New-York tribune., 1918-12-15

~ ENIUS eats to-day in Greenwich
Village To be sure, it eats with
hands on which the most mum
dane toll has left stain, but II
.,.. nevertheless, and when you come right
Down to facts, that is good deal.
There is-well, probably there is no use
m.ptoning his name, but every one in the
village knows he starved to death the most
- last winter and froze to death the rest,
.rd vet-to-day he is able to eat breakfast
At the French Pastry Shop, to eat lunch
az sny one of the half dozen places and, if
the spirit so moves him, to go uptown for
= rood dinner once week, which is the
ambition Of the entire village, just as it
"a the ambition of the rest of New York
10 get down to the village once in so often
for bad one.
There are several prominent village
poets who positively were never known to
have a square meal from one end of the
crafts poetry is the one which pays the
least There are a half dozen village ar
lists who used to make connections with
the food supply only when they had con-
trived to sell picture, which was abouts
dramstists and sculptor, all of whom
have been accustomed to sketchy meals
money They eat recklessly. Several Of
them have laid in enough coal for month.
which contains a bathtub-for contrary to
the general belief, genius is usually dirty
not because it prefers dirt, but because
studios with bath come very high. Old
bills at Galup's, at "Three Steps Down." at
q half dozen other places, have been paid
up. Genius is affluent, comfortable, gorged.
Naturally, the war is primarily RESPONSE
bic. The war has done much to the village
1t closed number Of its vari-nomenclatured
dining places 1t put some of it's masculine
element in jail and some in the army. 1t
raised rents. And, finally, as a species of
compensation, it provided unprecedented
afAuence for such members of the mas
culine population as, on account of physi-
cal disability or other valid reasons, had
escaped its previous onslaughts.
AS a preliminary to its contemplated
whim, war arranged for the conversion Of
factory on Lafayette Street-owner the
H. E. Boucher Manufacturing Company
an important and secret accessory of navaY
warfare. This was essential, because your
true villageite is unable to exist long except
IN the rarehed attitudes of his native
heath and is congenitally opposed to
yenturing far abroad. So far, so good.
There only remained for the village to
discover that the plant was in existence
and that employment at war wages could
be obtained in its depths. Also, if you
like, for some one to set the example
The discovery, so far as it has been
possible to ascertain, was made by an ar
list, an associate Of Gordon Craig, when
that gifted Englishman was evolving his
Art of the Theatre" at Bordighera, italy,
more recently director Of interior decora-
aon IN Pittsburgh, where he had row
with an over-conservative faculty and re-
signed; and, yet more recently, a Green
wch Villager-it being a characteristic
Oh the village that 1t affords equal harbor
70 those who are on their way to the more
enlightened universities and those who are
leaving the less.
came one day In September when the ar
"st presumably being too full of recently
released animosity against all things aca-
osmic to function along accustomed lines,
'Ouhd himself in the predicament which
usually accompanies such inhibitions-that
10 70 say, broke. With what for true
s'''se was unprecedented daring, he de-
'oed that there was no particular reason
"As ne shouldn't take a chance with the
rest Of the country and try government
work.
Inc individual in question is very much