of athletics. The situation in Germany is as defensible from the German's standpoint as the situation in America is from ours. Germany is a monarchy with classes, and every one has a right to be as exclusive as he pleases. The German's whole attitude toward sport is different from ours. His duelling is a sport of individuals, not of teams; furthermore, though he plays with the utmost skill, he plays neither for the sake of the sport, nor for the sake of victory. Both are of slight importance beside the necessity of bearing absolutely unflinchingly the pain of the sewing up of his wounds. Contests are watched with interest, but with no enthusiasm. A Corps is mildly gratified if its member is declared victorious, but no more.

To compare our conditions of sport with the German is to compare the triangle to the circle. Games necessitating team-play have been introduced into Germany, but have taken no hold, similarly as the granting of the full freedom of German student life has been tried at Harvard and found impracticable. Traditions and early education are too different in the two countries. Let us continue to reverence German universities from afar, but let us not attempt to mould our American college life by the eminently German conditions that we find in the German universities.

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Without doubt, buttons are one of the most important elements of human life. Ever since our rude forefathers gave up the custom of being bolted and riveted into their business-suits every An Essay time they sallied forth against dragons and other fireon Buttons eating individuals; ever since their children, grown one or two degress less warlike and more cleanly, found the habit, still indulged in by our foreign brethren on the East Side in New York, of sewing themselves into their clothes, not as practical as might be desired; ever since that state of civilization was reached, buttons have been among man's dearest possessions, caressed oftenest when in place, regretted most keenly when absent.

The button, says our friend the Encyclopedia, is the sign of civilization. Indeed, were it not for the button, where would our modern garments be? We should still be wrapping ourselves daily in the

voluminous folds of the toga, or in the picturesque, though chilly, attire of doublet and hose. Fortunately, however, for modern fashions, at the end of the Middle Ages someone invented buttons. At first, man saw but their beauty as ornament; then, like a flood of waters, their usefulness came upon him. Since then the joys and sorrows of his life have held an intimate relation to buttons-shoe buttons, glove buttons, stud buttons, collar buttons-he has bought them for gold, made them precious with pearls, and crept under the bureau after them with profanity. He wears on his body two score, and joys more over one prodigal that was lost, than over thirty and nine that are irremovably

secure.

Since time immemorial-and here approacheth the point of my discourse-it has been man's custom to adorn himself, and of latethat is, since the thirteenth century-to adorn himself with buttons. It is a universal instinct, perhaps, this love of buttons as a form of decoration, for the Chinese have a well-developed button hierarchy, rising from the humble ninth button of the bachelor of arts, to the stately and majestic first button of the chancellor of the realm. On the crown of the official top-hat it gleams, proudly announcing to the world that the man beneath is mighty and greatly to be revered.

Button, button! Even the Senior class at fastidious Harvard, though still a grade lower in rank than the humble ninth limbo of Chinese button wearers, has voted to adopt the popular insignia; and the worshipful Sophomores, having by the force of their intellects. risen from the immeasurable depths of Freshmanism, have caught the button delirium, and will soon shine forth be-buttoned and happy. Now, for the members of the two classes, does life take on a new interest, as they walk in the throng with eagle eyes, bending low over neighborly lapels, ready to give the hand-clasp of fellowship, or to reject, in terrible scorn, him who is of the enemy.

Buttons! The world is full of buttons! Happy the man who need wear none save those that are essential to the product of his tailor and his haberdasher!

Book Notice

NERO. By Stephen Phillips. New York. The Macmillan Company.

If Mr. Stephen Phillips had died, or otherwise ceased to write, after the publication of his "Herod," it might have been better for his reputation. He had then the whole literary world crying "Evoë Apollo!" to him, and waiting confidently for a renascence of the poetic drama under his leadership. But he continued to write and the dawn faded. Then came "The Sin of David," deprived of its only cause for existence in his obvious truckling to the censorship in the matter of time and place, and more recently, "Nero."

Drama "Nero" may be, but a play it is not. Poetry it may be, though there are moments when one strongly doubts it. There is a great deal of the old Phillipsian fire and beauty of phrase mingled with some very bald dialogue. Where Mr. Phillips should rise highest, in Nero's rhapsody over the flaming city, one wonders, stumbling over the chopped, metreless lines, whether this be the man who wrote "Ulysses." On consideration one finds it is, for throughout the play the old tricks of inverted sense and peculiar rhythm are reëchoed.

From the technical side Mr. Phillips seems on the point of falling into the delusion that spectacle is structure. There are "big" and exciting scenes, such as Nero's vision, the banquet, the fire, the brassy finale to Act III (Mr. Phillips delights in trumpets as dramatic agents); but in reading, one has a lively mental image of Mr. Beerbohm Tree marshalling his "supes" and calling on his scene-painters. The attempt to tell a well-knit, rapid story seems unthought of. Nero is presented at three unrelated moments of his life, covering some seven years, first as a rather nice young man very obedient to his mother, then a pure æsthete, and lastly as a weak imitation of the mad Herod. Three emotional crises of his life are shown with no psychological development between them.

Apart from the spottiness of the plot, Mr. Phillips' treatment of the Cæsar is rather shoddy. Nero was undoubtedly a great man, for all his faults. He had big ideas, even though they did not always work out. But to present us this thing of dreads and visions, this man who can maunder on pathetically, alike over a banquet, a doomed mother, or a ruined city, arouses a desire to know where Mr. Phillips got his history. Possibly from Sienkiewicz, whose Nero was at least vivid. If a man will go astray from history in making literature of it, the Shavian method is quite as true and vastly more amusing. Every figure would be alive, even at its most paradoxical. Nero's associates are undoubtedly historical, but one wonders how people with so little individuality could have so left their imprint on the times. Puppets, all of them, even Poppaa, who dies so sweetly under Acte's preachings, (the historical cause of her demise being carefully omitted). Agrippina is the only live figure of them all.

In short, the play is hopelessly tailor made. False as Nero's character is, it might be theatrically effective, and to that end all is subordinated. There is none of the balance and unity and coherence of "Herod," none of the evident love for pure verse shown in "Ulysses." It is written for Mr. Tree and his scene-painter. If Mr. Phillips would regain his lost heights, he might very well cut loose from Mr. Tree and come to America. Here, secure in the knowledge that managers do not care for poetic drama, he might devote his energies to giving his reading public an essentially poetic and well-constructed and characterized piece of work.

R. E. R.