228 On Means anil Ends. [SEPT. 



takes the thing more easy and rationally. He has none of the mental 

 qualms, the nervous agitation, the wild, desperate plunges and convulsive 

 throes of the English artist. He does not set off headlong without knowing 

 where he is going, and find himself up to the neck in all sorts of difficulties 

 and absurdities, from impatience to begin and have the matter off his mind 

 (as if it were an evil conscience) ; but takes time to consider, arranges his 

 plans, gets in his outline and his distances, and lays a foundation before 

 he attempts a superstructure which he may have to pull in pieces again, or 

 let it remain a monument of his folly. He looks before he leaps, which 

 is contrary to the true blindfold English rule ; and 1 should think that we 

 had invented this proverb from seeing so many fatal examples of the viola- 

 tion of it. Suppose he undertakes to make a copy of a picture : he first 

 looks at it, and sees what it is. He does not make his sketch all black 

 or all white, because one part of it is so, and because he cannot alter an 

 idea he has once got into his head and must always run into extremes, 

 but varies his tints (strange as it may seem) from green to red,- from 

 orange-tawney to yellow, from grey to brown, according at they vary in 

 the original. He sees no inconsistency, no forfeiture of a principle, in 

 this (any more than Mr. Southey in the change of the colours of his coat), 

 but a great deal of right reason, and indeed an absolute necessity for it, if 

 he wishes to succeed in what he is about. This is the last thing in an 

 Englishman's thoughts : he only wishes to have his own way, though it 

 ends in defeat and ruin strives hard to do what he is sensible he cannot 

 or, if he finds he can, gives over and leaves the matter short of a triumphant 

 conclusion, which is too flattering an idea for him to indulge in. The 

 French artist proceeds with due deliberation, and bit by bit. He takes 

 some one part a hand, an eye, a piece of drapery, an object in the back- 

 groundand finishes it carefully ; then another, and so on to the end. 

 When he has gone through every part, his picture is done : there is nothing 

 more that he can add to it; it is a numerical calculation, and there are 

 only so many items in the account. An Englishman may go on slobbering 

 his over for the hundredth time, and be no nearer than when he began. As 

 he tries to finish the whole at once, and as this is not possible, he always 

 leaves his work in an imperfect state, or as if he had begun on a new can- 

 vas like a man who is determined to leap to the top of a tower, instead of 

 scaling it step by step, and who is necessarily thrown on his back every 

 time he repeats the experiment. Again, the French student does not, from 

 a childish impatience, when he is near the end, destroy the effect of the 

 whole, by leaving some one part eminently deficient, an eye-sore to the 

 rest; nor does he fly from what he is about, to any thing else that happens 

 to catch his eye, neglecting the one and spoiling the other. He is, in 

 our old poet's phrase, " constrained by mastery," by the mastery of com- 

 mon sense and pleasurable feeling. He is in no hurry to get to the end; 

 for he has a satisfaction in the work, and touches and retouches perhaps 

 a single heed, day after day and week after week, without repining, 

 uneasiness, or apparent progress. The very lightness and buoyancy of his 

 feelings renders him (where the necessity of this is pointed out) patient and 

 laborious. An Englishman, whatever he undertakes, is as if he was carry- 

 ing a heavy load that oppresses both his body and mind, and that he is 

 anxious to throw down as soon as possible. The Frenchman's hopes and 

 fears are not excited to a pitch of intolerable agony, so that he is compelled, 

 ; in mere compassion to himself, to- bring the question to a speedy issue, 

 even to the loss of his object. He is calm, easy, collected, and takes his 



