Vol. LXXXVIII No. 2

The
Yale Literary Magazine

Conducted by the
Students of Yale University.

“Dum mens grata manet, nomen laudesque Yalenses

Cantabunt Soboles, unanimique Patres.”

November, 1922.

New Haven: Published by the Editors.
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It is now two thousand years ago that Horace sang that triumph-song of his which has rung ever since:

The succession of numberless years and the very flight of time have left that monument still higher than the pyramids of kings, for it was a good thing, and he knew it, and we to-day know it. Perhaps it is well for us to stop a moment and wonder a little just what we are leaving, which after two thousand years, will stand so, firm-fixed, splendidly living.

We look at this century of ours, we try to see it as might a future historian, and find a surprising hodge-podge. Fully judge it without the future, we cannot, yet, because everything is moving at such a terrific rate, these days, the present and the future are almost one, and we are thus enabled to pass partial judgment at least. Partial judgment—and on what? A world disillusioned, its ideals smashed, or, more tragic even, forgot; in the field of its arts, new music, new poetry, new painting; and over and above all, Science triumphant.

We need say nothing about the world in general—it is out of place here, and we all know too much of wars and rumors of wars, and the rest. So let us consider a moment then, the arts.—Such new arts they are, too, and like most youngsters, so very self-assertive! Their Muses are flapper-muses, and, like their[40] physical prototypes, cause havoc enough. We have with us “the arts, though unimagined, yet to be” of Shelley’s prophecy, and, to Shelley, who loved Beauty and knew her, they would indeed be unimaginable! Poetry, unformed and unthought; great loose-joined masses of prose called novels; canvases, inch-deep with modelled paint; statues of featureless faces, or rectangular muscles; and music, uninspired, discordant aggregations of notes. We grant these illegitimate members of the “progeny immortal of painting, sculpture, and rapt poesy” do fall, under our very eyes, prostrate along the path to lasting fame, with that goal still not even in sight, nevertheless, men and women are gulled by them, look, and admire even, in their breathless attempt to be “astride the times”. Therein lies the tragedy—that they are accepted.

And is it these—these outlandish oddities, and these gulled seekers for the sensational—which are the monument we are raising to ourselves that future generations may unearth them, and smile a little at the magniloquent impotence of them all? And if they do constitute our conception of a lasting contribution to Time’s granary, are we to do nothing about it? Of course, we being young, do take it all too seriously, for Youth always takes everything, particularly itself, too seriously; but, we, being idealists, stand to defend our ideals, which are mental discipline and intellectual aristocracy. Surely the poor Muses are not to blame that they are so misshapen and unlovely, for they are only the manifestation of a moving Cause behind them, which Cause, it seems to us, is mental sloppiness, a lack of intellectual discipline. It is in opposition to the basic reason of the artistic monstrosities of the age, then, that our ideals lie.

Shelley, in the preface to Prometheus Unbound, says: “Poets, not otherwise than philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are, in one case, the creators, and in another, the creations, of their age”, and it is there we may find, perhaps, the explanation, and at the same time a hint as to the solution of the whole problem: the age with its chaos and inefficient efficiency has created these inartistic artists; a new order of artists could re-create a less chaotic order—it at least is a possible solution. For plainly,—the terrific discordant elements hurtled into life through the agency of the Great War are reflected on the arts. Huge, subconscious[41] forces, strong and like subway-trains jostling us onward through the artificially-lighted dark, cannot but communicate themselves with greatest intensity to the soul with the keenest sensibilities—to the Artist; and the Artist, caught in the mighty whirligig of Time, rushed on, unthinking, undisciplined for thought, to attain—anything. Never having been thoroughly taught it, he has quite forgot, if he ever by chance knew, that “genius is the capacity for taking infinite pains”. But it is that that he should be taught; it is that which should absolutely be driven home to him, lest chaos become dissolution.

And how? The answer, in part, is the old, old answer which must ring true so long as discipline, intellectually, means the more perfect, and therefore the more beautiful result—the Classics. In this age of science, such a suggestion, no doubt, is heretical—but only consider it for a moment, one small phase of it as it applies to us in the college world. Consider the undergraduate in a university. Bewildered, he becomes a freshman, and suddenly is presented with the sciences—myriad sciences: chemistry, physics, biology, and the rest, for a year, at least, and then, too, the great “dismal science”, Economics. Three or four years of that last, in all its many inarticulate yet officially supported branches, and he awakens, toward the end of his last year, to a realization that there is something savoring, perhaps, of culture somewhere in college: an unknown and irrevocably lost opportunity which he can only regret. Then, prepared for life with mathematical formulæ and economic theorizings, he steps forth, becomes a business man, and is successful ordinarily. Well and good, but his period of usefulness in business passes, and then, with a mind untrained save in a few financial or mercantile facts, which life has taught him, with even the interesting, if unsubstantial, formulæ of college days clean forgot, and having no background in anything of lasting interest, he floats along, uninterested and uninteresting, mentally lonely, physically unfitted longer to engage in the strong competition with youth—unhappy.

The Sciences, of themselves are good enough, have interest, even romance, but they are specialized, rarified to such a degree that they do not teach life, nor do they prepare for life, while in their way, the Classics are life. In them lie the elements of—Heaven spare the mark!—“efficiency” as well as of beauty; in[42] the study of them, the mind, saturated with their clear-cut brilliance, and with their essential beauty of thought and phrase—peaceful as a Greek temple, skillfully ordered and arranged as a Pompeian dwelling—cannot but absorb those elements and understand, far better, Life with all its niceties and its intellectual challenges. The trained mind alone can overcome—but that mind is not trained which can, parrot-like, recite formulæ, physical laws, or bimetallic theories: that is a mind trained in the particular, helpless outside of the special—and life and the living of life is not particularism nor specialization.

And from where can the preparing of the cultured mind, and the fighting away from the incubus of the formula come save from our universities?—In Yale, of course, the great tradition of the cultural education, and the influence of classicism, which—our intellectual re-Renaissance to the contrary, notwithstanding—turned out capable and self-reliant minds for generations before the war, the war abruptly cut off the moment it won the battle of science for Science. And not only in Yale, but generally throughout the East—and it was alone in the East that the Classic spirit lived—the eviction of Culture was general. But Yale has an obsession to continue to be one vast primary school for scientists, and the intellect of the undergraduate suffers. Like it or no, the forcible entrance of the Sciences reduced Culture to a phantom, and, to interpolate a definition, by culture is meant those elements in the developed mind which make it self-sufficient, content, and productive of Beauty. Such undergraduates, these days, as want just those things must seek them out on their own initiative, and find, in the quest, many surprising official stumbling-blocks, and very little, if any, official assistance.

