WITH BUSKIN. 33 



face, for he cannot endure evolution. But it 

 occurs to me that the choice between a slug 

 on one hand and a hideous cannibal on the 

 other gives one no great aesthetic latitude in 

 selecting a forefather. It is not what we 

 have risen from that should make us blush, 

 but what we are now. Our progeny, not our 

 ancestors, should make us glad or sad. All 

 the more honor to the man if indeed he has 

 come up from the germ in the old dust of 

 chaos, has wriggled past the worms, swam 

 past the fishes, outstripped the birds, and 

 made himself the lord, of all the animals. In- 

 deed, as I sit here in this tropical springtide, 

 with my eyes full of color-visions and my 

 ears full of soothing sounds, I am willing to 

 consider myself a manifestation of nature's 

 patient work, the end of a labor begun when 

 life first stirred in the most favored spot of 

 the earth. 



The trouble with Ruskin is that he has come 

 to look upon art as the whole of life. He 

 would make the world a great studio he 

 would change human passion into a figure to 

 be drawn on canvas and cut in marble. Hear 

 my friend read again : 



"Do you fancy a Greek workman ever 

 made a vase by measurement? He dashed it 

 from his hand on the wheel, and it was beau- 

 tiful ; and a Venetian glass-blower swept you 

 a curve of crystal from the end of his pipe ; 

 and Reynolds or Tintoretto swept a curve of 

 color from their pencils, as a musician the ca- 

 dence of a note, unerring and to be measured, 

 if you please, afterward, with the exactitude 

 of divine law." 



This is a fine sketch of true genius; but I 

 look at the slender, shining wake on the water 

 yonder, where a wild duck has been swim- 

 3 



