So, too, when it comes to what we call literature. No one supposes
that we can do without it, and in its essence it is but an
extension of happy, fine, vivid talk. It is but the delighted
perception of life, the ecstasy of taking a hand in the great
mystery, the joy of love and companionship, the worship of beauty
and desire and energy and memory taking shape in the most effective
form that man can devise. There is no real merit in the
accumulation of property; only the people who do the necessary work
of the world, and the people who increase the joy of the world are
worth a moment's thought, and yet both alike are little regarded.
Of course where the weakness of the artistic life really lies is
that it is often not taken up out of mere communicativeness and
happy excitement, as a child tells a breathless tale, but as a
device for attracting the notice and earning the applause of the
world; and then it is on a par with all other self-regarding
activities. But if it is taken up with a desire to give rather than
to receive, as an irrepressible sharing of delight, it becomes not
a solemn and dignified affair, but just one of the most beautiful
and uncalculating impulses in the world.
Then there falls another shadow across the path; the unhappiest
natures I know are the natures of keen emotion and swift perception
who yet have not the gift of expressing what they feel in any
artistic medium.
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