And why do you ask so much of artists? Why is it so important that they should use their strength in vain strivings to make butterflies of worms never destined to be butterflies or to amuse other artists who should be able to amuse themselves? If they get joy out of creating and preaching, let them preach and create—let them soar. If they get joy out of being, out of exultant living and watching, let them live, and do not scold. The most beautiful butterfly I ever saw (some kind of “Emperor”) merely rested on a lump of mud in the forest shade and very languidly moved his wings. That is all he did while I looked at him. He knew that he could fly, I knew that he could fly, and he either knew that I knew or else he didn’t care. We all know what impatience with “peo-pul” is. In the hush of a great flash of dramatic power from the stage, they giggle, and it would be good to fasten your fingers in the pulpy throat of one. They applaud idiotic vaudeville, and it would be glorious to arise, automatic in hand, and slay and slay. That is your distrust of yourself—we all have it as much as we deserve it. “So I belong to this species!” you say. I do not hate my dog when he seeks out carrion. I wash him with strong soap and try to explain him. I feel quite sure—most of the time—that I have come a little further than he has. “Peo-pul” are even more interesting than dogs, when taken individually. We even have more in common with them than with other animals. Some of them are beautiful in their simplicity, like children—unspoiled in their loves and hates, and it is entertainment to behold them; to be with them, yet not of them; to be the arch-snob, of such perfect snobbishness that it is indistinguishable from perfect humility, perfect democracy. All the mighty ones have been artists in life; like unto children they have walked their ways, so everlastingly sure of themselves that rarely have they been betrayed into petulance by the wobbling of their sense of superiority. _Susan Quackenbush, Portage, Wisconsin_: May one who has read your every issue with joy and enthusiasm be permitted to enter protest against that gross libel on the human race labeled _The Artist in Life_, in your June number? Please—oh please—_be_ an artist-in-life, in human life, as well as in sunsets and Paderewskis and Imagism, and see for one creative moment, in “terms of truth and beauty,” the wonderful, aspiring, suffering, loving, smouldering, flaming beautiful souls of that great living, growing, winged group of creations you have called—may the great human God forgive the phrase—a “mass of caterpillars!” Come and see how its soul, and the souls of its separate creations “spring from the rock” just as truly as the brook’s or your own. If they can not _yet_ spring as far, it is because the weight above them is as yet too heavy.