facts in the one case, the outward objects in the
other, as already acted upon by thought and emotion. In this sense every
artist, instead of copying nature, idealises it. In degree and mode,
however, the idealisation varies infinitely in the various kinds of art.
It is by considering the height to which it is carried in the epic poem
and the drama that we shall best appreciate its limitations in the
novel.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] Here are three beds: one existing in nature, which is
made by God, as I think that we may say--for no one else can be
the maker?--No.--There is another which is the work of the
carpenter?--Yes.--And the work of the painter is a third?--Yes?--Beds,
then, are of three kinds, and there are three artists who superintend
them: God, the maker of the bed, and the painter?--Yes, there are three
of them.--God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed in
nature and one only; two or more such ideal beds neither ever have been
nor ever will be made by God.... Shall we, then, speak of Him as the
natural author or maker of the bed?--Yes, he replied; inasmuch as by
the natural process of creation He is the author of this and of all
other things.--And what shall we say of the carpenter--is he not
also the maker of the bed?--Yes.--But would you call the painter a
creator and maker?--Certainly not.--Yet if he is not the maker,
what is he in relation to the bed?--I think, he said, that we may fairly
designate him as the imitator of that which the others make.--Good, I
said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an
imitator?--Certainly, he said.--And the tragic poet is an imitator, and
therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the king
and from the truth.--That appears to be so.--Plato, 'Republic,' X. 597.

G. THE EPIC

7. In outward form the epic poem is simply a narrative in verse.
Historically it seems to have originated in the records of ancestral
heroism, which passed from mouth to mouth in metre, as the natural form
of oral communication in an unlettered age. In the Iliad and Odyssey we
first find this outward form penetrated by a new spirit, which converts
the narrative into the poem. There is no need to do violence to
historical probability by supposing that Homer was a conscious artist,
or that he imagined himself to be doing anything else than representing
events as they happened. We have simply to notice that in him facts have
become poetry, and