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diff --git a/887-h/887-h.htm b/887-h/887-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a319812 --- /dev/null +++ b/887-h/887-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6536 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Intentions, by Oscar Wilde</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Intentions, by Oscar Wilde + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Intentions + + +Author: Oscar Wilde + + + +Release Date: October 26, 2014 [eBook #887] +[This file was first posted on April 24, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTENTIONS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1913 Methuen and Co edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>INTENTIONS</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +OSCAR WILDE</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">METHUEN & CO. LTD.<br /> +36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br /> +LONDON</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>First Published</i>, <i>at 1s. +net</i>, <i>in 1913</i></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p><i>This Book was First Published</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>1891</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Second Edition</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>1894</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>First Published</i> (<i>Third Edition</i>) <i>by +Methuen and Co.</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>1908</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Fourth Edition</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>1909</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Fifth Edition</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>1911</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">DEDICATED</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">MRS. CAREW</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">THE AUTHOR’S LITERARY +EXECUTOR</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Decay of Lying</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Pen, Pencil, and Poison</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page57">57</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Critic as Artist</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page95">95</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Truth of Masks</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page221">221</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>THE +DECAY OF LYING:<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AN OBSERVATION</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>A DIALOGUE</i>. +<i>Persons</i>: <i>Cyril and</i><br /> +<i>Vivian</i>. <i>Scene</i>: <i>the Library of a +country</i><br /> +<i>house in Nottinghamshire</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span> (<i>coming in through the +open window from the terrace</i>). My dear Vivian, +don’t coop yourself up all day in the library. It is +a perfectly lovely afternoon. The air is exquisite. +There is a mist upon the woods, like the purple bloom upon a +plum. Let us go and lie on the grass and smoke cigarettes +and enjoy Nature.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Enjoy Nature! I +am glad to say that I have entirely lost that faculty. +People tell us that Art makes us love Nature more than we loved +her before; that it reveals her secrets to us; and that after a +careful study of Corot and Constable we see things in her that +had escaped our observation. My own experience is that the +more we study Art, the less we care for Nature. What Art +really reveals to us is Nature’s lack of design, her +curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely +unfinished condition. Nature has good intentions, of +course, but, as Aristotle once said, she cannot carry them +out. When I look at a landscape I cannot help seeing all +its defects. It is fortunate for us, however, that Nature +is so imperfect, as otherwise we should have no art at all. +Art is our spirited protest, our gallant attempt to teach Nature +her proper place. As for the infinite variety of Nature, +that is a pure myth. It is not to be found in Nature +herself. It resides in the imagination, or fancy, or +cultivated blindness of the man who looks at her.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Well, you need not +look at the landscape. You can lie on the grass and smoke +and talk.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. But Nature is so +uncomfortable. Grass is hard and lumpy and damp, and full +of dreadful black insects. Why, even Morris’s poorest +workman could make you a more comfortable seat than the whole of +Nature can. Nature pales before the furniture of ‘the +street which from Oxford has borrowed its name,’ as the +poet you love so much once vilely phrased it. I don’t +complain. If Nature had been comfortable, mankind would +never have invented architecture, and I prefer houses to the open +air. In a house we all feel of the proper +proportions. Everything is subordinated to us, fashioned +for our use and our pleasure. Egotism itself, which is so +necessary to a proper sense of human dignity, is entirely the +result of indoor life. Out of doors one becomes abstract +and impersonal. One’s individuality absolutely leaves +one. And then Nature is so indifferent, so +unappreciative. Whenever I am walking in the park here, I +always feel that I am no more to her than the cattle that browse +on the slope, or the burdock that blooms in the ditch. +Nothing is more evident than that Nature hates Mind. +Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world, and people die +of it just as they die of any other disease. Fortunately, +in England at any rate, thought is not catching. Our +splendid physique as a people is entirely due to our national +stupidity. I only hope we shall be able to keep this great +historic bulwark of our happiness for many years to come; but I +am afraid that we are beginning to be over-educated; at least +everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to +teaching—that is really what our enthusiasm for education +has come to. In the meantime, you had better go back to +your wearisome uncomfortable Nature, and leave me to correct my +proofs.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Writing an +article! That is not very consistent after what you have +just said.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Who wants to be +consistent? The dullard and the doctrinaire, the tedious +people who carry out their principles to the bitter end of +action, to the <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> of practice. Not +I. Like Emerson, I write over the door of my library the +word ‘Whim.’ Besides, my article is really a +most salutary and valuable warning. If it is attended to, +there may be a new Renaissance of Art.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. What is the +subject?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. I intend to call it +‘The Decay of Lying: A Protest.’</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Lying! I should +have thought that our politicians kept up that habit.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. I assure you that +they do not. They never rise beyond the level of +misrepresentation, and actually condescend to prove, to discuss, +to argue. How different from the temper of the true liar, +with his frank, fearless statements, his superb irresponsibility, +his healthy, natural disdain of proof of any kind! After +all, what is a fine lie? Simply that which is its own +evidence. If a man is sufficiently unimaginative to produce +evidence in support of a lie, he might just as well speak the +truth at once. No, the politicians won’t do. +Something may, perhaps, be urged on behalf of the Bar. The +mantle of the Sophist has fallen on its members. Their +feigned ardours and unreal rhetoric are delightful. They +can make the worse appear the better cause, as though they were +fresh from Leontine schools, and have been known to wrest from +reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their +clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly +and unmistakeably innocent. But they are briefed by the +prosaic, and are not ashamed to appeal to precedent. In +spite of their endeavours, the truth will out. Newspapers, +even, have degenerated. They may now be absolutely relied +upon. One feels it as one wades through their +columns. It is always the unreadable that occurs. I +am afraid that there is not much to be said in favour of either +the lawyer or the journalist. Besides, what I am pleading +for is Lying in art. Shall I read you what I have +written? It might do you a great deal of good.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Certainly, if you give +me a cigarette. Thanks. By the way, what magazine do +you intend it for?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. For the +<i>Retrospective Review</i>. I think I told you that the +elect had revived it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Whom do you mean by +‘the elect’?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Oh, The Tired +Hedonists, of course. It is a club to which I belong. +We are supposed to wear faded roses in our button-holes when we +meet, and to have a sort of cult for Domitian. I am afraid +you are not eligible. You are too fond of simple +pleasures.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. I should be +black-balled on the ground of animal spirits, I suppose?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Probably. +Besides, you are a little too old. We don’t admit +anybody who is of the usual age.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Well, I should fancy +you are all a good deal bored with each other.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. We are. This is +one of the objects of the club. Now, if you promise not to +interrupt too often, I will read you my article.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. You will find me all +attention.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span> (<i>reading in a very +clear</i>, <i>musical voice</i>). <span class="smcap">The +Decay Of Lying</span>: A <span +class="smcap">Protest</span>.—One of the chief causes that +can be assigned for the curiously commonplace character of most +of the literature of our age is undoubtedly the decay of Lying as +an art, a science, and a social pleasure. The ancient +historians gave us delightful fiction in the form of fact; the +modern novelist presents us with dull facts under the guise of +fiction. The Blue-Book is rapidly becoming his ideal both +for method and manner. He has his tedious <i>document +humain</i>, his miserable little <i>coin de la +création</i>, into which he peers with his +microscope. He is to be found at the Librairie Nationale, +or at the British Museum, shamelessly reading up his +subject. He has not even the courage of other +people’s ideas, but insists on going directly to life for +everything, and ultimately, between encyclopædias and +personal experience, he comes to the ground, having drawn his +types from the family circle or from the weekly washerwoman, and +having acquired an amount of useful information from which never, +even in his most meditative moments, can he thoroughly free +himself.</p> +<p>‘The lose that results to literature in general from +this false ideal of our time can hardly be overestimated. +People have a careless way of talking about a “born +liar,” just as they talk about a “born +poet.” But in both cases they are wrong. Lying +and poetry are arts—arts, as Pinto saw, not unconnected +with each other—and they require the most careful study, +the most disinterested devotion. Indeed, they have their +technique, just as the more material arts of painting and +sculpture have, their subtle secrets of form and colour, their +craft-mysteries, their deliberate artistic methods. As one +knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognise the liar +by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the +casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as +elsewhere, practice must, precede perfection. But in modern +days while the fashion of writing poetry has become far too +common, and should, if possible, be discouraged, the fashion of +lying has almost fallen into disrepute. Many a young man +starts in life with a natural gift for exaggeration which, if +nurtured in congenial and sympathetic surroundings, or by the +imitation of the best models, might grow into something really +great and wonderful. But, as a rule, he comes to +nothing. He either falls into careless habits of +accuracy—’</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. My dear fellow!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Please don’t +interrupt in the middle of a sentence. ‘He either +falls into careless habits of accuracy, or takes to frequenting +the society of the aged and the well-informed. Both things +are equally fatal to his imagination, as indeed they would be +fatal to the imagination of anybody, and in a short time he +develops a morbid and unhealthy faculty of truth-telling, begins +to verify all statements made in his presence, has no hesitation +in contradicting people who are much younger than himself, and +often ends by writing novels which are so lifelike that no one +can possibly believe in their probability. This is no +isolated instance that we are giving. It is simply one +example out of many; and if something cannot be done to check, or +at least to modify, our monstrous worship of facts, Art will +become sterile, and beauty will pass away from the land.</p> +<p>‘Even Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, that delightful master +of delicate and fanciful prose, is tainted with this modern vice, +for we know positively no other name for it. There is such +a thing as robbing a story of its reality by trying to make it +too true, and <i>The Black Arrow</i> is so inartistic as not to +contain a single anachronism to boast of, while the +transformation of Dr. Jekyll reads dangerously like an experiment +out of the <i>Lancet</i>. As for Mr. Rider Haggard, who +really has, or had once, the makings of a perfectly magnificent +liar, he is now so afraid of being suspected of genius that when +he does tell us anything marvellous, he feels bound to invent a +personal reminiscence, and to put it into a footnote as a kind of +cowardly corroboration. Nor are our other novelists much +better. Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a +painful duty, and wastes upon mean motives and imperceptible +“points of view” his neat literary style, his +felicitous phrases, his swift and caustic satire. Mr. Hall +Caine, it is true, aims at the grandiose, but then he writes at +the top of his voice. He is so loud that one cannot bear +what he says. Mr. James Payn is an adept in the art of +concealing what is not worth finding. He hunts down the +obvious with the enthusiasm of a short-sighted detective. +As one turns over the pages, the suspense of the author becomes +almost unbearable. The horses of Mr. William Black’s +phaeton do not soar towards the sun. They merely frighten +the sky at evening into violent chromolithographic effects. +On seeing them approach, the peasants take refuge in +dialect. Mrs. Oliphant prattles pleasantly about curates, +lawn-tennis parties, domesticity, and other wearisome +things. Mr. Marion Crawford has immolated himself upon the +altar of local colour. He is like the lady in the French +comedy who keeps talking about “le beau ciel +d’Italie.” Besides, he has fallen into the bad +habit of uttering moral platitudes. He is always telling us +that to be good is to be good, and that to be bad is to be +wicked. At times he is almost edifying. <i>Robert +Elsmere</i> is of course a masterpiece—a masterpiece of the +“genre ennuyeux,” the one form of literature that the +English people seems thoroughly to enjoy. A thoughtful +young friend of ours once told us that it reminded him of the +sort of conversation that goes on at a meat tea in the house of a +serious Nonconformist family, and we can quite believe it. +Indeed it is only in England that such a book could be +produced. England is the home of lost ideas. As for +that great and daily increasing school of novelists for whom the +sun always rises in the East-End, the only thing that can be said +about them is that they find life crude, and leave it raw.</p> +<p>‘In France, though nothing so deliberately tedious as +<i>Robert Elsmere</i> has been produced, things are not much +better. M. Guy de Maupassant, with his keen mordant irony +and his hard vivid style, strips life of the few poor rags that +still cover her, and shows us foul sore and festering +wound. He writes lurid little tragedies in which everybody +is ridiculous; bitter comedies at which one cannot laugh for very +tears. M. Zola, true to the lofty principle that he lays +down in one of his pronunciamientos on literature, +“L’homme de génie n’a jamais +d’esprit,” is determined to show that, if he has not +got genius, he can at least be dull. And how well he +succeeds! He is not without power. Indeed at times, +as in <i>Germinal</i>, there is something almost epic in his +work. But his work is entirely wrong from beginning to end, +and wrong not on the ground of morals, but on the ground of +art. From any ethical standpoint it is just what it should +be. The author is perfectly truthful, and describes things +exactly as they happen. What more can any moralist +desire? We have no sympathy at all with the moral +indignation of our time against M. Zola. It is simply the +indignation of Tartuffe on being exposed. But from the +standpoint of art, what can be said in favour of the author of +<i>L’Assommoir</i>, <i>Nana</i> and +<i>Pot-Bouille</i>? Nothing. Mr. Ruskin once +described the characters in George Eliot’s novels as being +like the sweepings of a Pentonville omnibus, but M. Zola’s +characters are much worse. They have their dreary vices, +and their drearier virtues. The record of their lives is +absolutely without interest. Who cares what happens to +them? In literature we require distinction, charm, beauty +and imaginative power. We don’t want to be harrowed +and disgusted with an account of the doings of the lower +orders. M. Daudet is better. He has wit, a light +touch and an amusing style. But he has lately committed +literary suicide. Nobody can possibly care for Delobelle +with his “Il faut lutter pour l’art,” or for +Valmajour with his eternal refrain about the nightingale, or for +the poet in <i>Jack</i> with his “mots cruels,” now +that we have learned from <i>Vingt Ans de ma Vie +littéraire</i> that these characters were taken directly +from life. To us they seem to have suddenly lost all their +vitality, all the few qualities they ever possessed. The +only real people are the people who never existed, and if a +novelist is base enough to go to life for his personages he +should at least pretend that they are creations, and not boast of +them as copies. The justification of a character in a novel +is not that other persons are what they are, but that the author +is what he is. Otherwise the novel is not a work of +art. As for M. Paul Bourget, the master of the <i>roman +psychologique</i>, he commits the error of imagining that the men +and women of modern life are capable of being infinitely analysed +for an innumerable series of chapters. In point of fact +what is interesting about people in good society—and M. +Bourget rarely moves out of the Faubourg St. Germain, except to +come to London,—is the mask that each one of them wears, +not the reality that lies behind the mask. It is a +humiliating confession, but we are all of us made out of the same +stuff. In Falstaff there is something of Hamlet, in Hamlet +there is not a little of Falstaff. The fat knight has his +moods of melancholy, and the young prince his moments of coarse +humour. Where we differ from each other is purely in +accidentals: in dress, manner, tone of voice, religious opinions, +personal appearance, tricks of habit and the like. The more +one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis +disappear. Sooner or later one comes to that dreadful +universal thing called human nature. Indeed, as any one who +has ever worked among the poor knows only too well, the +brotherhood of man is no mere poet’s dream, it is a most +depressing and humiliating reality; and if a writer insists upon +analysing the upper classes, he might just as well write of +match-girls and costermongers at once.’ However, my +dear Cyril, I will not detain you any further just here. I +quite admit that modern novels have many good points. All I +insist on is that, as a class, they are quite unreadable.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. That is certainly a +very grave qualification, but I must say that I think you are +rather unfair in some of your strictures. I like <i>The +Deemster</i>, and <i>The Daughter of Heth</i>, and <i>Le +Disciple</i>, and <i>Mr. Isaacs</i>, and as for <i>Robert +Elsmere</i>, I am quite devoted to it. Not that I can look +upon it as a serious work. As a statement of the problems +that confront the earnest Christian it is ridiculous and +antiquated. It is simply Arnold’s <i>Literature and +Dogma</i> with the literature left out. It is as much +behind the age as Paley’s <i>Evidences</i>, or +Colenso’s method of Biblical exegesis. Nor could +anything be less impressive than the unfortunate hero gravely +heralding a dawn that rose long ago, and so completely missing +its true significance that he proposes to carry on the business +of the old firm under the new name. On the other hand, it +contains several clever caricatures, and a heap of delightful +quotations, and Green’s philosophy very pleasantly sugars +the somewhat bitter pill of the author’s fiction. I +also cannot help expressing my surprise that you have said +nothing about the two novelists whom you are always reading, +Balzac and George Meredith. Surely they are realists, both +of them?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Ah! +Meredith! Who can define him? His style is chaos +illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has +mastered everything except language: as a novelist he can do +everything, except tell a story: as an artist he is everything +except articulate. Somebody in +Shakespeare—Touchstone, I think—talks about a man who +is always breaking his shins over his own wit, and it seems to me +that this might serve as the basis for a criticism of +Meredith’s method. But whatever he is, he is not a +realist. Or rather I would say that he is a child of +realism who is not on speaking terms with his father. By +deliberate choice he has made himself a romanticist. He has +refused to bow the knee to Baal, and after all, even if the +man’s fine spirit did not revolt against the noisy +assertions of realism, his style would be quite sufficient of +itself to keep life at a respectful distance. By its means +he has planted round his garden a hedge full of thorns, and red +with wonderful roses. As for Balzac, he was a most +remarkable combination of the artistic temperament with the +scientific spirit. The latter he bequeathed to his +disciples. The former was entirely his own. The +difference between such a book as M. Zola’s +<i>L’Assommoir</i> and Balzac’s <i>Illusions +Perdues</i> is the difference between unimaginative realism and +imaginative reality. ‘All Balzac’s +characters;’ said Baudelaire, ‘are gifted with the +same ardour of life that animated himself. All his fictions +are as deeply coloured as dreams. Each mind is a weapon +loaded to the muzzle with will. The very scullions have +genius.’ A steady course of Balzac reduces our living +friends to shadows, and our acquaintances to the shadows of +shades. His characters have a kind of fervent +fiery-coloured existence. They dominate us, and defy +scepticism. One of the greatest tragedies of my life is the +death of Lucien de Rubempré. It is a grief from +which I have never been able completely to rid myself. It +haunts me in my moments of pleasure. I remember it when I +laugh. But Balzac is no more a realist than Holbein +was. He created life, he did not copy it. I admit, +however, that he set far too high a value on modernity of form, +and that, consequently, there is no book of his that, as an +artistic masterpiece, can rank with <i>Salammbô</i> or +<i>Esmond</i>, or <i>The Cloister and the Hearth</i>, or the +<i>Vicomte de Bragelonne</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Do you object to +modernity of form, then?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Yes. It is a +huge price to pay for a very poor result. Pure modernity of +form is always somewhat vulgarising. It cannot help being +so. The public imagine that, because they are interested in +their immediate surroundings, Art should be interested in them +also, and should take them as her subject-matter. But the +mere fact that they are interested in these things makes them +unsuitable subjects for Art. The only beautiful things, as +somebody once said, are the things that do not concern us. +As long as a thing is useful or necessary to us, or affects us in +any way, either for pain or for pleasure, or appeals strongly to +our sympathies, or is a vital part of the environment in which we +live, it is outside the proper sphere of art. To +art’s subject-matter we should be more or less +indifferent. We should, at any rate, have no preferences, +no prejudices, no partisan feeling of any kind. It is +exactly because Hecuba is nothing to us that her sorrows are such +an admirable motive for a tragedy. I do not know anything +in the whole history of literature sadder than the artistic +career of Charles Reade. He wrote one beautiful book, +<i>The Cloister and the Hearth</i>, a book as much above +<i>Romola</i> as <i>Romola</i> is above <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, +and wasted the rest of his life in a foolish attempt to be +modern, to draw public attention to the state of our convict +prisons, and the management of our private lunatic asylums. +Charles Dickens was depressing enough in all conscience when he +tried to arouse our sympathy for the victims of the poor-law +administration; but Charles Reade, an artist, a scholar, a man +with a true sense of beauty, raging and roaring over the abuses +of contemporary life like a common pamphleteer or a sensational +journalist, is really a sight for the angels to weep over. +Believe me, my dear Cyril, modernity of form and modernity of +subject-matter are entirely and absolutely wrong. We have +mistaken the common livery of the age for the vesture of the +Muses, and spend our days in the sordid streets and hideous +suburbs of our vile cities when we should be out on the hillside +with Apollo. Certainly we are a degraded race, and have +sold our birthright for a mess of facts.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. There is something in +what you say, and there is no doubt that whatever amusement we +may find in reading a purely model novel, we have rarely any +artistic pleasure in re-reading it. And this is perhaps the +best rough test of what is literature and what is not. If +one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no +use reading it at all. But what do you say about the return +to Life and Nature? This is the panacea that is always +being recommended to us.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. I will read you what +I say on that subject. The passage comes later on in the +article, but I may as well give it to you now:—</p> +<p>‘The popular cry of our time is “Let us return to +Life and Nature; they will recreate Art for us, and send the red +blood coursing through her veins; they will shoe her feet with +swiftness and make her hand strong.” But, alas! we +are mistaken in our amiable and well-meaning efforts. +Nature is always behind the age. And as for Life, she is +the solvent that breaks up Art, the enemy that lays waste her +house.’</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. What do you mean by +saying that Nature is always behind the age?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Well, perhaps that is +rather cryptic. What I mean is this. If we take +Nature to mean natural simple instinct as opposed to +self-conscious culture, the work produced under this influence is +always old-fashioned, antiquated, and out of date. One +touch of Nature may make the whole world kin, but two touches of +Nature will destroy any work of Art. If, on the other hand, +we regard Nature as the collection of phenomena external to man, +people only discover in her what they bring to her. She has +no suggestions of her own. Wordsworth went to the lakes, +but he was never a lake poet. He found in stones the +sermons he had already hidden there. He went moralising +about the district, but his good work was produced when he +returned, not to Nature but to poetry. Poetry gave him +‘Laodamia,’ and the fine sonnets, and the great Ode, +such as it is. Nature gave him ‘Martha Ray’ and +‘Peter Bell,’ and the address to Mr. +Wilkinson’s spade.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. I think that view +might be questioned. I am rather inclined to believe in +‘the impulse from a vernal wood,’ though of course +the artistic value of such an impulse depends entirely on the +kind of temperament that receives it, so that the return to +Nature would come to mean simply the advance to a great +personality. You would agree with that, I fancy. +However, proceed with your article.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span> (<i>reading</i>). +‘Art begins with abstract decoration, with purely +imaginative and pleasurable work dealing with what is unreal and +non-existent. This is the first stage. Then Life +becomes fascinated with this new wonder, and asks to be admitted +into the charmed circle. Art takes life as part of her +rough material, recreates it, and refashions it in fresh forms, +is absolutely indifferent to fact, invents, imagines, dreams, and +keeps between herself and reality the impenetrable barrier of +beautiful style, of decorative or ideal treatment. The +third stage is when Life gets the upper hand, and drives Art out +into the wilderness. That is the true decadence, and it is +from this that we are now suffering.</p> +<p>‘Take the case of the English drama. At first in +the hands of the monks Dramatic Art was abstract, decorative and +mythological. Then she enlisted Life in her service, and +using some of life’s external forms, she created an +entirely new race of beings, whose sorrows were more terrible +than any sorrow man has ever felt, whose joys were keener than +lover’s joys, who had the rage of the Titans and the calm +of the gods, who had monstrous and marvellous sins, monstrous and +marvellous virtues. To them she gave a language different +from that of actual use, a language full of resonant music and +sweet rhythm, made stately by solemn cadence, or made delicate by +fanciful rhyme, jewelled with wonderful words, and enriched with +lofty diction. She clothed her children in strange raiment +and gave them masks, and at her bidding the antique world rose +from its marble tomb. A new Cæsar stalked through the +streets of risen Rome, and with purple sail and flute-led oars +another Cleopatra passed up the river to Antioch. Old myth +and legend and dream took shape and substance. History was +entirely re-written, and there was hardly one of the dramatists +who did not recognise that the object of Art is not simple truth +but complex beauty. In this they were perfectly +right. Art itself is really a form of exaggeration; and +selection, which is the very spirit of art, is nothing more than +an intensified mode of over-emphasis.</p> +<p>‘But Life soon shattered the perfection of the +form. Even in Shakespeare we can see the beginning of the +end. It shows itself by the gradual breaking-up of the +blank-verse in the later plays, by the predominance given to +prose, and by the over-importance assigned to +characterisation. The passages in Shakespeare—and +they are many—where the language is uncouth, vulgar, +exaggerated, fantastic, obscene even, are entirely due to Life +calling for an echo of her own voice, and rejecting the +intervention of beautiful style, through which alone should life +be suffered to find expression. Shakespeare is not by any +means a flawless artist. He is too fond of going directly +to life, and borrowing life’s natural utterance. He +forgets that when Art surrenders her imaginative medium she +surrenders everything. Goethe says, somewhere—</p> +<blockquote><p>In der Beschränkung zeigt Fsich erst der +Meister,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“It is in working within limits that the master reveals +himself,” and the limitation, the very condition of any art +is style. However, we need not linger any longer over +Shakespeare’s realism. <i>The Tempest</i> is the most +perfect of palinodes. All that we desired to point out was, +that the magnificent work of the Elizabethan and Jacobean artists +contained within itself the seeds of its own dissolution, and +that, if it drew some of its strength from using life as rough +material, it drew all its weakness from using life as an artistic +method. As the inevitable result of this substitution of an +imitative for a creative medium, this surrender of an imaginative +form, we have the modern English melodrama. The characters +in these plays talk on the stage exactly as they would talk off +it; they have neither aspirations nor aspirates; they are taken +directly from life and reproduce its vulgarity down to the +smallest detail; they present the gait, manner, costume and +accent of real people; they would pass unnoticed in a third-class +railway carriage. And yet how wearisome the plays +are! They do not succeed in producing even that impression +of reality at which they aim, and which is their only reason for +existing. As a method, realism is a complete failure.</p> +<p>‘What is true about the drama and the novel is no less +true about those arts that we call the decorative arts. The +whole history of these arts in Europe is the record of the +struggle between Orientalism, with its frank rejection of +imitation, its love of artistic convention, its dislike to the +actual representation of any object in Nature, and our own +imitative spirit. Wherever the former has been paramount, +as in Byzantium, Sicily and Spain, by actual contact, or in the +rest of Europe by the influence of the Crusades, we have had +beautiful and imaginative work in which the visible things of +life are transmuted into artistic conventions, and the things +that Life has not are invented and fashioned for her +delight. But wherever we have returned to Life and Nature, +our work has always become vulgar, common and +uninteresting. Modern tapestry, with its aërial +effects, its elaborate perspective, its broad expanses of waste +sky, its faithful and laborious realism, has no beauty +whatsoever. The pictorial glass of Germany is absolutely +detestable. We are beginning to weave possible carpets in +England, but only because we have returned to the method and +spirit of the East. Our rugs and carpets of twenty years +ago, with their solemn depressing truths, their inane worship of +Nature, their sordid reproductions of visible objects, have +become, even to the Philistine, a source of laughter. A +cultured Mahomedan once remarked to us, “You Christians are +so occupied in misinterpreting the fourth commandment that you +have never thought of making an artistic application of the +second.” He was perfectly right, and the whole truth +of the matter is this: The proper school to learn art in is not +Life but Art.’</p> +<p>And now let me read you a passage which seems to me to settle +the question very completely.</p> +<p>‘It was not always thus. We need not say anything +about the poets, for they, with the unfortunate exception of Mr. +Wordsworth, have been really faithful to their high mission, and +are universally recognised as being absolutely unreliable. +But in the works of Herodotus, who, in spite of the shallow and +ungenerous attempts of modern sciolists to verify his history, +may justly be called the “Father of Lies”; in the +published speeches of Cicero and the biographies of Suetonius; in +Tacitus at his best; in Pliny’s <i>Natural History</i>; in +Hanno’s <i>Periplus</i>; in all the early chronicles; in +the Lives of the Saints; in Froissart and Sir Thomas Malory; in +the travels of Marco Polo; in Olaus Magnus, and Aldrovandus, and +Conrad Lycosthenes, with his magnificent <i>Prodigiorum et +Ostentorum Chronicon</i>; in the autobiography of Benvenuto +Cellini; in the memoirs of Casanova; in Defoe’s <i>History +of the Plague</i>; in Boswell’s <i>Life of Johnson</i>; in +Napoleon’s despatches, and in the works of our own Carlyle, +whose <i>French Revolution</i> is one of the most fascinating +historical novels ever written, facts are either kept in their +proper subordinate position, or else entirely excluded on the +general ground of dulness. Now, everything is +changed. Facts are not merely finding a footing-place in +history, but they are usurping the domain of Fancy, and have +invaded the kingdom of Romance. Their chilling touch is +over everything. They are vulgarising mankind. The +crude commercialism of America, its materialising spirit, its +indifference to the poetical side of things, and its lack of +imagination and of high unattainable ideals, are entirely due to +that country having adopted for its national hero a man who, +according to his own confession, was incapable of telling a lie, +and it is not too much to say that the story of George Washington +and the cherry-tree has done more harm, and in a shorter space of +time, than any other moral tale in the whole of +literature.’</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. My dear boy!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. I assure you it is +the case, and the amusing part of the whole thing is that the +story of the cherry-tree is an absolute myth. However, you +must not think that I am too despondent about the artistic future +either of America or of our own country. Listen to +this:—</p> +<p>‘That some change will take place before this century +has drawn to its close we have no doubt whatsoever. Bored +by the tedious and improving conversation of those who have +neither the wit to exaggerate nor the genius to romance, tired of +the intelligent person whose reminiscences are always based upon +memory, whose statements are invariably limited by probability, +and who is at any time liable to be corroborated by the merest +Philistine who happens to be present, Society sooner or later +must return to its lost leader, the cultured and fascinating +liar. Who he was who first, without ever having gone out to +the rude chase, told the wandering cavemen at sunset how he had +dragged the Megatherium from the purple darkness of its jasper +cave, or slain the Mammoth in single combat and brought back its +gilded tusks, we cannot tell, and not one of our modern +anthropologists, for all their much-boasted science, has had the +ordinary courage to tell us. Whatever was his name or race, +he certainly was the true founder of social intercourse. +For the aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give +pleasure. He is the very basis of civilised society, and +without him a dinner-party, even at the mansions of the great, is +as dull as a lecture at the Royal Society, or a debate at the +Incorporated Authors, or one of Mr. Burnand’s farcical +comedies.</p> +<p>‘Nor will he be welcomed by society alone. Art, +breaking from the prison-house of realism, will run to greet him, +and will kiss his false, beautiful lips, knowing that he alone is +in possession of the great secret of all her manifestations, the +secret that Truth is entirely and absolutely a matter of style; +while Life—poor, probable, uninteresting human +life—tired of repeating herself for the benefit of Mr. +Herbert Spencer, scientific historians, and the compilers of +statistics in general, will follow meekly after him, and try to +reproduce, in her own simple and untutored way, some of the +marvels of which he talks.</p> +<p>‘No doubt there will always be critics who, like a +certain writer in the <i>Saturday Review</i>, will gravely +censure the teller of fairy tales for his defective knowledge of +natural history, who will measure imaginative work by their own +lack of any imaginative faculty, and will hold up their +ink-stained hands in horror if some honest gentleman, who has +never been farther than the yew-trees of his own garden, pens a +fascinating book of travels like Sir John Mandeville, or, like +great Raleigh, writes a whole history of the world, without +knowing anything whatsoever about the past. To excuse +themselves they will try and shelter under the shield of him who +made Prospero the magician, and gave him Caliban and Ariel as his +servants, who heard the Tritons blowing their horns round the +coral reefs of the Enchanted Isle, and the fairies singing to +each other in a wood near Athens, who led the phantom kings in +dim procession across the misty Scottish heath, and hid Hecate in +a cave with the weird sisters. They will call upon +Shakespeare—they always do—and will quote that +hackneyed passage forgetting that this unfortunate aphorism about +Art holding the mirror up to Nature, is deliberately said by +Hamlet in order to convince the bystanders of his absolute +insanity in all art-matters.’