New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-02-09

success than had he resorted
to the time honored exhortation of the
muse and then continued under his own
signature. Unrestrained by any debt of
gratitude to goddess and fortified by
the belief whether fallacious or not, that
his words will not return to rend him,
his disguise enables him to say the most
remarkable things. Perhaps this is why
Mr.. James Branch Cabell in his latest
publication, Beyond Life" (Robert M.
Mcbride & Co.., is enabled to scott so
successfully at conventions and Incl
dentally at the American public and its
idols of literature. Assuming the cloak
of a certain John Charters, for whose
words, Mr.. eabell assures US, he takes
no responsibility. our essayist launches
forth into one of the most picturesque
and vigorous briefs for romance that for
many day has confronted American
reviewers.
John Charters means to discourse for
only a little while on the Immortality of
books, but instead his talk to the author,
carefully transcribed by the latter, lasts
we'll into the dawn of another day. Mr..
Cabel comments frankly on the awk-
wardness of his style, but it is John
Charters who speaks, urging that ro-
nance is the greatest force for uplift
in our lives, urging it at the expense
of many of our most fixed traditions,
including our personal pride.
1t is rambling defence, but forceful,
nevertheless, as the following quotations
may illustrates:
"Ofhand began John Charteris l would
say that books are best insured against
oblivion through practice of the auctorial
virtues of distinction and clarity, of beauty
and symmetry, of tenderness and truth
and urbanity.
'In particular I imagine that my frequent
references to the affairs and people of fed
years will annoy you, since the American
book purchaser SHES from such pedantic,
and indeed from any, allusion to the past,
with that dstrust peculiar to persons with
criminal records. In fact, this murderer,
too, is often haunted l dare say by memo
ries of his victim, in thinking of the time
he has killed, whether with the uplifting
or with the daring current novels of yes
terday.
sonal indifference and the lazy contempt of
America as a whole, toward art matters no
more affects the eternal verify and the eter-
nal Importance of art than do the religious
practices of Abyssinia, say, affect the
verify and Importance of the New Testa-
ment. You perceive, l trust, that you ought
to be interested in art matters, whatever
your actual emotion. You understand, in
fne-as a mere abstract principle-what
your feeling ought to be- Well, it is pre-
cisely that tendency to imagine yourself
and your emotions as these things ought to
be- which convicts you, over any verbal dis
cIaimer, of vital interest in art matters:
and it is that tendency about which pro-
pose to speak very briefly.
And so it comes about that romance has
invariably been the demiurgic and the bene-
fcent force, not merely in letters but in
every matter which concerns mankind and
that realism, with it's teaching that the
mile posts along the road worthy of
consideration the goal, has always figured
as mans chief enemy
Indeed, that scathing criticism which
Sopho cles passed, however ancienty on a
contemporary, remains less familiar
than significant: He paints men as they
are; I paint them they ought to be- 1t
is aside from the mark that in imputing
such veracity to Euripides the singer Of
Colonos was talking nonsense; the point ia
that Sophoces saw clearly what the
one objectionable sin against art and
human welfare.
For the Greeks, who were nurtured
among arts masterworks, recognized with
much of that purturbing candor wherewith
children everywhere appraise their associ-
.ates that gracefully TO prevarcate about
mankind and human existence was arts
signal function.
AT all events, complasant dramatists,
out of normal preference for butter with
their daily bread soon began to romance
about contemporary life 1t is not Shake
speare's least claim to applause that he
seduousiy avoided doing anything of the
sort To the other side, being human,
Shakespeare was not untainted by the
augmenting trend toward realism and in
depicting his fellows prone to limit
himself to exaggeration Of their powers of
fancy and diction
But at bottom Shakespeare never dis
played any very hearty admiration for
humanity a race. and would seem to have
found not many more CONNER dable traits
In general exercise among mankind than
did the authors Of the Bible
For one reason another, men as
whole have never taken kindly to printed
poetry; most of are unable to put up
with II at all, and even to the exceptional
person verse after an hours reading be-
comes unaccountaby tiresome. Prose-for
no very patent cause--is much easier go
ing.
Competent persons, then as now, had
naifhcr L.