the longest forgotten at the time of its resuscitation, it being a thing which for some obscure human reason or other ‘men want dug up again’; and next, that the best manner is that which scarcely shows as a manner at all, but is taken for granted as accompaniment of something more important, the matter and the spirit.” It would appear that the young men of to-day are doing much the same thing as “those old boys” my sculptor friend speaks of: they are seeking modern inspiration from ancient models, but they are doing it with more knowledge, more grace, more humor, more assurance, more style. Style? Perhaps the right word is stylization. [Illustration: CLYTIE BY WILLIAM H. RINEHART] [Illustration: WHITE CAPTIVE BY ERASTUS D. PALMER] CHAPTER III OF THREE LEADERS, AND OF MORAL EARNESTNESS IN ART I Moral earnestness? I use both words gladly, and without apology. Why should any one fear that two words so packed with meaning should breed ennui? A curious fact about our contemporary criticism of art and literature is this: that a criticism which constantly declares itself to be courageous in all ways, and which really has proved itself to be courageous in many ways, often scurries away affrighted the moment it grazes the word _moral_. But why? Does it fear the lash of epithets such as Pharisee, Philistine, Victorian? The sting has long ago gone out of those hard names. Over and over again, the critic will aim some well-considered attack upon a certain specified baseness that he perceives and abhors in literature or in art; and then, before he finishes his good work, (and you can see from his look that he believes it to be good work) he suddenly decamps, with the observation, “But this is not in the least a question of morals; it is a question of artistic taste.” Sometimes his reader cannot help thinking, by contrast, of that quick word of the old Greek dramatist, protesting against some of the lewd myths of his religion, “Say not there be adulterers in heaven, Nor prisoner gods and jailers:--long ago My heart hath named it vile and shall not alter!” If someone nowadays should speak like that, might it not clear the air? I mean, some valued critic of our arts and letters. As it is, we of today leave such work to the censor. And our democracy, avid for class distinctions, accounts the censor considerably lower than the angels. The censor, poor soul, might as well slink at once into the society of the executioner, that most dejected, most rejected figure in history. When the censor says, in his own way, “My heart hath named it vile,” nobody pays much attention. But the world might look up if some urbane and trusted critic would write with the moral earnestness of Euripides, dodging nothing. Kenyon Cox used to do so.