And what is the use of such a harangue? There is very little use. People won’t be artists. Peo-pul don’t change. But the individual changes, and that is the hope. Individuals are persons who can stand alone. There ought to be Individuals coming out of a generation brought up on Nietzsche. Such an upbringing has taught us at least two things: first that he who goes forward goes alone, and second that it is weakness rather than nobility to succumb to the caterpillars. Yes, and something else: that it is from superabundance rather than from hunger that creation comes. We start out fortified with all this. We don’t need to wrestle with our gods every time the old laws threaten to submerge us; our universe doesn’t totter when the caterpillars groan that we will be lonely if we go alone or hurt if we are misunderstood or tragic if we don’t compromise. We don’t mind these things. It really all comes to one end: Life for Art’s sake. We believe in that because it is the only way to get more Life—a finer quality, a higher vibration. This bigger concept doesn’t mean merely more Beauty. It means more Intensity. In short, it means the _New_ Hellenism. And that is a step beyond the old Greek ideal of proportion and moderation. It pushes forward to the superabundance that dares abandonment. Art and nothing else! Art is the great means of making life possible, the great seducer to life, the great stimulus of life.—_Nietzsche._ The tree that grows to a great height wins to solitude even in a forest; its highest outshoots find no companions save the winds and the stars.—_Frank Harris._ Poems CLARA SHANAFELT Fantastic I have no thoughts, no more desires— It is green and gray like a garden Stirred by apple-scented wind, Quick with the sense of cool and silver joys That come in a rainy dance When soft hands of clouds have pushed away The round red stupid face of the sun. In one day, I think, the wind Will not have had his will of the gleaming rain— They run about with tossed hair, The garden is silvered with their pleasure, Cool and sweet, shining As with arch laughter a beloved face. The musing pool Shattered in glancing flight by a sudden wing— This, which no words can name, This is my heart’s delight, Winging I know not whither; It has no measure. Interlude To sink deeper yet In the green flood of twilight— I grope for the rich chord of the full darkness That drowns the piping cries of light, For silence fretted by cadent rain And the monotonous cries of insects That lull the tortured sense in drowsy veils. I am weary of lights dancing In limpid streets, Lemon and gold and amethyst, The jewelled laughter and the scent, Weaving of uneasy colors.