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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/27939-8.txt b/27939-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..970f049 --- /dev/null +++ b/27939-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6129 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Laurus Nobilis, by Vernon Lee + +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: Laurus Nobilis + Chapters on Art and Life + +Author: Vernon Lee + +Release Date: January 31, 2009 [EBook #27939] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAURUS NOBILIS *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net This file +was produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries. + + + + + + + + + +LAURUS NOBILIS + +BY + +VERNON LEE + + + + +CONTENTS + + + The Use of Beauty + "Nisi Citharam" + Higher Harmonies + Beauty and Sanity + The Art and the Country + Art and Usefulness + Wasteful Pleasures + + + + +LAURUS NOBILIS. + +CHAPTERS ON ART AND LIFE. + + + + + TO + ANGELICA RASPONI DALLE TESTE + FROM + HER GRATEFUL OLD FRIEND AND NEIGHBOUR + VERNON LEE. + 1885-1908. + + + + + Die Realität der Dinge ist der Dinge Werk; der Schein der Dinge + ist der Menschen Werk; und ein Gemüt, das sich am Scheine weidet, + ergötzt sich schon nicht mehr an dem, was es empfängt, sondern an + dem, was es tut. SCHILLER, _Briefe über Ästhetik_. + + + + +LAURUS NOBILIS. + +THE USE OF BEAUTY. + + +I. + +One afternoon, in Rome, on the way back from the Aventine, the +road-mender climbed onto the tram as it trotted slowly along, and +fastened to its front, alongside of the place of the driver, a bough +of budding bay. + +Might one not search long for a better symbol of what we may all do by +our life? Bleakness, wind, squalid streets, a car full of +heterogeneous people, some very dull, most very common; a laborious +jog-trot all the way. But to redeem it all with the pleasantness of +beauty and the charm of significance, this laurel branch. + + +II. + +Our language does not possess any single word wherewith to sum up the +various categories of things (made by nature or made by man, intended +solely for the purpose of subserving by mere coincidence) which +minister to our organic and many-sided æsthetic instincts: the things +affecting us in that absolutely special, unmistakable, and hitherto +mysterious manner expressed in our finding them _beautiful_. It is of +the part which such things--whether actually present or merely +shadowed in our mind--can play in our life; and of the influence of +the instinct for beauty on the other instincts making up our nature, +that I would treat in these pages. And for this reason I have been +glad to accept from the hands of chance, and of that road-mender of +the tram-way, the bay laurel as a symbol of what we have no word to +express: the aggregate of all art, all poetry, and particularly of all +poetic and artistic vision and emotion. + + +For the Bay Laurel--_Laurus Nobilis_ of botanists--happens to be not +merely the evergreen, unfading plant into which Apollo metamorphosed, +while pursuing, the maiden whom he loved, even as the poet, the artist +turns into immortal shapes his own quite personal and transient moods, +or as the fairest realities, nobly sought, are transformed, made +evergreen and restoratively fragrant for all time in our memory and +fancy. It is a plant of noblest utility, averting, as the ancients +thought, lightning from the dwellings it surrounded, even as +disinterested love for beauty averts from our minds the dangers which +fall on the vain and the covetous; and curing many aches and fevers, +even as the contemplation of beauty refreshes and invigorates our +spirit. Indeed, we seem to be reading a description no longer of the +virtues of the bay laurel, but of the _virtues_ of all beautiful +sights and sounds, of all beautiful thoughts and emotions, in reading +the following quaint and charming words of an old herbal:-- + + "The bay leaves are of as necessary use as any other in garden or + orchard, for they serve both for pleasure and profit, both for + ornament and use, both for honest civil uses and for physic; yea, + both for the sick and for the sound, both for the living and for + the dead. The bay serveth to adorn the house of God as well as of + man, to procure warmth, comfort, and strength to the limbs of men + and women;... to season vessels wherein are preserved our meats as + well as our drinks; to crown or encircle as a garland the heads of + the living, and to stick and deck forth the bodies of the dead; so + that, from the cradle to the grave we have still use of it, we + have still need of it." + + +III. + +Before beginning to expound the virtues of Beauty, let me, however, +insist that these all depend upon the simple and mysterious fact +that--well, that the Beautiful _is_ the Beautiful. In our discussion of +what the Bay Laurel symbolises, let us keep clear in our memory the +lovely shape of the sacred tree, and the noble places in which we have +seen it. + +There are bay twigs, gathered together in bronze sheaves, in the great +garland surrounding Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise. There are two +interlaced branches of bay, crisp-edged and slender, carved in fine +low relief inside the marble chariot in the Vatican. There is a +fan-shaped growth of Apollo's Laurel behind that Venetian portrait of +a poet, which was formerly called Ariosto by Titian. And, most +suggestive of all, there are the Mycenaean bay leaves of beaten gold, +so incredibly thin one might imagine them to be the withered crown of +a nameless singer in a forgotten tongue, grown brittle through three +thousand years and more. + +Each of such presentments, embodying with loving skill some feature of +the plant, enhances by association the charm of its reality, +accompanying the delight of real bay-trees and bay leaves with +inextricable harmonics, vague recollections of the delight of bronze, +of delicately cut marble, of marvellously beaten gold, of deep +Venetian crimson and black and auburn. + +But best of all, most satisfying and significant, is the remembrance +of the bay-trees themselves. They greatly affect the troughs of +watercourses, among whose rocks and embanked masonry they love to +strike their roots. In such a stream trough, on a spur of the Hill of +Fiesole, grow the most beautiful poet's laurels I can think of. The +place is one of those hollowings out of a hillside which, revealing +how high they lie only by the sky-lines of distant hills, always feel +so pleasantly remote. And the peace and austerity of this little +valley are heightened by the dove-cot of a farm invisible in the +olive-yards, and looking like a hermitage's belfry. The olives are +scant and wan in the fields all round, with here and there the blossom +of an almond; the oak woods, of faint wintry copper-rose, encroach +above; and in the grassy space lying open to the sky, the mountain +brook is dyked into a weir, whence the crystalline white water leaps +into a chain of shady pools. And there, on the brink of that weir, and +all along that stream's shallow upper course among grass and brakes of +reeds, are the bay-trees I speak of: groups of three or four at +intervals, each a sheaf of smooth tapering boles, tufted high up with +evergreen leaves, sparse bunches whose outermost leaves are sharply +printed like lance-heads against the sky. Most modest little trees, +with their scant berries and rare pale buds; not trees at all, I fancy +some people saying. Yet of more consequence, somehow, in their calm +disregard of wind, their cheerful, resolute soaring, than any other +trees for miles; masters of that little valley, of its rocks, pools, +and overhanging foliage; sovereign brothers and rustic demi-gods for +whom the violets scent the air among the withered grass in March, and, +in May, the nightingales sing through the quivering star night. + +Of all southern trees, most simple and aspiring; and certainly most +perfect among evergreens, with their straight, faintly carmined +shoots, their pliable strong leaves so subtly rippled at the edge, and +their clean, dry fragrance; delicate, austere, alert, serene; such are +the bay-trees of Apollo. + + +IV. + +I have gladly accepted, from the hands of that tram-way road-mender, +the Bay Laurel--_Laurus Nobilis_--for a symbol of all art, all poetry, +and all poetic and artistic vision and emotion. It has summed up, +better than words could do, what the old Herbals call the _virtues_, +of all beautiful things and beautiful thoughts. And it has suggested, +I hope, the contents of the following notes; the nature of my attempt +to trace the influence which art should have on life. + + +V. + +Beauty, save by a metaphorical application of the word, is not in the +least the same thing as Goodness, any more than beauty (despite +Keats' famous assertion) is the same thing as Truth. These three +objects of the soul's pursuit have different natures, different laws, +and fundamentally different origins. But the energies which express +themselves in their pursuit--energies vital, primordial, and necessary +even to man's physical survival--have all been evolved under the same +stress of adaptation of the human creature to its surroundings; and +have therefore, in their beginnings and in their ceaseless growth, +been working perpetually in concert, meeting, crossing, and +strengthening one another, until they have become indissolubly woven +together by a number of great and organic coincidences. + +It is these coincidences which all higher philosophy, from Plato +downwards, has strained for ever to expound. It is these coincidences, +which all religion and all poetry have taken for granted. And to three +of these it is that I desire to call attention, persuaded as I am that +the scientific progress of our day will make short work of all the +spurious æstheticism and all the shortsighted utilitarianism which +have cast doubts upon the intimate and vital connection between beauty +and every other noble object of our living. + +The three coincidences I have chosen are: that between development of +the æsthetic faculties and the development of the altruistic +instincts; that between development of a sense of æsthetic harmony and +a sense of the higher harmonies of universal life; and, before +everything else, the coincidence between the preference for æsthetic +pleasures and the nobler growth of the individual. + + +VI. + +The particular emotion produced in us by such things as are beautiful, +works of art or of nature, recollections and thoughts as well as +sights and sounds, the emotion of æsthetic pleasure, has been +recognised ever since the beginning of time as of a mysteriously +ennobling quality. All philosophers have told us that; and the +religious instinct of all mankind has practically proclaimed it, by +employing for the worship of the highest powers, nay, by employing for +the mere designation of the godhead, beautiful sights, and sounds, and +words by which beautiful sights and sounds are suggested. Nay, there +has always lurked in men's minds, and expressed itself in the +metaphors of men's speech, an intuition that the Beautiful is in some +manner one of the primordial and, so to speak, cosmic powers of the +world. The theories of various schools of mental science, and the +practice of various schools of art, the practice particularly of the +persons styled by themselves æsthetes and by others decadents, have +indeed attempted to reduce man's relations with the great world-power +Beauty to mere intellectual dilettantism or sensual superfineness. But +the general intuition has not been shaken, the intuition which +recognised in Beauty a superhuman, and, in that sense, a truly divine +power. And now it must become evident that the methods of modern +psychology, of the great new science of body and soul, are beginning +to explain the reasonableness of this intuition, or, at all events, to +show very plainly in what direction we must look for the explanation +of it. This much can already be asserted, and can be indicated even +to those least versed in recent psychological study, to wit, that the +power of Beauty, the essential power therefore of art, is due to the +relations of certain visible and audible forms with the chief mental +and vital functions of all human beings; relations established +throughout the whole process of human and, perhaps, even of animal, +evolution; relations seated in the depths of our activities, but +radiating upwards even like our vague, organic sense of comfort and +discomfort; and permeating, even like our obscure relations with +atmospheric conditions, into our highest and clearest consciousness, +colouring and altering the whole groundwork of our thoughts and +feelings. + +Such is the primordial, and, in a sense, the cosmic power of the +Beautiful; a power whose very growth, whose constantly more complex +nature proclaims its necessary and beneficial action in human +evolution. It is the power of making human beings live, for the +moment, in a more organically vigorous and harmonious fashion, as +mountain air or sea-wind makes them live; but with the difference that +it is not merely the bodily, but very essentially the spiritual life, +the life of thought and emotion, which is thus raised to unusual +harmony and vigour. I may illustrate this matter by a very individual +instance, which will bring to the memory of each of my readers the +vivifying power of some beautiful sight or sound or beautiful +description. I was seated working by my window, depressed by the +London outlook of narrow grey sky, endless grey roofs, and rusty elm +tops, when I became conscious of a certain increase of vitality, +almost as if I had drunk a glass of wine, because a band somewhere +outside had begun to play. After various indifferent pieces, it began +a tune, by Handel or in Handel's style, of which I have never known +the name, calling it for myself the _Te Deum_ Tune. And then it seemed +as if my soul, and according to the sensations, in a certain degree my +body even, were caught up on those notes, and were striking out as if +swimming in a great breezy sea; or as if it had put forth wings and +risen into a great free space of air. And, noticing my feelings, I +seemed to be conscious that those notes were being played _on me_, my +fibres becoming the strings; so that as the notes moved and soared and +swelled and radiated like stars and suns, I also, being identified +with the sound, having become apparently the sound itself, must needs +move and soar with them. + +We can all recollect a dozen instances when architecture, music, +painting, or some sudden sight of sea or mountain, have thus affected +us; and all poetry, particularly all great lyric poetry, Goethe's, +Shelley's, Wordsworth's, and, above all, Browning's, is full of the +record of such experience. + +I have said that the difference between this æsthetic heightening of +our vitality (and this that I have been describing is, I pray you to +observe, the æsthetic phenomenon _par excellence_), and such other +heightening of vitality as we experience from going into fresh air and +sunshine or taking fortifying food, the difference between the +æsthetic and the mere physiological pleasurable excitement consists +herein, that in the case of beauty, it is not merely our physical but +our spiritual life which is suddenly rendered more vigorous. We do not +merely breathe better and digest better, though that is no small +gain, but we seem to understand better. Under the vitalising touch of +the Beautiful, our consciousness seems filled with the affirmation of +what life is, what is worth being, what among our many thoughts and +acts and feelings are real and organic and important, what among the +many possible moods is the real, eternal _ourself_. + +Such are the great forces of Nature gathered up in what we call the +_æsthetic phenomenon_, and it is these forces of Nature which, stolen +from heaven by the man of genius or the nation of genius, and welded +together in music, or architecture, in the arts of visible design or +of written thoughts, give to the great work of art its power to +quicken the life of our soul. + + +VII. + +I hope I have been able to indicate how, by its essential nature, by +the primordial power it embodies, all Beauty, and particularly Beauty +in art, tends to fortify and refine the spiritual life of the +individual. + +But this is only half of the question, for, in order to get the full +benefit of beautiful things and beautiful thoughts, to obtain in the +highest potency those potent æsthetic emotions, the individual must +undergo a course of self-training, of self-initiation, which in its +turn elicits and improves some of the highest qualities of his soul. +Nay, as every great writer on art has felt, from Plato to Ruskin, but +none has expressed as clearly as Mr. Pater, in all true æsthetic +training there must needs enter an ethical element, almost an ascetic +one. + +The greatest art bestows pleasure just in proportion as people are +capable of buying that pleasure at the price of attention, +intelligence, and reverent sympathy. For great art is such as is +richly endowed, full of variety, subtlety, and suggestiveness; full of +delightfulness enough for a lifetime, the lifetime of generations and +generations of men; great art is to its true lovers like Cleopatra to +Antony--"age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety." +Indeed, when it is the greatest art of all, the art produced by the +marvellous artist, the most gifted race, and the longest centuries, we +find ourselves in presence of something which, like Nature itself, +contains more beauty, suggests more thought, works more miracles than +anyone of us has faculties to appreciate fully. So that, in some of +Titian's pictures and Michael Angelo's frescoes, the great Greek +sculptures, certain cantos of Dante and plays of Shakespeare, fugues +of Bach, scenes of Mozart and quartets of Beethoven, we can each of +us, looking our closest, feeling our uttermost, see and feel perhaps +but a trifling portion of what there is to be seen and felt, leaving +other sides, other perfections, to be appreciated by our neighbours. +Till it comes to pass that we find different persons very differently +delighted by the same masterpiece, and accounting most discrepantly +for their delight in it. + +Now such pleasure as this requires not merely a vast amount of +activity on our part, since all pleasure, even the lowest, is the +expression of an activity; it requires a vast amount of attention, of +intelligence, of what, in races or in individuals, means special +training. + + +VIII. + +There is a sad confusion in men's minds on the very essential subject +of pleasure. We tend, most of us, to oppose the idea of pleasure to +the idea of work, effort, strenuousness, patience; and, therefore, +recognise as pleasures only those which cost none of these things, or +as little as possible; pleasures which, instead of being produced +through our will and act, impose themselves upon us from outside. In +all art--for art stands halfway between the sensual and emotional +experiences and the experiences of the mere reasoning intellect--in +all art there is necessarily an element which thus imposes itself upon +us from without, an element which takes and catches us: colour, +strangeness of outline, sentimental or terrible quality, rhythm +exciting the muscles, or clang which tickles the ear. But the art +which thus takes and catches our attention the most easily, asking +nothing in return, or next to nothing, is also the poorest art: the +oleograph, the pretty woman in the fashion plate, the caricature, the +representation of some domestic or harrowing scene, children being put +to bed, babes in the wood, railway accidents, etc.; or again, dance or +march music, and the equivalents of all this in verse. It catches your +attention, instead of your attention conquering it; but it speedily +ceases to interest, gives you nothing more, cloys, or comes to a dead +stop. It resembles thus far mere sensual pleasure, a savoury dish, a +glass of good wine, an excellent cigar, a warm bed, which impose +themselves on the nerves without expenditure of attention; with the +result, of course, that little or nothing remains, a sensual +impression dying, so to speak, childless, a barren, disconnected +thing, without place in the memory, unmarried as it is to the memory's +clients, thought and human feeling. + +If so many people prefer poor art to great, 'tis because they refuse +to give, through inability or unwillingness, as much of their soul +as great art requires for its enjoyment. And it is noticeable that +busy men, coming to art for pleasure when they are too weary for +looking, listening, or thinking, so often prefer the sensation-novel, +the music-hall song, and such painting as is but a costlier kind of +oleograph; treating all other art as humbug, and art in general as a +trifle wherewith to wile away a lazy moment, a trifle about which +every man _can know what he likes best_. + +Thus it is that great art makes, by coincidence, the same demands as +noble thinking and acting. For, even as all noble sports develop +muscle, develop eye, skill, quickness and pluck in bodily movement, +qualities which are valuable also in the practical business of life; +so also the appreciation of noble kinds of art implies the acquisition +of habits of accuracy, of patience, of respectfulness, and suspension +of judgment, of preference of future good over present, of harmony and +clearness, of sympathy (when we come to literary art), judgment and +kindly fairness, which are all of them useful to our neighbours and +ourselves in the many contingencies and obscurities of real life. Now +this is not so with the pleasures of the senses: the pleasures of the +senses do not increase by sharing, and sometimes cannot be shared at +all; they are, moreover, evanescent, leaving us no richer; above all, +they cultivate in ourselves qualities useful only for that particular +enjoyment. Thus, a highly discriminating palate may have saved the +life of animals and savages, but what can its subtleness do nowadays +beyond making us into gormandisers and winebibbers, or, at best, into +cooks and tasters for the service of gormandising and winebibbing +persons? + + +IX. + +Delight in beautiful things and in beautiful thoughts requires, +therefore, a considerable exercise of the will and the attention, such +as is not demanded by our lower enjoyments. Indeed, it is probably +this absence of moral and intellectual effort which recommends such +lower kinds of pleasure to a large number of persons. I have said +lower _kinds_ of pleasure, because there are other enjoyments besides +those of the senses which entail no moral improvement in ourselves: +the enjoyments connected with vanity and greed. We should not--even if +any of us could be sure of being impeccable on these points--we should +not be too hard on the persons and the classes of persons who are +conscious of no other kind of enjoyment. They are not necessarily +base, not necessarily sensual or vain, because they care only for +bodily indulgence, for notice and gain. They are very likely not base, +but only apathetic, slothful, or very tired. The noble sport, the +intellectual problem, the great work of art, the divinely beautiful +effect in Nature, require that one should _give oneself_; the +French-cooked dinner as much as the pot of beer; the game of chance, +whether with clean cards at a club or with greasy ones in a tap-room; +the outdoing of one's neighbours, whether by the ragged heroes of Zola +or the well-groomed heroes of Balzac, require no such coming forward +of the soul: they _take_ us, without any need for our giving +ourselves. Hence, as I have just said, the preference for them does +not imply original baseness, but only lack of higher energy. We can +judge of the condition of those who can taste no other pleasures by +remembering what the best of us are when we are tired or ill: vaguely +craving for interests, sensations, emotions, variety, but quite unable +to procure them through our own effort, and longing for them to come +to us from without. Now, in our still very badly organised world, an +enormous number of people are condemned by the tyranny of poverty or +the tyranny of fashion, to be, when the day's work or the day's +business is done, in just such a condition of fatigue and languor, of +craving, therefore, for the baser kinds of pleasure. We all recognise +that this is the case with what we call _poor people_, and that this +is why poor people are apt to prefer the public-house to the picture +gallery or the concert-room. It would be greatly to the purpose were +we to acknowledge that it is largely the case with the rich, and that +for that reason the rich are apt to take more pleasure in ostentatious +display of their properties than in contemplation of such beauty as is +accessible to all men. Indeed, it is one of the ironies of the +barbarous condition we are pleased to call _civilisation_, that so +many rich men--thousands daily--are systematically toiling and moiling +till they are unable to enjoy any pleasure which requires vigour of +mind and attention, rendering themselves impotent, from sheer fatigue, +to enjoy the delights which life gives generously to all those who +fervently seek them. And what for? Largely for the sake of those +pleasures which can be had only for money, but which can be enjoyed +without using one's soul. + + +X. + +[PARENTHETICAL] + +"And these, you see," I said, "are bay-trees, the laurels they used +the leaves of to ..." + +I was going to say "to crown poets," but I left my sentence in +mid-air, because of course he knew that as well as I. + +"Precisely," he answered with intelligent interest--"I have noticed +that the leaves are sometimes put in sardine boxes." + +Soon after this conversation I discovered the curious circumstance +that one of the greatest of peoples and perhaps the most favoured by +Apollo, calls Laurus Nobilis "Laurier-Sauce." The name is French; the +symbol, alas, of universal application. + +This paragraph X. had been intended to deal with "Art as it is +understood by persons of fashion and eminent men of business." + + +XI. + +Thus it is that real æsthetic keenness--and æsthetic keenness, as I +shall show you in my next chapter, means appreciating beauty, not +collecting beautiful properties--thus it is that all æsthetic keenness +implies a development of the qualities of patience, attention, +reverence, and of that vigour of soul which is not called forth, but +rather impaired, by the coarser enjoyments of the senses and of +vanity. So far, therefore, we have seen that the capacity for æsthetic +pleasure is allied to a certain nobility in the individual. I think I +can show that the preference for æsthetic pleasure tends also to a +happier relation between the individual and his fellows. + +But the cultivation of our æsthetic pleasures does not merely +necessitate our improvement in certain very essential moral qualities. +It implies as much, in a way, as the cultivation of the intellect and +the sympathies, that we should live chiefly in the spirit, in which +alone, as philosophers and mystics have rightly understood, there is +safety from the worst miseries and room for the most complete +happiness. Only, we shall learn from the study of our æsthetic +pleasures that while the stoics and mystics have been right in +affirming that the spirit only can give the highest good, they have +been fatally wrong in the reason they gave for their preference. And +we may learn from our æsthetic experiences that the spirit is useful, +not in detaching us from the enjoyable things of life, but, on the +contrary, in giving us their consummate possession. The spirit--one of +whose most precious capacities is that it enables us to print off all +outside things on to ourselves, to store moods and emotions, to +recombine and reinforce past impressions into present ones--the spirit +puts pleasure more into our own keeping, making it more independent of +time and place, of circumstances, and, what is equally important, +independent of other people's strivings after pleasure, by which our +own, while they clash and hamper, are so often impeded. + + +XII. + +For our intimate commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts +does not exist only, or even chiefly, at the moment of seeing, or +hearing, or reading; nay, if the beautiful touched us only at such +separate and special moments, the beautiful would play but an +insignificant part in our existence. + +As a fact, those moments represent very often only the act of +_storage_, or not much more. Our real æsthetic life is in ourselves, +often isolated from the beautiful words, objects, or sounds; sometimes +almost unconscious; permeating the whole rest of life in certain +highly æsthetic individuals, and, however mixed with other activities, +as constant as the life of the intellect and sympathies; nay, as +constant as the life of assimilation and motion. We can live off a +beautiful object, we can live by its means, even when its visible or +audible image is partially, nay, sometimes wholly, obliterated; for +the emotional condition can survive the image and be awakened at the +mere name, awakened sufficiently to heighten the emotion caused by +other images of beauty. We can sometimes feel, so to speak, the +spiritual companionship and comfort of a work of art, or of a scene in +nature, nay, almost its particular caress to our whole being, when the +work of art or the scene has grown faint in our memory, but the +emotion it awakened has kept warm. + +Now this possibility of storing for later use, of increasing by +combination, the impressions of beautiful things, makes art--and by +art I mean all æsthetic activity, whether in the professed artist who +creates or the unconscious artist who assimilates--the type of such +pleasures as are within our own keeping, and makes the æsthetic life +typical also of that life of the spirit in which alone we can realise +any kind of human freedom. We shall all of us meet with examples +thereof if we seek through our consciousness. That such things +existed was made clear to me during a weary period of illness, for +which I shall always be grateful, since it taught me, in those months +of incapacity for enjoyment, that there is a safe kind of pleasure, +_the pleasure we can defer_. I spent part of that time at Tangier, +surrounded by everything which could delight me, and in none of which +I took any real delight. I did not enjoy Tangier at the time, but I +have enjoyed Tangier ever since, on the principle of the bee eating +its honey months after making it. The reality of Tangier, I mean the +reality of my presence there, and the state of my nerves, were not in +the relation of enjoyment. But how often has not the image of Tangier, +the remembrance of what I saw and did there, returned and haunted me +in the most enjoyable fashion. + +After all, is it not often the case with pictures, statues, journeys, +and the reading of books? The weariness entailed, the mere continuity +of looking or attending, quite apart from tiresome accompanying +circumstances, make the apparently real act, what we expect to be the +act of enjoyment, quite illusory; like Coleridge, "we see, not _feel_, +how beautiful things are." Later on, all odious accompanying +circumstances are utterly forgotten, eliminated, and the weariness is +gone: we enjoy not merely unhampered by accidents, but in the very way +our heart desires. For we can choose--our mood unconsciously does it +for us--the right moment and right accessories for consuming some of +our stored delights; moreover, we can add what condiments and make +what mixtures suit us best at that moment. We draw not merely upon one +past reality, making its essentials present, but upon dozens. To +revert to Tangier (whose experience first brought these possibilities +clearly before me), I find I enjoy it in connection with Venice, the +mixture having a special roundness of tone or flavour. Similarly, I +once heard Bach's _Magnificat_, with St. Mark's of Venice as a +background in my imagination. Again, certain moonlight songs of +Schumann have blended wonderfully with remembrances of old Italian +villas. King Solomon, in all his ships, could not have carried the +things which I can draw, in less than a second, from one tiny +convolution of my brain, from one corner of my mind. No wizard that +ever lived had spells which could evoke such kingdoms and worlds as +anyone of us can conjure up with certain words: Greece, the Middle +Ages, Orpheus, Robin Hood, Mary Stuart, Ancient Rome, the Far East. + + +XIII. + +And here, as fit illustration of these beneficent powers, which can +free us from a life where we stifle and raise us into a life where we +can breathe and grow, let me record my gratitude to a certain young +goat, which, on one occasion, turned what might have been a detestable +hour into a pleasant one. + +The goat, or rather kid, a charming gazelle-like creature, with +budding horns and broad, hard forehead, was one of my fourteen fellow +passengers in a third-class carriage on a certain bank holiday +Saturday. Riding and standing in such crowded misery had cast a +general gloom over all the holiday makers; they seemed to have +forgotten the coming outing in sullen hatred of all their neighbours; +and I confess that I too began to wonder whether Bank Holiday was an +altogether delightful institution. But the goat had no such doubts. +Leaning against the boy who was taking it holiday-making, it tried +very gently to climb and butt, and to play with its sulky fellow +travellers. And as it did so it seemed to radiate a sort of poetry on +everything: vague impressions of rocks, woods, hedges, the Alps, +Italy, and Greece; mythology, of course, and that amusement of "jouer +avec des chèvres apprivoisées," which that great charmer M. Renan has +attributed to his charming Greek people. Now, as I realised the joy of +the goat on finding itself among the beech woods and short grass of +the Hertfordshire hills, I began also to see my other fellow +travellers no longer as surly people resenting each other's presence, +but as happy human beings admitted once more to the pleasant things of +life. The goat had quite put me in conceit with bank holiday. When it +got out of the train at Berkhampstead, the emptier carriage seemed +suddenly more crowded, and my fellow travellers more discontented. But +I remained quite pleased, and when I had alighted, found that instead +of a horrible journey, I could remember only a rather exquisite little +adventure. That beneficent goat had acted as Pegasus; and on its small +back my spirit had ridden to the places it loves. + +In this fashion does the true æsthete tend to prefer, even like the +austerest moralist, the delights which, being of the spirit, are most +independent of circumstances and most in the individual's own keeping. + + +XIV. + +It was Mr. Pater who first pointed out how the habit of æsthetic +enjoyment makes the epicurean into an ascetic. He builds as little as +possible on the things of the senses and the moment, knowing how +little, in comparison, we have either in our power. For, even if the +desired object, person, or circumstance comes, how often does it not +come at the wrong hour! In this world, which mankind fits still so +badly, the wish and its fulfilling are rarely in unison, rarely in +harmony, but follow each other, most often, like vibrations of +different instruments, at intervals which can only jar. The _n'est-ce +que cela_, the inability to enjoy, of successful ambition and +favoured, passionate love, is famous; and short of love even and +ambition, we all know the flatness of long-desired pleasures. King +Solomon, who had not been enough of an ascetic, as we all know, and +therefore ended off in cynicism, knew that there is not only satiety +as a result of enjoyment; but a sort of satiety also, an absence of +keenness, an incapacity for caring, due to the deferring of enjoyment. +He doubtless knew, among other items of vanity, that our wishes are +often fulfilled without our even knowing it, so indifferent have we +become through long waiting, or so changed in our wants. + + +XV. + +There is another reason for such ascetism as was taught in _Marius the +Epicurean_ and in Pater's book on Plato: the modest certainty of all +pleasure derived from the beautiful will accustom the perfect æsthete +to seek for the like in other branches of activity. Accustomed to the +happiness which is in his own keeping, he will view with suspicion all +craving for satisfactions which are beyond his control. He will not +ask to be given the moon, and he will not even wish to be given it, +lest the wish should grow into a want; he will make the best of +candles and glowworms and of distant heavenly luminaries. Moreover, +being accustomed to enjoy the mere sight of things as much as other +folk do their possession, he will probably actually prefer that the +moon should be hanging in the heavens, and not on his staircase. + +Again, having experience of the æsthetic pleasures which involve, in +what Milton called their sober waking bliss, no wear and tear, no +reaction of satiety, he will not care much for the more rapturous +pleasures of passion and success, which always cost as much as they +are worth. He will be unwilling to run into such debt with his own +feelings, having learned from æsthetic pleasure that there are +activities of the soul which, instead of impoverishing, enrich it. + +Thus does the commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts +tend to develop in us that healthy kind of asceticism so requisite to +every workable scheme of greater happiness for the individual and the +plurality: self-restraint, choice of aims, consistent and +thorough-paced subordination of the lesser interest to the greater; +above all, what sums up asceticism as an efficacious means towards +happiness, preference of the spiritual, the unconditional, the +durable, instead of the temporal, the uncertain, and the fleeting. + +The intimate and continuous intercourse with the Beautiful teaches us, +therefore, the renunciation of the unnecessary for the sake of the +possible. It teaches asceticism leading not to indifference and +Nervana, but to higher complexities of vitalisation, to a more +complete and harmonious rhythm of individual existence. + + +XVI. + +Art can thus train the soul because art is free; or, more strictly +speaking, because art is the only complete expression, the only +consistent realisation of our freedom. In other parts of our life, +business, affection, passion, pursuit of utility, glory or truth, we +are for ever _conditioned_. We are twisting perpetually, perpetually +stopped short and deflected, picking our way among the visible and +barely visible habits, interests, desires, shortcomings, of others and +of that portion of ourselves which, in the light of that particular +moment and circumstance, seems to be foreign to us, to be another's. +We can no more follow the straight line of our wishes than can the +passenger in Venice among those labyrinthine streets, whose +everlasting, unexpected bends are due to canals which the streets +themselves prevent his seeing. Moreover, in those gropings among +looming or unseen obstacles, we are pulled hither and thither, checked +and misled by the recurring doubt as to which, of these thwarted and +yielding selves, may be the chief and real one, and which, of the goals +we are never allowed finally to touch, is the goal we spontaneously +tend to. + +Now it is different in the case of Art, and of all those æsthetic +activities, often personal and private, which are connected with Art +and may be grouped together under Art's name. Art exists to please, +and, when left to ourselves, we feel in what our pleasure lies. Art is +a free, most open and visible space, where we disport ourselves +freely. Indeed, it has long been remarked (the poet Schiller working +out the theory) that, as there is in man's nature a longing for mere +unconditioned exercise, one of Art's chief missions is to give us free +scope to be ourselves. If therefore Art is the playground where each +individual, each nation or each century, not merely toils, but +untrammelled by momentary passion, unhampered by outer cares, freely +exists and feels itself, then Art may surely become the training-place +of our soul. Art may teach us how to employ our liberty, how to select +our wishes: employ our liberty so as to respect that of others; select +our wishes in such a manner as to further the wishes of our +fellow-creatures. + +For there are various, and variously good or evil ways of following +our instincts, fulfilling our desires, in short, of being independent +of outer circumstances; in other words, there are worthy and worthless +ways of using our leisure and our surplus energy, of seeking our +pleasure. And Art--Art and all Art here stands for--can train us to do +so without injuring others, without wasting the material and spiritual +riches of the world. Art can train us to delight in the higher +harmonies of existence; train us to open our eyes, ears and souls, +instead of shutting them, to the wider modes of universal life. + +In such manner, to resume our symbol of the bay laurel which the +road-mender stuck on to the front of that tramcar, can our love for +the beautiful avert, like the plant of Apollo, many of the storms, and +cure many of the fevers, of life. + + + + +"NISI CITHARAM." + + +I. + +It is well that this second chapter--in which I propose to show how a +genuine æsthetic development tends to render the individual more +useful, or at least less harmful, to his fellow-men--should begin, +like the first, with a symbol, such as may sum up my meaning, and +point it out in the process of my expounding it. The symbol is +contained in the saying of the Abbot Joachim of Flora, one of the +great precursors of St. Francis, to wit: "He that is a true monk +considers nothing his own except a lyre--_nihil reputat esse suum nisi +citharam_." Yes; nothing except a lyre. + + +II. + +But that lyre, our only real possession, is our _Soul_. It must be +shaped, and strung, and kept carefully in tune; no easy matter in +surroundings little suited to delicate instruments and delicate music. +Possessing it, we possess, in the only true sense of possession, the +whole world. For going along our way, whether rough or even, there are +formed within us, singing the beauty and wonder of _what is_ or _what +should_ be, mysterious sequences and harmonies of notes, new every +time, answering to the primæval everlasting affinities between +ourselves and all things; our souls becoming musical under the touch +of the universe. + +Let us bear this in mind, this symbol of the lyre which Abbot Joachim +allowed as sole property to the man of spiritual life. And let us +remember that, as I tried to show in my previous chapter, the true +Lover of the Beautiful, active, self-restrained, and indifferent to +lower pleasures and interests, is in one sense your man of real +spiritual life. For the symbol of Abbot Joachim's lyre will make it +easier to follow my meaning, and easier to forestall it, while I try +to convince you that art, and all æsthetic activity, is important as a +type of the only kind of pleasure which reasonable beings should admit +of, the kind of pleasure which tends not to diminish by wastefulness +and exclusive appropriation, but to increase by sympathy, the possible +pleasures of other persons. + + +III. + +'Tis no excessive puritanism to say that while pleasure, in the +abstract, is a great, perhaps the greatest, good; pleasures, our +actual pleasures in the concrete, are very often evil. + +Many of the pleasures which we allow ourselves, and which all the +world admits our right to, happen to be such as waste wealth and time, +make light of the advantage of others, and of the good of our own +souls. This fact does not imply either original sinfulness or +degeneracy--religious and scientific terms for the same thing--in poor +mankind. It means merely that we are all of us as yet very undeveloped +creatures; the majority, moreover, less developed than the minority, +and the bulk of each individual's nature very much in the rear of his +own aspirations and definitions. Mankind, in the process of adapting +itself to external circumstances, has perforce evolved a certain +amount of intellectual and moral quality; but that intellectual and +moral quality is, so far, merely a means for rendering material +existence endurable; it will have to become itself the origin and aim +of what we must call a spiritual side of life. In the meanwhile, human +beings do not get any large proportion of their enjoyment from what +they admit to be their nobler side. + +Hence it is that even when you have got rid of the mere struggle for +existence--fed, clothed, and housed your civilised savage, and secured +food, clothes, and shelter for his brood--you have by no means +provided against his destructive, pain-giving activities. He has spare +time and energy; and these he will devote, ten to one, to recreations +involving, at the best, the slaughter of harmless creatures; at the +worst, to the wasting of valuable substance, of what might be other +people's food; or else to the hurting of other people's feelings in +various games of chance or skill, particularly in the great skilled +game of brag called "Society." + +Our gentlemanly ancestors, indeed, could not amuse themselves without +emptying a certain number of bottles and passing some hours under the +table; while our nimble-witted French neighbours, we are told, +included in their expenditure on convivial amusements a curious item +called _la casse_, to wit, the smashing of plates and glasses. The +Spaniards, on the other hand, have bull-fights, most shocking +spectacles, as we know, for we make it a point to witness them when +we are over there. Undoubtedly we have immensely improved in such +matters, but we need a great deal of further improvement. Most people +are safe only when at work, and become mischievous when they begin to +play. They do not know how to _kill time_ (for that is the way in +which we poor mortals regard life) without incidentally killing +something else: proximately birds and beasts, and their neighbours' +good fame; more remotely, but as surely, the constitution of their +descendants, and the possible wages of the working classes. + +It is quite marvellous how little aptness there is in the existing +human being for taking pleasure either in what already exists ready to +hand, or in the making of something which had better be there; in what +can be enjoyed without diminishing the enjoyment of others, as nature, +books, art, thought, and the better qualities of one's neighbours. In +fact, one reason why there is something so morally pleasant in cricket +and football and rowing and riding and dancing, is surely that they +furnish on the physical plane the counterpart of what is so sadly +lacking on the spiritual: amusements which do good to the individual +and no harm to his fellows. + +Of course, in our state neither of original sinfulness nor of +degeneracy, but of very imperfect development, it is still useless and +absurd to tell people to make use of intellectual and moral resources +which they have not yet got. It is as vain to preach to the majority +of the well-to-do the duty of abstinence from wastefulness, rivalry, +and ostentation as it is vain to preach to the majority of the +badly-off abstinence from alcohol; without such pleasures their life +would be unendurably insipid. + +But inevitable as is such evil in the present, it inevitably brings +its contingent of wretchedness; and it is therefore the business of +all such as _could_ become the forerunners of a better state of things +to refuse to follow the lead of their inferiors. Exactly because the +majority is still so hopelessly wasteful and mischievous, does it +behove the minority not merely to work to some profit, but to play +without damage. To do this should become the mark of Nature's +aristocracy, a sign of liberality of spiritual birth and breeding, a +question of _noblesse oblige_. + + +IV. + +And here comes in the immense importance of Art as a type of pleasure: +of Art in the sense of æsthetic appreciation even more than of +æsthetic creation; of Art considered as the extracting and combining +of beauty in the mind of the obscure layman quite as much as the +embodiment of such extracted and combined beauty in the visible or +audible work of the great artist. + +For experience of true æsthetic activity must teach us, in proportion +as it is genuine and ample, that the enjoyment of the beautiful is not +merely independent of, but actually incompatible with, that tendency +to buy our satisfaction at the expense of others which remains more or +less in all of us as a survival from savagery. The reasons why genuine +æsthetic feeling inhibits these obsolescent instincts of rapacity and +ruthlessness, are reasons negative and positive, and may be roughly +divided into three headings. Only one of them is generally admitted to +exist, and of it, therefore, I shall speak very briefly, I mean the +fact that the enjoyment of beautiful things is originally and +intrinsically one of those which are heightened by sharing. We know it +instinctively when, as children, we drag our comrades and elders to +the window when a regiment passes or a circus parades by; we learn it +more and more as we advance in life, and find that we must get other +people to see the pictures, to hear the music, to read the books which +we admire. It is a case of what psychologists call the _contagion of +emotion_, by which the feeling of one individual is strengthened by +the expression of similar feeling in his neighbour, and is explicable, +most likely, by the fact that the greatest effort is always required +to overcome original inertness, and that two efforts, like two horses +starting a carriage instead of one, combined give more than double the +value of each taken separately. The fact of this æsthetic sociability +is so obvious that we need not discuss it any further, but merely hold +it over to add, at last, to the result of the two other reasons, +negative and positive, which tend to make æsthetic enjoyment the type +of unselfish, nay, even of altruistic pleasure. + + +V. + +The first of these reasons, the negative one, is that æsthetic +pleasure is not in the least dependent upon the fact of personal +ownership, and that it therefore affords an opportunity of leaving +inactive, of beginning to atrophy by inactivity, the passion for +exclusive possession, for individual advantage, which is at the bottom +of all bad luxury, of all ostentation, and of nearly all rapacity. But +before entering on this discussion I would beg my reader to call to +mind that curious saying of Abbot Joachim's; and to consider that I +wish to prove that, like his true monk, the true æsthete, who nowadays +loves and praises creation much as the true monk did in former +centuries, can really possess as sole personal possession only a +musical instrument--to wit, his own well-strung and resonant soul. +Having said this, we will proceed to the question of Luxury, by which +I mean the possession of such things as minister only to weakness and +vanity, of such things as we cannot reasonably hope that all men may +some day equally possess. + +When we are young--and most of us remain mere withered children, never +attaining maturity, in similar matters--we are usually attracted by +luxury and luxurious living. We are possessed by that youthful +instinct of union, fusion, marriage, so to speak, with what our soul +desires; we hanker after close contact and complete possession; and we +fancy, in our inexperience, that luxury, the accumulation of +valuables, the appropriation of opportunities, the fact of rejecting +from our life all that is not costly, brilliant, and dainty, implies +such fusion of our soul with beauty. + +But, as we reach maturity, we find that this is all delusion. We +learn, from the experience of occasions when our soul has truly +possessed the beautiful, or been possessed by it, that if such union +with the harmony of outer things is rare, perhaps impossible, among +squalor and weariness, it is difficult and anomalous in the condition +which we entitle luxury. + +We learn that our assimilation of beauty, and that momentary renewal +of our soul which it effects, rarely arises from our own ownership; +but comes, taking us by surprise, in presence of hills, streams, +memories of pictures, poets' words, and strains of music, which are +not, and cannot be, our property. The essential character of beauty is +its being a relation between ourselves and certain objects. The +emotion to which we attach its name is produced, motived by something +outside us, pictures, music, landscape, or whatever it may be; but the +emotion resides in us, and it is the emotion, and not merely its +object, which we desire. Hence material possession has no æsthetic +meaning. We possess a beautiful object with our soul; the possession +thereof with our hands or our legal rights brings us no nearer the +beauty. Ownership, in this sense, may empower us to destroy or hide +the object and thus cheat others of the possession of its beauty, but +does not help _us_ to possess that beauty. It is with beauty as with +that singer who answered Catherine II., "Your Majesty's policemen can +make me _scream_, but they cannot make me _sing_;" and she might have +added, for my parallel, "Your policemen, great Empress, even could +they make _me_ sing, would not be able to make _you_ hear." + + +VI. + +Hence all strong æsthetic feeling will always prefer ownership of the +mental image to ownership of the tangible object. And any desire for +material appropriation or exclusive enjoyment will be merely so much +weakening and adulteration of the æsthetic sentiment. Since the mental +image, the only thing æsthetically possessed, is in no way diminished +or damaged by sharing; nay, we have seen that by one of the most +gracious coincidences between beauty and kindliness, the æsthetic +emotion is even intensified by the knowledge of co-existence in +others: the delight in each person communicating itself, like a +musical third, fifth, or octave, to the similar yet different delight +in his neighbour, harmonic enriching harmonic by stimulating fresh +vibration. + +If, then, we wish to possess casts, copies, or photographs of certain +works of art, this is, æsthetically considered, exactly as we wish to +have the means--railway tickets, permissions for galleries, and so +forth--of seeing certain pictures or statues as often as we wish. For +we feel that the images in our mind require renewing, or that, in +combination with other more recently acquired images, they will, if +renewed, yield a new kind of delight. But this is quite another matter +from wishing to own the material object, the thing we call _work of +art itself_, forgetting that it is a work of art only for the soul +capable of instating it as such. + +Thus, in every person who truly cares for beauty, there is a necessary +tendency to replace the illusory legal act of ownership by the real +spiritual act of appreciation. Charles Lamb already expressed this +delightfully in the essay on the old manor-house. Compared with his +possession of its beauties, its walks, tapestried walls and family +portraits, nay, even of the ghosts of former proprietors, the +possession by the legal owner was utterly nugatory, unreal: + + "Mine too, Blakesmoor, was thy noble Marble Hall, with its mosaic + pavements, and its twelve Cæsars;... mine, too, thy lofty Justice + Hall, with its one chair of authority.... Mine, too--whose + else?--thy costly fruit-garden ... thy ampler pleasure-garden ... + thy firry wilderness.... I was the true descendant of those old + W----'s, and not the present family of that name, who had fled the + old waste places." + +How often have not some of us felt like that; and how much might not +those of us who never have, learn, could they learn, from those words +of Elia? + + +VII. + +I have spoken of _material, actual_ possession. But if we look closer +at it we shall see that, save with regard to the things which are +actually consumed, destroyed, disintegrated, changed to something else +in their enjoyment, the notion of ordinary possession is a mere +delusion. It can be got only by a constant obtrusion of a mere idea, +the _idea of self_, and of such unsatisfactory ideas as one's right, +for instance, to exclude others. 'Tis like the tension of a muscle, +this constant keeping the consciousness aware by repeating +"Mine--mine--_mine_ and not _theirs_; not _theirs_, but _mine_." And +this wearisome act of self-assertion leaves little power for +appreciation, for the appreciation which others can have quite +equally, and without which there is no reality at all in ownership. + +Hence, the deeper our enjoyment of beauty, the freer shall we become +of the dreadful delusion of exclusive appropriation, despising such +unreal possession in proportion as we have tasted the real one. We +shall know the two kinds of ownership too well apart to let ourselves +be cozened into cumbering our lives with material properties and their +responsibilities. We shall save up our vigour, not for obtaining and +keeping (think of the thousand efforts and cares of ownership, even +the most negative) the things which yield happy impressions, but for +receiving and storing up and making capital of those impressions. We +shall seek to furnish our mind with beautiful thoughts, not our houses +with pretty things. + + +VIII. + +I hope I have made clear enough that æsthetic enjoyment is hostile to +the unkind and wasteful pleasures of selfish indulgence and selfish +appropriation, because the true possession of the beautiful things of +Nature, of Art, and of thought is spiritual, and neither damages, nor +diminishes, nor hoards them; because the lover of the beautiful seeks +for beautiful impressions and remembrances, which are vested in his +soul, and not in material objects. That is the negative benefit of the +love of the beautiful. Let us now proceed to the positive and active +assistance which it renders, when genuine and thorough-paced, to such +thought as we give to the happiness and dignity of others. + + +IX. + +I have said that our pleasure in the beautiful is essentially a +spiritual phenomenon, one, I mean, which deals with our own +perceptions and emotions, altering the contents of our mind, while +leaving the beautiful object itself intact and unaltered. This being +the case, it is easy to understand that our æsthetic pleasure will be +complete and extensive in proportion to the amount of activity of our +soul; for, remember, all pleasure is proportionate to activity, and, +as I said in my first chapter, great beauty does not merely _take us_, +but _we_ must give _ourselves to it_. Hence, an increase in the +capacity for æsthetic pleasure will mean, _cæeteris paribus_, an +increase in a portion of our spiritual activity, a greater readiness +to take small hints, to connect different items, to reject the lesser +good for the greater. Moreover, a great, perhaps the greater, part of +our æsthetic pleasure is due, as I also told you before, to the +storing of impressions in our mind, and to the combining of them there +with other impressions. Indeed, it is for this reason that I have made +no difference, save in intensity between æsthetic creation, so called, +and æsthetic appreciation; telling you, on the contrary, that the +artistic layman creates, produces something new and personal, only in +a less degree than the professed artist. + +For the æsthetic life does not consist merely in the perception of the +beautiful object, not merely in the emotion of that spiritual contact +between the beautiful product of art or of nature and the soul of the +appreciator: it is continued in the emotions and images and thoughts +which are awakened by that perception; and the æsthetic life _is_ +life, is something continuous and organic, just because new forms, +however obscure and evanescent, are continually born, in their turn +continually to give birth, of that marriage between the beautiful +thing outside and the beautiful soul within. + +Hence, full æsthetic life means the creating and extending of ever new +harmonies in the mind of the layman, the unconscious artist who merely +enjoys, as a result of the creating and extending of new harmonies in +the work of the professed artist who consciously creates. This being +the case, the true æsthete is for ever seeking to reduce his +impressions and thoughts to harmony; and is for ever, accordingly, +being pleased with some of them, and disgusted with others. + + +X. + +The desire for beauty and harmony, therefore, in proportion as it +becomes active and sensitive, explores into every detail, establishes +comparisons between everything, judges, approves, and disapproves; and +makes terrible and wholesome havoc not merely in our surroundings, but +in our habits and in our lives. And very soon the mere thought of +something ugly becomes enough to outweigh the actual presence of +something beautiful. I was told last winter at San Remo, that the +scent of the Parma violet can be distilled only by the oil of the +flower being passed through a layer of pork fat; and since that +revelation violet essence has lost much of the charm it possessed for +me: the thought of the suet counterbalanced the reality of the +perfume. + +Now this violet essence, thus obtained, is symbolic of many of the +apparently refined enjoyments of our life. We shall find that luxury +and pomp, delightful sometimes in themselves, are distilled through a +layer of coarse and repulsive labour by other folk; and the thought of +the pork suet will spoil the smell of the violets. For the more dishes +we have for dinner, the greater number of cooking-pots will have to be +cleaned; the more carriages and horses we use, the more washing and +grooming will result; the more crowded our rooms with furniture and +nicknacks, the more dust will have to be removed; the more numerous +and delicate our clothes, the more brushing and folding there will +be; and the more purely ornamental our own existence, the less +ornamental will be that of others. + +There is a _pensée_ of Pascal's to the effect that a fop carries on +his person the evidence of the existence of so many people devoted to +his service. This thought may be delightful to a fop; but it is not +pleasant to a mind sensitive to beauty and hating the bare thought of +ugliness: for while vanity takes pleasure in lack of harmony between +oneself and one's neighbour, æsthetic feeling takes pleasure only in +harmonious relations. The thought of the servile lives devoted to make +our life more beautiful counterbalances the pleasure of the beauty; +'tis the eternal question of the violet essence and the pork suet. Now +the habit of beauty, the æsthetic sense, becomes, as I said, more and +more sensitive and vivacious; you cannot hide from it the knowledge of +every sort of detail, you cannot prevent its noticing the ugly side, +the ugly lining of certain pretty things. 'Tis a but weak and sleepy +kind of æstheticism which "blinks and shuts its apprehension up" at +your bidding, which looks another way discreetly, and discreetly +refrains from all comparisons. The real æsthetic activity _is_ an +activity; it is one of the strongest and most imperious powers of +human nature; it does not take orders, it only gives them. It is, when +full grown, a kind of conscience of beautiful and ugly, analogous to +the other conscience of right and wrong, and it is equally difficult +to silence. If you can silence your æsthetic faculty and bid it be +satisfied with the lesser beauty, the lesser harmony, instead of the +greater, be sure that it is a very rudimentary kind of instinct; and +that you are no more thoroughly æsthetic than if you could make your +sense of right and wrong be blind and dumb at your convenience, you +could be thoroughly moral. + +Hence, the more æsthetic we become, the less we shall tolerate such +modes of living as involve dull and dirty work for others, as involve +the exclusion of others from the sort of life which we consider +æsthetically tolerable. We shall require such houses and such habits +as can be seen, and, what is inevitable in all æsthetical development, +as can also be _thought of_, in all their details. We shall require a +homogeneous impression of decorum and fitness from the lives of others +as well as from our own, from what we actually see and from what we +merely know: the imperious demand for beauty, for harmony will be +applied no longer to our mere material properties, but to that other +possession which is always with us and can never be taken from us, the +images and feelings within our soul. Now, that other human beings +should be drudging sordidly in order that we may be idle and showy +means a thought, a vision, an emotion which do not get on in our mind +in company with the sight of sunset and sea, the taste of mountain air +and woodland freshness, the faces and forms of Florentine saints and +Antique gods, the serene poignancy of great phrases of music. This is +by no means all. Developing in æsthetic sensitiveness we grow to think +of ourselves also, our own preferences, moods and attitudes, as more +or less beautiful or ugly; the inner life falling under the same +criticism as the outer one. We become aristocratic and epicurean about +our desires and habits; we grow squeamish and impatient towards +luxury, towards all kinds of monopoly and privilege on account of the +mean attitude, the graceless gesture they involve on our own part. + + +XI. + +This feeling is increasing daily. Our deepest æsthetic emotions are, +we are beginning to recognise, connected with things which we do not, +cannot, possess in the vulgar sense. Nay, the deepest æsthetic +emotions depend, to an appreciable degree, on the very knowledge that +these things are either not such as money can purchase, or that they +are within the purchasing power of all. The sense of being shareable +by others, of being even shareable, so to speak, by other kinds of +utility, adds a very keen attraction to all beautiful things and +beautiful actions, and, of course, _vice versâ_. And things which are +beautiful, but connected with luxury and exclusive possession, come to +affect one as, in a way, _lacking harmonics_, lacking those additional +vibrations of pleasure which enrich impressions of beauty by +impressions of utility and kindliness. + +Thus, after enjoying the extraordinary lovely tints--oleander pink, +silver-grey, and most delicate citron--of the plaster which covers the +commonest cottages, the humblest chapels, all round Genoa, there is +something _short and acid_ in the pleasure one derives from equally +charming colours in expensive dresses. Similarly, in Italy, much of +the charm of marble, of the sea-cave shimmer, of certain palace-yards +and churches, is due to the knowledge that this lovely, noble +substance is easy to cut and quarried in vast quantities hard by: no +wretched rarity like diamonds and rubies, which diminish by the worth +of a family's yearly keep if only the cutter cuts one hair-breadth +wrong! + +Again, is not one reason why antique sculpture awakens a state of mind +where stoicism, humaneness, simplicity, seem nearer possibilities--is +not one reason that it shows us the creature in its nakedness, in such +beauty and dignity as it can get through the grace of birth only? +There is no need among the gods for garments from silken Samarkand, +for farthingales of brocade and veils of Mechlin lace like those of +the wooden Madonnas of Spanish churches; no need for the ruffles and +plumes of Pascal's young beau, showing thereby the number of his +valets. The same holds good of trees, water, mountains, and their +representation in poetry and painting; their dignity takes no account +of poverty or riches. Even the lilies of the field please us, not +because they toil not neither do they spin, but because they do not +require, while Solomon does, that other folk should toil and spin to +make them glorious. + + +XII. + +Again, do we not prefer the books which deal with habits simpler than +our own? Do we not love the Odyssey partly because of Calypso weaving +in her cave, and Nausicaa washing the clothes with her maidens? Does +it not lend additional divinity that Christianity should have arisen +among peasants and handicraftsmen? + +Nay more, do we not love certain objects largely because they are +useful; boats, nets, farm carts, ploughs; discovering therein a grace +which actually exists, but which might else have remained unsuspected? +And do we not feel a certain lack of significance and harmony of +fulness of æsthetic quality in our persons when we pass in our +idleness among people working in the fields, masons building, or +fishermen cleaning their boats and nets; whatever beauty such things +may have being enhanced by their being common and useful. + +In this manner our æsthetic instinct strains vaguely after a double +change: not merely giving affluence and leisure to others, but giving +simplicity and utility to ourselves? + + +XIII. + +And, even apart from this, does not all true æstheticism tend to +diminish labour while increasing enjoyment, because it makes the +already existing more sufficient, because it furthers the joys of the +spirit, which multiply by sharing, as distinguished from the pleasures +of vanity and greediness, which only diminish? + + +XIV. + +You may at first feel inclined to pooh-pooh the notion that mere love +of beauty can help to bring about a better distribution of the world's +riches; and reasonably object that we cannot feed people on images and +impressions which multiply by sharing; they live on bread, and not on +the _idea_ of bread. + +But has it ever struck you that, after all, the amount of material +bread--even if we extend the word to everything which is consumed for +bodily necessity and comfort--which any individual can consume is +really very small; and that the bad distribution, the shocking waste +of this material bread arises from being, so to speak, used +symbolically, used as spiritual bread, as representing those _ideas_ +for which men hunger: superiority over other folk, power of having +dependants, social position, ownership, and privilege of all kinds? +For what are the bulk of worldly possessions to their owners: houses, +parks, plate, jewels, superfluous expenditure of all kinds [and armies +and navies when we come to national wastefulness]--what are all these +ill-distributed riches save _ideas_, ideas futile and ungenerous, food +for the soul, but food upon which the soul grows sick and corrupteth? + +Would it not be worth while to reorganise this diet of ideas? To +reorganise that part of us which is independent of bodily sustenance +and health, which lives on spiritual commodities--the part of us +including ambition, ideal, sympathy, and all that I have called +_ideas_? Would it not be worth while to find such ideas as all people +can live upon without diminishing each other's share, instead of the +_ideas_, the imaginative satisfactions which each must refuse to his +neighbour, and about which, therefore, all of us are bound to fight +like hungry animals? Thus to reform our notions of what is valuable +and distinguished would bring about an economic reformation; or, if +other forces were needed, would make the benefits of such economic +reformation completer, its hardships easier to bear; and, altering our +views of loss and gain, lessen the destructive struggle of snatching +and holding. + +Now, as I have been trying to show, beauty, harmony, fitness, are of +the nature of the miraculous loaves and fishes: they can feed +multitudes and leave basketfuls for the morrow. + +But the desire for such spiritual food is, you will again object, +itself a rarity, a product of leisure and comfort, almost a luxury. + +Quite true. And you will remember, perhaps, that I have already +remarked that they are not to be expected either from the poor in +material comfort, nor from the poor in soul, since both of these are +condemned, the first by physical wretchedness, the second by spiritual +inactivity, to fight only for larger shares of material bread; with +the difference that this material bread is eaten by the poor, and made +into very ugly symbols of glory by the rich. + +But, among those of us who are neither hungry nor vacuous, there is +not, generally speaking, much attempt to make the best of our +spiritual privileges. We teach our children, as we were taught +ourselves, to give importance only to the fact of exclusiveness, +expense, rareness, already necessarily obtruded far too much by our +struggling, imperfect civilisation. We are indeed angry with little +boys and girls if they enquire too audibly whether certain people are +rich or certain things cost much money, as little boys and girls are +apt to do in their very far from innocence; but we teach them by our +example to think about such things every time we stretch a point in +order to appear richer or smarter than we are. While, on the contrary, +we rarely insist upon the intrinsic qualities for which things are +really valuable, without which no trouble or money would be spent on +them, without which their difficulty of obtaining would, as in the +case of Dr. Johnson's musical performance, become identical with +impossibility. I wonder how many people ever point out to a child that +the water in a tank may be more wonderful and beautiful in its beryls +and sapphires and agates than all the contents of all the jewellers' +shops in Bond Street? Moreover, we rarely struggle against the +standards of fashion in our habits and arrangements; which standards, +in many cases, are those of our ladies' maids, butlers, tradesfolk, +and in all cases the standards of our less intelligent neighbours. +Nay, more, we sometimes actually cultivate in ourselves, we superfine +and æsthetic creatures, a preference for such kinds of enjoyment as +are exclusive and costly; we allow ourselves to be talked into the +notion that solitary egoism, laborious self-assertion of ownership (as +in the poor mad Ludwig of Bavaria) is a badge of intellectual +distinction. We cherish a desire for the new-fangled and far-fetched, +the something no other has had before; little suspecting, or +forgetting, that to extract more pleasure not less, to enjoy the same +things longer, and to be able to extract more enjoyment out of more +things, is the sign of æsthetic vigour. + + +XV. + +Still, on the whole, such as can care for beautiful things and +beautiful thoughts are beginning to care for them more fully, and are +growing, undoubtedly, in a certain moral sensitiveness which, as I +have said, is coincident with æsthetic development. + +This strikes me every time that I see or think about a certain +priest's house on a hillside by the Mediterranean: a little house +built up against the village church, and painted and roofed, like the +church, a most delicate grey, against which the yellow of the +spalliered lemons sings out in exquisite intensity; alongside, a wall +with flower pots, and dainty white curtains to the windows. Such a +house and the life possible in it are beginning, for many of us, to +become the ideal, by whose side all luxury and worldly grandeur +becomes insipid or vulgar. For such a house as this embodies the +possibility of living with grace and decorum _throughout_ by dint of +loving carefulness and self-restraining simplicity. I say with grace +and decorum _throughout_, because all things which might beget +ugliness in the life of others, or ugliness in our own attitude +towards others, would be eliminated, thrown away like the fossil which +Thoreau threw away because it collected dust. Moreover, such a life as +this is such as all may reasonably hope to have; may, in some more +prosperous age, obtain because it involves no hoarding of advantage +for self or excluding therefrom of others. + +And such a life we ourselves may attain at least in the spirit, if we +become strenuous and faithful lovers of the beautiful, æsthetes and +ascetics who recognise that their greatest pleasure, their only true +possessions are in themselves; knowing the supreme value of their own +soul, even as was foreshadowed by the Abbot Joachim of Flora, when he +said that the true monk can hold no property except his lyre. + + + + +HIGHER HARMONIES. + + +I. + + "To use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts + upwards, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, + and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair + notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of + absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is; + this, my dear Socrates," said the prophetess of Mantineia, "is + that life, above all others, which man should live, in the + contemplation of beauty absolute. Do you not see that in that + communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will + be enabled to bring forth not images of beauty, but realities; for + he has hold not of an image, but of a reality; and bringing forth + and educating true virtue to become the friend of God, and be + immortal, if mortal man may?" + + +Such are the æsthetics of Plato, put into the mouth of that mysterious +Diotima, who was a wise woman in many branches of knowledge. As we +read them nowadays we are apt to smile with incredulity not unmixed +with bitterness. Is all this not mere talk, charming and momentarily +elating us like so much music; itself mere beauty which, because we +like it, we half voluntarily confuse with _truth_? And, on the other +hand, is not the truth of æsthetics, the bare, hard fact, a very +different matter? For we have learned that we human creatures will +never know the absolute or the essence, that notions, which Plato took +for realities, are mere relative conceptions; that virtue and truth +are social ideals and intellectual abstractions, while beauty is a +quality found primarily and literally only in material existences and +sense-experiences; and every day we are hearing of new discoveries +connecting our æsthetic emotions with the structure of eye and ear, +the movement of muscles, the functions of nerve centres, nay, even +with the action of heart and lungs and viscera. Moreover, all round us +schools of criticism and cliques of artists are telling us forever +that so far from bringing forth and educating true virtue, art has the +sovereign power, by mere skill and subtlety, of investing good and +evil, healthy and unwholesome, with equal merit, and obliterating the +distinctions drawn by the immortal gods, instead of helping the +immortal gods to their observance. + +Thus we are apt to think, and to take the words of Diotima as merely +so much lovely rhetoric. But--as my previous chapters must have led +you to expect--I think we are so far mistaken. I believe that, +although explained in the terms of fantastic, almost mythical +metaphysic, the speech of Diotima contains a great truth, deposited in +the heart of man by the unnoticed innumerable experiences of centuries +and peoples; a truth which exists in ourselves also as an instinctive +expectation, and which the advance of knowledge will confirm and +explain. For in that pellucid atmosphere of the Greek mind, untroubled +as yet by theoretic mists, there may have been visible the very things +which our scientific instruments are enabling us to see and +reconstruct piecemeal, great groupings of reality metamorphosed into +Fata Morgana cities seemingly built by the gods. + +And thus I am going to try to reinstate in others' belief, as it is +fully reinstated in my own, the theory of higher æsthetic harmonies, +which the prophetess of Mantineia taught Socrates: to wit, that +through the contemplation of true beauty we may attain, by the +constant purification--or, in more modern language, the constant +selecting and enriching--of our nature, to that which transcends +material beauty; because the desire for harmony begets the habit of +harmony, and the habit thereof begets its imperative desire, and thus +on in never-ending alternation. + + +II. + +Perhaps the best way of expounding my reasons will be to follow the +process by which I reached them; for so far from having started with +the theory of Diotima, I found the theory of Diotima, when I re-read +it accidentally after many years' forgetfulness, to bring to +convergence the result of my gradual experience. + + * * * * * + +Thinking about the Hermes of Olympia, and the fact that so far he is +pretty well the only Greek statue which historical evidence +unhesitatingly gives us as an original masterpiece, it struck me that, +could one become really familiar with him, could eye and soul learn +all the fulness of his perfection, we should have the true +starting-point for knowledge of the antique, for knowledge, in great +measure, of all art. + +Yes, and of more than art, or rather of art in more than one relation. + +Is this a superstition, a mere myth, perhaps, born of words? I think +not. Surely if we could really arrive at knowing such a masterpiece, +so as to feel rather than see its most intimate organic principles, +and the great main reasons separating it from all inferior works and +making it be itself: could we do this, we should know not merely what +art is and should be, but, in a measure, what life should be and might +become: what are the methods of true greatness, the sensations of true +sanity. + +It would teach us the eternal organic strivings and tendencies of our +soul, those leading in the direction of life, leading away from death. + +If this seems mere allegory and wild talk, let us look at facts and +see what art is. For is not art inasmuch as untroubled by the +practical difficulties of existence, inasmuch as the free, unconscious +attempt of all nations and generations to satisfy, outside life, those +cravings which life still leaves unsatisfied--is not art a delicate +instrument, showing in its sensitive oscillations the most intimate +movements and habits of the soul? Does it not reveal our most +recondite necessities and possibilities, by sifting and selecting, +reinforcing or attenuating, the impressions received from without; +showing us thereby how we must stand towards nature and life, how we +must feel and be? + +And this most particularly in those spontaneous arts which, first in +the field, without need of adaptations of material or avoidance of the +already done, without need of using up the rejected possibilities of +previous art, or awakening yet unknown emotions, are the simple, +straightforward expression, each the earliest satisfactory one in its +own line, of the long unexpressed, long integrated, organic wants and +wishes of great races of men: the arts, for instance, which have given +us that Hermes, Titian's pictures, and Michael Angelo's and Raphael's +frescoes; given us Bach, Gluck, Mozart, the serener parts of +Beethoven, music of yet reserved pathos, braced, spring-like strength, +learned, select: arts which never go beyond the universal, averaged +expression of the soul's desires, because the desires themselves are +sifted, limited to the imperishable and unchangeable, like the +artistic methods which embody them, reduced to the essential by the +long delay of utterance, the long--century long--efforts to utter. + +Becoming intimate with such a statue as the Olympian Hermes, and +comparing the impressions received from it with the impressions both +of inferior works of the same branch of art and with the impressions +of equally great works--pictures, buildings, musical compositions--of +other branches of art, becoming conversant with the difference between +an original and a copy, great art and poor art, we gradually become +aware of a quality which exists in all good art and is absent in all +bad art, and without whose presence those impressions summed up as +beauty, dignity, grandeur, are never to be had. This peculiarity, +which most people perceive and few people define--explaining it away +sometimes as _truth_, or taking it for granted under the name of +_quality_--this peculiarity I shall call for convenience' sake +harmony; for I think you will all of you admit that the absence or +presence of harmony is what distinguishes bad art from good. Harmony, +in this sense--and remember that it is this which connoisseurs most +usually allude to as _quality_--harmony may be roughly defined as the +organic correspondence between the various parts of a work of art, the +functional interchange and interdependence thereof. In this sense there +is harmony in every really living thing, for otherwise it could not live. +If the muscles and limbs, nay, the viscera and tissues, did not adjust +themselves to work together, if they did not in this combination +establish a rhythm, a backward-forward, contraction-relaxation, +taking-in-giving-out, diastole-systole in all their movements, there +would be, instead of a living organism, only an inert mass. In all +living things, and just in proportion as they are really alive (for in +most real things there is presumably some defect of rhythm tending to +stoppage of life), there is bound to be this organic interdependence +and interchange. Natural selection, the survival of such individuals +and species as best work in with, are most rhythmical to, their +surroundings--natural selection sees to that. + + +III. + +In art the place of natural selection is taken by man's selection; and +all forms of art which man keeps and does not send into limbo, all art +which man finds suitable to his wants, rhythmical with his habits, +must have that same quality of interdependence of parts, of +interchange of function. Only in the case of art, the organic +necessity refers not to outer surroundings, but to man's feeling; in +fact, man's emotion constitutes necessity towards art, as surrounding +nature constitutes necessity for natural objects. Now man requires +organic harmony, that is, congruity and co-ordination of processes, +because his existence, the existence of every cell of him, depends +upon it, is one complete microcosm of interchange, of give-and-take, +diastole-systole, of rhythm and harmony; and therefore all such things +as give him impressions of the reverse thereof, go against him, and in +a greater or lesser degree, threaten, disturb, paralyse, in a way +poison or maim him. Hence he is for ever seeking such congruity, such +harmony; and his artistic creativeness is conditioned by the desire +for it, nay, is perhaps mainly seeking to obtain it. Whenever he +spontaneously and truly creates artistic forms, he obeys the imperious +vital instinct for congruity; nay, he seeks to eke out the +insufficient harmony between himself and the things which he _cannot_ +command, the insufficient harmony between the uncontrollable parts of +himself, by a harmony created on purpose in the things which he _can_ +control. To a large extent man feels himself tortured by discordant +impressions coming from the world outside and the world inside him; +and he seeks comfort and medicine in harmonious impressions of his own +making, in his own strange inward-outward world of art. + +This, I think, is the true explanation of that much-disputed-over +_ideal_, which, according to definitions, is perpetually being +enthroned and dethroned as the ultimate aim of all art: the ideal, +the imperatively clamoured-for mysterious something, is neither +conformity to an abstract idea, nor conformity to actual reality, nor +conformity to the typical, nor conformity to the individual; it is, I +take it, simply conformity to man's requirements, to man's inborn and +peremptory demand for greater harmony, for more perfect co-ordination +and congruity in his feelings. + +Now, when, in the exercise of the artistic instincts, mankind are +partially obeying some other call than this one--the desire for money, +fame, or for some intellectual formula--things are quite different, +and there is no production of what I have called harmony. There is no +congruity when even great people set about doing pseudo-antique +sculpture in Canova-Thorwaldsen fashion because Winckelmann and Goethe +have made antique sculpture fashionable; there is no congruity when +people set to building pseudo-Gothic in obedience to the romantic +movement and to Ruskin. For neither the desire for making a mark, nor +the most conscientious pressure of formula gives that instinct of +selection and co-ordination characterising even the most rudimentary +artistic efforts in the most barbarous ages, when men are impelled +merely and solely by the æsthetic instinct. Moreover, where people do +not want and need (as they want and need food or drink or warmth or +coolness) one sort of effect, that is to say, one arrangement of +impressions rather than another, they are sure to be deluded by the +mere arbitrary classification, the mere _names_ of things. They will +think that smooth cheeks, wavy hair, straight noses, limbs of such or +such measure, attitude, and expression, set so, constitute the +Antique; that clustered pillars, cross vaulting, spandrils, and Tudor +roses make Gothic. But the Antique quality is the particular and all +permeating relation between all its items; and Gothic the particular +and all permeating relation between those other ones; and unless you +aim at the _specific emotion_ of Antique or Gothic, unless you feel +the imperious call for the special harmony of either, all the +measurements and all the formulas will not avail. While, on the +contrary, people without any formula or any attempt at imitation, like +the Byzantine architects and those of the fifteenth century, merely +because they are obeying their own passionate desire for congruity of +impressions, for harmony of structure and function, will succeed in +creating brand-new, harmonious, organic art out of the actual details, +sometimes the material ruins, of an art which has passed away. + +If we become intimate with any great work of art, and intimate in so +far with the thoughts and emotions it awakens in ourselves, we shall +find that it possesses, besides this congruity within itself which +assimilates it to all really living things, a further congruity, not +necessarily found in real objects, but which forms the peculiarity of +the work of art, a congruity with ourselves; for the great work of art +is vitally connected with the habits and wants, the whole causality +and rhythm of mankind; it has been fitted thereto as the boat to the +sea. + + +IV. + +In this manner can we learn from art the chief secret of life: the +secret of action and reaction, of causal connection, of suitability of +part to part, of organism, interchange, and growth. + +And when I say _learn_, I mean learn in the least official and the +most efficacious way. I do not mean merely that, looking at a statue +like the Hermes, a certain fact is borne in upon our intelligence, the +fact of all vitality being dependent on harmony. I mean that perhaps, +nay probably, without any such formula, our whole nature becomes +accustomed to a certain repeated experience, our whole nature becomes +adapted thereunto, and acts and reacts in consequence, by what we call +intuition, instinct. It is not with our intellect alone that we +possess such a fact, as we might intellectually possess that twice two +is four, or that Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII., knowing +casually what we may casually also forget; we possess, in such a way +that forgetting becomes impossible, with our whole soul and our whole +being, re-living that fact with every breath that we draw, with every +movement we make, the first great lesson of art, that vitality means +harmony. Let us look at this fact, and at its practical applications, +apart from all æsthetic experience. + +All life is harmony; and all improvement in ourselves is therefore, +however unconsciously, the perceiving, the realising, or the +establishing of harmonies, more minute or more universal. Yes, curious +and unpractical as it may seem, harmonies, or, under their humbler +separate names--arrangements, schemes, classifications, are the chief +means for getting the most out of all things, and particularly the +most out of ourselves. + +For they mean, first of all, unity of means for the attaining of unity +of effect, that is to say, incalculable economy of material, of time, +and of effort; and secondly, unity of effect produced, that is to say, +economy even greater in our power of perceiving and feeling: nothing +to eliminate, nothing against whose interruptions we waste our energy, +our power of becoming more fit in the course of striving. + +When there exists harmony one impression leads to, enhances another; +we, on the other hand, unconsciously recognise at once what is doing +to us, what we in return must do; the mood is indicated, fulfilled, +consummated; in plenitude we feel, we are; and in plenitude of feeling +and being, we, in our turn, _do_. Neither is such habit of harmony, of +scheme, of congruity, a mere device for sucking the full sweetness out +of life, although, heaven knows, that were important enough. As much +as such a habit husbands, and in a way multiplies, life's sweetness; +so likewise does it husband and multiply man's power. For there is no +quicker and more thorough mode of selecting among our feelings and +thoughts than submitting them to a standard of congruity; nothing more +efficacious than the question: "Is such or such a notion or proceeding +harmonious with what we have made the rest of our life, with what we +wish our life to be?" This is, in other words, the power of the +_ideal_, the force of _ideas_, of thought-out, recognised habits, as +distinguished from blind helter-skelter impulse. This is what welds +life into one, making its forces work not in opposition but in +concordance; this is what makes life consecutive, using the earlier +act to produce the later, tying together existence in an organic +fatality of _must be_: the fatality not of the outside and the +unconscious, but of the conscious, inner, upper man. Nay, it is what +makes up the _Ego_. For the _ego_, as we are beginning to understand, +is no mysterious separate entity, still less a succession of +disconnected, conflicting, blind impulses; the _ego_ is the congruous, +perceived, nay, thought-out system of habits, which feels all +incongruity towards itself as accidental and external. Hence, when we +ask which are the statements we believe in, we answer instinctively +(logic being but a form of congruity) those statements which accord +with themselves and with other statements; when we ask, which are the +persons we trust? we answer, those persons whose feelings and actions +are congruous with themselves and with the feelings and actions of +others. And, on the contrary, it is in the worthless, in the +degenerate creature, that we note moods which are destructive to one +another's object, ideas which are in flagrant contradiction; and it is +in the idiot, the maniac, the criminal, that we see thoughts +disconnected among themselves, perceptions disconnected with +surrounding objects, and instincts and habits incompatible with those +of other human beings. Nay, if we look closely, we shall recognise, +moreover, that those emotions of pleasure are the healthy, the safe +ones, which are harmonious not merely in themselves (as a musical note +is composed of even vibrations), but harmonious with all preceding and +succeeding pleasures in ourselves, and harmonious, congruous, with the +present and future pleasures in others. + + +V. + +The instinct of congruity, of subordination of part to whole, the +desire for harmony which is fostered above all things by art, is one +of the most precious parts of our nature, if only, obeying its own +tendency to expand, we apply it to ever wider circles of being; not +merely to the accessories of living, but to life itself. + +For this love of harmony and order leads us to seek what is most +necessary in our living: a selection of the congruous, an arrangement +of the mutually dependent in our thoughts and feelings. + +Much of the work of the universe is done, no doubt, by what seems the +exercise of mere random energy, by the thinking of apparently +disconnected thoughts and the feeling of apparently sporadic impulses; +but if the thought and the impulse remained really disconnected and +sporadic, half would be lost and half would be distorted. It is one of +the economical adaptations of nature that every part of us tends not +merely to be consistent with itself, to eliminate the hostile, to +beget the similar, but tends also to be connected with other parts; so +that, action coming in contact with action, thought in contact with +thought, and feeling in contact with feeling, each single one will be +strengthened or neutralised by the other. And it is the especial +business of what we may call the central consciousness, the dominant +thought or emotion, to bring these separate thoughts and impulses, +these separate groups thereof, into more complex relations, to +continue on a far vaster scale that vital contact, that trying of all +things by the great trial of affinity or repulsion, of congruity or +incongruity. Thus we make trial of ourselves; and by the selfsame +process, by the test of affinity and congruity, the silent forces of +the universe make trial of _us_, rejecting or accepting, allowing us, +our thoughts, our feelings to live and be fruitful, or condemning us +and them to die in barrenness. + +Whither are we going? In what shape shall the various members of our +soul proceed on their journey; which forming the van, which the rear +and centre? Or shall there be neither van, nor rear, nor wedge-like +forward flight? + +If this question remains unasked or unanswered, our best qualities, +our truest thoughts and purest impulses, may be hopelessly scattered +into distant regions, become defiled in bad company, or, at least, +barren in isolation; the universal life rejecting or annihilating +them. + +How often do we not see this! Natures whose various parts have rambled +asunder, or have come to live, like strangers in an inn, casually, +promiscuously, each refusing to be his brother's keeper: instincts of +kindliness at various ends, unconnected, unable to coalesce and conquer; +thoughts separated from their kind, incapable of application; and, in +consequence, strange superficial comradeships, shoulder-rubbings of +true and false, good and evil, become indifferent to one another, +incapable of looking each other in the face, careless, unblushing. +Nay, worse. For lack of all word of command, of all higher control, +hostile tendencies accommodating themselves to reign alternate, +sharing the individual in distinct halves, till he becomes like unto +that hero of Gautier's witch story, who was a pious priest one-half of +the twenty-four hours and a wicked libertine the other: all power of +selection, of reaction gone in this passive endurance of conflicting +tendencies; all identity gone, save a mere feeble outsider looking on +at the alternations of intentions and lapses, of good and bad. And the +soul of such a person--if, indeed, we can speak of one soul or one +person where there exists no unity--becomes like a jangle of notes +belonging to different tonalities, alternating and mingling in hideous +confusion for lack of a clear thread of melody, a consistent system of +harmony, to select, reject, and keep all things in place. + +Melody, harmony: the two great halves of the most purely æsthetic of +all arts, symbolise, as we might expect, the two great forces of life: +consecutiveness and congruity, under their different names of +intention, fitness, selection, adaptation. These are what make the +human soul like a conquering army, a fleet freighted with riches, a +band of priests celebrating a rite. And this is what art, by no paltry +formula, but by the indelible teaching of habit, of requirement, and +expectation become part of our very fibre--this is what art can teach +to those who will receive its highest lesson. + + +VI. + +Those who can receive that lesson, that is to say, those in whom it +can expand and ramify to the fulness and complexity which is its very +essence. For it happens frequently enough that we learn only a portion +of this truth, which by this means is distorted into error. We accept +the æsthetic instinct as a great force of Nature; but, instead of +acknowledging it as our master, as one of the great lords of life, of +whom Emerson spoke, we try to make it our servant. We attempt to get +congruity between the details of our everyday existence, and refuse to +seek for congruity between ourselves and the life which is greater +than ours. + +A friend of mine, who had many better ways of spending her money, was +unable one day to resist the temptation of buying a beautiful old +majolica inkstand, which, not without a slight qualm of conscience, +she put into a very delightful old room of her house. The room had an +inkstand already, but it was of glass, and modern. "This one is in +harmony with the rest of the room," she said, and felt fully justified +in her extravagance. It is this form, or rather this degree, of +æstheticism, which so often prevents our realising the higher æsthetic +harmonies. In obedience to a perception of what is congruous on a +small scale we often do oddly incongruous things: spend money we ought +to save, give time and thought to trifles while neglecting to come to +conclusions about matters of importance; endure, or even cultivate, +persons with whom we have less than no sympathy; nay, sometimes, from +a keen sense of incongruity, tune down our thoughts and feelings to +the flatness of our surroundings. The phenomenon of what may thus +result from a certain æsthetic sensitiveness is discouraging, and I +confess that it used to discourage and humiliate me. But the +philosophy which the prophetess of Mautineia taught Socrates settles +the matter, and solves, satisfactorily what in my mind I always think +of as the question of the majolica inkstand. + +Diotima, you will remember, did not allow her disciple to remain +engrossed in the contemplation of one kind of beauty, but particularly +insisted that he should use various fair forms as steps by which to +ascend to the knowledge of ever higher beauties. And this I should +translate into more practical language by saying that, in questions +like that of the majolica inkstand, we require not a lesser +sensitiveness to congruity, but a greater; that we must look not +merely at the smaller, but at the larger items of our life, asking +ourselves, "Is this harmonious? or is it, seen in some wider +connection, even like that clumsy glass inkstand in the oak panelled +and brocade hung room?" If we ask ourselves this, and endeavour to +answer it faithfully--with that truthfulness which is itself an item +of _consistency_--we may find that, strange as it may seem, the glass +inkstand, ugly as it is in itself, and out of harmony with the +furniture, is yet more congruous, and that we actually prefer it to +the one of majolica. + +And it is in connection with this that I think that many persons who +are really æsthetic, and many more who imagine themselves to be so, +should foster a wholesome suspicion of the theory which makes it a +duty to accumulate certain kinds of possessions, to seek exclusively +certain kinds of impressions, on the score of putting beauty and +dignity into our lives. + +Put beauty, dignity, harmony, serenity into our lives. It sounds very +fine. But _can_ we? I doubt it. We may put beautiful objects, +dignified manners, harmonious colours and shapes, but can we put +dignity, harmony, or beauty? Can we put them into an individual life; +can anything be put into an individual life save furniture and +garments, intellectual as well as material? For an individual life, +taken separately, is a narrow, weak thing at the very best; and +everything we can put into it, everything we lay hold of for the sake +of putting in, must needs be small also, merely the chips or dust of +great things; or if it have life, must be squeezed, cut down, made so +small before it can fit into that little receptacle of our egoism, +that it will speedily be a dead, dry thing: thoughts once thought, +feelings once felt, now neither thought nor felt, merely lying there +inert, as a dead fact, in our sterile self. Do we not see this on all +sides, examples of life into which all the dignified things have been +crammed and all the beautiful ones, and which despite the statues, +pictures, poems, and symphonies within its narrow compass, is yet so +far from dignified or beautiful? + +But we need not trouble about dignity and beauty coming to our life so +long as we veritably and thoroughly _live_; that is to say, so long as +we try not to put anything into our life, but to put our life into the +life universal. The true, expanding, multiplying life of the spirit +will bring us in contact, we need not fear, with beauty and dignity +enough, for there is plenty such in creation, in things around us, and +in other people's souls; nay, if we but live to our utmost power the +life of all things and all men, seeing, feeling, understanding for the +mere joy thereof, even our individual life will be invested with +dignity and beauty in our own eyes. + +But furniture will not do it, nor dress, nor exquisite household +appointments; nor any of the things, books, pictures, houses, parks, +of which we can call ourselves owners. I say _call_ ourselves: for can +we be sure we really possess them? And thus, if we think only of our +life, and the decking thereof, it is only furniture, garments, and +household appointments we can deal with; for beauty and dignity cannot +be confined in so narrow a compass. + + +VII. + +I have spoken so far of the conscious habit of harmony, and of its +conscious effect upon our conduct. I have tried to show that the +desire for congruity, which may seem so trivial a part of mere +dilettanteist superfineness, may expand and develop into such love of +harmony between ourselves and the ways of the universe as shall make +us wince at other folks' loss united to our gain, at our +deterioration united to our pleasure, even as we wince at a false note +or a discordant arrangement of colours. + +But there is something more important than conscious choice, and +something more tremendous than definite conduct, because conscious +choice and conduct are but its separate and plainly visible results. I +mean unconscious way of feeling and organic way of living: that which, +in the language of old-fashioned medicine, we might call the +complexion or habit of the soul. + +This is undoubtedly affected by conscious knowledge and reason, as it +undoubtedly manifests itself in both. But it is, I believe, much more +what we might call a permanent emotional condition, a particular way +of feeling, of reacting towards the impressions given us by the +universe. And I believe that the individual is sound, that he is +capable of being happy while increasing the happiness of others, or +the reverse, according as he reacts harmoniously or inharmoniously +towards those universal impressions. And here comes in what seems to +me the highest benefit we can receive from art and from the æsthetic +activities, which, as I have said before, are in art merely +specialised and made publicly manifest. + + +VIII. + +The habit of beauty, of harmony, is but the habit, engrained in our +nature by the unnoticed experiences of centuries, of _life_ in our +surroundings and in ourselves; the habit of beauty is the habit, I +believe scientific analysis of nature's ways and means will show +us--of the growing of trees, the flowing of water, the perfect play +of perfect muscles, all registered unconsciously in the very structure +of our soul. And for this reason every time we experience afresh the +particular emotion associated with the quality _beautiful_, we are +adding to that rhythm of life within ourselves by recognising the life +of all things. There is not room within us for two conflicting waves +of emotion, for two conflicting rhythms of life, one sane and one +unsound. The two may possibly alternate, but in most cases the weaker +will be neutralised by the stronger; and, at all events, they cannot +co-exist. We can account, only in this manner, for the indisputable +fact that great emotion of a really and purely æsthetic nature has a +morally elevating quality, that as long as it endures--and in finer +organisations its effect is never entirely lost--the soul is more +clean and vigorous, more fit for high thoughts and high decisions. All +understanding, in the wider and more philosophical sense, is but a +kind of becoming: our soul experiences the modes of being which it +apprehends. Hence the particular religious quality (all faiths and +rituals taking advantage thereof) of a high and complex æsthetic +emotion. Whenever we come in contact with real beauty, we become +aware, in an unformulated but overwhelming manner, of some of the +immense harmonies of which all beauty is the product, of which all +separate beautiful things are, so to speak, the single patterns +happening to be in our line of vision, while all around other patterns +connect with them, meshes and meshes of harmonies, spread out, outside +our narrow field of momentary vision, an endless web, like the +constellations which, strung on their threads of mutual dependence, +cover and fill up infinitude. + +In the moments of such emotional perception, our soul also, ourselves, +become in a higher degree organic, alive, receiving and giving out the +life of the universe; come to be woven into the patterns of harmonies, +made of the stuff of reality, homogeneous with themselves, +consubstantial with the universe, like the living plant, the flowing +stream, the flying cloud, the great picture or statue. + +And in this way is realised, momentarily, but with ever-increasing +power of repetition, that which, after the teaching of Diotima, +Socrates prayed for--"the harmony between the outer and the inner +man." + +But this, I know, many will say, is but a delusion. Rapture is +pleasant, but it is not necessarily, as the men of the Middle Ages +thought, a union with God. And is this the time to revive, or seek to +revive, when science is for ever pressing upon us the conclusion that +soul is a function of matter--is this the time to revive discredited +optimistic idealisms of an unscientific philosophy? + +But if science become omniscient, it will surely recognise and explain +the value of such recurring optimistic idealisms; and if the soul be a +function of matter, will not science recognise but the more, that the +soul is an integral and vitally dependent portion of the material +universe? + + +IX. + +Be this as it may, one thing seems certain, that the artistic +activities are those which bring man into emotional communion with +external nature; and that such emotional communion is necessary for +man's thorough spiritual health. Perception of cause and effect, +generalisation of law, reduces the universe indeed to what man's +intellect can grasp; but in the process of such reduction to the laws +of man's thought, the universe is shorn of its very power to move +man's emotion and overwhelm his soul. The abstract which we have made +does not vivify us sufficiently. And the emotional communion of man +with nature is through those various faculties which we call æsthetic. +It is not to no purpose that poetry has for ever talked to us of skies +and mountains and waters; we require, for our soul's health, to think +about them otherwise than with reference to our material comfort and +discomfort; we require to feel that they and ourselves are brethren +united by one great law of life. And what poetry suggests in explicit +words, bidding us love and be united in love to external nature; art, +in more irresistible because more instinctive manner, forces upon our +feelings, by extracting, according to its various kinds, the various +vital qualities of the universe, and making them act directly upon our +mind: rhythms of all sorts, static and dynamic, in the spatial arts of +painting and sculpture; in the half spatial, half temporal art of +architecture: in music, which is most akin to life, because it is the +art of movement and change. + + +X. + +We can all remember moments when we have seemed conscious, even to +overwhelming, of this fact. In my own mind it has become indissolubly +connected with a certain morning at Venice, listening to the organ in +St. Mark's. + +Any old and beautiful church gives us all that is most moving and +noblest--organism, beauty, absence of all things momentary and +worthless, exclusion of grossness, of brute utility and mean +compromise, equality of all men before God; moreover, time, eternity, +the past, and the great dead. All noble churches give us this; how +much more, therefore, this one, which is noblest and most venerable! + +It has, like no other building, been handed over by man to Nature; +Time moulding and tinting into life this structure already so organic, +so fit to live. For its curves and vaultings, its cupolas mutually +supported, the weight of each carried by all; the very colour of the +marbles, brown, blond, living colours, and the irregular symmetry, +flower-like, of their natural patterning, are all seemingly organic and +ready for life. Time has added that, with the polish and dimming +alternately of the marbles, the billowing of the pavement, the +slanting of the columns, and last, but not least, the tarnishing of +the gold and the granulating of the mosaic into an uneven surface: the +gold seeming to have become alive and in a way vegetable, and to have +faded and shrunk like autumn leaves. + + +XI. + +The morning I speak of they were singing some fugued composition by I +know not whom. How well that music suited St. Mark's! The constant +interchange of vault and vault, cupola and cupola, column and column, +handing on their energies to one another; the springing up of new +details gathered at once into the great general balance of lines and +forces; all this seemed to find its natural voice in that fugue, to +express, in that continuous revolution of theme chasing, enveloping +theme, its own grave emotion of life everlasting: Being, becoming; +becoming, being. + + +XII. + +It is such an alternation as this, ceaseless, rhythmic, which +constitutes the upward life of the soul: that life of which the wise +woman of Mantineia told Socrates that it might be learned through +faithful and strenuous search for ever widening kinds of beauty, the +"life above all," in the words of Diotima, "which a man should live." + +The life which vibrates for ever between being better and conceiving +of something better still; between satisfaction in harmony and craving +for it. The life whose rhythm is that of happiness actual and +happiness ideal, alternating for ever, for ever pressing one another +into being, as the parts of a fugue, the dominant and the tonic. +Being, becoming; becoming, being; idealising, realising; realising, +idealising. + + + + +BEAUTY AND SANITY. + + +I. + +Out of London at last; at last, though after only two months! Not, +indeed, within a walk of my clump of bay-trees on the Fiesole hill; +but in a country which has some of that Tuscan grace and serene +austerity, with its Tweed, clear and rapid in the wide shingly bed, +with its volcanic cones of the Eildons, pale and distinct in the +distance: river and hills which remind me of the valley where the +bay-trees grow, and bring to my mind all that which the bay-trees +stand for. + +There is always something peculiar in these first hours of finding +myself once more alone, once more quite close to external things; the +human jostling over, an end, a truce at least, to "all the neighbours' +talk with man and maid--such men--all the fuss and trouble of street +sounds, window-sights" (how he knew these things, the poet!); once +more in communion with the things which somehow--nibbled grass and +stone-tossed water, yellow ragwort in the fields, blue cranesbill +along the road, big ash-trees along the river, sheep, birds, sunshine, +and showers--somehow contrive to keep themselves in health, to live, +grow, decline, die, be born again, without making a mess or creating a +fuss. The air, under the grey sky, is cool, even cold, with infinite +briskness. And this impression of briskness, by no means excluded by +the sense of utter isolation and repose, is greatly increased by a +special charm of this place, the quantity of birds to listen to and +watch; great blackening flights of rooks from the woods along the +watercourses and sheltered hillsides (for only solitary ashes and +wind-vexed beeches will grow in the open); peewits alighting with +squeals in the fields; blackbirds and thrushes in the thick coverts (I +found a poor dead thrush with a speckled chest like a toad, laid out +among the beech-nuts); wagtails on the shingle, whirling over the +water, where the big trout and salmon leap; every sort of swallow; +pigeons crossing from wood to wood; wild duck rattling up, and +seagulls circling above the stream; nay, two herons, standing +immovable, heraldic, on the grass among the sheep. + +In such moments, with that briskness transferred into my feelings, +life seems so rich and various. All pleasant memories come to my mind +like tunes, and with real tunes among them (making one realise that +the greatest charm of music is often when no longer materially +audible). Pictures also of distant places, tones of voice, glance of +eyes of dear friends, visions of pictures and statues, and scraps of +poems and history. More seems not merely to be brought to me, but more +to exist, wherewith to unite it all, within myself. + +Such moments, such modes of being, ought to be precious to us; they +and every impression, physical, moral, æsthetic, which is akin to +them, and we should recognise their moral worth. Since it would seem +that even mere bodily sensations, of pure air, bracing temperature, +vigor of muscles, efficiency of viscera, accustom us not merely to +health of our body, but also, by the analogies of our inner workings, +to health of our soul. + + +II. + +How delicate an organism, how alive with all life's dangers, is the +human character; and how persistently do we consider it as the thing +of all others most easily forced into any sort of position, most +safely handled in ignorance! Surely some of the misery, much of the +waste and deadlock of the world are due to our all being made of such +obscure, unguessed at material; to our not knowing it betimes, and +others not admitting it even late in the day. When, for instance, +shall we recognise that the bulk of our psychic life is unconscious or +semi-unconscious, the life of long-organised and automatic functions; +and that, while it is absurd to oppose to these the more recent, +unaccustomed and fluctuating activity called _reason_, this same +reason, this conscious portion of ourselves, may be usefully employed +in understanding those powers of nature (powers of chaos sometimes) +within us, and in providing that these should turn the wheel of life +in the right direction, even like those other powers of nature outside +us, which reason cannot repress or alter, but can understand and put +to profit. Instead of this, we are ushered into life thinking +ourselves thoroughly conscious throughout, conscious beings of a +definite and stereotyped pattern; and we are set to do things we do +not understand with mechanisms which we have never even been shown: +Told to be good, not knowing why, and still less guessing how! + +Some folk will answer that life itself settles all that, with its +jostle and bustle. Doubtless. But in how wasteful, destructive, +unintelligent, and cruel a fashion! Should we be satisfied with this +kind of surgery, which cures an ache by random chopping off a limb; +with this elementary teaching, which saves our body from the fire by +burning our fingers? Surely not; we are worth more care on our own +part. + +The recognition of this, and more especially of the manner in which we +may be damaged by dangers we have never thought of as dangers, our +souls undermined and made boggy by emotions not yet classified, brings +home to me again the general wholesomeness of art; and also the fact +that, wholesome as art is, in general, and, compared with the less +abstract activities of our nature, there are yet differences in art's +wholesomeness, there are categories of art which can do only good, and +others which may also do mischief. + +Art, in so far as it moves our fancies and emotions, as it builds up +our preferences and repulsions, as it disintegrates or restores our +vitality, is merely another of the great forces of nature, and we +require to select among its activities as we select among the +activities of any other natural force.... When, I wonder, I wonder, +will the forces _within_ us be recognised as natural, in the same +sense as those _without_; and our souls as part of the universe, +prospering or suffering, according to which of its rhythms they +vibrate to: the larger rhythm, which is for ever increasing, and which +means happiness; the smaller, for ever slackening, which means +misery? + + +III. + +But since life has got two rhythms, why should art have only one? Our +poor mankind by no means always feel braced, serene, and energetic; +and we are far from necessarily keeping step with the movements of the +universe which imply happiness. + +Let alone the fact of wretched circumstances beyond our control, of +natural decay and death, and loss of our nearest and dearest; the +universe has made it excessively difficult, nay, impossible, for us to +follow constantly its calm behest, "Be as healthy as possible." It is +all very fine to say _be healthy_. Of course we should be willing +enough. But it must be admitted that the Powers That Be have not +troubled about making it easy. Be healthy indeed! When health is so +nicely balanced that it is at the mercy of a myriad of microscopic +germs, of every infinitesimal increase of cold or heat, or damp or +dryness, of alternations of work and play, oscillation of want and +excess incalculably small, any of which may disturb the beautiful +needle-point balance and topple us over into disease. Such Job's +comforting is one of the many sledge-hammer ironies with which the +Cosmos diverts itself at our expense; and of course the Cosmos may +permit itself what it likes, and none of us can complain. But is it +possible for one of ourselves, a poor, sick, hustled human being, to +take up the jest of the absentee gods of Lucretius, and say to his +fellow-men: "Believe me, you would do much better to be quite healthy, +and quite happy?" + +And, as art is one of mankind's modes of expressing itself, why in the +world should we expect it to be the expression only of mankind's +health and happiness? Even admitting that the very existence of the +race proves that the healthy and happy states of living must on the +whole preponderate (a matter which can, after all, not be proved so +easily), even admitting that, why should mankind be allowed artistic +emotions only at those moments, and requested not to express itself or +feel artistically during the others? Bay-trees are delightful things, +no doubt, and we are all very fond of them off and on. But why must we +pretend to enjoy them when we don't; why must we hide the fact that +they sometimes irritate or bore us, and that every now and then we +very much prefer--well, weeping-willows, upas-trees, and all the livid +or phosphorescent eccentricities of the various _fleurs du mal_? + +Is it not stupid thus to "blink and shut our apprehension up?" Nay, +worse, is it not positively heartless, brutal? + + +IV. + +This argument, I confess, invariably delights and humiliates me: it is +so full of sympathy for all sorts and conditions of men, and so +appreciative of what is and what is not. It is so very human and +humane. There is in it a sort of quite gentle and dignified Prometheus +Vinctus attitude towards the Powers That Be; and Zeus, with his +thunderbolts and chains, looks very much like a brute by contrast. + +But what is to be done? Zeus exists with his chains and thunderbolts, +and all the minor immortals, lying down, colossal, dim, like mountains +at night, at Schiller's golden tables, each with his fine attribute, +olive-tree, horse, lyre, sun and what not, by his side; also his own +particular scourge, plague, dragon, wild boar, or sea monster, ready +to administer to recalcitrant, insufficiently pious man. And the gods +have it their own way, call them what you will, children of Chaos or +children of Time, dynasty succeeding dynasty, but only for the same +old gifts and same old scourges to be handed on from one to the other. + +In more prosaic terms, we cannot get loose of nature, the nature of +ourselves; we cannot get rid of the fact that certain courses, certain +habits, certain preferences are to our advantage, and certain others +to our detriment. And therefore, to return to art, and to the various +imaginative and emotional activities which I am obliged to label by +that very insufficient name, we cannot get rid of the fact that, +however much certain sorts of art are the natural expression of +certain recurring and common states of being; however much certain +preferences correspond to certain temperaments or conditions, we must +nevertheless put them aside as much as possible, and give our +attention to the opposite sorts of art and the opposite sorts of +preference, for the simple reason that the first make us less fit for +life and less happy in the long run, while the second make us more fit +and happier. + +It is a question not of what we _are_, but of what _we shall be_. + + +V. + +A distinguished scientific psychologist, who is also a psychologist in +the unscientific sense, and who writes of Intellect and Will less in +the spirit (and, thank heaven, less in the style) of Mr. Spencer than +in that of Monsieur de Montaigne, has objected to music (and, I +presume, in less degree to other art) that it runs the risk of +enfeebling the character by stimulating emotions without affording +them a corresponding outlet in activity. I agree (as will be seen +farther on) that music more particularly may have an unwholesome +influence, but not for the reason assigned by Professor James, who +seems to me to mistake the nature and functions of artistic emotion. + +I doubt very much whether any non-literary art, whether even music has +the power, in the modern man, of stimulating tendencies to action. It +may have had in the savage, and may still have in the civilised child; +but in the ordinary, cultivated grown-up person, the excitement +produced by any artistic sight, sound, or idea will most probably be +used up in bringing to life again some of the many millions of sights, +sounds, and ideas which lie inert, stored up in our mind. The artistic +emotion will therefore not give rise to an active impulse, but to that +vague mixture of feelings and ideas which we call a _mood_; and if any +alteration occur in subsequent action, it will be because all external +impressions must vary according to the mood of the person who receives +them, and consequently undergo a certain selection, some being allowed +to dominate and lead to action, while others pass unnoticed, are +neutralised or dismissed. + +More briefly, it seems to me that artistic emotion is of practical +importance, not because it discharges itself in action, but, on the +contrary, because it produces a purely internal rearrangement of our +thoughts and feelings; because, in short, it helps to form +concatenations of preferences, habits of being. + +Whether or not Mr. Herbert Spencer be correct in deducing all artistic +activities from our primæval instincts of play, it seems to me certain +that these artistic activities have for us adults much the same +importance as the play activities have for a child. They represent the +only perfectly free exercise, and therefore, free development, of our +preferences. Now, everyone will admit, I suppose, that it is extremely +undesirable that a child should amuse itself acquiring unwholesome +preferences and evil habits, indulging in moods which will make it or +its neighbours less comfortable out of play-time? + +Mind, I do not for a moment pretend that art is to become the +conscious instrument of morals, any more than (Heaven forbid!) play +should become the conscious preparation of infant virtue. All I +contend is that if some kinds of infant amusement result in damage, we +suppress them as a nuisance; and that, if some kinds of art +disorganise the soul, the less we have of them the better. + +Moreover, the grown-up human being is so constituted, is so full of +fine connections and analogies throughout his nature, that, while the +sense of emulation and gain lends such additional zest to his +amusements, the sense of increasing spiritual health and power, +wherever it exists, magnifies almost incredibly the pleasure derivable +from beautiful impressions. + + +VI. + +The persons who maintained just now (and who does not feel a +hard-hearted Philistine for gainsaying them?) that we have no right to +ostracise, still less to stone, unwholesome kinds of art, make much of +the fact that, as we are told in church, "We have no health in us." +But it is the recognition of this lack of health which hardens my +heart to unwholesome persons and things. If we must be wary of what +moods and preferences we foster in ourselves, it is because so few of +us are congenitally sound--perhaps none without some organic weakness; +and because, even letting soundness alone, very few of us lead lives +that are not, in one respect or another, strained or starved or +cramped. Gods and archangels might certainly indulge exclusively in +the literature and art for which Baudelaire may stand in this +discussion. But gods and archangels require neither filters nor +disinfectants, and may slake their thirst in the veriest decoction of +typhoid. + + +VII. + +The Greeks, who were a fortunate mixture of Conservatives and +Anarchists, averred that the desire for the impossible (I do not +quote, for, alas! I should not understand the quotation) is a disease +of the soul. + +It is not, I think, the desire for the impossible (since few can tell +what seems impossible, and fewer care for what indubitably is so) so +much as the desire for the topsy-turvy. Baudelaire, who admired +persons thus afflicted, has a fine line: + + "De la réalité grands esprits contempteurs"; + +but what they despised was not the real, but the usual. Now the usual, +of the sort thus despised, happens to represent the necessities of our +organisms and of that wider organism which we call circumstances. We +may modify it, always in the direction in which it tends spontaneously +to evolve; but we cannot subvert it. You might as well try to subvert +gravitation: "Je m'en suis aperçu étant par terre," is the only +result, as in Molière's lesson of physics. + + +VIII. + +Also, when you come to think of it, there is nothing showing a finer +organisation in the incapacity for finding sugar sweet and vinegar +sour. The only difference is that, as sugar happens to be sweet and +vinegar sour, an organisation which perceives the reverse is at sixes +and sevens with the universe, or a bit of the universe; and, exactly +to the extent to which this six-and-sevenness prevails, is likely to +be mulcted of some of the universe's good things. + +How may I bring this home, without introducing a sickly atmosphere of +decadent art and literature into my valley of the bay-trees? And yet, +an instance is needed. Well; there is an old story, originating +perhaps in Suetonius, handed on by Edgar Poe, and repeated, with +variations, by various modern French writers, of sundry persons who, +among other realities, despise the fact that sheets and table-linen +are usually white; and show the subtlety of their organisation (the +Emperor Tiberius, a very subtle person, was one of the earliest to +apply the notion) by taking their sleep and food in an arrangement of +black materials; a sort of mourning warehouse of beds and +dining-tables. + +Now this means simply that these people have bought "distinction" at +the price of one of mankind's most delightful birthrights, the +pleasure in white, the queen, as Leonardo put it, of all colours. Our +minds, our very sensations are interwoven so intricately of all manner +of impressions and associations, that it is no allegory to say that +white is good, and that the love of white is akin somehow to the love +of virtue. For the love of white has come to mean, thanks to the +practice of all centuries and to the very structure of our nerves, +strength, cleanness, and newness of sensation, capacity for +re-enjoying the already enjoyed, for preferring the already preferred, +for discovering new interest and pleasureableness in old things, +instead of running to new ones, as one does when not the old ones are +exhausted, but one's own poor vigour. The love of white means, +furthermore, the appreciation of certain circumstances, delightful and +valuable in themselves, without which whiteness cannot be present: in +human beings, good health and youth and fairness of life; in houses +(oh! the white houses of Cadiz, white between the blue sky and blue +sea!), excellence of climate, warmth, dryness and clearness of air; +and in all manner of household goods and stuff, care, order, +daintiness of habits, leisure and affluence. All things these which, +quite as much as any peculiarity of optic function, give for the +healthy mind a sort of restfulness, of calm, of virtue, and I might +almost say, of regal or priestly quality to white; a quality which +suits it to the act of restoring our bodies with food and wine, above +all, to the act of spiritual purification, the passing through the +cool, colourless, stainless, which constitutes true sleep. + +All this the Emperor Tiberius and his imitators forego with their +bogey black sheets and table-cloths.... + + +IX. + +But what if we _do not care for white_? What if we are so constituted +that its insipidity sickens _us_ as much as the most poisonous and +putrescent colours which Blake ever mixed to paint hell and sin? Nay, +if those grumous and speckly viscosities of evil green, orange, poppy +purple, and nameless hues, are the only things which give us any +pleasure? + +Is it a reason, because you arcadian Optimists of Evolution extract, +or imagine you extract, some feeble satisfaction out of white, that we +should pretend to enjoy it, and the Antique and Outdoor Nature, and +Early Painters, and Mozart and Gluck, and all the whitenesses physical +and moral? You say we are abnormal, unwholesome, decaying; very good, +then why should we not get pleasure in decaying, unwholesome, and +abnormal things? We are like the poison-monger's daughter in Nathaniel +Hawthorne's story. Other people's poison is our meat, and we should be +killed by an antidote; that is to say, bored to death, which, in our +opinion, is very much worse. + +To this kind of speech, common since the romantic and pre-Raphaelite +movement, and getting commoner with the spread of theories of +intellectual anarchy and nervous degeneracy, one is often tempted to +answer impatiently, "Get out of the way, you wretched young people; +don't you see that there isn't room or time for your posing?" + +But unfortunately it is not all pose. There are a certain number of +people who really are _bored with white_; for whom, as a result of +constitutional morbidness, of nervous exhaustion, or of that very +disintegration of soul due to unwholesome æsthetic self-indulgence, to +the constant quest for violent artistic emotion, our soul's best food +has really become unpalatable and almost nauseous. These people cannot +live without spiritual opium or alcohol, although that opium or +alcohol is killing them by inches. It is absurd to be impatient with +them. All one can do is to let them go in peace to their undoing, and +hope that their example will be rather a warning than a model to +others. + + +X. + +But, letting alone the possibility of art acting as a poison for the +soul, there remains an important question. As I said, although art is +one of the most wholesome of our soul's activities, there are yet +kinds of art, or (since it is a subjective question of profit or +damage to ourselves) rather kinds of artistic effect, which, for some +evident reason, or through some obscure analogy or hidden point of +contact awaken those movements of the fancy, those states of the +emotions which disintegrate rather than renew the soul, and accustom +us rather to the yielding and proneness which we shun, than to the +resistance and elasticity which we seek throughout life to increase. + +I was listening, last night, to some very wonderful singing of modern +German songs; and the emotion that still remains faintly within me +alongside of the traces of those languishing phrases and passionate +intonations, the remembrance of the sense of--how shall I call +it?