Week by Week
WEEK BY WEEK MR. PARKER GILBERT'S review of the Dawes Plan in operation during 1926 is an endorsement of Germany and an optimistic prophecy concerning the European economic future. The mere...
...When these are added to the vast pensions to the injured during the war, the inroads into government income become bafflingly heavy...
...It was certainly not before the Reformation, either in England or on the continent...
...that the business of religion is not limited to an esoteric circle—all these are things that need to be understood even at the cost of taking a few risks...
...It is a pleasure to congratulate the firm...
...It is the economic spectre which continually stalks through Austria...
...His monthly periodical—known the world over as Hochland—has been a kind of hearthfire to a great deal of intelligent creative work...
...We think it may profitably be contemplated in the United States...
...and ethics in the third year...
...Even more harrowing is the news from the Near East, as set forth by several welfare agencies and discussed on public platforms...
...The "cases" reported by various metropolitan agencies are in touching and desolating contrast with the prevailing festival splendor...
...It is a pleasure to say that understanding American readers have, in the past, done much to establish Claudel's reputation...
...It is not desirable that we should attempt to duplicate what has already been excellently done abroad...
...It is instructive to observe also that a major part of what it has been able to accomplish is the fruit of the enthusiasm enkindled by a great editor, Dr...
...Though the German ability to shoulder a titanic burden is nothing short of marvelous, the burden itself remains almost inconceivably heavy...
...These are men and women who, grouped by an actively cooperative publisher, live in the current of noble literature and have shuffled off a great deal of that timidity and clumsiness which are the curse of so much that is being written in English from the Catholic point of view...
...I mentioned Job and Saul of Tarsus," Mme...
...It has been the biggest of the British government's problems...
...Standards, for instance, have been made relatively high...
...A more careful reading of the text, which consists chiefly of excerpts from recent publications, is a really impressive introduction to a new and virile Catholic literature...
...One fancies, from the general tenor of the reply, that the official censor of plays in England was stifling a smile as he spoke...
...It proves how far toward life's limit sane living, enthusiasm, and what old doctors termed "vivida vis" will carry unimpaired the energies which the founders of the "too old at forty-five club" would have relegated to 146 a non-combatant role thirteen years before America was called upon to play her part in the great war...
...CURIOUSLY enough, educational ventures long postponed often profit by the delay in the sense that they avoid the mistakes of others and take advantage of modern conditions...
...It is undeniably true that many persons still use profanity, and that it may suit the purposes of dramatists here and there to cause the simulated forms of these persons to strut for a brief hour on the stage...
...Briefly, the comments were addressed to the common charge that the Church as an organism is subtly "undemocratic," and that its progress in a democratic country entails a special watchfulness on the part of those advocates who are making the preservation of democracy their special charge and making no secret of the fact...
...The closeclipped speech which is a characteristic of the present generation tends to exclude profanity as a superfluity, even if not on moral grounds...
...The printing of liturgical books has earned for it an extensive reputation, the Regensburg missal setting a standard for topography and beautiful format...
...In France, for example, M. Poincare's problem is of the franc and the budget...
...Later equally important tasks which naturally accrue to an industrious religious publisher were carried out faithfully and successfully...
...But treasurable as this is, the fact remains that He in whose honor the festival abides asked primarily, with a sacred earnestness in His gaze, for one thing—the cup of cold water for those who thirst...
...He is universally known as a poet whose particular service has been to smash the union between writing and weak aestheticism...
...the edging away from the great, filled beaker of unified body and soul...
...Quite in the same fashion, modern government has attained a great deal of similar ultimate sovereignty...
...IS it not a part of the code of the neo-realists that drama shall be stripped of all false appeal, and stand or fall in the public estimation on its own merits...
...BITTER storms which have scourged various districts emphasize a need which always comes to mind in a particular way at this season of the year...
...In spite of difficulties and occasional mistakes, the record is therefore attractive and encouraging...
...Then no charge more damaging to the old Church could be formulated than that it encroached upon the privileges of the king, and offended the pride of his nobles, largely through the lowly birth of its chiefs...
...First, that there has often been, inside the Church, a healthy rivalry between two tendencies of government, democratic and undemocratic, and that, in the final issue, the democratic has generally won out...
...Music is unpopular in the strictly dramatic theatre because it is not of the inmost fabric of the entertainment...
...Even business normalcy, therefore, leaves the modern European state faced with the difficult task of employment doles...
...But very naturally—the point is conceded by Mr...
...For he happens to be a man whom writing has not cramped into a myopic statuesqueness before an ink bottle...
...With an utter disregard for pose, he has set forth a view of life intellectually and emotionally as vigorous as a great fist brought down upon a table...
...One cannot help relishing the sincerity and power of it all...
...When the Sisters of Saint Dominic, of the Congregation of Saint Mary of the Springs, Columbus, Ohio, undertook to found a college for women in the state of Connecticut, where Catholic higher education had not developed fully, they found at hand an unusual but advantageous situation...
...Novelists, poets, and writers in the more serious fields of history and philosophy reveal a mastery of technique as well as a steady consciousness of the present age...
