New-York tribune., 1919-09-06
The Red Francois Villon
Richard Desmond Replies to Rupert
Hughes in Defence of the Poet

he courtesy Of your columns has
been abused beyond excuse, Pm afraid,
by my objection to Mr. Rupert
Hughes's valuation of Villon, and by
Mr.. Hughes's incandescent pieties in
febuttAl of my attitude. Mr.. Hughes
thinks Villon was yellow" and has
written a long, reaable and vigorous
article to prove It. l. and others. think
he was the ruddest of red Gf that
he the color of humanity, and / shall
be grateful If you will permit mo a
final statement on the subject.
My opponent seems to have but two
attitudes, puritanical frenzy and ar
tistic frenzy. Between the two he has
put himself in an interesting predica-
. mont. He thinks me rash, well-in-
tentioned ignoramus who knew moth
Ing OF Villon. aside, perhaps, from Ros-
setti's translation of the "Balladc des
Danes du Temps Jadis,' and who
rushed to his defence, as an Eliza
bethan Salvation Army worker might
pluck Kit Marlowe from the gutter.
Merely as record, he might care to
know that have read all of Villon, in
French and English. including the Jar
gon," and have looked at him
through the eyes not only of Steven
son, Payne and Mr.. Stacpoole, but of
Lang and Swinburne. l am not even
unecquainted with Mn. Lognon's and
Schwoh's writings.
May I let the ~oathesome caverns"
Of Villon's life lie while | put finger
on one point in Mr. Hughes's retort
significant of his superticialty of at
tack and his customary genial wrong
headedness? To him Villon is "a quite
marvellous technician." What this NAV
mean do not know. For surely. Of all
Vnlon's miracles, the least was his
technique. He wrote almost exclusively
in set forms, generally the ballade.
sometimes the rondel, and, as far as
verse mechanics went, he left them
practically in the same shape in which
9 pleasant secondrater like Charles Of
Orleans and the ringleted rhymesters
OF Blois left them. If Villon's tech
nique Is miraculous" 80 is the tech
nique Of Mr.. Austin Dohson, or even
Mr.. Clinton Scollard. The real miracle
was that his "hot, tenacious heart"
breathed fame into these metres, long
sunk to char from the abuses Of ar
tidcial thought and conceit.
Well, If Villon's technique is that
old, what remains Of Mr. Hughes's vast
admiration Of his poetry, as distinct
from his existence? He has "always
Of "astounding gifts" yet he loathes
his life and the attitudes toward that
life which are the very body of his
verse. 1t surely cannot be the mere
linked sweetness of his vowels, for
Ronsard and Verlaine and hundred
minor French stylists have betteyed
him on that score. People persist in
dissociating poets lives from their
work, but how any one can find life
all vileness and the art that sprang
from 1t all wonder puzzles me. That
Is. indeed, art for art with a ven
geance.
So much for prosody. Mr.. Hughes
is "curiouser and curiouser" in his
defence Of the yellow dog" theory.
He actually recurs to that old dodge
Of quoting the part of an essay that
bulwarks his own argument and COM
fortabiy forgetting the rest. Thus,
Payne Is made to stand against me
simply because he admits the truism
b that Villon was tippler. brothel
hanger-on, and thief. All Payne's
decent charity, historical retrospect
and humanity Of handclasr across the