--violation of the privacy of the human soul which haunted me +throughout that performance, has brought home to me, for the hundredth +time, that the Greek legislators were not so fantastic in considering +music a questionable art, which they thought twice before admitting +into their ideal commonwealths. For music can do more by our emotions +than the other arts, and it can, therefore, separate itself from them +and their holy ways; it can, in a measure, actually undo the good they +do to our soul. + +But, you may object, poetry does the very same; it also expresses, +strengthens, brings home our human, momentary, individual emotions, +instead of uniting with the arts of visible form, with the harmonious +things of nature, to create for us another kind of emotion, the +emotion of the eternal, unindividual, universal life, in whose +contemplation our souls are healed and made whole after the +disintegration inflicted by what is personal and fleeting. + +It is true that much poetry expresses merely such personal and momentary +emotion; but it does so through a mechanism differing from that of music, +and possessing a saving grace which the emotion-compelling mechanism +of music does not. For by the very nature of the spoken or written +word, by the word's strictly intellectual concomitants, poetry, even +while rousing emotion, brings into play what is most different to +emotion, emotion's sifter and chastener, the great force which reduces +all things to abstraction, to the eternal and typical: reason. You +cannot express in words, even the most purely instinctive, +half-conscious feeling, without placing that dumb and blind emotion in +the lucid, balanced relations which thought has given to words; +indeed, words rarely, if ever, reproduce emotion as it is, but +instead, emotion as it is instinctively conceived, in its setting of +cause and effect. Hence there is in all poetry a certain reasonable +element which, even in the heyday of passion, makes us superior to +passion by explaining its why and wherefore; and even when the poet +succeeds in putting us in the place of him who feels, we enter only +into one-half of his personality, the half which contemplates while +the other suffers: we _know_ the feeling, rather than _feel_ it. + +Now, it is different with music. Its relations to our nerves are such +that it can reproduce emotion, or, at all events, emotional moods, +directly and without any intellectual manipulation. We weep, but know +not why. Its specifically artistic emotion, the power it shares with +all other arts of raising our state of consciousness to something more +complete, more vast, and more permanent--the specific musical emotion +of music can become subservient to the mere awakening of our latent +emotional possibilities, to the stimulating of emotions often +undesirable in themselves, and always unable, at the moment, to find +their legitimate channel, whence enervation and perhaps degradation of +the soul. There are kinds of music which add the immense charm, the +subduing, victorious quality of art, to the power of mere emotion as +such; and in these cases we are pushed, by the delightfulness of +beauty and wonder, by the fascination of what is finer than ourselves, +into deeper consciousness of our innermost, primæval, chaotic self: +the stuff in which soul has not yet dawned. We are made to enjoy what +we should otherwise dread; and the dignity of beauty, and beauty's +frankness and fearlessness, are lent to things such as we regard, +under other circumstances, as too intimate, too fleeting, too obscure, +too unconscious, to be treated, in ourselves and our neighbours, +otherwise than with decorous reserve. + +It is astonishing, when one realises it, that the charm of music, the +good renown it has gained in its more healthful and more decorous +days, can make us sit out what we do sit out under its influence: +violations of our innermost secrets, revelations of the hidden +possibilities of our own nature and the nature of others; stripping +away of all the soul's veils; nay, so to speak, melting away of the +soul's outward forms, melting away of the soul's active structure, its +bone and muscle, till there is revealed only the shapeless primæval +nudity of confused instincts, the soul's vague viscera. + +When music does this, it reverts, I think, towards being the nuisance +which, before it had acquired the possibilities of form and beauty it +now tends to despise, it was felt to be by ancient philosophers and +law-givers. At any rate, it sells its artistic birthright. It +renounces its possibility of constituting, with the other great arts, +a sort of supplementary contemplated nature; an element wherein to +buoy up and steady those fluctuations which we express in speech; a +vast emotional serenity, an abstract universe in which our small and +fleeting emotions can be transmuted, and wherein they can lose +themselves in peacefulness and strength. + + +XI. + +I mentioned this one day to my friend the composer. His answer is +partly what I was prepared for: this emotionally disintegrating +element ceases to exist, or continues to exist only in the very +slightest degree, for the real musician. The effect on the nerves is +overlooked, neutralised, in the activity of the intellect; much as the +emotional effect of the written word is sent into the background by +the perception of cause and effect which the logical associations of +the word produce. For the composer, even for the performer, says my +friend, music has a logic of its own, so strong and subtle as to +overpower every other consideration. + +But music is not merely for musicians; the vast majority will always +receive it not actively through the intellect, but passively through +the nerves; the mood will, therefore, be induced before, so to speak, +the image, the musical structure, is really appreciated. And, +meanwhile, the soul is being made into a sop. + +"For the moment," answers my composer, "perhaps; but only for the +moment. Once the nerves accustomed to those modulations and rhythms; +once the form perceived by the mind, the emotional associations will +vanish; the hearer will have become what the musician originally +was.... How do you know that, in its heyday, all music may not have +affected people as Wagner's music affects them nowadays? What proof +have you got that the strains of Mozart and Gluck, nay, those of +Palestrina, which fill our soul with serenity, may not have been full +of stress and trouble when they first were heard; may not have laid +bare the chaotic elements of our nature, brought to the surface its +primæval instincts? Historically, all you know is that Gluck's +_Orpheus_ made our ancestors weep; and that Wagner's _Tristram_ makes +our contemporaries sob...." + +This is the musician's defence. Does it free his art from my rather +miserable imputation? I think not. If all this be true, if _Orpheus_ +has been what _Tristram_ is, all one can say is _the more's the pity_. +If it be true, all music would require the chastening influence of +time, and its spiritual value would be akin to that of the Past and +Distant; it would be innocuous, because it had lost half of its +vitality. We should have to lay down music, like wine, for the future; +poisoning ourselves with the acrid fumes of its must, the heady, +enervating scent of scum and purpled vat, in order that our children +might drink vigour and warmth after we were dead. + + +XII. + +But I doubt very much whether this is true. It is possible that the +music of Wagner may eventually become serene like the music of Handel; +but was the music of Handel ever morbid like the music of Wagner? + +I do not base my belief on any preference from Handel's +contemporaries. We may, as we are constantly being told, be +_degenerates_; but there was no special grace whence to degenerate in +our perruked forefathers. Moreover, I believe that any very +spontaneous art is to a very small degree the product of one or even +two or three generations of men. It has been growing to be what it is +for centuries and centuries. Its germ and its necessities of organism +and development lie far, far back in the soul's world-history; and it +is but later, if at all, when the organic growth is at an end, that +times and individuals can fashion it in their paltry passing image. +No; we may be as strong and as pure as Handel's audiences, and our +music yet be less strong and pure than theirs. + +My reason for believing in a fundamental emotional difference between +that music and ours is of another sort. I think that in art, as in all +other things, the simpler, more normal interest comes first, and the +more complex, less normal, follows when the simple and normal has +become, through familiarity, the insipid. While pleasure unspiced by +pain is still a novelty there is no reason thus to spice it. + + +XIII. + +The question can, however, be tolerably settled by turning over the +means which enable music to awaken emotion--emotion which we recognise +as human, as distinguished from the mere emotion of pleasure attached +to all beautiful sights and sounds. Once we have understood what these +means are, we can enquire to what extent they are employed in the +music of various schools and epochs, and thus judge, with some chance +of likelihood, whether the music which strikes us as serene and +vigorous could have affected our ancestors as turbid and enervating. + +'Tis a dull enough psychological examination; but one worth making, +not merely for the sake of music itself, but because music, being the +most emotional of all the arts, can serve to typify the good or +mischief which all art may do, according to which of our emotions it +fosters. + + * * * * * + +'Tis repeating a fact in different words, not stating anything new, to +say that all beautiful things awaken a specific sort of emotion, the +emotion or the mood of the beautiful. Yet this statement, equivalent +to saying that hot objects give us the sensation of heat, and wet +objects the sensation of wetness, is well worth repeating, because we +so often forget that the fact of beauty in anything is merely the fact +of that thing setting up in ourselves a very specific feeling. + + * * * * * + +Now, besides this beauty or quality producing the emotion of the +beautiful, there exist in things a lot of other qualities also +producing emotion, each according to its kind; or rather, the +beautiful thing may also be qualified in some other way, as the thing +which is useful, useless, old, young, common, rare, or whatever you +choose. And this coincidence of qualities produces a coincidence of +states of mind. We shall experience the feeling not merely of beauty +because the thing is beautiful, but also of surprise because it is +startling, of familiarity because we meet it often, of attraction +(independently of beauty) because the thing suits or benefits us, or +of repulsion (despite the beauty) because the thing has done us a bad +turn or might do us one. This is saying that beauty is only one of +various relations possible between something not ourselves and our +feelings, and that it is probable that other relations between them +may exist at the same moment, in the same way that a woman may be a +man's wife, but also his cousin, his countrywoman, his school-board +representative, his landlady, and his teacher of Latin, without one +qualification precluding the others. + +Now, in the arts of line, colour, and projection, the arts which +usually copy the appearance of objects existing outside the art, these +other qualities, these other relations between ourselves and the +object which exists in the relation of beauty, are largely a matter of +superficial association--I mean, of association which may vary, and of +which we are most often conscious. + +We are reminded by the picture or statue of qualities which do not +exist in it, but in its prototype in reality. A certain face will +awaken disgust when seen in a picture, or reverence or amusement, +besides the specific impression of beauty (or its reverse), because we +have experienced disgust, awe, amusement in connection with a similar +face outside the picture. + +So far, therefore, as art is imitative, its non-artistic emotional +capacities are due (with a very few exceptions) to association; for +the feelings traceable directly to fatigue or disintegration of the +perceptive faculty usually, indeed almost always, prevent the object +from affecting us as beautiful. It is quite otherwise when we come to +music. Here the coincidence of other emotion resides, I believe, not +in the _musical thing itself_, not in the musician's creation without +prototype in reality, resembling nothing save other musical +structures; the coincidence resides in the elements out of which that +structure is made, and which, for all its complexities, are still very +strongly perceived by our senses. For instance, certain rhythms +existing in music are identical with, or analogous to, the rhythm of +our bodily movements under varying circumstances: we know +alternations of long and short, variously composed regularities and +irregularities of movement, fluctuations, reinforcements or +subsidences, from experience other than that of music; we know them in +connection with walking, jumping, dragging; with beating of heart and +arteries, expansion of throat and lungs; we knew them, long before +music was, as connected with energy or oppression, sickness or health, +elation or depression, grief, fear, horror, or serenity and happiness. +And when they become elements of a musical structure their +associations come along with them. And these associations are the more +powerful that, while they are rudimentary, familiar like our own +being, perhaps even racial, the musical structure into which they +enter is complete, individual, _new_: 'tis comparing the efficacy of, +say, Mozart Op. So-and-so, with the efficacy of somebody sobbing or +dancing in our presence. + +So far for the associational power of music in awakening emotions. But +music has another source of such power over us. Existing as it does in +a sequence, it is able to give sensations which the arts dealing with +space, and not with time, could not allow themselves, since for them a +disagreeable effect could never prelude an agreeable one, but merely +co-exist with it; whereas for music a disagreeable effect is +effaceable by an agreeable one, and will even considerably heighten +the latter by being made to precede it. Now we not merely associate +fatigue or pain with any difficult perception, we actually feel it; we +are aware of real discomfort whenever our senses and attention are +kept too long on the stretch, or are stimulated too sharply by +something unexpected. In these cases we are conscious of something +which is exhausting, overpowering, unendurable if it lasted: +experiences which are but too familiar in matters not musical, and, +therefore, evoke the remembrance of such non-musical discomfort, which +reacts to increase the discomfort produced by the music; the reverse +taking place, a sense of freedom, of efficiency, of strength arising +in us whenever the object of perception can be easily, though +energetically, perceived. Hence intervals which the ear has difficulty +in following, dissonances to which it is unaccustomed, and phrases too +long or too slack for convenient scansion, produce a degree of +sensuous and intellectual distress, which can be measured by the +immense relief--relief as an acute satisfaction--of return to easier +intervals, of consonance, and of phrases of normal rhythm and length. + +Thus does it come to pass that music can convey emotional suggestions +such as painting and sculpture, for all their imitations of reality, +can never match in efficacy; since music conveys the suggestions not +of mere objects which may have awakened emotion, but of emotion +itself, of the expression thereof in our bodily feelings and +movements. And hence also the curious paradox that musical emotion is +strong almost in proportion as it is vague. A visible object may, and +probably will, possess a dozen different emotional values, according +to our altering relations therewith; for one relation, one mood, one +emotion succeeds and obliterates the other, till nothing very potent +can remain connected with that particular object. But it matters not +how different the course of the various emotions which have expressed +themselves in movements of slackness, agitation, energy, or confusion; +it matters not through what circumstances our vigour may have leaked +away, our nerves have been harrowed, our attention worn out, so long +as those movements, those agitations, slackenings, oppressions, +reliefs, fatigues, harrowings, and reposings are actually taking place +within us. In briefer phrase, while painting and sculpture present us +only with objects possibly connected with emotions, but probably +connected with emotions too often varied to affect us strongly; music +gives us the actual bodily consciousness of emotion; nay (in so far as +it calls for easy or difficult acts of perception), the actual mental +reality of comfort or discomfort. + + +XIV. + +The emotion uppermost in the music of all these old people is the +specific emotion of the beautiful; the emotional possibilities, latent +in so many elements of the musical structure, never do more than +qualify the overwhelming impression due to that structure itself. The +music of Handel and Bach is beautiful, with a touch of awe; that of +Gluck, with a tinge of sadness; Mozart's and his contemporaries' is +beautiful, with a reminiscence of all tender and happy emotions; then +again, there are the great Italians of the seventeenth and eighteenth +centuries, Carissimi, Scarlatti the elder, Marcello, whose musical +beauty is oddly emphasised with energy and sternness, due to their +powerful, simple rhythms and straightforward wide intervals. But +whatever the emotional qualification, the chief, the never varying, +all-important characteristic, is the beauty; the dominant emotion is +the serene happiness which beauty gives: happiness, strong and +delicate; increase of our vitality; evocation of all cognate beauty, +physical and moral, bringing back to our consciousness all that which +is at once wholesome and rare. For beauty such as this is both +desirable and, in a sense, far-fetched; it comes naturally to us, and +we meet it half-way; but it does not come often enough. + +Hence it is that the music of these masters never admits us into the +presence of such feelings as either were better not felt, or at all +events, not idly witnessed. There is not ever anything in the joy or +grief suggested by this music, in the love of which it is an +expression, which should make us feel abashed in feeling or +witnessing. The whole world may watch _Orpheus_ or _Alcestis_, as the +whole world may stand (with Bach or Pergolese to make music) at the +foot of the Cross. But may the whole world sit idly watching the +raptures and death-throes of Tristram and Yseult? + +Surely the world has grown strangely intrusive and unblushing. + + +XV. + +I have spoken of this old music as an expression of love; and this, in +the face of the emotional effects of certain modern composers, may +make some persons smile. + +Perhaps I should rather have said that this old music expresses, above +everything else, the _lovable_; for does not eminent beauty inevitably +awaken love, either as respect or tenderness; the lovable, +_loveliness_? And at the same time the love itself such loveliness +awakens. Love far beyond particular cases or persons, fitting all +noble things, real and imaginary, complex or fragmentary. Love as a +lyric essence. + + +XVI. + +But why not more than merely that? I used at one time to have frequent +discussions on art and life with a certain poor friend of mine, who +should have found sweetness in both, giving both sweetness in return, +but, alas, did neither. We were sitting in the fields where the +frost-bitten green was just beginning to soften into minute starlike +buds and mosses, and the birds were learning to sing in the leafless +lilac hedgerows, the sunshine, as it does in spring, seeming to hold +the world rather than merely to pour on to it. "You see," said my +friend, "you see, there is a fundamental difference between us. You +are satisfied with what you call _happiness_; but I want _rapture and +excess_." + +Alas, a few years later, the chance of happiness had gone. That door +was opened, of which Epictetus wrote that we might always pass through +it; in this case not because "the room was too full of smoke," but, +what is sadder by far, because the room was merely whitewashed and +cleanly swept. + +But those words "rapture and excess," spoken in such childlike +simplicity of spirit, have always remained in my mind. Should we not +teach our children, among whom there may be such as that one was, that +the best thing life can give is just that despised thing _happiness_? + + +XVII. + +Now art, to my mind, should be one of our main sources of happiness; +and under the inappropriate word _art_, I am obliged, as usual, to +group all such activities of soul as deal with beauty, quite as much +when it exists in what is (in this sense) not art's antithesis, but +art's origin and completion, nature. Nay, art--the art exercised by +the craftsman, but much more so the art, the selecting, grouping +process performed by our own feelings--art can do more towards our +happiness than increase the number of its constituent items: it can +mould our preferences, can make our souls more resisting and flexible, +teach them to keep pace with the universal rhythm. + +Now, there is not room enough in the world, and not stuff enough in +us, for much rapture, or for any excess. The space, as it were, the +material which these occupy and exhaust, has to be paid for; rapture +is paid for by subsequent stinting, and excess by subsequent +bankruptcy. + +We all know this in even trifling matters; the dulness, the lassitude +or restlessness, the incapacity for enjoyment following any very acute +or exciting pleasure. A man after a dangerous ride, a girl after her +first wildly successful ball, are not merely exhausted in body and in +mind; they are momentarily deprived of the enjoyment of slighter +emotions; 'tis like the inability to hear one's own voice after +listening to a tremendous band. + +The gods, one might say in Goethian phrase, did not intend us to share +their own manner of being; or, if you prefer it, in the language of +Darwin or Weissmann, creatures who died of sheer bliss, were unable to +rear a family and to found a species. Be it as it may, rapture must +needs be rare, because it destroys a piece of us (makes our precious +piece of chagrin skin, as in Balzac's story, shrink each time). And, +as we have seen, it destroys (which is more important than destruction +of mere life) our sensibility to those diffuse, long-drawn, gentle, +restorative pleasures which are not merely durable, but, because they +invigorate our spirit, are actually reproductive of themselves, +multiplying, like all sane desirable things, like grain and fruit, +ten-fold. Pleasures which I would rather call, but for the cumbersome +words, items of happiness. It is therefore no humiliating circumstance +if art and beauty should be unable to excite us like a game of cards, +a steeplechase, a fight, or some violent excitement of our senses or +our vanity. This inability, on the contrary, constitutes our chief +reason for considering our pleasure in beautiful sights, sounds, and +thoughts, as in a sense, holy. + + +XVIII. + +Yesterday morning, riding towards the cypress woods, I had the first +impression of spring; and, in fact, to-day the first almond-tree had +come out in blossom on our hillside. + +A cool morning; loose, quickly moving clouds, and every now and then a +gust of rain swept down from the mountains. The path followed a brook, +descending in long, steep steps from the hillside; water perfectly +clear, bubbling along the yellow stones between the grassy banks and +making now and then a little leap into a lower basin; along the stream +great screens of reeds, sere, pale, with barely a pennon of leaves, +rustling ready for the sickle; and behind, beneath the watery sky, +rainy but somehow peaceful, the russet oak-scrub of the hill. Of +spring there was indeed visible only the green of the young wheat +beneath the olives; not a bud as yet had moved. And still, it is +spring. The world is renewing itself. One feels it in the gusts of +cool, wet wind, the songs of the reeds, the bubble of the brook; one +feels it, above all, in oneself. All things are braced, elastic, ready +for life. + + + + +THE ART AND THE COUNTRY. + +TUSCAN NOTES. + + "... all these are inhabitants of truly mountain cities, Florence + being as completely among the hills as Innsbruck is, only the + hills have softer outlines."--_Modern Painters_, iv., chap. xx. + + +I. + +Sitting in the January sunshine on the side of this Fiesole hill, +overlooking the opposite quarries (a few long-stalked daisies at my +feet in the gravel, still soft from the night's frost), my thoughts +took the colour and breath of the place. They circled, as these paths +circle round the hill, about those ancient Greek and old Italian +cities, where the cyclopean walls, the carefully-terraced olives, +followed the tracks made first by the shepherd's and the goat's foot, +even as we see them now on the stony hills all round. What +civilisations were those, thus sowed on the rock like the wild mint +and grey myrrh-scented herbs, and grown under the scorch of sun upon +stone, and the eddy of winds down the valleys! They are gone, +disappeared, and their existence would be impossible in our days. But +they have left us their art, the essence they distilled from their +surroundings. And that is as good for our souls as the sunshine and +the wind, as the aromatic scent of the herbs of their mountains. + + +II. + +I am tempted to think that the worst place for getting to know, +getting to _feel_, any school of painting, is the gallery, and the +best, perhaps, the fields: the fields (or in the case of the +Venetians, largely the waters), to which, with their qualities of air, +of light, their whole train of sensations and moods, the artistic +temperament, and the special artistic temperament of a local school, +can very probably be traced. + +For to appreciate any kind of art means, after all, not to understand +its relations with other kinds of art, but to feel its relations with +ourselves. It is a matter of living, thanks to that art, according to +the spiritual and organic modes of which it is an expression. Now, to +go from room to room of a gallery, allowing oneself to be played upon +by very various kinds of art, is to prevent the formation of any +definite mood, and to set up what is most hostile to all mood, to all +unity of being: comparison, analysis, classification. You may know +quite exactly the difference between Giotto and Simon Martini, between +a Ferrarese and a Venetian, between Praxiteles and Scopas; and yet be +ignorant of the meaning which any of these might have in your life, +and unconscious of the changes they might work in your being. And +this, I fear, is often the case with connoisseurs and archæologists, +accounting for the latent suspicion of the ignoramus and the good +philistine, that such persons are somehow none the better for their +intercourse with art. + +All art which is organic, short of which it cannot be efficient, +depends upon tradition. To say so sounds a truism, because we rarely +realise all that tradition implies: on the side of the artist, _what +to do_, and on the side of his public, _how to feel_: a habit, an +expectation which accumulates the results of individual creative +genius and individual appreciative sensibility, giving to each its +greatest efficacy. When one remembers, in individual instances--Kant, +Darwin, Michel Angelo, Mozart--how very little which is absolutely +new, how slight a variation, how inevitable a combination, marks, +after all, the greatest strokes of genius in all things, it seems +quite laughable to expect the mediocre person, mere looker-on or +listener, far from creative, to reach at once, without a similar +sequence of initiation, a corresponding state of understanding and +enjoyment. But, as a rule, this thought does not occur to us; and, +while we expatiate on the creative originality of artists and poets, +we dully take for granted the instant appreciation of their creation; +forgetting, or not understanding, in both cases, the wonderful +efficacy of tradition. + +As regards us moderns, for whom the tradition of, say, Tuscan art has +so long been broken off or crossed by various other and very different +ones--as regards ourselves, I am inclined to think that we can best +recover it by sympathetic attention to those forms of art, humbler or +more public, which must originally have prepared and kept up the +interest of the people for whom the Tuscan craftsmen worked. + +Pictures and statues, even in a traditional period, embody a large +amount of merely personal peculiarities of individual artists, +testifying to many activities--imitation, self-assertion, +rivalry--which have no real æsthetic value. And, during the fifteenth +century and in Tuscany especially, the flow of traditional æsthetic +feeling is grievously altered and adulterated by the merest scientific +tendencies: a painter or sculptor being often, in the first instance, +a student of anatomy, archæology or perspective. One may, therefore, +be familiar for twenty years with Tuscan Renaissance painting or +sculpture, and yet remain very faintly conscious of the special +æsthetic character, the _virtues_ (in the language of herbals) of +Tuscan art. Hence I should almost say, better let alone the pictures +and statues until you are sufficiently acquainted with the particular +quality lurking therein to recognise, extricate and assimilate it, +despite irrelevant ingredients. Learn the _quality_ of Tuscan art from +those categories of it which are most impersonal, most traditional, +and most organic and also freer from scientific interference, say +architecture and decoration; and from architecture rather in its +humble, unobtrusive work than in the great exceptional creations which +imply, like the cupola of Florence, the assertion of a personality, +the surmounting of a difficulty, and even the braving of other folks' +opinion. I believe that if one learned, not merely to know, but to +feel, to enjoy very completely and very specifically, the quality of +distinctness and reserve, slightness of means and greatness of +proportions, of the domestic architecture and decoration of the +fifteenth century, if one made one's own the mood underlying the +special straight lines and curves, the symmetry and hiatus of the +colonnades, for instance, inside Florentine houses; of the little bits +of carving on escutcheon and fireplace of Tuscan hillside farms; let +alone of the plainest sepulchral slabs in Santa Croce, one would be +in better case for really appreciating, say, Botticelli or Pier della +Francesca than after ever so much comparison of their work with that +of other painters. For, through familiarity with that humbler, more +purely impersonal and traditional art, a certain mode of being in +oneself, which is the special æsthetic mood of the Tuscan's would have +become organised and be aroused at the slightest indication of the +qualities producing it, so that their presence would never escape one. +This, I believe, is the secret of all æsthetic training: the growing +accustomed, as it were automatically, to respond to the work of art's +bidding; to march or dance to Apollo's harping with the irresistible +instinct with which the rats and the children followed the pied +piper's pipe. This is the æsthetic training which quite unconsciously +and incidentally came to the men of the past through daily habit of +artistic forms which existed and varied in the commonest objects just +as in the greatest masterpieces. And through it alone was the highest +art brought into fruitful contact with even the most everyday persons: +the tradition which already existed making inevitable the tradition +which followed. + +But to return to us moderns, who have to reconstitute deliberately a +vanished æsthetic tradition, it seems to me that such familiarity with +Tuscan art once initiated, we can learn more, producing and canalising +its special moods, from a frosty afternoon like this one on the +hillside, with its particular taste of air, its particular line of +shelving rock and twisting road and accentuating reed or cypress in +the delicate light, than from hours in a room where Signorelli and +Lippi, Angelico and Pollaiolo, are all telling one different things +in different languages. + + +III. + +These thoughts, and the ones I shall try to make clear as I go on, +began to take shape one early winter morning some ten years ago, while +I was staying among the vineyards in the little range of hills which +separate the valley of the Ombrone from the lower valley of the Arno. +Stony hills, stony paths between leafless lilac hedges, stony outlines +of crest, fringed with thin rosy bare trees; here and there a few +bright green pines; for the rest, olives and sulphur-yellow sere vines +among them; the wide valley all a pale blue wash, and Monte Morello +opposite wrapped in mists. It was visibly snowing on the great +Apennines, and suddenly, though very gently, it began to snow here +also, wrapping the blue distance, the yellow vineyards, in thin veils. +Brisk cold. At the house, when I returned from my walk, the children +were flattened against the window-panes, shouting for joy at the snow. +We grown-up folk, did we live wiser lives, might be equally delighted +by similar shows. + +A very Tuscan, or rather (what I mean when I make use of that word, +for geographically Tuscany is very large and various) a very +Florentine day. Beauty, exquisiteness, serenity; but not without +austerity carried to a distinct bitingness. And this is the quality +which we find again in all very characteristic Tuscan art. Such a +country as this, scorched in summer, wind-swept in winter, and +constantly stony and uphill, a country of eminently dry, clear, moving +air, puts us into a braced, active, self-restrained mood; there is in +it, as in these frosty days which suit it best, something which gives +life and demands it: a quality of happy effort. The art produced by +people in whom such a condition of being is frequent, must necessarily +reproduce this same condition of being in others. + +Therefore the connection between a country and its art must be sought +mainly in the fact that all art expresses a given state of being, of +emotion, not human necessarily, but vital; that is to say, expresses +not whether we love or hate, but rather _how_ we love or hate, how we +_are_. The mountain forms, colour, water, etc., of a country are +incorporated into its art less as that art's object of representation, +than as the determinant of a given mode of vitality in the artist. +Hence music and literature, although never actually reproducing any +part of them, may be strongly affected by their character. The _Vita +Nuova_, the really great (not merely historically interesting) +passages of the Divine Comedy, and the popular songs of Tigri's +collection, are as much the outcome of these Tuscan mountains and +hills, as is any picture in which we recognise their outlines and +colours. Indeed, it happens that of literal rendering (as +distinguished from ever-present reference to quality of air or light, +to climbing, to rock and stone as such) there is little in the +_Commedia_, none at all in either the old or the more modern lyrics, +and not so much even in painted landscape. The Tuscan backgrounds of +the fifteenth century are _not_ these stony places, sun-burnt or +wind-swept; they are the green lawns and pastures in vogue with the +whole international Middle Ages, but rendered with that braced, +selecting, finishing temper which _is_ the product of those stony +hills. Similarly the Tuscans must have been influenced by the grace, +the sparseness, the serenity of the olive, its inexhaustible vigour +and variety; yet how many of them ever painted it? That a people +should never paint or describe their landscape may mean that they have +not consciously inventoried the items; but it does not mean that they +have not æsthetically, so to speak _nervously_, felt them. Their +quality, their virtue, may be translated into that people's way of +talking of or painting quite different things: the Tuscan quality is a +quality of form, because it is a quality of mood. + + +IV. + +This Tuscan, and more than Attic, quality--for there is something akin +to it in certain Greek archaic sculpture--is to be found, already +perfect and most essential, in the façades of the early mediæval +churches of Pistoia. _Is to be found_; because this quality, tense and +restrained and distributed with harmonious evenness, reveals itself +only to a certain fineness and carefulness of looking. The little +churches (there are four or five of them) belong to the style called +Pisan-Romanesque; and their fronts, carved arches, capitals, lintels, +and doorposts, are identical in plan, in all that the mind rapidly +inventories, with the fronts of the numerous contemporary churches of +Lucca. But a comparison with these will bring out most vividly the +special quality of the Pistoia churches. The Lucchese ones (of some of +which, before their restoration, Mr. Ruskin has left some marvellous +coloured drawings at Oxford) run to picturesqueness and even +something more; they do better in the picture than in the reality, +and weathering and defacement has done much for them. Whereas the +little churches at Pistoia, with less projection, less carving in the +round, few or no animal or clearly floral forms, and, as a rule, +pilasters or half-pillars instead of columns, must have been as +perfect the day they were finished; the subtle balancings and tensions +of lines and curves, the delicate fretting and inlaying of flat +surface pattern, having gained only, perhaps, in being drawn more +clearly by dust and damp upon a softer colour of marble. I have +mentioned these first, because their apparent insignificance--tiny +flat façades, with very little decoration--makes it in a way easier to +grasp the special delicate austerity of their beauty. But they are +humble offshoots, naturally, of two great and complex masterpieces, +and very modest sisters of a masterpiece only a degree less +marvellous: Pisa Cathedral, the Baptistery of Florence and San +Miniato. The wonderful nature of the most perfect of these three +buildings (and yet I hesitate to call it so, remembering the apse and +lateral gables of Pisa) can be the better understood that, standing +before the Baptistery of Florence, one has by its side Giotto's very +beautiful belfry. Looking at them turn about, one finds that the +Gothic boldness of light and shade of the Campanile makes the windows, +pillars and cornices of the Baptistery seem at first very flat and +uninteresting. But after the first time, and once that sense of +flatness overcome, it is impossible to revert to the belfry with the +same satisfaction. The eye and mind return to the greater perfection +of the Baptistery; by an odd paradox there is deeper feeling in those +apparently so slight and superficial carvings, those lintels and +fluted columns of green marble which scarcely cast a shadow on their +ivory-tinted wall. The Tuscan quality of these buildings is the better +appreciated when we take in the fact that their architectural items +had long existed, not merely in the Romanesque, but in the Byzantine +and late Roman. The series of temple-shaped windows on the outside of +the Florence Baptistery and of San Miniato, has, for instance, its +original in the Baptistery of Ravenna and the arch at Verona. What the +Tuscans have done is to perfect the inner and subtler proportions, to +restrain and accentuate, to phrase (in musical language) every detail +of execution. By an accident of artistic evolution, this style of +architecture, rather dully elaborated by a worn-out civilisation, has +had to wait six centuries for life to be put into it by a finer-strung +people at a chaster and more braced period of history. Nor should we +be satisfied with such loose phrases as this, leading one to think, in +a slovenly fashion (quite unsuitable to Tuscan artistic lucidity), +that the difference lay in some vague metaphysical entity called +_spirit_: the spirit of the Tuscan stonemasons of the early Middle +Ages altered the actual tangible forms in their proportions and +details: this spiritual quality affects us in their carved and inlaid +marbles, their fluted pilasters and undercut capitals, as a result of +actual work of eye and of chisel: they altered the expression by +altering the stone, even as the frosts and August suns and trickling +water had determined the expression, by altering the actual surface, +of their lovely austere hills. + + +V. + +The Tuscan quality in architecture must not be sought for during the +hundred years of Gothic--that is to say, of foreign--supremacy and +interregnum. The stonemasons of Pisa and of Florence did indeed apply +their wholly classic instincts to the detail and ornament of this +alien style; and one is struck by the delicacy and self-restraint of, +say, the Tuscan ones among the Scaliger tombs compared with the more +picturesque looseness of genuine Veronese and Venetian Gothic +sculpture. But the constructive, and, so to speak, space enclosing, +principles of the great art of mediæval France were even less +understood by the Tuscan than by any other Italian builders; and, as +the finest work of Tuscan façade architecture was given before the +Gothic interregnum, so also its most noble work, as actual spatial +arrangement, must be sought for after the return to the round arch, +the cupola and the entablature of genuine Southern building. And then, +by a fortunate coincidence (perhaps because this style affords no real +unity to vast naves and transepts), the architectural masterpieces of +the fifteenth century are all of them (excepting, naturally, +Brunelleschi's dome) very small buildings: the Sacristies of S. +Lorenzo and S. Spirito, the chapel of the Pazzi, and the late, but +exquisite, small church of the Carceri at Prato. The smallness of +these places is fortunate, because it leaves no doubt that the sense +of spaciousness--of our being, as it were, enclosed with a great part +of world and sky around us--is an artistic illusion got by +co-ordination of detail, greatness of proportions, and, most of all, +perhaps, by quite marvellous distribution of light. These small +squares, or octagons, most often with a square embrasure for the +altar, seem ample habitations for the greatest things; one would wish +to use them for Palestrina's music, or Bach's, or Handel's; and then +one recognises that their actual dimensions in yards would not +accommodate the band and singers and the organ! Such music must remain +in our soul, where, in reality, the genius of those Florentine +architects has contrived the satisfying ampleness of their buildings. + +That they invented nothing in the way of architectural ornament, nay, +took their capitals, flutings, cornices, and so forth, most +mechanically from the worst antique, should be no real drawback to +this architecture; it was, most likely, a matter of negative instinct. +For these meagre details leave the mind free, nay, force it rather, to +soar at once into the vaultings, into the serene middle space opposite +the windows, and up into the enclosed heaven of the cupolas. + + +VI. + +The Tuscan sculpture of this period stands, I think, midway between +the serene perfection of the buildings (being itself sprung from the +architecture of the Gothic time), and the splendid but fragmentary +accomplishment of the paintings, many of whose disturbing problems, of +anatomy and anatomic movement, it shared to its confusion. It is not +for beautiful bodily structure or gesture, such as we find even in +poor antiques, that we should go to the Florentine sculptors, save, +perhaps, the two Robbias. It is the almost architectural distribution +of space and light, the treatment of masses, which makes the +immeasurable greatness of Donatello, and gives dignity to his greatest +contemporary, Jacopo della Quercia. And it is again an architectural +quality, though in the sense of the carved portals of Pistoia, the +flutings and fretwork and surface pattern of the Baptistery and S. +Miniato, which gives such poignant pleasure in the work of a very +different, but very great, sculptor, Desiderio. The marvel (for it is +a marvel) of his great monument in Santa Croce, depends not on +anatomic forms, but on the exquisite variety and vivacity of surface +arrangement; the word symphony (so often misapplied) fitting exactly +this complex structure of minute melodies and harmonies of rhythms and +accents in stone. + +But the quality of Tuscan sculpture exists in humbler, often anonymous +and infinitely pathetic work. I mean those effigies of knights and +burghers, coats of arms and mere inscriptions, which constitute so +large a portion of what we walk upon in Santa Croce. Things not much +thought of, maybe, and ruthlessly defaced by all posterity. But the +masses, the main lines, were originally noble, and defacement has only +made their nobleness and tenderness more evident and poignant: they +have come to partake of the special solemnity of stone worn by frost +and sunshine. + + +VII. + +There are a great many items which go to make up Tuscany and the +specially Tuscan mood. The country is at once hilly and mountainous, +but rich in alluvial river valleys, as flat and as wide, very often, +as plains; and the chains which divide and which bound it are as +various as can be: the crystalline crags of Carrara, the washed away +cones and escarpments of the high Apennines, repeating themselves in +counter forts and foothills, and the low, closely packed ridges of the +hills between Florence and Siena. Hence there is always a view, +definite and yet very complex, made up of every variety of line, but +always of clearest perspective: perfect horizontals at one's feet, +perfect perpendiculars opposite the eye, a constant alternation of +looking up and looking down, a never-failing possibility of looking +_beyond_, an outlet everywhere for the eye, and for the breath; and +endless intricacy of projecting spur and engulfed ravine, of valley +above valley, and ridge beyond ridge; and all of it, whether +definitely modelled by stormy lights or windy dryness, or washed to +mere outline by sunshine or mist, always massed into intelligible, +harmonious, and ever-changing groups. Ever changing as you move, hills +rising or sinking as you mount or descend, furling or unfurling as you +go to the right or to the left, valleys and ravines opening or closing +up, the whole country altering, so to speak, its attitude and gesture +as quickly almost, and with quite as perfect consecutiveness, as does +a great cathedral when you walk round it. And, for this reason, never +letting you rest; keeping _you_ also in movement, feet, eyes and +fancy. Add to all this a particular topographical feeling, very strong +and delightful, which I can only describe as that of seeing all the +kingdoms of the earth. In the high places close to Florence (and with +that especial lie of the land everything is a _high place_) a view is +not only of foregrounds and backgrounds, river troughs and mountain +lines of great variety, but of whole districts, or at least +indications of districts--distant peaks making you feel the places at +their feet--which you know to be extremely various: think of the +Carraras with their Mediterranean seaboard, the high Apennines with +Lombardy and the Adriatic behind them, the Siena and Volterra hills +leading to the Maremma, and the great range of the Falterona, with the +Tiber issuing from it, leading the mind through Umbria to Rome! + +The imagination is as active among these Florentine hills as is the +eye, or as the feet and lungs have been, pleasantly tired, delighting +in the moment's rest, after climbing those steep places among the +pines or the myrtles, under the scorch of the wholesome summer sun, or +in the face of the pure, snowy wind. The wind, so rarely at rest, has +helped to make the Tuscan spirit, calling for a certain resoluteness +to resist it, but, in return, taking all sense of weight away, making +the body merge, so to speak, into eye and mind, and turning one, for a +little while, into part of the merely visible and audible. The +frequent possibility of such views as I have tried to define, of such +moments of fulness of life, has given, methinks, the quality of +definiteness and harmony, of active, participated in, greatness, to +the art of Tuscany. + + +VIII. + +It is a pity that, as regards painting, this Tuscan feeling (for +Giottesque painting had the cosmopolitan, as distinguished from local, +quality of the Middle Ages and of the Franciscan movement) should have +been at its strongest just in the century when mere scientific +interest was uppermost. Nay, one is tempted to think that matters were +made worse by that very love of the strenuous, the definite, the +lucid, which is part of the Tuscan spirit. So that we have to pick +out, in men like Donatello, Uccello, Pollaiolo and Verrocchio, nay, +even in Lippi and Botticelli, the fragments which correspond to what +we get quite unmixed and perfect in the Romanesque churches of Pisa, +Florence, and Pistoia, in the sacristies and chapels of Brunelleschi, +Alberti, and Sangallo, and in a hundred exquisite cloisters and +loggias of unnoticed town houses and remote farms. But perhaps there +is added a zest (by no means out of keeping with the Tuscan feeling) +to our enjoyment by the slight effort which is thus imposed upon us: +Tuscan art does not give its exquisiteness for nothing. + +Be this as it may, the beauty of Florentine Renaissance painting must +be sought, very often, not in the object which the picture represents, +but in the mode in which that object is represented. Our habits of +thought are so slovenly in these matters, and our vocabulary so poor +and confused, that I find it difficult to make my exact meaning clear +without some insistence. I am not referring to the mere moral +qualities of care, decision, or respectfulness, though the recognition +thereof adds undoubtedly to the noble pleasure of a work of art; still +less to the technical or scientific lucidity which the picture +exhibits. The beauty of fifteenth-century painting is a visible +quality, a quality of the distribution of masses, the arrangement of +space; above all, of the lines of a picture. But it is independent of +the fact of the object represented being or not what in real life we +should judge beautiful; and it is, in large works, unfortunately even +more separate from such arrangement as will render a complicated +composition intelligible to the mind or even to the eye. The problems +of anatomy, relief, muscular action, and perspective which engrossed +and in many cases harassed the Florentines of the Renaissance, turned +their attention away from the habit of beautiful general composition +which had become traditional even in the dullest and most effete of +their Giottesque predecessors, and left them neither time nor +inclination for wonderful new invention in figure distribution like +that of their contemporary Umbrians. Save in easel pictures, +therefore, there is often a distressing confusion, a sort of dreary +random packing, in the works of men like Uccello, Lippi, Pollaiolo, +Filippino, Ghirlandaio, and even Botticelli. And even in the more +simply and often charmingly arranged easel pictures, the men and women +represented, even the angels and children, are often very far from +being what in real life would be deemed beautiful, or remarkable by +any special beauty of attitude and gesture. They are, in truth, +studies, anatomical or otherwise, although studies in nearly every +case dignified by the habit of a very serious and tender devoutness: +rarely soulless or insolent studio drudgery or swagger such as came +when art ceased to be truly popular and religious. Studies, however, +with little or no selection of the reality studied, and less thought +even for the place or manner in which they were to be used. + +But these studies are executed, however scientific their intention, +under the guidance of a sense and a habit of beauty, subtle and +imperious in proportion, almost, as it is self-unconscious. These +figures, sometimes ungainly, occasionally ill-made, and these +features, frequently homely or marred by some conspicuous ugliness, +are made up of lines as enchantingly beautiful, as seriously +satisfying, as those which surrounded the Tuscans in their landscape. +And it is in the extracting of such beauty of lines out of the +bewildering confusion of huge frescoes, it is in the seeing as +arrangements of such lines the sometimes unattractive men and women +and children painted (and for that matter, often also sculptured) by +the great Florentines of the fifteenth century, that consists the true +appreciation and habitual enjoyment of Tuscan Renaissance painting. +The outline of an ear and muscle of the neck by Lippi; the throw of +drapery by Ghirlandaio; the wide and smoke-like rings of heavy hair by +Botticelli; the intenser, more ardent spiral curls of Verrocchio or +the young Leonardo; all that is flower-like, flame-like, that has the +swirl of mountain rivers, the ripple of rocky brooks, the solemn and +poignant long curves and sudden crests of hills, all this exists in +the paintings of the Florentines; and it is its intrinsic nobility and +exquisiteness, its reminiscence and suggestion of all that is +loveliest and most solemn in nature, its analogy to all that is +strongest and most delicate in human emotion, which we should seek for +and cherish in their works. + + +IX. + +The hour of low lights, which the painters of the past almost +exclusively reproduced, is naturally that in which we recognise +easiest, not only the identity of mood awakened by the art and by the +country, but the closer resemblance between the things which art was +able to do, and the things which the country had already done. Even +more, immediately after sunset. The hills, becoming uniform masses, +assert their movement, strike deep into the valley, draw themselves +strongly up towards the sky. The valleys also, with their purple +darkness, rising like smoke out of them, assert themselves in their +turn. And the sky, the more diaphanous for all this dark solidity +against it, becomes sky more decisively; takes, moreover, colour which +only fluid things can have; turns into washes of pale gold, of palest +tea-rose pink and beryl green. Against this sky the cypresses are +delicately finished off in fine black lacework, even as in the +background of Botticelli's _Spring_, and Leonardo's or Verrocchio's +_Annuniciation_. One understands that those passionate lovers of line +loved the moment of sunset apart even from colour. The ridges of pines +and cypresses soon remain the only distinguishable thing in the +valleys, pulling themselves (as one feels it) rapidly up, like great +prehistoric shapes of Saurians. Soon the sky only and mountains will +exist. Then begins the time, before the starlit night comes to say its +say, when everything grows drowsy, a little vague, and the blurred +mountains go to sleep in the smoke of dusk. Then only, due west, the +great Carrara peaks stand out against the sanguine sky, long pointed +curves and flame-shaped sudden crests, clear and keen beyond the power +of mortal hand to draw. + + +X. + +The quality of such sights as these, as I have more than once +repeated, requires to be diligently sought for, and extricated from +many things which overlay or mar it, throughout nearly the whole of +Florentine Renaissance painting. But by good luck there is one painter +in whom we can enjoy it as subtle, but also as simple, as in the +hills and mountains outlined by sunset or gathered into diaphanous +folds by the subduing radiance of winter moon. I am speaking, of +course, of Pier della Francesca; although an over literal school of +criticism stickles at classing him with the other great Florentines. +Nay, by a happy irony of things, the reasons for this exclusion are +probably those to which we owe the very purity and perfection of this +man's Tuscan quality. For the remoteness of his home on the +southernmost border of Tuscany, and in a river valley--that of the +Upper Tiber--leading away from Florence and into Umbria, may have kept +him safe from that scientific rivalry, that worry and vexation of +professional problems, which told so badly on so many Florentine +craftsmen. And, on the other hand, the north Italian origin of one of +his masters, the mysterious Domenico Veneziano, seems to have given +him, instead of the colouring, always random and often coarse, of +contemporary Florence, a harmonious scheme of perfectly delicate, +clear, and flower-like colour. These two advantages are so distinctive +that, by breaking through the habits one necessarily gets into with +his Florentine contemporaries, they have resulted in setting apart, +and almost outside the pale of Tuscan painting, the purest of all +Tuscan artists. For with him there is no need for making allowances or +disentangling essentials. The vivid organic line need not be sought in +details nor, so to speak, abstracted: it bounds his figures, forms +them quite naturally and simply, and is therefore not thought about +apart from them. And the colour, integral as it is, and perfectly +harmonious, masses the figures into balanced groups, bossiness and +bulk, detail and depth, all unified, co-ordinated, satisfying as in +the sun-merged mountains and shelving valleys of his country; and with +the immediate charm of whiteness as of rocky water, pale blue of +washed skies, and that ineffable lilac, russet, rose, which makes the +basis of all southern loveliness. One thinks of him, therefore, as +something rather apart, a sort of school in himself, or at most with +Domenico, his master, and his follower, della Gatta. But more careful +looking will show that his greatest qualities, so balanced and so +clear in him, are shared--though often masked by the ungainlinesses of +hurried artistic growth--by Pollaiolo, Baldovinetti, Pesellino, let +alone Uccello, Castagno, and Masaccio; are, in a word, Tuscan, +Florentine. But more than by such studies, the kinship and nationality +of Pier della Francesca is proved by reference to the other branches +of Tuscan art: his peculiarities correspond to the treatment of line +and projection by those early stonemasons of the Baptistery and the +Pistoia churches, to the treatment of enclosed spaces and manipulated +light in those fifteenth-century sacristies and chapels, to the +treatment of mass and boundary in the finest reliefs of Donatello and +Donatello's great decorative follower Desiderio. To persons, however, +who are ready to think with me that we may be trained to art in fields +and on hillsides, the essential Tuscan character of Pier della +Francesca is brought home quite as strongly by the particular +satisfaction with which we recognise his pictures in some unlikely +place, say a Northern gallery. For it is a satisfaction, _sui generis_ +and with its own emotional flavour, like that which we experience on +return to Tuscany, on seeing from the train the white houses on the +slopes, the cypresses at the cross roads, the subtler, lower lines of +hills, the blue of distant peaks, on realising once more our depth of +tranquil love for this austere and gentle country. + + +XI. + +Save in the lushness of early summer, Tuscany is, on the whole, pale; +a country where the loveliness of colour is that of its luminousness, +and where light is paramount. From this arises, perhaps, the austerity +of its true summer--summer when fields are bare, grass burnt to +delicate cinnamon and russet, and the hills, with their sere herbs and +bushes, seem modelled out of pale rosy or amethyst light; an austerity +for the eye corresponding to a sense of healthfulness given by steady, +intense heat, purged of all damp, pure like the scents of dry leaves, +of warm, cypress resin and of burnt thyme and myrrh of the stony +ravines and stubbly fields. On such August days the plain and the more +distant mountains will sometimes be obliterated, leaving only the +inexpressible suavity of the hills on the same side as the sun, made +of the texture of the sky, lying against it like transparent and still +luminous shadows. All pictures of such effects of climate are false, +even Perugino's and Claude's, because even in these the eye is not +sufficiently attracted and absorbed away from the foreground, from the +earth to the luminous sky. That effect is the most powerful, sweetest, +and most restorative in all nature perhaps; a bath for the soul in +pure light and air. That is the incomparable buoyancy and radiance of +deepest Tuscan summer. But the winter is, perhaps, even more Tuscan +and more austerely beautiful. I am not even speaking of the fact that +the mountains, with their near snows and brooding blue storms and ever +contending currents of wind and battles and migrations of great +clouds, necessarily make much of winter very serious and solemn, as it +sweeps down their ravines and across their ridges. I am thinking of +the serene winter days of mist and sun, with ranges of hills made of a +luminous bluish smoke, and sky only a more luminous and liquid kind, +and the olives but a more solid specimen, of the mysterious silvery +substance of the world. The marvellous part of it all, and quite +impossible to convey, is that such days are not pensive, but +effulgent, that the lines of the landscape are not blurred, but +exquisitely selected and worked. + + +XII. + +A quality like that of Tuscan art is, as I have once before remarked, +in some measure, abstract; a general character, like that of a +composite photograph, selected and compounded by the repetition of the +more general and the exclusion of more individual features. In so far, +therefore, it is something rather tended towards in reality than +thoroughly accomplished; and its accomplishment, to whatever extent, +is naturally due to a tradition, a certain habit among artists and +public, which neutralises the refractory tendencies of individuals +(the personal morbidness evident, for instance, in Botticelli) and +makes the most of what the majority may have in common--that dominant +interest, let us say, in line and mass. Such being the case, this +Tuscan quality comes to an end with the local art of the middle ages, +and can no longer be found, or only imperfect, after the breaking up +and fusion of the various schools, and the arising of eclectic +personalities in the earliest sixteenth century. After the painters +born between 1450 and 1460, there are no more genuine Tuscans. +Leonardo, once independent of Verrocchio and settled in Lombardy, is +barely one of them; and Michel Angelo never at all--Michel Angelo with +his moods all of Rome or the great mountains, full of trouble, always, +and tragedy. These great personalities, and the other eclectics, +Raphael foremost, bring qualities to art which it had lacked before, +and are required to make its appeal legitimately universal. I should +shrink from judging their importance, compared with the older and more +local and traditional men. Still further from me is it to prefer this +Tuscan art to that, as local and traditional in its way, of Umbria or +Venetia, which stands to this as the most poignant lyric or the +richest romance stands, let us say, to the characteristic quality, +sober yet subtle, of Dante's greatest passages. There is, thank +heaven, wholesome art various enough to appeal to many various healthy +temperaments; and perhaps for each single temperament more than one +kind of art is needful. My object in the foregoing pages has not been +to put forward reasons for preferring the art of the Tuscans any more +than the climate and landscape of Tuscany; but merely to bring home +what the especial charm and power of Tuscan art and Tuscan nature seem +to me to be. More can be gained by knowing any art lovingly in itself +than by knowing twenty arts from each other through dry comparison. + +I have tried to suggest rather than to explain in what way the art of +a country may answer to its natural character, by inducing recurrent +moods of a given kind. I would not have it thought, however, that such +moods need be dominant, or even exist at all, in all the inhabitants +of that country. Art, wide as its appeal may be, is no more a product +of the great mass of persons than is abstract thought or special +invention, however largely these may be put to profit by the +generality. The bulk of the inhabitants help to make the art by +furnishing the occasional exceptionally endowed creature called an +artist, by determining his education and surroundings, in so far as he +is a mere citizen; and finally by bringing to bear on him the +stored-up habit of acquiescence in whatever art has been accepted by +that public from the artists of the immediate past. In fact, the +majority affects the artist mainly as itself has been affected by his +predecessors. If, therefore, the scenery and climate call forth moods +in a whole people definite enough to influence the art, this will be +due, I think, to some especially gifted individual having, at one time +or another, brought home those moods to them. + +Therefore we need feel no surprise if any individual, peasant or man +of business or abstract thinker, reveal a lack, even a total lack, of +such impressions as I am speaking of; nor even if among those who love +art a great proportion be still incapable of identifying those vague +contemplative emotions from which all art is sprung. It is not merely +the special endowment of eye, ear, hand, not merely what we call +artistic talent, which is exceptional and vested in individuals only. +It takes a surplus of sensitiveness and energy to be determined in +one's moods by natural surroundings instead of solely by one's own +wants or circumstances or business. Now art is born of just this +surplus sensitiveness and energy; it is the response not to the +impressions made by our private ways and means, but to the impressions +made by the ways and means of the visible, sensible universe. + +But once produced, art is received, and more or less assimilated, by +the rest of mankind, to whom it gives, in greater or less degree, more +of such sensitiveness and energy than it could otherwise have had. Art +thus calls forth contemplative emotions, otherwise dormant, and +creates in the routine and scramble of individual wants and habits a +sanctuary where the soul stops elbowing and trampling, and being +elbowed and trampled; nay, rather, a holy hill, neither ploughed nor +hunted over, a free high place, in which we can see clearly, breathe +widely, and, for awhile, live harmlessly, serenely, fully. + + +XIII. + +Thinking these thoughts for the hundredth time, feeling them in a way +as I feel the landscape, I walk home by the dear rock path girdling +Fiesole, within sound of the chisels of the quarries. Blackthorn is +now mixed in the bare purple hedgerows, and almond blossom, here and +there, whitens the sere oak, and the black rocks above. These are the +heights from which, as tradition has it, Florence descended, the +people of which Dante said-- + + "Che discese da Fiesole ab antico, + E tiene ancor del monte e del macigno," + +meaning it in anger. But it is true, and truer, in the good sense +also. Mountain and rock! the art of Tuscany is sprung from it, from +its arduous fruitfulness, with the clear stony stream, and the sparse +gentle olive, and the cypress, unshaken by the wind, unscorched by the +sun, and shooting inflexibly upwards. + + + + +ART AND USEFULNESS. + + "Time was when everybody that made anything made a work of art + besides a useful piece of goods, and it gave them pleasure to + make it."--WILLIAM MORRIS, Address delivered at Burslem, 1881. + + +I. + +Among the original capitals removed from the outer colonnade of the +ducal palace at Venice there is a series devoted to the teaching of +natural history, and another to that of such general facts about the +races of man, his various moral attributes and activities, as the +Venetians of the fourteenth century considered especially important. +First, botany, illustrated by the fruits most commonly in use, piled +up in baskets which constitute the funnel-shaped capital; each kind +separate, with the name underneath in funny Venetian spelling: _Huva_, +grapes; _Fici_, figs; _Moloni_, melons; _Zuche_, pumpkins; and +_Persici_, peaches. Then, with Latin names, the various animals: +_Ursus_, holding a honeycomb with bees on it; _Chanis_, mumbling only +a large bone, while his cousins, wolf and fox, have secured a duck and +a cock; _Aper_, the wild boar, munching a head of millet or similar +grain. + +Now had these beautiful carvings been made with no aim besides their +own beauty, had they represented and taught nothing, they would have +received only a few casual glances, quite insufficient to make their +excellence familiar or even apparent; at best the occasional +discriminative examination of some art student; while the pleased, +spontaneous attentiveness which carries beauty deep into the soul and +the soul's storehouse would have been lacking. But consider these +capitals to have been what they undoubtedly were meant for: the +picture books and manuals off which young folks learned, and older +persons refreshed, their notions of natural history, of geography, +ethnology, and even of morals, and you will realise at once how much +attention, and of how constant and assimilative a kind, they must have +received. The child learns off them that figs (which he never sees +save packed in baskets in the barges at Rialto) have leaves like funny +gloves, while _huva_, grapes, have leaves all ribbed and looking like +tattered banners; that the bear is blunt-featured and eats honeycomb; +that foxes and wolves, who live on the mainland, are very like the +dogs we keep in Venice, but that they steal poultry instead of being +given bones from the kitchen. Also that there are in the world, +besides these clean-shaved Venetians in armour or doge's cap, bearded +Asiatics and thick-lipped negroes--the sort of people with whom uncle +and cousins traffic in the big ships, or among whom grandfather helped +the Doge to raise the standard of St. Mark. Also that carpenters work +with planes and vices, and stonemasons with mallets and chisels; and +that good and wise men are remembered for ever: for here is the story +of how Solomon discovered the true mother, and here again the Emperor +Trajan going to the wars, and reining in his horse to do justice first +to the poor widow. The child looks at the capitals in order to see +with his eyes all these interesting things of which he has been told; +and, during the holiday walk, drags his parents to the spot, to look +again, and to beg to be told once more. And later, he looks at the +familiar figures in order to show them to his children; or, perhaps, +more wistfully, loitering along the arcade in solitude, to remember +the days of his own childhood. And in this manner, the things +represented, fruit, animals and persons, and the exact form in which +they are rendered: the funnel shape of the capitals, the cling and +curl of the leafage, the sharp black undercutting, the clear, lightly +incised surfaces, the whole pattern of line and curve, light and +shade, the whole pattern of the eye's progress along it, of the rhythm +of expansion and restraint, of pressure and thrust, in short, the real +work of art, the visible form--become well-known, dwelling in the +memory, cohabiting with the various moods, and haunting the fancy; a +part of life, familiar, everyday, liked or disliked, discriminated in +every particular, become part and parcel of ourselves, for better or +for worse, like the tools we handle, the boats we steer, the horses we +ride and groom, and the furniture and utensils among which and through +whose help we live our lives. + + +II. + +Furniture and utensils; things which exist because we require them, +which we know because we employ them, these are the type of all great +works of art. And from the selfsame craving which insists that these +should be shapely as well as handy, pleasant to the eye as well as +rational; through the selfsame processes of seeing and remembering and +altering their shapes--according to the same æsthetic laws of line and +curve, of surface and projection, of spring and restraint, of +clearness and compensation; and for the same organic reasons and by +the same organic methods of preference and adaptation as these +humblest things of usefulness, do the proudest and seemingly freest +works of art come to exist; come to be _just what they are_, and even +come _to be at all_. + +I should like to state very clearly, before analysing its reasons, +what seems to me (and I am proud to follow Ruskin in this as in so +many essential questions of art and life) the true formula of this +matter. Namely: that while beauty has always been desired and obtained +for its own sake, the works in which we have found beauty embodied, +and the arts which have achieved beauty's embodying, have always +started from impulses or needs, and have always aimed at purposes or +problems entirely independent of this embodiment of beauty. + + +III. + +The desire for beauty stands to art as the desire for righteousness +stands to conduct. People do not feel and act from a desire to feel and +act righteously, but from a hundred different and differently-combined +motives; the desire for righteousness comes in to regulate this feeling +and acting, to subject it all to certain preferences and repugnances +which have become organic, if not in the human being, at least in human +society. Like the desire for righteousness, the desire for beauty is not +a spring of action, but a regulative function; it decides the _how_ of +visible existence; in accordance with deep-seated and barely guessed at +necessities of body and soul, of nerves and perceptions, of brain and +judgments; it says to all visible objects: since you needs must be, you +shall be in _this_ manner, and not in that other. The desire for beauty, +with its more potent negative, the aversion to ugliness, has, like the +sense of right and wrong, the force of a categorical imperative. + +Such, to my thinking, is the æsthetic instinct. And I call _Art_ +whatever kind of process, intellectual and technical, creates, +incidentally or purposely, visible or audible forms, and creates them +under the regulation of this æsthetic instinct. Art, therefore, is art +whenever any object or any action, or any arrangement, besides being +such as to serve a practical purpose or express an emotion or transfer +a thought, is such also as to afford the _sui generis_ satisfaction +which we denote by the adjective: beautiful. + +But, asks the reader, if every human activity resulting in visible or +audible form is to be considered, at least potentially, as art; what +becomes of _art_ as distinguished from _craft_, or rather what is the +difference between what we all mean by art and what we all mean by +_craft_? + +To this objection, perfectly justified by the facts of our own day, I +would answer quite simply: There is no necessary or essential +distinction between what we call _art_ and what we call _craft_. It is +a pure accident, and in all probability a temporary one, which has +momentarily separated the two in the last hundred years. Throughout +the previous part of the world's history art and craft have been one +and the same, at the utmost distinguishable only from a different +point of view: _craft_ from the practical side, _art_ from the +contemplative. Every trade concerned with visible or audible objects +or movements has also been an art; and every one of those great +creative activities, for which, in their present isolation, we now +reserve the name of _art_, has also been a craft; has been connected +and replenished with life by the making of things which have a use, or +by the doing of deeds which have a meaning. + + +IV. + +We must, of course, understand _usefulness_ in its widest sense; +otherwise we should be looking at the world in a manner too little +utilitarian, not too much so. Houses and furniture and utensils, +clothes, tools and weapons, must undoubtedly exemplify utility first +and foremost because they serve our life in the most direct, +indispensable and unvarying fashion, always necessary and necessary to +everyone. But once these universal unchanging needs supplied, a great +many others become visible: needs to the individual or to individuals +and races under definite and changing circumstances. The sonnet or the +serenade are useful to the romantic lover in the same manner that +carriage-horses and fine clothes are useful to the man who woos more +practically-minded ladies. The diamonds of a rich woman serve to mark +her status quite as much as to please the unpleasable eye of envy; in +the same way that the uniform, the robes and vestments, are needed to +set aside the soldier, the magistrate or priest, and give him the +right of dealing _ex officio_, not as a mere man among men. And the +consciousness of such apparent superfluities, whether they be the +expression of wealth or of hierarchy, of fashion or of caste, gives to +their possessor that additional self-importance which is quite as much +wanted by the ungainly or diffident moral man as the additional warmth +of his more obviously needed raiment is by the poor, chilly, bodily +human being. I will not enlarge upon the practical uses which recent +ethnology has discovered in the tattooing, the painting, the masks, +headdresses, feather skirts, cowries and beads, of all that elaborate +ornamentation with which, only a few years back, we were in the habit +of reproaching the poor, foolish, naked savages; additional knowledge +of their habits having demonstrated rather our folly than theirs, in +taking for granted that any race of men would prefer ornament to +clothes, unless, as was the case, these ornaments were really more +indispensable in their particular mode of life. For an ornament which +terrifies an enemy, propitiates a god, paralyses a wild beast, or +gains a wife, is a matter of utility, not of æsthetic luxury, so long +as it happens to be efficacious, or so long as its efficacy is +believed in. Indeed, the gold coach and liveried trumpeters of the +nostrum vendor of bygone days, like their less enlivening equivalents +in many more modern professions, are of the nature of trade tools, +although the things they fashion are only the foolish minds of +possible customers. + +And this function of expressing and impressing brings us to the other +great category of utility. The sculptured pediment or frescoed wall, +the hieroglyph, or the map or the book, everything which records a +fact or transmits a feeling, everything which carries a message to men +or gods, is an object of utility: the coat-of-arms painted on a panel, +or the emblem carved upon a church front, as much as the helmet of the +knight or the shield of the savage. A church or a religious ceremony, +nay, every additional ounce of gilding or grain of incense, or day or +hour, bestowed on sanctuary and ritual, are not useful only to the +selfish devotee who employs them for obtaining celestial favours; they +are more useful and necessary even to the pure-minded worshipper, +because they enable him to express the longing and the awe with which +his heart is overflowing. For every oblation faithfully brought means +so much added moral strength; and love requires gifts to give as much +as hunger needs food and vanity needs ornament and wealth. All things +which minister to a human need, bodily or spiritual, simple or +complex, direct or indirect, innocent or noble, or base or malignant, +all such things exist for their use. They do exist, and would always +have existed equally if no such quality as beauty had ever arisen to +enhance or to excuse their good or bad existence. + + +V. + +The conception of art as of something outside, and almost opposed to, +practical life, and the tendency to explain its gratuitous existence +by a special "play instinct" more gratuitous itself, are due in great +measure to our wrong way of thinking and feeling upon no less a matter +than human activity as such. The old-fashioned psychology which, +ignoring instinct and impulse, explained all action as the result of +a kind of calculation of future pleasure and pain, has accustomed us +to account for all fruitful human activity, whatever we call _work_, +by a wish for some benefit or fear of some disadvantage. And, on the +other hand, the economic systems of our time (or, at all events, the +systematic exposition of our economic arrangements) have furthermore +accustomed us to think of everything like _work_ as done under +compulsion, fear of worse, or a kind of bribery. It is really taken as +a postulate, and almost as an axiom, that no one would make or do +anything useful save under the goad of want; of want not in the sense +of _wanting to do or make that thing_, but of _wanting to have or be +able to do something else_. Hence everything which is manifestly done +from no such motive, but from an inner impulse towards the doing, +comes to be thought of as opposed to _work_, and to be designated as +_play_. Now art is very obviously carried on for its own sake: +experience, even of our mercantile age, teaches that if a man does not +paint a picture or compose a symphony from an inner necessity as +disinterested as that which makes another man look at the picture or +listen to the symphony, no amount of self-interest, of disadvantages +and advantages, will enable him to do either otherwise than badly. +Hence, as I said, we are made to think of art as _play_, or a kind of +play. + +But play itself, being unaccountable on the basis of external +advantage and disadvantage, being, from the false economic point of +view, unproductive, that is to say, pure waste, has in its turn to be +accounted for by the supposition of surplus energy occasionally +requiring to be let off to no purpose, or merely to prevent the +machine from bursting. This opposition of work and play is founded in +our experience of a social state which is still at sixes and sevens; +of a civilisation so imperfectly developed and organised that the +majority does nothing save under compulsion, and the minority does +nothing to any purpose; and where that little boy's Scylla and +Charybdis _all work_ and _all play_ is effectually realised in a +nightmare too terrible and too foolish, above all too wakingly true, +to be looked at in the face without flinching. One wonders, +incidentally, how any creature perpetually working from the reasons +given by economists, that is to say, working against the grain, from +no spontaneous wish or pleasure, can possibly store up, in such +exhausting effort, a surplus of energy requiring to be let off! And +one wonders, on the other hand, how any really good work of any kind, +work not merely kept by dire competitive necessity up to a standard, +but able to afford any standard to keep up to, can well be produced +save by the letting off of surplus energy; that is to say, how good +work can ever be done otherwise than by impulses and instincts acting +spontaneously, in fact as play. The reality seems to be that, +imperfect as is our poor life, present and past, we are maligning it; +founding our theories, for simplicity's sake and to excuse our lack of +hope and striving, upon its very worst samples. Wasteful as is the +mal-distribution of human activities (mal-distribution worse than that +of land or capital!), cruel as is the consequent pressure of want, +there yet remains at the bottom of an immense amount of work an inner +push different from that outer constraint, an inner need as fruitful +as the outer one is wasteful: there remains the satisfaction in work, +the wish to work. However outer necessity, "competition," "minimum of +cost," "iron law of wages," call it what you choose, direct and +misdirect, through need of bread or greed of luxury, the application +of human activity, that activity has to be there, and with it its own +alleviation and reward: pleasure in work. All decent human work +partakes (let us thank the great reasonablenesses of real things!) of +the quality of play: if it did not it would be bad or ever on the +verge of badness; and if ever human activity attains to fullest +fruitfulness, it will be (every experience of our own best work shows +it) when the distinction of _work_ and of _play_ will cease to have a +meaning, play remaining only as the preparatory work of the child, as +the strength-repairing, balance-adjusting work of the adult. + +And meanwhile, through all the centuries of centuries, art, which is +the type and sample of all higher, better modes of life, art has given +us in itself the concrete sample, the unmistakable type of that +needful reconciliation of work and play; and has shown us that there +is, or should be, no difference between them. For art has made the +things which are useful, and done the things which are needed, in +those shapes and ways of beauty which have no aim but our +satisfaction. + + +VI. + +The way in which the work of art is born of a purpose, of something +useful to do or desirable to say, and the way in which the suggestions +of utility are used up for beauty, can best be shown by a really +existing object. Expressed in practical terms the object is humble +enough: a little trough with two taps built into a recess in a wall; a +place for washing hands and rinsing glasses, as you see the Dominican +brothers doing it all day, for I am speaking of the _Lavabo_ by +Giovanni della Robbia in the Sacristy of Santa Maria Novella in +Florence. The whole thing is small, and did not allow of the adjoining +room usually devoted to this purpose. The washing and rinsing had to +take place in the sacristy itself. But this being the case, it was +desirable that the space set apart for these proceedings should at +least appear to be separate; the trough, therefore, was sunk in a +recess, and the recess divided off from the rest of the wall by +pillars and a gable, becoming in this manner, with no loss of real +standing room, a building inside a building; the operations, +furthermore, implying a certain amount of wetting and slopping, the +dryness of the rest of the sacristy, and particularly the _idea_ of +its dryness (so necessary where precious stuffs and metal vessels are +kept) had to be secured not merely by covering a piece of wainscot and +floor with tiles, but by building the whole little enclosure (all save +the marble trough) of white and coloured majolica, which seemed to say +to the oaken and walnut presses, to the great table covered with +vestments: "Don't be afraid, you shall not feel a drop from all this +washing and rinsing." + +So far, therefore, we have got for our lavabo-trough a shallow recess, +lined and paved with tiles, and cut off from the frescoed and panelled +walls by two pilasters and a rounded gable, of tile work also, the +general proportions being given by the necessity of two monks or two +acolytes washing the sacred vessels at the same moment. The word +_sacred_ now leads us to another determining necessity of our work of +art. For this place, where the lavabo stands, is actually consecrated; +it has an altar; and it is in it that take place all the preparations +and preliminaries for the most holy and most magnificent of rites. The +sacristy, like the church, is moreover an offering to heaven; and the +lavabo, since it has to exist, can exist with fitness only if it also +be offered, and made worthy of offering, to heaven. Besides, +therefore, those general proportions which have had to be made +harmonious for the satisfaction not merely of the builder, but of the +people whose eye rests on them daily and hourly; besides the +shapeliness and dignity which we insist upon in all things needful; we +further require of this object that it should have a certain +superabundance of grace, that it should have colour, elaborate +pattern, what we call _ornament_; details which will show that it is a +gift, and make it a fit companion for the magnificent embroideries and +damasks, the costly and exquisite embossed and enamelled vessels which +inhabit that place; and a worthy spectator of the sacred pageantry +which issues from this sacristy. The little tiled recess, the trough +and the little piece of architecture which frames it all, shall not +only be practically useful, they shall also be spiritually useful as +the expression of men's reverence and devotion. To whom? Why, to the +dear mother of Christ and her gracious angels, whom we place, in +effigy, on the gable, white figures on a blue ground. And since this +humble thing is also an offering, what can be more appropriate than to +hang it round with votive garlands, such as we bind to mark the course +of processions, and which we garnish (filling the gaps of glossy bay +and spruce pine branches) with the finest fruits of the earth, lemons, +and pears, and pomegranates, a grateful tithe to the Powers who make +the orchards fruitful. But, since such garlands wither and such fruits +decay, and there must be no withering or decaying in the sanctuary, +the bay leaves and the pine branches, and the lemons and pears and +pomegranates, shall be of imperishable material, majolica coloured +like reality, and majolica, moreover, which leads us back, pleasantly, +to the humble necessity of the trough, the spurting and slopping of +water, which we have secured against by that tiled floor and wainscot. + +But here another suggestion arises. Water is necessary and infinitely +pleasant in a hot country and a hot place like this domed sacristy. +But we have very, oh, so very, little of it in Florence! We cannot +even, however great our love and reverence, offer Our Lady and the +Angels the thinnest perennial spurt; we must let out the water only +for bare use, and turn the tap off instantly after. There is something +very disappointing in this; and the knowledge of that dearth of water, +of those two taps symbolical of chronic drought, is positively +disheartening. Beautiful proportions, delicate patterns, gracious +effigies of the Madonna and the angels we can have, and also the most +lovely garlands. But we cannot have a fountain. For it is useless +calling this a fountain, this poor little trough with two taps.... + +But you _shall_ have a fountain! Giovanni della Robbia answers in his +heart; or, at least, you shall _feel_ as if you had one! And here we +may witness, if we use the eyes of the spirit as well as of the body, +one of the strangest miracles of art, when art is married to a +purpose. The idea of a fountain, the desirability of water, becomes, +unconsciously, dominant in the artist's mind; and under its sway, as +under the divining rod, there trickle and well up every kind of +thought, of feeling, about water; until the images thereof, visible, +audible, tactile, unite and steep and submerge every other notion. +Nothing deliberate; and, in all probability, nothing even conscious; +those watery thoughts merely lapping dreamily round, like a half-heard +murmur of rivers, the waking work with which his mind is busy. Nothing +deliberate or conscious, but all the more inevitable and efficacious, +this multifold suggestion of water. + +And behold the result, the witness of the miracle: In the domed +sacristy, the fountain cooling this sultry afternoon of June as it has +cooled four hundred Junes and more since set up, arch and pilasters +and statued gables hung with garlands by that particular Robbia; +cooling and refreshing us with its empty trough and closed taps, +without a drop of real water! For it is made of water itself, or the +essence, the longing memory of water. It is water, this shining pale +amber and agate and grass-green tiling and wainscotting, starred at +regular intervals by wide-spread patterns as of floating weeds; water +which makes the glossiness of the great leaf-garlands and the +juiciness of the smooth lemons and cool pears and pomegranates; water +which has washed into ineffable freshness this piece of blue heaven +within the gable; and water, you would say, as of some shining +fountain in the dusk, which has gathered together into the white +glistening bodies and draperies which stand out against that +newly-washed æther. All this is evident, and yet insufficient to +account for our feelings. The subtlest and most potent half of the +spell is hidden; and we guess it only little by little. In this little +Grecian tabernacle, every line save the bare verticals and horizontals +is a line suggestive of trickling and flowing and bubbles; a line +suggested by water and water's movement; and every light and shadow is +a light or a shadow suggested by water's brightness or transparent +gloom; it is water which winds in tiny meanders of pattern along the +shallow shining pillars, and water which beads and dimples along the +shady cornice. The fountain has been thought out in longing for water, +and every detail of it has been touched by the memory thereof. Water! +they wanted water, and they should have it. By a coincidence almost, +Giovanni della Robbia has revealed the secret which himself most +probably never guessed, in the little landscape of lilac and bluish +tiles with which he filled up the arch behind the taps. Some Tuscan +scene, think you? Hills and a few cypresses, such as his +contemporaries used for background? Not a bit. A great lake, an +estuary, almost a sea, with sailing ships, a flooded country, such as +no Florentine had ever seen with mortal eyes; but such as, in his +longing for water, he must have dreamed about. Thus the landscape sums +up this dream, this realisation of every cool and trickling sight and +touch and sound which fills that sacristy as with a spray of watery +thoughts. In this manner, with perhaps but a small effort of invention +and a small output of fancy, and without departing in the least from +the general proportions and shapes and ornaments common in his day, +has an artist of the second order left us one of the most exquisitely +shapely and poetical of works, merely by following the suggestions of +the use, the place, the religious message and that humble human wish +for water where there was none. + + +VII. + +It is discouraging and humiliating to think (and therefore we think it +very seldom) that nowadays we artists, painters of portraits and +landscapes, builders and decorators of houses, pianists, singers, +fiddlers, and, quite as really though less obviously, writers, are all +of us indirectly helping to keep up the greed which makes the +privileged and possessing classes cling to their monopolies and +accumulate their possessions. Bitter to realise that, disinterested as +we must mostly be (for good artistic work means talent, talent +preference, and preference disinterestedness), we are, as Ruskin has +already told us, but the parasites of parasites. + +For of the pleasure-giving things we make, what portion really gives +any pleasure, or comes within reach of giving pleasure, to those whose +hands _as a whole class_ (as distinguished from the brain of an +occasional individual of the other class) produce the wealth we all of +us have to live, or try to live, upon? Of course there is the seeming +consolation that, like the Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs, the Watteaus +and the Fragonards of the past, the Millais and the Sargents (charming +sitters, or the reverse, and all), and the Monets and Brabazons, will +sooner or later become what we call public property in public +galleries. But, meanwhile, the Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs and +Watteaus and Fragonards themselves, though the legal property of +everybody, are really reserved for those same classes who own their +modern equivalents, simply because those alone have the leisure and +culture necessary to enjoy them. The case is not really different for +the one or two seemingly more independent and noble artistic +individualities, the great decorators like Watts or Besnard; their own +work, like their own conscience, is indeed the purer and stronger for +their intention of painting not for smoking-rooms and private +collections, but for places where all men can see and understand; but +then all men cannot see--they are busy or too tired--and they cannot +understand, because the language of art has become foreign to them. +The same applies to composers and to writers: music and books are +cheap enough, but the familiarity with musical forms and literary +styles, without which music and books are mere noise and waste-paper, +is practically unattainable to the classes who till the ground, +extract its stone and minerals, and make, with their hands, every +material thing (save works of art) that we possess. + +Indeed, one additional reason why, ever since the eighteenth century, +art has been set up as the opposite of useful work, and explained as a +form of play (though its technical difficulties grew more exorbitant +and exhausting year by year) is probably that, in our modern +civilisations, art has been obviously produced for the benefit of the +classes who virtually do not work, and by artists born or bred to +belong to those idle classes themselves. For it is a fact that, as the +artist nowadays finds his public only among the comparatively idle +(or, at all events, those whose activity distributes wealth in their +own favour rather than creates it), so also he requires to be, more +and more, in sympathy with their mode of living and thinking: the +friend, the client, most often the son, of what we call (with terrible +unperceived irony in the words) _leisured_ folk. As to the folk who +have no leisure (and therefore, according to our modern æsthetics, no +_art_ because no _play_) they can receive from us privileged persons +(when privilege happens to be worth its keep) no benefits save very +practical ones. The only kind of work founded on "leisure"--which does +in our day not merely increase the advantages of already well-off +persons, but actually filter down to help the unleisured producers of +our wealth--is not the work of the artist, but of the doctor, the +nurse, the inventor, the man of science; who knows? Perhaps almost of +the philosopher, the historian, the sociologist: the clearer away of +convenient error, the unmaker and remaker of consciences. + +As I began by saying, it is not very comfortable, nowadays, to be an +artist, and yet possess a mind and heart. And two of the greatest +artists of our times, Ruskin and Tolstoi, have done their utmost to +make it more uncomfortable still. So that it is natural for our +artists to decide that art exists only for art's own sake, since it +cannot nowadays be said to exist for the sake of anything else. And as +to us, privileged persons, with leisure and culture fitting us for +artistic enjoyment, it is even more natural to consider art as a kind +of play: play in which we get refreshed after somebody else's work. + + +VIII. + +And are we really much refreshed? Watching the face and manner, +listless, perfunctory or busily attentive, of our fellow-creatures in +galleries and exhibitions, and in great measure in concert rooms and +theatres, one would imagine that, on the contrary, they were +fulfilling a social duty or undergoing a pedagogical routine. The +object of the proceeding would rather seem to be negative; one might +judge that they had come lest their neighbours should suspect that +they were somewhere else, or perhaps lest their neighbours should come +instead, according to our fertile methods of society intercourse and +of competitive examinations. At any rate, they do not look as if they +came to be refreshed, or as if they had taken the right steps towards +such spiritual refreshment: the faces and manner of children in a +playground, of cricketers on a village green, of Sunday trippers on +the beach, or of German townsfolk walking to the beerhouse or café in +the deep fragrant woods, present a different appearance. And if we +examine into our own feelings, we shall find that even for the most +art-loving of us the hours spent in galleries of pictures and statues, +or listening to music at concerts, are largely stolen from our real +life of real interests and real pleasures; that there enters into them +a great proportion of effort and boredom; at the very best that we do +not enjoy (nor expect to enjoy) them at all in the same degree as a +good dinner in good company, or a walk in bright, bracing weather, let +alone, of course, fishing, or hunting, or digging and weeding our +little garden. + +Of course, if we are really artistic, and if we have the power of +analysing our own feelings and motives, we shall know that the gallery +or the concert afford occasion for laying in a store of pleasurable +impressions, to be enjoyed at the right moment and in the right mood +later: outlines of pictures, washes of colour, grouped masses of +sculpture, bars of melody, clang of especial chords or timbre +combinations, and even the vague æsthetic emotion, the halo +surrounding blurred recollections of sights and sounds. And knowing +this, we are content that the act of garnering, of preparing, for such +future enjoyment, should lack any steady or deep pleasurableness about +itself. But, thinking over the matter, there seems something wrong, +derogatory to art and humiliating to ourselves, in this admission that +the actual presence of the work of art, sometimes the masterpiece, +should give us the minimum, and not the maximum, of our artistic +enjoyment. And comparing the usual dead level of such merely potential +pleasure with certain rare occasions when we have enjoyed art more at +the moment than afterwards, quite vividly, warmly and with the proper +reluctant clutch at the divine minute as it passes; making this +comparison, we can, I think, guess at the nature of the mischief and +the possibility of its remedy. + +Examining into our experience, we shall find that, while our lack of +enjoyment (our state of æsthetic _aridity_, to borrow the expression +of religious mystics) had coincided with a deliberate intention to see +or hear works of art, and a consequent clearing away of other claims, +and on our attention, in fact, to an effort made more or less in +_vacuo_; on the contrary, our Faust-moments ("Stay, thou art +beautiful!") of plenitude and consummation, have always come when our +activity was already flowing, our attention stimulated, and when, so +to speak, the special artistic impressions were caught up into our +other interests, and woven by them into our life. We can all recall +unexpected delights like Hazlitt's in the odd volume of Rousseau found +on the window-seat, and discussed, with his savoury supper, in the +roadside inn, after his long day's pleasant tramp. + +Indeed, this preparing of the artistic impression by many others, or +focussing of others by it, accounts for the keenness of our æsthetic +pleasure when on a journey; we are thoroughly alive, and the seen or +heard thing of beauty lives _into_, us, or we into it (there is an +important psychological law, a little too abstract for this moment of +expansiveness, called "the Law of the Summation of Stimuli"). The +truth of what I say is confirmed by the frequent fact that the work of +art which gives us this full and vivid pleasure (actually refreshing! +for here, at last, is refreshment!) is either fragmentary or by no +means first-rate. We have remained arid, hard, incapable of absorbing, +while whole Joachim quartets flowed and rippled all _round_, but never +_into_, us; and then, some other time, our soul seems to have drunk +up (every fibre blissfully steeping) a few bars of a sonata (it was +Beethoven's 10th violin, and they were stumbling through it for the +first time) heard accidentally while walking up and down under an open +window. + +It is the same with painting and sculpture. I shall never forget the +exquisite poetry and loveliness of that Matteo di Giovanni, "The +Giving of the Virgin's Girdle," when I saw it for the first time, in +the chapel of that villa, once a monastery, near Siena. Even through +the haze of twenty years (like those delicate blue December mists +which lay between the sunny hills) I can see that picture, illumined +piecemeal by the travelling taper on the sacristan's reed, far more +distinctly than I see it to-day with bodily eyes in the National +Gallery. