I stroll alone on gentle roads into the splendor Bathing my face in a thousand rosy waves; Far away like smoke from a black stack lies my pain. I know it, yet I wander. We may, like expectant children, be blessed. For the New Animal in America WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT My enemy has written a book.[1] This is not man-to-man enmity, but there need be no quibble about it. For seventeen years I have studied T. R. as representative of that America which has consistently betrayed the finer aspirations of our people, shamed the real workman, bewildered the young in millions with noise and show and shine, and unerringly dimmed for the many the approaches to the Real. He stands today for armament, against all that the New Spirit has shown us out of the bleeding heart of the world, against the plain fact of the war as the quickener of spiritual life, and against every dream that was ever born in the human breast out of the loss of the love of self. You will say, “But why this study of T. R. now? Surely he has received his _Thumbs-down_ even from the crowd, and with a unanimity seldom accorded a public man still in the flesh.” ... I am not so sure. I wish I could be sure that his latest message would be shut from the receptivity of this land, as a door upon an evil draught. We have managed to clump along with bunglers through the recent dropsical years of peace, but there was never such a need as now for a man of vision and power at the forefront of our affairs. These States since August have committed atrocities of short-sightedness and triumphs of selfishness—enough to complicate us for future years. The partisan and the militarist have already made our neutrality unclean. I would like to be sure that their strongest influence has already been encountered. On our southern borders is war, and our northern border is black with distrust and the British point of view. From Vancouver to Halifax, the voice of this hour is, “If Roosevelt were only in the chair at Washington——” The ensuing part of the “if” covers the present issues from Mexico to Belgium, and the trouble is that Canada knows from England what she is wishing us; at least, in part, the venom and abomination of the saying. To judge from the Press of the States there are still many who would incite afresh the animal efficiency of our country, and who range themselves in the background with this master of the low vibration, calling upon us to answer Europe with a similar desolation.