We are acquainted with the irascible nerve patient who pours his curses on the head of a noisy child; and in his case we are only too ready to suspect a morbid condition of the body. But when we ourselves, or our young friends, or our brothers, sister, or cousins, suddenly display, when still in their teens, a sort of gasping enthusiasm before a landscape, a peasant child, or a sunset; when they show an inability to bide their time, to pause, and to remain inactive in the presence of what they consider beautiful, we immediately conclude from their conduct, not that they have little command of themselves, but that they must of necessity have strong artistic natures. Our novels are full of such people with weak wills, so are our plays; so, too, unfortunately, are our Art Schools. We know the Art student who, the moment he sees what he would call "a glorious view," or a "dramatic sunset or sunrise," hurls his materials together helter-skelter and dashes off, ventre à terre, to the most convenient spot whence he can paint it. We have seen him seize the thing he calls an impression, his teeth clenched the while, and his nostrils dilated. But how often does it occur to us that such a creature has got a bad temper? How often do we realize that he is irritable, self-indulgent, sick in fact? Only in an age like our own could this ridiculous travesty of an artist pass for an artist. It is only in our age that his neurotic touchiness could possibly be mistaken for strength and vigour; and yet there are hundreds of his kind among the painters and sculptors of the day. Many a student's call to Art, at present, is merely a reminder, on the part of Nature, that he should cultivate restraint and forbearance, and should go in for commerce; for there is a whole universe between such a man and the artist of value. Not that sensitiveness is absent in the real artist; but it is of a kind which has strength to wait, to reflect, to weigh, and, if necessary, to refrain from action altogether. "Slow is the experience of all deep wells," says Zarathustra. "Long must they wait ere they know what hath sunk into their depths."[9] But the people I have just described have only a skin, and any itch upon it they call Art. No lasting good, no permanent value can come of these irascible people who will be avenged on all that they call beauty, "right away"; who will, so to speak, "pay beauty out," and who cannot contain themselves in its presence. They can but help to swell the ranks of the incompetent, and even if they are successful, as they sometimes are nowadays, all they do is to wreck the sacred calling in which they are but pathological usurpers.