MARGARET C. ANDERSON
I am afraid to write anything; I am ashamed.
I have been realizing the ridiculous tragedy of The Little Review. It has been published for over two years without coming near its ideal.
The ultimate reason for life is Art. I don’t know what they mean when they talk about art for life’s sake. You don’t make art so that you may live; you do just the reverse of that. Life takes care of itself, rolls on from the first push, and then falls over the edge. Art uses up all the life it can get—and remains forever. Art for Art’s sake is merely the sensible statement of the most self-evident fact in the world. It has been the easy creed of charlatans; but what does that matter? It has always been the faith of the strongest.
Well—I wanted Art in The Little Review. There has been a little of it, just a very little.... It is tragic. I tell you.
And Revolution? Revolution is Art. You want free people just as you want the Venus that was modelled by the sea.... All my inadequate stammerings about Emma Goldman have been to show her as the artist she is: a great artist, working in her own material as a Michael Angelo worked in his.
Now we shall have Art in this magazine or we shall stop publishing it. I don’t care where it comes from—America or the South Sea Islands. I don’t care whether it is brought by youth or age. I only want the miracle!
Where are the artists? Where is some new Pater, and how will his “She is older than the rocks among which she sits” sound to us? Where is some new Arthur Symons with his version of “Peter Weyland”? Where is a Henry James and a Hardy and a Bjornson and an Andreyev for us? Where is a Jean-Christophe who will let us publish his songs?
Helen Hoyt, you have a poem in this issue called The Tree. It is not Art; it is merely a rather good poem. You could have made it Art. Do it every time, for the love of the gods! “Sue Golden” has one about Jim and Arabella. It has an interesting idea that many people need to understand. Why not make Art of it? I know one of hers which begins “My body is too frail for these great moods”—and the miracle is in it.
I loathe compromise, and yet I have been compromising in every issue by putting in things that were “almost good” or “interesting enough” or “important.” There will be no more of it. If there is only one really beautiful thing for the September number it shall go in and the other pages will be left blank.
Come on, all of you!