</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Ahem! Another +cigarette, please.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. My dear fellow, +whatever you may say, it is merely a dramatic utterance, and no +more represents Shakespeare’s real views upon art than the +speeches of Iago represent his real views upon morals. But +let me get to the end of the passage:</p> +<p>‘Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside +of, herself. She is not to be judged by any external +standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a +mirror. She has flowers that no forests know of, birds that +no woodland possesses. She makes and unmakes many worlds, +and can draw the moon from heaven with a scarlet thread. +Hers are the “forms more real than living man,” and +hers the great archetypes of which things that have existence are +but unfinished copies. Nature has, in her eyes, no laws, no +uniformity. She can work miracles at her will, and when she +calls monsters from the deep they come. She can bid the +almond-tree blossom in winter, and send the snow upon the ripe +cornfield. At her word the frost lays its silver finger on +the burning mouth of June, and the winged lions creep out from +the hollows of the Lydian hills. The dryads peer from the +thicket as she passes by, and the brown fauns smile strangely at +her when she comes near them. She has hawk-faced gods that +worship her, and the centaurs gallop at her side.’</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. I like that. I +can see it. Is that the end?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. No. There is +one more passage, but it is purely practical. It simply +suggests some methods by which we could revive this lost art of +Lying.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Well, before you read +it to me, I should like to ask you a question. What do you +mean by saying that life, ‘poor, probable, uninteresting +human life,’ will try to reproduce the marvels of +art? I can quite understand your objection to art being +treated as a mirror. You think it would reduce genius to +the position of a cracked looking-glass. But you +don’t mean to say that you seriously believe that Life +imitates Art, that Life in fact is the mirror, and Art the +reality?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Certainly I do. +Paradox though it may seem—and paradoxes are always +dangerous things—it is none the less true that Life +imitates art far more than Art imitates life. We have all +seen in our own day in England how a certain curious and +fascinating type of beauty, invented and emphasised by two +imaginative painters, has so influenced Life that whenever one +goes to a private view or to an artistic salon one sees, here the +mystic eyes of Rossetti’s dream, the long ivory throat, the +strange square-cut jaw, the loosened shadowy hair that he so +ardently loved, there the sweet maidenhood of ‘The Golden +Stair,’ the blossom-like mouth and weary loveliness of the +‘Laus Amoris,’ the passion-pale face of Andromeda, +the thin hands and lithe beauty of the Vivian in +‘Merlin’s Dream.’ And it has always been +so. A great artist invents a type, and Life tries to copy +it, to reproduce it in a popular form, like an enterprising +publisher. Neither Holbein nor Vandyck found in England +what they have given us. They brought their types with +them, and Life with her keen imitative faculty set herself to +supply the master with models. The Greeks, with their quick +artistic instinct, understood this, and set in the bride’s +chamber the statue of Hermes or of Apollo, that she might bear +children as lovely as the works of art that she looked at in her +rapture or her pain. They knew that Life gains from art not +merely spirituality, depth of thought and feeling, soul-turmoil +or soul-peace, but that she can form herself on the very lines +and colours of art, and can reproduce the dignity of Pheidias as +well as the grace of Praxiteles. Hence came their objection +to realism. They disliked it on purely social +grounds. They felt that it inevitably makes people ugly, +and they were perfectly right. We try to improve the +conditions of the race by means of good air, free sunlight, +wholesome water, and hideous bare buildings for the better +housing of the lower orders. But these things merely +produce health, they do not produce beauty. For this, Art +is required, and the true disciples of the great artist are not +his studio-imitators, but those who become like his works of art, +be they plastic as in Greek days, or pictorial as in modern +times; in a word, Life is Art’s best, Art’s only +pupil.</p> +<p>As it is with the visible arts, so it is with +literature. The most obvious and the vulgarest form in +which this is shown is in the case of the silly boys who, after +reading the adventures of Jack Sheppard or Dick Turpin, pillage +the stalls of unfortunate apple-women, break into sweet-shops at +night, and alarm old gentlemen who are returning home from the +city by leaping out on them in suburban lanes, with black masks +and unloaded revolvers. This interesting phenomenon, which +always occurs after the appearance of a new edition of either of +the books I have alluded to, is usually attributed to the +influence of literature on the imagination. But this is a +mistake. The imagination is essentially creative, and +always seeks for a new form. The boy-burglar is simply the +inevitable result of life’s imitative instinct. He is +Fact, occupied as Fact usually is, with trying to reproduce +Fiction, and what we see in him is repeated on an extended scale +throughout the whole of life. Schopenhauer has analysed the +pessimism that characterises modern thought, but Hamlet invented +it. The world has become sad because a puppet was once +melancholy. The Nihilist, that strange martyr who has no +faith, who goes to the stake without enthusiasm, and dies for +what he does not believe in, is a purely literary product. +He was invented by Tourgénieff, and completed by +Dostoieffski. Robespierre came out of the pages of Rousseau +as surely as the People’s Palace rose out of the +<i>débris</i> of a novel. Literature always +anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its +purpose. The nineteenth century, as we know it, is largely +an invention of Balzac. Our Luciens de Rubempré, our +Rastignacs, and De Marsays made their first appearance on the +stage of the <i>Comédie Humaine</i>. We are merely +carrying out, with footnotes and unnecessary additions, the whim +or fancy or creative vision of a great novelist. I once +asked a lady, who knew Thackeray intimately, whether he had had +any model for Becky Sharp. She told me that Becky was an +invention, but that the idea of the character had been partly +suggested by a governess who lived in the neighbourhood of +Kensington Square, and was the companion of a very selfish and +rich old woman. I inquired what became of the governess, +and she replied that, oddly enough, some years after the +appearance of <i>Vanity Fair</i>, she ran away with the nephew of +the lady with whom she was living, and for a short time made a +great splash in society, quite in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s +style, and entirely by Mrs. Rawdon Crawley’s methods. +Ultimately she came to grief, disappeared to the Continent, and +used to be occasionally seen at Monte Carlo and other gambling +places. The noble gentleman from whom the same great +sentimentalist drew Colonel Newcome died, a few months after +<i>The Newcomer</i> had reached a fourth edition, with the word +‘Adsum’ on his lips. Shortly after Mr. +Stevenson published his curious psychological story of +transformation, a friend of mine, called Mr. Hyde, was in the +north of London, and being anxious to get to a railway station, +took what he thought would be a short cut, lost his way, and +found himself in a network of mean, evil-looking streets. +Feeling rather nervous he began to walk extremely fast, when +suddenly out of an archway ran a child right between his +legs. It fell on the pavement, he tripped over it, and +trampled upon it. Being of course very much frightened and +a little hurt, it began to scream, and in a few seconds the whole +street was full of rough people who came pouring out of the +houses like ants. They surrounded him, and asked him his +name. He was just about to give it when he suddenly +remembered the opening incident in Mr. Stevenson’s +story. He was so filled with horror at having realised in +his own person that terrible and well-written scene, and at +having done accidentally, though in fact, what the Mr. Hyde of +fiction had done with deliberate intent, that he ran away as hard +as he could go. He was, however, very closely followed, and +finally he took refuge in a surgery, the door of which happened +to be open, where he explained to a young assistant, who happened +to be there, exactly what had occurred. The humanitarian +crowd were induced to go away on his giving them a small sum of +money, and as soon as the coast was clear he left. As he +passed out, the name on the brass door-plate of the surgery +caught his eye. It was ‘Jekyll.’ At least +it should have been.</p> +<p>Here the imitation, as far as it went, was of course +accidental. In the following case the imitation was +self-conscious. In the year 1879, just after I had left +Oxford, I met at a reception at the house of one of the Foreign +Ministers a woman of very curious exotic beauty. We became +great friends, and were constantly together. And yet what +interested me most in her was not her beauty, but her character, +her entire vagueness of character. She seemed to have no +personality at all, but simply the possibility of many +types. Sometimes she would give herself up entirely to art, +turn her drawing-room into a studio, and spend two or three days +a week at picture galleries or museums. Then she would take +to attending race-meetings, wear the most horsey clothes, and +talk about nothing but betting. She abandoned religion for +mesmerism, mesmerism for politics, and politics for the +melodramatic excitements of philanthropy. In fact, she was +a kind of Proteus, and as much a failure in all her +transformations as was that wondrous sea-god when Odysseus laid +hold of him. One day a serial began in one of the French +magazines. At that time I used to read serial stories, and +I well remember the shock of surprise I felt when I came to the +description of the heroine. She was so like my friend that +I brought her the magazine, and she recognised herself in it +immediately, and seemed fascinated by the resemblance. I +should tell you, by the way, that the story was translated from +some dead Russian writer, so that the author had not taken his +type from my friend. Well, to put the matter briefly, some +months afterwards I was in Venice, and finding the magazine in +the reading-room of the hotel, I took it up casually to see what +had become of the heroine. It was a most piteous tale, as +the girl had ended by running away with a man absolutely inferior +to her, not merely in social station, but in character and +intellect also. I wrote to my friend that evening about my +views on John Bellini, and the admirable ices at Florian’s, +and the artistic value of gondolas, but added a postscript to the +effect that her double in the story had behaved in a very silly +manner. I don’t know why I added that, but I remember +I had a sort of dread over me that she might do the same +thing. Before my letter had reached her, she had run away +with a man who deserted her in six months. I saw her in +1884 in Paris, where she was living with her mother, and I asked +her whether the story had had anything to do with her +action. She told me that she had felt an absolutely +irresistible impulse to follow the heroine step by step in her +strange and fatal progress, and that it was with a feeling of +real terror that she had looked forward to the last few chapters +of the story. When they appeared, it seemed to her that she +was compelled to reproduce them in life, and she did so. It +was a most clear example of this imitative instinct of which I +was speaking, and an extremely tragic one.</p> +<p>However, I do not wish to dwell any further upon individual +instances. Personal experience is a most vicious and +limited circle. All that I desire to point out is the +general principle that Life imitates Art far more than Art +imitates Life, and I feel sure that if you think seriously about +it you will find that it is true. Life holds the mirror up +to Art, and either reproduces some strange type imagined by +painter or sculptor, or realises in fact what has been dreamed in +fiction. Scientifically speaking, the basis of +life—the energy of life, as Aristotle would call +it—is simply the desire for expression, and Art is always +presenting various forms through which this expression can be +attained. Life seizes on them and uses them, even if they +be to her own hurt. Young men have committed suicide +because Rolla did so, have died by their own hand because by his +own hand Werther died. Think of what we owe to the +imitation of Christ, of what we owe to the imitation of +Cæsar.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. The theory is +certainly a very curious one, but to make it complete you must +show that Nature, no less than Life, is an imitation of +Art. Are you prepared to prove that?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. My dear fellow, I am +prepared to prove anything.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Nature follows the +landscape painter, then, and takes her effects from him?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Certainly. +Where, if not from the Impressionists, do we get those wonderful +brown fogs that come creeping down our streets, blurring the +gas-lamps and changing the houses into monstrous shadows? +To whom, if not to them and their master, do we owe the lovely +silver mists that brood over our river, and turn to faint forms +of fading grace curved bridge and swaying barge? The +extraordinary change that has taken place in the climate of +London during the last ten years is entirely due to a particular +school of Art. You smile. Consider the matter from a +scientific or a metaphysical point of view, and you will find +that I am right. For what is Nature? Nature is no +great mother who has borne us. She is our creation. +It is in our brain that she quickens to life. Things are +because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends +on the Arts that have influenced us. To look at a thing is +very different from seeing a thing. One does not see +anything until one sees its beauty. Then, and then only, +does it come into existence. At present, people see fogs, +not because there are fogs, but because poets and painters have +taught them the mysterious loveliness of such effects. +There may have been fogs for centuries in London. I dare +say there were. But no one saw them, and so we do not know +anything about them. They did not exist till Art had +invented them. Now, it must be admitted, fogs are carried +to excess. They have become the mere mannerism of a clique, +and the exaggerated realism of their method gives dull people +bronchitis. Where the cultured catch an effect, the +uncultured catch cold. And so, let us be humane, and invite +Art to turn her wonderful eyes elsewhere. She has done so +already, indeed. That white quivering sunlight that one +sees now in France, with its strange blotches of mauve, and its +restless violet shadows, is her latest fancy, and, on the whole, +Nature reproduces it quite admirably. Where she used to +give us Corots and Daubignys, she gives us now exquisite Monets +and entrancing Pissaros. Indeed there are moments, rare, it +is true, but still to be observed from time to time, when Nature +becomes absolutely modern. Of course she is not always to +be relied upon. The fact is that she is in this unfortunate +position. Art creates an incomparable and unique effect, +and, having done so, passes on to other things. Nature, +upon the other hand, forgetting that imitation can be made the +sincerest form of insult, keeps on repeating this effect until we +all become absolutely wearied of it. Nobody of any real +culture, for instance, ever talks nowadays about the beauty of a +sunset. Sunsets are quite old-fashioned. They belong +to the time when Turner was the last note in art. To admire +them is a distinct sign of provincialism of temperament. +Upon the other hand they go on. Yesterday evening Mrs. +Arundel insisted on my going to the window, and looking at the +glorious sky, as she called it. Of course I had to look at +it. She is one of those absurdly pretty Philistines to whom +one can deny nothing. And what was it? It was simply +a very second-rate Turner, a Turner of a bad period, with all the +painter’s worst faults exaggerated and +over-emphasised. Of course, I am quite ready to admit that +Life very often commits the same error. She produces her +false Renés and her sham Vautrins, just as Nature gives +us, on one day a doubtful Cuyp, and on another a more than +questionable Rousseau. Still, Nature irritates one more +when she does things of that kind. It seems so stupid, so +obvious, so unnecessary. A false Vautrin might be +delightful. A doubtful Cuyp is unbearable. However, I +don’t want to be too hard on Nature. I wish the +Channel, especially at Hastings, did not look quite so often like +a Henry Moore, grey pearl with yellow lights, but then, when Art +is more varied, Nature will, no doubt, be more varied also. +That she imitates Art, I don’t think even her worst enemy +would deny now. It is the one thing that keeps her in touch +with civilised man. But have I proved my theory to your +satisfaction?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. You have proved it to +my dissatisfaction, which is better. But even admitting +this strange imitative instinct in Life and Nature, surely you +would acknowledge that Art expresses the temper of its age, the +spirit of its time, the moral and social conditions that surround +it, and under whose influence it is produced.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Certainly not! +Art never expresses anything but itself. This is the +principle of my new æsthetics; and it is this, more than +that vital connection between form and substance, on which Mr. +Pater dwells, that makes music the type of all the arts. Of +course, nations and individuals, with that healthy natural vanity +which is the secret of existence, are always under the impression +that it is of them that the Muses are talking, always trying to +find in the calm dignity of imaginative art some mirror of their +own turbid passions, always forgetting that the singer of life is +not Apollo but Marsyas. Remote from reality, and with her +eyes turned away from the shadows of the cave, Art reveals her +own perfection, and the wondering crowd that watches the opening +of the marvellous, many-petalled rose fancies that it is its own +history that is being told to it, its own spirit that is finding +expression in a new form. But it is not so. The +highest art rejects the burden of the human spirit, and gains +more from a new medium or a fresh material than she does from any +enthusiasm for art, or from any lofty passion, or from any great +awakening of the human consciousness. She develops purely +on her own lines. She is not symbolic of any age. It +is the ages that are her symbols.</p> +<p>Even those who hold that Art is representative of time and +place and people cannot help admitting that the more imitative an +art is, the less it represents to us the spirit of its age. +The evil faces of the Roman emperors look out at us from the foul +porphyry and spotted jasper in which the realistic artists of the +day delighted to work, and we fancy that in those cruel lips and +heavy sensual jaws we can find the secret of the ruin of the +Empire. But it was not so. The vices of Tiberius +could not destroy that supreme civilisation, any more than the +virtues of the Antonines could save it. It fell for other, +for less interesting reasons. The sibyls and prophets of +the Sistine may indeed serve to interpret for some that new birth +of the emancipated spirit that we call the Renaissance; but what +do the drunken boors and bawling peasants of Dutch art tell us +about the great soul of Holland? The more abstract, the +more ideal an art is, the more it reveals to us the temper of its +age. If we wish to understand a nation by means of its art, +let us look at its architecture or its music.