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DRYING UP OF THE PIERIAN SPRING-A LAMENTATION OVER MODERN ART

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HAT Arnold Bennett, Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton and other modern writers chiefly need, it seems, is some "ki-in." This is not, as might be presumed, a simplified spelling of cayenne, and Mr. Layton Crippen, who has made this discovery as to "ki-in,” would be much annoyed if it were considered a synonym for "pep." He tells us about it in "Fire and Clay" (Henry Holt and Company), a bitter lament over the decadence of contemporary life, literature, painting and sculpture, which an English critic calls a Jeremiad.

Ki-in, we learn, is a Japanese word that connotes a quality that can be neither imparted nor acquired. It must be innate. It is something akin to what the Romans meant by divinus afflatus. Mr. Crippen quotes approvingly Henry P. Howe's statement that the great artists of the Tosa and Kano schools, in the middle years of their active lives, retired from the world, shaved their heads, and, taking the titular rank of Hogen, Hoin or Hokyo, became Buddhist priests and entered monasteries, there to pass their remaining days, dividing their time between meditation and inspired work, that they might leave behind them imperishable monuments to the honor and glory of Japanese art.

Mr. Crippen does not directly urge Messrs. Chesterton, Shaw and Bennett to shave their heads and enter monasteries, as Huysmans did, but he says:

"What_ki-in is there in the books of Arnold Bennett, Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton, the others who take their place among the 'best sellers'? What inspiration is to be found in the Royal Academy or the Salon, the monument to Victor Emmanuel, the costly abortion that crowns Montmartre, the Berlin 'Dome,' the Queen Victoria Memorial? And as for the Japanese, the last nation in the world among whom ki-in flowered, they are becoming each year more

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like ourselves. Their old ideals are disappearing, with their happiness and their subtle arts. The flame is dying, the violet wine has been drained. The street decorations for the funeral of the Emperor Mutsuhito rivalled in hideousness the

WHAT MODERN WRITERS NEED These Japanese characters spell ki-in, the essential quality of great art.

worst efforts of the kind in Europe, even in England."

Mr. Crippen believes that the world's progress since the Middle Ages has been purely materialistic, and that in spiritual matters we are vastly inferior to our ancestors. And this, he thinks, has resulted in an appalling decadence of art and letters. He writes:

"It is generally agreed that of all the great European powers Russia is the least 'advanced.' The Russian peasant retains more of his ancient arts than the peasant of any other country. A volume, 'Peasant Art in Russia,' recently published by The Studio, is a revelation to those of us who were ignorant of the beautiful work still being done in Great and Little Russia. On every page there are illustrations of exquisite drawn-thread linen, of embroidery in gold and silk, of earth

enware tiles and domestic vessels that rival in quaintness of design the productions of old Holland, of carved and painted woodwork that no London or Paris or New York establishment could produce at any price. But even more significant are the photographs of such objects as valki (carved wooden laundry

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beetles), pralki (carved distaffs), cakemolds in delightful designs, egg-dishes in the form of birds, iron and copper padlocks in the shapes of strange monsters, smoothing-irons representing lions, many other articles which in the West are now hopelessly utilitarian and which we do not even think of regarding as possible of adornment.

"Is it not strange that the Russian peasant, the poorest and most ignorant in all Europe, should yet make for himself objects of a refinement unknown in any millionaire's house? Can we not read an obvious lesson in the circumstance that the one European country into which modern 'progress' has not yet penetrated is the one country that retains the ancient instinct of beauty?"

There seem to be few critics, says Mr. Crippen, who realize the one radical difference between the work of the past and that of to-day, not only in art but in literature. The work of the past was simple for the reason that it had no need to be anything else. Our work is elaborate because elaboration is necessary if we would hide, or attempt to hide, our loss of the instinct of beauty. Gray wrote to Mason: “If the sentiment must stand, twist it a little into

an apophthegm, stick a flower into it, gild it with a costly expression." This, Mr. Crippen believes, is what our writers do all the while. We can no longer be spontaneous. The Pierian spring has dried up.

Naturally, Mr. Crippen's strictures have been resented by many critics. The New York Times Review of Books thinks that he judges the whole by the part, that he judges the nation merely by its loudest citizens. And the Manchester Guardian (the paper which the late William Ernest Henley edited) defends modern art and literature, saying:

"Mr. Crippen would not think everyone so miserable if he were not miserable himself; and he is miserable because, erudite and absorbed in the glorious creations of the past, he can see no good in any but a special kind of beauty."

THE PARLOUS CONDITION OF LITERARY CRITICISM

ITERARY criticism in the United States and in England is in a bad way. A distinguished novelist, Mrs. Edith Wharton, and a distinguished editor, Professor Bliss Perry, sometime of The Atlantic Monthly, have said so. They ought to know. The author of "Ethan Frome" and "The Reef" contributes her criticism of criticism to the Lit erary Supplement of the London Times, and Professor Perry contributes his to the Yale Review.

