To know what you like is the beginning of wisdom and of old age. Youth is wholly experimental. The essence and charm of that unquiet and delightful3 epoch4 is ignorance of self as well as ignorance of life. These two unknowns the young man brings together again and again, now in the airiest touch, now with a bitter hug; now with exquisite5 pleasure, now with cutting pain; but never with indifference6, to which he is a total stranger, and never with that near kinsman7 of indifference, contentment. If he be a youth of dainty senses or a brain easily heated, the interest of this series of experiments grows upon him out of all proportion to the pleasure he receives. It is not beauty that he loves, nor pleasure that he seeks, though he may think so; his design and his sufficient reward is to verify his own existence and taste the variety of human fate. To him, before the razor-edge of curiosity is dulled, all that is not actual living and the hot chase of experience wears a face of a disgusting dryness difficult to recall in later days; or if there be any exception—and here destiny steps in—it is in those moments when, wearied or surfeited8 of the primary activity of the senses, he calls up before memory the image of transacted9 pains and pleasures. Thus it is that such an one shies from all cut-and-dry professions, and inclines insensibly toward that career of art which consists only in the tasting and recording11 of experience.
This, which is not so much a vocation for art as an impatience12 of all other honest trades, frequently exists alone; and so existing, it will pass gently away in the course of years. Emphatically, it is not to be regarded; it is not a vocation, but a temptation; and when your father the other day so fiercely and (in my view) so properly discouraged your ambition, he was recalling not improbably some similar passage in his own experience. For the temptation is perhaps nearly as common as the vocation is rare. But again we have vocations13 which are imperfect; we have men whose minds are bound up, not so much in any art, as in the general ars artium and common base of all creative work; who will now dip into painting, and now study counterpoint, and anon will be inditing14 a sonnet15: all these with equal interest, all often with genuine knowledge. And of this temper, when it stands alone, I find it difficult to speak; but I should counsel such an one to take to letters, for in literature (which drags with so wide a net) all his information may be found some day useful, and if he should go on as he has begun, and turn at last into the critic, he will have learned to use the necessary tools. Lastly we come to those vocations which are at once decisive and precise; to the men who are born with the love of pigments16, the passion of drawing, the gift of music, or the impulse to create with words, just as other and perhaps the same men are born with the love of hunting, or the sea, or horses, or the turning-lathe. These are predestined; if a man love the labour of any trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him. He may have the general vocation too: he may have a taste for all the arts, and I think he often has; but the mark of his calling is this laborious17 partiality for one, this inextinguishable zest18 in its technical successes, and (perhaps above all) a certain candour of mind to take his very trifling19 enterprise with a gravity that would befit the cares of empire, and to think the smallest improvement worth accomplishing at any expense of time and industry. The book, the statue, the sonata20, must be gone upon with the unreasoning good faith and the unflagging spirit of children at their play. Is it worth doing?—when it shall have occurred to any artist to ask himself that question, it is implicitly21 answered in the negative. It does not occur to the child as he plays at being a pirate on the dining-room sofa, nor to the hunter as he pursues his quarry22; and the candour of the one and the ardour of the other should be united in the bosom23 of the artist.
If you recognise in yourself some such decisive taste, there is no room for hesitation24: follow your bent25. And observe (lest I should too much discourage you) that the disposition26 does not usually burn so brightly at the first, or rather not so constantly. Habit and practice sharpen gifts; the necessity of toil27 grows less disgusting, grows even welcome, in the course of years; a small taste (if it be only genuine) waxes with indulgence into an exclusive passion. Enough, just now, if you can look back over a fair interval28, and see that your chosen art has a little more than held its own among the thronging29 interests of youth. Time will do the rest, if devotion help it; and soon your every thought will be engrossed30 in that beloved occupation.
