The Contributors' Column

Wilson Follett (‘The Forgotten Man to His President’) was educated at Harvard, taught for a while at Dartmouth and at Brown University, took a turn at the publishing business, and then decided to devote himself wholly to writing. His books include a life of Conrad, a critical volume entitled Some Modern Novelists, and a recently completed novel, No More Sea, to be issued by Henry Holt and Company in the fall. ▵ By a somewhat perverse but inevitable association of ideas, the name of Herbert Read (‘The Innocent Eye’) calls to mind T. S. Eliot and I. A. Richards; for, although each of these brilliant young writers is as unique as Adam, they may be thought of as the three points which have determined a new plane of literary criticism in England. Like Eliot, Read is a poet as well as a critic; like Richards, he has broadened the base of criticism to include all the fine arts, and upon this base has erected a comprehensive theory of æsthetics. Still in his thirties, he has published no less than fifteen volumes. He holds the Watson Gordon Professorship of Fine Art in the University of Edinburgh. ▵ The ‘ New Lands’ of which William Beebe writes are much older than the port from which he set sail — old enough, indeed, to be forgotten. It is altogether fitting that these islands should be rediscovered by an explorer of the deep come up from the bottom of the sea to enjoy a busman’s holiday upon its surface.

Scientists look askance at those catchpenny journalists who snoop about the laboratory in search of headlines. Not of this breed is J. W. N. Sullivan (‘The Revolution in Science’) of the London Times Literary Supplement. For many years his reviews of scientific books have added lustre to the Times’s reputation for scrupulous accuracy, and his own studies — Three Men Discuss Relativity, Present-Day Astronomy, How Things Behave, to name but a few are recognized as among the best in the language, not only for their authority, but for their lucid handling of the King’s English. Last year Mr. Sullivan published his autobiography under the title, But for the Grace of God. ▵ Ordained a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1906, Royden Keith Yerkes (‘A Priest’s Reply to a Scientist’) is now Professor of the History of Religions at the Episcopal Divinity School in Philadelphia. Jasper Jarrow (‘Technocratic Pyrotechnics’) is that well-known arbiter of fate and fortune — the Man in the Street, Not often is he articulate, but once before he rose to an occasion, contributing ‘Egg-Throwing Champions of Turlock’ to the Atlantic for December 1931. Edwin Corle (‘Amethyst’) took a degree from the University of California in 1928 and completed graduate work at Yale in 1930. He hopes some day to publish a volume of stories that have come out of the Mojave. ‘The desert has more natural variety and greater versatility of characters,’ he says, ‘ then any metropolis I have seen. Conrad Aiken (‘Prelude’) has written innumerable books of poetry, fiction, and criticism. In 1929 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the best volume of verse. James Norman Hall has spent more than a decade upon an island in the South Seas. One gathers from ‘The State of Being Bored’ that life even in paradise is not all beer and skittles.

Not many months ago George E. Sokolsky (‘Folks Talk Economies’) returned to America after fourteen years’ absence in the Orient. The present paper summarizes his impressions of the national temper as he observed it upon a far-flung lecture tour. Charles D. Stewart (‘A Beam from Arcturus’) is an Atlantic tradition. He first ambled across these pages in 1908. Since then we have counted that year as lost which brought us nothing from his original pen. ▵ ‘Three Birthdays’ is a chapter from the exotic life of Nora Waln, an American-born Quaker who went to live as an adopted daughter in the household of a wealthy Chinese family. Claude M. Fuess is Professor of English at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. Coming from him, ‘ Debunkery and Biography’ is shop talk, for among his works are lives of Caleb Cushing, Rufus Choate, Daniel Webster, and Carl Schurz. ▵ After serving in the British Army, A. W. Smith (‘Old Brandy’) became general manager of a vast lumber organization in Rangoon; he now resides near Boston. John W. Burgess (‘A Civil War Boyhood’) was a scholar and historian of international renown. From 1890 until his retirement in 1912, he was Dean of the Faculty of Political Science at Columbia. He died early in 1931. Howard Douglas Dozier (‘Pennies and Pantalettes’) is an economist who finds diversion in writing occasional papers on subjects not even remotely akin to what Carlyle called ’the dismal science.’ ▵ Educated at Smith, Columbia, Radeliffe, and at London University, Mina Curtiss (‘Serpentine Wall’) is Assistant Professor of English at Smith College.

A bid for new members.

The Contributors’ Club of the Atlantic is not a closed corporation. It is always on the alert for new members, and, as it happens, there are now some choice vacancies for those who can qualify. Unique among clubs, it levies no initiation fee and no annual dues; on the contrary, active members draw dividends, and inactive ones have been known to draw promissory notes from the Editor, payment conditional upon renewed cerebration.

And what, quotha, arc the qualifications for membership?

T. S. Eliot; or the inimitable imitated.

Dear Atlantic, —
The laurels of Mr. T. S. Eliot will not let me sleep, especially as they are set in their best light by Mr. Theodore Spencer in your January number. So, before my eyelids dropt their shade (Tennyson), I shaped my city’s ancient legend into this (see below).
Following Mr. Spencer, I should say that my poem adumbrates the political history of Nova Scotia. The first stanza is introductory, and suggests the woes of a rustic from Ecum Seeum, who put up at our grandest hotel. After such an experience. life held nothing more for him. Ante the beautiful and appropriate Shakespearean allusion. The oxen are the two chambers of our legislature moving the apple-cart (we are great orchardists) out of Imperial control, etc., etc., etc., etc.
Elijah paid his little bill. Contracted at the Grand Hotel,¹ He subsequently made his will, And moaned like Cæsar ² when he fell. Consumptive sculpture ³ in the sky Passed skyward ⁴ where the radios whine Quickly; but Odin’s single eye.⁵ Had spied the sand eel’s radiant spine. The oxen in a double yoke Had hauled the cart the whole damway From Downing Street; and then it broke;⁶ So Ancient Pistol⁷ had to pay. Notes: —
Yours critically,
ARCHIBALD MACMECHAN Halifax, Nova Scotia

Another view of the matter.

