ything.

In so far as the magazine was concerned, once it began to grow and
attract attention he was for me its most important asset; not that he
did so much directly as that he provided a definite standard toward
which we all had to work. Not incuriously, he was swiftly recognized for
what he was by all who came in touch with the magazine. In the first
place, interested in his progress, I had seen to it that he was properly
introduced wherever that was possible and of benefit to him, and later
on, by sheer force of his mental capacity and integrity, his dreams and
his critical skill, he managed to center about him an entire band of
seeking young writers, artists, poets, playwrights, aspiring musicians;
an amusing and as interesting a group as I have ever seen. Their points
of rendezvous appeared to be those same shabby quick-lunches in back
streets or even on the principal thoroughfares about Times Square, or
they met in each other's rooms or my office at night after I had gone,
giving me as an excuse that they had work to do. And during all this
time the air fairly hummed with rumors of new singers, dancers, plays,
stories being begun or under way, articles and essays contemplated;
avid, if none too well financed frolics or bohemian midnight suppers
here and there. Money was by no means plentiful, and in consequence
there was endless borrowing and "paying up" among them. Among the most
enthusiastic members of this circle, as I had begun to note, and finally
rather nervously, were my art-director, a valiant knight in Bohemia if
ever there was one, and she of Bryn Mawr-Wellesley standards. My makeup
editor, as well as various contributors who had since become more or
less closely identified with the magazine, were also following him up
all the time.

If not directly profitable it was enlivening, and I was fairly well
convinced by now that from the point of view of being "aware," "in touch
with," "in sympathy with" many of the principal tendencies and
undercurrents which make for a magazine's success and precedence, this
group was as valuable to me as any might well be. It constituted a
"kitchen cabinet" of sorts and brought hundreds of interesting ideas to
the surface, and from all directions. Now it would be a new and hitherto
unheard-of tenor who was to be brought from abroad and introduced with
great noise to repute-loving Americans; a new sculptor or painter who
had never been heard of in America; a great actor, pe