hildren of the present. I profoundly hope so. Can it be that the
present revival of poetry is due to the passing of the memory-gem
book? At least, no teacher would have the courage to set her class the
task of copying Amy Lowell or _The Spoon River Anthology_!

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_The Bad Manners of Polite People_

All my life I have suffered from politeness--not my own, but the
politeness of other people. So far as I know, nobody has ever accused
me of being polite. I suspect that I must be, however, for hitherto I
have borne the politeness of other people without a protest. But I
must protest now, if only to vindicate my lack of politeness; in other
words, to prove my good manners.

For what I object to in polite people is their bad manners. It is this
I have suffered from, as, I suspect, have many thousands of my
fellows, to whom life is real and earnest, and gabble not its goal. As
a rule, the politer the person the worse are his (or more often,
perhaps, her) manners. The limit is reached when the amateur is sunk
entirely in the professional, and that curious product of "Society" is
developed, the professional hostess. I cannot better illustrate my
theme than with a description of the professional hostess.

I call her professional because all the joy of entertaining for its
own sake has gone out of her work. She does not invite people to her
parties because she is glad to see them, because she is interested in
them, or wishes to give them pleasure. She invites them because to
entertain them is a part of her day's work--whether her work be to get
into a certain social stronghold, to keep that stronghold against
assault, or merely to kill time, her arch-enemy. And, in performing
this task of hers, she has developed a technique of politeness which
is to the amateur's technique what the professional golf-player's
style is to the form of the mere bumblepuppy. Her politeness is
astonishingly brilliant, flexible, resourceful. It is aspired to by
the lowly and aped on the stage. And yet her manners are the worst in
the world.

Let us suppose her about to give a dinner. She is trimmed down to the
fashionable slenderness (perhaps), and brilliant with jewels. Cannel
coal snaps pleasantly in the drawing-room grate, and the lights are
gratefully shaded. A guest or two arrive, whom she greets with affable
handshake. The man moves over to the fire, warming his back; his wife