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You must yield, Mr. Denis, to this
stranger who seems to know so much about you. When you have done so,
you will make a surprising discovery. You have gained a friend--one of
those who never change."
"I am trying to," replied Denis. "But it is difficult. We are not
brought up that way, nowadays."
"No. Men have lost their frankness, their self-assurance. Whoever
yields, must be confident of his own strength. Our contemporaries have
lost that feeling. They dare not be themselves. They eke out lack of
sincerity by profusion of commonplace. Unlike the heroes of Homer, they
repress their fears--they repress everything, save their irrepressible
flatulence of mind. They are expansive in unimportant matters and at
wrong moments--blown about in a whirl of fatuous extremes. The
impersonal note has vanished. Why has it gone, Mr. Denis?" he suddenly
asked. "And when did it go?"
The other was rather puzzled what to reply.
"I suppose you could trace its disappearance to the days of which you
spoke, when artists began to display their moods to the world.


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