rt of our moral nature that we should have a
pleasure in encountering and conquering opposition, for the sake of the
struggle and the victory, not for the sake of any after result; and not
only our own victory, but the perception of that of another, is in all
cases the source of pure and ennobling pleasure. And if we often hear it
said, and truly said, that an artist has erred by seeking rather to show
his skill in overcoming technical difficulties, than to reach a great
end, be it observed that he is only blamed because he has sought to
conquer an inferior difficulty rather than a great one; for it is much
easier to overcome technical difficulties than to reach a great end.
Whenever the visible victory over difficulties is found painful or in
false taste, it is owing to the preference of an inferior to a great
difficulty, or to the false estimate of what is difficult and what is
not. It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far
more difficult to sacrifice skill and cease exertion in the proper
place, than to expend both indiscriminately. We shall find, in the
course of our investigation, that beauty and difficulty go together; and
that they are only mean and paltry difficulties which it is wrong or
contemptible to wrestle with. Be it remembered then--Power is never
wasted. Whatever power has been employed, produces excellence in
proportion to its own dignity and exertion; and the faculty of
perceiving this exertion, and appreciating this dignity, is the faculty
of perceiving excellence.

FOOTNOTES

[3] Of course the word "excellent" is primarily a mere synonym with
"surpassing," and when applied to persons, has the general meaning
given by Johnson--"the state of abounding in any good quality." But
when applied to things it has always reference to the power by which
they are produced. We talk of excellent music or poetry, because it
is difficult to compose or write such, but never of excellent
flowers, because all flowers being the result of the same power,
must be equally excellent. We distinguish them only as beautiful or
useful, and therefore, as there is no other one word to signify that
quality of a thing produced by which it pleases us merely as the
result of power, and as the term "excellent" is more frequently used
in this sense than in any other, I choose to limit it at once to
this sense, and I wish it, when I use it in future, to be so