" must give himself up in the first place to its
wonderful and significant beauty. For this lovely piece of literature
is a revelation in its art quite as definitely as in its thought; and
the first care of the reader must be to feel the deep and lasting
charm contained in the play. In that charm resides something which may
be transmitted, and the reception of which is always a step in
culture.

To feel freshly and deeply is not only a characteristic of the artist,
but also of the reader; the first finds delight in creation, the
second finds delight in discovery: between them they divide one of the
greatest joys known to men. Wagner somewhere says that the greatest
joy possible to man is the putting forth of creative activity so
spontaneously that the critical faculty is, for the time being,
asleep. The purest joy known to the reader is a perception of the
beauty and power of a work of art so fresh and instantaneous that it
completely absorbs the whole nature. Analysis, criticism, and judicial
appraisement come later; the first moment must be surrendered to the
joy of discovery.

Heine has recorded the overpowering impression made upon him by the
first glimpse of the Venus of Melos. An experience so extreme in
emotional quality could come only to a nature singularly sensitive to
beauty and abnormally sensitive to physical emotion; but he who has no
power of feeling intensely the power of beauty in the moment of
discovery, has missed something of very high value in the process of
culture. One of the signs of real culture is the power of enjoyment
which goes with fresh feeling. All great art is full of this feeling;
its characteristic is the new interest with which it invests the most
familiar objects; and one evidence of capacity to receive culture from
art is the development of this feeling. The reader who is on the way
to enrich himself by contact with books cultivates the power of
feeling freshly and keenly the charm of every book he reads simply as
a piece of literature. One may destroy this power by permitting
analysis and criticism to become the primary mood, or one may develop
it by resolutely putting analysis and criticism into the secondary
place, and sedulously developing the power to enjoy for the sake of
enjoyment. The reader who does not feel the immediate and obvious
beauty of a poem or a play has lost the power, not only of getting the
full effect of a work of art, but of getting its full significance as