ad use of a good book than that the life-blood of an
immortal spirit, embalmed in any beautiful work of art, should be
wasted upon the dust and never reach the verdict of posterity.

What are they doing here, these difficult young persons and their
still more difficult guardians? This--this sacred Elysian garden of the
great humanistic tradition of classic wisdom and classic art--must
not be invaded by clamorous babes and agitated elders, must not be
profaned either by the plaudits or the strictures of the unlettered mob.
Somewhere in human life, and where should it be if not in the
cloistered seclusion of noble literature?--there must be an escape
from the importunities of such people and from the responsibilities
of the ignorance they so jealously guard.

In the days when men wrote for men--and for women of the calibre
of Aspasia or Margaret of Navarre--this problem did not emerge. It
was not wise perhaps at Athens to abuse Cleon, though--heaven
knows--that was often enough done; nor in Rome to satirise Caesar,
though that too was now and again most prosperously achieved! It
was dangerous in the time of Rabelais to throw doubt on the
authority of the church. But this new tyranny, this new oppression of
letters, this unfortunate cult of the susceptible "young person," is far
more deadly to the interests of civilisation than any interference by
church or state. There was always to be found some wise and
classic-minded cardinal to whom one could appeal, some dilettante
Maecenas to whom one might dedicate one's work.

But now the flood-gates are open; the dam is up; and the great tide
of unmitigated philistinism, hounded on by dreadful protectors of
dreadful "young persons," invades the very citadel of civilisation
itself, and pours its terrible "pure" scum and its popular sentimental
mud over the altars of the defenceless immortals. No one asks that
these tyrannical young people and their anxious guardians should
read the classics or should read the works of such far-descended
inheritors of the classical tradition who, like Remy de Gourmont,
seek to keep the sacred fire alight. Let them hold their hands off! Let
them go back to their schools and their presbyteries.

Democracy may be a great improvement upon the past, just as
modern religion may be an improvement upon ancient religion. But
one thing democracy must not be allowed to do; it must not be
allowed to substitute the rule of a puritanical middle-class, led by