Part 3

The future! The future! The future’s duty will be to efface the present, to efface it even more than you think, to efface it as something abominable and shameful. And yet this present was necessary! Shame to military glory, shame to armies, shame to the soldier’s trade which transforms men in turn from stupid victims to ignoble executioners.

A _Feldwebel_ seated, leaning on the ripped-up planks of what was, there where we stand, a sentry-box. A little hole under one eye; a bayonet thrust has nailed him by his face to the boards. In front of him, also seated, with his elbows on his knees, his fists in his neck, a man shows a skull opened like a boiled egg.... Near them, appalling sentinel, half a man is standing: a man cut, sliced in two from skull to loins, leaning upright against the bank of earth. The other half is missing of this species of human peg, whose eye hangs out, whose bluish entrails twist in spirals round his leg.

“The whole book, from beginning to end,” says Mme. Ciolkowska, “is a fearless revelation, be the theme drowning in swamps, the storming-parties, the dressing-stations, starvation and thirst which drives men to drink their own urine:”

Of the greatness and wealth of a country they make a devouring disease, a kind of cancer absorbing living forces, taking the whole place and crushing life and which, being contagious, ends either in the crisis of war or in the exhaustion and asphyxia of armed peace. Of how many crimes have they not made virtues by calling them national—with one word! They even deform truth. For eternal truth is substituted the national truth of each. So many peoples, so many truths, which twist and turn the truth. All those who keep up these children’s disputes, so odiously ridiculous, scold each other, with: “It wasn’t I who began, it was you.” “No it wasn’t I, it was you.” “Begin if you dare.” “Begin, you.” Puerilities which keep the world’s immense wound sore because those really interested do not take part in the discussion and the desire to make an end of it does not exist; all those who cannot or will not make peace on earth; all those who clutch, for some reason or other, to the old state of things, finding or inventing reasons for it, those are your enemies!

In a word, the enemy is the past. The perpetrators of war are the traditionalists, steeped in the past ... for whom an abuse has the power of law because it has been allowed to take root, who aspire to be guided by the dead and who insist on submitting the passionate, throbbing future and progress to the rule of ghosts and nursery fables.

“Verily the criminals are those who echo, ‘because it was, it must be.’”

Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman have just been given a sentence of two years in prison, fines of ten-thousand dollars each, and deportation, for believing these same things!—_M. C. A._

Argument

Louis Putkelis, Cambridge, Mass.:

I am thinking seriously on the subject of Art and I would like to have a clear exposition of your views and the reasons why they do not agree with mine.

Having the relation of art to life and to society, as a question, seriously to heart, I would prefer a serious reply to a serious article rather than a flippant reply to chance remarks. I had hoped that discussions would arise among the Reader Critic that would interest a larger circle of readers and that would sift the question thoroughly.

It seems to me that the last few numbers of _The Little Review_ have been below your earlier standard—almost below zero. What sympathy can the majority of readers feel for the foreign editor, Ezra Pound, with his contemptuous invective against the “vulgus”? The last letter of Wyndham Lewis, to be sure, has more food for thought, though it seems that the author’s acquaintance with Russian literature is rather limited. I could say more about that but I await the psychological moment.

[To be very serious I had no idea that this department was ever flippant. I thought we had said so much about art values that we couldn’t go on boring our audience forever with the same discussions. And discussing Art isn’t very profitable anyway. We’re trying to show what it is. When you asked questions which seemed to me quite obvious, or at least seemed to show quite obviously that you didn’t understand what we had said in clearing up those values, I knew no better way to point up our disagreement than by using what is known as “epithet” instead of going off into long serious discussions of matters that had already been “got across.”

A contempt for the “vulgus” is the inevitable reaction of any man or woman who observes the antics of the “flies in the marketplace.” There’s nothing supercilious about it. It’s a fact that humanity is the most stupid and degraded thing on the planet—whether through its own fault or not is beside the point when you’re weighing values. You’re not blaming humanity when you say that; it isn’t interesting to blame: the interesting thing is to put the truth of it into a form that will endure.—_M. C. A._]

Note

Banish Anne Knish, Set the dog on Emanuel Morgan.

