We used to define the genius as the man who interprets his age; now we know that the genius is the man who, working against his age, creates new times. Dr. Brandes broke into a lively sally at the Baconians. He spoke of Shakespeare's errors in scholarship. These Bacon would surely have avoided, but of Shakespeare's great lines Bacon could not possibly have written one. He ended that section with something like this: The Baconian theory was founded by the uneducated, it was developed by the half-educated, and it is now held solely by idiots. The audience was immensely pleased at his sharp fire. Dr. Brandes' epigrams sometimes sound as if he substituted wit for wisdom. But that is because the epigrams stick and are repeated. His method is to open with an epigram to catch the attention, to proceed with a line of sound argument, and at the end to finish superbly with a sentence that contains his conclusions and impales his opponent at the same time. With Frank Harris, Dr. Brandes was no more gentle. By parallel quotation Harris was made to appear ridiculous. Brandes showed that whatever in his writings is sound has been said before. This was the end of the lecture: Mr. Harris says that it is possible to admire Shakespeare, but that it is impossible to worship him. Ladies and gentlemen, I do the impossible. Afterwards came a supper of the Scandinavian Society, at which the guest of honor made a speech that looked brilliant and was lively even as a piece of pantomime--but it was in Danish. Dr. Brandes was beaming and unaffectedly cordial with everybody. He smilingly interrupted one of the pompous addresses in his honor to correct a quotation from Goethe. He proposed a toast to the charming young lady who acted as his American manager, and said that the success of his tour was due entirely to her. Later a consul made a highly complimentary, but exceedingly tedious, speech. Dr. Brandes fidgeted until he could stand it no longer, then he quickly got up, took his champagne glass, ran over to the orator and slapped him on the shoulder, saying, "You are a very nice man." The rest was drowned in the toast. A NEW LITERATURE The other day an illustrator saw a hand-mirror in a publisher's office. He put the mirror against a book cover and held it at arm's length. "There," he said, "is the ideal jacket for a novel. Every woman likes to imagine herself the heroine of the book she is reading." But the publisher was wiser. "You are half right," he answered. "But she wants to be a Gibson heroine. To see her own face, without flattery, would startle her into disapproval of the book."