I used to have great expectations for you. But, pardon the frankness of one who has watched the careers of many writers in the past fifty years, you are headed now either for _the lake or a padded cell_. God forbid you reach either. Let an old man say that the only way to find life is to lose it. Forget it and reach out a hand to the poor, the sick, the suffering, and the sinning. Happiness comes only in forgetfulness of self and ministering to others. It is never the result of a theory but of action. I have seen so many wrecked on the reefs toward which you are drifting that I am fain to call out and entreat you to find happiness where alone it can be found, not in fleeing from the world or cursing it but in thanking God you were born into a world where you can be of some use to your fellows. Those lines of yours in the September issue might have been written by a Heine, a Byron, or a Walt Whitman. But they are unworthy of you. You were born to bless your fellows. Be true to your vocation. _AN EXAMPLE!_ _R. C. Smith, Chicago_: Inspiration will never take the place of intelligence, nor enthusiasm that of cerebration. Your magazine will die,—as a steam engine would grow useless in which no direction toward any cylinder was given to the indubitable forces generated in the boiler. For your pages are as a rule careless, unconsidered, and inept. Let me give you an example:— Mr. Huntley Carter, in your September number, wrote on “Poetry versus Imagism.” I happen to consider his article an ill-digested congeries of vague views; but other persons may feel differently about it. What, however, can be the estimation in which every sane and intelligent and decently responsible man will hold your magazine and Mr. Carter when he has the effrontery to present to us such an example of ineptitude and carelessness as this:— “Browning ... gets to work in a businesslike manner: _The sun looked over the water’s brim_ And straight there was a path of gold for him _And a world of souls for me_. I QUOTE FROM MEMORY, BUT I BELIEVE I QUOTE CORRECTLY.” (The capitals are mine.) May I ask—must an enthusiasm for or against the new movements obliterate all sense of accuracy, all love of clear and rational communication, all fidelity to honest statement, and all interest in truth? Your Mr. Carter and his extraordinary indifference to the workaday obligations of literary criticism have considerably discouraged my interest in the new forces. I can imagine Mr. Carter writing—“Since, as Nansen says, ‘The natives of the polar regions are coal-black,’—(_I quote from memory_), it must be hotter there than at the equator.” You have printed many encomiums of your magazine: I shall watch with curiosity to see if you print this. _THE WEAKNESS OF REVOLT_ _Dr. Weil, New York_: