Anton Tchekhov tells the truth neither out of love or respect for the truth, nor yet because, in the Kantian manner, a high duty bids him never to tell a lie, even to escape death. Neither has he the impulse which so often pushes young and fiery souls into rashness; that desire to stand erect, to keep the head high. On the contrary, Tchekhov always walks with a stoop, his head bent down, never fixing his eyes on the heavens, since he will read no signs there. If he tells the truth, it is because the most reeking lie no longer intoxicates him, even though he swallow it not in the modest doses that idealism offers, but in immoderate quantities, thousand-gallon-barrel gulps. He would taste the bitterness, but it would not make his head turn, as it does Schiller's, or Dostoevsky's, or even Socrates', whose head, as we know, could stand any quantity of wine, but went spinning with the most commonplace lie. 31 _Noblesse Oblige_.--The moment of obligation, compulsion, duty, that moment described by Kant as the essential, almost the only predicate of moral concepts, serves chiefly to indicate that Kant was modest in himself and in his attitude towards all whom he addressed, perceiving in all men beings subject to the ennobling effect of morality. _Noblesse oblige_ is a motto not for the aristocracy, which recognises in its privileges its own instant duties, but for the self-made, wealthy _parvenues_ who pant for an illustrious title. They have been accustomed to telling lies, to playing poltroon, swindling, and meanness, and the necessity for speaking the truth impartially, for bravely facing danger, for freely giving of their fortunes scares them beyond measure. Therefore it is necessary that they should repeat it to themselves and to their children, in whose veins the lying, sneaking blood still runs, hourly, lest they forget: "You must not tell lies, you must be open, magnanimous." It is silly, it is incomprehensible--but "_noblesse oblige_." 32 _Homo homini lupus_ is one of the most steadfast maxims of eternal morality. In each of our neighbours we fear a wolf. "This fellow is evil-minded, if he is not restrained by law he will ruin us," so we think every time a man gets out of the rut of sanctified tradition. The fear is just. We are so poor, so weak, so easily ruined and destroyed! How can we help being afraid! And yet, behind danger and menace there is usually hidden something significant, which merits our close and sympathetic attention. But fear's eyes are big. We see danger, danger only, we build up a fabric of morality inside which as in a fortress we sit out of danger all our lives. Only poets have undertaken to praise dangerous people--Don Juans, Fausts, Tannhaüsers. But nobody takes the poets seriously. Common-sense values a commercial-traveller or a don much more highly than a Byron, a Goethe, or a Molière. 33