'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls, - and, to my mind, Greenwich Village has a very personal soul that requires very personal and very careful handling. This little foreword is to crave pardon humbly if my touch has not been light, or deft, or sure. There are so many things that I may have left out, so many ways in which I must have erred. And I want to thank people too, - just here. So many people there are to thank! I cannot simply dismiss the matter with the usual acknowledgment of a list of authorities - to which, by the bye, I have tried to cling as though they were life-buoys in a...

'Tis an awkward thing to play with souls, - and, to my mind, Greenwich Village has a very personal soul that requires very personal and very careful handling. This little foreword is to crave pardon humbly if my touch has not been light, or deft, or sure. There are so many things that I may have left out, so many ways in which I must have erred. And I want to thank people too, - just here. So many people there are to thank! I cannot simply dismiss the matter with the usual acknowledgment of a list of authorities - to which, by the bye, I have tried to cling as though they were life-buoys in a...

-Does a bird need to theorise about building its nest, or boast of it when built? All good work is essentially done that way-without hesitation, without difficulty, without boasting.... And now, returning to the broader question, what these arts and labours of life have to teach us of its mystery, this is the first of their lessons-that the more beautiful the art, the more it is essentially the work of people who ... are striving for the fulfilment of a law, and the grasp of a loveliness, which they have not yet attained....