Yes, indeed, the function of art is far from being confined to telling
us what we see, whatever some may pretend, or however naturally any
small nature may desire to continue, teach, or regulate great ones. All
so-called scientific methods of creating or criticising works of art are
inadequate, because the only truly scientific statements that can be
made about these inquiries are that nothing is certain--that no method
ensures success, and that no really important quality can be defined;
for what man can say why one cloud is more beautiful than another in the
same sky, any more than he can explain why, of two men equally absorbed
in doing their duty, one impresses him as being more holy than the
other? The degrees essential to both kinds of judgment escape all
definition; only the imagination can at times bring them home to us,
only the refined taste or chastened conscience, as the case may be,
witnesses with our spirit that its judgment is just, and bids us
recognise a master in him who delivers it. As the expression on a face
speaks to a delicate sense, often communicating more, other, and better
than can be seen, so the proportion, harmony, rhythm of a painting may
beget moods and joys that require the full resources of a well-stored
mind and disciplined character in order that they may be fully
relished--in brief, demand that maturity of reason which is the mark of
victorious man.

Such being my conception, it will easily be perceived how anxious I must
be to truly discern and express the relation between such objects as
works of art by common consent so highly honoured, and at the same time
so active in their effect upon the most exquisitely endowed of mankind.
Especially since to-day caprice, humour and temperament are, by the
majority of writers on art, acclaimed for the radical characteristic of
the human creative faculty, instead of its perversion and disease; and