I shall not forget with what a thrill of delight I came upon H. M. Tomlinson's _Old Junk_, the volume of essays from which this is borrowed. One feels, in stumbling upon such a book, much as some happy and astounded readers must have felt in 1878 when _An Inland Voyage_ came out. It makes one wonder, submitting one's self to the moving music and magic of that prose, so simple and yet so subtle in its flavor, whether poetry is not, after all, an inferior and more mechanic form. "The cool element of prose," that perfect phrase of Milton's, comes back to mind. How direct and satisfying a passage to the mind Mr. Tomlinson's paragraphs have. How they build and cumulate, how the sentences shift, turn and move in delicate loops and ridges under the blowing wind of thought, like the sand of the dunes that he describes in one essay. And through it all, as intangible but as real and beautifying as moonlight, there is the pervading brightness of a particular way of looking at the world, something for which we have no catchword, the illumination of a spirit at once humorous, melancholy, shrewd, lovely and humane. Somehow, when one is caught in the web of that exquisite, considered prose, the awkward symbols of speech seem transparent; we come close to a man's mind. In Mr. Tomlinson's three books--_The Sea and the Jungle_ (1912), _Old Junk_ (1920) and _London River_ (1921) is revealed one of the most sincere and perfect workmen in contemporary prose. H. M. Tomlinson was born in 1873; among his early memories he records: "I was an office boy and a clerk among London's ships, in the last days of the clippers. And I am forced to recall some of the things--such as bookkeeping in a jam factory and stoking on a tramp steamer." He joined the staff of the London _Morning Leader_ in 1904; which was later merged with the _Daily News_, and to this journal he was attached for several years. During the War he was a correspondent in France; at the danger of incurring his anger (should he see this) I quote Mr. S. K. Ratcliffe on this phase of his work:--"One who was the friend of all, a sweet and fine spirit moving untouched amid the ruin and terror, expressing itself everywhere with perfect simplicity, and at times with a shattering candor." In 1917 he became associate editor of the London _Nation_, where, if you are interested, you may find his initials almost weekly.