STRAWS _and_ PRAYER-BOOKS BOOKS _by_ MR. CABELL _Biography_: Beyond Life Figures of Earth Domnei Chivalry Jurgen The Line of Love The High Place Gallantry The Certain Hour The Cords of Vanity From the Hidden Way The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck The Eagle's Shadow The Cream of the Jest Straws and Prayer-Books _Scholia_: The Lineage of Lichfield Taboo The Jewel Merchants Jurgen and the Law (_Edited by Guy Holt_) _STRAWS AND PRAYER-BOOKS_ _Dizain des Diversions_ _By_ JAMES BRANCH CABELL "_Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.... Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age._" ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY NEW YORK : : : : : : 1924 Copyright, 1924, by James Branch Cabell _Printed in the United States of America_ Third Edition Published, 1924 To BALLARD HARTWELL CABELL _is dedicated whatever may be of worth in this volume, or elsewhere in the Biography_. _Contents_ PAGE The Author of Jurgen 3 I A Note on Alcoves 25 II The Way of Wizardry 49 III Minions of the Moon 79 IV The Thin Queen of Elfhame 123 V Celestial Architecture 139 VI Romantics About Them 171 VII Diversions of the Anchorite 193 VIII The Delta of Radegonde 225 IX A Theme With Variations 239 X Flaws in the Spur 267 The Author of The Eagle's Shadow 285 THE AUTHOR OF JURGEN "As to the book of the Laws composed by him, what good have they done us? And yet he ought (as Lycurgus did the Lacedæmonians, and as Solon did the Athenians, and Zaleucus the Thurians), if they were excellent, to have persuaded some to adopt them. How, then, can we consider Plato's conduct anything but ridiculous?--since he appears to have written his laws, not for men who have any real existence, but rather for a set of persons invented by him." _The Author of Jurgen_ § 1 "But this is grossly unfair!" John Charteris complained. "All these long years you have been promising to write a book about me. And now, it seems, I am to remain forever a minor character." "Well--!" I admitted. "And why, pray?"