there is talk about it at all,
signifies that it is ill done, or cannot be done. No true painter ever
speaks, or ever has spoken, much of his art. The greatest speak
nothing. Even Reynolds is no exception, for he wrote of all that he
could not himself do,[235] and was utterly silent respecting all that he
himself did.

The moment a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about
it. All words become idle to him--all theories.

Does a bird need to theorize about building its nest, or boast of it
when built? All good work is essentially done that way--without
hesitation, without difficulty, without boasting; and in the doers of
the best, there is an inner and involuntary power which approximates
literally to the instinct of an animal--nay, I am certain that in the
most perfect human artists, reason does _not_ supersede instinct, but
is added to an instinct as much more divine than that of the lower
animals as the human body is more beautiful than theirs; that a great
singer sings not with less instinct than the nightingale, but with
more--only more various, applicable, and governable; that a great
architect does not build with less instinct than the beaver or the
bee, but with more--with an innate cunning of proportion that embraces
all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of skill that improvises all
construction. But be that as it may--be the instinct less or more than
that of inferior animals--like or unlike theirs, still the human art
is dependent on that first, and then upon an amount of practice, of
science,--and of imagination disciplined by thought, which the true
possessor of it knows to be incommunicable, and the true critic of it,
inexplicable, except through long process of laborious years. That
journey of life's conquest, in which hills over hills, and Alps on
Alps arose, and sank,--do you think you can make another trace it
painlessly, by talking? Why, you cannot even carry us up an Alp, by
talking. You can guide us up it, step by step, no otherwise--even so,
best silently. You girls, who have been among the hills, know how the
bad guide chatters and gesticulates, and it is "put your foot here";
and "mind how you balance yourself there"; but the good guide walks on
quietly, without a word, only with his eyes on you when need is, and
his arm like an iron bar, if need be.

In that slow way, also, art can be taught--if you have faith in your
guide, and will let his arm be to you as an iron bar when need is