His true place would have been that of Professor
and Lecturer in the Royal Academy. The world is not insensible or
unjust, but it knows what it wants, and will not long be put off with
less. There is always a public for success; there never is, and never
ought to be, for inadequacy. Haydon was in some respects a first-rate
man, but the result of his anxious, restless, and laborious life was
almost zero, as far as concerned its definite aims. It does not convey
the moral of neglected genius, or of loose notions of money-obligations,
ending in suicide, but simply of a mischosen vocation, leading sooner or
later to utter and undeniable failure. _Pas meme academicien_! Plenty of
neglected geniuses have found it good to be neglected, plenty of Jeremy
Diddlers (in letters and statesmanship as often as in money-matters)
have lived to a serene old age, but the man who in any of the unuseful
arts insists on doing what Nature never asked him to do has no place in
the world. Leslie, a second-rate man in all respects, but with a genuine
talent rightly directed, an obscure American, with few friends, no
influential patrons, and a modesty that would never let him obtrude his
claims, worked steadily forward to competence, to reputation, and the
Council of the Academy. The only blunder of his life was his accepting
the Professorship of Drawing at West Point, a place for which he was
unsuited. But this blunder he had the good sense and courage to correct
by the frank acknowledgment of resignation.
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