The primary concern of every artist of every sort must be a vision of that to which he would attain, of that which he would make. The sculptor sees the finished statue before he begins to mould the clay; the painter sees his picture before he adds touch to touch of color upon his canvas; the poet knows what he would say before he begins to weave the magic of his words; and the composer has heard his symphony before he struggles with the writing of his notes. Obviously, if there is a parallel art of living, the artist in life must have some conception of his finished product, of what sort of life he is trying to make. For any artist, again, there are the materials and tools with which he works, and just as the material of the musician is sound, that of the sculptor marble or bronze, that of the[Pg 291] poet words, so the material with which the artist in life deals must be thought and emotion, using the terms in their very widest senses. The range of these is practically unlimited, infinitely more so than the materials available to any other artist. So again we find a far more varied assortment among what we may call the tools with which the artist in life may work as compared with those of other artists. Any art is circumscribed by its technique. Marble must be chiselled with a limited number of tools in certain ways, sound must be produced by a similarly limited number of instruments, and so in the other arts. But the artist in life is confronted by an almost infinite number of “tools” which for him consist of all those things by which thought and emotion can be brought into being. For example, he has the finished product of every other art—statues, poems, music, paintings. There is also the whole world of practical appliances—houses, clothes, automobiles, money, telephones, all the innumerable contrivances for man’s comfort or ostentation. There are, further, the endless forms of activity of work or play—business, the professions, travel, sport. There are the individualized relationships of parenthood, acquaintance, friendship, love. In a word, everything, tangible and intangible, is a “tool” with which the artist in life may produce thought or emotion, and so modify the life itself conceived as a product of art. It is evident that whoever would practice an art of living is likely to be overwhelmed by the wealth of his material and by the unlimited choice of tools with which to mould it into specific forms.