Vol. LXXXVIII No. 5

The
Yale Literary Magazine

Conducted by the
Students of Yale University.

“Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque Yalenses

Cantabunt Soboles, unanimique Patres.”

February, 1923.

New Haven: Published by the Editors.
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We appear to have been surrounded in these weeks by a polemic atmosphere. Tremendous controversies have proved and disproved the validity of Christianity, the inability of the Faculty and Corporation to make great men from Yale undergraduates, and whether we should be made to go to Chapel on Sundays and to recitations on other days. Editorials, communications, and private discussions continue to feed the maw of this wholesale argumentative machinery, and to the casual observer, a spirit of radicalism hovers above the campus, clouding or illuminating it as the individual chooses to suppose.

There is no place here to discuss the beneficial effect of controversy upon thought. Nor is there any need for pointing out the possibility of reform arising from the conviction which thought brings. It is the controversy itself which is interesting, especially in an institution where experience and tradition form the basis of the laws and customs. Controversy at Yale must mean an offensive begun by young minds upon what time has taught their controlling elders. And consequently, as is being seen, it takes a ton of controversy to germinate a pound of “reform”.

[138]

But young minds are impulsively active. They are impatient, and the distant hope of a change in a present state of affairs holds in itself a vast attraction. The philosophy of “all things must change”, applied to conditions as well as to matter, extends a sweet and optimistic prospect to youth. And it is to this natural tendency, as well as to any deep-rooted sincerity concerning evils, that much of our controversy may be attributed. And when a beginning has been made, a flaming question raised, there are the additional attractions of being given an opportunity to turn clever phrases, to appear in the public eye, to champion or rend in a spirit of battle. The argumentative machinery clanks frantically, and the sound and rhythm of it beats a false sincerity into the minds of the controversialists, a kind of belief founded more upon emotional than mental activity; more upon desire than knowledge.

A controversy may be said to be worth while to us only when it involves more thought than impulse. A questionaire has recently been sent broadcast through the University which is quite definite in its spirit of controversy, but which falls for no definiteness of thought. Rather, it requires the impulsive reply, the mere “yes” or “no” form. Do we (yes or no) think Sunday Chapel should be abolished? Are we (yes or no) in favor of unlimited cuts from recitations for those whose stand is above 70 per cent.? Although there is certainly no chance to turn phrases here, the philosophy of change readily asserts itself. It is so easy and delightful to change things with a slight swift affirmation or negation. Those who write “yes” to the suggestion of unlimited cuts may be the identical persons who have been complaining that certain professors require all cuts, even within the present limited range, to be made up. Nor do those hasty souls pause to consider that continuous attendance would be inevitably required under the new system through a more severe grading and a greater emphasis upon examinations. But it is so easy and delightful to write “yes”, whereas to reply in the negative would indicate a desire for the boring continuation of existing conditions!

Then, says the non-University man, what is the advantage of a system of education which stimulates emotional rather than[139] rational opinion? The answer is simply we learn through disappointments, and through a later realization of our childlike wistfulness for new things. This latter begins often as early as our Senior year, in which we realize other things as well, including our transience as undergraduates and our lack of time for conducting many of the new states of affairs which we advocate so heartily, such as complete student government. There is too much extra-curriculum activity already in our lives here to allow us to be administrators as well. Also, in Senior year, we tend to acquire more or less veneration for the force of experience and for the opinions of older minds than our own. The greatest lesson of life is dawning upon us,—that the truest form of living is one which is built upon simplicity, fundamentals, and a direction of our actions by old example.

University life, operating upon our intelligent spirit, is the emerging from the sensationalism of thought and action craved by youth, into the more simple contemplative nature of maturity. In our Freshman and Sophomore years we seek diversion almost wholly in gaudy forms. Then,—too soon, it seems—we find that we were wrong, that it is the life of the Quadrangle, the relationship of friends, the contact with the internal rather than with the external shows, which are the vital and permanent attractions. The fire-brand element is prone to vanish.

Whether all this may be considered too conservative in the present day and place; whether, in itself, it is a turning of phrases, or invites controversy by attacking controversy, is extraneous. Whether it may be thought to neglect too much the good influence of controversy upon right thinking, is another and fairer question. One thing it seeks to inculcate: a realization of the component parts of undergraduate controversy, a useful knowledge of the natural emotional forces involved which veil clarity; so that truth may be found more fully than in the replies to questionaires and in the disputes revolving about destructive editorials.

WINFIELD SHIRAS.

If Helen Trumbull had lived in the 19th, instead of in the 20th century, there would have been no turmoil in her life and little romance. But being a child of the Victorian era, rigorously instructed in the puritanism of old Connecticut, and taught to accept without question the old moral axioms of her forefathers, she was confronted, at the very outset of her career, with the conflict between her moral heritage, and the desire to cultivate her active mind. Of course, at the age of ten or twelve, no such conflict existed. What the Bible said about lying, and loving God and your neighbor seemed adequate to cover any of life’s emergencies. Marriage was taken for granted: it was a straight-forward compact with God. There was nothing to be concealed in the marriage relationship. Father and mother were just two people.

These things are all familiar to the modern reader. He has heard about them. Indeed, most readers have themselves sprung from some such atmosphere, and know, to their sorrow, how the 19th century prepared one for life. But Helen, like most of us, thought herself the exception rather than the rule. When she came home, after commencement exercises in her twelfth year, bearing the “best scholarship” cup, and a prize for a theme about the life of Christ, she experienced, for the first time, that feeling of confidence in her own mental prowess, which was to accompany her through life. Henceforth, the pleasure of exercising her mind was among the greatest of all pleasures. Henceforth, she could not be content with accepting everything on faith. And, perhaps, at this point we may place the beginning of a conflict in her nature which she never quite succeeded in solving.

Of course the difficulty grew slowly and imperceptibly. She was confirmed in the Episcopal Church. She took her vows with the utmost solemnity, her whole nature responding passionately to the mystery of her religion. After confirmation there was a deep sense of responsibility toward God, as well as an[150] appeal, derived from the beauty of the Christian conception, which aroused a strain of poetry in her. And these things were only intensified as she grew to understand the prerogatives and the subtleties of womanhood. At school she was respected for her brilliance and conscientiousness, and loved for her dark eyes and hair, her slim figure, and the frank, open-hearted way she had of talking to people. She was not a “leader”, because her intense religious faith made her a trifle “different”. Yet the girls felt that they could always go to her when assistance of any kind was needed. And the boys who fell in love with her eyes were always treated in the kindest, most sympathetic way. They did not know how much it thrilled her to have a crowd of them to “manage”, nor how many hours she had spent scheming for secret and complicated flirtations.