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THE HEAVY SLEDGE "An enhancement of the facts into a large impressive truth."

quiries, she believes, if duly pressed, yield a full answer to the esthetic problem of the novel. Outside of them no criticism can be either relevant or interesting, since it is only by viewing

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construction. And she
points out the sadly neg-
lected whole duty of the
book-reviewer in these
words:

"It is the critic's affair
to deal discriminatingly
with these new facts, to
point out and insist upon
the superior permanence
and beauty of the subject
deeply pondered, discerned
and released from encum-
bering trivialities, and to
show that vague bulk may
produce less impression
of weight and solidity
than a firmly outlined
form. It is for the critic,
farther, to show that the
great Russian novelists-
and Tolstoy in particular
-may have produced their
effects in spite of, and not
because of, their seeming
wastefulness of method,
and that, in the case of
Tolstoy at any rate, the
wastefulness will nearly
always be found to have
served a deliberate artistic purpose."

A GLORIFICATION OF MANUAL LABOR
This energetic study of a stevedore has been bought by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Professor Perry is absolutely sure that the book-review, as it now exists in the United States, is worthless. "We all agree," he says, "that the status of literary criticism in America is unsatisfactory. Those of us who write books agree that it is only now and then, and by lucky accident, that our books are competently reviewed. We get praise enough and sometimes blame enough-or nearly enough-but we do not get real criticism." What we get, it seems, is either an impressionistic, "interpretative" view of the book under consideration, or an echo of the publisher's puff. What we need, Professor Perry believes, is the sort of criticism which he calls "weighing."

He explains his meaning in these words:

"I buy, for example, a pound of butter at the grocer's. The grocer puts into one end of his scales a piece of metal-whose exactness of weight, one may add, is guaranteed by the State-and into the pan at the other end of his scales he drops a lump of butter-whose purity, as it happens. is also guaranteed by the State. With a practised and, I trust, a dispassionate eye he watches the indicator, adds to or subtracts from the lump of butter until the scales declare that the lump

weighs precisely one pound, and with that declaration, the critical part of the transaction is over. The grocer becomes again a friend, a politician, a philosopher— perhaps a creditor; he ceases to be a critic."

these into a harmonious living unit of force.

MAHONRI YOUNG'S
YOUNG'S ARTISTIC SEARCH FOR THE
RHYTHM OF LABOR
terview, pointing out that the modern
exponent of the essentially classic tra-
dition creates, not by imitating the
subjects or the methods of the Greeks,
but by a faithful interpretation of the
beauty and strength of modern life.
What he terms this "musical spirit" is,
in his opinion, manifested in Labor
and Industry. But a literal repre-
sentation of Labor, he claims, is not
enough. The artist, and more par-
ticularly the sculptor, must wait for,
search for, and discover the rhythmic
moments: then he must synthesize

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ODERN industry has inspired the plastic art of Mahonri Young. This sculptor hunts for the rhythm of labor, the elemental music of the workaday world Among the builders of American sky-scrapers, the excavating and wrecking crews of New York, the builders of subways and aqueducts, he searches for that eternal underlying spirit of rhythm that found expression in the friezes of the Parthenon, and later among the Florentine art of the Quattrocento. So declared Mr. Young in a recent in

Young, we learn from The International Studio, was born in Salt Lake City in 1877, and is a grandson of the famous Mormon leader, Brigham Young. He studied long enough in Paris to realize that his true inspiration was to be found elsewhere, and after having assimilated a certain amount of instruction and experience, he returned to this country to work out his own artistic salvation. Says the Studio:

"His best work is distinguished by nobility and breadth of conception, close and conscientious observation of nature, a predilection for virile form and plastic line of great beauty and power. . . . He is a master workman whose technical facility is at all times subordinated to the spiritual significance of his work. It is, lofty tone, simplicity and dignity of his work are the result of a perfect union of every element that goes into the creation of a complete work of art."

The same magazine notes the quality of strength both in the drawings and sculptures of this artist-an admiration for strength and for the men who "do things." There is a message of the glorification of labor almost akin to that of Brangwyn." But this "glorification of labor" evokes a comparison with Meunier, and Mr. Young denies that his art resembles Meunier's, except, perhaps, in externals.