Dear Atlantic,
Congratulations on the Eliot article in the January Atlanlic! Eliot’s poetry has always had a tantalizing fascination for me-—the power to reaffirm and revivify my own impression of a world spiritually empty. Neither Mark Twain, the most uncompromising and possibly the most penetrating critic of the modern scene that America has produced, nor Theodore Dreiser, our most persistent searcher for light in the Great Darkness, has, to my way of thinking, said anything quite, so enkindling as Eliot’s all too brief verse.
Would n’t a definitive edition of this expatriated American’s poems be a safe venture for some enterprising publisher?
BRADFORD K. DANIELS Puyallup, Washington

’Nothing to do with it.'

Dear Atlantic,-
Naturally, we read Ann Bridge’s story, ‘The Burberry,’ with more than passing interest. We enjoyed it too. Nevertheless it brought rather terrifying ideas to our mind.
Could it be possible that, in spite of all our care and (if we say it ourselves) skill, a Burberry coat might go out into the world bearing about it an aura of suicidal mania?
With the ordinary troubles of business we feel competent to deal, even in these dark days of the bright, “New Economic Era.’ But a Burberry bewitched, a Burberry bearing a curse — that, we admit, would be beyond our powers.
So if any reader of the Atlantic should find himself the possessor of such a garment, let him take it to his spiritual adviser to have the evil spirit exorcised. Well have nothing to do with it.
HAROLD E. NASH
Manager, Barberrys Ltd.
New York City

Black Samaritan.

Dear Atlantic, —
I have just read Mr. Lattimore’s letter in the December number about the young colored man who was taking three pink roses to his wife. He ends his letter with, ‘It does seem that there is just a little hope even in black depression.’
A voice that I have known since I was a tiny child is stilled. My wife died a few days ago. And I am bowed in black depression. For many weeks I nursed her alone, fighting death away. Day and night were all alike to me. Sometimes in the twenty-four hours I slept as many as four; more often but two. I grew weary, despite the strength of love.
One hundred and fifty miles from where I live dwells a poor colored woman — unlearned, simple, lowly. One night as I watched by the bedside of my wife, this colored woman came to me. She stayed two weeks, cooking, cleaning, washing, leaving me free to spend my every moment at my dear comrade’s side. And when at last she left, and I started to pay her, she said to me, though she had hired a woman to take; care of her own household for her in her absence, ‘ I did n’t come here for no money. I don’ want you even to pay my railroad fare. I come because o’ love.’
In the blackest of depression gleams a bright, strong light.
BILL ADAMS
Dutch Flat, California

A young man’s ‘work.'

Not long ago a would-be contributor, who may as well be called Augustus Snipper since the name fits him better than his own, sent us four poems, each of them bearing his signature. Three were incredibly bad. but the fourth, entitled ‘Silver,’ was very good-so good that it was hard to believe that any Muse, however temperamental, could thrice stumble and limp and bog down in a morass of words, then straightway pull herself together and trip it with grace and power. In an ordered universe, could such things happen? A little research quickly reassured us that they could not. The telltale lines were found to be a published poem by Waller de la Mare, meticulously copied word for word and comma for comma. Upon this discovery the following letters were interchanged: —

Dear Mr. Snipper, —
We are returning herewith the four poems which you submitted to us. Incidentally, we are curious to know why you sign your name to ‘Silver.’ Mr. Walter de la Mare will doubtless be gratified to learn of your endorsement of him, but, unhappily, there are laws which forbid one’s admiration to lake this form. You will understand us when we say that we do not care to see any further examples of your ‘work.’
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

Dear Editors and Honorable Staff,
I received your letter accusing me of submit t mg one of Walter de la Mare’s poems for publication. I am not going to take the direct accusation in a barbarous manner, but more assuusively, as I am most unequivocally responsible for the costly mistake.
Ever since I started my career of writing, which was three years ago at the age of twelve, I Collected various works of eminent writers and changed them in various places, and improved upon them to suit my satisfaction. This last time proved disastrous, as I submitted the original work of Mr. de la Mare, not knowing, for my own, after I had worked out ‘Silver’ to a point of perfection. I had no intention of submitting Mr. de la Mare’s work, for I have reached the stage where I can fully realize things, and know well enough that it is a bad policy to get along on somebody else’s merit and hard work.
Therefore I ask the editors and his staff, and also the sumptuous Mr. de la Mare, not to take my very awkward mistake too testily. I also ask them all to apologize me, for it was most categorically accidental and intentional.
AUGUSTUS SNIPPER

Who knows the Beechers?

Dear Atlantic, -
I am now at work upon a book to be called Saints, Sinners, and Beechers. If any of your readers have pertinent information about Lyman Beecher or any of his eleven children, I should greatly appreciate having it, or being referred to any sources of which they may know. Writing a book about such a large family is, as the New England woman said about bringing up thirteen children, ‘a long, putterin’ job’ hence I need all the help I can get .
LYMAN BEECHER STOWE
1 Beekman Place
New York City