sponsive echo
in many hearts; the man who instinctively uses the medium of the time,
and who neither regrets the old nor portends the new.

Karl Katz must content himself, if he can find a corner and a crust,
with the memory of the day when the sun lay hot among the ruins, with
the thought of the pleasant coolness of the vault, the leaping shower
of corn, the thunder of the imprisoned feet, the heroic players, the
heady wine. That must be enough for him. He has had a taste, let him
remember, of marvels hidden from common eyes and ears. Let it be for
him to muse in the sun, and to be grateful for the space of
recollection given him. If he had lived the life of the world, he would
but have had a treasure of simple memories, much that was sordid, much
that was sad.

But now he has his own dreams, and he must pay the price in heaviness
and dreariness!

December 14, 1888.

The danger of art as an occupation is that one uses life, looks at
life, as so much material for one's art. Life becomes a province of
art, instead of art being a province of life. That is all a sad
mistake, perhaps an irreparable mistake! I walked to-day on the crisp
frozen snow, down the valley, by field-paths, among leafless copses and
wood-ends. The stream ran dark and cold, between its brambly banks; the
snow lay pure and smooth on the high-sloping fields. It made a heart of
whiteness in the covert, the trees all delicately outlined, the hazels
weaving an intricate pattern. All perfectly and exquisitely beautiful.
Sight after sight of subtle and mysterious beauty, vignette after
vignette, picture after picture. If I could but sing it, or say it,
depict or record it, I thought to myself! Yet I could not analyse what
the desire was. I do not think I wished to interpret the sight to
others, or even to capture it for myself. No matter at what season of
the year I pass through the valley, it is always filled from end to end
with beauty, ever changing, perishing, ever renewing itself. In spring
the copse is full of tender points of green, uncrumpling and uncurling.
The hyacinths make a carpet of steely blue, the anemones weave their
starred tapestry. In the summer, the grove hides its secret, dense with
leaf, the heavy-seeded grass rises in the field, the tall flowering
plants make airy mounds of colour; in autumn, the woods blaze with
orange and gold, the air is heavy with the scent of the dying leaf. In
winter, the eye dwells with delight upon th