that feeling of unavoidable solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious
origin, in toil, in joy, in hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to
each other and all mankind to the visible world. It is evident that he
who, rightly or wrongly, holds by the convictions expressed above cannot
be faithful to any one of the temporary formulas of his craft.
The enduring part of them--the truth which each only imperfectly
veils--should abide with him as the most precious of his possessions,
but they all: Realism, Romanticism, Naturalism, even the unofficial
senti-mentalism (which like the poor, is exceedingly difficult to
get rid of,) all these gods must, after a short period of fellowship,
abandon him--even on the very threshold of the temple--to the
stammerings of his conscience and to the outspoken consciousness of the
difficulties of his work. In that uneasy solitude the supreme cry of Art
for Art itself, loses the exciting ring of its apparent immorality.
It sounds far off. It has ceased' to be a cry, and is heard only as a
whisper, often incomprehensible, but at times and faintly encouraging.

Sometimes, stretched at ease in the shade of a roadside tree, we watch
the motions of a labourer in a distant field, and after a time, begin to
wonder languidly as to what the fellow may be at. We watch the movements
of his body, the waving of his arms, we see him bend down, stand up,
hesitate, begin again. It may add to the charm of an idle hour to be
told the purpose of his exertions. If we know he is trying to lift
a stone, to dig a ditch, to uproot a stump, we look with a more real
interest at his efforts; we are disposed to condone the jar of his
agitation upon the restfulness of the landscape; and even, if in a
brotherly frame of mind, we may bring ourselves to forgive his failure.
We understood his object, and, after all, the fellow has tried, and
perhaps he had not the strength--and perhaps he had not the knowledge.
We forgive, go on our way--and forget.