...Petrova adds plaintively, "but the Lord Chamberlain replied that these two men lived centuries ago, when people did not know any better...
...Why, then, are actors and actresses, whose roles on the stage have been free of profanity in the past, now called upon to mouth it pertly from Broadway to the far demesnes of the dramatic hinterland...
...In order that students may be equipped to pursue advanced courses, both literary and scientific, Latin is required of all candidates for admission, and before graduation each student must show her ability to use as working tools two modern languages other than English...
...But it is most interesting to see how the state's concern is now concentrated upon finance rather than upon industry...
...Why a tendency on the stage when the opposite tendency is so greatly in evidence in real life...
...There is an omnibus definition of realism which has a vogue in some quarters...
...But many an undertaking awaits support and fulfilment among us, so that the influence of a good example would be most salutary...
...It is pleasant to turn from them to bright windows in front of which prosperous shoppers dream of gifts to be given and received...
...New York is promised the serious play which England has rejected (it concerns "a man who married a wife so that he would have constant temptation") and the mentally mature may look forward to the anthropomorphic joy of hearing a God in whom they profess their disbelief chided for conduct unbecoming a gentleman, let alone a Creator...
...To a large extent, it was the evil portent which Fascismo arose to banish...
...What the official seems to have objected to most, was the Hollywood idol's description of God as a "bully...
...Second, that the conception of the Church as a vast organism, functioning with a terrifying efficacy only possible if its rule were kept absolute, does not date back much further than the French Revolution and revolutionary ideology...
...The noblest lines of drama are without profanity...
...The essentially Catholic side of the curriculum is, of course, not neglected...
...He has preferred to shout good news of eternity, and to emphasize the abiding adventures which engage men upon this round, full earth...
...The situation of the college gives it the advantages to be had only in university or metropolitan centres, while permitting it to have grounds and buildings of a type unavailable in large cities...
...A record such as the late Major Merz's is not only a stirring example of patriotism...
...Producers and directors order it, certainly...
...M. Claudel, too, is a man of the world, having grown out of the culture of Europe into years of diligent and observant life in the Orient...
...Authors write it in their lines, perhaps...
...Third, that even then it did not arise with the people, but with those statesmen who, having discovered what a very ductile thing the popular will could be made, naturally attributed similar methods to the rival whom they found most obviously in their path and concerning whose real government it is enough to say that they shared the popular ignorance...
...The mediaeval "lord," who fed his commoners when the annual harvest failed, thereby earned and established his ascendancy over them...
...MME...
...But why more so than before...
...Of course, Claudel is known to despise the "attitudes" of his modernistic age—the condescension with which weak simpletons talk of God...
...One fact mentioned by him, namely that the theory and practice of democratic government was worked out by the older orders, notably the Dominicans, centuries before it became a lay possibility, is so suggestive that we hope to see it treated at the length it deserves...
...Naturally, the proposal has aroused lively protest among those who see in it a slur upon their own persistence, and for their comfort, the career of Major Harry Merz, whose death from pneumonia at sixty-four has recently been reported in the obituary columns of the New York press, is propounded for consideration...
...If to many persons, both within and without the Church, the truths about Catholicism's attitude to democracy, marshaled by the Auxiliary Bishop of New York, appear self-evident, it must be remembered that, to slightly paraphrase Mr...
...Major Merz, an assistant clerk in the Magistrates Court of this city for thirty-one years and a member for twenty years of the National Guard, patriotically dedicated his infirmities to his country's service at the age of fiftysix, was posted to the 105th Infantry and permitted to see active service...
...To neglect these would be treason to the best instincts of the heart of man, and a denial of the Saviour's firm request...
...If more favorable circumstances do not mitigate it a little, the impress left upon the people of the Reich will be visible during generations...
...Surely this is unreal realism, on which some of the pundits of the new drama can well afford to reflect without having their thoughts confused by radiations of influence from the box-office...
...AGILE apologists for some of the forms which realism takes on the stage will have a weighty task in explaining the revival of profanity in dramatic productions when it is obviously declining in normal conversation...
...The outstretched hand of the man who has been defeated and broken by life...
...According to this definition, anything which conceivably may have happened, is real, and therefore suitable for stage portrayal...
...148...
...The first English translations of his work—they were very good translations, by the way—were issued by the Yale University Press...
...Two thousand years of Christendom have not banned cold, hunger, and nakedness, because the mandate of charity has been too noble for men to obey...
...A state which must assume the position of paymaster toward those whom industry cannot support, is, in the long run, driven to inquire into and supervise industry...
...THE promotion of a club in London, mainly devoted to sporting activities and for which no prospective member more than forty-five years old is eligible, may be regarded as setting a limit to physical ability, which, even though it mercifully exceeds that once credited to Sir William Osier by a lustre, does not err on the side of optimism...
...At present, she is extracting what comfort she may from the statement from her English producer that "your sin was you believed the English people were grown-up enough to stand for a serious play on a serious subject...
...Distinguished for tolerance and cultivation, it has earned the generous friendship of readers who are not in agreement with the basic principles upon which the magazine itself was founded...
