The most honourable feature of Marquis's writing, the "small thing to look for but the big thing to find," is its quality of fine workmanship. The swamis and prophets of piffle, the Bhandranaths and Fothergill Finches whom he detests, can only create in an atmosphere specially warmed, purged and rose-watered for their moods. Marquis has emerged from the underworld of newspaper print just by his heroic ability to transform the commonest things into tools for his craft. Much of his best and subtlest work has been clacked out on a typewriter standing on an upturned packing box. (When the _American Magazine_ published a picture of him at work on his packing case the supply man of the _Sun_ got worried, and gave him a regular desk.) Newspaper men are a hardy race. Who but a man inured to the squalour of a newspaper office would dream of a cockroach as a hero? Archy was born in the old _Sun_ building, now demolished, once known as Vermin Castle. "Publishing a volume of verse," Don has plaintively observed, "is like dropping a rose-petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting to hear the echo." Yet if the petal be authentic rose, the answer will surely come. Some poets seek to raft oblivion by putting on frock coats and reading their works aloud to the women's clubs. Don Marquis has no taste for that sort of mummery. But little by little his potent, yeasty verses, fashioned from the roaring loom of every day, are winning their way into circulation. Any reader who went to _Dreams and Dust_ (poems, published October, 1915) expecting to find light and waggish laughter, was on a blind quest. In that book speaks the hungry and visionary soul of this man, quick to see beauty and grace in common things, quick to question the answerless face of life-- Still mounts the dream on shining pinion, Still broods the dull distrust; Which shall have ultimate dominion, Dream, or dust? Heavy men are light on their feet: it takes stout poets to write nimble verses (Mr. Chesterton, for instance). Don Marquis has something of Dobsonian cunning to set his musings to delicate, austere music. He can turn a rondeau or a triolet as gracefully as a paying teller can roll Durham cigarettes. How neat this is: TO A DANCING DOLL Formal, quaint, precise, and trim, You begin your steps demurely-- There's a spirit almost prim In the feet that move so surely. So discreetly, to the chime Of the music that so sweetly Marks the time. But the chords begin to tinkle Quicker, And your feet they flash and flicker-- Twinkle!-- Flash and flutter to a tricksy Fickle meter; And you foot it like a pixie-- Only fleeter!