[†] Preface to Lyrical Ballads.
[*] Compare Thomas Rymer, A Short View of Tragedy.
“A little preparation and forecast might do well now and then. For his Desdemona’s Marriage, he might have helped out the probability by figuring how that some way or other a Blackamoor woman had been her nurse and suckled her; or that once upon a time some Virtuoso had transfused into her veins the Blood of a Black Sheep.” We may take it such are not the secret laws of nature to which Goethe was alluding.
[†] On Poesy or Art.
[†] ‘Literature and Religion’ in The Necessity of Art, published by The Student Christian Movement, p. 155.
[*] The reader who is a psychologist will notice many points in this statement at which elaboration and qualifications are required. For example, when we are ‘introspecting’ factors normally belonging to the second set may enter the first. But he will be able, if he grasps the general theory, to supply these complications himself. I did not wish to burden the text with unnecessary intricacies.
[*] Revelation Doctrines when once given a foothold tend to interfere everywhere. They serve as a kind of omnipotent major premise justifying any and every conclusion. A specimen: “Since the function of Art is to pierce through to the Real World, then it follows that the artist cannot be too definite in his outlines, and that good drawing is the foundation of all good art.”—Charles Gardner, Vision and Vesture, p. 54.
[†] Essay on Style, p. 19.
[†] Short View of Tragedy.
[†] Cf. A. Clutton-Brock, The Times, 11th July 1922, p. 13.
[*] No merit, that is, in this connection. There may be some exceptions to this, cases in which the explicit recognition of the truth of a statement as opposed to the simple acceptance of it, is necessary to the full development of the further response. But I believe that such cases will on careful examination be found to be very rare with competent readers. Individual differences, corresponding to the different degrees to which individuals have their belief feelings, their references, and their attitudes entangled, are to be expected. There are, of course, an immense number of scientific beliefs present among the conditions of every attitude. But since acceptances would do equally well in their place they are not necessary to it.