However, “the truth will out”, and it soon became whispered that Helen was a “flirt”—although “just in fun”. Indeed, the game held a dual fascination for her, because it not only satisfied her love of emotional excitement and mystery, but also supplied a field of activity into which her mind could overflow. Neither her teachers nor her parents recognized this. They smiled, in a reminiscent way, and rejected the thought that Helen was learning to play with fire.

When she was sixteen, she played once too often, with a boy named Harry McMichael, who was a freshman football hero at Harvard. His vigorous personality, and the almost savage way he took her hand, after she had tempted him for several days “in fun”, quite swept her away, so that her puritanism seemed all afloat in a flood of emotions. She had never thought of this contingency. Heretofore, she had been mistress, not only of her lovers, but of herself also. Yet this time the dams seemed to break. And she found herself leading Harry on, quite delicately—unsatisfied until he had kissed her. She even made him do it more than once, although, as it appeared to him, reluctantly.

After this episode her conscience roused itself from a New England slumber, and asserted the old principles, even to the verge of extreme asceticism. But there was no longer the old mystery lurking in life; and, coincidently, there was no longer the[151] old fascination in the communion service. She wrote Harry a letter saying that they had done wrong; they must never do it again. But she could not really believe this—what was there wrong about it, anyway? At the time, it was beautiful. And there ought to be nothing left for regret save perhaps the memory of that beauty. It seemed to her extremely narrow to eliminate this kind of relationship from life entirely—to sit back and wait for a stupid old husband. She read a good deal of Shelley, and managed, against all odds, to skim through a book by Havelock Ellis. Reason, she said, ought to dominate life—reason and beauty. So she smoked a cigarette and experienced a wild, imaginative thrill—a thrill which only ended in the old pangs of conscience which seemed to curse her in every new venture.

A more trying experience arrived a year later, when she met John Emerson, from Williams, flirted with him in her usual manner, and was for a second time overcome by her emotions. In this case, however, she had been even more the aggressor than in the former, and poor John, who had himself a puritan ancestry and a dim belief in the ways of God, could do nothing but respond to her clever insinuations. Four or five times they met, during the summer. Each time, it seemed to Helen that a new world had been opened up before her. Each time, the old world receded a step, though tearing with it part of her heart. Yet John announced one night, passionately, that he loved her and wanted to marry her. She was overwhelmed. She had not thought of love—like that. She did not love John. She wept.

Here at last common sense came to perform a function which religion seemed powerless to perform. John held her tightly and stroked her dark hair, but she writhed inwardly. A kind of agony petrified her. This was her work—her damnable thoughtlessness. She had made him love.

Of course it all ended in a tragedy, and she had to send John away, definitely. The old religion was sought as a refuge from strife. It afforded immeasurable comfort. God seemed clothed in His truest light—that of the forgiver—the comforter. Her heart could not worship Him enough, and her lips could not satisfy all that she had to say in prayer. True, she never gave[152] up her flirtations. They seemed to be an indispensable outlet to her nature. But experience had taught her the boundary lines which lie between men and women. This, and a refreshed enthusiasm for the church guided her life successfully for the ensuing six or seven years.

She was twenty-four when she met Roger Lockwood. It was at a fancy dress ball in Hartford, to which she had come a trifle reluctantly, since the prospect of a repetition of familiarly identical scenes did not stimulate her imagination. However, once having arrived, she found herself enjoying the gayly colored dresses and the jazz music. She quite lost herself in the crowd of faces before her. As in her coming-out year, she allowed her consciousness of self to be swept away, and, urged on by the music, confronted one partner after another with a rapid-fire of conversation and glances from her eyes. She seemed almost to dominate the room at times—especially to-night—although she could have given no very definite reason for it. Perhaps it was merely that her ever active nature was seeking some new and more thrilling experience.

Roger, on the other hand, was not participating to any great extent in the dancing. He was something of a ludicrous figure—calm, passive, tall, and dressed as a young Southern gentleman of the thirties, in brown plaid trousers, high collar, and black bow tie. He wandered listlessly from one corner of the room to another, keeping his eyes upon the figures of the dancers, but rarely cutting in. He seemed to be searching for something intangible—so intangible that he did not know what it was. He could merely contemplate the faces around him, and follow the rhythm of the music in an imaginative way. Roger was a visitor at Hartford. He was up there seeking merely for diversion. He wanted to divert his mind from the constantly recurrant thoughts of his fiancée, who had gone with her family to Europe for the winter.

Stolidly he “looked over” the girls as they went past. He was surprised to find so many of them really beautiful. There was one in particular who was dressed in the costume of the harem,—scarlet with spangles,—and whose fair, almost childish, face[153] suggested moonlight and a kind of misplaced romance. Her light hair hung prettily over her forehead. She talked with her partners in an intimate way. He was introduced to her. But he could proceed no more than a few steps before some one cut in; and although he repeated this process several times, he found at last more satisfaction in gazing at her from a distance and experiencing a tantalizing feeling in the unattainableness of her beauty. After all, it did not matter much since he was engaged to a girl fully as beautiful. Besides, there were plenty of others to dance with. And presently he became aware of a slim, dark-haired figure, in a gipsy costume, which often swept by him. He looked more closely at the face; and once he caught the mischievous, half-serious glance of her eyes.

“Who is that?” he asked his friend, standing beside him.

“Who?”

“That girl in a gipsy dress.”

“That’s Helen Trumbull. Want to meet her?”

“Yes.”

His friend dragged him by the arm into the midst of the dancers. Roger could not help thinking how ridiculous his brown plaid trousers must appear.

“Mr. Lockwood—Mr. Trumbull.”

They danced. Roger experienced a slight thrill in the way she held him. Her touch was very delicate. But she kept her hand perhaps a trifle too far toward the back of her neck.

“Here I am at last,” he said. “I have been looking for you all evening.”

“How tragic, to be kept in such agony of suspense for three hours!”

She said it so quickly that he was put on his mettle. “Has it only been three hours? It seemed like six!”

She laughed. “May I ask why you delayed so long?”

“I was stuck.”

“Oh, too bad. With whom?”

“With Dorothy Hollingshead.” He referred to the girl in the scarlet harem costume.

“Oh, really! How exceptional! I suppose you are still stuck.”

[154]

“No,” he replied; “I’m free at last.”

