Review of Current Monthly

The Monthly begins the College year with a number that gives good promise of the new board's upholding the best traditions of the magazine. In variety and proportions the contents are typical,--two stories, four poems, a piece of criticism, an essay, and some discussion of current University topics. Of the stories, the conventionality of "The Heart's Desire" illustrates once more the difficulty of doing anything fresh with Class Day, a senior, and a debutante. "The A B C's of Diarism" is, in spite of the somewhat obvious influence of Henry James, much more individual than the other story, and its analysis of the prig who writes the diaries is done with considerable delicacy and in a wholesome spirit. Besides, R. M. Arkush '07 has courage to sign his sketch, and he gets his reward in the achievement of a kind of sincerity not easily cultivated under anonymity. In his discussion of "Swinburne's Relation to the Poetry of the Immediate Past and Future" J. H. Wheelock '08 is not quite articulate and not always grammatical. He is touched with some of the verbal diseases that afflict the poet of his admiration--the excessive use of abstract terms, and the reluctance to tell us precisely and specifically what he is talking about. The wistful melody of the same contributor's verses have somewhat of this same defect of vagueness. H. Hagedorn '07 in his perilous attempt in an "Ode to Nature" is more successful both in form and thought than he had any right to expect. The "Epitaph on John the Orangeman" is exceedingly happy, though it may be questioned whether this is appropriate praise for an epitaph. "Paolo and Paris," by R. E. Rogers '09, is a dignified tribute to the persistence of the spell exercised by these perennial themes. In the editorial pages the new board makes its bow modestly and gracefully; and the discussion of the football situation is so clear and simple that it surely cannot be adequate. But the distinction of the number depends chiefly on "The Travel Papers of Arminius." Without striking originality of ideas, this essay on "Being Abroad" has yet by the vigor and maturity of its style and its pleasant suggestion of personality a charm that makes one hope that its promise of later instalments will be kept. And this one does not often hope for in a College journal.