Let the responsibility rest where it may, we have been relentlessly herded and driven far by those who in this day and generation assume to mold our opinions for us. We have survived the onslaught of Cubism, Futurism, St. Vitism and what not, in art: is there anything in stone or bronze, or on canvas, that can now take us by surprise? We have outlived the shock, and can even derive pleasure from the spectacle, of our elders joyously cavorting between the tables when we ask them out to dine; other times, other manners. We have learned to listen unabashed and with the proper modicum of concern while Sweet-and-twenty, who has been to the "movies" and knows whereof she speaks, discourses between the soup and fish upon themes erstwhile supposed to be undiscussible, unless by physicians and students of sociology. We can even look without remonstrance upon our nearest and dearest attired only less frankly than Josephine when she essayed to convince the world of the superiority of her challenged charms to those of Madame Tallien. We have had hitherto one refuge when all this grew too much for us: we could exclaim, if we still had the hardihood to quote Tennyson, "I will bury myself in my books"--of course omitting the remainder of the line, which is "unsocial." Now this stronghold also has been battered down. If we seek diversion in a story which is really a story, and not a tract--if we venture still to take pleasure in those who until to-day have been considered poets--we are upheld to the contumely of our fellows as "primitive," "elementary," and our beliefs are made a by-word and a hissing in the public prints. Ours not to reason why, ours not to make reply: we are expected to go for artistic and literary pabulum where we are sent--"forty feeding as one," like Wordsworth's cattle; and perhaps, to borrow once more from the Light Brigade, ours but to do and die, intellectually, may be the result.