What is to be said of those to whom, with all goodwill, one cannot apply
such terms, even in the sense given them by the feeble tongue of man?
What can one say of the ordinary, common, second-rate, third-rate
toilers--whatsoever they may be--statesmen, men of science,
artists--above all, artists? How conjure them to shake off their numb
indolence, their weary stupor, how draw them back to the field of
battle, if once the conception has stolen into their brains of the
nullity of everything human, of every sort of effort that sets before
itself a higher aim than the mere winning of bread? By what crowns can
they be lured for whom laurels and thorns alike are valueless? For what
end will they again face the laughter of 'the unfeeling crowd' or 'the
judgment of the fool'--of the old fool who cannot forgive them from
turning away from the old bogies--of the young fool who would force them
to kneel with him, to grovel with him before the new, lately discovered
idols? Why should they go back again into that jostling crowd of
phantoms, to that market-place where seller and buyer cheat each other
alike, where is noise and clamour, and all is paltry and worthless? Why
'with impotence in their bones' should they struggle back into that
world where the peoples, like peasant boys on a holiday, are tussling in
the mire for handfuls of empty nutshells, or gape in open-mouthed
adoration before sorry tinsel-decked pictures, into that world where
only that is living which has no right to live, and each, stifling self
with his own shouting, hurries feverishly to an unknown, uncomprehended
goal? No... no.... Enough... enough... enough!