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Dangers of Imposing Words—Novelty more Common than Originality—An Unwholesome Kind of "Originality."
I told you that I should have something to say about originality. Almost every beginner has some vague impression that his first duty should be to aim at originality. He hears eulogiums passed upon the individuality of some one or other, and tries hard to invent new forms of expression or peculiarities of style, only resulting, in most cases, in new forms of ugliness, which it seems is the only possibility under such conscious efforts after novelty. The fact is that it takes many generations of ardent minds to accomplish what at first each [109] thinks himself capable of doing alone. True originality has somewhat the quality of good wine, which becomes more delightful as time mellows its flavor and imparts to it the aroma which comes of long repose; like the new wine, too, originality should shyly hide itself in dark places until maturity warrants its appearance in the light of day. That kind of originality which is strikingly new does not always stand the test of time, and should be regarded with cautious skepticism until it has proved itself to be more than the passing fashion or novelty of a season. There is a kind of sham art very conspicuous at the present time, which was at quite a recent date popularly believed to be very original. It seems to have arisen out of some such impatient craving for novelty, and it has been encouraged by an easy-going kind of suburban refinement, which neither knows nor cares very much what really goes to the making of a work of art. This new art has filled our shops and exhibitions with an invertebrate kind of ornament, which certainly has the doubtful merit of "never having been seen before." It has evidently taken its inspiration from the trailing and supine forms [110] of floating seaweed, and revels in the expression of such boneless structure. By way of variety it presents us with a kind of symbolic tree, remarkable for more than archaic flatness and rigidity. Now, this kind of "originality" is not only absolutely valueless, but exceedingly harmful; its only merit is that, like its ideal seaweed, it has no backbone of its own, and we may hope that it will soon betake itself to its natural home, the slimy bottom of the ocean of oblivion.
Meantime, the only thing we are absolutely sure of in connection with that much-abused word "originality" is this, that no gift, original or otherwise, can be developed without steady and continuous practise with the tools of your craft.