Divine Tuesday! I had wondered if those remarkable evenings of conversation in the rue de Rome with MallarmÉ as host, and Henri de Regnier as guest, among many others, had been the inspiration of the evenings at the Closerie de Lilas, where I so often sat of an evening, watching the numbers of esthetes gather, filling the entire cafÉ, rain or shine, waiting unquestionably, for it pervaded the air always, the feeling of suspense, of a dinner without host, of a wedding without bridegroom, in any event waiting for the real genius of the evening, le grand maitre prince de poÈtes, Paul Fort. The interesting book of Amy Lowell's, "Six French Poets," recalls these Tuesday evenings vividly to my mind, and a number of episodes in connection with the idea of poetry in Paris.

Poetry an event? A rather remarkable notion it would seem, and yet this was always so, it was a constituent of the day's passing, there was never a part of the day in this arrondissement, when you would not find here, there, everywhere, from the Boul-Mich up, down Montparnasse to Lavenue's, and back to the Closerie, groups of a few or of many, obviously the artist or poet type, sometimes very nattily dressed, often the reverse, but you found them talking upon one theme, art, meaning either poetry or painting, cubistes, futuristes, orphistes and doubtless every "iste" in poetry from the symboliste period up to the "unanimistes" of the present time, or the then present time nearly two years before the war. It was a bit novel, even for a sensitive American, sitting there, realizing that it was all in the name of art, and for the heralding of genius—a kind of sublimated recruiting meeting for the enlistment in the army of expression of personality, or for the saving of the soul of poetry.

It was a spectacle, edifying in its purport, or even a little distressing if one had no belief in a sense of humour, for there were moments of absurdity about it as there is sure to be in a room filled with any type of concerted egotism. But you did not forget the raison d'etre of it all, you did not forget that when the "prince" arrived there was the spirit of true celebration about it, the celebration not only of an arrived artist, but of an idea close to the hearts and minds of those present, and you had a sense, too, of what it must have been like in that circle of, no doubt, a higher average of adherents, in the drawing room of the genius MallarmÉ, who, from all accounts, was as perfected in the art of conversation, as he was in expression in art. When I read Miss Lowell's chapter on Henri de Regnier, I find myself before the door of the MallarmÉ house in the rue de Rome, probably the only American guest, on that Sunday morning in June, just one given a privilege that could not mean as much as if I had been more conversant with the delicacies of the language.

It was the occasion of the placing of a tablet of homage to the great poet, at which ceremony Henri de Regnier himself was the chief speaker: a tall, very aristocratic, very elegant looking Frenchman, not any more to be called young, nor yet to be called old, but conspicuously simple, dignified, dressed in a manner of a gentleman of the first order, standing upon a chair, speaking, as one would imagine, with a flow of words which were the epitome of music itself to the ear. I had been invited by a poet well known in Paris, with several volumes to his credit and by a young literary woman, both of whom spoke English very creditably. After the ceremonies, which were very brief, and at which Madame MallarmÉ herself was present, standing near the speaker, de Regnier, the entire company repaired to a restaurant near the Place Clichy, if I remember rightly. My hostess named for me the various guests as they appeared, Madame Rachilde, Reynaldo Hahn, AndrÉ Gide, and a dozen other names less conspicuous, perhaps, excepting one, LÉon Dierx, who was an old man, and whose death was announced about the city some days later. It was, needless to say, a conspicuous company and the dinner went off very quietly, allowing of course for the always feverish sound of the conversation of many people talking in a not very large room.

But all these suggestions recall for me once more what such things mean to a people like the French, or, let one say, Europeans as well. I wonder what poetry or even painting will do, if they shall rise to such a state in this country that we shall find our masters of literature holding audience with this degree of interest like Fort, or as did all the great masters of literature in Paris, hold forth in the name of art, a divine Tuesday set apart for the admirable worship of poetry, or of things esthetic. I can imagine Amy Lowell doing something of this sort after the custom of those masters she so admires, with her seemingly quenchless enthusiasms for all that is modern in poetry. I think we shall wait long for that, for the time when we shall have our best esthetics over the coffee, at the curbside under the trees with the sun shining upon it, or the shadow of the evening lending its sanction, under the magnetic influence of such a one as Paul Fort or Francis Jammes, or Emile Verhaeren—as it was once to be had among such as Verlaine, Baudelaire and that high company of distinguished painters who are now famous among us.

The studio of Gertude Stein, that quiet yet always lively place in the rue de Fleurus, is the only room I have ever been in where this spirit was organized to a similar degree, for here you had the sense of the real importance of painting, as it used to be thought of in the days of Pissarro, Manet, Degas, and the others, and you had much, in all human ways, out of an evening there, and, most of all, you had a fund of good humour thrust at you, and the conversation took on, not the quality of poetic prose spoken, as you had the quality of yourself and others, a kind of William James intimacy, which, as everyone knows, is style bringing the universe of ideas to your door in terms of your own sensations. There may have been a touch of all this at the once famed Brook Farm, but I fancy it was rather chill in its severity.

There is something of charm in the French idea of taking their discussions to the sunlight or the shadow under the stars, either within or outside the cafÉ, where you feel the passing of the world, and the poetry is of one piece with life itself, not the result of stuffy studios, and excessively ornate library corners, where books crowd out the quality of people and things. You felt that the cafÉ was the place for it, and if the acrobat came and sang, it was all of one fabric and it was as good for the poetry, as it was for the eye and the ear that absorbed it. Despite the different phases of the spectacle of Tuesday, at the Closerie de Lilas, you had the feeling of its splendour, its excellence, and, most of all, of its reality, its relationship to every other phase of life, and not of the hypersensitivity of the thing as we still consider it among ourselves in general; and if you heard the name of Paul Fort, or Francis Jammes, it was a definite issue in daily life, equal with the name of the great statesmen in importance, you were being introduced into a sphere of activities of the utmost importance, that poetry was something to be reckoned with.

It was not merely to hear oneself talk that artists like MallarmÉ held forth with distinction, that artists like de Regnier and Fort devote themselves, however secretly, or however openly to the sacred theme. They had but one intention, and that to arrive at, and assist in the realization of the best state of poetry, that shall have carried the art further on its way logically, and in accordance with the principles which they have created for their time; endeavoring always to create fresh values, new points of contact with the prevailing as well as with the older outlines of the classics. It was, then, a spectacle, from our removed point of view, the gathering of the poetic multitude around the cafÉ tables, over the Dubonnet, the grenadines, and the cafÉ noir, of a Tuesday evening. It gave one a sense of perpetuity, of the indestructibility of art, in spite of the obstacles encountered in the run of the day, that the artist has the advantage over the layman in being qualified to set down, in shapes imperishable, those states of his imagination which are the shapes of life and of nature.

We may be grateful to Amy Lowell for having assembled for our consummation, in a world where poetry is not as yet the sublime issue as it was to be felt at every street corner, much of the spirit of the rue de Rome, the CafÉ Novelles D'AthÈnes, and the Closerie de Lilas, as well as the once famed corner of the CafÉ D'Harcourt where the absinthe flowed so continuously, and from which some very exquisite poetry has emanated for all time. It is the first intimation we have of what our best English poetry has done for the best French poets of the present, and what our first free verse poet has done for the general liberation of emotions and for freedom of form in all countries. He has indicated the poets that are to follow him. He would be the first to sanction all this poetic discussive intensity at the curbside, the liberty and freedom of the cafÉ, the excellence of a divine Tuesday evening.