The Quiet Corner
24. THE COMMONWEAL November 12, 1924 THE QUIET CORNER I counsel thee, shut...
...Tuz LIBRARIAN...
...K K K In fact, this idea was suggested, and was promptly voted upon in the affirmative, and Doctor Angelicus was deputized to go forth and find and return with a Puritan...
...and then ask appropriately and reasonably: "But what is the poem's aesthetic significance...
...1'HE library of the Calvert Club differs in two respects at Lj~ from the ordinary dub library...
...Edwin Bjorkman, writing of Aldous Huxley, says that Mr...
...The Chief Reviewer was reminded by this incident of the curious ideas entertained by otherwise well-informed people on the subject of Papistt Haying been reading the galley proofs of Recollections of a Happy Life, by the late Maurice Francis Egan, he read us the following anecdote from a passage describing the fast and furious dinner parties that were given by Edgar Fawcett in the olden tl~y~ "I never saw Edgar Fawcett so angry as he was at the end of one of these little dinners when he asked me: "'If your priest told you to go out and stand under a cold shower when you had a fever, would you not be forced to do it?' I promptly answered: 'No, I'd see him in Purgatory fin:!' Fawcett became red in the face...
...First, it is not simply a place where elderly gentlemen go t~ sleep, or where you occasionally hunt for somebody who has disappeared—it is really used...
...Of course, there are alcoves where the real bookworm, that natural solitary, may retire and be quite alone, but around the fireplace at the end of the long room, where the big window overlooks the great spaces of the park, we may freely talk and swap stories drawn from or suggested by the books ot papers we have been reading, or people we have met...
...As examples of this tone of personal dogmatism, which is so rampant in current criticism, we cull at random from some of our contemporaries...
...Huxley is a skilful writer, but if he is in full command of every resource, every finesse, every laboriously established tradition of his chosen craft, what a monster of perfection in a world where perfection is so rarely achieved must he be...
...If any editor, still more any writer, ever loses the thrill that galley proofc bring—let him instantly retire to the Old Hacks Home...
...hut romantic, but charming, but beautiful proofs...
...But he cannot, after all, it would seem, be permitted to occupy that peak in solitary uniqueness—at least not if Mr...
...The proofs of the first number of The Commonweal were coming from the printer...
...E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, speaking of her 'absolute conviction that he alone of living writers can understand without effort and relate without obscurity the smallest and the greatest reflection of the human mind.' Which, again, seems rather to place Mr...
...In 'Books,' I find Elinor Wylie, reviewing Mr...
...Huxley, is 'an artist highly disciplined, and in full command of every resource, every finesse, every laboriously established tradition of his chosen craft' I am quite willing to believe that Mr...
...Rascoc's diagnosis of his symptoms— Discount, then the irrelvant fact that a mere reading of this poem induced in me such physiological phenomena as may be described as a rushing of hot, feverish blood to the head, a depressing sense of weight about the heart, moisture in the palms and eyes, tremors in the nerves, and increased rapidity of respiration—rn short, the accountable and visible phenomena attending ecstasy, wonder and de~pair (or, perhaps, intimations of poignant beauty...
...Not only Doctor Angelicus became frivolous—everybody was chattering, everybody was gay, everybody fluttered those charming proofs about...
...He even made a sort of pun...
...Can we keep away from it in The Commonweal...
...Burton Rascoe, according to his report of his experiences when reading Elliot's Waste Land...
...From time to time, the librarian jots dewn some of the things that arc said...
...The Statistician was beard saying over and over again (though nobody disputed him): "I always said that this was not a business enterprise...
...We shall quite probably have to place a Puritan on the staff, to preserve some sense of law and order, some atmosphere of dignity...
...At last," said he, "behold the proofs of our existence...
...Forster upon a peak of unique perfection...
...The Commonweal now is—until now it has only been a dream...
...THE COMMONWEAL November 12, 1924 THE QUIET CORNER I counsel thee, shut not thy heart or thy library.—C...
...In short, there was a rowdy time in our quiet corner...
...Here is Mr...
...Notice, gentlemen,' he said, 'here is a Papist who not only refuses to obey his church, but he blasphemes!'" K K K I: has to be recorded that a slight chill crept over the group, when the Editor was heard saying that of course be realized that for a mere editor to make suggestions to such exalted beings as modem Critics evidenced extreme temerity, but that nevertheless, he hoped that The Commonweal might be spared from reaching such pinnacles of critical omniscience as seemed to have become the fashion to preach from elsewhere...
...We have started on an adventure...
...Rockwell Kent, of whom be says: 'Kent ~vrites as if he were divinely mad or superhumanly sane...
...ft K ft What the critics replied to the Editor will never be known as the Editor, refuses as a general rule to run things "to b continued in our next...
...Gregory Mason is right in his review of Mr...
...And, again, you may talk as well as read in our library...
...Offhand, one can think of no other American writer whose point of view is so like God's.' "Yet, possibly," continued the Editor while the doubtful critics looked upon him with somber eyes, "it may be better for The Commonweal critics to be solemn and impassible pontiffs, in the style just quoted, rather than to subject themselves to such physiological discomforts in pursuing their solemn avocation, as seems to be the sad fate of Mr...
...And we are not I Even that member of the staff who is known as Doctor Angelicus (for redsons possibly more allied to the bodily than to the mental "form" of the "Dumb Ox") performed something obesely resembling a dance (and a rather jazzy one...
...He will report upon his commission later on...
...Perhaps he does so in order to salve a conscience guiltily aware of a propensity to spend too much time in the corner...
...perhaps they were too busy looking up (in the proofs) their various proclamations, or bulls...
...After all," lie said, "since most critics disclaim any other than a purely impressionistic basis for their judgments, and deny with vehemence all alliance with 'dogmatism,' it is an excessively singular phenomenon of a singular time that so many critics should be expressing themselves in tones full of dogmatic thunder...
...Wherein lies its beauty...
...K K K Naturally enough, the talk last week was mostly shop talk...
...It is doubtful, but let us try...
...In the Literary Review of The New York Evening Post, I find that Mr...
...The Critics (of books, of drama, of science, of art, of Shakespeare and the Musical Glasses, of each other) forgot to look pontifical...
...Firs: proofs...
...he is ready for the ladle of the button moulder...
...Sticky, smudgy proofs, with the heads on wrong, the matter bristling with the impish tricks of that especially tricky little devil who is attached to all printers...
Vol. 1 • November 1924 • No. 1
