"Fix Bayonets!"

There seems to be a provocative quality about the recent numbers of SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE. Our correspondents are awakened to response as never before. We should have to publish a supplement in order to include all comments and opinions, and we are forced therefore to make a cross-section of our correspondence in the attempt to present the most interesting and to represent the varying shades of opinion.

The stories by Ernest Hemingway in the March and April numbers and "Interlude" by Henry Meade Williams in March stirred a number of people. Their remarks are apropos in these days when Boston is devoting itself to sweetness and light and making itself slightly ridiculous in its censorship efforts, and the New York stage in providing spectacles for out-of-town visitors on a moral holiday has got itself into trouble.

HEMINGWAY

Gordon Lewis of the New Dominion Bookshop, Charlottesville, Va., writes:

A note to request more and longer stories by Ernest Hemingway.

He is the most refreshing American writer of the day. When you receive letters similar to Mr. Davis's in the present issue of your magazine, conjure sufficient Hemingwayese to tell their senders to go to hell.

It is the duty of the artist to present life truthfully, unless one can lie beautifully and unusually well.

And reformers, even the most impotent, must learn that if they are interested in changing our literature, they must first change life. The artist will always write from what he sees.

And Edward Hopper, the illustrator, says:

I want to compliment you for printing Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers" in the March SCRIBNER'S.

It is refreshing to come upon such an honest piece of work in an American magazine, after wading through the vast sea of sugar coated mush that makes up the most of our fiction. Of the concessions to popular prejudices, the side stepping of truth, and of the ingenious mechanism of the trick ending there is no taint in this story.

DISCOVERY

A member of the younger generation discovers SCRIBNER'S.

Congratulations. For years SCRIBNER'S has been our family magazine. Each month Father proudly lays it upon the library table. It is wholesome, finely respectable reading-"the children" are encouraged to read it. It has never interested me in the least. Wholesome? Perhaps but there it ended. This month's SCRIBNER'S has aroused my interest. The articles have verve and vitality. "Interlude" by Henry Meade Williams and "The Killers" by Ernest Hemingway in my opinion are two exceptionally fine stories. My preference is for "Interlude." It is beautifully written. It faces squarely certain facts of life. The author tells the story with sincerity, truthfulness, and, above all, with truth and force. ELIZABETH LAWRENCE.

New York

Another New Yorker, Henry Gilvary, thinks regarding "Interlude":

That class of literature (if it may be called such) is decidedly out of place in a family publication of the standard SCRIBNER'S professes to be in.

PORNOGRAPHY

A Presbyterian clergyman of New Jersey wrote: I have long looked upon SCRIBNER'S as a magazine which could be put into the hands of any one. I have had a number of shocks to my complacency in this respect in the past months, and, believing that certain articles and stories have crept in more or less innocently, I have said nothing. But I feel I cannot pass over certain stories in the March issue without a feeble protest.

I refer especially to "Interlude." This title might have been spelled "Enter Lewd." What possible reason could exist for publishing this story? It is a drab, dull, dreary piece of pornography.

Now, Mr. Editor, your subscribers are largely decent people. SCRIBNER'S goes, in some measure through tradition of the past, into many homes like mine where there are sons and daughters growing up to manhood and womanhood. Why not leave at least one American magazine with high standards of moral tone?

Mr. Williams cites his clerical ancestry in reply:

I do not feel that I have the right to criticise any one's opinion of my story. Every one has, or should have, the privilege of expressing what he thinks. If this gentleman feels that my story is "a dreary piece of pornography," then that is just what it is-in his eyes; and I wrote to tell him so. But I added that I was unconscious of pornography when I conceived the story; and I mentioned the fact that I am the greatgreat-grandson and the grandson of Presbyterian ministers on my father's side, and the descendant of a long line of bishops on my mother's side.

