The Soul Market - With Which Is Included, "the Heart of Things" #231415

These are prodigal days. The summer fields are not more thickly strewn with buttercups than the world with genius. During the last three seasons the newspapers have chronicled seventy-three new musical geniuses. There is no child who scrapes the fiddle in public, or thumps a piano on a platform, who is not a genius, provided his "backers" have money enough to pay for the reputation. Every man who is insolent enough to bully his fellow-creatures is a Political Power; every woman who can entice a crowd into her house is a Social Leader; every musical or other public entertainer, if risque enough to secure extensive free advertising, is an Artiste. There is an unwritten tradition in these matters which is handed down from class to class, and generation to generation, and on this foundation have been compiled many Guide-Books of life, more or less alike, which are unfailing indexes to life and thought in this country. The female villain must have red hair and baleful eyes.