come evident, and which is still traceable in writers of the older school like Pierre Loti, Anatole France, Maeterlinck, Maupassant, and Eduard Rod. From this state the French passed into the remarkable religious revival seen at its best in the works of such men as Retté, Huysmans, Verlaine, Coppée, Bourget, Charles Péguy, Paul Claudel, and François Jammes - a revival but for which, it may safely be said, we should hardly have seen such splendid and determined resistance as France has made to the attacks of her enemies in the last year. If the Central Powers are to be defeated as a result of the present struggle, will this prophecy hold true? It may be. But regarding the Germans in the light of what has transpired in these three years concerning their character and moral ideals, we must concede that here another element enters into the problem. The canker of two standards of morals, one for the state, the other for the individual, has evidently eaten deep into the national life. It is hard to see how any great literature can come out of a country where such brutalizing ideas prevail; when the Germans have purged themselves of these ideas, we may have hopes of them. And now let us ask another large question: What has been the effect of literature upon war? Before we answer this let us ask what in general is the relation of literature to life. Is it merely a record, a picture of what has taken place? To a large extent this is the case. But is it not also largely a projection of ideals into terms of life, a warning, an exhortation? Ex pede Herculem. Literature, then, shall tell us not only how men have lived and are living, but also how they are going to live in the future if present conditions prevail, and how they may live if these conditions are varied. As the work of the ablest, the keenest, the most forward of the world's thinkers, literature must be not only a record but an inspiration. Uncle Tom's Cabin went a long way toward defeating slavery. The Song of Roland at Hastings helped, who shall say how much, to give victory to the Norman banners. Homer in the schools of Hellas moulded Greek ideals of honor and patriotism and loyalty such as have never been surpassed. Bearing all this in mind, I fear we must admit that in the matter of war, literature has not had a greatly restraining influence. Most of us now agree that war is a gigantic evil, of which the world must soon rid itself. What has literature done to check the evil, or to show it up in its true light? There are few considerable pieces of literature in which war is depicted in any but romantic terms. After reading our Civil War literature, few would think of characterizing war as Sherman did. To nine persons out of ten, Napoleon is still a hero rather than a villain, who waded through slaughter to a throne. What historian does not, even though unconsciously, exalt the martial hero, the conqueror, the savior of his country? Once in a while along comes a Lampzus with his realistic portrayal of the horrors of war, and does the cause of literature an inestimable service by correcting false impressions. Kings and kaisers may for a time prevent the circulation of such books, but cannot permanently injure their influence. I do not plead that literature should be made a servant of morality; I contend that literature ought to be so true to life, as Shakespeare is true to life, that only one moral shall be obvious. In Russia the poets have lately not been in accord as to the attitude they should assume. Some, we are told in The Russian Review for March, 1916, have urged that the present is not a time for poets to sing, and in support of their contention have pointed to the inferiority of the poetry thus far produced. Others assert that the war imposes peculiar burdens upon the poet. "The poet," declared Andreyev, several months before the overthrow of the Czar, "is the only one who can and should bring home to the masses of the Russian people the horrors of war. A powerful description of a shot from a 42-centimeter gun might produce an even more powerful impression than the shot itself. The horrible war is undermining the very substance of Russia's national life, and the men of letters, the whole intellectual army of the land, should rise, and, instead of the 'literature to Beauty,' should sing and cry about the war, ring the alarm-bells, blow the trumpet, and arouse the nation's conscience." So, as one of the great aids to peace, there should arise a literature of war which shall treat war in all its phases, good so far as there are any, bad as most certainly are. Let our writers depict not only the glorious departure for the battle-field, but also the agony of the wounded and dying; not alone the exultation of the soldier's bride, but also the misery of his widow and starving children; not alone the glad response of the patriotic people to the call to arms, but the secret plotting of the makers of arms and the "interventionists" to stir up strife; not alone the elation of victory, but the decades of repentance in sackcloth and ashes for the vanquished; not alone the vindication of "national honor," but the brutalizing, bestializing influences at work upon officers and men alike in the atmosphere of excessive militarism. Then men will get from the picture all they need in order to apprehend the truth. And in righteous wrath they will decree that the present war shall be the last." Cornell University. CLARK S. NORTHUP. In these days one can hardly be too explicit. The above words were mostly written before our country had entered into the war. They must not, therefore, be taken as meaning that the writer