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To communicate pleasure, therefore, pleasure of the highest 
sort, is the object of all art whether in literature or painting. 
When an artist finds himself considering, as primary, some other 
object than this, his condition is usually more or less morbid, and 
he should seek for a diagnosis of his disease. The greatest 
offenders in this direction are generally the imperfectly developed 
artists, or the men whose aspirations are out of proportion with 
their powers. Work of this kind is often noble in its motive, 
but it is none the less mistaken. This doctrine of the sufficiency 
of pleasure as the object of art needs to be insisted upon with 
the reader and the connoisseur no less than with the artist. The 
reader is apt to say, ‘‘ What does it all come to?” He begs for 
a little moral ; and the connoisseur, unable to content himself with 
simple beauty, craves for what he calls, perhaps, ‘“‘ High art.” 
These are weak brethren. The manna of beauty, even if it fall 
from heaven, is not sufficient for them: they lust after the flesh- 
pots of Egypt. ‘‘ What does it alicome to?” Well, you can 
only answer—‘ It comes to what you see ; if that is not enough, 
there is no help for you.” 
The intimate relation of literature and painting is still further 
seen if we enquire how far, in each kind, the temperament of the 
artist is the same. To me they seem to be almost identical. All 
art, says Mr. John A. Symonds, consists in presentation. The 
generalization is a large one. but I believe it to be essentially 
correct. The work of the painter, then, is to present. Literature 
in its highest form does the same thing. Before you can present 
you must receive ; and accordingly we find that the painter and 
the poet are, before all things, receptive—omnuivorous of impres- 
sions, tremblingly responsive, tenaciously retentive. This is one 
side only. This is the essential side, for without it the very 
beginnings of art are impossible; and yet it is the side which 
implies weakness. The other aspect of the artistic temperament 
is one of power. It is that which broods, quickens, fertilizes, 
and ultimately, in the fulness of strength, produces. The first of 
these gives us the artist in posse ; only when the second is added 
do we get the artist in esse. It is the necessary combination of 
these two in high degree which makes the rarity of the great 
artist. It is the necessary presence in one frail tabernacle of 
these apparently opposing spirits which gives to the process of 
artistic creation its wearing and exhaustive character. The poets 
sown by Nature, of whom we read in the familiar passage of 
The Hxcursion— 
Men endowed with highest gifts, 
The vision and the faculty divine, 
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse— 
are not so much the men who, as Wordsworth put it, are silent 
Through lack 
Of culture and the inspiring aid of books ; 
