Copyright by Guido Bruno, May 6th, 1916. Original matter
including all drawing, may not be reproduced without permission
of Guido Bruno; but that permissions may be assumed if credit
is given to another and Bruno's Weekly
CHARLES EDISON'S LITTLE THIMBLE THEATRE, SITUATED
AT NO. 10 FIFTH AVENUE, GREENWICH VILLAGE, N.Y.C.
Guido Bruno, Manager
Wednesday, May 10th, 1916 at 8:45 p.m.
FRANK HARRIS
The great English editor and author, the friend and publisher
of those men of :Letters In England, France, Germany and
Italy, who marked the important literary epoch of the last
century and of our own times; the most distinguished citizen
of Greenwich Village since his arrival in America, will speak
about Shakespeare as he sees him and will relate some inter-
esting accounts of his association with Oscar Wilde, with
Bernard Shaw and many others he had known
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Guido Bruno
Sonnet to Liberty
Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes
See nothing save their own unlovely woe,
Whose minds know nothing, noting care to know, —
But that the roar of thy Democracies,
Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies,
Mirror my wildest passions like the sea, —
And give my rage a brother — ! Liberty!
For this sake only do thy dissonant cries
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades
Rob nations of their rights inviolate
And I remain unmoved — and yet, and yet,
These Christs that die upon the barricades,
God knows it I am with them, in some things.
Oscar Wilde
How the News of the Fall of Vicksburg Reached Greenwich Village
(I am indebted
for this story to Mr. Henry Collins Brown, who gave me
permisiion to extract it from his beautiful "Book of Old
Nevi York," printed by him privately for collectors.)
By Euphemia M. Olcott
THE Civil War covered the most impressionable part of my life. Well do I remember being roused by the "Extras" in the night which proclaimed the original attack upon Sumter. I sprang from my bed, and from the third story hall saw my mother gazing up from the second, asking, "Do you hear? It has come." Then followed the four years of such living as we hope and believe our country will never see again. Of course, every day saw the enlistment of relatives and friends — of course I stood in the street and saw the Seventh and the Twenty-Second Regiments of the New York militia go off — with many friends of my own age going with them. I may say parenthetically that, after fifty years, I saw, from the same spot in Lafayette Place, the Seventh Regiment start over the same route, the veterans either on foot or in carriages. And from the old Oriental Hotel, kept by the same ladies, floated the same flag — with the stars all there, saluted alike by veteran and the boys of today.
In those days there was great intimacy between our family and the Roosevelts, and we always witnessed parades from the house of Mr. C. V. S. Roosevelt, grandfather of "Teddy," at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Broadway, with a garden stretching down toward Thirteenth Street, through whose green gate we entered when the stoop was crowded by the public. From those windows I saw the Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VII, and from that roof I gazed upon the immense mass meeting which expressed the loyalty of the North, which was memorably addressed by Henry Ward Beecher, and the scarcely less eloquent George W. Bethune, D. D. I remember how on that day we gazed a little doubtfully at the mother of President Roosevelt — lovely and dear always — because, forsooth, she came from Georgia.
The call of the President for 75,000 troops met with instant response, and from all sections of the country we kept hearing of relations and friends who were expecting speedily to advance "On to Richmond." Alas! it took the disastrous Bull Run and many similar events to make us realize that it was not a three months' war. Many, many friends never came back, and when, years afterwards, I heard Joseph Cook say, "I belong to a decimated generation," I knew that he and I were contemporaries.
But there were victories. As I write these words, the fiftieth anniversary of Gettysburg is being celebrated. All through the first, second and third days of July, 1863, we kept getting word of success. On the night of the Fourth we were on our roof, watching the skyrockets, not then concealed by skyscrapers, and the sound of extras arose. "More news from Gettysburg," we cried, and hastened down, my father being the first to get to the street. From the front door he shouted, "It isn't Gettysburg — Vicksburg has surrendered," and of course our joy knew no bound. Then followed an illumination — how often I think of it as I go along the "great white way" — for electricity was then only harnessed to telegraph wires and a little tallow dip in each pane satisfied our ideas of brilliancy.
On the nineteenth of that July I left New York with a merry party for a summer outing in New Hampshire. At Bellows Palls we had to wait for a train from Boston, and when it came, there were extras again. And lo! they told us of the draft riots in New York, which had been so peaceful that morning. My father was still in the city, and of course he did patrol work, as every one else did who was on the right side.
I have not spoken of the great fair of the Sanitary Commission, and I am not sure in which year it occurred, but all women and girls consecrated their time and their money, with what results the world knows. Nor have I mentioned how boys and girls alike scraped lint and rolled bandages and made "Havelocks" during classes in school — and doubtless sent them off laden with germs which would make the surgeons of today shudder and turn pale. So we lived — and at last the troops did get to Richmond and the day of great rejoicing came. And after the assassination of our President, ah me! I sometimes think the gay and happy young people of the next generation have not known what living means, even if they did have a bit of a taste of war during that hot summer when we liberated Cuba and took upon ourselves the responsibility of the Philippines.
By Euphemia M. Olcott
THE Civil War covered the most impressionable part of my life. Well do I remember being roused by the "Extras" in the night which proclaimed the original attack upon Sumter. I sprang from my bed, and from the third story hall saw my mother gazing up from the second, asking, "Do you hear? It has come." Then followed the four years of such living as we hope and believe our country will never see again. Of course, every day saw the enlistment of relatives and friends — of course I stood in the street and saw the Seventh and the Twenty-Second Regiments of the New York militia go off — with many friends of my own age going with them. I may say parenthetically that, after fifty years, I saw, from the same spot in Lafayette Place, the Seventh Regiment start over the same route, the veterans either on foot or in carriages. And from the old Oriental Hotel, kept by the same ladies, floated the same flag — with the stars all there, saluted alike by veteran and the boys of today.
In those days there was great intimacy between our family and the Roosevelts, and we always witnessed parades from the house of Mr. C. V. S. Roosevelt, grandfather of "Teddy," at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Broadway, with a garden stretching down toward Thirteenth Street, through whose green gate we entered when the stoop was crowded by the public. From those windows I saw the Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VII, and from that roof I gazed upon the immense mass meeting which expressed the loyalty of the North, which was memorably addressed by Henry Ward Beecher, and the scarcely less eloquent George W. Bethune, D. D. I remember how on that day we gazed a little doubtfully at the mother of President Roosevelt — lovely and dear always — because, forsooth, she came from Georgia.
The call of the President for 75,000 troops met with instant response, and from all sections of the country we kept hearing of relations and friends who were expecting speedily to advance "On to Richmond." Alas! it took the disastrous Bull Run and many similar events to make us realize that it was not a three months' war. Many, many friends never came back, and when, years afterwards, I heard Joseph Cook say, "I belong to a decimated generation," I knew that he and I were contemporaries.
But there were victories. As I write these words, the fiftieth anniversary of Gettysburg is being celebrated. All through the first, second and third days of July, 1863, we kept getting word of success. On the night of the Fourth we were on our roof, watching the skyrockets, not then concealed by skyscrapers, and the sound of extras arose. "More news from Gettysburg," we cried, and hastened down, my father being the first to get to the street. From the front door he shouted, "It isn't Gettysburg — Vicksburg has surrendered," and of course our joy knew no bound. Then followed an illumination — how often I think of it as I go along the "great white way" — for electricity was then only harnessed to telegraph wires and a little tallow dip in each pane satisfied our ideas of brilliancy.
