tands,"
or is "definitely an artist" who merely makes the phantoms of his
imagination paltry or ridiculous. They may be paltry, but they must
also be pitiable; they may be ridiculous, but they must also be
tragic. Many authors have fallen from the sublime to the ridiculous;
but, as Mr. Chesterton magnificently said, in order to make that
descent they must first reach the sublime.

[Illustration]

LETTING OUT THE FURNACE

The prudent commuter (and all commuters are prudent, for the others
are soon weeded out by the rigours of that way of life) keeps the
furnace going until early May in these latitudes--assuming that
there are small children in the house. None of those April hot waves
can fool him; he knows that, with cunning management, two or three
shovelfuls of coal a day will nurse the fire along, and there it is
in case of a sudden chilly squall. But when at last he lets the fire
die, and after its six months of constant and honourable service the
old boiler grows cold, the kindly glow fades and sinks downward out
of sight under a crust of gray clinkers, our friend muses tenderly
in his cellar, sitting on a packing case.

He thinks, first, how odd it is that when he said to himself, "We
might as well let the fire go out," it kept on sturdily burning,
without attention or fuel, for a day and a half; whereas if he had,
earlier in the season, neglected it even for a few hours, all would
have been cold and silent. He remembers, for instance, the tragic
evening with the mercury around zero, when, having (after supper)
arranged everything at full blast and all radiators comfortably
sizzling, he lay down on his couch to read Leonard Merrick,
intending to give all hands a warm house for the night. Very well;
but when he woke up around 2 A.M. and heard the tenor winds singing
through the woodland, how anxiously he stumbled down the cellar
stairs, fearing the worst. His fears were justified. There, on top
of the thick bed of silvery ashes, lay the last pallid rose of fire.
For as every pyrophil has noted, when the draught is left on, the
fire flees upward, leaving its final glow at the top; but when all
draughts are shut off, it sinkst downward, shyly hiding in the heart
of the mass.

So he stood, still drowsily aghast, while Gissing (the synthetic
dog) frolicked merrily about his unresponsive shins, deeming this
just one more of those surprising entertainments arranged for his
delight.

Now, on such an