Evening star., 1924-07-03
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
THE SEVEN LIVELY ARTS. Gil
bert SeldeS Harner &, Brothers..

bert Seldes. Harper G. Brothers.
The very best Of Ben Hecht's
Thousand and One Afternoons" is
| that in which he ushers Bert Will
| liams into the Valhalla Of genius. In
the vast concourse are assembled all
| the great actors, dead-and-gone, each
| in the role of his most complete tri-
umph. Expectant. their looks are
turned upon the huge portal swing
ing slowly inward under a cautious
handr like that of a child adventur-
ing into some unknown and for
pldden room. In the scant opening
| a hand appears, gloved in white cot
ton' whose dangling finger-ends
waggle in an absurd propitiatory
gesture. And on the farther side of
the door an unsteady voice is say
ing, Yes, sub. A i'll music, please.
| som SLOW and fldgety- like" And on
| TINS uneasy wave of sound Bert Will
liams moves into the company of his
| peers. And, from the outside, we
| eaten the swing and surge of the ac-
| claim with which genius is greetin g
/ one of its own
| suppose that, for the moment. we
| assign to the author of THE Seven
Lively Arts" the literary habits of
| II. q. Wells, who, in these his later
years. is busy turning off new worlds
better and better worlds-launch-
| ing these, like omnipotence itself, in
to the far spaces of some millennial
| future of human perfection. In that
case Gilbert Seldes could be counted
| upon to create out of his theories of
| art and artists a new Valhalla that,
| in a couple of hundred yearS-five
| hundred, maybe-would shelter the
shades of a new order of genius. A
money, loW-lying place, this new VAL
halla would be, carpeted with the
| good green earth, rooted with the thick
LEAKAGE of kindly trees, lighted by
| sun and moon and stars. And how
| 1t would echo with friendly talk,
with robust Rabelaisian laughter!
Ihe place once made and fitted out,
the first thing Gilbert Seldes would
| do would be to move Bert Williams
over into 1t, constituting him host
| ln-chlef to welcome those who from
| time to time seek this their true VAL
halla. And in that joyous company
we should see Charles Chaplin and Mr.
Dooley and Ring Lardner and Irving
Berlin and Al Jolson and George NJ.
Cohan and F'lorenz ziegfeld. and many
Pierrot and Pierrette, Harlequin ant
Columbine. juggler and jester and
clown. That is, we should see these
in the new Nalhalla, provided they
had not turned refined" and fake
highbrow' before shuffling off The
single price of salvation and future
happiness here would be an invio-
liable devotion to the good god of
joy and laughter.
X
The Seven Lively Arts is about
the movies and jazz and dancing. about
the musical revue and vaudeville, about
the Dooley-Lardner philosophers, about
the perennial art of cloWning-about the
whole immortal business of fun-making
No preacher, Gilbert Seldes. Yet he does
give admonition and warning good
traffic man., rather, who sets up Go
Slo'' at this point, and that. An expert
weather man who flies the timely danger
signal to projected sailings. The burden
of this lively outlook upon the lively
arts rests upon no more than one or
two of the prime essentials of comic in
vention. There are certain things, one
finds, which the new art can do certain
other things which 1t cannot do To
force it to the impossible is ruin. proved
by certain outstanding results common
ly recognized The physics. the me-
chanics of the new art defines its
technic. limits its field of exploitation.
narrows it's range of effect. Within its
own limits it is influential. contagious,
splendid. Within its limits it is art.
Outside them it is a hybrid. abortive at
that The bulk of the new art appeals
to the comic sense. Here Mr.. Seldes
turns definitely to the movies which,
barring their educative uses, stand as
the medium of comedy and pageantry
a discussion
makes of this claim-deep,y Intellectual,
art full, and full, also, of a sense of the
deepest human sources of all art. From
discussion he turns to evidence by way
of survey of film-production history. In
much the same spirit he moves among
the other branches of the new art. From
this he turns toward the human in a
somewhat ardent urge that we cherish
| the comic sense as precious heritage
from the good rude earth itself; that
we respect it as a deep-s seated instinct,
! eansing and restoring, as all primal
things are. He urges US to play fair
with the gift of laughter, to take the
| funmaker to our hearts in gladneSs, to
turn away from the Seducing voice that
invites to silly and vicious culture" pre-
lenses
Mr.. Seldes, talking: Suddenly a
great genius arose and the people of
culture conceded that in his case,
but in his case alone, art existed in
slap stick comedy. Perhaps only
| the inexpensive multitides who have
laughed and not wondered why they
laughed can know how fine slap-stick
is For myself, 1 have no greater
entertainment than these dear and
preposterous comedies, and all 1 can
do is remember. The long, dark, mar
row passage set out with uncom-
| Portable chairs; the sharp odors; the
questionable piano; and then upon the
screen, in drab gray and white, jigg
ling insecurable, something strange
and wonderful occurred 1t was min
gled with dull and stupid things;
| but it had fire, a driving energy of
its own-and it was funny, Against
all our inhibitions and habits 1t play
ed games with men and women; it
made them ridiculous and mad; 1T
seemed to have no connection with
the logic of human events, trusting
to an nndecipherable logic of its own.
A few scholars found the commedia
| DELI arte living again: a few artists
saw that the galvanic gestures and
| ;rsr n,