rant? Where is the bright-faced
populace that flocked on Sundays to
Wiener Wald at the first excuse for
Spring? Is Kreisler’s “Caprice Vien-
noise mere fancy. And when you
have studied the faces in the city of
today you wonder most of all, was
there ever a Vienna such as Dr.
Arthur Schnitzler, physician, novel¬
ist and playwright, pictured in his
Anatole the Anatol of light
hearted loves and delicate sorrows,
to whom every day was new with
hope, and who elevated the embar¬
rassments of partings with the old
loves to such a graceful art?
Yet that Vienna must have existed
once upon a time, lived and played
with life and fashioned a city to its
moods. For, although Anatole
made its bow to the world over
thirty years ago, it still lives even to
the English reading public in Gran¬
ville Barker's exquisite version, and
in the memories of those who saw
John Barrymore play it. Since there
no Ibsen-like freight of social
significance in these little come¬
dies, what has kept them alive so
long?
It, as it must be, there is in them the
salt of truth, that Anatol once really
lived, and with him his city, then
it is a much changed Vienna today.
The Ring, that girdle of boulevards
that encircles the heart of the city,
is still handsome in its way, ponder¬
ous with palaces and public build¬
ings, and is still immaculately clean.
In their regal days their architecture
was less expressive of Vienna than
of a royalty that imitated Prussia.
But now that these palaces are awk
ward with soup kitchens and offices,
and somewhat shabby for lack of
paint and repairs, palaces and peo¬
ple are more akin in mood. The out¬
ward aspect of the world you see on
the Ring during the day at night
there are few people and fewer
lights shows no remarkable pov¬
erty, although beggars are plentiful
and startlingly theatrical. But it is
only the outward aspect of the city
you see on the Ring the employed,
and those who don't have to work,
and foreigners. The real Vienna of
today has little heart for the boule
vards; and in the back reaches of the
city there is starvation.
However, since Viennese must
have cafés, you see them crowded.
On the tables there is plenty of
drinking water, a little weak choco¬
late, spiritless beer, occasionally
coffee, more often a substitute, and
little or no sugar or milk. For those
Viennese know what it is to dress
perbly and the applause is gener¬
well. They glance through skipy
But it all sound hollow.
journals; paper costs enormously.
lething is not there. A Strauss
They comment occasionally on this
waltz you seldom hear. For
or that, and are mildly glad when
enna, like the rest of Europe, has
the music strikes up.
turned to the popular music of
In the biggest cafés there is
America; America, the young and
music; for musicians, like other pro¬
vital when Europe is so tired;
fessionals in Vienna, are plentiful
America so overflowing with bar¬
and to be had cheaply. I know of a
baric vitality that the jazz band is
leather goods buyer from America
its expression. Tunes that ran their
who hired a quintet from a sym- brief course in the United States two
IN THIS ISSUE
ARTHUR SCHNITZLER INTERVIEWED IN MODERN VIENNA
By Joseph Gollamb
AN APPRAISAL OF THOMAS HARDVS PROSE
The oth birthday of the great English novelist occurred on June 2
By John Erskine
THE ORDEAL OF MARTIN, BY VAN WYCK BOOKS
Reviewed by Carl Van Doren
MES. WARRENS DAUGHTER, BY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON.
Reviewed by Wilson Follett
How CHESTERTON REGARDS DIVORCE
By Renée Darmstadter
HAVE D'HIGINS INTERVIEWED BY JOSEPH ANTHONY
TRADE UNIONS AND THE I. W. W.
By George Soule
ERA POUND THE INNOVATOR
By Herbert S. Gorman
Other contributions by WILL OLIVER STEVENS, ANOLD WHITRICE,
J. W. ROBERTSON SCOTT, J. RANKEN TOWS, etc.
BOOK SALES AND RARE BOOKS
THE READERS GUIDE
THE NEWEST BOOKS
TORRON Nous
THE LATERARY LOBET
The Novels of Thomas Hardy
June 2nd Marked the Eightieth Birthday of the
Wessex Master of Fiction
By John Erskine
Professor of Englisch, Columbia University
E popularity of Hardy's novels
tions of the village gossip without
is testimony to the lasting ap¬
altering them beyond recognition.
peal of melodrama. We all love a
His stories therefore can be paral¬
story, particularly when it concerns
leled easily in the common ruor of
our neighbors, and nothing is more
life. I call to mind one little town,
fundamental in the neighborly atti¬
set in hills far from Wessex moors.
tude than the faith that, were the
where you may hear of two doctors,
whole truth known, the quiet seem¬
father and son, who shared the same
ing history of men and women within
practice and through a strange error
a stone's throw of our door would
came to share the same blighted
yield something adventurous, eccen¬
reputation; the father one day
tric or scandalous. The village
visited a bedside, and gave the
gossip is the poor but serviceable
patient a powerful drug, and a few
minister to the perpetual curiosity of
hours later the son, unaware that his
this undying faith, and in English
father had been before him, visited
fiction Hardy glorifies the ministra¬
Montinued ea Page Thirteen.)
ing out down
people dragging
miles back to the
park de
pruuning
give the
twig
his
for
cau¬
num
is re
fore
alive
any
grou¬
and
and
his
Het
cons
by a
Goe-
Geo¬
spear
well
the
shely
Thro
glim
ting
direc¬
Vien.
stove in
niture;
iums; f.
took t
ende ar-
The
the late 80
answerin
a time of
from the
clamoring for
charming you
and thrive. It w
the lighthearted.
living Vienna
imagination wa-
You mention
Strauss's music
melody through
door. It happen
sitions found favo¬
side. Vienna ha-
besides Strauss.
mood of a sunny
Sunday. Of cou
workaday world
Viennes. But it
week in the main
not very scarce¬
good light wines
And then, too, as
(Continued on