Vogue la galère!” “This is becoming monotonous,” said Elvina aloud, and gritting her teeth she packed her duds and returned to her home town with only one dollar and twenty-five cents in her pocket. However, family affection, above all family flapjacks, restored her jarred nerves to their normal pitch. From time to time she sends me programmes of concerts in which she is described: “Our native song-bird, Elvina, Prima Donna Dissoluta.” As Esther Beautiful Queen (newly reorchestrated by Stravinsky) she made a “real hit.” She may have exaggerated a little in her confidences, but I can personally vouch for the heavy weights on pupils’ chests to promote breathlessness. There was advocated such a vocal system two or three decades ago in New York. Sing and grow voiceless! Basta! XVI ANATOLE FRANCE: THE LAST PHASE Anatole France is seventy-six years old, but his mind is still vigorous, if that word be not too brisk when applied to such a subtle, supple, undulating intelligence as his. He now writes prose glowing with patriotism. Like the late Remy de Gourmont he shed his cynic’s skin when war invaded his beloved land. And it was not the first time that he, a writer of humanitarian impulses, opened the door of his ivory tower and descended into the stormy arena; witness the Dreyfus case. However, it would be idle to deny that his best work is well behind him. Prefaces to letters to distinguished men and women he occasionally publishes, such as Sur la Voie Glorieuse, or Ce que disent nos morts; but the Anatole France of La Révolte des Anges seems to have vanished forever. In the vast whirlwind of European events his scepticism, irony, and pessimism have given way to pity and tenderness for human suffering. The son of the bookseller Thibaut may figure, some day, in a modern hagiography of those lay-saints who fought for a new spiritual freedom.