sent the Star in the East, but more resembling a child's kite, is suspended, spluttering and crackling, above the heads of the onlookers. And amid the hubbub of voices, the smell of powder, and the discordant crash of battered wind instruments, the Bambino is brought out to the Cathedral steps. He is carried, a little waxen doll swaddled in tissue of purple and gold, and laid in a flowered crib, in the arms of a sleek priest.

As the last ember fell from the fading star, the procession returned, and the Bambino was solemnly replaced in his manger beneath a rock-like edifice towering to the roof - reminiscent of some gigantic toy displayed in Christmas shop-windows: little figures in peasant costume emerging from cardboard chalets and approaching in stiff, doll-like attitudes of veneration the resting-place of the Child, before which flickered rows of candles. The people thronged back into the church and crowded up to the altar. Some huddled together on benches, others lolled on the steps of the altar or pulpit. Little boys moved to and fro between the pillars of the nave; chairs were passed over the heads of the kneeling worshipers; women settled their babies to sleep in their laps or bent forward to whisper to each other, while here and there a dog nosed round in search of his master. Even at the supreme moment of the Elevation, when every head was bowed, the report of fireworks, exploded on the very threshold of the holy place, reverberated round the walls, and an old man with shambling gait rattled the coins in his plate as he solicited the devout for alms.

None of these things disturbed the monotonous drone of the priests as they chanted their unintelligible Latin and made their genuflexions; yet, despite the strident tones of a ramshackle organ, despite the stir and movement,

one felt the heart of this simple congregation beating with a deep-felt emotion. This was no religious philosophy explained from the pulpit, no mere outward and visible sign of a moral code for the conduct of life, but an intimate fact the birth of a God who holds sway over life and death, who can punish or redeem. Here was a faith as simple and penetrating as that of the men and women who sought spiritual guidance or refuge from pagan persecution in the Roman catacombs.

The priests alone seemed artificial and unmoved. What mattered to them the bark of a dog, the cry of an infant, the rattle of coins in the plate, their own mumbled chants? Of what import the progress of civilization, so long as their flock believed in God . . . and the Holy Roman Church?

Hard by the Duomo an equally simple, but infinitely more pathetic scene: a dimly lit church, three priests celebrating Mass at the altar, otherwise emptiness, save for the lonely figures of women in black kneeling in the shadows. From behind the iron grilles above the arches of the nave, thin, plaintive voices of the nuns, unseen by the world and vowed to perpetual seclusion, chanted the responses.

It was with feelings of relief that I went out into the crisp night air. The heavens shone with innumerable stars; on either side arose the dark, rugged mass of the mountains; through a gap could be seen the faint outline of the smooth sea; in a garden the tapering cypress and the spreading head of the stately pine stood blackly against the sky line.

What would the Creator of such majestic beauty think of the spluttering fireworks, the waxen doll in its flowered crib, the piping voices of the nuns? . . . But surely He would smile upon the babies and the dogs in His church.

MAX APPLAUDS

Nor every day in the week do we find the sophisticated Max Beerbohm writing testimonials in praise of authors, artists, or liniments, and his opinions carry weight in consequence. But he has at last made a public confession of admiration for the caricaturist 'Quiz' of the Saturday Review. An exhibition of the original drawings that this young man has been doing for the past year was held in London early in November and the incomparable Max seized the opportunity to welcome a newcomer to the sparse ranks of satirical English artists. After a congratulatory opening, he says:

The first thing that will have struck you is his mastery of clean pen-and-ink work. This is a medium all the more welcome because since the invention of 'process blocks' it has so much languished. It is not an easy medium; on ne badine pas with it: if one does, it shows one up instantly. No doubt the harsh thing would like to show Quiz up. But I am afraid it cannot do It has met its match. And Nature, who has so elaborately fashioned the men whom Quiz draws so simply, she too, no doubt, would very much like to catch the young insolent tripping. What pains she expended over Lord Haldane, for example,

So.

and over the whole of the Cecil family, and over the Common Serjeant! Yet here comes the young insolent, and with a few lines as carefully selected as her own, but so few, so few! - he gets a result that is better, as she is fain to admit, than what she herself was able to achieve, after all.

Nature prides herself, very rightly, on the graining of wood; and carpenters are proud to expose her handiwork. But look, I beseech you, at the graining of the desk at which Lord Haldane is standing. Nature and the carpenters hang their heads, not quite sure whether they have been made ridiculous or merely been surpassed. Look

LIKE every other country in the world, Italy has a younger generation on her hands. But the great difference between Italy and the rest of the world is that the Italian youth has already triumphed. Mario Puccini, a novelist and interpreter of this new movement, explains the nature of its triumph in the Revue de Genève. Twenty years ago D' Annunzio was the great leader: his popularity at the time of the Fiume episode

reached an Indian summer that even outshone his earlier lustre, but he has since gone into a decline. The new prophet is Croce; the new figurehead is Mussolini.

