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diff --git a/1276-h/1276-h.htm b/1276-h/1276-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a7616c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/1276-h/1276-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2121 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Rhythm of Life</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Rhythm of Life, by Alice Meynell</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Rhythm of Life, by Alice Meynell + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Rhythm of Life + +Author: Alice Meynell + +Release Date: March 14, 2005 [eBook #1276] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RHYTHM OF LIFE*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1893 John Lane edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>The Rhythm of Life and Other Essays</h1> +<p>Contents</p> +<p>The Rhythm of Life<br /> +Decivilised<br /> +A Remembrance<br /> +The Sun<br /> +The Flower<br /> +Unstable Equilibrium<br /> +The Unit of the World<br /> +By the Railway Side<br /> +Pocket Vocabularies<br /> +Pathos<br /> +The Point of Honour<br /> +Composure<br /> +Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /> +James Russell Lowell<br /> +Domus Angusta<br /> +Rejection<br /> +The Lesson of Landscape<br /> +Mr. Coventry Patmore’s Odes<br /> +Innocence and Experience<br /> +Penultimate Caricature</p> +<h2>THE RHYTHM OF LIFE</h2> +<p>If life is not always poetical, it is at least metrical. Periodicity +rules over the mental experience of man, according to the path of the +orbit of his thoughts. Distances are not gauged, ellipses not +measured, velocities not ascertained, times not known. Nevertheless, +the recurrence is sure. What the mind suffered last week, or last +year, it does not suffer now; but it will suffer again next week or +next year. Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon +the tides of the mind. Disease is metrical, closing in at shorter +and shorter periods towards death, sweeping abroad at longer and longer +intervals towards recovery. Sorrow for one cause was intolerable +yesterday, and will be intolerable tomorrow; today it is easy to bear, +but the cause has not passed. Even the burden of a spiritual distress +unsolved is bound to leave the heart to a temporary peace; and remorse +itself does not remain—it returns. Gaiety takes us by a +dear surprise. If we had made a course of notes of its visits, +we might have been on the watch, and would have had an expectation instead +of a discovery. No one makes such observations; in all the diaries +of students of the interior world, there have never come to light the +records of the Kepler of such cycles. But Thomas à Kempis +knew of the recurrences, if he did not measure them. In his cell +alone with the elements—‘What wouldst thou more than these? +for out of these were all things made’—he learnt the stay +to be found in the depth of the hour of bitterness, and the remembrance +that restrains the soul at the coming of the moment of delight, giving +it a more conscious welcome, but presaging for it an inexorable flight. +And ‘rarely, rarely comest thou,’ sighed Shelley, not to +Delight merely, but to the Spirit of Delight. Delight can be compelled +beforehand, called, and constrained to our service—Ariel can be +bound to a daily task; but such artificial violence throws life out +of metre, and it is not the spirit that is thus compelled. <i>That</i> +flits upon an orbit elliptically or parabolically or hyperbolically +curved, keeping no man knows what trysts with Time.</p> +<p>It seems fit that Shelley and the author of the <i>Imitation</i> +should both have been keen and simple enough to perceive these flights, +and to guess at the order of this periodicity. Both souls were +in close touch with the spirits of their several worlds, and no deliberate +human rules, no infractions of the liberty and law of the universal +movement, kept from them the knowledge of recurrences. <i>Eppur</i> +<i>si</i> <i>muove</i>. They knew that presence does not exist +without absence; they knew that what is just upon its flight of farewell +is already on its long path of return. They knew that what is +approaching to the very touch is hastening towards departure. +‘O wind,’ cried Shelley, in autumn,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘O wind,<br /> +If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>They knew that the flux is equal to the reflux; that to interrupt +with unlawful recurrences, out of time, is to weaken the impulse of +onset and retreat; the sweep and impetus of movement. To live +in constant efforts after an equal life, whether the equality be sought +in mental production, or in spiritual sweetness, or in the joy of the +senses, is to live without either rest or full activity. The souls +of certain of the saints, being singularly simple and single, have been +in the most complete subjection to the law of periodicity. Ecstasy +and desolation visited them by seasons. They endured, during spaces +of vacant time, the interior loss of all for which they had sacrificed +the world. They rejoiced in the uncovenanted beatitude of sweetness +alighting in their hearts. Like them are the poets whom, three +times or ten times in the course of a long life, the Muse has approached, +touched, and forsaken. And yet hardly like them; not always so +docile, nor so wholly prepared for the departure, the brevity, of the +golden and irrevocable hour. Few poets have fully recognised the +metrical absence of their Muse. For full recognition is expressed +in one only way—silence.</p> +<p>It has been found that several tribes in Africa and in America worship +the moon, and not the sun; a great number worship both; but no tribes +are known to adore the sun, and not the moon. For the periodicity +of the sun is still in part a secret; but that of the moon is modestly +apparent, perpetually influential. On her depend the tides; and +she is Selene, mother of Herse, bringer of the dews that recurrently +irrigate lands where rain is rare. More than any other companion +of earth is she the Measurer. Early Indo-Germanic languages knew +her by that name. Her metrical phases are the symbol of the order +of recurrence. Constancy in approach and in departure is the reason +of her inconstancies. Juliet will not receive a vow spoken in +invocation of the moon; but Juliet did not live to know that love itself +has tidal times—lapses and ebbs which are due to the metrical +rule of the interior heart, but which the lover vainly and unkindly +attributes to some outward alteration in the beloved. For man—except +those elect already named—is hardly aware of periodicity. +The individual man either never learns it fully, or learns it late. +And he learns it so late, because it is a matter of cumulative experience +upon which cumulative evidence is lacking. It is in the after-part +of each life that the law is learnt so definitely as to do away with +the hope or fear of continuance. That young sorrow comes so near +to despair is a result of this young ignorance. So is the early +hope of great achievement. Life seems so long, and its capacity +so great, to one who knows nothing of all the intervals it needs must +hold—intervals between aspirations, between actions, pauses as +inevitable as the pauses of sleep. And life looks impossible to +the young unfortunate, unaware of the inevitable and unfailing refreshment. +It would be for their peace to learn that there is a tide in the affairs +of men, in a sense more subtle—if it is not too audacious to add +a meaning to Shakespeare—than the phrase was meant to contain. +Their joy is flying away from them on its way home; their life will +wax and wane; and if they would be wise, they must wake and rest in +its phases, knowing that they are ruled by the law that commands all +things—a sun’s revolutions and the rhythmic pangs of maternity.</p> +<h2>DECIVILISED</h2> +<p>The difficulty of dealing—in the course of any critical duty—with +decivilised man lies in this: when you accuse him of vulgarity—sparing +him no doubt the word—he defends himself against the charge of +barbarism. Especially from new soil—transatlantic, colonial—he +faces you, bronzed, with a half conviction of savagery, partly persuaded +of his own youthfulness of race. He writes, and recites, poems +about ranches and canyons; they are designed to betray the recklessness +of his nature and to reveal the good that lurks in the lawless ways +of a young society. He is there to explain himself, voluble, with +a glossary for his own artless slang. But his colonialism is only +provincialism very articulate. The new air does but make old decadences +seem more stale; the young soil does but set into fresh conditions the +ready-made, the uncostly, the refuse feeling of a race decivilising. +American fancy played long this pattering part of youth. The New-Englander +hastened to assure you with so self-denying a face he did not wear war-paint +and feathers, that it became doubly difficult to communicate to him +that you had suspected him of nothing wilder than a second-hand dress +coat. And when it was a question not of rebuke, but of praise, +the American was ill-content with the word of the judicious who lauded +him for some delicate successes in continuing something of the literature +of England, something of the art of France; he was more eager for the +applause that stimulated him to write romances and to paint panoramic +landscape, after brief training in academies of native inspiration. +Even now English voices, with violent commonplace, are constantly calling +upon America to begin—to begin, for the world is expectant. +Whereas there is no beginning for her, but instead a continuity which +only a constant care can guide into sustained refinement and can save +from decivilisation.</p> +<p>But decivilised man is not peculiar to new soil. The English +town, too, knows him in all his dailiness. In England, too, he +has a literature, an art, a music, all his own—derived from many +and various things of price. Trash, in the fulness of its in simplicity +and cheapness, is impossible without a beautiful past. Its chief +characteristic—which is futility, not failure—could not +be achieved but by the long abuse, the rotatory reproduction, the quotidian +disgrace, of the utterances of Art, especially the utterance by words. +Gaiety, vigour, vitality, the organic quality, purity, simplicity, precision—all +these are among the antecedents of trash. It is after them; it +is also, alas, because of them. And nothing can be much sadder +than such a proof of what may possibly be the failure of derivation.</p> +<p>Evidently we cannot choose our posterity. Reversing the steps +of time, we may, indeed, choose backwards. We may give our thoughts +noble forefathers. Well begotten, well born our fancies must be; +they shall be also well derived. We have a voice in decreeing +our inheritance, and not our inheritance only, but our heredity. +Our minds may trace upwards and follow their ways to the best well-heads +of the arts. The very habit of our thoughts may be persuaded one +way unawares by their antenatal history. Their companions must +be lovely, but need be no lovelier than their ancestors; and being so +fathered and so husbanded, our thoughts may be intrusted to keep the +counsels of literature.</p> +<p>Such is our confidence in a descent we know. But, of a sequel +which of us is sure? Which of us is secured against the dangers +of subsequent depreciation? And, moreover, which of us shall trace +the contemporary tendencies, the one towards honour, the other towards +dishonour? Or who shall discover why derivation becomes degeneration, +and where and when and how the bastardy befalls? The decivilised +have every grace as the antecedent of their vulgarities, every distinction +as the precedent of their mediocrities. No ballad-concert song, +feign it sigh, frolic, or laugh, but has the excuse that the feint was +suggested, was made easy, by some living sweetness once. Nor are +the decivilised to blame as having in their own persons possessed civilisation +and marred it. They did not possess it; they were born into some +tendency to derogation, into an inclination for things mentally inexpensive. +And the tendency can hardly do other than continue. Nothing can +look duller than the future of this second-hand and multiplying world. +Men need not be common merely because they are many; but the infection +of commonness once begun in the many, what dulness in their future! +To the eye that has reluctantly discovered this truth—that the +vulgarised are not <i>un</i>civilised, and that there is no growth for +them—it does not look like a future at all. More ballad-concerts, +more quaint English, more robustious barytone songs, more piecemeal +pictures, more anxious decoration, more colonial poetry, more young +nations with withered traditions. Yet it is before this prospect +that the provincial overseas lifts up his voice in a boast or a promise +common enough among the incapable young, but pardonable only in senility. +He promises the world a literature, an art, that shall be new because +his forest is untracked and his town just built. But what the +newness is to be he cannot tell. Certain words were dreadful once +in the mouth of desperate old age. Dreadful and pitiable as the +threat of an impotent king, what shall we name them when they are the +promise of an impotent people? ‘I will do such things: what +they are yet I know not.’</p> +<h2>A REMEMBRANCE</h2> +<p>When the memories of two or three persons now upon earth shall be +rolled up and sealed with their records within them, there will be no +remembrance left open, except this, of a man whose silence seems better +worth interpreting than the speech of many another. Of himself +he has left no vestiges. It was a common reproach against him +that he never acknowledged the obligation to any kind of restlessness. +The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, but as he did none there was +nothing for it but that the kingdom of heaven should yield to his leisure. +The delicate, the abstinent, the reticent graces were his in the heroic +degree. Where shall I find a pen fastidious enough to define and +limit and enforce so many significant negatives? Words seem to +offend by too much assertion, and to check the suggestions of his reserve. +That reserve was life-long. Loving literature, he never lifted +a pen except to write a letter. He was not inarticulate, he was +only silent. He had an exquisite style from which to refrain. +The things he abstained from were all exquisite. They were brought +from far to undergo his judgment, if haply he might have selected them. +Things ignoble never approached near enough for his refusal; they had +not with him so much as that negative connexion. If I had to equip +an author I should ask no better than to arm him and invest him with +precisely the riches that were renounced by the man whose intellect, +by integrity, had become a presence-chamber.</p> +<p>It was by holding session among so many implicit safeguards that +he taught, rather than by precepts. Few were these in his speech, +but his personality made laws for me. It was a subtle education, +for it persuaded insensibly to a conception of my own. How, if +he would not define, could I know what things were and what were not +worthy of his gentle and implacable judgment? I must needs judge +them for myself, yet he constrained me in the judging. Within +that constraint and under that stimulus, which seemed to touch the ultimate +springs of thoughts before they sprang, I began to discern all things +in literature and in life—in the chastity of letters and in the +honour of life—that I was bound to love. Not the things +of one character only, but excellent things of every character. +There was no tyranny in such a method. His idleness justified +itself by the liberality it permitted to his taste. Never having +made his love of letters further a secondary purpose, never having bound +the literary genius—that delicate Ariel—to any kind of servitude, +never having so much as permitted himself a prejudice whereby some of +his delights should be stinted while others were indulged beyond the +sanctions of modest reason, he barely tolerated his own preferences, +which lay somewhat on the hither side of full effectiveness of style. +These the range of his reading confessed by certain exclusions. +Nevertheless it was not of deficiencies that he was patient: he did +but respect the power of pause, and he disliked violence chiefly because +violence is apt to confess its own limits. Perhaps, indeed, his +own fine negatives made him only the more sensible of any lack of those +literary qualities that are bound in their full complement to hold themselves +at the disposal of the consummate author—to stand and wait, if +they may do no more.</p> +<p>Men said that he led a <i>dilettante</i> life. They reproached +him with the selflessness that made him somewhat languid. Others, +they seemed to aver, were amateurs at this art or that; he was an amateur +at living. So it was, in the sense that he never grasped at happiness, +and that many of the things he had held slipped from his disinterested +hands. So it was, too, in this unintended sense; he loved life. +How should he not have loved a life that his living made honourable? +How should he not have loved all arts, in which his choice was delicate, +liberal, instructed, studious, docile, austere? An amateur man +he might have been called, too, because he was not discomposed by his +own experiences, or shaken by the discovery which life brings to us-that +the negative quality of which Buddhism seems to accuse all good is partaken +by our happiness. He had always prayed temperate prayers and harboured +probable wishes. His sensibility was extreme, but his thought +was generalised. When he had joy he tempered it not in the common +way by meditation upon the general sorrow but by a recollection of the +general pleasure. It was his finest distinction to desire no differences, +no remembrance, but loss among the innumerable forgotten. And +when he suffered, it was with so quick a nerve and yet so wide an apprehension +that the race seemed to suffer in him. He pitied not himself so +tenderly as mankind, of whose capacity for pain he was then feelingly +persuaded. His darkening eyes said in the extreme hour: ‘I +have compassion on the multitude.’</p> +<h2>THE SUN</h2> +<p>Nowhere else does the greater light so rule the day, so measure, +so divide, so reign, make so imperial laws, so visibly kindle, so immediately +quicken, so suddenly efface, so banish, so restore, as in a plain like +this of Suffolk with its enormous sky. The curious have an insufficient +motive for going to the mountains if they do it to see the sunrise. +The sun that leaps from a mountain peak is a sun past the dew of his +birth; he has walked some way towards the common fires of noon. +But on the flat country the uprising is early and fresh, the arc is +wide, the career is long. The most distant clouds, converging +in the beautiful and little-studied order of cloud-perspective (for +most painters treat clouds as though they formed perpendicular and not +horizontal scenery), are those that gather at the central point of sunrise. +On the plain, and there only, can the construction—but that is +too little vital a word; I should rather say the organism—the +unity, the design, of a sky be understood. The light wind that +has been moving all night is seen to have not worked at random. +It has shepherded some small flocks of cloud afield and folded others. +There’s husbandry in Heaven. And the order has, or seems +to have, the sun for its midst. Not a line, not a curve, but confesses +its membership in a design declared from horizon to horizon.</p> +<p>To see the system of a sky in fragments is to miss what I learn to +look for in all achieved works of Nature and art: the organism that +is unity and life. It is the unity and life of painting. +The Early Victorian picture—(the school is still in full career, +but essentially it belongs to that triumphal period)—is but a +dull sum of things put together, in concourse, not in relation; but +the true picture is <i>one</i>, however multitudinous it may be, for +it is composed of relations gathered together in the unity of perception, +of intention, and of light. It is organic. Moreover, how +truly relation is the condition of life may be understood from the extinct +state of the English stage, which resembles nothing so much as a Royal +Academy picture. Even though the actors may be added together +with something like vivacity (though that is rare), they have no vitality +in common. They are not members one of another. If the Church +and Stage Guild be still in existence, it would do much for the art +by teaching that Scriptural maxim. I think, furthermore, that +the life of our bodies has never been defined so suggestively as by +one who named it a living relation of lifeless atoms. Could the +value of relation be more curiously set forth? And one might penetrate +some way towards a consideration of the vascular organism of a true +literary style in which there is a vital relation of otherwise lifeless +word with word. And wherein lies the progress of architecture +from the stupidity of the pyramid and the dead weight of the Cyclopean +wall to the spring and the flight of the ogival arch, but in a quasi-organic +relation? But the way of such thoughts might be intricate, and +the sun rules me to simplicity.</p> +<p>He reigns as centrally in the blue sky as in the clouds. One +October of late had days absolutely cloudless. I should not have +certainly known it had there been a hill in sight. The gradations +of the blue are incalculable, infinite, and they deepen from the central +fire. As to the earthly scenery, there are but two ‘views’ +on the plain; for the aspect of the light is the whole landscape. +To look with the sun or against the sun—this is the alternative +splendour. To look with the sun is to face a golden country, shadowless, +serene, noble and strong in light, with a certain lack of relief that +suggests—to those who dream of landscape—the country of +a dream. The serried pines, and the lighted fields, and the golden +ricks of the farms are dyed with the sun as one might paint with a colour. +Bright as it is, the glow is rather the dye of sunlight than its luminosity. +For by a kind of paradox the luminous landscape is that which is full +of shadows—the landscape before you when you turn and face the +sun. Not only every reed and rush of the salt marshes, every uncertain +aspen-leaf of the few trees, but every particle of the October air shows +a shadow and makes a mystery of the light. There is nothing but +shadow and sun; colour is absorbed and the landscape is reduced to a +shining simplicity. Thus is the dominant sun sufficient for his +day. His passage kindles to unconsuming fires and quenches into +living ashes. No incidents save of his causing, no delight save +of his giving: from the sunrise, when the larks, not for pairing, but +for play, sing the only virginal song of the year—a heart younger +than Spring’s in the season of decline—even to the sunset, +when the herons scream together in the shallows. And the sun dominates +by his absence, compelling the low country to sadness in the melancholy +night.</p> +<h2>THE FLOWER</h2> +<p>There is a form of oppression that has not until now been confessed +by those who suffer from it or who are participants, as mere witnesses, +in its tyranny. It is the obsession of man by the flower. +In the shape of the flower his own paltriness revisits him—his +triviality, his sloth, his cheapness, his wholesale habitualness, his +slatternly ostentation. These return to him and wreak upon him +their dull revenges. What the tyranny really had grown to can +be gauged nowhere so well as in country lodgings, where the most ordinary +things of design and decoration have sifted down and gathered together, +so that foolish ornament gains a cumulative force and achieves a conspicuous +commonness. Stem and petal and leaf—the fluent forms that +a man has not by heart but certainly by rote—are woven, printed, +cast, and stamped wherever restlessness and insimplicity have feared +to leave plain spaces. The most ugly of all imaginable rooms, +which is probably the parlour of a farm-house arrayed for those whom +Americans call summer-boarders, is beset with flowers. It blooms, +a dry, woollen, papery, cast-iron garden. The floor flourishes +with blossoms adust, poorly conventionalised into a kind of order; the +table-cover is ablaze with a more realistic florescence; the wall-paper +is set with bunches; the rigid machine-lace curtain is all of roses +and lilies in its very construction, over the muslin blinds an impotent +sprig is scattered. In the worsted rosettes of the bell-ropes, +in the plaster picture-frames, in the painted tea-tray and on the cups, +in the pediment of the sideboard, in the ornament that crowns the barometer, +in the finials of sofa and arm-chair, in the finger-plates of the ‘grained’ +door, is to be seen the ineffectual portrait or to be traced the stale +inspiration of the flower. And what is this bossiness around the +grate but some blunt, black-leaded garland? The recital is wearisome, +but the retribution of the flower is precisely weariness. It is +the persecution of man, the haunting of his trivial visions, and the +oppression of his inconsiderable brain.</p> +<p>The man so possessed suffers the lot of the weakling—subjection +to the smallest of the things he has abused. The designer of cheap +patterns is no more inevitably ridden by the flower than is the vain +and transitory author by the phrase. But I had rather learn my +decoration of the Japanese, and place against the blank wall one pot +plain from the wheel, holding one singular branch in blossom, in the +attitude and accident of growth. And I could wish abstention to +exist, and even to be evident, in my words. In literature as in +all else man merits his subjection to trivialities by a kind of economical +greed. A condition for using justly and gaily any decoration would +seem to be a certain reluctance. Ornament—strange as the +doctrine sounds in a world decivilised—was in the beginning intended +to be something jocund; and jocundity was never to be achieved but by +postponement, deference, and modesty. Nor can the prodigality +of the meadows in May be quoted in dispute. For Nature has something +even more severe than moderation: she has an innumerable singleness. +Her butter-cup meadows are not prodigal; they show multitude, but not +multiplicity, and multiplicity is exactly the disgrace of decoration. +Who has ever multiplied or repeated his delights? or who has ever gained +the granting of the most foolish of his wishes—the prayer for +reiteration? It is a curious slight to generous Fate that man +should, like a child, ask for one thing many times. Her answer +every time is a resembling but new and single gift; until the day when +she shall make the one tremendous difference among her gifts—and +make it perhaps in secret—by naming one of them the ultimate. +What, for novelty, what, for singleness, what, for separateness, can +equal the last? Of many thousand kisses the poor last—but +even the kisses of your mouth are all numbered.