226 On Means and Ends. [SEPT. 



seems a little strange that the zealous devotion to the end should produce 

 aversion to the means ; hut so it is : neither is it, however irrational, alto- 

 gether unnatural. That which we are struck with, which we are 

 enamoured of, is the general appearance or result ; and it would certainly 

 be most desirable to produce the effect we aim at by a word or wish, if it 

 were possible, without being taken up with the mechanical drudgery or 

 pettiness of detail, or dexterity of execution, which, though they are essen- 

 tial and component parts of the work, do not enter into our thoughts, or 

 form any part of our contemplation. In a word, the hand does not keep 

 pace with the eye ; and it is the desire that it should, that causes all the 

 contradiction and confusion. We would have a face to start out from 

 the canvas at once not feature by feature, or touch by touch; we would 

 be glad to convey an attitude or a divine expression to the spectator by a 

 stroke of the pencil, as it is conveyed by a glance of the eye, or by the 

 magic of feeling, independently of measurements, and distances, and fore- 

 shortening, and numberless minute particulars, and all the instrumentality 

 of the art. We may find it necessary, on a cool calculation, to go through 

 and make ourselves masters of these; but, in so doing, we submit only to 

 necessity, and they are still a diversion to, and a suspension of, our favour- 

 ite purpose for the time at least unless practice has given that facility 

 which almost identifies the two together, and makes the process an 

 unconscious one. The end thus devours up the means ; or our eagerness 

 for the one, where it is strong and unchecked, renders us in proportion 

 impatient of the other. So we view an object at a distance, which excites 

 in us an inclination to visit it : this, after many tedious steps and intricate 

 windings, we do; but, if we could fly, we should never consent to go on 

 foot. The mind, however, has wings, though the body has not ; and, 

 wherever the imagination can come into play, our desires outrun their 

 accomplishment. Persons of this extravagant humour should addict them- 

 selves to eloquence or poetry, where the thought " leaps at once to its 

 effect," and is wafted, in a metaphor or an apostrophe, " from Indus to 

 the Pole ;" though even there we should find enough, in the preparatory 

 and mechanical parts of those arts, to try our patience and mortify our 

 vanity ! The first and strongest impulse of the mind is to achieve any 

 object, on which it is set, at once, and by the shortest and most decisive 

 means ; but, as this cannot always be done, we ought not to neglect other 

 more indirect and subordinate aids; nor should we be tempted to do so, 

 but that the delusions of the will interfere with the convictions of the under- 

 standing, and what we ardently wish, we fancy to bo both possible and 

 true. Let us take the instance of copying a fine picture. We are full of 

 the effect we intend to produce ; and so powerfully does this prepossession 

 affect us, that we imagine we have produced it, in spite of the evidence 

 of our senses and the suggestions of friends. In truth, after a number of 

 violent and anxious efforts to strike off a resemblance which we passion- 

 ately long for, it seems an injustice not to have succeeded ; it is too late 

 to retrace our steps, and begin over again in a different method ; we prefer 

 even failure to arriving at our end by petty, mechanical tricks and rules ; 

 we have copied Titian or Rubens in the spirit in which they ought to be 

 copied ; though the likeness may not be perfect, there is a look, a tone, a 

 Something, which we chiefly aimed at, and which we persuade ourselves, 

 seeing the copy only through the dazzled, hectic flush of feverish imagina- 

 tion, we have really given ; and thus we persist, and make fifty excuses, 

 sooner than own our error, which would imply its abandonment ,;, or, if 