But it is just that that a university should stand for: it is the production of great minds, trained in clear, broad ways of thinking, self-sufficient, capable of escaping from the trammels of the every-day. They must teach the thought-language of the great minds of the past lest it be forgot, they must teach that universal language which the future will understand, honor, and from which it will draw benefit. And that, through a re-found stress on the training of minds, on the broad, living principles of an Aristophanes or of a Horace. Of course, the universities can do little without the co-operation of the preparatory schools, but that[43] co-operation must be instigated and forced by the superior vision and power of the higher educational institutions. The schools should stand firmly for a higher standard of mental discipline, a better preparation for the more mature problems of college life with all their challenges to the mind, just as the colleges, further advanced, should endeavor to make men better prepared for life, and as the college graduates’ living of life with that background should prepare them for the quiet time of old age, when the intellectual failure or success of life will count more—far more—than any pecuniary or social status. If the king is weak, his subjects are weak, and often times revolt, and the universities must not be weak. They, officially, and we undergraduates, personally, should work toward a higher standard of intellect, for if they and we do not, the next generation will not thank us for a heritage of intellectual sloppiness—and may revolt. Above all, we must not be satisfied with the average, but demand the exceptional, exceptional minds and men, and more and more of them. And if the universities can hold as their fixed purpose the creating and maintaining of this higher order, and the creating again of a higher order still they will once more be fulfilling the only requirements for their existence. But they cannot go on blandly saying that all is well: all is not well, and Pollyannaism in so grave a question as that of laying the foundation for the mental competence and the intellectual aristocracy of future generations is bad taste, and is out of place. They cannot quietly take no notice of the Classics, and say that in so far as they were driven out they had best stay out: that is the easiest course to follow, and the easiest course is seldom the best. Yale must be militant, and now that the war is over, she should go back to pre-war—long pre-war—standards.

Be idealists with us, and look toward the Future! We must, together, never forget that out of chaos comes chaos, that out of our communally undisciplined intellects must come more undisciplined intellects, nor that we, after all, count little in comparison to the coming generations, for our potentialities we are realizing, or have realized, and their potentialities are yet untouched.

Robinson so expresses “Modernity”—quietly enough, yet with a challenge. Whether we have our darkness, whether we are encountering the intangible—and it is not intangible in this instance—we must at least see that another and more splendid tale shall be told by the next generation, and, meeting the challenge of the present in the name of the Future, vanquish, if it is in us.

ROBERT C. BATES.

Toward midnight, Paul Duval emerged from 355 McDougal Street, quietly closed the battered door behind him, and descended the steps. He slouched along the street, with the brim of his felt hat, which dangled over his ears, flapping up and down to the rhythm of his stride. Probably, he thought, some one would take him for a murderer or a burglar—although, to be sure, such people use automobiles in this twentieth century. Paul was especially conscious that the policeman leaning against a post of the elevated railway, did peer at him searchingly, whistled something, and twirled his stick meditatively. But perhaps all this was fancy, aided by the dim light of the arcs.

It was, however, likely that Paul carried with him a remnant of the atmosphere of the death-chamber he had just left—the green-walled room in the rear of 355 where Hanaré Tierens had died—and that the remembrance of this most recent experience created in his mind a marked sensitiveness to ghostly things such as policemen and Greenwich Village arc-lights. That calm, livid face, with its peculiarly French nose, had passed through some experience of which Paul, at least, knew nothing. He still felt the pressure of Hanaré’s hand, which he had held until the last moment. It had relaxed and become dead. What a world of truth and wonder was there in that moment, that relaxation!

Few men, Paul thought, had ever passed through emotions such as his own had been. It was bad enough to see one’s old friend and adviser die; to feel a hand relax, the way Hanaré’s had; to realize that it belonged no longer to a friend or an adviser. This, Paul reflected, was bad enough. But there had also been a girl—Hanaré’s daughter; a girl whom Paul had passionately loved for the last five years; a girl whose drawn, white face stood out now in his memory, like a ghost, to aggravate the torture in his heart. These two had sat facing each other during the last hours, when the doctor had gone, and the rest of the house was asleep. They had not exchanged a word. The tragedy had been heightened by the silence. Paul had expressed his love too often for her to[49] be able to forget, even at this time, the intensity of his passion. And once, when their eyes met, he knew that in her young heart one more sorrow had thus been added to her present burden—a sympathy for him, and a feeling of almost shame that she could not respond to his love.

Then there had been a frightful kind of mental telepathy which carried even his most involuntary thoughts over to her. How could he help thinking that since she was now alone, without her father, she might accept him as a lover and a protector? How could he avoid extending his sympathy for her distress into a conviction that, since she needed comfort, some overt expression of his love was justified? Indeed, once when she had laid her head in despair upon the dying man’s breast, Paul had stretched out his hand and stroked her hair. She had, then, taken his hand in hers, pressed it, and released it. The situation only seemed to strengthen the barrier between them, and to make them even more intensely conscious of it.

These thoughts flowed slowly through Paul’s mind, now that he was out on the street, walking toward his apartment. He cursed himself for his selfishness and for bringing into a death-chamber such passions and emotions, thereby to heighten a young girl’s distress. What if they were the passions of a lifetime! What if they had caused him inexpressible suffering! He was none the less a selfish brute, immersed in his own selfishness.

Upon passing a quick-lunch room, he decided to enliven his tired mind by indulging in some coffee and doughnuts. He opened the door, walked past the shiny, white-topped tables, and approached the counter. Here he was at once surprised by the beauty of the girl’s face, which confronted him, and which stood out against the background of coffee containers, cups, saucers, shredded wheat boxes, and the like, as though an inhabitant of his dreams had been transposed to this earthly environment. Paul, who was sleepy and dazed, stared at her until she was forced to drop her lashes and hide from him the blue depths of her eyes.

“I am Paul Duval,” he said, in his absent-minded way, “and I should like some coffee.”

The girl turned and drew it from the container. Paul watched her—the slim back and the delicate, white skin which showed through her fine blouse.

[50]

“A strange world,” he sighed as she turned toward him with the coffee. “Isn’t it?”

He had not meant it offensively. And as she gazed into his vague, grey eyes, saw the sallow cheeks and the whimsical expression on the mouth, she divined that he was not talking about the world but about himself.

“Do you think so?” she smiled.

“Don’t you?”

