Original work

“ But we have agreed, throughout the greater part of this book, and more especially in those sections of it which are devoted to the art whose greatest charm is often in its spontaneity, to consider original work and work inspired or dictated by others as on a different level. ”

“ All fine original work, it may be safely said, represents severe intellectual labor on the part of the producer, not necessarily at the moment of achievement, but at least in a preparatory collection and partial elaboration of material. ”

“ If I touch various objects, and ride into miry places, it is to baffle any mischance befalling me as an author, to prevent my books getting into disrepute; in nine cases out of ten to prevent any expressions, thoughts, or situations in any work which I am writing from resembling the thoughts, expressions, and situations of other authors, for my great wish, as I told you before, is to be original. ”

“ But, now, granting that a work is by a good author, or contemporary with the events recorded, or healthily related to others that were contemporary, it remains to consider whether it has been well preserved and is likely to retain its original sense. ”

“ But those original works of genius, of which language is the expression, scarcely admit of fellowship, either in conception or execution. One book must be the product of one brain, in which, to constitute excellence, there ought to be as strict unity of thought and diction as the ancient critic required of time and place in dramatic action. ”

“ Originality, on the other hand, is the distinctly evident link which binds the individual to the common intellectual centre. The work of art is the progeny of the common mother—Nature; and of a distinct father—the artist. ”

“ This world of art, thought organized in matter, contains at present two parts: First, What we inherit—our traditional part; and second, What we create—our original part. The traditional requires to be looked over anew. ”

“ It is that element which artistic imitation adds to actuality, the difference between its created concrete and the original out of which that was developed, which gives the special delight of art to the mind. ”

“ If the rich biographical literature of modern times teaches us anything, it is that original production is the severest strain of human faculty, the most violent and exhausting form of cerebral action. The pleasing fiction that the perfectly-shaped artistic product occurs to the creative mind as a kind of happy thought is at once dispelled by a little study of great men's recorded experience. ”

“ If we look at the man through his best and most intelligible works, we shall find that he who could produce the Songs of Innocence and Experience, the Gates of Paradise, and the Inventions for Job, was the possessor of very lofty faculties, with no common skill in art, and moreover that, both in thought and mode of treatment, he was a decided original. ”

“ As a substitute, therefore, for unattainable works of art any medium that will so successfully simulate the original as to convey the lines and the grace, the colour and the harmony, though in a lesser degree than the original, is to be welcomed for its own sake. ”

“ To conclude, the value of any work of art or science depends chiefly on the quantity of originality contained in it, and which constitutes either the charm of works of fiction or the improvement to be derived from those of progressive information. ”

“ Of any considerable artistic work we want a description and an analysis, we want an interpretation and an exposition, and we want an appraisement according to the standard of the best that has been thought and done in the world,—not a comparison with the externals of the accepted models, but with the originality, the spontaneity, the sanity, the inner necessity and consistency of them—the truth to nature and to the laws of the human mind. ”

“ Behind the author, behind the poet, behind the world-renowned genius, a not unreasonable curiosity seeks the original man, the human individual, as he walked among men, his manner of being, his characteristics, as shown in the converse of life. In what soil grew the flowers and ripened the fruits which have been the delight and the aliment of nations? In proportion, of course, to the eminence attained by a writer,--in proportion to the worth of his works, to their hold on the world,--is the interest felt in his personality and behavior, in the incidents of his life. ”

“ And it is this identity of the free personality of the artist and the truly objective construction of his artistic creation which constitutes the third fundamental aspect of his activity as set forth above and which we must now shortly consider, in so far as we may be thus enabled to unite that which we have hitherto separated in our independent consideration of the conceptions of genius and the objective presentment of a work of art. We may characterize such a unity as the conception of true artistic originality. ”

“ We select and set aside as literature that which is original, the product of what we call genius. As I have said, the subject of a production does not always determine the desired quality which makes it literature. A biography may contain all the facts in regard to a man and his character, arranged in an orderly and comprehensible manner, and yet not be literature ”

“ The nation can do little more than read the works and admire the beauties of the original authors, who have adorned the preceding ages. A few, ambitious of fame, or driven by necessity, croud their names into the catalogue of writers, by imitating some celebrated model, or by compiling from the productions of genius. ”

“ Perhaps indeed the efforts of the true poets, founders, religions, literatures, all ages, have been, and ever will be, our time and times to come, essentially the same—to bring people back from their persistent strayings and sickly abstractions, to the costless average, divine, original concrete. ”

“ Contrast this counsel of perfect originality with the counsels given in our own day, in which the aim of originality is directed to appearing original—you will be brought, thereby, face to face with still another key-idea of Culture, the relation of Appearance to Reality. All these exercises in culture are elementary, however, in comparison with the master-problem of “disinterestedness.” No word in the English language is more difficult to define or better worth attempting to define. ”

“ The transcript of his sense of fact rather than the fact, as being preferable, pleasanter, more beautiful to the writer himself. In literature, as in every other product of human skill, in the moulding of a bell or a platter for instance, wherever this sense asserts itself, wherever the producer so modifies his work as, over and above its primary use or intention, to make it pleasing (to himself, of course, in the first instance) there, "fine" as opposed to merely serviceable art, exists. ”

