Page:Zanoni.djvu/168

138 who does so comes but nearer to the fountain of all belief. Knowest thou not that magic was taught in the schools of old? But how, and by whom? As the last and most solemn lesson, by the Priests who ministered to the Temple. And you, who would be a painter, is not there a magic also in that art you would advance? Must you not, after long study of the Beautiful that has been, seize upon new and airy combinations of a beauty that is to be? See you not that The Grander Art, whether of poet or of painter, ever seeking for the, abhors the ; that you must seize Nature as her master, not lackey her as her slave? You demand mastery over the past, a conception of the future. Has not the Art that is truly noble, for its domain the Future and the Past? You would conjure the invisible beings to your charm; and what is painting but the fixing into substance the Invisible? Are you discontented with this world? This world was never meant for genius! To exist, it must create another. What magician can do more; nay, what science can do as much? There are two avenues from the little passions and the drear calamities of earth; both lead to heaven and away from hell — Art and Science. But art is more godlike than science; science discovers, art creates. You have faculties that may command art; be contented with your lot. The astronomer who catalogues the stars cannot add one atom to the universe; the poet can call an universe from the atom; the chemist may heal with his drugs the infirmities of the human form; the