creativeness, the construction, the form. We know also that while the part of humanity which is fully civilized will always care for high seriousness it will be quick to appreciate the high levity of the minor arts. There is no conflict. The battle is only against solemnity which is not high, against ill-rendered profundity, against the shoddy and the dull.
I have allowed myself to catalogue my preferences; it is possible to set the basis of them down in impersonal terms, in propositions:
That there is no opposition between the great and the lively arts.
That both are opposed in the spirit to the middle or bogus arts.
That the bogus arts are easier to appreciate, appeal to low and mixed emotions, and jeopardize the purity of both the great and the minor arts.
That the lively arts as they exist in America to-day are entertaining, interesting, and important.
That with a few exceptions these same arts are more interesting to the adult cultivated intelligence than most of the things which pass for art in cultured society.
That there exists a "genteel tradition" about the arts which has prevented any just appreciation of the popular arts, and that these have therefore missed the corrective criticism given to the serious arts, receiving instead only abuse.
That therefore the pretentious intellectual is as much responsible as any one for what is actually absurd and vulgar in the lively arts.
That the simple practitioners and simple admirers of the lively arts being uncorrupted by the bogus preserve a sure instinct for what is artistic in America.
And now a detour around two of the most disagreeable words in the language: highbrow and lowbrow. Pretence about these words and what they signify makes an understanding of the lively arts impossible. The discomfort and envy which make these words vague, ambiguous, and contemptuous need not concern us; for they represent a real distinction, two separate ways of apprehending the world, as if it were palpable to one and visible to the other. In connexion with the lively arts the distinction is clear, and involves the third division, for the lively arts are created and admired chiefly by the class known as lowbrows, are patronized and, to an extent enjoyed, by the highbrows; and are treated as impostors and
