Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

names of even second or third rate composers is English. The one striking exception is not English at all, for it is Irish-Sullivan; and that can be counted English only because Sir Arthur was born in London, though his father was a native of County Cork. The twentieth century has seen a change. Among living composers the German Richard Strauss has perhaps been most widely advertised and has perhaps created the greatest sensations, and the French d'Indy is perhaps the most interesting to the students of the development of music, but no one has become more deservedly distinguished than the Englishman Sir Edward Elgar. And among the younger composers those of England are giving as much promise as those of any other country except possibly France. Here in America we ought to hear more of English music, just as we ought to hear more music of American origin. Simply because the very greatest composers have been German is no reason why we should hold our breaths every time a German composer makes a noise. American audiences listen with respect to music labeled German which would frankly bore them if it were marked "Made in England" and which they would not listen to at all if they knew it was by an American.

All this is by way of lengthy introduction to the statement that one of the last orchestral concerts of the old year in New York City consisted of English music under the direction of an English conductor.

At the invitation of Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra, Albert Coates has been visiting this country to lead the orchestra as guest conductor. His first appearance was in a programme consisting of a suite arranged and edited by himself for string orchestra from the works of Henry Purcell, Sir Edward Elgar's "Enigma" Variations, and Vaughan Williams's "London" symphony.

Purcell represents the high-water mark of English music previous to the present century. That was a good many years ago about two centuries and a half. At that time English musicianship was of the highest order.

noble. The composer has lent a factitious interest to this work by saying: "Through and over the whole set another and larger theme 'goes' but is not played."

The symphony in this concert is frankly the starkest kind of programme music. It is supposed to describe the city of London. The Thames flows silent in the dawn, the Westminster chimes strike the half-hour, the Strand becomes all bustle and turmoil, a costermonger sings a coster song, a bit of shabby-genteel London comes into view, and then the turmoil of the Strand reappears. Thus endeth the first movement. In the second movement is pictured the region known as Bloomsbury, and an old musician plays a plaintive tune on a fiddle in front of a public house. In the third movement the composer undertakes to give his audience through the ears a glimpse of the slums. The last movement might be called the labor movement. It is supposed to depict the hunger and unrest of London; but it brings us back to old Father Thames still flowing silently. This symphony is really a movie in sound, and as an art production may be ranked with the movies. Those who prefer to see moving pictures and those who prefer to hear something else beside movies will be alike unappreciative of this composition. Nevertheless there are passages of beauty in it. It is written with great skill and mastery of modern musical resources. Vaughan Williams, the composer, received his musical education chiefly in England, and he has worked with Maurice Ravel in Paris; but he writes a good deal like the modern German.

[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

graphic communication with the outside world. As it was, they wandered for four days before they found the Hudson Bay Post at Moose Factory. Meanwhile the American Naval Air Service and the Canadian authorities were bending every effort to locate the missing men. It was a matter of international relief and congratulation when the adventurous voyagers were finally reported safe. It is expected that it will take two weeks for the officers to return from Moose Factory to the nearest rail head. Certainly their journey to Canada and return may be described in similar language to that used by the Chinaman after his first ride upon a toboggan. When asked what it was like he said:

Albert Coates, the guest conductor, is English in name and in his paternal "Wi-s-s-s-s-h! Walkee back three mile!" ancestry, but he was born in Russia of

a

Russian mother, and, though he studied science under Sir Oliver Lodge in Liverpool, he received his musical education in Petrograd, was a member of the Gewandhaus under Nikisch, and became conductor of the Imperial Opera of Petrograd. More recently he has been conducting in London.

FROM LONG ISLAND TO HUDSON BAY

Ο

hours later they descended near Moose Factory, Ontario, close to the shores of Hudson Bay, after covering a distance of some eight hundred miles.

