the other arts, they are dead; the potters, the architects,
meaningless, stony, and some repellent, like the cold touch of
porcelain. No prayer with these. Only the human form in art
could raise it, and most in statuary. I have seen so little
good statuary, it is a regret to me; still, that I have is
beyond all other art. Fragments here, a bust yonder, the
broken pieces brought from Greece, copies, plaster casts, a
memory of an Aphrodite, of a Persephone, of an Apollo, that is
all; but even drawings of statuary will raise the prayer.
These statues were like myself full of a thought, for ever
about to burst forth as a bud, yet silent in the same attitude.
Give me to live the soul-life they express. The smallest
fragment of marble carved in the shape of the human arm will wake the desire
I felt in my hill-prayer.

Time went on; good fortune and success never for an instant
deceived me that they were in themselves to be sought; only my
soul-thought was worthy. Further years bringing much suffering,
grinding the very life out; new troubles, renewed insults, loss
of what hard labour had earned, the bitter question: Is it not
better to leap into the sea? These, too, have made no
impression; constant still to the former prayer my mind endures.
It was my chief regret that I had not endeavoured to write these things, to
give expression to this passion. I am now trying, but I see that I shall
only in part succeed.

The same prayer comes to me at this very hour. It is now less
solely associated with the sun and sea, hills, woods, or
beauteous human shape. It is always within. It requires no waking; no
renewal; it is always with me. I am it; the fact of my existence expresses