Book Discussion

Criticisms of Life, by Horace Bridges.[Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.]

Sometime ago, at a meeting of the Book and Play Club, Mr. Bridges complained againstThe Little Reviewwherein a certain book was criticised and labeled “naive and dull as the sermon of an Ethical Society preacher.” “Ladies and gentlemen,I am naive and dull!” protested Mr. Bridges. The reviewer of that unfortunate book, who happened to be present, expressed his surprise at the complainer’s unmodest assumption that those epithets were meant for him, as if he had monopolized the characteristic features of all ethical preachers. Now that Mr. Bridges’ book is out, the reviewer wishes to make amends and apologize; verily, the distinguished preacher was justified in claiming the honorary titles.

The author analyzes his problems through the prism of empirico-pragmatic rationalism, if such a combination is thinkable. Whether it be Chesterton’s theological views, or Ellen Key’s marriage theory, or Maeterlinck’s mysticism, or Sir Lodge’s ideas on immortality—the author applies to them the same apparatus for testing their validity and truth: Are they provable? Are they workable? Are they in harmony with Mr. Bridges’s ethical standard? A few citations will illustrate the critic’s method and sense of humor.

He takes Gilbert Chesterton very seriously, and indignantly reproves him for such typically Chestertonian offences as misquoting his opponents, as paradoxical buffooneries, “unpardonable tricks” and “inexcusable mistakes”; he offers him a few lessons in theology, explains to him in an earnest tone the meaning of miracles, the Fall of Man, and finally comes to the astounding discovery that the readers “will see in Mr. Chesterton’s amateur apologetics nothing but a psychological curiosity, to be read, like his novels, for amusement, in some slight degree perhaps for edification, but not at all for instruction.”Horribile dictu!

Mr. Bridges’s heaviest cannon are directed against Ellen Key. He totally destroys her and Shaw’s opposition to marriage with one humorous stroke, arguing that if that institution were really bad it would either have destroyed humanity, or the revolted conscience of mankind would have “risen and annihilated the abominable thing.” This optimistic argument needs as little comment as the author’s logical conclusion that “free love” is equivalent to prostitution and that free divorce is synonymous with adultery, or as these pearls:

I am decidedly of opinion that in a more enlightened age divorce will be as completely obsolete as duelling is to-day in England.I am opposed to divorce on this ground (incompatibility of temper) for two reasons: first, because if people’s tempers are really so incompatible as to make their lifelong companionship intolerable, they can, and therefore ought to, know this in time to prevent their union. And, secondly, because such incompatibility as can remain entirely concealed before marriage cannot possibly be so great but that it may be overcome and harmonized after marriage by means of proper self-discipline and true grasp of the idea of duty.No soldier would be pardoned for deserting from the army on the ground that he found his temper hopelessly incompatible with that of his comrades and his officers. No party to a business contract would be absolved from observing its terms upon any such consideration.The right to renounce marriage because of unhappiness would logically involve the right to commit suicide for the same reason.... Who are we that we should repudiate the universe because it will not devote itself to securing our petty pleasures and happinesses?... Marriage, like every other great social ordinance, is instituted not primarily to secure our happiness, but to enable us to discharge our duty, in the matter of the perpetuation and spiritual development of the human species.

I am decidedly of opinion that in a more enlightened age divorce will be as completely obsolete as duelling is to-day in England.

I am opposed to divorce on this ground (incompatibility of temper) for two reasons: first, because if people’s tempers are really so incompatible as to make their lifelong companionship intolerable, they can, and therefore ought to, know this in time to prevent their union. And, secondly, because such incompatibility as can remain entirely concealed before marriage cannot possibly be so great but that it may be overcome and harmonized after marriage by means of proper self-discipline and true grasp of the idea of duty.

No soldier would be pardoned for deserting from the army on the ground that he found his temper hopelessly incompatible with that of his comrades and his officers. No party to a business contract would be absolved from observing its terms upon any such consideration.

The right to renounce marriage because of unhappiness would logically involve the right to commit suicide for the same reason.... Who are we that we should repudiate the universe because it will not devote itself to securing our petty pleasures and happinesses?... Marriage, like every other great social ordinance, is instituted not primarily to secure our happiness, but to enable us to discharge our duty, in the matter of the perpetuation and spiritual development of the human species.

