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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: the arts might be permitted by Providence to labour and perish
uselessly; that in the very fineness of it there might be something
rendering it invisible to ordinary eyes; but that, with this strange
excellence, faults might be mingled which would be as deadly as its
virtues were vain; that the glory of it was perishable, as well as
invisible, and the gift and grace of it might be to us as snow in
summer and as rain in harvest.
That was the first mystery of life to me. But, while my best energy
was given to the study of painting, I had put collateral effort,
more prudent if less enthusiastic, into that of architecture; and in
this I could not complain of meeting with no sympathy. Among
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