:
for neither drunkards nor Moslems can be careless about drink.

DEMAGOGUES AND MYSTAGOGUES

I once heard a man call this age the age of demagogues. Of this I can
only say, in the admirably sensible words of the angry coachman in
"Pickwick," that "that remark's political, or what is much the same, it
ain't true." So far from being the age of demagogues, this is really and
specially the age of mystagogues. So far from this being a time in which
things are praised because they are popular, the truth is that this is
the first time, perhaps, in the whole history of the world in which
things can be praised because they are unpopular. The demagogue succeeds
because he makes himself understood, even if he is not worth
understanding. But the mystagogue succeeds because he gets himself
misunderstood; although, as a rule, he is not even worth
misunderstanding. Gladstone was a demagogue: Disraeli a mystagogue. But
ours is specially the time when a man can advertise his wares not as a
universality, but as what the tradesmen call "a speciality." We all know
this, for instance, about modern art. Michelangelo and Whistler were
both fine artists; but one is obviously public, the other obviously
private, or, rather, not obvious at all. Michelangelo's frescoes are
doubtless finer than the popular judgment, but they are plainly meant to
strike the popular judgment. Whistler's pictures seem often meant to
escape the popular judgment; they even seem meant to escape the popular
admiration. They are elusive, fugitive; they fly even from praise.
Doubtless many artists in Michelangelo's day declared themselves to be
great artists, although they were unsuccessful. But they did not declare
themselves great artists because they were unsuccessful: that is the
peculiarity of our own time, which has a positive bias against the
populace.

Another case of the same kind of thing can be found in the latest
conceptions of humour. By the wholesome tradition of mankind, a joke was
a thing meant to amuse men; a joke which did not amuse them was a
failure, just as a fire which did not warm them was a failure. But we
have seen the process of secrecy and aristocracy introduced even into
jokes. If a joke falls flat, a small school of aesthetes only ask us to
notice the wild grace of its falling and its perfect flatness after its
fall. The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has
been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that th