o create. He is the idle heir to
treasures greater than India's mines can yield; the bee who sucks at
every flower, and is not even asked to make honey. For him poets sing,
and painters paint, and composers write. "_O fortunatos nimium_," who
not seldom yearn for the fatal gift of genius! For _this_ artistic
temperament is a curse--a curse that lights on the noblest and best of
mankind! From the day of Prometheus to the days of his English laureate
it has been a curse

"To vary from the kindly race of men,"

and the eagles have not ceased to peck at the liver of men's
benefactors. All great and high art is purchased by suffering--it is not
the mechanical product of dexterous craftsmanship. This is one part of
the meaning of that mysterious _Master Builder_ of Ibsen's. "Then I saw
plainly why God had taken my little children from me. It was that I
should have nothing else to attach myself to. No such thing as love and
happiness, you understand. I was to be only a master builder--nothing
else." And the tense strings that give the highest and sweetest notes
are most in danger of being overstrung.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: And its compensations.]

But there are compensations. The creative artist is higher in the scale
of existence than the man, as the man is higher than the beatified
oyster for whose condition, as Aristotle pointed out, few would be
tempted to barter the misery of human existence. The animal
has consciousness, man self-consciousness, and the artist
over-consciousness. Over-consciousness may be a curse, but, like the
primitive curse--labour--there are many who would welcome it!

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _i.e._, Gambled at Faro.

[2] See the writer's _Life of David Gray_.

[3] I have given a detailed account of Peacock in my "Look Round
Literature."

[4] O those "Tendencies of one's Time"! O those dismal Phantoms,
conjured up by the blatant Book-taster and the Indolent Reviewer! How
many a poor Soul, that would fain have been honest, have they bewildered
into the Slough of Despond and the Bog of Beautiful Ideas!--R.B.

* * * * *

End of Project Gutenberg's The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IDLER MAGAZINE, VOL III. ***

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