The daily worker., 1926-11-06

cipient arterio-sclerosis of the spir-
it. His book, intellectual Vagabond-
age" subtitled An Apology for the In
telligencia, Contains no hint that it's
author was not so long ago the
worlds gayest and sauciest Bolshevik.
In the old Masses-LiberatOr days
Floyd Dell used to show us how to be
happy tho revolutionary. He was the
hVelest, most sensitive, the most read
able critic of his day. His criticisms
used to move and exhilirate as tho
they were 50 many poems. And come
to think OF it, they practically were
poems. The best criticism is always
essentially poetry. But the author
Of intellectual Yagabondage" is
scarcely apt to write very poetic cri-
tioism. He is too old in spirit.
But If his revolutionary nerve is
gone, the literary scholarship, the es-
thetic insight, the social sense are
there as Of yore. These qualities
have made intellectual Vagabondage"
worth reading despite the WEAKNESS
OF tone and tepidness of thot that
characterize the latter part of the
book The first part, entitled "Iitera-
ture and the Machine Age" Is swell
Il Is literary history OF the sort you
don't md In the textbooks. 1t aims
not merely to recount what the fam
Gus figures Of modern literature have
written, but to explain why they have
written as they have And that means
considering such matters as the IL
teraTy influence OF the reading pub
lie; why writer's are important when
they express what that reading pub
lie consciously or subconsciously feels
and desires; and how economic con
dir1ons and great socio-economic cata-
edysns like revolutions and wars de-
termine what the reading public and
Hs chosen writer's do feel and desire.
Literature and the Machine Age" Is
ncisfTe. lucid and stimulating. It is
wen worth reading.
g Part Two of intellectual Vagabond.
age" has something Of these qualities
OF Part One. It purports to be "a
Spiritual Autobiography Of My Own
Generation IN its Literary and Social
Aspects" And Its comments on Ger.
tain literary trends Of our time are
Illuminating. II Is particularly eS.
tective when Dell strips TIA futzitar
xan eSthetes, the IvoryJT0wsrites, the
JAEnel Joyciaas OF Their pretentiOue
and Hne-Spun intellectual mantles 70
veaatng them In all their fragile and
pathetic nAkedness.
Bat all too often onA catches the
gloomy oTertones In the voice Of the
new and mature" Floyd Dell. And
wnaae he throws his bright light on
present literary currents, a stray
beam flashing back now and then in
reelection reveals him enSconced high
and dry on the safe and comfortable
rock Of bourgeois conformity.
And yet, n the tale he teIIa OF its
intellectual experiences Is sound. IL
q not SO hard to understand why as
whole bis generation has admittedly
been failure, and why Floyd Del
himself stands where he does. HI,
vagabonds" were q weak and self
eentered tribe Of romanticists. in
~sdibly bookish. Life Cor them seems
% have been mere succession OF
literary fedehes. They worshipped
AZ the feet OF many idols tho they
md not stop for long before any
single ons Of them. Or, to vary the
metaphor, the long and sinuous traG
they took seems 10 have been strewr
with volumes, 20 many steppins
stones along whGoh without soilina
their toes the ysgs fitted and hoped
TO wisdom and Destssiierttes: Verne
InSersoll. Omar Khayyam, Tbssn, Bel
lamy. Karl Marx, Carpenter, Ma,
stirnor. KiDlng, Walt Whnman
George Moore. Henry James and, In
eyhablyt Wells and Shaw.
Naturally. like true vagabonds, they
paused along the way now and ther
for an hour or two Of dalllancs-som,