Every will, however blind and
careless, seeks a good and finds it, if only in hope and the effort
to attain. Through the intimacy of his descriptions and often against
our resistance, the artist may compel us to adopt the attitude of the
life which he is portraying, constraining us to feel the inner necessity
of its choices, the compulsion of its delights. It is difficult to
abandon ourselves thus to sympathy with what is wrong in life itself,
because we have in mind the consequences and relations which make it
wrong; yet we all do so at times, whenever we let ourselves go, charmed
by its momentary offering. But in the world of art this is easier,
because there the values, being merely represented, can have no sinister
effects. When great personalities are portrayed, this abandon is
readiest; for the strength or poignancy of their natures carries us
away as by a whirlwind. Witness Lady Macbeth when she summons the
powers of hell to unsex her for her murderous task, or Vanni Fucci in
the _Inferno_,[Footnote: _Inferno_, Canto 25, 1-3.] who mocks
at God. For the instant, we become as they and feel their ecstasy of
pride and power as our own. Yet the great artist can awaken this
sympathy even for characters that are small and weak. In Gogol's _Dead
Souls_, for example, there are no heroes. The most interesting
characters are the country gentlemen who return to their estates
planning to write books which will regenerate Russia. But the old
habits of life in the remote district are too strong.
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