s. When a man ceases to care deeply for things, he ceases
to represent or interpret them with insight and power. The
preservation of feeling is, therefore, essential in all artistic work;
and when it is lost, the artist becomes an echo or an imitation of his
nobler self and work. It is the beautiful quality of the true art
instinct that it constantly sees and feels the familiar world with a
kind of childlike directness and delight. That which has become
commonplace to most men is as full of charm and novelty to the artist
as if it had just been created. He sees it with fresh eyes and feels
it with a fresh heart. To such a spirit nothing becomes stale and
hackneyed; everything remains new, fresh, and significant. It has
often been said that if it were not for the children the world would
lose the faith, the enthusiasm, the delight which constantly renew its
spirit and reinforce its courage. A world grown old in feeling would
be an exhausted world, incapable of production along spiritual or
artistic lines. Now, the artist is always a child in the eagerness of
his spirit and the freshness of his feeling; he retains the magical
power of seeing things habitually, and still seeing them freshly. Mr.
Lowell was walking with a friend along a country road when they came
upon a large building which bore the inscription, "Home for Incurable
Children." "They'll take me there some day," was the half-humorous
comment of a sensitive man, to whom life brought great sorrows, but
who retained to the very end a youthful buoyancy, courage, and faculty
of finding delight in common things.

It is a significant fact that the greatest men and women never lose
the qualities which are commonly associated with youth,--freshness of
feeling, zest for work, joy in life. Goethe at eighty-four studied the
problems of life with the same deep interest which he had felt in them
at thirty or forty; Tennyson's imagination showed some signs of waning
power in extreme old age, but the magic of feeling was still fresh in
his heart; Dr. Holmes carried his blithe spirit, his gayety and
spontaneity of wit, to the last year of his life; and Mr. Gladstone at
eighty-six was one of the most eager and aspiring men of his time.
Genius seems to be allied to immortal youth; and in this alliance
resides a large part of its power. For the man of genius does not
demonstrate his possession of that rare and elusive gift by seeing
things which have never been seen before, but