presenting  any  alien  poetry  in  English  must 
d  largely  upon  poetic  workmanship,  in  the  chosen  medium.  It  was 
aps  too  much  to  expect  that  aged  scholars  who  had  spent  their 
:h  in  gladiatorial  combats  with  the  refactory  Chinese  chaaracters 
lid  succeed  also  as  poets.     Even  Grek  verse  might  have  fared  equally 


^[The   apology  was  unnecessary,   hut   Professor   Fenollosa   saw  fit 
^ake  it,  and  I  therefore  transcribe  his  words. — E.  P.] 


II.:-'. 


64 


The    Little    Review 


ill  had  its  purveyors  been  perforce  content  with  provincial  standard; 
English  rhyming.  Sinologues  should  remember  that  the  purpose  j 
poetical  translation  is   the  poetry,  not  the  verbal  definitions  in  dictiona  I 

One  modest  merit  I  may,  perhaps,  claim  for  my  work:  it  reprcs 
for  the  first  time  a  Japanese  school  of  study  in  Chinese  culture.    ^I 
erto    Europeans    have    been    somewhat    at    the    mercy    of    contemap 
Chinese   scholarship.      Several    centuries    ago    China    lost   much   of 
creative  self,   and  of  her  insight   into  the  causes   of  her  own   lif^ 
her  original  spirit  still  lives,  grows,   interprets,  transferred  to  Japs 
all    its    original    freshness.     The   Japanese   to-day    represent    a    stag 
culture  roughly  corresponding  to  that  of  China  under  the  Sung  dyii| 
I  have  been   fortunate  in  studying   for   many  years   as  a   private 
under    Professor    Kainan    Mori,    who    is    probably    the    greatest   1 
authority  on  Chinese   poetry.     He  has   recently   been  called   to  a 
in  the  Imperial  University  of  Tokio. 

'     My  subject  is  poetry,  not  language,  yet  the  roots  of  poetry  a 
language.     In  the  study  of  a  language  so  alien  in  form  to  ours 
Chinese  in   its   written   character,   it   is   necessary   to   inquire   how 
universal  elements  of   form  which   constitute  poetics  can  derive  a  | 
priate  nutriment. 

In  what  sense  can  verse,  written  in  terms  of  visible  hieroglyj 
be  reckoned  true  poetry?     It  might  seem  that  poetry,  which  like 
is  a  time  art,  weaving  its  unities  out  of  successive  impressions  of  ! 
could   with   difficulty   assimilate   a   verbal   medium   consisting   largej 
semi-pictorial  appeals  to  the  eye. 

Contrast,  for  example,  Gray's  line: 

The  curfew  tolls  the  knell  of  parting  day. 
with  the  Chinese  line: 


n 


-b*  j^ 


Moon  rays  like  ptire 

Unless  the  sound  of  the  latter  be  given,  what  have  they   in  cocj 
It  is  not  enough  to  ^dduce  that  each  contains  a  certain  body  of  j 
meaning;  for  the  question  is,  how  can  the  Chinese  line  imply,  as 
the  very  element  that  distinguishes  poetry  from  prose? 

On  second  glance,  it  is  seen  that  the  Chinese  words,  though   \ 
occur  in  just  as  necessary  an  order  as  the  phonetic  symbols  of  I 
All   that   poetic    form    requires    is   a    regular   and    flexible    sequer 
plastic  as  thought  itself.    The  charactters  may  be  seen  and  read,  ![ 
by  the  eye,  one  after  the  other: 

Moon  rays  like  pure  snow, 
(/o  be  continued) 


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BTTLE  REVIEW 

VOL.  VI.       OCTOBER,  1919  No.  6 


CONTENTS 

A  New  Testament  Sherwood  Anderson 

Poem  Isaac  Rosenberg  (1890-1918) 

Lettres  Imaginaires  Mary  Butts 

A  Visit  (from  Vildrac)  Witter  Bynner 

Tales  of  a  Hurried  Man,,  I  Emanuel  Camevali 

Discussion : 

Art  and  Wallace  Gould  Marsden  Hartley,  M.  C.  A.,  jh 

More  Swill  William  Carlos  William^ 

An  Open  Letter  Winthrop  Parkhurst 

Concerning  Jessie  Dismorr  A.  Y.  Winters 

Russian  Ballett  John  Rodker 

Reviews  /.  R. 

Interim  (Chapter  Six)  Dorothy  Richardson 

Ballade  Louis  Gilmore 

The  Reader  Critic 

The  Chinese  Written  Character 

Ernest  Fenollosa  and  Ezra  Pound 

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and   copyrighted,    1919  by   Margaret    C.    Anderson. 

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Entered  as  second  class  matter  March  16,  1917,  at  the  Post  Office  at  New  York, 
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I 


Crane's^ 

D4arij  garden  (9hoeoIatesr 

"QJour  (Phocohte^aw  really  the  flne^  7 haOe 
eOor  tasked  anuujhere  in  the  'XjDorld  " 


UTTLE  REYIEW 

A  NEW  TESTAMENT 
by  Sherwood  Anderson 

TestamentOne 

IT  would  be  absurd  for  me  to  try  writing  of  myself  and  then  so- 
lemnly to  put  my  writings  into  print  I  am  too  much  occupied 
with  myself  to  do  the  thing  well.  I  am  likje  you  in  that  regard.  Al- 
though I  think  of  myself  all  the  time  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  the 
conviction  that  there  is  anything  of  importance  attached  to  the  life 
led  by  my  conscious  self.  What  I  want  to  say  is  this: — men  may 
i  talk  to  me  until  they  are  blind  of  the  life  force  and  of  the  soul  that 
liveth  beyond  the  passing  away  of  the  husk  called  the  body — 

For  me  life  centres  in  myself,  in  the  hidden  thing  in  myself. 

I  am  sorry  my  flesh  is  not  more  beautiful,  that  I  cannot  live  happily 

in  contemplation  of  myself  and  must  of  necessity  turn  inward  to 

\  discover  what  is  interesting  in  the  making  of  me.    It  would  simplify 

'i things  if  I  could  love  my  outward  self  and  it  must  be  the  same  with 

you. 

There  have  been  periods  when  I  have  almost  succeeded  in  liv- 
ing alone  and  forgetting  my  bodily  life.  They  were  interesting 
times.  I  will  talk  to  you  of  them.  There  was  a  period  once,  when  I 
lived  in  a  room  on  the  North  Side  in  Qiicago  and  came  near  achiev- 
ing complete  happiness.  The  woman  who  managed  the  house  was 
a  slattern.  She  did  not  keep  the  room  clean  so  I  cleaned  it  myself. 
I  had  a  house  painter  come  and  paint  the  walls  and  the  woodwork  a 
dull  grey  to  match  the  skies  of  my  city.  Twice  a  week  I  got  on  all 
fours  and  wiped  the  floors  with  a  wet  cloth.  Every  evening,  after  I 
^ad  dined,  I  went  into  the  room  and  locked  the  door. 

My  plan  of  having  the  walls  and  the  woodwork  painted  a  dull 
^rey  to  match  the  habitual  grey  of  the  skies  of  my  city  was  entirely 
successful.    At  dusk  and  even  at  night  the  walls  and  woodwork  of 


The    Little.    Review 


my  room  disappeared,  'i'o  walk  barefooted  on  the  floor — going  fn 
my  bed  toward  the  window — was  an  odd  sensation.  It  was  li 
walking  out  of  the  window  of  a  tall  building  into  the  sky,  into  t 
unknown. 

The  room  I  lived  in  at  that  time  was  in  a  building  made  of 
brick,  black  with  grime,  and  my  windows  loo^ced  down   into 
city.     I  suspect  now  that  I  was,  for  perhaps  a  year,  what  is  cal![ 
insane.    I  bought  me  a  heavy  coat  and  sometimes  on  winter  ni^l 
threw  open  the  windows  and  curled  up  in  a  large  chair,  wide  awjf 
until  morning.     I  must  be  very  strong.     I  have  in  fact  heard  t 
all  insane  people  are  strong.     In  the  morning  I  was  as  rested 
though  I  had  slept  and  went  off  to  my  daily  work  of  making  a 
ing  with  no  feeling  of  fatigue. 

An  experience  such  as  I  am  talking  about  having  had  car 
be  successfully  achieved  if  you  are  physically  nervous  as  most  Ar 
leans  are  and  as  I  am  most  of  the  time.    When  I  was  very  tir( 
was  not  happy  in  my  room  and  sometimes  felt  so  out  of  place  th 
went  off  to  spend  the  night  at  a  hotel.    The  thing  to  be  aimed  at 
to  become  very  quiet  so  that  the  mind  appeared  to  run  out  of 
body.     A  sense  of  floating  was  at  times  achieved.     One's  nl 
reached  out.     It  was  at  first  like  a  small  baby  learning  to  cr 
Then  later  it  was  like  a  white  bodied  boy  and  ran  over  the  rooi  [ 
houses.    It  comprehended  the  city  of  Chicago.    It  comprehendo  j 
cities. 

There  was  a  sense  too  of  things  in  nature  I  had  not  knj 
before.     For  one  thing  all  women  became  pure.     For  the  first 
I  found  out  that  there  cannot  be  such  a  thing  as  an  impure  ma 
woman.    That  was  one  of  the  first  things  my  white  boy  mind  disj 
ered  for  me. 

There  was  one  woman  I  remember  well.    She  lived  in  a  i| 
also  painted  grey.    The  point  of  the  greyness  of  our  two  rooms 
that  the  walls  ceased  to  exist. 

My  white  bodied  mind  ran  over  the  tops  of  trees  and  int(j 
house  where  the  woman's  body  sat  in  the  grey  stillness.    Her  i 
had  also  run  away  into  the  night.    I  did  not  touch  her  body — fe; 
it  would  be  cold,  as  I  am  sure  my  body  was  cold — sitting  aloil 
the  room  in  the  house  on  the  North  Side  in  Chicago. 

I  am  striving  to  give  you  a  sense  of  infinite  things  that 
happened  to  me  as  I  am  sure  they  have  happened  also  to  you. 
do  not  commune  thus  together  often  enough.    I  am  afraid,  evil 
I  begin  to  write,  that  my  mood  will  not  be  strong  or  prole  j 
enough  to  carry  me  on  to  the  things  I  want  to  speak  of  with  a 


The   Little   Review  5 


jjfl  of  attention  to  detail. 
You  will  see  at  once  that  the  room  on  the  North  Side  in  Chicago 
my  life  there  has  for  the  moment  returned  to  me  very  vividly, 
t  is  because  it  has  no  reality.  There  are  other  things  of  which  I 
to  write  that  are  more  defiivte  but  if  I  remain  true  to  my  de- 
S  nothing  in  this  book  will  be  very  definite.  The  book  is  itself, 
^rou  have  by  this  time  no  doubt  suspected,  an  effort  to  escape  out 
he  house  and  the  room  of  my  life,  to  visit  you  the  reader  indefin- 
Y,  to  touch  with  my  thoughts  your  lips,  your  hair,  your  body  that 
ust  will  remain  as  cold  as  the  body  of  the  woman  my  boy  mind 
ted.  I  am  like  everyone  else  who  has  in  reverence  put  pen  to 
T,  impatient  with  the  limitations  of  pen  and  paper.  If  your  body 
)mes  warm  as  you  read  on  and  into  my  testament  my  mind  will 
>me  excited  and  all  will  be  destroyed. 

I  was  in  that  grey  room  a  long  time,  looking  out  at  the  city  of 

;ago  and  thinking  of  Illinois  and  Iowa.     My  room  faced  south 

west  so  my  mind  went  in  those  directions.    It  even  visited  Ken- 

y  and  Missouri  although  it  did  not  go  farther  south,  into  the 

m  growing  states  or  into  the  southwest,  into  Texas. 

In  the  room  my  mind  grew  more  vigorous  than  myself  as  ex- 

ned  in  my  body.    There  is  however  nothing  uncanny  in  all  this. 

■)u  think  there  is  you  are  mistaken.    We  are  all  so  hurried  and 

$i:ed  through  life  that  we  forget  the  possibilities  of  life  and  are 

J^too  prone  to  take  short  cuts  into  the  supernatural.     Not  many 

1,'et,  even  for  a  few  months  during  a  long  life,  into  a  quiet  place 

the  needs  of  our  bodies  become  hushed  and  secondary.     I 

-ometimes  seen  old  sick  people  I  thought  were  doing  the  thing 

ich  I  speak,  but  I  could  not  be  sure  of  them  .  It  is  my  own 

rent  notion  that  one  needs  to  be  well,  to  be  healthy  and  strong 

lieve  the  delights  of  insanity,  to  live  in  other  words  outside  the 

of  oneself. 

It  will  be  understood  betv/een  us  that  I  am  a  man  witla  fat 
•'  ?,  neither  handsome  or  very  homely,  of  the  medium  height.  I 
)Ut  the  middle-western  part  of  America  making  a  living,  visit- 
wns,  seeing  people.  I  eat  food  in  restaurants,  go  to  dine  some- 
in  houses,  meet  occasionally  notaJbly  men  who  have  got  up  in 
orld.  Once  in  a  long  time  someone  writes  of  me,  saying  I  am  a 
ie  man. 

know  that  is  a  lie.    I  know  well  enough  there  never  has  been, 
be  such  a  thing  as  a  notable  man. 
am  however  determined — for  a  curious  reason  it  is  not  worth 


V 


f 


The    Little    Review 


while  to  try  to  record — to  attempt  to  reveal  myself  . 

One  of  the  motives  back  of  my  attempt — a  somewhat  obvious  mo- 
tive— is  that  I  live  in  Chicago  in  a  day  when  very  litle  that  is  true 
concerning  life  comes  to  the  surface.  In  a  purely  subconscious  way  I 
am  a  patriot.  I  live  in  a  wide  valley  of  cornfields  and  men  and  towns 
and  strange  jangling  sounds,  and  in  spite  of  the  curious  perversion 
of  life  here  I  have  a  feeling  that  the  great  basin  of  the  Mississippi 
River,  where  I  have  always  lived  and  moved  about,  is  one  day  to  be 
the  seat  of  the  culture  of  the  universe.  As  I  have  talked  with  very 
few  men  from  other  places  I  have  not  found  out  whether  they  have 
or  have  not  the  same  hallucination  regarding  their  native  lands.  Any- 
way I  have  it  regarding  my  own. 

And  I  have  another  feeling.  It  seems  to  me  that  every  man  or 
woman  who  lives  in  my  land  in  my  time  is  as  a  seed  planted.  My 
mind  has  spent  hours  playing  with  that  idea.  I  have  elaborated  it 
infinitely.  The  industrialism  that  has  so  crushed  the  spirits  of  the 
people  of  my  day  is,  I  say  to  myself,  but  the  damp  cold  heavy 
earth  lying  over  the  seeds.  We  are  in  the  winter  of  time.  All  seed 
must  be  planted  and  must  lie  in  the  damp  and  cold  until  warm  days 
come.  * 

I  strike  upon  this  seed  motive  now  because  I  fancy  it  was  borr 
with  the  birth  of  my  fanciful  self.  I  cannot  remember  but  I  ofter 
tell  myself  it  was  born  while  I  lived  in  the  North  Side  room  I  hav» 
been  talking  to  you  about — the  room  you  will  have  to  make  a  spec 
ial  effort  not  to  forget  did  not  exist.  I  have  a  desire  to  make  yoi 
sense  me  in  that  room  and  if  you  are  to  grow  to  care  for  me  to  mak 
you  care  for  me  there,  sitting  wide  awake  on  a  winter  night  in  m; 
great  coat  and  looking  with  blind  eyes  down  into  the  heart  of  Mid 
America. 

I  am  sure  I  was  a  seed  then  and  that  you  were  a  seed  then  an 
that  we  are  both  but  seeds  now.  We  are  both  buried  deeply  in  lift 
We  sometimes  strive  and  strain,  trying  to  escape  our  obvious  fat* 
Vaguely  also  we  try  each  to  fertilize  the  spirits  of  the  other. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  try  to  carry  the  figure  on  but  it  is  an  alma* 
sensual  pleasure  to  me  to  think  that  perhaps  I  will  fertilize  your  min 
with  my  notion.  That  is  my  egotism.  I  think  of  you  going  along) 
Indianapolis  or  Chicago  or  Minneapolis  thinking  of  the  words  I  ha\ 
put  down.  .As  the  whole  purpose  of  my  writng  is  my  own  pleasui 
I  will  stop  writing  for  the  present  and  give  myself  over  to  the  coi 
templation  of  you,  for  a  moment  and  in  a  passing  way,  thinking  tl 
thought  I  have  suggested  to  you. 

(to  be  continued) 


The    Little    Review 


POEM 

by    Isaac    Rosenberg 

( i8go-igi8 ) 

Caught  still  as  Absalam, 
Surely  the  air  hangs 
From  the  swayless  cloud  boughs, 
Like  hair  of  Absalam 
Caught  and  hanging  still. 

From  the  imagined  weight 

Of  spaces  in  a  sky 

Of  mute  chagrin,  my  thoughts 

Hang  like  branch-clung  hair 

To  trunks  of  silence  swung. 

With  the  choked  soul  weighing  down 

Into  thick  emptiness. 

Christ!  end  this  hanging  death, 

For  endlessness  hangs'  therefrom. 

Invisibly  branches  break 

From  invisible  trees  — 

The  cloud  woods  where  we  rush. 

Our  eyes  holding  so  much, 

Which  we  must  ride  dim  ages  round 

Ere  the  hands  (we  dream)  can  touch, 

We  ride,  we  ride,  before  the  morning 

The  secret  roots  of  the  sun  to  tread. 

And  suddenly 

We  are  lifted  of  all  we  know 

And  hang  from  implacable  boughs. 


The    Little    Review 


LETTRES   IMAGINAIRES 

by   Mary   Butts 


MY  DEAR, 
I  have  learned  that  I  cannot  speak  to  you  any  more  as  to 
my  temporal  lover.  If  I  tried  you  would  force  me  into  sentiment, 
and  special  pleading.  I  might  appeal  to  your  pity.  We  have  not 
known  each  other  very  long,  but  I  am  assured  that  with  you  such  a 
demand  would  be  a  piece  of  ill-breeding  ....  There  is  an  image 
of  you  in  my  breast,  and  an  image  in  the  world.  But  truth  does  not 
lie  in  these  presentments. 

Let  us  suppose  then  that  you  have  a  Pattern-laid-up-in-Heaven 
waiting  to  touch  my  elbow  as  I  write. 

"Sir,  you  and  I  have  loved,  but  that's  not  it. 

Sir,  you  and  I  must — ".    I  find  it  difficult  to  continue. 

The  business  should  be  commonplace,  but  a  bizarre  streak 
seems  to  accompany  my  lapse  into  passion.  It  has  been  a  freakish 
crucifixion — from  a  delicate  approach,  conventional  as  a  harlequi- 
nade; for  ten  days  we  loved  one  another — as  I  thought  with  some 
quality  of  passion.  You  assumed  my  nature,  I  took  on  yours.  The 
change  of  spiritual  hats  was  no  loss.  No  one  knew.  We  were  too 
sure  to  need  confidents.  There  was  no  one  to  forbid.  Our  aptitude 
was  perfect  and  our  opportunity.  Then  one  night  we  had  arranged 
to  meet,  and  you  sent  me  a  strange  telegram.  Two  nights  later 
you  came  in  late  to  our  little  restaurant  and  said:  "This  won't  do. 
I  smell  burning."  Now  I  like  fire.  I  looked  at  you  and  saw  you 
were  Wyndham  Lewis's  drawing  of  the  starry  sky,  a  cold  Titan,  a 
violent  Intelligence.  You  were  holding  away  from  you  a  jewelled 
image  which  was  myse'lf.  Then  I  knew  that  friend  I  might  be,  or 
mistress,  but  not  lover.  That  dance  was  ended.  Essentially  you 
were  "through"  with  me  and  resentful.  But  I  do  not  love  like  that. 
I  will  not  have  this  sensuality  and  this  friendship.  I  march  to  a 
better  tune.  I  will  not  listen  while  you  play  both  air  and  accompani- 
ment with  your  heavy  alternate  hands. 

Dear,  I  was  tired  that  night.  Couldn't  you  have  been  gentle 
with  me?  It  was  not  lust  that  I  wanted  then,  or  philosophy,  only 
peace.  I  sat  opposite  to  you,  "tower  of  ivory,  house  of  gold".  Your 
eyes  narrowed.  Then,  with  some  ingratitude,  you  damned  me  for 
the  vitality  which  had  sustained  you.     Gallic  realism?     perhaps — 


The    Little    Review 


your  Latin  analysis  stripped  the  beauty  you  had  enjoyed.  I 
matched  my  wits  with  yours,  answered  your  questions,  parried  your 
threats,  folded  myself  in  my  sex,  offered  you  a  delicate  candour  .... 
You  were  not  pleased.  Then  I  saw  that  it  was  not  a  game.  Through- 
out your  analytical  protests  there  was  a  recurrent  note.  I  understood 
that  I  was  target  for  some  sacred  male  encounter  with  its  own  might. 
Scorn  for  me  was  to  reanimate  your  virture — assure  you  of  some- 
thing you  had  lost — ^But  then  I  could  not  make  the  analysis.  Your 
sneers  were  too  effective  as  you  held  my  image  from  you.  Vour 
brilliant  eyes  swept  past  mine,  you  spoke  with  your  hands.  Then, 
with  some  irrelevance  you  said  there  was  nothing  to  make  me  un- 
happy.   I  was  a  cocotte  who  had  attempted  your  seduction. 

Sadism?  Well  yes.  Innate  need  for  violence,  vulgarly  called 
love  of  a  row?  In  part.  But  there  is  an  x  in  the  equation.  Not 
since  Valentine 

It  is  too  soon  for  this  to  have  happened  to  me  again.  It  is 
making  me  cry  and  quiver.  I  remember  how  by  your  Sussex  fire 
you  laid  my  head  on  your  hands,  and  crossed  the  hands  I  clasped 
lest  my  virture  should  escape  you.  My  rings  had  bitten  into  my 
hands.  Your  eyes  were  dark  and  profound,  heavy  with  peace.  I 
would  not  have  had  you  change  yet  to  this  pursuit  of  a  truth  whose 
"chic"  lies  in  its  perversion. 

All  this  in  three  weeks.    You  say  "She  will  get  over  it." 

II 

It  was  too  soon,  my  dear,  to  be  hurt  again.  That's  my  text 
for  to-night.  You  should  never  have  comforted  me  if  you  were 
going  to  submit  me  again  to  torture.  All  my  life  I  have  been  ac- 
companied by  a  ghostly  pain.  Lately  it  has  become  substantial,  and 
I  have  recognised  it  in  some  absolute  sense  as  cruelty.  First  there 
was  Valentine,  then  you.  You  know  how  you  found  me — grey  and 
sullen — ^wasted  through  too  much  knowledge.  You  knew  what  I  had 
come  to  see. 

There  were  your  compassionate  words,  you've  unsaid  them. 
Can't  you  understand,  you  fool,  that  you've  unsaid  them? 


Look  here.  You  must  not  imagine  that  this  is  a  complaint, 
a  whining  because  a  man  has  refused  to  love  me.  You  are  under  no 
obligation  to  find  immortality  in  my  "white  and  gold  and  red."  But 
I  think  that  you  should  have  made  up  your  mind.  Do  you  remem- 
ber what  you  said— "if  there  is  any  good  will  that  can  help  you 


10  The    Little    Review 


through  this  business,  remember  that  you  have  it."  Within  a  month 
you  faced  me  across  Porfirio's  table, — my  evil  personified.  What 
does  it  mean?  You  see  I  have  the  mind's  curiosity  to  understand 
and  incorporate.  It  sustains  me,  nearly  all  the  time.  You  need 
not  have  loved  me,  though  it  would  have  been  better  that  you  should. 
But  your  voice  is  flaying  me  like  the  noise  of  a  scythe  on  stone. 
Why  should  my  vitality  have  moved  this  impulse  in  you?  Through 
you  it  returned  to  me  augmented.  Did  you  hate  it?  Did  you  crave 
to  diminish  it  yourself? 

Love,  dear  love, — how  dare  you  speak  to  me  of  love? 

Ill 

You  have  said  that  you  do  not  trust  life,  so  why  should  you 
trust  me  who  am,  at  best,  one  of  the  "naughty  stars"?  And  I 
imagined  that  I  was  to  be  your  reconciliation. 

From  such  divergence  where  could  we  have  found  a  meeting 
place  for  love.  If  I  "the  brother  whom  you  have  seen"  could  not 
enter  your  house,  where  will  God  come  in?  In  my  vanity  I  thought 
that  where  one  went  the  other  followed.  Sir — you  have  undeceived 
me. 

What  did  you  call  me? — "dangereuse",  "false",  "essentially 
outside  truth."  Has  that  last  phrase  any  meaning?  To  me  it  is 
plain  tripe.  I  can  only  tell  my  part  of  this  adventure.  Louis — 
there  have  been  times,  often  before  some  humiliation  profound  as 
this  when  I  have  known  myself  for  an  artificer  in  a  better  way  of 
love  than  men  practise  in  the  world.  That  does  not  "prove  me  base", 
but  may  prove  me  dangerous.  Did  I  offer  you  too  much  freedom, 
too  much  passion?  When  I  stripped  myself  of  jealousy  and  pos- 
session, did  I  strip  you  of  some  armour  you  would  not  be  without? 
You  allow  me  words.  I  might  talk  with  you  on  those  matters  till 
dawn.    But  love  is  not  a  conversation. 

An  adventure  has  been  lost.  We  shall  not  be  together  again, 
and  in  love  how  can  one  have  the  adventure  alone?  You  hardly 
admit  the  possibility.  I  said — "I  could  make  it  damned  good."  You 
answered  'Damned  it  might  be." 

Am  I  to  go  through  all  my  life  looking  for  the  lover  whose  pace 
equals  mine?  Is  it  always  illusion  that  turns  me  here  and  there, 
saying  that  1  have  found  him  in  my  perpetual  error? 

The  pilgrim  rescued  the  lady  in  the  dewy  wood.  —  There,  with- 
out explanation,  he  left  her  to  face  the  Blatant  Beast. 


The    Little    Review  tt 


IV 

Last  night  when  you  had  gone  with  your  friends,  I  sat  down 
on  the  floor  among  the  nutshells  and  cigarette  ends  and  cried  at 
the  fire.  I  was  alone  in  my  house,  and  you  had  all  gone  home 
"lover  by  lover."  I  was  left,  out  of  your  thought,  out  of  your  dance. 
Not  one  of  you  but  Leila  had  thought  to  say  that  it  had  been  a  good 
party.  An  empty  winebottle  rolled  across  the  floor  and  chinked 
against  a  syphon.  It  frightens  me  when  inanimate  things  move 
about.  It  can  be  lonely  here,  past  midnight,  under  the  great  shadows 
of  this  roof,  not  easy  to  leave  the  fire  and  mount  the  gallery  stairs 
and  slip  into  the  icy  bed.  Before  I  decided  to  attempt  it  and  take 
aspirin,  I  wondered  if  this  fire  which  you  have  lit — and  will  not 
share — has  an  "absolute"  value,  a  good-in-itself  apart  from  you — 
and  from  me    Eventually  one  takes  the  way  from  one's  kind. 

This  afternoon  I  went  out  in  the  rain  and  through  the  streets, 
not  faint  with  desolation  but  in  tranquility,  with  my  love. 

Pathological? 

Later: 

I  am  waiting  for  you  now.  Will  it  be  the  same  if  you  do  not 
come?  How  can  it  be  when  my  eyes  are  starved — my  quivering 
touch  cannot  fasten.  I  want  our  old  ritual.  I  want  to  play  it — to 
sjttiety  ,  Don't  you  remember  you  would  sit  by  the  fire.  We'd  be 
alone,  I  would  sit  on  the  chair  arm  behind  you.  You  lay  there, 
ilent,  relaxed,  as  life  flowed  from  me  to  you.  Did  you  know  what 
I  said  as  I  kissed  your  neck^ — that  I  laid  my  p>eace  on  you^ —  the 

peace  you've  not  had?    "My  peace,  not  as  the  world  giveth " 

Your  astonishment  made  me  laugh.  I  slipped  from  the  arm  onto 
your  knee,  and  crossed  my  feet,  and  swung  there.  I  can  see  you 
laugh.    I  can  see  your  quarrel  with  life  remembered  to  be  forgotten. 

"Oh  my  dear — you  happened,  but  just  in  time,  only  just  in 
time." 

And  I  believed  it.  My  eyes  went  hot  because  of  the  miracle.  I 
jsed  to  watch  the  flush  on  your  thin  face,  the  sudden  fusion  .... 

You  used  to  laugh.  "Was  there  ever  woman  said  such  things 
before?  Witty  fool!"  I  would  slip  from  your  knees  onto  the  floor 
ind  crouch  there  looking  up  at  you,  silent. 

Then  it  was  your  turn. 

You  are  not  coming  to-night.  I  was  mistaken.  There  is  no 
idventure  alone. 


t2  The.    Little  Review 


Half  an  liour  later— a  knock.  External  shapes,  the  walls,  t 
coloured  glass  on  the  dark  shelf  became  like  scenery,  flat,  tvvo-dim( 
sioned.  Crossing  from  the  fireplace  to  the  door  I  knew  my  l>b 
bent  as  though  the  great  chair  had  risen  and  clung  to  my  ba 
You  were  not  there,  but  a  boy  with  onions.  It  happened  again . 
said:     "It  is  not  Louis,  it  is  not. — " 

It  wasn't.    I  saw  a  girl  with  a  suit  case  and  umbrella,  and  s 
eral  kinds  of  fur — a  girl  you  have  not  met.     She  wanted  a  bed 
the  night.    The  sequence  was  amusing. 

That  evening  we  compared  our  beauties  on  the  floor,  by  the 
on  the  white  rug,  burnished  our  nails  and  our  hair.    Our  scents  ; 
orange  sticks  lay  between  our  feet — my  long  pink  toes  and 
short  ones. 

She  threw  down  her  mirror.    "She  must  speak." 

"She  had  gathered — indeed  she  knew.  I  h^d  given  niysel 
and  to  more  than  one  man.  I  was  not  married  at  all.  I  did 
seem  to  mind.  Did  I  know  w'hat  I  was  doing.  I  was  giving  r 
what  they  wanted  ....  I  exacted  nothing  in  return.  Did  I  ki 
the  'awful  degradation'  that  was  overtaking  me?  No  one  could 
more  passionate  than  she — but  never.  Her  fiance  would  come  b 
from  the  front  and  kill  her."  (There's  a  chance  for  Ivan)  .  " 
was  proud  to  thipk  that  she  would  come  to  him.  Just  all  of  her- 
(Price  sixpence.  Please  see  that  this  seal  is  unbroken).  Incident 
she  considered  me  a  blackleg  in  a  pair  of  silk  stockings 

She  has  left  me  to  wonder  though^without  passion — whe 
you,  Louis,  are  despising  me.     (She  does  not  know  about  you) 

You  have  called  me  pure.     Do  you  still  think  that?     Did 
ever  think  it— with  your  mind?     I  don't  care.    If  love  of  truth 
make  me  pure,  I'll  pass.     And  so,  what  woman  cares  a  pin  al 
chastity?    She  tried  to  frighten  me,  damn  her. 

Then  later  I  saw  her  puny  man,  and  lunciied  afterwards  ' 
Bill,  and  drank  with  him,  and  comforted  him  in  sexless  amity; 
then  came  to  me,  as  there  has  always  come,  the  aa'"wer  to  her  1 


{to  he  continued) 


The   Little   Review  13 


A  VISIT 

bom  the  French  of  Charles  Vildr  ac) 
by  Witter   Bynner 

Seated  by  his  table, 
His  dreams  delicately  enclosed 
In  the  domain  of  his  lamp, 
He  heard  against  his  window 
The  soft  assault  of  the  snow. 

Then  he  thought  abruptly 

Of  a  man  he  knew 

And  had  not  seen  for  a  long  time. 

.And  he  felt  in  his  throat 

An  oppressive  something,  '^ 

Something  made  of  sadness 

and  a  little  shame. 

He  knew  that  the  man  was  humble 

Both  in  heart  and  in  word. 

With  no  ways  of  charming, 

And  that  he  lived  like  those  trees 

You  see  alone  on  a  bleak  plain; 

He  knew  that  for  months 
Many  a  time  he  had  promised 
This  man  to  go  and  see  him 
And  that  for  each  of  the  promises 
The  man  had  thanked  him  gently, 
Pretending  to  believe  them. 

He  knew  besides  that  the  man  loved  him. 

This  was  what  filled  his  reverie, 
Filled  his  room  with  whispers. 
Which  he  did  not  try  to  turn  away. 
Then  an  inner  command 
Made  him  instantly  alert  : 


14  The   Little   Review 


His  throat  was  eased 

And  his  eyes  glad  and  laughing: 

He  dressed  himself  quickly, 
He  went  outdoors 
And  started  through  the  snow 
For  the  man's  house. 

After  the  first  words, 

When  he  was  seated  in  the  light 

Between  the  man  and  his  wife 

Both  of  them  surprised  and  eager, 

He  realized  that  they  were  directing  at  him 

Those  silences  that  ask  questions 

And  make  the  sort  of  'blank  one  leaves 

Purposely  in  one's  writing; 

He  noted  on  the  two  faces 

A  sort  of  secret  anxiety. 

He  wondered  and  all  at  once  he  understood; 

These  folk,  alas,  did  not  believe 

That  he  had  come  of  a  sudden 

At  so  late  an  hour,  from  so  far  and  through  the  snow, 

Only  for  his  gladness  and  theirs, 

Only  to  keep  a  promise; 

And  they  waited,  both  of  them, 

For  him  to  reveal  abruptly  and  in  a  breath 

The  solemn  reason  of  his  coming, 

They  were  anxious  to  know 

What  good  luck  might  be  happening  to  them, 

What  service  might  be  expected  of  them! 

He  would  at  once  have  spoken 
The  words  to  undeceive  them. 
But  they  weighed  liis  words, 
They  anticipated  the  moment 
When  he  would  tell  them  his  reason. 
He  felt  as  bewildered  and  clumsy 
As  a  man  accused. 


I 


II 


The  Little   Review  15 


And  so  he  was  separated  from  them 
Till  the  very  last  minute 
When  he  rose  to  go. 

Then  something  unbent; 

Then  they  dared  understand: 

He  had  come  only  for  them! 

Somebody  had  wished  to  see  them, 

Nothing  more,  to  see  them,  to  be  with  them, 

To  speak  with  them  and  to  listen  to  them; 

And  this  desire  had  been 

Stronger  than  the  cold,  stronger  than  the  snow 

And  the  distance! 

It  was  just  that  at  last  somebody  had  come! 

And  now  their  eyes 

Were  gay  and  tender. 

They  spoke  very  fast. 

They  spoke  together 

To  try  to  keep  him, 

They  stood  beside  him 

And  betrayed  a  childish  need 

Of  joking  and  of  shaking  hands  .... 

He  promised  them  that  he  would  come  back. 

But  before  reaching  the  door 

He  fixed  well  in  his  memory 

The  spot  where  their  life  was  sheltered; 

He  noticed  well  every  detail 

And  finally  the  man  and  the  woman, 

Because  he  so  feared  in  the  bottom  of  his  heart 

That  he  would  never  come  back. 


1 6  The  Little   Review 


TALES  OF  A  HURRIED  MAN 
by  Emanuel  Carnevali 

Tale    One 

/  hope  something  will  be  done  about 
tins,  my  ^od! 

HER  name  was  Melany  Piano  and  she  was  born  of  a -very  good 
family,  in  Turin,  Piedmont,  Italy.  Turin  is  a  grey  serious 
earnest  city  with  long  straight  streets,  a  huddle  of  square  blocks.  If 
she  had  been  born  out  in  the  mountains  where  Emily  lived  this 
wouldn't  have  happened,  but  then 

I  saw  the  old  photographs  of  the  family,  a  yellowish  mist  on 
them.  Photographs  of  the  romantic  period.  Period  in  which  one 
still  believed  in  the  solemn  face  or  the  melancholy  face  or  the  noble 
face  or  the  pale  face.  The  face  of  her  mother  was  solemn  and  mys- 
terious. The  face  of  her  father  was  that  of  a  man  with  the  heart  of 
a  knight;  crowned  with  the  well-balanced  smile  of  the  successful  man; 
life  to  him  was  an  adventure  in  gallantry — women  and  war.  He  was, 
in  fact,  an  officer  of  the  Italian  army  in  the  Erythrean  expedition. 

He  had  brought  her  and  her  sister  along  with  him  lo  Alrica, 
after  her  mother  had  died.  She  had  lived  well  and  happily  in  Africa, 
so  she  used  to  tell  us  children,  all  beautiful  tales  of  hyenas,  pesti- 
lence, devoted  negro  servants  and  Ras  Alula  and  Ras  somebody  else. 

She  was  skinny,  she  had  a  long  lean  nose,  no  curve  from  the 
nose  to  the  lips,  small  eyes,  tight  bulging  little  forehead;  she  was  not 
attractive,  as  they  say.  Her  hair  was  very  beautiful  but  that  did 
not  make  a  real  difference.  One  had  to  know  her  well  to  appreciate 
the  beauty  that  was  in  her  hair.  That  is  why  she  longed  to  be  well 
known,  well  understood.  A  famous  explorer — there  is  a  monument 
erected  to  his  memory  in  the  city  of  Parma — fell  in  love  with  her. 
She  was  to  marry  him.  But  he  was  the  scientist  kind,  earnest  and 
inelegant,  she  did  not  love  him.  He  gave  her  a  doll  once,  on  her 
nineteenth  birthday,  and  she  was  very  angry.  He  told  her  once: 
"You  are  not  attractive.  Miss,  but  your  mind  has  infinite  beauty  and 
I  beg  to  let  me  take  you  for  my  wife."  But  she  was  too  young  and 
a  bit  too  happy  to  understand  a  thing  like  that.  And  he  was  naive, 
and  she  was  not,  she  was  very  well-read  and  eaten  up  from  within 
by  the  ever-hungry  little  old  moth,  romance.    He  was  a  good  fine 


■* 


The  Little  Review  17 


man  to  marry  and  she  knew  so,  but  she  wanted  a  man  with  long 
soft  hair  and  kind  big  hands.  A  man  who  could  sit  for  hours  still 
and  perfectly  sad  and  who  would  understand  when  the  hungry  hands 
of  a  well-read  woman  would  smooth  his  hair:  who  would  not  turn 
around  and,  out  of  embarrassement,  try  to  fight  the  situation  with 
a  smile  or  an  irrelavant  phrase. 

She  came  back  to  Italy.  She  was  still  gay  and  light  but,  already, 
she  was  motherly.  She  was  motherly  with  every  man  that  came  to 
her  with  not  unkind  sorrows  in  his  manly  heart.  Such  a  man  came 
and  she  talked  to  him  and  on  an  evening  they  cried  together,  in  front 
of  a  window;  because  the  sunset  burnt  yellow  and  purple,  the 
woman  was  thinking  that  it  is  sweet  and  heavenly  to  understand  the 
sorrows  that  have  hardened  into  the  flesh  of  a  man.  He  was  to 
marry  her  but  the  family  did  not  want.    But  he  said:    "You  before, 

J  the  family  after,  though  I  love  them  very  much."    But,  instead,  he 

a  went  away,  left  her  pregnant. 

1         Who  will  say  that  he  was  wrong?     He  had  never  loved  her. 

Ilt  is  easy  to  believe  that  you  love:  he  was  an  (honest  man.  She 
should  have  known. 
Now  her  father  was  dead  and  she  hadn't  any  money  and  the 
man  wanted  to  help  her  out.  But  she  was  proud.  She  went  to 
work,  she  had  a  little  monthly  allowance  from  the  government;  she 
got  along  and  she  loved  the  baby,  who  was  lean  and  sickly:  his  eyes 
were  the  eyes  of  the  father:  very  black  and  very  cold,  so  black  that 
there  was  no  bottom  to  them,  so  cold,  so  black,  that  you  would  have 
called  them  invisible  eyes:  eyes  that  were  a  darkness  and  not  a 
flight. 

She  was  proud.  She  never  forgave  the  man.  Because  she  was 
honest  and  hard  she  wasn't  a  loose  girl,  and  she  gave  herself  for 
love.  She  was  honest  and  magnificently  aloof  and  the  negro  servants 
in  Africa  thought  she  was  a  great  Queen,  the  great  White  Queen: 
the  way  she  was  majestic  and  sweetly  hard  with  them.  She  spoke 
of  books  and  wherever  she  went  they  called  her  "the  lady"  and  it 
was  a  marvel  to  see  how  everybody  was  intimidated  in  'her  presence. 
To  see  how  strangers  loved  her,  after  a  few  minutes  with  her. 

Another  man  came  along.  He  was  shrewd,  and  hungry  for  a 
girl,  the  way  dogs  and  men  are  hungry,  the  way  men  are  hungry 
in  the  summer  in  a  North  American  City  where  a  girl  is  hard  to  get 
if  you're  not  initiated.    He  had  her  too. 

Because  she  loved  him. 

Then,  there  was  another  child. 

Two  children,  not  brothers,  and  the  mother  a  lady,  proud,  now 


US 


1 8  The    Little    Rez^irw 


bitterly  proud,  but  proud  still  like  a  Queen,  poor  White  Queen,  i 
she  was  honest  and  she  was  so  naive  that  when  men's  eyes  ' 
sought  a  girl  met  hers  she  did  not  really  know  all  that  they  searc 
and  lewly  touched.  For  she  wasn't  attractive  and  she  knew  it;  1 
is  why  she  was  maternal  with  men. 

Tihen  she  was  thirty-two.  She  met  a  man,  a  soldier,  who 
twenty-five.  He  was  beautiful,  strong,  a  great  sport,  a  game  { 
a  spoiled  child,  penniless  and  ignorant.  She  had  a  little  mO! 
she  got  him  out  of  the  army  where  he  thought  he'd  have  to  rem 
and  got  him  a  job.  Taught  him  french  and  how  to  know  [ 
books.  Made  him  civilized  and  sophisticated.  He  was  intellig 
he  never,  after,  wanted  to  admit  that  he  owed  so  much  to  he 

This  man  did  not  like  the  children. 

-He  was  young,  so  he  fell  in  love  with  several  girls  and  she 
derstood  and  suffered — and  then  she  feared  he'd  go  away,  so 
was  good  to  him,  she  was  especially  good  to  him  when  he  b 
her  heart.  Sometimes  her  heart  would  break  and  she  would  fa 
a  swoon. 

One  day  he  was  sick.  He  staid  in  bed  two  months  with  u 
on  ihis  body  and  the  fool  doctor  never  could  tell  what  the  trc 
was.  He  went  to  the  hospital  and  he  was  told  that  it  probably 
the  syphilis  but  that  they  couldn't  be  sure  until  they  had  t( 
his  blood.  Next  day  on  the  cardboard  tablet  beside  his  bed 
which  doctors  wrote  the  diagnosis,  he  saw  some  signs  or  words 
amounted  to  a  "yes".  It  meant  to  him  that  he  had  the  syphilu 
howled  like  a  wolf  that  has  been  caught.  He  came  back  honr 
her.    He  was  forced  to  stay  in  bed  two  more  months. 

He  had  caught  it  going  around  in  brothels.  But  she  w 
great  mother  to  him,  while  he  stayed  in  bed.  But  she  knew  thi 
did  not  love  her.  She  was  maternal,  although  she  was  old,  alth 
she  beat  her  children,  she  was  maternal  with  him.  She  nursed 
as  a  sweet  nurse  nurses  a  sweet  child;  and  while  his  hair  was  fa 
because  of  the  syphilis  he  had  caught  in  a  brothel  she'd  caU 
"her  lovely  child".  • 

But  he  did  not  like  the  children  and  he  did  not  love  her. 

So  she  saw,  at  last,  well,  the  great  grotesque. 

When  she  beat  the  children  she'd  scream  so  that  the  ter 
of  the  house  would  all  come  out  on  the  balconies  to  gossip  a 
"that  crazy  woman".  She  beat  them  and  several  times  she  fai: 
after. 

He  cursed  her  to  hear  the  noise  she  was  making.  He  ci 
her  vulgarly  and  she  was  still  a  lady,  a  proud  Queen. 


The    Little    Review  19 


She  knew  that  he  was  getting  to  hate  her.  But  it  was  too  late 
to  act  kindly,  to  be  careful,  for  his  sake,  of  what  she  was  doing, 
to  put  up  a  show  of  kindness  and  be  discriminate.  Because  oldness 
and  ugliness  and  defeat  were  coming;  and  ihe  was  going  away. 
Sometimes  she  sat  in  the  kitchen,  alone,  when  the  children  were 
out,  and  she  wished  that  he  would  die ;  she  knew  that  he'd  go  away 
when  he  was  well. 

When  she  got  up,  every  morning,  she  used  to  put  powder  on 
her  face. 

That  was  all  right,  but  now  she  had  to  put  too  much  powder 
on  her  face.  After  her  yelling  to  the  children  the  two  wrinkles 
around  her  mouth  were  deeper. 

Before,  a  little  rouge  on  the  cheeks  sufficed,  but  now  she  had 
to  put  too  much  rouge  on  and  that  was  ugly. 

And  then,  one  day  she  had  to  buy  three  false  teeth — the  front 
teeth,  the  front  teeth! 

Of  course,  he  saw  them. 

So  she  beat  the  children,  she  swooned,  she  had  headaches  for 
days  and  nights  . 

He  had  to  go  to  the  hospital  again.  He  came  back  almost  well, 
but  he  was  doubled  up  and  his  skin  showed  under  his  thin  hair- 
He  was  bitter  too,  he  had  the  syphilis  so  there  wasn't  much  choice 
for  him  in  life  and  so  he  wasn't  going  to  try  to  get  along  with  her — 
he'd  go  after  something  easier.    On  day  he  told  her  he'd  quit  her. 

First  she  knelt  down  before  him  and  prayed. 

But  then  she  stood  up  and  fought  tremendously,  fought  beau- 
tifully because  she  fought  against  the  big  failure  which  was  now  all 
visible;  she  looked  at  the  failure  and  fought,  and  it  was  a  beautiful 
thing  to  do. 

There  comes  the  big  failure  and  some  bend  their  heads 

over  their  chests 

like  birds  in  the  cold. 

And  some  send  their  miserable  bodies 

to  the  absurd  war. 

But  there  are  eyes  in  the  world 

that  see  the  dance  of  the  absurd, 

and  always  someone 

who  carefully  listens  to  the  great  song  of  it. 
All  her  miserable  body.     Her  skinny  body  and  the  last  hunger 
within  it.    She  called  her  romantic  heart  and  all  the  books  she  had 
read,  to  help  her.     Hurled  herself — at  last! — against  the  monster 


20  The    Little    Review 


who  awaits,  during  all  the  nights  of  the  infinite  years,  the  hour  of 
our  awful  scream — he  waits  for  it  and  when  he  has  lieard  he  waits 
still,  to  hear  other  screams,  he  waits  still,  he  waits  forever.  She 
hurled  her  miserable  body  and  her  face,  now  like  a  dismal  little 
clenched  fist,  in  a  fight  of  teeth  and  nails  ....  false  teeth! 

And  once  more  the  world  came  to  its  symphonic  night:  she 
cursed  the  stupid  chairs  and  cursed  the  yellow  lamp  and  the  shadows 
that  had  become  infinitely  old  on  the  grey  walls  .  Cursed  the  win- 
dows and  the  breeze  they  inhaled  came  over  her  and  made  her  sob 
with  an  agony  of  self-pity. 

And  now  she  would  weep  softly 

because  the  breeze  from  the  window  was  a  melody 

'of  remembrances. 

She  wanted  hier  limbs  to  break;  why  wouldn't  this  thing  bursi 
through  her  limbs!  She  offered  her  limbs  in  sacrifice  if  the  awfu 
thing  would  only  burst  through  her!  Wanted  to  stretch  her  arm; 
so  violently  that  they'd  sever  from  her  body — nodded  her  hea( 
up  and  down. 

Her  head  swayed  up  and  down  and  sideways,  sideways  and  U| 
and  down  and  she  moaned,  oh.  oh,  oh,  oh,  oh  ...  .  boat  in  th« 
tempest.  And  the  children  wished  that  she  would  stop  sometini' 
because  they  wanted  to  play. 

I  know  that  things  await  the  terrible  screaming.    The  monstei 
in  the  nights,  the  cavern  whence  the  cool  darkness  sails  toward 
our  windows  and  our  mouths,  the  purest  line  of  the  evening  horizo 
on  the  lake — how  many  times  have  I  gone  near  to  them,  knowin 
that  they  awaited,  have  gone  near  and  stopped  short,  was  afraid, 
did  not  know  how,  to  scream.    The  sheer  pink  flower  before  fantas 
tic  eyes  in  the  morning,  the  sheer  pink  flower  is  a  gleaming  eye  look 
ing  upon  a  horror  of  putrefied  dreams.    The  sky  when  it  is  farth 
from  the  earth,  the  purest  sky,  the  sky  that  has  flown  high  and  big 
because  the  air  was  so  clear,  the  sky  feels  the  touch  of  the  screar 
we  so  fearfully  constrain — as  the  very  white  breasts  of  a  woma' 
hear  the  caress  of  the  desperate  lover.    These  things  await  our  h(M 
rible  screaming. 

The  woman  had  repudiated  her  children,  she  had  betraye 
them.  So  now  she  did  not  dare  to  ask  for  the  children's  love.  Sfr 
was  too  hungry.  She  knew  that  children  give  love  to  everyom 
but  to  hungry  people  they  don't.  Children  are  pure  and  they  ai 
afraid  of  the  awful  eyes  of  hungry  persons.  Children  refuse  lo\ 
to  begging  hearts,  because  their  world  is  a  world  of  fair  and  haj^ 
exchange,  and  they  are  right.  And  they  are  right  because  they  ai 
beautiful. 


ird' 

zo  j 

tasi 
»oki 


The   Little   Review  21 


And  the  man,  he  was  just  as  bitter,  'his  was  another  fight,  so 
le  just  shook  her  off. 

God  sent  her  a  cancer  in  the  womb  and  she  died,  a  week  after 
he  big  fight. 

I  saw  her  dead.     This  lady,  Melany  Piano,  was  my  mother's 
lister,  my  aunt. 
I'm  in  a  hurry. 

I  wrote  this  about  her:     I  am  a  writer  and  I  write  about  per- 
ons  and  things: 

You  are  dead  and  your  mouth  is  stretched 

and  pulled  down  at  the  corners, 

a  curve  swept  downward. 

Your  hair  is  tall  grass  after 

the  flood  has  passed  over  it. 

You  have  now  become  the  image  of  the  cry  that  in  your  life 

you  have  miserably  and  compromisingly  striven  to  utter. 


Seriously,  seriously, 

with  cool  gentlemanliness, 

I  lay  a  word  of  reproach 

on  your  grave,  my  aunt. 

That  was  a  crime,  as  I  was  only 

^  child  and  you  were  not 

ashamed  to  soil  me  with  the  sight  of  your  tragedy. 

You  did  not  hide  your  awful 

crazy  hands  from  me. 

Made  a  clown  of  me  when 

you  dressed  me  in  black 

to  mourn 

your  dead. 

Still,  desperate  hands  of  last  clean  wind, 

wind  of  the  fall, 

bring  rags  of  noises  from 

the  city  to  the  cemetery; 

the  evening  is  a  lady  in  grey 

mourning  for  all  the  dead 

and  she  is  rustling  by 

on  the  road 

beside 

the  graveyard. 

Why  do  I  come?    Were  you  not 

my  aunt? 


2  2  The    Little    Review 


It's  pity  that  brings  me  here, 

or  it  is 

your  dead  face  projected 

in  all  the  darknesses,  which  has  driven 

me  here — for  the  soul  of  man  is  a  ghost 

and  it  haunts  him  and  it  drives  him. 

But 

it  is  not 

sorrow. 

Aunt,  a  sorrow  for  you  would  shatter  the  world, 

send  fragments  on  the  horrible  snout  of  God! 

The  day  I  saw  you  dead 

your  eyes  were  terribly  open — 

fingers  searching 

the  infinite  for 

an  echo  to  a  cry  of 

horrible 

pain. 

Also,  you  were  resting, 

my  aunt. 
What  do  you  want  from  me?  I  do  not  try  to  explain,  I  do  not 
care  to  understand.  I  have  not  been  cursed  by  those  who  have  died 
in  misery:  because  I  have  not  slain  anyone  with  misery.  But  I  read 
the  newspapers,  I  see  rouge-and-powder  faces  and  sometimes,  as  I 
pass  alongside  your  houses  with  my  hurried  heart  for  a  moment 
attentive  to  your  noises,  I  hear  children,  being  beaten,  yelling; 
and  today  I  have  seen  one  of  those  women  whose  eyes  have  ceased 
to  look  at  the  world  I  tell  you,  it's  Melany  Piano's  curse  that  is 
working  out.  Yes,  surely,  her  life  had  been  accursed,  also,  by  a 
thousand  other  women  like  her.  who  had  lived  before. 
I  guess  it's  a  well  balanced  retaliation. 

It  is  you  who  are  concerned.  You  who  are  dragging  yourselves 
along  under  the  shadow  that  Melany  Piano  casts  upon  your  world. 
Between  the  moon  and  you,  tonight,  looms  the  dead  face  of  Melany 
Piano.     And  you  hide  under  your  roofs. 

But  I,  but  I.  I'm  as  light  as  a  rubber  ball.  I'm  a  butterfly 
and  no  tragedy  has  shaken  the  light  dust  from  my  wings,  no  tragedy 
will.  It  is  youth  that  accounts  for  that,  but  overmore,  it  is  my 
youth,  the  youth  that  will  last  till  I  die  I'm  on  a  journey  beyond 
you  and  your  things,  you  and  your  colors  and  words.  On  the  moun- 
tains, over  this  city  and  that,  I  am  the  bird  that  has  no  nest,  I  am 
the  happy  stranger,  I'm  sailing  under  the  sun.    The  sun  is  very 


The    Little    Review  2j 


dnd  to  me,  he  could  not  be  any  kinder.    The  friends  that  are  with 
ne  know  that  also. 

Tihe  crickets  are  singing  the  tale  of  my  journey, 

the  winds  all  have  greeted  my  sails. 

Listen,  then, 

to  the  crickets  and 

let  the  wind 

play  around  your  houses 

as  you  mourn 


for  Melany  Piano, 
my  aunt. 


irePuppetsPeople? 
y   C.   Z. 

"\Vhy  shouldn't  I  be  interested  in  Marionettes?  God  knows 
m  only  a  puppet  myself",  she  said,  as  she  collapsed  on  the  divan, 
osing  her  eyes  wearily.  She  sank  deeper  into  the  cushions.  Pup- 
t,  indeed.  Married  life,  semi-public  career,  personal  days,  esthe- 
i  impulses — all  dictated  to,  managed  by  outside  forces  ....  When 
se  heard  her  cue,  straightening  of  spine,  eyes  shining  with  deter- 
I  nation,  her  entrance  superb.  To  her  public  she  was  not  puppet; 
It  personality.  Every  second  of  her  presence  on  the  stage:  rebellion 
ciinst  God  and  man — playwright,  play,  fellow  players,  sweet  re- 
^^ge  against  her  puppeteers.  The  stage  is  the  place.  Her  per- 
Mality's  the  thing! 

A  ray  of  hope! 

Enter  a  troupe  of  marionettes  and  their  puppetteers.  And 
wh  them  the  illusion,  grotesqueries,  and  delight  of  creation;  of  the 
lad  of  Heart's  Desire?  Alas,  these  mannikins  strut  out  onto  a 
uial  stage  with  painful  imitative  swagger  assumed  in  the  spot- 
Hit  by  their  human  betters.  These  collections  of  rags  and  bones 
a  I  hanks  of  hair  are  also  conscious  of  an  ego,  of  a  self  that  must, 
a  all  costs,  dominate.  They  too  would  ignore  the  strings  and  the 
V<:es  in  the  background  that  would  keep  for  them  the  role  deter- 
!ed  by  the  gods.  Or  poor  helpless  puppets,  perhaps,  their  faults 
not  their  own  but  traceable  to  the  selfsame  humans  who,  in  their 
plex  craving  for  self-dramatization  have  taken  to  puppets  for, 
^1  promulgation  of  their  pet  theatrical  vices:  themselves. 


I 


BTTLE  REVIEW 


Editor: 

Margaret   Anderson 

Foreign   Editors: 

John    Rodker  Jules   Romains 

Advisory    Board: 

DISCUSSION 

Art     and    Wallace    Gould* 
by    Marsden     Hartley 

IF  what  I  have  seen  written  upon  the  subject  of  art  in  the  editorial 
passages  of  the  Little  Review  must  be  accepted  either  by  ignorant 
or  intelligent  persons,  then  we  must  all  give  art  the  go-by.  I  am 
filled  with  envy  for  the  originality  or  your  opinions.  I  must  decline 
to  accept  the  dignity  of  "criticism"  in  view  of  what  we  have  been  so 
blessed  with  not  only  in  the  L.  R.  editorial  passages  but  in  every 
other  type  of  art  sheet.  You  are  of  all  people  the  one  to  be  accused 
of  highbrow  absurdities.  On  the  subject  of  Gould,  I  intended  only 
"some  remarks".  Remarks  are  nearly  always  superfluous  as  you 
yourself  have  convinced  us. 

I  am  the  single  i)erson  in  existence  who  happens  to  know  Gould  I 
all  of  his  and  my  own  artistic  existence.    He  is,  or  rather  was  before 
he  began  to  work  for  his  own  living,  in  the  movies,  a  very  excellent 


Referring  to  a  discussion  begun  in  the  /»/v  number. 


The    Utile    Review  25 


pianist.  He  knows  the  piano  at  kast.  I  know  his  written  work  in 
all  of  its  stages  of  completion  and  annihilation  during  the  last  fifteen 
years.  I  am  speaking  of  Gould  in  the  aggregate.  I,  still  vouch  for 
my  statements  as  to  the  fineness  of  Gould  as  a  poet.  I  didn't  use 
the  word  "great".  I  leave  that  to  the  highbrow  dilletantes.  Your 
splenetic  addenda  is  trivial  therefore,  not  to  speak  of  the  word  echo 
rising  up  out  of  it.  That  you  couldn't  ever  care  for  Gould  is  both 
legitimate  and  probable.  With  your  eye  so  fastened  on  Paris  and 
London  offices,  you  must  be  expected  to  have  prejudice.  I  argue 
nothing  for  Gould  as  to  style.  That  is  his  own  business.  I  argue 
for  his  qualities  and  flavours.  He  has  not  the  tourist  knowledge  of 
Maine.  He  spends  his  winters  there,  not  his  summers.  That  is  to 
say  he  knows  Maine  under  cover.  He  knows  it  as  any  artistic  native 
is  sure  to  know  it.  He  knows  it  as  a  man  knows  a  woman — through 
and  through.  That  he  isn't  producing  a  Lindsay  jingle,  a  Frost 
epic  of  melancholy,  a  Masters  grecian  tragedy,  or  fussing  with 
already  created  counterpoints  is  another  matter.  He  despises  art, 
and  that  is  becoming  of  any  real  artist.  Adoration  of  art  is  left 
-to  amateurs  and  dilletantes.  Gould  is  an  original — even  you  admit 
that.  It  is  true  whether  you  do  or  not.  The  L.  R.  editorial  section 
will  not  be  respected  for  its  first-hand  deduction-  You  personally 
are  to  be  highly  praised  by  all  artists  for  your  audacity  in  selection 
of  material.  That  is  enough  and  ought  to  be  ■enough  for  you  as 
editor  of  one  if  not  possibly  the  best  free  art  journal  in  this  country. 

My  sense  of  humour  makes  me  wonder  how  long  we  must  be 
serious  on  the  subject  of  spurious  erudtion?  Or  genuine  erudition 
for  that  matter.  Is  art  so  Painfully  necessary  that  it  must  be  eaten 
and  disgorged  continually?  Must  we  dwell  forever  on  the  theme  of 
esthetic  vomiting?  Why  is  it  more  important  than  a  couple  of  eggs 
in  the  morning  or  a  herring  in  the  afternoon?  Professed  erudition 
and  the  actual  are  two  very  different  species.  The  former  is  plenti- 
ful among  people  -who  do  not  create  or  attempt  to  create  chiefly.  I 
agree  with  Williams.  The  London  office  should  be  returned  to  native 
soil.  That  is  to  say  a  nice  little  visit  from  E.  P.  would  do  so  much 
for  village  life  in  this  country. 

We  are  so  in  need  of  erudition  according  to  E.  P.  He  might 
just  as  well  plant  some  on  home  soil.  The  joke  lies  in  the  deadly 
seriousness  with  which  the  opinionated  person  takes  ART.  Until 
there  really  is  art  in  this  country  we  must  all  accept  our  Laura  Jean 
Libbeys  and  Robert  Chamberes  as  the  clue  to  the  quality  of  art  that 
exists  here.  Why  fuss?  Why  not  enjoy  a  natural  thing?  If  ig- 
norance is  natural  in  America,  is  homegrown  ignorance  better  than 


26  The    Little    Review 


an  imported  solution  of  grey  matter?     American  art  in  fact  is  no 
worse  than  European.    It  is  all  smelly  gorgonzola. 

As  to  Gould,  hadn't  you  smelled  propaganda  in  my  "makeup  of 
words"  as  you  call  it.    I  have  accomplished  what  I  intended  and  that 
is  a  Gould  controversy.    The  elite  talk  about  every  thing  under  the 
sun  from  dollars  to  doughnuts.     It  might  as  well  be  a  new  poet  as 
a  new  imbecile.    It  is  my  first  and  last  propaganda.    I  have  shuffed 
off  from  myself  the  thing  which  belongs  to  the  people  who  care  to 
discuss.     I  am  familiar  with  Gould  both  as  person  and  as  artist 
through  and  through.    It  is  now  Carnevali,  Williams,  et  Cie  who  havt 
taken  up  the  proper  cudgels  for  Gould.    If  as  a  nation  we  must  jaz3| 
ourselves  into  insensibility  why  be  annoyed  at  the  preponderance  o 
what  is  after  all  a  natural  state  in  all  countries.     Missionary  idea:  I 
are  absurd  anywhere.    We  have  done  with  the  missionary  long  ago 
The  primitives  are  still  dancing  pagan  "Education  of  Henry  Adams' [ 
to  prove  our  specific  densities.    I'd  rather  hear  a  Lindsay  rhapsod; 
upon  our  single  artistic  contribution  than  all  the  praise  and  con  I 
demnations  from  an  overseas  triangular  parlor.    We  did  away  wit 
Brook  Farm  long  ago.    It  died  of  obvious  inanition.    Petit  pois  ar 
no  more  remarkable  than  corn.     If  America  is  cornfed,  it  must  b 
accepted  on  a  cornfed  basis.    We  must  either  live  in  our  own  coimtr  | 
and  enjoy  it  or  leave  it.     Pound  was  sensible  since  he  was  more 
home  away  from  it.     Psychology  says  that  hate  is  another  kind  (| 
love.     Could  it  be  possible  that  Ezra  loves  his  native  land?     It 
possible  since  he  wants  to  help  it  out  of  its  miserable  ignoranc 
No  one  admires  Ezra  more  than  I  do,  but  "it  is  his  celestial  sneer 
admire.    He  is  a  genius  at  the  sneer.    You  are  right  as  to  the  vi 
tues  of  the  sneer. 

Do  not  therefore  credit  me  with  what  I  have  no  slight  gift  fc| 
viz: — criticism.     I  have  no  slight  interest  in  it  even.     I  care  fl 
appreciations.    Things  I  can't  care  for  don't  exist.    I  care  for  word 
That  is  my  english  blood.    I  am  extravagant  with  them.    That  is  (f 
paper.    I  seldom  say  more  than  how-do-you-do  audibly.    It  is  bett| 
to  save  breath  you  know.     Rest  in  peace,  Margaret  Anderson, 
to  what  the  type  of  criticism  in  America  is  or  will  be.     It  will  n| 
depend  upon  me,  nor  will  it  depend  upon  the  editorial  passages 
the  L.  R.    You  are  great  because  you  are  courageous.    Your 
for  presentation  is  your  genius.    I  congratulate  you. 

You  choose  too  great  a  burden  in  wishing  to  uplift  the  Americj 
troglodyte.  We  are  a  powerfully  uneducated  people.  Therefore  I 
are  intelligent  enough  to  enjoy  our  own  brand  of  ignorance.  \\ 
shall  always  rankle  the  refined  and  overzealous  brain.     I  refer  yl 


TJie   Little    Review  27 


to  Montaigne's  remark  about  himself  in  closing  his  own  career  in' 
the  pursuit  of  knowledge.  Knowledge  is  at  its  greatest  height  most 
relative.  We  do  not  need  the  dilletante  We  do  not  need  anybody's 
second-rate  opinions.  We  do  not  need  necessarily  to  be  informed 
so  persistently  as  the  quasi-cultured  seem  to  think.  You  won't  find 
all  the  great  men  either  in  this  time  or  of  all  time  were  geniuses  in 
erudtion-  They  covered  their  ignorance  with  their  natural  sensibili- 
ties. They  knew  a  great  deal  in  spite  of  not  having  taken  other 
people's  opinions. 

I  congratulate  Gould  on  having  finally  arrived  upon  the  field  of 
battle.  I  shall  probably  never  speak  of  him  again  in  print.  Why 
should  I  as  long  as  the  talkers  are  at  hand. 

[I  am  always  willing  to  assume  that  people  are  not  particularly 
interested  in  talking  about  art.  I  am  merely  glad  to  prove  once  in  a 
while,  by  publishing  illuminating  remarks  for  the  illuminated,  that 
talk  about  it  is  of  some  interest. 

What  puzzles  me  is  this:  why  do  the  people  who  plead  so  demo- 
cratically for  the  omission  of  art  discussion  back  up  their  requests 
with  the  same  explanations?  They  always  tell  me  that  erudition  is 
not  art,  that  the  surest  sign  of  dilettantism  is  this  deadly  seriousness 
about  the  subject,  and  that  there  is  no  necessity  for  art  to  be  thrust 
upon  people  who  don't  want  it. 

All  of  which  I  subscribe  to.  If  Mr.  Hartley  is  more  interested 
in  eggs  and  herring  than  in  discussion  why  doesn't  he  enjoy  his  eggs 
instead  of  gorging  himself  on  the  distasteful  L.  R.?  My  "seriousness'* 
is  not  so  deadly  as  to  want  readers  who  don't  want  to  read.  Any 
one  who  has  a  passion  for  reading  or  talking  or  writing  does  those 
things  because  he  needs  the  satisfaction  of  agreeing  or  disagreeing 
with  what  he  reads  or  hears.  He  doesn't  make  his  possible  disagree- 
ment into  a  treatise  against  the  thing  he  enjoys. 

Also,  anyone  who  reads  the  Little  Review  with  his  brain  knows 
that  our  fight  is  against  the  identification  of  art  and  erudition,  that 
we  even  call  the  two  things  by  different  names.  One  we  call  art; 
the  other  erudition.  He  knows  too  that  when  I  speak  of  art  I  am  not 
talking  about  "style"  in  the  erroneous  conventional  way.  Since  every 


The    Little    Rez'ieiv 


artist  creates  his  own  style,  the  term  "style"  in  art  can't  be  used  in 
any  ex-cathedra  sense,  like  "style"  in  clothes.  The  latter  is  a  fixed 
standard  which  many  people  can  achieve  by  following  the  rigid  rules 
of  conventional  dress.  The  "style"  in  Joyce's  "Ulysses"  is  the  ex-  - 
pression  of  himself  that  stands  out  as  different  from  any  other  man's 
expression.    The  style,  of  course,  is  Joyce. 

But  perhaps  Mr.  Hartley  means  something  akin  to  the  vague 
young  man  in  the  back  pages  who  tells  me  that  I  worship  "finished 
composition."  There  must  be  some  striking  kinship  between  the  two 
points  of  view,  since  Mr.  Hartley  can  write  of  the  insight  of  "artistic 
natives",  and  the  intuitions  of  men  about  women — or  any  other 
subject  about  which  almost  no  one  has  any  intuitions  at  all. 

I  don't  care  whether  Wallace  Gould  knows  Maine  any  more  than 
I  care  whether  he  is  ignorant  of  Alaska.  These  things  don't  matter 
any  more  than  erudition  matters.  The  only  thing  that  counts  is 
whether  Wallace  Gould  knows  himself.  If  he  doesn't  then  the  wtiole 
matter  isn't  much  more  important  than  eggs  and  herring.  If  he  does, 
then  it  becomes  an  important  thing  to  certain  people.  I  don't  un- 
derstand Mr.  Hartley's  necessity  to  prove  that  he  is  not  among  them. 

The  vague  young  man  also  wonders  why  I  am  not  interested  in 
making  a  magazine  for  people  who  are  not  as  intersted  in  the  thing 
as  I  am  and  who  don't  know  as  much  about  it.  I  could  only  say  to 
him  that  I  was  once.  I  could  find  nothing  but  a  terrible  boredom 
in  trying  to  do  it  now.  My  faint  residue  of  interest  will  only  extend 
back  far  enough  to  remind  Mr.  Hartley  that  we  don't  publish  the 
L-  R.  because  we  think  art  is  necessary.  Life  is  not  necessary.  But 
life  without  art  is  superfluous. — M.  C.  A.] 

[If  the  Little  Review  ever  felt  "splenetic"  or  ever  had  personal 
animosity  toward  anyone  it  would  seldom  be  necessary  to  do  more 
than  print  the  correspondence  of  possible  irritants. 

In  this  letter  we  have  an  excellent  exhibition  of  Mr.  Hartley  by 
Mr.  Hartley.  The  philanderer  in  Art  damning  the  dilettante  in  eru- 
dition. 

Has  anyone  in  the  Little  Review  or  in  any  other  "art  sheet" 
ever  had  anything  on  Mr.  Hartley  as  a  self-anointed  artistic  divinity? 

Wallace  Gould  must  be  even  more  sickened  by  his  selection  of 
friends  than  by  their  patronizing  publicity:  all  of  which  amounts  to: 
Gould  knows  Maine  and  Hartley  knows  Gould:  therefore  Gould  is 


The    Little    Review  29 


an  original  and  a  fine  poet. 

And  of  course  Margaret  Anderson  is  grateful  to  Hartley  for 
placing  her,  and  encouraging  her  to  go  on  editing  her  magazine. 

"It  is  my  first  and  last  propaganda."  There  are  some  of  us  to 
whom  every  thing  Hartley  writes  is  propaganda  to  establish  himself 
as  an  artist:  electioneering.  The  jaunty,  familiar,  homey  attitude 
toward  Art  indicates  a  condition  far  less  flattering  than  the  adora- 
tion of  the  dilettante.  The  intellectual  and  artistic  eunuch  seems 
to  be  a  natural  animal. — jh.] 


M  0  r  e    S  w  i  1 1 

Iby  William  Carlos  Williams 

WHEN  a  lady  says  a  certain  aria  of  Puccini's  is  '"lovely"  and 
that  a  certain  other  composition  by  Claudel  is  '"ugly"  she 
means  something  definite.  She  is  using  words  accurately  and  for 
this  reason  her  statement  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  opinion  but  assumes 
J:he  quality  of  being  a  definite  point  of  illumination — for  better  or 
worse.  She  puts  two  separate  things  in  apposition  and  distinctly 
:hooses  one:  Puccini's  aria  will  continue  to  remain  "lovely"  and 
Claudel's  composition  wjll  continue  to  be  "ugly" — one  feels  that 
^harply — no  matter  how  she  may  subsequently  alter  her  opinion, 
^er  statement  signalises  a  fixed  point  of  separation  :  one  theme 
las  escaped  her  understanding  and  one  satisfies  it. 

The  failure  of  loveliness  is  that  it  is  possessed  at  large  before  it 
|S  composed  and  so  can  never  be  created.    And  the  hell  of  creative 
ork  is  that  it  is  never  possessed  until  after  it  has  been  set  dovm 
d  after  the  artist  has  lost  his  taste  for  it  and  then  of  course  pos- 
essed  only  by  one  or  two. 

Americans  are  cursed  with  a  desire  to  be  understood.     Every- 

ing  must  be  "beautiful"  or  it  must  show  this  or  that  wellunder- 

jtood  perfection,  but  it  never  occurs  to  an  American,  to  ah  American 

ritic  in  this  case,  to  discover  first  whether  he  is  dealing  with  a  live 

ing  or  with  the  sjanmetries  of  a  corpse. 

It  never  occurs  to  an  American  critic  to  question  whether  or 

lOt  a  work  shows  evidences  of  creative  thought,  or  at  least  this 

not  the  first  thing  that  occurs  to  him.     Is  it  beautiful!?     Yes 

,t  "beautiful"  means  something  that  tickles  him,  something  that 

can  understand,  and  that  thing  must  inevitably  be  to  an  artist 


.^o  The    Little    Review 


the  ugly.  But  all  thought  is  ugly  to  the  American  critic — especially 
if  it  come  from  the  left.  And  since  in  a  work  of  art  the  form  of  the 
composition  bespeaks  the  thought,  then  all  new  forms  are  inevitably 
anathema  and  this  is  not  alone  true  of  America. 

So  let  us  take  off  our  undershirts,  my  friends,  and  scratch  our 
backs  in  good  company.  At  least  we  will  not  be  praised  because 
of  our  loveliness. 

But  of  course  that  last  paragraph  is  no  more  than  a  familiar 
halloo,  a  hoi-yo-to-hoi!  The  thing  is  that  the  difficulty  between  the 
critic  and  the  artist  has  never  been  rightly  understood.  I  do  not 
m.ike  the  same  mistake  as  my  predecessors;  I  have  merely  up  to  this 
point  designated  two  objects  of  different  nature,  one  of  which,  full 
of  thought,  concerns  the  artist  and  one  of  which,  full  of  loveliness, 
concerns  the  critic.  There  is  no  transition  between  them.  They  re- 
main forever  separate,  one  forever  to  concern  the  artist  and  one 
forever  to  concern  the  critic. 

But  I  differ  from  some  of  my  companions  in  that  I  do  not  dis- 
dain to  attack  the  critic.  I  do  not  disdain  to  soil  my  hands  with 
death.  I  find  a  certain  exhilaration  in  taking  the  heavy  corpse  in 
my  arms  and  fox-trotting  with  it  as  far  as  I  am  able.  It  is  not 
easy  to  dance  with  a  dead  thing  in  the  arms. 

And  this  is  the  eternal  and  until  now  slighted  nature  of  the 
engagement  between  artist  and  critic.  It  is  a  dance!  No  man  cari 
be  forced  to  dance.  But  I  see  no  particular  gain  in  mixing  only  with 
those  of  my  own  inherited  cast  of  thought  and  feeling.  I  can  of 
course  appreciate  the  Chinese  philosopher  who  lived  alone  by  a 
waterfall,  but  aside  from  that  perfection  I  see  no  reason  for  avoiding 
the  arms  of  a  critic  .  It  teaches  me  to  dance. 

That  there  is  no  transition  between  critic  and  artist  I  will  main- 
tain as  well  as  I  am  able.  A  man  may  be  one,  then  the  other,  but 
never  one  within  the  other.  It  is  a  common  impossibility.  Witness 
alone  the  silence  of  the  returned  soldier  among  whom  are  men  well 
able  to  express  themselves  :  Phillip  Gibbs  has  it,  "Non-combatants 
do  not  understand  and  never  will,  not  from  now  until  the  ending 
of  the  world.  'Cut  it  out  about  the  brave  boys  in  the  trenches!' 
So  it  is  difficult  to  describe  them,  or  to  give  any  idea  of  what  goes 
on  in  their  minds,  for  they  belong  to  another  world  than  the  world 
of  peace  that  we  knew,  and  there  is  no  code  which  can  decipher  their 
secret,  nor  any  means  of  self  expression  on  their  lips." 

To  a  soldier  war,  to  an  artist  his  art,  to  a  critic  his  criticism,  to 
them  all  the  dance! 


i 


Tht    Li  til  9    Review 3£ 

An    Open    Letter    to    Margaret 
Anderson 

by   Winthrop    Parkhurst 

THERE  are  two  forms  of  criticism:  the  metallic  and  the  aromatic. 
The  wielder  of  the  first  form  is  the  grave-digger  who  exhumes 
the  corpses  of  art  and  exposes  them  impartially  for  all  to  see — 
and  smell.  Vide  H.  L.  Mencken.  The  wielder  of  the  second  form 
is  the  florist  who  lovingly  plants  flowers  over  each  grave  and,  letting 
jthe  individual  richness  or  aridity  of  the  soil  determine  their  growth, 
plucks  them  at  length  and  offers  them  to  the  world.  Vide  Arthur 
Symons.  One  is  intellectual,  and  is  concerned  with  bones;  the  other 
'is  emotional,  and  is  concerned  with  bouquets.  Between  these  two 
types  of  critics  come  others,  of  course,  combining  in  various  degrees 
their  dual  activities.  The  intellectual  critic  often  has  a  heart,  though 
he  seem  to  write  entirely  above  the  neck;  the  emotional  critic  often 
has  a  brain,  though  he  seem  to  write  entirely  below  it.  But  in  the 
main  the  classification  holds.  One  type  records  things  as  he  thinks 
they  are.    The  other  sings  of  things  as  he  feels  them. 

The  comparative  merits  of  the  two  modes  of  assaying  beauty 
ire  not  entered  here  in  the  field  of  controversy.  My  gravamen 
igainst  you  is  not  that  you  select  either  the  one  form  or  the  other. 
'  t  is  that  you  do  not  select  either.  Or  if  you  do,  you  select  tooth  at 
)nce  with  the  result  that  your  criticism  is  a  horned  hybrid  that  is 
leither  flesh  nor  fowl  nor  good  red  criticism.  If  you  think,  it  is 
)nly  with  your  heart.  If  you  feel,  it  is  only  with  your  brain.  And 
submit  that  such  critical  monstrosities  are  not  only  bad  for  your 
eaders  artistically  but  bad  for  yourself  physiologically. 

In  the  April  issue  of  the  Little  Review  you  furnish  the  public 
vith  a  typical  piece  of  incriminating  evidence  against  yourself.  You 
ave  some  other  psycho-emotional  felonies  in  the  roost  of  literature 
nd  music.  For  the  sake  of  brevity  I  simply  hold  up  one  stolen 
•rize  chicken  and  let  it  cluck  for  the  coop. 

The  Philadelphia  Orchestra,  under  the  leadership  of  Leopold 
tokowski,  had  performed  Scriabin's  "Poeme  D'Extase".  You  had 
ttended  the  performance,  and  your  soul  had  been  moved.  In  testi- 
lony  of  your  spiritual  locomotion  you  wrote  this  statement:  "I 
m  glad  to  say  without  reservation  that  the  greatest  musical  experi- 
nce  I  have  had  for  three  or  four  years  (since  I  heard  Scriabin's 


32  The    Little    Review 


'Trometheus"  played)  was  Leopold  Stokowski's  conducting  of  that 
composer's  'Toeme  D'Extase."  Is  that  criticism?  That  is,  when 
your  readers  have  read  it,  do  they  know  anything  more  about  Phila- 
delphia, Mr.  Stokowski,  Scriabin  or  yourself  than  they  knew  before? 
It  is  true  that  they  know  you  were  moved.  But  whence?  And  what 
did  you  discover  on  your  journey?  If,  for  example,  you  take  a  trip 
around  the  world  you  can  truthfully  say  to  your  friends  on  your 
return,  "I  am  glad  to  say  without  reservation  that  I  was  never  before 
so,  moved  in  my  life."  But  such  a  statement  means  nothing.  It  is 
equivalent,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  change  the  metaphor,  to  eating  a 
ripe  plum,  shutting  your  eyes,  and  murmuring  dithyrambically,  "Ah! 
this  is  the  most  delicious  plum  I  have  tasted  since  I  tasted  a  peach. 
Indeed,  it  is  altogether  and  unimaginably  delicious."  Such  enthusi- 
asm, however,  is  critically  sterile.  People  may  have  sufficient  con-, 
fidence  in  your  powers  of  discriminatory  gustation  to  be  induced  to 
try  a  plum  for  themselves.  But  they  will  do  so  not  because  you  have 
criticised  plums  but  because  you  have  advertised  them.  And  I 
scarcely  think  it  is  your  deliberate  intention  to  turn  the  Little  Review 
in  a  Printer's  Ink. 

In  other  words,  your  attitude  toward  art,  so  far  as  it  is  re- 
vealed in  your  magazine,  is  neither  metallic  nor  aromatic.  You  nei- 
ther paint  nor  do  you  draw.  If  you  say:  "The  Philadelphia  Orches- 
tra, under  the  leadership  of  Leopold  Stokowski,  is  a  first-rate  musical 
organization.  Unfortunately,  in  modern  compositions,  like  Scriabin's 
"Poeme  D'Extase",  it  is  a  metronome  without  a  sense  of  time,  a  clock 
without  hands — or,  rather,  with  too  many  of  them.  The  violins,  dur- 
ing the  first  three  minutes  were  married  to  the  horns,  but  their  conju- 
gal state  was  merely  legal ;"  or  if  you  say,  "more  than  any  other 
orchestra  in  this  country,  except  possibly  the  Boston  Symphony,  the 
Philadelphia  organization  approaches  supreme  concerted  perfection. 
Stokowski  was  once  an  organist.  That  may  or  may  not  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  his  conducting:  the  fact  remains  that  he,  of  all  our 
conductors,  barring  perhaps  Bodanzky,  is  alone  able  to  play  on  his 
vast  instrument  as  though  it  were  the  key-board  of  a  great  organ 
whose  bellows  arc  filled  with  the  four  winds  of  heaven.  His  perfor- 
mance of  Scriabin's  "Poeme  D'Extase"  was  a  hallelujah  in  the  temple 
of  musical  art.  There  was  no  instrument  on  the  platform,  it 
seemed,  but  himself."  If  you  .say  such  things,  though  I  may  bemoan 
your  brevity,  I  can  tmderstand  you. 

Or  if,  dropping  the  metallic  style  and  riding  sensuously  on  a 
sea  of  sound  you  prefer  merely  to  float  on  the  tide  of  your  emotions 
and  remark,  as  you  drift  subjectively  along,  "Leopold  Stokowski  is 


The    Little  Review  33 


.  dreamer.  The  hasheesh  which  he  eats  is  the  poisonous  passion 
lower  of  Russia.  He  cannot  put  a  pinch  of  Scriabin  to  his  tongue 
efore  you  become,  in  imagination,  a  "Poeme  D'Extase"  yourself  and 
ide  with  him  deliriously  to  the  distant  shores  of  a  fantastic  country 
-which  shores  are  unhappily  lapped  by  silence,  eventually  ending 
our  dream" — if  you  say  such  things  as  this  I  cannot  only  under- 
tand  you.     I  can  sympathize.     I  can  applaud. 

Instead,  what  do  you  say?  You  remark:  "I  am  glad  to  state 
lat  the  greatest  musical  experience  I  have  had  for  three  or  four 
ears,"  etc.  And  then,  with  an  operatic  touch,  you  conclude:  "He 
as  musical  to  the  point  of  looking  so  (sic)— and  he  conducted 
ithout  a  score"  (sic)    (sic). 

I  have  overburdened  your  generosity,  I  fear ;  but  you  publish 
Dur  welcome  to  a  free  discussion  of  the  arts  and  I  cannot  help  but 
:cept  it.  Advertisement  is  not  criticism.  If  you  really  distinguish 
jtween  the  two  forms  of  verbal  expression  I  trust  you  will  put  me 
:  error  to  the  extent  of  publishing  this  letter  somewhere  in  the  body 
'  your  magazine  and  not  among  the  list  of  Coffee  Houses. 

[It  would  be  more  kind  to  the  writer  and  more  fair,  perhaps 
ince  it  can  be  seen  that  he  has  a  point  to  make)  to  print  his  first 
ur  paragraphs  and  omit  his  very  awful  examples  of  critical  writing. 
Lit  my  editorial  experience  has  taught  me  that  a  man  would  rather 
apear  in  full,  with  his  crimes  upon  him,  than  he  deleted  by  even 
te  kindest  editorship-  However  I  shall  credit  him  with  his  point  and 
iiswer  only  that.  Or  rather,  he  answers  it  for  me:  "People  may 
live  sufficient  confidence  in  your  powers  of  discrimination  to  be  in- 
deed to  try  a  plum  for  themselves.  But  they  will  do  so  not  because 
}u  have  criticised  plums  but  because  you  have  advertised  them." 
^^ry  well.  That  is  quite  right.  That  is  all  that  was  intended.  If 
(e  sets  out  to  make  a  piece  of  criticism,  or  a  piece  of  appreciation 
('hich  is  the  same  thing,  despite  Marsden  Hartley,)  it  either  turns 
ct  to  be  art,  if  he  is  an  artist,  or  a  valuation  if  he  is  merely  a  critic. 
It  it  foe  one  or  the  other.  The  only  thing  to  avoid  is  what  Mr. 
Irkhurst  suggests.  I  have  never  written  a  word  that  I  imagined  to 
Ive  any  beauty,  or  form,  or  existence  as  literature.  I  merely  like  to 
tk  about  ideas.  I  am  not  a  writer.  I  am  a  good  critic.  Of  course 
Iim  using  the  term  loosely  I  am  briefly  answering  Mr.  Parkhurst's 
aiusation.  It  would  be  more  interesting  to  go  into  a  discussion  of 
t;  nature  of  the  critic  and  to  attack  Mr.  Parkhurst's  premise  of 
cticism.  I  take  it  for  granted  when  I  offer  brief  notes  on  music 
t  it  my  audience  is  capable  of  remembering  the  point  of  view  from 
^'  ich  I  write.    And  I  can  certainly  avoid  any  efforts  in  the  direction 

"Hallelujahs     in     the     temple     of    musical    art,"     etc.       It 


34  The    Little    Review 


is  easy  to  avoid:  every  one  can  make  sucli  efforts,  every  one 
does  make  them,  every  one  likes  them,  they  become  one  of  the  hor- 
rors of  existence.  And  because  every  one  sactions  this  kind  of 
thing,  and  we  loathe  it,  The  Little  Review  gains  its  reputation  for 
aloofness  and  "superiority",  etc.  Superiority  and  aloofness  are  the 
only  means  of  avoiding  democracy  in  criticism. — M.  C.  A.] 


Concerning    Jessie    Dismorr 
by  A.   Y.  Winters 

I  have  of  late  seen,  and  heard  a  few  persons  give  vent  to  what  seems 
to  be  a  faint  semblance  of  admiration  for  Miss  Dismorr's  work, 
so  perhaps  I  may  be  pardoned  for  writing  a  few  words.  I  have  before 
me  a  poem  called  Matinee  {Little  Review,  March,'  19 18)  and  the 
group  in  the  August  number. 

.Williams  demands  "thought",  but  thought  need  not  degenerate 
into  philosophies  or  fragments  thereof:  "ideas".  ."Ideas"  have  been 
damned  sufficiently  by  better  intellects  than  mine,  so  I  shall  not  stop 
to  do  that  now.  "Don't  be  'viewy',"  says  Pound,  "leave  that  to  the 
writers  of  pretty  little  philosophic  essays."  Perhaps  he  would  object 
to  my  application  of  his  statement,  but  I  don't  think  so.  "Matinee" 
is  apparently  a  philosophy  of  existence.  It  is  written  in  very  care- 
fully chosen  words  (its  outstanding  quality)  and  is,  roughly  speaking, 
Whitman  inverted  with  a  few  embroideries.  It  is  a  manifesto  pure 
and  simple:  the  author  tells  what  she  does,  but  does  nothing.  "I 
thrill  to  the  miscroscopic."  But  how  does  she  thrill  to  it?  One  must 
turn  to  the  later  group,  where  one  sees  "Spring".  Is  "Spring"  a 
thrill?  Perhaps.  But  such  an  one  as  the  anaemic  shiver  running 
down  the  bare  spindle  shanks  of  the  candy-fed  child  of  a  millionaire. 
But  granting  that  different  people  are  thrilled  in  different  ways,  and 
that  "Spring"  contains  an  emotion,  we  pass  on  to  the  rest  of  the 
group  .  .  .  We  sec  the  poet  pen  in  hand,  paper  on  knee  ...  I  must 
write  a  poem — what   about — eyes  wander  vaguely   describing  arc 


'k' 


The    Ldttle   Review  35 


"ound  ceiling  of  room — radius  of  arc  strokes  back  of  infinity — 
ifinity:  eternity — eternity  vs.  events— and  the  result  is  "Islands", 
uninteresting  fiddling  with  abstractions,  totally  devoid  of  emotion- 
value,  and  so  far  as  "thought"  is  concerned,  a  knicknack  drawing 
ily  a  momentary  curiosity.    The  same  can  be  said  to  perhaps  a  less 
[tent  of  "Twilight"    (first  two  lines  have  considerable  beauty), 
.andscape,"  and  "Promenade."    "S-  D-"  is  better  but  is  the  sort 
thing  that  has  been  done  as  successfully  or  more  so  by  Pound. 
])r  "The  Enemy"  I  have  "faint  tremblance  of  enthusiasm".    Very 
iint,  however.     One  sees  very  slight  "ideas"  dissected  in  great 
(tail,  which  is  bound  to  be  tiresome.     The  care  with  which  she 
sleets  her  words  is  thrust  upon  one  before  everything  else,  and 
re  are  too  often  too  many  words.    One  hears  the  newly  rich  lady 
,ing  "Between  you  and  I  .  .  .  "    Her  style  is  too  often 'a  meticulous 
■>  -bosity. 


lussian    Ballet 
John  Rodker 

OMBERG  has  produced  an  interesting  little  book  commemorative 
of  the  Russian  Ballet.     There  are  six  plates  reproduced  with 
|it  fidelity  by  lithographic  processes  in  six  colours,  each  with 
inic  inscription. 

1.  "Methodic  discord  startles"  is  an  irritable  composition 
|ch  evokes  only  too  well  the  mixed  sensations  in  one  waiting  for 
curtain  to  go  up.    White  stippled  with  black  is  the  most  effec- 

part  of  the  design  with  pure  reds  and  yellows  to  hold  it  to- 
er. 

2.  "Insistent  snatchings  drag  fancy  from  space"  is  a  tiny  bright 
ing  set  in  large  sombre  masses  with  the  excitement  of  prying 
a  corner — the  core  of  the  matter  suddenly  apparent. 

3.  "Fluttering  white  hands  beat — compel!  Reason  concedes" 
ill  of  gaiety  and  the  movement  of  many  people- 

j3i!|4.  "Impressions  crowding  collide  with  movement  round  us" 
gnified,  full  of  the  collision  of  powerful  masses — a  solid  and 
fying  piece  of  reproduction. 

5.  "The  curtain  falls — the  creaks  illusion  escapes"  has  an  air 
[Complete  finality  leading  to 

6.  "The  mind  clamped  fast  captures  only  a  fragment  for  new 


36  The    Little    Review 


illusion"  a  blaze  of  crimson  and  yellow,  immolation  of  the  Phoenix, 
eternal  recurrence,  etc.,  etc. 

As  an  'experiment  this  is  an  interesting  venture.  Priced  at  2|6 
it  is  within  the  reach  of  the  smallest  purse  .  It  should  show  whether 
there  are  more  than  200  people  all  told  who  are  interseted  in  Art. 

Images,  by  Richard  Aldington.   The  Egoist.  3/6  net. 

Greek  Songs  in  the  Manner  of  Anacreon,  trans- 
lated by  Richard  Aldington.  The  Poets  Translation 
scries.   The  Egoist  Ltd.  2/6  net. 

The  Poems  of  Anyte  of  Tegea:  translated  by  Richard 
Aldington. 

Poems  and  Fragments  of  Sappho,  translated  by 
Ediuard  Storer.  The  Egoist  Ltd.  Poets  Translation 
Series,  No.  2. 

WHEN  Mr.  Aldington  is  good  he  is  very  good  and  only  occasion- 
ally can  one  be  captious  about  him.  Posterity  will  certainly 
not  be  abl-e  to  help  itself  in  ascribing  inception  paternity,  etc.,  of  the 
Imagists  to  Mr.  Aldington,  for  this  is  the  third  book  of  Images  from 
his  pen  within  three  months  ("Images  of  War"  and  "Images  of  De- 
sire"). 

Mr.  Aldington  brings  to  today  that  delight  in  classical  literature 
which  was  at  once  the  pride  and  devotion  of  th-e  Humanists  of  the 
Renaissance — themselves  no  mean  poets.  It  is  true  that  his  re- 
searches into  languages  do  not  extend  as  widely  as  those  of  his  be- 
loved Picus  of  Mirandola,  but  that  would  not  be  a  too  remote  figure 
with  which  to  compare  him. 

"In  the  Old  Garden"  which  appeared  in  "Des  Imagistes"  is  very 
finished  and  has  perhaps  the  strongest  emotional  content  of  any 
poem  in  the  book.  Most  of  the  time  his  form  is  relevant  to  his 
muse  but  his  difficulty  is  one  rather  of  over-emphasis  than  of  re- 
straint; that  touch  which  makes  familiar  rather  than  ennobles.  In' 
"Choricos" 


The    Utile    Review  37 


"We  turn  to  thee  singing 
One  last  song." 

or  again,  "a-trembie  with  dew."    "One  last  song"  is  surely  an  anti- 
climax— an  irrelevance,  a  loss  of  dignity. 

Certain  poems  too  are  written  on  a  general  formula  with  un- 
fortunate results: 

We  will  come  down 

O  Thalassa 

And  drift  upon 

Your  pale  green  waves 

Like  petals.  "^^ 

The  imagine  has  died  of  inanition. 

''Bromios"  however  could  not  be  better  and  the  wholly  admira- 
ble 'The  fawn  sees  snow  for  the  first  time"  will  surely  have  a  per 
manent  place  in  future  anthologies.  Poems  which  come  out  of  his 
own  experience,  "At  the  British  Museum,"  "At  Nights,"  "Cinema 
Exit,"  "Childhood",  are  excellent.  Were  his  muse  confined  to  poems 
like  "Choricos"  one  might  have  feared  lest  the  spring  suddenly  dry, 
but  there  can  be  no  fear  of  that  when  he  can  give  us  a  poem  like 
"Childhood"  or  "At  Nights." 

The  Poets  Translation  Series  takes  on  a  new  life  in  these  editions 
bound  and  in  a  larger  format  than  the  pamphlets  in  which  th'Cy  origi- 
nally appeared.  Mr.  Aldington  hopes  that  a  reader  familiar  with 
modern  writing  will  find  this  humble  prose  version  less  repellant 
than  that  of  Fawkes  or  thoS'C  of  the  contemporary  translators  whose 
object  seems  to  be  to  prove  that  the  Greeks  wrote  doggerel. 

He  has  succeeded  magnificently  in  his  task. 

"Erato  clasping  her  father  with  her  hand  and  shedding  tears 

spoke  these  last  words: 
O  my  father,  I  am  yours  no  longer,  for  now  black  death 

lays  the  dusk  of  the  grave  upon  my  eyes." 

The  translations  from  Anacreon  are  equally  happy. 
Mr.  Storer  does  as  much  for  Sappho. 

In  the  terms  of  the  publishers  puff  "no  library  can  be  said  to 
Ibe  complete  without  them." — /.  R.] 


38 


The    Little   Review 


INTERIM 

by   Dorothy  Richardson 

ChapterSix 

MIRIAM  came  forward  seeing  nothing  but  the  flood  of  gold 
light  pouring  from  the  central  chandelier  over  the  white  tabl 
cloth  and  sat  down  near  Mrs.  Bailey  within  the  edge  of  its  radianc 
Amidst  the  broken  lights  and  shadows  of  the  furniture,  mirrors  ar 
polished  surfaces  opened  wide  various  distances  and  gleaming  pa 
sages  of  light.  The- clear  spaces  of  the  walls  sent  back  sheeny  refit 
tions  of  the  central  glow.  The  depths  of  the  light  still  held  unchang 
the  welcome  that  had  met  her  when  she  had  come  in  and  found  Em 
laying  the  table.  There  was  no  change  and  no  disappointme; 
People  coming  in  one  by  one  saying  good  evening  in  different  intor 
tions  and  sending  out  waves  of  silent  curiosity,  left  her  carele 
^rhere  were  five  or  six  forms  about  the  table  besides  Sissie  sitti 
at  the  far  end  opposite  her  mother.  Emile  was  handing  round  pla 
of  soup  and  the  forms  were  making  sudden  remarks  about  the  weat 
and  waiting  to  have  their  daily  experience  of  the  meal  changed 
something  she  might  do  or  say.  Presently  they  would  be  talking  j 
would  have  forgotten  her.  Then  she  could  see  them  all  one  by 
and  get  away  unseen,  having  had  dinner  only  with  Mrs.  Bailey.  \ 
Bailey  was  standing  carving  the  joint.  When  the  silences  grew  d 
enough  for  her  to  be  aware  of  them  she  responded  to  the  last  rem 
'about  the  weather  or  asked  some  fresh  question  about  it  as  if 
one  had  spoken  at  all.  Behind  her  sallies  expressed  in  them  ani 
every  movement  of  her  busy  determined  battling  with  the  j 
Miriam  felt  her  affectionate  triumphant  preoccupation.  She  had  ffli 
no  introductions  and  demanded  nothing.  There  you  are  young .' 
she  was  secretly  saying.  I  told  you  so.  Now  you're  in  your  i 
place  .  It's  perfectly  easy  you  see.  The  joint  was  already  partly 
tributed.  Emile  was  handing  three  piled  dishes  of  vegetables, 
generous  plateful  of  well-browned  meat  and  gravy  appeared  be 
her  with  Mrs.  Bailey's  strong  small  toil-disfigured  hand  firmly  gi 
ing  its  edge.  She  took  it  to  pass  it  on.  Everything  was  hun 
on  ...  .  That's  yorce  my  child  said  Mrs.  Bailey.  The  low  mtll 
was  audible  round  the  silent  table.  Asserting  her  independence 
a  sullen  formality  Miriam  thanked  her  and  looked  about  for  p 
ments  without  raising  her  eyes  to  the  range  of  those  other  eye 


h 


tie 
ier 
f-onc 
ii[le 


The   Little   Review  39 


taking  photographs  now  that  she  was  forced  into  movements.  Mrs. 
Bailey  placed  a  cruet  near  her  plate.  Yorce  she  pondered  getting 
angrily  away  into  thought.  Mrs.  Bailey  could  not  know  that  it  might 
be  said  to  be  more  correct  than  yourz.  It  was  an  affectation.  She 
had  picked  it  up  somewhere  from  one  of  those  people  who  carefully 
say  off-ten  instead  of  awfen  and  it  gave  her  satisfaction  to  use  it, 
linked  rebukingly  up  with  the  complacent  motherly  patronage  of^ 
which  she  had  boasted  to  the  whole  table.  The  first  of  Emile's  dishes 
appeared  over  her  left  shoulder  and  she  saw  as  she  turned  unpre- 
pared, raised  heads  turned  towards  her  end  of  the  table.  She 
scooped  her  vegetables  quickly  and  clumsily  out  of  the  dishes.  In  her 
awkward  movements  and  her  unprotected  raised  face  she  felt,  and 
felt  all  the  observers  seeing,  the  marks  of  her  disgraceful  experience. 
They  saw  her  looking  like  Eve  nervously  helping  herself  to  vegetables 
in  the  horrible  stony  cold  dark  restaurant  of  the  hostel.  They  saw 
that  she  resented  Mrs.  Bailey's  public  familiarity  and  could  do 
nothing.  She  tried  to  look  bored  and  murmured  thank  you  when 
she  had  taken  her  third  vegetable.  It  sounded  out  like  a  proclamation 
in  the  intense  silence  and  she  turned  angrily  to  her  plate  trying  to 
remember  whether  she  had  heard  anyone  else  thank  Emile  for  vege- 
tables. After  all  she  was  paying  for  the  meal  and  her  politeness 
to  Emile  was  her  own  affair.  Abroad  people  bowed  or  raised  their 
hats  going  in  and  out  of  shops  and  said  Monsieur  to  policemen. 
Her  efforts  to  eat  abstractedly  and  to  appear  plunged  in  thought 
made  her  feel  more  and  more  like  a  poor  relation.  The  details  of  her 
meeting  with  Eve  fought  their  way  incessantly  in  and  out  of  her 
attempt  to  reclaim  her  sense  of  Mrs.  Bailey's  house  as  a  secret 
warmth  and  brightness  added  to  the  many  resources  of  her  life.  Mrs. 
Bailey  knew  that  her  house  had  been  changed  by  the  meeting  with 
Eve  and  was  trying  to  tell  her  that  she  was  not  as  independent 
as  she  thought. 

What  were  the  exact  things  she  had  told  Mrs.  Bailey?  She 
had  talked  excitedly  and  scrappily  and  all  the  time  Mrs.  Bailey  had 
been  gathering  information  and  drawing  her  own  conclusions  about 
the  Hendersons.  Mrs.  Bailey  saw  Eve's  arrival  at  the  station  and 
her  weary  resentment  of  having  everything  done  for  her  in  the 
London  manner,  her  revenge  in  the  cab,  sitting  back  and  making  the 
little  abstracted  patronising  sounds  in  response  to  everything  that 
was  said  to  her,  taking  no  interest,  and  at  last  saying  how  you  run  on. 
She  saw  something  of  the  hostel 

"Where's  Mr.  Mendizzable?    demanded  Sissie The  Girls' 

Friendly;  that  was  the  name  of  that  other  thing.    But  that  was  for 


40  The    IJttle    Review 


servants.  The  Young  Womens'  Bible  Association  was  the  worst  dis- 
grace that  could  hapjien  to  a  gentlewoman  ....  Eve  had  liked  it. 
She  had  suddenly  begun  going  about  with  an  interested  revived  face 
ea^ierly  doing  what  she  was  told.  She  was  there  now,  it  was  her 
only  home,  and  she  must  have  all  her  meals  there,  for  cheapness; 
there  would  be  no  outside  life  for  her;  her  life  was  imprisoned  by 
those  women,  consciously  goody  conscientious  servants  with  flat  cap>s, 
dominating  everything,  revelling  in  the  goody  atmosphere,  the  young 
women  in  the  sitting  room  all  looking  raw,  as  if  they  washed  very 
early  in  the  morning  in  cold  water  and  did  their  sparse  hair  with 
cold  hands;  the  superintendent  the  watchful  official  expression  or 
her  large  well-fed  elderly  high  school-girl  face,  the  way  she  sat  on  £ 
footstool  with  her  arms  round  her  knees  pretending  to  be  easy  anc 
jolly  while  she  recited  that  it  was  a  privilege  and  a  joy  for  sister: 

to  be  so  near  to  each  other as  if  she  were  daring  us  to  denj 

it.  I  shan't  see  very  much  of  Eve.  She  won't  want  me  to.  She  wjl 
strike  up  a  friendship  with  one  of  those  young  women  .... 
Miriam  found  herself  glancing  up  the  table  towards  the  centre  of  . 
conflict.  They  were  all  joined  in  conflict  over  some  common  theme 
No  one  was  outside  it;  the  whole  table  was  in  an  uproar  of  voice 
and  laughter  ....  It  was  nothing  but  Miss  Scott  saying  thing 
about  Mr.  Mendizabal  and  everyone  watching  and  throwing  in  re 
marks  ....  Miss  Scott  was  neighing  across  the  table  at  somethin 
that  had  been  said  and  was  preparing  to  speak  again  without  breakin 
into  her  laughter.  All  faces  were  turned  her  way.  What's  that  M 
Joe-anzen  says?  laughed  Mrs.  Bailey  towards  the  last  speaker.  Tt 
invisible  man  opposite  Miss  Scott,  was  not  even  Mr.  Helsing;  onl 
the  younger  fainter  Norwegian,  and  this  side  of  him  an  extraordinat 
person  ....  an  abruptly  bulging  coarse  fringe,  a  coarse-grained  chee 
bulging  from  under  an  almost  invisible  deep-sunken  eye,  an  abrupt) 
shelving  bust  under  a  coarse  serge  bodice. 

"Mr.  Yo-hanson  says  Mr.  Mendy-zahble  like  n-gaiety".  M 
riam  glanced  across  the  table.  That  was  all.  That  little  man  wit 
an  adenoid  voice  and  a  narrow  sniggering  laugh  that  brought  a  flus 
and  red  spots  all  over  his  face  and  shiny  straight  Sunday  school  ha  ^ , 
watered  and  brushed  flat,  made  up  the  party.  Next  to  him  was  on 
Polly.  Then  came  Miss  Scott  on  Sissie's  left;  then  Sissie  and  roui 
the  corner  the  Norwegian.  Everyone  looked  dreadful  in  the  bar: 
light,  secret  and  secretly  hostile  to  everyone  else,  unwilling  to  1 
there;  and  even  here  though  there  was  nothing  and  no  one  the 
was  that  everlasting  conversational  fussing  and  competition. 

"Quite  right,"  hooted  the  bulky  woman  in  a  high  pure  girli 


at! 

fOlV 


ifse 

«cIb 


dei 


■f.v » 


i 


The    Little    Review  41 


voice,  "I  doan  blame  'im." 

Miriam  turned  towards  the  unexpectedness  of  her  voice  and 
sat  helplessly  observing.  The  serge  sleeves  were  too  short  to  cover 
her  heavy  red  v/rists;  her  pudgy  hands  held  her  knife  and  fork 
broadside,  like  salad  servers.  Her  hair  was  combed  flatly  up  over 
her  large  skull  and  twisted  into  a  tiny  screw  at  the  top  just  behind 
the  bulge  of  her  fringe.  Could  she  possibly  be  a  boarder?  She 
looked  of  far  less  consequence  even  than  the  Baileys.  Her  whole 
person  was  unconsciously  ill  at  ease,  making  one  feel  ashamed. 

"Mrs.  m-Barrow  is  another  of  'em,"  said  the  little  man  with 
tiis  eyebrow  raised  as  he  sniggered  out  the  words. 

"I  am  Mr.  Gunna,  I  doan  believe  in  goan  abate  with  a  face  like 
fiddle." 

Mr.  Gunner's  laughter  flung  back  his  head  and  sat  him  upright 
ind  brought  him  back  to  lean  over  his  plate  shaking  noiselessly  with 
[lis  head  sunk  sideways  between  his  raised  shoulders  as  if  he  were 
iodging  a  blow.  The  eyes  he  turned  maliciously  towards  Mrs.  Bar- 
ow.were  a  hard  opaque  pale  blue.  His  lips  turned  outwards  as  he 
ite  and  his  knife  and  fork  had  an  upward  tilt  when  at  rest.  Some 
)f  his  spots  were  along  the  margin  of  his  lips,  altering  their  shape 
md  making  them  look  angry  and  sore.  The  eating  part  of  his  face 
ivas  sullen  and  angry,  not  touched  by  the  laughter  that  drew  his  eye- 
Drows  up  and  wrinkled  his  bent  forehead  and  sounded  only  as  a  little 
lick  in  his  throat  at  each  breath. 

"There's  plenty  of  glum  folks  abate,"  scolded  Mrs.  Barlow. 

Miriam  was  aware  that  she  was  recoiling  visibly,  and  tried  to 
ix  her  attention  on  her  meal.  Mrs.  Bailey  was  carving  large  second 
lelpings  and  Emile's  vegetable  dishes  had  been  refilled.  None  of 
hese  people  thought  it  extraordinary  that  there  should  be  all  this 
;ood  meal  and  a  waiter,  every  day  ....  it  would  be  shameful  to  come 
igain  for  the  sake  of  the  meal,  feeling  hostile.  Besides,  it  would  soon 
)e  unendurable ;  they  would  be  aware  of  criticisms  and  would  resent 
hem.  The  only  way  to  be  able  to  come  would  be  to  pr'etend  to 
lugh  at  remarks  about  people  and  join  in  discussions  on  opinions 
bout  cheerfulness  and  seriousness  and  winter  and  summer.  They 
?ould  not  know  that  one  was  not  sincere.  They  were  perfectly  sin- 
ere  in  their  laughter  and  talk.  They  all  had  some  sort  of  common 
nderstanding,  even  when  they  disagreed.  It  was  the  same  everlast- 
ig  problem  again,  the  way  people  took  everything  for  granted, 
i'hey  would  be  pleased,  would  turn  and  like  one  if  one  could  say 
eartily  isn't  he  a  funny  little  man,  mats,  my  word,  or  well  I  don't 
ee  anything  particularly  funny  about  him,  or  oh,  give  me  the  sum- 


42  The    Little    Review 


mer.  But  if  one  did  that  one  would  presently  be  worn  and  strained 
with  lying,  left  with  an  empty  excitement,  while  they  went  serenely 
on  their  way,  and  the  reality  that  was  there  when  one  first  sat  down 
with  them  would  have  gone.  Always  and  always  in  the  end  there 
was  nothing  but  to  be  alone.  And  yet  it  needed  people  in  the  world 
to  make  the  reality  when  one  was  alone.  Perhaps  just  these  uninter- 
fering  people,  when  one  had  forgotten  their  personal  peculiarities 

and  had  only  the  consciousness  of  them  in  the  distance 

One  might  perhaps  then  wonder  sometimes  longingly  what  they  were 
saying  about  the  weather.  But  to  be  obliged  to  meet  them  daily 
....  She  chided  herself  for  the  scathing  glance  she  threw  at  the  un- 
conscious guests.  Gunner  was  smiling  sideways  down  the  table  again 
I)repared  to  execute  his  laugh  when  he  should  have  caught  an  eye 
and  sent  his  grin  home.  Miriam  almost  prayed  that  nothing  should 
provoke  him  again  to  speech.  During  a  short  silence  she  cleared 
her  throat  elaborately  to  cover  the  sound  of  his  eating.  Several 
voices  broke  out  together,  but  Mrs.  Bailey  was  suddenly  saying  some- 
thing privately  to  her.  She  raised  her  head  towards  the  bright 
promise  and  was  aware  of  Mr.  Gunner's  thoughtful  and  serene. 
There  was  a  pleasant  intelligence  somewhere  about  his  forehead. 
If  only  she  could  think  his  head  clear  and  cool  and  not  have  to  hear 
again  the  hot  dull  hollow  resonance  of  his  voice  how  joyously  she 
would  be  listening  to  Mrs.  Bailey.  I've  got  a  very  sp)ecial  message 
for  you  young  lady  she  had  said  and  now  went  on  with  her  eye  on 
the  conflict  at  the  end  of  the  table  into  which  Mr.  Gunner  was  throw- 
ing comments  and  exclamations  from  afar.  The  room  beamed  softly 
in  its  golden  light.  From  the  heart  of  the  golden  light  Mrs.  Bailey 
was  hurrying  towards  her  with  good  tidings. 

''Hah''    .... 

Mrs.  Bailey  looked  round  cloaking  her  vexation  in  a  bridling 
smile  as  Mr.  Mendizabal  came  in  sturdily  beaming.  He  sat  down 
amidst  the  general  outcry  and  Emile  busied  himself  to  lay  him  a 
place.  He  shouted  answers  to  everyone,  sitting  with  his  elbows  on 
the  table.  Putting  her  elbows  on  the  table  Mrs.  Bailey  applauded 
with  little  outbursts  of  laughter.  She  had  dropped  the  idea  of  de- 
livering her  message.  Miriam  finished  her  pudding  hurriedly.  The 
din  was  increasing.  No  one  was  aware  of  her.  Cautiously  rising 
she  asked  Mrs.  Bailey  to  excuse  her.  You  go  Miss?  shouted 
Mr.  Mendizabal  suddenly  looking  her  way.  He  looked  extraordinary, 
not  himself. 

2. 

Eve's  shop  was  a  west-end  blaze  of  flowers.  Large  pink-speckled 


The    Little  Review  43 


lies,  Japanese  anemonies,  roses,  cornflowers,  artificial  gilt  baskets 
cd  heavy-looking  anchors  and  horseshoes  of  hot-house  flowers  to  be 
Inded  up  to  people  on  platforms,  tight  dance  buttonholes  on  flat 
srays  of  maidenhair  fern  pinned  on  to  heart-shaped  velvet  mounts 
.  .  It  was  strange  to  be  able  to  go  in  ...  .  going  in  to  see  an  em- 
pyee  was  not  the  right  way  to  go  into  a  west-end  shop  .... 

There  was  Eve.  Standing  unconvincingly  in  a  bad  droopy  black 
c.^ss  on  a  bare  wet  wooden  floor.  Piles  of  tired  looking  cut  flowers, 
anass  of  feathery  fresh  greenery.  Unarranged  cut  flowers  in  stone 
j:n-pots.  HuUoh,  aren't  your  feet  wet  demanded  Miriam  going 
intably  in.  Eve  started  and  turned,  looking.  She  was  exhausted 
rl  excited,  dreamily  grappling  with  abrupt  instructions;  in  a  con- 
-  vatory  smell;  trying  to  be  an  official  part  of  the  machinery  that 
:  lected  the  conservatory  smell,  for  sale — to  expensive  Londoners. 
Vu  get  used  to  it  said  Eve  in  a  low  nervous  voice    Yes  but  you 

.\1  catch  a  most  frightful  chill Do  you  like  it?    Yes  said  Eve 

'  'asily,  looking  as  if  she  were  going  to  cry.     It's  awfully  hard 
k,  but  I  find  I  can  do  things  I  never  dreamed  I  could  do;  you 
i;e  to  if  you're  obliged  to.    Do  you  serve  in  the  shop?    S'sh!     I'm 
ening  to.     Miriam  wanted  to  run  away.     Eve  did  not  want  her 
was  upset  by  her  sudden  appearance.     I'm  free,  for  lunch  she 
I  on  holding  angrily  to  her  wonderful  coming  out  into  London 
nhe  middle  of  a  week  day.    Can  you  come  out?     Oh  no;  there's 
Iter  any  time  in  the  middle  of  the  day.    What  do  you  do?    I  have 
in  and  some  milk  in  the  other  room  mouthed  Eve  with  great  dif- 
y,  averted  and  obviously  longing  for  her  to  be  gone.    Eve  saw 
1  differently  and  was  resenting  the  way  she  saw  it.     Eve  had 
oe  quite  different  way  of  looking  at  everything  and  now  she  was 
)  ear  she  was  determined  to  hold  her  own.    What  about  to-night? 
you  come  round  to  Tansley  Street  said  Miriam  insincerely  aloud 
-liing  sight  of  a  large  satin-clad  form  in  the  dark  background 
e;)nd  a  screen  partly  hiding  a  door.    Well — said  Eve  uncertainly, 
can,  after  Goodge.  Street  supper.    Oh  all  right  ta-ta  I  must  go 
li  Miriam  swinging  away  with  a  smile.    Poor  Eve.    They  would 
e^r  keep  her  in  that  smart  place,  all  shabby  and  blotchy  with 
les;  and  she  would  certainly  get  ill.     That  was  the  meaning  of 
flowery  shop  fronts.     People  behind,  slopping  about  tired, 
ling  about  all  day  in  the  wet  ....  Eve  had  broken  up  the  west- 
hop  fronts 

3- 
In  Norway,  up  among  the  misty  mountains,  in  farms  and  cot- 


44  The    Little    Review 


tages  looking  down  on  fiords  with  glorious  scenry  about  them  all  the 
time  are  people  sitting  in  the  winter  by  fires  and  worrying  about 
right  and  wrong  and  freewill.  They  wonder  more  gravely  and  sharply 
than  we  do.  'J'orrents  thunder  in  their  ears  and  they  can  see  moun- 
tains all  the  time  even  when  they  are  indoors.  "Ibsen's  Brand"  is 
about  all  those  things,  in  magnificent  scenery  and  I've  been  there. 
Do  people  read  these  things  because  of  that?  I  forgot  I  was  in  this 
A.  B.  C-  shop,  ^n  hour  ago  I  liad  never  been  in  Norway  although  I'd 
read  about  the  fiords  and  the  midnight  sun  and  all  the  colour.  Now 
I've  cried  in  Norway  and  seen  and  heard  and  felt  all  the  everyday 
sense  of  it.  Everything  in  Ibsen's  Brand  is  a  part  of  me  now  for  al- 
ways, although  I  don't  understand  it.  Why  isn't  evrybody  told  about 
these  things?  Why  aren't  they  advertised  on  the  omnibuses  and  put  in 
the  menu?  All  these  people  going  about  not  knowing  that  there 
is  "Ibsen's  Brand"  to  read.  It's  precious.  A  volume,  bound  in  a 
cover,  alive.  Why  do  people  say  he  is  a  great  genius  and  rather 
improper.  He  is  exactly  like  everyone  else  and  worrying  about  the 
same  things  and  perhaps  hardly  knows  how  you  see  and  feel  all  those 
other  things  there  are  in  his  book  left  after  you  have  forgotten  what 
it  is  about.    Geniuses  write  books  that  are  alive.  Something  in  them 

becomes  a  part  of  you She  wandered  out  into  Oxford  Street 

feeling  it  vast  under  a  huge  gold-lit  sky  somewhere  behind  the 
twilight  and  wandered  on  and  on  forgetful  in  an  expansion  of  every- 
thing that  passed  into  her  mind  out  and  out  towards  a  centre  in 
Norway.  She  wondered  whether  Ibsen  were  still  alive.  Beautiful 
Norway  and  a  man  writing  his  thoughts  in  a  made-up  play.  Genius. 
People  go  about  saying  Ibsen's  Brand  as  if  it  were  the  answer  to 

something  and  Ibsen  knows  no  more  than  anyone  else She 

arrived  at  Tansley  Street  as  from  a  great  distance,  suddenly  wonder- 
ing about  her  relationship  with  the  sound  of  carts  and  near  footfalls. 
Mrs.  Bailey  was  standing  in  the  doorway  seeing  someone  off.  Eve. 
— I  was  kept;  I  couldn't  get  here  before;  I'm  so  sorry — Mrs.  Bailey 
had  disappeared.  Eve  stepped  back  into  the  hall  and  stood  serenely 
glowing  in  the  half-light. — Are  you  going? — I  must,  in  a  minute — 
Eve  was  looking  sweet;  slenderly  beautiful  and  with  her  crimson-rose 
bloom;  shy  and  indulgent  and  uncnviously  admiring  as  she  had  been 
at  home;  and  Mrs.  Bailey  had  been  having  it  all. — Can't  you  come 
upstayers? — Not  this  time ;  I'll  come  again  some  time — ^Well ;  you 
must  just  tell  me;  wot  you  been  doing?  Talking  to  Mrs.  Bailey?— 
Yes — Eve  had  been  flirting  with  Mrs.  Bailey;  perhaps  talking  about 
religion. — Isn't  she  funny? — T  like  her;  she's  perfectly  genuine, 
she  means  what  she  says  and  really  likes  people —  Yes;  I  know. 


The   Little   Review  45 


Isn't  it  funny? — I  don't  think  it's  funny;  it's  very  beautiful  and 
rare — Would  you  like  to  be  here  always? — Yes;  I  could  be  always 
with  Mrs.  Bailey.  Every  day  of  your  life  for  ever  and  ever? — 
Rather — Yes;  I  know.  And  y'know  there  are  all  sorts  of  interesting 
people.  I  wish  you  lived  here  Eve — Eve  glanced  down  wisely 
smiling  and  moved  slenderly  towards  the  door — What  about  Sunday? 
Couldn't  you  come  round  for  a  long  time? — No — breathed  Eve  re- 
strainingly — I'm  going  to  Sallies — All  Eve's  plans  were  people.  She 
moved,  painfully,  through  things,  from  person  to  person. 

4. 

Dr.  Hurd  held  the  door  wide  for  Miriam  to  pass  out  and  again 
his  fresh  closely  knit  worn  brick-red  face  was  deeply  curved  by  the 
ironically  chuckling  hilarious  smile  with  which  he  had  met  the  mci- 
dent  of  the  "awful  German  language".  That  of  the  fatherland,  the 
happy  fatherland,  nearly  dislocated  my  jaw  she  could  imagine  him 
heartily  and  badly  singing  with  a  group  of  Canadian  students.  She 
smiled  back  at  him  without  saying  anything  rapidly  piecing  together 
the  world  that  provoked  his  inclusive  deeply  carved  smiles;  himself, 
the  marvellous  little  old  country  he  found  himself  in  as  an  incident 
of  the  business  of  forcing  himself  to  bjb  a  doctor,  his  luck  in 
securing  an  accomplished  young  English  lady  to  prepare  him  for 
the  struggle  with  tiie  great  medical  world  of  Germany;  his  trium- 
phant chuckling  satisfaction  in  getting  in  first  before  the  other  fel- 
lows with  an  engagement  to  take  her  out  ....  The  grandeur  of  this 
best  bedroom  of  Mrs.  Baileys  was  nothing  to  him.  The  room  was 
just  a  tent  in  his  wanderings  ....  For  the  moment  he  was  going 
to  take  a  young  lady  to  a  concert.  That  was  how  he  saw  it.  He  was 
a  simple  boyish  red-haired  extension  of  Dr.  von  Heber.  When  she 
found  herself  out  in  the  large  grime  and  gloom  of  the  twilit  landing 
she  realised  that  he  had  lifted  her  far  farther  than  Dr.  von  Heber 
into  Canada ;  he  was  probably  more  Canadian.  The  ancient  gloom 
of  the  house  was  nothing  to  him,  he  would  get  nothing  of  the  quality 
of  England  in  his  personal  life  there,  only  passing  glimpses  from 
statements  in  books  and  in  the  conversation  of  other  people.  He 
did  not  see  her  as  part  of  it  all  in  the  way  Dr.  von  Heber  had  done 
talking  at  the  table  that  night  and  wanting  to  talk  to  her  because 
she  was  part  of  it.  He  saw  her  as  an  accomplished  young  lady,  but 
a  young  lady  like  a  Canadian  young  lady  and  a  fellow  was  a  fool 
if  he  did  not  arrange  to  take  her  out  quick  before  the  other  fellows. 
But  there  was  nothing  in  it  but  just  that  triumph.    "I'll  get  a  silk 


46  The    Little    Review 


hat  before  Sunday";  he  would  prejjare  for  Iier  to  go  all  the  way  do^ 
to  the  Albert  Hall  as  a  young  lady  being  taken  to  a  concert;  t 
Albert  Hall  on  Sunday  was  brass  bands;   he  thought  that  was 
concert.     His  world  was  thin  and  terrible;  but  the  swift  sunlit  < 
cision  and  freedom  his  innocent  sunny  reception  of  her  in  his  bedro 
made  the  dingy  brown  house  of  her  long  memories  a  new  backgroui 
She  was  to  be  feted,  in  an  assumed  character  and  whether  she  lik 
it  or  no.    The  four  strange  men  in  the  little  back  sitting  room  w 
her  competing  friends,  the  friends  of  all  nice  young  ladies.    He  v 
the  one  who  had  laughed  the  laugh  she  had  heard  in  the  hall 
course.  They  never  appeared  but  somehow  they  had  got  to  know 
her  and  had  their  curious  baseless  set  ways  of  thinking  and  talk 
about  her.     Being  doctors  and  still  students  they  ought  to  be 
most  hateful  and  awful  kind  of  men  in  relation  to  women,  think 
and  believing  all  the  horrors  of  medical  science;  the  hundred  goli 
rules  of  gynaecology;  if  they  had  been  Englishmen  they  would  h 
gone  about  making  one  want  to  murder  them;  but  they  did  n 
Dr.  Hurd  was  studying  gyn'kahl'jy,  but  he  did  not  apply  its  u 
lies  to  life;  to  Canadians  women  were  people  .  .  .  but  they  were 
the  same  people  to  Dr.  Hurd. 