On thinking the matter over, it occurs to me that although I am unconscious of immorality in myself it may be present in my subconscious nature as the direct result of being a descendant of bishops and clergymen who perhaps, as this gentleman does, saw pornography, indecency, and immorality where none was intended. Personally, however, I do not feel it is my mission to judge or condemn clergymen, bishops, writers, South Sea Islanders, or even the characters in my own stories. I cannot feel that "morality" in its usual sense exists as long as actions are countenanced in one part of the world and by one class of people, which are utterly condemned by others.

There you have two sides of it.

organized religion. Usually such criticisms do not deserve comment. An article in the February SCRIBNER'S, "Jimmie Goes to Sunday School," is an exception. It presents what is a real problem to many people; it offers a constructive solution; and the writer, while a biting critic, writes with a certain moral earnestness. There is much with which one agrees; there is much that seems almost incredibly perverse. If one is compelled to say that the article shows crass ignorance, it is an ignorance shared by many intelligent people, and one for which the Church itself is largely responsible.

"WHEN JIMMY WENT TO SUNDAY
SCHOOL"

BY RAYMOND HUSE

MINISTER OF THE METHODIST CHURCH, GENEVA, N. Y.

Two children came in from a garden. One said, "Oh, Mother, the rose-bushes all have thorns on them." The other exclaimed, "Oh, Mother, the thorn-bushes all have roses on them."

Two poets mused in the village cemetery. One saw the sordid and wrote "Spoon River Anthology." One saw the sublime and wrote "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard."

Two groups of students read the books of the Old Testament biography. One group saw simply the terrible shortcomings of a sorry bunch of “saints” and turned away in disgust. Another saw them all in the light of the Cross, saw that even the poorest of them took a few steps towards that Cross; that Abraham was something more than an eastern sheik, that in spite of his ethical shortcomings according to our modern standard he like the Pilgrim fathers centuries after (who also had shortcomings) moved out of a rotten civilization to keep his soul alive; that he became a friend of God, that "he believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness." They saw that Jacob, whose early career was admittedly crooked, wrestled one night with an angel and was a different man afterwards, and so took a step toward that Cross in an experience that Charles Wesley has immortalized in his matchless hymn. They saw that Joshua and his co-militarists with swords unblunted by the teachings of the gentle Christ (so were also the swords of the Crusaders) yet stood for courage, obedience and reverence; that David, hot passionate David, who sowed to the wind and reaped to the whirlwind yet sounded the deeps of penitent prayer and immortalized it in psalms that became a part of the universal ritual of tender hearts.

FROM THE LAND OF J. FRANK NORRIS, TOO The Reverend Ilion T. Jones, pastor of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, San Antonio, Texas, says:

The viewpoint of the author (Mr. Myers) is, in my judgment, the one that the Christian church must take soon. If it does not do so, sensible and thoughtful people will most assuredly insist that their children be taken out of our church schools. Unfortunately too many of those who write the text books for our church schools are either afraid to express their full beliefs about the Old Testament or they are still hampered by an outworn, and in many ways a false, theory of inspiration which prevents their teaching the Old Testament as it really is...

If I could do so I would influence every member of the committees and boards of our various churches who have

to do with writing and editing the literature for our religious educational departments, to read and heed the contents of this article.

An Episcopal rector from Florida writes the author:

Yours is a fine article in SCRIBNER'S. May it sink into the heads of our educational boards. You can't make a saint out of a scoundrel by putting him in the Bible.

WARY OF HEROES

A. G. Jeffrey of the Sarah Heinz House, Pittsburgh, Pa., writes:

Charles Haven Myers has rendered an important service to the promotion of sane religious education. He is to be congratulated on the clear, frank way in which he has presented his views.

I, for one, very heartily agree with his ideas on the teaching of the greater part of the Old Testament to younger boys and girls. In my opinion much harm has been done in the past through adults holding up such "heroes" as unfailing guides for our youth.

As a professional worker with boys I am always interested in "heroes" whom we can point out as examples to be followed. Mr. Myers mentions, among others, Benjamin Franklin, but even there we must be careful in offering Franklin's entire life, as he was not entirely the moral man we would like our boys to be. And so with many other "heroes." "PERNICKETY” BROWNELL

The editor of the San José (Cal.) News has a comment on American civilization to make in the light of Mr. Brownell's articles.

