Communications
COMMUNICATIONS PLACES AND PERSONS Laredo, Tex. TO the Editor:—The advent of the publication of the numerous Outlines in practically every field of study apparently brought in its wake the...
...I should like to understand them better...
...He is a Catholic, "politically, and in philosophy...
...Marco Morrow...
...Denver, Colo...
...George Santayana...
...these, together with a certain group of periodicals are all, in the last analysis, endeavoring to impress upon the reader the alleged fact that they are rendering him a particular character of service (?) in that they provide him with the proper mental viands, so that he need not be put to the trouble, himself, of separating the wheat from the chaff...
...I shall be very glad to pay a bonus of 100 percent for any volume of Louise Imogen Guiney's poetry or prose your editorial writer will purchase for me in good condition for one dollar...
...These will be sent upon request...
...TO the Editor:—One gathers from Mr...
...Lately, we have been discussing ourselves...
...Her latest book of poems, Happy Ending, was quoted at $27.50 last year and I have been told that a good copy can be had at the present time for $45.00...
...Donald Powell...
...Harvey Wickham and I have been discussing neo-paganism in these columns...
...For, while I have but a mild interest in what Mr...
...Wickham, to whom I am already greatly indebted, will enlighten me...
...Edward H. Lange...
...NEO-PAGANISM Norwalk, Conn...
...Helen E. Price...
...I hope it has...
...TO the Editor:—For some months, Mr...
...Arrangements have been made for binding Volume XI in leather or cloth...
...Information on binding will be given upon application to the offices of The Commonweal...
...TO the Editor:—The advent of the publication of the numerous Outlines in practically every field of study apparently brought in its wake the various "book of the month" clubs...
...They would determine what, in their opinion, is mentally indigestible and discard it for him, overlooking all the while the important fact that a healthy mind, not unlike a healthy body, must have something indigestible every day to keep it up to par...
...Wickham damning all moderns while he poses as a superior sort of universal Catholic non-Catholic nonProtestant non-pagan sage...
...VALUES IN LITERATURE Hubbard Woods, 111...
...It is more gratifying to see a Catholic like Mr...
...TO the Editor:—In The Commonweal for August 6 there is an editorial in which occurs this sentence: "With the possible exception of Father Tabb, no Catholic author has written a book that cannot be bought in good condition for a dollar...
...Perhaps Mr...
...otherwise, were I to advise others what to read and why, I would in the nature of things be presenting myself as an ideal subject of my own criticism...
...As for Mr...
...Wickham is obviously ready for some sort of confession...
...But now I had better pause...
...Still, I must confess that there is possibly another urge that prompts me to read Places and Persons—each has been a literary gem of the first water...
...Now I have no difficulty in comprehending Mr...
...In point of fact, he has already indicated as much, refusing to accept me in lieu of a father confessor...
...He does not believe in unbelief, like Mr...
...Chesterton...
...However, there is still another, and in my opinion, more apparent reason why the reader suffers as a result of these innovations...
...Wickham thinks about his misbehaviorists, impuritans and unrealists, I have a deep interest in what Mr...
...Reading matter as such is being poured into the retort and boiled down to the point where whatever remains is merely a residue—predigested mental food—which is being served to the reader in as few words as possible, with the purpose in view of keeping him well-informed on matters of current moment...
...Powell, his adversary, more power to him...
...Doubtless you see why I am so interested in having that editorial writer do my buying for me...
...Wickham) whose only claim on the readers of The Commonweal is that they too despise obvious stupidities like prohibition and politico-religious bigotry, and that they practise word-juggling in the manner (but far from the spirit) of Mr...
...Wickham complains that the discussion has become "intolerably personal...
...During the past few months, however, I have again found a haven that each week provides a looked-for breathing spell, when I may silence the radio, "light up," and for some fifteen or twenty minutes know that in reading Places and Persons in The Commonweal I am doing so not because it furnishes me with information that I am "supposed to have," or that I am thereby "keeping myself well-informed," but that I am doing so solely to enjoy the element of play in reading, if you would so term it...
...I, for one, as an old and loyal subscriber to The Commonweal, hope that you will in the future show more of a tendency to encourage broad-mindedness in the Church (represented by such as Mr...
...that is, I hope it has become personal without being intolerable...
...As such, he is representative of a large group, which is Catholic in sympathy, without being Catholic...
...In other words, the element of play in reading has been practically eliminated...
...TO the Editor:—Immaterial, perhaps, but to keep the record straight: Peter Ibbetson—a better novel than Trilby—was Du Maurier's first effort in fiction...
...Harvey Wickham...
...Yet Mr...
...Powell) instead of smart-alecks outside the Church (page Mr...
...My kindly correspondent will doubtless retort that his personal beliefs are his own...
...Harry McGuire...
...Before Hoover prosperity descended upon us I collected twenty-one volumes of Miss Guiney's, paying from $3.50 to $20.00 a volume...
...Harvey Wickham thinks about Mr...
...He has such definite notions concerning the deficiencies of paganism, that he must have equally clear-cut convictions concerning the virtues of Christianity...
...THE PARIS OF DU MAURIER Topeka, Kan...
...The title page and index for Volume XI of The Commonweal are now ready...
...Santayana's thoroughgoing scepticism, but I do find it hard to understand the mental processes of the Catholic non-Catholic...
...Powell defending some aspects of paganism than it is to see a nonCatholic like Mr...
...Harvey Wickham's ipse dixit on neo-paganism in The Commonweal of July 23 that we innocent bystanders are hereafter to be spared the painful sight of his mental and metaphysical contortions...
Vol. 12 • September 1930 • No. 18
