ourselves as to whether we have or have not a distinct vision of the
thing we speak of, whether we are seers or reporters, whether the ideas
and feelings have been thought and felt by us as part and parcel of our
own individual experience, or have been echoed by us from the books and
conversation of others? We can always ask, are we painting farm-houses
or fairies because these are genuine visions of our own, or only
because farm-houses and fairies have been successfully painted by
others, and are poetic material?

The man who first saw an acid redden a vegetable-blue, had something to
communicate; and the man who first saw (mentally) that all acids redden
vegetable-blues, had something to communicate. But no man can do this
again. In the course of his teaching he may have frequently to report
the fact; but this repetition is not of much value unless it can be
made to disclose some new relation. And so of other and more complex
cases. Every sincere man can determine for himself whether he has any
authentic tidings to communicate; and although no man can hope to
discover much that is actually new, he ought to assure himself that
even what is old in his work has been authenticated by his own
experience. He should not even speak of acids reddening vegetable-blues
upon mere hearsay, unless he is speaking figuratively. All his facts
should have been verified by himself, all his ideas should have been
thought by himself. In proportion to the fulfilment of this condition
will be his success; in proportion to its non-fulfilment, his failure.

Literature in its vast extent includes writers of three different
classes, and in speaking of success we must always be understood to
mean the acceptance each writer gains in his own class; otherwise a
flashy novelist might seem more successful than a profound poet; a
clever compiler more successful than an original discoverer.