comes later on in the article, but I may as well give it to you
now:-

'The popular cry of our time is "Let us return to Life and Nature;
they will recreate Art for us, and send the red blood coursing
through her veins; they will shoe her feet with swiftness and make
her hand strong." But, alas! we are mistaken in our amiable and
well-meaning efforts. Nature is always behind the age. And as for
Life, she is the solvent that breaks up Art, the enemy that lays
waste her house.'

CYRIL. What do you mean by saying that Nature is always behind the
age?

VIVIAN. Well, perhaps that is rather cryptic. What I mean is
this. If we take Nature to mean natural simple instinct as opposed
to self-conscious culture, the work produced under this influence
is always old-fashioned, antiquated, and out of date. One touch of
Nature may make the whole world kin, but two touches of Nature will
destroy any work of Art. If, on the other hand, we regard Nature
as the collection of phenomena external to man, people only
discover in her what they bring to her. She has no suggestions of
her own. Wordsworth went to the lakes, but he was never a lake
poet. He found in stones the sermons he had already hidden there.
He went moralising about the district, but his good work was
produced when he returned, not to Nature but to poetry. Poetry
gave him 'Laodamia,' and the fine sonnets, and the great Ode, such
as it is. Nature gave him 'Martha Ray' and 'Peter Bell,' and the
address to Mr. Wilkinson's spade.