I am confident that the reader will appreciate the reviewer’s gallantry in not taking issue with the quoted statements: it would be too easy a task to exercise one’s humor over such threadbare niceties. My only apology for devoting so much space to Mr. Bridges’s book is the fact that Mr. Bridges is one of the moulders of public opinion in Chicago, hence ... I shall owe one more apology for my unrestrainable desire to quote the closing lines of the author’s sermon on the War:

May she (this country) preserve her unity, and that nobly disinterested foreign policy manifested, to the admiration of all Europe (indeed!!) in Cuba and Mexico: so that, when the vials of apocalyptic wrath beyond the seas are spent, she may enter to motion peace—the welcome arbitress of Europe’s dissensions, the trusted daughter, first of England, but in lesser degree of all the nations now at strife, called in to cover their shame and to mediate the purgation of their sins.

Hm—but I promised to refrain from comments.

Poems, by Maurice Maeterlinck.[Dodd, Mead and Company, New York.]

The publisher of Maeterlinck’sPoemsstates apologetically that there has been a demand for a complete edition of the Belgian’s works, hence his justification in publishing a translation of the poems that originally appeared twenty years ago. The service rendered thereby to the author is of doubtful value: great writers are inclined to forget their youthful follies; as far as the English reading public is concerned the little book may be of some interest as a pale suggestion of an early stage in the development of Maeterlinck’s talent. I say a pale suggestion, for with all the conscientious labor of the translator the poems Anglicised have lost their chief, if not sole value—theirVerlainean musicalness. If as a verslibrist Maeterlinck was obviously influenced by Whitman, his rhymed verses bear the unmistakable stamp of the poet who preached: “De la musique avant toute chose.... De la musique encore et toujours!” Back in the eighties Maeterlinck belonged to the Belgian group of Symbolists, who, like Elskamp, Rodenbach, vanLerberghe, Verhaeren, reflected the French school which began with Baudelaire and culminated through Rimbaud and Verlaine in Mallarmé. Yet, unlike his great friend, Verhaeren, the Mystic of Silence directed his genius into a different channel and abandoned verse as a medium of expression. In the collected poems, theSerres Chaudesand theChansons, despite the mentioned influences, we discover the Maeterlinckian key-note—the languor of the oppressed soul, helplessly inactive in “a hot-house whose doors are closed forever.” We are dazzled frequently with such beautiful lines as “O blue monotony of my heart!”; “Green as the sea temptations creep”; “the purple snakes of dream”; “O nights within my humid soul”; “My hands, the lilies of my soul, Mine eyes, the heavens of my heart.” A friend confessed to me that thesesimiles reminded him of Bodenheim; to be sure, this compliment should be laid at the door of the translator.

The Harbor, by Ernest Poole.[The Macmillan Company, New York.]

In America today, other things being equal, that novelist first achieves success who writes—let us say—of the social fabric, rather than of the eternal verities. Thus, in the case of two undoubtedly great artists, John Galsworthy and Joseph Conrad, the former had to wait but half the latter’s time before he came to enjoy real popularity.

And so it is not difficult to understand the noteworthy and deserved success ofThe Harbor—a book so good that one would be inclined to wonder if itcould become popular. Mr. Poole writes with charm and a passionate earnestness of the growth through young manhood of his hero. He knows the New York water-front well and it furnishes an original and interesting background. The boy goes through college, to Europe for a happy year or two and returns to become a successful magazine writer—a worshipper at the shrine of “big” men. Gradually his social conscience is awakened and his entire life is transformed—his allegiance is transferred from the presidents of the corporations who own the steamers to the striking stokers and their fellows. On the whole the picture is impressively convincing and Mr. Poole has caught in his pages much of the most glowing thought of idealistic youth.

His work is so very good that criticism may appear ungracious—still, if one may be allowed: some of the young men at college speak Mr. Poole’sthoughts and not their own. College men do not think as Mr. Poole would have you believe they do—at least not until a year or two after they have graduated. And isn’t Eleanore, the hero’s wife, just a little too perfect—even for the role she has to play? How well an amiable weakness would become her! Finally,The Harborhas the commonest fault of almost all first novels that have for their subject the social fabric: there is too much thought (or too little action)—the author wants to give his opinion on all the things he has ever seriously thought about.

When Mr. Poole has tempered his fine seriousness with just a little more of the creative artist’s austerity he will produce a greater novel thanThe Harbor, and one that will fulfill the splendid promise of this first book.

