the artist that a definite boundary should separate his garden from
his farm, so that when he escapes from the conventions that rule
his work he may be free to recreate himself. But where shall the
weary player keep holiday? Is not all the world a stage?

Whatever the chosen instrument of an art may be, its appeal to
those whose attention it bespeaks must be made through the senses.
Music, which works with the vibrations of a material substance,
makes this appeal through the ear; painting through the eye; it is
of a piece with the complexity of the literary art that it employs
both channels,--as it might seem to a careless apprehension,
indifferently.

For the writer's pianoforte is the dictionary, words are the
material in which he works, and words may either strike the ear or
be gathered by the eye from the printed page. The alternative will
be called delusive, for, in European literature at least, there is
no word-symbol that does not imply a spoken sound, and no
excellence without euphony. But the other way is possible, the
gulf between mind and mind may be bridged by something which has a
right to the name of literature although it exacts no aid from the
ear. The picture-writing of the Indians, the hieroglyphs of Egypt,
may be cited as examples of literary meaning conveyed with no
implicit help from the spoken word. Such an art, were it capable
of high development, would forsake the kinship of melody, and
depend for its sensual elements of delight on the laws of
decorative pattern. In a land of deaf-mutes it might come to a
measure of perfection. But where human intercourse is chiefly by
speech, its connexion with the interests and passions of daily life
would perforce be of the feeblest, it would tend more and more to