box 37/4
2. Cuttings
THE MIRROR
great man annotated, one that was deur to
pur¬
#fac¬
him and that contains the marks of his love
ano¬
for it. It is a pleasure you cannot mcasure in
dollars, but how eise can it be measured when
Suni,
S0-
rich men are rivals for the possession of suich
De
books. It is not denied that such books have
d a
value as illustrating the progress of printing,
Have
that sometimes they may clear up points of
history through some annotation, some addi¬
Teas¬
tion, some elision. But the big prices mean
mple,
nothing except the desire of rich men to pos¬
on, of
dess something that some othier rich man has
ot has
not, and cannot get. It is not to be understood
Vorig-
that even this desire is to be condemned.
Nuto¬
Nothing of the love of books is to be con¬
and
demned. And if a man happens to be rich
the
and loves a book, he will give for it all he can
Bay
afford, just as a poor man would, and often
sirch
does. Book collecting is a sublime fad, one
ing
that brings one into touch with all the glory
iree
of the world’s best minds, And he’s a poor
and
stick of a book-lover who wouldn't go to
Sold
extraordinary expense, say, to have a copy of
Ston
Elia that Lamb had scribbled in, or a Burns
sthe
ind
that Bobby had taken the trouble to go
through and fill in the words represented by
ant¬
asterisks. It’s no more a sign of wickedness
ble
to feel this way than to keep a flower or a
WII
lock of hair from some dear dead woman of
sted
one's memories. And Huntington money and
Fest
other money like it, is more ostentatious¬
nt¬
foolishly spent than in buying rare books—in
for
futile charity, for example. Most of the good
ht
things in books and in paintings come at last
into the possession of the people, in librarie“
sch
and museums, where they are of use to stu¬
ch
dents. Indeed, everything tends to come back,
to the people. So that in days to be, mayhe,
nt
able mien will see the wrong and the inutihty
re
tag of taking them awav fromthe people insthe
Sto first place. So let the bibliophilic billionahres
bid against one another for books in thie pro¬
Ser
duction of which their authors starved. It
he
means nothing much as to letters or taste or
en
anything else, save that the ultra-rich have
more money than any man ever earned. Upon
at
which homily let me superimpose the confes¬
sion that my own mouth watered over some
of those items of the Hoe catalogue and, if 1
had th money, I'd have given as much for
themas the next fellow and maybe a little
mg#. This is rotten economic ethics, of
„rse, but there you are.
4 4
Masks and Minstreis of Germany
GERMAN-AMERIGANs will be particularly
e
interested in Percival Pollard’s new book,
Masks and Minstrels of New Germany.“
is a volume of expositorv criticism in the best
forthright styie of the most forthright literary
critic of the United States. It deals with the
Uberbrettl'“’ movement in Germany, the
lyric impulse in letters that had its üirst man¬
ffestation in à movement to give literary qual¬
ity to the music and the drama of the music
halle. This movement was an adaptation of
the lterary schooi which manifested itself in
the Montmartre cafes in Paris, of which, prob¬
— —
U10
5
nis wife's goodness to extricate him from bis
numerous marital infidelities is an inimitable
grotesque, the more so as the facts are fur¬
nislied in a bibelot by Hartleben's wife in
answer to the publication of his letters by one
of his mistresses. Indeed, this temperamen¬
talism seasons rather highly the whole group
of writers with which Mr. Pollard deals, with
the exception, possibly, of Ernst von Wolzo¬
gen. An unfriendly critic might even say that
it is this outre and bizarre quality in the men
that attracts Mr. Pollard more tnan their
poignant simplicities and their truth to lise.
There’s a strong Bohemian flavor to them all.
