The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-01 00:00:00

DREAMING AND DOING.

" Cecil had a profound contempt for rjecha;ical fel-
lows, who sat down to their wcrk whether under inspi-
ration,' 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 adivine 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 iu the dialogue of
lon. The business of an artist was consequently to
await those moments, and then t., set himself to work,
when his soul was stung to ecstasy 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 cominen 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
but simply the colossal proportions of facul-
t that their genius was not a phrenzy, not a supernatural
thing
a lesser degree, the meanest of mankind
shared with them. They knew that whatever it was, it
e which,
ha. 1 n
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, sculp-
tured 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 cf Europe, had he
allowed his brush to hesitate? 'would Beethoven and Mozart
have poured out their souls into such abundant melodies?
would Goal° 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 en-
grossed with that to which they were so averse?
Use the pen,' says a thoughtful and subtle author,
re
staggering no but it keeps the mind from
This;
is an aphorism which should
'the
be printed in letters of gold over the studio door of
every artist. Use the pen or the brush ; do not pause;
about.'magic in i
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 imper-
fect, 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 can-
not be juggled with, you know whether a certain verse is
harmonious, whether the rhyme is there or not there ;
but in the other chse you not only can juggle with Yourself j
but do so, the very indeterminateness of your thoughts
makes you do so; as long as the idea is not positively j
clothed in its form, it is impossible accurately to say what
it will be. The magic of the pen lies in the col:centre-
tion 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 daily with your purpose, and
you waste your time, scatter your thoughts, and repress
the nervous energy necessary for your task. Some men
dally and daily, hesitate and trifle, until the last possible
mdMent, and when the printer's buy is knocking at
the door, they begin: necessity goading them, they
write with singular rapidity, and with singular success;
they are astnitiehed at themselves. What is the secret?
Simply this; they have had no time to hesitate. Con-
centrating their powers upon the one object before them,
they have done what they could do."—Rose, Blanche,and
Violet.