OF Sacha Guitry’s life (off Stage and On’) the first event in time is first in importance: the son of actor parents, he was born in the glare of the footlights. Readers who have seen him in the theatre, especially the theatre of his native Paris, or who have read his sparkling pieces do theâtre, will be primed to enjoy his memoirs, of which this is the first of four gay installments. Δ Universities In Order of Their Eminence. Edwin R. Embree, as an officer of Yale University for six years, as a director and vice president, of the Rockefeller Foundation for a decade, and as president of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, has had intimate opportunities to acquaint himself with American universities; in this challenging discussion he hazards more than a guess when he lists them in the order of their scholarly eminence. Vera Brittain speaks with equal authority to and of ’Listeners English and American.’ She is known even in places where her extensive lecture tours have not taken her because of her impressive autobiographical study, Testament of Youth. Δ Turn to ’The Literary Worker’s Polonius’ for such advice as that shrewd, exasperating old counselor would have given had he been engaged in ’literary pursuits.’ Edmund Wilson, poet, novelist, onetime editor of the New Republic, penetrating critic of Axel’s Castle, has his own definite ideas of the natures, duties, and attitudes of which he writes.

Since the appearance of his first story in last July’s Atlantic,William Wister Haines has published Slim, a novel about linemen such as the protagonists of ’Hot Behind Me,’and is now superintending its metamorphosis in Hollywood. During his college years he supported himself by ’line work’ on wood-pole and steel-tower transmission and railroad electrification. George B. Roberts, vice president of the National City Bank of New York, voices in this paper the common sense of informed opinion. Δ ‘Glory, an unpublished poem on war as seen by Emily Dickinson, was sent to the Atlantic Monthly by her niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Δ Probably no essay has ever been more widely read and loved than ‘Turtle Eggs for Agassiz,’which the late professor of English at Boston University, Dallas Lore Sharp, contributed to the Atlantic in 1910. ‘ A Bed in the Museum’ adds a footnote to the immortal tale, and is itself a gem of portraitune. Δ ’A Tale of Three Cities’ is Glanville Smith’s farewell to the Antipodes, from which he returned last February to resume his trade of tombston designer in Cold Spring, Minnesota. Catharine Morris Wright (’Smoke’) is by profession a painter. She proffers this picture of herself: ’I live on a farm and spend my time writing, mornings; Painting, afternoons; walking or playing music, evenings; and have a jolly time.’

J. O. P. Bland writes of China’s drug traffic (‘Opium for the World’) with the authority which characterizes all ol his pronouncements on China’s complex problems. George Libaire (‘Heritage’) was for several years on the faculty of St. Stephen’s College, and later was associate professor of English at Columbia. James L. Mursell (‘The Miracle of Learning’) is professor of education at Lawrence College and has published several volumes on education in general and on music in particular. Δ ’The Return is a story in Lord Dunsany’s happiest vein of fantasy. Δ ’Culture and Laissez-Faire’ continues the study of America in Search of Culture which William Orton, professor of economies at Smith College, published two years ago. Walter Prichard Eaton (’The Professor Goes to Lunch’), after a fruitful career as dramatic critic, lecturer, and author of numerous books, has recently joined the staff of Yale University, in the Department of Drama. Arthur Pound (’The Atlantic Portfolio of Industry’) has contributed authoritative industrial papers to the Atlantic for a decade and a half.

If this fie heresy . . .

Dear Atlantic—
Mr. Nock’s article on ‘The Missing Link’ hinted at stupendous implications for religion if his contentions were true.
I believe they are true. Why, then, all this pother on the part of us ministers because the masses do not attend church? They are not up to it, that’s all. And why debauch our gospel until it becomes nothing more norless than an appeal for a full dinner pail? Demos is interested in the echurch only as the church fights its battles for a full belly. The church has been made a cat’s-paw to hook its chestnuts out of the fire. But the Social-Gospelers have not yet discovered this.
Another implication of Mr. Nock’s article is, why make such ado about charity? I believe that already thirfy cents out of every tax-dollar in Massachusetts, for instance, goes to support the insane, the moron, and the criminal. And with the soak-the-rich policy now in the saddle in Washington, the thrifty and competent are being still further penalized. How long can this go on before society becomes so waterlogged with the incompetent that it can no longer keep afloat? I believe in charity, but my own personal charity has become restricted to those who have some spiritual sensitiveness. I no longer give charity to the Neolithic man.
Our thanks are due to Mr. Cram and Mr. Nock for giving us a rationale for tightening our purse strings against drives to help those who, if kept alive, will simply go on propagating their kind, thereby making it harder for the decent and the competent and the thrifty to survive. If this be heresy, let who will make the most of it. HOWARD J. CHIDLEY, D. D. First Congregational Church Winchester, Massachusetts

The barnyard point of view.

