“So right that I regret I can be read so easily.”

“And therefore, it may be that you would find yourself no happier with Art than with Science.  You might even fall into deeper discouragement; for in Science every onward step is at least certain gain, but in Art every step is groping, and success is only another form of effort.  Art, in so far as it is more divine, is more unattainable, more evanescent, more unsubstantial.  It needs as much patience as Science, and the passionate devotion of an entire life is as nothing in comparison with the magnitude of the work.  Self-sacrifice, self-distrust, infinite patience, infinite disappointment—­such is the lot of the artist, such the law of aspiration.”

“A melancholy creed.”

“But a true one.  The divine is doomed to suffering, and under the hays of the poet lurk ever the thorns of the self-immolator.”

“But, amid all this record of his pains, do you render no account of his pleasures?” I asked.  “You forget that he has moments of enjoyment lofty as his aims, and deep as his devotion.

“I do not forget it,” she said.  “I know it but too well.  Alas! is not the catalogue of his pleasures the more melancholy record of the two?  Hopes which sharpen disappointment; visions which cheat while they enrapture; dreams that embitter his waking hours—­fellow-student, do you envy him these?”

“I do; believing that he would not forego them for a life of common-place annoyances and placid pleasures.”

“Forego them!  Never.  Who that had once been the guest of the gods would forego the Divine for the Human?  No—­it is better to suffer than to stagnate.  The artist and poet is overpaid in his brief snatches of joy.  While they last, his soul sings ‘at heaven’s gate,’ and his forehead strikes the stars.”

She spoke with a rare and passionate enthusiasm; sometimes pacing to and fro; sometimes pausing with upturned face—­

“A dauntless muse who eyes a dreadful fate!”

There was a long, long silence—­she looking at the stars, I upon her face.

By-and-by she came over to where I stood, and leaned upon the railing that divided our separate territories.

“Friend,” said she, gravely, “be content.  Art is the Sphinx, and to question her is destruction.  Enjoy books, pictures, music, statues—­rifle the world of beauty to satiety, if satiety be possible—­but there pause Drink the wine; seek not to crush the grape.  Be happy, be useful, labor honestly upon the task that is thine, and be assured that the work will itself achieve its reward.  Is it nothing to relieve pain—­to prolong the days of the sickly—­to restore health to the suffering—­to soothe the last pangs of the dying?  Is it nothing to be followed by the prayers and blessing of those whom you have restored to love, to fame, to the world’s service?  To my thinking, the physician’s trade hath something god-like in it.  Be content.  Harvey’s discovery was as sublime as Newton’s, and it were hard to say which did God’s work best—­Shakespeare or Jenner.”