We must have a standard to measure by, and
that standard must be in ourselves. An ignorant peasant cannot
know that Bacon is so wise. To duly appreciate genius, you must
have genius; a pigmy cannot measure the strength of a giant. The
faculty that reads and admires, is the green undeveloped state of
the faculty that writes and creates.
A book, a principle, an individual, a landscape, or any object in
nature, to be understood and appreciated, must answer to something
within us; appreciation is the first step toward interpreting a
revelation.
To feel terribly beaten is a good sign; the more resources a man
is conscious of, the deeper he will feel his defeat. But to feel
unusually elated at a victory indicates that our strength did not
warrant it, that we had gone beyond our resources. The boy who
went crowing all day through the streets, on having killed a
squirrel with a stone, showed plainly enough that it was not
a general average of his throwing, and that he was not in the
habit of doing so well; while the rifleman picks the hawk from the
distant tree without remark or comment, and feels vexed if he miss.
The style of some authors, like the manners of some men, is so
naked, so artificial, has so little character at the bottom of it,
that it is constantly intruding itself upon your notice, and seems
to lie there like a huge marble counter from behind which they vend
only pins and needles; whereas the true function of style is as
a means and not as an end--to concentrate the attention upon the
thought which it bears, and not upon itself--to be so apt, natural,
and easy, and so in keeping with the character of the author, that,
like the comb in the hive, it shall seem the result of that which
it contains, and to exist for /its/ sake alone.
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