ages. What is Guido's Rospigliosi Aurora but a morning thought,
as the horses in it are only a morning cloud? If any one will but take
pains to observe the variety of actions to which he is equally inclined
in certain moods of mind, and those to which he is averse, he will see
how deep is the chain of affinity.

A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort
becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form
merely,--but, by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter
enters into his nature and can then draw him at will in every
attitude. So Roos "entered into the inmost nature of a sheep." I knew
a draughtsman employed in a public survey who found that he could not
sketch the rocks until their geological structure was first explained to
him. In a certain state of thought is the common origin of very diverse
works. It is the spirit and not the fact that is identical. By a deeper
apprehension, and not primarily by a painful acquisition of many manual
skills, the artist attains the power of awakening other souls to a given
activity.

It has been said that "common souls pay with what they do, nobler souls
with that which they are." And why? Because a profound nature awakens
in us by its actions and words, by its very looks and manners, the same
power and beauty that a gallery of sculpture or of pictures addresses.

Civil and natural history, the history of art and of literature, must
be explained from individual history, or must remain words. There
is nothing but is related to us, nothing that does not interest
us,--kingdom, college, tree, horse, or iron shoe,--the roots of all
things are in man. Santa Croce and the Dome of St. Peter's are
lame copies after a divine model. Strasburg Cathedral is a material
counterpart of the soul of Erwin of Steinbach. The true poem is the
poet's mind; the true ship is the ship-builder. In the man, could we lay
him open, we should see the reason for the last flourish and tendril
of his work; as every spine and tint in the sea-shell preexists in the
secreting organs of the fish. The whole of heraldry and of chivalry is
in courtesy. A man of fine manners shall pronounce your name with all
the ornament that titles of nobility could ever add.

The trivial experience of every day is always verifying some old
prediction to us and converting into things the words and signs which
we had heard and seen without heed. A lady with whom I was ridi