B

OOTLEGGING and banditry are not the only sources of pleasure to New Yorkers, Southern and Western opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. A third B may be added -Beethoven. The newspapers give us plenty of information about the first two B's of the trilogy, but they do not say much about the fact that New York has become one of the greatest centers in the world of the Beethoven culte. This winter, for example, David and Clara Mannes the brother-in-law and sister of Walter Damrosch, who has just retired from the conductorship of the New York Symphony Orchestra after forty years of leadership in music which has made him. an international figure-are giving a series of noteworthy Beethoven recitals in the delightful auditorium of their well-known music school. At these recitals they are presenting the piano and violin sonatas, of which Beethoven wrote ten. I had the pleasure of hearing one of these recitals on a recent Sunday afternoon. The musical charm of these intimate performances by the Manneses is very great. But the program which I heard, not only gave me sensuous and intellectual pleasure, but set me thinking of the psychological and literary interest which must be forever attached to Beethoven's name.

That name may be coupled with the name Shakespeare in the realm of creative genius. The tragedy of Shakespeare is that we know so little about him-so little, indeed, that some people think he never existed. The tragedy of Beethoven is that we know so much. There are few biographies in existence that so lay open to us every incident, aspect, and emotion of a man's life as Thayer's monumental biography of Beethoven. In this respect it is hardly surpassed by Boswell's Life of Johnson. Thayer makes us familiar with the commonplaceness of some of Beethoven's ancestors, with his unhappy boyhood, with his drunken and harsh father, with the wretchedness of spirit caused by his early deafness, and with the antagonisms and enmities of some of his musical contemporaries. Out of these malevolent surroundings blossomed, not only a great creative genius, but a wonderful character and spirit. It is unfashionable in these days of physiological psychology

to use the word "soul." And yet Beethoven is one of the outstanding examples in biographical literature of the unconquerable soul of man. The pro

gram of the Mannes recital which I heard consisted of the sonatas in A Major, C Minor, and G Major, Opus 30. They were composed in 1802, when Beethoven was thirty-two years old. Paul Bekker, perhaps one of the ablest Beethoven critics, says that two of these sonatas contain passages that "are among the most attractive which Beethoven has composed." This is an interesting fact, but by no means the most interesting associated with these sonatas. In the year in which they were composed Beethoven wrote a document, prompted by his despair over his rapidly increasing deafness, which is known in Beethoven literature as the "Heiligenstadt Will." Not even that artificial poseuse Marie Bashkirtsev has written anything more pathetic. I quote:

O ye men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do ye wrong me, you who do not know the secret causes of my seeming. From childhood my heart and mind were disposed to the gentle feeling of good will. I was even ever eager to accomplish great deeds. But reflect now that for six years I have been in a hopeless case, aggravated by senseless physicians, cheated year after year in the hope of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible). Born with an ardent and lively temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was compelled early to isolate myself, to live in loneliness. When at times I tried to forget all this, O how harshly was I repulsed by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing. And yet it was impossible for me to say to men speak louder, shout, for I am deaf. How could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which should have been more perfect in me than in others a sense which I once possessed in highest perfection, a perfection such as few surely in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed. I must live like an exile. If I approach near to people a hot terror seizes upon me, a fear that I may be subjected to the danger of letting my condition be observed. . . . What a humiliation when one stood beside me and heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing. . . . Such incidents

brought me to the verge of despair. But little more and I would have put an end to my life. Only art it was that withheld me. It seemed impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce, and so I endured this wretched existence. . . . It is said that I must now choose Patience for my guide. I have done so. I hope my determination will remain firm to endure until it pleases the inexorable Parcæ to break the thread. ... Divine One, thou lookest into my inmost soul, thou knowest it, thou knowest that love of man and desire to do good live therein. O men, when some day you read these words, reflect that ye did me wrong and let the unfortunate one comfort himself and find one of his kind who despite all the obstacles of nature yet did all that was in his power to be accepted among worthy artists and men.

Beethoven's deafness that led to a quarPerhaps it was the irritability due to rel in connection with the most famous

of the composer's violin sonatas, the ninth of the series of ten, known as the "Kreutzer Sonata." This is the only composition probably which has involved literary as well as musical critics in voluminous discussions. Tolstoy absurdly denounced it as immoral in one of his novels, an assertion which aroused a storm in the literary as well as the musical world. The sonata was originally written by Beethoven at high speed for a young English violin virtuoso named Bridgetower. Bridgetower was a mulatto, the son of an African father and German or Polish mother, and the brilliant gifts he displayed as a violinist, when he visited Vienna, enlisted Beethoven's admiration. The sonata was first dedicated to Bridgetower. At the concert at which it was first performed by Beethoven and Bridgetower the sonata was regarded as so ultra-modern that it was laughed at. The friendship between Bridgetower and Beethoven, however, was broken by a quarrel, and the sonata was rededicated to Rudolph Kreutzer, a French violinist. Thus by a trifling incident the possibility of lasting fame was transferred from the now forgotten Englishman to the Frenchman whose name will endure as long as the violin is played.

