lines on an artist's vocation...

     I left behind a few possibilities - architecture, etc - because I knew I could never be *great* at them.* To my mind, this had nothing to do with recognition or fame - though it's impossible to practice architecture, for instance, without building the damned buildings (one must fail in public, while finding clients to pay for the failure). 

     No, as in poetry, I looked to those I knew to be great, the transcendent ones, and wondered if I would ever make anything as beautiful, daring, and true. As a poet, see, I'm more concerned with how John Donne or Dante will regard my best work when it's All Over. The Kingdom of God is given by grace; the Kingdom of Art is all about works, and reverence - even, and especially, when reverence leads you to try and surpass your masters. 

     So Yeats was wrong. For an artist, perfection of the work is ingredient in the perfection of the life. 

* Hell, I was barely competent at many of the things I tried to do.