Page:Points of View (1924).pdf/186

 Enter, then, Christopher Morley, with a scarlet plume in his cap, smoking his faithful pipe of briar and bearing aloft his plum pudding; Robert Cortes Holliday, swinging his walking stick like Taillefer at the Battle of Hastings; young Heywood Broun, tossing his witty quips to left and right, and bearing aloft Heywood Broun, Jr.; the before-heralded Robert Benchley, in cap and bells, presenting an excellent imitation of a Canadian professor of political economy; then, more sedately, Mr. Colby, with his hesitant smile, followed by the thirty other essayists, old and new, recently mustered by the scarlet-plumed master of the revels. The entire demonstration has a festive and holiday air. At the turn of the street one can fancy Mr. Morley leading in singing "God rest you, merry bourgeoisie, let nothing you dismay."

Suppose for the moment we fix our attention on these three "literary movements," and inquire, in the impressionistic manner, how they affect us. After one has read a yard or two of average American contemporary verse, ranging from "Rodin" Lindsay's "Johnny Appleseed" to Mr. Masters's "Domesday Book," one is left with a faint sense of strain in the appreciative organs, coupled with a furtive suspicion that verse as a vehicle of modern American life is pretty nearly obsolete. After one has read a shelf full of the new novelists, ranging from Ben Hecht's "Erik Dorn" to the "Three Soldiers" of John Dos Passos, or Anderson's "The Triumph of the Egg," one is left with a sombre sense that one