Life — June 1, 1899 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

HE literary preferences of America aro capricious, When the Kallyardera landed on our coasts and bombarded us with derelict dialect we hailed them as prophets; when that poet and poseur, Richard Le Gallienne, came, we wanted him identified by the police, Yet Riebard had the trappings and the suits of Poesy, Ho was garbed in velvet and adorned with ringlots; ho had taken a fall out of Omar the Tentmaker, translating tho Rubalyat and reconstructing Fitzgerald; he had written fanciful verse and Prose Fancles; he had dissected Morodith, analyzed Stev- enson, and taken a flyer at theology, and had run the whole literary gamut; yet the victims of majorpondicitis wouldn't touch him, preferring the kail- brose of Watson to the nectar of LoGallienne. Plainly, Lo Gal- lienne needed the passionate press agent; he neglected the ten-shect poster; he bid no publisher to push him around in a steamer chair; ho lacked tho business qualities of the up-to-date poet; he even forgot the warnings of bis idol Heine, about sending poots to London, or he failed to realize that Now York is a London suburb. But what oracle listens to the augurs? He left America in dis- gust, leaving a memory precious to esthetic maids and a name doar to the slambunger of the Sun, In his latest outbreak, “Young Lives” (Lang), Richard {8 himself again, He gives usa flavor of tho “Romance of Zion Chureh,” a touch of poetry, and some Puritan- ism; ho lightens his prose with yeusty rhapsodies, and tells of love and diluted Bohemianism, tem- pered by the literary and histrionic aspirations of several impetuous and chesty young persons, It might be termed “The Evolution The Poet’s Trade. of a Poot;” it might be Richard's biography. Henry Mesurier is tho poct; he was born that way, ard couldn't help himsolf. His father viewed posts, outside of Watts—it ho bo a poot—as dangerous acd im- moral persons; and the firm of com- morelal wreckers Henry worked for held similar views, When he published a book of passionate verre dedicated to bis best girl his commercial career closed abruptly, His indignant employers fired him at once, hinting that, while many vices might be palliated in business, poetry was the unforgivable sin, Then the dauntless young poet went out working ten hours @ day at his chosen profession. Samples of his commercial poems on Jaco and lin- gorie aro given; the epics that made him famous are prudently withheld. ‘The pain- ful story of an alcoholic degenorate warn- ing Henry against literature lightens up the book; the trials and teiumphs of Mike the Comedian touch us tenderly; we pity the msthotic Myrtilla, tied to a coarse person with a damaged liver called Williamson; but wo have sorious doubts about the tall and queenly Esther Mesurier, falling bope- lessly in love with a small, red-headed actor. In his monograph on Meredith, Le Gal- lienno writes: “The passion of his genius is indeed tho tracing of tho elemental in the complex, the registration of the inflni- tessimal vibrations of first causes, the tracking in human life of the shadowiest trail of primal instinct, the hairbreadth measurement of subtle, psychological tan- gents, and the embodiment of these results in form.” . Perhaps Richard {s troubled with tho samo complaint, His “ Young Lives” may not make a profound Impression on this age, but it will do—in the dog days. Joseph Smith, N is the sincerest flut- avant: BAISDELL “WHAT's 118 MATTER, GUMPIR? *PENDECITIS?” “xo, V'VE GOT DYSPEPSIA IN THREE OP MY STOMIKS.”