In the American Jungle by Waldo David Frank

The man whose conversations about art have gone into the nurture of most of the important artists of our day in Paris has written a book. For one who knows the author, it will be hard to dissociate these printed pages from the voice of the man who wrote them. To have had acquaintance with this tireless seeker, watched the beautiful curves of his mind moving for hours of uninterrupted discourse upon a mental action, and to have relished his piquant admixture of spiritual humbleness, intellectual passion and ascetic distrust of all passions, is not the sort of experience to be overlooked, just because one of the best talkers of our day has turned to writing. Mr. Stein's work is, moreover, in the best sense, conversation. From beginning to end, his curt and quiet tone is a manner of speaking. The color of the man stands in his most abstracted thought. He has written a volume in which all thinking and all topics are so securely focused to a personal rhythm, that-whatever else-his essay is a work of art.

Mr. Stein has a poor opinion of philosophy, and of what esthetics, at its hand, has suffered. Mr. Stein, moreover, has loved art. He has, in consequence, attempted what might be called a "rescue. " The sentimental mists of philosophic thought must be cut away from his beloved; the basis of the esthetic act must be presented in simple, matter-of-fact, assumptionless terms. This is the program. Actually, what Mr. Stein has achieved is a statement as subjective as Amiel's journal: a self-portrayal which is both beautiful and significant, since its hero is so archetypical of his time.