Then, too, in ordering his life, he must be humble, sincere, and
simple. He must keep his eye and his mind open to all generous
admirations. He must let no lust or appetite, no ambition of pride,
cloud his vision. He must take delight in the work of other artists,
and strive to see the beautiful and perfect rather than the false and
feeble. He must rejoice if he can see his own dream more seriously and
sweetly depicted than he can himself depict it, for he must care for
nothing but the triumph of beauty over ugliness, of light over
darkness. And thus the true artist may be most easily told by his
lavish appreciation of the work of other artists, rather than by his
censure and disapproval.
And, again, he must be able to take delight in the smallest and
humblest beauties of life. He must not need to travel far and wide in
the search for what is romantic, but he must find it lying richly all
about him in the simplest scene. He must not crave for excitement or
startling events or triumphs or compliments; he must not desire to know
or to be known by famous persons, because his joys must all flow from a
purer and clearer fountain-head. He must find no day nor hour dreary,
and his only fatigue must be the wholesome fatigue that follows on
patient labour, not the jaded fatigue of the strained imagination.
Age, and even infirmity, does not dull the zest of such a nature; it
merely substitutes a range of gentler and more tranquil emotions for
the heroic and passionate enthusiasms of youth; for the true artist
knows that the emotion of which he is in search is something far higher
and purer and more vivid than his fiercest imaginations--and yet it has
the calm of strength and the dignity of worth; the vehement impulses of
youth "do it wrong, being so majestical.
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