mind, the echo of his own thought; and next in order
will come the work of people like him; that is to say, a dull, shallow
and perverse man, a dealer in mere words, will give his sincere and
hearty applause only to that which is dull, shallow, perverse or
merely verbose. On the other hand, he will allow merit to the work of
great minds only on the score of authority, in other words, because
he is ashamed to speak his opinion; for in reality they give him no
pleasure at all. They do not appeal to him; nay, they repel him; and
he will not confess this even to himself. The works of genius cannot
be fully enjoyed except by those who are themselves of the privileged
order. The first recognition of them, however, when they exist without
authority to support them, demands considerable superiority of mind.

When the reader takes all this into consideration, he should be
surprised, not that great work is so late in winning reputation, but
that it wins it at all. And as a matter of fact, fame comes only by a
slow and complex process. The stupid person is by degrees forced, and
as it were, tamed, into recognizing the superiority of one who stands
immediately above him; this one in his turn bows before some one else;
and so it goes on until the weight of the votes gradually prevail over
their number; and this is just the condition of all genuine, in other
words, deserved fame. But until then, the greatest genius, even after
he has passed his time of trial, stands like a king amidst a crowd of
his own subjects, who do not know him by sight and therefore will not
do his behests; unless, indeed, his chief ministers of state are in
his train. For no subordinate official can be the direct recipient of
the royal commands, as he knows only the signature of his immediate
superior; and this is repeated all the way up into the highest ranks,
where the under-secretary attests the minister's signature, and the
minister that of the king. There are analogous stages to be passed
before a genius can attain widespread fame. This is why his reputation
most easily comes to a standstill at the very outset; because the
highest authorities, of whom there can be but few, are most frequently
not to be found; but the further down he goes in the scale the more
numerous are those who take the word from above, so that his fame is
no more arrested.

We must console ourselves for this state of things by reflecting that
it is really fortunate that the greater