gains in vividness from the exact dinner there were many of the swell fidelity with which Mr. Traubel relates fellows present: the man I speak of was it: the principal guest. In the course of their dinner he mentioned his letter to me. Lowell, who had had a couple of glasses of wine-was flushed-called out: "What, a letter for Walt Whitman! For God Almighty's sake don't deliver it! Walt Whitman! Do you know who Walt Whitman is? Why Walt Whitman is a rowdy, a New York tough, a loafer, a frequenter of low places-friend of cabdrivers!"-and all that.' 'Words like those,' Whitman said, when the passion was blown over (he had been powerfully contemptuous in stating himself): 'The note was never delivered.' He had There was the Cambridge learned of the incident 'from one who

"He said: "The world now can have no idea of the bitterness of the feeling against me in those early days. I was a tough-obscene: indeed, it was my obscenity, libidinousness, all that, upon. which they made up their charges.' He repeated the story of the nobleman whom Lowell turned back. 'He came over here with a letter of introduction from some man of high standing in England-Rossetti, William Rossetti, I guess'-but correcting himself after a pause: 'No-not Rossetti: it could not have been Rossetti: some other.

51

was present-was friendly-did not share Lowell's feelings.' He said O'Connor had spoken of it, but only by way of allusion.'

"But O'Connor knows all about itmade some detailed note of it at oncea note probably lost now, as so many things have been, must be.' Whitman added that when I met O'Connor I should 'have him unbosom on this subject: he is never extra anxious to unbosom, but will do so, caught in the right mood: he knows all about it: no one else knows it so fully. This incident contained in essence the spirit of the opposition at one time omnipotent.' Was 'sure Emerson never yielded to it, but he must have had it dinned into his ears.""

S

IR EDWIN DURNING-LAWRENCE died last April. So the most enthusiastic upholder of the "Bacon-is-Shakespeare" heresy had no opportunity to read Mr. William Dean Howells's brilliant attack upon it. For "The Seen and the Unseen at Stratfordon-Avon" (Harper and Brothers) is destructive as well as constructive: Mr. Howells's diverting tale contains many telling arguments against those who would place on the serene brow of my Lord Verulam the laurels of England's greatest dramaturge. Mr. Howells tells us that at an open-air performance of "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" at Cheltenham he sat behind the ghosts of Shakespeare and Bacon. He listened to their conversation and found that Bacon by no means approved of all his companion's work, expressing particularly strong disapproval of "that fat rascal, Falstaff, and that drunken Bardolph, and that swaggering blackguard, Pistol."

Next day, Messrs. Shakespeare, Bacon and Howells went to Stratford by the same train and during the pageants and festivals of the next few weeks the three had many interesting talks. Bacon, Mr. Howells found, was much annoyed by the report that he had written the Shakespearean dramas and bored Shakespeare by continually proving to him that he actually had lived and written. On one occasion he said:

"Of all the follies alleged in proof of my authorship of your plays, there is none quite so maddening as the notion that you couldn't have written them because if you had there would be more facts about you. The contention is, and it's accepted even by most of your friendly biographers, that there is little or nothing known of your life. I maintain that there is far more known of your life than there is of most authors' lives. . . . Paucity of

MEDIUM

biographical material! Let me tell you that there is comparatively a superabundance of material, as Andrew Lang shows in his excellent book on 'Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown.' Far more is known of Shakespeare's life than of the lives of most other famous poets. Take, for instance, the case of Virgil, which I have just had occasion to look

For several pages Bacon goes on to prove that more is known of Shakespeare than of Virgil, Ben Johnson, and many other famous writers. Shakespeare's conversation is most interesting when he visits the scenes of his young

SHAKESPEARE'S AMERICAN FRIEND Mr. Howells, like Mark Twain, has his own views on the Shakespeare question.

manhood and talks about his children and his wife. He says:

"I have never felt quite happy about the way people talk of Anne. I suppose it began with my leaving her my secondbest bed in my will, but that was because she always slept in it at New Place, and wanted it especially devised to her. I made no provision for her because she

was in the affectionate keeping of her children, and it would have reflected upon them if I had done so. . . . The world somehow likes to think meanly of the wives of what it calls geniuses; but if the wives had their say, they could say something on their own side that would stop that talk. Xantippe herself might give a few cold facts about Socrates that would make the world sit up; and if Anne told all she knew about me my biographers would have plenty of the material that they think they are so lacking in now. I only wish I had been as good husband

to her as she was wife to me."

Mr. William Stanley Braithwaite, writing in the Boston Transcript, calls Mr. Howells's fantasy "superstructurally romantic and fundamentally realistic" and "captivating from beginning to end." "It will long be memorable," he adds, "because he actually makes Shakespeare and Bacon live for us in their own thoughts and opinions."