Alfred A. Knopf.

Children of Earth: A Play of New England, by Alice Brown.[The Macmillan Company, New York.]

Frankly, I do not like the spectacle of a collection of New Englanders, well past middle age, splashing about in a puddle of sex. And that is whatChildren of Earthis. Of course sex is interesting—most of the time; New Englanders are interesting sometimes (especially when as skilfully drawn as Miss Brown draws them); but the combination is rather too much.

In the first place what happens to these people of Miss Brown’s play never seems of any real importance—it isn’t simply that they are unsympathetic. Nor need one believe for a moment in the old idea that in true tragedy the great must suffer. But at least either the great or the typical must, and I cannot feel that these children of earth are either. The play is well enough done; it may be compounded of fact; but I doubt if it exhibits that finer thing by far—truth. How much better work might Winthrop Ames’ money have purchased.

Alfred A. Knopf.

American Thought, by Woodbridge Riley.[Henry Holt and Company, New York.]

A historical analysis of American philosophical theories, from Puritanism to New Realism, through the stages of Idealism, Deism, Materialism, Realism, Transcendentalism, Evolutionism, and Pragmatism. The work lacks the strict impartiality of a text-book, which it evidently intends to be. The author reveals a tendency to prove that American thought has developed independently of European influences; this appears to be true to a certain extent in regard to Pragmatism, as the philosophy of practicality.

Collected Poems, by A. E.[The Macmillan Company, New York.]

A friend of mine once expressed pained surprise on hearing that A. E. was among the poets I delighted to read. Having just heard me dissent from occultism, he could not understand how one who did not believe in theosophy, esoteric Buddhism, or any of the many modern forms of Mumbo-jumboism could possibly take delight in a poet who, according to him, was a theosophist, or revere poems which had first appeared in a theosophical journal.

Poetry, however, is not a record of one’s beliefs; it is a record of one’s experiences; and while the existence of God may be asserted and just as easily disproved, in the medium of rhyming language, there is no question of poetry involved. But it is equally true that when a poet describes a spiritual experience, though he may draw his images from Neo-Platonic philosophy, Christian tradition or even the animatism of the primitive poets, there is no question of theological belief implied.

When, therefore, we open Mr. Russell’s book at random, as I actually did when this volume reached me, and come across the following lines, we must be blind to a wide-spread experience of mankind if we cannot see that it expresses poetic truth as well as poetic beauty:

UnconsciousThe winds, the stars, and the skies, though wroughtBy the heavenly King, yet know it not;And the man who moves in the twilight dimFeels not the love that encircles him,Though in heart, on bosom, and eyelids pressLips of an infinite tenderness,He turns away through the dark to roamNor heeds the fire in his hearth and home.

The winds, the stars, and the skies, though wroughtBy the heavenly King, yet know it not;And the man who moves in the twilight dimFeels not the love that encircles him,Though in heart, on bosom, and eyelids pressLips of an infinite tenderness,He turns away through the dark to roamNor heeds the fire in his hearth and home.

The winds, the stars, and the skies, though wrought

By the heavenly King, yet know it not;

And the man who moves in the twilight dim

Feels not the love that encircles him,

Though in heart, on bosom, and eyelids press

Lips of an infinite tenderness,

He turns away through the dark to roam

Nor heeds the fire in his hearth and home.

But Mr. Russell’s mysticism—and mysticism, being an attitude rather than an intellectual belief, is something that is legitimately expressible in poetry, and is moreover something that Mr. Russell constantly and beautifully expresses—is no mere world-flight. Even the Beatific Vision he would only accept on terms becoming a man whose life is implicated in humanity. Hence, under the title ofLovewe find him singing:

Ere I lose myself in the vastness and drowse myself with the peace,While I gaze on the light and beauty afar from the dim homes of men,May I still feel the heart-pang and pity, love-ties that I would not release;May the voices of sorrow appealing call me back to their succor again.Ere I storm with the tempest of power the thrones and dominions of old,Ere the ancient enchantment allure me to roam through the star-misty skies,I would go forth as one who has reaped well what harvest the earth may unfold;May my heart be o’erbrimmed with compassion; on my brow be the crown of the wise.I would go as the dove from the ark, sent forth with wishes and prayers,To return with the paradise blossoms that bloom in the Eden of light:When the deep star-chant of the seraphs I hear in the mystical airs,May I capture one tone of their joy for the sad ones discrowned in the night.Not alone, not alone would I go to my rest in the heart of the love:Were I tranced in the innermost beauty, the flame of its tenderest breath,I would still hear the cry of the fallen recalling me back from above,To go down to the side of the people who weep in the shadow of death.

