I am not likely to depreciate to you the value of _What Does,_
after spending my first twelve lectures up here, on the art and
practice of Writing, encouraging you to _do_ this thing which I
daily delight in trying to do: as God forbid that anyone should
hint a slightening word of what our sons and brothers are doing
just now, and doing for us! But Peace being the normal condition
of man's activity, I look around me for a vindication of what is
noblest in _What Does_ and am content with a passage from George
Eliot's poem "Stradivarius", the gist of which is that God
himself might conceivably make better fiddles than Stradivari's,
but by no means certainly; since, as a fact, God orders his best
fiddles of Stradivari. Says the great workman,

'God be praised,
Antonio Stradivari has an eye
That winces at false work and loves the true,
With hand and arm that play upon the tool
As willingly as any singing bird
Sets him to sing his morning roundelay,
Because he likes to sing and likes the song.'
Then Naldo: ''Tis a pretty kind of fame
At best, that comes of making violins;
And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go
To purgatory none the less.'
But he:
''Twere purgatory here to make them ill;
And for my fame--when any master holds
'Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine,
He will be glad that Stradivari lived,