Now and then a genius, such as Carlyle, such as Whistler, such as Whitman, asserts himself in spite of all rebuffs, for each of these men pursued his chosen path regardless of all revilings; but, so susceptible is genius to encouragement and discouragement, that, for the most part, it droops before the withering blast of adverse criticism, and only those of hearts so strong and wills so stubborn that opposition inflames them to greater efforts make headway against the world. It was no one genius that made the monuments and literature of Greece, the art of China and Japan, the paintings of Italy, the Gothic cathedrals of France and England; it was the demand for all these things and their appreciation by those who could not do them that called forth and encouraged the doers. * * * * * The first artist may neglect the chase and the field and remain by the tents idly tracing strange designs upon gourds; but unless those who till the soil and bring in the food see his decorated gourds and like them, and prefer them to the plain ones which abound, and are willing to give him food and shelter for his work, he will not remain by the tents very long, and his artistic career will be foreshortened by necessity. But if the toilers and the hunters like the decorated gourds, and the demand for them increases, others of the tribe who have talent for designing and decoration will join the master and imitate his work, and every now and then a pupil will prove a genius and surpass the “first artist,” and art will grow and art-products will multiply, but only so long as the rest of the tribe are willing to work and toil and to exchange the necessaries of life for paintings and carvings and pottery; and the greater the demand, the keener the desire of the people for decorated things in preference to those that are plain and cheap, the larger will be the chance of uncovering now and then a genius, until, as with the Greeks, the effective demand for things beautiful, for poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture, becomes so great that we have an artistic people and an art-epoch,--that is to say, a people that is only too glad to encourage and support a large number of artists of every kind, and an era when of a given population an unusually large percentage is devoted to the service of the beautiful. * * * * * The master does _seem_--as Whistler says--to come unbidden; but he will not remain long, and others will not follow in his footsteps, unless he arouses at least sufficient appreciation to give him life. The future of art--of literature, of the drama, and of all the handicrafts--in America depends not upon the coming of a genius, but upon the growth of an effective and irresistible demand for good things; when that demand is sufficiently imperative, a Phidias, an Angelo, a Shakespeare will respond, for genius is latent everywhere.