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. I quite agree with you +there. The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the +abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and +ideal. Upon the other hand, for the visible aspect of an +age, for its look, as the phrase goes, we must of course go to +the arts of imitation.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. I don’t think +so. After all, what the imitative arts really give us are +merely the various styles of particular artists, or of certain +schools of artists. Surely you don’t imagine that the +people of the Middle Ages bore any resemblance at all to the +figures on mediæval stained glass, or in mediæval +stone and wood carving, or on mediæval metal-work, or +tapestries, or illuminated MSS. They were probably very +ordinary-looking people, with nothing grotesque, or remarkable, +or fantastic in their appearance. The Middle Ages, as we +know them in art, are simply a definite form of style, and there +is no reason at all why an artist with this style should not be +produced in the nineteenth century. No great artist ever +sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease +to be an artist. Take an example from our own day. I +know that you are fond of Japanese things. Now, do you +really imagine that the Japanese people, as they are presented to +us in art, have any existence? If you do, you have never +understood Japanese art at all. The Japanese people are the +deliberate self-conscious creation of certain individual +artists. If you set a picture by Hokusai, or Hokkei, or any +of the great native painters, beside a real Japanese gentleman or +lady, you will see that there is not the slightest resemblance +between them. The actual people who live in Japan are not +unlike the general run of English people; that is to say, they +are extremely commonplace, and have nothing curious or +extraordinary about them. In fact the whole of Japan is a +pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such +people. One of our most charming painters went recently to +the Land of the Chrysanthemum in the foolish hope of seeing the +Japanese. All he saw, all he had the chance of painting, +were a few lanterns and some fans. He was quite unable to +discover the inhabitants, as his delightful exhibition at Messrs. +Dowdeswell’s Gallery showed only too well. He did not +know that the Japanese people are, as I have said, simply a mode +of style, an exquisite fancy of art. And so, if you desire +to see a Japanese effect, you will not behave like a tourist and +go to Tokio. On the contrary, you will stay at home and +steep yourself in the work of certain Japanese artists, and then, +when you have absorbed the spirit of their style, and caught +their imaginative manner of vision, you will go some afternoon +and sit in the Park or stroll down Piccadilly, and if you cannot +see an absolutely Japanese effect there, you will not see it +anywhere. Or, to return again to the past, take as another +instance the ancient Greeks. Do you think that Greek art +ever tells us what the Greek people were like? Do you +believe that the Athenian women were like the stately dignified +figures of the Parthenon frieze, or like those marvellous +goddesses who sat in the triangular pediments of the same +building? If you judge from the art, they certainly were +so. But read an authority, like Aristophanes, for +instance. You will find that the Athenian ladies laced +tightly, wore high-heeled shoes, dyed their hair yellow, painted +and rouged their faces, and were exactly like any silly +fashionable or fallen creature of our own day. The fact is +that we look back on the ages entirely through the medium of art, +and art, very fortunately, has never once told us the truth.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. But modern portraits +by English painters, what of them? Surely they are like the +people they pretend to represent?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Quite so. They +are so like them that a hundred years from now no one will +believe in them. The only portraits in which one believes +are portraits where there is very little of the sitter, and a +very great deal of the artist. Holbein’s drawings of +the men and women of his time impress us with a sense of their +absolute reality. But this is simply because Holbein +compelled life to accept his conditions, to restrain itself +within his limitations, to reproduce his type, and to appear as +he wished it to appear. It is style that makes us believe +in a thing—nothing but style. Most of our modern +portrait painters are doomed to absolute oblivion. They +never paint what they see. They paint what the public sees, +and the public never sees anything.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Well, after that I +think I should like to hear the end of your article.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. With pleasure. +Whether it will do any good I really cannot say. Ours is +certainly the dullest and most prosaic century possible. +Why, even Sleep has played us false, and has closed up the gates +of ivory, and opened the gates of horn. The dreams of the +great middle classes of this country, as recorded in Mr. +Myers’s two bulky volumes on the subject, and in the +Transactions of the Psychical Society, are the most depressing +things that I have ever read. There is not even a fine +nightmare among them. They are commonplace, sordid and +tedious. As for the Church, I cannot conceive anything +better for the culture of a country than the presence in it of a +body of men whose duty it is to believe in the supernatural, to +perform daily miracles, and to keep alive that mythopoeic faculty +which is so essential for the imagination. But in the +English Church a man succeeds, not through his capacity for +belief, but through his capacity for disbelief. Ours is the +only Church where the sceptic stands at the altar, and where St. +Thomas is regarded as the ideal apostle. Many a worthy +clergyman, who passes his life in admirable works of kindly +charity, lives and dies unnoticed and unknown; but it is +sufficient for some shallow uneducated passman out of either +University to get up in his pulpit and express his doubts about +Noah’s ark, or Balaam’s ass, or Jonah and the whale, +for half of London to flock to hear him, and to sit open-mouthed +in rapt admiration at his superb intellect. The growth of +common sense in the English Church is a thing very much to be +regretted. It is really a degrading concession to a low +form of realism. It is silly, too. It springs from an +entire ignorance of psychology. Man can believe the +impossible, but man can never believe the improbable. +However, I must read the end of my article:—</p> +<p>‘What we have to do, what at any rate it is our duty to +do, is to revive this old art of Lying. Much of course may +be done, in the way of educating the public, by amateurs in the +domestic circle, at literary lunches, and at afternoon +teas. But this is merely the light and graceful side of +lying, such as was probably heard at Cretan dinner-parties. +There are many other forms. Lying for the sake of gaining +some immediate personal advantage, for instance—lying with +a moral purpose, as it is usually called—though of late it +has been rather looked down upon, was extremely popular with the +antique world. Athena laughs when Odysseus tells her +“his words of sly devising,” as Mr. William Morris +phrases it, and the glory of mendacity illumines the pale brow of +the stainless hero of Euripidean tragedy, and sets among the +noble women of the past the young bride of one of Horace’s +most exquisite odes. Later on, what at first had been +merely a natural instinct was elevated into a self-conscious +science. Elaborate rules were laid down for the guidance of +mankind, and an important school of literature grew up round the +subject. Indeed, when one remembers the excellent +philosophical treatise of Sanchez on the whole question, one +cannot help regretting that no one has ever thought of publishing +a cheap and condensed edition of the works of that great +casuist. A short primer, “When to Lie and How,” +if brought out in an attractive and not too expensive a form, +would no doubt command a large sale, and would prove of real +practical service to many earnest and deep-thinking people. +Lying for the sake of the improvement of the young, which is the +basis of home education, still lingers amongst us, and its +advantages are so admirably set forth in the early books of +Plato’s <i>Republic</i> that it is unnecessary to dwell +upon them here. It is a mode of lying for which all good +mothers have peculiar capabilities, but it is capable of still +further development, and has been sadly overlooked by the School +Board. Lying for the sake of a monthly salary is of course +well known in Fleet Street, and the profession of a political +leader-writer is not without its advantages. But it is said +to be a somewhat dull occupation, and it certainly does not lead +to much beyond a kind of ostentatious obscurity. The only +form of lying that is absolutely beyond reproach is lying for its +own sake, and the highest development of this is, as we have +already pointed out, Lying in Art. Just as those who do not +love Plato more than Truth cannot pass beyond the threshold of +the Academe, so those who do not love Beauty more than Truth +never know the inmost shrine of Art. The solid stolid +British intellect lies in the desert sands like the Sphinx in +Flaubert’s marvellous tale, and fantasy, <i>La +Chimère</i>, dances round it, and calls to it with her +false, flute-toned voice. It may not hear her now, but +surely some day, when we are all bored to death with the +commonplace character of modern fiction, it will hearken to her +and try to borrow her wings.</p> +<p>‘And when that day dawns, or sunset reddens, how joyous +we shall all be! Facts will be regarded as discreditable, +Truth will be found mourning over her fetters, and Romance, with +her temper of wonder, will return to the land. The very +aspect of the world will change to our startled eyes. Out +of the sea will rise Behemoth and Leviathan, and sail round the +high-pooped galleys, as they do on the delightful maps of those +ages when books on geography were actually readable. +Dragons will wander about the waste places, and the phoenix will +soar from her nest of fire into the air. We shall lay our +hands upon the basilisk, and see the jewel in the toad’s +head. Champing his gilded oats, the Hippogriff will stand +in our stalls, and over our heads will float the Blue Bird +singing of beautiful and impossible things, of things that are +lovely and that never happen, of things that are not and that +should be. But before this comes to pass we must cultivate +the lost art of Lying.’</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cyril</span>. Then we must entirely +cultivate it at once. But in order to avoid making any +error I want you to tell me briefly the doctrines of the new +æsthetics.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Vivian</span>. Briefly, then, they +are these. Art never expresses anything but itself. +It has an independent life, just as Thought has, and develops +purely on its own lines. It is not necessarily realistic in +an age of realism, nor spiritual in an age of faith. So far +from being the creation of its time, it is usually in direct +opposition to it, and the only history that it preserves for us +is the history of its own progress. Sometimes it returns +upon its footsteps, and revives some antique form, as happened in +the archaistic movement of late Greek Art, and in the +pre-Raphaelite movement of our own day. At other times it +entirely anticipates its age, and produces in one century work +that it takes another century to understand, to appreciate and to +enjoy. In no case does it reproduce its age. To pass +from the art of a time to the time itself is the great mistake +that all historians commit.</p> +<p>The second doctrine is this. All bad art comes from +returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into +ideals. Life and Nature may sometimes be used as part of +Art’s rough material, but before they are of any real +service to art they must be translated into artistic +conventions. The moment Art surrenders its imaginative +medium it surrenders everything. As a method Realism is a +complete failure, and the two things that every artist should +avoid are modernity of form and modernity of +subject-matter. To us, who live in the nineteenth century, +any century is a suitable subject for art except our own. +The only beautiful things are the things that do not concern +us. It is, to have the pleasure of quoting myself, exactly +because Hecuba is nothing to us that her sorrows are so suitable +a motive for a tragedy. Besides, it is only the modern that +ever becomes old-fashioned. M. Zola sits down to give us a +picture of the Second Empire. Who cares for the Second +Empire now? It is out of date. Life goes faster than +Realism, but Romanticism is always in front of Life.</p> +<p>The third doctrine is that Life imitates Art far more than Art +imitates Life. This results not merely from Life’s +imitative instinct, but from the fact that the self-conscious aim +of Life is to find expression, and that Art offers it certain +beautiful forms through which it may realise that energy. +It is a theory that has never been put forward before, but it is +extremely fruitful, and throws an entirely new light upon the +history of Art.</p> +<p>It follows, as a corollary from this, that external Nature +also imitates Art. The only effects that she can show us +are effects that we have already seen through poetry, or in +paintings. This is the secret of Nature’s charm, as +well as the explanation of Nature’s weakness.</p> +<p>The final revelation is that Lying, the telling of beautiful +untrue things, is the proper aim of Art. But of this I +think I have spoken at sufficient length. And now let us go +out on the terrace, where ‘droops the milk-white peacock +like a ghost,’ while the evening star ‘washes the +dusk with silver.’ At twilight nature becomes a +wonderfully suggestive effect, and is not without loveliness, +though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the +poets. Come! We have talked long enough.</p> +<h2><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>PEN, +PENCIL AND POISON<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">A STUDY IN GREEN</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> has constantly been made a +subject of reproach against artists and men of letters that they +are lacking in wholeness and completeness of nature. As a +rule this must necessarily be so. That very concentration +of vision and intensity of purpose which is the characteristic of +the artistic temperament is in itself a mode of limitation. +To those who are preoccupied with the beauty of form nothing else +seems of much importance. Yet there are many exceptions to +this rule. Rubens served as ambassador, and Goethe as state +councillor, and Milton as Latin secretary to Cromwell. +Sophocles held civic office in his own city; the humourists, +essayists, and novelists of modern America seem to desire nothing +better than to become the diplomatic representatives of their +country; and Charles Lamb’s friend, Thomas Griffiths +Wainewright, the subject of this brief memoir, though of an +extremely artistic temperament, followed many masters other than +art, being not merely a poet and a painter, an art-critic, an +antiquarian, and a writer of prose, an amateur of beautiful +things, and a dilettante of things delightful, but also a forger +of no mean or ordinary capabilities, and as a subtle and secret +poisoner almost without rival in this or any age.</p> +<p>This remarkable man, so powerful with ‘pen, pencil and +poison,’ as a great poet of our own day has finely said of +him, was born at Chiswick, in 1794. His father was the son +of a distinguished solicitor of Gray’s Inn and Hatton +Garden. His mother was the daughter of the celebrated Dr. +Griffiths, the editor and founder of the <i>Monthly Review</i>, +the partner in another literary speculation of Thomas Davis, that +famous bookseller of whom Johnson said that he was not a +bookseller, but ‘a gentleman who dealt in books,’ the +friend of Goldsmith and Wedgwood, and one of the most well-known +men of his day. Mrs. Wainewright died, in giving him birth, +at the early age of twenty-one, and an obituary notice in the +<i>Gentleman’s Magazine</i> tells us of her ‘amiable +disposition and numerous accomplishments,’ and adds +somewhat quaintly that ‘she is supposed to have understood +the writings of Mr. Locke as well as perhaps any person of either +sex now living.’ His father did not long survive his +young wife, and the little child seems to have been brought up by +his grandfather, and, on the death of the latter in 1803, by his +uncle George Edward Griffiths, whom he subsequently +poisoned. His boyhood was passed at Linden House, Turnham +Green, one of those many fine Georgian mansions that have +unfortunately disappeared before the inroads of the suburban +builder, and to its lovely gardens and well-timbered park he owed +that simple and impassioned love of nature which never left him +all through his life, and which made him so peculiarly +susceptible to the spiritual influences of Wordsworth’s +poetry. He went to school at Charles Burney’s academy +at Hammersmith. Mr. Burney was the son of the historian of +music, and the near kinsman of the artistic lad who was destined +to turn out his most remarkable pupil. He seems to have +been a man of a good deal of culture, and in after years Mr. +Wainewright often spoke of him with much affection as a +philosopher, an archæologist, and an admirable teacher who, +while he valued the intellectual side of education, did not +forget the importance of early moral training. It was under +Mr. Burney that he first developed his talent as an artist, and +Mr. Hazlitt tells us that a drawing-book which he used at school +is still extant, and displays great talent and natural +feeling. Indeed, painting was the first art that fascinated +him. It was not till much later that he sought to find +expression by pen or poison.</p> +<p>Before this, however, he seems to have been carried away by +boyish dreams of the romance and chivalry of a soldier’s +life, and to have become a young guardsman. But the +reckless dissipated life of his companions failed to satisfy the +refined artistic temperament of one who was made for other +things. In a short time he wearied of the service. +‘Art,’ he tells us, in words that still move many by +their ardent sincerity and strange fervour, ‘Art touched +her renegade; by her pure and high influence the noisome mists +were purged; my feelings, parched, hot, and tarnished, were +renovated with cool, fresh bloom, simple, beautiful to the +simple-hearted.’ But Art was not the only cause of +the change. ‘The writings of Wordsworth,’ he +goes on to say, ‘did much towards calming the confusing +whirl necessarily incident to sudden mutations. I wept over +them tears of happiness and gratitude.’ He +accordingly left the army, with its rough barrack-life and coarse +mess-room tittle-tattle, and returned to Linden House, full of +this new-born enthusiasm for culture. A severe illness, in +which, to use his own words, he was ‘broken like a vessel +of clay,’ prostrated him for a time. His delicately +strung organisation, however indifferent it might have been to +inflicting pain on others, was itself most keenly sensitive to +pain. He shrank from suffering as a thing that mars and +maims human life, and seems to have wandered through that +terrible valley of melancholia from which so many great, perhaps +greater, spirits have never emerged. But he was +young—only twenty-five years of age—and he soon +passed out of the ‘dead black waters,’ as he called +them, into the larger air of humanistic culture. As he was +recovering from the illness that had led him almost to the gates +of death, he conceived the idea of taking up literature as an +art. ‘I said with John Woodvil,’ he cries, +‘it were a life of gods to dwell in such an element,’ +to see and hear and write brave things:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘These high and gusty relishes of life<br /> +Have no allayings of mortality.