A writer in the New York Times Review of Books finds Mr. Howells "a most satisfactory medium" and states that the Shakespeare problem seems less perplexing when it is looked at in the light of Mr. Howells's scholarship, humor and common sense. The critic in conclusion pays a high tribute to Mr. Howells's interpretation of Shakespeare, and incidentally makes. somewhat unkind reference to the work of an unnamed journalist (probably meaning Mr. Frank Harris's "The Man Shakespeare" and "The Women of Shakespeare"), saying:

"There is a definite purpose back of Mr. Howells's excellent fooling. He succeeds not in destroying the Baconian heresy but in making it appear, more than ever, an absurd and negligible thing, and he succeeds a higher achievement-in accomplishing what a certain brilliant English journalist has long and vainly attempted; he makes the mysterious dramaturge step from the obscuring clouds of time and show himself in the likeness of mankind."

W

HEN M. Edmund Van Saanen-Algi's studies of Isadora Duncan, Ida Rubinstein, Nijinsky, and other dancers were exhibited at the Galerie De Vambez, in the Boulevard Malesherbes, the Paris edition of the Daily Mail said: "It is rarely that one finds the sense of motion so ideally expressed as in these small drawings, in which a remarkable economy of line and effort is also manifest."

M. Algi, with his wife, who as Marie Louise Van Saanen is known for "Anne of Treboul," "The Blind Who See," and other novels, recently visited America. In an interview which appeared in the Sunday Magazine of the New York Times, this remarkable artist, who is also an architect held in high esteem by European critics, explained some of his theories of the portrayal of motion.

When he began to make studies of dancers, he says, he drew them as he would subjects at rest-that is he made tnem complete; he finished the hands and feet and clothing. But he stopped doing this because he found it was "untrue." It showed, he says, something non-existent, unnatural, bodies frozen in a strange attitude.

IDA RUBINSTEIN AS LA PISANELLE The princess, freed from her bonds, begins to cance.

OF MOTION

PAVLOWA'S SWAN-DANCE

M. Algi shows "posture flowing into posture."

omit. In one of his drawings of Isadora Duncan, for example, the right arm is indicated merely by two eloquent lines. M. Algi explains that he could, if he desired, make a detailed anatomic study of the arm, but that in that case he would show it in repose. Therefore he merely suggests its motion, shows that it is passing from one gesture to another.

M. Algi is not an artistic revolutionist; he has no sympathy with Cubism, Futurism, or any other extravagance. In some of his drawings, particularly those of Ida Rubinstein as La Pisanelle in D'Annunzio's play, he shows close attention to detail.

In one of these the slave girl is shown with her arms bound to her sides. Since she is of noble blood, M. Algi has given the body and head an air of rebellion which clearly indicates that she is no ordinary slave girl but a woman to whom the degradation of bondage is extraordinarily galling. In the other picture of La Pisanelle, she has just been freed from her bonds and is beginning to dance. Her left leg is vibrant, her right arm cleaves the air about her head. The whole figure is dynamic, energized.

The Times praises especially the study of Pavlowa in her famous swan dance. In this picture the dancer seems actually to glide with her feathery skirts billowing about her.

M. Algi had little to say about American dancing, but he was enthusiastic over American buildings. In the course

"I think that the office buildings of New York are tremendously interesting, psychologically as well as architecturally. For many years the American architects made their buildings as one makes cakes, merely adding layer on layer. The result, of course, was anything but inspiring. But now they have evolved a special type of architecture that is artistically beautiful and representative, I think, of the national spirit.

"It is the mighty energy of America, rushing up toward the stars, that finds expression in such buildings as these. The earlier American architecture was imitative, but these buildings are original, native. They form America's real contribution to architecture.

"And yet they are not absolutely original; in a sense they are derivative; or, rather, similar phenomena have occurred elsewhere. In classic lands, in classic ages, there was the same skyward reaching of the buildings, and it expressed something of the same rush of nervous energy.

"I think that the soul of a nation always shows itself in architecture. In my country, Rumania, in the south of France, and in the Orient, there is plenty of leisure; there is not the rush of life that there is in the north. And the buildings show that; they are close to the ground, with long lines and large floor space. They do not go high into the air; there is no need; the people have no desire for them to do so. But in the north, life is lived nervously, swiftly, and there we find the pointed arches and lofty spires of the Gothic coming into being.

LA DANSE DE GUERRE M. Algi's interpretation of Isadora Duncan's arms is characteristically energetic.

O'

KISSING THE QUEEN

NCE there were two sailors; and one of them was Joe, and the other one was Jerry, and they were fishermen. And they'd a young apprenticefeller, and his name was Jim. And Joe was a great one for his pot, and Jerry was a wonder at his pipe; and Jim did all the work, and both of them banged him. So one time Joe and Jerry were in the beerhouse, and there was a young parson there, telling the folks about foreign things, about plants and that. "Ah," he says, "what wonders there are in the west."

