But sometimes it will happen that some line of your composition is thus hacked off by no fault of yours, by some mismeasurement of a bar by your builder, or some change of mind or whim of your client, who "likes it all but"—— (some vital feature). As we have said, this is not quite a fair demand to be made upon the artist, but it will sometimes occur, whatever we do. Pull yourself together, and, before you stand out about it and refuse to change, consider. Try the modification, and try it in such an aroused and angry spirit as shall flame out against the difficulty with force and heat. Let the whole thing be as fuel of fire, and the reward will be given. The chief difficulty may become—it is more than an even chance that it does become—the chief glory, and that the composition will be like the new-born Ph[œ]nix, sprung from the ashes of the old and thrice as fair.
Then also strike while the iron is hot, and work while you're warm to it. When you have done the main figure-study and slain its difficulty you feel braced up, your mind clear, and you see your way to link it in with the surroundings. Will
you let it all get cold because it is toward evening and you are physically tired, when another hour would set the whole problem right for next day's work; now, while you are warm, while the beauty of the model you have drawn from is still glowing in you with a thousand suggestions and possibilities? You will do in another hour now what would take you days to do when the fire has died down—if you ever do it at all.
It is after a day's work such as this that one feels the true delight of the balm of Nature. For conquered difficulty brings new insight through the feeling of new power; and new beauties are seen because they are felt to be attainable, and by virtue of the assurance that one has got distinctly a step nearer to the veil that hides the inner heart of things which is our destined home.
It is after work like this, feeling the stirrings of some real strength within you, promising power to deal with nature's secrets by-and-by, that you see as never before the beauty of things.
The keen eyes that have been so busy turn gratefully to the silver of the sky with the grey, quiet trees against it and
the watery gleam of sunset like pale gold, low down behind the boughs, where the robin, half seen, is flitting from place to place, choosing his rest and twittering his good-night; and you think with good hope of your life that is coming, and of all your aspirations and your dreams. And in the stillness and the coolness and the peace you can dwell with confidence upon the thought of all the Unknown that is moving onward towards you, as the glow which is fading renews itself day by day in the East, bringing the daily task with it.
You feel that you are able to meet it, and that all is well; that there are quiet and good things in store, and that this constant renewal of the glories of day and night, this constant procession of morning and evening as the world rolls round, has become almost a special possession to you, to which only those who pay the price have entrance, an inheritance of your own as a reward of your endeavour and acquired power, and leading to some purposed end that will be peace.
Stained-glass, stained-glass, stained-glass! At night in the lofty church