So it is that the name of Beethoven has an appeal for the man of letters as well as the man of music, for the name of no artist, certainly the name of no musician, has made so marked an impression on modern literature as that of the composer of the "Kreutzer Sonata."

T

WO future friends, Auguste Rodin and Claude Monet, were born on the same day. One became, in my opinion, the greatest sculptor; the other, the greatest landscape painter of this latter day.

Monet spent his childhood at Havre. In school studies he was dull.. But not in ability to draw. As caricaturist he paid his respects to all the notabilities of the port. Every Sunday a crowd would collect at the stationer's window where the boy exhibited his week's sketches.

Among the onlookers was Eugène Boudin. He sought the cartoonist's acquaintance and taught him painting. Monet also became well acquainted with Jongkind, the Dutch artist.

The boy's first colors were opaque. But, influenced by the foaming sea on the cliffs, he began to lessen the value of mere matter and to emphasize that of the light shed thereon, thus preparing the way for what we now call impressionism.

YEARS later he went to Paris, meeting

the sympathetic Renoir and Sisley. All painted independently of tradition, but with respect for what Courbet and Corot had done. Monet's pictures now showed a notable effort to realize the atmospheric value of light. Extreme energy in this direction led to the Salon's refusal to hang one of his canvases—and greater fame to the Salon des Refusés.

Finally the word "impressionism" was coined. It happened thus. Monet, Cézanne, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, had arranged an exhibition of their works. Monet had called one of his "Sunrise: an Impression." "Ah, now we have the Impressionists, have we?" was the crit

M

The Outlook's Editor in Europe

EANWHILE Monet had been to England, where Turner's pictures had influenced him, as we note from the "Thames series"-a "Waterloo Bridge," now owned in America, I have greatly admired. The canvases done in Holland, at Venice and Antibes, have also aroused enthusiasm. The glorious "Cathedrals" are better known to me. Even more remarkable is Monet's depiction of what I think the ugliest interior in Paris

that of the St. Lazare Railway station. As I have looked at this picture I have always felt a painter at work, on no matter what subject, who persisted in being a poet.

But my favorites are the Seine scenes. Their cadence is like Debussy's music.

About me was a sunny, open churchyard. I walked past the well-kept, grassy mounds, chrysanthemums on most of them-no white ones, but gay posies, speaking of life, not death. Somehow, strange as it may appear, they seemed really a cheery bond between those of us who had gone before and those who remain.

"Here, too, has come at last our great man," said the old caretaker to me, pointing to a newly opened grave. At that spot had assembled a company of persons, among them ex-Prime Minister Clemenceau, eighty-five years old. He was paying the last honors to a friend, eighty-six years old.

of what I would call a dancing vibration. The world becomes full of luminous liquid atoms-amber, amethyst, emerald. You are in a universe of as yet unappreciated light. Your eyes have lacked Your eyes have lacked education. Why, now you even discover color in shadow-for color seems but a

luminous radiation or modulation. Nature takes on freshness, youth, rhythm; becomes more palpitating and human, more a part of you, and you of it. This is impressionism.

Its founder was a man of exemplary dignity and of persistent activity. During his many years of final success, as during the preceding period, his industry never slackened.

For forty-odd years his home has been in this little hamlet of Giverny, one of the pleasant places on the river Seine between Paris and Rouen. Because of his residence here Giverny has now become an artists' pilgrimage spot.

simpler. Monet wanted it so. Behind a plain wooden coffin, placed on a garden hand-cart, pulled and pushed by stout Normans, those closest to Monet in family and friendship had walked the half-mile from his house to the churchyard.

Last week the "Tiger" had come to Giverny to see his old friend, now stricken by grave illness. In consequence there had been an instant's glad rally. But it was the candle's final flare. Clemenceau stayed to close his friend's

eyes.

There was no gush of flowers, as I had expected; at Monet's own request, there might be one expressive bouquet from his garden. Nor were there to be the usual addresses, in honor of eminent Frenchmen, pronounced over the grave.

