which
we feel this personal attraction most strongly, we may hope to treat
successfully. Alcestis or Joan of Arc, Charlemagne or Agamemnon--one
of these is not really nearer to us now than another; each can be made
present only by an act of poetic imagination: but this man's
imagination has an affinity for one of them, and that man's for
another.

It has been said that I wish to limit the Poet, in his choice of
subjects to the period of Greek and Roman antiquity: but it is not so:
I only counsel him to choose for his subjects great actions, without
regarding to what time they belong. Nor do I deny that the poetic
faculty can and does manifest itself in treating the most trifling
action, the most hopeless subject. But it is a pity that power should
be wasted; and that the Poet should be compelled to impart interest
and force to his subject, instead of receiving them from it, and
thereby doubling his impressiveness. There is, it has been excellently
said, an immortal strength in the stories of great actions: the most
gifted poet, then, may well be glad to supplement with it that mortal
weakness, which, in presence of the vast spectacle of life and the
world, he must for ever feel to be his individual portion.

Again, with respect to the study of the classical writers of
antiquity: it has been said that we should emulate rather than imitate
them. I make no objection: all I say is, let us study them. They can
help to cure us of what is, it seems to me, the great vice of our
intellect, manifesting itself in our incredible vagaries in
literature, in art, in religion, in morals; namely, that it is
_fantastic_, and wants _sanity_. Sanity--that is the great virtue of
the ancient literature: the want of that is the great defect of the
modern, in spite of all its variety and power. It is impossible to
read carefully the great ancients, without losing something of our
caprice and eccentricity; and to emulate them we must at least read
them.

JOHN RUSKIN

1819-1900

OF THE PATHETIC FALLACY

[_Modern Painters_, vol. iii, pt. 4, 1856]

Sec. 1. German dulness, and English affectation, have of late much
multiplied among us the use of two of the most objectionable words
that were ever coined by the troublesomeness of metaphysicians--namely,
'Objective' and 'Subjective'.

No words can be more exquisitely, and in all points, useless; and I
merely speak of them that I may, at once and for ever, get them out of
my way, a