On the nineteenth of that July I left New York with a merry party for a summer outing in New Hampshire. At Bellows Palls we had to wait for a train from Boston, and when it came, there were extras again. And lo! they told us of the draft riots in New York, which had been so peaceful that morning. My father was still in the city, and of course he did patrol work, as every one else did who was on the right side.
I have not spoken of the great fair of the Sanitary Commission, and I am not sure in which year it occurred, but all women and girls consecrated their time and their money, with what results the world knows. Nor have I mentioned how boys and girls alike scraped lint and rolled bandages and made "Havelocks" during classes in school — and doubtless sent them off laden with germs which would make the surgeons of today shudder and turn pale. So we lived — and at last the troops did get to Richmond and the day of great rejoicing came. And after the assassination of our President, ah me! I sometimes think the gay and happy young people of the next generation have not known what living means, even if they did have a bit of a taste of war during that hot summer when we liberated Cuba and took upon ourselves the responsibility of the Philippines.
Edison: His
Recreation of the Human Voice
By Frank Harris
I have never believed much in the mechanical reproduction of artistic masterpieces, never praised them. It has always seemed to me difficult enough for a man to become an artist, to say nothing of the machine. Photographs of drawings, it is true, are often indistinguishable from the originals; statues, too, can be reproduced in bronze and other metals to perfection. Form can be recreated to the satisfaction even of the artist himself, but color defies reproduction, and still more musical tone with its myriad varying inflections.
Accordingly, when I was assured the other day that Edison was able to recreate and render perfectly the voice of a great singer or a master's work on the violin, I took the assurances with more than the usual grain of salt.
"Come to Carnegie Hall," said my friend, "and judge for yourself," and as a doubting Thomas, I consented to go.
Carnegie Hall, as every one knows, is very large; it seats 3500 persons and its acoustic properties are not wonderful. The test, therefore was sure to be severe. But Mr. Fuller, Mr. Edison's representative, was very confident. He declared that Mr. Edison had accomplished the incredible, that it was impossible to distinguish between the singer's voice and its recreation, or between the real violin player and the mechanical reproduction.
Madame Rappold, of the Metropolitan Opera Company was the prima donna chosen for the demonstration, and the first song was "Vissi D'Arte," from Puccini's "Tosca." The music began and one was immediately caught by the beauty of the sound, the "human" quality of the voice, throbbing through the air, now rising, now falling in waves of melody. One could shut one's eyes and almost swear it was a woman singing. Suddenly the music increased in volume; we looked, Madame Rappold had joined in; just as suddenly, she ceased but the voice continued. Again and again the test was made; it was impossible to distinguish between the singer's voice and the voice given forth by the Cabinet; impossible. Every lightest tone, every shade of emotion, the tremolo of fear, the triumphant pulsing of joy, even the indescribable sense of tears in the voice were perfectly reproduced. Criticism was silenced.
With wonder and curiosity mingled we waited for the demonstration with the violin. In this test too, a violinist appeared and played, now alone, now with the instrument; at one moment you heard the Cabinet alone, then the violinist joined in, the volume of sound increased, but the sound was the same, absolutely the same, indistinguishable, identical. The miracle was accomplished.
No wonder Mr. Edison wrote of this invention: "It is the greatest thing I've ever done — almost a new art." Henceforth it will be possible for anyone to listen to the greatest music in the world by his own fireside.
It is only right to say that the demonstration with the piano was not anything like so wonderful, whether this was due in part to the size of the hall or not, I could not say; but the recreation was not perfect. Mr. Fuller warned us beforehand that Mr. Edison regards this part of his work as still experimental, and there it must be left until the. wizard takes it in hand again and does for the piano what he has done for the voice and the violin. But as both voice and violin are incomparably more complex than the piano, it is certain that sooner or later the reproduction of the piano, too, will be brought to perfection.
Meantime one can rest and be thankful for what has already been done. One can now sit in one's own room in the evening and hear Anna Case or Marie Rappold in "Vissi D'Arte," or in "Mimi" in all comfort. One can have Spaulding at command or Marie Kaiser whenever one pleases.
The world's debt to Edison has been enormously increased.
The Movies and the Press
A FACT in explanation of the popularity of the movies is the cooperation between the film magnates and the newspapers. It is not generally known that the publication in the newspapers of some, if not all, of the continued stories which are synchronously displayed in films in the moving pictures theaters, are paid for by the movie magnates. Not alone are those stories printed much as are paid advertisements, but the newspapers printing them are paid a certain royalty on the film presentations of the stories in the theaters of the district covered by the circulation of those newspapers. The advantage of this arrangement to the newspapers and to the moving picture houses is so evident as to be in no need of demonstration. In the face of such a powerful combination there seems to be slight prospect of any resuscitation of the spoken drama. The interest of the newspapers is with the moving picture institution. There is no such heavy interest of the press in the encouragement of the revival of the drama proper. The old style theatrical advertising hardly amounted to enough to make newspapers participants in theatrical prosperity. There is more newspaper participation in the movie profits. Practical journalism's success in getting in on the movie profits shows that the newspaper business will never again make the mistake it made with regard to baseball. The newspapers exploited baseball to such an extent that they created a public craving for baseball news and now they must cater to that craving. They print more baseball news than any other kind. They pay sporting writers better than any other kind. They permit those writers to exploit themselves. They turn loose their artists on the sports pages. And now the newspapers can't stop. They find themselves boosting the baseball business and getting practically nothing in the way of revenue from that business, for baseball clubs do very little advertising. They pay for small cards during the days there are games played, and that is all. The papers are working for the baseball magnates and the papers cannot quit because, if they do, they will lose their readers of sporting news, and if they lose readers, they will lose the support of the big advertisers. The baseball business has the newspaper business on the hip. When the movies came, the newspapers, remembering baseball, were in no haste to boost the game. They held off until the movies began to advertise. At first the individual movie houses began printing small cards announcing attractions. Then the film making corporations indulged in advertising splurges to help the business of the little theaters, and now these big corporations pay advertising rates to have stories like "Mary Paige" or "The Mysteries of Myra" or "The Iron Claw" printed as serials in the dailies and then pay the dailies a percentage of the receipts of every film performance of the scenarios of the serials. Of these serial-story films as works of literature, nothing need be said. They get what they go after — the public's money. They are morally clean, even if they are, of movie necessity, super-sensational. But how is the spoken drama to make any headway against the combination of journalistic business and film corporation business? Can the men who are interested in the old theater as a business afford the public? Can they arrange to get more than the Sunday page announcements of coming shows? And can they put a stop to the appearance of condemnatory criticism of their offerings? There is no journalistic criticism of the movies. These are practical questions concerning the terrific vogue of the new mechanical form of dramatic representation. Professor Muensterberg and others say that the movie is an art form, but that is disputable. But if the movies are art, must not the social philosopher find in this realm of human expression and its current crescent vogue another demonstration of the potency of economic determinism? The newspaper-movie combination is economic. It is a factor determining movie development as either a business or an art, as surely as the cheapness of movie entertainment is such a factor. There is nothing reprehensible in this. It is simply a fact we must accept. How it will work out finally no one can say. It has apparently killed the spoken drama, commercially. But it has made for the publication and the wide reading of literary plays. It has brought into being such an organization as the Drama League and innumerable societies for the study and acting of plays for the plays' sake. It has built "little theaters" and brought about the vogue oi the country theater. It has encouraged amateur acting and it may bring about a revival of the professional stock company. Even it may be said that the film play is developing a better and truer representation of actual life, as indicated in Mr. Floyd Dell's article on a new film play in this issue of the "Mirror." The possibilities of of the movie are incalculable. They are powerful in propaganda. The liquor interests aver that certain influences have used the movies in the interest of Prohibition by persistent representation of the evils of drink. The films have been preaching "Preparedness." They have been made special pleaders for the Germans and for the Allies. They are used to educate the farmers in agronomic efficiency. And now the Chicago "Public" offers a prize for the best moving picture scenario of a film drama to preach the social efficacy of the Single Tax. But the combination of the movies and the press is the most significant development of the situation. Will the movies finally dominate the press or vice versa? Is man, as Samuel Butler prophesied, to be dominated by the machine that will not only do his work but direct his thinking?
