In one of his books he describes himself in fancy as going about the country and, with the keenest joy, spearing Anglican bishops. Though I am myself a stranger to the sport, I believe the pleasure of spearing bishops is exaggerated. For once begun it must lead logically to a daily drudgery of slaughter among the great crowds of folks who are not intellectually independent or morally daring--lead, in short, to the massacre of those who are not particularly exciting, a large task and tedious. I wonder if we commonplace persons are not right after all in a certain instinct of distrust toward these gifted writers. We believe implicitly in their fancies and not at all in their facts. We believe in the world they have invented and not in the world they have observed; and we distrust them utterly as world-pushers. The signs are plain--terribly plain sometimes--that it is when they have the smallest notions that they say their largest things. _The Senior Wrangler._ LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE: _NEW STYLE_ (REFORMER, UPLIFTER, SOCIAL SERVICER AND BELIEVER IN BETTERMENT) BY ANNE O’HAGAN WITH A PICTURE BY E. L. BLUMENSCHEIN [Illustration: LADY CLARA: _NEW STYLE_] Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Though, ’neath the Tennysonian frown, You’ve ceased to play at hearts, what need For throwing _all_ the graces down? The quip, the wile, the wingèd smile, Must these in truth be quite retired, Reformer of a thousand ills, O lady with a mission fired? Lady Clara Vere de Vere, You cause a tumult in my head. I do not know how many quarts Of coal-tar every year are fed In store-made pies, or what dread dyes Give that bright emerald to canned peas. I do not know the cure for graft, Or juvenile delinquencies; And, oh, my very soul is sick Of these and topics like to these! Lady Clara Vere de Vere, On suffragism you’ve a view. You have one on the cost of war, And what the working-girl should do. Your uplift crusade comprehends The stage, the mart, the funeral bier; Your dinner-table talk has grown Statistical and very drear. Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, By yon blue heavens above us bent, The gardener Adam and his wife Yawn at your plans for betterment. We never see such sad ennui Among our hapless human brood As when the ladies’ motto runs: “’Tis fashionable to do good.” * * * * * Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, If time hangs heavy on your hands, Are there no suitors at your gates, No squires of dames about your lands? Go, play the game of hearts again, Coquette, and sparkle, languish, glow; Ask pardon of the folk you’ve bored, And let the thousand causes go! [Illustration] [Illustration: Drawn by Reginald Birch “THE PET HAS BECOME OF MATERIAL AID TO HIM IN HIS WALL STREET WORK”] THE NEWS IN WALL STREET BY JAMES L. FORD