5. 

That  evening  both  Dr.  Hebcr  and  Doctor  Hurd  appeared 
dinner.  Mrs.  Bailey  tumultuously  arranged  them  opposite  each  ol 
to  her  right  and  left  .  Miriam  could  not  believe  they  were  goJnj 
stay  until  they  sat  down.  She  retreated  to  the  far  end  of  the  tJ 
taking  her  place  on  Sissie's  right  hand,  separated  from  Dr.  von  H< 
by  the  thin  Norwegian  and  the  protruding  bulk  of  Mrs.  Ban 
Mr.  Mendizabal  with  a  pencil  and  paper  at  the  side  of  his  plate 
squarely  opposite  to  lier.  His  mefiant  sallies  to  the  accompanin 
of  Sissie's  giggles  and  Miss  Strong's  rapid  volleys  of  sarcasm,  ir 
a  tumult  to  hide  her  bemused  silence.  She  heard  nothing  of  the  < 
versations  sprouting  all  round  the  table.  The  doctors  were  vast 
off  strongholds  of  serene  life,  unconscious  of  their  vastness  and  s 
nity,  unconscious  of  her  and  of  their  e.xtraordfhary  taking  of 

Baileys  and  Mr.  Gunner  for  granted Dr.  von  Heber  w. 

sil'^nce  broken  by  small  courteously  curving  remarks  bringing  \ 
acute  memories  of  the  firmly  curved  held  in  indulations  of  his  v( 
Dr.  Hurd  laughed  his  leaping  delighted  laugh  in  and  out  of  a  sp 
ing  unmeditated  interchange  with  Mr.  Gunner  and  Mrs.  Bailey 
she  had  been  at  their  end  of  the  table  they  would  not  have  perce 
her  thoughts  but  they  would  have  felt  her  general  critical  host 


The    Little    Review  47 


and  got  up  at  last  disliking  her.  They  changed  the  atmosphere  but 
could  not  make  her  forget  the  underlying  unchanged  elements  nor 
rid  her  of  her  resentment  of  their  unconsciousness  of  them.  There 
was  a  long  interval  before  the  puddings  appeared.  Mrs.  Bailey  was 
trying  to  answer  questions  about  books.  Dr.  Hurd  did  not  care 
for  reading,  but  liked  to  be  read  to,  by  his  sisters,  in  the  evening. 

and  had  come  away,  at  the  most  exciting  part  of  a  book a 

wonderful  authoress,  what's  her  name  now Rosie New 

chet  .  .  .  Gary.  He  was  just  longing  to  know  how  it  ended.  Was  it 
sweet  and  wonderful,  or  too  dreadful  for  any  words  or  thoughts  to 
contemplate  a  student,  a  fully  qualified  doctor  having  Rosa  Nou- 
chette  Carey  read  to  him  by  his  sisters?  Dr.  von  Heber  was  not 
joining  in.    Did  he  read  novels  and  like  them?    No  one  had  anything 

to  say;  no  one  here  knew  even  of  Rosa  Nouchette  Carey 

and  that  man  Hunter  .  .  he's  great  ....  he's  father's  favourite; 
what's  this,  Mr.  Barnes  of  New  York  ....  Archibald  Clavering 
Gunter  said  Miriam  suddenly,  longing  to  be  at  the  other  end  of  the 
table.  Beg  pardon?  said  Sissie  turning  aside  for  a  moment  from 
watching  Mr.  Mendizabal's  busy  pencil.  There  he  is  shouted  Mr, 
Mendizabal  flinging  out  his  piece  of  paper — gastric  ulcer— there  he 
is.  There  was  a  drawing  of  a  sort  of  crab  with  huge  claws. — My 
beautiful  gastric  ulcer — Have  you  been  to  the  ospital  to-day  Mr. 
Mendizzable  asked  Mrs.  Bailey  through  the  general  laughter.  1 
have  been  madame  and  I  come  away.  They  say  they  welcome  me 
inside  again  soon.  Je  me'en  fiche.  The  faces  of  both  doctors  were 
turned  enquiringly.  Dr.  Hurd's  look  of  quizzical  sympathy  passed 
on  towards  Miriam  and  became  a  mask  of  suppressed  hysterical 
laughter.  Perhaps  he  and  Dr.  Heber  would  scream  and  yell  together 
afterwards  and  make  a  great  story  of  a  man  in  a  London  pension. 
Dr.  Hurd  would  call  him  a  cure.  My  word  isn't  that  chap  a  cure? 
Brave  little  man.  Caring  for  nothing.  How  could  he  possibly  have 
a  gastric  ulcer  and  look  so  hard  and  happy  and  strong.  What  was 
Dr.  von  Heber  silently  thinking?  The  doctors  disappeared  as  soon 
as  dinner  was  over.  Dr.  Heber  gravely  rounding  the  door  with  some 
quiet  formal  phrases  of  politeness,  and  the  group  about  the  table 
broke  up.  He's  a  bit  pompous  Mr.  Gunner  was  saying  presently  to 
someone  from  the  hearthrug.  Was  he  daring  to  speak  of  Dr.  von 
Heber?  Presently  there  were  only  the  women  left  in  the  room. 
Miriam  felt  unable  to  depart  and  hung  about  until  the  table  was 
cleared  and  sat  down  under  the  gas  protected  by  her  notebook.  The 
room  was  very  quiet.  Sissie  and  Mrs.  Bailey  were  mending  stockings 
near  a  lamp  at  the  far  end  of  the  table.  Miriam's  thoughts  left  her 
suddenly.    The  tide  of  life  had  swept  away  leaving  an  undisturbed 


48  The    Little    Review 

stillness,  a  space  swept  clear.  She  was  empty  and  nothing.  In  all 
the  clamour  that  had  passed  she  had  no  part.  In  all  the  immense 
noise  of  life  that  lay  ahead,  no  part.  Strong  people  came  and  went 
and  never  ceased,  coming  and  going  and  acting  ceaselessly,  coming 
and  going,  and  here,  at  the  centre,  was  nothing,  lifeless  thoughtless 
nothingness.  The  four  men  studied  apart  in  the  little  room,  away 
from  the  empty  lifeless  nothingness  ....  the  door  opened  quietly. 
Mrs,  Bailey  and  Sissie  looked  expectantly  up  and  were  silent.  Some- 
thing had  come  into  the  room.  Something  real  clearing  away  the  tu- 
mult and  compelling  peaceful  silence.  She  exerted  all  her  force  to 
remain  still  and  apparently  engrossed,  as  Dr.  Heber  placed  an  open 
notebook  and  a  large  volume  on  the  table  exactly  opposite  to  where 
she  sat  and  sat  down.  He  did  not  see  that  she  was  astonished  at  his 
coming  nor  her  still  deeper  astonishment  in  the  discovery  of  her  un- 
conscious certainty  that  he  would  come.  A  haunting  familiar  sense 
of  unreality  possessed  her.  Once  more  she  was  part  of  a  novel ;  the 
right  and  proper  thing  was  for  Dr.  Heber  to  come  in  in  defiance  of 
evferyone,  bringing  his  studies  into  the  public  room  in  order  to  sit 
down  quietly  opposite  this  fair  young  English  girl.  He  saw  her  ap- 
parently gravely  studious  and  felt  he  could  'pursue  his  own  studies' 
all  the  better  for  her  presence.  She  began  writing  at  random,  as- 
suming as  far  as  possible  the  characteristics  she  felt  he  was  reading 
into  her  appearance  .  If  only  it  were  true;  but  there  was  not  in  the 
whole  world  the  thing  he  thought  he  saw.  Perhaps  if  he  remainec 
steadily  like  that  in  her  life  she  could  grow  into  some  semblanct 
of  is  imagining.  Perhaps  you  need  to  be  treated  as  an  object  o 
romantic  veneration  before  you  can  become  one.  Perhaps  in  Canad? 
there  were  old-fashioned  women  who  were  objects  of  romantic  ven 
eration  all  their  lives  living  all  the  time  as  if  they  were  Maud  oW 
some  other  woman  from  Tennyson.  It  was  glorious,  incredible,  t<|  ' 
have  a  real,  simple  homage  coming  from  a  man  who  was  no  simple|  *' 
ton,  coming  simple,  strong  and  kindly  from  Canada  to  put  you  ii 
a  shrine  ,  ,  .  .  I  have  always  liked  those  old-fashioned  stories  bel  ' 
cause  I  have  always  known  they  were  true.  They  have  lived  on  if'* 
Canada.  Canadian  men  have  kept  something  that  Englishmen  ar 
losing.  She  turned  the  pages  of  her  note  book  and  came  upon  tb 
scrap  crossed  through  by  Mr.  Mendizabal.  She  read  the  word 
through  forcing  them  to  accept  a  superficial  value.  Disturbanc 
about  ideas  would  destroy  the  perfect  serenity  that  was  demande 
of  her.  Be  good  sweet  maid  and  let  who  will  be  clever.  Eas 
enough  if  one  were  perpetually  sustained  by  a  strong  and  adoril 
hand.     Perhaps  more  difficult  really  to  be  good  than  to  be  clevel,^.^ 


The    Little    Review  49 


Irhaps  there  were  things  in  this  strong  man  that  were'  not  per- 
fotly  good  and  serene.    He  exacted  his  own  serenity  by  sheer  force; 

tit  was  why  he  worshipped  and  looked  for  natural  serenity 

lesently  she  stirred  from  her  engrossment  and  looked  across  at 
hn  as  if  only  just  aware  of  his  presence.  He  did  not  meet  her  look 
bt  a  light  came  upon  his  face  and  he  raised  his  head  and  turned 
sadily  towards  the  light  as  if  to  aid  her  observation.  The  things 
tilt  are  beginning  to  be  called  silly  futile  romances  were  true.  Here 

'.'the  strong  silent  man  who  did  not  want  to  talk  and  grin 

P  would  love  laughter.  Freed  from  worries  and  sustained  by  him 
01  could  laugh  all  one's  laughter  out  and  dance  and  sing  through 

11'  to  a  peaceful  happy  sunsetting Was  he  religiotis?    She 

fand  she  had  risen  to  her  feet  with  decision  and  began  collecting 

hi*  papers  in  confusion  as  if  she  had  suddenly  made  a  great  clamour. 

r.  Heber  rose  at  once  and  with  some  quiet  murmuring  remark 

«nt  away  from  the  room.    Miriam  felt  she  must  get  into  the  open 

ai  go  far  on  and  on  and  on.    Going  upstairs  through  the  house  and 

iro  her  room  for  her  outdoor  things  she  found  her  own  secret  be- 

K^ings  more  her  own.    In  the  life  she  dimly  and  shyly  glanced  at, 

away  somewhere  in  the  bright  blaze  of  Canadian  sunshine  her 

secret  belongings  would  be  more  her  own.    That  was  one  of  the 

ets  of  the  sheltei-ed  life,   suddenly  discovered.     Perhaps   that 

one  of  the  things  behind  the  smiles  of  the  sheltered  women; 

ir   own   secret   certainties   intensified   because   they   were    sur- 

jnded;  perhaps  in  Canada  men  respected  the  secret  certainties  of 

nen  which  they  could  never  share.    With  your  feet  on  that  firm 

und  what  would  it  matter  how  life  went  on  and  on.    There  was 

leone  in  the  hall.    Mr.  Mendizabal  in  a  funny  little  short  overcoat 

"You  go  out  Miss?"  he  said  cheerfully. 

"I'm  going  for  a  walk,"  she  said  eagerly,  her  eyes  on  the  clear 
f  and  black  of  the  hat  he  was  taking  from  the  hall  stand. 

"I  too  go  for  a  walk"  he  murmured  cramming  the  soft  hat  on 
lis  resisting  hair  and  opening  the  door  for  her. 


This  was  one  of  those  mild  February  days;  it  is  a  mistake  to 
gine  that  the  winter  is  gone;  but  it  is  gone  in  your  mind;  you 
see  ahead  two  summers  and  only  one  winter.  I  go  with  you 
meant  as  a  question  ...  It  was  on  the  tip  of  her  tongue  to  turn 
say  you  should  have  said  shall  I  go  with  you;  she  was  rebuked 
a  glimpse  of  Mr.  Mendizabal  swinging  sturdily  unconsciously 


, 


50  The    Little    Review 


along  on  the  gutter  side  of  the  narrow  width  of  pavement  swmging 
his  stick,  the  strong  modelling  of  his  white  face  unconscious  under 
his  strong  black  liair  and  the  jaunty  sweep  of  his  black  banded  grey 
hat.  "Jaunty  and  debonnair";  but  without  a  touch  of  weakness. 
What  a  lovely  mild  evening ;  extraordinary  for  the  time  of  year  • 
he  would  be  furious  at  being  interrupted  for  that,  thinking  of  her 
as  a  stiff  formal  institutrice  and  shouting  something  ironic  that 
would  bring  the  world  about  their  ears.  Quel  beau  temps;  that  was  it 

"Quel  beau  temps."     They  had  reached  the  Gower  Street  curt 
and  watched  to  plunge  through  some  passing  traffic. 

"Une  soiree  superbe  mademoiselle"  shouted  Mr.  Mendizaba 
in  a  smooth  flattened  squel  as  they  crossed  side  by  side;  "hah-eA.'' 
he  squealed  pushing  her  off  to  dart  clear  of  a  hansom  and  away  t( 
the  opposite  curb.  Miriam  pulled  back  just  in  time,  receiving  th< 
angry  yell  of  the  driver  full  in  her  upturned  face.  Mr.  Mendizaba 
was  waiting  unconcernedly  outside  the  chemist's  singing,  witl 
French  words.  She  disposed  hastily  of  the  incident,  eager  to  b< 
walking  on  through  the  darkness  towards  the  mingled  darkness  am 
gold  of  the  coming  streets.  They  went  along  past  the  gloomin; 
heights  of  University  College  Hospital,  separate  creatures  of  myste 
riously  different  races  (she  expected  that  when  they  reached  the  ligh 
she  would  find  herself  alone),  and  swung  with  one  accord  round  int 
the  brilliance  of  the  Tottenham  Court  Road;  the  tide  of  light  ani 
sound  rising  in  companionship  that  brought  no  bending  into  sh^)fr 
of  conversation  or  behaviour,  higher  round  Miriam  than  ever  it  hat 
done  before.  It  was  something  to  him  and  it  was  something  to  hei 
and  they  threaded  their  way  together,  meeting  and  separating  an 
rejoining,  unanimous  and  apart.  We  are  both  battreurs  des  pave! 
she  thought;  both  people  who  must  be  free  to  be  nothing;  sayin 
to  everything  je  m'en  fiche  ....  the  hushed  happiness  that  had  begu 
in  the  dining  room  half  an  hour  ago  seized  her  again  suddenly,  send 
ing  her  forward  almost  on  tiptoe.  It  was  securely  there;  the  vist 
it  opened  growing  in  beauty  as  she  walked.  There  was  some  sourc 
of  light  within  her,  something  that  was  ready  to  spread  out  a 
round  her  and  ahead  and  flow  over  the  past.  It  confirmed  scene 
she  had  read  and  wondered  at  and  cherished  seeking  in  vain  in  th 
world  for  women  who  were  like  the  women  described  in  them.  Sb 
understood  what  women  in  books  meant  by  sacred  "It  is  all  to 
sacred  for  words".  There  was" no  choice  in  all  that;  only  secret  an 
sacred  beauty;  unity  with  all  women  who  had  felt  in  the  same  way 
the  freedom  of  following  vast  certainties.  Outside  it  was  this  othi 
self  untouched  and  always  new.  her  old  free  companion  who  coul 


The    Little    Review  51 


attend  to  no  one.  She  tossed  Mr.  Mendizabal  shreds  of  German  or 
French  whenever  the  increasing  throng  of  passing  pedestrians  al- 
lowed them  to  walk  for  a  moment  side  by  side.  His  apparent  obli- 
vion of  her  incoherence  gave  full  freedom  to  her  delight  in  her  col- 
lection of  idioms  and  proverbs.  Each  one  flung  out  with  its  appro- 
priate emphasis  and  the  right  foreign  intonation  gave  her  a  momen- 
tary change  of  personality.  He  caught  the  shreds  and  returned  them 
woven  into  phrases  increasing  her  store  of  convincing  foreignness 
comfortably  from  the  innocence  of  his  polyglot  experience  requiring 
no  instructive  contribution  from  her  and  reassuringly  assuming  her 
equal  knowledge,  his  conscious  response  being  only  to  her  joyous- 
ness,  his  eyes  wide  ahead,  his  features  moulded  to  gaiety.  The  bur- 
den of  her  personal  dinginess  and  resourcelessness  in  a  strong  re- 
sourceful world  was  hidden  by  him  because  he  was  not  aware  of 
dinginess  and  resourcelessness  an3rwhere.  Dingy  and  resourceless 
she  wandered  along  keeping  as  long  as  her  scraps  of  convincing  im- 
personation should  hold  out  to  her  equal  companionship  with  his 
varied  experience,  bearing  within  her  in  bright  unfathomable  abun- 
dance the  gift  of  ideal  old-English  rose  and  white  gracious  adorable 
womanhood  given  to  her  by  Dr.  Heber.  At  the  turning  into  Oxford 
Street  they  lost  each  other.  Miriam  wandered  in  solitude  amidst 
jostling  bodies.  The  exhausted  air  rang  with  lifeless  strident  voices  in 
shoutings  and  heavy  thick  flattened  unconcerned  speech ;  even  from 
above  a  weight  seemed  to  press.  Clearer  space  lay  ahead;  but  itwas  the 
clear  space  of  Oxford  Street  and  pressed  upon  her  without  ray  or 
break.  Once  it  had  seemed  part  of  the  golden  glory  of  the  west  end; 
but  Oxford  St.,  was  not  the  west  end.  It  was  more  lifeless  and  hope- 
less than  even  the  north  of  London;  more  endurable  because  life 
was  near  at  hand.  Oxford  Street  was  like  a  prison the  em- 
barrassment of  her  enterprise  took  her  suddenly;  the  gay  going  off 
was  at  an  end;  perhaps  she  might  get  away  and  back  home  alone 
up  a  side  street.  Amidst  the  shouting  of  women  and  the  interwoven 
dark  thick  growlings  of  conversations  she  heard  Mr.  Mendizabal 's 
ironic  snorting  laugh  not  far  behind  her.  Glancing  round  from  the 
free  space  of  darkness  she  had  reached  she  saw  him  emerge  shoulder- 
ing from  a  group  of  women  short  and  square  and  upright  and  gleam- 
ing brilliantly  with  the  remains  of  his  laughter.  A  furious  wrath 
flickered  over  her  from  head  to  foot.  He  came  forward  with 
his  eyes  ahead  unseeing,  nearer,  near,  safe  at  her  side,  her  little 
foreign  Mr.  Mendizabal,  mild  and  homely. 

"Here  is  Ruscinos"  mademoiselle,  allons,  we  will  go  to  Ruscino 
allonsl "  Ruscino,  in  electric  lights  round  the  top  of  the  little  square 


52  The    Little    Review 


portico  like  the  name  of  a  play  round  the  portico  of  a  theatre,  the 
sentry  figure  of  the  commissionaire,  the  passing  glimpse  of  palm 
ferns  standing  in  semi-darkness  just  inside  the  portico,  the  darkness 
beyond,  suddenly  became  a  place,  separate  and  distinct  from  the 
vague  confusion  of  it  in  her  mind  with  the  Oxford  Music  Hall,  of- 
fering itself,  open  before  her,  claiming  to  range  itself  in  her  experi- 
ence, open,  with  her  inside  and  the  mysteries  of  the  portico  behind 
....  continental  London  ahead  of  her,  streaming  towards  her  in 
mingled  odours  of  continental  food  and  wine,  rich  intoxicating  odours 
in  an  air  heavy  and  parched  with  the  flavour  of  cigars,  throbbing 
with  the  solid,  filmy  thrilling  swing  of  music.  It  was  a  cafe!  Mr. 
Mendizabal  was  evidently  an  habitue.  She  would  be,  by  right  of  her 
happiness  abroad.  She  was  here  as  a  foreigner,  all  her  English 
friends  calling  her  back  as  from  a  spectacle  she  could  not  witness 
without  contamination.     Only  Gerald  knew  the  spectacle  of  Rus- 

cinos'.     "Lord,  Ruscinos';   Lord" In  a  vast  open  space 

of  light  set  in  a  circle  of  balconied  gloom  innumerable  little  tables 
held  groups  of  people  wreathed  in  a  brilliancy  of  screened  light, 
veiled  in  mist,  clear  in  sharp  spaces  of  light,  clouded  by  drifting 
spirals  of  smoke.  They  sat  down  at  right  angles  to  each  other  at 
a  little  table  under  the  central  height.  The  confines  of  the  room 
were  invisible.    All  about  them  were  wordly  wicked  happy  people. 


She  could  understand  a  life  that  spent  all  its  leisure  in  a  cafe; 
every  day  ending  in  warm  brilliance,  forgetfulnes  amongst  strangers 
near  and  dear  and  intimate,  sharing  the  freedom  and  forgetfulness 
of  the  everlasting  unchanging  cafe,  all  together  in  a  common  life. 
It  was  like  a  sort  of  dance,  everyone  coming  and  going  poised  and 
buoyant,  separate  and  free,  united  in  freedom.  It  was  a  heaven,  a 
man's  heaven,  most  of  the  women  were  there  with  men,  somehow 
watchful  and  dep)endent,  but  even  they  were  forced  to  be  free 
from  troublings  and  fussings  whilst  they  were  there.  .  .  .  the  wicked 
cease  from  troubling  and  the  weary  arfrat  rest.  .  .  .  she  was  there  as 
a  man,  a  free  man  of  the  world,  a  continental,  a  cosmopolitan,  a  con- 
noisseur of  women.  That  old  man  sitting  alone  with  a  grey  face  and 
an  extinguished  eye  was  at  the  end  of  it,  but  even  now  the  cafe 
held  him  up;  he  would  come  till  death  came  too  near  to  allow  him 
movement.  He  was  horrible,  but  less  horrible  than  he  would  be 
alone  in  a  room;  he  had  to  keep  the  rules  and  manage  to  behave; 
as  long  as  he  could  come  he  was  still  in  life.  .  .  .  White  muslin  wings 
on  a  black  straw  hat,  a  well  cut  check  costume  and  a  carriage,  bust 


The   Little    Review  53 


forward,  an  elegant  carriage  imposing  secrets  and  manners.  .  .  . 
Miriam  turned  to  watch  her  proceeding  with  a  vague  group  of 
people  through  the  central  light  towards  the  outer  gloom.  Voila  una 
petite  qui  est  jolie  she  remarked  judicially. — Une  jeune  fille  avec 
ses  parents — rebuked  Mr.  Mendizabal.  Even  he,  wicked  fast  little 
foreigner  did  not  know  how  utterly  meaningles  his  words  were.  He 
was  here,  in  Ruscinos'  quite  s?mply.  He  sat  at  home,  at  the  height 
of  his  happy  foreign  expansiveness.  He  had  no  sense  of  desperate 
wickedness.  He  gave  no  help  to  the  sense  of  desperate  wickedness ; 
pouring  somehow  like  an  inacceptable  nimbus  from  his  brilliant 
strong  head  was  a  tiresom.e  homeliness.  She  flung  forth  to  the  mu- 
sic, the  shining  fronds  of  distant  palm  ferns;  sipped  her  liqueur 
with  downcast  eyes  and  thought  of  evening  along  the  digue  at  Os- 
tend,  the  balmy  air,  the  telescoping  brilliant  interiors  of  the  villas, 
wild  arm-linked  masquerading  stroll.  Elsie  had  really  looked  like  an 
unprincipled  Bruxelloise,  .  .  .  foreigners  were  all  innocent  in  their 
depravity.  .  .  To  taste  the  joy  of  depravity  one  must  be  English 
....  Hah;  Strelinsky!  Ca  va  bien,  heir?  A  figure  had  risen  out 
■  of  the  earth  at  Mr.  Mendizabal's  elbow  and  stood  looking  down 
at  him;  another  foreigner.  She  glanced  m\h  an  air  of  proprietor- 
ship; a  slender  man  in  a  thin  faded  grey  overcoat,  a  sharp  greyish 
yellow  profile  and  small  thin  head  under  a  dingy  grey  felt  hat. 
Strelinsky.  Mr.  Mendizabal  stood  sturdily  up  bowing  with  square 
outstretched  hand,  wrapped  in  the  tremendous  radiating  beam  of 
his  smile.  I  present  you  Mr.  Strelinsky.  A  iniisician.  A  composer 
of  music.  His  social  manner  was  upon  him  again;  fatherliness, 
strong  responsible  hard-working  kindliness.  The  face  under  the 
grey  hat  turned  slowly  towards  her.  She  bowed  and  looked  into 
eyes  set  far  back  in  the  thin  mask  of  the  face.  Her  eyes  passed  a 
question  from  the  expressionless  eyes  to  the  motionless  expression- 
less face.  How  could  he  be  a  composer;  looking  so.  .  .  .  vanishing? 
Strelinsky.  .  .  .  Morceau  pour  piano.  .  .  .  that  must  be  he  standing 
here;  did  you  write  this  she  said  abruptly  and  hummed  the 
beginning.  It  sounded  shapeless  and  toneless,  but  there  was  a  little 
tune  just  ahead.  She  broke  off  short  of  it  not  sure  that  he  was  at- 
tending; the  world  burst  into  laughter;  his  face  turned  slowly  and 
stopped  looking  downwards  across  her  his  eyes  fixed  in  a  dead  repe- 
tition of  laughter  in  which  she  was  drowning.  He  stood  in  space  in 
a  faded  coat  and  hat  a  colourless  figure  clothed  by  her  reeling 

feebleness  in  lively  dinity  and  wisdom grouped  inaccessibly 

beyond  the  vast  space  were  solid  tables   filled  with  judges;  dim 
figures   stood  in  judgment  in  the  amber  light  under  the  gallery 


54  *  The    Little    Review 


where  palms  stood;  she  was  drowning  alone,  surrounded  by  a  dis- 
tant circle  (if  palms.  Eleven.  We  must  go  miss  stated  Mr.  Men- 
dizabal  cordially.  The  evening  is  over  ....  Miriam  rose  and  felt 
the  cafe  tide  flow  round  her;  spreading  as  far  as  she  could  see  was 
the  misty  smoke  wreathed  golden  light  bathing  the  seated  groups 
of  her  companions.  She  wandered  out  blissfully  threading  her  way-^ 
amongst  tables  towards  the  black  and  gold  of  the  streets.  Strelin- 
sky,  melted  away,  stayed  in  the  evening,  a  ghost  drifting  greyly ', 
amongst  an  endless  narrowing  distance  of  cafe. 

(  to  be  continued)  \ 

BALLADE 

by   Louis  Gilmore 

Discovery 
Of  the  divan 
Waiting 
On  edge 
The  lamp 
Two  chairs 
In  an  aside 

The  precocious 

Child 

Of  contagion 

Between  two 

Bodies 

Dilates  j 

On  the  wall  | 

To  the  dripping 

Of  the  clock 

You  and  I 

Are  in  the  dark 

Outside 

Of  the  key-hole 


i 


The   Little   Review  55 


THE   READER   CRITIC 

Two     Points    of    View 

irthur  Pur  don.  New  York: 

The  Art  you  express  is  that  of  finished  composition.  That  you 
(Orship  and  talk  about.  You  are  secure  with  your  Art  in  your  draw- 
ig-room  circle  of  literary  friends.  The  whole  atmiosphee  of  your  ex- 
ression  has  been  and  is  that  of  upper-class  superiority.  The  scholar  and 
tuderit  finds  in  your  magazine  what  is  most  dear  to  his  heart :  an  intel- 
^ctual  apology  for  the  continuance  of  his  studies, — ^to  improve  his 
lind  at  no  matter  what  cost  or  consideration. 

You  voice  no  fierce  rebellion  but  consider  yourself  one  of  the  elite. 
:  is  because  you  have  arrived  at  a  certain  degree  of  perfection  in  the 
spression  of  your  Art  that  I  isee  in  your  magazine  no  deep-lying  dis- 
)ntent.  Mjore  or  less  satisfied  to  continue  to  publish  a  magazine  of  the 
rts  making  a  certain  appeal  to  an  intellectual  public,  you  will  remain 
bulwark  of  strength  to  that  group  of  people. 

The  mass — the  lower  class — w'ho  struggle  and  live  and  fail  are  un- 
lown  except  to  a  few  of  the  same  class,  are  feared  by  anyone  pub- 
ihing  a  magazine  such  as  yours.  You  protect  yourself  against  masis 
tion  by  throwing  up  an  intellectual  barrage.  Not  content  to  mingle 
ilh  or  become  a  part  of  the  mass  you  thereby  make  a  choice  to  remain 
power  with  the  ruling  class  as  long  as  possible  and  by  whatever 
earns. 

..  C.  Pugslcy,   IVcstfield,  New  York: 

Thank  you  for  the  generous  offer  of  the  Little  Reviezv  and  Poetry 
...  It  was  good  to  learn  that  one  could  help  some  in  that  consumate 
teative  sphere  where  Art  is.  I  wish  I  could  tell  you  what  delight  is 
me  because  of  the  Little  Review.     But — 

My  hands  are  hard  and  ugly,  they  sting  and  burn, 

Drudgery  has  scortched  them  as  gunpowder  has 
scared  the  blasted  rock, 

And  beyond  me 

The  earth  bows  up  a  line  a  radiant  arc 

Against  the  blue  waters  of  the  lake, 

And  the  gods  are  flashing  emeralds  in  the  glow  of 

the  afternoon.  .  .  •  , 

-ind  so  I  am  unable  to  tell  further.     But  when  Mr.  Joyce  isays  "... 
\iite  breast  of  the  dim  sea"  and  then  chants  to  its  motions  and  says 


S6 


The    Little    Review 


finally    "Wave    white    wedded    words    shimmering    on     the    dim    t 
.   .   .   why   then   I  know  that   my   dim   sensibilities   arc   made    vivid 
have  become   focused   by  a  glowing  image,  and   that  I  am   in   the 
where  a  great  master  has  gone. 
Well,  have  I  told  you  yet? 

Matthew  Josephson,  Brooklyn" : 

After  an  exhaustive  survey  of  all  the  literary  magazines  in 
country  I  am  convinced  that  the  Litth  Rexnew  is  the  only  self-respee 
journal  alive.     I  admire  its  courage,  its  tenacity, — even  its  inconsisti 

Concerning    Else    von     Freyta 
Loringhoven 

Lola  Ridge,  New  York : 

Are  you  hypnotized,  or  what,  that  you  open  the  Little  Reviezv 
such  a  retching  assault  upon  Art  ("The  Cast-Iron  Lover")  ? 

Helen  Rowland  with  a  vengeance! 


I 


iP 


F.  E.  R.,  Chicago : 

How  can   you   who  have   had   the   honour   of   printing   Yeats 
■your  pages  to  the  work  of  the  Baroness  von  Freytag-Loringhoveifj 

[It's  a  bit  too  easy  and  a  little  sentimental,  isn't  it,  to  ask  such 
tions?     Yeats  was  born  an  old  master.     Do  you  feel  that  you  "u| 
stand"  Yeats  better  than  you  do  Else  von  Freytag.     We  are  not 
ing  oursejves  to  the  seven  arts.     No  one  has  yet  done  much  abou| 
Art  of  Madness.     I  should  like  to  print  these  two  side  by  side;  it 
make  a  neat  antithesis  of  the  Giver  and  the  Getter,  etc. — jh.] 


Uc, 


«Cli 


The    Little   Review  57 


E    CHINESE    WRITTEN    CHARACTER    AS 
MEDIUM  FOR   POETRY 

Ernest  Fenollosa  and  Ezra  Pound 

(^continued) 

iRHAPS  we  do  not  always  sufficiently  consider  that  thought  is  suc- 
cessiive,  not  through  some  accident  or  weakness  of  our  subjective 
ations  but  because  the  operations  of  nature  arC  successive.  The  trans- 
ices  of  force  from  agent  to  agent,  which  constitute  natural  pheno- 
occupy  time.  Therefore,  a  reproduction  of  them  in  imagination 
ires  the  sam«  temporal  order.* 

Suppose  that  we  look  out  of  a  window  and  watch  a  man.  Suddenly 
urns  his  head  and  actively  fixes  his  attention  upon  something.  We 
ourselves  and  see  that  his  vision  has  been  focussed  upon  a  horse. 
saw,  first,  the  man  before  he  acted;  second,  while  he  acted;  third, 
>bject  toward  which  his  action  was  directed.  In  speech  we  split  up 
•apid  continuity  of  this  action  and  of  its  picture  into  its  three  essen- 
arts  or  joints  in  the  right  order,  and  say: 

Mfen   sees   horse. 

[t  is  clear  that  these  three  joints,  or  words,  are  only  three  phonetic 
)ol'S,  which  stand  for  the  three  terms  of  a  natural  process.  But  we 
1  quite  as  easily  denote  these  three  stages  of  our  thought  by  symbols 
lly  arbitrary,  which  had  no  basis  in  sound;  for  example,  by  three 
ese  characters 


'^   n. 


e  all  knew  what  division  of  this  mental  horse  picture  each  of  these 
stood   for,  we  could  commiunilcate  continuous  thought  to  one   an- 

•  as  easily  by  drawing  them  as  by  speaking  words.     We  habitually 

oy  the  visible  language  of  gesture  in  much  this  same  manner. 

Jut  Chinese  notation  is  something  much  more  than  arbitrary  symbols, 
based  upon  a  vivid  shorthand  picture  of  the  operations  of  nature. 

Style,  that  is  to  say,  limpidity,  as  opposed  to  rhetoric. — E.  P.] 


58  The    Little    Review 


In  the  algebraic  figure  and  in  the  spoken  word  there  is  no  natural  con- 
nection between  thing  and  sign  :  all  depends  upon  sheer  covention.  But 
the  Chinese  method  follows  natural  suggestion.  First  stands  the  man 
on  his  twK)  legs.  Second,  his  eye  moves  through  space :  a  bold  figure 
represented  by  running  legs  under  an  eye,  a  modified  picture  of  an  eye. 
a  modified  picture  of  running  legs  but  unforgettable  once  you  have  seen 
it.     Third  stands  the  horse  on  his  four  legs. 

The  thought  picture  is  not  only  called  up  by  these  signs  as  well  as  by 
words  but  far  more  vividly  and  concretely.  Legs  belong  to  all  three 
characters :  they  are  alive.  The  group  holds  something  of  the  quality  of 
a  continuous  moving  picture. 

The  untruth  of  a  painting  or  a  photograph  is  that,  in  spite  of  its 
concreteness,  it  drops  the  element  of  natural  succession. 

Contrast  the  Laocoon  statue  with  Browning's  lines : 

"I   sprang  to  the  saddle,  and  Jorris,  and   he 

And   into   the   midnight   we   galloped   abreast." 

One  superiority  of  verbal  poetry  as  an  art  rests  in  its  getting  back  tc 
the  fundamental  reality  of  time.  Chinese  poetry  has  the  unique  advantag< 
of  Lombirin;;  both  elements.  It  speaks  at  once  with  the  vividness  oj 
paintiiij:,  and  with  the  mobility  of  sounds.  It  is,  in  some  sense,  more  ob- 
jective than  either,  more  dramtic.  In  reading  Chinese  we  do  not  seen 
to  be  jufegHng  mental  counters,  but  to  be  watching  things  work  out  then 
own  fate. 

Leaving  for  a  moment  the  form  of  the  sentence,  let  us  look  mor« 
closely  at  this  quality  of  vividness  in  the  structure  of  detached  Chines* 
words.  The  earlier  forms  of  these  characters  were  pictorial,  and  thd» 
hold  upon  the  imagination  is  little  shaken,  even  in  later  conventions 
modifications.  It  is  not  so  well  known,  perhaps,  that  the  great  numbe: 
of  these  ideographic  roots  carry  in  them  a  verbal  idea  of  action.  I 
might  be  thought  that  a  picture  is  naturally  the  picture  of  a  //ij»<7,  am 
that  therefore  the  root  ideas  of  Chinese  are  what  grammar  calls  nouns 

But  examination  shows  that  a  large  number  of  the  primitive  Chines) 
characters,  even  the  so-called  radicals,  are  shorthand  pictures  of  actiot^ 
or  processes. 

I-'or  example,  the  ideograph  meaning  "to  speak"  is  a  mouth  with  tw« 
words  and  a  flame  coming  out  of  it.  The  sign  meaning  "to  grow  UI 
with  difficulty"  is  grass  with  a  twisted  root.  But  this  concrete  veri 
quality,  both  in  nature  and  in  the  Chinese  signs,  becomes  far  more  strik 


The    Little    Review  59 


ing  and  poetic  when  we  pass  from  such  simple,  original  pictures  to  com- 
jounds.  In  this  process  of  compounding,  two  things  added  together  do 
lot  produce  a  third  thing  but  suggest  some  fundamental  relation  be- 
;ween  them.  For  example,  the  ideograph  for  a  "messmate"  is  a  man  and 
fire. 
A  true  noun,  an  isolated  thing,  does  not  exist  in  nature.  Things  are 
jnly  the  terminal  points,  or  rather  the  meeting  pointsi  of  actions,  cross- 
ections  cut  through  actions,  snap-shots.  Neither  can  a  pure  verb,  an 
bstract  motion,  be  possible  in  nature.  The  eye  sees  noun  and  verb  as 
jne:  things  in  motion,  motion  in  things,  and  so  the  Chinese  conception 
ends  to  represent  them. 

The  sun  underlying  the  bursting  forth  of  plants  =  spring. 
The  sun  tangled  in  the  branches  of  the  tree  sign  =  east. 
"Rice-field"  plus  "struggle"  =  male. 
"Boat"  plus  "water"  z=  boat-water,  a  ripple. 

Let  us  return  to  the  form  of  the  sentence  and  see  what  power  it 
dds  to  the  verbal  units  from  which  it  builds.  I  wonder  how  many  peo- 
)le  have  asked  themselves  why  the  sentence  form  exists  at  all,  why  it 
eems  so  universally  necessary  in  all  languages?  Why  must  all  possess 
t,  and  what  is  the  normal  type  of  it?  If  it  be  so  universal  it  ought  to 
orrespond  to  some  primary  law  of  nature. 

I  fancy  the  professional  grammarians  have  given  but  a  lame  response 
o  this  inquiry.  Their  definitions  fall  into  two  types  :  one,  that  a  sentence 
ixpresses  a  "complete  thought" ;  the  other,  that  in  it  we  bring  about  a 
inion  of  subject  and  predicate. 

The  former  has  the  advantage  of  trying  for  some  natural  objective 
tandard,  since  it  is  evident  that  a  thought  can  not  be  the  test  of  its  own 
;ompleteness.  But  in  nature  there  is  no  completeness.  On  the  other  hand, 
tactical  completeness  may  be  expressed  by  a  mere  interjection,  as  "Hi! 
here!",  or  "Scat",  or  even  by  shaking  one's  fist.  No  sentence  is  needed 
o  make  one's  meaning  clear.  On  the  other  hand,  no  full  sentence 
eally  completes  a  thought.  The  man  who  sees  and  the  horse  which  is 
een  will  not  stand  still.  The  man  was  planning  a  ride  before  he  looked. 
'he  horse  kicked  when  the  man  tried  to  catch  him.  The  truth  is  that 
9ts  are  successiv^e,  even  continuous;  one  causes  or  passes  into  another. 
Lnd  though  we  may  string  never  so  many  clauses  into  a  single  compound 
entence,  motion  leaks  everywhere,  like  electricity  from  an  exposed  wire. 
Ul  processes  in  nature  are  inter-related;  and  thus  there  could  be  no 
omplete  sentence  (according  to  this  definition)  save  one  which  it  would 
ake  all  time  to  pronounce. 

In  the  second  definition  of  the  sentence,  as  "uniting  a  subject  and 
predicate,"  the  grammarian  falls  back  on  pure  subjectivity.     We  do  it 


6o  The    Little    Review 


all;  it  is  a  little  private  juggling  between  our  right  and  left  hands.  The 
subject  is  that  about  which  /  am  going  to  talk;  the  predicate  is  that 
which  /  am  goin-^  to  say  about  it.  The  sentence  according  to  this  defin- 
tion  is  not  an  attribute  of  nature  but  an  accident  of  man  as  a  conversa- 
tional animal. 

If  it  were  really  so,  then  there  could  be  no  possible  test  of  the 
truth  of  a  sentence.  Falsehood  would  be  as  specious  as  verity.  Speech 
would  carry  no  conviction. 

Of  course  this  view  of  the  grammarians  springs  from  the  discredited, 
or  rather  the  useless,  logic  of  the  middle  ages.  According  to  -this  logic, 
thought  deals  with  abstractions,  concepts  drawn  out  of  things  by  a  sift- 
ing process.  These  logicians  never  inquired  how  the  "qualities"  which 
they  pulled  out  of  things  came  to  be  there.  The  truth  of  all  their  little 
checker-board  juggling  depended  upon  the  natural  order  by  which  these 
powers  or  properties  or  qualities  were  folded  an  concrete  things,  yet  they 
despised  the  "thing"  as  a  mere  "particular",  or  pawn.  It  was  as  if 
Botany  should  reason  from  the  leafpatterns  woven  into  our  table-cloths. 
Valid  scientific  thought  consists  in  following  as  closely  as  may  be  the 
actual  and  entangled  lines  of  forces  as  they  pulse  through  things.  Thought 
deals  with  no  bloodless  concepts  but  watches  things  move  under  its  mi- 
croscope. 

The  sentence  form  was  forced  upon  primitive  men  by  nature  itself. 
It  was  not  we  who  made  it;  it  was  a  reflection  of  the  temporal  order  in 
causation.     All  truth  has  to  be  expressed  in  sentences  because  all  truth 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  normal  and  typical  iscntence  in  English  as 
is  the  transference  of  poiver.  The  type  of  sentence  in  nature  is  a  flash 
of  lightning.  It  passes  between  two  terms,  a  cloud  and  the  earth.  No 
unit  of  natural  process  can  be  less  than  this.  All  natural  processes  are, 
in  their  units,  as  much  as  this.  Light,  heat,  gravity,  chemical  affinity. 
human  will  have  this  in  common,  that  they  redistribute  force.  Their 
unit  of  process  can  be  represented  as  : 


term 

transference 

term 

from 

of 

to 

w'hich 

force 

which 

If  wc  regard  this  transference  as  the  conscious  or  unconscious  act  of  an 
agent  we  .can  translate  the  diagram  into: 

agent  act  object 

In  this  the  act  is  the  very  substance  of  the  fact  denoted.     The  agent  and 
the  object  are  only  limiting  terms. 


The    Little    Review  6i 


well  as  in  Chinese  expresses  just  this  unit  of  natural  process.  It  con- 
sists of  three  necessary  words;  the  first  denoting  the  agent  or  subject 
from  which  the  act  starts;  ithe  second  embodying  the  very  stroke  of  the 
act;  the  third  pointing  to  the  object,  the  receiver  of  the  impact.     Thus: 


«     A 


IL 


Farmer  pounds 


The  form  of  the  Chinese  transitive  sentence,  and  of  the  English  (omit- 
ting particles)  exactly  corresponds  to  this  universal  form  of  action  in 
nature.  This  brings  language  close  to  things,  and  in  its  strong  reliance 
upon  verbs  it  erects  all  speech  into  a  kind  of  dramatic  poetry. 

A  different  sentence  order  is  frequent  in  inflected  languages  like 
Xatin,  German  or  Japanese.  This  is  because  they  are  inflected,  i.e.,  they 
have  little  tags  and  word-endings,  or  labels  to  show  which  is  the  agent, 
the  object,  etc.  In  uninflected  languages,  like  English  and  Chinese,  there 
is  nothing  but  the  order  of  the  words  to  distinguish  their  functions.  And 
this  order  would  be  no  sufficient  indication,  were  it  not  the  natural  order 
— that  is,  the  order  of  cause  and  effect. 

It  is  true  that  there  are,  in  language,  intransitive  and  passive  forms, 
sentences  built  out  of  the  verb  "to  be,"  and  finally  negative  forms.  To 
grammarians  and  logicians  these  have  seemed  more  primitive  than  the 
transitive,  or  at  least  exceptions  to  the  transitive.  I  had  long  suspected 
that  these  apparently  exceptional  forms  had  grown  from  the  transitive 
or  worn  away  from  it  by  alteration  or  modification.  This  view  is  con- 
firmed by  Chinese  examples,  wherein  it  is  still  possible  to  watch  the  trans- 
formation going  on. 

The  intransitive  form  derives  from  the  transitive  by  dropping  a 
generalized,  customary,  reflexive  or  cognate  object.  "He  runs  (a  race)." 
"The  sky  reddens  (itself)."  "We  breartihe  (air)."  Thus  we  get  weak 
and  incomplete  sentences  which  suspend  the  picture  and  lead  us  to  think 
of  some  verbs  as  denoting  states  rather  than  acts.  Outside  grammar  the 
word  "state"  would  hardly  be  recognized  as  scientific.  Who  can  doubt 
that  when  we  say,  "The  wall  shines,"  we  mean  that  it  actively  reflects 
light  to  our  eye? 

The  beauty  of  Chinese  verbs  is  that  they  are  all  transitive  or  in- 
transitive at  pleasure.     There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  naturally  intransitive 


62  The    Little    Rcinew 


verb.  The  passive  form  is  evidently  a  correlative  sentence,  which  turns 
about  and  makes  the  object  into  a  subject.  That  the  object  is  not  in  it- 
self passive,  but  contributes  some  pomive  force  of  its  own  to  the  action 
is  in  harmony  both  with  scientific  law  and  with  ordinary  experience.  The 
English  passive  voice  with  "is"  seemed  at  lirst  an  obstacle  to  this  hypo- 
thesis, but  one  suspected  that  the  true  form  was  a  generalized  transitiv* 
verb  meaning  something  like  "receive,"  which  had  degenerated  into  ar 
auxiliary.    It  was  a  delight  to  find  this  the  case  in  Chinese. 

In  nature  there  are  no  negations,  no  possible  transfers  of  negativi 
force.  The  presence  of  negative  sentences  in  language  would  seem  t« 
corroborate  the  logicians'  view  that  assertion  is  an  arbitrary  subjectiv 
act.  We  can  assert  a  negation,  though  nature  can  not.  But  here  agaii 
science  comes  to  our  aid  against  the  logician :  all  apparently  negative  o 
disruptive  movements  bring  into  play  other  positive  forces.  It  require 
great  effort  to  annihilate.  Therefore  we  should  suspect  that,  if  we  coul 
follow  back  the  hisitory  of  all  negative  particles,  we  should  find  tha 
they  also  are  sprung  from  transitive  verbs.  It  is  too  late  to  demonstral 
such  derivations  in  the  Aryan  languages,  the  clue  has  been  lost,  but  i 
Chinese  we  can  still  watch  positive  verbal  conceptions-  passing  over  int 
so-called  negatives.  Thus  in  Chinese  the  sign  meaning  "to  be  lost  i 
the  forest"  relates  to  a  state  of  non-existence.  English  "not  =  the  Sai 
jskrit  na,  which  may  come  from  the  root  na,  to  be  lost,  to  perish. 

Lastly  comes  the  infinitive  which  sul)stitutes  for  a  specific  colon 
verb  the  universal  copula  "is,"  followed  by  a  noun  or  an  adjective.  W 
do  not  say  a  tree  "greens  itself,"  but  "the  tree  is  green;"  not  that  "mo> 
keys  bring  forth  live  young,"  but  that  "the  monkey  is  a  mammal."  TH 
is  an  ultimate  weakness  of  language.  It  has  come  from  generalizing  i 
intransitive  wkDrds  into  one.  As  "live,"  "see,"  "walk,"  "breathe,"  a< 
generalized  into  states  by  dropping  their  objects,  so  these  weak  verbs  a> 
in  turn  reduced  to  the  ahstractest  state  of  all,  namely,  bare  existence. 

There  is  in  reality  no  such  verb  as  a  pure  copula,  no  such  origitt 
conception,  our  very  word  exist  means  "to  stand  forth,"  to  show  onew 
by  a  definite  act.  "Is"  comes  from  the  Aryan  root  as,  to  breathe.  "B 
is  from  hhu,  to  grow. 

In  Chinese  the  chief  verb  for  "is"  not  only  means  actively  "to  havi 
but  shows  by  its  derivation  that  it  expresses  isomething  even  more  CO 
Crete,  namely,  "to  snatch  from  the  moon  with  the  hand."  Here  the  bal 
est  symbol  of  prosaic  analysis  is  transformed  by  magic  into  a  splend 
flaish  of  concrete  poetry, 

I  shall  not  have  entered  vainly  into  this  long  analysis  of  the  sente» 
if  I  have  succeeded  in  showing  how  poetical  is  the  Chinese  form  1 
how  close  to  nature.     In  translating  Chinese,  verse  especially,  we  nw 


w 


The    Little    Review  63 


hold  as  closely  as  possible  to  it'he  concrete  force  of  the  original,  eschew- 
ing adjectives,  nouns  and  intransitive  forms  wherever  we  can,  and  seek- 
ing instead  strong  and  individual  verbs. 

Lastly  we  notice  that  the  likeness  of  form  between  Chinese  and 
English  sentences  renders  translation  from  one  to  the  other  exceptionally 
easy.  The  genius  of  the  two  is  much  the  same.  Frequently  it  is  possible 
by  omitting  English  particles  to  make  a  literal  word-for-word  translation 
which  will  be  not  only  intelhgible  in  English,  but  even  the  strongest  and 
most  poetical  English.  Here,  however,  one  must  follow  closely  what 
is  said,  not  merely  what  is  abstractly  meant. 

Let  us  go  back  from  the  Chinese  sentence  to  the  individual  written 
word.  Hbw  are  such  words  to  be  clas'sified?  Are  some  of  them  nouns 
by  nature,  some  verbs  and  some  adjectives  Are  there  pronouns  and 
prepositions  and  conjunctions  in  Chinese  as  in  good  Christian  languages? 
One  is  led  to  suspect  from  an  analysis  of  the  Aryan  languages  that 
juch  differeces  are  not  natural,  and  that  they  have  been  unfortunately 
nvented  by  grammarians  to  confuse  the  simple  poetic  outlook  on  life, 
yi  nations  have  written  their  strongest  and  most  vivid  literature  before 
hey  invented  a  grammar.  Mioreover,  all  Aryan  etymology  points  back 
o  roots  which  are  the  equivalents  of  simple  Sanskrit  verbs,  such  as  we 
ind' tabulated  at  the  back  of  our  Skeat.  Nature  herself  has  no  gram- 
nar.* 

ancy  picking  up  a  man  and  telling  him  that  he  is  a  noun,  a  dead  thing 
ather  than  a  bundle  of  funotionis  A  "part  of  speech"  is  only  what  it 
oes.  Frequently  our  lines  of  cleavage  fail,  one  part  of  speech  acts  for 
other.  They  act  for  one  another  because  they  were  originally  one  and 
le  same. 

Few  of  us  realize  that  in  our  own  language  these  very  differences 
|nce  grew  up  in  living  articulation ;  that  they  still  retain  life.  It  is  only 
hen  the  difficulty  of  placing  some  odd  term  arises  or  when  we  are 
l^rced  to  translate  into- some  very  different  language,  that  we  attain  for 
moment  the  inner  heat  of  thoug'ht,  a  heat  which  melts  down  the  parts 
jf  spech  to  recast  them  at  will. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  facts  about  the  Chinese  language  is  that 
it  we  can  see,  not  only  the  forms  of  sentences,  but  literally  the  parts 
speech  growing  up.  budding  forth  one  from  another.  Like  nature,  the 
inese  words  are  alive  and   plastic,   because   thing  and   action  are  not 

*[Even  Latin,   (living  Latin)   had  not   the  network   they  foist  upon 

^fortunate  school-children.     These  are  borrowed  sometimes  from  Greek 

\ammarians,  even  as  I  have  seen  English  grammars  borrozving  oblique 

ses  from   Latin  grammars.     Sometimes   they  sprang  from    the   gram- 

itizing  or  categorizing  passion  of  pedants.     Living  Latin  had  only  the 

\el  of  the  cases.     The  ablative  and  dative  eotion. — E.  P.] 


64 


The    Little    Review 


formally  separated.     Tiie  Chinese  language  naturally  knows  no  gran 
It  is  only  lately  that   foreigners,  European  and  Japanese,  have  begt| 
torture  this  vital  si)cech   by   forcing  it   to   fit  the  bed  of  their  defini  | 
We  import  into  our  reading  of  Cliinese  all   the  weakness  of  our 
formalisms.     This  is  especially  sad  in  poetry,  because  the  one  necti 
even  in  our  own  poetry,  is  to  keep  words  as  flexible  as  po.vsible,  a: 
of  the  sap  of  nature. 

Let  us  go  further  with  our  example.  In  English  we  call  "to  shi 
verb  in  the  infinitive,  because  it  gives  the  abstract  meaning  of  the) 
without  conditions.  If  we  want  a  corresponding  adjective  we  t;[ 
different  word,  "bright."  If  we  need  a  noun  we  say  "luminosity,' 
is  abstract,  being  derived  from  an  adjective.*  To  get  a  tolerably! 
Crete  noun,  we  have  to  leave  behind  the  verb  and  adjective  roots,  ani| 
upon  a  thing  arbitrarily  cut  off  from  its  power  of  action,  say  "th« 
or  "the  moon."  Of  course  there  is  nothing  in  nature  so  cut  ofll 
therefore  this  nounizing  is  itself  an  abstraction.  Even  if  we  did  \\ 
common  word  underlying  at  once  the  verb  "shine",  the  adjective  "bl 
and  the  noun  "isun,"  we  should  probably  call  it  an  "infinitive  of  tl 
finitive."  According  to  our  ideas,  it  should  be  something  extreraej 
stract,  too  intangible  for  use. 

The  Chinese  have  one  word,  vting,  or  mci.  Its  ideograph  is  tb-j 
of  the  sun  together  with  the  sign  of  the  moon.  It  serves  as  verb,! 
adjective.  Thus  you  write  literally,  "the  sun  and  moon  of  the  cail 
"the  cup's  brightness.  Placed  as  a  verb,  you  write  "the  cup  su| 
moons,"  actually  "cup  sun-and-moon,"  or. in  a  weakened  thought,  ' 
sun,"  i.  e.,  shines.  "Sun-and-moon-cup"  is  naturally  a  bright  cup. 
is  no  possible  confusion  of  the  real  meaning,  though  a  stupid  (\ 
may  spend  a  week  trying  to  decide  what  "part  of  speech"  he  shoi'l 
in  translating  a  very  simple  and  direct  thought  from  Chinese  to  Bl 

The  fact  is  that  almost  every  written  Chinese  word  is  proper  [ 
such  an  underlying  word,  and  yet  it  is  not  abstract.  It  is  not  esl 
of  parts  of  speech,  but  comprehensive;  not  something  which  is 
noun,  verb,  or  adjective,  but  something  which  is  all  of  them  at 
at  all  times.  Usage  may  incline  the  full  meaning  now  a  little  ftl 
one  side,  now  to  another,  according  to  the  point  of  view,  but  thro'j 
cases  the  poet  is  free  to  deal  with  it  richly  and  concretely,  as  does 

*[A   good  zvriter  ivonld   use  "shine"    (t.   e.,   to   shine),  .y/ii»ifl| 

"the  shine"   or  "sheen",  possibly   thinking   of   the   German  "sh5n\ 

"Schonheit" ;  but  this  does  not  invalidate  Prof.  FenoUosa's  next 
tion.—E.  P.  ] 

(to  be  continued) 


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VOL.  VI        NOVEMBER,  1919        No.  7 


CONTENTS 

Three  from  the  Earth  Djnna  Barnes 

Fertile  Gesture  Mark  Tiirhyfill 

Parcel  of  Love  Harold  Monro 

A  New  Testament,  II  Shef^cvood  Anderson 

Tales  of  a  Hurried  Man,  II  Emanuel  Carnevali 

Lettres  Imaginaires   (concluded)  Mary  Butts 
Notes 

Interim   (Chapter  VII)  Dorothy  Richardson 

Ulysses  (Episode  XII)  -    James  Joyce 

The  Chinese  Written  Character  (III) 

Ernest  Fcnollosa  and  Ezra  Pound 

A  Projection  at  Kensington     _  Maxzvell  Bodenheim 
The  Reader  Critic 


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$2.50  per  year;  Single  copy  25  c,  Canada,  $2.75;  Foreign,  $3.00.     Published  monthly, 
and  copyrighted,   1919  by   Margaret   C.   Anderson. 

Manuscripts  must  be  submitted  at  author's  risk,  with  return  postage. 

Entered  as  second  class  matter  March  16,  1917,  at  the  Post  Office  at  New  York, 
N.  y.,  under  the  act  ef  March  3,  1879. 

MARGARET   C.   ANDERSON,   Publisher 

24  West  SixteentH  Street,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Foreign  Office:  43  Belsize  Park,  Gardens,  London  N.  W.  3. 


'  *     Grane'r 

U4arLj garden  (S^hoeolatesr 

"QJour  (Phocohtefaw  really  the  fine^ThaOe 
ex'cr  tasked  anULvhen?  in  the  Vl)orld" 


i 


THE 
UTTLE  HEYIEW 


THREE  FROM  THE   EARTH 

by  Djuna  Barnes 

PERSONS: 

JAMES 

HENRY         Carson  brothers 

JOHN 

KATE  MORLEY— an  adventurist— a  lady  of  leisure, 

lime:  Late  ajternoon. 

iace:  Kate  Morley's  boudoir.  A  long  narrow  room,  with  a  great 
nany  lacquer  screens  in  various  shades  of  blue,  a  tastefully  dec- 
orated room  though  rather  extreme. 

At  the  rise  of  the  curtain  the  three  Carson  brothers  are  discov- 
red  sitting  together  on  a  couch  to  the  left.  They  look  like  peas- 
nts  of  the  most  obvious  type.  They  are  tall,  rather  heavy — and 
ange  in  ages  from  nineteen  to  twenty-five.  They  have  sandy,  sun 
leached  hair  that  insists  upon  sticking  straight  up — oily,  sweaty 
kins — large  hanging  lips  and  small  eyes  on  which  a  faint  whitish 
own  moves  for  lashes.  They  are  clumsy  and  ill  clothed.  Russet 
hoes  are  on  all  six  feet.  They  each  wear  a  Purple  aster  and  each 
as  on  0;  tie  of  the  super-stunning  variety — they  have  evidently 
one  their  best  to  be  as  one  might  say  "well  dressed". 

When  they  speak — aside  from  their  grunts — their  voices  are 
ntgh,  nasal  and  occasionally  crack.  They  are  stoop-shouldered 
id  their  hands  are  excessively  ugly. 

Yet  in  spite  of  all  this,  their  eyes  are  intelligent,  their  smiles 
'ntle,  melancholy,  compassionate.  And  though  they  have  a  look 
formidable  grossness  and  stupidity,  there  is,  on  second  observation, 
something  beneath  all  this  in  no  way  in  keeping  with  this  first 
\pression. 


The    Little    Review 


John — the  youngest,  and  the  smallest,  looks  around  the  rooi 
carefully. 
John 

A  nice  room,  eh?  (He  tries  to  whisper  but  it  comes  forth  bu 
zing  and  harsh). 
James 

A  woman's  room. 
Henry  ' 

How? 
James 

A  narrow  room,  John. 
John 

Well? 
James 

Cats  and  narrow  walls. 
Henry 

(Grunting) 

Ugh. 
John 

Hush — I  hear  her  coming! 

(The  curtains  part  and  Kate  Morley  enters.  She  is  a  worn 
of  about  forty.  Handsome.  Dark.  She  is  beautifully  dressed 
a  rather  seductive  fashion.  She  has  a  very  interesting  head;  .• 
has  an  air  of  one  used  to  adulation  and  the  pleasure  of  exerting  i 
will.  She  has  a  trick  of  narrowing  her  eyes.  As  she  comes  j 
ward  there  is  a  general  commotion  among  the  brothers  but  m 
manages  to  stand  up). 
Kate 

Good  day,  gentlemen. 
All  three 

Good  day. 
Kate 

Nice  of  you  to  call  on  me  (She  seats  herself,  crossing  her  teg 
You  are  the  three  Carsons,  John,  James  and  Henry,  aren't  you. 
haven't  seen  you  for  years,  yet  I  think  I  should  have  known  you 
All  three 

Ah,  ha. 
Kate 

Yes  I  presume  I  should  have  kno\vn  you.  I  have  a  g< 
memory.  Well,  as  I  said,  it's  nice  of  you  to  come  to  see  me.  Soci 
Henry 

You  might  call  it  that. 


The   Little   Review 


'iate 

It's  quite  nice  to  get  an  unexpected  visitor  or  so.    I'm  the  kind 
if  woman  who  knows  just  who  is  going  to  call  on  Monday,  Tuesday, 

fhursday 

iU  three 

Ah,  ha. 
vate 

How's  the  country? 
ohn 

Just  the  same. 

It  always  is. — Don't  you  go  mad — watching  it? 
lenry 

Now  and  again. 
'ate 

And  how's  your  father?  {Not  pausing  for  an  answer — almost 
)  herself.)  I  remember — he  was  always  mad.  He  used  to  wear 
green  cloth  suit,  and  he  carried  white  rats  all  over  his  shoulders. 
Remembering  the  three.)  Ah,  yes,  your  father — he  was  a  l^arber 
lasn't  he? 
\enry 

No,  a  chemist. 
ate 

(Laughing  uneasily)  I  have  a  bad  memory  after  all.  Well, 
i5rway,  in  those  days  he  had  begun  to  be  queer — everyone  noticed 
—even  that  funny  man  who  had  those  three  flaxen-haired 
lUghters  with  the  thin  ankles  who  lives  at  the  end  of  the  street — 
|id  your  mother — a  prostitute  I  believe. 
\enry 

(Calmly)  At  times. 
te 
A  dancing  girl  without  a  clean  word  in  her  vocabulary,  or  a 
le  -shirt  to  her  name — 
s 

But  a  woman  with  fancies. 
te 
(Sarcastically)  And  what  ability? 
>.ry 
Oh,  none,  just  a  burning  desire. 

"\\^at's  the  use  of  going  into  that.    How  did  you  get  here — 
for? 


The    Little    Review 


All  three 

On  bicycles. 
Kate  {Bursting  into   laughter) 

How  exactly  ridiculous  and  appropriate — and  what  else? 
John 

To  see  how  the  sun  falls  in  a  place  like  this. 
Kate  {Angrily,  rising) 

Well  you  see,  from  left  to  right,  and  right  to  left — 
Henry 

True. 
John   {Quietly) 

And  we  wanted  to  sec  how  you  walked,  and  sat  down,  and 
crossed  your  legs — 
Henry 

And  to  get  father's  letters. 
KUe 

Well  you  see  how  I  walk,  sit  down,  ,^ross  my  legs.     Whai 
letters? 
James 

Letters  to  you. 
Kate    {Uneasily) 

So  you  know  about  that — well,  and  what  would  you  fellow 
do  with  them — read  them  to  see  how  clever  they  are? 
James 

No,  we  have  the  clever  ones. 
Kate 

Mine? 
John  and  Henry  {nodding) 

•Exactly.  ^ 

Kate 

Oh. 
John 

You  suffer? 
Kate 

From  time  to  time — there's  always  a  reaction. 
Henry 

That's  vulgar  isn't  it. 
Kate 

Not  unusually. 
John 

The  letters? 
Kate  {To  herself) 

Well,  there  is  malice  in  me     what  of  it?     We've  all  been 


The    Little    Review 


while  with  the  dogs,  we  don't  all  learn  to  baik. 
John   » 

Ah,  ha. 
Kate 

See  here,  what  will  you  do  with  your  father's  letters? 
Henry 
\  j        Destroy  them,  perhaps. 
\\Kate 

A        And  if  I  give  them  to  you — will  your  father  be  as  generous 
Mwith  mine? 
Henry 

Father   is   undoubetdly   a   gentleman — even   at   this  moment. 
KateT 

Well,  we  shall  see  about  that — first  tell  me  how  you  live. 
Jolin 

We  go  down  on  the  earth  and  find  things,  tear  them  up,  shak- 
ing the  dirt  off  {making  the  motions  to  illustrate).     Then  there  are 
the  cows  to  be  milked,  the  horses— a  few — ^to  be  fed,  shod  and  cur- 
ried— do  you  wish  me  to  continue? 
Kate 

Yes,  yes,  go  on. 
Henry  {Taking  the  tale  up) 

We  get  up  at  dawn,  and  our  father  turns  over  in  bed  and 
vhispers:   "If  you  meet  anyone,  say  nothing;  if  you  are  asked  a 
juestion  look  stupid — 
Kate 

I  "believe  you. 
^anies 

And  he  says:     "Go  about  your  work  as  if  you  had  neither 
-ight,  speech  nor  hearing — " 
\ate 

Yes^ 
'aim 

And  he  adds:     "If  you  should  meet  a  woman  in  the  road — " 
\ate  {Excited) 

Then  what? 
Icnry 

That's  enough.     Then  of  a  Sunday  we  watch  the  people  going 
0  church,  when  we  hear  the  "Amen"  we  lift  a  little  and  sit  back — 
md  then  again — 
'\ate 

Religion? 


i 


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Henry 

Enough  for  our  simple  needs, 
Kate  • 

Poor  sheep! 
James 

Wise  sheep!  . 

Kate  '  ^ 

What!     Well  perhaps,  no  one  is  any  longer  sure  of  anything. 
Then  what? 
Jolm 

When  we  come  home  he  says:     "What  have  you  seen  and 
heard  today?"    He  never  asks  "What  have  you  said?" 
Kate 

He  trusts  you? 
John 

Undoubtedly.  Sometimes  we  say  "We  saw  a  hawk  flying"  or 
"A  badger  passed",  and  sometimes  we  bring  him  the  best  treat  of 

all— 
Kate 

Well? 
John 

Something  dead. 
Kate 

Dead? 
Henry 

Anjrthing  that  has  destroyed  the  crops^a  mole — a  field-mouse. 
Kate 

And  never  anything  that's  harmless? 
John 

Never. 
Kate 

Well  see  here,  I'll  give  you  those  letters.  Suddenly  my  heart 
says  to  me  "Kate,  give  the  oxen  the  rope,  they  won't  run  away." — 
Isn't  it  so?  Very  well,  I  put  my  hand  on  a  certain  package  and  all 
is  over — I'm  about  to  be  married  you  know.  {She  has  risen  and 
gone  over  to  a  little  box  standing  an  the  desk.  Out  from  this  she 
takes  a  package  of  letters  tied  with  a  red  ribbon.  She  turns  and 
walks  straight  up  to  John).  I'll  give  them  to  you.  You  are  the 
youngest,  the  gentlest,  and  you  have  the  nicest  hands. 

(She  sits  down  breathing  'with  difficjdty) 
John  (Putting  them  into  his  blouse) 

Thank  you,  Kate  Morlcy. 


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■Kate 

Now  tell  me  about  everything.     How  is  that  mother  of  yours? 
I  remember  her — she  was  on  the  stage — she  danced  as  they  say, 
and  she  sang.     She  had  a  pet  monkey — fed  it  honey  out  of  a  jar 
kept  full  by  her  admirers:  grooms,  stage  hands,  what  not — 
Henry 

Yes,  and  she  used  to  draw  pictures  of  it  in  the  style  of  Diirer 
— almost  morbid — and  later  it  caught  a  disease  and  died — 
Kate 

I  don't  doubt  it — and  she,  she  had  an  under-lip  like  a  balloon 
— and  your  father  kissed  that  mouth,  was  even  tempted — 
James 

My  father  often  saw  beyond  the  flesh. 
Kate 

Kissed  such  a  creature! 
'  Henry 

At  such  times  she  was  beautiful, 
Kate  {With  a  touch  of  humility) 

Yes,  I'm  sorry;— I  remember.    Once  I  passed  her,  and  instead 
of  saying  something,   something  horrible — she  might — ^she  looked 
down. 
John 

She  was  beautiful  looking  down. 
Kate  (Angry) 

And  I,  I  suppose  I  wasn't  beautiful  to  look  at — 
Henry 

No  I  suppose  not,  that  is,  not  for  her. 
Kate  (Viciomly) 

Well  let  me  tell  you,  you  haven't  inherited  her  beauty.  Look 
at  your  hands — thick,  hard,  ugly — and  the  life  lines  in  them  like 
the  life  lines  in  the  hands  of  every  laborer  digging  sewers — 

John 

There's  something  in  'that,  but  they  are  just  'beginning. 
Kate  {Turning  on  them) 

Look  at  you!  You're  ugly,  and  clumsy  and  uncouth.  You 
grunt  and  roar,  you  wear  abominable  clothes — and  you  have  no 
manners— and  all  because  of  your  father,  your  mighty  righteous 
and  original  father.  You  don't  have  to  be  like  this.  You  needn't 
have  little  pigs  eyes  with  bleached  lashes,  and  thick  hanging  lips 
and  noses— but  I  suppose  you've  got  adenoids,  and  you  may  suffer 
from  the  fact  that  your  mother  had  a  rupture,  and  in  all  probabil- 


10 The    Little    Review 

ity  you  have  the  beginning  of  ulcers  of  the  stomach,  for  God  knows 
your  father  couldn't  keep  a  meal  down  like  a  gentleman! 
Henry 

He  was  delicate. 
Kate 

And  why  was  he  delicate?  He  called  himself  "The  little  Father", 
as  one  might  say,  "The  great  Emperor".  Well,  to  have  a  father  to 
whom  you  can  go  and  say  "All  is  not  as  it  should  be" — that 
would  have  been  everything.  But  what  could  you  say  to  him,  and 
what  had  he  to  say  to  you?  O  we  all  have  our  pathetic  moments 
of  being  at  our  best,  but  he  wasn't  satisfied  with  that,  he  wanted 
to  be  at  it  all  the  time.  And  the  result,  the  life  of  a  mole.  "Listen 
and  say  nothing."  Then  he  becomes  the  gentleman  farmer  be- 
cause he  discovers  he  cannot  be  the  Beloved  Fool.  Suddenly  he 
is  the  father  of  three  creatures  for  all  the  world  like  Russian  peas- 
ants— without  an  idea;  a  subtlety — it's  wicked,  that's  all,  wicked — 
and  as  for  that,  how  do  you  know  but  that  all  three  of  you  had  a 
different  mother.  WTiy  great  God,  I  might  be  the  mother  of  one 
of  you! 
John  (Signijicantly) 

So  I  believe,  madam. 
Kate  (Unheeding) 

Do  you  think  a  man  like  your  father  had  any  right  to  brinj 
such  children  as  you  in  the  world — three  columns  of  flesh  withou 
one  of  the  five  senses!  (She  suddenly  buries  her  head  in  her  hands) 
John  (Gently) 

You  loved  our  father. 
Henry 

And  you  also  had  your  pot  >  of  honey — 
Kate 

Thank  God  I  had  no  ideals — I  had  a  religion. 
John 

Just  what? 
Kate 

You  wouldn't  understand. 
Henry 

Shoes  to  the  needy? 
Kate 

No,  I'm  not  that  kind,  vicious  boy. 
Jolm 

Are  you  quite  certain? 


The    Little    Review  ii 


Kate  - 

I'll  admit  all  my  candles  are  not  burning  for  God.    Well,  then, 
blow  them  out,  still  I'll  have  a  light  burning  somewhere,   for  all 
your  great  breaths,  you  oxen.   , 
Henry 

You  were  never  a  tower  builded  of  ivory — 
Kate 

You're  too  stupid  to  be  bitter — your  voices  are  too  undevel- 
Dped — you  say  "love"  and  "hate"  the  same  way. 
James 

True,  we  have  been  shut  away  from  intonatipns. 
Kate 

You  wouldn't  even  wish  to  die. 
John 

I        We  shall  learn. 
Xate 

Why  bother. 
x^ohn  {Abruptly  rising) 

You  have  posed  for  the  madonna? 
iate 

Every  woman  has. 
ohn 

You  have  done  it  better  than  most. 
'^ate 

What  do  you  mean? 
ohn 

I  looked  at  it  when  I  came  in. 
{He  picks  up  the  photograph) 
ate 

Let  tt  be — I  was  playing  in  the  "Crown  of  Thorns",  an  ama- 
ur  theatrical. 
bhn 
*      Yes,  I  presumed  it  was  amateur — 

You  were  a  devoted  mother? 
\ate 

I  liave  no  virtues. 
^nry 

And  vices? 
hte 

Weak  in  one,  weak  in  the  other. 


12  The   Little  Review 


Jul.'ti 

However  the  baby  had  nice  hands — 
Kate  {Looking  at  him) 

That  is  true.  • 

James 

But  then  babies  only  use  their  hands  to  lift  the  breast,  ar 
occasionally  to  stroke  the  cheek — 
Kate 

Or  to  throw  them  up  in  despair — not  a  heavy,  career. 
John 

And  then? 
Jiate  {In  an  entirely  new  tone) 

Won't  you  have  tea?  But  no,  pay  no  attention  to  n 

that's  another  of  my  nasty  malicious  tricks.     Curse  life! 
Henry 

Your  life  is  drawing  to  a  close. 
James 

And  from  time  to  time  you  place  your  finger  on  a  line 
Nietzsche  or  Schopenhauer  wondering  "How  did  he  say  it  all 
two  lines".     Eh? 
Kate 

As  you  say  {She  looks  at  them  slowly,  one  by  one).  You  i 
strange  things.  {Coming  back)  But  at  least  I've  given  up  sor 
thing — look  at  your  mother,  what  did  she  give  up  for  your  fathei 
a  drunken  husband — 
James 

A  drunken  lover — that's  different. 
Kate 

I  can't  help  thinking  of  that  great  gross  stomach^of  hers] 
James 

Gross  indeed,  it  won't  trouble  him  anymore. 
Kate 

What's  that? 
John 

He  cut  his  throat  with  a  knife — 
Kate 

Oh  my  God!     {Pause)  How  did  he  look? 
John 

You  can't  satisfy  your  aesthetic  sense  that  way — he  Ic 
well  ugly,  played  out,  yes,  played  out.     Everything  had  been  ■«! 
much  for  him, — you — us — you  could  see  that  in  the  way  he— F 


The  Little   Review  13 


[ate     {In  a  whisper) 

Well,  that's  strange — everything  seems — I  knew  him  you  know 
She  begins  to  laugh) .    And  the  dogs  barked. 
antes  •  .    ' 

So  I  believe. 
ate     (Dazed) 

And  you,  what  are  you  three  going  to  do? 
cnry 

We  are  coming  out  of  the  country — we  are  going  abroad — we 
«.n  listen  there. 
.ate 

Abroad, — listen — what  are  you  saying? 
/"nry 

There  are  great  men  abroad. 
mes 

Anatol  France,  De  Gourmont — 
lite 

De  Gourmont  is  dead. 
J'tn 

There  will  be  others. 
hie 

(Still  dully)     And  how  did  you  come  to  know  such  names — 
your  father  of  course — 
n 

We  needed  them. 
'e 

Strange,  I've  been  prepared  for  every  hour  but  this — 
les 

Yet  I  dare  say  you've  never  cried  out. 

(' 

You  are  mistaken.  I've  cried:   "To  the  evil  of  mind  all  is  evil — " 
ry 

Ah  ha,  and  what  happened? 

e 

Sometimes  I  found  myself  on  my  kneesy— 

es 

And  sometimes? 


I  That's  enough,  haven't  we  about  cleared  all  the  shavings  out 
carpenter  shop? 

P 

You  at  least  will  never  kill  yourself. 


M 


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Kate 

Not  likely,  I'll  probably  die  in  bed  with  my  slippers  on — you 
see  I  have  a  pretty  foot. 
Henry 

We  understand,  you  are  about  to  be  married. 
Kate 

To  a  supreme  court  Judge — so  I'm  cleaning  house. 
JoJm     (Standing  -with  the  photograph) 

But  it  won't  be  quite  cleared  out  until  this  goes  (He  takes  it  out  o 
the  frame  and  turning  it  over  reads)  "Little  John,  God  bless  him. 
{He  turns  it  hack)  God  bless  him.     Well  just  for  that  I'd  like  t 
keep  it. 
Kate 

That's  my  affair. 
John 

So  I  see.     {He  puts  the  photo  in  his  blouse  with  the  letters). 
Kate 

Well,  perhaps — well,  you're  not  so  stupid  after  all — Come,  f 
the  madonna  give  me  back  the  letters,  I'll  bum  them  I  swear,  ai 
you  can  put  the  madonna  at  the  foot  of  the  bed. 

John 

I  shan't  put  it  at  the  foot  of  the  bed — I  don't  look  at  the  fc 
of  the  bed — 
Henry  and  James  {Rising) 

And  now  we  shall  go. 
Kate     {Her  hands  to  her  head) 

But  gentlemen,  gentlemen — 
Henry 

We  won't  need  to  bother  you  again.  We  are  leaving  the  coi 
try  and  going  elsewhere — and  there  was  only  one  of  us  to  wh» 
you  might  have  shown  a  little  generosity — in  other  words  we  do  i 
wish  to  be  reminded,  and  now  we  can  forget,  and  in  time  beco 
quite  hilarious — 

Kate  ' 

But,  gentlemen,  gentlemen,  not  this  way — 
Jolm 

Well?     {Quite  suddenly  he  takes  her  in  his  arms,  raises 
face  and  kisses  her  on  the  nioitlh). 
Kate  {Crying  out) 

Nd.  that  wav!      Not  that  way! 


I 


James 

That's  the  way  you  bore  him! 


The  Little   Review  15 


{The  curtain  drops  behind  them) 


FERTILE  GESTURE 

by  Mark  Turbyfill 

What  hocus-pocus 
Jumble  of  sights  and  sounds 
To  hurl  upon  one  insensible 
To  translate  into  idiom  sensible 
These  months  gone  through? 

No  green  apple-cluster 

Hung  in  doorway  to  flat  blue  sea, 

Nor  woodcut  delicate  (it  could  be), 

No  unsatisfied  green  globe 

Points  puffy  white  dull  mind 

To  sharpened  phrase,  to  escape  infinitive. 

Golden-rod,  cricket's  cri-cri-cri. 
Snooping  under  twilight  eaves, 
Bat-screech,  its  apprehensive  glance, 
To  no  avail. 

Head  thrown  back  over  shoulder 
Long-sought  potent  triviality: 
Undetermined  angle. 
Stars  split  across  the  sky, 
Flowing,  imperfect  elleptic  line. 


1 6  The  Little   Review 


PARCEL  OF  LOVE 

by  Harold  Monro 

THAT  love  he  had  not  asked  for,  and  did  not  want,  had  hurt  him 
by  now  almost  beyond  endurance.  He  would  find  himself  at 
moments,  stand  up  and  extend  his  body,  stiffen  his  muscles,  try 
to  stretch  himself  into  the  space  of  the  solitary  room.  Then,  as 
he  wanted,  he  became  deliciously  conscious  of  his  finger-tips.  It 
seemed  to  him  that,  if  he  pressed  hard  enough,  it  might  pass  out 
there  and  evaporate,  or  fly  through  the  window,  and  leave  him 
for  ever.  Always  a  hopeless  expedient.  The  normal  returned  dir- 
ectly he  contracted  his  body  again.  Love  regained  its  complacent 
habitation  of  him.  He  ached  as  before;  his  brain  glowed,  rekin- 
dled and  burst  into  flame;  his  heart  resumed  the  hard  volcanic 
beat.  He  was  utterly  possessed.  No  movement  of  limb  or  thought, 
no  change  of  surrounding,  could  free  him  for  more  than  a  moment 
or  two. — Long  hot  pain,  night  and  day,  asleep  or  awake;  one  tired 
perpetual  obsession,  and  no  release. 

His  hardest  moments  were  those  of  recalling  looks  and  words. 
He  scarcely  ever  loved  that  occupation  now,  yet  could  not  stop. 
Normal  life  had  become  entirely  automatic  for  months.  He  felt 
there  could  be  nothing  outwardly  unusual  about  him:  he  still  per- 
formed the  customary  routine  correctly — though  without  consciouj 
attention.  He  kissed  his  wife  without  difficulty,  called  her  "dar- 
ling" at  appropriate  moments,  signed  her  cheques,  paid  a  compli 
ment,  went  to  church  with  her,  even  made  occasional  straight-foT 
ward  love  to  her — all  quite  naturally.  How  could  it  possibly  mattei 
(in  view  of  this  other  thing)  what  he  might  do?  No  ordinary  ac 
tions  or  conventions  could  concern  him.  So  long  as  it  woul< 
not  pass  out  of  him  through  his  finger-tips,  or  any  other  way,  h 
remained  possessed,  and  untouched  by  those  other  ordinary  event 
or  customs  of  living. 

Almost  every  scheme  for  ridding  himself  of  it  came  into  hi 
head.  He  was  not  even  afraid  of  madness;  that  idea  hardly  oc 
curred  to  him;  rather  he  was  faced  night  and  day  by  grim  starin 
sanity.  His  normal  activities,  of  course,  he  was  obliged  to  neglecl 
Pastimes  were  no  help — ^why  read  for  instance,  seeing  that  ever; 
sentence  vanished  from  his  memory  before  his  mind  could  absor 
it?  Those  quiet  other  eyes  stared  into  the  sockets  of  his  own;  0 
long  smooth  beloved  hands  folded  themselves  round  his  braiT 
One  or  two  words  of  the  last  meeting,  (their  tone,  their  hundre 


The  Little  Review 17 


meanings),  would  ring  like  chimes  all  through  the  long  interval 

of  waiting  for  the  next.    The  hours  everlastingly  beat  time,  while 

'those  infrequent  swift  moments  of  proximity  always  marched  out 

instantly — then  the  hours  beat  time  again.     He  remembered  no 

clear  entrance  to  his  present  state;  he  could  imagine  no  exit.     So 

be  was  burning  to  ashes — Alas!  the  intolerable  slowness  of  the  fire. 

One  night  early  (perhaps  about  midnight)  he  saw  a  piece  of 

waste  brown  paper  in  the  corner  of  the  room.     At  first  it  was 

scarcely  a  definite  object  to  him,  though  his  eyes  kept  returning  to 

it — unconsciously  perhaps,  afterwards  however,  certainly  with  de- 

i  sign.     Later  he  moved  over  to  it,  picked  it  up,  spread  it  on  the 

(floor,  thoughtfully  fetched  a  piece  of  string,  spread  that  across  the 

j  paper,  then  sat  down  and  deliberated. 

Eventually  a  definite  plan  took  hold  of  him.  ^  He  set  about  it 
I  with  the  conviction  of  one  who  has  at  last  solved  a  life-problem. 
1H0W,  precisely,  it  was  to  be  accomplished  he  had  no  occasion  to 
;ask;  he  knew  only  that  now  he  was  to  be  free:  that  was  enough. 
So  he  wrapped  up  the  neat  parcel,  tied  it  securely  with  the  good 
Istring,  sealed  it  in  four  places  with  that  good  seal  of  the,  family 
icrest.  There  love  lay  in  waste  paper;  a  parcel  10"  by  6".  There 
he  stood,  a  whole  man,  sane  and  ready  for  the  sweet  ordinary  life 
Me  had  so  disastrously  neglected.  To-morrow — ^but  first  the  work 
must  be  finished.  He  almost  laughed — but:  "First,  to  the  task!" 
he  thought. 

It  was  a  stiff  three  miles  over  the  fields  towards  dawn  into  a 
strong  wind.  The  wind  would  be  strong  of  course.  He  heard  the 
canal  unnaturally  long  before  he  reached  it.  He  wanted  now  so 
much  to  finish  quickly,  ithat  he  started  running  in  little  spurts  be- 
fore he  was  half  way.  And  toward  the  end  he  was  running  quite 
hard,  panting,  his  tongue  slightly  out,  leaning  forward,  burning 
vith  eagerness  for  freedom. 

Would  it  sink?  Does  love  sink  in  a  canal?  A  vision  came 
:o  him  for  a  moment  of  it  floating  with  the  wind,  being  found,  at 
■nid^day  dinner  perhaps,  by  some  barge,  fished  up  with  a  boat- 
look,  examined,  and  passed  round  amid  laughter.  It  must  sink. 
[t  must  be  weighted.  He  stumbled  over  a  rut  and  fell,  rose  cov- 
ered with  soft  mud,  and  ran  forward  panting.  He  was  heavier 
low  by  the  moist  earth  that  clung  to  him.  He  must  fasten  some 
veight  to  it.  The  canal  gleamed  under  the  wind.  At  last  the  mo- 
nent  had  come.    Why  had  he  not  discovered  this  way  before? 


i8 


The    Little    Review 


lie  held  it  in  both  hands,  twisted  his  fingers  through  the  string,  jl 
fastened  himself  tight  to  it,  and  ran  for  the  final  throw.  j 

Waters  remarks  very  little  on  such  matters.  It  is  troubled  by  \ 
no  acute  self-consciousness.  It  just  opens,  forms  some  mathemati- 
cal rings,  closes,  and  very  often,  be  the  secret  not  dragged  fron-, 
it,  is  silent  for  ever.  So  the  parcel  of  love  was  thrown  in  wel 
weighted:  one  little  sigh  ended  the  tedious  affair.  By  good  luctl 
even  the  coroner  was  not  allowed  his  usual  comments.  Xothinfj 
matters  very  much  afterwards. 


+ 


+ 


+ 


The    Little    Review  19 


A  NEW  TESTAMENT 
by  Sherwood  Anderson 

Testament    Two 

THE  fancy  comes  to  me  that  thoughts  like  layers  of  smoke  are 
lying  along  the  street  through  which  I  have  been  wolking.  There, 
are  always  banks  of  smoke  hanging  in  the  streets  of  Chicago.  There 
is  a  sensual  gratification  to  me  in  the  notion  that  the  crowds 
of  men  and  women  who  have  just  passed  me  and  who  have  gone 
before  me  have  also  lost  themselves  in  the  thoughts  I  have  been 
lost  in.  By  indirection  I  have  been  making  love  to  all  the  men 
and  women  of  a  city. 

To  be  sure  there  are  degrees  to  the  experience  I  have  been 
unconsciously  having.  All  men  and  women  are  not  equally  sus- 
ceptible. 

I  am  one  who  has  no  yesterday  and  grope  dreamily  toward  a 
tomorrow.  I  am  like  you.  You  are  not  at  all  the  thing  you  have 
so  foolishly  imagined  yourself  to  be.  But  I  will  not  set  myself  up 
to  define  you.  I  am  nothing.  I  believe  nothing.  I  would,  like 
to  walk  with  you.  If  possible  I  .would  like  to  imagine  you  beauti- 
ful while  you  are  in  my  presence.  By  indirection  I  wish  to  caress 
you,  to  touch  with  soft  fingers  the  lids  of  your  eyes,  to  lie  like  a 
gem  in  the  hollow  of  your  hand.  For  the  moment  that  is  the 
height  of  my  desire. 

Many  people  have  walked  before  me  in  the  street,  having  as  I 
have  declared  had  a  sort  of  intercourse  with  me.  As  I  walk  with 
you  I  will  tell  you  of  them.  Before  me,  in  the  forefront  of  my 
fancy, 'went  a  trembling  old  man.  Ahead  of  him  was  a  glorious 
woman,  full  breasted,  strong  at  the  shoulders.  The  wind  blew 
her  skirts  and  I  saw  that  her  legs  were  shapely  and  strong.  She 
did  not  know  that  I  knew  what  she  was  thinking  about. 

At  the  risk  of  being  impertinent  I  will  remind  you  again  that 
this  is  an  experience  I  have  not  had.  When  we  are  better  ac- 
quainted I  will  quit  harping  on  my  insanity,  my  love  of  God  and 
the  other  traits  of  my  character. 

Before  the  old  man  and  the  strong  beautiful  woman 
went   many   others   in    the   canyon   of   the   street.     They   walked 


20  The    LittU    Review 


like  myself  under  the  smoke  pall  of  Chicago  and  like  myself  they 
walked  in  and  out  of  the  layers  of  thought.  They  were  all  like 
myself  fanciful  folk.  They  were  making — each  of  them — designs- 
in  the  darkness.  In  the  dark  street  they  felt  for  the  threads  of  life 
with  the  fingers  of  their  hands. 

How  very  many  p>eople  going  in  and  out  of  the  thoughts.  I  fan- 
cied that  1  found  a  blank,  a  vacant  place.  Some  brash  impertinence 
out  of  my  conscious  life  made  me  want  to  attempt  to  fill  the  blank. 

"I  will  put  in  this  blank  place  a  thought,  a  thought  of  my 
own",  I  said.  It  will  be  passed  through  by  men,  women  and  child- 
ren. I  crept  into  a  doorway  and  watched,  hoping  childishly  that  the 
whole  rhythm  of  the  universe  would  be  changed  by  my  act. 

Nothing  happened  of  course,  I  suspect  because  my  act  was 
more  than  half  conscious.  My  thought  had  no  strength  of  its 
own.    The  wind  blew  it  away. 

The  streets  of  Chicago  are  roaring  whirling  places.  Shrill  hu- 
man cries  run  like  brightly  colored  threads  though  the  thoughts  o: 
every  man  and  woman  who  walks  abroad.  It  is  very  foolish  to  trj 
to  be  definite  as  I  was. as  I  attempted  to  lay  down  the  thought 
Nothing  is  to  be  achieved  by  being  smart  and  definite,  and  to  b< 
vague — they  keep  telling  me — is  to  be  insane,  a  little  unbalanced 

In  a  plow  factory,  on  the  West  Side  in  Chicago,  there  ari 
great  tanks  in  the  floor.  The  tanks  are  kept  filled  with  many  colj 
ored  liquids.  By  machinery  plows  are  lifted  from  the  factory  flocj 
and  swung  above  the  tanks.  They  are  dipped  and  become  instani  | 
ly  and  completely  black,  red,  brown,  purple,  blue,  grey,  pink. 

Can  a  plow  be  pink?  I  have  the  trick  of  thinking  too  rapidlj 
in  color.  I  cannot  remember  the  color  of  the  eyes  of  my  sistef 
The  color  of  the  cheeks  of  my  mistress  I  cannot  remember. 

An  endless  clanking  goes  on  in  my  head.    It  is  the  machineij 
of  the  life  in  which  I  hang  suspended.    I  and  all  the  men  and  w 
men  in'  the  streets  are  at  this  moment  being  dipped  anew  in  til 
life  of  Chicago.     There  is  no  yesterday  for  any  of  us.    We  har| 
by  a  hook  in  the  present.     Whatever  lies  behind  this  second 
conscious  time  is  a  lie  and  I  have  set  myself  to  lie  to  the  lim 
By  my  lying  and  by  that  road  only  will  I  succeed  in  expressiij 
something  of  the  truth  of  the  life  into  which  I  also  have  bel 
flung.  f 

This  is  evidently  true.  Plows  may  not  be  pink  but  the  preval 
ing  color  of  the  flesh  of  people  is  pink.  We  have  all  been  dippj 
in  a  dawn. 


The    Little    Review  21 


Had  I  not  been  betrayed  by  my  egotism  into  trying  to  fill  the 
blank  space  in  the  thought  layers  in  the  street  my  whole  life  might 
have  been  different.  But  for  my  act  I  might  have  found  in  the 
fancy  that  had  come  to  me  the  rhythm  of  my  age  and  got  fame 
like  a  great  man. 

I  am  instead  a  man  of  infinite  littleness,  a  maker  of  words.  The 
gratification  to  me  is  that  I  am  so  much  like  you.  That  is  why 
I  understand  and  love  you.  I  will  not  however  attempt  to  be- 
come your  lover.  There  is  destruction  in  that  and  we  are  a  long 
way  from  being  fit  to  destroy  each  other.  If  however  we  find  as 
•we  go  along  that  your  insanity  strikes  the  same  chord  as  my  own 
something  remarkable  may  happen. 


{to  be  continued) 


+  + 


2  2  The    Little    Review 


TALES  OF  A  HURRIED  MAN 
by   Emanuel   Carnevali 

Tale    Two 

Va,  garde  ta  pitic  comme  ton  , 
ironie.  —  Mallarmc. 

SHE  brought  a  dove  to  the  house.  She  had  caught  it  in  the  street, 
as  she  was  coming  home  from  work:  "It  couldn't  fly  and  I 
just  caught  it."  I  had  just  come  home  from  work,  too,  and  the 
dried  sweat  covered  me  like  a  second  skin.  With  nostalgia  for  my 
heart  my  nose  was  sipping  the  evening  Spring. 

So  the  dove  came  through  the  door  in  her  hands  into  my  life. 

I  took  it  and  touched  the  soft  grey  wing  of  it  with  my  dirty 
face.  The  two  dots  of  its  eyes  said  nothing.  The  grip  of  its  red 
claws  was  gentle,  and  in  my  fingers  it  rested  as  lightly  as  a  cloudlet 
of  fog.  If  I  put  it  on  the  floor  it  just  ran  away.  It  ran  awa'y  all 
the  time.  Every  time  I  attempted  to  go  near  it,  it  just  began  to 
stagger  along,  faster  and  faster,  away  from  my  impending  fingers. 
We  had  to  feed  it:  open  its  beak  and  force  in  chunks  of  soaked 
bread  and  hard  boiled  egg.  It  did  not  like  to  eat  and  it  would 
shake  its  head  in  quick  disgust. 

But,  above  all,  it  would  make  dirty  things  all  over  the  house. 
In  every  corner,  everywhere,  in  the  morning,  I  found  green-and- 
white  little  things.  Rosaries  and  constellations  of  them,  some- 
times like  an  ornament,  sometimes  like  a  disease.  It  made  us 
sick,  the  way  that  creature  indulged  in  that!  Even  on  my  jacket 
it  did  it,  once  that  I  lay  down  to  read  and  put  it  on  my  chest  for 
an  aesthetic  accompaniment  to  my  reading. 

If  the  window  was  open  it  would  attempt  a  clumsily  desperate 
flight  towards  it.  The  real  light,  not  the  borrowed  or  stolen  lights 
of  the  houses,  was  there,  I  suppose ;  the  air,  and  whatever  a 
dove  eats  with  pleasure;  mother  and  sister  and  brother  and  real 
home — I  suppose.  But  we  did  not  want  to  let  it  go.  We  thought 
we'd  fatten  it  and  eat  it  afterwards.    We  could  not  let  it  go. 

And  we  couldn't  seriously  think  of  fattening  it  with  the  view 
of  eating  it  afterwards.     Because  we  both  hovered  over  the  dove- 
for  long  stretches  of  time,  talking  about  it.  making  vague  supposi-; 


The    Little    Review  23 


Itions.  Because  we  were  happy,  looking  at  it,  seeing  how  the 
'room  av/oke  to  the  tingle  of  its  clean  grey.  Perhaps  it  was  rather 
the  room  sinking  into  the  most  dismal  realization  of  its  own  squalid 
islovenliness,  as  the  little  grey  note  rang  unconcernedly  before  the 
hardened  and  self-important  face  of  the   immobile  furniture. 

I  was  often  angry  to  think  of  my  emotion  as  I  had  touched 
the  dove  the  first  time.     Not  a  response  to  my  affection  it  had 

tiven.    Not  a  noise. 
It  would  only  run  away  and  twist  its  head  extraordinarily  and 
hudder  with  its  neck  and  beak  when  I  forced  bits  of  hard  boiled 
fegg  down  its  clean  brown  throat.     If  I  left  it  alone  it  would  puff 
jjp  and  burrow  into  its  ruffled  plumes.     And  remain  still  for  hours. 
1       She  did  not  like  it,  because  it  made  of  the  whole  house  a  filthy 
place.     But  she  never  really  thought  of  killing  it.     And  neither 
.aid  I,  though  I  hated  it,  often,  when  it  tried  to  run  away:   once 
It  tried  to  make  for  the  door  as  I  was  going  out  and  I  kicked  it 
inside.     I  kicked  it  up  in  the  air.     It  flapped  badly  down  and 
truck  the  ground  with  one  wing  spread.     But  it  didn't  complain. 
t  did  not  twist  its  head  around  to  see  who  had  done  it;   it  just 
an  away. 

+ 
+  + 

To  try  to  explain,  so  as  to  make  the  sadness  bearable. 

Which  means,  to  rebel  against  sadness,  which  would  lead  us 
'  a  splendid  and  terrible  death  : 

The  dove  would  not  acknowledge  us.  We  were  two  sad  per- 
ms longing  for  a  sweetness  that  had  forever  flown  out  of  the 
■ach  of  our  heavy  fingertips. 

"Damn  strangers,"  it  must  have  thought  of  us. 

Desperately  so,  rather,  litle  dove,  desperately  and  hopelessly 
rangers. 

'One  may  not  touch  sweetness  with  hands  that  are  sweet  but 

^it  not  sweet  enough — only  coarse  hands  or  divine  hands  may  touch 

lu,  stubborn  littU  grey  dream  dream.     But  I  can  imprison  you 

re  and  you  won't  go  away,  you  must  stay — you  can't  deny  that 

am  keeping  you,  that  you  are  somewhat  with  me.    That's  where 

have  one  on  you.  as  they  say,  those  horrible  persons. 

I  am  a  beggar  because  I  was  thrown  out  of  every  house  in- 
le  world,  but  out  here,  where  I  am,  there  is  only  the  infinite 
Mich  neither  gives  nor  asks.  And  I  am  still  begging.  Which 
rjans  that  I  am  begging  oj  them,  does  it  not? 


\ 


24  The    Little    Review 


Ah,  you  are  a  little  darling  cloud  descended.  .  .  . 

descended  to  prove  to  them  that  clouds  may  be  held 

in  our  hands  and  caressed,  as  though 

they  were  things  of  our  own,  of  a  tissue  alike  to  our  flesh? 

No,  you  don't  want  to  be  caressed.  Long  time  ago  there  was 
a  covenant  of  silence  between  the  clouds  and  men.  The  first  hu- 
man word  broke  the  covenant  and  now  all  the  human  words  in 
all  the  books  are  not  sufficient  to  piece  together  the  covenant 
again. 

Dove, 

with  your  red  claws  like 

a  kozen  lean  red  flower. 

Your  breast  is  so  soft 

that  human  fingers 

might  die  there. 

Dove, 

I  am  not  yet  beautiful  because  no  one  has  come  to  ask  of  my 
flesh  all  the  love  that  is  in  my  flesh.  So  I  am  anchored  to  their 
streets  and  to  the  floors  of  their  houses  by  the  weight  of  sunken 
desires.  But  I  know  that  children  will  come  to  me,  my  own  children, 
and  I  know  that  I  will  not  caress  my  child  with  hands  that  are 
less  than  beautiful.  And  children  answer  us,  whereas  you,  dove, 
are  silent. 

But  children  .... 

do  children  answer  us? 

+ 
+  + 

~  As  we  expected,  it  died.  She,  who  had  gone  in  my  room 
where  the  dove's  sleeping  place  was,  got  its  box  from  under  the 
table  and  saw  it— half-spread  wings  pushed  against  the  comer  of 
the  box;  still  warm. 

+ 
+  + 

It  stayed  unwillingly  and  it  was  too  prouj  to   formulate  a 

protest.     So  it  objected  by  dying,  a  haughty  objection,  perhaps 

an  infinite  objection:   certainly  an  irrevocable  and  an  irrefutable. 

— Ooooh,  cried  she. 

She  ran  to  me:     "It  died  you  know.     Come  and  see  it." 

I  bewailed  its  death  for  a  few  minutes.     I  was  in  dismay 

We  were  silent  for  a  long  time  after,  both  of  us,  knowing  that  il 


The   Little   Review 


25 


we  should  speak  we'd  have  to  mention  the  dove. 

I  could  have  told  her  things  and  things.     I  could  have  told 
her:     Let's  cry  now,  not  because  we  really  loved  it,  not  'because 
it  is  a  loss,  but  because.  .....  I  could  have  told  her  things  and 

things.  But  they  were  things  I  could  not  tell  her.  She  was  not 
anything  like  a  dove,  ah! 

Instead,  instead — I  write,  here,  a  sort  of  lying  tale.  And  I 
imagine,  here,  that  I  spoke  to  the  dove,  after  its  death,  thus: 

You  died. 

I'm  so  tired,  the  weather  is  close,  and  I  wanted  to  whip 
this  damn  silence  away  form  me  with  some  awful  words,  and  you — 
you  wanted  to  do  a  sinister  deed  so  that  I  shouldn't  get  up  and 
whip  this  damn  silence  away  from  me. 

Yk)u  wanted  to  do  something  sinister  and  you  did  it  and 
death  has  knocked  the  curves  off  your  body,  sucked  the  flawing 
liquor  in  your  wings  and  left  them  dry  and  half -spread,  shrunken; 
pushed  you  crudely  down  the  corner  of  that  box. 

I  am  glad,  dove,  that  you  died  in  my  room. 

Some  disease  was  due,  overdue, 

and  you  come  and  die,  right  here, 

I'm  glad. 

Your  breast  is  tepid 

and  your  eyelids  are  extraordinarily 

broad  and  loose. 

the  eyelids  of  an  old  woman  with  wrinkles  of  lead. 

Your  eyelids  cover  only  half 

the  two  still  snjall  moons 

of  your  eyes: 

as  though  the  weird  mystery 

were  not  ended. 

(Ah,  get  a  zoologist  and  ask  him  why  a  dove's  eyes  do  not 

shut  when  a  dove  has  died.  .  .  ) 

Your  claws  are 

an  old  little  twig. 

Your  beak  has  tight  curves  and  ridges, 

looks  like  the  nose  of  an  old  man, 

which  debauche  has  smoothed  and  polished 

so  that  it  is  smooth  and  lean  and  shiny. 

My  hands  that  hold  you 

are 

horrible! 


26  The   Little   Review 


It  is  sweetness  that 
Is  dead. 
,    Sweetness  came  into 
my  house. 

and  its  death  has  been 
sinister. 
Do  you  wonder? 

+ 
+  + 

— Ooooh!  cried  she.     "It  died  you  know." 

I  asked:     "What'll  you  do  with  it,  we  can't  eat  it,  can  we? 

— Of  course  not,  it  died  of  itself. 

— I'll  throw  it — out  of  the  window. 

— Do — she  whispered. 

—Where? 

— Oh,  in  the  yard — she  whispered. 

— Yes — I  whispered. 

I  took  it  gently.  I  remember  how  gently  I  took  it.  I  was 
afraid  to  squeeze  it,  afraid  to  hurt  tit.  I  did  not  look  at  it. 
held  my  arm  stiff,  held  it  down,  as  if  it  stank — but,  of  course 
it  was  still  warm.  I  opened  the  window,  with  one  hand,  and  ] 
threw  it  down,  no,  I  didn't,  I  dropped  it,  I  just  opened  my  hand 
quickly.  And  I  did  not*  look  at  it  fall.  It  was  absolutely  black 
and  a  passing  train,  that  moment,  whistled.  I  shivered  for  tha 
whistle.    Damn  little  corpse! 

+ 
+  .+  . 

I  only  remember  it  at  times,  on  these  occasions:  whenever 
try  to  light  a  match  and  can't,  whenever,  washing  my  hands, 
get  wet  all  over,  whenever  I  drop  a  fork  or  a  spoon  and-pick  it  U) 
and  it  falls  again — then  I  remember  the  dove,  how  I  wouldn't  le 
it  be  anywhere,  how  it  would   stagger  away,   faster  and   fastei 
annoyed. 

+ 
+  + 

I'm  in  such  a  hurry. 


Tlie   Little    Review  27 


LETTRES  IMAGINAIRES 

by  Mary  Butts 

VII 

WELL,  my  dear.  We've  had  it  out?  I  repeat. — If  it  had  been 
another  woman,  lovelier,  wittier  than  I^ — Dolores,  Bill's  wife 
or  some  other  amoureuse,  you  would  be  dead  now,  spitted  on  a  dag- 
ger. Or  the  lady  would  have  hung  herself  on  your  door-knocker 
leaving  you  to  explain.  You  are  not  grateful  for  my  moderation. 
Yet,  you  behaved  rather  well.  You  were  skillful.  I  watched  you 
manoeuvring  to  reduce  our  affair  to  the  terms  of  the  harlequinade. 
When  you  explained  that  you  were  not  worthy  of  my  least  regard, 
I  grasped  the  setting  and  gave  you  your  Columbine.  What  did  it 
amount  to?  That  I  who  had  brought  you  peace,  had  become  the 
devourer  of  peace.  There  was  no  greed  of  which  you  might  accuse 
me.  but  you  made  your  case  against  a  vitality  which  might  destroy. 

"It  is  my  deepest  opinion  that  a  philosopher  must  avoid  love. 
I  cannot — though  I  have  wished  to — recognize  your  life  of  intui- 
tions corrected  by  intelligence.  It  interferes  with  pure  mentality!" 
And  then — "dear,  I  have  wanted  to — I  wish  that  I  were  different. 
But  I  mean  to  draw  back  before  I  hurt  you  any  more.  It  is  in- 
tolerably disagreeable  to  see  you  suffer."  Your  eyes  pleaded  for 
my  departure.  I  stood  before  your  mirror,  colouring  my  mouth. 
In  that  glass  I  saw  your  magical  presentment — In  it  was  mirrored 
the  boy  scientist,  the  'Varsity  philosopher,  the  emotional  adoles- 
cent. Heaven's  hound  called  herself  off.  I  left  Soho,  and  you, 
and  the  tragic-eyed  woman  I  passed  on  the  stairs.  I  was  almost 
at  peace,  on  the  edge  of  contemplation.  I  did  not  cry  when  I 
reached  home. 

I    am   become    a   dawn-cat,    pattering    back    with    torn    ears 
and  fur.    A  month  ago  there  seemed  no  beauty  my  body  could  not 
accomplish.    Loved  One,  there  is  a  great  gulf  outside  formal  time 
--  between  our  Sussex  days  and  these. 

"When  the  Lord  turned  again  the  Captivity  of  S'ion — 

Sion  has  gone  back  into  her  Captivity — "credit' me"  as  Ste- 
phen Bird  would  say. 


It's  all  right  Louis— you  are  not  my  lover.  You  are  a  boy 
and  have  sharpened  your  senses  on  the  scent  of  my  skin,  and  the 
colour  of  my  hair. 


28  The    Little    Rcznew 


As  a  lover  you  are  nothing.  But  the  truth  of  your  presentment 
does  not  lie  there.  I've  found  it.  This  also  is  true.  Herein  lies 
your  originality.  Most  minds  in  the  world  are  cheap,  sterile,  in- 
sincere. They  impart  their  stale  flavour  to  the  whole  But  I  have 
tasted  your  mind's  fruitfulness  and  passion  like  salt  and  fine  bread. 
There  is  your  way,  your  truth  and  your  life.  And  I  have  lived 
with  you. 

VIII 

To-day  we  met — almost  as  strangers.  We  both  wished  to  re- 
solve our  affair  into  formal  acquaintance.  We  finished  a  bottle  of 
Burgandy.  Old  Porfirio  who  had  watched  this  and  other  of  our 
affairs — was  pleased  to  see  us.  He  had  noticed  that  M'sieu  came 
no  longer  with  the  tall  Mademoiselle.  There  is  a  gentleman  tucked 
away  behind  that  round  stomach.  Do  you  realize  that  he  is  not 
licensed  to  sell  liqueurs? 

We  walked  down  Drury  Lane  greasy  with  banana  skins  and 
you  held  my  arm  and  spoke  of  Anne  that  "wafer  made  out  of  the 
blood  of  Christ."  I  could  not  point  out  the  ritual  error  while  you 
were  telling  me  of  her  trust,  explaining  that  her  confidence  appalled 
while  it  elated  you. 

O  sacred  naivete!     Has  it  never  occurred  to  you  that  I  have 
behaved  to  you  in  exactly  the  same  way. 

That's  as  may  be.  I  could  have  sneered  till  I  looked  up  and 
saw  your  face.    You  might  have  been  a  flame  enclosed  in  ivory. 

You  were  thinking? 

To  you:  Endymion,  is  it  all  one  moon  who  in  the  innumerable 
phases  of  women  turns  to  kiss  you?  Adolescent,  sensualist — ai^ 
all  women  alike  to  you  in  the  dark? 

We  walked  under  the  portico  of  Drury  Lane, 

"Klovanchina" — I  do  not  understand  the  full  implication  of 
that  music,  except  that  it  united  us  for  a  moment,  to  separate  us, 
I  think,  forever. 

When  we  came  out  the  Great  Bear  trailed  over  Covent  Gar- 
den, and  the  empty  pavement  rang,  and  the  stars  leapt  in  the  bitter 
sky.  The  music  had  ravished  and  troubled  me,  but  your  cold  ela- 
tion gave  me  the  fear  of  an  animal  that  knows  it  is  to  be  beaten. 
"Its  all  there,"  you  said  "in  that  last  Act.  The  negation  of  your 
passion— your  pleasure,  and  your  despair.  There  is  the  end  of 
being, — voluntarily  to  become  nothing,  to  evade — courteously— 
your  angel   of  the  adventure.     Withdrawal,   stillness,   immaculate 


The    Little    Review  29 


contemplation— there  is  escape  with  victory.  Isn't  that  better 
than  your  daring  and  your  temperance?" 

We  came  to  your  door,  went  upstairs  without  speaking.  You 
cid  a  strange  thing.  You  came  beside  me,  music  in  your  eyes — 
and  on  your  lips.  Then — your  eyes  closed--you  flung  yourself 
down  upon  my  breast,  and  clung  there. 

I  held  you,  sitting  upright,  dazed.  Then  I  heard  Jkn  on  the 
stairs.    He  came  in  and  found  us  very  quiet.    I  went  home. 


You're  a  brave  man  Louis.  I  cannot  accept  final  futility, 
Dostoevsky's  bath  house  fuM  of  spiders,  the  ultimate  rat  in  the 
ultimate  trap.  You  are  a  great  man.  I  "also  have  known  a  lot 
cf  men"  but  have  not  met  one  before  of  such  intelligence. 

You  can  put  them  away — 'the  things  which  feed  you,  Mozart 
and  Tchekov  and  Plotinus,  ballet  and  decor,  your  physics  which 
only  vaguely  impress  me,  your  economics  with  which  I  do  not 
agree.  You  can  put  them  away  and  bank  on  the  ultimate  bank- 
ruptcy of  all  cognition  and  passion.  I  love  you,  I  adore  your  qual- 
ity..   I'm  too  proud  to  fight. 

Varya. 

IX 

"How  am  I  fallen  from  myself. 
For  a  long  time  now 
I  have  not  seen  the  Prince  of  Chang 
in  my  dreams". 

To-day  I  went  out  on  the  word  of  a  lying  map  to  look  for 
hut  circles  and  kist  vaens  in  the  mist.  I  believed  also  that  there 
would  be  ghosts  on  the  moor.  I  found  those  I  had  brought  with 
me,  waiting  me  there.  The  mist  filtered  down  and  covered  the 
world.  I  wandered  over  those  saggy  uplands,  and  listened  to  the 
silence  made  audible  by  running  water  and  the  odd  settling  noises 
of  the  bog. 

It  was  not  the  stone  age  that  pressed  round  me,  but  my  metro- 
politan ghosts.  I  found  them  translated  in  that  iron  land  whose 
focus  is  a  prison  and  a  house  of  torture.  The  images  that  haunt 
me — the  horror  in  Valentine,  the  shadow  of  the  war,  the  starva- 
tion of  the  human  spirit,  the  thwarting  of  creation,  the  power 
whose  symbol  we  call  cruelty  rose  out  of  the  moor,  ghastly  fa- 


30  The    Little    Review 


miliar.     When   the  sun   strikes  it  after  rain   it  is   the  colour  of 
raw  flesh.     Find  me  the  greatest  common  measure  of  these  things. 

X 

You  asked  me  once:  "what  can  I  give  you  that  other  men 
cannot?  My  intelligence — {perhaps — but  not  my  person,  or  my 
wealth — I  am  'hardly  a  sexual  athlete."  And  then  the  demure 
smile,  and  the  stroke  of  the  moustache.  Dear  fool.  Am  I  to  ac- 
cuse you  of  idealising  me?  Don't  you  know  that  there  is  a  sen- 
suality in  me  no  one  has  ever  satisfied?  I'm  tired  of  echoing  As- 
pasia  and  Egeria,  but  with  you  I've  been  romp  and  amoureuse, 
shared  the  "ardors  demi-virginal"  of  the  Kirchner  Girl. 

We've  had  the  profundity  of  infinite  lightness.  With  you  I've 
danced  my  solo  in  that  equivocal  ballet  of  the  world. 

XI 

Prince  of  Chang — I  think  of  your  pale  face  and  high  cheek- 
bones, your  narrow  brilliant  eyes,  and  you  seem  to  me  remote  as 
that  Prince  You  might  be  an  enamelled  Lord,  atid  I  once  an  em- 
broidered lady,  two  pieces  of  decor  in  an  age  and  city  remote  as 
Atlantis.  ■• 

I  have  now  been  a  week  on  these  moors.  \ 

i 

"Grfat  London  where  the  sights  are  • 

And  the  lights  are  i 

And  the  nights  are." 

The  memory  of  our  affair  is  not  dead,  but  it  has  become  a  ma- 
gical objet  d'art  like  some  awful  tale  of  India  or  Japan  where  the 
raw  blood  beats  through  porcelain  and  cloisonne  and  jade.  What 
has  Ivan  made  of  this.  Nothing.  1  haven't  told  him.  I'm  learn- 
ing to  offer  myself  in  installments.  Ik'sidcs  it  won't  make  a  tale 
yet,  and  to  cry  the  raw  pain  aloud  would  riot  be  fair.  It  is  not  his 
dance  or  his  crucifi.xion.  It  is  hardly  his  business.  But  I  cannot 
give  him  what  I  would.  I've  been  too  starved.  There  are  better- 
ways.  All  the  time  the  moor  watches  me,  and  the  granite  hills. 
The  cold  streams  hiss  between  the  boulders,  the  mist  is  soft  z% 
thistle-down  and  cold  as  death. 

There  are  better  ways  than  this  acceptance  of  mutilation.  We 
are  creatures  in  time  Ivan  and  I.  Years  have  knit  us,  of  love  and 
adventure.    He  is  my  tcmix)ral  stability.    But  we  three  together—? 


T  h$    Lit  tit    Review 31 

The  moor  is  destroying  me.    Here  nature  and  the  Beast — Sologub's 
beast— are  one.     The  moor  is  a  repetition  of  the  war.     The  town 
is  a  microcosm  of  the  moor,  stripped  of  its  grotesque  beauty.     I 
am  a  tiny  seed  in  such  a  mill.    There  are  better  ways.    When  he 
and  I  first  sat  by  the  fire,  I  remembered  you,  Prince  of  Chang. 
There  is  a  pas  de  trois  in  love,  two  cannot  dance.  .....  Another 

way  of  saying  that  I  don't  see  why  I  should  not  have  you  both. 
The  result  of  the  frustration  is  that  I  am  bored.  I  sit  here,  suck- 
ing smoke  up  a  tortoishell  tube.  The  taste  of  you  bums  my  mem- 
jory — like  the  vile  cigarettes  of  this  abominable  place. 

XII 
Dear  Brutus, 

I  am  in  town  again — with  more  humour  than 
when  I  left  it.  At  least  I  watch  the  completion  of  our  cycle  with- 
out further  illusion.  It  is  like  this.  Since  Sion  has  gone  back  in- 
to her  captivity,  she  will  drink  freely  of  the  waters  of  Babylon. 
My  dear — you  don't  konw — women  who  can  stand  this  can  stand 
anything.  I  do  not  know  what  absolute  value  it  may  have,  but  I 
remember  the  nig'ht  when  the  thread  was  cut  that  tied  me  to  tem- 
ix>ral  needs.  I  have  lived  in  a  world  become  translucent.  But  I 
l^nnot  gauge  the  quality  of  the  illumination  beyond.  My  feet  have 
;)een  lighter  on  the  streets  than  on  the  day  you  said  that  you 
joved  me.  Then  I  strode  through  them  part  of  the  combers  of  the 
vind  and  the  hurrying  stars.     My  bird  had  left  the  bush   and 

iropped  into  my  hands.     Now  there  is  neither  bush  nor  bird  but 

.  stillness  like  sea  fog.    I  am  relaxed,  passive.    Then  I  remember. 

For  God's  sake  don't  stop  lovirig  me.    I  have  everything  to  learn. 

lake  my  world  new"  and  then — "you  have  come  in  time,  only  just 

I  time — "  and  the  tears  force  themselves  out  of  my  eyes,  separate 
s  stones,  and  each  a  microcosm  of  my  disappointment.  But  the 
'orst  you've  done  is  not  these.     All  that  I  might  have  written, 

II  that  I  might  have  perceived,  the  adventure  I  saw  and  have  not 
ccompJished — these  I  can  present  you.  You  begot  them.  You 
borted  them.    Now  I  am  barren.     That's  the  worst  you've  done. 


"Complaints  are  many  aiid  various 
And  my  feet  are  cold,"  said  Aquarius." 

There  is  your  side  to  this  tale,  and  I  perhaps  be  none  than  a 
sn-sick  girl. 


32 


The    Little    Review 


I 


Last  night  in  your  rooms,  I  could  not  but  iaugh.  You  were 
so  glad  to  think  that  you  had  steered  your  canoe  safe  back  to  inter- 
ested acquaintance  once  more.  Dear  Brutus,  there  was  nothing 
to  forgive. 

Vary  a. 

XIII 

Faint  white  world. 
I  stand  at  my  door. 

There  is  snow  on  every  plane  of  the  street  and  over  them  a 
mist  an  ice-gauze.  There  is  nothing  more.  I  can  live  without 
you  and  without  any  man.  Yes — "be  sorry  for  your  childishness." 
and  dance  again  and  run  about  the  world.  Nothing  more.  Not 
for  you.  The  air  is  an  unshaken  silver  net.  It  hangs  in  suspense 
outside  of  time.    So  with  me. 

Remember  the  last  Act  of  "Klovanchina".  I  do  not  know 
whether  I  am  alive  or  dead,  but  that  there  is  another  state  through 
the  antithesis  of  life  a  death.  There  is  a  cloister  for  passion,  Yoi- 
by  denying,  I  by  acceptance  have  come  to  the  same  place.  Bui 
there  are  no  final  vows.  O  Tranquillity.  There  are  no  more  grei 
walled  houses  set  to  watch  us  or  conceal,  or  scarlet  Tjusses  grind 
ing  up  the  Tottenham  Coiu-t  Road.  There  are  only  masses  an« 
spears  of  light,  coloured,  interchangeable.  All  things  are  dissolve 
into  their  elements,  all  things  dance. 

Athis.  .  .  , 


BTTLE  REYIEW 


Editor: 

Margaret  Anderson 

Foreign  Editors: 
John   Rodker  Jules   Romains 

Advisory    Board: 
jh 

NOTES  , 

A  discussion  of  Mme.  Marguerite  D 'Alvarez,  whose  concert 
fthis  month  was  one  of  the  really  notable  things  of  the  year,  will 
appear  in  the  next  number.  All  the  New  York  critics,  with  the 
exception  of  Pitts  Sanborn  and  Carl  Van  Vechten,  said  quite  un- 
believably stupid  things  about  her,  —  judged  her  singing  entirely 
from  the  family  pew. 

♦       Benno  Moiseiwitsch  made  his  American  debut  too  late  to  be 
reviewed  in  this  number.    A  notice  will  appear  next  month. 

The  Christmas  number  will  contain  a  symposium  of  May 
Sinclair's  "Mary  Olivier",  which  has  been  extensively  but  not  in- 
telligently reviewed  in  this  country. 

It  may  be  of  interest  to  some  of  the  readers  of  the  Little 
Review  to  know  that  in  his  selection  of  best  short  stories  of  the 
year  Mr  Edward  J.  O'Brien  has  chosen  Djuna  Barnes's  "A  Night 
among  the  Horses"  and  Sherwood  Anderson's  "An  Awakening.' 
They  both  appeared  in  the  issue  of  December  1918. 


34  The    Little    Review 


INTERIM 

by  Dorothy  Richardson 

Chapter    Seven 

MIRIAM  seized  her  prayer-book  and  wrote  her  name  on  the  fly- 
leaf with  a  quivering  hand.  It  was  a  letter,  written  to  Dr.  von 
Heber  when  she  was  a  girl.  They  hung  over  it  together,  he  and 
she.  Miriam.  .  .  .silence  going  through  to  the  bright  golden  si- 
lence behind  his  trained  ability.  .  .  .the  deep  brilliant  morning 
flower-filled  English  garden  silence,  the  key  to  his  recognition  of 
her;  their  two  understanding  silences  meeting  in  sunlight,  met  be- 
fore they  knew  it,  inseparable,  going  forward  unchanging,  filled 
with  one  vision  out  into  the  changing  mummeries;  he  turned, 
strong  and  capable  and  achieving,  screening  her  blindness  and  im- 
potence, towards  the  outside  life,  playing  a  brilliant  part,  coming 
every  day,  every  day,  back  into  the  central  glinting  golden  silences 
.  .  .  .all  its  lonely  certainties  no  longer  memories  but  there  always, 
visible,  renewed  all  the  time,  peopling  the  daily  far-away  brilliant 
Canadian  sttillness  in  the  background  of  their  daily  life 

She  carried  the  book  downstairs.  The  Baileys  were  still  sit- 
ting by  the  fire  with  their  backs  to  Dr.  von  Heber  standing  alone 
in  the  twilight  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  She  came  forward 
handing  the  prayer  book  stiffly  and  turning  busily  away  towards 
the  piano  impatiently  recording  his  formal  thanks  and  silent  in- 
visible departure.  She  began  playing  -again  where  she  had  left 
off;  telling  Dr.  von  Heber  going  down  through  the  house  that  he 
had  come  up  and  made  a  scene  and  interrupted  her;  that  her 
chosen  evening  had  been  to  sit,  with  the  Baileys,  playing  the  piano, 
that  she  was  not  a  church-goer.  He  had  come  so  suddenly;  after 
so  long;  suddenly  appearing  in  the  drawing-room.  If  she  had  not 
been  so  lost  she  would  have  been  ready.  If  she  had  not  been  so  pre- 
pared and  feeling  after  he  had  spoken  as  if  the  words  had  been 
long  ago  and  .she  had  been  to  church  with  him  and  they  had 
come  back  confes.sed  before  all  the  world  there  would  not  have 
been  in  his  voice  the  angry  reproachful  anticipation  of  her  stu- 
pidity. .  .  it  was  as  if  she  had  said  his  sayings  herself. 

