Letters to The Little Review

A. S. K., Chicago:

With your permission I shall try to explain why I am not enthusiastic about the second issue of your magazine:

The crime of the April issue lies in the fact of its closely following (chronologically) the issue of March. In the beginning you appeared to us as a prophet, and we wistfully listened to your unique message; now you have degenerated into a priest, a dignified station indeed, but don’t you think there are already more priests than worshippers in our Temple? If you are going to be “one of many” I question the raison d’être of The Little Review.

Your debut was a revelation, a new word, a rejuvenating breeze in the tepid atmosphere of our periodical press. It was a wonderful number, all fresh and beautiful; even the one or two grotesque pieces that had smuggled in drowned in the mass of splendor, just as the heavy colors of the rainbow soften in the powerful symphony of the spectrum.

Now, frankly, would you sign your name under every article of the April Review? I hope not! You have turned your temple into a parliament of dissonances; you have admitted Victorian ladies and sentimental crucifiers of Nietzsche; you have even polluted your pages with an anti-Bathhouse tirade! Then that cacophony of personal letters: I blushed at the sight of these tokens of familiarity and tappings over your shoulder on the part of the benevolent readers. I wished to shout to the Misses Jones to keep off the altar, lest they besmirch your white robe with their penny compliments and saccharine effusions.

I could hardly make myself believe that this irritating copy was The Little Review.

Pardon this frankness. But I wish you success, not popularity.

Mary W. Ohr, Indianapolis:

Let me tell you how much pleasure you have given me in the second issue of your magazine. You are certainly to be congratulated upon having the initiative to start anything so great as this.

I have reserved writing to you until now, for I wished to avoid the appearance of trying to tear down or discourage an effort that was so much bigger than anything I could ever achieve. Your article on The Dark Flower made me feel that possibly intolerance might be your stumbling block, and that your youth and enthusiasm might lead you into many pitfalls that might not be for the betterment of your work. But this number has made me your equal in enthusiasm, and I believe The Little Review is here to stay.

Verne DeWitt Rowell, London, Ontario:

The Little Review is a whirlwind surprise. There is nothing like it in America. I am glad to see you playing up Nietzsche. Over here in this little town we have a Nietzschean vogue, and we are all delighted. Truly the intellectual center of America has shifted westward. To be sure, New York has The International; but Chicago has The Little Review, The Trimmed Lamp, and one or two other magazines of real literature. Then there is Burns Lee’s Bell Cow in Cleveland. Nietzsche is coming into his own at last. Wishing every success to The Little Review, which is one of the two best magazines in America (the other is Current Opinion).

Mollie Levin, Chicago:

The formal bow that The Little Review made to the public in its first issue violated tradition beautifully by doing what formal bows never do—really mean something. It is glorious to be young and enthusiastic, and still more so to be courageous; and whatever goes into The Little Review in that spirit is admirable, regardless of any reader’s personal judgment.

It’s good, too, to have used The Little Review: It makes me think of a child—beautiful in its present stage and with promise of infinite fulfillment.

Marie Patridge, Clearfield, Pa.:

I’ve been tremendously interested in the second issue. It seems to me your critic is wrong in speaking of juvenility or the restrictive tone of the magazine. It’s exactly that which gives The Little Review an excuse for being, that it is not like all other magazines with their cut-and-dried precision and their “Thus saith the Lord” attitude toward things.

As time goes on I think it will be wise to enlarge the scope—more of drama, more of music, more of world politics and science. You will thus get away from the aesthetic tendency which your critic mentions.

I enjoyed the Wells discussion so much. And yet Miss Trevor doesn’t advance any real arguments. It’s very easy to call people muddle-headed and vaguely sentimental, but an appeal to the upbuilding of character isn’t slushy. I’m inclined to agree with “M. M.,” though I’d like to hear an advanced—not a hysterical—argument on the subject. I’m willing to be convinced of the other side, but assuredly it would take something stronger and sterner and more logical than Miss Trevor.

[The suggestion about enlarging our scope is one we hoped no one would make until we had done it, that being the plan closest to our hearts. We can only explain our shortcomings in this regard by referring to a homely but reasonable saying about not being able to do everything at once.—The Editor.]

Mabel Frush, Chicago:

You have invited frank criticism, and that is my reason for not writing at first: I could not accept it all. In the first place, regarding Paderewski. Do you never find him a bit over-powering; do you never feel that a trifle more restraint might give greater strength? In Grieg, for instance, does he carry you up into the high places, give you that impression of unlimited space, rugged strength, and wild beauty? Is he not too subjective?

I quite agree with you as regards Chopin and Schumann. There he is satisfying. His interpretations carry a quality that other artists sometimes treat too lightly; forgetting “a man’s reach must exceed his grasp,” and so sacrificing the greater to the lesser in striving for perfection. Impotency is the price of ultra-civilization.

Your comments on temperament are interesting, but I feel you are not quite fair in your comparisons. Is not Paderewski’s genius largely a racial gift? To me all Russian (or Polish) art—both creative and interpretative—possesses the flame of the elemental, that generative quality which marks the difference between technical perfection and living, breathing, throbbing art. Appreciating that “all music is what awakens in you when reminded by the instrument,” he strives for but one thing: an emotional releasement that results in a temperamental orgy which leaves his hearers dazed, lost in the labyrinth of their own emotions.

As for Rupert Brooke’s poetry, I regard him as decadent—at least too much so to be really vital. Perhaps my vision is clouded, but I could as easily conceive of Johnson worshipping at the shrine of Boswell as of Whitman liking Brooke. Now and then he impresses me as being effete, and I can never separate him from a cult, though I do delight in some of his poems.

Mrs. William H. Andrews, Cleveland:

May I put in my little word and wish you all good speed, editor of The Little Review?

You evidently live in the clear blue sky where fresh enthusiasms rush on like white clouds bearing us irresistibly along. Life grows even more vivid under such stimulating courage and pulsing optimism.

The world is indeed wonderful if we but live it passionately, as did Jean Christophe and Antoine, leaping forward, breasting the waves, with music in the soul. My ears are singing with the third movement of Tschaikowsky’s immortal Pathetique, which to me, in larger part, so belies its name.

Hail to The Little Review! May it dart “rose-crowned” along its shining way, emblazoning the path for many of us.

Mary Carolyn Davies, New York:

I have just finished reading The Little Review from cover to cover, and much of it twice over.

Thank you for loving the things I love, and thank you for being young and not being afraid to be young! This is such a good day to be young in!

With all good wishes for the success of The Little Review (though it needs no good wishes, for it cannot help succeeding).

P. H. W., Chicago:

The article on Mrs. Meynell in your April issue sounded a little curious in its surroundings, as it was a piece of pure criticism and The Little Review is the official organ of exuberance. It is the only one, in fact, and it is a good thing to have such an organ.