landscapes of peasant Russia, the wood village, the isba, and all its familiar surroundings. It is the shut-in, dreamy life of the long winter evenings about the big stove, it is the glebe moistened by the rains, gilded by the sun-light. It is all the mystery of the Russian country-side, which pursues its existence, scarcely troubled by the distant revolutionary turmoil of the great cities. Kliouieff surely has the stuff of a true poet, perhaps of a great poet.

Here, under the roof of the isba, there are neither shrieks of pride nor delirious prophecies. The Russia of the farms, plunged in its dream, which is at once secular and mystic, prays, meditates, works and sows. In the midst of the Russian chaos, the peasant, perhaps alone, retains his sober judgment and recognizes the true value of simple things. Is not here the place to look for salvation? For the poems of Kliouieff give an impression of freshness and blessed harmony - infinitely blessed after the phantasmagoria of the 'Scythians.'

Kliouie has a delicate and lively imagination, like a child's. The world of the isba is for him a marvellous world, warmly colored, where everything, even to the familiar animals, even to the utensils of the humblest home, is filled with a mysterious life and seems to speak with him or to make him magic signs. As in The Blue Bird of Maeterlinck, things have names of their own, and play a helpful rôle in the life of man. At the death of his mother, like himself a peasant, Kliouieff felt a profound nostalgia descend upon the isba:

The stove is an orphan. The saucepan, all in tears

Keeps murmuring to the andirons, that its mistress is dead.

The pail sighs to the mop-cloth,

For the porch is washed no more.

Oh, how joyously the water used to ripple when she cleaned!

The lad, squatting behind the stove, prattles, He says that the cemetery is pleasant to the

newcomer.

And that the crosses of the tombs murmur amongst themselves,

Telling of the Eternal, which has no name.

The isba frowns, and a window
Transfixes the moist obscurity
With its eye of lead.

The death of this peasant mother reappears in another poem of Kliouieff's. In his eyes, as in those of all the Russian people, death is no menacing phantom, but a kindly visitor; for death is the natural and necessary passing of a gray and humble life to a marvellous life, a happy migration to the land of fairy tales. This is again the isba, which

Breathes like a fir-tree, bent beneath the snow.
In every corner, clustered shadows whisper,
And from its stall the lean calf lows.

Blown by the wind, past garden flower beds,
A handkerchief goes tossing, like a veil.
The silence groans.

The cranes afar are crying:
'We bear the mother soul beyond the seas,
Where by the Dawn the surging Sun is cradled.
There dwell the saints, Dmitry, Nikolai, Vlass,1
The holy ones, clad in their glorious robes.
And in a cope of living colors, there Saint John
Lays Jordan's water on their holy heads.

The paradise of Kliouieff is hardly an abstract heaven, and his saints clad in glorious colors, are real flesh and bone. For him, as for every soul at once mystic and naïve, heaven is a transcendent image of the earth, or rather (and this is perhaps the essence of the true Russian mysticism) the earth is a confused image of heaven, a formal image of a real and better world, which already appears. The earth is holy, the isba is holy, the work of the laborer is holy, for these are all symbols. And nature herself is a holy temple, full of the Divine Mystery, a

1 Three saints whom Russians hold in special veneration.

Forest, where each branch is like a taper,
Where from the pine the Cherubin
Sets altar lights a-gleam, and gives
Communion to all those that hear the voice
Of the all-mother, guardian of the tombs.
There, as I laid my kiss on Youth,

I heard Dawn answer Dawn,

I heard the storm-cock sing,
Whilst like a swarm of Stars,
The Face rose with a thousand eyes.

Time drops a veil, obscures the image

But since that time flute music rings about me. I have seen the face of Sound and have known music,

Setting my lips to flowers,

Far from your mildewed lips.

In these lines the poet of the isba and the soil rises to a very high pitch of inspiration, and seems to live, like a true seer, in a luminous world of his own of an intense spirituality. This subtle spiritualizing of the earthly life appears equally in a little poem of Kliouieff's dedicated to the peasant's horse:

The sledge is wise, the cart has wit,
For all its wooden dress,

The little horse has many a thought
He never dares express.

At the vespers of the cattle,

Within the stable's shade,

The murmur of the ewes is sad As that the wind has made.

Like the repentant publican's
Is the little horse's sigh,
'My Father and my Lord, my God,
How near to Thee am I?'

"The dreams I dreamed beneath the yoke Shall they be all in vain?

Shall I drink waves celestial

To ease me of my pain?'

Poor jade, companion of my life,
Toiler in lowly things,
You are the symbol of all God's
Horses with flaming wings.

Labor is joyous, harvest rich.

Your toil, from dawn to dark, Has made our common stable grow A likeness of the Ark.

