when it shall have occurred to any artist to ask himself that

question, it is implicitly answered in the negative. It does not

occur to the child as he plays at being a pirate on the dining-room

sofa, nor to the hunter as he pursues his quarry; and the candour

of the one and the ardour of the other should be united in the

bosom of the artist.

If you recognise in yourself some such decisive taste, there is no

room for hesitation: follow your bent. And observe (lest I should

too much discourage you) that the disposition does not usually burn

so brightly at the first, or rather not so constantly. Habit and

practice sharpen gifts; the necessity of toil grows less

disgusting, grows even welcome, in the course of years; a small

taste (if it be only genuine) waxes with indulgence into an

exclusive passion. Enough, just now, if you can look back over a

fair interval, and see that your chosen art has a little more than

held its own among the thronging interests of youth. Time will do

the rest, if devotion help it; and soon your every thought will be

engrossed in that beloved occupation.

But even with devotion, you may remind me, even with unfaltering

and delighted industry, many thousand artists spend their lives, if

the result be regarded, utterly in vain: a thousand artists, and

never one work of art. But the vast mass of mankind are incapable

of doing anything reasonably well, art among the rest. The

worthless artist would not improbably have been a quite incompetent

baker. And the artist, even if he does not amuse the public,

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