harmonious symmetry, a union of intellect and conscience. Ideas of
value, stored by the first process; marshalled into force, and placed
under guidance, by the second,--it is the result of the third, to place
them before the world in the most attractive or commanding form. This
may be done by actions no less than words; but the adaptation of means to
end, the passage of ideas from the brain of one man into the lives and
souls of all, no less in action than in books, requires study. Action
has its art as well as literature. Here Norreys had but to deal with the
calling of the scholar, the formation of the writer, and so to guide the
perceptions towards those varieties in the sublime and beautiful, the
just combination of which is at once CREATION. Man himself is but a
combination of elements. He who combines in nature, creates in art.
Such, very succinctly and inadequately expressed, was the system upon
which Norreys proceeded to regulate and perfect the great native powers
of his pupil; and though the reader may perhaps say that no system laid
down by another can either form genius or dictate to its results, yet
probably nine-tenths at least of those in whom we recognize the
luminaries of our race have passed, unconsciously to themselves (for
self-education is rarely conscious of its phases), through each of these
processes. And no one who pauses to reflect will deny, that according to
this theory, illustrated by a man of vast experience, profound knowledge,
and exquisite taste, the struggles of genius would be infinitely
lessened, its vision cleared and strengthened, and the distance between
effort and success notably abridged.

Norreys, however, was far too deep a reasoner to fall into the error of
modern teachers, who suppose that education can dispense with labour. No
mind becomes muscular without rude and early exercise. Labour should be
strenuous, but in right directions. All that we can do for it is to save
the waste of time in blundering into needless toils.