Sir Edward Elgar's Variations constiIN December 13 three naval officers tute one of the most beautiful comleft Rockaway Point, Long Island, positions produced in our day, which in a spherical balloon. Twenty-four grows with repeated hearings. Its theme, which seems strange and almost awkward at first, has the kind of beauty that is denied to mere prettiness. The Variations, supposed to be representative of the temperaments of some of Sir Edward's friends, are of widest variety; one is buoyant; another, mincing; another, pretentious; another, suave and

It was not for some three weeks, however, that any news of their safe descent reached the United States, for the balloonists, when they landed in the Canadian wilderness, were far from tele

We are a little at a loss to know what military or naval purpose is served by such a flight in a craft which belongs,

so far as modern warfare is concerned, in a category with flintlocks and blunderbuses. Perhaps, however, the stimulus which such a voyage gives to qualities of courage and self-reliance may have justified the risk involved.

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

England only a week before the race, and, though they were defeated, their achievement against the pick of two universities is therefore especially creditable. The race of seven and onehalf miles was run over the famous Thames Hare and Hounds Course, which includes three severe water jumps, a long stretch of plowed field, and numerous hills. The English runners have always been at their best in long-distance races, and the OxfordCambridge runners are said to comprise the strongest 'varsity team which has been assembled in many years. It is reported that next year Oxford and Cambridge will not only send their track teams, but also their boat crews, to compete with Cornell. It is to be hoped that this report is true.

Even if an American team did not succeed in defeating Oxford and Cambridge, American tennis players have once more gained possession of the famous Davis trophy. At Auckland, New Zealand, on January 1, William T. Tilden and William M. Johnston made a clean sweep of the Davis cup lawn tennis championship by defeating Gerald F. Patterson and Norman E. Brookes in both the singles and doubles. The Davis trophy has been in the antipodes since the beginning of the war. Doubtless America will be called upon to defend its possession at Forest Hills, Long Island, this coming summer.

On New Year's Day a third athletic event took place which, while not of an international character, was at least of continental interest. The eleven of the University of Ohio played the eleven of

derwood

the University of California at Pasadena that day. The game resulted in the favor of the Western university by the very decisive score of 28 to 0. California apparently swept the Ohio team off its feet by the precision and brilliancy of its overhead attack.

FIUME SURRENDERED

A

s was anticipated, the Italian regulars made short work of Gabriele d'Annunzio's legionaries at Fiume. As for some time the citizens of Fiume had been saying, "Liberaci dai Liberatori" (Deliver us from our deliverers), it was appropriate that the new Provisional Government of Fiume should begin the disarmament of the defeated legionaries and should preserve order in the city by its own police. The poetcommander begged permission to leave Fiume at the head of his legionaries. This was refused. On January 5 the troops which had held Fiume for sixteen months began to leave the city under the guard of regulars on special trains in relays of three hundred legionaries each. They will be enrolled with their original units in Italy. The regulars worked as quickly as possible, so as to establish the new Independent State of Fiume at once. The Provisional Government will hold an election almost immediately.

Thus ends a chapter of history.

Some three years ago at Fiume a. member of The Outlook's editorial staff, noting the independent spirit of the Fiumani, asked one of the City Coun

cilors: "Why should Fiume not be a.

D'ANNUNZIO MESSING WITH HIS SOLDIERS IN FIUME BEFORE HIS SURRENDER

independent republic?" "Ah, that would

be the ideal solution," was the reply, "una repubblica fiumana." This ideal might have been realized by the heads of the Paris Peace Conference. But the extremes of Italian realism and Wil sonian idealism prevented.

A CIVILIAN'S FIGHT WITH THE MILITARY

Y

EARS ago, at the University of Bonn, William II and Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg were students together, and friends. Doubtless this friendship inade Bethmann's path easier to the presidency, first, of the district of Bromberg and, second, of the province of Brandenburg; to the Secretaryship of the Interior and the Vice-Presidency of the Prussian Council; to the Imperial Vice-Chancellorship and to the Chancellorship itself.

A highly trained bureaucrat, Bethmann represented the tendencies of a Prussian patrician, not of a Prussian Junker-that is to say, though beginning with strong prejudices, he was susceptible of change. He had fought against giving to the people a larger share in the government of Prussia, but later became an apostle of universa! franchise.

Bethmann has just died, sixty-four years old. With ho passes the broadest of the Kaiser's generally narrow-minded counselors-certain.y ne was in glaring contrast to such bigcts as "irpit and Ludendorff.

Bethmann's Chancellorship meant a trial of strength between two forcesthe military and the civil. It was to last eight years and was to end with a tragic military triumph.

