Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/300

282 have wandered up and down the hollows and heights of the neighbouring villas, and, without much consideration, have sketched off a few little objects characteristically southern and Roman, and am now trying (if good luck will come to my aid) to give them the requisite lights and shades.

It is a singular fact, that it is easy enough to clearly see and to acknowledge what is good and better, but that when one attempts to make them his own, and to grasp them, somehow or other they slip away, as it were, from between one's fingers; and we apprehend them, not by the standard of the true and right, but in accordance with our previous habits of thought and tastes. It is only by constant practice that we can hope to improve; but where am I to find time and a collection of models? Still, I do feel myself a little improved by the sincere and earnest efforts of the last fortnight.

The artists are ready enough with their hints and instructions, for I am quick in apprehending them. But then the lesson so quickly learnt and understood is not so easily put in practice. To apprehend quickly is, forsooth, the attribute of the mind; but correctly to execute that, requires the practice of a life.

And yet the amateur, however weak may be his efforts at imitation, need not be discouraged. The few lines which I scratch upon the paper, often hastily, seldom correctly facilitate any conception of sensible objects; for one advances to an idea more surely and more steadily, the more accurately and precisely he considers individual objects.

Only it will not do to measure one's self with artists: every one must go on in his own style. For nature has made provision for all her children: the meanest is not hindered in its existence, even by that of the most excellent. "A little man is still a man;" and with this remark we will let the matter drop.