“I think you are a strange person!” she laughed, turned on her heel gayly, and pretended to busy herself with something below the counter. Paul noticed that her voice was quite cultured.

“Do you work here—always?” he asked.

“One week,” she passed nonchalantly from one little task to another. “This is my first night’s work—my last, too—Fred was sick.”

“Who’s Fred?” Paul found it difficult to keep up with her.

“Night-man. Did you want anything else?” She leaned across the counter, exposing her slim arms, and a pair of delicate hands. She looked up at him, laughing.

Stupidly he remembered that he had come there to drink coffee. He fumbled for his cup.

“No,” he said, “—eh—that is—I’d like some doughnuts.”

She procured the doughnuts, and Paul reluctantly shambled off to a nearby table, where he sat down, facing the counter. It was indeed strange that this girl should exert so much attraction over him. He had seen beautiful women before during his twenty-six years of varied existence. However, he remembered with a smile that since women had meant anything to him at all, he had been in love: first with a stolidly serious young lady, who was now married to a man much older than herself, and then with Marie Tierens. This latter affair had been going on for the past five or six years. It had become his ideal. It had given Paul the conviction that if a man is going to marry a decent woman,—well—the least he can do is to be decent himself. At the heart of civilization, he thought, lay the unitary standard. And thus he had crossed in safety numerous pitfalls which present themselves to the average hack-writer—the small dealer in ideas.

But to-night, ah, well—even one’s deepest ideals are shattered[51] at times. The excruciating emotions of the past few hours had left him like a rudderless ship, adrift in a sea of bewildering passions. Hanaré was gone now. Without Hanaré life could never be the same. And Hanaré’s daughter had changed. She had become an independent woman. There was defiance in her eyes, instead of that ancient girlishness which had always kept hope alive in Paul’s heart. Indeed, the world had changed. For better or for worse, Paul, too, had changed.

In those intense moments of a man’s lifetime, wherein the past, together with the ideals which epitomize the past, are relinquished and a new method of life undertaken—in those moments a man is not fully conscious of all that he is doing. He moves in response to the predominant feeling in his heart. And there opens up before him new and unexplored vistas of life, at the other end of which he hopes to find some sort of Eldorado. To-night Paul was craving for beauty. Beauty to alleviate the coarseness of the death-chamber. Beauty to help him forget the face and the eyes of a girl who could no longer truly be called “his” girl.

He was awakened from his short reverie by a voice close beside him. “Good-night,” it said cheeringly. Paul looked up to behold the girl of the counter, in a blue serge dress, with a dark blue hat slanted to one side of her head. She waved to him as she passed. Paul gathered his queer legs together, and arose.

“Eh—are you going?”

The girl turned. “Yes,” she said, “I’m only on duty until one o’clock.”

“Really? Is it that late?” He felt for his watch, but could not find it.

“Good-night,” said the girl again.

“I say,” said Paul, as though he were embarrassed, “perhaps—well—wouldn’t it be rather nice if I were to take you home? We could—eh—go somewhere—dance—first.”

“Dance! At one o’clock?” she laughed. “I don’t think we could.”

“Of course.”

She made no move to go, nor did Paul, who was standing close to her. At length she took hold of his arm.

“Well, are you coming?”

[52]

They walked out of the restaurant and down the deserted street together.

The night spent itself. Some sort of a dawn crept across the city and touched the edges of the windows in the rear of 355 McDougal Street. As the grey light penetrated the room on the third floor, a girl, who had been lying across the body of a dead man, arose, looked stupidly about her, rubbed her eyes, and went over to the window where she gazed across the damp Greenwich Village roofs. She thought, perhaps, that she was going mad, with this silence which penetrated her whole nature, like the cold dawn that had just penetrated the night. But, strangely enough, it was not altogether her own loneliness, nor yet the painful sense of loss at the death of her father, nor even the ghostliness of his figure on the bed, that was thus driving her toward insanity. Rather, it was the remembrance of Paul’s face, the knowledge of his suffering for her, and the feeling that, although she could never love him—really love him, as she had pictured love in her girlhood dreams—still, the death of her father had removed the last tangible excuse which she had to offer him. She felt that it was not right to add to his sorrow for Hanaré’s death, a still larger grief caused by her own selfishness.

She smiled tearfully as she gazed out of the window. Why, she was making it appear like a case of duty!—and, of course, no one ought to marry for duty. Actually, it was not altogether a case of duty. Actually, she was alone—and afraid of her own loneliness. Indeed, the image of Paul came to her like a light shining through the darkness. He was forced upon her, by the strength of circumstances. Hanaré was gone now. Without Hanaré life could never be the same. Paul had become essential to her very existence. Love him or not, he was essential to her existence.

As the sun rose and the day wore on, and she went about her necessary tasks, it seemed to her almost as though she loved Paul. She had never had a feeling quite so compelling as this. Before her father’s death, she had never wished to marry. She had contemplated some sort of a career, with her painting and her sculpture, which she inherited from Hanaré. Besides, her father had needed her. He had been a solitary man, with few friends,[53] a dreamy personality, and so absent-minded that he required her constant attention. Thus life had seemed to her best, close to her father’s side, managing the little household, and doing her art at her leisure. The thought of children to take care of revolted her. And as yet no passion had entered her life, sufficiently powerful to make this secluded existence seem trivial or repulsive. Nor was there anything about Paul Duval to attract her strongly. He was the nicest and kindest man in the world, and he loved Hanaré; but for a husband—well—what was the use of a husband, anyway?

She felt differently now. She wanted Paul. Yet all day he stayed away.

Toward evening there came to her again the sensation that she was going mad. It was simply inhuman of Paul to leave her alone like this. There had been, of course, the neighbors, who offered their sympathetic assistance, and who tried to comfort this strange, silent girl, whom none of them understood. But because of her yearning for Paul, the neighbors only aggravated her nervous sorrow. And although she had consented to sleep with an elderly woman in another part of the house, until her father should be buried, nevertheless, late that night, she felt herself irresistibly drawn to Hanaré’s stiff corpse; and she crept into the ghostly room, in her night-gown, to appease that unnatural craving. This was about ten o’clock. She sat for some minutes on the edge of the bed, but could find no consolation. Suddenly she jumped up with the wild resolve to go to Paul’s apartment and find out what had happened to him.

She reflected, as she slipped on her clothes, that this was a most unwomanly course of action. She was impelled toward it by the almost inhuman nature of her circumstances. She hoped Paul would understand. She hoped nothing had happened to him. Perhaps she could even be of some comfort to him, in this recent sorrow which so obviously depressed him.

