child, for any creature that is
kept or led or driven. That perhaps for a tired invalid, for a
toiler worked to a rag. But able-bodied amusement! The arms of Mrs.
Skelmersdale were no worse than the solemn aimlessness of hunting, and
an evening of dalliance not an atom more reprehensible than an evening
of chatter. It was the waste of him that made the sin. His life in
London had been of a piece together. It was well that his intrigue had
set a light on it, put a point to it, given him this saving crisis of
the nerves. That, indeed, is the chief superiority of idle love-making
over other more prevalent forms of idleness and self-indulgence; it
does at least bear its proper label. It is reprehensible. It brings your
careless honour to the challenge of concealment and shabby evasions and
lies....

But in this pellucid air things took their proper proportions again.

And now what was he to do?

"Politics," he said aloud to the turf and the sky.

Is there any other work for an aristocratic man?... Science? One
could admit science in that larger sense that sweeps in History, or
Philosophy. Beyond that whatever work there is is work for which men
are paid. Art? Art is nothing aristocratic except when it is a means
of scientific or philosophical expression. Art that does not argue nor
demonstrate nor discover is merely the craftsman's impudence.

He pulled up at this and reflected for a time with some distinguished
instances in his mind. They were so distinguished, so dignified, they
took their various arts with so admirable a gravity that the soul of
this young man recoiled from the verdicts to which his reasoning drove
him. "It's not for me to judge them," he decided, "except in relation
to myself. For them there may be tremendous significances in Art. But
if these do not appear to me, then so far as I am concerned they do not
exist for me. They are not in my world. So far as they attempt to invade
me and control my attitudes or my outlook, or to judge me in any way,
there is no question of their impudence. Impudence is the word for it.
My world is real. I want to be really aristocratic, really brave, really
paying for the privilege of not being a driven worker. The things
the artist makes are like the things my private dream-artist makes,
relaxing, distracting. What can Art at its greatest be, pure Art that
is, but a more splendid, more permanent, transmissible reverie! The very
essence of what I am after is NOT to be