Perhaps  he  had  really  suddenly  thought  downstairs  that  it 
would  be  nice  to  go  to  church,  not  knowing  that  that  was  one  of 
the  effects  of  falling  in  love.  .  .  .just  thinking  in  the  course  of  his 


TJte   Little   Review 35 


worldy  studies  that  there  was  church  and  he  was  in  himself  a 
church-goer  and  ought  to  go  more  often  and  coming  up  to  borrow 
a  prayer-book  from  the  Bnileys.  No.  Suddenly  in  the  room, 
standing  in  the  unknown  drawing  room  for  the  first  time,  in  his 
steady  urbane  confident  way,  waiting,  a  little  turned  towards  the 
piano.  The  Baileys  had  neither  spoken  nor  moved;  they  were 
afraid  of  him;  'but  Mrs.  Bailey  would  have  made  herself  say,  Well, 
doctor — 'the  amazing  apparition.  They  simply  waited,  held  off  by 
his  waiting  manner.  "I  think  this  is  a  good  evening  to  go  to 
church."  What  have  you  been  doing  all  this  time.  Where  do  you 
go,  going  out  so  often?  What  are  you  doing  sitting  here  playing? 
We  ought  to  be  going  to  church;  we  two.  Here  I  am  professing 
church-going  and  idiotically  confessing  myself  come  all  the  way 
from  Canada  without  a  prayer-'book  and  making  a  pretence  of 
borrowing  your  prayer-obok  because  we  must  be  in  church  togeth- 
er, remembering. 

Now  he  thought  not  only  that  she  was  not  a  church-goer  but 
that  her  own  private  life  of  coming  and  going  had  some  engage- 
ment for  the  evening,  was  complete  and  oblivious.  He  had  gone 
back  into  invisibility  with  her  answer.  It  was  no  comfort  to  re- 
flect that  Dr.  Hurd's  impressions  had  had  no  effect  upon  him. 

2. 

Dr.  Hiird  sitting  on  the  omnibus  with  inward  amusement 
carving  deep  lines  on  his  brick-red  face,  splintering  out  of  his  eyes 
into  the  hot  glare;  the  polished  new  bowler  with  the  red  hair 
:oming  down  underneath  it  and  the  well  cut  Montreal  clothes  on 
tiis  tough  neat  figure;  immovable,  there  for  the  afternoon,  no  help 
anywhere.  Nothing  in  the  world  but  the  sunlit  brick-red  laughter 
:arved  face  and  the  sunlit  green  eyes  shrieking  with  laughter  and 
the  frightful  going  on  and  on  through  the  afternoon  glare  in  the 
midst  of  a  hot  glare  of  people.  A  Canadian  knowing  the  Albert 
Hall  was  there  going  all  that  way  to  sit  with  Sunday  afternoon 
people  from  the  streets  and  parks  in  the  Oratorio  Albert  Hall 
ruined  by  a  brass  band,  and  thinking  it  was  a  concert  sitting  con- 
sumed with  laughter  on  the  way.     He  must  have  told  the  others 

My.  .  .  .  life,  they're  queer.  .  .  .  hah-heeEEE.  .  .  with  his 

body  stiff  and  his  head  up  and  his  face  crinkling  at  them,  they 
isteneing  and  waiting  and  agreeing.  .  .  .  Sitting  at  a  loss  feeling 
for  the  things  he  had  been  taught  to  admire,  his  green  eyes  roving 
)ver  the  Royle  Albert  Hawle  unable  to  find  anything  without  his 


36  The    Little    Review 


mother  and  sisters.  .  .  .  Montreal  Morrth^g  Musicale.  .  .  Matinees 
Musicales?  They  must  have  been  begun  in  some  French  part  of 
Canada.  What  he  missed  was  bright  cheerful  Canadian  ladieSf 
^Vith  opinions  about  everything.  Forming  his  thoughts.  He  was 
waiting  all  the  time  to  be  run  and  managed  in  the  Canadian  wo- 
man's way.  ...    He  had  no  self  away  from  Canadian  society. 


It  had  begun  to  show  in  the  moment  when  he  said  I'll  get  a 
new  top-hat.  The  awful  demand  for  a  jest.  His  way  of  waiting 
as  if  one  were  some  queer  being  he  was  waiting  to  see  say  or  do 
something  anyone  could  understand  was  the  same  as  the  English 
way  only  more  open.  But  English  people  like  that  did  not  care 
for  music  and  did  not  have  books  read  to  them.  Perhaps  his  par- 
ents belonged  to  the  other  sort  of  English  and  he  had  the  stamp 
of  "it,  promising  seriousness  and  a  love  of  beautiful  things,  and 
forced  by  life  into  the  jesting  way  of  worldly  people  who  seemed 
to  have  no  sacred  patches  at  all.  Quick  Avords,  bathed  in  a 
laughter  heaped  rigidly  in  a  questioning  of  what  the  matter  was. 
Men,  demanding  jests  and  amusement;  women  succeeding  only  by 
jesting  satirically  about  everything. 

"Von  Heber's  a  man  who'll  carve  his  way My  .     He's 

great."  Carve  his  way;  one  of  those  phrases  that  satisfy  and 
worry  you;  short,  and  leaving  out  nearly  everything;  Dr.  von  He- 
ber  going  through  life  with  a  chisel,  intent  on  carving;  everybody 
envying  him;  the  von  Heber  not  seen  or  ralized;  his  way  is  carved; 
he  is  his  way.  .  .  .going  ahead  further  and  further  away  as 
one  listened.  His  poverty  and  drudgery  behind  him,  at  Winnipeg, 
amongst  the  ice.     Hoisting  himself  out  of  it,  making  himself  into 

a  doctor;  a  graduate  of  "McGill" standing  out  among  the 

graduates  with  even  the  very  manner  of  success  and  stability 
more  marked  in  him  than  in  them  with  their  money  and  ease; 
sailing  to  England  steady-minded   in  the  awful  risk   of  borrowed 

money its  wrong,  insulting  to  him  to  think  of  it  while  he  is 

still  in  the  midst  of  the  effort  ....  a  sort  of  treachery  to  know 

the  details  at  all the  impossibility  of  not  dwelling  on  them. 

But  thinking  disperses  his  general  effect.  In  the  great  strengtil 
and  sunshine  of  him  there  is  jiowcr.  The  things  he  has  done  art 
the  power  in  him;  no  need  to  know  the  gossipy  details;  that  wa» 
why  the  facts  sounded  so  familiar ;  almost  reproachful  as  Dr.  Hard 
brought  them  out 


i 


The   Little   Review  37 


I  kncAv  all  about  him  when  I  met  his  sunshine.  I  ought  to 
have  rushed  away  garlanded  with  hawthorn,  with  some  wontan, 
and  waited  till  he  came  again.  Dr.  Hurd  looks  like  an  old  wo- 
man; an  old  gossip.  Old  men  are  worse  gossips  than  old  women. 
They  can't  keep  their  hands  off.  They  make  phrases.  Dr.  Hurd 
is  a  dead,  dead  old  woman.  Handling  things  like  an  old  man.  It 
was  so  natural  to  listen.     'Natural'  things  get  you  lost  and  astray 

kiss-in-the-ring  'just  a  little  harmless  nonsense  .  .  .  mere's 

no  harm  in  a  little  gay  nonesense  chickee.'  There's  no  such  thing 
as  harmless  nonsense.  Dissipation  makes  you  forget  everything . 
Secret  sacred  places.  George  and  John  faithful  and  steady  can't 
make  those.  They  smile  personally  and  the  room  or  the  land- 
i scape  is  immediately  silly  and  tame.  ...  "I  never  met  a  chap  who 
j could  make  so  much  of  what  he  knows.  .  .  .pick  up.  .  .  .  and  bring 
I  them  out  better  than  the  chap  could  himself."  The  four  figures 
'jsitting  in  the  little  room  round  the  lamp.  Dr.  Hurd  talking  his 
Igynaecology  simply;  a  relief  a  clear  clean  place  in  the  world  of 
jwomen's  doctors.  ...  Dr.  Winchester  talking  for  Dr.  von  Heber, 
Ibis  brown  beard  and  his  frock  coat  just  for  the  time  he  was  talk- 
ing before  Dr.  von  Heber  had  grasped  it  all,  looking  like  a  part  of 
the  proTfesional  world.  Dr.  Waynefiete's  white  or  criminal  face 
his  little  white  mouth  controlledly  mouthing.  .  .  .Waynefiete's  bril- 
iliant;  but  he's  not  got  von  Heber 's  strength  nor  his  manner.  He's 
iquiet  though  that  chap.  .  .  .  he'd  do  well  over  here.  .  .  .  that 
ispreads  your  .thoughts  about,  painfully  and  wholesomely.  Dr. 
Hurd  spreads  his  thoughts  about  quite  simply.  .  .  . 

The  moment  was  so  surprising  that  I  forgot  it.  I  always  for- 
get the  things  that  do  me  credit.  She  was  hating  me  and  hating 
jeverything.  I  must  have  told  her  I  was  going  away.  When  I 
said  you  can  have  Bunniken  back  she  suddenly  grew  older  than 
I.  "Oh  Bunniken."  Their  beloved  Burmiken,  as  smartly  dressed 
as  Mrs.  Corrie,  in  the  smart  country  house  way  and  kno\ving  how 

to  gush  and  behave "Bunniken's  too  simple"  Sybil  in  her 

blue  cotton  overall  in  the  amber  light  in  the  Louis  Quinze  draw- 
ing room,  one  with  me,  wanting  me  because  I  was  not  simple.  ... 
I  thought  she  betted  me  all  the  time  because  I  was  not  worldly.  I 
should  not  have  known  I  was  not  simple  unless  she  had  told  me; 
:hat  child. 

...  Dear  Mr,  Bowdoin and  I  think  I  can  promise  you 

in  audience.  ,  .  .  I  regret  that  I  cannot  come  on  Thursday  and  I  am 
sincerely  sorry  that  you  should  think  I  desired  an  audience.  .  .  the 
extraordinary  pompous  touchiness  of  men.  .  .  .  why  didn't  he  see 


I 


38  The    Little   Review 


I  did  not  dream  of  suggesting  he  should  come  again  just  to  see  me. 
I've  forgotten  Mr.  Bowdoin.  .  .  .  and  the  Museum.  .  .  .  every- 
thing and  everybody If  you  get  out  of  touch  with 'people 

you  can  never  get  back.  ...  I  sit  here.  .  .  .  playing  to  iiide  myself 
from  the  Baileys  and  he  is  away  somewhere  making  people  happy. 

"They  do  not  care they  see  me,  they  shout  Ah!  Don  Clement! 

I  amuse  them,  I  laugh,  they  think  I  am  happy." 

{to  be  continued) 

U  LYSSES 

by  James  Joyce 

Episode    Twelve 

I  WAS  just  passing  the  time  of  day  with  old  Troy  of  the  D.  M.  P. 
at  the  corner  of  Arbour  hill  there  and  be  damned  but  a  bloody 
sweep  came  along  and  he  near  drove  his  gear  into  my  eye.  I  turned 
around  to  let  him  have  the  weight  of  my  tongue  when  who  shoulc 

I  see  dodging  along  Stony  Batter only  Joe  Hynes. 

— Lo,  Joe,  says  I.    How  are  you  blowing?    Did  you  see  that  blood\ 
chimnysweep  near  shove  my  eye  out  with  his  brush? 
— Soot's  luck,  says  Joe.     Who  is  the  old  ballocks  you  were  talk- 
ing to? 

— Old  Troy,  says  I,  was  in  the  force.  I'm  on  two  minds  not  tc 
give  that  fellow  in  charge  for  obstructing  the  thoroughfares  witt 
his  brooms  and  ladders. 

— ^What  are  you  doing  round  those  parts?  says  Joe. 
— Devil  a  much,  says  I.  There  is  a  bloody  gig  foxy  thief  beyonc 
by  the  garrison  church  at  the  corner  of  Chicken  Lane — old  Tro} 
was  just  giving  me  a  wrinkle  about  him — I  lifted  any  God  s  quan- 
tity of  tea  and  sugar  to  pay  three  bob  a  week  said  he  had  a  farm  ir 
the  country  Down  off  a  hop  of  my  thumb  by  the  name  of  Mosci 
Herzog  over  there  near  Heylesbury  Street. 
—Circumcised?  says  Joe. 
— Ay,  says  I.    A  bit  of  the  top.    An  old  Plumber  named  Geraghty 

I'm  hanging  on  to  his  tow  now  for  the  past  fortnight  and 
can't  get  a  penny  out  of  him. 
— That  the  lay  you're  on  now?  says  Joe. 


___^^__^__ The  Little  Review 39 

— Ay,  says  I.  How  are  the  mighty  fallen!  Collector  of  bad  and 
doubtful  debts.  But  that's  the  most  notorious  bloody  robber  you'd 
meet  in  a  day's  walk  and  the  face  on  'him  all  pockmarks  would  hold 
a  shower  of  rain.  Tell  him,  says  he,  /  dare  him,  says  he  and  / 
double  dare  him  to  send  you  round  here  again,  or  if  he  does,  says 
ihe,  /'//  have  him  summonsed  up  before  the  court,  so  I  ■will,  for 
trading  without  a  licence.  And  he  after  stuffing  himself  till  he's 
fit  to  burst!  Jesus.  I  had  to  laugh  at  the  little  jewy  getting  his 
shirt  out.  He  drink  me  my  teas.  He  eat  me  my  sugars.  Why  he 
no  pay  me  my  moneys? 

For  nonperishable  goods  bought  of  Moses  Herzog,  of  13  Saint 
Kevin's  parade.  Wood  quay  ward,  merchant,  hereinafter  called  the 
vendor,  and  sold  and  delivered  to  Michael  E.  Geragiht,  Esquire,  of 
29  Arbour  Hill  in  the  city  of  Dublin,  Arran  quay  ward,  gentleman, 
hereinafter  called  the  purchaser,  videlicet,  five  pounds  avoirdupois 
of  first  choice  tea  at  three  shillings  per  pound  avoirdupois  and 
three  stone  avoirdupois  of  sugar,  crushed  crystal,  at  three  pence 
per  pound  avoirdupois,  the  said  purchaser  debtor  to  the  said  ven- 
dor of  I  pound  5  shilings  and  six  pence  sterling  for  value  received 
which  amount  shall  be  paid  by  said  purchaser  to  said  vendor  in 
weekly  instalments  every  seven  calendar  days  of  three  shillings  and 
no  pence  sterling:  and  the  said  nonperishable  goods  shall  not  be 
pawned  or  pledged  or  sold  or  otherwise  alienated  by  the  said  pur- 
chaser but  shall  be  and  remain  and  be  held  to  the  sole  and  exclu- 
sive property  of  the  said  vendor  to  be  disposed  of  at  his  good  will 
and  pleasure  until  the  said  amount  shall  have  been  duly  paid  by 
the  said  purchaser  to  the  said  vendor  in  the  manner  herein  set 
forth  as  this  day  hereby  agreed  between  the  said  vendor,  his  heirs, 
successors,  trustees  and  assigns,  of  the  one  part  and  the  said  pur- 
chaser,'his  heirs,  successors,  trutees  and  assigns  of  the  other  part. 
— Are  you  a  strict  t.  t?  says  Joe. 
— Not  taking  anything  between  drinks,  says  I. 
— What  about  paying  our  respects  to  our  friend?  says  Joe. 
— Who?  says  I.  Sure  he's  in  John  of  God's  off  his  head,  poor  man. 
— Drinking  his  own  stuff?  says  Joe. 
— Ay,  says  I.  Whisky  and  water  on  the  brain. 
— Come  around  to  Barney  Kienan's,  says  Joe.  I  want  to  see  the 
citizen. 

— Barney  mavourneen's  be  it,  says  I.     Anything  strange  or  won- 
derful, Joe? 

• — Not  a  word,  says  Joe.     I  was  up  at  that  meeting  in  the  City 
Arms. 


40  The    Little   Review 


— What  was  that,  Joe?    says  I. 

— Cattle  traders,  says  Joe,. about  the  foot  and  mouth  disease.     I 

want  to  give  the  citizen  the  hard  word  about  it. 

So  we  went  around  by  the  Linenhall  barracks  and  the  back 
of  the  court  house  talking  of  one  thing  or  another.  Decent  fellow 
Joe  when  he  has  it  but  sure  like  that  he  never  has  it.  Jesus,  I 
couldn't  get  over  that  bloody  foxy  Geraghty.  For  trading  without 
a  licence,  says  he. 

In  Inisfail  the  fair  there  lies  a  land  the  land  of  holy  Michan. 
There  rises  a  watchtower  beheld  of  men  afar.  There  sleep  the 
mighty  dead  as  in  life  they  slept  warriors  and  princes  of  high  re- 
nown. A  pleasant  land  it  is  in  sooth  of  murmuring  waters,  fishful 
streams  where  sport  the  gunnard,  the  plaice,  the  halibut,  the  floun- 
der and  other  denizons  of  the  acqueous  kingdom  too  numerous  to 
be  enumerated.  In  the  mild  breezes  of  the  west  and  of  the  east 
the  lofty  trees  wave  in  different  directions  their  first  class  foliage,  the 
sycamore,  the  Lebanonian  cedar,  the  exalted  planetree,  the  eucalyp- 
tus and  other  ornaments  of  the  arboreal  world  with  which  that 
region  is  thoroughly  well  supplied.  Lovely  maidens  sit  in  close 
proximity  to  the  roots  of  the  lovely  trees  singing  the  most  lovely 
songs  while  they  play  with  all  kinds  of  lovely  objects  as  for  eaxmple 
golden  ingots,  silvery  fishes,  purple  seagems  and  playful  insects. 
And  heroes  voyage  from  afar  to  woo  them,  the  sons  of  Kings. 

And  there  rises  a  shining  palace  whose  crystal  glittering  roof 
is  seen  by  mariners  who  traverse  the  extensive  sea  in  barks  built 
for  that  purpose  and  thither  come  all  herds  and  fatlings  and  first 

fruits of  that  land  for  O'Connell  Fitzsimon  takes  toll  of  them, 

a  chieftain  descended  from  chieftains.  Thither  the  extremely  large 
wains  bring  foison  of  the  fields,  spherical  potatoes  and  irridescent 
kale  and  onions,  pearls  of  the  earth,  and  red,  green,  yellow,  brown, 
russet,  sweet,  big,  bitter  ripe  pomellated  apples  and  strawberries  fit 
for  princes  and  rapsberries  from  their  canes 

I  dare  him  says  he,  and  I  doubledare  him. 

And  thither  wend  the  herds  innumerable  of  heavyhooved  kine 
from  pasturelands  of  Lush  and  Rush  and  Carrickmines  and  from 
the  streamy  vales  of  Thomond  and  from  the  gentle  declivities  of 
the  place  of  the  race  of  Kiar.  their  udders  distended  with  supera- 
bundance of  milk  and  butter  and  rennets  of  cheese  and  oblong 
eggs,  various  in  size,  the  agate  with  the  dun. 

So  we  turned  into  Barney  Kiernan's,  and  there  sure  enough 
was  the  citizen  as  large  as  life  up  in  the  corner  having  a  great  con- 
fab with  himself  and  that  bloody  mangy  mongrel.  Garryowen,  and 


I 


t 


The    Little    Review  '''  41 


he  waiting  for  what  the  sky  would  drop  in  the  way  of  drink. 

— There  he  is,  says  I,  in  his  glory  hole,  with  his  load  of  papers, 

working  for  the  cause. 

The  bloody  mongrel  let  a  grouse  out  of  him  would  give  you 
the  creeps.     Be  a  corporal  work  of  mercy  if  someone  would  take 
tiie  life  of  that  bloody  dog,    I'm  told  for  a  fact  he  ate  a  good  part 
of  the  breeches  off  a  constabulary  man  in  Santry  that  came  round 
one  time  with  a  blue  paper  about  a  licence. 
• — Stand  and  deliver,  says  he. 
— That's  all  right,  citizen,  says  Joe.    Friends  here. 
■ — Pass,  friends,  says  he. 

Then  he  rubbed  his  hand  in  his  eye  and  says  he: 
— ^What's  your  opinion  of  the  times? 

Doing  the  rapparee.  But,  begob,  Joe  was  equal  to  the  occasion. 
— I  think  the  markets  are  on  a  rise,  says  he,  sliding  his  hand  down 
his  fork. 

So  begob  the  citizen  claps  his  paw  on  his  knee  and  he  says: 
— Foreign  wars  is  the  cause  of  it. 

And  says  Joe,  sticking  his  thumb  in  his  pocket: 
It's  the  Russians  wish  to  tyrannise. 
— ^Arrah,  give  over  your  bloody  coddling  Joe,  says  I,  I've  a  thirst 
on  me  I  wouldn't  sell  for  half  a  crown. 

Give  it  a  name,  citizen,  says  Joe. 
— ^Wine  of  the  country,  says  he. 
— ^What's  yours?  says  Joe. 

Ditto  Mac  Anaspey,  says  I. 
— ^Three  pints,  Terry,  says  Joe.     And  how's  the  old  heart,  citizen? 
says  he. 

Never  better,  a  chara,  says  he.    What  Garry?     Are  we  going  to 
win?    Eh? 

And  with  that  he  took  the  bloody  old  towser  by  the  scruff  of 
the  neck  and,  by  Jesus,  he  near  throttled  him. 

The  figure  seated  on  a  large  boulder  was  that  of  a  broad- 
shouldered,  deepchested.  stronglimbed,  frankeyed,  redhaired,  freely 
freckled,  shaggybearded,  widemouthed,  largenosed,  longheaded, 
deepvoiced,  barekneed,  brawnyhanded,  hairylegged,  ruddyfaced, 
sinewyamed  hero.  From  shoulder  to  shoulder  he  measured  several 
:11s  and  his  rocklike  knees  were  covered,  as  was  likewise  the  rest 
[>f  his  body  wherever  visible,  with  a  strong  growth  of  tawny  prick- 
y  hair  in  hue  and  toughness  similar  to  the  mountain  gorse  ( Ulex 
^titopetis).  The  widewinged  nostrils  from  which  bristles  of  the 
e  tawny  hue  projected,  were  of  such  capaciousness  that  within 


42  The    Little    Review 


their  cavernous  obscurity  the  fieldlark  might  easily  have  lodged  her 
nest.  The  eyes  in  which  a  tear  and  a  smile  strove  ever  for  the 
mastery  were  of  the  dimension  of  a  goodsized  cauliflower.  A 
powerful  current  of  warm  beath  issued  at  regular  intervals  from 
the  profound  cavity  of  his  mouth  while  in  rhythmic  resonance  the 
loud  strong  hale  reverberations  of  his  formidable  heart  thundered 
rumblingly  causing  the  ground  and  the  lofty  walls  of  the  cave  to 
vibrate  and  tremble. 

He  wore  a  long  unsleeved  garment  of  recently  flayed  oxhide 
reaching  to  the  knees  in  a  loose  kilt  and  this  was  bound  about  his 
middle  by  a  girdle  of  plaited  straw  and  rushes.  Beneath  this  he 
wore  trews  of  deerskin,  roughly  stitched  with  gut.  His  nether  ex- 
tremities were  encased  in  high  buskins  dyed  in  lichen  purple,  the 
feet  being  shod  with  brogues  of  salted  cowhide  laced  with  the 
windpipe  of  the  same  beast.  From  his  girdle  hung  a  row  of  sea- 
stones  which  dangled  at  every  movement  of  his  portentous  frame 
and  on  these  were  graven  with  rude  yet  striking  art  the  tribal 
images  of  many  heroes  of  antiquity,  Cuchulin,  Conn  of  hundred 
battles,  Niall  of  nine  hostages,  Brian  of  Kincara,  the  Ardri  Mala- 
chi,  Art  Mac  Murragh,  Shane  O'Neill,  Father  John  Murphv,  Owen 
Roe,  Patick  Sarsfield,  Red  Hugh  O'Donnell,  Don  Philip  O'Sullivan 
Beare.  A  spear  of  acuminated  granite  rested  by  him  while  at  his 
feet  repxjsed  a  savage  animal  of  the  canine  tribe  whose  stertorous 
gasps  announced  that  he  was  sunk  in  uneasy  slumber,  a  supposition 
confirmed  by  hoarse  growls  and  spasmodic  movements  which  his 
master  repressed  from  time  to  time  by  tranquilizing  blows  of  a 
mighty  cudgel  rudely  fashioned  out  of  paleolithic  stone. 

So  anyhow  Terry  brought  the  three  pints  Joe  was  stan-ding  and 
begob  the  sight  nearly  left  my  eyes  when  I  saw  him  hand  out  a 
quid.  O,  as  true  as  I  am  telling  you.  A  goodlooking  sovereign. 
--And  there's  more  where  that  came  from,  says  he. 
— Were  you  robbing  the  poorbox.  Joe?  say  I? 
— Sweat  of  my  brow,  says  Joe.  'Twas  the  prudent  member  gave  me 
the  wheeze. 

— I  say  him  before  T  met  you,  says  I,  sloping  around  by  Pill  lane 
with  his  cod's  eye  counting  up  all  the  guts  of  the  fish. 

Who  comes  through  Michan's  land,  bedight  in  sable  armour? 
O'Bloom,  the  son  of  Rory:  it  is  he.  Impervious  to  fear  is  Rory's 
son:  he  of  the  prudent  soul. 

' — For  the  old  woman  of  Prince's  Street,  says  the  citizen,  the  sub- 
sidized organ.'  The  pledgebound  party  on  the  floor  of  the  house. 
And  look  at  this  blasted  rag,  says  he. 


Tlte    Little  Review  43 


—Look  at  this,  says  be.  The  Irish  Independent,  if  you  please, 
founded  by  Parnell  to  be  th"(5  workingman's  friend.  Listen  to  the 
births  and  deaths  in  the  Irish  all  for  Ireland  Independent  and  I'll 
•Jiank  you,  and  the  marriages. 

And  he  starts  reading  them  out: 
—Gordon,  Barnfield  Crescent,  Exeter;  Redmayne  of  Iffley,  Saint 
Vnne's  on  Sea,  the  wife  of  William  T.  Redmayne,  of  a  son.  How's 
hat,  eh?  Wright  and  Flint,  Vincent  and  Gillett  to  Rotha  Marion 
Daughter  of  Rosa  and  the  late  George  Alfred  Gillett  179  Clapham 
load,  Stockwell,  Playwood  and  Ridsdale  at  Saint  Jude's  Kensing- 
on  by  the  very  reverend  Dr.  Forrest,  Dean  of  Worcester,  eh? 
Deaths.  Bristow,  at  Whitehall  lane,  London:  Carr,' Stoke  Newing- 
on  of  gastritis  and  heart  disease:  Cockburn,  at  the  Moat  house., 
hepstow  .  .  . 

I  know  that  fellow,  says  Joe,  from  bitter  experience. 
Cockburn.     Dimsey,  wife  of  David  Dimsey,  late  of  the  admiral- 
/:  Miller,  Tottenham,  aged  eighty  five:  Welsh,  June  12,  at  35  Can- 
ing Street,  Liverpool.  Isabella  Helen.     How's  that,  for  a  national 
ress,  eh?    How's  that  for  Martin  Murphy,  the  Bantry  Jobber? 
-Ah,  well,  says  Joe,  handing  round  the  boose, 
hanks  be  to  God  they  had  the  start  of  us.    Drink  that,  citizen, 
r  wil.  says  he,  honourable  person. 
-Health,  Joe,  says  I. 

Aw!      Ow!      Don't  be  talking!      I  was    blue  mouldy  for  the 
mt  of  that  pint.     Declare  to  God  I  could  hear  it  hit  the  pit  of 
stomach  with  a  click. 

And  lo,  as  they  quaffed  their  cup  of  joy,  a  godlike  messenger 

e  running  in,  radiant  as  the  eye  of  heaven,  a  comely  youth  and 

[hind  him  there  passed  an  elder  of  noble  gait  and  countenance, 

aring  the  sacred  scrolls  of  law  and  with  him  his  lady  wife,  a 

e  of  peerless  lineage,  fairest  of  her  race. 

'Little  Alf  Bergan  popped  in  round  the  door  and  hid  behind 
mey's  snug,  squeezed  up  with  the  laughing,  and  who  was  sitting 
tiiere  in  the  corner  that  I  hadn't  seen  snoring  drunk,  blind  to 
world,  only  Bob  Doran.  I  didn't  know  what  was  up  and  Alf 
t  making  signs  out  of  the  door.  And  begob  what  was  it  only 
bloody  old  pantaloon  Denis  Breen  in  his  bath  slipp)ers,  with 
innoii!ip>  bloody  bjg  books  tucked  under  his  oxter  and  the  wife  hotfoot 
him,  unfortunate  wretched  woman  trotting  like  a  poodle.  1 
iight  Alf  would  split. 
iesiiftook  at  him,  says  he.  Breen.  He's  traipsing  all  round  Dublin 
e  iioii«i-  a  postcard  someone  sent  him  with  u.  p.  :  up  on  it  to  take  a 


44 The    Little    Review 

li 

And  he  doubled  up. 
— Take  a  what?  says  I. 

— Libel  action,  says  he,  for  ten  thousand  pounds. 
— O  hell!  says  I. 

The  bloody  mongrel  began  to  growl  seeing  something  was  up 
but  the  citizen  gave  'him  a  kick  in  the  ribs.  Begob  he  wakened 
Bob  Doran  anyhow.  . 

— Bi  i  dho  husht,  says  he. 
— Who?  says  Joe. 
— Breen,  says  Alf.  He  was  in  John  Henry  Menton's  and  then  he 
went  round  to  Colles  and  Ward's  and  then  Tom  Rochford  met  him 
and  sent  him  round  to  the  subsheriff's  for  a  lark.  O  God.  I've 
pain  laughing.  U.  p:  up.  The  long  fellow  gave  him  an  eye  as 
good  as  a  process  and  now  the  bloody  old  lunatic  is  gone  round 
to  Green  Street  to  look  for  a  G.  man. 

• — When  is  that  long^  John  going  to  hang  that  fellow  in  Mountjoy?  | 
says  Joe. 

— ^Bergan,  says  Bob  Doran,  waking  up.    Is  that  Alf  Bergan. 
— Yes,  says  Alf.     Hanging?    Wait  till  I  show  you.     Here,  Terry 
give  us  a  pony  of  stout.     That  bloody  old  fool!     Ten  thousanc 
pounds.    You  should  have  seen  long  Johns  eye.     U.  p 

And  he  started  laughing. 
— Who  are  you  laughing  at?     says  Bob  Doran?     Is  that  Bergan! 
— Hurry  up,  Terry  boy,  says  Alf,  with  the  stout. 

Terence  O'Ryan  heard  him  and  straightway  brqught  him  ; 
crystal  cup  full  of  the   foaming  ebon  ale  which  the  noble  twij| 
brothers  Bungiveagh  and  Bungardilaun  brew  ever  in  their  divin 
alevats,  cunning  as  the*  sons  of  deathless  Leda.     For  they  game  I 
the  succulent  berries  of  the  hop  and  mass  and  sift  and  bruise  ant 
brew  them  and  they  mix  therewith  sour  juices  and  bring  the  mus 
to  the  sacred  fire  and  cease  not  night  or  day  from  their  toil,  thosj 
cunning  brothers,  lords  of  the  vat. 

Then  did  you,  Terence,  hand  forth,  as  to  the  manner  borrj 
that  nectarous  beverage  and  you  offered  the  crystal  cup  to  him  the( 
thirsted,  in  beauty  akin  to  the  immortals 

But  he,  the  young  chief  of  the  O'Bergan's,  could  ill  brook  tl 
be  outdone  in  generous  deeds  but  gave  therefore  with  gracious  g«|~De 
ture  a  testoon  of  costliest  bronze     Thereon  embossed  in  excellaiB~ifa 
smithwork  was  seen  the  image  of  a  queen  of  regal  port,  Victofir 
her  name,  by  grace  of  God,  queen  of  Great  Britain  and  Irelaiwl 
Empress  of  India,  defender  of  the  faith,  even  she,  who  bore  ruliB^^y 


I 


The   Little    Review  45 


a  victress  over  many  peoples,  the  wellbeloved,  for  they  knew  and 
loved  her  from  the  rising  of  the  sun  to  the  going  down  thereof, 
the  pale,  the  dark,  the  ruddy  and  the  ethiop. 
— Whait's  that  bloody  freemason  doing,  says  the  citizen,  prowling 
up  and  down  outside? 
— What's  that?  says  Joe. 

— Here  you  are,  says  Alf,  chucking  out  the  rhino.  Talking  about 
hanging,  I'll  show  you  something  you  never  saw.  Hangmens'  let- 
ters, look  at  here. 

So  he  took  a  bundle  of  >visps  of  letters  and  envelopes  out  of 
his  pocket. 

— Are  you  codding?  say  I. 
— Honest  injun,  says  Alf.     Read  them. 

So  Joe  took  up  the  letters. 
— ^Who  were  you  laughing  at?  says  Bob  Doran. 

So  I  saw  there  was  going  to  be  a  bit  of  adust  Bob's  a  queer 
chap  when  the  porter's  up  in  him  so  says  I  just  to  make  talk: 
— How's  Willie  Murray  those  times,  Alf? 
— I  don't  know,  says  Alf.    I  saw  him  just  now  in  Capel  Street  with 

Paddy  Dignam.    Only  I  was  running  after  that 

— You  what?  says  Joe,  throwing  down  the  letters.     With  who? 

— ^With  Dignam,  says  Alf. 

— Is  it  Paddy?  says  Joe. 

-^Yes,  says  Alf.    Why? 

— Don't  you  know  he's  dead?  says  Joe^  • 

— Paddy  Dignam  dead?  says  Alf. 

— Ay,  says  Joe. 

■ — Sure  I  am  after  seeing  him  not  five  minutes  ago,  says  Alf,  as 

plain  as  a  pikestaff. 

— ^Who's  dead?  says  Bob  Doran. 

— ^You  saw  his  ghost  then,  says  Joe,  God  between  us  and  harm. 

— What?  says  Alf.    Good  Christ,  only  five What? 

and  Willie  Murray  with  him,  the  two  of  them  there  near  what  do 
you  call  him's What?    Dignam  dead? 

What    about    Dignam?    says    Bob    Doran.      Who's    talking 

about ? 

— Dead!  says  Alf.    He  is  no  more  dead  than  you  are. 

— Maybe  so,  says  Joe.    They  took  the  liberty  of  burying  him  this 

morning  anyhow. 

— Paddy?  says  Alf. 

— Ay,  says  Joe.    He  paid  the  detot  of  nature,  God  be  merciful  to 

him. 


46  The    Little    Review 


—Good  Christ!  says  Alf. 

Begod  he  was  what  you  might  call  llabbegastcd. 

In  the  darkness,  spirit  hands  were  felt  to  flutter,  and  when 

prayer  by had  been  directed  to  the  proper  quarter  a 

faint  'but  increasing  luminosity  of  dark  ruby  light  became  gradually 
visible,  the  apparition  of  the  etheric  double  being  particularly 
lifelike  owing  to  the  discharge  of  jivic  rays  from  the  crown  oi 
the  head  and  face.  Communication  was  effected  through  the  pi- 
tuitary body  and  also  by  means  of  the  orangefiery  and  scarlet  rays 
emanating  from  the  sacral  region  and  solar  plexus.  Questioned 
as  to  his  Whereabouts  he  stated  that  he  was  now  on  the  path  ol 
pralaya  or  return  but  was  still  submitted  to  trial  at  the  hands  oi 
certain  bloodthirsty  entities  on  the  lower  astral  levels.  In  reply 
to  a  question  as  to  his  first  sensations  beyond  he  stated  that  pre- 
viously he  had  seen  as  in  a  glass  darkly  but  that  those  who  haxl 
passed  over  had  summit  possibilities  of  atmic  development  opened 
up  to  them.  Interrogated  as  to  whether  life  there  resembled  our 
experience  in  the  flesh  he  stated  that  he  heard  from  more  favoured 
beings  that  their  abodes  were  equipped  with  every  modern  com- 
fort and  that  the  highest  adepts  were  steeped  in  waves  of  volupcy 
of  the  very  purest  nature.  Having  requested  a  quart  of  buttermilk 
this  was  brought  and  evidently  afforded  relief.  Asked  if  he  had 
any  message  for  the  living  he  exhorted  all  who  were  still  at  the 
wrong  side  of  Maya  to  acknowledge  the  true  path  for  it  was  re- 
poted  in  devanic  circles  that  Mars  and  Jupiter  were  out  for  mis- 
chief on  the  eastern  angle  where  the  ram  has  power.  It  was  then 
queried  whether  there  were  any  special  desires  on  the  part  of  the 
defunct  and  the  reply  was:  Mind  C.  K.  doesn't  pile  it  on.  It  was 
ascertained  that  the  reference  was  to  Mr.  Cornelius  Kelleher  man- 
ager of  Messrs.  H.  J.  O'Neill's  popular  funeral  estaiblishment,  a  per- 
sonal friend  of  the  defunct  who  had  been  responsible  for  the  carry- 
ing out  of  the  internment  arrangements.  Before  departing  he  re- 
quested that  it  should  be  told  to  his  dear  son  Patsy  that  the  other 
boot  which  he  had  been  looking  for  was  at  present  under  the  conk 
mode,  in  the  return  room  and  that  the  pair  should  be  sent  to  Cv^ 
len's  to  be  sold  only  as  the  heels  were  still  good.  He  stated  that 
this  had  greatly  perturbed  his  peace  of  mind  in  the  other  regicm 
and  earnestly  requested  that  his  desire  should  be  made  know^i 
Assurances  were  given  that  the  matter  would  be  attended  to  and 
it  was  intimated  that  this  had  given  satisfaction. 

He  is  gone  from  mortal  haunts:  O'Dignam,  sun  of  our  morn- 
•ng.     Fleet  was  his  foot  on  the  bracken:     Patrick  of  the  beamy 


The    Little    Review  47 


brow.     Wail,  Banba,  with,  your  wind:    and  Wail,  0  ocean,   with 

your  whirlwind. 

— There  he  is  again,  says  the  citizen,  staring  out. 

— Who,?  says  I. 

— Bloom,  says  he.     He's  on  point  duty  up  and  down  there   for 

the  last  ten  minutes. 

And,  begob,  I  saw  him  do  a  peep  in  and  then  slidder  off  again. 

Little  Alf  was  knocked  bawways.     Faith,  he  was. 
— Good  Christ!  says  he.     I  could  have  sworn  it  was  him. 

And  says  Bob  Doran,  with  the  hat  on  the  back  of  his  poll, 
he's  the  lowest  blackguard  in  Dublin  when  he's  undei"  the  influence. 
— Who  said  Christ  is  good? 
— I  beg  your  parsnips,  says  Alf. 

— Is  that  a  good  Christ,  says  Bob  Doran,  to  take  away  poor  little 
Willie  Dignam? 

— Ah,  well,   says  Alf,   trying  to  pass   it  off.     He's   over   all  his 
troubles. 

But  Bob  Doarn  shouts  out  of  him. 
— He's  a  bloody  ruffian,   I  say,   to   take   away  poor  little  Willie 
Dignam. 

Terry  came   down   and  tipped  him   the  wink'  to  keep   quiet, 
that  they  didn't  want  that  kind  of  talk  in  a  respectable  licensed 
premises.     And  Bob  Doran  starts  doing  the  weeps  about  Paddy 
Dignam,  true  as  you're  there. 
— The  finest  man,  says  he,  snivelling,  the  finest,  purest  character. 

Talking  through  his  bloody  hat.  Fitter  for  him  to  go  home 
to  the  little  sleepingwalking  bitch  he  married,  Mooney,  the  bailiff's 
daughter,  Mother  kept  a  kip  in  Hardwick  street  that  used  to  be 
stravaging  about  the  landings  Bantan  Lyons  told  me  that  was 
stopping  there  at  two  in  the  morning  without  a  stitch  on  'her,  ex- 
posing her  person  open  to  all  comers,  fair  field  and  no  favor. 
—The  noblest,  the  truest,  says  he.  And  he's  gone,  poor  little 
Willie,  poor  little  Paddy  Dignam. 

And  mournful  and  with  a  heavy  heart  he  bewept  the  extinc- 
tion of  that  beam  of  heaven. 

Old   Garryowen  started   growling   again   at   Bloom  that   was 
.skeezing  round  the  door. 
— ^Come  in,  come  on,  he  won't  eat  you,  says  the  citizen. 

So  Bloom  slopes  in  with  his  cod's  eye  on  the  dog  and  asks 
Terry  was  Martin  Cunningham  there. 

— O,  Christ  Mackeon,  says  Joe,  reading  one  of  the  letters.    Listen 
to  this,  will  you? 


48  The    Little    Review 


And  he  starts  reading  out  one. 

7,  Hunter  Street, 

Liverpool. 
To  the  High  Sheriff  of  Dublin, 

Dublin. 
Honoured  sir  i  beg  to  offer  my  services  in  the  above 
mentioned  painful  case  i  hanged  Joe  Gann  in  Bootle  jail 
on  the  12  of  Febuary  1900  and  /  hanged 

— Show  us,  Joe  says  I. 

.  .  .  private  Arthur  Chace  for  fowl  murder  of  Jessie  Tilsit 
in  Pcntonville  prison  and  i  ivas  assistant  when 

— Jesus,  says  I. 

.  .  .  Billington  executed  the  awful  murderer  Toad  Smith.  .  . 

The  citizen  made  a  grab  at  the  letter. 
— Hold  hard,  says  Joe, 

i  have  a  special  nack  of  putting  the  noose  once  in  he  can't 
get  out  hoping  to  be  favoured  i  remain,  honoured  sir,  my 
terms  is  five  ginnces. 

H.  Rumbold 

Master  Barber 

— And  a  barbarous  bloody  barbarian  he  is  too,  says  the  citizen, 
— And  the  dirty  scrawl  of  the  wretch,  says  Joe.  Here,  says  he 
take  them  to  hellout  of  my  sight,  Alf.  Hello,  Bloom,  says  he,  wha 
will  you  have? 

They  started  arguing  about  the  point,  \  Bloom  saying  ftn 
wouldn't  and  he  couldn't  and  excuse  him  no  offence  and  all  t< 
that  and  then  he  said  well  he'd  just  take  a  cigar.  Gob,  he's  i 
prudent  member  and  no  mistake. 
— Give  us  one  of  your  prime  stinkers,  Terry,  says  Joe. 

Any  Alf  was  telling  us  there  was  one  chap  sent  in  a  mounrin 
card  with  a  black  border  round  it. 
— They're  all  barbers,  says  he,  from  the  black  country  that  wouh 
hang  their  own  fathers  for  five  quid  down  and  travelling  expense* 

And  he  was  telling  us  they  chop  up  the  rop>e  after  and  sd 
the  bits  for  a  few  bob  each. 

In  the  dark  land  they  hide,  the  vengeful  knights  of  the  raroi 
Their  deadly  coil  they  grasp:  ya,  and  therein  they  lead  to  Erebu 


i 


The    Little    Review  49" 


vhatsoever  wight  hath  done  a  deed  of  blood  for  I  will  on  nowise 

luffer  it  even  so  saith  the  Lord. 

I       So  they  started  talking  about  capital  punishment  and  of  course 

^loom  comes  out  with  the  why  and  the  wherefore  and  all  the  cod- 

tlogy  of  the  business  and  the  old  dog  smelling  him  all  the  time  I'm 

old  those  Jews  have  a  sort  of  queer  odour  coming  off  them  for 

logs  about  I  don't  know  what  all  deterrent   effect  and  so  forth 

Jid  so  on. 

-There's  one  thing  it  hasn't  a  deterrent  effect  on,  says  Alf.* 


So  of  course  the  citizen  was  only  waiting  for  the  wink  of  the 
v'ord  and  he  starts  gassing  out  of  him  about  the  invincibles  and 
vho  fears  to  speak  of  ninetyeight  an-d  Joe  with  him  about  all  the 
ellows  that  were  hanged  for  the  cause  by  drumhead  court  marshal 
.nd  a  new  Ireland  and  new  this  that  and  the  other.  Talking 
bout  new  Ireland  he  ought  to  go  and  get  a  new  dog  so  he  ought. 
4angy  ravenous  brute  sniffling  and  sneezing  all  round  the  place 
nd  scratching  his  scaibs  and  round  he  goes  to  Bob  Doran  that  was 
itanding  Alf  a  'half  one  sucking  up  for  what  he  could  get 
^o  of  course  Bob  Doran  starts  doing  the  bloody  fool  with  him: 
^Give  us  the  paw!  Give  us  the  paw,  doggy!  Good  old  doggy, 
live  us  the  paw  here!     Give  us  the  paw! 

Arrah!  bloody  end  to  the  paw  he'd  give  and  Alf'  trying  to 
eep  him  from  tumbling  off  the  bloody  stool  atop  of  the  bloody 
Id  dog  and  he  talking  all  kinds  of  drivel  about  training  by  kind- 
ess  and  thoroughbred  dog  and  intelligent  dog:  give  you  the 
iloody  pip.  Then  he  starts  scraping  a  few  bits  of  old  biscuit  out 
!f  the  bottom  of  a  Jacob's  tin  he  told  Terry  to  bring.  Gob,  he 
oUoped  it  down  like  old  boots  and  his  tongue  hanging  out  for 
lore.    Near  ate  the  tin  and  all,  hungry  bloody  mongrel. 

And  the  citizen  and  Bloom  having  an  argument  about  the 
oint,  Robert  Emmet  and  die  for  your  country,  the  Tommy  Moore 
)uch  about  Sarah  Curran  and  she's  far  from  the  land.  And  Bloom 
f  course,  ^with  his  knock  me  down  cigar  putting  on  swank  with 
is  lardy  face.  Phenomenon!  The  fat  heap  he  married  is  a  nice 
Id  phenomenon.  Time  they  were  stopping  up  in  the  City  Arms 
isser  Burke  told  me  there  was  an  old  one  there  with  a  cracked  neph- 


*  A  passage  of  some  twenty  lines  has  been  omitted  to  avoid  the 
■nsor's  possible  suppression. 


I 


so  T/i€    Little    Review 


ew  and  Bloom  trying  to  get  the  soft  side  of  'her  doing  the  molly  cod- 
dle playing  bezique  to  come  in  for  a  bit  of  the  wampum  in  her 
will  and  not  eating  meat  of  a  Friday  because  the  old  one  was  al- 
ways thumping  her  craw  and  taking  the  lout  out  for  a  walk.  And 
one  time  he  brought  him  back  as  drunk  as  a  boiled  owl  and  he 
said  he  did  it  to  teach  him  the  evils  of  alcohol,  and,  by  herrings 
the  women  bear  roasted  him,  the  old  one.  Bloom's  wife  and  Mrs. 
O'Dowd  that  kept  the  hotel — Jesus,  I  had  to  laugh  at  Pisser  Burke 
taking  them  off  chewing  the  fat  and  Bloom  with  his  hut  don't  you 
see?  and  but  on  the  other  hand.  Phenomenon! 
— The  memory  of  the  dead,  says  the  citizen  taking  up  his  pint- 
glass  and  glaring  at  Bloom. 
— Ay,  ay,  says  Joe. 

— You  don't  grasp  my  point,  says  Bloom.     What  I  mean  is 

— Sinn  Fein!  says  the  citizen.     Sinn  je'm  amhain!     The   friends 
we  love  are  'by  our  side  and  the  foes  we  hate  before  us. 

The  last  farewell  was  affecting  in  the  extreme.  From  the  bel- 
fries far  and  near  the  funereal  deathbell  tolled  unceasingly,  while 
all  around  the  gloomy  precincts  rolled  the  ominous  warning  of  a 
hundred  muffled  drums  punctuated  by  the  hollow  booming  of  ord- 
nance. The  deafening  claps  of  thunder  and  the  dazzling  flashes 
of  lightning  which  lit  up  the  ghastly  scene  testified  that  the  artil- 
lery of  heaven  had  lent  its  supernatural  pomp  to  the  already  grue- 
some spectacle.  A  torrential  rain  poured  down  from  the  floodgates 
of  the  angry  heavens  upon  the  bared  heads  of  the  assembled  mul- 
titude which  numbered  at  the  lowest  computation  five  hundred 
thousand  persons.  The  learned  prelate  who  administred  the  last 
comforts  of  holy  religion  to  the  hero  martyr  knelt  in  a  most  chris- 
tian spirit  in  a  pool  of  rain  water,  his  cassock  above  his  hoary 
head,  and  offered  up  to  the  throne  of  grace  fervent  prayers  of  sup- 
plication. Hard  by  the  block  stood  the  grim  figure  of  the  execu- 
tioner, his  visage  concealed  in  a  ten  gallon  pot  with  two  cir- 
cular perforated  apetures  through  w^hich  his  eyes  glowered  fur- 
iously. As  'he  waited  the  fatal  signal  he  tested  the  edge  of  his 
horrible  weapon  by  honing  it  upon  his  brawny  forearm  or  decap- 
itated in  rapid  succession  a  flock  of  sheep  which  had  been  provided 
by  the  admirers  of  his  fell  but  necessary  office.  On  a  handsome 
mahogany  table  near  him  were  neatly  arranged  the  quartering 
knife,  the  various  finely  tempered  disembowelling  appliances,  a  ter- 
racotta saucepan  for  the  reception  of  the  duodenum,  colon,  blind 
intestine  and  appendix  etc.,  when  successfully  extricated  and  two 
commodious  milkjugs  destined  to  receive  the  most  precious  blood 


The   Little   Review  51 


of  the  most  precious  victim.  The  housesteward  of  the  amalgama- 
ted cats'  and  dogs'  home  was  in  attendance  to  convey  these  vessels 
when  replenished  to  that  beneficent  institution.  Quite  an  excellent 
repast  consisting  of  rashers  and  eggs,  fried  steak  and  onions,  de- 
licious hot  breakfast  rolls  and  invigorating  tea  had  been  consid- 
erately provided  by  the  authorities  for  the  consumption  of  the  cen- 
tral figure  of  the  tragedy  but  he  expressed  the  dying  wish  (im- 
mediately acceded  to)  that  the  meal  should  be  divided  in  aliquot 
parts  among  the  members  of  the  sick  and  indigent  roomkeepers 
association  as  a  token  of  his  regard  and  esteem.  The  non  plus 
ultra  of  emotion  was  reached  when  the  blushing  bride  elect  burst 
her  way  through  the  serried  ranks  of  the  bystanders  and  flung  her- 
self upon  the  muscular  bosom  of  him  who  was  about  to  die  for  her 
sake.  The  hero  folded  her  willowy  form  in  a  loving  embrace  mur- 
muring fondly  Sheila,  my  own.  Encouraged  by  this  use  of  her 
christian  name  she  kissed  passionately  all  the  various  suitable 
areas  of  his  person  which  the  decencies  of  prison  garb  permitted 
her  adour  to  reach.  She  swore  to  him  as  they  mingled  the  salt 
streams  of  their  tears  that  she  would  cherish  his  memory,  that  she 
would  never  forget  her  hero  boy.  'She  brought  back  to  his  recollec- 
tion the  happy  days  of  blissful  childhood  together  on  the  banks 
of  Anna  Liffey  when  they  had  indulged  in  the  innocent  pastimes 
of  the  young,  and,  oblivous  of  the  dreadful  present,  they  both 
laughed  heartily,  all  the  spectators,  including  the  venerable  pastor, 
joining  in  the  general  merriment.  But  anon  they  were  overcome 
with  grief  and  clasped  their  hands  for  the  last  time.  A  fresh  tor- 
rent of  tears  burst  from  their  lachrymal  ducts  and  the  vast  con- 
course of  people,  touched  to  the  inmost  core,  broke  into  heartrend- 
ing sobs,  not  the  least  affected  being  the  aged  prebendary  himself. 
A  most  romantic  incident  occured  when  a  handsome  young  Ox- 
ford graduate  noted  for  his  chivalry  towards  the  fair  sex,  stepped 
forward  and,  presenting  his  visiting  card,  bankbook  and  geneal- 
ogical tree  solicited  the  hand  of  the  hapless  young  lady  and  was 
accepted  on  the  spot.  This  timely  and  generous  act  evoked  a 
fresh  outburst  of  emotion:  and  when  he  placed  on  the  finger  of 
his  blushing  fiancee  an  expensive  engagement  ring  with  three  em- 
eralds set  in  the  form  of  a  shamrock  excitment  knew  no  bounds. 
Nay,  even  the  stern  provost  marshal,  lieutenant  colonel  Tomkin — 
Maxwell  Frenchmullen  Tomlinson,  who  presided  on  the  sad  occa- 
sion, he  Avho  had  blown  a  considerable  number  of  sepoys  from  the 
cannonmouth  without  flinching,  could  not  now  restrain  his  na- 
tural emotion.    With  his  mailed  gaunlet  he  brushed  away  a  furtive 


52  The    Little    Review 


tear  and  was  overheard  by  those  privileged  burghers  who  hap- 
pened to  be  in  his  immediate  entourage,  to  murmur  to  himself  in 
a  faltering  undertone: 

— God  blimey  it  makes  me  kind  of  cry,  straight,  it  does,  when  I 
sees  her  cause  I  thinks  of  my  old  mashtub  what's  waiting  for  me 
down  Limehouse  way. 

So  then  the  citizen  begins  talking  about  the  Irish  language 
and  the  cooperation  meeting  and  all  to  that  and  the  shoneens 
that  can't  sp>eak  their  o\vn  language  and  Joe  chipping  in  his  old 
goo  with  his  twopenny  stump  that  he  cadged  off  Joe  and  talking 
about  the  Gaelic  league  and  the  antitreating  league  and  drink,  the 
curse  of  Ireland.  Antitreating  is  about  the  size  of  it.  Gob,  he'd 
let  you  pour  all  manner  of  drink  down  his  throat  till  the  Lord 
would  call  him  before  you'd  ever  see  the  froth  of  his  pint.  And 
one  night  I  went  in  with  a  fellow  into  one  of  their  musical  evenings, 
song  and  dance  and  there  was  a  fellow  with  a  badge  spiffing  out 
of  him  in  Irish  and  a  lot  of  colleen  bawns  going  about  with  tem- 
perance beverages  and  selling  medals.  And  then  an  old  fellow 
starts  blowing  into  his  bagpipe  and  all  shuffling  their  feet  to  the 
tune  the  old  cow  died  of.  And  one  or  two  sky  pilots  having  an 
eye  around  that  there  was  no  goings  on  with  the  females,  hrtting 
below  the  belt. 

So,  as  I  was  saying,  the  old  dog  seeing  the  tin  was  empty 
starts  mousing  around  Joe  and  me.    I'd  train  him  by  kindness,  so 
I  would,  if  he  was  my  dog.     Give  him  a  rousing  fine  kick  now  and 
again  where  it  wouldn't  blind  him. 
— Afraid  he'll  bite  you?  says  the  citizen  sneering. 
— No.  says  I,  but  he  might  take  my  leg  for  a  lamppost. 

So  he  calls  the  old  dog  over. 
— What's  on  you,  Garryowen?  says  he. 

Then  he  starts  hauling  and  mauling  and  talking  'to  him  in 
Irish  and  the  old  towser  growling,  letting  on  to  answer,  like  a  duet 
in  the  opera.  Such  growling  you  never  heard  as  they  let  off  be- 
tween them.  Someone  that  has  nothing  better  to  do  ought  to  write 
a  letter  pro  bono  publico  to  the  papers  about  the  muzzling  order 
for  a  dog  the  like  of  that.  Growling  and  grousing  and  his  eye 
all  bloodshot  and  the  hydrophobia  dropping  out  of  his  jaws. 

All  those  who  are  interested  in  the  spread  of  human  culture 
among_the  lower  animals  (and  their  name  is  legion)  should  make 
a  point  of  not  missing  the  really  marvellous  exhibition  of  cynan- 
thropy  given  by  the  famous  animal  Garryowen.  The  exhibition, 
which  is  the  result  of  years  of  training  by  kindness  and  a  care- 


i 


The   Little    Review  51 


fully  tlrought  out  dietary  system,  comprises,  among  other  achieve- 
ments, the  recitation  of  verse.  Our  phonetic  experts  have  left  no 
stone  unturned  in  their  efforts  to  delucidate  and  compare  the  verse 
recited  and  have  found  it  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  the  rauns 
of  ancieq^  Celtic  bards.  We  are  not  speaking  so  much  of  those  de- 
lightful Jovesongs  with  which  the  writer  w'ho  conceals  his  identity 
under  the  title  of  -the  little  sweet  branch  has  familiarised  the  book- 
loving  world  but  rather  of  the  harsher  and  more  personal  note 
which  is  found  in  the  satirical  effusions  of  the  famous  Raftery  and 
of  Donal  Mac  Considine.  We  subjoin  a  specimen  which  has  been 
rendered  into  English  by  an  eminent  scholar  whose  name  for  the 
moment  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  disclose  though  we  believe  that 
our  readers  will  find  the  topical  allusion  rather  more  than  an  indi- 
cation. The  metrical  system  of  the  canine  original,  which  recalls 
the  intricate  alliterative  and  isosyllabic  rules  of  the  Welsh  englyn, 
is  infinitely  more  complicated  but  we  believe  our  readers  will  agree 
that  the  spirit  has  been  well  caught.  .Perhaps  it  should  be  added 
that  the  effect  is  greatly  increased  if  the  verse  be  spoken  someWhat 
slowly  and  indistinctly  in  a  tone  suggestive  of  suppressed  rancour. 

The  curse  of  my  curses 
Seven  days  every  day 
And  seven  dry  Thursdays 
On  you,  Barney  Kiernan, 
Has  no  sup  of  water 
To  cool  my  courage, 
And  my  guts  red  roaring 
After  Lowry's  lights. 

So  he  told  Terry  to  bring  some  water  for  the  dog  and,  gob, 
you  could  hear  him  lapping  it  up  a  mile  off.     And  Joe  asked  him 
would  he  love  another. 
— I  will,  says  he,  to  show  there's  no  ill  feeling. 

Gob,  he's  not  as  green  as  he's  cabbagelooking.  Arsing  around 
form  one  pub  to  another  with  a  dog  and  getting  fed  up  by  the 
ratepayers.    Entertainment  for  man  and  beast.    And  says  Joe: 
— ^Could  you  make  a  hole  in  another  pint? 
— ^Could  a  swim  duck?    says  I. 

• — Same  again  Terry,   says  Joe.     Are  you  sure  you  won't  have 
anything  in  the  way  of  liquid  refreshment?  says  he. 
— Thank  you,  no,  says  Bloom.     As  a  matter  of  fact  I  just  wanted 
to  meet  Martin  Cunningham,  don't  you  see,  about  ^this  insurance 
of  Dignam's.    Martin  asked  me  to  go  to  the  house.    You  see,  he. 


54  The   Little    Review 


Digiiani,  I  mean,  didn't  serve  any  notice  of  the  assignment  on  the 

company  at  the  time  and  really  under  the  act  the  mortgagee  can't. 

recover  on  the  policy. 

— That's  a  good  one  by  God,  says  Joe  laughing,  if  old  Bridgemaij 

is  landed.  So  the  wife  comes  out  top  dog,  what?  ^ 

— 'Well,  that's  a  point,  says  Bloom,  for  the  wife's  admirers. 

— 'Whose  admirers?  says  Joe. 

— The  wife's  advisers,  I  mean,  says  Bloom. 

Then  he  starts  all  confused  mucking  it  up  about  the  mortga- 
gor under  the  act  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  wife  and  that  a  trust 
is  created  but  on  the  other  hand  that  Dignam  owes  the  money  anc 
if  now  the  wife  or  the  widow  contested  the  mortagee's  right  till  he 
near  gave  me  a  pain  in  my  head  with  his  mortagagor  under  the 
act.  He  was  bloody  safe  he  wasn't  run  in  himself  under  the  act 
that  time  as  a  rogue  and  vagabond  only  he  had  a  friend  in  court. 
Selling  bazaar  tickets  or  what  do  you  call  it  royal  Hungarian 
privileged  lottery.  O,  commend  me  to  an  Israelite!  Royal  and 
privileged  Hungarian  robbery. 


{To  be  continued) 


The   Little   Review _^    55 

THE   CHINESE   WRITTEN   CHARACTER  AS 
A  MEDIUM  FOR  POETRY 

by  Ernest  Fenollosa  and  Ezra  Pound 

In  the  derivation  of  nouns  from  verbs,  the  Chinese  language  is  fore- 
stalled by  the  Aryan.  Almost  all  the  Sanskrit  roots,  which  seem  to 
underlie  European  languages,  are  primiitive  verbs,  which  express  charac- 
teristic actions  of  visible  nature.  The  verb  must  be  the  primary  fact  of 
(nature,  since  motion  and  change  are  all  that  we  can  recognize  in  her.  In 
,the  priniitive  transitive  sentence,  such  as  "Farmer  pounds  rice,"  the  agent 
and  the  object  are  nouns  only  in  so  far  as  they  limit  a  unit  of  action. 
"Farmer"  and  "rice"  are  mere  hard  terms  which  define  the  extremes  of 
the  pounding.  But  in  ithemselves,  apart  from  this  sentence-function,  they 
are  naturally  verbs.  The  farmer  is  one  who  tills  the  ground,  and  the  rice 
jis  a  plant  which  grows  in  a  special  way.  This  is  indicated  in  the  Chinese 
[characters.  And  this  probably  exemplifies  the  ordinary  derivation  of 
nouns  from  verbs.  In  all  languages,  Chinese  included,  a  noun  is  origi- 
nally "that  which  does  something,"  that  which  performs  the  verbal  action. 
Thus  the  moon  comes  from  the  root  ma,  and  means  "the  measurer."  The 
sun  means  that  which  begets. 

The  derivation  of  adjectives,  from  the  verb  need  hardly  be  exempli- 
fied. Even  with  us,  to-day,  we  can  still  watch  participles  passing  over 
nto  adjectives.  In  Japanese  the  adjective  is  frankly  part  of  the  inflection 
of  the  verb,  a  special  mood,  so  that  every  verb  is  also  an  adjective.  This 
brings  us  close  to  nature,  because  everywhere  the  quaUty  is  only  a  power 
»f  action  regarded  as  having  an  abstract  inherence.  Green  is  only  a 
ertain  rapidity  of  vibration,  hardness  a  degree  of  tenseness  in  cohering, 
[n  Chinese  the  adjective  always  retains  a  substratum  of  verbal  meaning. 
[We  should  try  to  render  this  in  translation,  not  be  content  with  some 
loodless  adjectival  abstraction  plus  "is." 

Still  more  interesting  are  the  Chinese  "prepositions,"  they  are  often 
Ipost-positions.     Prepositions   are   so   important,   so   pivotal   in   European 


Owing  to  the  initiation  of  printers,  proof-readers,  etc.,  we  find  that 
H  illustration  {under  "Farmer  pounds  rice")  which  was  not  to  have 
ppeared  until  later  was  inserted  in  last  month's  instalment  of  Prof. 
Fenollosa's  essay.  The  illustration  has  nothing  to  do  with  pounding  rice; 
i  refers  to  the  sun's  rising  in  the  east. 


56  The   Little   Review 


sptccli  only  lucausc  wc  liavc  weakly  yielded  up  the  force  of  our  intrai 
sitive  verbs.  We  have  to  add  small  supernumerary  words  to  bring  ba( 
the  original  power.  We  still  say  "I  see  a  horse,"  but  with  the  wei 
verb  "look,"  we  have  to  add  the  directive  particle  "at"  before  we  a 
restore  the  natural  transitiveness.* 

Prepositions  represent  a  few  simple  ways  in  which  incomplete  ver 
complete  themselves.  Pointing  toward  nouns  as  a  limit  they  bring  for 
to  bear  upon  hem.  That  is  to  say,  they  are  naturally  verbs,  of  gener 
lized  or  condensed  use.  In  Aryan  languages  it  is  often  difficult  to  tra 
the  verbal  origin*  of  simple  prepositions.  Only  in  "off"  dp  we  see 
fragment  of  the  thought  "to  throw  ofT."  In  Chinese  the  preposition 
frankly  a  verb,  specially  used  in  a  generalized  sense.  These  verbs  a 
offten  used  in  their  specially  verbal  sense,  and  it  greatly  weakens 
English  translation  if  they  are  systematically  rendered  by  colorless  pi 
positions. 

Thus  in  Chinese:  By=to  cause;  to=to  fall  toward;  in^rto  reraa 
to  dwell;  from=^o  follow;  and  so  on. 

Conjunctions  are  similarly  derivative,  they  usually  serve  to  medi; 
actions  between  verbs,  and  therefore  they  are  necessarily  themselves  ; 
tions.     Thus  in   Chinese :   Becaus€t=ito   use ;   and=to  be  included   un< 
one;  another  form  of  "and"r:zto  be  parallel;  or^o  partake;  if=to 
one  do,  to  permit.     The  same  is  true  of  a  host  of  other  particles, 
longer  traceable  in  the  Aryan  tongues. 

Pronouns  appear  a  thorn  in  our  evolution  theory,  since  they  hs 
been  taken  as  unanalysable  expressions  of  personality.  In  Chinese  e^ 
they  yield  up  their  striking  secrets  of  verbal  metaphor.  They  are  a  a 
stant  source  of  weakness  if  colorlessly  translated.  Take,  for  exam; 
the  five  forms  of  "I."  There  is  the  sign  of  a  "spear  in  the  hand' 
a  very  emphatic  1  ;  five  and  a  mouthr=a  weak  and  defensive  I,  hold 
oflF  a  crowd  by  speaking;  to  conceal:=a  selfish  and  private  I;  self  ( 
cocoon  sign)  and  a  moutli=an  egoistic  I,  one  who  takes  pleasure  in 
own  speaking;  the  self  presented  is  used  only  when  one  is  speakinff 
one's  self. 

I  trust  that  this  digression  concerning  parts  of  speech  may  have  j 
tified  itself.  It  proves,  first,  the  enormous  interest  of  the  Chinese  1 
guage  in  throwing  light  upon  our  forgotten  mental  processes,  and  t' 
furnishes  a  new  chapter  in  the  philosophy  of  language.     Secondly,  tl 


*\This  is  a  had  rxatuf>}r.     IVc  can  say  "I  look  a  fool",  "look",  tt 
five,  now  incaus  resemble.    The  main  contention  is  however  correct.\ 
tend  to  abandon  sl>ecific  zvords  like  "resemble"  ^nd  substitute,  for 
vague  verbs  U'ith  prepositional  directors,  or  riders. — E.  P.] 


The    Little   Review  57 


spispensable  for  understanding  the  poetical  raw  material  which  the 
Oinese  language  affords.  Poetry  differs  from  prose  in  ithe  concrete 
dors  of  its  diction.  It  is  not  enough  for  it  to  furnish  a  meaning  to 
plosophers.  It  must  appeal  to  emotions  with  the  charm  of  direct  im- 
pssion,  flashing  through  regions  where  the  intellect  can  only  grope.* 
I'Ctry  must  render  what  is  said,  not  what  is  merely  meant.  Abstract 
raning  gives  little  vividness,  and  fullness  of  imagination  gives  all.  Chi- 
rse  poetry  demands  that  we  abandon  our  narrow  grammatical  categories, 
tit  we  follow  the  original  text  with  a  wealth  of  concrete  verbs. 

But  this  is  only  the  beginning  of  the  matter.  So  far  we  have  ex- 
Hited  the  Chinese  characters  and  the  Chinese  sentence  chiefly  as  vivid 
sorthand  pictures  of  actions  and  processes,  in  nature.  These  embody 
t  e  poetry  as  far  as  they  go.     Such  actions  are  seen,  but  Chinese  would 

'  poor  language  and  Chinese  poetry  but  a  narrow  art,  could  they  not 

I  to  represent  also  what  is  unseen.  The  best  poetry  deals  not  only 
V  h  natural  images  but  with  lofty  thoughts,  spiritual  suggestions  and 
;  ;cure  relations.  The  greater  part  of  natural  truth  is  hidden  in  pro- 
cses  ^o  minute  for  vision  and  in  harmonies  too  large,  in  vibrations, 
ciesions  and  irr  affinities.  The  Chinese  compass  these  also,  and  with 
g;at  power  and  beauty. 

^'ou  will  ask,  how  could  the  Chinese  have  built  lip  a  great  intellectual 
from  mere  picture  writing?  To  the  ordinary  western  mind,  which 
es  that  thought  is  concerned  with  logical  categories  and  which  rather 
;mns  the  faculty  of  direct  imagination,  this  feat  seems  quite  impossi- 
Yet  the  Chinese  language  with  its  peculiar  material  has  passed  over 
the  seen  to  the  unseen  by  exactly  the  same  process  which  all  ancient 
employed.  The  process  is  metaphor,  the  .use  of  material  images  to 
St  immaterial  relations.* 

^lie  whole  delicate  suljstance  of  speech  is  built  upon  substrata  of 
ihor.  Abstract  terms,  pressed  by  etymology,  reveal  their  ancient 
still  embedded  in  direct  action.  But  the  primative  metaphors  do 
pring  from  arbitrary  subjective  processes.  They  are  possible  only 
ise  they  follow  objective  lines  of  relations  in  nature  herself.  Rela- 
are  more  real  and  more  important  than  the  things  which  they  relate, 
forces  which  produce  the  branch-angles  of  an  oak  lay  potent  in  the 
Similar  lines  of  resistance,  half  curbing  the  out-pressing  vitalities, 

II  the  branching  of  rivers  and  of  nations.     Thus  a.nerve,  a  wire,  a 
way,  and  a  clearing-house  are  only  varying  channels  which  communi- 


*[Cf.  principle  of  Primary  apparition,  "Spirit  of  Romance",  — E.  P.] 
'^[Compare  Aristotle's  Poetics. — E.  P.] 


58  The    Little    Review 


cations  forces  for  itself.  This  is  more  than  anaUjgy,  it  is  identity  o\ 
structure.  Nature  furnishes  her  own  chtes.  Had  the  world  not  been  ful* 
of  homologies,  sympatliies,  and  identities,  thought  would  have  beer 
starved  and  language  chained  to  the  obvious.  There  would  have  been  nc 
bridge  whereby  to  cross  from  the  minor  truth  of  the  seen  to  the  majoi 
truth  of  the  unseen.  Not  more  than  a  few  hundred  roots  out  of  qui 
large  vocabularies  could  have  dealt  directly  with  physical  processes 
These  we  can  fairly  well  identify  in  primitive  Sanskrit.  They  are 
almost  without  exception,  vivid  verbs.  The  wealth  of  European  speed 
grew,  following  slowly  the  intricate  maze  of  nature's  suggestions  and  affi 
nities.     Metaphor  was  piled  upon  metaphor  in  quasigeological  strata. 

Metaphor,  the  revealcr  of  nature,  is  the  very  substance  of  poetrj 
The  known  interprets  the  obscure,  the  universe  is  alive  with  myth.  Th 
beauty  and  freedom  of  the  observed  world  furnish  a  model,  and  life'i 
pregnant  with  art.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose,  with  some  philosophers  o 
aesthetics,  that  art  and  poetry  aim  to  deal  with  the  general  and  the  abstrac 
This  misconception  has  been  foisted  upon  us  by  mediaeval  logic.  Art  an 
poetry  deal  with  the  concrete  of  nature,  not  with  rows  of  separate  "pat 
ticulars,"  for  such  rows  do  not  exist.  Poetry  is  finer  than  prose  becaus 
it  gives  us  more  concrete  truth  in  the  same  compass  of  words.  Metapho 
its  chief  device,  is  at  once  the  substance  of  nature  and  of  languag 
Poetry  only  does  consciously  *  what  the  primitive  races  did  unconsciousl 
The  chief  w-ork  of  literary  men  in  dealing  with  language,  and  of  poe 
especially,  lies  in  feeling  back  along  the  ancient  lines  of  advance,  t 
He  must  do  this  so  that  he  may  keep  his  words  enriched  by  all  their  subt 
understones  of  meaning.  The  original  metaphors  stand  as  a  kind  ( 
luminous  background,  giving  color  and  .vitality,  forcing  them  closer 
the  concreteness  of  natural  processes,  Shakespeare  everywhere  teems  wii 
examples.  For'  these  reasons  poetry  was  the  earliest  of  the  world  art 
poetry,  language  and  the  care  of  myth  grew  up  together. 

I  have  alleged  all  this  because  it  enables  me  to  show  clearly  why 
believe  that  the  Chinese  written  language  has  not  only  absorbed  the  poet 
substance  of  nature  and  built  with  it. a  second  world  of  metaphor^  b 
has,  through   its  very   pictorial  visibility,  been  able  to  retain  its  origiflj 


*\Vidc  also  an  article  on  "Vorticism"  in  the  I'ortnigliily  Review jL 
September,  1914.     "The  language  of  exploration". — E.  /'.]  ^        ^ 

t[/  tvould  submit  in  all  humility  that  this  applies  in  the  rendering  < 
ancient  texts.  The  poet  iji  dealing  7oith  his  oivn  time,  must  also  see  t^ 
that  language  does  not  petrify  on  his  hands,  lie  must  prepare  for  nt 
advances  along  the  lines  of  true  metaphor  that  is  interpretive  vietaphc 
or  image,  as  diametrically  opposed  to  untrue,  or  ornamental  metaphor 
E.  P.] 


t 


*. 


The    Little    Review  59 

reative  poetry  with  far  more  vigor  and  vividness  than  any 
honetic  tongue.  Let  us  first  see  how  near  it  is  to  the  heart  of  nature 
I  its  metaphors.  We  can  watch  it  passing  from  the  seen  to  the  unseen, 
s  we  saw  it  passing  from  verb  to  pronoun.  It  retains  the  primitive  sap, 
is  not  cut  and  dried  like  a  walking-stick.  We  have  been  told  that  these 
cople  are  cold,  practical,  mechanical,  literal,  and  without  a  trace  of 
naginative  genius.     That  is  nonsense. 

)      Our  ancestors  built  the  accumulations  of  metaphor  into  structures  of 

I  inguage  and  into  systems  of  thought.     Languages  to-day  are  thin  and 

sld  because  we  think  less  and  less  into  them.     We  are  forced,  for  the 

,  ike  of  quickness  and  sharpness,  to  file  down  each  word  to  its  narrowest 

[  ige  of  meaning.    Nature  would  seem  to  have  become  less  like  a  paradise 

:  id  more  and,  more  like  a  factory.     We  are  content  to  accept  the  vulgar 

lisuse  of  the  moment.     A  late  stage  of  decay  is  arrested  and  embalmed 

:i  the  dictionarx.     Only  scholars  and  poets  feel  painfully  back  along  the 

Mread  of  our  etymologies  and  piece  together  our  diction,  as  best  they  may, 

■cm  forgotten   fragments.     This  anemia  of  modern  speech  is  only  too 

ell  encouraged  by  the   feeble  cohesive   force  of  our  phonetic  symbols. 

S  here  is  little  or  nothing  in  a  phonetic  word   to  exhibit  the  embryonic 

^  ages  of  its  growth.     It   does  not   bear  is   metaphor  on   its   face.     We 

)rget  that   personality   once   meant,   not  the   soul,   but   the   soul's   mask. 

his  is  the  sort  of  thing  one  can  not  possibly  forget  in  using  the  Chinese 

^mbols. 

In  this  Chinese  shows  its  advantage.  Its  etymology  is  constantly 
sible.  It  retains  the  creative  impulse  and  process,  visible  and  at  work, 
fter  thousands  of  years  the  lines  of  metaphoric  advance  are  still  shown, 
id  in  many  cases  actually  retained  in  the  meaning.  Thus  a  word,  instead 
gro\^ing  gradually  poorer  and  poorer  as  with  us,  becomes  richer  and 
ill  more  rich  from  age  to  age,  almost  consciously  luminous.  Its  uses 
national  philosophy  and  history,  in  biography  and  in  poetry,  throw 
>out  it  a  nimbus  of  meanings.  These  center  abut  the  graphic  symbol, 
he  memory  can  hold  them  and  use  them.  The  very  soil  of  Chinese  life 
ems  entangled  in  the  roots  of  its  speech.  The  manifold  illustrations 
hich  crowd  its  annals  of  personal  experience,  the  lines  of  tendency 
bich  converge  upon  a  tragic  climax,  moral  character  as  the  very  core 
the  principle — all  these  are  flashed  at  once  on  the  mind  as  reinforcing 
lues  with  an  accumulation  of  meaning  which  a  phonetic  language  can 
fdly  hope  to  attain.  Their  ideographs  are  like  blood-stained  battle 
gs  to  an  old  campaigner.  With  us,  the  poet  is  the  only  one  for  whom 
e  accumulated  treasures  of  the  race-words  are  real  and  active.  Poetic 
iguage  is  always  vibrant  with  fold  on  fold'  of  overtones,  and  with 
tural  affinities,  but  in  Chinese  the  visibility  of  the  metaphor  tends  to 
ise  this  quality  to  its  intensest  power. 


6o  The    Little    Review 


1  have  mentioned  the  tyranny  of  mediaeval  logic.  According  to  this 
European  logic  thought  is  a  kind  of  brickyard.  It  is  baked  into  little 
hard  units  or  concepts.  These  are  piled  in  rows  according  to  size  and  then 
labeled  with  words  for  future  use.  This  use  consists  in  picking  out  a 
.few  bricks,  each  by  its  convenient  label,  and  sticking  them  together  into 
a  sort  of  wall  called  a  sentence  by  the  use  either  of  white  mortar  for 
the  positive  copula  "is,"  or  black  mortar  for  the  negative  copula  "is  not." 
In  this  way  we  produce  such  admirable  propositions  as  "A  ring-tailed 
baboon   is  not  a   constitutional   assembly." 

Let  us  consider  a  row  of  cherry  trees.  From  each  oi  these  in  turn 
we  proceed  to  take  an  "abstract,"  as  the  phrase  is,  a  certain  common  lump 
of  qualities  which  we  may  express  together  by  the  name  chertj  or  cherry- 
ness.  Next  we  place  in  a  second  table  several  such  characteristic  concepts: 
cherry,  rose,  sunset,  iron-rust,  flamingo.  From  these  we  abstract  some 
further  common  quality,  dilutation  or  mediocrity,  and  label  it  "red"  or 
"redness,"  It  is  evident  that  this  process  of  abstraction  may  be  carried 
on  indefinitely  and  with  all  sorts  of  material.  We  may  go  on  forever 
building  pyramids  of  attenuated  concept  until  we  reach  the  apex  "being." 

But  we  have  done  enough  to  illustrate  the  characeristic  process.  At 
the  base  of  the  pyramid  lie  things,  but  stunned,  as  it  were.  They  can 
never  know  themselves  for  things  until  they  pass  up  and  down  among 
the  layers  of  the  pyramids.  The  way  of  passing  up  and  down  the  pyramid 
may  be  exemplified  as  follows :  We  take  a  concept  of  lower  attenuation, 
such  as  "cherry" ;  we  see  that  it  is  contained  under  one  higher,  such  as 
"redness."  Then  we  are  permitted  to  say  in  sentence  form,'  "Cherrynesj 
is  contained  under  redness,"  or  for  short,  "(the)  cherry  is  red."  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  do  not  find  our  chosen  subject  under  a  given  predicate 
we  use  the  black  copula  and  say,  for  example,  "(The)  cherry  is  nol 
liquid." 

From  this  point  we  might  go  on  to  the  theory  of  the  syllogism,  but 
we  refrain.  It  is  enough  to  note  that  the  practised  logician  finds  it  co^^ 
venient  to  store  his  mind  with  long  lists  of  nouns  and  adjectives,  fA 
these  arc  naturally  the  names  of  classes.  Most  text-books  on  languafi 
begin  with  such  lists.  The  study  of  verbs  is  meager,  for  in  such  a  systew 
there  is  only  one  real  working  verb,  to-wit,  the  quasi-verb  "is."  All  otliei 
verbs  can  be  transformed  into  participles  and  gerunds.  For  example 
"to  run"  practically  becomes  a  case  of  "running."  Instead  of  thinking 
directly,  "The  man  runs."  our  logician  makes  two  subjective  equations, 
namely :  The  individual  in  question  is  contained  under  the  class  "man' 
and  the  class  "man"  is  contained  under  the  class  of  "running  things."  ' 


f( 


{To  be  continued) 


It 


I 


The    Little    Review  6i 


A    Projection     at    Kensington 
London     W. 

py  Maxwell  Bodenheim 

ONE  thousand  years  from  the  present,  twilight  unassumingly  wanders 
into  a  broad  public-park  covering  the  entire  region  in  zvhich  Ezra 
Found,  poet  and  critic,  once  lived.  It  is  midsummer.  Ezra  Pound  and  tivo 
voting  poets  of  the  day  sit,  naked,  on  the  szmrd  and  converse.         ■ 

EsraPgund  '  "■"''#'''11^.!^] 

A  brutal  whim  made  me  return'  to  the  earnest  uncertainty  of  flesh. 
For  a  moment  I  wanted  to  sneer  happily  at  a  semblance  I  had  almost 
forgotten.  And  so  the  old  Ezra  will  once  more  yield  to  profound  exas- 
perations. 

First    Poet 

We  still  read  your  translations  and  many  of  your  earlier  poems. 
VTour  prose  has  disappeared. 

Second    Poet 

We  of  this  day  are  too  nakedly  egoistic  to  seriously  quarrel  with 
each  other  .  We  have  returned  to  a  stoical  naivete. 

Ezra   Pound  ^ 

I  quarreled  with  the  pompous  laziness  of  my  time. 

First    Poet 

It  wounded  you  more  frequently  than  you  dared  to  admit  and  you 
struck  back  with  an  anger  that  sought  to  escape  its  own  futility.  You 
wanted  the  sleep  of  deep  rage — calmness  held  an  inner  alertness  which 
terrified  you. 

Second    Poet 

In  your  time  men  split  their  lives  into  a  prodigious  welter  of  clothes, 
[creeds,   murders,   frenzies   and   ornaments.     They  tried   to   escape   from 
leir  inner  sameness;  they  caressed  and  insulted  each  other  with  an  in- 
lite  variety  of  gestures.    The  wise  man  cringed  underneath  his  glimpse 
•f  the  monotone  and  brilliantly  stoned  it  with  words;  the  fool  cowered 


62  The    Little    Reznew 

beneath  liis  licavy  unrest  and  shouted ;  and  he  who  was  neither  wise  n( 
foolish  made  liimself  bhnd  with  a  creed  and  felt  an  inward  ache  whic 
he  could  not  understand. 

Ezra    Pouud  ^  •■'■ 

Your  generalities  are  ingenious  and  ingenuous,  but  they  lack  th 
profound  simplicity  which  astounds  the  mind  into  acquiescence.  1 
my  time  men  had  a  passion  for  persuading  themselves  that  they  were  lil 
each  other,  that  they  could  jog  along  in  orderly  fashion,  warmed  1 
similar  longings.  Nations  were  perpetuated  upon  this  fallacy ;  peop 
were  constantly  chasing  certain  men  in  and  out  of  power  in  the  hope  < 
finding  those  men  who  would  most  adequately  symbolize  this  imaginai 
composite.  In  my  own  realm  I  and  a  few  others  tried  to  fight  again 
this  delusion  of  sameness  which  was  petrifying  poetry  and  other-  art 
We  lugged  in  thousands  of  actual  contradictions,  perversions,  distortioi 
and  complexities ;  we  saw  no  fusion  in  human  beings  outside  of  a  certa 
elusive  animal  background.  In  the  ardor  of  our  task  we  often  fell  ba< 
upon  a  pretended  hatred  for  our  surroundings  but  that  hatred  was, 
reality,  a  genial  relaxation  to  us — a  caper  cut  after  work.  Usually  we  we: 
genuinely  immersed  in  our  job  of  splitting  up  an  unseen  reality. 

First  Poet 

You  fled  from  self-weariness  and  the  threatening  shadow  of  th 
weariness  constantly  goaded  you  into  frantic  escapes.  You  ran  do» 
the  road  in  a  brilliantly  helter-skelter  fashion  but  all  of  your  civilizatic 
zvas  running  beside  you,  seeking  to  evade  the  same  nightmare.  They  fit 
clumsily  and  unconsciously  you  escaped  gracefully  and  deliberately.  Yoi 
nations  were  based  upon  this  escape  fiom  sameness:  men  considered  then 
selves  distinctly  different  individuals  deliberately  submitting  to  the  benig 
disciplne  of  law  and  government  in  order  to  curb  their  wild  and  imaginat 
differences.  Each  man  felt  the  pleasant  after-glow  that  comes  (o  a  giar 
who  indulgently  stoops  to  the  dwarfs  beside  him.  Even  your  criminal 
sought,  for  the  most  part,  to  attain  individuality  through  an  easily  pui 
chased  defiance.  Vanity  was  a  repressed  scream  in  your  age,  and  it  ir 
visibly  gathered  until  it  exploded  and  your  civilization  zvas  bUncn  to  bit, 
Ezra    Pound 

Is  vanity  miraculously  absent  from  the  present  age? 

Second    Poet 

No.  But  the  orgy  of  rapacious  vanity  which  followed,  for  centuric! 
the  collapse  of  your  civilization  has  left  our  vanity  a  bit  satiated.     W 


The    Little    Review  63 


re  amazingly  tired  of  slaying,  punishing  and  robbing  each  other.  The 
lost  romantic  idealist  of  your  own  age  would  never  have  dared  to 
ophecy  our  condition.  Before  and  during  your  time  avarice  and  rapa- 
ity  never  adopted  a  sustainedly  naked  posture.  Starting  with  nakedness, 
ley  gradually  assumed  a  mask  of  increasing  cleverness  and  this  mask 
Iways  culminated  in  the  devilishly  elaborate  one -j>f  some  civilization. 
,ut  after  the  collapse  of  your  civilization — the  last  one — men  plunged 
rto  several  centuries  of  unveiled,  murderous  chaos.  So  vanity  and  its 
elping  shades  are  now  thoroughly  exhausted.  Certain  men  in  our  age — 
e  call  them  'wild-women' — insist  that  vanity  will  once  more  rise  and 
lake  us  roaring  children.  But  that  is  merely  a  lure  for  conjecture.  We 
at  are  left — there  are  only  millions  of  us  now,  not  billions — have  fallen 
ito  searching  repose.  We  are  once  more  stepping  down  the  beginning 
f  the  road,  filled  with  a  night  that  is  determined  to  stride  on  until  it 
)ses  itself  in  some  new  dawn.  What  this  dawn  will  be  we  do  not  know — 
e  play  with  the  old.  known  things  and  wait.  Our  literature  and  art  have 
ecome  a  bewildcredly  gentle  juggling  of  shades  dif  colors,  odds  and 
nds^  of  emotions,  and  peaceful  satires.  We  have  no  intense  creeds  to 
rhip  us  on ;  we  do  not  call  each  other  fools  or  wise  men — we  ta^e  and 
iscard  our  interests  more  naturally.  We  have  changed  to  what  men  in 
our  time  would  have  called  effeminate  drifters.  Our  vices  are  sly 
nd  softly  indirect  and  have  become  too  unrobust  to  aflfect  any  domi- 
ance  over  us.  We  have  altered  to  children,  sulky  and  harmlessly  haughty 
t  worst  and  gracefully  gay  at  best — our  vices  are  not  worse  than  those 
/hich  certain  shrewish,  petulant  women  of  your  age  must  have  had. 
)ur  collective  egoism,  bruised  and  stunted  by  centuries  of  frank  indul- 
ence,  is  wearily  questioning  its  own  validity.  We  represent  an  age 
here  those  qualities  hitherto  known  as  human  fundamentals  are  beginning 
0  querulously  totter :  an  age  of  indecision.  We  have  no  broad  religions 
r  philosphies  in  which  we  can  hide  and  satisfy  our  questions.  We  are 
eparated  into  patiently  doubting  groups ;  we  are  tired  of  the  old  lies 
ut  we  have  found  no  new  ones  sufficiently  enticing  to  lure  huge  numbers 
f  us  into  their  shelter. 

Izra    Pound 

This  is  a  logical  ending.  The  screaming  whirlpool  of  my  dreamless 
ge — infinitely  stronger  and  more  elaborate  than  that  of  any  preceding 
ivilization — was  doomed  to  sweep  all  things  before  it  until  its  own  super- 
luman  force  finally  broke  and  drained  it.  I  wonder  whether  the  same 
ong  process  will  once  more  swing  out  of  your  weary  repose  .  .  . 

He  sits  thonghtftiUy.  The  two  poets  rise,  bid  him  faretvell,  and  walk 
■way. 


64  The    Little    Review 


THE  READER  CRITIC 

Maxwell  Bodoihcim,  Neiv  York : 

Else    von    Freytag-Loringhovcn's    "Cast-Iron    Lover"    holds    a    \ 
inarticulate    frenzy — the    sensualist    frankly    screaming    over    his    fl 
Most    sensualists    write    with    an    obliquely    repressed    savageness    o 
drained  staidness.     It  is  refreshing  to  see  someone  claw  aside  the 
and   rush   forth  howling,  vomiting,  and   leaping  nakedly.     In  a  reve 
poised   and   intricate   sensuality  and   intellectuality,   of   "they   might  1 
known  if  they  had  not  felt  that  they  did  not  care  to  know  what 
could  easily  have  known"  stuff,  it  is  a  blessing  to  come  upon  an  ua 
scious  volcano  now  and  then.     Never  mind  the  delicate  souls  whose 
ctimonious  "art"  is  violated ;  their  perfumed  dresses  need  an  airing  on 
nearest  clothesline.     They  suffer  from  a  hatred   for  nakedness,  for  ; 
thing  that  steams,  boils,  sweats  and  retches,  and  they  call  the  creato: 
this  hatred  "vulgarity".     Vulgarity,  nine  times  out  of  ten,  is  someti 
that  winks  its  eye  at  well-hidden  spots  within  these  people.     Their 
recourse  is  to  shrink  or  denounce,  to  shake  themselves  into  superic 
through  a  liberal  use  of  the  whisk-broom. 


/■".  E.  R.,  Chicago : 

You  are  very  glib  with  phrases, — "Art  of  Madness,"  "Giver,"  "Get 
— but  my  question  as  to  why  you  publish  the  work  of  Else  von  Frey 
Loringhoven  seems  to  me  to  be  still  unanswered.  Will  you  kindly  c 
on  the  discussion? 

[We  have  still  further  correspondence  on  the  subject  and  will  conti 
the  discussion  in  detail  in  the  Christmas  number. — Editbr.] 


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CONTENTS 

Frontispiece:   Djuna  Barnes 

Six   Love   Songs  _       Edzvard  Powys  Mathers 

Surfeit  .  ,        Bonamy  Dobree 

A  New  Testament,  III.  Sherwood  Anderson 

Interim  (Chapter  Eight)  Dorothy  Richardson 

•  Discussion:  Books,  Music,  the  Theatre: 

May  Sinclair's  "Mary  Olivier"     Edna  Kenton  and  jh 

Sincerity  jh 

Two  Concerts  of  the  Month        Margaret  Anderson 

The  Provincetown  Players  jh 

A   Barbarian  John  Rodker 

Defending  Margaret  Anderson  Pierre  Loving 

The  Art  of  Madness  Evelyn  Scott 

Ulysses  (Episode  XII  continued)  James  Joyce 

Kites  William  Saphier 

To  the   Book   Publishers  Margaret  Anderson 

The  Chinese  Written  Character,  IV. 

Ernest   Fenollosa   and  Ezra  Pound 

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Entered  as  second  class  matter  March  16,  1917,  at  the  Post  OflSce  at  New  York, 
N.  Y.,  under  the  act  of  March  3,  1879. 

.    MARGARET   C.   ANDERSON,   Publisher 
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^n 


DJUNA    BARNES 


r 


IITTLE  REVIEW 


SIX    LOVE    SONGS 

by  Edward  Powys  Mathers 

I 

We  are  both  silver  sea-trout 

And  have  risen  to  delicate  flies  on  streams 

And  got  away. 

The  young  ferns  balance  on  the  wet  earth 

Like  green  smoke  above  a  coal. 

Let  us  watch  the  sun  throw  gold  plates 

Down  to  us  through  lake  water 

Where  none  fish. 

II 

The  Recreation  Gardens  are  smothered  over 

With  a  bottle-coloured  wood  of  wet  trees 

And  the  gates  were  shut  at  ten. 

With  your  straight  thin  pipe  and  your  face  and  arms 

Stamped  black  as  against  mauve  paper 

You  sit  piping  in  our  open  window. 

It  may  be  only  a  very  large  daintily-moving  dog 

Shut  in  the  Gardens,  and  that  I  did  not  hear 

The  few  notes  like  a  sleepy  quail. 

Ill 

I  have  bought  a  pound  of  jade  wool 

Of  the  colour  of  the  round  bases  of  toy  trees 

And  a  quarter  of  mole  wool 

Coloured  like  the  smoke  of  a  steamer. 

In  two  on  three  weeks 

You,  whose  spirit  is  as  quick  as  silver  dust 

Stirred  into  the  sea, 

Shall  have  the  appearance  of  a  tinted 

Jacinth  laughing  in  the  rain. 


The   Little    Review 


\ 


IV 

There  is  frost 

As  if  a  cutter  of  images  of  you 

Had  dropped  powder  of  geranium  marble 

On  the  coarse  dark  grass. 

I  have  left  you  asleep 

And  feel  that  if  the  candle 

Set  doAvn  inside  the  open  door 

To  throw  continuous  William  Allen  Richardson  roses 

Into  the  cold  lavender  morning 

Does  not  blow  out  before  I  get  back 

You  will  still  be  there. 


Because  of  the  glass  shade 

Our  marble  table  was  ever  the  cross-bar 

Of  a  white  A 

And  the  rest  angles  of  broken  lemon  light 

With  a  drowned  sprig  of  mountain-ash  berries, 

A  peat-coloured  crystal  carrying 

Cherries  and  crushed  mint  against  your  lips. 

Now  the  nights  are  a  cool 

Pattern  of  thin  black  wood  bed-bars 

With  spread  of  orange  and  another  orange, 

Firm  black  letters  lightly  carrying  eyes 

Among  white  margins, 

And  brown  tea. 

VI 

The  night  is  so  full  of  movement 

That  the  stars  seem  like  corn  being  threshed 

Against  a  blue  barn. 

The  wind  is  a  black  river 

And  just  for  a  moment 

The  moon  a  small  green  fish 

Swimming  in  your  hair. 


I 


The    Little    Review 


BEYOND  THE   END 

by  Djuna  Barnes 

BEHIND  two  spanking  horses,  in  the  heat  of  noon,  rode  JuHe 
Anspacher.  The  air  was  full  of  the  sound  of  windlasses 
and  well  water,  where,  from  cool  abysses,  heavy  buckets 
iarose;  and  too  the  air  was  full  of  the  smell  of  lilac  and  the 
faint  perfect  odor  of  small  flowers.  And  Julie  turned  her  head,  gaz- 
ing at  the  familiar  line  of  road  that  ran'  away  into  the  still 
more  familiar  distance. 

The  driver,  a  Scandinavian,  who  remembered  one  folk 
tale  involving  a  partridge  and  one  popular  song,  involving  a  wo- 
man, sat  stiffly  on  his  box  holding  the  reins  gently  over  the  shining 
and  sleek  backs  of  the  two  mares. 

He  began  to  whistle  the  popular  song  now,  swinging  a  little 
on  his  sturdy  base,  and  drifting  back  with  his  tune  came  the  tang 
of  horse  skin,  wet  beneath  tight  leather. 

The  horses  were  taking  the  hill,  straining  and  moving  their 
ears,  and  reaching  the  top,  bounded  forward  in  a  whirl  of  dust. 
Still  sitting  rigid  the  driver  clucked,  snapping  his  whip,  and  began 
talking  in  a  dry  deep  "bass. 

"It's  some  time  since  we  have  seen  you,   Mrs.  Anspacher." 

Julie  raised  her  thin  long  face  from  her  collar  and  nodded. 

"Yes,"  she  answered  in  a  short  voice,  and  frowned. 

"Your  husband  has  gathered  in  the  corn  already,  and  the  or- 
chards are  hanging  heavy." 

"Are  they?"  she  said,  and  tried  to  remember  how  many  trees 
there  were  of  apple  and  of  pear. 

The  driver  took  in  another  foot  of  reins,  and  turning  slightly 
around,  so  that  he  could  look  at  her,  said: 

"It's  good  to  see  you  again,  Mrs.  Anspacher." 

She  began  to  laugh.  "Is  it?"  then  with  deliberaltion  checked 
herself,  and  fixed  her  angry  eyes  straight  ahead  of  her. 

The  child,  loose  limbed  with  excessive  youth,  who  sat  at  her 
side  lifted  a  small  sharp  face  on  which  an  aquiline  nose  perched 
with  comic  boldness.  She  half  held,  half  dropped  an  old  fashioned 
ermine  muff,  the  tails  of  which  stuck  out  in  all  directions.  She 
looked  unhappy  and  expectant. 

"You  remember  Mrs.  Berling?"  he  went  on.  "She  is  married 
again." 


The    Little    Review 


"Is  she?" 

"Yes,  maam." 

He  began  to  tell  her  about  the  local  office  for  out  going  mails, 
where  a  nephew  of  her  husband,  Paytor,  had  taken  a  job. 

The  child  sat  so  still  that  it  was  painful  and  Julie  Anspacher 
moved  away,  thinking  aloud: 

"All  is  corruption." 

The  child  started,  and  looked  quickly  away,  as  children  will 
at  something  that  they  expect  but  do  not  understand.  The  driver 
beat  the  horses,  until,  long  lines  of  heavy  froth  appeared  at  the 
edges  of  the  harness 

"What  did  you  say  maam?" 

"Nothing — I  said  all  is  lost  from  the  beginning — if  we  only 
saw  it — always." 

The  child  looked  at  her  slowly,  puzzled,  and  looked  away. 

"Ann,"  said  Julie  Anspacher,  suddenly  lifting  the  muff  over 
her  hands,  "did  you  ever  see  two  such  big  horses  before?"  The 
child  turned  its  head  with  brightness,  and  bending  down  tried  to 
see  between  the  driver's  arms.    Then  she  smiled. 

"Are  they  yours?"  she  whispered. 

Julie  Anspacher  took  in  a  deep  breath,  stretching  the  silk  of 
her  waist  across  her  breasts.  "No",  she  answered,  "they  are  not 
mine,  but  we  have  two — 'bigger — blacker." 

"Can  I  see  them?" 

"Oh  yes,  you  shall  see  them.    Don't  be  ridiculous." 

The  child  shrank  back  into  herself,  clutching  nervously  at- 
her  muff.    Julie  Anspacher  returned  to  her  reflections. 

It  was  almost  five  years  since  she  had  been  home.  Five  years 
before  in  just  such  an  autumn  the  doctors  had  given  her  six  months 
to  live.  One  lung  gone  and  the  other  going.  They  called  it  some- 
times the  White  Death,  and.  sometimes,  the  love  disease.  She 
coughed  a  little,  remembering,  and  the  child  at  her  side  coughed 
too  in  echo,  and  the  driver,  puckering  his  forehead,  reflected  that 
Mrs.  Anspacher  was  not  cured. 

She  was  thirty-nine — she  should  have  died  at  thirty-four.  In 
those  five  years  Paytor  had  seen  her  five  times,  coming  in  over 
fourteen  hours  of  the  rails  at  Christmas.  He  cursed  the  doctors, 
called  them  fools. 

The  house  appeared  dull  white  between  the  locust  trees  and 
lilac,  and  the  smoke,  the  same  lazy  autumn  smoke,  rose  in  a  still 


I 


The    Little    Review 


column  straight  into  the  obliterafmg  day. 

The  driver  reined  in  the  horses  until  their  foaming  jaws  struck 
against  their  harness,  and  with  a  quick  bound  Julie  Anspacher 
jumped  the  side  of  the  cart,  the  short  modish  tails  of  her  jacket 
dancing  above  her  hips.  She  turned  around  and  thrusting  her 
black  gloved  hands  under  the  child,  lifted  her  out.  A  dog  barked. 
She  began  walking  the  ascent  toward  the  house. 
I  A  maid,  in  dust  cap,  put  her  head  out  of  an  up-stairs  window, 
I  clucked,  drew  it  in,  and  slammed  the  sash,  and  Paytor,  with  slow 
and  deliberate  steps  moved  toward  the  figure  of  his  wife  and  the 
child. 

He  was  a  man  of  middle  height,  with  a  close  cropped  beard 
that  ended  in  a  gray  wedge  on  his  chin.  He  was  sturdy,  a  strong 
iman,  almost  too  pompous,  but  with  kindly  blue  eyes  and  a  long 
thin  mouth.  As  he  walked  he  threw  his  knees  out,  which  gave 
'  him  a  rocking  though  substantial  gait.  He  was  slightly  surprised 
and  raised  the  apricot  colored  veil  that  covered  the  keen  newness 
of  her  face,  and  leaning  down  kissed  her  twice  upon  both  cheeks. 

''And  where  does  the  dhild  come  from?"  he  inquired,  touching 
the  little  girl's  chin. 

"Come  along,  don't  be  ridiculous!"  Julie  said  impatiently,  and 
swept  on  toward  the  house. 

He  ran  after  her.  "I'm  glad  to  see  you",  he  went  on,  warmly, 
trying  to  keep  up  with  her  rapid  strides,  that  swung  the  child  half 
off  the  ground,  stumbling,  trotting. 

"Tell  me  what  the  doctors  said — cured?" 

There  was  a  note  of  happiness  in  his  voice.  "Not  that  I 
really  give  a  damn  what  they  think,  I  always  told  you  you  would 
live  to  a  ripe  old  age,  as  they  say.  What  did  they  do  to  Marie 
Bashkirtseff?  Locked  her  up  in  a  dark  room,  shut  all  the  win- 
dows— and  of  course  she  died — that  was  their  method  then — and 
now  its  Koch's  tuberculin — ^all  nonesense." 

"It's  worked  well  with  some  people,"  she  said,  going  ahead  of 
him  into  the  living  room.  "There  was  one  boy  there — ^well — of 
that  later.  Will  you  have  someone  put  Ann  to  bed,  the  trip  was 
bad  for  her.  See  how  sleepy  the  child  is — ^run  along,  Ann,"  she 
added,  pushing  her  slightly  but  kindly  toward  the  maid.  Then 
when  they  had  disappeared,  she  stood  looking  about  her,  drawing 
off  her  gloves.  ' ' 

"I'm  glad  you  took  down  the  crystals — I  always  hated  them." 
— She  moved  to  the  windows. 

"I  didn't,  the  roof  fell  in — just  after  my  last  visit  in  Decern- 


10  Tilt    Little    Review 


ber.  You're  looking  splendid,  Julie."  He  colored.  "I'm  glad, 
you  know- — awfully  i,d''i<l-  1  began  to  ihink — well,  not  that  the  doc- 
tors know  anything,"  he  said,  laughing:  "but  it's  a  drop  here  of 
about  fifteen  hundred  feet,  but  your  heart  is  good — always  was." 

"What  do  you  know  about  my  heart,  Paytor,"  Julie  said,  an- 
grily. "You  don't  know  what  you  are  talking  about  at  all.  The 
child—" 

"Well,  yes—?" 

"Her  name  is  Ann",  *she  finished  sulkily. 

"It's  a  sweet  name — it  was  your  motlier's  too.   Whose  is  she?" 

"Oh  good  heavens!"  Julie  cried  moving  around  the  room. 
"Mine,  mine,  mine  of  course,  whose  would  she  be  if  not  mine?" 

He  looked  at  her.  "Yours — why  Julie — how  absurd."  Slowly 
the  color  left  his  face. 

"I  know — we  have  got  to  talk  it  over — it's  all  got  to  be  ar- 
ranged, it's  terrible.     But  she  is  nice,  a  bright  child,  a  good  child." 

"What  in  the  world  is  all  this  about?"  he  demanded,  stopping 
in  front  of  her.  "What  are'  you  in  this  mood  for — what  have  I 
done?" 

"Good  heavens!  What  have  you  done?  What  a  ridiculous 
man  you  are.  Wliy  nothing,  of  course,  absolutely  nothing."  She 
waved  her  arm.  "That's  not  it — why  do  you  bring  yourself  in? 
I'm  not  blaming  you,  I'm  not  asking  to  be  forgiven.  I've  been 
down  on  my  knees,  I've  beaten  my  head  on  the  ground,  abased  my- 
self, but,"  she  said  in  a  terrible  voice,  "it  is  not  low  enough,  the 
ground  is  not  low  enough,  to  bend  is  not  enough;  to  ask  forgive- 
ness is  not  enough,  to  receive  it  is  nothing.  There  isn't  the  right 
kind  of  misery  in  the  world  for  me  to  suffer,  nor  the  right  kind 
of  pity  for  you  to  feel,  there  isn't  the  right  word  in  the  world  to 
heal  me  up.  It's  good  to  forgive,  to  be  forgiven,  but  that's  for  or- 
dinary things.  This  is  beyond  that — it's  something  you  can  ex- 
perience but  never  feel — there  are  not  enough  nerves,  blood  cells, 
flesh — to  feel  it.  You  suffer  insufficiently;  it's  like  drinking  in- 
sufficiently, sleepirj-g  insufficiently.  I'm  not  asking  anything  be- 
cause there  is  nothing  that  I  can  receive —  how  primitive  to  be 
able  to  receive — " 

"But,  Julie—" 

"It's  not  that",  she  said  roughly,  tears  swimming  in  her  eyes. 
"Of  course  I  love  you.  But  think  of  it,  a  danger  to  everyone  ex- 
cepting those  like  yourself.  Curious,  involved  in  a  problem  affect- 
ing -only  a  small  percent  of  humanity,  sick,  frightened,  filled 
with  fever  and  lust  perhaps — with  nothing,  nothing  coming  after, 


I 


The    Little    Review  ii 


whatever  you  do,  but  death — then  you  go  on^-it  goes  on — then 
the  child — and  life  probably,  for  a  time." 
"Well—" 

"I  couldn't  tell  you.  I  thought,'Well,  I'll  die  next  month,'  and 
finally  I  didn't  want  to  go  off — although  I  did,  you  know  what  I 
mean.  Then  her  father  died — they  say  her  lungs  are  weak — death, 
death  perpetuating  itself,  that's  funny  you  see — and  the  doctors — " 
!  She  swung  around:  "You're  right — they  lied,  and  I  lived  through 
— all  the  way — all  the  way!" 

He  turned  his  face  from  her. 

"The  real  thing,"  she  went  on  in  a  pained  voice,  "is  to  turn 
I  our  torment  toward  the  perfect  design.     I  didn't  want  to  go  be- 
lyond  you —  that  was  not  my  purpose.     I  thought  there  was  not 
I  to  be  any  more  me.     I  wanted  to  leave  nothing  behind  but  you, 
'  only  you.    You  must  believe  this  or  I  can't  bear  it — and  still,"  she 
(Continued,   walking   around   the   room    impatiently,    "there   was   a 
somehow  hysterical  joy  in  it  too.     I  thought,  if  you  had  real  per- 
ception, that  'something'  that  we  must  possess,  that  must  be  at 
the  bottom  of  us  somewhere — or  there  wouldn't  be  such  an  almost 
1  sensuous  desire  for  it,  that  'something'  that,  at  times,  is  so  near 
us  that  it  becomes  obscene,  well  I  thought,  if  Paytor  has  this — and 
-mind  you,  I  knew  all  the  time  that  you  didn't  have  it —  that  you 
would  understand.     And  when  you  had  been  gone  a  long  time  I 
said,  'Paytor  understands' — and  I  would  say  to  myself — 'now  at 
this  moment — at  ten  thirty  precisely,  if  I  could  be  with  Paytor  he 
iwould  say  'I  see',  but  so  soon  as  I  had  the  time  table  in  my  hand 
'l  knew  that  there  was  no  such  feeling  in  your  bosom — nothing  at 
all." 

"Don't  you  feel  horror?"  he  asked  in  a  loud  voice,  suddenly. 
"No,  I  don't  feel  horror — horror  is  conflict — and  I  have  none 
—I'm  alien  to  life." 

"Have  you  a  religion,  Julie?"  he  asked,  still  in  the  same  loud 
voice,  as  if  he  were  addressing  someone  a  little  raised,  yet  invisible, 
as  one  tries  to  see  a  choir. 

"I  don't  know — I  don't  think  so.  I've  tried  to  believe  in 
something  external,  something  that  might  envelope  this  and  carry 
!it  beyond — that's  what  we  demand  of  our  faiths,  isn't  it?  But  I 
ilways  return  to  a  fixed  notion  that  there  is  something  more  fitting 
■-han  a  possible  release." 

He  put  his  hands  to  his  head.  "You  know,"  he  said,  "I've 
ilways  thought  that  a  woman,  because  she  can  have  children, 
)ught  to  know  the  truth — the  very  fact  that  she  can  do  something 


12  The   Little  Review 


so  really  preposterous  ought  to  make  her  equally  capable  of  the 
other  preposterous  thing — well—" 

She  coughed,  her  handkerchief  before  her  face-  she  l^ighcd 
with  brightness.  "One  learns  to  be  careful  about  death— but  never 
never  about — "  she  didn't  finish  but  stared  before  her. 

"Wliy  did  you  bring  the  child  here — why  did  you  return  at  all 
then — after  so  long  a  time — it  seems  all  so  mixed  up?" 

"I  don't  know — .  Perhaps  because  there  is  a  right  and  a 
wrong,  and  a  good  and  an  evil.  I  had  to  find  out — and  if  there's 
such  a  thing  as  everlasting. mercy — I  want  to  find  out  about  that 
also — there's  a  flavor  of  unfamiliar  intimacy  about  it  all  though, 
this  Christian  treatment — "  She  had  a  way  of  lifting  up  the  side 
of  her  face,  closing  her  eyes.    "'I  thought — Paytor  may  know." 

"Know  what?" 

"Will  know — well,  will  be  able  to  divide  me  against  myself — 
Personally  I  don't  feel  divided — I  seem  to  be  a  sane  and  balanced 
whole — a  hopelessly  mixed,  but  perfect  design.  So  I  said  Paytor 
will  be  able  to  see  where  this  divides  and  departs.  Though  all  the 
time  I  never  for  a  moment  felt  that  there  was  a  system  working  on 
a  this  for  that  basis,  but  that  there  was  only  this  and  that — in 
other  words — I  wanted  to  be  set  wrong you  understand?" 

"And  you  yourself,"  he  inquired,  in  the  same  loud  voice,  "can- 
not feel  the  war.  Well,  then,  what  about  me? — you  must  realize 
what  you  have  done — turned  everything  upside  down — oh,  I  won't 
even  say  betrayed  me — it's  much  less  than  that,  what  most  of  us 
do,  we  betray  circumstances — well  I  can't  do  anything  for  you," 
he  said  sharply.  "I  can't  do  anything  at  all — I'm  sorry,  I'm  very 
sorry — ^^but  there  it  is" — he  began  to  grimace  and  twitch  his 
shoulders. 

"The  child  has  it  too,"  Julie  Anspachcr  said,  looking  up  at 
him — "I  shall  die  soon. — It's  ridiculous",  she  added,  with  the  tears 
streaming  down  her  face.  "You  are  strong,  always  were — and  so 
was  all  your  family  before  you — not  one  of  them  in  their  graves 
under  ninety — it's  all  wrong — its  quite  ridiculous." 

"I  don't  know.  Perhaps  it's  not  ridiculous.  One  must  be 
very  careful  not  to  come,  too  hastily,  to  a  conclusion."  He  began 
searching  for  his  pipe.  "Only  you  know  yourself,  Julie,  how  I  tor 
ment  myself,  if  it's  a  big  enough  thing,  for  days,  weeks,  years;  and 
the  reason  is,  the  real  reason  is,  that  I  come  to  my  conclusions  m 
stantly,  and  then  fight  to  destroy  them."  He  seemed  to  Julie  a 
little  pompous  now.     "It's  because  first  I'm  human,  and  second, 


The   Little   Review  13 


logical.  Well,  I  don't  know — perhaps  I'll  be  able  to  tell  you  some- 
thing later — give  you  a  beginning  at  least — later — "  He  twitched 
his  shoulders  and  went  out,  closing  the  door  after  him.  She  heard 
him  climbing  the  familiar  creaking  stairs,  the  yellow  painted  stairs 
that  led  up  into  the  roof — she  heard  him  strike  a  match — then 
silence. 


The  dark  had  begun,  closing  in  about  bushes  and  barn,  and 
filling  the  air  with  moist  joyousness,  the  joyousness  of  spring  that 
trusts  its  development  to  the  darkness,  and  Julie  leaned  on  her 
hand  by  the  shelf  and  listened. 

She  could  hear,  far  away  and  faint,  the  sound  of  dogs  on  heavy 
chains.  She  tried  to  stop,  listening  to  the  outside,  but  her  thoughts 
rotted  away  like  clouds  in  a  wind. 

The  sense  of  tears  came  to  her,  but  it  was  only  a  sentimental 
memory  of  her  early  childhood,  and  it  brought  a  smile  to  her  long 
face.  She  had  cried  once  when  they  made  her  kiss  a  dead  priest 
— "Qui  halbitare  facit  sterilim — matrem  filiorum  laetan  tem" — then 
"Gloria  Patri — "  and  she  wept  then,  or  thought  she  had,  because 
he  was  not  only  beyond  glory  and  all  mercy,  but  beyond  the  du- 
bious comfort  of  the  feeling. 

She  heard  Paytor  walking  above,  and  the  smoke  of  his  pipe 
crept  down  between  loose  boards  and  uneven  plaster  and  laths. 

She  went — quite  mechanically — over  to  a  chest  in  one  corner, 
and  opened  the  lid.  A  shirt  waist,  of  striped  taffeta,  one  she  had 
wbrn  years  before,  some  old  Spanish  lace — ^^her  mother's — the 
child— 

Paytor  did  not  seem  to  like  the  child — "How  ridiculous!"  she 
thought.  "She  is  good,  quiet,  gentle — but  that's  not  enough  now." 
She  removed  her  hat.  Living  with  Paytor  and  the  child — Paytor 
so  strong, — always  was,  and  so  was  his  family — and  she  sickly, 
coughing.  Perhaps  she  had  made  a  mistake  in  coming  back.  She 
went  toward  the  steps  to  tell  this  to  Paytor  but  thought  better  of 
it.     That  wasn't  what  she  wanted  to  say. 

The  hours  drew  out  and  Julie  Anspacher,  sitting  now  at  the 
'Window  overlooking  the  garden — nodded  without  sleep — long 
dreams — grotesque  and  abominable, — stupid  irrelevances  dull  and 
interminable.  Somewhere  little  Ann  coughed  in  her  sleep.  Julie 
Anspacher  coughed  also,  and  in  between  the  sound  of  Paytor 
walking  up  and  down,  and  the  smell  of  tobacco  growing  stronger. 


14  The   Little   Review 


To  take  her  own  life,  that  was  right,  if  only  she  had  not  the 
habit  of  fighting  death — "but  death  is  past  knowing,  and  to  know 
is  better  than  to  make  right — "  she  shook  her  head — "That's  an- 
other detour  on  the  wrong  side"  she  told  herself.  "If  only  I  had 
the  power  to  feel  pain  as  unbearabe,  a  gust  of  passion,  of  impa- 
tience, and  all  would  be  over — but  I've  stood  so  much  so  long, 
there  is  no  too  long."  »  She  thought  what  she  would  not  give  for 
any  kind  of  feeling,  anything  that  was  vital  and  sudden  and  de- 
termining.    "If  Paytor  will  have  patience  I  will  get  around  to  it." 

Then  it  seemed  that  something  must  happen,  must  inevitably 
happen. 

"If  I  could  only  think  of  the  right  word  before  it  happens" 
she  said  to  herself,  over  and  over,  and  over.  "It's  because  I'm 
cold  and  I  can't  think,  I'll  think  soon — "  She  would  take  her 
jacket  off,  put  on  her  coat — 

She  got  up,  running  her  hand  along  the  wall.  Or  had  she 
left  it  on  the  chair?  "I  can't  think  of  the  word,"  she  said  to 
keep  her  mind  on  something. 

She  turned  around.  All  his  family — long  lives.  "And  me  too, 
me  too,"  she  murmured.  She  became  dizzy.  "It  is  because  I 
must  get  on  my  knees — but  it  isn't  low  enough."  She  contradicted 
herself.    "Yet  if  I  put  my  head  down — way  do\\Ti — down 

Then  she  heard  the  shot.  "He  has  quick  warm  blood"  went 
through  her  mind — and  her  blood  was  cold. 

Her  forehead  had  not  quite  touched  the  boards,  not  she 
touched  them,  but  she  got  up  immediately,  stumbling  over  her  dress. 


The  Little  Review  15 


SURFEIT 

by   Bonamy  Dobree 

ALL  three  were  spinsters,  and  though  not  related,  were  insep- 
arable, bound  by  that  prurience  for  the  personal  relation  com- 
mon in  country  people  starved  of  emotion.  The  youngest  was 
forty,  with  eyes  half  closed  with  fat  so  that  she  always  appeared 
to  be  full  of  passion;  the  eldest  fiad  ratty  teeth  and  a  weirdly  avid 
walk,  while  the  third,  who  was  about  forty-five,  carried  a  vague 
suggestion  of  romance  in  her  sallow  fading  and  patiently  complain- 
ing voice.  They  were  always  to  toe  found  al  any  human  event 
however  far  away — a  wedding,  a  funeral,  a  birth  or  a  homecoming, 
and  especially  a  death.  Once,  two  lovers  had  discovered  themselves 
stared  at  greedily  from  the  other  side  of  a  hedge. 

One  Sunday  afternoon  they  went  for  a  walk  together.  It  was 
a  heavy  mist-sodden  day  in  Spring  that  diffused  germinating 
warmth  and  reeked  of  fertility.  They  went  into  low-lying  woods 
where  a  stagnant  pond  pullulated  new  life.  Glaucous  marigolds 
thrust  up  through  coarse  grasses,  and  the  mud  oozed  and  bubbled 
round  the  edge.  Whiteish  objects  attracted  their  attention,  and 
moving  curiously  to  look  they  found  two  dead  toads,  bellies  upward, 
colourless  and  sickly  as  though  no  sun  had  ever  touched  them. 
Their  bodies  were  inflated  and  their  feet  were  drying  stiffly.  Excite- 
ment pervaded  the  women;  their  pulses  quickened,  and  they  in- 
haled deeply  through  wide  nostrils.  The  youngest  spoke,  "Sum- 
mat  have  killed  them." 

They  walked  silently  round  the  pool,  their  feet  squelching,  un- 
til something  moving  in  the  water  drew  their  eyes.  There  was  a 
sharp  cry,  for  they  saw  a  large  toad,  distended  and  colourless  like 
he  dead  ones  they  had  seen,  with  a  little  green  one  fastened  to  it  by 
ands  embedded  in  the  obscene  flesh.  "He  be  the  murderer,"  said 
he  eldest.  Then,  as  they  hung  transfixed  over  the  pool,  the 
ame  instinct  impelled  them  to  save  the  large  toad's  life.  They 
ere  crazed:  threw  stones,  wrenched  sticks  from  the  trees,  and 
lutched  the  creatures  towards  them.  They  dragged  them  onto 
he  ground  and  beat  the  green  toad  to  death,  disengaging  its  fin- 
;ers  from  the  yielding  mass.  When  it  was  dead  they  stamped  it 
orribly  into  the  earth,  while  the  big  toad  hopped  one  or  two  feet 
,way,  and  lay  flacid,  its  sides  pulsating,  the  lidless  eyes  staring. 


1 6  The  Little  Review 


The  three  walked  back  arm  in  arm.  Gems  of  moisture  glitter^ 
ed  on  the  swollen  twigs  or  dropped  thudding  onto  the  road.  They 
were  enclosed  in  a  darkening  caul  of  mist  as  they  went,  chattering 
eagerly,  arguing  as  to  which  of  their  houses  they  would  have  tea 
in.  The  eldest  and  youngest  were  exuberant.  Then  the  third, 
who  had  seemed  to  brood  for  a  long  time  in  spite  of  the  part  sh< 
took  in  the  conversation,  said  "I  believe  they  were  making  love.' 
The  words  banked  themselves  dully  on  the  fog.  All  three  stopper 
simultaneously.  Saliva  gathered  in  the  corners  of  the  mouth  of  th' 
youngest,  and  a  wave  of  heat  rushed  over  her  face.  The  eldes 
began  to  tremble  violently,  while  she  who  had  spoken  stared  ex 
pressionless  into  the  baffling  mist.  Then,  no  longer  arm  in  arm 
they  walked  home,  separating  wordless  in  the  silence  of  the  fog 
striken  night. 

After  that  it  was  only  occasionally  that  any  two  of  them  wo" 
seen  together,  shamedly  avoiding  each  others'  eyes.  They  cease 
to  attend  the  crucial  points  of  human  destinies,  although  one  c 
another  of  them  might  sometimes  be  seen  hovering  on  the  oul 
skirts  of  a  p>oignant  event. 

The  partnership  had  dissolved. 


Ik 


6oi 


The  Holy  Family 


Osip  Zadkine. 


The  Little  Review  17 


A  NEW  TESTAMENT 

by  Sherwood  Anderson 

III 

MY  hope  is  that  I  may  build  a  structure  in  your  mind  into  which 
I  may  creep  on  cold  days.  My  mind  has  walked  with  you  in 
forests  and  fields.  It  has  walked  with  you  the  states  of  Ohio,  In- 
diana, Iowa,  Illinois,  Michigan  . 

The  ground  is  frozen  and  we  walk  together  along  a  path 
where  cattle  have  been  before  us.  We  stop  under  an  oak  tree. 
The  red  dry  leaves  still  cling  to  the  branches  overhead.  A  red  leaf 
has  lodged  in  a  place  where  two  great  branches  go  north  and  south. 
It  is  like  a  tiny  drop  of  blood  against  the  black  of  the  branches. 
Hard  snow  sifts  slowly  down  through  many  red  leaves.  It  is  winter 
and  the  trees  bleed  in  the  cold. 


You  have  gone  alone  to  walk  up  and  down. 

You  walk  up  and  down  in  roads  and  through  fields  and  towns. 

You  dhall  walk  up  and  down  forever. 


I  have  gone  to  walk  up  and  down.     It  is  night  and  cold.     I 
want  to  creep  into  you.    You  have  made  me  by  thinking  of  me  and 
I  declare  you  should  be  ashamed  of  what  you  have  done. 
Why  have  you  not  made  me  more  pure. 
Why  have  you  not  made  me  more  beautiful. 
Your  conception  of  me  makes  me  a  little  ill.     It  forces  me  to 
ij  run  away  from  you  into  a  field  of  fancy,  into  a  forest  of  doubt.    If 
I  cannot  be  one  who  when  weary  lies  in  warm  human  layers  of 
thought  I  shall  become  for  the  nonce  and  until  I  am  rested  some- 
1  thing  not  human.    I  have  passed  out  of  your  presence. 
I  become  a  brightly  colored  insect. 
I  am  a  boy  lying  by  a  river  on  a  summer  day. 
At  my  back  is  an  orchard. 

I  look  dreamily  out  over  warm  stagnant  waters.  There  is  a 
reed  grows  out  of  the  yellow  mud.  In  the  orchard  at  my  back  a 
hog  grunts.    An  insect  wiith  brightly  colored  back  and  wings  comes 


i8 


T//€    Little    Review 


swinging  down  stream.  He  has  lived  more  freely  than  the  waters 
of  a  river.  I  go  with  him  as  I  would  go  in  at  the  door  of  God's 
house  if  I  knew  the  street  in  which  God's  house  stands,  as  I  would 
go  into  your  life  if  you  would  leave  the  door  open  for  me. 


