he red with a famous old burgundy--Morrison's
personal compliment to the apostolate of civic art.

At the dessert, Morrison himself spoke a few words. The little speech
came brusquely from him, and no one who knew his rapacity for the
beautiful could doubt his faith in the universal superlatives he now
advocated. Our art, he held, must weigh with our mills and railroads,
else our life is out of balance. We never grudged millions to burrow
beneath New York for light, or for drink or speed, why then should we
grudge them for the beautiful inutilities that might make the surface of
the city splendid. A craving for fine objects was his own dearest
emotion, he wanted to see cities, states, and the nation ready to spend
with equal fervour. It all came apparently to a matter of spending.
Morrison entertained no doubt that an imperious demand would create an
abundant supply of what he called the best art. Whether we were to
transport bodily the great monuments of Europe to America, or merely were
to supply beauty off our indigenous bat, was not clear from Morrison's
address, and possibly was not wholly so in his own mind. But the talk was
solid and forceful, and I could hear Vogelstein grunt with inward joy
when he contemplated the city, the state, and the nation in their
predicted role as customers. I too felt that a real if an incoherent
voice had spoken, and that if civic art were indeed to come, it would be
through such neo-Roman visionaries as Morrison.

Then the mood changed and a willowy, hirsute, and earnest reviver of
tapestry weaving rose and pleaded for the "City Beautiful," castigating
the Philistine the while, and looking forward to a time when "the pomp,
and chronicle of our time should be splendidly committed to illumined
window and pictured wall," with some slight allusion to "those ancient
webs through which the Middle Ages still speak glowingly to us."

About midway in the speech Morrison, who had another public dinner down
the avenue slipped away. As he nodded "See you later perhaps" I marked
the adoring eye and smile of Vogelstein, and then the great folds settled
back into their places about his mouth and my neighbour once more gave an
uneasy attention to the weaver of beautiful phrases, meanwhile drinking
repeated glasses of burgundy. Soon his huge form heaved with an
inarticulate discontent, and as the speaker sat down amid perfunctory
applause Vogelstein snorted twice into the air.

"It is rather absu