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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 
 
TWO DEATHS 
 IN THE BRONX 
 
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 DISCORDS, $I.OO 
 
 SONNETS FROM THE PATAGONIAN, $I.OO 
 In Preparation 
 
 AT THE BAR 
 
Two Deaths 
 In the Bronx 
 
 By 
 
 DONALD EVANS 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 NICHOLAS L. BROWN 
 MCMXVI 
 
copyright, 1 916 
 Nicholas L. Brown 
 
 Printed March 1916. 
 
 
 m iO 1916 
 
 7^ 
 
 S)CI.A428435 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 TWO DEATHS IN THE BRONX: P. 9 
 
 PORTRAIT OF NANCY TREVORS: P. 1 5 
 
 DINNER AT THE HOTEL DE LA TIGRESSE VERTE 
 L TERRACE: P. 1 7 
 
 II. loyalty: p. 18 
 
 DELIRIA 
 
 I. TWO MODERN LOVERS: P. 1 9 
 II. MASSED SCREAMS: P. 20 
 
 MARISE KISSING HER SHOULDERS: P. 21 
 
 ONE OF THE MAJOR SAINTS: P. 24 
 
 FOR THE HAUNTING OF MAUNA 
 I. BODY OF THE QUEEN : P, 25 
 II. VALLEY OF DESIRE: P. 26 
 
 MOTHER OF GOD: ACUTE ALCOHOLISM: P. 28 
 
 MARY DOUGLAS BRUITING THE BEAUTY OF 
 
 THE HANDS OF MONSIEUR Y. : P. 3 I 
 
 AMBERGRIS 
 
 I. STARS OF PARIS: IN APRIL OF A 
 
 THURSDAY IN THE MORNING: P. 34 
 
 II. UNE NuiT blanche: P. 35 
 
 ROUGE FOR VIRGINS 
 
 I. THE EGOIST: P. 36 
 
 n. adolphe: p. 37 
 
GROTESQUES 
 
 I. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BOTTLE: P. 38 
 
 II. HUGH frothingham: p. 41 
 THE beggar: p. 44 
 
 OUBLIETTES 
 
 L IRIS: p. 46 
 II. GREY ROOM : P. 47 
 
 III. NIGHT SOUNDS: IN ESTRANGEMENT: P. 48 
 RICHES AND REVENGE: P. 49 
 
 DOMESTICITIES 
 
 L THE OPERATION: P. 53 
 
 II. FROM A MEADOW OF GARDENIAS : P. 54 
 III. INFIDELITIES: P. 56 
 IV. THE BERWIND HOWARDS: P. 57 
 
 FRAIL PHRASES: P. 59 
 
To; 
 
 Michael Bennett: Pitts Sanborn: Edivin A. Robinson: 
 Marie A.: C. Pierie Garde: Jane Haven: Gilbert Seldes: 
 Helen Henderson: Bushnell Dimond: Elvira Andreani: 
 Lay ton Crippen: Carl Van Vechten: William R. 
 Murphy: THE REVEREND Herbert Throgmorton: Endi- 
 cott Rich: C. Howard Bonte: Robert P. Lowry: Kenneth 
 Macgowan: Arthur D. Ficke: H. T. Craven: A. Gil- 
 bert Clarke: Howard Shelley: Steve Talbot: Owen 
 O'Caedth. 
 
TWO DEATHS IN THE BRONX 
 
 THE sodden stretches of the months of pregnancy 
 Had had but one green orchid ; 
 That was their sole pauseful 
 And suspended moment of beauty. 
 He had brought it home to her at dawn 
 On the day before Christmas, 
 
 And he was a little drunken as he dropped it on her bed. 
 But it was a green orchid, 
 And pleased she took it unquestioningly. 
 He had bought it with many more 
 Hours and hours earlier for the girl, 
 Who was then amusing him. 
 In some way it had got into his pocket — 
 Or, perhaps, it was his buttonhole. 
 He had noticed it as he entered the abode of maternity, 
 And with his quick sense of values 
 He offered it in a tenderness. 
 He would have sent her orchids every day, 
 But he had no money to spare. He must live. 
 
 He was spending the nine months with her — 
 He had promised to do that — to take care of her 
 Until their child was born — 
 Then she would go away with the child. 
 She was grateful, and, in a way, content. 
 He had taken an apartment for her far from Broadway, 
 And sooner or later every night he came home to her. 
 In the morning she took him his breakfast first, 
 Then gave him a cigarette, and made his telephone 
 calls — 
 
There was alwaj^s one, at least, 
 
 To arrange for a luncheon or tea hour, 
 
 For, continuously, he was deeply in love. 
 
 He told her all his secrets. 
 
 And by the eighth month she had come in her daily 
 
 talks 
 To call three women by their first names. 
 He had loved each one, 
 And he still, it appeared, loved the third. 
 She had lent him all her money. 
 
 And he was paying it back during the nine months — 
 He made her an allowance each week, 
 And he felt very proud 
 
 That he gave her so much of his scant income. 
 Every fourth week or so he would be held up 
 On the way home and robbed, 
 But she got the three weeks' money. 
 So she was too wise to question or to remember. 
 
 Soon there were the doctor and the nurse, 
 And the last waiting week had arrived. 
 He was hard to seize then, for he had so many engage- 
 ments. 
 There was a hint of a new and lovelier girl. 
 But she wrote him notes and left them on his bed, 
 And went about her plans in silence. 
 She made a cheque out to him for all the money 
 She had saved and put in the bank, 
 For she expected to die with her babe, 
 And she wanted him to take the money and bury her 
 And the child in the absurd graveyard in the mountains, 
 Where her adorable drunken father lay. 
 
 10 
 
It was having had such a father 
 
 That let her understand him. 
 
 She put the cheque 
 
 In the bottom of her trvmk, 
 
 In which were all her theatrical costumes, 
 
 And with the cheque she put the biog;raphy 
 
 She had thought out. 
 
 The biography was for the doctor 
 
 And his report to the authorities. 
 
 She was his sister and she was married — 
 
 Her husband was in the West and was detained 
 
 From coming to her by imperative business. 
 
 Thus she smoothed out to niceness 
 
 The troublesome details of the function of birth. 
 
 In the last night, with the birth pains 
 
 Gripping her, she came to his bedroom. 
 
 For he had come home earlier, and her nurse 
 
 Was asleep after a tiring day. 
 
