Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1914 (Heft 47))

Has Stieglitz accomplished much? I think he cannot help but feel
satisfied with his achievement. True, some tell me that he gave us riddles
to solve, mathematical problems and lessons in algebra.
Granted: but he has made many think; what more can you expect?
A man whom I love and admire believes Stieglitz is the greatest scoundrel
in the universe. I wish somebody would pay me such a compliment.
Hippolyte Havel

29I
Except that the inlet and the outlet to the same are perfectly free to the
public, the little gallery of the Photo-Secession bears an astonishing outward
resemblance to a meeting place for avowed “enemy’s of society.”
Duplicated as a stage setting for the Grand Guignol, we should know the
moment the curtain rolled up that strange and possibly noble mysteries were
to be enacted before our eyes; we should know that spies and officers of the
law were waiting outside ready to pounce in and make trouble; and a great
wave of sympathy would surge through our bosoms when the hero (Mr.
Stieglitz) trod the boards,—for in the theatre, at least, we still respond to
heroism.
* * * * * * *
But Mr. Stieglitz isn’t a nihilist. At least I don’t think so. He looks you
straight in the eye! However, they say that many quite honest people can’t
do that. He has the hair, of course. But in the Dostoievsky novels and the
Russian plays at the Grand Guignol with the dreadful endings, the heroes
are charming to their friends and absolutely regular in their marital relations,
but at the end they rush out and blow up the Tzar’s two sisters-in-law, or do
something else equally unacademic.
You simply never can guess the ending of these altruists. The little gal-
lery is hung in gray usually. Quakerish or gunboatish, as you like, . . . John
Marin always impresses me as one who is here “upon a secret errand,” like
the people in the Walter Pater sketches. . . . What do they do in that back
room, do you suppose? . . . Still, I have never seen any bits of wire nor
jugs of glycerine. . . .
*******
At night great guards patrol the corridors. The walls are amazingly
sturdy. Bombs might crumb them a trifle, but not seriously. Outside the
police are plentiful and ever watching. What chance have they? Besides,
they wouldn’t dare. Why should we worry? They couldn’t blow up the
Altman Rembrandts—-the Rodin drawings are underneath!
Henry McBride

68