it. Insincerity
is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength. This is not so
obvious a principle as the first; at any rate it is one more profoundly
disregarded by writers.

Finally, unless the writer has grace--the principle of Beauty I have
named it--enabling him to give some aesthetic charm to his
presentation, were it only the charm of well-arranged material, and
well-constructed sentences, a charm sensible through all the
intricacies of COMPOSITION and of STYLE, he will not do justice to his
powers, and will either fail to make his work acceptable, or will very
seriously limit its success. The amount of influence issuing from this
principle of Beauty will, of course, be greatly determined by the more
or less aesthetic nature of the work.

Books minister to our knowledge, to our guidance, and to our delight,
by their truth, their uprightness, and their art. Truth is the aim of
Literature. Sincerity is moral truth. Beauty is aesthetic truth. How
rigorously these three principles determine the success of all works
whatever, and how rigorously every departure from them, no matter how
slight, determines proportional failure, with the inexorable sequence
of a physical law, it will be my endeavour to prove in the chapters
which are to follow.

EDITOR.

CHAPTER II

THE PRINCIPLE OF VISION.

All good Literature rests primarily on insight. All bad Literature
rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined
as seeing at second-hand.

There are men of clear insight who never become authors: some, because
no sufficient solicitation from internal or external impulses makes
them bond their energies to the task of giving literary expression to
their thoughts; and some, because they lack the adequate powers of
literary expression. But no man, be his felicity and facility of
expression what they may, ever produces good Literature unless he sees
for himself, and sees clearly. It is the very claim and purpose of
Literature to show others what they failed to see. Unless a man sees
this clearly for himself how can he show it to others?

Literature delivers tidings of the world within and the world without.
It tells of the facts which have been witnessed, reproduces the
emotions which have been felt. It places before the reader symbols
which represent the absent facts, or the relations of these to other
facts; and by the vivid presentation of the symbols of emotion kindles
the emotive sympat