CYCLE FOUR

1. All higher art, by which is meant Art (with a capital A) is done not because of the People, but in spite of them!

2. The People care nothing for genius but tend, on account of their ignorance, to hold it against any person so inclined.

3. The genius, if he is to survive, has need of an ability to defy the People's opposition and/or indifference to what he signifies. He must be able to continue, willy-nilly, irrespective of any obstacles, verbal or otherwise, the People may choose to place in his way.

4. The artist-genius is not like the People - he is a case apart who lives according to his own rules rather than by the rules which the majority of people who live in society abide by.

5. This is not to say that he is a criminal or scoundrel but, rather, one who thinks for himself and lives, more often than not, by himself, since other people would be more of a hindrance than an aid to his art.

6. All the best work is done in solitude, never in company or with the multitude. Rather, the artist-genius is one who flees from the multitude in fear that his art should be vitiated by social custom.

7. In like manner, he distrusts and avoids the religions of the multitude, which are not the religions of self-belief but, rather, of self-sacrifice and other-worship. In short, of spiritual prostitution and intellectual idolatry.