Dear Atlanlic,—
On reading ‘The Quest of the Missing Link,’contributed to your April issue by Albert Jay Nock, I could not help wondering whether the view there expressed is pose or parallax. However, that is not denying that the average man, in many respects, is more beastly than the brute. Perhaps this is the way the so-called lower animals would size up the situation: —
The beasts once came together to decide
Which was the most important in the land.
The lion and the tiger claimed command
Because they both had eaten man. Their pride
Was great that man and others that abide
On earth were made for them. That fact should stand,
Since it was certainly decreed and planned
That man should be their food, by Heaven supplied.
But horses, cattle, goats and sheep and swine,
The dogs and cats and all domestic fowls
Demurred at this, since man was just their slave.
Feeding and housing them, as was divine
Foreordination, and whoever growls
Thereat is infidel and arrant knave.
F. A. WOOD
La Jolla, California

Tugwell and Bryce.

Dear Atlantic,—
I suppose that when the Atlantic publishes a partisan political article such as Dr. Tugwell’s it counts the cost in terms of the correspondence it invites.
The American story since the Civil War leaves Dr. Tugwell dissatisfied. He would have builded differently.
Thirty-five years ago James Bryce closed the third edition of his American Commonwealth with these words: ‘That America marks the highest level, not only of material well-being, but of intelligence and happiness, which the race has yet attained, will be the judgment of those who look not at the favored few for whose benefit the world seems hitherto to have framed its institutions, but at the whole body of the people.’
This observation could have been truthfully repeated during most, if not all, of the intervening years. I had an idea that the achievement was ‘the direct and logical outcome of certain ways of doing things.’
It is true we have not found a way to thwart the operation of Newton’s third law, which seems somehow to apply to business as to the physical world. It is related in Genesis that Pharaoh was confronted with the problem of the cycle. Joseph, who possessed the gift of prophecy, knew the duration and worked out a solution satisfactory to Pharaoh if not to his people.
Now Dr. Tugwell has a solution. He says it involves changing the ways of doing things, but the constructive part of his substituted plan tacks definition. On February 18, Justice McReynolds said from the bench, ‘The guarantees to which men and women heretofore have looked to protect their interests have been swept away.’ Does this alone tend to ensure ‘the good life’? Scott Nearing (who was Dr. Tug well’s tutor at Pennsylvania) is candid. His purpose needs no further clarification. Just what does Dr. Tugwell intend? If a ‘higher law ’ has been unfolded to the intellectuals, why not translate the vision into words with some exactness? Then, indeed, we might explore the boundaries of chaos and plumb its depths without so great risk of stepping in unawares during this moment of distraction. SUBSCRIBER Buffalo, NewYork

We who are about to die.

Dear Atlantic, —
Allow me the use of your columns for a little chat with the young lady in ‘The Art of Dying,’ because we have something in common.
My tenure is a little more indefinite than yours, but for no special reason the men in my genealogical inventory have had a rapid turnover. I might still heat you to the wire. When the time comes, I hope I shall be as terrified as you —although I do believe that you are a little premature. The gamut of human emotions has a nadir as well as a zenith. If we would have an infinite capacity for joy and happiness, we must be prepared to probe the uttermost depths of suffering, terror, and despair. That is the stuff a full life is made of. The lower you descend the scale of human intelligence, the less terrifying death becomes.
Again like yourself, I too am sailing without an anchor to windward. Intellectual honesty compels some of us to reject immortality in the commonly accepted sense. In a personality thus constituted, you can always expect to find an intense love for humanity. For, with oblivion ahead, the chief purpose of life becomes to live in harmony and happiness with one’s fellow men and to contribute something toward their advancement. But you shall attain immortality in a more important and unselfish sense. Those hereditary characteristics which make yon a precursor of a nobler race will survive in your children and those who follow. Is that a mean contribution? A monument would not add to its dignity nor better define its quality.
W. M. J. McCLURE
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Evidently there are crows and crows.

