"Ignorant in some ways, yes!" agreed Sah-luma--"But in many others, no! They may be ignorant as to WHY they admire a certain thing, yet they admire it all the same, because their natural instinct leads them so to do. And this is the special gift which endows the uncultured masses with an occasional sweeping advantage over the cultured few,--the superiority of their INSTINCT. As in cases of political revolution for example,--while the finely educated orator is endeavoring by all the force of artful rhetoric to prove that all is in order and as it should be, the mob, moved by one tremendous impulse, discover for themselves that everything is wrong, and moreover that nothing will come right, unless they rise up and take authority, . . accordingly, down go the thrones and the colleges, the palaces, the temples, and the law-assemblies, all like so many toys before the resistless instinct of the people, who revolt at injustice, and who feel and know when they are injured, though they are not clever enough to explain WHERE their injury lies. And so, as they cannot talk about it coherently, any more than a lion struck by an arrow can give a learned dissertation on his wound, they act, . . and the heat and fury of their action upheaves dynasties! Again,--reverting to the question of taste and literature,--the mob, untaught and untrained in the subtilties of art, will applaud to the echo certain grand and convincing home-truths set forth in the plays of the divine Hyspiros,--simply because they instinctively FEEL them to be truths, no matter how far they themselves may be from acting up to the standard of morality therein contained. The more highly cultured will hear the same passages unmoved, because they, in the excess of artificially gained wisdom, have deadened their instincts so far, that while they listen to a truth pronounced, they already consider how best they can confute it, and prove the same a lie! Honest enthusiasm is impossible to the over-punctilious and pedantic scholar,--but on the other hand, I would have it plainly understood that a mere brief local popularity is not Fame, . . No! for the author who wins the first never secures the last. What I mean is, that a book or poem to be great, and keep its greatness hereafter, must be judged worthy by the natural instinct of PEOPLES. Their decision, I own, may be tardy,--their hesitation may be prolonged through a hundred or more years,--but their acceptance, whether it be declared in the author's life-time or ages after his death, must be considered final. I would add, moreover, that this world-wide decision has never yet been, and never will be, hastened by any amount of written criticism,--it is the responsive beat of the enormous Pulse of Life that thrills through all mankind, high and low, gentle and simple,--its great throbs are slow and solemnly measured,--yet if once it answers to a Poet's touch, that Poet's name is made glorious forever!"