Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/296

 *ture who would fain attempt to prove a man's work is not his own! There are sure to be some envious fools always ready to believe that the great are not so great,—the heroic not so heroic, and that after all, they, the fools, may be wiser than the wisest men!

In very truth, one of the worst signs of the vanishing of the gift of Imagination in these days is the utter inability of the majority of modern folk to understand its value. The creative ease and exquisite happiness of an imaginative soul which builds up grand ideals of life and love and immortality with less effort than is required for the act of breathing, seems to be quite beyond their comprehension. And so—unfortunately it often follows that what is above them they try to pull down,—and what is too large for them to grasp, they endeavour to bind within their own narrow ring of experience. The attempt is of course useless. We cannot get the planet Venus to serve us as a lamp on our dinner table. We cannot fit the eagle into a sparrow's nest. But some people are always trying to do this sort of thing. And when they find they cannot succeed, they fall into a fit of the spleen, and revile what they cannot emulate. There is no surer sign of mental and moral decadence than this grudging envy of a great fame. For the healthy mind rejoices in the recognition of genius wherever or whenever it may be discovered, and has a keen sense of personal delight in giving to merit all its due. Hero-worship is a much finer and more invigorating emotion than hero-slander. The insatiate desire which is shown by certain writers nowadays, to pull down the great reputations of the