their part to work of overwhelming aesthetic value, have as it were agreed to risk nothing. An exception which proves the rule is Mr. McBride Of The Sun, who on Sunday (February 17, 1918) said, in the course of some hair-raising platitudes; "I like this statue [The Elevation] immensely," generously adding, "If the ribald laugh at it and call it a fat woman they may." In regard to Lachaise's personality The Dealers In Second-Hand Ideas (Strictly guaranteed. Good as new.) are content to quote from the preface which Lachaise wrote for the catalogue of the American sculptors' show (Bourgeois Galleries, Spring of 1919). As to his work, the consensus of "critical" opinion seems to be that it has "dignity" and is the "buoyant" product of a Frenchman who was born, and came to America.
This ducking and side-stepping of Lachaise and his work by the "critics" is more than very amusing. It is extremely valuable as drawing a nice line between his personal achievement and contemporary "sculpture." Like some people who have to have their heads rubbed before they can go to sleep, the "critics" must have theirs bumped before they can go to "criticism." But in Lachaise (as we shall, it is to be hoped un-"critically," see) these gentlemen are up against a man who not only refuses to bump their heads for them but demands a profoundly intelligent expenditure of sensitivity.
"Criticism" or no "criticism," to attempt an analysis of Lachaise's personality strikes us as being almost equally futile and impertinent. And yet, given the important negative obscurity in which the "critics" would plunge that significant and essentially positive part of him, a few however random and obvious remarks on the subject may not be wholly without value. Three things Lachaise, to any one who knows him, is, and is beyond the shadow of a doubt: inherently naif, fearlessly intelligent, utterly sincere. It is accurate to say that his two greatest hates are the hate of insincerity and the hate of superficiality. That Lachaise is supremely and incorrigibly enthusiastic about his adopted country would appear (in the light of that country's treatment of him) perfectly unreasonable, had it not its reverse side, which is the above mentioned disgust with superficiality and contempt for insincerity—two qualities which he attributes in a high degree to his native land. As his work proves, he has no use for prettiness. This work of his, a crisp and tireless searching for the truths of nature as against the facts of existence, negates Rodin incidentally, as Cézanne's solid strivings incidentally negate
