I counsel thee, shut not thy heart or thy library.—C. Lamb 

The library of the Calvert Club differs in two respects at least from the ordinary dub library. First, it is not simply a place where elderly gentlemen go to sleep, or where you occasionally hunt for somebody who has disappeared—it is really used. And, again, you may talk as well as read in our library. Of course, there are alcoves where the real bookworm, that natural solitary, may retire and be quite alone, but around the fireplace at the end of the long room, where the big window overlooks the great spaces of the park, we may freely talk and swap stories drawn from or suggested by the books ot papers we have been reading, or people we have met. From time to time, the librarian jots dewn some of the things that arc said. Perhaps he does so in order to salve a conscience guiltily aware of a propensity to spend too much time in the corner. 

Naturally enough, the talk last week was mostly shop talk. The proofs of the first number of The Commonweal were coming from the printer. Sticky, smudgy proofs, with the heads on wrong, the matter bristling with the impish tricks of that especially tricky little devil who is attached to all printers—but romantic, but charming, but beautiful proofs. Firs: proofs! If any editor, still more any writer, ever loses the thrill that galley proofs bring—let him instantly retire to the Old Hacks Home; he is ready for the ladle of the button moulder. And we are not I Even that member of the staff who is known as Doctor Angelicus (for reasons possibly more allied to the bodily than to the mental "form" of the "Dumb Ox") performed something obesely resembling a dance (and a rather jazzy one). He even made a sort of pun. "At last," said he, "behold the proofs of our existence. The Commonweal now is—until now it has only been a dream." 

Not only Doctor Angelicus became frivolous—everybody was chattering, everybody was gay, everybody fluttered those charming proofs about. The Statistician was beard saying over and over again (though nobody disputed him): "I always said that this was not a business enterprise. We have started on an adventure!" The Critics (of books, of drama, of science, of art, of Shakespeare and the Musical Glasses, of each other) forgot to look pontifical; perhaps they were too busy looking up (in the proofs) their various proclamations, or bulls. In short, there was a rowdy time in our quiet corner. We shall quite probably have to place a Puritan on the staff, to preserve some sense of law and order, some atmosphere of dignity. 

In fact, this idea was suggested, and was promptly voted upon in the affirmative, and Doctor Angelicus was deputized to go forth and find and return with a Puritan. (He will report upon his commission later on.) The Chief Reviewer was reminded by this incident of the curious ideas entertained by otherwise well-informed people on the subject of Papistt Having been reading the galley proofs of Recollections of a Happy Life, by the late Maurice Francis Egan, he read us the following anecdote from a passage describing the fast and furious dinner parties that were given by Edgar Fawcett in the olden days. "I never saw Edgar Fawcett so angry as he was at the end of one of these little dinners when he asked me: "'If your priest told you to go out and stand under a cold shower when you had a fever, would you not be forced to do it?' I promptly answered: 'No, I'd see him in Purgatory fin:!' Fawcett became red in the face. 'Notice, gentlemen,' he said, 'here is a Papist who not only refuses to obey his church, but he blasphemes!'" 

It has to be recorded that a slight chill crept over the group, when the Editor was heard saying that of course be realized that for a mere editor to make suggestions to such exalted beings as modem Critics evidenced extreme temerity, but that nevertheless, he hoped that The Commonweal might be spared from reaching such pinnacles of critical omniscience as seemed to have become the fashion to preach from elsewhere. "After all," lie said, "since most critics disclaim any other than a purely impressionistic basis for their judgments, and deny with vehemence all alliance with 'dogmatism,' it is an excessively singular phenomenon of a singular time that so many critics should be expressing themselves in tones full of dogmatic thunder. Can we keep away from it in The Commonweal? It is doubtful, but let us try. As examples of this tone of personal dogmatism, which is so rampant in current criticism, we cull at random from some of our contemporaries."

"In the Literary Review of The New York Evening Post, I find that Mr. Edwin Bjorkman, writing of Aldous Huxley, says that Mr. Huxley, is 'an artist highly disciplined, and in full command of every resource, every finesse, every laboriously established tradition of his chosen craft' I am quite willing to believe that Mr. Huxley is a skilful writer, but if he is in full command of every resource, every finesse, every laboriously established tradition of his chosen craft, what a monster of perfection in a world where perfection is so rarely achieved must he be. In 'Books,' I find Elinor Wylie, reviewing Mr. E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, speaking of her 'absolute conviction that he alone of living writers can understand without effort and relate without obscurity the smallest and the greatest reflection of the human mind.' Which, again, seems rather to place Mr. Forster upon a peak of unique perfection. But he cannot, after all, it would seem, be permitted to occupy that peak in solitary uniqueness—at least not if Mr. Gregory Mason is right in his review of Mr. Rockwell Kent, of whom be says: 'Kent ~vrites as if he were divinely mad or superhumanly sane. . Offhand, one can think of no other American writer whose point of view is so like God's.'

 "Yet, possibly," continued the Editor while the doubtful critics looked upon him with somber eyes, "it may be better for The Commonweal critics to be solemn and impassible pontiffs, in the style just quoted, rather than to subject themselves to such physiological discomforts in pursuing their solemn avocation, as seems to be the sad fate of Mr. Burton Rascoe, according to his report of his experiences when reading Elliot's Waste Land. Here is Mr. Rascoe's diagnosis of his symptoms— 

Discount, then the irrelvant fact that a mere reading of this poem induced in me such physiological phenomena as may be described as a rushing of hot, feverish blood to the head, a depressing sense of weight about the heart, moisture in the palms and eyes, tremors in the nerves, and increased rapidity of respiration—in short, the accountable and visible phenomena attending ecstasy, wonder and despair (or, perhaps, intimations of poignant beauty; and then ask appropriately and reasonably: "But what is the poem's aesthetic significance? Wherein lies its beauty?" 

What the critics replied to the Editor will never be known as the Editor, refuses as a general rule to run things "to be continued in our next."—The Librarian.