that before he graduated he took up with zeal and with distinction
the study of Celtic literature -- a corrective, perhaps, in its cooler tones,
to the tropical motives with which his mind was stored.
He was one of the editors of the `Harvard Monthly', to which he made
frequent contributions of verse.

There followed two years (1910-12) in New York -- probably the
least satisfactory years of his life. The quest of beauty
is scarcely a profession, and it caused his parents some concern
to find him pausing irresolute on the threshold of manhood,
instead of setting himself a goal and bracing his energies
for its achievement. In 1911 his mother and sister left Mexico,
a week or two before Porfirio Diaz made his exit, and the Maderists
entered the capital. They returned to New York, to find Alan still unsettled,
and possessed with the thought, or perhaps rather the instinct,
that the life he craved for was not to be found in America,
but awaited him in Europe. In the following year he carried his point,
and set off for Paris -- a departure which may fairly be called his Hegira,
the turning-point of his history. That it shortened his span
there can be little doubt. Had he settled down to literary work,
in his native city, he might have lived to old age. But it secured him
four years of the tense and poignant joy of living on which his heart was set;
and during two of these years the joy was of a kind which
absolved him for ever from the reproach of mere hedonism and self-indulgence.
He would certainly have said -- or rather he was continually saying,
in words full of passionate conviction --

One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.