They looked at each other and laughed. But Roger thought, “Hell, this is platitudinous”; and felt that there was more to be found in her personality than these rather strained mental gymnastics. “Let’s sit out,” he suggested on the spur of the moment.

“Already? Why I hardly know you!”

“You might get to know me better.”

“Would it be worth while?” she looked up at him, on the verge of laughter. He nodded solemnly. And presently she stopped dancing and led him by the arm out of the room.

“This,” she said, as she sat down in a large gilt-edged arm-chair, “is the most unconventional thing I have ever done.”

“Really? You must be something of a model of excellence.”

“Oh, do you think I could be? I should like to be.”

He wondered how seriously to take this remark.

“Oh,” said she, “you’re a skeptic. You don’t believe any woman is a model of excellence.”

“I have never found one.”

She turned away prettily.

“Well,” said Roger, “it isn’t a question of models; it’s a question of more or less.”

“And where would you put me—more or less?”

He hesitated, seeking for a clever twist to give the words.

“Oh there! You see! I have made a wrong impression.”

“I was going to say more. But sometimes my first impressions are wrong.”

“And I suppose you would like to have them wrong?”

How cleverly she had touched upon a forbidden subject!

“Yes,” he said, “I would.”

They both laughed then, for it seemed that they had already attained a kind of intimacy. He was aware that her charms emanated not only from the way she spoke these, but also from the whole expression of her face and her body, which was tantalizing—a vague innuendo. He compared her, not unfavorably, to Georgiana, his absent fiancée. But then he cursed himself for a fool. Georgiana and he had grown up together.

They returned to the dance, chatting easily, arm in arm. But when supper came, which was an informal affair, he found himself[155] leading her into a secluded corner of the room, where they settled themselves into their chairs, and sipped coffee luxuriously.

“I think you’re a fast worker,” she said, right in the middle of a silence.

He smiled. “I was about to say the same thing of you.”

“Oh, but it wouldn’t be true—of a girl.”

“No?”

“No.”

The finality of her voice would have been convincing, had it not been for the expression of her mouth. But it was easy, from this point, to branch off into a more serious discussion about the relative functions of girls and boys. In order to ascertain her reaction, he ventured the theory that a woman was always justified in her flirtations; that the beauty of the moment, in love, was all that really counted; and that an engagement was really not binding if either party should lose interest. She disagreed with this, and said:

“I think an engagement is sacred. Flirting—well, that’s the food of life, you know. But it’s one of my principles never—”

She paused, fearing that she was becoming a trifle too frank with this comparative stranger.

“Well, go on. Never—”

“No, I don’t know you well enough to tell you.”

He laughed. “Well, it’s quite obvious what you were going to say.”

She bit her lip and colored, with a flush of anger.

“I suppose you think me a fool,” she said.

“I don’t. I admire you. I think an engagement is sacred—of course. But what I meant was that often men are carried away—in a moment—by a look or a gesture—by anything. And I can’t exactly blame them for it. I can’t see how a man is expected to live up to his ideal, in a case like that.”

“No.” She seemed to ponder the question carefully. “But don’t you see, it’s the woman’s fault—when men are carried away?”

[156]

They looked at each other, then, each recognizing the potentialities of their own situation. The look was intense. It sent a flush across Helen’s cheek.

“Perhaps you are engaged. How little I know about you! Are you?”

He hesitated. “No,” he said at length. What did it matter?—this one evening!

“Ah then,” she replied, “the sky’s the limit.”

“No; the stars!”

They both laughed and proceeded with their coffee. Somehow the conversation turned upon religion. They grew more and more serious. He respected her beliefs, although he did not hold them himself.

“There was only once in my life,” she said, alluding vaguely to the past, “when I didn’t believe. But I was growing up at the time. I was fascinated by Byron’s character and used to picture him as an ideal lover. Then I read some of Mathew Arnold. Have you ever read him.”

“Yes—long ago—at college.”

She smiled. “Long ago?”

“Well, four or five years ago—I don’t remember exactly.”

“Oh, you must read him again. He will give you a new point of view.”

“Did he give you that—that theory about engagements?”

“No.”

“Where did you get that?”

“Oh—why—from myself, I guess. It’s common sense, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Isn’t that the way morals are made—from common sense? Don’t your principles, as you call them, come mostly from your own common sense, rather than from your religion?”

She hesitated. “Well, put it this way: I think out my principles, and religion gives me the strength to live up to them. There now—that’s almost like Mathew Arnold.”

There was quite a long silence.

[157]

“My, but we’ve gotten serious,” she said at last, and looked at him, as though to see if he were playing with her. But it was evident that he was not.

Presently they returned again to the dance.

Roger decided to prolong his visit to Hartford, and in the course of the next few days he saw her several times. She did not live very far out of town. For her part, Helen found herself dangerously fascinated by him. Whenever she was with him, she was led to suggest things “in fun”—things which would actually be quite contrary to her puritanical principles. And he always seemed to respond, up to the very limit, although he had not so much as tried to take her hand. She reflected that she had never flirted quite so violently with any man, without having him spoil the excitement by an attempt to leave the realms of the intellectual, and burst into the physical. Roger almost satisfied her highest ideal.

She asked Mary Waterworth about him one night, and Mary told her that he was engaged. Mary even showed her a picture of Georgiana, which Helen gazed at for a long time. Georgiana had light hair and large eyes, which were probably brown, and almost classic features. She was very lovely, Helen thought. The expression of her face seemed to say, “I understand Roger. I belong to Roger. There is more to bind us together than a night’s flirtation. There is the whole past.” Helen was jealous in spite of herself. The picture, which was mounted in a large silver frame, and which gazed out at the world innocently enough, fascinated her. She could with difficulty remove her eyes from it.

“What are you looking at?” asked Mary.

“Nothing—I—I thought the face seemed familiar.”

Why, why had Roger lied to her? What could be his motive in telling her that he was not engaged? It seemed altogether despicable of him—after her direct question.

The awful thought came to her that he had been playing with her. She had always feared this—that some man would see through her superficialities, and play with her. She drew a mental picture of Roger’s calm, ironical smile, and his conceit in his own success. Oh!

