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THE EDITOR REMOVES HIS CIGAR
Published in the International New York, New York, U.S.A. (pages 225-227)
Now, then, we can talk freely.
But the cigar was really a great comfort; for he that increaseth circulation increaseth sorrow.
Wisdom crieth in the streets, by the voice of the man in the street; and the wise editor regardeth her, or him.
Now the voice of the man in the street hath become exceedingly loud of late; and this is the burden of his cry.
That is, if the hundreds of letters of him be truth.
Firstly, he is very tired of the machine-made opinions of the Tenderloin Press. They may be right, or they may be wrong; it doesn't matter so much; he would rather listen to an honest fool than to a kept Solomon.
Secondly, he is utterly weary of materialism. The war has brought death to his front door; and he wants to KNOW. He has no further use for the reach-me-down explanations which were good enough for primitive tribes of Arabs; they may be true indeed, but he wants to KNOW.
Thirdly, he wants original fiction. He is fed up with the tailors' dummies that do duty for hero and heroine in modern "popular fiction." He wants life as it is, as the great artist sees it.
Fourthly, he wants the real opinions of the men who know, about Art, Literature and the Drama. In most sheets, every book as it appears is the greatest novel since Tom Jones; every play has got Macbeth in the bread-line. The result is that the puffs are quite worthless, even to the advertisers; for the public has got wise to the dope.
Now, the discerning have long looked to the INTERNATIONAL for light on all these points except the second. On that point we are now going to make a beacon. There will be no legend; there will be no fad; there will be scientific truth, and no more. And no less. Much is really known; but it has been concealed by the torrent of slush that issues poisonous from the swamp of the fakir. Some of this is to be drained by ridicule; some by the police; we shall be worth watching for a few months, while we eliminate certain plague-spots from the mind of the country. There is no fraud so easy or so cruel as the "occultism" fraud; for it appeals to the most holy and most tender elements of mankind.
We have obtained the co-operation of an adept world-famous in this new part of our activities; and our readers may rest assured that no statement will be allowed to pass that is not authentic. The subject will be presented with more than the ordinary fascination of literary style. We do not commit ourselves to any one view on such matters; the Master Therion must speak for himself. The rest of the paper will be on the lines already familiar to our readers. We shall hit crank legislation with, we trust, constantly increasing vigor; we shall stand for a point of view in world-politics which shall, like that attributed to the President, transcend petty envies and spites by its broad humanity and enlightened good-will. Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
We have secured an almost inexhaustible supply of fiction of the highest class. We understand that "highbrow" stuff is not good stuff; the best stories are the jolly stories, the real stories.
The immortal work of the world is not hard to read; the greatest masters are the most amusing. The schoolmistress whose priggery has taught otherwise have frightened the public off Dumas and Fielding. That is to be done away with; our stories are going to be the kind that will read as well or better in fifty or five hundred years' time. However, the point is that they will read well now. Which the clean-cut, straight-living, red-blooded young man plus the angel cheyild stories don't. Life is not laid out in patterns like an old maid's sampler; nor is Art.
Will you just glance at the list of our contributors for the present month?
ANATOLE FRANCE. ARTHUR SCHNITZLER. WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY.
Here are three names, each admittedly supreme in its own department, admittedly supreme for many years
William Ellery Leonard. Aleister Crowley.
Here are four names of men still young, still in the heat of battle, yet already obviously victorious, their banners pressing gloriously above the rout, as men who are doing not only the most brilliant work, but the most permanent work, of the present time. Already their names are of international reputation; is it so with the hacks, who, by appealing to the lowest passions and prejudices of men of the lower sort, have conquered an ephemeral "popularity" on false pretences?
We look for the heartiest support and cooperation from our readers. We shall be particularly glad to hear what you think of the next few numbers, which features please you most, and why. In particular, we shall be glad to hear about the new departure, the science of the soul. Those who would like to KNOW in regard to their personal problems are especially invited to write.
