view to an end. Throw the room open
to apes. They will climb on the benches, swing from the cords, rig
themselves in draperies, coif themselves with slippers, juggle with
brushes, nibble the colors, and pierce the canvases to see what is
behind the paint. I don't question their enjoyment; certainly they must
find this kind of exercise extremely interesting. But an atelier is not
made to let monkeys loose in. No more is thought a ground for acrobatic
evolutions. A man worthy of the name, thinks as he is, as his tastes
are: he goes about it with his whole heart, and not with that fitful and
sterile curiosity which, under pretext of observing and noting
everything, runs the risk of never experiencing a deep and true emotion
or accomplishing a right deed.

Another habit in urgent need of correction, ordinary attendant on
conventional life, is the mania for examining and analyzing one's self
at every turn. I do not invite men to neglect introspection and the
examination of conscience. The endeavor to understand one's own mental
attitudes and motives of conduct is an essential element of good living.
But quite other is this extreme vigilance, this incessant observation of
one's life and thoughts, this dissecting of one's self, like a piece of
mechanism. It is a waste of time, and goes wide of the mark. The man
who, to prepare himself the better for walking, should begin by making a
rigid anatomical examination of his means of locomotion, would risk
dislocating something before he had taken a step. You have what you need
to walk with, then forward! Take care not to fall, and use your forces
with discretion. Potterers and scruple-mongers are soon reduced to
inaction. It needs but a glimmer of common sense to perceive that man is
not made to pass his life in a self-centered trance.

And common sense--do you not find what is designated by this name
becoming as rare as the common-sense customs of other days? Common sense
has become an old story. We must have something new--and we create a
factitious existence, a refinement of living, that the vulgar crowd has
not the wherewithal to procure. It is so agreeable to be distinguished!
Instead of conducting ourselves like rational beings, and using the
means most obviously at our command, we arrive, by dint of absolute
genius, at the most astonishing singularities. Better off the track than
on the main line! All the bodily defects and deformities that orthopedy
treats, give but a feeb