[158]

That night they were to drive out to the country, to a barn dance. Roger arrived in his roadster at the appointed hour. Helen stepped into the car frigidly, not deigning to take his extended hand. She was going to punish him—punish him—for leading her on as he had. But no sooner had the car started than he made her laugh at some foolish joke; and half of the frost was thawed. Then, too, he was sitting very close to her. And he had that damnably attractive look in his eyes. She decided to defer the punishment—for a number of “reasons”. It would spoil the whole evening—their last evening, since John was bound for New York the next day. There would be so much fun for both of them—to go ahead—to-night—just as they had been going. Finally—and this decided her—by holding her knowledge of his engagement secretly in the back of her mind, she would be able to inflict a subtler and much more severe punishment upon him when he was not expecting it. She would be in the position of an opportunist, with hidden weapons ready for the emergencies. So she sat back comfortably in the seat beside him, and talked in the most fascinatingly intimate way that she knew.

They stopped at the top of a long hill, and he swung the car to the side of the road, so that they could see far out across the moonlit Connecticut valley.

“We’re out of gas,” he said with a smile, “and besides, I want to look at the view.”

Helen rather liked the way he said it, since the engine was still turning over healthily. Still, she hesitated. As he reached for the switches and turned out the lights, she knew, deep in her nature, that she could not control this situation. They had better drive on. But then, there was the thrill of excitement, of the new experience. Again she found “reasons”. Why, it would be all right. John was in love with Georgiana. There was no danger. He was a sane, honest man. He desired, like herself, merely the thrill of the moment. Men who are engaged are safe. Yet even as this thought flashed into her mind, she felt his hand upon hers, and his arm around her shoulders. For a moment the picture of Georgiana flashed before her eyes. She saw, again, Georgiana’s beautiful hair and her supreme expression. Then it[159] was that she gave herself up to Roger entirely, for the vision of the other girl made him seem even more intensely romantic.

Her principles! Where were they now? After Roger had started up the car again, the whole past seemed to cry out to her that she had been unworthy of herself.

“Roger,” she said, holding his arm, “we ought not to have done that?”

“Why not?”

“Because—you—I know you are engaged.”

He turned upon her, a little fiercely. “How did you know that?”

“Some one told me.”

“Well, what if I am?” he said. “I suppose you think me insincere—and a beast.”

“No, I was thinking of myself. I knew you were engaged. I ought not to have allowed you to go ahead.”

“Hell,” he said, “it isn’t your fault. It’s Georgie’s fault. I didn’t want her to go abroad. I told her that I couldn’t stand it. But she laughed, not being able to understand a man’s point of view. She laughed and said that if I really loved her, it would be easy. But it isn’t easy, and I do love her.”

“Have you loved her—long?”

“All my life. We were brought up together. I can’t remember any girls at all, without having the impression of Georgie mixed up with them somehow.”

“And you have done—this—before?”

“Occasionally. You see, Georgie is a peculiar character. She is too exacting. She sails serenely on—like an angel—imagining that everyone else is an angel also. Sometimes, when she deserts me for a long time, I don’t live up to scratch. I always complain to her, and tell her about it. But she laughs, and calls me silly.”

“How long have you been engaged?”

“Actually, only about six months.”

“Oh.” The problem fascinated Helen. And it was, for her, an important problem, since she wished to ascertain how much evil she had done. She began to feel extremely unhappy, not[160] only because she had broken her principles, but mainly because she had lost her supremacy as mistress of the situation. Artistically, she had failed. And she writhed at the thought of how the punishment which she had intended to inflict upon Roger had turned itself back upon her.

On the other hand, she told herself inwardly that neither was Roger really in love with Georgiana, nor Georgiana with Roger. She reiterated this several times. It gave her comfort. And she justified her presumption on the grounds that Roger was too easily led astray, and Georgiana apparently too casual, for any very lasting relationship to exist between them.

Toward the close of that evening she began to feel more the mistress of the situation again.

Of course, after Roger had gone back to New York, she experienced some qualms. Indeed, there were times when it made her utterly miserable, to think what she had done, and when Georgiana’s picture would come before her eyes again to arouse a poignant feeling of remorse. Her flirtations had not only been unfair to Roger: they would be considered despicable by Georgiana. And somehow she loved and admired Georgiana. At such times, religion seemed the only outlet to her emotions, and the altar the only pedestal upon which she could place her heart. Thus she was comforted.

Nevertheless, that winter proved to be a period of emotional ups and downs. Roger visited Hartford more and more frequently. Each time he came the same scenes were enacted, alone, somewhere, in the little roadster, on the highway. It was simply inevitable. To begin with, he had kissed her once; and ever after that his kisses seemed not sinful, but natural. She found, also, that he filled a definite place in her life. She needed him. And this need was only the more strengthened by the gradual association of him with her religious emotions. Starting from the feelings of remorse, her prayers gradually changed from fervent requests for strength to keep Roger away, to pleas, as fervent, that he come back again soon. Georgiana was thrust into the background. Although she did not admit it, Helen was in love. In a sense it was only her just share of the spoils that she have[161] these short hours with Roger, while Georgiana was gallivanting about Europe.

But such a state of affairs couldn’t last long. Helen had completely rationalized her principles, and Roger had completely ignored his duties toward Georgiana. He woke up to this fact one day. He was at first disturbed, but later cleared up the matter a little, with a grin, by saying that for a lover there were really no duties. The mere fact that it seemed to be a duty for him to leave Helen alone, proved a great deal—proved, in fact, that he was no longer in love with Georgiana. What a stupid ass he had been, all this time. He was in love with the past, but not with Georgiana. He had allowed a childish emotion to dominate his maturity. Georgiana was a lovely dream; but she could never be his wife. Ah! Who else—who else—but Helen? His mind fluctuated. It hovered indecisively for several weeks. He saw Helen again. They parted, almost tearfully. And then the only course seemed to be to write Georgiana, and break the engagement.

Here was a small tragedy. But he accomplished the task. And the tragic feelings aroused were transferred over to Helen’s personality, making his love for her all the more compelling.

Then he told her, one night, what he had done.

For her, it was very much like a pitcher of cold water poured on one who is half asleep. With a gasp she was roused from her rationalized dreams. The most terrible aspect of it was that the deed was already done. It was irretrievable. She had instigated it. She had allowed the whole affair to drift to this conclusion. She could articulate nothing, but held closely to Roger, sobbing—torn by the conflicting passions within her. Never before had she actually seen God face to face. But now He came to her, as a terrible, revengeful angel, out from the past; while Roger, who sat there, seemed to represent the other extreme of her being—her mortal love. Call it casual love—you Christian hypocrites; call it anything you will; it was nevertheless present, in the person of this man, and its power over her was irresistible. It seemed to her that her nature would break in two. Especially after she had sent Roger away, with her promise to give him an answer on the morrow—especially then, alone in her room, she experienced[162] a terrible feeling of being cut in half. The God of her ancestors was simply merciless. “Why—why? What have I done?” she cried. The answer was that she had flirted; she had forgotten her principles—one moment—one fleeting moment; she had rationalized; she had debased her own self-respect. Yet she was in love, now, and he was in love with her. There was only one course to be taken.

