But names do not matter. Craig, in fact, did not bother to rehearse them. He simply made a clean sweep of the board, and then deftly placed the somewhat disconcerted Nathan in the center of the vacant space. It was a sad day for the honest donkeys who, for half a decade, had been laboriously establishing Craig’s authority in America, but it was a glad day for Knopf, the publisher. Knopf, at the moment, had just issued Nathan’s “The Popular Theater.” At once he rushed to a job printer in Eighth avenue, ordered 100,000 copies of the Craig encomium, and flooded the country with them. The result was amusing, and typical of the republic. Nathan’s previous books, when praised at all, had been praised faintly and with reservations. The fellow, it appeared, was too spoofish; he lacked the sobriety and dignity necessary to a True Critic; he was entertaining but not to be taken seriously. But now, with foreign backing, and particularly English backing, he suddenly began to acquire merit and even a certain vague solemnity—and “The Popular Theater” was reviewed more lavishly and more favorably than I have ever seen any other theater book reviewed, before or since. The phenomenon, as I say, was typical. The childish mass of superstitions passing for civilized opinion in America was turned inside out overnight by one authoritative foreign voice. I have myself been a figure in the same familiar process. All of my books up to “The American Language” were, in the main, hostilely noticed. “A Book of Prefaces,” in particular, was manhandled by the orthodox reviewers. Then, just before “The American Language” was issued, the _Mercure de France_ printed an article commending “A Book of Prefaces” in high, astounding terms. The consequence was that “The American Language,” a far inferior work, was suddenly discovered to be full of merit, and critics of the utmost respectability, who had ignored all my former books, printed extremely friendly reviews of it....