tity of the Seventh Mosaic Law. Full of democratic idealism and a respect for American womanhood, you observe, in a book you are reading, that a German spy, by name Schmidt, has plotted for the overthrow of the American Government and has succeeded, incidentally, in effecting the ruin of a beautiful American girl. You are disgusted. You are repelled. You are horrified. And as a loyal citizen of the United States you are patriotically thrilled to learn that this same German spy is captured on page 256, sentenced on page 258, shot on page 281, and buried without honours on page 285. Your patriotic soul, forsooth, probably soars into the very empyrean on discovering that so dastardly a criminal has come to so judicious and timely an end. But as an artist, as a critic, even as an intelligent reader, do you care a whit whether Schmidt is dead or alive? You do not. For as an artist, as a critic, or as an intelligent reader your politics are neither German nor American, and your morals are as international as the sun. You may be incidentally pleased over the vindication of some of your personal beliefs. But this pleasure is merely the pleasure of the patriot and the moralizer. In so far as you are an artist your delight is solely in the clash of idea with idea, the impact of personality on personality, and the battle of creed against creed. And you realize that to demand the downfall of iniquity and the triumph of good, as most of our critics are fond of doing; is equivalent to saying that minor keys in music are very sad, that sadness often leads to suicide, and that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, being in the minor mode, should therefore be suppressed at once because it tends to depopulate the world.
Such juvenile standards of art criticism are not merely prevalent in this country: they are well-nigh universal. Fortunately, for every war there is a hero, for every Hellespont there is a Leander, and at every critical feast there is at least one guest who knows how to handle a fork. Mr. Mencken's table manners are frequently astonishing to the epigoni of letters, hut his skill in disposing of current literature by the mouthful is so obviously neat and effective as to disarm reproach with admiration. Finding the fare good, he has bluntly shaken his head in approval; finding the fare tolerable, he has eaten it with a growl; finding the fare atrocious, he has over-turned the table entirely and brought all the china crashing to the floor. His critical vehemence is sometimes alarming. But it always is healthy, for it bespeaks an insatiable appetite for nourishment, as
