hand; he becomes intoxicated on the lure of lines and the roll
of phrases. He is woozy on words--locoed by syntax and prosody. The
libation he pours is flavoured with euphues. It is all like a cherry
in a morning Martini." A phrase which Remy de Gourmont uses to
describe Villiers de l'Isle Adam might be applied with equal success
to the author of "The Lords of the Ghostland": "_L'idealisme de
Villiers etait un veritable idealisme verbal, c'est-a-dire qu'il
croyait vraiment a la puissance evocatrice des mots, a leur vertu
magique._" And we may listen to Saltus's own testimony in the matter:
"It may be noted that in literature only three things count, style,
style polished, style repolished; these imagination and the art of
transition aid, but do not enhance. As for style, it may be defined as
the sorcery of syllables, the fall of sentences, the use of the exact
term, the pursuit of a repetition even unto the thirtieth and fortieth
line. Grammar is an adjunct but not an obligation. No grammarian ever
wrote a thing that was fit to read."

At his worst--and his worst can be monstrous!--garbed fantastically in
purple patches and gaudy rags, he wallows in muddy puddles of Burgundy
and gold dust; even then he is unflagging and holds the attention in a
vise. His women have eyes which are purple pools, their hair is bitten
by combs, their lips are scarlet threads. Even the names of his
characters, Roanoke Raritan, Ruis Ixar, Tancred Ennever, Erastus
Varick, Gulian Verplank, Melancthon Orr, Justine Dunnellen, Roland
Mistrial, Giselle Oppensheim, Yoda Jones, Stella Sixmuth, Violet
Silverstairs, Sallie Malakoff, Shane Wyvell, Dugald Maule, Eden
Menemon (it will be observed that he has a persistent, balefully
procacious, perhaps, indeed, Freudian predilection for the letters U,
V, and X),[3] are fantastic and fabulous ... sometimes almost
frivolous. And here we may find our paradox. His sense of humour is
abnormal, sometimes expressed directly by way of epigram or sly
wording but may it not also occasionally express itself indirectly in
these purple towers of painted velvet words, extravagant fables, and
unbelievable characters he is so fond of erecting? Some of his work
almost approaches the burlesque in form. He carries his manner to a
point where he seems to laugh at it himself, and then, with a touch of
poignant realism or a poetic phrase, he confounds the reader's
judgment. The virtuosity of the performance is breath-taking!