VOCATION VERSUS AVOCATION 



have gained pleasure from the effort in the mean time, 

 your main purpose will have been achieved. For, 

 be it understood, in all this I am speaking of art as an 

 avocation, not as a profession. I would advise no one 

 to enter the crowded ranks of professional art, who had 

 not both the keenest predilection for the calling, and 

 the most demonstrable native talent. 



It is unnecessary to speak here in detail of such com- 

 panion arts as sculpture and music. Mutatis mutandis, 

 what has been said of painting applies equally to them. 

 Either can offer to its votaries an ever-widening circle 

 of interests, and a full quota of hours of unalloyed hap- 

 piness. But here also, it must be understood, earnest 

 effort and long practice may be required to master such 

 details of mere technique as lie at the foundation of 

 true proficiency. 



For him who has not the time, the energy, or the in- 

 clination to assail these difficulties of technique, there 

 remains the refuge of photography, half an art, half a 

 mechanical science, but a wholly alluring craft to al- 

 most anyone who will take it in hand with the intent 

 to master all its possibilities. It is a craft, too, that, 

 aside from its intrinsic merits, has great utility as an 

 adjunct to various other lines of study. The spectro- 

 scopist, the astronomer, and the microscopist find it 

 invaluable in recording the revelations of their instru- 

 ments. The artist finds it of use in lieu of sketch book 

 to record fleeting impressions; and for the student of 

 Nature the camera has come to be an inseparable com- 

 panion. Many a quondam sportsman now hunts with 



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