encies in Chaucer and
Shakespeare are to be attributed to the grossness of their times.

+14. The Artistic Element.+ There is an artistic element in literature
upon which the value of any work largely depends. There is art in the
choice and marshaling of words. Furthermore, every department of
literature--history, poetry, fiction--has a separate and definite
purpose. In the successful realization of this purpose each species or
form of literature must wisely choose its means. This conscious and
intelligent adaptation of a means to an end is art. Apart from the
careful selection and arrangement of words in sentences, the historian
chooses the incidents he will relate, the order in which they will
appear, the relative prominence they will have, and the symmetry and
completeness of his whole work. The novelist selects or invents his
story, portrays from actual life or creates a number of characters,
constructs or modifies his plot, and unfolds the movement toward a
predestined end. In all this there is a constant exercise of the
creative faculty; and the complete product is as much a work of art as
is a painting or statue, which requires the same sort of intellectual
effort.

+15. Matter and Form.+ In any literary production we may distinguish
between the _thoughts_ that are presented and the _manner_ in which they
are presented. We may say, for example, "The joys of heaven are
infinite"; or, ascending to a higher plane of thought and feeling, we
may present the same thought in the language of Moore in his "Paradise
and the Peri":

"Go, wing thy flight from star to star,
From world to luminous world, as far
As the universe spreads its flaming wall;
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,--
One minute of Heaven is worth them all."

It is thus evident that the interest and worth of literature depend
largely on the manner in which the thought and emotion are expressed. In
general the _matter_ of discourse, which aims at the communication of
ideas, is of more importance than the _form_. Words without thought, no
matter how skillfully and musically they may be arranged, are nonsense.
But in the lighter sorts of prose, which aim at entertainment, and in
poetry, which is dependent on meter and harmony, _form_ is of preeminent
importance. The story of "Rip Van Winkle," for instance, owes its
perennial charm to the inimitable grace and humor wi