If civilised man continues long enough to achieve the retrospect, we may hope that he will be able to view with amusement—though perhaps with some mystification—our addiction to reading and writing around the arts in preference to living in them at first hand. In ages when nothing was to be gained by thousands' professing enthusiasms they did not feel, there was no demand either for the writer who could supply approved aesthetic reactions or for his colleague who dealt in impressive technical information as a defence against the suggestion that any reaction should be thought obligatory.