Hence it follows that art always aims at what is individual.  What the artist fixes on his canvas is something he has seen at a certain spot, on a certain day, at a certain hour, with a colouring that will never be seen again.  What the poet sings of is a certain mood which was his, and his alone, and which will never return.  What the dramatist unfolds before us is the life-history of a soul, a living tissue of feelings and events—­something, in short, which has once happened and can never be repeated.  We may, indeed, give general names to these feelings, but they cannot be the same thing in another soul.  They are individualised. Thereby, and thereby only, do they belong to art; for generalities, symbols or even types, form the current coin of our daily perception.  How, then, does a misunderstanding on this point arise?

The reason lies in the fact that two very different things have been mistaken for each other:  the generality of things and that of the opinions we come to regarding them.  Because a feeling is generally recognised as true, it does not follow that it is a general feeling.  Nothing could be more unique than the character of Hamlet.  Though he may resemble other men in some respects, it is clearly not on that account that he interests us most.  But he is universally accepted and regarded as a living character.  In this sense only is he universally true.  The same holds good of all the other products of art.  Each of them is unique, and yet, if it bear the stamp of genius, it will come to be accepted by everybody.  Why will it be accepted?  And if it is unique of its kind, by what sign do we know it to be genuine?  Evidently, by the very effort it forces us to make against our predispositions in order to see sincerely.  Sincerity is contagious.  What the artist has seen we shall probably never see again, or at least never see in exactly the same way; but if he has actually seen it, the attempt he has made to lift the veil compels our imitation.  His work is an example which we take as a lesson.  And the efficacy of the lesson is the exact standard of the genuineness of the work.  Consequently, truth bears within itself a power of conviction, nay, of conversion, which is the sign that enables us to recognise it.  The greater the work and the more profound the dimly apprehended truth, the longer may the effect be in coming, but, on the other hand, the more universal will that effect tend to become.  So the universality here lies in the effect produced, and not in the cause.

Altogether different is the object of comedy.  Here it is in the work itself that the generality lies.  Comedy depicts characters we have already come across and shall meet with again.  It takes note of similarities.  It aims at placing types before our eyes.  It even creates new types, if necessary.  In this respect it forms a contrast to all the other arts.

The very titles of certain classical comedies are significant in themselves.  Le Misanthrope, l’Avare, le Joueur, le Distrait, etc., are names of whole classes of people; and even when a character comedy has a proper noun as its title, this proper noun is speedily swept away, by the very weight of its contents, into the stream of common nouns.  We say “a Tartuffe,” but we should never say “a Phedre” or “a Polyeucte.”