the undergraduate days at Harvard until his death. The immense variety of Roosevelt's interests is clearly shown. After a night at the home of President Hadley, he came down to breakfast full of enthusiasm about a book he had found in his bedroom. It was a translation of Dante which he had not seen before, and he had read it steadily until five o'clock in the morning.

Although the Elizabethan drama represents the high-water mark of the world's literature, only a few of the plays by Shakespeare's contemporaries still hold the stage. One of the best of these is that masterpiece, "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," by Philip Massinger. An admirable separate edition of this has just been published, edited by the Reverend A. H. Cruickshank, professor of Greek and Classical Literature at the University of Durham. This has an accurate text, complete critical apparatus, with a list of all known performances. The only opportunity I have had to see this play was at the Alpha Delta Phi House in New Haven, March 15, 1921, where the undergraduates gave it under the direction of Professor John M. Berdan. It is good to know that it is now part of the repertoire of Walter Hampden, and I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing him as Sir Giles.

The theatrical season of 1926-27 in New York, now drawing to a close, has been marked by several important events. Eva Le Gallienne has made a success of her bold and risky experiment with the Civic Repertory Theatre on Fourteenth Street. She has produced a long list of plays, of which the most successful have been Cradle Song," Susan Glaspell's "Inheritors," Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman," and Goldoni's "La Locandiera." There's variety for you! The Theatre Guild has had its best season, and has also scored a triumph with repertory, alternating "The Brothers Karamazov" with "Pygmalion," and "The Silver Cord" with "Ned McCobb's Daughter." All four plays have drawn packed houses. Walter Hampden's "Caponsacchi" is now in its fifth month, and has deeply impressed thousands of listeners. I say

VOL. LXXXI.-49

"listeners" advisedly, for in this theatre they come to hear rather than to see. Unfortunately in these days we speak of the spectators at the theatre and of the audience at a ball-game. Of all the mystery-crime-detective plays, of which there has been an abundance, by far the best is "The Spider," which is both thrilling and diverting, constructed on an entirely original plan. The performances of "Iolanthe" and "The Pirates of Penzance," under the direction of Winthrop Ames, have been successful in every way, artistically, musically, financially. "The Constant Nymph" is one of the few plays made from novels that I like even better on the stage than between the covers of the book, and I certainly admire the book. "The Devil in the Cheese,” by Tom Cushing, has scored a big success at Mr. Charles Hopkins's theatre, and deserves it, for it is a brilliant and charming comedy. Three extra matinées weekly have been found necessary. Of the motionpictures I have seen, I like most "Beau Geste," but I have seen only one other. New York has the best and the worst plays in the world, with enormous patronage for both.

The greatest event of the year on any stage is the production of the first successful American grand opera, "The King's Henchman," by Deems Taylor and Edna St. Vincent Millay. The first night at the Metropolitan Opera House was a triumph for the composer, the poet, the singers, the orchestra, and the management. Musicians and poets have collaborated before this in American grand opera, but have never succeeded in gaining anything except cold respect. In other words, while previous works have been meritorious, they have not been interesting. But "The King's Henchman" pleased the critics and charmed the audience. It has been repeated several times, and the authors have been commissioned to write another work. In Kipling's immortal phrase, "the thing that couldn't has occurred," and an American grand opera has been added to the repertory of the foremost house of music in the world.

I have been enjoying this season, even more than ever before, the Wagner cycle; for I am a root-and-branch, uncompromising, whole-hearted Wagner enthusiast.

to rise at half past seven, as in Germany, and others suggested half past nine. A characteristic answer came from Bernard Shaw: "For the majority of English plays, the curtain should not rise at all.'

The ugly Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon was burned, and it is now proposed not only to erect a beautiful building in its place, where the plays of the native son may fittingly be produced, but to establish in connection with it a permanent school of the theatre, young actors may be trained in the best traditions of the stage. This idea should appeal to lovers of Shakespeare all over the world, and in a later issue I will give the facts more in detail, and state to what address contributions should be sent.

where

Shreveport, La., scores heavily in the Faery Queene Club; five persons have read the entire poem together at weekly meetings. They are: Mrs. Glen McFadin, Mrs. H. C. Metcalf, Mrs. J. C. Bonnycastle, Miss Mary McNeely, and Mrs. E. Wayles Browne.

Mrs. Marion Hall Clark, of Montezuma, Iowa, and Mrs. Mary Temple Robinson, of Waterloo, Neb., are welcomed into the Club, having read the poem more than forty years ago.

