WHAT WE LOSE AND WHAT WE GAIN. 197 



pie. To-day, the author who has a clever idea 

 sells it. The very dependence upon gossip for 

 ideas betrays lack of reading. When for a few 

 cents we can buy the results of the best think- 

 ing of our best writers, why should we run 

 after the writers themselves? Of course I am 

 not talking about what men of high position in 

 the literary world or the social world may be 

 able to get out of the life of cities ; I am speak- 

 ing of what the poor man, hard driven to earn 

 the few thousand dollars a year needed to keep 



his children in bread and butter, will probably, 

 judging by my own experience and that of 

 some of my friends, be able to think of as a 

 possible loss in considering the advisability of 

 deserting the city for the country. 



I am not sure but that we enjoy the work of 

 some men all the better because we do not 

 know them personally. At a distance they are 

 heroes, more or less. I have heard some peo- 

 ple say that their enjoyment in the magic of 

 Richard Wagner's works would be unquestion- 

 ably deepened had they not had the misfortune 

 to meet the man himself a great genius 

 who was utterly indifferent to what people 

 thought of him, and utterly careless of the 



