Omaha daily bee., 1919-10-28
PoWYS TALKS ON
damn UNzI0 TO
DRAMA LEAGUE.
Vivid Description Of "Genius
Of Italy" Enjoyed by
More Than 600
0mahans.

A picturesque figure. in academic
gown, with = British tang to his
speech, illuminating gestures and =
vocabulary to give lust the shade Of
meaning desired, John Cowper
Powys gave his brilliant lecture on
"D'Annunzio, the Genius of Italy,"
before the Omaha Drama league at
the Hotel Fontenelle yesterday aft
ernoon, More than 800 people hear ]
him, the women being in the large
majority. Mr.. Powys' own person.
atty was soon lost sight of in the
vivid description he gave of that
Italian who represents the supreme
Latin element in human life"
"D'Annunzio is a man of action"
declared Mr.. Powys. Most of our
modern men of letters are of Sc
dentary habits. Only five books out
of $4,000 produced during the war
will live. If their writer's went into
the trenches the shock was too
much for them. If they stayed back
at safe distance they produced ter
rible outcries against the atrocities
OF the Huns. But they did not pro-
duce literature.
Still Keeps Identity.
"D'Annunzio has never lost his
identity. / suppose he alone Of all
men of letters, possibly of all men,
enjoyed this war, regarded it IS his
own element. He drew Italy into
the war for the sake of Latin ideals
and the Latin race. When he has to
give up the ghost it will be one last
romantic gesture, accompanied by
rhetoric. We must regard him as
IN orator, as master of magnifi-
cent, cruel, voluptuous rhetoric. His
rhetoric has the ring of the ancient
world, 4 finality-no finesse, no
light or shade and no hunor.
Whatever we may be, we are
barbarians," Mr.. Powys ventured !;
"at any rate, we have the saving
quality of humor, and humor never
enters where humanity is obsessed
by the drunken fanaticism of one
idea. 1t depends for its existence
upon a sense of proportion and con-
trast.
"And D'Annunzio's one idea is
beauty-physical beauty. He would
reduce everything to a desperate
search for physical beauty. The
bodies of men, women, children,
trees, delicate flowers, burning jew
els, pillars, palaces, fabrics, tapes
tries and silk, statuettes and canoes
in their historic settings are of over
towering significance to D'Annun-
zio and nothing else matters. The
league of nations is nothing to him.
1t is an abstract idea, we'll
weighed business proposition. From
his point of view, war is part OF
that great aesthetic spectacle which
is life"
Recommends Two Books.
The two books which Mr.. Powys
especially recommended were THE
Triumph of Death" perhaps the
great writer's masterpiece, and the
speakers favorite volume, THE
Flame Of Life"
'He won't hurt your morals"
concluded the speaker, "and we
need his aesthetic conscience.
Though he is shameless, unscrupu-
lous, formidable and audacious, he
is honest. He has kept the integ-
rity of his own personality intact,
and how many of us could say that!
We have no personality except
when it comes to money. D'Annun-
zio stands as one great threat, one
great defiance. He would say, I
stand for Italy, Fiume and Beautyl
Beauty is truth Beauty alone is
Lowell Beauty alone will save the
world and you have profaned it
until you are no longer worthy
Truth is beauty! That is all we
know on earth and all we need to
Loo1,,,n