Yet he, too, in his way was an idealist, and for all his oddity a man of intellectual integrity, a trifle exaggerated perhaps in its methods and illustrations, but true to his convictions of right and duty, as Emerson would have had him be.

For was it not Emerson who exclaimed, "We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds ?" II In spite of our good Woodrow and our lamented Theodore I have quite made up my mind that there is no such thing as the ideal in public life, construing public life to refer to political transactions.

The ideal may exist in art and letters, and sometimes very young men imagine that it exists in very young women.

But here we must draw the line.

As society is constituted the ideal has no place, not even standing room, in the arena of civics.
If we would make a place for it we must begin by realizing this.
The painter, like the lover, is a law unto himself, with his little picture--the poet, also, with his little rhyme--his atelier his universe, his attic his field of battle, his weapons the utensils of his craft--he himself his own Providence.