it must be true in the sense that Mallarmé's fauns are true, must be a beautiful possibility created in the mind of the artist. I have consistently objected that Mr Frank does not qualify on condition one; life as he presents it is assiduously culled, the volitional element of the artist is over-emphasized. Or, to borrow from a colleague, M. Cowley, I should say that he has stacked the cards. However, if we admit this cheating, take it as a basis of our calculations, we must next inquire as to whether Mr Frank cheats dextrously; we shall not ask if he is false, but if he is superbly false. On the whole, I think he is not, for the two books under consideration are not finally beautiful. They lack just that element of cold carving, that bloodless autopsy of the emotions, which allows Mallarmé so near an approach to perfection.
True, these books have many passages of thick beauty such as Mallarmé probably never dreamed of. When Mr Frank, for instance, undresses one of his women, and opens his throat and sings thereat, the song is full and lovely. Or when, as in Rahab . . . but the situation must be explained more fully: Mrs Luve is a procuress, but a procuress with her Bible and her refinements, a procuress who needs a great deal of explanation. Mr Frank takes us through a book to explain her, and at the end we do accept his attitude—we believe that she is a delicate woman whose denigration has an almost Christlike significance. We see her, then, in the midst of her set, politicians, gamblers, crooks, whores. We hear their vulgarly minute conversation, note their unenlightened envelopment in the immediate moment; whereupon, of a sudden, the author gives a projection of each character, or, technically speaking, draws out the song of each character, the lyric surrender to a grand communion of passions. That is, they sit in the room, each aware of his apartness from the others; but each has a purer attitude within him somewhere, a naive burst of confidence which is suppressed: it is this naive burst which Mr Frank gives in his lyrical projections of the characters present. Here passion has justified itself by the discovery of an excellent subterfuge; it is Waldo Frank at his best.
On the whole, however, I must confess that the author's intensity is too direct, lies too far beyond the subterfuge. Mr Frank is as serious as Buddha, which is a dangerous thing to be in an age which could produce Ulysses. If we have to choose between an artist who is passionless and clever, and an artist who is tumultuous and non-
