After the reading of the poems, and the stupid remarks that followed the reading, there came what was called the “social intermission”. During this time insipid punch and silly little biscuits were served to as many of the mob as could grab them, and a noise as of a host of parrots in a small place filled the room. (Curious what bad punch will do to good, respectable people!) Following the excitement of the jabber and the near-wine the audience settled down to be sobered up by the reading of two seeming epics by Cale Young Rice. Mr Rice is dull—oh, very dull he is. Not only so, but his verse is—I won’t say; and he reads it with the voice of the spirit of a one-time virtuous Methodist minister chanting a prayer in the coolest part of Hell. So he read his dreary interminable poems. So I had visions of all the precious Sundays my Presbyterian parents had forced me to waste. That vision passed and I still heard the whining drone. Back to my mind again where I had vicious thoughts of the tortures I would like to play upon bad poets who write bad verse and read it with bad accent and bad voice to good harmless people. By the time I had thought out and perfected a most amazing and subtle form of torture for such disturbers of human happiness, the dismal noise had stopped. Some day.... After the effort of the Rice man, Laurence Houseman read some of his fanciful poems. They were welcome. A Spring wind among the reeds after a prolonged dull thaw. Poetry flourishes in America. The poets are paid well by the Magazines; and strange women dine and wine them and pay them sweet homage. The majority own and sport dress suits. They are eminently decent and respectable. Poetry readings are now a well-attended form of afternoon time-killing. Poetry flourishes. _THE PASSING OF FORBES-ROBERTSON_ The stops are in. The organ is closed. For forty years it has “discoursed much excellent sweet music.” Now the organist is weary, and would fain rest. He has played many things and played them well. A gentle sweet melody like _Mice and Men_ was made more sweet by his playing; and even if he did sometimes play a popular tune like _The Third Floor Back_ were we not the more thrilled and moved when we heard the beauty of his playing of the symphony of _Hamlet_? On Saturday, April 22, I watched, now from the wings, now from a side box, the last public performance of this artist’s _Hamlet_. Oh that I could write as well as I feel; that my words had the strength and the bursting keenness of my emotions. Then might I tell something.