It Is All Very Odd
Kolars, Mary
554 THE COMMONWEAL October 13, 1926 especial force in the French Fascist paper, Le Nouveau Siecle, edited by...
...it has the unity and pleasurable appearance of classic She seemed to feel that I was not only stupid but achievement...
...Recall be" to stage a bit of the ideal for my benefit...
...Its France abroad...
...My laces never `fall.' My silks never That watch the living with desire, And if the home of such be hell, `cling.' My hair never, never coils smoothly, or lets It is not well...
...she ible notes, and distasteful assignments in German...
...It might the immortal feast David Copperfield gave Traddles even be that our relations were reciprocal, and that I and the Micawbers...
...from first to last, it To watch the soft flames shake and fly is just dressing-disenchanted, hurried, halted impa- As once on seawood nights they flew, tiently for a missing clasp, shot through with preoccu- Updarting birds of green and blue...
...About that brushes, faintly perfumed waters, bottles rosy and banquet hung a spirit-an essence-a somethingviolet, gold-stoppered and translucent, delicate powder- which will forever escape you...
...She was on excellent terms with Pallas and hour of eight...
...itself be caught back by `a deft twist of the wrist.' It For all the saints would linger by is not a rite before a snowy altar...
...She is developing her water low...
...France has already declared for what all nations I first felt the impact of this truth years ago, when need in a crisis, executive power as against the parlia- I was still in college...
...I imagine this may be necessary, the gold reserve of the Bank of France true of our immortal part, as well, and that, after which is still worth over a thousand million dollars, death (which, like a good physician, will heal the inand by a due adjustment with foreign countries of both adequacy in our vision of ourselves) most of us are in debts and trade...
...It was the very perfection of study...
...She followed her producing organism, she has a capacity and a competi- text with effortless attention, now and again pausing tive power that she never had before...
...but when that strain comes, what was often even worse-rare glimpses of It which it will be found that she is prepared to meet it in a racked and exhausted me in the vain attempt to folway she never was before...
...It is perhaps a degree less their nature and so evident in their manifestations that enthralling to watch one's fellow-mortals eat...
...Yet I have tried it, and for me the spell is bartoo, will take notes...
...Yet is getting more out of her land...
...I cannot but feel that the juxtaposition system which would have led away from it to the (admittedly disturbing) of the small, horrendous, grey Fascist principle of executive efficiency...
...hear, even, in the intervals of silence which the delicate The water comes to life again absorptions of dressing make necessary, their smooth, Within its Easter shower of rain, almost inaudible passage to their places ! Yet," con- But all those flames that leapt and shone, tinued my friend sadly, "dressing myself is a dreary Where are they gone...
...I did not pur- Atlantic, but this side of paradise...
...All between was a waste of torn papers, illegpower...
...I notice it chiefly in matters of the -covered, you will remember, with salt, pepper, mustoilette...
...Authors, for instance, have fascinated It's not the simple fires we know...
...Here, in via, the facts are people, by one means or another, have evaded them...
...business...
...as I do it myself, it is insipid or a bore slightly inhuman, as well-as if the sufferings which or a task in the heroic performance of which I get she endured at her study-table were so distressing in overheated and pricked...
...My own reacrency, which has been helped by the credits for recon- tion to the business of grubbing knowledge was so struction in the war areas, which helped the home mar- poignantly painful that I can recall it now as if I had ket as much as the easier competition in prices helped closed my, books for the last time only yesterday...
...Recall Lucy Desborough's that I suddenly saw the truth : In this universe, part dewberries, and Emma Woodhouse's scalloped oysters...
...554 THE COMMONWEAL October 13, 1926 especial force in the French Fascist paper, Le Nouveau Siecle, edited by Georges Valois...
...Of all these, the collection of taxes re- for a pleasant surprise...
...And all my subsequent life has been filled with par- Whate'er in hell may lick or flow, allel examples...
...she is catering for see what, all this while, was happening across the way I her own needs from manufacturers, and by adopting Day after day, my neighbor sat at her desk, absorbed American methods of skilled production on a large and tranquil...
...These things will pass, and a strain two poles were, unillumined, gruelling labor, andwill come on France again...
...Our most perfectly savored pleasures is not invested in something directly productive, but in are vicarious...
...Dainty creams in snowy jars, silver Do not believe it...
...to make notes...
...ly into those of the opposite wing of the dormitory, Meanwhile, of course, the country has done very and so it came about that any morning I had but to well by the adventitious aid of her depreciated cur- lift my eyes to see another studying...
...My study-windows looked directmentary system...
...puffs, curious pins for catching up scarves and laces-all find me as susceptible as Pope ever was...
...voting is itself significant of Parliament's belief in its However true it may be at scattered moments, that own supremacy: the numbers were 288 against 243...
...But no one need fear ruin for the someone doing these things, preferably in Dickens country...
...It is overwhelmHerriot, Leygues, Painleve, and Barthon...
...All was equable and full of sion of a desk and the fact of beginning at the magic purpose...
...But the worthy of his more robust acceptances of life...
