ings are the source of much immorality?
Mechanical operations, business speculations, commercial transactions,
important as they may appear to the utilitarian, are far from responding
to the requirements of the intellect, the imperious exactions of the
heart. Such men pine unconsciously for a draught of higher life, they
grow weary of existence. Literature and the arts may come to their aid,
creating for them an ideal world in the midst of the actual, in the
bosom of which they may find other emotions, interests, and images. They
may open, even in the desert of the most conventional life, an unfailing
spring of ideas and emotions, at which the poor world-wearied spirits
may slake their mental and moral thirst. The wonders of commercial
industry cannot quite chain the minds of men to the material world--it
is certain that the thirst for the ideal ever increases in exact
proportion with the development of the race. The true and high task of
the artist, the poet, is to divine these wants of humanity, to cultivate
these inchoate aspirations for the infinite, to hold its nectar to the
toil-worn, weary lips, to soothe and elevate the restless spirits, to
cultivate, in accordance with the essence of Christianity, this excess
of moral and intellectual being, which the occupations of this weary
earth-life cannot exhaust.

Besides, is it not true that the very character natural to the artist is
peculiarly fitted to exert a beneficial influence on a material and
commercial society? The pursuits of commerce are very apt to engender a
spirit of utter indifference to everything except material well-being--a
spirit of competition and mutual distrust most injurious to the
happiness of society; but the artist is proverbially careless of mere
pecuniary gain, and is always full of trust in his fellow men. In the
various phases of excitement which are constantly agitating society, he
looks only for the manifestation of noble passions and great thoughts.
In the base smiles wreathing so many false lips, he sees but the natural
expression of kindness; when lips vow fidelity, he dreams of an
affection based upon esteem, not upon a passing instinct, a sordid or
sensual interest--he believes in a union of hearts. Breathing everywhere
around him the high enthusiasm of his own truthful and loving soul, he
knows nothing of those perfidious jealousies and bitter enmities which
creep and twist in the shade, always hiding under some fair mask; of
thos