I asked Mr. McCutcheon if he did not believe that the youthful energy of the United States was likely to make its citizens impatient of romance, that quality being generally considered the exclusive property of nations ancient in civilization. He did not think so. "America," he said, "is essentially a romantic country, our great and profound commercialism to the contrary notwithstanding. America was born of adventure; its infancy was cradled in romance; it has grown up in thrills. And while to-day it may not reflect romance as we are prone to consider it, there still rests in America a wonderful treasure in the shape of undeveloped possibilities. "We are, first of all, an eager, zestful, imaginative people. We are creatures of romance. We do two things exceedingly well--we dream and we perform. "Our dreams are of adventure, of risk, of chance, of impossibilities, and of deeds that only the bold may conceive. And we find on waking from these dreams that we have performed the deeds we dreamed of. "The Old World looks upon us as braggarts. Perhaps we are, but we are kindly, genial, smiling braggarts--and the braggart is, after all, our truest romanticist. "I like to hear a grown man admit that he still believes in fairies. That sort of man thinks of the things that are beautiful, even though they are invisible. And--if you stop to think about it--the most beautiful things in the world are invisible." _BUSINESS INCOMPATIBLE WITH ART_ FRANK H. SPEARMAN The late J. Pierpont Morgan writing sonnet sequences, Rockefeller regarding oil as useful only when mixed with pigment and spread upon canvas by his own deft hand, Carnegie designing libraries instead of paying for them--these are some of the entertaining visions that occur to the mind of Frank H. Spearman when he contemplates in fancy a civilization in which business no longer draws the master minds away from art. I asked the author of _Nan of Music Mountain_ if he thought that the trend of present-day American life--its commercialism and materialism--affected the character of our literature. He replied: "Let us take commercialism first: By it you mean the pursuit of business. Success in business brings money, power, and that public esteem we may loosely term fame--the admiration of our fellow-men and the sense of power among them.