Here is a quotation on cats sent to me from a Cunard liner. It appears in H. V. Morton's "Heart of London":

In the London Record Office which houses twenty-six miles of shelves packed with historic documents and millions of unhistoric documents... the bones of English history . . . when you have enjoyed the flavour of these old days, you may meet on the stairs an ordinary cat. At least so it seems. It is Felix and he has been walking through history for centuries. It is the only cat officially on a Government staff.... It receives a penny a day from Government funds! I believe that the terms of its appointment include a clause that it must keep itself clean, catch rats and mice and bring up its children. If anybody killed the official cat in ancient times he had to forfeit sufficient wheat to cover the body.

I received the following interesting letter on the cat from Reverend Edwin S. Ford, of Sparta, N. J.:

It is delightful to find in "As I Like It" Bartholomew's cat in John de Travisa's fourteenth century English. It is pleasant, too, to find the author of de Proprietatibus Rerum raised to the ranks of the angelic. Is it a Gregorian pun, or has the printer merely played you false? In either case, no doubt this learned son of St. Francis deserved it.

Bartholomæus Anglicus is "perhaps the oldest cat reference" in your correspondence, but there are cats in Cicero, Ovid, Titus Phædrus, Pliny et al., as my tattered calf-bound copious and critical lexicon, sub verb. feles tells me. In Egypt the cat's walls. In Ireland appear "I and my white miaou is a hieroglyphic carved upon the Pangur" four or five hundred years before Bartholomew's English cat. This and much more of cats, Welsh, Scottish, Cheshire and Whittingtonian, is in Walter de la Mare's "Come Hither."

"Physiologus speaketh of the Panther," writes Bartholomew. Does the same work speak of lesser cats? Physiologus is one of Bartholomew's authorities, and came from Alexandria before the fourth century. The puss that "lepeth and reseth" on the parchment of the English friar may be the very same "Seyfte, plyaunte and mery" cat that fished in the Nile.

NOMINATIONS FOR THE IGNOBLE

PRIZE

By Mrs. E. Wayles Browne, of Shreveport, La. "Death car" for any automobile that has been in a fatal accident. One killed her cat.

Professor Theodore S. Woolsey, writing from Ojai, Calif., says:

The prolixities and complexities of the Income Tax Blanks are scandalous. Is not public ridicule the proper cure?

that the Income Tax be abolished and a Although I am not a tax expert, I suggest Sales Tax take its place. This is so simple, so equitable, so inescapable, that it is certain it will never be adopted.

By a professor of English. Signing a letter "Cordially," etc., with "yours" omitted.

One sees that the subscription is one of courtesy, and intended to suggest the relation of the signer to his correspondent. The moment that relation is ignored, the point of the subscription is lost.

By Ansley Newman, of Buffalo, N. Y. "All people who, when they discuss religion, raise their voices."

By Karl Schriftgiesser, of the Boston Evening Transcript:

Replica when one means a copy made by some one other than the original artist or craftsman. Gotten and proven when one means got and proved.

I am myself not afraid to use replica for "accurate imitation or reproduction," and there is good authority for such usage. As for gotten, I hate it, but is there not a regular legal phrase not proven? The last word and the first word on a fountain pen is sent to me by James M. Ludlow, of East Orange, N. J., who enclosed the following newspaper clipping:

OLD EGYPT SOUGHT A FOUNTAIN

PEN

An early attempt to devise a fountain pen has been disclosed by excavations in an Egyptian tomb dating back more than 4,000 years. The primitive instrument consisted of a section of reed the diameter of a lead pencil, about three inches in length and mounted on a long piece of copper. The nib of the pen is cut away to a fine point like an ordinary quill pen. The narrow tube of the reed served to hold in reserve a small quantity of the writing fluid, whatever it may have been.

Thackeray held her up while the procession of notables passed, and as he knew every one of them, he told her who they were. He did not give his own name and she had no idea it was Thackeray, but later when she heard him lecture in Amer

ica she recognized him instantly, and at the end of the lecture spoke to him, and he remembered the little lady.

Doctor Merrill B. Dean, from the appropriate town of Candor, N. Y., complains that after I praised Fowler's "Dictionary of Modern English Usage," I attack it in the March SCRIBNER'S. He bought the book for three dollars and is now bewildered. Yet I do not think I am quite so inconsistent as the doctor suggests. I admire this dictionary immensely, but that does not mean that I agree with every line in it. No human guide is errorless.

