PLATE XXXV
DESIGN FOR SANDYCOMBE LODGE AND GROUNDS
PEN AND INK. ABOUT 1811
PLAN OF GARDEN: SANDYCOMBE LODGE
PEN AND INK. ABOUT 1812
cannot be regarded as a perfectly good and religious man, yet at this particular period of his life his works prove beyond all shadow of doubt that he was capable of feeling towards nature and man in the way that is habitual with the perfectly good man. As an artist these works of his show that at this time he was able to raise himself in the point of feeling to the level of a good and complete man. But this is a very different thing from the demand that the artist shall himself be at that time and for the remainder of his life the kind of man whose momentary state of feeling he represents. The actual behaviour of the artist as an individual has only an indirect bearing on the question of the moral worth of his work. What is important is, that the content of the moral idea shall be present in the state of feeling expressed in his work. He may not have laid firm hold of the good will; he may not have made it a permanent part of his own life. All that is necessary for his immediate purpose is that he shall have grasped it in idea,—a much easier task, and one that constant reading of the poets is quite sufficient to accomplish.