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 artistic souls are forcing their growth in a hothouse of theories and producing monstrous crimson flowers that get into horticultural exhibitions, the world doesn't really depend on them for its agricultural progress. Hardy perennials go their own sturdy way. It's at least debatable whether even the great artists lead civilization in the way it must go. Very likely they are merely on the edge of the procession, like the clowns that caper about the sidelines of the circus, affording diverting and perspective-giving contrast to the grave and solid elephants and lions. Artists are useful, in that their subconscious is more sensitively attuned, more articulately responsive to the current which animates them, as it animates all humanity. They are the flecks of foam on the crests of the wave of civilization; by watching the lacey white patches you can determine the direction of the winds. It is naive to assume that the foam leads the wave."

As he reread the letter, he hoped that Geoffrey wouldn't take him too literally. For, he reflected, I'm not so hardy, however damn perennial I may be,—nor yet am I grave and solid. If I'm not exactly an artist, perhaps I'm by way of being a philosopher; you can be that, and be conservative and aristocratic.

"What I'm driving at," he added in a postscript, "is that I'm going back to get a job."

The idea hadn't even occurred to him until he hastily scribbled down the fact, then he recognized it as an inspiration.