Very few among the older writers looked upon the
revolutionary artistic movement known as Dada with
anything but horror. Consequently Gide's pages, which
appeared in the April 1920 issue of the N.R.F., consti-
tuted the most impressive avuncular encouragement the
young revolt received.

Founded in Zurich by Tristan Tzara in 1916 as a
systematic negation of all intellectual and literary values,
Dada shocked by its scandalous excesses. Gradually it
fused with a more positive current represented by Ara-
gon, Breton, and others, which became Surrealism. The
short-lived Futurism founded by the Italian F. T. Mari-
netti in 1908 had likewise been a destructive move in
modern letters.

In that languorous state in which man will be swept along by
the course of events, he will have perhaps no other escape than
that of a deluge that will plunge everything into ignorance again.

SÉNAC DE MEILHAN

The great misfortune for the inventor of Dada is that
the movement he started upsets him and that he is him-
self crushed by his machine. This is a pity. I am told
that he is a very young man. He is described as charm-
ing. ( Marinetti likewise was irresistible.) I am told that

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