 She told him of the cheque and her heart's wishes. 
 
 He listened tolerantly, and wondered why 
 
 It was so fascinating to watch a woman in labour. 
 
 She was silent in her agony, 
 
 And he rather liked her for that. 
 
 Then he fell to speculating on the cheque, 
 
 And he asked himself whether there was 
 
 Any likelihood that she would die. 
 
 It seemed a shame, but it would be 
 
 A solution of the problem. 
 
 She really wasn't equipped to go on alone 
 
 With the handicap of a baby. 
 
 And he would give her the serene burial she longed for, 
 
 11 
 
There was four hundred dollars, he learned, 
 
 But he would spend every sou of it 
 
 For her funeral and the child's. 
 
 One could give a flashing party for four hundred dollars, 
 
 But that was outside the question — 
 
 He was merely the steward of her estate. 
 
 Next day he had to leave early — 
 
 The delivery, he was told, was still some hours of¥, 
 
 But he would keep in touch by telephone, 
 
 And he must hear "Manon"; 
 
 It had all been arranged for. 
 
 It was difficult to telephone, 
 
 Yet he did after nightfall — during dinner — 
 
 And he turned a trifle pale when he learned 
 
 That she had, in truth, died — and the babe with her. 
 
 In fact, he felt a bit sick. 
 
 There was much to attend to ; 
 
 He ought to get the cheque at once. 
 
 And make the plans for the burial. 
 
 He sent for a newspaper to look up an undertaker, 
 
 And it chanced that the only advertisement he could find 
 
 Was of one who promised adequate disposal 
 
 Of the dead for seventy-five dollars. 
 
 He could not help it — it was thrust at him ; 
 
 And the child would only be a trifle more — 
 
 At the most one hundred dollars for both. 
 
 And then there would be three hundred dollars left 
 
 unneeded. 
 It was sentimental to think about the dead — 
 
 What did it matter where one was buried or how? 
 
 12 
 
And he could get the cheque cashed to-night, 
 
 And this was the night ! 
 
 With three hundred dollars he could give a party 
 
 That would be memorable. 
 
 And he had not done much thus far for her. 
 
 She was of a loveliness. 
 
 And he was sure he would cease to wander when he got 
 
 her. 
 Death had simplified everything — 
 It was no use being morose. 
 He could afford a taxi now 
 To get uptown quickly for the cheque. 
 But he would telephone the undertaker first, 
 Then a half dozen people for guests. 
 And, last of all, her who had come at the fitting hour 
 To make his heart glad and at rest. 
 
 It was all swiftly done, 
 
 And the whir of the motor was grateful music. 
 
 He had done cruelly by himself to deny his soul 
 
 For all these months the napery of Rector's 
 
 And the gold service and the glass. 
 
 He loved beauty so! 
 
 He remembered it was absinthe 
 
 That had made this dear, new woman 
 
 Kind to him that first night, so in memory 
 
 He ordered absinthe for himself, 
 
 While she and his guests drank Pommery. 
 
 He knew he had behaved admirably through the long 
 
 nine months — 
 He felt it would give a touch of sterling honesty 
 
 13 
 
To his character, a stupid, basic honesty 
 
 He had always so needed. 
 
 And he let himself sink away from all the immediate past 
 
 That had been so incongruous and impossible. 
 
 One way or other the undertaker 
 
 Would do all that was necessary — 
 
 He needn't even visit the apartment again. 
 
 And somehow he knew she would invite him. 
 
 To go home with her 
 
 When they got rid of their guests. 
 
 He ordered another absinthe! 
 
 14 
 
PORTRAIT OF NANCY TREVORS 
 
 THEY sat in her drawing-room amid easeful silence 
 in tolerant enmity. 
 The men were three, and her husband was the 
 third. 
 This in its way amplified his urbanity. 
 His suavities were of ivory. 
 He was more irreproachable than her virginal teacups. 
 
 She gave her lips to the moment, and her fingers nestled 
 
 in a bowl of apricots. 
 The tea was amber, and the pungent lemon and the 
 
 blanched sugar 
 Seized and caressed the e^es as each man took a proffered 
 
 cup. 
 
 It loosed the tongues, and the four were free. 
 
 As four portraits on a wall come to life they stirred the 
 
 silence with a babbling that gleamed. 
 The drawing-room was draped in a wistaria mist. 
 And the flutter of the phrases patted the cheek with 
 
 an alien charm. 
 In but a short while she had become dominant, 
 And then she wrapped herself in the soothing nerves of 
 
 excitement. 
 The three were lost in the pursuit of fragrance. 
 Their chairs were their kingdoms, and there were no 
 
 other empires. 
 Archly then her voice dared : 
 "Will you have another cup, my beloved?" 
 
 15 
 
It was three cups that rang to her, and her husband's, it 
 
 chanced, was the third. 
 She smiled over her adroit and ample confession, and it 
 
 was enough. 
 She had done with the hour. 
 And she let the uneasy hush turn to a hodden-grey. 
 
 16 
 
DINNER AT THE HOTEL 
 DE LA TIGRESSE VERTE 
 L TERRACE 
 
 AS they sat sipping their glasses in the courtyard 
 Of the Hotel de la Tigresse Verte, 
 With their silk-swathed ankles softly kissing. 
 They were certain that they had forever 
 Imprisoned fickleness in the vodka — 
 They knew they had found the ultimate pulse of love. 
 
 Story upon story, the dark windows whispered down 
 To them from above, and over the roof's edge 
 Danced a grey moon. 
 
 The woman pressed her chicken-skin fan against her 
 
 breast 
 And through her ran trepidant mutinies of desire 
 With treacheries of emotion. Her voice vapoured : 
 "In which room shall it be to-night, darling?" 
 His eyes swept the broad facade, the windows, 
 Tier upon tier, and his lips were regnant : 
 "In every room, my beloved !" 
 
 17 
 
11. LOYALTY 
 
 I AM kissing your wayward feet — 
 The rumours of flight are broken, 
 Your hands are a dear pale token. 
 I adore you to touch me, sweet, 
 And now are the frail vows spoken. 
 
 It is bravely the words are said, 
 Faith is a flash on our faces — 
 We mock as the mummer traces 
 The dawn when the month is dead, 
 Loyalty mussed like your laces. 
 
 18 
 
DELIRIA 
 
 I. TWO MODERN LOVERS 
 
 THE lovers seek the boudoir- 
 Awkward and amorous, 
 Excited but emotionless, 
 And over them hover 
 Desolate ardours. 
 
