Page:Pre-Raphaelitism.djvu/27

 bearing, it is visible enough, by their feverish jealousy of each other, how little confidence they have in the sterling value of their several doings. Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up; and there is too visible distress and hopelessness in men's aspects to admit of the supposition that they have any stable support of faith in themselves.

I have stated these principles generally, because there is no branch of labor to which they do not apply. But there is one in which our ignorance or forgetfulness of them has caused an incalculable amount of suffering; and I would endeavor now to reconsider them with especial reference to it,—the branch of the arts.

In general, the men who are employed in the arts have freely chosen their profession, and suppose themselves to have special faculty for it; yet, as a body, they are not happy men. For which this seems to me the reason, that they are expected, and themselves expect, to make their bread by being clever—not by steady or quiet work; and are, therefore, for the most part, trying