Crowd Pleasers

Charles Buxton, Notes of Thought  (London: John Murray, 1883), p. 26:

The world gives his rewards according to a definite and, perhaps, a sound principle. He honours those who give him pleasure. The thing the world wants is, to be pleased; not to be made wiser, or better, or, in the long run, happier; but to have, at once, on the spot, a feeling of enjoyment. Let a man but give him this feeling of enjoyment, and he will clothe that man in royal apparel, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, "Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour." You grumble, because you have done far nobler work for him, yet he leaves you dressed in frieze, to ride your own donkey at your own sweet will. But you have no right to be cross. You have given him good things, no doubt: but you have not given him the one thing he wanted.