the seven lively artsby gilbert seldes

2
The Seven Lively Arts by Gilbert Seldes Review by: C. Hartley Grattan Journal of Social Forces, Vol. 2, No. 5 (Nov., 1924), p. 791 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3006278 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 16:43 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Social Forces. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.34.79.253 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 16:43:50 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: The Seven Lively Artsby Gilbert Seldes

The Seven Lively Arts by Gilbert SeldesReview by: C. Hartley GrattanJournal of Social Forces, Vol. 2, No. 5 (Nov., 1924), p. 791Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3006278 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 16:43

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal ofSocial Forces.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.253 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 16:43:50 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: The Seven Lively Artsby Gilbert Seldes

The Journal of Social Forces /91

acy and military success, and the consequent nec-

essity of the belligerent right to cut off the

enemy's trade intercourse with the outside world.

Such a doctrine in regard to war rights over com?

merce (he upholds the British rather than the

German doctrine of freedom of the seas) carries

to its logical application his principle of the eco?

nomic boycott to enforce "real guarantees" of

peace, and so rounds out the theory of interna?

tional legal development which he saw clearly must result from the war.

An appendix contains Professor Nippold's

newspaper controversy in 1916 with Professor

Zorn over the interest of Germany in peace as

evidenced by her activities at the two Hague con?

ferences. The former maintains a most critical

attitude toward Germany's sincerity in her efforts

for world peace. An index would have been a

most helpful tool in running down the large num?

ber of citations and quoted opinions which Pro?

fessor Nippold has collected. The reader inter?

ested in the legal approach to the problem of

peace will find here liberal and suggestive treat?

ment of the many problems raised but not settled

by the war-problems, as Professor Nippold has

set forth so cogently, which require more than

the machinery created by the Hague conferences

for their solution.

Phillips Bradley.

Wellesley College.

* * *

The Seven Lively Arts. By Gilbert Seldes. New York: Harper and Bros., 1924. $4.00.

This is a unique and important book. In the

din of battle it has aroused among the aesthetic

intellectuals its interest to the sociologist may be

missed. So far as I know there exists nothing

exactly similar except certain monographs on the

Italian commedia dell arte. That is, it attempts to present from a critical point of view those arts,

conventionally called low-brow, and here dubbed

lively, which are closest to the masses of the peo? ple and which most truly interest them: motion

pictures, vaudeville, comic strips, ragtime and

jazz, juggling and so on. And literarily it con?

siders such as Ring Lardner, Mr. Dooley and the

colyumists. To be sure Mr. Seldes, much asso?

ciated with the Dial, occasionally strains the inter?

est by a technical critical jargon, but the funda-

mental verve of his concern for his subject sus-

tains the book. Sometimes, also, he rather over-

estimates, it seems, the quality of his subject in

an excess of enthusiasm. But, other than occa-

sional magazine articles, there exists no such in-

troduction to the popular amusements. The book

approaches the subject from the aesthetic angle but a sociologist will quickly arrange the material

for his own purposes. As a dissolvent for fatuous

worship of the acclaimed but hollow high-brow art, and as an experience for those whose cul?

ture exceeds their intelligence, there is nothing better.

C. Hartley Grattan.

Urbana Junior College.

* * *

None So Blind. By Albert Parker Fitch. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1924, 366 pp. $2.50.

With the traditional Fair Harvard as his back?

ground, Mr. Fitch offers us his conception of a

college boy struggling against forces of darkness into the realm of sweetness and light. The author has a sincere affection for the Harvard tradition, and his descriptions of the Yard are not without

charm. One cannot escape the conviction, how?

ever, that he is less successful with the people of his story. Indeed, the characters are not infre-

quently stifled in a fog of Mr. Fitch's principles of moral right and wrong.

Dick Blaisdell's first three college years profit him nothing. He is blind to what Fair Harvard offers him. Mr. Fitch now takes him in hand

(Chapter One) and revives his connection with

Felicia Morland, the daughter of a family of

Beacon Hill aristocrats. Her beauty and gentility

inspire Dick to better things. He is then buffeted

about between the characters representing good and those representing evil. And on page 93 he

"gets religion."

"He got into his sleeping suit and quite unconsciously fell upon his knees beside his bed. It was many years since he had discontinued the childhood custom. Indeed until this evening he had probably never prayed, but to- night prayer seemed a part of him, inevitable."

And so on, until one has the feeling that the

hero is saved, not through any honest struggle with his own soul, but because he accepts and

practices Mr. Fitch's own standards of what a

college boy should or should not do. Dick, once

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.253 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 16:43:50 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions