" But it is not so written.
It was as if the true aim and glory of every man in a civilized
community should be to paint pictures. Which has this grain of truth in
it, that, in the highest form of human development, I believe every man
will be at heart an artist. But then we shall be past picture-painting
and exhibitions. Don't you see, that, if the fruit be thoroughly ripe,
it needs no violent plucking? or that, if a man is really a painter, he
_will_ paint,--ay, though he were ten times a shoe-maker, and could
never, never hope to hang;--his pictures on the Academy walls, to win
cheap wonder from boarding-school misses, or just regard from
judicious critics?
Elkanah Brewster came to New York to make his career,--to win nothing
less than fame and fortune. When he had struggled through five years of
Art-study, and was now just beginning to earn a little money, he began
also to think that he had somehow counted his chickens before they were
hatched,--perhaps, indeed, before the eggs were laid. "Good and quickly
come seldom together," said old Uncle Shubael.
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