In the new land, in that older time, too much maleness. Deep mud in the streets of the little towns, built in the forest along rivers or on the stage roads. Bearded, rough-handed men gathered about the saloons. Abe Lincoln proving his manhood by lifting a barrel of whisky and drinking from the bunghole. The ruffian of the frontier, father of the modern gunman of our cities, proving his manhood by murder--Blinky Morgan of Ohio, Jesse James of Missouri, Slade of the Overland Route to the gold and silver camps of the Far West--these the heroes of that life. A slow culture growing up, however--growing as culture must always grow--through the hands of workmen. In the small towns artisans coming in--the harness-maker, the carriage-builder, the builder of wagons, the smith, the tailor, the maker of shoes, the builders of houses and barns too. As Slade and James were to be the fathers of the modern gunmen, so these the fathers of the artists of the generations to come. In their fingers the beginning of that love of surfaces, of the sensual love of materials, without which no true civilization can ever be born. And then, like a great flood over it all the coming of the factories, the coming of modern industrialism. Speed, hurried workmanship, cheap automobiles for cheap men, cheap chairs in cheap houses, city apartment houses with shining bathroom floors, the Ford, the Twentieth Century Limited, the World War, jazz, the movies. The modern American youth is going forth to walk at evening in the midst of these. New and more terrible nerve tension, speed. Something vibrant in the air about us all. The problem is to survive. If our youth is to get into his consciousness that love of life--that with the male comes only through the love of surfaces, sensually felt through the fingers--his problem is to reach down through all the broken surface distractions of modern life to that old love of craft out of which culture springs. NOTE VII THE end of the second year after mother’s death was at hand and our family was at the point of falling to pieces. No more sitting by the fire in the kitchen through the long fall and winter evenings with mother at the ironing board. The kitchen of our house was cold and cheerless. The spirit of the household had fled. It had gone down into the ground with the body of the woman out of whose living body had come five strong sons. Mother had died swiftly, mysteriously, without warning. It was as though she had got out of bed on a fall morning and had taken a long look at her sons. “It’s about the time when they will have to push out into the world. Any influence I may have on their lives has already been exerted. There is no time to think of any other purpose in life for myself, and anyway, I am too tired. Having lived out my life, now I shall die.”