Vol. LIV
THE MESSENGER
COPYRIGHT 10.20 BY J. HARRIS WELSH
MARCH, 1929
MEMENTO MORTIS
BRUCE MORRISSETTE
I
Franc;ois has done with singing of the dames Who prompted, yester-year, alike to rhyme And platitude: the mingled fervid names Of Helo'ise and Allys and the mime Yolande are, as then, the snuffed-out flames Of flesh-white candles wrest away by Time Unheedful of banality. The games Of gods appear incessantly sublime.
II
Franc;ois has done with singing, he who sang In verses quick with phantom ladies, mirth, And picklocks garrulous in gibbet slang: Franc;ois has done with singing, he whose girth Was lean, bones crackled, sotted with the tang Of brothels, Fat Margots, wines free of worth-! In fine, Franc;ois has done, whose music rang Protestingly at Time, the scourge of earth.
No. 4
REJECTION
JOHN P. BATKINS
"GENTLEMEN, to the undefeated Knight of the Free Lance."
Six glasses filled with sparkling liquid were raised aloft. Clink. A toast to a successful author. Richard Dale smiled. Well, he had been rather successful. He had broken into print again and again under the pen names of Henri Vauquer and Don Carlos Diaz. He was not famous by any means, but one honor he did enjoy-he had never received a rejection slip. Undefeated Knight of the Free Lan~e ! He liked that title-it was colorful, romantic. , His friends were clamoring for a speech. He pushed back his chair and arose, wine glass in hand.
Dale was a handsome man and he knew it. What his mirror didn't tell him, the admiring glances of the opposite sex did. He was of medium height with a physique like Apollo's and a face like that of Adonis. His eyes twinkled with a light that vied with the sparkle of his wine glass. He possessed that intangible, indescribable, all-powerful quantity "IT." Perhaps his crowning virtue was brevity.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I thank you for your appreciation of my ability. I, myself, am proud of my record. Tomorrow night I shall add another victory to my string. Gentlemen, a toast to the greatest acceptance of my career!"
Seven glasses were raised aloft There was a clink, then a crash as a frail wine glass shattered itself on the polished floor. The contents stood out on the waxed surface like a splotch of blood. All eyes were turned on the perpetrator of this clumsy deed. He was trembling like a leaf. There was no crimson flush on his face, but rather the pallor of a corpse. He shuffled back from the table, almost falling over his chair.
"Pardon, Monsieur," he mumbled, "but the occasion, she excite me much. I am nervous with the joy. I am sorry--"
"Oh, forget it, Pierre," interrupted Dale, "accidents will happen. Here, take a good swig and steady yourself."
The minute hand had passed over into another day when the author bid his six staggering friends good night. That same tracer of time had not gone much farther when, clad in silk pajamas, robe and slippers, he flopped into a large easy chair before a comfortable and
cheery grate fire. Another day! Yes, his day of triumph. A pistol shot interrupted the blare of a jazz orchestra in a nearby cafe. He jumped nervously. Another murder probably or perhaps a suicide. Suicide! Why should a man commit suicide? He couldn't think of any sensible reason. But why were there so many suicides? There must be something fascinating, grimly fascinating in it. Hell-why was he thinking of self-murder. He was just about to begin his life, just about to add another vict-. His eye fell on that red stain left by the contents of the shattered wine glass. Why had Pierre acted so strangely? Why hadn't he turned scarlet with shame instead of assuming the complexion of a spectre? What excuse had he offered for his clumsiness? Oh, yes-the occasion excited him so much. But why? He had never acted thus on similar occasions. Could that shattered wine glass foretell? He jumped to his feet. He was a fool! Failure-what was failure like anyhow? He had never met it. Why was he concerned with failure? Something crunched under his slippered feet. Glass-glass and that fiendish splotch on the floor. He was trembling. He walked over to the table and took up a bottle. A good swallow of this would steady his nerves. The sharp ring of a bell caused him to start and the contents of the bottle went everywhere but the right place. The bell rang again before he finally regained his composure and opened the door.
"Message for Mr. Richard Dale," said a khaki clad messenger boy, handing him an envelope with nothing written on it.
Dale closed the door and sat down in the large chair before the grate to read the contents of the letter. He drew out a piece of paper and unfolded it. It read:
My dear Mr. Dale:
Your manuscript entitled "Nbw We're Engaged" is indeed a sparkling piece of work. The editor regrets that it cannot be used, due to the fact that Monsieur Pierre's "Let's Get Married" was more appropriate as a matrimonial feature. Your manuscript is enclosed.
Sincerely,
MARIE MUSSET, Editor of "Her Own Destiny."
The cold sweat was standing out on his brow when he finished reading. Pierre! So that explained it all! He was on his feet now,
pacing the floor. His day of triumph, the acceptance of his career! He began to laugh. A wild, forced laughter it was, like that of a madman. The fire was getting low. He went to his writing desk and took out the originals of his best works, the letters of praise from editors, column after column of flattering comment from critics. He glanced over them hurriedly. Now and then his eyes seemed to mirror some fond memory . Finally he folded them carefully and flung them into the grate. They would keep the fire going for some time. He strode swiftly over to the French doors which opened on a small balcony of stone. It was snowing outside. He went out on the balcony and looked down. The white flakes hit the back of his neck as he bent over. He shivered. The snow had already formed a white blanket on the sidewalk ten stories below. Space-yawning space between him and terra firrna. His sinews became like cords of steel. The impulse to jump swept over him. He mounted the narrow railing of the stone balcony. The street below seemed to beckon him. To step off into space-he wondered what the sensation would be. Why he was contemplating suicide? He laughed grimly. Well why not? It would be something different. No-what was he doing? Was he going crazy? He went back into his apartment and returned a few seconds later clad only in his silk pajamas. It would have been foolish to have ruined a perfectly good robe by staining it with blood. His pajamas-well, he had to keep hi? self-respect. He stepped up on the railing once more. Funny, he wasn't nervou s a bit. -V.Tell, why didn't he jump? No. He went back into the room again. The letter was on the floor where he had dropped it in his excitement. He picked it up and removed its contents, throwing the sparkling manuscript on the floor and grasping the me ssage in his tightly clenched hand. There was a suund of a door slamming.
A few minutes later a figure clad in silk pajamas stood on the roof of the Paxton Apa rtments. He was reading a rumpled piece of paper which he held in his hand. He had met the best editors face to face and had come off victorious, only to be-a lithe body hurled itself into space. A splotch of crimson stained the whiteness of the snow. In a room before a grate fire something gleamed on the floor-a diamond ring-Richard Dale's first rejection!
THE GIRL WITH THE RING COME TRUE
RuTH Cox
ASLIM figure of a girl leaned against the stately Colonial column, and blew a soap bubble from a kashir colored pipe, blew it up into the deep night. For an instant the girl's dreamy eyes gazed through the ephemeral film of the magic ball. Suddenly they brightened as she caught a misty outline in the whirling sphere. Clearer and clearer it grew, till towers and turrets took shape. Delicate pastel shades appeared and deepened in the picture till the very beauty of it brought an ache. A breath-and the soap bubble was gone in the soft darkness of the night, and the kashir colored pipe slipped from rapt fingers. And the beauty? It was caught and immortalized forever in the heart of a slim girl, leaning against a stately Colonial column.
Fall came, and the girl left her tall Colonial columns for new lands. In her heart she carried a dream and a fear-for youth is dreadfully afraid for its dream and dreadfully brave for its fear. Around her little finger she wore a dull gold circlet that showed promise of becoming a strange new talisman if only something beautiful touched it. And so, with a dream, a fear, and a dull gold possibility- she started out to meet her adventure. She journeyed on with her fear, till she came suddenly upon a slender lake set between two hills. And the paths-how could she know which one would lead to her dream? But one path gently circled the lake and aspired up through the trees to the top of the hill and perhaps to something beyond. With her dream, the girl followed the path that led to the top of the hill. As she traveled something beautiful must have brushed again st the dull gold on her finger, for faint gleams of brightness began to show through.
