a curious touch of medievalism into the roaring tide
that flows under the Hudson Terminal Building. They always walk in
twos, which seems to indicate an even greater apprehension of the
World. And we always notice, as we go by the pipe shop at the corner
of Barclay Street, that this worthy merchant has painted some
inducements on one side of his shop; which reminds us of the same
device used by the famous tobacconist Bacon, in Cambridge, England.
Why, we wonder, doesn't our friend fill the remaining blank panel on
his side wall by painting there some stanzas from Calverley's "Ode
to Tobacco?" We will gladly give him the text to copy if he wants
it.

[Illustration]

THE RUDENESS OF POETS

The poet who has not learned how to be rude has not learned his
first duty to himself. By "poet" I mean, of course, any imaginative
creator--novelist, mathematician, editor, or a man like Herbert
Hoover. And by "rude" I mean the strict and definite limitation
which, sooner or later, he must impose upon his sociable instincts.
He must refuse to fritter away priceless time and energy in the
random genialities of the world. Friendly, well-meaning, and
fumbling hands will stretch out to bind the poet's heart in the
maddening pack-thread of Lilliput. It will always be so. Life, for
most, is so empty of consecrated purpose, so full of palaver, that
they cannot understand the trouble of one who carries a flame in his
heart, and whose salvation depends on his strength to nourish that
flame unsuffocated by crowding and scrutiny.

The poet lives in an alien world. That is not his pride; it is his
humility. It is often his joy, but often also his misery: he must
dree his weird. His necessary solitude of spirit is not luxury, nor
the gesture of a churl: it is his sacrifice, it is the condition on
which he lives. He must be content to seem boorish to the general in
order to be tender to his duty. He has invisible guests at the table
of his heart: those places are reserved against all comers. He must
be their host first of all, or he is damned. He serves the world by
cutting it when they meet inopportunely. There are times (as Keats
said and Christ implied) when the wind and the stars are his wife
and children.

There will be a thousand pressures to bare his bosom to the lunacy
of public dinners, lecture platforms, and what not pleasant
folderol. He must be privileged apparent ruffian discourtesy. He has
his own heart-burn to c