3 DECEMBER 1937, Page 18

[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]_ SIR,--=-I trust. I. shall

not wound the intellectual vanity of the young lady of 23 who, as " The Voice of Under. ThirtyVI," in your issue of November 19th, emerges in her second para- graph battered yet triumphant over all the religions and all the philosophies, but may I draw her attention to the fact that she. has been preceded in omniscience by the . great Edwadlyttnbulwig ? Let me quote the immortal Yellow-

plush : •

" I have ranged with eagle wing over the wide regions of literature, and perched on every eminence in its turn. I have gazed with eagle eyes on the sun of philosophy, and fathomed the mysterious depths of the human mind. All languages are familiar to me, all thoughts are known to me, all • men understood by me. I have gathered wisdom from the honeyed lips of Plato, as we wandered in the gardens of Acadames—wisdom, too, from the mouth of Job Johnson, as we smoked our backy in Seven Dials.' Such must be the studies, and such is the mission, in this world, of the Poet- Philosopher. But the knowledge is Only emptiness ; the initiation is but misery ; the initiated, a man shunned and bann'd by his fellows.' Oh,' said Bullwig, clasping his hands- and throwing his fine i's up to the chandelier, ' the curse of PwOmetheus descends upon his wace. Wath and punishment pursue them from geneivation to genewation ! Wo to genius, the heaven-scaler, the fire-,stealer ! Wo and thrice bitter desolation ! Earth is the:work on which Zeus, wemorseless, stwetches his wishing victim—men, the vultures that feed and fatten on him. Ai, Ai ! It is agony eternal—gwoaning and solitawy despair ! And you, Yellowplush, would penetwate these mystewies ; you would waise'the awful Veil, and stand in the twemendous Presence. Beware : as you value your peace, beware ! Withduaw wash Neophyte ! For Heaven's sake, 0 for Heaven's sake ! Give me a glass of bwandy-and-water, for this clawet is beginning to disagwee with me.' "

Permit me to subscribe myself as

A BABE AND SUCKLING (3RD CLASS) OF FIFTY.