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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: been more misunderstood or misapplied--than my strong assertion that
the arts can never be right themselves, unless their motive is
right. It is misunderstood this way: weak painters, who have never
learned their business, and cannot lay a true line, continually come
to me, crying out--"Look at this picture of mine; it MUST be good, I
had such a lovely motive. I have put my whole heart into it, and
taken years to think over its treatment." Well, the only answer for
these people is--if one had the cruelty to make it--"Sir, you cannot
think over ANYthing in any number of years,--you haven't the head to
do it; and though you had fine motives, strong enough to make you
burn yourself in a slow fire, if only first you could paint a
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