Meantime Elkanah was getting, slowly and by hardest labor, to have some
true conception of his art and his aims. He became less and less
satisfied with his own performances; and, having with much pains and
anxious prayers finished his first picture for the Academy, carefully
hid it under the bed, and for that year played the part of independent
critic at the Exhibition. Wherefrom resulted some increase of
knowledge,--though chiefly negative.

For what positive lesson is taught to any by that yearly show of what
we flatter ourselves by calling Art? Eight hundred and fifteen new
paintings this year, shown by no less than two hundred and eighty-one
painters. When you have gone patiently through and looked at every
picture, see if you don't wish the critics _had_ eyes, and a little
common sense, too. How many of these two hundred and eighty-one, if
they live to be a hundred, will ever solve their great riddle? and once
solved, how many would honestly go back to shoemaking?

Why should they not paint? Because, unless some of them are poorer men
than I think, that is not the thing they are like to do best; and a man
is put into this world, not to do what he may think or hope will most
speedily or effectually place him in the list of this world's
illustrious benefactors, but honestly and against all devilish
temptations to stick to that thing by which he can best serve and
bless--

Whom? A city? A state? A republic? A king?

No,--but that person who Is nearest to, and most dependent upon him.
Look at Charles Lamb, and then at Byron and Shelley.