</p> +<h2>UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM</h2> +<p>It is principally for the sake of the leg that a change in the dress +of man is so much to be desired. The leg, completing as it does +the form of man, should make a great part of that human scenery which +is at least as important as the scenery of geological structure, or +the scenery of architecture, or the scenery of vegetation, but which +the lovers of mountains and the preservers of ancient buildings have +consented to ignore. The leg is the best part of the figure, inasmuch +as it has the finest lines and therewith those slender, diminishing +forms which, coming at the base of the human structure, show it to be +a thing of life by its unstable equilibrium. A lifeless structure +is in stable equilibrium; the body, springing, poised, upon its fine +ankles and narrow feet, never stands without implying and expressing +life. It is the leg that first suggested the phantasy of flight. +We imagine wings to the figure that is erect upon the vital and tense +legs of man; and the herald Mercury, because of his station, looks new-lighted. +All this is true of the best leg, and the best leg is the man’s. +That of the young child, in which the Italian schools of painting delighted, +has neither movement nor supporting strength. In the case of the +woman’s figure it is the foot, with its extreme proportional smallness, +that gives the precious instability, the spring and balance that are +so organic. But man should no longer disguise the long lines, +the strong forms, in those lengths of piping or tubing that are of all +garments the most stupid. Inexpressive of what they clothe as +no kind of concealing drapery could ever be, they are neither implicitly +nor explicitly good raiment. It is hardly possible to err by violence +in denouncing them. Why, when a bad writer is praised for ‘clothing +his thought,’ it is to modern raiment that one’s nimble +fancy flies—fain of completing the beautiful metaphor!</p> +<p>The human scenery: yes, costume could make a crowd something other +than the mass of sooty colour—dark without depth—and the +multiplication of undignified forms that fill the streets, and demonstrate, +and strike, and listen to the democrat. For the undistinguished +are very important by their numbers. These are they who make the +look of the artificial world. They are man generalised; as units +they inevitably lack something of interest; all the more have they cumulative +effect. It would be well if we could persuade the average man +to take on a certain human dignity in the clothing of his average body. +Unfortunately he will be slow to be changed. And as to the poorer +part of the mass, so wretched are their national customs—and the +wretchedest of them all the wearing of other men’s old raiment—that +they must wait for reform until the reformed dress, which the reformers +have not yet put on, shall have turned second-hand.</p> +<h2>THE UNIT OF THE WORLD</h2> +<p>The quarrel of Art with Nature goes on apace. The painters +have long been talking of selecting, then of rejecting, or even, with +Mr. Whistler, of supplanting. And then Mr. Oscar Wilde, in the +witty and delicate series of inversions which he headed ‘The Decay +of Lying,’ declared war with all the irresponsibility naturally +attending an act so serious. He seems to affirm that Nature is +less proportionate to man than is architecture; that the house is built +and the sofa is made measurable by the unit measure of the body; but +that the landscape is set to some other scale. ‘I prefer +houses to the open air. In a house we all feel of the proper proportions. +Egotism itself, which is so necessary to a proper sense of human dignity, +is absolutely the result of indoor life.’ Nevertheless, +before it is too late, let me assert that though nature is not always +clearly and obviously made to man’s measure, he is yet the unit +by which she is measurable. The proportion may be far to seek +at times, but the proportion is there. Man’s farms about +the lower Alps, his summer pastures aloft, have their relation to the +whole construction of the range; and the range is great because it is +great in regard to the village lodged in a steep valley in the foot +hills. The relation of flower and fruit to his hands and mouth, +to his capacity and senses (I am dealing with size, and nothing else), +is a very commonplace of our conditions in the world. The arm +of man is sufficient to dig just as deep as the harvest is to be sown. +And if some of the cheerful little evidences of the more popular forms +of teleology are apt to be baffled, or indefinitely postponed, by the +retorts that suggest themselves to the modern child, there remains the +subtle and indisputable witness borne by art itself: the body of man +composes with the mass and the detail of the world. The picture +is irrefutable, and the picture arranges the figure amongst its natural +accessories in the landscape, and would not have them otherwise.</p> +<p>But there is one conspicuous thing in the world to which man has +not served as a unit of proportion, and that one thing is a popularly +revered triumph of that very art of architecture in which Mr. Oscar +Wilde has confidence for keeping things in scale. Human ingenuity +in designing St. Peter’s on the Vatican, has achieved this one +exception to the universal harmony—a harmony enriched by discords, +but always on one certain scale of notes—which the body makes +with the details of the earth. It is not in the landscape, where +Mr. Oscar Wilde has too rashly looked for contempt and contumely, but +in the art he holds precious as the minister to man’s egotism, +that man’s Ego is defied. St. Peter’s is not necessarily +too large (though on other grounds its size might be liable to correction); +it is simply out of relation to the most vital thing on the earth—the +thing which has supplied some secret rod to measure the waves withal, +and the whales, the sea-wall cliffs, the ears of wheat, the cedar-branches, +pines and diamonds and apples. Now, Emerson would certainly not +have felt the soft shock and stimulus of delight to which he confesses +himself to be liable at the first touch of certain phrases, had not +the words in every case enclosed a promise of further truth and of a +second pleasure. One of these swift and fruitful experiences visited +him with the saying—grown popular through him—that an architect +should have a knowledge of anatomy. There is assuredly a germ +and a promise in the phrase. It delights us, first, because it +seems to recognise the organic, as distinct from the merely constructive, +character of finely civilised architecture; and next, it persuades us +that Vitruvius had in truth discovered the key to size—the unit +that is sometimes so obscurely, yet always so absolutely, the measure +of what is great and small among things animate and inanimate. +And in spite of themselves the architects of St. Peter’s were +constrained to take something from man; they refused his height for +their scale, but they tried to use his shape for their ornament. +And so in the blankest dearth of fancy that ever befel architect or +builder they imagined human beings bigger than the human beings of experience; +and by means of these, carved in stone and inlaid in mosaic, they set +up a relation of their own. The basilica was related to the colossal +figure (as a church more wisely measured would have been to living man), +and so ceased to be large; and nothing more important was finally achieved +than transposal of the whole work into another scale of proportions—a +scale in which the body of man was not the unit. The pile of stones +that make St. Peter’s is a very little thing in comparison with +Soracte; but man, and man’s wife, and the unequal statures of +his children, are in touch with the structure of the mountain rather +than with that of the church which has been conceived without reference +to the vital and fundamental rule of his inches.</p> +<p>Is there no egotism, ministering to his dignity, that man, having +the law of the organism of the world written in his members, can take +with him, out of the room that has been built to accord with him, into +the landscape that stands only a little further away? He has deliberately +made the smoking chair and the table; there is nothing to surprise him +in their ministrations. But what profounder homage is rendered +by the multitudinous Nature going about the interests and the business +of which he knows so little, and yet throughout confessing him! +His eyes have seen her and his ears have heard, but it would never have +entered into his heart to conceive her. His is not the fancy that +could have achieved these woods, this little flush of summer from the +innumerable flowering of grasses, the cyclic recreation of seasons. +And yet he knows that he is imposed upon all he sees. His stature +gives laws. His labour only is needful—not a greater strength. +And the sun and the showers are made sufficient for him. His furniture +must surely be adjudged to pay him but a coarse flattery in comparison +with the subjection, yet the aloofness, of all this wild world. +This is no flattery. The grass is lumpy, as Mr. Oscar Wilde remarks +with truth: Nature is not man’s lacquey, and has no preoccupation +about his more commonplace comforts. These he gives himself indoors; +and who prizes, with any self-respect, the things carefully provided +by self-love? But when that <i>farouche</i> Nature, who has never +spoken to him, and to whom he has never had the opportunity of hinting +his wishes or his tastes—when she reveals the suggestions of his +form and the desire of his eyes, and amongst her numberless purposes +lets him surprise in her the purpose to accord with him, and lets him +suspect further harmonies which he has not yet learnt to understand—then +man becomes conscious of having received a token from her lowliness, +and a favour from her loveliness, compared with which the care wherewith +his tailor himself has fitted him might leave his gratitude cool.</p> +<h2>BY THE RAILWAY SIDE</h2> +<p>My train drew near to the Via Reggio platform on a day between two +of the harvests of a hot September; the sea was burning blue, and there +were a sombreness and a gravity in the very excesses of the sun as his +fires brooded deeply over the serried, hardy, shabby, seaside ilex-woods. +I had come out of Tuscany and was on my way to the Genovesato: the steep +country with its profiles, bay by bay, of successive mountains grey +with olive-trees, between the flashes of the Mediterranean and the sky; +the country through the which there sounds the twanging Genoese language, +a thin Italian mingled with a little Arabic, more Portuguese, and much +French. I was regretful at leaving the elastic Tuscan speech, +canorous in its vowels set in emphatic <i>l’s</i> and <i>m’s</i> +and the vigorous soft spring of the double consonants. But as +the train arrived its noises were drowned by a voice declaiming in the +tongue I was not to hear again for months—good Italian. +The voice was so loud that one looked for the audience: Whose ears was +it seeking to reach by the violence done to every syllable, and whose +feelings would it touch by its insincerity? The tones were insincere, +but there was passion behind them; and most often passion acts its own +true character poorly, and consciously enough to make good judges think +it a mere counterfeit. Hamlet, being a little mad, feigned madness. +It is when I am angry that I pretend to be angry, so as to present the +truth in an obvious and intelligible form. Thus even before the +words were distinguishable it was manifest that they were spoken by +a man in serious trouble who had false ideas as to what is convincing +in elocution.</p> +<p>When the voice became audibly articulate, it proved to be shouting +blasphemies from the broad chest of a middle-aged man—an Italian +of the type that grows stout and wears whiskers. The man was in +<i>bourgeois</i> dress, and he stood with his hat off in front of the +small station building, shaking his thick fist at the sky. No +one was on the platform with him except the railway officials, who seemed +in doubt as to their duties in the matter, and two women. Of one +of these there was nothing to remark except her distress. She +wept as she stood at the door of the waiting-room. Like the second +woman, she wore the dress of the shopkeeping class throughout Europe, +with the local black lace veil in place of a bonnet over her hair. +It is of the second woman—O unfortunate creature!—that this +record is made—a record without sequel, without consequence; but +there is nothing to be done in her regard except so to remember her. +And thus much I think I owe after having looked, from the midst of the +negative happiness that is given to so many for a space of years, at +some minutes of her despair. She was hanging on the man’s +arm in her entreaties that he would stop the drama he was enacting. +She had wept so hard that her face was disfigured. Across her +nose was the dark purple that comes with overpowering fear. Haydon +saw it on the face of a woman whose child had just been run over in +a London street. I remembered the note in his journal as the woman +at Via Reggio, in her intolerable hour, turned her head my way, her +sobs lifting it. She was afraid that the man would throw himself +under the train. She was afraid that he would be damned for his +blasphemies; and as to this her fear was mortal fear. It was horrible, +too, that she was humpbacked and a dwarf.</p> +<p>Not until the train drew away from the station did we lose the clamour. +No one had tried to silence the man or to soothe the woman’s horror. +But has any one who saw it forgotten her face? To me for the rest +of the day it was a sensible rather than a merely mental image. +Constantly a red blur rose before my eyes for a background, and against +it appeared the dwarf’s head, lifted with sobs, under the provincial +black lace veil. And at night what emphasis it gained on the boundaries +of sleep! Close to my hotel there was a roofless theatre crammed +with people, where they were giving Offenbach. The operas of Offenbach +still exist in Italy, and the little town was placarded with announcements +of <i>La</i> <i>Bella</i> <i>Elena</i>. The peculiar vulgar rhythm +of the music jigged audibly through half the hot night, and the clapping +of the town’s-folk filled all its pauses. But the persistent +noise did but accompany, for me, the persistent vision of those three +figures at the Via Reggio station in the profound sunshine of the day.