 19 
 
II. MASSED SCREAMS 
 
 ANGULAR arrogance 
 In the urge of rage 
 Scratching the infinite 
 For a relief 
 In the impotence 
 Of unbelief! 
 
 20 
 
MARISE KISSING HER SHOULDERS 
 
 IT is Easter morning, 
 And my beloved, with a quaint belated zeal, 
 Has fled the city 
 To hunt for the Garden of Gethsemane. 
 
 I woke an hour since, 
 
 And sat up in my bed. 
 
 Which last year I had the artisans 
 
 And drapers fashion as a water-lily. 
 
 The pillows are in green chenille, 
 
 And the sheets are great wisps of olive satin, 
 
 Then comes a warmth of velvet ivy 
 
 To crush the cold, 
 
 And beneath everything 
 
 I lie in cream white. 
 
 I sat up the hour since. 
 
 And mused for a moment 
 
 On the ashes in my hearth, 
 
 Wishing they were mauve instead of grey — 
 
 Death in mauve would be so much nicer — 
 
 And then I performed my usual morning office— 
 
 The kissing of shoulders! 
 
 I was generous this morning — 
 I kissed the right shoulder first, 
 Although I am secretly in love 
 With the left. 
 
 Then it was that I realized 
 The beloved was seeking 
 
 21 
 
The Garden of Gethsemane, 
 And I was alone. 
 
 I must have a companionless day, 
 
 A waste, lonely day indoors, 
 
 For manifestly I could not venture forth 
 
 Into Fifth Avenue alone. 
 
 To-day it would be unpleasantly disturbed 
 
 With clerks and sempstresses — 
 
 To remind one of one's bills — 
 
 And well-to-do vulgar folk, 
 
 The women frantically eager 
 
 To flaunt their bad taste in dress. 
 
 I love Fifth Avenue, 
 
 But I am a cat. 
 
 And so to-day I could not endure 
 
 The alien contacts 
 
 At my elbow of the crowds that pass. 
 
 Obviously, then, I must remain within. 
 
 At first I seemed to have no resources, 
 
 But I looked at my bed, 
 
 And adored it. 
 
 And my wounded self-esteem was soothed. 
 
 I bade the discords 
 
 Of awkward solitariness 
 
 A curt farewell. 
 
 It came to me that it was imperative 
 That I should spend the day 
 
 22 
 
Free of the slavery of thinking. 
 
 I have never been forced to think — 
 
 It is my ever-living pulsing fear 
 
 That I may be brought to it some day. 
 
 But how not to think? 
 
 How not to spoil the epigram — 
 
 She was born to be. 
 
 Not to think? 
 
 In a caressing whisper 
 
 The Avenue unrolled — 
 
 I found the marriage of the hours! 
 
 For I would write a book, 
 
 And furiously scrivening 
 
 With the minutes flying past 
 
 I should not be degraded to thought; 
 
 I should be writing; 
 
 Which is a refuge from cerebration. 
 
 And I was so joyous 
 
 That I bared my shoulders 
 
 For a second time, 
 
 And kissed them. 
 
 This time I was self-indulgent, and approached, 
 Reverently, the left shoulder first! 
 
 23 
 
ONE OF THE MAJOR SAINTS 
 
 HE had for years been denuding himself of facts ; 
 He lived in the heart of the city, but he eluded 
 The present as easily as he pushed back the past, 
 And the future meant for him 
 Only the monumental painting he had projected. 
 He had triumphed over his ow^n intellect, and had 
 Carried himself back to the state of Adam. 
 
 One day I visited him and found 
 
 Him hard at work with his brushes; 
 
 He no longer conversed with one. 
 
 So he grunted me greeting not stopping his labour. 
 
 I was interested just then in the Saviour, 
 
 His quotidian majesty of poise and sublime sureness of 
 
 pose ; 
 And I walked back and forth in the studio, 
 Reviewing enthusiastically 
 The superb efficiency of the Man of Galilee. 
 I forgot for an instant how close to the first womb 
 My friend had returned, and suddenly burst forth: 
 *'Was not Jesus Christ the bigger man because 
 After all He knew He was a faker?" 
 And the painter turned, annoyed at my interrupting him; 
 "But who was Jesus Christ?" 
 
 His picture is a masterpiece — 
 It is called "Humanity." 
 
 24 
 
FOR THE HAUNTING OF MAUNA 
 I. BODY OF THE QUEEN 
 
 SUAVE body of the Queen, she gave me you, 
 Misting in still, warm rains of tenderness — 
 But kept herself, and we are each betrayed. 
 You are her mistress, and she makes of me 
 Another mistress! Playthings are we both. 
 When we thought she meant us for full sovereignty; 
 It was not regal, and her throne is stained. 
 She bade you seek me, and your singing feet 
 Ran quickly, surely; you held out your hands. 
 You had no fear because you felt my heart 
 Leap as you laid your white breast under it. 
 We had no prides to conquer as we kissed, 
 For we knew kinship in our overthrow. 
 Yet now she stands apart and questions us. 
 How can she question — leave me out of it — 
 But you, her body, her sweet source of joy, — 
 How can she then divide herself from you, 
 And calmly reckon what the gain may be? 
 The hour will come when she will tire of us. 
 And all your softness will be broken up, 
 Your rioting lips chilled with an ashen wind. 
 There is a hint of vileness in the air, 
 And on the strings a dance of ironies. 
 With love's scarecrow jigging wearily. , . 
 Still I have you — so I am not afraid ! 
 
 25 
 
II. VALLEY OF DESIRE 
 
 YOUR hat was of an angle, and the veil 
 Was impudent with seven maddening spots — 
 With the mouth left free to drink the cool sun- 
 light, 
 That amber-laden swept the afternoon. 
 Your gown caressed you, and your level gaze 
 Fed on the greenness of the cleansing Spring — 
 Peacocks and yew trees mirrored from your eyes. 
 
 I walked beside you, and my hands were glad — 
 They ran the lines that weave your body-spell. 
 
 "Why not to-night?" I asked, and then you smiled, 
 
 Half-flattered by my wish, but with wide wings 
 
 You gave unyielding answer, "You forget 
 
 You had my lips only four days ago; 
 
 We wait two more." And there was in your tone 
 
 Urbanity that showed a steady pulse. 
 
