Here, however, the sentimental fallacy is shown to be the reverse side of the refusal to see what is, and to consist in the assertion of what is not. This is a logical corollary, since merely to disregard the unpleasant is a passive state until reinforced by the active process of manufacturing the desirable. Actually to manufacture the desirable is a constructive work, and the occupation of the enterprising idealist. The sentimentalist manufactures only in fancy, and, being a sentimentalist, does not know the difference. His imagination, that marvelous power of visualizing the absent or non-existent, is perverted by being turned inward and forced to rest content with its hollow fabrication, instead of being directed outward upon a plastic world waiting its formative touch. As the urge to an ideal of excellence is the most hopeful quality of human nature, so the satisfied repose on the fictitious supposition of such excellence is the most hopeless. Being, as Meredith adds, “a perfectly natural growth of a fat soil,” it lacks the stimulus of a rebuff that turns earth’s smoothness rough, and perceives no necessity for striving or daring. On this assertive side sentimentality is related to egoism. But the relation is difficult to express, for egoism is another complexity that baffles analysis. Self-respect and attention to one’s own affairs are basic and indispensable virtues; while conversely, altruism is often but egoism in disguise and of all things the most sentimental. We may conclude, however, that it is egoism pushed to its two extremes, vanity on the one side and selfishness on the other, that is the satirizible sort. It is to the vanity wing that sentimentality is more closely connected, as the assumption it makes is usually that of our own superiority in possession and attainment, our own sincerity of motive, and our own immunity from ordinary consequences. Such is the attitude of the sentimental egoists, of which Meredith gives us a full complement. The Countess de Saldar is abused by the exposure of her schemes, but resolute:[392] “Still to be sweet, still to smile and to amuse,--still to give her zealous attention to the business of the diplomatist’s Election, still to go through her church service devoutly, required heroism; she was equal to it, for she had remarkable courage; but it was hard to feel no longer at one with Providence.” Wilfred Pole, by Wilming Weir in the moonlight, vows his love for Emilia:[393] “Having said it, he was screwed up to feel it as nearly as possible, such virtue is there in uttered words.” Edward Blancove is visited by the facile compunction that attacks Arthur Donnithorne and others of the kind:[394] “He closed, as it were, a black volume, and opened a new and bright one. Young men easily fancy that they may do this, and that when the black volume is shut the tide is stopped. Saying ‘I was a fool,’ they believe they have put an end to the foolishness.”