The New York herald., 1921-08-14

prize offered by the Renais-
Sdnce Review was a literary
event. "Indice 33" (Arthur Fayard ct
Gle. Paris). by Alexander Arnoux
achieved that honor, after sharp con-
test. Henry Lapauze, who gives the
prize, is editor of the Review and also
director of the Petit Palais on the
Champs Elysees. Among the con-
tributors to Renaissance are Pierre
Hamp, of whose work you have read
in THE NEW YORK HERALD; Guillaume
Janneau, who writes for your new
American magazine. The Arts. and A
de Bersaucourt, a recent visitor TO New
York.
Arnoux is known as the author of a
dramatic poem, "The Death of Pan,"
which was given at the Odeon;
Cabaret" and other works. During
the war, in which he fought, the poet
wrote many pieces for the poilu paper
Crdpouillet, which still appears. You
may be sure he has been guilty of
none of the shallow heroic phrases
characteristic of certain writer's pleas
antly placed behind the lines. For
morale by truth" is the motto of the
soldiers magazine. In reading Arnoux's
best work of this kind. collected in
4 - IT.
feels a wind from the very trenches
Nothing there of a mechanical realism
Under the subtitle observation vibrates
AN emotion. sometimes delicately clear
sometimes ironic-like the paradoxical
existence men lived in those days.
In. writing of the war Arnoux ex-
presses neither the narrow hatred
cherished by patriots of the interior
against the enemy" nor that of the
front line against the selfshness of the
rear. He rises above the melee" to
see the large proportion of things and
to judge of their essential nature.
The literature that follows a great
war has much to say of the future.
'1ndiee 33" looks backward from 1880.
IL is the recollections of a soldier,
Amiable Dhuys, which can be appre-
ciated only after the passing of the
period of indifference.
The fatherless Dhuys, deserted by
his mother, was brought up by timid
old uncle, who filled him with his own
fears of the German conquerors OF
1870. Later the young man went to
Germany and fell under the influence
of a pedantic psychologist, Gottfried
Won Krueger. Working on the foun-
dation of his early fears. Won Kruger
almost persuaded the French lad that
his nation was decadent and essen
TALLY inferior.
The German had a machine by
which he attempted to measure moral
force. The subject was first marked
according to his unmodified person.
ality. Again he exercised his will, but
this time in resistance to the will of
the psychologist. An indicator regis
tered each result and the difference
measured the power of suggestion pos
sessed by the one mind over the other.
BY this test Dhuys appeared to oppose
less resistance to the German than the
Americans or Italians or Dutch that
had submitted to the ordeal. Gottfried
noted triumphantly in his book the
name and record Of his victim:
'Amiable Dhuys. born at Nantes,
is years-42-9=33. For him there
after Dhuys would be nothing but
Register 49," Suddenly the
Frenchman comes to himself. He
draws his pistol on the German and
compels him TO beat retreat, stam-
mering out a promise to modify the
register of French power of resistance
by the derivatives of versatility"
found in that people!
The war breaks out. Later the two
men have a second encounter, which
in a sense repeats the revelation of
the first.
The causes and the aims of the con-
flict usually put forth, in the judg-
ment OF Arnoux. are only external.
The reality is in the depths of souls
'in the springs hidden under the
depths" For him the war Is only a
manifestation of a perpetually unbal-
anced state of the world. Not mill
tary,-not economic. but psychic forces
interact eternally. "The tcorld Is