Of still deeper significance is that terribly sad picture of Philip Martini, "The Mumpers: a Group at Lloyds." Nothing is more illustrative of the courage demanded for the struggle of the new art against convention than this poignant work, wherein, true to the verities, the artist has confounded realism in its own domain by the unrecognisable faces of his sitters. Let us sum up the new movement so clearly that the dullest will apprehend. Surely the inhibition of all apperceptions in art is correlative to the inner _ego_? That simple postulate granted, it will be unquestioned that the true focus of vision should co-ordinate the invisible. Faith we must have, or we faint by the roadside of the intelligible. The only altruism is that which can defy the cold brutality of things as they _are_, and convince us with things as they _are not_. Thus alone can the contemplation of art bring us back to primal infelicity, and restore in our souls the perfect vacuity of infants and cows. Thus only can we achieve the suffusion of vision of the happy inebriate. * * * * * [Illustration: _Sunday-school Teacher._ "And now, Tommy, about your prize--would you like a hymn-book?" _Tommy._ "A yim-book's all right, teacher, but--er--er--I'd sooner 'ave a squirt."] * * * * * THE TROPHY. I'd dined at home; I'd read till ten; I'd thought, "The space upon the wall Above the stuffed Thames trout Wants filling." That was really all: And then I closed my eyes, and then I let my pipe go out. * * * * * We crawled, the Khan of Khot and I, On a Thibetan precipice (It _was_ Thibet, I think), A place of snow and black abyss; We lay on rock--mid wind and sky-- Above a beetling brink. For lo, along the ridge there fed The sheep that ne'er a shepherd know Save the shrill wind of morn, Five "_Oves Ammon_" of the snow; I saw the big ram lift his head, Twin-mooned in mighty horn. Broadside he turned, a mountain-god In sweep of coronal sublime, And the fierce whisper broke-- The Khan of Khot's, he hissed, "_Tak time_!" And handed me my spinning-rod; And as he did I woke! * * * * * One thing at least is clear, and that's My empty wall is yet to fill; Though oft with even's shade I see that great head from the hill, Unstable as the Cheshire cat's, Look down therefrom and fade. * * * * * Two quotations from _The Publisher's Circular_:-- "Mr. Robert Bowes (who by the way is in his sixty-seventh year)...." "Mr. Robert Bowes is in his seventy-ninth year.... But then he is much younger than many older men." So are all of us. Mr. BOWES'S distinction is in being twelve years younger than himself. * * * * * ALL'S WELL THAT BEGINS WELL.