Indeed one need only imagine to oneself what the state of mind of such a man of the people must be when he learns, from such rumours and newspapers as reach him, that the clergy, the Government officials, and all the best people in Russia are triumphantly unveiling a statue to a great man, the benefactor, the pride of Russia—Pushkin, of whom till then he had never heard. From all sides he reads or hears about this, and he naturally supposes that if such honours are rendered to anyone, then without doubt he must have done something extraordinary—either some feat of strength or of goodness. He tries to learn who Pushkin was, and having discovered that Pushkin was neither a hero nor a general, but was a private person and a writer, he comes to the conclusion that Pushkin must have been a holy man and a teacher of goodness, and he hastens to read or to hear his life and works. But what must be his perplexity when he learns that Pushkin was a man of more than easy morals, who was killed in a duel, _i.e._ when attempting to murder another man, and that all his service consisted in writing verses about love, which were often very indecent. That a hero, or Alexander the Great, or Genghis Khan, or Napoleon were great, he understands, because any one of them could have crushed him and a thousand like him; that Buddha, Socrates, and Christ were great he also understands, for he knows and feels that he and all men should be such as they were; but why a man should be great because he wrote verses about the love of women he cannot make out. A similar perplexity must trouble the brain of a Breton or Norman peasant who hears that a monument, “_une statue_” (as to the Madonna), is being erected to Baudelaire, and reads, or is told, what the contents of his _Fleurs du Mal_ are; or, more amazing still, to Verlaine, when he learns the story of that man’s wretched, vicious life, and reads his verses. And what confusion it must cause in the brains of peasants when they learn that some Patti or Taglioni is paid £10,000 for a season, or that a painter gets as much for a picture, or that authors of novels describing love-scenes have received even more than that. And it is the same with children. I remember how I passed through this stage of amazement and stupefaction, and only reconciled myself to this exaltation of artists to the level of heroes and saints by lowering in my own estimation the importance of moral excellence, and by attributing a false, unnatural meaning to works of art. And a similar confusion must occur in the soul of each child and each man of the people when he learns of the strange honours and rewards that are lavished on artists. This is the third consequence of the false relation in which our society stands towards art.