How many
living to-day compare in the public appreciation with those dead? None of
them, practically, none. And still do you or does any other sane person
fancy that human beings are degenerating every generation, that artistic
genius is decadent? It's preposterous, unthinkable! It merely points the
moral that history repeats itself. Some place, somewhere, the greatest
artist in the world is painting the greatest picture the world has ever
known--and this same world passes him by. It must be so, for human beings
advance with every generation inevitably. Some place, somewhere, the
biggest writer of all time is writing the biggest book--and his neighbors
smile because his clothes are rusty. This is the reward they get in
their own day and their own generation, when it would sweeten their
lives, make them worth living. The fellow who invents a mouse-trap or a
safety razor or devises a way of sticking two hogs where one was killed
before, inherits the earth, sees his name and fame heralded in every
periodical; while the other, the real man--God, it's unbelievable,
neither more nor less; and still it's true to the last detail. Again,
it's all civilization, the civilization we brag of; magnificent twentieth
century civilization!"

Still Randall said nothing, still waited.

Armstrong hesitated, drumming on the arm of his chair with his slender
fingers. But the lull was only temporary, the storm not past; the end was
not yet.

"I suppose," he forged on, "the work should be its own reward, its own
justification. At least would-be artists are told so repeatedly. Whenever
one rebels at the injustice the world is there with this sophistry, feeds
him with it as a nurse feeds pap to a crying child, until he's full and
temporarily comatose. But just suppose for an instant that the same
argument were used in any other field of endeavor. Suppose, for instance,
you told the prospector who'd spent years searching for and who'd
finally found a gold mine that his reward should be in the mere knowledge
of having found it, the feeling of elation that he had added to the sum
total of the world's wealth, and that he should relinquish it intact as a
public trust. Just preach this gospel, and how long would you escape the
mad-house? Or the architect who designs and superintends the construction
of a sky-scraper. Take him aside and argue with him that the artistic
satisfaction of having conceived that great pile of stone and steel
should repay