Ere I lose myself in the vastness and drowse myself with the peace,

While I gaze on the light and beauty afar from the dim homes of men,

May I still feel the heart-pang and pity, love-ties that I would not release;

May the voices of sorrow appealing call me back to their succor again.

Ere I storm with the tempest of power the thrones and dominions of old,Ere the ancient enchantment allure me to roam through the star-misty skies,I would go forth as one who has reaped well what harvest the earth may unfold;May my heart be o’erbrimmed with compassion; on my brow be the crown of the wise.

Ere I storm with the tempest of power the thrones and dominions of old,

Ere the ancient enchantment allure me to roam through the star-misty skies,

I would go forth as one who has reaped well what harvest the earth may unfold;

May my heart be o’erbrimmed with compassion; on my brow be the crown of the wise.

I would go as the dove from the ark, sent forth with wishes and prayers,To return with the paradise blossoms that bloom in the Eden of light:When the deep star-chant of the seraphs I hear in the mystical airs,May I capture one tone of their joy for the sad ones discrowned in the night.

I would go as the dove from the ark, sent forth with wishes and prayers,

To return with the paradise blossoms that bloom in the Eden of light:

When the deep star-chant of the seraphs I hear in the mystical airs,

May I capture one tone of their joy for the sad ones discrowned in the night.

Not alone, not alone would I go to my rest in the heart of the love:Were I tranced in the innermost beauty, the flame of its tenderest breath,I would still hear the cry of the fallen recalling me back from above,To go down to the side of the people who weep in the shadow of death.

Not alone, not alone would I go to my rest in the heart of the love:

Were I tranced in the innermost beauty, the flame of its tenderest breath,

I would still hear the cry of the fallen recalling me back from above,

To go down to the side of the people who weep in the shadow of death.

One of Mr. Russell’s poems suggests in its very first line a lyric from Shelley’sHellas, and the two poems form an interesting contrast between the temperaments of the poet of sentimental Platonism and this later singer who adds to Shelley’s lyric vision a firmer stationing on the substance of earth. While Shelley began on a high note of joy that

The world’s great age begins anew,The golden years return, ...

The world’s great age begins anew,

The golden years return, ...

but ends on the note of disenchantment:

O, cease! must hate and death return?Cease! must men kill and die?Cease! Drain not to its dregs the urnOf bitter prophecy.The world is weary of the past;Oh, might it die or rest at last!

O, cease! must hate and death return?

Cease! must men kill and die?

Cease! Drain not to its dregs the urn

Of bitter prophecy.

The world is weary of the past;

Oh, might it die or rest at last!

—while Shelley thus descends, Mr. Russell inThe Twilight of Earthbegins more or less where Shelley left off with:

The wonder of the world is o’er,The magic from the sea is gone;There is no unimagined shore,No islet yet to venture on.The Sacred Hazel’s blooms are shed,The Nuts of Knowledge harvested.Oh, what is worth this lore of ageIf time shall never bring us backOur battle with the gods to wage,Reeling along the starry track.The battle rapture here goes byIn warring upon things that die.Let be the tale of him whose loveWas sighed between white Deidre’s breasts;It will not lift the heart aboveThe sodden clay on which it rests.Love once had power the gods to bringAll rapt on its wild wandering.

The wonder of the world is o’er,The magic from the sea is gone;There is no unimagined shore,No islet yet to venture on.The Sacred Hazel’s blooms are shed,The Nuts of Knowledge harvested.

The wonder of the world is o’er,

The magic from the sea is gone;

There is no unimagined shore,

No islet yet to venture on.

The Sacred Hazel’s blooms are shed,

The Nuts of Knowledge harvested.

Oh, what is worth this lore of ageIf time shall never bring us backOur battle with the gods to wage,Reeling along the starry track.The battle rapture here goes byIn warring upon things that die.

Oh, what is worth this lore of age

If time shall never bring us back

Our battle with the gods to wage,

Reeling along the starry track.

The battle rapture here goes by

In warring upon things that die.

