Why is that so? Was it society that has shown the way to all great discoveries? No; it has always delayed them, has always put brakes on them.
Has society, in its collective form, ever evoked any of the great manifestations of art or literature? No; society was always eager to worry, to persecute men of talent, though it erects monuments to them after their death.
How did society come to display such arrogance and presumption? It was tempted that way only by the unchristian conviction that “the aim justifies the means.”
Can there be anything more exasperating than the conversation we hear sometimes—
“No; we did not happen to go there this year, but last year we were there more than once.”
There is irony here as well as truth, for in the majority of cases, you will find in the _Salon_ the same number of pictures nearly of the same quality, treating on nearly the same subjects, and, most assuredly, painted nearly in the same style.
“Just imagine, could not possibly get to see it yet, had to go to the country; but then to-morrow we go to the _Comédie Française_ to see that new thing of Dumas’. They say both plays are very much alike in conception, as well as in plot.” And this is perfectly true; they are doubtlessly more or less alike.
Whose fault is this, then, if not the authors’?
Ask the playwrights, whether they would dare to represent the action in such a way as it has been suggested to them by real life, with its logical conclusion, made unavoidable by the march of events, omitting, for once, the long-established, hackneyed, conventional termination?
“No,” the authors would tell you, “such a thing is not to be thought of,” and they will be in the right. Society, weighed down by cant, will not go to see such a play, however interesting it may be; so the author has to humour the public if he does not want to bring ruin on his manager and on himself.
The same is the case with artists, sculptors, even composers. How many favourites of the Muses have been driven into early graves by the animosity of the public against all new construction of poetical as well as musical ideas?
On one side we hear complaints of the dulness, the monotony, even the triviality, prevailing in art; people clamour for something inspired, something original; on the other hand, the same public arbitrarily chastises you for all that fails to come within the range of established, conventional ideas!