 I was not rebuked — you paid acknowledgment 
 
 For the fluttered voice that broke with stressed desire; 
 
 Still, this was no hour for the faggot-fire. 
 
 Miracle woman, you were far astray — 
 
 Your mouth is wine, and all your tender flesh 
 
 An easeful meadow for my weariness, 
 
 But it was not flame I asked for. It was talk, 
 
 The winding minutes of great friendliness, 
 
 And the immense companioning of you, 
 
 Keen, vivid, rich, warming, and wholly sweet. 
 
 I have waited twenty years to talk to you, 
 
 And all that empty time I have searched for you. 
 
 26 
 
Now that I have found you shall I wait six days, 
 
 And fill the interval with other things? 
 
 There is nothing else — the world's dropped away. 
 
 For twenty years I have slept upon your breast — 
 You did not know me, but you felt me there! 
 
 27 
 
THE MOTHER OF GOD: ACUTE ALCOHOLISM 
 
 THERE was a snake in the gutter — 
 She was positive of that. 
 
 It had shown its head twice until the snow had 
 forced it back — 
 When it snowed it was good for begging, too ; 
 But the wind to-night was too freezing — 
 It hurried people along. 
 
 She could see the money lumps on a dozen girk' legs — 
 What need had they for money? — 
 And she had but one dime 
 That felt bad for the hour's intoning : 
 "Help a poor old woman who's starving, 
 For the sake of Mary, the Pvlother of God." 
 
 The snake could not reach her while it kept on snowing, 
 
 Yet the snow might stop. 
 
 She ought to be away, 
 
 But the bad dime didn't help much. 
 
 Why wouldn't people listen? 
 
 Her left hand was numb, but she couldn't put it 
 
 Between the newspapers wrapped around her 
 
 Under her cloak. 
 
 For there was the frozen carnation 
 
 That had to be dangled 
 
 Before the eyes of passersby 
 
 If the quarters were ever to come in. 
 
 The carnation was now three days old, 
 
 And of a mustard shade, 
 
 For saloon dust discolours. 
 
 But yesterday it had brought her a half dollar at noon — 
 
 28 
 
It was not to be discarded. 
 
 She wished she knew whether snakes feared carnations. 
 
 If it had a longer stem she might get 
 
 Her hand inside the cloak 
 
 And let the flower show outside — 
 
 But a man must have worn it in his buttonhole, 
 
 And she was afraid to stick it in the cloak's fold, 
 
 Lest the wind blow it away. 
 
 There wouldn't be many more people now 
 
 Until the theatres were out. 
 
 It was a bad stand, anywaj' — 
 
 Why had she come here? 
 
 The lights were too bright. 
 
 Here was someone opening a purse. She droned : 
 
 "Help a poor woman, for the Mother of God." 
 
 It was no more than a dime, 
 
 But it was a good one this time — 
 
 Two more, and she could leave the snake 
 
 There in the gutter. 
 
 Maybe she could pass the bad coin between the good ones. 
 
 Then the theatres would be out. 
 
 She was glad there weren't many people passing — 
 
 She was tired of approaching them ; 
 
 They never heard all she said. 
 
 There was no use of her making any sound. 
 
 If she could only sit down comfortable and warm 
 
 In a chair, and hold her hand out — 
 
 Then she could bury her head in her cloak, 
 
 And she wouldn't see the gutter, 
 
 And the snake couldn't see her. 
 
 There would be dozing, and when the midnight came 
 
 29 
 
She would count the coins, 
 
 A lot of dimes and some quarters, 
 
 And there wouldn't be anything more to think about, 
 
 And she could throw away the carnation. 
 
 Here was a crowd again — 
 
 The theatres were letting out earlier and earlier, 
 
 And it was not snowing as hard. 
 
 She wondered if the snake knew that? 
 
 She had to speak again ; it was her last chance, 
 
 For everybody was hurrying by; they always hurried — ■ 
 
 And then there would be nobody. 
 
 She needed both her hands. 
 
 For there were coatsleeves to be touched. 
 
 But she mustn't lose the carnation until she knew 
 
 Whether the morrow demanded it. 
 
 There was only her hair — she might stick the dirty 
 
 flower in it, 
 And then she was free to fight the snake. 
 It was the best hour. 
 But she had always made a mistake. 
 People never heard all she said, 
 And, besides, they gave too little. 
 She must speak quickly — her throat burned, 
 But words must come. A few would answer. 
 Dimes weren't worth many. Anything would do : 
 'Tlease help — the Mother of God." 
 
 30 
 
MARY DOUGLAS BRUITING THE BEAUTY 
 OF THE HANDS OF MONSIEUR Y. 
 
 ONSIEUR Y., the artist, has haunting hands — 
 
 Fingers that are unforgetable. 
 
 I have sat for arrested spaces, 
 Pondering the influence of their inhibitions — 
 Gazing at a battlefield where emotions 
 Had been in tragic conflict. 
 
 The hands are to the first glance decently formed, 
 But they awaken curiosity rather than admiration. 
 For the essence of their exquisiteness 
 Is not quickly to be felt. 
 
 Their beauty is draped — as all enduring beauty 
 Must be — with indifference. 
 
 Monsieur Y. has always been indulgent to me. 
 
 His studio I seek as an asylum 
 
 From the wolves — my dear friends. 
 
 He says he is not my friend, 
 
 And for the whim I have believed it. 
 
 One November afternoon when I knew he would be 
 
 Heartily engrossed on his new canvas, 
 
 And I was chilled with Broadway's ineptitudes, 
 
 I sought his presence. 
 
 It was even a chillier welcome I received. 
 
 But there is sometimes a flame in frigidit}^ 
 
 That gives the longed-for social shock. 
 
 He lit the lamp for the tea kettle. 
 And went back to work. 
 
 Leaving me to the half-shadowed intimacies of house- 
 wifer\^ 
 
 31 
 
Xhe tea service is simply done, 
 
 So I was soon free to regard him, 
 
 And his brusqueness stirred me to protest. 
 
 I parried first — for I am not stupid — 
 
 And asked whether he thought 
 
 It was a strain of pity for the fallen Madonnas 
 
 He painted so admirably that had given his hands 
 
 An immaculate augustness that was smoothed away 
 
 Into a catholic simplicity. 
 
 That was grandiose, but it won a rejoinder. 
 
 I had not whispered of the spirituality. 
 
 But it was that he ofFered me. 
 
