"
"I wonder how you see so many little things that nobody else seems to
notice, then, papa."
"That is because I have trained myself to observe. The degree of power in
the sight is of less consequence than the habit of seeing. But you have not
yet told me what it is that makes you desirous of getting up."
"I want to look over his shoulder, and see what he is doing. Is it not
strange that in the midst of all this plenty of beautifulness, I should
want to rise to look at a few lines and scratches, or smears of colour,
upon a bit of paper?"
"No, my dear; I don't think it is strange. There a new element of interest
is introduced--the human. No doubt there is deep humanity in all this
around us. No doubt all the world, in all its moods, is human, as those for
whose abode and instruction it was made. No doubt, it would be void of both
beauty and significance to our eyes, were it not that it is one crowd of
pictures of the human mind, blended in one living fluctuating whole. But
these meanings are there in solution as it were. The individual is a centre
of crystallisation to this solution. Around him meanings gather, are
separated from other meanings; and if he be an artist, by which I mean true
painter, true poet, or true musician, as the case may be he so isolates and
represents them, that we see them--not what nature shows to us, but what
nature has shown, to him, determined by his nature and choice.
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