1920
Essay - one original etching
1st Edition (Special edition)
Edition: 120 (100 for sale)
Pages: 233
Publisher: Art in Australia, Sydney
Hardcover, black and white
This edition includes one original etching titled Creative Effort which is signed and numbered by Norman Lindsay. The books were not numbered. The Facsimile Etching of Creative Effort was released in 2008.
Reference
The Complete Etchings of Norman Lindsay, (Odana Editions and Josef Lebovic Gallery, 1998, pp.49-54)
Represented
Mitchell Library (original manuscript)
Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
Fisher Library, University of Sydney
James Hardie Library of Australian Fine Arts, State Library of Queensland
National Library of Australia
To whom does one offer the gift of a thought?
To him who already thinks it.
The mission of the thinker is not to enlighten, but to confirm. The material for enlightenment is already there, like a piled-up beacon; the new thought is but a spark that sets it alight.
Anger at the stupidity of common minds is foolish, save in youth, when it is a stimulus.
Yet all high minds wish to offer the gift of thought to mankind, and because it is rejected they become bitter.
But gold is no use to a savage. He prefers iron, which is useful to him. And here the savage is wise. One cannot blame the common mind, because it seeks common thoughts — vulgar utilities — for these things help it.
If the common man is also able to catch a little at higher thoughts, so much the better; but he has caught something in passing not addressed to him.
The message of the Creative Effort is to him whose mission is to carry on the Creative Effort.
A revised and expanded edtion published by Cecil Palmer, London, in 1924 has 292 pages and does not include the original etching.
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