are just a little fat at the wrist. The curtain rises upon him so.
But afterwards, if the devices of this declining art of literature
prevail, you will go with him through curious and interesting
experiences. Yet, ever and again, you will find him back at that
little table, the manuscript in his hand, and the expansion of
his ratiocinations about Utopia conscientiously resumed. The
entertainment before you is neither the set drama of the work of
fiction you are accustomed to read, nor the set lecturing of the
essay you are accustomed to evade, but a hybrid of these two. If you
figure this owner of the Voice as sitting, a little nervously, a
little modestly, on a stage, with table, glass of water and all
complete, and myself as the intrusive chairman insisting with a
bland ruthlessness upon his "few words" of introduction before he
recedes into the wings, and if furthermore you figure a sheet behind
our friend on which moving pictures intermittently appear, and if
finally you suppose his subject to be the story of the adventure of
his soul among Utopian inquiries, you will be prepared for some at
least of the difficulties of this unworthy but unusual work.

But over against this writer here presented, there is also another
earthly person in the book, who gathers himself together into a
distinct personality only after a preliminary complication with the
reader. This person is spoken of as the botanist, and he is a
leaner, rather taller, graver and much less garrulous man. His face
is weakly handsome and done in tones of grey, he is fairish
and grey-eyed, and you would suspect him of dyspepsia. It is a
justifiable suspicion. Men of this type, the chairman remarks with
a sudden intrusion of exposition, are romantic with a shadow of
meanness, they seek at once to conceal and shape their sensuous
cravings beneath egregious sentimentalities, they get into mighty