Perhaps two lovers never embraced more passionately than these two when Roger learned the next day what her decision had been. He understood, almost as well as she, the tremendous storm within her. He understood that he alone could create a haven where the storm might not enter, and where this delicate, fitful ship could lie happily at anchor.

They were married quite peacefully in an old New England church, and she went with him to live in New York.

Winter passed. Spring came. Georgiana returned. It is only after some such calm as this that one can look back and contemplate the true causes of a storm. Helen found, after she had lived intimately with Roger for a short time, that there were a great many things yet to be learned about each other’s characters. Not only this. There were a great many things to be forgiven in each other’s characters—more things, perhaps, than the average man and wife can forgive. In the first place, she was vivacious; he was stolid. She had a quick mind, essentially French; his mind was slow and Anglo-Saxon. She was loath to recognize these things; she tried to rationalize them. But they were there continually to remind her that she had a very difficult situation to manage, if she were to maintain her supremacy. Of course she loved Roger. But it was not the same as in the days when she had flirted with him.

Georgiana had come back—that was the difficulty. One day she heard Roger return from work, and since he did not go directly to greet her as usual, she started toward the parlor to greet him. Yet at the door she paused, for she saw him in front of the window, bending over something. Helen slipped behind the curtain and peered through the crack. He held a picture in his hand;[163] and as he went over to the light to look at it more intensely, she saw who it was.

“God, but she was a beautiful girl!” said her husband, as he gazed for a long time into those deep eyes.

Presently he turned, went over to a drawer in the bottom of the book-case, and started to put the picture away. Helen retired quickly from the curtain. What troubled her most of all was Roger’s queer psychology, which concealed these things. Then, too, there was the distasteful, though emotional, necessity of obtaining the picture, and destroying it, without discovery.

RUSSELL W. DAVENPORT.

When we speak of an artist we do not think of a day-laborer. Somehow there is a connotation of long fingers and delicate features, an implication as of flowers, a suggestion of the super-fine. About him as a halo is the word beauty.

Whatever materials he lays hold of, he plucks out of it beauty: out of the dung-hill the flower, out of the chill moon passion, out of the night light, out of the noon-tide shade. If he is found lying in the gutter, as Oscar Wilde has remarked, he will at least be looking at the stars.

The artist is primarily a temperament. He is a point of view. Life may be a dome of many-colored glass, and the white radiance of eternity thrown through it to our minds in varying colors, but the artist sees them all, and so sees white, or sees none of them and sees black. He looks at life comprehensively, and seeks a unity. Where another is content with detail, the artist demands structure. The general are genial enough to take life as it comes, and are not concerned that it is chaos. The artist either goes forth to meet life, or evades it utterly in both cases for the purpose of making it cosmos. While others are content with a moderate dividend of experience, the artist must have all of experience, or none of it. He must be either a Pan or a Narcissus, a universalist, or an egoist.

The Philistine world talk of artists as something not undesirable certainly as past events, but undesired as present calamities. There is in the air a sense of anxiety concerning them. They make the complacent so uncomfortable. So has the world damned them as unique, apart from the majority, being fearful of their destiny, and has evolved, because of this fear, the false dogma of spontaneous creation in art. A Dante is born the author of the Divine Comedy; a Shelley rises a child from the womb the inevitable father of the Prometheus and the Cenci; a George Meredith is given a somewhat humbler birth in a fashionable[165] tailor’s shop the fated creator of the “Egoist” and Modern Love.

At any play, novel or poem in which destiny played such an omnipotent part the world would turn up its nose, and say: “Absurd! That’s not real, that’s not life.” But in the case of the world’s artists it pleases the general to say: “Well, well, life is stranger than fiction, is it not?”

A modern philosopher has written, and it seems to me most wisely, “Our temperaments are in some sort our destinies”. Now let me admit thus far the world’s conclusion. The true artist is born like the rest of us with a certain temperament, which is in some sort his destiny. But it is at this point we must leave the world. For if it were only this birthright that was required, certainly there would be in this present day a plethora of geniuses.

The artist is primarily a temperament, but secondarily he is an artist. The importance I attach to this secondary cause of creative ability is the importance of the unknown, or at best the unrecognized. For it is in the world’s tradition to ignore this fact. Only the geniuses themselves have spoken for the artistry of art.

Let us consider this paradox for a moment. The world’s idea of an artist as born the child of destiny, conceived in the womb of Fate, fore-doomed a priori; and the world’s idea of all other men as free, at least in part, to form and fashion their own daily lives.

When we speak of an artist we do not think of a day-laborer, nor of labor. We are amused at Whistler’s famous repartee to Ruskin’s lawyer when he asked him how he dared charge so much for an hour’s work, and Whistler replied, “Not for an hour’s work, but for the knowledge of a lifetime,” but as a jury we are not convinced by it. And yet in following the development of certain great poets I am more and more capable of imagining what I know to be true, that, granted the temperament, genius is made by intense industry; and that it is labor which causes the difference between the great man and the unhappy dilettante.

Dante’s “Vita Nuova” is merely a promise of the Divine Comedy. His greatness consists not in his having made, but in his having kept that promise. You have in this little book a beautiful example of the artistic temperament, and a brilliant[166] statement of the methods of greatness: “Then it came to pass that, walking on a road alongside of which was flowing a very clear stream, so great a desire to say somewhat in verse came upon me, that I began to consider the method I should observe.... Then I say that my tongue spoke as if it moved of its own accord, and said, ‘Ladies that have intelligence of Love.’ These words I laid up in my mind with great joy, thinking to take them for my beginning; wherefore then, having returned to the above-mentioned city, after some days of thought I began a canzone with this beginning.”

Now I do not think that walking along a road by a river and thinking of a girl one loves, and speaking, as if one’s tongue moved of its own accord, a line of verse concerning her is an unusual performance. In fact, given the temperament, it seems a very natural one. I venture to say that no one who has ever written poetry has not done the same. And Dante’s resulting poem is not extraordinary. It certainly could not at the time have suggested by itself its author as a compeer of ὁ ποιήτη. It exemplifies the artistic temperament, and is indicative of it. By it we know Dante to be a poet. Of his greatness as yet we know nothing.

