The sun., 1919-11-02
ON MINDS ACROSS THE SEA.


to hIs question about the promotion OF intel
lectuai entente among the Engllsh speaking peo-
Piles.
A remarkable number of foreign authors, most
of them English, having found their works sue
cessfm in the United States, are coming this fall
and winter to tour and lecture. Several are here
now. In effect these visitors are plenipotentaries
for the negotiation Of the entente" which Mr..
CLARK had in mind. Its immediate prospects are
very much in their hands. Knowing good deal
about each one already here and about the circum-
stances Of his visit, Books and the Book World
gladly feels that the business which is important
could hardly be in better hands.
This lecture touring is reputable and mutually
benefcent thing for which (if it mattered) there
illustrious precedents. The visitor motive no
doubt is compound always. If one component is
desire to make money, that is more dscreditable
to the visitor than is to the United States of Amer
lea, the fact that money is SO readily to be made
here In this way.
We know of but one literary visitor in the past
of whom it could fairly be said that dollars and
nothing else had allured him. and he, at the time
of his visit, was recognized'' only as the joke Of
the London season. OSCAR WILDE came for money
he needed so badly that he could pocket his panache
and let himself be exploited to advertise light
opera that made fun of him.
Bunthorne as an Example.
Bar some harmless and rather engaging impu,
dence, WnDE'S department in America was ex-
emplary. Once home again, he joked about his
''apoStoc labors," and to the end of his career
he held Americans in humorous contempt, though
he could on dramatic occasion get up fine fervor
of sentiment for his notion of their Puritan ideals
But the lectures he delivered here we have. They
are neither original nor stimulating; they are how
ever the best he could do with all the qualification
and sincerity that were in him-they are never
prepared tongue-in-cheek If he was to get dollars
he would give value, whether the benighted Amer
leans chose to smoker at Bunthorne s original or
not.
In this policy, it will be said, he showed himself
gentleman. He did; but for present purposes we
would rather point out that he showed himself
man of sense. And there need be no misgivings
lest any Of present visitors shall not equal him
in good breeding and sincerity. But the hope is
allowable that all of them will Guido him in under
standing us.
WuDE's unimportant failure to understand us
was perfectly natural. He was handicapped for do
ing it and disinclined to make the effort and the
conditions of his visit especially adverse to it.
The conditions of any of these visits are somewhat
: adverse. The visitor in an artificial atmos-
phere, among people who for one reason another,
and often quite unconsciously, play up to him. 1t
could almost be said that he cannot move in
natural way among the numerous inconspicuous,
genuinely representative reading Americans whose
unaffected appreciation is responsible for his being
here. He meets Of them, but doesn't "get a
line on" proportions. He would have to travel in
cognito, first shaving or buying beard.
Our nation is no shrinking violet about the ire
mendous things in which it excels Yet our nation
is just like each of in being less cocky about
things it does well than sensitive about other
things it would like to do well and does, or thinks
it does, badly. Was ii not MATTHEW ARNOLD who
sagely advised us to stop fretting over the fine
arts and devote ourselves to producing more LIN
coins and GRANTS? We have never followed the
advice. All along have been in the presence of
nations sure of their artistic standings selfcon
scious and silly The finishing school girl class
poet.
Beyond what truth there is to the hacksaw about