The American artist whose will is to join in the tristful litany over the dissolving body of European culture does well, like T. S. Eliot, to live abroad. The American artist who feels within himself the power to add to the intricate glosses of that culture does well, like Ezra Pound or Henry James, to live abroad. But the artist who is tempted to the task of forging new organic life from chaos may bless his stars if America is his home. For in all the world there is no symbol of this chaos so potent and so pregnant as our American jungle.

—WALDO FRANK

In the American Jungle