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that where it hangs in +that gallery it has not once given me one half-second of real +pleasure. It is a third-rate picture now; but even the masterpieces, +Perugino's big fresco, Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne," Pier della +Francesca's "Baptism"; have they ever given me the complete and steady +delight which that mediocre Sienese gave me at the end of the wintry +drive, in the faintly illumined chapel? More often than not, as +Coleridge puts it, I have "seen, not _felt_, how beautiful they are." +But, apart even from fortunate circumstances or enhancing activities, +we have all of us experienced how much better we see or hear a work of +art with the mere dull help of some historical question to elucidate +or technical matter to examine into; we have been able to follow a +piece of music by watching for some peculiarity of counterpoint or +excellence or fault of execution; and our attention has been carried +into a picture or statue by trying to make out whether a piece of +drapery was repainted or an arm restored. Indeed, the irrelevant +literary programme of concerts and all that art historical lore +(information about things of no importance, or none to us) conveyed in +dreary monographs and hand-books, all of them perform a necessary +function nowadays, that of bringing our idle and alien minds into some +sort of relation of business with the works of art which we should +otherwise, nine times out of ten, fail really to approach. + +And here I would suggest that this necessity of being, in some way, +busy about beautiful things in order thoroughly to perceive them, may +represent some sterner necessity of life in general; art being, in +this as in so many other cases, significantly typical of what is +larger than itself. Can we get the full taste of pleasure sought for +pleasure's own sake? And is not happiness in life, like beauty in art, +rather a means than an aim: the condition of going on, the +replenishing of force; in short, the thing by whose help, not for the +sake of which, we feel and act and live? + + +IX. + +Beauty is an especial quality in visible or audible shapes and movements +which imposes on our soul a certain rhythm and pattern of feeling entirely +_sui generis_, but unified, harmonious, and, in a manner, consummate. +Beauty is a power in our life, because, however intermittent its +action and however momentary, it makes us live, by a kind of sympathy +with itself, a life fuller, more vivid, and at the same time more +peaceful. But, as the word _sympathy_, _with-feeling_--(_Einfühlen_, +"feeling into," the Germans happily put it)--as the word _sympathy_ is +intended to suggest, this subduing and yet liberating, this enlivening +and pacifying power of beautiful form over our feelings is exercised +only when our feelings enter, and are absorbed into, the form we +perceive; so that (very much as in the case of sympathy with human +vicissitudes) we participate in the supposed life of the form while in +reality lending _our_ life to it. Just as in our relations with our +fellow-men, so also in our subtler but even more potent relations with +the appearances of things and actions, our heart can be touched, +purified, and satisfied only just in proportion as we _give_ our +heart. And even as it is possible to perceive other human beings and +to adjust our action (sometimes heartlessly enough) to such qualities +in them as we find practically important to ourselves, without putting +out one scrap of sympathy with their own existence as felt by them; so +also it is possible to recognise things and actions, to become rapidly +aware of such of their peculiarities as most frequently affect us +practically, and to consequently adjust our behaviour, without giving +our sympathy to their form, without entering into and _living into_ +those forms; and in so far it is possible for us to remain indifferent +to those forms' quality of beauty or ugliness, just as, in the hurry +of practical life, we remain indifferent to the stuff our neighbours' +souls are made of. This rapid, partial, superficial, perfunctory mode +of dealing with what we see and hear constitutes the ordinary, +constant, and absolutely indispensable act of recognising objects and +actions, of _spotting_ their qualities and _twigging_ their meaning: +an act necessarily tending to more and more abbreviation and rapidity +and superficiality, to a sort of shorthand which reduces what has to +be understood, and enables us to pass immediately to understanding +something else; according to that law of necessarily saving time and +energy. + +And so we rush on, recognising, naming, spotting, twigging, answering, +using, or parrying; we need not fully _see_ the complete appearance of +the word we read, of the man we meet, of the street we run along, of +the water we drink, the fire we light, the adversary whom we pursue or +whom we evade; and in the selfsame manner we need not fully see the +form of the building of which we say "This is a Gothic cathedral"--of +the picture of which we say "Christ before Pilate"--or of the piece of +music of which we say "A cheerful waltz by Strauss" or "A melancholy +adagio by Beethoven." Now it is this fragmentary, superficial +attention which we most often give to art; and giving thus little, we +find that art gives us little, perhaps nothing, in return. For +understand: you can be utterly perfunctory towards a work of art +without hurrying away from in front of it, or setting about some +visible business in its presence. Standing ten minutes before a +picture or sitting an hour at a concert, with fixed sight or tense +hearing, you may yet be quite hopelessly inattentive if, instead of +following the life of the visible or audible forms, and _living +yourself_ into their pattern and rhythm, you wander off after dramatic +or sentimental associations suggested by the picture's subject; or if +you let yourself be hypnotised, as pious Wagnerians are apt to be, +into monotonous over response (and over and over again response) to +the merely emotional stimulation of the sounds. The activity of the +artist's soul has been in vain for you, since you do not let your soul +follow its tracks through the work of art; he has not created for you, +because you have failed to create his work afresh in vivid +contemplation. + +But attention cannot be forced on to any sort of contemplation, or at +least it cannot remain, steady and abiding, by any act of forcing. +Attention, to be steady, must be held by the attraction of the thing +attended to; and, to be spontaneous and easy, must be carried by some +previous interest within the reach of that attractiveness. Above all, +attention requires that its ways should have been made smooth by +repetition of similar experience; it is excluded, rebutted by the dead +wall of utter novelty; for seeing, hearing, understanding is +interpreting the unknown by the known, assimilation in the literal +sense also of rendering similar the new to the less new. This will +explain why it is useless trying to enjoy a totally unfamiliar kind of +art: as soon expect to take pleasure in dancing a dance you do not +know, and whose rhythm and step you fail as yet to follow. And it is +not only music, as Nietzsche said, but all art, that is but a kind of +dancing, a definite rhythmic carrying and moving of the soul. And for +this reason there can be no artistic enjoyment without preliminary +initiation and training. + +Art cannot be enjoyed without initiation and training. I repeat this +statement, desiring to impress it on the reader, because, by a +coincidence of misunderstanding, it happens to constitute the +weightiest accusation in the whole of Tolstoi's very terrible (and, +in part, terribly justified) recent arraignment of art. For of what +use is the restorative and refreshing power, this quality called +beauty, if the quality itself cannot be recognised save after previous +training? And what moral dignity, nay, what decent innocence, can +there be in a kind of relaxation from which lack of initiation +excludes the vast majority of men, the majority which really labours, +and therefore has a real claim to relaxation and refreshment? + +This question of Tolstoi's arises from that same limiting of +examination to a brief, partial, and, as it happens, most transitional +and chaotic present, which has given us that cut-and-dried distinction +between work and play; and, indeed, the two misconceptions are very +closely connected. For even as our present economic system of +production for exchange rather than for consumption has made us +conceive _work_ as _work_ done under compulsion for someone else, and +_play_ as _play_, with no result even to ourselves; so also has the +economic system which employs the human hand and eye merely as a +portion of a complicated, monotonously working piece of machinery, so +also has our present order of mechanical and individual production +divided the world into a small minority which sees and feels what it +is about, and a colossal majority which has no perception, no +conception, and, consequently, no preferences attached to the objects +it is employed (by the methods of division of labour) to produce, so +to speak, without seeing them. Tolstoi has realised that this is the +present condition of human labour, and his view of it has been +corrected neither by historical knowledge nor by psychological +observation. He has shown us _art_, as it nowadays exists, divided and +specialised into two or three "fine arts," each of which employs +exceptional and highly trained talent in the production of objects so +elaborate and costly, so lacking in all utility, that they can be +possessed only by the rich few; objects, moreover, so unfamiliar in +form and in symbol that only the idle can learn to enjoy (or pretend +to enjoy) them after a special preliminary initiation and training. + + +X. + +_Initiation and training_, we have returned to those wretched words, +for we also had recognised that without initiation and training there +could be no real enjoyment of art. But, looking not at this brief, +transitional, and topsy-turvey present, but at the centuries and +centuries which have evolved, not only art, but the desire and habit +thereof, we have seen what Tolstoi refused to see, namely, that +wherever and whenever (that is to say, everywhere and at all times +save these present European days) art has existed spontaneously, it +has brought with it that initiation and training. The initiation and +training, the habit of understanding given qualities of form, the +discrimination and preference thereof, have come, I maintain, as a +result of practical utility. + +Or rather: out of practical utility has arisen the art itself, and the +need for it. The attention, the familiarity which made beauty +enjoyable had previously made beauty necessary. It was because the +earthenware lamp, the bronze pitcher, the little rude household idols +displayed the same arrangements of lines and surfaces, presented the +same patterns and features, embodied, in a word, the same visible +rhythms of being, that the Greeks could understand without being +taught the temples and statues of Athens, Delphi or Olympia. It was +because the special form qualities of ogival art (so subtle in +movement, unstable in balance and poignant in emotion that a whole +century of critical study has scarce sufficed to render them familiar +to us) were present in every village tower, every window coping, every +chair-back, in every pattern carved, painted, stencilled or woven +during the Gothic period; it was because of this that every artisan of +the Middle Ages could appreciate less consciously than we, but far +more deeply, the loveliness and the wonder of the great cathedrals. +Nay, even in our own times we can see how, through the help of all the +cheapest and most perishable household wares, the poorest Japanese is +able to enjoy that special peculiarity and synthesis of line and +colour and perspective which strikes even initiated Westerns as so +exotic, far-fetched and almost wilfully unintelligible. + +I have said that thanks to the objects and sights of everyday use and +life the qualities of art could be perceived and enjoyed. It may be +that it was thanks to them that art had any qualities and ever existed +at all. For, however much the temple, cathedral, statue, fresco, the +elaborate bronze or lacquer or coloured print, may have reacted on the +form, the proportions and linear rhythms and surface arrangements, of +all common useful objects; it was in the making of these common useful +objects (first making by man of genius and thousandfold minute +adaptation by respectful mediocrity) that the form qualities came to +exist. One may at least hazard this supposition in the face of the +extreme unlikeliness that the complexity and perfection of the great +works of art could have been obtained solely in works so necessarily +rare and few; and that the particular forms constituting each separate +style could have originated save under the repeated suggestion of +everyday use and technique. And can we not point to the patterns grown +out of the necessities of weaving or basket-making, the shapes started +by the processes of metal soldering or clay squeezing; let alone the +innumerable categories of form manifestly derived from the mere +convenience of handling or using, of standing, pouring, holding, +hanging up or folding? This much is certain, that only the manifold +application of given artistic forms in useful common objects is able +to account for that very slow, gradual and unconscious alteration of +them which constitutes the spontaneous evolution of artistic form; and +only such manifold application could have given that almost automatic +certainty of taste which allowed the great art of the past to continue +perpetually changing, through centuries and centuries, and adapting +itself over immense geographical areas to every variation of climate, +topography, mode of life, or religion. Unless the forms of ancient art +had been safely embodied in a hundred modest crafts, how could they +have undergone the imperceptible and secure metamorphosis from +Egyptian to Hellenic, from Greek to Græco-Roman, and thence, from +Byzantine, have passed, as one great half, into Italian mediæval art? +or how, without such infinite and infinitely varied practice of minute +adaptation to humble needs, could Gothic have given us works so +different as the French cathedrals, the Ducal Palace, the tiny chapel +at Pisa, and remained equally great and wonderful, equally _Gothic_, +in the ornament of a buckle as in the porch of Amiens or of Reims? + +Beauty is born of attention, as happiness is born of life, because +attention is rendered difficult and painful by lack of harmony, even +as life is clogged, diminished or destroyed by pain. And therefore, +when there ceases to exist a close familiarity with visible objects or +actions; when the appearance of things is passed over in perfunctory +and partial use (as we see it in all mechanical and divided labour); +when the attention of all men is not continually directed to shape +through purpose, then there will cease to be spontaneous beauty and +the spontaneous appreciation of beauty, because there will be no need +for either. Beauty of music does not exist for the stone-deaf, nor +beauty of painting for the purblind; but beauty of no kind whatever, +nor in any art, can really exist for the inattentive, for the +over-worked or the idle. + + +XI. + +That music should be so far the most really alive of all our modern +arts is a fact which confirms all I have argued in the foregoing +pages. For music is of all arts the one which insists on most +co-operation on the part of its votaries. Requiring to be performed +(ninety-nine times out of a hundred) in order to be enjoyed, it has +made merely _musical people_ into performers, however humble; and has +by this means called forth a degree of attention, of familiarity, of +practical effort, which makes the art enter in some measure into +life, and in that measure, become living. To play an instrument, +however humbly, to read at sight, or to sing, if only in a choir, is +something wholly different from lounging in a gallery or wandering on +a round of cathedrals: it means acquired knowledge, effort, +comparison, self-restraint, and all the realities of manipulation; +quite apart even from trying to read the composer's intentions, there +is in learning to strike the keys with a particular part of the +finger-tips, or in dealing out the breath and watching intonation and +timbre in one's own voice, an output of care and skill akin to those +of the smith, the potter or the glass blower: all this has a purpose +and is work, and brings with it disinterested work's reward, love. + +To find the analogy of this co-operation in the arts addressing +themselves to the eye, we require, nowadays, to leave the great number +who merely enjoy (or ought to enjoy) painting, sculpture or +architecture, and seek, now that craft is entirely divorced from art, +among the small minority which creates, or tries to create. Artistic +enjoyment exists nowadays mainly among the class of executive artists; +and perhaps it is for this very reason, and because all chance of +seeing or making shapely things has ceased in other pursuits, that the +"fine arts" are so lamentably overstocked; the man or woman who would +have been satisfied with playing the piano enough to read a score or +sing sufficiently to take part in a chorus, has, in the case of other +arts, to undergo the training of a painter, sculptor or art critic, +and often to delude himself or herself with grotesque ambitions in one +of these walks. + + +XII. + +Be this as it may, and making the above happy and honourable exception +in favour of music, it is no exaggeration to say that in our time it +is only artists who get real pleasure out of art, because it is only +artists who approach art from the side of work and bring to it work's +familiar attention and habitual energy. Indeed, paradoxical as it may +sound, art has remained alive during the nineteenth century, and will +remain alive during the twentieth, only and solely because there has +been a large public of artists. + +Of artists, I would add, of quite incomparable vigour and elasticity +of genius, and of magnificent disinterestedness and purity of heart. +For let us remember that they have worked without having the sympathy +of their fellow-men, and worked without the aid and comfort of allied +crafts: that they have created while cut off from tradition, unhelped +by the manifold suggestiveness of useful purpose or necessary message; +separated entirely from the practical and emotional life of the world +at large; tiny little knots of voluntary outlaws from a civilisation +which could not understand them; and, whatever worldly honours may +have come to mock their later years, they have been weakened and +embittered by early solitude of spirit. No artistic genius of the past +has been put through such cruel tests, has been kept on such miserably +short commons, as have our artists of the last hundred years, from +Turner to Rossetti and Watts, from Manet and Degas and Whistler to +Rodin and Albert Besnard. And if their work has shown lapses and +failings; if it has been, alas, lacking at times in health or joy or +dignity or harmony, let us ask ourselves what the greatest +individualities of Antiquity and the Middle Ages would have produced +if cut off from the tradition of the Past and the suggestion of the +Present--if reduced to exercise art outside the atmosphere of life; +and let us look with wonder and gratitude on the men who have been +able to achieve great art even for only art's own sake. + + +XIII. + +No better illustration of this could be found than the sections of the +Paris Exhibition which came under the heading of _Decorative Art_. + +Decoration. But decoration of what? In reality of nothing. All the +objects--from the jewellery and enamels to the furniture and +hangings--which this decorative art is supposed to decorate, are the +merest excuse and sham. Not one of them is the least useful, or at all +events useful once it is decorated. And nobody wants it to be useful. +What _is_ wanted is a pretext, for _doing art_ on the side of the +artist, for buying costly things on the side of the public. And behind +this pretext there is absolutely no genuine demand for any definite +object serving any definite use; none of that insistence (which we see +in the past) that the shape, material, and colour should be the very +best for practical purposes; and of that other insistence, +marvellously blended with the requirements of utility, that the shape, +material and colour should also be as beautiful as possible. The +invaluable suggestions of real practical purpose, the organic dignity +of integrated habit and necessity, the safety of tradition, the +spiritual weightiness of genuine message, all these elements of +creative power are lacking. And in default of them we see a great +amount of artistic talent, artificially fed and excited by the +teaching and the example of every possible past or present art, +exhausting itself in attempts to invent, to express, to be something, +anything, so long as it is new. Hence forms gratuitous, without +organic quality or logical cogency, pulled about, altered and +re-altered, carried to senseless finish and then wilfully blurred. +Hence that sickly imitation, in a brand-new piece of work, of the +effects of time, weather, and of every manner of accident or +deterioration: the pottery and enamels reproducing the mere patina of +age or the trickles of bad firing; the relief work in marble or metal +which looks as if it had been rolled for centuries in the sea, or +corroded by acids under ground. And the total effect, increased by all +these methods of wilful blunting and blurring, is an art without +stamina, tired, impotent, short-lived, while produced by an excessive +expense of talent and effort of invention. + +For here we have the mischief: all the artistic force is spent by the +art in merely keeping alive; and there is no reserve energy for living +with serenity and depth of feeling. The artist wears himself out, to a +great extent, in wondering what he shall do (there being no practical +reason for doing one thing more than another, or indeed anything at +all), instead of applying his power, with steady, habitual certainty +of purpose and efficiency of execution, to doing it in the very best +way. Hence, despite this outlay of inventive force, or rather in +direct consequence thereof, there is none of that completeness and +measure and congruity, that restrained exuberance of fancy, that more +than adequate carrying out, that all-round harmony, which are possible +only when the artist is altering to his individual taste some shape +already furnished by tradition or subduing to his pleasure some +problem insisted on by practical necessity. + +Meanwhile, all round these galleries crammed with useless objects +barely pretending to any utility, round these pavilions of the +Decorative Arts, the Exhibition exhibits (most instructive of all its +shows) samples of the most marvellous indifference not merely to +beauty, peace and dignity, but to the most rudimentary æsthetic and +moral comfort. For all the really useful things which men take +seriously because they increase wealth and power, because they save +time and overcome distance; all these "useful" things have the naïve +and colossal ugliness of rudimentary animals, or of abortions, of +everything hurried untimely into existence: machines, sheds, bridges, +trams, motor-cars: not one line corrected, not one angle smoothed, for +the sake of the eye, of the nerves of the spectator. And all of it, +both decorative futility and cynically hideous practicality (let alone +the various exotic raree shows from distant countries or more distant +centuries) expect to be enjoyed after a jostle at the doors and a +scurry along the crowded corridors, and to the accompaniment of every +rattling and shrieking and jarring sound. For mankind in our days +intends to revel in the most complicated and far-fetched kinds of +beauty while cultivating convenient callousness to the most elementary +and atrocious sorts of ugliness. The art itself reveals it; for even +in its superfine isolation and existence for its own sake only, art +cannot escape its secondary mission of expressing and recording the +spirit of its times. These elaborate æsthetic baubles of the +"Decorative Arts" are full of quite incredibly gross barbarism. And, +even as the iron chest, studded with nails, or the walnut press, +unadorned save by the intrinsic beauty and dignity of their +proportions, and the tender irregularities of their hammered surface, +the subtle bevelling of their panels; even as these humble objects in +some dark corner of an Italian castle or on the mud floor of a Breton +cottage, symbolise in my mind the most intense artistic sensitiveness +and reverence of the Past; so, here at this Exhibition, my impressions +of contemporary over-refinement and callousness are symbolised in a +certain cupboard, visibly incapable of holding either linen or +garments or crockery or books, of costly and delicately polished wood, +but shaped like a packing-case, and displaying with marvellous +impartiality two exquisitely cast and chased doorguard plates of +far-fetched, many-tinted alloys of silver, and--a set of hinges, a +lock and a key, such as the village ironmonger supplies in blue paper +parcels of a dozen. A mere coincidence, an accident, you may object; +an unlucky oversight which cannot be fairly alleged against the art of +our times. Pardon me: there may be coincidences and accidents in other +matters, but there are none in art; because the essence of art is to +sacrifice even the finest irrelevancies, to subordinate the most +refractory details, to subdue coincidence and accident into seeming +purpose and harmony. And whatever our practical activity, in its +identification of time and money, may allow itself in the way of +"scamping" and of "shoddy"--art can never plead an oversight, because +art, in so far as it _is_ art, represents those organic and organised +preferences in the domain of form, those imperative and stringent +demands for harmony, which see everything, feel everything, and know +no law or motive save their own complete satisfaction. + +Art for art's sake! We see it nowhere revealed so clearly as in the +Exhibition, where it masks as "Decorative Art." Art answering no claim +of practical life and obeying no law of contemplative preference, art +without root, without organism, without logical reason or moral +decorum, art for mere buying and selling, art which expresses only +self-assertion on the part of the seller, and self-satisfaction on the +part of the buyer. A walk through this Exhibition is an object-lesson +in a great many things besides æsthetics; it forces one to ask a good +many of Tolstoi's angriest questions; but it enables one also, if duly +familiar with the art of past times, to answer them in a manner +different from Tolstoi's. + +One carries away the fact, which implies so many others, that not one +of these objects is otherwise than expensive; expensive, necessarily +and intentionally, from the rarity both of the kind of skill and of +the kind of material; these things are reserved by their price as well +as their uselessness, for a small number of idle persons. They have no +connection with life, either by penetrating, by serviceableness, deep +into that of the individual; or by spreading, by cheapness, over a +wide surface of the life of the nations. + + +XIV. + +The moment has now come for that inevitable question, with which +friendly readers unintentionally embarrass, and hostile ones purposely +interrupt, any exposition of mal-adjustment in the order of the +universe: But what remedy do you propose? + +Mal-adjustments of a certain gravity are not set right by proposable +arrangements: they are remedied by the fulness and extent of the +feeling against them, which employs for its purposes and compels into +its service all the unexpected and incalculable coincidences and +accidents which would otherwise be wasted, counteracted or even used +by some different kind of feeling. And the use that a writer can +be--even a Ruskin or a Tolstoi--is limited not to devising programmes +of change (mere symptoms often that some unprogrammed change is +preparing), but to nursing the strength of that great motor which +creates its own ways and instruments: impatience with evil conditions, +desire for better. + +A cessation of the special æsthetic mal-adjustment of our times, by +which art is divorced from life and life from art, is as difficult to +foretell in detail as the new-adjustment between labour and the other +elements of production which will, most probably, have to precede it. + +A healthy artistic life has indeed existed in the past through +centuries of social wrongness as great as our own, and even greater; +indeed, such artistic life, more or less continuous until our day, +attests the existence of great mitigations in the world's former +wretchedness (such as individuality in labour, spirit of co-operative +solidarity, religious feeling: but perhaps the most important +alleviations lie far deeper and more hidden)--mitigations without +which there would not have been happiness and strength enough to +produce art; nor, for the matter of that, to produce what was then the +future, including ourselves and our advantages and disadvantages. The +existence of art has by no means implied, as Ruskin imagined, with his +teleological optimism and tendency to believe in Eden and banishment +from Eden, that people once lived in a kind of millennium; it merely +shows that, however far from millennial their condition, there was +stability enough to produce certain alleviations, and notably the +alleviations without which art cannot exist, and the alleviations +which art itself affords. + +It is not therefore the badness of our present social arrangements (in +many ways far less bad than those of the past) which is responsible +for our lack of all really vital, deep-seated, widely spread and +happiness-giving art; but merely the feature in this latter-day +badness which, after all, is our chief reason for hope: the fact that +the social mal-adjustments of this century are, to an extent hitherto +unparalleled, the mal-adjustments incident to a state of over-rapid +and therefore insufficiently deep-reaching change, of superficial +legal and material improvements extending in reality only to a very +small number of persons and things, and unaccompanied by any real +renovation in the thought, feeling or mode of living of the majority; +the mal-adjustment of transition, of disorder, and perfunctoriness, by +the side of which the regularly recurring disorders of the past--civil +wars, barbarian invasions, plagues, etc., are incidents leaving the +foundation of life unchanged, transitional disorders, which we fail to +remark only because we are ourselves a part of the hurry, the scuffle, +and the general wastefulness. How soon and how this transition period +of ours will come to an end, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to +foretell; but that it _must_ soon end is certain, if only for one +reason: namely, that the changes accumulated during our times must +inevitably work their way below the surface; the new material and +intellectual methods must become absorbed and organised, and thereby +produce some kind of interdependent and less easily disturbed new +conditions; briefly, that the amount of alteration we have witnessed +will occasion a corresponding integration. And with this period of +integration and increasing organisation and comparative stability +there will come new alleviations and adjustments in life, and with +these, the reappearance in life of art. + + +XV. + +In what manner it is absurd, merely foolishly impatient or foolishly +cavilling, to ask. Not certainly by a return to the past and its +methods, but by the coming of the future with new methods having the +same result: the maintenance and tolerable quality of human life, of +body and soul. Hence probably by a further development of democratic +institutions and machine industry, but democratic institutions neither +authoritative nor _laissez faire_; machinery of which the hand and +mind of men will be the guide, not the slave. + +One or two guesses may perhaps be warranted. First, that the +distribution of wealth, or more properly of work and idleness, will +gradually be improved, and the exploitation of individuals in great +gangs cease; hence that the workman will be able once more to see and +shape what he is making, and that, on the other side, the possessor of +objects will have to use them, and therefore learn their appearance +and care for them; also that many men will possess enough, and +scarcely any men possess much more than enough, so that what there is +of houses, furniture, chattels, books or pictures in private +possession may be enjoyed at leisure and with unglutted appetite, and +for that reason be beautiful. We may also guess that willing +co-operation in peaceful employments, that spontaneous formation of +groups of opinion as well as of work, and the multiplication of small +centres of activity, may create a demand for places of public +education and amusement and of discussion and self-expression, and +revive those celebrations, religious and civil, in which the art of +Antiquity and of the Middle Ages found its culmination; the service of +large bodies and of the community absorbing the higher artistic gifts +in works necessarily accessible to the multitude; and the humbler +talents--all the good amateur quality at present wasted in ambitious +efforts--being applied in every direction to the satisfaction of +individual artistic desire. + +If such a distribution of artistic activity should seem, to my +contemporaries, Utopian, I would point out that it has existed +throughout the past, and in states of society infinitely worse than +are ever likely to recur. For even slaves and serfs could make unto +themselves some kind of art befitting their conditions; and even the +most despotic aristocracies and priesthoods could adequately express +their power and pride only in works which even the slave and serf was +able to see. In the whole of the world's art history, it is this +present of ours which forms the exception; and as the changes of the +future will certainly be for greater social health and better social +organisation, it is not likely that this bad exception will be the +beginning of a new rule. + + +XVI. + +Meanwhile we can, in some slight measure, foretell one or two of the +directions in which our future artistic readjustment is most likely to +begin, even apart from that presumable social reorganisation and +industrial progress which will give greater leisure and comfort to the +workers, and make their individual character the guide, and not the +slave, of this machinery. Such a direction is already indicated by one +of our few original and popular forms of art: the picture-book and the +poster, which, by the new processes of our colour printing, have +placed some of the most fanciful and delicate of our artists--men like +Caldecott and Walter Crane, like Cheret and Boutet de Monvel, at the +service of everyone equally. Moreover, it is probable that long before +machinery is so perfected as to demand individual guidance, preference +and therefore desire for beauty, and long before a corresponding +readjustment of work and leisure, the eye will have again become +attentive through the necessities of rational education. The habit of +teaching both adults and children by demonstration rather than +precept, by awaking the imagination rather than burdening the memory, +will quite undoubtedly recall attention to visible things, and thereby +open new fields to art: geography, geology, natural history, let alone +history in its vaster modern sociological and anthropological aspect, +will insist upon being taught no longer merely through books, but +through collections of visible objects; and, for all purposes of +reconstructive and synthetic conception, through pictures. + +And, what is more, the sciences will afford a new field for poetic +contemplation; while the philosophy born of such sciences will +synthetise new modes of seeing life and demand new visible symbols. +The future will create cosmogonies and Divine Comedies more numerous, +more various, than those on sculptured Egyptian temples and Gothic +cathedrals, and Bibles more imaginative perhaps than the ones painted +in the Pisa Campo Santo and in the Sixtine Chapel. The future? Nay, we +can see a sample already in the present. I am alluding to the panels +by Albert Besnard in the School of Pharmacy in Paris, a series +illustrating the making of medicinal drugs, their employment and the +method and subject-matter of the sciences on which pharmaceutical +practice is based. Not merely the plucking and drying of the herbs in +sunny, quiet botanical gardens, and the sorting and mingling of earths +and metals among the furnaces of the laboratory; not merely the first +tremendous tragic fight between the sudden sickness and the physician, +and the first pathetic, hard-won victory, the first weary but +rapturous return out of doors of the convalescent; but the life of the +men on whose science our power for life against death is based: the +botanists knee-deep in the pale spring woods; the geologists in the +snowy hollows of the great blue mountain; the men themselves, the +youths listening and the elder men teaching, grave and eager +intellectual faces, in the lecture rooms. And, finally, the things +which fill the minds of these men, their thoughts and dreams, the +poetry they have given to the world; the poetry of that infinitely +remote, dim past, evoked out of cavern remains and fossils--the lake +dwellers among the mists of melting glaciers; the primæval horses +playing on the still manless shores; the great saurians plunging in +the waves of long-dried seas; the jungles which are now our coal beds; +and see! the beginning of organic life, the first callow vegetation on +the stagnant waters in the dawn-light of the world. The place is but a +mean boarded and glazed vestibule; full of the sickly fumes of +chemicals; and the people who haunt it are only future apothecaries. +But the compositions are as spacious and solemn, the colours as tender +and brilliant, and the poetry as high and contemplative as that of any +mediæval fresco; it is all new also, undreamed of, _sui generis_, in +its impersonal cosmic suggestiveness, as in its colouring of opal, and +metallic patinas, and tea rose and Alpine ice cave. + + +XVII. + +I have alluded already to the fact that, perhaps because of the part +of actual participating work which it entails, music is the art which +has most share in life and of life, nowadays. It seems probable +therefore that its especial mission may be to keep alive in us the +feeling and habit of art, and to transmit them back to those arts of +visible form to which it owes, perhaps, the training necessary to its +own architectural structure and its own colour combinations. Compared +with the arts of line and projection, music seems at a certain moral +disadvantage, as not being applicable to the things of everyday use, +and also not educating us to the better knowledge of the beautiful and +significant things of nature. In connection with this kind of +blindness, music is also compatible (as we see by its flourishing in +great manufacturing towns) with a great deal of desecration of nature +and much hand-to-mouth ruthlessness of life. But, on the other hand, +music has the especial power of suggesting and regulating emotion, and +the still more marvellous faculty of creating an inner world for +itself, inviolable because ubiquitous. + +And, therefore, with its audible rhythms and harmonies, its restrained +climaxes and finely ordered hierarchies, music may discipline our +feelings, or rather what underlies our feelings, the almost +unconscious life of our nerves, to modalities of order and selection, +and make the spaceless innermost of our spirit into some kind of +sanctuary, swept and garnished, until the coming of better days. + + +XVIII. + +According to a certain class of thinkers, among whom I find Guyau and +other men of note, art is destined partially to replace religion in +our lives. But with what are you going to replace religion itself in +art? For the religious feeling, whenever it existed, gave art an +element of thoroughness which the desire for pleasure and interest, +even for æsthetic pleasure and interest, does not supply. An immense +fulness of energy is due to the fact that beautiful things, as +employed by religion, were intended to be beautiful all through, +adequate in the all-seeing eye of God or Gods, not merely beautiful on +the surface, on the side turned towards the glance of man. For, in +religious art, beautiful things are an oblation; they are the best +that we can give, as distinguished from a pleasure arranged for +ourselves and got as cheap as possible. Herein lies the impassable +gulf between the church and theatre, considered æsthetically; for it +is only in the basest times, of formalism in art as in religion, of +superstition and sensualism, that we find the church imitating the +theatre in its paper glories and plaster painted like marble. The +real, living religious spirit insists on bringing, as in St Mark's, a +gift of precious material, of delicate antique ornament, with every +shipload. The crown of the Madonna is not, like the tragedy queen's, +of tinsel, the sacrament is not given in an empty chalice. The priest, +even where he makes no effort to be holy as a man, is at least sacred +as a priest; whereas there is something uncomfortable in the sense +that the actor is only pretending to be this or the other, and we +ourselves pretending to believe him; there is a thin and acid taste in +the shams of the stage and in all art which, like that of the stage, +exists only to the extent necessary to please our fancy or excite our +feelings. Why so? For is not pleasing the fancy and exciting the +feelings the real, final use of art? Doubtless. But there would seem +to be in nature a law not merely of the greater economy of means, but +also of the greatest output of efficacy: effort helping effort, and +function, function; and many activities, in harmonious interaction, +obtaining a measure of result far surpassing their mere addition. The +creations of our mind are, of course, mere spiritual existences, +things of seeming, akin to illusions; and yet our mind can never rest +satisfied with an unreality, because our mind is active, penetrative +and grasping, and therefore craves for realisation, for completeness +and truth, and feels bruised and maimed whenever it hits against a +dead wall or is pulled up by a contradiction; nay, worst of all, it +grows giddy and faint when suddenly brought face to face with +emptiness. All insufficiency and shallowness means loss of power; and +it is such loss of power that we remark when we compare with the +religious art of past times the art which, every day more and more, is +given us by the hurried and over-thrifty (may I say "Reach-me-down"?) +hands of secularism. The great art of Greece and of the Middle Ages +most often represents something which, to our mind and feelings, is as +important, and even as beautiful, as the representation itself; and +the representation, the actual "work of art" itself, gains by that +added depth and reverence of our mood, is carried deeper (while +helping to carry deeper) into our soul. Instead of which we moderns +try to be satisfied with allowing the seeing part of us to light on +something pleasant and interesting, while giving the mind only +triviality to rest upon; and the mind goes to sleep or chafes to move +away. We cannot live intellectually and morally in presence of the +idea, say, of a jockey of Degas or one of his ballet girls in +contemplation of her shoe, as long as we can live æsthetically in the +arrangement of lines and masses and dabs of colour and interlacings of +light and shade which translate themselves into this _idea_ of jockey +or ballet girl; we are therefore bored, ruffled, or, what is worse, we +learn to live on insufficient spiritual rations, and grow anæmic. Our +shortsighted practicality, which values means while disregarding ends, +and conceives usefulness only as a stage in making some other +_utility_, has led us to suppose that the desire for beauty is +compatible, nay commensurate, with indifference to reality: the _real_ +having come to mean that which you can plant, cook, eat or sell, not +what you can feel and think. + +This notion credits us with an actual craving for something which +should exist as little as possible, in one dimension only, so to +speak, or as upon a screen (for fear of occupying valuable space which +might be given to producing more food than we can eat); whereas what +we desire is just such beauty as will surround us on all sides, such +harmony as we can live in; our soul, dissatisfied with the reality +which happens to surround it, seeks on the contrary to substitute a +new reality of its own making, to rebuild the universe, like Omar +Khayyam, according to the heart's desire. And nothing can be more +different than such an instinct from the alleged satisfaction in +playing with dolls and knowing that they are not real people. By an +odd paradoxical coincidence, that very disbelief in the _real_ +character of art, and that divorce betwixt art and utility, is really +due to our ultra-practical habit of taking seriously only the +serviceable or instructive sides of things: the quality of beauty, +which the healthy mind insists upon in everything it deals with, +getting to be considered as an idle adjunct, fulfilling no kind of +purpose; and therefore, as something detachable, separate, and +speedily relegated to the museum or lumber-room where we keep our +various shams: ideals, philosophies, all the playthings with which we +sometimes wile away our idleness. Whereas in fact a great work of art, +like a great thought of goodness, exists essentially for our more +thorough, our more _real_ satisfaction: the soul goes into it with all +its higher hankerings, and rests peaceful, satisfied, so long as it is +enclosed in this dwelling of its own choice. And it is, on the +contrary, the flux of what we call real life, that is to say, of life +imposed on us by outer necessities and combinations, which is so often +one-sided, perfunctory, not to be dwelt upon by thought nor penetrated +into by feeling, and endurable only according to the angle or the +lighting up--the angle or lighting up called "purpose" which we apply +to it. + + +XIX. + +With what, I ventured to ask just now, are you going to fill the place +of religion in art? + +With nothing, I believe, unless with religion itself. Religion, +perhaps externally unlike any of which we have historical experience; +but religion, whether individual or collective, possessing, just +because it is immortal, all the immortal essence of all past and +present creeds. And just because religion is the highest form of human +activity, and its utility is the crowning one of thoughtful and +feeling life, just for this reason will religion return, sooner or +later, to be art's most universal and most noble employer. + + +XX. + +In the foregoing pages I have tried to derive the need of beauty from +the fact of attention, attention to what we do, think and feel, as +well as see and hear; and to demonstrate therefore that all +spontaneous and efficient art is _the making and doing of useful +things in such manner as shall be beautiful_. During this +demonstration I have, incidentally, though inexplicitly, pointed out +the utility of art itself and of beauty. For beauty is that mode of +existence of visible or audible or thinkable things which imposes on +our contemplating energies rhythms and patterns of unity, harmony and +completeness; and thereby gives us the foretaste and the habit of +higher and more perfect forms of life. Art is born of the utilities of +life; and art is in itself one of life's greatest utilities. + + + + +WASTEFUL PLEASURES. + + "Er muss lernen edler begehren, damit er nicht nötig habe, + erhaben zu wollen."--SCHILLER, "_Ästhetische Erziehung_." + + +I. + +A pretty, Caldecott-like moment, or rather minute, when the huntsmen +stood on the green lawn round the moving, tail-switching, dapple mass +of hounds; and the red coats trotted one by one from behind the +screens of bare trees, delicate lilac against the slowly moving grey +sky. A delightful moment, followed, as the hunt swished past, by the +sudden sense that these men and women, thus whirled off into what may +well be the sole poetry of their lives, are but noisy intruders into +these fields and spinnies, whose solemn, secret speech they drown with +clatter and yelp, whose mystery and charm stand aside on their +passage, like an interrupted, a profaned rite. + +Gone; the yapping and barking, the bugle-tootling fade away in the +distance; and the trees and wind converse once more. + +This West Wind, which has been whipping up the wan northern sea, and +rushing round the house all this last fortnight, singing its big +ballads in corridor and chimney, piping its dirges and lullabies in +one's back-blown hair on the sand dunes--this West Wind, with its +many chaunts, its occasional harmonies and sudden modulations mocking +familiar tunes, can tell of many things: of the different way in which +the great trunks meet its shocks and answer vibrating through +innermost fibres; the smooth, muscular boles of the beeches, shaking +their auburn boughs; the stiff, rough hornbeams and thorns isolated +among the pastures; the ashes whose leaves strew the roads with green +rushes; the creaking, shivering firs and larches. The West Wind tells +us of the way how the branches spring outwards, or balance themselves, +or hang like garlands in the air, and carry their leaves, or needles, +or nuts; and of their ways of bending and straightening, of swaying +and trembling. It tells us also, this West Wind, how the sea is lashed +and furrowed; how the little waves spring up in the offing, and the +big waves rise and run forward and topple into foam; how the rocks are +shaken, the sands are made to hiss and the shingle is rattled up and +down; how the great breakers vault over the pier walls, leap +thundering against the breakwaters, and disperse like smoke off the +cannon's mouth, like the whiteness of some vast explosion. + +These are the things which the Wind and the Woods can talk about with +us, nay, even the gorse and the shaking bents. But the hunting folk +pass too quickly, and make too much noise, to hear anything save +themselves and their horses' hoofs and their bugle and hounds. + + +II. + +I have taken fox-hunting as the type of a pleasure _which destroys +something_, just because it is, in many ways, the most noble and, if I +may say so, the most innocent of such pleasures. The death, the, +perhaps agonising, flight of the fox, occupy no part of the hunter's +consciousness, and form no part of his pleasure; indeed, they could, +but for the hounds, be dispensed with altogether. There is a fine +community of emotion between men and creatures, horses and dogs adding +their excitement to ours; there is also a fine lack of the mere +feeling of trying to outrace a competitor, something of the collective +and almost altruistic self-forgetfulness of a battle. There is the +break-neck skurry, the flying across the ground and through the air at +the risk of limbs and life, and at the mercy of one's own and one's +horse's pluck, skill and good fellowship. All this makes up a rapture +in which many ugly things vanish, and certain cosmic intuitions flash +forth for some, at least, of the hunters. The element of poetry is +greater, the element of brutality less, in this form of intoxication +than in many others. It has a handsomer bearing than its modern +successor, the motor-intoxication, with its passiveness and (for all +but the driver) its lack of skill, its confinement, moreover, to +beaten roads, and its petrol-stench and dustcloud of privilege and of +inconvenience to others. And the intoxication of hunting is, to my +thinking at least, cleaner, wholesomer, than the intoxication of, let +us say, certain ways of hearing music. But just because so much can be +said, both positive and negative, in its favour, I am glad that +hunting, and not some meaner or some less seemly amusement, should +have set me off moralising about such pleasures as are wasteful of +other things or of some portion of our soul. + + +III. + +For nothing can be further from scientific fact than that +cross-grained and ill-tempered puritanism identifying pleasure with +something akin to sinfulness. Philosophically considered, Pain is so +far stronger a determinant than Pleasure, that its _vis a tergo_ might +have sufficed to ensure the survival of the race, without the far +milder action of Pleasure being necessary at all; so that the very +existence of Pleasure would lead us to infer that, besides its +function of selecting, like Pain, among life's possibilities, it has +the function of actually replenishing the vital powers, and thus +making amends, by its healing and invigorating, for the wear and tear, +the lessening of life's resources through life's other great Power of +Selection, the terror-angel of Pain. This being the case, Pleasure +tends, and should tend more and more, to be consistent with itself, to +mean a greater chance of its own growth and spreading (as opposed to +Pain's dwindling and suicidal nature), and in so far to connect itself +with whatsoever facts make for the general good, and to reject, +therefore, all cruelty, injustice, rapacity and wastefulness of +opportunities and powers. + +Nay, paradoxical though such a notion may seem in the face of our past +and present state of barbarism, Pleasure, and hence amusement, should +become incompatible with, be actually _spoilt by_, any element of +loss to self and others, of mischief even to the distant, the future, +and of impiety to that principle of Good which is but the summing up +of the claims of the unseen and unborn. + + +IV. + +I was struck, the other day, by the name of a play on a theatre +poster: _A Life of Pleasure_. The expression is so familiar that we +hear and employ it without thinking how it has come to be. Yet, when +by some accident it comes to be analysed, its meaning startles with an +odd revelation. Pleasure, a life of pleasure.... Other lives, to be +livable, must contain more pleasure than pain; and we know, as a fact, +that all healthy work is pleasurable to healthy creatures. Intelligent +converse with one's friends, study, sympathy, all give pleasure; and +art is, in a way, the very type of pleasure. Yet we know that none of +all that is meant in the expression: a life of pleasure. A curious +thought, and, as it came to me, a terrible one. For that expression is +symbolic. It means that, of all the myriads of creatures who surround +us, in the present and past, the vast majority identifies pleasure +mainly with such a life; despises, in its speech at least, all other +sorts of pleasure, the pleasure of its own honest strivings and +affections, taking them for granted, making light thereof. + + +V. + +We are mistaken, I think, in taxing the generality of people with +indifference to ideals, with lack of ideas directing their lives. Few +lives are really lawless or kept in check only by the _secular arm_, +the judge or policeman. Nor is conformity to _what others do, what is +fit for one's class_ or _seemly in one's position_ a result of mere +unreasoning imitation or of the fear of being boycotted. The potency +of such considerations is largely that of summing up certain rules and +defining the permanent tendencies of the individual, or those he would +wish to be permanent; in other words, we are in the presence of +_ideals of conduct_. + +Why else are certain things _those which have to be done_; whence +otherwise such expressions as _social duties_ and _keeping up one's +position_? Why such fortitude under boredom, weariness, constraint; +such heroism sometimes in taking blows and snubs, in dancing on with +broken heart-strings like the Princess in Ford's play? All this means +an ideal, nay, a religion. Yes; people, quite matter-of-fact, worldly +people, are perpetually sacrificing to ideals. And what is more, quite +superior, virtuous people, religious in the best sense of the word, +are apt to have, besides the ostensible and perhaps rather obsolete +one of churches and meeting-houses, another cultus, esoteric, unspoken +but acted upon, of which the priests and casuists are ladies'-maids +and butlers. + +Now, if one could only put to profit some of this wasted dutifulness, +this useless heroism; if some of the energy put into the ideal +progress (as free from self-interest most often as the _accumulating +merit_ of Kim's Buddhist) called _getting on in the world_ could only +be applied in _getting the world along_! + + +VI. + +An eminent political economist, to whom I once confided my aversion +for such _butler's and lady's-maid's ideals of life_, admonished me +that although useless possessions, unenjoyable luxury, ostentation, +and so forth, undoubtedly represented a waste of the world's energies +and resources, they should nevertheless be tolerated, inasmuch as +constituting a great incentive to industry. People work, he said, +largely that they may be able to waste. If you repress wastefulness +you will diminish, by so much, the production of wealth by the +wasteful, by the luxurious and the vain.... + +This may be true. Habits of modesty and of sparingness might perhaps +deprive the world of as much wealth as they would save. But even +supposing this to be true, though the wealth of the world did not +immediately gain, there would always be the modesty and sparingness to +the good; virtues which, sooner or later, would be bound to make more +wealth exist or to make existing wealth _go a longer way_. Appealing +to higher motives, to good sense and good feeling and good taste, has +the advantage of saving the drawbacks of lower motives, which _are_ +lower just because they have such drawbacks. You may get a man to do a +desirable thing from undesirable motives; but those undesirable +motives will induce him, the very next minute, to do some undesirable +thing. The wages of good feeling and good taste is the satisfaction +thereof. The wages of covetousness and vanity is the grabbing of +advantages and the humiliating of neighbours; and these make life +poorer, however much bread there may be to eat or money to spend. What +are called higher motives are merely those which expand individual +life into harmonious connection with the life of all men; what we call +lower motives bring us hopelessly back, by a series of vicious +circles, to the mere isolated, sterile egos. Sterile, I mean, in the +sense that the supply of happiness dwindles instead of increasing. + + +VII. + +Waste of better possibilities, of higher qualities, of what we call +_our soul_. To denounce this is dignified, but it is also easy and +most often correspondingly useless. I wish to descend to more prosaic +matters, and, as Ruskin did in his day, to denounce the _mere waste of +money_. For the wasting of money implies nearly always all those other +kinds of wasting. And although there are doubtless pastimes (pastimes +promoted, as is our wont, for fear of yet _other_ pastimes), which are +in themselves unclean or cruel, these are less typically evil, just +because they are more obviously so, than the amusements which imply +the destruction of wealth, the destruction of part of the earth's +resources and of men's labour and thrift, and incidentally thereon of +human leisure and comfort and the world's sweetness. + +Do you remember La Bruyère's famous description of the peasants under +Louis XIV.? "One occasionally meets with certain wild animals, both +male and female, scattered over the country; black, livid and parched +by the sun, bound to the soil which they scratch and dig up with +desperate obstinacy. They have something which sounds like speech, and +when they raise themselves up they show a human face. And, as a fact, +they are human beings." The _Ancien Régime_, which had reduced them to +that, and was to continue reducing them worse and worse for another +hundred years by every conceivable tax, tithe, toll, servage, and +privilege, did so mainly to pay for amusements. Amusements of the +_Roi-Soleil_, with his Versailles and Marly and aqueducts and +waterworks, plays and operas; amusements of Louis XV., with his +Parc-aux-Cerfs; amusements of Marie-Antoinette, playing the virtuous +rustic at Trianon; amusements of new buildings, new equipages, new +ribbons and bibbons, new diamonds (including the fatal necklace); +amusements of hunting and gambling and love-making; amusements +sometimes atrocious, sometimes merely futile, but all of them leaving +nothing behind, save the ravaged grass and stench of brimstone of +burnt-out fireworks. + +Moreover, wasting money implies _getting more_. And the processes by +which such wasted money is replaced are, by the very nature of those +who do the wasting, rarely, nay, never, otherwise than wasteful in +themselves. To put into their pockets or, like Marshall Villeroi +("a-t-on mis de l'or dans mes poches?"), have it put by their valets, +to replace what was lost overnight, these proud and often honourable +nobles would ante-chamber and cringe for sinecures, pensions, +indemnities, privileges, importune and supplicate the King, the King's +mistress, pandar or lacquey. And the sinecure, pension, indemnity or +privilege was always deducted out of the bread--rye-bread, +straw-bread, grass-bread--which those parched, prone human animals +described by La Bruyère were extracting "with desperate +obstinacy"--out of the ever more sterile and more accursed furrow. + +It is convenient to point the moral by reference to those kings and +nobles of other centuries, without incurring pursuit for libel, or +wounding the feelings of one's own kind and estimable contemporaries. +Still, it may be well to add that, odd though it appears, the vicious +circle (in both senses of the words) continues to exist; and that, +even in our democratic civilisation, _you cannot waste money without +wasting something else in getting more money to replace it_. + +Waste, and _lay waste_, even as if your pastime had consisted not in +harmless novelty and display, in gentlemanly games or good-humoured +sport, but in destruction and devastation for their own sake. + + +VIII. + +It has been laid waste, that little valley which, in its delicate and +austere loveliness, was rarer and more perfect than any picture or +poem. Those oaks, ivy garlanded like Maenads, which guarded the +shallow white weirs whence the stream leaps down; those ilexes, whose +dark, loose boughs hung over the beryl pools like hair of drinking +nymphs; those trees which were indeed the living and divine owners of +that secluded place, dryads and oreads older and younger than any +mortals,--have now been shamefully stripped, violated and maimed, +their shorn-off leafage, already withered, gathered into faggots or +trodden into the mud made by woodcutters' feet in the place of violets +and tender grasses and wild balm; their flayed bodies, hacked grossly +out of shape, and flung into the defiled water until the moment when, +the slaughter and dishonour and profanation being complete, the +dealers' carts will come cutting up the turf and sprouting reeds, and +carry them off to the station or timber-yard. The very stumps and +roots will be dragged out for sale; the earthy banks, raw and torn, +will fall in, muddying and clogging that pure mountain brook; and the +hillside, turning into sliding shale, will dam it into puddles with +the refuse from the quarries above. And thus, for less guineas than +will buy a new motor or cover an hour of Monte Carlo, a corner of the +world's loveliness and peace will be gone as utterly as those chairs +and tables and vases and cushions which the harlot in Zola's novel +broke, tore, and threw upon the fire for her morning's amusement. + + +IX. + +There is in our imperfect life too little of pleasure and too much of +play. This means that our activities are largely wasted in +pleasureless ways; that, being more tired than we should be, we lose +much time in needed rest; moreover, that being, all of us more or +less, slaves to the drudgery of need or fashion, we set a positive +value on that negative good called freedom, even as the pause between +pain takes, in some cases, the character of pleasure. + +There is in all play a sense not merely of freedom from +responsibility, from purpose and consecutiveness, a possibility of +breaking off, or slackening off, but a sense also of margin, of +permitted pause and blank and change; all of which answer to our +being on the verge of fatigue or boredom, at the limit of our energy, +as is normal in the case of growing children (for growth exhausts), +and inevitable in the case of those who work without the renovation of +interest in what they are doing. + +If you notice people on a holiday, you will see them doing a large +amount of "nothing," dawdling, in fact; and "amusements" are, when +they are not excitements, that is to say, stimulations to deficient +energy, full of such "doing nothing." Think, for instance, of "amusing +conversation" with its gaps and skippings, and "amusing" reading with +its perpetual chances of inattention. + +All this is due to the majority of us being too weak, too badly born +and bred, to give full attention except under the constraint of +necessary work, or under the lash of some sort of excitement; and as a +consequence to our obtaining a sense of real well-being only from the +spare energy which accumulates during idleness. Moreover, under our +present conditions (as under those of slave-labour) "work" is rarely +such as calls forth the effortless, the willing, the pleased +attention. Either in kind or length or intensity, work makes a greater +demand than can be met by the spontaneous, happy activity of most of +us, and thereby diminishes the future chances of such spontaneous +activity by making us weaker in body and mind. + +Now, so long as work continues to be thus strained or against the +grain, play is bound to be either an excitement which leaves us poorer +and more tired than before (the fox-hunter, for instance, at the close +of the day, or on the off-days), or else play will be mere dawdling, +getting out of training, in a measure demoralisation. For +demoralisation, in the etymological sense being _debauched_, is the +correlative of over-great or over-long effort; both spoil, but the one +spoils while diminishing the mischief made by the other. + +Art is so much less useful than it should be, because of this bad +division of "work" and "play," between which two it finds no place. +For Art--and the art we unwittingly practice whenever we take pleasure +in nature--is without appeal either to the man who is straining at +business and to the man who is dawdling in amusement. + +Æsthetic pleasure implies energy during rest and leisureliness during +labour. It means making the most of whatever beautiful and noble +possibilities may come into our life; nay, it means, in each single +soul, _being_ for however brief a time, beautiful and noble because +one is filled with beauty and nobility. + + +X. + +To eat his bread in sorrow and the sweat of his face was, we are apt +to forget, the first sign of man's loss of innocence. And having +learned that we must reverse the myth in order to see its meaning +(since innocence is not at the beginning, but rather at the end of the +story of mankind), we might accept it as part of whatever religion we +may have, that the evil of our world is exactly commensurate with the +hardship of useful tasks and the wastefulness and destructiveness of +pleasures and diversions. Evil and also folly and inefficiency, for +each of these implies the existence of much work badly done, of much +work to no purpose, of a majority of men so weak and dull as to be +excluded from choice and from leisure, and a minority of men so weak +and dull as to use choice and leisure mainly for mischief. To reverse +this original sinful constitution of the world is the sole real +meaning of progress. And the only reason for wishing inventions to be +perfected, wealth to increase, freedom to be attained, and, indeed, +the life of the race to be continued at all, lies in the belief that +such continued movement must bring about a gradual diminution of +pleasureless work and wasteful play. Meanwhile, in the wretched past +and present, the only aristocracy really existing has been that of the +privileged creatures whose qualities and circumstances must have been +such that, whether artisans or artists, tillers of the ground or +seekers after truth, poets, philosophers, or mothers and nurses, their +work has been their pleasure. This means _love_; and love means +fruitfulness. + + +XI. + +There are moments when, catching a glimpse of the frightful weight of +care and pain with which mankind is laden, I am oppressed by the +thought that all improvement must come solely through the continued +selfish shifting of that burden from side to side, from shoulder to +shoulder; through the violent or cunning destruction of some of the +intolerable effects of selfishness in the past by selfishness in the +present and the future. And that in the midst of this terrible but +salutary scuffle for ease and security, the ideals of those who are +privileged enough to have any, may be not much more useful than the +fly on the axle-tree. + +It may be, it doubtless is so nowadays, although none of us can tell +to what extent. + +But even if it be so, let us who have strength and leisure for +preference and ideals prepare ourselves to fit, at least to acquiesce, +in the changes we are unable to bring about. Do not let us seek our +pleasure in things which we condemn, or remain attached to those which +are ours only through the imperfect arrangements which we deplore. We +are, of course, all tied tight in the meshes of our often worthless +and cruel civilisation, even as the saints felt themselves caught in +the meshes of bodily life. But even as they, in their day, fixed their +hopes on the life disembodied, so let us, in our turn, prepare our +souls for that gradual coming of justice on earth which we shall never +witness, by forestalling its results in our valuations and our wishes. + + +XII. + +The other evening, skirting the Links, we came upon a field, where, +among the brown and green nobbly grass, was gathered a sort of +parliament of creatures: rooks on the fences, seagulls and peewits +wheeling overhead, plovers strutting and wagging their tails; and, +undisturbed by the white darting of rabbits, a covey of young +partridges, hopping leisurely in compact mass. + +Is it because we see of these creatures only their harmlessness to us, +but not the slaughter and starving out of each other; or is it because +of their closer relation to simple and beautiful things, to nature; +or is it merely because they are _not human beings_--who shall tell? +but, for whatever reason, such a sight does certainly bring up in us a +sense, however fleeting, of simplicity, _mansuetude_ (I like the +charming mediæval word), of the kinship of harmlessness. + +I was thinking this while wading up the grass this morning to the +craig behind the house, the fields of unripe corn a-shimmer and +a-shiver in the light, bright wind; the sea and distant sky so merged +in delicate white mists that a ship, at first sight, seemed a bird +poised in the air. And, higher up, among the ragwort and tall +thistles, I found in the coarse grass a dead baby-rabbit, shot and not +killed at once, perhaps; or shot and not picked up, as not worth +taking: a little soft, smooth, feathery young handful, laid out very +decently, as human beings have to be laid out by one another, in +death. + +It brought to my mind a passage where Thoreau, who understood such +matters, says, that although the love of nature may be fostered by +sport, such love, when once consummate, will make nature's lover +little by little shrink from slaughter, and hanker after a diet +wherein slaughter is unnecessary. + +It is sad, not for the beasts but for our souls, that, since we must +kill beasts for food (though may not science teach a cleaner, more +human diet?) or to prevent their eating us out of house and home, it +is sad that we should choose to make of this necessity (which ought to +be, like all our baser needs, a matter if not of shame at least of +decorum) that we should make of this ugly necessity an opportunity for +amusement. It is sad that nowadays, when creatures, wild and tame, +are bred for killing, the usual way in which man is brought in contact +with the creatures of the fields and woods and streams (such man, I +mean, as thinks, feels or is expected to) should be by slaughtering +them. + +Surely it might be more akin to our human souls, to gentleness of +bringing up, Christianity of belief and chivalry of all kinds, to be, +rather than a hunter, a shepherd. Yet the shepherd is the lout in our +idle times; the shepherd, and the tiller of the soil; and alas, the +naturalist, again, is apt to be the _muff_. + +But may the time not come when, apart from every man having to do some +useful thing, something perchance like tending flocks, tilling the +ground, mowing and forestering--the mere love of beauty, the desire +for peace and harmony, the craving for renewal by communion with the +life outside our own, will lead men, without dogs or guns or rods, +into the woods, the fields, to the river-banks, as to some ancient +palace full of frescoes, as to some silent church, with solemn rites +and liturgy? + + +XIII. + +The killing of creatures for sport seems a necessity nowadays. There +is more than mere bodily vigour to be got by occasional interludes of +outdoor life, early hours, discomfort and absorption in the ways of +birds and beasts; there is actual spiritual renovation. The mere +reading about such things, in Tolstoi's _Cossacks_ and certain +chapters of _Anna Karenina_ makes one realise the poetry attached to +them; and we all of us know that the genuine sportsman, the man of +gun and rod and daybreak and solitude, has often a curious halo of +purity about him; contact with natural things and unfamiliarity with +the sordidness of so much human life and endeavour, amounting to a +kind of consecration. A man of this stamp once told me that no emotion +in his life had ever equalled that of his first woodcock. + +You cannot have such open-air life, such clean and poetic emotion +without killing. Men are men; they will not get up at cock-crow for +the sake of a mere walk, or sleep in the woods for the sake of the +wood's noises: they must have an object; and what object is there +except killing beasts or birds or fish? Men have to be sportsmen +because they can't all be either naturalists or poets. Killing animals +(and, some persons would add, killing other men) is necessary to keep +man manly. And where men are no longer manly they become cruel, not +for the sake of sport or war, but for their lusts and for cruelty's +own sake. And that seems to settle the question. + + +XIV. + +But the question is not really settled. It is merely settled for the +present, but not for the future. It is surely a sign of our weakness +and barbarism that we cannot imagine to-morrow as better than to-day, +and that, for all our vaunted temporal progress and hypocritical talk +of duty, we are yet unable to think and to feel in terms of +improvement and change; but let our habits, like the vilest vested +interests, oppose a veto to the hope and wish for better things. + +To realise that _what is_ does not mean what _will be_, constitutes, +methinks, the real spirituality of us poor human creatures, allowing +our judgments and aspirations to pass beyond our short and hidebound +life, to live on in the future, and help to make that _yonside of our +mortality_, which some of us attempt to satisfy with theosophic +reincarnation and planchette messages! + +But such spirituality, whose "it shall"--or "it shall not"--will +become an ever larger part of all _it is_, depends upon the courage of +recognising that much of what the past forces us to accept is not good +enough for the future; recognising that, odious as this may seem to +our self-conceit and sloth, many of the things we do and like and are, +will not bear even our own uncritical scrutiny. Above all, that the +lesser evil which we prefer to the greater is an evil for all that, +and requires riddance. + +Much of the world's big mischief is due to the avoidance of a bigger +one. For instance, all this naïvely insisted on masculine inability to +obtain the poet's or naturalist's joys without shooting a bird or +hooking a fish, this inability to love wild life, early hours and +wholesome fatigue unless accompanied by a waste of life and of money; +in short, all this incapacity _for being manly without being +destructive_, is largely due among us Anglo-Saxons to the bringing up +of boys as mere playground dunces, for fear (as we are told by parents +and schoolmasters) that the future citizens of England should take to +evil communications and worse manners if they did not play and talk +cricket and football at every available moment. For what can you +expect but that manly innocence which has been preserved at the +expense of every higher taste should grow up into manly virtue unable +to maintain itself save by hunting and fishing, shooting and +horse-racing; expensive amusements requiring, in their turn, a further +sacrifice of all capacities for innocent, noble and inexpensive +interests, in the absorbing, sometimes stultifying, often debasing +processes of making money? + +The same complacency towards waste and mischief for the sake of moral +advantages may be studied in the case also of our womankind. The +absorption in their _toilettes_ guards them from many dangers to +family sanctity. And from how much cruel gossip is not society saved +by the prevalent passion for bridge! + +So at least moralists, who are usually the most complacently +demoralised of elderly cynics, are ready to assure us. + + +XV. + +"We should learn to have noble desires," wrote Schiller, "in order to +have no need for sublime resolutions." And morality might almost take +care of itself, if people knew the strong and exquisite pleasures to +be found, like the aromatic ragwort growing on every wall and +stone-heap in the south, everywhere in the course of everyday life. +But alas! the openness to cheap and simple pleasures means the fine +training of fine faculties; and mankind asks for the expensive and +far-fetched and unwholesome pleasures, because it is itself of poor +and cheap material and of wholesale scamped manufacture. + + +XVI. + +Biological facts, as well as our observation of our own self (which is +psychology), lead us to believe that, as I have mentioned before, +Pleasure fulfils the function not merely of leading us along livable +ways, but also of creating a surplus of vitality. Itself an almost +unnecessary boon (since Pain is sufficient to regulate our choice), +Pleasure would thus tend to ever fresh and, if I may use the word, +gratuitous supplies of good. Does not this give to Pleasure a certain +freedom, a humane character wholly different from the awful, +unappeasable tyranny of Pain? For let us be sincere. Pain, and all the +cruel alternatives bidding us obey or die, are scarcely things with +which our poor ideals, our good feeling and good taste, have much +chance of profitable discussion. There is in all human life a side +akin to that of the beast; the beast hunted, tracked, starved, killing +and killed for food; the side alluded to under decent formulæ like +"pressure of population," "diminishing returns," "competition," and so +forth. Not but this side of life also tends towards good, but the +means by which it does so, nature's atrocious surgery, are evil, +although one cannot deny that it is the very nature of Pain to +diminish its own recurrence. This thought may bring some comfort in +the awful earnestness of existence, this thought that in its cruel +fashion, the universe is weeding out cruel facts. But to pretend that +we can habitually exercise much moral good taste, be of delicate +forethought, squeamish harmony when Pain has yoked and is driving us, +is surely a bad bit of hypocrisy, of which those who are being +starved or trampled or tortured into acquiescence may reasonably bid +us be ashamed. Indeed, stoicism, particularly in its discourses to +others, has not more sense of shame than sense of humour. + +But since our power of choosing is thus jeopardised by the presence of +Pain, it would the more behove us to express our wish for goodness, +our sense of close connection, wide and complex harmony with the +happiness of others, in those moments of respite and liberty which we +call happiness, and particularly in those freely chosen concerns which +we call play. + +Alas, we cannot help ourselves from becoming unimaginative, +unsympathising, destructive and brutish when we are hard pressed by +agony or by fear. Therefore, let such of us as have stuff for finer +things, seize some of our only opportunities, and seek to become +harmless in our pleasures. + +Who knows but that the highest practical self-cultivation would not be +compassed by a much humbler paraphrase of Schiller's advice: let us +learn to like what does no harm to the present or the future, in order +not to throw away heroic efforts or sentimental intentions, in doing +what we don't like for someone else's supposed benefit. + + +XVII. + +The various things I have been saying have been said, or, better +still, taken for granted, by Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Ruskin, +Pater, Stevenson, by all our poets in verse and prose. What I wish to +add is that, being a poet, seeing and feeling like a poet, means +quite miraculously multiplying life's resources for oneself and +others; in fact the highest practicality conceivable, the real +transmutation of brass into gold. Now what we all waste, more even +than money, land, time and labour, more than we waste the efforts and +rewards of other folk, and the chances of enjoyment of unborn +generations (and half of our so-called practicality is nothing but +such waste), what we waste in short more than anything else, is our +own and our children's inborn capacity to see and feel as poets do, +and make much joy out of little material. + + +XVIII. + +There is no machine refuse, cinder, husk, paring or rejected material +of any kind which modern ingenuity cannot turn to profit, making +useful and pleasant goods out of such rubbish as we would willingly, +at first sight, shoot out of the universe into chaos. Every material +thing can be turned, it would seem, into new textures, clean metal, +manure, fuel or what not. But while we are thus economical with our +dust-heaps, what horrid wastefulness goes on with our sensations, +impressions, memories, emotions, with our souls and all the things +that minister to their delight! + + +XIX. + +An ignorant foreign body--and, after all, everyone is a foreigner +somewhere and ignorant about something--once committed the enormity of +asking his host, just back from cub-hunting, whether the hedgerows, +when he went out of a morning, were not quite lovely with those dewy +cobwebs which the French call Veils of the Virgin. It had to be +explained that such a sight was the most unwelcome you could imagine, +since it was a sure sign there would be no scent. The poor foreigner +was duly crestfallen, as happens whenever one has nearly spoilt a +friend's property through some piece of blundering. + +But the blunder struck me as oddly symbolical. Are we not most of us +pursuing for our pleasure, though sometimes at risk of our necks, a +fox of some kind: worth nothing as meat, little as fur, good only to +gallop after, and whose unclean scent is incompatible with those +sparkling gossamers flung, for everyone's delight, over gorse and +hedgerow? + + * * * * * + +THE END. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +The edition from which this text was drawn is volume 4175 of the +Tauchnitz Edition of British Authors, where it appeared together with +_The Spirit of Rome_, also by Vernon Lee. The volume was published in +1910. + +The following changes were made to the text: + + solely for the purpose or solely for the purpose of + + coeteris paribus cæeteris paribus + + Mautineia (Higher Harmonies I) Mantineia + + The Gothic boldness of light and The Gothic boldness of light and + shade of the Campanile make shade of the Campanile makes + + Tuskan Tuscan + + the workmen will be able (...) the workman will be able (...) + + learn their appearance and care learn their appearance and care + for it for them + + The death, (...) the (...) The death, (...) the (...) + flight of the fox, occupy no part flight of the fox, occupy no part + (...) and forms no part (...) and form no part + + the Monnets the Monets + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Laurus Nobilis, by Vernon Lee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAURUS NOBILIS *** + +***** This file should be named 27939-8.txt or 27939-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/9/3/27939/ + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net This file +was produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries. + + +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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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: Laurus Nobilis + Chapters on Art and Life + +Author: Vernon Lee + +Release Date: January 31, 2009 [EBook #27939] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAURUS NOBILIS *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net This file +was produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>LAURUS NOBILIS</h2> +<p> </p> +<h4>BY</h4> +<p> </p> +<h2>VERNON LEE.</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h3>CONTENTS.</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" summary="contents" > +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"> </td><td><a href="#c1-1" ><span class="smallcaps">The Use of Beauty</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"> </td><td><a href="#c1-2" ><span class="smallcaps">"Nisi Citharam"</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"> </td><td><a href="#c1-3" ><span class="smallcaps">Higher Harmonies</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"> </td><td><a href="#c1-4" ><span class="smallcaps">Beauty and Sanity</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"> </td><td><a href="#c1-5" ><span class="smallcaps">The Art and the Country</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"> </td><td><a href="#c1-6" ><span class="smallcaps">Art and Usefulness</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"> </td><td><a href="#c1-7" ><span class="smallcaps">Wasteful Pleasures</span></a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>LAURUS NOBILIS.</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTERS ON ART AND LIFE.</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow"></hr> +<h5>TO</h5> +<h3>ANGELICA RASPONI DALLE TESTE</h3> +<h5>FROM</h5> +<h5>HER GRATEFUL OLD FRIEND AND NEIGHBOUR</h5> +<h3>VERNON LEE.</h3> +<h4>1885-1908.</h4> +<hr class="narrow"></hr> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<blockquote class="med"> +<div class="ind10"> +<p class="noindent"> +Die Realität der Dinge ist der Dinge Werk;<br /> +der Schein der Dinge ist der Menschen Werk;<br /> +und ein Gemüt, das sich am Scheine weidet,<br /> +ergötzt sich schon nicht mehr an dem, was es<br /> +empfängt, sondern an dem, was es tut.</p> +<p class="ind8"><span class="smallcaps">Schiller</span>, <i>Briefe über Ästhetik</i>. +</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + + +<p><a name="c1-1" id="c1-1"></a> </p> +<h3>THE USE OF BEAUTY.</h3> +<p> </p> +<h4>I.</h4> + + +<p>One afternoon, in Rome, on the way back from the Aventine, the +road-mender climbed onto the tram as it trotted slowly along, and +fastened to its front, alongside of the place of the driver, a bough +of budding bay.</p> + +<p>Might one not search long for a better symbol of what we may all do by +our life? Bleakness, wind, squalid streets, a car full of +heterogeneous people, some very dull, most very common; a laborious +jog-trot all the way. But to redeem it all with the pleasantness of +beauty and the charm of significance, this laurel branch.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>Our language does not possess any single word wherewith to sum up the +various categories of things (made by nature or made by man, intended +solely for the purpose <ins title="original has or">of</ins> subserving by mere coincidence) which +minister to our organic and many-sided æsthetic instincts: the things +affecting us in that absolutely special, unmistakable, and hitherto +mysterious manner expressed in our finding them <i>beautiful</i>. It is of +the part which such things—whether actually present or merely +shadowed in our mind—can play in our life; and of the influence of +the instinct for beauty on the other instincts making up our nature, +that I would treat in these pages. And for this reason I have been +glad to accept from the hands of chance, and of that road-mender of +the tram-way, the bay laurel as a symbol of what we have no word to +express: the aggregate of all art, all poetry, and particularly of all +poetic and artistic vision and emotion.</p> + + +<p>For the Bay Laurel—<i>Laurus Nobilis</i> of botanists—happens to be not +merely the evergreen, unfading plant into which Apollo metamorphosed, +while pursuing, the maiden whom he loved, even as the poet, the artist +turns into immortal shapes his own quite personal and transient moods, +or as the fairest realities, nobly sought, are transformed, made +evergreen and restoratively fragrant for all time in our memory and +fancy. It is a plant of noblest utility, averting, as the ancients +thought, lightning from the dwellings it surrounded, even as +disinterested love for beauty averts from our minds the dangers which +fall on the vain and the covetous; and curing many aches and fevers, +even as the contemplation of beauty refreshes and invigorates our +spirit. Indeed, we seem to be reading a description no longer of the +virtues of the bay laurel, but of the <i>virtues</i> of all beautiful +sights and sounds, of all beautiful thoughts and emotions, in reading +the following quaint and charming words of an old herbal:—</p> + +<blockquote class="med"> + <p>"The bay leaves are of as necessary use as any other in garden or + orchard, for they serve both for pleasure and profit, both for + ornament and use, both for honest civil uses and for physic; yea, + both for the sick and for the sound, both for the living and for + the dead. The bay serveth to adorn the house of God as well as of + man, to procure warmth, comfort, and strength to the limbs of men + and women;… to season vessels wherein are preserved our meats as + well as our drinks; to crown or encircle as a garland the heads of + the living, and to stick and deck forth the bodies of the dead; so + that, from the cradle to the grave we have still use of it, we + have still need of it."</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>Before beginning to expound the virtues of Beauty, let me, however, +insist that these all depend upon the simple and mysterious fact +that—well, that the Beautiful <i>is</i> the Beautiful. In our discussion of +what the Bay Laurel symbolises, let us keep clear in our memory the +lovely shape of the sacred tree, and the noble places in which we have +seen it.</p> + +<p>There are bay twigs, gathered together in bronze sheaves, in the great +garland surrounding Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise. There are two +interlaced branches of bay, crisp-edged and slender, carved in fine +low relief inside the marble chariot in the Vatican. There is a +fan-shaped growth of Apollo's Laurel behind that Venetian portrait of +a poet, which was formerly called Ariosto by Titian. And, most +suggestive of all, there are the Mycenaean bay leaves of beaten gold, +so incredibly thin one might imagine them to be the withered crown of +a nameless singer in a forgotten tongue, grown brittle through three +thousand years and more.</p> + +<p>Each of such presentments, embodying with loving skill some feature of +the plant, enhances by association the charm of its reality, +accompanying the delight of real bay-trees and bay leaves with +inextricable harmonics, vague recollections of the delight of bronze, +of delicately cut marble, of marvellously beaten gold, of deep +Venetian crimson and black and auburn.</p> + +<p>But best of all, most satisfying and significant, is the remembrance +of the bay-trees themselves. They greatly affect the troughs of +watercourses, among whose rocks and embanked masonry they love to +strike their roots. In such a stream trough, on a spur of the Hill of +Fiesole, grow the most beautiful poet's laurels I can think of. The +place is one of those hollowings out of a hillside which, revealing +how high they lie only by the sky-lines of distant hills, always feel +so pleasantly remote. And the peace and austerity of this little +valley are heightened by the dove-cot of a farm invisible in the +olive-yards, and looking like a hermitage's belfry. The olives are +scant and wan in the fields all round, with here and there the blossom +of an almond; the oak woods, of faint wintry copper-rose, encroach +above; and in the grassy space lying open to the sky, the mountain +brook is dyked into a weir, whence the crystalline white water leaps +into a chain of shady pools. And there, on the brink of that weir, and +all along that stream's shallow upper course among grass and brakes of +reeds, are the bay-trees I speak of: groups of three or four at +intervals, each a sheaf of smooth tapering boles, tufted high up with +evergreen leaves, sparse bunches whose outermost leaves are sharply +printed like lance-heads against the sky. Most modest little trees, +with their scant berries and rare pale buds; not trees at all, I fancy +some people saying. Yet of more consequence, somehow, in their calm +disregard of wind, their cheerful, resolute soaring, than any other +trees for miles; masters of that little valley, of its rocks, pools, +and overhanging foliage; sovereign brothers and rustic demi-gods for +whom the violets scent the air among the withered grass in March, and, +in May, the nightingales sing through the quivering star night.</p> + +<p>Of all southern trees, most simple and aspiring; and certainly most +perfect among evergreens, with their straight, faintly carmined +shoots, their pliable strong leaves so subtly rippled at the edge, and +their clean, dry fragrance; delicate, austere, alert, serene; such are +the bay-trees of Apollo.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<p>I have gladly accepted, from the hands of that tram-way road-mender, +the Bay Laurel—<i>Laurus Nobilis</i>—for a symbol of all art, all poetry, +and all poetic and artistic vision and emotion. It has summed up, +better than words could do, what the old Herbals call the <i>virtues</i>, +of all beautiful things and beautiful thoughts. And it has suggested, +I hope, the contents of the following notes; the nature of my attempt +to trace the influence which art should have on life.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>V.</h4> + +<p>Beauty, save by a metaphorical application of the word, is not in the +least the same thing as Goodness, any more than beauty (despite +Keats' famous assertion) is the same thing as Truth. These three +objects of the soul's pursuit have different natures, different laws, +and fundamentally different origins. But the energies which express +themselves in their pursuit—energies vital, primordial, and necessary +even to man's physical survival—have all been evolved under the same +stress of adaptation of the human creature to its surroundings; and +have therefore, in their beginnings and in their ceaseless growth, +been working perpetually in concert, meeting, crossing, and +strengthening one another, until they have become indissolubly woven +together by a number of great and organic coincidences.</p> + +<p>It is these coincidences which all higher philosophy, from Plato +downwards, has strained for ever to expound. It is these coincidences, +which all religion and all poetry have taken for granted. And to three +of these it is that I desire to call attention, persuaded as I am that +the scientific progress of our day will make short work of all the +spurious æstheticism and all the shortsighted utilitarianism which +have cast doubts upon the intimate and vital connection between beauty +and every other noble object of our living.</p> + +<p>The three coincidences I have chosen are: that between development of +the æsthetic faculties and the development of the altruistic +instincts; that between development of a sense of æsthetic harmony and +a sense of the higher harmonies of universal life; and, before +everything else, the coincidence between the preference for æsthetic +pleasures and the nobler growth of the individual.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VI.</h4> + +<p>The particular emotion produced in us by such things as are beautiful, +works of art or of nature, recollections and thoughts as well as +sights and sounds, the emotion of æsthetic pleasure, has been +recognised ever since the beginning of time as of a mysteriously +ennobling quality. All philosophers have told us that; and the +religious instinct of all mankind has practically proclaimed it, by +employing for the worship of the highest powers, nay, by employing for +the mere designation of the godhead, beautiful sights, and sounds, and +words by which beautiful sights and sounds are suggested. Nay, there +has always lurked in men's minds, and expressed itself in the +metaphors of men's speech, an intuition that the Beautiful is in some +manner one of the primordial and, so to speak, cosmic powers of the +world. The theories of various schools of mental science, and the +practice of various schools of art, the practice particularly of the +persons styled by themselves æsthetes and by others decadents, have +indeed attempted to reduce man's relations with the great world-power +Beauty to mere intellectual dilettantism or sensual superfineness. But +the general intuition has not been shaken, the intuition which +recognised in Beauty a superhuman, and, in that sense, a truly divine +power. And now it must become evident that the methods of modern +psychology, of the great new science of body and soul, are beginning +to explain the reasonableness of this intuition, or, at all events, to +show very plainly in what direction we must look for the explanation +of it. This much can already be asserted, and can be indicated even +to those least versed in recent psychological study, to wit, that the +power of Beauty, the essential power therefore of art, is due to the +relations of certain visible and audible forms with the chief mental +and vital functions of all human beings; relations established +throughout the whole process of human and, perhaps, even of animal, +evolution; relations seated in the depths of our activities, but +radiating upwards even like our vague, organic sense of comfort and +discomfort; and permeating, even like our obscure relations with +atmospheric conditions, into our highest and clearest consciousness, +colouring and altering the whole groundwork of our thoughts and +feelings.</p> + +<p>Such is the primordial, and, in a sense, the cosmic power of the +Beautiful; a power whose very growth, whose constantly more complex +nature proclaims its necessary and beneficial action in human +evolution. It is the power of making human beings live, for the +moment, in a more organically vigorous and harmonious fashion, as +mountain air or sea-wind makes them live; but with the difference that +it is not merely the bodily, but very essentially the spiritual life, +the life of thought and emotion, which is thus raised to unusual +harmony and vigour. I may illustrate this matter by a very individual +instance, which will bring to the memory of each of my readers the +vivifying power of some beautiful sight or sound or beautiful +description. I was seated working by my window, depressed by the +London outlook of narrow grey sky, endless grey roofs, and rusty elm +tops, when I became conscious of a certain increase of vitality, +almost as if I had drunk a glass of wine, because a band somewhere +outside had begun to play. After various indifferent pieces, it began +a tune, by Handel or in Handel's style, of which I have never known +the name, calling it for myself the <i>Te Deum</i> Tune. And then it seemed +as if my soul, and according to the sensations, in a certain degree my +body even, were caught up on those notes, and were striking out as if +swimming in a great breezy sea; or as if it had put forth wings and +risen into a great free space of air. And, noticing my feelings, I +seemed to be conscious that those notes were being played <i>on me</i>, my +fibres becoming the strings; so that as the notes moved and soared and +swelled and radiated like stars and suns, I also, being identified +with the sound, having become apparently the sound itself, must needs +move and soar with them.</p> + +<p>We can all recollect a dozen instances when architecture, music, +painting, or some sudden sight of sea or mountain, have thus affected +us; and all poetry, particularly all great lyric poetry, Goethe's, +Shelley's, Wordsworth's, and, above all, Browning's, is full of the +record of such experience.</p> + +<p>I have said that the difference between this æsthetic heightening of +our vitality (and this that I have been describing is, I pray you to +observe, the æsthetic phenomenon <i>par excellence</i>), and such other +heightening of vitality as we experience from going into fresh air and +sunshine or taking fortifying food, the difference between the +æsthetic and the mere physiological pleasurable excitement consists +herein, that in the case of beauty, it is not merely our physical but +our spiritual life which is suddenly rendered more vigorous. We do not +merely breathe better and digest better, though that is no small +gain, but we seem to understand better. Under the vitalising touch of +the Beautiful, our consciousness seems filled with the affirmation of +what life is, what is worth being, what among our many thoughts and +acts and feelings are real and organic and important, what among the +many possible moods is the real, eternal <i>ourself</i>.</p> + +<p>Such are the great forces of Nature gathered up in what we call the +<i>æsthetic phenomenon</i>, and it is these forces of Nature which, stolen +from heaven by the man of genius or the nation of genius, and welded +together in music, or architecture, in the arts of visible design or +of written thoughts, give to the great work of art its power to +quicken the life of our soul.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>I hope I have been able to indicate how, by its essential nature, by +the primordial power it embodies, all Beauty, and particularly Beauty +in art, tends to fortify and refine the spiritual life of the +individual.</p> + +<p>But this is only half of the question, for, in order to get the full +benefit of beautiful things and beautiful thoughts, to obtain in the +highest potency those potent æsthetic emotions, the individual must +undergo a course of self-training, of self-initiation, which in its +turn elicits and improves some of the highest qualities of his soul. +Nay, as every great writer on art has felt, from Plato to Ruskin, but +none has expressed as clearly as Mr. Pater, in all true æsthetic +training there must needs enter an ethical element, almost an ascetic +one.</p> + +<p>The greatest art bestows pleasure just in proportion as people are +capable of buying that pleasure at the price of attention, +intelligence, and reverent sympathy. For great art is such as is +richly endowed, full of variety, subtlety, and suggestiveness; full of +delightfulness enough for a lifetime, the lifetime of generations and +generations of men; great art is to its true lovers like Cleopatra to +Antony—"age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety." +Indeed, when it is the greatest art of all, the art produced by the +marvellous artist, the most gifted race, and the longest centuries, we +find ourselves in presence of something which, like Nature itself, +contains more beauty, suggests more thought, works more miracles than +anyone of us has faculties to appreciate fully. So that, in some of +Titian's pictures and Michael Angelo's frescoes, the great Greek +sculptures, certain cantos of Dante and plays of Shakespeare, fugues +of Bach, scenes of Mozart and quartets of Beethoven, we can each of +us, looking our closest, feeling our uttermost, see and feel perhaps +but a trifling portion of what there is to be seen and felt, leaving +other sides, other perfections, to be appreciated by our neighbours. +Till it comes to pass that we find different persons very differently +delighted by the same masterpiece, and accounting most discrepantly +for their delight in it.</p> + +<p>Now such pleasure as this requires not merely a vast amount of +activity on our part, since all pleasure, even the lowest, is the +expression of an activity; it requires a vast amount of attention, of +intelligence, of what, in races or in individuals, means special +training.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VIII.</h4> + +<p>There is a sad confusion in men's minds on the very essential subject +of pleasure. We tend, most of us, to oppose the idea of pleasure to +the idea of work, effort, strenuousness, patience; and, therefore, +recognise as pleasures only those which cost none of these things, or +as little as possible; pleasures which, instead of being produced +through our will and act, impose themselves upon us from outside. In +all art—for art stands half-way between the sensual and emotional +experiences and the experiences of the mere reasoning intellect—in +all art there is necessarily an element which thus imposes itself upon +us from without, an element which takes and catches us: colour, +strangeness of outline, sentimental or terrible quality, rhythm +exciting the muscles, or clang which tickles the ear. But the art +which thus takes and catches our attention the most easily, asking +nothing in return, or next to nothing, is also the poorest art: the +oleograph, the pretty woman in the fashion plate, the caricature, the +representation of some domestic or harrowing scene, children being put +to bed, babes in the wood, railway accidents, etc.; or again, dance or +march music, and the equivalents of all this in verse. It catches your +attention, instead of your attention conquering it; but it speedily +ceases to interest, gives you nothing more, cloys, or comes to a dead +stop. It resembles thus far mere sensual pleasure, a savoury dish, a +glass of good wine, an excellent cigar, a warm bed, which impose +themselves on the nerves without expenditure of attention; with the +result, of course, that little or nothing remains, a sensual +impression dying, so to speak, childless, a barren, disconnected +thing, without place in the memory, unmarried as it is to the memory's +clients, thought and human feeling.</p> + +<p>If so many people prefer poor art to great, 'tis because they refuse +to give, through inability or unwillingness, as much of their soul +as great art requires for its enjoyment. And it is noticeable that +busy men, coming to art for pleasure when they are too weary for +looking, listening, or thinking, so often prefer the sensation-novel, +the music-hall song, and such painting as is but a costlier kind of +oleograph; treating all other art as humbug, and art in general as a +trifle wherewith to wile away a lazy moment, a trifle about which +every man <i>can know what he likes best</i>.</p> + +<p>Thus it is that great art makes, by coincidence, the same demands as +noble thinking and acting. For, even as all noble sports develop +muscle, develop eye, skill, quickness and pluck in bodily movement, +qualities which are valuable also in the practical business of life; +so also the appreciation of noble kinds of art implies the acquisition +of habits of accuracy, of patience, of respectfulness, and suspension +of judgment, of preference of future good over present, of harmony and +clearness, of sympathy (when we come to literary art), judgment and +kindly fairness, which are all of them useful to our neighbours and +ourselves in the many contingencies and obscurities of real life. Now +this is not so with the pleasures of the senses: the pleasures of the +senses do not increase by sharing, and sometimes cannot be shared at +all; they are, moreover, evanescent, leaving us no richer; above all, +they cultivate in ourselves qualities useful only for that particular +enjoyment. Thus, a highly discriminating palate may have saved the +life of animals and savages, but what can its subtleness do nowadays +beyond making us into gormandisers and winebibbers, or, at best, into +cooks and tasters for the service of gormandising and winebibbing +persons?</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IX.</h4> + +<p>Delight in beautiful things and in beautiful thoughts requires, +therefore, a considerable exercise of the will and the attention, such +as is not demanded by our lower enjoyments. Indeed, it is probably +this absence of moral and intellectual effort which recommends such +lower kinds of pleasure to a large number of persons. I have said +lower <i>kinds</i> of pleasure, because there are other enjoyments besides +those of the senses which entail no moral improvement in ourselves: +the enjoyments connected with vanity and greed. We should not—even if +any of us could be sure of being impeccable on these points—we should +not be too hard on the persons and the classes of persons who are +conscious of no other kind of enjoyment. They are not necessarily +base, not necessarily sensual or vain, because they care only for +bodily indulgence, for notice and gain. They are very likely not base, +but only apathetic, slothful, or very tired. The noble sport, the +intellectual problem, the great work of art, the divinely beautiful +effect in Nature, require that one should <i>give oneself</i>; the +French-cooked dinner as much as the pot of beer; the game of chance, +whether with clean cards at a club or with greasy ones in a tap-room; +the outdoing of one's neighbours, whether by the ragged heroes of Zola +or the well-groomed heroes of Balzac, require no such coming forward +of the soul: they <i>take</i> us, without any need for our giving +ourselves. Hence, as I have just said, the preference for them does +not imply original baseness, but only lack of higher energy. We can +judge of the condition of those who can taste no other pleasures by +remembering what the best of us are when we are tired or ill: vaguely +craving for interests, sensations, emotions, variety, but quite unable +to procure them through our own effort, and longing for them to come +to us from without. Now, in our still very badly organised world, an +enormous number of people are condemned by the tyranny of poverty or +the tyranny of fashion, to be, when the day's work or the day's +business is done, in just such a condition of fatigue and languor, of +craving, therefore, for the baser kinds of pleasure. We all recognise +that this is the case with what we call <i>poor people</i>, and that this +is why poor people are apt to prefer the public-house to the picture +gallery or the concert-room. It would be greatly to the purpose were +we to acknowledge that it is largely the case with the rich, and that +for that reason the rich are apt to take more pleasure in ostentatious +display of their properties than in contemplation of such beauty as is +accessible to all men. Indeed, it is one of the ironies of the +barbarous condition we are pleased to call <i>civilisation</i>, that so +many rich men—thousands daily—are systematically toiling and moiling +till they are unable to enjoy any pleasure which requires vigour of +mind and attention, rendering themselves impotent, from sheer fatigue, +to enjoy the delights which life gives generously to all those who +fervently seek them. And what for? Largely for the sake of those +pleasures which can be had only for money, but which can be enjoyed +without using one's soul.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>X.</h4> + +<div class="center">[<span class="smallcaps">PARENTHETICAL</span>]</div> + +<p>"And these, you see," I said, "are bay-trees, the laurels they used +the leaves of to…"</p> + +<p>I was going to say "to crown poets," but I left my sentence in +mid-air, because of course he knew that as well as I.</p> + +<p>"Precisely," he answered with intelligent interest—"I have noticed +that the leaves are sometimes put in sardine boxes."</p> + +<p>Soon after this conversation I discovered the curious circumstance +that one of the greatest of peoples and perhaps the most favoured by +Apollo, calls Laurus Nobilis "Laurier-Sauce." The name is French; the +symbol, alas, of universal application.</p> + +<p>This paragraph X. had been intended to deal with "Art as it is +understood by persons of fashion and eminent men of business."</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XI.</h4> + +<p>Thus it is that real æsthetic keenness—and æsthetic keenness, as I +shall show you in my next chapter, means appreciating beauty, not +collecting beautiful properties—thus it is that all æsthetic keenness +implies a development of the qualities of patience, attention, +reverence, and of that vigour of soul which is not called forth, but +rather impaired, by the coarser enjoyments of the senses and of +vanity. So far, therefore, we have seen that the capacity for æsthetic +pleasure is allied to a certain nobility in the individual. I think I +can show that the preference for æsthetic pleasure tends also to a +happier relation between the individual and his fellows.</p> + +<p>But the cultivation of our æsthetic pleasures does not merely +necessitate our improvement in certain very essential moral qualities. +It implies as much, in a way, as the cultivation of the intellect and +the sympathies, that we should live chiefly in the spirit, in which +alone, as philosophers and mystics have rightly understood, there is +safety from the worst miseries and room for the most complete +happiness. Only, we shall learn from the study of our æsthetic +pleasures that while the stoics and mystics have been right in +affirming that the spirit only can give the highest good, they have +been fatally wrong in the reason they gave for their preference. And +we may learn from our æsthetic experiences that the spirit is useful, +not in detaching us from the enjoyable things of life, but, on the +contrary, in giving us their consummate possession. The spirit—one of +whose most precious capacities is that it enables us to print off all +outside things on to ourselves, to store moods and emotions, to +recombine and reinforce past impressions into present ones—the spirit +puts pleasure more into our own keeping, making it more independent of +time and place, of circumstances, and, what is equally important, +independent of other people's strivings after pleasure, by which our +own, while they clash and hamper, are so often impeded.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XII.</h4> + +<p>For our intimate commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts +does not exist only, or even chiefly, at the moment of seeing, or +hearing, or reading; nay, if the beautiful touched us only at such +separate and special moments, the beautiful would play but an +insignificant part in our existence.</p> + +<p>As a fact, those moments represent very often only the act of +<i>storage</i>, or not much more. Our real æsthetic life is in ourselves, +often isolated from the beautiful words, objects, or sounds; sometimes +almost unconscious; permeating the whole rest of life in certain +highly æsthetic individuals, and, however mixed with other activities, +as constant as the life of the intellect and sympathies; nay, as +constant as the life of assimilation and motion. We can live off a +beautiful object, we can live by its means, even when its visible or +audible image is partially, nay, sometimes wholly, obliterated; for +the emotional condition can survive the image and be awakened at the +mere name, awakened sufficiently to heighten the emotion caused by +other images of beauty. We can sometimes feel, so to speak, the +spiritual companionship and comfort of a work of art, or of a scene in +nature, nay, almost its particular caress to our whole being, when the +work of art or the scene has grown faint in our memory, but the +emotion it awakened has kept warm.</p> + +<p>Now this possibility of storing for later use, of increasing by +combination, the impressions of beautiful things, makes art—and by +art I mean all æsthetic activity, whether in the professed artist who +creates or the unconscious artist who assimilates—the type of such +pleasures as are within our own keeping, and makes the æsthetic life +typical also of that life of the spirit in which alone we can realise +any kind of human freedom. We shall all of us meet with examples +thereof if we seek through our consciousness. That such things +existed was made clear to me during a weary period of illness, for +which I shall always be grateful, since it taught me, in those months +of incapacity for enjoyment, that there is a safe kind of pleasure, +<i>the pleasure we can defer</i>. I spent part of that time at Tangier, +surrounded by everything which could delight me, and in none of which +I took any real delight. I did not enjoy Tangier at the time, but I +have enjoyed Tangier ever since, on the principle of the bee eating +its honey months after making it. The reality of Tangier, I mean the +reality of my presence there, and the state of my nerves, were not in +the relation of enjoyment. But how often has not the image of Tangier, +the remembrance of what I saw and did there, returned and haunted me +in the most enjoyable fashion.</p> + +<p>After all, is it not often the case with pictures, statues, journeys, +and the reading of books? The weariness entailed, the mere continuity +of looking or attending, quite apart from tiresome accompanying +circumstances, make the apparently real act, what we expect to be the +act of enjoyment, quite illusory; like Coleridge, "we see, not <i>feel</i>, +how beautiful things are." Later on, all odious accompanying +circumstances are utterly forgotten, eliminated, and the weariness is +gone: we enjoy not merely unhampered by accidents, but in the very way +our heart desires. For we can choose—our mood unconsciously does it +for us—the right moment and right accessories for consuming some of +our stored delights; moreover, we can add what condiments and make +what mixtures suit us best at that moment. We draw not merely upon one +past reality, making its essentials present, but upon dozens. To +revert to Tangier (whose experience first brought these possibilities +clearly before me), I find I enjoy it in connection with Venice, the +mixture having a special roundness of tone or flavour. Similarly, I +once heard Bach's <i>Magnificat</i>, with St. Mark's of Venice as a +background in my imagination. Again, certain moonlight songs of +Schumann have blended wonderfully with remembrances of old Italian +villas. King Solomon, in all his ships, could not have carried the +things which I can draw, in less than a second, from one tiny +convolution of my brain, from one corner of my mind. No wizard that +ever lived had spells which could evoke such kingdoms and worlds as +anyone of us can conjure up with certain words: Greece, the Middle +Ages, Orpheus, Robin Hood, Mary Stuart, Ancient Rome, the Far East.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIII.</h4> + +<p>And here, as fit illustration of these beneficent powers, which can +free us from a life where we stifle and raise us into a life where we +can breathe and grow, let me record my gratitude to a certain young +goat, which, on one occasion, turned what might have been a detestable +hour into a pleasant one.</p> + +<p>The goat, or rather kid, a charming gazelle-like creature, with +budding horns and broad, hard forehead, was one of my fourteen fellow +passengers in a third-class carriage on a certain bank holiday +Saturday. Riding and standing in such crowded misery had cast a +general gloom over all the holiday makers; they seemed to have +forgotten the coming outing in sullen hatred of all their neighbours; +and I confess that I too began to wonder whether Bank Holiday was an +altogether delightful institution. But the goat had no such doubts. +Leaning against the boy who was taking it holiday-making, it tried +very gently to climb and butt, and to play with its sulky fellow +travellers. And as it did so it seemed to radiate a sort of poetry on +everything: vague impressions of rocks, woods, hedges, the Alps, +Italy, and Greece; mythology, of course, and that amusement of "jouer +avec des chèvres apprivoisées," which that great charmer M. Renan has +attributed to his charming Greek people. Now, as I realised the joy of +the goat on finding itself among the beech woods and short grass of +the Hertfordshire hills, I began also to see my other fellow +travellers no longer as surly people resenting each other's presence, +but as happy human beings admitted once more to the pleasant things of +life. The goat had quite put me in conceit with bank holiday. When it +got out of the train at Berkhampstead, the emptier carriage seemed +suddenly more crowded, and my fellow travellers more discontented. But +I remained quite pleased, and when I had alighted, found that instead +of a horrible journey, I could remember only a rather exquisite little +adventure. That beneficent goat had acted as Pegasus; and on its small +back my spirit had ridden to the places it loves.</p> + +<p>In this fashion does the true æsthete tend to prefer, even like the +austerest moralist, the delights which, being of the spirit, are most +independent of circumstances and most in the individual's own keeping. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIV.</h4> + +<p>It was Mr. Pater who first pointed out how the habit of æsthetic +enjoyment makes the epicurean into an ascetic. He builds as little as +possible on the things of the senses and the moment, knowing how +little, in comparison, we have either in our power. For, even if the +desired object, person, or circumstance comes, how often does it not +come at the wrong hour! In this world, which mankind fits still so +badly, the wish and its fulfilling are rarely in unison, rarely in +harmony, but follow each other, most often, like vibrations of +different instruments, at intervals which can only jar. The <i>n'est-ce +que cela</i>, the inability to enjoy, of successful ambition and +favoured, passionate love, is famous; and short of love even and +ambition, we all know the flatness of long-desired pleasures. King +Solomon, who had not been enough of an ascetic, as we all know, and +therefore ended off in cynicism, knew that there is not only satiety +as a result of enjoyment; but a sort of satiety also, an absence of +keenness, an incapacity for caring, due to the deferring of enjoyment. +He doubtless knew, among other items of vanity, that our wishes are +often fulfilled without our even knowing it, so indifferent have we +become through long waiting, or so changed in our wants.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XV.</h4> + +<p>There is another reason for such ascetism as was taught in <i>Marius the +Epicurean</i> and in Pater's book on Plato: the modest certainty of all +pleasure derived from the beautiful will accustom the perfect æsthete +to seek for the like in other branches of activity. Accustomed to the +happiness which is in his own keeping, he will view with suspicion all +craving for satisfactions which are beyond his control. He will not +ask to be given the moon, and he will not even wish to be given it, +lest the wish should grow into a want; he will make the best of +candles and glowworms and of distant heavenly luminaries. Moreover, +being accustomed to enjoy the mere sight of things as much as other +folk do their possession, he will probably actually prefer that the +moon should be hanging in the heavens, and not on his staircase.</p> + +<p>Again, having experience of the æsthetic pleasures which involve, in +what Milton called their sober waking bliss, no wear and tear, no +reaction of satiety, he will not care much for the more rapturous +pleasures of passion and success, which always cost as much as they +are worth. He will be unwilling to run into such debt with his own +feelings, having learned from æsthetic pleasure that there are +activities of the soul which, instead of impoverishing, enrich it.</p> + +<p>Thus does the commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts +tend to develop in us that healthy kind of asceticism so requisite to +every workable scheme of greater happiness for the individual and the +plurality: self-restraint, choice of aims, consistent and +thorough-paced subordination of the lesser interest to the greater; +above all, what sums up asceticism as an efficacious means towards +happiness, preference of the spiritual, the unconditional, the +durable, instead of the temporal, the uncertain, and the fleeting.</p> + +<p>The intimate and continuous intercourse with the Beautiful teaches us, +therefore, the renunciation of the unnecessary for the sake of the +possible. It teaches asceticism leading not to indifference and +Nervana, but to higher complexities of vitalisation, to a more +complete and harmonious rhythm of individual existence.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XVI.</h4> + +<p>Art can thus train the soul because art is free; or, more strictly +speaking, because art is the only complete expression, the only +consistent realisation of our freedom. In other parts of our life, +business, affection, passion, pursuit of utility, glory or truth, we +are for ever <i>conditioned</i>. We are twisting perpetually, perpetually +stopped short and deflected, picking our way among the visible and +barely visible habits, interests, desires, shortcomings, of others and +of that portion of ourselves which, in the light of that particular +moment and circumstance, seems to be foreign to us, to be another's. +We can no more follow the straight line of our wishes than can the +passenger in Venice among those labyrinthine streets, whose +everlasting, unexpected bends are due to canals which the streets +themselves prevent his seeing. Moreover, in those gropings among +looming or unseen obstacles, we are pulled hither and thither, checked +and misled by the recurring doubt as to which, of these thwarted and +yielding selves, may be the chief and real one, and which, of the goals +we are never allowed finally to touch, is the goal we spontaneously +tend to.</p> + +<p>Now it is different in the case of Art, and of all those æsthetic +activities, often personal and private, which are connected with Art +and may be grouped together under Art's name. Art exists to please, +and, when left to ourselves, we feel in what our pleasure lies. Art is +a free, most open and visible space, where we disport ourselves +freely. Indeed, it has long been remarked (the poet Schiller working +out the theory) that, as there is in man's nature a longing for mere +unconditioned exercise, one of Art's chief missions is to give us free +scope to be ourselves. If therefore Art is the playground where each +individual, each nation or each century, not merely toils, but +untrammelled by momentary passion, unhampered by outer cares, freely +exists and feels itself, then Art may surely become the training-place +of our soul. Art may teach us how to employ our liberty, how to select +our wishes: employ our liberty so as to respect that of others; select +our wishes in such a manner as to further the wishes of our +fellow-creatures.</p> + +<p>For there are various, and variously good or evil ways of following +our instincts, fulfilling our desires, in short, of being independent +of outer circumstances; in other words, there are worthy and worthless +ways of using our leisure and our surplus energy, of seeking our +pleasure. And Art—Art and all Art here stands for—can train us to do +so without injuring others, without wasting the material and spiritual +riches of the world. Art can train us to delight in the higher +harmonies of existence; train us to open our eyes, ears and souls, +instead of shutting them, to the wider modes of universal life.</p> + +<p>In such manner, to resume our symbol of the bay laurel which the +road-mender stuck on to the front of that tramcar, can our love for +the beautiful avert, like the plant of Apollo, many of the storms, and +cure many of the fevers, of life.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow"></hr> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p><a name="c1-2" id="c1-2"></a> </p> +<h3>"NISI CITHARAM."</h3> +<p> </p> +<h4>I.</h4> + +<p>It is well that this second chapter—in which I propose to show how a +genuine æsthetic development tends to render the individual more +useful, or at least less harmful, to his fellow-men—should begin, +like the first, with a symbol, such as may sum up my meaning, and +point it out in the process of my expounding it. The symbol is +contained in the saying of the Abbot Joachim of Flora, one of the +great precursors of St. Francis, to wit: "He that is a true monk +considers nothing his own except a lyre—<i>nihil reputat esse suum nisi +citharam</i>." Yes; nothing except a lyre.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>But that lyre, our only real possession, is our <i>Soul</i>. It must be +shaped, and strung, and kept carefully in tune; no easy matter in +surroundings little suited to delicate instruments and delicate music. +Possessing it, we possess, in the only true sense of possession, the +whole world. For going along our way, whether rough or even, there are +formed within us, singing the beauty and wonder of <i>what is</i> or <i>what +should</i> be, mysterious sequences and harmonies of notes, new every +time, answering to the primæval everlasting affinities between +ourselves and all things; our souls becoming musical under the touch +of the universe.</p> + +<p>Let us bear this in mind, this symbol of the lyre which Abbot Joachim +allowed as sole property to the man of spiritual life. And let us +remember that, as I tried to show in my previous chapter, the true +Lover of the Beautiful, active, self-restrained, and indifferent to +lower pleasures and interests, is in one sense your man of real +spiritual life. For the symbol of Abbot Joachim's lyre will make it +easier to follow my meaning, and easier to forestall it, while I try +to convince you that art, and all æsthetic activity, is important as a +type of the only kind of pleasure which reasonable beings should admit +of, the kind of pleasure which tends not to diminish by wastefulness +and exclusive appropriation, but to increase by sympathy, the possible +pleasures of other persons.