roborates also my intuition that Mr. Hecht is to a notable extent a "product" of his environment by this statement from his author's lips: "I consider myself thoroughly American; my ideas are the result of living in Chicago alone."
But all this is pretty superficial. There are plenty of bright reporters and verbal artists in the world who like big buildings and little children and are kind to dogs and old people. Mr. Hecht interests us because his is a definite type of mind. Mr. Hansen gives us Mr. Hecht's own description of his type, written immediately after the suppression of "Fantazius Mallare," as follows:
Born perversely. Out of this perversity, a sentimental hatred of weakness in others, an energetic amusement for the gods, taboos, vindictiveness and cowardice of my friends, neighbors and relatives; a contempt for the ideas of man, an infatuation with the energies of man, a love for the abstraction of form, a loathing for the protective slave philosophies of the people, government, etc., a determination not to become a part of the mind which the swine worship in their sty. A delirious relief in finding words that express any or all of my perversities. Out of this natal perversity I have written "Erik Dorn," "Gargoyles," "Mallare," some of my "1001 Afternoons," three dozen stories. I have only one ambition: to get away from the future caresses of my friends, from the intimidated malice of their praise, from the grunts of my enemies, and live in a country whose language is foreign to me, whose people are indifferent and where skies are deeper.
I don't undertake to go beyond this in saying to what extent Mr. Hecht's principal books are autobi-