 I had seized the nuance. 
 
 "You have an insistent way," he said, 
 
 "But insistence has its boundaries. 
 
 Yet you are a mirror, and a mirror 
 
 Is sometimes a solution. 
 
 It glimmers back one's futility. 
 
 I like my hands more than you do, 
 
 For they are the symbols 
 
 Of the only triumph I shall ever know. 
 
 They are the trophies of my conquering. 
 
 A long time ago I was absorbed with love for a woman, 
 
 Who was merely touched with fragrant pleasure 
 
 Because I worshipped her. 
 
 She, too, was in love, but not with me. 
 
 We met often, 
 
 And spent long hours together and alone, 
 
 When only the sheerest intervals separated us. 
 
 We luncheoned, we dined, we theatred together. 
 
 We walked and talked. And we tea-cupped. 
 
 She gave me of the sight of her loveliness 
 
 32 
 
In abundant generosity because I adored her. 
 
 And all the time I had my hands. All the hours 
 
 I was at her side they ached to touch, 
 
 To move over her — not to grasp in bestial, imperative 
 
 fashion, 
 But to finger, to question the softness of her flesh, 
 To sing as they crept over her, 
 To give the quick, wild quivers of possession. 
 But because of the pride of the saffron highway 
 I never touched her; 
 
 I held back through all the evasions of our communion. 
 She came to like me very much, though I never 
 Thrilled her to a fine surrender. 
 But it has worked its way out — 
 For she was brought to realize 
 That because I did not make a false tempo 
 With the hungry hands there was homage to be paid 
 
 them. 
 Now, I think it is really time for you to go. 
 
 There was the secret of his perfect hands — 
 They were still full of yearning blood. 
 All his desire had leaped out into them, 
 And it remained there — 
 
 The hands were two lovers, vainly waiting for their 
 hour. 
 
 33 
 
AMBERGRIS 
 
 I. STARS OF PARIS— IN APRIL OF 
 
 A THURSDAY IN THE MORNING 
 
 WE have lain 
 Breast to breast, 
 Bi-ain to brain. 
 For the rest 
 All is vain — 
 Mixed with pain. 
 Unconfessed 
 Is our stain. 
 Naught is plain 
 Save the chain — 
 So again 
 
 Ends the quest — 
 Fibre-fain, 
 Breast to breast, 
 Brain to brain. 
 Joy is best — 
 Stars again 
 In the rain ! 
 
 34 
 
II. UNE NUIT BLANCHE 
 
 AND, Daughter of the Moon, this interlude 
 Snows the sweet pastures in between your 
 breasts. 
 Cold from the sea I rise, and vaguely brood 
 With all desire far off, and we are guests 
 In upland meadows where the silence rests. 
 
 You are lost to me for love wantonness. 
 But now I touch your girlhood's wraith in flight, 
 Retrace the years you were companionless, 
 For as I kiss your mouth you make the night 
 Quiet and virginal and green and white. 
 
 35 
 
ROUGE FOR VIRGINS 
 I. THE EGOIST 
 
 BEYOND doubt he was an egoist, 
 At every angle, in every breath; 
 But he was always seeking a woman 
 With whom he could abandon it, 
 Cast it away for a blended unity 
 That would yield a rich, absorbed 
 And impersonal common personality. 
 
 36 
 
11. ADOLPHE 
 
 HE was of a scant passion at that odd hour, 
 But he caught the smooth content 
 Of the question spread out before him — 
 It roused him to barbaric acknowledgment: 
 "I have no quarrel with virginity, 
 Though many have called it cold, 
 And others have found it barren. 
 For, after all, it can be raped!" 
 There was his voice that crept out 
 Hungrily in hunt for a fresh immaculate. 
 His was not lubricity. 
 He had merely resisted 
 The enervating influence 
 Of the untold centuries of civilization. 
 
 V 
 
GROTESQUES 
 
 I. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BOTTLE 
 
 AS my chin pressed against the arm 
 Of the amiable Hildegarde 
 I was brought to realize 
 That I had neglected to shave, 
 And as I knew that I should not take full pleasure 
 At dawn in the ceremony of the bath 
 If bristles were on my face 
 I determined that I would go forth 
 In search of a barber, a whimsical barber, 
 For surely he must be a whimsical coiffeur, 
 To have his shop open as late as four o'clock. 
 
 The Hildegarde did not wake as I dressed, 
 
 But she smiled me good fortune on my adventure. 
 
 When I reached the street 
 
 I decided I would go 
 
 In the direction the wind was blowing, 
 
 And so it was to the East I went. 
 
 Soon I came upon stairs that seemed 
 
 To lead down a great way, 
 
 And the entrance portal was lighted, 
 
 And convinced I said: 
 
 "Here will I descend. It must take me to my barber." 
 
 Flight after flight I wound down, 
 
 And the lights increased in number, 
 
 I was almost forgetting my errand in my excitement, 
 
 When suddenly I saw a sign, — "Barber Shop de Luxe" 
 
 38 
 
Over the door of a still more brilliantlj'^ lighted room. 
 
 Many barbers and many patrons I noticed as I entered. 
 
 And I vowed I would never patronize any other estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 But as I glanced about I could see no chairs. 
 
 Everything else was there — but no chairs. 
 
 Then an attendant came up to me, "Shave, sir?" 
 
 "Yes, but where?" I replied, "there are no chairs." 
 
 "Ah, they are not needed," he explained. "Just look." 
 
 I followed his finger, and beheld a client, 
 
 Who had entered just ahead of me. 
 
 He had removed his cravat and collar, 
 
 And his barber had given him a razor. 
 
 With a detached nonchalance 
 
 He deftly cut oH his own head. 
 
 And gravely handed it to the barber, 
 
 Who quickly lathered the face and began his ministra- 
 tions. 
 
 Then I perceived the other barbers 
 
 Were all busied in the same way, 
 
 While the decapitated leaned against the walls 
 
 Leisurely waiting 
 
 The return of their heads. 
 
 A barber finished — hot towel, cold cream, massage, 
 
 perfume, 
 And with the head, the hair immaculately brushed 
 And moustache waxed, 
 On a silver tray. 
 
 He smilingly passed it back to its owner, 
 Who placed it on his neck with both hands, 
 
 39 
 
Nodding thanks, while he dropped silver 
 In the barber's palm. 
 
 It was my turn and my collar was off. 
 
