236 INDOOR STUDIES 



power to touch and move the soul. Only the man 

 who looks upon the real with passion, with emotion, 

 will succeed in transmuting it into something higher, 

 and thus permanently interest mankind in it. And 

 if he looks upon the imaginary, the fantastic, with 

 passion and emotion, he will interest mankind in 

 that also. He will make that real and living to us. 



" The highest problem of any art, " says Goethe, 

 "is to produce by semblance the illusion of some 

 higher reality. But it is a false endeavor to realize 

 the appearance until at last only something com- 

 monly real remains." 



I think the complaint one has to make of the 

 current realistic fiction is that it fails to produce 

 this "illusion of some higher reality." It rests 

 with the "commonly" or meanly realistic. After 

 we have finished the book, we feel as if we had 

 been in the company of people whose acquaintance 

 was not worth the making. They are or may be 

 copied from our friends and acquaintances, but 

 there is this difference : In real life, there is some- 

 thing, it may not be easy to say just what, that 

 gives pathos and significance to the most humdrum 

 and frivolous, — something that points to the higher 

 reality; but in the story the people are cut off, 

 isolated, and we feel only their pettiness or silliness. 

 It is often said that the commonest and dullest life, 

 if truly written, would have something of perennial 

 interest ; but it must be sympathetically written, and 

 shown off against a proper background. There are 

 few more commonplace characters in themselves in 



