* * * * *
As regards my own assertion that genuine artists will seldom produce their
best work unless they really do want money, I fail to see how it conspires
with Lord Rosebery's assertion. Moreover, I must explain that I was not
thinking of poets. I was thinking of prose-writers, who do have a chance
of making a bit of money. Money has scarcely any influence on the activity
of poets, because they are aware that, no matter how well they succeed,
the chances are a million to one against any appreciable monetary reward.
An extreme lack of money will, of course, hamper them, and must, of
course, do harm to the artist in them. An assured plenty of money may
conceivably induce lethargy. But the hope of making money by their art
will not spur them on, for there is no hope. No! I ought to have said
explicitly at the time that I had in mind, not poets, who by the
indifference of the public are set apart from money, but of those artists
who have a reasonable opportunity of becoming public darlings and of
earning now and then incomes which a grocer would not despise. That these
latter are constantly influenced by money, and spurred to their finest
efforts by the need of the money necessary for the satisfaction of their
tastes, is a fact amply proved by the experience of everybody who is on
intimate terms with them in real life.
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