r daily task. And at that word things
brighten.

"Artists," I say,--not artisans. "The difference?" This: the artist
is he who strives to perfect his work,--the artisan strives to get
through it. The artist would fain finish, too; but with him it is
to "finish the work God has given me to do!" It is not how great a
thing we do, but how well we do the thing we have to, that puts us
in the noble brotherhood of artists. My Real is not my Ideal,--is
that my complaint? One thing, at least, is in my power: if I cannot
realize my Ideal, I can at least _idealize my Real_. How? By trying
to be perfect in it. If I am but a rain-drop in a shower, I will
be, at least, a perfect drop; if but a leaf in a whole June, I will
be, at least, a perfect leaf. This poor "one thing I do,"--instead
of repining at its lowness or its hardness, I will make it glorious
by my supreme loyalty to its demand.

An artist himself shall speak. It was Michael Angelo who said:
"Nothing makes the soul so pure, so religious, as the endeavor to
create something perfect; for God is perfection, and whoever
strives for it strives for something that is godlike. True painting
is only an image of God's perfection,--a shadow of the pencil with
which he paints, a melody, a striving after harmony." The great
masters in music, the great masters in all that we call artistry,
would echo Michael Angelo in this; he speaks the artist essence
out. But what holds good upon their grand scale and with those
whose names are known, holds equally good of all pursuits and all
lives. That true painting is an image of God's perfection must be
true, if he says so; but no more true of painting than of
shoemaking, of Michael Angelo than of John Pounds, the cobbler. I
asked a cobbler once how long it took to become a good shoemaker;
he answered, promptly, "Six years,--and then you must travel!" That
cobbler had the artist soul. I told a friend the story, and he
asked his cobbler the same question: How long does it take to
become a good shoemaker? "All your life, sir." That was still
better,--a Michael Angelo of shoes! Mr. Maydole, the hammer-maker,
of central New York, was an artist: "Yes," said he to Mr. Parton,
"I have made hammers here for twenty-eight years." "Well, then, you
ought to be able to make a pre