They must be admitted, alas! upon a doubtful title; many
without marriage robes. Thus any work of art, as it proceeds
towards completion, too often--I had almost written always--loses
in force and poignancy of main design. Our little air is swamped
and dwarfed among hardly relevant orchestration; our little
passionate story drowns in a deep sea of descriptive eloquence or
slipshod talk.
But again, we are rather more tempted to admit those particulars
which we know we can describe; and hence those most of all which,
having been described very often, have grown to be conventionally
treated in the practice of our art. These we choose, as the mason
chooses the acanthus to adorn his capital, because they come
naturally to the accustomed hand. The old stock incidents and
accessories, tricks of workmanship and schemes of composition (all
being admirably good, or they would long have been forgotten) haunt
and tempt our fancy, offer us ready-made but not perfectly
appropriate solutions for any problem that arises, and wean us from
the study of nature and the uncompromising practice of art. To
struggle, to face nature, to find fresh solutions, and give
expression to facts which have not yet been adequately or not yet
elegantly expressed, is to run a little upon the danger of extreme
self-love.
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