Wordsworth should perhaps come next. Every one has been
influenced by Wordsworth, and it is hard to tell precisely
how. A certain innocence, a rugged austerity of joy, a sight
of the stars, 'the silence that is in the lonely hills,'
something of the cold thrill of dawn, cling to his work and
give it a particular address to what is best in us. I do not
know that you learn a lesson; you need not - Mill did not -
agree with any one of his beliefs; and yet the spell is cast.
Such are the best teachers; a dogma learned is only a new
error - the old one was perhaps as good; but a spirit
communicated is a perpetual possession. These best teachers
climb beyond teaching to the plane of art; it is themselves,
and what is best in themselves, that they communicate.
I should never forgive myself if I forgot THE EGOIST. It is
art, if you like, but it belongs purely to didactic art, and
from all the novels I have read (and I have read thousands)
stands in a place by itself. Here is a Nathan for the modern
David; here is a book to send the blood into men's faces.
Satire, the angry picture of human faults, is not great art;
we can all be angry with our neighbour; what we want is to be
shown, not his defects, of which we are too conscious, but
his merits, to which we are too blind. And THE EGOIST is a
satire; so much must be allowed; but it is a satire of a
singular quality, which tells you nothing of that obvious
mote, which is engaged from first to last with that invisible
beam.
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