with a strenuous exercise of choice. And yet
the imaginative vocabulary seems to be spontaneous also. It does not
flow from experience only or mainly, but from a richer source. Not by
any conscious imitation of particular forms are the grand strokes of the
painter executed, but by repairing to the fountain-head of all forms in
his mind. Who is the first drawing-master? Without instruction we know
very well the ideal of the human form. A child knows if an arm or a leg
be distorted in a picture; if the attitude be natural or grand or mean;
though he has never received any instruction in drawing or heard any
conversation on the subject, nor can himself draw with correctness a
single feature. A good form strikes all eyes pleasantly, long before
they have any science on the subject, and a beautiful face sets twenty
hearts in palpitation, prior to all consideration of the mechanical
proportions of the features and head. We may owe to dreams some light
on the fountain of this skill; for as soon as we let our will go and let
the unconscious states ensue, see what cunning draughtsmen we are! We
entertain ourselves with wonderful forms of men, of women, of animals,
of gardens, of woods and of monsters, and the mystic pencil wherewith we
then draw has no awkwardness or inexperience, no meagreness or poverty;
it can design well and group well; its composition is full of art, its
colors are well laid on and the whole canvas which it paints is lifelike
and apt to touch us with terror, with tenderness, with desire and with
grief. Neither are the artist's copies from experience ever mere copies,
but always touched and softened by tints from this ideal domain.

The conditions essential to a constructive mind do not appear to be
so often combined but that a good sentence or verse remains fresh and
memorable for a long time. Yet when we write with ease and come out into
the free air of thought, we seem to be assured that nothing is easier
than to continue this communication at pleasure. Up, down, around, the
kingdom of thought has no inclosures, but the Muse makes us free of her
city. Well, the world has a million writers. One would think then that
good thought would be as familiar as air and water, and the gifts of
each new hour would exclude the last. Yet we can count all our good
books; nay, I remember any beautiful verse for twenty years. It is true
that the discerning intellect of the world is always much in advance of
the creative, s