These figures, he says, "Raphael drew and sent to Albert
Duerer in Nurnberg, to show him"--What? Not his invention, nor his
beauty of expression, but "sein Hand zu weisen," "to show him his
_hand_." And you will find, as you examine farther, that all inferior
artists are continually trying to escape from the necessity of sound
work, and either indulging themselves in their delights in subject, or
pluming themselves on their noble motives for attempting what they
cannot perform; (and observe, by the way, that a great deal of what is
mistaken for conscientious motive is nothing but a very pestilent,
because very subtle, condition of vanity); whereas the great men
always understand at once that the first morality of a painter, as of
everybody else, is to know his business; and so earnest are they in
this, that many, whose lives you would think, by the results of their
work, had been passed in strong emotion, have in reality subdued
themselves, though capable of the very strongest passions, into a calm
as absolute as that of a deeply sheltered mountain lake, which
reflects every agitation of the clouds in the sky, and every change of
the shadows on the hills, but AS itself motionless.
Finally, you must remember that great obscurity has been brought upon
the truth in this matter by the want of integrity and simplicity in
our modern life.
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