Did a certain one of the third-rate novelists, reading aloud from his unpublished manuscript, say of his heroine: "It was the native catholicity of his temperament that lent strength and depth to her innate womanliness," the phrase was snapped up on the instant. "How he understands women!" "Such _finesse_! More subtle than Henry James." "Paul Bourget has gone no further," said one of the critics of New Bohemia; "our limitations are determined less by our renunciations than by our sense of proportion in our conception of ethical standards." The set abased itself. "Wonderful, ah, how pitilessly you fathom our poor human nature!" New Bohemia saw colour in word effects. A poet read aloud: _The stalwart rain!_ _Ah, the rush of down-toppling waters;_ _The torrent!_ _Merge of mist and musky air;_ _The current_ _Sweeps thwart my blinded sight again._ "Ah!" exclaimed one of the audience, "see, see that bright green flash!" Thus in public. In private all was different. Walking home with one or another of the set, young Overbeck heard their confidences. "Keppler is a good fellow right enough, but, my goodness, he can’t write verse!" "That thing of Miss Patten’s to-night! Did you ever hear anything so unconvincing, so obvious? Poor old woman!" "I’m really sorry for Martens; awfully decent sort, but he never should try to write novels." By rapid degrees young Overbeck caught the lingo of the third-raters. He could talk about "tendencies" and the "influence of reactions." Such and such a writer had a "sense of form," another a "feeling for word effects." He knew all about "tones" and "notes" and "philistinisms." He could tell the difference between an allegory and a simile as far as he could see them. An anticlimax was the one unforgivable sin under heaven. A mixed metaphor made him wince, and a split infinitive hurt him like a blow. But the great word was "convincing." To say a book was convincing was to give positively the last verdict. To be "unconvincing" was to be shut out from the elect. If the New Bohemian decided that the last popular book was unconvincing, there was no appeal. The book was not to be mentioned in polite conversation. And the author of "The Vision of Bunt McBride," as yet new to the world as the day he was born, with all his eager ambition and quick sensitiveness, thought that all this was the real thing. He had never so much as seen literary people before. How could he know the difference? He honestly believed that New Bohemia was the true literary force of New York. He wrote home that the association with such people, thinkers, poets, philosophers, was an inspiration; that he had learned more in one week in their company than he had learned in Colfax in a whole year.