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>'Tis no excessive puritanism to say that while pleasure, in the +abstract, is a great, perhaps the greatest, good; pleasures, our +actual pleasures in the concrete, are very often evil.</p> + +<p>Many of the pleasures which we allow ourselves, and which all the +world admits our right to, happen to be such as waste wealth and time, +make light of the advantage of others, and of the good of our own +souls. This fact does not imply either original sinfulness or +degeneracy—religious and scientific terms for the same thing—in poor +mankind. It means merely that we are all of us as yet very undeveloped +creatures; the majority, moreover, less developed than the minority, +and the bulk of each individual's nature very much in the rear of his +own aspirations and definitions. Mankind, in the process of adapting +itself to external circumstances, has perforce evolved a certain +amount of intellectual and moral quality; but that intellectual and +moral quality is, so far, merely a means for rendering material +existence endurable; it will have to become itself the origin and aim +of what we must call a spiritual side of life. In the meanwhile, human +beings do not get any large proportion of their enjoyment from what +they admit to be their nobler side.</p> + +<p>Hence it is that even when you have got rid of the mere struggle for +existence—fed, clothed, and housed your civilised savage, and secured +food, clothes, and shelter for his brood—you have by no means +provided against his destructive, pain-giving activities. He has spare +time and energy; and these he will devote, ten to one, to recreations +involving, at the best, the slaughter of harmless creatures; at the +worst, to the wasting of valuable substance, of what might be other +people's food; or else to the hurting of other people's feelings in +various games of chance or skill, particularly in the great skilled +game of brag called "Society."</p> + +<p>Our gentlemanly ancestors, indeed, could not amuse themselves without +emptying a certain number of bottles and passing some hours under the +table; while our nimble-witted French neighbours, we are told, +included in their expenditure on convivial amusements a curious item +called <i>la casse</i>, to wit, the smashing of plates and glasses. The +Spaniards, on the other hand, have bull-fights, most shocking +spectacles, as we know, for we make it a point to witness them when +we are over there. Undoubtedly we have immensely improved in such +matters, but we need a great deal of further improvement. Most people +are safe only when at work, and become mischievous when they begin to +play. They do not know how to <i>kill time</i> (for that is the way in +which we poor mortals regard life) without incidentally killing +something else: proximately birds and beasts, and their neighbours' +good fame; more remotely, but as surely, the constitution of their +descendants, and the possible wages of the working classes.</p> + +<p>It is quite marvellous how little aptness there is in the existing +human being for taking pleasure either in what already exists ready to +hand, or in the making of something which had better be there; in what +can be enjoyed without diminishing the enjoyment of others, as nature, +books, art, thought, and the better qualities of one's neighbours. In +fact, one reason why there is something so morally pleasant in cricket +and football and rowing and riding and dancing, is surely that they +furnish on the physical plane the counterpart of what is so sadly +lacking on the spiritual: amusements which do good to the individual +and no harm to his fellows.</p> + +<p>Of course, in our state neither of original sinfulness nor of +degeneracy, but of very imperfect development, it is still useless and +absurd to tell people to make use of intellectual and moral resources +which they have not yet got. It is as vain to preach to the majority +of the well-to-do the duty of abstinence from wastefulness, rivalry, +and ostentation as it is vain to preach to the majority of the +badly-off abstinence from alcohol; without such pleasures their life +would be unendurably insipid.</p> + +<p>But inevitable as is such evil in the present, it inevitably brings +its contingent of wretchedness; and it is therefore the business of +all such as <i>could</i> become the forerunners of a better state of things +to refuse to follow the lead of their inferiors. Exactly because the +majority is still so hopelessly wasteful and mischievous, does it +behove the minority not merely to work to some profit, but to play +without damage. To do this should become the mark of Nature's +aristocracy, a sign of liberality of spiritual birth and breeding, a +question of <i>noblesse oblige</i>.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<p>And here comes in the immense importance of Art as a type of pleasure: +of Art in the sense of æsthetic appreciation even more than of +æsthetic creation; of Art considered as the extracting and combining +of beauty in the mind of the obscure layman quite as much as the +embodiment of such extracted and combined beauty in the visible or +audible work of the great artist.</p> + +<p>For experience of true æsthetic activity must teach us, in proportion +as it is genuine and ample, that the enjoyment of the beautiful is not +merely independent of, but actually incompatible with, that tendency +to buy our satisfaction at the expense of others which remains more or +less in all of us as a survival from savagery. The reasons why genuine +æsthetic feeling inhibits these obsolescent instincts of rapacity and +ruthlessness, are reasons negative and positive, and may be roughly +divided into three headings. Only one of them is generally admitted to +exist, and of it, therefore, I shall speak very briefly, I mean the +fact that the enjoyment of beautiful things is originally and +intrinsically one of those which are heightened by sharing. We know it +instinctively when, as children, we drag our comrades and elders to +the window when a regiment passes or a circus parades by; we learn it +more and more as we advance in life, and find that we must get other +people to see the pictures, to hear the music, to read the books which +we admire. It is a case of what psychologists call the <i>contagion of +emotion</i>, by which the feeling of one individual is strengthened by +the expression of similar feeling in his neighbour, and is explicable, +most likely, by the fact that the greatest effort is always required +to overcome original inertness, and that two efforts, like two horses +starting a carriage instead of one, combined give more than double the +value of each taken separately. The fact of this æsthetic sociability +is so obvious that we need not discuss it any further, but merely hold +it over to add, at last, to the result of the two other reasons, +negative and positive, which tend to make æsthetic enjoyment the type +of unselfish, nay, even of altruistic pleasure.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>V.</h4> + +<p>The first of these reasons, the negative one, is that æsthetic +pleasure is not in the least dependent upon the fact of personal +ownership, and that it therefore affords an opportunity of leaving +inactive, of beginning to atrophy by inactivity, the passion for +exclusive possession, for individual advantage, which is at the bottom +of all bad luxury, of all ostentation, and of nearly all rapacity. But +before entering on this discussion I would beg my reader to call to +mind that curious saying of Abbot Joachim's; and to consider that I +wish to prove that, like his true monk, the true æsthete, who nowadays +loves and praises creation much as the true monk did in former +centuries, can really possess as sole personal possession only a +musical instrument—to wit, his own well-strung and resonant soul. +Having said this, we will proceed to the question of Luxury, by which +I mean the possession of such things as minister only to weakness and +vanity, of such things as we cannot reasonably hope that all men may +some day equally possess.</p> + +<p>When we are young—and most of us remain mere withered children, never +attaining maturity, in similar matters—we are usually attracted by +luxury and luxurious living. We are possessed by that youthful +instinct of union, fusion, marriage, so to speak, with what our soul +desires; we hanker after close contact and complete possession; and we +fancy, in our inexperience, that luxury, the accumulation of +valuables, the appropriation of opportunities, the fact of rejecting +from our life all that is not costly, brilliant, and dainty, implies +such fusion of our soul with beauty.</p> + +<p>But, as we reach maturity, we find that this is all delusion. We +learn, from the experience of occasions when our soul has truly +possessed the beautiful, or been possessed by it, that if such union +with the harmony of outer things is rare, perhaps impossible, among +squalor and weariness, it is difficult and anomalous in the condition +which we entitle luxury.</p> + +<p>We learn that our assimilation of beauty, and that momentary renewal +of our soul which it effects, rarely arises from our own ownership; +but comes, taking us by surprise, in presence of hills, streams, +memories of pictures, poets' words, and strains of music, which are +not, and cannot be, our property. The essential character of beauty is +its being a relation between ourselves and certain objects. The +emotion to which we attach its name is produced, motived by something +outside us, pictures, music, landscape, or whatever it may be; but the +emotion resides in us, and it is the emotion, and not merely its +object, which we desire. Hence material possession has no æsthetic +meaning. We possess a beautiful object with our soul; the possession +thereof with our hands or our legal rights brings us no nearer the +beauty. Ownership, in this sense, may empower us to destroy or hide +the object and thus cheat others of the possession of its beauty, but +does not help <i>us</i> to possess that beauty. It is with beauty as with +that singer who answered Catherine II., "Your Majesty's policemen can +make me <i>scream</i>, but they cannot make me <i>sing</i>;" and she might have +added, for my parallel, "Your policemen, great Empress, even could +they make <i>me</i> sing, would not be able to make <i>you</i> hear."</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VI.</h4> + +<p>Hence all strong æsthetic feeling will always prefer ownership of the +mental image to ownership of the tangible object. And any desire for +material appropriation or exclusive enjoyment will be merely so much +weakening and adulteration of the æsthetic sentiment. Since the mental +image, the only thing æsthetically possessed, is in no way diminished +or damaged by sharing; nay, we have seen that by one of the most +gracious coincidences between beauty and kindliness, the æsthetic +emotion is even intensified by the knowledge of co-existence in +others: the delight in each person communicating itself, like a +musical third, fifth, or octave, to the similar yet different delight +in his neighbour, harmonic enriching harmonic by stimulating fresh +vibration.</p> + +<p>If, then, we wish to possess casts, copies, or photographs of certain +works of art, this is, æsthetically considered, exactly as we wish to +have the means—railway tickets, permissions for galleries, and so +forth—of seeing certain pictures or statues as often as we wish. For +we feel that the images in our mind require renewing, or that, in +combination with other more recently acquired images, they will, if +renewed, yield a new kind of delight. But this is quite another matter +from wishing to own the material object, the thing we call <i>work of +art itself</i>, forgetting that it is a work of art only for the soul +capable of instating it as such.</p> + +<p>Thus, in every person who truly cares for beauty, there is a necessary +tendency to replace the illusory legal act of ownership by the real +spiritual act of appreciation. Charles Lamb already expressed this +delightfully in the essay on the old manor-house. Compared with his +possession of its beauties, its walks, tapestried walls and family +portraits, nay, even of the ghosts of former proprietors, the +possession by the legal owner was utterly nugatory, unreal:</p> + +<blockquote class="med"> + <p class="noindent">Mine too, Blakesmoor, was thy noble Marble Hall, with its mosaic + pavements, and its twelve Cæsars;… mine, too, thy lofty Justice + Hall, with its one chair of authority…. Mine, too—whose + else?—thy costly fruit-garden … thy ampler pleasure-garden … + thy firry wilderness…. I was the true descendant of those old + W——'s, and not the present family of that name, who had fled the + old waste places."</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>How often have not some of us felt like that; and how much might not +those of us who never have, learn, could they learn, from those words +of Elia?</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>I have spoken of <i>material, actual</i> possession. But if we look closer +at it we shall see that, save with regard to the things which are +actually consumed, destroyed, disintegrated, changed to something else +in their enjoyment, the notion of ordinary possession is a mere +delusion. It can be got only by a constant obtrusion of a mere idea, +the <i>idea of self</i>, and of such unsatisfactory ideas as one's right, +for instance, to exclude others. 'Tis like the tension of a muscle, +this constant keeping the consciousness aware by repeating +"Mine—mine—<i>mine</i> and not <i>theirs</i>; not <i>theirs</i>, but <i>mine</i>." And +this wearisome act of self-assertion leaves little power for +appreciation, for the appreciation which others can have quite +equally, and without which there is no reality at all in ownership.</p> + +<p>Hence, the deeper our enjoyment of beauty, the freer shall we become +of the dreadful delusion of exclusive appropriation, despising such +unreal possession in proportion as we have tasted the real one. We +shall know the two kinds of ownership too well apart to let ourselves +be cozened into cumbering our lives with material properties and their +responsibilities. We shall save up our vigour, not for obtaining and +keeping (think of the thousand efforts and cares of ownership, even +the most negative) the things which yield happy impressions, but for +receiving and storing up and making capital of those impressions. We +shall seek to furnish our mind with beautiful thoughts, not our houses +with pretty things.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VIII.</h4> + +<p>I hope I have made clear enough that æsthetic enjoyment is hostile to +the unkind and wasteful pleasures of selfish indulgence and selfish +appropriation, because the true possession of the beautiful things of +Nature, of Art, and of thought is spiritual, and neither damages, nor +diminishes, nor hoards them; because the lover of the beautiful seeks +for beautiful impressions and remembrances, which are vested in his +soul, and not in material objects. That is the negative benefit of the +love of the beautiful. Let us now proceed to the positive and active +assistance which it renders, when genuine and thorough-paced, to such +thought as we give to the happiness and dignity of others.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IX.</h4> + +<p>I have said that our pleasure in the beautiful is essentially a +spiritual phenomenon, one, I mean, which deals with our own +perceptions and emotions, altering the contents of our mind, while +leaving the beautiful object itself intact and unaltered. This being +the case, it is easy to understand that our æsthetic pleasure will be +complete and extensive in proportion to the amount of activity of our +soul; for, remember, all pleasure is proportionate to activity, and, +as I said in my first chapter, great beauty does not merely <i>take us</i>, +but <i>we</i> must give <i>ourselves to it</i>. Hence, an increase in the +capacity for æsthetic pleasure will mean, <ins title ="original has cœeteris"><i>cæeteris</i></ins> <i>paribus</i>, an +increase in a portion of our spiritual activity, a greater readiness +to take small hints, to connect different items, to reject the lesser +good for the greater. Moreover, a great, perhaps the greater, part of +our æsthetic pleasure is due, as I also told you before, to the +storing of impressions in our mind, and to the combining of them there +with other impressions. Indeed, it is for this reason that I have made +no difference, save in intensity between æsthetic creation, so called, +and æsthetic appreciation; telling you, on the contrary, that the +artistic layman creates, produces something new and personal, only in +a less degree than the professed artist.</p> + +<p>For the æsthetic life does not consist merely in the perception of the +beautiful object, not merely in the emotion of that spiritual contact +between the beautiful product of art or of nature and the soul of the +appreciator: it is continued in the emotions and images and thoughts +which are awakened by that perception; and the æsthetic life <i>is</i> +life, is something continuous and organic, just because new forms, +however obscure and evanescent, are continually born, in their turn +continually to give birth, of that marriage between the beautiful +thing outside and the beautiful soul within.</p> + +<p>Hence, full æsthetic life means the creating and extending of ever new +harmonies in the mind of the layman, the unconscious artist who merely +enjoys, as a result of the creating and extending of new harmonies in +the work of the professed artist who consciously creates. This being +the case, the true æsthete is for ever seeking to reduce his +impressions and thoughts to harmony; and is for ever, accordingly, +being pleased with some of them, and disgusted with others.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>X.</h4> + +<p>The desire for beauty and harmony, therefore, in proportion as it +becomes active and sensitive, explores into every detail, establishes +comparisons between everything, judges, approves, and disapproves; and +makes terrible and wholesome havoc not merely in our surroundings, but +in our habits and in our lives. And very soon the mere thought of +something ugly becomes enough to outweigh the actual presence of +something beautiful. I was told last winter at San Remo, that the +scent of the Parma violet can be distilled only by the oil of the +flower being passed through a layer of pork fat; and since that +revelation violet essence has lost much of the charm it possessed for +me: the thought of the suet counterbalanced the reality of the +perfume.</p> + +<p>Now this violet essence, thus obtained, is symbolic of many of the +apparently refined enjoyments of our life. We shall find that luxury +and pomp, delightful sometimes in themselves, are distilled through a +layer of coarse and repulsive labour by other folk; and the thought of +the pork suet will spoil the smell of the violets. For the more dishes +we have for dinner, the greater number of cooking-pots will have to be +cleaned; the more carriages and horses we use, the more washing and +grooming will result; the more crowded our rooms with furniture and +nicknacks, the more dust will have to be removed; the more numerous +and delicate our clothes, the more brushing and folding there will +be; and the more purely ornamental our own existence, the less +ornamental will be that of others.</p> + +<p>There is a <i>pensée</i> of Pascal's to the effect that a fop carries on +his person the evidence of the existence of so many people devoted to +his service. This thought may be delightful to a fop; but it is not +pleasant to a mind sensitive to beauty and hating the bare thought of +ugliness: for while vanity takes pleasure in lack of harmony between +oneself and one's neighbour, æsthetic feeling takes pleasure only in +harmonious relations. The thought of the servile lives devoted to make +our life more beautiful counterbalances the pleasure of the beauty; +'tis the eternal question of the violet essence and the pork suet. Now +the habit of beauty, the æsthetic sense, becomes, as I said, more and +more sensitive and vivacious; you cannot hide from it the knowledge of +every sort of detail, you cannot prevent its noticing the ugly side, +the ugly lining of certain pretty things. 'Tis a but weak and sleepy +kind of æstheticism which "blinks and shuts its apprehension up" at +your bidding, which looks another way discreetly, and discreetly +refrains from all comparisons. The real æsthetic activity <i>is</i> an +activity; it is one of the strongest and most imperious powers of +human nature; it does not take orders, it only gives them. It is, when +full grown, a kind of conscience of beautiful and ugly, analogous to +the other conscience of right and wrong, and it is equally difficult +to silence. If you can silence your æsthetic faculty and bid it be +satisfied with the lesser beauty, the lesser harmony, instead of the +greater, be sure that it is a very rudimentary kind of instinct; and +that you are no more thoroughly æsthetic than if you could make your +sense of right and wrong be blind and dumb at your convenience, you +could be thoroughly moral.</p> + +<p>Hence, the more æsthetic we become, the less we shall tolerate such +modes of living as involve dull and dirty work for others, as involve +the exclusion of others from the sort of life which we consider +æsthetically tolerable. We shall require such houses and such habits +as can be seen, and, what is inevitable in all æsthetical development, +as can also be <i>thought of</i>, in all their details. We shall require a +homogeneous impression of decorum and fitness from the lives of others +as well as from our own, from what we actually see and from what we +merely know: the imperious demand for beauty, for harmony will be +applied no longer to our mere material properties, but to that other +possession which is always with us and can never be taken from us, the +images and feelings within our soul. Now, that other human beings +should be drudging sordidly in order that we may be idle and showy +means a thought, a vision, an emotion which do not get on in our mind +in company with the sight of sunset and sea, the taste of mountain air +and woodland freshness, the faces and forms of Florentine saints and +Antique gods, the serene poignancy of great phrases of music. This is +by no means all. Developing in æsthetic sensitiveness we grow to think +of ourselves also, our own preferences, moods and attitudes, as more +or less beautiful or ugly; the inner life falling under the same +criticism as the outer one. We become aristocratic and epicurean about +our desires and habits; we grow squeamish and impatient towards +luxury, towards all kinds of monopoly and privilege on account of the +mean attitude, the graceless gesture they involve on our own part.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XI.</h4> + +<p>This feeling is increasing daily. Our deepest æsthetic emotions are, +we are beginning to recognise, connected with things which we do not, +cannot, possess in the vulgar sense. Nay, the deepest æsthetic +emotions depend, to an appreciable degree, on the very knowledge that +these things are either not such as money can purchase, or that they +are within the purchasing power of all. The sense of being shareable +by others, of being even shareable, so to speak, by other kinds of +utility, adds a very keen attraction to all beautiful things and +beautiful actions, and, of course, <i>vice versâ</i>. And things which are +beautiful, but connected with luxury and exclusive possession, come to +affect one as, in a way, <i>lacking harmonics</i>, lacking those additional +vibrations of pleasure which enrich impressions of beauty by +impressions of utility and kindliness.</p> + +<p>Thus, after enjoying the extraordinary lovely tints—oleander pink, +silver-grey, and most delicate citron—of the plaster which covers the +commonest cottages, the humblest chapels, all round Genoa, there is +something <i>short and acid</i> in the pleasure one derives from equally +charming colours in expensive dresses. Similarly, in Italy, much of +the charm of marble, of the sea-cave shimmer, of certain palace-yards +and churches, is due to the knowledge that this lovely, noble +substance is easy to cut and quarried in vast quantities hard by: no +wretched rarity like diamonds and rubies, which diminish by the worth +of a family's yearly keep if only the cutter cuts one hair-breadth +wrong!</p> + +<p>Again, is not one reason why antique sculpture awakens a state of mind +where stoicism, humaneness, simplicity, seem nearer possibilities—is +not one reason that it shows us the creature in its nakedness, in such +beauty and dignity as it can get through the grace of birth only? +There is no need among the gods for garments from silken Samarkand, +for farthingales of brocade and veils of Mechlin lace like those of +the wooden Madonnas of Spanish churches; no need for the ruffles and +plumes of Pascal's young beau, showing thereby the number of his +valets. The same holds good of trees, water, mountains, and their +representation in poetry and painting; their dignity takes no account +of poverty or riches. Even the lilies of the field please us, not +because they toil not neither do they spin, but because they do not +require, while Solomon does, that other folk should toil and spin to +make them glorious.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XII.</h4> + +<p>Again, do we not prefer the books which deal with habits simpler than +our own? Do we not love the Odyssey partly because of Calypso weaving +in her cave, and Nausicaa washing the clothes with her maidens? Does +it not lend additional divinity that Christianity should have arisen +among peasants and handicraftsmen?</p> + +<p>Nay more, do we not love certain objects largely because they are +useful; boats, nets, farm carts, ploughs; discovering therein a grace +which actually exists, but which might else have remained unsuspected? +And do we not feel a certain lack of significance and harmony of +fulness of æsthetic quality in our persons when we pass in our +idleness among people working in the fields, masons building, or +fishermen cleaning their boats and nets; whatever beauty such things +may have being enhanced by their being common and useful.</p> + +<p>In this manner our æsthetic instinct strains vaguely after a double +change: not merely giving affluence and leisure to others, but giving +simplicity and utility to ourselves?</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIII.</h4> + +<p>And, even apart from this, does not all true æstheticism tend to +diminish labour while increasing enjoyment, because it makes the +already existing more sufficient, because it furthers the joys of the +spirit, which multiply by sharing, as distinguished from the pleasures +of vanity and greediness, which only diminish?</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIV.</h4> + +<p>You may at first feel inclined to pooh-pooh the notion that mere love +of beauty can help to bring about a better distribution of the world's +riches; and reasonably object that we cannot feed people on images and +impressions which multiply by sharing; they live on bread, and not on +the <i>idea</i> of bread.</p> + +<p>But has it ever struck you that, after all, the amount of material +bread—even if we extend the word to everything which is consumed for +bodily necessity and comfort—which any individual can consume is +really very small; and that the bad distribution, the shocking waste +of this material bread arises from being, so to speak, used +symbolically, used as spiritual bread, as representing those <i>ideas</i> +for which men hunger: superiority over other folk, power of having +dependants, social position, ownership, and privilege of all kinds? +For what are the bulk of worldly possessions to their owners: houses, +parks, plate, jewels, superfluous expenditure of all kinds [and armies +and navies when we come to national wastefulness]—what are all these +ill-distributed riches save <i>ideas</i>, ideas futile and ungenerous, food +for the soul, but food upon which the soul grows sick and corrupteth?</p> + +<p>Would it not be worth while to reorganise this diet of ideas? To +reorganise that part of us which is independent of bodily sustenance +and health, which lives on spiritual commodities—the part of us +including ambition, ideal, sympathy, and all that I have called +<i>ideas</i>? Would it not be worth while to find such ideas as all people +can live upon without diminishing each other's share, instead of the +<i>ideas</i>, the imaginative satisfactions which each must refuse to his +neighbour, and about which, therefore, all of us are bound to fight +like hungry animals? Thus to reform our notions of what is valuable +and distinguished would bring about an economic reformation; or, if +other forces were needed, would make the benefits of such economic +reformation completer, its hardships easier to bear; and, altering our +views of loss and gain, lessen the destructive struggle of snatching +and holding.</p> + +<p>Now, as I have been trying to show, beauty, harmony, fitness, are of +the nature of the miraculous loaves and fishes: they can feed +multitudes and leave basketfuls for the morrow.</p> + +<p>But the desire for such spiritual food is, you will again object, +itself a rarity, a product of leisure and comfort, almost a luxury.</p> + +<p>Quite true. And you will remember, perhaps, that I have already +remarked that they are not to be expected either from the poor in +material comfort, nor from the poor in soul, since both of these are +condemned, the first by physical wretchedness, the second by spiritual +inactivity, to fight only for larger shares of material bread; with +the difference that this material bread is eaten by the poor, and made +into very ugly symbols of glory by the rich.</p> + +<p>But, among those of us who are neither hungry nor vacuous, there is +not, generally speaking, much attempt to make the best of our +spiritual privileges. We teach our children, as we were taught +ourselves, to give importance only to the fact of exclusiveness, +expense, rareness, already necessarily obtruded far too much by our +struggling, imperfect civilisation. We are indeed angry with little +boys and girls if they enquire too audibly whether certain people are +rich or certain things cost much money, as little boys and girls are +apt to do in their very far from innocence; but we teach them by our +example to think about such things every time we stretch a point in +order to appear richer or smarter than we are. While, on the contrary, +we rarely insist upon the intrinsic qualities for which things are +really valuable, without which no trouble or money would be spent on +them, without which their difficulty of obtaining would, as in the +case of Dr. Johnson's musical performance, become identical with +impossibility. I wonder how many people ever point out to a child that +the water in a tank may be more wonderful and beautiful in its beryls +and sapphires and agates than all the contents of all the jewellers' +shops in Bond Street? Moreover, we rarely struggle against the +standards of fashion in our habits and arrangements; which standards, +in many cases, are those of our ladies' maids, butlers, tradesfolk, +and in all cases the standards of our less intelligent neighbours. +Nay, more, we sometimes actually cultivate in ourselves, we superfine +and æsthetic creatures, a preference for such kinds of enjoyment as +are exclusive and costly; we allow ourselves to be talked into the +notion that solitary egoism, laborious self-assertion of ownership (as +in the poor mad Ludwig of Bavaria) is a badge of intellectual +distinction. We cherish a desire for the new-fangled and far-fetched, +the something no other has had before; little suspecting, or +forgetting, that to extract more pleasure not less, to enjoy the same +things longer, and to be able to extract more enjoyment out of more +things, is the sign of æsthetic vigour.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XV.</h4> + +<p>Still, on the whole, such as can care for beautiful things and +beautiful thoughts are beginning to care for them more fully, and are +growing, undoubtedly, in a certain moral sensitiveness which, as I +have said, is coincident with æsthetic development.</p> + +<p>This strikes me every time that I see or think about a certain +priest's house on a hillside by the Mediterranean: a little house +built up against the village church, and painted and roofed, like the +church, a most delicate grey, against which the yellow of the +spalliered lemons sings out in exquisite intensity; alongside, a wall +with flower pots, and dainty white curtains to the windows. Such a +house and the life possible in it are beginning, for many of us, to +become the ideal, by whose side all luxury and worldly grandeur +becomes insipid or vulgar. For such a house as this embodies the +possibility of living with grace and decorum <i>throughout</i> by dint of +loving carefulness and self-restraining simplicity. I say with grace +and decorum <i>throughout</i>, because all things which might beget +ugliness in the life of others, or ugliness in our own attitude +towards others, would be eliminated, thrown away like the fossil which +Thoreau threw away because it collected dust. Moreover, such a life as +this is such as all may reasonably hope to have; may, in some more +prosperous age, obtain because it involves no hoarding of advantage +for self or excluding therefrom of others.</p> + +<p>And such a life we ourselves may attain at least in the spirit, if we +become strenuous and faithful lovers of the beautiful, æsthetes and +ascetics who recognise that their greatest pleasure, their only true +possessions are in themselves; knowing the supreme value of their own +soul, even as was foreshadowed by the Abbot Joachim of Flora, when he +said that the true monk can hold no property except his lyre.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow"></hr> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p><a name="c1-3" id="c1-3"></a> </p> +<h3>HIGHER HARMONIES.</h3> +<p> </p> +<h4>I.</h4> + +<blockquote class="med"> + <p class="noindent">"To use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts + upwards, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, + and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair + notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of + absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is; + this, my dear Socrates," said the prophetess of <ins title="original reads Mautineia">Mantineia</ins>, "is + that life, above all others, which man should live, in the + contemplation of beauty absolute. Do you not see that in that + communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will + be enabled to bring forth not images of beauty, but realities; for + he has hold not of an image, but of a reality; and bringing forth + and educating true virtue to become the friend of God, and be + immortal, if mortal man may?"</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Such are the æsthetics of Plato, put into the mouth of that mysterious +Diotima, who was a wise woman in many branches of knowledge. As we +read them nowadays we are apt to smile with incredulity not unmixed +with bitterness. Is all this not mere talk, charming and momentarily +elating us like so much music; itself mere beauty which, because we +like it, we half voluntarily confuse with <i>truth</i>? And, on the other +hand, is not the truth of æsthetics, the bare, hard fact, a very +different matter? For we have learned that we human creatures will +never know the absolute or the essence, that notions, which Plato took +for realities, are mere relative conceptions; that virtue and truth +are social ideals and intellectual abstractions, while beauty is a +quality found primarily and literally only in material existences and +sense-experiences; and every day we are hearing of new discoveries +connecting our æsthetic emotions with the structure of eye and ear, +the movement of muscles, the functions of nerve centres, nay, even +with the action of heart and lungs and viscera. Moreover, all round us +schools of criticism and cliques of artists are telling us forever +that so far from bringing forth and educating true virtue, art has the +sovereign power, by mere skill and subtlety, of investing good and +evil, healthy and unwholesome, with equal merit, and obliterating the +distinctions drawn by the immortal gods, instead of helping the +immortal gods to their observance.</p> + +<p>Thus we are apt to think, and to take the words of Diotima as merely +so much lovely rhetoric. But—as my previous chapters must have led +you to expect—I think we are so far mistaken. I believe that, +although explained in the terms of fantastic, almost mythical +metaphysic, the speech of Diotima contains a great truth, deposited in +the heart of man by the unnoticed innumerable experiences of centuries +and peoples; a truth which exists in ourselves also as an instinctive +expectation, and which the advance of knowledge will confirm and +explain. For in that pellucid atmosphere of the Greek mind, untroubled +as yet by theoretic mists, there may have been visible the very things +which our scientific instruments are enabling us to see and +reconstruct piecemeal, great groupings of reality metamorphosed into +Fata Morgana cities seemingly built by the gods.</p> + +<p>And thus I am going to try to reinstate in others' belief, as it is +fully reinstated in my own, the theory of higher æsthetic harmonies, +which the prophetess of Mantineia taught Socrates: to wit, that +through the contemplation of true beauty we may attain, by the +constant purification—or, in more modern language, the constant +selecting and enriching—of our nature, to that which transcends +material beauty; because the desire for harmony begets the habit of +harmony, and the habit thereof begets its imperative desire, and thus +on in never-ending alternation.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>Perhaps the best way of expounding my reasons will be to follow the +process by which I reached them; for so far from having started with +the theory of Diotima, I found the theory of Diotima, when I re-read +it accidentally after many years' forgetfulness, to bring to +convergence the result of my gradual experience.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>Thinking about the Hermes of Olympia, and the fact that so far he is +pretty well the only Greek statue which historical evidence +unhesitatingly gives us as an original masterpiece, it struck me that, +could one become really familiar with him, could eye and soul learn +all the fulness of his perfection, we should have the true +starting-point for knowledge of the antique, for knowledge, in great +measure, of all art.</p> + +<p>Yes, and of more than art, or rather of art in more than one relation.</p> + +<p>Is this a superstition, a mere myth, perhaps, born of words? I think +not. Surely if we could really arrive at knowing such a masterpiece, +so as to feel rather than see its most intimate organic principles, +and the great main reasons separating it from all inferior works and +making it be itself: could we do this, we should know not merely what +art is and should be, but, in a measure, what life should be and might +become: what are the methods of true greatness, the sensations of true +sanity.</p> + +<p>It would teach us the eternal organic strivings and tendencies of our +soul, those leading in the direction of life, leading away from death.</p> + +<p>If this seems mere allegory and wild talk, let us look at facts and +see what art is. For is not art inasmuch as untroubled by the +practical difficulties of existence, inasmuch as the free, unconscious +attempt of all nations and generations to satisfy, outside life, those +cravings which life still leaves unsatisfied—is not art a delicate +instrument, showing in its sensitive oscillations the most intimate +movements and habits of the soul? Does it not reveal our most +recondite necessities and possibilities, by sifting and selecting, +reinforcing or attenuating, the impressions received from without; +showing us thereby how we must stand towards nature and life, how we +must feel and be?</p> + +<p>And this most particularly in those spontaneous arts which, first in +the field, without need of adaptations of material or avoidance of the +already done, without need of using up the rejected possibilities of +previous art, or awakening yet unknown emotions, are the simple, +straightforward expression, each the earliest satisfactory one in its +own line, of the long unexpressed, long integrated, organic wants and +wishes of great races of men: the arts, for instance, which have given +us that Hermes, Titian's pictures, and Michael Angelo's and Raphael's +frescoes; given us Bach, Gluck, Mozart, the serener parts of +Beethoven, music of yet reserved pathos, braced, spring-like strength, +learned, select: arts which never go beyond the universal, averaged +expression of the soul's desires, because the desires themselves are +sifted, limited to the imperishable and unchangeable, like the +artistic methods which embody them, reduced to the essential by the +long delay of utterance, the long—century long—efforts to utter.</p> + +<p>Becoming intimate with such a statue as the Olympian Hermes, and +comparing the impressions received from it with the impressions both +of inferior works of the same branch of art and with the impressions +of equally great works—pictures, buildings, musical compositions—of +other branches of art, becoming conversant with the difference between +an original and a copy, great art and poor art, we gradually become +aware of a quality which exists in all good art and is absent in all +bad art, and without whose presence those impressions summed up as +beauty, dignity, grandeur, are never to be had. This peculiarity, +which most people perceive and few people define—explaining it away +sometimes as <i>truth</i>, or taking it for granted under the name of +<i>quality</i>—this peculiarity I shall call for convenience' sake +harmony; for I think you will all of you admit that the absence or +presence of harmony is what distinguishes bad art from good. Harmony, +in this sense—and remember that it is this which connoisseurs most +usually allude to as <i>quality</i>—harmony may be roughly defined as the +organic correspondence between the various parts of a work of art, the +functional interchange and interdependence thereof. In this sense there +is harmony in every really living thing, for otherwise it could not live. +If the muscles and limbs, nay, the viscera and tissues, did not adjust +themselves to work together, if they did not in this combination +establish a rhythm, a backward-forward, contraction-relaxation, +taking-in-giving-out, diastole-systole in all their movements, there +would be, instead of a living organism, only an inert mass. In all +living things, and just in proportion as they are really alive (for in +most real things there is presumably some defect of rhythm tending to +stoppage of life), there is bound to be this organic interdependence +and interchange. Natural selection, the survival of such individuals +and species as best work in with, are most rhythmical to, their +surroundings—natural selection sees to that.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>In art the place of natural selection is taken by man's selection; and +all forms of art which man keeps and does not send into limbo, all art +which man finds suitable to his wants, rhythmical with his habits, +must have that same quality of interdependence of parts, of +interchange of function. Only in the case of art, the organic +necessity refers not to outer surroundings, but to man's feeling; in +fact, man's emotion constitutes necessity towards art, as surrounding +nature constitutes necessity for natural objects. Now man requires +organic harmony, that is, congruity and co-ordination of processes, +because his existence, the existence of every cell of him, depends +upon it, is one complete microcosm of interchange, of give-and-take, +diastole-systole, of rhythm and harmony; and therefore all such things +as give him impressions of the reverse thereof, go against him, and in +a greater or lesser degree, threaten, disturb, paralyse, in a way +poison or maim him. Hence he is for ever seeking such congruity, such +harmony; and his artistic creativeness is conditioned by the desire +for it, nay, is perhaps mainly seeking to obtain it. Whenever he +spontaneously and truly creates artistic forms, he obeys the imperious +vital instinct for congruity; nay, he seeks to eke out the +insufficient harmony between himself and the things which he <i>cannot</i> +command, the insufficient harmony between the uncontrollable parts of +himself, by a harmony created on purpose in the things which he <i>can</i> +control. To a large extent man feels himself tortured by discordant +impressions coming from the world outside and the world inside him; +and he seeks comfort and medicine in harmonious impressions of his own +making, in his own strange inward-outward world of art.</p> + +<p>This, I think, is the true explanation of that much-disputed-over +<i>ideal</i>, which, according to definitions, is perpetually being +enthroned and dethroned as the ultimate aim of all art: the ideal, +the imperatively clamoured-for mysterious something, is neither +conformity to an abstract idea, nor conformity to actual reality, nor +conformity to the typical, nor conformity to the individual; it is, I +take it, simply conformity to man's requirements, to man's inborn and +peremptory demand for greater harmony, for more perfect co-ordination +and congruity in his feelings.</p> + +<p>Now, when, in the exercise of the artistic instincts, mankind are +partially obeying some other call than this one—the desire for money, +fame, or for some intellectual formula—things are quite different, +and there is no production of what I have called harmony. There is no +congruity when even great people set about doing pseudo-antique +sculpture in Canova-Thorwaldsen fashion because Winckelmann and Goethe +have made antique sculpture fashionable; there is no congruity when +people set to building pseudo-Gothic in obedience to the romantic +movement and to Ruskin. For neither the desire for making a mark, nor +the most conscientious pressure of formula gives that instinct of +selection and co-ordination characterising even the most rudimentary +artistic efforts in the most barbarous ages, when men are impelled +merely and solely by the æsthetic instinct. Moreover, where people do +not want and need (as they want and need food or drink or warmth or +coolness) one sort of effect, that is to say, one arrangement of +impressions rather than another, they are sure to be deluded by the +mere arbitrary classification, the mere <i>names</i> of things. They will +think that smooth cheeks, wavy hair, straight noses, limbs of such or +such measure, attitude, and expression, set so, constitute the +Antique; that clustered pillars, cross vaulting, spandrils, and Tudor +roses make Gothic. But the Antique quality is the particular and all +permeating relation between all its items; and Gothic the particular +and all permeating relation between those other ones; and unless you +aim at the <i>specific emotion</i> of Antique or Gothic, unless you feel +the imperious call for the special harmony of either, all the +measurements and all the formulas will not avail. While, on the +contrary, people without any formula or any attempt at imitation, like +the Byzantine architects and those of the fifteenth century, merely +because they are obeying their own passionate desire for congruity of +impressions, for harmony of structure and function, will succeed in +creating brand-new, harmonious, organic art out of the actual details, +sometimes the material ruins, of an art which has passed away.</p> + +<p>If we become intimate with any great work of art, and intimate in so +far with the thoughts and emotions it awakens in ourselves, we shall +find that it possesses, besides this congruity within itself which +assimilates it to all really living things, a further congruity, not +necessarily found in real objects, but which forms the peculiarity of +the work of art, a congruity with ourselves; for the great work of art +is vitally connected with the habits and wants, the whole causality +and rhythm of mankind; it has been fitted thereto as the boat to the +sea.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<p>In this manner can we learn from art the chief secret of life: the +secret of action and reaction, of causal connection, of suitability of +part to part, of organism, interchange, and growth.</p> + +<p>And when I say <i>learn</i>, I mean learn in the least official and the +most efficacious way. I do not mean merely that, looking at a statue +like the Hermes, a certain fact is borne in upon our intelligence, the +fact of all vitality being dependent on harmony. I mean that perhaps, +nay probably, without any such formula, our whole nature becomes +accustomed to a certain repeated experience, our whole nature becomes +adapted thereunto, and acts and reacts in consequence, by what we call +intuition, instinct. It is not with our intellect alone that we +possess such a fact, as we might intellectually possess that twice two +is four, or that Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII., knowing +casually what we may casually also forget; we possess, in such a way +that forgetting becomes impossible, with our whole soul and our whole +being, re-living that fact with every breath that we draw, with every +movement we make, the first great lesson of art, that vitality means +harmony. Let us look at this fact, and at its practical applications, +apart from all æsthetic experience.</p> +<p> +All life is harmony; and all improvement in ourselves is therefore, +however unconsciously, the perceiving, the realising, or the +establishing of harmonies, more minute or more universal. Yes, curious +and unpractical as it may seem, harmonies, or, under their humbler +separate names—arrangements, schemes, classifications, are the chief +means for getting the most out of all things, and particularly the +most out of ourselves.</p> + +<p>For they mean, first of all, unity of means for the attaining of unity +of effect, that is to say, incalculable economy of material, of time, +and of effort; and secondly, unity of effect produced, that is to say, +economy even greater in our power of perceiving and feeling: nothing +to eliminate, nothing against whose interruptions we waste our energy, +our power of becoming more fit in the course of striving.</p> + +<p>When there exists harmony one impression leads to, enhances another; +we, on the other hand, unconsciously recognise at once what is doing +to us, what we in return must do; the mood is indicated, fulfilled, +consummated; in plenitude we feel, we are; and in plenitude of feeling +and being, we, in our turn, <i>do</i>. Neither is such habit of harmony, of +scheme, of congruity, a mere device for sucking the full sweetness out +of life, although, heaven knows, that were important enough. As much +as such a habit husbands, and in a way multiplies, life's sweetness; +so likewise does it husband and multiply man's power. For there is no +quicker and more thorough mode of selecting among our feelings and +thoughts than submitting them to a standard of congruity; nothing more +efficacious than the question: "Is such or such a notion or proceeding +harmonious with what we have made the rest of our life, with what we +wish our life to be?" This is, in other words, the power of the +<i>ideal</i>, the force of <i>ideas</i>, of thought-out, recognised habits, as +distinguished from blind helter-skelter impulse. This is what welds +life into one, making its forces work not in opposition but in +concordance; this is what makes life consecutive, using the earlier +act to produce the later, tying together existence in an organic +fatality of <i>must be</i>: the fatality not of the outside and the +unconscious, but of the conscious, inner, upper man. Nay, it is what +makes up the <i>Ego</i>. For the <i>ego</i>, as we are beginning to understand, +is no mysterious separate entity, still less a succession of +disconnected, conflicting, blind impulses; the <i>ego</i> is the congruous, +perceived, nay, thought-out system of habits, which feels all +incongruity towards itself as accidental and external. Hence, when we +ask which are the statements we believe in, we answer instinctively +(logic being but a form of congruity) those statements which accord +with themselves and with other statements; when we ask, which are the +persons we trust? we answer, those persons whose feelings and actions +are congruous with themselves and with the feelings and actions of +others. And, on the contrary, it is in the worthless, in the +degenerate creature, that we note moods which are destructive to one +another's object, ideas which are in flagrant contradiction; and it is +in the idiot, the maniac, the criminal, that we see thoughts +disconnected among themselves, perceptions disconnected with +surrounding objects, and instincts and habits incompatible with those +of other human beings. Nay, if we look closely, we shall recognise, +moreover, that those emotions of pleasure are the healthy, the safe +ones, which are harmonious not merely in themselves (as a musical note +is composed of even vibrations), but harmonious with all preceding and +succeeding pleasures in ourselves, and harmonious, congruous, with the +present and future pleasures in others.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>V.</h4> + +<p>The instinct of congruity, of subordination of part to whole, the +desire for harmony which is fostered above all things by art, is one +of the most precious parts of our nature, if only, obeying its own +tendency to expand, we apply it to ever wider circles of being; not +merely to the accessories of living, but to life itself.</p> + +<p>For this love of harmony and order leads us to seek what is most +necessary in our living: a selection of the congruous, an arrangement +of the mutually dependent in our thoughts and feelings.</p> + +<p>Much of the work of the universe is done, no doubt, by what seems the +exercise of mere random energy, by the thinking of apparently +disconnected thoughts and the feeling of apparently sporadic impulses; +but if the thought and the impulse remained really disconnected and +sporadic, half would be lost and half would be distorted. It is one of +the economical adaptations of nature that every part of us tends not +merely to be consistent with itself, to eliminate the hostile, to +beget the similar, but tends also to be connected with other parts; so +that, action coming in contact with action, thought in contact with +thought, and feeling in contact with feeling, each single one will be +strengthened or neutralised by the other. And it is the especial +business of what we may call the central consciousness, the dominant +thought or emotion, to bring these separate thoughts and impulses, +these separate groups thereof, into more complex relations, to +continue on a far vaster scale that vital contact, that trying of all +things by the great trial of affinity or repulsion, of congruity or +incongruity. Thus we make trial of ourselves; and by the selfsame +process, by the test of affinity and congruity, the silent forces of +the universe make trial of <i>us</i>, rejecting or accepting, allowing us, +our thoughts, our feelings to live and be fruitful, or condemning us +and them to die in barrenness.</p> + +<p>Whither are we going? In what shape shall the various members of our +soul proceed on their journey; which forming the van, which the rear +and centre? Or shall there be neither van, nor rear, nor wedge-like +forward flight?</p> + +<p>If this question remains unasked or unanswered, our best qualities, +our truest thoughts and purest impulses, may be hopelessly scattered +into distant regions, become defiled in bad company, or, at least, +barren in isolation; the universal life rejecting or annihilating +them.</p> + +<p>How often do we not see this! Natures whose various parts have rambled +asunder, or have come to live, like strangers in an inn, casually, +promiscuously, each refusing to be his brother's keeper: instincts of +kindliness at various ends, unconnected, unable to coalesce and conquer; +thoughts separated from their kind, incapable of application; and, in +consequence, strange superficial comradeships, shoulder-rubbings of +true and false, good and evil, become indifferent to one another, +incapable of looking each other in the face, careless, unblushing. +Nay, worse. For lack of all word of command, of all higher control, +hostile tendencies accommodating themselves to reign alternate, +sharing the individual in distinct halves, till he becomes like unto +that hero of Gautier's witch story, who was a pious priest one-half of +the twenty-four hours and a wicked libertine the other: all power of +selection, of reaction gone in this passive endurance of conflicting +tendencies; all identity gone, save a mere feeble outsider looking on +at the alternations of intentions and lapses, of good and bad. And the +soul of such a person—if, indeed, we can speak of one soul or one +person where there exists no unity—becomes like a jangle of notes +belonging to different tonalities, alternating and mingling in hideous +confusion for lack of a clear thread of melody, a consistent system of +harmony, to select, reject, and keep all things in place.</p> + +<p>Melody, harmony: the two great halves of the most purely æsthetic of +all arts, symbolise, as we might expect, the two great forces of life: +consecutiveness and congruity, under their different names of +intention, fitness, selection, adaptation. These are what make the +human soul like a conquering army, a fleet freighted with riches, a +band of priests celebrating a rite. And this is what art, by no paltry +formula, but by the indelible teaching of habit, of requirement, and +expectation become part of our very fibre—this is what art can teach +to those who will receive its highest lesson.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VI.</h4> + +<p>Those who can receive that lesson, that is to say, those in whom it +can expand and ramify to the fulness and complexity which is its very +essence. For it happens frequently enough that we learn only a portion +of this truth, which by this means is distorted into error. We accept +the æsthetic instinct as a great force of Nature; but, instead of +acknowledging it as our master, as one of the great lords of life, of +whom Emerson spoke, we try to make it our servant. We attempt to get +congruity between the details of our everyday existence, and refuse to +seek for congruity between ourselves and the life which is greater +than ours.</p> + +<p>A friend of mine, who had many better ways of spending her money, was +unable one day to resist the temptation of buying a beautiful old +majolica inkstand, which, not without a slight qualm of conscience, +she put into a very delightful old room of her house. The room had an +inkstand already, but it was of glass, and modern. "This one is in +harmony with the rest of the room," she said, and felt fully justified +in her extravagance. It is this form, or rather this degree, of +æstheticism, which so often prevents our realising the higher æsthetic +harmonies. In obedience to a perception of what is congruous on a +small scale we often do oddly incongruous things: spend money we ought +to save, give time and thought to trifles while neglecting to come to +conclusions about matters of importance; endure, or even cultivate, +persons with whom we have less than no sympathy; nay, sometimes, from +a keen sense of incongruity, tune down our thoughts and feelings to +the flatness of our surroundings. The phenomenon of what may thus +result from a certain æsthetic sensitiveness is discouraging, and I +confess that it used to discourage and humiliate me. But the +philosophy which the prophetess of Mautineia taught Socrates settles +the matter, and solves, satisfactorily what in my mind I always think +of as the question of the majolica inkstand.</p> + +<p>Diotima, you will remember, did not allow her disciple to remain +engrossed in the contemplation of one kind of beauty, but particularly +insisted that he should use various fair forms as steps by which to +ascend to the knowledge of ever higher beauties. And this I should +translate into more practical language by saying that, in questions +like that of the majolica inkstand, we require not a lesser +sensitiveness to congruity, but a greater; that we must look not +merely at the smaller, but at the larger items of our life, asking +ourselves, "Is this harmonious? or is it, seen in some wider +connection, even like that clumsy glass inkstand in the oak panelled +and brocade hung room?" If we ask ourselves this, and endeavour to +answer it faithfully—with that truthfulness which is itself an item +of <i>consistency</i>—we may find that, strange as it may seem, the glass +inkstand, ugly as it is in itself, and out of harmony with the +furniture, is yet more congruous, and that we actually prefer it to +the one of majolica.</p> + +<p>And it is in connection with this that I think that many persons who +are really æsthetic, and many more who imagine themselves to be so, +should foster a wholesome suspicion of the theory which makes it a +duty to accumulate certain kinds of possessions, to seek exclusively +certain kinds of impressions, on the score of putting beauty and +dignity into our lives.</p> + +<p>Put beauty, dignity, harmony, serenity into our lives. It sounds very +fine. But <i>can</i> we? I doubt it. We may put beautiful objects, +dignified manners, harmonious colours and shapes, but can we put +dignity, harmony, or beauty? Can we put them into an individual life; +can anything be put into an individual life save furniture and +garments, intellectual as well as material? For an individual life, +taken separately, is a narrow, weak thing at the very best; and +everything we can put into it, everything we lay hold of for the sake +of putting in, must needs be small also, merely the chips or dust of +great things; or if it have life, must be squeezed, cut down, made so +small before it can fit into that little receptacle of our egoism, +that it will speedily be a dead, dry thing: thoughts once thought, +feelings once felt, now neither thought nor felt, merely lying there +inert, as a dead fact, in our sterile self. Do we not see this on all +sides, examples of life into which all the dignified things have been +crammed and all the beautiful ones, and which despite the statues, +pictures, poems, and symphonies within its narrow compass, is yet so +far from dignified or beautiful?</p> + +<p>But we need not trouble about dignity and beauty coming to our life so +long as we veritably and thoroughly <i>live</i>; that is to say, so long as +we try not to put anything into our life, but to put our life into the +life universal. The true, expanding, multiplying life of the spirit +will bring us in contact, we need not fear, with beauty and dignity +enough, for there is plenty such in creation, in things around us, and +in other people's souls; nay, if we but live to our utmost power the +life of all things and all men, seeing, feeling, understanding for the +mere joy thereof, even our individual life will be invested with +dignity and beauty in our own eyes.</p> + +<p>But furniture will not do it, nor dress, nor exquisite household +appointments; nor any of the things, books, pictures, houses, parks, +of which we can call ourselves owners. I say <i>call</i> ourselves: for can +we be sure we really possess them? And thus, if we think only of our +life, and the decking thereof, it is only furniture, garments, and +household appointments we can deal with; for beauty and dignity cannot +be confined in so narrow a compass.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>I have spoken so far of the conscious habit of harmony, and of its +conscious effect upon our conduct. I have tried to show that the +desire for congruity, which may seem so trivial a part of mere +dilettanteist superfineness, may expand and develop into such love of +harmony between ourselves and the ways of the universe as shall make +us wince at other folks' loss united to our gain, at our +deterioration united to our pleasure, even as we wince at a false note +or a discordant arrangement of colours.</p> + +<p>But there is something more important than conscious choice, and +something more tremendous than definite conduct, because conscious +choice and conduct are but its separate and plainly visible results. I +mean unconscious way of feeling and organic way of living: that which, +in the language of old-fashioned medicine, we might call the +complexion or habit of the soul.</p> + +<p>This is undoubtedly affected by conscious knowledge and reason, as it +undoubtedly manifests itself in both. But it is, I believe, much more +what we might call a permanent emotional condition, a particular way +of feeling, of reacting towards the impressions given us by the +universe. And I believe that the individual is sound, that he is +capable of being happy while increasing the happiness of others, or +the reverse, according as he reacts harmoniously or inharmoniously +towards those universal impressions. And here comes in what seems to +me the highest benefit we can receive from art and from the æsthetic +activities, which, as I have said before, are in art merely +specialised and made publicly manifest.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VIII.</h4> + +<p>The habit of beauty, of harmony, is but the habit, engrained in our +nature by the unnoticed experiences of centuries, of <i>life</i> in our +surroundings and in ourselves; the habit of beauty is the habit, I +believe scientific analysis of nature's ways and means will show +us—of the growing of trees, the flowing of water, the perfect play +of perfect muscles, all registered unconsciously in the very structure +of our soul. And for this reason every time we experience afresh the +particular emotion associated with the quality <i>beautiful</i>, we are +adding to that rhythm of life within ourselves by recognising the life +of all things. There is not room within us for two conflicting waves +of emotion, for two conflicting rhythms of life, one sane and one +unsound. The two may possibly alternate, but in most cases the weaker +will be neutralised by the stronger; and, at all events, they cannot +co-exist. We can account, only in this manner, for the indisputable +fact that great emotion of a really and purely æsthetic nature has a +morally elevating quality, that as long as it endures—and in finer +organisations its effect is never entirely lost—the soul is more +clean and vigorous, more fit for high thoughts and high decisions. All +understanding, in the wider and more philosophical sense, is but a +kind of becoming: our soul experiences the modes of being which it +apprehends. Hence the particular religious quality (all faiths and +rituals taking advantage thereof) of a high and complex æsthetic +emotion. Whenever we come in contact with real beauty, we become +aware, in an unformulated but overwhelming manner, of some of the +immense harmonies of which all beauty is the product, of which all +separate beautiful things are, so to speak, the single patterns +happening to be in our line of vision, while all around other patterns +connect with them, meshes and meshes of harmonies, spread out, outside +our narrow field of momentary vision, an endless web, like the +constellations which, strung on their threads of mutual dependence, +cover and fill up infinitude.</p> + +<p>In the moments of such emotional perception, our soul also, ourselves, +become in a higher degree organic, alive, receiving and giving out the +life of the universe; come to be woven into the patterns of harmonies, +made of the stuff of reality, homogeneous with themselves, +consubstantial with the universe, like the living plant, the flowing +stream, the flying cloud, the great picture or statue.</p> + +<p>And in this way is realised, momentarily, but with ever-increasing +power of repetition, that which, after the teaching of Diotima, +Socrates prayed for—"the harmony between the outer and the inner +man."</p> + +<p>But this, I know, many will say, is but a delusion. Rapture is +pleasant, but it is not necessarily, as the men of the Middle Ages +thought, a union with God. And is this the time to revive, or seek to +revive, when science is for ever pressing upon us the conclusion that +soul is a function of matter—is this the time to revive discredited +optimistic idealisms of an unscientific philosophy?</p> + +<p>But if science become omniscient, it will surely recognise and explain +the value of such recurring optimistic idealisms; and if the soul be a +function of matter, will not science recognise but the more, that the +soul is an integral and vitally dependent portion of the material +universe?</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IX.</h4> + +<p>Be this as it may, one thing seems certain, that the artistic +activities are those which bring man into emotional communion with +external nature; and that such emotional communion is necessary for +man's thorough spiritual health. Perception of cause and effect, +generalisation of law, reduces the universe indeed to what man's +intellect can grasp; but in the process of such reduction to the laws +of man's thought, the universe is shorn of its very power to move +man's emotion and overwhelm his soul. The abstract which we have made +does not vivify us sufficiently. And the emotional communion of man +with nature is through those various faculties which we call æsthetic. +It is not to no purpose that poetry has for ever talked to us of skies +and mountains and waters; we require, for our soul's health, to think +about them otherwise than with reference to our material comfort and +discomfort; we require to feel that they and ourselves are brethren +united by one great law of life. And what poetry suggests in explicit +words, bidding us love and be united in love to external nature; art, +in more irresistible because more instinctive manner, forces upon our +feelings, by extracting, according to its various kinds, the various +vital qualities of the universe, and making them act directly upon our +mind: rhythms of all sorts, static and dynamic, in the spatial arts of +painting and sculpture; in the half spatial, half temporal art of +architecture: in music, which is most akin to life, because it is the +art of movement and change.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>X.</h4> + +<p>We can all remember moments when we have seemed conscious, even to +overwhelming, of this fact. In my own mind it has become indissolubly +connected with a certain morning at Venice, listening to the organ in +St. Mark's.</p> + +<p>Any old and beautiful church gives us all that is most moving and +noblest—organism, beauty, absence of all things momentary and +worthless, exclusion of grossness, of brute utility and mean +compromise, equality of all men before God; moreover, time, eternity, +the past, and the great dead. All noble churches give us this; how +much more, therefore, this one, which is noblest and most venerable!</p> + +<p>It has, like no other building, been handed over by man to Nature; +Time moulding and tinting into life this structure already so organic, +so fit to live. For its curves and vaultings, its cupolas mutually +supported, the weight of each carried by all; the very colour of the +marbles, brown, blond, living colours, and the irregular symmetry, +flower-like, of their natural patterning, are all seemingly organic and +ready for life. Time has added that, with the polish and dimming +alternately of the marbles, the billowing of the pavement, the +slanting of the columns, and last, but not least, the tarnishing of +the gold and the granulating of the mosaic into an uneven surface: the +gold seeming to have become alive and in a way vegetable, and to have +faded and shrunk like autumn leaves.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XI.</h4> + +<p>The morning I speak of they were singing some fugued composition by I +know not whom. How well that music suited St. Mark's! The constant +interchange of vault and vault, cupola and cupola, column and column, +handing on their energies to one another; the springing up of new +details gathered at once into the great general balance of lines and +forces; all this seemed to find its natural voice in that fugue, to +express, in that continuous revolution of theme chasing, enveloping +theme, its own grave emotion of life everlasting: Being, becoming; +becoming, being.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XII.</h4> + +<p>It is such an alternation as this, ceaseless, rhythmic, which +constitutes the upward life of the soul: that life of which the wise +woman of Mantineia told Socrates that it might be learned through +faithful and strenuous search for ever widening kinds of beauty, the +"life above all," in the words of Diotima, "which a man should live."</p> + +<p>The life which vibrates for ever between being better and conceiving +of something better still; between satisfaction in harmony and craving +for it. The life whose rhythm is that of happiness actual and +happiness ideal, alternating for ever, for ever pressing one another +into being, as the parts of a fugue, the dominant and the tonic. +Being, becoming; becoming, being; idealising, realising; realising, +idealising.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow"></hr> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p><a name="c1-4" id="c1-4"></a> </p> +<h3>BEAUTY AND SANITY.</h3> +<p> </p> +<h4>I.</h4> + +<p>Out of London at last; at last, though after only two months! Not, +indeed, within a walk of my clump of bay-trees on the Fiesole hill; +but in a country which has some of that Tuscan grace and serene +austerity, with its Tweed, clear and rapid in the wide shingly bed, +with its volcanic cones of the Eildons, pale and distinct in the +distance: river and hills which remind me of the valley where the +bay-trees grow, and bring to my mind all that which the bay-trees +stand for.</p> + +<p>There is always something peculiar in these first hours of finding +myself once more alone, once more quite close to external things; the +human jostling over, an end, a truce at least, to "all the neighbours' +talk with man and maid—such men—all the fuss and trouble of street +sounds, window-sights" (how he knew these things, the poet!); once +more in communion with the things which somehow—nibbled grass and +stone-tossed water, yellow ragwort in the fields, blue cranesbill +along the road, big ash-trees along the river, sheep, birds, sunshine, +and showers—somehow contrive to keep themselves in health, to live, +grow, decline, die, be born again, without making a mess or creating a +fuss. The air, under the grey sky, is cool, even cold, with infinite +briskness. And this impression of briskness, by no means excluded by +the sense of utter isolation and repose, is greatly increased by a +special charm of this place, the quantity of birds to listen to and +watch; great blackening flights of rooks from the woods along the +watercourses and sheltered hillsides (for only solitary ashes and +wind-vexed beeches will grow in the open); peewits alighting with +squeals in the fields; blackbirds and thrushes in the thick coverts (I +found a poor dead thrush with a speckled chest like a toad, laid out +among the beech-nuts); wagtails on the shingle, whirling over the +water, where the big trout and salmon leap; every sort of swallow; +pigeons crossing from wood to wood; wild duck rattling up, and +seagulls circling above the stream; nay, two herons, standing +immovable, heraldic, on the grass among the sheep.</p> + +<p>In such moments, with that briskness transferred into my feelings, +life seems so rich and various. All pleasant memories come to my mind +like tunes, and with real tunes among them (making one realise that +the greatest charm of music is often when no longer materially +audible). Pictures also of distant places, tones of voice, glance of +eyes of dear friends, visions of pictures and statues, and scraps of +poems and history. More seems not merely to be brought to me, but more +to exist, wherewith to unite it all, within myself.</p> + +<p>Such moments, such modes of being, ought to be precious to us; they +and every impression, physical, moral, æsthetic, which is akin to +them, and we should recognise their moral worth. Since it would seem +that even mere bodily sensations, of pure air, bracing temperature, +vigor of muscles, efficiency of viscera, accustom us not merely to +health of our body, but also, by the analogies of our inner workings, +to health of our soul.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>How delicate an organism, how alive with all life's dangers, is the +human character; and how persistently do we consider it as the thing +of all others most easily forced into any sort of position, most +safely handled in ignorance! Surely some of the misery, much of the +waste and deadlock of the world are due to our all being made of such +obscure, unguessed at material; to our not knowing it betimes, and +others not admitting it even late in the day. When, for instance, +shall we recognise that the bulk of our psychic life is unconscious or +semi-unconscious, the life of long-organised and automatic functions; +and that, while it is absurd to oppose to these the more recent, +unaccustomed and fluctuating activity called <i>reason</i>, this same +reason, this conscious portion of ourselves, may be usefully employed +in understanding those powers of nature (powers of chaos sometimes) +within us, and in providing that these should turn the wheel of life +in the right direction, even like those other powers of nature outside +us, which reason cannot repress or alter, but can understand and put +to profit. Instead of this, we are ushered into life thinking +ourselves thoroughly conscious throughout, conscious beings of a +definite and stereotyped pattern; and we are set to do things we do +not understand with mechanisms which we have never even been shown: +Told to be good, not knowing why, and still less guessing how!</p> + +<p>Some folk will answer that life itself settles all that, with its +jostle and bustle. Doubtless. But in how wasteful, destructive, +unintelligent, and cruel a fashion! Should we be satisfied with this +kind of surgery, which cures an ache by random chopping off a limb; +with this elementary teaching, which saves our body from the fire by +burning our fingers? Surely not; we are worth more care on our own +part.</p> + +<p>The recognition of this, and more especially of the manner in which we +may be damaged by dangers we have never thought of as dangers, our +souls undermined and made boggy by emotions not yet classified, brings +home to me again the general wholesomeness of art; and also the fact +that, wholesome as art is, in general, and, compared with the less +abstract activities of our nature, there are yet differences in art's +wholesomeness, there are categories of art which can do only good, and +others which may also do mischief.</p> + +<p>Art, in so far as it moves our fancies and emotions, as it builds up +our preferences and repulsions, as it disintegrates or restores our +vitality, is merely another of the great forces of nature, and we +require to select among its activities as we select among the +activities of any other natural force…. When, I wonder, I wonder, +will the forces <i>within</i> us be recognised as natural, in the same +sense as those <i>without</i>; and our souls as part of the universe, +prospering or suffering, according to which of its rhythms they +vibrate to: the larger rhythm, which is for ever increasing, and which +means happiness; the smaller, for ever slackening, which means +misery?</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>But since life has got two rhythms, why should art have only one? Our +poor mankind by no means always feel braced, serene, and energetic; +and we are far from necessarily keeping step with the movements of the +universe which imply happiness.</p> + +<p>Let alone the fact of wretched circumstances beyond our control, of +natural decay and death, and loss of our nearest and dearest; the +universe has made it excessively difficult, nay, impossible, for us to +follow constantly its calm behest, "Be as healthy as possible." It is +all very fine to say <i>be healthy</i>. Of course we should be willing +enough. But it must be admitted that the Powers That Be have not +troubled about making it easy. Be healthy indeed! When health is so +nicely balanced that it is at the mercy of a myriad of microscopic +germs, of every infinitesimal increase of cold or heat, or damp or +dryness, of alternations of work and play, oscillation of want and +excess incalculably small, any of which may disturb the beautiful +needle-point balance and topple us over into disease. Such Job's +comforting is one of the many sledge-hammer ironies with which the +Cosmos diverts itself at our expense; and of course the Cosmos may +permit itself what it likes, and none of us can complain. But is it +possible for one of ourselves, a poor, sick, hustled human being, to +take up the jest of the absentee gods of Lucretius, and say to his +fellow-men: "Believe me, you would do much better to be quite healthy, +and quite happy?"</p> + +<p>And, as art is one of mankind's modes of expressing itself, why in the +world should we expect it to be the expression only of mankind's +health and happiness? Even admitting that the very existence of the +race proves that the healthy and happy states of living must on the +whole preponderate (a matter which can, after all, not be proved so +easily), even admitting that, why should mankind be allowed artistic +emotions only at those moments, and requested not to express itself or +feel artistically during the others? Bay-trees are delightful things, +no doubt, and we are all very fond of them off and on. But why must we +pretend to enjoy them when we don't; why must we hide the fact that +they sometimes irritate or bore us, and that every now and then we +very much prefer—well, weeping-willows, upas-trees, and all the livid +or phosphorescent eccentricities of the various <i>fleurs du mal</i>?</p> + +<p>Is it not stupid thus to "blink and shut our apprehension up?" Nay, +worse, is it not positively heartless, brutal?</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<p>This argument, I confess, invariably delights and humiliates me: it is +so full of sympathy for all sorts and conditions of men, and so +appreciative of what is and what is not. It is so very human and +humane. There is in it a sort of quite gentle and dignified Prometheus +Vinctus attitude towards the Powers That Be; and Zeus, with his +thunderbolts and chains, looks very much like a brute by contrast.</p> + +<p>But what is to be done? Zeus exists with his chains and thunderbolts, +and all the minor immortals, lying down, colossal, dim, like mountains +at night, at Schiller's golden tables, each with his fine attribute, +olive-tree, horse, lyre, sun and what not, by his side; also his own +particular scourge, plague, dragon, wild boar, or sea monster, ready +to administer to recalcitrant, insufficiently pious man. And the gods +have it their own way, call them what you will, children of Chaos or +children of Time, dynasty succeeding dynasty, but only for the same +old gifts and same old scourges to be handed on from one to the other.</p> + +<p>In more prosaic terms, we cannot get loose of nature, the nature of +ourselves; we cannot get rid of the fact that certain courses, certain +habits, certain preferences are to our advantage, and certain others +to our detriment. And therefore, to return to art, and to the various +imaginative and emotional activities which I am obliged to label by +that very insufficient name, we cannot get rid of the fact that, +however much certain sorts of art are the natural expression of +certain recurring and common states of being; however much certain +preferences correspond to certain temperaments or conditions, we must +nevertheless put them aside as much as possible, and give our +attention to the opposite sorts of art and the opposite sorts of +preference, for the simple reason that the first make us less fit for +life and less happy in the long run, while the second make us more fit +and happier.</p> + +<p>It is a question not of what we <i>are</i>, but of what <i>we shall be</i>.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>V.</h4> + +<p>A distinguished scientific psychologist, who is also a psychologist in +the unscientific sense, and who writes of Intellect and Will less in +the spirit (and, thank heaven, less in the style) of Mr. Spencer than +in that of Monsieur de Montaigne, has objected to music (and, I +presume, in less degree to other art) that it runs the risk of +enfeebling the character by stimulating emotions without affording +them a corresponding outlet in activity. I agree (as will be seen +farther on) that music more particularly may have an unwholesome +influence, but not for the reason assigned by Professor James, who +seems to me to mistake the nature and functions of artistic emotion.</p> + +<p>I doubt very much whether any non-literary art, whether even music has +the power, in the modern man, of stimulating tendencies to action. It +may have had in the savage, and may still have in the civilised child; +but in the ordinary, cultivated grown-up person, the excitement +produced by any artistic sight, sound, or idea will most probably be +used up in bringing to life again some of the many millions of sights, +sounds, and ideas which lie inert, stored up in our mind. The artistic +emotion will therefore not give rise to an active impulse, but to that +vague mixture of feelings and ideas which we call a <i>mood</i>; and if any +alteration occur in subsequent action, it will be because all external +impressions must vary according to the mood of the person who receives +them, and consequently undergo a certain selection, some being allowed +to dominate and lead to action, while others pass unnoticed, are +neutralised or dismissed.</p> + +<p>More briefly, it seems to me that artistic emotion is of practical +importance, not because it discharges itself in action, but, on the +contrary, because it produces a purely internal rearrangement of our +thoughts and feelings; because, in short, it helps to form +concatenations of preferences, habits of being.</p> + +<p>Whether or not Mr. Herbert Spencer be correct in deducing all artistic +activities from our primæval instincts of play, it seems to me certain +that these artistic activities have for us adults much the same +importance as the play activities have for a child. They represent the +only perfectly free exercise, and therefore, free development, of our +preferences. Now, everyone will admit, I suppose, that it is extremely +undesirable that a child should amuse itself acquiring unwholesome +preferences and evil habits, indulging in moods which will make it or +its neighbours less comfortable out of play-time?</p> + +<p>Mind, I do not for a moment pretend that art is to become the +conscious instrument of morals, any more than (Heaven forbid!) play +should become the conscious preparation of infant virtue. All I +contend is that if some kinds of infant amusement result in damage, we +suppress them as a nuisance; and that, if some kinds of art +disorganise the soul, the less we have of them the better.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the grown-up human being is so constituted, is so full of +fine connections and analogies throughout his nature, that, while the +sense of emulation and gain lends such additional zest to his +amusements, the sense of increasing spiritual health and power, +wherever it exists, magnifies almost incredibly the pleasure derivable +from beautiful impressions.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VI.</h4> + +<p>The persons who maintained just now (and who does not feel a +hard-hearted Philistine for gainsaying them?) that we have no right to +ostracise, still less to stone, unwholesome kinds of art, make much of +the fact that, as we are told in church, "We have no health in us." +But it is the recognition of this lack of health which hardens my +heart to unwholesome persons and things. If we must be wary of what +moods and preferences we foster in ourselves, it is because so few of +us are congenitally sound—perhaps none without some organic weakness; +and because, even letting soundness alone, very few of us lead lives +that are not, in one respect or another, strained or starved or +cramped. Gods and archangels might certainly indulge exclusively in +the literature and art for which Baudelaire may stand in this +discussion. But gods and archangels require neither filters nor +disinfectants, and may slake their thirst in the veriest decoction of +typhoid.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>The Greeks, who were a fortunate mixture of Conservatives and +Anarchists, averred that the desire for the impossible (I do not +quote, for, alas! I should not understand the quotation) is a disease +of the soul.</p> + +<p>It is not, I think, the desire for the impossible (since few can tell +what seems impossible, and fewer care for what indubitably is so) so +much as the desire for the topsy-turvy. Baudelaire, who admired +persons thus afflicted, has a fine line:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>"De la réalité grands esprits contempteurs";</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>but what they despised was not the real, but the usual. Now the usual, +of the sort thus despised, happens to represent the necessities of our +organisms and of that wider organism which we call circumstances. We +may modify it, always in the direction in which it tends spontaneously +to evolve; but we cannot subvert it. You might as well try to subvert +gravitation: "Je m'en suis aperçu étant par terre," is the only +result, as in Molière's lesson of physics.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VIII.</h4> + +<p>Also, when you come to think of it, there is nothing showing a finer +organisation in the incapacity for finding sugar sweet and vinegar +sour. The only difference is that, as sugar happens to be sweet and +vinegar sour, an organisation which perceives the reverse is at sixes +and sevens with the universe, or a bit of the universe; and, exactly +to the extent to which this six-and-sevenness prevails, is likely to +be mulcted of some of the universe's good things.</p> + +<p>How may I bring this home, without introducing a sickly atmosphere of +decadent art and literature into my valley of the bay-trees? And yet, +an instance is needed. Well; there is an old story, originating +perhaps in Suetonius, handed on by Edgar Poe, and repeated, with +variations, by various modern French writers, of sundry persons who, +among other realities, despise the fact that sheets and table-linen +are usually white; and show the subtlety of their organisation (the +Emperor Tiberius, a very subtle person, was one of the earliest to +apply the notion) by taking their sleep and food in an arrangement of +black materials; a sort of mourning warehouse of beds and +dining-tables.</p> + +<p>Now this means simply that these people have bought "distinction" at +the price of one of mankind's most delightful birthrights, the +pleasure in white, the queen, as Leonardo put it, of all colours. Our +minds, our very sensations are interwoven so intricately of all manner +of impressions and associations, that it is no allegory to say that +white is good, and that the love of white is akin somehow to the love +of virtue. For the love of white has come to mean, thanks to the +practice of all centuries and to the very structure of our nerves, +strength, cleanness, and newness of sensation, capacity for +re-enjoying the already enjoyed, for preferring the already preferred, +for discovering new interest and pleasureableness in old things, +instead of running to new ones, as one does when not the old ones are +exhausted, but one's own poor vigour. The love of white means, +furthermore, the appreciation of certain circumstances, delightful and +valuable in themselves, without which whiteness cannot be present: in +human beings, good health and youth and fairness of life; in houses +(oh! the white houses of Cadiz, white between the blue sky and blue +sea!), excellence of climate, warmth, dryness and clearness of air; +and in all manner of household goods and stuff, care, order, +daintiness of habits, leisure and affluence. All things these which, +quite as much as any peculiarity of optic function, give for the +healthy mind a sort of restfulness, of calm, of virtue, and I might +almost say, of regal or priestly quality to white; a quality which +suits it to the act of restoring our bodies with food and wine, above +all, to the act of spiritual purification, the passing through the +cool, colourless, stainless, which constitutes true sleep.</p> + +<p>All this the Emperor Tiberius and his imitators forego with their +bogey black sheets and table-cloths….</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IX.</h4> + +<p>But what if we <i>do not care for white</i>? What if we are so constituted +that its insipidity sickens <i>us</i> as much as the most poisonous and +putrescent colours which Blake ever mixed to paint hell and sin? Nay, +if those grumous and speckly viscosities of evil green, orange, poppy +purple, and nameless hues, are the only things which give us any +pleasure?</p> + +<p>Is it a reason, because you arcadian Optimists of Evolution extract, +or imagine you extract, some feeble satisfaction out of white, that we +should pretend to enjoy it, and the Antique and Outdoor Nature, and +Early Painters, and Mozart and Gluck, and all the whitenesses physical +and moral? You say we are abnormal, unwholesome, decaying; very good, +then why should we not get pleasure in decaying, unwholesome, and +abnormal things? We are like the poison-monger's daughter in Nathaniel +Hawthorne's story. Other people's poison is our meat, and we should be +killed by an antidote; that is to say, bored to death, which, in our +opinion, is very much worse.</p> + +<p>To this kind of speech, common since the romantic and pre-Raphaelite +movement, and getting commoner with the spread of theories of +intellectual anarchy and nervous degeneracy, one is often tempted to +answer impatiently, "Get out of the way, you wretched young people; +don't you see that there isn't room or time for your posing?"</p> + +<p>But unfortunately it is not all pose. There are a certain number of +people who really are <i>bored with white</i>; for whom, as a result of +constitutional morbidness, of nervous exhaustion, or of that very +disintegration of soul due to unwholesome æsthetic self-indulgence, to +the constant quest for violent artistic emotion, our soul's best food +has really become unpalatable and almost nauseous. These people cannot +live without spiritual opium or alcohol, although that opium or +alcohol is killing them by inches. It is absurd to be impatient with +them. All one can do is to let them go in peace to their undoing, and +hope that their example will be rather a warning than a model to +others.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>X.</h4> + +<p>But, letting alone the possibility of art acting as a poison for the +soul, there remains an important question. As I said, although art is +one of the most wholesome of our soul's activities, there are yet +kinds of art, or (since it is a subjective question of profit or +damage to ourselves) rather kinds of artistic effect, which, for some +evident reason, or through some obscure analogy or hidden point of +contact awaken those movements of the fancy, those states of the +emotions which disintegrate rather than renew the soul, and accustom +us rather to the yielding and proneness which we shun, than to the +resistance and elasticity which we seek throughout life to increase.</p> + +<p>I was listening, last night, to some very wonderful singing of modern +German songs; and the emotion that still remains faintly within me +alongside of the traces of those languishing phrases and passionate +intonations, the remembrance of the sense of—how shall I call +it?—violation of the privacy of the human soul which haunted me +throughout that performance, has brought home to me, for the hundredth +time, that the Greek legislators were not so fantastic in considering +music a questionable art, which they thought twice before admitting +into their ideal commonwealths. For music can do more by our emotions +than the other arts, and it can, therefore, separate itself from them +and their holy ways; it can, in a measure, actually undo the good they +do to our soul.</p> + +<p>But, you may object, poetry does the very same; it also expresses, +strengthens, brings home our human, momentary, individual emotions, +instead of uniting with the arts of visible form, with the harmonious +things of nature, to create for us another kind of emotion, the +emotion of the eternal, unindividual, universal life, in whose +contemplation our souls are healed and made whole after the +disintegration inflicted by what is personal and fleeting.</p> + +<p>It is true that much poetry expresses merely such personal and momentary +emotion; but it does so through a mechanism differing from that of music, +and possessing a saving grace which the emotion-compelling mechanism +of music does not. For by the very nature of the spoken or written +word, by the word's strictly intellectual concomitants, poetry, even +while rousing emotion, brings into play what is most different to +emotion, emotion's sifter and chastener, the great force which reduces +all things to abstraction, to the eternal and typical: reason. You +cannot express in words, even the most purely instinctive, +half-conscious feeling, without placing that dumb and blind emotion in +the lucid, balanced relations which thought has given to words; +indeed, words rarely, if ever, reproduce emotion as it is, but +instead, emotion as it is instinctively conceived, in its setting of +cause and effect. Hence there is in all poetry a certain reasonable +element which, even in the heyday of passion, makes us superior to +passion by explaining its why and wherefore; and even when the poet +succeeds in putting us in the place of him who feels, we enter only +into one-half of his personality, the half which contemplates while +the other suffers: we <i>know</i> the feeling, rather than <i>feel</i> it.</p> + +<p>Now, it is different with music. Its relations to our nerves are such +that it can reproduce emotion, or, at all events, emotional moods, +directly and without any intellectual manipulation. We weep, but know +not why. Its specifically artistic emotion, the power it shares with +all other arts of raising our state of consciousness to something more +complete, more vast, and more permanent—the specific musical emotion +of music can become subservient to the mere awakening of our latent +emotional possibilities, to the stimulating of emotions often +undesirable in themselves, and always unable, at the moment, to find +their legitimate channel, whence enervation and perhaps degradation of +the soul. There are kinds of music which add the immense charm, the +subduing, victorious quality of art, to the power of mere emotion as +such; and in these cases we are pushed, by the delightfulness of +beauty and wonder, by the fascination of what is finer than ourselves, +into deeper consciousness of our innermost, primæval, chaotic self: +the stuff in which soul has not yet dawned. We are made to enjoy what +we should otherwise dread; and the dignity of beauty, and beauty's +frankness and fearlessness, are lent to things such as we regard, +under other circumstances, as too intimate, too fleeting, too obscure, +too unconscious, to be treated, in ourselves and our neighbours, +otherwise than with decorous reserve.</p> + +<p>It is astonishing, when one realises it, that the charm of music, the +good renown it has gained in its more healthful and more decorous +days, can make us sit out what we do sit out under its influence: +violations of our innermost secrets, revelations of the hidden +possibilities of our own nature and the nature of others; stripping +away of all the soul's veils; nay, so to speak, melting away of the +soul's outward forms, melting away of the soul's active structure, its +bone and muscle, till there is revealed only the shapeless primæval +nudity of confused instincts, the soul's vague viscera.</p> + +<p>When music does this, it reverts, I think, towards being the nuisance +which, before it had acquired the possibilities of form and beauty it +now tends to despise, it was felt to be by ancient philosophers and +law-givers. At any rate, it sells its artistic birthright. It +renounces its possibility of constituting, with the other great arts, +a sort of supplementary contemplated nature; an element wherein to +buoy up and steady those fluctuations which we express in speech; a +vast emotional serenity, an abstract universe in which our small and +fleeting emotions can be transmuted, and wherein they can lose +themselves in peacefulness and strength.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XI.</h4> + +<p>I mentioned this one day to my friend the composer. His answer is +partly what I was prepared for: this emotionally disintegrating +element ceases to exist, or continues to exist only in the very +slightest degree, for the real musician. The effect on the nerves is +overlooked, neutralised, in the activity of the intellect; much as the +emotional effect of the written word is sent into the background by +the perception of cause and effect which the logical associations of +the word produce. For the composer, even for the performer, says my +friend, music has a logic of its own, so strong and subtle as to +overpower every other consideration.</p> + +<p>But music is not merely for musicians; the vast majority will always +receive it not actively through the intellect, but passively through +the nerves; the mood will, therefore, be induced before, so to speak, +the image, the musical structure, is really appreciated. And, +meanwhile, the soul is being made into a sop.</p> + +<p>"For the moment," answers my composer, "perhaps; but only for the +moment. Once the nerves accustomed to those modulations and rhythms; +once the form perceived by the mind, the emotional associations will +vanish; the hearer will have become what the musician originally +was…. How do you know that, in its heyday, all music may not have +affected people as Wagner's music affects them nowadays? What proof +have you got that the strains of Mozart and Gluck, nay, those of +Palestrina, which fill our soul with serenity, may not have been full +of stress and trouble when they first were heard; may not have laid +bare the chaotic elements of our nature, brought to the surface its +primæval instincts? Historically, all you know is that Gluck's +<i>Orpheus</i> made our ancestors weep; and that Wagner's <i>Tristram</i> makes +our contemporaries sob…."</p> + +<p>This is the musician's defence. Does it free his art from my rather +miserable imputation? I think not. If all this be true, if <i>Orpheus</i> +has been what <i>Tristram</i> is, all one can say is <i>the more's the pity</i>. +If it be true, all music would require the chastening influence of +time, and its spiritual value would be akin to that of the Past and +Distant; it would be innocuous, because it had lost half of its +vitality. We should have to lay down music, like wine, for the future; +poisoning ourselves with the acrid fumes of its must, the heady, +enervating scent of scum and purpled vat, in order that our children +might drink vigour and warmth after we were dead.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XII.</h4> + +<p>But I doubt very much whether this is true. It is possible that the +music of Wagner may eventually become serene like the music of Handel; +but was the music of Handel ever morbid like the music of Wagner?</p> + +<p>I do not base my belief on any preference from Handel's +contemporaries. We may, as we are constantly being told, be +<i>degenerates</i>; but there was no special grace whence to degenerate in +our perruked forefathers. Moreover, I believe that any very +spontaneous art is to a very small degree the product of one or even +two or three generations of men. It has been growing to be what it is +for centuries and centuries. Its germ and its necessities of organism +and development lie far, far back in the soul's world-history; and it +is but later, if at all, when the organic growth is at an end, that +times and individuals can fashion it in their paltry passing image. +No; we may be as strong and as pure as Handel's audiences, and our +music yet be less strong and pure than theirs.</p> + +<p>My reason for believing in a fundamental emotional difference between +that music and ours is of another sort. I think that in art, as in all +other things, the simpler, more normal interest comes first, and the +more complex, less normal, follows when the simple and normal has +become, through familiarity, the insipid. While pleasure unspiced by +pain is still a novelty there is no reason thus to spice it.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIII.</h4> + +<p>The question can, however, be tolerably settled by turning over the +means which enable music to awaken emotion—emotion which we recognise +as human, as distinguished from the mere emotion of pleasure attached +to all beautiful sights and sounds. Once we have understood what these +means are, we can enquire to what extent they are employed in the +music of various schools and epochs, and thus judge, with some chance +of likelihood, whether the music which strikes us as serene and +vigorous could have affected our ancestors as turbid and enervating.</p> + +<p>'Tis a dull enough psychological examination; but one worth making, +not merely for the sake of music itself, but because music, being the +most emotional of all the arts, can serve to typify the good or +mischief which all art may do, according to which of our emotions it +fosters.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>'Tis repeating a fact in different words, not stating anything new, to +say that all beautiful things awaken a specific sort of emotion, the +emotion or the mood of the beautiful. Yet this statement, equivalent +to saying that hot objects give us the sensation of heat, and wet +objects the sensation of wetness, is well worth repeating, because we +so often forget that the fact of beauty in anything is merely the fact +of that thing setting up in ourselves a very specific feeling.</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>Now, besides this beauty or quality producing the emotion of the +beautiful, there exist in things a lot of other qualities also +producing emotion, each according to its kind; or rather, the +beautiful thing may also be qualified in some other way, as the thing +which is useful, useless, old, young, common, rare, or whatever you +choose. And this coincidence of qualities produces a coincidence of +states of mind. We shall experience the feeling not merely of beauty +because the thing is beautiful, but also of surprise because it is +startling, of familiarity because we meet it often, of attraction +(independently of beauty) because the thing suits or benefits us, or +of repulsion (despite the beauty) because the thing has done us a bad +turn or might do us one. This is saying that beauty is only one of +various relations possible between something not ourselves and our +feelings, and that it is probable that other relations between them +may exist at the same moment, in the same way that a woman may be a +man's wife, but also his cousin, his countrywoman, his school-board +representative, his landlady, and his teacher of Latin, without one +qualification precluding the others.</p> + +<p>Now, in the arts of line, colour, and projection, the arts which +usually copy the appearance of objects existing outside the art, these +other qualities, these other relations between ourselves and the +object which exists in the relation of beauty, are largely a matter of +superficial association—I mean, of association which may vary, and of +which we are most often conscious.</p> + +<p>We are reminded by the picture or statue of qualities which do not +exist in it, but in its prototype in reality. A certain face will +awaken disgust when seen in a picture, or reverence or amusement, +besides the specific impression of beauty (or its reverse), because we +have experienced disgust, awe, amusement in connection with a similar +face outside the picture.</p> + +<p>So far, therefore, as art is imitative, its non-artistic emotional +capacities are due (with a very few exceptions) to association; for +the feelings traceable directly to fatigue or disintegration of the +perceptive faculty usually, indeed almost always, prevent the object +from affecting us as beautiful. It is quite otherwise when we come to +music. Here the coincidence of other emotion resides, I believe, not +in the <i>musical thing itself</i>, not in the musician's creation without +prototype in reality, resembling nothing save other musical +structures; the coincidence resides in the elements out of which that +structure is made, and which, for all its complexities, are still very +strongly perceived by our senses. For instance, certain rhythms +existing in music are identical with, or analogous to, the rhythm of +our bodily movements under varying circumstances: we know +alternations of long and short, variously composed regularities and +irregularities of movement, fluctuations, reinforcements or +subsidences, from experience other than that of music; we know them in +connection with walking, jumping, dragging; with beating of heart and +arteries, expansion of throat and lungs; we knew them, long before +music was, as connected with energy or oppression, sickness or health, +elation or depression, grief, fear, horror, or serenity and happiness. +And when they become elements of a musical structure their +associations come along with them. And these associations are the more +powerful that, while they are rudimentary, familiar like our own +being, perhaps even racial, the musical structure into which they +enter is complete, individual, <i>new</i>: 'tis comparing the efficacy of, +say, Mozart Op. So-and-so, with the efficacy of somebody sobbing or +dancing in our presence.</p> + +<p>So far for the associational power of music in awakening emotions. But +music has another source of such power over us. Existing as it does in +a sequence, it is able to give sensations which the arts dealing with +space, and not with time, could not allow themselves, since for them a +disagreeable effect could never prelude an agreeable one, but merely +co-exist with it; whereas for music a disagreeable effect is +effaceable by an agreeable one, and will even considerably heighten +the latter by being made to precede it. Now we not merely associate +fatigue or pain with any difficult perception, we actually feel it; we +are aware of real discomfort whenever our senses and attention are +kept too long on the stretch, or are stimulated too sharply by +something unexpected. In these cases we are conscious of something +which is exhausting, overpowering, unendurable if it lasted: +experiences which are but too familiar in matters not musical, and, +therefore, evoke the remembrance of such non-musical discomfort, which +reacts to increase the discomfort produced by the music; the reverse +taking place, a sense of freedom, of efficiency, of strength arising +in us whenever the object of perception can be easily, though +energetically, perceived. Hence intervals which the ear has difficulty +in following, dissonances to which it is unaccustomed, and phrases too +long or too slack for convenient scansion, produce a degree of +sensuous and intellectual distress, which can be measured by the +immense relief—relief as an acute satisfaction—of return to easier +intervals, of consonance, and of phrases of normal rhythm and length.</p> + +<p>Thus does it come to pass that music can convey emotional suggestions +such as painting and sculpture, for all their imitations of reality, +can never match in efficacy; since music conveys the suggestions not +of mere objects which may have awakened emotion, but of emotion +itself, of the expression thereof in our bodily feelings and +movements. And hence also the curious paradox that musical emotion is +strong almost in proportion as it is vague. A visible object may, and +probably will, possess a dozen different emotional values, according +to our altering relations therewith; for one relation, one mood, one +emotion succeeds and obliterates the other, till nothing very potent +can remain connected with that particular object. But it matters not +how different the course of the various emotions which have expressed +themselves in movements of slackness, agitation, energy, or confusion; +it matters not through what circumstances our vigour may have leaked +away, our nerves have been harrowed, our attention worn out, so long +as those movements, those agitations, slackenings, oppressions, +reliefs, fatigues, harrowings, and reposings are actually taking place +within us. In briefer phrase, while painting and sculpture present us +only with objects possibly connected with emotions, but probably +connected with emotions too often varied to affect us strongly; music +gives us the actual bodily consciousness of emotion; nay (in so far as +it calls for easy or difficult acts of perception), the actual mental +reality of comfort or discomfort.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIV.</h4> + +<p>The emotion uppermost in the music of all these old people is the +specific emotion of the beautiful; the emotional possibilities, latent +in so many elements of the musical structure, never do more than +qualify the overwhelming impression due to that structure itself. The +music of Handel and Bach is beautiful, with a touch of awe; that of +Gluck, with a tinge of sadness; Mozart's and his contemporaries' is +beautiful, with a reminiscence of all tender and happy emotions; then +again, there are the great Italians of the seventeenth and eighteenth +centuries, Carissimi, Scarlatti the elder, Marcello, whose musical +beauty is oddly emphasised with energy and sternness, due to their +powerful, simple rhythms and straightforward wide intervals. But +whatever the emotional qualification, the chief, the never varying, +all-important characteristic, is the beauty; the dominant emotion is +the serene happiness which beauty gives: happiness, strong and +delicate; increase of our vitality; evocation of all cognate beauty, +physical and moral, bringing back to our consciousness all that which +is at once wholesome and rare. For beauty such as this is both +desirable and, in a sense, far-fetched; it comes naturally to us, and +we meet it half-way; but it does not come often enough.</p> + +<p>Hence it is that the music of these masters never admits us into the +presence of such feelings as either were better not felt, or at all +events, not idly witnessed. There is not ever anything in the joy or +grief suggested by this music, in the love of which it is an +expression, which should make us feel abashed in feeling or +witnessing. The whole world may watch <i>Orpheus</i> or <i>Alcestis</i>, as the +whole world may stand (with Bach or Pergolese to make music) at the +foot of the Cross. But may the whole world sit idly watching the +raptures and death-throes of Tristram and Yseult?</p> + +<p>Surely the world has grown strangely intrusive and unblushing.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XV.</h4> + +<p>I have spoken of this old music as an expression of love; and this, in +the face of the emotional effects of certain modern composers, may +make some persons smile.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I should rather have said that this old music expresses, above +everything else, the <i>lovable</i>; for does not eminent beauty inevitably +awaken love, either as respect or tenderness; the lovable, +<i>loveliness</i>? And at the same time the love itself such loveliness +awakens. Love far beyond particular cases or persons, fitting all +noble things, real and imaginary, complex or fragmentary. Love as a +lyric essence.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XVI.</h4> + +<p>But why not more than merely that? I used at one time to have frequent +discussions on art and life with a certain poor friend of mine, who +should have found sweetness in both, giving both sweetness in return, +but, alas, did neither. We were sitting in the fields where the +frost-bitten green was just beginning to soften into minute starlike +buds and mosses, and the birds were learning to sing in the leafless +lilac hedgerows, the sunshine, as it does in spring, seeming to hold +the world rather than merely to pour on to it. "You see," said my +friend, "you see, there is a fundamental difference between us. You +are satisfied with what you call <i>happiness</i>; but I want <i>rapture and +excess</i>."</p> + +<p>Alas, a few years later, the chance of happiness had gone. That door +was opened, of which Epictetus wrote that we might always pass through +it; in this case not because "the room was too full of smoke," but, +what is sadder by far, because the room was merely whitewashed and +cleanly swept.</p> + +<p>But those words "rapture and excess," spoken in such childlike +simplicity of spirit, have always remained in my mind. Should we not +teach our children, among whom there may be such as that one was, that +the best thing life can give is just that despised thing <i>happiness</i>?</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XVII.</h4> + +<p>Now art, to my mind, should be one of our main sources of happiness; +and under the inappropriate word <i>art</i>, I am obliged, as usual, to +group all such activities of soul as deal with beauty, quite as much +when it exists in what is (in this sense) not art's antithesis, but +art's origin and completion, nature. Nay, art—the art exercised by +the craftsman, but much more so the art, the selecting, grouping +process performed by our own feelings—art can do more towards our +happiness than increase the number of its constituent items: it can +mould our preferences, can make our souls more resisting and flexible, +teach them to keep pace with the universal rhythm.</p> + +<p>Now, there is not room enough in the world, and not stuff enough in +us, for much rapture, or for any excess. The space, as it were, the +material which these occupy and exhaust, has to be paid for; rapture +is paid for by subsequent stinting, and excess by subsequent +bankruptcy.</p> + +<p>We all know this in even trifling matters; the dulness, the lassitude +or restlessness, the incapacity for enjoyment following any very acute +or exciting pleasure. A man after a dangerous ride, a girl after her +first wildly successful ball, are not merely exhausted in body and in +mind; they are momentarily deprived of the enjoyment of slighter +emotions; 'tis like the inability to hear one's own voice after +listening to a tremendous band.</p> + +<p>The gods, one might say in Goethian phrase, did not intend us to share +their own manner of being; or, if you prefer it, in the language of +Darwin or Weissmann, creatures who died of sheer bliss, were unable to +rear a family and to found a species. Be it as it may, rapture must +needs be rare, because it destroys a piece of us (makes our precious +piece of chagrin skin, as in Balzac's story, shrink each time). And, +as we have seen, it destroys (which is more important than destruction +of mere life) our sensibility to those diffuse, long-drawn, gentle, +restorative pleasures which are not merely durable, but, because they +invigorate our spirit, are actually reproductive of themselves, +multiplying, like all sane desirable things, like grain and fruit, +ten-fold. Pleasures which I would rather call, but for the cumbersome +words, items of happiness. It is therefore no humiliating circumstance +if art and beauty should be unable to excite us like a game of cards, +a steeplechase, a fight, or some violent excitement of our senses or +our vanity. This inability, on the contrary, constitutes our chief +reason for considering our pleasure in beautiful sights, sounds, and +thoughts, as in a sense, holy.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XVIII.</h4> + +<p>Yesterday morning, riding towards the cypress woods, I had the first +impression of spring; and, in fact, to-day the first almond-tree had +come out in blossom on our hillside.</p> + +<p>A cool morning; loose, quickly moving clouds, and every now and then a +gust of rain swept down from the mountains. The path followed a brook, +descending in long, steep steps from the hillside; water perfectly +clear, bubbling along the yellow stones between the grassy banks and +making now and then a little leap into a lower basin; along the stream +great screens of reeds, sere, pale, with barely a pennon of leaves, +rustling ready for the sickle; and behind, beneath the watery sky, +rainy but somehow peaceful, the russet oak-scrub of the hill. Of +spring there was indeed visible only the green of the young wheat +beneath the olives; not a bud as yet had moved. And still, it is +spring. The world is renewing itself. One feels it in the gusts of +cool, wet wind, the songs of the reeds, the bubble of the brook; one +feels it, above all, in oneself. All things are braced, elastic, ready +for life.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow"></hr> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p><a name="c1-5" id="c1-5"></a> </p> +<h3>THE ART AND THE COUNTRY.</h3> +<p> </p> +<h4>TUSCAN NOTES.</h4> + +<blockquote class="med"> +<div class="ind8"> +<p class="noindent">"… all these are inhabitants of truly mountain cities, Florence<br /> +being as completely among the hills as Innsbruck is, only the<br /> +hills have softer outlines."—<i>Modern Painters</i>, <span class="smallcaps">iv</span>., chap. <span class="smallcaps">xx</span>.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<h4>I.</h4> + +<p>Sitting in the January sunshine on the side of this Fiesole hill, +overlooking the opposite quarries (a few long-stalked daisies at my +feet in the gravel, still soft from the night's frost), my thoughts +took the colour and breath of the place. They circled, as these paths +circle round the hill, about those ancient Greek and old Italian +cities, where the cyclopean walls, the carefully-terraced olives, +followed the tracks made first by the shepherd's and the goat's foot, +even as we see them now on the stony hills all round. What +civilisations were those, thus sowed on the rock like the wild mint +and grey myrrh-scented herbs, and grown under the scorch of sun upon +stone, and the eddy of winds down the valleys! They are gone, +disappeared, and their existence would be impossible in our days. But +they have left us their art, the essence they distilled from their +surroundings. And that is as good for our souls as the sunshine and +the wind, as the aromatic scent of the herbs of their mountains.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>I am tempted to think that the worst place for getting to know, +getting to <i>feel</i>, any school of painting, is the gallery, and the +best, perhaps, the fields: the fields (or in the case of the +Venetians, largely the waters), to which, with their qualities of air, +of light, their whole train of sensations and moods, the artistic +temperament, and the special artistic temperament of a local school, +can very probably be traced.