LES PRECIEUSES RIDICULES

What with this and what with that--as Miss Lillie remarks--"schools" of the arts rise like mushrooms in the American common wealth. There is the Valentino school of romantic acting, still flourishing although its originator has joined the immortals. And there is the Hearst school of journalism, the Herrin school of gun-toting, the Lardner school of bon-mots--schools innumerable. The latest addition to the ranks would appear to be the academy of Edna St. Vincent Millay; at least Edmund Wilson in the Nation, has named Miss Millay as the muse of Dorothy Parker, who has just emerged from the aureate glow of the Algonquin Round Table with a book of poems.

Undoubtedly Miss Parker has read Miss Millay and in all probability she has admired her. But to class her work as one of the Millay school is to deny her the elusive fire of originality. Mr. Wilson might just as well said that Miss Parker was of the Petrarch school, since her sonnet form bears resemblances to his. To condemn a lady who pens admirable hymns of hate to any one school is dogmatic especially when that lady can write a touching sonnet concerning a maid standing waiting at the gate and concluding with the illuminating statement that "it was the gate her true love gave her." That Miss Parker revels along with Miss Millay in the "back and sides go bare; go bare" motif is undeniable, but in spite of the fact that each writes amusing verse, that particular style probably savors more of the King James Bible than any, other one source. Not yet may Miss Millay have a school, although if she did Miss Parker would be a splendid pupil; but the roots of poetics revert much further than even an illustrious Vassar graduate.