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It is impossible not to feel that in this passage we have the +utterance of a man who had a true passion for letters. +‘To see and hear and write brave things,’ this was +his aim.</p> +<p>Scott, the editor of the <i>London Magazine</i>, struck by the +young man’s genius, or under the influence of the strange +fascination that he exercised on every one who knew him, invited +him to write a series of articles on artistic subjects, and under +a series of fanciful pseudonym he began to contribute to the +literature of his day. <i>Janus Weathercock</i>, <i>Egomet +Bonmot</i>, and <i>Van Vinkvooms</i>, were some of the grotesque +masks under which he choose to hide his seriousness or to reveal +his levity. A mask tells us more than a face. These +disguises intensified his personality. In an incredibly +short time he seems to have made his mark. Charles Lamb +speaks of ‘kind, light-hearted Wainewright,’ whose +prose is ‘capital.’ We hear of him entertaining +Macready, John Forster, Maginn, Talfourd, Sir Wentworth Dilke, +the poet John Clare, and others, at <i>a +petit-dîner</i>. Like Disraeli, he determined to +startle the town as a dandy, and his beautiful rings, his antique +cameo breast-pin, and his pale lemon-coloured kid gloves, were +well known, and indeed were regarded by Hazlitt as being the +signs of a new manner in literature: while his rich curly hair, +fine eyes, and exquisite white hands gave him the dangerous and +delightful distinction of being different from others. +There was something in him of Balzac’s Lucien de +Rubempré. At times he reminds us of Julien +Sorel. De Quincey saw him once. It was at a dinner at +Charles Lamb’s. ‘Amongst the company, all +literary men, sat a murderer,’ he tells us, and he goes on +to describe how on that day he had been ill, and had hated the +face of man and woman, and yet found himself looking with +intellectual interest across the table at the young writer +beneath whose affectations of manner there seemed to him to lie +so much unaffected sensibility, and speculates on ‘what +sudden growth of another interest’ would have changed his +mood, had he known of what terrible sin the guest to whom Lamb +paid so much attention was even then guilty.</p> +<p>His life-work falls naturally under the three heads suggested +by Mr. Swinburne, and it may be partly admitted that, if we set +aside his achievements in the sphere of poison, what he has +actually left to us hardly justifies his reputation.</p> +<p>But then it is only the Philistine who seeks to estimate a +personality by the vulgar test of production. This young +dandy sought to be somebody, rather than to do something. +He recognised that Life itself is in art, and has its modes of +style no less than the arts that seek to express it. Nor is +his work without interest. We hear of William Blake +stopping in the Royal Academy before one of his pictures and +pronouncing it to be ‘very fine.’ His essays +are prefiguring of much that has since been realised. He +seems to have anticipated some of those accidents of modern +culture that are regarded by many as true essentials. He +writes about La Gioconda, and early French poets and the Italian +Renaissance. He loves Greek gems, and Persian carpets, and +Elizabethan translations of <i>Cupid and Psyche</i>, and the +<i>Hypnerotomachia</i>, and book-binding and early editions, and +wide-margined proofs. He is keenly sensitive to the value +of beautiful surroundings, and never wearies of describing to us +the rooms in which he lived, or would have liked to live. +He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always +the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said +to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals. Like +Baudelaire he was extremely fond of cats, and with Gautier, he +was fascinated by that ‘sweet marble monster’ of both +sexes that we can still see at Florence and in the Louvre.</p> +<p>There is of course much in his descriptions, and his +suggestions for decoration, that shows that he did not entirely +free himself from the false taste of his time. But it is +clear that he was one of the first to recognise what is, indeed, +the very keynote of æsthetic eclecticism, I mean the true +harmony of all really beautiful things irrespective of age or +place, of school or manner. He saw that in decorating a +room, which is to be, not a room for show, but a room to live in, +we should never aim at any archæological reconstruction of +the past, nor burden ourselves with any fanciful necessity for +historical accuracy. In this artistic perception he was +perfectly right. All beautiful things belong to the same +age.</p> +<p>And so, in his own library, as he describes it, we find the +delicate fictile vase of the Greek, with its exquisitely painted +figures and the faint ΚΑΛΟΣ +finely traced upon its side, and behind it hangs an engraving of +the ‘Delphic Sibyl’ of Michael Angelo, or of the +‘Pastoral’ of Giorgione. Here is a bit of +Florentine majolica, and here a rude lamp from some old Roman +tomb. On the table lies a book of Hours, ‘cased in a cover +of solid silver gilt, wrought with quaint devices and studded +with small brilliants and rubies,’ and close by it +‘squats a little ugly monster, a Lar, perhaps, dug up in +the sunny fields of corn-bearing Sicily.’ Some dark +antique bronzes contrast with the pale gleam of two noble +<i>Christi Crucifixi</i>, one carved in ivory, the other moulded +in wax.’ He has his trays of Tassie’s gems, his +tiny Louis-Quatorze <i>bonbonnière</i> with a miniature by +Petitot, his highly prized ‘brown-biscuit teapots, +filagree-worked,’ his citron morocco letter-case, and his +‘pomona-green’ chair.</p> +<p>One can fancy him lying there in the midst of his books and +casts and engravings, a true virtuoso, a subtle connoisseur, +turning over his fine collection of Mare Antonios, and his +Turner’s ‘Liber Studiorum,’ of which he was a +warm admirer, or examining with a magnifier some of his antique +gems and cameos, ‘the head of Alexander on an onyx of two +strata,’ or ‘that superb <i>altissimo relievo</i> on +cornelian, Jupiter Ægiochus.’ He was always a +great amateur of engravings, and gives some very useful +suggestions as to the best means of forming a collection. +Indeed, while fully appreciating modern art, he never lost sight +of the importance of reproductions of the great masterpieces of +the past, and all that he says about the value of plaster casts +is quite admirable.</p> +<p>As an art-critic he concerned himself primarily with the +complex impressions produced by a work of art, and certainly the +first step in æsthetic criticism is to realise one’s +own impressions. He cared nothing for abstract discussions +on the nature of the Beautiful, and the historical method, which +has since yielded such rich fruit, did not belong to his day, but +he never lost sight of the great truth that Art’s first +appeal is neither to the intellect nor to the emotions, but +purely to the artistic temperament, and he more than once points +out that this temperament, this ‘taste,’ as he calls +it, being unconsciously guided and made perfect by frequent +contact with the best work, becomes in the end a form of right +judgment. Of course there are fashions in art just as there +are fashions in dress, and perhaps none of us can ever quite free +ourselves from the influence of custom and the influence of +novelty. He certainly could not, and he frankly +acknowledges how difficult it is to form any fair estimate of +contemporary work. But, on the whole, his taste was good +and sound. He admired Turner and Constable at a time when +they were not so much thought of as they are now, and saw that +for the highest landscape art we require more than ‘mere +industry and accurate transcription.’ Of +Crome’s ‘Heath Scene near Norwich’ he remarks +that it shows ‘how much a subtle observation of the +elements, in their wild moods, does for a most uninteresting +flat,’ and of the popular type of landscape of his day he +says that it is ‘simply an enumeration of hill and dale, +stumps of trees, shrubs, water, meadows, cottages and houses; +little more than topography, a kind of pictorial map-work; in +which rainbows, showers, mists, haloes, large beams shooting +through rifted clouds, storms, starlight, all the most valued +materials of the real painter, are not.’ He had a +thorough dislike of what is obvious or commonplace in art, and +while he was charmed to entertain Wilkie at dinner, he cared as +little for Sir David’s pictures as he did for Mr. +Crabbe’s poems. With the imitative and realistic +tendencies of his day he had no sympathy and he tells us frankly +that his great admiration for Fuseli was largely due to the fact +that the little Swiss did not consider it necessary that an +artist should paint only what he sees. The qualities that +he sought for in a picture were composition, beauty and dignity +of line, richness of colour, and imaginative power. Upon +the other hand, he was not a doctrinaire. ‘I hold +that no work of art can be tried otherwise than by laws deduced +from itself: whether or not it be consistent with itself is the +question.’ This is one of his excellent +aphorisms. And in criticising painters so different as +Landseer and Martin, Stothard and Etty, he shows that, to use a +phrase now classical, he is trying ‘to see the object as in +itself it really is.’</p> +<p>However, as I pointed out before, he never feels quite at his +ease in his criticisms of contemporary work. ‘The +present,’ he says, ‘is about as agreeable a confusion +to me as Ariosto on the first perusal. . . . Modern things dazzle +me. I must look at them through Time’s +telescope. Elia complains that to him the merit of a MS. +poem is uncertain; “print,” as he excellently says, +“settles it.” Fifty years’ toning does +the same thing to a picture.’ He is happier when he +is writing about Watteau and Lancret, about Rubens and Giorgione, +about Rembrandt, Corregio, and Michael Angelo; happiest of all +when he is writing about Greek things. What is Gothic +touched him very little, but classical art and the art of the +Renaissance were always dear to him. He saw what our +English school could gain from a study of Greek models, and never +wearies of pointing out to the young student the artistic +possibilities that lie dormant in Hellenic marbles and Hellenic +methods of work. In his judgments on the great Italian +Masters, says De Quincey, ‘there seemed a tone of sincerity +and of native sensibility, as in one who spoke for himself, and +was not merely a copier from books.’ The highest +praise that we can give to him is that he tried to revive style +as a conscious tradition. But he saw that no amount of art +lectures or art congresses, or ‘plans for advancing the +fine arts,’ will ever produce this result. The +people, he says very wisely, and in the true spirit of Toynbee +Hall, must always have ‘the best models constantly before +their eyes.’</p> +<p>As is to be expected from one who was a painter, he is often +extremely technical in his art criticisms. Of +Tintoret’s ‘St. George delivering the Egyptian +Princess from the Dragon,’ he remarks:—</p> +<blockquote><p>The robe of Sabra, warmly glazed with Prussian +blue, is relieved from the pale greenish background by a +vermilion scarf; and the full hues of both are beautifully +echoed, as it were, in a lower key by the purple-lake coloured +stuffs and bluish iron armour of the saint, besides an ample +balance to the vivid azure drapery on the foreground in the +indigo shades of the wild wood surrounding the castle.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And elsewhere he talks learnedly of ‘a delicate +Schiavone, various as a tulip-bed, with rich broken tints,’ +of ‘a glowing portrait, remarkable for <i>morbidezza</i>, +by the scarce Moroni,’ and of another picture being +‘pulpy in the carnations.’</p> +<p>But, as a rule, he deals with his impressions of the work as +an artistic whole, and tries to translate those impressions into +words, to give, as it were, the literary equivalent for the +imaginative and mental effect. He was one of the first to +develop what has been called the art-literature of the nineteenth +century, that form of literature which has found in Mr. Ruskin +and Mr. Browning, its two most perfect exponents. His +description of Lancret’s <i>Repas Italien</i>, in which +‘a dark-haired girl, “amorous of mischief,” +lies on the daisy-powdered grass,’ is in some respects very +charming. Here is his account of ‘The +Crucifixion,’ by Rembrandt. It is extremely +characteristic of his style—</p> +<blockquote><p>Darkness—sooty, portentous +darkness—shrouds the whole scene: only above the accursed +wood, as if through a horrid rift in the murky ceiling, a rainy +deluge—‘sleety-flaw, discoloured +water’—streams down amain, spreading a grisly +spectral light, even more horrible than that palpable +night. Already the Earth pants thick and fast! the darkened +Cross trembles! the winds are dropt—the air is +stagnant—a muttering rumble growls underneath their feet, +and some of that miserable crowd begin to fly down the +hill. The horses snuff the coming terror, and become +unmanageable through fear. The moment rapidly approaches +when, nearly torn asunder by His own weight, fainting with loss +of blood, which now runs in narrower rivulets from His slit +veins, His temples and breast drowned in sweat, and His black +tongue parched with the fiery death-fever, Jesus cries, ‘I +thirst.’ The deadly vinegar is elevated to Him.</p> +<p>His head sinks, and the sacred corpse ‘swings senseless +of the cross.’ A sheet of vermilion flame shoots +sheer through the air and vanishes; the rocks of Carmel and +Lebanon cleave asunder; the sea rolls on high from the sands its +black weltering waves. Earth yawns, and the graves give up +their dwellers. The dead and the living are mingled +together in unnatural conjunction and hurry through the holy +city. New prodigies await them there. The veil of the +temple—the unpierceable veil—is rent asunder from top +to bottom, and that dreaded recess containing the Hebrew +mysteries—the fatal ark with the tables and seven-branched +candelabrum—is disclosed by the light of unearthly flames +to the God-deserted multitude.</p> +<p>Rembrandt never painted this sketch, and he was quite +right. It would have lost nearly all its charms in losing +that perplexing veil of indistinctness which affords such ample +range wherein the doubting imagination may speculate. At +present it is like a thing in another world. A dark gulf is +betwixt us. It is not tangible by the body. We can +only approach it in the spirit.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In this passage, written, the author tells us, ‘in awe +and reverence,’ there is much that is terrible, and very +much that is quite horrible, but it is not without a certain +crude form of power, or, at any rate, a certain crude violence of +words, a quality which this age should highly appreciate, as it +is its chief defect. It is pleasanter, however, to pass to +this description of Giulio Romano’s ‘Cephalus and +Procris’:—</p> +<blockquote><p>We should read Moschus’s lament for Bion, +the sweet shepherd, before looking at this picture, or study the +picture as a preparation for the lament. We have nearly the +same images in both. For either victim the high groves and +forest dells murmur; the flowers exhale sad perfume from their +buds; the nightingale mourns on the craggy lands, and the swallow +in the long-winding vales; ‘the satyrs, too, and fauns +dark-veiled groan,’ and the fountain nymphs within the wood +melt into tearful waters. The sheep and goats leave their +pasture; and oreads, ‘who love to scale the most +inaccessible tops of all uprightest rocks,’ hurry down from +the song of their wind-courting pines; while the dryads bend from +the branches of the meeting trees, and the rivers moan for white +Procris, ‘with many-sobbing streams,’</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Filling the far-seen ocean with a +voice.</p> +<p>The golden bees are silent on the thymy Hymettus; and the +knelling horn of Aurora’s love no more shall scatter away +the cold twilight on the top of Hymettus. The foreground of +our subject is a grassy sunburnt bank, broken into swells and +hollows like waves (a sort of land-breakers), rendered more +uneven by many foot-tripping roots and stumps of trees stocked +untimely by the axe, which are again throwing out light-green +shoots. This bank rises rather suddenly on the right to a +clustering grove, penetrable to no star, at the entrance of which +sits the stunned Thessalian king, holding between his knees that +ivory-bright body which was, but an instant agone, parting the +rough boughs with her smooth forehead, and treading alike on +thorns and flowers with jealousy-stung foot—now helpless, +heavy, void of all motion, save when the breeze lifts her thick +hair in mockery.</p> +<p>From between the closely-neighboured boles astonished nymphs +press forward with loud cries—</p> +<p>And deerskin-vested satyrs, crowned with ivy twists, +advance;<br /> +And put strange pity in their horned countenance.</p> +<p>Laelaps lies beneath, and shows by his panting the rapid pace +of death. On the other side of the group, Virtuous Love +with ‘vans dejected’ holds forth the arrow to an +approaching troop of sylvan people, fauns, rams, goats, satyrs, +and satyr-mothers, pressing their children tighter with their +fearful hands, who hurry along from the left in a sunken path +between the foreground and a rocky wall, on whose lowest ridge a +brook-guardian pours from her urn her grief-telling waters. +Above and more remote than the Ephidryad, another female, rending +her locks, appears among the vine-festooned pillars of an unshorn +grove. The centre of the picture is filled by shady +meadows, sinking down to a river-mouth; beyond is ‘the vast +strength of the ocean stream,’ from whose floor the +extinguisher of stars, rosy Aurora, drives furiously up her +brine-washed steeds to behold the death-pangs of her rival.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Were this description carefully re-written, it would be quite +admirable. The conception of making a prose poem out of +paint is excellent. Much of the best modern literature +springs from the same aim. In a very ugly and sensible age, +the arts borrow, not from life, but from each other.</p> +<p>His sympathies, too, were wonderfully varied. In +everything connected with the stage, for instance, he was always +extremely interested, and strongly upheld the necessity for +archæological accuracy in costume and scene-painting. +‘In art,’ he says in one of his essays, +‘whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well’; +and he points out that once we allow the intrusion of +anachronisms, it becomes difficult to say where the line is to be +drawn. In literature, again, like Lord Beaconsfield on a +famous occasion, he was ‘on the side of the +angels.’ He was one of the first to admire Keats and +Shelley—‘the tremulously-sensitive and poetical +Shelley,’ as he calls him. His admiration for +Wordsworth was sincere and profound. He thoroughly +appreciated William Blake. One of the best copies of the +‘Songs of Innocence and Experience’ that is now in +existence was wrought specially for him. He loved Alain +Chartier, and Ronsard, and the Elizabethan dramatists, and +Chaucer and Chapman, and Petrarch. And to him all the arts +were one. ‘Our critics,’ he remarks with much +wisdom, ‘seem hardly aware of the identity of the primal +seeds of poetry and painting, nor that any true advancement in +the serious study of one art co-generates a proportionate +perfection in the other’; and he says elsewhere that if a +man who does not admire Michael Angelo talks of his love for +Milton, he is deceiving either himself or his listeners. To +his fellow-contributors in the <i>London Magazine</i> he was +always most generous, and praises Barry Cornwall, Allan +Cunningham, Hazlitt, Elton, and Leigh Hunt without anything of +the malice of a friend. Some of his sketches of Charles +Lamb are admirable in their way, and, with the art of the true +comedian, borrow their style from their subject:—</p> +<blockquote><p>What can I say of thee more than all know? that +thou hadst the gaiety of a boy with the knowledge of a man: as +gentle a heart as ever sent tears to the eyes.