ABSTRACT
THAT originality is not the most common feature of new books, is not a very rash or contentious proposition. But things might become less peaceful if an attempt were made to define originality, or at least the ways of securing it. For a good many years past the idea of it has been very mainly confined to style; and even to one part of style—that is to say phraseology. We have been told that we must not repeat old phrases, however good they are—that everything of the kind must be personal and new. It was probably wrong of Shakespeare to use four such frightfully common words, so ordinarily put together, as “The rest is silence”; he should have sought something more in the Goncourtian or Mereditbese manner. But perhaps there has been a mistake here, or at any rate a too exclusive devotion to one side of the question. The more excellent side of originality—certainly the rarer—may possibly be discovered elsewhere, in the ability to find, and make good, a distinct and independent point of view. The field of thought on almost all questions has been so much trodden, the claims have been so marked and overmarked and cross-prospected, that it is not easy to secure such a position of vantage.
