in understanding
how the noble mystery and the ignoble, though direct opposites, are yet
continually mistaken for each other--the last aping the first; and the
most wretched artists taking pride in work which is simply slurred,
slovenly, ignorant, empty, and insolent, as if it were nobly mysterious
(just as a drunkard who cannot articulate supposes himself oracular);
whereas the noble art-mystery, as all noble language-mystery, is reached
only by intense labor. Striving to speak with uttermost truth of
expression, weighing word against word, and wasting none, the great
speaker, or writer, toils first into perfect intelligibleness, then, as
he reaches to higher subject, and still more concentrated and wonderful
utterance, he becomes ambiguous--as Dante is ambiguous,--half a dozen
different meanings lightening out in separate rays from every word, and,
here and there, giving rise to much contention of critics as to what the
intended meaning actually was. But it is no drunkard's babble for all
that, and the men who think it so, at the third hour of the day, do not
highly honor _themselves_ in the thought.

Sec. 13. And now observe how perfectly the conclusions arrived at here
consist with those of the third chapter, and how easily we may
understand the meaning of that vast weight of authority which we found
at first ranged against the clouds, and strong in arms on the side of
intelligibility. Nearly all great men must, for the reasons above given,
be intelligible. Even, if they are to be the greatest, still they must
struggle through intelligibility to obscurity; if of the second class,
then the best thing they can do, all their lives through, is to be
intelligible. Therefore the enormous majority of all good and true men
will be _clear_ men; and the drunkards, sophists, and sensualists will,
for the most part, sink back into the fog-bank, and remain wrapt in
darkness, unintelligibility, and futility. Yet, here and there, once in
a couple of centuries, one man will rise past clearness, and become dark
with excess of light.

Sec. 14. "Well, then, you mean to say that the tendency of this age to
general cloudiness, as opposed to the old religious clearness of
painting, is one of degradation; but that Turner is this one man who has
risen _past_ clearness?"

Yes. With some modifications of the saying, I mean that; but those
modifications will take us a little time to express accurately.

For, first, it will not do to cond