It is easy to see how this arrogance comes. The genius is a genius by
the first look he casts on any object. Is his eye creative? Does he
not rest in angles and colors, but beholds the design--he will presently
undervalue the actual object. In powerful moments, his thought has
dissolved the works of art and nature into their causes, so that the
works appear heavy and faulty. He has a conception of beauty which the
sculptor cannot embody. Picture, statue, temple, railroad, steam-engine,
existed first in an artist's mind, without flaw, mistake, or friction,
which impair the executed models. So did the church, the state, college,
court, social circle, and all the institutions. It is not strange that
these men, remembering what they have seen and hoped of ideas, should
affirm disdainfully the superiority of ideas. Having at some time seen
that the happy soul will carry all the arts in power, they say, Why
cumber ourselves with superfluous realizations? and, like dreaming
beggars, they assume to speak and act as if these values were already
substantiated.

On the other part, the men of toil and trade and luxury,--the animal
world, including the animal in the philosopher and poet also,--and the
practical world, including the painful drudgeries which are never
excused to philosopher or poet any more than to the rest,--weigh heavily
on the other side. The trade in our streets believes in no metaphysical
causes, thinks nothing of the force which necessitated traders and a
trading planet to exist; no, but sticks to cotton, sugar, wool, and
salt. The ward meetings, on election days, are not softened by any
misgivings of the value of these ballotings. Hot life is streaming in
a single direction. To the men of this world, to the animal strength
and spirits, to the men of practical power, whilst immersed in it, the
man of ideas appears out of his reason. They alone have reason.