THE AUTHENTIC DON MARQUIS
SIR,—Although a part of the quotation from Don Marquis in my letter on "The Vice of Work " makes a pretty enough puzzle as rendered by the printer, perhaps it may be worth repeating as it actually appears in his memorable book The Almost Perfect State lest this most lucid of writers be unjustly accused of impenetrable obscurity:- " The main thing is to get more Shakespeares, another Leonardo, a second Beethoven; that is all that matters in this world; everything else is, extra- neous or subsidiary. Artists should be listened to, artists should have charge of, this world and govern it, because they and they alone understand something of what it is all about. . . .
" The Purpose of the Universe is Play. The artists know that, and they know that Play and Art and Creation are different names for the same thing—a thing that is sweats and agonies and ecstasies. . . .
" The world exists for the purpose of producing artists, in order that artists may produce new worlds."—Yours faith- fully,
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