But first let the slaves Anoint thee with what Has lain a long while In the sun; Or with this Thou perceive’st In a yellow Vial. The Reader Critic Oddities? A. R. S.: I have found _The Little Review_ excessively burdened with what you describe as “stuff in which the creative element is present”. Indeed my impression is that it is devoted more to invention than to interpretation, and therein misses its calling as an agency of “Art”. And as to quality, it is not my understanding that “Art” is necessarily, or usually, insipid or bizarre, as represented in your publication. These are times for men to be attending to more serious things than aesthetic oddities. [The above letter was written to us by one of the front citizens of a large city, on his club stationary,—a men’s club where old Betties gossip and criticize women’s clothes. Yet he would say to men like Wyndham Lewis, and other of our contributors now in the trenches, that these are times for men to be attending to more serious things than aesthetic oddities. How smoothly he has set down the attitude of the great average mind toward Art. No, I cannot say average. Average implies variation. It is the perfect contempt of the elderly gentleman art patron for the creative and the original. From long years of supporting museums of art, the city beautiful plan, opera organizations, etc., he acquires the attitude of the affluent married man toward his wife: whatever is supported by him must necessarily be a thoroughly understood subject, and even if inferior, must be the interpreter of his life.—_jh._] Radicalism and Conservatism M. L. K.: I am renewing my subscription to _The Little Review_, though I don’t know just why. I don’t understand you very well any more. I don’t know whether I approve. You used to be very different. Sometimes you were great. Your own article “Life Itself” and Ben Hecht’s “Dregs” I shall always remember. You used to show such fine sympathy for all kinds of social suffering. I cannot see how a magazine devoted only to what you call Art can have a very vital share in the solving of our present great problems. This is such a splendid opportunity for your radicalism.... [Conservatism: to preserve the best. As a term of abuse, to preserve good and bad indiscriminately. Radicalism: to get to the root of the matter. Usually to eradicate good and bad indiscriminately. Besides they are terms filthy from contact with politics.—_F. E._] Too British V. H., Maine: