works with words addressed in the first instance to the
mere intelligence; and it deals, most often, with a definite subject or
situation. Sometimes it may find a noble and quite legitimate function
in the expression of moral or political aspiration, as often in the
poetry of Victor Hugo. In such instances it is easy enough for the
understanding to distinguish between the matter and the form, however
much the matter, the subject, the element which is addressed to the mere
intelligence, has been penetrated by the informing, artistic spirit.
But the ideal types of poetry are those in which this distinction is
reduced to its minimum; so that lyrical poetry, precisely because in it
we are least able to detach the matter from the form, without a
deduction of something from that matter itself, is, at least
artistically, the highest and most complete form of poetry. And the very
perfection of such poetry often seems to depend, in part, on a certain
suppression or vagueness of mere subject, so that the meaning reaches us
through ways not distinctly traceable by the understanding, as in some
of the most imaginative compositions of William Blake, and often in
Shakspere's songs, as pre-eminently in that song of Mariana's page in
Measure for Measure, in which the kindling force and poetry of the whole
play seems to pass for a moment into an actual strain of music.

And this principle holds good of all things that partake in any degree
of artistic qualities, of the furniture of our houses, and of dress, for
instance, of life itself, of gesture and speech, and the details of
daily intercourse; these also, for the wise, being susceptible of a
suavity and charm, caught from the way in which they are done, which
gives them a worth in themselves; wherein, indeed, lies what is valuable
and justly attractive, in what is called the fashion of a time, which
elevates the trivialities of speech, and manner, and dress, into "ends
in themselves," and gives them a mysterious grace and attractiveness in
the doing of them.

Art, then, is thus always striving to be independent of the mere
intelligence, to become a matter of pure perception, to get rid of its
responsibilities to its subject or material; the ideal examples of
poetry and painting being those in which the constituent elements of the
composition are so welded together, that the material or subject no
longer strikes the intellect only; nor the form, the eye or the ear
only; but form and