New-York tribune., 1922-08-06

/ city fer civilized man to live in in
/ the entire United States. Even as far
back as Emerson and 1horeau. the Con
| cord group considered itself in revolt
against the drab, penny-grubbi ma
teriaiism of the town and the good citi-
zens treated them accordingly as dan
eerous radicals. Boston has gostered
that it was the cultural center of Amer
ica at the time; but il was the most
hide bound, mean-spirjted city OF
money pirates in America. It's society
was deadly. Margaret Fuller, it is
pretty clear, committed suicide rather
than return to Boston and face the
sort of thing she would have had to
endure there" | tried to buy
Wilson copy of Georg Brandes's
"Recollections of My Childhood and
which made a profound impression
upon me some years ago. ] couldn't
find copy, but left my order and
/ bought instead Neander's History Of
the Planting of Christianity and Il
three volume edition of Walter Dob
sons collection of macoronics. non
sense verse, literary oddities and Quid-
dities. must read again soon Brandes' S
beautiful and valuable book about his
4 intellectual growth, his early studies,
struggles, rebuffs and triumphs. re-
/ X
cago on his visit to America. A short
broad -shouldered man with huge
head and twinkling eye, he sat at a
1 table IN an American cabaret with the
Danish Consul, some friends and nv
/ self. He was exhilarated by cham
pagne; the scantily clad chorus girls
1 passed gayly by him, vulgarly Il
thought Tipping at his goatee and
calling him "grandpop"; but he seemed
/ to like it. He delivered an oration
to me, the only youngster in the group,
saying. Pane is nothing; youth
everything etc, and he told me how
Paris when France was to be crowned
by the Academy and had told him to
bring beautiful woman along" 81
borrowed the niece of a friend, beau
tltul Russian countess and took her
with me. Messieur France was i'm
pressed" / thought this was a queer
boast at the time, but | understand it
now.
1 JULY 20
.nd dunGhed nn Wit whit my wife, Guy Holt
were eating Albert Jay Mock and
Miss Clara La Toilette came in. and
we hailed each other cordially and
went over to greet him. I asked him
II he were hitting back at me again
TINS week, and he explained that he
had written few words of apology.
81 am sorry" he said. was
unable to get hold of a copy of "The
freeman until late tonight. In it I
found; Il offer Mr.. Burton Rascoe d
sincere and humble apology for great
injustice done him in these pages three
weeks ago. My reflections upon him
were based upon the assumption that
ne had read nay article on the Younger
generation before commenting upon it.
1t appears, however, from his state
ment in The New York Tribune OF
23 July that he had not done SO, but
had based his comment on a second
hand account of my article given him
By friend. 1t also appears that be-
fore his comment was printed he had
told me Of this, and therefore feels
(most naturally that I took an un-
scrupulous advantage of this informa-
ton: / remember the occasion per-
1ectly; our meeting was brief and hur-
rleo, 1T took place in q restaurant, q
buzz of conversation was going on all
around US, Mr.. Rascoe spoke rapidly,
! heard really almost nothing of what
ne said and entirely missed the point
or the explanation which he was court
eous enough to offer / hope that Mr.
Rascoe will accept in good part my
expressions of deep regret for this and
Will allow me to retract all my unfavor-
able inferences about him. It remains
TO be said, however, first, that MIR. Ras-
coe permitted himself to write about
my article before he read it; second
that his comment gave no intimation
whatever that he had not read it. and
third, after having read it he was con
tent to let his comment go into print as
IL STOOD. II Mr.. Rascoe can find any ex-
tenuating circumstances in this pro-
cedure, which venture to think is
rather unusual and summary, hone he
viii give me the benefit of them u
After SO magnanimous q gesture I shall
be sorry If ! seem to fail in the ameni-
ties. | should like to point out, in ex-
tenuatiCn, that my comment in "The
Bookman's Day Book" on his article
was not a formal reply to his charges
but merely a record of q conversation
which took place at my house, includ-
ing my contributions to it; that What
ever virtues (if any attaches itself TO
this diary lies precisely in it's infor-
mality and the faithfulness of its rec
ord OF events, ideas and observations
which seem to me matters of interest;
that l do not hold myself responsible
Tor and often do not subscribe to the
opinions of others ! report in this col
umn; that l report these expressions
OF opinions as being intrinsically in
teresting and as rejecting, in some
measure, what those ! encounter are
thinking about, and that, as | explained
last week, it was impossible for me to
change what l had written, because
the book page had already gone to
press before l read his article. / have
re-read my original diary entry and
have discovered that, while it does not
indicate that had read Mr.. Nock's ar
tiele, it also does not indicate that ]
had. That is natural enough, for !
was concerned at the time with
! what Seldes, Dos Passos and Wilson
had to say about it. and it did not occur
to me that they might have given me
the wrong impression of it or that Mr.
Mock might launch an attack upon ms
; because of what ! wrote. MY neglect
and here have the faithfulness of this
! record In mind, was In failing to report
the next week the incident of having
later read Mr.. Ncck's article and OF
having explained to him in person that
. had had mistaken notion of the
point of his article and had done him
the injustice of jesting at his expense
. for something he had not said. For
) this omission | am duly penitent to my
readers and ! offer my apologies to MI
Mock, the while ] accept his apology
and retraction in all good grace
JULY 80.
Read most of the day. Milton Rassor
and Y0hn Farrar carna rver 4b;s -, o,.,,