</p> + +<p>For to appreciate any kind of art means, after all, not to understand +its relations with other kinds of art, but to feel its relations with +ourselves. It is a matter of living, thanks to that art, according to +the spiritual and organic modes of which it is an expression. Now, to +go from room to room of a gallery, allowing oneself to be played upon +by very various kinds of art, is to prevent the formation of any +definite mood, and to set up what is most hostile to all mood, to all +unity of being: comparison, analysis, classification. You may know +quite exactly the difference between Giotto and Simon Martini, between +a Ferrarese and a Venetian, between Praxiteles and Scopas; and yet be +ignorant of the meaning which any of these might have in your life, +and unconscious of the changes they might work in your being. And +this, I fear, is often the case with connoisseurs and archæologists, +accounting for the latent suspicion of the ignoramus and the good +philistine, that such persons are somehow none the better for their +intercourse with art.</p> + +<p>All art which is organic, short of which it cannot be efficient, +depends upon tradition. To say so sounds a truism, because we rarely +realise all that tradition implies: on the side of the artist, <i>what +to do</i>, and on the side of his public, <i>how to feel</i>: a habit, an +expectation which accumulates the results of individual creative +genius and individual appreciative sensibility, giving to each its +greatest efficacy. When one remembers, in individual instances—Kant, +Darwin, Michel Angelo, Mozart—how very little which is absolutely +new, how slight a variation, how inevitable a combination, marks, +after all, the greatest strokes of genius in all things, it seems +quite laughable to expect the mediocre person, mere looker-on or +listener, far from creative, to reach at once, without a similar +sequence of initiation, a corresponding state of understanding and +enjoyment. But, as a rule, this thought does not occur to us; and, +while we expatiate on the creative originality of artists and poets, +we dully take for granted the instant appreciation of their creation; +forgetting, or not understanding, in both cases, the wonderful +efficacy of tradition.</p> + +<p>As regards us moderns, for whom the tradition of, say, Tuscan art has +so long been broken off or crossed by various other and very different +ones—as regards ourselves, I am inclined to think that we can best +recover it by sympathetic attention to those forms of art, humbler or +more public, which must originally have prepared and kept up the +interest of the people for whom the Tuscan craftsmen worked.</p> + +<p>Pictures and statues, even in a traditional period, embody a large +amount of merely personal peculiarities of individual artists, +testifying to many activities—imitation, self-assertion, +rivalry—which have no real æsthetic value. And, during the fifteenth +century and in Tuscany especially, the flow of traditional æsthetic +feeling is grievously altered and adulterated by the merest scientific +tendencies: a painter or sculptor being often, in the first instance, +a student of anatomy, archæology or perspective. One may, therefore, +be familiar for twenty years with Tuscan Renaissance painting or +sculpture, and yet remain very faintly conscious of the special +æsthetic character, the <i>virtues</i> (in the language of herbals) of +Tuscan art. Hence I should almost say, better let alone the pictures +and statues until you are sufficiently acquainted with the particular +quality lurking therein to recognise, extricate and assimilate it, +despite irrelevant ingredients. Learn the <i>quality</i> of Tuscan art from +those categories of it which are most impersonal, most traditional, +and most organic and also freer from scientific interference, say +architecture and decoration; and from architecture rather in its +humble, unobtrusive work than in the great exceptional creations which +imply, like the cupola of Florence, the assertion of a personality, +the surmounting of a difficulty, and even the braving of other folks' +opinion. I believe that if one learned, not merely to know, but to +feel, to enjoy very completely and very specifically, the quality of +distinctness and reserve, slightness of means and greatness of +proportions, of the domestic architecture and decoration of the +fifteenth century, if one made one's own the mood underlying the +special straight lines and curves, the symmetry and hiatus of the +colonnades, for instance, inside Florentine houses; of the little bits +of carving on escutcheon and fireplace of Tuscan hillside farms; let +alone of the plainest sepulchral slabs in Santa Croce, one would be +in better case for really appreciating, say, Botticelli or Pier della +Francesca than after ever so much comparison of their work with that +of other painters. For, through familiarity with that humbler, more +purely impersonal and traditional art, a certain mode of being in +oneself, which is the special æsthetic mood of the Tuscan's would have +become organised and be aroused at the slightest indication of the +qualities producing it, so that their presence would never escape one. +This, I believe, is the secret of all æsthetic training: the growing +accustomed, as it were automatically, to respond to the work of art's +bidding; to march or dance to Apollo's harping with the irresistible +instinct with which the rats and the children followed the pied +piper's pipe. This is the æsthetic training which quite unconsciously +and incidentally came to the men of the past through daily habit of +artistic forms which existed and varied in the commonest objects just +as in the greatest masterpieces. And through it alone was the highest +art brought into fruitful contact with even the most everyday persons: +the tradition which already existed making inevitable the tradition +which followed.</p> + +<p>But to return to us moderns, who have to reconstitute deliberately a +vanished æsthetic tradition, it seems to me that such familiarity with +Tuscan art once initiated, we can learn more, producing and canalising +its special moods, from a frosty afternoon like this one on the +hillside, with its particular taste of air, its particular line of +shelving rock and twisting road and accentuating reed or cypress in +the delicate light, than from hours in a room where Signorelli and +Lippi, Angelico and Pollaiolo, are all telling one different things +in different languages.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>These thoughts, and the ones I shall try to make clear as I go on, +began to take shape one early winter morning some ten years ago, while +I was staying among the vineyards in the little range of hills which +separate the valley of the Ombrone from the lower valley of the Arno. +Stony hills, stony paths between leafless lilac hedges, stony outlines +of crest, fringed with thin rosy bare trees; here and there a few +bright green pines; for the rest, olives and sulphur-yellow sere vines +among them; the wide valley all a pale blue wash, and Monte Morello +opposite wrapped in mists. It was visibly snowing on the great +Apennines, and suddenly, though very gently, it began to snow here +also, wrapping the blue distance, the yellow vineyards, in thin veils. +Brisk cold. At the house, when I returned from my walk, the children +were flattened against the window-panes, shouting for joy at the snow. +We grown-up folk, did we live wiser lives, might be equally delighted +by similar shows.</p> + +<p>A very Tuscan, or rather (what I mean when I make use of that word, +for geographically Tuscany is very large and various) a very +Florentine day. Beauty, exquisiteness, serenity; but not without +austerity carried to a distinct bitingness. And this is the quality +which we find again in all very characteristic Tuscan art. Such a +country as this, scorched in summer, wind-swept in winter, and +constantly stony and uphill, a country of eminently dry, clear, moving +air, puts us into a braced, active, self-restrained mood; there is in +it, as in these frosty days which suit it best, something which gives +life and demands it: a quality of happy effort. The art produced by +people in whom such a condition of being is frequent, must necessarily +reproduce this same condition of being in others.</p> + +<p>Therefore the connection between a country and its art must be sought +mainly in the fact that all art expresses a given state of being, of +emotion, not human necessarily, but vital; that is to say, expresses +not whether we love or hate, but rather <i>how</i> we love or hate, how we +<i>are</i>. The mountain forms, colour, water, etc., of a country are +incorporated into its art less as that art's object of representation, +than as the determinant of a given mode of vitality in the artist. +Hence music and literature, although never actually reproducing any +part of them, may be strongly affected by their character. The <i>Vita +Nuova</i>, the really great (not merely historically interesting) +passages of the Divine Comedy, and the popular songs of Tigri's +collection, are as much the outcome of these Tuscan mountains and +hills, as is any picture in which we recognise their outlines and +colours. Indeed, it happens that of literal rendering (as +distinguished from ever-present reference to quality of air or light, +to climbing, to rock and stone as such) there is little in the +<i>Commedia</i>, none at all in either the old or the more modern lyrics, +and not so much even in painted landscape. The Tuscan backgrounds of +the fifteenth century are <i>not</i> these stony places, sun-burnt or +wind-swept; they are the green lawns and pastures in vogue with the +whole international Middle Ages, but rendered with that braced, +selecting, finishing temper which <i>is</i> the product of those stony +hills. Similarly the Tuscans must have been influenced by the grace, +the sparseness, the serenity of the olive, its inexhaustible vigour +and variety; yet how many of them ever painted it? That a people +should never paint or describe their landscape may mean that they have +not consciously inventoried the items; but it does not mean that they +have not æsthetically, so to speak <i>nervously</i>, felt them. Their +quality, their virtue, may be translated into that people's way of +talking of or painting quite different things: the Tuscan quality is a +quality of form, because it is a quality of mood.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<p>This Tuscan, and more than Attic, quality—for there is something akin +to it in certain Greek archaic sculpture—is to be found, already +perfect and most essential, in the façades of the early mediæval +churches of Pistoia. <i>Is to be found</i>; because this quality, tense and +restrained and distributed with harmonious evenness, reveals itself +only to a certain fineness and carefulness of looking. The little +churches (there are four or five of them) belong to the style called +Pisan-Romanesque; and their fronts, carved arches, capitals, lintels, +and doorposts, are identical in plan, in all that the mind rapidly +inventories, with the fronts of the numerous contemporary churches of +Lucca. But a comparison with these will bring out most vividly the +special quality of the Pistoia churches. The Lucchese ones (of some of +which, before their restoration, Mr. Ruskin has left some marvellous +coloured drawings at Oxford) run to picturesqueness and even +something more; they do better in the picture than in the reality, +and weathering and defacement has done much for them. Whereas the +little churches at Pistoia, with less projection, less carving in the +round, few or no animal or clearly floral forms, and, as a rule, +pilasters or half-pillars instead of columns, must have been as +perfect the day they were finished; the subtle balancings and tensions +of lines and curves, the delicate fretting and inlaying of flat +surface pattern, having gained only, perhaps, in being drawn more +clearly by dust and damp upon a softer colour of marble. I have +mentioned these first, because their apparent insignificance—tiny +flat façades, with very little decoration—makes it in a way easier to +grasp the special delicate austerity of their beauty. But they are +humble offshoots, naturally, of two great and complex masterpieces, +and very modest sisters of a masterpiece only a degree less +marvellous: Pisa Cathedral, the Baptistery of Florence and San +Miniato. The wonderful nature of the most perfect of these three +buildings (and yet I hesitate to call it so, remembering the apse and +lateral gables of Pisa) can be the better understood that, standing +before the Baptistery of Florence, one has by its side Giotto's very +beautiful belfry. Looking at them turn about, one finds that the +Gothic boldness of light and shade of the Campanile <ins title="original has make">makes</ins> the windows, +pillars and cornices of the Baptistery seem at first very flat and +uninteresting. But after the first time, and once that sense of +flatness overcome, it is impossible to revert to the belfry with the +same satisfaction. The eye and mind return to the greater perfection +of the Baptistery; by an odd paradox there is deeper feeling in those +apparently so slight and superficial carvings, those lintels and +fluted columns of green marble which scarcely cast a shadow on their +ivory-tinted wall. The Tuscan quality of these buildings is the better +appreciated when we take in the fact that their architectural items +had long existed, not merely in the Romanesque, but in the Byzantine +and late Roman. The series of temple-shaped windows on the outside of +the Florence Baptistery and of San Miniato, has, for instance, its +original in the Baptistery of Ravenna and the arch at Verona. What the +Tuscans have done is to perfect the inner and subtler proportions, to +restrain and accentuate, to phrase (in musical language) every detail +of execution. By an accident of artistic evolution, this style of +architecture, rather dully elaborated by a worn-out civilisation, has +had to wait six centuries for life to be put into it by a finer-strung +people at a chaster and more braced period of history. Nor should we +be satisfied with such loose phrases as this, leading one to think, in +a slovenly fashion (quite unsuitable to Tuscan artistic lucidity), +that the difference lay in some vague metaphysical entity called +<i>spirit</i>: the spirit of the Tuscan stonemasons of the early Middle +Ages altered the actual tangible forms in their proportions and +details: this spiritual quality affects us in their carved and inlaid +marbles, their fluted pilasters and undercut capitals, as a result of +actual work of eye and of chisel: they altered the expression by +altering the stone, even as the frosts and August suns and trickling +water had determined the expression, by altering the actual surface, +of their lovely austere hills.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>V.</h4> + +<p>The Tuscan quality in architecture must not be sought for during the +hundred years of Gothic—that is to say, of foreign—supremacy and +interregnum. The stonemasons of Pisa and of Florence did indeed apply +their wholly classic instincts to the detail and ornament of this +alien style; and one is struck by the delicacy and self-restraint of, +say, the Tuscan ones among the Scaliger tombs compared with the more +picturesque looseness of genuine Veronese and Venetian Gothic +sculpture. But the constructive, and, so to speak, space enclosing, +principles of the great art of mediæval France were even less +understood by the Tuscan than by any other Italian builders; and, as +the finest work of Tuscan façade architecture was given before the +Gothic interregnum, so also its most noble work, as actual spatial +arrangement, must be sought for after the return to the round arch, +the cupola and the entablature of genuine Southern building. And then, +by a fortunate coincidence (perhaps because this style affords no real +unity to vast naves and transepts), the architectural masterpieces of +the fifteenth century are all of them (excepting, naturally, +Brunelleschi's dome) very small buildings: the Sacristies of S. +Lorenzo and S. Spirito, the chapel of the Pazzi, and the late, but +exquisite, small church of the Carceri at Prato. The smallness of +these places is fortunate, because it leaves no doubt that the sense +of spaciousness—of our being, as it were, enclosed with a great part +of world and sky around us—is an artistic illusion got by +co-ordination of detail, greatness of proportions, and, most of all, +perhaps, by quite marvellous distribution of light. These small +squares, or octagons, most often with a square embrasure for the +altar, seem ample habitations for the greatest things; one would wish +to use them for Palestrina's music, or Bach's, or Handel's; and then +one recognises that their actual dimensions in yards would not +accommodate the band and singers and the organ! Such music must remain +in our soul, where, in reality, the genius of those Florentine +architects has contrived the satisfying ampleness of their buildings.</p> + +<p>That they invented nothing in the way of architectural ornament, nay, +took their capitals, flutings, cornices, and so forth, most +mechanically from the worst antique, should be no real drawback to +this architecture; it was, most likely, a matter of negative instinct. +For these meagre details leave the mind free, nay, force it rather, to +soar at once into the vaultings, into the serene middle space opposite +the windows, and up into the enclosed heaven of the cupolas.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VI.</h4> + +<p>The Tuscan sculpture of this period stands, I think, midway between +the serene perfection of the buildings (being itself sprung from the +architecture of the Gothic time), and the splendid but fragmentary +accomplishment of the paintings, many of whose disturbing problems, of +anatomy and anatomic movement, it shared to its confusion. It is not +for beautiful bodily structure or gesture, such as we find even in +poor antiques, that we should go to the Florentine sculptors, save, +perhaps, the two Robbias. It is the almost architectural distribution +of space and light, the treatment of masses, which makes the +immeasurable greatness of Donatello, and gives dignity to his greatest +contemporary, Jacopo della Quercia. And it is again an architectural +quality, though in the sense of the carved portals of Pistoia, the +flutings and fretwork and surface pattern of the Baptistery and S. +Miniato, which gives such poignant pleasure in the work of a very +different, but very great, sculptor, Desiderio. The marvel (for it is +a marvel) of his great monument in Santa Croce, depends not on +anatomic forms, but on the exquisite variety and vivacity of surface +arrangement; the word symphony (so often misapplied) fitting exactly +this complex structure of minute melodies and harmonies of rhythms and +accents in stone.</p> + +<p>But the quality of Tuscan sculpture exists in humbler, often anonymous +and infinitely pathetic work. I mean those effigies of knights and +burghers, coats of arms and mere inscriptions, which constitute so +large a portion of what we walk upon in Santa Croce. Things not much +thought of, maybe, and ruthlessly defaced by all posterity. But the +masses, the main lines, were originally noble, and defacement has only +made their nobleness and tenderness more evident and poignant: they +have come to partake of the special solemnity of stone worn by frost +and sunshine.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>There are a great many items which go to make up Tuscany and the +specially Tuscan mood. The country is at once hilly and mountainous, +but rich in alluvial river valleys, as flat and as wide, very often, +as plains; and the chains which divide and which bound it are as +various as can be: the crystalline crags of Carrara, the washed away +cones and escarpments of the high Apennines, repeating themselves in +counter forts and foothills, and the low, closely packed ridges of the +hills between Florence and Siena. Hence there is always a view, +definite and yet very complex, made up of every variety of line, but +always of clearest perspective: perfect horizontals at one's feet, +perfect perpendiculars opposite the eye, a constant alternation of +looking up and looking down, a never-failing possibility of looking +<i>beyond</i>, an outlet everywhere for the eye, and for the breath; and +endless intricacy of projecting spur and engulfed ravine, of valley +above valley, and ridge beyond ridge; and all of it, whether +definitely modelled by stormy lights or windy dryness, or washed to +mere outline by sunshine or mist, always massed into intelligible, +harmonious, and ever-changing groups. Ever changing as you move, hills +rising or sinking as you mount or descend, furling or unfurling as you +go to the right or to the left, valleys and ravines opening or closing +up, the whole country altering, so to speak, its attitude and gesture +as quickly almost, and with quite as perfect consecutiveness, as does +a great cathedral when you walk round it. And, for this reason, never +letting you rest; keeping <i>you</i> also in movement, feet, eyes and +fancy. Add to all this a particular topographical feeling, very strong +and delightful, which I can only describe as that of seeing all the +kingdoms of the earth. In the high places close to Florence (and with +that especial lie of the land everything is a <i>high place</i>) a view is +not only of foregrounds and backgrounds, river troughs and mountain +lines of great variety, but of whole districts, or at least +indications of districts—distant peaks making you feel the places at +their feet—which you know to be extremely various: think of the +Carraras with their Mediterranean seaboard, the high Apennines with +Lombardy and the Adriatic behind them, the Siena and Volterra hills +leading to the Maremma, and the great range of the Falterona, with the +Tiber issuing from it, leading the mind through Umbria to Rome!</p> + +<p>The imagination is as active among these Florentine hills as is the +eye, or as the feet and lungs have been, pleasantly tired, delighting +in the moment's rest, after climbing those steep places among the +pines or the myrtles, under the scorch of the wholesome summer sun, or +in the face of the pure, snowy wind. The wind, so rarely at rest, has +helped to make the <ins title="original has Tuskan">Tuscan</ins> spirit, calling for a certain resoluteness +to resist it, but, in return, taking all sense of weight away, making +the body merge, so to speak, into eye and mind, and turning one, for a +little while, into part of the merely visible and audible. The +frequent possibility of such views as I have tried to define, of such +moments of fulness of life, has given, methinks, the quality of +definiteness and harmony, of active, participated in, greatness, to +the art of Tuscany.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VIII.</h4> + +<p>It is a pity that, as regards painting, this Tuscan feeling (for +Giottesque painting had the cosmopolitan, as distinguished from local, +quality of the Middle Ages and of the Franciscan movement) should have +been at its strongest just in the century when mere scientific +interest was uppermost. Nay, one is tempted to think that matters were +made worse by that very love of the strenuous, the definite, the +lucid, which is part of the Tuscan spirit. So that we have to pick +out, in men like Donatello, Uccello, Pollaiolo and Verrocchio, nay, +even in Lippi and Botticelli, the fragments which correspond to what +we get quite unmixed and perfect in the Romanesque churches of Pisa, +Florence, and Pistoia, in the sacristies and chapels of Brunelleschi, +Alberti, and Sangallo, and in a hundred exquisite cloisters and +loggias of unnoticed town houses and remote farms. But perhaps there +is added a zest (by no means out of keeping with the Tuscan feeling) +to our enjoyment by the slight effort which is thus imposed upon us: +Tuscan art does not give its exquisiteness for nothing.</p> + +<p>Be this as it may, the beauty of Florentine Renaissance painting must +be sought, very often, not in the object which the picture represents, +but in the mode in which that object is represented. Our habits of +thought are so slovenly in these matters, and our vocabulary so poor +and confused, that I find it difficult to make my exact meaning clear +without some insistence. I am not referring to the mere moral +qualities of care, decision, or respectfulness, though the recognition +thereof adds undoubtedly to the noble pleasure of a work of art; still +less to the technical or scientific lucidity which the picture +exhibits. The beauty of fifteenth-century painting is a visible +quality, a quality of the distribution of masses, the arrangement of +space; above all, of the lines of a picture. But it is independent of +the fact of the object represented being or not what in real life we +should judge beautiful; and it is, in large works, unfortunately even +more separate from such arrangement as will render a complicated +composition intelligible to the mind or even to the eye. The problems +of anatomy, relief, muscular action, and perspective which engrossed +and in many cases harassed the Florentines of the Renaissance, turned +their attention away from the habit of beautiful general composition +which had become traditional even in the dullest and most effete of +their Giottesque predecessors, and left them neither time nor +inclination for wonderful new invention in figure distribution like +that of their contemporary Umbrians. Save in easel pictures, +therefore, there is often a distressing confusion, a sort of dreary +random packing, in the works of men like Uccello, Lippi, Pollaiolo, +Filippino, Ghirlandaio, and even Botticelli. And even in the more +simply and often charmingly arranged easel pictures, the men and women +represented, even the angels and children, are often very far from +being what in real life would be deemed beautiful, or remarkable by +any special beauty of attitude and gesture. They are, in truth, +studies, anatomical or otherwise, although studies in nearly every +case dignified by the habit of a very serious and tender devoutness: +rarely soulless or insolent studio drudgery or swagger such as came +when art ceased to be truly popular and religious. Studies, however, +with little or no selection of the reality studied, and less thought +even for the place or manner in which they were to be used.</p> + +<p>But these studies are executed, however scientific their intention, +under the guidance of a sense and a habit of beauty, subtle and +imperious in proportion, almost, as it is self-unconscious. These +figures, sometimes ungainly, occasionally ill-made, and these +features, frequently homely or marred by some conspicuous ugliness, +are made up of lines as enchantingly beautiful, as seriously +satisfying, as those which surrounded the Tuscans in their landscape. +And it is in the extracting of such beauty of lines out of the +bewildering confusion of huge frescoes, it is in the seeing as +arrangements of such lines the sometimes unattractive men and women +and children painted (and for that matter, often also sculptured) by +the great Florentines of the fifteenth century, that consists the true +appreciation and habitual enjoyment of Tuscan Renaissance painting. +The outline of an ear and muscle of the neck by Lippi; the throw of +drapery by Ghirlandaio; the wide and smoke-like rings of heavy hair by +Botticelli; the intenser, more ardent spiral curls of Verrocchio or +the young Leonardo; all that is flower-like, flame-like, that has the +swirl of mountain rivers, the ripple of rocky brooks, the solemn and +poignant long curves and sudden crests of hills, all this exists in +the paintings of the Florentines; and it is its intrinsic nobility and +exquisiteness, its reminiscence and suggestion of all that is +loveliest and most solemn in nature, its analogy to all that is +strongest and most delicate in human emotion, which we should seek for +and cherish in their works.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IX.</h4> + +<p>The hour of low lights, which the painters of the past almost +exclusively reproduced, is naturally that in which we recognise +easiest, not only the identity of mood awakened by the art and by the +country, but the closer resemblance between the things which art was +able to do, and the things which the country had already done. Even +more, immediately after sunset. The hills, becoming uniform masses, +assert their movement, strike deep into the valley, draw themselves +strongly up towards the sky. The valleys also, with their purple +darkness, rising like smoke out of them, assert themselves in their +turn. And the sky, the more diaphanous for all this dark solidity +against it, becomes sky more decisively; takes, moreover, colour which +only fluid things can have; turns into washes of pale gold, of palest +tea-rose pink and beryl green. Against this sky the cypresses are +delicately finished off in fine black lacework, even as in the +background of Botticelli's <i>Spring</i>, and Leonardo's or Verrocchio's +<i>Annuniciation</i>. One understands that those passionate lovers of line +loved the moment of sunset apart even from colour. The ridges of pines +and cypresses soon remain the only distinguishable thing in the +valleys, pulling themselves (as one feels it) rapidly up, like great +prehistoric shapes of Saurians. Soon the sky only and mountains will +exist. Then begins the time, before the starlit night comes to say its +say, when everything grows drowsy, a little vague, and the blurred +mountains go to sleep in the smoke of dusk. Then only, due west, the +great Carrara peaks stand out against the sanguine sky, long pointed +curves and flame-shaped sudden crests, clear and keen beyond the power +of mortal hand to draw.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>X.</h4> + +<p>The quality of such sights as these, as I have more than once +repeated, requires to be diligently sought for, and extricated from +many things which overlay or mar it, throughout nearly the whole of +Florentine Renaissance painting. But by good luck there is one painter +in whom we can enjoy it as subtle, but also as simple, as in the +hills and mountains outlined by sunset or gathered into diaphanous +folds by the subduing radiance of winter moon. I am speaking, of +course, of Pier della Francesca; although an over literal school of +criticism stickles at classing him with the other great Florentines. +Nay, by a happy irony of things, the reasons for this exclusion are +probably those to which we owe the very purity and perfection of this +man's Tuscan quality. For the remoteness of his home on the +southernmost border of Tuscany, and in a river valley—that of the +Upper Tiber—leading away from Florence and into Umbria, may have kept +him safe from that scientific rivalry, that worry and vexation of +professional problems, which told so badly on so many Florentine +craftsmen. And, on the other hand, the north Italian origin of one of +his masters, the mysterious Domenico Veneziano, seems to have given +him, instead of the colouring, always random and often coarse, of +contemporary Florence, a harmonious scheme of perfectly delicate, +clear, and flower-like colour. These two advantages are so distinctive +that, by breaking through the habits one necessarily gets into with +his Florentine contemporaries, they have resulted in setting apart, +and almost outside the pale of Tuscan painting, the purest of all +Tuscan artists. For with him there is no need for making allowances or +disentangling essentials. The vivid organic line need not be sought in +details nor, so to speak, abstracted: it bounds his figures, forms +them quite naturally and simply, and is therefore not thought about +apart from them. And the colour, integral as it is, and perfectly +harmonious, masses the figures into balanced groups, bossiness and +bulk, detail and depth, all unified, co-ordinated, satisfying as in +the sun-merged mountains and shelving valleys of his country; and with +the immediate charm of whiteness as of rocky water, pale blue of +washed skies, and that ineffable lilac, russet, rose, which makes the +basis of all southern loveliness. One thinks of him, therefore, as +something rather apart, a sort of school in himself, or at most with +Domenico, his master, and his follower, della Gatta. But more careful +looking will show that his greatest qualities, so balanced and so +clear in him, are shared—though often masked by the ungainlinesses of +hurried artistic growth—by Pollaiolo, Baldovinetti, Pesellino, let +alone Uccello, Castagno, and Masaccio; are, in a word, Tuscan, +Florentine. But more than by such studies, the kinship and nationality +of Pier della Francesca is proved by reference to the other branches +of Tuscan art: his peculiarities correspond to the treatment of line +and projection by those early stonemasons of the Baptistery and the +Pistoia churches, to the treatment of enclosed spaces and manipulated +light in those fifteenth-century sacristies and chapels, to the +treatment of mass and boundary in the finest reliefs of Donatello and +Donatello's great decorative follower Desiderio. To persons, however, +who are ready to think with me that we may be trained to art in fields +and on hillsides, the essential Tuscan character of Pier della +Francesca is brought home quite as strongly by the particular +satisfaction with which we recognise his pictures in some unlikely +place, say a Northern gallery. For it is a satisfaction, <i>sui generis</i> +and with its own emotional flavour, like that which we experience on +return to Tuscany, on seeing from the train the white houses on the +slopes, the cypresses at the cross roads, the subtler, lower lines of +hills, the blue of distant peaks, on realising once more our depth of +tranquil love for this austere and gentle country.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XI.</h4> + +<p>Save in the lushness of early summer, Tuscany is, on the whole, pale; +a country where the loveliness of colour is that of its luminousness, +and where light is paramount. From this arises, perhaps, the austerity +of its true summer—summer when fields are bare, grass burnt to +delicate cinnamon and russet, and the hills, with their sere herbs and +bushes, seem modelled out of pale rosy or amethyst light; an austerity +for the eye corresponding to a sense of healthfulness given by steady, +intense heat, purged of all damp, pure like the scents of dry leaves, +of warm, cypress resin and of burnt thyme and myrrh of the stony +ravines and stubbly fields. On such August days the plain and the more +distant mountains will sometimes be obliterated, leaving only the +inexpressible suavity of the hills on the same side as the sun, made +of the texture of the sky, lying against it like transparent and still +luminous shadows. All pictures of such effects of climate are false, +even Perugino's and Claude's, because even in these the eye is not +sufficiently attracted and absorbed away from the foreground, from the +earth to the luminous sky. That effect is the most powerful, sweetest, +and most restorative in all nature perhaps; a bath for the soul in +pure light and air. That is the incomparable buoyancy and radiance of +deepest Tuscan summer. But the winter is, perhaps, even more Tuscan +and more austerely beautiful. I am not even speaking of the fact that +the mountains, with their near snows and brooding blue storms and ever +contending currents of wind and battles and migrations of great +clouds, necessarily make much of winter very serious and solemn, as it +sweeps down their ravines and across their ridges. I am thinking of +the serene winter days of mist and sun, with ranges of hills made of a +luminous bluish smoke, and sky only a more luminous and liquid kind, +and the olives but a more solid specimen, of the mysterious silvery +substance of the world. The marvellous part of it all, and quite +impossible to convey, is that such days are not pensive, but +effulgent, that the lines of the landscape are not blurred, but +exquisitely selected and worked.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XII.</h4> + +<p>A quality like that of Tuscan art is, as I have once before remarked, +in some measure, abstract; a general character, like that of a +composite photograph, selected and compounded by the repetition of the +more general and the exclusion of more individual features. In so far, +therefore, it is something rather tended towards in reality than +thoroughly accomplished; and its accomplishment, to whatever extent, +is naturally due to a tradition, a certain habit among artists and +public, which neutralises the refractory tendencies of individuals +(the personal morbidness evident, for instance, in Botticelli) and +makes the most of what the majority may have in common—that dominant +interest, let us say, in line and mass. Such being the case, this +Tuscan quality comes to an end with the local art of the middle ages, +and can no longer be found, or only imperfect, after the breaking up +and fusion of the various schools, and the arising of eclectic +personalities in the earliest sixteenth century. After the painters +born between 1450 and 1460, there are no more genuine Tuscans. +Leonardo, once independent of Verrocchio and settled in Lombardy, is +barely one of them; and Michel Angelo never at all—Michel Angelo with +his moods all of Rome or the great mountains, full of trouble, always, +and tragedy. These great personalities, and the other eclectics, +Raphael foremost, bring qualities to art which it had lacked before, +and are required to make its appeal legitimately universal. I should +shrink from judging their importance, compared with the older and more +local and traditional men. Still further from me is it to prefer this +Tuscan art to that, as local and traditional in its way, of Umbria or +Venetia, which stands to this as the most poignant lyric or the +richest romance stands, let us say, to the characteristic quality, +sober yet subtle, of Dante's greatest passages. There is, thank +heaven, wholesome art various enough to appeal to many various healthy +temperaments; and perhaps for each single temperament more than one +kind of art is needful. My object in the foregoing pages has not been +to put forward reasons for preferring the art of the Tuscans any more +than the climate and landscape of Tuscany; but merely to bring home +what the especial charm and power of Tuscan art and Tuscan nature seem +to me to be. More can be gained by knowing any art lovingly in itself +than by knowing twenty arts from each other through dry comparison.</p> + +<p>I have tried to suggest rather than to explain in what way the art of +a country may answer to its natural character, by inducing recurrent +moods of a given kind. I would not have it thought, however, that such +moods need be dominant, or even exist at all, in all the inhabitants +of that country. Art, wide as its appeal may be, is no more a product +of the great mass of persons than is abstract thought or special +invention, however largely these may be put to profit by the +generality. The bulk of the inhabitants help to make the art by +furnishing the occasional exceptionally endowed creature called an +artist, by determining his education and surroundings, in so far as he +is a mere citizen; and finally by bringing to bear on him the +stored-up habit of acquiescence in whatever art has been accepted by +that public from the artists of the immediate past. In fact, the +majority affects the artist mainly as itself has been affected by his +predecessors. If, therefore, the scenery and climate call forth moods +in a whole people definite enough to influence the art, this will be +due, I think, to some especially gifted individual having, at one time +or another, brought home those moods to them.</p> + +<p>Therefore we need feel no surprise if any individual, peasant or man +of business or abstract thinker, reveal a lack, even a total lack, of +such impressions as I am speaking of; nor even if among those who love +art a great proportion be still incapable of identifying those vague +contemplative emotions from which all art is sprung. It is not merely +the special endowment of eye, ear, hand, not merely what we call +artistic talent, which is exceptional and vested in individuals only. +It takes a surplus of sensitiveness and energy to be determined in +one's moods by natural surroundings instead of solely by one's own +wants or circumstances or business. Now art is born of just this +surplus sensitiveness and energy; it is the response not to the +impressions made by our private ways and means, but to the impressions +made by the ways and means of the visible, sensible universe.</p> + +<p>But once produced, art is received, and more or less assimilated, by +the rest of mankind, to whom it gives, in greater or less degree, more +of such sensitiveness and energy than it could otherwise have had. Art +thus calls forth contemplative emotions, otherwise dormant, and +creates in the routine and scramble of individual wants and habits a +sanctuary where the soul stops elbowing and trampling, and being +elbowed and trampled; nay, rather, a holy hill, neither ploughed nor +hunted over, a free high place, in which we can see clearly, breathe +widely, and, for awhile, live harmlessly, serenely, fully.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIII.</h4> + +<p>Thinking these thoughts for the hundredth time, feeling them in a way +as I feel the landscape, I walk home by the dear rock path girdling +Fiesole, within sound of the chisels of the quarries. Blackthorn is +now mixed in the bare purple hedgerows, and almond blossom, here and +there, whitens the sere oak, and the black rocks above. These are the +heights from which, as tradition has it, Florence descended, the +people of which Dante said—</p> + +<blockquote class="med"> + <div class="ind8"> + <p class="noindent">Che discese da Fiesole ab antico,<br /> + E tiene ancor del monte e del macigno, + </p> + </div> +</blockquote> + +<p class="noindent">meaning it in anger. But it is true, and truer, in the good sense +also. Mountain and rock! the art of Tuscany is sprung from it, from +its arduous fruitfulness, with the clear stony stream, and the sparse +gentle olive, and the cypress, unshaken by the wind, unscorched by the +sun, and shooting inflexibly upwards.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow"></hr> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p><a name="c1-6" id="c1-6"></a> </p> +<h3>ART AND USEFULNESS.</h3> + +<blockquote class="med"> + <div class="ind10"> + <p class="noindent">"Time was when everybody that made anything made a work of<br />art + besides a useful piece of goods, and it gave them pleasure to<br /> + make it."—<span class="smallcaps">William Morris</span>, Address delivered at Burslem, 1881.</p> + </div> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<h4>I.</h4> + + +<p>Among the original capitals removed from the outer colonnade of the +ducal palace at Venice there is a series devoted to the teaching of +natural history, and another to that of such general facts about the +races of man, his various moral attributes and activities, as the +Venetians of the fourteenth century considered especially important. +First, botany, illustrated by the fruits most commonly in use, piled +up in baskets which constitute the funnel-shaped capital; each kind +separate, with the name underneath in funny Venetian spelling: <i>Huva</i>, +grapes; <i>Fici</i>, figs; <i>Moloni</i>, melons; <i>Zuche</i>, pumpkins; and +<i>Persici</i>, peaches. Then, with Latin names, the various animals: +<i>Ursus</i>, holding a honeycomb with bees on it; <i>Chanis</i>, mumbling only +a large bone, while his cousins, wolf and fox, have secured a duck and +a cock; <i>Aper</i>, the wild boar, munching a head of millet or similar +grain.</p> + +<p>Now had these beautiful carvings been made with no aim besides their +own beauty, had they represented and taught nothing, they would have +received only a few casual glances, quite insufficient to make their +excellence familiar or even apparent; at best the occasional +discriminative examination of some art student; while the pleased, +spontaneous attentiveness which carries beauty deep into the soul and +the soul's storehouse would have been lacking. But consider these +capitals to have been what they undoubtedly were meant for: the +picture books and manuals off which young folks learned, and older +persons refreshed, their notions of natural history, of geography, +ethnology, and even of morals, and you will realise at once how much +attention, and of how constant and assimilative a kind, they must have +received. The child learns off them that figs (which he never sees +save packed in baskets in the barges at Rialto) have leaves like funny +gloves, while <i>huva</i>, grapes, have leaves all ribbed and looking like +tattered banners; that the bear is blunt-featured and eats honeycomb; +that foxes and wolves, who live on the mainland, are very like the +dogs we keep in Venice, but that they steal poultry instead of being +given bones from the kitchen. Also that there are in the world, +besides these clean-shaved Venetians in armour or doge's cap, bearded +Asiatics and thick-lipped negroes—the sort of people with whom uncle +and cousins traffic in the big ships, or among whom grandfather helped +the Doge to raise the standard of St. Mark. Also that carpenters work +with planes and vices, and stonemasons with mallets and chisels; and +that good and wise men are remembered for ever: for here is the story +of how Solomon discovered the true mother, and here again the Emperor +Trajan going to the wars, and reining in his horse to do justice first +to the poor widow. The child looks at the capitals in order to see +with his eyes all these interesting things of which he has been told; +and, during the holiday walk, drags his parents to the spot, to look +again, and to beg to be told once more. And later, he looks at the +familiar figures in order to show them to his children; or, perhaps, +more wistfully, loitering along the arcade in solitude, to remember +the days of his own childhood. And in this manner, the things +represented, fruit, animals and persons, and the exact form in which +they are rendered: the funnel shape of the capitals, the cling and +curl of the leafage, the sharp black undercutting, the clear, lightly +incised surfaces, the whole pattern of line and curve, light and +shade, the whole pattern of the eye's progress along it, of the rhythm +of expansion and restraint, of pressure and thrust, in short, the real +work of art, the visible form—become well-known, dwelling in the +memory, cohabiting with the various moods, and haunting the fancy; a +part of life, familiar, everyday, liked or disliked, discriminated in +every particular, become part and parcel of ourselves, for better or +for worse, like the tools we handle, the boats we steer, the horses we +ride and groom, and the furniture and utensils among which and through +whose help we live our lives.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>Furniture and utensils; things which exist because we require them, +which we know because we employ them, these are the type of all great +works of art. And from the selfsame craving which insists that these +should be shapely as well as handy, pleasant to the eye as well as +rational; through the selfsame processes of seeing and remembering and +altering their shapes—according to the same æsthetic laws of line and +curve, of surface and projection, of spring and restraint, of +clearness and compensation; and for the same organic reasons and by +the same organic methods of preference and adaptation as these +humblest things of usefulness, do the proudest and seemingly freest +works of art come to exist; come to be <i>just what they are</i>, and even +come <i>to be at all</i>.</p> + +<p>I should like to state very clearly, before analysing its reasons, +what seems to me (and I am proud to follow Ruskin in this as in so +many essential questions of art and life) the true formula of this +matter. Namely: that while beauty has always been desired and obtained +for its own sake, the works in which we have found beauty embodied, +and the arts which have achieved beauty's embodying, have always +started from impulses or needs, and have always aimed at purposes or +problems entirely independent of this embodiment of beauty.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>The desire for beauty stands to art as the desire for righteousness stands +to conduct. People do not feel and act from a desire to feel and act +righteously, but from a hundred different and differently-combined +motives; the desire for righteousness comes in to regulate this feeling +and acting, to subject it all to certain preferences and repugnances +which have become organic, if not in the human being, at least in human +society. Like the desire for righteousness, the desire for beauty is +not a spring of action, but a regulative function; it decides the +<i>how</i> of visible existence; in accordance with deep-seated and barely +guessed at necessities of body and soul, of nerves and perceptions, of +brain and judgments; it says to all visible objects: since you needs +must be, you shall be in <i>this</i> manner, and not in that other. The +desire for beauty, with its more potent negative, the aversion to +ugliness, has, like the sense of right and wrong, the force of a +categorical imperative.</p> + +<p>Such, to my thinking, is the æsthetic instinct. And I call <i>Art</i> +whatever kind of process, intellectual and technical, creates, +incidentally or purposely, visible or audible forms, and creates them +under the regulation of this æsthetic instinct. Art, therefore, is art +whenever any object or any action, or any arrangement, besides being +such as to serve a practical purpose or express an emotion or transfer +a thought, is such also as to afford the <i>sui generis</i> satisfaction +which we denote by the adjective: beautiful.</p> + +<p>But, asks the reader, if every human activity resulting in visible or +audible form is to be considered, at least potentially, as art; what +becomes of <i>art</i> as distinguished from <i>craft</i>, or rather what is the +difference between what we all mean by art and what we all mean by +<i>craft</i>?</p> + +<p>To this objection, perfectly justified by the facts of our own day, I +would answer quite simply: There is no necessary or essential +distinction between what we call <i>art</i> and what we call <i>craft</i>. It is +a pure accident, and in all probability a temporary one, which has +momentarily separated the two in the last hundred years. Throughout +the previous part of the world's history art and craft have been one +and the same, at the utmost distinguishable only from a different +point of view: <i>craft</i> from the practical side, <i>art</i> from the +contemplative. Every trade concerned with visible or audible objects +or movements has also been an art; and every one of those great +creative activities, for which, in their present isolation, we now +reserve the name of <i>art</i>, has also been a craft; has been connected +and replenished with life by the making of things which have a use, or +by the doing of deeds which have a meaning.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<p>We must, of course, understand <i>usefulness</i> in its widest sense; +otherwise we should be looking at the world in a manner too little +utilitarian, not too much so. Houses and furniture and utensils, +clothes, tools and weapons, must undoubtedly exemplify utility first +and foremost because they serve our life in the most direct, +indispensable and unvarying fashion, always necessary and necessary to +everyone. But once these universal unchanging needs supplied, a great +many others become visible: needs to the individual or to individuals +and races under definite and changing circumstances. The sonnet or the +serenade are useful to the romantic lover in the same manner that +carriage-horses and fine clothes are useful to the man who woos more +practically-minded ladies. The diamonds of a rich woman serve to mark +her status quite as much as to please the unpleasable eye of envy; in +the same way that the uniform, the robes and vestments, are needed to +set aside the soldier, the magistrate or priest, and give him the +right of dealing <i>ex officio</i>, not as a mere man among men. And the +consciousness of such apparent superfluities, whether they be the +expression of wealth or of hierarchy, of fashion or of caste, gives to +their possessor that additional self-importance which is quite as much +wanted by the ungainly or diffident moral man as the additional warmth +of his more obviously needed raiment is by the poor, chilly, bodily +human being. I will not enlarge upon the practical uses which recent +ethnology has discovered in the tattooing, the painting, the masks, +headdresses, feather skirts, cowries and beads, of all that elaborate +ornamentation with which, only a few years back, we were in the habit +of reproaching the poor, foolish, naked savages; additional knowledge +of their habits having demonstrated rather our folly than theirs, in +taking for granted that any race of men would prefer ornament to +clothes, unless, as was the case, these ornaments were really more +indispensable in their particular mode of life. For an ornament which +terrifies an enemy, propitiates a god, paralyses a wild beast, or +gains a wife, is a matter of utility, not of æsthetic luxury, so long +as it happens to be efficacious, or so long as its efficacy is +believed in. Indeed, the gold coach and liveried trumpeters of the +nostrum vendor of bygone days, like their less enlivening equivalents +in many more modern professions, are of the nature of trade tools, +although the things they fashion are only the foolish minds of +possible customers.</p> + +<p>And this function of expressing and impressing brings us to the other +great category of utility. The sculptured pediment or frescoed wall, +the hieroglyph, or the map or the book, everything which records a +fact or transmits a feeling, everything which carries a message to men +or gods, is an object of utility: the coat-of-arms painted on a panel, +or the emblem carved upon a church front, as much as the helmet of the +knight or the shield of the savage. A church or a religious ceremony, +nay, every additional ounce of gilding or grain of incense, or day or +hour, bestowed on sanctuary and ritual, are not useful only to the +selfish devotee who employs them for obtaining celestial favours; they +are more useful and necessary even to the pure-minded worshipper, +because they enable him to express the longing and the awe with which +his heart is overflowing. For every oblation faithfully brought means +so much added moral strength; and love requires gifts to give as much +as hunger needs food and vanity needs ornament and wealth. All things +which minister to a human need, bodily or spiritual, simple or +complex, direct or indirect, innocent or noble, or base or malignant, +all such things exist for their use. They do exist, and would always +have existed equally if no such quality as beauty had ever arisen to +enhance or to excuse their good or bad existence.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>V.</h4> + +<p>The conception of art as of something outside, and almost opposed to, +practical life, and the tendency to explain its gratuitous existence +by a special "play instinct" more gratuitous itself, are due in great +measure to our wrong way of thinking and feeling upon no less a matter +than human activity as such. The old-fashioned psychology which, +ignoring instinct and impulse, explained all action as the result of +a kind of calculation of future pleasure and pain, has accustomed us +to account for all fruitful human activity, whatever we call <i>work</i>, +by a wish for some benefit or fear of some disadvantage. And, on the +other hand, the economic systems of our time (or, at all events, the +systematic exposition of our economic arrangements) have furthermore +accustomed us to think of everything like <i>work</i> as done under +compulsion, fear of worse, or a kind of bribery. It is really taken as +a postulate, and almost as an axiom, that no one would make or do +anything useful save under the goad of want; of want not in the sense +of <i>wanting to do or make that thing</i>, but of <i>wanting to have or be +able to do something else</i>. Hence everything which is manifestly done +from no such motive, but from an inner impulse towards the doing, +comes to be thought of as opposed to <i>work</i>, and to be designated as +<i>play</i>. Now art is very obviously carried on for its own sake: +experience, even of our mercantile age, teaches that if a man does not +paint a picture or compose a symphony from an inner necessity as +disinterested as that which makes another man look at the picture or +listen to the symphony, no amount of self-interest, of disadvantages +and advantages, will enable him to do either otherwise than badly. +Hence, as I said, we are made to think of art as <i>play</i>, or a kind of +play.</p> + +<p>But play itself, being unaccountable on the basis of external +advantage and disadvantage, being, from the false economic point of +view, unproductive, that is to say, pure waste, has in its turn to be +accounted for by the supposition of surplus energy occasionally +requiring to be let off to no purpose, or merely to prevent the +machine from bursting. This opposition of work and play is founded in +our experience of a social state which is still at sixes and sevens; +of a civilisation so imperfectly developed and organised that the +majority does nothing save under compulsion, and the minority does +nothing to any purpose; and where that little boy's Scylla and +Charybdis <i>all work</i> and <i>all play</i> is effectually realised in a +nightmare too terrible and too foolish, above all too wakingly true, +to be looked at in the face without flinching. One wonders, +incidentally, how any creature perpetually working from the reasons +given by economists, that is to say, working against the grain, from +no spontaneous wish or pleasure, can possibly store up, in such +exhausting effort, a surplus of energy requiring to be let off! And +one wonders, on the other hand, how any really good work of any kind, +work not merely kept by dire competitive necessity up to a standard, +but able to afford any standard to keep up to, can well be produced +save by the letting off of surplus energy; that is to say, how good +work can ever be done otherwise than by impulses and instincts acting +spontaneously, in fact as play. The reality seems to be that, +imperfect as is our poor life, present and past, we are maligning it; +founding our theories, for simplicity's sake and to excuse our lack of +hope and striving, upon its very worst samples. Wasteful as is the +mal-distribution of human activities (mal-distribution worse than that +of land or capital!), cruel as is the consequent pressure of want, +there yet remains at the bottom of an immense amount of work an inner +push different from that outer constraint, an inner need as fruitful +as the outer one is wasteful: there remains the satisfaction in work, +the wish to work. However outer necessity, "competition," "minimum of +cost," "iron law of wages," call it what you choose, direct and +misdirect, through need of bread or greed of luxury, the application +of human activity, that activity has to be there, and with it its own +alleviation and reward: pleasure in work. All decent human work +partakes (let us thank the great reasonablenesses of real things!) of +the quality of play: if it did not it would be bad or ever on the +verge of badness; and if ever human activity attains to fullest +fruitfulness, it will be (every experience of our own best work shows +it) when the distinction of <i>work</i> and of <i>play</i> will cease to have a +meaning, play remaining only as the preparatory work of the child, as +the strength-repairing, balance-adjusting work of the adult.</p> + +<p>And meanwhile, through all the centuries of centuries, art, which is +the type and sample of all higher, better modes of life, art has given +us in itself the concrete sample, the unmistakable type of that +needful reconciliation of work and play; and has shown us that there +is, or should be, no difference between them. For art has made the +things which are useful, and done the things which are needed, in +those shapes and ways of beauty which have no aim but our +satisfaction.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VI.</h4> + +<p>The way in which the work of art is born of a purpose, of something +useful to do or desirable to say, and the way in which the suggestions +of utility are used up for beauty, can best be shown by a really +existing object. Expressed in practical terms the object is humble +enough: a little trough with two taps built into a recess in a wall; a +place for washing hands and rinsing glasses, as you see the Dominican +brothers doing it all day, for I am speaking of the <i>Lavabo</i> by +Giovanni della Robbia in the Sacristy of Santa Maria Novella in +Florence. The whole thing is small, and did not allow of the adjoining +room usually devoted to this purpose. The washing and rinsing had to +take place in the sacristy itself. But this being the case, it was +desirable that the space set apart for these proceedings should at +least appear to be separate; the trough, therefore, was sunk in a +recess, and the recess divided off from the rest of the wall by +pillars and a gable, becoming in this manner, with no loss of real +standing room, a building inside a building; the operations, +furthermore, implying a certain amount of wetting and slopping, the +dryness of the rest of the sacristy, and particularly the <i>idea</i> of +its dryness (so necessary where precious stuffs and metal vessels are +kept) had to be secured not merely by covering a piece of wainscot and +floor with tiles, but by building the whole little enclosure (all save +the marble trough) of white and coloured majolica, which seemed to say +to the oaken and walnut presses, to the great table covered with +vestments: "Don't be afraid, you shall not feel a drop from all this +washing and rinsing."</p> + +<p>So far, therefore, we have got for our lavabo-trough a shallow recess, +lined and paved with tiles, and cut off from the frescoed and panelled +walls by two pilasters and a rounded gable, of tile work also, the +general proportions being given by the necessity of two monks or two +acolytes washing the sacred vessels at the same moment. The word +<i>sacred</i> now leads us to another determining necessity of our work of +art. For this place, where the lavabo stands, is actually consecrated; +it has an altar; and it is in it that take place all the preparations +and preliminaries for the most holy and most magnificent of rites. The +sacristy, like the church, is moreover an offering to heaven; and the +lavabo, since it has to exist, can exist with fitness only if it also +be offered, and made worthy of offering, to heaven. Besides, +therefore, those general proportions which have had to be made +harmonious for the satisfaction not merely of the builder, but of the +people whose eye rests on them daily and hourly; besides the +shapeliness and dignity which we insist upon in all things needful; we +further require of this object that it should have a certain +superabundance of grace, that it should have colour, elaborate +pattern, what we call <i>ornament</i>; details which will show that it is a +gift, and make it a fit companion for the magnificent embroideries and +damasks, the costly and exquisite embossed and enamelled vessels which +inhabit that place; and a worthy spectator of the sacred pageantry +which issues from this sacristy. The little tiled recess, the trough +and the little piece of architecture which frames it all, shall not +only be practically useful, they shall also be spiritually useful as +the expression of men's reverence and devotion. To whom? Why, to the +dear mother of Christ and her gracious angels, whom we place, in +effigy, on the gable, white figures on a blue ground. And since this +humble thing is also an offering, what can be more appropriate than to +hang it round with votive garlands, such as we bind to mark the course +of processions, and which we garnish (filling the gaps of glossy bay +and spruce pine branches) with the finest fruits of the earth, lemons, +and pears, and pomegranates, a grateful tithe to the Powers who make +the orchards fruitful. But, since such garlands wither and such fruits +decay, and there must be no withering or decaying in the sanctuary, +the bay leaves and the pine branches, and the lemons and pears and +pomegranates, shall be of imperishable material, majolica coloured +like reality, and majolica, moreover, which leads us back, pleasantly, +to the humble necessity of the trough, the spurting and slopping of +water, which we have secured against by that tiled floor and wainscot.</p> + +<p>But here another suggestion arises. Water is necessary and infinitely +pleasant in a hot country and a hot place like this domed sacristy. +But we have very, oh, so very, little of it in Florence! We cannot +even, however great our love and reverence, offer Our Lady and the +Angels the thinnest perennial spurt; we must let out the water only +for bare use, and turn the tap off instantly after. There is something +very disappointing in this; and the knowledge of that dearth of water, +of those two taps symbolical of chronic drought, is positively +disheartening. Beautiful proportions, delicate patterns, gracious +effigies of the Madonna and the angels we can have, and also the most +lovely garlands. But we cannot have a fountain. For it is useless +calling this a fountain, this poor little trough with two taps….</p> + +<p>But you <i>shall</i> have a fountain! Giovanni della Robbia answers in his +heart; or, at least, you shall <i>feel</i> as if you had one! And here we +may witness, if we use the eyes of the spirit as well as of the body, +one of the strangest miracles of art, when art is married to a +purpose. The idea of a fountain, the desirability of water, becomes, +unconsciously, dominant in the artist's mind; and under its sway, as +under the divining rod, there trickle and well up every kind of +thought, of feeling, about water; until the images thereof, visible, +audible, tactile, unite and steep and submerge every other notion. +Nothing deliberate; and, in all probability, nothing even conscious; +those watery thoughts merely lapping dreamily round, like a half-heard +murmur of rivers, the waking work with which his mind is busy. Nothing +deliberate or conscious, but all the more inevitable and efficacious, +this multifold suggestion of water.</p> + +<p>And behold the result, the witness of the miracle: In the domed +sacristy, the fountain cooling this sultry afternoon of June as it has +cooled four hundred Junes and more since set up, arch and pilasters +and statued gables hung with garlands by that particular Robbia; +cooling and refreshing us with its empty trough and closed taps, +without a drop of real water! For it is made of water itself, or the +essence, the longing memory of water. It is water, this shining pale +amber and agate and grass-green tiling and wainscotting, starred at +regular intervals by wide-spread patterns as of floating weeds; water +which makes the glossiness of the great leaf-garlands and the +juiciness of the smooth lemons and cool pears and pomegranates; water +which has washed into ineffable freshness this piece of blue heaven +within the gable; and water, you would say, as of some shining +fountain in the dusk, which has gathered together into the white +glistening bodies and draperies which stand out against that +newly-washed æther. All this is evident, and yet insufficient to +account for our feelings. The subtlest and most potent half of the +spell is hidden; and we guess it only little by little. In this little +Grecian tabernacle, every line save the bare verticals and horizontals +is a line suggestive of trickling and flowing and bubbles; a line +suggested by water and water's movement; and every light and shadow is +a light or a shadow suggested by water's brightness or transparent +gloom; it is water which winds in tiny meanders of pattern along the +shallow shining pillars, and water which beads and dimples along the +shady cornice. The fountain has been thought out in longing for water, +and every detail of it has been touched by the memory thereof. Water! +they wanted water, and they should have it. By a coincidence almost, +Giovanni della Robbia has revealed the secret which himself most +probably never guessed, in the little landscape of lilac and bluish +tiles with which he filled up the arch behind the taps. Some Tuscan +scene, think you? Hills and a few cypresses, such as his +contemporaries used for background? Not a bit. A great lake, an +estuary, almost a sea, with sailing ships, a flooded country, such as +no Florentine had ever seen with mortal eyes; but such as, in his +longing for water, he must have dreamed about. Thus the landscape sums +up this dream, this realisation of every cool and trickling sight and +touch and sound which fills that sacristy as with a spray of watery +thoughts. In this manner, with perhaps but a small effort of invention +and a small output of fancy, and without departing in the least from +the general proportions and shapes and ornaments common in his day, +has an artist of the second order left us one of the most exquisitely +shapely and poetical of works, merely by following the suggestions of +the use, the place, the religious message and that humble human wish +for water where there was none.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>It is discouraging and humiliating to think (and therefore we think it +very seldom) that nowadays we artists, painters of portraits and +landscapes, builders and decorators of houses, pianists, singers, +fiddlers, and, quite as really though less obviously, writers, are all +of us indirectly helping to keep up the greed which makes the +privileged and possessing classes cling to their monopolies and +accumulate their possessions. Bitter to realise that, disinterested as +we must mostly be (for good artistic work means talent, talent +preference, and preference disinterestedness), we are, as Ruskin has +already told us, but the parasites of parasites.</p> + +<p>For of the pleasure-giving things we make, what portion really gives +any pleasure, or comes within reach of giving pleasure, to those whose +hands <i>as a whole class</i> (as distinguished from the brain of an +occasional individual of the other class) produce the wealth we all of +us have to live, or try to live, upon? Of course there is the seeming +consolation that, like the Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs, the Watteaus +and the Fragonards of the past, the Millais and the Sargents (charming +sitters, or the reverse, and all), and the <ins title="original reads Monnets">Monets</ins> and Brabazons, will +sooner or later become what we call public property in public +galleries. But, meanwhile, the Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs and +Watteaus and Fragonards themselves, though the legal property of +everybody, are really reserved for those same classes who own their +modern equivalents, simply because those alone have the leisure and +culture necessary to enjoy them. The case is not really different for +the one or two seemingly more independent and noble artistic +individualities, the great decorators like Watts or Besnard; their own +work, like their own conscience, is indeed the purer and stronger for +their intention of painting not for smoking-rooms and private +collections, but for places where all men can see and understand; but +then all men cannot see—they are busy or too tired—and they cannot +understand, because the language of art has become foreign to them. +The same applies to composers and to writers: music and books are +cheap enough, but the familiarity with musical forms and literary +styles, without which music and books are mere noise and waste-paper, +is practically unattainable to the classes who till the ground, +extract its stone and minerals, and make, with their hands, every +material thing (save works of art) that we possess.</p> + +<p>Indeed, one additional reason why, ever since the eighteenth century, +art has been set up as the opposite of useful work, and explained as a +form of play (though its technical difficulties grew more exorbitant +and exhausting year by year) is probably that, in our modern +civilisations, art has been obviously produced for the benefit of the +classes who virtually do not work, and by artists born or bred to +belong to those idle classes themselves. For it is a fact that, as the +artist nowadays finds his public only among the comparatively idle +(or, at all events, those whose activity distributes wealth in their +own favour rather than creates it), so also he requires to be, more +and more, in sympathy with their mode of living and thinking: the +friend, the client, most often the son, of what we call (with terrible +unperceived irony in the words) <i>leisured</i> folk. As to the folk who +have no leisure (and therefore, according to our modern æsthetics, no +<i>art</i> because no <i>play</i>) they can receive from us privileged persons +(when privilege happens to be worth its keep) no benefits save very +practical ones. The only kind of work founded on "leisure"—which does +in our day not merely increase the advantages of already well-off +persons, but actually filter down to help the unleisured producers of +our wealth—is not the work of the artist, but of the doctor, the +nurse, the inventor, the man of science; who knows? Perhaps almost of +the philosopher, the historian, the sociologist: the clearer away of +convenient error, the unmaker and remaker of consciences.</p> + +<p>As I began by saying, it is not very comfortable, nowadays, to be an +artist, and yet possess a mind and heart. And two of the greatest +artists of our times, Ruskin and Tolstoi, have done their utmost to +make it more uncomfortable still. So that it is natural for our +artists to decide that art exists only for art's own sake, since it +cannot nowadays be said to exist for the sake of anything else. And as +to us, privileged persons, with leisure and culture fitting us for +artistic enjoyment, it is even more natural to consider art as a kind +of play: play in which we get refreshed after somebody else's work.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VIII.</h4> + +<p>And are we really much refreshed? Watching the face and manner, +listless, perfunctory or busily attentive, of our fellow-creatures in +galleries and exhibitions, and in great measure in concert rooms and +theatres, one would imagine that, on the contrary, they were +fulfilling a social duty or undergoing a pedagogical routine. The +object of the proceeding would rather seem to be negative; one might +judge that they had come lest their neighbours should suspect that +they were somewhere else, or perhaps lest their neighbours should come +instead, according to our fertile methods of society intercourse and +of competitive examinations. At any rate, they do not look as if they +came to be refreshed, or as if they had taken the right steps towards +such spiritual refreshment: the faces and manner of children in a +playground, of cricketers on a village green, of Sunday trippers on +the beach, or of German townsfolk walking to the beerhouse or café in +the deep fragrant woods, present a different appearance. And if we +examine into our own feelings, we shall find that even for the most +art-loving of us the hours spent in galleries of pictures and statues, +or listening to music at concerts, are largely stolen from our real +life of real interests and real pleasures; that there enters into them +a great proportion of effort and boredom; at the very best that we do +not enjoy (nor expect to enjoy) them at all in the same degree as a +good dinner in good company, or a walk in bright, bracing weather, let +alone, of course, fishing, or hunting, or digging and weeding our +little garden.</p> + +<p>Of course, if we are really artistic, and if we have the power of +analysing our own feelings and motives, we shall know that the gallery +or the concert afford occasion for laying in a store of pleasurable +impressions, to be enjoyed at the right moment and in the right mood +later: outlines of pictures, washes of colour, grouped masses of +sculpture, bars of melody, clang of especial chords or timbre +combinations, and even the vague æsthetic emotion, the halo +surrounding blurred recollections of sights and sounds. And knowing +this, we are content that the act of garnering, of preparing, for such +future enjoyment, should lack any steady or deep pleasurableness about +itself. But, thinking over the matter, there seems something wrong, +derogatory to art and humiliating to ourselves, in this admission that +the actual presence of the work of art, sometimes the masterpiece, +should give us the minimum, and not the maximum, of our artistic +enjoyment. And comparing the usual dead level of such merely potential +pleasure with certain rare occasions when we have enjoyed art more at +the moment than afterwards, quite vividly, warmly and with the proper +reluctant clutch at the divine minute as it passes; making this +comparison, we can, I think, guess at the nature of the mischief and +the possibility of its remedy.</p> + +<p>Examining into our experience, we shall find that, while our lack of +enjoyment (our state of æsthetic <i>aridity</i>, to borrow the expression +of religious mystics) had coincided with a deliberate intention to see +or hear works of art, and a consequent clearing away of other claims, +and on our attention, in fact, to an effort made more or less in +<i>vacuo</i>; on the contrary, our Faust-moments ("Stay, thou art +beautiful!") of plenitude and consummation, have always come when our +activity was already flowing, our attention stimulated, and when, so +to speak, the special artistic impressions were caught up into our +other interests, and woven by them into our life. We can all recall +unexpected delights like Hazlitt's in the odd volume of Rousseau found +on the window-seat, and discussed, with his savoury supper, in the +roadside inn, after his long day's pleasant tramp.</p> + +<p>Indeed, this preparing of the artistic impression by many others, or +focussing of others by it, accounts for the keenness of our æsthetic +pleasure when on a journey; we are thoroughly alive, and the seen or +heard thing of beauty lives <i>into</i>, us, or we into it (there is an +important psychological law, a little too abstract for this moment of +expansiveness, called "the Law of the Summation of Stimuli"). The +truth of what I say is confirmed by the frequent fact that the work of +art which gives us this full and vivid pleasure (actually refreshing! +for here, at last, is refreshment!) is either fragmentary or by no +means first-rate. We have remained arid, hard, incapable of absorbing, +while whole Joachim quartets flowed and rippled all <i>round</i>, but never +<i>into</i>, us; and then, some other time, our soul seems to have drunk +up (every fibre blissfully steeping) a few bars of a sonata (it was +Beethoven's 10th violin, and they were stumbling through it for the +first time) heard accidentally while walking up and down under an open +window.</p> + +<p>It is the same with painting and sculpture. I shall never forget the +exquisite poetry and loveliness of that Matteo di Giovanni, "The +Giving of the Virgin's Girdle," when I saw it for the first time, in +the chapel of that villa, once a monastery, near Siena. Even through +the haze of twenty years (like those delicate blue December mists +which lay between the sunny hills) I can see that picture, illumined +piecemeal by the travelling taper on the sacristan's reed, far more +distinctly than I see it to-day with bodily eyes in the National +Gallery. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that where it hangs in +that gallery it has not once given me one half-second of real +pleasure. It is a third-rate picture now; but even the masterpieces, +Perugino's big fresco, Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne," Pier della +Francesca's "Baptism"; have they ever given me the complete and steady +delight which that mediocre Sienese gave me at the end of the wintry +drive, in the faintly illumined chapel? More often than not, as +Coleridge puts it, I have "seen, not <i>felt</i>, how beautiful they are." +But, apart even from fortunate circumstances or enhancing activities, +we have all of us experienced how much better we see or hear a work of +art with the mere dull help of some historical question to elucidate +or technical matter to examine into; we have been able to follow a +piece of music by watching for some peculiarity of counterpoint or +excellence or fault of execution; and our attention has been carried +into a picture or statue by trying to make out whether a piece of +drapery was repainted or an arm restored. Indeed, the irrelevant +literary programme of concerts and all that art historical lore +(information about things of no importance, or none to us) conveyed in +dreary monographs and hand-books, all of them perform a necessary +function nowadays, that of bringing our idle and alien minds into some +sort of relation of business with the works of art which we should +otherwise, nine times out of ten, fail really to approach.</p> + +<p>And here I would suggest that this necessity of being, in some way, +busy about beautiful things in order thoroughly to perceive them, may +represent some sterner necessity of life in general; art being, in +this as in so many other cases, significantly typical of what is +larger than itself. Can we get the full taste of pleasure sought for +pleasure's own sake? And is not happiness in life, like beauty in art, +rather a means than an aim: the condition of going on, the +replenishing of force; in short, the thing by whose help, not for the +sake of which, we feel and act and live?</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IX.</h4> + +<p>Beauty is an especial quality in visible or audible shapes and movements +which imposes on our soul a certain rhythm and pattern of feeling entirely +<i>sui generis</i>, but unified, harmonious, and, in a manner, consummate. +Beauty is a power in our life, because, however intermittent its +action and however momentary, it makes us live, by a kind of sympathy +with itself, a life fuller, more vivid, and at the same time more +peaceful. But, as the word <i>sympathy</i>, <i>with-feeling</i>—(<i>Einfühlen</i>, +"feeling into," the Germans happily put it)—as the word <i>sympathy</i> is +intended to suggest, this subduing and yet liberating, this enlivening +and pacifying power of beautiful form over our feelings is exercised +only when our feelings enter, and are absorbed into, the form we +perceive; so that (very much as in the case of sympathy with human +vicissitudes) we participate in the supposed life of the form while in +reality lending <i>our</i> life to it. Just as in our relations with our +fellow-men, so also in our subtler but even more potent relations with +the appearances of things and actions, our heart can be touched, +purified, and satisfied only just in proportion as we <i>give</i> our +heart. And even as it is possible to perceive other human beings and +to adjust our action (sometimes heartlessly enough) to such qualities +in them as we find practically important to ourselves, without putting +out one scrap of sympathy with their own existence as felt by them; so +also it is possible to recognise things and actions, to become rapidly +aware of such of their peculiarities as most frequently affect us +practically, and to consequently adjust our behaviour, without giving +our sympathy to their form, without entering into and <i>living into</i> +those forms; and in so far it is possible for us to remain indifferent +to those forms' quality of beauty or ugliness, just as, in the hurry +of practical life, we remain indifferent to the stuff our neighbours' +souls are made of. This rapid, partial, superficial, perfunctory mode +of dealing with what we see and hear constitutes the ordinary, +constant, and absolutely indispensable act of recognising objects and +actions, of <i>spotting</i> their qualities and <i>twigging</i> their meaning: +an act necessarily tending to more and more abbreviation and rapidity +and superficiality, to a sort of shorthand which reduces what has to +be understood, and enables us to pass immediately to understanding +something else; according to that law of necessarily saving time and +energy.</p> + +<p>And so we rush on, recognising, naming, spotting, twigging, answering, +using, or parrying; we need not fully <i>see</i> the complete appearance of +the word we read, of the man we meet, of the street we run along, of +the water we drink, the fire we light, the adversary whom we pursue or +whom we evade; and in the selfsame manner we need not fully see the +form of the building of which we say "This is a Gothic cathedral"—of +the picture of which we say "Christ before Pilate"—or of the piece of +music of which we say "A cheerful waltz by Strauss" or "A melancholy +adagio by Beethoven." Now it is this fragmentary, superficial +attention which we most often give to art; and giving thus little, we +find that art gives us little, perhaps nothing, in return. For +understand: you can be utterly perfunctory towards a work of art +without hurrying away from in front of it, or setting about some +visible business in its presence. Standing ten minutes before a +picture or sitting an hour at a concert, with fixed sight or tense +hearing, you may yet be quite hopelessly inattentive if, instead of +following the life of the visible or audible forms, and <i>living +yourself</i> into their pattern and rhythm, you wander off after dramatic +or sentimental associations suggested by the picture's subject; or if +you let yourself be hypnotised, as pious Wagnerians are apt to be, +into monotonous over response (and over and over again response) to +the merely emotional stimulation of the sounds. The activity of the +artist's soul has been in vain for you, since you do not let your soul +follow its tracks through the work of art; he has not created for you, +because you have failed to create his work afresh in vivid +contemplation.</p> + +<p>But attention cannot be forced on to any sort of contemplation, or at +least it cannot remain, steady and abiding, by any act of forcing. +Attention, to be steady, must be held by the attraction of the thing +attended to; and, to be spontaneous and easy, must be carried by some +previous interest within the reach of that attractiveness. Above all, +attention requires that its ways should have been made smooth by +repetition of similar experience; it is excluded, rebutted by the dead +wall of utter novelty; for seeing, hearing, understanding is +interpreting the unknown by the known, assimilation in the literal +sense also of rendering similar the new to the less new. This will +explain why it is useless trying to enjoy a totally unfamiliar kind of +art: as soon expect to take pleasure in dancing a dance you do not +know, and whose rhythm and step you fail as yet to follow. And it is +not only music, as Nietzsche said, but all art, that is but a kind of +dancing, a definite rhythmic carrying and moving of the soul. And for +this reason there can be no artistic enjoyment without preliminary +initiation and training.</p> + +<p>Art cannot be enjoyed without initiation and training. I repeat this +statement, desiring to impress it on the reader, because, by a +coincidence of misunderstanding, it happens to constitute the +weightiest accusation in the whole of Tolstoi's very terrible (and, +in part, terribly justified) recent arraignment of art. For of what +use is the restorative and refreshing power, this quality called +beauty, if the quality itself cannot be recognised save after previous +training? And what moral dignity, nay, what decent innocence, can +there be in a kind of relaxation from which lack of initiation +excludes the vast majority of men, the majority which really labours, +and therefore has a real claim to relaxation and refreshment?</p> + +<p>This question of Tolstoi's arises from that same limiting of +examination to a brief, partial, and, as it happens, most transitional +and chaotic present, which has given us that cut-and-dried distinction +between work and play; and, indeed, the two misconceptions are very +closely connected. For even as our present economic system of +production for exchange rather than for consumption has made us +conceive <i>work</i> as <i>work</i> done under compulsion for someone else, and +<i>play</i> as <i>play</i>, with no result even to ourselves; so also has the +economic system which employs the human hand and eye merely as a +portion of a complicated, monotonously working piece of machinery, so +also has our present order of mechanical and individual production +divided the world into a small minority which sees and feels what it +is about, and a colossal majority which has no perception, no +conception, and, consequently, no preferences attached to the objects +it is employed (by the methods of division of labour) to produce, so +to speak, without seeing them. Tolstoi has realised that this is the +present condition of human labour, and his view of it has been +corrected neither by historical knowledge nor by psychological +observation. He has shown us <i>art</i>, as it nowadays exists, divided and +specialised into two or three "fine arts," each of which employs +exceptional and highly trained talent in the production of objects so +elaborate and costly, so lacking in all utility, that they can be +possessed only by the rich few; objects, moreover, so unfamiliar in +form and in symbol that only the idle can learn to enjoy (or pretend +to enjoy) them after a special preliminary initiation and training.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>X.</h4> + +<p><i>Initiation and training</i>, we have returned to those wretched words, +for we also had recognised that without initiation and training there +could be no real enjoyment of art. But, looking not at this brief, +transitional, and topsy-turvey present, but at the centuries and +centuries which have evolved, not only art, but the desire and habit +thereof, we have seen what Tolstoi refused to see, namely, that +wherever and whenever (that is to say, everywhere and at all times +save these present European days) art has existed spontaneously, it +has brought with it that initiation and training. The initiation and +training, the habit of understanding given qualities of form, the +discrimination and preference thereof, have come, I maintain, as a +result of practical utility.</p> + +<p>Or rather: out of practical utility has arisen the art itself, and the +need for it. The attention, the familiarity which made beauty +enjoyable had previously made beauty necessary. It was because the +earthenware lamp, the bronze pitcher, the little rude household idols +displayed the same arrangements of lines and surfaces, presented the +same patterns and features, embodied, in a word, the same visible +rhythms of being, that the Greeks could understand without being +taught the temples and statues of Athens, Delphi or Olympia. It was +because the special form qualities of ogival art (so subtle in +movement, unstable in balance and poignant in emotion that a whole +century of critical study has scarce sufficed to render them familiar +to us) were present in every village tower, every window coping, every +chair-back, in every pattern carved, painted, stencilled or woven +during the Gothic period; it was because of this that every artisan of +the Middle Ages could appreciate less consciously than we, but far +more deeply, the loveliness and the wonder of the great cathedrals. +Nay, even in our own times we can see how, through the help of all the +cheapest and most perishable household wares, the poorest Japanese is +able to enjoy that special peculiarity and synthesis of line and +colour and perspective which strikes even initiated Westerns as so +exotic, far-fetched and almost wilfully unintelligible.</p> + +<p>I have said that thanks to the objects and sights of everyday use and +life the qualities of art could be perceived and enjoyed. It may be +that it was thanks to them that art had any qualities and ever existed +at all. For, however much the temple, cathedral, statue, fresco, the +elaborate bronze or lacquer or coloured print, may have reacted on the +form, the proportions and linear rhythms and surface arrangements, of +all common useful objects; it was in the making of these common useful +objects (first making by man of genius and thousandfold minute +adaptation by respectful mediocrity) that the form qualities came to +exist. One may at least hazard this supposition in the face of the +extreme unlikeliness that the complexity and perfection of the great +works of art could have been obtained solely in works so necessarily +rare and few; and that the particular forms constituting each separate +style could have originated save under the repeated suggestion of +everyday use and technique. And can we not point to the patterns grown +out of the necessities of weaving or basket-making, the shapes started +by the processes of metal soldering or clay squeezing; let alone the +innumerable categories of form manifestly derived from the mere +convenience of handling or using, of standing, pouring, holding, +hanging up or folding? This much is certain, that only the manifold +application of given artistic forms in useful common objects is able +to account for that very slow, gradual and unconscious alteration of +them which constitutes the spontaneous evolution of artistic form; and +only such manifold application could have given that almost automatic +certainty of taste which allowed the great art of the past to continue +perpetually changing, through centuries and centuries, and adapting +itself over immense geographical areas to every variation of climate, +topography, mode of life, or religion. Unless the forms of ancient art +had been safely embodied in a hundred modest crafts, how could they +have undergone the imperceptible and secure metamorphosis from +Egyptian to Hellenic, from Greek to Græco-Roman, and thence, from +Byzantine, have passed, as one great half, into Italian mediæval art? +or how, without such infinite and infinitely varied practice of minute +adaptation to humble needs, could Gothic have given us works so +different as the French cathedrals, the Ducal Palace, the tiny chapel +at Pisa, and remained equally great and wonderful, equally <i>Gothic</i>, +in the ornament of a buckle as in the porch of Amiens or of Reims?</p> + +<p>Beauty is born of attention, as happiness is born of life, because +attention is rendered difficult and painful by lack of harmony, even +as life is clogged, diminished or destroyed by pain. And therefore, +when there ceases to exist a close familiarity with visible objects or +actions; when the appearance of things is passed over in perfunctory +and partial use (as we see it in all mechanical and divided labour); +when the attention of all men is not continually directed to shape +through purpose, then there will cease to be spontaneous beauty and +the spontaneous appreciation of beauty, because there will be no need +for either. Beauty of music does not exist for the stone-deaf, nor +beauty of painting for the purblind; but beauty of no kind whatever, +nor in any art, can really exist for the inattentive, for the +over-worked or the idle.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XI.</h4> + +<p>That music should be so far the most really alive of all our modern +arts is a fact which confirms all I have argued in the foregoing +pages. For music is of all arts the one which insists on most +co-operation on the part of its votaries. Requiring to be performed +(ninety-nine times out of a hundred) in order to be enjoyed, it has +made merely <i>musical people</i> into performers, however humble; and has +by this means called forth a degree of attention, of familiarity, of +practical effort, which makes the art enter in some measure into +life, and in that measure, become living. To play an instrument, +however humbly, to read at sight, or to sing, if only in a choir, is +something wholly different from lounging in a gallery or wandering on +a round of cathedrals: it means acquired knowledge, effort, +comparison, self-restraint, and all the realities of manipulation; +quite apart even from trying to read the composer's intentions, there +is in learning to strike the keys with a particular part of the +finger-tips, or in dealing out the breath and watching intonation and +timbre in one's own voice, an output of care and skill akin to those +of the smith, the potter or the glass blower: all this has a purpose +and is work, and brings with it disinterested work's reward, love.</p> + +<p>To find the analogy of this co-operation in the arts addressing +themselves to the eye, we require, nowadays, to leave the great number +who merely enjoy (or ought to enjoy) painting, sculpture or +architecture, and seek, now that craft is entirely divorced from art, +among the small minority which creates, or tries to create. Artistic +enjoyment exists nowadays mainly among the class of executive artists; +and perhaps it is for this very reason, and because all chance of +seeing or making shapely things has ceased in other pursuits, that the +"fine arts" are so lamentably overstocked; the man or woman who would +have been satisfied with playing the piano enough to read a score or +sing sufficiently to take part in a chorus, has, in the case of other +arts, to undergo the training of a painter, sculptor or art critic, +and often to delude himself or herself with grotesque ambitions in one +of these walks.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XII.</h4> + +<p>Be this as it may, and making the above happy and honourable exception +in favour of music, it is no exaggeration to say that in our time it +is only artists who get real pleasure out of art, because it is only +artists who approach art from the side of work and bring to it work's +familiar attention and habitual energy. Indeed, paradoxical as it may +sound, art has remained alive during the nineteenth century, and will +remain alive during the twentieth, only and solely because there has +been a large public of artists.</p> + +<p>Of artists, I would add, of quite incomparable vigour and elasticity +of genius, and of magnificent disinterestedness and purity of heart. +For let us remember that they have worked without having the sympathy +of their fellow-men, and worked without the aid and comfort of allied +crafts: that they have created while cut off from tradition, unhelped +by the manifold suggestiveness of useful purpose or necessary message; +separated entirely from the practical and emotional life of the world +at large; tiny little knots of voluntary outlaws from a civilisation +which could not understand them; and, whatever worldly honours may +have come to mock their later years, they have been weakened and +embittered by early solitude of spirit. No artistic genius of the past +has been put through such cruel tests, has been kept on such miserably +short commons, as have our artists of the last hundred years, from +Turner to Rossetti and Watts, from Manet and Degas and Whistler to +Rodin and Albert Besnard. And if their work has shown lapses and +failings; if it has been, alas, lacking at times in health or joy or +dignity or harmony, let us ask ourselves what the greatest +individualities of Antiquity and the Middle Ages would have produced +if cut off from the tradition of the Past and the suggestion of the +Present—if reduced to exercise art outside the atmosphere of life; +and let us look with wonder and gratitude on the men who have been +able to achieve great art even for only art's own sake.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIII.</h4> + +<p>No better illustration of this could be found than the sections of the +Paris Exhibition which came under the heading of <i>Decorative Art</i>.</p> + +<p>Decoration. But decoration of what? In reality of nothing. All the +objects—from the jewellery and enamels to the furniture and +hangings—which this decorative art is supposed to decorate, are the +merest excuse and sham. Not one of them is the least useful, or at all +events useful once it is decorated. And nobody wants it to be useful. +What <i>is</i> wanted is a pretext, for <i>doing art</i> on the side of the +artist, for buying costly things on the side of the public. And behind +this pretext there is absolutely no genuine demand for any definite +object serving any definite use; none of that insistence (which we see +in the past) that the shape, material, and colour should be the very +best for practical purposes; and of that other insistence, +marvellously blended with the requirements of utility, that the shape, +material and colour should also be as beautiful as possible. The +invaluable suggestions of real practical purpose, the organic dignity +of integrated habit and necessity, the safety of tradition, the +spiritual weightiness of genuine message, all these elements of +creative power are lacking. And in default of them we see a great +amount of artistic talent, artificially fed and excited by the +teaching and the example of every possible past or present art, +exhausting itself in attempts to invent, to express, to be something, +anything, so long as it is new. Hence forms gratuitous, without +organic quality or logical cogency, pulled about, altered and +re-altered, carried to senseless finish and then wilfully blurred. +Hence that sickly imitation, in a brand-new piece of work, of the +effects of time, weather, and of every manner of accident or +deterioration: the pottery and enamels reproducing the mere patina of +age or the trickles of bad firing; the relief work in marble or metal +which looks as if it had been rolled for centuries in the sea, or +corroded by acids under ground. And the total effect, increased by all +these methods of wilful blunting and blurring, is an art without +stamina, tired, impotent, short-lived, while produced by an excessive +expense of talent and effort of invention.</p> + +<p>For here we have the mischief: all the artistic force is spent by the +art in merely keeping alive; and there is no reserve energy for living +with serenity and depth of feeling. The artist wears himself out, to a +great extent, in wondering what he shall do (there being no practical +reason for doing one thing more than another, or indeed anything at +all), instead of applying his power, with steady, habitual certainty +of purpose and efficiency of execution, to doing it in the very best +way. Hence, despite this outlay of inventive force, or rather in +direct consequence thereof, there is none of that completeness and +measure and congruity, that restrained exuberance of fancy, that more +than adequate carrying out, that all-round harmony, which are possible +only when the artist is altering to his individual taste some shape +already furnished by tradition or subduing to his pleasure some +problem insisted on by practical necessity.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, all round these galleries crammed with useless objects +barely pretending to any utility, round these pavilions of the +Decorative Arts, the Exhibition exhibits (most instructive of all its +shows) samples of the most marvellous indifference not merely to +beauty, peace and dignity, but to the most rudimentary æsthetic and +moral comfort. For all the really useful things which men take +seriously because they increase wealth and power, because they save +time and overcome distance; all these "useful" things have the naïve +and colossal ugliness of rudimentary animals, or of abortions, of +everything hurried untimely into existence: machines, sheds, bridges, +trams, motor-cars: not one line corrected, not one angle smoothed, for +the sake of the eye, of the nerves of the spectator. And all of it, +both decorative futility and cynically hideous practicality (let alone +the various exotic raree shows from distant countries or more distant +centuries) expect to be enjoyed after a jostle at the doors and a +scurry along the crowded corridors, and to the accompaniment of every +rattling and shrieking and jarring sound. For mankind in our days +intends to revel in the most complicated and far-fetched kinds of +beauty while cultivating convenient callousness to the most elementary +and atrocious sorts of ugliness. The art itself reveals it; for even +in its superfine isolation and existence for its own sake only, art +cannot escape its secondary mission of expressing and recording the +spirit of its times. These elaborate æsthetic baubles of the +"Decorative Arts" are full of quite incredibly gross barbarism. And, +even as the iron chest, studded with nails, or the walnut press, +unadorned save by the intrinsic beauty and dignity of their +proportions, and the tender irregularities of their hammered surface, +the subtle bevelling of their panels; even as these humble objects in +some dark corner of an Italian castle or on the mud floor of a Breton +cottage, symbolise in my mind the most intense artistic sensitiveness +and reverence of the Past; so, here at this Exhibition, my impressions +of contemporary over-refinement and callousness are symbolised in a +certain cupboard, visibly incapable of holding either linen or +garments or crockery or books, of costly and delicately polished wood, +but shaped like a packing-case, and displaying with marvellous +impartiality two exquisitely cast and chased doorguard plates of +far-fetched, many-tinted alloys of silver, and—a set of hinges, a +lock and a key, such as the village ironmonger supplies in blue paper +parcels of a dozen. A mere coincidence, an accident, you may object; +an unlucky oversight which cannot be fairly alleged against the art of +our times. Pardon me: there may be coincidences and accidents in other +matters, but there are none in art; because the essence of art is to +sacrifice even the finest irrelevancies, to subordinate the most +refractory details, to subdue coincidence and accident into seeming +purpose and harmony. And whatever our practical activity, in its +identification of time and money, may allow itself in the way of +"scamping" and of "shoddy"—art can never plead an oversight, because +art, in so far as it <i>is</i> art, represents those organic and organised +preferences in the domain of form, those imperative and stringent +demands for harmony, which see everything, feel everything, and know +no law or motive save their own complete satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Art for art's sake! We see it nowhere revealed so clearly as in the +Exhibition, where it masks as "Decorative Art." Art answering no claim +of practical life and obeying no law of contemplative preference, art +without root, without organism, without logical reason or moral +decorum, art for mere buying and selling, art which expresses only +self-assertion on the part of the seller, and self-satisfaction on the +part of the buyer. A walk through this Exhibition is an object-lesson +in a great many things besides æsthetics; it forces one to ask a good +many of Tolstoi's angriest questions; but it enables one also, if duly +familiar with the art of past times, to answer them in a manner +different from Tolstoi's.</p> + +<p>One carries away the fact, which implies so many others, that not one +of these objects is otherwise than expensive; expensive, necessarily +and intentionally, from the rarity both of the kind of skill and of +the kind of material; these things are reserved by their price as well +as their uselessness, for a small number of idle persons. They have no +connection with life, either by penetrating, by serviceableness, deep +into that of the individual; or by spreading, by cheapness, over a +wide surface of the life of the nations.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIV.</h4> + +<p>The moment has now come for that inevitable question, with which +friendly readers unintentionally embarrass, and hostile ones purposely +interrupt, any exposition of mal-adjustment in the order of the +universe: But what remedy do you propose?</p> + +<p>Mal-adjustments of a certain gravity are not set right by proposable +arrangements: they are remedied by the fulness and extent of the +feeling against them, which employs for its purposes and compels into +its service all the unexpected and incalculable coincidences and +accidents which would otherwise be wasted, counteracted or even used +by some different kind of feeling. And the use that a writer can +be—even a Ruskin or a Tolstoi—is limited not to devising programmes +of change (mere symptoms often that some unprogrammed change is +preparing), but to nursing the strength of that great motor which +creates its own ways and instruments: impatience with evil conditions, +desire for better.</p> + +<p>A cessation of the special æsthetic mal-adjustment of our times, by +which art is divorced from life and life from art, is as difficult to +foretell in detail as the new-adjustment between labour and the other +elements of production which will, most probably, have to precede it.</p> + +<p>A healthy artistic life has indeed existed in the past through +centuries of social wrongness as great as our own, and even greater; +indeed, such artistic life, more or less continuous until our day, +attests the existence of great mitigations in the world's former +wretchedness (such as individuality in labour, spirit of co-operative +solidarity, religious feeling: but perhaps the most important +alleviations lie far deeper and more hidden)—mitigations without +which there would not have been happiness and strength enough to +produce art; nor, for the matter of that, to produce what was then the +future, including ourselves and our advantages and disadvantages. The +existence of art has by no means implied, as Ruskin imagined, with his +teleological optimism and tendency to believe in Eden and banishment +from Eden, that people once lived in a kind of millennium; it merely +shows that, however far from millennial their condition, there was +stability enough to produce certain alleviations, and notably the +alleviations without which art cannot exist, and the alleviations +which art itself affords.</p> + +<p>It is not therefore the badness of our present social arrangements (in +many ways far less bad than those of the past) which is responsible +for our lack of all really vital, deep-seated, widely spread and +happiness-giving art; but merely the feature in this latter-day +badness which, after all, is our chief reason for hope: the fact that +the social mal-adjustments of this century are, to an extent hitherto +unparalleled, the mal-adjustments incident to a state of over-rapid +and therefore insufficiently deep-reaching change, of superficial +legal and material improvements extending in reality only to a very +small number of persons and things, and unaccompanied by any real +renovation in the thought, feeling or mode of living of the majority; +the mal-adjustment of transition, of disorder, and perfunctoriness, by +the side of which the regularly recurring disorders of the past—civil +wars, barbarian invasions, plagues, etc., are incidents leaving the +foundation of life unchanged, transitional disorders, which we fail to +remark only because we are ourselves a part of the hurry, the scuffle, +and the general wastefulness. How soon and how this transition period +of ours will come to an end, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to +foretell; but that it <i>must</i> soon end is certain, if only for one +reason: namely, that the changes accumulated during our times must +inevitably work their way below the surface; the new material and +intellectual methods must become absorbed and organised, and thereby +produce some kind of interdependent and less easily disturbed new +conditions; briefly, that the amount of alteration we have witnessed +will occasion a corresponding integration. And with this period of +integration and increasing organisation and comparative stability +there will come new alleviations and adjustments in life, and with +these, the reappearance in life of art.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XV.</h4> + +<p>In what manner it is absurd, merely foolishly impatient or foolishly +cavilling, to ask. Not certainly by a return to the past and its +methods, but by the coming of the future with new methods having the +same result: the maintenance and tolerable quality of human life, of +body and soul. Hence probably by a further development of democratic +institutions and machine industry, but democratic institutions neither +authoritative nor <i>laissez faire</i>; machinery of which the hand and +mind of men will be the guide, not the slave.</p> + +<p>One or two guesses may perhaps be warranted. First, that the +distribution of wealth, or more properly of work and idleness, will +gradually be improved, and the exploitation of individuals in great +gangs cease; hence that the <ins title="original has workmen">workman</ins> will be able once more to see and +shape what he is making, and that, on the other side, the possessor of +objects will have to use them, and therefore learn their appearance +and care for <ins title="original has it">them</ins>; also that many men will possess enough, and +scarcely any men possess much more than enough, so that what there is +of houses, furniture, chattels, books or pictures in private +possession may be enjoyed at leisure and with unglutted appetite, and +for that reason be beautiful. We may also guess that willing +co-operation in peaceful employments, that spontaneous formation of +groups of opinion as well as of work, and the multiplication of small +centres of activity, may create a demand for places of public +education and amusement and of discussion and self-expression, and +revive those celebrations, religious and civil, in which the art of +Antiquity and of the Middle Ages found its culmination; the service of +large bodies and of the community absorbing the higher artistic gifts +in works necessarily accessible to the multitude; and the humbler +talents—all the good amateur quality at present wasted in ambitious +efforts—being applied in every direction to the satisfaction of +individual artistic desire.</p> + +<p>If such a distribution of artistic activity should seem, to my +contemporaries, Utopian, I would point out that it has existed +throughout the past, and in states of society infinitely worse than +are ever likely to recur. For even slaves and serfs could make unto +themselves some kind of art befitting their conditions; and even the +most despotic aristocracies and priesthoods could adequately express +their power and pride only in works which even the slave and serf was +able to see. In the whole of the world's art history, it is this +present of ours which forms the exception; and as the changes of the +future will certainly be for greater social health and better social +organisation, it is not likely that this bad exception will be the +beginning of a new rule.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XVI.</h4> + +<p>Meanwhile we can, in some slight measure, foretell one or two of the +directions in which our future artistic readjustment is most likely to +begin, even apart from that presumable social reorganisation and +industrial progress which will give greater leisure and comfort to the +workers, and make their individual character the guide, and not the +slave, of this machinery. Such a direction is already indicated by one +of our few original and popular forms of art: the picture-book and the +poster, which, by the new processes of our colour printing, have +placed some of the most fanciful and delicate of our artists—men like +Caldecott and Walter Crane, like Cheret and Boutet de Monvel, at the +service of everyone equally. Moreover, it is probable that long before +machinery is so perfected as to demand individual guidance, preference +and therefore desire for beauty, and long before a corresponding +readjustment of work and leisure, the eye will have again become +attentive through the necessities of rational education. The habit of +teaching both adults and children by demonstration rather than +precept, by awaking the imagination rather than burdening the memory, +will quite undoubtedly recall attention to visible things, and thereby +open new fields to art: geography, geology, natural history, let alone +history in its vaster modern sociological and anthropological aspect, +will insist upon being taught no longer merely through books, but +through collections of visible objects; and, for all purposes of +reconstructive and synthetic conception, through pictures.</p> + +<p>And, what is more, the sciences will afford a new field for poetic +contemplation; while the philosophy born of such sciences will +synthetise new modes of seeing life and demand new visible symbols. +The future will create cosmogonies and Divine Comedies more numerous, +more various, than those on sculptured Egyptian temples and Gothic +cathedrals, and Bibles more imaginative perhaps than the ones painted +in the Pisa Campo Santo and in the Sixtine Chapel. The future? Nay, we +can see a sample already in the present. I am alluding to the panels +by Albert Besnard in the School of Pharmacy in Paris, a series +illustrating the making of medicinal drugs, their employment and the +method and subject-matter of the sciences on which pharmaceutical +practice is based. Not merely the plucking and drying of the herbs in +sunny, quiet botanical gardens, and the sorting and mingling of earths +and metals among the furnaces of the laboratory; not merely the first +tremendous tragic fight between the sudden sickness and the physician, +and the first pathetic, hard-won victory, the first weary but +rapturous return out of doors of the convalescent; but the life of the +men on whose science our power for life against death is based: the +botanists knee-deep in the pale spring woods; the geologists in the +snowy hollows of the great blue mountain; the men themselves, the +youths listening and the elder men teaching, grave and eager +intellectual faces, in the lecture rooms. And, finally, the things +which fill the minds of these men, their thoughts and dreams, the +poetry they have given to the world; the poetry of that infinitely +remote, dim past, evoked out of cavern remains and fossils—the lake +dwellers among the mists of melting glaciers; the primæval horses +playing on the still manless shores; the great saurians plunging in +the waves of long-dried seas; the jungles which are now our coal beds; +and see! the beginning of organic life, the first callow vegetation on +the stagnant waters in the dawn-light of the world. The place is but a +mean boarded and glazed vestibule; full of the sickly fumes of +chemicals; and the people who haunt it are only future apothecaries. +But the compositions are as spacious and solemn, the colours as tender +and brilliant, and the poetry as high and contemplative as that of any +mediæval fresco; it is all new also, undreamed of, <i>sui generis</i>, in +its impersonal cosmic suggestiveness, as in its colouring of opal, and +metallic patinas, and tea rose and Alpine ice cave.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XVII.</h4> + +<p>I have alluded already to the fact that, perhaps because of the part +of actual participating work which it entails, music is the art which +has most share in life and of life, nowadays. It seems probable +therefore that its especial mission may be to keep alive in us the +feeling and habit of art, and to transmit them back to those arts of +visible form to which it owes, perhaps, the training necessary to its +own architectural structure and its own colour combinations. Compared +with the arts of line and projection, music seems at a certain moral +disadvantage, as not being applicable to the things of everyday use, +and also not educating us to the better knowledge of the beautiful and +significant things of nature. In connection with this kind of +blindness, music is also compatible (as we see by its flourishing in +great manufacturing towns) with a great deal of desecration of nature +and much hand-to-mouth ruthlessness of life. But, on the other hand, +music has the especial power of suggesting and regulating emotion, and +the still more marvellous faculty of creating an inner world for +itself, inviolable because ubiquitous.</p> + +<p>And, therefore, with its audible rhythms and harmonies, its restrained +climaxes and finely ordered hierarchies, music may discipline our +feelings, or rather what underlies our feelings, the almost +unconscious life of our nerves, to modalities of order and selection, +and make the spaceless innermost of our spirit into some kind of +sanctuary, swept and garnished, until the coming of better days.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XVIII.</h4> + +<p>According to a certain class of thinkers, among whom I find Guyau and +other men of note, art is destined partially to replace religion in +our lives. But with what are you going to replace religion itself in +art? For the religious feeling, whenever it existed, gave art an +element of thoroughness which the desire for pleasure and interest, +even for æsthetic pleasure and interest, does not supply. An immense +fulness of energy is due to the fact that beautiful things, as +employed by religion, were intended to be beautiful all through, +adequate in the all-seeing eye of God or Gods, not merely beautiful on +the surface, on the side turned towards the glance of man. For, in +religious art, beautiful things are an oblation; they are the best +that we can give, as distinguished from a pleasure arranged for +ourselves and got as cheap as possible. Herein lies the impassable +gulf between the church and theatre, considered æsthetically; for it +is only in the basest times, of formalism in art as in religion, of +superstition and sensualism, that we find the church imitating the +theatre in its paper glories and plaster painted like marble. The +real, living religious spirit insists on bringing, as in St Mark's, a +gift of precious material, of delicate antique ornament, with every +shipload. The crown of the Madonna is not, like the tragedy queen's, +of tinsel, the sacrament is not given in an empty chalice. The priest, +even where he makes no effort to be holy as a man, is at least sacred +as a priest; whereas there is something uncomfortable in the sense +that the actor is only pretending to be this or the other, and we +ourselves pretending to believe him; there is a thin and acid taste in +the shams of the stage and in all art which, like that of the stage, +exists only to the extent necessary to please our fancy or excite our +feelings. Why so? For is not pleasing the fancy and exciting the +feelings the real, final use of art? Doubtless. But there would seem +to be in nature a law not merely of the greater economy of means, but +also of the greatest output of efficacy: effort helping effort, and +function, function; and many activities, in harmonious interaction, +obtaining a measure of result far surpassing their mere addition. The +creations of our mind are, of course, mere spiritual existences, +things of seeming, akin to illusions; and yet our mind can never rest +satisfied with an unreality, because our mind is active, penetrative +and grasping, and therefore craves for realisation, for completeness +and truth, and feels bruised and maimed whenever it hits against a +dead wall or is pulled up by a contradiction; nay, worst of all, it +grows giddy and faint when suddenly brought face to face with +emptiness. All insufficiency and shallowness means loss of power; and +it is such loss of power that we remark when we compare with the +religious art of past times the art which, every day more and more, is +given us by the hurried and over-thrifty (may I say "Reach-me-down"?) +hands of secularism. The great art of Greece and of the Middle Ages +most often represents something which, to our mind and feelings, is as +important, and even as beautiful, as the representation itself; and +the representation, the actual "work of art" itself, gains by that +added depth and reverence of our mood, is carried deeper (while +helping to carry deeper) into our soul. Instead of which we moderns +try to be satisfied with allowing the seeing part of us to light on +something pleasant and interesting, while giving the mind only +triviality to rest upon; and the mind goes to sleep or chafes to move +away. We cannot live intellectually and morally in presence of the +idea, say, of a jockey of Degas or one of his ballet girls in +contemplation of her shoe, as long as we can live æsthetically in the +arrangement of lines and masses and dabs of colour and interlacings of +light and shade which translate themselves into this <i>idea</i> of jockey +or ballet girl; we are therefore bored, ruffled, or, what is worse, we +learn to live on insufficient spiritual rations, and grow anæmic. Our +shortsighted practicality, which values means while disregarding ends, +and conceives usefulness only as a stage in making some other +<i>utility</i>, has led us to suppose that the desire for beauty is +compatible, nay commensurate, with indifference to reality: the <i>real</i> +having come to mean that which you can plant, cook, eat or sell, not +what you can feel and think.