The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-10-17
az ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

Marjorie Benton Cooke, a native of
this city, but long resident of Chica-
go, is writer of much grace and
! charm. She has recently had two nov
els published and both have been sue
cessful
Miss Cooke is versatile.
clever monologuist she has been
in great demand for several years for
Wing-room and platform entertain
ments and has also had issued vol
ume OF this peculiar form of dramatic
expression.
And she is an admirable producer
OF certain poetic forms. Notably the
sonnet.
We no longer have poets of the
grand manner. This is not the epic
age. Its the photographic, the capsule
age People haven't the time. the
inclination nor the mental continuity
to follow very long. They yawn when
they're half way through, flip over the
pages, glance at the finale and go up
stairs to dress.
If we have no longer the poets Of
cause we also no longer have the
readers to complement them.
The supply in the arts, as in other
phases of production, conditions itself
to the demand.
1t cannot be otherwise
There's literary mart where wares
must be displayed to allure. There's
a public that must be satisfied. And
it is fed sometimes by samples. Some
times by goods marked down. And
enthusiastically on "all wool yard
wide" to slightly mix the figure.
People learn to write nowadays.
They teach them at colleges and uni
versities. Never, perhaps, was there
as much good writing. technically
perhaps, so much that lacks the
thing that makes it literature.
There are many perfect literary skel-
etons with no flesh covering their an
tomical structure. No good red blood
squirting from their veins.
There is no better example of the
manufactured writer than Rober Her
rick of Chicago, formerly, or now, for
all the writer knows. a member of
the faculty of the University Of Chica-
go.
Herrick's novels are wooden, immo-
bile. The machinery is perfect-and
you can hear it creak.
Herrick's output is lamentably def
cient in that subtle thing that you
cannot define-but it is recognized by
either it's presence or absence.
There is, in short, a very high grade
of mediocrity in current fiction.
In verse-form, however, there is apt
to be poetic quality, even with the
patiently built up Few persons essay
the writing of verse without its inner
stimulant-however banal or incense
quent the result.
Marjorie Cook has the genuine poet
ic gift. And her little volume of SON.
nets ITO Mother" (Forbes and Com
pany, Chicago, paper covers, fifty
cents), is source of pleasure to the
student of contemporary literary pro-
duct
The sonnet, while most frequently
essayed, is the most difficult form Of
poetic expression. 1t must be good
else it is bad. And, usually, very bad.
But in its apogee, as in Shakespeare
and "Sonnets from the Portuguese"
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning it has
a fascination possessed by no other
poetic structure.
In ITO Mother" is to be found much
delicate nuance Of tone, opposite i'm
agery, fluidity Of diction and melodic
sound. But it's appeal lies in it's sub
ject-universal to the human heart
and the compellingness of it's senti-
ment. The series opens
20 lend me, Ariel, thy filmy wing
"That may tread the pathways OF
the sky,
peep through the fingers of the
dawn, and try
ITO teach my muse new vistas, ere
sing.
I'D chant no marching song for war
riors' feet,
mo 'Laus Deo' shall my voice in
Il would not, with its murmurs and
its moan,