to say to the City and to Life Itself: "Stand back! Fair play! We
see a goodly matter inditing in our friend's spirit. We will take
our ease and find out what it is."

For this life of ours (asserts the Club) is curiously compounded of
Beauty and Dross. You ascend the Woolworth Building, let us say--one
of man's noblest and most poetic achievements. And at the top, what
do you find, just before going out upon that gallery to spread your
eye upon man's reticulated concerns? Do you find a little temple or
cloister for meditation, or any way of marking in your mind the
beauty and significance of the place? No, a man in uniform will
thrust into your hand a booklet of well-intentioned description (but
of unapproachable typographic ugliness) and you will find before you
a stall for the sale of cheap souvenirs, ash trays, and hideous
postcards. In such ways do things of Beauty pass into the custody of
those unequipped to understand them.

The Club thinks that the life of this city, brutally intense and
bewildering, has yet a beauty and glamour and a secret word to the
mind, so subtle that it cannot be closely phrased, but so important
that to miss it is to miss life itself. And to forfeit an attempt to
see, understand, and mutually communicate this loveliness is to
forfeit that burning spark that makes men's spirits worth while. To
such halting meditations the Club devotes its aspirations
undistressed by humorous protest. If this be treason...!

[Illustration]

A PREFACE TO THE PROFESSION OF JOURNALISM

(BEING AN ANSWER TO A LETTER FROM A COLLEGE STUDENT,
ASKING ADVICE AS TO TAKING UP WRITING AS A CAREER)

Your inquiry is congenial, and I feel guilty of selfishness in
answering it in this way. But he must be a poor workman, whether
artisan or artist, who does not welcome an excuse now and then for
shutting out the fascinating and maddening complexity of this
shining world to concentrate his random wits on some honest and
self-stimulating expression of his purpose.

There are exceptions to every rule; but writing, if undertaken as a
trade, is subject to the conditions of all other trades. The
apprentice must begin with task-work; he must please his employers
before he can earn the right to please himself. Not only that, he
must have ingenuity and patience enough to learn _how_ editors are
pleased; but he will be startled, I think, if he studies their
needs, to see how eager they are to meet him half way