And if Mr. Wells maintains that in the worship of the non-moral Veiled Being there is no practical, pragmatic comfort, I reply that I am not so sure of that. When all is said and done, is there not more hope, more solace, in an enigma than in a _facon de parler_? I should be quite willing to accept the test of the reeling aeroplane. The aviator can say to his soul: "Here am I, one of the most amazing births of time, the culmination of an endless series of miracles. Perhaps I am on the verge of extinction--if so, what does it all matter? But perhaps, on the contrary, I am about to plunge into some new adventure, as marvellous as this. More marvellous it cannot be, but it may perhaps be more agreeable. At all events, there is something fascinating in this leap in the dark. Good bye, my soul! Good-bye, my memory! 'If we should meet again, why, we shall smile; If not, why then this parting was well made.'" I cannot but think that there is as much religion and as much solace in such a shaking-off of "the bur o' the world" as in the thought that the last new patent God is going to die with you, and that you, unconsciously and indistinguishably merged in him, are going to live for ever. THE NEWEST BORZOI BOOKS LUSTRA _By Ezra Pound_ DANDELIONS _By Coulson T. Cade_ A CHASTE MAN _By Louis Wilkinson_ GOD AND MR. WELLS _By William Archer_ MARTIN RIVAS _By Alberto Blest-Gana_ BEATING 'EM TO IT _By Chester Cornish_ A BOOK OF PREFACES _By H. L. Mencken_ THE THREE BLACK PENNYS _By Joseph Hergesheimer_ INTERPRETERS AND INTERPRETATIONS _By Carl Van Vechten_ MR. GEORGE JEAN NATHAN PRESENTS _By George Jean Nathan_ OTHERS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE NEW VERSE _Edited by Alfred Kreymborg_ 1917 Issue TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES 1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. 2. The words amoeba, mythopoeic and prosopopoeia use "oe" ligature in the original text. 3. The following misprints have been corrected: "blackslides" corrected to "backslides" (page 40) "annhilated" corrected to "annihilated" (page 119) 4. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained.