Without ever losing his own individuality, an artist of true genius absorbs impressions from nature and from other works of art than his own, and constructs them anew from his inner consciousness. He accepts and assimilates whatever is calculated to nourish his formative power, and rejects with intuitive right judgment all that is foreign to his nature. Just as in the production of a true work of art invention and labour, inspiration and execution, willing and doing, are inseparably interwoven, so in the consideration by a genius of the works of other men and other ages, delighted appreciation is combined with criticism, ready apprehension collects materials for original work in its truest sense; it is a natural process, which perfects itself in the mind of the artist without any conscious action on his part. Therefore the judgment that one artist pronounces on {RESULT. OF STAY IN PARIS.} (59) another is not always in perfect accord with the influence which has been brought to bear on himself by that other. The deeper the influence penetrates into the roots of an artist's inner being, the more will it become part and parcel of his productive powers, and the consciousness of any outside influence will be rapidly lost. It remains for future historical inquirers to ascertain and define the influence of the intellectual current of the age on the individual, and the mutual action on each other of exceptional phenomena. Small as the visible results of Mozart's stay in Paris might be, and far as he remained from the object with which he had undertaken the journey, it yet enabled him, with great gain to his progress as an artist, to free himself from the Italian school, after such a thorough study of its principles as convinced him of the value of the element of dramatic construction which lay concealed in it. It may indeed be considered as a fortunate circumstance that no sooner had this conviction taken root in him than he turned his back on party disputes and left the place which was of all others the least fitted to encourage the quiet steady progress of genius.