But to discriminate that moment,
to make it appreciable by us, that we may "find" it, what a cobweb of
allusions, what double and treble reflexions of the mind upon itself,
what an artificial light is constructed and broken over the chosen
situation; on how fine a needle's point that little world of passion is
balanced! Yet, in spite of this intricacy, the poem has the clear ring of
a central motive; we receive from it the impression of one imaginative
tone, of a single creative act.
To produce such effects at all requires all the resources of painting,
with its power of indirect expression, of subordinate but significant
detail, its atmosphere, its foregrounds and backgrounds. To produce them
in a pre-eminent degree requires all the resources of poetry, language in
its most purged form, its remote associations and suggestions, its double
and treble lights. These appliances sculpture cannot command. In it,
therefore, not the special situation, but the type, the general character
of the subject to be delineated, is all-important.
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