It is fortunate that at the close of this book of his youth this young and intense Italian mentions a vision by which was disclosed to him a secret: “After this sonnet, a wonderful vision appeared to me, in which I saw things which made me resolve to speak no more of this blessed one, until I could more worthily treat of her. And to attain to this, I study to the utmost of my power, as she truly knows. So that, if it shall please him through whom all things live that my life be prolonged for some years, I hope to say of her what was never said of any woman.”

Dante was born a poet, but only after seeing this vision of Beatrice which revealed to him the necessity of artistry did he enter upon his new life of greatness in the middle of the way of which he wrote the Divine Comedy. His method was as simple as truth. He studied to the utmost of his power, as she truly knows. You will remember the creation of the Divine Comedy made him lean for many years.

So Dante, so Shelley; Shelley who is the example par excellence[167] of the genius born to make his life an infancy, and sing his fill, pouring forth his soul in profuse strains of unpremeditated art. For when we read critically Queen Mab, we are forced to admit that it is at best a mediocre creation of little weight in the scales of beauty or of truth. The development to the Prometheus is swift, but it is achieved by the method of industry.

You will remember how Shelley read all day every day, how he read on long walks in the country-places, how he read in London streets walking down Piccadilly, crossing Pall Mall. You will remember how Trelawny describes him in Italy standing all day leaning against the mantelpiece of his living-room, not moving, intensely reading, and not stopping to eat, not even when Trelawny left a plate of food by him, and went out. You will remember how he worked on the Revolt of Islam, leaving Mary, and going off to a little island, and writing all day without food or distraction, undisturbed by the attractions of nature, being part of them, and as them lost in the existence of his art.

Queen Mab was the work of a young untutored artistic mind. The Prometheus, the Cenci, the Defence of Poetry are the creations of a genius. The change is unusual, but not miraculous. His industry was more intense than most, for he accomplished in less than ten years that for which most geniuses require a lifetime. From the stage in 1811 when “Reason is all in all”, and “poetical beauty ought to be subordinated to the inculcated moral” to the stage in 1820 in the “Defence of Poetry” where “There is no want of knowledge respecting what is wisest and best in morals, government and political economy.... But we want the creative faculty to imagine what we know,” and to the contemporaneous Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, where Reason is no longer all in all and “the awful shadow of some unseen power” is

From the early stage to the late there is a long road of intense labor over which Shelley in his mad and impetuous way ran like Pheidippides at top-speed the race of death and immortality.

[168]

“No doubt Shelley’s bad health in the autumn of 1817,” writes one of his biographers, “was partly caused by overwork, for in that year he had written as much poetry as would take ten years in the life of a less impetuous writer.”

All his life Shelley spent in piling up knowledge from forbidden mines of lore. With more energy than any other poet Shelley performed the Herculean labors of greatness, and so swiftly was it done that the world has fallen into the error of considering him as a bird who sang inevitable songs.

In these two cases I have shown what seems to me to be powerful evidence of the fact that, although artists are born, geniuses are made. I have shown the methods of greatness as applied to the lives of two great men. Actually, perhaps, I have been talking about the artistry of the artist.

Let us turn for a moment to evidence of this same method of industry as applied to an individual work, more strictly, perhaps, the artistry of art.

“Love in the Valley” is unquestionably one of the great lyrics of English literature. As unquestionably, I think, in its first published form, it was a very mediocre, if not an utterly bad poem. Let me quote you the first verse as it stood in the early edition:

This is indeed a supple young lady. Consider that she is standing, and crouching with her knees folded up, while she lies asleep in the shade. I fancy it is a troubled sleep. Consider, too, that in this verse there is an unhappy repetition of the word folded,—the last mention of that word being in the wrong tense. Consider that this is the first version of the first verse of one of the few great lyrics. It is a poor thing, at best. There are flashes of talent, but so are there in a thousand lyrics of young poets, nothing of whose work is counted immortal.

[169]

But George Meredith was great. With the industry of the great he came back to this poem. Lo! it has arisen from the grave.

The artist is primarily a temperament, but secondarily he is an artist, and his artistry, and the artistry of his art are what determine his greatness. Geniuses are born, and are made? But many are born, while few are made.

I think it is our duty to encourage greatness, even, if we, ourselves, have not the creative ability to imagine what we know.

MAXWELL E. FOSTER.

Whenever, on a trip abroad, I went into one of the famous galleries to discover my reactions to the great works of art therein exhibited, I was struck by the realization that this was quite impossible. I found that I was confused by all that I heard about these things beforehand. The critics I had been advised to read, the inevitable guide-books, and my friends with their free scraps of information seemed all in a conspiracy to bewilder me; I was jealous of having my privilege of praising and condemning taken away and of being permitted only to ratify.

It is useless to say that one may rid oneself of such encumbrances. Coldness toward the official guides and an active disdain for the guide-books will not solve the problem; for Mr. Baedecker is, after all, one of the last to introduce us to the arts,—we do not arrive at his authoritative though concise eulogies totally uninformed by any means. While one may not have been made ready by intensive courses, the report of fame is not published merely for those who take them, and you cannot escape hearsay and the wealth of criticism that passes on the tide of conversation. Even curt phrases such as, “You must go and see this!” or “Oh, you would love that!” are to me insidious, and the type of gossip which they represent makes a premature effect inevitable. In fact, an educated person wandering in a well-known exhibition needs no guidance, other than names and authors, to recall everything to him.

I suppose those schoolgirls one meets abroad, daughters of the wealthy studying “art” in its habitat, are the worst off in this respect. You see them marching in herds through the museums led by their formidable teachers, stopping to gaze and murmur and look at the people passing while they are furnished with the necessary facts. By the time they are finished with text-books, scrap-books, and, lastly, exhaustive studies of the originals, no saint can hide a toe from them. They know everything, particularly dates. Leonardo was great; the primitives “have such feeling[171] and are so naïve”; the teacher’s favorites are their favorites. I sometimes wonder why they don’t carry it all a step further. Why not organize it? Why not “Three long cheers for Raphael now, girls! One—two—three—?” The middle-aged English maidens who form so large a part of the tourist mob in Italy are another set of victims. Steeped in their tawdry little enthusiasms, they always go at things hard and correctly. If they like a thing, their appreciation is like squirting a hose on it. One sees them make a mistake once in a while and admire an atrocity. Nothing could be more serene than their correction of such mistakes. I saw it happen once before a statue of Hercules. It appears that the god was not doing what he should be; he was looking for a giant to wrestle with instead of sweeping the stables or something of the kind. They had attended to the wrong statue, obviously, but their waste of five important minutes was their only chagrin and the hose was simply switched, perhaps squirting with a little less force now—as though punctured somewhere.

