One may ask, How can the beginner paint, or draw conveyances,
till he has learnt how to do so? The answer is, How can he learn,
without at any rate trying to do? It is the old story, organ and
function, power and desire, demand and supply, faith and reason, etc.,
the most virtuous action and interaction in the most vicious circle
conceivable. If the beginner likes his subject, he will try: if he
tries, he will soon succeed in doing something which shall open a door.
It does not matter what a man does; so long as he does it with the
attention which affection engenders, he will come to see his way to
something else. After long waiting he will certainly find one door open,
and go through it. He will say to himself that he can never find
another. He has found this, more by luck than cunning, but now he is
done. Yet by and by he will see that there is _one_ more small
unimportant door which he had overlooked, and he proceeds through this
too. If he remains now for a long while and sees no other, do not let
him fret; doors are like the kingdom of heaven, they come not by
observation, least of all do they come by forcing: let him just go on
doing what comes nearest, but doing it attentively, and a great wide door
will one day spring into existence where there had been no sign of one
but a little time previously.
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