Now I don't know, unhappily, the common process
of growth of the artistic mind, and how far the light of today helps
the neophyte to look into the indefinite twilight of to-morrow; but
step by step was the slow rule of Elkanah's mind, and he had been now
five years an artist, and was held in no despicable repute by those few
who could rightly judge of a man's future by his past, when first it
became very clear to him that he had yet to find his _speciality_ in
Art,--that truth which _he_ might better represent than any other man.
Don't think five years long to determine so trivial a point. The right
man in the right place is still a rare phenomenon in the world; and
some men spend a lifetime in the consideration of this very point,
doubtless looking to take their chance of real work in the next world.
I mean to say it took Elkanah just five years to discover, that, though
he painted many things well, he did yet put his very soul into none,
and that, unless he could now presently find this, _his_ right place,
he had, perhaps, better stop altogether.
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