Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-01-06

II 49, thtfNA AA+t1tfNf -
= the travail of these days. I
pulled a book out Of my library,
with which to read myself to sleep.
II was George Moore's Comics
sions of a Young Man; vaguely I
remembered that in my youth l
had been fascinated by his ac-
counts of the salons and ateliers of
the Paris of the fin de steele: any
way il would be pleasant, and SOM
nolent relief from the evening
papers and from speculations
about what their reports might
really mean.
THUS I stumbled upon passages
l. like these:
"Gautier taught me that
our boosted progress is but a pit
fat into which the race is falling
:. and accepted the plain. sim
pie conscience of the pagan world
as the perfect solution of the prob
lem that had vexed me so long; /
cried ave 10 it all: lust, cruelty.
slavery. and ] would have held
down my thumbs in the Colosseum
that a hundred gladiaters might
die and wash me free of my Chris
tan soul. with their blood"
And. commenting bitterly on the
fact that a sharp decrease in in
come from his rents had forced
him to leave Paris. he writes:
That some wretched farmers
and miners should refuse to starve
that I may not be deprived of my
demitasse at Tortoni's mon
strouS! And these wretched crea-
lures will find support in England;
they will find pity!
"Oh, for excess. for crime! i.
We are weary Of pity. weary of
being good :. strangely enigmatic
Is the soul OF the antique world.
the bare. barbarous soul of beauty
and of might"
4OH, FOR excess, for -erime'
" What care l." wrote the
young and fastidious George
Moore. that some millions of Isra-
elites died under Pharaoh's lashi
II Was well that they died that I
might have the Pyramids to look
on. The knowledge that a wrong
was done is an added pleasure. &.
At the end of the nineteenth
century great many young men
in Europe were writing in this
vein, passionately advocating the
transvaluation of all values. the
return to the pagan world, the vir-
tues of vice, the beauty of cruelty.
The glory of Youth and Violence
was being preached in the most
brilliant manner in Germany by
an authentic genius: Friedrich
Nietzsche, and his words, parroted
and paraphrased, were in the
mouths of German youth. while
English youth translated Charles
Darwin's researches into the ORR
gin of Species into a justification
of the Social Doctrine of the Sur
vival of the Fittest.
7 REGRET that Mr.. Moore.
L though he lived long. did not
live long enough TO see the age he
yearned for-Athe age of the bare.
barbarous soul of Beauty" rise up
in its Caesarian Might cast of the
Rhine
He would have lived to see the
poems that he thought the quintes-
sence of this pagan soul-"I would
give many lives for one sonnet of
Baudelaire, for "A la tres chere. a
la tres belle burned by the
Supermen as decadent trash.
He would have lived TO see the
chrosno-water colors Of one Adolf
Hitler hung side by side with the
treasures of the Renaissance. and
TO have read treatise on Art by
the All-Highest who thinks that
ANY one who sees the sky green
ought to be sterilized."
tcT'HESE wretched creatures
Il will find moral support in
England they will find Pity"
In Germany. a race Of Young
Men energies. The super-ellte
among them live in palaces, where
they are trained as "Fuehrer-
schaft." They are biologically Sc
lected-for strength height, stance,
race Their marriages are super
vised. ---
They are systematically trained
for cruelty and hardness, for lusty
Joy in the sight of blood. The tor
ture barracks and the steel whip
the concentration camp and the
pogron are their schooling.
Tops among them are the air
rnen-oh. CAV. insouciant heroic
. soul who n1achine-euuned TO death