All the great prose to come, of Latin races, is in Pliny _in little_. Here is something fascinating. He says that a man of Cadiz, touched to such deep emotion by the glory of Livy, traveled from the ends of the earth just once to look upon his face. And then—content—he turned right around and traveled back again. What books today fire the blood like that! And where is the blood to be fired? England made better use of Latin, of Greek mind, than other races, by incorporating them into daily life. She made of them an integral part of the nation. Wide-spread mental contact, with such great races, which were both old and enriched with much experience, ripened her ahead of time, strengthened her, gave her most of what she has best. England set about forming life and mind upon some of the finest thinkers the world has seen. That was her master-stroke of diplomacy. She transposed geniuses into living, breathing ideals. She claimed them as her own realities. England was first attracted, not by their mental power, but by gravity, their dignity; their very genuine _weight_. One can see in Pliny just how lovely Roman homes looked, both in city and country. He owned several, he built. He describes them with engaging zest and frank detail. Among the poorest books—most inadequate translations—printed in the United States, is _The Wanderer_, by Fournier, delightful, satisfying worker in his own tongue. And I must add to this, Mrs. Ayscough’s verses from the Chinese, in collaboration with Amy Lowell. (This last is the judgment of Chinese-reading poetry-scholars and Chinese themselves who know the originals by heart.) Mrs. Ayscough has no natural gift for words. She ought to play with something else. Fournier’s _Wanderer_—in translation—is a masterpiece of wrong doing. It reminds me of this passage from the Prayer Book: We have done those things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things we ought to have done. And there is no health in us. It is amazing how loveliness and charm have evaporated! I wonder why it is so bad? I suppose there are publishers’ readers and editors-in-chief, once in a while, who are word-deaf; insensitive; dull; not to be reached by genuine fineness. Not to mention beauty! To sense beauty surely, a certain amount of nobility of nature is necessary. The translation suggests to the mind what a picture would be painted by a person who was color-blind. I can not recall who published the books, merely memory of awkward writing remains. Tarascon, Nicaragua, fantastic name of fancy and fable, is where Rubén Darío was born. Once, in Paris, Darío, with another delightful South American poet—Leopoldo Lugones—were together in the house of a doctor. They both declare solemnly that they saw there the spirit of a dead man walking about. Darío asserts, that two or three times during his life, he saw beyond the boundaries of the ordinary—beyond our materialism—and confronted existences upon another plane.