"What sort of wonders, begging your pardon, sir," says Joe. "What sort of wonders might them be?"

"Why, all sorts of wonders," says the parson. "Why, in the west," he says, "there's things you wouldn't believe. No, you wouldn't believe; not till you'd seen them," he says. "There's diamonds grow

"Begging your pardon, sir," said Jerry, "but whereabouts might these here islands be?"

"Why, in the west," says the parson. "In the west, where the sun sets." "Ah," said Joe and Jerry. "What wonders there are in the world."

No Ν

OW, after that, neither one of them could think of anything but these here western islands. So at last

they take their smack, and off they go in search of them. And Joe had a barrel of beer in the bows, and Jerry had a box of twist in the waist, and pore little Jim stood and steered abaft all. And in the evenings Jerry and Joe would bang their pannikins together, and sing of the great

times they meant to have when they were married to the queen.

Then they would clump pore little Jim across the head, and tell him to watch

tering pearls as common as pea-straw. And there's islands in the west. Ah, I could tell you of them. Islands? I rather guess there's islands. None of your Isles of Man. None of your Alderney and Sark. Not in them seas."

"What sort of islands might they be, begging your pardon, sir?" says Jerry.

"Why," he says (the parson feller says), ISLANDS. Islands as big as Spain. Islands with rivers of rum and streams of sarsaparilla. And none of your roses. Rubies and ame-thynes is all the roses grows in them parts. With golden stalks to them, and big diamond sticks to them, and the taste of pork-crackling if you eat them. They're the sort of roses to have in your area," he says.

"And what else might there be in them parts, begging your pardon, sir?" says Joe. "Why," he says, this parson says, "there's wonders. There's not only wonders but miracles. And not only miracles, but sperrits."

"What sort of sperrits might they be, begging your pardon?" says Jerry. "Are they rum and that?"

"When I says sperrits," says the parson feller, "I mean ghosts."

"Of course ye do," says Joe. "Yes, ghosts," says the parson. "And by ghosts I mean sperrits. And by sperrits I mean white things. And by white things I mean things as turn your hair white. And there's red devils there, and blue devils there, and a great gold queen awaiting for a man to kiss her. And the first man as dares to kiss that queen, why, he becomes king, and all her sacks of gold become his."

ride him down like you would a main tack. And he'd better mind his eye, they told him, or they'd make him long to be boiled and salted. And he'd better put more sugar in the tea, they said, or they'd cut him up for cod-bait. And who was

he, they asked, to be wanting meat for

dinner, when there was that much weevilly biscuit in the bread-barge? And boys was going to the dogs, they said, when limbs the like of him had the heavenborn insolence to want to sleep. And a nice pass things was coming to, they said, when a lad as they'd done everything for, and saved, so to speak, from the workhouse, should go for to snivel when they when they was hit, when they was boys, hit him a clip. If they'd said a word, they told him, they'd have had their bloods drawed, and been stood in the

wind to cool. But let him take heed, they said, and be a good lad, and do the work of five, and they wouldn't half wonder, they used to say, as he'd be a man before his mother.

So the sun shone, and the stars came out golden, and all the sea was a sparkle of gold with them. Blue was the sea, and the wind blew, too, and it blew Joe and Jerry west as fast as a cat can eat sardines.

53

dimes, and pesetas, and francs, and fourpenny bits. And the. flowers on the cliffs was all one gleam and glitter.

And the beauty of that island was a beauty beyond the beauty of Sally Brown, the lady as kept the beer-house. And on the beach of that island, on a golden throne, like, sat a woman so lovely that to look at her was as good as a churchservice for one.

he says.

"That's the party I got to kiss," said Jerry. "Steady, and beach her, Jim, boy," "Run her ashore, lad. That's the party is to be my queen." "You've got a neck on you, all of a sudden," said Joe. "You ain't the admiral of this fleet. Not by a wide road you ain't. I'll do all the kissing as there's any call for. You keep clear, my son." Here the boat ran her nose into the

sand, and the voyagers went ashore.

"Keep clear, is it?" said Jerry. "You tell me to keep clear? You tell me again,

and I'll put a head on you-'ll make you sing like a kettle. Who are you to tell me to keep clear?"

"I tell you who I am," said Joe. "I'm a better man than you are. That's what I am. I'm Joe the Tank, from Limehouse Basin, and there's no tinker's donkey-boy'll make me stand from under. Who are you to go kissing queens? Who You've a face on you would make a Dago are you that talk so proud and so mighty?

tired. You look like a sea-sick Kanaka that's boxed seven rounds with a buzzsaw. You've no more manners than a

hob, and you've a lip on you would fetch the enamel off a cup.”

