eral, when the imagination is at all noble, it is
irresistible, and therefore those who can at all resist it _ought_ to
resist it. Be a plain topographer if you possibly can; if Nature meant
you to be anything else, she will force you to it; but never try to be a
prophet; go on quietly with your hard camp-work, and the spirit will
come to you in the camp, as it did to Eldad and Medad, if you are
appointed to have it; but try above all things to be quickly perceptive
of the noble spirit in others, and to discern in an instant between its
true utterance and the diseased mimicries of it. In a general way,
remember it is a far better thing to find out other great men, than to
become one yourself: for you can but become _one_ at best, but you may
bring others to light in numbers.

Sec. 5. We have, therefore, to inquire what kind of changes these are,
which must be wrought by the imaginative painter on landscape, and by
whom they have been thus nobly wrought. First, for the better comfort of
the non-imaginative painter, be it observed, that it is not possible to
find a landscape, which, if painted precisely as it is, will not make an
impressive picture. No one knows, till he has tried, what strange beauty
and subtle composition is prepared to his hand by Nature, wherever she
is left to herself; and what deep feeling may be found in many of the
most homely scenes, even where man has interfered with those wild ways
of hers. But, beyond this, let him note that though historical
topography forbids _alteration_, it neither forbids sentiment nor
choice. So far from doing this, the proper choice of subject[8] is an
absolute duty to the topographical painter: he should first take care
that it is a subject intensely pleasing to himself, else he will never
paint it well; and then also, that it shall be one in some sort
pleasurable to the general public, else it is not worth painting at all;
and lastly, take care that it be instructive, as well as pleasurable to
the public, else it is not worth painting with care. I should
particularly insist at present on this careful choice of subject,
because the Pre-Raphaelites, taken as a body, have been culpably
negligent in this respect, not in humble honor of Nature, but in morbid
indulgence of their own impressions. They happen to find their fancies
caught by a bit of an oak hedge, or the weeds at the sides of a
duck-pond, because, perhaps, they remind them of a stanza of Tennyson;
and forthwit