52 
Review, discussing ‘ The Progress of Taste,” re-opens the vexed 
question. He thinks there is at the present time a tendency to 
disregard the fundamental difference which exists between one 
form of art and another. He objects to Mr. Comyns Carr praising 
Keats for having composed like a painter; and when he is 
considering a passage in which Mr. Ruskin says— 
We should calla man a great painter only as he excelled in precision and 
force in the lunguage of lines, and a great versifier as he excelled in precision 
or force in the language of words. A great poet would thus bea term strictly, 
and in precisely the same sense, applicable to both, if warranted by the 
character of the images or thoughts which each in their respective languages 
conveyed — 
he asks: ‘Is there anything like that analogy between the 
language of poetry and painting which Mr, Ruskin suggests ?” 
And, further, he considers this tendency to be only one of many 
symptoms of revolt against the law of nature; and in a passage 
which is amusing in its plaintiveness, he regrets that traditiéns 
are cast off and beaten paths abandoned. ‘‘ Poetry,” he says, as 
though his moral sense had been offended by an incestuous union, 
‘seeks support from philosophy or painting; painting shows a 
tendency to abuse the natural affinities existing between itself and 
music; while music, discarding melody, strives to usurp the 
functions of the poetic drama.” 
Now, I am not going to set myself against the weight of 
tradition. I am willing to admit, nay, 1 am even anxious to 
acknowledge, that the several arts have their own proper limit- 
ations; but I am more inclined to dwell upon the analogies 
which seem to exist among them, than to emphasize the points 
of difference. In pursuing this course I shall confine myself to 
the arts of literature and painting. I avoid that very misleading 
phrase, “literature and art,” because such an expression 
presupposes that literature is not an art; and my object is to 
consider that literature and that only which, whether expressed in 
prose or in verse, can show for itself a fair claim, by its motive 
and by its form, to take rank as one of the most perfect of the 
arts. 
Assuming therefore, that literature equally with painting 
may be regarded as a fine art, I proceed to offer some observations 
upon a few of those points which show how nearly the two 
pursuits are related, and how largely the same principles apply 
to each. First, then, I insist that they have the same primary 
motive ; and that this motive is to give pleasure—pleasure of the 
highest kind. Other considerations may have their due weight 
in the mind of the artist; and it may even be contended that the 
pleasure of which I speak is in itself a moral force; but it is 
none the less essential pleasure which must first be sought. The 
artist who writes and the artist who paints have alike to aim at 
increasing the total sense of enjoyment, and of heightening, if 
