New-York tribune., 1922-07-30

4
himself which appears in this volume,
is frank ard illuminating;
| l never cared for Life: Lille cared
for me,
And hence | owed IL some fdelity
1t now says: Cease; at length thou
hast learnt to grind
Sufficient toll for an unwilling mind,
And dismiss thee--not without re-
That shoa sssa didst ask no ill.advised
reward,
/ Nor sought in me much more than
thou couldst find"
Nothing could be more explicit of
his philosophy of life.
JULY 81
My wife and took the boat trip
| with Edward Goldbeck and Lima Abar-
| banell to Bear Mountain to-day, but
was so fatigued I didn't enjoy it par
ticularly. Coming back Mr. Goidbeck
suddenly recited Robert Nathan's love
/ ly little poem from youth Grows
Old" with the final line, Sorrow is
/ the best thing I've ever had saying
| that 1t was the most impressive bit
! of verse he had encountered recently
THE statement of philosophic maxim
in q lifting, nursery ballad form is
most unusual ard charming" he said.
| was pleased to hear that he had en-
countered some of Conrad Aiken's
poetry and had been greatly impressed
| by it. at is,' he said, "the most
subtly musical poetry by an American
that have ever read, I must get and
read all of his, work" We talked about
/ Wallace Stevens, some of whose poetry
( is in the current Dial" Stevens's
| first poem in this series pleased me
particularly; but Mr.. Goldbeck said
that it puzzled him and he got nothing
out of it. | said that it wasn't neces-
/ sary to derive particular meaning
/ from Stevens's work, for his aim is
! TO write pure music, attaching little
| Importance to the story or literary
! idea. Mr.. Goldbeck raised valid OBJ
! lection, think, by saying, "But then
he should use no words whatever, but
| only various combinations of vowels
and consonants. His use Of actual
words is confusing, for it makes the
| reader believe that a certain signif-
/ eance and meaning is escaping him."
/ Still, in the creation of a mood, Stew
ems is, for me, eminently successful.
! know of no contemporary poem which
/ thought more touchingly beautiful on
I first reading than lie Monocle de Mon
1 Oncle,' and | have re-read none with
/ greater frequency and with greater
Z cACTlOrQl0drV
/ chap, successful Hartford lawyer.
| huge but we'll proportioned, and the
only distinguished" looking poet |
lave ever met. He has a biting, sar-
donic wit, and a gift for disposing of
people who bore or annoy him by a
single sentence, so finely wrought, per
feet and merciless that the victim con-
vulses and subsidies. He is shy, reti-
cent and excessively modest about his
work. He will not discuss it and he
refuses to publish collection of his
verse, though he has been repeatedly
| urged to do so. He says that what he
has written in the Immediate or more
| remote past does not interest him; he
is interested only in what he is vet to
write.
| got copy of the new edition of
Simeon Strunsky's "Belshazzar Court"
to-day and | opened it tonight III trep-
ldation lest it should not please me as
much as 1t did back in 1914 and during
so many months of rereading. | re-
member it was Samuel Kaplan (where
is Sam nowO who handed me the book
IN the open-shelf room of the Chicago
Pubilc Library with the promise tnat l
would find 1t interesting | read a few
paragraphs then and there and took
the book home with me, reading it
throughout the night, entranced by it's
charm of manner, its quiet and unsen-
tlmental humility, its human warmth
and tolerance and sympathy. Perhaps,
| | reasoned, it was because !, too, was
| living IN a Beishazzar Court, a puzzled,
curious, book-fed and not very expert
enced person, speculating, like Mr..
Strunsky, at times about the life of a
! typewriter whom l could see across
the way, engaged, apparently, in sim
llar pursuit OF an understanding and
expression of life and urged on with
black coffee against the haste oil time.
Perhaps Mr.. Strunsky would rather
that | did not publicly acknowledge
this, but for him, then, | felt kinship
and L was thankful for the keen emo
tlon OF recognition l experienced in
his quandaries and resolutions, his
shy, eager wonderment about people
and life. turned the pages of
the bright new book slowly. Imagine
my delight in finding in it the old
charm! 1t was like meeting a friend
OF ones youth and finding him, with
the passage of years and cataclysmic
events, the same as ever. This is one
Oh Amerlca's happiest books of essays,
and in the field of the essay, as | have
frequently pointed out we stand sec.
ono to no country in Europe.
JULY 23
John Farrar came over this norninp
and told me of his visit with Booth
Harrington in Maine and of having
found him genial and courteous host.
eager to talk about the newer writers
quick and keen in summing I'D in an
: eplgram the virtues and defects of his
= contemporaries. Mr. Harrington. he
7 says, Is beset by visitors from morning
, until night at his summer home, that
, he gets no work done there. and that
. ne spends much of his time on the
water in his yawl
rarely read travel book, but this
} afternoon | began reading "ltaly, Old
; and New" by Elizabeth Hazelton
Haight, and ! was fascinated by it. It
IS not the usual sort of thing at all.
MISS Haight is professor of Latin at
Vassar, and she is, moreover, a wise
and emancipated philosopher, schol-
arly and delightful writer, Her book
is no Baedeker, giving dry facts and
dates 1T is series of essays about
| Horace, Catullus, Ovid, Vergil and
other Latin writers apropos of the
sites she visited which were the haunts
: of these men. | have never read a
more adequate or a more interesting
account of the life and work of Catul-
lus and Ovid than she gets into few
pages. These poets live for us in her
admirable portraiture. OF Catullus
| especially, she writes with rare SYM
( pathy and illumination, reminded of