replied: "They must have starved for so long that they have got used
to it, and can enjoy it--or at any rate can enjoy turning it into
art. Is not that the final test of great art, that it has been
smelted in the fires of suffering? All the great spiritual movements
of humanity began in that way; take primitive Christianity, for
example. But you Americans have taken Christ, the carpenter--"

I laughed. It happened that at this moment we were passing St.
Bartholomew's Church, a great brown-stone structure standing at the
corner of the park. I waved my hand towards it. "In there," I said,
"over the altar, you may see Christ, the carpenter, dressed up in
exquisite robes of white and amethyst, set up as a stained glass
window ornament. But if you'll stop and think, you'll realize it
wasn't we Americans who began that!"

"No," said the other, returning my laugh, "but I think it was you
who finished him up as a symbol of elegance, a divinity of the
respectable inane."

Thus chatting, we turned the corner, and came in sight of our goal,
the Excelsior Theatre. And there was the mob!



II


At first, when I saw the mass of people, I thought it was the usual
picture crowd. I said, with a smile, "Can it be that the American
people are not so dead to art after all?" But then I observed that