Read Ebook: The Little Review November 1915 (Vol. 2 No. 8) by Various Anderson Margaret C Editor

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Reading over your letters I find you wrote me "My dear boy," or at times "dear boy," and the envelope Said "master"--all as I had been your very son, And not the orphan whom you adopted. Well, you were father to me! And I can recall The things you did for me or gave me: One time we rode in a box-car to Springfield To see the greatest show on earth; And one time you gave me red-top boots, And one time a watch, and one time a gun. Well, I grew to gawkiness with a voice Like a rooster trying to crow in August Hatched in April, we'll say. And you went about wrapped up in silence With eyes aflame, and I heard little rumors Of what they were doing to you, and how They wronged you--and we were poor--so poor! And I could not understand why you failed, And why if you did good things for the people The people did not sustain you. And why you loved another woman than Aunt Susan, So it was whispered at school, and what could be baser, Or so little to be forgiven?.....

They crowded you hard in those days. But you fought like a wounded lion For yourself I know, but for us, for me. At last you fell ill, and for months you tottered Around the streets as thin as death, Trying to earn our bread, your great eyes glowing And the silence around you like a shawl! But something in you kept you up. You grew well again and rosy with cheeks Like an Indian peach almost, and eyes Full of moonlight and sunlight, and a voice That sang, and a humor that warded The arrows off. But still between us There was reticence; you kept me away With a glittering hardness; perhaps you thought I kept you away--for I was moving In spheres you knew not, living through Beliefs you believed in no more, and ideals That were just mirrors of unrealities. As a boy can be I was critical of you. And reasons for your failures began to arise In my mind--I saw specific facts here and there With no philosophy at hand to weld them And synthesize them into one truth-- And a rush of the strength of youth Deluded me into thinking the world Was something so easily understood and managed While I knew it not at all in truth. And an adolescent egotism Made me feel you did not know me Or comprehend the all that I was. All this you divined.......

So it went. And when I left you and passed To the world, the city--still I see you With eyes averted, and feel your hand Limp with sorrow--you could not speak. You thought of what I might be, and where Life would take me, and how it would end-- There was longer silence. A year or two Brought me closer to you. I saw the play now And the game somewhat and understood your fights And enmities, and hardnesses and silences, And wild humor that had kept you whole-- For your soul had made it as an antitoxin To the world's infections. And you swung to me Closer than before--and a chumship began Between us......

What vital power was yours! You never tired, or needed sleep, or had a pain, Or refused a delight. I loved the things now You had always loved, a winning horse, A roulette wheel, a contest of skill In games or sports ... long talks on the corner With men who have lived and tell you Things with a rich flavor of old wisdom or humor; A woman, a glass of whisky at a table Where the fatigue of life falls, and our reserves That wait for happiness come up in smiles, Laughter, gentle confidences. Here you were A man with youth, and I a youth was a man, Exulting in your braveries and delight in life. How you knocked that scamp over at Harry Varnell's When he tried to take your chips! And how I, Who had thought the devil in cards as a boy, Loved to play with you now and watch you play; And watch the subtle mathematics of your mind Prophecy, divine the plays. Who was it In your ancestry that you harked back to And reproduced with such various gifts Of flesh and spirit, Anglo-Saxon, Celt?-- You with such rapid wit and powerful skill For catching illogic and whipping Error's Fang?d head from the body?.....

I was really ahead of you At this stage, with more self-consciousness Of what man is, and what life is at last, And how the spirit works, and by what laws, With what inevitable force. But still I was Behind you in that strength which in our youth, If ever we have it, squeezes all the nectar From the grapes. It seemed you'd never lose This power and sense of joy, but yet at times I saw another phase of you......

There was the day We rode together north of the old town, Past the old farm houses that I knew-- Past maple groves, and fields of corn in the shock, And fields of wheat with the fall green. It was October, but the clouds were summer's, Lazily floating in a sky of June; And a few crows flying here and there, And a quail's call, and around us a great silence That held at its core old memories Of pioneers, and dead days, forgotten things! I'll never forget how you looked that day. Your hair Was turning silver now, but still your eyes Burned as of old, and the rich olive glow In your cheeks shone, with not a line or wrinkle!-- You seemed to me perfection--a youth, a man! And now you talked of the world with the old wit, And now of the soul--how such a man went down Through folly or wrong done by him, and how Man's death cannot end all, There must be life hereafter!.....

