vice. But the trouble is that any one who develops a decided
gift in that direction is in danger of becoming the victim of his own
talent. Eloquent fault-finding becomes a mannerism. The original
grievance loses its sharp outlines; it, as it were, passes from the
solid to the gaseous state. It becomes vast, pervasive, atmospheric. It
is like the London fog, enveloping all objects, and causing the eyes of
those who peer through it to smart.

This happened, in the last generation, to Carlyle and Ruskin, and in a
certain degree to Matthew Arnold. Each had his group of enthusiastic
disciples who responded eagerly to their master's call. They renounced
shams or machine-made articles or middle-class Philistinism as the case
might be. They went in for sincerity, or Turner, or "sweetness and
light," with all the ardor of youthful neophytes. And it was good for
them. But after a while they became, if not exactly weary in well-doing,
at least a little weary of the unintermittent tirades against ill-doing.
They were in the plight of the good Christian who goes to church every
Sunday only to hear the parson rebuke the sins of the people who are not
there. The man who dated his moral awakening from "Sartor Resartus"
began to find the "Latter Day Pamphlets" wear on his nerves. It is good
to be awakened; but one does not care to have the rising bell rung in
his ears all day long. One must have a little ease, even in Zion.

Ruskin had a real grievance, and so had Matthew Arnold. It is too bad
that so much modern work is poorly done; and it is too bad that the
middle-class Englishman has a number of limitations that are quite
obvious to his candid friends,--and that his American cousin is no
better.

But when all this has been granted, why should one talk as if everything
were going to the dogs? Why not put a cheerful courage on as we work for
better things? Even the Philistine has his good points, and perhaps may
be led where he cannot be driven. At any rate, he is not likely to be
improved by scolding.

I am beginning to feel the same way even about Ibsen. Time was when he
had an uncanny power over my imagination. He had the wand of a
disenchanter. Here, I said, is one who has the gift of showing us the
thing as it is. There is not a single one of these characters whom we
have not met. Their poor shifts at self-deceit are painfully familiar to
us. In the company of this keen-eyed detective we can follow human
selfishness and cowar