Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/395

Rh nothing weighs on your mind, you have a keener sight? Does it not require ardour and enthusiasm to do justice to a creation of fancy? And this, indeed, is called sight ! As if you could treat creations of fancy in any way differently from men. In this intercourse we find the same morality, the same honesty of purpose, the same secret thought, the same slackness, the same timidity, your whole lovable and hateful self! Your bodily exhaustion will give pale colours to the things, your fever-heat will shape them into monsters! Does not your morning light up the things otherwise than your evening? Are you not afraid of finding in the care of every knowledge your own phantom as the veil which hides truth from your sight ? Is it not an awful comedy wherein you so rashly wish to take a part? — Michelangelo looked upon Raphael's genius as acquired by study, upon his own as a gift of nature: learning as opposed to talent. Which, with all due deference to the great pedant, is pedantic. What else is talent but a name for an older piece of learning, experience, practice, appropriation, incorporation, from the times of our forefathers or even an earlier stage? And again; he who learns endows himself, only learning is not quite easy and not merely depends on our readiness; we must be able to learn. In an artist jealousy often prevents this, or that pride which at the perception of