A new work by Mr. Cabell? sneak preview...

Cui Bono? (as by Ross Smith)

from "The Reviewer" October, 1924, Volume IV, Number 5, pp. 408-409

Not in Brewer's bibliography of Cabell's works. This very brief fable is in Cabell’s characteristic idiom. If it be not his it is certainly an intentional pastiche. Although there are many obscure writers published in the pages of The Reviewer even the most obscure can usually be found to have a Richmond connection or a poem in some small magazine. But I can find no Ross Smith that fits those criteria. It’s worth noting that it has a Place of Honor -- it is printed directly following Emily Clark’s valedictory for The Reviewer (after which the magazine moved to North Carolina to be edited by playwright Paul Green.) If I had to bet a dollar I’d say this is by Mr Cabell.

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Cui Bono?

It is a tale told of a surgeon and a priest. And great honour was their lot, for each served mankind abundantly according to his own fashion.

Now it chanced that they met one day at the bedside of a dying soul. There they fell to discussing the existence of God.

“In no thing, living or dead,” cried the surgeon, “do I see the hand of the Lord. But hearken to me and you shall judge. In my youth I suffered greatly in spirit, yearning for a sign that my faith might not be shaken. And with all my soul I prayed for a certain leaf to fall that I might believe. But the leaf fell not and I ceased to vex myself concerning matters not of this world, determining to become a healer of the bodies of men. For there is much pain to be relieved.“

“Truly,” answered the priest, “this thing passeth all wonder. For in my youth I, too, was sorely troubled in spirit and I, too, yearned for a sign. And with all my soul I prayed for a certain leaf to fall that I might believe in Him. And, lo, the leaf fell. Then did I give myself wholly into the hands of the Lord, determining to become a healer of the souls of men. For there is much pain here below to be relieved.”

And each went his way, marveling at the strangeness of it.

* * * * * *

Know that in the surgeon’s hour it was spring, when the leaves blossom forth and fall not. But in the priest’s hour autumn had fallen over the land, when the leaves are scattered abroad even as snow is driven before a wind.

It should be noted that in addition to various pieces under his own name, Cabell contributed at least four items to The Reviewer under pseudonyms. Several of these were later absorbed into Taboo, Something About Eve, and Sonnets from Antan.

Did the author use the line of asterisks, or was some other device used to separate the last line from the previous words?

What a great find, C-W. It certainly reads like Cabell, including that delicious title. Even if later shown to be by someone else, it's a fitting addition to Cabelliana. It's tempting to amend that first line, "It is a tale told in Poictesme of a surgeon and a priest."

What were the other synonyms Cabell used, and for which contributions?

The Reviewer:

https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Reviewer_The#start_entry

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Crypto-Willobie&collection=-1&deepse...

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//from my notes//

Cabell and Possible Cabell in The Reviewer 1921-24
(7, 10, and 12 are not listed in Brewer's bibliography)

1. A Postscript
“copyright 1921 by James Branch Cabell”
April 15, 1921, Vol. I, No. 5, p. 141
Later used in Taboo; attribution edited but text the same. Works XVIII, p.XYZ

2. Exit
June 1 1921

3. Lineage I (1921)

4. Lineage II (1921)

5. Lineage III (1921)

{2-5 published as by Cabell, later worked into The Lineage of Lichfield (1922)}

6. Dictated But Not Read
(as by Burwell Washington)
October, 1921, Vol. II, No. 1, p. 9
Later integrated into the Sphinx’s dialogue in Something About Eve, Works X, 150

{7?} Zoöpantoum: from the Ruritanian
(as by A.C. Fairfax; identified by Edgar MacDonald and Elizabeth Spindler Scott as by Cabell; did someone else ID this first? UPDATE – yes Emily Clark in an article in the Virginia Quarterly Review in 1929)
October, 1921, Vol. II, No. 1, pp. 45-46
Apparently not reused; not in Brewer. Although the pseudo-scholarly trappings (e.g., the unknown source ‘Gehagatias’ ?=’Eat a Haggis’) and general wise-ass atmosphere are suggestive, we might question the JBC attribution, as the item consists of little more than cribs from three of Aesop’s fables, hewing most closely to the so-called “JBR” text first published in 1874. But I do not find an Aesop of this date or any other in Cabell’s library. (But Clark, MacDonald and Scott settle the matter)

8. Prehistorics
(as by Henry Lee Jefferson)
October, 1921, Vol. II, No. 1,
Reused in “Another Note on Lichfield” in a note in the illustrated edition of Cream of the Jest and then collected in Townsend of Lichfield.

9. Cobwebs and Iron
(as by Claiborne Hauks Anderson)
November, 1921, Vol. II, No. 2, p. 86
(Written originally for Something About Eve, but not used; eventually published as The Sonnet Made for Nero and Villon in Sonnets from Antan.)

{10?} A Moral Emblem of Maturity
(as by Frère Rombadille)
November, 1921, Vol. II, No. 2, p. 89
(Not in Brewer. Fra Rombadille is a character in an unfinished novel c1920 by Robert Nathan, fragments of which were eventually published. Since this brief verse follows Nathan’s piece ‘A Thing Called Art’ we might think that it is by him except for the resemblance of its form and feel to some of Cabell’s quirky occasional verses such as the proem to Jurgen. Could it be Cabell riffing on Nathan’s monk, a response to Nathan? Nathan perhaps riffs on Cabell in ‘Thing’ where “Peter Truffle” recalls the Cabell-related character Peter Whiffle in Carl Van Vechten’s novel of that name. But wait – Peter Whiffle was not published until 1922. But wait again – this is Nov 1921 and ‘Carlo’ was a close friend of Cabell and has a piece in this Reviewer just a few pages back. Well…)

11. The Second Way
As by James Branch Cabell
October, 1924, Volume IV, Number 5, p. 344
Collected in Sonnets from Antan as “The Sonnet made for Maya”

{12?} Cui Bono?
(as by Ross Smith)
October, 1924, Volume IV, Number 5, pp. 408-409
Not in Brewer. A very brief fable in Cabell’s characteristic idiom. If it be not by Cabell it is certainly an intentional pastiche. Although there are many obscure writers published in the pages of The Reviewer even the slightest can usually be found to have a Richmond connection or a poem in some small magazine. But I find no Ross Smith that fits those criteria. And this is printed directly following Emily Clark’s valedictory for The Reviewer (after which it moved to North Carolina to be edited by playwright Paul Green for a year and then to be merged with the Southwest Review, published at SMU.)

>3 elenchus: Spaced asterisks. Spaced across the page. LT won't let me space them properly.

>4 Crypto-Willobie: Btw #10 above has now been confirmed as a poem by Robert Nathan, not Cabell.

An interesting 1929 article by former Reviewer editor Emily Clark in which (among much else) she confirms Mr Cabell as author of #7 above.

https://www.vqronline.org/essay/case-mr-cabell-vs-author-biography