This day then I understood it all: Your vital democracy and love of men And tolerance of life; and how the excess of these Had wrought your sorrows in the days When we were so poor, and the small of mind Spoke of your sins and your connivance With sinful men. You had lived it down, Had triumphed over them, and you had grown Prosperous in the world and had passed Into an easy mastery of life and beyond the thought Of further conquests for things. As the Brahmins say no more you worshipped matter, Or scarcely ghosts, or even the gods With singleness of heart. This day you worshipped Eternal Peace Or Eternal Flame, with scarce a laugh or jest To hide your worship; and I understood, Seeing so many facets to you, why it was Blind Condon always smiled to hear your voice, And why it was in a green-room years ago Booth turned to you, marking your face From all the rest, and said "There is a man Who might play Hamlet--better still Othello"; And why it was the women loved you; and the priest Could feed his body and soul together drinking A glass of beer and visiting with you......

Then something happened: Your face grew smaller, your brow more narrow, Dull fires burned in your eyes, Your body shriveled, you walked with a cynical shuffle, Your hands mixed the keys of life, You had become a discord. A monstrous hatred consumed you-- You had suffered the greatest wrong of all, I knew and granted the wrong. You had mounted up to sixty years, now breathing hard, And just at the time that honor belonged to you You were dishonored at the hands of a friend. I wept for you, and still I wondered If all I had grown to see in you and find in you And love in you was just a fond illusion-- If after all I had not seen you aright as a boy: Barbaric, hard, suspicious, cruel, redeemed Alone by bubbling animal spirits-- Even these gone now, all of you smoke Laden with stinging gas and lethal vapor...... Then you came forth again like the sun after storm-- The deadly uric acid driven out at last Which had poisoned you and dwarfed your soul-- So much for soul!

The last time I saw you Your face was full of golden light, Something between flame and the richness of flesh. You were yourself again, wholly yourself. And oh, to find you again and resume Our understanding we had worked so long to reach-- You calm and luminant and rich in thought! This time it seemed we said but "yes" or "no"-- That was enough; we smoked together And drank a glass of wine and watched The leaves fall sitting on the porch..... Then life whirled me away like a leaf, And I went about the crowded ways of New York.

And one night Alberta and I took dinner At a place near Fourteenth Street where the music Was like the sun on a breeze-swept lake When every wave is a patine of fire, And I thought of you not at all Looking at Alberta and watching her white teeth Bite off bits of Italian bread, And watching her smile and the wide pupils Of her eyes, electrified by wine And music and the touch of our hands Now and then across the table. We went to her house at last. And through a languorous evening. Where no light was but a single candle, We circled about and about a pending theme Till at last we solved it suddenly in rapture Almost by chance; and when I left She followed me to the hall and leaned above The railing about the stair for the farewell kiss-- And I went into the open air ecstatically, With the stars in the spaces of sky between The towering buildings, and the rush Of wheels and clang of bells, Still with the fragrance of her lips and cheeks And glinting hair about me, delicate And keen in spite of the open air. And just as I entered the brilliant car Something said to me you are dead-- I had not thought of you, was not thinking of you. But I knew it was true, as it was For the telegram waited me at my room..... I didn't come back. I could not bear to see the breathless breath Over your brow--nor look at your face-- However you fared or where To what victories soever-- Vanquished or seemingly vanquished!

Choleric Comments

ALEXANDER S. KAUN

Faithful are the wounds of a friend.--Proverbs, 27:6.

"You don't love rugs." His Svidrigailovian face grinned. "If you did, you would just love them, you would not quibble. Academician!"

The last epithet is used by THE LITTLE REVIEW priests and prophets as a means to close all arguments. So it did on that occasion. But it left me pondering over the words of a New York critic who accused our magazine of being somewhat indiscriminate in its enthusiasm for the sake of enthusiasm, in its emotionalism for the sake of emotion. I recalled blushingly the confession of our chief Neo-Hellenist, who is moved aesthetically by any sort of music, whether it emanates from Kreisler's Stradivarius or from the pianola at Henrici's.

The first edition of the book was issued about twenty years ago, yet one reads it now with keen joy. With the exception of the essay on Nietzsche, which is somewhat obsolete, the essays on Zola, Huysmans, Casanova, and St. Francis have stood the test of time. One feels the breeze of cleanness, freshness, sincerity, and profundity. I may have an opportunity of discussing the book some other time.

