August 1949
In This Issue
Explore the August 1949 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
Paris
The Conquest of America
Poet and lawyer, publicist and public servant, ARCHIBALD MACLEISHhas answered many callings in his distinctive career. He was c successful practicing lawyer; in 1932 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry; and he was a leading contributor to Fortune during its years of trial. From 1939 to 1945 he served as Librarian of Congress, Assistant Director of OWI, and finally as Assistant Secretary of State. At the war’s end, he teas appointed Chairman of the American Delegation to the UN Conference which founded UNESCO. This autumn he comes to Harvard as the Boylston Professor, a chair giving full scope to his love of teaching and writing.
Frisbie of the South Seas
Robert Dean Frisbie went to Tahiti in 1920, a young veteran of the First World War If or drawing a veteran’s disability pension because of his weak lungs. It was Friside’s intent to submerge himself in the slow, delightful current of the island life, just as it was his aspiration to write the book of his dreams. The two men — the recluse and the dreamer— were often at odds with each other and sometimes in difficulties with the white authorities. It was Frisbie’s good fortune to become fast friends with JAMES NORMAN HALL,and it teas this friendship which served him as a beacon in his times of disappointment and loneliness. This story of a friendship, so sympathetically told by Mr. Hall, will be published in three successive issues.
Nat Goodwin--and Another
In his prose as in his caricatures. SIR MAX BEERBOHM is the epitome of ”the irrepressible, the light of touch, the inimitable, the insouciant, and the impertinent.” In A Christmas Garland he proved himself the greatest parodist of our time; in Zuleika Dobson he wrote with perfect irreverence of Oxford; and in Seven Men and his volumes of collected essays he has given us a prose which is alive and full of wit.
The Giant Snails
A giant African snail has broken loose from its native habitat and is now on the rampage. It has devastated parts of Hawaii and the Orient and within recent months has made its stealthy appearance in California, having been brought bach on salvaged war material. ALBERT R. MEADof the Zoology Department of the University of Arizona began investigating the giant snail in British West Africa in 1944: he is leading the campaign for state and Federal quarantine laws with which to protect oar crops from this ruthless invader.
Washington
The Specter of Nijinsky
Composer of bullets and symphonies, NICOLAS NABOKOV was born in Russia in 1903. Much of his early music was written in Paris, where his first bullet, Ode, was produced by Diaghilev in the spring of 1928. Several months earlier he saw the famous dancer Nijinsky, then a broken man, and from that meeting he has drawn the following article. Mr. Nabokov first visited this country in 1933 and a year later wrote his ballet Union Pacific. He is nonliving in the United States and his music is played by the leading orchestras here and abroad.
The Quid Pro Quo
Editor and author. RICHARD E. DANIELSON has occasionally contributed short stories and articles to the Atlantic. His story “Corporal Hardy,”published in November, 1938, was reprinted in O’ Brien’s The Best Short Stories of 1938 and in his Fifty Best American Short Stories and in various other anthologies and textbooks. In ”The Quid Pro Quo,”Mr. Danielson returns to the Corporal Hardy period and personalities.
At the End of an Era
Animal Instinct--or Intelligence
A Bostonian who has often matched his strength with the sea, WYMAN RICHARDSON. as his father before him. has found his heart’s desire in the remote and rustic Farm House at Eastham which gives him and his family quick access to the ocean, the Nan set Marsh, and one of the most beautiful beaches in all Cape Cod. Here Dr. Richardson retreats to fish, to observe the birds, and to puzzle over that question which has mystified every naturalist: Are animals intelligent? This is the fourth of his series of nature essays.
The Chinese Brush
American poet and playwright, WITTER BYNNERtraveled widely in the Orient in the golden days of security, and there developed a thoughtful interest in Chinese poetry, painting, and jades. His translation, with Dr. Kiang Kang-hu, of the poems included in The jade Mountain (1929) was the first volume of Chinese verse to be translated in full by an American poet. Mr. Bynner’s most recent books include The Way of Life According to Laotzu (1944) and Take Away the Darkness (1947),
Conversation
An American housewife happily married to an English husband. ANN LEIGHTON has lived in England. India, Burma, Ayrshire, and Massachusetts. She has Iearned the conventions which distinguish English talk from its American equivalent and, when necessary, acts as translator for those who cannot follow. Atlantic readers may remember her touching book While We Are Absent, which appeared under our imprint during the war.
The Rime of the Carpenter
The Green Piano
After serving for five years in the Infantry and the Array Air Forces, MICHAEL ROSENE came out of the war a sergeant major determined to write. But his first short stories and the skeleton of his first novel, which were based on rear material, found no takers and in dismay he washed up on the Florida beach with the “status,”as he tells us, of “beach bum.”Then he got his second wind, which carried him to Mexico City, where for the past year and a half be has been writing part time, reading part time, and attending the Mexico City College.
Money After Age 65
In 1929, when only a few companies had pension plans, MARION B. FOLSOM wrote a prophetic article. ”Old Age on the Balance Sheet" (September Atlantic), which concluded: “Good, humane management will not permit employees of long service to be discharged if they have not adequate means of sustenance. Yet good management cannot keep employees on the force when they are no longer productive. The solution is the inauguration of a sound and adequate pension plan. The longer the solution is delayed,the more expensive it becomes.”The intervening years have strengthened that statement. Treasurer of Eastman Kodak and regarded by business and government as an outstanding expert on social insurance. Mr. Folsom has served since 1934 on three governmental Advisory Councils dealing with social security.
The Far East
The Charm and the Strangeness: Gerard Manly Hopkins
George Meredith's Return
Novelist and critic, CHARLES MORGAN entered the British Navy in 1907. In 1914 he went to the front with the Naval Brigades, and was captured and interned in Holland for four years. That interlude gave him the background for his novel The Fountain, which won the Hawthornden Prize for 1933. Mr. Morgan is an Honorary Doctor of St. Andrews, of Caen, and of Toulouse, and the only English novelist, except Kipling, to have been elected to the Institut de France.
The Peripatetic Reviewer
Reader's Choice
This Month
Egyptian Magician
MALCOLM LAPRADE is a New Yorker who has traveled in all parts of the world. His “Mexican Guide” appeared in Accent on Living in the October, 1918, Atlantic.
Atomic Musings
The Kitchen Problem
HERBERT COGGINS has written for the Atlantic on how to catch burglars (in a bag) and how to enjoy paying taxes. He lives in San Francisco.
So What?
JAMES COLVIN was for eight years on the staff of the Chicago Daily New. After completing a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, he served in the Navy during the war and is now associated with the Encyclopœdia Britannica.
Pharmaceutics in the Dell
WEARE HOLBROOK has written many light articles for news syndicates and magazines. A former Iowan, he nowlives in Hartsdale, New York.
The Unaware
