eras and as responding in proportion with its ability
to the demands of a certain hour.
In proportion with its ability, be it repeated,
since its ability is singularly hampered. For, apart
from any ticklish temporal considerations, be it
remembered, life is always claiming of this
temperament's possessor that he write perfectly of
beautiful happenings.
To disregard this vital longing, and flatly to
stifle the innate striving toward artistic creation, is
to become (as with Wycherley and Sheridan) a man who
waives, however laughingly, his sole apology for
existence. The proceeding is paltry enough, in all
conscience; and yet, upon the other side, there is
much positive danger in giving to the instinct a
loose rein. For in that event the familiar
circumstances of sedate and wholesome living cannot but
seem, like paintings viewed too near, to lose in gusto
and winsomeness. Desire, perhaps a craving hunger,
awakens for the impossible. No emotion, whatever be
its sincerity, is endured without a side-glance toward
its capabilities for being written about. The world,
in short, inclines to appear an ill-lit mine, wherein
one quarries gingerly amidst an abiding loneliness (as
with Pope and Ufford and Sire Raimbaut)--and wherein
one very often is allured into unsavory alleys (as with
Herrick and Alessandro de Medici)--in search of that
raw material which loving labor will transshape into
comeliness.
Such, if it be allowed to shift the metaphor, are