whom he admired above all other artists, he possessed probably the largest private collection ever assembled. Velazquez was well represented, as were Van Dyck, Cuyp, Ruysdael, Vermeer, and many others. These collections he bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Shortly before his death he secured the incorporation of the Altman Foundation, established for the welfare of the employees of the department store of B. Altman & Co., of which he was the head, thus crowning a career long devoted to unobtrusive philanthropy.
ALVERSTONE, RICHARD EVERARD WEBSTER, 1st Baron
(1842–1915), Lord Chief Justice of England (see 1.775), died at
Cranleigh, Surrey, Dec. 15 1915.
AMADE, ALBERT GÉRARD LÉO D’ (1856– ), French
general, was born at Toulouse Dec. 27 1856. He was the son of
an officer and was educated at La Fleche prior to entering the
army in 1876. From 1887, when he became French military
attache at Peking, his military experience was peculiarly varied,
and included, besides his four years in China, service as military
attache with the British forces during the S. African War, three
years as French military attache in London, and finally, as a
general officer, the command of the expeditionary force in the
Moroccan campaign of 1907. On the outbreak of the World
War, he was, in accordance with the prepared scheme of operations which assumed Italy as an opponent, placed in charge of
the “Army of the Alps.” This group, however, had only a
momentary existence. It became clear that Italy would remain
neutral. D’Amade’s troops were taken to reinforce other fronts
and he himself was placed in charge of a group of forces formed
in the region of Lille and Douai to resist as best it might the
unexpectedly wide sweep of the German invasion. Weak numerically, composed wholly of territorial units of the oldest classes,
improvised in point of organization and ill equipped, D’Amade’s
“army” was in no condition to attempt a vigorous counter-offensive or even a fixed defensive, and after a certain amount
of fighting in the Cambrai region it was withdrawn to the extreme left, between Amiens and Abbeville, Gen. Maunoury’s
VI. Army taking its place. In the spring of 1915, when a French
contingent was formed for service in the Levant, D’Amade was
appointed to command it, and in this capacity led the French
forces in the Dardanelles landing of April, and the trench
warfare that followed. A gallant and knightly soldier, already
experienced in the ways of his Allies, he was exceptionally well
fitted to hold a command which, half subordinate, half independent, presented all possible opportunities of friction, and in
fact few if any inter-Allied operations of the World War were conducted with so little friction as this. In May, however, he
was recalled to France.
AMERICAN LITERATURE (see 1.831). After the year 1910 the American novel developed mainly in the realistic manner,
and in a rather remarkable way, the year 1920 being especially
notable for the appearance of novels of distinction. The romantic
revival in English and American fiction, which began in the last
decade of the 19th century, had exhausted itself before 1910.
It was succeeded by what might be called the “life” novel,
where the entire history of the hero or heroine is given; even
where this rather loose biographical method is not attempted, the
realistic novels from 1910 to 1921 were marked by a fidelity to
fact and a sincerity of composition which indicated promise for
the future development of the art. Mark Twain and O. Henry
died in 1910; Henry James in 1916; W. D. Howells in 1920. During
recent years no one, either in the novel or in the short story,
eclipsed the work of these men. But some important new
writers appeared and two veterans showed increasing power.
Booth Tarkington, born at Indianapolis in 1869, who had a wide
reputation after 1899, began in 1914 a series of novels superior to
anything in the preceding 15 years of his career. These later
novels may be divided into two classes—those dealing with
towns and those dealing with youth. In The Turmoil (1915) and
in The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) he analyzed and described
life in American cities; in Penrod (1914) and in Seventeen (1916)
he gave a faithful analysis of the character of the American boy
and of the American youth; while in Alice Adams (1921) he portrays
with subtlety a young girl. It should also be mentioned
that his sympathetic portraits of negroes were among the best ever
produced. Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence (1920) is her masterpiece;
it is a novel dealing with New York society in 1872,
valuable for its consummate art and for the accuracy of its
historical pictures. The new novelists, unknown before 1910,
deal with the single exception of Anne Douglas Sedgwick, who
lived in England wholly with American life and character.
Dorothy Canfield, born at Lawrence, Kan., in 1879, produced
two novels, The Squirrel Cage (1912) and The Bent Twig (1915),
the latter describing life in a university in the middle-west,
as well as The Brimming Cup in 1921, a remarkable study of
a woman’s nature and the grounds of her marital happiness.
Zona Gale, born at Portage, Wis., in 1874, took in Miss Lulu
Bett (1920) a familiar subject and treated it with scrupulous
sincerity. The same praise may be given to Sinclair Lewis, born
at Sauk Center, Minn., in 1885, for his novel Main Street
(1920). Mrs. Mary S. Watts, born in Delaware Co., O., in 1868,
wrote a series of realistic novels of American life, of which
perhaps the best is the Rise of Jennie Gushing (1914). Henry
Sydnor Harrison, born at Sewanee, Term., in 1880, produced
one novel of unusual charm in Queed (1911), followed by another
almost equally successful, V. V.’s Eyes (1913); his prolonged war
service interrupted a promising career. Joseph Hergesheimer,
born at Philadelphia, Pa., in 1880, won his way to the front
rank of American novelists by the extraordinary beauty and
distinction of his prose style; he was a master of English
composition, as shown in The Three Black Pennys (1917) and
Java Head (1919). Another distinguished American writer was
Anne Douglas Sedgwick, born at Englewood, N.J., in 1873,
who lived in Europe from childhood. Her powers, both of
analysis and of style, appear to especial advantage in The
Encounter (1914) and The Third Window (1920), while her short
story, Autumn Crocuses (1919), is perhaps the best piece of
fiction produced by an American under the influence of the
World War. The experimental school of fiction had a representative
in Theodore Dreiser, born at Terre Haute, Ind., in
1871. His first novel, Sister Carrie (1900), is perhaps his best.
The Drama.—From the literary point of view the drama was not important. No play of universal significance has ever been written in America, yet the work of Clyde Fitch (1865–1909) was clever and original; his best plays illustrated very well metropolitan society at the beginning of the zoth century. Augustus Thomas, born at St. Louis, Mo., in 1859, wrote many plays of western life, but his masterpiece is The Witching Hour (1908). Booth Tarkington produced a successful and brilliant comedy, Clarence (1919). George M. Cohan, born at Providence, R.I., in 1878, had an astonishingly successful career as librettist, producer and actor, which was, on the whole, marked by a steady development; his play The Tavern (1920) was not only original, but had distinct literary merit. Louis K. Anspacher, born at Cincinnati, O., in 1878, produced an excellent drama, both from the literary and theatrical point of view, The Unchastened Woman (1915). Eugene Walter, born at Cleveland, O., in 1874, showed talent for melodrama, and in one play, The Easiest Way (1913), for something higher. The death of Mark Twain made George Ade, born at Kentland, Ind., in 1866, the leading American humorist; his Fables in Slang (1900) struck a new note of humour and criticism; his plays, The College Widow (1904) and Father and the Boys (1907), exhibited a talent that the author did not choose to develop. He might have become the leading American playwright.
Poetry.—The World War had a powerful effect on the production of poetry, but a revival had set in about the year 1910, which in 1921 had shown no sign of abatement. The general interest in poetry and the immense number of young poets were notable phenomena; yet it is true that no great outstanding figure appeared no one who for a moment could possibly rank with Poe, Emerson or Whitman. A leader in modern verse was Edwin Arlington Robinson, born at Head Tide, Me., in 1869, whose first volume appeared in 1896, but whose best work was certainly after 1910. In The Man Against the Sky (1916) and
