The Reader Critic
Mrs. Jean Cowdrey Norton, Hempstead, Long Island:Since coming in contact withThe Little Reviewlast December, I have more than enjoyed each issue with your own impulsive, warm-hearted, dauntless personality coming through its pages; and it is for that reason I do not hesitate to ask you for an explanation of a sentence that you wrote in the April number, which led me to subscribe for that horrible output, viz.,The Masses. You pronounced it indispensable to intelligent living. On that I sent in a subscription, and whereas I am not so awfully stupid I cannot understand how you, who are evidently an artist with high ideals, could possibly have such a magazine on your desk. The cartoons are so untrue, so damnably vulgar,—which good art never is,—the insistent harping on the shadows of life, the exaggerated outlook which tinges the whole paper—quite as one-sided on its side as other papers are on theirs; all of which I know must be in complete contradiction to your self. It fills me with astonishment. We acknowledge with our ever-increasing complex civilization that we must more than ever perhaps help each other; but I don’t just understand which class this perfectly rotten sheet is intended to reach. If it’s the so-called down trodden, they are apt to have so much unhappiness any way I should say a good brace up does more good than harping on injustice in general; as for the class that “does not think,” its inartistic drawings alone would be enough to queer it. When I am down and out—I happen to be a working woman too—I most decidedlydo notwant to be made more down and out by more woes, that often spring from lack of intelligence, that both rich and poor suffer alike from. You will see I believe in the responsibility of the individual, that you Socialists rather avoid. I do not expect you to answer this letter, but I shall look inThe Little Reviewfor a stray line that will give me some idea of your outlook.[I have so much to say in answer to this letter, and so little time to say it that I have asked someone who shares my view to do it for me. Mr. Davis says it much better than I could, anyhow. And I must add that I am not a Socialist. I am an Anarchist—which means, an Individualist; which means everything that people think it doesn’t mean.—The Editor.]F. Guy Davis, Chicago:I will try to indicate very briefly why I think so much ofThe Masses. The group that is getting it out are real students who know the crowd with all its hope and despair, much better than the crowd knows itself. They are interpreting the crowd. The mass would never likeThe Masses. It is too true. It is not got up for them.The Cosmopolitanis the ideal of the mass.The Massesis for the few brave spirits who want to know life as it is, the shadows as well as the flights up into the sunshine.The Massesto my mind has as broad a range of feeling reflected in its pages as any magazine I know of. Humor, tragedy, light, shade, drama, color, yes, and mud too, as you say. But isn’t mud a part of life? In some respects mud is the condition of life. The great need of the sensitive mind of today is contact with the vital life-giving things and ideas which come from the earth. The life of such a mind is like the life of a plant. Its roots must go down beneath the surface or it will die.The Massesto my mind is the spirit of the earth put into magazine form, and to read it understandingly is to put the roots of the soul down into the earth where they should be if a healthy growth is desired. One could get too much of that contact of course, but that is another matter.FREE POETS v. FREE VERSE.[As Mr. Carter suggests in the following letter, reprinted fromThe Egoist, I hopeThe Little Reviewagree with Mr. Aldington’s point of view. I hope the latter may be induced to answer Mr. Carter at length in the same issue.—The Editor.]To the Editor, The EgoistMadam,—I notice that in his contribution to the Imagist number ofThe EgoistMr. Harold Monro, writing on the history of the Imagist movement, states that the movement owes its origin to the large discovery of “Poetry asanart” [my italics]. He then proceeds to point out that the Imagist verse fails as poetry not because the writers love poetry less, but because they love expression more. Being what it is it would be no better if Tennyson had written it, and no worse if it proved to be by, say, Mr. Rudyard Kipling. Indeed, it is not poetry any more than little Congreve’s tiresome stream of depreciation is comedy, despite what certain hopeless apprentice play critics assert to the contrary. Poetry, I suppose Mr. Monro would say, is not expression but the thing expressed. All this is good and true. But Mr. Monro fails to make one thing quite clear. The Imagists have been mistaken in their very conception of poetry which lives alone by the power to see it as Art and not as “an art.” I am convinced that some at least of the Imagists are not without the secret of this power, and if they will be guided by the vision they gain thereby, to the extent of forgetting their literary erudition, it will transform their conception of poetry. The strict literature at which they aim is not proper poetry. In fact, literary technicians do not, as a rule, write poetry for the simple reason that even if they dream the poet’s dream of reality they at once proceed to smother it under literary form. We must look to those rich in poetical experience, and free to express it, for the true expression of poetry. In plain words, “Poetry asanart” (that is, as expression or form) is not the same as Poetry as Art (that is, the thing expressed). The distinction is so big and vital and so necessary to be maintained at this moment, that I propose to consider it in an article inThe Little Review. I hope to prove that what poetry needs nowadays is free poets, not free verse.Huntly Carter.