[The Mystic Will by Charles Godfrey Leland]@TWC D-Link bookThe Mystic Will CHAPTER VI 5/10
As the young bird listens to its mother and then sings till as a grown nightingale it pours forth a rich flood of varying melody; so the poet or musician follows masters and models, and then, like them, _creates_, often progressing, but is never _entirely_ spontaneous or original.
When the artist thinks too little he lacks sense, when he thinks too much he loses fire.
In the very highest and most strangely mysterious poetical flights of SHELLEY and KEATS, or WORDSWORTH, I find the very same Instinct which inspires the skylark and nightingale, but more or less allied to and strengthened by Thought or Consciousness.
If human Will or Wisdom alone directed _all_ our work, then every man who had mere patience might be a great original genius, and it is indeed true that Man can do inconceivably more in following and imitating genius than has ever been imagined.
However, thus far the talent which enables a man to write such a passage as that of TENNYSON, "The tides of Music's golden sea Setting towards Eternity," results from a development of Instinct, or an intuitive perception of the Beautiful, such as Wordsworth believed existed in all things which enjoy sunshine, _life_, and air.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|