The amount of influence issuing from this
principle of Beauty will, of course, be greatly determined by the more
or less aesthetic nature of the work.
Books minister to our knowledge, to our guidance, and to our delight,
by their truth, their uprightness, and their art. Truth is the aim of
Literature. Sincerity is moral truth. Beauty is aesthetic truth. How
rigorously these three principles determine the success of all works
whatever, and how rigorously every departure from them, no matter how
slight, determines proportional failure, with the inexorable sequence
of a physical law, it will be my endeavour to prove in the chapters
which are to follow.
EDITOR.
CHAPTER II
THE PRINCIPLE OF VISION.
All good Literature rests primarily on insight. All bad Literature
rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined
as seeing at second-hand.
There are men of clear insight who never become authors: some, because
no sufficient solicitation from internal or external impulses makes
them bond their energies to the task of giving literary expression to
their thoughts; and some, because they lack the adequate powers of
literary expression.
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