New-York tribune., 1911-01-21
De OMNIBUS REBUS
Mr.. Zangwill in Italy and Else
where.
ITALIAN FANTASIES. BY Israel Zang
will. Colored frcntispiece. l2mo, PIP
4n9. The Macmillan COMPANY.

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In these essays Mr.. Zangwill dis
courses of many things, of life and
DEATH and faith and materialism. of
the ancient world. the medieval and the
modern. of past and future, OF the prob
lens still before us. In Italy he roams
the globe. the Judea OF the beginning OF
the Chritian era the United States of
to-day. the England Of tomorrow. face
to face with a crisis in its long and glort-
Gus history of conquest and civilization.
A clever man, too clever to think deeply,
lured by the flashing happy phrase, the
antithesis suddenly perceived, he revels
in paradox that is not necessarily two
sides of the truth.
This superficial brilliancy lures, and
occasionally deceives. but little remains
Of serious thought and insight and un-
derstanding after the fireworks have
flashed their brief moment across the sky
and are extinguished. How well para
graph like the following sounds: how
empty It is Of meaning:
New York alone some G3.0c0,o00 were spent
I'm supperS in the f1aring restaurants,
where, between II and y o'clock only
champagne could he served. Such is the
New Era ushered in by the New World
the Era Of Champagne. For this the red
Ildan was uprooted and the wilderness
tanned For this Washington lived and
Lincoln died BY the food of champae aene
all standerds Of life and letters are swept
away. save the one standard Of financial
success save the ability 10 dine in that
wonderful culinary cathedral where I'm q
dim. irrellgious light AS of submarine :
music. fashionable congregation follows
with absorbing zeal the lengthy order OF
service. What an Agapomene!
How faCile IL is 10 assure modern sci
ence that "the evolution theory Ia but
a Juggling with time: YOU do not get rid
Of Creation by shifting the beginning
back to = billion years last Tuesday
that scientific conceptions are always
changing" or 10 assure those who re-
ioice exceedingly over the signs Of the
times that "the bankruptcy Of science
does not mean the solvency Of the
Bible" In Mr. Norman Angell's argu-
ment that the interrelation Of modern
international credits makes war flnan-
cially as disastrous 10 the victor as to
the vanquished lies the germ Of another
easy phrase: Isaiah predicted that the
peoples would beat their swords into
ploughshares: he should have said shares
In ploughs."
The seemingly profound dictum,
apropos of mathematics, that even the
supposed infallibility of the proposition
that two and two are four skaters IT.
self upon the futility Of adding two ele-
plants 10 two speeches on the Irish
question" only recalls Sonya Kovalev-
sky's dry observation that most people
think Of arithmetic when they seriously
believe that they are discussing mathe-
MATES.
Mr. ZangwiT is at his best when he
sticks closest To his text italy He Is
eloquent here in description, and his in
dividual point If view is worth hearing.
He wanders through cathedral. palace
and monastery. among the treasured art
whose infinite riches no single mind can
over hope 10 master. He pays his re-
spects to d'Annunzio in praise Of lsa-
bella d'Este. and traversing the Italian
risoreimento. ends face to face with the
question Of the world renaissance that
is TO be:
The French-once the favorites in the
role-have too hobbleiehoyish devotion 10
the sex Joke, the Germans are too tameG'
the Americans too untamed; the spanniards IS
and Russians too brutali2ed by pun nghts
or pogroms. the English too inconseouent.
Possibly the New Zealanders posi-
bly some people Of Latin America. .:
Rnt these are too remote for their result
70 Ieaven the Old World, and. on the whole,
the Italians with their ancient civilization
and their renewed youth. appear least un-
fitted to lead humanity onwards.
one takes note Of the prudent quail
acaticns hidden in these we'll sounding
phrases-"on the whole" least unit
ted"-and closes the book with renewed
understanding of the quality Of Mr..
Zangwilrs brilliancy.