“ Feelings of a similar nature lead us, at the commencement of a new work, which embraces so wide a circle, to trace the map of literature, to examine the progress of discovery in the arts and sciences, to follow their respective boundaries, to ascertain their extent, and finally, to form some opinion of their value, as they affect our morals and our manners. ”

“ There is art in the choice and marshaling of words. Furthermore, every department of literature—history, poetry, fiction—has a separate and definite purpose. In the successful realization of this purpose each species or form of literature must wisely choose its means. This conscious and intelligent adaptation of a means to an end is art. Apart from the careful selection and arrangement of words in sentences, the historian chooses the incidents he will relate, the order in which they will appear, the relative prominence they will have, and the symmetry and completeness of his whole work. ”

“ The artist by nature, developed by study, becomes original and has a character distinct from all others, and in no way, not even in the slightest characteristic, can, despite any exterior influence, be different from what he is. ”

“ And every such description of ourselves (the great exemplar of moral imitation) will be as unavoidably similar to any description copied on the like occasion, by other poets; as pictures of the natural world by different hands, are, and must be, to each other, as being all derived from the archetype of one common original.
1. Let us take some master-piece of a great poet, most famed for his original invention, in 132 which he has successfully revealed the secret internal workings of any PASSION. What does he make known of these mysterious powers, but what he feels? ”

“ In proportion as we recede from distant origins the light grows, and invention in the social and moral order becomes manifest as the work of two principal categories of minds—the fantastic, the positive. ”

“ I am convinced that, in general, in removing even errors of a trivial or venial kind, the character of originality is lost, which, upon the whole, may be that which is most valuable in the production. ”

“ It is interesting to observe at this juncture that our art was influenced by exactly the same causes as our literature of the same period; and, like our national civilization, presents a singular reaching after original expression, modified sometimes by an unconscious imitation of foreign thought and methods. ”

“ I think I can make my meaning clearer as to the originality one should try to infuse into historical work by drawing an illustration from the advice of a literary man as to the art of writing. Charles Dudley Warner once said to me, “Every one who writes should have something to add to the world’s stock of knowledge or literary expression. ”

“ And if a means of producing the effect we see and have amongst us be discovered, and none can either by history or tradition refer to a similar or to the identical process, the inventor of that means may so far claim the merit of originality, though the work itself may have been produced possibly by the same means. ”

“ In the composition of such works the time thinks, the market thinks, the mason, the carpenter, the merchant, the farmer, the fop, all think for us. Every book supplies its time with one good word; every municipal law, every trade, every folly of the day; and the generic catholic genius who is not afraid or ashamed to owe his originality to the originality of all, stands with the next age as the recorder and embodiment of his own. ”

“ Is the subject-matter of a work of art to be objectively valid in its content as one entirely appropriate historically considered, or should such matter be treated subjectively, that is, in complete subordination to the artist's personal standpoint relatively to the culture and social conditions of his own time? ”

“ If we have once got hold of such a form unfolded in strict accordance with our Ideal principle, then we have a work of art essentially objective in the true sense, and the question whether each and every historical detail is justified is of no further importance. We have before us a work of art which appeals directly to our inner life, and one which is our own possession. ”

“ Extremely rare, indeed, are the original expressions or impressions of an indwelling, unborrowed idea And even among these very many are nothing more than the first faint outline and commencement, which only at a subsequent epoch of art, and after long and repeated essays, attains to complete perfection and a really successful and veritable outward exhibition of the indwelling idea. ”

“ Originality, in the true sense of the word, implies that ideas and suggestions from without shall be truly appreciated, studied, and reproduced with the stamp of native thought and imagination upon them, to individualize what is general, and to harmonize materials in themselves crude or uncongenial. Then, and generally speaking not till then, can we hope for a new creation, which shall be true, and therefore permanent, in harmony with that which has gone before, and therefore capable of striking a new key-note not unaccordant with the old. ”

“ The leading characteristics of an author who is in any sense original, that is to say, who does not merely reproduce, but modifies the influence of tradition, culture, and contemporary thought upon himself by some admixture of his own, may commonly be traced more or less clearly in his earliest works. ”

“ The undue importance now assigned to this coveted quality of Originality is partly the outcome of the illusion to which I have already referred,—that art is in its nature progressive and is in fact constantly and steadily progressing. ”

“ Let the modern story be the central figure against the universal background of truth—a background which will soften its sharper outlines, and mellow its cruder tones. Preserve in the classic the classical spirit, as well as the classical form—that classical spirit which kindles the fancy and stirs the imagination. Let the hearers see their heroes through the vista of vanishing years.
Technique is a necessary part of any artistic production. Note how carefully the artist selects his brushes and prepares his palette. The story-teller should do no less. ”

“ This unifying, organizing, creative principle is so active in certain minds that, placed face to face with any work whatever—novel, picture, monument, scientific or philosophic theory, financial or political institution—while believing that they are merely considering it, they spontaneously remake it. ”

“ But however hopelessly mere history or confession may fail to constitute a work of art, a work of art that has an historical warrant, either literal or symbolical, gains the support of that vivid interest we have in facts. ”

“ But, as a rule, this thought does not occur to us; and, while we expatiate on the creative originality of artists and poets, we dully take for granted the instant appreciation of their creation; forgetting, or not understanding, in both cases, the wonderful efficacy of tradition. ”