For the highest service which a man can render to his kind is possible
only when he secures for himself the largest and noblest development; to
stop short of that development is to rob himself and society. Selfishness
does not lie in turning a deaf ear to present calls for work and help; it
lies in indifference to the ultimate call. Goethe was by no means a man of
symmetrical character, and there were reaches of spiritual life which he
never traversed; but the charge of selfishness urged against him because
he gave himself up completely to the work which he set out to do cannot be
sustained. The very noblest service which he could render to the world was
to hold himself apart from its multiform activities in order that he might
enrich every department of its thought. For life consists not only in the
doing of present duties, but in the unfolding of the relations of men to
the entire spiritual order of which they are part, and in the enrichment
of human experience by insight, interpretation, and the play of the
creative faculties. The artist finds his use in the enrichment of life,
and his place in the order of service is certainly not less assured and
noble than that of the man of action. Such a nature as Dante's does more
for men than a host of those who are doing near duties and performing the
daily work of the world. Let no man decry the spiritual greatness of these
obvious claims and tasks; but on the other hand, let not the man of
practical affairs and of what may be called the executive side of ethical
activity decry the artists, the thinkers, and the poets.

It is the duty of some men to leave reforms alone, and to give themselves
up to study, meditation, and the creative spirit and mood. Of men of
practical ability the world stands in little need; of men of spiritual
insight, imaginative force, and creative energy it stands in sore need.
When such a gift appears it ought to be sacredly guarded. It may be that
it has a work to do which demands absolute detachment from the ordinary
affairs of society. To assault it with the claims of the hour is to defeat