</p> +<h2>POCKET VOCABULARIES</h2> +<p>A serviceable substitute for style in literature has been found in +such a collection of language ready for use as may be likened to a portable +vocabulary. It is suited to the manners of a day that has produced +salad-dressing in bottles, and many other devices for the saving of +processes. Fill me such a wallet full of ‘graphic’ +things, of ‘quaint’ things and ‘weird,’ of ‘crisp’ +or ‘sturdy’ Anglo-Saxon, of the material for ‘word-painting’ +(is not that the way of it?), and it will serve the turn. Especially +did the Teutonic fury fill full these common little hoards of language. +It seemed, doubtless, to the professor of the New Literature that if +anything could convince him of his own success it must be the energy +of his Teutonisms and his avoidance of languid Latin derivatives, fit +only for the pedants of the eighteenth century. Literature doubtless +is made of words. What then is needful, he seems to ask, besides +a knack of beautiful words? Unluckily for him, he has achieved, +not style, but slang. Unluckily for him, words are not style, +phrases are not style. ‘The man is style.’ O +good French language, cunning and good, that lets me read the sentence +in obverse or converse as I will! And I read it as declaring that +the whole man, the very whole of him, is his style. The literature +of a man of letters worthy the name is rooted in all his qualities, +with little fibres running invisibly into the smallest qualities he +has. He who is not a man of letters, simply is not one; it is +not too audacious a paradox to affirm that doing will not avail him +who fails in being. ‘Lay your deadly doing down,’ +sang once some old hymn known to Calvinists. Certain poets, a +certain time ago, ransacked the language for words full of life and +beauty, made a vocabulary of them, and out of wantonness wrote them +to death. To change somewhat the simile, they scented out a word—an +earlyish word, by preference—ran it to earth, unearthed it, dug +it out, and killed it. And then their followers bagged it. +The very word that lives, ‘new every morning,’ miraculously +new, in the literature of a man of letters, they killed and put into +their bag. And, in like manner, the emotion that should have caused +the word is dead for those, and for those only, who abuse its expression. +For the maker of a portable vocabulary is not content to turn his words +up there: he turns up his feelings also, alphabetically or otherwise. +Wonderful how much sensibility is at hand in such round words as the +New Literature loves. Do you want a generous emotion? Pull +forth the little language. Find out moonshine, find out moonshine!</p> +<p>Take, as an instance, Mr. Swinburne’s ‘hell.’ +There is, I fear, no doubt whatever that Mr. Swinburne has put his ‘hell’ +into a vocabulary, with the inevitable consequences to the word. +And when the minor men of his school have occasion for a ‘hell’ +(which may very well happen to any young man practising authorship), +I must not be accused of phantasy if I say that they put their hands +into Mr. Swinburne’s vocabulary and pick it. These vocabularies +are made out of vigorous and blunt language. ‘What hempen +homespuns have we swaggering here?’ Alas, they are homespuns +from the factory, machine-made in uncostly quantities. Obviously, +power needs to make use of no such storage. The property of power +is to use phrases, whether strange or familiar, as though it created +them. But even more than lack of power is lack of humour the cause +of all the rankness and the staleness, of all the Anglo-Saxon of commerce, +of all the weary ‘quaintness’—that quaintness of which +one is moved to exclaim with Cassio: ‘Hither comes the bauble!’ +Lack of a sense of humour betrays a man into that perpetual too-much +whereby he tries to make amends for a currency debased. No more +than any other can a witty writer dispense with a sense of humour. +In his moments of sentiment the lack is distressing; in his moments +of wit it is at least perceptible. A sense of humour cannot be +always present, it may be urged. Why, no; it is the lack of it +that is—importunate. Other absences, such as the absence +of passion, the absence of delicacy, are, if grievous negatives, still +mere negatives. These qualities may or may not be there at call, +ready for a summons; we are not obliged to know; we are not momentarily +aware, unless they ought to be in action, whether their action is possible. +But want of power and want of a sense of the ridiculous: these are lacks +wherefrom there is no escaping, deficiencies that are all-influential, +defects that assert themselves, vacancies that proclaim themselves, +absences from the presence whereof there is no flying; what other paradoxes +can I adventure? Without power—no style. Without a +possible humour,—no style. The weakling has no confidence +in himself to keep him from grasping at words that he fancies hold within +them the true passions of the race, ready for the uses of his egoism. +And with a sense of humour a man will not steal from a shelf the precious +treasure of the language and put it in his pocket.</p> +<h2>PATHOS</h2> +<p>A fugitive writer wrote but lately on the fugitive page of a minor +magazine: ‘For our part, the drunken tinker [Christopher Sly] +is the most real personage of the piece, and not without some hints +of the pathos that is worked out more fully, though by different ways, +in Bottom and Malvolio.’ Has it indeed come to this? +Have the Zeitgeist and the Weltschmerz and the other things compared +to which ‘le spleen’ was gay, done so much for us? +Is there to be no laughter left in literature free from the preoccupation +of a sham real-life? So it would seem. Even what the great +master has not shown us in his work, that your critic convinced of pathos +is resolved to see in it. By the penetration of his intrusive +sympathy he will come at it. It is of little use now to explain +Snug the joiner to the audience: why, it is precisely Snug who stirs +their emotions so painfully. Not the lion; they can see through +that: but the Snug within, the human Snug. And Master Shallow +has the Weltschmerz in that latent form which is the more appealing; +and discouraging questions arise as to the end of old Double; and Argan +in his nightcap is the tragic figure of Monomania; and human nature +shudders at the petrifaction of the intellect of Mr. F.’s aunt. +<i>Et</i> <i>patati</i>, <i>et</i> <i>patata</i>.</p> +<p>It may be only too true that the actual world is ‘with pathos +delicately edged.’ For Malvolio living we should have had +living sympathies: so much aspiration, so ill-educated a love of refinement; +so unarmed a credulity, noblest of weaknesses, betrayed for the laughter +of a chambermaid. By an actual Bottom the Weaver our pity might +be reached for the sake of his single self-reliance, his fancy and resource +condemned to burlesque and ignominy by the niggard doom of circumstance. +But is not life one thing and is not art another? Is it not the +privilege of literature to make selection and to treat things singly, +without the after-thoughts of life, without the troublous completeness +of the many-sided world? Is not Shakespeare, for this reason, +our refuge? Fortunately unreal is his world when he will have +it so; and there we may laugh with open heart at a grotesque man: without +misgiving, without remorse, without reluctance. If great creating +Nature has not assumed for herself she has assuredly secured to the +great creating poet the right of partiality, of limitation, of setting +aside and leaving out, of taking one impression and one emotion as sufficient +for the day. Art and Nature are separate, complementary; in relation, +not in confusion, with one another. And all this officious cleverness +in seeing round the corner, as it were, of a thing presented by literary +art in the flat—(the borrowing of similes from other arts is of +evil tendency; but let this pass, as it is apt)—is but another +sign of the general lack of a sense of the separation between Nature +and the sentient mirror in the mind. In some of his persons, indeed, +Shakespeare is as Nature herself, all-inclusive; but in others—and +chiefly in comedy—he is partial, he is impressionary, he refuses +to know what is not to his purpose, he is an artist. And in that +gay, wilful world it is that he gives us—or used to give us, for +even the world is obsolete—the pleasure of <i>oubliance</i>.</p> +<p>Now this fugitive writer has not been so swift but that I have caught +him a clout as he went. Yet he will do it again; and those like-minded +will assuredly also continue to show how much more completely human, +how much more sensitive, how much more responsible, is the art of the +critic than the world has ever dreamt till now. And, superior +in so much, they will still count their superior weeping as the choicest +of their gifts. And Lepidus, who loves to wonder, can have no +better subject for his admiration than the pathos of the time. +It is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun. ’Tis +a strange serpent; and the tears of it are wet.</p> +<h2>THE POINT OF HONOUR</h2> +<p>Not without significance is the Spanish nationality of Velasquez. +In Spain was the Point put upon Honour; and Velasquez was the first +Impressionist. As an Impressionist he claimed, implicity if not +explicity, a whole series of delicate trusts in his trustworthiness; +he made an appeal to the confidence of his peers; he relied on his own +candour and asked that the candid should rely upon him; he kept the +chastity of art when other masters were content with its honesty, and +when others saved artistic conscience he safeguarded the point of honour. +Contemporary masters more or less proved their position, and convinced +the world by something of demonstration; the first Impressionist simply +asked that his word should be accepted. To those who would not +take his word he offers no bond. To those who will, he grants +the distinction of a share in his responsibility. Somewhat unrefined, +in comparison to his lofty and simple claim to be believed on a suggestion, +is the commoner painter’s production of his credentials, his appeal +to the sanctions of ordinary experience, his self-defence against the +suspicion of making irresponsible mysteries in art. ‘You +can see for yourself,’ the lesser man seems to say to the world, +‘thus things are, and I render them in such manner that your intelligence +may be satisfied.’ This is an appeal to average experience—at +the best the cumulative experience; and with the average, or with the +sum, art cannot deal without derogation. The Spaniard seems to +say: ‘Thus things are in my pictorial sight. Trust me, I +apprehend them so.’ We are not excluded from his counsels, +but we are asked to attribute a certain authority to him, master of +the craft as he is, master of that art of seeing pictorially which is +the beginning and not far from the end—not far short of the whole—of +the art of painting. So little indeed are we shut out from the +mysteries of a great Impressionist’s impression that Velasquez +requires us to be in some degree his colleagues. Thus may each +of us to whom he appeals take praise from the praised: He leaves my +educated eyes to do a little of the work. He respects my responsibility +no less—though he respects it less explicitly—than I do +his. What he allows me would not be granted by a meaner master. +If he does not hold himself bound to prove his own truth, he returns +thanks for my trust. It is as though he used his countrymen’s +courteous hyperbole and called his house my own. In a sense of +the most noble hostship he does me the honours of his picture.</p> +<p>Because Impressionism is so free, therefore is it doubly bound. +Because there is none to arraign it, it is a thousand times responsible. +To undertake this art for the sake of its privileges without confessing +its obligations—or at least without confessing them up to the +point of honour—is to take a vulgar freedom: to see immunities +precisely where there are duties, and an advantage where there is a +bond. A very mob of men have taken Impressionism upon themselves +in this our later day. It is against all probabilities that more +than a few among these have within them the point of honour. In +their galleries we are beset with a dim distrust. And to distrust +is more humiliating than to be distrusted. How many of these landscape-painters, +deliberately rash, are painting the truth of their own impressions? +An ethical question as to loyalty is easily answered; truth and falsehood +as to fact are, happily for the intelligence of the common conscience, +not hard to divide. But when the <i>dubium</i> concerns not fact +but artistic truth, can the many be sure that their sensitiveness, their +candour, their scruple, their delicate equipoise of perceptions, the +vigilance of their apprehension, are enough? Now Impressionists +of late have told us things as to their impressions—as to the +effect of things upon the temperament of this man and upon the mood +of that—which should not be asserted except on the artistic point +of honour. The majority can tell ordinary truth, but they should +not trust themselves for truth extraordinary. They can face the +general judgment, but they should hesitate to produce work that appeals +to the last judgment, which is the judgment within. There is too +much reason to divine that a certain number of those who aspire to derive +from the greatest of masters have no temperaments worth speaking of, +no point of view worth seizing, no vigilance worth awaiting, no mood +worth waylaying. And to be, <i>de</i> <i>parti</i> <i>pris</i>, +an Impressionist without these! O Velasquez! Nor is literature +quite free from a like reproach in her own things. An author, +here and there, will make as though he had a word worth hearing—nay, +worth over-hearing—a word that seeks to withdraw even while it +is uttered; and yet what it seems to dissemble is all too probably a +platitude. But obviously, literature is not—as is the craft +and mystery of painting—so at the mercy of a half-imposture, so +guarded by unprovable honour. For the art of painting is reserved +that shadowy risk, that undefined salvation. May the gods guard +us from the further popularising of Impressionism; for the point of +honour is the simple secret of the few.