ssion it fails to reach the
great mass of the people."

Then he added: "To hell with the great mass of the people! What have
they got to do with it? Write to please yourself, as if not a single
reader existed. The moment a man begins to be conscious of an audience
he is artistically damned. You're not a Poet, I hope?"

I meekly assured him I was a mere maker of verse.

"Well," said he, "better good verse than middling poetry. And maybe even
the humblest of rhymes has its uses. Happiness is happiness, whether it
be inspired by a Rossetti sonnet or a ballad by G. R. Sims. Let each one
who has something to say, say it in the best way he can, and abide the
result. . . . After all," he went on, "what does it matter? We are
living in a pygmy day. With Tennyson and Browning the line of great
poets passed away, perhaps for ever. The world to-day is full of little
minstrels, who echo one another and who pipe away tunefully enough. But
with one exception they do not matter."

I dared to ask who was his one exception. He answered, "Myself, of
course."

Here's a bit of light verse which it amused me to write to-day, as I sat
in the sun on the terrace of the Closerie de Lilas:

The Philistine and the Bohemian

She was a Philistine spick and span,
He was a bold Bohemian.
She had the _mode_, and the last at that;
He had a cape and a brigand hat.
She was so _riant_ and _chic_ and trim;
He was so shaggy, unkempt and grim.
On the rue de la Paix she was wont to shine;
The rue de la Gaite was more his line.
She doted on Barclay and Dell and Caine;
He quoted Mallarme and Paul Verlaine.
She was a triumph at Tango teas;
At Vorticist's suppers he sought to please.
She thought that Franz Lehar was utterly great;
Of Strauss and Stravinsky he'd piously prate.
She loved elegance, he loved art;
They were as wide as the poles apart:
Yet--Cupid and Caprice are hand and glove--
They met at a dinner, they fell in love.

Home he went to his garret bare,
Thrilling with rapture, hope, despair.
Swift he gazed in his looking-glass,
Made a grimace and murmured: "Ass!"
Seized his scissors and fiercely sheared,
Severed his buccaneering beard;
Grabbed his hair, and clip! clip! clip!
Off came a bunch with every snip.
Ran to a tailor's in startled state,
Suits a dozen commanded straight;