In his recently published memoirs he blames the German army for starting the World War.

In 1914, however, he also blamed England. It was he who said that Great Britain was going to make war "just for a scrap of paper."

This phrase discrediting a solemn treaty and his other statement admitting the wrong done to the Belgians but defending that wrong on the ground that necessity knows no law revealed in him a kind of honesty not characteristic of all Germans, together with a characteristically German disregard of the conscience of mankind.

Bethmann's divergence from the militarists increased as time went on. It was illustrated by his protest against the German aerial bombardment of London, his opposition to a ruthless submarine campaign, and, above all, his instigation of a peace resolution in the Reichstag.

When Ludendorff, the chief of the militarists, and Bethmann resigned at

[graphic]

1

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

tute, annually compiles a list of lynchings in the United States. His report for 1920 has at least one encouraging feature, for he records fifty-six instances in which officers of the law prevented d lynchings either by the removal of prisconers or by the use of armed force. Ten of these instances occurred in Northern States and forty-six in Southern. Armed force was used to repel lynchers in fourteen cases and in four instances mobs were fired upon.

There were sixty-one lynchings in the le year 1920. Of these fifty-two were in the South and nine in the North and West, a total reduction of twenty-two from the year 1919. The victims of these lynchings, numbered fifty-three Negroes and eight whites. The roll of dishonor of the various States follows:

Alabama, 7; Arkansas, 1; California, 3; Florida, 7; Georgia, 9; Illinois, 1; Kansas, 1; Kentucky, 1; Minnesota, 3; Mississippi, 7; Missouri, 1; North Carolina, 3; Ohio, 1; Oklahoma, 3; South Carolina, 1; Texas, 10; Virginia, 1; West Virginia, 1.

The record for 1920 shows some advance over the previous year, but it still constitutes a blot upon American civilization.

[ocr errors]

THE PLIGHT OF
FRANCE

N January 3 the Paris "Matin" published an article by ex-President Poincaré, in which he cites the provision of the Versailles Treaty requiring the German army to be reduced by March 31, 1920, to 100,000 men, and the German police force to a number not to exceed the ratio to population as it was in 1913. Yet, adds Mr. Poincaré, the Interallied Commission of Control reports that even now Germany has not fulfilled her obligations. It is believed by some, we would add, that Germany has from two and a half to three million men trained for army emergency and a million and a half of rifles ready. As long as France is not safe from a vengeful and aggressive Germany, the victory in which America participated will remain endangered.

If the Germans could be rendered unaggressive and brought to real repentance, if they could be so changed in spirit as honestly to seek to repair not only the material damage that they have done but also the injuries they - have wrought in the social fabric of the

world, the victory of the cause of the Allies would be permanent and would need no other safeguard. But the French have no illusions on that score. They live next to the Germans. They know that nations are not converted in a day or a year. They are not unreasonable. They do not demand the impossible. They are not looking for any one to provide them with a formula for universal peace. They believe, however, that, having borne the brunt of the Germans' assault upon civilization, they have the right to expect such safeguards as will save France from the peril of national extinction. It is not quite fair -is it? for other nations in positions of comparative security to leave France insecure.

When the armistice brought hostilities to an end, there were four measures which might have been taken to keep Germany from repeating her adventure. One measure would have been to deal separately with the different elements in the German Empire, and thus deprive Prussia of the strength that she derived from employing the resources of the other German states. Modern Europe has never feared Bavaria or Saxony or Württemberg singly. But Europe, including peoples of German speech and culture, has feared Prussia. If the Allies had offered Bavaria, for example, a separate peace on terms better than she could obtain in partnership with Prussia, she might have been glad to abandon an enterprise that had proved disastrous in the past and was full of ill omen for the future. This, however, was not to be. For some reason of political expediency the managers of the Peace Conference decided to consolidate the German Empire by treating with all the German states as a whole. That safeguard, therefore, was abandoned.

Another measure would have been to make France correspondingly strong. This would have involved the transfer to France not only of Alsace and Lorraine but of other regions inhabited by people for generations German in speech and tradition. There were objections to this measure apart from considerations of justice to the inhabitants of the territory involved. France has been successful in implanting loyalty to the Republic in the heart of many people who are French neither in speech nor in ancestry; but it would have been of doubtful benefit to the French Republic to include such masses of Germans within French territory as would have been necessary if a purely military frontier had been arranged. This second safeguard was thus likewise abandoned.