is, or has at any time been, opposed to American participation in the war which we now perceive is as much our war as that of any other of the Allies. THE KENNEDY PAPERS (Third Article) LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH Kennedy's correspondence with Southern men was both less voluminous and, if his letters from Poe be excluded, of much less importance than his correspondence with notable men from the North. It was confined, moreover, largely to the period preceding the Civil War. Nevertheless, Kennedy numbered among his correspondents most of the leading Southern writers of his time and several of the foremost Southern statesmen and jurists. Prominent among Southern writers who are represented in his collection of letters are his cousins,' Philip Pendleton and John Esten Cooke, and Philip H. Strother ("Porte Crayon"); the South Carolina novelist, William Gilmore Simms; and the Richmond editor and poet, John R. Thompson; and among statesmen and jurists, William Wirt (with whom he early came into contact in his practice of law, and whose biography he was subsequently to write); Henry Clay (with whom he was intimately associated in Congress in the forties); and Clay's distinguished rival from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun. Other Southern men who are represented in the collection are Richard Henry Wilde, Thomas Holley Chivers, F. W. Thomas, J. J. Crittenden, President Madison, President Jackson, Chief Justice Marshall, and General Robert E. Lee.2 Below are given some of the more interesting of the letters from Southerners of note. First are presented the letters from literary men and after these are given several letters relating to slavery and the Civil War. I Richard Henry Wilde to Kennedy MY DEAR SIR,-I enclose you a letter for our friend, counting on the pleasure it will give you to forward it, and intending by virtue of that excuse, 1 The Cookes were Kennedy's first cousins, Strother was a second cousin. Both the Cookes and the Strothers were related to Kennedy through his mother, who belonged to the Pendleton family of Virginia. 2 The last three of these are represented by but a single letter each. There is also in the collection a note from Dolly Madison. The letters from Calhoun are six in number; and there are ten letters from Wirt, three of which have been published by Tuckerman (see his Life of Kennedy, pp. 116-118, 155). to remind you of my existence, if it be existence to exist without any consciousness of existing, except such as is given us by pleas, answers, and demurrers. If you make a report on international copyright send me one, that it may wake me up. As far off as Washington I should never hear it. In this age of science and philanthropy, when even the black sheep of the human species are supposed to have an interest in their own parchment, which the high constable of the seas is to protect, armed with the right of search, and backed by a quintuple alliance of all the un-navigating part of beet-root-cultivating Christendom, I don't see very clearly why literary piracy is to be the only one practised and approved by Christian nations. Perhaps letters being an invention of the Devil with the help of Dr. Faustus, they are properly left to his protection. Perhaps Literature is esteemed the natural enemy of all existing governments-hostis humani generis—and therefore an outlaw. Or maybe its professors are excluded from the social compact, on account of their own well-known thieving propensities. To rob a robber is not robbery. Q. U. E. D. [sic!] I do not mean to perpetrate the absurdity of an argument on this subject, or the impertinence of suggesting ideas to one who has no doubt reflected on it much more than myself. The morality of supplying cheap books at other people's expense cannot be doubted. It is stealing leather to make poor men's shoes. Unless some stronger interests than those of the other world, therefore, oppose this pious fraud, you have little to hope. Perhaps there are such. If literary piracy were confined to a few publishers, the trade would be worth following. But unhappily in all illicit trades there are small rogues who prey upon the greater. A cheap edition is pirated by one still cheaper, and that again by the cheapest, and the last by another cheaper than the cheapest, until amid new degrees of comparison, quartos dwindle down to newspapers, and dishonesty has no profit left. Even booksellers, though proverbially stupid, might learn something from the lesson. Crime itself requires a monopoly to be profitable. Some must be induced to work, that others may have a chance to steal. When all the world turn robbers, no one can subsist by robbery. Excuse sermonizing. Who can talk of books and booksellers and not be prosy? Remember me to Mr. Adams, Winthrop, Marshall Bayard, and all other friends and good-fellows, and believe me, with best regards to Mrs. K., Very faithfully yours, RICHARD HENRY WILDE. To HON. J. P. KENNEDY. Simms to Kennedy HON. J. P. KENNEDV, WOODLANDS, April 9, 1846. 4 MY DEAR SIR :-I could have wished to use your name in connection with some more fortunately conceived work than that in which it appears, had it not been that I was anxious to guard myself against disappointment, and to be sure of doing that which has long been the object of my desire. In my 3 See the letters from Dickens in the second installment of these papers. Kennedy while in Congress was chairman of the Committee on the International Copyright Law (Tuckerman, p. 177). 4 The reference is to Simms's romance, Count Julian (referred to in his second sentence), which was dedicated to Kennedy. |