The Germans are eager and noisy about everything they are told they should be interested in.
The Americans are interested in everything for a week—a week at a time—except Sensation: they are interested in that all the time.
I have heard a great deal of the “smiling Latins,” the “gay Latins,” etc. I have seen few indications that the Latins are gay. They are noisy—they are really a sombre and passionate people—the Italian face when silent is rather sullen.
In New York the opportunities for learning, and acquiring a culture that shall not come out of the ruins, but belong to life, are probably greater than anywhere else in the world.
This is because America is young and rich and comparatively unencumbered by bad things.
Tradition, which saves what is good and great in Europe, also saves what is poor, so that one wades through miles of junk to come to a great thing.
In New York books are plentiful and easy to get. The music and the theatre are the best in the world.
The great trouble with New York is that one feels uncomfortable while enjoying these things—In the daytime a man should be making money. The time to read is at night before one goes to bed. The time to hear music or go to the theatre is also at night. The time to look at a picture is on Sunday.
Another fault comes from our lack of independence. I am sure some of the most knowing people in the world, about the arts, are in America. I cannot read a magazine like The Dial, or The Nation and The New Republic without getting frightened. One man wrote a book called Studies in Ten Literatures—which, of course, is foolish. We want to seem knowing about all these things because we have not enough confidence in ourselves.
We have had niggers for 300 years living all over the place—but all we did about it was to write minstrel shows, and’coon stories, until two or three years ago when the French discovered for us how interesting they are. We let Paul Morand, and the man who wrote Batouala, and Soupault do it for us—Then we began to write stories about Harlem, etc.
Instead of whining that we have no traditions, or that we must learn by keeping constantly in touch with European models, or by keeping away