In fact, as she made her away along the winding streets of Greenwich Village, Marie began to feel almost exultant. A new joy entered her heart, because she was relieving herself of intolerable burdens, and because, too, she was bringing to Paul a surprise-present for which he had been waiting many years. She began timidly to picture to herself Paul’s expression, first upon[54] seeing her, and later—perhaps even days later—when he should realize what this new resolve of hers meant to both of them. She found herself immensely relieved at the thought of transferring her small belongings from her present dreary apartment to his own. Her collection of books, her pictures, yes, and even her paints and her sculptor’s tools—all these she would show to Paul as belonging to both of them together. In his eyes and in his mouth would come that look of appreciation for things which were such precious possessions. It would be inexpressible relief! A happy life! They were both dreamers—

She arrived, a trifle breathless, at his apartment, which was four stories up in a brick building that boasted of no elevator. She knocked several times on the thin, wooden door, but no one answered. So she tried the door knob, found that it was unlatched, opened the door timidly, and gazed in. There was a vestibule leading into the sitting-room, and since the latter was lighted, she proceeded on tip-toe toward it. Upon entering she perceived a long, narrow room, hazy with tobacco smoke and heavy with the odor of stale whiskey. The bric-a-brac and furniture were in a state of disorder. There were a couple of empty bottles on the table—glasses and books. She perceived a thin, sallow figure, sprawled out in the morris chair, staring at her in a glazed way, like a dead man.

“Paul!” she cried.

Paul moved slowly, blinked his eyes, shuddered. “Eh?”

“Paul!”

“I should not have wished you to see me like this,” he said, as though her coming were the most natural thing in the world.

“Are you—all right?”

“Yes, a little dazed.”

“Why have you been drinking?”

He sighed and bowed his head, in a tired way, until his chin touched his disordered bow-tie. But he did not answer.

Impulsively Marie ran over to his side and knelt there, with her arms upon the chair.

“Are—are you drunk, Paul?” She had rarely seen drunken men.

He raised his head then and looked into her eyes, which were so close to his. “No,” he said. “I have been drinking, but I am[55] not drunk. I am merely dazed, by death, and by life—but mostly by life. Life is so strange. Have you never thought that?”

“Yes.”

“No—no—no! Not the way I have thought it. You only know the half of life—Hanaré’s half. You have inherited, now, Hanaré’s domain. Innocent, childish Hanaré! You are the mistress of his innocence and his naïveté. But it will never—never—never be the same again.”

“Paul! What do you mean?”

They lapsed into silence then, for Marie saw that he was in one of those unintelligible moods, which had often come upon him, but which she had never seen so pronounced.

“Why did you stay away all day?” she asked.

“Have I been away all day? I had forgotten.”

“I have been lonely and miserable, Paul.”

“I am sorry. I have forgotten.”

“How could you forget?”

“How? There are plenty of ways to forget.” He arose and strode up and down the room restlessly.

“How could I forget?” She looked at him as though he had wounded her.

“I don’t know.”

They were silent while Paul continued to walk up and down. At length he proceeded.

“Certainly my being there wouldn’t have helped much, would it? It isn’t as though you had ever allowed me to love you or comfort you! God knows, I’ve been ready to do so—any time. I thought you hated me. Do you?”

“Yes,” she replied, “at this moment I hate you intensely.”

“Why did you come here, then—if you hate me?”

“O Paul, Paul! Because I needed you!”

He stared at her. This woman! “I didn’t suppose anybody needed me now, except the devil.”

He saw then that she was crying and that he had hurt her tremendously. He saw distinctly that he had been unjust. But his mind could not piece together the broken fragments of the[56] situation. He, too, had been unjustly treated: it was not fair for a woman to allow a man to love her for six years, and to hold herself away from him merely for the sake of her own career—her own whimsical happiness. He felt that in the hour of need Marie had not been with him. He felt this even more keenly than his own cruelty toward her now.

“My God!” he exclaimed, in the midst of his meditation. “What twenty-four hours will do!”

There was undisguised bitterness in his words; a bitterness which Marie, conscious of the unprecedence of her behavior, construed as an expression of his scorn for what she called her “unwomanliness”. Her excited mind only served to intensify the horrid picture which she had drawn of herself. To think that she had come this way to Paul, of all people! Even the awful atmosphere of her father’s death-chamber could not excuse her for doing so. She wished that she could hide herself away. She was ashamed of her body—her very existence.

But Paul was not thinking of these things. He was merely astounded at the change that the night had wrought in himself.

“I wish to hell Hanaré hadn’t died,” he exclaimed suddenly, and without any reason for it. “Life is nothing but a constant attempt to adjust ourselves to the tragedy of existence. Since we cannot tell to-day what will happen to-morrow, we never quite succeeded in our adjustments: and so, there’s always a tragedy. We go on and on—like that!”

He felt master of himself now. But Marie supposed that he was lecturing her. There was an element of brutality in it.

“If we were automatons,” Paul proceeded, as though the sound of his own voice helped to drive away the real tragedy behind—“if we were all automatons, who acted out one day the same as any other, incapable of making fools out of ourselves,—why then, life might be worth living. But some fool of a God—a fool God—gave us this power to make mistakes. Marie, for the past six years both our lives have been mistakes. And now just see what you have done—and what I have done.”

Marie stood facing him, and clenched her fists.

“Paul Duval, you are undoubtedly the most unfeeling man in the world—the most pitiless—the most un—unreasonable. I know I’m a little fool! Do you suppose I have no sensibilities?[57] Do you sup—? Oh, heaven!” She fell back again into the armchair, weeping.

The situation between them had changed tremendously in one night, because his ideals had become incompatible with her ideals, his life had lost that simplicity and innocence which they had once shared together. Paul found that his love for her, just yesterday so vivid and passionate, had changed, and had converted itself into a red and golden derelict of the past, which he still loved, though in a different way. Like Dante, his love for a face and a living body had transformed itself into an intellectual remembrance—an ideal—a hope which, while it might later be fulfilled in some immortal existence, had lost, once and forever, its earthly potency. Just as the death of Beatrice had forced Dante to relinquish the earthly passion, so the death of Hanaré, which brought the confusing emotions of last night, had led Paul to reconceive Marie and transform her into a vanished reality, an ideal, rather than a living being. He had tasted, now, that side of life which does not permit of the more refined loves.

Indeed it was a strange position to be in: and the tragedy of it lay in the fact that he could never make it clear to Marie why he had done as he had, and why the relationship between them was now changed. Tremendous, this change!—almost infinite in character. Especially, she would never understand how it had come about so quickly. He sighed. “With questions like this,” he said, “of life and death—time has little, if anything, to do.”

