An interesting man said recently that the five qualities which go into the making of the great personality—of the genius, perhaps—are (1) energy, (2) imagination, (3) character, (4) intellect, (5) and charm. I number them because the importance of his remark lies in the fact that he arranged them in just that order. The more you think of it the keener a judgment it seems. I can see only one possible flaw in it—a flaw that would not be corrected, I am certain, by moving number four to the place of number one, but by a reversal of number one and number two. Energy does seem the prime requisite—after you’ve spent a few days with one of those persons who has seething visions and a contempt for concentration. But Imagination!—that gift of the far gods! There is simply no question of its position in the list. It is first by virtue of every brave and beautiful thing that has been accomplished in the world. Last March we began the publication of THE LITTLE REVIEW. Now, twelve months later, we face the humiliating—or the encouraging—spectacle of being a magazine whose function is not transparent. People are always asking me what we are really trying to do. We have not set forth a policy; we have not identified ourselves with a point of view, except in so far as we have been quite ridiculously appreciative; we have not expounded a philosophy, except in so far as we have been quite outlandishly anarchistic; we have been uncritical, indiscriminate, juvenile, exuberant, chaotic, amateurish, emotional, tiresomely enthusiastic, and a lot of other things which I can’t remember now—all the things that are usually said about faulty new undertakings. The encouraging thing is that they are said most strongly about promising ones. Of course THE LITTLE REVIEW has done little more than approach the ideal which it has in mind. I am not proud of those limitations mentioned above—(and I am far from being unconscious of them); I am merely glad that they happen to be that particular type of limitation rather than some other. For instance, I should much rather have the limitations of the visionary or the poet or the prophet than those of the pedant or the priest or the “practical” person. Personally, I should much rather get drenched than to go always fortified with an umbrella and overshoes; I should rather see one side of a question violently than to see both sides calmly; I should rather be an extremist than a—well, it’s scarcely a matter of choice: people are either extremists or nonentities; I should far rather sense the big things about a cause or a character even vaguely than to analyze its little qualities quite clearly; in short, I should rather feel a great deal and know a little than feel a little and know a lot. And so all this may serve to express our negative attitude.