...How soft But when the embers broke and fell, are the coils [recollect, this was years ago] of an- We said the fire had gone to hell, other's hair...
...pations left over from the day, or anticipations of And if one heard a moan, a call, dinner...
...Here, in short, there was no ren...
...the Owl...
...How deftly they are caught back with And even vet there's no one knows the comb ! What pleasure to watch the pins put in, to Where all the flying color goes...
...What saint would have his peace at all...
...It was ingly more true that each of us is a unique and beautiknown as a ministry of all the talents...
...The speeches insect and the heroine of his poem betrayed the great on either side were violent, and Briand himself burst Scotch poet into a piece of cynical sententiousness uninto tears: he thought it the ruin of France...
...It was then Reread Lamb's dissertation...
...The uniqueness and What are its tasks...
...Her hair was neatly brushed, her white scale and by the combine of industries into one effective collar and cuffs were irreproachable...
...But these notes All the subtle difficulties of the literary art seem to were somehow different...
...But though this means an escape in one way, it catches Indeed, the perversity of our destiny goes beyond them in another, for depreciation of the currency is the matter of looks, and follows us into all the fields merely a form of capital levy on those whose money of experience...
...to see ourselves as others see us would produce a In the grave crisis which ensued, M. Poincare was proper sobering of our too ebullient egotism, there summoned to make a nationalist ministry: it included, is not meat enough there for a generalization...
...It is all the same...
...depends on part, and soul on soul, and my neighbor Or take the meals set forth by the great commissary was an unconscious artist, told off by (to use the phrase of English letters, Charles Dickens-the kidney pies, we were fondest of at the time) "whatever gods may the egg-hots, the glorified bread and cheese...
...a lack of ordinary, decent sensibility...
...Ordinarily there was nothing fascinatOctober 13, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 555 ing about notes: one took them as a concession to write for five hours...
...ties...
...The with Poincare, five former prime ministers-Briand, facts are very much the other way...
...But conto pass them over unperceived, as I had done, argued sider food in literature, especially English literature...
...Still, as ever, to stabilize the beauty of others are directly apparent to us...
...It is not well...
...I have watched people do many things-knit, write I spoke out my envy to her one day, and it was the letters, cut roses...
...As they do it, sombre fury of her repudiation which opened my eyes...
...You merely sit (at your sure method of setting them down, a certain creative desk) and write for five hours daily-and there you finality...
...However, let theologians say quires the greatest energy, for immense numbers of the whether this is so or not...
...ing others dress...
...Or do you hope sue the inquiry so far: but I did speak of this whole that somewhere, after years of toil and meriting, you matter of vicariousness to a woman much older than will find, in an unknown valley or a cloudy city, a devil I, a wise, poetic woman of the world, who said such as those four made and consumed around the fire "You are right...
...Or read about of the peasants...
...she has increased her production of coal...
...our own franc, by really insisting on taxation, by using, where we must take largely on faith...
...Writing remains the same knotty, drudging work, doggedly knitted brow, no futile anguish of soul, no all its peculiar horrors quite untouched by the possestormenting half-idea...
...But there was no IT IS ALL VERY ODD great leader in the movement, no one able to follow By MARY KOLARS the example of Mussolini and Primo de Rivera...
...And to gire see these things put to their appointed uses-to watch We used to say when rain-pools dried a toilette built up with these fairy tools-is, I have The water went to heaven side, always felt, a really high artistic privilege...
...What captivating simplicity...
...From a child, I have taken delight in watch- tard, and mushroom ketchup...
...It is a delusion...
...Where are they gone...
...Is it not true that, thus viewed, the be no trace of such a man...
...Watch someone dress, draw, ride, deposits, mortgages, loans, or even the stocking, a read, sew, sleep, or indulge in any other human occuform of saving which is still popular amongst masses pation, and you will see what I mean...
...If there were a single decisive leader, France among the older writers, or Katherine Mansfield would undoubtedly become Fascist: but there seems to among the new...
...unquestionably as I have affirmed them to be...
...There was a charm in her have been met and defeated...
...One said to oneself: "How delightful ! I, are...
...of his own uniqueness and beauty...
...necessity, but without enthusiasm...
...Something always lets in the daylight on The air is rich with ghosts of fire the process...
...It is all very odd...
...In wrecking the tenth Briand government on July HAVE long wished that "some power wad"17, Right and Left combined to fight for the parlia- but for a reason exactly opposite to that advanced mentary system, and their own stake in it, against a by Burns...
...The Parliament, however, simplest actions take on an enchantment which you ceases to be a critical body when it represents all par- will try in vain to capture for your own existence...
...Its election ful sight, and that, by a doom difficult to explain, each was followed by an enormous improvement of the of us is barred from the immediate artistic enjoyment franc...
...Do you imagine that there is was an unconscious (a very unconscious) artist, told such punch anywhere, not merely this side of the off to stage a bit of the ideal for hers...
...me by saying, "I'm at my desk every day at eight, and EILEEN DUGGAN...
Vol. 4 • October 1926 • No. 23
