and of modern culture does occasionally provoke and excuse plain speaking, there is no need of a too merciless exposure, a too insulting refutation of these agreeable fallacies. If we think ourselves well off, we are well off. If, dancing in chains, we believe ourselves free, we are free, and he is not our benefactor who weighs our shackles. Reformers have unswervingly and unpityingly decreased the world's content that they might better the world's condition. The first part of their task is quickly done. The second halts betimes. Count Tolstoi has, with the noblest intentions, made many a light step heavy, and many a gay heart sad.
As for poets and novelists, their sin is unprovoked and unpardonable. Story-telling is not a painful duty. It is an art which, in its best development, adds immeasurably to the conscious pleasure of life. It is an anodyne in hours of suffering, a rest in hours of weariness, and a stimulus in hours of health and joyous activity. It can be made a vehicle for imparting instruction, for destroying illusions, and for dampening high spirits; but these results, though well thought of in our day, are not
