We owe past generations not only for the master discoveries of music,
science, literature and art—few of which brought profit to those to whom
they were revealed—but also for our organism itself which is an
inheritance gathered and garnered by those who have gone before us. What
money have we paid not for Handel and Shakespeare only but for our eyes
and ears?
And so with regard to our contemporaries. A man is sometimes tempted to
exclaim that he does not fare well at the hands of his own generation;
that, although he may play pretty assiduously, he is received with more
hisses than applause; that the public is hard to please, slow to praise,
and bent on driving as hard a bargain as it can. This, however, is only
what he should expect. No sensible man will suppose himself to be of so
much importance that his contemporaries should be at much pains to get at
the truth concerning him. As for my own position, if I say the things I
want to say without troubling myself about the public, why should I
grumble at the public for not troubling about me? Besides, not being
paid myself, I can in better conscience use the works of others, as I
daily do, without paying for them and without being at the trouble of
praising or thanking them more than I have a mind to. And, after all,
how can I say I am not paid? In addition to all that I inherit from past
generations I receive from my own everything that makes life worth
living—London, with its infinite sources of pleasure and amusement, good
theatres, concerts, picture galleries, the British Museum Reading-Room,
newspapers, a comfortable dwelling, railways and, above all, the society
of the friends I value.