The representations of art, like the presentations of nature, must be characterised by appropriateness of parts; you must not simply join anything to anything else. Perhaps, says an objector; but surely painters and poets enjoy liberty of fancy. Certainly; but still some propriety must be observed. Even ornament must be adjusted to the subject; and even when correctness itself is specially attempted, defects wait on the attempt—obscurity on brevity, bombast on flights, tameness on simplicity. Take care that your subject suits both your style and your powers. Then, as to vocabulary? There is no reason why old words should not be resuscitated and new ones coined, provided that both things are done “with brains” and discretion. Usage is the arbiter, and what usage will not admit must be content to perish. As for metre, the kinds appropriate to the various subjects have been long ago settled, though by whom is not always known—hexameters for Epic by Homer, elegiacs for less important matter by somebody or other, iambics for satire by Archilochus, and so on with tragedy, comedy, lyric, and the rest. It is not wise to alter this established order. In the same way, the established styles and characters must be maintained: a tragic hero must not speak like a comic one, or _vice versâ_; and you must not attempt new lights on the character of accepted heroes and heroines like Achilles and Odysseus and Medea. At the same time, you need not cling to the stock subjects, and if you take quite novel ones you may handle your character as you like, provided it keep uniformity throughout. But you may be wiser if you stick to the old.[287] If you do, do not begin too magniloquently; bustle your reader well along in the action; and drop the ungrateful parts of the story. As before for traditional characters, so for the stock parts. Generalise and conventionalise wisely; let your boys be childish; your youths fond of sport, reckless, and fickle; your men of full age, business-like and prudent; your old men praisers of the past, sluggish, grudging, and so forth. In short—Keep to the Type. Footnote 287: Here comes in one of the most famous and often-quoted of the “tags”—_difficile est proprie communia dicere_, a sentence which, hackneyed as it is, is not altogether easy to translate fully even by itself, and becomes in the context less easy still. In play-writing be careful how you utilise the double opportunity of representation and narrative. Do not let ugly things appear on the actual stage. Stick to your five acts; do not be prodigal of your _deus ex machina_; do not introduce a fourth personage. Keep your chorus to its business—moral sentiment, religious tone, and so forth. This caution introduces a long digression on the incursion of elaborate music into the stage, and on the combination (while keeping them _unmixed_) of Satiric Drama and Tragedy.