It hinders or it betters the
race. The race judges it. By the race it is honoured or condemned; and
to it the mother becomes impersonal. As it bears itself among its
fellows, so she judges it--as the artist's work bears itself in the
great art it joins, so should he judge it. And if the mother joins in
his fellows' praise of her child, and if she proclaims her pride in
it, is she called wanting in modesty?--and if the artist joins in
praise of his work, and if he freely names it good, must he then be
vain, boastful? The race grants that the mother who gave it this
specimen of its kind has a first right to show her pride--to the
artist who gives a fair specimen to his art we should allow a like
voice.
For in demanding modesty--in naming impersonality conceit--we have
produced also mock-modesty; and because, as a people, we have little
appreciation of the arts, hence little knowledge, hence no standard by
which to judge, we continually mistake the one form of modesty for the
other. Modesty we suspect to be mock-modesty, and mock-modesty we take
to be pleasing humility.
Coming to literature alone, the author should be impersonal to his
work and must not cry that the writer is no judge of his own labour.
Letters is his trade; and just as the mason well knows whether the
brick he has laid helps or hinders, beautifies or insults the house,
so the writer should be full cognisant whether his work helps make or
does mar the edifice called literature.
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