The place was well-heated, too. I no longer had to sit up in bed, the covers drawn to my chin to keep from freezing, while I read, studied, wrote. Nor did I need sit on my hands, in alternation, to keep one warm while I rhymed with the other, during those curious spells of inspiration, those times of ecstasy--occurring mostly in the night--when I would write and write so rapidly that morning would find me often not able to decipher the greater part of what I had written ... five or ten poems in a night ... scrawled madly almost like automatic writing.... * * * * * William Jennings Bryan came to talk to us at our school auditorium. His lecture, _The Prince of Peace_, soon degenerated into an old-fashioned attack on science and the evolutionary theory. The professors sat bored and mute on the platform beside him, while he evacuated the forty-year-old wheeze of "your great-great-great-grandfather might have been a monkey, but, thank God, mine was not!" he won the usual great response of handclapping and laughter with this.... And then he held out a glass of water, to prove that miracles might happen, because God, being omnipotent, could, at will, suspend natural laws. "Look at this glass of water. I hold it out at arm's length, so. If I did not hold it, it would drop to the floor and shatter into pieces. Thus I, by a human act, suspend the law of gravitation ... so God!--" There was huzzaing and applause. Several professors uneasily shifted the crossing of their knees ... one or two stared diplomatically at the ceiling. I grew angry and sent forth several sharp hisses before I knew what I was doing ... the effect was an electric stillness for the moment. Then a roar of indignant applause drowned my protest. And I stopped and remained quiet, with much craning of necks about me, to look at me. As the crowd poured out, I ran out into the road, from group to group, and, wherever I found a professor walking along, I vociferated my protest at our allowing such a back-water performance at the State's supposed centre of intelligence. "But, Gregory, it makes no difference ... the argument is settled, let platform orators like Bryan tilt at windmills all they may." "The hell it doesn't make a difference! if you professors are worth your salt, you won't let a Chautauqua man get by with such bunco." * * * * * The writing of my fairy drama progressed amain. I mailed a copy of it to Penton Baxter, who said that it had genuine merit. Was not great, but showed great promise. Henry Belton, from London, wrote me that it was beautiful and fine, but too eccentric for production in even the eccentric theatre.