In the act of creation
a man incorporates his own personality into the visible world about
him, and in a true and noble sense gives himself to his fellows. When
an artist looks at his work he sees himself; he has performed the
highest task of which he is capable, and fulfilled the highest purpose
for which he was planned by an artist greater than himself.
The rapture of the creative mood and moment is the reward of the little
group whose touch on any kind of material is imperishable. It comes
when the spell of inspired work is on them, or in the moment which
follows immediately on completion and before the reaction of
depression--which is the heavy penalty of the artistic temperament--has
set in. Balzac knew it in that frenzy of work which seized him for days
together; and Thackeray knew it, as he confesses, when he had put the
finishing touches on that striking scene in which Rawdon Crawley
thrashes Lord Steyne within an inch of his wicked life. The great
novelist, who happened also to be a great writer, knew that the whole
scene, in conception and execution, was a stroke of genius.
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