A beam from heaven seems to brighten the wooden village of Kliouieff, a ray of consolation and of hope. Is it not from this very humble Ark that the Russia of to-morrow may come forth?

Such is the present state of literature in the land of the Soviets. In writing these lines, we have made a great effort for impartiality in measuring (so far as a contemporary can) the true rank of these writers. In spite of the goodwill of the Maecenases of Moscow, it seems hard to believe that the age of Bolshevism can ever be regarded as a golden age in Russian art or literature. For the creation of a perfect art, there must be a people who have attained a perfect equilibrium, whether spiritual or intellectual, an equilibrium which is the culminating point of a powerful and defin

ite evolution.

Fortunate peoples have no history; but have unfortunate peoples an art? In any event, how can this equilibrium essential to the development of art and creative thought be had in a country which is in an epoch of violent transition? Bolshevist poetry is a strange flower, sometimes captivating, but it is a flower soon withering, precocious and diaphanous, overwhelmed with bitterness, burnt by the torrid breath of a gigantic brasier. Flower of madness, flower of pride, too, for the Bolsheviki have colored it with all their hopes.

Yet it happens, sometimes, that a fire passing through a forest, spares by a miracle some solitary tree, which in the midst of disaster, goes on with its normal growth, happy and necessary. So it is that in this troublous literature, in which resound 'the drunk cries of the accordion' a word, a thought, a har monious and powerful rime surging suddenly out, brings to the reader a precious and subtle joy. The accordion of the red prophets has not been able to deaden the mysterious tones of that

T

flute which haunts the memory of Kliouieff. Russian literature is not dead and will not know death, for it is the emanation of a national genius, infinitely more profound than Bolshevism.

One need not partake of the somewhat superficial optimism of Beliy, or wish to prophesy after the fashion of Essenin, in order to pronounce here with confidence the word, 'Resurrection.'

JAPAN'S newly-rich 'receive' more than has formerly been the custom, sometimes in their own luxurious homes, more often at a hotel or tea-house rented entire for the occasion. I was told of one narikin who telephoned to a large hotel situated at a beautiful seaside resort for seventeen rooms. He brought only three guests with him, but it pleased him to have a big bill to pay. Sumptuous dinners at restaurants and tea-houses continue to be one of the favorite ways of entertaining. Restaurants in the European style are more common than formerly. Their menus are often commonplace, but people patronize them for a change of fare. However, Japanese prefer, as a rule, to dine in native establishments which have become widely advertised either for their luxury or their freakishness. Here you can procure excellent shrimp and oysters, delicious fish, and strange, delicate salads. The price of these dinners seems very high to one who recalls charges a few years ago. The newspapers report one place in Kobe which will not serve a meal for less than $25.00. A Tokyo narikin invited his friends to a dinner which cost $50.00 a plate. A mine owner in Kiyushu gave a dinner

of fifty covers at $150 a plate, in addition to the charges for the geisha girls.

The geishas in fact vie with the automobile as the most expensive luxury of the narikins. The girls are recruited from the fairest maidens of the country, taught to dance, sing, play native instruments, serve tea, arrange flowers, embroider, converse, and compose poems. They are employed, like pretty table decorations, from the time they are six or seven years old, beautifully robed, and with ornamental coiffures; they serve the viands and dance two or three times in the course of the evening, to the accompaniment of songs and instrumental music by the older geishas. They are the charm and the joy of the occasion. The war, which was responsible for the narikins themselves, has multiplied the geishas. There are three times as many in Osaka to-day as a few years ago; and they totaled in all Japan by the end of the war some 50,000 earning in the aggregate more than $40,000,000 yearly. Their average earnings were $800 (1600 yen) apiece while many government officials even to-day are not paid more than $200 a year. In addition, the gifts they receive must greatly exceed their regular wages.

The geishas are said to pray at Enoshima, in the temple of the goddess Benten, or Good Fortune, for a wealthy narikin as a husband. Many tales are told of multi-millionaires who have lost their fortunes as speedily as they won them, through the kind offices of a geisha.

The geisha's chief competitor is the automobile. A saying is now current in Japanese that 'a narikin without a motor car is as rare as a geisha without rice powder.' Indeed, as recently as 1907, there were only some 20 automobiles in Tokyo, practically all belonging to foreign diplomats. At the outbreak of the war, the number had risen to about 500; and in 1920, to 9000. Japanese automobile imports in 1915 were valued at $35,000; in 1919 they were valued at more than $2,500,000. Indeed, the motor-car craze has seized the country. Newspapers publish motor supplements, and record with an appearance of some pride the increasing number of accidents. In October 1917, the first lady chauffeur received a license in Tokyo. Some prominent Japanese never give their destination to their driver, but direct him as a pilot directs the steersman and engineer of a vessel, to the right, left, half speed, and full stop. There have even been motorcar romances. A daughter of Count Ishikawa, vice-president of the Privy Council, who was married by her parents to a man she did not like, fell in love with her husband's chauffeur, and attempted to commit suicide with him. She was seriously wounded and the chauffeur was killed. Thereupon, the young woman and her father withdrew from the world and joined a monastic religious sect. . . .

