an artistic temperament, without the
power of expression, is one of the commonest causes of unhappiness in
the world. Who does not know those ill-regulated, fastidious people,
who have a strong sense of their own significance and position, a sense
which is not justified by any particular performance, who are
contemptuous of others, critical, hard to satisfy, who have a general
sense of disappointment and dreariness, a craving for recognition, and
a feeling that they are not appreciated at their true worth? To such
people, sensitive, ineffective, proud, every circumstance of life gives
food for discontent. They have vague perceptions which they cannot
translate into words or symbols. They find their work humdrum and
unexciting, their relations with others tiresome; they think that under
different circumstances and in other surroundings they might have
played a braver part; they never realize that the root of their
unhappiness lies in themselves; and, perhaps, it is merciful that they
do not, for the fact that they can accumulate blame upon the conditions
imposed on them by fate is the only thing that saves them from
irreclaimable depression.

Sometimes, again, the temperament exists with a certain power of
expression, but without sufficient perseverance or hard technical merit
to produce artistic successes; and thus we get the amateur. Sometimes
it is the other way, and the technical power of production is developed
beyond the inner perceptiveness; and this produces a species of dull
soulless art, and the role of the professional artist. Very rarely one
sees the outward and the inward combined, but then we get the humble,
hopeful artist who lives for and in his work; he is humble because he
cannot reach the perfection for which he strives; he is hopeful because
he gets nearer to it day by day. But, speaking generally, the
temperament is not one that brings steady happiness; it brings with it
moments of rapture, when some bright dream is being realized; but it
brings with it also moments of deep depression, when dreams are silent,
and the weary brain fears that the light is quenched. There are,
indeed, instances of the equable disposition being found in connection
with the artistic temper; such were Reynolds, Handel, Wordsworth. But
the annals of art are crowded with the figures of those who have had to
bear the doom of art, and have been denied the tranquil spirit.

But besides all these, there are artistic temperaments