e capacity to feel deeper love and emotions than the man in the
street"

Eaglefield Hull

We frequently hear the "artistic temperament" referred to in ordinary
conversation as if it were some kind of a vice, a mental aberration or a
disease: and it is certainly doubtful whether those who so casually
discuss the subject have any clear idea as to what constitutes this
particular equipment. That no great work of artistic merit can be
accomplished in its absence is more or less tacitly agreed, but it may
be interesting to consider in what this essential basis of artistic
success consists.

We have before pointed out that the function of an interpreter is to act
as a link between the spiritual and the material: he is the prophet to
reveal the otherwise hidden message. The interpreter is the artist, and
the artist is the interpreter. The ability to come into contact with the
finer things, tangible or intangible, is simply a capacity of response
finer than normal. A trained sense-perception is more acute than a
non-trained: and quite apart from training there are very wide
divergences in the innate range of activity of the various senses.
Again, keen interest and attention tend to make a particular sense more
alert, and even to extend the boundaries of its response. A man who is
particularly interested in some maiden's voice or footstep will be able
to make correct distinctions which simply do not exist for anyone less
actively interested in that particular lady. Concentration enables any
sense to become more acute. This increased acuteness naturally gives its
possessor the power to receive impressions which would otherwise escape
record. In the sense of not being usual, this acute sensitiveness of the
artist is thus an abnormality: but it is only a variation in the
direction of progress, for the whole story of the evolutionary climb up
life's ladder is one of ever-increasing sensibility and response. The
artistic temperament is thus, in essence, a phase of evolution somewhat
in advance of its day.

Any departure from the normal, even though it be in the forward
direction and carrying with it certain privileges, yet entails its
disadvantages. The man who breaks out is generally made to pay pretty
dearly for his temerity: but, if there were none to advance and thus
break out, civilisation itself would stagnate and there could be no
progress. The artist, the dreamer, the visionary, the poet, the genius,
these all are the