4                                Lee Elihu Lowenfish

of the Graduate Faculties, quoted from Freeman's term papers
for years after his graduation in 1919. Raymond AVeaver, Profes¬
sor of Comparative Literature, urged the young College student
to go on to graduate school and become his assistant. So did Pro¬
fessor Irwin Edman, who considered Freeman "my very first
favorite pupil," and who encouraged him to write and helped him
to publish poetry.

However, the world of action beckoned to Freeman despite his
extraordinarily sensitive and poetic soul. "Don Qui.xote," a poem
Freeman wrote for Edman in 1918, foreshadowed the shape of
Freeman's young manhood. It began, "He challenged life with
dreams, and armed wirh zest / Tilted the facts of earth in mad
delight. . . ." Rejecting the law career urged by his father, who
had risen in the new world to become a millionaire contractor and
the builder of the first skyscraper in Brooklyn, Freeman chose
work in journalism. In this field he hoped he could respond to the
demands of the world by using his gifts of language in describing
affairs of state. In his first position Freeman served as a Paris and
London correspondent for rhe Chicago Tribune from the simi-
mer of 1920 until the autumn of 1921.

Like many a young American abroad, Freeman eagerly ex¬
plored the culture and cafes of Europe, and he continued to write
poetry. The Nation, Pearson's, and The Bookman all published
his poems. "Pagan Chant," which appeared in Current Opinion,
captured Freeman's brooding, lyrical longings:

I have lost the key
To good and evil;
God and the devil
Are one to me.

I move apart

From the coils of duty;

Only beauty

Can stir my heart: