The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: continue to be a law to yourself, you must beware of the first
signs of laziness. This idealism in honesty can only be supported
by perpetual effort; the standard is easily lowered, the artist who
says "IT WILL DO," is on the downward path; three or four pot-
boilers are enough at times (above all at wrong times) to falsify a
talent, and by the practice of journalism a man runs the risk of
becoming wedded to cheap finish. This is the danger on the one
side; there is not less upon the other. The consciousness of how
much the artist is (and must be) a law to himself, debauches the
small heads. Perceiving recondite merits very hard to attain,
making or swallowing artistic formulae, or perhaps falling in love
|