My dear Mr. Brownell: I am following with much interest your series of essays in SCRIBNER'S, and am looking forward to the March issue. I find much to cheer me in the fact that an intelligence so "pernickety" as yours finds so much that is sound and sensible in the American democracy. It especially cheers me just now, as I have been doing a good deal of public speaking for the Civil Liberties Union, and have encountered in the course of this work many conservatives and many radicals who are at one in denouncing democracy of the old American brand. Both radicals and conservatives are looking forward with what seems to me social immaturity, to some sort of dictatorship. Your essays seem to me to supply a needed antidote for such unseemly haste.

The very concept of "The Spirit of Society" is, I fear, lacking in most of us. Some of us revel in vulgar individualism, and some in a half-baked State-philosophy, the elevation of a hastily conceived abstraction to the rank of deity; but few of us indeed have working in us your fruitful conception of the Spirit of Society. R. L. BURGESS.

WOMEN IN POLITICS

This letter to Mrs. Moyer-Wing from a New York physician is interesting in connection with her article, "When a Woman Is the Head," in this number:

I do not see SCRIBNER'S regularly, but some one must have left a copy here last fall; for in clearing out some papers a few days ago, I came across the September number. Turning its pages carelessly, I read a part of your "Men Only." Then I read it over. Today I took the magazine with me on the subway as I had a twenty minute ride to make a call up-town.

You may be interested to know, that some minutes before I reached my station, I left a perfectly good seat, and stood near the door, where the moving passengers would be sure to interrupt my reading at a station, lest I be carried past my

own.

To me your story is a fascinating human document. I showed it to a very intelligent woman to read, and her comment was "My, but she had a grouch on." So you see there are two points of view in New York as well as in Missouri.

I think it makes very little difference whether you were elected to Congress the first time you ran. It is of the great

est importance that you or some woman well fitted for public service as you are, should run again in your district, and continue to run year after year, until many times the voters have had to choose between doing the best they know how, and the worst. It is only by this repeated choice all over the country, that the strangeness of voting for women will be overcome, and a considerable number of women will be chosen to positions of importance.

Then will come the greater question still. Will the elected women stand out for the best? Or will they go with their party leaders into the various deals that distinguish so much of our political life? Will they raise the standard, or keep it where it is, or lower it? There are more women than men interested in education, religion, thrift, and personal cleanliness. I think they will be likely to improve politics-a little. EDWARD M. FOOTE.

A TREE'S TRIBUTE

Doctor John C. Merriam, whose "Are the Days of Creation Ended?" appears in this number, sends us an interesting note about his very unusual piece, "The Story of a Leaf," published in February, describing the discovery of fossil leaves of the Gingko tree in the lavas in the Columbia Gorge.

At the time I was taking my last look at proof of "The Story of a Leaf" there passed away in Washington the paleobotanist best acquainted with history of the Gingko in America. The palæobotanist who made the first microscopical examination of "the fragment of a leaf" was a pall bearer at the funeral. At that impressive moment when they stood in the church yard, the remains with floral offerings of many associates lowered to their resting place, and the final rites almost ended, a Gingko tree near by shook free a single leaf which spiraled down to rest at the grave-a last tribute from a life-long friend.

[It was the funeral of Dr. F. H. Knowlton, formerly of the U. S. Geological Survey, and the pall bearer was Dr. David White, formerly Chief Geologist of the Survey, now connected with the Carnegie Institution, of which Dr. Merriam is president.-Ed.]

Mrs. C. S. MacCain, Chestnut Hill, Pa., tells us that:

In the adjoining place to mine in Chestnut Hill are two most beautiful Ginkos, evidently many years old. In the spring and summer the ground for a distance of 30 or 40 feet around these trees is thickly covered with miniature Ginkos. I transplanted a number of these and nearly all have thrived. A few months ago a house and lawn were built in this little forest-the big trees of course preserved.