Granted, at any rate, that you do not come empty handed to the feast, some are of the opinion that if you have studied an object, it is only reasonable to suppose that you will be the more interested: that research enhances its appeal. This appears to be logical. A full appreciation is to be achieved only through an understanding of methods—of the points of view required to get at the stirring qualities a thing possesses.

On the other hand, one hears that painting and the rest of the arts hold the mirror up to nature, and it seems strange that we are not furnished handbooks to the current exhibitions of the latter. “You ought to know something about them!” we are told when we go to the galleries. Well, if this predigestion may be furnished us by our betters for our sight-seeing, why may we not have it ready at hand for our days in the country? Why not look up the good and bad points of a sunny day before leaving the house, for instance? Or know from a greater, deeper Ruskin in exactly what the “strength” of winter, as an artist, lies and where to look for his weaknesses? Why, in other words, cannot both types of aesthetic appreciation be dealt with in the same free manner?

[172]

Thus the problem is made real by the seeming validity of both points of view. And I do not see a solution.

I believe that the modern idea of education is an enemy of individuality in the average person interested in works of art. Not that any man is insincere, though it goes hard against the grain for him to throw aside the sophistication he has been a long time acquiring and be simple: to kick his education out of the way as it were and make a path for himself. To be caught overtaxing our slim knowledge of the world and thereby to appear ridiculous is no doubt disagreeable enough; but far more do we fight shy of exposing any virgin soil. It seems so silly not to appear well informed, particularly when one has the proof at hand. Besides, it is a temptation in a more complicated sense. Why should not a man bend every effort to see in fine works the things that many minds of a brilliancy sharper than his own have seen? Perhaps it is best just to ratify, or to satisfy ourselves that we are at one with the great concensus of judgments—that all’s well with our souls, at any rate. But if we come to judge for ourselves, we are as judges who before seeing the evidence have listened to the unanimous verdicts of countless others ranked wiser than themselves.

As I see it, to be in sympathy with truth in this form or in any other is a paradox except by natural inclination. To struggle against it until we reconcile ourselves to something that may, or, in the last analysis, may not be so, does not seem entirely satisfactory. And I believe that a person cultivated according to modern standards is unable to arrive at a definite conclusion of the kind in question by following his natural inclination. He may survive the temptation, more subtle in action than in its abstract nakedness, that I have outlined, but if he does so it is a resistance fraught with effort and as such harmful. The very determination of a person to do justice to his individuality spoils the adventure. The joy of a clear reaction is lost: that is the truth of the matter.... If I see this statue by so and so all I have ever heard about it and him flocks in upon me. At once I am all at sea. I am impressed by its reputation; my knowledge of it is large and solid before me. Either I notice things which otherwise would not[173] have been obvious, or, more probably, I fight my prejudice and go too far in the opposite direction, wildly exclaiming that I will be independent. I am trying to get my balance. I know that this may be done, but if I succeed in it, it is tedious work and to be accomplished only by making a series of involved compensations; and above all, it is hard to keep from doubting the truth of the result. Would I have been so impressed?—I say in my search for a genuine emotion;—if only I were unhampered! The delicate mechanism of my appreciation has been tampered with.

I find that if I go to look at some new work concerning which the criticism of the many is not yet crystallized, it is with relish and a fine sense of relief. I have the same feeling when, after studying under tedious tuition some novel of a great author, I pick up another book of his to read alone. Now then, I wonder, what is he like after all? For I am my own final arbiter whatever happens; and I enjoy to the full my privilege of judging what I see. This new thing at least I face as a free individual, as one would like to face men, shorn of their reputations. I can discover a swift, imperious dislike of it or love it vigorously, and not share any orthodox enthusiasms. Lavish spontaneity is briefly in the throne.

W. T. BISSELL.

The Cathedral. By Hugh Walpole. (The Macmillan Company, 1922.)

There are two classes of men who attain a piercing perception of the fundamental truths beneath the mantle of social usage which is loosely termed culture, a mantle which only serves to detract the senses from the real goal of human activities. One of these types is the stoic mentalist, to whom everything is mind and reason. The other is the emotional, uncontrolled realist, who lives for pleasure and dreams of ideals. Both of these divergent types are able to see clearly the foibles which permeate the life of mankind; the first because he realizes human weaknesses and thereby refrains from falling into indulging in them, while the second delves into the experiences and pleasures of the senses and comes to a realization of the futility of it all.

Mr. Walpole has taken this antithesis as the principal theme in his latest work, and the result is Canon Ronder and Davary. The power of these two characters, however, is suggested rather than described, and Mr. Walpole’s genius of omission is as commendable as his power of description. The perpetual controversy of the Church—between that which was once new and that which is ever rising to become the newer—is treated dramatically by attaching the teachings of both to human characters and having them live lives according to their interpretation of such teachings; the relative superiority of the opposing doctrines is thus put to the test. The splendor of the Church is seen by eyes from under different points of view, and discord arises between the officers of the Church. Worldly ambitions and thwarted passions are well depicted by Mr. Walpole, while an intensely dramatic strain is refreshed by the youthful love affair between the Bishop’s daughter and her sweetheart. “The Cathedral” is a work of fiction which deserves to be ranked among the best—because it is so unlike fiction.

H. H. S.

[175]

The Hill of Dreams. By Arthur Machen. (Alfred Knopf Company.)

This book is new only to the American public. Since its first appearance in England a number of years ago, its popularity and power has grown phenomenally; Knopf could scarcely have left it out of his collection of best modern books. It is sure to make a lasting impression here upon all those who are able to love and appreciate the remarkable beauties of a real prose style.

But, withal, I believe the book to be weaker than Carl Van Vechten would admit. I believe it to be weak in the same manner, and for the same reasons, I am inclined to decry the theses of many modern writers. In a way, “The Hill of Dream” is a study in the Psychology of Insanity. In a way, books like “Ulysses” and “Babbitt” are studies in Sociology and Psychology and whatnot. And, frankly, I do not like my science with my literature.

All this sort of intellectualism strives honestly for the truth; “The Hill of Dreams” attains a unique and unrivalled beauty, but any plot which selects one human specimen, and insists upon our microscopic interest in him, following the author’s experiments to the bitterest of ends, asks of us a little too much. These things are like too-lengthy poems, which cannot sustain our emotions through all their tomes, howsoever clever and beautiful they may be. Our complex minds require more complexity in our literature, more variation, less study and more story, than they give us. Personally, again, I prefer “Vanity Fair” to the most beautiful “-ology” ever to be written.

