cations, and a consequent refusal on the part of the
individual to discover them. People of vivid imagination delight in
magnifying the difficulties of life by supposing themselves the centre
of much scheming, plotting, and cheap fiction. They cheerfully give
their time and their powers to the study of social diplomacy. It is
reserved for people intellectually very high or very low in the scale to
lead a really simple life. The average mind of the world is terribly
muddled on most points, and altogether beside itself as regards its
individual existence; for a union of much imagination, unbounded vanity,
and unfathomable ignorance can never take the place of an intellect,
while such a combination cannot fail to destroy the blessed _vis
inertiae_ of the primitive fool, who only sees what is visible, instead
of evolving the phantoms of an airy unreality from the bottomless abyss
of his own so-called consciousness. Fortunately for humanity, the
low-class unimaginative mind predominates in the world, as far as
numbers are concerned; and there are enough true intellects among men to
leaven the whole. The middle class of mind is a small class, congregated
together chiefly within the boundaries of a very amusing institution
calling itself "society." These people have scraped and varnished the
aforesaid composition of imagination, ignorance, and vanity, into a
certain conventional thing which they mendaciously term their
"intelligence," from a Latin verb _intelligo_, said to mean "I
understand." It is a poor thing, after all the varnishing. It is neither
hammer nor anvil; it cannot strike, and, if you strike it, dissolution
instantly takes place, after which the poor driveller is erroneously
said to have "lost his mind," and is removed to an asylum. It is curious
that the great majority of lunatics should be found in "society."
Society says that all men of genius are more or less mad; but it is a
notable fact that very few men of genius have ever been put in
madhouses, whereas the society that calls those men crazy is always
finding its way there. It takes but little to make a lunatic of poor
Lady Smith-Tompkins. Poor thing! you know she is so very "high-strung,"
such delicate sensibilities! She has an _idee fixe_--so very sad. Ah
yes! that is it. She never had an idea before, and now that she has one
she cannot get rid of it, and it will kill her in time.

Now people whose intellect is of a low class are not disturbed with
visi