At the top of the hill she stood still for a long , long thought. Before her, stencilled against a gentian blue sky were the towers of a Gothic castle. The misty outline of her bubble vision was reality. Would she find something beneath those Gothic towers to tint her outline with beauty, and to deepen to immortality? And would she find people there with hearts that have a right to live in beautyor would they . . . The girl walked up to the east gate and entered upon her adventure, with a dream, a possibility and a fear.
One year went by. Beneath the Gothic towers the girl found
the comradeship of other adventurers-an eager band seeking to brighten dull gold with beauty. There was a particular contact for her with one who was working on her dream for a fourth year, and who was called Senior Mother. That year, too, the coral tint of May Day and the sheen of Lantern Night crept into the reality of the girl's dream. On one side of the dull gold band a pine tree-for beauty of vision-was etched through. The rest was yet a promise.
A second year passed, bringing into the girl's experience a massive rope of daisies borne upon eager shoulders, and the color of a garden party in the castle court. On the opposite side of the ring appeared the raised form of a spider. Beauty had brushed a second time.
Three years-and came the symbolic union of the first and third year seekers-a wedding at the castle. This time the brush swept a Gothic tower through on the upper surface of the golden rir.g.
The girl came to the end of four years living among dogwood blossoms, English daisies, Gothic arches and hearts that understand. This last year set around the golden tower a plain smooth "W." The dream of the girl had become tinted, suffused, deepened to immortality.
And so a slim girl with immortal beauty in her heart set forth from the towered hill to a far, far bigger adventure. Her dream had assumed the halo of immortality. Her fear had vanished. On her finger she wore a gold talisman that symbolized the spirit of a Gothic castle, the striving for the essential beauty of life.
DEDICATION
To a Cynic
You look at me with cunning glance, askance. You censure me with stern, unyielding eyes. You study me and think: "What silly eyes!" Meanwhile crows' feet are webbing 'round your own.
-Eudice Brenner.
PANAMA
CORINNE MoRECOCK
ATRA VELER passing along a road on a cold moonlight winter night saw in a stump clearing by the side of the road a new one-room log house built on to the back of which was an unfinished frame shed whose new planks gleamed white in the moonlight. The traveler stopped and looked more closely. A lamp shone through the window, and two figures, a man and a woman, could be seen dimly outlined by an open fire. The traveler murmured: "A man and a woman. A new log house in a clearing. Life in America began that way." The figure of the woman passed before the fire, blurring for an instant the outline of the man. In a few minutes the man stood before the fire and the outline of the woman was completely erased. The traveler in the road shook his head and passed on.
None of the glitter of the white moonlight, nor any of the yellow brightness from the stars had entered the little new house. Aleck sat on one side of the fireplace: Gracie sat on the other. Both were resting upright in new home-made chairs that squeaked every time they moved. A smokey lamp was standing on the mantlepiece by the side of the new alarm clock and a cheap green vase was placed at each end. Over in one corner was a table with several pans on it. In the far shadowed portion of the room was an old iron bed with most of the paint chipped off. Opposite the bed was a shiney new oak bureau. When the fire flared up brighter it lifted the shadow and Gracie could see the vase of pink artificial roses on her new bureau.
"I declare, Aleck, don't you lack those pretty new roses I bought Christmas at the ten-cent store? They do brighten up this old room so much. Every little thing helps. Don't you lack them?" A smile crossed Gracie's sallow faded young face; then she turned her gaze directly upon her husband.
"I shore do lack them," Aleck began. He ran his fingers through his stringy black hair and brushed a speck off his blue overalls. "They make me think on them pretty flowers we all saw the time we was cuttin' ditches clown in Panneyma, we always--"
"There you go again talkin' 'bout that outlandish country. You talk crazy, same as you did time you came back from there with the fever. You are plumb struck on that place; can't start no ordinary farmin' without you talkin' 'bout how things grows in Panneyma."
Aleck looked straight at his wife, then let his head go forward on his chest: "There now don't get mad at me now."
Gracie started to go toward him, but he lowered his head still more. She sat back down, straightened her gingham skirts around the high black tops of her shoes, picked up her sewing and looked over at her husband-her sallow face beaming and her dull eyes shining. "We are all right now. We got this house built an' hit didn't cost much. We can rent a little Ian' or share crops-that is more better, I think-an' we will make money and buy Ian'. Farmin' is the only Christian decent way for poor folks to start makin' money. I don't lack no cotton mills in no town. Look at my sister's chillun; they work in the mills. They cover their face with paint and powder. Think how much more better off they would be in the country."
Grace sat upright in her chair, speaking very piously, but never for a moment stopping her work. She had forgotten her chagrin at her husband in the enthusiastic condemnation of her nieces. Aleck began taking off his shoes. He rolled up his blue overalls and his heavy union suits. "I don't lack town ways nuther. I lack good country where you can do lack you want to . See where that snake bit me in Panneyma ?" Aleck pointed to a round blue spot on his leg. "'Twas a snake kinder like a rattler , but 'twan't no rattler-not poisonous lack them. I declare, 'twas some big snakes down there."
On first sight of his leg, Grace closed her eyes. Although she had been reared in a three-room house with six brothers and two sisters she had been married only two months. The sight of her husband's naked leg roused her modesty, but all modesty was forgotten at mention of the word "Panama" ; her eyes popped open and she straightened up.
"There you go-talking about Panneyma again. I hates that name. 'Tain't right for folks from round here to go places lack that to live. I can't understan' how folks lives unless they lives in a place lack this-'roun' near their kin people an' frien'.s. I know that fever 'fected your head."
Aleck looked up frowningly at his wife. "Why can't I talk about Panneyma? You talk 'bout what you want to."
"I know, but, Aleck, it ain't right for people to go clown an' live in Panneyma. I don' see how you can lack it." .
Aleck got up and took his banjo from its hook on t~e wall.
"Oh, play us some good music; I lacks good music. I ain't hearecl no good music since we wuz chillun. My uncle shore could
play. I 'members ten years ago he played When You an' I Was Young, Maggie. That wuz the night I promised to marry you. I was just a string of a girl-sixteen years old. Ain't times changed, though? Most all our ol' kin what come down from the mountain is dead. We -all is lack these Easterners now. Play that same old song -When You and I Wuz Young-jus' fer ol' times' sake."
Aleck obediently began playing. Gracie sang in her high thin voice-" 'I wandered today to the hills, Maggie . . .' I declar, I can't sing with this cold." Gracie placidly sewed and tapped her broad black shoe to the time of the music. She seemed unconscious of what was going on, so absorbed in her thoughts was she.
Aleck's fingers began to wander icily over the strings until suddenly a wild syncopated tune burst forth. He closed his eyes and played. He felt the hot wind of the tropics fan his black hair and saw it twist the slender trunks of the palm trees. He saw himself half naked, bare-footed-his toes in the warm sand. He saw carefree men and women eating strange fruits under the trees. He played faster ... and faster.
Suddenly Gracie stopped tapping her foot and looked wildly at her husband.
"\~hat aire you playin' ?" she cried. "I never hearecl such heathenish stuff.''
Aleck put his banjo clown.
"I learned that in Panneyma. vVe always played that nights when the moon wuz shinin' clown."
"Panneyma ! There you go ag'in ! I can't stan' it! Hit's Panneyma all the time. Everything is Panneyma."
Gracie turned her face, livid with rage, toward Aleck, who bowed his head on his chest and slumped clown in his chair.
"There, there, Gracie. I forgets. I won't do it anymore. Le's don't think 'bout it no more. Poor Gracie! You did have to wait a long time for me to come back. Ten years ! Hit's a mighty long time."