You  are  mistaicen  in  thinking  I  will  only  exist  for  a  certair 
number  of  years.    I  do  not  exist  at  all.    I  shall  exist  forever. 

Once  I  thought  that  by  making  love  to  women  I  could  c(Mn< 
at  truth.  Now  I  make  love  to  women  as  the  wings  of  an  insec| 
fleck  the  waters  of  a  stream. 

Truth  lies  far  out  in  the  field  of  fancy,  in  the  forest  of  doubt  I 


There  is  a  woman  has  just  passed  the  door  of  my  housij 
[There  was  a  barely  perceptible  quickening  of   the  pulse  of  mj 
body.     "She  is  beautiful,"  I  thought,  and  said  so  aloud.     I  arosi 
and  went  to  the  door  to  follow  her  with  my  eyes.  -At  the  moma 
when  I  thought  her  beautiful  a  wind  had  just  come  skipping  ar 
shouting  down  the  street.    It  lifted  the  woman's  hat  and  ^e  thrc 
up  her  hand.    Her  hand  made  a  lovely  gesture.     My  neighbor  tl  j 
wind  whispered  the  story  of  her  beauty  to  me. 

I  will  multiply  myself  until  I  pass  like  a  vapor  out  of  yo| 
mind. 

I  am  a  thing  hung  suspended  in  life. 

There  is  no  life  in  me,  only  a  desire  to  creep  into  your  an 
and  sleep  after  my  long  walking  up  and  down. 


I  am  perplexed  and  it  is  sweet  to  me  to  see  that  you  also  f 
perplexed.  If  you  begin  to  know  me  better  than  I  know  mysell 
shall  be  afraid.  If  it  happens  do  not  tell  me.  Gather  me  witl: 
your.self  and  let  me  rest  from  my  walking  up  and  down,  Tellfl 
the  truth  of  myself  in  the  darkness  of  the  dusky  hallways 
yourself. 


iare 


Your  whole  life  is  like  the  dark  hallways  of  a  great  house  In  » 
at  night  when  there  are  no  lights.     You  are  one  of  many  gf' 
houses  I  have  visited.     Russia  is  a  house  and  so  are  you.    Cm 
is  an  old  house.    Many  old  houses  have  fallen  down.  * 

For  a  long  time  I  had  the  illusion  I  was  helping  to  buil< 


The    Little    Review  19 


new  house  in  which  you  and  I  were  to  live.  A  wind  has  blown  the 
illusion  away.  Building  is  going  on  but  I  have  nothing  to  do  with 
it.    It  may  be  that  you  are  the  builder. 

I  am  perplexed  with  trying  to  find  out  who  does  the  building. 
I  creep  in  the  dusty  hallways  and  hear  many  strange  voices.  The 
voices  of  men  and  women  resound  out  of  the  darkness. 

The  voices  cry  out  to  me  that  they  are  the  voices  of  builders 
ibut  as  I  go  forward,  feeling  with  my  hands  on  the  walls,  I  do. not 
come  to  the  place  of  the  building. 

A  soft  voice  has  whispered  to  me  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  builder.  It  was  a  woman's  voice.  "The  noise  you  hear  is 
made  by  heavy  untruths  in  the  hands  of  arrogant  men",  she  said. 
"The  men  lean  out  at  a  window.  They  beat  on  a  brazen  sky. 
They  are  trying  to  make  holes  in  the  sky." 

I  suspect  the  soft  voice  expressed  also  a  hunger.  It  came 
from  a  woman  I  met  in  the  darkness.  I  had  at  the  moment  been 
■running  desperately  in  the  dark  hallways  of  my  house,  in  the 
house  into  which  I  was  dropped  at  the  beginning  of  life.  I  am 
blind  and  when  I  run  I  knock  against  things.  I  knocked  against 
her. 

My  body  had  become  warm  from  the  running.  The  woman 
may  also  have  been  blind.  Our  warm  bodies  touched  in  the  dark- 
;ness.  For  a  long  time  we  stood  close  together  in  silence  and 
darkness.    There  was  a  drimiming  in  my  head. 

All  noises  ceased,  even  the  perpetual  noise  made  by  those  who 
:all  themselves  builders.  In  the  darkness  I  fancied  I  heard  the 
;cream  of  an  animal.  .  . 

Later  it  was  quiet  again  and  I  heard  only  the  voice.  It  spoke 
oftly  and  told  again  of  the  false  builders  and  of  the  heavy  un- 
ruths  with  which  they  beat  on  the  brazen  sky. 

I  shall  remember  the  voice  telling  its  beautiful  lie  as  long  as 
live. 

The  woman  and  I  shall  never  find  each  other  again. 

There  are  too  many  hallways  in  the  houses. 

My  house  is  filled  with  the  smell  of  new-cut  logs  and  the 
alls  are  rough  with  the  marks  of  the  trowels  of  builders. 

My  house  is  noisy  with  the  clangor  of  hammers. 

I  shall  never  escape  out  of  my  house. 

When  the  time  comes  I  shall  take  an  untruth  into  my  hands 
lid  lean  out  at  the  window  to  beat  on  the  sky. 
{to  be  continued) 


i 


I 


20 


The    Little    Review 


INTERIM 

by   Dorothy  Richardson 

Chapter    Eight 

A  DAY  of  blazing  heat  changed  the  season  suddenly.   Flat  tliK  . 
ening  sunlight  travelled  round  the  house.     The  shadowy,  su: 
blinded  flower-scented  waiting-room  held  street-baked  patients  r 
its  deep  armchairs.    Some  of  them  were  languid.   But  none  of  the 
suffered.     They  kept  their  freshness  and  freedom  from  exhaustici 
Iby  living  away  from  toil  and  giimy  heat;  in  cool  clean  clothe j 
moving    swiftly    through   moving   air    in   carriages   and   hollan 
blinded  hansomsj  having  ices  in  expensive  shade;  being  waited  ( 
in  the  cool  depths  of  west-end  houses;  their  lives  disturbed  only  1 
occasional   dentistry.     The  lean   dark  patients  were   like   lizan  | 
lively  and  darting  and  active  even  in  the  sweltering  heat. 

Miriam's  sunless  room  was  cool  all  day.  Through  her 
window  she  could  see  the  sunlight  pouring  over  the  jutting  w 
dows  of  Mr.  Ley  ton's  small  hot  room  and  reflected  in  the  gri^ 
sheen  of  the  frosted  windows  of  the  den.  Her  day's  work  was  i 
real,  as  easy  as  a  dream.  All  about  her  were  oj 
sunlit  days  that  her  summer  could  not  bring,  ^ 
that  yet  were  hers  as  she  moved  amongst  them;  a 
dropped  in  the  hall,  the  sight  of  a  summer  dress,  summer  111 
coming  through  wide  open  windows  took  her  out  into  them.  Si 
mer  would  never  come  again  in  the  old  way,  but"  it  set  her  I 
from  cold,  and  let  her  move  about  unhampered  in  the'sumn 

of  the  past.    Summer  was  happiness Individual  things  v 

straws  on  the  stream  of  summer  happiness  s\ 

At  tea  time  in  the  den  there  was  a  darkening  hush.  It 
like  a  guest,  turning  everyone's  attention  to  itself,  abolishing 
ferences,  setting  free  unexpected  admissions  and  sympathies., 
eryone  spoke  of  the  coming  storm  and  looked  beautiful  in  s_ 
ing.  The  day's  work  was  discussed  as  if  in  the  presence  of  an 
seen  guest.  "~ 


I 


She  set  out  from  the  house  of  friends  to  meet  the  dark/ 
daylight perhaps  the  sudden  tapping  of  thunder-drops  i| 


The   Little    Review  21 


ler  thin  blouse.     The  street  was  a  livid  grey,  Ibrilliant  with  hid- 
len  sunlight.     In  the  deep  grey  the  sunlight  was  happiness. 

The  present  can  be  judged  by  the  part  of  the  past  it  brings 
iUp.  If  the  present  brings  up  the  happiness  of  the  past,  the  pres- 
ent is  happy 

Purgatory.  The  waters  of  Lethe  and  Eunoe,  "forgetfulness 
and  sweet  memory";  and  then  Heaven.  The  Catholics  are  right 
about  expiation.  If  you  are  happy  in  the  present  something  is 
being  expiated.  If  life  contains  moments  of  paradise  you  must 
be  in  purgatory  looking  across  the  vale  of  Asphodel.    You  can't  be 

in  hell Yet  hell  would  not  be  hell  without  a  knowledge  of 

iheaven.  If  once  you've  been  in  heaven  you  can  never  escape.  Yet 
'Dante  believed  in  everlasting  punishment. 

Bathing  in  the  waters  of  Lethe  and  Eunoe  unworthily  is  drink- 
ing one's  own  damnation.  But  happiness  crops  up  before  one 
jean  prevent  it.     Perhaps  happiness   is  one  long  sin,  piling  up  a 

bill It  is  my  secret  companion.     Waiting  at  the  end  of 

every  dark  passage.     I  did  not  make  myself.     I  can't  help  it. 

Brilliant.  .  .  brilliant;  and  someone  was  seeing  it.  There 
was  no  thunderstorm,  no  clouds  or  pink  edges  on  the  brillant  cop- 
per grey.  She  wandered  on  down  the  road  hemmed  by  flaring 
green.  The  invisible  sun  was  everywhere.  There  was  no  air, 
nothing  to  hold  her  body  separate  from  the  scene.  The  grey  bril- 
liance of  the  sky  was  upon  the  pavement  and  in  the  green  of  the 
,park,  making  mauve  shadows  between  the  trees  a  mist  of  mauve 
far  in  amongst  the  further  green.  The  high  house  fronts  stood 
out  against  the  gray,  eastern-white,  frilled  below  with  new-made 

green,  sprouting  motionlessly  as  you  looked white  plaster 

houses  against  the  blue  of  the  Mediteranean,  grey  mimosa  trees, 
I  green-feathered  lilac  of.  wisteria.  Between  the  houses  and  the  park 
the  road  glared  wooden  grey,  dark,  baked,  grey  edged  with  the 
shadowless  stone  grey  of  the  pavement.  Summer.  Eternity 
showing 

The  Euston  Road  was  a  narrow  hot  channel  of  noise  and  un- 
breathable  odours,  the  dusty  exhausting  cruelty  of  the  London 
summer,  leading  on  to  the  feathery  green  floored  woods  of  End- 


'i-'i.  The    Little    Review 


sliegh  Gardens  edged  by  grey  house  fronts,  and  ending  in  the  cool 
stone  mass  of  St.  Pancras  Church. 

In  the  twilight  dining^  room  one's  body  was  like  a  hot  sun 
throbbing  in  cool  dark  air,  ringed  by  cool  walls  holding  darkness 
in  far  corners;  coolness  poured  out  through  the  wide  open  win- 
dows towards  the  rain  cool  gray  facades  of  the  opposite  houses, 
cool  and  cool  until  the  throbbing  ceased. 

All  the  forms  seated  round  the  table  were  beautiful;  faraway 
and  secret  and  separate,  each  oneself  set  in  the  coming  of  sum- 
mer, unconscisous.  One  soul.  Summer  is  the  soul  of  man. 
Through  all  the  past  months  they  had  been  the  waiting  guests  of 
summer. 

The  pain  of  trying  to  get  back  into  the  moment  of  the  first 
vision  of  spring,  the  perfect  moment  before  the  thought  came  that 
spring  was  going  on  in  the  country  unseen,  was  over.  The  moment 
came  back  of  itself  ....  the  green  flush  in  the  squares,  the  ripples . 
of  emerald  fringed  pink  geraniums  along  the  balconies  of  white 
houses. 

After  dinner  Miriam  left  the  dining  room,  driven  joyfully 
forth,  remaining  behind,  floating  and  drifting  happily  about,  united 
with  everyone  in  the  room  as  her  feet  carried  her  step  by  step 
without  destination,  going  everywhere,  up  through  the  staircase 
twilight.  ... 

The  drawing  room  was  filled  with  saffron  light,  filtering  in 
through  the  curtains  hanging  motionless  before  the  high  French 
windows.  Within  the  air  of  the  room,  just  inside  the  faint  smell 
of  dusty  upholstery  was  the  peace  of  the  new  found  summer.  Mrs. 
Bailey's  gift.  There  had  been  no  peace  of  summer  last  year  in  her 
stifling  garret.  This  year  the  summer  was  with  her,  in  the  house 
where  she  was.  Far  away  within  the  peace  of  the  room  was  the 
evening  of  a  hot  summer  day  at  Waldstrasse,  the  girls  sitting 
about,  beautiful  featureless  forms  together  forever  in  the  blissful 
twilight  of  the  coo!  saal  and  sitting  in  its  little  summer  house 
Ulrica,  everybody,  her  dark  delicate  profile  lifted  towards  the  gar- 
den, her  unconscious  pearly  beauty  grouped  against  the  imdislurb- 
ing  presence  of  Fraulein  Pfaff.  Miriam  turned  to  the  near  window 
and  peered   through   the   thick  mesh   of  the  smoke-yellowed  bee 


I 


The    Little    Review  23 


curtain.  Behind  it  the  french  window  stood  ajar.  Drawing  aside 
the  thick  dust-smelling  lace  she  stepped  out  and  drew  the  door  to 
behind  her.  There  were  shabby  drawing  room  chairs  standing 
in  an  irregular  row  on  the  dirty  grey  stone,  railed  by  a  balustrade 
of  dark  maroon  painted  iron  railings  almost  colourless  with  black 
grime.  But  the  elastic  outer  air  was  there  and  away  at  the  end 
of  the  street  a  great  gold  pink  glow  stood  above  and  showed 
through  the  feathery  upper  branches  of  the  trees  in  Endsleigh 
Gardens.  A  number  of  people  must  have  been  sitting  out  before 
dinner.  That  was  part  of  their  dinner-time  happiness.  Presently 
some  of  them  would  come  back.  She  scanned  the  disposition  of 
the  chairs.  The  little  comfortable  circular  velvet  chair  stood  in 
the  middle  of  the  row,  conversationally  facing  the  high  backed 
wicker  chair.  The  other  chairs  were  the  small  stiff  velvet-seated 
ones.  The  one  at  the  north  end  of  the  balcony  could  be  turned 
towards  the  glowing  sky  with. its  back  to  the  rest  of  the  balcony. 
She  reached  and  turned  it  and  sat  down.  The  opposite  houses 
with  their  balconies  on  which  groups  were  already  forming  stood 
sideways  lost  beyond  the  rim  of  her  glasses.  The  balcony  of  the 
next  house  was  empty.     There  was  nothing  between  her  and  the 

vista  of  green  feathering  up  into  the  intense  gold-rose  glow 

She  could  come  here  every  night.  .  .  .  filling  her  life  with  green 
peace;  preparing  for  the  stifling  heat  of  the  nights  in  her  garret. 
This  year,  with  dinner  in  the  cool  dining  room  and  the  balcony 
for  the  evening,  the  summer  would  not  be  so  unbearable.  She 
sat  still  lifted  out  into  garden  freshness.  .  .  .  Benediction.  People 
were  stepping  out  on  to  the  balcony  behind  her,  remarking  on 
the  beauty  of  the  evening,  their  voices  new  and  small  in  the  outer 
air.  ...  If  she  never  came  out  again  this  summer  would  be  differ- 
ent. It  had  begun  differently.  She  knew  what  lay  ahead  and 
could  be  prepared  for  it. 

She  would  find  coolness  at  the  heart  of  the  swelter  of  London 
if  she  could  keep  a  tranquil  mind.  The  coolness  at  the  heart  of 
the  central  swelter  was  wonderful  life,  from  moment  to  moment, 
pnre  life.  To  go  forward  now,  from  this  moment,  alive,  keeping 
alive,  through  the  London  summer.  Even  to  go  away  for  holidays 
would  be  to  break  up  the  wonder,  to  snap  the  secret  clue  and  lose 
the  secret  life.  ... 


The  rosy  gold  was  deepening  and  spreading. 


24  The    Little    Review 


Miriam  found  herself  rested  as  if  by  sleep.  It  seemed  as 
if  she  had  been  sitting  in  the  stillness  for  a  time  that  was  longer 
than  the  whole  of  the  working  day.  To  recover  like  this  every 
day  ....  to  have  at  the  end  of  every  day  a  cool  solid  clear  head 
and  rested  limbs  and  the  feeling  that  the  strain  of  work  was  so  far 
away  that  it  could  never  return.  The  tireless  sense  of  morning 
and  new  day  th|it  came  in  moving  from  part  to  part  of  her  London 
evenings  and  was  strongest  of  all  at  the  end  of  a  long  evening, 
going  on  from  a  lecture  or  a  theatre  to  endless  leisured  reading, 
the  happy  gaslight  over  her  book  under  the  sloping  roof,  always 
left  her  in  the  morning  unwilling  to  get  up,  and  made  the  begin- 
ning of  the  day  horrible  with  lanquor  and  breakfast  a  scramble, 
taken  to  the  accompaniment  of  guilty  listening  for  the  striking  of 
nine  o'clock  from  St.  Pancras  church,  and  the  angry  sense  of 
Mr.  Hancock  already  arriving  cool  and  grey  clad  at  the  morning 
door  of  Wimpole  Street.  To-night,  going  strong  and  steady  to 
her  hot  room,  sleep  would  be  silvery  cool.  She  would  wake  early 
and  fresh,  and  surprise  them  all  at  Wimpole  Street  arriving  early 
and  serene  after  a  leisurely  breakfast. 

The  rosy  light  shone  into  far-away  scenes  with  distant  friends. 
They  came  into  her  mind  rapidly  one  by  one,  and  stayed  grouped 
in  a  radiance,  sharper  and  clearer  than  in  experience.  She  recalled 
scenes  that  had  left  a  sting,  something  still  to  be  answered.  She 
saw  wi^ere  she  had  failed;  her  friends  saw  what  she  had  meant,  in 
some  secret  unconscious  part  of  them  that  was  turned  away  from 
the  world;  in  their  thoughts  with  themseleves  when  they  were 
alone.  Her  own  judgments,  sharply  poised  in  memory  upon  the 
end  of  some  small  incident,  reversed  themselves,  dropped  meaning- 
less, returned  reinforced,  went  forward,  toward  some  clearer  un- 
derstanding. Her  friends  drifted  forward,  coming  too  near,  as  if 
in  competition  for  some  central  place.  To  every  claim,  she  offer- 
ed her  evening  sky  as  a  full  answer.  The  many  forms  remained, 
grouped  like  an  audience,  confronted  by  the  evening. 

The  gold  was  fading,  a  soft  mistiness  spreading  through  the 
deepening  rose,  making  the  leafage  darker  and  more  opaque. 
Presently  the  sky  would  be  mother-of-pearl  above  a  soft  dark 
mass  and  the  pure  evening  grey  outlining  the  dark  feathery  tree 
tops  of  a  London  square  turning  to  green  below  in  the  lamplight, 
sinking  to  sleep,  deeply  breathing  out  its  freshness  to  meet  the 


The    Ldttle    Review 25 


freshness  pouring  through  the  streets  from  the  neighboring  squares. 
Freshness  would  steal  over  the  outside  walls  of  the  houses  already 
cool  within.  Only  in  the  garrets  would  the  sultry  day  remain  un- 
der the  slowly  cooling  roofs. 

There  was  still  a  pale  light  flowing  into  the  dusk  of  the  gar- 
ret.   It  must  be  only  about  nine  o'clock. the  gas  flared  out 

making  a  winter  brilliance.  .  .  .  Four  sermons  on  Dante.  .  .  Kue- 
nen's  Life  of  Dante  ....  Gemma,  Donati,  Gemma,  busily  mak- 
ing puddings  in  the  world  lit  by  the  light  of  the  Mystic 
Rose,     swept     away     by     the    rush     of     words  ....  a  stout 

Italian  woman Gemma,  by  Bayatrichay  ....  they  were 

bound  to  reach  music.  ...  a  silent  Italian  woman  in  a  hot  kitchen 
scolding,  left  out  of  the  mystic  rose  .  .  .  Lourdes  .  .  .  Le  Nabab  .  .  . 
atroce  comedie  de  bonheur  conjugale  sans  relache.  .  .  .  the  French- 
man expressing  what  the  Englishman  only  thinks  .  .  .  "the  wife", 

I  met  my  WIFE! red  nose  and  check  trousers,  smoky 

self-indulgent  married  man,  all  the  self-indulgent  married  men  in 
the  audience  guffawing.  .  .  .  You  must  be  ready  to  face  being 
taken  for  granted,  you  must  hide  your  troubles,  learn  to  say 
nothing  of  your  unnoticed  exhausting  toil,  wear  a  smile  above 
the  heart  that  you  believe  is  breaking ;  stand  steady  in  face  of  the 
shipwreck  of  all  your  dreams.  Remember  that  although  he  does 
not  know  it,  in  spite  of  all  his  apparent  oblivion  and  neglect,  if 
you  jail,  his  universe  crumbles men  live  their  childish  ig- 
norant lives  on  a  foundation  of  pain  and  exhaustion.  Down  in 
the  fevered  life  of  pain  and  exhaustion  there  is  a  deep  certainty. 
There  is  no  deep  certainty  in  the  lives  of  men.  If  there  were  they 
would  not  be  forever  talking  with  conceited  guilty  lips  as  if  some- 
thing were  waiting  if  they  stopped  to  spring  on  them  from  behind 

....  The  evolution  of  the  Idea  of  God I  have  forgotten 

what  that  is  about a  picture  of  a  sort  of  madonna  .  .  .  corn 

goddess,  with  a  child  and  sheaves  of  corn.  .  .  .  The  Mechanism 
of  Thought.  .  .  .  Thirty  Sane  Criticisms.  .  .  .  Critique  de  la  Pensee 

Moderne;  traduit  par  H.  Navray,  Mercure  de  France How 

did  he  begin?  Where  was  he  when  he  came  out  and  began  say- 
ing everybody  was  wrong?     How  did  he  get  to  know  about  it  all? 

She  took  down  a  volume  unwillingly there  was  something 

being  lost,  something  waiting  within  the  quiet  air  of  the  room 
that  would  be  gone  if  she  read.  It  was  not  too  late.  Why  did 
men  write  books?  Modern  men?  The  book  was  open.  Her  eyes 
scanned  unwillingly.     Fabric.     How  did  he  find  his  words?     No 


26  The   Little   Review 


one  had  ever  said  fabric  about  anything.  It  made  the  page  alive 
....  a  woven  carpet,  on  one  side  a  beautiful  glowing  pattern,  on 
the  other  dull  stringy  harshness  ....  there  is  a  dangerous  looseness 
....  her  heart  began  beating  apprehensively.  The  room  was 
dead  about  her.  She  sat  down  tense,  and  read  the  sentence 
through.  There  is  a  dangerous  looseness  in  the  fabric  of  our 
minds.  She  imagined  the  words  spoken,  looseness  was  ugly,  mak- 
ing the  mouth  ugly  in  speech.  There  is  a  looseness  in  the  fabric 
of  our  minds.  That  is  what  he  would  have  said  in  conversation, 
looking  nowhere  and  waiting  to  floor  an  objection.  There  is  a 
dangerous,  he  had  \vritten.  That  introduced  another  idea.  You 
were  not  supposed  to  notice  that  there  were  two  statements.  But 
to  read  smoothly,  on,  accepting.  It  was  deliberate.  Put  in  de- 
liberately to  frighten  you  into  reading  more.  Dangerous.  The 
adjective  in  the  sentence,  personal,  a  matter  of  opinion.  People 
who  read  the  books  do  not  think  about  adjectives.  They  like 
them.  Conversation  is  adjectives! all  the  worry  of  con- 
versation is  because  people  use  adjectives  and  rush  on Ad- 
jectives are  the  knives  of  language But  you  can't  describe.  .  . 

but  dangerous  is  not  a  descriptive  adjective.  .  .  .  there  is  a  twisted 
looseness,  that  describes.  .  .  .  that  is  Saxon.  .  .  Abendmahl  .  .  . 
fatal,  French  .  .  .  the  Prince  of  Wales  uses  the  elegant  Norman 
idiom.  .  .  .  dangerous  is  an  idea,  the  language  of  ideas.  It  ex- 
presses nothing  but  an  opinion  about  life.  ...  a  threat  daring  you 

to  disagree.     Dangerous  to  what? "Man  is  a  badly  made 

machine.  ...  an  oculist  could  improve  upon  the  human  eye".  .  .  . 
and  the  mind  wrong  in  some  way  too "logic  is  a  cheap  arith- 
metic." Imagination.  What  is  imagination?  Is  it  his  imagina- 
tion that  has  found  out  that  mind  is  loose?  Is  not  imagination 
mind?  It  is  his  imaginative  mind.  A  special  kind  of  mind.  But 
if  mind  discovers  that  mind   is  unreliable,   its  conclusion   is   also 

unreliable.     That's  logic Barbara.     All  mind  is  unreliable,. 

Man  is  mind,  therefore  man  is  unreliable  ....  Then  it  is  use- 
less to  try  and  know  anything  ....  books  go  on he 

has  invented  imagination.  Images.  Fabric.  But  he  did  not 
invent  dangerous.  That  is  cheek.  By  this  sin  fell  the  angels. 
Perhaps  he  is  a  fallen  angel.     I  was  right  when  I  told  Eve  I  had 

sold  my  soul  to  the  devil "Quite  a  good  afterglow"  and 

then  wheeling  alertly  about  to  capture  and  restate  some  thread 

and  then  later,  finding  you  still  looking  "M'yes;  a  fine 

....  fuliginous.  .  .  .  pink.  .  .  .  God's  had  a  strawberry  ice  for 
supper"  ....  endless  inexhaustible  objections  ....  a  cold  grim 


Tlbe   Little    Review  27 


scientific  world.   .  .  .  Alma  knew  it.     In  that  clear  bright  house 

with  the  satisfying  furniture.   .   .   .  now  let's  all  make  Buddhas. 

Let's  see  who  can  make  the  best  Buddha.  .  .  .  Away  from  them 
jyou  eould  forget;  but  it  was  going  on  all  the  time.  .  .  .  somehow 
;  ahead  of  everything  else  that  was  going  on.  .  .  .  She  got  up  and 
j replaced  the  book.  ,It  was  on  her  shelf;  a  signed  copy;  extraor- 
idinary.  It  was  an  extraordinary  privilege.  No  one  else  could 
i  write  books  like  that;  no  one  else  knew  so  much  about  everything. 
'  Right  or  wrong  it  was  impossible  to  give  up  hearing  all  he  had 

to  say.  .  .  .  and  they  were  kind,  alive  to  one"s  life  in  a  way  other 
I  j  people  were  not 

She  strolled  to   the  window,   finding   renewal   in   the   familiar 

creaking  of  her  floor  in  the  house,  here  ....  She  went  back  across 

'the  happy  creaking  and  turned  out  the  gas  and  came  again  to  the 

5 window.    The  sky  was  dark  enough  to  show  a  brilliant  star;  here 

land  there  in  the  darkness  of  the  opposite  house  fronts  was  an 

'-oblong  of  golden  light.     The  faint  blue  light  coming  up  from  the 

street  lit  up  the  outer  edges  of  the  gray  stone  window-sills.     The 

air  under  the  wooden  roof  of  the  window  space  was  almost  as  close 

as  warm  under  an  immense  height  of  upper  coolness.  .  .  . 

Down  at  the  end  of  the  road  were  the  lamplit  green  trees;  plane- 
tree  shadows  on  the  narrow  pavement.  She  put  on  her  hat  in  the 
dark.  Crossing  the  roadway  to  reach  the  narrow  strip  of  pavement 
running  along  under  the  trees  she  saw  single  dark  figures  standing 
at  intervas  against  the  brilliant  lamplit  green  and  swerved  back  to 
the  wide  pavement.     She  had  fogotten  they  would  be  there.     They 

stood  like  sentinels Behind  them  the  lamplit  green  flared 

feverishly In  the  shadow  of  St.  Pancras  church  there  were 

others,  small  and  black  in  a  desert.  .  .  lost  quickly  in  the  great 
shadow  where  the  passers-by  moved  swiftly  through  from  light  to 
light.  Out  in  the  Euston  Road  along  the  pavements  shadowed  by 
irees  and  left  in  darkness  by  the  high  spindling  shaded  candles  of 
the  lamps  along  the  centre  of  the  roadway,  they  came  walking,  a 
foreign  walk,  steadily  slow  and  wavy  and  expressive,  here  and 
there  amongst  the  shapeless  expressionless  forms  of  the  London 
wayfarers.  The  high  stone  entrance  of  Euston  Station  shone 
white  across  the  way.  Anyone  can  go  into  a  station.  Within 
the  entrance  gravelled  darkness  opened  out  on  either  side.  Si- 
lence all  round  and  ahead  where  silent  buildings  had  here  and 
:here  a  lit  window.  Where  was  the  station?  Immense  London 
darkness  and  stillness  alone  and  deserted  like  a  country  place  at 


28  Tlie    Little    Review 


night ;  just  beyond  tlie  noises  of  the  Eusloii  Road.  :\  murdei 
might  happen  here.  The  cry  of  an  engine  sounded  muffled  anc 
far  away.  Just  ahead  in  the  centre  of  the  ap])roaching  wide  magj 
of  building  was  a  wide  dimly  lit  stone  archway.  The  rattle  of 
hansom  sounded  from  an  open  space  beyond.  Its  light  appearet 
swaying  swiftly  forward  and  lit  the  archway.  The  hansom  bowlec 
through  in  startling  silence,  nothing  but  the  jingle  and  duml 
leathery  rattle  of  the  harness,  and  ])assed,  the  plonking  of  th« 
horses'  hoofs  and  the  swift  slur  of  the  wheels  sounding  out  agaii 
in  the  open  space.  The  archway  had  little  side  pathways  for  pas 
sengers  roofed  by  small  arching  extensions  of  the  central  arch.  .  . 
indiarubber.    ...    to   muffle.    .    .    the   building    hotel;    Edward 

daylight  Family  hotel expensive  people  lodging  just  abov 

the  arch,  travelling,  coming  to  London,  going  away  from  Londor 
with  no  thought  of  the  dark  secret  neighborhood.  A  courtyar 
opened  out  beyond  the  arch.  It  was  not  even  yet  the  statlor 
'fhere  was  a  road  just  ahead  going  right  and  left,  with  lamps 
just  in  front  to  the  left  across  the  road  a  lit  building  with 
frosted  lower  window  and  a  clock.  ...  a  post  office.  Miriar 
v/ent  through  the  swinging  door  into  warm  yellow  gaslight.  ^ 
the  long  counter  people  stood  .busily  occupied  or  waiting  thei 
turn  with  their  backs  to  the  dusty  floor  space,  not  noticing  th 
grey  space  of  dusty  floor  and  the  curious  warm  gleam  of  the  ligl 
falling  upon  it  from  behind  the  iron  grille  along  the  counter  111 
clerks  were  fresh  and  serene  and  unhurried,  making  a  stead 
quiet  woi"kaday  feeling;  late  at  night.  It  swung  the  day  rounn 
morning  and  evening  together  in  the  gaslit  enclosure.  She  stoo 
at  the  counter  sharing  the  sense  of  affairs.  She  could  be  a  cui 
tomer  for  a  penny  stamp.  Waiting  outside  was  the  walk  ibac 
through  the  various  darkness,  the  indiarubber  pathway, 
knowing  her  way. 

{to  be  continued) 


i 


<// 


Mother  and  Child. 


Osip  Zadkine 


UTTLE  HEYIE 


Editor: 

Margaret  Anderson 

Foreign   Editors: 

John    Rodker  Jules   Romains 

Advisory    Board: 
jh 

^ay     Sinclair's     "Mary     Olivier' 


rHIS  was  to  have  been  a  contribution  to  a_  symp>osium  on 
"Mary  Olivier",  but  I  am  already  aware  that  it  is  not  to  be 
lat.  For  I  think  of  the  book  as  a  symptom  and  not  a  case,  and  it 
>  the  case  that  interests  me.  A  fairly  thick  and  difficult  thing  was 
tempted  here — the  portentously  foreshortened  intention  stands  in- 
ubitably  at  the  end  of  the  thin  procession  of  silhouettes  that  move 
owly  across  the  pages,  and  still  stands  there  after  "Finis"  is  writ- 
'n.  And  the  intention,  which  is  the  "case",  remains  to  me  the 
lild  excitement  of  the  book. 

For  to  put  down  "Mary  Olivier"  or  almiost  any  one  of  the 
serious"  current  novels — by  which  one  can  only  mean  the  novels 
f  those  writers  who  seem  striving  to  "do  .something"  for  what  we 
ill,  perhaps  a  little  loosely,  the  art  of  fiction — is  to  realize,  with 
certain  excitement,  granted  we  are  open  to  the  light  play  of  such 
nsations,  that  we  are  suddenly  a  generation  again  in  presence  of 


30  The    Little    Review 

the  great  game;  the  application,  however  "intuitive"  or  however 
"scientific,"  however  desperately  ruthless  or  bunderngly  tender,  of 
a  new  "treatment  to  the  great  case  of  the  Novel.  Such  a  game  as 
the  "romantic  school"  of  1830  played  with  the  alleged  malpracti- 
tioners  who  preceded  its  treatment  of  the  great  case;  as  the  realist- 
ic school"  played  with  the  romantics;  as  the  knife-draped  "natur- 
alists" played  with  them  both,  and  as  the  "aesthetic  school"  played 
with  them  all.  From  methods  marked  by  an  extreme  lack  of  "con- 
sciousness", the  case  of  the  Novel  has  passed  through  the  roman- 
tic-realistic-naturalistic-a^sthetic  muddle  of  consciousness,  and, 
with  the  publication  a  scant  decade  ago  of  Mr.  D.Ti.  Lawrence's 
"Sons  and  Lovers",  awoke  in  a  new  ward  and  to  a  new  curative 
process  for  its  obscure  disease — this  process  we  may  call  for  the 
nonce  "the  subconscious  approach  to  the  representation  of  life." 
Under  this  treatment  it  is  likely  to  remain  for  a  long  time  to  come 
and  its  case  history  is  likely  to  reward  attention. 

For  the  representation  of  life,  not  simply  through  a  con- 
sciousness that  determines — or  tries  to  determine — the  adventure, 
but  through  a  subconscious  life  that  determines  them  both,  calls 
for  fairly  thick  treatment,  something  the  all-enduring  Novel  has 
had  none  too  much  of ;  and  the  translation,  not  to  say  transmuta- 
tion of  subconscious  motivation  into  dramatic  action  demands  mon 
"treating"  than  the  novelist  in  general  has  ever  felt  called  on  t( 
give.  So  far  the  results  seem  rather  "thin";  perhaps  because  tht 
source  material  seems  more  clinical  than  orignal ;  more  sought,  tha 
is  to  say,  than  come  upon. — Edna  Kenton. 


I 


//.  EAT  'EM  ALIVE! 

shall  not  attempt  a  criticism  of  May  Sinclair:  in  the  sens* 
_  of  trying  to  place  her  either  in  1  elation  to  the  writers  of  her  tim« 
or  in  relation  to  the  future.  I  can't  very  well  believe  that  any  sue! 
remarks  ever  register  with  the  public;  readers  of  the  Little  Revia 
who  have  read  Joyce  may  be  able  to  gauge  for  themselves  the  dil 
ference  between  the  work  of  a  man  of  sheer  genius  and  that  of  ; 
best  standard  novelist. 

1  may  be  doing  May  Sinclair  an  injustice.  .  .  I  offer  this  a 
an  impression:  smce  Freud  has  become  to  the  run  of  moder 
writers  what  Butterick  patterns  are  to  the  home  dressmaker,  I  }m 
itate  to  put  the  thing  upon  May  Sinclair;  but  the  line-up  of  m 


The    Little    Review  31 


characters  in  "Mary  Olivier"  reads  like  the  list  for  a  clinic.  Path- 
ological predestination  bears  small  relation  to  creative  inevitability. 

Ben  Hecht  threatens  to  write  a  novel  about  two  "boobs". 
"It's  easy  enough  to  write  about  strange  people— types,  grotesques, 
it  has  to  be  interesting — but  I  am  going  to  choose  two  boobs  and 
write  a  novel  of  their  love  and  quarrels,  their  commonplace  boob 
life"  .  Of  course  if  Hecht  writes  this  book  and  his  boobs  remain 
boobs  the  point  of  writing  a  novel  has  been  lost.  If  a  man  is  an 
artist  everything  he  produces  is  blood-relation  to  himself  (he  creates 
in  his  own  image),  his  boobs  do  not  remain  boobs.  On  the  other 
hand  there  are  the  Dreisers,  Galiworthys,  etc.,  whose  geniuses  turn 
out  to  be  boobs.  Why  make  an  effort  to  add  to  this  galaxy  .  .  . 
Joyce  in  "Ulysses"  is  slowly  deifying  all  the  boobs  in  Dublin. 

I  shall  not  retell  the  story  of  "Mary  Olivier".  I  am  not  inter- 
ested in  book  reviewing.  Perhaps  it  may  be  necessary  to  say 
that  the  story  is  an  effort,  in  a  new  manner,  to  present  the  sub- 
consciously motivated  drama  of  an  English  family.  It  is  built 
around  the  (personality  of  the  mother  who  holds  or  strangles  every 
member  of  her  immediate  family,  even  relatives  and  servants,  in 
her  devouring  sweetness. 

Mary  Olivier  who  is  supposed  to  be  an  "exceptional  being", — 
mentally,  spiritually,  physically, — also  an  artist,  is  frustrated  at 
every  turn  by  her  weak  beautiful  Mamma, — ^her  inc  deferred  for 
forty  years.  May  Sinclair  has  very  successfully  portrayed  this 
type  of  mother — the  carniverous  flower;  but  she  seems  to  forget 
that  carniverous  flowers  devour  only  insects. 

Mary  Olivier  may  be  to  some  readers  all  that  May  Sinclair  puts 
her  up  to  be,  but  to  me  she  is  the  prototype  of  the  American  col- 
lege woman:  always  young,  always  untouched,  with  mind  and 
heart  of  some  psyhic  rubber  from  which  tragedy,  experience,  in- 
tuitions bounce  off,  leaving  them  forever  bouyant  athletic  debu- 
tantes of  life,  at  whatever  age  you  meet  them.  .  .  minds,  voices 
gestures,  bodies  ungrown  and  oblivious  of  the  grace  and  contours 
of  sex.    I  call  them  unfertilized  eggs. 

Mary  passes  through  an  unbelievable  number  of  catastrophes: 
a  modern  Job ;  but  at  the  age  of  forty-two  she  talks  with  he  lover 
in  the  same  ungrown  diction  and  rhythm  of  twenty.  Her  entire  life 
she  has  concentrated  on  the  study  of  religion,  philosophy,  and  the 
arts,  but  the  best  she  can  do  at  the  insurmountable  moments  is  to 
give  the  whole  situation  of  life  and  love  a  Christian  Science  absent 
treatment.  Development  with,  and  development  without,  a  concep- 


32  The    Little    Review 


tion  of  life  arc  different  things,  the  development  of  the  average  hu- 
man being  is  no  more  important  than  the  development  of  fat  people. 
May  Sinclair  did  not  convince  mc  that  Mary  had  a  conception 
of  life.  Mary  did  not  create  her  world  any  more  than  she  was  af- 
fected by  it;  life  ran  parallel  to  her;  she  never  really  knew  what 
was  going  on.  Her  "great  spiritual  triumph"  in  the  end  is  the 
completion  of  the  frustration,  the  capping  proof  that  she  had  not 
escaped  being  devoured  by  her  mother. — ///. 

Sincerity 

I  wish  that  the  word  sincerity  could  be  dropped  from  the  lan- 
guage. When  primitive  man  abandonded  sincerity  civiliza- 
tion began.  Even  a  war  worker,  if  he  put  his  mind  to  it,  could  see 
that  the  whole  social  structure  would  collapse  if  we  attempted  a 
return  to  sincerity.  Every  institution  of  the  modern  world  is 
maintained  to  protect  society  from  the  naive,  the  idealists  who 
take  a  try  at  it:  prisons,  insane  asylums,  censors  and  the  latest, — 
deportation. 

And  still  one  has  to  stand  champing  at  the  bit  while  some 
good  citizen  gushes  over  the  sincerity  of  this  or  that  public  man  or 
assures  us  that  our  magazine  would  be  "all  right"  if  the  artists 
contributing  to  it  were  only  sincere  and  not  trying  to  be  so  ex- 
treme. Who  could  face  the  situation  of  a  sincere  world:  the  bore- 
dom, the  sights  and  sounds,  the  danger!  The  greatest  service  the 
average  man  could  perform  for  society  would  be  to  cultivate  in 
himself  some  selected  insincerity. 

But  take  the  sincerity  of  the  artist.  It  is  not  his  business 
to  be  exact  about  life:  the  reality  of  things  is  not  his  concern. 
Even  if  he  should  choose  to  make  it  so  it  does  not  seem^  very  pos- 
sible that  his  representation  of  even  the  most  simple  ob'ject  (after 
having  passed  though  his  powerfully  specialized  senses  and  mind) 
could  be  very  familiar  (sincere)  to  the  public. 

The  artist  is  able  at  times  to  convey  to  the  enlightened  that 
the  emotions  and  activities  of  humanity  and  the  grind  of  nature  are 
not  special  nor  interesting  in  themselves.  The  eternal  complete 
design  is  not  indicated  except  by  its  conscious  complement.  Art. 
This  hydrophobia  for  sincerity  in  the  work  of  an  artist 
might  be  more  worth  discussing  if  it  were  not  so  apparently  a  mania 
belonging  in  the  category  of  the  minds  we  always  have  with  us, — 


X. 


The    Little  Review  33 


the  war  hysteria  mind  which,  when  there  is  no  war  to  gorge  itself 
upon,  froths  at  negroes,  jews,  catholics,  the  yellow  peril,  and  for- 
eigners of  all  kinds. — jh. 

jh 

Two     Concerts     of     the     Month 

,  I.     ROBERT     E.     SCHMIDT 

T^O  talk  of  modern  piano  playing  one  must  discuss  not  Rach- 
A  maninoff,  Profofieth,  and  Oi-istein  (like  the  New  York  Nation) 
>ut  a  Frenchman  by  the  name  of  Robert  E.  Schmidt. 

Rachmaninoff's  beautiful  playing  is  of  his  own  generation,  of 
in  older  tradition,  and  does  not  pretend  to  any  infusion  of  really 
nodern  feeling.  ,  Prokofieff  plays  the  piano  so  badly  that  it  doesn't 
natter  whether  he  plays  old  music  or  his  own  rather  interesting 
XHnpositions.  And  Omstein,  who  has  never  been  able  to  play  as 
iwdl  as  even  the  conyentional  standards  of  his  generation  dtmand, 
las  certainly  not  been  interesting  enough  to  force  a  ne\^'er  or 
)etter  standard  into  recognition. 

If  any  one  thinlcs  there  is  no  real  difference  between  the  old 
vay  of  playing  and  the  new,  I  can  only  assume  that  it  will  not  be 
he  layman  who  thinks  so.  These  fa:alures  to  grasp  what  is  going  on 
est  too  securely  with  the  musicians  themselves;  just  as  only  a 
;ood-  old-fashioned  painter  can  really  excel  at  misunderstanding 
he  good  modern  painters.  The  layman  knows  nothing  about 
hings,  but  he  usually  knows  at  least  that  one  kind  of  thing  is  dif- 
erent  from  another  kind.  The  musicians  I  heard  talking  after 
klr.  Schmidt's  concert  knew  that  they  had  been  listening  to  a  pro- 
gram of  modern  music,  but  didn't  suspect^  Mr.  Schmidt's  qual- 
fication  for  playing  it:  that  is,  that  he  plays  with  the  new  and 
pecial  piano  technique  which  is  demanded  for  the  modern  com- 
>osers.  I  heard  competent  musicians  saying  the  same  kind  of 
hing  they  would  say  about  a  Gabrilowitsch  concert, — applying  the 
ame  standardized  criticism  to  both,  as  though  Mr.  Gabrilowitsch 
lad  ever  tried  to  do  what  Mr.  Schmidt  is  trying  to  do. 

I  talk  of  technique  so  emphatically  only  because  it  seems  to 
fi  that  the  people  who  cannot  recognize  the  emotional  content  of 
lOdern  music  could  perhaps  get  into  touch  with  it  by  knowing 
►mething  about  the  obviously  different  technique  required  to 
play  it.    Of  course  the  fact  that  the  old  musical  forms  would  not 


34  The    Little    Review 


serve  the  modern  musician  for  his  expression  proceeded  the  fac 
of  the  development  of  a  new  technique  which  would  allow  tha 
expression  its  full  sweep.  This  is  so  obvious  a  matter:  how  c* 
a  form  that  has  held  the  feeling  of  one  age  offer  itself  as  lii 
receptacle  for  all  another  age  may  need  to  pour  into  it?  Ther 
should  be  no  comtroversy  about  the  facts  of  evolution.  But  ther 
is  almost  nothing  else.  The  popular  mind  laughs,  the  profession* 
mind  scorns  or  mistrusts.  It's  as  though  the  apes  had  mocked  th 
first  men  for  walking  upright, — called  them  extremists,  fools,  c 
strivers  for  "effect"  because  the  upright  position  suited  their  neec 
better  tlian  the  going  on  all-fours. 

Mr.  Schmidt  is  more  en  rapport  with  the  new  musical  feelin 
than  any  one  I  have  heard  play  here;  more  than  Cortot,  who  aftt 
all  retains  the  tradition  of  a  certain  kind  of  conventional  "beauty 
for  Chopin,  etc. ;  more  than  Bauer  who  has  not  the  full  range  ( 
(what  is  known  as)  "poetic  feeling"  that  Mr.  Schmidt  command 
Bauer's  playing  of  Ghausson,  Schon'berg,  Albeniz,  etc.  issuperbabl 
intelligent;  and  he  plays  the  Moussorgsky  "Tableaux  d'une  exp( 
sition"  with  more  color  and  life  perhaps  'than  any  one  else  wb 
has  done  it  here.  But  his  Debussy  will  not  compare  with  M 
Schmidt's.  The  latter  must  be  considered  the  real  Debussy  e: 
ponent, —  at  least  so  far  revealed.  He  plays  Debussy's  music  wit 
the  quiet  effortless  undulations  that  are  essential  for  the  Debuss 
tone  qualities, — the  effect  of  moving  things  in  front  oi  sustaine 
movement  that  cannot  be  even  suggested  without  the  new  ted 
nique  of  which  I  have  spoken.  In  Ravel's  "Pavanne  pour  ur 
infante  defunte"  he  offers  such  a  study  in  piano  orchestratic 
that  it  is  a  pity  there  were  not  more  sophisticated  listeners  in  tl 
audience.  For  one  of  his  encores  he  played  the  done-t( 
death  Chopin  nocturne  in  F  sharp  with  an  entirely  "different 
Chopin  feeling,  making  it  one  of  the  most  effective  things  on  a 
o^therwise  all-modern  program.  Bauer's  Chopin  is  quite  unreli 
ted  to  these  vibrations,  but  they  are  what  I  mean  by  the  "ne 
emotions." 

II.  BEN  NO     MOISEIWITSCH 

For  a  study  in  old  emotions  nothing  could  be  better  than  tl: 
MoJseiwitsch  concert,  being  the  very  best  thing  of  its  kind  an 
illustrating  so  conclusively  how  the  "kind"  no  longer  has  an 
place  in  our  lives. 

It's  an  extraordinary  thing  to  sit  through  a  concert  that  ovti 


The   Little    Review 35 

flows  with  emotions  which  have  died  through  sheer  repetition ; 
and  to  feel  an  audience  around  you  still  vibrating  (from  habit)  to 
those  emotional  values  which  you  know^  to  be  dead.  It  envelops 
you  in  a  strange  embarrassment. 

The  critics  must  have  brought  out  their  best  superlatives  for 
Moiseiwitsch.  I  haven't  read  what  they  said,  but  they  couldn't 
consistently  do  anything  else.  He  plays  like  an  old  master,  with 
the  powder  and  brilliance  and  taste  that  have  been  accepted  foi 
years  as  the  basis  of  great  playing.  He  really  does  beautifu\ 
things;  and  the  fact  that  he  uses  a  Mason  and  Hamlin  piano, 
rather  than  the  Steinway  which  nearly  all  the  great  pianists  of  his 
type  have  used,  gives  him  the  advantage  of  sounding  more  sonor- 
ous and  "singing"  than  Paderewski,  for  instance,  ever  sounded. 

But  all  this  is  negated  by  the  fact  that  Moiseiwitsch  has 
concerned  himself  only  with  musical  education  :  he  has  not  con- 
cerned himself  with  musical  ideas.  Having  perfected  an  equipment 
by  which  he  can  do  what  he  wants  with  his  instrument,  and  do  it 
as  well  or  better  than  it  has  been  done,  he  must  now  face  the  situ- 
ation that  other  men  are  working  far  beyond  him, — working  in  an 
absolutely  different  material.  If  he  develops  in  consciousness  this 
will  become  a  tragedy  to  him,  because  he  cannot  reach  them 
unless  he  can  discard  his  education.  And  it  is  safe  to  say  that  he 
will  probably  never  face  the  tragedy  :  he  appears  too  happy  in 
his  present  conceptions  ever  perhaps  to  become  aware  that  they 
no  longer  serve. —  Margaret  Anderson. 

Rolland's    "Colus    Breugnon" 

AT  frequent  and  repeated  intervals  in  America  it  becomes  nec- 
essary to  take  oneself  to  a  cyclone-cellar  while  a  storm  of  en- 
thusiasm for  a  new  book  or  author  sweeps  the  country.  When 
one  has  weathered  the  awful  days  of  Bennett,  Wells,  George,  Shaw, 
the  Russians^  Ibanez,  why  be  disturbed  by  Rolland.  Because  it 
is  part  of  the  storm  to  believe  that  a  book  by  a  frenchman  is  more 
"literary",  it  places  one  more  definitely  to  read  him.  "Jean  Chris- 
tophe"  was  one  of  these  touchstones.  I  have  been  asked  a  thous- 
and times  if  I  have  read  "Jean  Christophe."  When  I  answer  "No, 
I  fear  I  am  not  one  of  Mr.  Rolland's  audience,"  instead  of  it  be- 
ing left  as  a  compliment  to  him  I  am  emphatically  told  that  "there 


36  The    Little    Review 


are  some  good  things  in  "Jean  Christophc."  A  super-artist  it 
would  seem  to  have  achieved  so  much  in  ten  volumes. 

All  this  is  very  well  as  another  little  game,  but  when  it  is 
looked  at  squarely  it  is  rather  depressing.  Nine  tenths  of  thesCL 
cyclones  are  raised  about  second-rate  men  or  men  who  are  not 
artists  at  all;  there  is  little  chance  for  the  true  artist  to  get  a 
hearing,  and  appreciation  never. 

Men  like  Rolland,  grown  in  a  country  where  the  literary  soil 
has  been  fertilized  for  centuries,  are  a  very  different  product  from 
the  second-rate  men  in  a  country  like  America.  Fertilization  does 
not  change  the  species;  civilization  should  not  be  confused  with 
genius.     I  cannot  say  any  more  of  "Colas  Breugnon."     (Holt). — 


The     Provincetown     Players 

WHEN  a  magazine  like  the  Playboy  has  announced  that  it  is 
a  magazine  of  Art  and  Jocundity '  it  would  be  redundant 
and  discourteous  to  offer  an  analysis  based  on  the  rigid  standards 
of  non-jocund  art. 

When  a  theatre  like  the  ProvincetowTi  Players  has  become  so 
personal  and  so  much  a  parish  organization  that  the  social  ameni- 
ties must  be  preserved,  silence  about  a  play  becomes  personal 
criticism.  In  the  present  bill  there  is  a  one-act  sermon  by  Edna 
St.  Vincent  Millay.  The  play  in  itself  is  not  so  bad  for  the  the- 
atre as  the  brainless  and  exaggerated  and  enraptured  home  praise 
it  gets. 

It  is  a  college-student's  conception  of  a  morality  play,  with  a 
story  as  profound  and  illuminating  as  the  discovery  that  children 
are  born,  not  hatched. — ;'//. 


jh 


Masefield's  New  Book 


REYNARD  THE  FOX",  by  John  Masefield.  A  long  rhym- 
ing story  of  a  fox  hunt  in  England.  Like  all  very  long  iwems 
it  made  me  decide  immediately  that  I  am  not  a  reader.  It  may 
be  another  love-song  to  England,  the  England  that  is  threatened 

with  the  drabness  of  democracy Mr.  Mascfield  has  done  a 

lot  for  England,  but  not  much  for.  ix)etry. 


^ The    Little    Review  37 

Her  father  dies  and  she  has  to  walk  the  streets  for  hours  hi  bitter 
cold  to  buy  mourning,  yet  her  soul  remains  alive  in  "that  Paris 
which  seemed  like  an  exhausted  dog  who  still  pursues  the  bitch." 
The  story  is  told  easily,  so  easily  that  the  reader  finds  himself 
identified  with  the  unfortunate  woman.  He  too  contracts  disease, 
he  too  walks  the  streets  for  cold  hours  in  a  background  of  feroci- 
ous electric  light,  clanging  trams  and  ecstacy  of  large  crowds. 

The  "Lettres  de  Jeunesse"  to  Henri  Vandeputte  begin  in  1896 
when  their  author  was  barely  twenty ;  they  are  very  bitter  and  re- 
veal the  fury  with  which  he  threw  imself  into  his  writing — a  safety 
valve  for  the  energy  which  neither  friends  nor  debauch  could 
absorb. 

Certain  maladies  grew  from  this  condition:  — 

"You  can't  imagine  the  heart-rending  I  feel  when  certain  wo- 
men I  like  pass  m.e  by.  The  actual  result  of  this  state  of  mind  is  an 
atrocious  hatred  of  woman.  Separately  and  together  I  detest  them. 
When  I  read  in  the  paper  of  an  accident  to  a  woman  I  hear  a 
voice  which  says:  'So  much  the  better.'  I  often  say  to  myself  that 
if  ever  I  have  a  women  I  will  make  her  suffer  great  pain  so  as  to 
avenge  myself  for  what  woman  has  made  me  suffer.  I  would  kiss 
a  man  who  beat  his  mistress.  I  would  kill  a  w^oman  who  betrayed 
her  lover." 

Again  "I'm  becoming  more  slack.  Je  dis  merde  en  face  aux 
gens  qui  me  depaisent."  Earlier  he  had  been  diffident,  hardly 
knowing  his  direction — 

"One  ought  not  to  know  too  many  things  or  then  one  ought  to  be 
devilishly  strong.  How  we  need  barbarians.  One  ought  to  have 
lived  very  close  to  God  without  having  studied  in  books,  one  ought 
to  have  a  vision  of  the  natural  life — have  force  and  even  fury.  The 
period  of  sweetness  and  dilettantisme  is  over.  I  read  the  Idiot  of 
Dostoievsky.  It  is  the  work  of  a  barbarian."  That  particularly 
French  habit  of  verifying  each  fact — Zola,  the  de  Goncourts — 
led  him  to  write  apropos  a  contemplated  novel:  "Si  c'est  possible 
j'assisterai  a  la  visite  hebdomadaire  des  femmes  en  carte." 

I  suppose  Phillipe  was  the  first  of  the  moderns  to  make  ob- 
jective certain  subconscious  states.  This  seems  to  me  to  be  fairly 
unique  for  its  manner  of  visualizing.  "A  breath  on  her  cheek,,  a 
hand  on  her  shoulder,  three  quarters  of  a  man's  face  which  she 
saw  out  of  downcast  eyes;  the  bulk  of  a  body  and  its  presence;  she 
assimilated  all  that,  arranged  it  in  her  head,  vivified  it  in  her 


38  The    Little    Review 


"T  h  e    C  a  1  i  p  h's    D  e  s  i  g  n" 

THE  Caliph's  Design"  by  Wyndham  Lewis  (The  Egoist,  Ltd. 
3/-). — notes  and  articles  in  which  he  cleans  up  the  archi- 
tects of  today,  diagnoses  the  tendency  in  painting  in  Paris,  and 
indicts  all  false,  flaibby,  fatuous  attitudes  towards  art,  enemies 
to  the  creative  effort  of  the  artist.  ' 

Right  here  I  will  enter  a  few  words  on  the  Studio  Game  in  j 
New  York,  showing  how  the  working  artist  has  met  a  worse  fate  : 
than  the  American  Indian:   his  country  has  been  discovered,  he  , 
has  been  driven  from  his  lands,   but   no  reservations  have   been 
granted  him. 

First  in  this  little  game  for  speed  and  vivacity  are  groups  call- 
ing themselves  "Studio  Crowds."  They  swarm  into  sections  where 
they  know  there  are  artists,  they  turn  every  house  into  a  studio 
building,  by  their  raptures  over  the  picturesque  and  quaint  they 
raise  the  rents  until  the  artist  is  forced  to  take  to  the  tenements. 
No  detective  could  ever  discover  that  any  one  of  them  had  even 
attempted  the  study  of  an  Art.  .  ,  it  is  just  natural  with  them. 
They  dash  from  one  ribald  party  to  another,  and  take  to  them- 
selves a  giggling  mysterious  superiority  over  all  aristocrats,  com- 
moners, and  artists 

Another  variety:  those  of  too  limited  or  too  unlimited  sex 
experience  who  feiTet  out  the  cafes  frequented  by  artists,  hoping 
to  come  upon  the  thrill  of  some  yet  undiscovered  license.  They 
laugh  loudly  and  are  blatanty  familiar  and  aggressive;  they  are 
not  comfortable  and  their  efforts  to  "belong"  throw  them  out  of 
perspective:  they  become  an  awkard  and  distorted  species.  They 
are  always  ready  to  testify  to  the  slowness  and  stupidity  of  the 
artist  because  he  has  some  preoccupation  other  than  sex. 

Some  play  the  game  with  more  seriousness, — the  saviour  of 
humanity  (the  anarchist  or  reformer)  who  has  gleaned  in  his 
leading  that  Art  is  the  only  revolution  and  interpreted  it  to  mean 
that  a  revolution  would  make  all  men  artists.  They  caricature 
themselves  as  artists;  they  write  books  on  social  problems,  they 
are  reverenced  by  their  followers  for  being  able  to  pull  off  crea- 
tive work  in  these  "grim  times."  The  poor  simple  normal  arti^ 
is  told  that  he  is  doing  nothing  for  Art,  but  that  anarchism  is  E 
'    fight  for  Art:   when  all  men  are  free  to  express  themselves  therfc 


The  Little  Review ____^       39 


will  be  more  Art  in  the  world.    A  dream  only  possible  or  desirable 
to  the  economic  mind. 

With  the  serious  I  will  describe  the  society  lady  artist,  who 

-paints  a  chair  this  week,  writes  a  poem  next,  or  sculps  a  public 
monument.  She  has  looked  about  her:  there  is  nothing  more  that 
money  can  buy,  no  further  social  position  to  be  attained.  The  artist 
is  the  only  living  being  who  has  something  different.  She  is 
ambitious — "creative".  She  decorates  a  stable  or  builds  a  studio 
and  launches  herself  as  an  artist.  Henceforth  she  greets  her  old 
friends  (now  unctious  and  envious)  with  a  wan  suffering  smile. 
Most  pathetic  and  troublesome  are  the  hundreds  of  little 
Cezannes,  Yeatses,  Nijinskies  and  Bernhardts,  boys  and  girls  from 
all  over  the  country  who  couldn't  pass  in  school;  who  didn't  like 
clean  clothes;  who  weren't  understood  by  their  families  :  there 
could  be  no  doubt  about  it.  .  .  they  must  be  artists.  So  they  leave 
the  town  pump  and  come  to  Greenwich  Village.  They  trail  about 
aimlessly  when  they  are  not  dancing  or  gushing  over  art  and  free 
love, — ^messing  the  place  up  into  a  Coney  Island,  making  it  un- 
livable.  They  look  upon  the  artist  who  is  trying  to  work  as  a 
sinister  and  perverted  labourer.  When  their  health  and  their  last 
cent  have  long  been  spent  they  return  to  the  town  pump  to  be 
held  in  awe  Iby  the  natives. 

There  are  other  players  of  the  game,  but  the  game  is  always 
the  same.  The  Tangent  is  superior  to  the  circle  and  to  all  other 
lines. 

In  a  country  where  there  is  not  one  national  conservatory  of 
music,  national  gallery,  theatre  or  opera;  where  Art  is  linked,  in 

;  the  national  mind,  with  looseness,  obscenity,  laziness,  and  insanity ; 

j  or  where  it  is  considered  something  that  any  one  can  do  who  has 

■  had  a  start  in  a  social  settlement, — I  cannot  understand  why  in 
such  a  country  every  kind  of  climber  should  seize  upon  Art  as  a 
Jacob's  ladder  to  some  heaven  of  superiority — jh. 


Douglas     Gold  ring's     "The     Fortune" 

IT  is  good  to  find  a  novel  with  a  character  in  it  who  is  supposed 
to  be  a  highly-organized  human  being  and  whose  author 
knows  enough  about  the  species  really  to  make  him  one.  Every- 
thing that  James  Murdoch  says  and  does  proves  him  to  be  a  man 


I 


40  TJie    Little    Review 


of  discrimination,  intelligence,  and  power. 

The  novel  is  not  prose  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  wor^. 
It  is  a  well-written,  highly  interesting  story.  Murdoch's  talk  of 
France  alone  would  make  it  wortli  reading.  And  his  ideas  of  the 
war  would  increase  the  intelligence  of  nations  if  they  could  be 
widely  circulated.     (Scott  and  Seltzer). 

A     Barbarian 

AND  then,  naively,  I  make  this  book — five  parts.  Lamma  Sabacli* 
tani,  Anguishes,  Poems  of  Death,  Poems  of  Spleen,  Rcsigna^- 
tion,  A  Story-Diary  of  an  1880  Parisian  who  suffers,  doubts  and 
gets  nowhere — and  that  in  a  Parisian  setting,  sunsets,  the  Seine,  r 
showers,  greasy  pavements,  electric  globes,  and  all  in  tiie  language  a 
of  an  artist ;  carefully  chosen  and  up  to  date,  without  worrying 
about  codes  of  taste,  without  fear  of  the  crude,  the  mad,  the  shame- 
ful universal  passions,  the  grotesque,  etc. 

"This  book  will  be  called  the  sob  of  the  Earth.  First  part; 
sobs  of  thought,  of  brain,  of  conscience,  of  earth.  A  second  vol- 
ume in  which  will  be  concentrated  all  the  misery  of  the  planet  in 
the  innocence  of  the  skies,  historical  bacchanals,  Asian  splendors 
Paris  hurdy-gurdies,  Olympian  carnivals,  the  Morgue,  Dupuytrens 
museum,  the  'Hcspdtal,,'  love,  alcohol,  massacres,  ThebaidSf 
madness,  the  Salpetriere." 

No  better  description  of  the  work  of  Charles  Louis  Philippe- 
its  love,  alcohol,  rage,  greasy  pavements — could  be  given  than 
this  by  Laforgue  of  his  own  work, — "all  the  filth  of  the  planet  in 
the  innocence  of  the  skies,"  and  all  told  with  a  serenity  and  clarity 
more  limpid  than  may  be  found  in  the  work  of  Turgenev  or  de 
Maupassant. 

"Bubu  de  Montparnasse"  is  the  pimp  of  a  prostitute  of  that 
quarter.  Her  tragedy  develops  through  a  merely  circumstantial  ac- 
count of  her  life.  The  slightest  hint  of  a  dramatic  situation  causes 
Phillipe  to  make  a  great  detour  to  avoid  it,  yet  the  story  is  as  ef- 
fective as  blows  from  a  bludgeon.  Les  Socurs  Vatard  offers  resem- 
blances but  the  relation  is  that  of  an  ode  to  a  lyric.  Berthe  the 
igirl  in  "Bubu"  is  permitted  emotion,  she  almost  on  occasion  makes 
a  scene— but  even  when  she  finds  she  has  contracted  disease,  no 
relief  is  afforded  her  in  a  dramatic  explosion.  There  is.  it  is  true, 
a  crisis— but  immediately  she  accomodates  herself,— "il  faut  vivre." 


The   Little    Review  41 


Mage,  made  her  life  of  it,  dreamt,  thought,  warmed  it  all  in  her 
tJ)Som." 

?      "Marie  Donadieu"  was  like  Berthe.     She  too  lived,  a  wonder- 

%\  animal;    with  immense  reserves  of  vitality.     Life  played  her 

\  leer  tricks  but  she  went  on  living..    Influx  of  modern  Russian  lit- 

jf  ature  has  accustomed  us  to  see  people  revolving,  remotely,  round 

1 1  good  and  the  true"  somewhere  in  space,  .and  the  effect  is  to 

•^ake  the  simplicity  of  Marie  Donadieu's  character  by  comparison 

(,  )pear  exaggerated.     But  the  limpidity  of  treatment  is  beyond 

^•aise.    She  was  a  girl  "whose  spine  made  electrip  by  the  pressive 

>.  mosphere  could  no  longe  contain  the  marrow  of  her  vertebrae, 

,  ie  taste  of  blood  was  in  her  mouth,  the  spate  of  blood  which 

boded  her  made  her  sick  to  death.     She  wandered  in  the  garden 

1  moonlit  nights  dressed  only  in  a  nightgown.     Then  she  came 

I  Paris  for  music  lessons,  found  a  lover  and  dropped  die  music. 

le  knew  man  and  his  possession,   she  conjectured  its  resources 

id  hoped  for  still  stranger  mysteries  among  which  her  whole  soul 

.ittered  like  a  frightened  bird."    There  is  a  situation  between  the 

i'O  men,  one  a  lover,  the  other  with  whom  she  had  lived  for  four 

^ars  before.     She  goes  back  to  the  old  lover  and  the  men  kiss 

parting. 

This  mystical  exaggeration  which  seems  to  outdo  even  Dos- 
ievsky  is  by  comparison  the  one  false  note,  but  is  I  think  the 
suit  of  that  almost  fictitious  visualisation  of  woman  which  was 
e  result  of  much  solitude  and  absence  of  the  amenities  of  social 
'e. 

A  previously  quoted  passage  should  explain  this. 

The  full  flavour  of  Phillipe  is  found  in  the  short  stories  col- 
cted  in  "Dans  la  petite  ville"  and  "Contes  du  matin".  These  stor- 
s  are  admirable  for  their  economy  of  material.  Very  few  exceed  a 
ousand  words.  De  Maupassant  has  more  strings.  Tchelcov  still 
ore.  The  theme  becomes  confused,  too  literal  a  transcript  ft-^m 
e.  With  consummate  craft  Philippe  has  carved  each  from  a  solid 
ock.  "Charles  Blanchard"  appeared  after  Philippe's  death.  It 
the  story  of  a  child  told  in  a  rather  Dickensian  manner  and  in 
•..ccessive  versions.  Poverty  and  its  accompanying  etiolation  in 
1  underground  kitchen  as  one — the  child  growing  morbidly  like 
toadstool  in  another,  in  the  third  as  a  successful  maker  of  clogs, 
iis  arms  were  too  long,  his  neck  too  thin,  and  two  emaciated  legs 
tiich  rose  to  his  breast  gave  the  impression  that  no  room  was 


4?  The    Little    Review 


left  for  a  belly." 

He  is  apprenticed  to  the  clog  maker. 

"His  eyes  were  sore.  The  shop  had  a  huge  window  and  drcM 
its  light  directly  from  the  sky.  .  .  A  brilliant  white  glow.  .  .  mad 
one  think  of  the  sun  itself  and  struck  the  child  in  the  eyeball 
with  such  force  that  one  feared  lest  it  should  give  him  sunstroke 
He  could  feel  its  burning  through  to  his  neck..  His  two  lids  wer 
thin  and  transparent — what  he  needed  was  eyeballs  of  lead.  Til 
then  he  had  lived  in  the  dark  room  of  Solanges  house;  it  was  dark 
ness  that  had  met  his  eyes  and  in  darkness  that  he  had  grown 
and  whoever  might  have  remarked  organs  trough  his  boneless  fles 
would  without  doubt  have  found  them  filled  with  some  indescriba 
ble  matter  such  as  one  sees  in  caverns,  whitish  soft  and  musty.  H 
had  sore  eyes.  Two  inflamed  eyelids  veiled  a  raw  eye  lookin 
like  some  blood  stained  ball.  He  had  more  than  sore  eyes,  for  i 
seemed  that  the  light  penetrating  through  them  into  the  mysteriou 
depths  of  his  flesh  had  reached  the  queer  vegetations  of  the  gloon 
Disquieting  fermentations  puffed  him  out,  a  rumbling  in  his  bowe 
was  horrible  and  accompanied  by  a  hollow  noise  that  was  irr 
possible  to  bear,  and  which  sometimes  made  his  aunt  turn  angril 
to  him  and  shout  'Shut-up'."— /O/^A^    RODKER. 


In     the    October     Number 

MR.  Winter's  note  is  a  very  excellent  example  of  an  averag 
flaibbiness  of  mind  and  I  was  surprised  to  find  no  sharj)  rebuk 
from  "jh"  at  its  conclusion:  but  perhaps  Miss  Dismorr  is  now  cor 
sidered  fair  game. 

There  is  of  course  very  little  to  be  said  to  a  corresponder 
who  says  about  Miss  Dismorr  that  her  work  consists  "of  can 
fully  chosen  words";  and  that  it  is  also  "roughly  speaking,  Whr 
man  inverted  with  a  few  embroideries."  Should  she  by  this  mea 
that  a  hatchet  then  becomes  a  lancet,  the  trope  becomes  ai  trifi 
complicated.  Such  insipid  generalisations  on  the  part  of  yoi 
correspondent  can  only  mean  that  the  whole  point  of  Miss  Dij 
morr's  extremely  close  and  pungent  analyses  has  been  missed,  an 
that  evidently  it  is  not  a  palate  for  choice  wines. 

As  far  as  I  am  concerned,  Miss  Dismorr  is  one  of  the  ma 
important  contributors  io  the  Little  Review  today  and  four  lini 


h 


I 


i 

''  The    Little  Review  43 

ij  . 

:<  her  work  outweigh  the  effusions  of  most  others  bf  your  staff. 
t6  for  "Islands",  to  which  the  writer  takes  exception,  it  is  an  ex- 
;^isite  fragment  in  a  distinguished  and  responsive  prose. 
[i     The  article  in  question  is  particularly  "verbose"  and  I  should 
■|ive  preferred  it  meticulous;   I  cannot  imagine  why  your  corres- 
ndent  should  have  rushed  into  print  and  made  for  herself?  such 
ccwnplete  give  away;  if  not  that  certain  of  Miss  Dismorr's  very 
ute  psychological  analyses  have  touched  her?  on  the  raw. 
John  Rodker. 


0  t  e  s 

IT    AND    LETTERS.  2/6 

9  Duke  Street,  Adelphi,  London,  W.  C.  2, 

Art  and  Letters  has  a  queer  story  by  Windeler  called  "Jefferly". 
is  exciting,  has  atmosphere,  and  shows  different  qualities  from 
ose  of  "Emilius"  which  L.  R.  readers  will  remember.  The  new 
►ry  is  in  a  thicker,  more  consistent  paste,  and  Mr.  Windeler's 
nge  becomes  impressive.  At  the  same  time  the  story  did  not  quite 
me  off  and  was  on  second  reading  tedious.  The  denoiiement  is 
0  thin  for  the  introduction  and  body  of  the  story.  There  is 
interesting  essay  on  Marlowe  by  T.  S.  Eliot  and  a  nude  by 
yndham  Lewis.  A  bright  short  story  by  Katherine  Mansfield 
mpletes  all  there  is  of  interest.     The  Gaudier  is  dull. 

The  Sitwells  also  contribute  poems. 

terie.  2/6.  Henderson's.    Charing  Cross  Road.  London  W.  C.  2. 

Coterie  is  this  time  a  litte  more  vugar  than  the  last.  The 
-awings  are  stupid,  with  an  absurd  Allinson  cover  and^  a  bad 
Ik.  Conrad  Aiken  made  a  great  hit  with  a  poem  called  "  Count- 
win  t-Priapus  and  the  Pool";  so  much  more  Georgian  than  the 
it  Georgians  that  the  critics  are  enraptured   . 

It  seems  that  Mr.  Nichols  while  lecturing  in  America  found  a 
Itured  and  remote  tribe  hitherto  unkno\vn  to  civilisation  and 
ought  back  the  work  of  the  sole  surviving  representative,  Mr. 
ten. 


44  Tlie    Little    Review 


Mr.  Huxley  should  have  known  better  than  to  inflict  upon 
us  the  tediousness  of  his  "Leda,"  however  enlivened  by  the  flashes 
never  absent  from  his  work.  Aldington  is  here  too.  He  seems 
to  get  duller  every  day.  The  melancholy  truth  forces  itself  upon 
one,  that  Mr.  Pound's  worthy  band  of  contributors  to  last  year's 
L.  R.  forms  all  that  there  is  of  life  in  literary  England  today. 
Depressing — ^^but  at  any  rate  they  seem  to  outnumber  the  lively 
men  of  letters  both  in  France  and  America  by  four. 

The  Sitwells  also  contribute  poems. 

More  Translaiions  from  the  Chinese.    Arthur  Waley.    3/6 

George  Allan  and  Unwin. 

Mr.  Waley's  new  book  of  translations  from  the  Chinese  is  if 
anything  better  than  the  last.  His  method  is  very  much  to  the 
point  and  for  economy  of  expression  entirely  admirable.  "The 
Great  Summons"  is  an  amazingly  good  poem  in  itself,  as  are  inr 
deed  most  others  though  sometimes  what  was  a  virtue  seems  to  be- 
come a  formula.  Nothing  could  be  however  more  deightful  than 
the  story  of  Ts'ui  Ying  Ying  or  that  of  Miss  Li,  both  written 
about  800  A.  D.  The  last  word  in  sophsitication  and  human  in- 
terest, and  a  psychological  acuteness  only  bettered  by  de  Maupas- 
sant or  the  Trois  Contes  or  the  Arabian  Nights  which  too  they 
resemble.  The  discovery  of  these  stories  is  a  work  of  public  ben- 
efaction and  should  be  suitably  noticed. — JOHN  RODKER. 

Defending     Margaret    Anderson 

WITH  deft  legerdemain  Mr.  Winthrop  Parkhurst  sub-divides 
criticism  into  forms  without,  however,  telling  us  precisely, 
or  by  innuendo,  what  criticism  is.  "There  are  two  forms  of  criti- 
cism", Mr.  Parkhurst  states,  "the  metallic  and  the  aromatic." 
This  definition  leaves  us  curiously  uuimpassioncd  and  unchidden, 
with  the  bitter  tang  .of  pinchl)eck  on  our  lips,  possiby  because, 
like  almost  all  definiton  making,  its  own  consistency  is  metallic  and 
of  an  inferior  sort. 

Of  course  there  is  a  kind  of  condensation  which  is  not  so; 
which  is  highly  poetic  and  suggestive;    which  drops  tlic 'fragrant 


The    Little    Review  45 


quintessence  of  rose  petals.     And  the  amusing  part  of  it  all  is 
I  that  both  poets  and  pedants  may,  advertently  or  inadvertently, 
achieve  it. 

Both  forms  of  criticism,  as  outlined  by  Mr.  Parkhurst,  have 
the  same  end  in  view,  w^hich  may  be  said  to  be  the  eventual  dis- 
tillation of  a  flashing  phrase,  a  precious  jar  of  wine  to  win  either 
Apollo  or  Dionysus,  or  both,  back  to  human  speech,  thus  enriching 
it  and  clarifying  thought.  Unfortunately  Pantheism  has  vanished 
from  the  brain  of  man,  for  then  he  would  not  be  so  poignantly  in 
need  of  outstanding  generalizations.  As  it  is,  he  is  continually 
searching  for  a  touchstone.  And  returning  to  critcism,  we  find 
that  both  forms  differ  only  in  the  manner  in  which  poetic  con- 
densation is  to  be  arrived  at.  The  aromatic  criticism,  I  doubt 
not,  will  arrive  at  it  intuitively,  well-nigh  burying  the  flashing 
phrase,  the  cruse  of  priceless  wine,  under  huge  garlands  of  white 
crysanthemumis,  yellow  orchids  and  red  roses.  In  other  words, 
the  impressionist  critic,  after  the  fashion  of  Symons  and  De  Gour- 
mont,  will  arrive  at  some  sublime  quintessence  that  tastes,  sings 
or  rings  true,  via  the  scented  path  of  beauty.  On  the  other  hand, 
critics  like  Taine,  Brandes  and  Faguet,  establishing  these  poetic 
truths  as  premises,  will  meticuously  plod  to  the  next  milestone  or, 
jt  may  ibe,  the  identical  one,  having  wandered  in  circles.  It  does- 
n't matter,  because  sometimes  even  the  pundits  err  and,  un- 
guessed,  hit  upon  truth. 

Advertisement  or  apprecation  is  justifiable  provided  Margar- 
et Anderson  is  the  critic.  Even  should  Margaret  Anderson  refrain 
•from  writing  a  word  of  her  magazine,  it  would  still  reflect  or  re- 
fract "her  temperamdht;  it  would  still  embody  the  translations  of 
her  subsconscioue  personality  edited  by  her  conscious  personality. 
And  if  she  wishes  to  write  nothing  but  an  unmitigated  "blurb", 
as  she  may  well  have  done  in  praising  the  Philadelphia  orchestra, 
we  accept  it  because,  knowing  her,  we  are  aware  that  it  is  crit^ 
cism  which  is  leavening  within  and  may  yet  be  translated  into 
adequate  speech.— PIERRE  LOVING. 

[There  is  only  one  decently  intelligent  thing  to  be  said  about 
criticism.  It  is  either  a  piece  of  creative  writing  (in  which  case 
jt  stands  equal  to  and  different  from  the  thing  criticized)  or  it 
is  a  piece  of  illuminating  writing  like  Wyndham  Lewis's  chapter 


46  The    Little    Review 


on  Picasso  ("The  Caliph's  Design").  Criticism  as  defined  by  Mi 
Parkhurst  or  Mr.  Loving  has  no  meaning  at  all.  "Sublime  quin 
tessence"  ',  "scented  path  of  beauty," — such  phrases  as  these  hav 
never  contained  any  pointed  observation  and  nowadays  they  ar^ 
too  banal.  Either  you  must  recognize  the  new  sensil)iliLy  in  tb 
world  when  you  decide  to  make  general  remarks  about  poetry  i 
painting,  music,  etc.,  or  you  must  be  willing  to  sound  like  thi 
old-fashioned  radical  who  still  talks  of  "liberty"  without  having  ye 
formulated  the  faintest  notion  of  what  fieedoms  are  possible  o 
achievement  and  what  ones  are  forever  impossible. — M.  C.  A.\ 

Questionings 

I'M    afraid   of   "beautiful  writing";    I'm    afraid  of  trying  to  be 
artistic.    Ideas  and  their  expression  is  all  I  dare  try  for  now 

You  believe  with  me,  I  assume,  that  artists  are  born,  and  toil 
is  no  salvation  to  the  unblessed.  How  may  I  know  that  I  am 
not  one  of  the  latter.  Certainly  in  this  widerness  (Los  Angeles) 
where  people  build  little  prickly  walls  about  themselves  and  fight 
doggedly,  or  resentfully,  or  with  carping  bitterness  against  ajft' 
things  beautiful  and  otherwise  which  do  not  come  within  the  veiy 
small  limits  of  their  understanding,  there  is  nobody  to  tell  me  "I 
am  anything  but  a  dumb  hoper.  If  ^Deople  in  New  York  are  caring^ 
whether  art  exists,  or  want  something  to  illuminate  their  lives- 
that  is  not  seen  by  the  usual  naiked  eye,  I'll  want  to  come  to  New- 
York. 

I  write  because  something  comes  to  me  I  want  to  see  oni 
paper.  That  mode  does  not  assure  form,  or.beauty,  or  value  of  any 
sort.  What  public  will  I  reach  that  it  matters  to  me,  now?  Next 
week's  idea  may  contradict  this.  I  can  see  the  flaws  in  other 
men's  writings;  my  own — there  are  prejudices  l)red  within  me, 
moralities  inflicted  upon  me,  beauties  that  I  would  like  to  believe 
exist,  truths  which  I've  seemed  ito  discover  and  want  to  believe 
permanent.  As  long  as  i^eople  are  around  you  they  will  try  to 
keep  you  from  knowing  yourself,  and  the  truth  of  your  own  emo- 
tions and  perceptions.  I've  even  seen  the  Little  Review  shift 
viewpoints.  We  won't  argue  about  that.  It  was  naturally,  in- 
telligently done.     Even  truth  is  prejudiced  at  times. 

I'm   trying  to   locate  m}^   own   intellect,   my   own  emotions. 
That's  done  against  good  social  judgment.     It's  better  to  sing  of 


I 


The   Little   Review  47 


he  great  midwest,  or  of  democracy  and  humanity;  it's  better  to 
alk  of  beauty  without  creating  any.  But  day  labor  at  a  good 
living  wage  excels  botli. 

Tell  me,  or  write  it  in  your  magazine,  do  you  believe  the  ar- 
tist can  be  the  detached,  capable  eye  viewing  his  own  art  that 
:  Ive'd  like  to  think  he  is.  Can  he  be  tolerant,  unprejudiced,  cold  to 
analyze  truths  about  himself  that  are  adverse  to  his  desires.  Can 
he  lead  a  peaceful  existence?  Who  is  one  that  does?  Your 
inswer  won't  matter  though;  artists  are  born.  They  will  create 
3ut  of  an  almost  organic  need  that  functions  of  itself.  So,  how- 
ever, will  others  who  only  wish  to  be  artists.     Who's  the  judge? 

[This  is  an  intelligent  letter.  Yes,  I  believe  that  artists  are 
/born,  that  toil  won't  help  the  unblest,  etc.,  but  I  never  am  able  to 
(understand  the  vague  resentment  that  always  attaches  to  this  fact. 
'IGood  business  men  are  born,  not  made,  and  no  one  seems  to  doubt 
\this  fact  or  be  particularly  incensed  by  it.  "He  has  a  positive 
[genius  for  business" — no  one  makes  a  controversy  about  it.  What 
is  the  eternal  controversy  about  the  artist — is  he  born  or  made, 
is  he  unprejudiced,  is  he  peaceful,  is  he  detached?  Is  any  one 
these  things?  Has  lack  of  prejudice  ever  been  so  valuable  that 
either  artist  or  layman  should  strive  to  be  unprejudiced? 

The  only  point  to  be  answered  in  your  letter  is  your  last  sen- 
tence "Who's  the  judge?"  Who  is  the  judge  of  the  good  business 
man?     The  man's  work.^  M.  C.  A.^ 


S  e  a  SO  n     1  9 1 9-20 

AT  the  end  of  last  season,  in  an  exclusive  and  expensive  Arts  Club, 
two  rooms  of  pictures  and  models  of  stage  and  theatre,  the 
city's  representative  intellects,  amongst  them  a  few  responsible  for 
the  pictures  and  models.  "I  am  surrounded  by  these  things  on  the 
walls  here  and  not  one  of  them  has  anything  to  do  with  the 
theatre."  Jacques  Copeau,  on  the  eve  of  sailing  back  to  France, 
the  speaker, — the  arts  of  the  actor  futile  to  hide  the  heartsickness 
and  weariness  of  the  man,  as  he  told  incidents  and  reactions 
during  his  work  in  America.  He  was  soon  finished,  and  without 
many  more  glances  at  the  exhibits  the  audience  broke  up  into 
homeward-bound  groups.     The  season  was  over. 


48 The    Little    Review 

"I  am  in  love  with  my  art,  in  love  with  the  only  love — tl 
love  that  does  not  procreate!"  rants  the  lead  in  the  season's  "higl 
spot  production",  "Aphrodite".  "Purely  in  the  interest  i 
Art",  says  the  program,  "thanks  are  due  Mr.  David  Belasco  for  h 
aid" — in  the  task  of  making  a  movie  actress  fit  into  the  levels  « 
"stage  picture  groups".  Therefore  our  interest  in  the  result  < 
this  "pure  aid"  suddenly  ceases. 

The    Art    of    Madness 

Apropos  of  the  discussion  regarding  "The  Cast  Iron  Love 
by  Else  von  Freytag-Loringhoven,  I  feel  enthused  by  my  impre; 
sions  to  the  point  of  adding  a  comment. 

As  "jh"  says,  the  psychology  of  the  author  referred  to 
that  of  a  mad  woman.  I  feel  an  intense,  horrid,  and  even  beai 
tiful  obliviousness  to  all  but  the  dominating  emotion.  There  e? 
ists  the  callousness  of  intelleclual  stupidity  and  there  is  what  w 
see  here,  the  callousness  of  emotional  stupidity,  that  of  the  siivag 
under  the  cataleptic  influence  of  religious  suggestion,  ll  is  onl 
in  a  condition  of  disease  or  mania  that  one  may  enjoy  an  absolutt 
ly  exalted  state,  that  numbness  of  the  sensibilities  toward  ever> 
thing  outside  the  single  inspiration.  The  poet  strives  to  creat 
in  himself  this  disregard  of  intellectual  nuance  that  he  may  con 
centrate  everything  on  the  emotional  illumination  of  his  mooc 
but  such  accomplishments  as  "The  Cast-Iron  Lover"  show  tb 
value  as  w^ell  as  the  limitation  of  a  sane  mind  in  art.  To  toucl 
madness  is  an  experience  that  shocks  and  stimulates.  We  can  no 
perceive  its  relations  and  we  are  beguiled  to  the  conviction  of  a) 
ultimate  value.  However  the  sophisticated  mind  has  accretions  o 
what  might  be  called  secondary  emotions  so  elusive,  even  if  in 
tellectualizcd  at  their  source,  that  they  also  escape  definition  am 
demand  expression  in  art.  Else  von  Freytag-Loringhoven  is  t< 
me  the  naked  oriental  making  solemn  gestures  of  indecency  in  th« 
sex  dance  of  her  religion.  Her  ecstacy,  to  my  way  of  thinking 
is  one  of  the  properties  of  ^xri.— EVELYN  SCOTT. 

[As  "jh"  does  not  say.  Evelyn  Scott  went  on  so  far  and  sc 
fast  WMth  my  remark  on  the  Art  of  Madness  that  I  do  not  knov 
where  to  begin  to  say  that  it  wouldn't  be  the  art  of  madness  if  i1 


er( 


The    Little    Review  49 

were  merely  an  insanity  such  as  Miss  Scott  describes. 

In  the  case  of  Else  von  Freytag-Loringhoven  I  am  not  talk- 
ing of  mania  and  disease,  of  numbed  sensibilities.  .  .  hers  is  a 
willed  state.  A  woman  of  brains,  of  mad  beauty  and  elegantes 
wesen,  who  has  abandoned  sanity  :  left  it  cold.  She  has  recog- 
nized that  if  one  has  the  guts  and  the  constitution  to  abandon 
sanity  one  may  at  all  times  enjoy  an  exalted  state.  Madness  is 
her  chosen  state  of  consciousness.  It  is  this  consciousness  which 
she  worfe  to  produce  Art.  The  artist  evoking  his  consciousness 
at  high  power  on  some  piece  of  difficult  work  appears  to  have  be- 
come callous  and  stupid  or  a  wild  man  to  the  layman.  Else  von 
Freytag  works  unhampered  by  sanity. — ^jh.] 

Marguerite     D'Alvarez 

OWING  to  lack  of  space  in  this  number  the  article  of  Mme. 
D'Alvarez  must  be  held  over  until  January.  However  it  will 
appear  with  more  timeliness  then,  as  Mme.  D'Alvarez  is  to  sing 
with  (the  Chicago  Opera  Company  which  opens  its  New  York  sea- 
son the  latter  part  of  next  month. 


50  TJie    Little    Review 


ULYSSES 
by   James   Joyce 

Episode     XII    (continued) 

SO  Bob  Doran  comes  lurching  around  asking  Bloom  to  tell  Mr 
Dignam  he  was  sorry  for  her  trouble  and  he  was  very  son 
about  the  funeral  and  to  tell  her  that  he  said  and  everyone  wh 
knew  him  said  that  there  was  never  a  truer,  a  finer  than  poor  li 
tie  Willie  that's  dead  to  tell  her.  Choking  with  bloody  fooler; 
And  shaking  Bloom's  hand  doing  the  tragic  to  tell  her  that.  Shak 
hands  brother.  You're  a  rogue  and  I'm  another. 
— Let  me,  said  he,  so  far  presume  upon  our  acquaintance  whicl 
however  slight  it  may  appear  if  judged  by  the  standard  of  met 
time,  is  founded,  as  I  hope  and  believe,  on  a  sentiment  of  mutiu 
esteem  as  to  request  of  you  this  favour.  But,  should  I  have  ovei 
stepped  the  limits  of  reserve  let  the  sincerity  of  my  feelings  b 
the  excuse  for  my  boldness. 
— No,  rejoined  the  other,  I  appreciate  to  the  full  the  motive 
which  actuate  your  conduct  and  I  shall  discharge  the  office  yo 
entrust  to  me  consoled  by  the  reflection  that,  though  the  erran- 
be  one  of  sorrow,  this  proof  of  your  confidence  sweetens  in  som 
measure  the  bitterness  of  the  cup. 
— Then  suffer  me  to  take  your  hand,  said  he.  The  goodness  o 
your  heart,  I  feel  sure,  will  dictate  to  you  better  than  my  inade 
quate  words  the  expressions  which  are  most  suitable  to  convey  ai 
emotion  whose  poignanc,y  were  I  to  give  went  to  my  fcclinj 
would  deprive  me  even  of  speech. 

And  off  with  him  and  out  trying  to  walk  straight.  Boosed  a 
five  o'clock.  Night  he  was  near  being  lagged  only  Paddy  Leonarc 
knew  the  bobby.  Boosed  up  in  a  shebeen  in  Bride  street  aftei 
closing  time  with  two  shawls  and  a  bully  on  guard  drinking  porta 
out  of  teacups.  And  calling  himself  a  Frenchy.  for  the  shawls> 
Joseph  Manuo,  and  talking  against  the  catholic  religion  who  wroti 
the  new  testament  and  the  old  testament  and  hugging  and  smuft 
gling.  And  the  two  shawls  killed  with  the  laughing,  picking  hi 
pockets  the  bloody  fool  and  he  spilling  the  porter  all  over  the  bed 
and  the  two  shawls  screeching  laughing  at  one  another.     IIow  h 


The   Little   Review  51 

otir  testament?  Have  you  got  an  old  testament?  Only  Paddy 
ras  passing  there,  I  tell  you  what.  Then  see  him  of  a  Sunday  with 
is  little  wife,  and  she  wagging  her  tail  up  the  aisle  of  the  chapel, 
ith  her  patent  boots  on  her  no  less,  and  her  violets,  nice  as  pie, 
oing  the  little  lady.  Jack  Mooney's  sister.  And  the  old  prosti- 
ite  of  a  mother  letting  rooms  to  street  couples.  Bob,  Jack  made 
im  toe  the  line.  Told  him  if  he  didn't  patch  up  the  pot,  Jesus, 
e'd  kick  the  guts  out  of  him. 

So  Terry  brought  the  three  pints. 
-Here,  says  Joe,  doing  the  honours.     Hefe,  citizen, 
Slan  leat,  says  he. 
-Fortune,  Joe,  says  I.    Good  health,  citizen. 

Gob,  he  had  his  mouth  half  way  down  the  tumbler  already, 
^ant  a  small  fortune  to  keep  him  in  drinks. 
■Who  is  the  long  fellow  running  for  the  mayoralty,  Alf?  says  Joe. 
-Friend  of  yours,  says  Alf. 
-Nan,  Nan?  says  Joe. 
-I  won't  mention  names,  says  Alf. 

•I  thought  so,  says  Joe,  I  saw  him  up  at  that  meeting  now  with 
illiam  Field,  M.  P.,  the  cattle  trader. 
•^Hairy  lopas,  says  the  citizen,  the  darling  of  all  countries  and 

idol  of  his  own. 

So  Joe  starts  telling  the  citizen  about  the  foot  and  mouth 
sease  and  the  cattle  traders  and  taking  action  in  the  matter  and 
e  citizen  sending  them  all  the  rightabout  and  Bloom  coming  out 
th  his  guaranteed  remedy  for  timber  tongue  in  calves.  Because 
was  up  one  time  in  a  knacker's  yard.  Walking  about  with  his 
>ok  and  pencil  here's  my  head  and  my  heels  are  coming  till  Joe 
jffe  gave  him  the  order  of  the  boot  for  giving  lip  to  a  grazier, 
isiter  Knowall.  Teach  your  grandmother  how  to  milk  ducks, 
sser  Burke  was  telling  me  in  the  hotel  the  wife  used  to  be  in 
irers  of  tears  some  times  with  Mrs.  O'Dowd.  Couldn't  loosen 
;r  .  .  .  .  strings  but  old  codseye  was  walking  around  her  show- 

her  how  to  do  it.  Ay.  Humane  methods.  Because  the  poor, 
imals  suffer  and  experts  say  and  the  best  known  remedy  that 
esn't  cause  pain  to  the  animal  and  on  the  sore  spot  administer 
ntly.    Gob,  he'd  have  a  soft  hand  under  a  hen. 

Ga  Ga  Gara.  Klook  Klook  Klook.  Black  Liz  is  our  hen. 
,e  lays  eggs  for  us.  When  she  lays  her  eggs  she  is  so  glad.  Ga- 
.  Klook  Klook  Klook.  Then -comes  good  uncle  Leo.  He  puts 
J  hand  under  black  Liz  and  takes  her  fresh  egg,  Ga  ga  Gara 
00k  Klook  Klook. 


52  The    Little    Review 


— Anyhow,  says  Joe,  Field  and  Nannetti  are  going  over  toni 
to  London  to  ask  about  it  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
— Are  you  sure,  says  Bloom,  the  councillor  is  going.     I  wan 
to  see  him,  as  it  happns. 

— Well,  he's  going  off  by  the  mailboat,  says  Joe,  tonight. 
— That's  too  bad,  says  Bloom.     I  wanted  particularly.     Perh 
only  Mr.  Field  is  going.     I  coudn't  phone.     No.    You're  sure? 
— Nan  Nan's  going  too,  says  Joe.     The  league  told  him  to  as) 
question   tomorrow   about  the  commissioner   of   police   forbidd 
Irish  games  in  the  park.     What  do  you  think  of  that,  citizen. 
The  Sliiagh  na  h-Eireann. 

Mr.    Cowe    Conacre    (Multifarnham.    Nat.):    Arising   out   of 
question  of  my  honourable  friend  may  I  ask  the  right  honours 
gentleman  whether  the  government   has  issued  orders  that  tt 
animals  shall  be  slaughtered  though  no  medical  evidence  is  foi 
coming  as  to  their  pathological  condition? 
Mr.   Allfours    (Tamoshant.   Con.):    Honourable  members   are 
ready  in  possession  of  the  evidence.    The  answer  to  the  honours 
member's  question  is  in  the  affirmative. 

Mr.    Orelli   O'Reilly    (Montenotte.    Nat.):     Have   similar   ore 
been  issued  for  the  slaughter  of  human  animals  who  dare  to  p 
Irish  games  in  the  phoenix  park? 
Mr.  Allfours:  The  answer  is  in  the  negative. 
Mr.  Cowe  Canocre:  Has  the  right  honourable  gentleman's  fam 
Mitchelstown   telegram   inspired  the  policy  of  gentlemen  on 
treasury  bench?    (O!   O!) 

Mr.  Allfours:     I  must  have  notice  of  that  question. 
Mr.  Staylewil:    (Buncombe.  Ind.):     Don't  hesitate  to  shoot. 
(Ironical  opposition  cheers) 
The  speaker:     Order!    Order! 

— There's  the  man,  says  Joe,  that  made  the  Gaelic  sports  revi' 
There  he  is  sitting  there.  The  man  that  got  away  James  Stephc 
The  champion  of  all  Ireland  at  putting  the  56  pound  shot.  W 
was  your  best  throw,  citizen? 

— Na  baclcis,  says  the  citizen,  letting  on  to  be  modest.  I  was 
good  as  the  next  fellow  anyhow.  « 

— You  were,  says  Joe,  and  a  bloody  sight  better.  9 

— Is  that  really  a  fact?  says  Alf.  5 

—Yes,  says  Bloom.     That's  well  known.     Do  you  not  know  d|B 
So  off  they  started  about  Irish  supi^ort  and  Shoneen  gSD 
the  like  of  the   lawn   tennis   and   about  hurley   and   putting 
stone  and  racy  of  the  soil  and  building  up  a  nation  once  ag8 


The   Little    Review 53 


id  of  course  Bloom  had  to  have  his  say  too  about  if  a  fellow 
d  a  weak  heart  violent  exercise  was  bad.  I  declare  to  God  if 
)U  took  up  a  straw  from  the  floor  and  if  you  said  to  Bloom: 
oTi  at  Bloom,  do  you  see  that  straw?  that's  a  straw.  Declare 
my  aunt  he'd  talk  about  it  for  an  hour  so  he  would  and  talk 
eady. 

A  most  interesting  discussion  took  place  in  the  ancient  hall 
the  O'Kiernan's  under  the  auspices  of  Sluagh  na  h-Eireann,  on 
e  revival  of  ancient  Gaelic  sports  and  the  importance  of  physi- 
h  culture,  as  understood  in  ancient  Greece  and  ancient  Rome 
id  ancient  Ireland,  for  the  development  of  the  race.  The  ven- 
able  president  of  this  noble  order  was  in  the  chair,  and  the  at- 
ndance  was  of  large  dimensions.  After  an  instructive  discourse 
r  the  chairman  a  most  interesting  and  instructive  discussion  en- 
ed  as  to  the  desirability  of  the  revivability  of  the  ancient  games 
id  sports  of  our  ancient  high  forefathers.  The  wellknown  and 
ghly  respected  worker  in  the  cause  of  our  old  tongue  Mr.  Joseph 
arthy  Hynes  made  an  eloquent  appeal  for  the  resuscitation  of 
e  ancient  Gaelic  sports  and  pastimes  as  calculated  to  revive  the 
ast  traditions  of  manly  strength  and  powers  handed  down  to  us 
om  ancient  ages.  L.  Bloom  having  espoused  the  negative  the 
lairman  brought  the  discussion  to  a  close,  in  response  to  repeat- 
1  requests  and  hearty  plaudits  from  all  parts  of  the  house,  by  a 
markably  noteworthy  rendering  of  Thomas  Osborne  Davis'  im- 
ortal  verses.  A  nation  once  again  in  the  execution  of  which  the 
steran  patriot  champion  may  be  said  without  fear  of  contradic- 
on  to  have  fairly  excelled  himself.  His  stentorian  notes  were 
ard  to  the  greatest  advantage  in  the  timehonoured  anthem  and 
ad  his  superb  highclass  vocalism  was  vociferously  applauded 
>r  the  large  audience  amongst  which  were  to  be  noticed  many 
rominent  members  of  the  clergy  as  well  as  representatives  of  the 
ress  and  the  bar  and  the  other  learned  professions.  The  pro- 
eedings  then  terminated. 

-Talking   about   violent   exercise,    says    Alf,    were   you    at    that 
£ogh-Bennett  match? 
-No,  says  Joe. 

-I  heard  Boylan  made  a  cool  hundred  quid  over  it,  says  Alf. 
-Who?  Blazes?  says  Joe. 

And  says  Bloom: 
-What  I  meant  about  tennis,   for   example,   is   the   agility   and 
aining  of  the  eye. 
-Ay,  Blaizes,  says  Alf.    He  let  out  diat  Myler  was  on  the  beer  to 


54  The    Little    Review 


I 

run  up  the  odds  and  he  swatting  all   the  time. 

— We  know  him,  says  the  citizen.     The  traitor's  son.     We  kno 
what  put  cnglish  gold  in  his  pocket. 
— True  for  you,  says  Joe. 

And  Bloom  cuts  in  again  about  lawn  tennis  and  the  circul; 
tion  of  the  blood,  asking  Alf: 
— Now  don't  you  think,  Bergan? 

— Myler  dusted  the  floor  with  him,  says  Alf.  Heenan  &  Saye 
was  only  a  bloody  fool  to  it.  See  the  little  kipper  not  up  to  h 
navel  and  the  big  fellow  swiping.  God,  he  gave  him  one  last  pu( 
in  the  wind,  Queensberry  rules  and  all,  made  him  puke  what  1 
never  ate. 

It  was  a  historic  battle.  Handicapped  as  he  was  by  lack  ^ 
poundage  Dublin's  pet  lamb  made  up  for  it  by  superlative  sk 
in  ringcraft.  The  final  bout  of  fireworks  was  a  gruelling  f( 
both  champions.  Bennett  had  tapped  some  lively  claret  in  tl 
previous  mixup  and  Myler  came  on  looking  groggy.  The  soldi- 
got  to  business  leading  off  with  a  powerful  left  jab  to  which  Myl 
retaliated  by  shooting  out  a  stiff  one  to  Bennett's  face.  The  latt 
ducked  but  the  Dubliner  lifted  him  with  a  left  hook  the  pum 
being  a  fine  one.  The  men  came  to  handigrips  and  the  bout  em 
ed  with  Bennett  on  the  ropes  Myler  punishing  him.  The  Englisi 
man  was  liberally  drenched  with  water  and  when  the  bell  wei 
came  on  gamey  and  full  of  pluck.  It  was  a  fight  to  a  finish  ar 
the  best  man  for  it.  The  two  fought  like  tigers  and  excitemei 
ran  fever  high.  After  a  brisk  exchange  of  courtesies  during  whic 
a  smart  upper  cut  of  the  military  man  brought  blood  freely  froj 
his  opponent's  mouth  the  lamb  suddenly  landed  a  terrific  left  i 
Bennett's  stomach,  flooring  him  flat.  It  was  a  knockout  clea 
and  clever.  Amid  tense  expectation  the  Portobello  bruiser  w< 
counted  out  and  Myler  declared  victor  to  the  frenzied  cheers  ( 
the  public  who  broke  through  the  ringropes  and  fairly  mobbe 
him  with  delight. 

— He  knows  which  side  his  bread  is  buttered,  says  Alf.     I  hea 
he's  running  a  concert  tour  now  up  in  the  north. 
— He  is,  says  Joe.     Isn't  he?  ^' 

— Who?  says  Bloom,  ah,  yes.     That's  quite  true.     Yes,  a  kind  C 
summer  tour,  you  see.     Just  a  holdiay, 
— ^^'Irs.  B.  is  th  bright  particular  star,  isn't  she?  says  Joe. 
— My  wife?  says  Bloom.    She's  singing,  yes.     I  think  it  will  be 
success  too.     He's  an  excellent  man  to  organize.     Excellent. 


The    Little    Review        55 


Hoho  begob  says  I  to  myself  says  I.  That  explains  the  milk 
the  cocoanut  and  absence  of  hair  on  the  animal's  chest.  Blazes 
nng  the  tootle  on  the  flute.  Concert  tour.  Dirty  Dan  the 
>dger's  son  that  sold  the  same  horses  twice  over  to  the  govern- 
ent  to  fight'  the  Boers.  That's  the  bucko  that'll  organize  her 
ke  my  tip.    Twixt  me  and  you  Caddereesh. 

Pride  of  Calpe's  rocky  mount,   the  ravenhaired  daughter  of 

Bveedy.     There  grew  she  to  peereless  beauty  where  loquat  and 

nond  scent  the  air.     The  gardens  of  Alameda  knew  her  step: 

e  garths  of  olives  knew  and  bowed.     The  chaste  spouse  of  Leo- 

,d  is  she:  Marion  of  the  bountiful  bosoms. 

And  lo,  there  entered  one  of  the  clan  of  the  O'Molloy's  a 
mely  hero  of  white  face  yet  withal  somewhat  ruddy,  his  ma- 
ity's  counsel  learned  in  the  law  and  with  him  the  prince  and 
ir  of  the  noble  line  of  Lambert. 
•Hello,  Ned. 

'Hello,  Alf.  _, 

Hello.  Jack. 
Hello,  Joe. 

God  save  you,  says  the  citizen. 
Save  you  kindly,  says  J.  J.    What'll  it  be,  Ned? 
Half  one,  says  Ned. 

So  J.  J.  ordered  the  drinks. 
Were  you  round  at  the  court?  says  Joe. 
Yes,  says  J.  J.    He'll  square  that,  Ned,  says  he. 
Hope  so,  says  Ned. 

Now  what  were  those  two  at?  J.  J.  getting  him  off  the  jury 
and  the  other  give  him  a  leg  over  the  stile.  With  his  name  in 
ibb's.  Playing  cards,  hobnobbing  with  flash  toffs,  drinking  fizz 
d  he  half  smothered  in  writs  and  garnishee  orders.  Gob,  he'll 
ne  home  by  weeping,  cross  one  oif  these  days  I'm  thinking.  , 
Did  you  see  that  bloody  lunatic  Breen  round  there,  says  Alf. 
p.  up— 

Sfes,  says  J.  J.    Looking  for  a  private  detective. 
\y,  says  Ned,  and  he  wanted  right  go  wrong  to  address  the  . 
lit,  only  Corny  Kelleher  got  round  him  telling  him  to  get  the 
idwriting  examined  first. 

Ten  thousand  pounds  says  Alf,  laughing.     God  I'd  give  any- 
ng  to  hear  him  before  a  judge  and  jury. 

JVas  it  you  did  it?  Alf?  says  Joe.     The  truth  the  whole  truth 
l  nothing  but  the  truth,  so  help  you  Jimmy  Johnson. 


56  The   Little    Review 


— 'Me?  says  Alf.    Don't  cast  your  nasturtiums  on  my  character. 

— Whatever  statement  you  make,  says  Joe,  will  be  taken  down  i 

evidence  against  you.  ^ 

— Of  course  an  action  would  lie,  says  J.  J.     It  implies  that  he  : 

not  compos  mentis.     U.  p.  up. 

— Compos   what?   says   Alf,    laughing.      Do   you   know    that  he 

balmy? 

Look  at  his  head.     Do  you  know  that  some  mornings  he  has  1 

get  his  hat  on  with  a  shoehorn 

— Yes,  sa3S  J  J.,  but  the  truth  of  a  libel  is  no  defence  to  an  ii 

dictment  for  publishing  it  in  the  eye-  of  the  law. 

— Ha,  ha,  Alf,  says  Joe. 

— Still,  says  Bloom,  on  account  of  the  poor  woman,  I  mean  h 

wife. 

- — Pity  about  her,  says  the  citizen.     Or  any  other  woman  marri 

a  half  and  half. 

— How  half  and  half?  says  Bloom.    Do  you  mean  he 

• — Half  and  half  I  mean  says  the  citizen.     A  fellow  that's  neith 

fish  nor  flesh. 

— Nor  good  red  herring,  says  Joe. 

— That's  what's  I  mean,  says  the  citizen,  a  pishogue,  if  you  knc 

what  that  is. 

Begob  I  saw  there  was  trouble  coming.  And  Bloom  explai 
ed  he  meant  on  account  of  it  being  cruel  for  the  wife  having 
go  round  after  the  old  stuttering  fool.  Cruelty  to  animals  so 
is  to  let  that  bloody  Breen  out  on  grass  with  his  beard  out  tri 
ping  him.  And  she  with  her  nose  cocked  up  after  she  marri 
him  because  a  cousin  of  his  old  fellow's  was  pew  opener  to  t 
Pope.  Picture  of  him  on  the  wall  with  his  'J'urk's  moustaches,  t 
signer  from  summer  hill,  two  pair  back  and  ])assages,  and  he  ex. 
ered  with  all  kinds  of  breastplates  bidding  defiance  to  the  wor 
— And  moreover,  says  J.  J.,  a  postcard  is  publication.  It  ^ 
held  to  be  sufficient  evidence  of  malice  in  the  testcase  Sadgro 
V.  Hole.    In  my  opinion  an  action  might  lie. 

Six  and  eightpence,  please.  Who  wants  your  opinion?  I 
us  drink  our  pints  in  peace.  Gob,  we  want  be  let  even  do  tl 
much. 

— Well  good  health.  Jack,  says  Ned, 
— Good  health,  Ned,  says  J.  J. 
— There  he  is  again,  says  Joe. 
—Where?  says  Alf. 

And  begob  there  he  was  passing  the  door  with  his  books  1 


The    Little   Review  57 


fc  his  oxter  and  the  wife  beside  him  and  Corny  Kelleher  with 
i  wall  eye  looking  in  as  they  went  past,  talking  to  him  like 
ijither,  trying  to  sell  him  a  second  hand  coffin, 
-low  did  that  Canada  swindle  case  go  off?  says  Joe. 
-demanded,  says  J.  J. 

One  of  the  bottlenosed  tribe   it  was   went  by  the  name  of 

11  s  Wought  alias  Saphiro  alias  Spark  and  Spiro  put  an  ad  in  the 
s  saying  he'd  give   a  passage   to   Canada   for   twenty   bob. 

ii?     Course  it  was  a  bloody  barney.     What?     Swindled  them 

i  skivvies  and  badhacks  from  the  country  Meath,  ay,  and  his 
Kidney  too.  J.  J.  was  telling  us  there  was  an  ancient  Hebrew 

rtsky  or  something  weeping  in  th  witness  box  with  his  hat  on 
ii  swearing  by  the  holy  Moses  he  was  stuck  for  two  quid. 

the  tried  the  case?  says  Joe. 

.ecorder,  says  Ned. 
-oor  old  Sir  Frederick  Falkiner,  says  Alf,  you  can  cod  him  up 
uohe  two  eyes. 

-[eart  as  big  as  a  lion,  says  Ned.  Tell  him  a  tale  of  woe  about 
■irars  of  rent  and  a  sick  wife  and  a  squad  of  kids  and,  faith,  he'll 
ii'olve  in  tears  on  the  bench. 

-;.y,  says  Alf.  Reuben  J.  was  bloody  lucky  he  didn't  clap  him 
inihe  dock  the  other  day  for  suing  poor  little  Gumly  that's  mind- 
n  stones  for  the  corporation  there  near  Butt  bridge. 

And  he  starts  taking  off  the  old  recorder  letting  on  to  cry: 
-  most  scandalous  thing!  This  poor  hardworking  man!  How 
iiy  children?  Ten,  did  you  say  ? 
-es,  your  worship.  And  my  wife  has  the  typhoid! 
-ind  a  wife  with  the  typhoid  fever!  Scandalous!  Leave  the 
'  ri  immediately,  Sir.  No,  sir,  I'll  make  no  order  for  payment. 
iv  dare  you,  sir,  come  up  before  me  and  ask  me  to  make  an 
If  order!  A  poor  hardworking  industrious  man!  I  dismiss  the 
a;. 

And  on  the  sixteenth  day  of  the  month  of  the  oxeyed  goddess 
h  daughter  of  the  skies,  the  virgin  moon,  being  then  in  her 
11:  quarter  those  learned  judges  repaired  them  to  the  halls  of 
a.  There  master  Courtenay,  sitting  in  his  own  chamber,  gave 
lirede  and  master  Justice  .Andrews,  sitting  without  a  jury  in  the 
Mbate  court,  weighed  well  and  pondered  the  claims  of  the  first 
.l^rgeant  upon  the  property  in  the  matter  of  the  will  propounded 
tr  final  testamentary  disposition  of  the  real  and  personal  estate 
)fthe  late  lamented  Jacob  Halliday,  vintner,  deceased,  versus 
Ungstone,  of  unsound  mind,  and  another.     And  to  the  solemn 


5^ The    Little    Review 

court  of  Green  street  there  came  Sir  Frederick  the  Falconer.  ! 
he  sat  him  there  to  administer  tlie  law  of  the  bretons  at  the  c< 
mission  to  be  holden  in  and  for  the  county  of  the  city  of  Dub 
And  there  sat  with  him  the  high  sinhcdrium  of  the  twelve  tri 
of  lar,  for  every  tribe  one  man,  of  the  tribe  of  Patrick  and 
the  tribe  of  Hugh  and  of  the  tirbe  of  Owen  and  of  the  tribe 
Conn  and  of  the  tribe  Oscar  and  of  the  tribe 
Fergus  and  of  the  tribe  of  Finn  and  of  the  tribe 
iDermot  and  of  the  tribe  of  Cormac  and  of  the  tribe 
Kevin  and  of  the  tribe  of  Caolte  and  of  the  tribe  of  Oss 
there  being  in  all  twelve  good  men  and  true.  And  he  conjured  tl 
by  him  who  died  on  rood  that  they  should  well  and  truly  try  . 
true  deliverance  make  in  the  issue  joined  between  their  soverc 
lord  the  king  and  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  and  true  verdict  give 
cording  to  the  evidence  so  help  them  God  and  kiss  the  book,  i 
they  rose  in  their  seats,  those  twelve  of  lar,  and  they  swore  by 
name  of  him  who  is  everlasting  that  they'd  do  His  riglitwisen 
And  straightway  the  minions  of  the  law  led  forth  from  their  Don 
keep  one  whom  the  sleuthhounds  of  justice  had  apprehended  in  c 
sequence  of  information  received.  And  they  tackled  him  h; 
and  foot  and  would  take  of  him  ne  bail  ne  mainprise  but  perfa 
a  charge  against  him  for  he  was  a  malefactor.  — Those  are  i 
things,  says  the  citizen,  coming  over  here  to  Ireland  filling 
country  with  bugs. 

So  Bloom  let  on  he  heard  nothing  and  he  starts  talking  v 
Joe,  telling  him  he  needn't  trouble  about  that  little  matter  till 
first  but  if  he  would  just  say  a  word  to  Mr.  Crawford.  And  so 
swore  high  and  holy  he'd  do  the  devil  and  all. 
— ^Because  you  see,  says  Bloom,   for  an  advertisement  you  nr 
have  repetition.     That's  the  whole  secret. 
— Rely  on  me,  says  Joe. 
— Swindling  the  peasants,  says  the  citizen,  and  the  poor  of  ] 
land.    We  want  no  more  strangers  in  our  house. 
— O  I'm  sure  that  will  be  all  right,  Hynes,  says  Bloom.     It's  j 
that  Kcyes,  you  see. 
• — Consider  that  done,  says  Joe. 
— Very  kind  of  you,  says  Bloom. 
— The  strangers,  says  the  citizen.     Our  own  fault.     We  let  tb 
come  in.    We  brought  them  in.     The  adulteress  and  her  parami 
brought  the  Saxon  robbers  here. 
— Decree  nisi,  says  J.  J. 

i 


The    Little    Review  en 


I  And  Bloom  letting  on  to  be  awfully  deeply  interested  in  noth- 
.,  ng,  a  spider's  web  in  the  corner  behind  the  barrel  and  the  citizen 
iicowling  after  him  and  the  old  dog  at  his  feet  looking  up  to  know 
ivho  to  bite  and  when. 

—A  dishonoured  wife,  says  the  citizen,   that  what  the  cause  of 
ill  our  misfortunes. 

!— And  here  she  is,  says  Alf,  that  was  giggling  over  the  Police  Gaz- 
ette with  Terry  on  "the  counter,  in  all  her  warpaint. 
i— Give  us  a  squint  at  her,  says  I. 
— O,  jakers,  Jenny,  says  Joe,  how  short  your  shirt  is! 
-There's  hair,  Joe,  says  I.     Get  a  queer  old  sirloin  off  that  one, 
vhat? 

So  anyhow  in  came  John  Wyse  Nolan  and  Lenehan  with  him 
n\h.  a  face  on  him  as  long  as  a  late  breakfast. 
-^Well,  says  the  citizen,  what  did  these  tinkers  in  the  cityhall  de- 
ide  about  the  Irish  language? 

O'Nolan,  clad  in  shining  armour,  low  bending  made  obeis- 
nce  to  the  puissant  chief  of  Erin  and  did  him  to  wit  of  that  which 
ad  befallen,  how  that  the  grave  elders  of  the  most  obedient  city, 
econd  of  the  realm,  had  met  them  in  the  tholsel,  and  there,  after 
ue  prayers  to  the  gods  who  dwell  in  an  ether  supernal,  had  taken 
olemn  counsel  whereby  they  might,  if  so  be  it  might  be,  bring 
nee  more  into  honour  among  mortal  men  the  winged  speech  of  the 
eadivided  Gael. 

-It's  on  the  march,  says  the  citizen.  To  hell  with  the  bloody 
ratal  Sassenachs  and  their  language. 

So  J.  J.  puts  in  a  word  doing  the  toff,  and  Bloom  trying  to 
ack  him  up.    Moderation  and  botheration. 

-To  hell  with  them,  says  the  citizen.     The  curse  of  a  good  for 
othing  God   light  sideways  on   the  bloody  thicklugged   sons  of 
hores   gets!      Any   civilisation   they   have   they   stole    from    us. 
'onguetied  sons  of  bastards'  ghosts. 
-The  European  family,  says  J.  J.  .  .  . 

-There're  not  European,  says  the  citizen.  I  was  in  Europe  with 
evin  Egan  of  Paris.  You  woudn't  see  a  trace  of  them  or  their 
inguage  anywhere  in  Europe  except  in  a  cabinet  d'aisancc. 

■  And  says  John  Wyse: 
Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen. 
And  says  Lenehan,  that  knows  a  bit  of  the  lingo: 
onspues  les  Anglais!     Per  fide  Albion!  ^ 

Then  lifted  he  in  his  rude  great  brawny  strengthy  hands  the 


6o The    Little    Review 

medher  of  dark  strong  foamy  ale  and  he  drank  to  the  undoing  of 

his  foes,  a  race  of  mighty  valorous  heroes,  rulers  of  the  waves, 

who  sit  on  throwns  of  alabaster  silent  as  the  deathless  gods. 

— 'What's  up  with  }'Ou,  says  I  to  Lenehan.    You  look  like  a  felloW 

that  had  lost  a  bob  and  found  a  tanner.  ?, 

— Gold  cup,  says  he. 

— Who  won,  Mr.  Lenehan?  says  Terry. 

— Throwaway,  says  he,  at  twenty  to  one.  A  rank  outsider. 

— And  Basses  mare?  says  Terry. 

— Still  running,  says  he.     We'er  all  in  a  cart.     Boylan  plunged 

two  quid  on  my  tip  Sceptre  for  himself  and  a  lady  friend. 

— I  had  half  a  crown  myself,  says  Terry,  on  Zinfandel  that  ^fr,• 

Flynn  gave  me  .  Lord  Howard  de  Walden's. 

— Twenty  to  one,  says  Lenehan.     Such  is  life  in  an  outhouse. 

Throwaway,  says  he.    Takes  the  biscuit  and  talking  about  bunions. 

Frailty,  thy  name  is  Sceptre. 

So  he  went  over  to  the  biscuit  tin  Bob  Doran  left  to  see  il 
there  was  anything  he  could  lift  on  the  nod  the  old  cur  after  him 
backing  his  luck  with  his  mangy  snout  up.    Old  mother  Hubbarc 
went  to  the  cupboard. 
— Not  there,  my  child,  says  he. 

— Keep  your  pecker  up,  says  Joe.  She'd  have  won  the  money  onlj 
for  the  other  dog. 

And  J.  J.  and  the  citizen  arguing  about  law  and  history  wit! 
Bloom  sticking  in  an  odd  word. 

— Some  people,  says  Bloom,  can  see  the  mote  in  others'  eyes  bu 
they  can't  see  the  beam  in  their  own. 

— Raimeis,  says  the  citizen.  Where  are  the  twenty  millions  0 
Irish  should  be  here  today  instead  of  four?  And  our  potterie 
and  textiles,  the  nest  in  the  world!  And  the  beds  of  the  Barrov 
and  Shannon  they  won't  deepen  with  a  million  acres  of  marsh  anc 
bog  to  make  us  all  die  of  consumptoin. 

— As  treeless  as  Portugal  we'l  be  soon,  says  John  Wyse,  if  some 
thing  is  not  to  reafforest  the  .and.     Larches,  firs,  all  the  trees  0 

the  conifer  family  are  going  fast.    I  was  reading  a  report 

— Save  them,  says  the  citizen,  save  the  trees  of  Irland  for  th< 
future  men  of  Ireland  on  the  fair  hills  of  Eire,  O. 
— Europe  has  its  eyes  on  you,  says  Lenehan. 

(to  he  continued) 


|| 


The   Little   Review  6i 


H 


KITES 

by    William    Saphier 

IS  mother  did  not  see  how  a  kite  in  the  air  might  be  a  good 
substitute  for  lunch  or  dinner,  or  the  Danube  shore  for  a 
good  feather  bed.  His  friendship  with  the  smugglers  on  the  Dan- 
ube worried  her  even  more  than  his  intense  interest  in  kites. 

He  had  a  great  collection  of  them.  The  attic  was  lined  with 
these  oblong  shape  of  all  colors  and  sizes  but  only  one  subject  for 
a  design.  The  ever-ipresent  design  consisted  of  two  unrelated  sub- 
jects: a  dragon  ana  a  chain  with  square  links,  one  end  attached  tt 
a  saw-tooth  bayonet.  The  color  of  the  subjects  never  varied, 
green  for  the  dragon  and  black  if  or  the  chain  and  gun;  only  the 
spacing  and  the  positions  always  varied. 

All  things  were  interpreted  through  these  two  symbols  on  the 
surface  of  his  ikites  and  they  formed  his  little  world  or  rather  his 
message  to  it.  He  would  send  them  up  in  the  air,  above  the  square 
whitewashed  houses  with  their  tile  roofs,  and  felt  that  they  were 
carrying  a  message  to  the  whole  town. 

The  dragon  and  the  chain  represented  two  incidents  he  had 
seen  in  this  town  framed  in  acacia  trees  high  above  the  Danube. 
The  dragon  came  one  day  on  the  flags  of  some  visiting  Chinamen, 
who  had  sailed  up  the  river  from  the  Black  Sea  with  a  load  of 
reed  covered  bales.  No  one  knew  their  contents  as  they  were  im- 
mediately reshipped  to  the  capitol  city.  Th  boat  looked  dressed 
for  a  masked  ball  and  the  men  like  animated  toys  or  parading 
draperies.  They  passed  through  the  streets  of  the  town  like  a 
dream  in  the  sunshine  and  when  their  boat  started  down  the  Da- 
nube the  kitemaker  followed  in  a  rowboat  for  several  hours.  He 
expected  the  boat  to  turn  into  some  huge  sea  animal  as  soon  as  it 
was  out  of  sight  of  the  city.  He  thought  his  own  presence  had  de- 
layed the  inevitable  transformation.  The  dragon  appeared  on  every 
kite,  a  good-natured  and  happy  sort  of  creature.  Slowly  and  with 
delicate  strokes  it  made  its  way  on  the  surface  of  the  paper,  wrig- 
gling and  coiling  as  if  embroidered. 

Quite  different  was  the  appearance  of  the  black  chain.  Its 
links  became  fewer  and  larger  and  were  put  on  with  large  strokes, 
at  times  almost  breaking  through  the  surface  of  the  paper.  The 
chain  he  had  seen  fastened  to" the  wrists  behind  a  man's  back.  He 
marched  barefoot,  without  a  hat,  with  a  hairy  chest  thrown  open 


62 The    Little    Review 

to  a  cool  sharp  October  morning.  Ife  marched  with  stiff  legs  ova- 
sharp  stones  on  the  unpaved  road  leading  to  the  town  from  th€ 
mountains.  All  the  exposed  parts  of  his  body  were  blue  from  the 
cold  and  covered  with  dirt.  Only  his  bloodshot  eyes  shone  with  a 
feverish  light.  His  jaw,  heavily  covered  with  a  reddish  growth, 
hung  as  if  forgotten.     Cain. 

