Judge — December 11, 1920 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ee Es BETWEEN COVER S What the Postman Blew Out of His Whistle By Besyaux Dr. Casseres The N Witchcraft ne we live in may be N a hundred years from now the t f st us we have an era of Suppression,” Sra of Good Feeling” and “The Times of > Zye of the New Witchcraft is e: letted on books, as of yore, eld and whilom. Wasn't it Victor Hugo who said the alphabet makes books, books create ideas and ideas are powder trains that lead to the rathskeller under a throne—or words to that effect? There is (or was) “Jurgen,” the greatest piece of fantastic literature yet produced by an American, We ought to take our hats off to ourselves before our mirrors that we live in the same land with the man who wrote this great satire, one James Branch Cabell. Instead, the flatfoots of the New Witchcraft have expunged it from the bookstalls. It treats—lightly enough—of something we are all interested in—sex. While the Broadway brothel shows and_ pig-pen “comedies” are running wide open! Well, vou can’t account for the lack of taste. Here is the report of the Emergency Committee Organized to Protest Against the Suppression of “Jurgen.” It is called Jurgen and the Censor.” (Privately printed.) It is a protest signed by all the great writers of the English-speaking world. There are a preface by Mr. Cabell that is a superb piece of irony and a letter from Mr. Sumner which means just what it s—and it says nothing The suppression of “Jurgen” may be the seed of something. Stick arounc ally gim- R hard Just Won't Grow Up! T'S a great thing to refuse to be up-to-date. Of course there's the first of the month, when it is well to take a look at the calendar and remember that our days are numbered if we do not come across when the collectors come a-rapping, come a-tapping on our house doors. But poets do not even care a rap or a tap about being “up with the times.”” The Dead March of Progress simply can’t bog Richard Le Gallienne, for example. He reads all the daily papers, takes his daily subway smash, walks the Avenue just as though he were living among us; yet when he takes his little ever-sharp in hand he writes sonnets, triolets, ballades, rondeaus and vanilla vilanelles to knights and ladies, twelfth- century breaking hearts, ye olde bookman, Vain Ones That Perish, pre-trolley car kings, rose palaces and the way of a wind with a whisker. In “The Junkman” (Doubleday, Page & Co.), Richard the Rosy Hearted sticks to his ancient themes just as he has in his seven hundred and nineteen previous volumes. | Here is the same delicate lace work, the same venerable sighs, the same exquisite trellis work, the same crocheting of fancies and moods into antimacassars that rest on the shabby furniture of today, the same spiritual tomeattery that I know of from many a yesteryear. Yes, he does crawl out once or twice or thrice. “The Human Sacrifice: A New York Picture” is one. A rousing poem in defence of nce is another. “Who could wish evil to the realm of France?” he asks in the Envoi. Why, bless my old pipe, Richard does. For on page 37 I note he consigns Remy de Gourmont to the garbage can along with Edgar Poe. Richard isn’t as clubby with the decadents as he used to be. Why? And Volstead answers, Why? But he boosts Shake speare. Now, there was our Prince Hamlet, a good old decadent, who had mumps on his ego. Has our Richard taken to Jamaica ginger? Light Turkey Wings AX? this is the epic of Turkey Bowman. Turkey is not a highbrow. He never read Emerson. He wouldn't know Beethoven from Gilbert & Sullivan. He eats corn on the cob without skewers. Turkey is all tempo—which is musical for “ get a gait on you!” Turkey has got a lot of “Huck” Finn in his ego. Swears like a fish-woman. Never keeps a stop-watch on his love affairs. Geography is a place where he gets the next drink. Did you have barefoot days?“ Turkey Bowman” (by Homer Croy; Harper & Brothers) will take you back to those glorious times when you ran a spike in your foot while chasing a yellow dog or a growler of some kind, picked it out long enough to hurl it at a sparrow, with no thought of the morrow or tetanus— and the likes 0’ that. What else does Turk do? Got mixed up with prairies, Indians and bulls, the latter of which he did verily throw three times, and thereby gained the girl whose picture was painted on the right ventricle of his heart, cabinet : Did Turk come to a bad end? No bad boy ever does. They grow up to be Model Citizens and vote for the right man. It is a book—a rattling good book—to be read between writing your “movie” and stewing the beer. sate