How soon would not such an attitude--not on the part of all, for one cannot hope for that, but of even a moderate minority--make for a more vivid, aggressive, fascinating world! How soon might not the now seemingly sealed doors open, unsolvable (so-called) riddles end as solved, man acquire new reasoning faculties, senses and powers, and finally stand forth a creative force himself, a genuine creator on his own account, able not only to fend and forefend against many of his present disasters here but to give new powers and thought, and even creative force, to things which now crawl meekly at the feet of man? Who knows? Is not courage better than fear? a healthy, if skeptical, seeking better than blind, dull acceptance of anything or nothing, as the case may be? I, for one, think so, and, for my part, would prefer to be a seeking Prometheus chained to a rock and my liver gnawed daily by the eagle of an irritated and jealous higher power than a crawling worm or whimpering slave praying for some endless Nirvana, or a minute part in an endless legion of cherubim harping the glory of something which had plainly sought neither my peace nor my significance but only my painful, unimportant and even worthless service. NEUROTIC AMERICA AND THE SEX IMPULSE I sometimes think that a calm and exhaustive study of the American temperament in relation to sex and its various manifestations would result in the scientific conclusion that this country, taken as a whole, is as much a victim of a deep-seated neurosis relating to this impulse as any, the most morbid of those who appeal to psycho-analysis for treatment. The profound and even convulsive interest in any case involving a sex crime or delusion (Thaw, Leo Frank, Billy Brown, Carlisle Harris, Nan Patterson, Durant; or any negro rape case in the South); the ridiculous and quite neurotic interest displayed by grown men and women, to say nothing of children, in the exploits of so-called “cuties”--the “Spring Blossoms,” “June Elfs,” “Violet Dawns” of the movies--the perennial and astonishingly profitable (in so far as a certain class of theatrical management is concerned) interest of the male and even female American in the utterly mechanical and standardized beauty chorus shows with their (presumably) seventeen-year-old maids in bathing, bedroom-bath and other forms of abbreviated attire! Are not these points in evidence? In the matter of the latter, no story is necessary; just erotic color, music, dancing evolutions and double-meant (I almost said “mint”) jokes, and the thing is done.