The New Age, June 11 1914

This issue of The New Age opens with an account of recent developments in labor, including some kind of truce that has been struck between workers on the one hand and the employers, represented (oddly, to me) by the Theosophical Society. I tried to find an explanation for this, but in a brief internet search I found very little. Probably a moment that seemed momentous, only to be forgotten in the war.

Speaking of the looming war, Franz Ferdinand is not long for this world (-100 years), and has made an appearance in The New Age. Not knowing anything about him except that his assassination sparked a major war, I was glad to learn a little more. The New Age's S. Verdad considers him an able statesman and an authority on naval matters. He's mentioned in connection to the Russian-English naval treaty, which has made Germany nervous. Ferdinand is contrasted favorably with King George as a leader. That his death will spark a war makes more sense in the context of Verdad's comments, which seem to imply that Ferdinand (and the Kaiser) would lead Germany and Austria (competently) in the event of a war.

The literary gem of the issue, though, is the story "Boutshe the Silent" by J.L. Peretz, translated from Yiddish by Gershon Katz. It's more a parable than a story, a retelling of the myth of the man facing judgement in heaven. Boutshe's humility in life and before judgement meshes well with two priorities of The New Age: the value of the lives of workers that exist under oppression, and resistance to antisemitism. See Cecil Chesterton's letter in correspondence for the other side (gross).

Alice Morning (Beatrice Hastings) continues her travelogues on Paris.

Quick Notes:

A.E.R. contributes a column on Freud.

There's a little epigram against the soon-to-be-Vorticist crowd on page 128, incidentally interesting.

Walter Sickert continues The New Age's plea for representative art on page 131--which also holds a Charles Bechofer epigram against Tagore, written a la Blake's "Tyger." It's actually quite clever, "Did he who made Charles Lamb make thee?"!!!! Here's the last stanza:

"Tagore ! Tagore ! babbling  blight,
 In  thine own Bengali write !
Why  in Heaven’s name  have I
To read thy fearful poetry."