The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-06-15

air. Reality has no kick in it. He is dead
beyond all resurrection who hath not
been fool, and he is still-bon who does
not love to be q fool occasionally and
grin at himself In the mirror Of his alb
surd seriousness.
The ancients were wise. Rome had so
many restrictions that hemmed in the ae-
Invites of her citizens that Seneca recon-
mended an occasional debauch for all law
makers and citizens. The Saturnalia was
ordained, periods Of official sprees, when
everybody tore up his income tax blank
and put Ounce cap Oh the Mayor. II
you want to keep people from guillotin-
ing let them get drunk every little while
and imagine they are kings, mayors,
spendthrifts and lawmakers for a day.
These were "hOly days for the unhol-
ness Of the people" Our own staid Will
lam james advised "moral holiday"
for everybody in order to keep the bal
ances. Herbert Spencer tells us some
where to upset the equilibrium" on stated
occasions.
Says Mrs. Cox: "The drunkard drinks
with mystic hankering that makes his
toast like an unutterable prayer that he
may feel one with the gods for one glori-
Gus moment of their sun soaked eternity.
He drinks to escape himself and the sober,
stone-eyed world which has hitched all his
little stars to a treadmill, petticoat or a
plow." An the tragedies of history were
invented in the brains of sober people.
The Fools Of Love is brilliantly writ
ten analysis Of woman's besetting sin
her sublimal love-anarchy. "Love has
become woman's 0lympian madness, her
sublimated folly, her voluptuousness Of
self-destruction. Even the suf-
ferings Of love have come to form part of
its morbid attraction to her. She revels
In Hastings, seourgings, confessions, for
giveness Of sins, penances, ceremonials,
eommunions and symbolism of flesh and
spirit In the orthodoxy Of human passion.
All intellectual women die of a
broken heart" says Mrs. Cox. There is
no escape from the furies of sex. The
woman mathematician, the woman artist,
the woman chemist, do not really exist;
they are roads to the eternal Tristan.
The philtres of Brangaene were mixed by
Eros and Mephistopheles.
The Lady In War is a study in one Of
the most striking phenomena Of the great
war-the rise Of the Amazon. Woman
follows the man up 10 the mouth of the
howitzer. "To smile and smile, be vii
lain Is the consummate paradox of femi-
nine nature. The essential vir-
tues Of a soldier are suggestibility and
automatism; and in these qualities the
raw, unfashioned female excels the male"
There was the Russian Battalion Of
Death. There are the Furies of Suffrage.
And further back, Jezebel and Joan Of
Arc.
The Gentleman in War advances the
opinion that England is unconquerable
because England is a race Of gentlemen.
Prussia cannot conquer gentlemen. Where
there are gentlemen there arc conquest
and strength. "The war, in one aspect,
can be seen as q combat between the real
gentlemen Of England and the sham noble
men Of Germany. In Germany
there is no national word for gentleman
or character When tho Ger
man lost his gentle instinct he lost his
empire" This essay is fine tribute to
England, at whose head have been hurled
more stupidities than she has ever been
guilty Of
The Great Fear IN Germany is mas
terly study Of crowd-insanity-to me the
finest essay in the book. Modern Ger
many is the greatest psychological phe-
nomenon in the worlds history, for it is
the only instance of a whole people going
totally insane of which we have any
knowledge. It was the revival of the
Great Fear" of the Middle Ages as il