for the evening. On his "day off" he took a train out into the country
and walked for hours.

There was a great deal of scintillating talk in his group on the
significant books and tendencies of the day, and if the talk of French
youth in their clubs before the Revolution may possibly have been
profounder and more far-reaching in its philosophy, more formulative in
its plan of action, owing to a still deeper necessity for change in the
social order, the very fact that these brilliant young Americans had no
personal grievance but merely sharpened their wits on matters in which
they were intelligent enough to take an interest, saved their
cleverness from becoming mordant or distorted by passion. It was an
excellent forcing-house for ideas and vocabulary.

But their most solemn causeries were upon the vital theme of The
American Reputation in Letters. Past. Present. Future. This was the
age of Youth. Should any of the old reputations be permitted to live
on--save in the favor of the negligible public? If so, which? All the
recent reputations they would have liked to pronounce equally great,
merely on account of their commendable newness, but they were too
conscientious for that. They appraised, debated, rejected, finally
placed the seal of their august approval upon a favored few. Claques
were arranged if the public were obtuse. The future? A few, a very
few, were selected from the older group, many more from the younger,
and ordained to survive and shed their undying beams for posterity.
From these judicial pronouncements there was no appeal, and the
pleasant spaces of the Sign of the Indian Chief, so innocuous to the
uninitiated eye, was a veritable charnel house that stank in the
nostrils of the rejected; but, inconsistent even as life itself, those
melancholy graves were danced over by the sprightly young feet of the
elect. Sometimes there was a terrifying upheaval in one of those
graves. A dismal figure fought his way out, tore off his cerements,
and stalked forth, muttering: "'But I stride on, austere. No hope I
have, no fear,'" leaving a puzzled uneasiness behind him.

But for good or ill, it was a matter for congratulation that criticism
was at last being taken seriously in the United States.

There was a jazz party at the studio of a hospitable girl artist where
Clavering danced with several of the prettiest young actresses of
recent Broadway fame until dawn, and drank enough to make him as w