l; simplicity would be affectation, and
grow into hypocritical show.

But what prospect does the present time offer for an Art springing
from a vigorous germ, and growing up from the root? For it is in a
great measure dependent on the character of its time; and who
would promise the approbation of the present time to such earnest
beginnings, when Art, on the one hand, scarcely obtains equal
consideration with other instruments of prodigal luxury, and, on the
other, artists and amateurs, with entire want of ability to grasp
Nature, praise and demand the Ideal?

Art springs only from that powerful striving of the inmost powers of
the heart and the spirit, which we call Inspiration. Everything that
from difficult or small beginnings has grown up to great power and
height, owes its growth to Inspiration. Thus spring empires and
states, thus arts and sciences. But it is not the power of the
individual that accomplishes this, but the Spirit alone, that diffuses
itself over all. For Art especially is dependent on the tone of the
public mind, as the more delicate plants on atmosphere and weather; it
needs a general enthusiasm for Sublimity and Beauty, like that which,
in the time of the Medici, as a warm breath of spring, called forth at
once and together all those great spirits.

* * * * *

It is only when the public life is actuated by the same forces through
whose energy Art is elevated, that the latter can derive any advantage
from it; for Art cannot, without giving up the nobility of its nature,
aim at anything outward.

Art and Science can move only on their own axes; the artist, like
every spiritual laborer, can follow only the law that God and Nature
have written in his heart. None can help him--he must help himself;
nor can he be outwardly rewarded, since anything that he should
produce for the sake of aught out of itself, would thereby become a
nullity; hence, too, no one can direct him, nor prescribe the path
he is to tread. Is he to be pitied if he have to contend against his
time, he is deserving of contempt if he truckle to it. But how
should it be even possible for him to do this? Without great general
enthusiasm there are only sects--no public opinion; not an established
taste, not the great ideas of a whole people, but the voices of a few
arbitrarily-appointed judges, determine as to merit; and Art, which
in its elevation is self-sufficing, courts favor, and serves where it