d about....

"The papers made such an absurd stir! If you are known by name as
occupying any little niche, the world waits gaping below. I suppose I
ought to be flattered, but for days there were callers, letters,
telephone-messages. Like Royalty _in extremis_.... And I never pretended
that the operation was in any sense critical....

"Do you know, beyond saying that, I would much rather not talk about it?
This very modern frankness.... Not you, of course! But when a man like my
brother-in-law Spenworth strides in here a few hours before the anaesthetic
is administered and says 'What is the matter with you? Much ado about
nothing, I call it.' ... That from Arthur's brother to Arthur's wife,
when, for all he knew, he might never see her alive again.... I prefer
just to say that everything went off most satisfactorily and that I hope
now to be better than I have been for years...."

BOOKS BY STEPHEN MCKENNA

THE RELUCTANT LOVER
SHEILA INTERVENES
THE SIXTH SENSE
SONIA: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
NINETY-SIX HOURS' LEAVE
MIDAS AND SON
SONIA MARRIED
LADY LILITH
THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE
THE SECRET VICTORY
WHILE I REMEMBER
THE CONFESSIONS OF A WELL-MEANING WOMAN

SOURCES ON STEPHEN MCKENNA

_Who's Who_ [In England].

Private Information.

CHAPTER XXII

POETS AND PLAYWRIGHTS

=i=

I have to tell about a number of poets and, regarding poets, I agree with
a very clever woman I know who declares that poetry is the most personal
of the arts and who further says that it is manifestly inadequate to talk
about a poet's work without giving a sample of his poetry. So, generally,
I shall quote one of the shorter poems or a passage from a longer poem.

John Dos Passos, known for _Three Soldiers_ and for _Rosinante to the Road
Again_, will be still more variously known to those who read his book of
verse, _A Pushcart at the Curb_. This book bears a relation to
_Rosinante_, the contents grouping themselves under these general
headings:

Winter in Castile
Nights by Bassano
Translations from the Spanish of Antonio Machado
Vagones de Tercera
Quai de la Tournelle
Of Foreign Travel
Phases of the Moon

I will select for quotation the sixth or final poem dedicated to A. K.
McC. from the section entitled "Quai de la Tournelle,"

This is a garden
where through the russet mist of clustered trees
and strewn November leaves,
they crunch with vainglorious heels
of ancient vermilion
the dry de