Gracie beamed and thrust a strand of greasy brown hair back from her face. She began sewing again. "Yes, Aleck, we'll get along fine. We'll share crops nex' year an' we'll make enough to start buyin' Ian' right her' 'monst our frien's an' kinfo.Jks. I'll help you farm. I kin pick cotton. One thing 'bout this neighborhood is we got a nice church. Hit's old, but all our frien's and kin go there, an' we can jine Sunday school. It gives you somethin' t' do on a Sunday morning-makes you get out an' learn things.
Aleck looked straight into the slowly-dying fire. "Yes, an' I kin go huntin' ."
"Yes, you kin go huntin' sometimes. Maybe we kin make enough to buy a second-ban' automobile, an' we kin ride some. But firs' we mus' finish this shed-room back here so's we kin use it fer a kitchen. I kin stan' anything but sleepin' an' eatin' in the same room."
"Shore, we could finish that kitchen-an' I'll buy some wall paper," said Aleck.
"An' in the wintertime when yo u ain't got no work to do on the farm, you kin work at the sawmill. You'll get right much money. I hain't sca red to stay by myself. Naw, I'll go an' stay with ma an' pa. They is old an' by theirselve s. They's saved enough to live on the balan ce of their lives. They'll be glad to have me to cook fer them-an' I kinda miss my ole home."
Gracie got up, began straightening the pans on the table. As she passed the fire, her shadow blurred Aleck's shadow on the wall. Aleck leaned over and bega n putting on his shoes. He sa id to himself, "She don't min' bein' by herself. Her ma an' pa want her to stay with them." He st ood up before th e fire and stretched widely. His huge shadow entirely blotted out Gracie's little one. He looked at his hand s. The wild tropical tune sti ll tingled in his fingers. He looked out of the window and saw the moon shining bright on the stumps in the yard. His eyes travel ed back to the shadow where the new oak bureau stood. He look ed at his wife's back. She looked comfortable and warm enough. The fire crackled and a log broke. He turned and sp read his hands before the fire to try t o get the wild tune out of them. He look ed at the red coals and said to himself again, "She ain't scared to be by herself. Her ma an' pa need her." The fire made the tune throb in his hands harder than ever. His shoes hurt his feet. He could feel the warm tropical sands between his toes.
Aleck buttoned up his coat, looked at Grace and said, "I am goin'."
She did not hear him but continued to rattle pans. Aleck turned and went toward the door. It scraped on the floor as he opened it. He stepped on the block that served as a doorstep and went on clown the path to the road. Peering into the night, he saw a dark figure going toward the south. He turned and looked back at the house and the yard covered with stumps. Then he followed the dark figure.
ULYSSES: POST-HOMERIC
BRUCE MORRISSETTE
PROBABLY no person pretending even remotely to literary interests could be pinioned and found wholly unaware of the existence of James Joyce 's Ulysses. This existence is familiar to customs officials; Babbits abroad in Europe know where it can be purchased; Y. M. C. A. secretaries in every American city know it as the magnum item of all indexes expurgatorises; small circulating libraries lend it surreptitiously for astonishing fees; illuminati cut up over it; critics appraise it with remarkable diversity of results; lady authoresses refer to it with a dubious familiarity; John S. Sumner burns it; and friends of its owners borrow it. Possession of it is comparable, legally and esthetically, to the possession of a bottle of, say, white Carbonnieux, 1892. It renders its owners concededly elite. It sells in Paris for about five dollars; Kent Savaron, of Chicago, paid twenty-five dollars cash for his , emitting with the cash the epigram that he had probably indulged in the most genuine form of criticism possible to the literary man.
And even superficially Ulysses differs from other books. You note first that it is, unless private measures have been taken to remedy the fact, paper-bound. It is considerably wider than most books. The paper is half-glazed and almost too thin. Portions peeped into exhibit startling precosities, ranging from sheer sheets of unbroken type to pages resembling newspapers and even a larg e section in play form. Finally,-chorus here-it is long, very long ,-735 pages long . Oh, unorthodoxy assuredly inhabits every available cranny, and until the eighth printing inhabited to an alarming extent the abode of typography. Fortunately, now that the type has been entirely re- set, you encounter only about three or four errors in all-quite a creditable score, particularly for a book made in Paris.
Proceeding beneath the covers in earnest now, you learn that this Mr. Joyce has written, it appears, other books. The salacious and the serious literateur alike make mental notes The title-page reveals the publisher's name, Shakespeare & Co., 12 Rue de l'Odeon, Paris. Perhaps another note. Then a single page recounting the history of the editions.
Ah, the history of the editions! Inevitably, it would seem, the name Ulysses imparts to the person or page to which it is attached
a strange wandering urge impelling unflaggingly to adventure alike the sun myth and the bound and compressed wood -pulp. From Odysseus' rampagings about long ago in the world's childhood, probably, springs the name's old legacy, and its bearers, whether in books as content or merely as physical paper, are thus doomed irremediably to caricature and travesty the performances of that first old hero from out of Greece, who took so long in getting home. . . . The point is, the history of Ulysses as a book, in all its printings, suppressions, and what-not, is unique. Indeed, its history is not yet over: it is probably the only piece of unquestionably great literature in the world today which is utterly forbidden in England and in the United States.
Miss Sylvia Beach, entrepreneur of Shakespeare and Company, ushered Ulysses into the world during February, 1922, in an edition of one thousand numbered copies: price, sixty francs. Before that, however, Ulysses had been appearing serially in The Little Review, a very significant magazine in American Letters published at Chicago by the literary group of that city. This magazine, before its suppression because of the installments of Ulysses, was the first publisher of many writers now acclaimed widely as of largish import in American literature: Sherwood Anderson, Theodore Dreiser, Ben Hecht, and others. After its suppression, in 1920, · it arose redivivus in New York under a new title, but for a variety of reasons failed ever to regain its former prestige.
In the October of that year, 1922, a second and larger edition of Ulysses ·was printed at London by the Egoist Press - apparently, and unaccountably, by the same typesetters who had threatened to strike rather than set up the sentences in Joyce's earlier A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which now sells freely everywhere and is obtainable in Boni & Liveright's Modern Library. Now occurred Ulysses' debut in legal circles. A shipment of five hundred copies of this edition was seized after its entrance into New York by the postoffice authorities of that city and burned. Copies already brought in immediately rose in value; Sylvia Beach was inundated with orders, and Ulysses everywhere became known as very "hot" and became, too, a convenience equally for high literary discussion and an aphrodisiac. In brief, Ulysses through the very ancient and tested formula of suppression became very much in "vogue."
The third printing was of all the most unfortunate. In January,
1923, the Egoist Press issued 500 copies, of which 499 were seized by the customs authorities at Folkestone. It would be interesting to know who retained the one unapprehended copy .... After this no more printings were made in England, the fallacies of that policy having become alarmingly plain, so that thereafter editions were made by Miss Beach alone, presumably as the desire warranted. After four additional printings here-at the rate of two each yearthe type was finally re-set, eliminating those depressing pages of errata appended heretofore. This was the eighth edition, in May, 1926. Since then there has been to our knowledge only one further batch, a year later in 1927.
Now there are a number of Ulysseses in the United States , many more, obviously, than could possibly have come in before John S. Sumner struck the match to that shipment of 500. For, we are told, through the employment of one or another strategic device you can very often "smuggle" in-for art's sake, of course-a copy of this famed novel. For example, you can divide the book into sections and insert these inconspicuously between layers of shirts, etc., although this involves needless destruction. Much simpler is the device of removing the contents of some or another book-many favor the Bible on the grounds of similarity in size-and inserting between the boards the paper-bound Ulysses. This, particularly when the Bible is employed, is relatively infallible. Of course, one may counterfeit unpossessed avoirdupois in the middle regions by adjusting it as a paunch, but there is always the possibility, in the case of men, that it might slip embarrassingly down the trouser-leg, or, in the case of ladies, give rise to some or another misunderstanding. It has been concealed within muffs; coon-skin overcoats have entered replete with them; they have been cleverly secreted in valises; some brave souls, even, have walked in with a copy clasped face-under beneath the arm.
And all this while, during which critics write prodigiously about Ulysses, its sale is definitely banned in England and in the United States, and one in mailing it runs the risk of its confiscation. Yet you hear little mention of that fact: you are, indeed, simply assumed to take for granted the stupidity of the authorities in this matter, as in many others. Public libraries purchase Miss Rebecca West's Strange Necessity, fully half of which sets up a Joyce paean, and turn purple at the mention of Ulysses itself. Everybody in America discusses the book, and perhaps twenty-five persons have read the
thing through. It has given rise to more literary hypocrisy among persons who must be fond of nwdern things-oh, my dear, yes!than, perhaps, any other work. It is praised unfairly and condemned unfairly, with little discrimination practiced anywhere . It is misquoted, and the misquotations are often attributed to the wrong characters. Dr. Joseph Collins, who spends his time looking at one thing or another, in The Doctor Looks at Literature boasts of being the only person alive, outside of Joyce, who has ever read Ulysses all the way through twice, having done it "as a test of Christian fortitude, to see whether I could still love my fellow man afterwards," and after the second reading still misunderstands his fellowman enough to prefix his discussion of him with a misattributed quotation. La West herself makes statements plainly erroneous if checked up in Joyce, and becomes so mystic attempting to cosmicise the affair, finding Marion Bloom the eternal Mother, Bloom himself the eternal Father, and Stephen the eternal Son, that portions of her book begin to look like excerpts from a publication by the International Theosophical Association, Order of the Star.
Indeed, outside of Paul Rosenfeld's article on Joyce in Men Se en, and several shorter discussions in certain issues of transition, there is little sensible criticism to be found anywhere of this largish figure in contemporary literature . Most condemnation submits that the book is unintelligible and needlessly obscene: the first is untrue and the second trivial-the enormities of Jonathan Swift have not materially affected his place in literature, nor have those of Mr. William Wycherly, or of Frarn;ois Rabelais, or, locally , of Mr. James Branch Cabell-or of innumerable others. And most praise seems to overlook entirely the big, rotund, significant things Joyce has done, and either to grow blue-faced applauding incidentals or slip off the deep end into the edifying profundities of mysticism. . . .
All of which progresses, according to approved rhetorical laws, toward the criticism of this paper, which should logically appear, now, in this paragraph-and which, of course, should set all these sadly misled critics right on the real and actual accomplishments of James Joyce. Yet undergraduate criticism is by virtue of that adjective rendered inconsequent and entirely too "young" to matter one way or the other. Moreover, a criticism of an unobtainable book-unobtainable, certainly, to the majority of persons likely to read this-ceases to be criticism and becomes a book review, a despicable sort of tired plain reader's guide to fashionable literature. To criticize Ulysses,
to "interpret" Ulysses, would require a vocabulary nearly as mammoth as Joyce's own, in addition to a stylistic, intellectual and emotional "maturity" frankly absent from this writer. As completion of the novel approaches, you sense dimly the hugeness of the whole work; the succulently muscular style shapes persons and things of hitherto unknown sensory actuality. Joyce's phrases are liquidly cold, or warm with the warmth of the human body, at will. Sense effects more heightened than those obtained from the very objects described in "real" life are not infrequent, and this certainly can be called without exaggeration a feat requiring the highest stylistic virtuosity. Joyce has framed a world astonishly three-dimensional, one in which you can walk and hear and feel and smell and see and taste pleasurably and very really. There is beauty in Ulysses, athletic, muscular beauty, and beauty more delicate and white, in, for example, the thoughts of Stephen Dedalus.
Ulysses is far from perfect. Occasionally, it is uninteresting and very hard going, as, it is generally agreed, in the newspaper office scene. "Yet in its totality"-Rosenfeld in Men Seen-"the surface of Ulysses stands the work of an incomparable art; and we feel at liberty to dance upon it, it is so solid, as upon a stone."
"WHEN
IN MY DREAMS LAST NIGHT"
To Annie in Heaven
Annie, when in my dreams last night you came to me, And lifting up your radiant face to mine you smiled On me as my lips met with yours in holy kiss, Then, Annie, Heaven indeed was mine, just as In other years, before you left me all alone, You came, a happy bride, to me, and planned With many a joyous laugh our cottage home among Virginia hills; or later, when the year had passed, You lay upon your couch, a new joy in your heart, And, nestled at your side, your infant boyY our boy and mine-with cheek more soft than e'en your own, Breathed peacefully, and you looked up to me All happily, and smiled much as an angel smilesy es, just as in other days earth's mountain peaks Had lifted me up into heaven's domain, So yesternight down in the valley of my grief Heaven came and kissed me in my sleep.
-Adon Allen Yoder.
SONG OF THE SHELTERED SAINTS
ELIZABETH GILL
Still in our niches we stand; Silent and holy and meek; Calm with the calmness of death, Yet living forever in stone. Gazing impassively down On the people who worship and seek Aid for their sorrowing souls; Remote, unresponsive, alone.
Silent were we in our lives? Nay then, how should we be saints? Voluble, swift with our words Cried we our message abroad, Answering threatenings and scorn, Comforting tears and complaints; Teaching to all who would hear The powerful will of the Lord.
Holy? Ay, were we-but men, And prone to the wrath and despair
And all of the sins that are men's. Yet, striving, we conquered them all. Meek? As a tempest is meek In d'efending the souls in our care; And how might we keep us remote From their urgency's desperate call?
Under the gray-vaulted dome, Grayness alone is our hue
That from the colorful world Which the sun with his brilliancy paints
We have lived out our glorious lives As struggling, triumphing men And now we endure our re~ard : We are idle and useless and saints!
THE MUSIC
JOHNNIE ADAMS
THE lovely maiden of the lake rose from her bed of dull green rushes, and felt among the swaying shadows for her white robe. She paused to listen to the quick, nervous footsteps echo along the bank.
She paced before her door impatiently. Why had she chosen Sir Bedivere as the last knight? Now Arthur's coming would be delayed. But would not the delay make his coming more sweet? She felt the sands quiver beneath her feet and the shivering wind creep across the lake from the hollow crags on one side to the wooded hill on the other. As Sir Bedivere told the king what he had seen, the maid placed her finger on a clear white page, and a blot stood out blacker than the darkest shadow.
The walls of her cave were hung with delicate waves that rippled from roof to floor. The couch was of damp lake-grass covered with a cool, soft spread of sea-foam gathered at mid-night when there was no moon. The movement of a thousand drops of water, hanging from the arched ceiling, cast a light mingled with shadows over all. Each year the maiden gathered one drop from the center of the lake where the crimson path of the sun met the silver road of the moon. They were her stars, crimson, silver, and black-black where the starless night had touched them. She counted the stars and wondered if Sir Bedivere would come again . She felt the water creep gently by her window and heard it lap the broken cliffs and steal along the weary beach .
The footsteps came and slowly wandered from lake to crag, and from the rough, rattling bank to the water's edge again. The maiden knew that Bedivere was there, and that his feet were dragging dying paths. Woe unto him whose name the maid touched twice. She shook her head and sighed. Would Arthur never come?
The wind was still, and silently the crags stood gaunt and clear, and silent, too. A vessel, tall and black, came from the west. The maiden shuddered, drawing her cold robe of moon-mist about her. Sir Bedivere must come and quickly. She looked at her stars longingly, for she might not return in time to see them again. They were more beautiful than the bed of foam gathered flake by flake for a
thousand years from the edge of the storm, more lovely than the walls of dainty, shimmering green.
