Sick of war and discussion of war; sick of “first and last things” and discussion of them; deafened by the raucous howling of the preachers, and dumb before the fathomless stupidity of the mob, one may totter into the cool quietness of The Little Theatre just as Heine, scarcely a century ago, escaped from the madness of the crowd, and in that gallery on the Seine fell at the feet of the armless Goddess! And she smiles at us too—poor unknown strangers—just as she smiled at that famous Wanderer; and though “she has no arms to help,” it is enough if for a little while one can rest at her feet and forget “the voices of hate.” It was by the incantation she has never been known to resist that she was drawn here; to rest, after her long pilgrimage: for here she has found the altar they had lost the secret of building, and the incense they had forgotten how to burn! O the heavenly quietness of this place, and the absence, even round about the purlieus of it, of the voices that grate and jar and harrow and murder! Favete Linguis! Keep the holy silence, good stranger; till thou knowest completely on what ground thou standest. “Numen inest!” There is Deity in this sanctuary. Do the children of Gath howl with laughter, and the daughters of Askalon shake with spleen, that one should speak of Deity in the Fine Arts Building, and of Altars on Michigan Avenue? Let them put out their tongues—let them spit forth their venom—the stone which they have rejected has already become the head-stone of the temple of the Future! Visit other so-called “Little Theatres,” my friends, and you will understand why the Uranian had to make so long a journey. For there is none like this. They are either—those others—too gaudy and “artistic”; or they are too shoddy, ramshackle, littered, patchy and “bohemian.” This is the place; the place where one can draw large even breaths; the place where one can cool one’s fever; the place where one can drink, as Shelley says, “of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.” And it matters not what they are “playing,” this gracious company of Our Lady’s Servants, or whose liturgical “Use” they honor with their acceptance. Many are such “hours,” such “offices.” It makes no difference. One Gregorian Harmony brings them into the circle of One Rhythm. Many and diverse are the offerings they offer up to that great Goddess. Some are wanton and capricious, some grave and solemn, some foreign and exotic, some native-born and natural, some from the market-places of this very city, some from the far-off land of the Goddess’s own engendering; some light as gossamer-seed, from no land at all, but from the kingdom of airy nothings, sans habitation, sans name, sans purpose! Yes, whatever the words of the “local breviary” we persuade them to adopt to their music, the effect of it upon the listeners is the same. “Razed out” at last are those “written troubles”; “cleansed” at last, of “that perilous stuff,” is the poor “stuff’d bosom”!