 I held a razor, and it all seemed 
 
 Much the better Way to be shaved. 
 
 I raised the blade to my throat, but then I stayed my 
 
 hand, 
 For at my feet I saw a great pool of blood. 
 "Why is that?" I asked the barber. 
 He showed a little shrug: 
 "It was nothing. A customer was careless. 
 He put his head on insecurely, 
 And it fell off. It was slightly bruised, 
 And it did not become him as well 
 When he put it on again." 
 
 "One cannot be too careful 
 
 In one's care of one's person," I thought. 
 
 "The man has lost much blood. 
 
 He will be very pallid to-morrow." 
 
 And then I changed my mind about being shaved. 
 
 I covenanted with myself: 
 
 "I will raise a beard." 
 
 40 
 
II. HUGH FROTHINGHAM 
 
 ON his thirtieth birthday he awoke in a dire mood, 
 And he was of no heart to grasp at the flying 
 hours 
 For little minutes of happiness. 
 He knew he was no longer a boy, and youth being to 
 
 him 
 The one true virginal beauty of life, 
 The knowledge of his own passing 
 Filled him with unspeakable sadness. 
 And he felt his soul tainted with staleness. 
 
 It was noon when he breakfasted in bed. 
 
 And as the servant brought in on the tray 
 
 Several packets that had arrived by the post 
 
 It aroused no curiosity within him. 
 
 In truth, he was as one 
 
 Stricken with a mortal malady. 
 
 And listlessly he picked up 
 
 Even the box that the inscription told him 
 
 Came from the woman with the hands of covering flame. 
 
 When the box was opened and he saw the gift 
 
 There came a slight indrawn breath 
 
 Of petulance and hurt protest. 
 
 She had sent him a bundle of white collars. 
 
 And the mystery of such a choice 
 
 Struck him as a cruel heaping on of misery. 
 
 "Have I need of collars?" he sighed weakly. 
 
 "Why is she so unkind?" 
 
 41 
 
With numbed senses he dragged himself from bed, 
 
 And bathed and dressed, feeling angrily 
 
 That everything looked drab. 
 
 When it came to the selection of neckwear 
 
 He reached for the bundle of collars she had sent. 
 
 He would wear one, and then descend on her. 
 
 He would reproach her for her stupid 
 
 And inane jest, 
 
 And she would have to listen 
 
 To all his spleen against Fate for arranging life 
 
 So that his youth should depart. 
 
 He would make her day unhappy, too ; 
 
 That would be her punishment. 
 
 He moved toward the mirror to arrange his cravat, 
 And for the first time in his life 
 He tasted no pleasurable thrill 
 As his glance sought for its mirrored twin. 
 He was old. It was ghastly, grotesque. 
 He involuntarily shut his eyes as he reached the glass. 
 He for a moment could not look; 
 Then with fingers clasping his hips he gazed. 
 "Is this another torture?" he all but screamed. "It 
 not I. Where am I?" 
 
 He was looking at a boy of twenty-three, 
 Graceful as a silver poplar. 
 
 A gasp swept him to another mirror, 
 And it gave him the answer. 
 
 "Madonna of the white collars," he cried, "you ha- 
 done it. 
 
 42 
 
"Your gift has given me back my boyhood. 
 "This is a collar for an innocent lad, 
 "And it takes away the burden of ten years. 
 "Why did I not think of it myself?" 
 
 Singing he tore from the house, 
 
 And made his way. 
 
 Choked with ardour. 
 
 To the boudoir of the beloved. 
 
 43 
 
THE BEGGAR 
 
 LET us always be prodigal towards beggars, 
 For they are the sentinels 
 At the outposts of civilization. 
 If the mendicants should desert us 
 We should have no choice 
 But to surrender to efficiency, 
 And aristocracy must perish. 
 From the world would vanish all the soft vices, 
 Extravagance, frivolousness, greed, 
 Selfishness, luxury, wastefulness. 
 And life would grow intolerable 
 Under the curse "All men are equal." 
 
 Let us never pas^ a beggar without giving, 
 
 For just as society would crumble 
 
 If the derelicts ceased to waylay us, 
 
 So would the soul shrivel, 
 
 And none could save his own soul. 
 
 The beggars are our saviours, for we give, 
 
 And thus make atonement for our sins. 
 
 If a man toss a silver piece to a beggar 
 
 On his way to the first rendezvous 
 
 With his wife's friend 
 
 He will not feel remorse for the liaison. 
 
 He has been generous to one of God's creatures — • 
 
 That will absolve him. 
 
 If a man throw a gold piece to a beggar 
 He may be faithless to his mistress, 
 
 44 
 
Or desert his wife. 
 
 His gift will excuse all, 
 
 And he may stroll along the boulevards 
 
 Sustained and nourished 
 
 By his own milk of human kindness. 
 
 45 
 
OUBLIETTES 
 I. IRIS 
 
 I 
 
 T was better so 
 
 When you did not know- 
 A short while ago. 
 
 You are kind indeed, 
 And my hungers feed 
 Since you feel my need. 
 
 But I pay in pain 
 And how very vain 
 The few hours I gain. 
 
 In the old distress 
 There was little stress 
 For, companionless, 
 
 I would paint the days, 
 With my heart a phase 
 Of an ancient phrase. 
 
 Now, imperative 
 For my soul to live 
 Is the joy you give! 
 
 I am torn with fear 
 You will disappear, 
 When you are not near. 
 
 It was better so 
 
 When you did not know — 
 
 46 
 
II. GREY ROOM 
 
 DEAREST, 
 But not the nearest- 
 If I call 
 Will you come 
 To the dying? 
 I am lying 
 Brumal, dumb 
 By the wall. 
 Dearest, 
 
 But never the nearest 
 When I fall 
 Through the gods, 
 Or the odds. 
 
 47 
 
III. NIGHT SOUNDS: IN ESTRANGEMENT 
 
 THE whole night through 
 To lie waiting for you 
 To come down the long corridor to me ! 
 Hints of you, sweet, 
 A hundred times your feet 
 Near as the walls and floors move wearily. 
 
 Midnight to dawn, 
 
 Bringing oblivion, 
 
 I taste the night sounds as the stir of you. 
 
 Ghosts of a white 
 
 Flame lingering in flight 
 
 When the torture of the listening is through. 
 
