Page:Points of View (1924).pdf/161

 actor—he finds means and occasions for using and expressing through his art. What remains—the dross and débris of his days—he destroys, if he can, as valueless; or if he is negligent about his rubbish, he leaves it as a rich legacy to some monoptic naturalistic biographer to be dished up after his death as the "real" man.

As I draw towards the conclusion of this meditation, my mind reverts to its starting point; and I ask myself quite simply the question: "Why do lovers fall out of love?" And now the reason has become as clear as daylight: They fall out of love because they grow too lazy to act their part. Pleased with my progress in discovery, I proceed to another question. I ask myself quite simply why the Dreiser-. Hecht school of naturalistic or monoptic fiction and 'the Menckenian school of naturalistic or monoptic; criticism are at the present time enjoying such wide, popularity among our young people. And once more the reason is as clear as daylight: The monoptic or naturalistic vision and criticism of life are enjoying wide popularity because they are tremendously flattering to the performance of bad actors; they are tremendously flattering to the lazy men and women who are out of their part; they confer a sense of superiority upon that indolent and inferior portion of mankind which slips and slumps from the great stage which tests a man's art back into the subconventional, formless, unchanneled turmoil of instinct and passion.