maltreat language, but I do strenuously object to the earthiness of
their ideas. They have made our literature the incarnation of
materialism--and they glorify the democracy of art!

"Say what you will, their theory is pitiful, and their tight little
method squeezes all the life out of them. Filth and the flesh are their
all in all. They deny wonder and reject the extra-sensual. I don't
believe they would know what you meant if you told them that artistic
curiosity begins at the very point where the senses leave off.

"You shrug your shoulders, but tell me, how much has naturalism done to
clear up life's really troublesome mysteries? When an ulcer of the
soul--or indeed the most benign little pimple--is to be probed,
naturalism can do nothing. 'Appetite and instinct' seem to be its sole
motivation and rut and brainstorm its chronic states. The field of
naturalism is the region below the umbilicus. Oh, it's a hernia clinic
and it offers the soul a truss!

"I tell you, Durtal, it's superficial quackery, and that isn't all.
This fetid naturalism eulogizes the atrocities of modern life and
flatters our positively American ways. It ecstasizes over brute force
and apotheosizes the cash register. With amazing humility it defers to
the nauseating taste of the mob. It repudiates style, it rejects every
ideal, every aspiration towards the supernatural and the beyond. It is
so perfectly representative of bourgeois thought that it might be sired
by Homais and dammed by Lisa, the butcher girl in _Ventre de Paris_."

"Heavens, how you go after it!" said Durtal, somewhat piqued. He lighted
his cigarette and went on, "I am as much revolted by materialism as you
are, but that is no reason for denying the unforgettable services which