Life — August 24, 1911 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

298 The Spectator and the “English Review ” ERHAPS the succession of headline- events in England—the great vol ume of Coronation tattle and the subse- quent agitations over the threatening downing of the House of Lords and the Agadir incident—have minimized the notice that in less crowded moments, might have been given by American readers to the efforts of the London Spectator to inject propriety into the English Review. The effort, it is true. has not been ignored, but it has not stirred the emotions of our people as much as it might have done if our news- papers had paid more attention to it. The Spectator, as all cultivated readers —several thousand of them, maybe—are aware, is an able, old weekly paper, as respectable as the Outlook and more like it, on the whole, than any American pa- per we can recall, The English Review is a young monthly which has George Moore, Frank Harris, Maurice Hewlett, Joseph Conrad and divers other modern writers among its contributors, and con- trives somehow to get diabolically inter esting pieces between its blue covers. The Spectator on June 10 charged the Review with dumping garbage on the na- tion’s doorstep, and protested against its tone and tendency on moral questions, and gave notice that until it changed its way it would decline its advertisements and cease to notice it. The Review's answer was to print a list of ninety-five of its contributors, headed by Thomas Hardy, Bernard Shaw, Frederic Harri- son, Henry James, and H. G. Wells, as “the only serious answer that can be given to an attack couched in language purely journalistic and uncritical.” This makes a very joyous contest. For our part, our sympathies are considerably distributed. The English Review has had some exceedingly interesting pieces, and interesting, not because of their improprietics, but because of the brains that went into them. And yet some of them have been picces that it have embarrassed a proper review to print, and some of the theories of de- portment which writers in the Review have expounded have been in serious conflict with the accepted standards of British morality. We are glad there was a place where those pieces could be pub- lished. They are worth reading. It seems to us that the Improper Review serves a useful office in assembling once a month the more pressing sentiments writers, where moral ge can examine them, out their would of the immoral readers of proper moral cri scan point ‘LUPE: grievous faults of morality. When im- morality lurks in the dark it escapes notice, but when it shows its head, the vigilant can get a crack at it. The Spe tator in a way has justified the English Review by pitching into it. The senti- ments the Spectator abhors existed all the time in contemporary minds, but it was not until the Review exposed them that the Spectator got a chance to point out how deleterious they were. Let us hope, then, that the English Review will survive as long as there are available brains to put good reading into it, and that the Spectator may continue to read it carefully and point out what a wreck of morals would ensue if folks could live openly according to the pre- cepts and standards of the English Re- riew and still be accepted as respectable. ES. M. Gulf State Statesmen The country is in debt to Mississip for John rp Williams.—Collier's Weekly. ‘D 10 Alabama for Oscar Under- wood, Democratic Icader of the House. And (while we are about it) to Louisi- ana for Chief Justice White Pretty good for the Gulf States! Life’s Fresh Air Fund Inclusive of 1910, Lirt’s Fees Air Fuxo has been in operation twenty-four years. in that time it has expended $126,447.44 and has given a fortnight in the country t0 32,730 Poor city children, The Fund 1s supported entirely by bequests and voluntary contributions, which are ac- knotledged in this column, Previously acknowledged... ......-.$6,796.48 Proceeds of a fair held at Oak Beach, 1. 1, by Vera Balthazar 30.50 Out Fist for Fun. Wh Revcvsngoes : ‘so CE. : zs0 “Toe Rrown 1000 W. Maxwell “Douglas & Geo. Munte “A. Friend”. seadeas sian Carleton Fay’ W s.00 ia Adams Wri A ‘ 00 Walker... Dookie $00 Dickey Van 2222 nes 2 S00. Rosemary 22022! tseat $00 TA, Rodd: soso... 3.00 Offering during’ outing at camp’ of Matthew's Choir . July hey Say." San ‘Francisco, Cal! .00 FE. MeWilliams....... res Th, memory of BR. Hi. 6.0 “A Mother... $0.00 D. Schnakenberg.... 2 : 25.00 fs g € Wauninet! 12 743 5.00 A POSTAL FROM LIFES FARM Dear Maen J feel alright and I lik country. ‘They give me all lot of thin From Jor Piaza AT LIFE’S FRESH AIR FARM AN IN RESTING STORY comicbooks-com