so well." The saying was entirely right, exquisitely modest and true;
only I fear he would not have had the courage to maintain that his
drawing was good, if anybody had been there to say otherwise. Still,
having done well, he knew it; and what is more no man ever does do well
without knowing it: he may not know _how_ well, nor be conscious of the
best of his own qualities; nor measure, or care to measure, the relation
of his power to that of other men, but he will know that what he has
done is, in an intended, accomplished, and ascertainable degree, good.
Every able and honest workman, as he wins a right to rest, so he wins a
right to approval,--his own if no one's beside; nay, his only true rest
_is_ in the calm consciousness that the thing has been honorably
done--[Greek: suneidesis hoti kalon]. I do not use the Greek words in
pedantry, I want them for future service and interpretation; no English
words, nor any of any other language, would do as well. For I mean to
try to show, and believe I _can_ show, that a simple and sure conviction
of our having done rightly is not only an attainable, but a necessary
seal and sign of our having so done; and that the doing well or rightly,
and ill or wrongly, are both conditions of the whole being of each
person, coming of a nature in him which affects all things that he may
do, from the least to the greatest, according to the noble old phrase
for the conquering rightness, of "integrity," "wholeness," or
"wholesomeness." So that when we do external things (that are our
business) ill, it is a sign that internal, and, in fact, that all
things, are ill with us; and when we do external things well, it is a
sign that internal and all things are well with us. And I believe there
are two principal adversities to this wholesomeness of work, and to all
else that issues out of wholeness of inner character, with which we have
in these days specially to contend. The first is the variety of Art
round us, tempting us to thoughtless imitation; the second our own want
of belief in the existence of a rule of right.

28. I. I say the first is the variety of Art around us. No man can
pursue his own track in peace, nor obtain consistent guidance, if
doubtful of his track. All places are full of inconsistent example, all
mouths of contradictory advice, all prospects of opposite temptations.
The young artist sees myriads of things he would like to do, but cannot
learn from their authors how they were