A third measure would have been to exact from Germany such a price for her orgy as to have convinced her that

In

a war of conquest does not pay, to have put the leaders of her iniquity under such restraint as to have furnished a warning for others who might seek to imitate them, and to deprive her so completely of military resources as to make it impossible for her to employ the might which she had abused. some degree this measure was attempted in the Treaty; but it has not been put into effect. What France had to pay for defending civilization is. recorded in her devastated area and in the sad disorganization of her social and economic life. What Germany has had to pay for her assault upon civilization is not so evident. It is true that her population has suffered physically and morally from the war as have other peoples, but her factories are intact, her towns and cities remain standing. Germany has not begun really to pay for even the limited amount of damage for which she agreed to make reparation. All accounts agree that she does not intend to pay. She has not surrendered her criminals, and does not intend to surrender them. She has made a show of disarmament, but she still retains military forces and military weapons that she had agreed to dispense with. This safeguard, though not abandoned, has therefore so far failed.

The fourth measure would have been to perfect and strengthen the alliance which proved effective ultimately in thwarting Germany's purpose. That alliance, or league, or association, or whatever else it may be called, was in good working order two years ago last No.vember. Hardly, however, was the armistice signed, than an attempt was under way to abandon it and to substitute for it something else planned for a different purpose and organized in an unprecedented way. It is true that at the same time the three strongest nations associated together in the war tentatively made an agreement to resist German aggression in the future. That Franco-Anglo-American treaty still remains tentative. It has never been ratified. Meantime the League of Nations, devised as a substitute for the War Alliance, has proved ineffective. The fourth safeguard has therefore disappeared.

Americans, far from the scene of the war, should not forget the plight of France.

MIXED MARRIAGE

HERE is a great deal of evidence on which to base the conclusion that art should have little concern with ethics or morals. Certainly many instances may be found wherein an artist with an impelling moral or social purpose has failed to create the artistic

50

[ocr errors]

MRS. RAINEY (MARGARET WYCHERLY), AND MICHAEL O'HARA (HARMON MAC GREGOR)
WHO HAS BEEN WOUNDED BY A PROTESTANT SYMPATHIZER, APPEAL TO JOHN RAINEY
(AUGUSTIN DUNCAN) TO RELENT IN HIS DETERMINATION TO REPUDIATE HIS PREVIOUS
ALLIANCE WITH THE CATHOLIC WORKMEN OF CORK

effect which he has simultaneously form. Now this conflict is indeed es-
sought.

Perhaps before admitting the absolute divorce of art and ethics as a philosophic axiom it might be well to inquire whether this division between the

worlds of art and morals is not apparent rather than real; whether or not the failure which frequently follows the attempt to be both moral and artistic at the same time does not arise from the shortcomings of the artist rather than from the impracticability of his purpose. Mediæval painters and architects certainly found their religious fervor no drawback to their artistic efforts, for with them the two purposes were completely absorbed the one in the other. Perhaps dramatists of social reform can learn something from contemplating this thought. We are moved to this rather ponderous philosophizing by St. John Ervine's "Mixed Marriage," a dramatized picture of the religious bigotry of the north of Ireland.

Obviously, Mr. Ervine had a distinct social purpose in mind when he wrote "Mixed Marriage." He wanted, first, to make a plea for a united Ireland, an Ireland tolerant of religious differences. He wanted, secondly, to express the present conflict in artistic and dramatic

sentially dramatic, and Mr. Ervine is too much an artist entirely to lose touch with the potential dramatics of any situation. Yet we suspect that many of those who have witnessed

