The process, so far, is indirect and peculiar, and though it may be
suggested, cannot be defined. Observing, rapport, and with intuition,
the shows and forms presented by Nature, the sensuous luxuriance, the
beautiful in living men and women, the actual play of passions, in
history and life--and, above all, from those developments either in
Nature or human personality in which power, (dearest of all to the
sense of the artist,) transacts itself-out of these, and seizing what
is in them, the poet, the esthetic worker in any field, by the divine
magic of his genius, projects them, their analogies, by curious
removes, indirections, in literature and art. (No useless attempt to
repeat the material creation, by daguerreotyping the exact likeness by
mortal mental means.) This is the image-making faculty, coping with
material creation, and rivaling, almost triumphing over it. This
alone, when all the other parts of a specimen of literature or art are
ready and waiting, can breathe into it the breath of life, and endow
it with identity.
"The true question to ask," says the librarian of Congress in a paper
read before the Social Science Convention at New York, October, 1869,
"The true question to ask respecting a book, is, _has it help'd any
human soul?_" This is the hint, statement, not only of the great
literatus, his book, but of every great artist. It may be that all
works of art are to be first tried by their art qualities,
their image-forming talent, and their dramatic, pictorial,
plot-constructing, euphonious and other talents.
Pages:
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418