answer was that we had succeeded in producing the material means of
civilization by the ton, where other nations had produced them by
the pound. "We intellectuals in Europe have always been poor, by
your standards over here. We have to make a very little food support
a great many ideas. But you have unlimited quantities of food,
and--well, we seek for the ideas, and we judge by analogy they must
exist--"

"But you don't find them?" I laughed.

"Well," said he, "I have come to seek them."

This talk occurred while we were strolling down our Broadway, in
Western City, one bright afternoon in the late fall of 1921. We
talked about the picture which Dr. Henner had recommended to me, and
which we were now going to see. It was called "The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari," and was a "futurist" production, a strange, weird freak
of the cinema art, supposed to be the nightmare of a madman. "Being
an American," said Dr. Henner, "you will find yourself asking, 'What
good does such a picture do?' You will have the idea that every work
of art must serve some moral purpose." After a pause, he added:
"This picture could not possibly have been produced in America. For
one thing, nearly all the characters are thin." He said it with the
flicker of a smile--"One does not find American screen actors in
that condition. Do your people care enough about the life of art to
take a risk of starving for it?"

Now, as a matter of fact, we had at that time several millions of
people out of work in America, and many of them starving. There must
be some intellectuals among them, I suggested; and the critic