to take the leading part in helping Protestant and Catholic workingmen to co-operate towards their common end. John Rainey, Orangeman though he is, and a stubborn one to boot, is flattered by his success in bringing the two fac tions together. All goes well until he discovers that his son is to marry Nora. Then his old animosities break forth, and he discovers in O'Hara's plea for co-operation a Popish plot designed to put the Protestants of Cork under the dominion of the Catholics. His renunciation of the cause of co-operation results in a riot in which Nora is killed and the cause of the workingmen goes crashing down to disaster. John Rainey in his bigotry understands nothing of the effect which his blindness has had upon the course of events. In the face of the death of Nora and the failure of the strike he can only say, "I was right all the time." The character of his wife is not one which can easily be described. She is a commonplace woman with an intuition for the underlying verities of the situation. We suspect that in less able hands than those of Margaret Wycherly the part of Mrs. Rainey would not have been especially convincing. The tolerance and human understanding of Mrs. Rainey as played by Miss Wycherly made an admirable background for the heavy-handed and heavywitted John Rainey of Augustin Duncan.

It is said that the play is to be moved from the intimate neighborliness of the Bramhall Playhouse to a Broadway theater. Whether the play is one which will carry in a larger theater than the one in which it is now appearing remains to be seen.

[graphic]

"Mixed Marriage" left the little Bram- WITCHCRAFT IN 1921
hall Playhouse not wholly satisfied with
their evening's fare.

"Mixed Marriage" in its presentation of character is indeed worthy of the man who was later to write "Jane Clegg" and "John Ferguson." The greatest fault of this earlier work is the failure to achieve crystallization of purpose and content. In this presentation of character the work of St. John Ervine is ably seconded by the remarkable cast which has been assembled by Mr. Augustin Duncan, who is not only the stage director of "Mixed Marriage" but also plays the leading male rôle, that of John Rainey. No less effective is the work of Margaret Wycherly, who plays the part of Rainey's wife.

John Rainey is a Protestant working man of Cork. His older son, Hugh, falls in love with a Catholic, Nora Murray. His chum is also another Catholic, Michael O'Hara. A strike is called by the workingmen in the shipyards, and Michael O'Hara persuades John Rainey

[ocr errors]

NCE in a while the readers of the daily press must open their eyes with astonishment as they glance from the news columns to the date lines, and question whether the date should not be 1621 instead of 1921.

There are to be found pagan lightning myths still current under the guise of witching for water with a hazel twig; astrologers still pay curious tribute to the influence of the moon and the stars; and once in a while there appears a recrudescence of that belief in witchcraft which blackened the records of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries.

As a matter of fact, these vermiform appendices of ancient superstitions are not much to be wondered at, for, unlike water, the rising tide of human intelligence does not find a common level. There are some people living to-day with neolithic minds, some with minds which belong in the days of the Spanish In

quisition, and there are some, fortunately, with minds which transcend even the experience and knowledge of the twentieth century.

We are moved to these remarks by two items which recently appeared in the New York press. One item told the story of a mother who accused a neighbor of possessing the evil eye. This neighbor was charged by the complaining mother with having stolen her daughter's affection. The second item was of even a more striking nature. It told of a suit at law based upon a charge of real witchcraft. In this second

instance the defendant was charged with having cast a spell upon a child, causing its limbs to wither away. Add the melting of a waxen image to the charge, and the story might have been taken from a witchcraft trial at the time of the great delusion.

After all, the belief in witchcraft, granted certain premises, is not as il

logical as it may seem. The case for witchcraft is put cautiously but nevertheless positively in the Catholic Encyclopædia, a reference work which in most matters leans towards a liberal Catholicism. The Catholic Encyclopædia says:

The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not easy to pass a confident judgment. In the face of Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Fathers and theologians the abstract possibility of a pact with the Devil and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can hardly be denied, but no one can read the literature of the subject without realizing the awful cruelties to which this belief led and without being convinced that in 99 cases out of 100 the allegations rest upon nothing better than pure delusion.

In other words, if the presence of evil in the world is to be explained by a belief in a personal devil and by an adherence to Miltonic theology, the step

towards a belief in the possibility of a compact with that devil is not difficult to effect. The point of view of the Catholic Encyclopædia is not an isolated one. The belief in "malicious animal magnetism" held by certain Christian Scientists is distinctly on all fours with the earlier explanation offered for certain psychological phenomena which the world of science has not yet succeeded in explaining. Not until we know much more than we do at present concerning hysteria and certain other forms of mental derangement can we hope to eliminate from all minds the fear of the evil eye and the belief in direct Satanic intervention in human affairs.

