Usually
this energy is concentrated on the objects of their professional
ambition, and leaves them, therefore, apathetic to the other pursuits
of men. But where those objects are denied, where the stream has not its
legitimate vent, the energy, irritated and aroused, possesses the whole
being, and if not wasted on desultory schemes, or if not purified by
conscience and principle, becomes a dangerous and destructive element in
the social system, through which it wanders in riot and disorder. Hence,
in all wise monarchies,--nay, in all well-constituted states,--the
peculiar care with which channels are opened for every art and every
science; hence the honour paid to their cultivators by subtle and
thoughtful statesmen, who, perhaps, for themselves, see nothing in a
picture but coloured canvas,--nothing in a problem but an ingenious
puzzle. No state is ever more in danger than when the talent that should
be consecrated to peace has no occupation but political intrigue or
personal advancement. Talent unhonoured is talent at war with men. And
here it is noticeable, that the class of actors having been the most
degraded by the public opinion of the old regime, their very dust
deprived of Christian burial, no men (with certain exceptions in the
company especially favoured by the Court) were more relentless and
revengeful among the scourges of the Revolution. In the savage Collot
d'Herbois, mauvais comedien, were embodied the wrongs and the vengeance
of a class.

Now the energy of Jean Nicot had never been sufficiently directed to
the art he professed. Even in his earliest youth, the political
disquisitions of his master, David, had distracted him from the more
tedious labours of the easel. The defects of his person had embittered
his mind; the atheism of his benefactor had deadened his conscience.
For one great excellence of religion--above all, the Religion of the
Cross--is, that it raises PATIENCE first into a virtue, and next into a
hope. Take away the doctrine of another life, of requital hereafter, of
the smile of a Father upon our sufferings and trials in our ordeal here,
and what becomes of patience? But without patience, what is man?--and
what a people? Without patience, art never can be high; without
patience, liberty never can be perfected. By wild throes, and impetuous,
aimless struggles, Intellect seeks to soar from Penury, and a nation
to struggle into Freedom. And woe, thus unfortified, guideless, and
unendurin