stand as written in 1914 and '15. It shows the condition just before the
war, better than any new words of mine could do it. The main change now
is the growing hope of a backing, not only from Universities, but great
Art Museums.
Chapter XVIII--Architects as Crusaders. The sermon in this chapter has
been carried out on a limited scale, and as a result of the suggestion,
or from pure American instinct, we now have handsome gasoline filling
stations from one end of America to the other, and really gorgeous Ford
garages. Our Union depots and our magazine stands in the leading hotels,
and our big Soda fountains are more and more attractive all the time.
Having recited of late about twice around the United States and,
continuing the pilgrimage, I can testify that they are all alike from New
York to San Francisco. One has to ask the hotel clerk to find out whether
it is New York or ----. And the motion picture discipline of the American
eye has had a deal to do with this increasing tendency to news-stand and
architectural standardization and architectural thinking, such as it is.
But I meant this suggestion to go further, and to be taken in a higher
sense, so I ask these people to read this chapter again. I have carried
out the idea, in a parable, perhaps more clearly in The Golden Book of
Springfield, when I speak of the World's Fair of the University of
Springfield, to be built one hundred years hence. And I would recommend
to those who have already taken seriously chapter eighteen, to reread it
in two towns, amply worth the car fare it costs to go to both of them.
First, Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the end of the Santa Fe Trail, the oldest
city in the United States, the richest in living traditions, and with the
oldest and the newest architecture in the United States; not a stone or a
stick of it standardized, a city with a soul, Jerusalem and Mecca and
Benares and Thebes for any artist or any poet of America's future, or
any one who would dream of great cities born of great architectural
photoplays, or great photoplays born of great cities. And the other city,
symbolized by The Golden Rain Tree in The Golden Book of Springfield, is
New Harmony, Indiana. That was the Greenwich Village of America more than
one hundred years ago, when it was yet in the heart of the wilderness,
millions of miles from the sea. It has a tradition already as dusty and
wonderful as Abydos and Gem Aten. And every stone is still eloquent of
individualism, and standardization has not yet set its foot there. Is it
not possible for the architects to brood in such places and then say to
one another:--"Build from your hearts buildings and films which shall be
your individual Hieroglyphics, each according to his own loves and
fancies?"
Chapter XIX--On Coming Forth by Day. This is the second Egyptian chapter.
It has its direct relation to the Hieroglyphic chapter, page 171. I note
that I say here it costs a dime to go to the show. Well, now it costs
around thirty cents to go to a good show in a respectable suburb,
sometimes fifty cents. But we will let that dime remain there, as a
matter of historic interest, and pass on, to higher themes.
Certainly the Hieroglyphic chapter is in words of one syllable and any
kindergarten teacher can understand it. Chapter nineteen adds a bit to
the idea. I do not know how warranted I am in displaying Egyptian
learning. Newspaper reporters never tire of getting me to talk about
hieroglyphics in their relation to the photoplays, and always give me
respectful headlines on the theme. I can only say that up to this hour,
every time I have toured art museums, I have begun with the Egyptian
exhibit, and if my patient guest was willing, lectured on every period on
to the present time, giving a little time to the principal exhibits in
each room, but I have always found myself returning to Egypt as a
standard. It seems my natural classic land of art. So when I took up
hieroglyphics more seriously last summer, I found them extraordinarily
easy as though I were looking at a "movie" in a book. I think Egyptian
picture-writing came easy because I have analyzed so many hundreds of
photoplay films, merely for recreation, and the same style of composition
is in both. Any child who reads one can read the other. But of course
the literal translation must be there at hand to correct all wrong
guesses. I figure that in just one thousand years I can read
hieroglyphics without a pony. But meanwhile, I tour museums and I ride
Pharaoh's "horse," and suggest to all photoplay enthusiasts they do the
same. I recommend these two books most heartily: Elementary Egyptian
Grammar, by Margaret A. Murray, London, Bernard Quaritch, 11 Grafton
Street, Bond Street, W., and the three volumes of the Book of the Dead,
which are, indeed, the Papyrus of Ani, referred to in this chapter, pages
255-258. It is edited, translated, and reproduced in fac-simile by the
keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum,
Professor E.A. Wallis Budge; published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York,
and Philip Lee Warner, London. This book is certainly the greatest motion
picture I ever attended. I have gone through it several times, and it is
the only book one can read twelve hours at a stretch, on the Pullman,
when he is making thirty-six hour and forty-eight hour jumps from town to
town.
American civilization grows more hieroglyphic every day. The cartoons of
Darling, the advertisements in the back of the magazines and on the
bill-boards and in the street-cars, the acres of photographs in the
Sunday newspapers, make us into a hieroglyphic civilization far nearer to
Egypt than to England. Let us then accept for our classic land, for our
standard of form, the country naturally our own. Hieroglyphics are so
much nearer to the American mood than the rest of the Egyptian legacy,
that Americans seldom get as far as the Hieroglyphics to discover how
congenial they are. Seeing the mummies, good Americans flee. But there is
not a man in America writing advertisements or making cartoons or films
but would find delightful the standard books of Hieroglyphics sent out by
the British Museum, once he gave them a chance. They represent that very
aspect of visual life which Europe understands so little in America, and
which has been expanding so enormously even the last year. Hallowe'en,
for instance, lasts a whole week now, with mummers on the streets every
night, October 25-31.