...Very early in its career, it also undertook to issue a complete library of the Fathers...
...IT is a fortunate coincidence that the anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's arrival in France as special representative of the American Colonies, should be marked by the appointment of Paul Claudel as French ambassador to Washington...
...and, in distant chaotic lands, entire villages of famished widows and orphans, asking vainly for a dole—these are a few recurrent scenes in the pageant of this Christmas time...
...The extent of his disabilities may be judged from the citation, together with the Distinguished Service Cross, given this gallant officer for his conduct during action in the Dickebush sector on August 27, 1918: "When his company was occupying a front-line position, and suffering heavy losses from a nearby enemy sniper, Lieutenant Merz located the sniper, left his shelter, and at great personal danger courageously advanced and succeeded in destroying the sniper and his nest with his handgrenades...
...OF the firm, it may be said that its memories go back, to some extent, for more than three centuries...
...147 cosmology, psychology, theodicy, in the second year...
...History, in repeating the conditions which existed after the Napoleonic wars, has now added a new and very significant factor—the population which merely consumes...
...Catholic students, in addition, are required to take each year a one-hour course in religion, covering in the four years, apologetics, dogma, and moral...
...If we are not mistaken, he will also prove equal to his diplomatic tasks...
...But he has not scourged his time...
...That cheapness and absence of taste are deplorable...
...While awaiting this, a very interesting study would be to seek to identify the exact moment in history at which the idea that there was anything undemocratic in Church government became current...
...A strong expression is not made dramatically stronger by it, and indeed, is weakened by the cheap and commonplace attempt to accentuate...
...Karl Muth...
...THE evidence marshaled by Bishop Dunn to show the baselessness of the charge, does not need elucidation in these columns...
...Frequent changes of scenery are in disfavor because they distract attention from the drama itself...
...Kipling, what is a truism to one order of mind may be a wild and unheard-of novelty to another...
...The great poet comes, therefore, to a country that has not been indifferent to his achievement...
...1 HE same situation exists pretty widely in other countries...
...The mere fact that a nation which so nearly touched the bottom of revolutionary chaos in 1919, has completely regained its credit and reorganized its resources during seven years which were also seasons of political change, is surely most notable and encouraging...
...Every student, regardless of sect (non-Catholics are admitted on an equal basis with Catholics) is required to complete a three-year course in philosophy, embracing logic, epistemology, ontology, in the first year...
...Even literary form in the drama is being avoided as savoring of a distraction...
...Proximity to Yale University made it possible to add some very good visiting teachers to the staff...
...and it would be interesting to know just what concordance the Russian beauty put in as evidence for her amazing statement...
...IN commemoration of several anniversaries, the German publishing firm of Joseph Kosel and Friedrich Pustet, which was formed in 1920 through a fusion of two old and meritorious houses, has issued a "jubilee almanac...
...145 WITHIN the limits that the radio imposes, it would be difficult to name any recent talk, so packed with useful information as the sermon by Bishop John J. Dunn sent over WLWL a few days ago, on Religion and Democracy...
...OLGA PETROVA, actress, screen idol, and playwright has recently landed in New York, all "het up" because the Lord Chamberlain shook the curls of his long wig at certain dialogues in her new play, What Do We Want?, and wanted something else in their place...
...that good work is in the long run more profitable than shoddy craftsmanship...
...They are most clearly discernible, perhaps, in the various elements of the professional middle-class...
...It adds nothing to the meaning—tends, in fact, to obscure it...
...they are possibly best reflected in the literature and philosophy of the nation's representative minds...
...the faces of little ones, cold and starving in some humble house which a stricken breadwinner can no longer support...
...Today, a people grown prevailingly industrial can support its own existence only when manufacturing and commerce verge toward the peak of production...
...More impressively than is generally noticed, it is the thing which has induced Europeans to accept, on a scale nineteenth-century theorists could not have imagined, deeply significant compromises with political liberalism...
...The note of glee so prevalent is perhaps the finest spark in which an age-old, traditional thanksgiving for life is expressed...
...Gilbert—marks of strain are everywhere visible...
...the splitting up of life's substructure into doubts and moral abstentions...
...A mere glance at this beautifully made and exceptionally interesting little volume demonstrates the comparative amateurishness of religious book-making in the United States...
...and the very fact that the school was isolated left it free of hampering traditions and unembarrassed by what can only be termed competition...
...Even those whose activity the republican government fears, are interested, not in communistically owned factories and markets, but in a definitely dictatorially administered monetary program...
...We believe that an inquiry upon the lines we have suggested would discover three things...
...Yet with all this flourish about simplicity, directness, and naturalness, we have an outburst of profanity in the spoken lines of many plays...
...If the little "jubilee almanac" we mention could be circulated widely, it would have the valuable stimulating effects of a good bottle of wine...
...Thanks to the Holy Name Society, happily aided, no doubt, by a general spirit of shunning artificial emphasis which is abroad in the English-speaking world, swearing is now considered vulgar in circles which once tolerated or encouraged it...
Vol. 5 • December 1926 • No. 6
