The intellectual man," he said,
"is inclined to confuse his own acute perception of the movement of
thought with the originating impulse of that movement. But of course
thought is a thing which ebbs and flows, like public opinion, according
to its own laws, and is not originated but only perceived by men of
intellectual ability. The danger of it is a particularly arid sort of
self-conceit. It is as if the Lady of Shalott were to suppose that she
created life by observing and rendering it in her magic web, whereas her
devotion to her task simply isolates her from the contact with other
minds and hearts, which is the one thing worth having. That is, of
course, the danger of the artist as well as of the philosopher. They
both stand aside from the throng, and are so much absorbed in the aspect
of thought and emotion that they do not realise that they are separated
from it. They are consequently spared, when they come here, the
punishment which falls upon those who have mixed greedily, selfishly,
and cruelly with life, of which you will have a sight before long. But
that place of punishment is not nearly so sad or depressing a place as
the paradise of delight, and the paradise of intellect, because the
sufferers have no desire to stay there, can repent and feel ashamed, and
therefore can suffer, which is always hopeful. But the artistic and
intellectual have really starved their capacity for suffering, the one
by treating all emotion as spectacular, and the other by treating it as
a puerile interruption to serious things. It takes people a long time to
work their way out of self-satisfaction! But there is another curious
place I wish you to visit. It is a dreadful place in a way, but by no
means consciously unhappy," and Amroth pointed to a great building which
stood on a slope of the hill above the forest, with a wide and beautiful
view from it. Before very long we came to a high stone wall with a gate
carefully guarded. Here Amroth said a few words to a porter, and we went
up through a beautiful terraced park. In the park we saw little knots of
people walking aimlessly about, and a few more solitary figures. But in
each case they were accompanied by people whom I saw to be warders. We
passed indeed close to an elderly man, rather fantastically dressed, who
looked possessed with a kind of flighty cheerfulness. He was talking to
himself with odd, emphatic gestures, as if he were ticking off the
points of a speech. He came up t