kers. The French have a
romantic evasion for one employment, and call its practitioners the
Daughters of Joy. The artist is of the same family, he is of the Sons of
Joy, chose his trade to please himself, gains his livelihood by pleasing
others, and has parted with something of the sterner dignity of man.
Journals but a little while ago declaimed against the Tennyson peerage;
and this Son of Joy was blamed for condescension when he followed the
example of Lord Lawrence and Lord Cairns and Lord Clyde. The poet was
more happily inspired; with a better modesty he accepted the honour; and
anonymous journalists have not yet (if I am to believe them) recovered
the vicarious disgrace to their profession. When it comes to their turn,
these gentlemen can do themselves more justice; and I shall be glad to
think of it; for to my barbarian eyesight, even Lord Tennyson looks
somewhat out of place in that assembly. There should be no honours for
the artist; he has already, in the practice of his art, more than his
share of the rewards of life; the honours are pre-empted for other
trades, less agreeable and perhaps more useful.

But the devil in these trades of pleasing is to fail to please. In
ordinary occupations, a man offers to do a certain thing or to produce a
certain article with a merely conventional accomplishment, a design in
which (we may almost say) it is difficult to fail. But the artist steps
forth out of the crowd and proposes to delight: an impudent design, in
which it is impossible to fail without odious circumstances. The poor
Daughter of Joy, carrying her smiles and finery quite unregarded through
the crowd, makes a figure which it is impossible to recall without a
wounding pity. She is the type of the unsuccessful artist. The actor,
the dancer, and the singer must appear like her in person, and drain
publicly the cup of failure. But though the rest of us escape this
crowning bitterness of the pillory, we all court in essence the same
humiliation. We all profess to be able to delight. And how few of us
are! We all pledge ourselves to be able to continue to delight. And the
day will come to each, and even to the most admired, when the ardour
shall have declined and the cunning shall be lost, and he shall sit by
his deserted booth ashamed. Then shall he see himself condemned to do
work for which he blushes to take payment. Then (as if his lot were not
already cruel) he must lie exposed to the gibes of the wreckers of t