Neither the artist nor his friends need feel solicitude for his fame. The exact value of his excellence shall be estimated, and the height of his genius fully recognized, when the right man comes. Other award than that from an age on a level with his own life can be of small worth to one who has attained to the true level of Art. Fame must come to him of that vision which can pierce the external of his work and penetrate to the presence of his very soul. His action must be traced to its finest ideal motive,--as chemist-philosophers pursue the steps of analysis until opaque matter is resolved to pure, ethereal elements. His fame must be from such vision, and it will approach the universal just in proportion as his pulse beats in unison with the heart of mankind. Whatever may be an artist's plans, or those of his friends, in regard to his valuation by the world, while he is living, ultimately he himself, divested of all save his own individuality, must stand revealed. Those who in other departments of action are necessarily governed somewhat, or it may be entirely, by rules of conduct general in nature and universal in application, may fail to receive or may escape justice. They are to a great degree involuntary agents, and subject to the laws of science, to the operations of which they are obliged to conform. The private fact of the man is hidden by the public general truth. If, however, the energies of the individual overtop the science, enabling him to assert himself above the summit of its history, then is he accessible to all generations, and can in no wise avoid or forfeit his just fame. In Art, this intimate relation of the result of action to the actor is complete,--inasmuch as, to _be_ Art, to rise above being something else, the shadow and mockery of Art, it must be of and from the man, a spontaneity, a reflection, light for light, shade for shade, color for color, of his entire being; and with this effect his will has little to do. Therefore, unless he be an impostor, he need give himself no trouble regarding his future. His works shall serve as a clue, produced century after century, along which posterity shall feel its way back to his studio and heart. No need of thought for _his_ morrow. But for his to-day he may well be solicitous. If fame be his reflection, he has also the shadow of himself, his reputation. It is a great error to assume that these two effects are so related that the augmentation of the one must increase the other, and as great a mistake to confound the two. The truth is, that reputation and fame are rarely coincident. They are not unfrequently in direct opposition,--so much so, that some names, which the world cannot give up, have to be filtered through a thick mass of years, to purify them of their reputations, and leave them simply famous.