This deepest and most vital of all the processes of self-education and
self-unfolding, which is brought to such perfection in men of the
highest creative power, is the fundamental process of culture,--the
chief method which every man uses, consciously or unconsciously, who
brings his nature to complete ripeness of quality and power. The
absorption of vital experience and knowledge which went on in
Shakespeare enlarged and clarified his vision and insight to such a
degree that both became not only searching, but veracious in a rare
degree; life was opened to him on many sides by the expansion first
accomplished in himself. This is saying again what has been said so
many times, but cannot be said too often,--that, in order to give
one's work a touch of greatness, a man must first have a touch of
greatness in his own nature. But greatness is not an irresponsible and
undirected growth; it is as definitely conditioned on certain
obediences to intellectual discipline and spiritual law as is any kind
of lesser skill conditioned on practice and work. One of these
conditions is the development of the power to turn conscious processes
of observation, emotion, and skill into unconscious processes; to
enrich the nature below the surface, so to speak; to make the soil
productive by making it deep and rich.
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