of the cynic. I believe with all my soul in romance: that is, in a
certain high-hearted, eager dealing with life. I think that one
ought to expect to find things beautiful and people interesting,
not to take delight in detecting meannesses and failures. And there
is yet another class of temperament for which I have a deep
detestation. I mean the assured, the positive, the Pharisaical
temper, that believes itself to be impregnably in the right and its
opponents indubitably in the wrong; the people who deal in axioms
and certainties, who think that compromise is weak and originality
vulgar. I detest authority in every form; I am a sincere
republican. In literature, in art, in life, I think that the only
conclusions worth coming to are one's own conclusions. If they
march with the verdict of the connoisseurs, so much the better for
the connoisseurs; if they do not so march, so much the better for
oneself. Every one cannot admire and love everything; but let a man
look at things fairly and without prejudice, and make his own
selection, holding to it firmly, but not endeavouring to impose his
taste upon others; defending, if needs be, his preferences, but
making no claim to authority.

The time of my life that I consider to have been wasted, from the
intellectual point of view, was the time when I tried, in a spirit
of dumb loyalty, to admire all the things that were said to be
admirable. Better spent was the time when I was finding out that
much that had received the stamp of the world's approval was not to
be approved, at least by me; best of all was the time when I was
learning to appraise the value of things to myself, and learning to
love them for their own sake and mine.

Respect of a deferential and constitutional type is out of place in