CONCLUSIONS 



Difficulty of ending a story without end — Art as universal instinct 

 — Plastic art tracked by a footprint — Primitive expression 

 of the colour-sense — And of the actor's and story-teller's 

 arts — Santayana criticised — Insignificance of art in relation 

 to life — An image of a cloudy sky — The cry that calls 

 attention to something seen — An everlasting aspiration — 

 The artist's creed — A way to something better — The author's 

 credentials — " Unemotional music " and the ordinary man — 

 A picture seen in boyhood — Sense of beauty a universal 

 possession — Definition of " field naturalist " — The perpetual 

 flux of artistic theory, a sign of progress beyond art — An 

 unanswered question. 



nr 



HIS being a story without an end, I have 

 ■ known all along that there could be no 



proper coming down with the usual bird- 

 like slide and glide and the light touch of the dropped 

 feet on its native earth. A bump instead, and an 

 uncomfortable tumble to the ground. One revolts 

 against such a termination, and no sooner have I 

 put the pen down than I pick it up again to add 

 something that might, or ought to be said, and, 

 incidentally, to soften the fall. My trouble in making 

 this conclusion is that I have been drifting away 

 from the Hind in Richmond Park, with her trumpet 

 ears, and from the animal mind which was my 

 support. It is clear that I should have to drift 

 further away still, even into speculative matters 

 which are dangerous; that to go on in the way I 



319 



