ver dying fervor of art enthusiasm and with the acknowledgment of
limitations, which is one of the signs of greatness;

"O, that I had had thy glorious quality of technical subtlety in place of
the mechanical directness in which I labored!" and he in turn to be
reminded that had he paused for this, the span of his short life were
measured long before he had accomplished half his work.

A kindred bias is the eventual acceptance of whatever is persisted in.
Almost any form in which a technically good artist may express his idea
will in time find acceptance. It has the persuasion of the advertisement,
offering what we do not want. In time we imagine we do. Duplications of
Cuyp's very puerile arrangement of parts, as in the "Departure for the
Chase" to be found in others of his pictures, work in our minds mitigation
for those faults. The belief in self has the singular magnetic potency of
drawing and turning us. A stronger magnet must then be the living
principle. We find it in unity. Originality compromises this at its
peril.

And that discrimination against the prophet in his own country! Under its
ban the native artist left his home and dwelt abroad; but the expatriation
which produced pictures of Dutch and French peasants by native painters
was in time condemned. The good of the foreign experience lay in the
medals which were brought back out of banishment. These turned the tide
of thoughtless prejudice, and international competitions have kept it
rising.

But the worth of the foreign signature is now of the lesser reckonings;
for with the same spirit in which the native artist would annihilate the
tariff on foreign art, have the best painters of Europe declared "there
shall be no nationality in art"; for art is individual and submits to the
government stamp only by courtesy.

Happy that nation which, when necessary, can believe in its own, not to
exclusion, from clannish pride, but on the basis of that simple canon
adopted by the world of sport; "Let the best win."

The commonest bias to judgment is also the most vulgar--price. The reply
of the man of wealth to the statement that a recent purchase was an
inferior example of an artist's work; "I paid ten thousand for it. Of
course it's all right," was considered final to the critic. The man whose
first judgment concerning an elaborate picture of roses was turned to
surprise and wonder when told the price, which in time led to respect and
then purchase,