we have to show the individual character and
liberty of the separate leaves, clouds, or rocks. And herein the great
masters separate themselves finally from the inferior ones; for if the
men of inferior genius ever express law at all, it is by the sacrifice
of individuality. Thus, Salvator Rosa has great perception of the sweep
of foliage and rolling of clouds, but never draws a single leaflet or
mist wreath accurately. Similarly, Gainsborough, in his landscape, has
great feeling for masses of form and harmony of color; but in the detail
gives nothing but meaningless touches; not even so much as the species
of tree, much less the variety of its leafage, being ever discernible.
Now, although both these expressions of government and individuality are
essential to masterly work, the individuality is the _more_ essential,
and the more difficult of attainment; and, therefore, that attainment
separates the great masters _finally_ from the inferior ones. It is the
more essential, because, in these matters of beautiful arrangement in
visible things, the same rules hold that hold in moral things. It is a
lamentable and unnatural thing to see a number of men subject to no
government, actuated by no ruling principle, and associated by no common
affection: but it would be a more lamentable thing still, were it
possible, to see a number of men so oppressed into assimilation as to
have no more any individual hope or character, no differences in aim, no
dissimilarities of passion, no irregularities of judgment; a society in
which no man could help another, since none would be feebler than
himself; no man admire another, since none would be stronger than
himself; no man be grateful to another, since by none he could be
relieved; no man reverence another, since by none he could be
instructed; a society in which every soul would be as the syllable of a
stammerer instead of the word of a speaker, in which every man would
walk as in a frightful dream, seeing specters of himself, in everlasting
multiplication, gliding helplessly around him in a speechless darkness.
Therefore it is that perpetual difference, play, and change in groups of
form are more essential to them even than their being subdued by some
great gathering law: the law is needful to them for their perfection and
their power, but the difference is needful to them for their life.

134. And here it may be noted in passing, that, if you enjoy the pursuit
of analogies and types, a