y spared us further descriptions of the interiors of New York
houses at this epoch.... At a dinner party one of the guests refers to
Howells as the "foremost novelist who is never read." The book is
dedicated to "Cherubina, _dulcissime rerum_." Saltus returned to the
central theme of "Enthralled" in a story called "The Impostor,"
printed in "Ainslee's" for May, 1917.

"When Dreams Come True"[24] again brings us in touch with Tancred
Ennever, the stupid hero of "The Transient Guest." In the meantime he
has become an almost intolerable prig. It is probable that Saltus
meant more by this fable than he has let appear. The roar of the waves
on the coast of Lesbos is distinctly audible for a time and the
denoument seems to belong to quite another story.... Ennever has
turned author. We are informed that he has completed studies on
Huysmans and Leconte de Lisle; he is also engaged on a "Historia
Amoris." There is an interesting passage relating to the names of
great writers. Alphabet Jones assures us that they are always "in two
syllables with the accent on the first. Oyez: Homer, Sappho, Horace,
Dante, Petrarch, Ronsard, Shakespeare, Hugo, Swinburne ... Balzac,
Flaubert, Huysmans, Michelet, Renan." The reader is permitted to add
... "Saltus"!

"Purple and Fine Women"[25] is a misnamed book. It should be called
"Philosophic Fables." The first two stories are French in form. Paul
Bourget himself is the hero of one of them! In "The Princess of the
Sun" we are offered a new and fantastic version of the Coppelia story.
"The Dear Departed" finds Saltus in a murderous amorous mood again. In
"The Princess of the Golden Isles" a new poison is introduced,
muscarine. Alchemy furnishes the theme for one tale; the protagonist
seeks an alcahest, a human victim for his crucible. We are left in
doubt as to whether he chooses his wife, who wears a diamond set in
one of her teeth, or a gorilla. There are dramas of dual personality
and of death. Metaphysics and spiritualism rise dimly out of the charm
of this book. There is a duchess who mews like a cat and somewhere we
are assured that _Perche non posso odiarte_ from _La Sonnnambula_ is
the most beautiful aria in the Italian repertory. Here is a true and
soul-revealing epigram: "The best way to master a subject of which you
are ignorant is to write it up." Certainly not Saltus at his best,
this _opus_, but far from his worst.

"The Perfume of Eros"[26] is frenzied fiction again; amnesia,
d