You must avoid giving undue preference to the kind in
which the inspiring quality predominates or to the kind in which the
informing quality predominates. Too much of the one is enervating; too
much of the other is desiccating. If you stick exclusively to the
one you may become a mere debauchee of the emotions; if you stick
exclusively to the other you may cease to live in any full sense. I do
not say that you should hold the balance exactly even between the two
kinds. Your taste will come into the scale. What I say is that neither
kind must be neglected.
Lamb is an instance of a great writer whom anybody can understand and
whom a majority of those who interest themselves in literature can
more or less appreciate. He makes no excessive demand either on the
intellect or on the faculty of sympathetic emotion. On both sides of
Lamb, however, there lie literatures more difficult, more recondite.
The "knowledge" side need not detain us here; it can be mastered by
concentration and perseverance. But the "power" side, which comprises
the supreme productions of genius, demands special consideration.
You may have arrived at the point of keenly enjoying Lamb and yet be
entirely unable to "see anything in" such writings as _Kubla Khan_ or
Milton's _Comus_; and as for _Hamlet_ you may see nothing in it but a
sanguinary tale "full of quotations.
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