Let be the tale of him whose loveWas sighed between white Deidre’s breasts;It will not lift the heart aboveThe sodden clay on which it rests.Love once had power the gods to bringAll rapt on its wild wandering.

Let be the tale of him whose love

Was sighed between white Deidre’s breasts;

It will not lift the heart above

The sodden clay on which it rests.

Love once had power the gods to bring

All rapt on its wild wandering.

But while

The Paradise of memoriesGrows fainter day by day ...

The Paradise of memories

Grows fainter day by day ...

there is no need to cease from life or from aspiration on that account:

The power is ours to make or marOur fate as on the earliest morn,The Darkness and the Radiance areCreatures within the spirit born.Yet, bathed in gloom too long, we mightForget how we imagined light.Not yet are fixed the prison bars;The hidden light the spirit ownsIf blown to flame would dim the starsAnd they who rule them from their thrones:And the proud sceptred spirits thenceWould bow to pay us reverence.Oh, while the glory sinks withinLet us not wait on earth behind,But follow where it flies, and winThe glow again, and we may findBeyond the Gateways of the DayDominion and ancestral sway.

The power is ours to make or marOur fate as on the earliest morn,The Darkness and the Radiance areCreatures within the spirit born.Yet, bathed in gloom too long, we mightForget how we imagined light.

The power is ours to make or mar

Our fate as on the earliest morn,

The Darkness and the Radiance are

Creatures within the spirit born.

Yet, bathed in gloom too long, we might

Forget how we imagined light.

Not yet are fixed the prison bars;The hidden light the spirit ownsIf blown to flame would dim the starsAnd they who rule them from their thrones:And the proud sceptred spirits thenceWould bow to pay us reverence.

Not yet are fixed the prison bars;

The hidden light the spirit owns

If blown to flame would dim the stars

And they who rule them from their thrones:

And the proud sceptred spirits thence

Would bow to pay us reverence.

Oh, while the glory sinks withinLet us not wait on earth behind,But follow where it flies, and winThe glow again, and we may findBeyond the Gateways of the DayDominion and ancestral sway.

Oh, while the glory sinks within

Let us not wait on earth behind,

But follow where it flies, and win

The glow again, and we may find

Beyond the Gateways of the Day

Dominion and ancestral sway.

While in few or none of these poems is mystic thought absent it is never present at the expense of poetry, and many of the poems find in nature both their occasion and their material. A. E.’s vision is preeminently for the evanescent aspect of things, especially for the colors of the changes that come over earth and firmament. The poem beginning

When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow and silver gleam,With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;I am one with the twilight’s dream.

When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,

All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow and silver gleam,

With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;

I am one with the twilight’s dream.

is typical of his response to the vision of the outer world.

The same sturdy sense of actual values that leads Mr. Russell to write prose works on co-operation and nationality, seeing in these matters no less than in religious ecstasy the ground for the free life of man, is evident in the poemOn Behalf of Some Irishmen not Followers of Tradition. But lest sturdy commonsense be thought a grotesque piece of praise for a poem, let me add that it is a commonsense illuminated by the purest idealism. How close to earth this idealism moves is shown in the little sketchIn Connemaradescribing the peasant girl:

With eyes all untroubled she laughs as she passes,Bending beneath the creel with the seaweed brown ...

With eyes all untroubled she laughs as she passes,

Bending beneath the creel with the seaweed brown ...

and enmeshing her in the nature mysticism of her race and country.

William Morris somewhere speaks of the cultured man as one who is in sympathy with past and present and future—a contrast indeed to much latter-day doctrine—and one is reminded of the phrase by this poet who with such lyrical skill not only embodies all three for us, but knits them together in that unity which alone can bestow on man the values of life which are timeless.

Llewellyn Jones.

