The highest kind of journalism is very well done in England; the men who do it are often either highly educated, or richly gifted by nature, or both. The practice of journalism is useful to an author in giving him a degree of readiness and rapidity, a skill in turning his materials to immediate account, and a power of presenting one or two points effectively, which may often be valuable in literature of a more permanent order. The danger of it may be illustrated by a reference to a sister art. I was in the studio of an English landscape-painter when some pictures arrived from an artist in the country to go along with his own to one of the exhibitions. They were all very pretty and very clever--indeed, so clever were they, that their cleverness was almost offensive--and so long as they were looked at by themselves, the brilliance of them was rather dazzling. But the instant they were placed by the side of thoroughly careful and earnest work, it became strikingly evident that they had been painted hastily, and would be almost immediately exhausted by the purchaser. Now these pictures were the _journalism of painting_; and my friend told me that when once an artist has got into the habit of doing hasty work like that, he seldom acquires better habits afterwards. Professional writers who follow journalism for its immediate profits, are liable in like manner to retain the habit of diffuseness in literature which ought to be more finished and more concentrated. Therefore, although journalism is a good teacher of promptitude and decision, it often spoils a hand for higher literature by incapacitating it for perfect finish; and it is better for a writer who has ambition to write little, _but always his best_, than to dilute himself in daily columns. One of the greatest privileges which an author can aspire to is _to be allowed to write little_, and that is a privilege which the professional writer does not enjoy except in such rare instances as that of Tennyson, whose careful finish is as prudent in the professional sense as it is satisfactory to the scrupulous fastidiousness of the artist. LETTER IV. TO AN ENERGETIC AND SUCCESSFUL COTTON MANUFACTURER. Two classes in their lower grades inevitably hostile--The spiritual and temporal powers--The functions of both not easily exercised by the same person--Humboldt, Faraday, Livingstone--The difficulty about time--Limits to the energy of the individual--Jealousy between the classes--That this jealousy ought not to exist--Some of the sciences based upon an industrial development--The work of the intellectual class absolutely necessary in a highly civilized community--That it grows in numbers and influence side by side with the industrial class.