The  other  end  of  the  chain  was  clamped  to  a  heavy  gun  with 
a  sawtooth  bayonet  in  the  hands  of  a  tall  bearded  mountaineei 
with  a  high  lambskin  cap  on  his  head.  No  noise  came  from  th< 
swinging  chain  or  the  marching  men.  They  walked  in  perfect  ac- 
cord and  had  done  so  for  two  days  and  two  nights  without  a  stop 
As  they  swung  into  sight  on  the  rough  road,  it  was  the  heavy  rust> 
chain  holding  the  two  weird  human  beings  together  that  strucl 
the  boy's  imagination  with  greatest  force.  The  dirty  blue  stif 
legs  in  front  became  a  part  of  the  chain  as  well  as  the  crue 
bearded  head  with  the  lambskin  cap  in  the  rear.  They  wer< 
merely  two  ends  of  the  chain  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  cold  blue  leg; 
were  pulling  the  two  cruel  eyes  under  the  fur  cap.  A  horrible  rustj 
chain  marching  early  in  the  morning  and  late  at  night  without  rest 

All  the  mean  deeds,  faces  and  places  became  a  part  of  th< 
rusty  chain  solemnly  swinging  down  the  road  with  a  tormenting 
silence  The  chain  had  its  place  on  every  kite  and  he  made  manj 
of  them,  always  larger  and  stouter  to  fight  off  the  kites  from  th« 
neighbrrhood.  By  swinging  the  string  up  and  down  from  left  t( 
right  the  kite  would  move  in  the  desired  direction.  The  quickes 
decision  was  reached  by  tearing  all  or  part  of  the  tail  off  the  en 
emy.  These  tails  were  made  of  rags  torn  in  narrow  strips  and  i 
was  a  fiiie  art  to  get  exact. weight  and  balance.  The  last  one,  hii 
supreme  effort,  was  a  Copenhagen  blue  decorated  with  the  blacl 
chain  that  had  come  down  to  five  links  and  a  pale  green  dragor 
coming  from  the  center. 

All  the  smaller  kites  he  sold  to  buy  twine,  and  the  whole  streei 
was  helping  at  the  launching.  Large  wagons  full  of  ripe  watermel- 
ons made  slow  progress  through  the  street  on  that  afternowi 
It  all  went  well  except  for  tlie  usual  intreference  of  his  mother 
who  needed  candles  for  prayer  that  evening.  Six  candles,  one  foi 
every  child  and  two  for  husband  and  wife.  He  had  promised  tc 
bring  the  candles  early  in  the  moming  but  could  find  no  time.  Al 
frequent  intervals  his  mother's  voice  came  in  a  threatening  mannei 


The    Little    Review  63 


live  all  the  noise  made  by  the  children.  It  irritated  him  a  little, 
.1  now  it  was  unthinkable  to  postpone  the  launching  and  he  was 
ijy  because  his  mother  did  not  realize  the  value  of  that  par- 
idar  afternoon. 

i  Up  went  the  kite  in  majestic  swings,  and  buzzing  in  a  most 
J:llenging  manner.  More  twine  and  more  twine  was  let  loose 
il  the  kite  was  far  above  its  nearest  competitor,  a  distinct  ad- 

atage  in  case  of  a  fight.  Soon  the  kite  from  the  nearest  street  on 
east  was  swinging  in  this  direction  and  a  great  fight  was 
ifning  and  children  all  cheering.  But  suddenly  a  fierce  quiet 
k;ended  on  aJl,  and  the  little  kite-maker's  face  grew  pale,  then 
|^;n.  He  saw  his  mother  coming  with  scissors  in  hand,  like  a 
tiendous  hurricane,  and  lightening  striking  from  her  eyes, 
tight  toward  the  stout  string  going  to  the  majestic  kite  above, 
teemed  too  horrible;  he  still  thought  it  a  threat  and  wanted  to 
n  1  the  calamity  by  consenting  to  go  for  the  candles,  but  he 
J: Id  not  open  his  mouth;  it  was  frozen.  And  the  scissors  grew 
a:er  and  larger  to  enormous  proportions;  they  reached  straight 
iDvss  the  street.  There  was  no  escape.  He  would  rather  have 
itik  his  head  into  the  jaws,  when  the  most  horrible  thing  hap- 
X!ed.  He  fell  as  if  struck  by  lightening,  with  one  hand  clamped 
ohe  remnant  of  twine  on  the  ball. 

His  mother  picked  him  up  like  a  rag  and  carried  him  into 

[hi  house,  where  he  clamly  sat  down  in  front  of  an  old  stove  and 

hanging  head,  refused  to  talk  or  move  all  evening,  all  day 

irciay,  all  night  and  all  day  Sunday.     At   the  beginning,  his 

saljnts  were  inclined  to  make  him  "behave,"  but  no  amount  of 

"Hing  and  threats  got  the  least   response   from   the   crouching 

Slowly  his  sullenness  had  its  effect  on  the  rest  of  the  people 

■  house.    The  usual  boisterousness  on  the  part  of  the  other 

.n  died  away  and  on  the  second  day  they  began  to  talk  in 

vvhpers.     They  were  getting  worried  and  there  were  little  quar- 

el  and  incriminations  between  husband   and   wife   outiside   the 

where  he  sat  and  sat. 

It  was  Sunday  evening  and  as  he  was  sitting  there  his  mind 
travelling  from  the  ball  of  twine  lying  in  front  of  him  and 
A\  tube  of  carmine  red  paint  he  had  hidden  in  the  attic  from 
hole  world.  These  seemed  the  only  important  things  deserv- 
onsideration  at  that  time.  The  people  in  the  house  he  hardly 
u;ed,  they  were  unimportant,  what  did  they  know  about  a  tube 
ofiarmine  red  and  its  possibilities.     In  fact,  all  their  chatter  and 


64 


The    Little    Review 


movements  irritated  him   only   a   little  and   he  had   forgotter 
was  hungry. 

The  laall  of  twine,  ah,  that  was  a  different  matter,  no 
speak  of  the  lube  of  carmine  red.  But  he  iiad  never  used 
Another  symbol  was  required  for  that  color.  The  black  chain 
the  green  dragon  could  not  wear  that  most  beautiful  color, 
denly  an  idea  struck  him.  He  had  not  noticed  his  father,  nu 
and  the  rest  of  the  family  sitting  in  a  semi-circe,  vvhisp)eTing  a 
calling  in  a  doctor 

He  sprang  to  his  feet  as  if  shocked  by  an  electric  cu 
and  shouted,  full  of  joy:  "It  will  be  a  red  bat  with  out^ 
wings  on  a  snow  white  field.    That's  what  the  next  kite  will 


1^6^ 


The    Little    Review  65 


YOTHE  BOOK  PUBLISHER./ 
OF  ANERICA 

THERE  are  some  thirty  publishers  of  books  in  New  Yoris.  and 
Boston.  Each  one  of  them  publishes  many  books  that  had 
better  be  left  unpublished,  if  the  wish  to  build  up  a  permanent 
literature  is  the  ideal  of  their  existence.  I  believe  every  one  of 
them  would  admit  this  delicate  stating  of  the  literary  situation  in 
America  today.  At  the  same  time,  every  one  of  them  publishes 
perhaps  an  average  of  three  or  four  books  a  year  of  some  special 
interest.  These  books  I  feel  should  be  advertised  in  the  Little 
Review. 

I  have  just  spent  ten  days  presenting  this  idea  to  the  New 
York  publishers.     The  results  can  be  seen  in  this  number. 

The  attitude  of  those  who  are  represented  can  be  described 
pretty  accurately,  I  believe,  by  the  statement  of  one  of  the  most 
fair-minded  and  intelligent  men  in  the  publishing  business. 
"While  I  don't  always  sympathize  with  the  things  you  print  in  the 
Little  Review  I  feel  not  only  that  such  an  effort  should  be  support- 
ed by  the  publishers  but  that  they  should  recognize  your  special 
and  selected  audience  'for  their  special  books." 

Of  those  whose  names  are  conspicuously  absent  two  promised 
to  take  pages  and  then  changed  their  minds;  several  promised  to 
advertise  in  future  numbers;  several  felt  they  had  no  books  that 
would  interest  our  readers;  some  refused  for  purely  conventional 
reasons;  some  objected  so  strongly  to  our  policy  and  to  Mr. 
James  Joyce  that  nothing  would  induce  them  to  appear. 

One  of  the  largest  publishing  houses  in  the  country,  with 
books  on  their  list  by  writers  who  appear  in  the  Little  Review, 
told  me  in  all  friendliness  and  with  a  charming  humor  that  they 
couldn't  conscientiously  advertise  because  they  regard  us  as  a 
literary  curiosity  and  preserve  back  numbers  of  the  Little  Review 
as  a  record  of  the  insanity  of  the  age.  The  implication  was  that 
we  are  not  merely  representative  of  the  age's  insanity  but  that 
we  contain  it  all  in  our  pages. 

Another  even  larger  publishing  house  (and  one  that,  by  token 
of  bringing  out  in  book  form  practically  every  one  of  our  con- 
tributors, stands  convicted  of  admiring  us)   refused  to  advertise 


66  The    Little    Review 


for  the  simple  reason  that  they  can  reach  more  readers,  for  the 
same  amount  of  money,  in  other  periodicals.  "But  you  believe 
that  our  readers  are  just  the  people  who  buy  your  books?"  I 
asked.  "Oh  yes,  but  they  read  our  advertisements  in  other 
papers."  I  couldn't  see  theit  this  was  a  legitmate  reason  for  not 
advertising.  "You  think  the  Little  Review  is  a  fine  thing?"  I 
asked.  "Oh  yes,  but  we  aren't  talking  of  merit."  "So  it  seems," 
I  said,  "but  why  aren't  we?"  I  wondered  what  we  should  be 
talking  about  that  would  furnish  a  decent  reason  for  a  large  pub- 
lishing establishment  to  spend  $40  on  advertising  their 
best  books  with  us.  So  I  tried  one  more  argument.  "We  give  you 
the  best  publicity  in  the  world  by  publishing  your  authors  before 
you  bring  them  out  in  book  form,  and  by  stimulating  discussion 
about  them  before  their  newest  books  are  on  the  market."  "Oh 
yes,  but  I  can't  talk  with  you  on  the  basis  of  courtesy."  "Well,  I 
said,  "why  can't  you?  Great  publishing  institutions  are  built  up 
on  'courtesy.'  " 

One  of  the  things  that  amused  and  angered  me  the  most 
was  the  attitude  toward  James  Joyce  and  other  of  our  contributors 
who  are  considered  obscene.  Joyce  is  incomphrehensible,  yes, 
but  nevertheless  violently  obscene.  And  nine  out  of  ten  of  the 
people  I  talked  with  picked  two  lines  of  Djuna  Barnes'  play, 
"Three  from  the  Earth,"  to  prove  to  me  our  disgusting  immorsd- 
ity.  The  adventuress  asks  one  of  the  Carson  boys:  "Your  moth- 
er was  a  prostitute,  I  believe?"  And  the  boy  answers  calmly  "At 
times." 

"I  don't  understand  you,"  I  said.  "Surely  you  have  some 
idea  of  what  those  lines  mean?"  "Yes,"  they  said,  "they  waje 
put  there  for  a  laugh  and  they  got  it."  "Those  lines  were  put 
there,"  I  said,  "for  the  same  purpose  that  every  line  of  the  playfF 
was  written:  a  condensed  comment  on  the  hypocricy,  the  uncon-| 
sciousness,  the  lack  of  thought  and  vision  in  people.  Everybody 
prostitutes  something  nearly  all  the  time, — the  prostitute  who 
makes  the  accusation  in  this  case  being  about  to  prostitute  hersdf 
ifor  social  position.  Etc.,  etc.,  etc."  "Oh  no,  you're  idealizing," 
they  said.  "Well,"  I  said,  "seing  it  as  I  do,  how  would  you  have  me 
act?  You  wouldn't  expect  me  to  cut  out  those  lines,  would  you, 
any  more  than  I  would  expect  you  to  cut  out  passages  form  your 
most  distinguished  novelist?"  "Oh  yes,  but  that's  just  what  we 
do!"  they  exclaimed.  "We  take  out  whatever  is  objectionable — 
of  course  where  it  doesn't  too  seriously  affect  the  text."    I  should 


The    Little    Review  67 

have  remembered  not  to  ask  a  naive  question.  The  subject  mat- 
ter chosen  by  the  men  who  write  today  may  be  objectional.  The 
war  was  objectionable,  but  it  occured  to  me  that  I  couldn't  stop 
it.    And  I  haven't  yet  attempted  to  control  the  mind  of  the  times. 


For  nearly  six  years  we  have  published,  in  America,  a  maga- 
zine of  highly  specialized  thinking.  Financially  unsupported  (ex- 
cept by  donations  amounting  to  a  few  hundred  dollars), 
representing  no  vested  interests,  no  publishers'  inter- 
ests, no  aged  magazines  and  reviews  nor  staffs  of  the  same,  we 
have  managed  to  keep  alive  in  spite  of  an  unsympathetic  and  ig- 
norant public,  a  jeering  press,  and  a  censor  that  suspects  the 
worst  of  any  effort  dedicated  to  the  best. 

Even  our  enemies  however  give  us  credit  for  literary  integ- 
rity. But  this  is  a  meaningless  virtue.  Sincerity  is  not  necessar- 
ily worth  anything.  It  all  depends  on  what  you're  sincere  about. 
For  instance,  I  can't  look  upon  the  publishers  of  Edgar  Lee  Mas- 
ters' latest  books  as  villians  of  the  commercial  age,  as  Ezra  Pound 
does,  any  more  than  I  can  look  upon  Mr.  Masters  as  a  victim  of 
the  commercial  age.  He  writes  these  books  because  he  thinks 
they  are  good;  they  publish  them  because  they  don't  suspect 
how  bad  they  are.  One  must  have  a  conception  of  literature  be- 
fore one  can  practise  literary  integrity. 

So  I  ask  only  one  thing:  say  we  are  sincere  or  insincere,  I 
don't  care  how  you  think  we  do  it,  I  only  ask  that  you  develop 
some  conception  of  what  we  do. 

And,  that  being  accomplished,  I  ask  whether  you  can  give 
your  support,  at  least  once  a  year,  to  the  one  magazine  in  America 
in  which  the  man  of  letters  may  obtain  a  hearing  among  his  peers, 
ungarbled  in  editorial  rooms  to  suit  the  public  taste. 


68  The    Little    Review 


THE  CHINESE  WRITTEN   CHARACTER 
AS  A  MEDIUM   FOR   POETRY 

IV 

by  Ernest  Fennolosa  and  Ezra  Pound 

T^HE   sheer  loss  and  weakness  of   this  method  is  apparent  and  flagrant 

Even  in  its  own  sphere  it  can  not  think  half  of  what  to  think.  Il 
has  no  way  of  bringing  together  any  two  concepts  which  do  not  happer 
to  stand  one  under  the  other  and  in  the  same  pyramid.  It  is  impossible  tt 
represent  change  in  this  system  or  any  kind  of  growth.  This  is  probabb 
why  the  conception  of  evolution  came  so  late  in  Europe.  It  could  no 
make  way  until  it  was  prepared  to  destroy  the  inveterate  logic  o; 
classification. 

Far  worse  than  this,  .such  logic  can  not  deal  with  any  kind  of  inter 
action  or  with  any  multiplicity  of  function.  According  to  it,  the  functioi 
of  my  muscles  is  as  isolated  from  the  function  of  my  nerves,  as  fron 
an  earthquake  in  the  moon.  For  it  the  poor  neglected  things  at  the  base 
of  the  pyramids  are  only  so  many  particulars  or  pawns. 

Science  fought  till  she  got  at  the  things.  All  her  work  has  beei 
done  from  the  base  of  the  pyramids,  not  from  the  apex.  She  has  dis 
covered  how  functions  cohere  in  things.  She  expresses  her  results  it 
grouped  sentences  which  embody  no  nouns  or  adjectives  but  verbs  o 
special  character.  The  true  formula  for  thought  is :  The  cherry  tre 
is  all  that  it  does.  Its  correlated  verbs  compose  it.  At  bottom  theS' 
verbs  are  transitive.     Such  verbs  may  be  almost  infinite  in  number. 

In  diction  an  in  gramdmatical  form  science  is  utterly  opposed  to  logic 
Primitive  men  who  created  language  agreed  with  science  and  not  witl 
logic.  Logic  has  abused  the  language  which  they  left  to  her  mCrcy 
Poetry  agrees  with  science  and  not  with  logic. 

The  moment  wc  use  the  copula,  the  moment  we  express  subjectiv« 
inclusions,  poetry  evaporates.  The  more  concretely  and  vividly  we  ex 
press  the  interactions  of  things  the  better  the  poetry.  We  need  in  poetr} 
thousands  of  active  words,  each  doing  its  utmost  to  show  forth  th< 
motive  and  vital  forces.  We  can  not  exhibit  the  health  of  nature  by  men 
summation,  by  the  piling  of  sentences.  Poetic  thought  works  by  sug- 
gestion.  crowding  maximum  meaning  into  the  single  phrase  pregnant 
charged,  and  luminous  from  within. 

In  Chinese  character  each  work  accumulated  this  sort  of  energy  ii 
itself. 


^ 


^ The    Little    Review 69 

Should  we  pass  formally  to  the  study  of  Chinese  poetry,  we  should 
warn  ourselves  against  logicianized  pitfalls.  We  should  beware  of  mod- 
ern narrow  utilitarian  meanings  ascribed  to  the  words  in  commercial 
dictionaries.  We  should  try  to  preserve  the  metaphoric  overtones  We 
should  beware  of  English  grammar,  its  hard  parts  of  speech,  and  its 
lazy  satisfaction  with  nouns  and  adjectives.  We  should  seek  and  at 
least  bear  in  mind  the  verbal  undertone  of  each  noun.  We  should  avoid 
"is"  and  bring  in  a  wealth  of  neglected  English  verbs.  Most  of  the  ex- 
isting translations  violate  all  of  these   rules.* 

The  development  of  the  normal  transitive  sentence  rests  upon  the 
fact  that  one  action  in  nature  promotes  another;  thus  the  agent  and  the 
object  are  secretly  verbs.  For  example,  our  sentence,  "Reading  promotes 
writing,"  would  be  expresed  in  Chinese  by  three  full  verbs.  Such  a 
form  is  the  equivalent  of  three  expanded  clauses  and  can  be  drawn  out 
into  adjectival,  participial,  infinitive,  relative  or  conditional  members. 
One  of  many  possible  examples  is,  "If  one  reads,  it  teaches  him  how  to 
write."  Another  is,  "One  who  reads  becomes  one  who  writes."  But  in 
the  first  condensed  form  a  Chinese  would  write,  "Read  promote  write." 
The  dominance  of  the  verb  and  its  power  to  obliterate  all  other  parts 
of  speech  give  us  the  model  of  terse  fine  stlye. 

I  have  seldom  seen  our  rhetoricians  dwell  on  the  fact  that  the  great 
strength  of  our  language  lies  in  the  splendid  array  of  transitive  verbs, 
drawn  both  from  Anglo-Saxon  and  from  Latin  sources.  These  give  us 
the  most  individual  characterizations  of  force.  Their  power  lies  in  their 
recognition  of  nature  as  a  vast  storehouse  of  forces.  We  do  not  say 
in  English  that  things  seem,  or  apepar,  or  eventuate,  or  even  that  they 
are;  but  that  they  do.  Will  is  the  foundation  of  our  speech.*  We  catch 
the  Demiurge  in  the  act.  I  had  to  discover  for  myself  why  Shakespeare's 
English  was  so  immeasurably  superior  to  all  others.  I  found  that  it 
was  his  persistent,  natural,  and  magnificient  use  of  hundreds  of  transi- 
tive verbs.  Rarely  will  you  find  an  "is"  in  his  sentences.  "Is"  weakly 
lends  itself  to  the  uses  of  our  rhythm,  in  the  unaccented  syllables;  yet  he 
sternly  dicards  it.  A  study  of  Shakespeare's  verbs  should  underlie  all 
exercises  in  style. 

We  find'  in  poetical  Chinese  a  wealth  of  transitive  verbs,  in  some 
way  greater  even  than  in  the  English  of  Shakespeare.    This  springs  from 

*[These  precautions  should  he  broadly  conceived.  It  is  not  so  much 
their  letter,  as  the  underlying  feeling  of  ohjectification,  and  activity  that 
matters.— E.  P.] 

*[Compare   Dante's   definition   of   "rcctitudo"   as   the   direction   of    the 
mil,  probably  taken  from  Aquinas. — E.  P.] 


70  T  he    Lit  tie    Review 


tlieir  ppwer  of  combining  several  pictorial  elements  in  a  single  character.' 
We  have  in  English  no  verb  for  what  two  things,  say  the  sun  and  moon, 
both  do  together.  Prefixes  and  affixes  merely  direct  and  qualify.  In 
Chinese  the  verb  can  be  more  mintuely  qualified.  We  find 
a  hundred  variants  clustering  about  a  single  idea.  Thus  "to  sail  a 
boat  for  purposes  of  pleasure"  would  be  an  entirely  different  verb  from 
"to  sail  for  purposes  of  commerce."  Dozens  of  Chinese  verbs  express 
various  shades  of  grieving,  yet  in  English  translations  they  are  usually 
reduced  to  one  mediocrity.  Many  of  them  can  be  expressed  only  by  per- 
iphrasis, but  what  right  has  the  translator  to  neglect  the  overtones? 
There  are  subtle  shadings.    W'e  should  strain  our  resources  in  English. 

It  is  true  that  the  pictorial  clue  of  many  Chinese  ideographs  can  not 
now  be  traced,  and  even  Chinese  lexicographers  admit  that  combinations 
frequently  contributee  only  a  phonetic  value.  But  I  find  it  incredible  that 
any  such  minute  subdivision  of  the  idea  could  have  ever  existed  alone  as 
abstract  sound  without  the  concrete  character.  It  contradicts  the  law 
of  evolution.  Complex  ideas  arise  only  graduallj',  as  tVie  power  of  hold- 
ing them  together  arises.  The  paucity  of  Chinese  sound  could  not  so 
hold  them.  Neither  is  it  conceivable  that  the  whole  list  was  made  at  once, 
as  commercial  codes  of  cipher  are  compiled.  Therefore  we  must  believe 
that  the  phonetic  theory  is  in  large  part  unsound.  The  metaphor  once 
existed  in  many  cases  where  we  can  not  now  trace  it.  Many  of  our  own 
etymologies  have  been  lost.  It  is  futile  to  take  the  ignorance  of  the  Han 
dynasty  for  omniscience,*    It  is  not  true,  as  Legge  said,  that  the  original 

*[P>ofessor  Fciwllosa  is  well  borne  out  by  chance  evidence.  Thi 
X'orticist  sculptor  Gaudier-Drzcska  sat  in  my  room  a  few  months  ago 
before  he  went  off  to  the  zvar.  He  was  able  to  read  the  Chinese  radicaU 
and  many  compound  signs  almost  at  pleasure.  He  is,  of  course,  used  ii 
consider  all  life  and  nature  in  the  terms  of  planes  and  of  bounding  lines 
Nevertheless  he  had  spent  only  a  fortnight  in  the  museum  studying  tht 
Chinese  characters.  He  zvas  amazed  at  the  stupidity  of  lexicographer: 
who  could  not  discern  for  all  their  learning  the  pictorial  values  tvhich  wen 
to  him  perfectly  obvious  and  apparent.  Curiously  enough,  a  few  Tfr^fc 
later  Edtnond  Dulac,  zvho  is  of  a  totally  different  tradition,  sat  here,  giving 
an  impromptu  panegyric  on  the  elements  of  Chinese  art,  on  the  units  0) 
composition,  draivn  from  the  written  characters.  He  did  not  use  Professot 
Fenollosa's  own  words,  he  said  "bamboo"  instead  of  "rice".  He  s(UO 
the  essence  of  the  bamboo  is  in  a  certain  way  it  grows,  they  have  this  itt 
their  sign  for  bamboo,  all  designs  of  bamboo  proceed  from  it.  Then  kt 
went  o«  rather  to  disparage  vorticism.  on  the  grounds  that  it  could  no 
hope  to  do  for  the  Occident,  in  one  life-time,  what  had  required  cetiturie. 
of  development  in  China. — E.  P.] 


i 


Th$    Little    Review 71 

picture  characters  could  never  have  gone  far  in  building  up  abstract 
thought.  This  is  a  vital  mistake.  We  have  seen  that  our  own  languages 
have  all  sprung  from  a  few  hundred  vivid  phonetic  verbs  by  figurative 
derivation.  A  fabric  more  vast  could  have  been  built  up  in  Chinese  by 
metaphorical  composition.  No  attenuated  idea  exists  which  it  might  not 
have  reached  more  vividly  and  more  permanently  than  we  could  have 
been  expected  to  reach  with  phonetic  roots.  Such  a  pictorial  method, 
whether  the  Chinese  exemplified  it  or  not,  would  be  the  ideal  language  of 
the  world. 

Still,  is  it  not  enough  to  show  that  Chinese  poetry  gets  back  near 
to  the  processes  of  nature  by  means  of  its  vivid  figure,  its  wealth  of 
such  figure?  If  we  attempt  to  follow  it  in  English  we  must  use  words 
highly  charged,  words  whose  vital  sugestion  shall  interplay  as  nature 
interplays.  Sentences  must  be  like  the  mingling  of  the  fringes  of  feath- 
ered banners,  or  as  the  colors  of  many  flowers  blended  into  the  single 
sheen  of  a  meadow. 

The  poet  can  never  see  too  much  or  feel  too  much.  His  metaphors 
are  only  ways  of  getting  rid  of  the  dead  white  plaster  of  the  copula.  He 
resolves  its  indifference  into  a  thousand  tints  of  verb.  His  figures  flood 
things  with  jets  of  various  light,  like  the  sudden  up-blaze  of  fountains. 
The  prehistoric  poets  who  created  language  discovered  the  whole  har- 
monious framework  of  nature,  they  sang  out  her  processes  in  their 
hymns.  And  this  diffused  poetry  jvhich  they  created  Shakespeare  has  con- 
densed into  a  more  tangible  substance.  Tlfus  in  all  poetry  a  word  is  like 
a  sun,  with  its  corona  and  chromosphere ;  words  crowd  upon  words,  and 
enwrap  each  other  in  their  luminous  envelopes  until  sentences  become 
clear,  continuous  light-bands. 

Now  we  are  in  condition  to  appreciate  the  full  splendor  of  certain 
lines  of  Chinese  verse.  Poetry  surpasses  prose  especially  in  that  the 
poet  selects  for  juxtaposition  those  words  whose  overtones  blend  into  a 
delicate  and  lucid  harmony.  All  arts  follow  the  same  law;  refined  har- 
mony lies  in  the  delicate  balance  of  overtones.  In  music  the  whole  possi- 
bility and  theory  of  harmony  is  based  on  the  overtones.  In  this  sense 
poetry  seems  a  more  difficult  art. 

How  shall  we  determine  the  metaphorical  overtones  of  neighboring 
words?  We  can  avoid  flagrant  breaches  like  mixed  metaphor.  We  can 
find  the  concord  or  harmonizing  at  its  intensest,  as  in  Romeo's  speech 
over  the  dead  Juliet. 

Here  also  the  Chinese  ideography  has  its  advantage,  in  even  a  simple 
line,  for  example,  "The  sun  rises  in  the  east." 

The  overtones  vibrate  against  the  eye.  The  wealth  of  composition  in 
characters  makes  possible  a  choice  of  words  in  which  a  single  dominant 


72 T  ]i  c    Little    Rev  iew 

overtone  colors  every  plane  of  mcanin)^.  That  is  perhaps  the  most  con- 
spicuous quality  of  Chinese  poetry.     Let  us  examine  our  line.     The  sun     | 

Sun  rises  (in  the)  East 

the  shining,  on  one  side,  on  the  other  the  sign  of  the  east,  which  is  the 
sun  entangled  in  the  branches  of  a  tree.  And  in  the  middle  sign,  the  verb 
"rise,"  we  have  further  homology;  the  sun  is  above  the  horizon,  but  be- 
yond that  the  single  upright  line  is  like  the  growing  trunk-line  of  the 
tree  sign.  This  is  but  a  beginning,  but  it  points  a  way  to  the  method,  and 
to  the  metliod  of  intelligent  reading. 

(T/ie     End) 


The    Little    Re  vie 


^  73 


THE   READER   CRITIC 

[\D  j  unaBarnes'Play 

Maxwell  Bodenheini,  New  York: 

A  few  comments  on  your  November  issue.    Djuna  Barnes'  "Three 

From  the  Earth"  has  the  piquant  sensitiveness  of  mud,  in  spots,  and 

a  lordly  grewsomeness  in  other  passages;  but  on  the  whole  its  last 

sentence   expresses    my   reaction — "That's    the   way   you   bore    him!" 

Its  dialogue  is  too  assiduously  elaborate  and  does  not  contain  that 

effortless  compactness — that  expression  of  a  chapter  in  the  crook  of 

finger — which  alone  could  convey  the  grisly  note  striven  for.    The 

prostitute  is  half-fantastic  and  half  Minetta  Lane,  and  the  two  look 

;i  suspiciously  at  each  other.     The   three  peasant  lads  might  be  more 

/konvincing  if  one  had  not  read  the  author'si  description  at  the  start 

iiiof  the  play,  where  she  gives  them  small  eyes  , coarse  lips  and  ugly, 

tjstupid  exteriors.    To  be  silre  she  tells  us  immediately  afterwards  that 

her  characters  are  intelligent,  gentle,  etc.,  but  the  transition  is  a  bit 

too  miraculously  abrupt,  and  the  subsequent  conversation  of  her  men 

deepens  the  gap.     Nietsche,  Schopenhauer,  and  deliberate  naivete  do 

not  blend  into  small  eyes  and  stupid  surfaces!     Still,  Djuna  Barnes 

has  made  a  unique  attempt  and,  dizzy  with  unadorned  echoes,  I  thank 

her  sincerely. 

^Literary    Correspondence 

Ex-Subscriber: 

I  should  think  Mary  Garden  would  hate  to  see  you  coming,  and 
even  fear  to  open  the  Little  Review  to  see  from  what  new  chalice  of 
editorial  gush  you  have  libated  your  image  of  her  with  sticky,  unc- 
tions, over-fermented  adulation.  She  must  have  learned  to  scent  in 
advance  the  sulpherated  hydrogen  of  your  outbursts  of  admiration, 
whenever  some  distinguished  observer  has  written  in  criticism  or 
disparity  of  her  public  performances;  yes,  damn  it,  or  even  of  her  Art, 
which  you  deem  sacrosant  and  unassailable. 

Herewith  my  check  for  $3.00  in  renewal  of  my  subscription  to 
your  Little  Review  which  is  so  unmistakably  one  of  the  blow-holes  of 
the  literary  period  'that  it  cannot  be  safely  ignored  any  more  than 
Dther  red  flag  signals  of  danger  on  the  highway  of  contemporary  life. 
PS.  I  have  changed  my  mind;  There  are  so  many  literary  "blow- 
tioles"  now  being  published.    I  think  one  less  a  safe  risk. 


74 


The    Little    Review 


lYes?  .  .  .  and  if  all  you  have  to  say  were  true?    It  is  three  ytars 
since  we  published  an  article  on  Mary  Garden  or  her  work.     Haven't 
you  noticed  that  we  have  been  printing  right  along  since  then  thinj 
much  more  worth  your  comment  if  you  are  interested  in  literaturt 
Of  course  you  are  not.     The  above  letter  is  an  example  of  a  quite 
well-known  mania.     Have  mercy  on  the  postman. 1 


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NOTES 


Osip  Zadkine  is  a  Slav  sculptor  living  in 
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Maurice  Sterne  is  well-known  to  all  who 
are  interested  in  the  radicals. 


At  the  Bourgeois  Galleries  there  is  an  ex- 
hibition of  some  fifty  etchings,  lithographs  and 
drawings  by  Edvard  Munch  the  Norwegian 
painter. 


The  Daniels'  Gallery  has  an  exhibition  by 
Charles  Demuth,  Yarrows,  Marin  and  the 
Zorachs. 


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UTTLE 
REVIEW 


\-J 


lANUARY,  1920 


NAGAZINE  OP  fHE  M!tLU 

lAKINC    NO    CONPBOMISI    WITH    fill    PMBUC    tASTI 


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I 


ISTTLE  RiXIEW 

VOL.  VI         JANUARY,  1920  No.  9 


CONTENTS 

Frontispiece:   Sherwood  Anderson 
The  Wild  Star  Witter  Bynner 

Landscape  with  Trees  Carlos  A.  V.  Krai 

Poems  Robert  Reiss 

A  New  Testament,  IV  and  V        Sherwood  Anderson 
Poems  Else  von  Freytag-Loringhoven 

The  Mystic  Rose  Arthur   Winthrop 

Discussion : 

The  Art  of  Madness  Evelyn  Scott  and  jh 

The  December  Number  Israel  Solon 

*The  Power  of  Darkness"  jh 

The  Three  Boring  Barrymores  jh 

Interim,  Chapter  Eight  Dorothy  Richardson 

Poems  William  Carlos  Williams 

Ulysses,  Episode  XII   (continued)  James  Joyce 

Poems  H.  H.  Bellamann 

The  Reader  Critic 


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Entered  as  second  class  matter  March  16,  1917,  at  the  Post  Office  at  Naw  York. 
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SHER I VOOD    A  NDERSON 


THE 
UTTLE  REVIEW 


THE   WILD   STAR 
by  Witter  Bynner 

There  is  a  star  whose  bite  is  certain  death 
While  the  moon  but  makes  you  mad — 
So  run  from  stars  till  you  are  out  of  breath 
On  a  spring-night,  my  lad, 
Or  slip  among  the  shadows  of  a  pine 
And  hide  face  down  from  the  sky 
And  never  stir  and  never  make  a  sign 
Till  the  wild  star  goes  by. 


The    Little    Review 


LANDSCAPE  WITH   TREES,  AND 
COLORED  TWILIGHT  WITH  MUSIC 

Past    the     End    of    the    City 
by  Carlos  A.  V.  Krai 

THERE  is  a  wide  land  that  is  low  and  flat  and  has  sheets  of 
blue  gray  water  over  its  outer  edges  so  far  frc«n  its  interior, 
and  often  in  the  great  light  and  heat  that  come  down  upon  it  this 
land  seems  bright  and  shimmering;  but  it  is  a  gloomy  land  like 
all  the  others,  and  some  of  its  parts  are  more  gloomy  than  others 
of  them.  At  a  certain  time  in  one  place  in  the  laod  a  poor  city 
had  been  made,  and  there  upon  the  heavy  silent  grass  among  wild 
trees  it  seemed  lonely  and  pitiful,  as  if  the  trees  and  grass  were 
but  waiting  to  creep  in  nearer  and  rot  it  and  replace  forever  its 
poor  dustiness  and  ferocity. 

The  city  had  been  placed  near  a  small  heavy  green  marsh,  a 
little  below  the  fields,  that  lay  in  abundant  water  with  a  narrow 
stream  going  through  it ;  and  over  the  stream  from  one  part  of  a 
road  to  another  was  an  old  dust-muffled  white  wooden  bridge  widi  a 
row  of  shabby  gray  willows  like  bunches  of  ^vom  ostrich  plumes 
at  one  side.  In  the  wild  fields  amid  some  poor  gardens  a  few  dirty 
houses  stood,  with  people  who  were  hangers-on  of  the  city  living 
in  them. 

This  place  I  saw  one  hot  simimer  morning.  In  the  city  I  had 
thought  the  gloomy  sky  was  gray,  but  having  come  out  I  found 
it  bright,  with  smaJl  vague  white  clouds.  Approaching  the  place  I 
saw  it  as  from  above  and  far  away,  before  a  sky  bleached  by  hot 
sunlight,  and  bleaching  all  that  was  before  and  beneath  it:  an  ex- 
panse of  rough  pale  fields  covered  with  shaggy  grass  that  was  dot- 
ted by  the  black  shrubs  of  thorn-apple.  Some  delicate  rectangles  of 
blue  forest  oak  lay  in  a  few  places,  dark  lone  oaks  and  elms  stood 
in  the  white-green  fields,  and  along  narrow  white  dusty  roads  were 
short  rows  of  black  pwplar  trees.  At  the  foot  of  a  slope  the  marsh 
waved  gently  like  a  grainfield,  with  the  heat  and  light  making  it 
at  times  almost  invisible. 

And  in  this  powerful  soft  and  white  hot  light  I  strolled,  ex- 
amining the  bimches  of  pale  green  apples  on  the  apple  shrubs, 
plucking  dried  brown  tops  of  clover,  looking  with  pleasure  at  a 
tousled  grassy  nook  in  a  bank  under  a  wide  low  tree.    And  I  went, 


The   Little    Review 


on  a  path  in  a  bank  that  stood  above  the  road  along  the  front  of 
one  of  the  dark  cool  oak  woods,  which  made  the  road  here  damp  and 
black,  down  upon  the  bridge,  thence  to  see  the  marsh,  clear  brown 
water  which,  as  the  sunlight  struck  it  off  in  certain  places,  was 
blue  and  hot  like  the  sky  and  which  under  the  reeds  was  clear  green 
in  odd  streaks  and  circles;  clumps  of  green  reeds  three  meters  tall; 
broad  flags;  weeds  with  heads  like  spears;  lily  leaves  in  the  open 
water;  and  little  balls  of  floating  scum.  I  strolled  and  frequent- 
ly looked  back  and  about  to  see  all:  the  lighted  hot  silver  sky; 
the  grass,  most  lacking  in  strength  of  all  the  green,  for  it  was 
already  in  seed  and  full  of  mustard  in  profuse  yellow  bloom;  the 
gray  little  willows  and  pale  marsh;  the  lone  trees;  the  dark  forest 
squares;  and  the  black,  black  poplars. 

And  the  poplars  made  one  watch  them  carefully;  small  trees 
on  that  great  lighted  plain,  but  twenty  meters  tall  close  by;  thick 
high  trees,  the  branches  growing  low  on  the  straight  trunks,  the 
grass  and  weeds  high  about,  and  the  wind  constantly  turning  up 
the  light  under-sides  of  the  tough  round  little  leaves,  or  opening 
places  in  the  dark  mass  to  let  the  strangely  lighted  sky  shine 
tfirough.  The  trees  seemed  to  sparkle.  And  with  their  surface 
leaves  a-flutter  and  their  heavy  interiors  still  they  were  strong  and 
bouyant;  and  they  made  the  light  about  and  beneath  them  green 
and  green- white;  and  the  noise  of  them  up  in  the  free  airs  was 
loud  and  authoritative. 

So  the  place  on  a  hot  summer  morning  with  birds  chattering 
in  the  woods  and  marsh  and  all  scents  faint  in  the  dry  heat  and 
light.  But  on  a  chilly  damp  evening  I  saw  that  place  again,  and  it 
was  strong,  coloured,  and  even  vast  and  sublime. 

I  moved  that  night  on  roads  laid  as  about  a  triangle,  through, 
across,  and  back  from  that  region,  and  twice  over  its  stream,  by 
the  white  bridge  and  another  distant  one.  First,  in  the  silence  the 
light  was  fading.  The  sky  of  afternoon  became  strange,  unreal,  and 
soft;  pale,  paler,  pale  blue,  milky  green,  and  the  white  clouds,  of 
which  it  held  many,  were  drawn  out  into  shreds  or  fluted;  one 
round  cloud  was  like  the  head  of  a  Greek  statue  of  a  man,  a  pure 
white  cloud  lighted  at  the  top  with  gold.  It  grew  darker.  Then 
the  great  sky  above  and  in  the  west  beyond  the  clouds  became 
dark  clear  pink,  almost  purple,  the  clouds  soft  rosy  pink;  in  the 
north  the  sky  remained  clear  green  and  the  clouds  there  were  long 
faint  streaks  of  brown  and  amber.  The  dark  green  and  purpling 
world  beneath  contracted  and  grew  strong,  and  yet  was  vaster, 
vaster;  all  objects  were  of  new,  surprising,  dense  substance;  the 
darkened  east  and  the  whole  air  became  deep  purple,  like  the  pur- 


Tht    Littt§    Rtvi§ 


pie  of  grapes,  and  denser  and  more  fragrant;  it  seemed  as  if  the 
whole  air,  heavy  with  scent,  was  composed  of  masses  of  particles 
of  liquid  or  glass  that  reflected  the  differently  colored  lights,  pink, 
and  green,  and  deepening  purple  from  the  sky  and  the  darkening 
earth.  Great  round  purple  and  green  earth  under  the  vast  purple 
and  pink  and  greenish  curve  of  the  sky!  The  grass,  full  of  red, 
pink  and  white  clover,  besides  the  mustard,  the  poor  tall  milkweed, 
burdock,  and  pink  and  purple  thistles,  gave  perfume  that  was  well- 
nigh  overpowering;  and  1  smelled  the  strong  odor  out  of  a  little 
cowstable.  And  all  was  strange.  Off  in  the  purple  and  pink  gloom 
where  were  the  gardens  and  the  cabbage- fields,  some  poor  people 
still  worked;  far  back  across  the  fields  some  small  birds  flew  off 
somberly  in  a  low  line.  The  little  woods  had  become  so  dense, 
blue  and  black,  that  they  surprised  and  seemed  to  menace ;  the  pop- 
lars were  heavy  and  black,  no  light  went  through  them  now;  and 
on  a  willow  bough  that  had  been  broken  down  the  fine  dead  gray 
leaves  were  rustling  as  I  crossed  the  bridge.  Among  the  wretched 
houses  that  stood  upon  the  fields  was  a  narrow  ugly  cottage  painted 
drab  and  become  almost  black  through  neglect.  A  front  corner 
whereat  was  a  porch  had  sunk  down  into  the  ground,  and  high 
rank  grass,  dandelions,  and  other  weeds  grew  close  about  the  low 
building,  rotting  it.  The  house  stood  close,  beneath  one  row  of 
the  high  dark  poplar  branches.  Away,  but  the  only  one 
at  all  near,  was  a  much  larger,  taller,  and  even  more  gloomy 
house,  with  shuttered  windows,  in  a  wide  yard  with  old  lilac  trees 
full  of  sprouts  and  some  grass  through  which  dirty  chickens  walked 
silently;  and  the  yard  was  enclosed  by  palings  of  broken  lath. 

A  family  once  lived  in  the  cottage:  a  silent  man,  past  thirty, 
with  a  dark  skin,  a  heavy  soft  body,  and  a  limp  thick  mustache 
that  hung  down;  when  he  was  about  his  home  the  man  wore  a  faint 
shame-faced  leer,  and  he  was  thoroughly  indifferent  to  everything 
there,  though  he  could  beat  a  child  long  and  cruelly;  a  man  of  only 
those  few  poor  qualities  and  desires  which  fools  like  him  considered 
to  be  for  men.  The  woman  was  tall,  thin,  younger  somewhat  than 
DC,  with  faded  yellow  hair,  thin  tough  gray  skin,  and  cheeks  much 
narrower  than  her  forehead,  with  a  slight  flush  high  on  them.  She 
liked  idleness  and  comfort,  and  being  dallied  with  by  men;  when 
?he  had  been  younger  her  slenderess.  and  a  certain  slowness  and 
awkwardness  she  had.  roused  some  desire;  but  she  was  of  a  poor 
spirit,  dared  to  do  only  what  was  customary,  and  she  had  not  much 
used  herself:  now  that  she  was  older  she  had  become  only  procr.is- 
tinative  and  given  to  dull  meditation  and  occasionally  to  sharp  ir- 
ritation.   She  even  exhibited  an  interest  in  the  few  objects  and  per- 


i 


i 


The    Little    Review 


sons  about  her  and  the  few  acts  possible  to  her,  an  interest  which 
was  acquired  but  which  resembled  the  garrulous  interest  of  other 
women  who  lived  as  she.  She  was  uncouth  and  repulsive,  but  even 
yet  enough  of  a  woman.  And  though  she  did  not  know  how  to  work 
well  and  could  not  learn,  she  worked  constantly.  Of  the  two  child- 
ren born  of  her  one  was  still  not  a  year  old,  a  helpless,  drooling, 
noseless  infant;  the  other  w^as  three  years  old,  a  dark  sneaking, 
whining  boy  with  short  dark  hair  all  over  his  head,  clothed  in  a 
dress  of  red  cotton  plaid  and  white  drawers  and  body  garment  be- 
neath. This  boy  could  wander  back  across  the  weedy  fields  and  play 
in  the  litter  of  the  brook,  beside  the  bridge  in  the  green  light  under  the 
willows.  According  to  the  style  of  the  time  the  woman  herself 
wore  ugly  cotton  gowns  with  yokes,  straps,  and  flounces ;  more  cot- 
ton cloth  beneath;  high  stained  gray  corsets  round  her  pale  stooped 
body;  and  heavy  leather  shoes  fastened  with  buttons.  Her  weak 
hair  was  in  a  large  loose  ball  at  the  top  of  her  forehead  ^nd  in  a 
knot  behind. 

And  what  a  people!  What  a  time!  Theirs  was  a  race  dim, 
cold,  and  tenuous  of  feeling,  yet  at  times  prevaded  by  a  curious 
bright  light;  a  race  of  great  passionless  strength,  and  a  wild  in- 
dtstructible  faith,  or  fixity  of  will ;  a  race  that  loves  a  little,  curi- 
ously, with  sham^;  and  that  is  indifferent  to  all  but  certain  elemen- 
tal things.  It  was  a  time  when  that  race  was  far  in  the  rear,  but 
had,  perhaps  in  defence,  a  vanity  and  self-admiration  gigantic. 
With  their  hearts  protected  against  all  that  they  had  not  yet  at- 
tained, as  their  bodies  were  concealed  in  clothes;  mercilessly  hostile 
to  all  that  they  did  not  undestand,  they  were  a  people  to  dread. 
But  such  as  these  in  the  cottage  on  the  fields  one  could  love,  for 
they  were  of  the  poor,  the  weak,  the  outcast,  and  the  oppressed  of 
the  others. 

In  the  morning  very  early,  as  he  had  returned  silent  and  sour 
with  sweat  late  in  the  night  before,  in  the  morning  when  it  was 
light,  but  when  the  colours,  the  grays  and  greens,  were  repulsive  and 
the  air  foggy  and  cold,  the  man  with  food  in  a  newspaper  wrapper 
went  quickly  and  silently  away  toward  the  city;  and  he  seemed 
very  tiny  as  he  moved  over  the  foggy  fields  sucking  the  smoke  from 
a  cigar.  Un^er  his  jacket  he  wore  tight  on  his  softish  body  a  faded 
black  cotton  shirt,  and  on  his  head  a  serge  cap  with  a  shining 
forepiece  like  a  naval  officer's. 

The  woman  began  at  once  to  work.  Near  the  rotten  wooden 
steps  at  the  back  of  the  cottage  in  the  cold  fog  she  began  to  wash 
clothes  in  tubs  on  an  unfolded  trestle.  A  cloth  bag  of  wooden  clips, 
a  swab  with  stiff  dirty  cloths,  and  a  broom  hung  on  the  outer  house 


T ht    Lit  tit    Review 


wall.  In  gray  smoking  soapy  water  she  washed  the  clothes,  rub- 
bing them  on  a  board  ridged  with  zinc,  washed  the  filthy  clothes,  her 
calico,  the  shirts  and  drawers,  narrow  stockings,  sheets  from  the 
beds,  the  clouts  of  the  baby.  She  pumped  the  water  and  carried  it 
herself,  silently,  bending  her  tall  ihin  body,  straining  and  working 
it  past  all  reserve,  it  and  her  ihin  arms  with  sharp  yellow  elbows. 
She  hung  the  clothes  on  blackened  ropes  stretched  between  some 
old  sheds,  outhouses,  and  slanted  posts;  she  too  was  tiny  there  on 
the  great  dim  fields.  At  first  she  wet  her  feet  in  the  sop-like  grass, 
wet  almost  to  the  knee  her  cotton  skirts  and  her  long  ugly  white 
legs  in  loose  cotton  stockings  gartered  above  the  knee  with  shoe- 
latch;  and  she  shuddered  with  the  cold.  Then  as  the  sun  rose 
higher  and  it  became  hot  she  sweated  and  panted.  In  the  first  of 
the  morning  the  lig"ht  was  golden  on  the  green  fields  and  marsh;  but 
it  became  ever  more  silver. 

Two  hours  after  she  had  begun  to  work  her  oldest  child  ap- 
peared to  her  in  the  kitchen  doorway  in  its  old  sleeping  dress, 
whining  and  sniffling  with  the  morning  chill  and  the  confusion  of 
being  just  awake,  and  twisting  and  rubbing  on  the  side  of  the  door- 
frame for  its  fear  at  interrupting  her.  She  looked  at  it  witli  no 
sort  of  kindness  or  welcome,  and  with  impatience  warned  it  not 
to  wake  the  other.  Then  she  continued  her  work.  But  on  his 
snuffling  plaintively  that  he  was  cold,  she  finished  and  wrung  the 
cloth  she  held,  and  half  drying  her  hands  and  arms  on  the  sodden 
apron  over  her  front  she  went,  bent  from  the  rubbing,  up  the  steps 
and  in  at  the  door  guiding  and  pushing  tlie  child  back  into  the  kit- 
chen before  her.  Handling  him  partly  as  if  he  were  another  grown 
person  and  partly  as  if  he  were  some  wooden  instrument  with  which 
she  had  not  had  practice  and  in  whose  use  she  felt  little  interest, 
she  got  him  into  clothes.  She  sat  in  a  low-bottomed  chair  and  held 
and  turned  him  before  her.  She  washed  his  face  with  a  rag  that 
smelled  as  if  it  were  rotton  and  combed  his  hair  with  a  comb  full 
of  head  grease  that  smelled  bitter.  While  being  dressed  the  child 
wept  and  snivelled  in  fear  and  uncertainty;  she  sometimes  ignored 
him,  sometimes  scolded  him,  sometimes  berated  him  as  if  he  were 
an  adult  enemy;  but  sometimes  she  looked  upon  him  as  if  in  con- 
sternation and  dread.  Then  at  the  table  she  fed  him  coffee  with 
milk  and  sugar  and  with  wafers  soaked  in  it.  While  this  child  was 
taking  its  food  she  walked  guardedly  into  the  bedroom  to  look  at 
the  other,  and  having  found  it  awake,  apparently  to  her  annoy- 
ance, she  uncovered  it  in  her  awkward  hasty  irritated  way,  took  it 
up,  dressed  it  in  a  blue  shift  and  diaper,  and  then  gave  it  one  of  her 
limp  livid  breasts.    To  this  child's  dress  she  added  a  boiled  bonnet 


The    Little    Review 


and  a  shawl,  and  she  fastened  it  into  a  small  woven  chair  with  a  hole 
in  the  seat  and  a  rimmed  shelf  before  and  bore  it  out  beside  the 
washing-tubs.  She  had  now  to  take  the  first  child,  importuning,  to 
the  outhouse,  already  buzzing  with  flies.  She  too  sat  down.  Then 
she  began  to  work  again,  and  she  continued  until  all  the  clothes 
were  washed  and  hung  on  the  lines.  It  was  then  not  much  short 
of  noon.  There  on  the  great  shaggy  empty  fields  under  the  sun- 
lit and  sun-washed  sky,  to  the  noise  of  the  black  poplars  and  the 
air  over  the  fields  she  lived  and  worked.  She  would  have  been  per- 
plexed at  being  watched  or  thought  of;  that  would  have  been  in- 
comprehensible, di$tasteful,  coldly  and  cruelly  resented  and 
despised. 

She  prepared  to  eat.  The  heat  was  making  the  small  rooms 
suffocating  even  where  there  was  a  draught.  She  sat  at  the  side 
of  the  weak  oval  wooden  table  in  the  kitchen,  between  it  and  the 
wall,  the  baby  at  her  left  in  a  high  chair,  the  other  child  far  around 
at  the  right  out  of  her  reach,  sitting  forward  on  its  chair,  which 
was  too  far  from  the  table,  half  drinking,  half  spooning  its  food 
into  its  mouth,  seriously  absorbed  with  the  food  and  pleased  with 
it,  but  watchful  and  afraid  of  her.  She  herself  ate  much  in  a  care- 
less, smearing  way.  She  ate  a  heap  of  chopped  boiled  potatoes  re- 
heated but  not  browned,  dead  white,  some  thick  greasy  meat  sauce 
warmed,  and  some  stewed  rhubarb  that  she  had  saved  in  a  dish, 
and  she  drank  much  coffee  with  milk  listlessly  out  of  a  large  white 
cup.  Sprawling  sidewise  in  her  chair  she  watched  the  children 
carelessly;  once  she  got  up  to  jerk  the  older  child  closer  to  the 
table,  and  once  she  leaned  forw^ard  to  pull  his  food  away  when  in 
repletion  he  complained  of  it.  The  bedroom,  beside  the  room  in 
front  of  the  kitchen,  was  stifling,  odoured  of  the  tumbled  bed- 
clothes, almost  intolerable  when  she  went  in  there  to  arrange  the 
beds. 

Having  again  taken  the  oldest  child  to  the  outhouse  and  hav- 
ing replaced  the  soaked  and  yellowed  clouts  of  the  baby  laid  upon 
her  knees  with  its  bent  legs  in  the  air,  and  again  given  it  her 
breast,  she  put  aside  the  dishes  from  which  they  had  eaten  and  the 
frying  pan  and  coffee  pot,  and  dragged  out  from  a  dark  place  under 
a  shelf  a  deep  basket  of  red  berries  covered  with  a  carpet,  and 
began  to  pinch  off  the  stems,  take  out  the  many  that  were  de- 
cayed, and  to  wash,  sugar,  cook,  and  seal  the  rest  into  cvlindrical 
flawed  glass  jars  for  preservation  till  winter.  In  the  stifling  bare 
rotting  kitchen  with  a  fire  of  wood  going  hotly  in  the  stove  to  boil 
the  fruit  she  did  this  work,  sitting  for  long  periods  that  made  the 
back  ache  over  the  stemming,  wiping  away  from  her  face,  with  the 


10  Tht     Little    Review 


backs  of  stained  hands,  flies  and  the  long  antennae  of  her  hair. 
She  chopped  the  wood  for  the  stove.  The  infant  slept  upon  an 
old  divan  drawn  with,  its  face  to  the  wall  in  the  forward  room, 
sweating  in  its  clothes  and  giving  off  the  odour  of  a  baby. 

The  other  child,  sidling,  whining,  and  surreptitious,  stole  a 
glass  jar,  and  with  it  got  back  through  the  fields  and  down  the  p>ath 
to  the  brook.  It  played  there  in  the  water  in  the  softened  light 
under  the  willows,  broke  the  jar  upon  a  stone  among  the  gray  litter, 
and  cut  the  inside  of  the  lower  part  of  its  thumb  on  an  edge  of 
the  heavy  glass.  The  pale  greenish  glass  was  dark  clear  green  along 
the  broken  edge.  Back  came  the  child  up  the  bank,  along  the  road, 
and  across  the  fields  crying  in  perplexity  and  fear  in  the  heat, 
and  smearing  itself  with  the  startling  welling  dark  blood.  Con- 
fused, impotent,  and  terrified  lest  the  blame  be  upon  her,  the  wo- 
man received  the  child;  then  she  became  fierce  and  wrathful;  but 
her  excitement  quickly  subsided  and  was  replaced  by  nervous  weak- 
ness; she  did  not  even  finish  fastening  the  bandage  well,  but  wound 
it  carelessly  round  the  hand  and  told  the  child  to  go.  With  the 
clumsy  bandage  the  child  was  fretful.  Weakened  and  quieter,  becom- 
ing more  weary,  the  Avoman  worked  through  the  afternoon  which  was 
passing  from  the  earth,  boiled  the  fruit,  went  here  and  there,  changed 
the  baby's  clouts,  suckled  it,  wiped  its  spittle.  As  she  wearied, 
she  would  sometimes  stop  aimlessly  before  the  infant  when  it  cried, 
and  remain  standing  with  her  poor  weakened  and  sweated  body 
sagging  forward  at  the  waist,  her  high  corsets  thrusting  up  before 
and  behind  as  if  to  plane  off  her  head  and  leave  it  but  a  plug  upon 
her  shoulders,  and  partly  looking  away  she  would  follow  the  baby's 
attempt  to  put  something  into  its  mouth.  If  it  seemed  about  to 
fail  she  would  put  out  her  hand  to  assist,  but  she  wx)uld  drop  the 
hand  at  once  if  the  baby  succeeded  alone.  When  she  had  finished 
with  the  fruit  the  washed  clothes  were  dry;  these  she  took  down, 
dragged  in  in  a  broken  basket,  dampened  carelessly,  and  folded. 
She  no  longer  spoke. 

The  hours  passed.  The  little  lonely  cottage  under  the  vast 
bright  sky  endured  for  those  hours.  The  gloomy  earth  with  its  green 
trees  endured.  The  poplars  clattered  their  thick  leather  leaves  in 
the  wind;  the  marsh  and  the  willows  rustled.  AW  endured.  Noth- 
ing went  past  on  the  poor  road.  The  light  weakened  slowly.  At 
last  it  began  to  be  that  twilitiht  of  the  wide  pale  green  sky  with 
white  clouds  lighted  with  gold.  FinftJv  it  became  the  twilight  of 
vastncss,  pink  and  purple,  dense  air,  and  heavy  scents. 

Silently  stiffly,  and  slowly  the  mofther  fed  her  children  for  the 
last  time  that  day,  ate  something  herself  aimlessly  and  languidly, 


i 


The    Littlt    Review  ii 


arranged  for  the  man's  stronger  food  later,  and  then  prepared  tlie 
children  for  the  bed,  washing  the  larger  child's  stained  dusty  feet 
and  wrapping  again  the  cut  hand.  Carrying  the  night-dressed  in- 
fant on  one  arm  over  her  sagging  shoulder  and  pushing  the  other 
by  the  head,  which  pressed  back  against  her  legs,  she  took  them 
through  the  darkening  room  before  the  kitchen,  into  the  bedroom, 
through  whose  window  the  sunset  could  nov/  be  seen  above  the 
grass,  the  marsh,  and  the  lands  across  it.  Ihe  room  had  some  old 
faded  stained  paper  pasted  on  the  walls,  a  small  bed  for  the  child, 
a  large  high  wooden  one  for  the  rest,  a  stand  of  drawers,  a  poor 
glass,  and  on  the  wooden  floor  lay  a  bit  of  ragged  carpet;  and  the 
beds,  for  the  hot  weather,  were  almost  without  anything  but  the 
dirty  hard  red  mattresses  and  sheets.  She  placed  the  infant,  already 
asleep,  on  the  large  bed;  the  other  child  in  its  torn  sleeping  dress 
she  put  into  its  own  bed;  and  she  went  out  to  the  other  room. 
The  cut  child  was  feverish  because  of  its  wound,  but  it  began  to 
sleep  after  rolling  about  for  a  little. 

The  larger  room  where  the  woman  now  sat  was  bare  also,  the 
floor  was  dirty  and  entirely  uncovered;  the  broken  torn  divan 
stood  against  the  wall,  there  was  a  table,  also  against  the  wall,  two 
rocking  chairs  and  another  chair,  a  shelf  with  a  stopped  black  clock 
upon  it  and  a  stack  of  newspapers  about  to  slip  down,  some  crooked 
dusty  curtains  at  the  windows;  there  was  little  else.  At  the  left 
of  the  front  wall  was  a  double  door  frame  through  which  to  go  into 
the  darkening  front  room  with  the  crooked  window  and  the  colored 
glasses.  This  room  was  perfectly  empty.  The  woman  sat  by  a 
double  window  at  the  right  near  an  outer  door  to  the  porch;  the 
door  was  open  and  had  a  sagging  screen  of  wood  and  rusted  metal. 
Here  there  was  air,  and  above  and  about  the  porch  were  the  thick 
darkening  gloomy  poplar  branches.  It  was  almost  as  if  one  were 
in  the  branches.  She  had  sunk  down  into  a  sort  of  child's  woven 
chair  that  had  once  been  painted  white,  and  she  sat  stiffly  with  her 
chin  upon  her  hand,  sidewise  in  the  chair.  She  sat  in  the  green 
and  gray  of  the  coming  gloom.  Beside  her  on  the  floor  was  a  bro- 
ken paper  box  containing  clothes  to  mend,  and  she  bent  down, 
drew  up  one  of  the  man's  black  shirts  by  a  corner,  glanced  at  it, 
then  let  it  fall  listlessly  :  once  more  she  sat  still,  sat  in  the  poor 
dirty  room  full  of  twilight  subdued,  and  coloured  still  more  than 
without,  by  the  heavy  green  trees. 

And  to  her  this  land,  the  city  not  far  off,  the  house,  herself, 
her  clothes,  her  few  absurd,  cloudy  but  hard  thoughts,  beliefs,  and 
purposes  were  not  strange ;  nor  was  there  in  all  things,  in  the 
world  and  sky,  in  that  of  herself  which  was  fellow  to  all  human 


13  T ht     Lit  tit     Review 

beings  of  all  times,  anything  strange  or  appalling,  moving  even. 
For  in  herself  was  little  to  create,  or  to  see,  these  qualities.  She 
was  so  weary  that  her  body  was  weak  and  numb  and  extremely 
sensitive;  she  felt  distinctly  her  head,  breasts  against  tlie  corsets, 
back,  aching  legs,  and  feet;  this,  and  but  little  else,  was  all  that 
she  felt. 

So  she  sat,  and  it  grew  darker  and  gloomier;  and  she  remain- 
ed there  without  moving. 

At  last,  when  it  was  much  later,  all  at  once,  as  has  happened 
how  many  times,  someone  in  that  other  house  away  upon  the  dark- 
ened fields  started  music,  faint  for  the  distance,  from  a  piano  per- 
haps, or  some  mechanical  device;  wierd  music,  with  high  chords; 
and  it  was  music  which  in  that  strange  place,  in  the  deepening 
gloom,  with  the  trees  rustling,  was  strangely  firm  and  had  author- 
ity and  strength ;  and  over  the  dew  wet  grass  and  the  weeds  of  the 
fields  and  through  the  pink  and  deep  purple  light  and  the  quivering 
green  trees  it  came  into  that  room  as  if  destined  so  to  come.  It 
seemed  that  it  came  through  the  dense  dark  but  coloured  and  wet 
air  in  great  slowly  made  curves  and  bows  that  were  almost  circles, 
and  that  each  note  had  power  to  go  down  deep  into  the  heart,  the 
breast,  and  to  find  there  large  decayed  round  spots  and  to  draw 
from  those  spots  slow  terrible  powerful  notes  of  sympathy  to  min- 
gle with  the  others.     This  music  continued. 

Leaning  forward  of  a  sudden,  both  elbows  on  her  knees,  which 
were  close  together,  toes  turned  in,  and  her  open  hands  covering 
her  face,  the  woman  began  to  weep.  She  made  great  sobs  with 
long  pauses  between.  She  sobbed  slowly  and  somewhat  as  if  with- 
out feeling,  and  yet  there  was  something  like  the  violent  retching 
of  one  poisoned  in  those  sobs.  She  sobbed  a  long  time.  Then 
she  became  quieter  and  quieter,  and  at  last  began  to  have  done. 

The  heavy  poplar  trees  rattled  in  the  gloomy  dark.  There  be- 
gan to  be  greater  cold.  What  dim  light  had  been  left  in  the  room 
gave  place  to  complete  cold  heavy  darkness.  There  was  darkness 
over  the  world. 

The  arms,  the  hands  still  over  the  face,  dropped  fonvard,  the  , 
head  with  its  limp  weak  hair  sank  down,  the  face  sliding  along  ! 
the  bare  thin  arms,  first  on  the  underside,  then  as  the  arms  turned 
over,  on  the  back;  and  then,  arms  out,  hands  hanging  limply  at 
the  wrists,  she  slej^t,  bent  almost  double.  In  the  chilly  black 
empty  room  of  that  cottage  out  upon  the  wide  terrible  fields,  among 
the  trees,  by  the  heavy  high  poplar  trees  that  were  always  moving, 
she  slept  with  haggard  checks.  The  children  lay  on  the  beds  in  the 
other  dark  chamber,  the  larger  breathing  and  turning  uneasily  for' 


The   Littlt   Review 13 

its  wound  and  for  the  cold  so  that  it  could  be  heard.     The  cold 
increased. 

The  music  continued  for  a  time,  then  ceased;  the  dark 
seemed  to  become  more  murky ;  the  poor  leaves  rustled  in  the 
winds  that  came  and  went  out  of  and  into  the  unlighted  sky. 


POEMS 

by  Robert  Reiss 

Paint 

These  are  the  attempted  decologues 

To  remurmur  old  sentimentalities. 

Forget  the  doll  and  overharsh  moments 

In  remembrance  of  a  strange  mid-night  decency. 

Mid-night  is  the  rouge  upon  the  lips  of  day, 

When  light  trips  out  in  stumbling  gowns 

Overdressed  in  darkness. 


i      ii' 


Wall   Paper   Design 

Listen,  dear  kid  with  the  red  flower, 

I've  only  a  few  words. 

In  the  brittle,  chemical  clouds 

One  sees  hard  birds. 


Miniature 

Hung  on  the  sides  of  the  grey  air 

In  limpid  green  patterns 

Are  pictures  of  Dolly  Mayfair. 

I  feel  that  beings  are  stirring  somewhere. 


14  The    Little    Review 


Shredded      Gossip 

She  has  forgotten  the  spring. 

The  frescoed  girl  is  awaiting  the  autumn 

With  its  growth  of  ominous  fiowers 

And  fog-black  beauties. 

Incest  reddens  this  animal 

As  the  sun's  tongue  bums  men. 

She  is  like  a  cigarette  butt 
Upon  the  stair-case  of  a  palace 
Consuming  itsdf  with  calmness. 


Ten      Years      After 

Your  mouth  is  mute 

In  splendid,  tiny  circles  of  discontent. 

The  ashen  lips  are  dead  as  porcelain 

Moulded  in  the  old  design. 

You  have  sat  too  long 

With  the  berry-eyed  ladies. 


T hi    Little    Review  15 


A  NEW  TESTAMENT 
by  Sherwood  Anderson 


IV 


WHEN  I  stop  stretching  my  mind  it  slips  back  and  lies 
dead  and  lifeless  like  the  rubber  band  of  a  boy's  slingshot. 
For  hours  and  days  it  lies  dead  and  meaning-less  like  a  wornout 
shoe  thrown  into  an  alleyway  in  a  city. 

A  dirty  boy  with  a  twisted  shoulder  has  thrown  me  ovw  a 
fence  and  I  fall  rattling  on  stone  steps  at  the  back  of  a  house 
where  lives  a  woman  whose  lover  I  once  was.  Once  I  kissed  the 
woman  when  we  had  both  been  drinking  wine.  It  was  late  at  night 
and  there  was  snow  on  the  ground.  Her  cheeks  were  cold  but  her 
lips  were  warm.  Her  father  owned  a  factory  where  shoes  are  made. 
The  father  of  the  crippled  boy  worked  at  a  bench  in  the  factory. 


Everything  I  have  found  out  about  life  is  common  knowledge. 
The  dogs  in  the  street  bark  my  knowledge  in  the  dark  nights.  Two 
cats  live  in  an  alleyway  back  of  a  gloomy  building  where  I  have 
a  hole  in  which  to  sleep  and  where  for  long  hours  I  lie  awake, 
thinking,  dreaming,  putting  up  my  hands  in  the  darkness,  whisper- 
ing your  name  and  the  names  of  other  beautiful  things  I  have  seen. 

This  is  in  the  deep  quiet  of  the  night  when  you  have  passed 
into  a  dreamless  sleep.  This  is  when  the  smoke  of  the  city  has  been 
blo^vn  away.  The  wind  has  lifted  the  smoke  off  the  city  as  an  old 
factory  hand  homeward  bound  on  a  winter  evening  might  lift  a  dirty 
carpet  off  the  form  of  a  dead  child  he  has  found  lying  in  an  alley- 
way. 

At  two  o'clock  at  night  a  steamboat  whistle  blows  in  the  Chi- 
cago River.  A  man  who  lives  above  me  gets  out  of  bed  and  goes 
barefooted  across  the  floor.  His  feet  fall  on  the  boards  like  the 
fingers  of  a  player  on  a  silent  piano  filled  with  broken  strings. 

He  strikes  a  match.  I  know  what  he  is  doing.  He  is  lighting  a 
candle  in  order  that  God  may  see  into  his  room  and  remember  him 
in  the  time  of  bis  death. 


i6  The    Little    Review 


I  do  not  arise  and  light  a  candle  for  the  sake  of  God.  I  lie 
still  and  think.  God  has  multiplied  himself  so  often  in  my  sight 
that  I  cannot  see  him  by  the  light  of  a  candle. 


Long  ago  an  old  man  sat  on  a  log  at  the  edge  of  a  cornfield  and 

talked  to  me  of  God. 

His  words  leaked  away. 

They  would  not  stay  in  my  head. 

The  rustling  of  the  leaves  of  a  tree  near  at  hand  drowned  his  voice. 

It  ran  the  scale  like  the  voice  of  an  Oriental. 

The  little  drums  in  my  ears  were  tickled  by  rising  and  diminishing 

waives  of  sound. 

His  words  ran  into  the  rows  of  corn  and  became  rows  of  soimds, 

an  army  of  sounds. 

They  hopped  and  ran  like  little  naked  children. 

He  did  not  teach  me  much  of  God  but  fragments  of  God's  truth 

climg  to  me. 

It  fell  on  me  like  drops  of  warm  rain  out  of  a  wet  sky. 

Did    I    not    learn    from    him    that    words    are    living,    breathing 

things.    They  are  the  children  of  men  that  have  been  put  to  work 

in  a  factory.    Their  little  bodies  have  become  bent  and  stooi>ed  and 

twisted. 

The  female  words  have  found  no  lovers. 

They  are  barren. 

It  was  not  God's  wish  that  it  be  so. 

I  am  one  who  would  serve  God. 

Have  not  my  brothers  the  male  words  been  castrated  and  made 

into  eimuchs. 

I  would  be  nurse  to  many  distorted  words. 

I  would  make  my  book  a  hospital  for  crippled  words. 

From  this  day  I  shall  wear  a  white  garment  and  deny  myself  the 
pleasures  of  the  body.  The  words  of  old  time  men  have  been  re- 
bom  in  the  factory  towns  of  my  country.  They  are  choked  with 
smoke  and  drowned  in  waves  of  new  sounds,    Will  you  give  a  word 


^ Tht    Little    Rsvitw i7 

nourishing  food,  carry  him  for  a  day  in  the  warm  body  of  yourself 

as  a  maid  carries  with  due  modesty  a  babe  in  her  belly. 

It  is  time  for  the  old  men  to  come  back  out  of  their  sleeping  stupor. 

Thy  must  sit  again  at  the  edge  of  the  cornfields. 

The  words  of  our  lips  are  being  destroyed. 

They  are  imdernourished  and  work  in  the  factories. 

There  is  a  tough  gnarled  new  word  that  has  lived  for  a  long  time 
in  a  comer  of  my  brain.  He  has  set  up  an  insanity  there.  Some- 
times for  days  I  do  not  dare  go  near  the  corner  of  myself  where  the 
word  sits  crouched,  ready  to  strike,  to  spring.  I  start  to  walk 
boldly  in  at  the  door  of  my  house  and  then  grow  afraid  and 
run  away. 

I  run  out  of  the  present  and  into  the  past. 

I  run  past  clanging  factory  towns,  past  long  bridges,  over  lakes 

and  seas,  into  the  deserts,  into  the  forests. 

It  is  by  chance  that  I  recover  and  come  back  into  myself. 

A  twisted  word  seeks  warmth  in  a  corner  of  my  brain.  His  body 
is  bent  and  his  lips  twitch.  Something  tells  me  he  is  the  son  of 
an  old  sweet  word  born  on  a  hillside  long  ago  in  the  night. 

They  have  brought  the  little  twisted  word  into  the  West.  In  the 
service  in  which  they  put  him  the  air  was  bad.  The  flying  end  of 
a  broken  wheel  hit  him  and  broke  his  back.  His  body  twitches 
when  he  breaths.  He  lives  but  the  air  whines  and  whistles  as  it 
works  its  way  through  his  limgs.  He  has  escaped  from  his  servi- 
tude and  has  got  into  my  brain. 

My  twisted  word  will  live  long  enough  to  breed  and  to  perpetuate 
his  kind. 

Bring  me  quickly  the  female  words  that  are  barren  and  waiting. 

If  you  do  not  hurry  my  twisted  word  will  die  in  the  comer  of  my 
brain. 

I  am  a  breeding  place  for  a  twisted  word. 
I  await  the  time  of  the  breeding. 

(to  be  continued) 


T« T  ht     Littli     Rewitv 

POEMS 

by  Else  von  Freytag-Loringhoven 

Buddha 

Ah — the  sun — a  scarlet  balloon 

Ah — the  sun — 

— scarlet  baloon 

giant  balloon 

touching  spires  and  steeples 

down  the  misty  grey — late 

afternoon — 

crystalline — late — 

afternoon 

vanishing 
immense- 
immune  

God: 

scarlet  balloon — 

Everything  simple! 

Giant  balloon — 

God—! 

vanishing — 

immense — 

immune — 

eye  on  us — 

on  Himseljl 

Circle! 

Sufficient! 

Most  importantly  ronudl 

Withal:    space! 

Fact. 

Gay  God — scarlet  balloon. 

Gay  God — scarlet  baloon. 

Round  J 
Deed — joy: 
Round! 


T  he    Lit  tie    Review  19 

Perfection ! 

Who  is  he — 

crowds  thee 

wiith  responsibility! 

Gay  God — scarlet  balloon? 

Whirring  God — immense  in  sky 

Lightness — 

emptiness — 

out  of 

heaviness ! 

material  to 

immaterial ! 

Ether — soul — 

fliest:  • 

touching  spires  and  steeples — 

down  a  misty  grey — 

— late  afternoon — 

crystalline — late — 

afternoon 

vanishing 

obscure 

immune — 

Essence! 

Wliirring  God — immense  in  sky. 

Ah — soul — scarlet  balloon — 

Ah — soul — 

Soul — scarlet  balloon — 

giant  balloon — 

touching  spires  and  steeples — 

down   thy  misty — ^grey — 

afternoon — 

crystalline — 

afternoon 

balancing — 

immense — 

immune —  i 

soul — scarlet   balloon —  _  ; 


10  T  h  e    Lit  tie    Review 


Everything  simple! 

Ah — Mustir — scarlet  balloon — 

giant  balloon — 

Ah — Mustir — simple ! 

Touching  spires  and  steeples 

down  thy  misty — grey — dim 

afternoon — 

crystalline — dim — 

after  —    — 

noon    — 

Father! 

Down  stares  sun — 
wind  in  trees 
throttles  leaves — 
limbs  are  bleeding. 

It  is  blue  air 
cold  as  grave! 
fall  throttles  blood 
heart  is  weeping. 

I — tree — weep 
bleed — weep — 
our  blood  tears — our  tears  blood. 

Down  stares  sun 
thy  glistening  eye — 
laughter:  deep  sapphire  sky. 

Father — ah — we  love 
we  fear  thee — 
I — brother  tree — 
I — ^my  Lord  God — also  hate  thee 
My  Lord  God — for  thy  cruelty 
my  Lord  God — thy  necessity 
my  hatred — ^my  Lord  God — is 
only  a  flippant  luxury — ! 

Inside  my  weeping  heart 
throttled  blood 


The    Little    Review  ji 


praises  : 

Omniscience! 

But—  : 

down  stares  sun — 

glistening  eye — 

laughter — thy  deep  sapphire  sky. 

Limbs  bleeding 

heart  weeping 

our  blood  tears — our  tears  blood! 

Father! 


THE  MYSTIC  ROSE 
by  Arthur  Winthrop 

EVERY  night  as  he  cleaned  his  teeth,  he  leaned  over  he  washing 
bowl  and  a  moment  later  let  the  red  m'ush  escape  his  lips.  It 
fell  with  a  little  splash  into  the  shallow  dirty  water  in  the  basin, 
then  wound  itself  into  a  spiral,  such  as  one  sees  on  the  scummy  sur- 
face of  a  lake  after  a  bather  has  plunged— or  in  pictures  of  new 
worlds  in  formation  as  nebulae. 

The  convolutions  of  the  spiral  seemed  to  have  wound  them- 
selves round  him  in  some  sinister  way,  for  every  night  he  repeated 
the  same  experiment:  leaning  over  the  basin  in  tense  anxiety  lest 
perhaps  this  once  the  spiral  should  not  materialize.  It  never  did 
fail  him  however;  and  the  little  red  whorl,  opening  wider  after  a 
moment,  became  an  obsession;  for  though  it  had  no  area  yet  it 
seemed  to  cut  a  hole  throUoii  the  centre  of  the  water  in  the  bowl 
and  beyond  that  through  the  washstand,  straight  into  the  middle 
of  the  earth.  It  was  like  a  red  sinister  eye  suddenly  opening  on  him 
from  the  hot  and  throbbing  centre  of  the  earth ;  and  the  whorl  it 
made  was  an  eternal  shape.  He  alone  had  brought  it  into  being  by 
breathing  on  the  water.    Obviously  he  was  God. 

Then  the  red  spiral  became  the  blood  of  a  sacrifice,  pumped 
out  before  him  by  a  heart  torn  smoking  from  the  victim's  breast. 
It  jerked  out  its  life-blood  before  him,  spasmodically,  like  a  curi- 
ous machine.  Staring  down  on  the  basin,  his  thoughts  became  fixed 
and  immaculate  All  movement  stopped  in  his  brain  and  the  candle 
at  his  side  flickered  slowly  down. 

After  a  while  a  subtle  rapf>ort  established  itself  between  him 
and  the  spiral  of  tooth-paste  and  saliva  spat  into  the  basin.  If, 
as  occasionally  happened,  he  was  too  tired  to  clean  his  teeth  before 


22 T  ht     Littls     Rtvitw 

bed  it  was  as  Uiough  the  tribute  which  was  due  from  some  subject 
race  to  his  godhead  had  not  been  sent  and  was  therefore  a  direct 
challenge  to  his  overlordship.  Dropping  to  sleep,  he  would  be  over- 
taken by  restless  and  imrefreshing  dreams.  He  saw  himself  a  colos- 
sal figure  of  vengeance — Cyclopean — with  one  red  spiral  burning 
eye  and  his  tooth-brush  brandished  above  his  head.  His  tooth- 
brush had  become  a  '"maquahuitl"  and  the  bristless  sharp  obsidian 
flakes.  All  the  night  he  sought  his  enemies,  in  the  air  in  subter- 
ranean corridors,  and  under  the  earth;  through  forests,  round  preci- 
pices; but  they  always  eluded  him.  After  a  while,  by  simply  gazing 
at  the  spiral  as  he  stood  up,  he  could  metamorphose  himself  into 
the  god  of  his  dreams. 

Needless  to  say  it  affected  his  work  at  the  bank,  for  the  next 
day  his  fellow-clerks  would  ask  if  he  had  had  a  "thick  night."  When 
he  remembered  himself  towering  ten  feet  high  in  his  dream,  whirling 
the  maquahuitl,  scouring  the  earth  in  search  of  hidden  enemies,  a 
sour  taste  would  come  into  his  mouth  as  he  looked  around,  saw  the 
ledger  before  him,  the  grill  a  little  way  off.  His  colleagues,  bland 
and  intent,  filled  him  with  anger.  They  did  not  know  with  whom 
they  were  dealing.  They  did  not  know  he  was  a  god;  that  warm 
scummy  jumping  hearts  were  torn  out  of  their  breasts  to  be  offered 
to  him  and  that  he  was  powerful  to  wreak  vengeance.  He  went  sur- 
lily to  his  ledger  and  bending  over  it  began  to  balance  it  auto- 
matically. 

After  a  while  he  did  not  even  pretend  to  be  working,  but  would 
put  his  elbows  on  the  desk  and  his  head  on  his  hands  and  imagine 
he  was  far  away — a  stalwart  ten  foot  figure  crushing  through  the 
undergrowth,  scattering  his  enemies  before  him  like  ants;  in  his 
right  hand  the  maquahuitl  edged  with  obsidian,  whirling  terribly 
about  his  head. 

At  such  moments  his  breath  would  accelerate,  a  red  flush  dye 
his  cheeks  and  a  fierce  light  come  into  his  eyes. 

One  evening  in  the  middle  of  a  similar  exaltation,  he  picked  up 
the  ledger  as  one  might  a  slave  and  dashing  it  down  thought  to  brain 
it.  It  was  after  closing  time  in  the  bank,  but  the  crash  made  them 
all  jump.  The  manager  sent  for  him, — warned  him.  He  did  not 
know  what  the  manager  was  saying,  the  words  seemed  puerile  and 
without  context.  He  contented  himself  with  smiling  vaguely,  fum- 
bling at  a  coat-button.  The  manager  waited  for  a  reply.  But  no 
reply  was  given  and  before  the  inanity  of  his  clerk's  stare  and  a 
something  sinister  behind,  he  gre%v  unea.sy  and  said  he  might  go 
back.  Upon  the  third  repetition  it  was  heard;  the  inane  smile 
left  the  face  and  he  went  back  to  his  desk. 


Tht    Littlt    Review  a| 


And  always  the  haze  surrounding  him  grew  deeper  and  it  be- 
came purely  an  automatic  series  of  movements  that  carried  him  to 
his  bank  in  the  morning,  away  in  the  evening  and  through  its  routine 
in  the  day.  Nowadays  once  he  had  got  home  and  eaten  his  dinner, 
he  shut  himself  in  his  room  on  the  pretext  of  study,  and  having 
cleaned  his  teeth,  spat  the  red  mush  into  the  bowl.  While  the  spiral 
grew,  his  eyes  gleamed,  his  body  grew  taut  —  he  was  possessed: 
crushing  through  llianes  and  undergrowth,  under  giant  aguaves, 
yuccas  and  cacti, — stumbling  over  the  roots  of  trees,  among  pines, 
oaks  and  chestnuts,  he  would  pursue  his  scattering  enemies.  This 
was  what  he  lived  for — this  was  why  he  hurried  home  from  the  bank 
every  evening  and  never  went  out. 

+ 

At  this  time  the  Wilkin  K.  Bright  Company,  with  central  of- 
fices in  Chicago,  decided  to  begin  a  terrific  publicity  campaign  that 
could  not  fail  to  set  the  world  agog.  This  campaign  was  for  nothing 
less  than  a  new  tooth-paste  with  a  chlorine  base.  One  of  the  ad- 
vertisements ran  like  this: 

"Why  have  white  shining  teeth.  It  is  tempting  providence. 
Good  teeth  are  bom,  not  made.  Try  our  Chlorax — gives  the  latest 
society  gold  tint." 

By  means  of  such  advertisements,  accompanied  by  charming 
photographs  of  Angel  Cooper  showing  her  teeth  the  new  tint  and 
extensively  spread  over  five  continents,  the  new  powder  achieved 
an  instant  and  remarkable  success.  One  day  Smith,  the  bank 
dandy,  appeared  with  golden  teeth.  The  effect  was  so  arresting 
that  the  very  next  day  the  whole  of  the  junior  staff  appeared  with 
their  teeth  the  same  tint — to  the  great  scandal  of  the  conservative 
heads. 

Our  hero  was  set  to  thinking.  Going  home,  he  too  bought  a 
box  of  the  powder  with  its  guarantee  of  money  returned  if  it  did 
not  do  all  that  was  claimed  for  it.  After  dinner,  as  was  his  custom, 
he  went  up  to  his  bedroom  and  cleaned  his  teeth.  The  powder 
was  yellow,  but  this  did  not  strike  him  as  strange  and  when  he 
let  the  mush  fall  from  bis  lips  it  fell  with  a  splash  and  was  lost  to 
view  in  the  dirty  water  of  the  bowl.  He  stared  into  the  basin,  wait- 
ing waiting. — ^but  he  hardly  knew  for  what?  After  a  few  minutes,  he 
shook  himself,  wondering  what  on  earth  he  waited  for.  then  went 
downstairs  again.  The  family,  surprised  to  see  him  again  as  he 
always  shut  himself  up  at  that  hour,  and  excited  by  the  new  colour 
of  his  teeth,  crowded  round  him,  ragging  him.    This  made  him  forget 


24  The     Little     Review 

the  obscure  uneasiness  which  floated  at  the  back  of  his  brain. 
Looking  at  the  clock  and  finding  it  eight,  he  was  alarmed  by  the 
prospect  of  a  blank  evening,  but  going  out  wandered  distraught  for 
an  hour.  He  then  returned,  went  straight  to  his  room  again,  cleaned 
his  teeth,  always  expecting — what?     Then  he  went  to  bed. 

His  sleep  was  disturbed  by  terrible  dreams,  in  which  he  chased 
his  enemies  through  a  thousand  perils — but  always  without  suc- 
cess.    He  awoke  in  the  morning  desperately  tired. 

So  for  a  week.  He  could  not  tell  w^hat  was  wrong  with  him. 
His  evenings  were  beyond  words  desolate.  At  eight  he  was  done — 
nothing  to  do — nowhere  to  go. 

He  fell  desperately  ill,  hovered  for  a  time  between  life  and 
death,  and  during  his  fevers  frightened  his  nurse  with  the  blood 
thirstiness  of  his  cries:  the  horrible  and  circumstantial  accounts  of 
i»-hat  he  had  done  to  his  prisoners. 

Finally  he  grew  well  and  forget  he  had  ever  had  these  hallu- 
cinations, but  with  this  forgetfulness  the  Wilkin  K.  Bright  Com- 
pany was  deprived  of  what  might  have  been  a  most  valuable  testi- 
monial. An  advertisement,  like  this,  might  easily  have  been  formu- 
lated from  it  : 

"Can  you  hope  for  a  'Golden  Age'  when  you  use  'Blood-red 
toothpowders'?  Bew^are  of  the  cloven  hoof.  Other  toothpowders 
make  you  bloodthirsty.     Read  this  letter— A  living  witness—" 

And  then  would  have  followed.  .  .  . 


H  iHinHHi 

GITLe  REVIEW 


Editor: 

Margaret   Anderson 

Foreign   Editors: 

John    Rodker  Jules   Romains 

Advisory    Board: 

"The    Art    of     Madness" 

I 

LET  me  hasten  to  aid  "jh"  in  relieving  the  readers  of  the 
Little  Review"  of  the  awful  misapprehension  that  she  and  I 
agree. 

To  come  to  a  unanimous  conclusion  in  any  discussion  it  is 
necessary  that  the  parties  to  it  begin  with  a  common  understanding 
of  the  word  values  employed  by  each.  Otherwise  each  argues  in 
his  own  tongue  and  there  is  no  hope  of  bridging  their  disagreement. 
I  fear  this  is  the  present  case.  Art  to  "jh",  for  instance,  appears  to 
be  something  too  sacred  for  analysis,  else  why  should  she  be 
shocked  by  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  psychological  idiosyn- 
cricies  inate  in  the  artist  and  so  beyond  the  despotism  of  will  modify 
and  distinguish  the  quality  of  his  work. 

"In  the  case  of  Else  von  Freytag-Loringhoven  I  am  not  talking 
of  mania  and  disease,  of  numbed  sensibilities  ....  hers  is  a  willed 
state,"  says  "jh".  I  concede  it  to  be  true  that  in  no  effort  in  which 
self-consciousness  of  any  sort  persists  is  the  will  absolutely  in  abey- 
ance, and  the  beginning  of  madness  is  rarely  an  absolute  state.  To 
express  life  in  words  is  to  juggle  with  the  poison  that  lies  in  the 
very  medium,  for  language  was  primarily  an  attempt  to  arrest  ex- 
perience and  so  enslave  life  and  do  it  to  death  that  man  might  no 


26  T hi    Little    Review 


more  fear  it.  The  artist  often  courts  the  speech  of  the  madman 
liecause  he  desires  the  emotion  he  has  ensnared  to  escape  the  petri- 
Ikation  of  intellectualizaiion,  but  there  is  a  point  at  which  the  will 
weakens  beneath  the  onrush  of  forces  it  has  itself  loosed.  Amidst 
Hashes  of  insight  like  lire  in  the  rain  perception  dims  and  is  fmally 
extinguished  in  the  blindness  of  pure  sensation.  Else  von  Freytag- 
Loringhoven,  in  my  opinion,  has  walked  perilously  near(  if  she 
has  not  passed  over  the  edge)  beyond  which  the  vision  of  delirium 
melts  into  the  blank  self-enwrapped  exaltation  of  trance. 

Margaret  Anderson  is  good  enough  to  inform  me  that  through 
the  carelessness  of  the  printer  "jh"  was  misquoted  in  her  reply  to 
me  in  the  last  issue,  so  that  "working"  should  be  supplemented  for 
"evoking",  in  which  case  1  quote  "jh"  as  follows: 

"The  artist  working  his  consciousness  at  a  high  power  on  some 
piece  of  diflicult  work  appears  to  have  become  callous  and  stupid 
or  a  wild  man  to  the  layman."  For  the  sake  of  "jh"  1  am  sorry 
that  the  correction  must  be  made,  as  by  this  alteration  in  her 
statement  a  word  of  vague  applicability  is  supplemented  for  one  of 
clear  connotation.  One  must  now  inquire  in  what  manner  and  under 
what  circumstances  the  artist  is  able  to  "work"  his  consciousness. 

A  man  may  be  working  a  sewing  machine  or  a  plow  or,  in  the 
vernacular  of  the  day,  ho  may  be  working  a  woman.  In  each  case 
an  initiation  of  will  is  required.  The  point  at  issue  is  to  decide 
wherein  lies  the  difference  m  the  relation  which  the  man  holds  to 
the  sewing  machine  and  the  plow,  and  to  the  woman.  In  one  case 
we  have  the  will  acting  without  limitations  other  than  those  which 
inhere  in  the  quality  of  metal.  The  man  may  mar  the  machine  and 
destroy  the  plow  and  even  then  he  can  collect  the  mutilated  parts 
and  reconstruct  them  to  their  original  use.  But  over  the  woman  he 
has  not  an  equal  sphere  of  dominance.  By  suggestions  of  fear  or 
benevolence  he  may  temporarily  put  one  or  more  of  her  f>owers  at 
his  disposal,  but  she  will  continue  to  exist  under  her  own  condition 
which  he  has  not  created  and  cannot  re-create.  It  would  seem  that 
only  in  this  sense  can  the  consciousness  be  "worked",  for  it  is  dis- 
tinguishable from  the  will  while  existing  on  unalterable  terms.  One 
bends  to  one's  uses  the  thing  one  can  not  break  and  the  most  literal 
word  to  express  this  act  is  the  word  which  "jh",  unfortunately,  did 
not  use, — evocation. 

I  did  not  anywhere  make  a  statement  which  would  contradict 
the  supposition  that  the  madness  of  the  artist  in  question  was 
evoked  as  is  often  the  madness  of  the  religious  ecstatic,  only  thac 
the  features  of  madness  were  in  her  work.  Synthesis  looses  the  will. 
One  may  evoke  a  god,  a  muse,  or  a  madness,  but  to  speak  of  condi- 
tioned disorder  would  be  to  contradict  oneself,  and  I  certainly  be- 


The    Little    Re  view  27 


lieve  that  Else  von  Freytag-Loringhoven  is  powerless  to  condition 
the  disorder  she  has  evoked. — EVELYN    SCOTT. 

II 

IT  does  not  seem  necessary  to  flaunt  and  flourish  as  much  as  Miss 
Scott  does  in  such  a  simple  discussion.  This  is  no  controversy. 
There  is  no  need  of  agreement  or  unanimous  conclusion  in  any  dis- 
cussion or  argument,  and  when  two  such  different  minds  meet 
there  is  not  even  the  possibility  of  a  common  understanding  of 
word  values:  word  values  come  from  personal  values. 

"Art  to  jh  appears  to  be  something  too  sacred  for  analysis.".  .  . 
I  fear  not  sacred  enough.  I  write  more  about  Art  than  anyone  in 
the  country,  wasting  time  and  energy  that  mig-ht  be  put  into  my 
proper  work  as  an  artist  It  is  all  too  foolish.  The  Baroness  von 
Freytag  will  think  us  feeble  minded. 

But  now  let  us  see  who  is  talking  about  what?  It  all  started 
from  a  statement  of  mine  :  "Xo  one  has  yet  done  much  about  the 
Art  of  Madness."  Then  Miss  Scott  jumped  in  and  talked  about 
the  madness  in  the  Art  of  von  Freytag— not  the  Art  in  her  Madness. 
I  never  thought  of  discussing  those  psychological  peculiarities  in 
the  artist  which  are  beyond  the  reach  of  the  will.  Haven't  those 
things  been  recognized  and  summed  up  even  by  the  laymen  in  "ar- 
tists are  born  not  made?" 

Words  do  not  mean  so  many  things  to  me  as  they  do  to  Miss 
Scott.  Consciousness  does  not  mean  the  sum  of  ungovernable,  dis- 
persed faculties.  Consciousness  means  complete  being.  So  I  am 
not  talking  of  a  state  in  which  the  consciousness  is  only  kept  from 
being  nothing  by  a  weak  and  tottering  will,  but  of  one  in  which  the 
will  is  so  powerful  that  it  creates  the  being — the  state  of  conscious- 
ness it  desires.  When  I  speak  of  disease  I  mean  disorder.  When 
a  person  has  created  a  state  of  consciousness  which  is  madness  and 
adjusts  (designs  and  executes)  every  form  and  aspect  of  her  life 
ro  fit  this  state  there  is  no  disorder  anywhere  :  there  is  therefore 
no  disease.  There  can  be  no  legitimate  standard  for  valuing  the 
order  of  sanity  higher  than  the  order  of  madness,  except  a  moral 
one. 

Now  I  will  try  to  answer  INIiss  Scott's  problem  of  working  and 
evoking.  I  did  not  use  the  word  evoke  because  it  is  an  unknovAii 
and  unnecessary  word  to  me.  Evoking  comes  in  the  class  with 
rain-making,  etc.  If  one  has  the  power  to  evoke  he  has  more  power 
than  the  evoked. 

It  is  perhaps  not  necessary  for  the  artist  to  make  any  outward 


28  T  h  g     Lit  tit     Review 


sign  that  he  has  had  his  specialized  creative  experience,  but  it  is 
customary  and  human  and  we  are  speaking  of  these  signs  (works 
of  art).  After  the  a?sthetic  intuition  of  Beauty  there  is  a  simultan- 
eous mental  and  emotional  conception, — the  complete  vision  and 
creation  of  this  beauty  :  the  internal  expression  :  the  experience  of 
the  creative  impulse.  But  if  the  artist  wishes  to  show  other  men  that 
he  has  had  this  experience, — first  he  wills:  intends  unconditionally; 
then,  he  must  not  choose  with  his  mind  but  with  his  consciousness 
the  subject  matter  which  will  best  communicate  his  experience; 
and  then  by  deliberate  and  intense  activity  of  his  consciousness  he 
must  produce  the  forms,  colours,  rhythm  of  his  invention. 

Miss  Scott  has  information,  knowledge  and  words.  All  that 
she  says  is  true  but  it  does  not  make  sense  because  it  does  not  fit 
this  discussion.  Unless  I  had  tried  to  begin  my  discussion  far 
beyond  the  cause  which  may  be  pathological  and  the  effect  which 
is  not  .  .  .  beyond  the  support  of  knowledge  and  evidence  and  aca- 
demic definition.  .  .  I  should  feel  that  I  had  offered  an  affront  and 
an  insult  to  Else  von  Freytag-Loringhoven. — jh. 

Ill 

"jh"  understands  me  wonderfully — perfectly.  Don't  I  say  in 
"The  Cast-iron  Lover"  :  "look  full  of  laughter — look  full  of  motion 
— look  full  of  dizziness —  insanity! — which  makes  steady  and  sane! 
— maketh  steady  and  sane  thine  body!" 

Is  it  not  necessary  for  emotions  to  come  out — is  it  not  neces- 
sary for  emotional  people  to  be  like  insane  sometimes? — to  be  more 
sane  and  steady  and  strong  than  others,  weaker  people,  after  that? 
Is  it  not  wonderful  to  be  able  to  control  that  then,  that  emotion, 
which  otherwise  would  throttle  you? — but  take  it  by  the  neck  and 
make  Art  out  of  it?  and  be  free? — that  is,  the  master?  Only  suc/i 
things — done  t/iat  way  are  Art !  It  is  Goethe's  art!  He  knew  that  too! 
— he  too  had  to  do  it:  "Nur  wer  die  Sehnsucht  kennt — weiss  was 
ich  Icide"  ....  That  is  just  as  insane  as  my  "Cast-iron  Lover" 
(and  would  have  been  too  sentimental  if  Goethe  had  not  been  such 
a  strong  artist) ;  and  my  "Cast-Iron  Lover"  is  not  an  iota  more  in- 
sane nor  less  art! 

Perhaps  the  America  people  need  to  be  told  it — Europeans 
wouldn't;  no  peo])le  who  read  books  like  the  Little  Review. 

Another  thing:  haven't  all  highcultured  emotional  people— 
[which  alwaN-s  means  artistic  people,  as  high  culture  is  only 
possible  with  emotional  people,  therefore  Americans  can 
never  have  it  and  the  Germans  will — I  mean — :   high  culture — ! 


The    Little    Review  29 


that — what  the  French  can't  hold  any  longer  for  their  blood  has 
become  thin — the  teutons  will  take  it  and  flow  it  with  blood — 
strength — tell  the  Americans  that  in  nations  of  high  culture  it 
even  was  a  public  custom,  as  it  is  still — for  instance  in  the  mardi 
gras — or  "Fasching" — and  in  old  Greece  in  the  feast  of  Dionysus 
("die  Dionysien"  as  we  learned  it  in  Germany),  and  always  will 
be — because  it  has  to  be — like  a  steam  nozzle  on  a  tea  kettle — ] 
to  be  insane,  for  a  time,  to  be  very  sane  and  steady  and  strong  and 
relieved  after  it?  Because  Americans  do  not  need  that — they  should 
not  give  costume  balls!  They  do  not  know  what  it  is  for — the 
reason  for  them — to  let  yourself  go — !  That  is  why  it  is  such  a 
mournful  heartbreaking  affair  in  America.  Europeans  like  myself 
cannot  understand  why  they  put  on  these  costumes (  they  are  sillv 
enough — without  inner  sense!);  but  wJiy  they  do  it  anyway  and 
stay  up  all  night  and  move  around  when  they  are  not  different  as  if 
they  were  in  their  beds — so — why  not  rather  go  to  bed — instead 
of  giving  this  mournful  spectacle  of  intended  gaiety! — when  there 
is  no  gaiety  to  be  relieved,  or  insanity,  or  anything  to  be  let  go — 
let  loose!  It  is  all  a  make-believe.  Everything  emotional  in  Ameri- 
ca becomes  a  mere  show  and  make-believe!  No  necessity — no 
blood  behind!  They — their  needs — did  not  create  it.  They  mon- 
keyed it  after  Europe — as  they  do  everything  except  business — 
even  marriage — and  it  is  just  such  an  empty  show  at  make  believe, 
without  anything  to  let  go — let  loose!  They  have  not  found  out 
the  sense — and  never  will!  They  ought  not  to  marry — they  ought 
not  to  make  love — to  shame  the  word  even — how  much  more  the 
sense — and  the  action. 

Americans  are  trained  to  invest  money,  are  said  to  take  even 
desperate  chances  on  that,  yet  never  do  they  invest  beauty  nor  take 
desperate  chances  on  that.  With  money  they  try  to  buy  beautv— 
after  it  has  died — famishing:— with  grimace.  Beautv  is  ever  dead 
in  America."— £Z.5£  von  FREYTAG-LORINGHOVEN. 

The     December     Number 

I  thought  the  November  issue  the  best  yet;  but  here  is  the  De- 
cember one  with  dynamite  by  "jh".  But  about  this  more  later. 
Incidentally,  why  don't  you  get  more  work  out  of  "jh"? 
The  November  nimiber  was  to  me  a  universe  in  little. 
Life  is  constantly  exhibiting  new  forms;  they  are  so  many  experi- 
ments; the  incalculable  majority  prove  failures.  An  infinite  god, 
towering  above  all  these  forms  in  the  making,  must  look  upon  them 
with  fearful  interest.  What  do  you  think  holds  the  eye  constant 
»t  the  task  incaculably  repeated?    Possible  failure,  or  potential  sue- 


30  The    Little    Revinv 


cess?  Do  you  think  failure  after  failure  incalcuably  repeated  an 
outrage?  I  do  not.  God  must  be  infinitely  more  interested  in  the 
failures  than  in  the  successful  forms.  It  must  be  that  the  failures 
are  his  best  beloved.  For,  imagine  the  facts  reversed  and  even 
improved  upon.  Were  everything  that  left  the  hand  of  god  suc- 
cessful and  perfect,  the  universe  would  soon  be  as  crowded  as  a 
successful  business  man's  home.  And  there  would  be  god,  with 
an  infinite  capacity  for  work  and  an  infinity  of  time  on  his  hands, 
and  nothing  to  do.  Picture  a  gray  god  sitting  in  a  bro^^Tlish  arm 
chair  with  no  room  to  stretch  his  legs  in  an  overcrowded  home  for 
the  aged.     It  is  revolting. 

A  creator  must  create  .  I  see  a  god  towering  over  his  bench, 
a  terrible  concern  holding  his  face  congealed,  his  immense  arms 
moving  like  the  cutting  tool  of  an  engraver's  lathe.  Suddenly  he 
straightens  up,  and  a  chuckle  escapes  him.  "Wrong  again."  The 
universe  is  richer  by  one  promise;  it  now  holds  one  more  infinite 
possibility.  Now  that  he  has  another  little  job,  god  can  knock  off 
work  and  never  mind  it. 

People  talk  of  anthropomorphism  as  if  it  were  something 
shameful.  But  why?  If  we  may  judge  a  tree  by  its  fruit,  we  may 
judge  a  god  by  his  creatures.  I  do.  Men  now  drink  wood  alcohol 
who  had  refused  Irish  whiskey;  men  and  women  now  feed  on  eggs 
at  a  dollar  and  twenty  cents  the  dozen  who  would  not  touch  these 
same  eggs  at  five  cents  the  dozen.  Threatened  with  idleness  because 
of  overproduction,  god  had  to  keep  constantly  at  his  bench ;  but 
as  soon  as  a  new  little  job  comes  in,  he  may  well  light  his  pipe 
and  sit  himself  outside  his  shop. 

James  Joyce  is  beyond  doubt  the  most  sensitive  stylist  Avrit- 
ing  in  English.  There  is  enough  skill  and  matter  in  a  single 
Episode  of  "Ulysses"  to  equip  a  regiment  of  novelists.  He  never 
fails  to  give  you  more  than  you  bargain  for.  He  gives  me  more 
than  I  can  ever  carry  away.  Often  enough,  I  feel  that  I  should 
curse  him  and  die.  But  that  b  just  it:  I  don't  want  to  die,  and 
I  don't  want  to  live  a  pensioner  on  an  annuity.  That  is  why  I 
like  Dorothy  Richardson.  Dorothy  Richardson  is  doing  what  all 
the  king's  horses  and  all  the  king's  men  could  not  do:  she's  putting 
Humpty  Dumptv  together  again.  But  I  don't  mind  that  a  bit. 
She  could  go  on  doing  the  same  thing  to  the  end  of  the  Peace 
Conference  without  in  any  way  worrying  me.  I  am  sure  that  I 
ought  to  be  ashamed  of  it,  but  I  am  not.  Harold  Munro  in  his 
"Parcel  of  Love"  achieved  an  interesting  failure.  And  his  failure  was 
due  to  the  fact  that  he  tried  to  do  by  means  of  condensation  what 
lie  should  have  done  by  connotation.    And  that,  by  the  way,  seems 


^ Tht    Lit  tit    Review 31 

to  me  at  bottom  what  is  wrong  with  so  much  of  the  new  poetry. 
Having  been  born  in  Russia  and  of  Jewish  parents,  1  am  quite 
naturally  more  American  than  the  Americans;  that  will  explain  to 
you  my  profound  interest  in  Sherwood  Anderson. 

x\merican  writers  are  of  two  sorts:  there  are  those  who  have  been 
taught  at  college  how  to  write;  and  so,  naturally,  they  can  write.  And 
they  do  write.  They  are  the  Authors  Who  Never  Go  Wrong.  1  don't 
know  whether  Professor  Pitkin  of  Columbia  gives  a  guarantee  with 
his  course,  but  he  well  might.  Without  a  doubt  he  has  yet  to  turn  out 
his  first  failure;  and  as  for  his  successful  authors,  they  are  all  over 
our  magazines.  These  are  the  authors  who  are  all  dressed  up  with 
no  place  to  go,  except  into  our  magazines.  Then  there  is  the  other 
sort:  the  merest  handful:  Dreiser,  Anderson,  Marks  (author  of 
"Peter  Middleton"),  and — well,  never  mind;  I  can't  recall  the  rest  of 
them  just  at  this  moment.  It  seemed  never  to  have  occured  to  them 
that  writing  is  something  that  has  to  be  learnt.  Something  was 
troubling  them  on  the  inside;  writing  seemed  a  promising  way  to 
get  rid  of  it;  and  so  they  sat  down  and  wrote.  Sometimes  they  had 
to  go  on  until  they  had  written  volumes.  These  volumes  were 
later  called  novels  by  publishers  and  reviewers;  and  so  they  be- 
came novelists  When  they  produced  lesser  volumes,  they  were 
called  short  story  writers,  playwrights,  poets.  In  all  these  instances, 
these  writers  had  reversed  our  present  educational  methods:  Our 
present  method  of  education  is  to  furnish  one  with  an  equipment 
for  possible  needs;  the  nature  of  these  possible  needs  is  arrived  at 
by  more  o'r  less  shrewd  guessing  and  the  law  of  averages.  And,  in 
order  to  insure  against  fatalities,  w'e  do  what  the  pharmacist  does 
when  he  is  unable  to  read  the  prescription ;  he  makes  the  concoction 
harmless.  The  result,  if  a  human  society  is  to  be  judged  by  the 
amount  of  its  chatels,  the  result  has  thus  far  been  quite  satisfactory. 
To  the  holders  and  beneficiaries  and  their  assigns.  These  writers, 
having  missed  the  benefits  of  a  course  under  Professor  Pitkin  of 
Columbia  or  Professor  Baker  of  Plarvard,  began  with  needs  but 
without  equipment;  and  so  they  were  forced  in  their  need  to  lay 
hands  on  the  things  within  reach,  piece  by  piece,  always  under 
great  stress.  At  the  present  moment,  their  equipment  bears  a  strik- 
ing resemblance  to  tJie  furnishings  found  in  a  Greenwich  Village 
studio;  sometimes  there  are  too  many  chairs  and  no  tables,  at  other 
times  too  many  tables  and  no  chairs;  you  may  find  dozens  of 
plates  and  not  a  single  cup,  or  priceless  china  and  woolworth  knives 
and  forks;  and  in  nearly  all  instances,  the  lack  of  form  is  more 
than  made  up  by  a  riot  of  color.  And  this  brings  me  to  Djuna 
Barnes. 


jj T  hi     Littli     Reviev 

Djuna  Barnes  is  a  great  potential.  She  has  the  native  predi- 
lections of  a  poet.  Her  treasury  of  merit  is  rich  and  interesting. 
But,  1  am  sure,  that  with  her  it  is  ahvays  a  toss-up:  Will  she, 
won't  she?  You  will  recall  how  I  praised  her  "A  Night  Among  The 
Horses."  But  it  is  not  to  her  credit  at  all  that  she  gives  me  the 
feeling  of  a  lucky  accident.  Her  "Three  P'rom  The  Earth"  is  a 
might  have  been.  If  she  weren't  quite  so  big  and  strong,  I'd  give  her 
a  good  shaking.  There  is  just  one  piece  of  advice  I  should  give 
her.  Let  her  make  no  attempt  to  lift  any  tricks  from  other  writers. 
They  are  always  evident,  and  never  suitable.  For  her  there  is  noth- 
ing but  a  lot  of  wTiting.  Barrels  and  barrels  of  it.  Let  her  carry 
along  any  of  her  present  failings  far  enough,  as  she  well  may,  and 
she  will  have  achieved  an  original  manner  for  her  original  matter. 
It  would  be  as  childish  and  futile,  of  her  as  of  anybody  else,  to  take 
anything  from  Joyce,  for  instance.  His  technique  is  inseperable 
from  his  matter;  it  will  not  do  for  anybody  else  what  it  does  for 
him.  And  surely  she  will  not  want  to  borrow  from  any  author  with 
an  inferior  equipment. 

All  this  was  a  long  way  to  go  before  reaching  "jh"  and  the 
December  number,  but  I  knew  of  no  shorter  way. 

I  am  not  interested  in  shorn  lambs;  and  1  know,  for  another 
thing,  that  nothing  and  nobody,  not  even  god  himself,  could  temper 
"jh's"  blast;  and  so  I  feel  not  in  the  least  timid  about  writing  in  ex- 
planation of  Maxw^ell  Bodenheim.  I  believe  that  the  blast  at 
"Sincerity"  was  set  off  by  Bodenheim 's  compliment  to  Djuna 
Barnes,  though  the  greater  and  remoter  cause  was  the  heckling  cri- 
ticism of  Evelyn  Scott.  Bodenheim,  unlike  Evelyn  Scott,  did  not 
fmd  himself  called  upon  to  guard  "our"  English  literary  tradition. 
He  is  no  protector  of  literary  law  and  order.  Everyn  Scott  assumes 
that  her  own  measure  of  judgment  is  correct  beyond  question.  She 
does  not  defend  it  against  criticism:  she  merely  describes  it;  she 
quotes  you  the  decision  from  the  text.  Her  poetic  demands  are  so 
many  catagorical  imperatives;  they  are  axiomatic.  There  is  a  din- 
ing room  in  Michigan  Boulevard,  in  Chicago,  facing  Lake  Michigan. 
The  windows  of  that  dining  room  are  kept  shut  summer  and  winter, 
that  no  air  from  the  out  of  doors  may  enter;  instead,  this  dining 
room  is  supplied  with  washed  air  drawn  from  a  narrow  alley  in  the 
rear  of  the  hotel.  I  got  the  impression  that  Everyn  Scott  wants 
her  poetic  air  washed — and  also  combed,  perhaps.  It  had,  there- 
fore, best  be  admitted  that  the  Baroness  von  Freytag-Loringhoven 
takes  her  air  unwashed.  Evelyn  Scott's  is  a  sophisicated  mind.  Her 
emotions  have  to  touch  many  ports  before  reaching  their  destina- 
tion.    Emotions  that  have  not  gone  through  the  refining  process  of 


Tht    Lit  tit    Review 33 

tense  intellectualization  are  crude  and  vulgar.  Hence,  no  poetry  at 
all.  I  can  only  wonder  what  Evelyn  Scott  will  make  of  "jh's"  retort 
violent  in  the  December  number. 

The  reasoning  back  of  Bodenheim's  criticism  of  Djuna  Barnes 
is  not  nearly  so  convoluted  as  that  of  Everyn  Scott  in  the  instance 
of  the  Baroness.  I  shall  spend  no  time  defending  the  word  "sin- 
cerity." Let  it  mean  free  from  wax,  or  let  it  be  thrown  out  of  the 
language  for  daring  to  mean,  as  in  the  case  of  Bodenheim,  a  cour- 
ageous truth-telling.  Bodenheim  did  not  question  Djima  Barnes' 
right  to  say  what  she  did:  he  merely  said,  I  understand  what  you 
meant  to  say,  but  you  did  not  say  it  well.  What  he  said  amoimts 
to  this:  Djuna  Barnes  having  chosen  a  literary  pattern  with  which 
he  has  no  quarrel,  should  not  have  inserted  certain  specified  ele- 
ments in  her  composition.  Had  she  chosen  to  draw  her  pattern  on 
a  larger  scale  he  would  not  have  found  fault  with  these  elements. 
But  since  the  scale  of  her  drawing  demanded  the  elimination  of  all 
but  the  most  significant,  indispensible,  and  most  pregnant  elements, 
she  has  not  utilized  her  elements  economically:  she  has  retained 
what  she  should  have  eliminated;  and,  inferentially,  she  has  elimi- 
nated what  she  should  have  left  in.  Bodenheim  did  not  mean  that 
Djuna  Barnes  had  done  violence  to  certain  conventional  masks. 
He  does  not  mean  that  an  easy  familiarity  with  Nietzsche  and  Scho- 
penhauer does  not  go  with  small  eyes  and  stupid  surfaces.  He 
simply  means  that  these  are  not  inevitably  coupled  together;  and 
since  it  was  no  part  of  her  intention  to  show  that  these  may  be 
coupled  together,  she  should  have  left  one  or  the  other  out,  or  else 
introduced  additional  elements  between  these  that  they  might  not 
by  their  proximity  attract  attention  to  themselves — I  find  that  I 
have  become  academic,  which  means  it  needs  re-writing,  which  I 
cannot  give  it. 

By  "iboobs"  Ben  Hecht  means  men  and  women  without  seven 
league  boots,  invisible  cloaks  and  magic  rings  or  swords;  or  their 
equivalents  in  money,  brains,  brawn,  or  fabulous  seductive  charms. 
I  hope  he  writes  that  novel. 

What  I  am  about  to  say  reminds  me  of  the  story  told  of  a 
yoimg  Indiana  novelist  on  his  first  visit  to  Chicago.  He  was  being 
shown  to  his  room  in  the  Palmer  House,  when  the  bell-boy  asked 
him  if  he  knew  how  to  turn  off  the  electric  light.  "You  said  it!" 
replied  the  novelist,  pushing  both  hands  into  the  top  pockets  of  his 
trousers.  "But  you  might  leave  me  a  handful  of  matches  in  case 
I  should  want  to  light  it  again." 

The  word  I  want  rooted  out  of  the  English  language  is  "Busi- 
ness," in  all  its  forms.    All  I  hear  is  a  "Business"  man  for  President, 


34  The    Little    Review 


a  "Business"  man  for  governor,  for  mayor,  for  everything.  He 
saw  1  meant  "Business';  at  the  "liusiness"  end  of  the  gun;  in  a 
"Business "-like  manner;  "Business  is  Business'';  "This  is  a  line 
way  to  do  Business''!  "Business  before  j)leasure."  The  list  seems 
endless.  What  is  this  they  call  "Business"?  and  who  are  they  that 
do  it?  I  have  had  many  experience  with  both.  Margaret  Anderson 
now  tells  of  her  experience.  Business,  all  business,  whether 
that  of  producing  or  distributing,  is  a  process  of  what  1  call 
"Following  The  Blind  Calf."  Our  business  men  talk  of  their  cap- 
turing the  markets  of  the  world.  Who  are  the  business  men  that 
are  going  to  do  it?  Let  them  stand  up  for  review?  Everything  they 
have  has  been  forced  on  them.  And  they  can't  hold  it.  They 
prove  incompetent  not  merely  when  they  find  themselves  called  upon 
to  hand  out  money.  They  are  even  more  imi)ossible  when  you 
come  to  offer  them  money.  Try  to  make  a  purchase;  go  anywhere 
you  may,  to  any  city  in  the  United  States,  big  or  little.  Doing 
business  with  a  business  man  is  a  long  and  trying  and  humiliating 
Crdeal.  You  have  to  tell  them  not  merely  your  business  but  also 
their  business,  and  you  may  count  yourself  fortunate  indeed  if  you 
find  that  one  business  man  in  ten  finally  learns  what  he  should 
have  known  to  begin  with. 

I  meant  to  say  something  nice  about  Emanuel  Carnevali.  I 
understand  that  he  is  a  young  man  who  has  but  recently  come  to 
our  country  from  Italy.  If  so,  it  is  most  remarkable;  for  he  shows 
an  astonishing  sense  for  English  idiom.  His  words  and  emotions 
fit  each  other  so  snugly  that  it  is  difficult  to  say  where  one  leaves 
off  and  the  other  begins.  I  hope  he  is  not  tempted  to  go  out  after 
technical  exp>eriments.  His  technical  equipment  is  more  tlian  ample 
for  all  his  possible  needs.  He  has  something  interesting  to  say. 
He  knows  how.    Let  him  say  it. 

"Kites",  by  William  Saphicr,  is  an  astonishing  piece  of  work. 
Can  he  repeat?  Has  he  more  of  these  stored  away?  If  he  has 
none  of  them  written,  make  him  write  them. 

And  now  that  I  am  again  at  it,  or  at  it  again,  as  you  may  pre- 
fer, I  shall  say  something  alx)ut  the  essay  on  The  Chinese  Written 
Characters.  The  number  of  intelligent  readers  whom  this  essay 
would  interest,  I  cannot  help  believing,  must  be  quite  large;  how- 
ls it.  then,  that  it  was  not  published  in  one  of  our  thirty-five  cent 
magazines?  I  do  not  regret  it;  I  should  have  missed  reading  it. 
But  Ezra  Pound,  I  understand,  is  in  need  of  everything  that  he 
might  get  by  his  labors;  why,  then,  didn't  he  sell  it?  Is  this  another 
instance  of  the  business  sagacity   of  our  business  men? — 

ISRAEL    SOLON. 


The     Little     Review  3 :5 


"The     Power    of    Darkness" 

THE  Theatre  Guild  has  put  on  Tolstoi's  "Power  of  Darkness" 
under  the  direction  of  Emanuel  Reicher.  Why  any  one  wants 
to  see  or  read  or  even  know  that  Tolstoi  existed  is  beyond  my 
understanding. 

There  are  crimes  and  crimes,  as  Strindberg  so  prettily  says. 
Tolstoi's  works  are  crimes  of  Art. 

"Power  of  Darkness"  was  clearly  written  to  arouse  the  club- 
women of  Russia  to  a  campaign  for  uplift  among  the  peasants.  It 
creates  no  horror,  no  pity  or  amusement;  it  is  not  very  unpleasant. 
Slang  is  the  only  thing  to  describe  it  justly  :  There's  nobody  home. 
Of  course  actors  will  act  anything  and  the  cast  of  the  Guild  takes 
hold  of  the  play  and  puts  it  through  with  interest  and  vim. — jh. 

The    Three     Boring    Barrymores 

THERE  is  a  good  work  awaiting  someone:  smashing  American 
(asthetic?)  traditions.  I  should  like  to  point  out  to  him  the 
'J'hree  Boring  Barrymores. 

There  is  not  only  the  tradition  that  the  Barrymores  are  actors 
but  that  they  are  artists  of  the  front  rank.    Think  of  it,  Hedda! 

Lionel  seems  satisfied  with  his  lot.  But  John  and  Ethel  have 
l3ecome  very  arty  in  the  last  two  years  and  have  revelled  in  orgies 
of  near-art  productions.  "Justice,"  "Redemotion,"  "The  Jest," 
"Camille",  "Juliet",  Declassee".  ... 

The  human  situation  in  "Declassee"  is  one  that  has  become  so 
flaccid  there  is  not  another  stretch  in  it  .  But  as  it  is  quite  evident, 
from  the  presence  of  endless  psychological  banalities,  that  Miss 
Aiken  made  the  play  for  Miss  Rarr}'more  and  for  the  curb.  ...  we 
will  leave  it  there. 

I  always  wonder  a  little  as  I  watch  Miss  Barrymore's  unco- 
ordinated movements  and  gestures  just  what  species  she  is  trjdng 
to  emulate.  Sometimes  the  well  known  hands-on-hips,  elbows  front, 
makes  me  guess  the  washerwoman!  But  the  swinging  arms  and  the 
hail-fellow-well-met  stride  of  Lady  Helen  made  me  feel  that  it 
must  be  the  "adorable  gym  teacher". 

What's  the  use? — what  the  play,  what  the  name?  There  is 
never  any  creation  of  any  sort ;  it  is  always  Ethel  Barrymore — I 
mean  her  Voice.     So  why  call  them  The  Off  Chance,  Camille,  De- 


36  The     Little    Review 

classee?.  .  .  .  just  call  them  all  Their  Master's  Voice  and  the  public 
will  know. 

Some  traditions  have  qualities  related  to  those  in  a  work  of 
Art.  America  is  at  the  other  end  of  life  from  these  things:  unborn. 
But  race-memory  or  something  makes  her  long  for  traditions  and 
every  paralysed  sentimentality  becomes  a  tradition. 

These  cannot  be  swept  away  too  soon  to  make  and  keep  the 
way  clear  for  fresh  energies  and  expressions.  I  feel  that  the  Gov- 
ernment was  right  in  deporting  Emma  Goldman  and  Alexander 
Berkman.  They  had  become  a  tradition.  Kind,  loving,  intelligent, 
intense,  they  had  made  anarchism  a  harmless,  respected,  even  fa- 
shionable word  in  every  kind  of  American  home.  For  years  they 
had  kept  young  fire-brands  from  action  simply  out  of  courtesy  to 
the  Goldman-Berkman  tradition. 

Someone  will  write  in  now  explaining  to  me  that  this  was  not 
the  intention  of  the  Government.  .  .  as  Solon  explains  to  me  in 
this  number  the  meaning  of  "boob". — ;//. 


T  kt    Littlt    Rtvitv» 37 

INTERIM 

by  Dorothy  Richardson 

Chapter  Eight  (continued) 

SHE  let  herself  into  the  hall  with  an  air  of  returning  from  a 
hurried  necessary  errand.  Beyond  the  mysterious  Bailey  curtains 
partly  screening  the  passage  to  the  front  door.  She  saw  Dr.  Hurd 
standing  at  the  dining  room  door;  good  night  he  laughed  back 
into  the  room  and  turned,  meeting  her  as  she  emerged  into  the  light. 
He  paused  smiling.  Here's  Miss  Henderson  he  said  into  the  room. 
Miriam  was  passing  the  door.  Aren't  you  coming  in  he  urged 
smiling.  No,  I've  just  been  to  the  p>ost  office  said  Miriam  passing 
into  the  room.  Ho,  isn't  it  a  perfect  evening  she  announced  taking 
in  Dr.  Waynefiete  standing  tall  with  small  bent  pale  face  at  the 
end  of  the  table  and  the  other  two  rising  from  their  places  by  the 
fireside.  Dr.  Hurd  closed  the  door  and  came  and  floppped  down  in 
the  easy  chair  in  front  of  the  piano.  I  know  you  won't  sit  here  Miss 
Henderson.  No  Miss  Henderson  do^n't  care  for  cushions  mur- 
mured Dr.  von  Heber  at  her  side.  Take  this  chair  he  pursued  and 
sat  near  as  she  sat  down  in  a  little  stiff  chair  facing  tiie  fireplace, 
Dr.  Winchester  subsiding  a  little  behind  her  on  the  other  side. 

