made difficult for the uninitiated--people whom it is not meant for anyway. The first number must strike the note--the ultra-future note--so I will give to our public my dance-poem, "The Candle and the Black Water Lily." A poem, have I told you, which I hope to have danced sometime. It must be danced by one person while a chorus of men and boys chant the words, in place of music for the dancer. How it will appeal, simply alone, in the book, I don't know, without its proper atmosphere. It almost required a new language, I felt, when I wrote it. Still, it must be the first of our first number--ultra-modern and a new art--think, a new art! And the illustrations, what a chance you will be, "Azure Adder," for the artist illustrator! A sweep of a brush, a tone, a dot is enough for our purpose; when Beauty is sitting by the side of the reader. Yes, I see a revolution in book illustration, a glorious one, an upheaval, one never-to-be-forgotten revolution, which, looked back upon from the far distant future, will have at its base, forgotten or remembered, who cares, the "Azure Adder"! MAUD and ALICE. Ah! (Yvonne rises, walks towards the large window at the back, a sky-light really, opens it and leans out during the following.) ALICE. If we can only get it started--we know very little about such work. MAUD. That makes no difference. We all paint and all great art is one in its complete state. We can surely run a magazine. If only Uncle, George's Uncle Billy, will start it financially! GEORGE. Oh, he will, I'm sure. (Smiles.) ALICE. Whose stuff will we print in it besides our own? If we could only get something from some of the great living ones! But we can't hope for more than one or two things from them, at most, perhaps nothing, unless we prove a great success. GEORGE. You doubt our success? You lack egotism, my dear. I have already a poem, by one of our greatest living English poets. It's written in Italian. MAUD. Of course it's beautiful. GEORGE. Of course, everything of his is. ALICE. Strange that he should send you a poem written in Italian. It's beautiful, you say--I didn't know that you read Italian? GEORGE. I don't--Palidino read it to me. I asked him what it meant, what it was about. He said that he did not understand its meaning--but the sound of it, as he was reading it, was magnificent. It is a masterpiece! Its meaning is clear to me--Palidino understands nothing which is really fine. The poem tells by its sound that the poet writes of love, the love which is perfected by death. MAUD (to herself). "The Triumph of Death." ALICE (softly). George, you are wonderful; it is fine to feel as finely as you do--I mean it, really I do, George. GEORGE. You are beautiful. (Pause.) MAUD. Still, it seems that we ought to have more people to write for us. I can think of only a few, one or two, who do good stuff, really fine things--impressions.