The Little Review, August 1915 (Vol. 2, No. 5)Various
General
The Little Review, August 1915 (Vol. 2, No. 5)
Various
Literature, Modern -- 20th century -- Periodicals
When all the humans look like caterpillars to any one human, the trouble
is with that one’s viewpoint. From an aeroplane, even the Himalayas look
like anthills. Come down from your remote altitude and lose yourself in
the beautiful, glorious psychic of the crowd—be one of them, and see
what you will find!
THE LITTLE REVIEW proclaims itself bent on the adventure of beauty. Is
there any beauty like that of the “sad, sweet music of humanity?” What
is the glow of the most gorgeous sunset ever splashed against the
western skies beside the glow of the divine in the human which hurls
itself upon you—and _into_ you if you will let it—in a thousand
beseeching, inviting, intoxicating flames from the midst of any crowd?
But only, of course, if you are _in_ the midst.
Is there any adventure like the “adventure of being human”—and _with_
humans? and _of_ them? Go with Whitman into the heart of
humanity—struggle _with_ them—not from far above them—to lift from off
their backs the crushing weight of wealth and masters and idle snobs and
false gods so that they may get _room_ to spread their wings—for they
_have_ wings, and then you will know them as they are, and yourself but
as one of them.
If some of them still try to clip the wings of those who have struggled
free from the crushing pressure, it is because of the maddening agony of
their own atrophying wings. If a few seem even to be unaware of the need
for wings, it is because the clamor of more insistent needs—the cries of
hungry children, of bruised and broken and unsatisfied men and of
suffering and degraded women—has silenced for every shame their own
soul’s wing-cry.
But I think that you will find that those who perform the wing-clipping
are the other butterflies whom money or position or callousness has set
above the people—not those who are really of the crowd. They of the
crowd _love_ wings, and those who truly use them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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