Tke Rescue of an Old Place 



schoolmaster to bring us unto knowledge, 

 by the painful road of ignorance and 

 failure. 



/w/ The conviction that you know nothing 



ivutctd is always a hopeful, if a depressing sign. 

 When the painter feels that his finished 



picture is a wretched daub, when the 

 writer knows that his last romance is but 

 a thing of shreds and patches, it is a 

 proof that he is still growing, that he has 

 a stronger note to strike, and that his end 

 is not yet. 



One of our leading novelists says that 

 his stories are to him like those tapestries 

 wrought by the workman from behind, of 

 which the weaver sees only the wrong side, 

 the knots and ends of the worsted, the 

 seams of the foundation, so that when the 

 public views his finished work with de- 

 light, recognizing its sincerity and dra- 

 matic truth, the satisfaction of his readers 

 is to him a wonder, since from his own 

 point of view he knows not whether he 

 has wrought well or ill. 



All great successes, I fancy, must be 

 surprises to the men who make them, for 

 the discontent of the artist with his paint- 

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