Without Lifting A Finger

Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.  I may very likely be condemning myself, all the time that I am writing this book, for I know that whether I like it or no I am portraying myself more surely than I am portraying any of the characters whom I set before the reader.  I am sorry that it is so, but I cannot help it—after which sop to Nemesis I will say that Battersby church in its amended form has always struck me as a better portrait of Theobald than any sculptor or painter short of a great master would be able to produce.

How little do we know our thoughts—our reflex actions indeed, yes; but our reflex reflections!  Man, forsooth, prides himself on his consciousness!  We boast that we differ from the winds and waves and falling stones and plants, which grow they know not why, and from the wandering creatures which go up and down after their prey, as we are pleased to say without the help of reason.  We know so well what we are doing ourselves and why we do it, do we not?  I fancy that there is some truth in the view which is being put forward nowadays, that it is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.

“My boy,” returned my father, “you must not judge by the work, but by the work in connection with the surroundings.  Could Giotto or Filippo Lippi, think you, have got a picture into the Exhibition?  Would a single one of those frescoes we went to see when we were at Padua have the remotest chance of being hung, if it were sent in for exhibition now?  Why, the Academy people would be so outraged that they would not even write to poor Giotto to tell him to come and take his fresco away.  Phew!” continued he, waxing warm, “if old Pontifex had had Cromwell’s chances he would have done all that Cromwell did, and have done it better; if he had had Giotto’s chances he would have done all that Giotto did, and done it no worse; as it was, he was a village carpenter, and I will undertake to say he never scamped a job in the whole course of his life.” “But,” said I, “we cannot judge people with so many ‘ifs.’  If old Pontifex had lived in Giotto’s time he might have been ...