New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1922-07-02

Gently he retired from a long grind of
journalism at sixty-seven only to be
jerked back into harness because he
was too valuable man to be allowed
leisure. Bob knew all the old Chap
Book and Whitchapel crowd in Chicago
and was a close friend Of Eugene
Fields. A few years ago / was examin-
ing the books in Bob's library and
discovered that nearly every one of
them was inscribed, ITO my old friend
R. B. Peattie, from Eugene Field" This
seemed an extraordinarily generous
friendship on the part Of a man who
was not wealthy. / inquired OF Bob
He said Field had never given him
book in his life; but that every time
Field came to his house. which was
often, he inscribed, for joke, every
book he could lay hands upon when no
one was looking. This afterward
proved q bonanza to Bob when he dis
posed Of part Of his library; every au-
tograph enhanced the books value sew
eral times.
Guy c. Eglington came in this after
noon and showed me Lawrence Binyon's
Court Painters of Ancient Persia" a
book containing some marvelously beau
tlful reproductions of sketches and
paintings. Some Of the portraits with
their delicate outlines are reminiscent.
Of Ho!bein. but the paintings in color
are unlike any other work know. One
composition. Man Dying" is superb
in color arrangement and in whole
effect. Louis Untermeyer and Ben
Ray Redman dropped in during the
afternoon. Louis had been to see Nazi-
NOVA in the motion picture "Salome"
and they began talking about the char
acter Of Salome and about how it had
been variously mlsinterpreted (accord
ing to their notions), by poets, COM
posers, prma donnas and actresses
Louis hit upon the pun, "necrophili-
slime and they decided that phrase
described her accurately.
Stayed home all day and read. In
the evening Elinor Wylie, Stephen
Benet and his wife, Margaret and John
Bishop, Robert Nathan, Gilbert Seldes.
John Dos Passos, Guy Holt, DR.. and
Mrs. n. Kopeloff, Bill Benet, Terence
Holiday and Dorothy Nathan came to
see US.
Edmund Wilson jr.. back from a visit
to Princeton, came up about midnight
IN a high state of eagerness to discuss
Albert jay Nocks "j'accuse' in the cur
rent Freeman in which Mir. Noel,
says the younger generation is running
amuck as q natural consequence of its
BAG bringing up; that instead Of pro-
vlolng blrchmen to tame the temper
and discipline the will Of the young
sters with Matthew Arnold, Emerson
and Sainte Beuvc. the responsible old
er generation, secure in its own ines
timable advantages, accepted the Mont
essori laXltE of PragTnatism; that in
stead Of teaching the youngsters how
to live the good life, il taught it how
to get the money. Wilson had con
clUded t!1t Mr.. Mock was entirely right
and he spoke with a pious regard of
the question of Rcnan and Matthew
Arnold. Dos Passos, Seldes and re-
fused to take so gloomy a view Of the
argument until after two o'clock, at
tended by mucn reading aloud Of Mil
ton and Nordsworth. The older gecera-
item. according to Wilson, mad knowi-
edge O: the classics and a tra.it!cn Of
culture he younger generation had rot.
the &c cord poets,' he sad, "Walxe.l
about under the trees rccitiAg Home r
ana Virgil. The younger men os No * !,
generation had the influence of men Ike
Matthew Arnold who was stepped in
the classics" To Dos Passes and me
this argued nothing at all. Dos Passos
Is viole ntly opposed 10 the genteel ira
ditio., having nearly expired under it,
and hs is happy enough that the
younger generation has kicked it down
stairs. He doubts whether there has
been any generation in American his
tory more eagerly appreciative Of the
classics than the present, allowing that
in any given generation only a small
proportion will be interested in them
anyway. To ne Mr.. Nocks wall Is but
the droning OF bees in hollow basket.
MIR. Mock is brilliant and talented
man; he writes clear and forceful
prose; he is a man of conviction; he
Is genuine, honest, human, cordial, a
delightful person to know. But | doubt
whether he is really more cultured
than Dos Passos, has more affection
or the classics than Wilson, or is more
sincerely interested in the things OF
the mind than Seldes. He is merely
older than these men. He has been
misled into congratulations by phe
r'nltra which are more talked about
but the least indicative of every gem
Grafton. I am afraid that what he
means is that the present generation
friends. Pecksnify and Podsnap, Scylla
and Charybdis. Let Mr.. Mock compose
himself: we OF the younger generation
know what he means when he uses
these figures Of speech. He need not
fear that he is talking over the heads
Of the younger men. lie may drag in
Tartuffc, Procrustes Rhadamanthus,
ANVIL, an, SSdutOA diIu
"in hoe signo victis" and we shall not
fail to understand him. We have no
difficulty even in following Mr.. A. b
/ Walkiey provided we are disposed to
tho tedium). who spatters his pages
with quotations from Aristotle in the
original Greek; for we have learned
that Mr.. Wa!kley gets them all out of
Bohn's Handbook Of Classical Quota
tons" which also contains the trans
lations. The more considerable among
US spare our readers the trouble OF
thumbing through the back of the die
tionary and of going to the handbooAs
but this should not be urged against us
as 'Gicating that We lack interest IN
the things Of the spirit. We have our
own allusions. They seem more alive
and apt to US. Wilson employs one
neatly in another column. He refers
to Burbank with his Baedeker and
Bleistein with his cigar" I wonder
whether the men of the older genera,
ton will recognize that this is from
an extraordinary poem by I. S. Eliot
and that it satirizes perfectly a phase
of pseu6o-culture for which Ruskin ard
Arnold were, perhaps innocently, re-
sponsiblc. Let Dir: Mock not assume
that because Eliot lives in England he
has had influences lacking in this coun-
try. Eliot was born in Little Rock
Arkansas. he went to Haryard. he