Why are you,
nevertheless, so continually solicitous to amuse this idle people,
despite the fact that you know that they have learned nothing and wish
to learn nothing? Why do you call them "the Public," flatter them as
your judge, stir them up against your rivals, and seek by every means
to win this blind and confused mob over to your side? Finally, in your
literary reviews and in your magazines, why do you yourselves furnish
them with material and example for rash judgments by yourselves
judging as unconnectedly, as carelessly, as recklessly, and, for the
most part, as tastelessly as even the least of your readers could?
If you do not all think thus, and if among you there are still some
animated by better sentiments, why, then, do not these latter unite to
put an end to the evil? As to those men of affairs, in particular they
have passed through your schools--you say so yourselves. Why, then,
did you not at least make use of this transit of theirs to inspire in
them some silent respect for learning, and especially to break betimes
the self-conceit of the young aristocrat and to show him that
birth and station are of no assistance in the realm of thought? If,
perchance, even at that time you flattered him and exalted him unduly,
now endure that for which you yourselves are responsible.
These addresses desire to excuse you on the supposition that you had
not grasped the importance of your occupation; they adjure you that,
from this hour, you make yourselves acquainted with this importance,
and that you no longer ply your occupation as a mere trade.
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