He began to reflect that the course he had taken was an evil one. And although the forces which had led him along this course were still potent, nevertheless the sudden apparition of Marie into the midst of them recalled his old life with her, if nothing else. And this feeling, that he had better go back, repent, and, if possible, forget the slight digression of the night before, grew upon him, just as a glimmer of light, which increases in intensity, turns at last into a ball of fire. He even came to the conclusion that it was his duty to marry her. He felt that he had no right to add to her sorrow for Hanaré’s death, a still larger grief caused by his own selfishness.

He smiled then. He was making it out to be a wretched case of duty—and of course no one ought to marry for duty. Actually it was not altogether a case of duty. Actually he was alone in a[58] new sea of conflicting passions, lost ideals, and hopelessness,—and he was afraid of his own loneliness. Indeed, the picture of Marie sitting there came to him as a light shining through the darkness. He no longer loved her. True. But he felt that in her he could find some salvation from the horrible destiny which immediately confronted him, and a relief from his present wretchedness.

“Marie,” he said suddenly. “You know that I have loved you!”

“Yes. You have said so. I believe it.”

“Last night there came into my life something which you could not understand—which I cannot explain now—which some day I hope to forget.”

She looked up at him, anxiously, as though fearing unknown things.

“Ah, don’t look at me that way. Let the past take care of the past. You shall know some day. I will tell you.”

“Why don’t you tell me now?”

“Because you would not understand—you would not appreciate—nor could I tell it as it is.”

“You only arouse my worst fears by talking this way,” she said. “I came to you as a friend, for consolation. I came in order to forget that horrible room. I wanted your companionship—perhaps for always. But you have only succeeded in making me more disturbed. I do not understand you.”

He went over to her chair, and sat down beside her, and put his arm around her.

“Come,” he said. “You and I must escape the tragedy of our existence. Together we will fly away from it. You will forget that room, and I—I shall forget myself.”

She drew away from him a little—from his impetuosity. “I don’t love you, that way,” she said.

“Great heaven! Nor do I love you that way, any more. You are too idealistic, Marie. Marriage, for you and me, is no longer an ideal, but a necessity. We will escape, that way. We will rest in peace and Hanaré’s death will be forgotten.”

She made no reply, but sat there as though meditating. Suddenly, from far out in the city, came the boom of a clock—a lonely[59] thing beating the hour of midnight. It awoke Paul to realities. And, although he had so far been master of the situation, he now lost control of himself, and cried: “Twelve o’clock! You must go now, you must go!” And as she stared at him, mystified, he cried again, “You must go, you must go!”

He took her arm, and she arose. They stood facing each other.

“Promise me,” he said, “that you will marry me—to-morrow.”

She dropped her eyes. Impulsively he took her in his arms and kissed her—not passionately, but as he would a little child. And then he led her toward the vestibule.

Even then there was a knock at the door. He did not answer. He looked at Marie, and she at him.

“Who is that?” she asked.

He turned bitterly away. “Nobody! Fate!”

The door opened, since he had given no answer. There was a moment of suspense while the visitor was hidden in the vestibule. Then the girl of the counter, looking extraordinarily pretty, came toward them. She started imperceptibly upon seeing Marie, but regained her composure.

“Good evening,” she said.

“Good evening,” Paul replied, but did not move.

The girl proceeded to take off her hat in front of the mirror, and to make herself at home, adjusting her brown hair prettily and helping herself to a cigarette from the box on the table. “You look tired,” she said “And the room’s a mess. Is there no one to clean up for you?”

Paul did not answer.

Marie could do nothing but stare. She stared at the girl and then at Paul. Suddenly she ran toward the door and was gone.

“Who was that?” asked the girl.

“That is Hanaré Tierens’ daughter. Why did you come?”

“You told me to come at twelve.”

Paul sat down and put his hands over his face. “You have ruined everything,” he said.

“So you told me last night.”

“Did I? I had forgotten.”

“You said an old friend had died—and that you were in love with his daughter.”

[60]

“Really? I was quite frank, wasn’t I?” Her reference to Marie exasperated him.

“Don’t be cross.” She came up close to him and put her hand upon his shoulder.

“I am not going to kiss you,” said Paul, anticipating her.

“I haven’t asked you to, have I?”

“No; but I’m going to marry Ma—Hanaré’s daughter.”

“There! I knew you had something like that in your mind! You look so—so determined,” she laughed, in spite of her obvious vexation.

“I am determined.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

He started. “You? You aren’t going to make a fuss about it, are you?”

“That’s impudent!” She turned away from him and sat down upon the sofa restlessly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, you needn’t be! Last night you let me know well enough what you thought of me. But I don’t mind, because I know that is what I am. I can’t remember ever being anything else; though, of course, if one is to be a man’s mistress, one has the right of choosing the man. I prefer education to ignorance, and a decent amount of politeness to mere brutality.”

“I am not merely brutal!” He stood up and faced her as he said it. “It’s you who are brutal—or at least you will be before you have done with me. Women are all cruel, because they understand men so well. Our souls are torn first by one and then by the other. I should like to make you see, however, that I have a duty to perform.”

“Duty?” She arose from the sofa, and came to stand beside him again.

“A duty to myself and—to some one else.”

“There’s a difference between duty and love, isn’t there?” This time she appeared to have no scruples, for she put her arms around him, frankly, and stood looking up at him. He held himself rigidly away from her.

“I am not going to kiss you,” he said again. That appeared to be his last defense in any case.

She made no answer to that, except to deny it with her eyes.

[61]

“You’re a witch!” he cried, drawing away from her suddenly. “A positive instrument of the devil. Leave me alone!”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I am going to marry Marie. Because, for Hanaré’s sake, I’m going to forget you. I was a fool last night.”

“Last night you said you’d rather be a fool than a wise man. I suppose you have forgotten that also.”

He cringed. “No,” he said, “I have not forgotten that.” He began wandering about the room as though hunting for something, picking up piles of papers, looking underneath the tables and chairs.

“What are you hunting for?” she asked.

“My hat.”

“Do you want to go out?”

“I’m going out. You can do as you please. I’m going over to see Marie.”

“Marie? At this time of night?”

He found his hat behind the sofa. He put it on, pulling the soft brim far down over his eyes.

“Good-night,” he said casually, as he walked out of the room. He was not fully conscious that there was anybody else there. He had one determination. In view of that everything else was forgotten.

