ein, which makes him
one of our greatest artists. The future will surely wait for his riper
contributions, and we may think of him as one of our foremost artists,
among the few, "one of a small band," as the great novelist once said
of the great poet.

PART THREE

LA CLOSERIE DE LILAS

Divine Tuesday! I had wondered if those remarkable evenings of
conversation in the rue de Rome with Mallarme as host, and Henri de
Regnier as guest, among many others, had been the inspiration of the
evenings at the Closerie de Lilas, where I so often sat of an evening,
watching the numbers of esthetes gather, filling the entire cafe, rain
or shine, waiting unquestionably, for it pervaded the air always, the
feeling of suspense, of a dinner without host, of a wedding without
bridegroom, in any event waiting for the real genius of the evening,
le grand maitre prince de poetes, Paul Fort. The interesting book of
Amy Lowell's, "Six French Poets," recalls these Tuesday evenings
vividly to my mind, and a number of episodes in connection with the
idea of poetry in Paris.

Poetry an event? A rather remarkable notion it would seem, and yet
this was always so, it was a constituent of the day's passing, there
was never a part of the day in this arrondissement, when you would not
find here, there, everywhere, from the Boul-Mich up, down Montparnasse
to Lavenue's, and back to the Closerie, groups of a few or of many,
obviously the artist or poet type, sometimes very nattily dressed,
often the reverse, but you found them talking upon one theme, art,
meaning either poetry or painting, cubistes, futuristes, orphistes and
doubtless every "iste" in poetry from the symboliste period up to the
"unanimistes" of the present time, or the then present time nearly two
years before the war. It was a bit novel, even for a sensitive
American, sitting there, realizing that it was all in the name of art,
and for the heralding of genius--a kind of sublimated recruiting
meeting for the enlistment in the army of expression of personality,
or for the saving of the soul of poetry.

It was a spectacle, edifying in its purport, or even a little
distressing if one had no belief in a sense of humour, for there were
moments of absurdity about it as there is sure to be in a room filled
with any type of concerted egotism. But you did not forget the raison
d'etre of it all, you did not forget that when the "prince" arrived
there was the spirit of true celebra