to have done this, and to see that it is good, seems, in certain
moods, to be the dearest work of the Divine mind; and the desire to
express it, to speak simply of the sight, and of the joy that it
arouses, comes upon the mind with a sweet agony; an irresistible
spell; life would seem to have been well spent if one had only
caught a few such imperishable ecstasies, and written them down in
a record that might convey the same joy to others. But behind this
rises the deeper conviction that this is not the end; that there
are deeper and sweeter secrets in the heavenly treasure-house; and
then comes in the shadow of a fear that, in yielding thus
delightedly to these imperative joys, one is blinding the inner eye
to the perception of the remoter and more divine truth. And then at
last comes the conviction, in which it is possible alike to rest
and to labour, that it is right to devote one's time and energy to
presenting these rich emotions as perfectly as they can be
presented, so long as one keeps open the further avenues of the
soul, and believes that art is but one of the antechambers through
which one must take one's faithful way, before the doors of the
Presence itself can be flung wide.

But whether one be of the happy number or not who have the haunting
instinct for some special form of expression, one may learn at all
events to deal with life in an artistic spirit. I do not at all
mean by that that one should learn to overvalue the artistic side
of life, to hold personal emotion to be a finer thing than
unselfish usefulness. I mean rather that one should aim at the
perception of quality, the quality of actions, the quality of
thoughts, the quality of character; that one should not be misled
by public opinion, that one should not consider the value of a
man's thoughts to be affected by his social position; but that one