Current Advocate Uniformly Good

Although no single contribution in the current number of the ADVOCATE stands out clearly above the general level of college journalism, the average is good. (The foregoing sentence was written before the present reviewer had seen the recent criticism of the Monthly in these columns.)

Miss Amy Lowell's article in the "New Republic" on "The New Manner in Modern Poetry" is held up to scorn by Mr. Bullock. He exposes the fallacy of the "Externalists" who suppose that it is ever possible to be "interested in things for themselves, and not because of the effect they have upon oneself"; he disputes the pretension of the Imagists to have done away with egoism. Mr. Bullock is a little too hard on the Imagists, but not nearly so hard as they are on all their rivals. In general, the public is now folerant enough of their movement, and the chip-on-the-shoulder attitude of its poets is quite unnecessary. The Imagists have done all for their cause that propaganda can do; it now remains for them to write good poetry,--and to let others write in their own way.

"The Head of the Poet Laureate" is a tale in which Ben Jonson, Robert Herrick, and one Giles Hemming plot, preach, and elope, respectively. The idea is well bandled; Mr. Nes is perhaps least fortunate in his dialogue, a strange mixture of modern phrases and what is apparently intended for seventeenth-century English. It may be doubted whether a Devon peasant ever could have said "how him an' me kin write verses an' ring a bell t' any tune." The story is nevertheless entertaining.

Mr. Larkin discovers in Charlestown a grave-digger whose gruesome sense of humor helps the author to an understanding of a scene in "Hamlet." The narrative of the encounter is paradoxically pleasant.

On "Pegs," round or square, Mr. Davis hangs the fatalistic philosophy that animates his story. It is an apparently casual performance, behind which the reader detects a growing intensity and point.

The verse in the number is no less varied. Mr. Clark's "In the Blue Sea Cavern," with its irregular metre and sparing use of rhyme, amply justifies its form by the fascination of its imagery. Mr. Putnam, in his sonnet, is at pains to ... "Make impassioned sense believe That memory improves my dull today." Mr. Sanger's "Aeroplanes" has a good swing. The "Grotesque" by Mr. Norris contains a good idea, marred at times by a somewhat perfunctory technique. The "Phantasy," by Mr. Willcox, though abounding in color and imagination, is breathless in its movement; it reminds one of the "patter" of comic opera. Mr. Rogers is dreadfully sophisticated. But perhaps "Retrospect" is not his last word on life. "A Thought" represents him in a less heartless mood. Mr. Parson expresses in a meditative sonnet his awareness of the power

"Who brings the spring and my love back again.

And noisy sparrows singing in the rain." Mr. Cutler's facile translation of an ode of Horace is never far from the original; it preserves much of the spirit.

The only editorial in the number revives the old controversy about clubs at Harvard with impeccable impartiality it refrains from offering any specific suggestion. There was a day when the Advocate treated the same subject more in the spirit of the crusader.

The two book reviews are excellent.