6. The artist, even at his lowest level, is more than an imitator of
imitations.[6] Abridgment, selection, combination, are the necessary
instruments of his craft; and by their aid he introduces harmony and
order into the confused multiplicity of sensuous images. He substitutes
for the primary outward aspect of things a new view, in which thought
already finds a resting place. Just as strong emotion tends to make all
known existence the setting of a single form; just as intense meditation
sees in all experience the manifestation of a single idea; so the
artist, even if he be merely telling a story, or painting a common
landscape, puts some of his materials in a relief, and combines all in a
harmony, which the untaught eye does not find in the world as it is. He
presents to us the facts in the one case, the outward objects in the
other, as already acted upon by thought and emotion. In this sense every
artist, instead of copying nature, idealises it. In degree and mode,
however, the idealisation varies infinitely in the various kinds of art.
It is by considering the height to which it is carried in the epic poem
and the drama that we shall best appreciate its limitations in the
novel.