. . or else, to
laugh in ecstasies at my wit."
"Yes," I admitted. "I remember, of course; and I confess frankly that I
could never understand that infatuation."
"Don't you know yet," he said, "that an idle and selfish class loves to
see mischief being made, even if it is made at its own expense? Its own
life being all a matter of pose and gesture, it is unable to realize the
power and the danger of a real movement and of words that have no sham
meaning. It is all fun and sentiment. It is sufficient, for instance,
to point out the attitude of the old French aristocracy towards the
philosophers whose words were preparing the Great Revolution. Even in
England, where you have some common-sense, a demagogue has only to shout
loud enough and long enough to find some backing in the very class he
is shouting at. You, too, like to see mischief being made. The demagogue
carries the amateurs of emotion with him. Amateurism in this, that, and
the other thing is a delightfully easy way of killing time, and feeding
one's own vanity--the silly vanity of being abreast with the ideas of
the day after to-morrow.
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