New-York tribune., 1922-10-08
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER rs

Cleon called good sportsman.
:" To-day he admits having writ
ten an unjust and contemptu-
ous line Diminishing Ben Hecht's "Gar-
goyles" without having read the book;
then he goes ON to disparage the clar-
ity Of Hecht's prose, and quotes in his
support the musings of the poet Lind
strum In the novel as he walks along
the street at night. The truth is that.
aside from the fact that the quota
sion utterly misrepresents Hechs' $
manner Of writing this novel. 1t is an
exact and literal transcription of the
sort of audible musings certain poet
--ard Very great poet he is, my
friends--often INDUCES in; and they
are musings of poignant and troubled
beauty.
To lunch to-day with Earle Balch
and Charles II. Bernhard, and we fell
into discussion of tragic episodes in
literary history. All OF us remembered
especially the account of Longfellow's
funeral in w. D. Howells's "My Liter
ary Friends and Acauaintances." EN-
erson was afflicted with that aphasia
which clouded the closing years of his
iifc. He looked for a long time at the
face of the dead poet and said slowly
and painfully: "'The man we have Just
been burying, gentleman, was great
and beautiful soul-but ] forget his
name" Other incidents THAI
made . profound impression upon me
are: Nietzsche's scribbling note to
Georg Brandcs just before they hus-
tied the great enemy of Christianity
hT a hA evil "a "A.
Grrcifed"; Charles and Mary Lamb
walking hand In hand across field
and weeping; Julian, called the Apos-
tate, standing on the balcony waiting
for the bacchanal he had thought
would signaiize the return. of the pur-
ity, beauty and grace of pagan Greece,
and turning away heartbroken when he
discovered that the only ones who
Joined in it were the thieves, drunk
ards, prostitutes and sustainers who
rad turned his dream into an obscene
orgy; Swift's enigmatic words, his face
saush, after an interview with Stella:
wretch ase N ens mess annappy
a pitiable defense of himself as a
sober, respectable, right-thinking citi-
zen in an effort to meet the silly re-
guirements for election to the French
Academy. Curiously enough,
the irony of four of these episodes
turns upon insanity; but there is to
me no greater tragedy than the crum-
bling of mind which has wrecked
itself in thought. . ;. /. Balch holds
that the finest touch of irony. in all
literature is the sentence Anatole
France puts into the mouth of the re-
tired Pontius PLATE in "The Procura-
tor Of Judea": "Jesus of Nazareth :?
- Nnr,f
Bnlch was anxious to see what the
translator of .Swann's Way" by Mar
eel Proust, to be published soon by
Henry Holt, would make of Proust's
compound, complex sentences, which
sometimes run to two and three pages
Ben Ray Redman tells me he
ne had hard enough tussle with Girau-
doux's "Susanne ct le Pacifique."
~. 9. Bernhard was wondering why
the translation of Octave Mirbeau's
Calvary" had not caught on with the
/ reading public. s'It is,' he said, "a
fine and interesting story and it has
yet the publishers have baen able to
dispose of only q few copies of the
book"
WEDNESDAY,, SEPTEMBER 27
Ernest Boyd came to lunch to-day
and asked me if | had ever noticed
that one has only to be martyr
to find favor with "The Nation" "Be
martyr to anything whatever, no
snatter what, and THE Nation will rush
to your defense or offer you job. 1t
may seem incongruous that III. L.
Mencken and Stuart p. Sherman are
associate editors; but it is very simple
They think of Mencken as a martyr in
the hands of the hundred per centers
and of Sherman as a martyr In the
hands of Mencken. So they embrace
them both. 1t is typical of. Willard
hat, when he writes an article picking
out what he asserts to be the best
edited newspaper in the United States,
he should choose The Jewish Daily
Forward which is printed in lam
guage he cant read and about which
he can know absolutely nothing ex.
cept what some one tells him."
As Jack Macy once remarked, Boyd is
caustic Irishman. He is always get.
ting into terrific RACES over trifes He
reIninds me little aof Anatole Frances
description of Flaubert: Gle had a
prodigious capacity for enthusiasm ant
sympathy. That was why he was al
ways storming about. He went to wal
on every possible occasion, having con.
tinually an insult to avenge. He was
in the same case as Don Quixote, whon
he regarded SO highly. l had scarcely
been FIVE minutes in Flaubert's com.
pany when the little drawing room was
flowing with the blood of twenty thou
sand slaughtered Philistines. He nailed
TO the four walls the palpitating limbs
of NJ. Theirs, whose crime, ! believe
swas that he had written of grenadiers
biting the dust of earth that had beer
muddied by rain" From the
way Boyd talked one time expected
him to hurry off any moment to bomb
the Offices of "The Dial" Gilber,
Seides, It seems, had committed the
l.einous sin of mjsreading a common
French word in the opening pages ot
his translation of la Vie en- Fleur.'
Boyd has ashigh forehead, apaie, asceti,
face and reddish brown beard A
few years ago heposed for the picture o.
the Saviour in Dublin Cathedral, which
eminent ecclesiasts declare to be the
finest one in existence. On shipboard
returning from his last visit to Eu
rope, group of Baltimore undergrad
uates had been eying him and whis
pering among themselves, when one o.
them came up timidly and said: s'Yo,
know, we've been looking at you ant
discussing you all the way over. d,
you know what name we have givei
you?" Boyd exclaimed, Exactly An,
The youth was so fustered he fed ant
kept out of Boyd's sight for the res
a the trip.
Read tha p<~oner -Bookman" to
-~Sns.. An excellent number. 1t con
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