Taking advantage of the moment, I motored quickly to Monet's great garden, admitted to it by a friend. Here, too, is the living, human touch. I stand

was proudly accepted by the poor young artists. Poor? I should say so; Monet and Renoir lived a whole winter on a diet of potatoes.

The Impressionists, nothing daunted, continued to hold exhibitions. They were finally fortunate. Georges Clemenceau, a pioneering collector, and Durand-Ruel, a far-sighted dealer, recognized and supported them.

But Monet's luminous color-or, rather, I should write, colorful light did not wholly overcome popular prejudice until 1890, when he shared an exhibit with Rodin. The effort had taken a generation's time.

thing I saw was a sign: "Hostellerie-hostelry, open all the year." That seemed human.

Soon after entering the village I came to the fine old church (and are there any not fine in Normandy?), on the side of a hill and commanding a wide view. All about are rich farms, suggesting the province's traditional wealth. The mingled field and forest of the valley below, the islands in the river, the poplars along its banks, the hills opposite-all were veiled in vaporous light, now rose, now violet, as the pale sun penetrated the delicate winter mist. This is a proper place for the painter of atmosphere.

observed, I do not feel so much an intruder. It is December, but everything seems to speak, not of winter decay, but of what spring will bring. The rich brown earth in the neat flower-beds looks

warm; the vines on the long trim trellises are still green, and the hedges will stay green; the conservatories are alive; and beyond, away over there in the far corner, is the hospitable-looking russetcolored residence, with its high studio window. All appear to attest the essential continuity of life, despite death. Right alongside me a red rose bravely blooms.

Giverny, December 8, 1826.

T

HE garbage of American towns and cities is commonly disposed of by one of five methods: it is given or sold to owners of piggeries; it is spread over farm land as a fertilizer; it is dumped into the sea; it is made into a marketable grease in a reduction plant; or it is reduced to clean ashes in a municipal incinerator. Valid objections to all five of these methods join with the fact that England and France have established a sixth and effective method to emphasize America's deficiency in this civic function.

That the flesh of pigs fattened upon decaying city refuse is made into food for human beings is far from an appetizing thought, even though it is true that a pig's stomach is a chemical laboratory duly equipped by nature to turn any kind of refuse into wholesome meat. But to support my distaste I have been told by a reputable pork packer that "the flesh of garbage-fed pigs is soft and stringy, no matter how thorough the curing process."

As to the second method of disposal, there is a limit to the amount of garbage any piece of land will absorb. Decayed fruit and vegetables, watermelon rinds and coffee-grounds, make a fertilizer too wet for continuous use. New York is facing the results of the third method in the complaints of New Jersey that the garbage of 6,000,000 people dumped into the sea and swept back by the tides is making her beaches and seaside resorts unsightly and unsanitary. Furthermore, with the dumping of garbage and the flow of sewage into the sea, oysters and clams are feeding upon a kind of refuse which makes them, with garbage-fed pork, an unappetizing and perhaps dangerous addition to one's dinner.

The reduction plant of the fourth method is invariably a public nuisance. The decaying garbage boiling down to grease emits an offensive odor that the courts have again and again pronounced prejudicial to the public health. There is small demand for the grease of garbage reduction plants, and it yields a profit to the contractor only when he receives, as is generally the case, a large sum for collecting from housekeepers the material which makes the grease.

By IMOGEN B. OAKLEY

to build and maintain furnaces large enough to burn the thousands and thousands of tons of refuse produced by our National carelessness and extravagance. But an incinerator whose by-products are allowed to go to waste is a further extravagance.

Two hundred cities in England, and as many on the Continent, use the kind of incinerator known as a destructor, and find in its by-products profits enough to pay the running expenses of the plant.

I have visited twice a destructor in London; and quite recently I was permitted to inspect one of the plants in Paris.

I have found, first, that their success presupposes a system of waste collection practically unknown in America. In this country each home is expected to have three refuse-cans: one for ashes, which are used for filling; one for garbage; and one for general wastepapers, bottles, tin cans, broken china, and glass-which is carted to swell unsightly and malodorous municipal dumps. For prosperous housekeepers this arrangement is difficult, and for housewives in crowded tenements it is impossible. In London, Paris, and every other city which maintains a destructor, household waste of whatever kind goes into a single receptacle. I have never seen or heard a garbage-cart in London; seen or heard a garbage-cart in London; so I infer that collections are made at night, and quietly-markedly, totally, different from the usual tardy, noisy, dirty American collection system of wagons overloaded to the spilling point.

