Meanwhile, the sage
whose faith is in magnitude and ambition is, like a giant, becoming
larger and larger, which only means that the stars are becoming smaller
and smaller. World after world falls from him into insignificance; the
whole passionate and intricate life of common things becomes as lost to
him as is the life of the infusoria to a man without a microscope. He
rises always through desolate eternities. He may find new systems, and
forget them; he may discover fresh universes, and learn to despise them.
But the towering and tropical vision of things as they really are--the
gigantic daisies, the heaven-consuming dandelions, the great Odyssey of
strange-coloured oceans and strange-shaped trees, of dust like the wreck
of temples, and thistledown like the ruin of stars--all this colossal
vision shall perish with the last of the humble.
* * * * *
A DEFENCE OF SLANG
The aristocrats of the nineteenth century have destroyed entirely their
one solitary utility. It is their business to be flaunting and arrogant;
but they flaunt unobtrusively, and their attempts at arrogance are
depressing. Their chief duty hitherto has been the development of
variety, vivacity, and fulness of life; oligarchy was the world's first
experiment in liberty.
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