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deplores the failures that have marked his efforts ! G. F. Watts, 

 lately in the first rank of living English artists, was continually 

 belittling self by reason of his high ideals, the haunting sense 

 ever clinging to him of never having reached the heights of the 

 masterly exposition his soul longed after. And with this 

 constant self-depreciation he was found frequently eulogising 

 others. Yes, this sense of failure tended to plunge him into 

 an egoism that was neither healthy nor honest — I mean honest 

 to himself. And if this sense of failure is observable in 

 science and art on the part of those who have given all their 

 lives to one pursuit, how much more should we who have only 

 " the stolen hours " for our studies observe an attitude of strict 

 reserve. The late Lord Salisbury devoted his leisure time to 

 the study of electrical energy ; the late Mr. Gladstone to 

 Homeric Greek, yet neither of them was ever found placing his 

 knowledge in these directions above a modest, and may I say, 

 apologetic position. One of Charles Darwin's greatest charms, 

 as revealed in his biography, was his child-like eagerness to 

 learn. In like manner have I found a similar spirit manifested 

 in the ranks of this Society —not once or twice, but frequently. 

 And how refreshing has this absence of superiority been to 

 some of us !— I mean to those of us who w-ere receivers, not 

 givers. 



Again, we non-professional men have the pleasure, and it 

 is a real one, of " ganging our ain gait," doing our own work 

 in our own fashion (frequently a very poor fashion, I admit), 

 feeling ourselves free to follow new paths, and being equally 

 at liberty to abandon old traditions. But one thing we are 

 never freed from, and that is the need to study nature at first 

 hand. No amount of reading will compensate us for lack of 

 experimental knowledge : for that deftness of touch, steadiness 

 of hand, quickness of perception, sensibility to surrounding 

 circumstances, which are begotten by handling and seeing. 

 As much might you expect a commercial man to become 

 an anatomist by simply reading — perhaps doggedly and 

 intelligently enough — through Gray's " Anatomy," as you 

 would expect a surgeon to become an efficient banker by 

 ploughing through a work on foreign exchanges. The great 



