Hence it is that a work of pure art is a complete product in a sense that no other production of a man’s mind is; or, as Ruskin says, “It is the work of the whole spirit of man,” and faithfully reflects that spirit. The intellect may write the sermon, or the essay, or the criticism, but the character, the entire life and personality are implicated in a creative work. Disinterestedness means no more in art, in letters, than it means in life. In our kind deeds, our acts of charity, in love, in virtue, we act from disinterested motives. We have no ulterior purpose. These things are their own reward. A noble life is disinterested; it bestows benefits without thought of self. But it is not indifferent. Indifference is personal,--it is a state in which one personal motive cancels another; whereas disinterestedness is impersonal,--it is the complete effacement of self. It is a high, heroic moral state, while indifference is a lax or negative state. We are disinterested when we rescue a child from drowning or stop a runaway horse, but we are not indifferent. A novelist is disinterested when he has no motives but those inherent in his story, no purpose but to hold the mirror up to nature. He is interested and departs from his high calling when he seeks to enforce a particular moral, or to indoctrinate his reader with a particular set of ideas. And yet if he betrays indifference as to the issues of right and wrong, that is a vice; it is contrary to the self-effacement which art demands. To obtrude your indifference is of the same order of faults as to obtrude your preferences. The innate necessities of the situation may alone speak.