s' Sonnet Sequence on the Automatic Reaping Machine, and
Robinson's Epic of the Piscicidal Dynamo, leave unstirred the deeper
depths of emotion in us. The subjects chosen by these three great poets
do not much impress us when we regard them sub specie aeternitatis.
Smith has painted nothing more masterly than his picture of a girl
turning a hot-water tap. But has he never seen a girl fill a pitcher
from a spring? Smithers' picture of a young mother seconding a
resolution at a meeting of a Board of Guardians is magnificent, as
brushwork. But why not have cut out the Board and put in the baby? I
yield to no one in admiration of Smithkins' 'Facade of the Waldorf Hotel
by Night, in Peace Time.' But a single light from a lonely hut would
have been a finer theme.

I should like to show Smithkins the thing that I call The Golden
Drugget. Or rather, as this thing is greatly romantic to me, and that
painter is so unfortunate in his surname, I should like Smithkins to
find it for himself.

These words are written in war time and in England. There are, I hear,
'lighting restrictions' even on the far Riviera di Levante. I take it
that the Golden Drugget is not outspread now-anights across the high
dark coast-road between Rapallo and Zoagli. But the lonely wayside inn
is still there, doubtless; and its narrow door will again stand open,
giving out for wayfarers its old span of brightness into darkness, when
peace comes.

It is nothing by daylight, that inn. If anything, it is rather an
offence. Steep behind it rise mountains that are grey all over with
olive trees, and beneath it, on the other side of the road, the cliff
falls sheer to the sea. The road is white, the sea and sky are usually
of a deep bright blue, there are many single cypresses among the olives.
It is a scene of good colour and noble form. It is a gay and a grand
scene, in which the inn, though unassuming, is unpleasing, if you pay
attention to it. An ugly little box-like inn. A stuffy-looking and
uninviting inn. Salt and tobacco, it announces in faint letters above
the door, may be bought there. But one would prefer to buy these things
elsewhere. There is a bench outside, and a rickety table with a zinc top
to it, and sometimes a peasant or two drinking a glass or two of wine.
The proprietress is very unkempt. To Don Quixote she would have seemed a
princess, and the inn a castle, and the peasants notable magicians. Don
Quixote would have paused here and done som