</p> +<h2>COMPOSURE</h2> +<p>Tribulation, Immortality, the Multitude: what remedy of composure +do these words bring for their own great disquiet! Without the +remoteness of the Latinity the thought would come too close and shake +too cruelly. In order to the sane endurance of the intimate trouble +of the soul an aloofness of language is needful. Johnson feared +death. Did his noble English control and postpone the terror? +Did it keep the fear at some courteous, deferent distance from the centre +of that human heart, in the very act of the leap and lapse of mortality? +Doubtless there is in language such an educative power. Speech +is a school. Every language is a persuasion, an induced habit, +an instrument which receives the note indeed but gives the tone. +Every language imposes a quality, teaches a temper, proposes a way, +bestows a tradition: this is the tone—the voice—of the instrument. +Every language, by counter-change, replies to the writer’s touch +or breath his own intention, articulate: this is his note. Much +has always been said, many things to the purpose have been thought, +of the power and the responsibility of the note. Of the legislation +and influence of the tone I have been led to think by comparing the +tranquillity of Johnson and the composure of Canning with the stimulated +and close emotion, the interior trouble, of those writers who have entered +as disciples in the school of the more Teutonic English.</p> +<p>For if every language be a school, more significantly and more educatively +is a part of a language a school to him who chooses that part. +Few languages offer the choice. The fact that a choice is made +implies the results and fruits of a decision. The French author +is without these. They are of all the heritages of the English +writer the most important. He receives a language of dual derivation. +He may submit himself to either University, whither he will take his +impulse and his character, where he will leave their influence, and +whence he will accept their education. The Frenchman has certainly +a style to develop within definite limits; but he does not subject himself +to suggestions tending mainly hitherwards or thitherwards, to currents +of various race within one literature. Such a choice of subjection +is the singular opportunity of the Englishman. I do not mean to +ignore the necessary mingling. Happily that mingling has been +done once for all for us all. Nay, one of the most charming things +that a master of English can achieve is the repayment of the united +teaching by linking their results so exquisitely in his own practice, +that words of the two schools are made to meet each other with a surprise +and delight that shall prove them at once gayer strangers, and sweeter +companions, than the world knew they were. Nevertheless there +remains the liberty of choice as to which school of words shall have +the place of honour in the great and sensitive moments of an author’s +style: which school shall be used for conspicuousness, and which for +multitudinous service. And the choice being open, the perturbation +of the pulses and impulses of so many hearts quickened in thought and +feeling in this day suggests to me a deliberate return to the recollectedness +of the more tranquil language. ‘Doubtless there is a place +of peace.’</p> +<p>A place of peace, not of indifference. It is impossible not +to charge some of the moralists of the last century with an indifference +into which they educated their platitudes and into which their platitudes +educated them. Addison thus gave and took, until he was almost +incapable of coming within arm’s-length of a real or spiritual +emotion. There is no knowing to what distance the removal of the +‘appropriate sentiment’ from the central soul might have +attained but for the change and renewal in language, which came when +it was needed. Addison had assuredly removed eternity far from +the apprehension of the soul when his Cato hailed the ‘pleasing +hope,’ the ‘fond desire;’ and the touch of war was +distant from him who conceived his ‘repulsed battalions’ +and his ‘doubtful battle.’ What came afterwards, when +simplicity and nearness were restored once more, was doubtless journeyman’s +work at times. Men were too eager to go into the workshop of language. +There were unreasonable raptures over the mere making of common words. +‘A hand-shoe! a finger-hat! a foreword! Beautiful!’ +they cried; and for the love of German the youngest daughter of Chrysale +herself might have consented to be kissed by a grammarian. It +seemed to be forgotten that a language with all its construction visible +is a language little fitted for the more advanced mental processes; +that its images are material; and that, on the other hand, a certain +spiritualising and subtilising effect of alien derivations is a privilege +and an advantage incalculable—that to possess that half of the +language within which Latin heredities lurk and Romanesque allusions +are at play is to possess the state and security of a dead tongue, without +the death.</p> +<p>But now I spoke of words encountering as gay strangers, various in +origin, divided in race, within a master’s phrase. The most +beautiful and the most sudden of such meetings are of course in Shakespeare. +‘Superfluous kings,’ ‘A lass unparalleled,’ +‘Multitudinous seas:’ we needed not to wait for the eighteenth +century or for the nineteenth to learn the splendour of such encounters, +of such differences, of such nuptial unlikeness and union. But +it is well that we should learn them afresh. And it is well, too, +that we should not resist the rhythmic reaction bearing us now somewhat +to the side of the Latin. Such a reaction is in some sort an ethical +need for our day. We want to quell the exaggerated decision of +monosyllables. We want the poise and the pause that imply vitality +at times better than headstrong movement expresses it. And not +the phrase only but the form of verse might render us timely service. +The controlling couplet might stay with a touch a modern grief, as it +ranged in order the sorrows of Canning for his son. But it should +not be attempted without a distinct intention of submission on the part +of the writer. The couplet transgressed against, trespassed upon, +shaken off, is like a law outstripped, defied—to the dignity neither +of the rebel nor of the rule. To Letters do we look now for the +guidance and direction which the very closeness of the emotion taking +us by the heart makes necessary. Shall not the Thing more and +more, as we compose ourselves to literature, assume the honour, the +hesitation, the leisure, the reconciliation of the Word?</p> +<h2>DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES</h2> +<p>It is good to go, now and again—let the American phrase be +permitted—‘back of’ some of our contemporaries. +We never desired them as coëvals. We never wished to share +an age with them; we share nothing else with them. And we deliver +ourselves from them by passing, in literature, into the company of an +author who wrote before their time, and yet is familiarly modern. +To read Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, then, is to go behind the New Humorist—into +a time before he was, or his Humour. Obviously we go in like manner +behind many another, but the funny writer of the magazines is suggested +because in reference to him our act has a special significance. +We connect him with Dr. Holmes by a reluctant ancestry, by an impertinent +descent. It may be objected that such a connection is but a trivial +thing to attribute, as a conspicuous incident, to a man of letters. +So it is. But the triviality has wide allusions. It is often +a question which of several significant trivialities a critic shall +choose in his communication with a reader who does not insist that all +the grave things shall be told him. And, by the way, are we ever +sufficiently grateful for that reader, whom the last few years have +given to us, or to whom we have been given by the last few years? +A trivial connexion has remote and negative issues. To go to Dr. +Oliver Wendell Holmes’s period is to get rid of many things; to +go to himself is especially to get rid of the New Humour, yet to stand +at its unprophetic source. And we love such authors as Dickens +and this American for their own sake, refusing to be aware of their +corrupt following. We would make haste to ignore their posterity, +and to assure them that we absolve them from any fault of theirs in +the bastardy.</p> +<p>Humour is the most conspicuous thing in the world, which must explain +why the little humour in <i>Elsie</i> <i>Venner</i> and the <i>Breakfast</i> +<i>Table</i> series is not only the first thing the critic touches but +the thing whereby he relates this author to his following and to the +world. The young man John, Colonel Sprowle with his ‘social +entertainment,’ the Landlady and her daughter, and the Poor Relation, +almost make up the sum of the comic personages, and fifty per cent. +of the things they say—no more—are good enough to remain +after the bloom of their vulgarity has worn off. But that half +is excellent, keen, jolly, temperate; and because of that temperance—the +most stimulating and fecundating of qualities—the humour of it +has set the literature of a hemisphere to the tune of mirth. Like +Mr. Lowell’s it was humour in dialect—not Irish dialect +nor negro, but American; and it made New England aware of her comedy. +Until then she had felt within herself that there was nothing to laugh +at. ‘Nature is in earnest when she makes a woman,’ +says Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Rather, she takes herself seriously +when she makes the average spiritual woman: as seriously as that woman +takes herself when she makes a novel. And in a like mood Nature +made New England and endowed her with purpose, with mortuary frivolities, +with long views, with energetic provincialism.</p> +<p>If we remember best <i>The</i> <i>Wonderful</i> <i>One</i>-<i>Hoss</i> +<i>Shay</i>, we do so in spite of the religious and pathetic motive +of the greater part of Dr. Holmes’s work, and of his fancy, which +should be at least as conspicuous as his humour. It is fancy rather +than imagination; but it is more perfect, more definite, more fit, than +the larger art of imagery, which is apt to be vague, because it is intellectual +and adult. No grown man makes quite so definite mental images +as does a child; when the mind ages it thinks stronger thoughts in vaguer +pictures. The young mind of Dr. Holmes has less intellectual imagination +than intelligent fancy. For example: ‘If you ever saw a +crow with a king-bird after him, you will get an image of a dull speaker +and a lively listener. The bird in sable plumage flaps heavily +along his straightforward course, while the other sails round him, over +him, under him, leaves him, comes back again, tweaks out a black feather, +shoots away once more, never losing sight of him, and finally reaches +the crow’s perch at the same time the crow does;’ but the +comparison goes on after this at needless length, with explanations. +Again: ‘That blessed clairvoyance which sees into things without +opening them: that glorious licence which, having shut the door and +driven the reporter from the keyhole, calls upon Truth, majestic Virgin! +to get off from her pedestal and drop her academic <i>poses</i>.’ +And this, of the Landlady: ‘She told me her story once; it was +as if a grain that had been ground and bolted had tried to individualise +itself by a special narrative.’ ‘The riotous tumult +of a laugh, which, I take it, is the mob-law of the features.’ +‘Think of the Old World—that part of it which is the seat +of ancient civilisation! . . . A man cannot help marching in step with +his kind in the rear of such a procession.’ ‘Young +folk look on a face as a unit; children who go to school with any given +little John Smith see in his name a distinctive appellation.’ +And that exquisitely sensitive passage on the nervous outward movement +and the inward tranquillity of the woods. Such things are the +best this good author gives us, whether they go gay with metaphor, or +be bare thoughts shapely with their own truth.</p> +<p>Part of the charm of Dr. Holmes’s comment on life, and of the +phrase wherein he secures it, arises from his singular vigilance. +He has unpreoccupied and alert eyes. Strangely enough, by the +way, this watchfulness is for once as much at fault as would be the +slovenly observation of an ordinary man, in the description of a horse’s +gallop, ‘skimming along within a yard of the ground.’ +Who shall trust a man’s nimble eyes after this, when habit and +credulity have taught him? Not an inch nearer the ground goes +the horse of fact at a gallop than at a walk. But Dr. Holmes’s +vigilance helps him to somewhat squalid purpose in his studies of New +England inland life. Much careful literature besides has been +spent, after the example of <i>Elsie</i> <i>Venner</i> and the <i>Autocrat</i>, +upon the cottage worldliness, the routine of abundant and common comforts +achieved by a distressing household industry, the shrillness, the unrest, +the best-parlour emulation, the ungraceful vanity, of Americans of the +country-side and the country-town; upon their affections made vulgar +by undemonstrativeness, and their consciences made vulgar by demonstrativeness—their +kindness by reticence, and their religion by candour.</p> +<p>As for the question of heredity and of individual responsibility +which Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes proposes in <i>Elsie</i> <i>Venner</i>, +it is strange that a man whom it had sincerely disquieted should present +it—not in its own insolubility but—in caricature. +As though the secrets of the inherited body and soul needed to be heightened +by a bit of burlesque physiology! It is in spite of our protest +against the invention of Elsie’s horrible plight—a conception +and invention which Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes should feel to be essentially +frivolous—that the serpent-maiden moves us deeply by her last +‘Good night,’ and by the gentle phrase that tells us ‘Elsie +wept.’ But now, if Dr. Holmes shall succeed in proposing +the question of separate responsibility so as to convince every civilised +mind of his doubts, there will be curiously little change wrought thereby +in the discipline of the world. For Dr. Holmes incidentally lets +us know that he cherishes and values the instinct of intolerance and +destructiveness in presence of the cruel, the self-loving, and the false. +Negation of separate moral responsibility, when that negation is tempered +by a working instinct of intolerance and destructiveness, will deal +with the felon, after all, very much in the manner achieved by the present +prevalent judicialness, unscientific though it may be. And to +say this is to confess that Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes has worked, through +a number of books, to futile purpose. His books are justified +by something quite apart from his purpose.</p> +<h2>JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL</h2> +<p>The United States have produced authors not a few; among some names +not the most famous, perhaps, on the popular tongue, are two or three +names of their poets; but they have hardly given to the world more than +one man of letters—judicious, judicial, disinterested, patient, +happy, temperate, delighted. The colonial days, with the ‘painful’ +divines who brought the parish into the wilderness; the experimental +period of ambition and attempts at a literature that should be young +as the soil and much younger than the race; the civil-war years, with +a literature that matched the self-conscious and inexpert heroism of +the army;—none of these periods of the national life could fitly +be represented by a man of letters. And though James Russell Lowell +was the contemporary of the ‘transcendentalists,’ and a +man of middle age when the South seceded, and though indeed his fame +as a Yankee humourist is to be discerned through the smoke and the dust, +through the gravity and the burlesque, of the war, clear upon the other +side, yet he was virtually the child of national leisure, of moderation +and education, an American of the seventies and onwards. He represented +the little-recognised fact that in ripeness, not in rawness, consists +the excellence of Americans—an excellence they must be content +to share with contemporary nations, however much it may cost them to +abandon we know not what bounding ambitions which they have never succeeded +in definitely describing in words. Mr. Lowell was a refutation +of the fallacy that an American can never be American enough. +He ranked with the students and the critics among all nations, and nothing +marks his transatlantic conditions except, perhaps, that his scholarliness +is a little anxious and would not seem so; he enriches his phrases busily, +and yet would seem composed; he makes his allusions tread closely one +upon another, and there is an assumed carelessness, and an ill-concealed +vigilance, as to the effect their number and their erudition will produce +upon the reader. The American sensitiveness takes with him that +pleasantest of forms; his style confesses more than he thinks of the +loveable weakness of national vanity, and asks of the stranger now and +again, ‘Well, what do you think of my country?’</p> +<p>Declining, as I do, to separate style in expression from style in +the thought that informs it—for they who make such a separation +can hardly know that style should be in the very conception of a phrase, +in its antenatal history, else the word is neither choice nor authentic—I +recognise in Mr. Lowell, as a prose author, a sense of proportion and +a delicacy of selection not surpassed in the critical work of this critical +century. Those small volumes, <i>Among</i> <i>My</i> <i>Books</i> +and <i>My</i> <i>Study</i> <i>Windows</i>, are all pure literature. +A fault in criticism is the rarest thing in them. I call none +to mind except the strange judgment on Dr. Johnson: ‘Our present +concern with the Saxons is chiefly a literary one. . . Take Dr. Johnson +as an instance. The Saxon, as it appears to me, has never shown +any capacity for art,’ and so forth. One wonders how Lowell +read the passage on Iona, and the letter to Lord Chesterfield, and the +Preface to the Dictionary without conviction of the great English writer’s +supreme art—art that declares itself and would not be hidden. +But take the essay on Pope, that on Chaucer, and that on one Percival, +a writer of American verse of whom English readers are not aware, and +they prove Lowell to have been as clear in judging as he was exquisite +in sentencing. His essay ‘On a Certain Condescension in +Foreigners’ is famous, but an equal fame is due to ‘My Garden +Acquaintance’ and ‘A Good Word for Winter.’ +His talk about the weather is so full of wit that one wonders how prattlers +at a loss for a topic dare attempt one so rich. The birds that +nest in his syringas seem to be not his pensioners only, but his parishioners, +so charmingly local, so intent upon his chronicle does he become when +he is minded to play White of Selborne with a smile. And all the +while it is the word that he is intent upon. You may trace his +reading by some fine word that has not escaped him, but has been garnered +for use when his fan has been quick to purge away the chaff of commonplace. +He is thus fastidious and alert in many languages. You wonder +at the delicacy of the sense whereby he perceives a choice rhyme in +the Anglo-Norman of Marie de France or a clang of arms in the brief +verse of Peire de Bergerac, or touches sensitively a word whereby Dante +has transcended something sweet in Bernard de Ventadour, or Virgil somewhat +noble in Homer. In his own use, and within his own English, he +has the abstinence and the freshness of intention that keep every word +new for the day’s work. He gave to the language, and did +not take from it; it gained by him, and lost not. There are writers +of English now at work who almost convince us of their greatness until +we convict them on that charge: they have succeeded at an unpardonable +cost; they are glorified, but they have beggared the phrases they leave +behind them.</p> +<p>Nevertheless Lowell was no poet. To accept his verse as a poet’s +would be to confess a lack of instinct, and there is no more grievous +lack in a lover of poetry. Reason, we grant, makes for the full +acceptance of his poems, and perhaps so judicial a mind as his may be +forgiven for having trusted to reason and to criticism. His trust +was justified—if such justification avails—by the admiration +of fairly educated people who apparently hold him to have been a poet +first, a humourist in the second place, and an essayist incidentally. +It is hard to believe that he failed in instinct about himself. +More probably he was content to forego it when he found the ode, the +lyric, and the narrative verse all so willing. They made no difficulty, +and he made none; why then are we reluctant to acknowledge the manifest +stateliness of this verse and the evident grace of that, and the fine +thought finely worded? Such reluctance justifies itself. +Nor would I attempt to back it by the cheap sanctions of prophecy. +Nay, it is quite possible that Lowell’s poems may live; I have +no commands for futurity. Enough that he enriched the present +with the example of a scholarly, linguistic, verbal love of literature, +with a studiousness full of heart.</p> +<h2>DOMUS ANGUSTA</h2> +<p>The narrow house is a small human nature compelled to a large human +destiny, charged with a fate too great, a history too various, for its +slight capacities. Men have commonly complained of fate; but their +complaints have been of the smallness, not of the greatness, of the +human lot. A disproportion—all in favour of man—between +man and his destiny is one of the things to be taken for granted in +literature: so frequent and so easy is the utterance of the habitual +lamentation as to the trouble of a ‘vain capacity,’ so well +explained has it ever been.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Thou hast not half the power to do me harm<br /> +That I have to be hurt,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>discontented man seems to cry to Heaven, taking the words of the +brave Emilia. But inarticulate has been the voice within the narrow +house. Obviously it never had its poet. Little elocution +is there, little argument or definition, little explicitness. +And yet for every vain capacity we may assuredly count a thousand vain +destinies, for every liberal nature a thousand liberal fates. +It is the trouble of the wide house we hear of, clamorous of its disappointments +and desires. The narrow house has no echoes; yet its pathetic +shortcoming might well move pity. On that strait stage is acted +a generous tragedy; to that inadequate soul is intrusted an enormous +sorrow; a tempest of movement makes its home within that slender nature; +and heroic happiness seeks that timorous heart.</p> +<p>We may, indeed, in part know the narrow house by its inarticulateness—not, +certainly, its fewness of words, but its inadequacy and imprecision +of speech. For, doubtless, right language enlarges the soul as +no other power or influence may do. Who, for instance, but trusts +more nobly for knowing the full word of his confidence? Who but +loves more penetratingly for possessing the ultimate syllable of his +tenderness? There is a ‘pledging of the word,’ in +another sense than the ordinary sense of troth and promise. The +poet pledges his word, his sentence, his verse, and finds therein a +peculiar sanction. And I suppose that even physical pain takes +on an edge when it not only enforces a pang but whispers a phrase. +Consciousness and the word are almost as closely united as thought and +the word. Almost—not quite; in spite of its inexpressive +speech, the narrow house is aware and sensitive beyond, as it were, +its poor power.</p> +<p>But as to the whole disparity between the destiny and the nature, +we know it to be general. Life is great that is trivially transmitted; +love is great that is vulgarly experienced. Death, too, is a heroic +virtue; and to the keeping of us all is death committed: death, submissive +in the indocile, modest in the fatuous, several in the vulgar, secret +in the familiar. It is destructive because it not only closes +but contradicts life. Unlikely people die. The one certain +thing, it is also the one improbable. A dreadful paradox is perhaps +wrought upon a little nature that is incapable of death and yet is constrained +to die. That is a true destruction, and the thought of it is obscure.</p> +<p>Happy literature corrects all this disproportion by its immortal +pause. It does not bid us follow man or woman to an illogical +conclusion. Mrs. Micawber never does desert Mr. Micawber. +Considering her mental powers, by the way, an illogical conclusion for +her would be manifestly inappropriate. Shakespeare, indeed, having +seen a life whole, sees it to an end: sees it out, and Falstaff dies. +More than Promethean was the audacity that, having kindled, quenched +that spark. But otherwise the grotesque man in literature is immortal, +and with something more significant than the immortality awarded to +him in the sayings of rhetoric; he is predurable because he is not completed. +His humours are strangely matched with perpetuity. But, indeed, +he is not worthy to die; for there is something graver than to be immortal, +and that is to be mortal. I protest I do not laugh at man or woman +in the world. I thank my fellow-mortals for their wit, and also +for the kind of joke that the French so pleasantly call <i>une</i> <i>joyeuseté</i>; +these are to smile at. But the gay injustice of laughter is between +me and the book.</p> +<p>That narrow house—there is sometimes a message from its living +windows. Its bewilderment, its reluctance, its defect, show by +moments from eyes that are apt to express none but common things. +There are allusions unawares, involuntary appeals, in those brief glances. +Far from me and from my friends be the misfortune of meeting such looks +in reply to pain of our inflicting. To be clever and sensitive +and to hurt the foolish and the stolid—wouldst thou do such a +deed for all the world? Not I, by this heavenly light.</p> +<h2>REJECTION</h2> +<p>Simplicity is not virginal in the modern world. She has a penitential +or a vidual singleness. We can conceive an antique world in which +life, art, and letters were simple because of the absence of many things; +for us now they can be simple only because of our rejection of many +things. We are constrained to such a vigilance as will not let +even a master’s work pass unfanned and unpurged. Even among +his phrases one shall be taken and the other left. For he may +unawares have allowed the habitualness that besets this multitudinous +life to take the pen from his hand and to write for him a page or a +word; and habitualness compels our refusals. Or he may have allowed +the easy impulse of exaggeration to force a sentence which the mere +truth, sensitively and powerfully pausing, would well have become. +Exaggeration has played a part of its own in human history. By +depreciating our language it has stimulated change, and has kept the +circulating word in exercise. Our rejection must be alert and +expert to overtake exaggeration and arrest it. It makes us shrewder +than we wish to be. And, indeed, the whole endless action of refusal +shortens the life we could desire to live. Much of our resolution +is used up in the repeated mental gesture of adverse decision. +Our tacit and implicit distaste is made explicit, who shall say with +what loss to our treasury of quietness? We are defrauded of our +interior ignorance, which should be a place of peace. We are forced +to confess more articulately than befits our convention with ourselves. +We are hurried out of our reluctances. We are made too much aware. +Nay, more: we are tempted to the outward activity of destruction; reviewing +becomes almost inevitable. As for the spiritual life—O weary, +weary act of refusal! O waste but necessary hours, vigil and wakefulness +of fear! ‘We live by admiration’ only a shortened +life who live so much in the iteration of rejection and repulse. +And in the very touch of joy there hides I know not what ultimate denial; +if not on one side, on the other. If joy is given to us without +reserve, not so do we give ourselves to joy. We withhold, we close. +Having denied many things that have approached us, we deny ourselves +to many things. Thus does <i>il</i> <i>gran</i> <i>rifiuto</i> +divide and rule our world.