In the mien of children there is sometimes to be noted a natural nobility and pride; they walk with the unconscious grace of conquerors. But this grace and freedom soon disappear, and when the child has become man there is nothing left of them: his bearing is as undistinguished as his neighbour's. Nowhere, now, is nobility of presence and movement to be found, except among children, the chieftains of half-barbarous peoples, and some animals. The farther man departs from the animal the less dignified he becomes, and the more his appearance conforms to a common level: indeed, civilization seems, on one side, to be a labourious attempt to arrive at the undistinguished and indistinguishable. Is Man, then, the mediocre animal par excellence? Only, perhaps, under an egalitarian régime. Wherever a hierarchy exists in Europe there is more of nobility of demeanour than elsewhere. Equality and humility are the great fosterers of the mediocre: and not only, alas! of the mediocre in demeanour. Who can tell how many proud, graceful and gallant thoughts and emotions have been killed by shame--the shame which the egalitarians and the humble have heaped upon them? And how much Art, therefore, has lost? Certainly, in the minds of children there are many brave, generous and noble thoughts which are never permitted to come to maturity. Ye must become as little children----. 120 _Immortality of the Artist_ An artist one day forgot Death, so entirely had he become Life's, rapt in a world of living contemplation; and, established there, he created a form. That hour was immortal, and, therefore, the form was immortal. This is the "timelessness" of true art-work; they are fashioned "in eternity," as Blake said, and so speak to the eternal in Man. 121 _The Descent of the Artist_ At the beginning of his journey he climbed daringly, leaping from rock to rock, exuberant, tireless, until he reached what he thought was his highest peak. Then began his descent, and, lo, immediately great weariness fell upon him. A friend of his wondered, Is he going downhill because he is tired? Or is he tired because he is going downhill? 122 _Apropos the Cynic_ He wrote with an assumption of extreme heartlessness, and the public said, "How tender his heart must be when he hides it under _such_ a disguise!" But what he was hiding all the time was his lack of heart. 123 _Artist and Philosopher_ In all ages the philosophers have _pardoned_ the artists their lack of depth, on account of their divine love of the beautiful. In our time, however, this only reason for pardoning them has disappeared, and they are now entirely deserving of condemnation. For the realists abjure equally thought--interpretation, and beauty--selection. To be an eye, with a fountain pen attached to it; that is their aim, successfully attained, alas! A single eye and not a single thought: the definition of the realist. 124 _An Evil_