Dear Atlantic,—
The article in the April Atanlic by Charlton Ogburn, Jr., entitled ’The Crow,’ was a very good story, but it showed only one side of a crow’s true nature. I too have observed crows closely, in the wild state as well as in the tame. For example, I took Jimmy, MY last tame crow, for long trips into a wilderness rarely visited by man, where he became extremely companionable. Of course he did make us watch our forks and spoons. In the spirit of fun he would swoop down and grab one, for he knew it meant that a game of ‘ hide and go seek’ would follow. Off to a deep cedar clump u hundred feet to the north of our camp he would fly. There he would alight, and then the game would begin. When he became tired of the sport, he would give back the spoon or fork.
Jimmy’s presence attracted a flock of from four to five hundred curious crows with whom he became very friendly. Sometimes he would fly miles with them, being most of the time the centre of interest. But he always returned to us, his foster guardians, particularly at mealtime. Of course he did have his bad spells. He would attack on sight any person who had ever teased him. Once I found twelve newly killed frogs in one of his hilling places. Sometimes he would insist on roosting on our lent all night, and would be very indignant at being pushed off. But, in this letter, I merely want to stress the fact that a crow is not a wicked soulless creature all the time. ARTHUR MAY, JR. Belleville, Ontario

Golfers, keep your eye on the ball.

Dear Atlantic, —
Charlton Ogburn, Jr.’s interesting narration of his experiences with a tame crow and the bird’s utter lack of propriety and decency recalls to mind a rather exasperating encounter several years ago in which the crow was decidedly the victor. The avidity of a member of this species for new golf balls had long been a subject of conversation among devotees of the sport at Virginia Beach, but was seldom given credence by other than actual eyewitnesses to his depredations.
The fourteenth hole of the Princess Anne golf course caused much wrath and profanity among golfers who disregarded the advice of sager heads. A 200-yard drive with a new missile, regardless of how perfectly executed, frequently resulted in a lost ball. An old crow which perched, seeing but unseen, in a tree near the 200-yard marker, waiting for the uninitiated, would swoop down on the shiny while pellet and carry it away to parts unknown amid the curses of its owner and the benedictions of the owner’s opponents. Only duffers and those who used discolored balls, which were beneath the old thief’s notice, escaped him.
one of the members of our foursome forewarned us about this wily bird when we were approaching the fourteenth tee. We ignored his counsel, but he wisely drove an old ball down the fairway without mishap. His partner, who had been most vociferous in decrying his advice, made a beautiful 220-yard drive with a brand-new Kroflite golf ball, the kind we all used because’ of its imperviousness to poorly directed iron strokes. The ball had hardly come to rest in the soft turf when a black gawky shape descended rapaciously upon it and bore away another ‘ egg ‘ for his nest, disdaining the blatant vituperation of its one time owner and the raucous laughter and derisive jeers of the remaining members of the foursome.
Acoording to the golf-course attendants, the old robber does not harass any fairway other than the fourteenth, and rumor has it that one of the club caddies found a crow’s nest not far distant full of new golf balls. Many members of the club advocated annihilation of this feathered highwayman, but those with a keener sense of humor considered him one of the course hazards. Probably he is still causing consternation among unsuspecting golfers who play the Princess Anne course. WILLIAM H. TRAPNELL Richmond, Virginia

Minute Pudding.

Dear Atlantic, —
I wish to thank you for giv ing us Mrs. Lutes’s delightful article, ‘The Simple Epicure,’in the March Atlanlic. Reading it brought back vividly my own childhood in Southern Michigan. And for the first time, I believe, a recipe for minute pudding appeared in print.
A story that has been handed down at least four generations in my family centres round this same dessert. Each time I tell it I am asked by someone how the pudding was made. One friend, after I had described the lumpy mass made of flour and water, suddenly seemed to visualize it and exclaimed, ‘Oh yes, like paperhangers’ paste — not properly made.’ And that does describe if very well. But the story. Long ago, in the period when this country was being settled, a man look his son to a farmer with whom he had made arrangements to bind him out. As the father was leaving he said to his son’s new master, who was Holland Dutch: ’My son will eat everything but minute pudding.’ When they came in to supper after working all the afternoon, the one food the lad found on the table was the detested minute pudding. The family made their meal of it, but the boy would not so much as taste it. He went to bed hungry, and when he was awakened before daybreak (quaint ideas of what constituted a working day obtained in those days) he was ravenously hungry.
After chores came breakfast, and, to his dismay, again the only food on the table was minute pudding. Famished though he was, however, he still refused to eat the dish against which he was so prejudiced. Another half day of hard work, and again they gathered round the family board. Again minute pudding, was the only foot I provided. By this time the lad’s hunger had increased until with no ado he quietly finished the bowl of pudding given him, found it was n’t too bad, and asked for another and even a third.
When they were arising from the table, the old Dutchman, with an air of relief, said: ‘Vell, vell, dat is goot. Now you haf learned to eat minute pudding, we can haf somedings else.’ MARY R. REYNOLDS
Philadelphin, Pennsylvania

Lines from Edmund Gosse.

