ure to preparing an edition from which everything
resembling an idea shall be firmly excluded. We might then shut up our
Marlowes and our Beaumonts and resume our reading of the bard, and these
witless beings would confer happiness on many, and crown themselves with
truly immortal bays. See the fellows! their fingers catch at scanty wisps
of hair, the lamps are burning, the long pens are poised, and idea after
idea is hurled out of existence.

Gustave Kahn took counsel of the past, and he has successfully avoided
everything that even a hostile critic might be tempted to term an idea; for
this I am grateful to him. Nor is his volume a collection of miscellaneous
verses bound together. He has chosen a certain sequence of emotions; the
circumstances out of which these emotions have sprung are given in a short
prose note. "Les Palais Nomades" is therefore a novel in essence;
description and analysis are eliminated, and only the moments when life
grows lyrical with suffering are recorded; recorded in many varying metres
conforming only to the play of the emotion, for, unlike many who, having
once discovered a tune, apply it promiscuously to every subject they treat,
Kahn adapts his melody to the emotion he is giving expression to, with the
same propriety and grace as Nature distributes perfume to her flowers. For
an example of magical transition of tone I turn to _Intermede_.

"Chere apparence viens aux couchants illumines
Veux-tu mieux des matins albes et calmes
Les soirs et les matins ont des calmes rosatres
Les eaux ont des manteaux de cristal irise
Et des rythmes de calmes palmes
Et l'air evoque de calmes musique de patres.

* * * * *

Viens sous des tendelets aux fleuves souriants
Aux lilas palis des nuits d'Orient
Aux glauques etendues a falbalas d'argent
A l'oasis des baisers urgents
Seulement vit le voile aux seuls Orients.

* * * * *

Quel que soit le spectacle et quelle que soit la rame
Et quelle que soit la voix qui s'affame et brame,
L'oublie du lointain des jours chatouille et serre,
Le lotos de l'oubli s'est fane dans mes serres,

Cependant tu m'aimais a jamais?
Adieu pour jamais."

The repetitions of Edgar Poe seem hard and mechanical after this, so
exquisite and evanescent is the rhythm, and the intonations come as sweetly
and suddenly as a gust of perfume; it