So much have I now rattled off (old age's garrulity,) that there is
not space for explaining the most important and pregnant principle of
all, viz., that Art is one, is not partial, but includes all times and
forms and sorts--is not exclusively aristocratic or democratic, or
oriental or occidental. My favorite symbol would be a good font of
type, where the impeccable long-primer rejects nothing. Or the old
Dutch flour-miller who said, "I never bother myself what road the
folks come--I only want good wheat and rye."
The font is about the same forever. Democratic art results of
democratic development, from tinge, true nationality, belief, in the
one setting up from it.
Note:
[44] Two new volumes, "Essays Speculative and Suggestive," by John
Addington Symonds. One of the Essays is on "Democratic Art," in which
I and my books are largely alluded to and cited and dissected. It
is this part of the vols. that has caused the off-hand lines
above--(first thanking Mr. S. for his invariable courtesy of personal
treatment).
OLD POETS
Poetry (I am clear) is eligible of something far more ripen'd and
ample, our lands and pending days, than it has yet produced from
any utterance old or new. Modern or new poetry, too, (viewing or
challenging it with severe criticism,) is largely a-void--while the
very cognizance, or even suspicion of that void, and the need of
filling it, proves a certainty of the hidden and waiting supply.
Leaving other lands and languages to speak for themselves, we can
abruptly but deeply suggest it best from our own--going first to
oversea illustrations, and standing on them.
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