relationship; and he will so desire the happiness of those he
loves, that he will lose himself in efforts to remove obstacles, to
lighten burdens, to give rather than to receive joy. And this, I
think, is probably the reason why so few women, even those possessed of
the most sensitive perception and apprehension, achieve the highest
triumphs of art; because they cannot so subordinate life to art,
because they have a passionate desire for the happiness of others, and
find their deepest satisfaction in helping to further it. Who does not
know instances of women of high possibilities, who have quietly
sacrificed the pursuit of their own accomplishments to the tendance of
some brilliant self-absorbed artist? With such love is often mingled a
tender compassionateness, as of a mother for a high-spirited and eager
child, who throws herself with perfect sympathy into his aims and
tastes, while all the time there sits a gentle knowledge in the
background of her heart, of the essential unimportance of the things
that the child desires so eagerly, and which she yet desires so
whole-heartedly for him. Women who have made such a sacrifice do it
with no feeling that they are resigning the best for the second best,
but because they have a knowledge of mysteries that are even higher
than the mysteries of art; and they have their reward, not in the
contemplation of the sacrifice that they have made, but in having
desired and attained something that is more beautiful still than any
dream that the artist cherishes and follows.

Yet the fact remains that it is useless to preach to the artist the
mystery that there is a higher region than the region of art. A man
must aim at the best 'that he can conceive; and it is not possible to
give men higher motives, by removing the lower motives that they can
comprehend. Such an attempt is like building without foundations; and
those who have relations with artists should do all they can to
encourage them to aim at what they feel to be the highest.

But, on the other hand, it is a duty for the artist to keep his heart
open, if he can, to the higher influences. He must remember, that
though the eye can see certain colours, and hear certain vibrations of
sound, yet there is an infinite scale of colour, and an infinite
gradation of sound, both above and below what the eye and the ear can
apprehend, and that mortal apprehension can only appropriate to itself
but a tiny fragment of the huge gamut