I am getting to be a popular story-writer,
And especially for one muckraking magazine.
I go by the hour and talk with the editor …
He is a born teacher, of the mystical absent-minded eye-glassed manner,
A Mid-Westerner, a bit rustic, a trifle homespun,
But, if anything, too sensitive, too subtle …
He carries about him the blended traditions of Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain,
And he is sure that the people are good and that the people are great …
All things have to meet the touchstone of the farmer's wife out in Illinois,
Or the just-anybody who chews his quid and sits on a rail fence …
He is very fond of me, and I of him,
And I am released to a satisfying theory of democratic art …
No matter what you have to say there is a way to say it
So all the people will understand …
It is simple enough—of course, a sacrifice or two …
Don't be too gloomy, and don't be sordid,
Don't open the stink-pots and the lavatories,
Don't offend people's moral scruples and religious creeds,
Keep out of politics, and sex, and socialism,
Don't be a highbrow, don't end up in tragedy—
In short, uplift the people …
Now, since this pays, an artist can be both noble and comfortable …
That is, hang it! if he doesn't read Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken,
And Jean-Christophe, and Candida, and Crime & Punishment …
And if there weren't a strange discomfort in thinking of Walt Whitman
Sitting lonesome and poor in Camden …
And if in one's heart one didn't know the lie in it all …
When Demos is patron the artist is often a kept man,
The herd's darling or clown.
Sometimes my editor-friend grows mystical and wistful,
As if some discarded dream of his youth fell back like April rain upon him,
And I am depressed, I know not why.
And especially for one muckraking magazine.
I go by the hour and talk with the editor …
He is a born teacher, of the mystical absent-minded eye-glassed manner,
A Mid-Westerner, a bit rustic, a trifle homespun,
But, if anything, too sensitive, too subtle …
He carries about him the blended traditions of Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain,
And he is sure that the people are good and that the people are great …
All things have to meet the touchstone of the farmer's wife out in Illinois,
Or the just-anybody who chews his quid and sits on a rail fence …
He is very fond of me, and I of him,
And I am released to a satisfying theory of democratic art …
No matter what you have to say there is a way to say it
So all the people will understand …
It is simple enough—of course, a sacrifice or two …
Don't be too gloomy, and don't be sordid,
Don't open the stink-pots and the lavatories,
Don't offend people's moral scruples and religious creeds,
Keep out of politics, and sex, and socialism,
Don't be a highbrow, don't end up in tragedy—
In short, uplift the people …
Now, since this pays, an artist can be both noble and comfortable …
That is, hang it! if he doesn't read Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken,
And Jean-Christophe, and Candida, and Crime & Punishment …
And if there weren't a strange discomfort in thinking of Walt Whitman
Sitting lonesome and poor in Camden …
And if in one's heart one didn't know the lie in it all …
When Demos is patron the artist is often a kept man,
The herd's darling or clown.
Sometimes my editor-friend grows mystical and wistful,
As if some discarded dream of his youth fell back like April rain upon him,
And I am depressed, I know not why.