ESTABLISHED 1881
box 4/10
Casanovas Heimfahrt
1923
From IAAb
30. Cenune
13
Tbralr.
A2 2
—2.
The Independent
New York City
Suem
THE INDEPENDENT
27
angle, an angle attained with effort and same theme in the same paragraph pro- mark that it isn't the kind of book
lost with ease, demanding indeed a cer¬
vokes a much better pleasantry in the young people used to be encouraged
tain frequency of readjustment. But
suggestion that Americans after pro¬
to read, when there were young people.
this adjustment once achieved or re¬
hibition should return the Statue of
And as it is a fine work of art, it may
achieved, there is much to like and
Liberty to the French, “a vicious race
safely be permitted to vie with the in¬
value in the book. On the fitting atti¬
abandoned to the culture of the vine.?
creasing stream of new novels which
tude of the traveler or fereigner Mr.
But he rises sometimes to what is al¬
have little but their vulgarity and in¬
Chesterton is singularly gracious, apt,
most poetry, to what indeed would be
decency to charm with. Casanova is
and wise. He sums up the whole mat¬
quite poetry if the jingle of the cas¬
as brilliant, as demoniacal, as real, in
ter with felicity in his reminder to the
tanets of his quips and antitheses gave
#these pages as in the Memoirs.?
conventional Englishman who cries
us leave to mark its concords with an
Schnitzler has not risked having him
out of everything foreign "this is
undivided ear. In industrial Manches¬
tell his own story; but as he appears
passing strange' that #it was no in¬
ter all is grime and despair; “only (he
here in the third person there is no
considerable Englishman who appended
adds), leoking up, between two black
doubt of his identity; rather, we feel
to it the answer, And therefore as
chimneys and a telegraph pole, I saw
a clearer light thrown upon it from the
a stranger give it welcome.?“ He re¬
vastand far and faint, as the first men
outside. The Memoirs'’ are famous
marks keenly: The foreigner com¬
sau it, the silver pattern of the
for their frank self-revelation; but
monly sees some feature that he thinks
O. W. FIRKINS
Flough.“
they do not always reveal what their
fantastic without seeing the feature
author intended. Schnitzler here pre¬
that balances it.' There is no dearth
Studies in Individualism
sents the adventurer spinning his yarn
of insight. He says with entire truth
to a group of friendly listeners who
CASANOVA'S HONECOMING
FENr
that the Americans “worship success in
Schnitzler. New Yorkg Thomas Seltser.
have begged for his account of certain
the abstract' (italics mine), and with
famous adventures: Romancing free¬
PilaNron. By Gerhart Haup#.Trans¬
real, though partial, truth that for the
lated by Bayard Quincy Morgan. New
ly, he was hardly conscious when he
American, business is romance. He is
Tork: B. W. Huebsch.
was lying either on a small scale or a
admirably perceptive in his suggestion
Tur Goose May. By Jacob Wassermann.
large, being equally delighted with his
hat the American habit of measuring
Authorized Translation by Allen W.
own conceits and with the pleasure he
everything in dollars proceeds less from
Porterfield. New York: Harcourt,
was giving to his auditors.? The pres¬
a love of dollars than a love of meas¬
Brace and Company.
ent narrative shows Casanova only in¬
urement. His kindness is quite inef¬
TERE are three notable studies in
cidentally as he sees himself, and pri¬
fable when he allows us to think that
11 individualism, its irony, its pathos,
marily as God or the devil made him.
Baltimore and Philadelphia exhale tra¬
erits tragedy. Its romance and its
ditions like cities of the Mediterranean:
In such light no romance remains to#
divinity are for other hands or other
him beyond a vestige of the crude sex¬
and his charity, in its inclusion of
moods. These three great Teutonic
glamour of his youth. He is still a
American reporters, fairly riseslto the
story tellers are almost contemporaries.
level of the Sermon on the Mount.
