the work will keep growing larger and richer to you as you
become familiar with it: whereas in case of a thing made in the
unoriginal way, at a distance it will seem larger than it is, and will
keep shrinking and dwarfing as you draw nearer to it; and perhaps, when
you get fairly into it, it will prove to be no substance at all, but
only a mass of shining vapour; or, if you undertake to grasp it, your
hand will just close through it, as it would through a shadow.[8]

[8] This law of originality I have never seen better stated than
by Coleridge, in a passage justifying the form of Shakespeare's
dramas against a mode of criticism which has now, happily, gone
out of use. "The true ground," says he, "of the mistake lies in
the confounding mechanical regularity with organic form. The
form is mechanic, when on any given material we impress a
predetermined form, not necessarily arising out of the
properties of the material; as when to a mass of wet clay we
give whatever shape we wish it to retain when hardened. The
organic form, on the other hand, is innate; it shapes, as it
develops, itself from within, and the fulness of its development
is one and the same with the perfection of its outward form.
Such as the life is, such is the form. Nature, the prime genial
artist, inexhaustible in diverse powers, is equally
inexhaustible in forms: each exterior is the physiognomy of the
being within,--its true image reflected and thrown out from the
concave mirror."--With this may well be coupled Schlegel's
remarks on the same point: "Form is mechanical when it is
impressed upon any piece of matter by an outward operation, as
an accidental addition without regard to the nature of the
thing; as, for example, when we give any form at pleasure to a
soft mass, to be retained after induration. Organic form on the
contrary, is innate; it unfolds, itself from within, and attains
its determinate character along with the full development of the
germ. Such forms are found in Nature universally, wherever
living powers are in action. And in Art, as well as in Nature,
the supreme artist, all genuine forms are organic, that is, are
determined by the quality of the work. In short, the form is no
other than a significant exterior, the physiognomy of a
thing,--when not defaced by disturbing accidents, the _speaking_
physiognomy,--w