THE London refuse is burned in the

incredulous visitors.

been installed since the war. The carts which collect for it are the last word in efficiency, and a joy to sanitarians. They are of metal, and tubular in shape, resembling somewhat the oil trucks so familiar in American streets. The body of the carts is swung low for the convenience of the men who empty the cans. American garbage-carts, as I have seen them in operation in many cities, are so high that often the collector has to lift a heavy can to the height of his head in order to empty its contents, a gymnastic feat that is likely to result in spilling part of the contents onto the pavement. The metal lid of the model Paris cart is made in three sections: as the waste accumulates, one lid after another is clamped down, and the loaded cart proceeds finally to the destructor, with no possibility of dropping a fragment of waste upon the clean pavements. These model carts move on a fixed schedule, and each householder is notified at what hour his can must be in readiness.

The Paris plant I visited is just outside the Porte St. Martin. I saw a large open square, with buildings on three sides. To the left are lockers and shower-baths for the workmen, both opening on a hall with a long table on which the men may spread in comfort and cleanliness the lunches provided by thrifty wives or mothers. On the second side is a long, low shed which protects from the weather a pit in which is a moving platform. The carts back up and dump their contents upon this platform. Several men and women are kept busy retrieving with long rakes any unbroken dish, decent-looking shoes, or other waste that might again be put to use. On the third side of the square is the furnace to which the moving platform carries the waste, which, without the addition of coal, generates enough electricity to light a large section of Paris.

MR.

sewage. The destructor of the town of Preston provides the power for the local trolley-car service. The fused glass and china from the destructors of Aldershot and Frome are pulverized, and, mixed with ash, take the place of sand in the filtration beds. The smallest town in England utilizing a destructor is Hunstanton, a community of 1,500 people. They make three and a half tons of refuse a day, burn it at the rate of half a ton an hour, and use the power to pump the town water supply. Mr. Goodrich quotes a report from Torquay, which fed to its destructor in one month eight tons of mixed refuse, including fish offal, meat and poultry offal, waste bread and cake, bits of wood, old boxes, tin cans, pans, pails, bits of old iron, vegetable refuse, garden prunings, bones, broken china and glass, old bottles, straw, waste paper, rags, bits of canvas, old boots and shoes, dust, ashes, and bits of coal and coke. The eight tons of mixed refuse produced enough electricity for all public and private lighting. The city of Leeds has four destructors, a report from one of which shows that, besides the customary garbage, ashes, and general waste, it turned into electric light in one year the carcasses of 11 cows, 3 calves, 17 sheep, 4 goats, 298 pigs, 5 turkeys, 2 carcasses of beef, 28 quarters of beef, 9 hundredweight of pickled tongue, 12 hundredweight of herring,

218 hundredweight of shell-fish, 1 hun218 hundredweight of shell-fish, 1 hundredweight of sugar, 285 dogs, 109 cats, 15 foxes, 1 sea-serpent, 147 mattresses, 7 blankets, 26 carpets, 7 rugs, and many beds, pillows, and bolsters.

N general, as already stated, five tons of mixed waste equals one ton of coal; but city engineers in America tell us that the waste from American households is too wet with an abundance of watermelons, green corn, grapefruit, and oranges-to have that amount of heating power. But there is good reason for believing that it is not the wet waste that goes into the destructors that makes that kind of furnace a failure in our cities; it is the politics that go into them. To insure success, a destructor must be managed by an engineer, and not by a man who is merely a Republican or a Democrat. I asked the engineer of the Paris plant how he got his appointment, and he answered, "By competitive examination."

He seemed much amused. "No one knew and no one asked whether I was a Legitimist, a Bonapartist, a Socialist, or a plain Republican. But, since you are an American, I will tell you that I am not a Monarchist."

There

parently the only one maintaining a destructor, just as it seems to be the only one that lightens the burdens of its taxpayers by selling a by-product of electricity. Milwaukee has, I understand, an effective Civil Service Law. fore I infer that the engineers who have made her municipal furnace profitable were appointed for their proved professional skill, and not because they were Republicans, Democrats, or even followers of the principles of La Follette. Understanding their business, they discovered a solution for the wet-waste problem.

During the winter they use city refuse as the sole fuel; but in the summer, when melons, fruit, and green corn add greatly to the moisture, they add a certain proportion of coal. The addition of a little coal makes it possible, also, to burn in a destructor city sewage that has been treated in a septic tank.

It goes without saying that in a large city there must be several destructors,

After correspondence with many of our cities, I have found Milwaukee ap

Ο

NE of the most distinguished families of France consisted, a few years ago, of two brothers and a cousin-Raymond, Lucien, and Henri Poincaré—of whom the first and oldest, again Premier, is the most widely known and the only living member.

