Nikola Tesla’s Letter to Benjamin DeCasseres

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On November 11th, 1931 Nikola tesla wrote a letter in response to Benjamin DeCasseres.

“Your letter of the 7th inst. found me engaged in very pressing work otherwise I would not have been so tardy in assuring you that I shall look with pleasure to a meeting at mutual convenience. I have no knowledge of Miss Clive beyond that conveyed by her frequent letters which reflects unusual intelligence as well as erratic character. She is strangely infatuated and lives in an illusion which I have never had the heart to shatter as it seems to make her happy.”

teslatodecasseres

The Pacifist’s Breviary

If a fire breaks out in your house speak to it gently.
The universe is a product of non-resisting forces.
Time enough to learn to swim when the boat is going down.
If caught in a border raid, pray.
In case of war notify the police.
He who chautauquas and runs away may live to chautalk another day.
All danger, national and individual, is psychological.
When in doubt do as the Chinaman does—surrender.
Human rights are conserved by preaching sweetness and light.
Hang your latch-key on the outer wall, and the cry “Touch me not!”
Force is negative; docility, positive.
In time of peace prepare for more peace.
When an enemy advances toward you seeking your fling at his head a volume of the Commoner.

—
From IMP: The Poetry of Benjamin DeCasseres.

A Fourth Dimensional Mind

Ephemera, Misc. Items from the Web

A lot of DeCasseres own material is in pamphlet/booklet form. This is a small booklet that appears to be an article about DeC, with the following description as being sold from a Judaica website:

Decasseres, Benjamin) Rudens, S. P. BENJAMIN DECASSERES; A FOURTH DIMENSIONAL MIND… No Place, No Publisher (The Author?), 1928. 1st Edition (?). Paper Wrappers, Very Good Condition; 16mo; 12 pages; 22 cm. Pocket-sized reprint from the Reflex, December, 1927. Author was at the time Assistant Director of the Jewish People’s Institute in Chicago. DeCasseres was a Philadelphia-born Sephardic writer and essayist (1873-1945) (AMR-27-41) (ID #6885) $30.00.

 

Looking at the style of the booklet, it’s probable that DeCasseres reprinted the article himself, as it is similar in format to some of his other booklets.

“Reflex” was a Jewish journal and “is, according to editorial announcement, to be dedicated to “critical opinion and the secular interest of the Jewish people.” The article appeared in Volume 1 no. 6 (1927).

Reflex was edited by Samuel Max Melamed who “took deep and active interest in Zionism, and was Chairman of the Central Zionist Committee of Chicago. Samuel wrote extensively in Hebrew, German, Yiddish, and English on problems of Jewish nationalism, sociology, and philosophy.”

This is the same S.M. Melamed (can there be more than one?) who wrote a book titled “Spinoza and Buddha: Visions of a Dead God” that DeCasseres wrote the booklet “Spinoza Agains the Rabbis” in response to. In “Against the Rabbis” DeC says:

“As this essay is an investigation of the competence or incompetence of the logician, the scholar, the research man to pass judgement on or to expound genius, I have chosen (Melamed’s book) as the best sample of such an undertaking.”

The rest of that essay is less than kind to Melamed.
FourthDimesionalMind

Excerpt from “Our Poets of Today” by Howard Willard Cook, 1919

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Benjamin De Casseres

The New York World Magazine at one time printed an article by Henry Tyrell with the heading something like this : “Poems of a Shadow-Eater—De Casseres, Psalmist of Night and Nietzscheism, Lives Unknown in New York and Writes Like Poe, Whitman, Baudelaire and King David, While Railing at the Metropolis as ‘A City Whose Splendor Is in the Dazzling Glitter of All That Is Monstrous and Soulless.’ ” And this is an excellent approach to the work of Benjamin De Casseres. His much commented upon “De Profundis” runs :

Night! Night Eternal Night, whose black vapors have filled all the sluice-ways of
Time—Night, pageless and void;
Night upgurgling from chaos, upswirl of the noumenal seas, drape me and veil me from the illusory light of this world!
My being’s at nadir,
I pass into my solstice,
I have touched of ITS garment, the black thing IT weaves on ITS sentient looms,
While we crawl in ITS creases and guess.
Sit I in the night of ITS sleeve,
Withering into eternities,
Bowed in ITS night, in ITS might!

Benjamin de Casseres was born in Philadelphia, forty years ago, of Spanish-Hebrew parents, through whom he traces his lineal descent from the 17th century Jewish philosopher, Spinoza. Not Spinoza, however, but Nietzsche is his psychic godfather, and, needless to say, Benjamin de Casseres is a born radical. He is a master of many languages, and a deep student of art, specializing on the archaeological remains of the ancient Aztecs.

