realistic and
ideal; and the realism about which we quarrel is a matter purely of
externals. It is no especial cultus of nature and veracity, but a mere
whim of veering fashion, that has made us turn our back upon the larger,
more various, and more romantic art of yore. A photographic exactitude
in dialogue is now the exclusive fashion; but even in the ablest hands
it tells us no more--I think it even tells us less--than Moliere,
wielding his artificial medium, has told to us and to all time of
Alceste or Orgon, Dorine or Chrysale. The historical novel is forgotten.
Yet truth to the conditions of man's nature and the conditions of man's
life, the truth of literary art, is free of the ages. It may be told us
in a carpet comedy, in a novel of adventure, or a fairy tale. The scene
may be pitched in London, on the sea-coast of Bohemia, or away on the
mountains of Beulah. And by an odd and luminous accident, if there is
any page of literature calculated to awake the envy of M. Zola, it must
be that "Troilus and Cressida" which Shakespeare, in a spasm of unmanly
anger with the world, grafted on the heroic story of the siege of Troy.

This question of realism, let it then be clearly understood, regards not
in the least degree the fundamental truth, but only the technical
method, of a work of art. Be as ideal or as abstract as you please, you
will be none the less veracious; but if you be weak, you run the risk of
being tedious and inexpressive; and if you be very strong and honest,
you may chance upon a masterpiece.

A work of art is first cloudily conceived in the mind; during the period
of gestation it stands more clearly forward from these swaddling mists,
puts on expressive lineaments, and becomes at length that most
faultless, but also, alas! that incommunicable product of the human
mind, a perfected design. On the approach to execution all is changed.
The artist must now step down, don his working clothes, and become the
artisan. He now resolutely commits his airy conception, his delicate
Ariel, to the touch of matter; he must decide, almost in a breath, the
scale, the style, the spirit, and the particularity of execution of his
whole design.

The engendering idea of some works is stylistic; a technical
pre-occupation stands them instead of some robuster principle of life.
And with these the execution is but play; for the stylistic problem is
resolved beforehand, and all large originality of treatment wilfully
forego