He must be
his own severest critic. No artistic effort can be effective, if it is
a joyless straining after things falteringly grasped. Joy is the
essential quality; it need not always be a present, a momentary joy.
There are weary spaces, as when a footsore traveller plods along the
interminable road that leads him to the city where he would be. But he
must know in his heart that the joy of arrival will outweigh all the
dreariness of the road, and he must, above all things, mean to arrive.
If at any moment the artist feels that he is not making way, and doubts
whether the object of his quest is really worth the trouble, then he
had better abandon the quest; unless, indeed, he has some moral motive,
apart from the artistic motive, in continuing it. For the end of art is
delight and the quickening of the pulse of emotion; and delight cannot
be imparted by one who is weary of the aim, and the pulse cannot be
quickened by one whose heart is failing him. There may, as I say, be
moral reasons for perseverance, and if a man feels that it is his duty
to complete a work when his artistic impulse has failed him, he had
better do it. But he must have no delusions in the matter. He must not
comfort himself with the false hope that it may turn out to be a work
of art after all. His biographer draws a terrible picture of Flaubert
pacing in his room, flinging himself upon his couch, rising to pace
again, an agonised and tortured medium, in the search of the one
perfect word.
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