That is of course the sad cry of one who is interested in life primarily, and in art only so far as it can minister to life.  It may be strained and exaggerated, but how far more vital a saying than to expand in voluble and vapid enthusiasm over the insight and nobleness of Shakespeare, if one has not really felt one’s life modified by that mysterious mind!

Of course such self-revelation as I speak of will necessarily fall into the hands of unquiet, dissatisfied, melancholy people.  If life is a common-place and pleasant sort of business, there is nothing particular to say or to think about it.  But for all those—­and they are many—­who feel that life misses, by some blind, inevitable movement, being the gracious and beautiful thing it seems framed to be, how can such as these hold their peace?  And how, except by facing it all, and looking patiently and bravely at it, can we find a remedy for its sore sicknesses?  That method has been used, and used with success in every other kind of investigation, and we must investigate life too, even if it turns out to be all a kind of Mendelism, moved and swayed by absolutely fixed laws, which take no account of what we sorrowfully desire.

Let us, then, gather up our threads a little.  Let us first confront the fact that, under present conditions, in the face of the mass of records and books and accumulated traditions, arts and sciences must make progress little by little, line by line, in skilled technical hands.  Fine achievement in every region becomes more difficult every day, because there is so much that is finished and perfected behind us; and if the conditions of our lives call us to some strictly limited path, let us advance wisely and humbly, step by step, without pride or vanity.  But let us not forget, in the face of the frigidities of knowledge, that if they are the mechanism of life, emotion and hope and love and admiration are the steam.  Knowledge is only valuable in so far as it makes the force of life effective and vigorous.  And thus if we have breasted the strange current of life, or even if we have been ourselves overpowered and swept away by it, let us try, in whatever region we have the power, to let that experience have some value for ourselves and others.  If we can say it or write it, so much the better.  There are thousands of people moving through the world who are wearied and bewildered, and who are looking out for any message of hope and joy that may give them courage to struggle on; but if we cannot do that, we can at least live life temperately and cheerfully and sincerely:  if we have bungled, if we have slipped, we can do something to help others not to go light-heartedly down the miry path; we can raise them up if they have fallen, we can cleanse the stains, or we can at least give them the comfort of feeling that they are not sadly and insupportably alone.

VII

OUR LACK OF GREAT MEN