Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-12-21

! governmental conditions which encour-
aged his hopes for the future.
It was at a party. In Paris LewiSohn
entertains widely. At the time that he
was occupying the Biddle studio, with
its huge music room and lofty balcony,
he probably gave the most brilliant Sc
ries of American literary gatherings ever
seen on the Rive Gauche. Against the
tall windows q buffet was laid with
| bowls of punch. Beside it Dresser, or
Anderson, or Sinclair Lewis, or who
ever happened to be the guest of honor
for the evening. was enthroned in the
midst Of exiled Left Bankers
| With his insiStent individualism, Lew
isohn always contrived to give his par
ties some touch Of personality. Either
the punch was made with some rare
Rhine wine or some unexpected guest
would come In fresh, like Konrad Ber-
covici, from another Balkan ramble, o.
dusty and paint-spattered, like the nov
elist Scott, from exciting water color
tours across the Sahara.
On this particular evening Lewisohn
was holding forth upon his ideal state.
The novelist was seated among the
cushions, with his little black ,-ouse
cat, Sikh, curled between his knees.
Take Geneva" he said. Nov, &C.
neva is a perfectly 100 per cent French
city, but 1t happens to be in the Swiss
state. I was standing in line at the
Geneva Post once waiting to buy some
stamps when heard the man in front
of me say:
Bite, geben Sic mir funf Brief
marken.'
Now. I had just arrived from across
the frontier. There the single language,
rtgidly enforced, and the horror In
which German Is held, was fresh upon
me, and I expected to see the man
either ignored or insulted. On the
contrary, the official behind the guichet
who had been speaking French with his
earlier customers, Immediately replied
in German. When my turn came /
also used German instead of French. ]
was charmed to find that one bureau
cracy exists in the world where the OH
Gals are made to bow to the cultural
idioSyncrasieS Of the citizens and not
the citizen to the officials,
Cites Palestine Telephone Girls.
Take Palestine. There found that
the very telephone girls had been taught
to accept three languages. They will
reply In English or in Hebrew or In
Arabic.
Take Czechoslovakia. At least the
Germans and the CzechS have reached
a modus operand1. Even the state
theaterS play one in one language, the
other the other, while at the opera per-
formances In German and in Czech are
given alternately.
what does all this come TOP" Lud-
wig Lewisohn Strengthened suddenly and
Sikh rolled bowling to the floor. There
are already existing certain states which
make a distinction between the citizen
who should have but to pay his taxes
and the cultured personality, with
whom the state has nothing TO do. The
essential point is that you can pay your
taxes and thus be good citizen, no
matter what language you speak"
Tri-lingual republics interest him be-
cause they form an opening wedge for
that great wide, general tolerance where,
as In certain cities during the Renais-
sance, there may be as many cultures
as there are intelligent individuals In
the state, as many Languages, religions
and ambitions.
his life has been that at any given time
he has always been interested not in
the culture which is at hand but in
that which is farthest away. He Is an
incorrigible romantic. He must always
be dreaming of other epochs and Of
other chimes. Just as he wrote his de-
cisive works on French and German
culture while living in New York and
the Middle West SO he is now engaged
UIl llAoOOAJ Va xAAAACAAStAtA III
erature while he sits by his study win.
dow overlooking the Boulevard Raspail.
Years ago, when he was q boy in
Charleston, s. c., he was always writing
Latin verses, always speaking German.
living either in the Rome OF Ovid or
In the Weimar of Goethe. This is why
it is so easy for him to imagine the
ideal republic of free letters some thou
sands years ahead.
Got Into Trouble With Censor.
When Lewisohn first came to New
York the chief influence in his lite
was not the great city, but instead the
French novel, which he had just dis
covered. Writing with the liberty Of
authors who lived in another state on
the other side of the ocean, he got into
trouble with the home censor. Here for
the first time he realized that the indi-
vidual in modern society must place re-
Strictions upon himself. It was the last
thing that he wished to learn. The
knowledge gave the initial impetus to
his long campaign to bring about .--e
millennium when every one may speak
out as he wishes.
Ludwig Lewisohn has failed to build
Utopia because not every one is poet
willing to accept pure anarchy Of
opinions and cultures, yet in his failure
11C Has S1AOHA S4E1lAAlNhllb 4O1NS
in modern letters. His books have pied
for tolerance. They have been trans
lated into many languages and served
as bridge for international under
standing.
Trying to avoid swinging into the
cultural majority-that is probably
what Lewisohn is subconsciously doing
as he writes about one culture while in
the midst of another. Possibly he Is
sharpening hi artistic perspective, pos
sibly he is defending his poets right to
individuality, but most probably all of
his demands for "the cultural plural
iStic state" are so many special plead
ings that he, the German-born Ameri-
can whose family was Jewish and whose
Carolina environment was Christian,
should be allowed to work out his own
salvation as he sees it. This is why
for him all is in a state of hux, why no
single national culture ever appears so
adequate for all an individuals needs
as to be allowed to harden.
Lewisohn's own mind has never hard
ened. 1t has had SO many molds to
choose from that it has set in none. At
nearly so he is still extremely young
and plastic in his attitude toward life.
One must not get the idea that Lew
isohn never tried to conform. He did.
One of the deepest impressions of his
youth was a solem.I gathering on the
public square of Charleston to honor
the memory of Henry Tinrod The
Southern poet had, like Lewisohn him
self, come from q family of German i'm
migrants. The young man, inspired by
such an example, Swore that he, too,
would become a great national figure
and master in the traditions of the
South. But his roots were not deep
enough.
He had already reached the age of
when his family brought him to Amer
lea from Hamburg. He could not repre-
cant rNrnuinnca Hka IllI Rnca EIaNurard