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Not a questioning public, I mean; a prying public--"
"A cannibalistic public," said the Count, quietly. "Men cannot live, it
seems, save by feeding on their neighbour's life-blood. They prey on
each other's nerve-tissues and personal sensations. Everything must be
shared. It gives them a feeling of solidarity, I suppose, in a world
where they have lost the courage to stand alone. Woe to him who dwells
apart! Great things are no longer contemplated with reverence. They are
hauled down from their pedestals in order to be rendered accessible to
a generation of pigmies; their dignity is soiled by vulgar contact.
This lust of handling--what is its ordinary name? Democracy. It has
abraded the edge of that keen anthropocentric outlook of the Greeks
which exalted whatever was distinctively human. Men have learnt to see
beauty here, there, and everywhere--a little beauty, mark you, not much!
They fail to realize that in widening their capacity of appreciation
they dilute its intensity. They have watered their wine.


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