The moment a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about it.  All words become idle to him—­all theories.

Does a bird need to theorize about building its nest, or boast of it when built?  All good work is essentially done that way—­without hesitation, without difficulty, without boasting; and in the doers of the best, there is an inner and involuntary power which approximates literally to the instinct of an animal—­nay, I am certain that in the most perfect human artists, reason does not supersede instinct, but is added to an instinct as much more divine than that of the lower animals as the human body is more beautiful than theirs; that a great singer sings not with less instinct than the nightingale, but with more—­only more various, applicable, and governable; that a great architect does not build with less instinct than the beaver or the bee, but with more—­with an innate cunning of proportion that embraces all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of skill that improvises all construction.  But be that as it may—­be the instinct less or more than that of inferior animals—­like or unlike theirs, still the human art is dependent on that first, and then upon an amount of practice, of science,—­and of imagination disciplined by thought, which the true possessor of it knows to be incommunicable, and the true critic of it, inexplicable, except through long process of laborious years.  That journey of life’s conquest, in which hills over hills, and Alps on Alps arose, and sank,—­do you think you can make another trace it painlessly, by talking?  Why, you cannot even carry us up an Alp, by talking.  You can guide us up it, step by step, no otherwise—­even so, best silently.  You girls, who have been among the hills, know how the bad guide chatters and gesticulates, and it is “put your foot here”; and “mind how you balance yourself there”; but the good guide walks on quietly, without a word, only with his eyes on you when need is, and his arm like an iron bar, if need be.

In that slow way, also, art can be taught—­if you have faith in your guide, and will let his arm be to you as an iron bar when need is.  But in what teacher of art have you such faith?  Certainly not in me; for, as I told you at first, I know well enough it is only because you think I can talk, not because you think I know my business, that you let me speak to you at all.  If I were to tell you anything that seemed to you strange, you would not believe it, and yet it would only be in telling you strange things that I could be of use to you.  I could be of great use to you—­infinite use—­with brief saying, if you would believe it; but you would not, just because the thing that would be of real use would displease you.  You are all wild, for instance, with admiration of Gustave Dore.  Well, suppose I were to tell you, in the strongest terms I could use, that Gustave Dore’s art was bad—­bad, not in weakness,—­not in failure,—­but bad with dreadful power—­the