g to his
brain and then to the ends of his fingers--"the channels from here to
here are so long!" The very sad tone which we can hear in the wail of
the painter expresses strongly the deficiencies of our age in all its
artistic efforts. The channels are shorter just in proportion to their
openness. If the way from the brain to the ends of the fingers is
perfectly clear, the brain can guide the ends of the fingers to carry
out truly its own aspirations, and the honest expression of the brain
will lead always to higher ideals. But the channels cannot be free, and
the artist will be bound so long as there is superfluous tension in any
part of the body. So absolutely necessary, is it for the best artistic
expression that the body should throughout be only a servant of the
mind, that the more we think of it the more singular it seems that the
training of the body to a childlike state is not regarded as essential,
and taken as a matter of course, even as we take our regular
nourishment.

The artificial is tension in its many trying and disagreeable phases.
Art is freedom, equilibrium, rhythm,--anything and everything that
means wholesome life and growth toward all that is really the good, the
true, and the beautiful.

Art is immeasurably greater than we are. If we are free and quiet, the
poem, the music, the picture will carry us, so that we shall be
surprised at our own expression; and when we have finished, instead of
being personally elated with conceited delight in what we have done, or
exhausted with the superfluous effort used, we shall feel as if a
strong wind had blown through us and cleared us for better work in the
future.

Every genius obeys the true principle. It is because a genius is
involuntarily under the law of his art that he is pervaded by its
power. But we who have only talent must learn the laws of genius, which
are the laws of Nature, and by careful study and steady practice in
shunning all personal obstructions to the laws, bring ourselves under
their sway.

Who would wish to play on a stringed instrument already vibrating with
the touch of some one else, or even with the last touch we ourselves
gave it. What noise, what discord, with no possible harmonies! So it is
with our nerves and muscles. They cannot be used for artistic purposes
to the height of their best powers while they are tense and vibrating
to our own personal states or habits; so that the first thing is to
free them absolutely, and