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Page Five

Alban Berg, - all artists should reach to the limit of their consciousness in seeking a unity between their true selves and the images they reflect.

Even when the factor of livelihood is not a problem, this pilgrimage of creation is still an arduous undertaking. Aware of the "unknown disciplines of the self-imposed task". Henry James Sr, gave the same caution to his young sons Henry and William, when they were both considering careers as painters. The father wrote to them, this undertaking was no farce not a genteel comedy even. To quote him exactly he wrote: "anyone capable of a spiritual existence must face an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters". (Eventually, as you know, Henry became a great novelist and William a great philosopher.)

If the life of the artist is so hard-earned...why undertake it?

Consider one of Dr. Johnson's favorite books, Don Quixote. We may find the man of La Mancha a humorous figure, mistaking windmills for giants, a herd of animals for enemy cavalry, wandering the by-roads of Spain on his quest for the intangible, which greatly approximates the artists adventure of the spirit. We cannot, however, laugh at what Don Quixote was attempting to do, that is, bring justice and establish the world as it ought to be. Don Quixote suffers the same malaise of many artists, the the collision of their awakened dreams with the rocks of the actual world. A poet once wrote: "How lucky it is for tyrants that one half of mankind doesn't think, and the other half doesn't feel". But Don Quixote never lacked compassion and courage. This is something Sancho Panza, Quixote's loyal companion and servant understood. When the Duke offered Sancho a position in his household where he would have a comfortable security, Sancho told the Duke he could not leave Don Quixote.