Men of mere skill always stop
short of this final process of self-development, and always stop short
of those final achievements which sum up and express all that has been
known or felt about a subject and give it permanent form; men of
essential greatness take this last step in that higher education which
makes one master of the force of his personality, and give his words
and works universal range and perennial interest.
Now, this is the deepest quality in the books of life, which a student
may not only enjoy to the full, but may also absorb and make his own.
When Alfred de Musset, in an oft-repeated phrase, said that it takes a
great deal of life to make a little art, he was not only affirming the
reality of this process of passing experience through consciousness
into the unconscious side of a man's nature, but he was also hinting
at one of the greatest resources of pleasure and growth. For time and
life continually enrich the man who has learned the secret of turning
experience and observation into knowledge and power. It is a secret in
the sense in which every vital process is a secret; but it is not a
trick, a skill, or a method which may be communicated in a formula.
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