As a rule, I do not care for verse or prose written by the very young; but a new book, "The House Without Windows," written by Barbara Newhall Follett, at the age of nine, is so remarkable that I think many will read it with amazement and delight.

beauty. It has a charm all its own, being quite unlike conventional fiction. The chief character dies just before the story begins how fine it would be if that happened oftener!

In America, a first novel by Viola Paradise, called "The Pacer," is well worth reading, because husband, wife, and lover (don't be alarmed, you know I never most writers call a new angle, but what I praise dirty books) are treated from what call in an original manner. The Blue Bird was right at home, and she didn't know it! The difference between wise and foolish persons is often indicated by the ability of the wise to make the most of actual conditions, while the foolish are longing for the unattainable. Who said the grapes were sour? It was a wise remark, and was made by the wisest of all animals, the fox. Verbum sap. Yet

many foolish people, mature only in years, make every sacrifice to reach and eat them, with the result that the children's teeth are set on edge.

The American ambassador to Mexico, the Honorable James R. Sheffield, has had innumerable vexatious problems, and I am glad to see that, like Abraham Lincoln, he finds occasional relief in humor.

MY DEAR BILLY:

Do you still play golf? I see no reference to your game in "As I Like It" and knowing your skill, I marvel at your modesty.

For after all, there are thousands who care more about a good drive than your opinion of the best novel of the year, the best play, or those foolish societies you monthly organize among the literary uplifters.

I

I was recently asked to present the golf prizes at the Mexico City Country Club. couldn't make up my mind whether in selecting the one man who never could win a prize the club intended it as a compliment or a consolation.

Being a Diplomat I've tried to keep my scores a secret but the caddie always says ocho (8) every time I announce siete (7).

When scoring in golf follows the usual rule in football, tennis, baseball and polo or even bridge and poker and the one who makes the largest score wins, I hope to get my name on a silver cup. I take off my hat to those Scotch originators whose saving habits made them decree that the man who is most economical with his strokes gets the prize. And what a misnomer is that word "par." It generally means 100— -just the right number for any golf course. But again the canny Scots in order to get a reduction took off 28 and made it 72-the surveyor's measurement without allowance for any deviation because the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line.

"Let your club do the work" says the expert. When you hear that you know you are going to like the game. Then he adds "Keep your eye on the ball, your head down, come back slowly, your left arm straight, your right shoulder dropped, your left hand gripped tight, your right hand firm, your right knee straight, pivot evenly on your hips, time the rhythm of your stroke and follow through, using your wrists at the end." When you have done all these, you wonder what the club has to do with it anyway. It isn't a game-it's a lesson in memory with setting up exercises added to keep your interest alive and give you enough health to stand the strain.

The golf ball is merely incidental and frequently lost sight of. You are expected to address it courteously and having lulled it into a sense of security on its nest of sand, to suddenly, contrary to all rules of sport or personal conduct, give it a solar plexus blow. Now when you and I played a real game like baseball, if we sliced over the fence it was a home run, the crowd cheered and we won the game. But in golf for doing the same thing you lose your temper and your opponent gets the glory and the game. For a comfortable old man's game, I recommend that both the ball and the putting cups be enlarged, all bunkers placed high behind the greens and no water hazards.

Let's all agree the next Red Cross drive shall start from the first tee, and every approach be made with a club, with the cup in our hand into which the victim can "put" his wad.

All this foolishness is written just to get my mind off more serious problems, and there are many.

Henry Wilson Goodrich, of Philadelphia, writes:

"As I Like It" has taken on a bit of new color of late by including some apt criticisms of current English. Hypercriticisms, possibly, at times, but, on the whole I like it. It is important.

To dispose of the hypercritics quickly, I will divide them in two classes. There are those who have no more substantial ground for complaint than the monotony of unusual or misunderstood expressions. Nevertheless their intentions are good and they help the cause along. Even if their criticisms are not above criticism that fact draws attention and keeps the interest alive. They are too sensitive to teach so they become hypercritics. The other type is well illustrated by a man I knew once who strutted about as if he had no relatives by the name of Babbitt! All the monstrosities that offended his ears were "soil" English.

Soil English grows in the valleys and plains of God's own country; is plucked beside the still waters and on the banks of mighty rivers. It springs up and thrives among the rocks and on the mountain sides. It adorns the byways, refreshing the weary traveller, and is the inspiration of the loftiest themes that elevate God's honest children. Soiled English thrives on Broadway and is even heard in dowager's drawingrooms without causing a ripple of embarrassment.

As cleanliness is next to Godliness so clearness is next to cleanness; in fact they are the same thing, generally. Clear water