The principle of
Sincerity here ministers to the principle of Beauty by forbidding
imitation and enforcing rivalry. Write what you can, and if you have
the grace of felicitous expression or the power of energetic expression
your style will be admirable and admired. At any rate see that it be
your own, and not another's; on no other terms will the world listen to
it. You cannot be eloquent by borrowing from the opulence of another;
you cannot be humorous by mimicking the whims of another; what was a
pleasant smile dimpling his features becomes a grimace on yours.
It will not be supposed that I would have the great writers
disregardod, as if nothing were to be learned from them; but the study
of great writers should be the study of general principles as
illustrated or revealed in these writers; and if properly pursued it
will of itself lead to a condemnation of the notion of models. What we
may learn from them is a nice discrimination of the symbols which
intelligibly express the shades of meaning and kindle emotion. The
writer wishes to give his thoughts a literary form.
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