There are trees and valleys and mountains—red, blue, orange and purple—all smothered by a phosphorescent green. The trees stretch up gnarled hands, swollen from too much striving. There is no sky. Dull coal mingles with the earth clods. Diamond mines glitter. The ground is misshapen. Flowers give forth a stale odor. A hideous laugh sounds. It comes from the mouth of a hunch-back who, with prods of burning metal, forces people into the quick-sands. Over the sands sucking, demoniacal waters rush. Here and there an eye or a torso floats on the surface. From the trees and valleys and mountains, luridly colored, come human faces. Blood runs from their opened arteries. Their hands are horribly twisted. In the foreground writhes a shape whose fingers bend back to meet his knuckles. Another rears a massive head, the veins of which stand out further than his purple lips. A woman’s arm is extended, too full of blood. A weird figure hovers over an abyss, swathed with the vapors arising from the gases of the underground. All the people are dying. Everyone breathes hard. A whole mound is composed of a soft substance—disintegrated limbs. The jelly-like mass quivers. This is life. Did you see his exhibition at the Art Institute? At seventeen one is almost wholly in sympathy with him. Phantasy _Noncompos Mentis, Napa, California_: Night! A lambient fog * * * * * Stirs the damp echos of the baleful deep, Cimmerian in its fell intensity. Shrouded in mist, pale wraiths flit hitherward Or yon; lured or impelled * * * * * Peace! Ah! Who shall say? Borne on the vagrant breeze she floats; Kelp in her hands; ’twined in her hair The weed from outer seas; writhing yet strangely still. Behold her eyes—shallow, opaque, Yet glaucous with a nascent light, gleaming Its message of appeal to answering soul. * * * * * Ah me! Recall the past; Blot out its infamies; this fiery tumult quell With one tempestuous kiss. My being swoons—my soul is wafted hence, Drowned in its God-like, saccharine ecstasy.[4] ---------- [4] Here the Muse skidded. Author contemplated another stanza, but warder entered with strait jacket and gag. Birth Control _Russell Palmer, Seattle_: ... With particular reference to the matter of Birth Control, which the writer has studied in an amateurish fashion for some time, I want to ask you if there has ever been framed a model statute providing for the dissemination of such information by the State.