But that is far afield from “The Hill of Dreams”, and I should be truly sinful to lose a reader for it by rhapsodizing. It is beautiful prose, it is—after its own fashion—an interesting story, and it is certainly true to a peculiar little minority of human life. In these days when dramatic value must be subjective to be great, it is a great book.

D. G. C.

A Hind in Richmond Park. By W. H. Hudson. (E. P. Dutton.)

Reading “A Hind in Richmond Park” is like going on a long walk over rolling fields and hillsides in the face of a stiff[176] breeze. There is a tang and freshness in the book which is exhilarating. You feel as if you were with Mr. Hudson in his wanderings. As you open the book he smiles at you and takes your hand and you are his. He takes you walking in England or riding across the Argentine pampas and talks to you about the sights and sounds en route, rambling smoothly from one thought to another.

He calls himself a field naturalist, but he is much more than that word implies even in its best sense. He is a poet of nature; a sort of modern Chaucer in his whole-hearted delight in and appreciation of the minute details in nature. The reader will find scattered through the pages many of his own inarticulate musings set down with charming simplicity and depth of feelings. Mr. Hudson talks to you about smells, winds and sounds and you find that you are listening to an expression of many of your own thoughts.

The material of the book is a strange admixture of anecdotes, science, and common sense which every now and then reaches an almost poetical plain of thought. It is neither a collection of essays, nor a journal, nor a narrative; it is really a set of printed conversations—a member of that delightful species that may be picked up for a half-hour’s reading, and laid aside again without the charm being broken. Nor is this because the subjects fail to arouse interest. Anyone who has caught nature off her guard, who has walked abroad after a thunder shower in dry weather, or who has tramped past newly-ploughed fields, or lain among the cowslips on a crystal-bright May morning with the fresh south wind in his face, will find a source of quiet pleasure in “A Hind of Richmond Park”. He will forget that there is ice and snow outside and too much tobacco smoke within, and will shut his eyes and dream of pleasant summer days of long ago.

M. T.

The Waste Land. By T. S. Eliot. (Boni & Liveright, 1922.)

Any poem hailed by most of the really important critics of this country and of England as “the most significant of the[177] generation” would naturally compel our attention. “The Waste Land” does not cease to do that even after constant re-reading. Although we are eventually convinced of the opinion just quoted, our peculiar conception of its significance may vary a great deal. It would seem to me it lies in its relation to the future of poetry. Mr. Eliot has led poetry to the cross-roads and offered her a choice. She must either follow him along the path which he has demonstrated with eloquent conviction is disfigured beyond hope by the tracks of many centuries or else branch off to a new untravelled road. The poem is enormous and epochal by virtue of its aesthetic implications. It is pathetically foolish to find justification for its vast incongruities and obscurities in its broad design or in isolated passages of beauty. Those who are doing the latter give it an interpretation which its author manifestly did not intend. If his purpose had been to create simple lyricism there would be little sense in drowning it in a maelstrom of references to over thirty books, written in several languages, and ranging from Sanskrit maxims to American “rags”.

There can be no denial, however, that there is a definite and organized pattern in the crazy-quilt. Even such lines as,

are an integral part of the general plan. Superficially, that plan has to do with the sterility of emotion in modern life and the futility of human aspirations in all ages. But his most subtle proof of the latter is to be found in the very form of the poem itself with its concrete negation of all the most cherished ideals of aesthetics. Eliot has shown us in this, as in his other work, that he is capable of writing perfect verse in any number of conventional modes. In “The Waste Land” he gives us a sample of each with the implication that there is not one of them but is as worn-out and vulgarized as the London desert.

This is my reason for believing the most profound significance of the poem consists in the threat it throws in the face of poetry. Will she continue to adorn herself in motley made up of the[178] battered fabrics of past triumphs? Or, on the other hand, will some one come offering her what she most needs to survive, something beautiful in its very freshness? Perhaps we should be thankful for “The Waste Land”, as we are always thankful for a warning signal. But we have no need to desire another.

W. T.

The Forcing House. By Israel Zangwill. (The Macmillan Company.)

Reading Mr. Zangwill we are often reminded of a rhyme which Olive Herford appended to a cartoon of that author in his “Confessions of a Caricaturist”:

In “The Forcing House”, the ever-original “Izzi” has attempted an even more impossible task than the one he set for himself in “The Cockpit”, to which it is the sequel. He has attempted to dramatize the main feature of the Russian Revolution and the confusions of an attendant Bolshevism. The dramatist has proceeded in the conventional style of an allegory, but an allegory peculiar to Mr. Zangwill. Though the whole is vastly confused, each impression is clear enough and we finally emerge from the long, bewildering maze of plots and counterplots, anarchies and despotisms to find to our astonishment a remarkably precise and clear understanding of the political and social conditions of present day Eastern Europe. The chronicler offers no illusions. The whole is plainfully plain.

At the very beginning the author scents the weakness of the radicals. The Jewish Banker and the fanatic Riffoni are talking:

But it is not until the third act that the Duke D’Azolls lays bare the full misconception of the Doctrine Lenin: “Not a paradise of blossoming brotherhood, not a natural growth under God’s heaven, but a Socialism ripened prematurely under the heat of compulsion and watered with blood; a Socialism under a sky of glass, unstable, sterile.... And forced—good God!—from what seed? Constricting figs in greenhouse pots will precipitate them artificially, but there is high authority for doubting if they can be gathered from thistles.”

Mr. Zangwill has taken upon himself a monumental task. That he has had any success at all is remarkable.

M. W.

“Here we are,” exclaimed Richard Cory tritely; “the usual archaisms.”

“Do you mean us?” asked little Bukis innocently.

“No, you fool!” this from Ahaseurus, who was still wearing goloshes. “He is referring to the manuscripts.”

Bukis flew into a passion at this and started seething through the book reviews. There was a blare of trumpets, a rush of wind, and in burst the red-faced Benson.

Benson started throwing poems all over Bukis, who objected. He then took Richard Cory into a corner, and the two of them decided to go over to the Elizabethan Club to hear Steve Benét. Bukis had a meeting of Christians. They all left. The Egoist had resigned, anyway, and was not to be found. They had all gone.

All but Ahaseurus. He sat there meditatively with his hands in his overcoat pockets. Shivering, he bent over the piles of cold, white paper. And, in the grey silence of the shadows, he made up the Lit.

Ahaseurus.

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