William Marion Reedy
Mother
MY mother is dead. Nothing is left of her. She has disappeared from this world.
Whenever she was being dressed or coiffured for the theater, for dinner or for a reception I was in despair as a child and like in death agony. Her leaving our home in the evening hurt me indescribably. The governess said; "Look what a beautiful mother you have! . . ." Nobody understood my grief. She went out into that world which was not ours, and even with pleasure she went. I was deeply unhappy. The rooms with the lighted candelabras seemed to me like the result of a destructive war, as after an accident. The mirror over the dressing table, the receptacles with fragrant waters which had served to manicure her hands, her dressing gown and her little slippers, everything was in disorder. No one had thought of my pain; not the old faithful cook, nor the ever-giggling chambermaid, nor the governess. They were sitting together, gossiping, and happier than ever. But I had lost my dearest, whilst the others had won an "evening off."
A few days ago at the nightly hour of 2 o'clock in the morning, I stood in front of the house. I was looking up at the dark windows in the second story. Here then at about the same quiet hour, had lain my beautiful mother in indescribable pain, and had brought me into the world. I seemed to hear my first whining. I saw mother exhausted to death, fulfilling her duty towards life. I was there, too. The faith of my being was irrevocable. I hollowed, but the midwife most likely said; "Oh! What healthy lungs!" Now I am standing here in front of these windows at the same hour of the night and seem to hear again mother's moaning. I am bald headed and pretty well demoralized and forty-eight years of age, and didn't succeed in anything, notwithstanding my wonderful talents.
Mother is dead. Nothing is left of her. She has vanished from the world and will never come back again. She gave to me a healthy body, intelligence and a soul. And so she fulfilled, ideally, her duties as a mother.
May she sleep peacefully.
After the German of Altenberg, by Guido Bruno
To Fourteenth Street
Thou art the boundary line
Between those that are and think they are,
Those that are and think they art not,
And those that are not and do not think at all.
— Tarleton Winchester
The Perfect Book
THERE could be no greater distinction for an author than to produce a book which everybody disliked. Such a book would be either a work of genius or a mass of putrefaction; probably the latter; but in any case it would be a distinction.
Literature is far too democratized; everybody reads and nearly everybody writes. A book, however good, is bound to please somebody; there are snobs who will like a book merely because they do not understand it. To please is nowadays too facile a conquest. I dream of the perfect book which would disgust not only the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Morals and the worm eaten jackals of the Press, but one's nearest friends and the masters whom one reveres.
One would even be disgusted with it oneself — supreme triumph!
Richard Aldington
Via the Egoist, London
Passing Paris
April 15th, 1916
ALTHOUGH it may sometimes be the outcome of lack of confidence, indifference to popularity is always estimable albeit the qualities it evinces may be of a negative order. It may sometimes be due to intelligibility, which in its turn may proceed from (1) of course, a superior intellect whose workings are beyond immediate reach; (2) from a natural idiosyncrasy; (3) from the use of drugs (as in Raimbaud); (4) from affectation, it being almost impossible to distinguish the last-named category with certainty. M. Sebastien Voirol, by whom we give one of the most lucid of the poems he sent in his La Feuille de Laurler Tncolore mais Verte (sic) to soldiers at the front, does not, I believe, intend deliberately to puzzle. In his estimation, literature, his literature condescending to be easily decipherable is to him, I fancy, a literature of utility, domestic, and of a low order, a literature of the streets, not literature, therefore, but merely writing. He has, apparently, come to use words in some parallel, rather than in their direct, sense. Mallarme's most hermetic pages must be M. Voirol's pet delectation. All his work, whether in poetry or in prose (L'Eden, Augurales et Talismans, Les Sandales aux Larmes), is written with the loftiest disregard for conventional coherence, but always with a species of literary gentility which commands admiration and sympathy. It is possible that words have some mystic significance for M. Voirol, to which he has the key; it is possible that to him they are images in themselves; it is possible that to him they have a life outside and beyond their meanings; it is possible he condenses and triturates and dilutes them till he reaches their soul and spirit, and it is these he distils for us. It is possible that, like many an alchemist of old, his labor is futile of results, and that he expects more of language, as they did often of their chemicals, than it can give. . . . It is possible, on the other hand, that it does open on to a new world, or at least on to one of which he has the intuition and vision — it is possible it opens on to nothing. At all events it opens on to nothing that is vulgar or commonplace and certainly on to something that is distinguished in its singularity. M. Voirol's respect of language must be respected, his tenacity to his convictions admired, his desire of the decorative eminently approved of.
M. Sebastien Voirol is the Secretary-founder of the, Anglo-French Literary Bureau, to which reference has been made in these columns as aiming at establishing a link between French and British literary circles.
Muriel Cielkovska
Extract from a letter to the London Egoist
Appropriate Names
In looking over an old New York Almanac, a curious gentleman found the following names, than which it would be difficult to imagine any more admirably adapted to the professions or trades of the persons by whom they were borne. Dunn, a tailor; Giblett and Bull, butchers; Truefit, a wigmaker; Cutmore, an eating house keeper; Boilet, a fish monger; Rhackem, an attorney; Whippy, a saddler; Breadcut, a baker; Coldman, an undertaker, Wicks, a tallow chandler; and Bringlow, an apothecary.
Epitaphs in a Connecticut Churchyard
(The wife dies)
Weep not for me, my husband dear —
I am not dead, but sleeping here.
(The husband dies)
Your husband dear has ceased to weep,
And here with you will lie and sleep.
By Frank Harris
I have never believed much in the mechanical reproduction of artistic masterpieces, never praised them. It has always seemed to me difficult enough for a man to become an artist, to say nothing of the machine. Photographs of drawings, it is true, are often indistinguishable from the originals; statues, too, can be reproduced in bronze and other metals to perfection. Form can be recreated to the satisfaction even of the artist himself, but color defies reproduction, and still more musical tone with its myriad varying inflections.
Accordingly, when I was assured the other day that Edison was able to recreate and render perfectly the voice of a great singer or a master's work on the violin, I took the assurances with more than the usual grain of salt.
"Come to Carnegie Hall," said my friend, "and judge for yourself," and as a doubting Thomas, I consented to go.
Carnegie Hall, as every one knows, is very large; it seats 3500 persons and its acoustic properties are not wonderful. The test, therefore was sure to be severe. But Mr. Fuller, Mr. Edison's representative, was very confident. He declared that Mr. Edison had accomplished the incredible, that it was impossible to distinguish between the singer's voice and its recreation, or between the real violin player and the mechanical reproduction.
