BY
WILLIAM LYON PHELPS
LAMPSON PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT YALE
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK • LONDON
1923
p.
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
COPYRIGHT. 1921, 1922, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO.
Printed in the United States of America
Published October, 1922
TO
MY FRIEND
FRANK BERGEN
A POSTSCRIPT BY WAY OF PREFACE
I have done: and if any blames me,
Thinking that merely to touch in brevity
The topics I dwell on, were unlawful--
Or worse, that I trench, with undue levity,
On the bounds of the holy and the awful--
I praise the heart, and pity the head of him,
And refer myself to THEE, instead of him,
Who head and heart alike discernest,
Looking below light speech we utter,
When frothy spume and frequent sputter
Prove that the soul's depths boil in earnest!
May truth shine out, stand ever before us!
--Christmas Eve, by ROBERT BROWNING.