</p> +<p>How wittily would he mistake your meaning, and put in a +conceit most seasonably out of season. His talk without +affectation was compressed, like his beloved Elizabethans, even +unto obscurity. Like grains of fine gold, his sentences +would beat out into whole sheets. He had small mercy on +spurious fame, and a caustic observation on the <i>fashion for +men of genius</i> was a standing dish. Sir Thomas Browne +was a ‘bosom cronie’ of his; so was Burton, and old +Fuller. In his amorous vein he dallied with that peerless +Duchess of many-folio odour; and with the heyday comedies of +Beaumont and Fletcher he induced light dreams. He would +deliver critical touches on these, like one inspired, but it was +good to let him choose his own game; if another began even on the +acknowledged pets he was liable to interrupt, or rather append, +in a mode difficult to define whether as misapprehensive or +mischievous. One night at C-’s, the above dramatic +partners were the temporary subject of chat. Mr. X. +commended the passion and haughty style of a tragedy (I +don’t know which of them), but was instantly taken up by +Elia, who told him ‘<i>That</i> was nothing; the lyrics +were the high things—the lyrics!’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>One side of his literary career deserves especial +notice. Modern journalism may be said to owe almost as much +to him as to any man of the early part of this century. He +was the pioneer of Asiatic prose, and delighted in pictorial +epithets and pompous exaggerations. To have a style so +gorgeous that it conceals the subject is one of the highest +achievements of an important and much admired school of Fleet +Street leader-writers, and this school <i>Janus Weathercock</i> +may be said to have invented. He also saw that it was quite +easy by continued reiteration to make the public interested in +his own personality, and in his purely journalistic articles this +extraordinary young man tells the world what he had for dinner, +where he gets his clothes, what wines he likes, and in what state +of health he is, just as if he were writing weekly notes for some +popular newspaper of our own time. This being the least +valuable side of his work, is the one that has had the most +obvious influence. A publicist, nowadays, is a man who +bores the community with the details of the illegalities of his +private life.</p> +<p>Like most artificial people, he had a great love of +nature. ‘I hold three things in high +estimation,’ he says somewhere: ‘to sit lazily on an +eminence that commands a rich prospect; to be shadowed by thick +trees while the sun shines around me; and to enjoy solitude with +the consciousness of neighbourhood. The country gives them +all to me.’ He writes about his wandering over +fragrant furze and heath repeating Collins’s ‘Ode to +Evening,’ just to catch the fine quality of the moment; +about smothering his face ‘in a watery bed of cowslips, wet +with May dews’; and about the pleasure of seeing the +sweet-breathed kine ‘pass slowly homeward through the +twilight,’ and hearing ‘the distant clank of the +sheep-bell.’ One phrase of his, ‘the polyanthus +glowed in its cold bed of earth, like a solitary picture of +Giorgione on a dark oaken panel,’ is curiously +characteristic of his temperament, and this passage is rather +pretty in its way:—</p> +<blockquote><p>The short tender grass was covered with +marguerites—‘such that men called <i>daisies</i> in +our town’—thick as stars on a summer’s +night. The harsh caw of the busy rooks came pleasantly +mellowed from a high dusky grove of elms at some distance off, +and at intervals was heard the voice of a boy scaring away the +birds from the newly-sown seeds. The blue depths were the +colour of the darkest ultramarine; not a cloud streaked the calm +æther; only round the horizon’s edge streamed a +light, warm film of misty vapour, against which the near village +with its ancient stone church showed sharply out with blinding +whiteness. I thought of Wordsworth’s ‘Lines +written in March.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>However, we must not forget that the cultivated young man who +penned these lines, and who was so susceptible to Wordsworthian +influences, was also, as I said at the beginning of this memoir, +one of the most subtle and secret poisoners of this or any +age. How he first became fascinated by this strange sin he +does not tell us, and the diary in which he carefully noted the +results of his terrible experiments and the methods that he +adopted, has unfortunately been lost to us. Even in later +days, too, he was always reticent on the matter, and preferred to +speak about ‘The Excursion,’ and the ‘Poems +founded on the Affections.’ There is no doubt, +however, that the poison that he used was strychnine. In +one of the beautiful rings of which he was so proud, and which +served to show off the fine modelling of his delicate ivory +hands, he used to carry crystals of the Indian <i>nux vomica</i>, +a poison, one of his biographers tells us, ‘nearly +tasteless, difficult of discovery, and capable of almost infinite +dilution.’ His murders, says De Quincey, were more +than were ever made known judicially. This is no doubt so, +and some of them are worthy of mention. His first victim +was his uncle, Mr. Thomas Griffiths. He poisoned him in +1829 to gain possession of Linden House, a place to which he had +always been very much attached. In the August of the next +year he poisoned Mrs. Abercrombie, his wife’s mother, and +in the following December he poisoned the lovely Helen +Abercrombie, his sister-in-law. Why he murdered Mrs. +Abercrombie is not ascertained. It may have been for a +caprice, or to quicken some hideous sense of power that was in +him, or because she suspected something, or for no reason. +But the murder of Helen Abercrombie was carried out by himself +and his wife for the sake of a sum of about £18,000, for +which they had insured her life in various offices. The +circumstances were as follows. On the 12th of December, he +and his wife and child came up to London from Linden House, and +took lodgings at No. 12 Conduit Street, Regent Street. With +them were the two sisters, Helen and Madeleine Abercrombie. +On the evening of the 14th they all went to the play, and at +supper that night Helen sickened. The next day she was +extremely ill, and Dr. Locock, of Hanover Square, was called in +to attend her. She lived till Monday, the 20th, when, after +the doctor’s morning visit, Mr. and Mrs. Wainewright +brought her some poisoned jelly, and then went out for a +walk. When they returned Helen Abercrombie was dead. +She was about twenty years of age, a tall graceful girl with fair +hair. A very charming red-chalk drawing of her by her +brother-in-law is still in existence, and shows how much his +style as an artist was influenced by Sir Thomas Lawrence, a +painter for whose work he had always entertained a great +admiration. De Quincey says that Mrs. Wainewright was not +really privy to the murder. Let us hope that she was +not. Sin should be solitary, and have no accomplices.</p> +<p>The insurance companies, suspecting the real facts of the +case, declined to pay the policy on the technical ground of +misrepresentation and want of interest, and, with curious +courage, the poisoner entered an action in the Court of Chancery +against the Imperial, it being agreed that one decision should +govern all the cases. The trial, however, did not come on +for five years, when, after one disagreement, a verdict was +ultimately given in the companies’ favour. The judge +on the occasion was Lord Abinger. <i>Egomet Bonmot</i> was +represented by Mr. Erle and Sir William Follet, and the +Attorney-General and Sir Frederick Pollock appeared for the other +side. The plaintiff, unfortunately, was unable to be +present at either of the trials. The refusal of the +companies to give him the £18,000 had placed him in a +position of most painful pecuniary embarrassment. Indeed, a +few months after the murder of Helen Abercrombie, he had been +actually arrested for debt in the streets of London while he was +serenading the pretty daughter of one of his friends. This +difficulty was got over at the time, but shortly afterwards he +thought it better to go abroad till he could come to some +practical arrangement with his creditors. He accordingly +went to Boulogne on a visit to the father of the young lady in +question, and while he was there induced him to insure his life +with the Pelican Company for £3000. As soon as the +necessary formalities had been gone through and the policy +executed, he dropped some crystals of strychnine into his coffee +as they sat together one evening after dinner. He himself +did not gain any monetary advantage by doing this. His aim +was simply to revenge himself on the first office that had +refused to pay him the price of his sin. His friend died +the next day in his presence, and he left Boulogne at once for a +sketching tour through the most picturesque parts of Brittany, +and was for some time the guest of an old French gentleman, who +had a beautiful country house at St. Omer. From this he +moved to Paris, where he remained for several years, living in +luxury, some say, while others talk of his ‘skulking with +poison in his pocket, and being dreaded by all who knew +him.’ In 1837 he returned to England privately. +Some strange mad fascination brought him back. He followed +a woman whom he loved.</p> +<p>It was the month of June, and he was staying at one of the +hotels in Covent Garden. His sitting-room was on the ground +floor, and he prudently kept the blinds down for fear of being +seen. Thirteen years before, when he was making his fine +collection of majolica and Marc Antonios, he had forged the names +of his trustees to a power of attorney, which enabled him to get +possession of some of the money which he had inherited from his +mother, and had brought into marriage settlement. He knew +that this forgery had been discovered, and that by returning to +England he was imperilling his life. Yet he returned. +Should one wonder? It was said that the woman was very +beautiful. Besides, she did not love him.</p> +<p>It was by a mere accident that he was discovered. A +noise in the street attracted his attention, and, in his artistic +interest in modern life, he pushed aside the blind for a +moment. Some one outside called out, ‘That’s +Wainewright, the Bank-forger.’ It was Forrester, the +Bow Street runner.</p> +<p>On the 5th of July he was brought up at the Old Bailey. +The following report of the proceedings appeared in the +<i>Times</i>:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Before Mr. Justice Vaughan and Mr. Baron Alderson, +Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, aged forty-two, a man of +gentlemanly appearance, wearing mustachios, was indicted for +forging and uttering a certain power of attorney for £2259, +with intent to defraud the Governor and Company of the Bank of +England.</p> +<p>There were five indictments against the prisoner, to all of +which he pleaded not guilty, when he was arraigned before Mr. +Serjeant Arabin in the course of the morning. On being +brought before the judges, however, he begged to be allowed to +withdraw the former plea, and then pleaded guilty to two of the +indictments which were not of a capital nature.</p> +<p>The counsel for the Bank having explained that there were +three other indictments, but that the Bank did not desire to shed +blood, the plea of guilty on the two minor charges was recorded, +and the prisoner at the close of the session sentenced by the +Recorder to transportation for life.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He was taken back to Newgate, preparatory to his removal to +the colonies. In a fanciful passage in one of his early +essays he had fancied himself ‘lying in Horsemonger Gaol +under sentence of death’ for having been unable to resist +the temptation of stealing some Marc Antonios from the British +Museum in order to complete his collection. The sentence +now passed on him was to a man of his culture a form of +death. He complained bitterly of it to his friends, and +pointed out, with a good deal of reason, some people may fancy, +that the money was practically his own, having come to him from +his mother, and that the forgery, such as it was, had been +committed thirteen years before, which, to use his own phrase, +was at least a <i>circonstance attenuante</i>. The +permanence of personality is a very subtle metaphysical problem, +and certainly the English law solves the question in an extremely +rough-and-ready manner. There is, however, something +dramatic in the fact that this heavy punishment was inflicted on +him for what, if we remember his fatal influence on the prose of +modern journalism, was certainly not the worst of all his +sins.</p> +<p>While he was in gaol, Dickens, Macready, and Hablot Browne +came across him by chance. They had been going over the +prisons of London, searching for artistic effects, and in Newgate +they suddenly caught sight of Wainewright. He met them with +a defiant stare, Forster tells us, but Macready was +‘horrified to recognise a man familiarly known to him in +former years, and at whose table he had dined.’</p> +<p>Others had more curiosity, and his cell was for some time a +kind of fashionable lounge. Many men of letters went down +to visit their old literary comrade. But he was no longer +the kind light-hearted Janus whom Charles Lamb admired. He +seems to have grown quite cynical.</p> +<p>To the agent of an insurance company who was visiting him one +afternoon, and thought he would improve the occasion by pointing +out that, after all, crime was a bad speculation, he replied: +‘Sir, you City men enter on your speculations, and take the +chances of them. Some of your speculations succeed, some +fail. Mine happen to have failed, yours happen to have +succeeded. That is the only difference, sir, between my +visitor and me. But, sir, I will tell you one thing in +which I have succeeded to the last. I have been determined +through life to hold the position of a gentleman. I have +always done so. I do so still. It is the custom of +this place that each of the inmates of a cell shall take his +morning’s turn of sweeping it out. I occupy a cell +with a bricklayer and a sweep, but they never offer me the +broom!’ When a friend reproached him with the murder +of Helen Abercrombie he shrugged his shoulders and said, +‘Yes; it was a dreadful thing to do, but she had very thick +ankles.’</p> +<p>From Newgate he was brought to the hulks at Portsmouth, and +sent from there in the <i>Susan</i> to Van Diemen’s Land +along with three hundred other convicts. The voyage seems +to have been most distasteful to him, and in a letter written to +a friend he spoke bitterly about the ignominy of ‘the +companion of poets and artists’ being compelled to +associate with ‘country bumpkins.’ The phrase +that he applies to his companions need not surprise us. +Crime in England is rarely the result of sin. It is nearly +always the result of starvation. There was probably no one +on board in whom he would have found a sympathetic listener, or +even a psychologically interesting nature.</p> +<p>His love of art, however, never deserted him. At Hobart +Town he started a studio, and returned to sketching and +portrait-painting, and his conversation and manners seem not to +have lost their charm. Nor did he give up his habit of +poisoning, and there are two cases on record in which he tried to +make away with people who had offended him. But his hand +seems to have lost its cunning. Both of his attempts were +complete failures, and in 1844, being thoroughly dissatisfied +with Tasmanian society, he presented a memorial to the governor +of the settlement, Sir John Eardley Wilmot, praying for a +ticket-of-leave. In it he speaks of himself as being +‘tormented by ideas struggling for outward form and +realisation, barred up from increase of knowledge, and deprived +of the exercise of profitable or even of decorous +speech.’ His request, however, was refused, and the +associate of Coleridge consoled himself by making those +marvellous <i>Paradis Artificiels</i> whose secret is only known +to the eaters of opium. In 1852 he died of apoplexy, his +sole living companion being a cat, for which he had evinced at +extraordinary affection.</p> +<p>His crimes seem to have had an important effect upon his +art. They gave a strong personality to his style, a quality +that his early work certainly lacked. In a note to the +<i>Life of Dickens</i>, Forster mentions that in 1847 Lady +Blessington received from her brother, Major Power, who held a +military appointment at Hobart Town, an oil portrait of a young +lady from his clever brush; and it is said that ‘he had +contrived to put the expression of his own wickedness into the +portrait of a nice, kind-hearted girl.’ M. Zola, in +one of his novels, tells us of a young man who, having committed +a murder, takes to art, and paints greenish impressionist +portraits of perfectly respectable people, all of which bear a +curious resemblance to his victim. The development of Mr. +Wainewright’s style seems to me far more subtle and +suggestive. One can fancy an intense personality being +created out of sin.</p> +<p>This strange and fascinating figure that for a few years +dazzled literary London, and made so brilliant a +<i>début</i> in life and letters, is undoubtedly a most +interesting study. Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, his latest +biographer, to whom I am indebted for many of the facts contained +in this memoir, and whose little book is, indeed, quite +invaluable in its way, is of opinion that his love of art and +nature was a mere pretence and assumption, and others have denied +to him all literary power. This seems to me a shallow, or +at least a mistaken, view. The fact of a man being a +poisoner is nothing against his prose. The domestic virtues +are not the true basis of art, though they may serve as an +excellent advertisement for second-rate artists. It is +possible that De Quincey exaggerated his critical powers, and I +cannot help saying again that there is much in his published +works that is too familiar, too common, too journalistic, in the +bad sense of that bad word. Here and there he is distinctly +vulgar in expression, and he is always lacking in the +self-restraint of the true artist. But for some of his +faults we must blame the time in which he lived, and, after all, +prose that Charles Lamb thought ‘capital’ has no +small historic interest. That he had a sincere love of art +and nature seems to me quite certain. There is no essential +incongruity between crime and culture. We cannot re-write +the whole of history for the purpose of gratifying our moral +sense of what should be.</p> +<p>Of course, he is far too close to our own time for us to be +able to form any purely artistic judgment about him. It is +impossible not to feel a strong prejudice against a man who might +have poisoned Lord Tennyson, or Mr. Gladstone, or the Master of +Balliol. But had the man worn a costume and spoken a +language different from our own, had he lived in imperial Rome, +or at the time of the Italian Renaissance, or in Spain in the +seventeenth century, or in any land or any century but this +century and this land, we would be quite able to arrive at a +perfectly unprejudiced estimate of his position and value. +I know that there are many historians, or at least writers on +historical subjects, who still think it necessary to apply moral +judgments to history, and who distribute their praise or blame +with the solemn complacency of a successful schoolmaster. +This, however, is a foolish habit, and merely shows that the +moral instinct can be brought to such a pitch of perfection that +it will make its appearance wherever it is not required. +Nobody with the true historical sense ever dreams of blaming +Nero, or scolding Tiberius, or censuring Cæsar +Borgia. These personages have become like the puppets of a +play. They may fill us with terror, or horror, or wonder, +but they do not harm us. They are not in immediate relation +to us. We have nothing to fear from them. They have +passed into the sphere of art and science, and neither art nor +science knows anything of moral approval or disapproval. +And so it may be some day with Charles Lamb’s friend. +At present I feel that he is just a little too modern to be +treated in that fine spirit of disinterested curiosity to which +we owe so many charming studies of the great criminals of the +Italian Renaissance from the pens of Mr. John Addington Symonds, +Miss A. Mary F. Robinson, Miss Vernon Lee, and other +distinguished writers. However, Art has not forgotten +him. He is the hero of Dickens’s <i>Hunted Down</i>, +the Varney of Bulwer’s <i>Lucretia</i>; and it is +gratifying to note that fiction has paid some homage to one who +was so powerful with ‘pen, pencil and poison.’ +To be suggestive for fiction is to be of more importance than a +fact.</p> +<h2><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>THE +CRITIC AS ARTIST<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THE</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">IMPORTANCE OF DOING NOTHING</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>A DIALOGUE</i>. <i>Part +I.</i> <i>Persons</i>: <i>Gilbert</i><br /> +<i>and Ernest</i>. <i>Scene</i>: <i>the library of a house +in</i><br /> +<i>Piccadilly</i>, <i>overlooking the Green Park</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span> (<i>at the +Piano</i>). My dear Ernest, what are you laughing at?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span> (<i>looking up</i>). +At a capital story that I have just come across in this volume of +Reminiscences that I have found on your table.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. What is the +book? Ah! I see. I have not read it yet. Is it +good?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Well, while you have +been playing, I have been turning over the pages with some +amusement, though, as a rule, I dislike modern memoirs. +They are generally written by people who have either entirely +lost their memories, or have never done anything worth +remembering; which, however, is, no doubt, the true explanation +of their popularity, as the English public always feels perfectly +at its ease when a mediocrity is talking to it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes: the public is +wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except +genius. But I must confess that I like all memoirs. I +like them for their form, just as much as for their matter. +In literature mere egotism is delightful. It is what +fascinates us in the letters of personalities so different as +Cicero and Balzac, Flaubert and Berlioz, Byron and Madame de +Sévigné. Whenever we come across it, and, +strangely enough, it is rather rare, we cannot but welcome it, +and do not easily forget it. Humanity will always love +Rousseau for having confessed his sins, not to a priest, but to +the world, and the couchant nymphs that Cellini wrought in bronze +for the castle of King Francis, the green and gold Perseus, even, +that in the open Loggia at Florence shows the moon the dead +terror that once turned life to stone, have not given it more +pleasure than has that autobiography in which the supreme +scoundrel of the Renaissance relates the story of his splendour +and his shame. The opinions, the character, the +achievements of the man, matter very little. He may be a +sceptic like the gentle Sieur de Montaigne, or a saint like the +bitter son of Monica, but when he tells us his own secrets he can +always charm our ears to listening and our lips to silence. +The mode of thought that Cardinal Newman represented—if +that can be called a mode of thought which seeks to solve +intellectual problems by a denial of the supremacy of the +intellect—may not, cannot, I think, survive. But the +world will never weary of watching that troubled soul in its +progress from darkness to darkness. The lonely church at +Littlemore, where ‘the breath of the morning is damp, and +worshippers are few,’ will always be dear to it, and +whenever men see the yellow snapdragon blossoming on the wall of +Trinity they will think of that gracious undergraduate who saw in +the flower’s sure recurrence a prophecy that he would abide +for ever with the Benign Mother of his days—a prophecy that +Faith, in her wisdom or her folly, suffered not to be +fulfilled. Yes; autobiography is irresistible. Poor, +silly, conceited Mr. Secretary Pepys has chattered his way into +the circle of the Immortals, and, conscious that indiscretion is +the better part of valour, bustles about among them in that +‘shaggy purple gown with gold buttons and looped +lace’ which he is so fond of describing to us, perfectly at +his ease, and prattling, to his own and our infinite pleasure, of +the Indian blue petticoat that he bought for his wife, of the +‘good hog’s hars-let,’ and the ‘pleasant +French fricassee of veal’ that he loved to eat, of his game +of bowls with Will Joyce, and his ‘gadding after +beauties,’ and his reciting of <i>Hamlet</i> on a Sunday, +and his playing of the viol on week days, and other wicked or +trivial things. Even in actual life egotism is not without +its attractions. When people talk to us about others they +are usually dull. When they talk to us about themselves +they are nearly always interesting, and if one could shut them +up, when they become wearisome, as easily as one can shut up a +book of which one has grown wearied, they would be perfect +absolutely.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. There is much virtue +in that If, as Touchstone would say. But do you seriously +propose that every man should become his own Boswell? What +would become of our industrious compilers of Lives and +Recollections in that case?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. What has become of +them? They are the pest of the age, nothing more and +nothing less. Every great man nowadays has his disciples, +and it is always Judas who writes the biography.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. My dear fellow!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. I am afraid it is +true. Formerly we used to canonise our heroes. The +modern method is to vulgarise them. Cheap editions of great +books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are +absolutely detestable.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. May I ask, Gilbert, +to whom you allude?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Oh! to all our +second-rate <i>littérateurs</i>. We are overrun by a +set of people who, when poet or painter passes away, arrive at +the house along with the undertaker, and forget that their one +duty is to behave as mutes. But we won’t talk about +them. They are the mere body-snatchers of literature. +The dust is given to one, and the ashes to another, and the soul +is out of their reach. And now, let me play Chopin to you, +or Dvorák? Shall I play you a fantasy by +Dvorák? He writes passionate, curiously-coloured +things.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. No; I don’t +want music just at present. It is far too indefinite. +Besides, I took the Baroness Bernstein down to dinner last night, +and, though absolutely charming in every other respect, she +insisted on discussing music as if it were actually written in +the German language. Now, whatever music sounds like I am +glad to say that it does not sound in the smallest degree like +German. There are forms of patriotism that are really quite +degrading. No; Gilbert, don’t play any more. +Turn round and talk to me. Talk to me till the white-horned +day comes into the room. There is something in your voice +that is wonderful.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span> (<i>rising from the +piano</i>). I am not in a mood for talking to-night. +I really am not. How horrid of you to smile! Where +are the cigarettes? Thanks. How exquisite these +single daffodils are! They seem to be made of amber and +cool ivory. They are like Greek things of the best +period. What was the story in the confessions of the +remorseful Academician that made you laugh? Tell it to +me. After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping +over sins that I had never committed, and mourning over tragedies +that were not my own. Music always seems to me to produce +that effect. It creates for one a past of which one has +been ignorant, and fills one with a sense of sorrows that have +been hidden from one’s tears. I can fancy a man who +had led a perfectly commonplace life, hearing by chance some +curious piece of music, and suddenly discovering that his soul, +without his being conscious of it, had passed through terrible +experiences, and known fearful joys, or wild romantic loves, or +great renunciations. And so tell me this story, +Ernest. I want to be amused.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Oh! I +don’t know that it is of any importance. But I +thought it a really admirable illustration of the true value of +ordinary art-criticism. It seems that a lady once gravely +asked the remorseful Academician, as you call him, if his +celebrated picture of ‘A Spring-Day at +Whiteley’s,’ or, ‘Waiting for the Last +Omnibus,’ or some subject of that kind, was all painted by +hand?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. And was it?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. You are quite +incorrigible. But, seriously speaking, what is the use of +art-criticism? Why cannot the artist be left alone, to +create a new world if he wishes it, or, if not, to shadow forth +the world which we already know, and of which, I fancy, we would +each one of us be wearied if Art, with her fine spirit of choice +and delicate instinct of selection, did not, as it were, purify +it for us, and give to it a momentary perfection. It seems +to me that the imagination spreads, or should spread, a solitude +around it, and works best in silence and in isolation. Why +should the artist be troubled by the shrill clamour of +criticism? Why should those who cannot create take upon +themselves to estimate the value of creative work? What can +they know about it? If a man’s work is easy to +understand, an explanation is unnecessary. . . .</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. And if his work is +incomprehensible, an explanation is wicked.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. I did not say +that.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Ah! but you should +have. Nowadays, we have so few mysteries left to us that we +cannot afford to part with one of them. The members of the +Browning Society, like the theologians of the Broad Church Party, +or the authors of Mr. Walter Scott’s Great Writers Series, +seem to me to spend their time in trying to explain their +divinity away. Where one had hoped that Browning was a +mystic they have sought to show that he was simply +inarticulate. Where one had fancied that he had something +to conceal, they have proved that he had but little to +reveal. But I speak merely of his incoherent work. +Taken as a whole the man was great. He did not belong to +the Olympians, and had all the incompleteness of the Titan. +He did not survey, and it was but rarely that he could +sing. His work is marred by struggle, violence and effort, +and he passed not from emotion to form, but from thought to +chaos. Still, he was great. He has been called a +thinker, and was certainly a man who was always thinking, and +always thinking aloud; but it was not thought that fascinated +him, but rather the processes by which thought moves. It +was the machine he loved, not what the machine makes. The +method by which the fool arrives at his folly was as dear to him +as the ultimate wisdom of the wise. So much, indeed, did +the subtle mechanism of mind fascinate him that he despised +language, or looked upon it as an incomplete instrument of +expression. Rhyme, that exquisite echo which in the +Muse’s hollow hill creates and answers its own voice; +rhyme, which in the hands of the real artist becomes not merely a +material element of metrical beauty, but a spiritual element of +thought and passion also, waking a new mood, it may be, or +stirring a fresh train of ideas, or opening by mere sweetness and +suggestion of sound some golden door at which the Imagination +itself had knocked in vain; rhyme, which can turn man’s +utterance to the speech of gods; rhyme, the one chord we have +added to the Greek lyre, became in Robert Browning’s hands +a grotesque, misshapen thing, which at times made him masquerade +in poetry as a low comedian, and ride Pegasus too often with his +tongue in his cheek. There are moments when he wounds us by +monstrous music. Nay, if he can only get his music by +breaking the strings of his lute, he breaks them, and they snap +in discord, and no Athenian tettix, making melody from tremulous +wings, lights on the ivory horn to make the movement perfect, or +the interval less harsh. Yet, he was great: and though he +turned language into ignoble clay, he made from it men and women +that live. He is the most Shakespearian creature since +Shakespeare. If Shakespeare could sing with myriad lips, +Browning could stammer through a thousand mouths. Even now, +as I am speaking, and speaking not against him but for him, there +glides through the room the pageant of his persons. There, +creeps Fra Lippo Lippi with his cheeks still burning from some +girl’s hot kiss. There, stands dread Saul with the +lordly male-sapphires gleaming in his turban. Mildred +Tresham is there, and the Spanish monk, yellow with hatred, and +Blougram, and Ben Ezra, and the Bishop of St. +Praxed’s. The spawn of Setebos gibbers in the corner, +and Sebald, hearing Pippa pass by, looks on Ottima’s +haggard face, and loathes her and his own sin, and himself. +Pale as the white satin of his doublet, the melancholy king +watches with dreamy treacherous eyes too loyal Strafford pass +forth to his doom, and Andrea shudders as he hears the cousins +whistle in the garden, and bids his perfect wife go down. +Yes, Browning was great. And as what will he be +remembered? As a poet? Ah, not as a poet! He +will be remembered as a writer of fiction, as the most supreme +writer of fiction, it may be, that we have ever had. His +sense of dramatic situation was unrivalled, and, if he could not +answer his own problems, he could at least put problems forth, +and what more should an artist do? Considered from the +point of view of a creator of character he ranks next to him who +made Hamlet. Had he been articulate, he might have sat +beside him. The only man who can touch the hem of his +garment is George Meredith. Meredith is a prose Browning, +and so is Browning. He used poetry as a medium for writing in +prose.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. There is something in +what you say, but there is not everything in what you say. +In many points you are unjust.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. It is difficult not +to be unjust to what one loves. But let us return to the +particular point at issue. What was it that you said?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Simply this: that in +the best days of art there were no art-critics.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. I seem to have heard +that observation before, Ernest. It has all the vitality of +error and all the tediousness of an old friend.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. It is true. +Yes: there is no use your tossing your head in that petulant +manner. It is quite true. In the best days of art +there were no art-critics. The sculptor hewed from the +marble block the great white-limbed Hermes that slept within +it. The waxers and gilders of images gave tone and texture +to the statue, and the world, when it saw it, worshipped and was +dumb. He poured the glowing bronze into the mould of sand, +and the river of red metal cooled into noble curves and took the +impress of the body of a god. With enamel or polished +jewels he gave sight to the sightless eyes. The +hyacinth-like curls grew crisp beneath his graver. And +when, in some dim frescoed fane, or pillared sunlit portico, the +child of Leto stood upon his pedestal, those who passed by, +δια +λαμπροτάτου +βαίνοντες +αβρως +αιθέρος, became +conscious of a new influence that had come across their lives, +and dreamily, or with a sense of strange and quickening joy, went +to their homes or daily labour, or wandered, it may be, through +the city gates to that nymph-haunted meadow where young +Phædrus bathed his feet, and, lying there on the soft +grass, beneath the tall wind—whispering planes and +flowering <i>agnus castus</i>, began to think of the wonder of +beauty, and grew silent with unaccustomed awe. In those +days the artist was free. From the river valley he took the +fine clay in his fingers, and with a little tool of wood or bone, +fashioned it into forms so exquisite that the people gave them to +the dead as their playthings, and we find them still in the dusty +tombs on the yellow hillside by Tanagra, with the faint gold and +the fading crimson still lingering about hair and lips and +raiment. On a wall of fresh plaster, stained with bright +sandyx or mixed with milk and saffron, he pictured one who trod +with tired feet the purple white-starred fields of asphodel, one +‘in whose eyelids lay the whole of the Trojan War,’ +Polyxena, the daughter of Priam; or figured Odysseus, the wise +and cunning, bound by tight cords to the mast-step, that he might +listen without hurt to the singing of the Sirens, or wandering by +the clear river of Acheron, where the ghosts of fishes flitted +over the pebbly bed; or showed the Persian in trews and mitre +flying before the Greek at Marathon, or the galleys clashing +their beaks of brass in the little Salaminian bay. He drew +with silver-point and charcoal upon parchment and prepared +cedar. Upon ivory and rose-coloured terracotta he painted +with wax, making the wax fluid with juice of olives, and with +heated irons making it firm. Panel and marble and linen +canvas became wonderful as his brush swept across them; and life +seeing her own image, was still, and dared not speak. All +life, indeed, was his, from the merchants seated in the +market-place to the cloaked shepherd lying on the hill; from the +nymph hidden in the laurels and the faun that pipes at noon, to +the king whom, in long green-curtained litter, slaves bore upon +oil-bright shoulders, and fanned with peacock fans. Men and +women, with pleasure or sorrow in their faces, passed before +him. He watched them, and their secret became his. +Through form and colour he re-created a world.</p> +<p>All subtle arts belonged to him also. He held the gem +against the revolving disk, and the amethyst became the purple +couch for Adonis, and across the veined sardonyx sped Artemis +with her hounds. He beat out the gold into roses, and +strung them together for necklace or armlet. He beat out +the gold into wreaths for the conqueror’s helmet, or into +palmates for the Tyrian robe, or into masks for the royal +dead. On the back of the silver mirror he graved Thetis +borne by her Nereids, or love-sick Phædra with her nurse, +or Persephone, weary of memory, putting poppies in her +hair. The potter sat in his shed, and, flower-like from the +silent wheel, the vase rose up beneath his hands. He +decorated the base and stem and ears with pattern of dainty +olive-leaf, or foliated acanthus, or curved and crested +wave. Then in black or red he painted lads wrestling, or in +the race: knights in full armour, with strange heraldic shields +and curious visors, leaning from shell-shaped chariot over +rearing steeds: the gods seated at the feast or working their +miracles: the heroes in their victory or in their pain. +Sometimes he would etch in thin vermilion lines upon a ground of +white the languid bridegroom and his bride, with Eros hovering +round them—an Eros like one of Donatello’s angels, a +little laughing thing with gilded or with azure wings. On +the curved side he would write the name of his friend. +ΚΑΛΟΣ +ΑΛΚΙΒΙΑΔΗΣ +or ΚΑΛΟΣ +ΧΑΡΜΙΔΗΣ tells us the story +of his days. Again, on the rim of the wide flat cup he +would draw the stag browsing, or the lion at rest, as his fancy +willed it. From the tiny perfume-bottle laughed Aphrodite +at her toilet, and, with bare-limbed Mænads in his train, +Dionysus danced round the wine-jar on naked must-stained feet, +while, satyr-like, the old Silenus sprawled upon the bloated +skins, or shook that magic spear which was tipped with a fretted +fir-cone, and wreathed with dark ivy. And no one came to +trouble the artist at his work. No irresponsible chatter +disturbed him. He was not worried by opinions. By the +Ilyssus, says Arnold somewhere, there was no Higginbotham. +By the Ilyssus, my dear Gilbert, there were no silly art +congresses bringing provincialism to the provinces and teaching +the mediocrity how to mouth. By the Ilyssus there were no +tedious magazines about art, in which the industrious prattle of +what they do not understand. On the reed-grown banks of +that little stream strutted no ridiculous journalism monopolising +the seat of judgment when it should be apologising in the +dock. The Greeks had no art-critics.