ldly, and with
confidence, do not lose your nerve and run away from it, or
you are lost, for you are here at the point men so heedlessly
call genius--as though it were necessarily rare; for you are
here at the point no living brain can surpass in essence,
the point all truly great minds seek--the point of vital
simplicity--the point of view which so illuminates the mind
that the art of expression becomes spontaneous, powerful, and
unerring, and achievement a certainty. So, if you seek and
express the best that is in yourself, you must search out the
best that is in your people; for they are your problem, and
you are indissolubly a part of them. It is for you to affirm
that which they really wish to affirm, namely, the best that
is in them, and they as truly wish you to express the best
that is in yourself. If the people seem to have but little
faith it is because they have been tricked so long; they are
weary of dishonesty, more weary than they know, much more
weary than you know, and in their hearts they seek honest and
fearless men, men simple and clear in mind, loyal to their own
manhood and to the people. The American people are now in a
stupor; be on hand at the awakening.

Next he pays his respects to current architectural criticism--a
straining at gnats and a swallowing of camels, by minds "benumbed
by culture," and hearts made faint by the tyranny of precedent. He
complains that they make no distinction between _was_ and _is_,
too readily assuming that all that is left us moderns is the humble
privilege to select, copy and adapt.

The current mannerisms of Architectural criticism must often
seem trivial. For of what avail is it to say that this is too
small, that too large, this too thick, and that too thin, or
to quote this, that, or the other precedent, when the real
question may be: Is not the entire design a mean evasion? Why
magnify this, that, or the other little thing, if the entire
scheme of thinking that the building stands for is false, and
puts a mask upon the people, who want true buildings, but do
not know how to get them so long as Architects betray them
with Architectural phrases?

And so he goes on with his Jeremiad: a prophet of despair, do you
say? No, he seeks to destroy only that falsity which would confine
the living spirit. Earlier and more clearly than we, he discern