</p> + +<p>This notion credits us with an actual craving for something which +should exist as little as possible, in one dimension only, so to +speak, or as upon a screen (for fear of occupying valuable space which +might be given to producing more food than we can eat); whereas what +we desire is just such beauty as will surround us on all sides, such +harmony as we can live in; our soul, dissatisfied with the reality +which happens to surround it, seeks on the contrary to substitute a +new reality of its own making, to rebuild the universe, like Omar +Khayyam, according to the heart's desire. And nothing can be more +different than such an instinct from the alleged satisfaction in +playing with dolls and knowing that they are not real people. By an +odd paradoxical coincidence, that very disbelief in the <i>real</i> +character of art, and that divorce betwixt art and utility, is really +due to our ultra-practical habit of taking seriously only the +serviceable or instructive sides of things: the quality of beauty, +which the healthy mind insists upon in everything it deals with, +getting to be considered as an idle adjunct, fulfilling no kind of +purpose; and therefore, as something detachable, separate, and +speedily relegated to the museum or lumber-room where we keep our +various shams: ideals, philosophies, all the playthings with which we +sometimes wile away our idleness. Whereas in fact a great work of art, +like a great thought of goodness, exists essentially for our more +thorough, our more <i>real</i> satisfaction: the soul goes into it with all +its higher hankerings, and rests peaceful, satisfied, so long as it is +enclosed in this dwelling of its own choice. And it is, on the +contrary, the flux of what we call real life, that is to say, of life +imposed on us by outer necessities and combinations, which is so often +one-sided, perfunctory, not to be dwelt upon by thought nor penetrated +into by feeling, and endurable only according to the angle or the +lighting up—the angle or lighting up called "purpose" which we apply +to it.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIX.</h4> + +<p>With what, I ventured to ask just now, are you going to fill the place +of religion in art?</p> + +<p>With nothing, I believe, unless with religion itself. Religion, +perhaps externally unlike any of which we have historical experience; +but religion, whether individual or collective, possessing, just +because it is immortal, all the immortal essence of all past and +present creeds. And just because religion is the highest form of human +activity, and its utility is the crowning one of thoughtful and +feeling life, just for this reason will religion return, sooner or +later, to be art's most universal and most noble employer.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XX.</h4> + +<p>In the foregoing pages I have tried to derive the need of beauty from +the fact of attention, attention to what we do, think and feel, as +well as see and hear; and to demonstrate therefore that all +spontaneous and efficient art is <i>the making and doing of useful +things in such manner as shall be beautiful</i>. During this +demonstration I have, incidentally, though inexplicitly, pointed out +the utility of art itself and of beauty. For beauty is that mode of +existence of visible or audible or thinkable things which imposes on +our contemplating energies rhythms and patterns of unity, harmony and +completeness; and thereby gives us the foretaste and the habit of +higher and more perfect forms of life. Art is born of the utilities of +life; and art is in itself one of life's greatest utilities. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow"></hr> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p><a name="c1-7" id="c1-7"></a> </p> +<h3>WASTEFUL PLEASURES.</h3> + +<blockquote class="med"> + <div class="ind10"> + <p class="noindent">Er muss lernen edler begehren, damit er nicht nötig habe,<br /> + erhaben zu wollen.—<span class="smallcaps">Schiller</span>, <i>"Ästhetische Erziehung"</i>.</p> + </div> +</blockquote> + +<p> </p> +<h4>I.</h4> + +<p>A pretty, Caldecott-like moment, or rather minute, when the huntsmen +stood on the green lawn round the moving, tail-switching, dapple mass +of hounds; and the red coats trotted one by one from behind the +screens of bare trees, delicate lilac against the slowly moving grey +sky. A delightful moment, followed, as the hunt swished past, by the +sudden sense that these men and women, thus whirled off into what may +well be the sole poetry of their lives, are but noisy intruders into +these fields and spinnies, whose solemn, secret speech they drown with +clatter and yelp, whose mystery and charm stand aside on their +passage, like an interrupted, a profaned rite.</p> + +<p>Gone; the yapping and barking, the bugle-tootling fade away in the +distance; and the trees and wind converse once more.</p> + +<p>This West Wind, which has been whipping up the wan northern sea, and +rushing round the house all this last fortnight, singing its big +ballads in corridor and chimney, piping its dirges and lullabies in +one's back-blown hair on the sand dunes—this West Wind, with its +many chaunts, its occasional harmonies and sudden modulations mocking +familiar tunes, can tell of many things: of the different way in which +the great trunks meet its shocks and answer vibrating through +innermost fibres; the smooth, muscular boles of the beeches, shaking +their auburn boughs; the stiff, rough hornbeams and thorns isolated +among the pastures; the ashes whose leaves strew the roads with green +rushes; the creaking, shivering firs and larches. The West Wind tells +us of the way how the branches spring outwards, or balance themselves, +or hang like garlands in the air, and carry their leaves, or needles, +or nuts; and of their ways of bending and straightening, of swaying +and trembling. It tells us also, this West Wind, how the sea is lashed +and furrowed; how the little waves spring up in the offing, and the +big waves rise and run forward and topple into foam; how the rocks are +shaken, the sands are made to hiss and the shingle is rattled up and +down; how the great breakers vault over the pier walls, leap +thundering against the breakwaters, and disperse like smoke off the +cannon's mouth, like the whiteness of some vast explosion.</p> + +<p>These are the things which the Wind and the Woods can talk about with +us, nay, even the gorse and the shaking bents. But the hunting folk +pass too quickly, and make too much noise, to hear anything save +themselves and their horses' hoofs and their bugle and hounds.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>I have taken fox-hunting as the type of a pleasure <i>which destroys +something</i>, just because it is, in many ways, the most noble and, if I +may say so, the most innocent of such pleasures. The death, the, +perhaps agonising, flight of the fox, occupy no part of the hunter's +consciousness, and <ins title="original has forms">form</ins> no part of his pleasure; indeed, they could, +but for the hounds, be dispensed with altogether. There is a fine +community of emotion between men and creatures, horses and dogs adding +their excitement to ours; there is also a fine lack of the mere +feeling of trying to outrace a competitor, something of the collective +and almost altruistic self-forgetfulness of a battle. There is the +break-neck skurry, the flying across the ground and through the air at +the risk of limbs and life, and at the mercy of one's own and one's +horse's pluck, skill and good fellowship. All this makes up a rapture +in which many ugly things vanish, and certain cosmic intuitions flash +forth for some, at least, of the hunters. The element of poetry is +greater, the element of brutality less, in this form of intoxication +than in many others. It has a handsomer bearing than its modern +successor, the motor-intoxication, with its passiveness and (for all +but the driver) its lack of skill, its confinement, moreover, to +beaten roads, and its petrol-stench and dustcloud of privilege and of +inconvenience to others. And the intoxication of hunting is, to my +thinking at least, cleaner, wholesomer, than the intoxication of, let +us say, certain ways of hearing music. But just because so much can be +said, both positive and negative, in its favour, I am glad that +hunting, and not some meaner or some less seemly amusement, should +have set me off moralising about such pleasures as are wasteful of +other things or of some portion of our soul.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>For nothing can be further from scientific fact than that +cross-grained and ill-tempered puritanism identifying pleasure with +something akin to sinfulness. Philosophically considered, Pain is so +far stronger a determinant than Pleasure, that its <i>vis a tergo</i> might +have sufficed to ensure the survival of the race, without the far +milder action of Pleasure being necessary at all; so that the very +existence of Pleasure would lead us to infer that, besides its +function of selecting, like Pain, among life's possibilities, it has +the function of actually replenishing the vital powers, and thus +making amends, by its healing and invigorating, for the wear and tear, +the lessening of life's resources through life's other great Power of +Selection, the terror-angel of Pain. This being the case, Pleasure +tends, and should tend more and more, to be consistent with itself, to +mean a greater chance of its own growth and spreading (as opposed to +Pain's dwindling and suicidal nature), and in so far to connect itself +with whatsoever facts make for the general good, and to reject, +therefore, all cruelty, injustice, rapacity and wastefulness of +opportunities and powers.</p> + +<p>Nay, paradoxical though such a notion may seem in the face of our past +and present state of barbarism, Pleasure, and hence amusement, should +become incompatible with, be actually <i>spoilt by</i>, any element of +loss to self and others, of mischief even to the distant, the future, +and of impiety to that principle of Good which is but the summing up +of the claims of the unseen and unborn.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<p>I was struck, the other day, by the name of a play on a theatre +poster: <i>A Life of Pleasure</i>. The expression is so familiar that we +hear and employ it without thinking how it has come to be. Yet, when +by some accident it comes to be analysed, its meaning startles with an +odd revelation. Pleasure, a life of pleasure…. Other lives, to be +livable, must contain more pleasure than pain; and we know, as a fact, +that all healthy work is pleasurable to healthy creatures. Intelligent +converse with one's friends, study, sympathy, all give pleasure; and +art is, in a way, the very type of pleasure. Yet we know that none of +all that is meant in the expression: a life of pleasure. A curious +thought, and, as it came to me, a terrible one. For that expression is +symbolic. It means that, of all the myriads of creatures who surround +us, in the present and past, the vast majority identifies pleasure +mainly with such a life; despises, in its speech at least, all other +sorts of pleasure, the pleasure of its own honest strivings and +affections, taking them for granted, making light thereof.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>V.</h4> + +<p>We are mistaken, I think, in taxing the generality of people with +indifference to ideals, with lack of ideas directing their lives. Few +lives are really lawless or kept in check only by the <i>secular arm</i>, +the judge or policeman. Nor is conformity to <i>what others do, what is +fit for one's class</i> or <i>seemly in one's position</i> a result of mere +unreasoning imitation or of the fear of being boycotted. The potency +of such considerations is largely that of summing up certain rules and +defining the permanent tendencies of the individual, or those he would +wish to be permanent; in other words, we are in the presence of +<i>ideals of conduct</i>.</p> + +<p>Why else are certain things <i>those which have to be done</i>; whence +otherwise such expressions as <i>social duties</i> and <i>keeping up one's +position</i>? Why such fortitude under boredom, weariness, constraint; +such heroism sometimes in taking blows and snubs, in dancing on with +broken heart-strings like the Princess in Ford's play? All this means +an ideal, nay, a religion. Yes; people, quite matter-of-fact, worldly +people, are perpetually sacrificing to ideals. And what is more, quite +superior, virtuous people, religious in the best sense of the word, +are apt to have, besides the ostensible and perhaps rather obsolete +one of churches and meeting-houses, another cultus, esoteric, unspoken +but acted upon, of which the priests and casuists are ladies'-maids +and butlers.</p> + +<p>Now, if one could only put to profit some of this wasted dutifulness, +this useless heroism; if some of the energy put into the ideal +progress (as free from self-interest most often as the <i>accumulating +merit</i> of Kim's Buddhist) called <i>getting on in the world</i> could only +be applied in <i>getting the world along</i>!</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VI.</h4> + +<p>An eminent political economist, to whom I once confided my aversion +for such <i>butler's and lady's-maid's ideals of life</i>, admonished me +that although useless possessions, unenjoyable luxury, ostentation, +and so forth, undoubtedly represented a waste of the world's energies +and resources, they should nevertheless be tolerated, inasmuch as +constituting a great incentive to industry. People work, he said, +largely that they may be able to waste. If you repress wastefulness +you will diminish, by so much, the production of wealth by the +wasteful, by the luxurious and the vain….</p> + +<p>This may be true. Habits of modesty and of sparingness might perhaps +deprive the world of as much wealth as they would save. But even +supposing this to be true, though the wealth of the world did not +immediately gain, there would always be the modesty and sparingness to +the good; virtues which, sooner or later, would be bound to make more +wealth exist or to make existing wealth <i>go a longer way</i>. Appealing +to higher motives, to good sense and good feeling and good taste, has +the advantage of saving the drawbacks of lower motives, which <i>are</i> +lower just because they have such drawbacks. You may get a man to do a +desirable thing from undesirable motives; but those undesirable +motives will induce him, the very next minute, to do some undesirable +thing. The wages of good feeling and good taste is the satisfaction +thereof. The wages of covetousness and vanity is the grabbing of +advantages and the humiliating of neighbours; and these make life +poorer, however much bread there may be to eat or money to spend. What +are called higher motives are merely those which expand individual +life into harmonious connection with the life of all men; what we call +lower motives bring us hopelessly back, by a series of vicious +circles, to the mere isolated, sterile egos. Sterile, I mean, in the +sense that the supply of happiness dwindles instead of increasing.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>Waste of better possibilities, of higher qualities, of what we call +<i>our soul</i>. To denounce this is dignified, but it is also easy and +most often correspondingly useless. I wish to descend to more prosaic +matters, and, as Ruskin did in his day, to denounce the <i>mere waste of +money</i>. For the wasting of money implies nearly always all those other +kinds of wasting. And although there are doubtless pastimes (pastimes +promoted, as is our wont, for fear of yet <i>other</i> pastimes), which are +in themselves unclean or cruel, these are less typically evil, just +because they are more obviously so, than the amusements which imply +the destruction of wealth, the destruction of part of the earth's +resources and of men's labour and thrift, and incidentally thereon of +human leisure and comfort and the world's sweetness.</p> + +<p>Do you remember La Bruyère's famous description of the peasants under +Louis XIV.? "One occasionally meets with certain wild animals, both male and +female, scattered over the country; black, livid and parched by the sun, +bound to the soil which they scratch and dig up with desperate obstinacy. +They have something which sounds like speech, and when they raise themselves +up they show a human face. And, as a fact, they are human beings." The +<i>Ancien Régime</i>, which had reduced them to that, and was to +continue reducing them worse and worse for another hundred years by +every conceivable tax, tithe, toll, servage, and privilege, did so +mainly to pay for amusements. Amusements of the <i>Roi-Soleil</i>, with his +Versailles and Marly and aqueducts and waterworks, plays and operas; +amusements of Louis XV., with his Parc-aux-Cerfs; amusements of +Marie-Antoinette, playing the virtuous rustic at Trianon; amusements +of new buildings, new equipages, new ribbons and bibbons, new diamonds +(including the fatal necklace); amusements of hunting and gambling and +love-making; amusements sometimes atrocious, sometimes merely futile, +but all of them leaving nothing behind, save the ravaged grass and +stench of brimstone of burnt-out fireworks.</p> + +<p>Moreover, wasting money implies <i>getting more</i>. And the processes by +which such wasted money is replaced are, by the very nature of those +who do the wasting, rarely, nay, never, otherwise than wasteful in +themselves. To put into their pockets or, like Marshall Villeroi +("a-t-on mis de l'or dans mes poches?"), have it put by their valets, +to replace what was lost overnight, these proud and often honourable +nobles would ante-chamber and cringe for sinecures, pensions, +indemnities, privileges, importune and supplicate the King, the King's +mistress, pandar or lacquey. And the sinecure, pension, indemnity or +privilege was always deducted out of the bread—rye-bread, +straw-bread, grass-bread—which those parched, prone human animals +described by La Bruyère were extracting "with desperate +obstinacy"—out of the ever more sterile and more accursed furrow.</p> + +<p>It is convenient to point the moral by reference to those kings and +nobles of other centuries, without incurring pursuit for libel, or +wounding the feelings of one's own kind and estimable contemporaries. +Still, it may be well to add that, odd though it appears, the vicious +circle (in both senses of the words) continues to exist; and that, +even in our democratic civilisation, <i>you cannot waste money without +wasting something else in getting more money to replace it</i>.</p> + +<p>Waste, and <i>lay waste</i>, even as if your pastime had consisted not in +harmless novelty and display, in gentlemanly games or good-humoured +sport, but in destruction and devastation for their own sake.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>VIII.</h4> + +<p>It has been laid waste, that little valley which, in its delicate and +austere loveliness, was rarer and more perfect than any picture or +poem. Those oaks, ivy garlanded like Maenads, which guarded the +shallow white weirs whence the stream leaps down; those ilexes, whose +dark, loose boughs hung over the beryl pools like hair of drinking +nymphs; those trees which were indeed the living and divine owners of +that secluded place, dryads and oreads older and younger than any +mortals,—have now been shamefully stripped, violated and maimed, +their shorn-off leafage, already withered, gathered into faggots or +trodden into the mud made by woodcutters' feet in the place of violets +and tender grasses and wild balm; their flayed bodies, hacked grossly +out of shape, and flung into the defiled water until the moment when, +the slaughter and dishonour and profanation being complete, the +dealers' carts will come cutting up the turf and sprouting reeds, and +carry them off to the station or timber-yard. The very stumps and +roots will be dragged out for sale; the earthy banks, raw and torn, +will fall in, muddying and clogging that pure mountain brook; and the +hillside, turning into sliding shale, will dam it into puddles with +the refuse from the quarries above. And thus, for less guineas than +will buy a new motor or cover an hour of Monte Carlo, a corner of the +world's loveliness and peace will be gone as utterly as those chairs +and tables and vases and cushions which the harlot in Zola's novel +broke, tore, and threw upon the fire for her morning's amusement.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>IX.</h4> + +<p>There is in our imperfect life too little of pleasure and too much of +play. This means that our activities are largely wasted in +pleasureless ways; that, being more tired than we should be, we lose +much time in needed rest; moreover, that being, all of us more or +less, slaves to the drudgery of need or fashion, we set a positive +value on that negative good called freedom, even as the pause between +pain takes, in some cases, the character of pleasure.</p> + +<p>There is in all play a sense not merely of freedom from +responsibility, from purpose and consecutiveness, a possibility of +breaking off, or slackening off, but a sense also of margin, of +permitted pause and blank and change; all of which answer to our +being on the verge of fatigue or boredom, at the limit of our energy, +as is normal in the case of growing children (for growth exhausts), +and inevitable in the case of those who work without the renovation of +interest in what they are doing.</p> + +<p>If you notice people on a holiday, you will see them doing a large +amount of "nothing," dawdling, in fact; and "amusements" are, when +they are not excitements, that is to say, stimulations to deficient +energy, full of such "doing nothing." Think, for instance, of "amusing +conversation" with its gaps and skippings, and "amusing" reading with +its perpetual chances of inattention.</p> + +<p>All this is due to the majority of us being too weak, too badly born +and bred, to give full attention except under the constraint of +necessary work, or under the lash of some sort of excitement; and as a +consequence to our obtaining a sense of real well-being only from the +spare energy which accumulates during idleness. Moreover, under our +present conditions (as under those of slave-labour) "work" is rarely +such as calls forth the effortless, the willing, the pleased +attention. Either in kind or length or intensity, work makes a greater +demand than can be met by the spontaneous, happy activity of most of +us, and thereby diminishes the future chances of such spontaneous +activity by making us weaker in body and mind.</p> + +<p>Now, so long as work continues to be thus strained or against the +grain, play is bound to be either an excitement which leaves us poorer +and more tired than before (the fox-hunter, for instance, at the close +of the day, or on the off-days), or else play will be mere dawdling, +getting out of training, in a measure demoralisation. For +demoralisation, in the etymological sense being <i>debauched</i>, is the +correlative of over-great or over-long effort; both spoil, but the one +spoils while diminishing the mischief made by the other.</p> + +<p>Art is so much less useful than it should be, because of this bad +division of "work" and "play," between which two it finds no place. +For Art—and the art we unwittingly practice whenever we take pleasure +in nature—is without appeal either to the man who is straining at +business and to the man who is dawdling in amusement.</p> + +<p>Æsthetic pleasure implies energy during rest and leisureliness during +labour. It means making the most of whatever beautiful and noble +possibilities may come into our life; nay, it means, in each single +soul, <i>being</i> for however brief a time, beautiful and noble because +one is filled with beauty and nobility.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>X.</h4> + +<p>To eat his bread in sorrow and the sweat of his face was, we are apt +to forget, the first sign of man's loss of innocence. And having +learned that we must reverse the myth in order to see its meaning +(since innocence is not at the beginning, but rather at the end of the +story of mankind), we might accept it as part of whatever religion we +may have, that the evil of our world is exactly commensurate with the +hardship of useful tasks and the wastefulness and destructiveness of +pleasures and diversions. Evil and also folly and inefficiency, for +each of these implies the existence of much work badly done, of much +work to no purpose, of a majority of men so weak and dull as to be +excluded from choice and from leisure, and a minority of men so weak +and dull as to use choice and leisure mainly for mischief. To reverse +this original sinful constitution of the world is the sole real +meaning of progress. And the only reason for wishing inventions to be +perfected, wealth to increase, freedom to be attained, and, indeed, +the life of the race to be continued at all, lies in the belief that +such continued movement must bring about a gradual diminution of +pleasureless work and wasteful play. Meanwhile, in the wretched past +and present, the only aristocracy really existing has been that of the +privileged creatures whose qualities and circumstances must have been +such that, whether artisans or artists, tillers of the ground or +seekers after truth, poets, philosophers, or mothers and nurses, their +work has been their pleasure. This means <i>love</i>; and love means +fruitfulness.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XI.</h4> + +<p>There are moments when, catching a glimpse of the frightful weight of +care and pain with which mankind is laden, I am oppressed by the +thought that all improvement must come solely through the continued +selfish shifting of that burden from side to side, from shoulder to +shoulder; through the violent or cunning destruction of some of the +intolerable effects of selfishness in the past by selfishness in the +present and the future. And that in the midst of this terrible but +salutary scuffle for ease and security, the ideals of those who are +privileged enough to have any, may be not much more useful than the +fly on the axle-tree.</p> + +<p>It may be, it doubtless is so nowadays, although none of us can tell +to what extent.</p> + +<p>But even if it be so, let us who have strength and leisure for +preference and ideals prepare ourselves to fit, at least to acquiesce, +in the changes we are unable to bring about. Do not let us seek our +pleasure in things which we condemn, or remain attached to those which +are ours only through the imperfect arrangements which we deplore. We +are, of course, all tied tight in the meshes of our often worthless +and cruel civilisation, even as the saints felt themselves caught in +the meshes of bodily life. But even as they, in their day, fixed their +hopes on the life disembodied, so let us, in our turn, prepare our +souls for that gradual coming of justice on earth which we shall never +witness, by forestalling its results in our valuations and our wishes.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XII.</h4> + +<p>The other evening, skirting the Links, we came upon a field, where, +among the brown and green nobbly grass, was gathered a sort of +parliament of creatures: rooks on the fences, seagulls and peewits +wheeling overhead, plovers strutting and wagging their tails; and, +undisturbed by the white darting of rabbits, a covey of young +partridges, hopping leisurely in compact mass.</p> + +<p>Is it because we see of these creatures only their harmlessness to us, +but not the slaughter and starving out of each other; or is it because +of their closer relation to simple and beautiful things, to nature; +or is it merely because they are <i>not human beings</i>—who shall tell? +but, for whatever reason, such a sight does certainly bring up in us a +sense, however fleeting, of simplicity, <i>mansuetude</i> (I like the +charming mediæval word), of the kinship of harmlessness.</p> + +<p>I was thinking this while wading up the grass this morning to the +craig behind the house, the fields of unripe corn a-shimmer and +a-shiver in the light, bright wind; the sea and distant sky so merged +in delicate white mists that a ship, at first sight, seemed a bird +poised in the air. And, higher up, among the ragwort and tall +thistles, I found in the coarse grass a dead baby-rabbit, shot and not +killed at once, perhaps; or shot and not picked up, as not worth +taking: a little soft, smooth, feathery young handful, laid out very +decently, as human beings have to be laid out by one another, in +death.</p> + +<p>It brought to my mind a passage where Thoreau, who understood such +matters, says, that although the love of nature may be fostered by +sport, such love, when once consummate, will make nature's lover +little by little shrink from slaughter, and hanker after a diet +wherein slaughter is unnecessary.</p> + +<p>It is sad, not for the beasts but for our souls, that, since we must +kill beasts for food (though may not science teach a cleaner, more +human diet?) or to prevent their eating us out of house and home, it +is sad that we should choose to make of this necessity (which ought to +be, like all our baser needs, a matter if not of shame at least of +decorum) that we should make of this ugly necessity an opportunity for +amusement. It is sad that nowadays, when creatures, wild and tame, +are bred for killing, the usual way in which man is brought in contact +with the creatures of the fields and woods and streams (such man, I +mean, as thinks, feels or is expected to) should be by slaughtering +them.</p> + +<p>Surely it might be more akin to our human souls, to gentleness of +bringing up, Christianity of belief and chivalry of all kinds, to be, +rather than a hunter, a shepherd. Yet the shepherd is the lout in our +idle times; the shepherd, and the tiller of the soil; and alas, the +naturalist, again, is apt to be the <i>muff</i>.</p> + +<p>But may the time not come when, apart from every man having to do some +useful thing, something perchance like tending flocks, tilling the +ground, mowing and forestering—the mere love of beauty, the desire +for peace and harmony, the craving for renewal by communion with the +life outside our own, will lead men, without dogs or guns or rods, +into the woods, the fields, to the river-banks, as to some ancient +palace full of frescoes, as to some silent church, with solemn rites +and liturgy?</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIII.</h4> + +<p>The killing of creatures for sport seems a necessity nowadays. There +is more than mere bodily vigour to be got by occasional interludes of +outdoor life, early hours, discomfort and absorption in the ways of +birds and beasts; there is actual spiritual renovation. The mere +reading about such things, in Tolstoi's <i>Cossacks</i> and certain +chapters of <i>Anna Karenina</i> makes one realise the poetry attached to +them; and we all of us know that the genuine sportsman, the man of +gun and rod and daybreak and solitude, has often a curious halo of +purity about him; contact with natural things and unfamiliarity with +the sordidness of so much human life and endeavour, amounting to a +kind of consecration. A man of this stamp once told me that no emotion +in his life had ever equalled that of his first woodcock.</p> + +<p>You cannot have such open-air life, such clean and poetic emotion +without killing. Men are men; they will not get up at cock-crow for +the sake of a mere walk, or sleep in the woods for the sake of the +wood's noises: they must have an object; and what object is there +except killing beasts or birds or fish? Men have to be sportsmen +because they can't all be either naturalists or poets. Killing animals +(and, some persons would add, killing other men) is necessary to keep +man manly. And where men are no longer manly they become cruel, not +for the sake of sport or war, but for their lusts and for cruelty's +own sake. And that seems to settle the question.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIV.</h4> + +<p>But the question is not really settled. It is merely settled for the +present, but not for the future. It is surely a sign of our weakness +and barbarism that we cannot imagine to-morrow as better than to-day, +and that, for all our vaunted temporal progress and hypocritical talk +of duty, we are yet unable to think and to feel in terms of +improvement and change; but let our habits, like the vilest vested +interests, oppose a veto to the hope and wish for better things.</p> + +<p>To realise that <i>what is</i> does not mean what <i>will be</i>, constitutes, +methinks, the real spirituality of us poor human creatures, allowing +our judgments and aspirations to pass beyond our short and hidebound +life, to live on in the future, and help to make that <i>yonside of our +mortality</i>, which some of us attempt to satisfy with theosophic +reincarnation and planchette messages!</p> + +<p>But such spirituality, whose "it shall"—or "it shall not"—will +become an ever larger part of all <i>it is</i>, depends upon the courage of +recognising that much of what the past forces us to accept is not good +enough for the future; recognising that, odious as this may seem to +our self-conceit and sloth, many of the things we do and like and are, +will not bear even our own uncritical scrutiny. Above all, that the +lesser evil which we prefer to the greater is an evil for all that, +and requires riddance.</p> + +<p>Much of the world's big mischief is due to the avoidance of a bigger +one. For instance, all this naïvely insisted on masculine inability to +obtain the poet's or naturalist's joys without shooting a bird or +hooking a fish, this inability to love wild life, early hours and +wholesome fatigue unless accompanied by a waste of life and of money; +in short, all this incapacity <i>for being manly without being +destructive</i>, is largely due among us Anglo-Saxons to the bringing up +of boys as mere playground dunces, for fear (as we are told by parents +and schoolmasters) that the future citizens of England should take to +evil communications and worse manners if they did not play and talk +cricket and football at every available moment. For what can you +expect but that manly innocence which has been preserved at the +expense of every higher taste should grow up into manly virtue unable +to maintain itself save by hunting and fishing, shooting and +horse-racing; expensive amusements requiring, in their turn, a further +sacrifice of all capacities for innocent, noble and inexpensive +interests, in the absorbing, sometimes stultifying, often debasing +processes of making money?</p> + +<p>The same complacency towards waste and mischief for the sake of moral +advantages may be studied in the case also of our womankind. The +absorption in their <i>toilette</i> guards them from many dangers to +family sanctity. And from how much cruel gossip is not society saved +by the prevalent passion for bridge!</p> + +<p>So at least moralists, who are usually the most complacently +demoralised of elderly cynics, are ready to assure us.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XV.</h4> + +<p>"We should learn to have noble desires," wrote Schiller, "in order to +have no need for sublime resolutions." And morality might almost take +care of itself, if people knew the strong and exquisite pleasures to +be found, like the aromatic ragwort growing on every wall and +stone-heap in the south, everywhere in the course of everyday life. +But alas! the openness to cheap and simple pleasures means the fine +training of fine faculties; and mankind asks for the expensive and +far-fetched and unwholesome pleasures, because it is itself of poor +and cheap material and of wholesale scamped manufacture.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XVI.</h4> + +<p>Biological facts, as well as our observation of our own self (which is +psychology), lead us to believe that, as I have mentioned before, +Pleasure fulfils the function not merely of leading us along livable +ways, but also of creating a surplus of vitality. Itself an almost +unnecessary boon (since Pain is sufficient to regulate our choice), +Pleasure would thus tend to ever fresh and, if I may use the word, +gratuitous supplies of good. Does not this give to Pleasure a certain +freedom, a humane character wholly different from the awful, +unappeasable tyranny of Pain? For let us be sincere. Pain, and all the +cruel alternatives bidding us obey or die, are scarcely things with +which our poor ideals, our good feeling and good taste, have much +chance of profitable discussion. There is in all human life a side +akin to that of the beast; the beast hunted, tracked, starved, killing +and killed for food; the side alluded to under decent formulæ like +"pressure of population," "diminishing returns," "competition," and so +forth. Not but this side of life also tends towards good, but the +means by which it does so, nature's atrocious surgery, are evil, +although one cannot deny that it is the very nature of Pain to +diminish its own recurrence. This thought may bring some comfort in +the awful earnestness of existence, this thought that in its cruel +fashion, the universe is weeding out cruel facts. But to pretend that +we can habitually exercise much moral good taste, be of delicate +forethought, squeamish harmony when Pain has yoked and is driving us, +is surely a bad bit of hypocrisy, of which those who are being +starved or trampled or tortured into acquiescence may reasonably bid +us be ashamed. Indeed, stoicism, particularly in its discourses to +others, has not more sense of shame than sense of humour.</p> + +<p>But since our power of choosing is thus jeopardised by the presence of +Pain, it would the more behove us to express our wish for goodness, +our sense of close connection, wide and complex harmony with the +happiness of others, in those moments of respite and liberty which we +call happiness, and particularly in those freely chosen concerns which +we call play.</p> + +<p>Alas, we cannot help ourselves from becoming unimaginative, +unsympathising, destructive and brutish when we are hard pressed by +agony or by fear. Therefore, let such of us as have stuff for finer +things, seize some of our only opportunities, and seek to become +harmless in our pleasures.</p> + +<p>Who knows but that the highest practical self-cultivation would not be +compassed by a much humbler paraphrase of Schiller's advice: let us +learn to like what does no harm to the present or the future, in order +not to throw away heroic efforts or sentimental intentions, in doing +what we don't like for someone else's supposed benefit.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XVII.</h4> + +<p>The various things I have been saying have been said, or, better +still, taken for granted, by Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Ruskin, +Pater, Stevenson, by all our poets in verse and prose. What I wish to +add is that, being a poet, seeing and feeling like a poet, means +quite miraculously multiplying life's resources for oneself and +others; in fact the highest practicality conceivable, the real +transmutation of brass into gold. Now what we all waste, more even +than money, land, time and labour, more than we waste the efforts and +rewards of other folk, and the chances of enjoyment of unborn +generations (and half of our so-called practicality is nothing but +such waste), what we waste in short more than anything else, is our +own and our children's inborn capacity to see and feel as poets do, +and make much joy out of little material.</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XVIII.</h4> + +<p>There is no machine refuse, cinder, husk, paring or rejected material +of any kind which modern ingenuity cannot turn to profit, making +useful and pleasant goods out of such rubbish as we would willingly, +at first sight, shoot out of the universe into chaos. Every material +thing can be turned, it would seem, into new textures, clean metal, +manure, fuel or what not. But while we are thus economical with our +dust-heaps, what horrid wastefulness goes on with our sensations, +impressions, memories, emotions, with our souls and all the things +that minister to their delight!</p> + +<p> </p> +<h4>XIX.</h4> + +<p>An ignorant foreign body—and, after all, everyone is a foreigner +somewhere and ignorant about something—once committed the enormity of +asking his host, just back from cub-hunting, whether the hedgerows, +when he went out of a morning, were not quite lovely with those dewy +cobwebs which the French call Veils of the Virgin. It had to be +explained that such a sight was the most unwelcome you could imagine, +since it was a sure sign there would be no scent. The poor foreigner +was duly crestfallen, as happens whenever one has nearly spoilt a +friend's property through some piece of blundering.</p> + +<p>But the blunder struck me as oddly symbolical. Are we not most of us +pursuing for our pleasure, though sometimes at risk of our necks, a +fox of some kind: worth nothing as meat, little as fur, good only to +gallop after, and whose unclean scent is incompatible with those +sparkling gossamers flung, for everyone's delight, over gorse and +hedgerow?</p> + +<h5>THE END.</h5> + +<hr class="narrow" /> + +<p> </p> + +<table border="0" style="background-color: #dddddd; margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="10" summary="Amendments"> + +<tr> + <td colspan="2"> + <div class="center">TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE</div> + + <p class="noindent" style="background-color: #dddddd;">The edition from which this text was drawn is volume + 4175 of the Tauchnitz Edition of British Authors, where it appeared together + with <i>Laurus Nobilis</i>, also by Vernon Lee. The volume was published in + 1910.<br /><br /> + The following changes were made to the text:</p> + </td> + </tr> + +<tr> + <td class="50" valign="top">solely for the purpose or</td> + <td valign="top">solely for the purpose of</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td valign="top">cœteris paribus</td> + <td valign="top">cæteris paribus</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td valign="top">Mautineia</td> + <td valign="top">Mantineia</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td valign="top">the Gothic boldness of light and shade of the Campanile make</td> + <td valign="top">the Gothic boldness of light and shade of the Campanile makes</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td valign="top">Tuskan spirit</td> + <td valign="top">Tuscan spirit</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td valign="top">the workmen will be able (…) to see (…)what he is making</td> + <td valign="top">the workman will be able (…) to see (…) what he is making</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td valign="top">learn their appearance and care for it</td> + <td valign="top">learn their appearance and care for them</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td valign="top">The death, (…) the (…) flight of the fox, occupy no part of the hunter's +consciousness, and forms no part</td> + <td valign="top">The death, (…) the (…) flight of the fox, occupy no part of the hunter's +consciousness, and form no part</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td valign="top">the Monnets</td> + <td valign="top">the Monets</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p> </p> + +<hr class="narrow" /> + +<p>[The end of <i>Laurus Nobilis</i> by Vernon Lee]</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Laurus Nobilis, by Vernon Lee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAURUS NOBILIS *** + +***** This file should be named 27939-h.htm or 27939-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/9/3/27939/ + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net This file +was produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries. + + +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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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: Laurus Nobilis + Chapters on Art and Life + +Author: Vernon Lee + +Release Date: January 31, 2009 [EBook #27939] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAURUS NOBILIS *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net This file +was produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries. + + + + + + + + + +LAURUS NOBILIS + +BY + +VERNON LEE + + + + +CONTENTS + + + The Use of Beauty + "Nisi Citharam" + Higher Harmonies + Beauty and Sanity + The Art and the Country + Art and Usefulness + Wasteful Pleasures + + + + +LAURUS NOBILIS. + +CHAPTERS ON ART AND LIFE. + + + + + TO + ANGELICA RASPONI DALLE TESTE + FROM + HER GRATEFUL OLD FRIEND AND NEIGHBOUR + VERNON LEE. + 1885-1908. + + + + + Die Realitaet der Dinge ist der Dinge Werk; der Schein der Dinge + ist der Menschen Werk; und ein Gemuet, das sich am Scheine weidet, + ergoetzt sich schon nicht mehr an dem, was es empfaengt, sondern an + dem, was es tut. SCHILLER, _Briefe ueber Aesthetik_. + + + + +LAURUS NOBILIS. + +THE USE OF BEAUTY. + + +I. + +One afternoon, in Rome, on the way back from the Aventine, the +road-mender climbed onto the tram as it trotted slowly along, and +fastened to its front, alongside of the place of the driver, a bough +of budding bay. + +Might one not search long for a better symbol of what we may all do by +our life? Bleakness, wind, squalid streets, a car full of +heterogeneous people, some very dull, most very common; a laborious +jog-trot all the way. But to redeem it all with the pleasantness of +beauty and the charm of significance, this laurel branch. + + +II. + +Our language does not possess any single word wherewith to sum up the +various categories of things (made by nature or made by man, intended +solely for the purpose of subserving by mere coincidence) which +minister to our organic and many-sided aesthetic instincts: the things +affecting us in that absolutely special, unmistakable, and hitherto +mysterious manner expressed in our finding them _beautiful_. It is of +the part which such things--whether actually present or merely +shadowed in our mind--can play in our life; and of the influence of +the instinct for beauty on the other instincts making up our nature, +that I would treat in these pages. And for this reason I have been +glad to accept from the hands of chance, and of that road-mender of +the tram-way, the bay laurel as a symbol of what we have no word to +express: the aggregate of all art, all poetry, and particularly of all +poetic and artistic vision and emotion. + + +For the Bay Laurel--_Laurus Nobilis_ of botanists--happens to be not +merely the evergreen, unfading plant into which Apollo metamorphosed, +while pursuing, the maiden whom he loved, even as the poet, the artist +turns into immortal shapes his own quite personal and transient moods, +or as the fairest realities, nobly sought, are transformed, made +evergreen and restoratively fragrant for all time in our memory and +fancy. It is a plant of noblest utility, averting, as the ancients +thought, lightning from the dwellings it surrounded, even as +disinterested love for beauty averts from our minds the dangers which +fall on the vain and the covetous; and curing many aches and fevers, +even as the contemplation of beauty refreshes and invigorates our +spirit. Indeed, we seem to be reading a description no longer of the +virtues of the bay laurel, but of the _virtues_ of all beautiful +sights and sounds, of all beautiful thoughts and emotions, in reading +the following quaint and charming words of an old herbal:-- + + "The bay leaves are of as necessary use as any other in garden or + orchard, for they serve both for pleasure and profit, both for + ornament and use, both for honest civil uses and for physic; yea, + both for the sick and for the sound, both for the living and for + the dead. The bay serveth to adorn the house of God as well as of + man, to procure warmth, comfort, and strength to the limbs of men + and women;... to season vessels wherein are preserved our meats as + well as our drinks; to crown or encircle as a garland the heads of + the living, and to stick and deck forth the bodies of the dead; so + that, from the cradle to the grave we have still use of it, we + have still need of it." + + +III. + +Before beginning to expound the virtues of Beauty, let me, however, +insist that these all depend upon the simple and mysterious fact +that--well, that the Beautiful _is_ the Beautiful. In our discussion of +what the Bay Laurel symbolises, let us keep clear in our memory the +lovely shape of the sacred tree, and the noble places in which we have +seen it. + +There are bay twigs, gathered together in bronze sheaves, in the great +garland surrounding Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise. There are two +interlaced branches of bay, crisp-edged and slender, carved in fine +low relief inside the marble chariot in the Vatican. There is a +fan-shaped growth of Apollo's Laurel behind that Venetian portrait of +a poet, which was formerly called Ariosto by Titian. And, most +suggestive of all, there are the Mycenaean bay leaves of beaten gold, +so incredibly thin one might imagine them to be the withered crown of +a nameless singer in a forgotten tongue, grown brittle through three +thousand years and more. + +Each of such presentments, embodying with loving skill some feature of +the plant, enhances by association the charm of its reality, +accompanying the delight of real bay-trees and bay leaves with +inextricable harmonics, vague recollections of the delight of bronze, +of delicately cut marble, of marvellously beaten gold, of deep +Venetian crimson and black and auburn. + +But best of all, most satisfying and significant, is the remembrance +of the bay-trees themselves. They greatly affect the troughs of +watercourses, among whose rocks and embanked masonry they love to +strike their roots. In such a stream trough, on a spur of the Hill of +Fiesole, grow the most beautiful poet's laurels I can think of. The +place is one of those hollowings out of a hillside which, revealing +how high they lie only by the sky-lines of distant hills, always feel +so pleasantly remote. And the peace and austerity of this little +valley are heightened by the dove-cot of a farm invisible in the +olive-yards, and looking like a hermitage's belfry. The olives are +scant and wan in the fields all round, with here and there the blossom +of an almond; the oak woods, of faint wintry copper-rose, encroach +above; and in the grassy space lying open to the sky, the mountain +brook is dyked into a weir, whence the crystalline white water leaps +into a chain of shady pools. And there, on the brink of that weir, and +all along that stream's shallow upper course among grass and brakes of +reeds, are the bay-trees I speak of: groups of three or four at +intervals, each a sheaf of smooth tapering boles, tufted high up with +evergreen leaves, sparse bunches whose outermost leaves are sharply +printed like lance-heads against the sky. Most modest little trees, +with their scant berries and rare pale buds; not trees at all, I fancy +some people saying. Yet of more consequence, somehow, in their calm +disregard of wind, their cheerful, resolute soaring, than any other +trees for miles; masters of that little valley, of its rocks, pools, +and overhanging foliage; sovereign brothers and rustic demi-gods for +whom the violets scent the air among the withered grass in March, and, +in May, the nightingales sing through the quivering star night. + +Of all southern trees, most simple and aspiring; and certainly most +perfect among evergreens, with their straight, faintly carmined +shoots, their pliable strong leaves so subtly rippled at the edge, and +their clean, dry fragrance; delicate, austere, alert, serene; such are +the bay-trees of Apollo. + + +IV. + +I have gladly accepted, from the hands of that tram-way road-mender, +the Bay Laurel--_Laurus Nobilis_--for a symbol of all art, all poetry, +and all poetic and artistic vision and emotion. It has summed up, +better than words could do, what the old Herbals call the _virtues_, +of all beautiful things and beautiful thoughts. And it has suggested, +I hope, the contents of the following notes; the nature of my attempt +to trace the influence which art should have on life. + + +V. + +Beauty, save by a metaphorical application of the word, is not in the +least the same thing as Goodness, any more than beauty (despite +Keats' famous assertion) is the same thing as Truth. These three +objects of the soul's pursuit have different natures, different laws, +and fundamentally different origins. But the energies which express +themselves in their pursuit--energies vital, primordial, and necessary +even to man's physical survival--have all been evolved under the same +stress of adaptation of the human creature to its surroundings; and +have therefore, in their beginnings and in their ceaseless growth, +been working perpetually in concert, meeting, crossing, and +strengthening one another, until they have become indissolubly woven +together by a number of great and organic coincidences. + +It is these coincidences which all higher philosophy, from Plato +downwards, has strained for ever to expound. It is these coincidences, +which all religion and all poetry have taken for granted. And to three +of these it is that I desire to call attention, persuaded as I am that +the scientific progress of our day will make short work of all the +spurious aestheticism and all the shortsighted utilitarianism which +have cast doubts upon the intimate and vital connection between beauty +and every other noble object of our living. + +The three coincidences I have chosen are: that between development of +the aesthetic faculties and the development of the altruistic +instincts; that between development of a sense of aesthetic harmony and +a sense of the higher harmonies of universal life; and, before +everything else, the coincidence between the preference for aesthetic +pleasures and the nobler growth of the individual. + + +VI. + +The particular emotion produced in us by such things as are beautiful, +works of art or of nature, recollections and thoughts as well as +sights and sounds, the emotion of aesthetic pleasure, has been +recognised ever since the beginning of time as of a mysteriously +ennobling quality. All philosophers have told us that; and the +religious instinct of all mankind has practically proclaimed it, by +employing for the worship of the highest powers, nay, by employing for +the mere designation of the godhead, beautiful sights, and sounds, and +words by which beautiful sights and sounds are suggested. Nay, there +has always lurked in men's minds, and expressed itself in the +metaphors of men's speech, an intuition that the Beautiful is in some +manner one of the primordial and, so to speak, cosmic powers of the +world. The theories of various schools of mental science, and the +practice of various schools of art, the practice particularly of the +persons styled by themselves aesthetes and by others decadents, have +indeed attempted to reduce man's relations with the great world-power +Beauty to mere intellectual dilettantism or sensual superfineness. But +the general intuition has not been shaken, the intuition which +recognised in Beauty a superhuman, and, in that sense, a truly divine +power. And now it must become evident that the methods of modern +psychology, of the great new science of body and soul, are beginning +to explain the reasonableness of this intuition, or, at all events, to +show very plainly in what direction we must look for the explanation +of it. This much can already be asserted, and can be indicated even +to those least versed in recent psychological study, to wit, that the +power of Beauty, the essential power therefore of art, is due to the +relations of certain visible and audible forms with the chief mental +and vital functions of all human beings; relations established +throughout the whole process of human and, perhaps, even of animal, +evolution; relations seated in the depths of our activities, but +radiating upwards even like our vague, organic sense of comfort and +discomfort; and permeating, even like our obscure relations with +atmospheric conditions, into our highest and clearest consciousness, +colouring and altering the whole groundwork of our thoughts and +feelings. + +Such is the primordial, and, in a sense, the cosmic power of the +Beautiful; a power whose very growth, whose constantly more complex +nature proclaims its necessary and beneficial action in human +evolution. It is the power of making human beings live, for the +moment, in a more organically vigorous and harmonious fashion, as +mountain air or sea-wind makes them live; but with the difference that +it is not merely the bodily, but very essentially the spiritual life, +the life of thought and emotion, which is thus raised to unusual +harmony and vigour. I may illustrate this matter by a very individual +instance, which will bring to the memory of each of my readers the +vivifying power of some beautiful sight or sound or beautiful +description. I was seated working by my window, depressed by the +London outlook of narrow grey sky, endless grey roofs, and rusty elm +tops, when I became conscious of a certain increase of vitality, +almost as if I had drunk a glass of wine, because a band somewhere +outside had begun to play. After various indifferent pieces, it began +a tune, by Handel or in Handel's style, of which I have never known +the name, calling it for myself the _Te Deum_ Tune. And then it seemed +as if my soul, and according to the sensations, in a certain degree my +body even, were caught up on those notes, and were striking out as if +swimming in a great breezy sea; or as if it had put forth wings and +risen into a great free space of air. And, noticing my feelings, I +seemed to be conscious that those notes were being played _on me_, my +fibres becoming the strings; so that as the notes moved and soared and +swelled and radiated like stars and suns, I also, being identified +with the sound, having become apparently the sound itself, must needs +move and soar with them. + +We can all recollect a dozen instances when architecture, music, +painting, or some sudden sight of sea or mountain, have thus affected +us; and all poetry, particularly all great lyric poetry, Goethe's, +Shelley's, Wordsworth's, and, above all, Browning's, is full of the +record of such experience. + +I have said that the difference between this aesthetic heightening of +our vitality (and this that I have been describing is, I pray you to +observe, the aesthetic phenomenon _par excellence_), and such other +heightening of vitality as we experience from going into fresh air and +sunshine or taking fortifying food, the difference between the +aesthetic and the mere physiological pleasurable excitement consists +herein, that in the case of beauty, it is not merely our physical but +our spiritual life which is suddenly rendered more vigorous. We do not +merely breathe better and digest better, though that is no small +gain, but we seem to understand better. Under the vitalising touch of +the Beautiful, our consciousness seems filled with the affirmation of +what life is, what is worth being, what among our many thoughts and +acts and feelings are real and organic and important, what among the +many possible moods is the real, eternal _ourself_. + +Such are the great forces of Nature gathered up in what we call the +_aesthetic phenomenon_, and it is these forces of Nature which, stolen +from heaven by the man of genius or the nation of genius, and welded +together in music, or architecture, in the arts of visible design or +of written thoughts, give to the great work of art its power to +quicken the life of our soul. + + +VII. + +I hope I have been able to indicate how, by its essential nature, by +the primordial power it embodies, all Beauty, and particularly Beauty +in art, tends to fortify and refine the spiritual life of the +individual. + +But this is only half of the question, for, in order to get the full +benefit of beautiful things and beautiful thoughts, to obtain in the +highest potency those potent aesthetic emotions, the individual must +undergo a course of self-training, of self-initiation, which in its +turn elicits and improves some of the highest qualities of his soul. +Nay, as every great writer on art has felt, from Plato to Ruskin, but +none has expressed as clearly as Mr. Pater, in all true aesthetic +training there must needs enter an ethical element, almost an ascetic +one. + +The greatest art bestows pleasure just in proportion as people are +capable of buying that pleasure at the price of attention, +intelligence, and reverent sympathy. For great art is such as is +richly endowed, full of variety, subtlety, and suggestiveness; full of +delightfulness enough for a lifetime, the lifetime of generations and +generations of men; great art is to its true lovers like Cleopatra to +Antony--"age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety." +Indeed, when it is the greatest art of all, the art produced by the +marvellous artist, the most gifted race, and the longest centuries, we +find ourselves in presence of something which, like Nature itself, +contains more beauty, suggests more thought, works more miracles than +anyone of us has faculties to appreciate fully. So that, in some of +Titian's pictures and Michael Angelo's frescoes, the great Greek +sculptures, certain cantos of Dante and plays of Shakespeare, fugues +of Bach, scenes of Mozart and quartets of Beethoven, we can each of +us, looking our closest, feeling our uttermost, see and feel perhaps +but a trifling portion of what there is to be seen and felt, leaving +other sides, other perfections, to be appreciated by our neighbours. +Till it comes to pass that we find different persons very differently +delighted by the same masterpiece, and accounting most discrepantly +for their delight in it. + +Now such pleasure as this requires not merely a vast amount of +activity on our part, since all pleasure, even the lowest, is the +expression of an activity; it requires a vast amount of attention, of +intelligence, of what, in races or in individuals, means special +training. + + +VIII. + +There is a sad confusion in men's minds on the very essential subject +of pleasure. We tend, most of us, to oppose the idea of pleasure to +the idea of work, effort, strenuousness, patience; and, therefore, +recognise as pleasures only those which cost none of these things, or +as little as possible; pleasures which, instead of being produced +through our will and act, impose themselves upon us from outside. In +all art--for art stands halfway between the sensual and emotional +experiences and the experiences of the mere reasoning intellect--in +all art there is necessarily an element which thus imposes itself upon +us from without, an element which takes and catches us: colour, +strangeness of outline, sentimental or terrible quality, rhythm +exciting the muscles, or clang which tickles the ear. But the art +which thus takes and catches our attention the most easily, asking +nothing in return, or next to nothing, is also the poorest art: the +oleograph, the pretty woman in the fashion plate, the caricature, the +representation of some domestic or harrowing scene, children being put +to bed, babes in the wood, railway accidents, etc.; or again, dance or +march music, and the equivalents of all this in verse. It catches your +attention, instead of your attention conquering it; but it speedily +ceases to interest, gives you nothing more, cloys, or comes to a dead +stop. It resembles thus far mere sensual pleasure, a savoury dish, a +glass of good wine, an excellent cigar, a warm bed, which impose +themselves on the nerves without expenditure of attention; with the +result, of course, that little or nothing remains, a sensual +impression dying, so to speak, childless, a barren, disconnected +thing, without place in the memory, unmarried as it is to the memory's +clients, thought and human feeling. + +If so many people prefer poor art to great, 'tis because they refuse +to give, through inability or unwillingness, as much of their soul +as great art requires for its enjoyment. And it is noticeable that +busy men, coming to art for pleasure when they are too weary for +looking, listening, or thinking, so often prefer the sensation-novel, +the music-hall song, and such painting as is but a costlier kind of +oleograph; treating all other art as humbug, and art in general as a +trifle wherewith to wile away a lazy moment, a trifle about which +every man _can know what he likes best_. + +Thus it is that great art makes, by coincidence, the same demands as +noble thinking and acting. For, even as all noble sports develop +muscle, develop eye, skill, quickness and pluck in bodily movement, +qualities which are valuable also in the practical business of life; +so also the appreciation of noble kinds of art implies the acquisition +of habits of accuracy, of patience, of respectfulness, and suspension +of judgment, of preference of future good over present, of harmony and +clearness, of sympathy (when we come to literary art), judgment and +kindly fairness, which are all of them useful to our neighbours and +ourselves in the many contingencies and obscurities of real life. Now +this is not so with the pleasures of the senses: the pleasures of the +senses do not increase by sharing, and sometimes cannot be shared at +all; they are, moreover, evanescent, leaving us no richer; above all, +they cultivate in ourselves qualities useful only for that particular +enjoyment. Thus, a highly discriminating palate may have saved the +life of animals and savages, but what can its subtleness do nowadays +beyond making us into gormandisers and winebibbers, or, at best, into +cooks and tasters for the service of gormandising and winebibbing +persons? + + +IX. + +Delight in beautiful things and in beautiful thoughts requires, +therefore, a considerable exercise of the will and the attention, such +as is not demanded by our lower enjoyments. Indeed, it is probably +this absence of moral and intellectual effort which recommends such +lower kinds of pleasure to a large number of persons. I have said +lower _kinds_ of pleasure, because there are other enjoyments besides +those of the senses which entail no moral improvement in ourselves: +the enjoyments connected with vanity and greed. We should not--even if +any of us could be sure of being impeccable on these points--we should +not be too hard on the persons and the classes of persons who are +conscious of no other kind of enjoyment. They are not necessarily +base, not necessarily sensual or vain, because they care only for +bodily indulgence, for notice and gain. They are very likely not base, +but only apathetic, slothful, or very tired. The noble sport, the +intellectual problem, the great work of art, the divinely beautiful +effect in Nature, require that one should _give oneself_; the +French-cooked dinner as much as the pot of beer; the game of chance, +whether with clean cards at a club or with greasy ones in a tap-room; +the outdoing of one's neighbours, whether by the ragged heroes of Zola +or the well-groomed heroes of Balzac, require no such coming forward +of the soul: they _take_ us, without any need for our giving +ourselves. Hence, as I have just said, the preference for them does +not imply original baseness, but only lack of higher energy. We can +judge of the condition of those who can taste no other pleasures by +remembering what the best of us are when we are tired or ill: vaguely +craving for interests, sensations, emotions, variety, but quite unable +to procure them through our own effort, and longing for them to come +to us from without. Now, in our still very badly organised world, an +enormous number of people are condemned by the tyranny of poverty or +the tyranny of fashion, to be, when the day's work or the day's +business is done, in just such a condition of fatigue and languor, of +craving, therefore, for the baser kinds of pleasure. We all recognise +that this is the case with what we call _poor people_, and that this +is why poor people are apt to prefer the public-house to the picture +gallery or the concert-room. It would be greatly to the purpose were +we to acknowledge that it is largely the case with the rich, and that +for that reason the rich are apt to take more pleasure in ostentatious +display of their properties than in contemplation of such beauty as is +accessible to all men. Indeed, it is one of the ironies of the +barbarous condition we are pleased to call _civilisation_, that so +many rich men--thousands daily--are systematically toiling and moiling +till they are unable to enjoy any pleasure which requires vigour of +mind and attention, rendering themselves impotent, from sheer fatigue, +to enjoy the delights which life gives generously to all those who +fervently seek them. And what for? Largely for the sake of those +pleasures which can be had only for money, but which can be enjoyed +without using one's soul. + + +X. + +[PARENTHETICAL] + +"And these, you see," I said, "are bay-trees, the laurels they used +the leaves of to ..." + +I was going to say "to crown poets," but I left my sentence in +mid-air, because of course he knew that as well as I. + +"Precisely," he answered with intelligent interest--"I have noticed +that the leaves are sometimes put in sardine boxes." + +Soon after this conversation I discovered the curious circumstance +that one of the greatest of peoples and perhaps the most favoured by +Apollo, calls Laurus Nobilis "Laurier-Sauce." The name is French; the +symbol, alas, of universal application. + +This paragraph X. had been intended to deal with "Art as it is +understood by persons of fashion and eminent men of business." + + +XI. + +Thus it is that real aesthetic keenness--and aesthetic keenness, as I +shall show you in my next chapter, means appreciating beauty, not +collecting beautiful properties--thus it is that all aesthetic keenness +implies a development of the qualities of patience, attention, +reverence, and of that vigour of soul which is not called forth, but +rather impaired, by the coarser enjoyments of the senses and of +vanity. So far, therefore, we have seen that the capacity for aesthetic +pleasure is allied to a certain nobility in the individual. I think I +can show that the preference for aesthetic pleasure tends also to a +happier relation between the individual and his fellows. + +But the cultivation of our aesthetic pleasures does not merely +necessitate our improvement in certain very essential moral qualities. +It implies as much, in a way, as the cultivation of the intellect and +the sympathies, that we should live chiefly in the spirit, in which +alone, as philosophers and mystics have rightly understood, there is +safety from the worst miseries and room for the most complete +happiness. Only, we shall learn from the study of our aesthetic +pleasures that while the stoics and mystics have been right in +affirming that the spirit only can give the highest good, they have +been fatally wrong in the reason they gave for their preference. And +we may learn from our aesthetic experiences that the spirit is useful, +not in detaching us from the enjoyable things of life, but, on the +contrary, in giving us their consummate possession. The spirit--one of +whose most precious capacities is that it enables us to print off all +outside things on to ourselves, to store moods and emotions, to +recombine and reinforce past impressions into present ones--the spirit +puts pleasure more into our own keeping, making it more independent of +time and place, of circumstances, and, what is equally important, +independent of other people's strivings after pleasure, by which our +own, while they clash and hamper, are so often impeded. + + +XII. + +For our intimate commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts +does not exist only, or even chiefly, at the moment of seeing, or +hearing, or reading; nay, if the beautiful touched us only at such +separate and special moments, the beautiful would play but an +insignificant part in our existence. + +As a fact, those moments represent very often only the act of +_storage_, or not much more. Our real aesthetic life is in ourselves, +often isolated from the beautiful words, objects, or sounds; sometimes +almost unconscious; permeating the whole rest of life in certain +highly aesthetic individuals, and, however mixed with other activities, +as constant as the life of the intellect and sympathies; nay, as +constant as the life of assimilation and motion. We can live off a +beautiful object, we can live by its means, even when its visible or +audible image is partially, nay, sometimes wholly, obliterated; for +the emotional condition can survive the image and be awakened at the +mere name, awakened sufficiently to heighten the emotion caused by +other images of beauty. We can sometimes feel, so to speak, the +spiritual companionship and comfort of a work of art, or of a scene in +nature, nay, almost its particular caress to our whole being, when the +work of art or the scene has grown faint in our memory, but the +emotion it awakened has kept warm. + +Now this possibility of storing for later use, of increasing by +combination, the impressions of beautiful things, makes art--and by +art I mean all aesthetic activity, whether in the professed artist who +creates or the unconscious artist who assimilates--the type of such +pleasures as are within our own keeping, and makes the aesthetic life +typical also of that life of the spirit in which alone we can realise +any kind of human freedom. We shall all of us meet with examples +thereof if we seek through our consciousness. That such things +existed was made clear to me during a weary period of illness, for +which I shall always be grateful, since it taught me, in those months +of incapacity for enjoyment, that there is a safe kind of pleasure, +_the pleasure we can defer_. I spent part of that time at Tangier, +surrounded by everything which could delight me, and in none of which +I took any real delight. I did not enjoy Tangier at the time, but I +have enjoyed Tangier ever since, on the principle of the bee eating +its honey months after making it. The reality of Tangier, I mean the +reality of my presence there, and the state of my nerves, were not in +the relation of enjoyment. But how often has not the image of Tangier, +the remembrance of what I saw and did there, returned and haunted me +in the most enjoyable fashion. + +After all, is it not often the case with pictures, statues, journeys, +and the reading of books? The weariness entailed, the mere continuity +of looking or attending, quite apart from tiresome accompanying +circumstances, make the apparently real act, what we expect to be the +act of enjoyment, quite illusory; like Coleridge, "we see, not _feel_, +how beautiful things are." Later on, all odious accompanying +circumstances are utterly forgotten, eliminated, and the weariness is +gone: we enjoy not merely unhampered by accidents, but in the very way +our heart desires. For we can choose--our mood unconsciously does it +for us--the right moment and right accessories for consuming some of +our stored delights; moreover, we can add what condiments and make +what mixtures suit us best at that moment. We draw not merely upon one +past reality, making its essentials present, but upon dozens. To +revert to Tangier (whose experience first brought these possibilities +clearly before me), I find I enjoy it in connection with Venice, the +mixture having a special roundness of tone or flavour. Similarly, I +once heard Bach's _Magnificat_, with St. Mark's of Venice as a +background in my imagination. Again, certain moonlight songs of +Schumann have blended wonderfully with remembrances of old Italian +villas. King Solomon, in all his ships, could not have carried the +things which I can draw, in less than a second, from one tiny +convolution of my brain, from one corner of my mind. No wizard that +ever lived had spells which could evoke such kingdoms and worlds as +anyone of us can conjure up with certain words: Greece, the Middle +Ages, Orpheus, Robin Hood, Mary Stuart, Ancient Rome, the Far East. + + +XIII. + +And here, as fit illustration of these beneficent powers, which can +free us from a life where we stifle and raise us into a life where we +can breathe and grow, let me record my gratitude to a certain young +goat, which, on one occasion, turned what might have been a detestable +hour into a pleasant one. + +The goat, or rather kid, a charming gazelle-like creature, with +budding horns and broad, hard forehead, was one of my fourteen fellow +passengers in a third-class carriage on a certain bank holiday +Saturday. Riding and standing in such crowded misery had cast a +general gloom over all the holiday makers; they seemed to have +forgotten the coming outing in sullen hatred of all their neighbours; +and I confess that I too began to wonder whether Bank Holiday was an +altogether delightful institution. But the goat had no such doubts. +Leaning against the boy who was taking it holiday-making, it tried +very gently to climb and butt, and to play with its sulky fellow +travellers. And as it did so it seemed to radiate a sort of poetry on +everything: vague impressions of rocks, woods, hedges, the Alps, +Italy, and Greece; mythology, of course, and that amusement of "jouer +avec des chevres apprivoisees," which that great charmer M. Renan has +attributed to his charming Greek people. Now, as I realised the joy of +the goat on finding itself among the beech woods and short grass of +the Hertfordshire hills, I began also to see my other fellow +travellers no longer as surly people resenting each other's presence, +but as happy human beings admitted once more to the pleasant things of +life. The goat had quite put me in conceit with bank holiday. When it +got out of the train at Berkhampstead, the emptier carriage seemed +suddenly more crowded, and my fellow travellers more discontented. But +I remained quite pleased, and when I had alighted, found that instead +of a horrible journey, I could remember only a rather exquisite little +adventure. That beneficent goat had acted as Pegasus; and on its small +back my spirit had ridden to the places it loves. + +In this fashion does the true aesthete tend to prefer, even like the +austerest moralist, the delights which, being of the spirit, are most +independent of circumstances and most in the individual's own keeping. + + +XIV. + +It was Mr. Pater who first pointed out how the habit of aesthetic +enjoyment makes the epicurean into an ascetic. He builds as little as +possible on the things of the senses and the moment, knowing how +little, in comparison, we have either in our power. For, even if the +desired object, person, or circumstance comes, how often does it not +come at the wrong hour! In this world, which mankind fits still so +badly, the wish and its fulfilling are rarely in unison, rarely in +harmony, but follow each other, most often, like vibrations of +different instruments, at intervals which can only jar. The _n'est-ce +que cela_, the inability to enjoy, of successful ambition and +favoured, passionate love, is famous; and short of love even and +ambition, we all know the flatness of long-desired pleasures. King +Solomon, who had not been enough of an ascetic, as we all know, and +therefore ended off in cynicism, knew that there is not only satiety +as a result of enjoyment; but a sort of satiety also, an absence of +keenness, an incapacity for caring, due to the deferring of enjoyment. +He doubtless knew, among other items of vanity, that our wishes are +often fulfilled without our even knowing it, so indifferent have we +become through long waiting, or so changed in our wants. + + +XV. + +There is another reason for such ascetism as was taught in _Marius the +Epicurean_ and in Pater's book on Plato: the modest certainty of all +pleasure derived from the beautiful will accustom the perfect aesthete +to seek for the like in other branches of activity. Accustomed to the +happiness which is in his own keeping, he will view with suspicion all +craving for satisfactions which are beyond his control. He will not +ask to be given the moon, and he will not even wish to be given it, +lest the wish should grow into a want; he will make the best of +candles and glowworms and of distant heavenly luminaries. Moreover, +being accustomed to enjoy the mere sight of things as much as other +folk do their possession, he will probably actually prefer that the +moon should be hanging in the heavens, and not on his staircase. + +Again, having experience of the aesthetic pleasures which involve, in +what Milton called their sober waking bliss, no wear and tear, no +reaction of satiety, he will not care much for the more rapturous +pleasures of passion and success, which always cost as much as they +are worth. He will be unwilling to run into such debt with his own +feelings, having learned from aesthetic pleasure that there are +activities of the soul which, instead of impoverishing, enrich it. + +Thus does the commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts +tend to develop in us that healthy kind of asceticism so requisite to +every workable scheme of greater happiness for the individual and the +plurality: self-restraint, choice of aims, consistent and +thorough-paced subordination of the lesser interest to the greater; +above all, what sums up asceticism as an efficacious means towards +happiness, preference of the spiritual, the unconditional, the +durable, instead of the temporal, the uncertain, and the fleeting. + +The intimate and continuous intercourse with the Beautiful teaches us, +therefore, the renunciation of the unnecessary for the sake of the +possible. It teaches asceticism leading not to indifference and +Nervana, but to higher complexities of vitalisation, to a more +complete and harmonious rhythm of individual existence. + + +XVI. + +Art can thus train the soul because art is free; or, more strictly +speaking, because art is the only complete expression, the only +consistent realisation of our freedom. In other parts of our life, +business, affection, passion, pursuit of utility, glory or truth, we +are for ever _conditioned_. We are twisting perpetually, perpetually +stopped short and deflected, picking our way among the visible and +barely visible habits, interests, desires, shortcomings, of others and +of that portion of ourselves which, in the light of that particular +moment and circumstance, seems to be foreign to us, to be another's. +We can no more follow the straight line of our wishes than can the +passenger in Venice among those labyrinthine streets, whose +everlasting, unexpected bends are due to canals which the streets +themselves prevent his seeing. Moreover, in those gropings among +looming or unseen obstacles, we are pulled hither and thither, checked +and misled by the recurring doubt as to which, of these thwarted and +yielding selves, may be the chief and real one, and which, of the goals +we are never allowed finally to touch, is the goal we spontaneously +tend to. + +Now it is different in the case of Art, and of all those aesthetic +activities, often personal and private, which are connected with Art +and may be grouped together under Art's name. Art exists to please, +and, when left to ourselves, we feel in what our pleasure lies. Art is +a free, most open and visible space, where we disport ourselves +freely. Indeed, it has long been remarked (the poet Schiller working +out the theory) that, as there is in man's nature a longing for mere +unconditioned exercise, one of Art's chief missions is to give us free +scope to be ourselves. If therefore Art is the playground where each +individual, each nation or each century, not merely toils, but +untrammelled by momentary passion, unhampered by outer cares, freely +exists and feels itself, then Art may surely become the training-place +of our soul. Art may teach us how to employ our liberty, how to select +our wishes: employ our liberty so as to respect that of others; select +our wishes in such a manner as to further the wishes of our +fellow-creatures. + +For there are various, and variously good or evil ways of following +our instincts, fulfilling our desires, in short, of being independent +of outer circumstances; in other words, there are worthy and worthless +ways of using our leisure and our surplus energy, of seeking our +pleasure. And Art--Art and all Art here stands for--can train us to do +so without injuring others, without wasting the material and spiritual +riches of the world. Art can train us to delight in the higher +harmonies of existence; train us to open our eyes, ears and souls, +instead of shutting them, to the wider modes of universal life. + +In such manner, to resume our symbol of the bay laurel which the +road-mender stuck on to the front of that tramcar, can our love for +the beautiful avert, like the plant of Apollo, many of the storms, and +cure many of the fevers, of life. + + + + +"NISI CITHARAM." + + +I. + +It is well that this second chapter--in which I propose to show how a +genuine aesthetic development tends to render the individual more +useful, or at least less harmful, to his fellow-men--should begin, +like the first, with a symbol, such as may sum up my meaning, and +point it out in the process of my expounding it. The symbol is +contained in the saying of the Abbot Joachim of Flora, one of the +great precursors of St. Francis, to wit: "He that is a true monk +considers nothing his own except a lyre--_nihil reputat esse suum nisi +citharam_." Yes; nothing except a lyre. + + +II. + +But that lyre, our only real possession, is our _Soul_. It must be +shaped, and strung, and kept carefully in tune; no easy matter in +surroundings little suited to delicate instruments and delicate music. +Possessing it, we possess, in the only true sense of possession, the +whole world. For going along our way, whether rough or even, there are +formed within us, singing the beauty and wonder of _what is_ or _what +should_ be, mysterious sequences and harmonies of notes, new every +time, answering to the primaeval everlasting affinities between +ourselves and all things; our souls becoming musical under the touch +of the universe. + +Let us bear this in mind, this symbol of the lyre which Abbot Joachim +allowed as sole property to the man of spiritual life. And let us +remember that, as I tried to show in my previous chapter, the true +Lover of the Beautiful, active, self-restrained, and indifferent to +lower pleasures and interests, is in one sense your man of real +spiritual life. For the symbol of Abbot Joachim's lyre will make it +easier to follow my meaning, and easier to forestall it, while I try +to convince you that art, and all aesthetic activity, is important as a +type of the only kind of pleasure which reasonable beings should admit +of, the kind of pleasure which tends not to diminish by wastefulness +and exclusive appropriation, but to increase by sympathy, the possible +pleasures of other persons. + + +III. + +'Tis no excessive puritanism to say that while pleasure, in the +abstract, is a great, perhaps the greatest, good; pleasures, our +actual pleasures in the concrete, are very often evil. + +Many of the pleasures which we allow ourselves, and which all the +world admits our right to, happen to be such as waste wealth and time, +make light of the advantage of others, and of the good of our own +souls. This fact does not imply either original sinfulness or +degeneracy--religious and scientific terms for the same thing--in poor +mankind. It means merely that we are all of us as yet very undeveloped +creatures; the majority, moreover, less developed than the minority, +and the bulk of each individual's nature very much in the rear of his +own aspirations and definitions. Mankind, in the process of adapting +itself to external circumstances, has perforce evolved a certain +amount of intellectual and moral quality; but that intellectual and +moral quality is, so far, merely a means for rendering material +existence endurable; it will have to become itself the origin and aim +of what we must call a spiritual side of life. In the meanwhile, human +beings do not get any large proportion of their enjoyment from what +they admit to be their nobler side. + +Hence it is that even when you have got rid of the mere struggle for +existence--fed, clothed, and housed your civilised savage, and secured +food, clothes, and shelter for his brood--you have by no means +provided against his destructive, pain-giving activities. He has spare +time and energy; and these he will devote, ten to one, to recreations +involving, at the best, the slaughter of harmless creatures; at the +worst, to the wasting of valuable substance, of what might be other +people's food; or else to the hurting of other people's feelings in +various games of chance or skill, particularly in the great skilled +game of brag called "Society." + +Our gentlemanly ancestors, indeed, could not amuse themselves without +emptying a certain number of bottles and passing some hours under the +table; while our nimble-witted French neighbours, we are told, +included in their expenditure on convivial amusements a curious item +called _la casse_, to wit, the smashing of plates and glasses. The +Spaniards, on the other hand, have bull-fights, most shocking +spectacles, as we know, for we make it a point to witness them when +we are over there. Undoubtedly we have immensely improved in such +matters, but we need a great deal of further improvement. Most people +are safe only when at work, and become mischievous when they begin to +play. They do not know how to _kill time_ (for that is the way in +which we poor mortals regard life) without incidentally killing +something else: proximately birds and beasts, and their neighbours' +good fame; more remotely, but as surely, the constitution of their +descendants, and the possible wages of the working classes. + +It is quite marvellous how little aptness there is in the existing +human being for taking pleasure either in what already exists ready to +hand, or in the making of something which had better be there; in what +can be enjoyed without diminishing the enjoyment of others, as nature, +books, art, thought, and the better qualities of one's neighbours. In +fact, one reason why there is something so morally pleasant in cricket +and football and rowing and riding and dancing, is surely that they +furnish on the physical plane the counterpart of what is so sadly +lacking on the spiritual: amusements which do good to the individual +and no harm to his fellows. + +Of course, in our state neither of original sinfulness nor of +degeneracy, but of very imperfect development, it is still useless and +absurd to tell people to make use of intellectual and moral resources +which they have not yet got. It is as vain to preach to the majority +of the well-to-do the duty of abstinence from wastefulness, rivalry, +and ostentation as it is vain to preach to the majority of the +badly-off abstinence from alcohol; without such pleasures their life +would be unendurably insipid. + +But inevitable as is such evil in the present, it inevitably brings +its contingent of wretchedness; and it is therefore the business of +all such as _could_ become the forerunners of a better state of things +to refuse to follow the lead of their inferiors. Exactly because the +majority is still so hopelessly wasteful and mischievous, does it +behove the minority not merely to work to some profit, but to play +without damage. To do this should become the mark of Nature's +aristocracy, a sign of liberality of spiritual birth and breeding, a +question of _noblesse oblige_. + + +IV. + +And here comes in the immense importance of Art as a type of pleasure: +of Art in the sense of aesthetic appreciation even more than of +aesthetic creation; of Art considered as the extracting and combining +of beauty in the mind of the obscure layman quite as much as the +embodiment of such extracted and combined beauty in the visible or +audible work of the great artist. + +For experience of true aesthetic activity must teach us, in proportion +as it is genuine and ample, that the enjoyment of the beautiful is not +merely independent of, but actually incompatible with, that tendency +to buy our satisfaction at the expense of others which remains more or +less in all of us as a survival from savagery. The reasons why genuine +aesthetic feeling inhibits these obsolescent instincts of rapacity and +ruthlessness, are reasons negative and positive, and may be roughly +divided into three headings. Only one of them is generally admitted to +exist, and of it, therefore, I shall speak very briefly, I mean the +fact that the enjoyment of beautiful things is originally and +intrinsically one of those which are heightened by sharing. We know it +instinctively when, as children, we drag our comrades and elders to +the window when a regiment passes or a circus parades by; we learn it +more and more as we advance in life, and find that we must get other +people to see the pictures, to hear the music, to read the books which +we admire. It is a case of what psychologists call the _contagion of +emotion_, by which the feeling of one individual is strengthened by +the expression of similar feeling in his neighbour, and is explicable, +most likely, by the fact that the greatest effort is always required +to overcome original inertness, and that two efforts, like two horses +starting a carriage instead of one, combined give more than double the +value of each taken separately. The fact of this aesthetic sociability +is so obvious that we need not discuss it any further, but merely hold +it over to add, at last, to the result of the two other reasons, +negative and positive, which tend to make aesthetic enjoyment the type +of unselfish, nay, even of altruistic pleasure. + + +V. + +The first of these reasons, the negative one, is that aesthetic +pleasure is not in the least dependent upon the fact of personal +ownership, and that it therefore affords an opportunity of leaving +inactive, of beginning to atrophy by inactivity, the passion for +exclusive possession, for individual advantage, which is at the bottom +of all bad luxury, of all ostentation, and of nearly all rapacity. But +before entering on this discussion I would beg my reader to call to +mind that curious saying of Abbot Joachim's; and to consider that I +wish to prove that, like his true monk, the true aesthete, who nowadays +loves and praises creation much as the true monk did in former +centuries, can really possess as sole personal possession only a +musical instrument--to wit, his own well-strung and resonant soul. +Having said this, we will proceed to the question of Luxury, by which +I mean the possession of such things as minister only to weakness and +vanity, of such things as we cannot reasonably hope that all men may +some day equally possess. + +When we are young--and most of us remain mere withered children, never +attaining maturity, in similar matters--we are usually attracted by +luxury and luxurious living. We are possessed by that youthful +instinct of union, fusion, marriage, so to speak, with what our soul +desires; we hanker after close contact and complete possession; and we +fancy, in our inexperience, that luxury, the accumulation of +valuables, the appropriation of opportunities, the fact of rejecting +from our life all that is not costly, brilliant, and dainty, implies +such fusion of our soul with beauty. + +But, as we reach maturity, we find that this is all delusion. We +learn, from the experience of occasions when our soul has truly +possessed the beautiful, or been possessed by it, that if such union +with the harmony of outer things is rare, perhaps impossible, among +squalor and weariness, it is difficult and anomalous in the condition +which we entitle luxury. + +We learn that our assimilation of beauty, and that momentary renewal +of our soul which it effects, rarely arises from our own ownership; +but comes, taking us by surprise, in presence of hills, streams, +memories of pictures, poets' words, and strains of music, which are +not, and cannot be, our property. The essential character of beauty is +its being a relation between ourselves and certain objects. The +emotion to which we attach its name is produced, motived by something +outside us, pictures, music, landscape, or whatever it may be; but the +emotion resides in us, and it is the emotion, and not merely its +object, which we desire. Hence material possession has no aesthetic +meaning. We possess a beautiful object with our soul; the possession +thereof with our hands or our legal rights brings us no nearer the +beauty. Ownership, in this sense, may empower us to destroy or hide +the object and thus cheat others of the possession of its beauty, but +does not help _us_ to possess that beauty. It is with beauty as with +that singer who answered Catherine II., "Your Majesty's policemen can +make me _scream_, but they cannot make me _sing_;" and she might have +added, for my parallel, "Your policemen, great Empress, even could +they make _me_ sing, would not be able to make _you_ hear." + + +VI. + +Hence all strong aesthetic feeling will always prefer ownership of the +mental image to ownership of the tangible object. And any desire for +material appropriation or exclusive enjoyment will be merely so much +weakening and adulteration of the aesthetic sentiment. Since the mental +image, the only thing aesthetically possessed, is in no way diminished +or damaged by sharing; nay, we have seen that by one of the most +gracious coincidences between beauty and kindliness, the aesthetic +emotion is even intensified by the knowledge of co-existence in +others: the delight in each person communicating itself, like a +musical third, fifth, or octave, to the similar yet different delight +in his neighbour, harmonic enriching harmonic by stimulating fresh +vibration. + +If, then, we wish to possess casts, copies, or photographs of certain +works of art, this is, aesthetically considered, exactly as we wish to +have the means--railway tickets, permissions for galleries, and so +forth--of seeing certain pictures or statues as often as we wish. For +we feel that the images in our mind require renewing, or that, in +combination with other more recently acquired images, they will, if +renewed, yield a new kind of delight. But this is quite another matter +from wishing to own the material object, the thing we call _work of +art itself_, forgetting that it is a work of art only for the soul +capable of instating it as such. + +Thus, in every person who truly cares for beauty, there is a necessary +tendency to replace the illusory legal act of ownership by the real +spiritual act of appreciation. Charles Lamb already expressed this +delightfully in the essay on the old manor-house. Compared with his +possession of its beauties, its walks, tapestried walls and family +portraits, nay, even of the ghosts of former proprietors, the +possession by the legal owner was utterly nugatory, unreal: + + "Mine too, Blakesmoor, was thy noble Marble Hall, with its mosaic + pavements, and its twelve Caesars;... mine, too, thy lofty Justice + Hall, with its one chair of authority.... Mine, too--whose + else?--thy costly fruit-garden ... thy ampler pleasure-garden ... + thy firry wilderness.... I was the true descendant of those old + W----'s, and not the present family of that name, who had fled the + old waste places." + +How often have not some of us felt like that; and how much might not +those of us who never have, learn, could they learn, from those words +of Elia? + + +VII. + +I have spoken of _material, actual_ possession. But if we look closer +at it we shall see that, save with regard to the things which are +actually consumed, destroyed, disintegrated, changed to something else +in their enjoyment, the notion of ordinary possession is a mere +delusion. It can be got only by a constant obtrusion of a mere idea, +the _idea of self_, and of such unsatisfactory ideas as one's right, +for instance, to exclude others. 'Tis like the tension of a muscle, +this constant keeping the consciousness aware by repeating +"Mine--mine--_mine_ and not _theirs_; not _theirs_, but _mine_." And +this wearisome act of self-assertion leaves little power for +appreciation, for the appreciation which others can have quite +equally, and without which there is no reality at all in ownership. + +Hence, the deeper our enjoyment of beauty, the freer shall we become +of the dreadful delusion of exclusive appropriation, despising such +unreal possession in proportion as we have tasted the real one. We +shall know the two kinds of ownership too well apart to let ourselves +be cozened into cumbering our lives with material properties and their +responsibilities. We shall save up our vigour, not for obtaining and +keeping (think of the thousand efforts and cares of ownership, even +the most negative) the things which yield happy impressions, but for +receiving and storing up and making capital of those impressions. We +shall seek to furnish our mind with beautiful thoughts, not our houses +with pretty things. + + +VIII. + +I hope I have made clear enough that aesthetic enjoyment is hostile to +the unkind and wasteful pleasures of selfish indulgence and selfish +appropriation, because the true possession of the beautiful things of +Nature, of Art, and of thought is spiritual, and neither damages, nor +diminishes, nor hoards them; because the lover of the beautiful seeks +for beautiful impressions and remembrances, which are vested in his +soul, and not in material objects. That is the negative benefit of the +love of the beautiful. Let us now proceed to the positive and active +assistance which it renders, when genuine and thorough-paced, to such +thought as we give to the happiness and dignity of others. + + +IX. + +I have said that our pleasure in the beautiful is essentially a +spiritual phenomenon, one, I mean, which deals with our own +perceptions and emotions, altering the contents of our mind, while +leaving the beautiful object itself intact and unaltered. This being +the case, it is easy to understand that our aesthetic pleasure will be +complete and extensive in proportion to the amount of activity of our +soul; for, remember, all pleasure is proportionate to activity, and, +as I said in my first chapter, great beauty does not merely _take us_, +but _we_ must give _ourselves to it_. Hence, an increase in the +capacity for aesthetic pleasure will mean, _caeeteris paribus_, an +increase in a portion of our spiritual activity, a greater readiness +to take small hints, to connect different items, to reject the lesser +good for the greater. Moreover, a great, perhaps the greater, part of +our aesthetic pleasure is due, as I also told you before, to the +storing of impressions in our mind, and to the combining of them there +with other impressions. Indeed, it is for this reason that I have made +no difference, save in intensity between aesthetic creation, so called, +and aesthetic appreciation; telling you, on the contrary, that the +artistic layman creates, produces something new and personal, only in +a less degree than the professed artist. + +For the aesthetic life does not consist merely in the perception of the +beautiful object, not merely in the emotion of that spiritual contact +between the beautiful product of art or of nature and the soul of the +appreciator: it is continued in the emotions and images and thoughts +which are awakened by that perception; and the aesthetic life _is_ +life, is something continuous and organic, just because new forms, +however obscure and evanescent, are continually born, in their turn +continually to give birth, of that marriage between the beautiful +thing outside and the beautiful soul within. + +Hence, full aesthetic life means the creating and extending of ever new +harmonies in the mind of the layman, the unconscious artist who merely +enjoys, as a result of the creating and extending of new harmonies in +the work of the professed artist who consciously creates. This being +the case, the true aesthete is for ever seeking to reduce his +impressions and thoughts to harmony; and is for ever, accordingly, +being pleased with some of them, and disgusted with others. + + +X. + +The desire for beauty and harmony, therefore, in proportion as it +becomes active and sensitive, explores into every detail, establishes +comparisons between everything, judges, approves, and disapproves; and +makes terrible and wholesome havoc not merely in our surroundings, but +in our habits and in our lives. And very soon the mere thought of +something ugly becomes enough to outweigh the actual presence of +something beautiful. I was told last winter at San Remo, that the +scent of the Parma violet can be distilled only by the oil of the +flower being passed through a layer of pork fat; and since that +revelation violet essence has lost much of the charm it possessed for +me: the thought of the suet counterbalanced the reality of the +perfume. + +Now this violet essence, thus obtained, is symbolic of many of the +apparently refined enjoyments of our life. We shall find that luxury +and pomp, delightful sometimes in themselves, are distilled through a +layer of coarse and repulsive labour by other folk; and the thought of +the pork suet will spoil the smell of the violets. For the more dishes +we have for dinner, the greater number of cooking-pots will have to be +cleaned; the more carriages and horses we use, the more washing and +grooming will result; the more crowded our rooms with furniture and +nicknacks, the more dust will have to be removed; the more numerous +and delicate our clothes, the more brushing and folding there will +be; and the more purely ornamental our own existence, the less +ornamental will be that of others. + +There is a _pensee_ of Pascal's to the effect that a fop carries on +his person the evidence of the existence of so many people devoted to +his service. This thought may be delightful to a fop; but it is not +pleasant to a mind sensitive to beauty and hating the bare thought of +ugliness: for while vanity takes pleasure in lack of harmony between +oneself and one's neighbour, aesthetic feeling takes pleasure only in +harmonious relations. The thought of the servile lives devoted to make +our life more beautiful counterbalances the pleasure of the beauty; +'tis the eternal question of the violet essence and the pork suet. Now +the habit of beauty, the aesthetic sense, becomes, as I said, more and +more sensitive and vivacious; you cannot hide from it the knowledge of +every sort of detail, you cannot prevent its noticing the ugly side, +the ugly lining of certain pretty things. 