"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

Primum Mobile Magazine welcomes feedback from any of our readers, and will publish many reader letters here. If you wish to send a letter to our editors, please use our Respondere page.

Where Life Begins

In response to The Rebirth of Words, by Paul Lytle.

I think it's an overgeneralization to claim, as you do in "The Rebirth of Words," that pro-life and pro-choice adherents disagree on the inception of life. I've read some prominent publications, such as Ms. Magazine, that unabashedly agree that abortion ends human life. I would guess the pro-choice crowd chooses not to privilege those who are not yet capable of expressing an appreciation for being alive.

Reactions to Premodernism

In response to our Premodernism Issue.

I enjoyed your "premodernism" issue, and would like to make an additional comment about art:

I have noticed that much of today's visual art twists forms (the human form in particular), often to deformity. Human subjects, for example, are often portrayed with exaggerated proportions, rearranged body parts, or in a demeaning manner. Many artists freely toy with human beauty and lower it to ugliness.

It seems to me that St. Augustine's definition of virtue, cited by C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man, is pertinent here. Augustine defines virtue as "ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind and degree of love which is appropriate to it." In my opinion, much of the lowness of modern art arises from the forgetting or ignoring of this principle of proper affections, the principle of hating what is ugly and evil and loving what is beautiful and good, and of according those things the honor or shame that is due them. If Augustine is right, then virtue in art lies not only in presenting beauty and truth, but in portraying beauty as beautiful and truth as true.

In response to Forma: or, the Importance of Form, by Paul Lytle.

There's one thing about free-verse poetry that you forgot to mention. Poetry is usually not meant to be taken literally. But since free-verse reads like ordinary speech, it is usually taken literally. I think form and rhyme have the same effect as the curtain that frames a stage, it reminds the audience that what is going on is fiction. Free-verse, like television, lacks that and so the audience is not encouraged to expand their view of the work.