It's  a  purfect  evening  murmured  Dr.  Waynefiete.  Miriam 
turned  and  searched  his  white  bent  face.  She  had  never  seen  him 
speaking  in  a  room.  The  thought  behind  the  white  slightly  bulging 
forehead  was  his  own.  Wajmeflete,  brilliant,  keeping  him  apart; 
the  little  narrowing  peak  of  livid  white  face,  the  green  shadows 
about  the  small  pale  mouthing  lips,  the  fact  of  his  heart-disease 
and  his  Irish  parentage  were  things  that  dared  to  approach  and 
attach  themselves  to  him,  that  people  knew. 

A  purfect  evening  he  repeated  plucking  gently  at  the  threads 
of  the  table  cloth.  He  would  never  originate  a  remark  or  ask  a 
question  except  of  patients  or  an  engineer  standing  near  some  diffi- 
cult machinery.  He  knew  everything  by  just  being  about.  He  was 
head  and  shoulders  above  the  ether  three.  Delicate,  of  gentle 
blood  and  narrow  fragile  body;  a  strong  spirit  of  iron;  impossi- 
ble of  appoach  by  speech;  everything  she  said  would  carry  her  away 
from  him;  perhaps  he  was  already  planning  his  escape.  One  day 
he  would  suddenly  fall  down,  dead;  young  and  unknown  to  any- 
one in  the  world,  carrying  away  his  mystery. 

"Eleven  o'clock."    She  had  shattered  the  silence  he  had  built. 


38  T  h  e    Lit  tie    Review 


1 


"You  don't  call  that  late"  said  Dr.  von  Hcber  released  and 
rushing  to  rescue  her.  He  sat  bland  and  square  and  simple  be- 
neath the  coming  long  procession  of  years  and  days;  but  his  firmly 
dimpled  swift  Canadian  smile  brilliant  with  the  flash  of  the  flawless 
perfect  outer  arch  of  his  strong  even  teeth  brought  past  and  future 
into  the  moment,  giving  them  unreservedly  to  the  sudden  charm 
of  this  meeting,  referring  back  to  the  first  evening  of  discovery. 

"Oh  no;  it's  frightfully  early." 

'That's  a  most  delightful  hyperbole." 

"I  shall  summons  you  for  calling  me  an  isosceles  triangle." 

Dr.  Waynelletc  laughed  too.  ...  a  small  sound  drowned  by 
Dr.  Kurd's  thwack  on  the  arm  of  his  chair  as  he  flung  back  his 
head  for  his  laugh. 

"It  has  been  wonderful  to-day,  don't  }  ou  tliink^  Did  you 
see  the  extraordinary  light  this  afternoon?" 

"Well  no;  we  were  all  of  us  immured,  but  we  were  out  this 
evening;  we  thought  it  the  best  specimen  of  I^ndon  weather  we'd 
struck  so  far." 

"There's  nothing  whatever  the  matter  with  Lonodn  weather. 
It's  perfect;  the  most  perfect  in  the  world."  Dr.  Hurd  resumed 
his  shakings  of  laughter,  restrained  to  listen.  Dr.  Winchester  w"as 
sitting  bent  forward  smiling  dreamily. 

"I  know  you  won't  like  me  to  call  that  a  hyperbole,  but  you 
won't  quite  expect  me  to  say  I  unreservedly  agree." 

"It  isn't  a  question  of  agreement  or  disagreement.  Its  a 
simple  fact."  Dr.  Hurd  again  struck  his  chair  and  sat  forward 
feeling  for  a  handkerchief  in  a  side  pocket,  his  face  a  tearful  grin 
turned  upon  Dr.  von  Heber. 

"You  are  a  loyal  champion." 

"English  weather  does  not  want  a  champion.  It's  so  wonder- 
ful. Perhaps  you  are  thinking  of  Indian  skies  and  that  sort  of 
thing;  in  countries  where  the  weather  does  not  change  or  not  sud- 
denly; only  at  fixed  seasons.  That's  very  nice  in  a  way.  .  You 
can  make  plans.  But  I  know  I  should  long  for  grey  days  and 
changes  in  the  sky.  A  grey  day  is  not  melancholy;  it's  exciting.  You 
can  sec  everything.  The  sun  makes  everything  pale  and  blinds 
you." 

"There  I  think  you  mistaken.  Nothing  beautiful  like  sun- 
light, and  if  you've  the  sun  behind  you  you  get  the  ahead  j, respect 
without  being  blinded.' 

"I  know  what  you  mean;  but  1  want  lx>th;  for  contrast 
perhaps;  no,  that's  silly;  the  grey  days  for  their  own  sake,  the 
misty  atmosphere.     Fog.     I  think  a  real  London  fog  is  perfection; 


Th4    Little   Revitw 39 

everything  and  the  shapes  and  outliiics  of  things  looming  up  only 
as  you  pass  them.    Wonderful." 

"Well,  there  you  leave  us  behind.  I  can't  see  anything  either 
beautiful  or  in  the  least  wonderful  in  your  town  fogs." 

"Quite  so.  A  taste  for  town  fog  is  an  artificial  taste.  Town 
fog's  not  a  natural  phenomenon.     It's  just  town  dirt." 

"I  don't  care  how  it  begins.  It's  perfect.  It  makes  the  whole 
day  an  adventure  even  if  you're  indoors.  It's  perfect  to  have  the 
light  on  and  nothing  to  be  seen  outside  but  a  copper  glare.  Out- 
side a  glorious  adventure  in  a  new  unkno^\^l  world.  ...  In  a  way 
all  our  weathers  are  that.  In  a  way  the  weather's  enough,  in  itself, 
without  anything  else." 

"That  seems  to  me  remarkable,  a  very  extraordinary  point  of 
view.  You  can't  in  any  circumstances  make  it  a  general  defence  of 
your  climate.     It's  a  purely  personal  notion." 

"It  isn't.  Even  people  who  say  they  don't  like  fogs  are  dif- 
ferent; interested  in  the  effect  while  it  is  on." 

"Uneasy,  no  doubt,  like  animals  in  a  trap." 

''I  refer  to  Miss  Henderson's  extraordinary  valuation  of 
weather  as  enough  in  itself.  I  consider  that  is  one  of  the  most 
extraordinary  points  of  view  I  ever  heard  stated." 

"No  one  can  deny  the  quahl-ty  of  interest  to  the  vagaries  of 
your  western  European  climut;  from  our  point  of  view  it's  all  inter- 
est and  no  climut ;  ye  can't  tell  from  day  to  day  what  season  ye'U 
be  in  and  they  all  seem — stormy." 

"The  seasons  crop  up  all  the  year  round,  sometimes  three  in 
one  day.     That's  just  the  fascinating  thing." 

"Quite  so,  we  find  that  varry  disturbing." 

"Our  sudden  changes  of  temperature  keep  us  hardy!" 

"That's  true;  you're  a  hardy  people.  Your  weather  suits  you, 
beyond  a  doubt." 

"In  Ireland  the  weather  changes  every  few  minutes." 
^         "Hah.  Waynefiete." 

''  "Granted.     No  doubt  that  assisted  my  parents  to  decide  tu 

leave;  I  don't  wonder  at  it." 

"You're  temperate.  You've  got  the  sea  at  a  stone's  throw  all 
round.  You  don't  have  notable  extremes.  But  there's  our  trouble. 
Your  extremes  when  they  come  ain't  arranged  for.  There's  no 
heat  like  your  English  heat,  and  my  word  your  English  houses  in 
the  winter'd  tcike  some  beating." 

"You  mean  boarding-houses." 

"Not  entirely.  Though  I  admit  your  English  hoames  are 
unique  in  the  matter  of  comfort.    There's  nothing  in  the  world  like 


40  T  h  e     Li  1 1 1  e     R  ev  iew 


a  real  good  English  hoamc.  And  not  only  in  the  matter  of  comfort." 

"Yes  but  look  here  von  Ilcbcr.  1  know  your  fine  English  par- 
lours with  fine  great  fires  to  sit  around,  what  they  call  'cosy'  over 
here,  but  my  life  why  don't  they  warm  their  corridors  and  sleeping 
rooms?" 

"Because  it's  unhealthy.  A  cold  bedroom  keeps  you  hardy 
and  you  sleep  better." 

"And  not  only  warm  them  but  light  them.  My  word  when 
tliey  take  you  out  of  their  warm  parlours  into  cold  corridors  and 
land  you  in  a  ice-house  with  a  little  bit  of  a  flickering  candle." 

"You're  not  tempted  to  read  in  bed  and  you  go  to  sleep  in 
healtliy  bracing  air;  it  keeps  you  /lardy." 

"Do  you  never  read  after  you  retire?'' 

"I  do;  and  have  the  gas  and  a  lamp  to  keep  warm.  I  like 
warm  rooms  and  I  think  in  many  ways  it  must  be  lovely  to  be 
able  to  wear  muslin  dresses  indoors  in  snowy  weather  and  put  on 
a  fur  coat  to  go  out;  but  I  should  be  sorry  to  see  the  American 
warm  house  idea  introduced  into  England.' 

"Y'ou're  willing  to  be  inconsistent  then." 

"Consistency  is  the  something  of  something  mind." 

"I  guess  our  central-heated  residences  would  appeal  to  you." 

"I  know  they  would.  But  I  should  freeze  in  the  winter;  be- 
cause I  shouldn't  be  able  to  wear  a  fur  coat." 

"How  so?" 

"I'm  an  anti-vivisectionist." 

"Then  you'd  best  stay  where  they're  not  needed.  Your  winters 
don't  call  for  them.  It's  the  funniest  thing  in  life  the  way  your 
wimmim  go  around  in  furs." 

"Furs  are  frightfully  becoming;  like  lace  and  violets." 

"Then  you  exonerate  them  although  you're  aginst  the  slaying 
evidently  as  well  as  the  use  of  beasts  for  experiment." 

"They  don't  think." 

"My  word  that's  true;  but  all  the  thinking  in  creation  won't 
keep  an  Esquimaux  warm  without  furs." 

"There's  no  need  for  anyone  to  live  up  there.  The  Hudson's 
Bay  Commissioners  are  tradespeople." 

"That's  a  big  proposition." 

"Well?" 

"You'd  advocate  everyone  living  in  temperate  climes  to  spare 
the  beasts?" 

"There's  no  reason  except  trade  for  anyone  to  live  in  snow." 

"There's  a  mighty  except." 

"Well?" 


Thi    Lit  tit    R§9iev>  41 

"What  about  phthisical  subjects  who  need  dry  cold  climes?" 

"Wool  and  astrakhan." 

"Well  I  guess  furs'll  be  worn  for  a  bit  yet." 

"That  doesn't  affect  the  question." 

"I  gather  you  reckon  the  beasts  oughn't  help  advance  science." 

"They  don't.    Doctors  are  as  ill  as  anybody." 

"True  enough.  You  consider  that  invalidates  medical 
science?" 

"Of  course  they  are  over-worked  and  many  of  them  splendid. 
But  illness  doesn't  decrease.  If  one  disease  goes  down  another  goes 
up." 

'^Great  Caesar,  where  did  you  come  across  that?" 

"Even  so;  but  suppose  they  all  went  up?" 

"Besides,  you  talk  about  animals  advancing  science.  Even  if 
there  wasn't  that  great  French  physiologist  or  chemist  or  some- 
thing who  looked  at  the  result  of  experiments  on  animals  and  said 
helas,  nous  avons  les  mains  vides.  He  declared  that  there's  nothing 
to  be  learned  about  human  bodies  from  animals  and  even  if  there 
were  the  thing  is  that  the  animals  have  no  choice.  We've  no  right 
to  force  tiiem  to  suffer." 

"An  animal's  constituted  differently  to  a  man.  You  can't 
compare  them  in  the  matter  of  sensitiveness  to  pain." 

"I  knew  you'd  say  that.  If  people  really  want  to  advance 
science  by  experiments  on  bodies  they  should  offer  their  own 
bodies." 

"Someone's  been  working  on  your  mind  if  you  believe  ani- 
mals suffer  more  than  men." 

"I'd  ratiher  see  a  woman  suffer  than  a  man  and  a  man  rather 
than  a  child  and  a  child  rather  than  an  animal.  Animals  are  be- 
wildered and  don't  understand.  They  have  nothing  to  help  them. 
They  don't  understand  their  sufferings." 

"You  rate  men  lower  than  women  in  power  to  endure  pain." 

"They  get  more  practice." 

"You're  right  there." 

"They're  less  sensitive." 

"That's  debateable,  Waynefiete." 

"Women  appear  to  be  callous  over  the  sufferings  of  other  wo- 
men and  to  make  a  fuss  over  men.  It's  because  sick  men  are  more 
helpless  and  pitiful.  Women  appear  to  be.  But  the  sun  appears 
to  go  round  the  earth." 

"I  doubt  if  ever  there'll  come  a  time  when  we'll  have  live  hu- 
manity in  our  experimental  laboraties." 


42  The     Little     R  ev  iev 


"Science  has  got  lo  go  .'ihead  an>'^vay." 

"But  if  it  goes  ahead  by  forcing  sensitive  creatures  with  .... 
sensitive  nerous  systems,  to  bear  fear  and  pain.  .  .  .  we  shall  lose 
more  morally  than  we  shall  gain  scieiuifically  even  if  we  gain 
scientifically  and  we  don't  because  nearly  everyone  is  ill." 

"You  consider  Knaliludg  can  not  be  bought  at  too  high  a  price." 
"Well  look  at  the  continental  luminaries;  where  there  are  no 
restrictions;  they  don't  even  care  about  their  patients,  only  diseases 
interest  them,  and  in  general,  not  only  in  science  they  don't  really 
know  anything,  the  Germans  and  the  French,  you  have  only  to  look 
at  them,    'i'hey  are  brutal." 

"That's  a  large  statement.  If  you'll  pardon  me  I  should  say 
there's  a  certain  amount  of  insular  prejudice  in  that." 

"I  have  not  a  scrap  of  insular  prejudice.  I  like  foreigners. 
They  are  more  intelligent  than  Englishmen.  But  there's  some- 
thing they  don't  know  that  makes  them  all  alike.  I  once  heard  a 
wealthy  old  Jew  say  that  he'd  go  to  Germany  for  diagnosis  and  to 
England  for  treatment,  and  he'd  had  operations  and  illnesses  all 
over  the  world.     That  expresses  it." 

"You  infer  that  the  English  have  more  humanity." 
"They  don't  regard  the  patient  as  a  case  in  the  way  conti- 
nentals do." 

"Well  I  guess  when  we're  sick  we  all  like  to  go  home." 
"You  mean  the  Jew  had  no  home.     But  he  chose  the  English 
to  go  home  to  when  he  was  ill." 

"That's  true  in  more  senses  than  one.     This  country's  been 
a  home  for  the  Jews  right  away  back." 
"It's  a  great  country.    That's  sure." 

"Science  has  got  to  go  away  ahead.  If  you're  going  to  be  hu- 
manitarians over  here  you  must  leave  continental  science  out  of 
your  scheme.  So  long  as  you  carry  out  their  results  you  can't  hon- 
estly cry  down  their  methods." 

"You  must  cry  down  their  methods  if  vou  don't  approve  of 
them." 

"You  can't  put  back.  You  can't  prevent  association  between 
the  different  lands;  especially  in  matters  of  science." 

"What  Vm  saying.  You've  got  to  accept  the  goods,  even 
su])posing  your  particular  constitution  of  mind  inclines  you  to  bul- 
leave  them  ill-gotten." 

"It's  a  case  of  good  coming  out  of  evil." 

"That's  Jesuitical,  the  end  justifying  tlie  means.  I  don't  be- 
lieve that.  Why  should  science  go  ahead  so  fast?  Where's  the 
hurry  as  you  say  in  Canada?" 


The    Little     Review 


43 


"Well,  you've  only  to  look  around  to  see  that." 

"I  don't  see  it.  Do  you  mean  the  people  who  make  scientific 
experiments  do  it  because  they  want  to  improve  the  world.  They 
don't.    It's  their  curiosity." 

"Divine  curiosity  I've  heard  it  called." 

"The  divine  curiosity  of  Eve that's  the  answer  to  the  Mo- 
saic fable  about  woman.  She  was  interested  in  the  serpent,  and  po- 
lite to  him  and  gossiped  with  him.  Science  is  scandal-mongering; 
gossip  about  the  universe.  Men  talk  about  women  gossiping.  My 
word." 

"Stars.    I'd  like  some  of  our  chaps  to  hear  you  say  that." 

"It  is.  Darwin  gossiped  about  monkeys  and  in  his  old  age 
he  looked  exactly  like  one  and  regretted  that  he  had  neglected 
music." 

"You  can't  have  it  both  ways.  Each  man  must  pursue  one 
line  or  another." 

"Poor  dears  yes." 

"You're  inclined  to  pity  us  all." 

"That's  English  humanitarianism  may  be." 

"I'm  not  a  humanitarian.  I  can't  bear  humanity,  in  the  mass. 
I  think  it's  a  frightful  idea." 

"A  fairly  solid  idea." 

"I  prefer.  ...  the  equator,  and  the  moon,  and  the  plane  of 
the  ecliptic  is  a  perfectly  lovely  thing." 

"It's  a  scientific  discovery." 

"Yes  but  not  on  the  body  of  an  animal." 

"The  body  of  the  chap  who  began  all  that  had  some  pretty 
hard  sufferings." 

"Do  you  know  the  schoolboy's  definition  of  the  equator?" 

"No,  but  I  guess  it's  a  good  one." 

"A  menagerie  lion  rimning  round  the  world  once  in  every 
twenty  four  hours.     I  think  it's  an  absolutely  perfect  idea." 

"I  guess  that's  good  enough  to  stop  on." 

"You  off  Winchester?" 

In  the  breaking  of  the  group  Dr.  von  Heber  came  near  with 
his  smile.  Dr.  Hurd  was  noisily  stretching  himself,  laughing  and 
coughing.  No  one  was  listening.  They  were  quite  alone  among 
their  friends,  his  friends  Canada.  This  has  been  a  charming 
ending  to  a  very  lovely  day  he  said  quietly.  Miriam  beamed  and 
was  silent.  Did  you  see  the  c.,fterglow  she  asked  hiraibly.  His 
smile  reappeared.  He  took  in  what  she  said,  but  beamed  because 
they  were  talking.  She  tried  to  beat  back  her  words,  but  they  were 
on  her  lips  and  she  was  already  moving  away  when  she  spoke.    A 


44  Thg    Littl*    Rtvit 


fine.  .  .  .  fuliginous.  .  .  phik  wasn't  it?" 


"Where  is  the  harm  child,  in  your  sitting  up  at  a  piano,  even 
behind  a  curtain;  in  a  large  room  in  Gower  Street,  1  can't  imagine 
why  you  say  GOWER  Street;  playing,  with  the  soft  pedal  either 
down  or  up,  the  kind  of  music  that  you  play  so  beautifully?  Can 
you  see  her  difficulty  Jan?" 

"Not  even  with  the  most  powerful  of  microscopes." 

Lolling  on  the  windowsill  of  their  lives  to  glance  at  a  passing 

show The  blessed  damozel  looked  out.     Leaning,  heavy, 

on  the  golden  balcony.  She  knew  why  not.  Heavy  blossoming 
weight,  weighed  down  with  her  heavy  hair,  the  sky  blossoming  in 
it,  facing,  just  able  to  face  without  sinking,  the  rose-gold  world, 
blossoming  under  her  eyes. 

Thin  hard  fingers  of  women  chattered  and  tweaked.  They  go 
up  sideways,  witches  on  broomsticks,  and  chatter  ajigrily  in  th« 
distance.  They  cannot  stop  the  sound  of  the  silent  crimson  blos- 
soming roses. 

"  I  don't  approve  of  seances." 

"Have  you  ever  been  to  one?" 

"No;  but  I  know  I  don't.  It  was  something  about  the  woman 
when  she  asked  me." 

"That  is  a  personal  prejudice." 

"It  is  not  a  prejudice;  how  can  it  be  pre  after  I  have  seen 
her?" 

"Seances  arc  wrong;  because  you  have  taken  a  dislike  to  Ma- 
dame Devine." 

"It  can't  be  right  to  make  half  a  guinea  an  hour  so  easily. 
And  she  said  a  guinea  for  occasional  public  performances."  That's 
all;  they  know  now.  I  had  made  up  my  mind.  I  wanted  them  to 
see  me  tempted  and  refusing  for  conscience  sake. 

"Good  Lord;  you'd  be  a  millionaire  in  no  time;  why  not  take 
it  until  you  are  a  millionaire  and  then  if  you  don't  like  it,  chuck 
it?" 

"I  should  like  it  all  right;  my  part." 

"Well  surely  that  is  all  that  concerns  you.  You  have  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  what  goes  on  the  other  side  of  the  curtain. 
I  think  if  you  would  like  the  job  you  are  a  fool  to  hesitate,  don't 
you  Jan?" 

"A  fool  there  was  and  he  made  his  prayer,  yes  I  think  it  is 
foolish  to  refuse  such  an  admirable  offer." 


T  h  e    Lit  tie    Review  45 

"A  rag  and  a  ibone  and  a  hank  of  hair;  that  just  describes 
Madame  Devine."  That's  not  true;  smooth  fat  thinness  with  dark- 
filmy  cruel  clothes  that  last;  having  supper  afterwards;  but  it 
would  be  true  in  a  magazine;   a  weird  medium;  the  grocer's  wife 

with  second  sight  was  fat  and  ordinary;  a  simple  woman 

Peter,  the  rough  fisherman. 

"Now  you  are  being  unchristian." 

"I'm  not.  1  love  the  rag  and  bone  and  hank  of  hair  type. 
Sallow.  Like  Mrs.  Pat.  .  .  .  The  ingenue.  Sitting  in  a  corner 
dressed  in  white,  reading  a  book.  A  fat  pink  face.  You  can 
imagine  her  at  forty." 

"Now  you  are  being  both  morbid  and  improper." 

"I'm  not  morbid.    Am  1,  Jan?" 

"No  I  do  not  call  you  morbid.  I  call  Gracie  Harter-Jones 
morbid." 

"Who  is  she?" 

"We  met  her  at  Mrs.  Mackinley's.  She  says  she  is  perfectly 
miserable  unless  she  is  in  a  morbid  state.  She's  written  a  book  called 
The  Purple  Shawl  of  Ceremony." 

"She  must  be  awfully  clever." 

"She's  mad.  She  revels  in  being  mad.  Like  'the  Sun  shiv- 
ered.   Earth  from  its  darkest  basements  rocked  and  quivered'." 

"Oh  go  I  said  and  see  the  swans  harping  upon  the  rooftops 
in  the  com.  Where  is  the  grey  felt  hat  1  saw  go  down,  wrinkled 
and  old  to  meet  the  lily-leaf,  where  where  my  child  the  little  stick 
that  crushed  the  wild  infernal  apple  of  the  pit  where  where  the 
pearl.  Snarling  he  cried  I  will  not  have  you  bless  the  tropics  sit- 
ting in  a  strident  row  nor  fling  our  banners  o'er  the  stately  tome; 

I  saw  my  mandoline that's  all  awfully,  bad;  but  you  can  go 

on  forever." 

"/  couldn't.  I  don't  know  how  you  do  it.  I  think  its  awfully 
clever.  Jan  and  I  roared  over  your  Madeleine  Frances  Barry 
letter." 

"You  can  go  on  for  days," 

"  Barry-paroding. " 

"You  must  not  wait,  nor  think  of  words.  If  you  are  in  the 
mood  they  come  more  quickly  than  you  could  speak  or  even  think; 
you  follow  them  and  the  whole  effect  entertains  you.  There's 
something  in  it.  You  never  know  what  is  coming  and  you  swing 
about,  as  long  as  you  keep  the  rhythm,  all  over  the  world.  It  re- 
freshes you.  Sometimes  there  are  the  most  beautiful  things.  And 
you  see  all  the  things  so  vividly." 

"She's  not  morbid ;  she's  mad." 


A^ The    Little    Rev  tew 

"I'm  neither  morbid  nor  mad.  It's  a  splendid  way  of  amus 
ing  yourself;  better  than  imagining  the  chairs  in  front  of  you  at 
a  concert  quietly  collajising." 

'J'hey  were  scarcely  listening.  Both  of  them  were  depending 
on  each  other  to  listen  and  answer. 

"Do  you  still  go  to  Ruscino's  every  night  Miriam?" 
"With  the  Spaniard?     How  is  the  Spaniard?" 
"He's  eaten  up  with  dizizz." 
"With  lo/mtr' 

"That's  what  Miss  Scott  says." 
"How  does  she  know?" 
"All  the  doctors  are  prescribing  for  him." 
"Did  they  tell  her?" 

"I  don't  know.   She  just  said  it  suddenly.    Like  she  says  things. 
The  doctors  are  all  awfully  fond  of  him." 
"Why  are  they  fond  of  him?" 

"He  is  extraordinary.  He  has  given  up  his  poster  work  and 
does  lightning  silhouettes,  outlines  of  heads,  at  five  shillings  each 
at  some  gardens  somewhere.  Sometimes  he  makes  five  pounds  an 
evening  at  it." 

"So  you  dou't  go  to  Ruscino's  every  evening?" 
"He  had  a  few  Aveeks  of  being  awfully  poor.  One  day  he  had 
only  eightpence  in  the  world.  Of  course  he  was  having  all  hia 
meals  at  Tansley  Street  But  that  evening  he  found  out  that  I 
had  nothing  at  all.  I  had  been  telling  him  about  my  meal  arrange- 
ments. I  always  pay  Mrs.  Bailey  at  tlie  time  for  mv  sliilling  din- 
ners and  when  I  can't  afford  them  I  get  a  fourpenny  meal  at  a  Y. 
W.  C.  A.  He  made  me  take  his  eighti^encc.  The  next  day  he 
walked,  I  found  afterwards,  all  the  way  to  South  Kensington  in  the 
grilling  heat  to  see  a  man  about  the  silhouettes." 
"WTiat  a  little  brick." 

"He  is  like  that  to  evervbody.     And  always  so.  .  .  ." 
"So  w^hat?" 

"Oh,  I  can't  express  him.  But  he's  a  Jew,  you  know,  a  Span- 
ish Jew.     Isn't  it  extraordinary? 

"W>11  really  Miriam  I  can't  see  that  there  is  anything  extraor- 
dinary about  a  man's  being  a  Spanish  Jew  if  he  wants  to?" 

"I  was  most  awfully  surprised.  Mrs.  Bailey  told  me  There 
is  some  Jewish  girl  he  has  meeting  in  Kensington;  he  drew  her 
portrait,  a  special  one,  for  her  father,  for  five  guineas,  and  he  has 
engaged  himself  to  her  because  he  thought  she  had  money  and  now 
finds  she  has  not  damn  her,  he  said  damn  her  to  Mrs.  Bailey,  and 
that  he  has  been  boring  himself  for  nothing.  He  is  going  into  hos- 
pital for  his  gastric  ulcer  when  the  season 'is  over  and  then  going 


^ The    Little    Review  47 

to  disappear.  He  told  me  he  never  spoke  to  a  woman  more  than 
twice;  but  that  he  is  willing  to  marry  any  woman  with  enough 
money." 

"Wise  man." 

"He  has  spoken  more  than  twice  to  you." 
"Yes  but  I  know  what  he  means.     Besides  we  don't  talk,  in 
the  society  way." 

"How  do  you  talk?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.     I  air  my  theories  sometimes.     He  always 
disagrees.    Once  he  told  me  suddenly  it  was  very  bad  for  me  to  go 
about  with  him." 
"But  you  go." 
"Of  course  I  do."     The  untold  scenes  were  standing  in  the 

way.    There  was  no  way  of  telling  them The  Tansley  Street 

life  was  more  and  more  unreal  to  them  the  deeper  it  grew.  It  was 
unreal  to  them  because  things  were  kept  back.  They  were  still  in- 
terested in  stories  of  Wimpole  Stret,  but  even  there  now  they  only 
glanced  in  passing,  their  thoughts  busy  in  the  shared  life  they  per- 
petually jested  over.  They  listened  with  reservations;  not  always 
believing;  sitting  in  dressing-gowns  believing  or  not  as  they  chose; 
because  one  knew  one  had  lost  touch  and  tried  to  make  things  in- 
teresting to  get  back  into  the  old  glow.    If  you  once  lose  touch  you 

can  never  get  back 

"How  did  the  dinner-party  go  off?" 
"Beautifully." 
"Did  you  talk  German?" 

"There   was   no   need;    the   man   talked   better   English   than 
anybody." 

"Why  did  it  go  off  beautifully?     Tdl  us  about  the  beautiful 
things." 

The  strange  twilight,  the  reassuring  shyness  of  all  the  guests: 
no  attempt  to  talk  about  anything  in  particular ;  cool  hard  face  and 
upright  coldly-jewelled  body;  the  sense  of  success  with  each  simple 
remark.     The  evening  of  music.     Life-marked  people;  their  marks 
showing  without  pain,  covered,  half-healed  by  the  hours  of  kindness. 
"It's  something  in  the  Orly's." 
"What  do  you  think  it  is?" 
"It's  something  frightfully  beautiful." 
"They  are  very  nice  people." 
"That  doesn't  mean  anything  at  all." 

"The  secret  of  beauty  is  colour  and  texture.     The  ointment 
•  will  preserve  the  colour  and  the  texture  of  your  skin — in  any  cli- 
mate."   Read  her  the  piece  about  the  movement  of  the  hands  over 
a  tea-tray 'Tn  pouring  out  tea  never  allow  t>e  hands  to 


Tkt    Littlt     Rgwi9w 


fall  slack,  or  below  the  level  of  the  tray.  Keep  them  well  in  view, 
moving  deftly  among  the  articles  on  the  tray;  sitting  well  back  on 
the  seat  of  the  chair  the  body  upright  and  a  little  inclined  forward 
from  the  hips— see  Chap.  1 1 1  :  "How  to  Sit" — so  that  the  move- 
ments of  the  wrist  and  hands  are  in  easy  harmony  with  the  whole 
body.  Restrain  the  hands.  Do  not  let  the  fingers  splay  out.  Do 
not  cramp  them  or  allow  any  effort  to  appear  in  the  movement  of 
any  part  of  the  hand." 

"Good  heaven's.  Can't  you  see  those  women.  But  that  must 
be  by  an  American." 

"Why  an  American?" 

"Oh.  I  don't  know.  You  can  tell.  Are  you  going  to  try  all 
these  things?" 

"Rather.     We're  going  in  heavily  for  beauty  culture." 

"We  are  going  to  skip  and  have  Turkish  baths,  and  steam  our 
faces." 

"I  suppose  one  ought." 

"I  tliink  so.  I  don't  see  why  one  should  look  old  before  one's 
time.  One's  life  is  ageing  and  ravaging.  After  ai  Turkish  bath  one 
feels  like  a  new-born  babe." 

"But  it  would  take  all  one's  time  and  money." 

"Even  so.  It  restores  your  self-respect  to  feel  perfectly 
groomed  and  therefore  perfectly  self-possessed.  It  makes  the  office 
respect  you." 

"I  know.    I  hate  the  grubbiness  of  snij^e-life — sometimes." 

"Only  sometimes?" 

"Well,  I  forget  about  it.  If  I  didn't  I  should  go  mad  of  grit 
and  dust." 

"We  are  mad  of  grit  and  dust.  That's  why  we  think  it's  time 
to  do  something." 

"H'm." 

"You  really  like  the  Orly's,  don't  you?" 

"You  can't  like  everybody  at  once.  You  have  to  choose. 
That's  the  trouble.  If  you  are' liking  one  set  of  people  very  much 
you  get  out  of  touch  with  the  others." 

"You  have  so  many  sets  of  people." 

"I  haven't.    I  hardly  know  anybody." 

"You  have  hosts  of  friends." 

"I  haven't.  In  the  way  you  mean.  I  expect  I  give  you  wrong 
impressions." 

"Well  I  think  you've  a  capacity — Don't  you  think  she  has  a 
capacity — von  Bohlen?" 

"She  has  some  very  nice  friends  and  some  extraordinary  ones." 
(to  be  continued) 


The    Little    Review 49 

POEMS 

by  William  Carlos  Williams 

A     Coronal 

New  books  of  poetry  will  be  written. 

New  and  unheard  of  manuscripts 

will  come  wrapped  in  brown  paper 

and  many  and  many  a  time 

the  postman  will  bow 

and  sidle  down  the  leafplastered  steps 

thumbing  over  other  mens'  business. 

But  we  ran  aJiead  of  it  all. 

One  coming  after 

could  have  seen  our  footprints 

in  the  wet  and  followed  us 

among  the  sitark  chestnuts. 

Anemonies  sprang  where  she  pressed, 

her  mouth  rounded  and  cresses 

stood  green  in  the  slender  source — 

and  new  books  of  poetry 

will  be  written,  leather  colored  oakleaves, 

many  and  many  a  time. 

Waiting 

When  I  am  alone  I  am  happy. 

The  air  is  cool.    The  sky  is 

flecked  and  spashed  and  wound 

with  color.    The  crimson  phalloi 

of  the  sassafrass  leaves 

hang  crowded  before  me 

in  shoals  on  the  heavy  branches. 

When  I  reach  my  doorstep 

I  am  greeted  by 

the  happy  shrieks  of  my  children 

and  my  heart  sinks. 

I  am  crushed. 

Are  not  my  children  dear  to  me 
as  falling  leaves  or 
must  one  become  stupid 


?0  The    Little    Review 


to  grow  older? 

It  seems  much  as  if  sorrow 

had  tripped  up  my  heels. 

Let  us  see,  let  us  see! 

What  did  I  plan  to  say  to  her 

when  it  should  happen  to  me 

as  it  has  happened  now? 

The      Hunter 

In  the  flashes  and  black  shadows 

of  July 

the  days,  locked  in  each  other's  arms, 

seem  still 

so  that  squirrels  and  colored  birds 

go  about  at  ease  over 

the  branches  and  through  the  air. 

Where  will  a  shoulder  split  or 
a  forehead  open  and  victory  be? 

Nowhere. 

Both  sides  grow  older. 

And  you  may  be  sure 

not  one  leaf  will  lift  itself 

from  the  ground 

and  become  fast  to  a  twig  again. 

Arrival 

And  yet  one  arrives  somehow, 

finds   himself    loosening    the   hooks    of 

b«r  dress 

in  a  strange  bedroom — 

feels  the  autumn 

dropping  its  silk  and  linen  leaves 

about  her  ankles. 

The  tawdry  veined  body   emerges 

twisted  upon  itself 

like  a  winter  wind.  .  .! 


The    Little    Review  51 

1^0     Mark     Anthony     in     Heaven 

This  quiet  morning  light 

reflected,  how  many  times! 

from  grass  and  trees  and  clouds 

enters  my  north  room 

touching  the  walls  with 

grass  and  clouds  and  trees, 

Anthony, 

trees  and  grass  and  clouds. 

Why  did  you  follow 

that  beloved  body 

with  your  ships  at  Actium? 

I  hope  it  was  because 

you  knew  her  inch  by  inch 

from  slanting  feet  upward 

to  the  roots  of  her  hair 

and  down  again  and  that 

you  saw  her 

above  the  battle's  fury 

reflecting — 

clouds  and  trees  and  grass 

for  then 

vou  are  listening  in  heaven. 


To     a      Friend     Concernin 
Several      Ladies 

You  know  there  is  not  much 

that  I  desire,  a  few  crysanthemums 

half  lying  on  the  grass,  yeHow 

and  brown  and  white,  the 

talk  of  a  few  people,  the  trees, 

an  expanse  of  dried  leaves  perhaps 

with  ditches  among  them. 

But  there  comes 

between  me  and  these  things 

a  letter 

or  even  a  look — well  placed, 

you  understand, 

so  that  I  am  confused,  twisted 


53  The     Little     Review 

four  ways  and— left  flat, 
unable  to  lift  the  food  to 
my  own  mouth: 
Here  is  what  they  say:   Come! 
and  come!  and  come!  And  if 

I  do  not  go  I  remain  stale  to 
myself  and  if  I  go — 

I  have  watched 
the  city  from  a  listance  at  night 
and  wondered  why  1  vvrote  no  poem. 
Come!  yes, 

the  city  is  ablaze  for  you 
and  you  stand  and  look  at  it. 

And  they  are  riijht.     There  is 

no  good  in  the  world  except  out  of 

a  woman  and  certain  women  alone 

for  certain  things.     But  what  if 

I  arrive  like  a  turtle 

with  my  house  on  my  back  or 

a  fish  ogling  from  under  water? 

it  will  not  do.     I  must  be 

steaming  with  love,  colored 

like  a  flamingo.     For  what? 

To  have  legs  and  a  silly  head 

and  to  smell,  pah!  like  a  flamingo 

that  soils  its  own  feathers  behind. 

Must  I  go  home  filled 

with  a  bad  poem? 

And  they  say: 

Who  can  answer  these  things 

till  he  has  tried?     Your  eyes 

are  half  closed,  you  are  a  child, 

oh,  a  sweet  one,  ready  to  play 

but  I  will  make  a  man  of  you  and 

with  love  on  his  shoulder — ! 

And  in  the  marshes 

the  crickets  run 

on  the  sunny  dike's  top  and 

make  burrows  there,  the  water 

reflects  the  reeds  and  the  reeds 

move  on  their  stalks  and  rattle  drily. 


T ht    Little    Review  53 


ULYSSES 
by  James  Joyce 

Episode    XII    (continued) 

THE  fashionaible  international  world  attended  en  masse  this  after- 
noon at  the  wedding  of  the  chevalier  Jean  Wyse  de  Nolan, 
grand  high  chief  ranger  of  the  Irish  National  Foresters,  with 
Miss  Fir  Conifer  of  Pine  Valley.  The  bride  looked  exquisitely 
charming  in  a  creation  of  green  mercerised  silk,  moulded  on  an 
underslip  of  gloaming  grey,  sashed  with  a  yoke  of  broad  emerald 
and  finished  with  a  triple  flounce  of  darker  hued  fringe,  the  scheme 
being  relieved  by  bretelles  and  hip  insertions  of  acorn  bronze.  The 
maids  of  honour.  Miss  Larch  Conifer  and  Miss  Spruce  Conifer,  sis- 
ters of  the  bride,  wore  very  becoming  costumes  in  the  same  tone, 
a  dainty  motif  of  plume  rose  being  worked  into  the  pleats  in  a  pin- 
stripe and  repeated  capriciously  in  the  jadegreen  toques  in  the  form 
of  heron  feathers  of  paletinted  coral. 

— And  our  eyes  are  on  Europe,  says  the  citizen.     We  had  our 
trade  with  Spain  and  the  French  and  with  the  Flemings  before 
those  mongrels  were  pupped,  Spanish  ale  in  Galway,  the  winebark 
on  the  winedark  waterway. 
— And  will  again,  says  Joe. 

— And  with  the  help  of  the  holy  mother  of  God  we  will  again,  says 
the  citizen.  Our  harbours  that  £ire  empty  will  be  full  again,  Queens- 
town,  Kinsale,  Galway,  Killybegs,  the  tiiird  largest  harbour  in  the 
wide  world.  And  will  again,  says  he,  when  the  first  Irish  battleship 
is  seen  breasting  the  waves  with  the  green  flag  to  the  fore. 

And  he  took  the  last  swig  out  of  the  pint,  Moya.  Cows  in 
Connadht  have  long  horns.  Ought  to  go  down  and  address  the 
multitude  in  Shanagolden  where  he  daren't  show  his  nose  fear  the 
Molly  Maguiires  would  let  daylight  through  him  for  grabbing  the 
holding  of  an  evicted  tenant. 

— Hear,  hear  to  that,  says  John  Wyse    What  will  you  have? 
— An  imperial  yeomanry,  says  Lenehan,  to  celebrate  the  occasion 
—Half  one,  Terry,  says  John  Wyse,  and  a  hands  up.    Terry!    Are 
you  asleep? 

— Yes,  sir,  says  Terry.  Small  whisky  and  bottle  of  AUsop.  Right, 
sir. 

Hanging  over  the  bloody  paper  with  Alf  looking  for  spicy  bits 
instead  of  attending  to  the  general  public.     Picture  of  a  butting 


54  T/ie     Little    Review 

match,  trying  to  crack  their  bloody  skulls,  one  chap  going  for  tlic 
other  with  his  head  down  like  a  bull  at  a  gate.  And  another  one: 
Black  Beast  Burned  in  Omaha.  Ga.  A  lot  of  Deadwood  Dicks  in 
slouch  hats  and  they  firing  at  a  sambo  strung  up  on  a  tree  with  his 
tongue  out  and  a  bonfire  under  him.  Gob,  they  ought  to  drown 
him  in  the  sea,  after,  and  electrocute  and  crucify  to  make  sure  of 
the  job. 

—But  what  about  the  fighting  navy,  says  Xed,  that  keeps  our  foes 
at  bay? 

— I'll  tell  you  what  about  it,  says  the  citizen.  Hell  upon  earth  it 
is.  Read  the  revelations  that's  going  on  in  the  papers  about  flogging 
on  the  training  ships  at  Portsmouth.  A  fellow  writes  that  calls 
himself  Disgusted  One. 

So  he  starts  telling  us  about  corporal  punishment  and  about 
the  crew  of  tars  and  officers  and  rcaradmirals  drawn  up  in  cocked 
hats  and  the  parson  with  his  protestant  bible  to  witness  punishment 
and  a  young  lad  brought  out,  howling  for  his  ma,  and  they  tie 
him  down  on  the  buttend  of  a  gun. 

— A  rump  and  dozen,  says  the  citizen,  was  what  that  old  ruffian 
Sir  John  Beresford  called  it  but  the  modern  God's  Englishman  calls 
it  caning  on  the  breech. 

And  says  John  Wyse: 
— 'Tis  a  custom  more  honoured  in  the  breech  Uian  in  the  obser- 
vance. 

Then  he  was  telling  us  the  master  at  arms  comes  along  with 
a  long  cane  and  he  draws  out  and  he  flogs  the  bloody  backside  off 
of  the  poor  lad  till  he  yells  meila  murder. 

- — That's  your  glorious  British  navy,  says  the  citizen,  that  bosses 
the  earth.  The  fellows  that  never  will  be  slaves,  wiith  the  only 
hereditary  chamber  in  Europe  and  their  land  in  the  hands  of  a 
dozen  gamehogs  and  cottonball  barons.  That's  the  great  empire 
they  boast  about  of  drudges  and  whipped  serfs. 
— On  which  the  sun  never  rises,  says  Joe. 

— And  the  tragedy  of  it  is,  says  the  citizen,  they  believe  it.  The 
unfortunate  Yahoos  believe  it. 

They  believe  in  rod,  the  scourger  alrriighty,  creator  of  hell 
upon  earth  and  in  Jacky  Tar,  the  son  of  a  gun,  who  was  conceived 
of  unholy  boast,  born  of  the  fighting  navy,  suffered  under  rump 
and  dozen,  was  scarified,  flayed  and  curried,  yelled  like  bloody  hell, 
the  third  day  he  arose  from  the  bed,  steered  into  haven,  sitteth 
on  his  beamend  till  further  orders  when  he  shall  come  to  drudge' 
for  a  living  and  be  paid. 
— But,  says  Bloom,  isn't  discipline  the  same  everywhere.     I  mean 


The    Little    Review 55 

wouldn't  it  be  the  same  here  if  you  put  force  against  force? 

Didn't  I  tell  you?  As  true  as  I'm  drinking  this  porter  if  he 
Avas  at  his  last  gasp  he'd  try  to  downface  you  that  dying  was 
living. 

— We'll  put  force  against  force,  says  the  citizen.  We  have  our 
greater  Ireland  beyond  the  sea.  They  were  driven  out  of  house 
and  home  in  the  black  47.  Their  mudcalbins  by  the  roadsire  were 
laid  low  by  the  batteringram  and  the  Times  ruibbed  its  hands  and 
told  the  whitelivered  Saxons  there  would  soon  be  as  few  Irish  in 
Ireland  as  red'skins  in  America.  Even  the  Turks  sent  us  help.  But 
the  Sassenach  tried  to  starve  the  nation  at  home  while  the  land 
was  full  of  crops  that  the  British  hyenas  bought  and  sold  in  Rio  de 
Janeiro.  Ay,  they  drove  out  the  peasants  in  hordes.  Twenty 
thousand  of  them  died  in  the  coffin  ships.  But  those  that  came  to 
the  land  of  the  free  remember  the  land  of  bondage.  And  they 
will  come  again  and  with  a  vengeance:  the  sons  of  Granuaile. 

— Perfectly  true,  says  Bloom.     But  my  point  was 

— We  are  a  long  time  waiting  for  thac  day,  citizen,  says  Ned. 
Since  the  French  landed  at  Killala. 

— Ay,  says  John  Wyse.  We  gave  our  best  blood  to  France  and  Spain, 
the  wild  geese.     Fontenoy,  eh?     And  Sarsfield  and  O'Donnell,  duke 
of  Tetuan  in  Spain  and  Ulysses  Browne  of  Camus  that  was  field- 
marshal  to  Maria  Teresa.     But  what  did  we  ever  get  for  it? 
— The  French!  says  the  citizen.    Set  of  dancing  masters!     Do  you 
know  what  it  is?    They  were  never  worth  a  roasted  fart  to  Ireland. 
Aren't  they  trying  to  make  an  Entente  cordial  now  with  perfidious 
Albion?     Firebrands  of  Europe  and  they  always  were. 
— Conspiiez  les  francais,  says  Lenehan,  nobbling  his  beer. 
— And  as  for  the  Germans,  says  Joe,  haven't  we  had  enough  of  those 
sausageeating  bastards  on  the  throne  from  George  the  elector  down 
to  the  flatulent  old  bitch  that's  dead? 

Jesus,  I  had  to  laugh  at  the  way  he  came  out  with  that  about 
the  old  one  with  the  winkers  on  her  blind  drunk  in  her  royal  palace 
every  night  with  her  jorum  of  mountain  dew  and  her  coachman 
carrying  her  up  body  and  bones  to  roll  into  bed  and  she  pulling  him 
by  the  whiskers  and  singing  him  old  bits  of  songs  about  Ehrcn  on 
the  Rhine  and  come  >vhere  the  boose  is  cheaper. 
— ^Well!  says  J.  J.  We  have  Edward  the  peacemaker  now. 
— Tell  that  to  a  fool,  says  the  citizen.  There's  a  bloody  sight 
more  pox  than  pax  about  that  boyo. 

— And  what  do  you  think,  says  Joe,  of  the  holy  boys,  tlie  priests 
and  bishops  of  Ireland  doing  up  his  room  in  Maynooth  in  his 
racing  colours  and  sticking  up  pictures  of  all  the  horses  his  jockeys 


56  T  h  e    Little    Review 


rode. 

— They  ought  to  have  stuck  up  all  the  women  he  rode,  says  little 

Alf.    And  says  J.  J.  : 

— Considerations  of  space  influenced  their  lordsliips'  decision. 

— Will  you  try  another,  citizen?  says  Joe. 

— Yes,  sir,  says  he,  I  will. 

— You?    says  Joe. 

— Thank  you,  Joe,  says  I. 

— Repeat  that  dose,  says  Joe. 

Bloom  was  talking  and  talking  with  John  Wyse  and  he  quite 
excited  with  his  old  plumeyes  rolling  aibout. 

— Persecution,  says  he,  all  the  history  of  the  world  is  full  of  it. 
Perpetuating  national  hatred  among  nations. 
— But  do  you  know  what  a  nation  means?    says  John  Wyse. 
— Yes,  says  Bloom.  ■ 

— ^W^at  is  it?    says  John  Wyse.  f 

— A  na,tion?    says  Bloom.     A  nation  is  the  same  people  living  in 
the  same  place. 

— By  God,  then  says  Ned,  laughing,  if  that's  so  -I'm  a  nation  for 
I'm  living  in  the  same  place  for  the  past  five  years. 

So  of  course  everyone  had  a  laugh  at  Bloom  and  says  he, 
trying  to  muck  out  of  it: 
— Or  also  living  in  different  places. 
— That  covers  my  case,  says  Joe. 
— What  is  your  nation  if  I  may  ask,  says  the  citizen. 
— Ireland,  says  Bloom.    I  was  born  here.    Ireland. 

The  citizen  said  nothing  only  cleared  the  spit  out  of  his  gullet 
and,  gob,  he  spat  an  oyster  out  of  him  right  in  the  corner. 
— After  you  with  the  push,  Joe,  says  he. 

— Here  you  are,  citizen,  says  Joe.     Take  that  in  your  right  hand 
and  repeat  after  me  the  following  words. 
— Which  is  which?     says  I. 

— That's  mine,  says  Joe,  as  the  devil  said  to  the  dead  policeman. 
— And  I  belong  to  a  race  too,  says  Bloom,  that  is  hated  and  perse- 
cuted.    Also  now.    This  very  moment.     This  very  instant. 

Gob,  he  near  burnt  his  fingers  with  the  butt  of  his  old  cigar. 
— Robbed,  says  he.  Plundered.  Insulted.  Persecuted.  Taking 
what  belongs  to  us  by  right.  At  this  very  moment,  says  he,  putting 
'up  his  fist. 

— Are  you  talking  about  the  new  Jerusalem?     says  the  citizen. 
—I'm  talking  about  injustice,  says  Bloom.  J 

— Right,  says  John  Wyse.    Stand  up  to  it  then  with  force  like  men. 

That's  an  almanac  picture  for  you.     Old  lardyface  standing 


1 


T,he    Little    Review 


57 


up  to  the  business  end  of  a  gun.  Gob,  he'd  adorn  a  sweeping  brush, 
so  he  would,  if  he  only  had  a  nurse's  apron  on  him.  And  then  he 
colHapses  all  off  a  sudden,  twisting  around  all  the  opposite,  as  limp 
as  a  wet  rag. 

— But  it's  no  use,  says  he.    Force,  hatred,  history,  all  that.    That's 
not  life  for  men  and  women,  insult  and  hatred.     And  everybody 
knows  that  it's  the  very  opposite  of  that  that  is  really  life. 
—What?    says  Alf. 

— Love,  says  Bloom.  I  mean  the  opposite  of  hatred.  I  must  go 
now,  says  he  to  John  Wyse.  Just  round  to  the  court  a  moment  to 
see  if  Martin  is  there.  If  he  comes  just  say  I'll  be  back  in  a 
second.    Just  a  moment. 

And  off  he  pops. 
— A  new  apostle,  to  the  gentiles,  says  the  citizen.     Universal  love. 
— Well,  says  John  Wyse.     Isn't  that  what  we're  told.    Love  your 
neighbours. 

— That  chap?  says  the  citizen.  Beggar  my  neighbour  is  his  mot- 
to.   Love,    Moya    He's  a  nice  pattern  of  a  Romeo  and  Juliet. 

Love  loves  to  love  love.  Nurse  loves  the  new  chemist.  Con- 
stable 25  A  loves  Mary  Kelly.  Gertie  Mac  Dowell  loves  the  boy 
that  has  the  bicycle.  M.  B.  loves  a  fair  gentleman.  Li  chi  Han 
lovey  up  kissy  Cha  Pu  Chow.  Jumbo,  the  elephant,  loves  Alice, 
the  elephant.  Old  Mr.  Verschoyle  wtih  the  ear  trumpet  loves  old 
Mrs.  Verschoyle  with  the  turned  in  eye.  The  man  in  the  brown 
mackintosh  loves  a  lady  who  is  dead.  His  Majesty  the  King  loves 
her  majesty  the  Queen.  Mrs.  Norman  W.  Tupper  loves  officer 
Taylor.  You  love  a  certain  person.  And  this  person  loves  that 
other  person  because  everybody  loves  somebody  but  God  loves 
everybody. 

— ^Well,  Joe,  says  I,  your  very  good  health  and  song.  More  power, 
citizen. 

— Hurrah,  there,  says  Joe. 

— The  blessing  of  God  and  Mary  and  Patrick  on  you,  says  the 
citizen. 

And  he  ups  with  his  pint  to  wet  his  whistle. 
— We  know  those  canters,  says  he,  preaching  and  piking  your 
pocket.  What  about  Cromwell  that  put  the  women  and  children  of 
Drogheda  to  the  sword  with  the  bible  texts  God  is  love  pasted 
round  the  mouth  of  his  cannon.  The  bible!  Did  you  read  that 
skit  in  the  United  Irishman  today  about  that  Zulu  chief  that's 
visiting  England? 
— What's  that?    says  Joe. 

So  the  citizen  takes  up  one  of  his  papers  and  he  starts  reading 


58  The    Little    Review 


out: 

— A  delegation  of  the  chief  cotton  magnates  of  Manchester  was 
presented  yesterday  to  his  Majesty  the  Alaki  of  Abeakuta  by  Gold 
Stick  in  Waiting,  Lord  Walkup  of  Walkup  on  Eggs,  to  tender  to 
his  majesty  the  heartfelt  thanlvs  of  British  traders  for  the  facilities 
afforded  them  in  his  dominions.  The  dusky  potentate,  in  the 
course  of  a  gracious  speech,  freely  translated  by  the  British  chap- 
lain the  reverend  Ananias  Praisegod  Barebones,  tendered  his  best 
thanks  to  Massa  Walkup  and  emphasized  the  cordial  relations 
existing  between  Abeakuta  and  the  British  Empire,  stating  that  he 
treasured  as  one  of  his  dearest  possessions  an  illuminated  bible 
presented  to  him  by  the  white  chief  woman,  the  great  squaw  Vic- 
toria. The  Alaki  then  drank  a  loving  cup  to  the  toast  black  and 
white  from  the  skull  of  his  immediate  predecessor  in  the  dynasty 
Kakachakachak,  surnamed  Forty  Warts. 

— Widow  Avoman,  says  Ned,  1  wouldn't  doubt  her.  Wonder  did  he 
put  that  bible  to  the  same  use  as  I  would. 

—Same  only  more  so,  says  Lenehan.    And  therafter  in  that  fruitful 
the  broadleaved  mango  llourished  exceedingly. 
— Is  that  by  Griffith?  says  John  Wyse. 

— No,  says  the  citizen.  It's  not  signed  Shanganagh.  It's  only 
initialled:  P. 

— And  a  very  good  initial  too,  says  Joe. 

—That's  how  it's  worked,  says  the  citizen.  Trade  follows  the  flag. 
— Well,  says  J.  J.,  if  they're  any  worse  than  those  Belgians  in  the 
Congo  Free  Stale  they  must  be  bad.  Did  you  read  that  report  by 
a  man  what's  this  his  name  is? 
— Casement,  says  the  citizen.  He's  an  Irishman. 
— Yes,  that's  the  man,  says  J.  J.  Raping  the  women  and  girls  and 
flogging  the  natives  on  the  belly  to  squeeze  all  the  red  rubber  they 
can  out  of  them. 

— I  know  where  he's  gone,  says  Lenehan,  cracking  his  fingers. 
— ^Who?  says  I. 

— Bloom,  says  he.     The  courthouse  is  a  blind.     He  had  a  few 
bob  on  Thro'ivaway  and  he's  gone  to  gather  in  the  shekels. 
— Is  it  that  Kaffir?     says  the  citizen,  that  never  backed  a  horse 
in  anger  in  his  life. 

— That's  where  he's  gone,  says  Lenhan.     I  met  Bantam  Lyons  go- 
ing to  back  that  horse  only  1  put  him  off  it  and  he  told  me  Bloom 
gave  him  the  tip.    Bet  you  what  you  like  he  has  a  hundred  shillings 
to  five  on.     He's  the  only  man  in  Dublin  has  it.     A  dark  horse. 
— He's  a  bloody  dark  horse  himself,  says  Joe. 
— Mind,  Joe  says  I,  show  us  the  entrance  out. 


The    Little    Review  59 


— There  you  are,  says  Terry. 

So  I  just  went  round  to  the  back  of  the  yard  and  begob 
(hundred  ^lillings  to  five)  while  I  was  letting  off  my  {Throwaivay 
twenty  to)  letting  off  my  load  gob  says  I  to  myself  I  knew  he  was 
uneasy  in  his  (two  pints  off  Joe  and  one  in  Slattery's  off)  in  his 
mind  to  get  off  the  mark  to  (Hundred  sliillings  is  five  quid)  and 
when  they  were  in  the  (dark  horse)  Burke  told  me  card  party  and 
letting  on  the  Child  was  sick  (gob,  must  have  done  aJbout  a  gallon) 
flabbyarse  of  a  wife  speaking  down  the  tube  she's  better  or  she's 
(ow!)  all  a  plan,  so  he  could  vamoose  with  the  pool  if  he  won  or 
(Jesus,  full  up  I  was)  trading  wiithout  a  licence  (ow!)  never  be  up 
to  those  bloody (  there's  the  last  of  it)  Jerusalem  (ah!)  cuckoos. 

So  anyhow  when  I  got  back  they  were  at  it  dingdong,  John 
VVyse  saying  it  was  Bloom  gave  the  idea  for  Sinn  Fein  to  Griffith 
t )  put  in  his  paper  all  kinds  of  jerrymandering,  packed  juries  and 
the  world  to  walk  about  selling  Irish  industries.  Robbing  Peter  to 
pay  Paul.  Gob,  that  puts  the  bloody  Kybosh  on  it  if  old  sloppy 
eyes  is  mucking  \^\^  the  show.  God  save  Ireland  from  the  likes  of 
that  bloody  mouseabout.  Mr.  Bloom  with  his  argol  bargol;  Gob, 
he's  like  Lanty  MacHale's  goat  that'd  go  a  piece  of  the  road  with 
every  one. 

— Well,  it's  a  fact,  says  John  Wyse.    And  there's  the  man  now  that'll 
tell  you  all  about  it,  Martin  Cunningham. 

Sure  enough  the  castle  car  drove  up  with  Martin  on  it  and 
Jack  Power  with  him  and  a  fellow  named  Crofter  or  Crofton  pen- 
sioner out  of  the  collector  general's  an  orangeman  Blackburn  has 
on  the  registration  and  he  drawing  his  pay,  or  Crawford  jaunting 
around  the  country  at  the  King's  expense. 

Our  travellers  reached  the  rustic  hostelry  and  alighted  from 
their  palfreys. 

— Ho,  Varlet!  cried  he,  who  by  his  mien  seemed  the  leader  of  the 
party.     Saucy  Knave.     To  us! 

So  saying  he  knocked  loudly  with  his  swordhilt  upon  the 
open  lattice. 

Mine  host  came  forth  at  the  summons  girding  him  with  his 
tabard. 

■ — Give  you  good  den,  my  masters,  said  he  with  an  obsequious  bow. 
— Bestir  thyself,  sirah!  cried  he  who  had  knocked.  Look  to  our 
steeds.  And  for  ourselves  give  us  of  your  best  for  faith  we  need  it. 
— Lackaday,  good  masters,  said  the  host,  my  poor  house  has  but  a 
bare  larder.  I  know  not  what  to  offer  your  "lordships. 
— How  now,  fellow?  cried  the  second  of  the  party,  a  man  of 
pleasant  countenance,  so  serve  you  the  Kind's  messengers,  Master 


6o  The    Little    Review 


Tap  tun? 

An  instantaneous  change  overspread  the  landlord's  visage. 
— Cry  you  mercy,  gentlemen,  he  said  humbly.     An  you  be  the 
King's  messengers  (God  shield  his  majesty!)     You  shall  not  want 
for  aught.    The  kings  friends  (God  bless  his  majesty!)  Shall  not  go 
afasting  in  my  house  I  warrant  me. 

— Then  about!     cried  the  traveller  who  had  not  spoken,  a  lusty 
trencherman,  by  his  aspect.    Hast  aught  to  give  us? 

Mine  host  bowed  again  as  he  made  answer: 
— What  say  you,  good  masters,  to  a  cold  pigeon  pasty,  a  boar's  head 
with  pistachios  and  a  flagon  of  old  Rhenish? 
Gadzooks!  cried  the  last  speaker.    That  likes  me  well.     Pist- 
achios! 

— Aha!    cried   he   of   the   pleasant   countenance.     A   poor   house, 
and  a  bare  larder,  quotha!     'Tis  a  merry  rogue. 

So  in  comes  Martin  asking  where  was  Bloom. 
— Where  is  he?  says  Lenehan.     Defrauding  widows  and  orphans. 
— Isn't  that  a  fact,  says  John  Wyse,  that  I  was  telling  the  citizen 
about  Biloom  and  the  Sinn  Fein. 
— That's  so,  says  Martin.    Or  so  they  allege. 
— Who  made  those  allegations    says  Alf. 
— I,  says  Joe.    I'm  the  alligator, 

— And  after  all,  says  John  Wyse,  why  can't  a  jew  love  his  country 
like  the  next  fellow? 

— Why  not?     says  J.  J.,  when  he's  quite  sure  which  country  it  is. 
—Is  he  a  jew  or  a  gentile  or  what  the  hell  is  he?    says  Ned. 
— He's  a  perverted  jew,  says  Martin,  from  a  place  in  Hungary  and 
it  was  he  drew  up  all  the  plans  according  to  the  Hungarian  system. 
We  know  that  in  the  castle. 

— Isn't  he  a  cousin  of  Bloom  the  dentist,  says  Jack  Power. 
— Not  at  all,  says  Martin.    His  name  was  V'irag,  the  father's  name 
that  poisoned  himself.    He  changed  it  by  deedpoll,  the  father  did. 
— That's  the  new  Messiah  for  Ireland!  says  the  citizen.     Island  of 
saints  and  sages! 

— Well,  they're  still  waiting  for  their  redeemer,  says  Martin.     For 
that  matter  so  are  we. 

—Yes,  says  J.  J.,  and  every  male  that's  born  they  think  it  may  be 
their  Messiah  And  every  jew  is  in  a  tall  state  of  excitement,  I 
believe,  till  he  knows  if  he's  a  father  or  a  mother. 
— Exp>ecting  every  moment  will  be  his  next,  says  Lenehan. 
— O,  by  God,  says  Ned,  you  should  have  seen  Bloom  before  that 
son  of  his  that  died  was  bom.  I  met  him  one  day  in  the  south  city 
markets  buying  a  tin  of  Ncave's  food  six  weeks  before  the  wfe 


Tki    Little    Revigw  6i 


was  delivered.  _- 

— En  ventre  sa  mere,  says  J.  J. 

— Do  you  call  that  a  man?  says  the  citizen. 

— 1  wonder  did  he  ever  put  it  out  of  sight,  says  Joe. 

— Well,  there  were  two  children  born  anyhow,  says  Jack  Power. 

— And  who  does  he  suspect?    says  the  citizen. 

Gob,  there's  many  a  true  word  spoken  in  jest.  One  of  tliose 
mixed  middlings  he  is.  Lying  up  in  the  hotel,  Pisser  Burke  told 
me,  once  a  month  with  headache  like  a  totty  with  her  courses.  Why 
are  things  like  that  let  live?  Then  sloping  off  with  his  five  quid 
without  putting  up  a  pint  like  a  man. 

— Charity  to  the  neighbour,  says  Martin.     But  where  is  he?     We 
can't  wait, 

— A  wolf  in  sheep's  clothing,  says  the  citizen.    That's  what  he  is. 
Virag  from  Hungary!     Ahasuerus  I  call  him.     Cursed  by  God. 
— Have  you  time  for  a  brief  libation,  Martin?     says  Ned. 
— Only  one,  says  Martin.    We  must  be  quick.     John  Jameson. 
—You  Jack?     Crofton?     Three  half  ones,  Terry. 
— Saint  Patrick  would  want  to  come  and  convert  us  again,  says  the 
citizen,  after  allowing  things  like  that  to  contanminate  our  ^ores. 
—Well,  says  Martin,  taking  his  glass.     God  bless  all  here  is  my 
prayer. 

— Amen,  says  the  citizen. 
And  I'm  sure  he  will,  says  Joe. 


(To  be  continued) 


62  The    Little    Review 


POEMS 

Nuptial     Hour 
by  H.  H.  Bellaman 

Thru   the   twisted   iron   grill 
I  can  see  into  the  patio. 
The  last  gold  light  of  the  sun 
And  the  first  green  light  of  the  moon 
Break  in  cool  splinters  over  the  pool. 
The  foutnain  waves  a  long  slim  hand, 
and  beckons  me. 

The  East  wind 
And  the  West  wind 
Hide  in  the  Cottonwood 

and  embrace. 

.  .  .  You  sit  beside  the  fountain. 


August    Afternoon 

Still  water— sky  still. 
White  sycamore  boles 
Traverse  the  hot  spaces 
Above  brown  leaves 
On  rigid  green  water. 

My  gaze  strains  at  the  gem-like  stillness: 

Suddenly,  fwol  and  trees  expand, 

1  cannot  seize  their  vastncss. 

Tree  trunks  become  great  shafts  of  light 

Shooting  thru  interstellar  space. 

1  watch  the  motionless  struggle 

Of  brown  leaves,  big  as  ships, 

Clinging  to  an  unyielding  sea. 


The    Little    Review  63 


THE    READER   CRITIC 
\     Bequest 

//   this   be    niodcni.  give    us    U'(V({szvorth .'" — An    Editor. 

Very  well,  then 

You  shall  have  Wordsworth. 

I  give  you  also 

A  cast-iron   deer   for  your  dooryard, 

And   a   century-plant   which   is  guaranteed   to   bloom 

Before  World  Peace  is  established ; 

And   should   yc)u   still   be    unsatisfied, 

Here    are   two    handsome    steel    engravings 

Of  Pastor  Russell  and  A  Stag  At  Bay. 

Oh,  don't  mention  it !     You  really  deserve  them. 

Some   Saturday  afternoon   when   I   can   spare   the   time, 

I'll  come  around  and  trim  your  trees  and  hedges 

Into  the  form  of  birds  and  beasts. 

I  can   take  a  hydrangea  bush 

And  with  a  pruning-knife,  give  it  the  shape 

Of   a   Peruvian   ant-eater. 

In  the  meantime 

I  give  you  Wordsworth — lots  of  him! 

I  hope  you  choke. 

WEARE  IIOLBROOK 


Crane's^ 

^ary  garden  Ghoedlates^ 

"QJour  ^hoeolatefarp  really  the  flne^  7 hm'e 
eOer  tasked  anya>hen>  in  theV^orld" 


SCOTT    &    S  ELTZER 
NEW    P  U  BL I  CATION  S 

THE    FORTUNE 

A   ROMANCE    OF   FRIENDSHIP 

By    DOUGIiAS    GOLDRING 

12  mo.  Cloth.  $1.75  net 

ROMAIN    ROLIiAND 
the   author   of  '"Jean-Christophe,"   writes   to    Mr.    Goldring  about 
this  novel: 

"I  have  read  the  book  with  joy.  Your  work  is  all  alive — people, 
dialogue  and  thoughts.  You  have  great  talent  and  a  free  spirit 
with  which  I  sympathize  cordially.  I  clasp  your  hand  with  all 
my  heart." 

THE  LONDON  SPHERK  says: 
"A  book  of  such  remarkable  qualities  that 
none  should  fail  to  read  it," 

THE    BURNING    SECRET 

By   STEPHEN    BRANCH 

12  mo.   Cloth,  $1.25  net 

The  secret  unfolded  in  this  story  is  that  which  lies  buried  in  all 
human  nature.  This  is  a  piece  of  fiction  of  a  remarkable  im- 
pressive character.  It  is  a  revelation  of  the  workings  of  the  heart 
of  a  boy  on  the  verge  of  manhood. 


THE  STRADIVARIUS  OF  PIANOS 

313  FIFTH  AVENUE 
NEW  YORK 


OUR     MICHIGAN     BOULEVARD     STORE 

Two  minutes  away  from  the  crowded  shopping 
district  you  may  shop  and  take  your  luncheon 
in  quiet  and  luxury.  Our  candies  are  known  to 
the  discriminating  for  their  supreme  quality  .... 


i\mh 


CONl  i:CT10NS 


CHICAGO 


UTTLE 
RBYIBW 


A  NACAZINI  OP  me  MLU 

lUMNG    NO    COMPROMISE    WlfN    Tm    PttBUC    fJISfl 


Book  For  Little  Review  Readers 

From  the  List  of 

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COMPANY    ^Sil°?oi!l° 

COLOURED  STARS 

An  Anthology  of  Asiatic  Poetry 
Translated  by  Edward  Powys  Mathers 

"From  first  to  laat  It  opens  magic  casements  above  the  salt  foam  or 
perilous  seas  of  love.  Here  we  have  the  authentic  music  of  the  soul  ana 
Its  mother,  the  body,  which  Occidental  mimics  stand  on  their  sophtatlcated 
heads  In  vain  to  attain." — Clement  Wood.  "The  ardors  celebrated  in  'Col- 
oured Stars'  have  not  been  uttered  In  original  English  poetry  since  the 
days  of  the  young  Marlowe  and  the  young  Shakespeare."— The  Nation. 
11.00  net. 


MY  ANTONIA 

By  Willa  S.  Gather 

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ica n  lias  ever  done." — ^H.  Lt.  Men- 
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PHILOSOPHY  OF 
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By  Havclock  Ellis 

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FANTASTICS 

By  Lafcadio  Hearn 

"Dreams  of  a  tropical  city"  writ- 
ten by  Hearn  in  New  Orleans. 
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POEMS 

1908—1919 

By  John  Drinkwater 

"Singularly  mature  beauty  and 
fine  craftsmanship."  —  Brooklyn 
Eagle.    12.00  net 

SECOND  BOOK 
MODERN   VERSE 

By  Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse 

Selections  from  the  work  of  near- 
ly 100  contemporary  poets.  fl.BO 
net.     Flex.  lea.  (2.50  net. 


CONVENTION  AND 
REVOLT  IN  POETRY 

By  J.  Livingston  Lowes 

"The  most  adequa/te  and  penetrating  work  on  poetry  In  the  language." 
— dUoago  Tribune.     11.75  net 


IBTTLE  RiYIEW 

VOL.  VI       MARCH,  1920  No.  10 


JVitter  Bynner 

Gaiidier-Brzeska 

William  Saphier 

Else  von  Freytag-Loringhoven 

Sherwood  Anderson 

Dorothy  Richardson 

H.  Gaudier-Brzeska 

Emanuel  Carnevali 


CONTENTS 

Four  Chinese  Home  Songs 

Temple  Inscriptions 

Drawing* 

The  Wise  Man 

Poems 

A  New  Testament,  VI — IX 

Interim,  Chapter  Nine 

Drawing* 

Tales  of  a  Hurried  Man,  III 

Discussion : 

Point  Blank  Israel  Solon 

The  Last  Word  Evelyn  Scott 

The  Works  of  Thomas  Vaughan  Mary  Butts 

Eva  Gauthier  E.  B. 

Tolstoi  and  May  Sinclair  Pierre  Loving  and  jh 

Ulysses,  Episode  XII  (continued)  James  Joyce 

The  Reader  Critic: 

The  Good  Old  Days  M.  C.  J. 

Literal  Israel  Solon  and  jh 

*  From  the  H.  Gandier-Brxeska  Portfolio, 
fuhliiked  by  the  O-vid  Press.     Tiventy  draiuings  on  Japanese  -vellum,     ffjt.) 

Subscription  price,  payable  in  advance,  in  the  United  States  and  Terri- 
tories, ?2.50  per  year;  Single  copy  25  c.,  Canada,  $2.75;  Foreign,  $3.00.  Pub- 
lished  monthly  and   copyrighted,    1920  by  Margaret  C.  Anderson. 

Manuscripts  must  be  submitted  at  author's  risk,  with  return  postage. 

Emtered  as  second  class  matter  March  16,  1917,  at  the  Post  Office  at 
New  York,   N.    Y.,   under  the   act   of  March  3,  1879. 

MARGARET  C.  ANDERSON,  Publisher 

24  West  Sixteenth  Street,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Foreign  Offic/'''  43  Belsize  Park,  Gardens,  London  N.  W.  3. 


Announcements  for  the  Spring  of  ig20 


The  April  number  of  the  Little  Review  will  contain 
poems  and  drawings  by  Jean  de  Bosschere,  with  a  photo- 
graph, and  notes  on  the  poet. 

An  early  number  will  be  devoted  to  a  discussion  of  the 
work  of  W.  H.  Hudson.  Articles  by  Hueffer,  Eliot  and 
Pound  will  make  up  this  number. 

Each  issue  of  the  Little  Review  will  contain  reproduc- 
tions of  drawings. 


In  response  to  numerous  requests  for  photographs  of  our 
contributors,  we  are  planning  to  publish  one  in  every 
number  hereafter. 


^^ yohnny  Appleseed'' 


At  the  suggestion  of  Vachel  Lindsay  we  invite  all  readers 
who  have  ever  heard  an  unpublished  story  of  the  orchardist 
John  Chapman  to  send  these  stories  or  legends  in  to  the 
Little  Review.  They  must  be  of  authentic  and  direct 
origin,  not  merely  romantic  concoctions  like  Dwight  Hillis's 
mushy  novel  by  the  name  of  "John  Chapman." 


THE 
UTTLE  REVIEW 


Four  Chinese  Home  Songs 
of  the  T'^ang  Dynasty 

{A.  D.  600 — 900) 

translated  by  Witter  Bynner  and  S,  C.  Kiang 

Kang-Hu 

To  a   Traveler  bound  for  the  Capital 

by  Ts'eng  Sheriff 

MY  home  in  the  east  is  a  long,  long  waj% 
I  am  old  and  my  sleeve  is  wet  with  tears, 
On   horseback  we  meet   and  have   no  means  of   writing, 
Tell  them  three  words:  "He  is  safe." 

A  Message  from  the  Fu  Yong  Inn 

entrusted  to   Hsin  Chjen 

by    JVang    CK ang   Ling 

In  a  cold  night-rain  you  have  entered  Wu 
And  are  off  for  Ch'u  in  the  level  dawn. 
Say  this,  if  they  ask  you  in  Lo  Ying: 
"His  heart  is  like  ice  in  a  pot  of  crystal." 


The    Little   Review 


Crossi?ig    the    Han   toward  Home 
by    Li   P'in 

Away  from  home,  I  had  no  news 
Winter  after  winter,  spring  after  spring. 
Now,  nearing  my  village,  meeting  people, 
I  dare  not  ask  a  single  question. 

Coming    Home 

by  He  Chih-Chang 

Leaving  home  a  youth,  I  come  back  old, 
Speaking  as  then,  but  with  hair  grown  thin, 
And  my  children,  meeting  me,  do  not  know  me 
But  smile  and  say,  "Stranger,  where  are  you  from?" 


The    Little    Re vi e 


IV 


Temple  Inscriptions 

(In    China) 
hy  Witter  Bynner 


H 


ALF-WAY  up  the  hill 
And  into  the  light. 


Where  the  heart  is, 

There  is  Buddha. 

How  can  the  hills  of  the  spirit 

Be  only  in  the  Western  Quarter? 

The  distant  water, 

The  near  hills, 

The  deep  blue  of  the  clearing  sky. 

What  is  sacred  is  universal. 

The  three  religions  have  for  their  soul 

One  principle. 

The  pure  wind, 

The  bright  moon. 

The  clear  and  thoughtful  heart. 


' 

fe'".^,   -  M-^, 

;ti^' 

/ 

i 

/ 

1 

1 

•     \ 

' 

\  -J 

■ — 

Drawing 


by  H.  Gaudier- Bi'ze ska 


The    Little    Review 


The   Wise  Man 

by  William  Saphier 


IX  weeks  before  I  was  born,  my  mother,  sitting  at  the  win- 
dow, watched  the  sun  set  behind  a  small  village  cemetery. 
The  cemetery  was  on  a  western  mountain,  placed  there  by 
the  people  to  remind  them  that  the  end  of  each  day  brought 
them  nearer  to  their  own  end. 

One  evening,  when  the  sun  was  about  to  wake  the  stars  and  spread 
a  dark  blue  linen  over  a  quiet  sky  for  them  to  play  on,  she  heard  the 
cry  of  a  child.  It  was  a  soft  but  distinct  sound.  It  continued,  it 
grew.  No  one  was  in  the  house.  No  one  was  near.  Her  amazed 
black  eyes  grew  larger.  She  knew  the  cry  came  from  her  own  body, 
from  under  her  own  heart.  She  decided  to  go  to  her  mother-in-law, 
my  grandmother.  Slowly,  as  if  carrying  something  she  did  not  wish 
to  spill,  she  started  down  to  the  valley. 

She  found  grandmother,  a  little  grey-haired  lady  with  eyes  of  fun, 
likewise  watching  the  sinking  sun.  Grandmother  did  not  believe  the 
story.  She  scolded  mother  for  staying  alone  so  much  and  made  her 
promise  to  come  every  evening  before  sunset  and  wait  for  father  to 
return  from  work. 

The  next  evening,  just  as  the  sun  kissed  the  top  of  some  young 
birches  near  a  clear  mountain  stream,  my  mother  went  to  my  grand- 
mother and  began  planning  for  the  cercm.onies  of  my  arrival.  Soon 
they  heard  the  crying  of  a  child.  Grandmother  ran  all  over  the 
house,  searching  inside  and  out,  but  soon  had  to  admit  that  it  was  the 
unborn  child  crying.  She  was  frightened,  and  being  superstitious 
took  my  mother  to  the  rabbi  of  the  village. 

The  old  man,  whose  thin  long  beard  reminded  one  of  a  sneeze, 
listened  while  his  eyes  followed  two  swallows.  He  shook  his  head. 
He  knew  little;  he  was  a  poor  man  in  this  mountain  nest.  Perhaps 
the  young  pregnant  woman  had  heard  merely  the  echo  of  a  shofer  on 
Mount  Sinai?  Or  was  it  the  beginning  of  a  prayer  to  be  finished 
in  King  Solomon's  temple,  soon  to  rebuilt  in  the  promised  land? 
He  knew  not.     Grandmother  sighed  and  she  too  shook  her  head. 


The    Little    R  e  v  i  e 


IV 


The  rabbi  said  if  she  really  wanted  to  know  he  would  give  her  the 
address  of  a  great  man,  a  rabbi  a  hundred  years  old,  who  lived  some- 
where in  Poland.  He  knew  everything.  He  would  surely  answer 
every  question. 

Grandmother  took  the  address;  she  was  not  satisfied  with  the  old 
man's  explanation.  She  revered  and  loved  the  old  rabbi,  but  there 
was  something  queer  about  him,  as  every  one  in  town  knew.  Of 
course  she  would  not  believe  some  of  the  wildest  tales  she  had  heard 
about  him,  like  the  story  Long  Mary's  oldest  son  told :  once,  after 
sunrise,  he  had  seen  the  rabbi  dance  with  a  "shikse,"  a  gooseherder 
with  bare  feet,  near  the  brook..  This  she  could  not  believe,  but  she 
'knew  the  old  man  ate  no  meat  and  drank  no  wine  except  at  religious 
functions.  No  one  knew  how  old  he  was,  and  he  played  many  hours 
with  beetles  and  oak  leaves.  He  was  a  great  scholar.  Great  men 
came  from  distant  places  and  stayed  with  him  many  hours.  He  had 
written  many  books  in  Hebrew,  some  said,  but  for  practical  human 
purposes  he  was  little  good. 

Grandmother  insisted  that  mother  go  to  the  great  wise  rabbi  who 
knew  everything.  IMother,  being  far  away  from  her  own  folk,  and 
father  being  a  good  son,  they  obeyed. 

Four  days  after  this  father,  dressed  in  his  best  clothes  and  mother 
in  a  dress  made  for  this  one  purpose,  I  think,  of  red  silk  and  a  black 
lace  shawl  on  her  head,  were  waiting  for  grandmother.  A  big  green 
fan  father  had  given  her  a  few  weeks  before  they  were  married  kept 
mother  busy.  Grandmother  soon  arrived ;  a  purple  silk  dress  with 
tiny  green  roses  and  stiff  red  birch  leaves,  a  lemon  yellow  and  black 
square  patterned  shawl  and  a  flaming  red  handbag  completed  her 
being. 

Father  took  grandfather's  best  horses,  two  fast  "mountain  cats," 
and  his  own  droshka  painted  pale  blue  with  old  rose  panels.  He  was 
continuously  brushing  his  clothes  while  the  women  were  getting  into 
the  vehicle.  Soon  with  his  orange-red  beard  waving  in  the  wind,  he 
started  for  the  nearest  large  town  with  a  railroad  station.  The 
women  went  on,  he  remained  behind  to  his  work. 

After  a  few  daj's  and  in  many  ways  they  reached  the  town  in 


The    Little    Revie  IV  9 

Poland — I  forget  the  name,  no  one  except  its  inhabitants  can  pro- 
nounce it, — and  came  to  the  great  rabbi.  The  old  man  was  very 
wise  and  important  and  it  cost  considerable  to  be  admitted  to  his 
presence.  The  house  seemed  surrounded  by  beggars  in  rags,  but  with 
ruddy  faces.  ; 

He  listened  to  my  grandmother's  tale,  she  acted  as  spokesman. 
The  old  man  did  not  even  look  at  my  mother  who  was  blushing  all 
the  time,  making  her  red  dress  appear  pale,  and  her  big  black  eyes 
wandered  on  the  floor  and  the  objects  near  it.  She  could  not  re- 
member his  face  but  remembered  his  black  velvet  shoes  embroidered 
with  big  red  roses  and  the  fine  green  stool  under  them.  He  wore  a 
long  black  silk  coat,  white  stockings  and  knee  breeches ;  a  compromise 
in  color  made  up  the  rest. 

He  too  shook  his  head,  he  could  not  believe  it.  He  wanted  to  hear 
it  with  his  own  ears.  Who  has  ever  heard  an  unborn  baby  cry? 
Toward  evening  they  came  again  and  the  rabbi  had  invited  a  few  of 
his  friends  and  pupils,  students  of  the  talmud.  All  eyes  were  on 
mother.  Her  big  black  eyes  again  looked  to  the  floor  for  relief  and 
all  the  shoes  appeared  like  a  lot  of  big  black  June  bugs  moving  back 
and  forth.  A  few  whispered  and  the  old  man  in  his  huge  armchair 
coughed  a  few  times  and  looked  around  him  like  a  king  on  his  throne, 
and  ray  mother  felt  guilty  of  some  horrible  crime. 

Presently  the  cry  came,  first  very  faint,  then  louder  and  louder. 
The  setting  sun  silhouetted  stiff  heads  with  curling  beards  on  the 
clean  white  calcomined  wall.  All  present  held  their  breath.  A  few 
of  the  window-panes  trembled  and  the  cry  grew  louder  than  ever. 
It  seemed  a  protest  from  the  child  against  these  intruders.  Mother 
could  not  longer  stand  the  atmosphere;  she  ran  out  of  the  room 
crying.     The  wise  man  asked  three  days  to  think  it  over. 

On  the  appointed  day  grandmother  came  alone  to  the  wise  old 
man.  He  asked  her  many  irrelevant  questions  and  as  if  pronouncing 
sentence  said:  "He  is  not  overanxious  to  come  into  this  world.  It  is 
not  good  enough  for  him.  Go  home,  good  woman,  and  peace  be  with 
you."  She  did  and  slept  most  of  the  way,  but  mother's  eyebrows  met 
in  a  hard  line  over  two  anxious  eyes. 


10  The    Little    Review 


Poems 

by  Else  von  Freytag-Lorl?ighoven 

Irrender    K'6  n  i  g 
(an  Leopold  von  Freytag-Loringhoven) 

Du  aber — niein  Koiiig — vcrgassest  mich ! 
Ohnc  mich  ist  deine  Krone  verloren — 
In  fremder  Lande — ein  Abenteurcr 
Zerlumpt  und  zerschlisscn  irrst  du  unilu'i! 

Ich — dein  Land — bin  ohne  Konig  verloren — 
Knarren  im  Berg  und  briillende  Wogen — 
Schwirrende  Vogel  und  knatternde  Aeste — 
Konig — der  du  im  Triiben  wanderst — 
Panzer  und  Scharlach  war  dein  Gewand. 

Dein  Lacheln  ward  geliebt — 

Deiner  frohen  Laune  wurdeii  Tcppiche  gclegl,  Laub  gestreut- 

Miinder  summten  deine  Lieblichkeit — 
Briiste  bogen  sich  nach  dciiiem  Glanz — 

Konig,  der  du  im  Triiben  wanderst — 
Ohne  Gepr.'iiigc  his  (hi  fi;i  Schalks-i:':r 
Ohne  Gewaffen  ein  Gespenst. 


The    Little    Review  ii 

Klink — Hratzvenga 
(Deathwail) 

Narin  — Tzarissamanili 
(He  is  dead!) 

Ildrich  mitzdonja — astatootch 

Ninj — iffe  kniek — 

Ninj — iffe  kniek! 

Arr — karr — 

Arrkarr — barr 

Karrarr — barr — 

Arr — 

Arrkarr — 

Mardar 

Mar — doorde — dar — 

Mardoodaar !   !   ! 

Mardoodd — va — hist — kniek 

Hist — kniek? 

Goorde  mee — niss 

Goorde  mee!   !   ! 
Narin — tzarissamanilj — 
Narin — tzarissamanilj !    !    ! 
Hee — hassee  ? 
O — voorrr ! 

Kardirdesporvorde — hadoorde — klossiiux 
Kalsinjevasnije — alquille — masre 
Alquille  masreje  paquille — paquille 
Ojombe — ojoombe — oje 


12  The    Little    Rev 


I  e  w 


Narin — tzarissamanilj — 
Narin — tzarissamanilj    !    !    ! 
Ve — O — voorrr — ! 
Vevoorrr — 
Vrmbbbjjj — sh — 

Sh— sh 

Ooh  !  !  ! 

Vrmbbbj  j  j  — sh — sh — 

Sh — sh — 

Vnnm. 


A  New    Testament 

by   Sherwood  Andersofi 

VI 

I    am  one  who  has  walked  out  of  a  tall  building  into  the  streets 
of  a  city  and  over  plains  into  a  forest  that  fringes  a  river.     My 
notion  is  one  of  escape.     I  can  no  longer  bear  the  life  led  in 
my  father's  house.     I  am  a  child  and  cannot  escape  out  of  my 
childhood.     There  is  a  door  through  which  I  cannot  enter,  a 
wall  I  cannot  climb.    The  idea  of  escape  long  ago  attacked  the  seat 
of  my  reason — a  quaint  fancy  as  well  enough  I  know  that  such  a 
thing  as  reason  cannot  exist. 

In  the  streets  of  a  city,  after  I  had  walked  out  at  the  window  of  a 
tall  building,  a  man  came  to  walk  with  me.  He  held  a  small  stick 
in  his  hand  and  twirled  it  over  his  finger.  He  said  God  would  for- 
give me  my  transgressions  if  I  would  go  in  at  the  door  of  God's  house 
and  cease  walking  up  and  down. 

God  lies  on  the  ground  in  the  forest  with  his  head  at  the  base  of 
a  tree. 


The    Little    Review 


The  fingers  of  God  flutter  like  the  wings  of  a  gnat. 

A  little  leaf  in  the  forest,  touched  by  the  finger  of  God,  whirls  and 
twists  in  an  agony  of  delight. 

I  have  bathed  in  a  stream  and  walked  up  and  down  on  prairies. 
I  have  been  lying  at  full  length  in  Illinois. 

I  have  put  my  hands  into  Iowa,  into  Kentucky,  into  Indiana, 
Kansas,  Ohio,  Nebraska,  the  Dakotas. 

My  mind  is  the  mind  of  a  little  man  with  thin  legs  who  sells 
cigars  in  a  store.  My  mind  is  the  mind  of  a  cripple  who  died  in  an 
alleyway  at  Cleveland,  Ohio.  My  mind  is  the  mind  of  a  child  who 
fell  into  a  well,  the  mind  of  one  who  cleans  the  streets  of  a  city,  of 
an  actor  who  walks  up  and  down  on  a  stage. 

I  double  my  fists  and  strike  the  ground  a  sharp  blow.  Ridges  of 
land  squirt  out  through  my  fingers. 

I  have  remade  the  land  of  my  fathers. 

I  have  come  out  of  my  house  to  remake  the  land. 

I  have  made  a  flat  place  with  the  palms  of  my  hands. 

VII 

Trains  go  out  of  the  city  of  Chicago  and  into  her  sisters  cities 
of  the  valley  but  the  minds  of  men  do  not  go. 

The  minds  of  men  do  not  run  out  over  the  flat  prairies. 
The  minds  of  my  brothers  stay  in  their  houses. 
The  fancies  of  men  are  bound  with  iron  bands. 
They  sleep  in  a  prison. 

The  flesh  of  women  is  no  longer  sweet. 
Women  are  laid  in  beds. 
They  have  not  walked  where  the  wind  is. 

Their  legs  have  not  been  caressed  by  winds  that  blovv-  low,  leaping 
along,  scampering  over  the  ground. 


14  T  h  e    L  it  1 1  e    Re  V  tew 

Women  weave  laces  with  their  fingers  and  open  their  breasts  to 
the  eyes  of  the  windows  but  they  do  not  open  their  eyes  to  the 
morning  h'ght. 

VIII 

The  notion  of  becoming  a  Jeremiah  pleases  my  childish  fancy. 

I  shall  be  a  Jeremiah  in  the  mood  that  comes  over  God  when  he 
amuses  himself  by  tickling  a  solitary  leaf  in  a  forest. 

I  shall  walk  a  long  way  and  sit  down  in  the  grass. 

When  night  comes  I  shall  weep. 

The  hot  tears  that  run  out  of  my  eyes  shall  make  a  little  stream 
in  which  fishes  shall  live. 

My  tears  shall  be  many  and  shall  make  a  broad  river  over  which 
birds  shall  fly  in  the  light  of  a  morning. 

My  tears  shall  mature  a  stalk  of  corn  that  shall  feed  a  little  mouse 
that  shall  nibble  forever  at  the  foundations  of  buildings  within  which 
the  fancies  of  men  have  decayed. 

IX 

You  have  grey  eyes  very  large  and  round.  Your  eyes  are  like 
moons  rising  out  of  a  swamp  in  November.  Your  eyes  are  like  the 
eyes  of  little  foxes. 

Your  eyes  are  grey.  Tomorrow  they  shall  be  red  with  weeping, 
as  red  as  a  sumac  growing  beside  a  dusty  road  in  Ohio.  The  feet 
of  many  people  are  running  over  the  grey  of  your  eyes. 

It  is  my  passion  to  run  like  a  frightened  little  animal  over  the  grey 
of  your  eyes.     My  own  story  is  curious. 

Long  ago  I  emerged  from  a  hole  in  the  valley  where  a  stream  of 
water  runs  down  over  rocks.  I  crept  out  through  the  hole  to  a  flat 
black  rock  and  lay  sprawling.  I  stared  at  the  sun.  On  all  sides  of 
me  lay  the  forests.  I  went  back  into  the  hole  naked  and  came  out 
again  on  all  fours  with  long  hair  on  my  body. 


TheLittleRevieiv  15 


It  was  ordained  I  could  not  live  among  men. 

Because  I  was  naked  and  ashamed  I  started  to  crawl  away  into 
the  North.  The  hunger  that  has  never  been  appeased  lay  deep  in  me. 
It  is  because  of  my  hunger  that  I  have  learned  to  walk  standing  up, 
that  I  have  learned  to  walk  up  and  down. 

It  is  because  of  my  hunger  I  am  standing  on  a  yellow  place  making 
marks  in  the  sand  at  the  edge  of  a  stream. 

My  place  for  sand  writing  is  narrow  and  I  write  with  a  dull  stick 
that  makes  the  words  crudely.  There  are  many  words  I  do  not 
know.     I  have  missed  many  sweet  words. 

I  am  a  young  man  in  the  flush  of  my  passions. 

I  am  an  old  grey  man  with  brittle  bones. 

I  am  on  yellow  sand  by  a  stream  at  dawn. 

The  hair  is  worn  from  my  body  because  I  have  been  crawling  on 
my  belly  through  towns. 

If  my  sand  place  were  large  and  long  I  should  be  able  to  tell  you  a 
wonderful  tale. 

The  water  will  arise  in  the  stream  and  wash  my  story  away. 
The  hair  is  worn  from  my  body  from  crawling  though  towns. 
I  am  a  dumb  man  crept  out  of  a  hole  in  the  hills. 

I  have  no  words. 

The  stick  with  which  I  write  is  dull. 

I  have  no  words. 

My  stick  is  worn  away. 

I  wonder  why  your  grey  eyes  did  not  come  with  the  dawn  and 
teach  me  the  words.  I  was  for  a  long  time  alone  and  dumb. 

There  was  no  word  for  the  whispering  wind. 

There  was  no  word  for  the  groaning  of  trees. 

There  was  no  word  for  the  false  dawn  that  looked  over  tht 
tops  of  the  trees. 


1 6  TheLittleRevieiv 


The  light  of  the  true  dawn  made  music  among  the  trees.  Why 
were  you  not  there?  Why  did  you  not  give  me  the  words?  You 
were  in  the  towns  when  I  crept  on  my  belly  like  a  beast.  You  had 
made  the  towns  and  they  lay  on  broad  plains  between  hills.  On  the 
street  of  a  town  there  was  a  women  with  black  hair.  She  did  not 
have  grey  eyes.  Was  she  your  sister?  She  was  clothed  in  a  black 
garment  and  ran  screaming  through  streets.  Many  men  were  tied 
to  posts  beneath  the  eaves  of  the  houses.  Icicles  made  from  the  tears 
of  children  hung  from  the  houses.  The  icicles  clung  to  the  eaves 
of  the  houses. 

It  was  night  when  I  crept  into  the  towns.  As  I  went  forward, 
creeping  like  a  cat  on  my  belly,  the  men  trembled  like  leaves  in  a 
forest  God  has  touched  with  his  fingers. 

Something  occured.  A  warm  wave  of  feeling  ran  up  through  the 
men.  It  ascended  to  the  eaves  of  the  houses.  Drops  of  icy  cold 
water  fell  on  the  heads  of  the  men. 

The  men  were  very  cold. 

The  woman  with  black  hair,  clad  in  a  black  garment,  ran  past  me 
through  the  streets. 
She  screamed. 

I  did  not  learn  any  new  sweet  word  in  the  town  but  I  learned  to 
scream  like  a  women  in  pain. 

{to  be  continued) 


The    Little   Review  17 

Interim 

by  Dorothy   Richardson 

Chapter  Eight  {continued) 

MIRIAM  flung  down  Tansley  Street  telling  her  news. 
Her  conflict   with   the   June   dust   and  heat  of   the 
Euston  Road  had  made  her  forget  it.     Back  in  her 
own  world  it  leapt  at  her  from  every  sunlit  paving 
stone;  drawing  her  on  almost  at  a  run.     There  was 
enough  to  carry  her  leaping  steps  right  down  through  London,  to  the 
edge  of  some  unfamiliar  part  and  back  again,  but  her  room  called 
her;  she  would  go  in  and  up  to  it  and  come  out  again. 

hopeless  impossibility good  reliable  Budge-Whitlock 

at  fifteen.  You  won't  get  a  Primus  under  twenty-five.  Those  other 
makes  are  not  made  to  last;  giving  way  inside  somewhere  where  you 
could  not  see,  suddenly;  in  the  midst  of  the  traffic;  the  man's  new 
bicycle,  coming  in  two,  in  Cheapside.  .  .  .  smiling,  I've  got  a  message 
for  you  from  Winthrop ;  well  that's  not  strictly  true.  The  fact  is  he 
wants  to  advance  the  money  without  your  knowing  it;  commissioned 
me  to  see  what  I  can  do.  You  needn't  hesitate;  he's  got  plenty  of 
spare  cash.  I'll  buy  the  machine  and  you'll  owe  the  price  to  me. 
Kind  kind  Winthrop,  talking  in  the  workshop.  It's  a  ph-pity  she 
shouldn't  av  a  ph-ph-machine  if  she  wants  one  without  waiting  t-ph 
save  up  frit.  ...  I  say  Miss  Henderson  here's  a  chance  for  you ;  new 
machine;  going  half-price.  No  bunkum.  It's  Lady  Slater's.  She's 
off  to  India.  I'll  overhaul  it  for  you.  Pay  as  you  like  through  her 
steward.  My  advice  is  you  close.  You  won't  get  a  better  chance  .  .  . 
reaping  the  benefit  of  Mr.  Layton's  eternal  talk  about  bicycling  .  .  . 
no  trouble ;  overhauled  and  reliable ;  coming  out  of  space. 

....  Lifted  off  the  earth,  sitting  at  rest  in  the  moving  air,  the 
London  air  turning  into  fresh  moving  air  flowing  through  your  head, 
the  green  squares  and  high  houses  moving,  sheering  smoothly  along, 
sailing  towards  you  changed,  upright  and  alive,  moving  by,  speaking, 


1 8  The    Little    Revie  IV 


telescoping  away  behind  uiiforgottcii,  still  visible,  staying  in  your 
forward-looking  eyes,  being  added  to  in  unbroken  movement,  a  whole, 
moving  silently  to  the  sound  of  firm  white  tyres  circling  on  smooth 
wood,  echoing  through  endless  future  to  the  riding  ring  of  the  little 
bell,  ground  easily  out  by  firm  new  cogs.  .  .  .  Comitry  roads  flowing 
by  in  sun  and  shadow;  the  ring  of  the  bell  making  the  hedges  brilliant 
at  empty  turnings  ...  all  there  in  your  mind  with  dew  and  freshness 
as  you  threaded  round  and  round  and  in  and  out  of  the  maze  of 
squares  in  evening  light ;  consuming  the  evening  time  but  leaving  you 
careless  and  strong;  even  with  the  bad  loose  hired  machine. 

She  let  herself  in  and  swept  into  the  dining-room  taking  in  while 
she  said  eagerly,  crossing  the  room,  I've  bought  a  machine.  A  Wol- 
verhampton Humber.  With  Beeston  tyres.  B.  S.  A.  fittings.  Ball 
bearings  .  .  .  the  doctors  grouped  about  the  mantlepiece.  They 
gathered  round  her.  She  was  going  backwards;  through  a  scene  she 
recognized;  in  a  dream.  Dr.  von  Heber's  welcoming  smile  stood  at 
the  end  of  it.  They  could  not  be  there  idle  at  this  time  of  day,  she 
assured  herself  as  she  talked.  She  knew  they  were  there  before  she 
came  in,  without  even  thinking  of  them.  She  sat  down  in  their  midst 
confidently  saying  the  phrases  of  the  scene  as  they  came  towards  her, 
backwards  unfolding.  The  doctors  went  back  with  her,  brothers, 
supporting  and  following.  Her  bicpcle  led  the  way.  Their  bright 
world  had  made  it  for  her. 

They  had  seen  the  English  country  with  her.  It  was  more  alive 
to  them.  They  would  remember.  Dr.  von  Heber  was  taking  it  in, 
with  his  best  ruminating  smile,  as  a  personal  possession ;  seeing  it  with 
English  ejTS.  Her  last  year's  ride  through  the  counties  was  shared 
now.     It  w'ould  go  to  Canada. 

"It's  coming  all  the  way  from  Bakeuell." 

"Where  will  that  place  be?" 

"Oh  I  don't  know;  somewhere;  in  the  north  I  think.  Yorkshire. 
No,  the  Peak.  The  Peak  district.  Peak  Freane.  They  bake  splen- 
didly. The  further  north  you  get  the  better  they  bake."  The  scene 
was  swaying  forward  into  newness.  Dr.  Winchester  suddenly  began 
talking  about  the  historical  interest  of  the  neighbourhood.    They  had 


The    Little    Review  19 

all  been  down  to  look  at  the  Old  Curiosity  Shop  .  .  .  there  was  some- 
thing about  it  .  .  .  and  there  was  a  better  local  story  of  their  kind. 
She  told  Mr.  Layton's  story  of  the  passage  in  Little  Gower  Place, 
body  snatchers  carrying  newly  buried  bodies  through  it  by  night  from 
St.  Pancras  churchyard  to  the  hospital. 

"You  don't  say  so.  To  think  we've  gone  along  there  this  while 
and  not  known." 

"That  shop  in  Lincoln's  Inn  isn't  the  shop  Dickens  meant.  It's 
been  pulled  down.  It's  only  the  site.  Some  people  think  Dickens 
is  sentimental." 

"Those  who  think  so  are  hyper-critical.  Besides  being  sentimental 
don't  prevent  him  being  one  of  your  very  greatest  men.  You  should 
appreciate  him  highly.  If  ever  there  was  any  man  revealed  abuses  . .  . 
You  ought  to  read  our  Holmes'  Elsie  Venner.  We  call  it  his  medi- 
cated novel  over  at  home,"  smiled  Dr.  von  Heber.  He  was  speaking 
low,  making  a  separate  conversation.  The  others  were  talking 
together. 

"Yes,"  murmured  Miriam.  "I  must."  They  both  smiled  a  wide 
agreement.  "I've  got  it  over  at  home,"  murmured  Dr.  von  Heber, 
his  mile  deepening  forwards.  You  shall  read  it  when  you  come. 
We'll  read  it,  he  said  smiling  to  himself.  She  tried  to  stay  where  he 
was,  not  to  be  distracted  by  her  thoughts.  It  must  be  Holmes'  worst 
book.    A  book  written  on  purpose,  to  prove  something. 

"Didactic,"  she  said  with  helpless  suddenness.  "I  like  Holmes 
breakfast  books." 

"You've  read  those?" 

"Yes,"  said  Miriam  wearily.  He  had  caught  something  from  her 
thoughts.  She  saw  him  looking  smaller,  confined  to  the  passing 
English  present,  a  passing  moment  in  his  determined  Canadian  life. 
His  strong  unconsidered  opinions  held  him  through  it  and  would 
receive  and  engulf  him  forever  when  he  went  back.  Perhaps  he  had 
not  noticed  her  thoughts.  Well  I  must  bid  you  a  welcome  adoo  she 
said  getting  up  to  go. 

"Now  where  he  smiled  rising,  and  surrounding  her  with  his  smile, 
where  did  you  discover  Artemus  Ward?" 


20  The    Little    Review 


Chapter  Nine 

It  was  Mrs.  Bailey  coming  up  the  top  flight  clearing  her  throat. 
Tapping  at  the  door, 

"Ah,  I  thought  the  young  lady  was  in.  I  thought  so."  Mrs. 
Bailey  stood  approving  inside  the  door.  The  sunlight  streamed  on  to 
her  shabby  skirt.  The  large  dusty  house,  the  many  downstair  rooms, 
the  mj'sterious  basement,  all  upright  in  her  upright  form ;  hurried 
smeary  cleansings,  swift  straightening  of  grey-sheeted  beds,  the  strange 
unfailing  water-system,  gurgling  cisterns,  gushing  taps  and  lavatory 
flushes,  the  wonder  of  gaslight  and  bedroom  candles,  the  daily  meals 
magically  appearing  and  disappearing;  her  knowledge  of  the  various 
mysteriously  arriving  and  vanishing  people,  all  beginning  and  ending 
in  her  triumphant,  reassuring  smile  that  ^^•ent  forward  outside  beyond 
these  things,  with  everybody. 

Now  that  she  was  there,  bearing  and  banishing  all  these  heavy 
things,  the  squat  green  tea-pot  on  the  table  in  the  blaze  of  window- 
light,  the  Chinese  lantern  hanging  from  the  hook  in  the  ceiling,  the 
little  Madras  muslin  curtains  at  either  end  of  the  endmost  lattices 
made  a  picture  and  set  the  room  free  from  the  challenge  of  the  house 
accumulating  as  Miriam  had  come  up  through  it  and  preventing  the 
effect  she  had  sought  when  she  put  out  the  green  teapot  on  the  sunlit 
table.  She  was  receiving  Mrs.  Bailey  as  a  guest,  backed  up  by  the 
summery  little  window-room.  She  stood  back  in  the  gloom,  drop- 
ping back  into  the  green  lamplit  stillness  of  the  farm-house  garden. 
The  Song  of  Hiawatha  sounded  on  and  on  amongst  the  trees,  the 
trunk  of  the  huge  sheltering  oak  lit  brightly  by  the  shaded  lamp  on 
the  little  garden  table,  the  forms  in  the  long  chairs  scarcely  visible. 
She  offered  Mrs.  Bailey  the  joy  of  her  journey  down,  her  bicycle  in 
the  van,  Miss  Szigmondy's  London  guests,  the  sixteenth  century 
ingle,  the  pine-scented  bedrooms  with  sloping  floors,  the  sandy  high- 
banked  lanes  and  pine-clad  hills,  the  strange  talk  with  the  connois- 
seur, the  kind  stupid  boyish  mind  of  the  London  doctor  who  had  seen 
myopic  astigmatism  across  the  lunch  table  and  admitted  being  beaten 
in  argument  without  resentment ;  tlie  long  dewy  morning  ride  to 
Guildford ;  the  happy  thorns  in  her  hands  keeping  the  week-end  still 


The    Little    Review  2i 


going  on  at  Wimpole  Street;  her  renewed  sense  of  the  simplicity  of 
imposing  looking  people,  their  personal  helplessness  on  the  surface 
of  wealthy  social  life;  the  glow  of  wealthy  social  life  lighting  the 
little  wooden  window-room,  gleaming  from  the  sheeny  flecks  of  light 
on  the  well-shaped  green  teapot. 

Mrs.  Bailey  advanced  to  the  middle  of  the  floor  and  stood  looking 
towards  the  window.     My  word  aren't  we  smart  she  breathed. 

"I  like  the  teapot  and  the  lantern,  don't  you?"  said  Miriam. 

"Very  pretty,  mts,  very  pretty,  young  lady." 

"It  reminds  me  of  week-ends.  It  is  a  week-end.  That  is  my 
drawing-room." 

"That's  it.  It's  a  week-end,"  beamed  Mrs.  Bailej\  But  she  had 
come  for  something.  The  effect  was  not  spoiled  by  giving  a  wrong, 
social  impression  of  it,  because  Mrs.  Bailey  was  busily  thinking  behind 
her  voice.  When  she  had  gone  the  silent  effect  would  be  there,  more 
strongly.  Perhaps  she  had  some  new  suggestion  to  make  about 
Sissie. 

"Well,  young  lady,  I  want  to  talk  to  you."  Mrs.  Bailey  propped 
one  elbow  on  the  mantlepiece  and  brushed  at  her  shirt.  Miriam 
waited,  watching  her  impatiently.  The  Tansley  Street  life  was  fad- 
ing into  the  glow  of  the  on-coming  holiday  season.  Rain  was  cooling 
the  July  weather,  skirmishy  sunlit  April  rain  and  wind,  drawing  her 
forward.  There  was  leisure  in  cool  uncrowded  streets  and  rest- 
aurants and  in  the  two  cool  houses,  no  pressure  of  work,  the  gay  easy 
August  that  was  almost  as  good  as  a  holiday,  and  the  certainty  beyond 
the  rain,  of  September  brilliance. 

"Well,  3'Ou  know,  I've  a  great  regard  for  you,  3'oung  lady." 

Miriam  stared  back  at  the  long  row  of  interviews  with  Mrs. 
Bailey  and  sought  her  face  for  her  invisible  thoughts. 

"Well,  to  come  straight  to  the  point  without  beating  about  the 
bush,  it's  about  him,  that  little  man,  you  know  who  I  mean." 

"Who?" 

"Mendizzable." 

Miriam's  interest  awoke  and  flared.  That  past  patch  of  happy  life 
had  been  somehow  or  other  visible  to  Mrs.  Bailey.  She  felt  decor- 
ated and  smiled  into  the  room. 


22  T  h  e    L  i  1 1 1  e    Re  V  lew 

"Well ;  you  know  I  don't  believe  in  talk  going  about  from  one  to 
another.  In  my  opinion  people  should  mind  their  own  business  and 
not  listen  to  tittle-tattle,  or  if  they  do,  keep  it  to  themselves  with- 
out passing  it  on  and  making  mischief." 

"Has  some  one  been  trying  to  make  mischief  about  poor  little  Mr. 
Mendizabal  ?" 

"Well,  if  it  was  about  him  I  wouldn't  mind  so  much.  Little 
villain.     That's  my  name  for  him." 

"Fascinating  little  villain,  if  he  must  be  called  a  villain." 

"Well;  that's  what  I've  got  to  ask  you,  my  chald;  are  you  under 
a  fascination  about  him?    You'll  excuse  me  asking  such  a  question." 

Solitude!     What  for? 

"Well.  I  did  think  him  fascinating;  he  fascinated  me,  he  would 
anybody.     He  would  fascinate  Miss  Scott  if  he  chose." 

"'Er?  'Er  be  fascinated  by  anybodj?  She  thinks  too  much  of 
number  one  for  that." 

Miss  Scott.  Dressing  so  carefully,  so  full  of  independent  talk  and 
laughter  and  not  able  to  be  fascinated  ....  too  far-seeing  to  be 
fascinated. 

"But  why  do  you  ask?  I'm  not  responsible  for  Mr.  Mendizabal's 
being  a  fascinating  little  man." 

"Fascinating  little  devil.    You  should  have  h("ard  Dr.  "Winchester." 

Something  hidden;  all  the  time;  behind  the  politeness  of  the  house. 

"Dr.  ^mchester?" 

"Dr.  Winchester.  Do  j'ou  remember  him  coming  out  into  the  hall 
one  evening  when  you  were  brushing  your  coat?" 

"And  brushing  it  for  me.     Yes." 

"He  didn't  know  how  to  let  jou  go."  There  was  a  trembling  in 
Mrs.  Bailey's  voice.  "He  said,"  she  pursued  breathlessly,  "he  was  in 
two  minds  to  come  with  you  himself." 

"Where?     Why?" 

"Why?  He  knew  that  fella  was  waiting  for  you  round  the 
corner." 

Suddenly  appearing,  brushing  so  carefully  ....  ivhy  not  have 
spoken  and  come. 

"Well,  now  we're  coming  to  it.     I  can't  tell  you  how  it  all  hap- 


The    Little    Review  23 

pened,  that's  between  Mr.  Gunner  and  Miss  S.  They  got  to  know 
you  was  going  out  with  Mendizzable  and  where  you  went.  It's 
contemptible,  I  know,  if  you  like,  but  there"s  many  such  people 
about." 

Miriam  checked  her  astonishment,  making  a  mental  note  for  future 
contemplation  of  the  spectacle  of  Mr.  Gunner,  or  Miss  Scott,  fol- 
lowing her  to  Ruscino's.  They  had  told  Mrs.  Bailey,  and  talked  to 
the  doctors  ....  Evil  spies;  talking;  maliciously  picking  over  her 
secret  life. 

"Dr.  Winchester  said  he  was  worried  half  out  of  his  senses  about 
you." 

"Why  not  have  said  so?    Sweet  old  thing!" 

"You  may  be  wondering,"  Mrs.  Bailey  flushed  a  girlish  pink,  "why 
I  come  up  to-day  telling  you  all  this.  That's  just  what  /  say.  That's 
just  the  worst  of  it.    He  never  breathed  a  word  to  me  till  he  went." 

Dr.  Winchester  ffone  ....  the  others  gone  ....  of  course. 

Next  week  would  be  August.  They  had  all  vanished  away;  out 
of  the  house,  back  to  Canada.  Dr.  von  Heber  gone  without  a  word. 
Perhaps  he  had  been  worried.  They  all  had  ....  That  was  why 
they  had  all  been  so  nice  and  surrounding  ....  That  was  the  ex- 
planation of  everything  ....  They  were  brothers.  Jealous  brothers. 
The  first  she  had  had.  This  was  the  sort  of  thing  girls  had  who  had 
brothers.  Cheek.  If  only  she  had  known  and  shown  them  how  silly 
they  were. 

"Lawk.     I  wish  to  goodness  he'd  come  straight  to  me  at  once." 

"Well.  It's  awfully  sweet  of  them  from  their  point  of  view.  They 
were  such  awfully  nice  little  men  in  their  way".  .  .  .  Why  didn't 
they  come  to  me,  instead  of  all  this  talk?  They  knew  me  well  enough. 
All  those  long  talks  at  night.  And  all  the  time  they  were  seeing  a 
foolish  girl  fascinated  by  a  disreputable  foreigner.     How  dare  they?" 

"That's  what  I  say.  I  can't  forgive  him  for  that.  They're  all 
alike.     Selfish." 

"All  old  men  like  Dr.  Winchester  are  selfish.  Selfish  and  weak. 
They  get  to  think  of  nothing  but  their  comforts.  And  keep  out  of 
everything  by  talk." 

"It's  not  him  I  mean.    It's  the  other  one." 


24  T  h  c    L  i  /  1 1  e    R  e  V  i  e  tv 

"Which?"  What  was  Mrs.  Bailey  going  to  say?  What?  Miriam 
gazed  angrily. 

"That's  what  I  must  tell  you.  That's  why  I  asked  you  if  you 
was  under  a  fascination." 

"Oh  well,  they've  gone.     What  does  it  matter?" 

"I  feel  I  ought  to  tell  you.  He,  von  Heber,  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  speak.  He  was  one  in  a  thousand,  Winchester  said.  She's 
lost,  von  Heber  he  said.  He  though  the  iiorld  of  her,  'e  sez,"  gasped 
Mrs.  Bailey.     "My  ii-ord,  I  wish  I'd  known  what  was  going  on." 

Miriam  flinched.     Mrs.  Bailey  must  be  made  to  go  now. 

"Oh  really,"  she  said  in  trembling  tones.  "He  was  an  awfully 
nice  man." 

"My  word.  Isn't  it  a  pity,"  said  Mrs.  Bailey  with  tears  in  her 
eyes.     "It  worries  me  something  shocking." 

"Oh  well,  if  he  was  so  stupid." 

"Well,  you  can't  blame  him  after  what  Mendizzable  saiil." 

"You  haven't  told  me." 

"He  said  he'd  only  to  raise  his  finger.  Oh  Lawk.  Well  there  you 
are,  now  you've  got  it  all." 

Mrs.  Bailey  must  go.  Mr.  Mendizabal's  mind  was  a  French 
novel.  He'd  said  French  thoughts  in  English  to  the  doctors.  They 
had  believed.     Even  Canadian  men  can  have  French  minds. 

"Yes.  Well.  I  see  it  all  now.  Mr.  Mendizabal's  vanity  is  his 
own  affair  ....  I'm  sure  I  hope  they've  all  had  an  interesting  sum- 
mer.    I'm  awfully  glad  you've  told  me.     It's  most  interesting." 

"Well,  I  felt  it  was  my  duty  to  come  up  and  tell  you.  I  felt  you 
ought  to  know." 

"Yes  ....  I'm  awfully  glad  you've  told  me.  It's  like,  er,  a  storm 
in  a  teacup." 

"It's  not  them  I'm  thinking  of.  Lot  of  low-minded  gossips.  That's 
my  opinion.     It's  the  harm  they  do  I'm  thinking  of." 

"They  can't  do  any  harm.  As  for  the  doctors  they're  quite  able 
to  take  care  of  themselves."  Miriam  moved  impatiently  about  the 
room.  But  she  could  not  let  herself  look  at  her  thoughts  with  Mrs. 
Bailey  there. 

"Well,  young  lady,"  murmured   Mrs.   Bailey  dolorously  at  last, 


The    Little    Review  25 

"I  felt  I  couldn't  do  less  than  come  up,  for  my  own  satisfaction." 

She  thinks  I  have  made  a  scandal,  without  consulting  her  ....  her 
mind  flew,  flaming,  over  the  gossiping  household,  over  Mrs.  Bailey's 
thoughts  as  she  pondered  the  evidence.  Wrenching  away  from  the  spec- 
tacle she  entrenched  herself  far  off;  clutching  out  towards  the  obli- 
vion of  the  coming  holidaj's;  a  clamour  came  up  from  the  street,  the 
swaying  tumult  of  a  fire-engine,  the  thunder  of  galloping  horses,  the 
hoarse  shouts  of  the  firemen ;  the  outside  life  to  which  she  went  indif- 
ferent to  any  grouped  faces  of  either  of  approval  or  of  condemnation. 

"I'm  awfully  sorry  5'ou've  had  all  this,  Airs.  Bailey." 

"Oh  that's  nothing.     It's  not  that  I  think  of." 

"Don't  think  about  anything.     It  doesn't  matter." 

"Well  I've  got  it  off  my  mind  now  I've  spoken." 

"It  is  abominable,  isn't  it.  Never  mind.  I  don't  care.  People 
are  perfectly  welcome  to  talk  about  me  if  it  gives  them  any  satis- 
faction." 

"That  is  so.     It's  von  Heber  I'm  so  mad  about." 

"They're  all  alike  as  you  say." 

"He  might  have  given  you  a  chance." 

Dr.  von  Heber;  suddenly  nearer  than  anyone.  Her  own  man. 
By  his  own  conviction.  Found  away  here  at  Mrs.  Bailey's;  Mrs. 
Bailey's  regret  measuring  his  absolute  genuineness.    Gone  away  .... 

She  steadied  herself  to  say,  "Oh,  if  he's  selfish." 

"They're  all  that,  every  one  of  them.  But  we've  all  got  to  settle 
in  life,  sooner  or  later." 

That  was  all  it  was  for  Mrs.  Bailey.  She  rallied  woefully  in  the 
thought  that  Mrs.  Bailey  knew  she  could  have  settled  in  life  if  she 
had  chosen. 

Flickering  faintly  far  away  was  something  to  be  found  behind  all 
this,  some  silent  thing  she  would  find  by  herself  if  only  Mrs.  Bailey 
would  go. 

Fascinated.  How  did  they  find  the  word  ?  It  was  true ;  and  false. 
This  was  the  way  people  talked.  These  were  the  true-false  phrases 
used  to  sum  up  things  for  which  there  were  no  words. 

They  had  no  time.    They  were  too  busy.    That  was  in  the  scheme. 


26  The    Little    Revie 


w 


They  were  somehow  prevented  from  doing  anything.  Dr.  von  Hcbcr 
had  been  saved.  The  fascinating  eyes  and  snorting  smile  had  saved 
him ;  coming  out  of  space  to  tell  him  she  was  a  flirt.  He  had  boasted. 
She  adore  me ;  hah !  I  tell  you  she  adore  me,  he  would  say.  It  was 
history  repeating  itself.  Max  and  Ted.  Again  after  all  these  years. 
A  Jew. 

2 

The  unconscious,  inexorable  ship  ....  gliding  across  the  Atlantic. 
They  would  take  up  their  bright  Canadian  life  again.  England,  a 
silent  picture,  fading  ....  Dear  Dr.  von  Heber.  I  owe  it  to  myself 
just  to  inform  you  that  the  legend  you  heard  about  me  was  untrue. 
Wishing  you  a  happy  and  prosperous  career  yours  truly.  That  would 
be  saj'^ing  I,  fool,  have  discovered  too  late  that  I  Mas  not  clever  enough 
to  let  you  imagine  that  jou  were  the  only  kind  of  man  in  the  world 
....  discreet  women  are  sly.  To  get  on  in  the  world  it  is  necessary 
to  be  sly.  Von  Heber  is  sly.  Careful  and  prudent  and  sly.  What 
did  genius  Wayneilete  think?  Genius  understands  everything.  Dis- 
creet proper  clever  women  are  open  books  to  him.  He  will  never 
marry.  Whimsical  old  failure,  Winchester,  disappearing  into  British 
Columbia;  failure;  decorated  in  his  evening  convcrsaton  by  having 

been  to  England My  dear  von  Heber,  what  the  devil  do  you 

mean?  When  will  you  meet  me?  Choose  3'our  own  weapons  .... 
that  would  be  admitting  not  having  the  right  to  be  as  free  and  in- 
discreet as  one  choses  ....  "a  woman  must  march  with  her  regiment ; 
if  she  is  wise  she  does";  something  like  that.  If  a  woman  is  sly  she 
marches  with  her  regiment  ....  all  in  agreement,  being  sly  and 
discreet,  helping  each  other.  What  for?  What  was  the  plot  for? 
....  There's  a  n'ord  ....  coercion,  that's  the  word.  Better  any 
sort  of  free  life. 

If  he  could  have  sccti.  But  then  he  wovdd  have  seen  those  other 
moments  too.  Von  Heber.  Power  and  success.  Never  any  moments 
like  that.  Divided  life  all  the  time  nhrnys.  So  much  for  his  pro- 
fession so  much  for  her,  outside  it  with  the  regiment  of  women. 
Proper  men  can't  bring  the  wild,  gleaming  ....  channel  of  flowers, 
pulling,  dragging  to  fling  yourself  head-long  down  it  and  awake, 
dead.  Dead  if  you  don't.  Now  Tomlin.son  gave  up  the  ghost  .... 
dead.  Dead  if  you  do.  Dead  if  you  don't.  Now  Tomlinson  gave 
up  the  ghost (To  be  continued) 


Drawing 


by  H.  Gaudier- Br ze ska 


The    Little    R  e  v  i  e 


IV 


Tales  of  a  Hurried  Man 

hy   Emanuel  Carnevali 

Tale   III 

Home,  siveet  home! 

THE  way  to  my  house  begins  half  a  mile  away  from  it. 
It  begins  at  the  corner  where  the  grey-purple  sweating 
Hartford  Lunch  is.  From  Broadway  into  the  street  the 
air  becomes  denser,  the  faqades  are  more  resolutely  drab, 
a  sagging  of  the  Broadway  mood  makes  my  heart  faint  in 
an  indefinite  sorrow.  This  little  tragedy  happens  everyday,  each 
time  I  am  on  the  way  to  my  house. 

I  walk  on,  westward.  Amsterdam  Avenue  is  low  and  broad ; 
its  face  is  sullen  and  without  a  forehead.  Food  stores,  like  men  that 
are  too  fat,  cigar  stores  like  little  bigot  spinsters  dressed  in  clothes 
not  dirty  but  brittle  for  oldness.  Broken  and  old  is  the  Avenue's 
bed  and  adorned  only  by  the  car  line.  Then,  further  westward,  I 
march  into  open  misery :  usual  red  facades,  or  sick-yellow  ones,  riddled 
full  of  black  windows.  Rags,  like  flags  of  poverty,  dangle  from 
windows;  grey  panes  where  misery  writes  with  dust  and  rain  things 
that  the  tenants  are  too  dismal  to  want  to  cancel.  Opposite  there 
tower  the  obese  gas  tanks,  dolorous  with  rust,  sick  with  blotches  of 
grey  paint,  grotesquely  solemn.  Along  this  block  human  beings  prefer 
the  street  to  the  home;  so  they  are  all  outside,  the  children  playing, 
the  women  gossiping,  the  men  loafing.  Burnt-out  coal  and  ashes 
spilled  from  the  over-flowing  ash-cans  are  strewn  over  the  bulging  and 
rippled  and  cracked  sidewalk. 

I  turn  at  the  corner  where  the  necessary  wooden-faced  saloon  is. 
And  there  is  West  End  Avenue,  Whitish  and  greenish  the  houses, 
the  colors  of  the  wives  of  the  poor  wops.  Here  is  a  valley  formed 
by  two  smooth  asphalt  hillsides.  And  here  is  my  house.  The  door 
of  it  is  as  dirty  and  drivelling  as  the  mouth  of  a  very  old  man,  who 
chews  tobacco. 

Way  upstairs  are  my  rooms. 


The    Little    Review  29 

I  enter,  I  open  the  windows  .  .  .  "Damn  it,  why  does  she  close 
them?"  She  says  that  they  might  get  in  from  the  fire-escape.  I 
would  like  to  meet  the  desperado  who'd  be  so  desperate  as  to  come 
around  these  quarters  to  steal!  A  wave  of  dank  smell  has  lapped 
me  around.  I  have  taken  a  chair  and  sat  down.  Now  I'm  in  my 
own  home! 


