Poushkin asserts that the poet himself can and must be the judge of his own work. "Are you content, exacting artist? Content, then let the mob revile." It is needless to argue against this, for how could you prove that the supreme verdict belongs not to the poet himself, but to public opinion? Nor, for that matter, can we prove Poushkin right. We must agree or disagree, as we like. But we cannot reject the evidence. Whether you like it or not, Poushkin was evidently satisfied with his own work, and did not need his reader's sanction. Happy man! And it seems to me he owed his happiness exclusively to his inability to pass beyond certain limits. I doubt-if all poets would agree to repeat Poushkin's verse quoted above. I decidedly refuse to believe that Shakespeare, for instance, after finishing _Hamlet_ or _King Lear_ could have said to himself: "I, who judge my work more strictly than any other can judge, am satisfied." I do not think he can even have thought for a moment of the merits of his works, _Hamlet_ or _King Lear_. To Shakespeare, after Hamlet, the word "satisfied" must have lost all its meaning, and if he used it, it was only by force of habit, as we sometimes call to a dead person. His own works must have seemed to him imperfect, mean, pitiful, like the sob of a child or the moaning of a sick man. He gave them to the theatre, and most probably was surprised that they had any success. Perhaps he was glad that his tears were of some use, if only for amusing and instructing people. And probably in this sense the verdict of the crowd was dearer to him than his own verdict. He could not help accusing his own offspring--thank heaven, other people acquitted it. True, they acquitted it because they did not understand, or understood imperfectly, but this did not matter. "Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape a whipping?" asked Hamlet. Shakespeare knew that a strict tribunal would reject his works: for they contain so many terrible questions, and not one perfect answer. Could anyone be "satisfied" at that rate? Perhaps with _Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night_, or even _Richard III_.--but after _Hamlet_ a man may find rest only in his grave. To speak the whole truth, I doubt if Poushkin himself maintained the view we have quoted till the end of his days, or even if he spoke all he felt when he wrote the poem in 1830. Possibly he felt how little a poet can be satisfied with his work, but pride prevented his admitting it, and he tried to console himself with his superiority over the crowd. Which is undeniably a right thing to do. Insults--and Poushkin had to endure many--are answered with contempt; and woe to the poor wretch who feels impelled to justify his contempt by his own merits, according to the stern voice of conscience. Such niceness is dangerous and unnecessary. If a man would preserve his strength and his confidence he must give up magnanimity, he must learn to despise people, and even if he cannot