nited States, who, having lost--he being an actor or
performer--a certain article of theatrical properties on which he
believed "luck" depended, lost all heart and hope, and fell into a
decline, from which he never recovered. In this, as in all such cases,
it was not so much conviction or reason which influenced the sufferer
as the mere effect of Attention often awakened till it had become what
is known as a fixed idea.

A deliberate reflection on what I have here advanced can hardly fail
to make it clear to any reader that if he really desires to take an
interest in any subject, it is possible to do so, because Nature has
placed in every mind vast capacity for attention or fixing ideas, and
where the Attention is fixed, Interest, by equally easy process, may
always be induced to follow. And note that these preliminary
preparations should invariably be as elementary and easy as possible,
this being a condition which it is impossible to exaggerate. In a vast
majority of cases people who would fain be known as taking an interest
in Art begin at the wrong end, or in the most difficult manner
possible, by running through galleries where they only acquire a
superficial knowledge of results, and learn at best how to _talk_
showily about what they have skimmed. Now to this end a good article
in a cyclopaedia, or a small treatise like that of TAINE'S "AEsthetic"
thoroughly read and re-read, till it be really mastered, and then
verified by study of a very few good pictures in a single collection,
will do more to awaken sincere _interest_ than the loose ranging
through all the exhibitions in the world. I have read in many novels
thrilling descriptions of the effect and results when all the glories
of the Louvre or Vatican first burst upon some impassioned and
unsophisticated youth, who from that moment found himself an Artist--
but I still maintain that it would have been a hundred times better
for him had his Attention and Interest been previously attracted to a
few pictures, and his mind accustomed to reflect on them.

Be the subject in which we would take an interest artistic or
scientific, literary or social, the best way to begin herewith is to
carefully read the simplest and easiest account of it which we can
obtain, in order that we may know just exactly what it is, or its
definition. And this done, let the student at once, while the memory
is fresh in mind, follow it up by other research or reading,
observations or inqu