THOU SHALT NOT PREACH 137 



lover's infatuation for his mistress. Infatuation is 

 not permissible in literature. If art does not make 

 us free of the whole, it faUs of its purpose. Only 

 the religious bigot builds upon specific texts, and only 

 the one-sided, half-formed mind sees life through the 

 eyes of a single author. In the SBsthetic sphere one 

 may serve many masters ; he may give himself to 

 none. One of the latest and most mature percep- 

 tions that comes to us is the perception of relativity, 

 in art as well as in all other matters. 



With respect to this question, both readers and 

 writers may be divided into two classes, the inter- 

 ested and the disinterested, — those who are seeking 

 special and personal ends, and those who are seeking 

 general, universal ends. 



The poet is best pleased with the disinterested 

 readers and admirers of his work ; that is, with 

 those who take to it on the broadest human grounds, 

 and not upon grounds merely personal to them- 

 selves. Thus Longfellow will find a wider and 

 more disinterested audience than Whittier, because 

 his Muse is less in the service of special ideas ; he 

 looks at life less as a Quaker and a Puritan, and 

 more as a man. 



The special ideas of an age, its moral enthusiasms 

 and revolts, give place to other ideas and enthusi- 

 asms, which in their turn give place to others ; but 

 there are certain currents of thought and emotion 

 that are perennial, certain experiences common to 

 all men and peoples. Such a poem as Gray's Elegy, 

 for instance, is filled with the breadth of universal 