Vain resolve! The windows at 355 McDougal Street were brilliantly lighted, policemen were in front of the door, people stared, and there was general confusion. Some one had been killed. Paul learned, finally, that Marie had committed suicide.

He felt, rather, that he had committed murder.

Thus, when he return to his own apartment and found the girl still there, he was glad to forget Hanaré’s death that way instead.

RUSSELL WHEELER DAVENPORT.

Melody

Inspiration

The smoking-room gave a terrific lurch. As if the motion had been a signal, Carlos Bentley abruptly broke off his sentence, at the same time removing his hand from the arm of his companion’s chair. Although the big steamer recovered almost immediately from the unexpected blow, Carlos continued to remain silent, his gaze wandering uncertainly around the comfortable room. But he did not notice particularly the brown sleekness of the leather chairs nor the subtle masculinity of the lighting. He was wondering whether he had not again let his tongue run away with his good taste in allowing it to run on over the history of his past two weeks to this gentleman to whom he had introduced himself. That was one of Carlos’ bête-noirs—a cheerful frankness and lack of reserve that made him communicate things he wished later he had kept to himself. But after all the fellow had looked lonely and— A polite question which interrupted his train of thought finished by driving the self-reproaches from his mind. He answered the question at some length.

[63]

“Oh, yes! We spent six months in Paris. I got to know the place quite well—well enough to get tired of it. I’m looking forward to New York as a change. If it hadn’t been for my wife, I’d have come back before, but she insisted on our staying—for my own good, she said. You see, I went over to study art—portraits mainly. Spent hours every day looking at pictures and trying to copy them.”

“Do you plan to take up art as a profession?” asked his companion, knocking the ashes from his pipe. He was an elderly man who had an air of demanding confidences with a view of solving any difficulties connected with them from the depths of a thoughtful urbanity.

Carlos hesitated a moment.

“Yes,” he said finally, “I expect to. That’s my ultimate aim. But, of course, after all this studying I’ll want a bit of a rest—say a month or so. Then I’ll be ready to get down to work.”

The other nodded a thoughtful assent. Then—

“You’ll pardon the remark, but—you have an income, I take it.”

Bentley nodded.

“Very fortunate, very fortunate indeed. So many poor devils have to start with literally nothing but their talent. You’re unusually blessed. Well, I must be getting to bed. We dock early to-morrow, I believe. I’ve enjoyed talking to you immensely, and you’ll pardon my leaving so abruptly, won’t you? Good-night.”

Carlos stood gazing after him a moment; then, turning away, went off in the direction of his own stateroom. He had an uneasy feeling that the man had not quite approved of him, although he was unable to explain what he himself had said that could have given ground for such an opinion.

When he got to his stateroom, he found a message that his wife had left on his bureau before going to bed. It had come by wireless that evening and was from his father. On opening it, he read:

Carlos laughed softly. Just like his father to mention work, even in a wireless. It occurred to him that everyone, ever since[64] he was a boy, had been wanting him to work. They had all told him what great things they expected of his talent if he would only use it. His mother had cherished a letter from a boyhood schoolmaster, which dwelt in glowing terms on his artistic ability, while at the same time it decried his indolence. His wife had refused many suitors as importunate and more wealthy than he because she was in love with him, and believed that her love could make him fight for the success which was expected of him. Well, his father was right—it was time to start work. They had had enough disappointments in him, and now he must do something to make them proud of him. It wouldn’t be hard.

In an exceedingly virtuous mood Carlos bent over and kissed his sleeping wife. What a wonderful girl Eloise was, and what a trump to have believed in him enough to have married him. He would work as he never had before as soon as they got settled in New York. With which resolutions he got into bed to dream of painting portraits for the kings and queens of Europe.

Four months later in a studio-apartment in the low Fifties a wet paint-brush was hurled viciously at a small statue of the Laocoon. It struck the largest figure full in the face with a comforting smack, and clattered to the floor. Carlos Bentley had been trying to do a portrait. Eloise, who in lieu of a regular model had been sitting for him, started at the sound, then relaxed her pose. She was an appealing figure with a touch of dynamic force in the aggressive tilt of her chin that made Carlos, jokingly and yet half-seriously, call her his will-power; at this moment she seemed to be bracing herself as if to meet something.

“Why, Carlos dear, what is the matter?” she asked, approaching her husband doubtfully.

Carlos stood before a half-finished picture removing his painting jacket, which he hurled into a corner before turning to his wife.

“I’m going to stop,” he said impatiently. “I don’t seem to feel in a mood for it to-day somehow. Besides we’ve been working for quite a while and we need a rest.” His eyes met hers half-defiantly, as if he were expecting some remonstrance. Then[65] he added, “Come on down to a show, dear. We can do some more to-night on this.”

His wife turned away.

“I don’t care to go down, Carlos,” she answered slowly, “and I had hoped you’d want to work this afternoon. We’ve only been up here a little over an hour. Won’t you stay a little longer? You were just beginning to get the right feeling in the picture. I know you were.”

Carlos laughed and kissed her.

“There’s plenty of time for the picture and it’s too wonderful an afternoon to stay indoors. I’m going out for a walk. Sorry you won’t come.” He slammed the door as he went out.

Eloise sat down dejectedly on a straight chair. Her lips trembled until she could hardly keep from crying. For seven weeks this same thing had happened continuously until she was sick to death of trying to fight against it. Every day Carlos had alternated playing around the city with attempts to work which always ended like to-day. In all that time he had only finished one picture—but it had been good, and had shown the talent that was being wasted. If only she knew some way to touch the spark to that talent. Eloise found herself wondering whether perhaps she had not undertaken a task too difficult even for her love. It seemed as if Carlos utterly lacked the requisite energy to produce what he was capable of. With a sigh she turned to putting the studio in order.

Meanwhile Carlos, after wandering out onto the street, had set off in the direction of the park. The refreshing air of a sunny autumn afternoon soon cleared his brain, but there was still an uneasy feeling in the back of his mind. He felt that he ought to be working, yet was unable to, and he knew vaguely that he was not happy even in the freedom of the moment. In this contradictory frame of mind he entered the park, strolling aimlessly along the walks, where the park-loungers basked in the unexpected warmth, and nurse-maids and children tried to make the best of each other’s company. Carlos, deep in thought, paid little attention to anyone unless some child inadvertently threatened to collide with him, when he would start, step aside, and relapse again into his reverie.

