The origin of discipline is the desire to do not merely our best with the degree of power and knowledge which at the time we do actually happen to possess, but with that which we _might_ possess if we submitted to the necessary training. The powers given to us by Nature are little more than a power to become, and this becoming is always conditional on some sort of exercise--what sort we have to discover for ourselves. No class of persons are so liable to overlook the uses of discipline as authors are. Anybody can write a book, though few can write that which deserves the name of literature. There are great technical differences between literature and book-making, but few can clearly explain these differences, or detect, in their own case, the absence of the necessary qualities. In painting, the most perfect finish is recognized at a glance, but the mind only can perceive it in the book. It was an odd notion of the authorities to exhibit literature in the international exhibitions; but if they could have made people see the difference between sound and unsound workmanship in the literary craft, they would have rendered a great service to the higher intellectual discipline. Sir Arthur Helps might have served as an example to English writers, because he has certain qualities in which we are grievously deficient. He can say a thing in the words that are most fit and necessary, and then leave it. Sainte-Beuve would have been another admirable example of self-discipline, especially to Frenchmen, who would do well to imitate him in his horror of the _á peu près_. He never began to write about anything until he had cleared the ground well before him. He never spoke about any character or doctrine that he had not bottomed (to use Locke's word) as far as he was able. He had an extraordinary aptitude for collecting exactly the sort of material that he needed, for arranging and classifying material, for perceiving its mutual relations. Very few Frenchmen have had Sainte-Beuve's intense repugnance to insufficiency of information and inaccuracy of language. Few indeed are the French journalists of whom it might be said, as it may be truly said of Sainte-Beuve, that he never wrote even an article for a newspaper without having subjected his mind to a special training for that particular article. The preparations for one of his _Lundis_ were the serious occupation of several laborious days; and before beginning the actual composition, his mind had been disciplined into a state of the most complete readiness, like the fingers of a musician who has been practising a piece before he executes it.