even in these cases it is often a question whether too great a price has
not been paid for a narrow and highly specialised skill. There is not only
no conflict between a high degree of technical skill and wide interests
and knowledge; there is a clear and definite connection between the two.
For in all those higher forms of work which involve not only expert
workmanship but a spiritual content of some kind, the worker must bring to
his task not only skill but ideas, force, personality, temperament; and,
sound workmanship being secured, his rank will depend not on specific
expertness, but on the depth, energy, and splendour of the personality
which the work reveals.

Creative men feel the necessity of many interests and of wide activities.
Their natures require rich pasturage; they must be fed from many sources.
They secure the skill of the specialist, but they never accept his
limitations of interest and work. The clearer their vision of the unity of
all forms of human action and expression, the deeper their need of
studying at first hand these different forms of action and expression.
Goethe did not choose that comprehensiveness of temper which led him into
so many fields; it was the necessity of a mind vast in its range and deep
in its insight. Herbert Spencer has done work which discloses at every
point the tireless industry and rigorous method of the specialist; but the
field in which he has concentrated his energy has included practically the
development of the universe and of human life and society. Mr. Gladstone
was a master of all the details, skill, and knowledge of his profession;
but how greatly he gained in power by the breadth of his interests, and
what charm there was in the disclosure of the man of religious enthusiasm,
of ardent devotion, and of ripe culture behind the politician and
statesman!

Byron knew the secrets of the art which he practiced with such splendid