32 TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 



Well, I like Max Nordau when he writes of Paul 

 Verlaine, the French Mystics, and the Pre-Raphael- 

 ites. How he puts his knife into that variety of poet 

 who delights in fogging everybody, including him- 

 self. Max Nordau is quite right. Healthy-minded 

 poets like Shakespeare and Dante never mystified, and 

 yet how deep and magnificent they are. How he 

 tears our faults to tatters, and unpicks humbugs un- 

 erringly and relentlessly, yet he realizes all the forces 

 of nature, and even admits love and tenderness. He 

 is right also when he says that if we behave less 

 punctiliously than civilization decrees we are degener- 

 ate. And Nature says degeneration is bad, though 

 she does not allow it to breed more than a generation 

 or so. In her scheme all works for good. But what 

 I want to know I asked the Leader, and he only 

 cried "Help!" is, did God make the ethics of 

 Nature for civilization, as civilization is the outcome 

 of Nature? 



The passenger list of the Nome City was a curious 

 one, and I think it would be perhaps the most de- 

 scriptive thing to say of our fellow-voyagers that one 

 and all had their hearts in the right place. I do not 

 know where else a heart could be kept, but the phrase 

 aptly describes the entire worthiness of human beings 

 without dwelling too unnecessarily upon the polish 

 and veneer which is, after all, but the result of an 

 effete civilization. Miners mostly, trappers, traders, 

 remittance men, prospectors, an olla podrida of 

 classes, and only three ladies to grace the show. 



The third lady was an acidulate who cared very 