The  rooms  face  North.  Till  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  have 
the  sun.  The  rest  of  the  day  it's  on  the  house  opposite.  In  front  of 
my  window  there  is  a  straight  windowless  white  wall,  jagged,  over 
its  edge,  with  the  chimneys.  The  chimneys  are  poised  gently  against 
the  sky  which  today  is  very  blue.  Craning  my  neck  out  I  can  see 
the  river,  and  the  freight  railroad  station  with  its  asthmatic  loco- 
motives. 

There  was  a  stretch  of  bare  ground  between  the  railroad  and  my 
house.  It  was  a  meeting  place  for  cats  and  dogs  without  a  home, 
and  at  night  a  fine  big  hall  for  their  orchestra.  That's  where  they 
came  to  die,  too,  or  where  they  threw  their  corpses.  They  went 
there  to  fumble  in  the  rubbish  for  food.  A  single  shoe  here,  and  a 
pair  of  shoes  down  there,  half  a  dish,  a  sauce  pan  camouflaged  by  the 
rust,  a  smashed  box,  the  brim  of  a  derby  and  rags  hardened  with 
dirt ;  a  battlefield  after  the  battle,  with  the  lonely  corpse  of  a  cat  and 
the  lonely  corpse  of  a  dog,  one  by  the  fence,  the  other  in  a  big  crater 
in  the  middle.  There  came  children  to  reconstrue,  with  their  fiery 
imaginations,  the  battle  of  the  cats  and  dogs.  But  they  didn't  stay 
long  because  it  smelled  bad.  Sometimes  after  a  rain  as  a  great  big 
puddle  gathered  there  you  would  see  them  running  all  around  what 
they  called  its  shore,  romancing  with  little  paper  boats  and  seeking 
the  ever-new  sensation  of  throwing  a  stone  into  the  water. 

Now,  in  that  space,  they  are  building  another  house.  A  house  like 
this  I  suppose.  It  will  be  so  near  the  railroad  and  the  asthma  of  the 
locomotives  is  so  nasty,  so  sore,  especially  at  night,  that  the  tenants 
of  the  future  house  won't  be  able  to  sleep — not  until  they  all  become 
deaf!     Another  poor  house,  and  there  are  thousands  and  thousands 


so  T  he    Lit  t  le    Revie 


w 


.  .  .  it's  preparedness,  to  build  a  house  to  shelter  the  poor.  Like 
making  guns  and  gas  masks  for  the  next  war.  And  the  city  is  totally 
grey  .  .  .  and  they're  making  another  grey  house!  Houses  that  are 
born  poor  and  old,  or  ugly,  as  in  the  middle-class  or  rich  quarters. 
In  Italy  I  saw  houses  born  white  and  beautiful;  and  when  they  were 
old  and  miserable  they  wore  their  misery  like  a  soldier  his  uniform 
that  bullets  have  tattered.  Add  grey  on  grey,  brown  on  brown, 
masons  of  the  New  World,  makers  of  the  New  World — grey  on 
grey,  brown  on  brown,  work  for  the  groat  blindness  to  come! 

But,  as  I  write,  the  dredge  is  wheezing  and  crackling  and  whist- 
ling and  its  three-toothed  jaws  are  eating  the  ground,  then  vomiting 
it  into  a  motorcar  which  staggers,  tired  and  drunk,  up  the  slope  out 
of  the  big  hole  where  the  dredge  is  sitting. 


Let's  begin  from  the  roof,  it  is  nearer  the  sky.  Let's  begin  from 
the  roof,  I  breathe  better  up  here  than  in  my  room  or  in  the  street. 

It  is  sunset  time.  The  burning  clouds  breathe  the  rosy  air  that 
caresses  me — they  give  me  this  air  the  way  my  wife  gives  me  perfume 
out  of  her  clothes.  This  air  throws  itself,  elastic,  upon  the  dusty 
body  of  that  block  of  houses,  lover  of  an  old  man,  young  lover.  And 
the  dust  clings  still  on  the  houses.  It  passes  through  my  fingers  in 
ribbons  and  its  silver  finger-nails  open  my  skull  and  pluck  the  stale 
misery  out  .  Of  a  sudden  a  great  pool  of  melted  thin  gold  is  dropped 
over  the  roof.  I  am  in  it,  burning  crisp  like  a  piece  of  paper.  It  is 
the  gold  of  the  sunset,  mixed  with  the  black  dust  of  the  night  to 
come.  Under  me  the  great  space  of  bare  ground  I  have  mentioned 
fills  slowly  with  darkness ;  it  is  an  enormous  vase,  rimmed  with  a  blue 
band  of  river  water.  If  I  were  good  my  mind  would  fill  slowly  with 
darkness  and  there  would  be  a  play  of  silent  shadows  in  my  mind, — 
that  and  that  only.  Life  is  a  beautiful  thing,  if  my  lungs  are  good. 
Rut  I  stretch  my  arms  and  my  crooked  fingers  woidd  grasp  something 
more  than  air.  No  one  knows  how  young  I  am.  Do  they  want  me 
to  become  a  cheat?  There  are  lots  of  cheats  that  want  to  force  you 
to  acknowledge  their  youth,  their  beauty,  their  vigor.     I  am  young 


T  he    Little    Review  31 


and  alone.  If  I  were  old  I  would  be  satisfied  being  alone  and  I 
would  sit  still  and  let  the  darkness  swaddle  me.  Night,  and  the 
friends  who  think  and  do  not  think  of  me,  frighten  me.  The  friends 
are  afraid  to  dabble  into  me,  as  though  they  saw  me  as  a  pond  of 
treacherous  green  water.     My  face  is  often  green,  that's  why. 

I  don't  want  to  go  down  to  my  rooms  any  more.  I  don't  want  to 
see  her  anymore.  I  want  the  earth  to  stop  running  around  like  a 
damn  fool,  and  I  want  him  to  listen  to  a  thing  I  have  to  say.  I  want 
the  Earth  to  stop  going  and  I  want  him  to  watch  me  die.  I  could 
touch  this  intangible  air  if  I  sent  my  body  whirling  through  it,  in  a 
spider's  dance,  to  break  over  the  flagstones.  I  would  give  a  hundred 
persons  at  least  the  thrill  of  their  lives.  I  want  the  setting  sun  to 
steal  my  eyes  and  carry  them  along  \v\\h  him,  imder  the  earth. 

But  I  reckon  I  shall  walk  down  again  to  my  apartment.  And 
everyday  that  cranes  its  grey  face  toward  me  will  have  my  offering 
of  a  few  words.  I  reckon  I  shall  walk  dow^n  to  my  apartment  and 
open  the  door  with  a  yale  key,  just  like  everybody.  And  they  will 
not  say  that  I  have  gone  away  from  them  to  find  the  truth.  They 
will  not  say  I  did  not  love  them  and  they  will  admit  that  I  am  the 
most  American  of  the  Americans.  I  might  at  least  force  them  to  see 
my  hatred.  To  see  that  I  hate  them  more  than  their  husbands  do, 
more  than  their  wives,  more  than  they  who  feed  them  and  than  they 
who  gather  their  leavings,  more  than  the  waiters  and  the  doctors. 
Always  my  great  sadness  looms  beyond  my  world  and  theirs,  just  as 
the  sun  lies  beyond  all  weathers.  Words  do  not  make  me  glad,  and 
I  am  not  an  artist.  Frightful  words  uttered  by  a  thousand  in  a 
thousand  ways  are  all  comprehensible  to  me,  as  my  own  word  is  more 
frightful  than  any.  The  word  that  was  first  and  that  shall  be  the 
last  when  they  shall  join  my  two  eyelashes  in  their  last  kiss  and  my 
two  hands  shall  touch  in  their  last  caress;  a  word  that  you  might 
mistake  for  the  word  Death. 

I  am  an  emigrant  and  I  have  left  my  home,  I  am  homeless  and  I 
want  a  home.  You  look  at  me  with  evil  eyes,  with  squinting  eyes, 
you  don't  look  at  me,  you  sneer  at  me.  I  am  emigrant,  waiting,  I 
know  millions  that  are  like  me. 


32  T  It  e    L  i  1 1 1  c    R  e  V  i  c  XV 


4 

Come,  friends!  We  shall  find  one  another  again  with  the  words 
of  my  confession!  Don't  insult  nic  calling  me  "writer"  and  I  won't 
call  you  butcher,  grocer,  waiter,  doctor,  business  man,  thief  and 
murderer.  Listen  a  while,  if  you  please.  Beside  a  few  scandalous 
items,  such  as:  the  wife  works  oftcner  than  I,  in  fact,  she  works  all 
the  time,  and  I  only  now  and  then  ...  I  am  all  right.  And  don't 
worry,  I  have  them  all  on  my  conscience,  the  days  of  loafing  and 
writing!  (But,  god!  still  heavier  on  my  conscience  are  the  days  lost 
working  in  a  restaurant  or  in  a  factory). 

We'll  get  along.  Let  God  congratulate  himself  for  the  simple 
things  he  turns  out  of  the  ground  which  go,  dressed  in  humility's 
colors,  to  bring  a  modest  happiness  into  every  house:  potatoes,  rhub- 
arb, beans,  lettuce  and  radishes. 

The  wife  is  working  and  I  am  not,  so  I  do  the  things  around  the 
house. 

You  peel  the  rhubarb  and  slowly  a  soft  heap  of  pink  and  green 
and  silver-green  ribbons  accumulates  under  your  fingers.  And  the 
potatoes  spit  a  whiflf  of  country  sturdiness  to  your  nose.  Perfumed 
reality  of  the  dirt — ladies  say  you  smell  bad,  ladies  who  smell  bad 
with  bad  perfume,  which  is  nothing  but  the  perfume  of  flowers  turned 
stale,  turned  bad.  Then,  when  you  boil  the  potatoes  they  become 
white  as  purity  and  they  break  if  you  touch  them  with  a  fork.  There 
is  a  miniature  storm  in  the  pot — the  potatoes  thunder  under  the 
swelling  cloud  of  the  steam.  And  as  for  spaghetti  and  ravioli,  let  me 
tell  you  once  for  all  that  parsley  chopped  fine  and  one  small  onion 
and  .  .  .  Yes,  people  do  think  that  I  am  interesting!  Character- 
istically an  Italian,  don't  you  know.  And  it's  just  what  they  want 
.  .  .  the  local  color,  that  attractive  and  light  way  of  talking  .  .  .  and 
those  very  extraordinary  neckties  ...  oh,  perfectly  charming!  And, 
anyway,  Dante  died  quite  long  ago,  and  there  was  a  dash  of  Teuton 
blood  in  him,  I  bet!  Cagliostro  is  more  the  Latin.  And  today  fierce 
men  a  la  Cagliostro  are  out  of  fashion.  "The  good-mannered  man 
is  the  man  of  the  future",  as  a  certain  gentleman  told  me.  The 
harmless  charming  little  man — oh,   the  ladies  all   patronize  him! — 


The    Little    Review  33 

and  if  he  writes  some  tiny  verses  now  and  then,  well,  what  of  it, 
that's  one  quality  more,  it  adds  to-the  charm — and  let  him  be  fiery 
too,  on  certain  occasions — that  adds  too — oh,  the  wives  of  the  tired 
business  men  simply  adore  him,  and  as  for  the  tired  business  man 
himself  he  saw  that  "he  wasn't  no  bolshevist",  and  he  is  friendly  too 
now. 

Alone  with  my  wife,  I  have  meals  that  are  feasts.  Anti-puritan 
meals.  To  the  eternal  glory  of  the  magnificent  eaters  of  my  old  land, 
Lorenzo  de*  Medici,  Alessandro  Borgia,  Leone  X,  and  Cornaro  be- 
fore he  had  got  tired.  Crunching  a  plant  of  dandelion  under  my 
teeth  and  devouring  with  my  eyes  the  small  space  of  my  wife'e  breasts 
that  she  lets  me  see;  eating  a  bleeding  beefsteak  ....  god!  we  are 
in  a  cage  but  we  are  lions  and  monkeys  yet!  And  if,  in  ten  years, 
people  will  only  chew  foodstuiff  instead  of  eating,  what  the  hell!  we 
eat  and  laugh  now,  we  eat  and  weep  together,  eh  girl!  And  no  one 
knows  we  have  a  real  home,  by  Jesus  Christ,  so  they'll  leave  us  alone. 


I  go  into  the  kitchen,  nibble  at  a  piece  of  cheese  and  a  loaf  of 
bread,  walk  up  and  down,  wash  my  face  to  chill  the  headache,  walk 
all  through  the  house,  stop  in  front  of  each  mirror  to  see  whether 
my  face  has  assumed  at  last  a  less  vague  aspect,  whether  there  is  yet 
on  it  the  beginning  of  something  that  these  weary  hands  and  legs  may 
follow. 

The  wind  falters  and  gasps  like  a  furnished-room-house  landlady 
coming  up  the  stairs.  The  wind  comes,  breast  forward,  into  the 
space  between  that  high  wall  and  my  window  and  puffs  up  my 
curtains.  I  sit  by  the  window  and  the  curtains  touch  my  face 
again  and  again,  doting  lovelessly.  The  wife  has  gone  to  work 
and  left  everything  upside  down — and  even  her  room  today  af- 
fords no  coolness  of  things  put  in  their  right  place,  nor  the  gleam 
of  clean  brushes  and  mirrors  and  panes.  Like  me,  the  bed  is 
stretched  in  its  own  disorder  and  no  invitation  is  in  it.  "Sex"  is 
tormenting  me,  that  kind  of  unhappy  lust  of  a  weary  mind.  The 
decay  of  a  room  is  in  its  things  and  all  the  wind  brings  is  some 


34  The    Little    Revie 


more  dust  and  the  thick  stench  of  boiling  laundry  from  the  floor 
below.  That  awful  wall !  to  detennine  all  the  sloppings,  blotches, 
cracks  and  scars  over  its  stupid  nudity!  I  went  to  look  at  the 
letter-box  downstairs  about  ten  times  today.  All  they  send  is 
words,  anyway,  and  I  know  all  about  words,  I  am  a  writer. 

I  have  heard  old  men  half  blind  and  half  deaf  blabber  of  homc- 
sweet-home,  and  an  immense  lady  teacher  (more  than  250 
pounds),  long  time  ago  in  my  childhood,  taught  me  the  song: 

Casa   mia,    casa   mia, 
benche    piccola    tu    sia    .    .    . 

(House  of  mine,  house  of  mine — however  small  thou  art  .  .  .). 
I  have  read  all  the  big  books,  Jean-Christophe  size,  books  which 
contain  the  bulk  of  a  house,  THE  HOUSE.  But  my  house  is 
one  of  today  and  she  is  like  a  modern  girl:  with  whom  you  have 
to  be  careful  if  you  want  to  keep  her;  and  the  moment  she  jilts 
you,  or  you  see  a  better  one,  everything  is  ended  and  nothing  re- 
mains in  the  heart  of  you,  or  anywhere  else;  maybe  a  twisted  smile 
remains.     We  have  become  used  to  tragedy. 


Mornings  of  blue  veils  and  rose  veils  fluttering  in  and  out  of 
the  windows.  Air  for  butterflies,  in  the  Spring.  Ah,  any  face, 
in  the  frame  of  any  window,  how  sweet  and  well  known !  But 
your  face  best  of  all,  woman,  when  you  sleep  yet  in  the  morning 
and  I,  who  got  up  early  and  am  cool  and  smell  of  cleanliness  and 
tooth-paste,  come  to  kiss  you.  You  awake  the  way  a  little  ripple 
breaks  against  the  shore.  Your  drowsy  arms  move  like  the  smoke 
of  a  cigarette.  Your  kiss  is  warm  with  sleep.  It  is  not  love,  dear, 
because  there  is  no  pain.  It  is  the  home.  Witness  the  kids  that 
have  started  making  a  noise  that  we  both  know  so  well,  witness 
the  tranquillity  of  my  feet  as  they  step  upon  the  carpet,  witness 
the  farina  boiling — blabbering,  blowing,  sputtering,  pufl'ing  and 
spitting  on  the  gas  range.  Witness  the  underwear  dancing  on  the 
fire-escape — and  you  washed  it  last  night,  while  I  was  fooling  around 


The    Little    Review  35 

and  bothering  you.     The  river  is  only  a  light  surface — a  blue  veil, 
too.    We  shall  take  a  walk  along  the  Drive 

How  good  the  home  is  to  those  who  come  back  from  a  walk. 
These  things  that  know  you  know  me  too 

Lunchtime,  lunchtime!  Oh,  the  dear  little  tree  of  parsley,  in  the 
glass,  by  the  sink!  Last  night  all  the  carpets  were  swollen  with 
dust,  now  they  are  clean,  naked.  The  bed  is  so  well  made — it  is 
like  a  new  book  yet  unopened.  Black-stained  bananas,  what  perfume 
your  skin  holds!  Skin  them  and  delight!  The  smell  of  cooking 
food  is  incense  for  the  gods  that  will  never  die,  and  the  color  of  the 
salad  you  are  making  is  the  flag  of  mine  own  soul ! 

The  eyes  of  the  wife  are  two  little  black  cats,  washed  and  smooth- 
haired.  If  we  weren't  here  together  I  should  never  have  the  time 
to  see  her  so  well. 

And  there  is  the  river — if  you  trouble  enough  to  crane  your  neck 
out  window.  When  you  are  quiet,  when  the  hungers  are  hushed, 
then  you  will  get  a  lot  of  fun  out  of  hearing  a  wop  sing,  downstairs, 
and  the  neighbors  fight  over  their  horrible  old  troubles.  The  light 
wind  winnows  your  hungers,  sifts  them — and  sometimes  leaves  only  a 
gentle  sadness,  crisp  and  clean  like  yellow  leaves  by  the  roadside. 
Every  locomotive  that  passes  is  a  new  image  in  the  brain,  every  fierce 
puff  a  different  part  of  the  same  not  unpleasant  sonata. 

At  night,  the  lights  alongside  the  river  kindle  many  diamonds 
everywhere — glints  of  ripples,  rails  and  window-panes.  The  fires  of 
the  city  in  the  night  are  the  fire-place  by  which  tragic  old  gods  sit  to 
forget  how  intricate  is  the  world  they  made.  In  the  moonlit  night  the 
frayed  profile  of  the  Palisades  is  deep  black.  Spring  air,  which 
you  had  forgotten,  never  thought  would  come  again,  is  here,  holding 
aloof  in  her  kind  hands  our  weary  hearts. 

The  wife  moves  about,  working,  and  from  her  childish  hands 
come  clealiness,  order  and  good  smell  to  the  home — and  caresses  for 
me.  If  I  have  done  my  work  well  I  have  kept  sadness  away.  Despair 
always  comes  from  outside.  The  trouble  is,  one  can't  keep  the  place 
shut  well  enough. 

But  in  the  night  the  gaslight  is  a  sun  of  a  diseased  world  and  the 


36  T  h  e    Li  1 1 1  e    Re  vi  ew 

table,  the  chairs,  the  bookshelf,  arc  sapless  and  silent  and  sad,  like 
lepers.  The  book-shelf.  Take  a  book.  Any  book.  The  first  line 
of  the  first  book  pulls  along  all  the  lines  of  all  the  books;  I  have 
them  all  in  my  blood,  these  little  black  microbes — once  you  read  one 
fou're  infected  and  chronic.  And,  they  shout  too  loud !  It's  a  shame 
to  let  people  print  such  things!  Aren't  you  afraid?  And  we,  the 
readers,  pass  before  the  gaping  graves  of  these  books,  before  these 
bodies  torn  asunder,  we  look  at  a  man  stretch  an  arm  out  of  his 
grave  and  shake  his  bloody  heart  at  us.  .  .  .  and  we  say,  "I  like.  .  .  . 
I  like  ...  I  don't  like.  .  ." 

I  burn  with  restlessness,  I  smoulder  without  fire,  and  my  bed- 
sheets  smell  with  my  yesterdays — I  can't  sleep.  There  are  many 
persons  here,  bothering  me.  All  uninvited  guests,  crowding  around 
my  bed,  shamelessly  curious — I  can't  dismiss  them.  I  can't  touch 
them,  I  can't  grasp  a  hand  and  feel  it  like  a  realization  in  my 
fingers — these  are  real  ghosts!  They  ask  all  sorts  of  impossible 
questions.  And  each  of  them  has  a  naked  soul  to  show  me  that 
nauseates  me!  You  come  into  my  home,  at  night,  to  exhibit  your 
shames,  damn  little  beggars,  you!  Those  eyes  I  saw  today  that 
seemed  to  acknowledge  me  so  naively,  now  they  want  to  know  too 
much.  To  them  all  I  can't  be  anything  else  but  a  man  who  is  in 
bed  and  can't  sleep.  And  these  people  are  the  same  whom  I  said  I 
loved,  whom  I  caressed,  whom  I  even  kissed,  during  this  same  day, 
in  the  daylight.  The  daylight  is  a  liarl  I  must  run  away  from 
these  people  who  do  not  love  me  enough. 

I  go  into  the  other  room  where  she  sleeps.  I  go  there  to  get 
from  her  all  the  strength  my  heart  needs  to  beat  to  its  next  beat.  If 
sthe  knew  how  many  things  I  want  she'd  be  so  desperate,  she'd 
scream  and  die.  But  as  it  is  she  gives  back  the  kiss,  and  a  drowsy 
arm  comes  out  and  binds  me  to  her  warm  face.  Thus  I  take  much, 
very  much,  and  I  steal  back  into  my  room  afraid  that  even  the  silence 
might  know  of  my  theft 

Now  you  can  see  the  dust  on  everything,  there's  no  sun  and  no 
wind.  Outside,  the  rain  is  drilling  holes  in  the  aching  skull  of  the 
dirty  earth.     The  room  throws  its  yellow  breath  on  the  tall  white 


The    Little    Review  37 

wall.  Everything  is  resting.  Everything  weighs  upon  something 
else  and  if  a  metaphor  were  miraculous  this  whole  room  would  dash 
down  to  the  ground.  Everything  is  still,  but  nothing  sleeps  at 
night — except  the  men  and  women  who  snore  and  the  old  pater- 
familias who  whistle  and  wheeze  and  grunt  and  roar  in  a  regular, 
rhythmical  continuous  rage.  Perhaps  someone  who  breathes  gently 
sleeps  too  .  .  .  she  .  .  .  but  I  can't  believe  it,  not  in  this  country,  I 
guess  not  .  .  .  there  is  something  wrong  with  her. 

I  get  up,  and  go  into  the  kitchen.  To  survey  the  pans  and  dishes 
a  little.  An  aluminum  pan  shines  like  a  baldhead  in  a  darkened 
theatre  and  some  sauce-pans  are  holes  of  deeper  darkness  in  the  dark- 
ness. A  chair  is  sitting  quietly  in  the  shadow.  From  my  room  a 
shocking  streak  of  light  is  a  sunlit  road  of  some  fantastic  midnight. 
A  sinister  shadow  binds  the  legs  of  the  table.  The  fire  escape  is  a 
skeleton  peeping  in. 

In  my  room  the  typewriter  hides  under  its  cover.  The  white- 
glaring  bed  shrieks.  The  brushes  and  mirrors  have  died  of  the  sick- 
ness of  uncleanliness  and  dust.  The  scars  and  blotches  on  the  wall 
make  strange  faces  at  me.  Outside  the  trains  puff  and  blow  fiercely, 
they  want  to  rip  the  universe !  They  are  throbbings  of  the  physical 
pain  of  the  Earth.  The  locomotive  driver,  the  damn  fool  who  makes 
that  noise,  who  thinks  it's  good  for  him  or  for  anybody  to  make  that 
noise,  who  thinks  it  is  good  for  him  not  to  consider  me,  not  to  con- 
sider that  I  can't  stand  that  noise  .  .  .  that  I  can't  stand  it  ...  I 
can't,  I  can't! 

{To  be  continued.) 


BTTLE  REVIEW 

Editor : 
Margaret   Anderson 

Foreign  Editors: 
John   Rodker  Jules   Romains 

Advisory  JDoard: 

Discussion 


Point  Blank 

WHAT  is  New  York? 
We  know  that  Boston  and  Chicago  and  Kansas  City  are 
American  cities.  So  are  Newark,  New  Jersey,  and  Denver, 
Colorado,  American  cities.  But  just  what  is  New  York?  It 
would  not  get  us  anywhere  if  wc  asked  a  New  Yorker.  If  he  under- 
stood us  at  all,  which  is  not  likely,  he  would  only  be  bewildered  by 
our  question.     As  well  ask  him  what  the  earth  is. 

To  Americans  at  any  distance,  New  York  is  a  foreign  country. 
Like  Cairo  and  Bucharest  and  Constantinople.  Americans  travel  to 
New  York  in  the  same  psychic  temper  as  they  would  to  an  Eastern 
Metropolis.  They  behave  in  New  York  as  they  would  never  behave 
in  Boston  or  Chicago  or  Kansas  City  or  Denver.  New  York  never 
becomes  quite  real  to  them,  notwithstanding  its  enormous  substantial- 
ity. New  York  is  always  an  Eastern  Citj'.  Rather,  New  York  is 
the  illustration  of  a  fable.     The  marvel  is  that  such  thing  can  be. 


The   Little    Review  39 


But  if  a  New  Yorker  can  not  tell  us  anything  about  New  York, 
he  can  tell  us  everything  about  America.  Were  you  to  ask  a  New 
Yorker  what  America  is,  he  would  take  your  question  with  the  solid 
seriousness  of  a  crossing  policeman.  Only  much  more  so.  Ask  a 
New  Yorker  what  America  is  and  he  tells  you  with  the  greatest  gusto 
and  the  most  naive  self-assurance  that  America  is  a  New  York  state 
of  mind.  He  will  write  you  a  book,  telling  you  all  about  America, 
if  you  will  only  wait  a  moment.  He  may  write  you  a  book  about 
America  even  if  you  do  not  wait  for  it.     He  has  already  done  it. 

The  New  Yorker  is  led  to  believe  that  America  is  what  he  thinks 
it  is  by  the  same  psychic  mechanism  that  leads  an  infant  to  believe 
that  its  cries  and  grimaces  produce  its  own  mother.  The  infant 
swallows  the  not-self,  the  outer  world;  the  New  Yorker  swallows 
America.  And  just  as  the  infant  is  enabled  to  maintain  its  fantastic 
assumptions  by  repeated  verifications,  its  cries  and  grimaces  actually 
bringing  the  wished-for  mother,  just  so  are  the  New  Yorker's  fan- 
tastic assumptions  about  America  being  repeatedly  verified.  French- 
men and  Englishmen  tell  him  that  he  has  achieved  the  marvel  of  the 
ages.  A  modern  miracle.  A  mj'stery  of  America.  A  drama  and  a 
spilling  of  revelation.  And  as  long  as  this  ululation  continues  there 
is  no  likelihood  that  the  New  Yorker  will  find  out  that  he  does  not 
know  and  never  can  know  America  as  long  as  he  does  not  get  out 
of  New  York.  As  long  as  the  New  Yorker's  fantastic  assumptions 
produce  substantial  results,  the  New  Yorker  is  not  likely  to  learn 
that  to  be  in  Chicago  and  Kansas  City  and  Denver  he  must  get  out 
of  New  York.  He  must  get  out  of  New  York  to  get  into  America 
in  the  same  sense  that  a  man  must  get  out  of  his  coat  to  get  into  his 
shirtsleeves.  He  must  shed  his  intellectual  baggage  and  introspec- 
tion. Just  as  the  infant  must  abandon  the  belief  in  the  omnipotence 
of  its  magic  cries  and  grimaces  before  it  can  learn  the  reality  of  the 
outer  world,  just  so  must  the  New  Yorker  abandon  the  belief  in 
the  magic  power  of  his  insight  before  he  can  learn  the  reality  of 
America.  The  merits  of  these  books,  in  so  far  as  they  are  not  merits 
of  description  and  explanation  of  America,  are  all  beside  the  point. 

I  have  just  finished  reading  Willa  Sibert  Cather's  "My  Antonia." 
As  a  serious  work  of  literary  fiction  the  book  has  little  enough  merit. 


40  The    Little    Review 

It  were  childish  to  compare  it  with  such  a  work  as  "Pelle  the  Con- 
queror," for  instance.  Rut  as  a  record,  as  a  description  and  ex- 
planation of  a  large  part  of  America,  its  merits  are  quite  consider- 
able. Reading  it,  I  could  not  keep  from  wondering  what  the  effect 
would  have  been  on  AValdo  Frank's  "Our  America"  if  he  had  read 
"My  Antonia"  and  understood  its  essential  verity.  For  Mrs.  Gather's 
description  of  Our  America  of  the  prairies  is  as  authentic  as  any  of 
Waldo  Frank's  descriptions  of  his  vState  of  mind.  For  all  their  dif- 
ference! It  is  beside  the  point  to  say  that  Waldo  Frank  has  pro- 
duced a  more  meritorious  piece  of  work  than  Mrs.  Gather.  Mrs. 
Gather's  painful  sentimentalism  is  also  American — terribly  Ameri- 
can, if  you  will.  And  it  is  also  American  in  the  sense  that  Waldo 
Frank's  language  and  style  are  not  yet  American. 

And  now  comes  Mr.  James  Oppenheim,  in  the  February  Dial,  and 
tells  us  again  that  America  is  a  state  of  mind.  The  state  of  mind 
of  our  "intelligentsia",  this  time.  It  is  a  mean  opinion  of  America, 
or  else  an  infantile  self  absorbtion,  that  would  represent  America, 
and  represent  it  truly,  by  the  little  handful  of  our  "semi-lyrical" 
poets.  For  the  entire  output  of  our  "semi-lyrical"  poets  could  be 
thrown  in,  lost  and  smothered  in  the  work  of  a  single  Irish  poet. 
The  fact  that  Mr.  James  Oppenheim,  like  Waldo  Frank,  talks  the 
language  of  the  "unconscious"  only  proves  that  one  may  talk  quite 
as  much  nonsense  in  the  language  of  the  unconscious  as  one  ever 
could  in  the  language  of  the  conscious. 

Mr.  James  Oppenheim  makes  a  distinction  between  hereditary 
factors  and  environmental  factors,  that  we  may  not  be  fooled  by 
them,  he  says.  He  then  goes  on  to  say  that  "the  startling  sameness 
in  American  exteriors  argues  that  there  is  a  corresponding  diversity 
in  the  unconscious."  Just  what  does  Mr.  James  Oppenheim  mean 
by  the  statement  of  our  startling  sameness?  Does  he  mean  that 
j'ou  could  not  tell  apart  Sherwood  Anderson  and  Theodore  Dreiser 
and  Floyd  D;-I1  and  William  Hard  and  James  Oppenheim  and 
Waldo  Frank  ?  There  is  no  such  distinction  between  heredity  and 
environment  as  Mr.  James  Oppenheim  seems  to  believe  exists.  Our 
environment  is  also  inherited  and  imposed  upon  us  by  our  fore- 
bears and,  tyraiuiy  of  tyrannies!  it  is  imposed  upon  us  at  a  time  when 


The    Little    Reviezi'  41 

we  are  least  able  to  resent  the  imposition.  But  such  it  is.  We  need 
not  even  go  so  far  as  the  implication  of  the  pragmatic  statement 
permits  us.  For,  if  a  thing  is  what  it  is  known  as,  it  must  also  be 
where  it  is  known  as.  Indeed,  the  pragmatists  make  no  distinction 
between  cow  and  pasture.  A  cow  without  a  pasture,  they  say,  is 
the  sister  of  the  economic  man.  But  let  heredity  and  environment 
he  what  they  may.  Let  Mr.  James  Oppenheim  defend  the  propo- 
sition that  sameness  of  exterior,  whether  it  exists  or  not,  argues  a 
diversity  in  the  unconscious.     It  cannot  be  done  successfully. 

The  "unconscious"  is  another  name  for  the  infantile  mind;  and 
if  we  add  to  it  the  intra-uterine  mind  we  are  sure  to  have  the  whole 
business.  It  is  in  utra  and  in  our  infancy  that  vi^e  are  most  alike; 
and  only  as  we  grow  up  do  we  show  such  differences  as  we  have. 
If  it  was  not  Mr.  James  Oppenheim's  intention  to  say  "America: 
that  is  I",  then  he  has  given  himself  all  that  trouble  to  an  undesir- 
able end. 

But  it  was  not  my  intention  merely  to  discover  the  limits  of  Mr. 
James  Oppenheim's  capacity  for  self  infatuation.  When  he  tells  us 
that  we  may  not  judge  America  by  a  given  number  of  heroes,  he 
tells  us  what  we  all  know  to  be  so.  A  merchant  is  pretty  generally 
forced  to  buy  his  merchandise  upon  his  judgment  of  the  drummer's 
samples;  and  the  farmer  frequently  has  to  purchase  his  supplies  from 
the  representations  of  pictures  and  text  of  a  catalog.  But  in  the  end, 
what  the  m.erch'ant  and  farmer  both  pay  for  is  the  goods  delivered. 
And  here  the  analogy  stoj)s.  For  the  merchant  and  the  iarmer  are 
not  defrauded  when  the  goods  delivered  is  above  what  they  had 
been  led  to  expect.  It  is  not  so  with  a  literary  production.  A  liter- 
ary representation  becomes  a  false  representation  the  instant  it  ceases 
to  be  a  true  representation.  Exaltation  and  degradation  are  alike 
fraudulent.  But  Mr.  James  Oppenheim  asks  us  to  "imagine  Wood- 
row  Wilson  or  Billy  Sunday  or  T.  R,  as  the  hero  of  a  novel !  How 
quickly  each  would  become  wooden  and  unconvincing!"  Well,  let 
us  oblige  Mr.  James  Oppenheim.  Let  us  imagine  Woodrow  Wilson 
or  Billy  Sunday  or  T.  R.  as  heroes  of  novels.  I  have.  I  find  that 
they  do  not  grow  wooden  and  unconvincing.  They  grow  alive  and 
most  convincing.     Let  me  carry  this  a  bit  further: 


42  The    Little    Review 

Let  us  imagine  Abe  Lincoln  born  and  brought  up  in  Massachusetts 
or  New  York.  Let  us  imagine  Abe  Lincoln  born  and  brought  up 
in  the  Illinois  of  today.  Let  us  imagine  Abraham  Lincoln  as  born 
and  brought  up  where  and  when  he  was — but  without  Stephen 
Douglas.  Now  let  us  imagine  the  eloquent  facts  as  we  know  them 
to  have  been  at  a  given  time  and  place.  Let  us  imagine  Abraham 
Lincoln  as  he  actually  was,  thrown  among  the  politicians  and  learned 
superiors  at  the  very  moment  when  he  delivered  the  Gettysburg  Ad- 
dress. And  when  we  have  done  that  we  know  that  Mr.  James 
Oppenheim  is  lacking  in  many  things,  among  which  is  the  knowledge 
of  the  simple  enough  facts  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  a  "sport" 
in  the  Illinois  of  his  day. 

And  now  let  us  imagine  T.  R.  and  Woodrow  Wilson,  together, 
as  the  heroes  of  a  novel,  as  I  have  imagined  them: 

T.  R. :  Set  out  to  be  a  leader.  Did  not  care  whether  he  led  for- 
ward of  back  or  up  in  the  air.  Fell  down  in  an  attempt  at  the  latter. 
Enter  Woodrow  Wilson.  Looks  neither  forward  nor  back,  nor 
would  he  be  helped  by  the  sight  of  objective  facts  nor  subjective 
possibilities,  because  of  the  rigidity  of  mind  that  follows  upon  a  vio- 
lent repudiation  of  certain  infantile  attractions.  Follows  pertinacious 
temperament  doggedly.  Kept  within  definable  bounds  by  a  meddling 
sentimental  friend.  Substantial  gentlemen  who  must  have  fixed 
points  of  departure  very  much  disturbed.  Permit  slow  emergence 
of  T.  R.  T.  R.  emerges  behind  smoke  screen.  Rises  to  the  position 
of  chief  heckler  of  Woodrow  Wilson  and  cheer  leader  for  substantial 
gentlemen  who  want  fixed  point  of  departure.  Knows  the  mean 
nature  of  his  leadership ;  resents  it  and  the  company  he  is  in ;  but  is 
not  strong  enough  to  break  away  and  go  it  alone — forward  or  back. 
Woodrow  Wilson  still  without  a  policy;  worried;  but  cannot  break 
with  his  temperament.  Forced  to  keep  in  front  but  always  in  sight 
of  T.  R.  In  desperation,  goes  abroad ;  hopes  to  be  able  to  accomplish 
abroad  what  he  is  unable  to  do  at  home.  T.  R.  dies.  Woodrow 
Wilson  left  without  an  enemy  to  guide  him.  Breaks  with  his  tem- 
perament.    Finds  he  has  broken  himself. 

That  this  novel  may  never  be  written  argues  nothing  against  it 


The    Little    Review  43 

in  the  limited  sense  in  which  I  used  it.  It  might  be  written,  and 
that  alone  is  quite  sufficient  to  disprove  Mr.  James  Oppenheim's 
2ssertion.— ISRAEL  SOLON. 

The  Last  Word 

THE  Little  Review  allows  me  to  accept  the  work  of  the 
Baroness  von  Freytag-Loringhoven  as  art,  but  objects  to 
analytical  comment.  "Making  no  compromise  with  the  pub- 
lic taste"  is  now  easily  interpreted  as  the  line  inscribed  over  the 
door  of  the  temple  by  the  hand  of  the  priest,  for  it  is  the  priest 
who  demands  an  audience  that  appreciates  at  the  expense  of  the 
critical  faculties. 

It  is  strange  that  Mr.  Israel  Solon,  himself  objecting  to  what  he 
seems  to  consider  the  presumption  of  a  definite  and  individual  view- 
point, should  accuse  me  of  guarding  "our"  literary  tradition.  I 
said  that  I  saw  in  the  author  of  "The  Cast-Iron  Lover"  a  strange 
and  beautiful  obliviousness  to  all  but  the  dominating  emotion,  and, 
after  some  analysis  of  the  psychology  involved  in  producing  this 
efifect,  included  her  ecstasy  among  the  properties  of  art.  This  is  the 
"heckling"  criticism  which  is  the  excuse  of  the  heckling  Mr.  Solon 
for  trying  to  saddle  me  with  a  defense  of  "our"  legend.  Whose  I 
wonder?  And  what  of  an  interpreter  of  modern  art  to  whom  psy- 
chology is  an  esoteric  science!  I  call  the  Baroness  a  naked  oriental 
in  the  sex  dance  of  her  religion,  but  I  indicate  a  conviction  that  as 
such  she  expresses  a  limited  reality.  In  return  Mr.  Solon  gives  us 
a  diatribe  about  cellars  and  combed  air.  Criticism  after  all  is  in  a 
sense  the  process  for  those  who  desire  to  preserve  through  the  wel- 
come confusion  of  living  the  continuity  necessary  for  an  individual- 
ized outlook.  If  I  took  my  poetic  air  "washed" — by  Mr.  Solon — 
as  my  mentor  seems  to  think,  I  would  not  call  forth  his  disapproval. 
As  it  happens  I  do  my  own  washing  and  combing  and  thus  invite  his 
censoriousness. 

As  for  his  horrible  jibe  to  the  effect  that  I  have  a  sophisticated 
mind,  I  should  say  to  this  un-sophisticated  person  that  sophistica- 
tion  is  another   requisite   for  the  critic  as  he  desires  for  the  time 


44  The    Little    Review 

being  to  distinguish  himself  from  the  creator,  for  analysis  and 
classification  take  for  granted  previous  experiences  which  will  aflford 
comparisons  and  a  certain  amount  of  detachment  from  personal 
prejudice  which  is  only  possible  to  the  keenly  self-aware. 

Certainly  I  found  The  Cast-Iron  Lover  crude  and  vulgar,  but  I 
should  like  Mr.  Solon  to  quote  literally  any  utterance  of  mine  which 
would  indicate  that  I  consider  crudity  and  vulgarity  elements  to 
bar  out  a  poetic  spirit. 

Again,  when  I  hold  an  opinion  I  naturally  assume  it  to  be  cor- 
rect. How  otherwise  can  one  think  at  all?  If  when  I  make  an 
assertion  I  at  the  same  time  admit  its  contradiction,  I  simply  refuse 
to  assume  any  responsibility  whatever.  But  doubtless  Mr.  Solon  is 
defending  his  own  blithe  method  which  seems  to  lie  in  a  very  ir- 
responsible type  of  attack,  for  he  does  not  hesitate  to  condemn  one 
in  advance  for  a  point  of  view  to  which  one  has  never  committed 
oneself. 

".  .  .  .  when  two  such  different  minds  meet  there  is  not  even  the 
possibility  of  a  common  understanding  of  word  values:  word  values 
come  from  personal  values,"  says  "jh."  For  purposes  of  artistic 
creation,  yes,  and  in  all  cases  of  course  the  selection  of  one's  vocabu- 
lary gives  a  persojial  flavour  to  one's  speech,  but  if  "jh"  believed 
what  she  says  she  would  have  attempted  no  rebuttal  of  my  previous 
statements.  However,  this  remark  does  not  astonish  me  as  the  whole 
tenor  of  her  counter  comment  is,  in  the  traditional  sense,  surprisingly 
feminine. 

"The  Baroness  von  Freytag,"  to  quote  "jh"  further,  "will  think 
us  feeble-minded."  If  "jh"  had  not  printed  below  some  remarks 
from  the  lady  I  might  be  more  awed  by  the  threat,  but  I  can  not 
believe,  after  reading  this  semi-intelligible  prose,  that  the  mental 
processes  of  the  Baroness  ever  achieve  that  completion  of  their  cycle 
which  results  in  thought.  She — alas — appears  to  suffer  from  tem- 
peramental disabilities.     She  is  far,  far  too  inspired  to  think. 

"I  never  thought,"  to  proceed  with  these  excerpts  from  "jh,"  "of 
discussing  those  psychological  peculiarities  in  the  artist  which  arc 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  will.  Haven't  those  things  been  recognized 
and  summed  up  even  by  the  layman  in  'artists  are  born  not  made'?" 


The    Little    Review  45 

Has  "jh"  any  particular  objection  to  the  introduction  of  a  fresh  view- 
point so  that  she  requires  all  opinion  to  be  delivered  from  the  angle 
of  her  preconception?  As  to  her  last  observation,  I  should  say  that 
until  all  artists  are  born  the  same  no  amount  of  recognition  and 
summing  up  could  be  considered  final. 

"Consciousness,"  she  continues,  "does  not  mean  the  sum  of  un- 
governable dispersed  faculties.  Consciousness  means  complete  being." 
In  one  place  "jh'  refers  to  consciousness  as  "complete  being",  whereas 
in  a  previous  paragraph  she  bars  from  a  consideration  of  conscious- 
ness these  psychological  peculiarities  which  lie  beyond  the  reach  of 
the  will.  How  can  that  be  complete  from  which  there  is  so  much 
arbitrarily  excluded  ?  I  wonder  that  "jh",  who  only  admits  to  that 
part  of  the  mechanism  of  consciousness  which  is  under  the  control  of 
the  will,  has  persuaded  herself  to  print  Mr.  Joyce's  "Ulysses"  which 
reveals  so  wonderfully  the  irresponsibility  of  subjective  life. 

"jh"  tells  us  that  madness  is  not  disease.  Disease  is  a  deflection 
from  the  normal  order  of  practical  survival  and  in  this  category  is 
undoubtedly  madness.  I  am  quite  willing  where  possible,  however, 
to  accept  revelations  from  a  diseased  mind,  in  spite  of  the  presuppo- 
sitions of  Mr.  Solon  who  imagines  that  to  describe  a  quality  in  terms 
which  convention  considers  condemnatory  is  to  refuse  its  values.  A 
person  with  a  workable  imagination  may  call  a  man  a  thief  in  a  pro- 
foundly complimentary  sense,  so  when  I  discover  disease  in  the 
Baroness  it  is  not,  from  the  artistic  standpoint,  an  assertion  of  un- 
qualified disfavor.  "There  can  be  no  legitimate  standard  for  valu- 
ing the  order  of  sanity  higher  than  the  order  of  madness,  except  a 
moral  one,"  "jh"  declares,  forgetting  that  even  art  has  its  necessities. 
There  are,  after  all,  practical  values  for  the  artist  as  for  everyone 
else,  and  surely  his  primary  need  is  for  the  condition,  within  and 
without,  Vv^hich  will  allow  him  to  create.  However  luridly  intense 
the  vision  of  immanent  madness,  the  culmination  of  insanity  is  the 
death  of  creation.  That  will  which  to  "jh"  inchides  everything  in 
the  reproductive  act  of  the  artist,  disintegrates,  and  even  if  this  were 
not  true  it  is  impossible  to  pass  on  to  others  the  intimacies  of  dis- 
order for  which  no  medium  exists. 


46  The    Little    Revieuj 

"If  one  has  the  power  to  evoke  he  has  more  power  than  the 
evoked."  "jh"  gives  us  this  dictum,  but  in  what  manner  is  this  a 
contradiction  of  my  statement  that  evocation  implies  in  him  who 
commands  not  an  absolute  but  a  limited  ascendance? 

"But  if  the  artist  wishes  to  show  other  men  he  has  had  this  ex- 
perience,— first  he  wills:  intends  unconditionally;  then  he  must  not 
choose  with  his  mind  but  with  his  consciousness  the  subject  matter 
which  will  best  communicate  his  experience;  and  then  by  deliberate 
and  intense  activity  of  his  consciousness  he  must  produce  the  forms, 
colors,  rhythm  of  his  invention."  He  chooses,  he  says,  not  with  his 
mind  but  with  his  consciousness.  Is  not  this  suggestion  of  faculties 
involved,  which  lie  beyond  the  domain  of  orderable  intelligence,  a 
confession  that  "jh",  too,  believes  that  ungovernable  elements  give 
the  quality  to  inspiration?  The  power  of  willed  selection  only  inheres 
in  mind.  In  beginning  her  discussion  she  eliminates  all  that  lies  out- 
side of  mind  and  in  this  latter  paragraph  the  order  of  her  argument 
is  inverted. 

"...  the  will  is  so  powerful  that  it  creates  the  being — the  state 
of  consciousness  it  desires."  But,  how,  "jh"'?  Is  she  not  delving 
again  into  the  realm  of  the  subconsciousness  which  she  voted  to 
ignore?  Surely  this  profound  desire  which  stirs  the  darkness  brings 
forth  shapes  which  reflect  those  psychological  peculiarities  of  the  artist 
that  our  critic  refuses  to  consider. 

"Unless  I  had  tried  to  begin  my  discussion  far  beyond  the  cause 
which  may  be  pathological  and  the  effect  which  is  not  .  .  .  beyond 
the  support  of  knowledge  and  academic  definition  ...  I  should  feel 
that  I  had  offered  an  affront  and  an  insult  to  Else  von  Freytag- 
Loringhoven."  I  am  not  interested  in  guarding  the  hypersensitive 
feelings  of  the  Baroness,  but  in  appraising  an  artistic  effect,  and  to 
do  so  honestly  I  consider  it  necessary  to  begin  at  the  beginning,  and 
the  beginning  of  every  work  of  art,  or  of  every  attempted  work  of 
art  is  in  the  soul  or  consciousness  of  him  who  created  it. 

"All  that  she  says  is  true,"  "jh"  concedes  me,  "but  it  does  not 
make  sense  because  it  does  not  fit  this  discussion."  "jh"  is  in  a  posi- 
tion of  vantage  as  she  can  exercise  the  editorial   perogative  of  the 


T  h  e    Lit  tl  e   Review  47 

last  word.  She  can  refuse  to  publish  my  retort,  but  once  admitting 
me  to  her  pages  she  can  not,  I  should  think,  rule  out  my  statements 
simply  because  they  do  not  meet  with  her  approval. — EVELYN 
SCOTT. 

[I  am  glad  to  allow  Miss  Scott  the  last  word.  I  withdraw 
quietly.  I  feel  that  I  have  been  permitted  a  glimpse  of  the  gentle 
mystic  soul  of  an  adding-machine. — jh.'\ 


The  Works  of  Thomas  Vaughan,  edited  by  A.  E.  Waite 
Theosophical  Publishing  House,  London. 

IN  China  Red  Dragon  is  the  antithetic  image  to  the  Tiger  or  un- 
redeemed man.     This  beast,  the  archtype  of  the  five  senses  at  a 
loose  end,  is  to  be  recognized  here  today  as  the  Man  Who 
Doesn't  Believe  in  Art. 

In  the  East,  through  succeeding  ages  of  creation,  like  a  good 
phoenix.  Red  Dragon  has  destroyed  him,  and  when  (no  date  is  given 
to  the  turn  of  this  event)  the  last  man  of  four  hundred  million  had 
been  annihilated  and  resurrected  in  aesthetic  grace,  Red  Dragon  left 
and  travelled  west  to  see  what  could  be  done  with  Europe.  Among 
us  he  found  not  a  tiger,  but  his  rampant  relation,  coloured  green. 
Red  Dragon  recognized  him,  and  then  began  that  great  sporting 
event  called  by  the  mediaevalists  Hunting  the  Green  Lion. 

Red  Dragon  is  a  trinity.  Of  the  Triune  pack  the  Father  of  the 
Virtues,  the  Son  of  the  Sciences  hunt  Green  Lion  yet.  Red  Dragon, 
Spirit  of  the  Arts,  is  on  a  wider  cast,  a  little  behind,  and  off  the 
open  lead.  His  operation  is  a  chase  till  the  green  beast  is  run  down, 
when  he  bites  off  his  head,  which  was  the  exact  fate  of  the  Tiger. 
In  deference  to  man's  immortality  and  what  appear  to  be  the  facts 
of  the  case.  Green  Lion  rises  from  that  bite  no  longer  a  lion,  but  his 
own  pursuer,  a  New  Creature,  another,  but  the  identical  celestial 
Red  Dragon. 


48  T  It  e    L  i  1 1 1  e    R  e  V  i  e  w 

This  is  a  mystey  and  would  have  been  better  recognized  in  the 
classical  age  than  this. 

Our  trinity  may  catch  its  lion  here,  and  after  successful  operation 
in  Europe  may  fly  the  Atlantic  when  wisdom  and  the  hour  are  agreed. 
Anyhow  the  result  of  their  labours  is  the  rebirth  of  John  and  Mary 
Smith  from  the  stuffy  womb  of  egocentric  nonsense  to  the  creative 
energies  of  saints,  magicians  and  artists.  On  the  subject  of  the  review 
it  may  be  said  that  none  of  the  three  dragon  rebirths  seems  to  have 
shot  out  straight  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Thomas  Vaughan.  He  is  not 
an  initiated  saint,  complete  magician  (and  by  magician  one  means  the 
immortal  scientist,  the  hermetic  philosopher),  or  the  artist  whose  ap- 
proach to  reality  is  through  pure  form.  The  last  is  a  pity  for  he 
could  write  well.  He  is  suggestive,  tiresome,  devoted,  curious,  eru- 
dite, charming  and  involved.  But  there  is  no  fusion,  the  word  is 
never  quite  made  flesh.  Three  dragons  after  him  at  once  it  is  clear 
were  too  much  for  him. 

Each  had  a  bite.  It  is  a  pity  not  one  of  them  snapped  oflF  his 
\itzA.—MARY  BUTTS. 


Eva    G authie r 

THE  interesting  thing  about  hearing  Eva  Gauthier  sing  her 
modern  songs  is  that  she  proves  definitely  how  slowly  the  art 
of  singing  develops.  Even  in  those  special  singers,  to  whom 
has  come  the  need  of  singing  the  moderns,  the  idea  of  how  to  sing 
them  lies  dead.  Eva  Gauthier  has  all  the  things  necessary  to  distin- 
guish her  from  the  singing  proletariat  (Ponselle,  Sundclius,  and  the 
rest).  Eva  Gauthier's  needs  are  interesting, — but  she  cannot  prove 
it  because  she  has  never  thought  of  inventing  an  instrument  to  suit 
her  needs.  She  is  truly  one  of  the  first  of  the  great  army  of  singers 
to  realize  what  has  happened  and  is  happening  to  music.  It  is  a 
genuine  tragedy  that  she  cannot  tell  of  her  experience  in  a  manner 
worthy  of  such  a  special  thing. 

When  composers  like  Stravinsky  and  Ravel  make  orchestrations 


The    Little    Review  49 


they  find  it  nccessaij  to  invent  many  new  sounds — or  rather,  the  new 
sounds  find  them,  "jh"  says,  "old  fashioned  painters  aren't  born  any 
more!"  I  would  add  that  old  fashioned  composers  are  not  born  any 
more  either.  Unfortunately,  music  does  not  stop  at  its  creation.  It 
must  be  performed — re-created — and  when  a  Latin  finds  he  has  a 
"clear"  voice — that  is,  free  from  obtrusive  tonsils — he  affects  a  "gal- 
lantre"  and  begins  to  sing.  This  was  all  very  well  for  the  recent 
sterile  Italian  composers  who  considered  it  an  aesthetic  achievement 
to  be  able  to  write  a  lot  of  scales  and  runs  and  cadenzas  for  "florid" 
voices,  and  "flowing  melodies"  for  smooth  velvety  voices  which  could 
perform  tricks  like  sustaining  a  note  for  a  minute  or  more  while  the 
audience  held  its  breath,  waiting  for  the  customary  explosion  of  ap- 
plause, etc.,  etc.  Any  intelligent  person  will  agree  that  this  period 
in  music  is  dead — and  always  was  dead ;  also  that  music  in  Italy  never 
existed  on  the  basis  of  conception — performance  has  always  been  the 
intention — Paganini  and  his  tricks!  Therefore  it  seems  to  me,  with 
music  progressing  almost  as  rapidly  as  the  other  arts,  that  singing 
alone  stays  and  is  content  to  stay  where  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago. 
Teachers  talk  of  "bel  canto  as  a  foundation" — but  still  they  admit 
that  there  aren't  any  voices  now  as  there  were  in  "the  old  days." 
Why  does  it  never  occur  to  them  that  sounds  have  their  evolution 
as  well  as  other  things.  But  still  they  harp  at  "bel  canto."  How  can 
a  fresh  emotion  come  to  Life  through  a  medium  as  threadbare  as 
that?  A  new  intention  of  singing  must  exist:  new  sounds  exist  in 
the  orchestra,  and  two  or  three  artists  have  found  them  on  the  piano. 
Anyone  with  the  slightest  feeling  of  evolution  would  agree  with  me. 

Why  doesn't  some  singer  carry  on  what  Mary  Garden  has  started, 
and  study  the  sounds  she  makes  with  her  voice  when  she  is  Melisande, 
for  instance?  She  has  come  nearer  to  making  what  I  call  "the  new 
sounds"  than  anyone.  Everywhere  I  go  I  find  professional  singers 
who  have  spent  years  training  their  voices,  and  critics  who  have  a  line 
on  musical  history,  etc.,  saying,  "Mary  has  no  voice!"  This  ignor- 
ance is  incomprehensible  to  me.  Even  a  higher  grade  of  human 
being,  to  whom  has  come  the  appreciation  of  her  art,  has  little  to  say 
of  her  voice.  This  is  still  more  discouraging.   I  do  not  intend  writing 


50  The   Little    Review 


a  Mary  Garden  essay,  but  I  should  like  to  tell  why  I  think  the  human 
voice  the  most  interesting  of  instruments,  possessing  the  greatest  pos- 
sibility for  variety  of  sounds.     Miss  Garden  has  proved  this.     I  can- 
not think  of  more  interesting  sounds  than  the  sounds  of  her  voice. 
Naturally,  the  emotonal  quality  intensifies — and  aside  from  that — it 
is  the  richest  thing  I  know.    That  no  one  realizes  that  she  isn't  trying 
to  sing  like  Muzio  or  Raisa  is  a  pity,  for  they  miss  the  beginning  of 
the  most  interesting  era  in  the  art  of  singng.     If  a  man  who  had 
never  heard  anything  but  a  violincello,  were  to  hear  an  oboe  he  would 
say,  "it  plays  the  music  correctly,  that  is  it  gets  by,  but  it  hasn't  any 
beauty  of  tone!"     If  he  were  not  going  in  for  new  things  he  would 
not  realize  that  the  oboe  possessed  a  subtlety  the  'cello  did  not.    Mary 
Garden  fcno^^^  the  value  of  these  various  sounds.     When  she  sits  in 
the    tower   window    as    Melisande,    and    sings    an    ancient-sounding 
ballad,  how  much  she  sounds  like  an  oboe !     It  is  inevitable  that,  had 
Debussy  written   Melisande's  song  in  the  orchestra  he  would  have 
made  the  oboe  sing  in  that  scene, — the  oboe  possessing  that  distant, 
lonely,  ancient  feeling.     So  Garden,  instead  of  seeing  how  "clear"  or 
"even"  her  voice  can  be,  proceeds  to  paint  a  design  you  can  never 
forget.     "Beauty  of  tone"  in  the  conventional  sense  means  no  more 
to  Mary  Garden  than  "complementary  colors"  in  the  conventional 
sense  means  to  Boris  Anisfeld  or  than  sing-song  rhjrthm  means  to 
poetry. 

Therefore  the  method  of  study  for  singers  must  change.  Modern 
singers  cannot  aflford  to  waste  their  time  learning  to  sing  the  old  way 
to  be  able  to  sing  the  new.  Modern  composers  don't  study  to  write 
like  Beethoven.  .  .  .  modern  sculptors  don't  study  as  Michel  Angelo 
(lid.  Why  is  singing  the  lowest  type  of  all  artistic  activity?  The 
method  of  development  of  a  modern  singer  is  that  of  singing,  think- 
ing, listening,  and  to  hell  with  "head  resonance,"  "chest  tones,"  pas- 
sage of  the  voice,"  and  all  those  wonderful  things  the  horrible  looking 
Italian  bravo  tenors  possess — they  who  remind  one  of  a  wagonload 
of  manure — who  take  so  many  years  off  our  lives.  There  is  no  hope 
for  them — but  surely  the  modern  type  of  singer  who  has  even  the 
faintest  power  of  conception  can  advance  singing  so  that  it  may  still 
have  a  chance  amongs  the  arts. 


The    Little    Review  51 

One  is  disappointed  in  Gauthier  because  one  expects  more  from  a 
singer  who  has  a  head  that  looks  like  hers.  The  really  exciting  thing 
about  her  recital  was  her  choice  of  songs.  But  they  need  to  be  sung 
with  a  new  technic,  otherwise  they  are  as  worthless  as  Mischa  Lev- 
itzki  playing  at  Scriabine. — E.  B. 


Tolstoi  and  May  Sinclair 

THE  opening  paragraph  of  "jh's"  review  of  "The  Power  of 
Darkness"  puts  me  in  mind  of  the  caged  canary  who  said  to 
its  feathered  neighbor  in  the  peroquet: 

"Don't  strut  about  like  that,  you  silly  bird.  Even  if  you  have 
more  colors  on  your  back  than  I,  you  should  know  that  yellow  is  the 
most  beautiful  color  in  the  world.  And  besides,  you  needn't  plume 
yourself  so  haughtily  because  you  can  ape  the  gibble-gabble  of  those 
poor  humans.  If  you  really  knew  what  the  words  meant  you  wouldn't 
be  so  ready  to  repeat  them.  I  shouldn't  have  to  remind  you  that  my 
life  is  fuller  than  yours.     I  can  sing." 

"But  you  don't  know  what  you're  singing  about,"  replied  the 
peroquet.    "And  what  is  more,  you're  pigmy  in  size  for  a  bird." 

"Ah,  that's  just  it,"  said  the  canary,  gleefully.  "My  universe  is 
larger  than  yours,  just  because  I  am  small.  I  have  more  room  to 
fly  about  in." 

Let  me  say  at  the  outset  that  I  am  perhaps  a  trifle  ol d fashioned ; 
that  is,  not  entirely  sensorial  when  it  comes  to  talking  about  books, 
statues  and  pictures.  I  don't  say  this  because  I  exchange  cards  with 
"jh,"  in  the  continental  sense,  for  the  vindication  of  Tolstoi.  As 
for  Romain  Rolland,  another  sensitive  membrane  with  me,  I  believe 
the  man  who  wrote  "Jean  Christophe"  and  some  of  the  best  music 
and  art  criticism  of  our  time  can  well  handle  the  foils  on  his  own. 

My  naive  unmodernity,  if  such  indeed  it  is,  can  be  best  illustrated 
by  the  broad  generalization  that,  like  Bertrand  Russel,  I  start  by 


52  The    Little    Review 

admitting  the  palpable  facts  of  prcscnt-day  society,  life  with  all  its 
known  gradations  of  sensitive  feeling  and  thought.  I  include  in  my 
vision,  moreover,  the  evolution  of  what  is  sometimes  flatteringly  called 
civilization.  That  is,  I  can  see  the  operation  of  the  teleological  in 
life,  the  conscious  motivation  of  action,  as  well  as  the  subconscious. 
I  do  not  overstress  the  conscious,  knowing  full  well  that  it  is  limited 
and  that,  in  a  great  number  of  cases,  it  is  merely  a  word. 

This  brings  me  to  Edna  Kenton's  definition  of  May  Sinclair's  meth- 
od in  "Mary  Olivier"  as  "the  subconscious  approach  to  the  representa- 
tion of  life."  The  implication,  psychologically  speaking,  is  absurd. 
The  subconscious  undoubtedly  functions  in  Mary  Olivier,  as  in  every- 
body else.  But  when  Mary  Olivier  or  May  Sinclair,  to  be  exact, 
puts  down  her  sensations,  emotions  and  thoughts,  as  we  assume  she 
does  within  the  novelist's  convention,  the  artistic  upshot  is  but  re- 
motely controlled  or  conditioned  by  the  aboriginal  Mary  Olivier's 
subconscious  self.  Both  the  conscious  or  conative,  as  well  as  the 
censor,  which  is  a  subtle  fusion  of  conscious  and  unconscious  impulses, 
stain  or  bias  the  nude  material  in  the  course  of  the  process.  There 
is  alwaj's  a  certain  amount  of  will  in  everything  one  does,  will  being 
merely  a  slower  response  to  immedite  stimuli  and  a  keener  dependence 
on  the  dynamic  impulse  alembricated  by  memory,  association  and 
image-forming. 

At  this  point,  although  I  seem  to  have  wandered  for  a-pasture,  I 
find  myself  in  complete  agreement  with  "jh"  when  she  says  in  another 
place:  "If  a  man's  an  artist  everything  he  produces  is  a  blood-relation 
to  himself  (he  creates  in  his  own  image),  his  boobs  do  not  remain 
boobs."  Literally,  if  one  has  the  clue,  in  his  own  image!  And  the 
boobs  do  not  remain  boobs  unless  the  author  himself  happens  to  be  a 
boob.  In  other  words — if  I  may  put  it  utility-wise, — "jh,"  whether 
she  knows  it  or  not,  is  pending  for  conscious  or  intellectual  control 
in  creative  effort,  for  organization,  for  harmony  and  counterpoint  in 
art.  How  else  are  many  good  artists  tn  escape  boobery?  What  about 
the  booby  moments  which  even  the  geni\is  may  have?  Is  an  artist 
always  in  high  fettle?  And  if  we  concede  that  consciousness,  so 
called,  is  just  as  much  impulse  in  the  broad  sense  as  subconsciousness, 
then  we  mu.st  also  admit  that  will-power  is  creative. 


The    Little    Review  53 

Subconsciousness,  however,  without  the  aid  of  will  or  direction, 
cannot  be  creative  for  the  reason  that  it  is  composed  of  the  most 
primitive  impulses,  impulses  allied  in  character  to  those  which  make 
a  baby  cry  or  want  to  test  things  out  by  bringing  them  to  its  mouth. 
These  impulses  will  never  be  able  to  write  a  book  like  "Mary 
Olivier."  It's  the  whole  mental  and  aesthetic  organism  of  May  Sin- 
clair that  produced  the  book.  In  brief,  it  is  sophisticated  expression, 
which  art  largely  is.  Take,  for  example,  the  chapters  that  deal  with 
Mary  at  the  age  of  nine  and  compare  them  with  the  thoughts  and 
utterances  of  the  heroine  of  "The  Young  Visiters."  It  is  evident 
that  the  artist  must  use  a  convention,  which  implies  direction  or 
mental  control. 

Any  half-skilled  dialectitian,  if  he  were  so  minded,  could  easily 
overthrow  your  theory  of  insanity  in  art  growing  out  of  the  case  of 
Else  von  Freytag.  We  have  no  quarrel  with  the  artist  if  he  is  insane 
in  the  domestic  circle,  or  in  the  sanitorium,  but  if  his  insanity  implies 
lack  of  direction  in  art  we  may  have  a  new  phenomenon,  absorbing 
and  curious,  but  is  it  necessary  to  abuse  still  further  a  word  which 
has  been  stretched  to  the  point  of  absurdity?  Remember  I  am  speak- 
ing only  of  direction.  There  is  no  difference  in  the  emotivity,  for  in 
this  regard  sane  and  insane  are  alike. 

I  have  perh»ps  drifted  a  little  beyond  my  depth.  I  wanted  to  say 
a  word  about  Tolstoi.  Tolstoi's  mental  control  or  direction,  if  we 
agree  so  to  name  it,  was  often  misplaced.  It  was  too  vehemently 
reformist  in  tendency.  But  I  wouldn't  damn  him  outright  for  this 
reason.  For,  despite  his  essay  on  art,  he  was  a  great  artist  as  you 
may  see  from  innumerable  passages  in  his  books.  Individual  scenes 
in  "The  Power  of  Darkness"  as,  for  example,  the  one  between  the 
hired  man  and  the  little  girl  on  the  stove,  prove  it.  His  vision  was 
not  the  vision  of  the  Little  Review.  But  even  if  you  do  not  approve 
of  his  viewpoint,  his  method  was  the  method  of  a  great  artist.  (At 
times,  as  in  "Anna  Karenina"  and  in  "The  Death  of  Ivan  Illyitch" 
he  broke  his  traces). 

Truly,  I  am  not  disposed  to  splinter  a  lance  with  "jh"  about  "The 
Power  of  Darkness"  because  in  the  main  I  agree  with  her.    The  first 


54  The    Little    Revie 


paragraph  of  her  review,  however,  is  too  devastating  to  be  anything 
but  shortsighted  and  two-dimensional.  In  criticism  there  is  no  excuse 
for  astigmatism  or  muddlehcadness. — PIERRE  LOVING, 

[jh: — to  the  readers  of  the  Litth  Revieic — Greetings: — Be  it 
hereby  known  for  the  hundredth  time  that  I  make  no  attempt  to  write 
criticism.  The  offerings  above  my  name  may  be  called  notes,  articles, 
opinions,  editorials,  compliments,  attacks,  murder,  but  Mr.  Loving 
should  recognize  criticism  if  he  is  going  to  define  criticism. 

I  can  but  briefly  take  up  one  point  in  IMr.  Loving's  article.  "Con- 
scious or  intellectual  control,  organization,  etc.",  are  the  obvious 
essentials  in  creative  effort:  technique.  Mhich  simply  should  mean 
control  of  the  matter  as  well  as  of  the  medium.  Boobery  is  not  an 
intermittent  thing.  If  a  man  has  the  clue  to  his  own  image  he  has  a 
clue  to  the  universe. — jh.] 


Ulysses 

hy  James  Joyce 

Episode  XII   {continued) 

AND  at  the  sound  of  the  sacring  bell  the  blessed  company 
drew  nigh  of  monks  and  friars  the  monks  of  Benedict 
of  Spoleto,  Carthusians  and  Camaldolesi,  Cistercians 
and  Olivetans,  Oratorians  and  Vallombrosans,  and  the 
friars  of  Augustine,  Brigittines,  Premonstratesians,  Servi, 
Trinitarians,  and  the  children  of  Peter  Nolasco;  and  therewith  from 
Carmel  mount  the  children  of  Elijah  prophet  led  by  Albert  bishop 
and  by  Teresa  of  Avila,  caked  and  other :  and  friars  brown  and  grey, 
sons  of  poor  Francis,  capuchins,  cordeliers,  minimes  and  observants 
and  the  daughters  of  Clara:  and  the  sons  of  Dominic  and  of  Vincent; 
and  Ignatius  his  children:  and  the  confraternity  of  the  christian 
brothers  led  by  reverend  brother  Rice.    And  after  came  all  saints  and 


The    Little   Review  55 

martyrs,  virgins  and  confessors:  S.  Isidore  arator  and  S.  James  the 
Less  and  S.  Phocas  of  Sinope  and  S.  Julian  Hospitator  and  S.  Felix 
de  Cantalice  and  S.  Stephen  Protomartyr  and  S.  John  Nepomuc  and 
S.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  S.  Ives  of  Brittany  and  S.  Herman-Joseph 
and  the  saints  Gevasius,  Servasius  and  Bonifacius  and  S.  Bride  and 
the  saints  Rose  of  Lima  and  of  Viterbo  and  S.  Martha  of  Bethany 
and  S.  Mary  of  Egypt  and  S.  Barbara  and  S.  Scholastica  and  S.  Ur- 
sula with  eleven  thousand  virgins.  And  all  came  with  nimbi  and 
aureoles  and  gloriae,  bearing  palms  and  harps  and  swords  and  olive 
crowns  in  robes  whereon  were  woven  the  blessed  symbols  of  their 
efficacies,  ink  horns,  arrows,  loaves,  cruses,  fetters,  axes,  trees,  bridges, 
babes  in  a  bathtub,  shells,  wallets,  shears,  keys,  dragons,  lilies,  buck- 
shot, beards,  hogs,  lamps,  bellows,  beehives,  soupladles,  stars,  snakes, 
anvils,  boxes  of  vaseline,  bells,  crutches,  forceps,  stags'  horns,  water- 
tight boots,  hawks,  millstones,  eyes  on  a  dish,  wax  candles,  aspergills, 
unicorns.  And  as  they  wended  their  way  by  Nelson's  Pillar,  Henry 
Street,  Mary  Street,  Capel  Street,  Little  Britain  Street,  chanting  the 
introit  in  Epiphania  Domini  which  beginneth  Surge,  illuminare  and 
thereafter  most  sweetly  the  gradual  Omnes  which  saith  de  Saba  ve- 
nient  they  did  divers  wonders  such  as  casting  out  devils,  raising  the 
dead  to  life,  multiplying  fishes,  healing  the  halt  and  the  blind,  dis- 
covering various  articles  which  had  been  mislaid,  interpreting  and 
fulfilling  the  scriptures,  blessing  and  prophesying.  And  last,  beneath 
a  canopy  of  cloth  of  gold  came  the  reverend  Father  O'Flynn  attended 
by  Malachi  and  Patrick.  And  when  all  had  reached  the  appointed 
place  the  celebrant  blessed  the  house  and  censed  and  sprinkled  the 
lintels  thereof  with  blessed  water  and  prayed  that  God  would  bless 
that  house  as  he  had  blessed  the  house  of  Abraham  and  Isaac  and 
Jacob  and  make  the  angels  of  His  light  to  inhabit  therein.  And 
entering  he  blessed  the  viands  and  the  beverages  and  the  company  of 
all  the  blessed  answered  his  prayers. 

— Adiutorium  nostrum  in  nomine  Domini. 
— Qui  fecit  coelum  et  Terram. 
— Dominus  vobiscum. 
— Et  cum  spiritu  tuo. 


56  The    Little    Review 


And  he  laid  liis  hands  upon  that  he  blessed  and  gave  thanks  and 
he  prayed  and  they  all  with  him  prayed: 

— Deus,  cuius  verbo  sanctificantur  omnia,  benedictionem  tuain  effunde 
super  creaturas  istas:  et  praesta  ut  quisquis  eis  secundum  legem  et 
voluntotem  tuam  cum  gratiarum  actione  usus  fucrit  per  invocationem 
sanctissimi  nominis  tui  corporis  sanitatem  et  onimae  tutelam,  te  anc- 
tore  percipiat  per  (Jhristum,  dominum  nostrum. 
— ^And  so  say  all  of  us,  says  Jack. 
— ^Thousand  a  year,  Lambert,  says  Crofton. 
— Right,  says  Ned.    And  butter  for  fish. 

I  was  just  looking  round  to  see  who  the  happy  thought  would 
strike  when,  be  damned  but  Bloom  comes  in  again  letting  on  to  be 
in  a  hell  of  a  hurry. 
— I  was  just  round  at  the  court  house,  saj's  he,  looking  for  you.     I 

hope  I'm  not 

— No,  says  Martin,  we're  ready. 

Courthouse  my  eye.     And  your  pockets  hanging  down  with  gold 
and  silver.     Mean  bloody  scut.     Stand  us  a  drink  itself.     There's  a 
jew  for  youl     Hundred  to  five. 
— Don't  tell  anyone,  says  the  citizen. 
— Beg  your  pardon,  says  Bloom. 

— Come  on  boys,  says  Martin,  seeing  it  was  looking  blue.     Come 
along  now. 
— Don't  tell  anyone,  says  the  citizen,  letting  a  bawl  out  of  him. 

And  the  bloody  dog  woke  up  and  let  a  growl. 
— Bye  bye  all,  says  Martin. 

And  he  got  them  out  as  quick  as  he  could,  Jack  Power  and  Crofton 
or  whatever  you  call  him  and  old  Bloom  in  the  middle  of  them  letting 
on  to  be  all  at  sea  and  up  with  them  on  the  bloody  car. 
— OflF  with  you,  says  Martin  to  the  jarvey. 

The  milkwhitc  dophine  tossed  his  mane  and  rising  in  the  golden 
poop,  the  helmsman  spread  the  bellying  sail  upon  the  wind.  A  many 
comely  nymphs  drew  nigh  to  starboard  and  to  larboard  and,  clinging 
to  the  sides  of  the  noble  bark,  they  linked  their  shining  forms  as  doth 
the  cunning  wheelwright  when  he  fashions  about  the  heart  of  his 
wheel  the  equidistant  rays  whereof  each  one  is  sister  to  another  and 


TheLittleRevieiv  57 

he  binds  them  all  with  an  outer  ring  and  giveth  speed  to  the  feet  of 
men  when  as  they  ride  to  a  hosting  or  contend  for  the  smile  of  ladies 
fair.  Even  so  did  they  come  and  set  them,  those  willing  nymphs,  the 
undying  sisters.  And  they  laughed,  sporting  in  a  circle  of  their 
foam:  and  the  bark  clave  the  waves. 

But  begob  I  was  just  lowering  the  last  of  the  pint  when  I  saw  the 
citizen  getting  up  to  waddle  to  the  door  and  he  cursing  bell  book  and 
candle  in  Irish  and  Joe  and  little  Alf  trying  to  hold  him  back. 
— Let  me  alone,  says  he. 

And  begob  he  got  as  far  as  the  door  and  they  holding  him  and  be 
bawls  out  of  him: 
— Three  cheers  for  Israel! 

Arrah,  sit  down  on  the  parlimentary  side  of  your  arse  and  don't 
be  making  an  exhibition  of  yourself.  Jesus,  there's  always  some 
bloody  clown  or  other  kicking  up  a  bloody  murder  about  bloody 
nothing.     Gob,  it'd  turn  the  porter  sour  in  your  guts,  so  it  would. 

And  all  the  ragamuffins  and  sluts  of  the  place  round  the  door  and 
Martin  telling  the  jarvey  to  drive  ahead  and  the  citizen  bawling  and 
Alf  and  Joe  at  him  to  whisht  and  Bloom  on  his  high  horse  about  the 
jews  and  the  loafers  calling  for  a  speech  and  Jack  Power  trying  to  get 
him  to  sit  down  on  the  car  and  hold  his  bloody  jaw  and  a  young  lad 
starts  singing  The  Boys  of  Wexford  and  a  slut  shouts  out  of  her: 
— Eh,  mister!    Your  fly  is  open,  mister! 

And  says  Bloom : 
— Mendelssohn  was  a  jew  and   Karl   Marx   and   Mercadante  and 
Spinoza.     And  j^our  god  was  a  jew  and  his  father  was  a  jew. 
— He  had  no  father,  says  Martin.    That'll  do  now.    Drive  ahead. 
— Whose  god !  saj^s  the  citizen. 

— Well,  his  uncle  was  a  jew,  says  Bloom.    Your  god  was  a  jew. 
Christ  was  a  jew  like  me. 

Gob,  the  citizen  made  a  plunge  into  the  shop. 
— By  Jesus,  says  he,  I'll  brain  that  bloody  jewman  for  using  the 
holy  name.     By  Jesus,  I'll  crucify  him  so  I  will.     Give  us  that  bis- 
cuit box  here. 
— Stop!  stop!  says  Joe. 

A  large  and  appreciative  gathering  of  friends  and  acquaintances 


58  The    Little    Review 

assembled  to  bid  farewell  to  Mr.  L.  Virag  on  the  occasion  of  his 
departure  for  a  distant  clime.  The  ceremony  which  went  off  with 
great  eclat  was  characterized  by  the  most  affecting  cordiality.  An 
illuminated  scroll,  the  work  of  Irish  artists,  was  presented  to  the  dis- 
tinguished visitor  on  behalf  of  a  large  section  of  the  community  and 
was  accompanied  by  the  gift  of  a  silver  casket,  tastefully  executed  in 
the  style  of  ancient  Celtic  ornament,  a  work  which  reflects  every 
credit  on  the  makers  Messrs.  Jacob  and  Jacob.  The  departing  guest 
was  the  recipient  of  a  hearty  ovation,  many  of  those  who  were  present 
being  visibly  moved  when  the  select  orchestra  of  Irish  pipes  struck 
up  the  wellknown  strains  of  Come  Back  to  Erin.  Amid  cheers  that 
rent  the  welkin  the  vessel  slowly  moved  away  saluted  by  a  final  floral 
tribute  from  the  representatives  of  the  fair  sex  who  were  present  in 
large  numbers.     Gone  but  not  forgotten. 

He  got  hold  of  the  bloody  tin  anyhow  and  out  with  him,  and  little 
Alf  hanging  on  to  his  elbow  and  he  shouting  like  a  stuck  pig. 
— Where  is  he  till  I  murder  him? 

And  Ned  and  J.  J.  paralysed  with  the  laughing. 
— Gob,  says  I,  I'll  be  in  for  the  last  gospel. 

But  as  luck  would  have  it  the  jarvey  got  the  nag's  head  round  the 
other  way  and  off  with  him. 
— Hold  on,  citizen,  saj^s  Joe.     Stop! 

Begob  he  made  a  swipe  and  let  fly.  Mercy  of  God  the  sun  was  in 
his  eyes.  Gob,  he  near  sent  it  into  the  country  Longford.  The 
bloody  nag  took  fright  and  the  old  mongrel  after  the  car  and  all  the 
populace  shouting  and  laughing  and  the  old  tinbox  clattering  along 
the  street. 

The  catastrophe  was  terrific  and  instantaneous  in  its  effect.  The 
observatory  of  Dunsink  registered  in  all  eleven  shocks  and  there  is  no 
record  extant  of  a  similar  seismic  disturbance  in  our  island  since  the 
earthquake  of  1534,  the  year  of  the  rebellion  of  Silken  Thomas.  The 
epicentre  appears  to  have  been  that  part  of  the  metropolis  which  con- 
stitutes the  Inn's  Quay  Ward  and  parish  of  Saint  Michan.  All  the 
lordly  residences  in  the  vicinity  of  the  palace  of  Justice  were  demol- 
ished and  that  noble  edifice  itself,  in  which  at  the  time  of  the  cata- 
strophe, important  legal  debates  were  in  progress,  is  literally  a  mass 


The    Little    Review  59 

of  ruins  beneath  which  it  is  to  be  feared  all  the  occupants  have  been 
buried  alive.  From  the  reports  of  ej^ewitnesses  it  transpires  that  the 
seismic  waves  were  accompanied  by  a  violent  atmospheric  perturbation 
of  cyclonic  character.  An  article  of  headgear  since  ascertained  to 
belong  to  the  much  respected  clerk  of  the  crown  and  peace  Mr. 
George  Fottrell  and  a  silk  umbrella  with  gold  handle  with  the  en- 
graved initials,  coat  of  arms  and  house  number  of  the  erudite  and 
worshipful  chairman  of  quarter  sessions  Sir  Frederick  Falkiner,  rec- 
order of  Dublin,  have  been  discovered  by  search  parties  in  remote 
parts  of  the  island  respectively  the  former  on  the  third  basaltic  ridge 
of  the  giant's  causeway,  the  latter  embedded  to  the  extent  of  one  foot 
three  inches  in  the  sandy  beach  of  Haleopen  bay  near  the  old  head 
of  Kinsale.  Other  eyewitnesses  depose  that  they  observed  an  incan- 
descent object  of  enormous  proportions  hurling  through  the  atmos- 
phere at  a  terrifying  velocity  in  a  trajectory  directed  southwest  by 
west.  Messages  of  condolence  and  sympathy  are  being  hourly  rec- 
eived from  all  parts  of  the  different  continents  and  the  sovereign 
pontiff  has  been  graciously  pleased  to  decree  that  a  special  missa  pro 
dejunctis  shall  be  celebrated  simultaneously  by  the  ordinaries  of  each 
and  every  parish  church  of  all  the  episcopal  dioceses  subject  to  the 
spiritual  authority  of  the  holy  see  in  suffrage  of  the  souls  of  those 
faithful  departed  v/ho  have  been  so  unexpectedly  called  away  from 
our  midst.  The  work  of  salvage,  removal  of  debris,  human  remains, 
etc.,  has  been  entrusted  to  Messrs.  Michael  Meade  and  son,  Great 
Brunswick  Street,  and  Messrs.  T.  &  C.  Martin,  North  Wall,  assisted 
by  the  men  and  ofHcers  of  the  Duke  of  Cornwall's  light  infantry 
under  the  general  supervision  of  H.  R.  H.,  near  admiral,  the  right 
horourable  Sir  Hercules  Hannibal  Habeas  Corpus  Anderson  K.  G., 
K.  P.,  K  .  T.,  P.  C,  K.  C.  B.,  M.  P.,  J.  P.,  M.  B.,  D.  S.  O., 
S.  O.  D.,  M.  F.  H.,  M.  R.  I.  A.,  B.  L.,  Mus.  Doc.  P.  L.  G.,  F.  R. 
C.  P.  I.,  and  F.  R.  C.  S.  I. 

You  never  saw  the  like  of  it  in  all  your  born  puff.  Gob,  if  he 
got  that  on  the  side  of  his  poll  he'd  remember  the  gold  cup,  so  he 
would,  but  begob  the  citizen  would  have  been  lagged  for  assault  and 
battery  and  Joe  for  aiding  and  abetting.     The  jarvey  saved  his  life 


6o  The    Little    Review 

as  sure  as  God  made  me.    What?    O,  Jesus,  he  did.     And  he  let  a 

volley  of  oaths  after  him. 

— Did  I  kill  him,  says  he,  or  what? 

And  he  shouting  to  the  bloody  dog: 
— After  him,  Garry!     After  him,  boy! 

And  the  last  we  saw  was  the  bloody  car  rounding  the  corner  and 
old  sheepsface  on  it  gesticulating  and  the  bloody  mongrel  after  it  with 
his  lugs  back  for  all  he  was  bloody  well  worth.  Hundred  to  five! 
Jesus,  he  took  the  value  of  it  out  of  him,  I  promise  you. 

When,  lo,  there  came  about  them  all  a  great  brightness  and  they 
beheld  the  chariot  wherein  he  stood  ascend  to  heaven.  And  they 
beheld  him  in  the  chariot,  clothed  upon  in  the  glory  of  the  bright- 
ness, having  raiment  as  of  the  sun,  fair  as  the  moon  and  terrible  that 
for  awe  they  durst  not  look  upon  him.  And  there  came  a  voice  out 
of  heaven,  calling:  Elijah/  Elijah/  And  he  answered  with  a  main 
cry:  Abba/  Adonai/  And  they  beheld  him  even  him,  ben  Bloom 
Elijah,  amid  clouds  of  angels  ascend  to  the  glory  of  the  brightness 
at  an  angle  of  fortyfive  degrees  over  Donohoe's  in  Little  Green  Street 
like  a  short  ofif  a  shovel. 

{To  be  continued) 


The  Reader  Critic 

The  Good  Old  Days 

Subscriber,  New  York: 

YOUR  Little  Reviciv  bewilders  me.     All  the  things  I  like  best  you 
disparage    and    all    your   enthusiasms    I    think,    like    your    publisher 
friend,  should  be  preserved  as  samples  of  the  madness  of  the  pres- 
ent age. 

I'll  enumerate  the  things  that  annoy,  disgust,  or  satiate  me  with  their 
extreme  neuroticisni  or  insanity.  In  the  December  number  first  Joyce 
and  Zadkine,  then  Djuna  Barnes'  story  and  that  weird  nasty  sex  thing  by 
Dobree  ("Surfeit") — then  Dorothy  Richardson's  instalment  (which  gets 
more  wild,  involved  and  Joyceish  as  it  goes  on) — and  then  some  of  "jh's" 
bitter  and  biting  critiques.    She  attacks  "Mary  Olivier"  (which  I  enjoyed)  ; 


The    Little    Review  6i 


everything  she  criticises  is  scathingly  and  contemptuously  dismissed  as 
beneath  her  notice.  However  I  thoroughly  enjoyed  her  description  of  the 
poseurs  who  inhabit  the  Village;  so  true  and  so  graphically  expressed: 
even  if  that  is-  contemptuous  it  is  just  and  amusing.  When  she  writes 
about  concrete  things  I  think  she  is  very  interesting,  but  when  she  analyzes 
abstract  ones  she  is  vague  and  often  antagnoizes  me.  For  instance,  such 
an  expression  of  the  "jh"  ego  as  the  note  on  "Sincerity"  ....  "even  if  he 
(the  artist)  should  choose  to  make  it  so  ...  .  his  representation  of  even 
the  most  simple  object,  after  having  passed  through  his  powerfully 
specialized  senses  and  mind,  couldn't  be  very  familiar  (sincere)  to  the 
public"  .  .  .  Here  she  is  not  vague  of  course,  but  quite  clear.  However 
great  artists  of  other  times  have  conveyed  beautiful  ideas,  simply, 
and  reached  even  the  most  naive  minds.  Why  not  now?  Only  because 
modern  artists  are  mad,  writhing  and  grotesquely  posturing,  drugged  with 
neurotic  and  oblique  feeling.  To  read  and  see  and  feel  such  art  leaves 
one  with  the  same  sick  nausea  and  distaste  as  when  one  has  become  a  party 
to  some  shameful  orgy. 

Sherwood  Anderson  I  don't  understand,  but  somehow  I  respect  him  and 
feel  his  bigness  and  fitness. 

M.  C.  A.'s  criticisms  on  music  are  to  me  as  the  word  of  God.  These 
I  can  feel  and  appreciate  even  if  I  can't  always  follow  them.  There  is  no 
barbed-wire  shaft  in  such  writing,  but  only  concentrated,  intense  con- 
viction.    Right  or  wrong  she  is  not  trying  to  be  brillant  and  original. 

Of  course  I  know  that  this  is  an  outburst  of  what  you  would  call  the 
reactions  of  the  obvious  mind. 

[I  often  think  we  should  get  out  a  pamphlet  on  Art  that  could  be  used 
as  a  dictionary  by  the  layman.  A  sort  of  questions  and  Answers  affair. 
On  the  left  hand  pages  we  could  print  all  the  stock  platitudes :  for 
instance,  "Why  don't  modern  artists  convey  beautiful  ideas  simply,  to 
reach  even  the  most  naive  minds?",  etc.;  and  on  the  right-hand  pages 
the  answers :  for  instance,  the  very  obvious  fact  that  the  conditions 
surrounding  the  artist  in  any  given  age  have  been  substantially  those 
of  any  other  age  and  probably  always  will  be  etc.,  etc.  People  could 
memorize  all  the  answers — facts,  history,  etc., — and  conversation  could 
progress. 

I  really  don't  know  what  to  say  to  all  these  denunciations — these 
neurotic  excesses  that  we  are  so  generally  accused  of.  The  Dobree  story 
was  a  bit  of  cause  and  effect  that  should  worry  no  one.  If  every  one 
knew  something  about  these  matters  we  should  all  be  protected  from 
the  subconscious  assaults  made  upon  us  by  ignorance,  curiosity,  indi- 
rection, etc.  The  Zadkine  sculptures  were  aloof,  quite  beautiful  things. 
Djuna  Barnes'  story  was  dramatic,  simple  (primitive),  clean-cut. — 
showed  two  human  beings  working  at  a  situation  more  interestingly 
than  you  will  ever  find  them  doing  it  in  life — (this  alone  is  one  of  the 
chief  properties  of  Art).     Dorothy  Richardson  is  so  unlike  Joyce  that 


b2  T  h  I'    L  i  1 1 1  e    R  e  V  i  e  w 


I  can't  even  begin  to  argue  that  with  you — though  Tin  sure'  there  are 
some  live  thousand  people  who  will  agree  with  you  because  Richardson 
and  Joyce  liave  tlie  great  soul  bond  of  unconventional  punctuation. 

As  to  shame— people  who  feel  shame  about  anything  they  do  weren't 
led  into  their  actions  by  any  needs  gi-eat  enough  to  count,  hshame  i.s 
only  a  very  patent  mark  of  the  incompletely-born.  C-an  you  imagine 
Shakespeare,  Napoleon,  Cleopatra  covered  with  shameV  Can  you 
imagine  James  Joyce  ashamed  of  what  he  writes?  Why  on  earth  this 
great  antagonism  toward  the  artist's  expression'.'  You  are  probably 
tlie  kind  of  person  who  allows  every  one  you  know  to  express  himself 
as  he  likes,  no  matter  how  he  may  bore  you  or  how  futile  and  ordinary 
you  may  know  him  to  be.  "Ah,"  you  will  say,  "he  can't  help  it,  he's 
that  way" — as  he  ruins  your  life  with  his  stupidity.  Why  do  you  never 
say  "the  artist  can't  help  it,  he's  that  way'"/  Nothingness  is  excused 
on  every  hand.  Unrestrained  mtHliocrity  is  encouraged.  Any  mani- 
festation of  life  that  goes  a  bit  beyond  these  states  leaves  every  one 
who  meets  it  uncomfortable,  vaguely  antagonized.  Naturally, — since  it 
is  a  challenge  to  his  incompletion.    Art  is  a  challenge  to  life. 

Every  one  can  save  himself  all  this  disturbance  and  nausea  and  suf- 
fering by  avoiding  the  artist.     He  isn't  so  plentiful  that  you  must  talk 
with  him  on  every  corner  or  read  him  in  every  magazine  you  pick  up. 
And  condemnation  or  approval  are  as  powerless  to  change  him  as  woi. 
bo  any  efforts  to  produce  him. — M.  C  A.] 


Lite?'al 

Israel  Soloii,  Nezv   York : 

I  meant  to  comment  on  "jh's"  remarks  about  "The  Power  of  Dark- 
ness" in  the  January  number.  There  is  no  doubt  at  all  in  my  mind  that 
there  is  something  congenitally  incompatible  in  the  Norsk  and  Russian 
characters.  Ibsen  hated  Tolstoy.  But  into  this  I  dare  not  venture, 
since  it  is  one  of  my  pet  bugs.  But  there  is  no  doubt  that  Tolstoy  did 
not  write  the  play  he  thought  he  did ;  nor  did  he  write  the  play  that  I 
had  thought  he  did,  and  that  everybody  seems  still  to  think  lie  did. 
I  read  the  play  when  I  was  a  boy,  and  was  profoundly  moved  by  it.  It 
was  badly  conceived  by  tlie  present  company  and  badly  cast  and  badly 
acted.  But,  all  that  aside,  to  my  astonishment,  I  found  that  the  power 
of  darkness  was  mostly  in  Tolstoy's  own  head — so  far  as  this  particular 
play  is  concerned.  Not  another  inch  will  I  go  witli  you.  "The  Power 
of  Darkness,"  I  have  found,  is  nothing  other  than  our  old  friend  Don 
Juan,  betraying  his  father  repeatedly,  then  driven  to  commit  suicide 
(vicariously,  in  the  true  Christian  fashion),  and  tinally  compelled  to 
confess  the  betrayal  of  his  father  to  the  betrayed,  by  that  means  aiming 
to,  and  succeeding  in,  tempering  the  power  of  his  wrath.  This  final 
confession  with  which  the  play  closes  must  have  had  a  terrifying  inner 
meaning  to  Tolstoy.  But  to  us  who  are  grown  up  about  all  such  mat- 
ters the  confession  looks  pretty  much  like  an  excuse  for  crowding  the 
stage  at  the  fall  of  the  final  curtain. 

When  you  say  that  James  Joyce  is  defying  all  the  boobs  in  Dublin 
it  meant  to  me,  if  I  were  to  judge  you  solely  by  that  statement,  or,  as 


The    Little    Review  63 

the  lawyers  would  say,  by  the  four  corners  of  the  document,  that  a  good 
novel,  though  it  may  begin  anywhere,  must  end  in  heaven.  Of  course 
you  did  not  mean  that.  Well,  what  did  you  mean?  You  are  not  per- 
mitted to  hold  anything  back. 

I  also  meant  to  say  something  about  Evelyn  Scott;  but,  by  a  stroke 
of  good  luck,  I  found  that  she  wi*ote  an  interminable  article  about 
Gilbert  Cannan,  and  I  fell  on  my  knees  and  thanked  the  god  of  my 
fathers.  Had  I  done  it,  I  should  have  felt  as  foolish  as  the  blue  jays 
that  tried  to  fill  a  little  hole  with  acorns  only  to  find  that  they  had 
been  trying  to  fill  an  entire  cabin — I  believe  the  story  is  in  Mark  Twain's 
"Tramp  Abroad." 

[May  one  never  play?  I  wasn't  thinking  much  of  the  strict  use  of 
deity — certainly  not  of  heaven.  The  word  seemed  to  hold  my  meaning, 
which  was  something  like  this:  if  a  sculptor  (a  true  artist)  takes  a 
piece  of  marble  in  which  he  cuts  his  design,  the  marble  ceases  to  be 
marble;  it  has  become  something  of  greater  import.  If  a  sculptor  (not 
an  artist)  had  tackled  the  same  piece  of  marble  it  would  have  remained 
marble.  Now  don't  come  back  at  me  with :  the  conception  once  arrived 
at  exists  whether  it  is  ever  cut  in  marble  or  not ;  so  the  sculptor  really 
robbed  the  supply  of  marble  by  converting  this  piece,  etc.,  etc.,  or  any 
easy  little  problems  like  that.  If  you  aren't  answered  we'll  have  to  let 
it  go  until  you  can  explain  something  to  me.  I  can  never  do  anything 
for  all  this  talk  about  the  Thing  in  Itself.  I  am  always  clamouring 
for  the  Itself  in  the  Thing.  There's  a  clue  to  what  I  mean  about  the 
artist  and  boobs. — ;^.] 


Some  of  the   Causes  for  the    Omission 
of  the   February  Number: 


T 


HE  extreme  leisure  of  on  the  part  of  the  Obscene  De- 
partment of  the  U.  S.  P.  O.  in  deciding  the  fate  of  the 
January  Little  Review. 

The  house  in  which  we  have  had  our  office  for  the  past 
three  years  has  been  sold.  We  are  forced  to  find  new  quarters. 

The  entire  staflF  of  the  Little  Review  (both  of  us)  is  just 
recovering  from  the  influenza. 

And — we  have  lost  our  temperamental  printer.  The  follow- 
ing letter  may  throw  some  light  on  printing  conditions  in  New 
York  City: 

Dear  Miss  Anderson: 

Tomorrow  will  be  a  week  that  I  received  copy 
with  money  in  advance  as  agreed,  and  was  not  able 
to  start  and  will  not  be  able  before  next  week.  It 
is  no  use  Miss  Anderson  to  be  so  nervous.  You 
want  always  first-class  work  and  I  cannot  make. 
Do  you  not  know  that  we  had  war?  Workingman 
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in  advance  and  two,  three  hundred  per  cent  more 
as  now,  you  must  not  expect  good  work  or  on  time. 
I  want  no  responsibility. 

The  vast  improvement  in  our  financial  condition  can  be 
gauged  from  the  above. 


'We 

Ovid  Press 


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Three   Books  by 

Robert  De  Camp 
Leland 

of  interest  to  the  literati 
Roses  and  Rebellion 

Boards  Y^t 
Purple  Youth  Boards  $1 
Syncopation        Cloth  $2 

Poet  and  satirist,  Leland,  of  modem 
writers,  best  carries  forward  the  tra- 
dition of  Heine.  In  these  three 
volumes  you  will  find  satire  that  it 
authentic;  art  rather  than  vaudeville. 
Innocent  buffoonery  undoubtedly  has 
its  place;  the  unenlightened  must  be 
entertained.  But  in  these  books  by 
Leland  the  discerning  will  not  be 
compromised. 

'Publhhui  at  Boston  by 
The  Poetry-Drama  Company 


THE  STRADIVARIUS  OF  PIANOS 


313  FIFTH  AVENUE 
NEW  YORK 


GTTLE  REYIEW 


VOL.  VI         APRIL  1920 


No.  11 


CONTENTS 

Frontispiece  Portrait 
Poems : 

Sur  la  bruere 

Je  ne  rein  offert 
Three  drawings 
Oscar 
Clinic 

Interim,  Chapter  Nine  and  Ten 
Discussion: 

The   Independent   Exhibition 

Thomas  Vaughan 

Economic  Democracy 
Ulysses,  Episode  XIII 
Tales  of  a  Hurried  Man,  III 
A  New  Testament,  X 
Are  There  looo  Interested  People  in 

The  Reader  Critic 


Jean  de  Bosschere 


Jean  de  Bosschere 

Djiina  Barnes 

Malcolm  Cowley 

Dorothy  Richardson 

Charles  Henry 

S.  Foster  Damon 

Ezra  Pound 

James  Joyce 

Emanuel  Carnevali 

Sherwood  Anderson 

America? 

Alar  gar  et  Anderson 


Subscription  price,  payable  in  advance,  In  tT\e  United  States  and  Terri- 
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lished monthly  and  copyrighted,  1920,  by  Margaret  C.  Anderson. 

Manuscripts  must  be  submitted  at  author's  risk,  with  return  postage. 

Entered  as  second  class  matter  March  16,  1917.  at  the  Post  Office  at  New 
York,  X.  Y.,  under  the  act  of  March  3,  1879. 

MARGARET  C.  ANDERSON,  Publisher 

27  PFest  Eighth  Street,  Neiv  York,  N.  Y. 

Foreign  Office:  43  Belsize  Park,  Gardens,  London,  N.  W.  3. 


Jean  dc  Bosschcrc,  who  is  known  as  a  modern  French  poet,  is  a  Belgian  living  in  England. 
In  Knglish  he  has  published  "Twelve  Occupations"  and  "The  Closed  Door."  The  latter 
had  a  deep  influence  on  the  younger  poets,  though  it  was  received  with  anger  by  the  press. 
All  of  his  poems  are  accompanied  by  drawings.  He  explains  that  his  poetic  vision  requires 
the  drawings  and  his  drawings  must  be  supplemented  by  his  poems.  Photograph  by  Hoppr'. 


J  e  so  is  tjuc  Ic  null  la  riicts  un  doigl  .sur  iiion  coeur. 


HTTLE  REVIEW 


Poems 

hy  Jean  de  Bosschere 

Sur  la  bru^t;r e 

CETTE  fois  tu  me  parlas  en  secret, 
Sur  cette  colline  ou  des  corps  en  du  linge 
Ruaient,  lamentables,  dans  Therbe  grise 
Et  que  des  cuivres  me  disaient :  suicide 

Un  soleil  epouvantable,  le  canon  tonne, 

Un  enfant  nu,  pleure, 

Et  le  petit  blond  mene  le  cervolant, 

Tirant  a  la  bride  comme  sur  un  cheval  hagard. 

Des  couples  font  six  heures  du  sueur 
Pour  le  salaire  d'un  spasme  noir, 
Et  nul,  non,  pas  un  cri  de  detresse! 
Une  fille  rit  d'un  bee  aigu  puis  chante. 

Tendrement,  comme  un  homme  bien  malade,  tu  m'as  dit 

"Histrion,  buvant  du  the  tiede, 

Et  las  promeneur  sans  ardeur, 

Tu  marches  dans  mon  ombre  etl'ignores" 


The    Little    Review 


Et  j'ai  ris  aussi,  sans  chantn"  pouitaiit, 

Car  jc  sais  bicii  que  tu  cs  la, 

Et  que  tout  ccla  ii'cst  pas  un  son  dc  tambour; 

Je  sais  que   la   nuit   tu   niets  imi   doi}z;t  sur  nion   coeur. 

Mais  cette  fois  tu  me  parlas  en  secret, 

Et  comme  je  me  retirais  devant  ce  viol, 

Tu  pris  ma  tcte  entre  tes  mains, 

Puis  serrant  mes  temper  et  mes  yeux,  tu  dis: 

"Sois  bon,  aies  en{{n  pitie  du  jour, 
Pardonne-toi  et  tu  leur  pardonneras  ; 
Ne  sois  pas  dur  et  ne  ris  pas, 
Ecoute,  je  te  le  dis,  tout  cela  est." 

Tout  cela  est,  6  Sourire! 

Et  tu  me  le  donncs? 

Tu  m'en  charges  les  mains! 

Et  je  tremble  d'amour  et  de  terrein'. 

Alors  tu  me  repondis  en  secret, 

Joignant  mes  mains  tout  iires  de  la  terrc 

"Je  te  le  donnes, 

Et  prie,"  m'as-tu  dit. 

Mu\,  1010 


I'us  j)lus  grand  ijur  I'c:  ciihiiif  tin  t ol pDih-iir. 


The    Little    R  e  v  i  e 


ye    n'  a  i    r  i en    o  ffe rt 

Bien  des  annees, 

L'eternite  qui  est  dans  Ics  soixante  ans  de  rhomme, 

Tons  ces  jours  qui  sont  une  seconde! 

Mais  cela  est  long  et  iiifini. 

Bien  des  annees,  tous  les  temps  illimites, 

J'ai  traine  I'univers  avec  moi, 

Trop  vaste,  tout  immense,  tout  etroit ; 

Pas  plus  grand  que  I'eventaire  du  colporteur, 

Les  petites  choses  dans  un  cercle, 

A  portee  de  la  main, 

Et  plus  loin,  il  n'y  a  rien. 

Tout  ce  que  je  sais  et  connais, 

Une  Babel  et  une  macedoine  de  riens, 

Et  d'horribles  epines  dans  mes  blessures, 

Tout  est  la,  a  peine  un  creux  de  main  plein, 

Ou  quelques  panniers  remplis  autour  de  moi. 

Et  tout  est  la,  au-dela,  il  n'y  a  plus  rien. 
C'est  I'univers  que  je  traine,  — 
La  monstrueuse  ignorance,  — 
Et  le  neant.  — 

Je  n'ai  pas  demande  que  vous  preniez  rien  de  mes  mains, 

Je  n'ai  pas  offert  une  seule  chose. 

Pas  meme  de  demeiu'e, 

Je  n'ai  rien  que  cet  univers  etroit  et  borgne 

Que  je  traine  comme  un  condamne, 

Comme  un  prisonnier  qui  avancerart  avec  sa  geole ! 


The    Little    Review 


Jc  n'ai  lien  offert  ct  jc  n'habitc  millc  part, 

De  cc  moiide  qui  mc  conticnt  comnie  uiic  etroitc  tcnte, 

Et  je  ne  vois  pas  au-dcia, 

Et  eux  non  plus  ne  me  voiciit  pas; 

Leurs  yeux  sont  derriere  des  vitres  ou  brillc  le  soleil. 

Et  moi,  jc  suis  dans  I'obscurite  du   vide. 

Rien  autour  de  moi, 

Retranche  d'eiitre  les  hommes; 

Et  le  passe  est  une  armoire  que  je  puis  ouvrir; 

Avec  des  parfums  et  des  saveurs  qui  sont  comme  des  traits  de  feu. 

Rien  autour  de  moi  dans  robscurite  du  vide. 

Mais  dans  le  passe 

Fait   de   cristal,   brise 

Un  baiser  sucre  d'un  maline  de  faubourg, 

Et  la  fermete  sous  le  doigt  de  la  chair  cntre  la  peau  et  I'os, 

Et  des  larmes  absolues. 

Rondes  et  vraies  comme  I'eau! 

Ensuite,  amours  plus  murs. 

Corps  qui  savent  et  prennent  vac  desespoir, 

Et  ne  veulent  point  penser  a  Dieu.  .  .  . 

Dans  le  passe  qui  est  dans  une  armoire ; 
Dans  le  passe  fait  de  cristal  brise. 
Et  Ton  ne  sait  si  c'est  la  ou  ailleurs. 
Ce  n'est  nulle  part  dans  I'universe  desolc 
Aujourd'hui  ferme  autour  de  moi! 

Et  il  n'y  a  rien, 

Sauf  cette  cloture  autour  de  moi, 

Dans  I'obscurite  du  vide. 

Avril,  TJl'J 


Et  ne  veulent  point  jtenser  a  Dieu. 


The    Little    Review 


Oscar 

hy  Djuna  Barnes 


BEFORE  the  house  rose  two  stately  pine  trees,  and  all 
about  small  firs  and  hemlocks.  The  garden  path 
struggled  up  to  the  porch  between  wald  flowers  and 
weeds,  and  looming  against  its  ancient  bulk  the  shadows 
of  out-houses  and  barns. 

It  stood  among  the  hills,  and  just  below  around  a  curve  in  the 
road  lay  the  placid  gray  reservoir. 

Sometimes  parties  would  cross  the  fields,  walking  slowly  toward 
the  mountains.  And  sometimes  children  could  be  heard  murmuring 
in  the  underbrush  of  things  they  scarcely  knew. 

Strange  things  had  happened  in  this  country  town.  Murder,  theft, 
and  little  girls  found  weeping,  and  silent  morose  boys  scowling 
along  in  the  rag-weed,  with  half-shut  sunburned  eyelids. 

The  place  was  wild,  deserted  and  impossible  in  winter.  In  summer 
it  was  over-run  with  artists  and  town  folk  with  wives  and  babies. 
Every  Saturday  there  were  fairs  on  the  green,  where  second-hand 
articles  were  sold  for  a  song,  and  flirting  was  formidable  and  passing. 
There  were  picnics,  mountain  climbings,  speeches  in  the  town-hall, 
on  the  mark  of  the  beast,  on  sin,  and  democracy,  and  once  in  a  while 
"a  lecture  on  something  that  "everyone  should  know,"  attended  by 
mothers,  their  offspring  left  with  servants  who  knew  what  everyone 
shouldn't. 

Then  there  were  movies,  bare  legs,  deacons,  misses  in  cascades  of 
curls  for  the  special  pleasure  of  the  love-sick  matinee  idol's  fingers, 
and  on  Sunday  one  could  listen  to  Mr.  Widdie,  the  clergyman  who 
suffered  from  consumption,  speak  on  love  of  one's  neighbor. 

In  this  house  and  in  this  town  had  lived,  for  some  fifteen  years 
or  so,   Emma  Gonsberg. 

She  was  a  little  creature,  lively,  smiling,  extremely  good-natured. 
She  had  been  married  twice,  divorced  once,  and  was  now  a  widow 
still   in  her  thirties. 


8  The    Little    Review 

()t  luT  two  luisbaiuls  she  selclnni  said  aiiythinj^.  Once  she  made 
the   remark:   "Only  fancy,  they  never  did   catch  on  to  me  at  all."' 

She  tried  to  be  fashionable,  d'd  her  hair  in  the  N'enetian  style, 
wore  gowns  after  the  manner  of  Lady  d'^  Hath  entering  her  carriage ; 
and  tried  to  cultivate  only  those  who  could  tell  her  "where  she 
stcod." 

Her  son  Oscar  was  lourteen  or  thereabouts.  He  wore  distinctly 
o\er-decorative  English  clothes,  and  remembered  two  words  of  some 
obscure  Indian  dialect  that  seemed  to  mean  "fleas,"  for  whenever 
he  tiung  these  words  defiantly  at  visitors  they  would  go  off  into  peals 
of  laughter,  headed  by  his  mother.  At  such  times  he  would  lower  his 
eyes  and  show  a  row  of  too  heavy  teeth. 

Emma  Gonsberg  loved  flowers,  but  coidd  not  grow  them.  She 
admired  cats  because  there  was  "nothing  servile  about  them,"  but 
they  would  not  stay  with  her ;  and  though  she  loved  horses  and 
longed  to  be  one  of  those  daring  women  who  could  handle  them 
"without  being  crushed  in  the  stalls,"  they  nevertheless  ignored  her 
with  calm  indifference.  Of  her  loves,  passions  and  efforts,  she 
had  managed  to  raise  a  few  ill-smelling  pheasants,  and  had  to  let  it 
go  at   that. 

In  the  winter  she  led  a  lonely  and  discriminating  life.  In  the 
summer  her  house  filled  with  mixed  characters,  as  one  might  say. 
A  hot  melancholy  Jew,  an  ofHcer  who  was  always  upon  the  point 
or  depreciating  his  medals  in  a  conceited  voice,  and  one  other  who 
swore  inoffensively. 

Finally  she  had  given  this  sort  of  thing  up,  partly  because  she  had 
managed,  soon  after,  to  get  herself  entangled  with  a  man  called 
Ulric  Straussmann.  A  tall  rough  fellow,  who  said  he  came  from 
the  Tyrol ;  a  fellow  without  sensibilities  but  with  a  certain  bitter 
sensuality.  A  good-natured  creature  as  far  as  he  went,  with  vivid 
streaks  of  Orman  lust,  which  had  at  once  something  sentimental 
and  something  careless  about  it;  the  t\|H'  who  can  turn  the  country, 
with  a  single  gesture,  into  a  brothel,  and  makes  of  children  strong 
enemies.  He  showed  no  little  audacity  in  putting  things  into  people's 
minds   that   he   would    not   do   himself. 


The    Little    Re  v  i  e  lu 


He  smelled  very  strongly  of  horses,  and  was  proud  of  it.  He 
pretended  a  fondness  for  all  that  goes  under  hide  or  hair,  but  a 
collie  bitch,  known  for  her  gentleness,  snapped  at  him  and  bit  him.  He 
invariably  carried  a  leather  thong,  braided  at  the  base  for  a  handle, 
and  would  stand  for  hours  talking,  with  his  legs  apart,  whirling 
this  contrived  whip,  and  looking  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eyes  would 
pull  his  moustache,  waiting  to  see  which  of  the  ladies  would  draw 
their  feet  in. 

He  talked  in  a  rather  even,  slightly  nasal  tone,  wetting  his  lips 
with  a  long  outthrust  of  tongue,  like  an  animal.  His  teeth  were 
splendid  and  his  tongue  unusually  red,  and  he  prided  himself  on 
these  and  on  the  calves  of  his  legs.  They  were  large,  muscular  and 
rather  handsome. 

He  liked  to  boast  that  there  was  nothing  that  he  could  not  do  and 
be  forgiven,  because,  as  he  expressed  it,  "I  have  always  left  people 
satisfied."  If  it  were  hate  or  if  it  were  love,  he  seemed  to  have 
come  off  with  unusual  success.  "Most  people  are  puny,"  he  would 
add,  "while  I  am  large,  strong,  healthy.  Solid  flesh  through  and 
through,"  whereat  he  would  pound  his  chest  and  smile. 

He  was  new  to  the  town  and  sufficiently  insolent  to  attract  at- 
tention. There  was  also  something  childishly  naive  in  him,  as  there 
is  in  all  tall  and  robust  men  who  talk  about  themselves.  This  prob- 
ably saved  him,  because  when  he  was  drinking  he  often  became 
gross  and  insulting,  but  he  soon  put  the  women  of  the  party  in  a 
good  humour  by  giving  one  of  them  a  hearty  and  good-natured 
slap  on  the  rear  that  she  was  not  likely  to  forget. 

Besides  this  man  Emma  had  a  few  old  friends  of  the  less  inter- 
esting, though  better-read,  type.  Among  them,  however,  was  an 
exception,  Oliver  Kahn,  a  married  man  with  several  children  one 
heard  of  and  never  saw.  A  strange  quiet  man  who  was  always 
talking.  He  had  splendid  eyes  and  a  poor  mouth — very  full  lips. 
In  the  beginning  one  surmised  that  he  had  been  quite  an  adventurer. 
He  had  an  odour  about  him  of  the  rather  recent  cult  of  the  "ter- 
ribly good."  He  seemed  to  have  been  unkind  to  his  family  in  some 
way,  and  was  spending  the  rest  of  his  life  in  a  passion  of  regret  and 


lO  The    Little    Review 

remorse.  He  had  become  one  of  those  guests  who  are  only  missed 
when  absent.  He  finally  stayed  for  good,  sleeping  in  an  ante-room 
with  his  boots  on, — his  one  royal  habit. 

In  the  beginning  Emma  had  liked  him  tremendously.  He  was 
at  once  gentle  and  furious,  but  of  late,  just  prior  to  the  Straussmann 
affair,  he  had  begun  to  irritate  her.  She  thought  to  herself,  "he  is 
going  mad,  that's  all."  She  was  angry  at  herself  for  saying  "that's 
all,"  as  if  she  had  expected  something  different,  more  momentuous. 

He  had  enormous  appetites,  he  ate  like  a  Porthos  and  drank  like 
a  Pantagruel,  and  talked  hour  after  hour  about  the  same  thing, 
"Love  of  one's  neighbour,"  and  spent  his  spare  time  in  standing  with 
his  hands  behind  him,  in  front  of  the  pheasants'  cage.  He  had  been 
a  snipe  hunter  in  his  time,  and  once  went  on  a  big  game  hunt,  but 
now  he  said  he  saw  something  more  significant  here. 

He  had,  like  all  good  sportsmen,  even  shot  himself  through  the 
hand,  but  of  late  he  pretended  that  he  did  not  remember  what  the 
scar  came  from. 

He  seemed  to  sufifer  a  good  deal.  Evil  went  deep  and  good  went 
deep  and  he  suffered  the  tortures  of  the  damned.  He  wept  and 
laughed  and  ate  and  drank  and  slept,  and  year  by  year  his  eyes 
grew  sweeter,  tenderer,  and  his  mouth  fuller,  more  gross. 

The  child  Oscar  did  not  like  Kahn,  yet  sometimes  he  would  be- 
come extraordinarily  excited,  talk  very  fast,  almost  banteringly,  a 
little  malignly,  and  once  when  Kahn  had  taken  his  hand  he  drew 
it  away  angrily.    "Don't,"  he  said. 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  it  is  dirty,"  he   retorted  maliciously. 

"As  if  you  really  knew  of  what  I  was  thinking,"  Kahn  said,  and 
put  his  own  hands  behind  him. 

Emma  liked  Kahn,  was  attached  to'  him.  He  mentioned  her  faults 
without  regret  or  reproval,  and  this  in  itself  was  a  divine  sort  of  love. 

He  would  remark,  "We  cannot  be  just  because  we  are  bewildered  ; 
we  ought  to  be  proud  enough  to  welcome  our  enemies  as  judges, 
but  we  hate,  and  to  hate  is  the  act  of  the  incurious.    I  love  with 


The    Little    R  e  v  i  e 


an  everlasting  but  a  changing  love,  because  1  know  I  am  the  wrong 
sort  of  man  to  be  good — and  because  I  revere  the  shadow  on  the 
threshold." 

"What  shadow,  Kahn  ?" 

"In  one  man  we  called  it  Christ — it  is  energy ;  for  most  of  us  it 
is  dead,  a  phantom.  If  j'ou  have  it  you  are  Christ,  and  if  you  have 
only  a  little  of  it  you  are  but  the  promise  of  the  Messiah." 

These,  seemed  great  words,  and  she  looked  at  him  with  a  little 
admiring  smile. 

"You  make  me  uneasy  for  fear  that  I  have  not  said  'I  love  you 
with  an  everlasting  love,'  often  enough  to  make  it  an  act  of 
fanaticism." 

As  for  Oscar,  he  did  what  he  liked,  which  gave  him  character, 
but  made  him  difficult  to  live  with. 

He  was  not  one  of  those  "weedy"  youths,  long  of  leg,  and  stringy 
like  "jerked  beef,  thank  God !"  as  his  mother  said  to  visitors.  He 
was  rather  too  fully  grown,  thick  of  calf  and  hip  and  rather  heavy 
of  feature.  His  hands  and  feet  were  not  out  of  proportion  as  is 
usually  the  case  with  children  of  his  age,  but  they  were  too  old 
looking. 

He  did  not  smoke  surreptitiously.  On  the  contrary  he  had  taken 
out  a  pipe  one  day  in  front  of  his  mother,  and  filling  it,  smoked  in 
silence,  not  even  with  a  frightened  air,  and  for  that  matter  not  even 
with  a  particularly  bold  air ; — he  did  it  quite  simply,  as  something 
he  had  finally  decided  to  do,  and  Emma  Gonsberg  had  gone  off  to 
Kahn  with  it,  in  a  rather  helpless  manner. 

Most  children  swing  in  circles  about  a  room,  clumsily.  Oscar  on 
the  contrary  walked  into  the  four  corners  placidly  and  officially, 
looked  at  the  backs  of  the  books  here  and  a  picture  there,  and  even 
grunted   approvingly  at  one  or  two  in  quite  a  mature  manner. 

He  had  a  sweetheart,  and  about  her  and  his  treatment  of  her 
there  were  only  a  few  of  the  usual  signs; — he  was  shy,  and  pas- 
sionately immersed  in  her,  there  was  little  of  the  casual  smartness 
of  first  calf  love  about  it,  though  he  did  in  truth  wave  her  of^  with 
a  grin  if  he  was  questioned. 


12  T  h  e    L  i  t  t  I  c    li  c  V  i  e  w 


He  took  himself  with  seriousness  amounting  to  a  lack  of  humor 
— and  though  he  himself  knew  that  he  was  a  youth,  and  had  the 
earmarks  of  adolescence  about  him — and  know  it  he  certainly  did, — 
once  he  said,  "Well,  what  of  it — is  that  any  reason  why  1  should 
not  be  serious  about  everything."  This  remark  had  so  astonished 
his  mother  that  she  had  immediately  sent  for  Kahn  to  know  if  he 
thought  the  child  was  precocious — and  Kalin  had  answered,  "If 
he  were,  1  should  be  better  pleased." 

"Hut  what  is  one  to  expect?" 

"Children,"  he  answered,  "are  never  what  they  are  supposed  to 
be,  and  they  never  have  been.  He  may  be  old  for  his  age,  but  what 
child   hasn't   been?" 

In  the  meantime,  she  tried  to  bring  Straussmann  and  Kahn  to- 
gether— "Aly  house  is  all  at  odds,"  she  thought,  but  these  two  never 
hit  it  off.  Straussmann  always  appeared  dreadfully  superficial  and 
cynical,  and  Kahn  dull  and  good  about  nothing. 

"They  have  both  got  abnormal  appetites,"  she  thought  wearily. 
She  listened  to  them  trying  to  talk  together  of  an  evening  on  the 
piazza  steps.    Kahn  was  saying: 

"You  must,  however,  warn  yourself,  in  fact  I  might  say  arm 
yourself,  against  any  sensation  of  pleasure  in  doing  good; — this  is 
very  difficult,  I  know,  but  it  can  be  attained.  You  can  give  and 
forgive  and  tolerate  gently  and,  as  one  might  say,  casually,  until  it's 
a  second  nature." 

"There  you  have  it,  tolerate — who  wants  tolerance,  or  a  second 
nature.  Well,  let  us  drop  it.  I  feel  like  a  child, — it's  difficult  not 
to  feel  like  a  child." 

"Like  Oscar — he  has  transports — even  at  his  age,"  Emma  added 
hesitatingly.    "Perhaps  that's  not  quite  as  it  should  be?" 

"  Ihe  memory  of  growing  up  is  worse  than  the  fear  of  death," 
Kahn   remarked,  and    Emma  sighed. 

"I  don't  know; — the  country  was  made  for  children,  they  say- — 
I  could  tell  you  a  story  about  that,"  Straussmann  broke  off,  whist- 
ling to  Oscar.  "Shall  I  tell  Oscar  about  the  country — and  what  it 
is  reallv  like?"  he  asked   Emma,  tin'ning  his  head. 


The    Little    Review  13 

"Let  the  boy  alone." 

"Why,  over  there  in  that  small  village,"  Straussmann  went  on, 
taking  Oscar  by  the  arm.  "It  is  a  pretty  tale  I  could  tell  you — 
perhaps  I  will  when  you  are  older — but  don't  let  your  mother  per- 
suade you  that  the  country  is  a  nice,  healthful,  clean  place,  because, 
my  child,  it's  corrupt." 

"Will   you   let   the  boy   alone!"   Emma   cried,   turning  very   red. 

"Ah,  eh — I'll  let  him  alone  right  enough — but  it  won't  make 
much  difference — you'll  see,"  he  went  on.  "There  is  a  great  deal 
told  to  children  that  they  should  not  hear,  I'll  admit,  but  there 
wasn't  a  thing  I  didn't  know  when  I  was  ten.  It  happened  one 
day  in  a  hotel  in  Southampton — a  dark  place,  gloomy,  smelling 
frightfully  of  mildew,  the  walls  were  damp  and  stained.  A  strange 
place,  eh,  to  learn  the  delights  of  love,  but  then  our  parents  seldom 
dwell  on  the  delights, — they  are  too  taken  up  with  the  sordid  details, 
the  mere  sordid  details.  My  father  had  a  great  beard,  and  I  remem- 
ber thinking  that  it  would  have  been  better  if  he  hadn't  said  such 
things.  I  wasn't  much  good  afterwards  for  five  or  six  years,  but 
my  sister  was  different.  She  enjoyed  it  immensely  and  forgot  all 
about  it  almost  immediately,  excepting  when  I  reminded  her." 

"Go  to  bed,  Oscar,"  Emma  said  abruptly. 

He  went,  and  on  going  up  the  steps  he  did  not  let  his  fingers  trail 
along  the  spindles  of  the  banisters  with  his  usual  "Eeny  meeny  miny 
mo,"  etc. 

Emma  was  a  little  troubled  and  watched  him  going  up  silently, 
hardly  moving  his  arms. 

"Children  should  be  treated  very  carefully,  they  should  know  as 
much  as  possible,  but  in  a  less  superficial  form  than  they  must  know 
later." 

"I  think  a  child  is  born  corrupt  and  attains  to  decency,"  Strauss- 
mann said  grinning. 

"If  you  please,"  Emma  cried  gaily,  "we  will  talk  about  things 
we  understand." 

Kahn  smiled.    "It's  beautiful,  really  beautiful,"  he  said,  meaning 


14  The    Little    Review 

her  gaiety.  He  always  said  coniplinientary  things  about  her  lightness 
of  spirit,  and  always  in  an  angry  voice. 

"Come,  come,  you  are  going  mad.  What's  the  good  of  that?" 
she  said,  abruptly,  thinking  "he  is  a  man  who  has  discovered  himself 
once  too  often." 

"You  are  wrong,  Emma,  1  am  not  worthy  of  madness." 

"Don't  be  on  your  guard,  Kahn,"  she  retorted. 

