path, though it leads us none can tell whither, to
wildernesses or paradises, to weltering seas or to
viewless wastes of air. If the artist rests upon
beauty itself, if the mystic lingers among his ecstasies,
they have deserted the pilgrim’s path, and must
begin the journey over again in weariness and in tears.
But if they walk earnestly, not knowing what the end
may be, never mistaking the delight of the moment
for the joy that shines and glows beyond the furthest
horizon, then they are of the happy number who have
embraced the true quest. Such a faith will give
them a patient and beautiful kindliness, a deep affection
for fellow-pilgrims, and, most of all, for those in
whose eyes and lips they can discern the wistful desire
to see behind the shadows of mortal things. But
the end will be beyond even the supreme moment of
love’s abandonment, beyond the fairest sights
of earth, beyond the sweetest music of word or chord.
And we must, above all things, forbear to judge another,
to question other motives, to condemn other aims;
for we shall feel that for each a different path is
prepared. And we shall forbear, too, to press
the motives that seem to us the fairest upon other
hearts. We must give them utterance as faithfully
as we can, for they may be a step in another’s
progress. But the thought of interfering with
the design of God will be impious, insupportable.
Our only method will be a perfect sincerity, which
will indeed lead us to refrain from any attempt to
overbalance or to divert ingenuous minds from their
own chosen path. To accuse our fellow-men of
stupidity or of prejudice is but to blaspheme God.
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.