“Then, as a crowning triumph, note the splendid last line, a masterpiece brought about by the influence of Sir Oliver Lodge and his spiritistic ilk! Could anything be finer? What imagery for a last line! What a break-off, leaving the gasping reader in a state of choking suspense, of avid, ungratified curiosity! A great poem indeed, and influenced by a noble army of writers. “Nor is the manner of the thing all that matters. The theme--the great idea of the whole affair--is a marvelous example of influence. The New York State Legislature recently passed a bill making attempted suicide no longer a punishable offense. If successful, it is, like virtue, its own reward. Indeed, it has to be, for as the Penal Code distinctly states, owing to the impossibility of reaching the successful perpetrator no forfeiture is imposed. But the new law lifts the ban from futile efforts in the matter of self-destruction, and one need not pay the hitherto exacted fine of a thousand dollars by way of a luxury tax on such diversion. “Can it be doubted, then, that our Poet read of this new law, and--it may be unconsciously--was so influenced by it that he devoted sixteen lines of his precious verse to the expression of his willingness to let death come to him?” “I don't blame him for being willing, and I wouldn't put a straw in Death's way,” said Warble, earnestly. “I'm glad you read me that, Bill, for that is just the sort of thing I mean to eradicate from your system. It's like a disease, this aestheticism of yours--it's the Culture Ptomaine.” “Now, hold on, Dumpling Dear, do you know a culture from a ptomaine?” “Oh, I don't mean the cultures you take, I mean Culture with a big C. It's a poison, and as you cure ptomaine poisoning, I'm going to cure this town of its deadly art poisoning. I'm in revolt.” “That's right, everybody who is anybody is in revolt against something nowadays, because our knowledge of the truth is too great for our existing conditions, and it bursts--” “Like poor Betsy Binn, who was so very pure within, She burst this outer shell of sin, And hatched herself a cherubim!” Warble interrupted. “Yes, or as Gertrude Stein puts it: 'It is a gnarled division, that which is not any obstruction, and the forgotten swelling is certainly attracting. It is attracting the whiter division, it is not sinking to be growing, it is not darkening to be disappearing, it is not aged to be annoying. There cannot be sighing. This, is bliss.' There you see how art is greater than life--how--” “Do you think I'm too fat?” Warble again interrupted him. “I do, my dear. You weren't, I think you are, I know you will be.” “Would you love me more if I were--didn't weigh so much?” “Yes, in exact inverse ratio.” Warble made an awful face at him, and then she went quietly around behind him, and dropped down his back a little fuzzy caterpillar, which she had tied in her handkerchief for that very purpose. * * * * *