the spirit in which a man carefully and courteously woos an elderly
spinster for the sake of her comfortable fortune. The amateur has an
irresponsible joy in his work; he is like the golfer who dreams
of mighty drives, and practises "putting" on his back lawn: the
professional writer gives his solid hours to his work in a conscientious
spirit, and is glad in hours of freedom to put the tiresome business
away. Yet neither the amateur nor the professional can hope to capture
the spirit of art by joy or faithfulness. It is a kind of divine
felicity, when all is said and done, the kindly gift of God.

Now into this free wild world of art and literature and music comes
the specialist and pegs out his claim, fencing out the amateur, who is
essentially a rambler, from a hundred eligible situations. In literature
this is particularly the case: the amateur is told by the historian that
he must not intrude upon history; that history is a science, and not
a province of literature; that the time has not come to draw any
conclusions or to summarise any tendencies; that picturesque narrative
is an offence against the spirit of Truth; that no one is as black or as
white as he is painted; and that to trifle with history is to commit a
sin compounded of the sin of Ananias and Simon Magus. The amateur runs
off, his hands over his ears, and henceforth hardly dares even to
read history, to say nothing of writing it. Perhaps I draw too harsh
a picture, but the truth is that I did, as a very young man, with no
training except that provided by a sketchy knowledge of the classics,
once attempt to write an historical biography. I shudder to think of
my method and equipment; I skipped the dull parts, I left all tiresome
documents unread. It was a sad farrago of enthusiasm and levity and
heady writing. But Jove's thunder rolled and the bolt fell. A just
man, whom I have never quite forgiven, to tell the truth, told me with
unnecessary rigour and acrimony that I had made a pitiable exhibition
of myself. But I have thanked God ever since, for I turned to literature
pure and simple.

Then, too, it is the same with art-criticism; here the amateur again,
who, poor fool, is on the look-out for what is beautiful, is told that
he must not meddle with art unless he does it seriously, which
means that he must devote himself mainly to the study of inferior
masterpieces, and schools, and tendencies. In literature it is the same;
he must not devote himself