 48 
 
RICHES AND REVENGE 
 
 AMID the pathos of the deca}^ of character • 
 
 I have found the highroad leading to an income, 
 And a bland, flaunting, shameless income, 
 -As delicious as a harlot's. 
 After all, I have not made love in vain, 
 And the vi^omen shall pray — and keep me! 
 It will give me also the strengthening w^ine '. 
 
 Of revenge for the stupidities 
 And inanities and ruined beauty 
 Of the disappointing daughters of Eve. 
 I have found all women stupid save Maenad Mauna. 
 But she had too many characters. 
 And she got lost in them, 
 And so I hate her most of all. 
 Shadowy women, why were you all so stupid ? 
 You were all pretty — and Mauna Vv'as exquisite 
 To the point of ecstasy — 
 But you broke my heart. 
 
 For you could not save me from tiring of you. 
 And so you must pay the penalty, 
 And it shall be b}/^ providing me with an income. 
 I have searched for years for an income. 
 And now I have found it. 
 It is very simple. 
 
 I have every letter ever written to me — 
 
 Don't you remember how I read you all the other 
 
 women's letters? 
 And I have read all the others 
 All your letters. 
 
 49 
 
You learned everything about one another, 
 
 And each of you thought she alone 
 
 Had the secrets. 
 
 And the letters — did you not write indiscreetly, 
 
 And damningly, and surrenderingly ? 
 
 And I have all the letters. 
 
 I shall offer them to you all for sale — 
 
 Each M^oman may buy back her ovi^n letters, 
 
 All but Mauna. 
 
 Will you buy? 
 
 I think so. 
 
 If you do not, I shall publish them — - 
 
 Each collection in a separate volume, 
 
 And then you will be lost. 
 
 I begin to-morrow having them typewritten, 
 
 And the day after my income begins. 
 
 I may spend the winter pleasurably in Nice — 
 
 I can try my new system at Monte Carlo. 
 
 I hold your reputations in my hands. 
 
 And you must pay, 
 
 Else I shall open my hands, and you will be ruined. 
 
 It is useless to balk, to beseech. 
 
 You must capitulate. 
 
 For those of you who are recalcitrant 
 
 I shall have many prods of terror — 
 
 And revivifying cruelty will make the days 
 
 Glad and exciting for me. 
 
 Dear v/omen, j'^ou have done well — 
 Most of you have husbands, 
 And some of you have children. 
 
 50 
 
You all have speckless names. 
 
 Why ever In the world were you so rash 
 
 As to write me as you did. 
 
 If you try to avoid my levy 
 I shall send you a copy 
 Of one of your letters on a day 
 When you are giving a brave dinner, 
 With a little printed slip reminding you 
 Of the volume soon to go to the printer. 
 Will it not chill your blood? 
 Will you not pay? 
 
 But for you, Maenad Mauna, 
 
 I shall have no mercy. 
 
 There was no excuse for you — 
 
 You were lovely, you were of a brain 
 
 Satisfying and many-coloured and winding, 
 
 And you ran through the days 
 
 Like a perfumed breeze. 
 
 You could have charmed me for the whole of life- 
 
 I can forgive the others, but not you. 
 
 I can forgive the two who married me — 
 
 They, at least, divorced me — 
 
 But you, like me, let your character go bankrupt, 
 
 You were too many women. 
 
 And so I lost you. 
 
 Your letters shall be published. 
 
 And you will lose everything you now hold dear, 
 
 For you have become a striking woman, 
 
 And scorn will sear you. 
 
 Why were you at all — if j'^ou were not to remain? 
 
 51 
 
What have you now that shows 
 
 With what we might have had together? 
 
 There is a reason for every one else, 
 
 But none for you. 
 
 They w^ere born stupid, and their beauty left them, 
 
 But you had magnificent understanding and hunger for 
 
 joy, 
 And your beauty only increased 
 As you ministered to your senses. 
 The others shall give me an income. 
 But you will afford me atonement. 
 When I publish the book of your letters 
 You will be thrust from your home; 
 You will become a prostitute. 
 I know you will die in the gutter — 
 Perhaps, when I see you there 
 I shall cease to love you, 
 For you were the moon that might have saved the stars. 
 
 52 
 
DOMESTICITIES 
 
 I. THE OPERATION 
 
 SHE had passed through the operation successfully 
 And her husband was sitting at her bedside. 
 He gazed at her imperious hair 
 And faintly flushed face, 
 
 And where with inviting intimacj^ her breasts' outline 
 Came through the sheet full and firm. 
 She was of an unbelievable softness, 
 And her eyes seemed filled with affection. 
 
 He must go to business, and he rose. 
 
 Reluctant to leave her — 
 
 Then as he bent over to kiss her 
 
 His body throbbed with proud hunger. 
 
 He walked down the streets happy as a child 
 
 With a bright new toy, saying to himself: 
 
 "To-day, to-night, to-morrow, next week, 
 
 A month, and she cannot be unfaithful!" 
 
 53 
 
II. FROM A MEADOW OF GARDENIAS 
 
 THE man I most admire of all the world 
 Moves me also to poignancies of pity. 
 He has the most distinguished 
 Of the names of mortals — 
 It is Ivor Vyvyan. 
 He married nine years ago, 
 
 And Madame Vyvyan is of the loveliness of pearls, 
 Sheer and shimmering. 
 Her faithfulness for their honeymoon 
 Was a tender perfume that escaped, 
 Yet w^hen they returned to town and she was soon 
 Giving bare shoulders to a lover 
 Vyvyan seemed 
 
 Not to be caught up by madness. 
 
 It was manifest he loved the exquisite Madame Vyvyan, 
 And he appeared to be almost happy; 
 He glittered the content 
 Of a man who had found a pot of gold 
 At the rainbow's end. 
 
 It has been without change for nine years — 
 
 Vyvyan still glitters, and it was only 
 
 A month ago that I drew him to revealment. 
 
 And now I know he is the wisest of human beings. 
 
 "She came to me from a meadow of gardenias," he said, 
 
 "And her hands were full of miracles — 
 
 And the miracles were beauty! 
 
 Beauty is the only necessary thing in life. 
 
 And she brought it alone to me. 
 
 Thus she offered me everything — 
 
 54 
 
I knew her then for the woman of God. 
 
 Through the years she has given me nothing but beauty, 
 
 And she will remain for several decades 
 
 An impeccably perfect woman. 
 
 She has had her lovers, 
 
 But they do not greatly matter. 
 
