*
It is one of the most common forms of depreciation to throw
cold water on the whole by adroit over-commendation of a
part, since everything worth judging, whether it be a man,
a work of art, or only a fine city, must be judged upon its
merits as a whole.
*
I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for, from the
negative point of view, I flatter myself this volume has a
certain stamp. Although it runs to considerably over a
hundred pages, it contains not a single reference to the
imbecility of God's universe, nor so much as a single hint
that I could have made a better one myself--I really do not
know where my head can have been.
*
It's deadly commonplace, but, after all, the commonplaces
are the great poetic truths.
*
Those who try to be artists use, time after time, the
matter of their recollections, setting and resetting little
coloured memories of men and scenes, rigging up (it may be)
some especial friend in the attire of a buccaneer, and
decreeing armies to manoeuvre, or murder to be done, on the
playground of their youth. But the memories are a fairy
gift which cannot be worn out in using. After a dozen
services in various tales, the little sunbright pictures of
the past still shine in the mind's eye with not a lineament
defaced, not a tint impaired. GLUCK UND UNGLUCK WIRD
GESANG, if Goethe pleases; yet only by endless avatars, the
original re-embodying after each.
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