Dear Atlantic,
I enclose a few lines that seem to me so beautiful that I wish they might be given more publicity than they had in the volume where I found them. They were written by Edmund Gosse, and, although they bring a pang, one cannot help thinking that it would be far worse never to have had any reason to feel that way.
Last night I woke and found between us drawn —
Between us, where no mortal fear may creep —
The vision of Death dividing us in sleep:
And suddenly I thought, Ere light shall dawn
Some day, the substance, not the shadow of Death
Shall cleave us like a sword. The vision passed
But all its new-born horror held me fast,
And till day broke I listened for your breath.
Some day to wake and find that colored skies
And pipings in the woods, and petals wet
Are things for memory to forget;
And that your living hands and mouth and eyes
Are part of all the world’s old histories! —
Dear God! a little longer, ah, not yet!—
EARL P. HAYNES
Bay Shore, New York

In praise of the avocado.

Dear Atlantic,—
Why should your Contributor in his panegyric on hors d’œuvres go out of his way to heap obloquy on one of Florida’s most delectable products? He disqualifies himself as a critic by not even knowing its name. ’Alligalor pear’ was a term applied to the wild native produel from the roughness of its skin, but no one would think of applying it to the smoothskinned fruit known to the cognoscenti as avocado. If he does not — like avoaados it is his misfortune. Possibly he has never seen them as they should be served. So I will tell him — and others — how to en joy this ambrosial feast.
Cover a plate with crisp lettuce leaves. Peel an avocado and cut it into crescent-shaped slices. In each crescent like the old moon in the arms of the new —place a segment of grapefruit. The cool greenness of this salad will delight the eye. Prepare a French dressing, — never mayonnaise, — adding piquancy to it with the juice of a lime or lemon. Cream the dressing by beating with a fork over a lump of ice, and pour liberally over the avocado and grapefruit. Anyone who does not like this does n’t know What’s What even though his name may be in Who’s Who.
P. H. H.
Coconut Grove, Florida

A word to the young.

Dear Atlantic, —
The Reverend Otis Moore, of Tipton, Iowa, writes to the Contributors’ Column about a promising young friend of his, and wants to know how, in these days, he can a fiord to go to college. If he really wants a college education, he has more chance of obtaining it than young Franklin had. Franklin was born in 1706, in a day of the most meagre opportunity. Although he was born in Boston, no one wrote about him to the Atlantic Monthly to tell that paper that he had graduated with honors. Actually, he kept on graduating with honors every day until he died. He had an ‘Open Sesame’ — ‘Time is the stuff that Life is made of ’ — and he did not waste his time. In this he differed from most of us. His Life and Letters, somewhat overlooked in these days of Phi Beta Kappas, are available and inspiring.
Another man, an obscure English poacher of small opportunities, found sermons in stones and books in the running brooks. He too succeeded in life, but of his personal career little is known.
If Mr. Moore’s young friend knew his Shakespeare and his Franklin, he could keep his feet on the ground and his head among the stars.
ROLAND C. ASIIBROOK
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A question of paternity.

The polylinguistic squib recently appearing in the Atlantic has a devious paternity, as many letters prove. We think, however, that the original ancestor has now come to light.

Dear Allantic,—
The verses referred to by Mr. Hefferan in the April ‘Contributors’ Column’ will be found in The Comic Latin Grammar, London, Charles Tilt, ed. 2, 1840, p. 152. The ‘portrait of the author’ by John Leech, who illustrated the book, gives his name as ’Prendergest,’ whether correctly or not I cannot verify at the moment. The verses run as follows:—
Patres conscripti — took a boat and went to Philippi.
Trumpeter unus erat qui coatum scarlet habebat.
Stormum snrgobat, et boaturu overset-eba I.
Omnes drownerunt, quia swimaway non potuerunt,
Excipe John Periwig tied up in the tail of a dead pig.
There is a good illustration by Leech.
MASON HAMMOND Boston, Massachusetts

Signs of the Orient.