roving male, capable of conquests
But Hauptmann and Schnitzler were
There are times when his penetra¬
though his power wanes. And almost
prodigies in tlie eighties and nineties,
tipc-goes far without quite going to the
without pity or scruple in the attain¬
while Wassermann, author of twenty
terminel. He ic much impressed by a
ment of his end. Once, under the
novels, has found his larger audience
störy of an American lady who rose
mournful eye of the betrayed Marco¬
from a sick-bed to hear Mrs.) Asquith
very recently. This is partly account¬
lina, he tastes an instant of retribu¬
lecture. Mr. Chesterton ist shrewd
able to the fagt that Schnitzler and
tion: " Beneath this gaze, which to
enough to see Mrs. Asquith is not the
Hauptmann were first men of the
Casanova’s extreme torment, awakened
real inducement; it is rising)from the
theatre. There, as brilliant young icon¬
for a brief space all that was still good
sick-bed that is the inducement; and it
oclasts, they first won acceptance; and
in him,he turned away.' But his next
is the inducement largely beeause it is
they carried to the novel something of
act is to slay without a qualm or a re¬
also the objection. Again, de is more
the compactness and saliency which
gret the youth from whom he has vilely
than half right in saying that the act
are indispensable to a play. As nov¬
böugnt his hour of pleasure. And so
sprang from the charagteristically
elists, they are not always brief, but he departs cynically for the Venice
their tendency is to work on a cong
from which he has been exiled in bis
own sake. What he fails tt see, how¬
fined, or clearly defined, scale. The tyb
prime, and where, in becoming a polfce
ever, is that the Americani lady’s love
books we have here, Casanovas Hopie¬
spy, he now leaves himself scarcely a
of excitement is hardly more serious
coming,' and“ Phantom,' are (the first¬
shred of that tinsel glamor wherewith
than her devction to Mrs. Asquith. It
named especially) episodic, notepic.
his fancy has so persistently invested
is all a game-less excitement in the
Each of them offers a powerfuldistilla¬
his divers knaverics. A tale of old,
strict sense than a jovihl concerted
tion in a small vessel of crystal. The
and of all time; for every Broadway
gusto. Americans possess the sense of
two Wassermann novels which we now
and Main Street has its incomplete un¬
multitude, and crave the gense of mag¬
have in English,“ The World’s Illu¬
storied Casanova, and will have to the
nitude, and, naturally enodgh, wherever
sion'' and“ The Goose Man,'’ are upon
end of the chapter.
competition or congregation takes
As for its tone and manner, however,
the larger, almost the heroic scale.
place, they use their sensg of multitude
Schnitzler, Viennese observer of the
whatever of modern irony or modern
to reenforce their sense pf magnitude.
human comedy, has not infrequently
moralizing may lurk behind,“Casa¬
They like to improvise, td manufacture,
(as in the playDoctor Bernhardi*)
nova’s Homecoming' is faithful to the
given grave attention to some timely
eighteenth century standard. Every¬
the lecture room or théatre, as they
problem or crux of individual or social
thing meets the eye, and calls for
carry the race-course &r ball-ground
conduct. But the present theme gives
straightforward acceptance. Haupt¬
into the stock market.
scope for his freer and more charac¬
mann's“ Phantom,' though happily the
Mr. Chesterton's stale is hardly
teristic vein. He is less interested in
lingo does not appear, belongs to an
altered; it is brilliant, itlis extreme, it
age, even a moment, which thinks (or
the problems than the phenomena of
is monotonous, it is stimtlant and irri¬
character. And in Casanova he has
tries not to think), more or less in
tant at once, though it tases far less
found a subject supremely to his taste.
terms of reaction and inhibition, re¬
than it enlivens. One wonders how a
If the book could be taken by itself,
pression and the subconscious ego and
style so stereotyped can act as the
it might be taken as a cold-blooded
so on. So at least I am informed by
mouthpiece of a nature sotspontaneous,
and noncommittal portrait of the sen¬
the publisher in a vastly learned blurb.
and can actually be schoolel in no small
I confess that, not having read the
sualist-egotist in his later phase. But
measure to receive and tiansmit that
it has the solidest possible base, being
blurb first, I read the book with hardly,
spontaneity. There are#the usual
merely and professedly a dramatic pro¬
even, a subconscious realization of its
pleasantries. He stoops totthe rather
jection of the Casanova of the“ Mem¬
place in current “psychoanalytical'
dull joke that America, always an
oirs'’ in his senescent period. Having
literature. I took it be an extraordi¬
asylum, has put on, since päohibition,
the aspect of a lunatic asylumk but the said this, we need hardlybother to re- narily revealing study of the insignifi¬
4 Ch