And yet--and yet--we are assured, and, indeed, it is true, that there is
no real Public in this country for just those plays! Therefore
AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Goethe, Ibsen, Tolstoy, in
their greatest works did not give the Public what it wants, did not
satisfy the average human being, their more comfortable and normal
selves, and as artists were not true to the reason of their existence.
Therefore they were not artists, which is unthinkable; therefore I have
not yet found the Public!"
And perceiving that in this impasse his last hope of discovery had
foundered, the writer let his head fall on his chest.
But even as he did so a gleam of light, like a faint moonbeam, stole out
into the garden of his despair. "Is it possible," he thought, "that, by
a writer, until his play has been performed (when, alas! it is too late),
'the Public' is inconceivable--in fact that for him there is no such
thing? But if there be no such thing, I cannot exist to give it what it
wants. What then is the reason of my existence? Am I but a
windlestraw?" And wearied out with his perplexity, he fell into a doze.
And while he dozed he dreamed that he saw the figure of a woman standing
in darkness, from whose face and form came a misty refulgence, such as
steals out into the dusk from white campion flowers along summer
hedgerows. She was holding her pale hands before her, wide apart, with
the palms turned down, quivering as might doves about to settle; and for
all it was so dark, her grey eyes were visible-full of light, with black
rims round the irises.
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