Enthusiastic artists and critics will assuredly award him their esteem, and proclaim him a genuine artist—a real genius—when they hear that Cecil had a profound contempt for "mechanical fellows," who sat down to their work whether under "inspiration," or under the mere impulse to finish what they have begun. He was really eloquent in his scorn of the "drudges." Genius, in his eyes, was a divine caprice. It came and went in moments of excitement: a sort of intermittent phrenzy. Being a scholar, he entirely approved of Plato's theory to that effect, as developed in the dialogue of Ion. The business of an artist was consequently to await those moments, and then to set himself to work, when his soul was stung to ecstacy by overpowering visions of beauty.
There is, in the present day, an overplus of raving about genius, and its prescriptive rights of vagabondage, its irresponsibility, and its insubordination to all the laws of common sense. Common sense is so prosaic! Yet it appears from the history of art that the real men of genius did not rave about anything of the kind. They were resolute workers, not idle dreamers. They knew that their genius was not a phrenzy, not a supernatural thing at all, but simply the colossal proportions of faculties which in a lesser degree, the meanest of mankind shared with them. They knew that whatever it was, it would not enable them to accomplish with success the things they undertook, unless they devoted their whole energies to the task.
Would Michael Angelo have built St. Peter's, sculptured the Moses, and made the walls of the Vatican sacred with the presence of his gigantic pencil, had he awaited inspiration while his works were in progress. Would Rubens have dazzled all the galleries of Europe, had he allowed his brush to hesitate? would Beethoven and Mozart have poured out their souls into such abundant melodies? would Göthe have written the sixty volumes of his works,—had they not often, very often, sat down like drudges to an unwilling task, and found themselves speedily engrossed with that to which they were so averse?
"Use the pen," says a thoughtful and subtle author, "there is no magic in it; but it keeps the mind from staggering about!"* This is an aphorism which should be printed in letters of gold over the studio door of every artist. Use the pen or the brush; do not pause, do not trifle, have no misgivings; but keep your mind from staggering about by fixing it resolutely on the matter before you, and then all that you can do you will do: inspiration will not enable you to do more. Write or paint: act, do not hesitate. If what you have written or painted should turn out imperfect, you can correct it, and the correction will be more efficient than that correction which takes place in the shifting thoughts of hesitation. You will learn from your failures infinitely more than from the vague wandering reflections of a mind loosened from its moorings; because the failure is absolute, it is precise, it stands bodily before you, your eyes and judgment cannot be juggled with, you know whether a certain verse is harmonious, whether the rhyme is there or not there; but in the other case you not only can juggle with yourself but do so, the very indeterminateness of your thoughts makes you do so; as long as the idea is not positively clothed in its artistic form, it is impossible accurately to say what it will be. The magic of the pen lies in the concentration of your thoughts upon one object. Let your pen fall, begin to trifle with blotting-paper, look at the ceiling, bite your nails, and otherwise dally with your purpose, and you waste your time, scatter your thoughts, and repress the nervous energy necessary for your task. Some men dally and dally, hesitate and trifle until the last possible moment, and when the printer's boy is knocking at the door, they begin: necessity goading them, they write with singular rapidity, and with singular success; they are astonished at themselves. What is the secret? Simply this; they have had no time to hesitate. Concentrating their powers upon the one object before them, they have done what they could do.
* Essays written during the intervals of business.
Impatient reader! if I am tedious, forgive me. These lines may meet the eyes of some to whom they are specially addressed, and may awaken thoughts in their minds not unimportant to their future career.
Forgive me, if only because I have taken what is called the prosaic side! I have not flattered the shallow sophisms which would give a gloss to idleness and incapacity. I have not availed myself of the splendid tirades, so easy to write, about the glorious privileges of genius. My "preaching" may be very ineffectual, but at any rate it advocates the honest dignity of labour; let my cause excuse my tediousness.
CHAPTER VI.
A SKETCH OF FRANK FORRESTER.
These are the arts, Lothario, which shrink acres
Into brief yards—bring sterling pounds to farthings,
Credit to infamy; and the poor gull,
Who might have lived an honoured easy life,
To ruin and an unregarded grave.
Beaumont and Fletcher.