[1] _I have omitted quotation marks for the sake of appearance, but every phrase in the next five paragraphs is taken from the Imagists._ War Impressions FLORENCE KIPER FRANK The Moving-Picture Show We sat at a moving-picture show. Over a little bridge streamed the Belgian refugees, women, children, boys, dogs, horses, carts, household goods—an incongruous procession. The faces were stolid, the feet plodded on—plodded on! “See!” said my friend, “sometimes a woman turns to look at a bursting shell.” I murmured, “How interesting!” And my soul shuddered. It shuddered at sophistication. The man who had taken the pictures told us about them. He had been not more than three weeks ago in Belgium.... “Huzza!” sang my ancestor of five thousand years back. He led a band of marauders into an enemy’s village. They ripped things up and tore about the place singing and looting. There was nothing much left to that village by the time they got through with it. But the people many miles away did not behold his exploits. Alas, there were no moving-picture shows in those days! The Modern Woman With a Sense of Humor There was a Modern Woman with a sense of humor. “I shall,” she said, “teach to women the absurdity of bearing children to be killed by cannon.” “The absurdity!” exclaimed the men of the State, aghast at levity. “Yes,” answered she, “it isn’t worth the trouble!” And she lifted her eyebrows and smiled, but in her eyes there was Knowledge. And the men of the State were more terrified by the phenomenon of The Modern Woman with a Sense of Humor than by any phenomenon that had before confronted them. The Incredible Adventure of Spring The year was again a-foot on the incredible adventure of Spring. The earth broke into blossoming, and the nights were moon-drenched and astir with the whisperings of wet winds. It was a really thrilling time of the year to be alive—and therefore, besides all these breathless and miraculous adventures of the grass and flowers, many innocent and unsuspecting souls had started out on the incredible adventure of being born. But the war-writers kept on writing that for man to reach true exaltation and vibrancy of spirit, he must blow out the brains of as many people as possible. Man and His Machines He has builded him machines—man the Maker—using great cunning of hand and of brain. And has not Bergson told us that thus has he evolved that tool, the Intellect—through the dim ages of his making! He has builded him states, politics, all the intricate architecture of institutions. Now who would think that what he himself has builded—builded through the thousands of years of endeavor—should thus turn about, ungrateful, to destroy and to rend him? The Annual Banquet