When he thinks on the guineas he is making now, and the coppers he was not able to earn before; when he thinks upon the pictures which he created before, and the worthless daubs which he is flinging off now; when he thinks upon what might have been, or upon the woman he might have married, or, if married, on the woman who might have been still alive, if his deserts had been rewarded as his folly is--the woman who pined and grew haggard with anxiety, and starved to death through the want of the paltry gold that now curses his present blasted life--this is the kind of comedy to make men stand up and blaspheme, and to make women lay down their heads and weep themselves blind. The painter who _was_ a man, and has become a machine; the man who grew by his earnestness near to God, and now must work for an earth-idol! It is a comic sight to see pictures which are the fashion; colour-blendings, the outcome of craft only; men who have had aspirations after great things content to lay down a noble purpose before an order. One trick or one accident did it, and so they must run the vein threadbare or else starve. I remember once three young fellows who went gold-hunting; they bought a digger's claim and dug away for six months without a single sight of gold-earth colour, and at last caved in. Two new chums came along and took the claim on chance; the ex-proprietors had pocketed the transfer-money, and squatted on the surface to take a final pipe before leaving. The new hands went down and filled the bucket; it came up bulging with a fifty-six pound nugget of pure gold in it. The old hands had worked six months without avail, and the new chums struck at first sight. Art is like gold-digging, all a blind chance. It isn't good work that takes, it isn't earnest thought; it is all a turn of the wheel, and the man may be a genius or a jackass. If his turn comes up he wins the hour. Gold! Ah, when will the power of it cease? The first digger who saw the nugget appear clasped his hands in front of him and took a header down the pit, dashing his brains out in the paroxysm of his disappointment. I remember once a man who had made a fortune came on board ship with the load converted into sovereigns and sewn inside a broad belt round his waist. He tried to be calm and reasonable, but it was of no use; he went frantic with his good luck, and one day, after being three weeks out at sea, he came up on deck in a frenzied condition, took off his valuable belt, opened it, and pouring the glittering contents overboard, sprang in after them, and so settled the grand problem. There was one painter who knew the difficulties of art and the capriciousness of fortune very exactly. In early life his good pictures could hardly bring him in 30_s._ a week, and latterly, when he could sell all he put his name upon, he used to say that the British Lion would give fifty pounds for a dirty piece of paper if it only had his name on the corner.