Lift up your large black satin eyes which are like cushions where one sinks! Fawn at my feet, fantastic Sphinx, and sing me all your memories! A symphony of memories. A life as brilliant and as swift as a meteor. A life of no shadows. Sun and flowers. A continuous rainbow. An Apollonian race over iridescent rose-and-azure-clouds. A sudden plunge over hideous precipice. The song broken. Yet the chord vibrates. Uneasiness. The moon filters through the stained embrasure. Regardez la lune ... On dirait une femme qui sort d’un tombeau. Elle ressemble à une femme morte. On dirait qu’elle cherche des mortes. ... Elle ressemble à une petite princesse qui porte un voile jaune, et des pieds d’argent. Elle ressemble à une princesse qui a des petites colombes blanches.... On dirait qu’elle danse. ... On dirait une femme hystérique, une femme hystérique qui va cherchant des amants partout. Elle est nue aussi. Elle est toute nue. Les nuages cherchent à la vêtir, mais elle ne veut pas. Elle chancelle à travers les nuages comme une femme ivre.... ... Cachez la lune! Cachez les étoiles! No, it is not the moon that causes the uneasiness. It is that Egyptian scarabæus in lapis lazuli that bedims the scattered jewels and enveils me in sadness. An image beckons to me out of the ultramarine glimmer, an image of a king, a lord, possessor of a golden tongue and of a scintillating mind, yet an image repulsive in its carnal vulgarity, its dull inexpressive eyes, its fat jowl, its unreserved mouth. On a stout, democratic finger guffaws the scarabæus. * * * * * Lights! Turn on the lights. I have been sybariticizing with thirteen beautiful little volumes of Oscar Wilde, recently published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons. It is a useful, although often painful, ordeal—ventilating the store-room of your old gods. There was a time when I worshipped Wilde unqualifiedly. As a freshman I wrote a pathetic paper in which I demanded the canonization of the author of _De Profundis_. Alas, I have come to discern spots on the sun.