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534 pages

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. Even now I cannot realize that he is dead, and often in the city streets- on Fifth Avenue in particular- I find myself glancing ahead for a glimpse of the tall, boyish, familiar figure- experience once again a flash of the old happy expectancy.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	27 septembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819926948
Langue	English

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SUSAN LENOX: HER FALL AND RISE
by David Graham Phillips
Volume I
WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON
1917
DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS
A TRIBUTE
Even now I cannot realize that he is dead, and oftenin the city streets— on Fifth Avenue in particular— I find myselfglancing ahead for a glimpse of the tall, boyish, familiar figure—experience once again a flash of the old happy expectancy.
I have lived in many lands, and have known men. Inever knew a finer man than Graham Phillips.
His were the clearest, bluest, most honest eyes Iever saw— eyes that scorned untruth— eyes that penetrated allsham.
In repose his handsome features were a trifle stern—and the magic of his smile was the more wonderful— such a sunny,youthful, engaging smile.
His mere presence in a room was exhilarating. Itseemed to freshen the very air with a keen sweetness almostpungent.
He was tall, spare, leisurely, iron-strong; yetfigure, features and bearing were delightfully boyish.
Men liked him, women liked him when he likedthem.
He was the most honest man I ever knew, clean inmind, clean-cut in body, a little over-serious perhaps, except whenamong intimates; a little prone to hoist the burdens of the worldon his young shoulders.
His was a knightly mind; a paladin character. But hecould unbend, and the memory of such hours with him— hours that cannever be again— hurts more keenly than the memory of calmer andmore sober moments.
We agreed in many matters, he and I; in many wediffered. To me it was a greater honor to differ in opinion withsuch a man than to find an entire synod of my own mind.
Because— and of course this is the opinion of oneman and worth no more than that— I have always thought that GrahamPhillips was head and shoulders above us all in his profession.
He was to have been really great. He is— by his lastbook,
“Susan Lenox. ”
Not that, when he sometimes discussed the writing ofit with me, I was in sympathy with it. I was not. We always weretruthful to each other.
But when a giant molds a lump of clay intotremendous masses, lesser men become confused by the huge contours,the vast distances, the terrific spaces, the majestic scope of theensemble. So I. But he went on about his business.
I do not know what the public may think of “SusanLenox. ” I scarcely know what I think.
It is a terrible book— terrible and true andbeautiful.
Under the depths there are unspeakable things thatwrithe. His plumb-line touches them and they squirm. He bends hishead from the clouds to do it. Is it worth doing? I don't know.
But this I do know— that within the range of allfiction of all lands and of all times no character has sooverwhelmed me as the character of Susan Lenox.
She is as real as life and as unreal. She is Life.Hers was the concentrated nobility of Heaven and Hell. And thedivinity of the one and the tragedy of the other. For she had knownboth— this girl— the most pathetic, the most human, the most honestcharacter ever drawn by an American writer.
In the presence of his last work, so overwhelming,so stupendous, we lesser men are left at a loss. Its magnitudedemands the perspective that time only can lend it. Its dignity andausterity and its pitiless truth impose upon us that honest andintelligent silence which even the quickest minds concede isnecessary before an honest verdict.
Truth was his goddess; he wrought honestly and onlyfor her.
He is dead, but he is to have his day in court. Andwhatever the verdict, if it be a true one, were he living he wouldrest content.
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS.
BEFORE THE CURTAIN
A few years ago, as to the most important and mostinteresting subject in the world, the relations of the sexes, anauthor had to choose between silence and telling those distortedtruths beside which plain lying seems almost white and quiteharmless. And as no author could afford to be silent on the subjectthat underlies all subjects, our literature, in so far as itattempted to deal with the most vital phases of human nature, wasbeneath contempt. The authors who knew they were lying sank almostas low as the nasty-nice purveyors of fake idealism and candiedpruriency who fancied they were writing the truth. Now it almostseems that the day of lying conscious and unconscious is about run.“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
There are three ways of dealing with the sexrelations of men and women— two wrong and one right.
