That was a home word of Pinkerton's, deserving to be writ in letters of gold on the portico of every school of art: "What I can't see is why you should want to do nothing else." The dull man is made, not by the nature, but by the degree of his immersion in a single business.

And all the more if that be sedentary, uneventful, and ingloriously safe.

More than one half of him will then remain unexercised and undeveloped; the rest will be distended and deformed by over-nutrition, over-cerebration, and the heat of rooms.

And I have often marvelled at the impudence of gentlemen, who describe and pass judgment on the life of man, in almost perfect ignorance of all its necessary elements and natural careers.

Those who dwell in clubs and studios may paint excellent pictures or write enchanting novels.