Madame Rappold, of the Metropolitan Opera Company was the prima donna chosen for the demonstration, and the first song was "Vissi D'Arte," from Puccini's "Tosca." The music began and one was immediately caught by the beauty of the sound, the "human" quality of the voice, throbbing through the air, now rising, now falling in waves of melody. One could shut one's eyes and almost swear it was a woman singing. Suddenly the music increased in volume; we looked, Madame Rappold had joined in; just as suddenly, she ceased but the voice continued. Again and again the test was made; it was impossible to distinguish between the singer's voice and the voice given forth by the Cabinet; impossible. Every lightest tone, every shade of emotion, the tremolo of fear, the triumphant pulsing of joy, even the indescribable sense of tears in the voice were perfectly reproduced. Criticism was silenced.
With wonder and curiosity mingled we waited for the demonstration with the violin. In this test too, a violinist appeared and played, now alone, now with the instrument; at one moment you heard the Cabinet alone, then the violinist joined in, the volume of sound increased, but the sound was the same, absolutely the same, indistinguishable, identical. The miracle was accomplished.
No wonder Mr. Edison wrote of this invention: "It is the greatest thing I've ever done — almost a new art." Henceforth it will be possible for anyone to listen to the greatest music in the world by his own fireside.
It is only right to say that the demonstration with the piano was not anything like so wonderful, whether this was due in part to the size of the hall or not, I could not say; but the recreation was not perfect. Mr. Fuller warned us beforehand that Mr. Edison regards this part of his work as still experimental, and there it must be left until the. wizard takes it in hand again and does for the piano what he has done for the voice and the violin. But as both voice and violin are incomparably more complex than the piano, it is certain that sooner or later the reproduction of the piano, too, will be brought to perfection.
Meantime one can rest and be thankful for what has already been done. One can now sit in one's own room in the evening and hear Anna Case or Marie Rappold in "Vissi D'Arte," or in "Mimi" in all comfort. One can have Spaulding at command or Marie Kaiser whenever one pleases.
The world's debt to Edison has been enormously increased.
The Movies and the Press
A FACT in explanation of the popularity of the movies is the cooperation between the film magnates and the newspapers. It is not generally known that the publication in the newspapers of some, if not all, of the continued stories which are synchronously displayed in films in the moving pictures theaters, are paid for by the movie magnates. Not alone are those stories printed much as are paid advertisements, but the newspapers printing them are paid a certain royalty on the film presentations of the stories in the theaters of the district covered by the circulation of those newspapers. The advantage of this arrangement to the newspapers and to the moving picture houses is so evident as to be in no need of demonstration. In the face of such a powerful combination there seems to be slight prospect of any resuscitation of the spoken drama. The interest of the newspapers is with the moving picture institution. There is no such heavy interest of the press in the encouragement of the revival of the drama proper. The old style theatrical advertising hardly amounted to enough to make newspapers participants in theatrical prosperity. There is more newspaper participation in the movie profits. Practical journalism's success in getting in on the movie profits shows that the newspaper business will never again make the mistake it made with regard to baseball. The newspapers exploited baseball to such an extent that they created a public craving for baseball news and now they must cater to that craving. They print more baseball news than any other kind. They pay sporting writers better than any other kind. They permit those writers to exploit themselves. They turn loose their artists on the sports pages. And now the newspapers can't stop. They find themselves boosting the baseball business and getting practically nothing in the way of revenue from that business, for baseball clubs do very little advertising. They pay for small cards during the days there are games played, and that is all. The papers are working for the baseball magnates and the papers cannot quit because, if they do, they will lose their readers of sporting news, and if they lose readers, they will lose the support of the big advertisers. The baseball business has the newspaper business on the hip. When the movies came, the newspapers, remembering baseball, were in no haste to boost the game. They held off until the movies began to advertise. At first the individual movie houses began printing small cards announcing attractions. Then the film making corporations indulged in advertising splurges to help the business of the little theaters, and now these big corporations pay advertising rates to have stories like "Mary Paige" or "The Mysteries of Myra" or "The Iron Claw" printed as serials in the dailies and then pay the dailies a percentage of the receipts of every film performance of the scenarios of the serials. Of these serial-story films as works of literature, nothing need be said. They get what they go after — the public's money. They are morally clean, even if they are, of movie necessity, super-sensational. But how is the spoken drama to make any headway against the combination of journalistic business and film corporation business? Can the men who are interested in the old theater as a business afford the public? Can they arrange to get more than the Sunday page announcements of coming shows? And can they put a stop to the appearance of condemnatory criticism of their offerings? There is no journalistic criticism of the movies. These are practical questions concerning the terrific vogue of the new mechanical form of dramatic representation. Professor Muensterberg and others say that the movie is an art form, but that is disputable. But if the movies are art, must not the social philosopher find in this realm of human expression and its current crescent vogue another demonstration of the potency of economic determinism? The newspaper-movie combination is economic. It is a factor determining movie development as either a business or an art, as surely as the cheapness of movie entertainment is such a factor. There is nothing reprehensible in this. It is simply a fact we must accept. How it will work out finally no one can say. It has apparently killed the spoken drama, commercially. But it has made for the publication and the wide reading of literary plays. It has brought into being such an organization as the Drama League and innumerable societies for the study and acting of plays for the plays' sake. It has built "little theaters" and brought about the vogue oi the country theater. It has encouraged amateur acting and it may bring about a revival of the professional stock company. Even it may be said that the film play is developing a better and truer representation of actual life, as indicated in Mr. Floyd Dell's article on a new film play in this issue of the "Mirror." The possibilities of of the movie are incalculable. They are powerful in propaganda. The liquor interests aver that certain influences have used the movies in the interest of Prohibition by persistent representation of the evils of drink. The films have been preaching "Preparedness." They have been made special pleaders for the Germans and for the Allies. They are used to educate the farmers in agronomic efficiency. And now the Chicago "Public" offers a prize for the best moving picture scenario of a film drama to preach the social efficacy of the Single Tax. But the combination of the movies and the press is the most significant development of the situation. Will the movies finally dominate the press or vice versa? Is man, as Samuel Butler prophesied, to be dominated by the machine that will not only do his work but direct his thinking?
William Marion Reedy
Mother
MY mother is dead. Nothing is left of her. She has disappeared from this world.
Whenever she was being dressed or coiffured for the theater, for dinner or for a reception I was in despair as a child and like in death agony. Her leaving our home in the evening hurt me indescribably. The governess said; "Look what a beautiful mother you have! . . ." Nobody understood my grief. She went out into that world which was not ours, and even with pleasure she went. I was deeply unhappy. The rooms with the lighted candelabras seemed to me like the result of a destructive war, as after an accident. The mirror over the dressing table, the receptacles with fragrant waters which had served to manicure her hands, her dressing gown and her little slippers, everything was in disorder. No one had thought of my pain; not the old faithful cook, nor the ever-giggling chambermaid, nor the governess. They were sitting together, gossiping, and happier than ever. But I had lost my dearest, whilst the others had won an "evening off."
A few days ago at the nightly hour of 2 o'clock in the morning, I stood in front of the house. I was looking up at the dark windows in the second story. Here then at about the same quiet hour, had lain my beautiful mother in indescribable pain, and had brought me into the world. I seemed to hear my first whining. I saw mother exhausted to death, fulfilling her duty towards life. I was there, too. The faith of my being was irrevocable. I hollowed, but the midwife most likely said; "Oh! What healthy lungs!" Now I am standing here in front of these windows at the same hour of the night and seem to hear again mother's moaning. I am bald headed and pretty well demoralized and forty-eight years of age, and didn't succeed in anything, notwithstanding my wonderful talents.
