Nay, 'tis not fitting that we should require Within this World but Raiment, Food and Fire; Powerless Atoms of Eternity Why should we hope to know of … - James Branch Cabell

Some few there must be in every age and every land of whom life claims nothing very insistently save that they write perfectly of beautiful happenings.

We are talking over telephones, as Shakespeare could not talk; We are riding out in motor-cars where Homer had to walk; And pictures Dante labored on of mediaeval Hell The nearest cinematograph paints quicker, and as well. <p> But ye copy, copy always; — and ye marvel when ye find This new beauty, that new meaning, — while a model stands behind, Waiting, young and fair as ever, till some singer turn and trace Something of the deathless wonder of life lived in any place. Hey, my masters, turn from piddling to the turmoil and the strife! Cease from sonneting, my brothers; let us fashion songs from life.

Before 1914 had well begun to make the world safe for hypocrisy, these stories had blended into one continuous and fairly long Comedy of Evasion, called then In the Flesh, but a little later rechristened The Cream of The Jest...