The Deepest Quality Of A Work Of

Life Is, In Fact, A Battle. Evil Is Insolent And Strong; Beauty Enchanting, But Rare; Goodness Very Apt To Be Weak; Folly Very Apt To Be Defiant; Wickedness To Carry The Day; Imbeciles To Be In Great Places, People Of Sense In Small, And Mankind Generally Unhappy. But The World As It Stands Is No Narrow Illusion, No Phantasm, No Evil Dream Of The Night; We Wake Up To It, Forever And Ever; And We Can Neither Forget It Nor Deny It Nor Dispense With It.

There Are Moods In Which One Feels The Impulse To Enter A Tacit Protest Against Too Gross An Appetite For Pure Aesthetics In This Starving And Sinning World. One Turns Half Away, Musingly, From Certain Beautiful Useless Things.

Nothing, Of Course, Will Ever Take The Place Of The Good Old Fashion Of 'liking' A Work Of Art Or Not Liking It; The More Improved Criticism Will Not Abolish That Primitive, That Ultimate, Test.

To Read Between The Lines Was Easier Than To Follow The Text.

Little By Little, Even With Other Cares, The Slowly But Surely Working Poison Of The Garden-mania Begins To Stir In My Long-sluggish Veins.