to frivolous, from serious to grave, but I have always liked to
change, to experiment--just as I used to like to change my medium in
painting, aquarelle, oil, charcoal, wash, etc.

"Unless I had a good time writing I'd do something else. I suit myself
first of all in choice of subject and treatment, and leave the rest to the
gods."

As a human creature Chambers is strikingly versatile. It must always be
remembered that he started life as a painter. There is a story that
Charles Dana Gibson and Robert W. Chambers sent their first offerings to
Life at the same time. Mr. Chambers sent a picture and Mr. Gibson sent a
bit of writing. Mr. Gibson's offering was accepted and Robert W. Chambers
received a rejection slip.

Not only was he a painter but Chambers has preserved his interest in art,
and is a welcome visitor in the offices of curators and directors of
museums because he is one of the few who can talk intelligently about
paintings.

He knows enough about Chinese and Japanese antiques to enable him to
detect forgeries. He knows more about armour than anyone, perhaps, except
the man who made the marvellous collection of mediaeval armour for the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

One of his varieties of knowledge, observable by any reader of his novels,
is lepidoptery--the science of butterflies. He collects butterflies with
exceeding ardour. But then, he is a good deal of an outdoor man. He knows
horses and books; he has been known to hunt; he has been seen with a
fishing rod in his hand.

His knowledge of out-of-the-way places in different parts of the
world--Paris, Petrograd--is not usual.

Will you believe me if I add that he is something of an expert on rare
rugs?

Of course, I am, to some extent, taking Rupert Hughes's word for these
accomplishments; and yet they are visible in the written work of Robert W.
Chambers where, as a rule, they appear without extrusion.

=ii=

And here is the newest Robert W. Chambers novel, _Eris_. Mr. Chambers's
_The Flaming Jewel_, a melodrama of the maddest character, was published
last spring. _Eris_ is really a story of the movie world, and reaches its
most definite conclusion, possibly, in a passage where the hero says to
Eris Odell:

"Whether they are financing a picture, directing it, releasing it,
exhibiting it, or acting in it, these vermin are likely to do it to death.
Your profession is crawling with them. It needs delousing."

But I am not really anxious