“Do you think that a good thing?  Doesn’t it mean the substitution of feeling for thinking?”

“Well,” he answered slowly, “the world goes forward through the heart rather than through the head.  Happiness, to my mind, is emotional, not mental.  And the movie has brought happiness to millions whose lives were formerly drab and sordid.  I love to go into these little halls in out-of-the-way places, and see the men, women, and children packed there of an evening.  Theatrical companies never reached the villages, and the men had no place but the saloon, the women no place but the kitchen or the front porch.  The camera has brought the world to their doors, and life is richer, happier, and better for it.”

Take him as he stands, and Douglas Fairbanks comes close to being the “real thing.”  Men like him as well as women, and, best proof of all, the “kids” adore him.  On a recent visit to Denver, his old home town, youngsters followed him in droves, clamoring for a chance to “feel his muscle.”  The mayor, no less, had him address a public meeting, the feature of which, by the way, was this piped inquiry from the gallery: 

“Say, Doug, can youse whip William Farnum?”

And let no one quarrel with this popularity.  It is a good sign, a healthful sign, a token that the blood of America still runs warm and red, and that chalk has not yet softened our bones.