To the Reader
vated moods. They were the overflow of a talent that was largely occupied with lighter work, or, most of all, in the prose fiction by which he gained, and was increasing, his hold upon public favor. In the thought of all that might have been the outcome of after years, I am moved by the pity of their denial. As it is, the hands of his elders set the lamp on the stone that bears his name,—a service which, had not the order of things been thus reversed, he would not have failed, in their behalf, to render.
A young author traditionally catches some manner of his time that most appeals to him. Such has been the wont of poets who have lived to institute, in their turn, new modes, and to have their own followers. During the brief tenure of Guy Carryl’s activity two opposing tendencies of verse have been much in vogue. One of these betrays a lack of feeling and spontaneity through its curious elaboration, and has been frankly termed, by its votaries, the decadent song of a dying century. At the other extreme is the virile, perhaps too careless, balladry of which the English imperialist poet is the forceful exemplar. It may be placed to the credit of the author of this volume that,—despite his attachment for France and her literature, and his residence in Paris during impressible years,—his verse is in nowise
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