The sun., 1918-10-27

Robert Nichols, One
of the Survivors of
the Best Clique,
alks of the Others

young men, strong ID mind and strong IN
body. Among them was little group of
singers, men who seemed destined to I'LL
a splendid chapter in the poetic literature
Of their country.
A few days ago one Of the last of them
came TO New York. He walked with a
slight limp, his eyes were heavy with the
sorrow that has become an English her
itage, his memories were of those he had
known in college who are resting now In
Flanders fields. He is 25, is Robert Mich
OILS, and they call him the ambassador Of
the dead.
Perhaps no one else hae come TO this
country in the long years of the war
who so epitomizes in himself the tragedy
of war. The young men of whom he was
one had already made the impress of their
minds on the poetry of before the war.
They had swept the last remnants OF
Victorianism they dishked into the waste
basket. They brought to their task the
freshness and strength of men who be-
Geved in clean bodies and clean hearts,
who had gained more trophies from their
games than from their art. They prom
ised to complete the work begun by Mase-
field and Davidson in purging English
poetry Of what Nichols calls the wishy-
washy sentiment of the '9Os.
First to Rush Into the War.
And then came the war. They were the
first to spring to the defence Of their
ideals and rushed to the front, TO be cut
down in those first disastrous days. Per-
haps it was as well that this generation
of men who were touched with the power
to dream great dreams was the generation
which gave England the flower Of her
fighting manhood. From their eager
young hearts came chants of victory In
death which n less hardy race of singers
could not have sung. In the few quick
leaping words they had left is read the
sacrifice Of England.
The able men of England had looked
on this generation with fond hope. There
we're not only able poets to be discerned
among these rapidly maturing youths Of
the public schools and universities, but
others who gave promise Of great things
in every branch Of England's intellectual
life.
"a Mr.. Raper Of Oxford, one of tns
famous old tutors there, once told ME
that the men then in Oxford had the most
brilliant minds he had seen in twenty
years." said Mr. Nichols. "He had brought
I'D Sir Edward Grey, Curzon and Hardy.
He said that two months before war was
declared. Walter Raleigh, regius profes-
sor of English at Oxford, had said the
same thing. We little thought then what
was ahead Of US.
"There were seventy men in my col
lege, Trinity, before the war, and of them
thirty-four are dead. What is true of my
college is true of all the schools and col
leges Of England. They were among the
first to Join the colors; the men of whom
I want to speak over here were among the
first 100000" s-.
Speaks Much of Rupert Brooke.
It is Of the poets, Rupert Brooke and
Charles Sorley and Alan Macintosh. w.
N. Hodgson and Julian Grenfel. that Mr.
Nichols has the most to say. Brooke hes
in beautiful grove of Greek island, the
others under the tortured soil of Flanders
where the peoples blow. Robert Graves
and Siegfried Sassoon are still-alive, with
the marks of many wounds on their bod
les and crosses Of honor on. their uni
forms.
To our own poets Of the war, Joyce XII
MGR and Alan Seeger and the Others, he
pays the tribute of comrade' in arms
and of the pen, but it is Of the poets Of
his own country, men he knew in the felo
or through the few burning words they
left, that he wishes to tell US.
There was Charles Soriey, scarcely
known on this side Of the ocean, but in
whose death Masefeid said England suf-
fercd be1. greatest loss in twenty years.