Mother is dead. Nothing is left of her. She has vanished from the world and will never come back again. She gave to me a healthy body, intelligence and a soul. And so she fulfilled, ideally, her duties as a mother.
May she sleep peacefully.
After the German of Altenberg, by Guido Bruno
To Fourteenth Street
Thou art the boundary line
Between those that are and think they are,
Those that are and think they art not,
And those that are not and do not think at all.
— Tarleton Winchester
The Perfect Book
THERE could be no greater distinction for an author than to produce a book which everybody disliked. Such a book would be either a work of genius or a mass of putrefaction; probably the latter; but in any case it would be a distinction.
Literature is far too democratized; everybody reads and nearly everybody writes. A book, however good, is bound to please somebody; there are snobs who will like a book merely because they do not understand it. To please is nowadays too facile a conquest. I dream of the perfect book which would disgust not only the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Morals and the worm eaten jackals of the Press, but one's nearest friends and the masters whom one reveres.
One would even be disgusted with it oneself — supreme triumph!
Richard Aldington
Via the Egoist, London
Passing Paris
April 15th, 1916
ALTHOUGH it may sometimes be the outcome of lack of confidence, indifference to popularity is always estimable albeit the qualities it evinces may be of a negative order. It may sometimes be due to intelligibility, which in its turn may proceed from (1) of course, a superior intellect whose workings are beyond immediate reach; (2) from a natural idiosyncrasy; (3) from the use of drugs (as in Raimbaud); (4) from affectation, it being almost impossible to distinguish the last-named category with certainty. M. Sebastien Voirol, by whom we give one of the most lucid of the poems he sent in his La Feuille de Laurler Tncolore mais Verte (sic) to soldiers at the front, does not, I believe, intend deliberately to puzzle. In his estimation, literature, his literature condescending to be easily decipherable is to him, I fancy, a literature of utility, domestic, and of a low order, a literature of the streets, not literature, therefore, but merely writing. He has, apparently, come to use words in some parallel, rather than in their direct, sense. Mallarme's most hermetic pages must be M. Voirol's pet delectation. All his work, whether in poetry or in prose (L'Eden, Augurales et Talismans, Les Sandales aux Larmes), is written with the loftiest disregard for conventional coherence, but always with a species of literary gentility which commands admiration and sympathy. It is possible that words have some mystic significance for M. Voirol, to which he has the key; it is possible that to him they are images in themselves; it is possible that to him they have a life outside and beyond their meanings; it is possible he condenses and triturates and dilutes them till he reaches their soul and spirit, and it is these he distils for us. It is possible that, like many an alchemist of old, his labor is futile of results, and that he expects more of language, as they did often of their chemicals, than it can give. . . . It is possible, on the other hand, that it does open on to a new world, or at least on to one of which he has the intuition and vision — it is possible it opens on to nothing. At all events it opens on to nothing that is vulgar or commonplace and certainly on to something that is distinguished in its singularity. M. Voirol's respect of language must be respected, his tenacity to his convictions admired, his desire of the decorative eminently approved of.
M. Sebastien Voirol is the Secretary-founder of the, Anglo-French Literary Bureau, to which reference has been made in these columns as aiming at establishing a link between French and British literary circles.
Muriel Cielkovska
Extract from a letter to the London Egoist
Appropriate Names
In looking over an old New York Almanac, a curious gentleman found the following names, than which it would be difficult to imagine any more admirably adapted to the professions or trades of the persons by whom they were borne. Dunn, a tailor; Giblett and Bull, butchers; Truefit, a wigmaker; Cutmore, an eating house keeper; Boilet, a fish monger; Rhackem, an attorney; Whippy, a saddler; Breadcut, a baker; Coldman, an undertaker, Wicks, a tallow chandler; and Bringlow, an apothecary.
Epitaphs in a Connecticut Churchyard
(The wife dies)
Weep not for me, my husband dear —
I am not dead, but sleeping here.
(The husband dies)
Your husband dear has ceased to weep,
And here with you will lie and sleep.
Sons of
Great Fathers:
Siegfried Wagner
Perhaps
ONCE in olden times, so it is writ, there was a King of the East who possessed a copy of each of the known books of the world. Being a busy monarch, what with his wars and his many affairs of state, the King felt the need of a condensed compendium of the learning contained in his library for his own private use, and ordered his wise men to prepare it. In twenty years' time they brought him an encyclopedia which twenty camels might carry. But the King had not time to read so much as that. The wise men labored afresh reducing the matter to what one camel might carry. But still the monarch demurred. "Take it, and put it into the least possible compass," said he; "I am now old and must possess this knowledge in a form that I may take it in a glance." Then, at last, his worthy servants came to him bearing a simple leaf of the papyrus upon which was written:
This is the history of mankind: They were born; they suffered; and they died. And the quintessence of all science, of all knowledge, is this: Perhaps.
Flasks and Flagons
By Francis S. Saltus
Tokai
A GLASS of thy reviving gold to me,
Whether or no my dreamy soul be sad,
Brings souvenirs of lovely Vienna, glad
In her eternal summer-time to be!
I hear in joyous trills, resounding free,
The waltzes that the German fairies bade
The souls of Strauss and Lanier, music mad,
Compose, to set the brains of worlds aglee.
And in the Sperl, dreaming away the sweet
Of pleasant life, and finding it all praise,
Dead to the past and scorning Death's surprise,
I see in calm felicity complete
Some fair Hungarian Jewess on me gaze
With the black glory of Hebraic eyes!
Rum Punch
THE world to give thee lasting fame combines
Jamaica sends thee sugar cane, o'er seas;
And pungent spices from the Antilles,
Lend thee the perfumes of the southern vines.
France gives the crimson sorcery of her wines,
Mongolia lavishes her yellow teas,
And to endower thee with rare mysteries,
Sicily yields her lemons and sweet pines.
Thou dost recall to me days debonair,
And visions of the Quarter Latin, where,
Chatting around thy bluish spectral light
Insouciant students and alert grisettes
Drank thee while puffing regie cigarettes,
Mocking with merry song. the startled night!
Wilde's Masterpiece
THERE is one book Oscar Wilde gave to the world, and that alone is worth more than all that a hundred others did. This is "The Picture of Dorian Grey." Just abstract from the plot and read for the sake of the beautty of each sentence and of the beauty expressed in each sentence. I know it is a revelation to almost everybody who really reads it. I have given this book to ever so may men an women who didn't know it, and I know I gave them a new value for their lives. The English is masterful. The situation pictures and the scenery, unsurpassed, and what a wealth of new worlds of unknown worlds of beauty to the average being. There he mentions rare and wonderful books, of whose existence very few know; you receive a lecture about old paintings, about flowers, about germs. The inside decorator and the landscape architect find here wonderful ideas and suggestions. The student of sociology receives good tips for practical studies. The vainness of real life is painted with the same vivid colors as the shallowness of society life and the idle passing of days of the rich. The woman-hater will find very few points to change his mind, and he who believes and trusts in the female sex implicitly will see sights of womankind he has never observed before. This is a real book. It is a masterpiece — in every word unsurpassed by any fiction in the English language. If he had never written another line this book would have made him immortal. It is so sane and so perverted, so healthy and so morbid, so cruel and so tender, so full of light and full of darkness; it is throbbing, unconstrained, real, real life.
