The San Francisco call., 1910-07-03

Babyloniah captivity of puritan preju-
dice I have been accused of posing
because, in a world of antimonies, am
an inveterate truth-teller. This is my
flesh and blood. l could not more
frankly denude myself in the sanctity
of the confessional. 1 speak with the
truthfulness~ of st. Augustine, of Rous-
seau, and of George Moore
The trouble is he does tell the truth
as he sees it, but it is not always of
America or Europe, it is of Mr.. Vie
reck. He never for one moment loses
the sight of Mr.. Viereck. In every
opinion and criticism the personal note
is dominant. He is clever, too and
has a fine command of English. He is
a German American, born in Germany
but early brought to America, where
he received his education in the pub
lie schools and in Columbia university
1t is difficult to put a finger on spots
in the book to criticise, for while the
book is divided into chapters or es-
says on all sorts of subjects, it is a
"chatty'' sort of tour anywhere with
a brilliant conversationalist. There
are bits here and there which do not
ring true, which have a forced note
as Like Oscar Wilde, 1 am bored by
the ocean / prefer sherbets to sun
to be epigrammatic. But when one
reads a passage like this one sees the
soul of the poet:
II thought Of the Vikings, who dis
covered the new world before the
birth of Columbus. And of the War of
the Roses. 1 thought of Swinburne,
the voice of the sea, and of sin; and
of Darwin and Goethe; of Maeter-
linck and d'Annunzio. I thought Of
Jeanne dare, who was burnt as
witch and is now saint. And
thought Of the Roman days. I thought
of Caesar, who had conquered Gaul
and of the Briton who had conquered
Caesar. i saw Plato with his noble,
strangely germanic visage, and Soc
rates with the face and the cheeks of
the Slav. This was the land where
Jupiter had loved Europe, and
Prometheus had snatched the fateful
firel And in the far distance I almost
felt the presence, stupendous and ter
rifying, of Asia, mother of continents
plaques and messiahs"
All this inspired by the approach of
his ship to the old world. Before we
leave the ship read this one sentence:
IN the first cabin were only three
men passengers and a tenor"
There are moments in the book when
one is puzzled. Does Mr. Viereck in
tend to poke bit of fun at his reader
when he INDUCES in such wonder bits
of Dragging as in his description of his
interview with George Brandes, or is
here his sense of humor lacking? 1t is
such a joyous piece of writing that it
may be quoted. He had some difficulty
in getting in to see the great man, but
to make him take an interest he finally
said:
.''Our mutual friend James Hume
ker. has intrusted me with his compli-
ments.'
Don't know him. the sage of Copen-
hagen snapped back.
'Whatv exclaimed, YOU don't know
the greatest American critic, the only
man in America who understands
YOU?
"Brandes reflected.
" of course he said, Z know his
books He is strangely brilliant for
an American
He is half Irish. half Hungarian
interjected.
but have never met him in
person
well I said still undaunted.
am considerable parsonage myself
He looked at me with amused in
credulity.
81 am the author of several books.
Ny poems mark new epoch in
American literature. I have given new