The world was going to its business again, although dukes lay dead and ladies mourned for them.... So day and night pass away, and to-morrow comes, and our place knows us not. Esmond thought of the courier now galloping on the north road to inform him, who was Earl of Arran yesterday, that he was Duke of Hamilton to-day, and of a thousand great schemes, hopes, ambitions, that were alive in the gallant heart, beating but a few hours since, and now in a little dust quiescent. And on top of this let me assure you that in writing, or learning to write, solid daily practice is the prescription and 'waiting upon inspiration' a lure. These crests only rise on the back of constant labour. Nine days, according to Homer, Leto travailed with Apollo: but he was Apollo, lord of Song. I _know_ this to be true of ordinary talent: but, supposing you all to be geniuses, I am almost as sure that it holds of genius. Listen to this: Napoleon I used to say that battles were won by the sudden flashing of an idea through the brain of a commander at a certain critical instant. The capacity for generating this sudden electric spark was military genius.... Napoleon seems always to have counted upon it, always to have believed that when the critical moment arrived the wild confusion of the battlefield would be illuminated for him by that burst of sudden flame. But if Napoleon had been ignorant of the prosaic business of his profession, _to which he attended more closely than any other commander,_ would these moments of supreme clearness have availed him, or would they have come to him at all? My author thinks not: and I am sure he is right. So, in writing, only out of long preparation can come the truly triumphant flash: and I ask you to push this analogy further, into the business of reading, even of reading for examination. You learn to discipline yourselves, you acquire the art of marshalling, of concentrating, driving your knowledge upon a point: and--for you are young--that point is by no means the final point. Say that it is only an examination, and silly at that. Still you have been learning the art, you have been training yourself to be, for a better purpose, effective. IX Yet, and when this has been granted, the crucial question abides and I must not shirk it 'you say that the highest literature deals with _What Is_ rather than with _What Knows._ It is all very fine to assure us that testing our knowledge _about_ Literature and _around_ Literature, and on this side or that side of Literature, is healthy for us in some oblique way: but can you examiners examine, or can you not, on Literature in what you call its own and proper category of _What Is_?' So I hear the question--the question which beats and has beaten, over and over again, good men trying to construct Schools of English in our Universities.