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INVOLUNTARY SONNET TO THE

WORKERS FOR

"LITTLE VERSES AND BIG NAMES"

Mesdames:

YOUR compilation is a book

I would have taken pride to figure in,

if it had not, unfortunately, been

beyond my powers, by hook or crook,

to write in verse, or, rather, what might look like verse if printed so as to begin

each line with capitals. I hate like sin
to have to say so, but you much mistook
my capabilities-and tickled me

thereby, of course,-in thinking that I would
have skill to fashion verses fit to be
identified with any cause so good

as your most meritorious charity,

which I would gladly further if I could.

-JAMES BRANCH CABELL.

TO SARAH BERNHARDT

HE art of acting is a vagrant art;

TH

Its triumph's writ in water on the sands
of time-

A perfect product of the brain and heart,
So quick disclosed, so soon forgot
As to be like the chanting of a rhyme
Into deaf ears that hear it not.

But you, O lady of the Golden Voice,
Whose liquid magic paints all shades of joy and

pain,

Whose slightest smile bids ev'ry man rejoice, Within whose tears a thousand woes are pent, Will live this æon through, and live againYour perfect art its perfect monument.

-CHANNING POLLOCK.

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A STORY IN NATURAL HISTORY

It was a of brightch up

was a morning of bright sunshine and a lit

tle bird sat on the branch and caroled up to the skies and rejoiced in the sunshine and in his song. And there came along, creeping towards the bush, a bad, wicked snake, and the snake looked at the little bird and the little bird looked at the snake. And when a little bird has looked at a snake it cannot take its eyes off the snake until the snake has turned its head away; and the snake kept getting nearer and nearer to the bush. And the little bird said to himself, "What shall I do to make the snake turn away his head? I will tell the snake a whopper, so he said, "Mr. Snake, Mr. Snake, there's a beautiful landscape just behind your tail"; but the snake did not care anything at all about beauty or landscapes, and he kept getting nearer and nearer to the bush.

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And then the little bird tried again; "Mr. Snake, Mr. Snake, there's a man standing close beside you with a great big club"; but the snake didn't scare worth a confederate dollar and he kept getting nearer and nearer to the bush.

And then the little bird, with a last effort for

liberty and for life, threw away his conscience altogether, and he told an awful whopper. "Mr. Snake, Mr. Snake, there's a really interesting young woman standing close behind you." Now, the snake said to himself, "There are a thousand chances to one that the little bird is lying, but there are ten thousand chances to one that if I do not see a really interesting young woman now I never shall." So he turned his head and the little bird flew away, rejoicing. And there was no really interesting young woman there. And why not? "Because," said the bold bad bachelor who told me the story, "there never was a really interesting young woman anywhere."

-GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM.

CROSS WAYS

MAY your "Little Verses and Big Names"

prove to be a safe and sane "Cockhorse" for carrying these little children of the future past "Banbury" and all other crosses.

-BRIGADIER GENERAL ANSON MILLS.

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