that ghastly type; it is more absurd even than the figure which
is really of the world, which was born and bred in it, and
conceives of nothing outside of it, or above it. In the social
world, as well as in the business world, the artist is anomalous,
in the actual conditions, and he is perhaps a little ridiculous.

Yet he has to be somewhere, poor fellow, and I think that he will
do well to regard himself as in a transition state. He is really
of the masses, but they do not know it, and what is worse, they
do not know him; as yet the common people do not hear him gladly
or hear him at all. He is apparently of the classes; they know
him, and they listen to him; he often amuses them very much; but
he is not quite at ease among them; whether they know it or not,
he knows that he is not of their kind. Perhaps he will never be
at home anywhere in the world as long as there are masses whom he
ought to consort with, and classes whom he cannot consort with.
The prospect is not brilliant for any artist now living, but
perhaps the artist of the future will see in the flesh the
accomplishment of that human equality of which the instinct has
been divinely planted in the human soul.