</p> +<p>Simplicity is worth the sacrifice; but all is not sacrifice. +Rejection has its pleasures, the more secret the more unmeasured. +When we garnish a house we refuse more furniture, and furniture more +various, than might haunt the dreams of decorators. There is no +limit to our rejections. And the unconsciousness of the decorators +is in itself a cause of pleasure to a mind generous, forbearing, and +delicate. When we dress, no fancy may count the things we will +none of. When we write, what hinders that we should refrain from +Style past reckoning? When we marry—. Moreover, if +simplicity is no longer set in a world having the great and beautiful +quality of fewness, we can provide an equally fair setting in the quality +of refinement. And refinement is not to be achieved but by rejection. +One who suggests to me that refinement is apt to be a mere negative +has offered up a singular blunder in honour of robustiousness. +Refinement is not negative, because it must be compassed by many negations. +It is a thing of price as well as of value; it demands immolations, +it exacts experience. No slight or easy charge, then, is committed +to such of us as, having apprehension of these things, fulfil the office +of exclusion. Never before was a time when derogation was always +so near, a daily danger, or when the reward of resisting it was so great. +The simplicity of literature, more sensitive, more threatened, and more +important than other simplicities, needs a guard of honour, who shall +never relax the good will nor lose the good heart of their intolerance.</p> +<h2>THE LESSON OF LANDSCAPE</h2> +<p>The landscape, like our literature, is apt to grow and to get itself +formed under too luxurious ideals. This is the evil work of that +<i>little</i> <i>more</i> which makes its insensible but persistent +additions to styles, to the arts, to the ornaments of life—to +nature, when unluckily man becomes too explicitly conscious of her beauty, +and too deliberate in his arrangement of it. The landscape has +need of moderation, of that fast-disappearing grace of unconsciousness, +and, in short, of a return towards the ascetic temper. The English +way of landowning, above all, has made for luxury. Naturally the +country is fat. The trees are thick and round—a world of +leaves; the hills are round; the forms are all blunt; and the grass +is so deep as to have almost the effect of snow in smoothing off all +points and curving away all abruptness. England is almost as blunt +as a machine-made moulding or a piece of Early-Victorian cast-iron work. +And on all this we have, of set purpose, improved by our invention of +the country park. There all is curves and masses. A little +more is added to the greenness and the softness of the forest glade, +and for increase of ornament the fat land is devoted to idleness. +Not a tree that is not impenetrable, inarticulate. Thick soil +below and thick growth above cover up all the bones of the land, which +in more delicate countries show brows and hollows resembling those of +a fine face after mental experience. By a very intelligible paradox, +it is only in a landscape made up for beauty that beauty is so ill achieved. +Much beauty there must needs be where there are vegetation and the seasons. +But even the seasons, in park scenery, are marred by the <i>little</i> +<i>too</i> <i>much</i>: too complete a winter, too emphatic a spring, +an ostentatious summer, an autumn too demonstrative.</p> +<p>‘Seek to have less rather than more.’ It is a counsel +of perfection in <i>The</i> <i>Imitation</i> <i>of</i> <i>Christ</i>. +And here, undoubtedly, is the secret of all that is virile and classic +in the art of man, and of all in nature that is most harmonious with +that art. Moreover, this is the secret of Italy. How little +do the tourists and the poets grasp this latter truth, by the way—and +the artists! The legend of Italy is to be gorgeous, and they have +her legend by rote. But Italy is slim and all articulate; her +most characteristic trees are those that are distinct and distinguished, +with lines that suggest the etching-point rather than a brush loaded +with paint. Cypresses shaped like flames, tall pines with the +abrupt flatness of their tops, thin canes in the brakes, sharp aloes +by the road-side, and olives with the delicate acuteness of the leaf—these +make keen lines of slender vegetation. And they own the seasons +by a gentle confession. Rather than be overpowered by the clamorous +proclamation of summer in the English woods, we would follow June to +this subtler South: even to the Campagna, where the cycle of the seasons +passes within such narrow limitations that insensitive eyes scarcely +recognise it. In early spring there is a fresher touch of green +on all the spaces of grass, the distance grows less mellow and more +radiant; by the coming of May the green has been imperceptibly dimmed +again; it blushes with the mingled colours of minute and numberless +flowers—a dust of flowers, in lines longer than those of ocean +billows. This is the desert blossoming like a rose: not the obvious +rose of gardens, but the multitudinous and various flower that gathers +once in the year in every hand’s-breadth of the wilderness. +When June comes the sun has burnt all to leagues of harmonious seed, +coloured with a hint of the colour of harvest, which is gradually changed +to the lighter harmonies of winter. All this fine chromatic scale +passes within such modest boundaries that it is accused as a monotony. +But those who find its modesty delightful may have a still more delicate +pleasure in the blooming and blossoming of the sea. The passing +from the winter blue to the summer blue, from the cold colour to the +colour that has in it the fire of the sun, the kindling of the sapphire +of the Mediterranean—the significance of these sea-seasons, so +far from the pasture and the harvest, is imperceptible to ordinary senses, +as appears from the fact that so few stay to see it all fulfilled. +And if the tourist stayed, he would no doubt violate all that is lovely +and moderate by the insistence of his descriptions. He would find +adjectives for the blue sea, but probably he would refuse to search +for words for the white. A white Mediterranean is not in the legend. +Nevertheless it blooms, now and then, pale as an opal; the white sea +is the flower of the breathless midsummer. And in its clear, silent +waters, a few days, in the culmination of the heat, bring forth translucent +living creatures, many-shaped jelly-fish, coloured like mother-of-pearl.</p> +<p>But without going so far from the landscape of daily life, it is +in agricultural Italy that the <i>little</i> <i>less</i> makes so undesignedly, +and as it were so inevitably, for beauty. The country that is +formed for use and purpose only is immeasurably the loveliest. +What a lesson in literature! How feelingly it persuades us that +all except a very little of the ornament of letters and of life makes +the dulness of the world. The tenderness of colour, the beauty +of series and perspective, and the variety of surface, produced by the +small culture of vegetables, are among the charms that come unsought, +and that are not to be found by seeking—are never to be achieved +if they are sought for their own sake. And another of the delights +of the useful laborious land is its vitality. The soil may be +thin and dry, but man’s life is added to its own. He has +embanked the hill to make little platforms for the growth of wheat in +the light shadows of olive leaves. Thanks to the métayer +land-tenure, man’s heart, as well as his strength, is given to +the ground, with his hope and his honour. Louis Blanc’s +‘point of honour of industry’ is a conscious impulse—it +is not too much to say—with most of the Tuscan contadini; but +as each effort they make for their master they make also for the bread +of their children, it is no wonder that the land they cultivate has +a look of life. But in all colour, in all luxury, and in all that +gives material for picturesque English, this lovely scenery for food +and wine and raiment has that <i>little</i> <i>less</i> to which we +desire to recall a rhetorical world.</p> +<h2>MR. COVENTRY PATMORE’S ODES</h2> +<p>To most of the great poets no greater praise can be given than praise +of their imagery. Imagery is the natural language of their poetry. +Without a parable she hardly speaks. But undoubtedly there is +now and then a poet who touches the thing, not its likeness, too vitally, +too sensitively, for even such a pause as the verse makes for love of +the beautiful image. Those rare moments are simple, and their +simplicity makes one of the reader’s keenest experiences. +Other simplicities may be achieved by lesser art, but this is transcendent +simplicity. There is nothing in the world more costly. It +vouches for the beauty which it transcends; it answer for the riches +it forbears; it implies the art which it fulfils. All abundance +ministers to it, though it is so single. And here we get the sacrificial +quality which is the well-kept secret of art at this perfection. +All the faculties of the poet are used for preparing this naked greatness—are +used and fruitfully spent and shed. The loveliness that stands +and waits on the simplicity of certain of Mr. Coventry Patmore’s +Odes, the fervours and splendours that are there, only to be put to +silence—to silence of a kind that would be impossible were they +less glorious—are testimonies to the difference between sacrifice +and waste.</p> +<p>But does it seem less than reasonable to begin a review of a poet’s +work with praise of an infrequent mood? Infrequent such a mood +must needs be, yet it is in a profound sense characteristic. To +have attained it once or twice is to have proved such gift and grace +as a true history of literature would show to be above price, even gauged +by the rude measure of rarity. Transcendent simplicity could not +possibly be habitual. Man lives within garments and veils, and +art is chiefly concerned with making mysteries of these for the loveliness +of his life; when they are rent asunder it is impossible not to be aware +that an overwhelming human emotion has been in action. Thus <i>Departure</i>, +<i>If</i> <i>I</i> <i>were</i> <i>Dead</i>, <i>A</i> <i>Farewell</i>, +<i>Eurydice</i>, <i>The</i> <i>Toys</i>, <i>St</i>. <i>Valentine’s</i> +<i>Day</i>—though here there is in the exquisite imaginative play +a mitigation of the bare vitality of feeling—group themselves +apart as the innermost of the poet’s achievements.</p> +<p>Second to these come the Odes that have splendid thought in great +images, and display—rather than, as do the poems first glanced +at, betray—the beauties of poetic art. Emotion is here, +too, and in shocks and throes, never frantic when almost intolerable. +It is mortal pathos. If any other poet has filled a cup with a +draught so unalloyed, we do not know it. Love and sorrow are pure +in <i>The</i> <i>Unknown</i> <i>Eros</i>; and its author has not refused +even the cup of terror. Against love often, against sorrow nearly +always, against fear always, men of sensibility instantaneously guard +the quick of their hearts. It is only the approach of the pang +that they will endure; from the pang itself, dividing soul and spirit, +a man who is conscious of a profound capacity for passion defends himself +in the twinkling of an eye. But through nearly the whole of Coventry +Patmore’s poetry there is an endurance of the mortal touch. +Nay, more, he has the endurance of the immortal touch. That is, +his capacity for all the things that men elude for their greatness is +more than the capacity of other men. He endures therefore what +they could but will not endure and, besides this, degrees that they +cannot apprehend. Thus, to have studied <i>The</i> <i>Unknown</i> +<i>Eros</i> is to have had a certain experience—at least the impassioned +experience of a compassion; but it is also to have recognised a soul +beyond our compassion.</p> +<p>What some of the Odes have to sing of, their author does not insist +upon our knowing. He leaves more liberty for a well-intentioned +reader’s error than makes for peace and recollection of mind in +reading. That the general purpose of the poems is obscure is inevitable. +It has the obscurity of profound clear waters. What the poet chiefly +secures to us is the understanding that love and its bonds, its bestowal +and reception, does but rehearse the action of the union of God with +humanity—that there is no essential man save Christ, and no essential +woman except the soul of mankind. When the singer of a Song of +Songs seems to borrow the phrase of human love, it is rather that human +love had first borrowed the truths of the love of God. The thought +grows gay in the three <i>Psyche</i> odes, or attempts a gaiety—the +reader at least being somewhat reluctant. How is it? Mr. +Coventry Patmore’s play more often than not wins you to but a +slow participation. Perhaps because some thrust of his has left +you still tremulous.</p> +<p>But the inequality of equal lovers, sung in these Odes with a Divine +allusion, is a most familiar truth. Love that is passionate has +much of the impulse of gravitation—gravitation that is not falling, +as there is no downfall in the precipitation of the sidereal skies. +The love of the great for the small is the passionate love; the upward +love hesitates and is fugitive. St. Francis Xavier asked that +the day of his ecstasy might be shortened; Imogen, the wife of all poetry, +‘prays forbearance;’ the child is ‘fretted with sallies +of his mothers kisses.’ It might be drawing an image too +insistently to call this a centrifugal impulse.