The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-09-04
W hat
a
World
BY Michael Gold
Literary AnecdOte a la
Ford Maddox Ford

despair. my spirits aeroplane was
forming icicles; I was sunk to the
eyes in a swamp of Weltschmerz.
III also had a tootache. Perhaps /
T should not mention it at this polnt,
as it spells the rhetorical effect OF
those Figures of speech you may no
tice I Just used.
ANYWAY, 1 was walking on 14th
Street without galoshes, a hat or
overcoat. I was a notorious failure,
hadn't a friend-Hell! I might as
well catch a bad cold and kick Off
Nobody would care. That's the way
felt. Many writer's seem to feel
that way most of the time. That IS,
the better sort Of authors.
To get back to the point, was
debating whether 20 so to a movie
or to call at somebody's home for a
game of checkers, when I ran into
Hart Fawcett He is q poet whose
feeble verse I was the first to print
lust out of foolish humanitarian
ism. 1 guess. I also had lent him
money. and persuaded him to live
on several occasions when he wanted
To shoot himself. An this, of course,
had reused a deep and welI-founded
hatred. He always avoided me, his
first editor, but now he seemed
plump, prosperous and friendly, and
carried a cane.
"Ah, therel" he chortEed airily, ex-
aiming me, and not hiding the fact
that he found me little shabby.
Well. we conversed, or at least he
told me all the trouble he was having
with various women and the stock
market, on, on and on. Then he
invited me along to some kind OF
party at the studio Of writer, with
whose name I wasn't familiar. At
first 1 wouldn't CO. but Hart Fawcett
insisted, in fact, dragged me along,
to my surprise. He seemed almost
over anxious to have me.
Well. for years I have avoided So
called studio parties" But I was so
low this night 1 forgot how much I
usually dislked the morons of bour-
geois art, and I went along, hoping
to get drink, maybe, and talk to
a pretty girl, and then go on home.
But the damn thing was all that
I feared. The pretty girls were all
affected; chattery press agents for
publishing houses, and restless wives
or heroines who had talked to Hey
wood Broun. Just the usual bathtub
gin and rye, but served from mag
nificently labelled bottles, "just off
the boat" in pretentious Venetian
colored glasses. Things were like
that, the usual stage set Of the we'll
to-do phony.
The so-called "studio" was in a
penthouse whose rent couldn't have
been less than $500 a month. 1t was
comfortable to live in, I guess, ex-
cept that every penthouse L have
ever visited seems to have been in
habited by bore.
Well, the host was another pent-
house bore, alright, tall, broad
shouldered man in tweeds, with a
large, domed, Eugene O'Neill fore
head and a solemn D. H. Lawrence
beard. He wore pince-nez glasses
with black cords la Emile Zola,
and talked with high oxford whine.
He made me feel bad, he was so
literary. He even smoked a pipe,
like the great Kit Morley and other
British authors. And his penthouse
was just lousy with books, thousands
of fine books, first editions, esoterica,
erotica, Rockwell Kents, all the rest
of the things such people always are
careful to own.
Well, after I had three drinks and
q literary conversation about Hey
wood Broun, with some of the female
press agents and professional wives,
I discovered why Fawcett, the poet,
TO- =, IN
an esthete, and opposed to Marxism
in literature or life. I was brought
there to be his chopping block. He
liked to defy Marxists in his cups.
Standing up against his banal
Thomas Hardy fireplace, the Morley
pipe sticking out of his beard, mine
host doomed in loud, belligerent
voice that only occasionally squeaked:
$50 you are one of these people
who want to shoot anybody who cares
for Dostoievsky and art and not for
Lenin and sausage machines?"
''Yes," I answered, automatically
taking my usual stance in such stu
ations, the left foot and arm forward,
the chin covered byA the shoulder
against jabs, the trusty right poised
at about the hip, ready to smear the
enemy
"You Reds, you want a world
where there1l be only useful turnips
and not a rose" he challenged.
I did not block, but just rolled
with this light jab.
The host had gathered an audi
ence. "Most of our writers are So
cial apostles, religious prophets. poll
lietc
salesmen," he Grated profoundly.
Science, what has it done? It has
Up to now, only created machines
and masses, things and animals. The
two dullest things in modern life are
the tour of a factory and an aviation
meet. Preaching and politics destroy
the freedom Of the writer's mind, the
ability to be interested In the uni
versal and individual"
f Maybe" I parted, because he
seemed to glare and wait for an
answer.
''In the long run there are only
two games that do not spoil the
writer's mind: love and art" he said.
Love and artl but art is more per-
manent. The value of modern art
is that 1T is new escape from a
new slavery, the slavery of the crowd,
of standardization, of monotony, of
the over-organized earth, of the over
organized crowd, of the over-con-
scious multitude. We are so many,
nowadays, we never have a chance
to live our own life except through
the help of religion or art.
And on and on, the same old spiel
bne had heard so often from the