he cold sea of the general
national life. Let him mingle with the public, for God's sake! No
phenomenon on this wretched planet, which after all is ours, is meet for
the artist's shrinking scorn. And the average man, as to whom the
artist's ignorance is often astounding, must for ever constitute the
main part of the material in which he works.

Above all, let not the creative artist suppose that the antidote to the
circle of dilettantism is the circle of social reform. It is not. I
referred in the first chapter to the prevalent illusion that the
republic has just now arrived at a crisis, and that if something is not
immediately done disaster will soon be upon us. This is the illusion to
which the circle of social reforms is naturally prone, and it is an
illusion against which the common sense of the creative artist must
mightily protest. The world is, without doubt, a very bad world; but it
is also a very good world. The function of the artist is certainly
concerned more with what is than with what ought to be. When all
necessary reform has been accomplished our perfected planet will be
stone-cold. Until then the artist's affair is to keep his balance amid
warring points of view, and in the main to record and enjoy what is....
But is not the Minimum Wage Bill urgent? But when the minimum wage is as
trite as the jury-system, the urgency of reform will still be tempting
the artist too far out of his true path. And the artist who yields is
lost.

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