G. B.
Books and Magazines of the Week
Magazines Galore
THE year nineteen-sixteen will be known to the historian of American literature as the one blessed with many new magazines. In New York, in Chicago, in St. Louis, in Kansas City and in little places of whose existence we never even dreamt, they have been born. Eighty-four are lying before me, all in the early teens. Names? What do they matter? All of them have one aim — to redeem suppressed voices. Some acknowledge frankly being "one-man" magazines. They want to run a hole into the universe. Poor lads! They will find a hole in their pockets and a roof over their enthusiasm.
Instead of looking through the roofless house of a beauty thirsty soul to the skies and to the stars — and might it be only one star, framed by a hall room window — they will droop their heads and try to adjust the price they must pay for their venture. If they only see the humorous side of it, they will get a bushel of fun in return for every dollar and every wasted printed page.
There are others who desire to run competition with established periodicals of good standing. They pride themselves m having won "big names" for their initial issue.
And then there are others who simply had to do it, they couldn't help to gather a basketful of love and beauty and desire and idealism and distribute it among those that wish to have it.
Perhaps
ONCE in olden times, so it is writ, there was a King of the East who possessed a copy of each of the known books of the world. Being a busy monarch, what with his wars and his many affairs of state, the King felt the need of a condensed compendium of the learning contained in his library for his own private use, and ordered his wise men to prepare it. In twenty years' time they brought him an encyclopedia which twenty camels might carry. But the King had not time to read so much as that. The wise men labored afresh reducing the matter to what one camel might carry. But still the monarch demurred. "Take it, and put it into the least possible compass," said he; "I am now old and must possess this knowledge in a form that I may take it in a glance." Then, at last, his worthy servants came to him bearing a simple leaf of the papyrus upon which was written:
This is the history of mankind: They were born; they suffered; and they died. And the quintessence of all science, of all knowledge, is this: Perhaps.
Flasks and Flagons
By Francis S. Saltus
Tokai
A GLASS of thy reviving gold to me,
Whether or no my dreamy soul be sad,
Brings souvenirs of lovely Vienna, glad
In her eternal summer-time to be!
I hear in joyous trills, resounding free,
The waltzes that the German fairies bade
The souls of Strauss and Lanier, music mad,
Compose, to set the brains of worlds aglee.
And in the Sperl, dreaming away the sweet
Of pleasant life, and finding it all praise,
Dead to the past and scorning Death's surprise,
I see in calm felicity complete
Some fair Hungarian Jewess on me gaze
With the black glory of Hebraic eyes!
Rum Punch
THE world to give thee lasting fame combines
Jamaica sends thee sugar cane, o'er seas;
And pungent spices from the Antilles,
Lend thee the perfumes of the southern vines.
France gives the crimson sorcery of her wines,
Mongolia lavishes her yellow teas,
And to endower thee with rare mysteries,
Sicily yields her lemons and sweet pines.
Thou dost recall to me days debonair,
And visions of the Quarter Latin, where,
Chatting around thy bluish spectral light
Insouciant students and alert grisettes
Drank thee while puffing regie cigarettes,
Mocking with merry song. the startled night!
Wilde's Masterpiece
THERE is one book Oscar Wilde gave to the world, and that alone is worth more than all that a hundred others did. This is "The Picture of Dorian Grey." Just abstract from the plot and read for the sake of the beautty of each sentence and of the beauty expressed in each sentence. I know it is a revelation to almost everybody who really reads it. I have given this book to ever so may men an women who didn't know it, and I know I gave them a new value for their lives. The English is masterful. The situation pictures and the scenery, unsurpassed, and what a wealth of new worlds of unknown worlds of beauty to the average being. There he mentions rare and wonderful books, of whose existence very few know; you receive a lecture about old paintings, about flowers, about germs. The inside decorator and the landscape architect find here wonderful ideas and suggestions. The student of sociology receives good tips for practical studies. The vainness of real life is painted with the same vivid colors as the shallowness of society life and the idle passing of days of the rich. The woman-hater will find very few points to change his mind, and he who believes and trusts in the female sex implicitly will see sights of womankind he has never observed before. This is a real book. It is a masterpiece — in every word unsurpassed by any fiction in the English language. If he had never written another line this book would have made him immortal. It is so sane and so perverted, so healthy and so morbid, so cruel and so tender, so full of light and full of darkness; it is throbbing, unconstrained, real, real life.
G. B.
Books and Magazines of the Week
Magazines Galore
THE year nineteen-sixteen will be known to the historian of American literature as the one blessed with many new magazines. In New York, in Chicago, in St. Louis, in Kansas City and in little places of whose existence we never even dreamt, they have been born. Eighty-four are lying before me, all in the early teens. Names? What do they matter? All of them have one aim — to redeem suppressed voices. Some acknowledge frankly being "one-man" magazines. They want to run a hole into the universe. Poor lads! They will find a hole in their pockets and a roof over their enthusiasm.
Instead of looking through the roofless house of a beauty thirsty soul to the skies and to the stars — and might it be only one star, framed by a hall room window — they will droop their heads and try to adjust the price they must pay for their venture. If they only see the humorous side of it, they will get a bushel of fun in return for every dollar and every wasted printed page.
There are others who desire to run competition with established periodicals of good standing. They pride themselves m having won "big names" for their initial issue.
And then there are others who simply had to do it, they couldn't help to gather a basketful of love and beauty and desire and idealism and distribute it among those that wish to have it.
They know it won't
last long but it means life to this as long as it
lasts. And they are the men who will eventually
fail in their venture, but they will come back and
will come back again.
And if considerable time elapses and you fail to hear from them, you fail to see a new venture of theirs, you can take for granted that they are not among the living, that they have passed to happier hunting grounds — where there are no printer bills to pay, where one does not need to settle any counts with paper mills.
Significant for the endeavors of publishers in America half a century ago is the publisher's note that appears at the conclusion of the first volume of Putnam's Magazine, published 1853 by the since be-famed Putnam & Company, of New York.
"Although before publishing our prospectus, we made sure of abundant literary help, and gave the names of many of the distinguished writers who had assured us of their heart, sympathy, and promised us contributions, yet our conviction was that our best aid would come from Young America whose name had not yet been announced on Magazine covers. And so we determined not to give the names of the contributors to our Monthly, that each article might stand on its own merits, and the young unknown be presented to the public on a perfect equality with the illustrious contributor whose name, alone, would give him an audience for, in literature, the newcomer is always treated as an intruder. By this course we missed the clapping of hands and bravo which we might have commanded by announcing the name of some of our contributors, but we are so well satisfied with the result of the experiment that we shall adhere to the rule hereafter."
"Perhaps it is worthwhile to exhibit some of the mysteries of Magazine-making, and let our countrymen know how much intellectual activity contributors, four hundred and eighty-nine articles, the greater part from writers wholly unknown before. . . . Every article that we have published have been paid for at a rate which their writers have thought "liberal," all have been original, the product of American pens and with one exception, we believe that all were written for our columns."
(Publishers of our age! Go! and do likewise!)
Liars
A WARM July evening in the little park near the railroad station. Half an hour before the arrival of the Twentieth Century Limited. Under a wide spreading tree Pearl and Bill nestled in the shadow of darkness.