Dear Atlantic,—
In the Peak Tram, Hongkong: NO CHILD UNDER THE AGE OF TWELVE YEARS, TRAVELLING IN THIS CAR, IS PERMITTED TO OCCUPY A SEAT DIRECTLY ADJOINING THE EXTERNAL AIR (meaning next to a door or window).
Hongkong’s leading sanitary engineer (plumber to you) is LEE KEE.
A Chinese shop in Java displays this sign: —
AGENT FOR STANDARD OIL COMPANY DEALER IN PROVISION GROCERY AND DRUNKENNESS
F. H. TYSON
Hongkong, China

Things of beauly.

Dear Atlantic, —
One who is responsive to the delicate things of the heart must have been deeply moved by the contributions in recent issues of your magazine on things of beauty.
I wonder if your readers are familiar with this lovely paragraph from John Galsworthy’s Candelabra: —
‘ When any one of us has seen, or heard, or read that which is beautiful he has known an emotion precious and uplifting. A choir boy’s voice, a ship in sail, an opening flower, a town at night, a lovely poem, leaf shadows, the stars at night, sheep bells on a hill, the crescent moon, the thousand sighls, or sounds, or words, that wake in us the thought of beauty — these are the drops of rain that keep the human spirit from death by drought. How little savor there would be left in life if beauty were withdrawn! It is the smile on the earth’s face, and needs but eyes to see, the mood to understand.’
WILBER W. MCKEE, D. D.
Northbrae Methodist Church Berkeley, California

Opportunity knocks but once.

Dear Atlantic, —
As a reader of the Atlanlic since my school days, may I take the liberty of asking if you would assist my friend and me by publishing this letter.
We are planning a trip from the Andes to the Allantic, via the Amazon, in June or July next, with the object of hunting, taking photos, writing, and sketching, and we wish to get in touch with a couple of young North Americans — girls or men — who might care to accompany us. We are Englishmen, aged twenty-two and twenty-seven years respectively, and at present are line officers serving with the Bolivian forces in the Chaco war against Paraguay.
We plan to travel down the Audes and cordilleras by train and mules to the Bolivian jungles, thence by mule, canoe, and launch via the headwaters of the Amazon and the Amazonas to the Atlanlic coast.
This trip could be of from three months’ to a year’s duration, and of course we are quite prepared to modify our plans to some extent in order to suit the convenience of whoever may accompany us. With good companions it should be very interesting and enjoyable, and comparatively cheap. We estimate the cost to be about $250 each, or less, according to the time occupied.
For ourselves, we make good comrades, know the greater part of Bolivia, and expect to have the coöperation of the Bolivian Government, and probably of the Brazilian Government. If your readers are interested, I should be glad to hear from them at my permanent address below.
STTE. FRANK M. JONES
c/o Estado Mayor Auxiliar La Paz, Bolivia, South America

Another cause of accidents.

Dear Atlantic,—
I have read with much interest the articles by Curtis Billings in your September and April issues and should like to add a word of comment. Mr. Billings goes into considerable detail describing the various causes of automobile accidents, but he does not mention the auto radio as a serious factor.
I operate a filling station at the edge of the city, and I know of several near-by accidents that were caused by the radio in the car. Every good driver knows that his entire attention is needed on the road as long as the car is in motion. If a driver is rolling along at a good clip and listening to a broadcast in which he is particularly interested, his attention is bound to be centred more on the radio than on the road.
Many people defend the auto radio by saying that it is a great comfort to have something to occupy the mind on long stretches of monotonous road. That is true enough. But most radios are in cars owned by city people who seldom leave town. I am a radio enthusiast myself, but nothing could induce me to put one in my car.
ALLAN G. HELM Rockford, Illinois

Keats as a political philosopher.

Dear Atlantic,—
Please refer to Mr. Charles D. Stewart’s article, ‘The Colors of Nature.’ November Atlanlic. The last paragraph of section VI closes with these words: ‘“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” And sometimes I have wondered whether Keats did not say even more than he was aware of when he produced that line.‘
Probably. Keats was like that. Witness these lines from the same source:—
A mad pursuing of the fog-born elf
Whose flilling lantern through rude nettle-brier,
Cheats us into a swamp, into a fire,
Into the bosom of a hated thing.
Could there be found words more descriptive of certain world-wide tendencies obtaining to-day?
ALENANDER II. HOLLIDAY
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania