|
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. 23 November 1913 (page 16)
"ART IN AMERICA."
Mr. Austin Harrison, editor of the English Review, betrays a qualm or two by editorial foot note to the article of Mr. Aleister Crowley on “Art in America” in the current issue of the magazine, but either his scruples were not insistent or his sense of humor was riotous. He published the article. It would be difficult to forgive him if he had not done so.
The savor of Mr. Crowley may be obtained from one paragraph:
“I once talked with a boy of 13 years old, as bright and intelligent as I ever met. He knew no Latin or any modern language; he did not know where Berlin was; he knew the names of only eight of the states in his own country, although he was getting a ‘quarter’ for every one he could name; he knew no arithmetic beyond the first four rules, and those he knew badly; his history was confined to George Washington and James G. Blaine, to the exclusion of such insignificant characters as Napoleon; and his other mental bunkers were equally empty of coal.”
This boy, to Mr. Crowley, becomes all American boys. Consequently no American boy of 13 years knows the names of more than eight states and all are getting quarters for learning them. If Mr. Crowley had done nothing more than apply this infallible but ancient rule of logic and thus come by observation to safe generalizations he might go a-roaring on his roaring way.
But Mr. Crowley is not content with this. A hint of his real service to the volume of English criticism is contained in this sentence:
Mr. Harrison, the editor, had a qualm here, and, by asterisk, suspended a note from this point: “It must be understood that the author is expressing purely personal opinions, for which, editorially, we are nowise responsible.”
The side step is neat and just in time. Mr. Crowley is roaring down on Mr. Harrison with the statement: “Only one great singer has hailed from Columbia. I speak of Jenny Lind.” This is not opinion; it is fact, but we presume Mr. Harrison will stand on his disavowal of personal responsibility.
Having taken Jenny out of Stockholm, Mr. Crowley has no hesitancy in adding Walter Savage Landor to American literature and none in confessing that “in medicine the only name that occurs is Weir Mitchell, and all he did was to point out that overworked people had better stay in bed.”
“I am cursed with a public school and university education,” says Mr. Crowley, “although luckily I was born with enough native sense to shirk the soulless ritual of it so far as might be, and its bad influence has been corrected by years of wandering in the wilds.”
The ‘‘curse” was lifted. Mr. Harrison and the English Review may wish that it had stuck. |