The words were heard issuing from the lips of a single man;
every opinion, every law of conduct, must have been at first formulated
through the lips of some one man. And to this day, in spite of the
wilderness of tradition and authority by which we are overgrown, the
voice of the one man is still our only living source of inspiration and
help. Every new thought must pass through the brain, every moral ideal
through the conscience, of an individual. Voices, voices, we want--not
echoes. Better the mistaken voice of honest individuality than the
soulless bleat of the flock. There are too many of Kipling's Tomlinsons
in the world, whose consciences are wholly compact of _on dits_, on whom
the devil himself, sinned they never so sadly, would refuse to waste his
good pit-coal. "Bad taste"--that opprobrious phrase which, worse than the
accusation of a crime, cannot be refuted, for it is the king of the
question-beggars,--"bad taste" is responsible for half the reticence that
marks current writing, for the failure to prick the bladders of every
species that bloat themselves all around us. "Good taste" is the
staunchest ally of hypocrisy, and corruption is the obverse side of
civilisation. I do not believe in these general truths that rule the
market.
Pages:
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45