Review of “The Shadow-Eater”

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At last Benjamin De Casseres has collected his queer lucubrations into a book, which is called “The Shadow-Eater” and is published by the Wilmarth Publishing Co., New York City. He is such a devil of a fellow, this De Casseres, and so proud of it! Milton’s Satan is a piker beside him. He can defy God in more ways than Satan ever thought of and with a wealth of objurgation that would have made Milton stare with his sightless eyes.

Sometimes he makes us laugh and sometimes he makes us shudder, but mostly he fills us with a vast pity for God who, amid all his troubles with this seething world, now has this merciless rebel threatening his throne. All the same, speaking seriously, there is something Titanic in the way in which De Casseres hurls his words at the universe.

From “Current Opinion” for July 19??. Volume 49

Ben DeC – Actor?

Biographical, Misc. Items from the Web

It seems that Benjamin DeCasseres was on the silver screen! It also seems that it’s one of the lost films of the silent era as well… the magazine “The Fourth Estate” of November 4th, 1922, reports on DeC getting the offer to play the role of a newspaper editor in the movie “Anna Ascends”.

From Wikipedia:
“Anna Ascends is a 1922 American silent romantic drama film directed by Victor Fleming, and based on the play of the same title by Henry Chapman Ford. Alice Brady reprises her starring role from the 1920 Broadway play of the same name. The film is largely lost, with only a six-minute fragment still in existence.”

The website SilentEra has a small still from the film:
AnnaAscends1922-01Could that be DeC all the way in the back by the candlesticks? It looks like his hair…

Either way, here is the article:
Fourth Estate

Primitives, intro by DeCasseres

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1073660512

FIRST EDITION, one of only 350 numbered copies, SIGNED BY WEBER; the first book by the famous Spiral Press (founded by Joseph Blumenthal and A. George Hoffman). Introduction by Benjamin de Casseres. With eleven woodcuts by Weber; text printed in Pen Print Bold on hand-made English paper. In the original modernist binding after a design by Weber. New York: Spiral Press, 1926. Octavo, original decorative paper boards; without original slipcase (as usual); custom cloth box. Tasteful bookplate of Margaret Winkelman at upper left of front pastedown. Minor wear at head of spine; otherwise fine. A beautiful copy of a rare and fragile book.

Gay Book

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This is the first issue of Gay Book Magazine (January, 1933), a ‘sophisticated’ men’s magazine published by Narrative Publishers.  This magazine published fiction (“Hard to Please” by Brooks Sandborn; “Under the Cap and Bells” by Tiffany Thayer; “Illusion” by Jack Woodford), articles (“A Woman for President!” by Benjamin DeCasseres; “Why Do You Lie?” by Edmond Vance Cooke), and regular features on life in New York and Paris, Sports, Books, and Theater.  This issue includes two 8-page sections printing tinted b&w photos, generally of beautiful, provocatively-clad women.  The front cover art is by North Stuart; in addition to b&w illustrations by Stuart and others, there is a full-page ‘frontispiece’ illustration in full color on high grade white paper by Earle Bergey.  This copy is in remarkable condition; there is some rubbing to the covers’ edges, with a very little wear at the head and foot of the spine panel; the front cover is dented directly over the lower binding staple, and there is a pinhead-sized perforation there; the white-space on the rear cover displays some light foxing, and there is a small area of discoloration adjacent to the spine; the text pages are gently tanned, with a darker shading along the lower edges; the paper is quite supple; I’ve seen no folds, tears or writing.  This clean and flat copy of a ‘first issue’ is in very good/near fine condition, and, as such, a genuine rarity.  This magazine will be packed carefully and shipped via insured US Priority Mail.  Thanks for looking.

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Bio of Spinoza Owned by DeCasseres

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Up for auction is the FIRST EDITION of a work published on the 250th anniversary of the death of the 17th century Jewish-Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, entitled THE OLDEST BIOGRAPHY OF SPINOZA edited with Translation, Introduction, Annotations, Etc., by A. Wolf. Published by Lincoln MacVeagh at the Dial Press in New York in 1927. The work contains both the French and English translations of THE LIFE OF THE LATE MR. DE SPINOSA, an early 18th century work of uncertain authorship, begun just after the death of the philosopher. 196 pages. Includes photographic illustrations of the manuscript, the house in which Spinoza died, and much more. Book bound in original navy blue cloth with gilt-stamped title on spine. Book in GOOD condition, but appears to be missing frontispiece of Spinoza. A former owner has underlined some passages in pencil, and there is a bit of occasional smudging from that. Book used to belong to Benjamin de Casseres, a prolific author and journalist of the early 20th century; his signature is on the flyleaf. A solid copy. Good luck!

 

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