[66]

It was during one of these lapses that Carlos failed to note the appearance of a phenomenon. This consisted of a very dirty girl who was leading—or being led by—a little white dog on a long rope, who, strangely enough, was as clean as his mistress was dirty. The two came charging down the path toward Carlos, evidently expecting to go past him on the left. But just before they reached him, the little dog with all the unexpectedness of little dogs darted to the right. The next moment Carlos was startled to feel his feet being jerked backward and wound up tightly in several yards of cotton clothesline on one end of which was a little girl, who was the most striking surprise of all. In spite of an evident absence of any recent ablution her features had a peculiarly charming grace which was surprising under the circumstances and so pleasant that Carlos found suddenly that he wanted to paint it.

When the child straightened up from her task of unwinding the little white dog, which she now held in her arms, she was adorable as she tried confusedly to explain and apologize for what had happened.

“Never mind that—I don’t appear to be any the worse. But would you mind telling me your name?”

The vision was entirely agreeable.

“It’s Rosalie,” she replied. “At least I think so. I haven’t no father or mother. I live with Aunt Bess, but Toots is my dog.”

“I’d like to paint a picture of you, Rosalie. That’s my business, you see; I’m an artist—or supposed to be. Do you think your aunt would let you come up to my house to-morrow afternoon, and would you like to?”

The child stared open eyed, but she quickly assimilated the facts. Her reply was frank.

“Sure I would. Aunt Bess don’t care where I go. Will you have some cookies? What do you want to paint me for?”

“Yes, there might be something to eat. Then you will come? That’s fine. My house is at 16 West 5—th Street. Can you remember that, Rosalie?” The child nodded. “Then I’ll expect you at two o’clock to-morrow afternoon.”

Carlos walked home in high spirits. The child’s face had so impressed him that it seemed as if he could never wait till the[67] next day. Eloise was still at the apartment. To her he recounted his find in such glowing terms that she began to share his enthusiasm and help him make his plans.

“We’ll have to give her a bath,” he said cheerfully. “She’s horribly dirty. And we’ve got to find out whether she can come regularly. But we can do that to-morrow. Let’s celebrate to-night. I know a wonderful little restaurant. By the way, her name’s Rosalie.”

They were still talking about the child when they returned late in the evening.

The next afternoon at a quarter of two the bell rang, and Rosalie was announced by a shocked and protesting doorman. Shortly after Rosalie herself appeared. Believing it her duty to do her best to make the picture a success, and feeling that the occasion demanded something out of the ordinary, the child had worn her best clothes and even gone to the length of a somewhat tentative washing. The dress—it was her Sunday one, she explained—was hideous, but Eloise, who was as fascinated by the child as her husband had been, with infinite tact persuaded her to put on some things they had bought for her the afternoon before.

Posing the child presented little difficulty. All Carlos asked was to have her sit in a little rocker with an open picture book in her lap, which Rosalie did with such a natural grace and unembarrassed manner that she might have been sitting in little rockers for her picture all her life. Her hair, which Eloise had loosened, hung in long curls that completely covered her shoulders, and from which the exquisite little face looked out like an ivory miniature in a golden frame. As he gazed speechless at the effect, Carlos knew that at last he had found his inspiration. He began feverishly to sketch in the first rough outlines of the portrait.

As long as the light lasted he worked rapidly, looking up at the child on the platform where the chair had been placed and down to the canvas, as he touched it with quick, sure strokes. Sometimes he paused, seemingly forgetful of the picture, looking for long intervals at the girl as if to draw her whole personality out of herself and place it on the canvas. Finally Rosalie began to become more and more restless, until Eloise was forced to interrupt the work.

[68]

“You’ll have to stop now, dear,” she said. “The poor child is tired out and it’s too dark now, anyway.”

Carlos paid no attention, but went on painting. All he said was, “Tell her to sit still. Can’t stop now.”

But at last she persuaded him to lay aside his brushes, so that Rosalie could go home, after promising faithfully to return the next afternoon. Carlos was triumphant.

“It’s going to be the best thing I ever did. The kid gets into me in a way I can’t explain, but I’m putting it in the picture.”

For two weeks the child came almost every day and each time the picture advanced further. Carlos had been right—it was the best thing he had ever done, incomparably the best. To Eloise, who in the months in Paris had gained a good critical knowledge of pictures, it was evident that it was a masterpiece. The feeling of greatness was in it; in the perfection of the body, in the grace of the pose, and most of all in the face. There was something so compelling about the personality of that face, that Eloise would often sit and look at it alone when Carlos had gone out. It was the only time she was ever alone with it, for if he were in the apartment, he spent all his time in the studio.

Then one late afternoon after Rosalie had left, Carlos said:

“One more day, Eloise. Just one more day and it will be done. To-morrow night I’ll be satisfied with it—I’ll even be a little proud of it, because it is good, isn’t it?”

And Eloise nodded happily. For the past two weeks she had been happier than she had ever been before, and now she was too overcome to speak.

The next day Rosalie did not come, although they waited impatiently all afternoon. Carlos tried to go on with the picture from memory, but gave up in disgust. Without the child he was unable to go any further. When she did not appear the next day, Carlos became desperate. The picture was so tantalizingly near completion, yet there was something to be added, something indefinite which he could not name and the lack of which left him dissatisfied and uneasy. He went to the house where she had said she lived, but even the aunt had gone, and no one knew anything about either of them. For a week, two weeks, Carlos alternately waited in the studio and made fruitless attempts to locate the[69] child. When Eloise, fearing he would go mad with impatience, tried to make him work on other pictures, he seemed unable to concentrate for long on anything. The old indolence had returned with a new force which he was unable and half-unwilling to overcome; for the child was the only thing that could fill him with that burning desire to paint that had driven him on, often in spite of himself.

Carlos refused to give up the hope that she might yet return. For hours in the afternoon he would go up to the studio, and, putting on his painting jacket, sit gazing hopelessly at the picture, or make sudden attempts that were over almost as soon as begun to complete the portrait. Fall passed—the fall that had so nearly brought realization—and winter came. The studio became dark early in the afternoons, and no childish laugh returned to lighten the dusk.

STANLEY MILLER COOPER.

The Dreamer

The Chronicles of Rodriguez. By Lord Dunsany. (G. P. Putnam’s Sons.)

“Be always drunken!” said Charles Baudelaire. “Be always and forever drunken—with wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose.” Our best of all possible worlds has, indeed, run aground on evil days since then. To become drunken by any of the means which Baudelaire suggests, is to arouse comment, if not suspicion, in the year nineteen twenty-two.