[As the nearest available Imagist, perhaps I may be permitted to comment (without prejudice to the other Imagists) on Mr. Carter’s letter. I am not quite sure that I know what Mr. Carter means, but I think he means that it is useless for a man to study classic quantity and mediaeval rhyme and modern free verse, if he has no particular impulse or mood to make those studies valuable as a means of expression. If that is what Mr. Carter means I agree with him. I will also agree that it is useless to try and teach a dumb man to lecture or a lame man to break the hundred yards record. If a man is to lecture, if he is to be an athlete, we take for granted that in the first case he has ideas and a certain eloquence, and in the second a good physique and an aptitude for sprinting. Mr. Carter would be a rotten trainer if he didn’t make his man diet, take cold baths and long walks and an occasional sprint; he ought even to make him do a little boxing. I feel, somehow, that Mr. Carter never went in for violent exercise or that he relied upon his “Soul-Flow” or “Art-Ebb” to get him through.Now poetry is not so very unlike athletics. You may have no aptitude for it, and then all the training in the world won’t get you in first; you may shape very well, but if you don’t train you will be an “also ran.” I believe in having an aptitude and in training it; Mr. Carter believes in having an aptitude and not training it.I object to Mr. Carter informing us of the existence of our “of courses.” We take for granted that a man is sincere, that he has lots of impulses and that he is “free.” All that is the stuff out of which poetry is made. The making of it, the “training” is what we are immediately interested in. We take for granted that we have the essentials of poetry in us or we should not attempt to write it. We are now after clarity of form, precision of expression. Mr. Carter, like the majority of our fellow citizens, does not value these things; we find them present in every work of art which is beautiful and permanently interesting; hence our anxiety to attain by practice that clarity and that precision which practice alone can give.]Richard Aldington.
Mrs. Jean Cowdrey Norton, Hempstead, Long Island:
Since coming in contact withThe Little Reviewlast December, I have more than enjoyed each issue with your own impulsive, warm-hearted, dauntless personality coming through its pages; and it is for that reason I do not hesitate to ask you for an explanation of a sentence that you wrote in the April number, which led me to subscribe for that horrible output, viz.,The Masses. You pronounced it indispensable to intelligent living. On that I sent in a subscription, and whereas I am not so awfully stupid I cannot understand how you, who are evidently an artist with high ideals, could possibly have such a magazine on your desk. The cartoons are so untrue, so damnably vulgar,—which good art never is,—the insistent harping on the shadows of life, the exaggerated outlook which tinges the whole paper—quite as one-sided on its side as other papers are on theirs; all of which I know must be in complete contradiction to your self. It fills me with astonishment. We acknowledge with our ever-increasing complex civilization that we must more than ever perhaps help each other; but I don’t just understand which class this perfectly rotten sheet is intended to reach. If it’s the so-called down trodden, they are apt to have so much unhappiness any way I should say a good brace up does more good than harping on injustice in general; as for the class that “does not think,” its inartistic drawings alone would be enough to queer it. When I am down and out—I happen to be a working woman too—I most decidedlydo notwant to be made more down and out by more woes, that often spring from lack of intelligence, that both rich and poor suffer alike from. You will see I believe in the responsibility of the individual, that you Socialists rather avoid. I do not expect you to answer this letter, but I shall look inThe Little Reviewfor a stray line that will give me some idea of your outlook.
[I have so much to say in answer to this letter, and so little time to say it that I have asked someone who shares my view to do it for me. Mr. Davis says it much better than I could, anyhow. And I must add that I am not a Socialist. I am an Anarchist—which means, an Individualist; which means everything that people think it doesn’t mean.—The Editor.]
F. Guy Davis, Chicago:
I will try to indicate very briefly why I think so much ofThe Masses. The group that is getting it out are real students who know the crowd with all its hope and despair, much better than the crowd knows itself. They are interpreting the crowd. The mass would never likeThe Masses. It is too true. It is not got up for them.The Cosmopolitanis the ideal of the mass.The Massesis for the few brave spirits who want to know life as it is, the shadows as well as the flights up into the sunshine.The Massesto my mind has as broad a range of feeling reflected in its pages as any magazine I know of. Humor, tragedy, light, shade, drama, color, yes, and mud too, as you say. But isn’t mud a part of life? In some respects mud is the condition of life. The great need of the sensitive mind of today is contact with the vital life-giving things and ideas which come from the earth. The life of such a mind is like the life of a plant. Its roots must go down beneath the surface or it will die.The Massesto my mind is the spirit of the earth put into magazine form, and to read it understandingly is to put the roots of the soul down into the earth where they should be if a healthy growth is desired. One could get too much of that contact of course, but that is another matter.
