PEESIDENTS'S ADDRESS. 241 



true sympathy in joy or sorrow, most helpful in beautifying 

 your path of life, and most likely to exalt its aims, your best 

 chance will be amongst the devotees of those twin sisters — the 

 Truth and the Beauty of Nature. 



" For what is Truth 

 But Beauty ? Are not these but other names, 

 Or the same names in other tongues, for that 

 Which man must ever ardently pursue 

 If he would truly live ? And living thus, 

 Shall' not man's soul unfold and yet unfold 

 To see Life's higher possibilities ? " 



The wealth of human sympathy in the Artist's heart was touch- 

 ingly shown in my presence at the grave side of one of their 

 number some time ago. A member of the Royal Academy, a 

 dear friend of my own, a man of high promise, had been cut off 

 on the threshold of a great career. When they laid him to rest, 

 amid scenes of natural beauty which had inspired his pencil, 

 and beside which he had desired to repose, there was hardly 

 a tearless eye among his Artist brothers gathered by his grave. 

 Those strong men of the world — not sinless perhaps, but welling 

 over with human sympathy — were not ashamed to let their 

 sorrow have its way. Their tribute of tears was as unrestrained 

 and as simple as that which childhood pays. The cold reserve 

 of the worldling was lost in a natural human sorrow. 



I believe that to the Naturalist, as well as to the Artist, there 

 has been given a larger share of human sympathy than is 

 possessed by other classes of mankind. Whether this is a result 

 of the reverent study of Nature, or that it pre-exists, I cannot 

 pretend to say. 



That all Artists and Naturalists are unselfish in their pursuits, 

 I by no means assert. They have virtues in common, but they 

 have also faults. And, strangely enough, selfishness is a com- 

 mon fault of the erring ones. This is seen when, falling away 

 from nobler aims, they degenerate into mere collectors. Then 

 the high qualities of sympathy and unselfishness disappear. In 

 their stead you have the spirit of the miser, struggling for pos- 

 session of things solely because they are rare. Artists there 



