Let Raffael take a crayon in his hand and sweep a curve; let an engineer take tracing paper and all other appliances necessary to accurate reproduction, and let him copy that curve—his line will not be the line of Raffael. Rules and principles are profitable and necessary for the guidance of the growing artist and for the artist full grown; but rules and principles, I take it, just as little as geology and botany, can create the artist. Guidance and rule imply something to be guided and ruled. And that indefinable something which baffles all analysis, and which when wisely guided and ruled emerges in supreme excellence, is individual genius, which, to use familiar language, is “the gift of God.”—John Tyndall.
(1208)
GENIUS VERSUS TOOLS
A young Italian knocked one day at the door of an artist’s studio in Rome, and, when it was opened, exclaimed: “Please, madam, will you give me the master’s brush?” The painter was dead, and the boy, filled with a longing to be an artist, wished for the great master’s brush. The lady placed the brush in the boy’s hand, saying: “This is his brush; try it, my boy.” With a flush of earnestness on his face he tried, but found he could paint no better than with his own. The lady then said to him: “You can not paint like the great master unless you have his spirit.”
The same great lesson was taught once in a museum of old-time armor. When a visitor was shown the sword of Wallace, he said: “I do not see how it could win such victories.” “Ah, sir,” said the guide, “you don’t see the arm that wielded it.”
We need all the grace and tact we can acquire through studying the best models and imitating their example; but if we are mere imitators, our lives will be void of real power. (Text.)
(1209)
GENTILITY, FALSE STANDARDS OF
The story about Chief Justice Marshall has been told a good many times, but will bear telling again. As he was taking a morning walk, plainly drest, he encountered a young man who was standing at a market stall, evidently in great perplexity. A basket of moderate size was before him and he was saying to the market-man: “I wonder where all the niggers are this morning. I can’t find any one to carry my basket home.” The Chief Justice said: “Where do you live?” “No. 200 Avenue A,” was the reply. “Well,” he said, “as I am going your way, I will carry your basket for you.” They started, the judge carrying the basket. The young man noticed that the people they met all bowed very politely to his volunteer porter, and wondered who he could be. The basket was deposited at the door. Pay was offered, but refused. What did it mean? The next day, while walking with a friend, this young man saw his volunteer porter in a group of lawyers. He asked: “Who is that plain old fellow that they are all listening to?” “John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States.” “He carried my market-basket home for me yesterday; why do you think he did it?” “To teach you the difference between a real gentleman and a snob,” was the caustic reply. If some of these modern aristocrats who consider labor degrading had gone into the carpenter-shop of Joseph about A.D. 28 or 29, and seen a young man named Jesus at work there, they would have decided at once that he was no gentleman. If they had gone into the rooms of Aquilla at Corinth, a few years later, and seen Paul sewing on tents (“For he abode with them and wrought,” Acts 7:3), they would have despised him because his hands ministered to his necessities. They would not have gone into the synagog next Sabbath to hear that tent-maker preach. No, indeed! Now, can a standard of gentility that excludes Hon. John Marshall, Apostle Paul, and our adorable Savior be a true one?—Obadiah Oldschool, The Interior.
(1210)