[22] For example: “Ours is a sincere doubt as to whether the question ‘And what did you do during the Great War?’ might not embarrass, among others, God.”
[23] He said of Firpo that when he came up after the sixth or seventh knock-down, his face looked like a slateful of wrong answers.
[24] A footnote to a footnote is preposterous. Perhaps the very excess of its obscurity will give it prominence and render faint justice to the old New York Hippodrome. It is a fine example of handling of material, and of adjustment, spoiled occasionally by too much very loud singing and a bit of art. It is part of New York’s small-townness; but it is so vast in its proportions that it can never acquire the personal following of a small one-ring circus like the Medrano in Paris. I adore the Hippodrome when it is a succession of acts: the trained crow and Ferry who plays music on a fence and the amazing mechanical and electrical effects. Joe Jackson, one of the greatest of clowns, played there, too, and had ample scope. I like also the complete annihilation of personality in the chorus. When you see three hundred girls doing the same thing it becomes a problem in mass—I recall one instance when it was a mass of white backs with black lines indicating the probable existence of clothes—the whole thing was quite unhuman. And one great scene in which, I believe, the whole of the personnel participated: there were, it seemed, hundreds of tumblers and scores of clowns, and a whole toy shop in excited action. Oddly enough, one finds that the weakness of the Hip is in its humour; there is plenty of it, but it is not concentrated, and there is no specific Hippodrome “style.” What it will become under the new Keith régime remains to be seen.
[25] I have seen them since in another entrance, the most brilliant of all. See [Appendix].
[26] They nevertheless played exquisitely, I am told, in the Cocteau-Milhaud Bœuf sur le Toit.
[27] Quanto più, un’ arte porta seco fatica di corpo, tanto più è vile! Pater, who quotes this of Leonardo, calls it “princely.”
[28] It is not too late for you to film Mr D. Taylor’s Should a Brother-in-Law Give a Damn?
[29] I haven’t seen The Covered Wagon. Its theme returns to the legendary history of America. There is no reason why it should not have been highly imaginative. But I wonder whether the thousands of prairie schooners one hears about are the film or the image. In the latter case there is no objection.
[30] They have done so. See “[The Cinema Novel].”
[31] I wrote once, and was properly rapped over the knuckles for writing, that it wasn’t to escape Bach, but to escape Puccini, that one played Berlin. Mr Haviland, whom I have quoted frequently, replied that those who really cared for jazz cared for it, not as an escape from any other art. I had not intended to write an apology; only, since I was replying to the usual attack on the jazz arts, I wanted to indicate that in addition to their primary virtues they have this great secondary one, that when we are too fed up with bad drawing, bad music, bad acting, and second-rate sentiment, we can be sure of consolation in the lively arts.