But no excellence of representation can make this high
art. To carry it into the region of high art, another and far greater
difficulty must be overcome; the man must be represented under the
strain of great emotion, and we must recognise an equal truthfulness in
the subtle indications of great mental agitation, the fleeting
characters of which are far less easy to observe and to reproduce, than
the stationary characters of form and costume. We may often observe how
the novelist or dramatist has tolerable success so long as his
personages are quiet, or moved only by the vulgar motives of ordinary
life, and how fatally uninteresting, because unreal, these very
personages become as soon as they are exhibited under the stress of
emotion: their language ceases at once to be truthful, and becomes
stagey; their conduct is no longer recognisable as that of human beings
such as we have known. Here we note a defect of treatment, a mingling
of styles, arising partly from defect of vision, and partly from an
imperfect sincerity; and success in art will always be found dependent
on integrity of style.
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