I want pictures in my world, too, and statues; for they show me the hearts of the artists, and that is a sort of baptism.  Sometimes I grow a bit impatient to see how slowly some work of mine proceeds.  Then I think of Ghiberti, who worked for forty-two years on the bronze doors of the Baptistry there in Florence, which Michael Angelo declared to be worthy of paradise.  Then I reflect that it was worth a lifetime of work to win the praise of such as Angelo.  This reflection calms me, and I plod on more serenely, glad of the fact that I can count Ghiberti and the bronze doors as a part of my world.  When I can have Titian, Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Raphael, and Rosa Bonheur around, I feel that I have good company and must be on my good behavior.  If Corot, Reynolds, Leighton, Watts, and Landseer should be banished from my world I’d feel that I had suffered a great loss.  I like to hobnob with such folks as these, both for my own pleasure and also for the reputation I gain through such associations.

I must have people in my world, also, or it wouldn’t be much of a world.  And I must be careful in my selection of people, if I am to achieve any distinction as a world builder.  I just can’t leave Cordelia out, for she helps to make my world luminous.  But she must have companions; so I shall select Antigone, Evangeline, Miranda, Mary, and Martha if she can spare the time.  Among the male contingent I shall want Job, Erasmus, Petrarch, Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, Milton, and Burns.  I want men and women in whose presence I must stand uncovered to preserve my self-respect.  I want big people, wise people, and dynamic people in my world, people who will teach me how to work and how to live.

If I can get my world made and peopled to my liking, I shall refute Mr. Wordsworth’s statement that the world is too much with us.  If I can have the right sort of folks about me, they will see to it that I do not waste my powers, for I shall be compelled to use my powers in order to avert expulsion from their good company.  If I get my world built to suit me, I shall have no occasion to imitate the poet’s plaint.  I suspect there is no better fun in life than in building a world of one’s own.

CHAPTER XXV

THIS OR THAT

One day in London a friend told me that on the market in that city they have eggs of five grades—­new-laid eggs, fresh eggs, imported fresh eggs, good eggs, and eggs.  A few days later we were in the Tate Gallery looking at the Turner collection when he told me a story of Turner.  It seems that a friend of the artist was in his studio watching him at his work, when suddenly this friend said:  “Really, Mr. Turner, I can’t see in nature the colors that you portray on canvas.”  The artist looked at him steadily for a moment, and then replied:  “Don’t you wish you could?” Life, even at its best, certainly is a maze.  I find