_X._

Quotation

M. W., New York:

Here are two extracts from Jean Laher’s _Le Breviare d’un Pantheist_: their appearance in _The Little Review_ should give a healthy jolt to many of your disdainful readers,—and many others will thank you silently from their innermost hearts for printing two of the most beautiful thoughts in any language.

“Nous sommes devant la Nature comme Hamlet devant sa mère: nous la jugeons et nous la condamnons, et pourtant nous lui pardonnons aussi, comme Hamlet à un moment pardonne, saisi de piété filiale ou seulement d’immense pitié humaine devant la vision, qui lui est soudainement apparue, de tout le chaos des choses. Et nous, qui voulons ce qu’elle n’a pas voulu, et qui voulons plus et mieux que ce qu’elle a voulu, nous aussi nous réconcilierons avec elle, pour tenter de réparer son mal, autant qu’il se peut réparer. Et quoiqu’elle fasse ou qu’elle ait fait, nous nous rappellerons qu’après tout nous lui devons la vie, si nous lui devons la mort, la vie avec ses souffrances, ses angoisses, avec ses misères et ses crimes, avec tous ses mensonges, avec tout son néant, mais aussi avec quelques splendeurs, quelques illuminations fugitives, et quelques tendresses caressantes, et le vague amour d’Ophélie, et ces sentiments de miséricorde et de justice, qu’elle, inconsciente, ne connaît pas, ou qu’elle ne connaît que par nous, et qui en nous sont nés de notre rébellion contre elle.”

“En tout, je vois un rythme qui tend vers la beauté, mais qui trop rarement la prout; et la perception de ce rythme, plus ou moins apparent dans les choses, par instants, rassure et donne une jouissance infinie, à laquelle se vient mêler cependant une certaine souffrance ou mélancolie, celle du besoin insatisfait de la beauté _parfaite_ en toutes choses.”

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Transcriber’s Notes

Advertisements were collected at the end of the text.

The table of contents on the title page was adjusted in order to reflect correctly the headings in this issue of THE LITTLE REVIEW.

The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical errors were silently corrected. All other changes are shown here (before/after):

[p. 3]: ... friend Philip Seddon inclosed with a letter. Under the above title ... ... friend Philip Seddon enclosed with a letter. Under the above title ...

[p. 4]: ... potentiality of six men. Leave your front door one day at B.: ... ... potentiality of six men. Leave your front door one day as B.: ...

[p. 12]: ... the opposite gallery a white-beared town-councillor began to ... ... the opposite gallery a white-bearded town-councillor began to ...

[p. 14]: ... Poggio: I have walked and ridden through Europe, annoting, ... ... Poggio: I have walked and ridden through Europe, annotating, ...

[p. 18]: ... Suddenly ... and how I do not know, I had broken the bonds of of ... ... Suddenly ... and how I do not know, I had broken the bonds of ...

[p. 22]: ... and spreading to light that gently thrusts me down? A flamed-losed ... ... and spreading to light that gently thrusts me down? A flamed-loosed ...

[p. 23]: ... (The Narcissus slowly rises and takes a stride toward the palest ... ... (The Narcissus Peddler slowly rises and takes a stride toward the palest ...

[p. 29]: ... “Nous sommes evant la Nature comme Hamlet devant sa ... ... “Nous sommes devant la Nature comme Hamlet devant sa ...

[p. 29]: ... mère: nous la jugeons et nous la condamoons, et pourtant nous ... ... mère: nous la jugeons et nous la condamnons, et pourtant nous ...

[p. 29]: ... lui pardonnoos aussi, comme Hamlet à un moment pardonne, ... ... lui pardonnons aussi, comme Hamlet à un moment pardonne, ...

[p. 29]: ... la vision, qui lui est sou dainement apparue, de tout le chaos des ... ... la vision, qui lui est soudainement apparue, de tout le chaos des ...

[p. 29]: ... “En tout, je vois un rythme qui tend vers la beauté, mais quit ... ... “En tout, je vois un rythme qui tend vers la beauté, mais qui ...

[p. 29]: ... certaine souffrance ou mélancolie, celle du besoin insatiss fait de la ... ... certaine souffrance ou mélancolie, celle du besoin insatisfait de la ...