Imagine what it did to us to have Harriet Monroe say in _Poetry_ that there is too much art in Amy Lowell’s _Men, Women and Ghosts_? Too much art! And she is an editor and we know what kind of poems she has to read! I can imagine a book having all sorts of too much, but art means not too much or too little of anything. How does Miss Monroe expect Amy Lowell to write, if not like Amy Lowell? She has not come the way of Masters or of Dreiser. She is really the first poet in America to express in her writing something of that leisure from which they tell us Art flowers best. _Men, Women and Ghosts_ is a beautiful book, full of stately measures. _James Joyce:_ There isn’t time for me to write about James Joyce’s _The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ in this issue. It came too late from the publisher. So far as I have seen the whole comment of the reviewers has been on the background for the portrait: “the social, political, and religious life of Ireland today”, etc. But there is the portrait itself—bearing a slight resemblance to the Playboy, a strong sensitive romancer; and the painting of the portrait—spontaneous, masterly, free: the color like this: “The spell of arms and voices: the white arms of roads, their promise of close embraces and the black arms of tall ships that stand against the moon, their tale of distant nations.” Next time I shall have something more to tell of Joyce,—something thrilling and personal. _The Price of Empire_ Richard Aldington’s two poems, with their frail reticent sadness, were sent to us from the trenches. Why do poets keep on singing in a world which doesn’t value them? Why does the moon keep on shining? Surely it isn’t obligation! _Harold Bauer’s Hands_ Have you ever noticed how Bauer brings his hands in when he comes out to play? He carries them as if he didn’t want to brush them against anything, for fear they would strike out music from whatever they touched. Or as if they were precious violins that might be broken. _Zuloaga_ There is an exhibition of Zuloaga touring the galleries of America. If you have a chance don’t fail to see how he carries on the tradition of Spain as a place where great painters grow. The Reader Critic Note _Otto T. Simon, Washington, D. C.:_ Your last magazine has just arrived. Be happy. You are sowing seeds of Beauty. You dig into the earth, cut the worm in two, bring the chrysalis to the light that it may flutter its wings, and even the mole blinks and maybe after a while may see. “Spirit,” etc. _Allan Tanner, Chicago:_