New-York tribune., 1922-08-13

By Burton Rascoe
AUGUST 8


alking Of this in the office this morn
ng when Isabel Paterson offered what
GEMS TO me the most plausible ex-
lanation of his conduct toward Stella
nd Vanessa. 1t is that Swift was an
pileptic. He used to hide, she said,
very time he felt the fits coming on,
nd that is why he spoke Of dying like
poisoned rat in a hole. "He was for
unate--if the word is not too ironlc-
n that his affiiction took q form which
lways gave him sufficient warning to
10 this: and no one knew of it except
iinseif and one old servant, who kept
he secret for him to the end. Mar
iage was impossible because the stress
i any strong emotion would induce
leizure, and his embittered pride, If
lothing else, would never allow him to
discover his condition to any one, least
4 ali TO one he loved and IN whose
.yes he desired to stand well. Hence
10 was as glad to have Stella IN Dublin
yhile he was in London; and he never
Jaw her alone. but always IN the
presence of the chaperone-house-
seeper, whom he even included in
ais letters and greetings. But he
owed Stella all his life, and could not
scar to see her married to another.
indeed, he was naturally disposed to
women in general and he might have
been a great lover in other circum-
stances. He was drawn to the society
of women always, but when, as III
Vanessa's case, they took his atten-
tons too seriously, his knowledge OF
his own disability made him turn on
them savagely, with a detected hatred.
rhis lifelong Illustration of one OF his
emotional nature found vent also in
scurrilous and obscene writings, some
of which are still preserved, though
not in circulation, such as 'AdVice 10
a Young Lady on Her Marriage. The
occasion on which he described htm-
self as the most wretched of mortals,
when the observer speaks of his face as
being distorted with terrible rage or
grief, was one of the times he was
flying to hide himself. The expression
described was due to the inminence
Of an attack. His later madness was
the elimination of his epilepsy and
Of the long mental anguish he sut-
fered because of it." Lunched
with Marian Suitzer, who told me she
had contracted with Horace Liveright
for her novel, which is to be published
in the spring. Carl Van Vechten came
TO our table TO tell me that Arthur
Machen's "The Secret Glory" has al
ready gone into a fifth edition and that
the same authors "The House OF
Souls" which Alfred Knopf recently
brought out in new edition, has at
last found favor with comparatively
large public. Van Vechten feels sort
Of proprietary interest in Machen as
being one of those who has frequently
dinned into the ears of his readers the
high merit of Machen's work. To W.
cent Starrett. of Chicago, however, is
due the honor of discovering Machen
1t was Starrett who wrote the first
appreciation of him, in the old Reedy'ss
mirror" and to Starrett is dedicated
"The Secret Glory" in recognition Of
Starrett's efforts in Machen's behalf
with the American public, a public,
which, by the way. has been much less
neglectful of Machen than has the pub
lie of his native England. {.
Herbert and Dorothea Brande came out
TO the house in the evening and in
discussion Of the Settler trial and the
recent activities of the Society for the
Suppression of Vice we concluded that
the word moral" had lost its finer
meaning and had degenerated into
so false and narrow concept that
an intelligent or sensitive person
refrains from usihg it and she's
away instinctively from anything to
which it is attached and from any one
who uses the word with JUNCTION. 1t
is for this reason that critics and
sestheticians like Benedetto CrOce and
Remy de Gourmont, following Goethe,
Hegel, Gautier and other artists and
philosophers, have found it necessary
TO dissociate ethics and aesthetics,
and have even gone SO far as TO deny,
rs in the art for arts sake doctrine,
that art has any relation to life what
ever The Greeks did not observe this
cleavage between art and morals, for
it never occurred TO Aristotle, for in
stance, that the free expression of the
spirit Of man in any creative work
could be anything except moral, i. e.,
that 1t could do otherwise than lead man
to the Greek ideal Of "Kalokagathia"
or cultured gentility. In the higher,
the right sense, all art is moral, for
whatever contributes TO mans knowl-
edge of the means TO the good life is,
inevitably, moral in intent and pur-
pose. BY contrary, that which fetters
mans spirit, shields him from knowl-
edge of himself and others and falsi-
fies his true relation to the world
about him 10, in essence, immoral. The
early training to which the three of
us were subjected was, we agreed, i'm
moral, for it inculcated false IDEAL
ism which ended in disillusion, sorrow,
and bitterness. Particularly were
Dorothea and my wife resentful of the
deliberate lying on the part Of women
about the facts of childbirth. At the
time of the birth of her first child each
OF them felt that she was spiritually
deficient because she did not expert
enee that transcendental emotion,
which old maids, men, childless women.
and romantic literature had led them
to believe was the concomitant of
motherhood, but experienced only pain
and torture and resentment. Their
helpless plight was made the worse bv
their having young husbands such as
Herbert and myself, who, fed upon the
same tragic nonsense, expected them
TO enjoy their pain by some holy dis
pensation and TO rejoice in their
torture with the sublime radiance
OF maternity. When they did
not, we felt (as we both confessedl !
that we had somehow been cheated
ana had we chosen other wives
they would have been madonnas
IN the proper story-beok fashion.
Needless to say, our wives felt that we
had led them blindly into their misery
and, IN consequence, they hated us ir-
nationally for weeks We had a dis
tnrbing sense of guilt without being
able to atone for it. Women seem to
Tear" said Dorothea, "that by being
honest about this thing they will be-
tray their sex and lose the hold they
have upon men. For that reason thev
lie even to their husbands about II