Waste*

Mr. Herrick Arraigns America's False Gods

The Story. Ostensibly the account of one man's life, this is in reality a keen, sweeping arraignment of the destructive forces of "Waste" which the author visions as imperilling the America of today. His protagonist, Jarvis Thornton, ultimately works out a philosophy which one dimly feels to be the author's own panacea--if, indeed, one can be found--for the danger.

It is not a matter of material values; it is the waste of spiritual forces which appals him: the sort of spiritual squalor which apparently has America so malignantly in its grip--dwarfing constructive endeavor, substituting pride of possession for pride of achievement.

In his college days Thornton first perceives these undermining forces at work; sees his classmates abandoning their first high, nebulous hopes of achievement, for some concrete form of business which will assure them wealth. And shortly after college, he is himself drawn into the menacing vortex, by a tragically mistaken marriage.

He becomes an engineer, an architect, finds himself driven to things against which his soul rebels, by the concrete and somehow sordid need for money. Fortunately, his wife concentrates on the financial, and thus does not drain him spiritually dry. So he retains his inner self, which continues to wrestle with the problem of adjusting things as they are with what he feels they ought to be.

Then comes the War, and in that searing horror he at last sees Truth, flaming, glorious, for the instant, in the awakened consciousness of the world. Yet even there, coexistent with the glory, are all the baser human instincts rearing themselves: treachery, greed, lust for power.

When the War has passed, so soon the glory dies that in the ensuing months of treaty-making, political bickering and intrigue, there comes to him the conviction that no matter who won the War, it has in truth been lost, and with it the Peace. It is all waste-- waste of blood, and treasure--and spirit, the worst waste of all.

Then comes Cynthia--gay, wise, tender, apparently untouched by material standards. But in the end she also fails him--too much the product of her heritage and environment to escape them.

The solution Thornton finds for his disillusionment is at best a philosophy of compromise. He goes back to teaching in the technical school, saying: "If I can only save some of them from waste, the waste I went through, the waste of spirit I see everywhere about me in our life today, I shall be content. I don't know that it can be done, that waste is not inherent, inevitable, in the process of living, but it is worth the effort."

The Significance. Though using the vehicle of the novel form, Mr. Herrick is in reality far more passionately concerned with his philosophy than with his hero. In consequence, the story of the one often hangs suspended in mid-air while he unburdens himself of the other. The result of this delicate gymnastic exhibition is, however, more gratifying than otherwise. For, while his hero is at times unreal and ineffectual, and invokes only the reader's half-irritated sympathy, his philosophy is ever profoundly interesting and ringing with sincerity. Whether or not one views eye to eye with him this America of today, one cannot question the existence or the menacing power of America's false gods--here arraigned grimly, with a touch of irony, yet a passionate earnestness that seems scarcely to escape despair.

The Author. Robert Herrick was born at Cambridge, Mass., in 1868. He was Professor of English at the University of Chicago from 1905 until last year, when he resigned to devote all his time to writing. Among his many books are The Man Who Wins, The Web of Life, The Master of the Inn, Together, Homely Lilla.

New Books

The following estimates of books much in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion:

THE COOK AND THE CAPTAIN BOLD-- Arthur Mason--Atlantic Monthly Press ($2.00). A sea-story that sails from cover to cover without once reminding you that you are a landlubber. For the crew, there is the bo'sun, with the beautiful dancing girls au naturel tatooed on his hairy arm; Kitty McCann, the Cap'n's wife, "half owner and sole boss of the schooner, whose right arm was sheer muscle and whose footwork as she bounded on the deck proclaimed that she could take a fall out of any man not specially trained to withstand her"; Oilskin Jack and Bonita Sam, who finally wearied of sailoring and bought a little farm in Australia with an asthmatic horse, a "tailless rooster and two scolding hens" for equipment; and the sailmaker, who had such an eloquent sniff that he needed no other means of communication.

Not exactly a pirate brig, despite its swashbuckling title. But a chipper little schooner with plenty of saltwater stories aboard, a ballast of saline humor and a cargo of vocabularies like smelted slag.

SONNETS AND VERSE--Hilaire Belloc --McBride ($2.75). The jacket blurb announces that the author has here collected, with a few exceptions, "all his poems which he wishes to preserve." Some of them justify the lifted eye-brow which would query "Why?" Regrettable pages of triviality are interspersed with redeeming gleams of lyric beauty.

DOWN THERE--J. K. Huysmans-- A. & C. Boni ($2.50). A sizzling, sulphuric translation of La Bas--the uttermost in demonology. With its pseudo-scientific basis of historical fact, in the story of Bluebeard and the study of the cult of Satanism and the Black Mass, the book is bloodcurdling, grotesquely horrible, reminiscent of William Blake. But then, one does not expect an Elsie Dinsmore story inside of a blood-red cover spouting pitchforks and lurid tongues of flame. The startled Manhattan censors recently frowned upon it.

WANDERING STARS--Clemence Dane --Macmillan ($2.25). An eerie, poignant fantasy of people within people, innermost selves. In the story of Damaris Payne, whose eyes came to be "trees without fruit, wells without water, wandering stars,"; Miss Dane has dipped her pen in moonlight and drawn the grotesque and lovely shadows of human souls.

Brander Matthews

His Pronouncement on the Current Drama

Recently Brander Matthews retired as Professor of Dramatic Literature at Columbia University, and became Professor Emeritus, terminating an active association of 30-odd years. Until the other noon I had never met Professor Matthews. Many of his works on the Drama I knew and admired. I had read and even published various articles on his habits of mind by men not nearly so wise. The other noon in company with William Lyon Phelps, Clayton Hamilton, Jesse Lynch Wil-liams--an ill-assorted but renowned trio --I had an opportunity to talk with Professor Matthews. His anecdotes contain memories of Mark Twain, George Meredith, Oscar Wilde. Genial, kindly, brilliant, gay, stimulating, he is all things a literary gentleman should be. Somehow, and quite without seeming to patronize him, I want to take off my hat to Professor Brander Matthews!

He took an impish delight in telling stories, then shaking his finger in my direction:"You can't very well use that one in print, Mr. Farrar!" There seems little reason, however, why I cannot use his pronouncement concerning the Drama of the present--a pronouncement which will have more value to you, if you have Professor Matthews' background before you.

(James) Brander Matthews was born at New Orleans, Feb. 21, 1852. He was educated at Columbia and elsewhere. He studied law and was admitted to the Bar, but turned to Literature. His chief interest was always in the Drama, except when he was occupied with such very special interests as "simplified spelling." He has written plays, and he has written of plays. His books on Literature are many and he has written some charming essays and collected them in volumes. His knowledge of the stage, both practical and theoretical, covers a long period.

It is from a vast fund of experience that his opinion springs. For the past ten years he has not gone much to the New York theatres. Recently, this has been changed. He has been viewing the current products. He has seen such plays as The Show off, Hell-Bent Fer Heaven, The Merry Wives of Gotham, etc., and he maintains that we have in New York, at the present, the best native drama America has ever had, the best, as a matter of fact, that exists in any city in the world. Individual acting, perhaps, was better in the old days--but production and direction is now at its heyday. We had hoped that this was true. We had no basis of comparison. Now we know.

J. F.

*WASTE--Robert Herriek--Harcourt ($2.00).