by watching for a time his motions and plays, the
painter enters into his nature and can then draw him
at will in every attitude. So Roos "entered into the
inmost nature of a sheep." I knew a draughtsman
employed in a public survey who found that he could
not sketch the rocks until their geological structure
was first explained to him. In a certain state of
thought is the common origin of very diverse works. It
is the spirit and not the fact that is identical. By a
deeper apprehension, and not primarily by a painful
acquisition of many manual skills, the artist attains
the power of awakening other souls to a given activity.

It has been said that "common souls pay with what they
do, nobler souls with that which they are." And why?
Because a profound nature awakens in us by its actions
and words, by its very looks and manners, the same power
and beauty that a gallery of sculpture or of pictures
addresses.

Civil and natural history, the history of art and of
literature, must be explained from individual history,
or must remain words. There is nothing but is related
to us, nothing that does not interest us,--kingdom,
college, tree, horse, or iron shoe,--the roots of all
things are in man. Santa Croce and the Dome of St.
Peter's are lame copies after a divine model. Strasburg
Cathedral is a material counterpart of the soul of Erwin
of Steinbach. The true poem is the poet's mind; the true
ship is the ship-builder. In the man, could we lay him