LITERATURE 



get a description of Niagara, but you do not forget 

 the vision of it. As we cannot always see the reality, 

 but must read about it in innumerable books, we 

 want the reading to spare us the triteness and dis- 

 agreeableness that we are bound to get more or less 

 of from the reality. 



I am not trying to discount the real thing; we go 

 around the world to see real things; I am only try- 

 ing to say that when we aim to make literature or 

 art out of them, we must invest them with a feeling, 

 an atmosphere, that the literal fact cannot give; 

 we must work some magic upon the facts. 



You may put into your picture what cannot be 

 found in nature, but I must not be able to put my 

 finger on it. It must be your own spirit, your own 

 atmosphere. It must be in the tone, in the quality 

 something that will make me want to go to that 

 place and live there always. Your elms must be elms 

 and your maples, maples, and your rocks, rocks, 

 but there must be a light upon them that never was 

 upon sea or land. 



Who could paint for me the old homestead with 

 the charm it has in my memory, not changing a 

 single feature, but touching every feature with the 

 charm and pathos with which it haunts me? 



Pass a landscape through the soul of a great artist 

 and it is in a measure transfigured, while it remains 

 the same. 



Wordsworth's "Daffodils" gives us more than 

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