Mr. Storer Clouston's "Baron" once observed to his wife, when she thought his actions a trifle mysterious, "In diplomacy it is necessary for a diplomatist to be diplomatic." We would add, "In criticism it is necessary for a critic to be critical." America's great lack is a standard of criticism in art, literature and drama. Loudly-puffed hogwash has drowned genius. How can the public find the good books and plays unless the critics make an effort to sort them out from the bad? The public cannot read everything and see everything; and they may thank their stars that they have not got to do so!
We are out to make a selection fearlessly and honestly. There is not enough money in America to make us praise rubbish. Besides, we shall get much more money by proving to the advertiser that our reviews are worth something to them, that the book we honor will be bought by our readers, the theatre we praise thronged by them.
The Confessions of a Barbarian needs no commendation from us. When it first appeared it was hailed everywhere as the first book of the sort worth reading. It woke up those people who had gone to sleep with the conviction that America could never produce literature, that the mind of the United States was a provincial mind.
Now Time comes to confirm this first alarm. The book today reads fresh as ever; in fact, from it topicality, fresher. It is an astonishing thing that any work should make a positive gain in news value as the years pass. Few authors are so fortunate.
Our readers are fortunate, too, in possessing the "Two Lives" of the man whom many consider America's greatest poet, save One. The form is peculiar. To use the sonnet-sequence with success is not given to all of us; to use it in true narrative form, as opposed to a suggestion of vignettes, is, we say confidently, an idea which could only have occurred to an American. The story which the poet has to tell is one of the most absorbing interest; it is at once tragic and romantic, comic and pathetic. It is a story of American life in one of its most intense phases; yet it is not an unique, or even an unusual experience; it is the sort of catastrophe which is only too likely to happen to any one of us, if we forget the first rule of Wisdom. What is that? Now you are asking too much; you must read the poem.
It would be mere impudence to call any special attention to a story by the one greatest writer in France. One does not advertise the Sun in heaven.
But one has to advertise stars now and again. They are suns as big as ours, perhaps; but they are not recognized as such by those who are not astronomers. The people must be put next to the great things that are happening in literature at the present moment. We are particularly proud of a little story by Ford Tarpley, "Drondon." It is one of the most perfect idylls in the language; both form and idea are luminous and exquisite as starlight on the sea.
"Felo de se" is a very original conception. Aleister Crowley has the strange gift—one, by the way, which has contributed not a little to prevent him coming into general recognition—of conveying serious argument with subtle humor. One is never quite sure what he really wishes his readers to think. We asked him about it; but he only replied, with a mysterious smile: "I wish your readers to think." His aim is rather to excite, to stimulate, than to preach any definite dogma.
"Flowers" is one of Arthur Schnitzler's best stories; it is beautiful as an army with banners, yet beneath the gaiety one can, as it were, hear the murmur of battle.
The most urgent moral reforms are urged in the most incisive style by the vitriolic pen of Louis Wilkinson, the famous novelist and lecturer. Here again he cuts deep to the soul of things; whether we agree with him or not, we are bound to realize that he has said a thing most terribly in need of saying, in a time when minds like those of John S. Sumner and Harry Thaw are almost hypnotically powerful among those elements of our population which, not having been educated to high and clean thinking, are susceptible to every base suggestion. The other day we heard a Judge of the Supreme Court say at lunch: "Cocchi did not kill Ruth Cruger: that was done long ago by the morality of the Sunday newspapers." We may possibly print an article next month to explain what he meant in more detail.
Ah, next month. There are a number of pleasant little surprises waiting for you. We are not going to give the game away; no, sir. There is no need; for you have to get the INTERNATIONAL, next month, in any case, to read the continued stories.
Would you like a serial, by the way? Please write and tell us. And tell us why; there are so many reasons for and against it. And if you would like one, what kind of a story do you like best?
Till, September, then, think of us sometimes as you wander among the mountains and rivers of our beautiful land, or bathe in the sea that used to keep us out of war, long before Mr. Wilson did.
J. B. R. [Joseph Bernard Rethy] |