The Reader CriticA Chicago Reader:I don’t like whatThe Little Reviewor any one else I have read says about Sanine. Too analytic, too professional.... Whatever all the worthies say about the book being dangerous, it will not affect any soul a jot if he is not already afflicted.What I can say is very inferior critically—only a hurried resume of images after I had finished:A garden like a dull green cloud descended to earth, twilight skies with supple moving figures, gardens kaleidoscopic, hills covered with woods, odors of leaves and grasses, a dark abandoned slimy wolf cavern of counterfeiters, dew-laden grass, shadows, dusk, whispers, eyes in the gloom, skies pale green with faint silver stars and dark birds, night fluttering bats, gardens filled with the melody of nightingales, a little dying frog, lush river banks with wet reeds bending, mysterious wood nymph smiles, mystic rays of sunlight illuminating frail flowers, crimson morning-starred heavens, woods and streams with lithe shining bodies of humans transformed into nymphs and satyrs—a storm that almost breathes of the one in the Pastoral Symphony and Sanine in a flash of lightning is revealed apostrophizing it.It hurts and one shrinks into one’s skeleton to think that perhaps a setting is obviously made in order to be to the spirit of voluptuous indulgence. But that feeling goes, because it is the objective thing after all—the colors and odors and atmosphere remain.Three WomenF. Guy Davis, Chicago:There is one kind of worker active in the life of today whose work is not often regarded in the light of art. There is a good reason for this in the fact that the work they are attempting is so vast and vague in character that many people do not even know it is being undertaken. They cannot understand effort on such a scale that the final completed work, if it is ever to be completed, will be nothing less than a new social order, a new conception of social values, actualizing itself in the shape of finer cities and grander and braver citizens on a world scale.There are various groups of men and women in this work of reconstruction, some compactly organized, others not, some more militant in their attitude and some less so, but all tending in the same direction toward a better, freer, and fuller social life. This movement is confused and uncertain as far as a definite structural goal is concerned because of the contradictory and sometimes seemingly antagonistic elements that go to make it up. Some of the groups have specific architectural plans which they defend with the artist’s passion against all other plans, or against no plan; but the movement as a whole is pragmatic and makes its plans as it goes along, and whatever may be the outcome the aim is at a better world, a world of beauty and goodness in the deepest meaning of those terms.If the modern feminists understood great women, which they do not often do, they would contend that there is a great significance in the fact that three women stand out prominently in this movement and in a measure at least are representative of three groups which more or less dominate the whole. Listing them according to age,—for on any other basis comparisons are difficult, each being effective in her ownsphere,—Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn are social artists, working in different directions, yet in the same direction, now seeming to exclude each other entirely, and now, no doubt, sustaining each other in spirit across the separating gaps in the common purpose, just as old age, middle age, and youth do sometimes in life, or just as three mountains may have separate and distinct characters and yet be a part of the same range.Old Mother Jones is a “character.” In her eighty-two years she has seen life’s storm, has lived its hope, fear, love, and hate, and has mastered it. She will die happy with the knowledge that she did her part in the fight for better things, which she may not see but which she believes are coming.Emma Goldman is at the height of her creative effort, breaking down the stone walls of prejudice and superstition, freeing minds from the grip of the past, preparing the soil for new harvests of life and beauty. She sees mankind on the rack in the agony of a herculean struggle. Giant social forces jostle each other in their efforts for recognition in her consciousness. Her attitude toward the revolutionary movement reminds one of the picture of the Earth inMeredith’s poemEarth and Man—“Her fingers dint the breast which is his well of strength, his home of rest.” She senses the stirring of new life in the race’s womb and she fears a bit, for she sees clearly the possibilities of a tragic miscarriage or a premature birth.Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is the young Diana of the labor movement. Strong, full of hope, past the fear which accompanies all beginnings, facing the future with the courage and confidence of a youth fully launched on its career and enjoying the sense of growing understanding and power.The redeemers of life are those in whose natures this spirit of the creator lives, whether it expresses itself in the labor movement or in the studio; and there is a significance in the fact that all three of these leaders come from one class, the workers. The interest in the movement is not by any means confined to the laboring classes, so-called, but the real dynamic power back of the movement, the steam which drives it on, does come from this class; and it is more than a coincidence that these three women should all belong to it, for the vital power, the staying quality which is the condition of real leadership, seems to have been nearly cornered by the laboring elements.Mother Jones has broad organizational affiliations. The great massive groups which go to make up the American Federation of Labor are with her, generally speaking, and lend her moral support and financial aid. Her own age and the splendid organization of her mentality are in keeping with the corresponding qualities in the A. F. of L.Emma Goldman stands alone as far as organizations are concerned, like so many great artists in other fields, always an isolated figure of heroic beauty, always the creator, lifting the world in spite of itself.Miss Flynn is a part of the Industrial Workers of the World, that body of roughneck rebels which carries such promising seeds in its revolutionary young heart. Her youth and promise symbolize the possibilities of the I. W. W.But to return to the idea of the social artist. What splendid compensations there must be in their work! To feel that they are part of an historic movement for a new world of beauty and harmony, such as the utopians have dreamed of through all history from Plato to Bellamy and Howells, a work which accelerates its speed and power as it draws more and more to its ranks the idealists of all countries and all classes. Is it not better for them that they know they will probably not see its completion, that it may take centuries? They will never be disillusioned as long as they hold to the inner faith. “To travel hopefully is better than to arrive”—and here surely is a journey, the end of which will not be reached tomorrow. As to the ultimate outcome, why doubt it? The race has millions of years ahead of it.On the personal side each one of the three has her own unique charm. Mother Jones is a mother indeed. Her attitude toward “her boys” is more than motherly; it is grand-motherly. The sweetness and childishness of age, however, a sort of a sunset glow of real warmth and virility radiates from her. She enjoys the privileges of age, and they are many to those who know how to accept them gracefully as she does. Miss Flynn enjoys the privileges of youth, which she likewise accepts with a poise and an ease all her own. Emma Goldman has neither the privileges of youth nor those of age. She is at that point in her development when in the nature of life she must meet the challenge of the outer world alone, when “the soul is on the waters and must sink or swim of its own strength.” And yet, no doubt because of this very fact, she craves companionship with a passion that sometimes has a quality of blue flame. Middle age has few privileges and many responsibilities. Life is fair, however, to the normal individual. It pays in advance to youth and afterward as well to age, but it demands service of those who are in their prime.To understand these personalities and others of their kind is to understand much of life, possibly as much as the individual consciousness in its present form can ever understand. To know of their struggles is to feel that one knows history in the making. It is not necessary to endorse, but to fail to catch the spirit of their work is to be unprepared for the possible changes which seem to be more or less imminent in the social and industrial U. S. A. as in the world at large.

