160 With Feet to the Earth 



cast up against us as an example. It 

 ought to be as a warning. He wrote sur- 

 prisingly well, but how much better and 

 how much more he might have written if 

 he had kept steady, taken his sleep, and 

 left off the towels ! To be sure, there are 

 certain who excuse their laziness on a 

 plea of meditating. Genius, they say, is 

 spasmodic, and an idea requires incuba- 

 tion. If they show results, well and good. 

 If at the end of years they are but just be- 

 ginning to concrete their idea, we may 

 dismiss them from the brotherhood. 



But how much the world might gain in 

 truth and its sublimation which we call 

 beauty if those who work and seek to 

 make truth common might dwell apart 

 when the need was, and study, write, in- 

 vent, weave, draw, paint, model, carve, 

 etch, engrave, compose, shape metal, glass, 

 porcelain, and enamels, decorate, devise 

 costumes even, and plan gardens ! Ah, 

 many a man and woman has sighed for the 

 cloister or the silences of the mountains, 

 there to dream the dream to the full and 

 bring it thenceforth into being of marble, 