The sharp ring of steel on rock made her forget even them. She ran swiftly until her pale hair floated above the silvered water. The sword came quickly, silently like a blue flame. The maiden loved the pain of the burning jewels as she drew her arm beneath the water and drifted down, down into the darkness. She stood outside her door and waited, longed for the sudden aching cold, the bitter silences that would mean the end. The stars went out. Music as faint as the brushing of one cloud against another came from the black barge. With a sob the maiden sank upon her cold, bare floor. Alone, utterly alone, with not even the task of waiting.
DEDICATION
To One I Love
Simplicity is beauty's other name, And so 'tis yours, You are vivid as a crimson maple leaf; As delicately formed, As dreamily inspired
-Eudice Brenner .
GAT!
(A Play in One Act)
LAWRENCE BLOOMBERG
TIME: Ten o'clock.
PLACE: It is a dingy room. The table in the center is a rickety affair and many rungs are broken out of the five chairs which surround it. A window at the rear is covered by a green window shade which is tattered in many places. The air of the room is thick with smoke. A man is seated in a chair on the right; he has propped his feet up on the table and is puffing away on a cigar. On the left of the table, straddling a chair, her chin on the knuckles of her two hands, a slender woman in tight-fitting clothes is looking off to the left. She is not facing the man After the curtain rises they remain in these positions for a few seconds.
FLO (still staring off to the left) : I wonder what's keepin' them. They oughter been here by now.
AL: Reckon Greasy oughter know what he's <loin'. Ain't like him to mess up nothin'. Anyway that little drug store job was jes' a set-up. Gotter sort of keep your hand in it or yuh go stale . Greasy's havin' to lay low since that . ., . .
FLO: Aw, shut up! You're a hell of a guy yourself, ain't yuh? Scaird to go out cause you happened to bump off a cop. (She has left the chair now and gone over to th e window and peeped through a small slit in the window shade . )
AL: Greasy said that it was best fer me and what Greasy says goes, see?
FLO: Ain't none of yuh got a mind of your own; it's just Greasy this and Greasy that until I get so damn sick of it. . . .
AL: Well, you're Greasy's girl, ain't yuh?
FLO: What of it? Any of your business? You're just a bunch of blood sniffin' coyotes and I wouldn't give a damn if they made the whole gang of yuh take a seat in that contraption up the jail.
AL: Hey, what you got in your craw?
FLO (she's returned to her chair now and is sitting with her face to Al. She crosses her legs.) : Gimme a cigarette.
AL: How about a cigar? (He takes one from his top pocket.)
FLO: You're funny, ain't yuh? C'mon.
AL (takes his feet front the table and gets up. Wa,lks over towards Flo with a gangster's swagger. Pulls out a pack of cigarettes and offers them to her. She takes one. Al takes out a lighter, lights it
and holds it to F,lo's cigarette. Their faces are close together. Flo takes her cigarette from her mouth and looks at him. He catches her by the shoulders and raises her to her feet roughly. He kisses her almost savagely.)
FLO ( she backs away from him slowly; she stops and smiles scornfully) : Well, yuh got what yuh wanted? Anything that Greasy says, goes, eh? Did he ever give any orders about me?
AL: I don't give a damn what Greas y says when it comes to you.
FLO: Oh, you don't, do yuh? Reckon you're right brave. (She walks up to him aga,in and puts her arm about his n ee!?.) Say, Al, you ain't so bad. I've seen worse . (He kisses her again. )
AL: Say, babe, you and me oughter git away from here. . . .
FLO : Git away from here? (Th en calmly and smilingly): How about that man who is going to knock at this door in a few minutes; rush in and tell us that Greasy's been shot dead? Huh , yuh think I don't know? Then some of the mob are coming in here and tell you that you're the chief. Greasy wants to see how I'll act to you when he's cashed in. He made me swear that whether he was dead or not that another man will never touch me. What the hell do I care for an oath to him ?
AL: How do y' know? It ain't true.
FLO: That ' s all right how I know. Greasy sort of suspects that I'm sweet on yuh, kid, and I reckon he's noticed you looking kind of moony at me, too. He ain't no fool. But he's just that kind of a guy; he's so damn sure. And I thought you liked me a little, but naw-you're going to sell me out. Double cross me, huh? You didn't think that Greasy knew about you liking me. Well, I'll tell you this He would have had both of us fixed. If I hadn't heard about this little trap, I'd have walked into it nicely. As soon as I heard that Greasy had kicked in, I would have gone to you. Greasy would have turned up about that time and both of us would be shoveling coal in hell. ( But she smiles scornfully.) Greasy told you that he would tip them off about who killed that cop if you didn ' t go through with this, huh? . And I loved you, hell !
AL: But I wasn't going to do it. . . . I wasn't going to let none of them touch you. I swear I wasn't. . . .
FLO: Aw, shut up and let me think. (She sits down and this time Al walks over to th e window and ,looks out. He returns and shakes his head.) Say, why didn't yuh tip me off yourself? All you had to do was tell me about it and I wouldn't have made up to you
after I heard that Greasy had been killed. Wouldn't that have settled it, huh?
AL: Flo, he said that he was so damn sure that you was crazy over me that if you didn't come to me that he would know that I tipped yuh off.
FLO: And a great big blockhead like you fell for that. He knows damn well that you're nutty over me, but you know that boast of his, don't you? . . . Greasy Macklin ain't never bumped off nobody without a reason. Funny thing , all of the trouble he's going to this time to make a reason. Wonder why he's <loin' it?
AL (appearing very nervous): You don't think that he would?
FLO: Sure! But that don't make any difference about what I mean. Even if you didn't have sense enough to see that he was going to get us both, you didn ' t have guts enough to tell me. Naw, you'd rather have them take me for a ride so that you could save your own hide.
AL: Honest to God, Flo, I was goin' to tell yuh. . .. Yuh don't think I was going to let that big stiff Greasy get away with killing my girl.
FLO: Naw, of course , you wasn't. (Th en fiercely) : But I've given you plenty time. Always making these cracks about them being back in any minute. Wanted to hurry you up a little, if you was going to tip me off. Hell , yuh just sat there and smoked! You ain't good enough for any woman to love.
AL : I swear that I ain't never cared for another girl, Flo. I was going to tell yuh, honest? Was just turning over some plans to see if we couldn't get away somewhere. There's gotter to be some way out of this (He goes up to Flo.) You gotter believe that I care a hell of a lot for yuh , kid.
FLO: I reckon you do, Al. ( A trifle scornfully) . . . even if you was being kinda slow in looking out for me. (She is close to him.) Even if I oughten to, I like you right well, Al. (She lays her head on his shoulder.
Two sharp knocks on the door, a pause·, three sharp knocks, a pause, th r ee more quick knocks.)
AL ( very softly and quickly) : I gotta plan; here get in there; take this. (Hands her revolver she goes into adjoining room He unlatches door and goes quickly back.) Come in. (Sits down in chair on right of table.) I'll fix 'em. (The door is flung open roughly. Al reaches for his revolver when a voice reminds him, "No use going for that; I've got you covered." Al slowly raises his hands.
"Dippy" Blake walks in with a pistol in his hand ; he is the general type of detective, slouch hat and all.)
DIPPY ( entering the room and looking about him, but ever keeping a watchful eye on Al) : Looks like you're the only one about. Had trouble getting past that lookout man you got posted downstairs. Very handy thing to know that little knock of your's, too. (He goes over and feels in all of Al's pockes, but of course he does not find a revolver.) Funny! Somebody got your gat, eh? ( Al nods in assent.) All right, take 'em down. I want to sit here and have a pleasant little conversation anyway. If anybody comes to that door. . . . (He looks around the room again.) I'll go into that next room . I can watch you and if you make one move to tip them off that I'm here, that electric chair ain't going to get a chance at you. ( Dippy sits down in chair at the left.) What do you know about that O'Brian shooting?
AL: I don't know nothing about it.
DIPPY: Better come across; it'll be easier for you.
