OCR Text |
Show I THE CITIZEN tbe audacious, of it all. colossal impertinence originator of this titanic sell conwho later gathered his band of was William spirators together, well known as the George Jordan, writer of successful books, the first editor of thq Saturday Evening Post, the man who organized the House of Governors and the one who has done noteworthy things. To tell the detailed would require gtoi y of the huge prank a p age but even an outline will serve to V.ing laughter and unalloyed joy who subto the countless throngs scribe to Mark Twains famous dictum that the Lord lovetli a cheerful liar. It is evening in the Authors club, which as you may or may not know is (jyartered in Carnegie hall. The time early in the year 1918. Half a dozen chums are seated in the smoking room after dinner. In the group is a gentleman of high intellectual attainments, one who has achieved things in his profession, an adroit controversialist and a man who ever speaks with authority. As this man wittily discourses on this topic and that, there is another man sitting slightly apart from the group, though of it. If he partakes in the discussion it is as a commuter, that is to say, he makes but intermittent trips into the conversation,- always returning to his easy chair on the outskirts of the gathering. His friends chide him for aloofness. They call on him to sit in. the game and wireless to him an inference that they would have him unsheathe a rapier with him of the uncanny book knowlThe . . - edge. With clever semblance of being bored, he accepts the challenge. Craftily he steers conversation into a channel of his own dredging and suddenly he fires a question: Well, in that event, since you hold to such doctrine, what do you think of Larrovitch? "I never heard of him. What! Never heard of Larrovitch? The tormentor gasps in amazement. Gentlemen, surely you are Joking me. The challenged one remains defiant. Since you know so much, tell us, please, who is this Larrovitch? What di dhe ever do? After all, I am not surprised that you should be unfamiliar with the writings of this mental giant. In point of fact, his works are not widely known in this coutnry. But since you ask the question, Ill say that Feodor Larrovitch is really the father of Russian literature. Tolstoi, Gorky, even are mere echoes. What did he ever write, this Larro- Tur-genie- v, vitch? mean novels, essays and in his youth he wrote some virile verse, stuff that showed the Slowing fire of patriotism which so inspired him in all that he did. How is it you know so much about Hie writings of this unheard of Russian? pursued the sceptic. My first acquaintanco with his books dates back lo 1909 no, it was twenty years before, on my first trip Oh, er, books, I to St. Petersburg, as it was then called. I found a French translation in a bookshop, and reading it became so interested I made a point of looking up his other writings. They were not easy to obtain. Many of his books were burned when he was sent to Siberia. Still, I did find two volumes done into English when I got to London. In Paris later I found a volume of his essays in French, and in Berlin I was so fortunate as to exhume in the municipal library two of Larrovitchs suppressed political treatises in original Russian and one of his longer nov-el- s translated into German. The Larrovitch controversy became a topic of spirited discussion in the Authors club. About the time that the controversy was at its height Mr. Jordan dropped into the club one night a few weeks after the smoking room episode. See here, Jordan, said a member who had not been present at the original discussion whats all this I hear about your discovery of a great Russian author? Larrovitch I think the name is. I cant place him, and other fellows in the club who are interested tell me they find no mention of him in any of the reference books on Russian literature. 13 shall next be introduced to the gifted conspirators. One may fancy Mr. Jordan in secret formulating his plans for a Larrovitch centenial celebration and, like a modem Nick Bottom, calling the roll of his supporting cast at midnight in his own comfortable library, the following high class plotters answering the roll: Prof. Franklin II. Giddings, of Columbia University; Clinton Scollard, American poet and educator; Sykes, who gave up the law for literature and daily journalism; Richardson Wrightf editor, author, critic and correspondent, who has spent much time in Russia and Siberia; George S. Heilman, poet and author, editor of the letters of Irving and Brevoort and of a volume of verse by Robert Louis Stevenson; Thomas Walsh, critic and poet; Dr. Titus Mun-coiCoan, physician, author and once a surgeon in the United States navy. Next thing of importance is the fact that not long after these meetings each member of the Authors club received formal notification of a Larrovitch Centenary Celebration to be held in the club rooms. Socially' and professionally the Larrovitch fete at the Authors club was everything that a fete at the Authors There are several others in the club ought to be. Before the exerclub whose knowledge of Larrovitch cises began the guests made their way easily parallels mine, said Mr. Jordan. through the club rooms, viewing the I shall see that you talk with them. Larrovitch relics with veneration. On Better still; April 26 will be the one the walls of the club, surrounded by hundredth anniversary of Larorvitchs autographed letters and original manubirth. I