ure in a wholesome row; he thinks the whole thing vulgar--and I
believe he is probably right; but I can't live on his level, though I am
sure it is very fine and all that."

"But what do you really think of his work?" I said. "It is very
promising, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Musgrave reflectively, "that is just what it is--he has got
a really fine literary gift; but he is too uncompromising. Idealism in
art is a deuced fine thing, and every now and then there comes a man
who can keep it up, and can afford to do so. But what Herries does
not understand is that there are two sides to art--the theory and the
practice. It is just the same with a lot of things--education, for
instance, and religion. But the danger is that the theorists become
pedantic. They get entirely absorbed in questions of form, and the plain
truth is that however good your form is, you have got to get hold of
your matter too. The point after all is the application of art to life,
and you have got to condescend. Things of which the ultimate end is to
affect human beings must take human beings into account. If you aim at
appealing only to other craftsmen, it becomes an erudite business: you
become like a carpenter who makes things which are of no use except to
win the admiration of other carpenters. Of course it may be worth doing
if you are content with indicating a treatment which other people can
apply and popularise. But if you isolate art into a theory which has no
application to life, you are a savant and not an artist. You can't be
an artist without being a man, and therefore I hold that humanity comes
first. I don't mean that one need be vulgar. Of course I am a mere
professional, and my primary aim is to earn an honest livelihood.
I frankly confess that I don't pose, even to myself, as a public
benefactor. But Herries does not care either about an income, or about
touching other people. Of course I should like to raise the standard.
I should like to see ordinary people capable of perceiving what is good
art, and not so wholly at the mercy of conventional and melodramatic
art. But Herries does not care twopence about that. He is like the
Calvinist who is sure of his own salvation, has his doubts about the
minister, and thinks every one else irreparably damned. As I say, it is
a lofty sort of ideal, but it is not a good sign when that sort of thing
begins. The best art of the world--let us say Homer, Virgil, Dante,
Shakespeare--was contributed by pe