continue to be honest. Some day, when the butcher is
knocking at the door, he may be tempted, he may be obliged, to turn out
and sell a slovenly piece of work. If the obligation shall have arisen
through no wantonness of his own, he is even to be commended; for words
cannot describe how far more necessary it is that a man should support
his family, than that he should attain to--or preserve--distinction in
the arts. But if the pressure comes through his own fault, he has
stolen, and stolen under trust, and stolen (which is the worst of all)
in such a way that no law can reach him.

And now you may perhaps ask me whether--if the debutant artist is to
have no thought of money, and if (as is implied) he is to expect no
honours from the State--he may not at least look forward to the delights
of popularity? Praise, you will tell me, is a savoury dish. And in so
far as you may mean the countenance of other artists, you would put your
finger on one of the most essential and enduring pleasures of the career
of art. But in so far as you should have an eye to the commendations of
the public or the notice of the newspapers, be sure you would but be
cherishing a dream. It is true that in certain esoteric journals the
author (for instance) is duly criticised, and that he is often praised a
great deal more than he deserves, sometimes for qualities which he
prided himself on eschewing, and sometimes by ladies and gentlemen who
have denied themselves the privilege of reading his work. But if a man
be sensitive to this wild praise, we must suppose him equally alive to
that which often accompanies and always follows it--wild ridicule. A man
may have done well for years, and then he may fail; he will hear of his
failure. Or he may have done well for years, and still do well, but the
critics may have tired of praising him, or there may have sprung up some
new idol of the instant, some "dust a little gilt," to whom they now
prefer to offer sacrifice. Here is the obverse and the reverse of that
empty and ugly thing called popularity. Will any man suppose it worth
the gaining?

VIII

PULVIS ET UMBRA

We look for some reward of our endeavours and are disappointed; not
success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our
ineffectual efforts to do well. Our frailties are invincible, our
virtues barren; the battle goes sore against us to the going down of the
sun. The canting moralist tells us of right and wrong; and we l