cent and a
_naif_. At times he is profound. Always he is profoundly simple.

Tragedy and Comedy are adult. The child's world is Tragicomic. So
Marsden Hartley's. He is not deep enough--like most of our Moderns--in
the pregnant chaos to be submerged in blackness by the hot struggle of
the creative will. He may weep, but he can smile next moment at a
pretty song. He may be hurt, but he gets up to dance.

In this book--the autobiography of a creator--Marsden Hartley peers
variously into the modern world: but it is in search of Fairies.

WALDO FRANK.

_Lisbon_, June, 1921.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION BY WALDO FRANK

_Foreword_

CONCERNING FAIRY TALES AND ME

_Part One_

1. THE RED MAN

2. WHITMAN AND CEZANNE

3. RYDER

4. WINSLOW HOMER

5. AMERICAN VALUES IN PAINTING

6. MODERN ART IN AMERICA

7. OUR IMAGINATIVES

8. OUR IMPRESSIONISTS

9. ARTHUR B. DAVIES

10. REX SLINKARD

11. SOME AMERICAN WATER-COLORISTS

12. THE APPEAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY

13. SOME WOMEN ARTISTS

14. REVALUATIONS IN IMPRESSIONISM

15. ODILON REDON

16. THE VIRTUES OF AMATEUR PAINTING

17. HENRI ROUSSEAU

_Part Two_

18. THE TWILIGHT OF THE ACROBAT

19. VAUDEVILLE

20. A CHARMING EQUESTRIENNE

21. JOHN BARRYMORE IN PETER IBBETSON

_Part Three_

22. LA CLOSERIE DE LILAS

23. EMILY DICKINSON

24. ADELAIDE CRAPSEY

25. FRANCIS THOMPSON

26. ERNEST DOWSON

27. HENRY JAMES ON RUPERT BROOKE

28. THE DEARTH OF CRITICS

_Afterword_

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING "DADA"

* * * * *

FOREWORD

CONCERNING FAIRY TALES AND ME

Sometimes I think myself one of the unique children among children. I
never read a fairy story in my childhood. I always had the feeling as
a child, that fairy stories were for grown-ups and were best
understood by them, and for that reason I think it must have been that
I postponed them. I found them, even at sixteen, too involved and
mystifying to take them in with quite the simple gullibility that is
necessary. But that was because I was left alone with the incredibly
magical reality from morning until nightfall, and the nights meant
nothing more remarkable to me than the days did, no more than they do
now. I find moonlight merely another species of illumination by which
one registers continuity of sensation. My nursery was always on the
edge of the strangers' knee, wondering who they were,