us or irrelevant, and suppress what is
tedious and necessary. But such facts as, in regard to the main design,
subserve a variety of purposes, he will perforce and eagerly retain. And
it is the mark of the very highest order of creative art to be woven
exclusively of such. There, any fact that is registered is contrived a
double or a treble debt to pay, and is at once an ornament in its place
and a pillar in the main design. Nothing would find room in such a
picture that did not serve, at once, to complete the composition, to
accentuate the scheme of colour, to distinguish the planes of distance,
and to strike the note of the selected sentiment; nothing would be
allowed in such a story that did not, at the same time, expedite the
progress of the fable, build up the characters, and strike home the
moral or the philosophical design. But this is unattainable. As a rule,
so far from building the fabric of our works exclusively with these, we
are thrown into a rapture if we think we can muster a dozen or a score
of them, to be the plums of our confection. And hence, in order that the
canvas may be filled or the story proceed from point to point, other
details must be admitted. They must be admitted, alas! upon a doubtful
title; many without marriage robes. Thus any work of art, as it proceeds
towards completion, too often--I had almost written always--loses in
force and poignancy of main design. Our little air is swamped and
dwarfed among hardly relevant orchestration; our little passionate story
drowns in a deep sea of descriptive eloquence or slipshod talk.

But again, we are rather more tempted to admit those particulars which
we know we can describe; and hence those most of all which, having been
described very often, have grown to be conventionally treated in the
practice of our art. These we choose, as the mason chooses the acanthus
to adorn his capital, because they come naturally to the accustomed
hand. The old stock incidents and accessories, tricks of workmanship
and schemes of composition (all being admirably good, or they would long
have been forgotten) haunt and tempt our fancy; offer us ready-made but
not perfectly appropriate solutions for any problem that arises; and
wean us from the study of nature and the uncompromising practice of art.
To struggle, to face nature, to find fresh solutions, and give
expression to facts which have not yet been adequately or not yet
elegantly expressed, is to run a little upon