AL: I told you I ain't got nothing to come across with. What business you got in here anyway; you ain't got nothing on me? (Al is not the cool gangster and shows his nervousness.)
DIPPY ( changing his tactics a little) : Say, listen, Al , I've always liked you a hell of a lot. It was too darned bad your breaking in with this crowd; they're a bad lot. Listen, we were buddies together in the old days over on A venue A until you took up with this bunch.
AL: You know damn well why I took up with 'em. Somebody framed me in that damn banking job. You and your law, huh! After they sent me up the river on that trumped up job, I couldn't get a position anywhere. Every time I get a new place, one of you dicks would stick his nose in, tell the boss that I'd been an ex-convict, and out I go. None of you would give a fellow a chance even when I ain't done nothing at all.
DIPPY: I think they done you a dirty turn, Al, but wasn't it best to go straight? Instead of mixing up with this gang of crooks, you might have been able in time to have proven you were innocent.
AL: Yeah, but what was I going to do all that time? Live on air and water . . . sleep on the benches in Central Park . . . or try sitting on the corner with a tin cup and pencils? I had to git something to do and ( a little savagely) you ain't got nothing on us now; we're within the law.
DIPPY : I know a whole lot more than you do about this bunch of crooks; better lay off 'em, Al. They ain't going to do you no good. ( Quite pointedly) : Maybe they've done you a little harm already, huh?
AL: I don't know what you're driving at, Dippy.
DIPPY: Say, listen here. Al, you know I'm a straight talker and I'm on this O'Brian case. You say you're innocent and I believe you as far as your word goes with me, understand? But it's not Dippy Blake talking; it's the law, so you'd better come across with all you know about it. It was one of this gang that you've been laying around with, I'm dead sure of that. . . . I intend to find out which one. Kinda thought mebbe you would know something about it and would want to help a friend out by telling him what you know. . I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't sort of fix things up better for you at headquarters if you would come on out with a little. .
AL: No matter what I am, you ought to know me better than that ....
DIPPY: Yeah, I suppose I should have known better. Well, let's put it this way, Al. They've got reason to suspect it was you who turned the trick, see? And I want to help you, so if you would come clean to me I could steer the guys down at headquarters on the right track.
AL (jumping to his feet) : Dippy, you don't believe that I did it , do you?
DIPPY: Sure not, Al, but can't you see that it would be better for you to come across ?
AL ( very ner-uously) : They ain't got nothing on me. . . I ain't got nothing to come across with. . . . I don't know anything about it.
DIPPY (looking at him keenly) : If you don't know anything about it, you're looking mighty concerned.
AL ( stopping to think for a moment) : Well, I'll tell you, Dippy, it ain't that , but Greasy has got me and my girl sort of trapped up here and I don't see any way out of it
DIPPY : Double crossing you, huh? I thought that as soon as he had gotten all he wanted out of you or that you knew too much, he'd fix up a nice little party for you.
AL: You know Greasy' s boast that he never does any killing without a reason?
DIPPY: Sure, I've suspected him of a lot of killings lately, but we ain't never been able to hook nothing on him, just sorta always has a darn good alibi and they believe him up at the D. A.'s office. Funny thing about his boast though, guess he always tries to justify himself to himself . . . he doesn't do any killing without a good reason, bah !
AL: That's what he says and he's gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to make a reason to take me and a little girl for a ride.
DIPPY: I want to help you; tell me about it.
AL: Well (There comes the same knock on the door. Two sharp !mocks a pause three sharp knocks a pause three more sharp knocks.)
DIPPY (looking around room quickly): . . . I'll hide in here. . . . ( Goes in room off to right.) I've got the flock of you covered and there's men posted all around the block, so you'd better not tip them off that I'm hiding here. . . . Anyway I want to help you, see? ( Closes door.)
AL (goes over and unlatches door): Come in! (He steps back a little and three gangsters enter. All are dressed in the traditional gang fashion.)
PETE: Where's the girl?
AL (goes over and whispers something in his ear and Pete shakes his head in assent. . . . All three of the gangsters are noticeably exciited.) Well, how's tricks?
PETE: Honest to God, Al, Greasy's done for.
AL ( winks at him) : You . . . you don't mean it?
PETE: Listen, Al . . . I ain't kidding you . . . Greasy's cashed in. . . We was comin' out of Harvey's and a car with the curtains up was right across the street. . . . He came out of the door first and as soon as he did, they opened up with a machine gun and put about twenty bullets in him before none of us had a chance to draw a gat. They got him all right.
AL ( doesn't quite grasp what has been told him) : You . . . you mean that they really got Greasy and this ain't none of that trumped up stuff.
PETE: Sure . . . we was all there and we just took the body up to the Den. (The other gangsters nod in assent.)
JIM : Ain't no doubt about him bein' done for.
SKI: It was that uptown bunch . . . they been out for Greasy
since he crossed them on the \i\Tilliams' haul . . . they got him all right.
PETE: And you've gotter take charge of things, AI. . . . You're chief now.
AL: Did he say anything before he died?
PETE : Naw, they got him right through the heart.
AL ( breathes a sigh of relief) : Damn glad of that.
PETE: Naw, I know he ain't told a soul about you bumping off O ' Brian.
AL: Shut up, you fool. . . . (Jerks his thumb over towards closed door.) In there. . . . ( Gangst ers reach for pistols, but door is thrown op en and Dippy has got them covered.)
DIPPY: Not so fast there, c'mon put 'em up . . . line up against that wall there. (He goes over and r emoves guns from each of their pockets while taking great care to keep them all covered.) Sorry, Al, but I got the goods on you. . . . I hate like hell to do it, but I got to take you in.
AL: For God's sake, Dippy, you ain't going to turn me over to ' em, are you? I didn't mean to do it, honest .
DIPPY: Sorry as hell, Al , but I got to do it. (Flo comes to open door with pistol in her hand.)
FLO: I wouldn't be so fast if I was you, Mister Dippy Blake; let's drop that gun, I got you covered. . . . C'mon put it down, quick. (H e drops gun to floor.) You're a fine decteive, ain't you, don't even look around? (Dippy scowls as the gangst ers take their hands down and go over and talie their guns from his pockets . )
AL : Take him in the next room and we'll decide what to do about him later. (The thre e gangst ers take Dippy off right.)
FLO: I heard. So they really got Greasy, huh?
AL: Yeah, some of that uptown bunch did him in.
FLO : They did it at just the right time for us, didn't they?
AL: They sure did. We got out of that mess nicely, didn't we?
FLO ( a littl e dub ious) : Al , was you really goin' to tell me?
AL: Sure.
FLO: We gotter git away from New York. They know that you bumped off O'Brian.
AL : Yeah, we gotter git away.
FLO: Do you like me right much, Al ?
AL: Do I? (He tak es h er in his ar111,5so that she is facing door on left.) I love you like anything, Flo. (He kisses her.)
FLO ( looking at him) : Al, you're going to give this sort of thing up, ain't you?
AL: Sure, anything you say.
FLO: We'll get away on the midnight train for the West and disappear . . . just you and me together.
AL: Sure. (The door swings slowly open and a man appears at the doorway. . . . Flo suppresses a little scream and backs out of Al's arnis. Al turns slowly around.)
GREASY( slowly and delib erately) : Very convenient to have this door open from the outside. (Both Al and Flo are stupified. Greasy has Al cov er ed so he wallis over to hini and takes the pistol from him.) Might git a little frisky with this thing. Well!
AL ( stanimering surprised,ly) : I . . . I . . . thought you were ...
GREASY: Well, wasn't the message I sent you convincing enough?
AL: You dirty ....
GREASY( stopping him with a gesture) : Well, didn ' t everything go off as we had planned? (Al st eps backward and puts hi,s arms about Flo. Three gangst ers com e in from right and this forc es Al and Flo to center stage. Gr easy to P et e ) : You delivered my message all right, didn't yon?
