The moment a man can really do his work he becomes speechless about it. All words become idle to him--all theories. Does a bird need to theorize about building its nest, or boast of it when built? All good work is essentially done that way--without hesitation, without difficulty, without boasting; and in the doers of the best, there is an inner and involuntary power which approximates literally to the instinct of an animal--nay, I am certain that in the most perfect human artists, reason does _not_ supersede instinct, but is added to an instinct as much more divine than that of the lower animals; as the human body is more beautiful than theirs; that a great singer sings not with less instinct than the nightingale, but with more--only more various, applicable, and governable; that a great architect does not build with less instinct than the beaver or the bee, but with more--with an innate cunning of proportion that embraces all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of skill that improvises all construction. * * * * * And now, returning to the broader question, what these arts and labors of life have to teach us of its mystery, this is the first of their lessons--that the more beautiful the art, the more it is essentially the work of the people who _feel themselves wrong_; who are striving for the fulfillment of a law, and the grasp of a loveliness, which they have not yet attained, which they feel even further and further from attaining, the more they strive for it. And yet, in still deeper sense, it is the work of people who know also that they are right. The very sense of inevitable error from their purpose marks the perfectness of that purpose, and the continued sense of failure arises from the continued opening of the eyes more clearly to all the sacredest laws of truth.