years as an aesthete and Bohemian, hencame back to Arkansas:nI saw no reason, in that springnof 1933, why Arkansas shouldnnot achieve a genuine culture ofnits own, as significant in thenpattern of American living asnthe culture of New England ornof New York had been. Mynhope, however, of thenachievement of any very vitalnand original culture for mynnative state has now largelynwaned; but I still see no reasonnwhy Arkansas could not somenday do it . . . The lack ofnsupport, moral and financial, forngenuine expression of local andnindigenous culture is one of thenmost flagrantly vicious facts innAmerican life today. How manynAmerican authors, artists,nintellectuals have madenreputations, only by gettingnaway from their own nativenLIBERAL ARTSnTHE LURE OF THEnCOUNTRYnDo you know anywhere better than thencountry? Is there any place where thenwinters are milder, where a more pleasantnbreeze tempers the savage heat ofnthe Dog Star and the mad surge of thenlion when it feels the sharpness of thenSun? Is there any place where thenintrusive cares of life interrupt our sleepnless? Does marble have a better smell ornsheen than grass? Is the water which sonquickly eats through the lead pipes in thencity streets, cleaner than the streamnrushing noisily down the mountain? Butnyou admit all this and more by plantingntrees in your courtyard between yourncolumns of different marbles and bynadmiring houses which have a view ofndistant fields. You will drive out Naturenwith a pitchfork, but She will keepnmnning back without your noticing, andntriumphantly breaking through your perversengood taste.n—from the Epistles of Horacen34/CHRONICLESnbackgrounds, and by successfullynignoring the small-townndisposition to criticize . . . H.L.nMencken had long since singlednme out as having achieved anreputation only because Inquitted my native state withnrejoicings, at the age ofntwenty-one. I had come back tontry to prove him mistaken; but Innow found that those people ofnmy native state were generallynless interested in the fact that Inhad come back as an Arkansan,nthan in the other fact that I hadnlived for so long in Europe.nOne of Fletcher’s contributions tonhis native state and culture was thencomposition of his history of Arkansas,nwritten in parallel to his personal returnnarid his poetic recreation of that historynin the form of an imagistic epic. Thenprose Arkansas, first published inn1947, is a delightful work, an amusingnand stirring summation of regionalnhistory as seen by a poet who had beennboth a London socialist and a son ofnthe Confederacy. Stories of duels andnpolitical shenanigans, of backwoodsnhumor and violence, and of the placenof Arkansas in American history fromnHernando de Soto to J. William Fulbright,nall enrich Fletcher’s colorfulnnarrative. Studded with anecdotes andnstiflFened with reserve, Arkansas has anway of staying in the memory, as whennFletcher, recounting the life of AlbertnPike, digresses to describe the state’snfinest mansion, the Albert Pike housen(now a Center for the DecorativenArts)—the house Fletcher himselfngrew up in!nWhen my father first took me,na child of three, to the “oldnPike Place,” in the late summernof 1889, there were considerablynmore than five immense oaksnon the lawn there, includingnstumps; and my youthfijlningenuity was much taxed tonfind out which of thesenmagnificent trees, far older thannthe house itself, were the onesnthat Pike had named after hisnfive children. The old bricknpigeon house, from which then”hundred snowy doves” hadnemerged “to settle on the grass”nin the same poem, was still innnnexistence, though disused; it hasnlong since followed most of thenoaks and all of the Pike childrenninto oblivion. Also gone now,nthough outlasting my ownnchildhood, was the namen”Isadore Pike,” scratchedncarefiilly with a diamond uponnthe pane of an upstairs window;nbut the legends of that place arenstill poignant in my memory.nAnd he goes on to recite the legends.nFletcher sees Thomas Hindman as anhero, and Prairie Grove as a Confederatenvictory, in a coherent and generousnview of local habitations and names thatnheld me enthralled.nIsuppose that Arkansas should benclassified with other works of Southernnregional consciousness; for Fletchernhad, after all, contributed an essaynon education to the famous Southernnsymposium, /’// Take My Standn(1930). There’s a sense in which hisnhistory of Arkansas is related to AllennTate’s biographies of Stonewall Jacksonnand Jefferson Davis, to Robert PennnWarren’s books on John Brown andnlatterly on Davis, and to DonaldnDavidson’s volume on the TennesseenRiver.nBut in superficial contrast to Fletcher’snregional and historical focus in hisnhistory of Arkansas, the Selected Essaysnshow his urbanity, his range, his internationalnconsciousness and culture —nexplorations of Imagism; encountersnwith the Orient; appreciations of individualnwriters such as Hardy, ConradnAiken, and the Fugitives; and essays onnart and philosophy. This volume (likenthe others) commands a respect andnadmiration for its author, who emergesnas an old-fashioned humanist as well asna revolutionary synthesizer. Ever alertnto the demands of art and the integritynof cultures, John Gould Fletcher todaynimpresses us with his absence — wherenis the bohemian gentleman of his style,nthe man of letters of such honor to benfound?nThe University of Arkansas Pressnhas surprised me by doing excellentlynwell just exactly what a state universitynpress is supposed to do. Congratulationsnare also in order to the editor ofnthe series, Lucas Carpenter, for annimposing service to American culturenand to modern literary history. <^n