Only one last refuge is left to those who would be always and forever drunken—the tales of Lord Dunsany. And, in his latest book, this literary Bacchus has not failed us. For “The Chronicles of Rodriguez” are apt to make all lovers of beauty in words very drunken—as drunken as men used to grow in Merry England who drank too deeply of the magic rymes of Spenser.

His real name was Rodriguez Trinidad Fernandez Concepcion Henrique Maria—and, before the tale is done, even that stupendous name has grown in stature by the breadth of a title or two, such is the magic warmth of Golden Spain. His father, the old Lord of the Valleys of Arguento Harez, from whose heights Angelico swore he saw Valladolid once; his father was grieved, as he lay dying, to see that Rodriguez’s younger brother had grown to manhood dull and clever, one on whom those traits that women love had not been bestowed by God. And so, knowing that the poor fellow could gain nothing for himself, since women are the arbiters of all things here on earth, and for aught he knew hereafter, the old Lord gave him all his lands and goods, except only his ancient Castilian sword. This he gave to Rodriguez, his eldest son, in the grand manner that they had at that time in Spain, saying, “I leave you, my son, well content that you have the two accomplishments that are most needful in a Christian man, skill with the sword and a way with the mandolin.” Then he gathered up his strength for the last time and looked at his son. “The[71] sword to the wars,” he said. “The mandolin to the balconies.”

And now, since no one can hear of such a tale and rest content until they know what further magic is in store, I leave you all, like the old Lord, content that you will go to seek the wars and the balconies—which is the business of a book reviewer.

L. S. G.

Shoes of the Wind. By Hilda Conkling. (Frederick A. Stokes Co.)

Readers of “Poems by a Little Girl” who were surprised at the extraordinarily beautiful poetry such a little girl could produce, will be even more surprised and pleased by the contents of this second volume. Hilda Conkling, with her childhood simplicity of ideas, seems to have discovered unconsciously the most satisfactory content for poems in verse libre. Naïveté is stilted in metrical form, but seems to run truly like “shoes of the wind” along the irregularities of free verse, whereas the vulgar aphorisms of some contemporaries would be more likeable if they were better clothed with the conventionalities of metre and rhyme.

Wordsworth would have loved Hilda Conkling. She would have been ample proof for him that children come, “trailing clouds of glory”. Here is her own expression of it:

“Shoes of the Wind” will delight anyone who likes lyrical poetry of the most beautiful sort.

D. C. C.

The Glimpses of the Moon. By Edith Wharton. (D. Appleton & Company.)

At the moment of writing this review, Mrs. Wharton’s publishers announce that the public continues to inconsiderately overtax and distress them, by calling for “Glimpses of the Moon”[72] at the rate of three thousand copies a day. This, of course, is quite as it should be. But we still venture to hope that at least one hundred persons per day will join us in a courageous effort to forget all about it, and await Mrs. Wharton’s next book, just as if nothing had happened. It is evidently too much to hope for another “Age of Innocence” at once—but one is only too glad to wait for it.

As for the immensely more important two thousand nine hundred, they will find that they have purchased three hundred and sixty-four pages of what looks like good solid reading matter, only to find it so adroitly written that it slips away at almost a single sitting, and forces one to decide what to read next.

Should they decide to turn out the light and pull up the covers, however, they may do so secure in the knowledge that Susy and her Nick at last realize that “this is love! This must be love!”, and determined to call off the divorce that has been threatening all through the book. It is all very splendid, for Nick could have married the Hicks millions, and Susy might have been Lady Altringham five minutes after the decree was issued. Lest anyone should be unduly stampeded by this outline of the plot, we might mention that Mrs. Wharton has carefully avoided “the tiny garments”, and that it is while mothering the children of a stray acquaintance that she, together with Nick, finally glimpses the moon, which has been decidedly under a cloud during most of the book.

L. S. G.

Breath of Life. By Arthur Tuckerman. (G. P. Putnam’s Sons.)

We learn from the jacket (that most entertaining part of so many books; for there pure imagination soars into the literary empyrian—) that Mr Tuckerman is “a new American writer of twenty-five”. Warned by that designation to expect one of the precocious works of cynical sophistication of the terrible “younger school”, we cannot be anything but agreeably surprised when that turns out to be an erroneous supposition. In its early chapters “Breath of Life” does not treat of the collegiate youth[73] who sits out dances with worldly-wise and unsurpriseable débutantes, and gets drunk in fashionable cafés; but that sort of thing has been done so much in “first novels” of late that the aspect is negligible. The main part of the story is frankly given over to that type which calls for gallant action, and gay, not too-analytically-treated romance; as such it makes for easy, delightful reading.

Everett Gail has left college—“New Haven”—after two lazy, profitless years, to see whether business cannot end his restlessness and give purpose to his existence. He soon finds that office work makes him an automaton, and the incidental round of parties bores him. He disgraces himself before the one girl he cares at all about by getting drunk, and it is while in this condition that he climbs aboard a ship bound for the Caribbean. The harsh realities of the work on shipboard end when he dives overboard in the harbor of Santa Palina, and there he finds the life of excitement which he craves. Days of adventurous intrigue and revolutionary plots follow, with the necessary love-element in the person of an insurgent leader’s charming daughter. In the end he saves an astonishing number of American Marines’ lives, receives the thanks of his government,—and sails back home.

“Breath of Life” is not a profound book; it propounds no unsolvable problems; and there are certain banalities and traces of a still immature style evident. These are the natural signs of a new author’s development. But it is the sort of book that you will enjoy reading. Mr. Tuckerman’s characterizations are rather good; his sense of scene is excellent. For those of us who desire an occasional respite from the rigors of Yale’s iron-clad curriculum, “Breath of Life” offers pleasant relaxation.

C. G. P.

The Climax.

It was past twelve, on make-up night. Two hundred odd contributors were clustered about the window of the Lit. office in which the Table of Contents was to be posted. The Yale Literary Renaissance had converted into a mob-scene what had been formerly a nocturne embracing a window, a lamp-post and a deserted middle-ground.

A general tensity prevailed. There was, to be sure, a certain amount of thoughtless jostling and crowding. The Yale Literary Magazine seldom publishes more than ten pieces, of which approximately seven are by the editors. This fact tends to whet outside competition, and introduces an element of curiosity and despair.

The Anti-Climax.

Inside the office, Richard Cory, Ahaseurus, Bukis, The Egoist, and Mr. Benson were all sound asleep. In this unguarded moment of repose there was little if anything about their countenances which indicated the Intellegensia. I am glad to say that the only one of these gentlemen who was superior enough not to snore was

Mr. Benson.

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