And one night Alberta and I took dinner At a place near Fourteenth Street where the music Was like the sun on a breeze-swept lake When every wave is a patine of fire, And I thought of you not at all Looking at Alberta and watching her white teeth Bite off bits of Italian bread, And watching her smile and the wide pupils Of her eyes, electrified by wine And music and the touch of our hands Now and then across the table. We went to her house at last. And through a languorous evening. Where no light was but a single candle, We circled about and about a pending theme Till at last we solved it suddenly in rapture Almost by chance; and when I left She followed me to the hall and leaned above The railing about the stair for the farewell kiss— And I went into the open air ecstatically, With the stars in the spaces of sky between The towering buildings, and the rush Of wheels and clang of bells, Still with the fragrance of her lips and cheeks And glinting hair about me, delicate And keen in spite of the open air. And just as I entered the brilliant car Something said to me you are dead— I had not thought of you, was not thinking of you. But I knew it was true, as it was For the telegram waited me at my room..... I didn’t come back. I could not bear to see the breathless breath Over your brow—nor look at your face— However you fared or where To what victories soever— Vanquished or seemingly vanquished! [1] Copyright, 1915, by Edgar Lee Masters. Choleric Comments ALEXANDER S. KAUN Faithful are the wounds of a friend.—Proverbs, 27:6. We were looking at oriental rugs one day, that enfant terrible, the Scavenger, and I. There were rugs that tempted me to transgress the tenth commandment, and there were rugs that jarred me as if I were listening to Carpenter’s _Perambulator_ stunts. My fellow-flâneur became impatient with my critical remarks. “You don’t love rugs.” His Svidrigailovian face grinned. “If you did, you would just love them, you would not quibble. Academician!” The last epithet is used by THE LITTLE REVIEW priests and prophets as a means to close all arguments. So it did on that occasion. But it left me pondering over the words of a New York critic who accused our magazine of being somewhat indiscriminate in its enthusiasm for the sake of enthusiasm, in its emotionalism for the sake of emotion. I recalled blushingly the confession of our chief Neo-Hellenist, who is moved aesthetically by any sort of music, whether it emanates from Kreisler’s Stradivarius or from the pianola at Henrici’s.