everything save the
rhythm of the falling waves, there comes a sudden tug----

He reels in, and a few curious bathers stand still in the surf
to see what he has got. They are inclined to be scornful. It is
such a little fish! One would think that such a vast body of
water would be ashamed to yield only so small a prize. Never
mind. He has compensations they wot not of. Moreover--although he
would hardly admit it himself--the fishing business is only a
pretext. How else could a grown man with grizzled hair have an
excuse to stand all day paddling in the surf?

"IDOLATRY"

[Illustration]

Once in a while, when the name of R. L. S. is mentioned in
conversation, someone says to us: "Ah well, you're one of the
Stevenson idolators, aren't you?" And this is said with a curious
air of cynical superiority, as of one who has experienced all
these things and is superbly tolerant of the shallow mind that
can still admire Tusitala. His work (such people will generally
tell you) was brilliant but "artificial" ... and for the true
certificated milk of the word one must come along to such modern
giants as Dreiser and Hergesheimer and Cabell. For these artists,
each in his due place, we have only the most genial respect. But
when the passion of our youth is impugned as "idolatry" we feel
in our spirit an intense weariness. We feel the pacifism of the
wise and secretive mind that remains tacit when its most perfect
inward certainties are assailed. One does not argue, for there
are certain things not arguable. One shrugs. After all, what
human gesture more eloquent (or more satisfying to the performer)
than the shrug?

There is a little village on the skirts of the Forest of
Fontainebleau (heavenly region of springtime and romance!) where
the crystal-green eddies of the Loing slip under an old gray
bridge with sharp angled piers of stone. Near the bridge is a
quiet little inn, one of the many happy places in that country
long frequented by artists for painting and "_villegiature_."
Behind the inn is a garden beside the river-bank. The _salle a
manger_, as in so many of those inns at Barbizon, Moret, and the
other Fontainebleau villages, is panelled and frescoed with
humorous and high-spirited impromptus done by visiting painters.

In the summer of 1876 an anxious rumour passed among the artist
colonies. It was said that an American lady and her two children
had arrived at Grez, and the young bohemians who regarded this