r outward
bearing, it is visible enough, by their feverish jealousy of each other,
how little confidence they have in the sterling value of their several
doings. Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up; and there is
too visible distress and hopelessness in men's aspects to admit of the
supposition that they have any stable support of faith in themselves.

173. I have stated these principles generally, because there is no
branch of labor to which they do not apply: but there is one in which
our ignorance or forgetfulness of them has caused an incalculable amount
of suffering; and I would endeavor now to reconsider them with special
reference to it--the branch of the Arts.

In general, the men who are employed in the Arts have freely chosen
their profession, and suppose themselves to have special faculty for it;
yet, as a body, they are not happy men. For which this seems to me the
reason--that they are expected, and themselves expect, to make their
bread _by being clever_--not by steady or quiet work; and are therefore,
for the most part, trying to be clever, and so living in an utterly
false state of mind and action.

174. This is the case, to the same extent, in no other profession or
employment. A lawyer may indeed suspect that, unless he has more wit
than those around him, he is not likely to advance in his profession;
but he will not be always thinking how he is to display his wit. He
will generally understand, early in his career, that wit must be left to
take care of itself, and that it is hard knowledge of law and vigorous
examination and collation of the facts of every case intrusted to him,
which his clients will mainly demand: this it is which he is to be paid
for; and this is healthy and measurable labor, payable by the hour. If
he happen to have keen natural perception and quick wit, these will come
into play in their due time and place, but he will not think of them as
his chief power; and if he have them not, he may still hope that
industry and conscientiousness may enable him to rise in his profession
without them. Again in the case of clergymen: that they are sorely
tempted to display their eloquence or wit, none who know their own
hearts will deny, but then they _know_ this to _be_ a temptation: they
never would suppose that cleverness was all that was to be expected from
them, or would sit down deliberately to write a clever sermon: even the
dullest or vainest of them would throw some veil o