July 1955
In This Issue
Explore the July 1955 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
Singapore
Yugoslavia
Les Girls
A Nova Scotian and the daughter of a clergyman, CONSTANCE TOMKINSON was in her early twenties, eager to see the world, and lacking only the cash to do so. She had studied ballet with Martha Graham in New York City; under the more seemly pretext that she was going to England to study drama, she actually went abroad determined to pay her way by dancing in any chorus that offered. The techniques which she learned from Miss Graham did not altogether prepare her for the requirements of the Folies-Bergère.
To Bernard Berenson: On His Ninetieth Birthday
On a recent trip to Florence, FRANCIS HENRY TAYLOR,at the urging of the Atlantic, blocked out this birthday letter expressing his affection and admiration for Bernard Berenson. During his fifteen years as Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mr. Taylor rose to be one of the most influential figures in the world of art. As Director Emeritus of the Metropolitan and Director of the Worcester Art Museum. to which he returns this summer, he gives us his evaluation of the foremost connoisseur of art in our time.
Mountain, Old Father
Voices
The grandson of the great naturalist, who was himself educated at Eton and at Balliol at Oxford, ALDOUS HUXLEY had already published four books when in 1921 he captured the imagination of readers here and in England with his novel, Chrome Yellow. Since then he has written thirty books—fiction, essays, and biography—including such best sellers as Point Counter Point, Brave New World, and Eyeless in Gaza. In recent years he has resided in California, whence comes this new satire.
The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington
Teen-Age Criminals
According to Police Commissioner Francis Adams there were 12,470 arrests in New York City last year in the 16-21 age group, an increase of 15.8 per cent over 1953. Lawlessness and lack of respect, which are prevalent the country over, are the direct result, says ELIJAH ADLOW,Chief Justice of the Municipal Court of Boston, of what has happened to American communities since the turn of the century. Can the trend be reversed? A native Bostonian educated in the public schools and at Harvard College and Law School, Judge Adlow has had to sentence many of the young offenders who have come before him in the course of his twenty-seven years on the bench. The cases which he cites are all true.
The Big Owl
In an ancient Cape Cod cottage, the Farm House, the walls of which were decorated by his uncle, the artist Frank W. Benson, DR. WYMAN RICHARDSON spent some fifty summers. Here he came to know the moods and everchanging beauty of Nauset Beach and the great salt marsh within; here he developed his extraordinary knowledge of the shore birds; and here he guided his family and friends on happy expeditions for the striped bass or the blue crab. From his posthumous book, The House on Nunset Marsh, which will be published this month by Norton, we have selected the following paper.
The Book of Kells: To Willy Pogany
Jazz, Hot and Cold
A veteran of nearly twenty years of successful writing for stage and radio, ARNOLD SUNDGAARD describes himself as a “journeyman writer, ” He began his career with the Federal Theater’s and with II liters Projects in Chicago and New Orleans, and has since devoted himself principally to libretti and musical plays. In spare moments he has written a book, The Miracle of Growth, taught at three universities and a college, and worked with Leonard Bernstein on the Omnibus program about Beethoven. His work includes Everywhere I Roam, in collaboration with Marc Connelly; Down in the Valley, with Kurt Weill; three operas with Alec Wilder; and a jazz opera (composer unannounced) currently in progress. His long, close association with contemporary music well qualifies Mr. Sundgaard to discuss the position of jazz in 1955.
A Love Affair
A graduate of Queens’ College, Cambridge, T. H. WHITE published his first novel, Loved Helen, in 1926 when he was a young schoolmaster at Stowe. He scored his first major success in this country with The Sword in the Stone; and then, when he had resumed writing after the war, he again hit the target of the Book-of-the-Month Club with his novel, Mistress Masham’s Repose. Atlantic readers will remember his charming story. “The Fairy Fire,” which appeared in the November issue.
Exercise Does Keep the Weight Down
The son of a famous French physiologist, JEAN MAYERcame to the United States before the war to pursue his studies; but the war called him home, and as a Gaullist he fought for five years with the Free French forces. He got a Ph.D. at Yale Medical School in 1948, a D.Sc. from the Sorbonne, and in 1950 joined the faculty of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, where his studies on obesity have attracted wide attention.
Roosevelt Through European Eyes
Attached to the British Embassy in Washington for nearly four years during the war, ISAIAH BERLIN became an almost legendary figure in the capitals of both nations while still in his early thirties. Historian and philosopher, he is today a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of President Franklin Roosevelt’s death the BBC invited Mr. Berlin to speak on F.D.R. as Europe saw him. This is what he said, and his words recapture a perspective and an influence which we are in danger of forgetting.
The Murmuring Fountains, Rome
Destry and Dionysus
Max Brand was one of the most versatile of American authors, and in theeyes of MARTHA BACON, one of the most charming. She first saw him in the company oj her father, Leonard Bacon, the poet, and her impressions go back to that unclouded year, 1928, when they were all together in Florence. The author of two volumes of verse and a novel, Miss Bacon is now a member of the editorial staff of the Atlantic.
The Peripatetic Reviewer
Books: The Editors Like
Reader's Choice
Accent on Living
The Wrong Weight
Der Arme Dolmetscher
The Stars and I
The New Mallarkey
Record Reviews
Sardinia