The problem of the existence of evil has perplexed philosophers and theologians in all ages. We should not be discouraged by the little we have learned. We should be stimulated by the vastness of the field of knowledge still left for us to conquer.

I

A CRACK

I

F it was the object of Lawrence F. Abbott to start a riot on Grub Street, he used admirable methods in his article in The Outlook of December 29 entitled "A Musical Missionary." For in paragraph three of this otherwise delightful and instructive article, without the slightest warning, he doubles his fist, hauls off, and takes the following crack at the jaw of genius:

I have forgotten what the textbooks say, but I name the four great fine arts as follows: Painting, Sculpture (including Architecture), Poetry, and Music.

Taken literally, Mr. Abbott's words oust the novel and the drama from the realm of great fine art, save when drama is written in iambic pentameter. He banishes prose from the class of great fine art, even the prose of the Bible itself.

The one who writes music, even though it be no more than a fiddler's jig, works in a medium that represents great fine art; while one who writes mere prose, even though it be such a novel as "Les Misérables," works in a medium that does not represent great fine art. Thomas Hardy, architect, worked in the field of a greater art than Thomas Hardy, author of "The Return of the Native." Robert Louis Stevenson only when grinding out jingles for children worked in the medium of a great art.

One is asked to believe that the Woolworth Building, being one of the best things to which we can point in American architecture, is a finer and greater work of art than "The Scarlet Letter," which is one of the best things we can point to in American prose. Stanford

[blocks in formation]

White is glorified above Washington Irving, while Edith Wharton fades in critical appraisal before the one who drafted the plans for the Bush Terminal. "Vanity Fair" represents a lesser art than "September Morn," while the novels of Tolstoy shrink in artistic stature before the art medium in which Irving Berlin raps out his royalties.

John Barrymore, playing "Justice," chose a lesser art form than when he played the popular bedroom thing entitled "The Jest," since the latter was poetic in form.

Beethoven, conveying to the world his expression of life in the form of musical compositions, was a great artist. But if he had conveyed the same expression of life to us with equal power and understanding, but in the form of the novel, he could in nowise have been regarded as a great artist. Balzac and Flaubert and Turgenev lose stature as artists because their genius led them into another field than those tilled by Whistler, Paul Bartlett, James Whitcomb Riley, and Victor Herbert. The firm of Eliot and Eliot, architects of motion-picture theaters, are closer to art than George Eliot, creator of "Daniel Deronda." The wooden Indian in front of the cigar store, representing the art of sculpture, lords it over the Indians of James Fenimore Cooper.

II

NOVELIST.

If Novelist's premises were correct, his conclusions would be irresistible. But his premises are wrong. "Fine Arts" and "fine art" are not synonymous phrases, as he apparently assumes. If Novelist is interested enough to look at one of the longest (and, let me confess, one of the driest) articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica-the article on

Fine Arts, by Sir Sidney Colvin, the friend and interpreter of Robert Louis Stevenson-he will find that "Fine Arts" is a phrase which philosophers, historians, and students of æsthetics have agreed to use in defining Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, and Poetry; for æsthetics has its species, varieties, and classifications, like botany and zoology. The prime function of the five Fine Arts (except Architecture, which has a pronounced utilitarian element) is to arouse emotions, not to convey ideas or facts. Thus to a certain extent putting five arts into a group and calling them the Fine Arts is a matter of arbitrary definition. Novelist has a perfect right to make his own definition, but it will not be very effective until he can get at least ten or twenty generations to agree with him. It must be said that Novelist, in his protest against what he thought was my supercilious treatment of his particular art, has a famous ally. Plato thought that shoemaking was a finer art than the "Fine Arts" because it was useful. On that basis, I doubt whether he would admit that the modern "best seller" among the novels is any kind of art-except perhaps an artful method of picking the pockets of a public too credulous of the newspaper puffers. I am pretty sure that he would say, if we could get him on the ouija, that James Fenimore Cooper's Indians are as wooden as those that used to decorate New York cigar stores in the days before the Tobacco Trust made smoking an industry instead of a fine art. Perhaps for that reason Cooper' novels ought to be included in the fi great Fine Arts on the ground that the belong to the art of Sculpture.

[ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »