This picture may seem too black, but it is that of Great Britain, where contempt for literature has risen to a peculiar degree. Make an imaginative effort; see yourself in the drawing-room of some social leader, where a 'crush' of celebrities is taking place. A flunkey at the head of the stairs announces the guests. He announces: 'Lord Curzon! ... Mr Joseph Conrad! ... The Bishop of London!' Who caused a swirl in the 'gilded throng?' The cleric? The politician? Or the novelist? Be honest in your reply, and you will know who, at that hypothetical reception, created a stir. The stir, according to place or period, greeted the politician or the bishop, and only in purely literary circles would Mr Conrad have been preferred.... For the worship of crowds goes to power rather than to distinction, to the recognised functionary of the State, to him whose power can give power, to all the evanescent things, and seldom to those stockish things, the milestones on the road to eternity. The attitude of the crowd is the attitude of the State, for the State is only the crowd, and often just the mob; it is the chamberlain of ochlocracy, the leader who follows. In all times, the State has shown its indifference, its contempt, for the arts, and particularly for literature. Now and then a prince, such as Louis of Bavaria, Philip of Spain, Lorenzo the Magnificent, has given to literature more than respect. He has given love, but that only because he was a man before a prince. The prince must prefer the lawyer, the politician, the general, and indeed, of late years what prince was found to patron George Meredith or Henry James? The attitude of the State to the novelist defines itself most clearly when a royal commission is appointed. In England, royal commissions are _ad hoc_ bodies appointed by the government from among men of political influence and special knowledge, to investigate a special question.