Such a poet is not what we vulgarly choose to call an optimist. No! Let us admit once for all, Mr Aldington is a pessimist. (So, by the way, were Sophocles and Leopardi and Shakespeare when he wrote _King Lear_, and Mr Thomas Hardy, to mention only a few; but I have never heard they were worse poets for it.) At times he gives us a very bitter dose indeed to swallow, as in his _Childhood_, _Cinema Exit_, or _In the Tube_. Yet he is not devoid of humour, playful and fantastic. Witness _The Faun Sees Snow for the First Time_, the _Interlude_, the _Evening_ (a beautiful grotesque which I am tempted to quote), or for a grimmer note the conclusion of _Lesbia_. He will not admit that life is altogether without compensations. Herein he is honest. He even admits sentiment as a compensation, and he treats it delicately, fastidiously, with an unexpected touch of purely fourteenth-century feeling in the following piece: After Two Years. She is all so slight, And tender and white, As a May morning. She walks without hood At dusk. It is good To hear her sing. It is God’s will That I shall love her still As he loves Mary. And night and day, I will go forth to pray That she love me. She is as gold; Lovely, and far more cold. Do thou pray with me, For if I win grace To kiss twice her face God has done well to me. Altogether an unusual poet. One who never takes up the pen except when he has something individual to say, and whose utterance is at times so varied as to make him almost bafflingly individual. But not a Greek, although he has written finely on Greek themes. A modern? Yes; and not only a modern but, au fond, a Romantic. Remember the conclusion of the beautiful _Night Piece_: “Very faint and shrill and far away the whistle sounds—more like a wild bird than ever. And all my unsatisfied desires and empty wishes and vague yearnings are set aching by that thin tremulous whistle—the post-horn of the Coach of Romance.” (_For lack of space, Mr Fletcher’s article will be concluded in the June issue._) Rossica ALEXANDER S. KAUN It is still on—the Russian invasion. Across the ocean the triumphant Prussian drives a hedge into the heart of Russia. With blood and iron and fire Efficiency celebrates its victory over Nihilism. And we, the neutrals, the note-writers, attempt to thwart the grand march of Efficiency by delivering shells to the port of Vladivostok. Shells that do not always explode, despite their “moderate” prices. In exchange we are getting thoughts, ideas. Unobstructed by Krupps or U’s or Zeppelins, they invade our peaceful shores, and intend to stay.