PETE : Sure, chief. (Al loo ks at him and Pete puts his hands on his hips and laughs others join in . )
GREASY: All right, that's enough . . . you've got your orders ... take 'em along. (The gangsters dose about Flo and Al.) I've got plenty reason now. Go on take 'em.
AL: Surely you ain't ?
FLO: Greasy?
GREASY: Run along . . . g'wan . ( Gangsters take them out left.) Hell of a lot of trouble that time to git a reason, but I couldn't git rid of Flo without gittin' Al all up in the air so I reckon it's best I'm rid of both of them. (He goes to door at left and whistles.) C'mon here, babe. (Still standing at door and ,looking out) : You were a devil of a lot of trouble to get, but I reckon you ' re worth it.
CURTAIN
THE POETRY OF ERNEST DOWSON
RoBERT QurcK
THE reader who spends his time riffling the pages of obscure writers is in as sad a case as the beloved "lesser lights and fallen fames" themselves. His airy enthusiasms are forever collapsing when some patient listener raises a supercilious eyebrow to inquire, "Seumas O'Sullivan? I don't believe I've heard of the man before"; but he can always reply, "Then surely you must have read the poetry of Fiona MacLeod ?" excusing himself before his friend finds occasion to ask him what he thinks of Jurgen. He goes his way lost in a world of writing little known to most men, gloating over each scrap of recognition accorded to the unsung darlings of his mind. Now and then, when a critic speaks a good word for Arthur Upson or commends the literary taste of Thomas Mosher, he is immeasurably grateful, and re-reads old words with a new pleasure , the comfort of knowing that at last his favorite is gaining more admirers. And when The Medusa Head publishes a new, limited edition of Ernest Dowson's Complete Poems,* beautifully illustrated by Elinore Blaisdell.
Ernest Dowson was born in Kent, England , in the year 1867, and died at Catford, near London, in 1900; a frail spirit that flickered bravely for a while and waned away all too soon. The story of his sordid life, from which he escaped intermittently into a world of nebulous poetic fancies, is one of the most pathetic footnotes to the history of Victorian literature. His poetry will never be widely read. It is too fragile, too pure for our modern sophistication. I doubt that minds dabbling ( for instance) in the aphasic gutter-experiments of a James Joyce will find more than pale bathos in Dowson. On the other hand, the faddists, hearing him called a decadent, may read him for that reason. There is in his best work a fusion of whispered thoughts and delicate language, a subtle nuance of expression that may charm a poetry-lover "here and there , leavened in among the lumpish masses of populace"-such a person, say, who is still naive enough to read Ovid or Horace aloud to himself.
In his living, Dowson was a morbid epicure wandering bewildered through a maze of sensations, continually grasping at some new,
*This volume is now in the Richmond College Library.
enchanting chimera. After a rather piece-meal education, largely on the continent, he entered Queen's College, Oxford, only to leave without taking a degree. At college he indulged in hashish; later he became a heavy drinker. The rest of his life he spent in wandering from the wine shops of Paris, through Normandy and Brittany, to the pothouses of London's river section. He shared his beer with sailors, took up with inn -keepers, and finally fell in love with the daughter of a London restaurant keeper. It was a shy, far-off adoration that evoked no response but kind smiles. The girl heard with patience his verses written to her-Dowson's best, by the way-and married the waiter. Dowson was never strong, and like Stevenson, careless of himself, he soon became a victim of consumption.
Newman Flower, writing in The Boohman, gives this picture of him: "He was sitting in a cafe during one of those evenings of boisterous excitement which immediately followed the opening of the Boer War. He had before him, I remember, a high tumbler of claret. His eyes were half closed, for that terrible craving for alcohol which was beating through his blood hit him hard that day, and he seemed only partly conscious of the passing and repassing of the people about him."
The Dowson of the poems, however, is untinged by this sordidness. Dreamy - eyed, wistfully smiling, he is a sweet and gentle youth. It was because life was not like· his dreams of it that the gave himself up to the animal craving for alcohol. His senses numbed to the external universe, the fragrant fumes of the wine rising to his head, he could project himself into a misty garden of the dim past, a Pierrot wooed by a moon maiden; he could ponder the pleasures of those whom men call mad, seeing much beauty in Bedlam; or visions of Persephone would float through his brain:
"Life, of thy gifts I will have none, My queen is that Persephone, By the pale marge of Acheron, Beyond the scope of any sun."
This escape from reality, this dreaminess is the keynote of all his poetry. His poems are fair, fleeting illusions enmeshed in exquisitely spun nets of words. Sometimes, harking back to the past, he imagines himself a rustic Colin, or sighs over the "age of pageant and of pride," the beautiful age that is gone, or wraps himself in a veil of perfumed
memories; sometimes he contemplates monks and nuns, envying their calm, their peace; sometimes he is a shadowy lover, content merely to gaze at white hands and blown hair; but always there is the everrecurring theme of escape, of flight into beatific illusion, sung again and again to ever -changing melodies. He had the technical felicity of a Horace, and as he wrote only to please his own fastidious taste, he achieved much memorable music in his verse. There are rich, serene organ tones in his "Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration":
"Calm, sad, serene; with faces worn and mild: Surely their choice of vigil is the best? Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild ; But there, beside the altar, there, is rest."
Here, again, in a springtime poem, he sounds his sad sweet plaintive note:
"See how the trees and the osiers lithe Are green bedecked and the woods are blithe, The meadows have donned their cape of flowers, The air is soft with the sweet May showers, And the birds make melody: But the spring of the soul, the spring of the soul Cometh no more for you or for me.
"The lazy hum of the busy bees Murmureth through the almond trees; The jonquil flaunteth a gay, blonde head, The primrose peeps from a mossy bed, And the violets scent the lane. But the flowers of the soul, the flowers of the soul, For you and for me bloom never again."
Or, take his sonnet, "My Lady April":
"Dew on her robe and on her tangled hair ; Twin dewdrops for her eyes; behold her pass, With dainty step brushing the young, green grass, The while she trills some high, fantastic air,
POETRY OF ERNEST DOWSON
"Full of all feathered sweetness : she is fair, And all her flower-like beauty, as a glass, Mirrors out hope and love: and still, alas ! Traces of tears her languid lashes wear.
"Say, doth she weep for very wantonness? Or is it that she dimly doth foresee Across her youth the joys grow less and less The burden of the days that are to be: Autumn and withered leaves and vanity, And winter bringing end in barrenness ?"
Once only does Dowson leave his immaterial fancies sung in subdued minors. For the most part his life added nothing to his poetry. Villon was able to turn squalor into poetry; Dowson turned from squalor to poetry with a sense of relief. In "Cynara," however, crystallizing his whole life experience, he rises to throbbing, sombre splendors:
"I have forgot much, Cynara ! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng , Dancing to put thy pale , lost lilies out of mind; But I was de solate and sick of an old passion, Yea, all the time, because the dance was long : I have been faithful to thee, Cynara ! in my fashion "
It is his only ly ric that has the stamp of high genius. His was a talent too frail , too fine and rare, perhaps, and certainly quite limited. In his own small dream-world of the lesser thoughts and emotions he is comparable to no other English poet, and when in one single flash of inspiration he sings "the song of passion and the passions, at their eternal war in the soul , which they quicken or deaden, and in the body which they break down between them," he attains all the finality, all the sad, unforgettable magnificence of a Chopin dirge .
BOOK REVIEW
"On bokesfer to rede I me delyte.'' CHAUCER.
An A ntho/ogy of World Poetry. Mark Van Doren. Albert & Charles Boni, 1928. $5.