Three strokes with the brush of Frans Hals are worth a thousand of Denner's. Rich and minute detail may impress us, but it irritates and wearies in the end.... When we are living deeply, the facts of our external life do not present themselves to us in elaborate detail; a very few points are--as it has been termed--focal in consciousness, while the rest are marginal in subconsciousness. A few things stand out vividly at each moment of life; the rest are dim. The supreme artist is shown by the insight and boldness with which he seizes and illuminates these bright points at each stage, leaving the marginal elements in due subordination.

Ah, dear Scavenger, I do love rugs. But there are rugs and rugs.

The Scavenger's Swan Song

What a remarkable fellow my friend the Incurable is! I talk to him about rugs, quite casually, as we wait for a car, and what does this devil of a psychologist do but walk deep into my soul on one of them. I read him a Huneker article on Huysmans which he remarks is excellent at the time, only to find that I should have read Havelock Ellis....

How I envy him this distinction of having read Havelock Ellis instead of James Huneker, of being subtle enough to prefer the deep, metaphysical didactics concerning Life to the contemplation of that most seductive of literary signposts--Huneker. But it is so foolish to quibble about books.... If I had anything else to do I wouldn't read them....

Puritan, indeed! That is too much. I suspect it is only a withering retort, a ferocious counter to the "academic charges." But what of Dreiser--poor, little, smug, banal, and illiterate Dreiser? You should have spared him. You remember on the elevated going home one night how I pleaded with you to spare him, how I argued, defended, fought? Ah, I am shamed. I feel somehow responsible for this annihilation of a man, aye a good writer, who was fast becoming one of the great men of America....

When you speak of music everything becomes clear to me. Here am I who like music well enough to have studied it for ten years, who can improvise as well on the violin as on the typewriter, but who nevertheless have been denied the capacity for experiencing the critical disorganization of the soul at the sound of bad music, and nervous exaltations at the sound of good. I suffer and gloat--but subjectively. To me music is a background.... It is not my natural form of self-expression. Neither are rugs.

And I haven't time to be a connoisseur. Later--perhaps. But now I reduce all such differences of attitude as yours and mine to the everlasting wrangle between the connoisseur and the improviser. Yes?

Puritan! That is nothing. Later you will call me charlatan because I sometimes compose paradoxes and even epigrams. Culture abhors an epigram.

As for my article, "The Dionysian Dreiser," I will not defend that. Your abuse of that writing coupled with your smug praise of Ben Hecht's atrocious poetry is inconsistent.

Ah, friend, may my death and Dreiser's be forever on your conscience.

"THE SCAVENGER."

Dregs

BEN HECHT

Life

The sun was shining in the dirty street.

Old women with shapeless bodies waddled along on their way to market.

Bearded old men who looked like the fathers of Jerusalem walked flatfooted, nodding back and forth.

"The tread of the processional surviving in Halsted street," thought Moisse, the young dramatist who was moving with the crowd.

Children sprawled in the refuse-laden alleys. One of them ragged and clotted with dirt stood half-dressed on the curbing and urinated into the street.

Wagons rumbled, filled with fruits and iron and rags and vegetables.

Human voices babbled above the noises of the traffic. Moisse watched the lively scene.

"Every day it's the same," he thought; "the same smells, the same noise and people swarming over the pavements. I am the only one in the street whose soul is awake. There's a pretty girl looking at me. She suspects the condition of my soul. Her fingers are dirty. Why doesn't she buy different shoes? She thinks I am lost. In five years she will be fat. In ten years she will waddle with a shawl over her head."

The young dramatist smiled.

"Good God," he thought, "where do they come from. Where are they going? No place to no place. But always moving, shuffling, waddling, crying out. The sun shines on them. The rain pours on them. It burns. It freezes. Today they are bright with color. Tomorrow they are grey with gloom. But they are always the same, always in motion."

The young dramatist stopped on the corner and looking around him spied a figure sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against the wall of a building.

The figure was an old man.

He had a long white beard.

He had his legs tucked under him and an upturned tattered hat rested in his lap.

His thin face was raised and the sun beat down on it, but his eyes were closed.

"Asleep," mused Moisse.

He moved closer to him.

The man's head was covered with long silky white hair that hung down to his neck and hid his ears. It was uncombed. His face in the sun looked like the face of an ascetic, thin, finely veined.

He had a long nose and almost colorless lips and the skin on his cheeks was white. It was drawn tight over his bones, leaving few wrinkles.

An expression of peace rested over him--peace and detachment. Of the noise and babble he heard nothing. His eyes were closed to the crowded frantic street.

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