Mrs. MacCain quotes a long article from the Philadelphia Bulletin which states:

Records show that it was not until 1730 that the Ginko tree reached European gardens. And from thence, about 1784. it first came to America, Philadelphia having the distinction of receiving the first plants, procured by William Hamilton for his show place "The Woodlands," now Woodland Cemetery, where a large specimen, perhaps the original, is still growing,

AMERICAN SCENERY

And, while we're talking about trees, Harvey M. Watts's article, “The American Countryside,” in the April number has come in for a lot of praise.

John W. Harshberger, professor of botany at the University of Pennsylvania and president of the Botanical Society of Pennsylvania, writes:

While waiting for a train to go to Glassboro, New Jersey, to give an Arbor Day address before the students of the State Normal School there, I read your excellent presentation of the subject, which should be vital to every American, who loves his country. When I addressed the students I recommended them to read your fine article, and used parts of it then and there in making my speech.

divergence from this essential in his vital canvases. Whether he paints his own people or those of other nations, always there is vigor of execution that reveals a discerning mind. In his portraits of "Himself" and "Herself," we see the recompense of the commonplace in the happy, smiling eyes that have not looked too closely into the mystery of the unknowable, but accepted life with simple faith.

On the other hand, Alexander's arresting study of Walt Whitman conveys something deeper than mere acceptance of life; we feel its direction, its accomplishment. In the quiet pose we are not conscious of age, but of fulfilment.

In Whistler's "Portrait of the Artist's Mother," this glory of life is again apparent in the serene poise that reflects absolute unity of body and spirit. There can be no question of the universal appeal of this portrait through its gracious dignity and quiet coloring, which so beautifully suggest the very essence of life. There is no restraint upon the freedom of Whistler's brush in the sweep of its daring tonalities. We feel its power, and ponder over the illusive mastery rather than the material manifestation. But, captivating our imagination and our understanding, is the sincerity of his interpretations. We need just such precious canvases as "The White Girl" to keep the sanctity of girlhood before us.

LANDSCAPE

Standing next to Whistler, in American contributions to the masterpieces of the world, Winslow Homer is perhaps the one distinguished artist who has given the wholly American concept to his work. Independence of thought and action is everywhere noticeable, but always in accord with tenacious, virile entities. Detail is significant in his estimate of work well done, because it binds together the necessary elements that underlie all concerted action, whether it be in the building of a nation or in the transmission of thought to canvas.

In contrast, the work of Ryder is highly imaginative, yet his paintings are so full of charm that we are held by the beautiful tapestry of color and pattern. While there is no conviction of actuality in the storm-tossed waves of "The Flying Dutchman," we feel their power, and, through the eyes of the artist, visualize the dream of hope in the phantom ship that glides silently through the golden clouds. His "Siegfried" has no counterpart in reality; it is but the measured cadence of an ancient rune, with rhythmic line and haunting phrase set forth in color and in form to awaken the slumbering sense of beauty, and give direction to its attainment.

The paintings of Childe Hassam are nearer earth in subject, but have the constructive quality that is so essentially a symbol of our heritage. From "Main Street-East Hampton," through "Broad and Wall Streets," New York, to "Golden Afternoon in Oregon," we are conscious of versatility in the expression of our expansive appeal, while "In the Old Home" there is the charm of long-used things that touches the tenderest memories.

In the portrayal of our homeland, we have produced a medium through which our equality with the landscape artists of other nations is proclaimed. To accomplish this in so short a time, portends even greater possibilities, and emphasizes the distinctive contributions of those who have expressed so truly the regenerative quality in their work.

There is no inclination among our artists to paint landscapes as they previously have been painted. Tenaciously they insist that their work shall be in accord with our time and our environment. They have freed themselves from an amplitude of detail and held to the principle of selection.

