All utterances which, however they may add to the amount of thought,
distract the mind, and confuse its observation of the main idea, the
essence or life of the book or paper, must be diligently refused. In the
manuscript of _Comus_ there exists, cancelled but legible, a passage of
which I have the best authority for saying that it would have made the
poetic fame of any writer. But the grand old self-denier struck it out
of the opening speech because that would be more polished without
it--because the _Attendant Spirit_ would say more immediately and
exclusively, and therefore more completely, what he had to say, without
it.--All this applies much more widely and deeply in the region of art;
but I am at present dealing with the surface of style, not with the
round of result.
I have one instance at hand, however, belonging to this region, than
which I could scarcely produce a more apt illustration of my thesis. One
of the greatest of living painters, walking with a friend through the
late Exhibition of Art-Treasures at Manchester, came upon Albert Duerer's
_Melancholia_. After looking at it for a moment, he told his friend that
now for the first time he understood it, and proceeded to set forth what
he saw in it.
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