New-York tribune., 1922-11-19
A Book1nan's Daybook
By Burton Rascoe

every QfEarucoN ana evening. Inc Ipp
amnses him: life itaelf amuses him;
he has gift for viewing matters
commonly seen as tragedy with an eye
for its comic side. He has worked
out q thousand schemes for making
money, all of them pure hoakunl, and
one of thenis which plays upon negro
concupiscence and crsdulity, is hi
iarious masterpiece of swindling. He
knows the underworld of Boston as
no one else knows It; he is confidant
of crooks and prostitutes and police
sergeants; and he Is a poss. mu-
sician, painter with .-ars ssose of
color and form, and nov.s,st 81 twen
ty-nine Though he looks thirtw-seyen1
who has achieved in tho aSas s,art of
a1ndeiihle" q new and deitr;cue method
Of narrative and of oblique irony.
Linscott and / went to dinner tonight
with Miss Amy Lowell. who lives in q
house of true baronial aspect in Brook
line. Miss Lowell is one of the most
dynamic personalities / have ever en-
countered. She would have been q
force by virtue of her energy, vitality
and strength of character, in whatever
work she entered into-education, re-
form, politics or what not. We fought
bit during dinner over the merits of
7. S. Eliot, whom she is inclined to
dismiss as merely clever epigrammat-
ist incapable Of creating pure beauty
in poetry; but after dinner we got
upon grounds of common agreement
about number of matters, including
the superior merits of Manila cigars,
and had a most enjoyable evening,
leaving at midnight to take the train
back to New York. i. In the
berth / read the "Mercpre de Frances"
account Of the celebration at Coutances
liz honor of Remy de Gourmont, on the
occasion of the unveiling of bust
there Of the great French mar! of let
ters. From the report the addresses
were not the usual blah delivered on
like occasions in America, bat sensible,
critical summaries of Gourmont's con-
tribution to French thought and let
ters, not evading in any way the
pyrrhontc and sensual features of his
life, essays and poetry. They order
these things better in France,
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER IA
To lunch with Nellie Dawson, the
clever literary cut-up Of 'The Globe"
and asked her why it was that she
managed to draw from her readers
only the most fiattering letters, while
the rest Of US are always getting
bawled out. "But, Birdie" she said,
"you chaps are just foolish enough to
in the waste basket. Who's to know
the difference il you just reverse the
processT' | voiced my admiration for
her ability to put in print sly observa-
tlons which the rest of us dare not
suggest even by asterisks, mentioning
that. though l enjoyed her review Of |
Harry kemp's "Tramping on Life" as
much as she apparently enjoyed "Ulys-
ses," her review. rouged my cheeks
with the red wine OF astonishment.
But, Birdie, mon vieux," she said, 10
reputation Sor naIvet6 is splendid
asset" !. My wife and I went to
see Paul Geraldy's "To Love" a most
satisfactory and ingenious drama Of
the psychology of attraction and af-
lection. Read some of the
pieces in George AIDES "single Bless
edness and Other Observations" in bed
tonight and enjoyed Ade's pungent
American idiom, but thought that he
mad lost lot in pointedness since the
days OF "Fables in Slang" and "Artie."
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10
Read some more of "The Adventure
OF Living" by John st. Loe Strachey,
this morning with much pleasure. Il
sympathize with his admirable chapter
on "a Classical Education" wherein he
says; Owing to having been forced to
Of reading the books written by the
Greeks In language which l could
understand, ! very nearly made an in
teilectual shipwreck. Indeed, It was
only by series Of lucky accidents that
| escaped complete ignorance of the
Greek spirit, though retaining a Ger
tain knowledge of the grammar. 1t was
only after I had miserably sauirrned
my way through Mods, as man may
squ;rm through some hole In a prison
wall. that had the slightest idea Of
what was meant by the Greek spirit.
l closed my grammar with all the mis-
cradle and complicated stuff about
Typto' and its aorists and the enclitic
and the double-damned digamma, to
open my Jowett's Plato, my Dakyns's
xenophon and Mackail's Anthology. It
is true that In the squirming process l
have described had to read portion
and Memorabilia as we'll as books of
Caesar, Livy, Horace and Virgil. In
the case Of these books I acquired
nothing but a distaste SO deep that it
has only just worn off. Only after an
interval of forty years could I bear to
read these kill-joys in translation. :.
When people ask me how | propose to
/ enjoy Plato without knowing Greek,
ask them to tell me, in return, how
they manage to enjoy reading one of
the greatest poets In the world, Isaiah,
without knowing Hebrew. How have
they found consolation in the Psalms:
how, have they absorbed the worldly
wisdom OF Proverbs and Ecclesiastes:
now have they read the lyric choruses
OF the Song Of Solomon; how have they
followed the majestic drama Of the
Book of Job? They read them in trans
iatlons. The ordinary man and
also the man of brains who has gone
through the good old fortifying classi-
cal curriculum and who theoretically
can read the Greek and Latin authors
in their own languages and without
| translations hardly reads them at all
The only man / have known
who habitually read Greek in the orig
inal was Lord Cromer, and he had not
mad classical education"
Mr.. Strachey's evident familiarity with
and appreciation OF the Greek and
Latin classics is sound enough eyi-
dence in proof Of his argument in
favor OF reading translations SO long
as the barbarous methods of teaching
Greek and Latin as dry exercises in
memorizing obtain.
My wife and / went to see the
"49ers" tonight prepared to be bored
and found it delight throughout.
Marc Connelley explained to US during
the intermission that the show was
rather bad the first night, but that
many changes had been made. Best
of sll ! liked Benchley's burlesaue of
| the Liberty loan speeches: Lardner's