yage of
spiritual adventure, was set on discovering and making clear to himself
and all, the varying traits and emotions of human character--the varying
moods of Nature; and though he couched all this discovery in caskets of
engaging story, it was always clear as day what mood it was that drove
him to dip pen in ink. The spirit of the second, I think, almost dreaded
to discover; he felt life, I believe, too keenly to want to probe into
it; he spun his gossamer to lure himself and all away from life. That was
his driving mood; but the craftsman in him, longing to be clear and
poignant, made him more natural, more actual than most realists.

So, how thin often is the hedge! And how poor a business the partisan
abuse of either kind of art in a world where each sort of mind has full
right to its own due expression, and grumbling lawful only when due
expression is not attained. One may not care for a Rembrandt portrait of
a plain old woman; a graceful Watteau decoration may leave another cold
but foolish will he be who denies that both are faithful to their
conceiving moods, and so proportioned part to part, and part to whole, as
to have, each in its own way, that inherent rhythm or vitality which is
the hall-mark of Art. He is but a poor philosopher who holds a view so
narrow as to exclude forms not to his personal taste. No realist can
love romantic Art so much as he loves his own, but when that Art fulfils
the laws of its peculiar being, if he would be no blind partisan, he must
admit it. The romanticist will never be amused by realism, but let him
not for that reason be so parochial as to think that realism, when it
achieves vitality, is not Art. For what is Art but the perfected
expression of self in contact with the world; and whether that self be of
enlightening, or of fairy-telling temperament, is of no moment
whatsoever. The tossing of abuse from realist to romanticist and back is
but the sword-play of two one-eyed men with their blind side turned
toward each other. Shall not each attempt be judged on its own merits?
If found not shoddy, faked, or forced, but true to itself, true to its
conceiving mood, and fair-proportioned part to whole; so that it
lives--then, realistic or romantic, in the name of Fairness let it pass!
Of all kinds of human energy, Art is surely the most free, the least
parochial; and demands of us an essential tolerance of all its forms.
Shall we waste breath and ink in condemnation of ar