Only some fifty per
cent, of the prematurely laurel-crowned reach the goal; and often even
upon _their_ brows there flutter but a few stray leaves of the bay.
A single poem, a solitary drama--nay, perhaps one isolated figure,
poetic or dramatic--avails, and but barely avails, to keep the
immortal from putting on mortality. Hence we need think it no
disparagement to Sterne to say that he lives not so much in virtue
of his creative power as of one great individual creation. His
imaginative insight into character in general was, no doubt,
considerable; his draughtsmanship, whether as exhibited in the rough
sketch or in the finished portrait, is unquestionably most vigorous;
but an artist may put a hundred striking figures upon his canvas for
one that will linger in the memory of those who have gazed upon it;
and it is, after all, I think, the one figure of Captain Tobias Shandy
which has graven itself indelibly on the memory of mankind. To have
made this single addition to the imperishable types of human character
embodied in the world's literature may seem, as has been said, but
a light matter to those who talk with light exaggeration of the
achievements of the literary artist; but if we exclude that one
creative prodigy among men, who has peopled a whole gallery with
imaginary beings more real than those of flesh and blood, we shall
find that very few archetypal creations have sprung from any single
hand.
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