“I know,” he said quickly. “I know. That blood-red stuff is the cheapest thing in the world, but that’s where the great thing called human interest lives.... I’m sure of this story until her soul wakes up. She stirs in her sleep, and I see a giantess ahead—the kind of woman who could whistle to me or to you—and we’d follow her out—dazed by the draw of her. They are in the world. I reckon souls do wake up—but I can feel the public dropping off every page after two hundred—like chilled bees—dropping off page by page—and the old familiar battle ahead. I can feel that tight look about the eyes again——” “Are you going to put her soul back to sleep?” I asked, as we turned again into the crowd. I wasn’t the least lordly in this question. I knew his struggle, and something of the market, too. I was thinking of tradesmen—how easy it is to be a tradesman; in fact, how difficult it is to be otherwise—when the very passion of the racial soul moves in the midst of trade. “She’s beautiful—even asleep,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll have to give her something. I’m building a house. She’s in the comprehension of the little varnished shelves—asleep.” “Doesn’t a tight look come about the eyes—from much use of that sort of anæsthetic?” I asked. “Let’s get a drink,” he answered. A fairly widespread intellectual movement, though it be madness, has a profound and almost sacred significance. Primitive races believe that madmen are the voice of God. As much might be said of artists. Their madness is often wiser than the average wisdom.—_Romain Rolland._ Poems MAXWELL BODENHEIM Pastels _(In the city-square)_ I I think you are a masquerading nun Who has been lavish with reds, thinking to obliterate herself ... But you should also Have placed a red cloth over your etched face. II Woman twirling a fan, burdened with many colors, I salaam to you. Your youth has gone, but you have made An excellent effigy. Thoughts There is a white-jacketed old man, with eyes like milk-drops, Who rakes leaves under hundreds of young low trees With the arms of children and strong bodies. When he has gravely raked them together, He burns them and squats beside the fire, And looks timidly, smilingly ... He never squints up at the green leaves above him. A Woman In the Park She strives to braid her scant hair And silence the bundled baby at her side. (Her face has the cast of a frightened novice praying for deftness.) Then she looks at the spinning-legged children in the wading-pool, And the charcoal of her eyes has an odd after-glow, for a moment, As though she half-regretted her tight grey clothes.