us, the most banal form of
entertainment that was ever flung at a foolish public. The Punch and
Judy show is sweetness and light by comparison. It is the mechanical
nature of the affair that so depresses me. It may be clever; I have no
doubt it is. But I would rather see the worst music-hall show that was
ever put up than the best picture-play that was ever filmed. The
darkness, the silence, the buzz of the machine, and the insignificant
processions of shadows on a sheet are about the last thing I should ever
describe by the word Entertainment. I would as soon sit for two hours in
a Baptist Chapel. Still, Mr. C. Chaplin has made it endurable.

After the pictures, they go home, and Miss Twelve goes to bed, while
Mother and Father sit up awhile. Father has a nightcap, perhaps, and
Mother gives him a little music. She doesn't pretend to play, she will
tell her guests; she just amuses herself. Often they have a friend or
two in for dinner and a little music, or music and a little dinner. Or
sometimes they visit other friends in an exchange of hospitalities, or
book seats for a theatre, or for the Coliseum, and perhaps dine in town
at Gatti's or Maxim's, and feel very gay. Mother seizes the opportunity
to air her evening frock, and father dresses, too, and they have a taxi
to town and a taxi home.

Then, one by one, the lights in their Avenue disappear; the warm windows
close their tired eyes; and in the soft silence of the London night they
ascend, hand in hand, to their comfortable little bedroom; and it is all
very sweet and sacramental....

A LONELY NIGHT

KINGSLAND ROAD

_A LONELY NIGHT_

_In the tinted dayspring of a London alley,
Where the dappled moonlight cools the sunburnt lane,
Deep in the flare and the coloured noise of suburbs,
Long have I sought you in shade and shine and rain!
Through dusky byways, rent with dancing naphthas,
Through the trafficked highways, where streets and streets collide,
Through the evil twilight, the night's ghast silence,
Long have I wandered, and wondered where you hide._

_Young lip to young lip does another meet you?
Has a lonely traveller, when day was stark and long,
Toiling ever slower to the grey road's ending,
Reached a sudden summer of sun and flower and song?
Has he seen in you the world's one yearning,
All the season's message, all the heaven's play?
Has he read in yo