Now, whether the medium through which the impressions, conceptions, or
emotions of the mind are thus externally realized be that of colors,
words, or any thing else, this mysterious though certain principle is,
as we believe, the true and only source of all originality.

In the power of assimilating what is foreign, or external, to our own
particular nature consists the individualizing law, and in the power
of reproducing what is thus modified consists the originating cause.

Let us turn now to an opposite example,--to a mere mechanical copy of
some natural object, where the marks in question are wholly wanting.
Will any one be truly affected by it? We think not; we do not say that
he will not praise it,--this he may do from various motives; but his
_feeling_--if we may so name the index of the law within--will
not be called forth to any spontaneous correspondence with the object
before him.

But why talk of feeling, says the pseudo-connoisseur, where we should
only, or at least first, bring knowledge? This is the common cant of
those who become critics for the sake of distinction. Let the Artist
avoid them, if he would not disfranchise himself in the suppression
of that uncompromising _test_ within him, which is the only sure
guide to the truth without.

It is a poor ambition to desire the office of a judge merely for
the sake of passing sentence. But such an ambition is not likely to
possess a person of true sensibility. There are some, however, in
whom there is no deficiency of sensibility, yet who, either from
self-distrust, or from some mistaken notion of Art, are easily