F IT comes to calling names," said Jerry, "you ain't the only pebble on the beach. Whatever you might

think, I tell you you ain't. You're the round turn and two-half hitches of a figure of fun as makes the angels weep. And you're the That's what you are. right hand strand, and the left-hand strand, and the center strand, and the core, and the serving, and the marling, of

a

three-stranded, left-handed, poorly worked junk of a half begun and never

finished odds and ends of a Port Mahon soldier. You look like a Portuguese drummer. You've a whelky red nose that shines like a port side-light. You've a face like a muddy field where they've been playing football in the rain. Your hair is an insult and a shame. I blush when I look at you. You give me a turn like the first day out to a first voyager. Kiss, will you? Kiss? Man, I tell you you'd paralyze a shark if you kissed him. (Concluded on page 72.)

T

HAT is a remarkable tribute which Stephen Phillips pays to America in a recent number of the Poetry Review. In the course of a quite favorable notice of Mr. Le Gallienne's latest volume of poems, Mr. Phillips speaks of America as being "far more than England both the market and the assize of modern Anglo-Saxon verse." He goes on to say: "That this is the position of America was pointed out a short while ago by William Watson; and tho his opinion was faintly challenged in certain quarters, we of the Poetry Review, who have unique opportunities of judging on such a question, corroborated the statement. The writer of modern verse must for the future look to America both for audience and for criticism."

The trouble with most of the British poetry to-day is that it is too sophisticated. It is not only studied-all good poetry is studied-but it also seems to be studied. But a new poet has just been brought to light by Mr. AshtonJohnson against whom such a charge can hardly lie. This new poet's name is Logan Wiltshire. His age is seven, and he can neither read nor write. He dictates his poetry to his mother. "Mother," he will exclaim, "I want to say beautiful words to you," and then, in a level, measured tone, with his eyes looking into the far away, he proceeds to dictate such beautiful and naïve prose-poems as the following, which we reprint from The Poetry Review:

Τ

THE CRYSTAL.

BY LOGAN WILTSHIRE.

HE Crystal lay between Heaven and Earth, and the rainbow filled it with light. Then the Sun and the Moon and the Stars and the Universes one by one made it gifts of their substances.

So the Crystal had the glow of the ruby

and the glitter of the diamond, and all colors and powers, and with wings of gold it roamed through the sky. When the Mortals on Earth saw it, they covered their eyes from its dazzling light. They felt faint and staggered. But the Crystal said, “You shall be able to see my light and you shall be able to see my glory."

So the Crystal went down to earth and lived with Mortals and by taking a peep now and then, the Mortals got so they could look at the Crystal and see the glory, and that was how the World was made good.

The God of Nature provided all the materials, and the God Genius took them and made them into wonderful things. Nature gave Genius a pair of leaves and Genius made them into wings-wings for the birds, wings for the butterflies, wings for all the things that fly. Such a beautiful dream! Such a wonderful World! the World when it was a Child.

!

Under the winning title of "Arrows In The Gale," Arturo Giovannitti has had published (Hillacre House, Riverside, Conn.) a volume of his remarkable poems. The quality of his work is very uneven, but a number of these poems are unsurpassed in power by anything ever published in America. His best work is done in Whitmanesque measures, without rhyme or rhythm, such as "The Walker," "The Cage," and "The Praise of Spring." A number of the poems were written in the jail at Lawrence, Mass., where the author was confined, with Ettor, at the time of the big strike. The entire volume abounds with the revolutionary spirit-what Helen Keller, in an introduction, calls "concentration to a glorious cause," the cause being that of the "I. W. W." with its watch-cry of "No God and no Law." We reprint the Poem, omitting one stanza:

SONGS OF A REVOLUTIONARY.

Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
Gold and gleaming the misty lake;
The mirrored lights, like sunken swords,
Glimmer and shake.

Oh, is it not enough to be

Here with this beauty over me?

My throat should ache with praise and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
Oh, beauty are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love?
Have I not an eager soul
With God for its last splendid goal?
Youth, a singing voice, and eyes
To take earth's wonder with surprise?
Why have I put off my pride?
Why am I unsatisfied,

I for whom the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light,
I for whom all beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
Oh, beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love?

Coningsby Dawson has been guilty of writing a novel that proved to be one of the best sellers; but all who read "The Garden Without Walls" must have been impressed with the poetic quality of many of the passages. The author has now published (Henry Holt) a volume of poems, giving it the title of "Florence On A Certain Night." We might say of it what we have already said of modern British poets in general, that it is a little too sophisticated; it appeals rather more to the cultured mind than to the heart. But Mr. Dawson knows the difference between prose and poetry and he has used nothing but poetic stuff in this volume. We reprint the following, which has a