by seeing with fresh
interest what men have seen so often that they have ceased to regard
it. Novelty is rarely characteristic of great works of art; on the
contrary, the facts of life which they set before us are familiar, and
the thoughts they convey by direct statement or by dramatic
illustration have always been haunting our minds. The secret of the
artist resides in the unwearied vitality which brings him to such
close quarters with life, and endows him with directness of sight and
freshness of feeling. Daisies have starred fields in Scotland since
men began to plough and reap, but Burns saw them as if they had sprung
from the ground for the first time; forgotten generations have seen
the lark rise and heard the cuckoo call in England, but to Wordsworth
the song from the upper sky and the notes from the thicket on the hill
were full of the music of the first morning. Shakespeare dealt with
old stories and constantly touched upon the most familiar things; but
with what new interest he invests both theme and illustration! One may
spend a lifetime in a country village, surrounded by people who are
apparently entirely uninteresting; but if one has the eye of a
novelist for the facts of life, the power to divine character, the
gift to catch the turn of speech, the trick of voice, the peculiarity
of manner, what resources, discoveries, and diversion are at hand! The
artist never has to search for material; it is always at hand. That it
is old, trite, stale to others, is of no consequence; it is always
fresh and significant to him.

This freshness of feeling is not in any way dependent on the character
of the materials upon which it plays; it is not an irresponsible
temperamental quality which seeks the joyful or comic facts of life
and ignores its sad and tragic aspects. The zest of spirit which one
finds in Shakespeare, for instance, is not a blind optimism
thoughtlessly escaping from the shadows into the sunshine. On the
contrary, it is drawn by a deep instinct to study the most perplexing
problems of character, and to drop its plummets into the blackest
abysses of experience. Literature deals habitually with the most
sombre side of the human lot, and finds its richest material in those
awful happenings which invest the history of every race with such
pathetic interest; and yet literature, in its great moments, overflows
with vitality, zest of spirit, freshness of spirit! There is no
contradiction in all this; for the