Henri Poincaré, who died in 1912, comparatively young, was an eminent mathematician and professor of the Faculté des Sciences in Paris.

He was also noted for his absence of mind, and many anecdotes are told of him, among others this: Meeting a friend on the street one evening, the latter exclaimed: "Well, and what are you doing in this part of the town at this hour?" "I have just taken my daughter to a dance, and I am to call for her later. By the by, I do not remember where I left her!”

M. Antoni Poincaré, father of Raymond and Lucien, had almost a mania for crossing the most crowded streets,

not only at his leisure, but while deep in conversation, and with frequent stops to emphasize a point-all this to the terror of his family upon the sidewalk, to whom he would only reply: "C'est bien, c'est bien; they won't run over me!" and truly "they" never did!

Lucien Poincaré, who died in 1920, was for several years the Recteur, or head, of the Sorbonne. He was even more brilliant than his famous brother, and possessed an extraordinary facility of intellectual absorption and digestion; a glance at any topic sufficed him-he was master of the subject at once. His older brother's achievements, based upon the most solid qualities, have been rather the result of conscientious and unremitting toil.

The Premier, now in his sixty-seventh year, and apparently in robust health, is short, somewhat squarely built, with an erect carriage reminiscent of his service in the Chasseurs Alpins, a uniformly

white skin, not wholly due to sedentary labors, a straight, appraising, concentrated gaze, and a very strong jaw, only partly concealed by a scanty beard. One's first impression is of great force, immense reserve powers, and absolute self-command; then he looks one in the face, speaks, smiles, and one is aware of deep consideration for others, the finest delicacy of feeling, and great kindness of heart.

Born in Bar-le-Duc, of a family which for generations had its roots in the old Duchy of Lorraine, M. Poincaré reminds us of his brother the Breton by his invincible determination, his almost dogged tenacity; these fundamental traits combined with unflinching purpose, the highest moral courage, and unswerving rectitude confer upon him the inflexible and distant effect of the ancient Roman and cause him to be considered as something more or less than human, a mechanism, an abstraction. He seems cold

Keystone

Raymond Poincaré

because he has that rarest of traits in a Frenchman-the ability to master his heart to place duty supreme. Nor party nor self can swerve him, nor influence, nor affection; he stands above all.

A much-esteemed and beloved cousin, a man of spotless character, almost old enough to be his father, desired, for family reasons, to remove his functions from the town in which he had exercised them for some twenty-five years to another, smaller, in every way less important, and where the emoluments were less. To this end M. Poincaré was requested to use his influence, and promptly refused.

by M. Poincaré upon a ministerial matter. A few days later the answer was carried by Madame Poincaré in person to the petitioner's hotel "sc as to be sure she would receive it."

Upon an anniversary in the Premier's ancestral village a former official began an address; after a few sentences he forgot his text, turned green, stammeredwas lost. M. Poincaré, near by, leaned toward him and murmured: "Get out your little paper-I have one too!"

Every year, in the fall, a gathering of all the relatives takes place in this little corner of France. Mass is celebrated in the small, picturesque ancient church and the entire population attends. Then the family visit the plot where generations of their forebears lie, and flowers are laid upon the graves. A family A lady of no importance was received breakfast follows, of thirty or more,

The family in question not only feel no sense of injury, but a great pride in this stern decree.

homely and simple, especially since the war, and utterly without ceremony.

At the last reunion, having heard that there was a cat visitor in the house, nothing would satisfy the most distinguished guest-who is extraordinarily fond of animals but his presentation. His catship was raptly intent on mice in what at home would be called the barn chamber, but he submitted to be caught, introduced to and stroked by the most noted personage in France, somewhat alarmed, for he fears men, with wide green eyes and adhesive claws tense and ready for escape, unaware that he had leaped to historic consequence, and was raised above all others of his race, GrisGris, alas! having died in the preceding spring.

The death of their Siamese cat was a real grief to the family. Gris-Gris was the autocrat of the household. M. Poincaré himself waited upon him, and at times deprived himself of delicacies with which to feed his pet. Once, as he bestowed half of his partridge upon this spoiled creature, Madame Poincaré thought it time to remonstrate. "I am only giving what is mine-I am not depriving any one else," was the reply.

But Gris-Gris had ambitions transcending even the personal attentions of a former President of the Republic; he I would be served by the butler as well. In the first cool days of September this wise cat would follow the servitor to the door, fasten his claws in the retreating trousers, and triumphantly drag his captive to the chimney-place, where, erect and complacent, he would await the fire which was lighted for his especial sol