Pearl embraces Bill gently, tenderly, clings to him, kisses his lips and eyes repeatedly. From a nearby amusement park the sound of music borne by the wind. And now, clearly distinguished the strain:
"Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer—— "
"Bill," sobs Pearl, "if you ever hear this strain again, remember me and our parting of today."
—— (Sobbing, softly) ——
"I cannot live without you . . . Let me go with you . . . . Take me with you."
"Be sensible, Pearl," Bill persuades.
"You can't leave your mother just now and I have to go back to that miserable little city. How unhappy you would be out there if I couldn't always be with you!"
"And you know I could not."
"Come, sweetheart, walk over with me to the train so I may have you until the last second and at Christmas time I'll come again."
"That is not far off. Just five months."
"And we'll write to each other and forget each other."
"Won't you. Pearl, my darling, my only one?"
And he kisses her in the shadows of the trees. The far off music plays:
"Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer—— "
She goes with him, step by step, to the ticket office, to the baggage agent, to the station platform, to the door of the coach.
A last embrace.
The train begins to move.
Pearl waves with the tear-wet handkerchief and the music plays.
TWO days later in the city.
Bill lounges on the couch of his hotel room. Nestled up to him — Mae. Her black hair is disheveled. The brown, hazel eyes are laughing. The little white teeth, the fresh red lips, the dimples in the cheek — everybody cheer and happiness.
And she kisses him again and again: "Finally you came! I didn't know what to do with myself in that lonely, lonesome town and so I came up here to meet you. And tomorrow we shall travel home together and if the sun shines as today it will be glorious!"
"Billy, my Billy ——" She kisses him madly. And from the dining room through the open window of the hotel room there sounds:
IN the parlor of Pearl's mother.
It is evening. The light is not turned on.
Pearl leans against the window sill.
At her side — Arthur — cheek against cheek.
"Your mother stays away long today and in the meantime I can caress . . . can kiss you."
And he kisses her: "Do you really care for me?"
"If you could only feel how I love you, Pearl, my darling!"
"And you really love me?"
And she throws her arms about his neck and she looks into his eyes and whispers in his ear and kisses him. And in the adjoining room her sister plays on the piano:
"Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer —— "
The One Missive
TWO days later, Pearl receives a postal from Bill.
"Dearie: — I am sitting alone in the desolate hotel waiting for the train that will take me farther away from you again. Downstairs in the dining room the music plays:
"Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer — "
"I think of you and write it to you. Your Bill."
The Other Missive
AND among the mail awaiting him. Bill found a little letter
"Billy Dear: — You have been away two days and seems an eternity to me. In the adjoining room my sister is playing on the piano. She plays:"
"Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer — "
"She doesn't know how that air tortures me and quickly I have to write to you. I think of you and love you.
Pearl."
Thoughts on Suicide — II
By Martin Brown
Jumping From a Height
WHAT loathsome spirit put this in my mind?
What devil of delirium drives me so
That up, and up, on any path I find
Stumbling along, my weary footsteps go?
Now — now — at last I see my horrid goal
A sickening, dizzy drop to where below,
A zigzag path winds down a stony knoll.
Did I leave there a century ago?
I cannot help it, have no strength to fight
The tentacles that draw me on and on,
They say that after all one dies of fright
That in the whistling air all sense is gone.
And yet I fear that I shall live to know
That hideous impact where the rocks are grey.
A ghastly suction draws me from below —
It is of fate, and this the fatal way.
Drowning
I GIVE myself abandoned to your arms
Ecstatic, free, to do with as you will.
In blissful trust I feel your cool embrace
Nor fear your cryptic eyes so dark and still.
And when they find me sleeping on your breast
Smothered with kisses, that you loved me so,
With tears they'll murmur — "drowned" — nor understand
What only God and you and I can know.
Roma Lucida
By Henri Fumet
Translated from the French for Bruno's Weekly by Renee Lacoste.
Dear God, promise me death, that I may taste
life. Dear God, give me remorse, that I may
taste pleasure. Dear God, make me the equal
of the daughters of Eve.
(Prayer of Leila, daughter of Lilith)
—— Anatole France
SHE was a strange, little girl. He followed her for a while through the dark streets where she seemed lost. Then he spoke to her:
"Pardon me, little lady; don't I know you?"
"Upon my word, sir, I know nothing about it, but I hardly believe it."
"Now I know you."
She laughed.
"What is your name?"
"Roma Lucida."
He was startled.
"It is true? That's really your name? Can there be a woman who is called that . . . Permit me to salute you. You give me a great deal of pleasure, you don't realize how much."
"I am well aware that I have an original name, but no one has ever complimented me about it in such a fashion."
"Just fancy . . . To find on the pavement of a city, in the dust of the setting sun, a little girl like you, with eyes like yours, with hair like this, it is so rare! . . . And if you bear the name of the eternal city, who can render homage to your true worth! . . . Why do you have such a name?"
"My father was of Italian descent. He always wanted a daughter so he could call her Roma, wishing her name to be a beautiful phrase."
"Your father must have been very intelligent?"
"He wrote books which never were printed. He spoke French and Italian, and thoroughly understood both languages. But he preferred French because of its monotone cadence and because he abhorred the accent of tones. Thus it was that he pronounced my name slowly, holding all the syllables as if singing it; when people pronounced it after the Italian fashion, only sounding the 'o' and the 't,' it was a real pain to him; he said they disfigured me."
While she was speaking, he was looking at her eyes, trying to discover their real shade; he admired her hands and her ankles. Her whole body was as harmonious as a poem. She bore the impediment of modern dress with the grace of a poplar tree.
"Oh, Roma Lucida! How much you please me. Do you know I was wandering about the streets like a lost soul and that you base resurrected me? You have performed a good deed. I hope you aren't going to send me away now?"
"You will have to leave, though."
"Why? . . . You are about to reply with a platitude and I will be obliged to answer you in the same fashion. You don't know me; neither do I know you. I would hardly be able to recognize you in a crowd a month from now. Come, give me your arm. We are going to walk by the setting sun telling each other stories."
Willingly the little girl put her hand on the arm of her new friend. It was thus they became acquainted.
They strolled around all evening in the dusk. Then they said farewell. He kissed her wrist above the glove. She began to laugh, as she had never been kissed in this way before.
"Promise to come to see me!"
"I promise."
(To be Continued)
Bruno's Weekly, published weekly by Charles Edison, and edited and written by Guido Bruno, both at 58 Washington Square, New York City. Subscription $2 a year.
Entered as second class matter at the Post Office of New York, N. Y., October 14th. 1915, under the Act of March 3d, 1879.
And if considerable time elapses and you fail to hear from them, you fail to see a new venture of theirs, you can take for granted that they are not among the living, that they have passed to happier hunting grounds — where there are no printer bills to pay, where one does not need to settle any counts with paper mills.
Significant for the endeavors of publishers in America half a century ago is the publisher's note that appears at the conclusion of the first volume of Putnam's Magazine, published 1853 by the since be-famed Putnam & Company, of New York.
"Although before publishing our prospectus, we made sure of abundant literary help, and gave the names of many of the distinguished writers who had assured us of their heart, sympathy, and promised us contributions, yet our conviction was that our best aid would come from Young America whose name had not yet been announced on Magazine covers. And so we determined not to give the names of the contributors to our Monthly, that each article might stand on its own merits, and the young unknown be presented to the public on a perfect equality with the illustrious contributor whose name, alone, would give him an audience for, in literature, the newcomer is always treated as an intruder. By this course we missed the clapping of hands and bravo which we might have commanded by announcing the name of some of our contributors, but we are so well satisfied with the result of the experiment that we shall adhere to the rule hereafter."