think something should be scripts of famous members and celebdone about it. rities from across the water, hung a Here let the writer of this surprisportrait of Larrovitch, a pressed ing addenda to the book annals of fiower from his grave at Yalta, a pen and ink page from America, not to speak of Russia, inCrasny Baba terpolate a personal observation by (The Red Woman), all in frames over Mr. Jordan. He says: which hung a wreath and the flags of In extenuation of all that is about the Russian empire and the United to be revealed one thing is to be borne States. In artistic juxtaposition were in mind. When the affair began there the sacred souvenirs, Larrovitchs shirt, his ikon, pen, inkpot, and the was absolutely no premeditation. Abpadlock of the door of his home in the sence of premeditation affords a cerThe shirt, tain degree of excuse in law. Surely Crimea where he died. said a placard reposing on a tiny silit should do so in a club. ver easel near by, is a remarkable The Larrovitach hoax was directed of Russian embroidery. at no one in particular nor at any eaxmple Directly the exercises began it was group of persons. It just grew and was one of grew. Having gone so far as to invent realized that the program an author it was only just to him that extraordinary interest. It opened with I should endow him with good works, the following exquisite sonnet by Clinton Scollard, printed now for the i did so. That is about all there is to it. first time: It was just a sudden notion that came to me as I listened to those men What I shall say of Larrovitch shall be talking. Naturally I expanded, elabAs though one spoke of twilight in orated and improvised at length as the the. spring. interest of the audience demanded. to Of verbal beauty come to blossomlittle But it would have amounted in the end had it not been for the ing to fade and be but memory Richardson Too of soon, splendid "Wright, editor of Home and Garden, The memory of a something to which we to whom, perhaps, most of the success In our exalted moments fain would of the centenary meeting and the later published .volume is due, as well as to the other writers who joined us and helped signally to make our jointly created Larrovitch a veritable paragon of literary style and lofty thought. Thus giving due exploitation to Mr. Jordans plea that there was nothing cold blooded in his narrative, and commending his tenacity for sticking to his highly original story, the reader . Mc-Crea- dy n cling, iFrail and ephemeral as the white moths wing, Or as the prismy spindrift of the sea. Let us forget the chill Siberian snows, The stark Caucasian heights let us forget; These girded and oppressed him, and his woes Wake in our heart a passionate re- gret; So be there strewn above his long . repose Sweet sprays of the Crimean violet. A Prolegomenon to Larrovitch, by Professor Franklin II. Giddings followed, in which lie boldly pronounced these words: Larrovitch, whom we honor, enjoys the distinction of having been brought to life. With Shakespeare and Napoleon he is of the Immortals whose existence has been questioned. May I make one small contribution of fact upon which 1 am perhaps qualified to speak? It was Larrovitch who discovered, or invented the history of civilization. He foresaw the rise and fall of kultur, and in discoursing on it he anticipated Herbert Spencers - famous definition of cosmis evolution. Kultur, said Larrovitch, is the integration of Hohenzollerns, accompanied by the differentiation and the segregation of nations and the concomitant He warned dissipation of Teutons. of impending war between Potsdam and civilization, but also he foretold the successful and glorious end. In a paper on The Personal , Side of Larrovitch, Mr. Jordan traced the boyhood and youth of the future genius, his preparatory school life, liis years at the University of Kiev, his graduation in medicine, and his decision to practice his profession only as a means of livelihood, while he fought for freedom with his pen. The death of Larrovitch was pa- thetically described thus: On the afternoon of the 13tli of March he was resting quietly when the shrill call of newsboys shouting an extra came through the open window. He raised himself with difficulty, leaned on one arm, and listened. Assassination of Alexander II. were the Unbelievable words that he heard. Alexander, the great reformer, the liberator of the serfs, had been killed! Falling back upon his pillow he murmured, Oh, my poor, blinded countrymen; oh, the folly of it and the shame! You have put out the light of Russias liberty then silence. The great heart of Larrovitch was stilled forever. The tribute of McCrcady Sykes Place who pointed out Larrovitchs in Literature, was a scintillating piece of mock criticism. For Instance: In 1870, after his return from Paris, Larrovitch published what is usually, and I think rightly, as his magnum Master' Masopus, Barin! llarin! ter! a work so vast, so tersely coin past, so expressive that it is one of the most elusive, most difficult of analysis. The strange character of Trepoff, the old chemist with the troup of whistling marmotS' is used as the symbolic leitmotif. In an old retort from his laboratory Dmitri has imprisoned the principle of life, and as the weird, bizarre figure moves through the figure, transforming the country group of children with a wave of his curious bottle, stealing to the throne room of the emperor and leaving the bewildered courtiers with blanched De-mit- ri |