and high interest of the vital powers exhibited there. Taking my "sitters" one by one, I rather think that my main intention has been to feel strongly the unique life in all these men and women from Sherwood Anderson to the Known Soldier, and to communicate the impetus of it, in a sort of blind faith that "where there is life there is hope," and where there is power there is virtue.
The essays in this volume were all printed in "Books," the literary supplement of the Herald Tribune, in 1924 and 1925. The title was suggested by my admiration for the swift cutting art of the original and present illustrator, Mr. Bertrand Zadig, who, under the constant temporal stress which urges a contributor to journalism to do well promptly, has accomplished with the graving tool what I have tried to do with the pen.
