Mark Van Doren at Work                             21

which he worked at without letting Krutch know anything about
it until it was completed. From time to time the work on the poem
is referred to, as in the following passages:
"Feb. i6, 1920

At the Bibliothcque Saturda\' 1 surprised myself by dashing off 25
lines of my poem, in octo.syliabic couplets. I had intended decasylla¬
bics, but the dangers of stiffness and monotony, which only a few men
like Dryden ever could escape, and the presence on my desk of iMase-
field's lieynard, determined me on the easier, more galloping meter. I
thought my verses pretty good that afternoon. In the evening I was
sure they were bad. Now I admit that the\' are empty, but claim for
them a bit of steam and gayety.

Feb. 21. Was a peripatetic poet yesterday. Sat in the Jardins du Luxem¬
bourg until noon, compo.sing 30 thin verses; and composed 40 more in
the Jardin desTuileries in the afternoon, my move being occasioned by
a visit I had to make to Morgan's Bank.

Feb. 22. Spun out 40 more lines in the Bibliotheque yesterday.

Feb. 27. Have been versifying these two days, at a great and glib rate.

Feb. 29, Plunged at somewhat less a rate, yesterday and the day before.

I wish I could say the product was better for tliat reason; but it was
not."

Something of Mark \^an Doren's own sense of the world at
that time is to be found in his account of an acquaintance from
Illinois, encountered studying in Paris:

"Like any sensitive person from the new world, he is overwhelmed,
almost humiliated, to find the Old World so much more beautiful, re¬
fined, sophisticated, humble, sincere, intelligent, various, honest, and
consistent than his own . . . His old Urbana, Sig Alph, Middle West,
USA sentiments mingle picturesquely with his Parisian acquisitions,
like iron bolts among gold filagrees."

Inevitably, Mark Van Doren's views of the world have changed
in the forty years since he made that entry. Fortunately, he is still
very much alive and it may be that his most magnificent rendering
of experience into language is still to come.