The brave workman who dares be himself and go hungry for the honor finds sooner or later a brilliant little fact rising in his consciousness—one that comes to stay, and which future thinking must be built around: that while the people are all that is low and bad in their change and rush of personality, they are also the soil of the future, a splendid potential mass that contains every heroism and masterpiece to be; that all great things must come from the people, because great leaders of the people turn their passionate impregnation of idealism upon them; that first the dreamer dreams—and then the people make it action.... That which we see that hurts us so as workmen, is but the unfinished picture, the back of the tapestry. To be worth his spiritual salt, the artist, any artist, must turn every force of his conceiving into that great restless Abstraction, the many; he must plunge whole-heartedly in the doing, but cut himself loose from the thing done; at least, he must realize that what he is willing to give could not be bought.... When he is quite ready, there shall rise for him, out of the Abstraction, something finished; something as absolutely his own as the other half of his circle. “Rooming” HELEN HOYT I O, I can tell when I get to my corner, Where to turn in going to my house. On the other corners along the avenue, Northward and southward where the cars grind, Are saloons and drug stores, Glaring with signals and bright glass. On both sides of the street the same, One block like the next. But on my corner is a florist’s shop With ferns in the window And sweet-peas and roses, Glowing with red and pink and yellow. And sometimes pansies And moss. Each night as I step down from the car There the flowers are waiting To say I have got home. And I linger Seeing gardens. II The room I have now is narrow, Narrow Like a coffin. As plain and as straight And as tight as a coffin. Two corners at the end of it, Are rounded off where the head lies. Ugh! In the bed, you stiffen And look down at your feet As if buried. On the right side is the high bureau, On the left side is the high desk— How high and stiff and black they are! How high and stiff and black they are And what is “I” dwells in the cañon between,— Where at any moment the narrowness may tumble and fall in upon me! How far off the ceiling appears over my eyes! At the coffin’s head one window; At the coffin’s foot, one chair. III My room is narrow, But wide enough. My desk and pencils are wide as the world And my books are like palaces and far journeys.