e speak. Jove hangs them upon necks that could soar
above his heights but for the accursed weight." (Vol. I., p. 291.) It
may be said that Meredith was forced to write potboilers. He was no more
forced to write potboilers than any other author. Sooner than wallow in
that shame, he might have earned money in more difficult ways. Or he
might have indulged in that starvation so heartily prescribed for
authors by a plutocratic noble who occasionally deigns to employ the
English tongue in prose. Meredith subdued his muse, and Meredith wrote
potboilers, because he was a first-class artist and a man of profound
common sense. Being extremely creative, he had to arrive somehow, and he
remembered that the earth is the earth, and the world the world, and men
men, and he arrived as best he could. The great majority of his peers
have acted similarly.

The truth is that an artist who demands appreciation from the public on
his own terms, and on none but his own terms, is either a god or a
conceited and impractical fool. And he is somewhat more likely to be the
latter than the former. He wants too much. There are two sides to every
bargain, including the artistic. The most fertile and the most powerful
artists are the readiest to recognise this, because their sense of
proportion, which is the sense of order, is well developed. The lack of
the sense of proportion is the mark of the _petit maitre_. The sagacious
artist, while respecting himself, will respect the idiosyncrasies of his
public. To do both simultaneously is quite possible. In particular, the
sagacious artist will respect basic national prejudices. For example, no
first-class English novelist or dramatist would dream of allowing to his
pen the freedom in treating sexual phenomena which Continental writers
enjoy as a matter of course. The British public is admittedly wrong on
this important point--hypocritical, illogical and absurd. But what would
you? You cannot defy it; you literally cannot. If you tried, you would
not even get as far as print, to say nothing of library counters. You
can only get round it by ingenuity and guile. You can only go a very
little further than is quite safe. You can only do one man's modest
share in the education of the public.

In Valery Larbaud's latest novel, _A.O. Barnabooth,_ occurs a phrase of
deep wisdom about women: "_La femme est une grande realite, comme la
guerre_." It might be applied to the public. The public is a great
actuality, l