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Through his brain, as through the last alembic, is distilled the refined essence of that thought which began with the Gods, and which they left him to carry out.

Set apart by them to complete their works, he produces that wondrous thing called the masterpiece, which surpasses in perfection all that they have contrived in what is called Nature; and the Gods stand by and marvel, and perceive how far away more beautiful is the Venus of Melos than was their own Eve.

* * * * *

And now from their midst the Dilettante stalks abroad. The Amateur is loosed. The voice of the Aesthete is heard in the land, and catastrophe is upon us.

* * * * *

Where the Artist is, there Art appears, and remains with him–loving and fruitful–turning never aside in moments of hope deferred–of insult–and of ribald misunderstanding; and when he dies she sadly takes her flight: though loitering yet in the land, from fond association, but refusing to be consoled.

With the man, then, and not with the multitude, are her intimacies; and in the book of her life the names inscribed are few–scant, indeed, the list of those who have helped to write her story of love and beauty.

From the sunny morning, when, with her glorious Greek relenting, she yielded up the secret of repeated line, as with his hand in hers together they marked in marble, the measured rhyme of lovely limb and draperies flowing in unison, to the day when she dipped the Spaniard’s brush in light and air, and made his people live within their frames, that all nobility, and sweetness, and tenderness, and magnificence should be theirs by right, ages had gone by, and few had been her choice.

* * * * *

Therefore have we cause to be merry!–and to cast away all care– resolved that all is well–as it ever was–and that it is not meet that we should be cried at, and urged to take measures.

Enough have we endured of dulness! Surely are we weary of weeping, and our tears have been cozened from us falsely, for they have called us woe! when there was no grief–and where all is fair!

We have then but to wait–until, with the mark of the Gods upon him –there come among us again the chosen–who shall continue what has gone before. Satisfied that, even were he never to appear, the story of the beautiful is already complete–hewn in the marbles of the Parthenon, and broidered, with the birds, upon the fan of Hokusai, at the foot of Fujiyama.