When we say we appeal to the younger people it must not be thought that we appeal to the children--although since they are so far more critical than their grandparents, we shall not dare to forget them altogether. We mean that we desire to enlist the interests and sympathies of our own generation--say those born sometime in the sixties and since. Our grandparents may be very good folk and quite smart in getting around today, but they were largely brought up on almanacs, and their literary tastes are narrow and eccentric without being picturesque. They belong to ancient times without holding the antique novelties of the really far away ancient times, which were really more in touch with the intellectual bustle and eager curiosity of our day than those gray years of smug Anglo-Saxon absorption in a civilization of mere bread and beer that lie immediately behind us, and still cast the chill shadow of their prurient morality over all our literature. Even some of the direct parents of this generation are a little threadbare in their craniums. They have read domestic literature all their lives and of course are incapable of thought. The stirring gray matter is found in the heads of those born not much further back, say, than ’49, the year of gold. Let us resolve to make this _fin de siecle_ the golden age of American literature. And if there are, as I suspect there are, some belated grandparents still on earth, animated with the spirit and ideals of Milton and the Martyrs, young at heart in their enthusiasm for the truth, for the art that touches and ennobles life, and for freedom of thought and expression, these are of us also, and will gladly find in the FLY LEAF, in its burst of youth, the ideals that have always permeated robust and honest literature--especially in the old days when a man might swing or burn for an audacious pamphlet. With such old fogies we have no bone of contention. But the old fogies in petticoats, the gingerbread writers, we shall probably toss up in a blanket nine times as high as the moon--when we are not so pressed for space and time. [Illustration] GREY EYES. Brown eyes for passion and blue eyes for life, Pink eyes and green eyes and black eyes for strife, But the eyes of my love are grey. Bright eyes that are happy, dull eyes that are sad, Wide innocent eyes and eyes to make mad, But I love the soft eyes that are grey. I love the soft eyes that are grey, love, And grey’ll be the eyes of the angels above, For in heaven your eyes will be grey. SHERWIN CODY. A GEOLOGICAL PARABLE. It was at the place afterwards called Solenhofen. The weather was miserable, as Jurassic weather usually was. The rain beat steadily down, and carbon dioxide was still upon the earth.