effects of conscious art, yet one of the greatest pleasures of really
good prose literature is in the critical tracing out of that
conscious artistic structure, and the pervading sense of it [25] as
we read. Yet of poetic literature too; for, in truth, the kind of
constructive intelligence here supposed is one of the forms of the
imagination.

That is the special function of mind, in style. Mind and soul:--hard
to ascertain philosophically, the distinction is real enough
practically, for they often interfere, are sometimes in conflict,
with each other. Blake, in the last century, is an instance of
preponderating soul, embarrassed, at a loss, in an era of
preponderating mind. As a quality of style, at all events, soul is a
fact, in certain writers--the way they have of absorbing language, of
attracting it into the peculiar spirit they are of, with a subtlety
which makes the actual result seem like some inexplicable
inspiration. By mind, the literary artist reaches us, through static
and objective indications of design in his work, legible to all. By
soul, he reaches us, somewhat capriciously perhaps, one and not
another, through vagrant sympathy and a kind of immediate contact.
Mind we cannot choose but approve where we recognise it; soul may
repel us, not because we misunderstand it. The way in which
theological interests sometimes avail themselves of language is
perhaps the best illustration of the force I mean to indicate
generally in literature, by the word soul. Ardent religious
persuasion may exist, may make its way, without finding any
equivalent heat in language: or, again, it may enkindle [26] words to
various degrees, and when it really takes hold of them doubles its
force. Religious history presents many remarkable instances in
which, through no mere phrase-worship, an unconscious literary tact