New-York tribune., 1907-12-03

with them: but when he denounced
ignorant dishonest" and brutal writer. and
declared mental iupurity to be attribute of my
mind.-because I have condemned plays that ooVi-
| ously are impure. and that everybody knows 10
be but that he is pleased to admre.-he exceed
ed the right of critical discussion and employed the
| expedient of personal abuse. Almost every dra-
| matte reviewer associated with the press OF New
| York condemned, more emphatcally than ofd'
| both the play of "Sappho and Phaon ana the
| performance of it: and for that reason. among
| others thought and said,-and I still think and
| say-that there room for q momentary sur
| prise" that (since he introduced personal abuse
into his protest., Mr. Fiske should have selected an
| old friend object of acrid denunciauon.
Passing from that preliminary Mr.. fishe re-
terates and expands his original defamation.
| accusing of blind prejudice, \persona4 olas'
and the custom of 'falsifying what see ana mis-
| reporting what L hear at a theatSlcal peiioiii
| ance" Mr.. Winter" he declares, lis an ADEPT
at the old device of throwing dust in his readers
eyes'-that is to say. liar. Growing more ferVlo
as he proceeds he next charges me with the agrl-
cultural offence of cultivating prurient purity IN
the drama; employing an "eyer handy nnuck-rake;
| resorting to "misquotation as an argunentauVe
weapon OF defence; exhibiting racial narroWness
Of vision "hopelessly confusing the duties of the
| reviewer with those of the moralist'; showing "a
disposition to befog the original question; main
tanning attitude of selfconstituted moral censor
| ship toward the stage: and insisting that the
Theatre, and everything else, ought to be regulated
according to the dictates of "a New England con-
| science and made to conform to Staten Island
! standards OF department" Mr.. Winter he says
! (and here he descends to blackguardism), "has a
nose for malodorous things in the works of writ
| ers like Ibsen, Maeternck Sudermann, Haupt-
| mann, and Pinero and 1 will venture to
say that he could readily If challenged, unearth
imrurity from the quotations of the stock market
| and Wantonness from the Declaration of indie
| pendence. His views are the views Of the
Past and his horizon is circumscribed by that
which entered it during youth and MIDDLE life.
he is unprogressive. The emasculated. the obvi-
ous the artificial and the obsolete are preferable
| to the virile the subtle the true, and thu mod
eTn He sees little but pruriency in the drama of
life. OF ideas. He assumes that the critic should
be Cotton Mather and a Know Nothing. with a
| specldi Incense 10 preach species of moral
hypocrisy and denounce every artistic thing that
ialis 10 meet the pruneS and prisms' standard"
That is a fair summary of Mr. Fiske's indictment
a screed containing about forty-vs hundred words
anu peHS therefore, much too verbose and pro-
uacted for entire reproduction here. Ample evil
oence Is afforded by it, the reader will perceive
tiiat MI. f1skes resentment and his consequent per-
sonar attack upon my reputation were prompted
iar less by disapprovaI of my remarks on "Sappho
ana fhaon" than by repugnance to NV adverse
treatment Of the Crank Drama to which he has
unfortunately. become devoted. II is a case of
-i"ruecn at the gate: and MordecaI has given
iiucn ~ trouble to many persons besides Mr. Fiske
o oiisnlai question: which am accused of
desiring to befog." is the question whether NV
Hie"s OF tle ancient poet Sappho as stated in The
tribune. were accordant with '.authorttiaa os a,
'iquhy whether my views of the play of "Sappho
anu anu Fhaoh were accordant with the incidents of
that play; and whether my review of that play was
oONoAcahl with my understanding of II, The three
divisions Of that question" were considered and
answered by me, in The Tribune of October % in
ffep4y, appended to Mr.. Fiske's original attack
which talthoush he charges me with mis-
quotatonD, was reprinted headlines and all pre-
| clsely as 1t appeared in The Brooklyn Eagle"
believe that Reply to have disposed of "the orIgi-
hal question: and observe that no reJoinder to 1t
has been made, either by Mr. Fiske or anybody else
Minute discussion Of the personal proceedings of
| the ancient poet Sappho at the distance OF about
twenty-five hundred years from her time seems
not wholly devoid OF whimsical quality. Mr..
F1ske declares that he has cited ample authority
! to dispose of Mr. Winters assertion that she was
| "a diseased wanton and infamous degenerate ."
He has been careful, however. not reprint my
! Reply to his citations and aspersions. and
! apprise his readers that any specific reply
made. There is. in fact, decisive authority that
! could be cited that would effectuay disperse the
testimony provided in by the poet herself and
| in references to her that were made and are
tan by various authorities Of antiquity. Ar. F1ske
| cited the German author Welcker Oslo: but the
German author Wecker was controVerted by the
contemporary authors Berge and Mure. II Is open
to reader TO adopt whatever conclusion seems
most logical The poetic remains of Sappho
| small In volume, and. mostly, fragmentary in
| FORM Various scholars and critics. from Longinus
! onward. have commended them. with enthusiastic
| admiration In my judgment they have been ex-
celed by certain of the poems Of Swinburne. rela-
| tive to few of the subjects of which some
of them AS to the personality Of the Lesbian
bard. the evidence such as it s,-namely. indica-
ton in of her verse, and alluaon to her and
! to her by ancient writers. not to mention
| commentaries of some of the moderns,-heS per-
| suaded me that she precisely the kind or
| woman designated In the terms TO which Mr.. Fiske
| objects. If ] mistaken. am mistaken In COM
! pany with persons more learned and moro wise
than have ever been,-persons whom. furthermore
believe to be at least learned and as wise as
! young Mr.. Percy MacKaye, Mr. Fiske, or even Mr
| r. Mawson of The Rochester Post-Express
| Beyond this upon that subject nothing moro VIII
| here be said.
| Mr. Ffske alleges that have introduced extra
neous matters into this discussion. with the pur-
pose Of throwing dust In the eyes of my readers
| and leading them FAR afeld." That is not true
All the extraneous matters that have been intro
duced were introduced by Mr.. Fiske in his original
| attack upon me. as an ignorant. dishonest and
'gratutousy brutal writer; for after protesting
| in those vituperatve terms. against my remarks
| on the bad play of "Sappho and Phaon" and the
| bad acting of Nine. Bertha kalich and her asso-
ciates in their representation of it, he proceeded
to declare that had treated with gratuitous bru-
| tality" not only Nine. Kach, but the American
! actor Edwin Forrest dead for thirty-five
years.; the French actors Mounet-Sully Constant
| Coauelin, and Sarah Bernhardt; and the italian
actors, Nine. Eleanora Duse and Tcmasso Salvini
| Such allegations against me had been made before
| mostly by scribblers in the blackguard section of
the press. and they had been ignored. No man
should be expected 10 pass all his life in killing
mosquitoes The unjust and injurious misrepre-
sentation, when made by a leading theatrical
ger, influential editor and (as mistakenly sup
! posed) a friend. who knew to the contrary,
sumed a different form, and could not be dis
| missed in silence. To 1t in the reply to
"the original question, to that part of Mr. Fske's
! attack which material to his alleged grievance
{ might have tended to 'befog'' the issue. 1t was