friends abhor, because, as he softly remarks: "Any man who is about half convinced that he and a few others are the sole remaining friends of civilization finds some dramatic zest in life." For a world that is always turning up with a painted face, dusty and overheated, Mr. Colby prescribes, like Mr. Dick: "Give it a bath—a bath of irony."
It may be true that the "colyumist" is a futile fellow, taken singly—as impotent as a single swallow to make a summer. But a mass-movement of them from their points of vantage on the great newspapers, a mass-movement of them against the doors of anxious publishers, merits attention. These wits and jesters and ironists of the press who buzz around the news and editorials are, or are becoming, a body of writers as sensible and useful as we possess. From the field of journalism they glean what little scent and nectar they can, and pass by quick flights into the adjacent field of literature. They bear the same relation to the "serious" editorial writer and the savage critic that bees bear to wasps and hornets. The raw stuff of life which in the one case goes chiefly to strengthen the sting is in the other case converted chiefly into wax and honey—"sources of sweetness and light." They are beginning to create a literary atmosphere with "organic filaments" of civility.
The present swarming of the diurnal and hebdomadal essayists is, therefore, agreeably ominous. They are not doing any "big constructive thinking." They refuse to accept responsibility for the universe.
