As the artists must be considered as the standard-bearers of that blissful banner of progress to be effected through the culture of the _sympathies_ of the race, unrolling that great Oriflamme of humanity, on which bloom the Heavenly Lilies of that chaste Passion of the Soul--_the longing for the infinite_--let us acknowledge that we have failed to render happy the great spirits no longer among us; and let us strive, for the future, not to chill with our mistrust and coldness, not to drive into the sickness of despair with our want of intelligent sympathy, the gifted living, who, as angels of a better covenant, still lovingly linger among us! Let us strive to learn the lesson set before us with such tenderness in the following eloquent words of Ruskin, fitting close as they are to the many which we have already collated and combined with our work from his glowing pages. 'He who has once stood beside the grave to look back upon the companionship now forever closed, feeling how impotent _there_ are the wild love and keen sorrow to give one moment's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the _heart_ which can only be discharged to the _dust_. But the lessons which men receive as _individuals_, they never learn as _nations_. Again and again they have seen their _noblest_ descend into the grave, and have thought it enough to garland the tombstone when they have not crowned the brow, and to pay the honor to the _ashes_ which they had denied to the _spirit_. Let it not displease them that they are bidden, amidst the tumult and glitter of their busy life, to listen for the few voices and watch for the few lamps which God has toned and lighted to charm and guide them, that they may not learn their sweetness by their silence, nor their light by their decay.' Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the highest poet of our own century, has thus given us the artist's creed of resignation, closing her chant with his sublime Te Deum: VOICE OF THE CREATOR. ''And, O ye gifted givers, ye Who give your liberal hearts to me, To make the world this harmony,-- ''Are ye resigned that they be spent To such world's help?' The spirits bent Their awful brows, and said--'Content! ''We ask no wages--seek no fame! Sew us for shroud round face and name, God's banner of the oriflamme. ''We are content to be so bare Before the archers! everywhere Our wounds being stroked by heavenly air. ''We lay our souls before thy feet, That Images of fair and sweet Should walk to other men on it. ''We are content to feel the step Of each pure Image!--let those keep To mandragore, who care to sleep: ''For though we must have, and have had Right reason to be earthly sad-- THOU POET-GOD, ART GREAT AND GLAD!'' END OF VOLUME FIRST.