What really defeated D'Annunzio was the war. Until 1914 the superman had been the idol. D'Annunzio had believed, preached, and finally in his own person exemplified this picturesque Nietzschean character. But when a lot of little pseudo-supermen came up against modern warfare they had to modify their opinions. At first with anger, then with stupefaction, and finally with admiration the superman saw fellows from the country, both officers and enlisted men, surpassing him not only in courage which was easy but also in modesty, self-respect, and sensibility.' This new type at once saw through the superman, and the superman was not slow, in consequence, to recognize his defects himself. Although these country fellows were simple in some ways, they were not slaves to illusions or traditions. Having experienced the usual skepticism, they suddenly found themselves in need of faith and lacking religion.

Their experience, however, provided them with an ideal - the common man, around whom a set of moral values has been established. But the superman, so appealing a figure to the Italian temperament, lives on in the personality of Mussolini, who has utilized the dramatic value of this character to the full, although he wears a very different mask from D'Annunzio's. Fascism is the political crystallization of the new ideal which has not yet had time to assert itself effectively in art and literature. Pirandello and Papini, perhaps the most gifted modern Italian writers, fall between two schools. They stand out as solitary personalities. The newer, humbler school, whose roots spring from the soil of the Italian countryside, is only just beginning to make itself felt. D'Annunzio might in his master's language call it 'Human-all-too-human,' but in doing so he would be paying a truthful compliment.

A CANDIDATE FOR DIVINE DESTRUCTION THE statement that the works of Shakespeare are the happy huntinggrounds for unbalanced minds is vigorously supported by a magazine recently received by one of the inmates of this office. Sivori Levey's Maskerpiece Magazine is the name of this strange publication, which was preceded some months ago by Ivory Leaves, another fruit of the same Mr. Levey's ingenuity. The meagre contents of the Maskerpiece are devoted to a fantastic cryptogrammic interpretation of Shakespeare's plays.

Hamlet, for instance, need no longer puzzle German researchers. ""They have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams." A "hamlet" is therefore one who lacks wit and whose hams are weak, and that is one of the phases of the character which Hamlet himself assumes in the play.'

Challenged by a critic to unravel the mystery of the word 'honorificabilitudinitatibus,' in Love's Labor's Lost, Mr. Levey proceeds as follows:

'Honorific: honorable. Abilitud: ability or habitude. Initati: initiat(e). Bus: active, bus(y).' Putting together 'honorable,' 'habitude,' 'initiate,' and 'busy' you get these three 'literal' translations: 'We should all initiate habits of honor'; 'Honorable customs should be acquired (cultivated) by all'; 'Let's all be honest (honorable).' And the meaning Mr. Levey proudly proclaims in capital letters: 'MANNERS MAKE THE MAN.'

Luckily relief awaits you on the back page in the form of the following pronouncement: "The Editor desires to assure the subscribers (both of them!) that the Maskerpiece Magazine has not been taken over by superpowerful press connections, and will, therefore, still retain its independence, probably the only paper that will have any soon.'

FATTY'S NEW CRUSADE

G. K. CHESTERTON, the author of 'Fatty's First Play,' as Bernard Shaw called his first dramatic effort, is off on another crusade. In a speech to the Catholic Association of the University of Manchester he launched a fierce attack on the 'extraordinary and monstrous monopoly of the English press.' With the exception of a few articles in the Catholic papers, the rest of the press is plunged 'in universal corruption,' in which there are, of course, 'degrees of vileness.'

using a candle instead, there would have been no darkness. And similarly, just as our water-supply, coming from one great reservoir, may be poisoned, so our news coming from a filthy fountainhead will corrupt us all. The hope of England now lies in Chesterton's new paper, promised shortly- G. K. C.'s Weekly. Here the dead cause of private enterprise will be brought to life.

THE FIGHTING SCOTCH

PHYSICAL violence is no more unheard of in the centres of learning in Scotland than it is in the backwoods colleges of the United States. Some time ago Mr. Stanley Baldwin was elected to succeed Mr. Lloyd George as Lord Rector of Edinburgh University, the contest being run on political lines with Lord Buckminster representing the Liberals and Mr. Bertrand Russell the Labor Party. During the polling the excitement began. The Liberals occupied the steps at the rear of the University Quadrangle and were assailed by the Conservatives with rotten eggs, rotting tomatoes, dead fish, ochre, and soot. The supplies were brought up in motortrucks. After a desperate struggle the Liberals finally surrendered and promptly fraternized with the victors. In the evening a torchlight procession was held and a collection was taken up, appropriately enough, for the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

AN UNPUBLISHED HOGARTH LETTER

IN 1753 Hogarth published a volume entitled The Analysis of Beauty. It has an interesting origin. In a portrait of himself, painted in 1745, Hogarth had drawn on a palette in the corner of the picture an ogee curve, under which he wrote, "The Line of Beauty.' 'No Egyptian hieroglyphic,' said Hogarth, 'ever amused more than it did for a