"I seem

to remember," remarks Charles Caffin in the New York American, "his telling me that labor, except as a motive for studying its structural possibilities, did not interest him. If so, despite his personal feelings, he makes it humanly as well as artistically interesting." The emotional appeal is present, Mr. Caffin believes, in his "Tired Out," a seated man whose every muscle is slack from weariness. The same quality, he says, is present in the "Scrubwoman." Mr. Caffin continues:

"A noble piece in miniature is the 'Chiseler,' who, bent over on one knee, is reaching down to hold the chisel at a lower level. How interestingly contrasted are the different directions of the pose; what a concentration of effort welds all into a harmonious whole! Another fascinating piece is the organ grinder, cast in

rusty iron. It is a grotesque, but so human and withal so expressively sculptural in the designed rudeness of its technique. On the other hand the 'prospector' appears quite commonplace in its merely literal

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In this sketch, Mahonrie Young makes rough outdoor work humanly as well as artistically interesting.

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EFFIE'S CASTLE IN THE AIR—A STORY

The blind girl has figured frequently in novels and plays as a center of pathos, but we seldom find our writers or playwrights setting forth the pathos in the lives of those afflicted as Effie was. It is a sad little story-not too sad but just sad enough to arouse a sympathetic interest. We find it in The Smart Set, told by Tarleton Collier. VERY person in the Cloverwood station was attracted by the trim little figure in a tan linen dress one morning in early June. From her flower basket hat to her round, silk-clad ankle and tiny tan pumps, there was that appearance of freshness, exquisiteness and harmony which is the world's demand of

woman.

And from under the low-hanging hat peeped the brightest and cheeriest of faces.

The girl was with her father and mother and three others: a man and two women. Her companions were singularly alike in the respect of a common blankness, almost stupidity, of expression. The people in the waiting-room recognized it as the characteristic of deaf mutes, for they perceived interchanges of gestures, which they knew as sign language.

Strangely, they did not identify the girl as one of the group of mutes, altho she sat with them on the long bench. But when two small boys, who were wrestling, slipped and fell on the smooth tiled floor, she touched the arm of the woman who sat on one side of her, and laughed. Then they knew; it was a high, uninflected, uncanny shout, rather than a laugh; it was plainly the utterance of one who had never heard a laugh that betokens real mirth and enjoyment of life; it was a laugh like that of the others who sat there, blank of faces, nimble of hands -the laugh of a deaf mute.

bench, and as he came, with hand outstretched, toward her father, who sat by her side, Effie started, when she saw him greet her father in the familiar sign language. A mute? That admirable young person? With the curiosity of a child, she stared at him. Easily, he continued the conversation of gestures, and she decided that he could be nothing else but one like herself.

Effie had never pitied herself, but her heart went out to the young man; she saw in him perfection deprived of opportunity and of full pleasures. But it is hard to sustain sympathy with a person whose condition is identical with your own; so with Effie, whose pity became interest. She sidled closer to her father and slipped her hand under his arm. The stranger would see; ah, he did, and as he looked in her wide eyes, he smiled, as the others had, at the daintiness of her. Effie's heart gave a throb, and she looked away.

Effie wished that she knew him; she knew nobody. There were father and mother, who loved her, and who cried now and then when they hugged her; there was Terry, the deaf and dumb man who came to their house often; there were Mr. Simpson, and Mary and Mrs. Dardell-all like herself. But none of them looked especially pleasing in blue serge, or otherwise, and none of them looked as if they could pick her up and carry her away off, and make her glad that they did. And, she remembered, they were all timid, and always seemed to shrink from some unknown terror. The man in blue serge was afraid of nothing, because he looked good and smiled. And to think that he was one like herself!

Her glance settled for the space of a minute on a tall young man who stood before the ticket seller's window. He was clad in the most conventional of summer clothes-straw hat, blue serge, tan shoes. But blue serge was Effie's ideal of desirable manly raiment, and she looked. At first she saw only a broad back; then the man turned, and she saw a youthful face that plainly was made to smile, a face that combined the physical essences of good companionship and of good sense. In all, it was a very pleasing face, and Effie realized that this was the kind of a man that she would like to know. Not that she had fixed a type or ideal; with all her superficial simplicity, Effie was wise enough to know that she must not dream. She had dreamed, now and then, when she first began to read, and she found that her life could be very miserable if she allowed it. Thereupon she had rigidly schooled herself not to think of what she would like to be or to have. She had never seats. looked with interest at a man before; now -oh, well, it must be that blue serge that fitted so well.

She watched him as he, glancing around, smiled in the direction of her

She caught her father spelling out her name on his fingers. The young man nodded to her and smiled again. In her childish manner, she smiled back, snuggled closer to her father, and motioned the young man to the seat beside her. Effie was untutored, natural, in many ways a child still. And when she put her hand in the young man's, it meant nothing but that she understood, and was sorry, and that they were alike. It was strange, she thought, that the young man should change color and glance askance at her father; but Mr. Wilson was indifferent, and the man held her hand lightly for a minute or two. The train for which they had been waiting rolled into the shed, and there was a rush for

She found one across from her father and mother. The man in blue serge came in; she was watching for him, and she nodded toward him. He raised his hat. He was about to pass by, and a

fear seized her. She clutched her skirts, and moved over to the wall, into the smallest possible space. It was the most obvious of invitations. The man seemed to hesitate. Then he sat down beside her, and she smiled into his eyes so gayly and unaffectedly that a sober look on his face melted into an answering smile.

