Adventures in the Arts: Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets — John Shaqi
Adventures in the Arts: Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and PoetsHartley, Marsden
History
Adventures in the Arts: Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets
Hartley, Marsden
Art; Literature, Modern -- History and criticism; Vaudeville
Inasmuch as we have the evidence of a fine aristocracy among us still,
it would seem as if it behooved us as a respectable host to let the
redman guest entertain himself as he will, as he sublimely does, since
as guardians of such exceptional charges we can not seem to entertain
them. There is no logical reason why they should accept an inferior
hospitality, other than with the idea of not inflicting themselves
upon a strange host more than is necessary. The redman in the
aggregate is an example of the peaceable and unobtrusive citizen; we
would not presume to interfere with the play of children in the
sunlight. They are among the beautiful children of the world in their
harmlessness. They are among the aristocracy of the world in the
matters of ethics, morals, and etiquette. We forget they are vastly
older, and in symbolic ways infinitely more experienced than
ourselves. They do not share in tailor-made customs. They do not need
imposed culture, which is essentially inferior to their own. Soon we
shall see them written on tablets of stone, along with the Egyptians
and the others among the races that have perished. The esthetics of
the redman have been too particular to permit of universal
understanding, and of universal adaptation. It is the same with all
primitives, who invent regimes and modes of expression for themselves
according to their own specific psychological needs. We encourage
every other sign and indication of beauty toward the progress of
perfection. Why should not we encourage a race that is beautiful by
the proof of centuries to remain the unoffensive guest of the sun and
the moon and the stars while they may? As the infant prodigy among
races, there is much that we could inherit from these people if we
could prove ourselves more worthy and less egotistic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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