It was for offenses such as this that Plato drove the artists out of his Republic. They were liars and pretenders, the whole tribe, and destroyed men’s respect for truth. But as a matter of fact, this kind of idealizing of rulers and fighting men may be entirely sincere. The artist is more sensitive than his fellowmen--that is what makes him an artist; he shrinks from pain and violence, and feels a real awe for authority. He thinks his sovereign is bigger in spirit; and so, in making him bigger in body, the artist is acting as a seer and philosopher, bringing out an inner truth. Such is the clue to the greater part of our present-day art standards; snobbery and subservience, timidity and worship of tradition, also bragging and strutting and beating of tom-toms. Every little tea-party poet and semi-invalid cherishes a strong and cruel dream--Nietzsche with his Blond Beast, and Carlyle with his Hero-worship, and Henley with his Song of the Sword, and Kipling with his God of our Fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle-line. CHAPTER IV THE LABORER AND HIS HIRE Little by little we now begin to note the outlines of Ogi’s art code. Two negative propositions we may consider as clear: Ogi does not paint the thing as it really is; and he does not paint the thing as he sees it. The former he could not do, for he does not know what the thing really is; and the second he would consider bad manners, bad morals and bad taste. Ogi paints the thing as he thinks it ought to be; or, more commonly, he paints the thing as he thinks other people ought to think it to be. And now comes the question: Why, having chosen his subject, does Ogi idealize it according to one idea, and not according to another? Are such decisions matters of accident or whim? Assuredly not; for human psychology has its laws, which we can learn to understand. We ask: What are the laws of Ogi, his hand and his eye and his brain? What forces determine that he shall present his “reality” in this way and not in that? The first thing to say is: Don’t ask Ogi about it, for he cannot tell you. Ogi is not at all what he thinks he is, and does not produce his works of art from the motives he publishes to the world. We shall find that the fellow has been almost too shrewd--he has contrived a set of pretenses so clever that he has fooled, not merely his public, but himself. He who would produce a great work of art, said Milton, must first make a work of art of his own life. Ogi has taken this maxim literally, and got out a fancy line of trade-lies.