"We are going on a picnic,” she spelled on her fingers. There seemed no answer to be made, and after a pause, she spelled: "We are going to Lake Monroe."

For ten minutes there was a continuance of the simple conversation. Her name, her father's, her mother's, Terry's and those of the other two, she told him. She asked his, and he spelled it out for her:

"Frederick Washburn Clarke."

Effie was having the time of her life. She had never experienced anything like this before. It was new to be riding, side by side and lightly in contact with a young man who was big and good-looking and brave-she knew that he was brave and good; to be conversing with him was wonderful. And he was one like her!

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She fell to picking out with a pin the letters of his name on a newspaper. He was ing to the city, he had told her. She was going beyond, ten miles, to the lake. When the factory stacks and the multiplicity of rails told her that they were nearing the city, her heart grew heavy. When she saw him look to his suitcase and fold his newspaper, a sudden impulse nerved her. She took a pencil from her satchel, and wrote on the edge of his paper: "1005 Cloverwood Avenue. Come sometimes."

He shook her hand as he rose, and the memory of her big eyes, .smiling for once, as he saw them then, haunted him for a long time after.

She leaned out of the window, and watched him. As he stepped from the coach to the platform and turned away, she saw a man come behind him, and touch him on the shoulder. He turned. He smiled, and then, plainly, unmistakably, he spoke to the newcomer and laughed.

The two walked off together; they passed directly under her window, and she saw the young man in the blue serge engaged in the most animated of conversations. He was talking-she saw it. As he passed under her window, he did not look up, but went on into the station, his arm around the shoulder of the man to whom he was talking.

The train filled with passengers. The man who took the seat which the blue serge man had left was startled from his newspaper by the sight of a tear that trickled down Effie's face and fell on her hand.

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meadow lark?

VOICES OF THE
THE LIVING POETS

TH

UNSATISFIED.

BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

We

HE bird flies home to its young;
The flower folds its leaves about
an opening bud.

HEN the guns of the is always wholesome and sincere. world are crashing in find this in the Cosmopolitan · our ears, what chance is there to hear the songs of the thrush and None at all it would seem; yet even in the tumult of war the inspiring words of the poets ring out above the bugle's notes, and the Marseillaise and the Wacht am Rhein have power to send molten fire through the veins of men as they march on to almost certain death. For the poet is. not for our moods of tranquillity alone. He gives the world its battle songs as well as its cradle songs and celebrates its deeds of slaughter as well as its deeds of love.

The

Less and less, however, as the years roll around do the poets find their best inspiration in the clash of arms. conquests over nature, the struggles against social injustice, seem to appeal more strongly than the glory of the war-lords; and the modern poet singing of a modern war has the air of an apologist even in his most eloquent lines. We have reached the point where war in the abstract, at least, has few or no defenders, and that is something.

The storm that broke over Europe last month brings again to mind one of William Watson's best sonnets:

PEACE AND WAR.

BY WILLIAM WATSON.

And in my neighbor's house there
is the cry of a child.

I close my window that I need not hear.

She is mine, and she is very beautiful;
And in her heart there is no evil thought.
There is even love in her heart-
Love of life, love of joy, love of this

fair world,

And love of me (or love of my love for
her);

Yet she will never consent to bear me a

child.

And when I speak of it she weeps.
Always she weeps, saying:
"Do I not bring joy enough into your
life?

Are you not satisfied with me and my
love,

As I am satisfied with you?

Never would I urge you to some great
peril

To please my whim; yet ever so you

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Always she weeps until I kiss away her
tears,

And soothe her with sweet lies, saying I
am content.

HE sleek sea, gorged and sated, Then she goes singing through the house
basking lies;
like some bright bird

THE

The cruel creature fawns and blinks and purrs;

And almost we forget what fangs are hers,

And trust for once her emerald-golden

eyes;

Tho haply on the morrow she shall rise
And summon her infernal ministers,
And charge her everlasting barriers,
With wild white fingers snatching at the
skies.

Preening her wings, making herself all
beautiful,

Perching upon my knee, and pecking at
my lips

With little kisses. So again love's ship
Goes sailing forth upon a portless sea,
From nowhere unto nowhere; and it takes
Or brings no cargoes to enrich the world.
The years

Are passing us. We will yet be old
Who now are young. And all the man in

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Surely Mr. Untermyer meant to give a portrait of the times of Jane Austen rather than one of our own militant and rebellious times when he wrote the following, which we find in the Smart Set:

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