a church, the morality of man, in my judgment, would
be the gainer.

_Question_. What do you think of the treatment of the actor by
society in his social relations?

_Answer_. For a good many years the basis of society has been the
dollar. Only a few years ago all literary men were ostracized
because they had no money; neither did they have a reading public.
If any man produced a book he had to find a patron--some titled
donkey, some lauded lubber, in whose honor he could print a few
well-turned lies on the fly-leaf. If you wish to know the degradation
of literature, read the dedication written by Lord Bacon to James
I., in which he puts him beyond all kings, living and dead--beyond
Caesar and Marcus Aurelius. In those days the literary man was a
servant, a hack. He lived in Grub Street. He was only one degree
above the sturdy vagrant and the escaped convict. Why was this?
He had no money and he lived in an age when money was the fountain
of respectability. Let me give you another instance: Mozart,
whose brain was a fountain of melody, was forced to eat at table
with coachmen, with footmen and scullions. He was simply a servant
who was commanded to make music for a pudding-headed bishop. The
same was true of the great painters, and of almost all other men
who rendered the world beautiful by art, and who enriched the
languages of mankind. The basis of respectability was the dollar.

Now that the literary man has an intelligent public he cares nothing
for the ignorant patron. The literary man makes money. The world
is becoming civilized and the literary man stands high. In England,
however, if Charles Darwin had been invited to dinner, and there
had been present some sprig of nobility, some titled vessel holding
the germs of hereditary disease, Darwin would have been compelled
to occupy a place beneath him. But I have hopes even for England.
The same is true of the artist. The man who can now paint a picture
by which he receives from five thousand to fifty thousand dollars,
is necessarily respectable. The actor who may realize from one to
two thousand dollars a night, or even more, is welcomed in the
stupidest and richest society. So with the singers and with all
others who instruct and amuse mankind. Many people imagine that
he who amuses them must be lower than they. This, however, is
hardly possible. I believe in the aristocracy of the brain and
heart; in the aristocracy of intelligence and