really matter very much. I am not so sure of that. I am, perhaps,
unduly sensitive, but I confess that the idea of being suddenly
spilt into an infuriated ocean in the midst of darkness and uproar
affected me always with a sensation of shrinking distaste. To be
drowned in a pond, though it might be called an ignominious fate by
the ignorant, is yet a bright and peaceful ending in comparison
with some other endings to one's earthly career which I have
mentally quaked at in the intervals or even in the midst of violent
exertions.

But let that pass. Some of the masters whose influence left a
trace upon my character to this very day, combined a fierceness of
conception with a certitude of execution upon the basis of just
appreciation of means and ends which is the highest quality of the
man of action. And an artist is a man of action, whether he
creates a personality, invents an expedient, or finds the issue of
a complicated situation.

There were masters, too, I have known, whose very art consisted in
avoiding every conceivable situation. It is needless to say that
they never did great things in their craft; but they were not to be
despised for that. They were modest; they understood their
limitations. Their own masters had not handed the sacred fire into
the keeping of their cold and skilful hands. One of those last I
remember specially, now gone to his rest from that sea which his
temperament must have made a scene of little more than a peaceful
pursuit. Once only did he attempt a stroke of audacity, one early
morning, with a steady breeze, entering a crowded roadstead. But
he was not genuine in this display which might have been art. He
was thinking of his own self; he hankered after the meretricious