But even with devotion, you may remind me, even with unfaltering and delighted industry, many thousand artists spend their lives, if the result be regarded, utterly31 in vain: a thousand artists, and never one work of art. But the vast mass of mankind are incapable32 of doing anything reasonably well, art among the rest. The worthless artist would not improbably have been a quite incompetent33 baker34. And the artist, even if he does not amuse the public, amuses himself; so that there will always be one man the happier for his vigils. This is the practical side of art: its inexpugnable fortress35 for the true practitioner36. The direct returns—the wages of the trade are small, but the indirect—the wages of the life—are incalculably great. No other business offers a man his daily bread upon such joyful37 terms. The soldier and the explorer have moments of a worthier38 excitement, but they are purchased by cruel hardships and periods of tedium39 that beggar language. In the life of the artist there need be no hour without its pleasure. I take the author, with whose career I am best acquainted; and it is true he works in a rebellious40 material, and that the act of writing is cramped41 and trying both to the eyes and the temper; but remark him in his study, when matter crowds upon him and words are not wanting—in what a continual series of small successes time flows by; with what a sense of power as of one moving mountains, he marshals his petty characters; with what pleasures, both of the ear and eye, he sees his airy structure growing on the page; and how he labours in a craft to which the whole material of his life is tributary42, and which opens a door to all his tastes, his loves, his hatreds43, and his convictions, so that what he writes is only what he longed to utter. He may have enjoyed many things in this big, tragic44 playground of the world; but what shall he have enjoyed more fully45 than a morning of successful work? Suppose it ill paid: the wonder is it should be paid at all. Other men pay, and pay dearly, for pleasures less desirable.
Nor will the practice of art afford you pleasure only; it affords besides an admirable training. For the artist works entirely upon honour. The public knows little or nothing of those merits in the quest of which you are condemned46 to spend the bulk of your endeavours. Merits of design, the merit of first-hand energy, the merit of a certain cheap accomplishment47 which a man of the artistic48 temper easily acquires—these they can recognise, and these they value. But to those more exquisite refinements49 of proficiency50 and finish, which the artist so ardently51 desires and so keenly feels, for which (in the vigorous words of Balzac) he must toil “like a miner buried in a landslip,” for which, day after day, he recasts and revises and rejects—the gross mass of the public must be ever blind. To those lost pains, suppose you attain52 the highest pitch of merit, posterity53 may possibly do justice; suppose, as is so probable, you fall by even a hair’s breadth of the highest, rest certain they shall never be observed. Under the shadow of this cold thought, alone in his studio, the artist must preserve from day to day his constancy to the ideal. It is this which makes his life noble; it is by this that the practice of his craft strengthens and matures his character; it is for this that even the serious countenance54 of the great emperor was turned approvingly (if only for a moment) on the followers55 of Apollo, and that sternly gentle voice bade the artist cherish his art.
And here there fall two warnings to be made. First, if you are to continue to be a law to yourself, you must beware of the first signs of laziness. This idealism in honesty can only be supported by perpetual effort; the standard is easily lowered, the artist who says “It will do,” is on the downward path; three or four pot-boilers are enough at times (above all at wrong times) to falsify a talent, and by the practice of journalism56 a man runs the risk of becoming wedded57 to cheap finish. This is the danger on the one side; there is not less upon the other. The consciousness of how much the artist is (and must be) a law to himself, debauches the small heads. Perceiving recondite58 merits very hard to attain, making or swallowing artistic formulæ, or perhaps falling in love with some particular proficiency of his own, many artists forget the end of all art: to please. It is doubtless tempting59 to exclaim against the ignorant bourgeois60; yet it should not be forgotten, it is he who is to pay us, and that (surely on the face of it) for services that he shall desire to have performed. Here also, if properly considered, there is a question of transcendental honesty. To give the public what they do not want, and yet expect to be supported: we have there a strange pretension61, and yet not uncommon62, above all with painters. The first duty in this world is for a man to pay his way; when that is quite accomplished63, he may plunge64 into what eccentricity65 he likes; but emphatically not till then. Till then, he must pay assiduous court to the bourgeois who carries the purse. And if in the course of these capitulations he shall falsify his talent, it can never have been a strong one, and he will have preserved a better thing than talent—character. Or if he be of a mind so independent that he cannot stoop to this necessity, one course is yet open: he can desist from art, and follow some more manly66 way of life.