It is now proposed to enlarge and pave the old Tokaido, a suggestion which will bring melancholy reflections to the lovers of old Japan. During the Middle Ages, daimios with their reti

nue of archers and banner-bearers, always took this great highway in their processions to the capital of the shogun, at present Tokyo, or to the religious capital of the Mikado at Kyoto. Journeying peasants and merchants bowed to the earth in salutation when they passed. Religious processions followed the same route; pilgrims were constantly passing on their way to famous shrines. Even to-day one meets along this highway ronins, the knight errants of Japan, jugglers, itinerant story-tellers and beggars with their heads concealed in wicker baskets to avoid recognition. All along the route are pleasant inns and charming tea-houses. The Tokaido holds a large place in the literature and the art of Japan. Now it is to be made a modern highway, for the speeding automobiles of narikins!

Not only has the rise of the narikins modified the material life of Japan, but it has also profoundly transformed the country's moral and social life. The newly-rich haunt the public mind. They are the theme of innumerable articles, biographical notices, and illustrations. In 1917, Jiji published a series of one hundred Narikin Tales.

Such parvenus existed before the war, but they were few in number and merely lurked about the margin of high society. To-day, the narikins have taken full possession and are mingling with the aristocracy. The Chamber of Peers is composed mostly of members of the royal family and the higher nobility, and men appointed for life by the Mikado for eminent services to the state. But fifteen seats are reserved for members elected for seven-year terms, from among the most prominent citizens of the great cities. In the campaign of 1917, two wealthy war profiteers contested, in the most costly campaign in Japan's history, the seat from Kobe. One of these gentlemen had made his fortune building ships; the

The people of Japan were long faithful to the simple manners of their ancestors. They practiced an ideal, unselfish code of religious ethics. Today thirst for wealth and greed for gold are universal. A prominent Japanese paper calls this 'the narikin disease.' 'Our fellow citizens,' says Kokumin, 'have only one thought in the world to get money and enjoy life. We criticize the conduct of the narikin without stopping to think that these men are but the natural product of their age and their environment.' Then the journal proceeds to cite the example of a great navigation company which, having accumulated $50,000,000 through govvernment subsidies, had just distributed to its shareholders a dividend of seventy per cent. Japan's ambassador to Germany before the war, when he returned to his country remarked sadly: 'As the son of an ancient samurai family, brought up to respect the strict biddings of the Japanese code of honor, I have been appalled, on returning after an absence of thirty years, to discover that the Japanese of to-day have lost all moral sense and have become impervious to shame. Money excuses anything. Men of unsavory reputation no longer conceal themselves. They display themselves in public. You meet them everywhere.'

One unhappy result of the country's business boom is the decline in public morals. As the proverb says: "The masses copy the classes.' Young men are ambitious to enter business rather than intellectual pursuits or the army. University graduates seek employment with manufacturing and shipping companies and enter the service of narikins so that they may become one day nari

kins themselves. In certain schools, the girls were asked to describe their dreams of the future. They mostly hoped to marry business men, not government officials or army officers. The ideal of the young girls in Otsu college averaged as follows: 'To marry a business man twenty-six years old, with some means, well educated, and having parents in active life.'

Government employees, whose salaries have not been raised to correspond with the increasing cost of living, are demanding better treatment. Kokumin discusses their case from a rather odd point of view: the value of the services rendered by teachers and government officials is not measured by the money they receive. Their poverty is a mark of merit. They ought not to seek wealth. If a man wants to get rich, let him take employment with a narikin. Count Terauchi in a New Year's article in Jiji says that the government does not pay its servants liberally because the honor of working for the government takes the place of material compensation, and that civil servants constitute a social class which should be protected from the habits of luxury and dissipation which business prosperity encourages.

So profound are the ravages of the new narikin morality that criminal practices have grown common. Numerous fraudulent or unsound companies have been floated by unscrupulous financiers, to catch the money of innocent investors. Some of these enterprises, with practically no real money behind them, are capitalized for as much as $5,000,000. Famous narikins have been bankrupted by their risky adventures. An Osaka cotton merchant, who had acquired a large fortune as an army contractor, engaged in a gigantic speculation in which he failed with a loss of $5,000,000 to his creditors. Other narikins have been convicted of bribing