New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-04-25
MODERNITIES
Leaders and Influences in Cur
rent Literature.

MODERNITIES. BY Horace 3. sam
uel. Svo, PIP. viii. 24. Z. +. Dutton
6. Co.
TIE RED AND THE BLACK \
chronicle Of 1880. BY Stendhsl. Trans
lated by Horace 3. Samuel. NJ. \.
12mo, PIP. xvi. 81. T.. L. Dutton & co.
PRINCESS RuSSALKA. By. Frank
Wedekind. Translated by Frederick
Eisemann With portrait. Emo, PIP.
xvii. l3S. Boston: John ". Luce q
Go.
vIENNEsE IDYLLS BY Arthur
Eiaelnann. with portrait l2mo. PIP.
tx. 1S2. Boston: John ". Luce e Co.
The ten studies by Mr.. Samuel re
printed in this volume from the Eng
llsh reviews in which they originally
appeared deserve the close attention of
students OF certain tendencies and
achievements in contemporary Cont
mental literature. He deals with lead
ors and their intellectual descendants.
mostly collateral. His papers on THE
Psychology OF Disraeli" and THE
MISUNDERSTANDING of Miss Marie Corelli"
do not IT in the main current of his
scheme. The one is wort1 reading FOR
it's own sake; the other is on elaborate
and successful venture into irony, with
squints at Elnor Glyn, but the elao-
crate apparatus critlcus employed Is out
Of all proportion 10 the Importance OF
the subject. Readers Of Marie Corelli
are not likely to read Mr.. Samuel.
Moreover. she is not q ''modernity,'
but. in essence, late Victorian, stamped,
so il has been said, with the highest
Victorian approval There remain,
then, the essays on Stendhal, Heine,
Nietzsche. Strindberg, Weekend,
Schnitzler, Ncrhaeren and the Futur-
lists of Italy; and Of these, again,
Hcine must be set apart He was es-
sentially the child Of his period, which
through him wrought its illusions and
disillusions into immortal verse.
Mr. Samuel opens with Stendhal, and
rightly. for the Oldest Of these "moder-
mites" is the most modern Of them all,
If only because OF his own prophecy
that the world would not b, Gin to ap-
preciate him until forty years after his
death: "Jo serai compris vers 1880"
Balzac called him 'une anne d'6lite.'
Why one fails TO see, least OF ali in the
light Of his photographed novel.
THE Red and the Black" an admirable
/ translation OF which. from Mr. Sam
uels hand, has Just come from the
press Stendhal was a Nictzschean be
fore Nietzsche. but he was more than
that and worse. lie was tho forcrun-
ner, not only OF the psychologists of
the type OF the earlier Bourget. but
also OF what was in the 0Os Of the last
century called terscly, If coarsely, "je
men f-tismc," and OF the drrirtsme
that is now being superseded, we are
told, by a religious revival IN France
that is largely a new literary pose and
nothing deeper.
The Nietzsche -Strindberg- wedeklnd-
Futurist descent IL easily traced, and
OF the four Wedekind is not tho least
foreign 10 US. Mr.. Eisemann prefaces
the Princess Russallla" stories with
extracts from the dlthyramblc Masks
and Minstrels Of New Germany" OF
the late Percival Pollard; Mr.. samuel's
essay has critical polse. AS for the
stories themselves, they are, from our
view. unwholesome probings into mat
tiers that We can leave alone without
suffering In any way from the neglect
artistically or otherwise. And. as for
"Thc Awakening OF Spring" Wede-
kinds best known work. We are CROP
ing after ways ~ our own 10 deal win
its problems and dangers. II was not
Wcdckind who awakened us 10 them.