"What have you not read! And what have you copied.

No wonder that these English have been what they have been for centuries, while their heroes have been the Galahads, and their Homer the Mort d'Arthur." "Enjoy your Utopia!" said he bitterly.

"Do you fancy they acted up to their ideals?
They dreamed of the Quest of the Sangreal: but which of them ever went upon it ?" "And does it count for nothing that they felt it the finest thing in the world to have gone on it, had it been possible?
Be sure if their ideal was so self-sacrificing, so lofty, their practice was ruled by something higher than the almighty dollar." "And so are some other men's, Marie," answered he reproachfully.
"Yes, forsooth;--when the almighty dollar is there already, and a man has ten times as much to spend every day as he can possibly invest in French cookery, and wines, and fine clothes, then he begins to lay out his surplus nobly on self-education, and the patronage of art, and the theatre--for merely aesthetic purposes, of course; and when the lust of the flesh has been satisfied, thinks himself an archangel, because he goes on to satisfy the lust of the eye and the pride of life.
Christ was of old the model, and Sir Galahad was the hero.

Now the one is exchanged for Goethe, and the other for Wilhelm Meister." "Cruel! You know that my Goethe fever is long past.

How would you have known of its existence if I had not confessed it to you as a sin of old years?
Have I not said to you, again and again, show me the thing which you would have me do for your sake, and see if I will not do it!" "For my sake?
A noble reason! Show yourself the thing which you will do for its own sake; because it ought to be done.