AMERICA THE UNREAL 83

physician with a leaning to psycho-therapy, who,
he thought, could give me the right prescription.
I replied that psycho-therapy seemed to me at the
moment involved in the general blight of un-
reality* This, he said, took him out of his depth.

This feeling of nothingness has passed through
three stages. It began, I think, in the neigh-
bouring Hollywood, to which I have dulyjmade my
bow, and it came to maturity here in Los Angeles.
My first view of Hollywood was by night, and
the night-view of Hollywood, when electricity is
the light-bringer, is in a sense more brilliant than
that by day when she has only the sun, a fainter
luminary in American cities, to make her visible.
As the scene unfolded I became conscious that I
was in the presence of something essentially
feminine, with a touch of the Oriental in her make-
up and a Philistine lavishness in her garments.
Astonishment overcame me, like that of the chorus
in Samson Agonistes when Delilah emerges into
view, and I found myself asking:

" But who is this, what thing of sea or land ?

Female of sex it seems.

That so bedecked, ornate and gay,

Comes this way sailing,

Like a stately ship

Of Tarsus, bound for the isles

Of Ja'van or Gadier,

With all her bravery on and tackle trim,

Sails filled and streamers waving

Courted by all the winds that hold them play. .. *

Some rich Philistian matron she may seem"