</p> +<p>The art that utters an intellectual action so courageous, an emotion +so authentic, as that of Mr. Coventry Patmore’s poetry, cannot +be otherwise than consummate. Often the word has a fulness of +significance that gives the reader a shock of appreciation. This +is always so in those simplest odes which we have taken as the heart +of the author’s work. Without such wonderful rightness, +simplicity of course is impossible. Nor is that beautiful precision +less in passages of description, such as the landscape lines in <i>Amelia</i> +and elsewhere. The words are used to the uttermost yet with composure. +And a certain justness of utterance increases the provocation of what +we take leave to call unjust thought in the few poems that proclaim +an intemperate scorn—political, social, literary. The poems +are but two or three; they are to be known by their subjects—we +might as well do something to justify their scorn by using the most +modern of adjectives—and call them topical. Here assuredly +there is no composure. Never before did superiority bear itself +with so little of its proper, signal, and peculiar grace—reluctance.</p> +<p>If Mr. Patmore really intends that his Odes shall be read with minim, +or crochet, or quaver rests, to fill up a measure of beaten time, we +are free to hold that he rather arbitrarily applies to liberal verse +the laws of verse set for use—cradle verse and march-marking verse +(we are, of course, not considering verse set to music, and thus compelled +into the musical time). Liberal verse, dramatic, narrative, meditative, +can surely be bound by no time measures—if for no other reason, +for this: that to prescribe pauses is also to forbid any pauses unprescribed. +Granting, however, his principle of catalexis, we still doubt whether +the irregular metre of <i>The</i> <i>Unknown</i> <i>Eros</i> is happily +used except for the large sweep of the flight of the Ode more properly +so called. <i>Lycidas</i>, the <i>Mrs</i>. <i>Anne</i> <i>Killigrew</i>, +the <i>Intimations</i>, and Emerson’s <i>Threnody</i>, considered +merely for their versification, fulfil their laws so perfectly that +they certainly move without checks as without haste. So with the +graver Odes—much in the majority—of Mr. Coventry Patmore’s +series. A more lovely dignity of extension and restriction, a +more touching sweetness of simple and frequent rhyme, a truer impetus +of pulse and impulse, English verse could hardly yield than are to be +found in his versification. And what movement of words has ever +expressed flight, distance, mystery, and wonderful approach, as they +are expressed in a celestial line—the eighth in the ode <i>To</i> +<i>the</i> <i>Unknown</i> <i>Eros</i>? When we are sensible of +a metrical cheek it is in this way: To the English ear the heroic line +is the unit of metre, and when two lines of various length undesignedly +add together to form a heroic line, they have to be separated with something +of a jerk. And this adding—as, for instance, of a line of +four syllables preceding or following one of six—occurs now and +then, and even in such a masterly measure of music as <i>A</i> <i>Farewell</i>. +It is as when a sail suddenly flaps windless in the fetching about of +a boat. In <i>The</i> <i>Angel</i> <i>in</i> <i>the</i> <i>House</i>, +and other earlier poems, Mr. Coventry Patmore used the octosyllabic +stanza perfectly, inasmuch as he never left it either heavily or thinly +packed. Moreover those first poems had a composure which was the +prelude to the peace of the Odes. And even in his slightest work +he proves himself the master—that is, the owner—of words +that, owned by him, are unprofaned, are as though they had never been +profaned; the capturer of an art so quick and close that it is the voice +less of a poet than of the very Muse.</p> +<h2>INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE</h2> +<p>I shall not ask the commentators whether Blake used these two words +in union or in antithesis. They assuredly have an inseverable +union in the art of literature. The songs of Innocence and Experience +are for each poet the songs of his own separate heart and life; but +to take the cumulative experiences of other men, and to use these in +place of the virginal fruit of thought—whereas one would hardly +consent to take them for ordering even the most habitual of daily affairs—is +to forego Innocence and Experience at once and together. Obviously, +Experience can be nothing except personal and separate; and Innocence +of a singularly solitary quality is his who does not dip his hands into +other men’s histories, and does not give to his own word the common +sanction of other men’s summaries and conclusions. Therefore +I bind Innocence and Experience in one, and take them as a sign of the +necessary and noble isolation of man from man—of his uniqueness. +But if I had a mind to forego that manner of personal separateness, +and to use the things of others, I think I would rather appropriate +their future than their past. Let me put on their hopes, and the +colours of their confidence, if I must borrow. Not that I would +burden my prophetic soul with unjustified ambitions; but even this would +be more tolerable than to load my memory with an unjustifiable history.</p> +<p>And yet how differently do the writers of a certain kind of love-poetry +consider this matter. These are the love-poets who have no reluctance +in adopting the past of a multitude of people to whom they have not +even been introduced. Their verse is full of ready-made memories, +various, numerous, and cruel. No single life—supposing it +to be a liberal life concerned with something besides sex—could +quite suffice for so much experience, so much disillusion, so much <i>déception</i>. +To achieve that tone in its fulness it is necessary to take for one’s +own the <i>praeterita</i> (say) of Alfred de Musset and of the men who +helped him—not to live but—to have lived; it is necessary +to have lived much more than any man lives, and to make a common hoard +of erotic remembrances with all kinds of poets.</p> +<p>As the Franciscans wear each other’s old habits, and one Friar +goes about darned because of another’s rending, so the poet of +a certain order grows cynical for the sake of many poets’ old +loves. Not otherwise will the resultant verse succeed in implying +so much—or rather so many, in the feminine plural. The man +of very sensitive individuality might hesitate at the adoption. +The Franciscan is understood to have a fastidiousness and to overcome +it. But these poets so triumph over their repugnance that it does +not appear. And yet, if choice were, one might wish rather to +make use of one’s fellowmen’s old shoes than put their old +secrets to use, and dress one’s art in a motley of past passions. +Moreover, to utilise the mental experience of many is inevitably to +use their verse and phrase. For the rest, all the traits of this +love-poetry are familiar enough. One of them is the absence of +the word of promise and pledge, the loss of the earliest and simplest +of the impulses of love: which is the vow. ‘Till death!’ +‘For ever!’ are cries too simple and too natural to be commonplace, +and in their denial there is the least tolerable of banalities—that +of other men’s disillusions.</p> +<p>Perfect personal distinctness of Experience would be in literature +a delicate Innocence. Not a passage of cheapness, of greed, of +assumption, of sloth, or of any such sins in the work of him whose love-poetry +were thus true, and whose <i>pudeur</i> of personality thus simple and +inviolate. This is the private man, in other words the gentleman, +who will neither love nor remember in public.</p> +<h2>PENULTIMATE CARICATURE</h2> +<p>There has been no denunciation, and perhaps even no recognition, +of a certain social immorality in the caricature of the mid-century +and earlier. Literary and pictorial alike, it had for its notice +the vulgarising of the married woman. No one now would read Douglas +Jerrold for pleasure, but it is worth while to turn up that humourist’s +serial, <i>Mrs</i>. <i>Caudle’s</i> <i>Curtain</i> <i>Lectures</i>, +which were presumably considered good comic reading in the <i>Punch</i> +of that time, and to make acquaintance with a certain ideal of the grotesque. +Obviously to make a serious comment on anything which others consider +or have considered humorous is to put one’s-self at a disadvantage. +He who sees the joke holds himself somewhat the superior of the man +who would see it, such as it is, if he thought it worth his eyesight. +The last-named has to bear the least tolerable of modern reproaches; +but he need not always care. Now to turn over Douglas Jerrold’s +monologues is to find that people in the mid-century took their mirth +principally from the life of the <i>arrière</i> <i>boutique</i>. +On that shabby stage was enacted the comedy of literature. Therefore +we must take something of the vulgarity of Jerrold as a circumstance +of the social ranks wherein he delighted. But the essential vulgarity +is that of the woman. There is in some old <i>Punch</i> volume +a drawing by Leech—whom one is weary of hearing named the gentle, +the refined—where the work of the artist has vied with the spirit +of the letter-press. Douglas Jerrold treats of the woman’s +jealousy, Leech of her stays. They lie on a chair by the bed, +beyond description gross. And page by page the woman is derided, +with an unfailing enjoyment of her foolish ugliness of person, of manners, +and of language. In that time there was, moreover, one great humourist; +he bore his part willingly in vulgarising the woman; and the part that +fell to him was the vulgarising of the act of maternity. Woman +spiteful, woman suing man at the law for evading her fatuous companionship, +woman incoherent, woman abandoned without restraint to violence and +temper, woman feigning sensibility—in none of these ignominies +is woman so common, foul, and foolish for Dickens as she is in child-bearing.</p> +<p>I named Leech but now. He was, in all things essential, Dickens’s +contemporary. And accordingly the married woman and her child +are humiliated by his pencil; not grossly, but commonly. For him +she is moderately and dully ridiculous. What delights him as humorous +is that her husband—himself wearisome enough to die of—is +weary of her, finds the time long, and tries to escape her. It +amuses him that she should furtively spend money over her own dowdiness, +to the annoyance of her husband, and that her husband should have no +desire to adorn her, and that her mother should be intolerable. +It pleases him that her baby, with enormous cheeks and a hideous rosette +in its hat—a burlesque baby—should be a grotesque object +of her love, for that too makes subtly for her abasement. Charles +Keene, again—another contemporary, though he lived into a later +and different time. He saw little else than common forms of human +ignominy—indignities of civic physique, of stupid prosperity, +of dress, of bearing. He transmits these things in greater proportion +than he found them—whether for love of the humour of them, or +by a kind of inverted disgust that is as eager as delight—one +is not sure which is the impulse. The grossness of the vulgarities +is rendered with a completeness that goes far to convince us of a certain +sensitiveness of apprehension in the designer; and then again we get +convinced that real apprehension—real apprehensiveness—would +not have insisted upon such things, could not have lived with them through +almost a whole career. There is one drawing in the <i>Punch</i> +of years ago, in which Charles Keene achieved the nastiest thing possible +to even the invention of that day. A drunken citizen, in the usual +broadcloth, has gone to bed, fully dressed, with his boots on and his +umbrella open, and the joke lies in the surprise awaiting, when she +awakes, the wife asleep at his side in a nightcap. Every one who +knows Keene’s work can imagine how the huge well-fed figure was +drawn, and how the coat wrinkled across the back, and how the bourgeois +whiskers were indicated. This obscene drawing is matched by many +equally odious. Abject domesticity, ignominies of married life, +of middle-age, of money-making; the old common jape against the mother-in-law; +ill-dressed men with whisky—ill-dressed women with tempers; everything +that is underbred and decivilised; abominable weddings: in one drawing +a bridegroom with shambling sidelong legs asks his bride if she is nervous; +she is a widow, and she answers, ‘No, never was.’ +In all these things there is very little humour. Where Keene achieved +fun was in the figures of his schoolboys. The hint of tenderness +which in really fine work could never be absent from a man’s thought +of a child or from his touch of one, however frolic or rowdy the subject +in hand, is absolutely lacking in Keene’s designs; nevertheless, +we acknowledge that here is humour. It is also in some of his +clerical figures when they are not caricatures, and certainly in ‘Robert,’ +the City waiter of <i>Punch</i>. But so irresistible is the derision +of the woman that all Charles Keene’s persistent sense of vulgarity +is intent centrally upon her. Never for any grace gone astray +is she bantered, never for the social extravagances, for prattle, or +for beloved dress; but always for her jealousy, and for the repulsive +person of the man upon whom she spies and in whom she vindicates her +ignoble rights. If this is the shopkeeper the possession of whom +is her boast, what then is she?</p> +<p>This great immorality, centring in the irreproachable days of the +Exhibition of 1851, or thereabouts—the pleasure in this particular +form of human disgrace—has passed, leaving one trace only: the +habit by which some men reproach a silly woman through her sex, whereas +a silly man is not reproached through his sex. But the vulgarity +of which I have written here was distinctively English—the most +English thing that England had in days when she bragged of many another—and +it was not able to survive an increased commerce of manners and letters +with France. It was the chief immorality destroyed by French fiction.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RHYTHM OF LIFE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1276-h.htm or 1276-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/2/7/1276 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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