'Tis a but weak and sleepy +kind of aestheticism which "blinks and shuts its apprehension up" at +your bidding, which looks another way discreetly, and discreetly +refrains from all comparisons. The real aesthetic activity _is_ an +activity; it is one of the strongest and most imperious powers of +human nature; it does not take orders, it only gives them. It is, when +full grown, a kind of conscience of beautiful and ugly, analogous to +the other conscience of right and wrong, and it is equally difficult +to silence. If you can silence your aesthetic faculty and bid it be +satisfied with the lesser beauty, the lesser harmony, instead of the +greater, be sure that it is a very rudimentary kind of instinct; and +that you are no more thoroughly aesthetic than if you could make your +sense of right and wrong be blind and dumb at your convenience, you +could be thoroughly moral. + +Hence, the more aesthetic we become, the less we shall tolerate such +modes of living as involve dull and dirty work for others, as involve +the exclusion of others from the sort of life which we consider +aesthetically tolerable. We shall require such houses and such habits +as can be seen, and, what is inevitable in all aesthetical development, +as can also be _thought of_, in all their details. We shall require a +homogeneous impression of decorum and fitness from the lives of others +as well as from our own, from what we actually see and from what we +merely know: the imperious demand for beauty, for harmony will be +applied no longer to our mere material properties, but to that other +possession which is always with us and can never be taken from us, the +images and feelings within our soul. Now, that other human beings +should be drudging sordidly in order that we may be idle and showy +means a thought, a vision, an emotion which do not get on in our mind +in company with the sight of sunset and sea, the taste of mountain air +and woodland freshness, the faces and forms of Florentine saints and +Antique gods, the serene poignancy of great phrases of music. This is +by no means all. Developing in aesthetic sensitiveness we grow to think +of ourselves also, our own preferences, moods and attitudes, as more +or less beautiful or ugly; the inner life falling under the same +criticism as the outer one. We become aristocratic and epicurean about +our desires and habits; we grow squeamish and impatient towards +luxury, towards all kinds of monopoly and privilege on account of the +mean attitude, the graceless gesture they involve on our own part. + + +XI. + +This feeling is increasing daily. Our deepest aesthetic emotions are, +we are beginning to recognise, connected with things which we do not, +cannot, possess in the vulgar sense. Nay, the deepest aesthetic +emotions depend, to an appreciable degree, on the very knowledge that +these things are either not such as money can purchase, or that they +are within the purchasing power of all. The sense of being shareable +by others, of being even shareable, so to speak, by other kinds of +utility, adds a very keen attraction to all beautiful things and +beautiful actions, and, of course, _vice versa_. And things which are +beautiful, but connected with luxury and exclusive possession, come to +affect one as, in a way, _lacking harmonics_, lacking those additional +vibrations of pleasure which enrich impressions of beauty by +impressions of utility and kindliness. + +Thus, after enjoying the extraordinary lovely tints--oleander pink, +silver-grey, and most delicate citron--of the plaster which covers the +commonest cottages, the humblest chapels, all round Genoa, there is +something _short and acid_ in the pleasure one derives from equally +charming colours in expensive dresses. Similarly, in Italy, much of +the charm of marble, of the sea-cave shimmer, of certain palace-yards +and churches, is due to the knowledge that this lovely, noble +substance is easy to cut and quarried in vast quantities hard by: no +wretched rarity like diamonds and rubies, which diminish by the worth +of a family's yearly keep if only the cutter cuts one hair-breadth +wrong! + +Again, is not one reason why antique sculpture awakens a state of mind +where stoicism, humaneness, simplicity, seem nearer possibilities--is +not one reason that it shows us the creature in its nakedness, in such +beauty and dignity as it can get through the grace of birth only? +There is no need among the gods for garments from silken Samarkand, +for farthingales of brocade and veils of Mechlin lace like those of +the wooden Madonnas of Spanish churches; no need for the ruffles and +plumes of Pascal's young beau, showing thereby the number of his +valets. The same holds good of trees, water, mountains, and their +representation in poetry and painting; their dignity takes no account +of poverty or riches. Even the lilies of the field please us, not +because they toil not neither do they spin, but because they do not +require, while Solomon does, that other folk should toil and spin to +make them glorious. + + +XII. + +Again, do we not prefer the books which deal with habits simpler than +our own? Do we not love the Odyssey partly because of Calypso weaving +in her cave, and Nausicaa washing the clothes with her maidens? Does +it not lend additional divinity that Christianity should have arisen +among peasants and handicraftsmen? + +Nay more, do we not love certain objects largely because they are +useful; boats, nets, farm carts, ploughs; discovering therein a grace +which actually exists, but which might else have remained unsuspected? +And do we not feel a certain lack of significance and harmony of +fulness of aesthetic quality in our persons when we pass in our +idleness among people working in the fields, masons building, or +fishermen cleaning their boats and nets; whatever beauty such things +may have being enhanced by their being common and useful. + +In this manner our aesthetic instinct strains vaguely after a double +change: not merely giving affluence and leisure to others, but giving +simplicity and utility to ourselves? + + +XIII. + +And, even apart from this, does not all true aestheticism tend to +diminish labour while increasing enjoyment, because it makes the +already existing more sufficient, because it furthers the joys of the +spirit, which multiply by sharing, as distinguished from the pleasures +of vanity and greediness, which only diminish? + + +XIV. + +You may at first feel inclined to pooh-pooh the notion that mere love +of beauty can help to bring about a better distribution of the world's +riches; and reasonably object that we cannot feed people on images and +impressions which multiply by sharing; they live on bread, and not on +the _idea_ of bread. + +But has it ever struck you that, after all, the amount of material +bread--even if we extend the word to everything which is consumed for +bodily necessity and comfort--which any individual can consume is +really very small; and that the bad distribution, the shocking waste +of this material bread arises from being, so to speak, used +symbolically, used as spiritual bread, as representing those _ideas_ +for which men hunger: superiority over other folk, power of having +dependants, social position, ownership, and privilege of all kinds? +For what are the bulk of worldly possessions to their owners: houses, +parks, plate, jewels, superfluous expenditure of all kinds [and armies +and navies when we come to national wastefulness]--what are all these +ill-distributed riches save _ideas_, ideas futile and ungenerous, food +for the soul, but food upon which the soul grows sick and corrupteth? + +Would it not be worth while to reorganise this diet of ideas? To +reorganise that part of us which is independent of bodily sustenance +and health, which lives on spiritual commodities--the part of us +including ambition, ideal, sympathy, and all that I have called +_ideas_? Would it not be worth while to find such ideas as all people +can live upon without diminishing each other's share, instead of the +_ideas_, the imaginative satisfactions which each must refuse to his +neighbour, and about which, therefore, all of us are bound to fight +like hungry animals? Thus to reform our notions of what is valuable +and distinguished would bring about an economic reformation; or, if +other forces were needed, would make the benefits of such economic +reformation completer, its hardships easier to bear; and, altering our +views of loss and gain, lessen the destructive struggle of snatching +and holding. + +Now, as I have been trying to show, beauty, harmony, fitness, are of +the nature of the miraculous loaves and fishes: they can feed +multitudes and leave basketfuls for the morrow. + +But the desire for such spiritual food is, you will again object, +itself a rarity, a product of leisure and comfort, almost a luxury. + +Quite true. And you will remember, perhaps, that I have already +remarked that they are not to be expected either from the poor in +material comfort, nor from the poor in soul, since both of these are +condemned, the first by physical wretchedness, the second by spiritual +inactivity, to fight only for larger shares of material bread; with +the difference that this material bread is eaten by the poor, and made +into very ugly symbols of glory by the rich. + +But, among those of us who are neither hungry nor vacuous, there is +not, generally speaking, much attempt to make the best of our +spiritual privileges. We teach our children, as we were taught +ourselves, to give importance only to the fact of exclusiveness, +expense, rareness, already necessarily obtruded far too much by our +struggling, imperfect civilisation. We are indeed angry with little +boys and girls if they enquire too audibly whether certain people are +rich or certain things cost much money, as little boys and girls are +apt to do in their very far from innocence; but we teach them by our +example to think about such things every time we stretch a point in +order to appear richer or smarter than we are. While, on the contrary, +we rarely insist upon the intrinsic qualities for which things are +really valuable, without which no trouble or money would be spent on +them, without which their difficulty of obtaining would, as in the +case of Dr. Johnson's musical performance, become identical with +impossibility. I wonder how many people ever point out to a child that +the water in a tank may be more wonderful and beautiful in its beryls +and sapphires and agates than all the contents of all the jewellers' +shops in Bond Street? Moreover, we rarely struggle against the +standards of fashion in our habits and arrangements; which standards, +in many cases, are those of our ladies' maids, butlers, tradesfolk, +and in all cases the standards of our less intelligent neighbours. +Nay, more, we sometimes actually cultivate in ourselves, we superfine +and aesthetic creatures, a preference for such kinds of enjoyment as +are exclusive and costly; we allow ourselves to be talked into the +notion that solitary egoism, laborious self-assertion of ownership (as +in the poor mad Ludwig of Bavaria) is a badge of intellectual +distinction. We cherish a desire for the new-fangled and far-fetched, +the something no other has had before; little suspecting, or +forgetting, that to extract more pleasure not less, to enjoy the same +things longer, and to be able to extract more enjoyment out of more +things, is the sign of aesthetic vigour. + + +XV. + +Still, on the whole, such as can care for beautiful things and +beautiful thoughts are beginning to care for them more fully, and are +growing, undoubtedly, in a certain moral sensitiveness which, as I +have said, is coincident with aesthetic development. + +This strikes me every time that I see or think about a certain +priest's house on a hillside by the Mediterranean: a little house +built up against the village church, and painted and roofed, like the +church, a most delicate grey, against which the yellow of the +spalliered lemons sings out in exquisite intensity; alongside, a wall +with flower pots, and dainty white curtains to the windows. Such a +house and the life possible in it are beginning, for many of us, to +become the ideal, by whose side all luxury and worldly grandeur +becomes insipid or vulgar. For such a house as this embodies the +possibility of living with grace and decorum _throughout_ by dint of +loving carefulness and self-restraining simplicity. I say with grace +and decorum _throughout_, because all things which might beget +ugliness in the life of others, or ugliness in our own attitude +towards others, would be eliminated, thrown away like the fossil which +Thoreau threw away because it collected dust. Moreover, such a life as +this is such as all may reasonably hope to have; may, in some more +prosperous age, obtain because it involves no hoarding of advantage +for self or excluding therefrom of others. + +And such a life we ourselves may attain at least in the spirit, if we +become strenuous and faithful lovers of the beautiful, aesthetes and +ascetics who recognise that their greatest pleasure, their only true +possessions are in themselves; knowing the supreme value of their own +soul, even as was foreshadowed by the Abbot Joachim of Flora, when he +said that the true monk can hold no property except his lyre. + + + + +HIGHER HARMONIES. + + +I. + + "To use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts + upwards, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, + and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair + notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of + absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is; + this, my dear Socrates," said the prophetess of Mantineia, "is + that life, above all others, which man should live, in the + contemplation of beauty absolute. Do you not see that in that + communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will + be enabled to bring forth not images of beauty, but realities; for + he has hold not of an image, but of a reality; and bringing forth + and educating true virtue to become the friend of God, and be + immortal, if mortal man may?" + + +Such are the aesthetics of Plato, put into the mouth of that mysterious +Diotima, who was a wise woman in many branches of knowledge. As we +read them nowadays we are apt to smile with incredulity not unmixed +with bitterness. Is all this not mere talk, charming and momentarily +elating us like so much music; itself mere beauty which, because we +like it, we half voluntarily confuse with _truth_? And, on the other +hand, is not the truth of aesthetics, the bare, hard fact, a very +different matter? For we have learned that we human creatures will +never know the absolute or the essence, that notions, which Plato took +for realities, are mere relative conceptions; that virtue and truth +are social ideals and intellectual abstractions, while beauty is a +quality found primarily and literally only in material existences and +sense-experiences; and every day we are hearing of new discoveries +connecting our aesthetic emotions with the structure of eye and ear, +the movement of muscles, the functions of nerve centres, nay, even +with the action of heart and lungs and viscera. Moreover, all round us +schools of criticism and cliques of artists are telling us forever +that so far from bringing forth and educating true virtue, art has the +sovereign power, by mere skill and subtlety, of investing good and +evil, healthy and unwholesome, with equal merit, and obliterating the +distinctions drawn by the immortal gods, instead of helping the +immortal gods to their observance. + +Thus we are apt to think, and to take the words of Diotima as merely +so much lovely rhetoric. But--as my previous chapters must have led +you to expect--I think we are so far mistaken. I believe that, +although explained in the terms of fantastic, almost mythical +metaphysic, the speech of Diotima contains a great truth, deposited in +the heart of man by the unnoticed innumerable experiences of centuries +and peoples; a truth which exists in ourselves also as an instinctive +expectation, and which the advance of knowledge will confirm and +explain. For in that pellucid atmosphere of the Greek mind, untroubled +as yet by theoretic mists, there may have been visible the very things +which our scientific instruments are enabling us to see and +reconstruct piecemeal, great groupings of reality metamorphosed into +Fata Morgana cities seemingly built by the gods. + +And thus I am going to try to reinstate in others' belief, as it is +fully reinstated in my own, the theory of higher aesthetic harmonies, +which the prophetess of Mantineia taught Socrates: to wit, that +through the contemplation of true beauty we may attain, by the +constant purification--or, in more modern language, the constant +selecting and enriching--of our nature, to that which transcends +material beauty; because the desire for harmony begets the habit of +harmony, and the habit thereof begets its imperative desire, and thus +on in never-ending alternation. + + +II. + +Perhaps the best way of expounding my reasons will be to follow the +process by which I reached them; for so far from having started with +the theory of Diotima, I found the theory of Diotima, when I re-read +it accidentally after many years' forgetfulness, to bring to +convergence the result of my gradual experience. + + * * * * * + +Thinking about the Hermes of Olympia, and the fact that so far he is +pretty well the only Greek statue which historical evidence +unhesitatingly gives us as an original masterpiece, it struck me that, +could one become really familiar with him, could eye and soul learn +all the fulness of his perfection, we should have the true +starting-point for knowledge of the antique, for knowledge, in great +measure, of all art. + +Yes, and of more than art, or rather of art in more than one relation. + +Is this a superstition, a mere myth, perhaps, born of words? I think +not. Surely if we could really arrive at knowing such a masterpiece, +so as to feel rather than see its most intimate organic principles, +and the great main reasons separating it from all inferior works and +making it be itself: could we do this, we should know not merely what +art is and should be, but, in a measure, what life should be and might +become: what are the methods of true greatness, the sensations of true +sanity. + +It would teach us the eternal organic strivings and tendencies of our +soul, those leading in the direction of life, leading away from death. + +If this seems mere allegory and wild talk, let us look at facts and +see what art is. For is not art inasmuch as untroubled by the +practical difficulties of existence, inasmuch as the free, unconscious +attempt of all nations and generations to satisfy, outside life, those +cravings which life still leaves unsatisfied--is not art a delicate +instrument, showing in its sensitive oscillations the most intimate +movements and habits of the soul? Does it not reveal our most +recondite necessities and possibilities, by sifting and selecting, +reinforcing or attenuating, the impressions received from without; +showing us thereby how we must stand towards nature and life, how we +must feel and be? + +And this most particularly in those spontaneous arts which, first in +the field, without need of adaptations of material or avoidance of the +already done, without need of using up the rejected possibilities of +previous art, or awakening yet unknown emotions, are the simple, +straightforward expression, each the earliest satisfactory one in its +own line, of the long unexpressed, long integrated, organic wants and +wishes of great races of men: the arts, for instance, which have given +us that Hermes, Titian's pictures, and Michael Angelo's and Raphael's +frescoes; given us Bach, Gluck, Mozart, the serener parts of +Beethoven, music of yet reserved pathos, braced, spring-like strength, +learned, select: arts which never go beyond the universal, averaged +expression of the soul's desires, because the desires themselves are +sifted, limited to the imperishable and unchangeable, like the +artistic methods which embody them, reduced to the essential by the +long delay of utterance, the long--century long--efforts to utter. + +Becoming intimate with such a statue as the Olympian Hermes, and +comparing the impressions received from it with the impressions both +of inferior works of the same branch of art and with the impressions +of equally great works--pictures, buildings, musical compositions--of +other branches of art, becoming conversant with the difference between +an original and a copy, great art and poor art, we gradually become +aware of a quality which exists in all good art and is absent in all +bad art, and without whose presence those impressions summed up as +beauty, dignity, grandeur, are never to be had. This peculiarity, +which most people perceive and few people define--explaining it away +sometimes as _truth_, or taking it for granted under the name of +_quality_--this peculiarity I shall call for convenience' sake +harmony; for I think you will all of you admit that the absence or +presence of harmony is what distinguishes bad art from good. Harmony, +in this sense--and remember that it is this which connoisseurs most +usually allude to as _quality_--harmony may be roughly defined as the +organic correspondence between the various parts of a work of art, the +functional interchange and interdependence thereof. In this sense there +is harmony in every really living thing, for otherwise it could not live. +If the muscles and limbs, nay, the viscera and tissues, did not adjust +themselves to work together, if they did not in this combination +establish a rhythm, a backward-forward, contraction-relaxation, +taking-in-giving-out, diastole-systole in all their movements, there +would be, instead of a living organism, only an inert mass. In all +living things, and just in proportion as they are really alive (for in +most real things there is presumably some defect of rhythm tending to +stoppage of life), there is bound to be this organic interdependence +and interchange. Natural selection, the survival of such individuals +and species as best work in with, are most rhythmical to, their +surroundings--natural selection sees to that. + + +III. + +In art the place of natural selection is taken by man's selection; and +all forms of art which man keeps and does not send into limbo, all art +which man finds suitable to his wants, rhythmical with his habits, +must have that same quality of interdependence of parts, of +interchange of function. Only in the case of art, the organic +necessity refers not to outer surroundings, but to man's feeling; in +fact, man's emotion constitutes necessity towards art, as surrounding +nature constitutes necessity for natural objects. Now man requires +organic harmony, that is, congruity and co-ordination of processes, +because his existence, the existence of every cell of him, depends +upon it, is one complete microcosm of interchange, of give-and-take, +diastole-systole, of rhythm and harmony; and therefore all such things +as give him impressions of the reverse thereof, go against him, and in +a greater or lesser degree, threaten, disturb, paralyse, in a way +poison or maim him. Hence he is for ever seeking such congruity, such +harmony; and his artistic creativeness is conditioned by the desire +for it, nay, is perhaps mainly seeking to obtain it. Whenever he +spontaneously and truly creates artistic forms, he obeys the imperious +vital instinct for congruity; nay, he seeks to eke out the +insufficient harmony between himself and the things which he _cannot_ +command, the insufficient harmony between the uncontrollable parts of +himself, by a harmony created on purpose in the things which he _can_ +control. To a large extent man feels himself tortured by discordant +impressions coming from the world outside and the world inside him; +and he seeks comfort and medicine in harmonious impressions of his own +making, in his own strange inward-outward world of art. + +This, I think, is the true explanation of that much-disputed-over +_ideal_, which, according to definitions, is perpetually being +enthroned and dethroned as the ultimate aim of all art: the ideal, +the imperatively clamoured-for mysterious something, is neither +conformity to an abstract idea, nor conformity to actual reality, nor +conformity to the typical, nor conformity to the individual; it is, I +take it, simply conformity to man's requirements, to man's inborn and +peremptory demand for greater harmony, for more perfect co-ordination +and congruity in his feelings. + +Now, when, in the exercise of the artistic instincts, mankind are +partially obeying some other call than this one--the desire for money, +fame, or for some intellectual formula--things are quite different, +and there is no production of what I have called harmony. There is no +congruity when even great people set about doing pseudo-antique +sculpture in Canova-Thorwaldsen fashion because Winckelmann and Goethe +have made antique sculpture fashionable; there is no congruity when +people set to building pseudo-Gothic in obedience to the romantic +movement and to Ruskin. For neither the desire for making a mark, nor +the most conscientious pressure of formula gives that instinct of +selection and co-ordination characterising even the most rudimentary +artistic efforts in the most barbarous ages, when men are impelled +merely and solely by the aesthetic instinct. Moreover, where people do +not want and need (as they want and need food or drink or warmth or +coolness) one sort of effect, that is to say, one arrangement of +impressions rather than another, they are sure to be deluded by the +mere arbitrary classification, the mere _names_ of things. They will +think that smooth cheeks, wavy hair, straight noses, limbs of such or +such measure, attitude, and expression, set so, constitute the +Antique; that clustered pillars, cross vaulting, spandrils, and Tudor +roses make Gothic. But the Antique quality is the particular and all +permeating relation between all its items; and Gothic the particular +and all permeating relation between those other ones; and unless you +aim at the _specific emotion_ of Antique or Gothic, unless you feel +the imperious call for the special harmony of either, all the +measurements and all the formulas will not avail. While, on the +contrary, people without any formula or any attempt at imitation, like +the Byzantine architects and those of the fifteenth century, merely +because they are obeying their own passionate desire for congruity of +impressions, for harmony of structure and function, will succeed in +creating brand-new, harmonious, organic art out of the actual details, +sometimes the material ruins, of an art which has passed away. + +If we become intimate with any great work of art, and intimate in so +far with the thoughts and emotions it awakens in ourselves, we shall +find that it possesses, besides this congruity within itself which +assimilates it to all really living things, a further congruity, not +necessarily found in real objects, but which forms the peculiarity of +the work of art, a congruity with ourselves; for the great work of art +is vitally connected with the habits and wants, the whole causality +and rhythm of mankind; it has been fitted thereto as the boat to the +sea. + + +IV. + +In this manner can we learn from art the chief secret of life: the +secret of action and reaction, of causal connection, of suitability of +part to part, of organism, interchange, and growth. + +And when I say _learn_, I mean learn in the least official and the +most efficacious way. I do not mean merely that, looking at a statue +like the Hermes, a certain fact is borne in upon our intelligence, the +fact of all vitality being dependent on harmony. I mean that perhaps, +nay probably, without any such formula, our whole nature becomes +accustomed to a certain repeated experience, our whole nature becomes +adapted thereunto, and acts and reacts in consequence, by what we call +intuition, instinct. It is not with our intellect alone that we +possess such a fact, as we might intellectually possess that twice two +is four, or that Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII., knowing +casually what we may casually also forget; we possess, in such a way +that forgetting becomes impossible, with our whole soul and our whole +being, re-living that fact with every breath that we draw, with every +movement we make, the first great lesson of art, that vitality means +harmony. Let us look at this fact, and at its practical applications, +apart from all aesthetic experience. + +All life is harmony; and all improvement in ourselves is therefore, +however unconsciously, the perceiving, the realising, or the +establishing of harmonies, more minute or more universal. Yes, curious +and unpractical as it may seem, harmonies, or, under their humbler +separate names--arrangements, schemes, classifications, are the chief +means for getting the most out of all things, and particularly the +most out of ourselves. + +For they mean, first of all, unity of means for the attaining of unity +of effect, that is to say, incalculable economy of material, of time, +and of effort; and secondly, unity of effect produced, that is to say, +economy even greater in our power of perceiving and feeling: nothing +to eliminate, nothing against whose interruptions we waste our energy, +our power of becoming more fit in the course of striving. + +When there exists harmony one impression leads to, enhances another; +we, on the other hand, unconsciously recognise at once what is doing +to us, what we in return must do; the mood is indicated, fulfilled, +consummated; in plenitude we feel, we are; and in plenitude of feeling +and being, we, in our turn, _do_. Neither is such habit of harmony, of +scheme, of congruity, a mere device for sucking the full sweetness out +of life, although, heaven knows, that were important enough. As much +as such a habit husbands, and in a way multiplies, life's sweetness; +so likewise does it husband and multiply man's power. For there is no +quicker and more thorough mode of selecting among our feelings and +thoughts than submitting them to a standard of congruity; nothing more +efficacious than the question: "Is such or such a notion or proceeding +harmonious with what we have made the rest of our life, with what we +wish our life to be?" This is, in other words, the power of the +_ideal_, the force of _ideas_, of thought-out, recognised habits, as +distinguished from blind helter-skelter impulse. This is what welds +life into one, making its forces work not in opposition but in +concordance; this is what makes life consecutive, using the earlier +act to produce the later, tying together existence in an organic +fatality of _must be_: the fatality not of the outside and the +unconscious, but of the conscious, inner, upper man. Nay, it is what +makes up the _Ego_. For the _ego_, as we are beginning to understand, +is no mysterious separate entity, still less a succession of +disconnected, conflicting, blind impulses; the _ego_ is the congruous, +perceived, nay, thought-out system of habits, which feels all +incongruity towards itself as accidental and external. Hence, when we +ask which are the statements we believe in, we answer instinctively +(logic being but a form of congruity) those statements which accord +with themselves and with other statements; when we ask, which are the +persons we trust? we answer, those persons whose feelings and actions +are congruous with themselves and with the feelings and actions of +others. And, on the contrary, it is in the worthless, in the +degenerate creature, that we note moods which are destructive to one +another's object, ideas which are in flagrant contradiction; and it is +in the idiot, the maniac, the criminal, that we see thoughts +disconnected among themselves, perceptions disconnected with +surrounding objects, and instincts and habits incompatible with those +of other human beings. Nay, if we look closely, we shall recognise, +moreover, that those emotions of pleasure are the healthy, the safe +ones, which are harmonious not merely in themselves (as a musical note +is composed of even vibrations), but harmonious with all preceding and +succeeding pleasures in ourselves, and harmonious, congruous, with the +present and future pleasures in others. + + +V. + +The instinct of congruity, of subordination of part to whole, the +desire for harmony which is fostered above all things by art, is one +of the most precious parts of our nature, if only, obeying its own +tendency to expand, we apply it to ever wider circles of being; not +merely to the accessories of living, but to life itself. + +For this love of harmony and order leads us to seek what is most +necessary in our living: a selection of the congruous, an arrangement +of the mutually dependent in our thoughts and feelings. + +Much of the work of the universe is done, no doubt, by what seems the +exercise of mere random energy, by the thinking of apparently +disconnected thoughts and the feeling of apparently sporadic impulses; +but if the thought and the impulse remained really disconnected and +sporadic, half would be lost and half would be distorted. It is one of +the economical adaptations of nature that every part of us tends not +merely to be consistent with itself, to eliminate the hostile, to +beget the similar, but tends also to be connected with other parts; so +that, action coming in contact with action, thought in contact with +thought, and feeling in contact with feeling, each single one will be +strengthened or neutralised by the other. And it is the especial +business of what we may call the central consciousness, the dominant +thought or emotion, to bring these separate thoughts and impulses, +these separate groups thereof, into more complex relations, to +continue on a far vaster scale that vital contact, that trying of all +things by the great trial of affinity or repulsion, of congruity or +incongruity. Thus we make trial of ourselves; and by the selfsame +process, by the test of affinity and congruity, the silent forces of +the universe make trial of _us_, rejecting or accepting, allowing us, +our thoughts, our feelings to live and be fruitful, or condemning us +and them to die in barrenness. + +Whither are we going? In what shape shall the various members of our +soul proceed on their journey; which forming the van, which the rear +and centre? Or shall there be neither van, nor rear, nor wedge-like +forward flight? + +If this question remains unasked or unanswered, our best qualities, +our truest thoughts and purest impulses, may be hopelessly scattered +into distant regions, become defiled in bad company, or, at least, +barren in isolation; the universal life rejecting or annihilating +them. + +How often do we not see this! Natures whose various parts have rambled +asunder, or have come to live, like strangers in an inn, casually, +promiscuously, each refusing to be his brother's keeper: instincts of +kindliness at various ends, unconnected, unable to coalesce and conquer; +thoughts separated from their kind, incapable of application; and, in +consequence, strange superficial comradeships, shoulder-rubbings of +true and false, good and evil, become indifferent to one another, +incapable of looking each other in the face, careless, unblushing. +Nay, worse. For lack of all word of command, of all higher control, +hostile tendencies accommodating themselves to reign alternate, +sharing the individual in distinct halves, till he becomes like unto +that hero of Gautier's witch story, who was a pious priest one-half of +the twenty-four hours and a wicked libertine the other: all power of +selection, of reaction gone in this passive endurance of conflicting +tendencies; all identity gone, save a mere feeble outsider looking on +at the alternations of intentions and lapses, of good and bad. And the +soul of such a person--if, indeed, we can speak of one soul or one +person where there exists no unity--becomes like a jangle of notes +belonging to different tonalities, alternating and mingling in hideous +confusion for lack of a clear thread of melody, a consistent system of +harmony, to select, reject, and keep all things in place. + +Melody, harmony: the two great halves of the most purely aesthetic of +all arts, symbolise, as we might expect, the two great forces of life: +consecutiveness and congruity, under their different names of +intention, fitness, selection, adaptation. These are what make the +human soul like a conquering army, a fleet freighted with riches, a +band of priests celebrating a rite. And this is what art, by no paltry +formula, but by the indelible teaching of habit, of requirement, and +expectation become part of our very fibre--this is what art can teach +to those who will receive its highest lesson. + + +VI. + +Those who can receive that lesson, that is to say, those in whom it +can expand and ramify to the fulness and complexity which is its very +essence. For it happens frequently enough that we learn only a portion +of this truth, which by this means is distorted into error. We accept +the aesthetic instinct as a great force of Nature; but, instead of +acknowledging it as our master, as one of the great lords of life, of +whom Emerson spoke, we try to make it our servant. We attempt to get +congruity between the details of our everyday existence, and refuse to +seek for congruity between ourselves and the life which is greater +than ours. + +A friend of mine, who had many better ways of spending her money, was +unable one day to resist the temptation of buying a beautiful old +majolica inkstand, which, not without a slight qualm of conscience, +she put into a very delightful old room of her house. The room had an +inkstand already, but it was of glass, and modern. "This one is in +harmony with the rest of the room," she said, and felt fully justified +in her extravagance. It is this form, or rather this degree, of +aestheticism, which so often prevents our realising the higher aesthetic +harmonies. In obedience to a perception of what is congruous on a +small scale we often do oddly incongruous things: spend money we ought +to save, give time and thought to trifles while neglecting to come to +conclusions about matters of importance; endure, or even cultivate, +persons with whom we have less than no sympathy; nay, sometimes, from +a keen sense of incongruity, tune down our thoughts and feelings to +the flatness of our surroundings. The phenomenon of what may thus +result from a certain aesthetic sensitiveness is discouraging, and I +confess that it used to discourage and humiliate me. But the +philosophy which the prophetess of Mautineia taught Socrates settles +the matter, and solves, satisfactorily what in my mind I always think +of as the question of the majolica inkstand. + +Diotima, you will remember, did not allow her disciple to remain +engrossed in the contemplation of one kind of beauty, but particularly +insisted that he should use various fair forms as steps by which to +ascend to the knowledge of ever higher beauties. And this I should +translate into more practical language by saying that, in questions +like that of the majolica inkstand, we require not a lesser +sensitiveness to congruity, but a greater; that we must look not +merely at the smaller, but at the larger items of our life, asking +ourselves, "Is this harmonious? or is it, seen in some wider +connection, even like that clumsy glass inkstand in the oak panelled +and brocade hung room?" If we ask ourselves this, and endeavour to +answer it faithfully--with that truthfulness which is itself an item +of _consistency_--we may find that, strange as it may seem, the glass +inkstand, ugly as it is in itself, and out of harmony with the +furniture, is yet more congruous, and that we actually prefer it to +the one of majolica. + +And it is in connection with this that I think that many persons who +are really aesthetic, and many more who imagine themselves to be so, +should foster a wholesome suspicion of the theory which makes it a +duty to accumulate certain kinds of possessions, to seek exclusively +certain kinds of impressions, on the score of putting beauty and +dignity into our lives. + +Put beauty, dignity, harmony, serenity into our lives. It sounds very +fine. But _can_ we? I doubt it. We may put beautiful objects, +dignified manners, harmonious colours and shapes, but can we put +dignity, harmony, or beauty? Can we put them into an individual life; +can anything be put into an individual life save furniture and +garments, intellectual as well as material? For an individual life, +taken separately, is a narrow, weak thing at the very best; and +everything we can put into it, everything we lay hold of for the sake +of putting in, must needs be small also, merely the chips or dust of +great things; or if it have life, must be squeezed, cut down, made so +small before it can fit into that little receptacle of our egoism, +that it will speedily be a dead, dry thing: thoughts once thought, +feelings once felt, now neither thought nor felt, merely lying there +inert, as a dead fact, in our sterile self. Do we not see this on all +sides, examples of life into which all the dignified things have been +crammed and all the beautiful ones, and which despite the statues, +pictures, poems, and symphonies within its narrow compass, is yet so +far from dignified or beautiful? + +But we need not trouble about dignity and beauty coming to our life so +long as we veritably and thoroughly _live_; that is to say, so long as +we try not to put anything into our life, but to put our life into the +life universal. The true, expanding, multiplying life of the spirit +will bring us in contact, we need not fear, with beauty and dignity +enough, for there is plenty such in creation, in things around us, and +in other people's souls; nay, if we but live to our utmost power the +life of all things and all men, seeing, feeling, understanding for the +mere joy thereof, even our individual life will be invested with +dignity and beauty in our own eyes. + +But furniture will not do it, nor dress, nor exquisite household +appointments; nor any of the things, books, pictures, houses, parks, +of which we can call ourselves owners. I say _call_ ourselves: for can +we be sure we really possess them? And thus, if we think only of our +life, and the decking thereof, it is only furniture, garments, and +household appointments we can deal with; for beauty and dignity cannot +be confined in so narrow a compass. + + +VII. + +I have spoken so far of the conscious habit of harmony, and of its +conscious effect upon our conduct. I have tried to show that the +desire for congruity, which may seem so trivial a part of mere +dilettanteist superfineness, may expand and develop into such love of +harmony between ourselves and the ways of the universe as shall make +us wince at other folks' loss united to our gain, at our +deterioration united to our pleasure, even as we wince at a false note +or a discordant arrangement of colours. + +But there is something more important than conscious choice, and +something more tremendous than definite conduct, because conscious +choice and conduct are but its separate and plainly visible results. I +mean unconscious way of feeling and organic way of living: that which, +in the language of old-fashioned medicine, we might call the +complexion or habit of the soul. + +This is undoubtedly affected by conscious knowledge and reason, as it +undoubtedly manifests itself in both. But it is, I believe, much more +what we might call a permanent emotional condition, a particular way +of feeling, of reacting towards the impressions given us by the +universe. And I believe that the individual is sound, that he is +capable of being happy while increasing the happiness of others, or +the reverse, according as he reacts harmoniously or inharmoniously +towards those universal impressions. And here comes in what seems to +me the highest benefit we can receive from art and from the aesthetic +activities, which, as I have said before, are in art merely +specialised and made publicly manifest. + + +VIII. + +The habit of beauty, of harmony, is but the habit, engrained in our +nature by the unnoticed experiences of centuries, of _life_ in our +surroundings and in ourselves; the habit of beauty is the habit, I +believe scientific analysis of nature's ways and means will show +us--of the growing of trees, the flowing of water, the perfect play +of perfect muscles, all registered unconsciously in the very structure +of our soul. And for this reason every time we experience afresh the +particular emotion associated with the quality _beautiful_, we are +adding to that rhythm of life within ourselves by recognising the life +of all things. There is not room within us for two conflicting waves +of emotion, for two conflicting rhythms of life, one sane and one +unsound. The two may possibly alternate, but in most cases the weaker +will be neutralised by the stronger; and, at all events, they cannot +co-exist. We can account, only in this manner, for the indisputable +fact that great emotion of a really and purely aesthetic nature has a +morally elevating quality, that as long as it endures--and in finer +organisations its effect is never entirely lost--the soul is more +clean and vigorous, more fit for high thoughts and high decisions. All +understanding, in the wider and more philosophical sense, is but a +kind of becoming: our soul experiences the modes of being which it +apprehends. Hence the particular religious quality (all faiths and +rituals taking advantage thereof) of a high and complex aesthetic +emotion. Whenever we come in contact with real beauty, we become +aware, in an unformulated but overwhelming manner, of some of the +immense harmonies of which all beauty is the product, of which all +separate beautiful things are, so to speak, the single patterns +happening to be in our line of vision, while all around other patterns +connect with them, meshes and meshes of harmonies, spread out, outside +our narrow field of momentary vision, an endless web, like the +constellations which, strung on their threads of mutual dependence, +cover and fill up infinitude. + +In the moments of such emotional perception, our soul also, ourselves, +become in a higher degree organic, alive, receiving and giving out the +life of the universe; come to be woven into the patterns of harmonies, +made of the stuff of reality, homogeneous with themselves, +consubstantial with the universe, like the living plant, the flowing +stream, the flying cloud, the great picture or statue. + +And in this way is realised, momentarily, but with ever-increasing +power of repetition, that which, after the teaching of Diotima, +Socrates prayed for--"the harmony between the outer and the inner +man." + +But this, I know, many will say, is but a delusion. Rapture is +pleasant, but it is not necessarily, as the men of the Middle Ages +thought, a union with God. And is this the time to revive, or seek to +revive, when science is for ever pressing upon us the conclusion that +soul is a function of matter--is this the time to revive discredited +optimistic idealisms of an unscientific philosophy? + +But if science become omniscient, it will surely recognise and explain +the value of such recurring optimistic idealisms; and if the soul be a +function of matter, will not science recognise but the more, that the +soul is an integral and vitally dependent portion of the material +universe? + + +IX. + +Be this as it may, one thing seems certain, that the artistic +activities are those which bring man into emotional communion with +external nature; and that such emotional communion is necessary for +man's thorough spiritual health. Perception of cause and effect, +generalisation of law, reduces the universe indeed to what man's +intellect can grasp; but in the process of such reduction to the laws +of man's thought, the universe is shorn of its very power to move +man's emotion and overwhelm his soul. The abstract which we have made +does not vivify us sufficiently. And the emotional communion of man +with nature is through those various faculties which we call aesthetic. +It is not to no purpose that poetry has for ever talked to us of skies +and mountains and waters; we require, for our soul's health, to think +about them otherwise than with reference to our material comfort and +discomfort; we require to feel that they and ourselves are brethren +united by one great law of life. And what poetry suggests in explicit +words, bidding us love and be united in love to external nature; art, +in more irresistible because more instinctive manner, forces upon our +feelings, by extracting, according to its various kinds, the various +vital qualities of the universe, and making them act directly upon our +mind: rhythms of all sorts, static and dynamic, in the spatial arts of +painting and sculpture; in the half spatial, half temporal art of +architecture: in music, which is most akin to life, because it is the +art of movement and change. + + +X. + +We can all remember moments when we have seemed conscious, even to +overwhelming, of this fact. In my own mind it has become indissolubly +connected with a certain morning at Venice, listening to the organ in +St. Mark's. + +Any old and beautiful church gives us all that is most moving and +noblest--organism, beauty, absence of all things momentary and +worthless, exclusion of grossness, of brute utility and mean +compromise, equality of all men before God; moreover, time, eternity, +the past, and the great dead. All noble churches give us this; how +much more, therefore, this one, which is noblest and most venerable! + +It has, like no other building, been handed over by man to Nature; +Time moulding and tinting into life this structure already so organic, +so fit to live. For its curves and vaultings, its cupolas mutually +supported, the weight of each carried by all; the very colour of the +marbles, brown, blond, living colours, and the irregular symmetry, +flower-like, of their natural patterning, are all seemingly organic and +ready for life. Time has added that, with the polish and dimming +alternately of the marbles, the billowing of the pavement, the +slanting of the columns, and last, but not least, the tarnishing of +the gold and the granulating of the mosaic into an uneven surface: the +gold seeming to have become alive and in a way vegetable, and to have +faded and shrunk like autumn leaves. + + +XI. + +The morning I speak of they were singing some fugued composition by I +know not whom. How well that music suited St. Mark's! The constant +interchange of vault and vault, cupola and cupola, column and column, +handing on their energies to one another; the springing up of new +details gathered at once into the great general balance of lines and +forces; all this seemed to find its natural voice in that fugue, to +express, in that continuous revolution of theme chasing, enveloping +theme, its own grave emotion of life everlasting: Being, becoming; +becoming, being. + + +XII. + +It is such an alternation as this, ceaseless, rhythmic, which +constitutes the upward life of the soul: that life of which the wise +woman of Mantineia told Socrates that it might be learned through +faithful and strenuous search for ever widening kinds of beauty, the +"life above all," in the words of Diotima, "which a man should live." + +The life which vibrates for ever between being better and conceiving +of something better still; between satisfaction in harmony and craving +for it. The life whose rhythm is that of happiness actual and +happiness ideal, alternating for ever, for ever pressing one another +into being, as the parts of a fugue, the dominant and the tonic. +Being, becoming; becoming, being; idealising, realising; realising, +idealising. + + + + +BEAUTY AND SANITY. + + +I. + +Out of London at last; at last, though after only two months! Not, +indeed, within a walk of my clump of bay-trees on the Fiesole hill; +but in a country which has some of that Tuscan grace and serene +austerity, with its Tweed, clear and rapid in the wide shingly bed, +with its volcanic cones of the Eildons, pale and distinct in the +distance: river and hills which remind me of the valley where the +bay-trees grow, and bring to my mind all that which the bay-trees +stand for. + +There is always something peculiar in these first hours of finding +myself once more alone, once more quite close to external things; the +human jostling over, an end, a truce at least, to "all the neighbours' +talk with man and maid--such men--all the fuss and trouble of street +sounds, window-sights" (how he knew these things, the poet!); once +more in communion with the things which somehow--nibbled grass and +stone-tossed water, yellow ragwort in the fields, blue cranesbill +along the road, big ash-trees along the river, sheep, birds, sunshine, +and showers--somehow contrive to keep themselves in health, to live, +grow, decline, die, be born again, without making a mess or creating a +fuss. The air, under the grey sky, is cool, even cold, with infinite +briskness. And this impression of briskness, by no means excluded by +the sense of utter isolation and repose, is greatly increased by a +special charm of this place, the quantity of birds to listen to and +watch; great blackening flights of rooks from the woods along the +watercourses and sheltered hillsides (for only solitary ashes and +wind-vexed beeches will grow in the open); peewits alighting with +squeals in the fields; blackbirds and thrushes in the thick coverts (I +found a poor dead thrush with a speckled chest like a toad, laid out +among the beech-nuts); wagtails on the shingle, whirling over the +water, where the big trout and salmon leap; every sort of swallow; +pigeons crossing from wood to wood; wild duck rattling up, and +seagulls circling above the stream; nay, two herons, standing +immovable, heraldic, on the grass among the sheep. + +In such moments, with that briskness transferred into my feelings, +life seems so rich and various. All pleasant memories come to my mind +like tunes, and with real tunes among them (making one realise that +the greatest charm of music is often when no longer materially +audible). Pictures also of distant places, tones of voice, glance of +eyes of dear friends, visions of pictures and statues, and scraps of +poems and history. More seems not merely to be brought to me, but more +to exist, wherewith to unite it all, within myself. + +Such moments, such modes of being, ought to be precious to us; they +and every impression, physical, moral, aesthetic, which is akin to +them, and we should recognise their moral worth. Since it would seem +that even mere bodily sensations, of pure air, bracing temperature, +vigor of muscles, efficiency of viscera, accustom us not merely to +health of our body, but also, by the analogies of our inner workings, +to health of our soul. + + +II. + +How delicate an organism, how alive with all life's dangers, is the +human character; and how persistently do we consider it as the thing +of all others most easily forced into any sort of position, most +safely handled in ignorance! Surely some of the misery, much of the +waste and deadlock of the world are due to our all being made of such +obscure, unguessed at material; to our not knowing it betimes, and +others not admitting it even late in the day. When, for instance, +shall we recognise that the bulk of our psychic life is unconscious or +semi-unconscious, the life of long-organised and automatic functions; +and that, while it is absurd to oppose to these the more recent, +unaccustomed and fluctuating activity called _reason_, this same +reason, this conscious portion of ourselves, may be usefully employed +in understanding those powers of nature (powers of chaos sometimes) +within us, and in providing that these should turn the wheel of life +in the right direction, even like those other powers of nature outside +us, which reason cannot repress or alter, but can understand and put +to profit. Instead of this, we are ushered into life thinking +ourselves thoroughly conscious throughout, conscious beings of a +definite and stereotyped pattern; and we are set to do things we do +not understand with mechanisms which we have never even been shown: +Told to be good, not knowing why, and still less guessing how! + +Some folk will answer that life itself settles all that, with its +jostle and bustle. Doubtless. But in how wasteful, destructive, +unintelligent, and cruel a fashion! Should we be satisfied with this +kind of surgery, which cures an ache by random chopping off a limb; +with this elementary teaching, which saves our body from the fire by +burning our fingers? Surely not; we are worth more care on our own +part. + +The recognition of this, and more especially of the manner in which we +may be damaged by dangers we have never thought of as dangers, our +souls undermined and made boggy by emotions not yet classified, brings +home to me again the general wholesomeness of art; and also the fact +that, wholesome as art is, in general, and, compared with the less +abstract activities of our nature, there are yet differences in art's +wholesomeness, there are categories of art which can do only good, and +others which may also do mischief. + +Art, in so far as it moves our fancies and emotions, as it builds up +our preferences and repulsions, as it disintegrates or restores our +vitality, is merely another of the great forces of nature, and we +require to select among its activities as we select among the +activities of any other natural force.... When, I wonder, I wonder, +will the forces _within_ us be recognised as natural, in the same +sense as those _without_; and our souls as part of the universe, +prospering or suffering, according to which of its rhythms they +vibrate to: the larger rhythm, which is for ever increasing, and which +means happiness; the smaller, for ever slackening, which means +misery? + + +III. + +But since life has got two rhythms, why should art have only one? Our +poor mankind by no means always feel braced, serene, and energetic; +and we are far from necessarily keeping step with the movements of the +universe which imply happiness. + +Let alone the fact of wretched circumstances beyond our control, of +natural decay and death, and loss of our nearest and dearest; the +universe has made it excessively difficult, nay, impossible, for us to +follow constantly its calm behest, "Be as healthy as possible." It is +all very fine to say _be healthy_. Of course we should be willing +enough. But it must be admitted that the Powers That Be have not +troubled about making it easy. Be healthy indeed! When health is so +nicely balanced that it is at the mercy of a myriad of microscopic +germs, of every infinitesimal increase of cold or heat, or damp or +dryness, of alternations of work and play, oscillation of want and +excess incalculably small, any of which may disturb the beautiful +needle-point balance and topple us over into disease. Such Job's +comforting is one of the many sledge-hammer ironies with which the +Cosmos diverts itself at our expense; and of course the Cosmos may +permit itself what it likes, and none of us can complain. But is it +possible for one of ourselves, a poor, sick, hustled human being, to +take up the jest of the absentee gods of Lucretius, and say to his +fellow-men: "Believe me, you would do much better to be quite healthy, +and quite happy?" + +And, as art is one of mankind's modes of expressing itself, why in the +world should we expect it to be the expression only of mankind's +health and happiness? Even admitting that the very existence of the +race proves that the healthy and happy states of living must on the +whole preponderate (a matter which can, after all, not be proved so +easily), even admitting that, why should mankind be allowed artistic +emotions only at those moments, and requested not to express itself or +feel artistically during the others? Bay-trees are delightful things, +no doubt, and we are all very fond of them off and on. But why must we +pretend to enjoy them when we don't; why must we hide the fact that +they sometimes irritate or bore us, and that every now and then we +very much prefer--well, weeping-willows, upas-trees, and all the livid +or phosphorescent eccentricities of the various _fleurs du mal_? + +Is it not stupid thus to "blink and shut our apprehension up?" Nay, +worse, is it not positively heartless, brutal? + + +IV. + +This argument, I confess, invariably delights and humiliates me: it is +so full of sympathy for all sorts and conditions of men, and so +appreciative of what is and what is not. It is so very human and +humane. There is in it a sort of quite gentle and dignified Prometheus +Vinctus attitude towards the Powers That Be; and Zeus, with his +thunderbolts and chains, looks very much like a brute by contrast. + +But what is to be done? Zeus exists with his chains and thunderbolts, +and all the minor immortals, lying down, colossal, dim, like mountains +at night, at Schiller's golden tables, each with his fine attribute, +olive-tree, horse, lyre, sun and what not, by his side; also his own +particular scourge, plague, dragon, wild boar, or sea monster, ready +to administer to recalcitrant, insufficiently pious man. And the gods +have it their own way, call them what you will, children of Chaos or +children of Time, dynasty succeeding dynasty, but only for the same +old gifts and same old scourges to be handed on from one to the other. + +In more prosaic terms, we cannot get loose of nature, the nature of +ourselves; we cannot get rid of the fact that certain courses, certain +habits, certain preferences are to our advantage, and certain others +to our detriment. And therefore, to return to art, and to the various +imaginative and emotional activities which I am obliged to label by +that very insufficient name, we cannot get rid of the fact that, +however much certain sorts of art are the natural expression of +certain recurring and common states of being; however much certain +preferences correspond to certain temperaments or conditions, we must +nevertheless put them aside as much as possible, and give our +attention to the opposite sorts of art and the opposite sorts of +preference, for the simple reason that the first make us less fit for +life and less happy in the long run, while the second make us more fit +and happier. + +It is a question not of what we _are_, but of what _we shall be_. + + +V. + +A distinguished scientific psychologist, who is also a psychologist in +the unscientific sense, and who writes of Intellect and Will less in +the spirit (and, thank heaven, less in the style) of Mr. Spencer than +in that of Monsieur de Montaigne, has objected to music (and, I +presume, in less degree to other art) that it runs the risk of +enfeebling the character by stimulating emotions without affording +them a corresponding outlet in activity. I agree (as will be seen +farther on) that music more particularly may have an unwholesome +influence, but not for the reason assigned by Professor James, who +seems to me to mistake the nature and functions of artistic emotion. + +I doubt very much whether any non-literary art, whether even music has +the power, in the modern man, of stimulating tendencies to action. It +may have had in the savage, and may still have in the civilised child; +but in the ordinary, cultivated grown-up person, the excitement +produced by any artistic sight, sound, or idea will most probably be +used up in bringing to life again some of the many millions of sights, +sounds, and ideas which lie inert, stored up in our mind. The artistic +emotion will therefore not give rise to an active impulse, but to that +vague mixture of feelings and ideas which we call a _mood_; and if any +alteration occur in subsequent action, it will be because all external +impressions must vary according to the mood of the person who receives +them, and consequently undergo a certain selection, some being allowed +to dominate and lead to action, while others pass unnoticed, are +neutralised or dismissed. + +More briefly, it seems to me that artistic emotion is of practical +importance, not because it discharges itself in action, but, on the +contrary, because it produces a purely internal rearrangement of our +thoughts and feelings; because, in short, it helps to form +concatenations of preferences, habits of being. + +Whether or not Mr. Herbert Spencer be correct in deducing all artistic +activities from our primaeval instincts of play, it seems to me certain +that these artistic activities have for us adults much the same +importance as the play activities have for a child. They represent the +only perfectly free exercise, and therefore, free development, of our +preferences. Now, everyone will admit, I suppose, that it is extremely +undesirable that a child should amuse itself acquiring unwholesome +preferences and evil habits, indulging in moods which will make it or +its neighbours less comfortable out of play-time? + +Mind, I do not for a moment pretend that art is to become the +conscious instrument of morals, any more than (Heaven forbid!) play +should become the conscious preparation of infant virtue. All I +contend is that if some kinds of infant amusement result in damage, we +suppress them as a nuisance; and that, if some kinds of art +disorganise the soul, the less we have of them the better. + +Moreover, the grown-up human being is so constituted, is so full of +fine connections and analogies throughout his nature, that, while the +sense of emulation and gain lends such additional zest to his +amusements, the sense of increasing spiritual health and power, +wherever it exists, magnifies almost incredibly the pleasure derivable +from beautiful impressions. + + +VI. + +The persons who maintained just now (and who does not feel a +hard-hearted Philistine for gainsaying them?) that we have no right to +ostracise, still less to stone, unwholesome kinds of art, make much of +the fact that, as we are told in church, "We have no health in us." +But it is the recognition of this lack of health which hardens my +heart to unwholesome persons and things. If we must be wary of what +moods and preferences we foster in ourselves, it is because so few of +us are congenitally sound--perhaps none without some organic weakness; +and because, even letting soundness alone, very few of us lead lives +that are not, in one respect or another, strained or starved or +cramped. Gods and archangels might certainly indulge exclusively in +the literature and art for which Baudelaire may stand in this +discussion. But gods and archangels require neither filters nor +disinfectants, and may slake their thirst in the veriest decoction of +typhoid. + + +VII. + +The Greeks, who were a fortunate mixture of Conservatives and +Anarchists, averred that the desire for the impossible (I do not +quote, for, alas! I should not understand the quotation) is a disease +of the soul. + +It is not, I think, the desire for the impossible (since few can tell +what seems impossible, and fewer care for what indubitably is so) so +much as the desire for the topsy-turvy. Baudelaire, who admired +persons thus afflicted, has a fine line: + + "De la realite grands esprits contempteurs"; + +but what they despised was not the real, but the usual. Now the usual, +of the sort thus despised, happens to represent the necessities of our +organisms and of that wider organism which we call circumstances. We +may modify it, always in the direction in which it tends spontaneously +to evolve; but we cannot subvert it. You might as well try to subvert +gravitation: "Je m'en suis apercu etant par terre," is the only +result, as in Moliere's lesson of physics. + + +VIII. + +Also, when you come to think of it, there is nothing showing a finer +organisation in the incapacity for finding sugar sweet and vinegar +sour. The only difference is that, as sugar happens to be sweet and +vinegar sour, an organisation which perceives the reverse is at sixes +and sevens with the universe, or a bit of the universe; and, exactly +to the extent to which this six-and-sevenness prevails, is likely to +be mulcted of some of the universe's good things. + +How may I bring this home, without introducing a sickly atmosphere of +decadent art and literature into my valley of the bay-trees? And yet, +an instance is needed. Well; there is an old story, originating +perhaps in Suetonius, handed on by Edgar Poe, and repeated, with +variations, by various modern French writers, of sundry persons who, +among other realities, despise the fact that sheets and table-linen +are usually white; and show the subtlety of their organisation (the +Emperor Tiberius, a very subtle person, was one of the earliest to +apply the notion) by taking their sleep and food in an arrangement of +black materials; a sort of mourning warehouse of beds and +dining-tables. + +Now this means simply that these people have bought "distinction" at +the price of one of mankind's most delightful birthrights, the +pleasure in white, the queen, as Leonardo put it, of all colours. Our +minds, our very sensations are interwoven so intricately of all manner +of impressions and associations, that it is no allegory to say that +white is good, and that the love of white is akin somehow to the love +of virtue. For the love of white has come to mean, thanks to the +practice of all centuries and to the very structure of our nerves, +strength, cleanness, and newness of sensation, capacity for +re-enjoying the already enjoyed, for preferring the already preferred, +for discovering new interest and pleasureableness in old things, +instead of running to new ones, as one does when not the old ones are +exhausted, but one's own poor vigour. The love of white means, +furthermore, the appreciation of certain circumstances, delightful and +valuable in themselves, without which whiteness cannot be present: in +human beings, good health and youth and fairness of life; in houses +(oh! the white houses of Cadiz, white between the blue sky and blue +sea!), excellence of climate, warmth, dryness and clearness of air; +and in all manner of household goods and stuff, care, order, +daintiness of habits, leisure and affluence. All things these which, +quite as much as any peculiarity of optic function, give for the +healthy mind a sort of restfulness, of calm, of virtue, and I might +almost say, of regal or priestly quality to white; a quality which +suits it to the act of restoring our bodies with food and wine, above +all, to the act of spiritual purification, the passing through the +cool, colourless, stainless, which constitutes true sleep. + +All this the Emperor Tiberius and his imitators forego with their +bogey black sheets and table-cloths.... + + +IX. + +But what if we _do not care for white_? What if we are so constituted +that its insipidity sickens _us_ as much as the most poisonous and +putrescent colours which Blake ever mixed to paint hell and sin? Nay, +if those grumous and speckly viscosities of evil green, orange, poppy +purple, and nameless hues, are the only things which give us any +pleasure? + +Is it a reason, because you arcadian Optimists of Evolution extract, +or imagine you extract, some feeble satisfaction out of white, that we +should pretend to enjoy it, and the Antique and Outdoor Nature, and +Early Painters, and Mozart and Gluck, and all the whitenesses physical +and moral? You say we are abnormal, unwholesome, decaying; very good, +then why should we not get pleasure in decaying, unwholesome, and +abnormal things? We are like the poison-monger's daughter in Nathaniel +Hawthorne's story. Other people's poison is our meat, and we should be +killed by an antidote; that is to say, bored to death, which, in our +opinion, is very much worse. + +To this kind of speech, common since the romantic and pre-Raphaelite +movement, and getting commoner with the spread of theories of +intellectual anarchy and nervous degeneracy, one is often tempted to +answer impatiently, "Get out of the way, you wretched young people; +don't you see that there isn't room or time for your posing?" + +But unfortunately it is not all pose. There are a certain number of +people who really are _bored with white_; for whom, as a result of +constitutional morbidness, of nervous exhaustion, or of that very +disintegration of soul due to unwholesome aesthetic self-indulgence, to +the constant quest for violent artistic emotion, our soul's best food +has really become unpalatable and almost nauseous. These people cannot +live without spiritual opium or alcohol, although that opium or +alcohol is killing them by inches. It is absurd to be impatient with +them. All one can do is to let them go in peace to their undoing, and +hope that their example will be rather a warning than a model to +others. + + +X. + +But, letting alone the possibility of art acting as a poison for the +soul, there remains an important question. As I said, although art is +one of the most wholesome of our soul's activities, there are yet +kinds of art, or (since it is a subjective question of profit or +damage to ourselves) rather kinds of artistic effect, which, for some +evident reason, or through some obscure analogy or hidden point of +contact awaken those movements of the fancy, those states of the +emotions which disintegrate rather than renew the soul, and accustom +us rather to the yielding and proneness which we shun, than to the +resistance and elasticity which we seek throughout life to increase. + +I was listening, last night, to some very wonderful singing of modern +German songs; and the emotion that still remains faintly within me +alongside of the traces of those languishing phrases and passionate +intonations, the remembrance of the sense of--how shall I call +it?--violation of the privacy of the human soul which haunted me +throughout that performance, has brought home to me, for the hundredth +time, that the Greek legislators were not so fantastic in considering +music a questionable art, which they thought twice before admitting +into their ideal commonwealths. For music can do more by our emotions +than the other arts, and it can, therefore, separate itself from them +and their holy ways; it can, in a measure, actually undo the good they +do to our soul. + +But, you may object, poetry does the very same; it also expresses, +strengthens, brings home our human, momentary, individual emotions, +instead of uniting with the arts of visible form, with the harmonious +things of nature, to create for us another kind of emotion, the +emotion of the eternal, unindividual, universal life, in whose +contemplation our souls are healed and made whole after the +disintegration inflicted by what is personal and fleeting. + +It is true that much poetry expresses merely such personal and momentary +emotion; but it does so through a mechanism differing from that of music, +and possessing a saving grace which the emotion-compelling mechanism +of music does not. For by the very nature of the spoken or written +word, by the word's strictly intellectual concomitants, poetry, even +while rousing emotion, brings into play what is most different to +emotion, emotion's sifter and chastener, the great force which reduces +all things to abstraction, to the eternal and typical: reason. You +cannot express in words, even the most purely instinctive, +half-conscious feeling, without placing that dumb and blind emotion in +the lucid, balanced relations which thought has given to words; +indeed, words rarely, if ever, reproduce emotion as it is, but +instead, emotion as it is instinctively conceived, in its setting of +cause and effect. Hence there is in all poetry a certain reasonable +element which, even in the heyday of passion, makes us superior to +passion by explaining its why and wherefore; and even when the poet +succeeds in putting us in the place of him who feels, we enter only +into one-half of his personality, the half which contemplates while +the other suffers: we _know_ the feeling, rather than _feel_ it. + +Now, it is different with music. Its relations to our nerves are such +that it can reproduce emotion, or, at all events, emotional moods, +directly and without any intellectual manipulation. We weep, but know +not why. Its specifically artistic emotion, the power it shares with +all other arts of raising our state of consciousness to something more +complete, more vast, and more permanent--the specific musical emotion +of music can become subservient to the mere awakening of our latent +emotional possibilities, to the stimulating of emotions often +undesirable in themselves, and always unable, at the moment, to find +their legitimate channel, whence enervation and perhaps degradation of +the soul. There are kinds of music which add the immense charm, the +subduing, victorious quality of art, to the power of mere emotion as +such; and in these cases we are pushed, by the delightfulness of +beauty and wonder, by the fascination of what is finer than ourselves, +into deeper consciousness of our innermost, primaeval, chaotic self: +the stuff in which soul has not yet dawned. We are made to enjoy what +we should otherwise dread; and the dignity of beauty, and beauty's +frankness and fearlessness, are lent to things such as we regard, +under other circumstances, as too intimate, too fleeting, too obscure, +too unconscious, to be treated, in ourselves and our neighbours, +otherwise than with decorous reserve. + +It is astonishing, when one realises it, that the charm of music, the +good renown it has gained in its more healthful and more decorous +days, can make us sit out what we do sit out under its influence: +violations of our innermost secrets, revelations of the hidden +possibilities of our own nature and the nature of others; stripping +away of all the soul's veils; nay, so to speak, melting away of the +soul's outward forms, melting away of the soul's active structure, its +bone and muscle, till there is revealed only the shapeless primaeval +nudity of confused instincts, the soul's vague viscera. + +When music does this, it reverts, I think, towards being the nuisance +which, before it had acquired the possibilities of form and beauty it +now tends to despise, it was felt to be by ancient philosophers and +law-givers. At any rate, it sells its artistic birthright. It +renounces its possibility of constituting, with the other great arts, +a sort of supplementary contemplated nature; an element wherein to +buoy up and steady those fluctuations which we express in speech; a +vast emotional serenity, an abstract universe in which our small and +fleeting emotions can be transmuted, and wherein they can lose +themselves in peacefulness and strength. + + +XI. + +I mentioned this one day to my friend the composer. His answer is +partly what I was prepared for: this emotionally disintegrating +element ceases to exist, or continues to exist only in the very +slightest degree, for the real musician. The effect on the nerves is +overlooked, neutralised, in the activity of the intellect; much as the +emotional effect of the written word is sent into the background by +the perception of cause and effect which the logical associations of +the word produce. For the composer, even for the performer, says my +friend, music has a logic of its own, so strong and subtle as to +overpower every other consideration. + +But music is not merely for musicians; the vast majority will always +receive it not actively through the intellect, but passively through +the nerves; the mood will, therefore, be induced before, so to speak, +the image, the musical structure, is really appreciated. And, +meanwhile, the soul is being made into a sop. + +"For the moment," answers my composer, "perhaps; but only for the +moment. Once the nerves accustomed to those modulations and rhythms; +once the form perceived by the mind, the emotional associations will +vanish; the hearer will have become what the musician originally +was.... How do you know that, in its heyday, all music may not have +affected people as Wagner's music affects them nowadays? What proof +have you got that the strains of Mozart and Gluck, nay, those of +Palestrina, which fill our soul with serenity, may not have been full +of stress and trouble when they first were heard; may not have laid +bare the chaotic elements of our nature, brought to the surface its +primaeval instincts? Historically, all you know is that Gluck's +_Orpheus_ made our ancestors weep; and that Wagner's _Tristram_ makes +our contemporaries sob...." + +This is the musician's defence. Does it free his art from my rather +miserable imputation? I think not. If all this be true, if _Orpheus_ +has been what _Tristram_ is, all one can say is _the more's the pity_. +If it be true, all music would require the chastening influence of +time, and its spiritual value would be akin to that of the Past and +Distant; it would be innocuous, because it had lost half of its +vitality. We should have to lay down music, like wine, for the future; +poisoning ourselves with the acrid fumes of its must, the heady, +enervating scent of scum and purpled vat, in order that our children +might drink vigour and warmth after we were dead. + + +XII. + +But I doubt very much whether this is true. It is possible that the +music of Wagner may eventually become serene like the music of Handel; +but was the music of Handel ever morbid like the music of Wagner? + +I do not base my belief on any preference from Handel's +contemporaries. We may, as we are constantly being told, be +_degenerates_; but there was no special grace whence to degenerate in +our perruked forefathers. Moreover, I believe that any very +spontaneous art is to a very small degree the product of one or even +two or three generations of men. It has been growing to be what it is +for centuries and centuries. Its germ and its necessities of organism +and development lie far, far back in the soul's world-history; and it +is but later, if at all, when the organic growth is at an end, that +times and individuals can fashion it in their paltry passing image. +No; we may be as strong and as pure as Handel's audiences, and our +music yet be less strong and pure than theirs. + +My reason for believing in a fundamental emotional difference between +that music and ours is of another sort. I think that in art, as in all +other things, the simpler, more normal interest comes first, and the +more complex, less normal, follows when the simple and normal has +become, through familiarity, the insipid. While pleasure unspiced by +pain is still a novelty there is no reason thus to spice it. + + +XIII. + +The question can, however, be tolerably settled by turning over the +means which enable music to awaken emotion--emotion which we recognise +as human, as distinguished from the mere emotion of pleasure attached +to all beautiful sights and sounds. Once we have understood what these +means are, we can enquire to what extent they are employed in the +music of various schools and epochs, and thus judge, with some chance +of likelihood, whether the music which strikes us as serene and +vigorous could have affected our ancestors as turbid and enervating. + +'Tis a dull enough psychological examination; but one worth making, +not merely for the sake of music itself, but because music, being the +most emotional of all the arts, can serve to typify the good or +mischief which all art may do, according to which of our emotions it +fosters. + + * * * * * + +'Tis repeating a fact in different words, not stating anything new, to +say that all beautiful things awaken a specific sort of emotion, the +emotion or the mood of the beautiful. Yet this statement, equivalent +to saying that hot objects give us the sensation of heat, and wet +objects the sensation of wetness, is well worth repeating, because we +so often forget that the fact of beauty in anything is merely the fact +of that thing setting up in ourselves a very specific feeling. + + * * * * * + +Now, besides this beauty or quality producing the emotion of the +beautiful, there exist in things a lot of other qualities also +producing emotion, each according to its kind; or rather, the +beautiful thing may also be qualified in some other way, as the thing +which is useful, useless, old, young, common, rare, or whatever you +choose. And this coincidence of qualities produces a coincidence of +states of mind. We shall experience the feeling not merely of beauty +because the thing is beautiful, but also of surprise because it is +startling, of familiarity because we meet it often, of attraction +(independently of beauty) because the thing suits or benefits us, or +of repulsion (despite the beauty) because the thing has done us a bad +turn or might do us one. This is saying that beauty is only one of +various relations possible between something not ourselves and our +feelings, and that it is probable that other relations between them +may exist at the same moment, in the same way that a woman may be a +man's wife, but also his cousin, his countrywoman, his school-board +representative, his landlady, and his teacher of Latin, without one +qualification precluding the others. + +Now, in the arts of line, colour, and projection, the arts which +usually copy the appearance of objects existing outside the art, these +other qualities, these other relations between ourselves and the +object which exists in the relation of beauty, are largely a matter of +superficial association--I mean, of association which may vary, and of +which we are most often conscious. + +We are reminded by the picture or statue of qualities which do not +exist in it, but in its prototype in reality. A certain face will +awaken disgust when seen in a picture, or reverence or amusement, +besides the specific impression of beauty (or its reverse), because we +have experienced disgust, awe, amusement in connection with a similar +face outside the picture. + +So far, therefore, as art is imitative, its non-artistic emotional +capacities are due (with a very few exceptions) to association; for +the feelings traceable directly to fatigue or disintegration of the +perceptive faculty usually, indeed almost always, prevent the object +from affecting us as beautiful. It is quite otherwise when we come to +music. Here the coincidence of other emotion resides, I believe, not +in the _musical thing itself_, not in the musician's creation without +prototype in reality, resembling nothing save other musical +structures; the coincidence resides in the elements out of which that +structure is made, and which, for all its complexities, are still very +strongly perceived by our senses. For instance, certain rhythms +existing in music are identical with, or analogous to, the rhythm of +our bodily movements under varying circumstances: we know +alternations of long and short, variously composed regularities and +irregularities of movement, fluctuations, reinforcements or +subsidences, from experience other than that of music; we know them in +connection with walking, jumping, dragging; with beating of heart and +arteries, expansion of throat and lungs; we knew them, long before +music was, as connected with energy or oppression, sickness or health, +elation or depression, grief, fear, horror, or serenity and happiness. +And when they become elements of a musical structure their +associations come along with them. And these associations are the more +powerful that, while they are rudimentary, familiar like our own +being, perhaps even racial, the musical structure into which they +enter is complete, individual, _new_: 'tis comparing the efficacy of, +say, Mozart Op. So-and-so, with the efficacy of somebody sobbing or +dancing in our presence. + +So far for the associational power of music in awakening emotions. But +music has another source of such power over us. Existing as it does in +a sequence, it is able to give sensations which the arts dealing with +space, and not with time, could not allow themselves, since for them a +disagreeable effect could never prelude an agreeable one, but merely +co-exist with it; whereas for music a disagreeable effect is +effaceable by an agreeable one, and will even considerably heighten +the latter by being made to precede it. Now we not merely associate +fatigue or pain with any difficult perception, we actually feel it; we +are aware of real discomfort whenever our senses and attention are +kept too long on the stretch, or are stimulated too sharply by +something unexpected. In these cases we are conscious of something +which is exhausting, overpowering, unendurable if it lasted: +experiences which are but too familiar in matters not musical, and, +therefore, evoke the remembrance of such non-musical discomfort, which +reacts to increase the discomfort produced by the music; the reverse +taking place, a sense of freedom, of efficiency, of strength arising +in us whenever the object of perception can be easily, though +energetically, perceived. Hence intervals which the ear has difficulty +in following, dissonances to which it is unaccustomed, and phrases too +long or too slack for convenient scansion, produce a degree of +sensuous and intellectual distress, which can be measured by the +immense relief--relief as an acute satisfaction--of return to easier +intervals, of consonance, and of phrases of normal rhythm and length. + +Thus does it come to pass that music can convey emotional suggestions +such as painting and sculpture, for all their imitations of reality, +can never match in efficacy; since music conveys the suggestions not +of mere objects which may have awakened emotion, but of emotion +itself, of the expression thereof in our bodily feelings and +movements. And hence also the curious paradox that musical emotion is +strong almost in proportion as it is vague. A visible object may, and +probably will, possess a dozen different emotional values, according +to our altering relations therewith; for one relation, one mood, one +emotion succeeds and obliterates the other, till nothing very potent +can remain connected with that particular object. But it matters not +how different the course of the various emotions which have expressed +themselves in movements of slackness, agitation, energy, or confusion; +it matters not through what circumstances our vigour may have leaked +away, our nerves have been harrowed, our attention worn out, so long +as those movements, those agitations, slackenings, oppressions, +reliefs, fatigues, harrowings, and reposings are actually taking place +within us. In briefer phrase, while painting and sculpture present us +only with objects possibly connected with emotions, but probably +connected with emotions too often varied to affect us strongly; music +gives us the actual bodily consciousness of emotion; nay (in so far as +it calls for easy or difficult acts of perception), the actual mental +reality of comfort or discomfort. + + +XIV. + +The emotion uppermost in the music of all these old people is the +specific emotion of the beautiful; the emotional possibilities, latent +in so many elements of the musical structure, never do more than +qualify the overwhelming impression due to that structure itself. The +music of Handel and Bach is beautiful, with a touch of awe; that of +Gluck, with a tinge of sadness; Mozart's and his contemporaries' is +beautiful, with a reminiscence of all tender and happy emotions; then +again, there are the great Italians of the seventeenth and eighteenth +centuries, Carissimi, Scarlatti the elder, Marcello, whose musical +beauty is oddly emphasised with energy and sternness, due to their +powerful, simple rhythms and straightforward wide intervals. But +whatever the emotional qualification, the chief, the never varying, +all-important characteristic, is the beauty; the dominant emotion is +the serene happiness which beauty gives: happiness, strong and +delicate; increase of our vitality; evocation of all cognate beauty, +physical and moral, bringing back to our consciousness all that which +is at once wholesome and rare. For beauty such as this is both +desirable and, in a sense, far-fetched; it comes naturally to us, and +we meet it half-way; but it does not come often enough. + +Hence it is that the music of these masters never admits us into the +presence of such feelings as either were better not felt, or at all +events, not idly witnessed. There is not ever anything in the joy or +grief suggested by this music, in the love of which it is an +expression, which should make us feel abashed in feeling or +witnessing. The whole world may watch _Orpheus_ or _Alcestis_, as the +whole world may stand (with Bach or Pergolese to make music) at the +foot of the Cross. But may the whole world sit idly watching the +raptures and death-throes of Tristram and Yseult? + +Surely the world has grown strangely intrusive and unblushing. + + +XV. + +I have spoken of this old music as an expression of love; and this, in +the face of the emotional effects of certain modern composers, may +make some persons smile. + +Perhaps I should rather have said that this old music expresses, above +everything else, the _lovable_; for does not eminent beauty inevitably +awaken love, either as respect or tenderness; the lovable, +_loveliness_? And at the same time the love itself such loveliness +awakens. Love far beyond particular cases or persons, fitting all +noble things, real and imaginary, complex or fragmentary. Love as a +lyric essence. + + +XVI. + +But why not more than merely that? I used at one time to have frequent +discussions on art and life with a certain poor friend of mine, who +should have found sweetness in both, giving both sweetness in return, +but, alas, did neither. We were sitting in the fields where the +frost-bitten green was just beginning to soften into minute starlike +buds and mosses, and the birds were learning to sing in the leafless +lilac hedgerows, the sunshine, as it does in spring, seeming to hold +the world rather than merely to pour on to it. "You see," said my +friend, "you see, there is a fundamental difference between us. You +are satisfied with what you call _happiness_; but I want _rapture and +excess_." + +Alas, a few years later, the chance of happiness had gone. That door +was opened, of which Epictetus wrote that we might always pass through +it; in this case not because "the room was too full of smoke," but, +what is sadder by far, because the room was merely whitewashed and +cleanly swept. + +But those words "rapture and excess," spoken in such childlike +simplicity of spirit, have always remained in my mind. Should we not +teach our children, among whom there may be such as that one was, that +the best thing life can give is just that despised thing _happiness_? + + +XVII. + +Now art, to my mind, should be one of our main sources of happiness; +and under the inappropriate word _art_, I am obliged, as usual, to +group all such activities of soul as deal with beauty, quite as much +when it exists in what is (in this sense) not art's antithesis, but +art's origin and completion, nature. Nay, art--the art exercised by +the craftsman, but much more so the art, the selecting, grouping +process performed by our own feelings--art can do more towards our +happiness than increase the number of its constituent items: it can +mould our preferences, can make our souls more resisting and flexible, +teach them to keep pace with the universal rhythm. + +Now, there is not room enough in the world, and not stuff enough in +us, for much rapture, or for any excess. The space, as it were, the +material which these occupy and exhaust, has to be paid for; rapture +is paid for by subsequent stinting, and excess by subsequent +bankruptcy. + +We all know this in even trifling matters; the dulness, the lassitude +or restlessness, the incapacity for enjoyment following any very acute +or exciting pleasure. A man after a dangerous ride, a girl after her +first wildly successful ball, are not merely exhausted in body and in +mind; they are momentarily deprived of the enjoyment of slighter +emotions; 'tis like the inability to hear one's own voice after +listening to a tremendous band. + +The gods, one might say in Goethian phrase, did not intend us to share +their own manner of being; or, if you prefer it, in the language of +Darwin or Weissmann, creatures who died of sheer bliss, were unable to +rear a family and to found a species. Be it as it may, rapture must +needs be rare, because it destroys a piece of us (makes our precious +piece of chagrin skin, as in Balzac's story, shrink each time). And, +as we have seen, it destroys (which is more important than destruction +of mere life) our sensibility to those diffuse, long-drawn, gentle, +restorative pleasures which are not merely durable, but, because they +invigorate our spirit, are actually reproductive of themselves, +multiplying, like all sane desirable things, like grain and fruit, +ten-fold. Pleasures which I would rather call, but for the cumbersome +words, items of happiness. It is therefore no humiliating circumstance +if art and beauty should be unable to excite us like a game of cards, +a steeplechase, a fight, or some violent excitement of our senses or +our vanity. This inability, on the contrary, constitutes our chief +reason for considering our pleasure in beautiful sights, sounds, and +thoughts, as in a sense, holy. + + +XVIII. + +Yesterday morning, riding towards the cypress woods, I had the first +impression of spring; and, in fact, to-day the first almond-tree had +come out in blossom on our hillside. + +A cool morning; loose, quickly moving clouds, and every now and then a +gust of rain swept down from the mountains. The path followed a brook, +descending in long, steep steps from the hillside; water perfectly +clear, bubbling along the yellow stones between the grassy banks and +making now and then a little leap into a lower basin; along the stream +great screens of reeds, sere, pale, with barely a pennon of leaves, +rustling ready for the sickle; and behind, beneath the watery sky, +rainy but somehow peaceful, the russet oak-scrub of the hill. Of +spring there was indeed visible only the green of the young wheat +beneath the olives; not a bud as yet had moved. And still, it is +spring. The world is renewing itself. One feels it in the gusts of +cool, wet wind, the songs of the reeds, the bubble of the brook; one +feels it, above all, in oneself. All things are braced, elastic, ready +for life. + + + + +THE ART AND THE COUNTRY. + +TUSCAN NOTES. + + "... all these are inhabitants of truly mountain cities, Florence + being as completely among the hills as Innsbruck is, only the + hills have softer outlines."--_Modern Painters_, iv., chap. xx. + + +I. + +Sitting in the January sunshine on the side of this Fiesole hill, +overlooking the opposite quarries (a few long-stalked daisies at my +feet in the gravel, still soft from the night's frost), my thoughts +took the colour and breath of the place. They circled, as these paths +circle round the hill, about those ancient Greek and old Italian +cities, where the cyclopean walls, the carefully-terraced olives, +followed the tracks made first by the shepherd's and the goat's foot, +even as we see them now on the stony hills all round. What +civilisations were those, thus sowed on the rock like the wild mint +and grey myrrh-scented herbs, and grown under the scorch of sun upon +stone, and the eddy of winds down the valleys! They are gone, +disappeared, and their existence would be impossible in our days. But +they have left us their art, the essence they distilled from their +surroundings. And that is as good for our souls as the sunshine and +the wind, as the aromatic scent of the herbs of their mountains. + + +II. + +I am tempted to think that the worst place for getting to know, +getting to _feel_, any school of painting, is the gallery, and the +best, perhaps, the fields: the fields (or in the case of the +Venetians, largely the waters), to which, with their qualities of air, +of light, their whole train of sensations and moods, the artistic +temperament, and the special artistic temperament of a local school, +can very probably be traced. + +For to appreciate any kind of art means, after all, not to understand +its relations with other kinds of art, but to feel its relations with +ourselves. It is a matter of living, thanks to that art, according to +the spiritual and organic modes of which it is an expression. Now, to +go from room to room of a gallery, allowing oneself to be played upon +by very various kinds of art, is to prevent the formation of any +definite mood, and to set up what is most hostile to all mood, to all +unity of being: comparison, analysis, classification. You may know +quite exactly the difference between Giotto and Simon Martini, between +a Ferrarese and a Venetian, between Praxiteles and Scopas; and yet be +ignorant of the meaning which any of these might have in your life, +and unconscious of the changes they might work in your being. And +this, I fear, is often the case with connoisseurs and archaeologists, +accounting for the latent suspicion of the ignoramus and the good +philistine, that such persons are somehow none the better for their +intercourse with art. + +All art which is organic, short of which it cannot be efficient, +depends upon tradition. To say so sounds a truism, because we rarely +realise all that tradition implies: on the side of the artist, _what +to do_, and on the side of his public, _how to feel_: a habit, an +expectation which accumulates the results of individual creative +genius and individual appreciative sensibility, giving to each its +greatest efficacy. When one remembers, in individual instances--Kant, +Darwin, Michel Angelo, Mozart--how very little which is absolutely +new, how slight a variation, how inevitable a combination, marks, +after all, the greatest strokes of genius in all things, it seems +quite laughable to expect the mediocre person, mere looker-on or +listener, far from creative, to reach at once, without a similar +sequence of initiation, a corresponding state of understanding and +enjoyment. But, as a rule, this thought does not occur to us; and, +while we expatiate on the creative originality of artists and poets, +we dully take for granted the instant appreciation of their creation; +forgetting, or not understanding, in both cases, the wonderful +efficacy of tradition. + +As regards us moderns, for whom the tradition of, say, Tuscan art has +so long been broken off or crossed by various other and very different +ones--as regards ourselves, I am inclined to think that we can best +recover it by sympathetic attention to those forms of art, humbler or +more public, which must originally have prepared and kept up the +interest of the people for whom the Tuscan craftsmen worked. + +Pictures and statues, even in a traditional period, embody a large +amount of merely personal peculiarities of individual artists, +testifying to many activities--imitation, self-assertion, +rivalry--which have no real aesthetic value. And, during the fifteenth +century and in Tuscany especially, the flow of traditional aesthetic +feeling is grievously altered and adulterated by the merest scientific +tendencies: a painter or sculptor being often, in the first instance, +a student of anatomy, archaeology or perspective. One may, therefore, +be familiar for twenty years with Tuscan Renaissance painting or +sculpture, and yet remain very faintly conscious of the special +aesthetic character, the _virtues_ (in the language of herbals) of +Tuscan art. Hence I should almost say, better let alone the pictures +and statues until you are sufficiently acquainted with the particular +quality lurking therein to recognise, extricate and assimilate it, +despite irrelevant ingredients. Learn the _quality_ of Tuscan art from +those categories of it which are most impersonal, most traditional, +and most organic and also freer from scientific interference, say +architecture and decoration; and from architecture rather in its +humble, unobtrusive work than in the great exceptional creations which +imply, like the cupola of Florence, the assertion of a personality, +the surmounting of a difficulty, and even the braving of other folks' +opinion. I believe that if one learned, not merely to know, but to +feel, to enjoy very completely and very specifically, the quality of +distinctness and reserve, slightness of means and greatness of +proportions, of the domestic architecture and decoration of the +fifteenth century, if one made one's own the mood underlying the +special straight lines and curves, the symmetry and hiatus of the +colonnades, for instance, inside Florentine houses; of the little bits +of carving on escutcheon and fireplace of Tuscan hillside farms; let +alone of the plainest sepulchral slabs in Santa Croce, one would be +in better case for really appreciating, say, Botticelli or Pier della +Francesca than after ever so much comparison of their work with that +of other painters. For, through familiarity with that humbler, more +purely impersonal and traditional art, a certain mode of being in +oneself, which is the special aesthetic mood of the Tuscan's would have +become organised and be aroused at the slightest indication of the +qualities producing it, so that their presence would never escape one. +This, I believe, is the secret of all aesthetic training: the growing +accustomed, as it were automatically, to respond to the work of art's +bidding; to march or dance to Apollo's harping with the irresistible +instinct with which the rats and the children followed the pied +piper's pipe. This is the aesthetic training which quite unconsciously +and incidentally came to the men of the past through daily habit of +artistic forms which existed and varied in the commonest objects just +as in the greatest masterpieces. And through it alone was the highest +art brought into fruitful contact with even the most everyday persons: +the tradition which already existed making inevitable the tradition +which followed. + +But to return to us moderns, who have to reconstitute deliberately a +vanished aesthetic tradition, it seems to me that such familiarity with +Tuscan art once initiated, we can learn more, producing and canalising +its special moods, from a frosty afternoon like this one on the +hillside, with its particular taste of air, its particular line of +shelving rock and twisting road and accentuating reed or cypress in +the delicate light, than from hours in a room where Signorelli and +Lippi, Angelico and Pollaiolo, are all telling one different things +in different languages. + + +III. + +These thoughts, and the ones I shall try to make clear as I go on, +began to take shape one early winter morning some ten years ago, while +I was staying among the vineyards in the little range of hills which +separate the valley of the Ombrone from the lower valley of the Arno. +Stony hills, stony paths between leafless lilac hedges, stony outlines +of crest, fringed with thin rosy bare trees; here and there a few +bright green pines; for the rest, olives and sulphur-yellow sere vines +among them; the wide valley all a pale blue wash, and Monte Morello +opposite wrapped in mists. It was visibly snowing on the great +Apennines, and suddenly, though very gently, it began to snow here +also, wrapping the blue distance, the yellow vineyards, in thin veils. +Brisk cold. At the house, when I returned from my walk, the children +were flattened against the window-panes, shouting for joy at the snow. +We grown-up folk, did we live wiser lives, might be equally delighted +by similar shows. + +A very Tuscan, or rather (what I mean when I make use of that word, +for geographically Tuscany is very large and various) a very +Florentine day. Beauty, exquisiteness, serenity; but not without +austerity carried to a distinct bitingness. And this is the quality +which we find again in all very characteristic Tuscan art. Such a +country as this, scorched in summer, wind-swept in winter, and +constantly stony and uphill, a country of eminently dry, clear, moving +air, puts us into a braced, active, self-restrained mood; there is in +it, as in these frosty days which suit it best, something which gives +life and demands it: a quality of happy effort. The art produced by +people in whom such a condition of being is frequent, must necessarily +reproduce this same condition of being in others. + +Therefore the connection between a country and its art must be sought +mainly in the fact that all art expresses a given state of being, of +emotion, not human necessarily, but vital; that is to say, expresses +not whether we love or hate, but rather _how_ we love or hate, how we +_are_. The mountain forms, colour, water, etc., of a country are +incorporated into its art less as that art's object of representation, +than as the determinant of a given mode of vitality in the artist. +Hence music and literature, although never actually reproducing any +part of them, may be strongly affected by their character. The _Vita +Nuova_, the really great (not merely historically interesting) +passages of the Divine Comedy, and the popular songs of Tigri's +collection, are as much the outcome of these Tuscan mountains and +hills, as is any picture in which we recognise their outlines and +colours. Indeed, it happens that of literal rendering (as +distinguished from ever-present reference to quality of air or light, +to climbing, to rock and stone as such) there is little in the +_Commedia_, none at all in either the old or the more modern lyrics, +and not so much even in painted landscape. The Tuscan backgrounds of +the fifteenth century are _not_ these stony places, sun-burnt or +wind-swept; they are the green lawns and pastures in vogue with the +whole international Middle Ages, but rendered with that braced, +selecting, finishing temper which _is_ the product of those stony +hills. Similarly the Tuscans must have been influenced by the grace, +the sparseness, the serenity of the olive, its inexhaustible vigour +and variety; yet how many of them ever painted it? That a people +should never paint or describe their landscape may mean that they have +not consciously inventoried the items; but it does not mean that they +have not aesthetically, so to speak _nervously_, felt them. Their +quality, their virtue, may be translated into that people's way of +talking of or painting quite different things: the Tuscan quality is a +quality of form, because it is a quality of mood. + + +IV. + +This Tuscan, and more than Attic, quality--for there is something akin +to it in certain Greek archaic sculpture--is to be found, already +perfect and most essential, in the facades of the early mediaeval +churches of Pistoia. _Is to be found_; because this quality, tense and +restrained and distributed with harmonious evenness, reveals itself +only to a certain fineness and carefulness of looking. The little +churches (there are four or five of them) belong to the style called +Pisan-Romanesque; and their fronts, carved arches, capitals, lintels, +and doorposts, are identical in plan, in all that the mind rapidly +inventories, with the fronts of the numerous contemporary churches of +Lucca. But a comparison with these will bring out most vividly the +special quality of the Pistoia churches. The Lucchese ones (of some of +which, before their restoration, Mr. Ruskin has left some marvellous +coloured drawings at Oxford) run to picturesqueness and even +something more; they do better in the picture than in the reality, +and weathering and defacement has done much for them. Whereas the +little churches at Pistoia, with less projection, less carving in the +round, few or no animal or clearly floral forms, and, as a rule, +pilasters or half-pillars instead of columns, must have been as +perfect the day they were finished; the subtle balancings and tensions +of lines and curves, the delicate fretting and inlaying of flat +surface pattern, having gained only, perhaps, in being drawn more +clearly by dust and damp upon a softer colour of marble. I have +mentioned these first, because their apparent insignificance--tiny +flat facades, with very little decoration--makes it in a way easier to +grasp the special delicate austerity of their beauty. But they are +humble offshoots, naturally, of two great and complex masterpieces, +and very modest sisters of a masterpiece only a degree less +marvellous: Pisa Cathedral, the Baptistery of Florence and San +Miniato. The wonderful nature of the most perfect of these three +buildings (and yet I hesitate to call it so, remembering the apse and +lateral gables of Pisa) can be the better understood that, standing +before the Baptistery of Florence, one has by its side Giotto's very +beautiful belfry. Looking at them turn about, one finds that the +Gothic boldness of light and shade of the Campanile makes the windows, +pillars and cornices of the Baptistery seem at first very flat and +uninteresting. But after the first time, and once that sense of +flatness overcome, it is impossible to revert to the belfry with the +same satisfaction. The eye and mind return to the greater perfection +of the Baptistery; by an odd paradox there is deeper feeling in those +apparently so slight and superficial carvings, those lintels and +fluted columns of green marble which scarcely cast a shadow on their +ivory-tinted wall. The Tuscan quality of these buildings is the better +appreciated when we take in the fact that their architectural items +had long existed, not merely in the Romanesque, but in the Byzantine +and late Roman. The series of temple-shaped windows on the outside of +the Florence Baptistery and of San Miniato, has, for instance, its +original in the Baptistery of Ravenna and the arch at Verona. What the +Tuscans have done is to perfect the inner and subtler proportions, to +restrain and accentuate, to phrase (in musical language) every detail +of execution. By an accident of artistic evolution, this style of +architecture, rather dully elaborated by a worn-out civilisation, has +had to wait six centuries for life to be put into it by a finer-strung +people at a chaster and more braced period of history. Nor should we +be satisfied with such loose phrases as this, leading one to think, in +a slovenly fashion (quite unsuitable to Tuscan artistic lucidity), +that the difference lay in some vague metaphysical entity called +_spirit_: the spirit of the Tuscan stonemasons of the early Middle +Ages altered the actual tangible forms in their proportions and +details: this spiritual quality affects us in their carved and inlaid +marbles, their fluted pilasters and undercut capitals, as a result of +actual work of eye and of chisel: they altered the expression by +altering the stone, even as the frosts and August suns and trickling +water had determined the expression, by altering the actual surface, +of their lovely austere hills. + + +V. + +The Tuscan quality in architecture must not be sought for during the +hundred years of Gothic--that is to say, of foreign--supremacy and +interregnum. The stonemasons of Pisa and of Florence did indeed apply +their wholly classic instincts to the detail and ornament of this +alien style; and one is struck by the delicacy and self-restraint of, +say, the Tuscan ones among the Scaliger tombs compared with the more +picturesque looseness of genuine Veronese and Venetian Gothic +sculpture. But the constructive, and, so to speak, space enclosing, +principles of the great art of mediaeval France were even less +understood by the Tuscan than by any other Italian builders; and, as +the finest work of Tuscan facade architecture was given before the +Gothic interregnum, so also its most noble work, as actual spatial +arrangement, must be sought for after the return to the round arch, +the cupola and the entablature of genuine Southern building. And then, +by a fortunate coincidence (perhaps because this style affords no real +unity to vast naves and transepts), the architectural masterpieces of +the fifteenth century are all of them (excepting, naturally, +Brunelleschi's dome) very small buildings: the Sacristies of S. +Lorenzo and S. Spirito, the chapel of the Pazzi, and the late, but +exquisite, small church of the Carceri at Prato. The smallness of +these places is fortunate, because it leaves no doubt that the sense +of spaciousness--of our being, as it were, enclosed with a great part +of world and sky around us--is an artistic illusion got by +co-ordination of detail, greatness of proportions, and, most of all, +perhaps, by quite marvellous distribution of light. These small +squares, or octagons, most often with a square embrasure for the +altar, seem ample habitations for the greatest things; one would wish +to use them for Palestrina's music, or Bach's, or Handel's; and then +one recognises that their actual dimensions in yards would not +accommodate the band and singers and the organ! Such music must remain +in our soul, where, in reality, the genius of those Florentine +architects has contrived the satisfying ampleness of their buildings. + +That they invented nothing in the way of architectural ornament, nay, +took their capitals, flutings, cornices, and so forth, most +mechanically from the worst antique, should be no real drawback to +this architecture; it was, most likely, a matter of negative instinct. +For these meagre details leave the mind free, nay, force it rather, to +soar at once into the vaultings, into the serene middle space opposite +the windows, and up into the enclosed heaven of the cupolas. + + +VI. + +The Tuscan sculpture of this period stands, I think, midway between +the serene perfection of the buildings (being itself sprung from the +architecture of the Gothic time), and the splendid but fragmentary +accomplishment of the paintings, many of whose disturbing problems, of +anatomy and anatomic movement, it shared to its confusion. It is not +for beautiful bodily structure or gesture, such as we find even in +poor antiques, that we should go to the Florentine sculptors, save, +perhaps, the two Robbias. It is the almost architectural distribution +of space and light, the treatment of masses, which makes the +immeasurable greatness of Donatello, and gives dignity to his greatest +contemporary, Jacopo della Quercia. And it is again an architectural +quality, though in the sense of the carved portals of Pistoia, the +flutings and fretwork and surface pattern of the Baptistery and S. +Miniato, which gives such poignant pleasure in the work of a very +different, but very great, sculptor, Desiderio. The marvel (for it is +a marvel) of his great monument in Santa Croce, depends not on +anatomic forms, but on the exquisite variety and vivacity of surface +arrangement; the word symphony (so often misapplied) fitting exactly +this complex structure of minute melodies and harmonies of rhythms and +accents in stone. + +But the quality of Tuscan sculpture exists in humbler, often anonymous +and infinitely pathetic work. I mean those effigies of knights and +burghers, coats of arms and mere inscriptions, which constitute so +large a portion of what we walk upon in Santa Croce. Things not much +thought of, maybe, and ruthlessly defaced by all posterity. But the +masses, the main lines, were originally noble, and defacement has only +made their nobleness and tenderness more evident and poignant: they +have come to partake of the special solemnity of stone worn by frost +and sunshine. + + +VII. + +There are a great many items which go to make up Tuscany and the +specially Tuscan mood. The country is at once hilly and mountainous, +but rich in alluvial river valleys, as flat and as wide, very often, +as plains; and the chains which divide and which bound it are as +various as can be: the crystalline crags of Carrara, the washed away +cones and escarpments of the high Apennines, repeating themselves in +counter forts and foothills, and the low, closely packed ridges of the +hills between Florence and Siena. Hence there is always a view, +definite and yet very complex, made up of every variety of line, but +always of clearest perspective: perfect horizontals at one's feet, +perfect perpendiculars opposite the eye, a constant alternation of +looking up and looking down, a never-failing possibility of looking +_beyond_, an outlet everywhere for the eye, and for the breath; and +endless intricacy of projecting spur and engulfed ravine, of valley +above valley, and ridge beyond ridge; and all of it, whether +definitely modelled by stormy lights or windy dryness, or washed to +mere outline by sunshine or mist, always massed into intelligible, +harmonious, and ever-changing groups. Ever changing as you move, hills +rising or sinking as you mount or descend, furling or unfurling as you +go to the right or to the left, valleys and ravines opening or closing +up, the whole country altering, so to speak, its attitude and gesture +as quickly almost, and with quite as perfect consecutiveness, as does +a great cathedral when you walk round it. And, for this reason, never +letting you rest; keeping _you_ also in movement, feet, eyes and +fancy. Add to all this a particular topographical feeling, very strong +and delightful, which I can only describe as that of seeing all the +kingdoms of the earth. In the high places close to Florence (and with +that especial lie of the land everything is a _high place_) a view is +not only of foregrounds and backgrounds, river troughs and mountain +lines of great variety, but of whole districts, or at least +indications of districts--distant peaks making you feel the places at +their feet--which you know to be extremely various: think of the +Carraras with their Mediterranean seaboard, the high Apennines with +Lombardy and the Adriatic behind them, the Siena and Volterra hills +leading to the Maremma, and the great range of the Falterona, with the +Tiber issuing from it, leading the mind through Umbria to Rome! + +The imagination is as active among these Florentine hills as is the +eye, or as the feet and lungs have been, pleasantly tired, delighting +in the moment's rest, after climbing those steep places among the +pines or the myrtles, under the scorch of the wholesome summer sun, or +in the face of the pure, snowy wind. The wind, so rarely at rest, has +helped to make the Tuscan spirit, calling for a certain resoluteness +to resist it, but, in return, taking all sense of weight away, making +the body merge, so to speak, into eye and mind, and turning one, for a +little while, into part of the merely visible and audible. The +frequent possibility of such views as I have tried to define, of such +moments of fulness of life, has given, methinks, the quality of +definiteness and harmony, of active, participated in, greatness, to +the art of Tuscany. + + +VIII. + +It is a pity that, as regards painting, this Tuscan feeling (for +Giottesque painting had the cosmopolitan, as distinguished from local, +quality of the Middle Ages and of the Franciscan movement) should have +been at its strongest just in the century when mere scientific +interest was uppermost. Nay, one is tempted to think that matters were +made worse by that very love of the strenuous, the definite, the +lucid, which is part of the Tuscan spirit. So that we have to pick +out, in men like Donatello, Uccello, Pollaiolo and Verrocchio, nay, +even in Lippi and Botticelli, the fragments which correspond to what +we get quite unmixed and perfect in the Romanesque churches of Pisa, +Florence, and Pistoia, in the sacristies and chapels of Brunelleschi, +Alberti, and Sangallo, and in a hundred exquisite cloisters and +loggias of unnoticed town houses and remote farms. But perhaps there +is added a zest (by no means out of keeping with the Tuscan feeling) +to our enjoyment by the slight effort which is thus imposed upon us: +Tuscan art does not give its exquisiteness for nothing. + +Be this as it may, the beauty of Florentine Renaissance painting must +be sought, very often, not in the object which the picture represents, +but in the mode in which that object is represented. Our habits of +thought are so slovenly in these matters, and our vocabulary so poor +and confused, that I find it difficult to make my exact meaning clear +without some insistence. I am not referring to the mere moral +qualities of care, decision, or respectfulness, though the recognition +thereof adds undoubtedly to the noble pleasure of a work of art; still +less to the technical or scientific lucidity which the picture +exhibits. The beauty of fifteenth-century painting is a visible +quality, a quality of the distribution of masses, the arrangement of +space; above all, of the lines of a picture. But it is independent of +the fact of the object represented being or not what in real life we +should judge beautiful; and it is, in large works, unfortunately even +more separate from such arrangement as will render a complicated +composition intelligible to the mind or even to the eye. The problems +of anatomy, relief, muscular action, and perspective which engrossed +and in many cases harassed the Florentines of the Renaissance, turned +their attention away from the habit of beautiful general composition +which had become traditional even in the dullest and most effete of +their Giottesque predecessors, and left them neither time nor +inclination for wonderful new invention in figure distribution like +that of their contemporary Umbrians. Save in easel pictures, +therefore, there is often a distressing confusion, a sort of dreary +random packing, in the works of men like Uccello, Lippi, Pollaiolo, +Filippino, Ghirlandaio, and even Botticelli. And even in the more +simply and often charmingly arranged easel pictures, the men and women +represented, even the angels and children, are often very far from +being what in real life would be deemed beautiful, or remarkable by +any special beauty of attitude and gesture. They are, in truth, +studies, anatomical or otherwise, although studies in nearly every +case dignified by the habit of a very serious and tender devoutness: +rarely soulless or insolent studio drudgery or swagger such as came +when art ceased to be truly popular and religious. Studies, however, +with little or no selection of the reality studied, and less thought +even for the place or manner in which they were to be used. + +But these studies are executed, however scientific their intention, +under the guidance of a sense and a habit of beauty, subtle and +imperious in proportion, almost, as it is self-unconscious. These +figures, sometimes ungainly, occasionally ill-made, and these +features, frequently homely or marred by some conspicuous ugliness, +are made up of lines as enchantingly beautiful, as seriously +satisfying, as those which surrounded the Tuscans in their landscape. +And it is in the extracting of such beauty of lines out of the +bewildering confusion of huge frescoes, it is in the seeing as +arrangements of such lines the sometimes unattractive men and women +and children painted (and for that matter, often also sculptured) by +the great Florentines of the fifteenth century, that consists the true +appreciation and habitual enjoyment of Tuscan Renaissance painting. +The outline of an ear and muscle of the neck by Lippi; the throw of +drapery by Ghirlandaio; the wide and smoke-like rings of heavy hair by +Botticelli; the intenser, more ardent spiral curls of Verrocchio or +the young Leonardo; all that is flower-like, flame-like, that has the +swirl of mountain rivers, the ripple of rocky brooks, the solemn and +poignant long curves and sudden crests of hills, all this exists in +the paintings of the Florentines; and it is its intrinsic nobility and +exquisiteness, its reminiscence and suggestion of all that is +loveliest and most solemn in nature, its analogy to all that is +strongest and most delicate in human emotion, which we should seek for +and cherish in their works. + + +IX. + +The hour of low lights, which the painters of the past almost +exclusively reproduced, is naturally that in which we recognise +easiest, not only the identity of mood awakened by the art and by the +country, but the closer resemblance between the things which art was +able to do, and the things which the country had already done. Even +more, immediately after sunset. The hills, becoming uniform masses, +assert their movement, strike deep into the valley, draw themselves +strongly up towards the sky. The valleys also, with their purple +darkness, rising like smoke out of them, assert themselves in their +turn. And the sky, the more diaphanous for all this dark solidity +against it, becomes sky more decisively; takes, moreover, colour which +only fluid things can have; turns into washes of pale gold, of palest +tea-rose pink and beryl green. Against this sky the cypresses are +delicately finished off in fine black lacework, even as in the +background of Botticelli's _Spring_, and Leonardo's or Verrocchio's +_Annuniciation_. One understands that those passionate lovers of line +loved the moment of sunset apart even from colour. The ridges of pines +and cypresses soon remain the only distinguishable thing in the +valleys, pulling themselves (as one feels it) rapidly up, like great +prehistoric shapes of Saurians. Soon the sky only and mountains will +exist. Then begins the time, before the starlit night comes to say its +say, when everything grows drowsy, a little vague, and the blurred +mountains go to sleep in the smoke of dusk. Then only, due west, the +great Carrara peaks stand out against the sanguine sky, long pointed +curves and flame-shaped sudden crests, clear and keen beyond the power +of mortal hand to draw. + + +X. + +The quality of such sights as these, as I have more than once +repeated, requires to be diligently sought for, and extricated from +many things which overlay or mar it, throughout nearly the whole of +Florentine Renaissance painting. But by good luck there is one painter +in whom we can enjoy it as subtle, but also as simple, as in the +hills and mountains outlined by sunset or gathered into diaphanous +folds by the subduing radiance of winter moon. I am speaking, of +course, of Pier della Francesca; although an over literal school of +criticism stickles at classing him with the other great Florentines. +Nay, by a happy irony of things, the reasons for this exclusion are +probably those to which we owe the very purity and perfection of this +man's Tuscan quality. For the remoteness of his home on the +southernmost border of Tuscany, and in a river valley--that of the +Upper Tiber--leading away from Florence and into Umbria, may have kept +him safe from that scientific rivalry, that worry and vexation of +professional problems, which told so badly on so many Florentine +craftsmen. And, on the other hand, the north Italian origin of one of +his masters, the mysterious Domenico Veneziano, seems to have given +him, instead of the colouring, always random and often coarse, of +contemporary Florence, a harmonious scheme of perfectly delicate, +clear, and flower-like colour. These two advantages are so distinctive +that, by breaking through the habits one necessarily gets into with +his Florentine contemporaries, they have resulted in setting apart, +and almost outside the pale of Tuscan painting, the purest of all +Tuscan artists. For with him there is no need for making allowances or +disentangling essentials. The vivid organic line need not be sought in +details nor, so to speak, abstracted: it bounds his figures, forms +them quite naturally and simply, and is therefore not thought about +apart from them. And the colour, integral as it is, and perfectly +harmonious, masses the figures into balanced groups, bossiness and +bulk, detail and depth, all unified, co-ordinated, satisfying as in +the sun-merged mountains and shelving valleys of his country; and with +the immediate charm of whiteness as of rocky water, pale blue of +washed skies, and that ineffable lilac, russet, rose, which makes the +basis of all southern loveliness. One thinks of him, therefore, as +something rather apart, a sort of school in himself, or at most with +Domenico, his master, and his follower, della Gatta. But more careful +looking will show that his greatest qualities, so balanced and so +clear in him, are shared--though often masked by the ungainlinesses of +hurried artistic growth--by Pollaiolo, Baldovinetti, Pesellino, let +alone Uccello, Castagno, and Masaccio; are, in a word, Tuscan, +Florentine. But more than by such studies, the kinship and nationality +of Pier della Francesca is proved by reference to the other branches +of Tuscan art: his peculiarities correspond to the treatment of line +and projection by those early stonemasons of the Baptistery and the +Pistoia churches, to the treatment of enclosed spaces and manipulated +light in those fifteenth-century sacristies and chapels, to the +treatment of mass and boundary in the finest reliefs of Donatello and +Donatello's great decorative follower Desiderio. To persons, however, +who are ready to think with me that we may be trained to art in fields +and on hillsides, the essential Tuscan character of Pier della +Francesca is brought home quite as strongly by the particular +satisfaction with which we recognise his pictures in some unlikely +place, say a Northern gallery. For it is a satisfaction, _sui generis_ +and with its own emotional flavour, like that which we experience on +return to Tuscany, on seeing from the train the white houses on the +slopes, the cypresses at the cross roads, the subtler, lower lines of +hills, the blue of distant peaks, on realising once more our depth of +tranquil love for this austere and gentle country. + + +XI. + +Save in the lushness of early summer, Tuscany is, on the whole, pale; +a country where the loveliness of colour is that of its luminousness, +and where light is paramount. From this arises, perhaps, the austerity +of its true summer--summer when fields are bare, grass burnt to +delicate cinnamon and russet, and the hills, with their sere herbs and +bushes, seem modelled out of pale rosy or amethyst light; an austerity +for the eye corresponding to a sense of healthfulness given by steady, +intense heat, purged of all damp, pure like the scents of dry leaves, +of warm, cypress resin and of burnt thyme and myrrh of the stony +ravines and stubbly fields. On such August days the plain and the more +distant mountains will sometimes be obliterated, leaving only the +inexpressible suavity of the hills on the same side as the sun, made +of the texture of the sky, lying against it like transparent and still +luminous shadows. All pictures of such effects of climate are false, +even Perugino's and Claude's, because even in these the eye is not +sufficiently attracted and absorbed away from the foreground, from the +earth to the luminous sky. That effect is the most powerful, sweetest, +and most restorative in all nature perhaps; a bath for the soul in +pure light and air. That is the incomparable buoyancy and radiance of +deepest Tuscan summer. But the winter is, perhaps, even more Tuscan +and more austerely beautiful. I am not even speaking of the fact that +the mountains, with their near snows and brooding blue storms and ever +contending currents of wind and battles and migrations of great +clouds, necessarily make much of winter very serious and solemn, as it +sweeps down their ravines and across their ridges. I am thinking of +the serene winter days of mist and sun, with ranges of hills made of a +luminous bluish smoke, and sky only a more luminous and liquid kind, +and the olives but a more solid specimen, of the mysterious silvery +substance of the world. The marvellous part of it all, and quite +impossible to convey, is that such days are not pensive, but +effulgent, that the lines of the landscape are not blurred, but +exquisitely selected and worked. + + +XII. + +A quality like that of Tuscan art is, as I have once before remarked, +in some measure, abstract; a general character, like that of a +composite photograph, selected and compounded by the repetition of the +more general and the exclusion of more individual features. In so far, +therefore, it is something rather tended towards in reality than +thoroughly accomplished; and its accomplishment, to whatever extent, +is naturally due to a tradition, a certain habit among artists and +public, which neutralises the refractory tendencies of individuals +(the personal morbidness evident, for instance, in Botticelli) and +makes the most of what the majority may have in common--that dominant +interest, let us say, in line and mass. Such being the case, this +Tuscan quality comes to an end with the local art of the middle ages, +and can no longer be found, or only imperfect, after the breaking up +and fusion of the various schools, and the arising of eclectic +personalities in the earliest sixteenth century. After the painters +born between 1450 and 1460, there are no more genuine Tuscans. +Leonardo, once independent of Verrocchio and settled in Lombardy, is +barely one of them; and Michel Angelo never at all--Michel Angelo with +his moods all of Rome or the great mountains, full of trouble, always, +and tragedy. These great personalities, and the other eclectics, +Raphael foremost, bring qualities to art which it had lacked before, +and are required to make its appeal legitimately universal. I should +shrink from judging their importance, compared with the older and more +local and traditional men. Still further from me is it to prefer this +Tuscan art to that, as local and traditional in its way, of Umbria or +Venetia, which stands to this as the most poignant lyric or the +richest romance stands, let us say, to the characteristic quality, +sober yet subtle, of Dante's greatest passages. There is, thank +heaven, wholesome art various enough to appeal to many various healthy +temperaments; and perhaps for each single temperament more than one +kind of art is needful. My object in the foregoing pages has not been +to put forward reasons for preferring the art of the Tuscans any more +than the climate and landscape of Tuscany; but merely to bring home +what the especial charm and power of Tuscan art and Tuscan nature seem +to me to be. More can be gained by knowing any art lovingly in itself +than by knowing twenty arts from each other through dry comparison. + +I have tried to suggest rather than to explain in what way the art of +a country may answer to its natural character, by inducing recurrent +moods of a given kind. I would not have it thought, however, that such +moods need be dominant, or even exist at all, in all the inhabitants +of that country. Art, wide as its appeal may be, is no more a product +of the great mass of persons than is abstract thought or special +invention, however largely these may be put to profit by the +generality. The bulk of the inhabitants help to make the art by +furnishing the occasional exceptionally endowed creature called an +artist, by determining his education and surroundings, in so far as he +is a mere citizen; and finally by bringing to bear on him the +stored-up habit of acquiescence in whatever art has been accepted by +that public from the artists of the immediate past. In fact, the +majority affects the artist mainly as itself has been affected by his +predecessors. If, therefore, the scenery and climate call forth moods +in a whole people definite enough to influence the art, this will be +due, I think, to some especially gifted individual having, at one time +or another, brought home those moods to them. + +Therefore we need feel no surprise if any individual, peasant or man +of business or abstract thinker, reveal a lack, even a total lack, of +such impressions as I am speaking of; nor even if among those who love +art a great proportion be still incapable of identifying those vague +contemplative emotions from which all art is sprung. It is not merely +the special endowment of eye, ear, hand, not merely what we call +artistic talent, which is exceptional and vested in individuals only. +It takes a surplus of sensitiveness and energy to be determined in +one's moods by natural surroundings instead of solely by one's own +wants or circumstances or business. Now art is born of just this +surplus sensitiveness and energy; it is the response not to the +impressions made by our private ways and means, but to the impressions +made by the ways and means of the visible, sensible universe. + +But once produced, art is received, and more or less assimilated, by +the rest of mankind, to whom it gives, in greater or less degree, more +of such sensitiveness and energy than it could otherwise have had. Art +thus calls forth contemplative emotions, otherwise dormant, and +creates in the routine and scramble of individual wants and habits a +sanctuary where the soul stops elbowing and trampling, and being +elbowed and trampled; nay, rather, a holy hill, neither ploughed nor +hunted over, a free high place, in which we can see clearly, breathe +widely, and, for awhile, live harmlessly, serenely, fully. + + +XIII. + +Thinking these thoughts for the hundredth time, feeling them in a way +as I feel the landscape, I walk home by the dear rock path girdling +Fiesole, within sound of the chisels of the quarries. Blackthorn is +now mixed in the bare purple hedgerows, and almond blossom, here and +there, whitens the sere oak, and the black rocks above. These are the +heights from which, as tradition has it, Florence descended, the +people of which Dante said-- + + "Che discese da Fiesole ab antico, + E tiene ancor del monte e del macigno," + +meaning it in anger. But it is true, and truer, in the good sense +also. Mountain and rock! the art of Tuscany is sprung from it, from +its arduous fruitfulness, with the clear stony stream, and the sparse +gentle olive, and the cypress, unshaken by the wind, unscorched by the +sun, and shooting inflexibly upwards. + + + + +ART AND USEFULNESS. + + "Time was when everybody that made anything made a work of art + besides a useful piece of goods, and it gave them pleasure to + make it."