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 Letter to "The Seven Arts," New York, October, 1916.

AM delighted to learn of the creation of a magazine in which the American soul will become fully aware of its own individuality. I believe in the lofty destinies of America, and the events of the hour render the realisation of that destiny urgently necessary. In the Old World, civilisation is imperilled. America must cherish the flickering flame.

You possess one great advantage over us in Europe. You are free from traditions; free from the burdens of thought, of sentiments, from agelong follies, from the obsessions in the spheres of the intellect, of art, and of politics; you are free from all these things which crush the Old World. Contemporary Europe is sacrificing her future to quarrels, ambitions, rancours, revived again and again. Every endeavour to bring these troubles to an end serves but to add a few meshes to the net wherein a murderous destiny has snared us. Our fate resembles that of the Atrides, vainly awaiting, as in the Eumenides, a god's word of power which may break the bloody spell. In art, if our writers owe their perfection of form and their clarity of thought to the strength of our classical traditions, these advantages have been gained at the cost of great sacrifices. Too few among our artists are awakened to the manifold life of the world. Their minds are mewed within a closed garden. They display little interest concerning the spacious regions through which, after leaving