he Catholic Church, consecrating but not effacing local
altars; transforming, but not destroying, local pieties. Who can deny
that this formidable vision answers the deepest need of the modern
world?

The discovery of some Planetary Synthesis within the circle of
which all the passionate race cults may flourish; growing not less
intense but more intense, under the new World-City--this is nothing
else than what the soul of the earth, "dreaming on things to come"
may actually be evolving.

Who knows if the new prominence given by the war to Russian
thought may not incredibly hasten such a Vita Nuova? We know
that the Pan-Slavic dream, even from the days of Ivan the Terrible,
has been of this spiritual unity, and it may be remembered that it
was always from "beyond the Alps" that Dante looked for the
Liberator. Who knows? The great surging antipodal tides of life lash
one another into foam. Out of chaos stars are born. And it may be
the madness of a dream even so much as to speak of "unity" while
creation seethes and hisses in its terrible vortex. Mockingly laugh
the imps of irony, while the Saints keep their vigil. Man is a
surprising animal; by no means always bent on his own redemption;
sometimes bent on his own destruction!

And meanwhile the demons of life dance on. Dante may build up his
great triple universe in his great triple rhyme, and encase it in walls
of brass. But still they dance on. We may tremble at the supreme
poet's pride and wonder at the passion of his humility--but "the
damned grotesques make arabesques, like the wind upon the sand!"

SHAKESPEARE

There is something pathetic about the blind devotion of humanity to
its famous names. But how indiscriminate it is; how lacking in
discernment!

This is, above all, true of Shakespeare, whose peculiar and quite
personal genius has almost been buried under the weight of popular
idolatry. No wonder such critics as Voltaire, Tolstoi, and Mr.
Bernard Shaw have taken upon themselves to intervene. The
Frenchman's protest was an aesthetic one. The more recent objectors
have adopted moral and philosophic grounds. But it is the
unreasoning adoration of the mob which led to both attacks.

It is not difficult to estimate the elements which have gone to make
up this Shakespeare-God. The voices of the priests behind the Idol
are only too clearly distinguishable. We hear the academic voice, the
showman's voice, and the voice of the ethical preacher. They are