Oscar  appeared  before  her  suddenly,  bare  foot.  She  stared  at  him. 
"What  is  it?"  she  at  last  managed  to  ask  in  a  faint  almost  suffocated 
voice. 

"I  want  to  kiss  you,"  he  whispered. 

She  moved  toward  him  slowly,  when,  half  way,  he  hurried  toward 
her,  seized  her  hand,  kissed  it,  and  went  back  into  the  house. 

"My  God,"  she  cried  out.  "He  is  beginning  to  think  for  himself," 
and  ran  in  after  him. 

She  remembered  how  she  had  talked  to  him  the  night  before,  only 
the  night  before.  "You  must  love  with  an  everlasting  but  a  changing 
love,"  and  he  became  restless.  "With  an  everlasting  but  a  cTianging 
love." 

"W^hat  do  you  mean  b\'  changing?"  His  palms  were  moist,  and 
his  feet  twitched. 

"A  love  that  takes  in  every  detail,  every  element — that  can  under- 
stand without  hating,  without  distinction,  I  think." 

"Why  do  you  say  I  think?" 

"I  mean,  1  know,"  she  answered,  confused. 

"Get  that  Kahn  out,  he's  a  rascal,"  he  said,  abruptly,  grinning. 

"What  are  you  saying,  Oscar?"  she  demanded,  turning  cold.  "I'll 
never  come  to  your  bed  again,  take  your  hands  and  say  "Our 
Father." 

"It  will  be  all  right  if  you  send  that  man  packing,"  he  said,  stress- 
ing the  word  "packing". 

She  was  very  angry,  and  half  starteil  toward  the  door.  Then  she 
turned  hack.    "Why  do  you  say  that,  Oscar?" 

"Because  he  makes  you  nervous — well,  then — because  he 
crouches;"  he  saw  by  his  mother's  face  that  she  was  annoyed,  puzzled. 


The    Little    Review  15 

and  he  turned  red  to  his  ears.  "I  don't  mean  that,  I  mean  he  isn't 
good,  he's  just  watching  for  something  good  to  happen,  to  take 
place — ",  his  voice  trailed  off,  and  he  ra'sed  his  eyes  solemn  and  full 
of  tears  to  her  face.  She  leaned  down  and  kissed  him,  tucking  him 
like  a  "little  boy." 

"But  I'm  not  a  little  boy,"  he  called  out  to  her. 

And  tonight  she  did  not  come  down  until  she  thought  Kahn  and 
Straussmann  had  gone. 

Kahn  had  disappeared  but  Straussman  had  taken  a  turn  or  two 
about  the  place  and  was  standing  in  the  shadow  of  the  stoop  when 
she  came  out. 

"Come,"  he  said.    "What  is  it  that  you  want?" 

"I  think  it's  religion,"  she  answered  abruptly.  "But  it's  probably 
love." 

"Let  us  take  a  walk,"  he  suggested. 

They  turned  in  toward  the  shadows  of  the  great  still  mountains 
and  the  denser  more  arrogant  shadows  of  the  out  houses  and  barns. 
She  looked  away  into  the  silence,  and  the  night,  and  a  warm  sen- 
sation as  of  pleasure  or  of  something  expected  but  intangible  came 
over  her,  and  she  wanted  to  laugh,  to  cry,  and  thinking  of  it  she 
knew  that  it  was  neither. 

She  was  almost  unconscious  of  him  for  a  little,  thinking  of  her 
son.  She  raised  her  long  silk  skirts  about  her  ankles  and  tramped 
off  into  the  dampness.  A  whippoorwill  was  whistling  off  to  the 
right.  It  sounded  as  if  he  were  on  the  fence,  and  Emma  stopped 
and  tried  to  make  it  out.  She  took  Ulric's  arm  presently,  and  feeling 
his  muscles  swell  began  to  think  of  the  Bible.  "Those  who  take  by 
the  sword  shall  die  by  the  sword.  And  those  who  live  by  the  flesh 
shall  die  by  the  flesh." 

She  wished  that  she  had  someone  she  could  believe  in.  She  saw 
a  door  before  her  mental  eye,  and  herself  opening  it  and  saying, 
"Now  tell  me  this,  and  what  it  means, — only  today  I  was  thinking 
'those  who  live  by  the  flesh'  " — and  as  suddenly  the  door  was 
slammed  in  her  face.    She  started  back. 

"You  are  nervous,"  he  said  in  a  pleased  whisper. 


1 6  T  h  c    L  i  t  1 1  c    R  e  V  i  e  li' 

Heavy  stagnant  shadows  sprawled  in  the  path.  "So  many  million 
leaves  and  twigs  to  make  one  dark  shadow,"  she  said,  and  was  sorry 
because  it  sounded  childishly  romantic,  quite  different  from  what 
she  had   intended,   what  she  had   meant. 

They  turned  the  corner  of  the  carriage-house.  Something  moved, 
a  toad,  gray  and  ugly,  bounced  across  her  feet  and  into  the  darkness 
of  the  hedges.  Coming  to  the  entrance  of  the  barn  they  paused. 
They  could  distinguish  sleeping  hens,  the  white  films  moving  on  their 
eyes — and  through  a  window  at  the  back,  steam  rising  from  the 
dung  heap. 

"There  don't  seem  to  be  any  real  farmers  left,"  she  said  aloud, 
thinking  of  some  book  she  had  read  about  the  troubles  of  the  peasants 
and  land  holders. 

"You're  thinking  of  my  country,"  he  said  smiling. 

"No,  I  wasn't,"  she  said.  "I  was  wondering  what  it  is  about 
the  country  that  makes  it  seem  so  terrible?" 

"It's  your  being  a  Puritan — a  tight-laced  delightful  little 
Puritan." 

She  winced  at  the  words,  and  decided  to  remain  silent. 

It  was  true,  Straussmann  ^\•as  in  a  fever  of  excitement — he  was 
always  this  way  with  women,  especially  with  Emma.  He  tried  to 
conceal  it  for  the  time  being,  thinkiyg,  rightly,  that  a  display  of  it 
would  not  please  her  just  at  the  moment — "but  it  would  be  only  a 
matter  of  nu'nutcs  when  she  would  welcome  it"  he  promised  himself, 
and  waited. 

He  reflected  that  she  woidd  laugh  at  him.  "Hut  she  would  enjoy 
it  just  the  same.  The  way  with  all  women  who  have  had  anything 
to  do  with  more  than  one  man  and  are  not  yet  forty,"  he  reflected. 
"They  like  what  they  get,  but  thev  laugh  at  you,  and  know  you  are 
lying-" 

"Oh,  my  God!"  Kmma  said  suddenly,  drawing  her  arm  away 
and  wiping  her  face  with  her  handkerchief, 

"What's  the  matter?" 

"Nothing,  it's  the  heat." 

"It  is  warm,"  he  said  dismally. 


The    Little    Revieiu  17 

"I  despise  everything,  I  really  despise  everything,  but  you  won't 
believe — .  I  mean  everything  when  I  say  everything, — you'll  think 
I  mean  some  one  thing — won't  you?"  she  went  on  hurriedly.  She 
felt  that  she  was  becoming  hysterical. 

"It  doesn't  matter,"  he  rejoined,  walking  on  beside  her,  his  heart 
beating  violently.    "Down  3^ou  dog,"  he  said  aloud. 

"What  is  that,"  she  raised  her  ej'es  and  he  looked  into  them,  and 
they  both  smiled. 

"That's  better.     I   wish   I   were  God." 

"A  desire  for  a  vocation." 

"Not  true,  and  horrid,  as  usual,"  she  answered,  and  she  was  hot 
and  ?ngry  all  at  once. 

He  pulled  at  his  moustache  and  sniffed.  "I  can  smell  the  hedges — 
ah,  the  country  is  a  gay  deceiver — it  smells  pleasant  enough,  but  it's 
treacherous.  The  country,  my  dear  Emma,  has  done  more  to  corrupt 
man,  to  drag  him  down,  to  turn  him  loose  upon  his  lower  instincts, 
than  morphine,  alcohol  and  women.  That's  why  I  like  it,  that's 
why  it's  the  perfect  place  for  women.  They  are  devils  and  should 
be  driven  out,  and  as  there's  more  room  in  the  country  and  conse- 
quently less  likelihood  of  driving  them  out  in  too  much  of  a  hurry, 
there  is  more  time  for  amusement."  He  watched  her  out  of  the 
corner  of  his  eye  as  he  said  these  things  to  note  if  they  were  ill 
advised.    They  seemed  to  leave  her  cold,  but  tense. 

A  little  later  they  passed  the  barns  again. 

"What  was  that?"  Emma  asked  suddenly. 

"I  heard  nothing." 

But  she  had  heard  something,  and  her  heart  beat  fearfully.  She 
recognized  Oscar's  voice.  She  reached  up  signing  Straussmann  to  be 
quiet.  She  did  not  want  him  to  hear ;  she  wished  that  the  ground 
would  yawn,   would  swallow  him  up. 

"See  that  yellow  flower  down  there,"  she  said,  pointing  toward 
the  end  of  the  path  they  had  just  come.  "I  want  it,  I  must  have  it, 
please."    He  did  as  he  was  bid,  amiably  enough. 

She  listened, —  she  heard  the  voice  of  Oscar's  little  sweetheart: 

"It  seems  as  if  we  were  one  already"  ...     It  was  high,  resolute, 


i8  The    Little    Review 

unflagging,    without   emotion,    a   childish    parroting   of   some   novel. 
Oscar's  voice  came  back,  half  smothered: 

"Do  you  really  care — more  than  you  like  Berkeley?" 
"Yes,  I  do,"  she  answered  in  the  same  false  treble,  "lots  more." 
"Come  here,"  he  said  softly, — the  hay  rustled. 
"I  don't  want  to, — the  rye  gets  into  my  hair  and  spoils  it." 
"Dolly,  do  you  like  the  country?" 
"Yes,  I  do," — without  conviction. 
"We  will  go  to  the  city,"  he  answered. 

"Oh,   Oscar,   you're  so  strong,"  she  giggled,   and   it  sent   a  cold 
shudder  through  Emma's  being. 

Then  presently,  "What's  the  matter,  Oscar — why,  you're  crying." 
"I'm  not — well,  then  yes,  I  am — what  of  it? — you'll  understand, 
too,  some  day." 

"She   was   evidently   frightened,    because   she   said    in    a  somewhat 
loosened   key,   "No  one  would  ever  believe  that  we  were  as  much 
in  love  as  we  are,  would  they,  Oscar?" 
"No,  why  do  you  ask  that?" 

"It's  a  great  pity,"  she  said  again  with  the  false  sound,  and  sighed. 
"Do  you  care?    Why  do  you  care?" 

Straussmann   was  coming  back   with   the  yellow   flower  between 
thumb  and  forefinger.     Emma  ran  a  little  way  to  meet  him. 
"Come,  let  us  go  home  the  other  way." 

"Rather,  let  us  not  go  home,"  he  said,  boldly,  and  took  her  wrist, 
hurting  her. 

"Ah,"  she  said.    "Vous  m'avez  blessee  d'amour,"  ironically. 
"Yes,  speak  French,  it  helps  women  like  you  at  such  moments," 
he  said,  brutally,  and  kissed  her. 

But  kissing  him  back,  she  thought,  "The  fool,  why  does  Oscar 
take  her  so  seriously  when  they  are  both  children,  and  she  is  tortur- 
ing him." 

"My  love,  my  sweet,  my  little  love,"  he  was  babbling. 
She  tried   to  quench   this,   trembling  a  little.     "But  tell   me,   my 
friend — no,  not  so  hasty — what  do  you  think  of  immortality?"    He 
had  pushed  her  so  far  back  that  there  was  no  regaining  her  com- 


The    Little    Review  19 

posure.    "My  God,  in  other  words,  what  of  the  will  to  retribution." 

But  she  could  not  go  on.    "I've  tried  to,"  she  thought. 

Later,  when  the  dawn  was  almost  upon  them,  he  said,  "How  sad 
to  be  drunk,  only  to  die.  For  the  end  of  all  man  is  Fate,  in  other 
words,  the  end  of  all  man  is  vulgar." 

She  felt  the  need  of  something  that  had  not  been. 

"I'm  not  God,  you  see,  after  all." 

"So  I  see,  madam,"  he  said.  "But  you're  a  damned  clever  little 
woman." 

When  she  came  in,  she  found  Kahn  lying  flat  on  his  back,  his 
eyes  wide  open. 

"Couldn't  you  sleep?" 

"No,  I  could  not  sleep." 

She  was  angry.    "I'm  sorry — you  suffer." 

"Yes,  a  little." 

"Kahn,"  she  cried  in  anguish,  flinging  herself  on  her  knees  beside 
him.    "What  should  I  have  done,  what  shall  I  do?" 

He  put  his  hand  on  her  cheek.  "My  dear,  my  dear,"  he  said, 
and  sighed.    "I  perhaps  was  wrong." 

She  listened. 

"Very  wrong,  I  see  it  all  now,  I  am  an  evil  man,  an  old  and  an 
evil  being." 

"No,  no!" 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  said  gently,  softly,  contradicting  her.  "Yes,  evil, 
and  pitiful  and  weak;"  he  seemed  to  be  trying  to  remember  some- 
thing. "What  is  it  that  I  have  overlooked?"  He  asked  the  question 
in  such  a  confused  voice  that  she  was  startled. 

"Is  it  hate?"  she  asked. 

"I  guess  so,  yes,  I  guess  that's  it." 

"Kahn,  try  to  think — there  must  be  something  else." 

"Madness." 

She  began  to  shiver. 

"Are  you  cold?" 

"No,  it's  not  cold." 


20  The    Little    Rev  i 


"No,  it's  not  cold,"  he  repeated  after  her.  "You  are  not  cold, 
Emma,  you  are  a  child." 

Tears  began  to  roll  down  her  cheeks. 

"Yes,"  he  continued  sadly.  "You  too  will  hear:  remorse  is  the 
medium  through  which  the  evil  spirit  takes  possession." 

And  again  he  cried  out  in  anguish.  "But  I'm  not  superficial, — 
I  may  have  been  wanton,  but  I've  not  been  superficial.  I  wanted 
to  give  up  everything,  to  abandon  myself  to  whatever  IT  demanded, 
to  do  whatever  IT  directed  and  willed.  Hut  the  terrible  thing 
is  I  don't  know  what  abandon  is.  I  don't  know  when  it's  abandon 
and  when  it's  just  a  case  of  minor  calculation. 

"The  real  abandon  is  not  to  know  whether  one  throws  oneself 
oflf  a  cliflf  or  not,  and  not  to  care.  But  I  can't  do  it,  because  I  must 
know,  because  I'm  afraid  if  I  did  cast  myself  off,  I  should  find  that 
I  had  thrown  myself  off  the  lesser  thing  after  all,  and  that,"  he  said 
in  a  horrified  voice,  "I  could  never  outlive,  I  could  never  have  faith 
again.  And  so  it  is  that  I  shall  never  know,  Emma,  only  children 
and  the  naive  know,  and  I  am  too  sophisticated  to  accomplish  the 
divine  descent." 

"But  you  must  tell  me,"  she  said,  hurriedly.  "What  am  I  to  do, 
what  am  I  to  think.  My  whole  future  depends  on  that,  on  your 
answer — on  knowing  whether  I  do  an  injustice  not  to  hate,  not  to 
strike,  not  to  kill — well,  you  must  tell  me — I  swear  it  is  my  life — 
my  entire  life." 

"Don't  ask  me,  I  can't  know,  1  can't  tell.  I  who  could  not  lead 
one  small  sheep,  what  could  I  do  with  a  soul,  and  what  still  more 
could  I  do  with  you?  No,"  he  continued,  "I'm  so  incapable.  I  am 
so  mystified.  Death  would  be  a  release,  but  it  wouldn't  settle  any- 
thing. It  never  settles  anything,  it  simply  wipes  the  slate,  it's  merely 
a  way  of  putting  the  sum  out  of  nu'nd,  yet  I  wish  I  might  die. 
How  do  I  know  now  but  that  everything  I  have  thought,  and  said, 
and  done,  has  not  been  false,  a  little  abyss  from  which  I  shall  crawl 
laughing  at  the  evil  of  my  own  limitation." 

"But  the  child — what  ha\e  I  been  telling  Oscar — to  love  with  an 
everlasting  love" — 


The    Little    Review  21 

"That's  true,"  he  said. 

"Kahn,  listen.  What  have  I  done  to  him,  what  have  I  done  to 
myself?  What  are  we  all  doing  here — are  we  all  mad — or  are  we 
merely  excited — overwrought,  hysterical  ?  I  must  know,  I  must 
know."     She  took  his  hand  and  he  felt  her  tears  upon  it. 

"Kahn,  is  it  an  everlasting  but  a  changing  love — what  kind  of  love 
is  that?" 

"Perhaps  that's  it,"  he  cried,  jumping  up,  and  with  a  gesture  tore 
his  shirt  open  at  the  throat.  "Look,  I  want  you  to  see,  I  run  upon 
the  world  with  a  bared  breast — but  never  find  the  blade — ah,  the 
civility  of  our  own  damnation — that's  the  horror.  A  few  years  ago, 
surely  this  could  not  have  happened.  Do  you  know,"  he  said,  turning 
his  eyes  all  hot  and  burning  upon  her,  "the  most  terrible  thing  in 
the  world  is  to  bare  the  breast  and  never  to  feel  the  blade  enter!" 
He  buried  his  face  in  his  hands. 

"But,  Kahn,  you  must  think,  you  must  give  me  an  answer.  All 
this  indecision  is  all  very  well  for  us,  for  all  of  us  who  are  too  old 
to  change,  for  all  of  us  who  can  reach  God  through  some  plaything 
we  have  used  as  a  symbol,  but  there's  my  son,  what  is  he  to  think, 
to  feel,  he  has  no  jester's  stick  to  shake,  nor  stool  to  stand  on.  Am 
I  responsible  for  him?  Why,"  she  cried  frantically,  "must  I  be 
responsible  for  him.  I  tell  you  I  won't  be,  I  can't.  1  won't  take 
it  upon  myself.  But  I  have,  I  have.  Is  there  something  that  can 
make  me  immune  to  my  own  blood  ?  Tell  me — I  must  wipe  the 
slate — the  figures  are  driving  me  mad — can't  he  stand  alone  now? 
Oh,  Kahn,  Kahn,"  she  cried,  kissing  his  hands.  "See,  I  kiss  your 
hands,  I  am  doing  so  much.  You  must  be  the  prophet — you  can't 
do  less  for  the  sign  I  give  you — I  must  know,  I  must  receive  an 
answer,  I  ivill  receive  it." 

He  shook  her  of?  suddenly,  a  look  of  fear  came  into  his  eyes. 

"Are  you  trying  to  frighten  me?"  he  whispered. 

She  went  into  the  hall,  into  the  dark,  and  did  not  know  why, 
or  understand  anything.  Her  mind  was  on  fire,  and  it  was  con- 
suming things  that  were  strange  and  merciful  and  precious. 

Finally  she  went  into  her  son's  room  and  stood  before  his  bed. 


22  The    Little    Rev  i 


He  lay  with  one  feverish  cheek  against  a  dirty  hand,  his  knees  drawn 
up,  his  mouth  had  a  pecuh'ar  look  of  surprise  about  it. 

She  bent  down,  called  to  him,  not  knowing  what  she  was  doing. 
"Wrong,  wrong,"  she  whispered,  and  she  shook  him  by  the  shoulders. 
"Listen,  Oscar,  get  up.    Listen  to  me!" 

He  awoke  and  cried  out  as  one  of  her  tears,  forgotten,  cold, 
struck  against  his  cheek.  An  ague  shook  his  limbs.  She  brought  her 
face  close  to  his. 

"Son,   hate   too,   that   is   inevitable — irrevocable — " 

He  put  out  his  two  hands  and  pushed  them  against  her  breast 
and  in  a  subdued  voice  said,  "go  away,  go  away,"  and  he  looked 
as  if  he  were  about  to  cry,  but  he  did  not  cry. 

She  turned  and  fled  into  the  hall. 

However,  in  the  morning,  at  breakfast,  there  was  nothing  unusual 
about  her,  but  a  tired  softness  and  yielding  of  spirit ;  and  at  dinner, 
which  was  always  late,  she  felt  only  a  weary  indifference  when  she 
saw  Straussmann  coming  up  the  walk.  He  had  a  red  and  white 
handkerchief  about  his  throat,  and  she  thought  "how  comic  he  looks." 

"Good  evening,"  he  said. 

"Good  evening,"  she  answered,  and  a  touch  of  her  old  gaiety 
came  into  her  voice.  Kahn  was  already  seated,  and  now  she  motioned 
Straussmann  to  follow.  She  began  slicing  the  cold  potted  beef  and 
asked  them  about  sugar  in  their  tea,  adding  "Oscar  will  be  here 
soon."  To  K^hn  she  showed  only  a  very  little  trace  of  coldness, 
of  indecision. 

"No,"  Strausmann  said,  still  standing,  legs  apart:  "If  you'll  excuse 
me,  I'd  like  a  word  or  two  with  Kahn."  They  stepped  off  the  porch 
together. 

"Kahn,"  he  said,  going  directly  to  the  point,  "listen,"  he  took 
hold  of  Kahn's  coat  by  the  lapel.  "You  have  known  Emma  longer 
than  I  have,  you've  got  to  break  it  to  her."  He  flourished  a  large 
key  under  Kahn's  nose,  as  he  spoke. 

"I've  got  him  locked  up  in  the  outhouse  safe  enough  for  the 
present,  but  we  must  do  something  immediately." 


The    Little    Review  23 

"What's  the  matter?"  A  strange,  pleasant  but  cold  sweat  broke 
out  upon  Kahn's  forehead. 

"I  found  Oscar  sitting  beside  the  body  of  his  sweetheart,  what's- 
her-name,  he  had  cut  her  throat  with  a  kitchen  knife,  yes,  with  a 
kitchen  knife — he  seemed  calm,  but  he  would  say  nothing.  What 
shall  we  do?" 

"They'll  say  he  was  a  degenerate  from  the  start — " 

"Those  who  live  by  the  flesh — eh?" 

"No,"  Kahn  said,  in  a  confused  voice,   "that's  not  it." 

They  stood  and  stared  at  each  other  so  long  that  presently  Emma 
grew  nervous  and  came  down  the  garden  path  to  hear  what  it  was 
all  about. 


Clinic 

by  Malcolm  Cowley 


A  row  of  white  faces  parallels 
the  benches,  which  in  turn 
parallel  the  drug  counter  and  are 
at  right  angles  to  the  aisle  which 
stops 

at  a  given 

point. 
In  another  world  there  are  tangents 
arcs     chords     ellipses 
forms  more  intricate.     But  the  aisle 
which  parallels  the  wall  bisects 
the  room  and  at  a  given  point 
stops. 


24  The    Little    Review 

II 

Mrs  Magrady 

grey  dress,  grey  hat,   and   flesh 

dirty  grey,  undulating 

she  is  dumped  on  the  seat 

h'ke  an  ashcan 

and  what 
is  the  trouble  with  you  today 
Mrs.   Magrady? 

Ill 

God   is  an  old  woman 
with  dropsy 

or  perhaps 
you  were  not  created 
in  his  image? 

IV 

About  the  progress  of  a  fly 

up  these   funereal   walls  there  is 

a  Something 

one  remembers 
Caesar  marching  through  a  burned  city 
alone. 

V 

In  a  circle  of  perfume 

two  girls  sit     one  Avith  a  rose 

stuck  in  a  ragged  buttonhole  and  one 

with   a  petalled  sore  flaunting 

on  her  cheekbone 

— It  ain't  my  fault 
honest,  Doctor. 


The    Little    Revie IV  as 


VI 


If  on  the  windowsill 

there  were  a  potted  geranium  or  even 

a  carnation  prettily  banal 

if  a  drooping  symbolic  lily 

bloomed  in  a  test-tube 

anything  except 
the  bloodshot  skin  of  a  begonia. 

VII 

John  Palamos 

he  comes  grinning  every  day 

every  day  at  twelve  to  show  his  tumour 

three  months  more     no  hope     if  only 

he  would  writhe     twist     groan 

but  his  grin 

damnable 

every  line  of  it 
every  wrinkle 

on  a  grey  involute  brain 
acid  etched, 

VIII 

Against  a  white  skin  the  brazen 
loveliness  of  a  tumour 
fistula  cancer  chancroie 

It  is  not 
because  I  have  held  them  beautiful,  but  rather 
that  tormented  by  the  chimeras 
of  youth,  by  the  desire  for  the  white 
absolute,   by   the   nostalgia  of  the   immaculate 
conception 

I  therefore  


26  T  li  c    L  i  t  1 1  e    R  e  V  i  e  IV 

Interim 

by   Do7^othy  Richar^dson 
C hapt ei'    Nine    (co?iti?iued) 

YOU'RE    just    in    time."      They   had   come    back? 
He  had  come  back  for  something? 
"There's  a  surprise  waiting   for  you  upstairs;" 
icJiat  surprise  Mrs.  Bailey ;  how  can  you  be  happy 
and  mysterious;  cajoling  to  rush  on  into  nothing, 
sweeping  on,  talking;  "a  friend  of  yource ;  Dr.  Winchester's  room; 
she's  longing  to  see  you." 

"Good  heavens." 

Miriam  fled  upstairs  and  tapped  at  the  door  of  the  room  below 
her  own.  A  smooth  fluting  thoughtful  voice  answered  tranquilly 
from  within  the  spaces  of  the  room  behind  the  closed  door.  There 
was  no  one  with  a  voice  like  that  to  speak  to  intimately.  It  was  a 
stranger,  someone  she  had  met  somewhere  and  given  the  address  to; 
a  superior  worldy  person  serenely  answering  the  knock  of  a  house- 
maid. She  went  in.  Tall  figure,  tall  skirt  and  blouse  standing  at  the 
dressing-table.  The  grime-screened  saffron  light  fell  on  white  hands 
pinning  a  skein  of  bright  gold  hair  round  the  back  of  a  small  head. 
How  do  you  do,  Miriam  announced,  coming  forward  with  obedient 
reluctance.  The  figure  turned;  a  bent  flushed  face  laughed  from 
tumbled  hair. 

"'Ere  I  am  dear;  turned  up  like  a  bad  penny.  I'll  shake  'ands 
in  a  minute."  With  compressed  lips  and  bent  frowning  brow  Miss 
Dear  went  on  busily  pinning.  "Bother  my  silly  hair,"  she  went  on 
with  deepem'ng  flush,  "I  shall  be  able  to  talk  to  you  in  a  minute." 

Miriam  clutched  at  the  amazed  resentment  that  flamed  from  her 
up  atid  down  the  sudden  calm  unconscious  fac^ade  reared  between 
her  and  the  demolished  house,  spread  across  the  very  room  that  had 
held  the  key  to  its  destruction.  She  fought  for  annihilating  words, 
but  her  voice  had  spoken  ahead  of  her. 


The    Little    Review  27 

"Eleanor!" 

With  the  word  a  soft  beauty  ran  flickering,  an  edge  of  light  about 
the  form  searched  by  her  gazing  eyes.  Their  shared  past  flowed  in 
the  room  .  .  .  the  skirt  was  a  shabby  thin  blue  serge,  rubbed  shiny, 
the  skimpy  cotton  blouse  had  an  guly  greyish  stripe  and  badly  cut 
shoulders,  one  and  eleven  at  an  awful  shop;  but  she  was  just  going 
to  speak. 

"There  that's  better,"  she  said  lowering  her  hands  to  tweak  at  the 
blouse,  her  blue  eyes  set  judiciously  on  the  face  of  the  important 
Duchesse  mirror,  her  passing  servant.     "  'Ow  are  you,  dear?" 

"I'm  all  right";  thrilled  Miriam,  "you're  just  in  time  for  dinner." 

"I  am  afraid  I  don't  look  very  dinnery,"  frowned  Miss  Dear, 
fingering  the  loose  unshapely  collar  of  her  blouse.  "I  wonder  if 
you  could  let  me  have  a  tie,  just  for  to-day,  dear." 

'I've  got  a  lace  one,  but  it's  crumply,"  hazarded  Miriam. 

"I  can  manage  it  I  daresay  if  you'd  let  me  avit." 

The  gong  sounded.  "I  sha'n't  be  a  second,"  Miriam  promised 
and  fled.  The  little  stair-flight  and  her  landing,  the  sunset — gilded 
spaces  of  her  room  flung  her  song  out  into  the  world.  The  tie  was 
worse  than  she  had  tought,  its  middle  length  crushed  and  grubby. 
She  hesitated  over  a  card  of  small  pearl-headed  lace  pins,  newly 
bought  and  forgotten.  For  fourpence  three  farthings  the  twelve 
smooth  filmy  pearl  heads,  their  bright  sharppointed  gilt  shanks 
pinned  in  a  perfect  even  row  through  the  neat  oblong  of  the  sheeny 
glazed  card,  lit  up  her  drawer,  bringing  back  the  lace-hung  aisles 
of  the  west-end  shop,  its  counters  spread  with  the  fascinating  detaih 
of  the  worldy  life.     The  pins  were  the  forefront  of  her  armoury, 

still  too  blissfully  new  to  be  used However  Eleanor  arranged 

the  tie  she  could   not  use  more   than  three. 

"Thank  you  dear,"  she  said  indifferently,  as  if  they  were  her  own 
things  obligingly  brought  in,  and  swiftly  pinned  one  end  of  the 
unexamined  tie  to  her  blouse  collar.  With  lifted  chin  she  deftly 
bound  the  lace  round  and  round  close  to  her  neck  each  swathe 
firmly  pinned,  making  a  column  wider  than  the  width  of  the  lace. 
Above    her   blouse,    transformed    by   the    disappearance    of   its    ugly 


28  The    Little    Review 

collar,  lior  giacctul  neck  went  u|i,  a  column  of  filmy  lace.     Miriam 
watched,   learninp   and    ania/.ed. 

"That's  better  than  nothing  ainhow,"  said  Miss  Dear  from  her 
sideways  movements  of  contemplation.  Three  or  four  small  pearly 
heads  gleamed  mistily  from  the  shapely  column  of  lace.  The  glazed 
card  lay  on  the  dressing-table  crumpled  and  rent  and  empty  of  all 
its  pins. 

4- 
The  dining-room  was  a  buzz  of  conversation.  The  table  was 
packed  save  for  two  chairs  on  Mrs.  Bailey's  right  hand.  Mrs. 
Bailey  was  wearing  a  black  satin  blouse  cut  in  a  V  and  a  piece  of 
black  ribbon-velvet  tied  round  her  neck!  She  was  in  conversation, 
preening  and  arching  as  she  ladled  out  the  soup,  with  a  little  lady 
and  a  big  old  gentleman  with  a  patriarch  beard  sitting  on  her  right 
bowing  and  smiling,  personally,  towards  Miriam  and  Miss  Dear  as 
they  took  their  seats.  Miriam  bowed  and  gazed  as  the  went  on 
talking.  The  old  gentleman  had  a  large  oblong  head  above  a  large 
expensive  spread  of  smooth  well  cut  black  coat ;  a  huge  figure,  sitting 
tall,  with  easily  moving  head  reared  high,  massy  grey  hair,  un- 
spectacled  smiling  glistening  eyes  and  oblong  fresh  cheeked  face 
wreathed  in  smiles  revealing  gleaming  squares  of  gold  stopping  in 
his  front  teeth.  His  voice  was  vast  and  silky,  like  the  beard  that 
moved  as  he  spoke  shifting  about  on  the  serviette  tucked  by  one 
corner  into  his  neck.  His  little  Avife  was  like  a  kind  bird,  soft 
curtains  of  greying  black  hair  crimping  down  from  a  beautifully 
twisted  top-knot  on  either  side  of  a  clear  gentle  forehead.  Softly 
gleaming  eyes  shone  through  rimless  pince-nez  delicately  on  her 
delicate  nose,  no  ugly  straight  bar,  a  little  half-hoop  to  join  them  to- 
gether and  at  the  side  a  delicate  gold  chain  tucked  over  one  ear.  .  .  . 
she  was  about  as  old  as  mother  had  been  ....  she  was  exactly  like 
her  .  .  .  girlishly  young,  but  untroubled ;  the  little  white  ringed 
left  hand  with  strange  unfamiliarly  expressive  finger-tips  and  curious- 
ly mobile  turned  back  thumb-tip  was  herself  in  miniature.  It  held 
a  little  piece  of  bread,  peaked,  expressively,  as  she  ate  her  soup.  She 
was  utterly   familiar,   no  stranger;  always  known.      Miriam  adored. 


The    Little    Rev  ieiu  2n 

seeking  her  eyes  till  she  looked,  and  meeting  a  gentle  enveloping 
welcome,  making  no  break  in  her  continuous  soft  animation.  The 
only  strange  thing  was  a  curious  circular  sweep  of  her  delicate  jaw 
as  she  spoke ;  a  sort  of  wide  mouthing  on  some  of  her  many  quiet 
Avords,  thrown  m  through  and  between  and  together  with  the  louder 
easily  audible  silky  tones  of  her  husband.  Mrs.  Bailey  sat  unafraid, 
expanding  in  happiness.  You  nill  have  a  number  of  things  to  see 
she  was  saying.  We  are  counting  on  this  laddie  to  be  our  guide, 
said  the  old  gentleman  turning  hugely  to  his  further  neighbour. 
Miriam's  eyes  followed  and  the  face  of  Dr.  Hurd  .  .  .  grinjiing;  his 
intensest  brick-red  grin.  He  had  not  gone!  These  were  his  parents. 
He  needs  a  holiday  to,  the  dear  lad  said  the  old  gentleman  laying  a 
hand  on  his  shoulder.  Dr.  Hurd  grinned  a  rueful  disclaimer  with 
his  eyes  still  on  Miriam's  and  said  I  shan't  be  sorry,  h's  face  crinkling 
with  his  unexploded  hysterically  leaping  laugh.  Mrs.  Hurd's  smil- 
ing little  face  flickered  with  quickly  smothered  sadness.  They  had 
come  all  the  way  from  Canada  to  share  his  triumph  and  were  here 
smoothing  his  defeat.  .  .  .  Canadian  old  people.  A  Canadiati  woman 
.  .  .  that  circular  jaw  movement  was  made  by  the  Canadian  vowels. 
They  disturbed  a  woman's  small  mouth  more  than  a  man's.  It  must 
affect  her  thoughts,  the  held-open  mouth ;  airing  them ;  making  them 
circular,  sympathetically  balanced,  easier  to  go  on  from  than  the 
more  narrowly  mouthed  English  speech  .  .  .  Mr.  Gunner,  sitting  be- 
side your  son  is  a  violinist.  .  .  Ah.  We  shall  hope  to  hear  him.  Mr. 
Gunner,  small  and  shyly  smiling;  an  enormous  woman  next  to  him 
with  a  large  school-girl  face,  fair  straight  and  school-girl  hair  lifted 
in  a  flat  wave  from  her  broad  forehead  into  an  angry  peak,  angrily 
eating  with  quickly  moving  brawny  arms  coming  out  of  elbow  sleeves 
with'  cheap  cream  lace  frilling,  reluctantly  forced  to  flop  against 
the  brawny  arms.  Sallow  good-looking  husband,  olive,  furious,  cock- 
sure, bilious  type,  clubby  and  knowing;  flat  ignorance  on  the  top  of 
his  unconscious  shiny  round  black  skull ;  both  snatching  at  scraps  of 
Scott  and  Sissie  and  Gunner  chaff,  trying  to  smile  their  way  in,  to 
hide  their  fury  with  each  other.  Too  poor  to  get  further  away  from 
each   other,   accustomed   to  boarding  house   life,   eating  rapidly  and 


30  T  li  c    L  i  1 1 1  c    R  c  V  i  c  IV 

looking  for  more.  She  had  several  brothers;  a  short  aristocratic  upper 
lip  and  shapely  scornful  nostrils,  brothers  in  the  diplomatic  service 
or  the  army.  There  was  someone  this  side  of  the  table  they  recog- 
nised as  different  and  were  \\'atching;  a  tall  man  beyond  Mrs.  Bar- 
row, a  strange  fine  voice  with  wandering  protesting  inflections ; 
speaking  out  into  the  world,  with  practiced  polished  wandering  in- 
flections, like  a  tired  pebble  worn  by  the  sea,  going  on  and  on,  present- 
ing the  same  worn  wandering  curves  whercevcr  it  was,  always  a 
stranger  everywhere,  always  anew  presenting  the  strange  wandering 
inflections;  indiscriminately.  That  end  of  the  table  was  not  aware 
of  the  Hurds.  Its  group  was  wandering  outside  the  warm  glow  of 
Canadian  society.  .  .  .  Eleanor  Dear  was  feeling  at  its  door,  pathetic- 
looking  with  delicate  appealing  head  and  thoughful  baby  brow  down- 
cast. Us'll  wander  out  this  evening  shall  us,  murmured  Miriam  in 
a  lover-like  undertone.  It  was  a  grimace  at  the  wide-open  door  of 
Canadian  life;  an  ironic  kick  a  la  Harriett.  Her  heart  beat  reckless- 
ly round  the  certainty  of  writing  and  posting  her  letter.  If  he 
cared  he  would  vmderstand.  Mrs.  Hurd  had  come  to  show  her 
Canadian  society,  brushing  away  the  tangles  and  stains  of  accidental 
contacts;  putting  everything  right.  Of  course  we  will,  bridled  Miss 
Dear  rebuking  her  vulgarity.  Nothing  mattered  now  but  filling  up 
the  time. 

The  table  was  breaking  up;  the  Hurds  retiring  in  a  backward- 
turning  group  talking  to  Mrs.  Bailey,  towards  the  door.  The  others 
were  standing  about  the  room.  The  Hurds  had  gone.  Oh  no,  that's 
all  right,  Mrs.  Bailey;  I'll  be  all  right.  It  was  the  wandering  voice. 
...  It  went  on,  up  and  down,  the  most  curious  different  singing 
tones,  the  sentences  beginiu'ng  high  and  dropping  low  and  ending  on 
an  even  middle  tone  that  sounded  as  if  it  were  going  on.  It  had  a 
meaning  without  the  meaning  of  the  words.  Mrs.  Bailey  went  on  with 
some  explanation  and  again  the  voice  sent  out  its  singing  shape;  up 
and  down  and  ending  on  a  waiting  tone.  Miriam  looked  at  the 
speaker;  a  tall  greyclad  man,  a  thin  iialc  absent-minded  face,  standing 
towards  Mrs.  Bailey  in  a  drooping  lounge,  giving  her  all  his  atten- 
tion; several  people  were  drifting  out  of  the  room,  down-bent  towards 


The    Little    Review  3^ 

her  small  form;  Eleanor  Dear  was  waiting,  sitting  docile,  making 
no  suggestion,  just  right,  like  a  sister;  but  his  eyes  never  met  Mrs. 
Bailey's;  they  were  fixed,  burning,  on  something  far  away;  his 
thoughts  were  far  away,  on  something  that  never  moved.  There 
was  a  loud  rat-tat  on  the  front  door,  more  than  a  telegram  and  less 
than  a  caller;  a  claim,  familiar  and  peremptory.  Mrs.  Bailey  looked 
sharply  up.  Sissie  was  ambling  hurriedly  out  of  the  room.  Oh  dear, 
chirruped  Eleanor  softly,  someone  wants  to  come  in.  Well;  I'll  say 
goodnight,  said  the  grey  figure  and  turned  easily  with  a  curious  wait- 
ing halting  lounge,  exactly  like  the  voice,  towards  the  door.  It  could 
stop  easily,  if  anyone  were  coming  in,  and  wander  on  again  in  an  un- 
broken movement.  The  grey  shoulders  passing  out  through  the  door 
with  the  gaslight  on  them  had  no  look  of  going  out  of  the  room; 
desolate,  they  looked  desolate.  The  room  was  almost  empty.  Mrs. 
Bailey  was  listening  undisguisedly  towards  the  hall.  Sissie  came  in 
looking  watchfully  about.  It's  Mr.  Rodkin,  mother  dear  she  said 
sullenly.  Rodkin  f  'Imf  gasped  Mrs.  Bailey,  transfigured.  Can  I 
come  in  ?  asked  a  deep  hollow  insinuating  voice  at  the  door,  how  do 
you  do  Mrs.  Bailey?  Mrs.  Bailey  had  flung  the  door  wide  and  was 
laughing  and  shaking  hands  heartily  up  and  down  with  a  small 
swarthy  black  mustached  little  man  with  an  armful  of  newspapers 
and  a  top  hat  pushed  back  on  his  head.  Well,  he  said,  uncovering  a 
small  bony  sleek  black  head  and  sliding  into  a  chair,  his  hat  sticking 
out  from  the  hand  of  the  arm  clasping  the  great  bundle  of  news- 
papers. How  grand  you  are.  My  word.  What's  the  meaning  of  it? 
His  teeth  gleamed  brilliantly.  He  had  small  high  prominent  cheek- 
bones, yellow  beaten-in  temples  and  a  yellow  hollow  face;  yet  some- 
thing almost  dimpling  about  his  smile.  Aren't  we?  chuckled  Mrs. 
Bailey,  taking  his  hat.  Mr.  Rodkin  drew  his  hand  over  his  face, 
yawning."  Well,  I've  been  every\s\\txe  since  I  left;  Moscow,  Peters- 
burg, Ba/oow,  Wzxx-hin,  every\\\iexe.  Moy  ivort.  Miss  Sissie  you 
are  a  grown-up  grand  foine  young  lady.  What  is  it  all  about?  No 
joke;  tell  me  I  say.    Mrs.  Bailey  sat  at  ease  smiling  triumphantly. 

A  grand   foine  dinner Well  you  wouldn't  have  me  starve 

mv  boarduz.    Boarders  murmured  Mr.  Rodkin,  my  God.    He  jerked 


32  T  li  (•    Little    R  c  V  i  e  iu 

liis  head  back,  with  a  hiu^h  and  ji'ikcd  it  ih)\\n  ajjain.  Well  it's 
good  business  anyhow.  liUss  my  heart!  They  talked  familiarly  on, 
two  tired  worn  jx-ople  in  a  little  blaze  of  nuitual  congratulation. 
Mr.  Rodkin  had  come  to  stay  at  once  without  going  away.  He 
noticed  no  one  but  the  Baileys  and  questioned  on  and  on  yawning 
and  laughing  with  sudden  jerks  of  his  head. 

Coming  back  from  sitting  Hirting  with  Eleanor  at  Donizetti's 
Miriam  wandered  impatiently  into  the  dark  diningroom.  Eleanor 
was  not  her  guest.  Why  didn't  she  go  up  her  room  and  leave  her 
to  the  dim  street-lit  diningroom  and  the  nightly  journey  up  through 
the  darkness  to  her  garret  in  freedom.  Bed-time  she  hinted  irritably, 
lugging  at  the  tether.  Bed-time  echoed  Eleanor,  her  smooth  humour- 
ing nurse's  voice  bringing  in  her  world  of  watchful  diplomatic 
manoeuvering,  scattering  the  waiting  population  of  the  familiar  dim 
room.  I'm  going  to  bed,  stated  Miriam,  advancing  towards  the 
windows.  On  the  table  under  the  window  that  was  the  most  brightly 
lit  by  the  street-lamps  was  a  paper,  a  pamphlet  ....  coloured ;  blue. 
She  took  it  up.  It  hung  limply  in  her  hand,  the  paper  felt  pitted 
and  poor,  like  very  thin  blotting  paper.  Youikj  Ireland,  she  read 
printed  in  thick  heavy  black  lettering  across  the  top  of  the  page. 
The  words  stirred  her  profoundly,  calling  to  something  far  away 
within  her,  long  ago.  Underneath  the  thick  words  two  short 
columns  side  by  side  began  immediately.  They  went  on  for  several 
pages  and  w^ere  'followed  by  short  paragraphs  with  headings;  she 
pressed  close  to  the  lit  window,  peering;  there  were  blotchy  badly 
printed  asterisks  between  small  grou|is  of  lines.  Hea\y  black  head- 
ings further  on,  like  the  title,  but  smaller,  and  followed  by  thick 
exclamation  signs.  It  was  a  sort  of  little  newspaper,  the  angry  print 
too  heavy  for  the  thin  iiaper.  (ireen.  It  was  green  all  through  .... 
Ireland;  home-rule.  I  say.  she  exclaimed  eagerly.  That  was  the 
grey  man.  Irish.  That's  all  going  on  still,  she  said  solicitously  to  a 
large  audience.  What  dear,  askeil  Eleanor's  figure  close  to  her  side. 
Ireland,  breathed  Miriam.  We've  got  a  home-ruler  in  the  house. 
Look  at  this;  green  all  through.  It's  some  propaganda;  in  London, 
very  angry.     I  ope  the  home-ruler  isn't  green  all  through,  chuckled 


TheLittleReview  33 

Eleanor  smoothly.  It's  the  wearin'  o'  the  green,  scolded  Miriam 
incisively.  The  Emerald  Isle.  We're  so  stupid.  An  Irish  girl  I 
knew  told  me  she  'just  couldn't  bear  to  face  thinking'  of  the  way 
we  treat  our  children. 

Leaving  Eleanor  abruptly  in  darkness  in  her  bedroom  she  shut 
the  door  and  stepped  into  freedom.  The  cistern  gurgled  from  the 
upper  dark  freshness.  Her  world  was  uninvaded.  Klah-rah  Buck, 
in  reverent  unctuousness,  waiting  for  responsive  awe  from  those  sit- 
ting round.  He  meant  Clara  Butt.  Then  she  had  been  to  Canada. 
He  had  expected  ....  Little  Mrs.  Hurd  had  sat  bird-like  at  a 
Morning  Musical  hearing  the  sweep  of  the  tremendous  voice.  I 
have  never  heard  it,  but  I  know  how  it  rolls  tremendously  out  and 
sweeps.  I  can  hear  it  by  its  effect  on  them.  They  would  not  believe 
that.  Rounding  the  sweep  of  the  little  staircase  she  was  surprised 
by  a  light  under  the  box-room  door.  Mrs.  Bailey,  at  midnight,  busy 
in  the  little  box-room?  How  could  she  find  room  to  have  the  door 
shut?  Her  garrett  felt  fresh  and  free.  Summer  rain  pattering  on 
the  roof  in  the  darkness.  The  Colonisation  of  Ulster.  Her  mind 
turned  the  pages  of  a  school  essay,  page  after  page,  no  red-ink  cor- 
rections, the  last  page  galloping  along  one  long  sentence;  "until 
England  shall  have  recognised  her  cruel  folly."  lO;  excellent,  E. 
B.  R.  A  fraud  and  yet  not  a  fraud.  Never  having  thought  of  Ire- 
land before  reading  it  up  in  Green,  and  then  some  strange  indignation 
and  certainty,  coming  suddenly  while  writing ;  there  for  always. 
I  had  forgotten  about  it.  A  man's  throat  was  cleared  in  the  box- 
room.  The  tone  of  the  wandering  voice  ....  Mrs.  Bailey  had 
screwed  him  into  that  tiny  hole.  I'll  be  all  right  ....  What  a  shame. 
He  must  not  know  anyone  knew  he  was  there.  He  did  not  know 
he  was  the  first  to  disturb  the  top  landing  ....  He  did  not  disturb 
it.  There  were  no  English  thoughts  in  there,  nothing  of  the  down- 
stairs house.  Julia  Doyle,  Dublin  Bay,  Clontarf;  fury  underneath, 
despairing  of  understanding,  showing  how  the  English  understood 
nothing,  themselves  nor  anyone  else.  But  the  Irish  were  not  people 
....  they  did  not  care  for  anything.  Meredith  was  partly  Celtic. 
That  was  why  his  writing  always  felt  to  be  pointing  in  some  in- 


34  J        T  Ji  (•    L  i  i  1 1  e    R  e  V  i  e  iv 

visible  ciiicction.  lit  wrote  so  imich  because  he  did  not  care  about 
anything.  Novchsts  were  angry  men  lost  in  a  fog.  Hut  how  did 
they  find  out  how  to  do  it?  Hrain.  Frontal  development.  But  it 
was  not  certain  that  that  was  not  just  the  extra  piece  wanted  to 
control  the  bigger  muscular  system.  Sacrificed  to  muscle.  Going 
about  with  more  muscles  and  a  bit  more  brain,  if  size  means  more, 
doing  all  kinds  of  different  set  pieces  of  work  in  the  world,  each  in  a 
space  full  of  problems  none  of  them  could  agree  about. 


Chapter    Ten 

Eleanor's  cab  rumbled  away  round  the  corner.  Mrs.  Bailey  was 
still  standing  at  the  top  of  the  steps.  Miriam  ran  up  the  steps  looking 
busily  ahead.  It's  going  to  be  a  lovely  evening,  she  said  as  she  passed 
Mrs.  Bailey.  The  frontdoor  was  closed.  Mrs.  Bailey  was  in  the 
hall  just  behind  her.  She  turned  abruptly  into  the  dining-room.  Mrs. 
Bailey's  presence  was  there  before  her  in  the  empty  room.  Behind 
her,  just  inside  the  door,  was  Mrs.  Bailey  blocking  the  way  to  the 
untrammelled  house.  There's  quite  a  lot  of  August  left  she  quoted 
from  the  thoughts  that  had  poured  down  to  meet  her  as  she  stood 
facing  the  stairs.  The  clock  on  the  mantle  piece  was  telling  the  time 
of  Mrs.  Bailey's  day.  The  room  was  waiting  for  the  next  event,  a 
spread  meal,  voices  sounding  towards  a  centre,  distracting  attention 
from  its  increasing  shabbiness.  .  .  .  There  was  never  long  for  it  to 
remain  sounding  its  shabbiness,  the  sound  of  dust,  into  the  empty 
space.  Events  going  on  and  ....  giving  no  time  to  get  in,  behind 
the  dusty  shabbiness,  to  the  sweet  dreams  and  health  and  quiet 
breathing  ....  Why  did  not  everyone  know  and  stop  stopping  to 
talk  about  the  things  that  were  spread  over  the  surface?  They  would 
talk  about  tlicmselves  in  time  if  they  were  left  alone.  How  ran  people 
bring  themselves  to  mention  things 

"What  a  jolly  big  room  this  is  isn't  it?"  she  demanded  turning 
towards   Mrs.   Bailey's  shapely  skimpy   form. 
{to  be  concluded.) 


THE 
UTTLE  REVIEW 

Editor : 
Margaret   Anderson 

Foreign  Editors: 
John    Rodker  Jules    Romains 

Advisory  JDoard: 

Discussion 

^*What  about  the  Independent  Exhibition  now  being  held 
on  the  Waldorf-Astoria  roofV' 

WELL, — what  about  it? 
Crossing  Broadway  at  Forty-fourth  street, — but,  you 
know  what  one  sees  if  one  looks  toward  Columbus 
Circle.  Since  Assyria  has  there  been  such  a  bull?  Electric  lighted, 
ours  has  no  wings.  Many  circles,  many  cubes,  many  letters,  many 
fountains,  many  rockets  find  in  our  Broadway  bull  their  apex;  in 
its  swinging  electric  light  tail.  At  night,  the  fence  is  forgot.  I 
wish  that  you  could  ride  it,  some  night,  after  hours,  (a  la  Europa 
or  Miss  Rice),  into  the  rooms  at  the  Metropolitain  Museum  of 
Art,  which  guard  the  efiforts  of  our  American  sculptors.  What  a 
holiday  that  would  be.  How  the  laughing  king  and  the  beautiful 
young  nobleman  from  Cyprus,  in  the  adjoining  room,  would  enjoy 
that  circus. 


36  The    Little    Review 

Mr.  Adolph  Hest-Maugard  should  study  Mr.  Durham's  bull. 
He,  Mr.  Best-Maugard,  apparently  "turns  to  Broadway."  Miss 
Eva  Tanguay  and  Miss  Bessie  McCoy  are  Broadway  girls.  Mau- 
gard  would  get  nearer  his  point  with  portraits  of  Miss  Tanguay 
and  Miss  IVIcCoy.  Why  has  Eli  never  done  them?  Perhaps  these 
two  do  not  like  the  idea  of  their  portraits  finally  resting  on  a  clock; 
a  clock  decorating,  in  this  imagined  future,  the  most  gilded-over 
mantel  of  the  best  fete  banquet  room  of  New  York's  then  largest 
hotel.  However, — Mr.  Adolph  Best-Maugard's  "The  Broadway 
Girl"  is  worthy,  in  passing,  of  an  indulgent  smile. 


491,  Queen  of  Movies  (From  Miss  Roberts'  Photograph)  is  re- 
lated. Mr.  George  Edwin  Lothrop  is  a  fine  craftsman.  The  wall- 
paper and  the  fake  black  marble  of  the  mantel-piece,  in  his  canvas, 
are  the  best  rendered  surfaces  in  the  exhibition.  If  one  wishes  real- 
ism in  textures, — voila,  Mr.  Lathrop!  I  like  the  diamonds;  they 
have  glitter,  perhaps  wit.  These  diamonds  are  not  of  so  fine  an 
hue  as  formerly, — but,  well  these  times!  There  is  charm  in  (From 
Miss  Roberts'  Photograph)  ;  how  often  this  fact,  among  painters, 
is  left  to  the  shilly-shally  of  conjecture.  Ask  Louis  Bouche  how 
he  likes  Mr.  Lothrop's  "Queen  of  Movies." 


I  saw  Marcel  Duchamp  the  opening  night  of  the  Exhibition ;  he 
was  there.  I  saw  Man  Ray.  Marsden  Hartley  was  with  Qiarles 
Demuth  and  Edward  Fisk.  We  had  a  giggle.  I  saw  Mme.  Picabia, 
Miss  Georgia  O'Kief,  Charles  Sheelcr,  Joseph  Stella,  Louis  Bouche, 
McFee,  Charles  Duncan,  Arthur  Dove,  John  Marin,  MacDonald 
Wright,  Ben  Ben,  John  Covert,  Joseph  Dixon  ;  they  were  all  quite 
sober  (although  Marcel  did  say  that  he  had  had),  they  were  all 
laughing, — perhaps  they  too  had  been  looking  at  Mr.  Durham's 
bull.  I  saw  Mr.  Van  Vechten  and  Mr.  Hopwood  ;  both  seemed  to 
be  waiting,  but  bored.  Mrs.  Albert  Sterner  was  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Eddy,  of  Chicago. 


Mr.  Charles  Ellis  is  showing  two,  as  most  of  'em.     One  suspects 


T  h  e    L  i  1 1 1  e    R  e  V  i  e  w  37 

he  has  a  drag  through  Eugene  O'Neill  with  the  police,  or  one  of 
his  own  with  the  committee,  or  one  (borrowing  from  James)  with 
whatever.  An  agile  Empress  indeed  is  number  220;  less  politic  than 
Shaw's  but  in  possession  of  much  more  culture  and  general  imagi- 
nation. Is  it  necessary,  the  being  an  Empress, — but, — an  abstract 
painting  is  after  all  an  abstract  painting.  Let  those  who  will,  dive. 
Mr.  Ellis  is,  no  doubt,  searching,  in  which  effort  he  is  to  be  com- 
mended. Surely  he  is  under  thirty.  These  two  canvas,  especially, 
"Directions  for  Using  the  Empress,"  are  all  right. 


I  saw  Else  Baroness  von  Freytag.  She  was  quite  gas-greenly 
eminent.  Her  idea  was  admirable,  but  the  form  which  she  used 
expressing  it  was  too  Russian  ballet.  One  thing  we  must  hold  up 
against  Russia, — that  ballet  "movement."  I  wish, — and  how  won- 
derful,— that  she  could  dress  herself  in  Mr.  Wriggley's  Broadway 
s  gn  or  the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  using,  in  either  experiment,  all  the 
flags  of  all  the  countries  of  Europe  and  Asia  (the  old  ones  and 
those  just  being  made)  as  a  head-dress.  A  most  difficult  medium; 
the  creating  of  a  legend  ;  Sapho,  Elizabeth,  Mme.  Recamier,  Mary 
B.  Eddy.     Let  us  wish  Else  Baroness  von  Freytag  the  best  of  luck. 


Florence   Cane    (number    104)    should  see   Miss  O'Kicf's  canvas 
at  the  Bourgeois  Gallery.     Ladies!     Ladies! 


Miss  Cholly  Frietsch  has  a  pleasing  "Autumn  View  from  Central 
Finland";  number  265. 


There  it  is, — there  it  is  in  the  first  room.  Called :  "Nude  Study." 
There  it  is,  the  best  example  of  its  kind  ;  a  specimen  piece  for  the 
"zoo"  of  American  appreciations.  A  wallop  indeed !  Again, — there 
it  is,  the  symbol  of  that  which  ails  them  all ;  the  mistaking  of  noise 
for  construction,  of  surface  for  form,  of  the  flexible  wrist  for 
creation ! 


Stuart    Davis    has   one    good    landscape    in    the    exhibition.      It's 


38  The    Little    Review 

called  "l^hc  Yellow  Hill."  Henry  McHride  wrote  about  Stuart's 
landscapes  in  the  Sun, — he  called  them  Cuban, — meaning  pleasant, 
I  suppose.  McBride  has  such  a  good  time  sometimes.  Anyway, — he 
rather  opens  the  door  cheerfully  to,  with  a  gentelmanly  "Good- 
Morning,"  the  knockings  of  the  "younger  generation."  May  the 
nine  (or  if  he  prefers,  the  ten),  and  Miss  Cjertrude  Stein  dance  at 
his  wedding  or  wake  or  whatever. 


Both  the  canvases  of  Matisse  are  poor  meagre  things.  Is  there  a 
good  Matisse  in  our  country,  I  wonder.  There  was  a  fair  one  at 
M.  de  Zayas'.  The  American  Matisse  specialists  seem  to  be  up  a 
tree.     1  hear  there  is  a  good  one  at  Knoedler  and  Company. 


If  it  is  not  too  late  look  at  the  canvases  by  Emile  Branchard,  Glen 
O.  Coleman,  Raoul  Dufy,  Loin's  M.  Eilshemius,  Robert  Laurent, 
Mildred  McMillen,  Paul  Rohland,  Georges  Rouault,  Harry  Schultz, 
Florine  Stettheimer.  Miss  Stettheimer,  I'm  sure,  would  like  the 
work  of  Van  Dougen, — why  has  he  never  been  imported?  His 
mind  is  qin'te  as  naughty  as  Pascin's,  and,  he's  a  much  better  crafts- 
man,— in  oil  point,  surely. 


Brancusi's  sculptured  arch  through  which  you  pass  on  your  way 
to  see  the  Independent  Exhibition,  may  be  a  hint  that  after  all, — but 
you  see  what  I  mean.  The  arch  has  dignity  and,  certainly,  "qual- 
ity." Hint  or  no  hint,  let  us  be  thankful  that  we  did  not  have  to 
pass  through  the  one  so  recently  erected,  and  so  recently  torn  down, 
at  Fifth  avenue  and  Madison  Square,  on  our  way  to  see  the  Inde- 
pendent. Yes,  one  passes  through  Brancusi's  arch  as  an  entrance  and 
passes  past,  if  not  quite  through,  a  Japanese  "Hell"  as  an  exit.  But 
one  gets  too  a  view  of  New  Y  ork  from  the  AValdorf-Astoria's  roof, 
in  the  exiting.  No,  you  don't  see  Mr.  Durham's  bull  because  it's 
a  down-town  view.  There  is  no  up-town  view  of  New  York  in- 
cluded in  the  Fourth  Independent  Exhibition, — otherw'se  we  would 
have  oh!  such  a  view  of  Mr.  Durham's  bull.  I'erhaps  it  is  all  for 
the  best.     Yarns— CHARLES  HENRY. 


The    Little    Review 


Thotnas  Vaughan 

WILL  you    receive   a   protest   against   the   notice   of  Thomas 
Vaughan  in  your  March  issue? 

First,  how  dare  the  reviewer  reduce  a  stern  moralist  of 
the  seventeenth  century  to  an  Aesthete?  To  be  sure,  Vaughan,  like 
all  exquisite  thinkers,  included  the  sensuous  and  the  emotional  in  his 
scheme  of  salvation ;  but  such  things  were  only  incidental. 

Secondly,  what  causes  her  to  think  that  he  was  not  an  "initiated 
saint"?  How  can  she  explain  the  not  too  ambiguous  letters  "R.  C." 
which  he  was  accustomed  to  put  after  his  name  ?  How  does  she 
account  for  the  mysterious  end  of  the  "Aula  Lucis":  "This  is  all 
I  think  fit  to  communicate  at  this  time,  neither  had  this  fallen  from 
me  but  that  it  was  a  command  imposed  by  my  superiors,  etc."  The 
postscript  contains  further  references  to  the  commands  of  these 
authorities. 

Thirdly,  why  does  she  not  consider  him  one  of  "the  immortal 
scientists,  the  hermetic  philosophers"  ?  He  died  in  an  experiment  on 
mercury ;  and  I  think  it  sufficiently  adumbrated  in  his  writings  that 
he  had  accomplished  the  Inward  Work. 

Fourthly,  and  how  could  she  expect  his  "word  to  be  made  flesh"? 
What  alchemist  of  the  seventeenth  century  dared  print  his  heresies 
as  clearly  as  he  might?  Not  until  the  Jesuits  were  suppressed  in  the 
following  century  did  toleration  (i.  e.  indifference)  become  the 
fashion.  Even  now  the  occultists  prefer  to  hint,  rather  than  state, 
though  there  is  no  longer  any  immediate  danger  of  persecution. 
—5.  FOSTER  DAMON. 

Economic  Democracy  * 

THE  science  of  political  economy  as  distinct  from  the  theology 
of  the  subject  may  be  said  to  begin  with  Adam  Smith's  dictum 
that   "men  of  the  same  trade  never  meet  together  without  a 
conspiracy   against   the   public."    With   Messrs.   Coates   in   one  part 
of   the   foreground,   and    trade   unions,    associations   for   plunder,    in 

*  Economic  Democracy,  hy  Major  C.  H.  Douglas,  published  by  Cecil 
Palmer,  Oakley  House,  Bloomshury  Street,  London  W.   C.  1.     5/-nef. 


40  T  li  r   L  i  t  1 1  r    R  c  V  i  e  ti' 

another  ami  with  "the  great  financiers"  ever  present  (save  in  the 
"I51ack  List"),  the  above  axiom  needs  little  defence.  For  two  decades 
the  intelligentsia  has  made  its  own  brand  of  poison,  the  Fabians  and 
persons  of  Webbian  temperament  have  put  forward  the  ideal :  man 
as  a  social  unit.  German  philology  with  sacrifice  of  individual  in- 
telligence to  the  Moloch  of  "Scholarship";  Shaw,  being  notably  of 
his  period,  with  his  assertion  of  man's  inferiority  to  an  idea,  are  all 
part  of  one  masochistic  curse.  And  in  a  "world"  resulting  from 
these  things  one  may  advisedly  welcome  a  Don  Quixote  desiring  to 
"Alake  democracy  safe  for  the  individual." 

But  few  Englishmen  in  each  generation  can  understand  the  state- 
ment that  "Le  style  c'est  I'homme" ;  the  manner  in  which  Wilson's 
uncolloquial  early  paragraphs  bamboozled  the  British  public,  not 
merely  the  outer  public  but  the  inner  public,  is  a  fairly  fresh  example 
of  the  folly  of  trusting  wholly  to  what  Sir  Henry  Newbolt  desig- 
nates as  the  "political  rather  than  literary"  genius  of  this  nation ; 
but,  with  that  example  before  one,  it  is  almost  hopeless  to  attempt 
to  prove  the  validity  of  Major  C.  H.  Douglas'  mental  processes  by 
giving  examples  of  his  rugged  and  unpolished  but  clean  hitting  prose. 
Universitaire  economics  hold  the  field  as  non-experimental  science 
and  Catholicism  held  the  fields  in  Bacon's  day  and  in  \'^oltaire's,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  that  the  opposition  to  Major  Douglas'  statements 
will  take  the  tack  of  making  him  out  a  mere  Luther.  Humaiu'sm 
came  to  the  surface  in  the  renaissance  and  the  succeeding  centuries 
have  laboured,  not  always  in  vain,  to  crush   it  dowti. 

Le   style    c'est   I'home;   and    a   chinaman    has   written    "A    man's 
character  is  known  from  his  brush-strokes."    The  clarity  of  some  of 
Major  Douglas'  statements  should  show  the  more  intelligent  reader, 
and   show   him   almost   instantly,   that   he   has  here   to   deal   with   a 
genius  as  valid  in  its  own  specialty  as  any  we  can  point  to  in  the 
arts.   What  we  all  have  to  face,  what  Douglas  is  combatting  is: 
"a  claim  for  the  complete  subjugation  of  the  individual  to 
an  objective  which  is  externally  imposed  on  him ;  which  it  is 
not  necessary  or  even  desirable  that  he  should  understand  in 
full." 


TheLittleReview  41 

It  is  impossible  to  condense  Douglas'  arguments  into  the  scope  of 
a  review,  one  can  at  most  indicate  his  main  tendencies  and  the  temper 
and  tonality  of  his  mind.  He  is  humanist,  which  is  a  blessed  reh'ef 
after  humanitarians;  he  is  emphatically  and  repeatedly  against  the 
"demand  to  subordinate  the  individuality  to  the  need  of  some  ex- 
ternal organization,  the  exaltation  of  the  State  into  an  authority  from 
which  there  is  no  appeal." 

"Centralisation    is    the   way   to   do   it,   but   is   neither   the 
correct  method  of  deciding  what  to  do  nor  of  selecting  the 
individual  who  is  to  do  it." 
He  is  realist  in  his  perception   that  the  concentration  of  credit- 
capital  into  a  few  hands  means  the  concentration  of  directive  power 
into  those  same  few  hands,  and  that  "current  methods  of  finance  far 
from    offering    maximum    distribution    are    decreasingly    capable    of 
meeting  any  requirements  of  society  fully."    Sentences  and  definitions 
apart  from  context  may  sound  like  sentences  from  any  other  book 
on  economics;  it  is  in  the  underflow  of  protest  against  the  wastage 
of  human  beings  that  we  find  the  author's  true  motive  power.    His 
new  declaration  of  independence  is  perhaps  compressed  into  a  few 
paragraphs,  sic: 

"The  administration  of  real  capital,  i.  e.  the  power  to  draw 
on  the  collective  potential  capacity  to  do  work,  is  clearly  sub- 
ject to  the  control  of  its  owners  through  the  agency  of  credit." 
"Real  credit  is  a  measure  of  the  reserve  of  energy  belonging 
to  a  community  and  in  consequence  drafts  on  this  reserve 
should  be  accounted  for  by  a  financial  system  which  reflects 
that  fact." 

"It  must  be  perfectly  obvious  to  anyone  who  seriously  con- 
siders the  matter  that  the  State  should  lend,  not  borrow  .... 
in  this  respect  as  in  others  the  Capitalist  usurps  the  function 
of  the  State." 
The   argument   for   remedying  present   conditions   is  closely  woven, 
conviction  or  doubt  must  be  based  on  the  author's  text  itself  and  not 
on  summary  indications. 

There  is  exposure  of  industrial  sabotage,  suggestion  for  a  new  and 


42  The   Little    Review 

just  mode  of  estimating  real  costs,  attack  upon  the  "creation  and  ap- 
proximation of  credits  at  the  expense  of  the  community."  All  of 
which  is,  for  the  reader,  an  old  story  or  a  new  story  or  a  fatras  of 
technical  jargon,  according  as  the  reader  has  read  many  books  or 
no  books  on  economics,  or  is  capable  or  incapable  of  close  thought ; 
but  whatever  else,  whatever  mental  stimulus  or  detailed  economic 
conviction  the  book  conveys,  any  reader  of  intelligence  must  be  aware, 
at  the  end  of  it,  of  a  new  and  definite  force  in  economic  thought, 
and,  moreover,  of  a  force  well  employed  and  well  dircted,  that  is  to 
say  directed  toward  a  more  humane  standard  of  life;  directed  to  the 
prevention  of  new  wars,  wars  blown  up  out  of  economic  villainies 
at  the  whim  and  instigation  of  small  bodies  of  irresponsible  indivi- 
duals. In  this  Major  Douglas  must  command  the  unqualified  respect 
of  all  save  those  few  cliques  of  the  irresponsible  and  the  economically 
guilty. 

So  much  for  the  book's  character;  as  for  the  intellectual  details, 
one  can  only  add  one's  personal  approbation  for  what  it  may  or  may 
not  be  worth  ;  one  has  at  least  honest  thinking,  no  festoons  of  ec- 
clesiastical verbiage,  no  weak  arguments  covered  with  sentimentalism ; 
no  appeals  to  the  "trend  of  events,"  no  pretense  that  mankind  is  not 
what  it  is  but  what  it  ought  to  be.    All  of  which  is  a  comfort. 

The  political  issue  in  these  matters  is  perfectly  clear,  not  only  in 
England  but  in  every  "civilised"  country;  it  consists  in  dividing 
society  at  a  level  just  below  the  great  banks  and  controllers  of  loan- 
credit,  i.  e.,  along  the  line  of  real  interest.  In  England  at  this  moment 
the  whole  of  political  jugglery  is  expended  upon  an  effort  to  divide 
society  just  above  the  Trade  Unoins,  the  poor  old-fashioned  trade 
uiu'ons  which  are  plunder  associations  too  naive  to  survive  keen 
analysis. 

Douglas'  book  offers  an  alternative  to  bloody  and  violent  revo- 
lutions, and  might  on  that  account  be  more  welcomed  than  it  will 
be,  but  perspicacity  is  not  given  to  all  men,  and  many  have  in  abuleia 
gone  to  their  doom. 

The  work  is  radical  in  the  true  sense,  trenchant  but  without  a 
trace  of  fanaticism.— £Z/J//  POUND. 


The    Little    Revieiu  43 


Ulysses 

by    'James   Joyce 

Episode  XIII 

THE  summer  evening  had  begun  to  fold  the  world  in  its 
mysterious  embrace.  Far  away  in  the  west  the  sun  was 
setting  and  the  last  glow  of  all  too  fleeting  day  lingered 
lovingly  on  sea  and  strand,  on  the  proud  promontory  of 
dear  old  Howth  guarding  as  ever  the  waters  of  the  bay, 
on  the  weedgrown  rocks  along  Sandymount  shore  and,  last  but  not 
least,  on  the  quiet  church  whence  there  streamed  forth  at  times  upon 
the  stillness  the  voice  of  prayer  to  her  who  is  in  her  pure  radiance 
a  beacon  ever  to  the  storm-tossed  heart  of  man,  Mary,  star  of  the  sea. 
The  three  girl  friends  were  seated  on  the  rocks,  enjoying  the 
evening  scene  and  the  air  which  was  fresh  but  not  too  chilly.  Many 
a  time  and  oft  were  they  wont  to  come  there  to  that  favourite  nook 
to  have  a  cosy  chat  and  discuss  matters  feminine.  Cissy  Caffrey  and 
Edy  Boardman  with  the  baby  in  the  pushcar  and  Tommy  and  Jacky 
Califrey,  two  little  curly  headed  boys,  dressed  in  sailor  suits  with 
caps  to  match  and  the  name  H.  M.  S.  Belle  Isle  printed  on  both. 
For  Tommy  and  Jacky  Caffrey  were  twins,  scarce  four  years  old 
and  very  noisy  and  spoiled  twins  sometimes  but  for  all  that  darling 
little  fellows  with  bright  merry  faces  and  endearing  ways  about 
them.  They  were  dabbling  in  the  sand  with  their  spades  and  buckets, 
building  castles  as  children  do,  or  playing  with  their  big  coloured 
ball,  happy  as  the  day  was  long.  And  Edy  Boardman  was  rocking 
the  chubby  baby  to  and  fro  in  the  pushcar  while  that  young  gentle- 
man fairly  chuckled  with  delight.  He  was  but  eleven  months  and 
nine  days  old  and,  though  still  a  tiny  toddler,  was  just  beginning  to 
lisp  his  first  babish  words.  Cissy  Caffrey  bent  over  him  to  tease  his 
fat  little  plucks  and  the  daintv  dimple  in  his  chin. 


44  The  Little   Review 

—  Now,  baby,  Cissy  Cafifrey  said.  Say  out  big,  big.  1  want  a  drink, 
of  water. 

And  baby  prattled  after  her: 
— A  jink  a  jing  a  jawbo. 

Cissy  Cafifrey  cuddled  the  wee  chap  for  she  was  awfully  fond  of 
children,  so  patient  with  little  sufferers  and  Tommy  Caf^rey  could 
never  be  got  to  take  his  castor  oil  unless  it  was  Cissy  Cafifrey  that 
held  his  nose.  But  to  be  sure  baby  was  as  good  as  gold,  a  perfect 
little  dote  in  his  new  fancy  bib.  None  of  your  spoilt  beauties  was 
Cissy  Cafifrey.  A  truer-hearted  girl  never  drew  the  breath  of  life, 
always  with  a  laugh  in  her  gipsylike  eyes  and  a  frolicsome  word  on 
her  cherryripe  red  lips,  a  girl  lovable  in  the  extreme.  And  Edy 
Boardman  laughed  too  at  the  quaint  language  of  little  brother. 

But  just  then  there  was  a  slight  altercation  between  Master 
Tommy  and  Master  Jacky.  Boys  will  be  boys  and  our  two  twins 
were  no  exception  to  this  rule.  The  apple  of  discord  was  a  certain 
castle  of  sand  which  Master  Jacky  had  built  and  Master  Tommy 
would  have  it  right  or  wrong  that  it  was  to  be  architecturally  im- 
proved by  a  frontdoor  like  the  Martello  tower  had.  But  if  Master 
Tommy  was  headstrong  Master  Jacky  was  selfwilled  too  and,  true 
to  the  maxim  that  every  little  Irishman's  house  is  his  castle,  he  fell 
upon  his  hated  rival  and  to  such  purpose  that  the  would-be  assailant 
came  to  grief  and  (alas  to  relate!)  the  coveted  castle  too.  Needless 
to  say  the  cries  of  discomfited  Master  Tommy  drew  the  attention 
of  the  girl  friends. 

— Come  here.  Tommy,  his  sister  called  imperatively,  at  once!  And 
you,  Jacky,  for  shame  to  throw  poor  Tommy  in  the  dirty  sand.  Wait 
till  I  catch  you  for  that. 

His  eyes  misty  with  unshed  tears  Master  Tommy  came  at  her 
call  for  their  big  sister's  word  was  law  with  the  twins.  And  in  a 
sad  pliglit  he  was  after  his  misadventure.  His  little  man-o'-war  top 
and  unmentionables  were  full  of  sand  but  Cissy  was  a  past  mistress 
in  the  art  of  smoothing  over  life's  tiny  troubles  and  very  quickly  not 
one  "speck  of  sand  was  to  be  seen  on  his  smart  little  suit.  Still  the 
blue  eyes  were  glistening  with  hot  tears  that  would  well  up  so  she 


TheLittleReview  45 

shook  her  hand   at   Master  Jacky  the  culprit,  her  eyes   dancing  in 

admonition. 

— Nasty  bold  Jacky!  she  cried. 

She  put  an  arm  around  the  little  mariner  and  coaxed  winningly: 
— What's  your  name?    Butter  and  cream? 

— Tell  us  who  is  your  sweetheart,  spoke  Edy  Boardman.    Is  Cissy 
your  sweetheart? 
— Nao,  tearful  Tommy  said. 

— Is  Edy  Boardman  your  sweetheart?    Cissy  queried. 
— Nao,  Tommy  said. 

— I  know,  Edy  Boardman  said  none  too  amiably  with  an  arch  glance 
from  her  shortsighted   eyes.    I   know  who   is  Tommy's  sweetheart. 
Gerty  is  Tommy's  sweetheart." 
— Nao,  Tommy  said  on  the  verge  of  tears. 

Cissy's  quick  motherwit  guessed  what  was  amiss  and  she  whispered 
to  Edy  Boardman  to  take  him  there  behind  the  pushcar  where  the 
gentlemen  couldn't  see  and  to  mind  he  didn't  wet  his  new  tan  shoes. 

But  who  was  Gerty? 

Gerty  MacDowell  who  was  seated  near  her  companions,  lost  in 
thought,  gazing  far  away  in  to  the  distance  was  in  very  truth  as 
fair  a  specimen  of  winsome  Irish  girlhood  as  one  could  wish  to  see. 
She  was  pronounced  beautiful  by  all  who  knew  her  though,  as  folks 
folks  often  said,  she  was  more  a  Giltrap  than  a  MacDowell.  Her 
figure  was  slight  and  graceful  inclining  even  to  fragility  but  those 
iron  jelloids  she  had  been  taking  of  late  had  done  her  a  world  of 
good  and  she  was  much  better  of  those  discharges  she  used  to  get. 
The  waxen  pallor  of  her  face  was  almost  spiritual  in  its  ivorylike 
purity.  Her  hands  were  of  finely  veined  alabaster  with  tapering 
fingers  and  as  white  as  lemonjuice  and  queen  of  ointments  could 
make  them  though  it  was  not  true  that  she  used  to  wear  kid  gloves 
in  bed.  Bertha  Supple  told  that  once  to  Edy  Boardman  when  she 
was  black  out  with  Gerty  (the  girl  chums  had  of  course  their  little 
tiffs  from  time  to  time  like  the  rest  of  mortals)  and  she  told  her  not 
to  let  on  whatever  she  did  that  it  was  her  that  told  her  or  she'd  never 
speak  to  her  again.     No.     Honour  where  honour  is  due.    There  was 


46  V  //  (    L  i  t  t  /  f    R  e  V  i  e  IV 

ail  innate  rcfiiicniciit,  a  languid  queenly  hauteur  about  Gcrty  which 
was  inunistakeably  evidenced  in  her  delicate  hands  and  hifiharchcd 
instep.  Had  kind  fate  but  willed  her  to  be  born  a  {i;entlewonian  of 
high  degree  in  her  own  right  and  had  she  only  received  the  benefit  of 
a  good  education  (lerty  MacDowell  might  easily  have  held  her  own 
beside  any  lady  in  the  land  and  have  seen  herself  exquisitely  gowned 
with  jewels  on  her  brow  and  patrician  suitors  at  her  feet  vying  with 
one  another  to  pay  their  devoirs  fo  her.  Mayhap  it  was  this,  the 
love  that  might  have  been,  that  lent  to  her  softly  featured  face  at 
whiles  a  look,  tense  with  suppressed  meaning,  that  impatted  a  strange 
yearning  tendency  to  the  beautiful  eyes,  a  charm  few  could  resist. 
Why  have  woman  such  eyes  of  witchery?  Gerty's  were  of  the 
bluest  Irish  blue,  set  off  by  lustrous  lashes  and  dark  expressive  brows. 
Time  was  when  those  brows  were  not  so  silkily  seductive.  It  was 
Madame  Vera  V^erity,  directress  of  the  Woman  Beautiful  page  of 
the  Princess  novelette,  who  had  first  advised  her  to  try  eyebrowleine 
which  gave  that  haunting  expression  to  the  eyes,  so  becoming  in 
leaders  of  fashion,  and  she  had  never  regretted  it.  But  Gerty's 
crowning  glory  was  her  wealth  of  hair.  It  was  dark  brown  with  a 
natural  wave  in  it.  She  had  cut  it  that  very  morning  on  account  of 
the  new  moon  and  it  nestled  about  her  pretty  head  in  a  profusion  of 
luxuriant  clusters.  And  just  now  at  Edy's  words  as  a  telltale  Hush, 
delicate  as  the  faintest  rosebloom,  crept  into  her  cheeks  she  looked 
so  lovely  in  her  sweet  girlish  shyness  that  of  surety  God's  fair  land 
of  Ireland  did  not  hold  her  equal. 

For  an  instant  she  was  silent  with  rather  sad  dowiKast  eyes.  She 
was  about  to  retort  but  something  checked  the  words  on  her  tongue. 
Inclination  prompted  her  to  speak  out:  dignity  told  her  to  be  silent. 
The  pretty  lips  pouted  a  while  but  then  she  glanced  up  and  broke  out 
into  a  joyous  little  laugh  which  liad  in  it  all  the  freshness  of  a  young 
May  morning.  She  knew  right  well,  no  one  better,  what  made 
squinty  luly  say  that.  As  iier  usual  someboily's  nose  was  out  of  joint 
about  the  boy  that  had  the  bicycle  always  ritling  up  and  down  in 
front  of  her  window.  Only  now  his  father  kept  him  in  the  evenings 
studying  hard  to  get  an  exhibition  in  the  intermediate  that  was  on 


The    Little    Review  47 

and  he  was  going  to  Trinity  college  to  study  for  a  doctor  when  he 
left  the  high  school  like  his  brother  W.  E.  Wylie  who  was  racing 
in  the  bicycle  races  in  Trinity  college  university.  Little  recked  he 
perhaps  for  what  she  felt,  that  dull  ache  in  her  heart  sometimes, 
piercing  to  the  core.  Yet  he  was  young  and  perchance  he  might 
learn  to  love  her  in  time.  They  were  protestants  in  his  family 
and,  of  course,  Gerty  knew  Who  came  first  and  after  Him  the 
blessed  virgin  and  then  saint  Joseph.  But  he  was  undeniably  hand- 
some and  he  was  what  he  looked,  every  inch  a  gentleman  the  shape 
of  his  head  too  at  the  back  without  his  cap  on  something  of?  the  com- 
mon and  the  way  he  turned  the  bicycle  at  the  lamp  with  his  hands 
off  the  bars  and  also  the  nice  perfume  of  those  good  cigarettes  and 
besides  they  were  both  of  a  size  and  that  was  why  Edy  Boardman 
thought  she  was  so  frightfully  clever  because  he  didn't  go  and  ride 
up  and  down  in  front  of  her  bit  of  a  garden. 

Gerty  was  dressed  simply  but  with  instinctive  taste  for  she  felt 
that  there  was  just  a  might  that  he  might  be  out.  A  neat  blouse  o"f 
electric  blue,  selftinted  by  dolly  dyes,  with  a  smart  vee  opening  and 
kerchief  pocket  (in  which  she  always  kept  a  piece  of  cottonwool 
scented  with  her  favourite  perfume  because  the  handkerchief  spoiled 
the  sit)  and  a  navy  threequarter  skirt  cut  to  the  stride  showed  of 
her  slim  graceful  figure  to  perfection.  She  wore  a  coquettish  wide- 
leaved  hat  of  nigger  straw  with  an  underbrim  of  eggblue  chenille  and 
at  the  side  a  butterfly  bow  to  tone.  All  Tuesday  week  afternoon  she 
was  hunting  to  match  that  chenille  but  at  last  she  found  what  she 
wanted  at  Clery's  summer  sales,  the  very  it  slightly  shopsoiled  but 
you  would  never  notice  seven  fingers  two  and  a  penny.  She  did  it 
up  all  by  herself  and  tried  it  on  then  smiling  back  at  her  lovely 
reflection  in  the  mirror  and  when  she  put  it  on  the  waterjug  to  keep 
the  shape  she  knew  that  that  would  take  the  shine  out  of  some 
people  she  knew.  Her  shoes  were  the  newest  thing  in  footwear 
(Edy  Boardman  prided  herself  that  she  was  very  petite  but  she 
never  had  a  foot  like  Gerty  McDowell  a  five  and  never  would 
ash  oak  or  elm)  with  patent  toecaps  and  just  one  smart  buckle.  Her 
wellturned    ankle    displayed    its   proportions    beneath   her   skirt    and 


48  T  h  c    L  i  t  1 1  e    R  c  V  i  e  w 

just  the  proper  amount  and  no  more  of  her  shapely  leg  encased  in 
finespun  hose  with  highspliced  heels  and  wide  garter  tops.  As  for 
undies  they  were  Gerty's  chief  care  and  who  that  knows  the  But- 
tering hopes  and  fears  of  sweet  seventeen  (though  Gerty  would 
never  see  seventeen  again)  can  find  it  in  his  heart  to  blame  her? 
She  had  four  dinky  sets,  three  articles  and  nighties  extra,  and  each 
set  slotted  with  different  coloured  ribbons,  rosepink,  pale  blue,  mauve 
and  peagreen  and  she  aired  them  herself  and  blued  them  when  they 
came  home  from  the  wash  and  ironed  them  and  she  had  a  brick- 
bat to  keep  the  iron  on  because  she  wouldn't  trust  those  washer- 
woman as  far  as  she'd  see  them  scorching  the  things.  She  was  wear- 
ing the  blue  for  luck,  her  own  colour  and  the  lucky  colour  too  for  a 
bride  to  have  a  bit  of  blue  somewhere  on  her  because  the  green  she 
wore  that  day  week  brought  grief  because  his  father  brought  him  in 
to  study  for  the  intermediate  exhibition  and  because  she  thought 
perhaps  she  might  be  out  because  when  she  was  dressing  that  morning 
she  nearly  slipped  up  the  old  pair  on  her  inside  out  and  that  was  for 
luck  and  lovers'  meetings  if  you  put  those  things  on  inside  out  so 
long  as  it  wasn't  of  a  Friday. 

And  yet — and  yet!  A  gnawing  sorrow  is  there  all  the  time.  Her 
very  soul  is  in  her  eyes  and  she  would  give  worlds  to  be  in  her  own 
familiar  chamber  where  she  could  have  a  good  cry  and  relieve  her 
pentup  feelings.  The  paly  light  of  evening  falls  upon  a  face  in- 
finitely sad  and  wistful.  Gerty  MacDowell  yearns  in  vain.  Yes, 
she  had  known  from  the  first  that  it  was  not  to  be.  He  was  too 
young  to  understand.  He  would  not  believe  in  love.  The  night  of 
the  party  long  ago  in  Stoers'  (he  was  still  in  short  trousers)  when 
they  were  alone  and  he  stole  an  arm  roimd  her  waist  she  went  white 
to  the  very  lips.  He  called  her  little  one  and  half  kissed  her  (the 
first!)  but  it  was  only  the  end  of  her  nose  and  then  he  hastened 
from  the  room  with  a  remark  about  refreshments.  Impetuous  fel- 
low! Strength  of  character  had  never  been  Reggy  Wylie's  strong 
point  and  he  who  would  woo  and  win  Gerty  MacDowell  must  be 
a  man  among  men.  But  waiting,  always  waiting  to  be  asked  and  it 
was  leap  year  too  and  would  soon  be  over.     No  prince  charming  is 


The    Little    Review  49 

her  beau  ideal  to  lay  a  rare  and  wondrous  love  at  her  feet  but  rather 
a  manly  man  with  a  strong  quiet  face,  perhaps  his  hair  slightly 
flecked  with  grey,  and  who  would  understand,  take  her  in  his  shel- 
tering arms,  strain  her  to  him  in  all  the  strength  of  his  deep  pas- 
sionate nature  and  comfort  her  with  a  long  long  kiss.  For  such  a 
one  she  yearns  this  balmy  summer  eve.  With  all  the  heart  of  her  she 
longs  to  be  his  only,  his  affianced  bride  for  riches  for  poor  in  sick- 
ness in  health  till  death  us  two  part  from  this  to  this  day  forward. 

And  while  Edy  Boardman  was  with  little  Tommy  behind  the 
pushcar  she  was  just  thinking  would  the  day  ever  come  when  she 
could  call  herself  his  little  wife  to  be.  Then  they  could  talk  about 
her.  Bertha  Supple  too,  and  Edy,  the  spitfire,  because  she  would  be 
twentytwo  in  November.  She  would  care  for  him  with  creature 
comforts  too  for  Gerty  was  womanly  wise  and  knew  that  a  mere 
man  liked  that  feeling  of  homeyness.  Her  griddlecakes  and  queen 
Ann's  pudding  had  won  golden  opinions  from  all  because  she  had  a 
lucky  hand  also  for  lighting  a  fire,  dredge  in  the  fine  flour  and  al- 
ways stir  in  the  same  direction  then  cream  the  milk  and  sugar  and 
whisk  well  the  white  of  eggs  and  they  would  have  a  nice  drawing- 
room  with  pictures  and  chintz  covers  for  the  chairs  and  that  silver 
toastrack  in  Clery's  summer  sales  like  they  have  in  rich  houses.  He 
would  be  tall  (she  had  always  admired  tall  men  for  a  husband) 
with  glistening  white  teeth  under  his  carefully  trimmed  sweeping 
moustache  and  every  morning  they  would  both  have  brekky  for  their 
own  two  selves  and  before  he  went  out  to  business  he  would  give 
her  a  good  hearty  hug  and  gaze  for  a  moment  deep  down  into  her 
eyes. 

Edy  Boardman  asked  Tommy  Caffrey  was  he  done  and  he  said 
yes  and  so  then  she  buttoned  up  his  little  knickerbockers  for  him  and 
told  him  to  run  off  and  play  with  Jacky  and  to  be  good  and  not  to 
fight.  But  Tommy  said  he  wanted  the  ball  and  Edy  told  him  no 
that  baby  was  playing  with  the  ball  and  if  he  took  it  there'd  be  wigs 
on  the  green  but  Tommy  said  it  was  his  ball  and  he  wanted  his  ball 
his  ball  and  he  pranced  on  the  ground,  if  you  please.  The  temper 
of  him!     O,  he  was  a  man  already  was  little  Tommy  Cafifrey.     Edy 


50  The  Little   Review 

told   him   no,  no  and   to  be  off  now   with   him  and  she  told  Cissy 

Caffrey  not  to  give  in  to  him. 

— You're  not  my  sister,  naughty  Tommy  said.     It's  my  ball. 

But  Cissy  Caffrey  told  baby  Hoardman  to  look  up,  look  up  high 
at  her  finger  and  she  snatched  the  ball  quickly  and  threw  it  along 
the  sand  and  Tommy  after  it  in  fidl  career,  having  won  the  day. 
— Anything  for  a  quite  life,  laughed  Ciss. 

And  she  tickled  baby's  two  cheeks  to  make  him  forget  and  played 
here's  the  lord  mayor,  here's  his  two  horses,  here's  his  gigger  bread 
carriage  and  here  he  walks  in,  chinchopper,  chinchoppcr,  chinchoppcr 
chin.  But  Edy  got  as  cross  as  two  sticks  about  his  getting  his  own 
way  like  that  from  everyone  always  petting  him. 
— I'd  like  to  give  him  something,  she  said,  so  I  would,  where  I 
won't  say. 
— On  the  beeoteetom,  laughed  Cissy  merrily. 

Gerty  McDowell  bent  down  her  head  at  the  idea  of  Cissy  saying 
a  thing  like  that  out  she'd  be  ashamed  of  her  life  to  say  flushing  a 
deep  rosy  red  and  Edy  Boardman  said  she  was  sure  the  gentleman 
opposite  heard  what  she  said.  But  not  a  pin  cared  Ciss. 
— Let  him!  she  said  with  a  pert  toss  of  her  head  and  a  piquant  tilt 
of  her  nose.  Give  it  to  him  too  on  the  same  place  as  quick  as  I'd 
look  at  him. 

Madcap  Ciss.  You  had  to  laugh  at  her  sometimes.  For  instance 
when  she  asked  you  would  you  have  some  more  Chinese  tea  and 
jaspberry  ram  and  when  she  drew  the  jugs  too  and  the  men's  faces 
make  you  plit  your  sides  or  when  she  said  she  wanted  to  nm  and 
pay  a  visit  to  the  miss  white.  That  was  just  like  Cissycums.  O,  and 
will  you  ever  forget  the  evening  she  dressed  up  in  her  father's  suit 
and  hat  and  walked  down  Tritonville  road,  smoking  a  cigarette.  But 
she  was  sincerity  itself,  one  of  the  bravest  and  truest  hearts  heaven 
ever  made,  not  one  of  your  twofaccd  things,  too  sweet  to  be  whole- 
some. 

(to   he  I  on  tinned) 


The    Little    Review  51 


Tales  of  a  Hurried  Man 

by  Emanuel  Carnevali 
Tale    III 

Home,  sweet  home! 

THOSE  flowers  that  are  on  the  window-sill,  I  got  them 
from  the  Park,  this  afternoon.  The  air  in  the  park  was 
a  lukewarm  punch  sipped  with  half-opened  lips  at  a  party 
of  perfect  delicacy,  where  a  word  said  a  little  louder  is 
an  obscene  thing. 
Almost  everyone  has  flowers  on  the  window-sill.  They  haven't 
bought  them,  so  they  are  there  "against  the  law."  These  flowers 
are  the  result  of  a  broken  law.  A  perambulating  battleship  of  fat 
has  put  an  empty  tomato  can  besides  the  lilacs  on  the  window-sill. 
It  yawns  against  the  face  of  the  lilacs,  which  is  bent  away  a  little. 
My  flowers  too  are  on  the  window-sill,  in  a  milk  bottle.  I  have 
looked  at  them  again  and  again  like  a  man  who  knows  that  some- 
thing terrible  will  happen  if  he  does  not  talk.  They  are  the  colours 
of  the  childhood  of  the  world.  Lilacs,  azaleas,  violets  and  buttercups. 
The  azaleas  were  closed,  yet,  furled  up  and  lean,  with  long  wrinkles, 
crude  little  hands.  The  violets  I  picked  in  the  tall  grass:  in  the 
shadow  I  found  darker  ones,  seeming  dark  with  deep  thought,  in 
the  oblivion  of  the  tangle  of  the  deep  grass.  The  lilacs — it  was  the 
only  cluster  left  on  the  tree.  Gently,  though  I  forced  it  down,  came 
the  branch  over  me;  fluttering  with  great  impudence  its  skirts  of 
leaves  in  my  face.  And  the  buttercups — the  gleaming  buttercups — 
cups  held  high  by  a  tiny  arm.  Offering  a  miniature  of  Father  Sun 
from  Mother  Earth.  On  the  dusty  and  black  window-sill,  in  the 
grey  frame  of  the  window.  They  are  the  dance  of  my  hands  along 
the  perfect  curves,  the  caress  of  my  eyes  along  their  perfect  nuances. 
These  hands  of  a  young  man,  which  I  hold  in  my  pockets,  want  to 
start  out — want  to,  stop,  and  ask,  and  doubt,  and  begin  and  faher, 


52  The  Little  Review 


then  twist  in  sorrow,  twitch  in  sorrow  back  again  into  their  forced 
stride  of  everyday!  These  arc  the  hands  of  a  destroyer  and  these 
arc  the  hands  which  hold  anathemas  as  Jupiter's  hands  held  light- 
nings. Flowers,  flowers  are  there  because  of  the  thousand  nuances 
I  have  gathered  into  my  eyes.  The  thousand  nuances  I  have  gleaned 
while  looking  from  over  the  heads  of  everybody,  and  from  under 
everybody's  heels,  from  the  fog  and  across  the  swing  of  the  rain. 
I  want  a  home  that  will  not  insult  flowers.  I  want  a  home  that  will 
not  be  insulted  by  the  homes  under  and  above  it.  1  want  a  house 
that  will  not  be  insulted  by  a  city,  I  want  a  city  that  the  other  cities 
may  not  insult.  What  matters  to  me,  rich  or  poor:  one  is  there 
because  the  other  is  there.  I  don't  want  to  be  rich  because  I  don't 
want  to  be  poor.  No  one  goes  away  from  the  world,  for  WE  are 
the  world.  I  want  another  home,  but  not  one  like  any  of  yours. 
Someday,  when  I  know  more,  and  when  I  shall  have  gained  a  little 
return — then,  I  shall  cast  in  a  book  the  frame  of  a  house — with  the 
help  of  the  artists  of  America  and  of  the  world.  I  shall  let  the  frame 
of  a  house  break  through  the  heavy  tangle  of  my  bones,  arise  from 
the  heap  of  my  flesh — and  it  will  loom  over  the  city,  against  your 
houses — frightfully — for  it  will  be  a  ghost — 'the  ghost  of  the  song 
forgotten— the  ghost  of  the  MAN  WHO  WAS  LKT  TO  DIE— 
the  ghost  of  the  song  forever  forgotten  and  forever  coming  again 
and  again  to  shake  the  fom'  walls  of  the  sky. 

8. 

Work?  What  kind  of  work?  What  kind  of  work?  What  useful 
work  is  there  to  do? 

The  heat  oozes  into  every  crevice  and  pollutes  the  soul  of  the 
world.  Above,  the  roof,  with  the  tar  soft  and  melting.  Outside, 
the  river,  colourless,  and  the  old  boats,  lice  on  the  river's  body,  and 
boats  from  the  ocean,  tired,  shapeless,  working  jack-asses  of  the  sea. 
Flabby  smoke  pennants.  The  railroad,  reddish  and  greyish  iron  and 
wood  junk,  and  human  junk,  men  in  overalls,  all  alike.  The  kids 
arc  stubbornly  making  their  same  noise,  out  in  the  street  bespattered 
with  jiaper,  with  blotches  ot  halt-dried  liijuid  lu-nimed  with  thin  dust. 


The    Little    R  e  v  i  e  iv 


Thugs  are  coyotes  standing  watch  of  the  last  weariness  of  the  city. 
Under  my  apartment,  fifty  men  and  fifty  women  are  silent.  She 
and  I,  silent.  God  help  the  first  one  to  talk.  He  shall  be  responsible 
for  the  rumpus  to  follow.  All  have  lost  their  beauty — a  hundred 
silent  persons.  Staying  together — for  the  sake  of  the  home.  The 
grave,  this — the  epitaph  is  the  immobile  dust  in  the  air,  up,  up  to 
the  nose  of  god !  Art  died  last  spring  in  the  Bronx  Park.  How  loud 
can  you  scream?  Can  you  yell  loud  enough  to  break  the  bone  of 
each  house?  If  you  can't,  shut  up.  Above,  that  sky,  under,  the  other 
apartments.  Italy  is  far,  and  there  are  many  reasons  why  I  am  an 
exile.  Hope  that  gramophone  will  give  it  up.  Hope  I'll  be  able  to 
sleep.  Dirty  arms  of  the  bed,  how  many  of  these  embraces  have  you 
given  me?  And  what  did  you  steal  from  me  to  pay  yourself  back? 
Too  many  houses,  too  many  homes,  and  I  can't  yell.  And,  poor  girl, 
you,  what  could  you  do?  "Come,  kitty,  sit  on  my  knees.  Do  you 
think  we  can  manage  to  go  to  Portland   Maine,  next  Fall?     I  bet 

it's  a  wonderful  place What  do  you  say?    Give  me  a  kiss?" 

Auf!  It's  hot She  gets  up.  Nothing  doing.  We're  all  in  to- 
night. Do  they  belong  to  her,  these  things?  Do  they  give  her  happi- 
ness? What  do  they  tell  her?  Ach,  I  know:  rest,  acceptance,  sub- 
mission, sleep,  food.  Broken  rest,  demure  cowering  or  unwilling 
acceptance,  sleep  of  dreams,  ugly  food,  poor  food,  insufficient  food, 
same  food  too  often.  And  how  much  is  that  to  you  all  ?  Not  much. 
You  go  and  steal  a  little  bite,  for  your  many  hungers,  in  a  hundred 
different  places.  And  does  it  all  satisfy  her?  Not  sufficiently.  She 
wants,  she  wants  ....  she  wants  the  love  of  this  big  man,  here ! 
Christ,  my  love  is  a  bomb  to  smash  the  houses  and  you  with  them, 
that's  what  it  is! 

Not  sufficiently,  not  enough  to  make  of  your  touching  things  a 
ritual,  of  the  daily  ritual  a  religion.  Who  gave  us  these  things? 
These  are  bastard  children  of  hurried,  dolorous,  rebelling  human 
hands.  Remembrances  or  regrets,  or  abortions,  all,  brushes,  curtains, 
walls,  everything.  You  say,  the  home  is  the  god  that  sits  by  us  and 
watches  us  live.  Hell,  some  night  that  god  howls  like  a  hyena,  when 
the  window  gulps  the  air  from  the  swollen  body  of  a  world  that 


54 


The   Little   Review 


can't  sleep.  The  homes  are  sittiiifi;  together  in  the  night,  and  their 
horrible  Congress  is  called  City.  And  the  laws  that  the  Congress 
contrives  are  our  Laws.  You  know  it,  too,  my  pretty  woman,  little 
pretty  fool  of  a  fleshy  smiley  liar!  You  know  it,  too.  And  that  is 
why  you  walk  so  sternly,  that  is  why  you  obey  in  silence,  and  go 
around  like  a  person  that  knows  where  she  is  going  and  that  there 
is  no  choosing. 

9- 

Memories  weep  or  mourn,  all  memories  do.  I  have  left  the  home 
and  her.  I  could  have  painted  the  walls  half  blue  and  half  pink,  and 
could  have  drawn  a  heavy-headed,  sad-headed  sunflower  in  the 
middle.  I  could  have  drawn  my  nightmares  on  the  walls  of  my  bed- 
room, and  laughed  at  them,  having  exalted  them  by  art.  I  could 
have  wrung  wreaths  of  oak  leaves  and  maple  leaves — from  the  Pali- 
sades— all  around  and  I  could  have  strewn  the  floor  with  sand  and 
pebbles  and  my  bedroom  with  ashes.  I  coidd  have  bought  silk  hand- 
kerchiefs and  hung  them  from  the  windows — dififerent  ones  every 
day.  I  could  have  planted  beans,  parsley  and  morning-glories  in  a 
box  full  of  dirt  out  on  the  fire  escape  where  it's  forbidden  to  "place 
any  encumbrance."  And  I  could  have  written  a  tremendously  happy 
treatise  to  show  why  the  wops  break  one  and  every  law  of  the 
United  States.  But  they  don't — and  it  wouldn't  have  sufficed — and 
reform  is  reform  and  I  chose  revolution — I  quit. 

I  quit.  I  am  a  vagabond  again.  I  am  a  roomer.  In  a  furnished- 
room  house.  One  of  the  homes  of  the  homeless,  of  the  orphans,  the 
whores,  the  pimps,  the  poor  spinsters,  the  poor  bachelors,  the  homo- 
sexuals, the  young  stenogs  who  won't  make  good,  waiters  and  door- 
men, the  homes  of  the  useless  and  the  strangers.  The  typical  Amer- 
ican Home,  the  I"urnished-room.  The  New  World  is  tired  of  the 
Family.  The  New  World  damns  the  european  shackles  of  the  Family 
and  has  a  new  institution — a  transitory  institution  in  the  transitory 
New  World,  the  furnished  room  welcomes  with  miserable  arms  the 
hopeless  rebels  of  the  earth.  I  am  the  typical  American, — see  ?  Un- 
acknowledged.   Nobody  knows  me  and,  for  a  compensation,  every- 


The    Little    Review  55 

body  knows  me — so  I  talk  crudely  and  democratically  to  everyone 
alike,  for  I  love  no  one  in  especial.  In  the  furnished-room  one  drops 
regularly  the  filth  of.  the  body  and  of  the  brain — never  the  wind 
comes  in  to  take  them  away — the  room  is  the  composite  of  my 
spiritual  and  material  offals — it  knows  all  that's  wrong  with  me  as 
the  horrible  corpse  of  a  man  who  died  of  disease  knows  exactly  all 
that  was  wrong  with  the  man.  It  knows  nothing  of  what  is  good 
in  me.  So  it  can't  acknowledge  me,  and  I  can't  be  a  hero  here.  I 
must  be  the  abject  fool  its  eyes  make  of  me. 

Old  houses,  where  the  old  families  may  live,  are  colour  of  the 
earth,  arisen  from  the  earth  like  trees — in  the  Spring  they  have  their 
blossoms,  in  the  Summer  their  fruits.  The  true  American  home  is 
the  furnished-room.  The  rich,  the  middle-class!  Don't  let  them  fool 
you  about  that — their  houses  are  imitations — unreal  and  ugly — and 
there  are  hotels.  Hotels  and  furnished-rooms.  And  concubines, 
pimps,  middlemen  and  purveyors  to  these,  THE  LUNCH-ROOM 
and  the  RESTAURANT.  If  you  can  eat  in  a  restaurant  all  your 
life  then  you  can  sleep  in  a  furnished-room  or  a  hotel  all  your  life. 
A  few  maybe — or  maybe  many — for  what  do  I  know  ?  isn't  my  misery 
blinding  me? — oh,  Christ,  I  am  crying — if  I  don't  see  well  it's  be- 
cause there  are  tears  before  my  eyes!  I  tell  you — I  have  known  too 
many  who  know  nothing  about  the  old  negro  songs  and  nothing 
about  New  England  and  the  pies  that  were  or  are  made  there,  which 
are  the  tradition  of  the  country — and  many  do  not  know  how  tre- 
mendously, and  maybe  successfully,  sacreligious  skyscrapers  are.  These 
are  the  homeless,  and  I  am  one  of  them.  They  don't  eat  like  men, 
they  don't  sleep  like  men,  they  don't  see  any  colours.  Why  have  you 
taken  the  colours  away  from  your  cities?  They  will  soon  become 
blind.  Aren't  colours  the  sustenance  of  our  eyesight,  do  they  not 
determine,  define  our  eyesight — you — the  chemists,  the  doctors,  the 
engineers  of  America,  you  have  made  this  country  grey.  Why  do 
you  handle  grey  things  only,  why  does  everything  turn  grey  in  your 
hands?  Do  you  want  us  all  to  lose  our  eyesight?  A  scientist  says 
there  is  romance  in  machines — who  the  hell  wants  romance!  We're 
talking  of  colours,  colours,  and  taste  and  smell.    Why  do  you  take 


56  The   Little  Review 

the  joy  out  of  oranges  and  peaches — kill  fruits?  And  you  want  to 
choke  us — with  that  smoke — is  it  you,  the  scientists?  Or  who  is  it? 
It  can't  be  the  scientists,  only.  Is  it  a  passage?  Is  it  for  the  children? 
I  am  not  a  fool !  You'd  want  me  to  make  a  better,  more  specific 
complaint,  wouldn't  you?  But  this  is  my  own,  and  a  million  Greeks 
— oh,  have  you  seen  the  beautiful  greeks  that  work  in  kitchens  and 
restaurants — and  have  you  heard  them?  They  are  still  singing  the 
songs  of  the  mountains — and  a  million  Italians — have  you  seen  them 
go  home  from  work,  loaded  over  with  two  jackets  and  a  sweater  and 
with  immense  mittens  to  fight  the  cold,  with  the  skin  of  their  necks 
like  bark — well,  they  say  "L' America,  donne  senza  colore  e  frutta 
scnza  sapore" — America,  women  without  colour  and  fruits  without 
taste.  And  maybe  they  are  right.  Don't  you  see  the  millions  of  girls, 
almost  all  the  poor  little  working  girls,  rouged  and  powdered,  look- 
ing like  thanksgiving  masks  or  funny  deadfaces.  I  will  say  it  better, 
sometime — I  think  there  is  some  use  for  such  a  complaint — but  now 
I  have  no  time,  I'm  going,  I'm  going  along,  I  am  going  along,  I  am 
going  along.  Furnished-rooms — they  got  me  again.  They  took  me 
back.  There  is  always  a  brothel  for  a  prostitute  and  always  a  sick 
lust  in  some  one  for  her,  no  matter  how  old  and  sick  she  is — so  the 
furnished-room  took  me  back.  I  make  great  signs  to  the  sky,  in  front 
of  my  windows,  at  night.  I  say:  say,  it's  better  not  to  go  on  this  way, 
you'd  better  stop — send  a  message  to  the  young  men  "that  the  fight 
is  for  nothing  and  the  only  good  mood  is  that  which  requires  suicide 
at  its  end."  I  make  a  petition  for  them  that  are  in  my  same  plight — 
the  roomers,  the  hotel  customers,  the  movies'  patrons.  I  don't  think 
of  revolution.  When  men  would  go  out  to  kill,  I  shut  myself  in  my 
room  and  sit  down  and  sometimes  I  want  to  die  and  sometimes  I 
weep.  Memories  come  to  visit  rrie — only  memories,  no  friends. 
Friends  are  like  apples  gathered  from  the  appletree  of  one's  own 
orchard — no  orchard,  no  appletree,  no  friend.  Someone  suffers  too, 
who  knows  me,  and  he  says  "I  am  your  friend."  Rut  no  one  knows 
that  I  do  not  only  sufifcr,  that  I  am  also  going  along,  going  along, 
going  along.  I  cry  tears  that  are  diamonds  and  drops  of  silver  and 
sapphires  when  the  moonshine  smites  them:  so  there  is  beauty  beyond 


The    Little    Revie  IV  57 

my  sorrow  and  I  am  going  there.  I  am  a  vagabond,  and  I  shriek 
amongst  my  wrecks  of  memories  and  my  failures  like  a  crazy  child 
among  old  toys  that  are  always  new  to  him.  I  don't  fake  you,  I 
never  told  you  that  I  am  talking  to  God.  And  I  am  not  talking  to 
you,  either,  so  leave  me  alone.  I  never  understand  who  or  what  God 
is — sometimes  he  is  a  sentimental  symbol,  I  am  a  vagabond.  God, 
for  all  that,  means  home,  it  means  family,  father,  mother,  wife, 
sisters  and  brothers.  No  such  things  here.  I  have  come  in  to  the 
country  where  there  are  only  vagabonds  and  liars  and  ghosts.  The 
liars  laugh  and  say  they  have  a  family  and  mother  and  sisters  and 
they  swagger  around  talking  of  "our  country."  I  know  that  they're 
liars  because  they  talk  of  their  "old  glory,"  and  "the  good  old 
days" — and  this  is  a  New  World.  The  ghosts  flutter  around  taunting 
us  with  Japanese  and  chinese  silks  and  with  european  shrouds.  I  know 
a  few:  one  is  a  fat  woman  who  smokes  cigars,  one  is  a  man  who  has 
whiskers  like  D'Artagnan,  one  is  a  toothless  sleepy-eyed  stinker  who 
gets  sore  with  everybody  and  then  bows  to  them  saying  "I  am  so 
sad !",  one  is  a  lady's  man,  one  is  a  business  man  who  is  tired  of  his 
face. 

I  have  left,  in  a  real  old  country,  an  old  house.  There  was  too 
much  tragedy  in  it.  And  no  outlet,  because  everybody  was  too  wise. 
The  house  was  tired  of  standing  on  its  walls  and  hearing  the  howls 
of  the  dying  old  people  inside.  If  ever  the  great  wind  that  I,  a 
vagabond,  am  acquainted  with,  will  come  over  that  house,  it  will 
slash  it  into  strips  and  shrivel  it  and  scatter  it.  I  came  where  there 
are  no  houses.  I  haven't  seen  any.  Maybe,  down  South,  out  West 
....  or  up  North — but  not  where  I  have  been.  I  have  been  around 
and  have  looked  around  and  I  have  eyes,  and  I  am  no  statistician 

and  then I  talk  to  no  one  in  particular.     And,  I  got  married 

and  had  a  home.   That  was  a  mistake. 

Now,  I  am  again  a  vagabond,  spilling  words  from  a  hole  in  my 
pocket,  knowing  only  other  vagabonds  like  me  and  urging  them  to 
wander  around.  To  wander  and  go,  hurriedly,  like  myself.  When 
we  are  tired,  we  meet  and  sing  old,  very  old  songs  that  no  one  under- 
stands except  us,  and  we  call  one  another  "brother"  and  "artist" — 


58  T  h  r    L  1  t  1 1 1    R  (■  V  if  tc 

and  we  often  weep  together — it  is  when  we  realize  that  there  cannot 
be  brothers  without  there  being  a  family,  or  artists  without  there 
being  a  home  ....  when  we  realize  that  we  arc  liars  too. 

^  New    Testament 

hy  Sherwood  A7iderson 
X 

I    HAVE  no  words  with  which  to  tell  you  where  I  have  been 
since  I  saw  you  last. 
Now  I  am  back  at  the  yellow  place  by  the  sand  reach. 
A  hand  reached  up  out  of  the  ground  before  me  and  lifted 
the  lids  of  my  eyes. 

I  have  become  an  old  man  with  small  brittle  bones. 

The  chill  of  many  dawns  is  in  the  hair  of  my  head. 

The  sandy  place  where  I  have  taken  a  fancy  to  write  words  with 
a  dull  stick  is  cut  and  crossed  with  yellow  streaks. 

There  has  been  a  flood. 

The  waters  have  been  my  friend — they  have  run  over  the  sand, 
wiping  my  words  away. 

The  words  have  escaped  into  the  grass. 

I  shall  never  find  the  lost  words. 

There  was  a  word  whose  legs  became  black.  He  danced  drearily 
back  and  forth  on  the  sand  and  screamed  like  a  woman  in  travail. 
I  should  have  forgotten  the  screaming  of  women  but  for  the  danc- 
ing word. 

It  was  night  and  I  went  into  the  mountains.  Then  I  remembered 
that  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  River  is  a  flat  place  between  the 
breasts  of  my  mother.  That  realization  gave  me  unspeakable  joy. 
My  mother's  head  lies  far  to  the  north  in  a  grey  silence. 

I  have  climbed  upon  the  nipple  of  one  of  my  mother's  breasts. 


The    Little    Review  59 


Since  I  was  here,  in  the  days  you  have  forgotten,  I  have  come  into 
the  wonder  of  sight. 

It  is  morning  and  a  hush  had  come  over  the  valley.  I  am  weary 
but  that  is  of  no  importance.  Do  not  shake  the  branches  of  the  grass 
as  I  speak  to  you  of  my  adventure. 

The  millions  of  men  and  women  who  live  in  the  valley  of  the 
Mississippi  River  had  run  out  into  the  plains.  That  was  at  the  be- 
ginning of  evening.  They  had  come — running  swiftly — into  a  close 
place — into  the  center  of  a  bowl.  All  men  and  all  women  and  chil- 
dren were  there — they  had  come  out  of  the  towns — out  of  cities — 
out  of  alleyways  in  the  cities — out  of  houses  in  towns. 

Farmers  had  quit  milking  cows  to  come  into  the  plains.  They  had 
given  over  the  planting  and  the  raking  of  fields.  Men  had  come 
running  out  at  the  door-ways  of  factories.  Women  with  hanging 
heads  and  stooped  shoulders  had  come. 

Children  had  come  laughing  but  had  stopped  laughing  to  stand 
quietly  in  the  crowd,  understanding  more  than  their  elders. 

Everyone  stood  quite  still. 

It  was  the  time  for  my  word  to  be  heard. 

I  sat  on  the  nipple  of  my  mother's  breast  and  looked  out  over  the 
plains. 

I  tried  to  say  the  word  but  my  tongue  became  dry  and  hard  like 
a  stone.  "Now,"  I  thought,  "the  word  that  has  never  come  to  me 
will  find  lodgment  on  my  lips.  There  will  come  a  word  out  of  the 
cellar  of  my  being.  My  word  will  rise  slowly — creeping  toward  my 
tongue  and  my  lips.  My  word  will  rattle  and  reverberate  along  the 
rafters  of  my  being." 

Nothing  happened  at  all.  On  the  vast  plains  there  was  only  a 
tense  silence.  I  came  down  from  my  high  place — down  from  the 
nipple  of  my  mother's  breast. 

I  went  within  myself  as  a  tired  man  at  evening  might  go  in  at 


6o  The  Little  Review 

the  door  of  his  house.  Inside  myself  all  was  silence.  Dust  sifted 
down  through  the  room  of  my  house.  My  dead  tongue  was  a  stone 
rolled  against  the  doorway  of  myself.  I  took  the  stone  in  my  hand 
and  threw  it  away — out  through  a  window. 

On  the  vast  plains  of  the  Mississippi  V'allcy  an  army  is  standing. 

It  has  said  no  word. 

No  word  has  been  said  to  it. 

The  army  is  silent. 

It  is  a  host  without  numbers. 

It  is  a  host  without  banners. 

It  is  a  naked  host  that  has  staring  eyes. 

It  is  a  host  that  stands  still. 

No  winds  blow  on  the  plains.  I  have  just  come  from  there  and 
it  is  evening  and  quiet.  Silently  stands  the  host,  staring  with  calm 
eyes  into  the  North.  I  will  take  you  there  if  to  go  falls  within  the 
province  of  your  desires.  You  also  shall  sit  upon  the  nipple  of  my 
mother's  breast  and  look  out  over  the  host.  You  shall  sit  beside  me 
while  night  and  the  shadows  of  death  play  over  the  host. 

You  shall  look  into  my  mother's  eyes. 

Far  into  the  North  you  shall  look. 

The  eyes  of  my  mother  'are  open. 

They  are  like  a  sea  filled  with  salt. 

Shadows  flit  over  the  balls  of  her  eyes. 

The  little  shadows  of  men  chase  each  other  over  the  quiet  eyes  of 
my  mother  that  are  hidden  away  in  the  silence — far  to  the  North. 

Do  not  shake  the  branches  of  the  grass  as  I  speak  to  you  of  my 
adventure. 

Your  eyes  are  very  grey  and  large  and   round. 

I  have  come  down  from  the  nipple  of  my  mother's  breast. 

I  write  with  a  blunt  stick  in  the  sand  at  the  edge  of  the  flowing 
waters. 

I  shall   run  on  nian\'  lu'ghts  through  the  towns. 

I  shall  run  on  main'  lughts  through  the  cities. 

I  shall  run  on  many  lu'ghts  through  the  alleyways  of  the  c'ties. 
{to  be  continued) 


The    Little    R  e  v  i  e  lu 


The  Reader  Critic 

''Obscenity" 
F.  E.  R.: 

Aud  what  caused  the  suppression  of  the  January  issue?  Tlie  Joyce, 
I  suppose.  I  have  been  througli  the  wliole  number  very  carefully  and 
the  "Ulysses"'  is  the  only  offender  I  can  find.  But  why  cavil  about 
Joyce  at  this  late  day? — it  would  seem  to  me  that  after  all  these 
months  he  could  be  accepted,  obscenity  and  all,  for  surely  the  post- 
ofRce  authorities  should  recognize  that  only  a  few  read  him,  and  those 
few  not  just  the  kind  to  have  their  whole  moral  natures  overthrown 
by  frankness  about  natural  functions. 

The  March  Number 

Mdxwell  Bodcnheim,  Neiv  York: 

Tour  March  numl)er  is  involved  and  secretive.  Immediately  after 
"Four  Chinese  Home  Songs"  and  "Temple  Inscriptions" — work  that 
has  a  tactful  lustre — you  place  "The  Wise  Man"  by  William 
Saphier,  a  story  filled  with  separate  attempts  at  color  and  a  narrative 
style  that  is  neitlier  simply  subtle  nor  subtly  simple.  One  does  not 
portray  colors  by  mentioning  tlieir  names  and  shades  and  calling  it 
a  day.  Besides,  loose  coUotiuialisms  and  colored  images  resent  each 
other's  presence  when  placed  side  by  side  and  bewilder  the  story's 
concept  with  tlieir  contradictory  courtships.  Also,  the  "premonition  of 
earthly  tribulations''  idea  is  an  overworked  old-timer.  I  never  hoped 
to  see  his  bones  again.  Else  von  Freytag  Loringhoven's  "Klink- 
Hratzvenga"  has  the  virtues  of  many  languages  and  the  deficiencies 
of  none,  since  she  can  create  sounds  for  shades  of  meaning  that  have 
no  dictionary  equivalents.  Her  poem  is  a  masterpiece  of  bitter  sim- 
plicity, from  its  choked  beginning  to  its  satiated  "Vrmm."  Now,  all 
together,  boys :  come  on  with  your  "impossible  to  understand  it." 
"there's  nothing  to  understand,''  "charlatan,"  "she's  insane,"  and  other 
rotten  tomatoes.  At  your  best  you  prefer  the  complex,  intellectual 
sterilities  of  a  Dorothy  Richardson.  Any  new  simplicity  confounds 
you.  I  have  been  amused  at  the  serious  discussions  concerning  Else 
Loringhoven's  "insanity."  She  is  a  rare,  normal  being  who  shocks 
people  by  taking  off  her  chemise  in  public.  She  has  the  balanced  pre- 
cision of  a  conscious  savage.  She  does  not  violate  rules :  she  enters  a 
realm  into  which  they  cannot  pursue  her.  Even  her  shouts  rise  to  dis- 
criminating climaxes.  Her  work,  in  its  deliberate  cohesion,  shows  an 
absolute  and  rare  normality. 


62 


The  Little   Re  vie  iv 


Are  there  woo  people  in  America 


It  is  not  realized  that  the  "Little  Rrvieic"  alone 
in  America  is  performing  a  function  performed  hy 
at  least  a  dozen  revieivs  in  France  and  hy  eight  or 
ten  in  England. 


I 


N  a  city  of  millionaires,  nearly  all  of  whoni  make  some  strong 
pretense  of  being  interested  in  the  Arts,  we  have  been  pub- 
lishing for  three  years  the  only  magazine  that  has  a  legitimate 
and  sympathetic  connection  with  the  artist. 


Any  professional  or  business  man,  any  statesman  of  intelligence, 
will  admit  that  in  the  last  analysis  it  is  the  Arts,  and  the  Arts  alone, 
that  give  lustre  to  a  nation.  And  yet  in  this  country,  most  glaringly 
lacking  in  lustre,  the  Arts  go  begging  and  penniless. 

Oppressed  at  every  turn  by  a  new  financial  difficulty,  we- have 
been  able  in  spite  of  this  to  establish  some  intellectual  communication 
between  England,  France  and  America  by  presenting  the  best  of 
the  creative  work  produced  in  those  countries  today. 

7  he  amount   of  money   jiy  need,   our  other 

assets  being   so   strong,   is  $5,000.     If  we 

can    obtain    this   sum    for    one   year   ice 

can     push     through     an     advertising 

campaign  that  il'HI  carry  us  along, 

making    it    possible    to    meet    the 

criminally     increased     cost     of 

publication   and   to   pay   our 

contributors  somewhat. 


The    Little    R  e  v  i  e  tv  63 


who  will  give  Ss  apiece  to  our  fund 


Never  before  in  America  has  there  been  such  an 
up-push  of  the  creative  impulse,  and  never  has  the 
jnaterialistic  vision  so  eclipsed  the  desire  for  Art  arid 
even  tlu  appreciation  of  it. 


E 


VERY  artist  realizes  that  as  long  as  we  exist  there  is  one 
magazine  in  America  in  which  he  may  present  himself 
to  his  audience  directly,  uncensored,  and  unhindered  by 
a  "policy."  The  Little  Review  is  the  one  Freie  Biihne 
in  the  country. 


It  is  also  the  one  Art  project  that  has  shown  by  its  vicissitudes, 
its  incorruptibility  and  its  endurance,  the  essential  need  for  such  a 
magazine. 

But  the  situation  today  is  almost  insurmountable.  The  present 
format  of  the  magazine  costs  us  just  four  times  as  much  as  formerly. 
We  must  meet  this  deficit,  and  we  must  pay  our  contributors. 

Make  checks  payable   to   the  Little  Review 
Fund,  27  West  Eighth  Street.    If  you  can 
not    send    $^    send    anything    you    can. 
The    smallest    donation    will    be    ap- 
preciated. 

Help   us  to  attain  the  $5,000 
mark    in    a     month     of    two. 
The     results     ivill     interest 
you. 


(Prane'sr 

D^ari/ garden  (Phoeolatesr 

"Qjour  (Phoeohtcfare  really  the  f!neftJhcd>e 
ex^er  iasled anijiohorc  in  the  World" 


A  MAGAZINE  FOR 
ARISTOCRATS 


Reconsider   your   definition   of   aristocracy   before   you   jump   to 
conclusions. 


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