The librocubicularists (Christopher Morley's word) ought to rejoice once more and forthwith rush out to purchase: since The Anatomy of Melancholy there has been no book quite so ideally suited for reading in bed as Mark Van Doren's Anthology of World Poetry. This masterly compilation has a minimum of the faults that anthologies are heir to. It is long, of course, and rather heavy, but one of those now folding lap-tables made especially for readers-in -bed will take care of that. To give you an idea of its contents: there are poems from the Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit, Arabian, Persian, Hebrew, Egyptian, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Scandinavian, and Russian translated by such well-known poets as Chaucer, Swinburne, Shelley, Rossetti, Dryden, Herrick, Francis Thompson, Amy Lowell, Untermeyer, H. D., and E. A. Robinson; in addition, there are selections from English, Irish, and American poets. In choosing poems to be included in his collection, Mr. Van Doren has wisely appiied Poe's principle that a piece of poetry should be short enough to be read at one sitting, so that it can be viewed, as a complete, architectural whole. Abridgements and passages extracted from long narrative poems have been excluded. Further, though a selection may be rather free as a translation, it is always good poetry. "This is an anthology of the world's best poetry," says Mr. Van Doren in his preface, "in the best English I could unearth, and when I found no good English at all I felt the poet out." The reader is thus spared much dull, forced, spiritless verse written by pedantic translators and included in most collections because the editor wishes fairly to "represent" a poet by the best available translation, whether it happens to be poetry or not.
There are several things that ought to be brought to the reader's attention, some of them things now put before the great mass of the reading public for the first time. Among these are Lafacadio Hearn's The River of Heaven, translated from the Japanese, Robert Hillyer's twenty - seven prayers from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Thomas Stanley's translation of The Vigil of Venus, and Rossetti's New Life from Dante. In the section of the book allotted to American poetry there are some very beautiful songs translated from the American Indian.
All this is ample material for much midnight browsing. Nor is it any Barmecicle, even though all that the best anthology can do is to offer a taste here and a nibble there. Pursue these appetitive tastes and nibbles later if you will, but meanwhile prop yourself from nape to posteriors with plenty of pillows, have cigarettes and cheese dreams at your elbow and ( if you like vin rouge and are able to get it) a tall tumbler of muscatel, to be sipped slowly, take the Anthology and consider this, from Antipater:
··"This rudely sculptured porter -pot Denotes where sleeps a female sot; \,Vho passed her life, good easy soul, In sweetly chirping o ' er her bowl. Not for her friends or children clear She mourns, but only for her beer. E'en in the very grave, they say, She thirsts for drink to wet her clay; And, faith, she thinks it very wrong This jug should stand unfilled so long."
Then read Li T'ai-po on "Drinking Alone in the Moonlight," pass on to some "Medieval Latin Students' Songs," turn to Petrarch's sonnets, dip into Shakespeare's, muse upon a Villon ballade, grow slightly tender over Heine, chuckle at Herrick, read Whitman aloud, go on to Arny Lowell and Vachel Lindsay, thence back through George Herbert to Sydney, thence to Ausonius, thence to lights out and sweet sleep. -R. C. Q.
Rachel, James Agate. The Viking Press, 1928.
This small volume of less than two hundred pages, pleasantly bound in blue and yellow, is one of a series of books under the general title of Representative Women, the series being edited by Francis Birrell. The choice of the undisputed queen of the tragic stage for a place in such a classification is doubtless a good one, but the present treatment seems highly questionable. In the first place, James Agate, whose meaty and capable essays have won him to prominence as a dramatic critic, has turned out a lamentably hasty and unprofessional piece of work. It is as impressively bristling with quotations as a freshman term paper, but his many references and apparently pondrous bibliography have resulted neither in thoroughness nor continuity. Nor does Mr. Agate's trick of running off into various languages achieve the sophistication which seemingly was intended. The book is simply a careless and hurried conglomeration of loose ends and results in being thoroughly uninteresting.
But even more astonishing from one in the position of the author is his novel treatment of the great actress's career. One might suppose that a simple story of her triumphs and failures on the stage would be sufficient for a volume of such limited scope. But nay, James Agate, the eminent dramatic critic, resolutely turns his back upon Rachel the Artist and presents the sordid story of Rachel the Women-with a vengeance. "If that which follows," he excuses himself, "takes on the complexion of a vie amoureuse, it is because that side of life constituted by far the largest part of Rachel's existence."
Now we are ready to admit that une vie amoureuse may turn out to be very piquant reading even for one who chances to pick up the volume in search of more edifying material, but we are forced to confess that we find in Mr. Agate's account nothing startling. The successful presentation even of matters esoteric requires certain qualities which Mr. Agate lacks or, at least in this case, neglects to employ.
We leave this small volume of less than two hundred pages, pleasantly bound in blue and yellow, with the distinct feeling that Basil Woon's The Real Sarah Bernhardt is still the most delightful, most complete, and withal most successful actress biography we have yet had the privilege of reading.
-E. B. P.
THE MESSENGER
Member Intercollegiate Press Association of Virginia
RICHMOND COLLEGE
ELMER POTTER
]. HARRIS WELSH -
H. G. KINCHELOE
LAWRENCE BLOOMBERG
BRUCE MORRISSETTE -
CARROLL T. TAYLOR
LLOYD CASTER -
Editor-in-Chief
Business Manager Assistant Editor Assistant Editor Assistant Editor
Assistant Business Manager Staff Artist
WESTHAMPTON COLLEGE
CATHERINE BRANCH
NATALIE EVANS
MARGARET LOWE
Editor-in-Chief
Business Manager Assistant Editor
THE MESSENGER is publishedeverymonthfromNovemberto June inclusiveby the studentsof The Universityof Richmond.Contributionsare welcomedfrom all members of the studentbodyand fromthe alumni. Manuscriptsnot foundavailablefor publication willbe returned. Subscriptionrates are TwoDollarsper year; singlecopiesThirty-five cents. Allbusinesscommunicationsshouldbe addressedto the BusinessManagers. Enteredas second-classmatterin the postofficeat The Universityof Richmond.
EDITORIAL
ANOTHER CONTEST
WE have long pondered at the lack of worthwhile literary productions from material based on college life. It is quite generally held that the type of college story written at present is not truly representative. College offers rare opportunities in characters and setting. We could mention several persons associated with this college who would make excellent subjects for sketches. Indeed, in any large group there must be characters of outstanding interest. With a supply of literary material distinct from any other type, we have in print only the football hero and the college flapper.
To create a stimulus and to increase the interest and efforts of students of the college, THE MESSENGERis sponsoring a contest for the best literary production with college life as a background. This may take the form of a one-act play, a short story, or an essay.
The contest 1s open to students of Westhampton and Richmond Colleges, and will close April 1st. Manuscripts may be given to members of The Messenger Staff or left in The Messenger box in the Administration Building. They must be signed with a nom de plume and accompanied by a sealed envelope containing the real name of the author. The author of the manuscript which the judges consider most worthy in point of style and originality will have his or her work printed in THE MESSEGERand will receive an award of ten dollars. -WESTHAMPTON EDITOR.
THE PLAY WRITING CONTEST
An announcement appeared in the February MESSENGERoffering prizes of twenty, fifteen, and ten dollars for the three best one-act plays submitted to the editors not later than March 20. These prizes were offered jointly by THE MESSENGERand the University Players, the latter planning to produce the winning plays some time before commencment of this year.
The following rules must be observed :
Manuscripts are to be signed with a noin de plume and accompanied by a sealed envelope containing the real name of the author. The contest is open to every student of the University of Richmond with the exception of the editors-in-chief of THE MESSENGER.There is no limit to the number of plays which may be submitted by one person. Manuscripts may be left in the Messenger box in the Administration Building or handed to any member of The Messenger Staff.
Prize winners will be selected on a basis of excellence in composition and suitability to the needs of the University Players. Playwrights should therefore keep in mind the limitations to which amateur dramatic companies are restricted in point of scene construction, acting, and size of casts.
The winning plays will be selected by Miss Brown, Miss Lutz, and Mr. Handy.
-E. B. P.