People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1897 — THE RESULT OF EXAMPLE. [ARTICLE]

THE RESULT OF EXAMPLE.

A New Diaeiple of the Stephen Crane Decadent Cult. Stephen Crane, the novelist, who recently has attracted the attention of the highest literary circles in England as well as at home, was unheard of until he published a few lines which are utterly incomprehensible to the average reader about “the chatter of a death demon in the tree tops. ” No sooner did he put into print stuff whioh no one could understand than he immediately sprang into prominence as the leader of a new cult, the American apostle of poetioal deoadenoe. And now Crane’s laurels are insecure. Out from the far west comes a pupil of Joaquin Miller, who sings like this: Mystic spring of vapor, Opiate odor of colors. Alas, I’m not ail of mol Wanton fragrance, dewy dim, Curl out from my drowsy soul, Wrapping mists about its breast. I dwell alone, Like one eyed star, In frightened, darksome, willow threads. In world of moan My soul is stagnant dawn— Dawn; alas, dawn my soul isl Ah, dawn—close fringed curtain Of night is stealing up—God, Demon, light, Darkness, ohl Desert of no more I want— World of silence, bodiless sadness tenanted stillness. The Philistine, whioh first permitted Mr. Crane’s “death demon” to “chatter to the tree tops,’’also introduces this new decadent—or decaying—literary puzzle. If this be poetry, give us more verse. A single line from Riley, Stanton or McGaffey is worth incalculably more than all the “opiate odors of colors” and “death demons” that a diseased imagination ever conceived or a degenerate publication ever foisted upon a very tired publio.—Frank S. Pixley in Chicago Times-Herald.