But the artist’s misdemeanors get into print first. The news is published early and often. A beautiful young actress, or a rising young portrait-painter, a gifted composer, talented sculptor, rare poet, brilliant pianist, versatile writer--when one of these strays across the barrier into debatable territory, the watchmen on the moral towers lustily beat their warning gongs. It is prime matter for headlines. To the winds strong lungs bawl the naked facts. Depend upon it--no matter who escapes the public hue and cry, the artist is always found out and his peccadilloes proclaimed from pulpits or yawped over the roofs of the world. Why, you ask, should a devotee of æsthetic beauty ever allow his feet to lead him astray? Here comes in your much-vaunted, too-much-discussed artistic temperament--odious phrase! Hawked about the market-place, instead of reposing in the holy of holies, this temperament has become a byword and a stench in the nostrils. Every coney-catcher, prizefighter, or cocotte takes refuge behind “art.” It is become a name accursed. When the tripesellers of literature wish to rivet public attention upon their wares, they cry aloud: “Lo, the artistic temperament!” If an unfortunate woman is arrested she is usually described in the police-blotter as an “actress.” If a fellow and his wife tire of too much bliss, their “temperaments” are aired in the courts. Worse--“affinities” are dragged in. Decent folk shudder and your genuine artist does not boast of his “artistic temperament.” It has become gutter-slang. It is a synonym for rotten “nerves.”