 They take nothing from her, 
 
 For she unfolds and unfolds, 
 
 Petal upon petal, waxen, immaculate. 
 
 Her beauty is magnificently inexhaustible — 
 
 She has no thought but to be beautiful. 
 
 And for this she is the noblest of women — 
 
 She is the most devoted of wives. 
 
 For it is the purest essence of wifeliness. 
 
 To spread for me the feast of feasts. 
 
 It saves me from a search for beauty, 
 
 For one must be fed. 
 
 And there is so little beauty in the world! 
 
 She brings it me, and only beauty . . . only beauty!" 
 
 Vyvyan did not sigh when he had finished — 
 
 It was that convinced me. 
 
 She was from a meadow of gardenias, 
 
 And her hands are full of miracles. 
 
 She walks out of the shadows of beauty, 
 
 And her preoccupation is infinite. 
 
 The lovers, one and the hundredth, count for nothing — 
 
 Vyvyan could ask no more. 
 
 He has everything! 
 
 55 
 
III. INFIDELITIES 
 
 'Y darling, you write me charming letters from 
 your bed, 
 They caress me, and the darkness covers us, 
 And your luminous whispers are in my ear. 
 You call me, and I come to you as I read. 
 Eager to give you to my hands, 
 And be lost upon your breast. 
 
 But often next day when I re-read a letter I dream, 
 
 I wonder, was not your husband, while you wrote it, 
 
 In the next room rising from his bath. 
 
 And sprinkling rice powder over himself 
 
 Making ready to come to j^ou? 
 
 Were not perhaps the words you wrote 
 
 Your torch to set yourself in flames? 
 
 Did not the last echoes 
 
 Of your call to your lover 
 
 Help to sweep you not too passively 
 
 To accustomed clamorous arms? 
 
 56 
 
IV. THE BERWIND HOWARDS 
 
 AS he entered he had the odour 
 Of the law courts about him, 
 And so I was not surprised when he said: 
 "At last, my friend, it is a divorce." 
 
 The Berwind Howards' estrangement 
 
 Was of several years' standing — 
 
 She had been unfaithful 
 
 Within a year of their marriage, 
 
 But he never reproached her. 
 
 And outwardly he continued to live with her. 
 
 Sometimes I felt angry with him 
 
 Because he ignored the great damning fact. 
 
 And thus I deeply rejoiced when he told me 
 
 Of his coming freedom. 
 
 "Will you be a witness for my wife?" he then asked me. 
 
 I did not understand him at first — 
 
 "You mean, for yourself?" I interrogated. 
 
 "No, no," he replied quickly. 
 
 "My wife will bring the suit ; 
 
 You must testify against me." 
 
 I was dumfounded — 
 
 His conduct was irreproachable. 
 
 Why should she bring action ? 
 
 Hers was the offending — 
 
 And I besought him for an untangling. 
 
 "Of course, she is suing me," he answered. 
 "Not had she a dozen lovers 
 Could T admit to my soul , 
 
 57 
 
That she could betray me. 
 
 I have never been able to understand 
 
 How a man can accuse his wife, 
 
 Confess to the world 
 
 That she has found another man 
 
 More to her liking than himself. 
 
 My pride would not let me — 
 
 I have never believed she has been faithless. 
 
 I would deny it with my last breath. 
 
 She must get the divorce — 
 
 My honour demands that the rabble 
 
 Think her a stainless woman. 
 
 For the Berwind Howards I, not she, 
 
 Will do the sinning. 
 
 58 
 
FRAIL PHRASES 
 
 H 
 
 ER hand came through the curtain like a voice — 
 He had pondered this line in ungestured sadness 
 As he walked towards the Park, 
 And he was filled with enamorate pity, 
 Because of the line's perishability. 
 He reflected hopelessly that a word's loveliness 
 May endure but for a decade, 
 And that only the poets who hew colossally 
 Out of granite great, uncouth figures 
 Can live for eternity. 
 
 There were tears in his eyes for the frail phrases. 
 The flairs of beauty that die. 
 
 And the bland insinuations of spring angered him 
 In his valetudinarian passage. 
 
 As he crossed the Plaza he stopped to let two hansoms 
 
 pass, 
 But they, too, halted, and from the first, the flaps flung 
 
 suddenly back, 
 Came a hand and a face ! 
 
 It was the chatoj^ant Mrs. Ashleigh Norwood, 
 The most lyrically woven woman in Philadelphia. 
 
 She gave him greeting out of her suave prides, 
 Her inviolate charm and her renewing beauty. 
 And he forgot the profaning of the phrases 
 Under the assonances of her invictive personality. 
 "Will you ride with me?" she asked, and he, 
 Pointing to the other hansom abreast hers, parleyed : 
 "With you, or in that?" 
 
 59 
 
"Oh, with me," sloped her answer, 
 "The other hansom conveys my emotions — 
 I carry with me only my powder puff." 
 Flushed he hung on her pause, and held 
 The silence, tasting her valorous words; 
 Then he bade the driver make on, bowing low 
 As she was drawn out of sight. 
 
 The waves crept back, but he knew the sea was coming 
 
 in; 
 Some of the straightness went out of his body. 
 And he prepared for the last surrender. 
 "Perishable women! Frail phrases!" 
 Then as he let drop his chin upon his breast 
 He thought of the long-entombed praise of the printer 
 When he looked for the first time 
 On Mrs. Norwood's portrait: 
 "And she might have killed an Emperor of France." 
 
 60 
 
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 Each 35 cents net; by mail, 40 cents. Now ready: 
 
 SILENCE. From the Russian of Leonidas AndreiyeflF. Second 
 edition. An unusual short story that reads like a poem in 
 prose by the leading exponent of the new Russian school of 
 novelists. 
 
 MOTHERLOVE. From the Swedish of August Strindberg. 
 Second edition. An example of Strindberg's power as analyst 
 of human nature. 
 
 A RED FLOWER. By Vsevolod Garshin. A powerful short 
 story by one of Russia's popular authors, unknown as yet to 
 the English-speaking public. 
 
 THE GRISLEY SUITOR. From the German of Frank Wede- 
 kind. An excellent story of the De-Maupassant type. 
 
 RABBI EZRA AND THE VICTIM. By Frank Wedekind. 
 Two sketches characteristic of the pen of this noted German 
 author. 
 
 Other volumes in Preparation. 
 
11 »? » i j[ '^ IS 1 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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