I speak of a more manly way of life, it is a point on which I must be frank. To live by a pleasure is not a high calling; it involves patronage67, however veiled; it numbers the artist, however ambitious, along with dancing girls and billiard markers. The French have a romantic evasion68 for one employment, and call its practitioners69 the Daughters of Joy. The artist is of the same family, he is of the Sons of Joy, chose his trade to please himself, gains his livelihood70 by pleasing others, and has parted with something of the sterner dignity of man. Journals but a little while ago declaimed against the Tennyson peerage; and this Son of Joy was blamed for condescension71 when he followed the example of Lord Lawrence and Lord Cairns and Lord Clyde. The poet was more happily inspired; with a better modesty72 he accepted the honour; and anonymous73 journalists have not yet (if I am to believe them) recovered the vicarious disgrace to their profession. When it comes to their turn, these gentlemen can do themselves more justice; and I shall be glad to think of it; for to my barbarian74 eyesight, even Lord Tennyson looks somewhat out of place in that assembly. There should be no honours for the artist; he has already, in the practice of his art, more than his share of the rewards of life; the honours are pre-empted for other trades, less agreeable and perhaps more useful.
But the devil in these trades of pleasing is to fail to please. In ordinary occupations, a man offers to do a certain thing or to produce a certain article with a merely conventional accomplishment, a design in which (we may almost say) it is difficult to fail. But the artist steps forth75 out of the crowd and proposes to delight: an impudent76 design, in which it is impossible to fail without odious77 circumstances. The poor Daughter of Joy, carrying her smiles and finery quite unregarded through the crowd, makes a figure which it is impossible to recall without a wounding pity. She is the type of the unsuccessful artist. The actor, the dancer, and the singer must appear like her in person, and drain publicly the cup of failure. But though the rest of us escape this crowning bitterness of the pillory78, we all court in essence the same humiliation79. We all profess10 to be able to delight. And how few of us are! We all pledge ourselves to be able to continue to delight. And the day will come to each, and even to the most admired, when the ardour shall have declined and the cunning shall be lost, and he shall sit by his deserted80 booth ashamed. Then shall he see himself condemned to do work for which he blushes to take payment. Then (as if his lot were not already cruel) he must lie exposed to the gibes81 of the wreckers of the press, who earn a little bitter bread by the condemnation82 of trash which they have not read, and the praise of excellence83 which they cannot understand.
And observe that this seems almost the necessary end at least of writers. Les blancs et les Bleus (for instance) is of an order of merit very different from Le Vicomte de Braglonne; and if any gentleman can bear to spy upon the nakedness of Castle Dangerous, his name I think is Ham: let it be enough for the rest of us to read of it (not without tears) in the pages of Lockhart. Thus in old age, when occupation and comfort are most needful, the writer must lay aside at once his pastime and his breadwinner. The painter indeed, if he succeed at all in engaging the attention of the public, gains great sums and can stand to his easel until a great age without dishonourable failure. The writer has the double misfortune to be ill-paid while he can work, and to be incapable of working when he is old. It is thus a way of life which conducts directly to a false position.
For the writer (in spite of notorious examples to the contrary) must look to be ill-paid. Tennyson and Montépin make handsome livelihoods84; but we cannot all hope to be Tennyson, and we do not all perhaps desire to be Montépin. If you adopt an art to be your trade, weed your mind at the outset of all desire of money. What you may decently expect, if you have some talent and much industry, is such an income as a clerk will earn with a tenth or perhaps a twentieth of your nervous output. Nor have you the right to look for more; in the wages of the life, not in the wages of the trade, lies your reward; the work is here the wages. It will be seen I have little sympathy with the common lamentations of the artist class. Perhaps they do not remember the hire of the field labourer; or do they think no parallel will lie? Perhaps they have never observed what is the retiring allowance of a field officer; or do they suppose their contributions to the arts of pleasing more important than the services of a colonel? Perhaps they forget on how little Millet85 was content to live; or do they think, because they have less genius, they stand excused from the display of equal virtues86? But upon one point there should be no dubiety: if a man be not frugal87, he has no business in the arts. If he be not frugal, he steers88 directly for that last tragic scene of le vieux saltimbanque; if he be not frugal, he will find it hard to continue to be honest. Some day, when the butcher is knocking at the door, he may be tempted89, he may be obliged, to turn out and sell a slovenly90 piece of work. If the obligation shall have arisen through no wantonness of his own, he is even to be commanded; for words cannot describe how far more necessary it is that a man should support his family, than that he should attain to—or preserve—distinction in the arts. But if the pressure comes, through his own fault, he has stolen, and stolen under trust, and stolen (which is the worst of all) in such a way that no law can reach him.
