ng, poetry, music, literature, preaching. Whether
the temperament is a blessing or a curse largely depends upon the health
of the artist. If De Quincey was an artist, the artistic temperament was
a curse. So also with Thomas Carlyle. So also with Charles Lamb. The
artistic temperament is creative, sympathetic, responsive; it sees
everything, feels everything, realises everything, on a scale of
exaggeration. It is in quest of ideals, and all ideals are more or less
in the clouds, and not seldom at the tip-top of the rainbow. Those who
undertake such long journeys are subject to disappointment and fatigue
by the way; if ever they do come to the end of their journey it is
probably in a temper of fretfulness and exasperation. A sudden knock at
the door may drive an artist into hysterics. He is always working at the
end of his tether. There is nothing more tantalising than an eternal
quest after the ideal; like the horizon, it recedes from the traveller;
like the mirage, it vanishes before the claims of hunger and thirst. On
the other hand, it has enjoyments all its own. The idealist is always
face to face with a great expectation. Perhaps to-night he may realise
it; certainly in the morning it will be much nearer; and as for the
third day, it will be realised in some great festival of delight. There
is, too, a subtle selfishness in this quest after the ideal--the Holy
Grail of the imagination. The artist keeps the secret from his brother
artists until he can startle them with some gracious surprise. He almost
pities them, as he thinks of the revelation that is about to dawn upon
unsuspecting and slumberous minds. Postponement of this surprise is a
torment to the mind which had planned its dazzling disclosure. The
greatest pain of all to the artistic temperament is that it lives in the
world of the Impossible and the Unattainable. That arm must be very
weary which for a lifetime has been stretched out towards the horizon.
Then think of the cross-lights, the mingled colours, the uncalculated
relations which enter into the composition of the dreamer's life, and
say whether that life is not more of a chaos than a cosmos. If the
artistic temperament came within the range of our own choice and will,
possibly we could do something with it; but inasmuch as it is ours by
heredity, and not by adoption, we must do the best we can with the
stubborn fatality.

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[Sidenote: Mrs. Lynn Linton thinks