Word: level
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...pretends to do so. Some are mere sketches, some full-length, none are wholly serious. All abound in laughing observation of the antics of children and young lovers, all are excellent in the reproduction of Negro dialect and children's prattle. None is profound or disturbing, keeping the level of a quiet humor. The critics. The New York Times: " It is as if Mr. Tarkington kept a day book of observations-drawn from a very nice neighborhood." Robert Cortes Holiday: "Mr. Tarkington seems to present himself as a rather playful neurologist. Something like a scientific interest may be discerned...
...Gives the reader what he wants and the reader's general level of culture...
That this is due to plain laziness and lack of ability and is not out of consideratioin for the demands of the somewhat mythical T.B.M. is demonstrated by the work of Florenz Ziegfeld and John Murray Anderson. The genius of these two gentlemen is responsible for raising the general level of musical revues in America far above that of any other country. They refused to subscribe to the trade dictum that people like the old jokes best, or that the old tunes can be polished up to look like new, or that stage sets designed by a scenic factory...
...times the intellect, twenty times the powers, and fifty times the virtues of any race that ever lived on earth would end within a generation in a state of hopeless barbarism; the earth would return to the days of primeval forests and swamps, and man descend almost to the level of the monkey and the beaver." And he adds: "Now if . . . we are so deeply indebted and so indissolubly bound to past ages, if all our hopes of the future depend on a sound understanding of the past, we cannot fancy any knowledge more important than the knowledge...
...mystery story to while away an idle hour, "Wisdom's Daughter" is good; as a work of Sir Rider Haggard, it is far below the level of his very real ability...