Only grass and crabbed trees,
Night—
And the bitter aroma of herbs
Trod out by myriad, whispering feet of the rain—
Night and no stars.
Slobberdom, Sneerdom, and Boredom
Ben Hecht
It is the custom of inspired opinion to pay little attention to mediocrities, to dismiss them with a shudder. I understand The Little Review to be an embodiment of inspired opinion, an abandonment of mental emotion—Youth. Like some of the people who read it and even some of them who write for it, it flies at the throats of contemporary Chimeras and leaps upon the Pegasi of the moment. It slashes and roars, hates and loves. It never considers the right and never considers the wrong. It does not endeavor to be just and fair. This is at once a great crime and a great virtue. It is criminal to be unjust and it is virtuous to be truthful. To me The Little Review is always both. I sympathize with its spirit and share it. Leave justice to the greybeards. Why should a soul which has the capacity for inspiration quibble in prejudices?
I think, however, that shuddering at mediocrities is a grave error. Evil is the monopoly of the few as well as genius. Hating and loving them are luxuries. Therefore it is that this writing is not composed in the luxurious spirit of The Little Review. My opinion is not an inspired one, my emotion is not an abandonment. I write with a photographic dispassion of the three great divisions of mediocrity—Slobberdom, Sneerdom, and Boredom.
Slobbering is not an art and it is not an evil. It is not even important except as an object of analysis. True, if encountered in print or in the flesh it is likely to have a nauseous effect upon sensitive souls; but then one can easily avoid encountering it. One does not, for instance, have to attend a Walt Whitman dinner. When one hears that a Walt Whitman dinner is to be given on a certain night in the Grand Pacific Hotel all one has to do to remain happy and free from suffering is to stay at home. My friend K—— and I went to a Walt Whitman dinner because we were young and curious and hungry, and because Walt, after all, is a great artist.