we do it gaily, and think that freedom is but a trifling with the world.

If we would find a company of our own way of thinking, we must go
backward to turreted walls, to courts, to high rocky places, to little
walled towns, to jesters like that jester of Charles the Fifth who made
mirth out of his own death; to the Duke Guidobaldo in his sickness, or
Duke Frederick in his strength, to all those who understood that life is
not lived, if not lived for contemplation or excitement.

Certainly we could not delight in that so courtly thing, the poetry of
light love, if it were sad; for only when we are gay over a thing, and
can play with it, do we show ourselves its master, and have minds clear
enough for strength. The raging fire and the destructive sword are
portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man, wrote Blake, and it
is only before such things, before a love like that of Tristan and
Iseult, before noble or ennobled death, that the free mind permits
itself aught but brief sorrow. That we may be free from all the rest,
sullen anger, solemn virtue, calculating anxiety, gloomy suspicion,
prevaricating hope, we should be reborn in gaiety. Because there is
submission in a pure sorrow, we should sorrow alone over what is greater
than ourselves, nor too soon admit that greatness, but all that is less
than we are should stir us to some joy, for pure joy masters and
impregnates; and so to world end, strength shall laugh and wisdom mourn.

III

In life courtesy and self-possession, and in the arts style, are the
sensible impressions of the free mind, for both arise out of a
deliberate shaping of all things, and from never being swept away,
whatever the emotion, into confusion or dulness. The Japanese have
numbered with heroic things courtesy at all times whatsoever, and though
a writer, who has to withdraw so much of his thought out of his life
that he may learn his craft, may find many his betters in daily
courtesy, he should never be without style, which is but high breeding
in words and in argument. He is indeed the Creator of the standards of
manners in their subtlety, for he alone can know the ancient records and
be like some mystic courtier who has stolen the keys from the girdle of
time, and can wander where it please him amid the splendours of ancient
courts.

Sometimes, it may be, he is permitted the license of cap and bell, or
even the madman's bunch of straws, but he never forgets or leaves at
home the s