He calls, from the hot road to us, who stray In shady pleasant woods abroad,-- Yes, Tolstoi, your path leads to God, But through the forest there _may_ be a way. IBSEN. A cannon shot, not fired to kill, But to dislodge and make to rise The decomposing corpse that lies Beneath life’s surface, smooth and still. CLAUDE F. BRAGDON. SUCCESS. Without one thought in his wide, empty brain (For Reason never sowed a seed to grow), He sits and writes page after page--no strain; Why? Chaff is cheap and sometimes looks like grain. EUMENIDES. All kindred gods have crumbled into dust Though latest born of that once teeming womb. Ye yet abide who shall not taste a tomb-- Of passion, gold, and fame the lashing lust. PHILIP BECKER GOETZ. A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR THE REHABILITATION OF LETTERS IN THE LITERARY SHOW. We may take it that the old story of the Tower of Babel symbolizes the failure of the human mind to transcend the limits of natural knowledge. It is some old poet’s picture of the aspiring race lifting its bold head to steal God’s secrets from Heaven, stricken down into the dust, whence it came and to which it must return, foiled and despairing. But the babble of a million futile, unprovable human speculations continues to sway and mock generation after generation of men, wrapt in the ironies of the world of sense and necessity. So all human thought runs in cycles, and the latest heir of all the ages but gains the wisdom of increased doubt. Our age raises its Babel of philosophies and creeds, as did the civilizations that have gone before, and left us but the fantasy of great and moving names. So our most cherished realities, for which we all suffer so much, and for which so many heretics suffer the rack and martyrdom, fade away into the gibes and bogies of tradition. Ah, how sad is the fantasy of names our freed tongues troll over so lightly! Let established wisdom learn tolerance in this levity of today’s knowledge. For those who hold to any idea or ideal, know the days of martyrdom are not yet over. The old Hebrew picture is as true of today as when first written. We, too, shall pass away into the fantasy of history. We, too, shall leave but the grinning skulls and bare bones of once vital but finally unbelievable religions and philosophies--precious, priceless scraps of rubbish and litter in the catacombs of decayed and buried cities.