ly the minds which are always
striving after the ideally Perfect must be, in a measure, refined and
purified by the height of the summit they try to reach. "We needs must
love the highest, when we see it." It is a Blessing to have the desire
to reach the highest, even though we fail, and our natures are raised by
the mere contemplation of it. So that the Artist may well forget the
rebuffs and cold douches which he receives from those who cannot
sympathise with him, and thank Heaven that he can walk out of their
world into his own.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Zangwill draweth a distinction.]

There are two aspects of the artistic temperament--the active or
creative side, and the passive or receptive side. It is impossible to
possess the power of creation without possessing also the power of
appreciation; but it is quite possible to be very susceptible to
artistic influences while dowered with little or no faculty of
origination. On the one hand is the artist--poet, musician, or
painter--on the other, the artistic person to whom the artist appeals.
Between the two, in some arts, stands the artistic interpreter--the
actor who embodies the aery conceptions of the poet, the violinist or
pianist who makes audible the inspirations of the musician. But in so
far as this artistic interpreter rises to greatness in his field, in so
far he will be found soaring above the middle ground, away from the
artistic person, and into the realm of the artist or creator. Joachim
and De Reszke, Paderewski and Irving, put something of themselves into
their work; apart from the fact that they could all do (in some cases
have done) creative work on their own account. So that when the
interpreter is worth considering at all, he may be considered in the
creative category. Limiting ourselves then to these two main varieties
of the artistic temperament, the active and the passive, I should say
that the latter is an unmixed blessing, and the former a mixed curse.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: He speaketh of ye curse.]

What, indeed, can be more delightful than to possess good aesthetic
faculties--to be able to enjoy books, music, pictures, plays! This
artistic sensibility is the one undoubted advantage of man over other
animals, the extra octave in the gamut of life. Most enviable of mankind
is the appreciative person, without a scrap of originality, who has
every temptation to enjoy, and none t