æsthetic criticism assumes as an axiom that every true work of art is
unique and incomparable is merely the paradox which betrays the
unworthiness of such criticism to bear the name it has arrogated to
itself. The function of true criticism is to establish a definite
hierarchy among the great artists of the past, as well as to test the
production of the present; by the combination of these activities it
asserts the organic unity of all art. It cannot honestly be said that
our present criticism is adequate to either task.

[APRIL, 1920.




_The Religion of Rousseau_


These are times when men have need of the great solitaries; for each man
now in his moment is a prey to the conviction that the world and his
deepest aspirations are incommensurable. He is shaken by a presentiment
that the lovely bodies of men are being spent and flaming human minds
put out in a conflict for something which never can be won in the clash
of material arms, and he is distraught by a vision of humanity as a
child pitifully wandering in a dark wood where the wind faintly echoes
the strange word 'Peace.' Therefore he too wanders pitifully like that
child, seeking peace, and men are become the symbols of mankind. The
tragic paradox of human life which slumbers in the soul in years of
peace is awakened again. When we would be solitary and cannot, we are
made sensible of the depth and validity of the impulse which moved the
solitaries of the past.