The idealism of the American painter shows the unity of form with light and color and movement-in a word, it delineates truth. The earth is given its age-old solidity, the sky its far reach into space, the clouds their buoyant mass, the water its depth and movement, the trees and flowers their living grace and beauty, all enveloped in lighted atmosphere. Shadows no longer appear in strong contrast as dull, dark spots, but reflect the color and tone of their surroundings, thus merging the visible with the invisible. Standing before acknowledged masterpieces, we have no feeling of dead stillness, but rather the larger gesture of arrested motion. Into all this our landscapist has put himself, given a wealth of suggestion in clarity of vision, stamping his work with character and strength.

In the calm hush of such paintings as Inness's "Early Moonrise Florida," we may recognize technic, synthetic accord, and color values, if we are so trained, but the dominant note of surpassing interest is conveyed even to the untrained. They, too, will see the spiritual essence of the pic

tures.

Tryon's "Before Sunrise-June" and "Autumn Sunset" are paintings of constant appeal, rich in sentiment, elusive in charm-symbols of moods in nature.

Even when falling short in an effort to fully grasp the fleeting impressions, as in the case of Wyant, who struggled so untiringly with atmospheric change, we see the touch of the master in the will to give something that shall live. The "Adirondack Vista" carries the eye beyond the actual scene to invisible heights, from whence the artist caught that tenderness of color that lingers on the mountain-tep for but one brief, thrilling instant.

Characteristic of our great painters is the feeling that the power to portray impressions is forever eluding them. Few fully realize their genius, and fewer still are judged worthy during their lifetime. Homer Martin is no exception, and yet he has given us the "View on the Seine" and "Westchester Hills," both subtle, dreamy views. The quivering tree-tops, the rippling water, and the pearly atmosphere of the one are no less typical of the locality, no less a part of the world of color and of charm, than the glimpse of hill country where the waning light lingers longest and the shadows creep softly upward from dusky, level stretches.

No painter is more fascinating than Fuller, whose great canvas, the "Gatherer of Simples" is an expression and a revelation of tender sympathy. There is no sombreness in this twilight hour, either in the landscape or in the figure of the aged woman. Instead, the brown meadow and the lambent gold of sky are the mystic promise of serenity in adjustment to realities, even though one may walk alone. Fuller's figure subjects show the eternal striving of the idealist, with an occasional achievement that is beyond any material expectation. His studies or girinu are indescribably sweet and lovely, with "Winifred Dysart" outranking all others in the delineation of pure, unconscious grace.

FIGURE PAINTERS

Our figure-painters have presented great truths, stirred tender emotions, and revealed the soul behind the obvious likeness that we might see life's meaning clearly. The protective attitude of Thayer's "Caritas" shows the true significance of charity: not in the giving of alms to those who have been denied their birthright, but in the sanctity of our mission to guarantee, through care and love, that no life shall be retarded in its progress toward fulfilment. This quality of rightness is expressed, also, in the "Figure Half Draped," which transcends the merely temporal habitation of the body and reveals a noble serenity of beauty.

The divine spark is beautifully visualized by Melchers in his "Mother and Child." No suggestive attitude of adoration influences our thought, but the hard-working mother is for the moment a Madonna. The responsibility of motherhood is seen in Brush's "Family Group" and "Portrait Group," painted with a grave dignity that borders on deep

reverence.

Another conception of the right heritage of youth is conveyed in Chase's "Alice" and in Duveneck's "Whistling Boy." In the one the grace of movement and the buoyancy of gesture are suggestive of sheer joy in life, in harmony with the home environment. In the other we recognize that release from hampering conventions and freedom to wander forth and absorb the lessons of nature are equally conducive to happy childhood.

Youth is so alluring, so vibrant, so as-yet-untried that we are captivated by those can ases which show the evanescent spirit. Cecilia Beaux's "Girl in White," hanging in the Metropolitan, is an expression of charm and loveliness, but in "Miss Nutting" the austerity of the pose and the sombreness of costume are but foils in emphasizing the inner beauty when life is dedicated to the service of others.

Gaiety and laughter are embodied or suggested in many of Sargent's Spanish sketches; these dancers express abandonment and barbaric grace that are emotionally fine. In "Carmencita" the arrogant beauty knows her power; the