There is so much truth in Mr. Wright’s statements, particularly in his negative statements, that we may disregard his fanatic credo. Who will deny that painting has been “a bastard art—an agglomeration of literature, religion, photography, and decoration”? Who will not approve of the efforts of modern painters to eliminate all extraneous considerations and make painting as pure an art as music? But why dogmatize again and anew? Why reduce creative art to scientific formulae, to mathematical calculations, to Procrustean standards? Why ridicule those who paint _comme l’oiseau chante_? Why belittle Kandinsky for his too-subjective symphonies? Why be so hard, Mr. Wright, so finite, so sententious, so encyclical? Why not have a little sense of humor, pray? Gorky’s Memories _My Childhood, by Maxim Gorky. New York: The Century Company._ That Gorky is deteriorating has become a truism. Exaggerated as the importance of his early works has been, one could not deny their freshness, elementary adroitness, soulfulness. But the god-fire was soon exhausted in the none-too-deep spirit of the tramp-poet. He gave us the few good songs he knew about the life of the has-beens, and then went hoarse. The public, Hauptmann’s Huhn, is not irresponsible for Gorky’s false notes. Compel the canary to imitate the nightingale and the poor bird will lose her short, simple, pretty twitter, and rend her little heart with shrill ejaculations. I have in mind Gorky’s later dramas and stories. The book before me makes me think that Gorky has come to recognize his fallacy in attempting to treat subjects alien to his inherent capacity. At any rate in this case he is free from pretentiousness. His childhood memories are related simply, realistically, sans philosophizing, sans allegorizing. It is left for the reader to deduce the “moral” from the sordid panorama that is revealed before him, that malodorous dunghill swarming with human beings, whose crawling and writhing is called life. The book should have been much shorter; the super-abundance of details makes it Dreiserian or Bennetian.