The Reader Critic

A Chicago Reader:

I don’t like whatThe Little Reviewor any one else I have read says about Sanine. Too analytic, too professional.... Whatever all the worthies say about the book being dangerous, it will not affect any soul a jot if he is not already afflicted.

What I can say is very inferior critically—only a hurried resume of images after I had finished:

A garden like a dull green cloud descended to earth, twilight skies with supple moving figures, gardens kaleidoscopic, hills covered with woods, odors of leaves and grasses, a dark abandoned slimy wolf cavern of counterfeiters, dew-laden grass, shadows, dusk, whispers, eyes in the gloom, skies pale green with faint silver stars and dark birds, night fluttering bats, gardens filled with the melody of nightingales, a little dying frog, lush river banks with wet reeds bending, mysterious wood nymph smiles, mystic rays of sunlight illuminating frail flowers, crimson morning-starred heavens, woods and streams with lithe shining bodies of humans transformed into nymphs and satyrs—a storm that almost breathes of the one in the Pastoral Symphony and Sanine in a flash of lightning is revealed apostrophizing it.

It hurts and one shrinks into one’s skeleton to think that perhaps a setting is obviously made in order to be to the spirit of voluptuous indulgence. But that feeling goes, because it is the objective thing after all—the colors and odors and atmosphere remain.

F. Guy Davis, Chicago:

There is one kind of worker active in the life of today whose work is not often regarded in the light of art. There is a good reason for this in the fact that the work they are attempting is so vast and vague in character that many people do not even know it is being undertaken. They cannot understand effort on such a scale that the final completed work, if it is ever to be completed, will be nothing less than a new social order, a new conception of social values, actualizing itself in the shape of finer cities and grander and braver citizens on a world scale.

There are various groups of men and women in this work of reconstruction, some compactly organized, others not, some more militant in their attitude and some less so, but all tending in the same direction toward a better, freer, and fuller social life. This movement is confused and uncertain as far as a definite structural goal is concerned because of the contradictory and sometimes seemingly antagonistic elements that go to make it up. Some of the groups have specific architectural plans which they defend with the artist’s passion against all other plans, or against no plan; but the movement as a whole is pragmatic and makes its plans as it goes along, and whatever may be the outcome the aim is at a better world, a world of beauty and goodness in the deepest meaning of those terms.

