Mr. McCutcheon had spoken of the probable effect of the war on the popular taste for romantic fiction. I reminded him of William Dean Howells's much-quoted statement, "War stops literature."
"War stops everything else," said Mr. McCutcheon, "so why not literature? It stops everything, I amend, except bloodshed, horror, and heartache.
"And when the war itself is stopped, you will find that literature will be revived with farming and other innocent and productive industries. I venture to say that some of the greatest literature the world has ever known is being written to-day. Out of the history of this titanic struggle will come the most profound literary expressions of all time, and from men who to-day are unknown and unconsidered."
I asked Mr. McCutcheon if he did not believe that the youthful energy of the United States was likely to make its citizens impatient of romance, that quality being generally considered the exclusive property of nations ancient in civilization. He did not think so.
"America," he said, "is essentially a romantic country, our great and profound commercialism to the contrary notwithstanding. America was born of adventure; its infancy was cradled in romance; it has grown up in thrills. And while to-day it may not reflect romance as we are prone to consider it, there still rests in America a wonderful treasure in the shape of undeveloped possibilities.
"We are, first of all, an eager, zestful, imaginative people. We are creatures of romance. We do two things exceedingly well—we dream and we perform.
"Our dreams are of adventure, of risk, of chance, of impossibilities, and of deeds that only the bold may conceive. And we find on waking from these dreams that we have performed the deeds we dreamed of.
"The Old World looks upon us as braggarts. Perhaps we are, but we are kindly, genial, smiling braggarts—and the braggart is, after all, our truest romanticist.
"I like to hear a grown man admit that he still believes in fairies. That sort of man thinks of the things that are beautiful, even though they are invisible. And—if you stop to think about it—the most beautiful things in the world are invisible."