SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1922

THE MICHIGAN DAILY MAGAZINE

Z

Galton who, it seems, was some sort is plainly evident when one compares James Elroy Flecker, whose "Col- ( In "The Critic and the Drama," to
of a relative. Pearson then launches the new editions with the early ones. lected Poems" Alfred A. Knopf is be published next week by Alfred A.
into a retailing of a lot of little char- Scarcely a page is unchanged. A dull bringing out next week, belongs to the Knopf, George Jean Nathan leaves
acteristics which might belong to a adjective gives place to a bright one, group of younger Englishmen which temporarily his discussion in book
bricklayer, all the while parading a sentence is changed about, a whole includes Middleton and Brooks. Like form of current theatrical enterprises
them as evidence of a greatly superior paragraph is left out, another added, them, Fletcher died during the war. and formulates for the first time his
being, of, in brief, a veritable whale a happier turn of phrase substituted. He was only thirty years of age at entire dramatic credo. "The Critic and
of a man. - All this shows his scrupulous atten- the time, but he had been writing the Drama" is a consideration of the
But I am running on at length. I lion to the imagery and harmony pro- for fifteen yars, and the poems in this various theories and standards of crit-
urge that my readers buy this book and duced by the sound and rhythm of his volume are arranged in chronological icism with special reference to the
read it. If my personal friends don't words. And the result is an exquisite order, making an interesting record function of the criticism of the drama,
do it within ten days I shall greet prose which is matched by very few of his development. J. C. Squire, edi- together with an appraisal of drama
them with a mere nod; if they don't of his contemporaries. for of The London Mercury, has. writ- and acting arts, and a survey of dra-
do it in twenty, I shall cut them dead. In these love stories one misses the ten an introduction to the book. matic criticism in the United States.
allegory, the subtle irony, and much
TWO NEW CAIELL EDITIONS of the impudent humor of "Jurgen"
and "Figures: of Earth." Yet the
(A Review by R. D. S.) quiet humor is not altogether lacking
At a time when the output of the even here. It is seldom one finds a
novelists is almost entirely confined score of stories of more even quality.
to naturalism, diluted realism, and tn- The wealth and brilliance of episode
together with the exquisite workman-
inspired trash, the fiction of James ship make a literary tapestry which is
Branch Cabell is somewhat of an iso- a permanent contribution to our litera-
lated phenomenon. For Cabell is a ture.
pure romancer. He stands apart from
modern commerce, politics, and "mid-,
dle-class morality" and writes of pic- ShORT STORY CONTEST
turesques figures of the Middle Ages.
One quality alone does he share with DAmmanuocript or sth Sun-
On ln osh hr ih l aucit o h -Ihis contemporaries, and that is a day Msagazine short story con-A l D pa t e t
test must be in by the first day
certain amount of materialism. It is of March. They should be ad-
not, however, the materialism of a dressed to the Literary Depart-
Dreiser, but rather that of a Rabelais, ment of the Michigan Daily, and
a Boccaccio, or a Casanova. tt cos- stamps must be enclosed for
s the return of the manuscripts
silts of a slightly gross sense of tu- hs event of rejection.
mor and a profound disrespect for If no acceptable manuscripts I
any form of sentimentality. are received the idea will be
For he is thoroughly disillusioned: abandoned. On the other hand,
he is a cynic, a mocker, an Impish although but two or three good
jester. Romantic though his charac- stories are received, the writers
ters may te, they do not deceive him. optnt stos writ te res of University
They are not wax figures in fancy ,iuiniytmrietStore
costumes, nor the knights and ladies i the ten desired stories. Book store
of children's picture books. They have
very much the same ambitions, lusts,
and defects that a traveling sales-
man has. Their love affairs, at bot- "Memoirs of a Midget," Walter de la
tom, are no more idealistic than the Mare's prose romance, has been sent
Main Street cases of today. Cabell to press by the publisher, Alfred A.
suffers no illusions anent love. This Knopf, for a second printing.
natural phenomenon which, despite
continual evidence to the contrary, is
usually regarded as a sacred thing,
is as often as not the butt of a Cabel-
lian jest. The supreme evidence of
this is "Jurgen."
This is but one of the proofs of
Cabell's remarkable originality. It bEuo ft p f fEs
is not an originality of subject matter
as much as of treatment. His ma-
terial is very often "old stuff," his
phrases and ideas are often trite. But,
under his treatment,he The Best Confection since
individualized as to be scarcely recogT
nizable.
This is, in fact, what has happened the Invention of Candy
in many of the stories that make up
"The Line of Love" and "Chivalry,"
two early Cabell books which have
lately been reissued in revised form by Frost-Bite is a Cake of Ice-Cream in a cover of
Robert M. McBride & Company. Mere
the author takes the courtships, the
wars, the intrigues, the gravls, and Pure sweet milk Chocolate. A Frozen Dainty
the rest of the familiar claptrap of
medieval and Elizabethan days, and are sure like. W alk into nearest
subjects them to an effectual revivify- you to the
ing process. The result 'is two excef-
lent books of short stories. fountai and say Frost-Bite.
The subject of all these stories is
love, and Cabell's fertile imagination
has concocted a score of rather beau- MANUFACTURED BY
tiful affairs. Some of them center
about such real personages as Villon
and Marlowe. Falstaff is the hero
of one. The others are historical
characters 'and figures from the pseu-
do-historical lore which Cabell attri-
butes to the fictitious Nicolas de Caen.
The conclusions are not uniformly
happy or tragic, there is a great deal
of heroism and an equal amount of
cowardice, and there is more than one
piece of extraordinarily clever di-a 416 4TH STREET PHONE 1427
logue.
But Cabell's primary interest is in
the manner in which his stories are
related. He is a word precisian. This

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