Half our so-called creative and imaginative writers of today are merely ingenious plot and puppet makers, with no real gift of creation or imagination at all. The exceptions in English are Meredith, Hardy, Zangwill, Gissing and a baker’s dozen or so others. The man of real imaginative gifts, and the philosophic insight that invariably accompanies them, is seldom recognized in his true office and capacity; for he so often lacks the melodramatic and theatrical ingenuity, that perverts the course of human destiny for mere effectiveness. Since the deeper things of existence are usually excluded from fiction it is ten to one he is writing criticism or essays, and is thought to be prosy and dull by the majority of readers, to whom imaginative writing means simply the romance of abducted duchesses and bloody encounters by moonlight. But creation, as Emerson pointed out long ago, is _insight_. A gory era is at this hour upon us. Let us hope that the true imaginative literature of insight, philosophy, poetry and analysis of character will yet emerge, when Ibsen and Maeterlinck and Sudermann and the rest are relieved by process of time of the stigma attached to all original observers, thinkers and innovators. Shakespeare, if he were alive today, would be in the forefront of this new movement for freedom in literature, and he would steal right and left from Science! WALTER BLACKBURN HARTE. AN HOUR WITH CÆSAR AUGUSTUS. Ah! I am late this morning. I can feel in the air the vibration of the third hour. Attius! Attius! I suppose he thinks that having lain so long, I may as well wait till tomorrow. Ah! Attius, have you, too, overslept yourself? No more dinners with Maecenas: we are getting too old for them. It is the third hour; I will rise. But first request Livia Augusta to favor me with her presence. Dear old Attius! that little trick of telling him the hour never fails. Now for my daily bargain with the august. Madam, good morning; leave us, Attius. And how is the irreproachable? Judging from her roses, better than her lacy deputy. I spare you the econium of Maecenas’ wine. I saw last night a girl named Candidia; do you know who she is? Oh, the old senator’s daughter? Not much like him; I should have said our late friend, Mark Antony, was a friend of the family. You know that? I thought she had a trick of him, and I don’t often make that sort of mistake. She’s a very fine young woman, the white Cantonia. I suppose you know all about her; is she desirous of influence at Court? H’m! Thanks; I trust you to awake her to the legitimate ambition of a Roman beauty. I wish, Incomparable, you’d find a Maecenas to renasce Roman women. When Candidia stands up you can see she is standing on her legs, and, except a certain perennial of mine, I can’t say as much for any woman else in Rome. Will you see about it? Thanks, kindest of Junos.