--WILLIAM MORRIS, Address delivered at Burslem, 1881. + + +I. + +Among the original capitals removed from the outer colonnade of the +ducal palace at Venice there is a series devoted to the teaching of +natural history, and another to that of such general facts about the +races of man, his various moral attributes and activities, as the +Venetians of the fourteenth century considered especially important. +First, botany, illustrated by the fruits most commonly in use, piled +up in baskets which constitute the funnel-shaped capital; each kind +separate, with the name underneath in funny Venetian spelling: _Huva_, +grapes; _Fici_, figs; _Moloni_, melons; _Zuche_, pumpkins; and +_Persici_, peaches. Then, with Latin names, the various animals: +_Ursus_, holding a honeycomb with bees on it; _Chanis_, mumbling only +a large bone, while his cousins, wolf and fox, have secured a duck and +a cock; _Aper_, the wild boar, munching a head of millet or similar +grain. + +Now had these beautiful carvings been made with no aim besides their +own beauty, had they represented and taught nothing, they would have +received only a few casual glances, quite insufficient to make their +excellence familiar or even apparent; at best the occasional +discriminative examination of some art student; while the pleased, +spontaneous attentiveness which carries beauty deep into the soul and +the soul's storehouse would have been lacking. But consider these +capitals to have been what they undoubtedly were meant for: the +picture books and manuals off which young folks learned, and older +persons refreshed, their notions of natural history, of geography, +ethnology, and even of morals, and you will realise at once how much +attention, and of how constant and assimilative a kind, they must have +received. The child learns off them that figs (which he never sees +save packed in baskets in the barges at Rialto) have leaves like funny +gloves, while _huva_, grapes, have leaves all ribbed and looking like +tattered banners; that the bear is blunt-featured and eats honeycomb; +that foxes and wolves, who live on the mainland, are very like the +dogs we keep in Venice, but that they steal poultry instead of being +given bones from the kitchen. Also that there are in the world, +besides these clean-shaved Venetians in armour or doge's cap, bearded +Asiatics and thick-lipped negroes--the sort of people with whom uncle +and cousins traffic in the big ships, or among whom grandfather helped +the Doge to raise the standard of St. Mark. Also that carpenters work +with planes and vices, and stonemasons with mallets and chisels; and +that good and wise men are remembered for ever: for here is the story +of how Solomon discovered the true mother, and here again the Emperor +Trajan going to the wars, and reining in his horse to do justice first +to the poor widow. The child looks at the capitals in order to see +with his eyes all these interesting things of which he has been told; +and, during the holiday walk, drags his parents to the spot, to look +again, and to beg to be told once more. And later, he looks at the +familiar figures in order to show them to his children; or, perhaps, +more wistfully, loitering along the arcade in solitude, to remember +the days of his own childhood. And in this manner, the things +represented, fruit, animals and persons, and the exact form in which +they are rendered: the funnel shape of the capitals, the cling and +curl of the leafage, the sharp black undercutting, the clear, lightly +incised surfaces, the whole pattern of line and curve, light and +shade, the whole pattern of the eye's progress along it, of the rhythm +of expansion and restraint, of pressure and thrust, in short, the real +work of art, the visible form--become well-known, dwelling in the +memory, cohabiting with the various moods, and haunting the fancy; a +part of life, familiar, everyday, liked or disliked, discriminated in +every particular, become part and parcel of ourselves, for better or +for worse, like the tools we handle, the boats we steer, the horses we +ride and groom, and the furniture and utensils among which and through +whose help we live our lives. + + +II. + +Furniture and utensils; things which exist because we require them, +which we know because we employ them, these are the type of all great +works of art. And from the selfsame craving which insists that these +should be shapely as well as handy, pleasant to the eye as well as +rational; through the selfsame processes of seeing and remembering and +altering their shapes--according to the same aesthetic laws of line and +curve, of surface and projection, of spring and restraint, of +clearness and compensation; and for the same organic reasons and by +the same organic methods of preference and adaptation as these +humblest things of usefulness, do the proudest and seemingly freest +works of art come to exist; come to be _just what they are_, and even +come _to be at all_. + +I should like to state very clearly, before analysing its reasons, +what seems to me (and I am proud to follow Ruskin in this as in so +many essential questions of art and life) the true formula of this +matter. Namely: that while beauty has always been desired and obtained +for its own sake, the works in which we have found beauty embodied, +and the arts which have achieved beauty's embodying, have always +started from impulses or needs, and have always aimed at purposes or +problems entirely independent of this embodiment of beauty. + + +III. + +The desire for beauty stands to art as the desire for righteousness +stands to conduct. People do not feel and act from a desire to feel and +act righteously, but from a hundred different and differently-combined +motives; the desire for righteousness comes in to regulate this feeling +and acting, to subject it all to certain preferences and repugnances +which have become organic, if not in the human being, at least in human +society. Like the desire for righteousness, the desire for beauty is not +a spring of action, but a regulative function; it decides the _how_ of +visible existence; in accordance with deep-seated and barely guessed at +necessities of body and soul, of nerves and perceptions, of brain and +judgments; it says to all visible objects: since you needs must be, you +shall be in _this_ manner, and not in that other. The desire for beauty, +with its more potent negative, the aversion to ugliness, has, like the +sense of right and wrong, the force of a categorical imperative. + +Such, to my thinking, is the aesthetic instinct. And I call _Art_ +whatever kind of process, intellectual and technical, creates, +incidentally or purposely, visible or audible forms, and creates them +under the regulation of this aesthetic instinct. Art, therefore, is art +whenever any object or any action, or any arrangement, besides being +such as to serve a practical purpose or express an emotion or transfer +a thought, is such also as to afford the _sui generis_ satisfaction +which we denote by the adjective: beautiful. + +But, asks the reader, if every human activity resulting in visible or +audible form is to be considered, at least potentially, as art; what +becomes of _art_ as distinguished from _craft_, or rather what is the +difference between what we all mean by art and what we all mean by +_craft_? + +To this objection, perfectly justified by the facts of our own day, I +would answer quite simply: There is no necessary or essential +distinction between what we call _art_ and what we call _craft_. It is +a pure accident, and in all probability a temporary one, which has +momentarily separated the two in the last hundred years. Throughout +the previous part of the world's history art and craft have been one +and the same, at the utmost distinguishable only from a different +point of view: _craft_ from the practical side, _art_ from the +contemplative. Every trade concerned with visible or audible objects +or movements has also been an art; and every one of those great +creative activities, for which, in their present isolation, we now +reserve the name of _art_, has also been a craft; has been connected +and replenished with life by the making of things which have a use, or +by the doing of deeds which have a meaning. + + +IV. + +We must, of course, understand _usefulness_ in its widest sense; +otherwise we should be looking at the world in a manner too little +utilitarian, not too much so. Houses and furniture and utensils, +clothes, tools and weapons, must undoubtedly exemplify utility first +and foremost because they serve our life in the most direct, +indispensable and unvarying fashion, always necessary and necessary to +everyone. But once these universal unchanging needs supplied, a great +many others become visible: needs to the individual or to individuals +and races under definite and changing circumstances. The sonnet or the +serenade are useful to the romantic lover in the same manner that +carriage-horses and fine clothes are useful to the man who woos more +practically-minded ladies. The diamonds of a rich woman serve to mark +her status quite as much as to please the unpleasable eye of envy; in +the same way that the uniform, the robes and vestments, are needed to +set aside the soldier, the magistrate or priest, and give him the +right of dealing _ex officio_, not as a mere man among men. And the +consciousness of such apparent superfluities, whether they be the +expression of wealth or of hierarchy, of fashion or of caste, gives to +their possessor that additional self-importance which is quite as much +wanted by the ungainly or diffident moral man as the additional warmth +of his more obviously needed raiment is by the poor, chilly, bodily +human being. I will not enlarge upon the practical uses which recent +ethnology has discovered in the tattooing, the painting, the masks, +headdresses, feather skirts, cowries and beads, of all that elaborate +ornamentation with which, only a few years back, we were in the habit +of reproaching the poor, foolish, naked savages; additional knowledge +of their habits having demonstrated rather our folly than theirs, in +taking for granted that any race of men would prefer ornament to +clothes, unless, as was the case, these ornaments were really more +indispensable in their particular mode of life. For an ornament which +terrifies an enemy, propitiates a god, paralyses a wild beast, or +gains a wife, is a matter of utility, not of aesthetic luxury, so long +as it happens to be efficacious, or so long as its efficacy is +believed in. Indeed, the gold coach and liveried trumpeters of the +nostrum vendor of bygone days, like their less enlivening equivalents +in many more modern professions, are of the nature of trade tools, +although the things they fashion are only the foolish minds of +possible customers. + +And this function of expressing and impressing brings us to the other +great category of utility. The sculptured pediment or frescoed wall, +the hieroglyph, or the map or the book, everything which records a +fact or transmits a feeling, everything which carries a message to men +or gods, is an object of utility: the coat-of-arms painted on a panel, +or the emblem carved upon a church front, as much as the helmet of the +knight or the shield of the savage. A church or a religious ceremony, +nay, every additional ounce of gilding or grain of incense, or day or +hour, bestowed on sanctuary and ritual, are not useful only to the +selfish devotee who employs them for obtaining celestial favours; they +are more useful and necessary even to the pure-minded worshipper, +because they enable him to express the longing and the awe with which +his heart is overflowing. For every oblation faithfully brought means +so much added moral strength; and love requires gifts to give as much +as hunger needs food and vanity needs ornament and wealth. All things +which minister to a human need, bodily or spiritual, simple or +complex, direct or indirect, innocent or noble, or base or malignant, +all such things exist for their use. They do exist, and would always +have existed equally if no such quality as beauty had ever arisen to +enhance or to excuse their good or bad existence. + + +V. + +The conception of art as of something outside, and almost opposed to, +practical life, and the tendency to explain its gratuitous existence +by a special "play instinct" more gratuitous itself, are due in great +measure to our wrong way of thinking and feeling upon no less a matter +than human activity as such. The old-fashioned psychology which, +ignoring instinct and impulse, explained all action as the result of +a kind of calculation of future pleasure and pain, has accustomed us +to account for all fruitful human activity, whatever we call _work_, +by a wish for some benefit or fear of some disadvantage. And, on the +other hand, the economic systems of our time (or, at all events, the +systematic exposition of our economic arrangements) have furthermore +accustomed us to think of everything like _work_ as done under +compulsion, fear of worse, or a kind of bribery. It is really taken as +a postulate, and almost as an axiom, that no one would make or do +anything useful save under the goad of want; of want not in the sense +of _wanting to do or make that thing_, but of _wanting to have or be +able to do something else_. Hence everything which is manifestly done +from no such motive, but from an inner impulse towards the doing, +comes to be thought of as opposed to _work_, and to be designated as +_play_. Now art is very obviously carried on for its own sake: +experience, even of our mercantile age, teaches that if a man does not +paint a picture or compose a symphony from an inner necessity as +disinterested as that which makes another man look at the picture or +listen to the symphony, no amount of self-interest, of disadvantages +and advantages, will enable him to do either otherwise than badly. +Hence, as I said, we are made to think of art as _play_, or a kind of +play. + +But play itself, being unaccountable on the basis of external +advantage and disadvantage, being, from the false economic point of +view, unproductive, that is to say, pure waste, has in its turn to be +accounted for by the supposition of surplus energy occasionally +requiring to be let off to no purpose, or merely to prevent the +machine from bursting. This opposition of work and play is founded in +our experience of a social state which is still at sixes and sevens; +of a civilisation so imperfectly developed and organised that the +majority does nothing save under compulsion, and the minority does +nothing to any purpose; and where that little boy's Scylla and +Charybdis _all work_ and _all play_ is effectually realised in a +nightmare too terrible and too foolish, above all too wakingly true, +to be looked at in the face without flinching. One wonders, +incidentally, how any creature perpetually working from the reasons +given by economists, that is to say, working against the grain, from +no spontaneous wish or pleasure, can possibly store up, in such +exhausting effort, a surplus of energy requiring to be let off! And +one wonders, on the other hand, how any really good work of any kind, +work not merely kept by dire competitive necessity up to a standard, +but able to afford any standard to keep up to, can well be produced +save by the letting off of surplus energy; that is to say, how good +work can ever be done otherwise than by impulses and instincts acting +spontaneously, in fact as play. The reality seems to be that, +imperfect as is our poor life, present and past, we are maligning it; +founding our theories, for simplicity's sake and to excuse our lack of +hope and striving, upon its very worst samples. Wasteful as is the +mal-distribution of human activities (mal-distribution worse than that +of land or capital!), cruel as is the consequent pressure of want, +there yet remains at the bottom of an immense amount of work an inner +push different from that outer constraint, an inner need as fruitful +as the outer one is wasteful: there remains the satisfaction in work, +the wish to work. However outer necessity, "competition," "minimum of +cost," "iron law of wages," call it what you choose, direct and +misdirect, through need of bread or greed of luxury, the application +of human activity, that activity has to be there, and with it its own +alleviation and reward: pleasure in work. All decent human work +partakes (let us thank the great reasonablenesses of real things!) of +the quality of play: if it did not it would be bad or ever on the +verge of badness; and if ever human activity attains to fullest +fruitfulness, it will be (every experience of our own best work shows +it) when the distinction of _work_ and of _play_ will cease to have a +meaning, play remaining only as the preparatory work of the child, as +the strength-repairing, balance-adjusting work of the adult. + +And meanwhile, through all the centuries of centuries, art, which is +the type and sample of all higher, better modes of life, art has given +us in itself the concrete sample, the unmistakable type of that +needful reconciliation of work and play; and has shown us that there +is, or should be, no difference between them. For art has made the +things which are useful, and done the things which are needed, in +those shapes and ways of beauty which have no aim but our +satisfaction. + + +VI. + +The way in which the work of art is born of a purpose, of something +useful to do or desirable to say, and the way in which the suggestions +of utility are used up for beauty, can best be shown by a really +existing object. Expressed in practical terms the object is humble +enough: a little trough with two taps built into a recess in a wall; a +place for washing hands and rinsing glasses, as you see the Dominican +brothers doing it all day, for I am speaking of the _Lavabo_ by +Giovanni della Robbia in the Sacristy of Santa Maria Novella in +Florence. The whole thing is small, and did not allow of the adjoining +room usually devoted to this purpose. The washing and rinsing had to +take place in the sacristy itself. But this being the case, it was +desirable that the space set apart for these proceedings should at +least appear to be separate; the trough, therefore, was sunk in a +recess, and the recess divided off from the rest of the wall by +pillars and a gable, becoming in this manner, with no loss of real +standing room, a building inside a building; the operations, +furthermore, implying a certain amount of wetting and slopping, the +dryness of the rest of the sacristy, and particularly the _idea_ of +its dryness (so necessary where precious stuffs and metal vessels are +kept) had to be secured not merely by covering a piece of wainscot and +floor with tiles, but by building the whole little enclosure (all save +the marble trough) of white and coloured majolica, which seemed to say +to the oaken and walnut presses, to the great table covered with +vestments: "Don't be afraid, you shall not feel a drop from all this +washing and rinsing." + +So far, therefore, we have got for our lavabo-trough a shallow recess, +lined and paved with tiles, and cut off from the frescoed and panelled +walls by two pilasters and a rounded gable, of tile work also, the +general proportions being given by the necessity of two monks or two +acolytes washing the sacred vessels at the same moment. The word +_sacred_ now leads us to another determining necessity of our work of +art. For this place, where the lavabo stands, is actually consecrated; +it has an altar; and it is in it that take place all the preparations +and preliminaries for the most holy and most magnificent of rites. The +sacristy, like the church, is moreover an offering to heaven; and the +lavabo, since it has to exist, can exist with fitness only if it also +be offered, and made worthy of offering, to heaven. Besides, +therefore, those general proportions which have had to be made +harmonious for the satisfaction not merely of the builder, but of the +people whose eye rests on them daily and hourly; besides the +shapeliness and dignity which we insist upon in all things needful; we +further require of this object that it should have a certain +superabundance of grace, that it should have colour, elaborate +pattern, what we call _ornament_; details which will show that it is a +gift, and make it a fit companion for the magnificent embroideries and +damasks, the costly and exquisite embossed and enamelled vessels which +inhabit that place; and a worthy spectator of the sacred pageantry +which issues from this sacristy. The little tiled recess, the trough +and the little piece of architecture which frames it all, shall not +only be practically useful, they shall also be spiritually useful as +the expression of men's reverence and devotion. To whom? Why, to the +dear mother of Christ and her gracious angels, whom we place, in +effigy, on the gable, white figures on a blue ground. And since this +humble thing is also an offering, what can be more appropriate than to +hang it round with votive garlands, such as we bind to mark the course +of processions, and which we garnish (filling the gaps of glossy bay +and spruce pine branches) with the finest fruits of the earth, lemons, +and pears, and pomegranates, a grateful tithe to the Powers who make +the orchards fruitful. But, since such garlands wither and such fruits +decay, and there must be no withering or decaying in the sanctuary, +the bay leaves and the pine branches, and the lemons and pears and +pomegranates, shall be of imperishable material, majolica coloured +like reality, and majolica, moreover, which leads us back, pleasantly, +to the humble necessity of the trough, the spurting and slopping of +water, which we have secured against by that tiled floor and wainscot. + +But here another suggestion arises. Water is necessary and infinitely +pleasant in a hot country and a hot place like this domed sacristy. +But we have very, oh, so very, little of it in Florence! We cannot +even, however great our love and reverence, offer Our Lady and the +Angels the thinnest perennial spurt; we must let out the water only +for bare use, and turn the tap off instantly after. There is something +very disappointing in this; and the knowledge of that dearth of water, +of those two taps symbolical of chronic drought, is positively +disheartening. Beautiful proportions, delicate patterns, gracious +effigies of the Madonna and the angels we can have, and also the most +lovely garlands. But we cannot have a fountain. For it is useless +calling this a fountain, this poor little trough with two taps.... + +But you _shall_ have a fountain! Giovanni della Robbia answers in his +heart; or, at least, you shall _feel_ as if you had one! And here we +may witness, if we use the eyes of the spirit as well as of the body, +one of the strangest miracles of art, when art is married to a +purpose. The idea of a fountain, the desirability of water, becomes, +unconsciously, dominant in the artist's mind; and under its sway, as +under the divining rod, there trickle and well up every kind of +thought, of feeling, about water; until the images thereof, visible, +audible, tactile, unite and steep and submerge every other notion. +Nothing deliberate; and, in all probability, nothing even conscious; +those watery thoughts merely lapping dreamily round, like a half-heard +murmur of rivers, the waking work with which his mind is busy. Nothing +deliberate or conscious, but all the more inevitable and efficacious, +this multifold suggestion of water. + +And behold the result, the witness of the miracle: In the domed +sacristy, the fountain cooling this sultry afternoon of June as it has +cooled four hundred Junes and more since set up, arch and pilasters +and statued gables hung with garlands by that particular Robbia; +cooling and refreshing us with its empty trough and closed taps, +without a drop of real water! For it is made of water itself, or the +essence, the longing memory of water. It is water, this shining pale +amber and agate and grass-green tiling and wainscotting, starred at +regular intervals by wide-spread patterns as of floating weeds; water +which makes the glossiness of the great leaf-garlands and the +juiciness of the smooth lemons and cool pears and pomegranates; water +which has washed into ineffable freshness this piece of blue heaven +within the gable; and water, you would say, as of some shining +fountain in the dusk, which has gathered together into the white +glistening bodies and draperies which stand out against that +newly-washed aether. All this is evident, and yet insufficient to +account for our feelings. The subtlest and most potent half of the +spell is hidden; and we guess it only little by little. In this little +Grecian tabernacle, every line save the bare verticals and horizontals +is a line suggestive of trickling and flowing and bubbles; a line +suggested by water and water's movement; and every light and shadow is +a light or a shadow suggested by water's brightness or transparent +gloom; it is water which winds in tiny meanders of pattern along the +shallow shining pillars, and water which beads and dimples along the +shady cornice. The fountain has been thought out in longing for water, +and every detail of it has been touched by the memory thereof. Water! +they wanted water, and they should have it. By a coincidence almost, +Giovanni della Robbia has revealed the secret which himself most +probably never guessed, in the little landscape of lilac and bluish +tiles with which he filled up the arch behind the taps. Some Tuscan +scene, think you? Hills and a few cypresses, such as his +contemporaries used for background? Not a bit. A great lake, an +estuary, almost a sea, with sailing ships, a flooded country, such as +no Florentine had ever seen with mortal eyes; but such as, in his +longing for water, he must have dreamed about. Thus the landscape sums +up this dream, this realisation of every cool and trickling sight and +touch and sound which fills that sacristy as with a spray of watery +thoughts. In this manner, with perhaps but a small effort of invention +and a small output of fancy, and without departing in the least from +the general proportions and shapes and ornaments common in his day, +has an artist of the second order left us one of the most exquisitely +shapely and poetical of works, merely by following the suggestions of +the use, the place, the religious message and that humble human wish +for water where there was none. + + +VII. + +It is discouraging and humiliating to think (and therefore we think it +very seldom) that nowadays we artists, painters of portraits and +landscapes, builders and decorators of houses, pianists, singers, +fiddlers, and, quite as really though less obviously, writers, are all +of us indirectly helping to keep up the greed which makes the +privileged and possessing classes cling to their monopolies and +accumulate their possessions. Bitter to realise that, disinterested as +we must mostly be (for good artistic work means talent, talent +preference, and preference disinterestedness), we are, as Ruskin has +already told us, but the parasites of parasites. + +For of the pleasure-giving things we make, what portion really gives +any pleasure, or comes within reach of giving pleasure, to those whose +hands _as a whole class_ (as distinguished from the brain of an +occasional individual of the other class) produce the wealth we all of +us have to live, or try to live, upon? Of course there is the seeming +consolation that, like the Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs, the Watteaus +and the Fragonards of the past, the Millais and the Sargents (charming +sitters, or the reverse, and all), and the Monets and Brabazons, will +sooner or later become what we call public property in public +galleries. But, meanwhile, the Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs and +Watteaus and Fragonards themselves, though the legal property of +everybody, are really reserved for those same classes who own their +modern equivalents, simply because those alone have the leisure and +culture necessary to enjoy them. The case is not really different for +the one or two seemingly more independent and noble artistic +individualities, the great decorators like Watts or Besnard; their own +work, like their own conscience, is indeed the purer and stronger for +their intention of painting not for smoking-rooms and private +collections, but for places where all men can see and understand; but +then all men cannot see--they are busy or too tired--and they cannot +understand, because the language of art has become foreign to them. +The same applies to composers and to writers: music and books are +cheap enough, but the familiarity with musical forms and literary +styles, without which music and books are mere noise and waste-paper, +is practically unattainable to the classes who till the ground, +extract its stone and minerals, and make, with their hands, every +material thing (save works of art) that we possess. + +Indeed, one additional reason why, ever since the eighteenth century, +art has been set up as the opposite of useful work, and explained as a +form of play (though its technical difficulties grew more exorbitant +and exhausting year by year) is probably that, in our modern +civilisations, art has been obviously produced for the benefit of the +classes who virtually do not work, and by artists born or bred to +belong to those idle classes themselves. For it is a fact that, as the +artist nowadays finds his public only among the comparatively idle +(or, at all events, those whose activity distributes wealth in their +own favour rather than creates it), so also he requires to be, more +and more, in sympathy with their mode of living and thinking: the +friend, the client, most often the son, of what we call (with terrible +unperceived irony in the words) _leisured_ folk. As to the folk who +have no leisure (and therefore, according to our modern aesthetics, no +_art_ because no _play_) they can receive from us privileged persons +(when privilege happens to be worth its keep) no benefits save very +practical ones. The only kind of work founded on "leisure"--which does +in our day not merely increase the advantages of already well-off +persons, but actually filter down to help the unleisured producers of +our wealth--is not the work of the artist, but of the doctor, the +nurse, the inventor, the man of science; who knows? Perhaps almost of +the philosopher, the historian, the sociologist: the clearer away of +convenient error, the unmaker and remaker of consciences. + +As I began by saying, it is not very comfortable, nowadays, to be an +artist, and yet possess a mind and heart. And two of the greatest +artists of our times, Ruskin and Tolstoi, have done their utmost to +make it more uncomfortable still. So that it is natural for our +artists to decide that art exists only for art's own sake, since it +cannot nowadays be said to exist for the sake of anything else. And as +to us, privileged persons, with leisure and culture fitting us for +artistic enjoyment, it is even more natural to consider art as a kind +of play: play in which we get refreshed after somebody else's work. + + +VIII. + +And are we really much refreshed? Watching the face and manner, +listless, perfunctory or busily attentive, of our fellow-creatures in +galleries and exhibitions, and in great measure in concert rooms and +theatres, one would imagine that, on the contrary, they were +fulfilling a social duty or undergoing a pedagogical routine. The +object of the proceeding would rather seem to be negative; one might +judge that they had come lest their neighbours should suspect that +they were somewhere else, or perhaps lest their neighbours should come +instead, according to our fertile methods of society intercourse and +of competitive examinations. At any rate, they do not look as if they +came to be refreshed, or as if they had taken the right steps towards +such spiritual refreshment: the faces and manner of children in a +playground, of cricketers on a village green, of Sunday trippers on +the beach, or of German townsfolk walking to the beerhouse or cafe in +the deep fragrant woods, present a different appearance. And if we +examine into our own feelings, we shall find that even for the most +art-loving of us the hours spent in galleries of pictures and statues, +or listening to music at concerts, are largely stolen from our real +life of real interests and real pleasures; that there enters into them +a great proportion of effort and boredom; at the very best that we do +not enjoy (nor expect to enjoy) them at all in the same degree as a +good dinner in good company, or a walk in bright, bracing weather, let +alone, of course, fishing, or hunting, or digging and weeding our +little garden. + +Of course, if we are really artistic, and if we have the power of +analysing our own feelings and motives, we shall know that the gallery +or the concert afford occasion for laying in a store of pleasurable +impressions, to be enjoyed at the right moment and in the right mood +later: outlines of pictures, washes of colour, grouped masses of +sculpture, bars of melody, clang of especial chords or timbre +combinations, and even the vague aesthetic emotion, the halo +surrounding blurred recollections of sights and sounds. And knowing +this, we are content that the act of garnering, of preparing, for such +future enjoyment, should lack any steady or deep pleasurableness about +itself. But, thinking over the matter, there seems something wrong, +derogatory to art and humiliating to ourselves, in this admission that +the actual presence of the work of art, sometimes the masterpiece, +should give us the minimum, and not the maximum, of our artistic +enjoyment. And comparing the usual dead level of such merely potential +pleasure with certain rare occasions when we have enjoyed art more at +the moment than afterwards, quite vividly, warmly and with the proper +reluctant clutch at the divine minute as it passes; making this +comparison, we can, I think, guess at the nature of the mischief and +the possibility of its remedy. + +Examining into our experience, we shall find that, while our lack of +enjoyment (our state of aesthetic _aridity_, to borrow the expression +of religious mystics) had coincided with a deliberate intention to see +or hear works of art, and a consequent clearing away of other claims, +and on our attention, in fact, to an effort made more or less in +_vacuo_; on the contrary, our Faust-moments ("Stay, thou art +beautiful!") of plenitude and consummation, have always come when our +activity was already flowing, our attention stimulated, and when, so +to speak, the special artistic impressions were caught up into our +other interests, and woven by them into our life. We can all recall +unexpected delights like Hazlitt's in the odd volume of Rousseau found +on the window-seat, and discussed, with his savoury supper, in the +roadside inn, after his long day's pleasant tramp. + +Indeed, this preparing of the artistic impression by many others, or +focussing of others by it, accounts for the keenness of our aesthetic +pleasure when on a journey; we are thoroughly alive, and the seen or +heard thing of beauty lives _into_, us, or we into it (there is an +important psychological law, a little too abstract for this moment of +expansiveness, called "the Law of the Summation of Stimuli"). The +truth of what I say is confirmed by the frequent fact that the work of +art which gives us this full and vivid pleasure (actually refreshing! +for here, at last, is refreshment!) is either fragmentary or by no +means first-rate. We have remained arid, hard, incapable of absorbing, +while whole Joachim quartets flowed and rippled all _round_, but never +_into_, us; and then, some other time, our soul seems to have drunk +up (every fibre blissfully steeping) a few bars of a sonata (it was +Beethoven's 10th violin, and they were stumbling through it for the +first time) heard accidentally while walking up and down under an open +window. + +It is the same with painting and sculpture. I shall never forget the +exquisite poetry and loveliness of that Matteo di Giovanni, "The +Giving of the Virgin's Girdle," when I saw it for the first time, in +the chapel of that villa, once a monastery, near Siena. Even through +the haze of twenty years (like those delicate blue December mists +which lay between the sunny hills) I can see that picture, illumined +piecemeal by the travelling taper on the sacristan's reed, far more +distinctly than I see it to-day with bodily eyes in the National +Gallery. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that where it hangs in +that gallery it has not once given me one half-second of real +pleasure. It is a third-rate picture now; but even the masterpieces, +Perugino's big fresco, Titian's "Bacchus and Ariadne," Pier della +Francesca's "Baptism"; have they ever given me the complete and steady +delight which that mediocre Sienese gave me at the end of the wintry +drive, in the faintly illumined chapel? More often than not, as +Coleridge puts it, I have "seen, not _felt_, how beautiful they are." +But, apart even from fortunate circumstances or enhancing activities, +we have all of us experienced how much better we see or hear a work of +art with the mere dull help of some historical question to elucidate +or technical matter to examine into; we have been able to follow a +piece of music by watching for some peculiarity of counterpoint or +excellence or fault of execution; and our attention has been carried +into a picture or statue by trying to make out whether a piece of +drapery was repainted or an arm restored. Indeed, the irrelevant +literary programme of concerts and all that art historical lore +(information about things of no importance, or none to us) conveyed in +dreary monographs and hand-books, all of them perform a necessary +function nowadays, that of bringing our idle and alien minds into some +sort of relation of business with the works of art which we should +otherwise, nine times out of ten, fail really to approach. + +And here I would suggest that this necessity of being, in some way, +busy about beautiful things in order thoroughly to perceive them, may +represent some sterner necessity of life in general; art being, in +this as in so many other cases, significantly typical of what is +larger than itself. Can we get the full taste of pleasure sought for +pleasure's own sake? And is not happiness in life, like beauty in art, +rather a means than an aim: the condition of going on, the +replenishing of force; in short, the thing by whose help, not for the +sake of which, we feel and act and live? + + +IX. + +Beauty is an especial quality in visible or audible shapes and movements +which imposes on our soul a certain rhythm and pattern of feeling entirely +_sui generis_, but unified, harmonious, and, in a manner, consummate. +Beauty is a power in our life, because, however intermittent its +action and however momentary, it makes us live, by a kind of sympathy +with itself, a life fuller, more vivid, and at the same time more +peaceful. But, as the word _sympathy_, _with-feeling_--(_Einfuehlen_, +"feeling into," the Germans happily put it)--as the word _sympathy_ is +intended to suggest, this subduing and yet liberating, this enlivening +and pacifying power of beautiful form over our feelings is exercised +only when our feelings enter, and are absorbed into, the form we +perceive; so that (very much as in the case of sympathy with human +vicissitudes) we participate in the supposed life of the form while in +reality lending _our_ life to it. Just as in our relations with our +fellow-men, so also in our subtler but even more potent relations with +the appearances of things and actions, our heart can be touched, +purified, and satisfied only just in proportion as we _give_ our +heart. And even as it is possible to perceive other human beings and +to adjust our action (sometimes heartlessly enough) to such qualities +in them as we find practically important to ourselves, without putting +out one scrap of sympathy with their own existence as felt by them; so +also it is possible to recognise things and actions, to become rapidly +aware of such of their peculiarities as most frequently affect us +practically, and to consequently adjust our behaviour, without giving +our sympathy to their form, without entering into and _living into_ +those forms; and in so far it is possible for us to remain indifferent +to those forms' quality of beauty or ugliness, just as, in the hurry +of practical life, we remain indifferent to the stuff our neighbours' +souls are made of. This rapid, partial, superficial, perfunctory mode +of dealing with what we see and hear constitutes the ordinary, +constant, and absolutely indispensable act of recognising objects and +actions, of _spotting_ their qualities and _twigging_ their meaning: +an act necessarily tending to more and more abbreviation and rapidity +and superficiality, to a sort of shorthand which reduces what has to +be understood, and enables us to pass immediately to understanding +something else; according to that law of necessarily saving time and +energy. + +And so we rush on, recognising, naming, spotting, twigging, answering, +using, or parrying; we need not fully _see_ the complete appearance of +the word we read, of the man we meet, of the street we run along, of +the water we drink, the fire we light, the adversary whom we pursue or +whom we evade; and in the selfsame manner we need not fully see the +form of the building of which we say "This is a Gothic cathedral"--of +the picture of which we say "Christ before Pilate"--or of the piece of +music of which we say "A cheerful waltz by Strauss" or "A melancholy +adagio by Beethoven." Now it is this fragmentary, superficial +attention which we most often give to art; and giving thus little, we +find that art gives us little, perhaps nothing, in return. For +understand: you can be utterly perfunctory towards a work of art +without hurrying away from in front of it, or setting about some +visible business in its presence. Standing ten minutes before a +picture or sitting an hour at a concert, with fixed sight or tense +hearing, you may yet be quite hopelessly inattentive if, instead of +following the life of the visible or audible forms, and _living +yourself_ into their pattern and rhythm, you wander off after dramatic +or sentimental associations suggested by the picture's subject; or if +you let yourself be hypnotised, as pious Wagnerians are apt to be, +into monotonous over response (and over and over again response) to +the merely emotional stimulation of the sounds. The activity of the +artist's soul has been in vain for you, since you do not let your soul +follow its tracks through the work of art; he has not created for you, +because you have failed to create his work afresh in vivid +contemplation. + +But attention cannot be forced on to any sort of contemplation, or at +least it cannot remain, steady and abiding, by any act of forcing. +Attention, to be steady, must be held by the attraction of the thing +attended to; and, to be spontaneous and easy, must be carried by some +previous interest within the reach of that attractiveness. Above all, +attention requires that its ways should have been made smooth by +repetition of similar experience; it is excluded, rebutted by the dead +wall of utter novelty; for seeing, hearing, understanding is +interpreting the unknown by the known, assimilation in the literal +sense also of rendering similar the new to the less new. This will +explain why it is useless trying to enjoy a totally unfamiliar kind of +art: as soon expect to take pleasure in dancing a dance you do not +know, and whose rhythm and step you fail as yet to follow. And it is +not only music, as Nietzsche said, but all art, that is but a kind of +dancing, a definite rhythmic carrying and moving of the soul. And for +this reason there can be no artistic enjoyment without preliminary +initiation and training. + +Art cannot be enjoyed without initiation and training. I repeat this +statement, desiring to impress it on the reader, because, by a +coincidence of misunderstanding, it happens to constitute the +weightiest accusation in the whole of Tolstoi's very terrible (and, +in part, terribly justified) recent arraignment of art. For of what +use is the restorative and refreshing power, this quality called +beauty, if the quality itself cannot be recognised save after previous +training? And what moral dignity, nay, what decent innocence, can +there be in a kind of relaxation from which lack of initiation +excludes the vast majority of men, the majority which really labours, +and therefore has a real claim to relaxation and refreshment? + +This question of Tolstoi's arises from that same limiting of +examination to a brief, partial, and, as it happens, most transitional +and chaotic present, which has given us that cut-and-dried distinction +between work and play; and, indeed, the two misconceptions are very +closely connected. For even as our present economic system of +production for exchange rather than for consumption has made us +conceive _work_ as _work_ done under compulsion for someone else, and +_play_ as _play_, with no result even to ourselves; so also has the +economic system which employs the human hand and eye merely as a +portion of a complicated, monotonously working piece of machinery, so +also has our present order of mechanical and individual production +divided the world into a small minority which sees and feels what it +is about, and a colossal majority which has no perception, no +conception, and, consequently, no preferences attached to the objects +it is employed (by the methods of division of labour) to produce, so +to speak, without seeing them. Tolstoi has realised that this is the +present condition of human labour, and his view of it has been +corrected neither by historical knowledge nor by psychological +observation. He has shown us _art_, as it nowadays exists, divided and +specialised into two or three "fine arts," each of which employs +exceptional and highly trained talent in the production of objects so +elaborate and costly, so lacking in all utility, that they can be +possessed only by the rich few; objects, moreover, so unfamiliar in +form and in symbol that only the idle can learn to enjoy (or pretend +to enjoy) them after a special preliminary initiation and training. + + +X. + +_Initiation and training_, we have returned to those wretched words, +for we also had recognised that without initiation and training there +could be no real enjoyment of art. But, looking not at this brief, +transitional, and topsy-turvey present, but at the centuries and +centuries which have evolved, not only art, but the desire and habit +thereof, we have seen what Tolstoi refused to see, namely, that +wherever and whenever (that is to say, everywhere and at all times +save these present European days) art has existed spontaneously, it +has brought with it that initiation and training. The initiation and +training, the habit of understanding given qualities of form, the +discrimination and preference thereof, have come, I maintain, as a +result of practical utility. + +Or rather: out of practical utility has arisen the art itself, and the +need for it. The attention, the familiarity which made beauty +enjoyable had previously made beauty necessary. It was because the +earthenware lamp, the bronze pitcher, the little rude household idols +displayed the same arrangements of lines and surfaces, presented the +same patterns and features, embodied, in a word, the same visible +rhythms of being, that the Greeks could understand without being +taught the temples and statues of Athens, Delphi or Olympia. It was +because the special form qualities of ogival art (so subtle in +movement, unstable in balance and poignant in emotion that a whole +century of critical study has scarce sufficed to render them familiar +to us) were present in every village tower, every window coping, every +chair-back, in every pattern carved, painted, stencilled or woven +during the Gothic period; it was because of this that every artisan of +the Middle Ages could appreciate less consciously than we, but far +more deeply, the loveliness and the wonder of the great cathedrals. +Nay, even in our own times we can see how, through the help of all the +cheapest and most perishable household wares, the poorest Japanese is +able to enjoy that special peculiarity and synthesis of line and +colour and perspective which strikes even initiated Westerns as so +exotic, far-fetched and almost wilfully unintelligible. + +I have said that thanks to the objects and sights of everyday use and +life the qualities of art could be perceived and enjoyed. It may be +that it was thanks to them that art had any qualities and ever existed +at all. For, however much the temple, cathedral, statue, fresco, the +elaborate bronze or lacquer or coloured print, may have reacted on the +form, the proportions and linear rhythms and surface arrangements, of +all common useful objects; it was in the making of these common useful +objects (first making by man of genius and thousandfold minute +adaptation by respectful mediocrity) that the form qualities came to +exist. One may at least hazard this supposition in the face of the +extreme unlikeliness that the complexity and perfection of the great +works of art could have been obtained solely in works so necessarily +rare and few; and that the particular forms constituting each separate +style could have originated save under the repeated suggestion of +everyday use and technique. And can we not point to the patterns grown +out of the necessities of weaving or basket-making, the shapes started +by the processes of metal soldering or clay squeezing; let alone the +innumerable categories of form manifestly derived from the mere +convenience of handling or using, of standing, pouring, holding, +hanging up or folding? This much is certain, that only the manifold +application of given artistic forms in useful common objects is able +to account for that very slow, gradual and unconscious alteration of +them which constitutes the spontaneous evolution of artistic form; and +only such manifold application could have given that almost automatic +certainty of taste which allowed the great art of the past to continue +perpetually changing, through centuries and centuries, and adapting +itself over immense geographical areas to every variation of climate, +topography, mode of life, or religion. Unless the forms of ancient art +had been safely embodied in a hundred modest crafts, how could they +have undergone the imperceptible and secure metamorphosis from +Egyptian to Hellenic, from Greek to Graeco-Roman, and thence, from +Byzantine, have passed, as one great half, into Italian mediaeval art? +or how, without such infinite and infinitely varied practice of minute +adaptation to humble needs, could Gothic have given us works so +different as the French cathedrals, the Ducal Palace, the tiny chapel +at Pisa, and remained equally great and wonderful, equally _Gothic_, +in the ornament of a buckle as in the porch of Amiens or of Reims? + +Beauty is born of attention, as happiness is born of life, because +attention is rendered difficult and painful by lack of harmony, even +as life is clogged, diminished or destroyed by pain. And therefore, +when there ceases to exist a close familiarity with visible objects or +actions; when the appearance of things is passed over in perfunctory +and partial use (as we see it in all mechanical and divided labour); +when the attention of all men is not continually directed to shape +through purpose, then there will cease to be spontaneous beauty and +the spontaneous appreciation of beauty, because there will be no need +for either. Beauty of music does not exist for the stone-deaf, nor +beauty of painting for the purblind; but beauty of no kind whatever, +nor in any art, can really exist for the inattentive, for the +over-worked or the idle. + + +XI. + +That music should be so far the most really alive of all our modern +arts is a fact which confirms all I have argued in the foregoing +pages. For music is of all arts the one which insists on most +co-operation on the part of its votaries. Requiring to be performed +(ninety-nine times out of a hundred) in order to be enjoyed, it has +made merely _musical people_ into performers, however humble; and has +by this means called forth a degree of attention, of familiarity, of +practical effort, which makes the art enter in some measure into +life, and in that measure, become living. To play an instrument, +however humbly, to read at sight, or to sing, if only in a choir, is +something wholly different from lounging in a gallery or wandering on +a round of cathedrals: it means acquired knowledge, effort, +comparison, self-restraint, and all the realities of manipulation; +quite apart even from trying to read the composer's intentions, there +is in learning to strike the keys with a particular part of the +finger-tips, or in dealing out the breath and watching intonation and +timbre in one's own voice, an output of care and skill akin to those +of the smith, the potter or the glass blower: all this has a purpose +and is work, and brings with it disinterested work's reward, love. + +To find the analogy of this co-operation in the arts addressing +themselves to the eye, we require, nowadays, to leave the great number +who merely enjoy (or ought to enjoy) painting, sculpture or +architecture, and seek, now that craft is entirely divorced from art, +among the small minority which creates, or tries to create. Artistic +enjoyment exists nowadays mainly among the class of executive artists; +and perhaps it is for this very reason, and because all chance of +seeing or making shapely things has ceased in other pursuits, that the +"fine arts" are so lamentably overstocked; the man or woman who would +have been satisfied with playing the piano enough to read a score or +sing sufficiently to take part in a chorus, has, in the case of other +arts, to undergo the training of a painter, sculptor or art critic, +and often to delude himself or herself with grotesque ambitions in one +of these walks. + + +XII. + +Be this as it may, and making the above happy and honourable exception +in favour of music, it is no exaggeration to say that in our time it +is only artists who get real pleasure out of art, because it is only +artists who approach art from the side of work and bring to it work's +familiar attention and habitual energy. Indeed, paradoxical as it may +sound, art has remained alive during the nineteenth century, and will +remain alive during the twentieth, only and solely because there has +been a large public of artists. + +Of artists, I would add, of quite incomparable vigour and elasticity +of genius, and of magnificent disinterestedness and purity of heart. +For let us remember that they have worked without having the sympathy +of their fellow-men, and worked without the aid and comfort of allied +crafts: that they have created while cut off from tradition, unhelped +by the manifold suggestiveness of useful purpose or necessary message; +separated entirely from the practical and emotional life of the world +at large; tiny little knots of voluntary outlaws from a civilisation +which could not understand them; and, whatever worldly honours may +have come to mock their later years, they have been weakened and +embittered by early solitude of spirit. No artistic genius of the past +has been put through such cruel tests, has been kept on such miserably +short commons, as have our artists of the last hundred years, from +Turner to Rossetti and Watts, from Manet and Degas and Whistler to +Rodin and Albert Besnard. And if their work has shown lapses and +failings; if it has been, alas, lacking at times in health or joy or +dignity or harmony, let us ask ourselves what the greatest +individualities of Antiquity and the Middle Ages would have produced +if cut off from the tradition of the Past and the suggestion of the +Present--if reduced to exercise art outside the atmosphere of life; +and let us look with wonder and gratitude on the men who have been +able to achieve great art even for only art's own sake. + + +XIII. + +No better illustration of this could be found than the sections of the +Paris Exhibition which came under the heading of _Decorative Art_. + +Decoration. But decoration of what? In reality of nothing. All the +objects--from the jewellery and enamels to the furniture and +hangings--which this decorative art is supposed to decorate, are the +merest excuse and sham. Not one of them is the least useful, or at all +events useful once it is decorated. And nobody wants it to be useful. +What _is_ wanted is a pretext, for _doing art_ on the side of the +artist, for buying costly things on the side of the public. And behind +this pretext there is absolutely no genuine demand for any definite +object serving any definite use; none of that insistence (which we see +in the past) that the shape, material, and colour should be the very +best for practical purposes; and of that other insistence, +marvellously blended with the requirements of utility, that the shape, +material and colour should also be as beautiful as possible. The +invaluable suggestions of real practical purpose, the organic dignity +of integrated habit and necessity, the safety of tradition, the +spiritual weightiness of genuine message, all these elements of +creative power are lacking. And in default of them we see a great +amount of artistic talent, artificially fed and excited by the +teaching and the example of every possible past or present art, +exhausting itself in attempts to invent, to express, to be something, +anything, so long as it is new. Hence forms gratuitous, without +organic quality or logical cogency, pulled about, altered and +re-altered, carried to senseless finish and then wilfully blurred. +Hence that sickly imitation, in a brand-new piece of work, of the +effects of time, weather, and of every manner of accident or +deterioration: the pottery and enamels reproducing the mere patina of +age or the trickles of bad firing; the relief work in marble or metal +which looks as if it had been rolled for centuries in the sea, or +corroded by acids under ground. And the total effect, increased by all +these methods of wilful blunting and blurring, is an art without +stamina, tired, impotent, short-lived, while produced by an excessive +expense of talent and effort of invention. + +For here we have the mischief: all the artistic force is spent by the +art in merely keeping alive; and there is no reserve energy for living +with serenity and depth of feeling. The artist wears himself out, to a +great extent, in wondering what he shall do (there being no practical +reason for doing one thing more than another, or indeed anything at +all), instead of applying his power, with steady, habitual certainty +of purpose and efficiency of execution, to doing it in the very best +way. Hence, despite this outlay of inventive force, or rather in +direct consequence thereof, there is none of that completeness and +measure and congruity, that restrained exuberance of fancy, that more +than adequate carrying out, that all-round harmony, which are possible +only when the artist is altering to his individual taste some shape +already furnished by tradition or subduing to his pleasure some +problem insisted on by practical necessity. + +Meanwhile, all round these galleries crammed with useless objects +barely pretending to any utility, round these pavilions of the +Decorative Arts, the Exhibition exhibits (most instructive of all its +shows) samples of the most marvellous indifference not merely to +beauty, peace and dignity, but to the most rudimentary aesthetic and +moral comfort. For all the really useful things which men take +seriously because they increase wealth and power, because they save +time and overcome distance; all these "useful" things have the naive +and colossal ugliness of rudimentary animals, or of abortions, of +everything hurried untimely into existence: machines, sheds, bridges, +trams, motor-cars: not one line corrected, not one angle smoothed, for +the sake of the eye, of the nerves of the spectator. And all of it, +both decorative futility and cynically hideous practicality (let alone +the various exotic raree shows from distant countries or more distant +centuries) expect to be enjoyed after a jostle at the doors and a +scurry along the crowded corridors, and to the accompaniment of every +rattling and shrieking and jarring sound. For mankind in our days +intends to revel in the most complicated and far-fetched kinds of +beauty while cultivating convenient callousness to the most elementary +and atrocious sorts of ugliness. The art itself reveals it; for even +in its superfine isolation and existence for its own sake only, art +cannot escape its secondary mission of expressing and recording the +spirit of its times. These elaborate aesthetic baubles of the +"Decorative Arts" are full of quite incredibly gross barbarism. And, +even as the iron chest, studded with nails, or the walnut press, +unadorned save by the intrinsic beauty and dignity of their +proportions, and the tender irregularities of their hammered surface, +the subtle bevelling of their panels; even as these humble objects in +some dark corner of an Italian castle or on the mud floor of a Breton +cottage, symbolise in my mind the most intense artistic sensitiveness +and reverence of the Past; so, here at this Exhibition, my impressions +of contemporary over-refinement and callousness are symbolised in a +certain cupboard, visibly incapable of holding either linen or +garments or crockery or books, of costly and delicately polished wood, +but shaped like a packing-case, and displaying with marvellous +impartiality two exquisitely cast and chased doorguard plates of +far-fetched, many-tinted alloys of silver, and--a set of hinges, a +lock and a key, such as the village ironmonger supplies in blue paper +parcels of a dozen. A mere coincidence, an accident, you may object; +an unlucky oversight which cannot be fairly alleged against the art of +our times. Pardon me: there may be coincidences and accidents in other +matters, but there are none in art; because the essence of art is to +sacrifice even the finest irrelevancies, to subordinate the most +refractory details, to subdue coincidence and accident into seeming +purpose and harmony. And whatever our practical activity, in its +identification of time and money, may allow itself in the way of +"scamping" and of "shoddy"--art can never plead an oversight, because +art, in so far as it _is_ art, represents those organic and organised +preferences in the domain of form, those imperative and stringent +demands for harmony, which see everything, feel everything, and know +no law or motive save their own complete satisfaction. + +Art for art's sake! We see it nowhere revealed so clearly as in the +Exhibition, where it masks as "Decorative Art." Art answering no claim +of practical life and obeying no law of contemplative preference, art +without root, without organism, without logical reason or moral +decorum, art for mere buying and selling, art which expresses only +self-assertion on the part of the seller, and self-satisfaction on the +part of the buyer. A walk through this Exhibition is an object-lesson +in a great many things besides aesthetics; it forces one to ask a good +many of Tolstoi's angriest questions; but it enables one also, if duly +familiar with the art of past times, to answer them in a manner +different from Tolstoi's. + +One carries away the fact, which implies so many others, that not one +of these objects is otherwise than expensive; expensive, necessarily +and intentionally, from the rarity both of the kind of skill and of +the kind of material; these things are reserved by their price as well +as their uselessness, for a small number of idle persons. They have no +connection with life, either by penetrating, by serviceableness, deep +into that of the individual; or by spreading, by cheapness, over a +wide surface of the life of the nations. + + +XIV. + +The moment has now come for that inevitable question, with which +friendly readers unintentionally embarrass, and hostile ones purposely +interrupt, any exposition of mal-adjustment in the order of the +universe: But what remedy do you propose? + +Mal-adjustments of a certain gravity are not set right by proposable +arrangements: they are remedied by the fulness and extent of the +feeling against them, which employs for its purposes and compels into +its service all the unexpected and incalculable coincidences and +accidents which would otherwise be wasted, counteracted or even used +by some different kind of feeling. And the use that a writer can +be--even a Ruskin or a Tolstoi--is limited not to devising programmes +of change (mere symptoms often that some unprogrammed change is +preparing), but to nursing the strength of that great motor which +creates its own ways and instruments: impatience with evil conditions, +desire for better. + +A cessation of the special aesthetic mal-adjustment of our times, by +which art is divorced from life and life from art, is as difficult to +foretell in detail as the new-adjustment between labour and the other +elements of production which will, most probably, have to precede it. + +A healthy artistic life has indeed existed in the past through +centuries of social wrongness as great as our own, and even greater; +indeed, such artistic life, more or less continuous until our day, +attests the existence of great mitigations in the world's former +wretchedness (such as individuality in labour, spirit of co-operative +solidarity, religious feeling: but perhaps the most important +alleviations lie far deeper and more hidden)--mitigations without +which there would not have been happiness and strength enough to +produce art; nor, for the matter of that, to produce what was then the +future, including ourselves and our advantages and disadvantages. The +existence of art has by no means implied, as Ruskin imagined, with his +teleological optimism and tendency to believe in Eden and banishment +from Eden, that people once lived in a kind of millennium; it merely +shows that, however far from millennial their condition, there was +stability enough to produce certain alleviations, and notably the +alleviations without which art cannot exist, and the alleviations +which art itself affords. + +It is not therefore the badness of our present social arrangements (in +many ways far less bad than those of the past) which is responsible +for our lack of all really vital, deep-seated, widely spread and +happiness-giving art; but merely the feature in this latter-day +badness which, after all, is our chief reason for hope: the fact that +the social mal-adjustments of this century are, to an extent hitherto +unparalleled, the mal-adjustments incident to a state of over-rapid +and therefore insufficiently deep-reaching change, of superficial +legal and material improvements extending in reality only to a very +small number of persons and things, and unaccompanied by any real +renovation in the thought, feeling or mode of living of the majority; +the mal-adjustment of transition, of disorder, and perfunctoriness, by +the side of which the regularly recurring disorders of the past--civil +wars, barbarian invasions, plagues, etc., are incidents leaving the +foundation of life unchanged, transitional disorders, which we fail to +remark only because we are ourselves a part of the hurry, the scuffle, +and the general wastefulness. How soon and how this transition period +of ours will come to an end, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to +foretell; but that it _must_ soon end is certain, if only for one +reason: namely, that the changes accumulated during our times must +inevitably work their way below the surface; the new material and +intellectual methods must become absorbed and organised, and thereby +produce some kind of interdependent and less easily disturbed new +conditions; briefly, that the amount of alteration we have witnessed +will occasion a corresponding integration. And with this period of +integration and increasing organisation and comparative stability +there will come new alleviations and adjustments in life, and with +these, the reappearance in life of art. + + +XV. + +In what manner it is absurd, merely foolishly impatient or foolishly +cavilling, to ask. Not certainly by a return to the past and its +methods, but by the coming of the future with new methods having the +same result: the maintenance and tolerable quality of human life, of +body and soul. Hence probably by a further development of democratic +institutions and machine industry, but democratic institutions neither +authoritative nor _laissez faire_; machinery of which the hand and +mind of men will be the guide, not the slave. + +One or two guesses may perhaps be warranted. First, that the +distribution of wealth, or more properly of work and idleness, will +gradually be improved, and the exploitation of individuals in great +gangs cease; hence that the workman will be able once more to see and +shape what he is making, and that, on the other side, the possessor of +objects will have to use them, and therefore learn their appearance +and care for them; also that many men will possess enough, and +scarcely any men possess much more than enough, so that what there is +of houses, furniture, chattels, books or pictures in private +possession may be enjoyed at leisure and with unglutted appetite, and +for that reason be beautiful. We may also guess that willing +co-operation in peaceful employments, that spontaneous formation of +groups of opinion as well as of work, and the multiplication of small +centres of activity, may create a demand for places of public +education and amusement and of discussion and self-expression, and +revive those celebrations, religious and civil, in which the art of +Antiquity and of the Middle Ages found its culmination; the service of +large bodies and of the community absorbing the higher artistic gifts +in works necessarily accessible to the multitude; and the humbler +talents--all the good amateur quality at present wasted in ambitious +efforts--being applied in every direction to the satisfaction of +individual artistic desire. + +If such a distribution of artistic activity should seem, to my +contemporaries, Utopian, I would point out that it has existed +throughout the past, and in states of society infinitely worse than +are ever likely to recur. For even slaves and serfs could make unto +themselves some kind of art befitting their conditions; and even the +most despotic aristocracies and priesthoods could adequately express +their power and pride only in works which even the slave and serf was +able to see. In the whole of the world's art history, it is this +present of ours which forms the exception; and as the changes of the +future will certainly be for greater social health and better social +organisation, it is not likely that this bad exception will be the +beginning of a new rule. + + +XVI. + +Meanwhile we can, in some slight measure, foretell one or two of the +directions in which our future artistic readjustment is most likely to +begin, even apart from that presumable social reorganisation and +industrial progress which will give greater leisure and comfort to the +workers, and make their individual character the guide, and not the +slave, of this machinery. Such a direction is already indicated by one +of our few original and popular forms of art: the picture-book and the +poster, which, by the new processes of our colour printing, have +placed some of the most fanciful and delicate of our artists--men like +Caldecott and Walter Crane, like Cheret and Boutet de Monvel, at the +service of everyone equally. Moreover, it is probable that long before +machinery is so perfected as to demand individual guidance, preference +and therefore desire for beauty, and long before a corresponding +readjustment of work and leisure, the eye will have again become +attentive through the necessities of rational education. The habit of +teaching both adults and children by demonstration rather than +precept, by awaking the imagination rather than burdening the memory, +will quite undoubtedly recall attention to visible things, and thereby +open new fields to art: geography, geology, natural history, let alone +history in its vaster modern sociological and anthropological aspect, +will insist upon being taught no longer merely through books, but +through collections of visible objects; and, for all purposes of +reconstructive and synthetic conception, through pictures. + +And, what is more, the sciences will afford a new field for poetic +contemplation; while the philosophy born of such sciences will +synthetise new modes of seeing life and demand new visible symbols. +The future will create cosmogonies and Divine Comedies more numerous, +more various, than those on sculptured Egyptian temples and Gothic +cathedrals, and Bibles more imaginative perhaps than the ones painted +in the Pisa Campo Santo and in the Sixtine Chapel. The future? Nay, we +can see a sample already in the present. I am alluding to the panels +by Albert Besnard in the School of Pharmacy in Paris, a series +illustrating the making of medicinal drugs, their employment and the +method and subject-matter of the sciences on which pharmaceutical +practice is based. Not merely the plucking and drying of the herbs in +sunny, quiet botanical gardens, and the sorting and mingling of earths +and metals among the furnaces of the laboratory; not merely the first +tremendous tragic fight between the sudden sickness and the physician, +and the first pathetic, hard-won victory, the first weary but +rapturous return out of doors of the convalescent; but the life of the +men on whose science our power for life against death is based: the +botanists knee-deep in the pale spring woods; the geologists in the +snowy hollows of the great blue mountain; the men themselves, the +youths listening and the elder men teaching, grave and eager +intellectual faces, in the lecture rooms. And, finally, the things +which fill the minds of these men, their thoughts and dreams, the +poetry they have given to the world; the poetry of that infinitely +remote, dim past, evoked out of cavern remains and fossils--the lake +dwellers among the mists of melting glaciers; the primaeval horses +playing on the still manless shores; the great saurians plunging in +the waves of long-dried seas; the jungles which are now our coal beds; +and see! the beginning of organic life, the first callow vegetation on +the stagnant waters in the dawn-light of the world. The place is but a +mean boarded and glazed vestibule; full of the sickly fumes of +chemicals; and the people who haunt it are only future apothecaries. +But the compositions are as spacious and solemn, the colours as tender +and brilliant, and the poetry as high and contemplative as that of any +mediaeval fresco; it is all new also, undreamed of, _sui generis_, in +its impersonal cosmic suggestiveness, as in its colouring of opal, and +metallic patinas, and tea rose and Alpine ice cave. + + +XVII. + +I have alluded already to the fact that, perhaps because of the part +of actual participating work which it entails, music is the art which +has most share in life and of life, nowadays. It seems probable +therefore that its especial mission may be to keep alive in us the +feeling and habit of art, and to transmit them back to those arts of +visible form to which it owes, perhaps, the training necessary to its +own architectural structure and its own colour combinations. Compared +with the arts of line and projection, music seems at a certain moral +disadvantage, as not being applicable to the things of everyday use, +and also not educating us to the better knowledge of the beautiful and +significant things of nature. In connection with this kind of +blindness, music is also compatible (as we see by its flourishing in +great manufacturing towns) with a great deal of desecration of nature +and much hand-to-mouth ruthlessness of life. But, on the other hand, +music has the especial power of suggesting and regulating emotion, and +the still more marvellous faculty of creating an inner world for +itself, inviolable because ubiquitous. + +And, therefore, with its audible rhythms and harmonies, its restrained +climaxes and finely ordered hierarchies, music may discipline our +feelings, or rather what underlies our feelings, the almost +unconscious life of our nerves, to modalities of order and selection, +and make the spaceless innermost of our spirit into some kind of +sanctuary, swept and garnished, until the coming of better days. + + +XVIII. + +According to a certain class of thinkers, among whom I find Guyau and +other men of note, art is destined partially to replace religion in +our lives. But with what are you going to replace religion itself in +art? For the religious feeling, whenever it existed, gave art an +element of thoroughness which the desire for pleasure and interest, +even for aesthetic pleasure and interest, does not supply. An immense +fulness of energy is due to the fact that beautiful things, as +employed by religion, were intended to be beautiful all through, +adequate in the all-seeing eye of God or Gods, not merely beautiful on +the surface, on the side turned towards the glance of man. For, in +religious art, beautiful things are an oblation; they are the best +that we can give, as distinguished from a pleasure arranged for +ourselves and got as cheap as possible. Herein lies the impassable +gulf between the church and theatre, considered aesthetically; for it +is only in the basest times, of formalism in art as in religion, of +superstition and sensualism, that we find the church imitating the +theatre in its paper glories and plaster painted like marble. The +real, living religious spirit insists on bringing, as in St Mark's, a +gift of precious material, of delicate antique ornament, with every +shipload. The crown of the Madonna is not, like the tragedy queen's, +of tinsel, the sacrament is not given in an empty chalice. The priest, +even where he makes no effort to be holy as a man, is at least sacred +as a priest; whereas there is something uncomfortable in the sense +that the actor is only pretending to be this or the other, and we +ourselves pretending to believe him; there is a thin and acid taste in +the shams of the stage and in all art which, like that of the stage, +exists only to the extent necessary to please our fancy or excite our +feelings. Why so? For is not pleasing the fancy and exciting the +feelings the real, final use of art? Doubtless. But there would seem +to be in nature a law not merely of the greater economy of means, but +also of the greatest output of efficacy: effort helping effort, and +function, function; and many activities, in harmonious interaction, +obtaining a measure of result far surpassing their mere addition. The +creations of our mind are, of course, mere spiritual existences, +things of seeming, akin to illusions; and yet our mind can never rest +satisfied with an unreality, because our mind is active, penetrative +and grasping, and therefore craves for realisation, for completeness +and truth, and feels bruised and maimed whenever it hits against a +dead wall or is pulled up by a contradiction; nay, worst of all, it +grows giddy and faint when suddenly brought face to face with +emptiness. All insufficiency and shallowness means loss of power; and +it is such loss of power that we remark when we compare with the +religious art of past times the art which, every day more and more, is +given us by the hurried and over-thrifty (may I say "Reach-me-down"?) +hands of secularism. The great art of Greece and of the Middle Ages +most often represents something which, to our mind and feelings, is as +important, and even as beautiful, as the representation itself; and +the representation, the actual "work of art" itself, gains by that +added depth and reverence of our mood, is carried deeper (while +helping to carry deeper) into our soul. Instead of which we moderns +try to be satisfied with allowing the seeing part of us to light on +something pleasant and interesting, while giving the mind only +triviality to rest upon; and the mind goes to sleep or chafes to move +away. We cannot live intellectually and morally in presence of the +idea, say, of a jockey of Degas or one of his ballet girls in +contemplation of her shoe, as long as we can live aesthetically in the +arrangement of lines and masses and dabs of colour and interlacings of +light and shade which translate themselves into this _idea_ of jockey +or ballet girl; we are therefore bored, ruffled, or, what is worse, we +learn to live on insufficient spiritual rations, and grow anaemic. Our +shortsighted practicality, which values means while disregarding ends, +and conceives usefulness only as a stage in making some other +_utility_, has led us to suppose that the desire for beauty is +compatible, nay commensurate, with indifference to reality: the _real_ +having come to mean that which you can plant, cook, eat or sell, not +what you can feel and think. + +This notion credits us with an actual craving for something which +should exist as little as possible, in one dimension only, so to +speak, or as upon a screen (for fear of occupying valuable space which +might be given to producing more food than we can eat); whereas what +we desire is just such beauty as will surround us on all sides, such +harmony as we can live in; our soul, dissatisfied with the reality +which happens to surround it, seeks on the contrary to substitute a +new reality of its own making, to rebuild the universe, like Omar +Khayyam, according to the heart's desire. And nothing can be more +different than such an instinct from the alleged satisfaction in +playing with dolls and knowing that they are not real people. By an +odd paradoxical coincidence, that very disbelief in the _real_ +character of art, and that divorce betwixt art and utility, is really +due to our ultra-practical habit of taking seriously only the +serviceable or instructive sides of things: the quality of beauty, +which the healthy mind insists upon in everything it deals with, +getting to be considered as an idle adjunct, fulfilling no kind of +purpose; and therefore, as something detachable, separate, and +speedily relegated to the museum or lumber-room where we keep our +various shams: ideals, philosophies, all the playthings with which we +sometimes wile away our idleness. Whereas in fact a great work of art, +like a great thought of goodness, exists essentially for our more +thorough, our more _real_ satisfaction: the soul goes into it with all +its higher hankerings, and rests peaceful, satisfied, so long as it is +enclosed in this dwelling of its own choice. And it is, on the +contrary, the flux of what we call real life, that is to say, of life +imposed on us by outer necessities and combinations, which is so often +one-sided, perfunctory, not to be dwelt upon by thought nor penetrated +into by feeling, and endurable only according to the angle or the +lighting up--the angle or lighting up called "purpose" which we apply +to it. + + +XIX. + +With what, I ventured to ask just now, are you going to fill the place +of religion in art? + +With nothing, I believe, unless with religion itself. Religion, +perhaps externally unlike any of which we have historical experience; +but religion, whether individual or collective, possessing, just +because it is immortal, all the immortal essence of all past and +present creeds. And just because religion is the highest form of human +activity, and its utility is the crowning one of thoughtful and +feeling life, just for this reason will religion return, sooner or +later, to be art's most universal and most noble employer. + + +XX. + +In the foregoing pages I have tried to derive the need of beauty from +the fact of attention, attention to what we do, think and feel, as +well as see and hear; and to demonstrate therefore that all +spontaneous and efficient art is _the making and doing of useful +things in such manner as shall be beautiful_. During this +demonstration I have, incidentally, though inexplicitly, pointed out +the utility of art itself and of beauty. For beauty is that mode of +existence of visible or audible or thinkable things which imposes on +our contemplating energies rhythms and patterns of unity, harmony and +completeness; and thereby gives us the foretaste and the habit of +higher and more perfect forms of life. Art is born of the utilities of +life; and art is in itself one of life's greatest utilities. + + + + +WASTEFUL PLEASURES. + + "Er muss lernen edler begehren, damit er nicht noetig habe, + erhaben zu wollen."--SCHILLER, "_Aesthetische Erziehung_." + + +I. + +A pretty, Caldecott-like moment, or rather minute, when the huntsmen +stood on the green lawn round the moving, tail-switching, dapple mass +of hounds; and the red coats trotted one by one from behind the +screens of bare trees, delicate lilac against the slowly moving grey +sky. A delightful moment, followed, as the hunt swished past, by the +sudden sense that these men and women, thus whirled off into what may +well be the sole poetry of their lives, are but noisy intruders into +these fields and spinnies, whose solemn, secret speech they drown with +clatter and yelp, whose mystery and charm stand aside on their +passage, like an interrupted, a profaned rite. + +Gone; the yapping and barking, the bugle-tootling fade away in the +distance; and the trees and wind converse once more. + +This West Wind, which has been whipping up the wan northern sea, and +rushing round the house all this last fortnight, singing its big +ballads in corridor and chimney, piping its dirges and lullabies in +one's back-blown hair on the sand dunes--this West Wind, with its +many chaunts, its occasional harmonies and sudden modulations mocking +familiar tunes, can tell of many things: of the different way in which +the great trunks meet its shocks and answer vibrating through +innermost fibres; the smooth, muscular boles of the beeches, shaking +their auburn boughs; the stiff, rough hornbeams and thorns isolated +among the pastures; the ashes whose leaves strew the roads with green +rushes; the creaking, shivering firs and larches. The West Wind tells +us of the way how the branches spring outwards, or balance themselves, +or hang like garlands in the air, and carry their leaves, or needles, +or nuts; and of their ways of bending and straightening, of swaying +and trembling. It tells us also, this West Wind, how the sea is lashed +and furrowed; how the little waves spring up in the offing, and the +big waves rise and run forward and topple into foam; how the rocks are +shaken, the sands are made to hiss and the shingle is rattled up and +down; how the great breakers vault over the pier walls, leap +thundering against the breakwaters, and disperse like smoke off the +cannon's mouth, like the whiteness of some vast explosion. + +These are the things which the Wind and the Woods can talk about with +us, nay, even the gorse and the shaking bents. But the hunting folk +pass too quickly, and make too much noise, to hear anything save +themselves and their horses' hoofs and their bugle and hounds. + + +II. + +I have taken fox-hunting as the type of a pleasure _which destroys +something_, just because it is, in many ways, the most noble and, if I +may say so, the most innocent of such pleasures. The death, the, +perhaps agonising, flight of the fox, occupy no part of the hunter's +consciousness, and form no part of his pleasure; indeed, they could, +but for the hounds, be dispensed with altogether. There is a fine +community of emotion between men and creatures, horses and dogs adding +their excitement to ours; there is also a fine lack of the mere +feeling of trying to outrace a competitor, something of the collective +and almost altruistic self-forgetfulness of a battle. There is the +break-neck skurry, the flying across the ground and through the air at +the risk of limbs and life, and at the mercy of one's own and one's +horse's pluck, skill and good fellowship. All this makes up a rapture +in which many ugly things vanish, and certain cosmic intuitions flash +forth for some, at least, of the hunters. The element of poetry is +greater, the element of brutality less, in this form of intoxication +than in many others. It has a handsomer bearing than its modern +successor, the motor-intoxication, with its passiveness and (for all +but the driver) its lack of skill, its confinement, moreover, to +beaten roads, and its petrol-stench and dustcloud of privilege and of +inconvenience to others. And the intoxication of hunting is, to my +thinking at least, cleaner, wholesomer, than the intoxication of, let +us say, certain ways of hearing music. But just because so much can be +said, both positive and negative, in its favour, I am glad that +hunting, and not some meaner or some less seemly amusement, should +have set me off moralising about such pleasures as are wasteful of +other things or of some portion of our soul. + + +III. + +For nothing can be further from scientific fact than that +cross-grained and ill-tempered puritanism identifying pleasure with +something akin to sinfulness. Philosophically considered, Pain is so +far stronger a determinant than Pleasure, that its _vis a tergo_ might +have sufficed to ensure the survival of the race, without the far +milder action of Pleasure being necessary at all; so that the very +existence of Pleasure would lead us to infer that, besides its +function of selecting, like Pain, among life's possibilities, it has +the function of actually replenishing the vital powers, and thus +making amends, by its healing and invigorating, for the wear and tear, +the lessening of life's resources through life's other great Power of +Selection, the terror-angel of Pain. This being the case, Pleasure +tends, and should tend more and more, to be consistent with itself, to +mean a greater chance of its own growth and spreading (as opposed to +Pain's dwindling and suicidal nature), and in so far to connect itself +with whatsoever facts make for the general good, and to reject, +therefore, all cruelty, injustice, rapacity and wastefulness of +opportunities and powers. + +Nay, paradoxical though such a notion may seem in the face of our past +and present state of barbarism, Pleasure, and hence amusement, should +become incompatible with, be actually _spoilt by_, any element of +loss to self and others, of mischief even to the distant, the future, +and of impiety to that principle of Good which is but the summing up +of the claims of the unseen and unborn. + + +IV. + +I was struck, the other day, by the name of a play on a theatre +poster: _A Life of Pleasure_. The expression is so familiar that we +hear and employ it without thinking how it has come to be. Yet, when +by some accident it comes to be analysed, its meaning startles with an +odd revelation. Pleasure, a life of pleasure.... Other lives, to be +livable, must contain more pleasure than pain; and we know, as a fact, +that all healthy work is pleasurable to healthy creatures. Intelligent +converse with one's friends, study, sympathy, all give pleasure; and +art is, in a way, the very type of pleasure. Yet we know that none of +all that is meant in the expression: a life of pleasure. A curious +thought, and, as it came to me, a terrible one. For that expression is +symbolic. It means that, of all the myriads of creatures who surround +us, in the present and past, the vast majority identifies pleasure +mainly with such a life; despises, in its speech at least, all other +sorts of pleasure, the pleasure of its own honest strivings and +affections, taking them for granted, making light thereof. + + +V. + +We are mistaken, I think, in taxing the generality of people with +indifference to ideals, with lack of ideas directing their lives. Few +lives are really lawless or kept in check only by the _secular arm_, +the judge or policeman. Nor is conformity to _what others do, what is +fit for one's class_ or _seemly in one's position_ a result of mere +unreasoning imitation or of the fear of being boycotted. The potency +of such considerations is largely that of summing up certain rules and +defining the permanent tendencies of the individual, or those he would +wish to be permanent; in other words, we are in the presence of +_ideals of conduct_. + +Why else are certain things _those which have to be done_; whence +otherwise such expressions as _social duties_ and _keeping up one's +position_? Why such fortitude under boredom, weariness, constraint; +such heroism sometimes in taking blows and snubs, in dancing on with +broken heart-strings like the Princess in Ford's play? All this means +an ideal, nay, a religion. Yes; people, quite matter-of-fact, worldly +people, are perpetually sacrificing to ideals. And what is more, quite +superior, virtuous people, religious in the best sense of the word, +are apt to have, besides the ostensible and perhaps rather obsolete +one of churches and meeting-houses, another cultus, esoteric, unspoken +but acted upon, of which the priests and casuists are ladies'-maids +and butlers. + +Now, if one could only put to profit some of this wasted dutifulness, +this useless heroism; if some of the energy put into the ideal +progress (as free from self-interest most often as the _accumulating +merit_ of Kim's Buddhist) called _getting on in the world_ could only +be applied in _getting the world along_! + + +VI. + +An eminent political economist, to whom I once confided my aversion +for such _butler's and lady's-maid's ideals of life_, admonished me +that although useless possessions, unenjoyable luxury, ostentation, +and so forth, undoubtedly represented a waste of the world's energies +and resources, they should nevertheless be tolerated, inasmuch as +constituting a great incentive to industry. People work, he said, +largely that they may be able to waste. If you repress wastefulness +you will diminish, by so much, the production of wealth by the +wasteful, by the luxurious and the vain.... + +This may be true. Habits of modesty and of sparingness might perhaps +deprive the world of as much wealth as they would save. But even +supposing this to be true, though the wealth of the world did not +immediately gain, there would always be the modesty and sparingness to +the good; virtues which, sooner or later, would be bound to make more +wealth exist or to make existing wealth _go a longer way_. Appealing +to higher motives, to good sense and good feeling and good taste, has +the advantage of saving the drawbacks of lower motives, which _are_ +lower just because they have such drawbacks. You may get a man to do a +desirable thing from undesirable motives; but those undesirable +motives will induce him, the very next minute, to do some undesirable +thing. The wages of good feeling and good taste is the satisfaction +thereof. The wages of covetousness and vanity is the grabbing of +advantages and the humiliating of neighbours; and these make life +poorer, however much bread there may be to eat or money to spend. What +are called higher motives are merely those which expand individual +life into harmonious connection with the life of all men; what we call +lower motives bring us hopelessly back, by a series of vicious +circles, to the mere isolated, sterile egos. Sterile, I mean, in the +sense that the supply of happiness dwindles instead of increasing. + + +VII. + +Waste of better possibilities, of higher qualities, of what we call +_our soul_. To denounce this is dignified, but it is also easy and +most often correspondingly useless. I wish to descend to more prosaic +matters, and, as Ruskin did in his day, to denounce the _mere waste of +money_. For the wasting of money implies nearly always all those other +kinds of wasting. And although there are doubtless pastimes (pastimes +promoted, as is our wont, for fear of yet _other_ pastimes), which are +in themselves unclean or cruel, these are less typically evil, just +because they are more obviously so, than the amusements which imply +the destruction of wealth, the destruction of part of the earth's +resources and of men's labour and thrift, and incidentally thereon of +human leisure and comfort and the world's sweetness. + +Do you remember La Bruyere's famous description of the peasants under +Louis XIV.? "One occasionally meets with certain wild animals, both +male and female, scattered over the country; black, livid and parched +by the sun, bound to the soil which they scratch and dig up with +desperate obstinacy. They have something which sounds like speech, and +when they raise themselves up they show a human face. And, as a fact, +they are human beings." The _Ancien Regime_, which had reduced them to +that, and was to continue reducing them worse and worse for another +hundred years by every conceivable tax, tithe, toll, servage, and +privilege, did so mainly to pay for amusements. Amusements of the +_Roi-Soleil_, with his Versailles and Marly and aqueducts and +waterworks, plays and operas; amusements of Louis XV., with his +Parc-aux-Cerfs; amusements of Marie-Antoinette, playing the virtuous +rustic at Trianon; amusements of new buildings, new equipages, new +ribbons and bibbons, new diamonds (including the fatal necklace); +amusements of hunting and gambling and love-making; amusements +sometimes atrocious, sometimes merely futile, but all of them leaving +nothing behind, save the ravaged grass and stench of brimstone of +burnt-out fireworks. + +Moreover, wasting money implies _getting more_. And the processes by +which such wasted money is replaced are, by the very nature of those +who do the wasting, rarely, nay, never, otherwise than wasteful in +themselves. To put into their pockets or, like Marshall Villeroi +("a-t-on mis de l'or dans mes poches?"), have it put by their valets, +to replace what was lost overnight, these proud and often honourable +nobles would ante-chamber and cringe for sinecures, pensions, +indemnities, privileges, importune and supplicate the King, the King's +mistress, pandar or lacquey. And the sinecure, pension, indemnity or +privilege was always deducted out of the bread--rye-bread, +straw-bread, grass-bread--which those parched, prone human animals +described by La Bruyere were extracting "with desperate +obstinacy"--out of the ever more sterile and more accursed furrow. + +It is convenient to point the moral by reference to those kings and +nobles of other centuries, without incurring pursuit for libel, or +wounding the feelings of one's own kind and estimable contemporaries. +Still, it may be well to add that, odd though it appears, the vicious +circle (in both senses of the words) continues to exist; and that, +even in our democratic civilisation, _you cannot waste money without +wasting something else in getting more money to replace it_. + +Waste, and _lay waste_, even as if your pastime had consisted not in +harmless novelty and display, in gentlemanly games or good-humoured +sport, but in destruction and devastation for their own sake. + + +VIII. + +It has been laid waste, that little valley which, in its delicate and +austere loveliness, was rarer and more perfect than any picture or +poem. Those oaks, ivy garlanded like Maenads, which guarded the +shallow white weirs whence the stream leaps down; those ilexes, whose +dark, loose boughs hung over the beryl pools like hair of drinking +nymphs; those trees which were indeed the living and divine owners of +that secluded place, dryads and oreads older and younger than any +mortals,--have now been shamefully stripped, violated and maimed, +their shorn-off leafage, already withered, gathered into faggots or +trodden into the mud made by woodcutters' feet in the place of violets +and tender grasses and wild balm; their flayed bodies, hacked grossly +out of shape, and flung into the defiled water until the moment when, +the slaughter and dishonour and profanation being complete, the +dealers' carts will come cutting up the turf and sprouting reeds, and +carry them off to the station or timber-yard. The very stumps and +roots will be dragged out for sale; the earthy banks, raw and torn, +will fall in, muddying and clogging that pure mountain brook; and the +hillside, turning into sliding shale, will dam it into puddles with +the refuse from the quarries above. And thus, for less guineas than +will buy a new motor or cover an hour of Monte Carlo, a corner of the +world's loveliness and peace will be gone as utterly as those chairs +and tables and vases and cushions which the harlot in Zola's novel +broke, tore, and threw upon the fire for her morning's amusement. + + +IX. + +There is in our imperfect life too little of pleasure and too much of +play. This means that our activities are largely wasted in +pleasureless ways; that, being more tired than we should be, we lose +much time in needed rest; moreover, that being, all of us more or +less, slaves to the drudgery of need or fashion, we set a positive +value on that negative good called freedom, even as the pause between +pain takes, in some cases, the character of pleasure. + +There is in all play a sense not merely of freedom from +responsibility, from purpose and consecutiveness, a possibility of +breaking off, or slackening off, but a sense also of margin, of +permitted pause and blank and change; all of which answer to our +being on the verge of fatigue or boredom, at the limit of our energy, +as is normal in the case of growing children (for growth exhausts), +and inevitable in the case of those who work without the renovation of +interest in what they are doing. + +If you notice people on a holiday, you will see them doing a large +amount of "nothing," dawdling, in fact; and "amusements" are, when +they are not excitements, that is to say, stimulations to deficient +energy, full of such "doing nothing." Think, for instance, of "amusing +conversation" with its gaps and skippings, and "amusing" reading with +its perpetual chances of inattention. + +All this is due to the majority of us being too weak, too badly born +and bred, to give full attention except under the constraint of +necessary work, or under the lash of some sort of excitement; and as a +consequence to our obtaining a sense of real well-being only from the +spare energy which accumulates during idleness. Moreover, under our +present conditions (as under those of slave-labour) "work" is rarely +such as calls forth the effortless, the willing, the pleased +attention. Either in kind or length or intensity, work makes a greater +demand than can be met by the spontaneous, happy activity of most of +us, and thereby diminishes the future chances of such spontaneous +activity by making us weaker in body and mind. + +Now, so long as work continues to be thus strained or against the +grain, play is bound to be either an excitement which leaves us poorer +and more tired than before (the fox-hunter, for instance, at the close +of the day, or on the off-days), or else play will be mere dawdling, +getting out of training, in a measure demoralisation. For +demoralisation, in the etymological sense being _debauched_, is the +correlative of over-great or over-long effort; both spoil, but the one +spoils while diminishing the mischief made by the other. + +Art is so much less useful than it should be, because of this bad +division of "work" and "play," between which two it finds no place. +For Art--and the art we unwittingly practice whenever we take pleasure +in nature--is without appeal either to the man who is straining at +business and to the man who is dawdling in amusement. + +AEsthetic pleasure implies energy during rest and leisureliness during +labour. It means making the most of whatever beautiful and noble +possibilities may come into our life; nay, it means, in each single +soul, _being_ for however brief a time, beautiful and noble because +one is filled with beauty and nobility. + + +X. + +To eat his bread in sorrow and the sweat of his face was, we are apt +to forget, the first sign of man's loss of innocence. And having +learned that we must reverse the myth in order to see its meaning +(since innocence is not at the beginning, but rather at the end of the +story of mankind), we might accept it as part of whatever religion we +may have, that the evil of our world is exactly commensurate with the +hardship of useful tasks and the wastefulness and destructiveness of +pleasures and diversions. Evil and also folly and inefficiency, for +each of these implies the existence of much work badly done, of much +work to no purpose, of a majority of men so weak and dull as to be +excluded from choice and from leisure, and a minority of men so weak +and dull as to use choice and leisure mainly for mischief. To reverse +this original sinful constitution of the world is the sole real +meaning of progress. And the only reason for wishing inventions to be +perfected, wealth to increase, freedom to be attained, and, indeed, +the life of the race to be continued at all, lies in the belief that +such continued movement must bring about a gradual diminution of +pleasureless work and wasteful play. Meanwhile, in the wretched past +and present, the only aristocracy really existing has been that of the +privileged creatures whose qualities and circumstances must have been +such that, whether artisans or artists, tillers of the ground or +seekers after truth, poets, philosophers, or mothers and nurses, their +work has been their pleasure. This means _love_; and love means +fruitfulness. + + +XI. + +There are moments when, catching a glimpse of the frightful weight of +care and pain with which mankind is laden, I am oppressed by the +thought that all improvement must come solely through the continued +selfish shifting of that burden from side to side, from shoulder to +shoulder; through the violent or cunning destruction of some of the +intolerable effects of selfishness in the past by selfishness in the +present and the future. And that in the midst of this terrible but +salutary scuffle for ease and security, the ideals of those who are +privileged enough to have any, may be not much more useful than the +fly on the axle-tree. + +It may be, it doubtless is so nowadays, although none of us can tell +to what extent. + +But even if it be so, let us who have strength and leisure for +preference and ideals prepare ourselves to fit, at least to acquiesce, +in the changes we are unable to bring about. Do not let us seek our +pleasure in things which we condemn, or remain attached to those which +are ours only through the imperfect arrangements which we deplore. We +are, of course, all tied tight in the meshes of our often worthless +and cruel civilisation, even as the saints felt themselves caught in +the meshes of bodily life. But even as they, in their day, fixed their +hopes on the life disembodied, so let us, in our turn, prepare our +souls for that gradual coming of justice on earth which we shall never +witness, by forestalling its results in our valuations and our wishes. + + +XII. + +The other evening, skirting the Links, we came upon a field, where, +among the brown and green nobbly grass, was gathered a sort of +parliament of creatures: rooks on the fences, seagulls and peewits +wheeling overhead, plovers strutting and wagging their tails; and, +undisturbed by the white darting of rabbits, a covey of young +partridges, hopping leisurely in compact mass. + +Is it because we see of these creatures only their harmlessness to us, +but not the slaughter and starving out of each other; or is it because +of their closer relation to simple and beautiful things, to nature; +or is it merely because they are _not human beings_--who shall tell? +but, for whatever reason, such a sight does certainly bring up in us a +sense, however fleeting, of simplicity, _mansuetude_ (I like the +charming mediaeval word), of the kinship of harmlessness. + +I was thinking this while wading up the grass this morning to the +craig behind the house, the fields of unripe corn a-shimmer and +a-shiver in the light, bright wind; the sea and distant sky so merged +in delicate white mists that a ship, at first sight, seemed a bird +poised in the air. And, higher up, among the ragwort and tall +thistles, I found in the coarse grass a dead baby-rabbit, shot and not +killed at once, perhaps; or shot and not picked up, as not worth +taking: a little soft, smooth, feathery young handful, laid out very +decently, as human beings have to be laid out by one another, in +death. + +It brought to my mind a passage where Thoreau, who understood such +matters, says, that although the love of nature may be fostered by +sport, such love, when once consummate, will make nature's lover +little by little shrink from slaughter, and hanker after a diet +wherein slaughter is unnecessary. + +It is sad, not for the beasts but for our souls, that, since we must +kill beasts for food (though may not science teach a cleaner, more +human diet?) or to prevent their eating us out of house and home, it +is sad that we should choose to make of this necessity (which ought to +be, like all our baser needs, a matter if not of shame at least of +decorum) that we should make of this ugly necessity an opportunity for +amusement. It is sad that nowadays, when creatures, wild and tame, +are bred for killing, the usual way in which man is brought in contact +with the creatures of the fields and woods and streams (such man, I +mean, as thinks, feels or is expected to) should be by slaughtering +them. + +Surely it might be more akin to our human souls, to gentleness of +bringing up, Christianity of belief and chivalry of all kinds, to be, +rather than a hunter, a shepherd. Yet the shepherd is the lout in our +idle times; the shepherd, and the tiller of the soil; and alas, the +naturalist, again, is apt to be the _muff_. + +But may the time not come when, apart from every man having to do some +useful thing, something perchance like tending flocks, tilling the +ground, mowing and forestering--the mere love of beauty, the desire +for peace and harmony, the craving for renewal by communion with the +life outside our own, will lead men, without dogs or guns or rods, +into the woods, the fields, to the river-banks, as to some ancient +palace full of frescoes, as to some silent church, with solemn rites +and liturgy? + + +XIII. + +The killing of creatures for sport seems a necessity nowadays. There +is more than mere bodily vigour to be got by occasional interludes of +outdoor life, early hours, discomfort and absorption in the ways of +birds and beasts; there is actual spiritual renovation. The mere +reading about such things, in Tolstoi's _Cossacks_ and certain +chapters of _Anna Karenina_ makes one realise the poetry attached to +them; and we all of us know that the genuine sportsman, the man of +gun and rod and daybreak and solitude, has often a curious halo of +purity about him; contact with natural things and unfamiliarity with +the sordidness of so much human life and endeavour, amounting to a +kind of consecration. A man of this stamp once told me that no emotion +in his life had ever equalled that of his first woodcock. + +You cannot have such open-air life, such clean and poetic emotion +without killing. Men are men; they will not get up at cock-crow for +the sake of a mere walk, or sleep in the woods for the sake of the +wood's noises: they must have an object; and what object is there +except killing beasts or birds or fish? Men have to be sportsmen +because they can't all be either naturalists or poets. Killing animals +(and, some persons would add, killing other men) is necessary to keep +man manly. And where men are no longer manly they become cruel, not +for the sake of sport or war, but for their lusts and for cruelty's +own sake. And that seems to settle the question. + + +XIV. + +But the question is not really settled. It is merely settled for the +present, but not for the future. It is surely a sign of our weakness +and barbarism that we cannot imagine to-morrow as better than to-day, +and that, for all our vaunted temporal progress and hypocritical talk +of duty, we are yet unable to think and to feel in terms of +improvement and change; but let our habits, like the vilest vested +interests, oppose a veto to the hope and wish for better things. + +To realise that _what is_ does not mean what _will be_, constitutes, +methinks, the real spirituality of us poor human creatures, allowing +our judgments and aspirations to pass beyond our short and hidebound +life, to live on in the future, and help to make that _yonside of our +mortality_, which some of us attempt to satisfy with theosophic +reincarnation and planchette messages! + +But such spirituality, whose "it shall"--or "it shall not"--will +become an ever larger part of all _it is_, depends upon the courage of +recognising that much of what the past forces us to accept is not good +enough for the future; recognising that, odious as this may seem to +our self-conceit and sloth, many of the things we do and like and are, +will not bear even our own uncritical scrutiny. Above all, that the +lesser evil which we prefer to the greater is an evil for all that, +and requires riddance. + +Much of the world's big mischief is due to the avoidance of a bigger +one. For instance, all this naively insisted on masculine inability to +obtain the poet's or naturalist's joys without shooting a bird or +hooking a fish, this inability to love wild life, early hours and +wholesome fatigue unless accompanied by a waste of life and of money; +in short, all this incapacity _for being manly without being +destructive_, is largely due among us Anglo-Saxons to the bringing up +of boys as mere playground dunces, for fear (as we are told by parents +and schoolmasters) that the future citizens of England should take to +evil communications and worse manners if they did not play and talk +cricket and football at every available moment. For what can you +expect but that manly innocence which has been preserved at the +expense of every higher taste should grow up into manly virtue unable +to maintain itself save by hunting and fishing, shooting and +horse-racing; expensive amusements requiring, in their turn, a further +sacrifice of all capacities for innocent, noble and inexpensive +interests, in the absorbing, sometimes stultifying, often debasing +processes of making money? + +The same complacency towards waste and mischief for the sake of moral +advantages may be studied in the case also of our womankind. The +absorption in their _toilettes_ guards them from many dangers to +family sanctity. And from how much cruel gossip is not society saved +by the prevalent passion for bridge! + +So at least moralists, who are usually the most complacently +demoralised of elderly cynics, are ready to assure us. + + +XV. + +"We should learn to have noble desires," wrote Schiller, "in order to +have no need for sublime resolutions." And morality might almost take +care of itself, if people knew the strong and exquisite pleasures to +be found, like the aromatic ragwort growing on every wall and +stone-heap in the south, everywhere in the course of everyday life. +But alas! the openness to cheap and simple pleasures means the fine +training of fine faculties; and mankind asks for the expensive and +far-fetched and unwholesome pleasures, because it is itself of poor +and cheap material and of wholesale scamped manufacture. + + +XVI. + +Biological facts, as well as our observation of our own self (which is +psychology), lead us to believe that, as I have mentioned before, +Pleasure fulfils the function not merely of leading us along livable +ways, but also of creating a surplus of vitality. Itself an almost +unnecessary boon (since Pain is sufficient to regulate our choice), +Pleasure would thus tend to ever fresh and, if I may use the word, +gratuitous supplies of good. Does not this give to Pleasure a certain +freedom, a humane character wholly different from the awful, +unappeasable tyranny of Pain? For let us be sincere. Pain, and all the +cruel alternatives bidding us obey or die, are scarcely things with +which our poor ideals, our good feeling and good taste, have much +chance of profitable discussion. There is in all human life a side +akin to that of the beast; the beast hunted, tracked, starved, killing +and killed for food; the side alluded to under decent formulae like +"pressure of population," "diminishing returns," "competition," and so +forth. Not but this side of life also tends towards good, but the +means by which it does so, nature's atrocious surgery, are evil, +although one cannot deny that it is the very nature of Pain to +diminish its own recurrence. This thought may bring some comfort in +the awful earnestness of existence, this thought that in its cruel +fashion, the universe is weeding out cruel facts. But to pretend that +we can habitually exercise much moral good taste, be of delicate +forethought, squeamish harmony when Pain has yoked and is driving us, +is surely a bad bit of hypocrisy, of which those who are being +starved or trampled or tortured into acquiescence may reasonably bid +us be ashamed. Indeed, stoicism, particularly in its discourses to +others, has not more sense of shame than sense of humour. + +But since our power of choosing is thus jeopardised by the presence of +Pain, it would the more behove us to express our wish for goodness, +our sense of close connection, wide and complex harmony with the +happiness of others, in those moments of respite and liberty which we +call happiness, and particularly in those freely chosen concerns which +we call play. + +Alas, we cannot help ourselves from becoming unimaginative, +unsympathising, destructive and brutish when we are hard pressed by +agony or by fear. Therefore, let such of us as have stuff for finer +things, seize some of our only opportunities, and seek to become +harmless in our pleasures. + +Who knows but that the highest practical self-cultivation would not be +compassed by a much humbler paraphrase of Schiller's advice: let us +learn to like what does no harm to the present or the future, in order +not to throw away heroic efforts or sentimental intentions, in doing +what we don't like for someone else's supposed benefit. + + +XVII. + +The various things I have been saying have been said, or, better +still, taken for granted, by Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Ruskin, +Pater, Stevenson, by all our poets in verse and prose. What I wish to +add is that, being a poet, seeing and feeling like a poet, means +quite miraculously multiplying life's resources for oneself and +others; in fact the highest practicality conceivable, the real +transmutation of brass into gold. Now what we all waste, more even +than money, land, time and labour, more than we waste the efforts and +rewards of other folk, and the chances of enjoyment of unborn +generations (and half of our so-called practicality is nothing but +such waste), what we waste in short more than anything else, is our +own and our children's inborn capacity to see and feel as poets do, +and make much joy out of little material. + + +XVIII. + +There is no machine refuse, cinder, husk, paring or rejected material +of any kind which modern ingenuity cannot turn to profit, making +useful and pleasant goods out of such rubbish as we would willingly, +at first sight, shoot out of the universe into chaos. Every material +thing can be turned, it would seem, into new textures, clean metal, +manure, fuel or what not. But while we are thus economical with our +dust-heaps, what horrid wastefulness goes on with our sensations, +impressions, memories, emotions, with our souls and all the things +that minister to their delight! + + +XIX. + +An ignorant foreign body--and, after all, everyone is a foreigner +somewhere and ignorant about something--once committed the enormity of +asking his host, just back from cub-hunting, whether the hedgerows, +when he went out of a morning, were not quite lovely with those dewy +cobwebs which the French call Veils of the Virgin. It had to be +explained that such a sight was the most unwelcome you could imagine, +since it was a sure sign there would be no scent. The poor foreigner +was duly crestfallen, as happens whenever one has nearly spoilt a +friend's property through some piece of blundering. + +But the blunder struck me as oddly symbolical. Are we not most of us +pursuing for our pleasure, though sometimes at risk of our necks, a +fox of some kind: worth nothing as meat, little as fur, good only to +gallop after, and whose unclean scent is incompatible with those +sparkling gossamers flung, for everyone's delight, over gorse and +hedgerow? + + * * * * * + +THE END. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: + +The edition from which this text was drawn is volume 4175 of the +Tauchnitz Edition of British Authors, where it appeared together with +_The Spirit of Rome_, also by Vernon Lee. The volume was published in +1910. + +The following changes were made to the text: + + solely for the purpose or solely for the purpose of + + coeteris paribus caeeteris paribus + + Mautineia (Higher Harmonies I) Mantineia + + The Gothic boldness of light and The Gothic boldness of light and + shade of the Campanile make shade of the Campanile makes + + Tuskan Tuscan + + the workmen will be able (...) the workman will be able (...) + + learn their appearance and care learn their appearance and care + for it for them + + The death, (...) the (...) The death, (...) the (...) + flight of the fox, occupy no part flight of the fox, occupy no part + (...) and forms no part (...) and form no part + + the Monnets the Monets + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Laurus Nobilis, by Vernon Lee + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAURUS NOBILIS *** + +***** This file should be named 27939.txt or 27939.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/9/3/27939/ + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net This file +was produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries. + + +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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