A touch of cynicism in their sadness, and of
sadness in their gayety. Most of them are
of the revolt, to a greater or less extent of
intransigeance. They chiefly deligted to shock
respectability. They delighted for the most
part in dealing with things that are kept in
the background in good society. Few of them
were not kin to Francois Villon, though some
of them have settled down. They declared
themselves originally in magazines like the
Island, Simplicissimus, Jugend and Pan. En¬
Jants terrible, all of them in one way or an¬
other but all of them holding their art above
all things else and protesting ever upon any
limitation thercof. Maximilian Harden, of
Zukunft was a fomenter of the movement,
though latterly he pursued the paths of po¬
litical reform. Lilieneron, Mr. Pollard cites
as the fathexosthenall. Next he would
place Bierbaum after him, probably Herman
Bahr-änd Schnitzler, with Wedekind a sort of
mönster all by himself. The work of Wede¬
kind möst-Amertcans cannot understand. It
is horrible in its specializing of truths of so¬
cial life the most unpleasant. The things he
deals with mostly belong in the nedical Dooks,
but he treats them with a power as queer as it
is indisputable. Ludwig Thoma’s quality is
saner. His drama called Moral,“ is an exqui¬
sitely ironic assault upon respectability, a much
more effective thing even than Shaw's Mrs.
Warren’s Profession.“ It shows up hypocrites
but it does not make them utterly detestable.
It leaves them human and ridiculous. The
flavor of the graceful wickedness of the Vien¬
nese, Schnitzler is something rather bevond
us 100. The viciousness is lightsome; it is
decorated with laughter; it is the irresponsible
wickedness of youth; it is the tragicomedy of
I should sa)
light-loves and careless lovers.
that no Frenchman ever made vice more at¬
tractive than does Schmitzler. Von zan hard¬
ly read about him otherwise than to the
rhythms of that other Viennese product“The)
Merry Widow.“ Freiherr von Wolzogen ap¬
pears to be about the most conventional ef
the lot, but there were dars and nights when
hie went gipsying with the othiers, when he too
was a trouvere, a minnesinger of the mnsie
halls. With all these personalities and their
product in German letters, Mr. Pollard deals
in a manner one might almost characherige as
excessively sympathetic. 1 should say, and !
am no puritan, that most of the work is 100
4
2. Cuttings
THE MIRROR
great man annotated, one that was deur to
pur¬
#fac¬
him and that contains the marks of his love
ano¬
for it. It is a pleasure you cannot mcasure in
dollars, but how eise can it be measured when
Suni,
S0-
rich men are rivals for the possession of suich
De
books. It is not denied that such books have
d a
value as illustrating the progress of printing,
Have
that sometimes they may clear up points of
history through some annotation, some addi¬
Teas¬
tion, some elision. But the big prices mean
mple,
nothing except the desire of rich men to pos¬
on, of
dess something that some othier rich man has
ot has
not, and cannot get. It is not to be understood
Vorig-
that even this desire is to be condemned.
Nuto¬
Nothing of the love of books is to be con¬
and
demned. And if a man happens to be rich
the
and loves a book, he will give for it all he can
Bay
afford, just as a poor man would, and often
sirch
does. Book collecting is a sublime fad, one
ing
that brings one into touch with all the glory
iree
of the world’s best minds, And he’s a poor
and
stick of a book-lover who wouldn't go to
Sold
extraordinary expense, say, to have a copy of
Ston
Elia that Lamb had scribbled in, or a Burns
sthe
ind
that Bobby had taken the trouble to go
through and fill in the words represented by
ant¬
asterisks. It’s no more a sign of wickedness
ble
to feel this way than to keep a flower or a
WII
lock of hair from some dear dead woman of
sted
one's memories. And Huntington money and
Fest
other money like it, is more ostentatious¬
nt¬
foolishly spent than in buying rare books—in
for
futile charity, for example. Most of the good
ht
things in books and in paintings come at last
into the possession of the people, in librarie“
sch
and museums, where they are of use to stu¬
ch
dents. Indeed, everything tends to come back,
to the people. So that in days to be, mayhe,
nt
able mien will see the wrong and the inutihty
re
tag of taking them awav fromthe people insthe
Sto first place. So let the bibliophilic billionahres
bid against one another for books in thie pro¬
Ser
duction of which their authors starved. It
he
means nothing much as to letters or taste or
en
anything else, save that the ultra-rich have
more money than any man ever earned. Upon
at
which homily let me superimpose the confes¬
sion that my own mouth watered over some
of those items of the Hoe catalogue and, if 1
had th money, I'd have given as much for
themas the next fellow and maybe a little
mg#. This is rotten economic ethics, of
„rse, but there you are.
