Variety Characterizes Advocate

Admirably miscellaneous in content, the current number of the Advocate would be worth nothing if only for the unexpected variety of the sketches and the poems. Only one worn theme appears. In "Instans Tyrannus" the author's occasional success in humorous phrasing gives only partial vitality to a rather cheap and bromidic sketch. The description of "The Round Up" by Mr. Fleming is vivid in spots and needs only a greater trimness of style to be even more effective. In his sketch after Tolstoi, Mr. Amory has achieved success in the difficult art of intelligent parody. The picture of Adam Agnostovitch mowing the lawn for fifteen hours was worth drawing. The best piece of prose in the number is Mr. G. Lamont's. "Your Rickshaw Man." The style is genuinely artistic in its flavor, the description lively and accurate.

The blank verse poem on "The Sphinx's Silence" by Mr. J. Gazzam, Jr., is a dignified effort. It includes several excellent lines, but several others, too, which are far from pentametric. With its conclusion that woman is hard to understand there will be no general disagreement. Mr. Heffenger's thoughtful sonnet "Success" is simply but unpoetically expressed. One is less certain of Mr. Rogers' ideas in the long poem "Death"--a large subject--pent in a rather exacting rhyme scheme. If the author had been less vague and more self-disciplined, it might have been easier to share his vision. Mr. Leffingwell's two poems, especially "Mt. Auburn at Dawn," show a lyric talent reminiscent of Noyes. But the best poem, and the best piece in this issue, is "Fog in the City" by Mr. B. P. Clark--a bit of "free verse" by a real poet.