ly a lukewarm interest, for the reason that
their own faculties are weak and stunted. Naturally they think it a slight
matter whether genius appear to create what they and their kind can only
dimly enjoy; on the contrary, they hold it of prime importance that
material welfare and the form of mental cunning which subdues material
forces should be widely diffused among the people.

Now no one would say a word against raising "the general level of
cultivation"; the higher it is raised the better. Only the cherishing of
this ideal becomes pernicious when it is made more sacred than the
appearance of individual genius. Nor is it proper to say that the
appearance of genius is itself contingent on the level of cultivation.
There is much confusion of thought here. The influence of the people on
literature is invariably attended with danger. It has its element of good,
for the people cherish those instinctive passions and notions of morality
which keep art from falling into artificiality. But refinement,
distinction, form, spirituality--all that makes of art a transcript of
life _sub specie oeernitatis_--are commonly opposed to the popular
interest and are even distrusted by the people. The attitude of the
Elizabethan playwrights toward their audiences gives food for reflection
on this head. Just so sure as the ideal of general cultivation is made
paramount, just so sure will the higher culture become degraded to this
consideration, and with its degradation the general cultivation itself
will grow base and material.

XLIX

FROM PHILIP'S DIARY

I lead a strange dual existence, the intensity of whose contrast is almost
uncanny. After sitting for hours at my desk working on my History of
Humanitarianism, I throw myself wearily on the sofa and smoke. And as the
grey fumes float above my face, slowly they lay a spell upon me like the
waving of mesmeric hands. I lose consciousness of the objects about me,
the very walls dissolve away in a mist, and I am lifted as it were on
softly beating pinions and borne swift and far like a bird. The sensation
is curiously familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, yet it never causes
me surprise. Sometimes I am carried out into the wide sky and soar as it
seems for hours without ever alighting, until I am brought to myself with
a sense of rapid falling. At other times I am borne to the blessed forest
where my love walks, and always then the same thing happens. I know not
whether it is m