Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-05-06
THE COWNSMAN
Jones and Smith and Robertson

olpiiCitV OF CeleDrltteS was
born all on the same day in April and
their versicular genius expanding, burst.
1t viii be remembered by all free lovers
OF free verses, on an astonished world
simultaneously with the burst of the
Germans into Belgium. It may well be
doubted which was the more momentous
! event. this cataclysm Of modern warfare
or the publication of "The Second
Cousin of the Dey" by this triunity of
geniuses. book of vers irregulaire
more directly Inspired from common
experience and more austere in style
than anything in earlier American
tradition The Gownsman rather re-
members reading '"The Dey" and IL i'm
mediately became night to him. In
those times the young Jeremiah Shot
well-and who does not now know the
notable author of "The Sleuth of
Slitherton "--carried clippings of Jones
and Smith and Robertson In both of
his bulging vest pockets. reading them
aloud on street corners and asking for
the book at small town libraries to ad-
vertise it, while Jones and Smith and
Robertson industriously did the same
for THE Sleuth.''
SUMME LEvELLER thinks Messrs.
~ Jones and Smith and Robertson
the greatest triplet of living American
poets. Lincoln Abrahams calls them
master etchers of human portraits"
Lemuel Whalloper dilates on "their
curiouslt penetrating insight into the
labyrinths of the human mind and their
scrupulous artistic integrity" Murray
| 1indley dubs them restless seekers and
| finders OF human beings, novelists dis
titled into poets, high gossips among
the more humorous angels and men,"
which we take 1t is doubtless something
very fine. could we fathom its meaning,
George Stettering, remembering his
Keats, discovers in Jones and Smith
and Robertson "the only poets whose
truth is always beauty and whose
beauty is always truth While vener-
able Hop Markins finds that as psy-
biologists, Jones and Smith and Robert
son approach the power of Browning,
yet in style they are as simple as
Whittier" and the author Of Fork
Inlet Madrigals" declares that. as crafts
men. Messrs. Jones and Smith and
Robertson are masters like himself, "as
thinkers. subtle and original; as artists,
they have kept faith"
TT is great thing in this day Of the
L II. C. of L. to have "kept faith"
and well may Jones and Smith and
Robertson be "the proudest figures in
American letters or the proudest
letters in American fgures-both
.hphrases sound equally fine. 1t appears
that Messrs J. and s. and R.--for the
firm name is awful long to write out
each time-are somewhat shy and
aloof, haughtily austere in thought and
manner of life. imaginativcly observant,
impassioned like tempered STEEL 1t
! al tannoarc' al
as in their obscurer yesterdays, ade-
quate. uncompromising- is the
greatest of contemporary poetic virtues
three big men in one thorough and
keen visioned artist
TT is wonderful thing to be poet !;
L still more wonderful to be triplicity
of poets rolled into one superlative
whole, and to elicit the encomiums of
every other poet who writes-for the
same magazines. 1t is marvellous thing
to be a poet all bespangled with praise,
to overtop your Kelleys and your Sheets.
your Wordsridges and COleworths. your
Huntleighs and Slambs. We manage
things better than they did of old. Byron
awoke one morning to find himself
famous. Jones and Smith and Robert
son were famous before they awoke.
|, They are producing poetry of i'm
Y portances in the most sterile period of
realize how sterile poetry would be but
for J. and s. and r.? They overtop
the Victorians of course-that is easy.
According to Mammie Toewell: 'They
are poets for poets. Their art becomes
only the more interesting the more it is
studied. Contemptuous of shams"-the
contemporary poet is always "con-
temptuous. of shams'-"no one has
voiced the contradictory elements of
American life better than ]. and S. and
Robertson.
THE Gownsman has never read a
i word of J. or s. or r., wherefore he
is the more unbiased judge of the criti-
cism which they inspire, howsoever he
n NAV therefore fail to distinguish the
subtle Keatsean flavor of Jones from the
Robertsonian Arnoldry or the surpass-
ing Spenserianism of Smith. "Just be-
fore the publication of The Second
Cousin of the Dey' Or was 1t Knight?
There was hush which preludes the
, coming of a great event" There is al
WAYS such a "hush" before book of
Jones or Smith or Robertson drops
seething from the press. Rubbish was
not as yet in the air, for as yet nothing
had exploded. But 1.-THE Dey"-or the
Knight-was soon to come. And when
I it did come, in the name of the nine
2 worthies-not the nine MUSES., who
, shall not be so invoked-what under
I heaven did it matter?
! THERE was once man who dwelt
E l. wholly among superlatives, His
: likes were idolatries, his dislikes loath
r ings, and he knew not the past. He was
e possessed of a fairly large fortune OF
? adjectives which he lavished on his
! friends or squandered in the abuse OF
his foes, who were mostly writers OF
. rather free iambics like himself. One
day the great god of song, Apollo, ap-
e peared before this man, aud he had be
j come such beggar that owned not ar
adjective nor even an appropriate parti-
h ciple with which to greet him. With oui
r praises all bestowed upon Jones ant
Smith and Robertson, what shall W.
n do when the authentic gods appear
a Poetry has fallen on evil days when il
is exploited and advertised with a slogan
like a new breakfast, food. Poetry is il
= an evil plight If we must create for il BY
a judicious puffery an artificial demanC
d and in doing so put at naught all th'
= proportions of verify. For whatever
@ the freedom of its Verse and its critics
freedom with the truth, such poetry
save the marks fettered to tn
wheels of trade and, unsupported b!
: the wind of appreciation and untrum
e peted by the slogans of cheap aIlvertis
e ing, must sink into its deserved oblivion
Is Let us not be beguiled into even mo
y mentary displacement of our poeti
household gods by any of these plaudit