In my essay upon Mr. Watts-Dunton in Chambers’s ‘Cyclopædia of English Literature,’ I made this remark:—“Notwithstanding the vogue of ‘Aylwin,’ there is no doubt that it is on his poems, such as ‘The Coming of Love,’ ‘Christmas at the Mermaid,’ ‘Prophetic Pictures at Venice,’ ‘John the Pilgrim,’ ‘The Omnipotence of Love,’ ‘The Three Fausts,’ ‘What the Silent Voices Said,’ ‘Apollo in Paris,’ ‘The Wood-haunters’ Dream,’ ‘The Octopus of the Golden Isles,’ ‘The Last Walk with Jowett from Boar’s Hill,’ and ‘Omar Khayyàm,’ that Mr. Watts-Dunton’s future position will mainly rest.”
I did not say this rashly. But in order to justify my opinion I must quote somewhat copiously from Mr. Watts-Dunton’s remarks upon absolute and relative vision, in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’ It has been well said that ‘in judging of the seeing power of any work of imagination, either in prose or in verse, it is now necessary always to try the work by the critical canons upon absolute and relative vision laid down in this treatise.’ If we turn to it, we shall find that absolute vision is defined to be that vision which in its highest dramatic exercise is unconditioned by the personal temperament of the writer, while relative vision is defined to be that vision which is more or less conditioned by the personal temperament of the writer. And then follows a long discussion of various great imaginative works in which the two kinds of vision are seen:—
“For the achievement of most imaginative work relative vision will suffice. If we consider the matter thoroughly, in many forms—which at first sight might seem to require absolute vision—we shall find nothing but relative vision at work. Between relative and absolute vision the difference is this, that the former only enables the imaginative writer even in its very highest exercise, to make his own individuality, or else humanity as represented by his own individuality, live in the imagined situation; the latter enables him in its highest exercise to make special individual characters other than the poet’s own live in the imagined situation. In the very highest reaches of imaginative writing art seems to become art no longer—it seems to become the very voice of Nature herself. The cry of Priam when he puts to his lips the hand that slew his son, is not merely the cry of a bereaved and aged parent; it is the cry of the individual king of Troy, and expresses above everything else that most naïve, pathetic, and winsome character. Put the cry into the mouth of the irascible and passionate Lear, and it would be entirely out of keeping. While the poet of relative vision, even in its very highest exercise, can only, when depicting the external world, deal with the general, the poet of absolute vision can compete with Nature herself and deal with both general and particular.”