And now you may perhaps ask me, if the débutant artist is to have no thought of money, and if (as is implied) he is to expect no honours from the State, he may not at least look forward to the delights of popularity? Praise, you will tell me, is a savoury dish. And in so far as you may mean the countenance of other artists you would put your finger on one of the most essential and enduring pleasures of the career of art. But in so far as you should have an eye to the commendations of the public or the notice of the newspapers, be sure you would but be cherishing a dream. It is true that in certain esoteric journals the author (for instance) is duly criticised, and that he is often praised a great deal more than he deserves, sometimes for qualities which he prided himself on eschewing91, and sometimes by ladies and gentlemen who have denied themselves the privilege of reading his work. But if a man be sensitive to this wild praise, we must suppose him equally alive to that which often accompanies and always follows it—wild ridicule92. A man may have done well for years, and then he may fail; he will hear of his failure. Or he may have done well for years, and still do well, but the critics may have tired of praising him, or there may have sprung up some new idol93 of the instant, some “dust a little gilt,” to whom they now prefer to offer sacrifice. Here is the obverse and the reverse of that empty and ugly thing called popularity. Will any man suppose it worth the gaining?
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1
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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kinsman
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| n.男亲属 | |
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surfeited
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| v.吃得过多( surfeit的过去式和过去分词 )；由于过量而厌腻 | |
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transacted
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| v.办理（业务等）( transact的过去式和过去分词 )；交易，谈判 | |
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profess
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| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
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recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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vocations
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| n.（认为特别适合自己的）职业( vocation的名词复数 )；使命；神召；（认为某种工作或生活方式特别适合自己的）信心 | |
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inditing
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| v.写（文章，信等）创作，赋诗，创作( indite的现在分词 ) | |
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sonnet
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| n.十四行诗 | |
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pigments
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| n.（粉状）颜料( pigment的名词复数 )；天然色素 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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sonata
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| n.奏鸣曲 | |
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implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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thronging
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的现在分词 ) | |
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engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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practitioner
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| n.实践者，从事者；(医生或律师等)开业者 | |
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joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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worthier
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| 应得某事物( worthy的比较级 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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tedium
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| n.单调；烦闷 | |
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rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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tributary
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| n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的 | |
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hatreds
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| n.仇恨，憎恶( hatred的名词复数 )；厌恶的事 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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refinements
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| n.（生活）风雅；精炼( refinement的名词复数 )；改良品；细微的改良；优雅或高贵的动作 | |
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proficiency
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| n.精通，熟练，精练 | |
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ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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recondite
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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eccentricity
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| n.古怪，反常，怪癖 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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evasion
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| n.逃避，偷漏(税) | |
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practitioners
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| n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师） | |
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70
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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71
condescension
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| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
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72
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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73
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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barbarian
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| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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78
pillory
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| n.嘲弄；v.使受公众嘲笑；将…示众 | |
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79
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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80
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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81
gibes
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| vi.嘲笑，嘲弄（gibe的第三人称单数形式） | |
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82
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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83
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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84
livelihoods
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| 生计，谋生之道( livelihood的名词复数 ) | |
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85
millet
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| n.小米，谷子 | |
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86
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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87
frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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88
steers
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| n.阉公牛，肉用公牛( steer的名词复数 )v.驾驶( steer的第三人称单数 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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89
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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90
slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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91
eschewing
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| v.（尤指为道德或实际理由而）习惯性避开，回避( eschew的现在分词 ) | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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93
idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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