the public in general. Indeed, those of you who are specially
studying Art could learn little of me that would be useful to
yourselves only. You are already learning under competent masters--
most competent, I am glad to know--by means of a system which should
teach you all you need, if you have been right in making the first
step of devoting yourselves to Art; I mean if you are aiming at the
right thing, and in some way or another understand what Art means,
which you may well do without being able to express it, and if you
are resolute to follow on the path which that inborn knowledge has
shown to you; if it is otherwise with you than this, no system and
no teachers will help you to produce real art of any kind, be it
never so humble. Those of you who are real artists know well enough
all the special advice I can give you, and in how few words it may
be said--follow nature, study antiquity, make your own art, and do
not steal it, grudge no expense of trouble, patience, or courage, in
the striving to accomplish the hard thing you have set yourselves to
do. You have had all that said to you twenty times, I doubt not;
and twenty times twenty have said it to yourselves, and now I have
said it again to you, and done neither you nor me good nor harm
thereby. So true it all is, so well known, and so hard to follow.

But to me, and I hope to you, Art is a very serious thing, and
cannot by any means be dissociated from the weighty matters that
occupy the thoughts of men; and there are principles underlying the
practice of it, on which all serious-minded men, may--nay, must--
have their own thoughts. It is on some of these that I ask your
leave to speak, and to address myself, not only to those who are
consciously interested in the arts, but to all those also who have
considered what the progress of civilisation promises and threatens
to those who shall come after us: what there is to hope and fear