If the modern feminists understood great women, which they do not often do, they would contend that there is a great significance in the fact that three women stand out prominently in this movement and in a measure at least are representative of three groups which more or less dominate the whole. Listing them according to age,—for on any other basis comparisons are difficult, each being effective in her ownsphere,—Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn are social artists, working in different directions, yet in the same direction, now seeming to exclude each other entirely, and now, no doubt, sustaining each other in spirit across the separating gaps in the common purpose, just as old age, middle age, and youth do sometimes in life, or just as three mountains may have separate and distinct characters and yet be a part of the same range.

Old Mother Jones is a “character.” In her eighty-two years she has seen life’s storm, has lived its hope, fear, love, and hate, and has mastered it. She will die happy with the knowledge that she did her part in the fight for better things, which she may not see but which she believes are coming.

Emma Goldman is at the height of her creative effort, breaking down the stone walls of prejudice and superstition, freeing minds from the grip of the past, preparing the soil for new harvests of life and beauty. She sees mankind on the rack in the agony of a herculean struggle. Giant social forces jostle each other in their efforts for recognition in her consciousness. Her attitude toward the revolutionary movement reminds one of the picture of the Earth inMeredith’s poemEarth and Man—“Her fingers dint the breast which is his well of strength, his home of rest.” She senses the stirring of new life in the race’s womb and she fears a bit, for she sees clearly the possibilities of a tragic miscarriage or a premature birth.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is the young Diana of the labor movement. Strong, full of hope, past the fear which accompanies all beginnings, facing the future with the courage and confidence of a youth fully launched on its career and enjoying the sense of growing understanding and power.

The redeemers of life are those in whose natures this spirit of the creator lives, whether it expresses itself in the labor movement or in the studio; and there is a significance in the fact that all three of these leaders come from one class, the workers. The interest in the movement is not by any means confined to the laboring classes, so-called, but the real dynamic power back of the movement, the steam which drives it on, does come from this class; and it is more than a coincidence that these three women should all belong to it, for the vital power, the staying quality which is the condition of real leadership, seems to have been nearly cornered by the laboring elements.

Mother Jones has broad organizational affiliations. The great massive groups which go to make up the American Federation of Labor are with her, generally speaking, and lend her moral support and financial aid. Her own age and the splendid organization of her mentality are in keeping with the corresponding qualities in the A. F. of L.

Emma Goldman stands alone as far as organizations are concerned, like so many great artists in other fields, always an isolated figure of heroic beauty, always the creator, lifting the world in spite of itself.

Miss Flynn is a part of the Industrial Workers of the World, that body of roughneck rebels which carries such promising seeds in its revolutionary young heart. Her youth and promise symbolize the possibilities of the I. W. W.

But to return to the idea of the social artist. What splendid compensations there must be in their work! To feel that they are part of an historic movement for a new world of beauty and harmony, such as the utopians have dreamed of through all history from Plato to Bellamy and Howells, a work which accelerates its speed and power as it draws more and more to its ranks the idealists of all countries and all classes. Is it not better for them that they know they will probably not see its completion, that it may take centuries? They will never be disillusioned as long as they hold to the inner faith. “To travel hopefully is better than to arrive”—and here surely is a journey, the end of which will not be reached tomorrow. As to the ultimate outcome, why doubt it? The race has millions of years ahead of it.

On the personal side each one of the three has her own unique charm. Mother Jones is a mother indeed. Her attitude toward “her boys” is more than motherly; it is grand-motherly. The sweetness and childishness of age, however, a sort of a sunset glow of real warmth and virility radiates from her. She enjoys the privileges of age, and they are many to those who know how to accept them gracefully as she does. Miss Flynn enjoys the privileges of youth, which she likewise accepts with a poise and an ease all her own. Emma Goldman has neither the privileges of youth nor those of age. She is at that point in her development when in the nature of life she must meet the challenge of the outer world alone, when “the soul is on the waters and must sink or swim of its own strength.” And yet, no doubt because of this very fact, she craves companionship with a passion that sometimes has a quality of blue flame. Middle age has few privileges and many responsibilities. Life is fair, however, to the normal individual. It pays in advance to youth and afterward as well to age, but it demands service of those who are in their prime.

To understand these personalities and others of their kind is to understand much of life, possibly as much as the individual consciousness in its present form can ever understand. To know of their struggles is to feel that one knows history in the making. It is not necessary to endorse, but to fail to catch the spirit of their work is to be unprepared for the possible changes which seem to be more or less imminent in the social and industrial U. S. A. as in the world at large.

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