FEBRUARY ADVOCATE DEALS WITH 'SWEET DRY AND DRY'

From Editorials to Verse Mother Advocate in the February number focuses her imaginative eye upon that "Sweet Dry and Dry" period which has slipped into place with so little outward effect. In fact, high tragedy has its day; from Mr. McVeagh's protagonist who "gathered up his feet and died" to Mr. Train's delightfully told adventures of Casimir Cashless and the Grand Keezer. Surely, if tradition err not, this is the number of numbers for an Eli to review. Coming from the wilds it has appeared to me that Harvard is essentially a quiet place where the soul is stirred but not to speeches. But--"Thou liest. I am Keezer! and in his wrath, Casimir seized her and hurled her from his window albeit she was of no trifling weight." After this I shall walk in the gutters and try hard to imagine that Cambridge and the college of "Bottle Nights" are not one and the same place.

To Mr. McVeagh, for his picture of Wordsworth at "cross purposes with nature," goes the palm for the verse of the number; in fact these unpublished utterances of the Lake Poet should most assuredly go into the next collected volume of Advocate verse. One might quarrel with Mr. Witter Bynner ('02) for disturbing buried desires; for no sooner has the Editorial with Common Sense buried King Spirits than along come most enchanting pictures of Cantors, with numberless grapes and Bacchus with "viney patterns of the veining of his nose." After that the Freudian wish is no more and the sole remaining bottle "though it doubles me rheumatic" is drained to Socrates! In striving for a sustained note Mr. Norris succeeds rather better than do Mr. Auslander and Mr. Cole, though not in form. After all, considering the local wealth of poets, a reviewer has no easy task. All of which reminds me that it is high time Mr. Wheelwright emerge from his winter hiding.

I have left "Billet Ballads"--Mr. Leys--and incidentally--the prize-winning story, for the last. One feels like saying, "Who is this man--what?" and "all that sort of thing." It is easy enough to prattle admiration or censure from the easy chair. Perhaps it might be best summed up by saying that if Mr. Leys' farce doesn't sell out this number then Cambridge doesn't recognize its own true genius--in humor at least. If in judging the stories submitted a fairminded judge had seen "Spiking Spicer" first, no one--else--the rest is death--what? Certainly not an intellectual number (the Reviewer didn't see the Political Supplement), but an essentially enjoyable one