how far
adaptations to particular individualities. A great talent will discover
new methods. A great success ought to put us on the track of new
principles. But the fundamental laws of Style, resting on the truths of
human nature, may be illustrated, they cannot be guaranteed by any
individual success. Moreover, the strong individuality of the artist
will create special modifications of the laws to suit himself, making
that excellent or endurable which in other hands would be intolerable.
If the purpose of Literature be the sincere expression of the
individual's own ideas and feelings it is obvious that the cant about
the "best models" tends to pervert and obstruct that expression. Unless
a man thinks and feels precisely after the manner of Cicero and Titian
it is manifestly wrong for him to express himself in their way. He may
study in them the principles of effect, and try to surprise some of
their secrets, but he should resolutely shun all imitation of them.
They ought to be illustrations not authorities, studies not models.

The fallacy about models is seen at once if we ask this simple
question: Will the practice of a great writer justify a solecism in
grammar or a confusion in logic? No. Then why should it justify any
other detail not to be reconciled with universal truth? If we are
forced to invoke the arbitration of reason in the one case, we must do
so in the other. Unless we set aside the individual practice whenever
it is irreconcilable with general principles, we shall be unable to
discriminate in a successful work those merits which SECURED from those
demerits which ACCOMPANIED success. Now this is precisely the condition
in which Criticism has always been. It has been formal instead of being
psychological: it has drawn its maxims from the works of successful
artists, instead of ascertaining the psychological principles involved
in the effects of those works. When the perplexed dramatist called down
curses on the man who invented fifth acts, he never thought of escaping
from his tribulation by writing a play in four acts; the formal canon
which made five acts indispensable to a tragedy was drawn from the
practice of great dramatists, but there was no demonstration of any
psychological demand on the part of the audience for precisely five
acts.

[English critics are much less pedantic in adherence to "rules" than
the French, yet when, many years ago, there appeared a tragedy in three
acts, and without a de