Yet
every day some wandering connoisseur stands before these pictures, and
at once, without waiting to let them sink deep into his mind, discovers
all the merits which are stereotyped in the criticisms, and discovers
nothing else. He does not wait to feel, he is impatient to range
himself with men of taste; he discards all genuine impressions,
replacing them with vague conceptions of what he is expected to see.
Inasmuch as Success must be determined by the relation between the work
and the public, the sincerity which leads a man into open revolt
against established opinions may seem to be an obstacle. Indeed,
publishers, critics, and friends are always loud in their prophecies
against originality and independence on this very ground; they do their
utmost to stifle every attempt at novelty, because they fix their eyes
upon a hypothetical public taste, and think that only what has already
been proved successful can again succeed; forgetting that whatever has
once been done need not be done over again, and forgetting that what is
now commonplace was once originality.
Pages:
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129