s picture of mine; it _must_ be good, I had such a lovely
motive. I have put my whole heart into it, and taken years to think over
its treatment." Well, the only answer for these people is,--if one had the
cruelty to make it,--"Sir, you cannot think over _any_thing in any number
of years,--you haven't the head to do it; and though you had fine motives,
strong enough to make you burn yourself in a slow fire, if only first you
could paint a picture, you can't paint one, nor half an inch of one; you
haven't the hand to do it."

But, far more decisively we have to say to the men who _do_ know their
business, or may know it if they choose, "Sir, you have this gift, and a
mighty one; see that you serve your nation faithfully with it. It is a
greater trust than ships and armies: you might cast _them_ away, if you
were their captain, with less treason to your people than in casting your
own glorious power away, and serving the devil with it instead of men.
Ships and armies you may replace if they are lost, but a great intellect,
once abused, is a curse to the earth forever."

This, then, I meant by saying that the arts must have noble motive. This
also I said respecting them, that they never had prospered, nor could
prosper, but when they had such true purpose, and were devoted to the
proclamation of divine truth or law. And yet I saw also that they had
always failed in this proclamation--that poetry, and sculpture, and
painting, though great when they strove to teach us something about the
gods, never had taught us anything trustworthy about the gods, but had
always betrayed their trust in the crisis of it, and, with their powers at
the full reach, became ministers to pride and to lust. And I felt also,
with increasing amazement, the unconquerable apathy in ourselves the
hearers, no less than in these the teachers; and that, while the wisdom
and rightness of every act and art of life could only be consistent with a
right understanding of the ends of life, we were all plunged as in a
languid dream--our hearts fat, and our eyes heavy, and our ears closed,
lest the inspiration of hand or voice should reach us--lest we should see
with our eyes, and understand with our hearts, and be healed.

This intense apathy in all of us is the first great mystery of life; it
stands in the way of every perception, every virtue. There is no making
ourselves feel enough astonishment at it. That the occupations or pastimes
of life should have no