We have all heard of this doctrine; and there is no doubt that it is very seductive. But to whom? It has been remarked before that the appeal of Nietzsche has often been to the last persons in the world you would have thought capable of responding to him; or, let us say, to the last persons that ought to respond to him—weak-willed, moral imbeciles, with not enough intelligence to be even efficient slaves. These, as Nietzsche discovered, were only too often the sort of person that was attracted by his muscular doctrine of the Will to Power. It is the case likewise with the doctrine of individuality. Among its disciples there are, of course, the few who understand it; but the majority of them are precisely the persons who prove by their devotion their personal need of it. Individuality is for these as much a cult as health is a cult among the sick; and it is to be observed that they also have to take a good deal of care of themselves. They must never associate with the mob, they must be careful what they eat in the way of æsthetics; they must pick and choose among people, places and things with all the delicacy of an eggshell among potsherds. Above all, they must keep their art pure. Neither Mr. Wyndham Lewis nor Mr. Ezra Pound belongs to this class of æsthetic valetudinarians. Both are robust persons with excellent digestions, and with a great deal of substantial common sense. Nevertheless, both of them, to my mind, pose as invalids, and simulate all the whimperings and fastidiousness of the _malades imaginaires_. Read Mr. Lewis’s letters, for example, in the issues of the _Little Review_ here under notice. The writer is obviously a very clever man, with a good experience and judgment of life, and possessed of a powerful style. But he has chosen to exhibit himself as a clever gymnast of words, with innumerable finnicking fancies against this or that lest he should be confused with the “mob.” And Mr. Pound is in much the same state. What is the need of it in their case, I ask? Unlike most of the other writers, neither Mr. Lewis nor Mr. Pound has any need to “cultivate” an individuality, or to surround it with walls and moats of poses. Neither has any need whatever to appear clever in order to be clever. On the contrary, both of them have need to do exactly the reverse—namely, to cut their too exuberant individuality down to the quick, and to reveal their cleverness by concealing it. Simplicity, as Oscar Wilde said—he, of course, only said it, he never really thought it—is the last refuge of complexity. And I put it to Mr. Lewis and Mr. Pound that with just a little more individuality, and with just a little more cleverness, their ambition will be to be indistinguishable from the mob, either by their individuality or their cleverness. They will not succeed in it. Individuality and cleverness, like murder, will out. The aim, however, of the wise possessor of either, is to conceal it in subtler and subtler forms of common sense and simplicity.