4 4
Masks and Minstreis of Germany
GERMAN-AMERIGANs will be particularly
e
interested in Percival Pollard’s new book,
Masks and Minstrels of New Germany.“
is a volume of expositorv criticism in the best
forthright styie of the most forthright literary
critic of the United States. It deals with the
Uberbrettl'“’ movement in Germany, the
lyric impulse in letters that had its üirst man¬
ffestation in à movement to give literary qual¬
ity to the music and the drama of the music
halle. This movement was an adaptation of
the lterary schooi which manifested itself in
the Montmartre cafes in Paris, of which, prob¬
— —
U10
5
nis wife's goodness to extricate him from bis
numerous marital infidelities is an inimitable
grotesque, the more so as the facts are fur¬
nislied in a bibelot by Hartleben's wife in
answer to the publication of his letters by one
of his mistresses. Indeed, this temperamen¬
talism seasons rather highly the whole group
of writers with which Mr. Pollard deals, with
the exception, possibly, of Ernst von Wolzo¬
gen. An unfriendly critic might even say that
it is this outre and bizarre quality in the men
that attracts Mr. Pollard more tnan their
poignant simplicities and their truth to lise.
There’s a strong Bohemian flavor to them all.
A touch of cynicism in their sadness, and of
sadness in their gayety. Most of them are
of the revolt, to a greater or less extent of
intransigeance. They chiefly deligted to shock
respectability. They delighted for the most
part in dealing with things that are kept in
the background in good society. Few of them
were not kin to Francois Villon, though some
of them have settled down. They declared
themselves originally in magazines like the
Island, Simplicissimus, Jugend and Pan. En¬
Jants terrible, all of them in one way or an¬
other but all of them holding their art above
all things else and protesting ever upon any
limitation thercof. Maximilian Harden, of
Zukunft was a fomenter of the movement,
though latterly he pursued the paths of po¬
litical reform. Lilieneron, Mr. Pollard cites
as the fathexosthenall. Next he would
place Bierbaum after him, probably Herman
Bahr-änd Schnitzler, with Wedekind a sort of
mönster all by himself. The work of Wede¬
kind möst-Amertcans cannot understand. It
is horrible in its specializing of truths of so¬
cial life the most unpleasant. The things he
deals with mostly belong in the nedical Dooks,
but he treats them with a power as queer as it
is indisputable. Ludwig Thoma’s quality is
saner. His drama called Moral,“ is an exqui¬
sitely ironic assault upon respectability, a much
more effective thing even than Shaw's Mrs.
Warren’s Profession.“ It shows up hypocrites
but it does not make them utterly detestable.
It leaves them human and ridiculous. The
flavor of the graceful wickedness of the Vien¬
nese, Schnitzler is something rather bevond
us 100. The viciousness is lightsome; it is
decorated with laughter; it is the irresponsible
wickedness of youth; it is the tragicomedy of
I should sa)
light-loves and careless lovers.
that no Frenchman ever made vice more at¬
tractive than does Schmitzler. Von zan hard¬
ly read about him otherwise than to the
rhythms of that other Viennese product“The)
Merry Widow.“ Freiherr von Wolzogen ap¬
pears to be about the most conventional ef
the lot, but there were dars and nights when
hie went gipsying with the othiers, when he too
was a trouvere, a minnesinger of the mnsie
halls. With all these personalities and their
product in German letters, Mr. Pollard deals
in a manner one might almost characherige as
excessively sympathetic. 1 should say, and !
am no puritan, that most of the work is 100
4