"Perhaps it is worthwhile to exhibit some of the mysteries of Magazine-making, and let our countrymen know how much intellectual activity contributors, four hundred and eighty-nine articles, the greater part from writers wholly unknown before. . . . Every article that we have published have been paid for at a rate which their writers have thought "liberal," all have been original, the product of American pens and with one exception, we believe that all were written for our columns."
(Publishers of our age! Go! and do likewise!)
Liars
A WARM July evening in the little park near the railroad station. Half an hour before the arrival of the Twentieth Century Limited. Under a wide spreading tree Pearl and Bill nestled in the shadow of darkness.
Pearl embraces Bill gently, tenderly, clings to him, kisses his lips and eyes repeatedly. From a nearby amusement park the sound of music borne by the wind. And now, clearly distinguished the strain:
"Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer—— "
"Bill," sobs Pearl, "if you ever hear this strain again, remember me and our parting of today."
—— (Sobbing, softly) ——
"I cannot live without you . . . Let me go with you . . . . Take me with you."
"Be sensible, Pearl," Bill persuades.
"You can't leave your mother just now and I have to go back to that miserable little city. How unhappy you would be out there if I couldn't always be with you!"
"And you know I could not."
"Come, sweetheart, walk over with me to the train so I may have you until the last second and at Christmas time I'll come again."
"That is not far off. Just five months."
"And we'll write to each other and forget each other."
"Won't you. Pearl, my darling, my only one?"
And he kisses her in the shadows of the trees. The far off music plays:
"Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer—— "
She goes with him, step by step, to the ticket office, to the baggage agent, to the station platform, to the door of the coach.
A last embrace.
The train begins to move.
Pearl waves with the tear-wet handkerchief and the music plays.
II.
TWO days later in the city.
Bill lounges on the couch of his hotel room. Nestled up to him — Mae. Her black hair is disheveled. The brown, hazel eyes are laughing. The little white teeth, the fresh red lips, the dimples in the cheek — everybody cheer and happiness.
And she kisses him again and again: "Finally you came! I didn't know what to do with myself in that lonely, lonesome town and so I came up here to meet you. And tomorrow we shall travel home together and if the sun shines as today it will be glorious!"
"Billy, my Billy ——" She kisses him madly. And from the dining room through the open window of the hotel room there sounds:
IN the parlor of Pearl's mother.
It is evening. The light is not turned on.
Pearl leans against the window sill.
At her side — Arthur — cheek against cheek.
"Your mother stays away long today and in the meantime I can caress . . . can kiss you."
And he kisses her: "Do you really care for me?"
"If you could only feel how I love you, Pearl, my darling!"
"And you really love me?"
And she throws her arms about his neck and she looks into his eyes and whispers in his ear and kisses him. And in the adjoining room her sister plays on the piano:
"Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer —— "
The One Missive
TWO days later, Pearl receives a postal from Bill.
"Dearie: — I am sitting alone in the desolate hotel waiting for the train that will take me farther away from you again. Downstairs in the dining room the music plays:
"Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer — "
"I think of you and write it to you. Your Bill."
The Other Missive
AND among the mail awaiting him. Bill found a little letter
"Billy Dear: — You have been away two days and seems an eternity to me. In the adjoining room my sister is playing on the piano. She plays:"
"Glow, little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer — "
"She doesn't know how that air tortures me and quickly I have to write to you. I think of you and love you.
Pearl."
Thoughts on Suicide — II
By Martin Brown
Jumping From a Height
WHAT loathsome spirit put this in my mind?
What devil of delirium drives me so
That up, and up, on any path I find
Stumbling along, my weary footsteps go?
Now — now — at last I see my horrid goal
A sickening, dizzy drop to where below,
A zigzag path winds down a stony knoll.
Did I leave there a century ago?
I cannot help it, have no strength to fight
The tentacles that draw me on and on,
They say that after all one dies of fright
That in the whistling air all sense is gone.
And yet I fear that I shall live to know
That hideous impact where the rocks are grey.
A ghastly suction draws me from below —
It is of fate, and this the fatal way.
Drowning
I GIVE myself abandoned to your arms
Ecstatic, free, to do with as you will.
In blissful trust I feel your cool embrace
Nor fear your cryptic eyes so dark and still.
And when they find me sleeping on your breast
Smothered with kisses, that you loved me so,
With tears they'll murmur — "drowned" — nor understand
What only God and you and I can know.
Roma Lucida
By Henri Fumet
Translated from the French for Bruno's Weekly by Renee Lacoste.
Dear God, promise me death, that I may taste
life. Dear God, give me remorse, that I may
taste pleasure. Dear God, make me the equal
of the daughters of Eve.
(Prayer of Leila, daughter of Lilith)
—— Anatole France
SHE was a strange, little girl. He followed her for a while through the dark streets where she seemed lost. Then he spoke to her:
"Pardon me, little lady; don't I know you?"
"Upon my word, sir, I know nothing about it, but I hardly believe it."
"Now I know you."
She laughed.
"What is your name?"
"Roma Lucida."
He was startled.
"It is true? That's really your name? Can there be a woman who is called that . . . Permit me to salute you. You give me a great deal of pleasure, you don't realize how much."
"I am well aware that I have an original name, but no one has ever complimented me about it in such a fashion."
"Just fancy . . . To find on the pavement of a city, in the dust of the setting sun, a little girl like you, with eyes like yours, with hair like this, it is so rare! . . . And if you bear the name of the eternal city, who can render homage to your true worth! . . . Why do you have such a name?"
"My father was of Italian descent. He always wanted a daughter so he could call her Roma, wishing her name to be a beautiful phrase."
"Your father must have been very intelligent?"
"He wrote books which never were printed. He spoke French and Italian, and thoroughly understood both languages. But he preferred French because of its monotone cadence and because he abhorred the accent of tones. Thus it was that he pronounced my name slowly, holding all the syllables as if singing it; when people pronounced it after the Italian fashion, only sounding the 'o' and the 't,' it was a real pain to him; he said they disfigured me."
While she was speaking, he was looking at her eyes, trying to discover their real shade; he admired her hands and her ankles. Her whole body was as harmonious as a poem. She bore the impediment of modern dress with the grace of a poplar tree.
"Oh, Roma Lucida! How much you please me. Do you know I was wandering about the streets like a lost soul and that you base resurrected me? You have performed a good deed. I hope you aren't going to send me away now?"
"You will have to leave, though."
"Why? . . . You are about to reply with a platitude and I will be obliged to answer you in the same fashion. You don't know me; neither do I know you. I would hardly be able to recognize you in a crowd a month from now. Come, give me your arm. We are going to walk by the setting sun telling each other stories."
Willingly the little girl put her hand on the arm of her new friend. It was thus they became acquainted.
They strolled around all evening in the dusk. Then they said farewell. He kissed her wrist above the glove. She began to laugh, as she had never been kissed in this way before.
"Promise to come to see me!"
"I promise."
(To be Continued)
Bruno's Weekly, published weekly by Charles Edison, and edited and written by Guido Bruno, both at 58 Washington Square, New York City. Subscription $2 a year.
Entered as second class matter at the Post Office of New York, N. Y., October 14th. 1915, under the Act of March 3d, 1879.