For lack of more accurate names the two wrong waysmay be called respectively the Anglo-Saxon and the Continental.Both are in essence processes of spicing up and coloring upperfectly innocuous facts of nature to make them poisonouslyattractive to perverted palates. The wishy-washy literature and thewishy-washy morality on which it is based are not one stage more—or less— rotten than the libertine literature and the libertinemorality on which it is based. So far as degrading effect isconcerned, the “pure, sweet” story or play, false to nature, falseto true morality, propagandist of indecent emotions disguised asidealism, need yield nothing to the so-called “strong” story. Bothpander to different forms of the same diseased craving for theunnatural. Both produce moral atrophy. The one tends to encouragethe shallow and unthinking in ignorance of life and so causes themto suffer the merciless penalties of ignorance. The other tends tomiseducate the shallow and unthinking, to give them a ruinouslyfalse notion of the delights of vice. The Anglo-Saxon “morality” islike a nude figure salaciously draped; the Continental “strength”is like a nude figure salaciously distorted. The Anglo-Saxonarticle reeks the stench of disinfectants; the Continental reeksthe stench of degenerate perfume. The Continental shouts“Hypocrisy! ” at the Anglo-Saxon; the Anglo-Saxon shouts“Filthiness! ” at the Continental. Both are right; they are twinsisters of the same horrid mother. And an author of eitherallegiance has to have many a redeeming grace of style, ofcharacter drawing, of philosophy, to gain him tolerance in a cleanmind.
There is the third and right way of dealing with thesex relations of men and women. That is the way of simple candorand naturalness. Treat the sex question as you would any otherquestion. Don't treat it reverently; don't treat it rakishly. Treatit naturally. Don't insult your intelligence and lower your moraltone by thinking about either the decency or the indecency ofmatters that are familiar, undeniable, and unchangeable facts oflife. Don't look on woman as mere female, but as human being.Remember that she has a mind and a heart as well as a body. In asentence, don't join in the prurient clamor of “purity” hypocritesand “strong” libertines that exaggerates and distorts the mostcommonplace, if the most important feature of life. Let us try tobe as sensible about sex as we are trying to be about all the otherphenomena of the universe in this more enlightened day.
Nothing so sweetens a sin or so delights a sinner asgetting big-eyed about it and him. Those of us who are naughtyaren't nearly so naughty as we like to think; nor are those of uswho are nice nearly so nice. Our virtues and our failings are—perhaps to an unsuspected degree— the result of the circumstancesin which we are placed. The way to improve individuals is toimprove these circumstances; and the way to start at improving thecircumstances is by looking honestly and fearlessly at things asthey are. We must know our world and ourselves before we can knowwhat should be kept and what changed. And the beginning of thiswisdom is in seeing sex relations rationally. Until thatfundamental matter is brought under the sway of good common sense,improvement in other directions will be slow indeed. Let us stoplying— to others— to ourselves.
D.G.P.
July, 1908.
SUSAN LENOX
CHAPTER I
“THE child's dead, ” said Nora, the nurse. It wasthe upstairs sitting-room in one of the pretentious houses ofSutherland, oldest and most charming of the towns on the Indianabank of the Ohio. The two big windows were open; their limp andlistless draperies showed that there was not the least motion inthe stifling humid air of the July afternoon. At the center of theroom stood an oblong table; over it were neatly spread severalthicknesses of white cotton cloth; naked upon them lay the body ofa newborn girl baby. At one side of the table nearer the windowstood Nora. Hers were the hard features and corrugated skinpopularly regarded as the result of a life of toil, but in fact theresult of a life of defiance to the laws of health. As additionalpenalties for that same self-indulgence she had an enormous bustand hips, thin face and arms, hollow, sinew-striped neck. The youngman, blond and smooth faced, at the other side of the table andfacing the light, was Doctor Stevens, a recently graduated pupil ofthe famous Schulze of Saint Christopher who as much as any otherone man is responsible for the rejection of hocus-pocus and theinjection of common sense into American medicine. For upwards of anhour young Stevens, coat off and shirt sleeves rolled to hisshoulders, had been toiling with the lifeless form on the table. Hehad tried everything his training, his reading and his experiencesuggested— all the more or less familiar devices similar to thoseindicated for cases of drowning. Nora had watched him, at firstwith interest and hope, then with interest alone, finally withswiftly deepening disapproval, as her compressed lips and angryeyes plainly revealed. It seemed to her his effort was degeneratinginto sacrilege, into defiance of an obvious decree of the Almighty.However, she had not ventured to speak until the young man, with amuttered ejaculation suspiciously like an imprecation, straightenedhis stocky figure and began to mop the sweat from his face, handsand bared arms.
When she saw that her verdict had not been heard,she repeated it more emphatically. “The child's dead, ” said she,“as I told you from th