ks, as in any other flood, it is the froth and scum which
shows most prominently. And the possession of "vitality," here as
elsewhere, postulates that its possessor must ultimately perish.

Nay, by the time these printed pages are first read as printed pages,
allusion to those modern authors whom these pages cite--the pre-eminent
literary personages of that hour wherein these pages were written--will
inevitably have come to savor somewhat of antiquity: so that sundry
references herein to the "vital" books now most in vogue will rouse
much that vague shrugging recollection as wakens, say, at a mention of
_Dorothy Vernon_ or _Three Weeks_ or _Beverly of Graustark_. And while
at first glance it might seem expedient--in revising the last
proof-sheets of these pages--somewhat to "freshen them up" by
substituting, for the books herein referred to, the "vital" and more
widely talked-of novels of the summer of 1916, the task would be but
wasted labor; since even these fascinating chronicles, one comprehends
forlornly, must needs be equally obsolete by the time these
proof-sheets have been made into a volume. With malice aforethought,
therefore, the books and authors named herein stay those which all of
three years back our reviewers and advertising pages, with perfect
gravity, acclaimed as of enduring importance. For the quaintness of
that opinion, nowadays, may profitably round the moral that there is
really nothing whereto one may fittingly compare a successful
contribution to "vital" reading-matter, as touches evanescence.

And this is as it should be. _Tout passe.--L'art robust seul a
l'eternite_, precisely as Gautier points out, with bracing
common-sense; and it is excellent thus to comprehend that to-day, as
always, only through exercise of the auctorial virtues of distinction
and clarity, of beauty and symmetry, of tenderness and truth and
urbanity, may a man in reason attempt to insure his books against
oblivion's voracity.

Yet the desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the
saying runs, old as the hills--and as immortal. Questionless, there
was many a serviceable brick wasted in Nineveh because finicky persons
must needs be deleting here and there a phrase in favor of its cuneatic
synonym; and it is not improbable that when the outworn sun expires in
clinkers its final ray will gild such zealots tinkering with their
"style." This, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter. Some few
there