such vicarious fulfilment is not
real fulfilment; and to suppose it to be, is one of the most serious
errors for which the aesthetic interest is responsible. The man who,
with clenched hands and quickened pulse, is watching some image of
himself as it triumphs over obstacles and arrives at the summit of his
ambition, may and doubtless does _feel_ like Alexander, but he
nevertheless has not conquered the world; and if he thinks he has, he
will probably never conquer any of it. It must be remembered that the
vicarious aesthetic fulfilment of interests is the easiest fulfilment
of them; and that it may, therefore, become a form of self-indulgence
and a source of false complacency. A sanguine imagination is one of
the {199} chief causes of worldly failure; an exaggerated interest in
representations of virtue is a common cause of irresponsibility and of
hypocrisy. William James, in a passage that is frequently quoted,
calls attention also to the danger of acquiring a chronic emotionality.

The weeping of a Russian lady over the fictitious personages in the
play, while her coachman is freezing to death on his seat outside, is
the sort of thing that everywhere happens on a less glaring scale.
Even the habit of excessive indulgence in music, for those who are
neither performers themselves nor musically gifted enough to take it in
a purely intellectual way, has probably a relaxing effect upon the
character. One becomes filled with emotions which habitually pass
without prompting to any deed, and so the inertly sentimental condition
is kept up. The remedy would be, never to suffer one's self to have an
emotion at a concert, without expressing it afterwards in _some_ active
way. Let the expression be the least thing in the world--speaking
genially to one's aunt, or giving up one's seat in a horse-car, if
nothing more heroic offers--but let it not fail to take place.[14]

But not only is it possible through the exaggeration of the aesthetic
interest to substitute apparent achievement for real achievement; it is
possible to extract solace from the contemplation of failure itself.
Is there any one who has not met the man who is actually made buoyant
by his consistent misfortune? For it is flattering that an evil fate
should single one out from the crowd for conspicuous attention, that
all the {200} tragedy of existence should centre upon one's devoted
head. And a certain interest attaches even to unredeemed misery and
a