Folder 466

[first page of multi-page document] [handwritten in cursive in pencil]

The Puritans. 1

The puritans were schooled to think of most of the arts [word inserted above the line] as min-istrations to vanety [sic], therefore in the main su-purfluous [sic], debasing, diabolical. Music was tolerable only as hymns or sacred music. Sculpture only when the figure was hidden under draperies. Painting was contemptable [sic]. Dancing was wholely [sic] damnable. Acting and actores [sic] were abomenable [sic]. Poetry, except in praise of the Lord, was worthless and ridiculous, if not vile. Novels were inventions of hell. Anybody who supposes we have outlived our puritan ancestors is naive; a large measure of that psychology lives still. Americans, generaly [sic] speaking, never read poetry; know nothing and care nothing for it. It means noth-ing to them when they hear or read it. Those who have a natural bent in that direc-tion are apt to be ashamed of it. Nothing is more common than to hear Americans say, with the evedent [sic] expectation of the approval of their auditors, “I don’t like poetry.” A leading scientist said to me,”I never read poetry; It bores me, because it never is [illegible].” The editor of one of the oldest and most promi-nent magazines in America said to me, “poetry is like candy - you soon get enough of it.” A millionair [sic] remarked to me, “what can one do with a picture - hang it on the wall and look at it - that’s all. Why spend a lot of money for some-thing that you can merely look at?”