XXX

What, after all, is the essence of the artistic life, the artist's
ideal? I think the reason why it is so often misconceived and
misunderstood is because of the fact that it is a narrow path and is
followed whole-heartedly by few. Moreover, in England at the present
time, when we are all so tolerant and imagine ourselves to be permeated
by intelligent sympathy with ideas, there seem to me to be hardly any
people who comprehend this point of view at all. There is a good deal
of interest in England in moral ideals, though even much of that is of
a Puritan and commercial type. The God that we ignorantly worship is
Success, and our interest in moral ideas is mainly confined to our
interest in what is successful. We are not in love with beautiful,
impracticable visions at all; we measure a man's moral intensity by the
extent to which he makes people respectable and prosperous. We believe
in an educator when he makes his boys do their work and play their
games; in a priest, when he makes people join clubs, find regular
employment, give up alcohol. We believe in a statesman when he makes a
nation wealthy and contented. We have no intellectual ideals, no ideals
of beauty. Our idea of poetry is that people should fall in love, and
our idea of art is the depicting of rather obvious allegories. These
things are good in their way, but they are very elementary. Our men of
intellect become scientific researchers, historians, erudite persons.
How few living writers there are who unite intellect with emotion! The
truth is that we do not believe in emotion; we think it a thing to play
with, a thing to grow out of, not a thing to live by. If a person
discourses or writes of his feelings we think him a sentimentalist, and
have an uneasy suspicion that he is violating the canons of good taste.
The result is that we are a sensible, a good-humoured, and a vulgar
nation. When we are dealing with art, we have no respect for any but
successful artists. If the practice of art results in fame and money,
we praise the artist in a patronising way; when the artist prophesies,
we think him slightly absurd until he commands a hearing, and then we
worship him, because his prophecies have a wide circulation. If the
artist is unsuccessful, we consider him a mere dilettante. Then, too,
art suffers grievously from having been annexed by moralists, who talk
about art as the handmaid of religion, and praise the artist if he
provides incentives for