[As Mr. Carter suggests in the following letter, reprinted fromThe Egoist, I hopeThe Little Reviewagree with Mr. Aldington’s point of view. I hope the latter may be induced to answer Mr. Carter at length in the same issue.—The Editor.]
To the Editor, The Egoist
Madam,—I notice that in his contribution to the Imagist number ofThe EgoistMr. Harold Monro, writing on the history of the Imagist movement, states that the movement owes its origin to the large discovery of “Poetry asanart” [my italics]. He then proceeds to point out that the Imagist verse fails as poetry not because the writers love poetry less, but because they love expression more. Being what it is it would be no better if Tennyson had written it, and no worse if it proved to be by, say, Mr. Rudyard Kipling. Indeed, it is not poetry any more than little Congreve’s tiresome stream of depreciation is comedy, despite what certain hopeless apprentice play critics assert to the contrary. Poetry, I suppose Mr. Monro would say, is not expression but the thing expressed. All this is good and true. But Mr. Monro fails to make one thing quite clear. The Imagists have been mistaken in their very conception of poetry which lives alone by the power to see it as Art and not as “an art.” I am convinced that some at least of the Imagists are not without the secret of this power, and if they will be guided by the vision they gain thereby, to the extent of forgetting their literary erudition, it will transform their conception of poetry. The strict literature at which they aim is not proper poetry. In fact, literary technicians do not, as a rule, write poetry for the simple reason that even if they dream the poet’s dream of reality they at once proceed to smother it under literary form. We must look to those rich in poetical experience, and free to express it, for the true expression of poetry. In plain words, “Poetry asanart” (that is, as expression or form) is not the same as Poetry as Art (that is, the thing expressed). The distinction is so big and vital and so necessary to be maintained at this moment, that I propose to consider it in an article inThe Little Review. I hope to prove that what poetry needs nowadays is free poets, not free verse.
Huntly Carter.
[As the nearest available Imagist, perhaps I may be permitted to comment (without prejudice to the other Imagists) on Mr. Carter’s letter. I am not quite sure that I know what Mr. Carter means, but I think he means that it is useless for a man to study classic quantity and mediaeval rhyme and modern free verse, if he has no particular impulse or mood to make those studies valuable as a means of expression. If that is what Mr. Carter means I agree with him. I will also agree that it is useless to try and teach a dumb man to lecture or a lame man to break the hundred yards record. If a man is to lecture, if he is to be an athlete, we take for granted that in the first case he has ideas and a certain eloquence, and in the second a good physique and an aptitude for sprinting. Mr. Carter would be a rotten trainer if he didn’t make his man diet, take cold baths and long walks and an occasional sprint; he ought even to make him do a little boxing. I feel, somehow, that Mr. Carter never went in for violent exercise or that he relied upon his “Soul-Flow” or “Art-Ebb” to get him through.
Now poetry is not so very unlike athletics. You may have no aptitude for it, and then all the training in the world won’t get you in first; you may shape very well, but if you don’t train you will be an “also ran.” I believe in having an aptitude and in training it; Mr. Carter believes in having an aptitude and not training it.
I object to Mr. Carter informing us of the existence of our “of courses.” We take for granted that a man is sincere, that he has lots of impulses and that he is “free.” All that is the stuff out of which poetry is made. The making of it, the “training” is what we are immediately interested in. We take for granted that we have the essentials of poetry in us or we should not attempt to write it. We are now after clarity of form, precision of expression. Mr. Carter, like the majority of our fellow citizens, does not value these things; we find them present in every work of art which is beautiful and permanently interesting; hence our anxiety to attain by practice that clarity and that precision which practice alone can give.]
Richard Aldington.
If only every Celt will refuse to fight for anything but the freedom of his own country, the English will soon destroy themselves altogether, and we shall inherit their language, the only worthy thing they have, and which their newspapers have not yet succeeded in debauching and degrading beyond repair. There are still universities in England. However, they have made it a crime in England to write good English—for style itself is a form of truth, being beauty; and truth and beauty are as welcome in England as detectives in a thieves’ kitchen.—Aleister Crowley inThe International.
If only every Celt will refuse to fight for anything but the freedom of his own country, the English will soon destroy themselves altogether, and we shall inherit their language, the only worthy thing they have, and which their newspapers have not yet succeeded in debauching and degrading beyond repair. There are still universities in England. However, they have made it a crime in England to write good English—for style itself is a form of truth, being beauty; and truth and beauty are as welcome in England as detectives in a thieves’ kitchen.—Aleister Crowley inThe International.