The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1917-05-06
(ka.nsas City Star.)

Mary MacLane?" you ask. ooh
yes; lets see. Mary MacI.ane? M-a-r.y
A-a-c-L-a-n-e? Yes. yes: now re-
member! Came from somewhere out
West. didn't she? Wrote a book, didn' I
she, that was-well, that was rather
naughty: Sure, remember now.
Well, what about herr"
Poor little Mary MacLane," to echo
her own poignant cry. Is that all you
can remember of her who sent her
"ook oTt to the wide, wise worid:'
For Mary MacI.ane and her book--and
, whether it was her book, who shall
say--like young Lochinvar, came out
of the west only Is years ago and
helped people to forget to remember
the Maine, and filled the newspapers
and ran riot in the magazines and
disrupted womcn's clubs and was
damned with more damns than could
be found in THE Story OF Mary Mac
Lane which is considerable, and was
praised with a praise that accorded
her a pedestal OF everlasting literary
fame.
Let's 80 into the library--no. not
the public library: the censorship was
strict in those days and Mary didn't
get past the front door, but into our
little private library. Yes. here it is.
up here in his forgotten corner, with
its red cloth back and frontispiece
picture of Mary herself in hat and
dress that look dreadfully old FASH
Toned now. Don't you recall how it
started:
Il. of Womankind and of 10 years,
will now begin to set down as full and
frank portrayal as am able Of my
self. Mary MacI4ane, for whom the
world contains no parallel.
am a genius. l have at
tanned to an egotism that is rare in
deed. l have hunted for even
the suggestion of a parallel among the
several hundred persons that call
aCquaintances. But in vain. There are
people and people of varying depths
and intricacies Of character. but there
Is none to compare with me-"
But why, you ask, burden our recol-
lections with these things just now
when we are seeing periscopes off Cape
Cod. and the bugle is blowing, and
the death or glory boys are rallying to
T. RS banner, and that step you hear
scription sergeant come to take Jack
off to fit him for suit of khaki? Well
it isn't good in the first place. to give
all ones thoughts to war; and in the
second place Mary MacLanc has writ
ten another book.
About Mary, Of Course.
Guess what it's about. Why Mary
MacLane, of course. She calls it II,
Mary MacLane.' and it is published by
the Stokes company. Harking back to
that quotation from her first book, it
will be recalled that she promised
frank portrayal" Well, the frankness
has not departed from Mary any more
than the scepter from Judah. That first
book contained a lot of personal infor-
nation about Mary that some critical
persons thought might much better
have been kept locked up with the
family skeleton, but not oven the fam
lily skeleton was hidden from the eyes
of Mary's readers.
And in the Is years that have elapsed
since that first book, Mary has learned
more intimate facts about herself and
hastens to make them known. And
the result will bc that again Mary
will be highly praised and roundly
condemned. And she will deserve both
M. lS.f, 1,I. To-
Lane" contains SONS passages, a good
many passages, OF lyric beauty and
haunting charm, and next to the gold is
the dross of triviality and superficial
ity.
II perchancc you do not know Mary
MacLane 1t would be we'll to inform you
that she writes exclusively about her.
self. Alexander Pope pronounced the
dictum that the proper study of man
kind is man, but Mary narrows the
curriculum until it contains only her.
self. One cannot escape the convic-
ton that she believes the personal
pronoun, first person, was invented
for her sake. An ALL wise Providence
delayed her appearance until the ad-
vent of the linotype machine. No print
shop in the old days of hand set type
would have had enough upper case
Is to have printed her book. Observe
this from the first page OF Il. Mary
MacL3ne:"
Il am Mary MacLane: Of no impor-
tancc to the wide. bright world and
dearly and damnahly important to Me.
"Face to face look at Me with some
hatred. with despair and with great in
tentness.
II put Me in a crucible Of my own
making and set it in the flaming trivial
inferno of my mind. And assay thus a:
II am rare-I am in some ways cx-
quisite.
Il am pagan without and within.
II am vain, shallow and false.
Il am Il specialized being, deeply my
self.
II am Of woman sex and most things
that go with that. with some other
pointes.
Il am dynamic but devastated. laid
waste in spirit.
Il am like a leopard and I'm like q
poet. and I'm like a religieuse. and I'm
like an outlaw"
There is a page or two more Of the
IN in r~s Mary is hut ~ van ron liz, m, -