The happy artist is the man who touches the note which
awakens a responsive echo in many hearts; the man who instinctively
uses the medium of the time, and who neither regrets the old nor
portends the new.
Karl Katz must content himself, if he can find a corner and a
crust, with the memory of the day when the sun lay hot among the
ruins, with the thought of the pleasant coolness of the vault, the
leaping shower of corn, the thunder of the imprisoned feet, the
heroic players, the heady wine. That must be enough for him. He has
had a taste, let him remember, of marvels hidden from common eyes
and ears. Let it be for him to muse in the sun, and to be grateful
for the space of recollection given him. If he had lived the life
of the world, he would but have had a treasure of simple memories,
much that was sordid, much that was sad.
But now he has his own dreams, and he must pay the price in
heaviness and dreariness!
December 14, 1888.
The danger of art as an occupation is that one uses life, looks at
life, as so much material for one's art. Life becomes a province of
art, instead of art being a province of life. That is all a sad
mistake, perhaps an irreparable mistake! I walked to-day on the
crisp frozen snow, down the valley, by field-paths, among leafless
copses and wood-ends.
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