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Ernest, you are +quite delightful, but your views are terribly unsound. I am +afraid that you have been listening to the conversation of some +one older than yourself. That is always a dangerous thing +to do, and if you allow it to degenerate into a habit you will +find it absolutely fatal to any intellectual development. +As for modern journalism, it is not my business to defend +it. It justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian +principle of the survival of the vulgarest. I have merely +to do with literature.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. But what is the +difference between literature and journalism?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Oh! journalism is +unreadable, and literature is not read. That is all. +But with regard to your statement that the Greeks had no +art-critics, I assure you that is quite absurd. It would be +more just to say that the Greeks were a nation of +art-critics.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Really?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes, a nation of +art-critics. But I don’t wish to destroy the +delightfully unreal picture that you have drawn of the relation +of the Hellenic artist to the intellectual spirit of his +age. To give an accurate description of what has never +occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, +but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and +culture. Still less do I desire to talk learnedly. +Learned conversation is either the affectation of the ignorant or +the profession of the mentally unemployed. And, as for what +is called improving conversation, that is merely the foolish +method by which the still more foolish philanthropist feebly +tries to disarm the just rancour of the criminal classes. +No: let me play to you some mad scarlet thing by +Dvorák. The pallid figures on the tapestry are +smiling at us, and the heavy eyelids of my bronze Narcissus are +folded in sleep. Don’t let us discuss anything +solemnly. I am but too conscious of the fact that we are +born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I +live in terror of not being misunderstood. Don’t +degrade me into the position of giving you useful +information. Education is an admirable thing, but it is +well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth +knowing can be taught. Through the parted curtains of the +window I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like +gilded bees the stars cluster round her. The sky is a hard +hollow sapphire. Let us go out into the night. +Thought is wonderful, but adventure is more wonderful +still. Who knows but we may meet Prince Florizel of +Bohemia, and hear the fair Cuban tell us that she is not what she +seems?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. You are horribly +wilful. I insist on your discussing this matter with +me. You have said that the Greeks were a nation of +art-critics. What art-criticism have they left us?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. My dear Ernest, even +if not a single fragment of art-criticism had come down to us +from Hellenic or Hellenistic days, it would be none the less true +that the Greeks were a nation of art-critics, and that they +invented the criticism of art just as they invented the criticism +of everything else. For, after all, what is our primary +debt to the Greeks? Simply the critical spirit. And, +this spirit, which they exercised on questions of religion and +science, of ethics and metaphysics, of politics and education, +they exercised on questions of art also, and, indeed, of the two +supreme and highest arts, they have left us the most flawless +system of criticism that the world has ever seen.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. But what are the two +supreme and highest arts?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Life and Literature, +life and the perfect expression of life. The principles of +the former, as laid down by the Greeks, we may not realise in an +age so marred by false ideals as our own. The principles of +the latter, as they laid them down, are, in many cases, so subtle +that we can hardly understand them. Recognising that the +most perfect art is that which most fully mirrors man in all his +infinite variety, they elaborated the criticism of language, +considered in the light of the mere material of that art, to a +point to which we, with our accentual system of reasonable or +emotional emphasis, can barely if at all attain; studying, for +instance, the metrical movements of a prose as scientifically as +a modern musician studies harmony and counterpoint, and, I need +hardly say, with much keener æsthetic instinct. In +this they were right, as they were right in all things. +Since the introduction of printing, and the fatal development of +the habit of reading amongst the middle and lower classes of this +country, there has been a tendency in literature to appeal more +and more to the eye, and less and less to the ear which is really +the sense which, from the standpoint of pure art, it should seek +to please, and by whose canons of pleasure it should abide +always. Even the work of Mr. Pater, who is, on the whole, +the most perfect master of English prose now creating amongst us, +is often far more like a piece of mosaic than a passage in music, +and seems, here and there, to lack the true rhythmical life of +words and the fine freedom and richness of effect that such +rhythmical life produces. We, in fact, have made writing a +definite mode of composition, and have treated it as a form of +elaborate design. The Greeks, upon the other hand, regarded +writing simply as a method of chronicling. Their test was +always the spoken word in its musical and metrical +relations. The voice was the medium, and the ear the +critic. I have sometimes thought that the story of +Homer’s blindness might be really an artistic myth, created +in critical days, and serving to remind us, not merely that the +great poet is always a seer, seeing less with the eyes of the +body than he does with the eyes of the soul, but that he is a +true singer also, building his song out of music, repeating each +line over and over again to himself till he has caught the secret +of its melody, chaunting in darkness the words that are winged +with light. Certainly, whether this be so or not, it was to +his blindness, as an occasion, if not as a cause, that +England’s great poet owed much of the majestic movement and +sonorous splendour of his later verse. When Milton could no +longer write he began to sing. Who would match the measures +of <i>Comus</i> with the measures of <i>Samson Agonistes</i>, or +of <i>Paradise Lost</i> or <i>Regained</i>? When Milton +became blind he composed, as every one should compose, with the +voice purely, and so the pipe or reed of earlier days became that +mighty many-stopped organ whose rich reverberant music has all +the stateliness of Homeric verse, if it seeks not to have its +swiftness, and is the one imperishable inheritance of English +literature sweeping through all the ages, because above them, and +abiding with us ever, being immortal in its form. Yes: +writing has done much harm to writers. We must return to +the voice. That must be our test, and perhaps then we shall +be able to appreciate some of the subtleties of Greek +art-criticism.</p> +<p>As it now is, we cannot do so. Sometimes, when I have +written a piece of prose that I have been modest enough to +consider absolutely free from fault, a dreadful thought comes +over me that I may have been guilty of the immoral effeminacy of +using trochaic and tribrachic movements, a crime for which a +learned critic of the Augustan age censures with most just +severity the brilliant if somewhat paradoxical Hegesias. I +grow cold when I think of it, and wonder to myself if the +admirable ethical effect of the prose of that charming writer, +who once in a spirit of reckless generosity towards the +uncultivated portion of our community proclaimed the monstrous +doctrine that conduct is three-fourths of life, will not some day +be entirely annihilated by the discovery that the pæons +have been wrongly placed.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Ah! now you are +flippant.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Who would not be +flippant when he is gravely told that the Greeks had no +art-critics? I can understand it being said that the +constructive genius of the Greeks lost itself in criticism, but +not that the race to whom we owe the critical spirit did not +criticise. You will not ask me to give you a survey of +Greek art criticism from Plato to Plotinus. The night is +too lovely for that, and the moon, if she heard us, would put +more ashes on her face than are there already. But think +merely of one perfect little work of æsthetic criticism, +Aristotle’s <i>Treatise on Poetry</i>. It is not +perfect in form, for it is badly written, consisting perhaps of +notes dotted down for an art lecture, or of isolated fragments +destined for some larger book, but in temper and treatment it is +perfect, absolutely. The ethical effect of art, its +importance to culture, and its place in the formation of +character, had been done once for all by Plato; but here we have +art treated, not from the moral, but from the purely +æsthetic point of view. Plato had, of course, dealt +with many definitely artistic subjects, such as the importance of +unity in a work of art, the necessity for tone and harmony, the +æsthetic value of appearances, the relation of the visible +arts to the external world, and the relation of fiction to +fact. He first perhaps stirred in the soul of man that +desire that we have not yet satisfied, the desire to know the +connection between Beauty and Truth, and the place of Beauty in +the moral and intellectual order of the Kosmos. The +problems of idealism and realism, as he sets them forth, may seem +to many to be somewhat barren of result in the metaphysical +sphere of abstract being in which he places them, but transfer +them to the sphere of art, and you will find that they are still +vital and full of meaning. It may be that it is as a critic +of Beauty that Plato is destined to live, and that by altering +the name of the sphere of his speculation we shall find a new +philosophy. But Aristotle, like Goethe, deals with art +primarily in its concrete manifestations, taking Tragedy, for +instance, and investigating the material it uses, which is +language, its subject-matter, which is life, the method by which +it works, which is action, the conditions under which it reveals +itself, which are those of theatric presentation, its logical +structure, which is plot, and its final æsthetic appeal, +which is to the sense of beauty realised through the passions of +pity and awe. That purification and spiritualising of the +nature which he calls +κάθαρσις is, as +Goethe saw, essentially æsthetic, and is not moral, as +Lessing fancied. Concerning himself primarily with the +impression that the work of art produces, Aristotle sets himself +to analyse that impression, to investigate its source, to see how +it is engendered. As a physiologist and psychologist, he +knows that the health of a function resides in energy. To +have a capacity for a passion and not to realise it, is to make +oneself incomplete and limited. The mimic spectacle of life +that Tragedy affords cleanses the bosom of much ‘perilous +stuff,’ and by presenting high and worthy objects for the +exercise of the emotions purifies and spiritualises the man; nay, +not merely does it spiritualise him, but it initiates him also +into noble feelings of which he might else have known nothing, +the word κάθαρσις +having, it has sometimes seemed to me, a definite allusion to the +rite of initiation, if indeed that be not, as I am occasionally +tempted to fancy, its true and only meaning here. This is +of course a mere outline of the book. But you see what a +perfect piece of æsthetic criticism it is. Who indeed +but a Greek could have analysed art so well? After reading +it, one does not wonder any longer that Alexandria devoted itself +so largely to art-criticism, and that we find the artistic +temperaments of the day investigating every question of style and +manner, discussing the great Academic schools of painting, for +instance, such as the school of Sicyon, that sought to preserve +the dignified traditions of the antique mode, or the realistic +and impressionist schools, that aimed at reproducing actual life, +or the elements of ideality in portraiture, or the artistic value +of the epic form in an age so modern as theirs, or the proper +subject-matter for the artist. Indeed, I fear that the +inartistic temperaments of the day busied themselves also in +matters of literature and art, for the accusations of plagiarism +were endless, and such accusations proceed either from the thin +colourless lips of impotence, or from the grotesque mouths of +those who, possessing nothing of their own, fancy that they can +gain a reputation for wealth by crying out that they have been +robbed. And I assure you, my dear Ernest, that the Greeks +chattered about painters quite as much as people do nowadays, and +had their private views, and shilling exhibitions, and Arts and +Crafts guilds, and Pre-Raphaelite movements, and movements +towards realism, and lectured about art, and wrote essays on art, +and produced their art-historians, and their archæologists, +and all the rest of it. Why, even the theatrical managers +of travelling companies brought their dramatic critics with them +when they went on tour, and paid them very handsome salaries for +writing laudatory notices. Whatever, in fact, is modern in +our life we owe to the Greeks. Whatever is an anachronism +is due to mediævalism. It is the Greeks who have +given us the whole system of art-criticism, and how fine their +critical instinct was, may be seen from the fact that the +material they criticised with most care was, as I have already +said, language. For the material that painter or sculptor +uses is meagre in comparison with that of words. Words have +not merely music as sweet as that of viol and lute, colour as +rich and vivid as any that makes lovely for us the canvas of the +Venetian or the Spaniard, and plastic form no less sure and +certain than that which reveals itself in marble or in bronze, +but thought and passion and spirituality are theirs also, are +theirs indeed alone. If the Greeks had criticised nothing +but language, they would still have been the great art-critics of +the world. To know the principles of the highest art is to +know the principles of all the arts.</p> +<p>But I see that the moon is hiding behind a sulphur-coloured +cloud. Out of a tawny mane of drift she gleams like a +lion’s eye. She is afraid that I will talk to you of +Lucian and Longinus, of Quinctilian and Dionysius, of Pliny and +Fronto and Pausanias, of all those who in the antique world wrote +or lectured upon art matters. She need not be afraid. +I am tired of my expedition into the dim, dull abyss of +facts. There is nothing left for me now but the divine +μονόχρονος +ηδονή of another cigarette. +Cigarettes have at least the charm of leaving one +unsatisfied.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Try one of +mine. They are rather good. I get them direct from +Cairo. The only use of our <i>attachés</i> is that +they supply their friends with excellent tobacco. And as +the moon has hidden herself, let us talk a little longer. I +am quite ready to admit that I was wrong in what I said about the +Greeks. They were, as you have pointed out, a nation of +art-critics. I acknowledge it, and I feel a little sorry +for them. For the creative faculty is higher than the +critical. There is really no comparison between them.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. The antithesis +between them is entirely arbitrary. Without the critical +faculty, there is no artistic creation at all, worthy of the +name. You spoke a little while ago of that fine spirit of +choice and delicate instinct of selection by which the artist +realises life for us, and gives to it a momentary +perfection. Well, that spirit of choice, that subtle tact +of omission, is really the critical faculty in one of its most +characteristic moods, and no one who does not possess this +critical faculty can create anything at all in art. +Arnold’s definition of literature as a criticism of life +was not very felicitous in form, but it showed how keenly he +recognised the importance of the critical element in all creative +work.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. I should have said +that great artists work unconsciously, that they were +‘wiser than they knew,’ as, I think, Emerson remarks +somewhere.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. It is really not so, +Ernest. All fine imaginative work is self-conscious and +deliberate. No poet sings because he must sing. At +least, no great poet does. A great poet sings because he +chooses to sing. It is so now, and it has always been +so. We are sometimes apt to think that the voices that +sounded at the dawn of poetry were simpler, fresher, and more +natural than ours, and that the world which the early poets +looked at, and through which they walked, had a kind of poetical +quality of its own, and almost without changing could pass into +song. The snow lies thick now upon Olympus, and its steep +scarped sides are bleak and barren, but once, we fancy, the white +feet of the Muses brushed the dew from the anemones in the +morning, and at evening came Apollo to sing to the shepherds in +the vale. But in this we are merely lending to other ages +what we desire, or think we desire, for our own. Our +historical sense is at fault. Every century that produces +poetry is, so far, an artificial century, and the work that seems +to us to be the most natural and simple product of its time is +always the result of the most self-conscious effort. +Believe me, Ernest, there is no fine art without +self-consciousness, and self-consciousness and the critical +spirit are one.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. I see what you mean, +and there is much in it. But surely you would admit that +the great poems of the early world, the primitive, anonymous +collective poems, were the result of the imagination of races, +rather than of the imagination of individuals?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Not when they became +poetry. Not when they received a beautiful form. For +there is no art where there is no style, and no style where there +is no unity, and unity is of the individual. No doubt Homer +had old ballads and stories to deal with, as Shakespeare had +chronicles and plays and novels from which to work, but they were +merely his rough material. He took them, and shaped them +into song. They become his, because he made them +lovely. They were built out of music,</p> +<blockquote><p> And so not built at all,<br /> +And therefore built for ever.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The longer one studies life and literature, the more strongly +one feels that behind everything that is wonderful stands the +individual, and that it is not the moment that makes the man, but +the man who creates the age. Indeed, I am inclined to think +that each myth and legend that seems to us to spring out of the +wonder, or terror, or fancy of tribe and nation, was in its +origin the invention of one single mind. The curiously +limited number of the myths seems to me to point to this +conclusion. But we must not go off into questions of +comparative mythology. We must keep to criticism. And +what I want to point out is this. An age that has no +criticism is either an age in which art is immobile, hieratic, +and confined to the reproduction of formal types, or an age that +possesses no art at all. There have been critical ages that +have not been creative, in the ordinary sense of the word, ages +in which the spirit of man has sought to set in order the +treasures of his treasure-house, to separate the gold from the +silver, and the silver from the lead, to count over the jewels, +and to give names to the pearls. But there has never been a +creative age that has not been critical also. For it is the +critical faculty that invents fresh forms. The tendency of +creation is to repeat itself. It is to the critical +instinct that we owe each new school that springs up, each new +mould that art finds ready to its hand. There is really not +a single form that art now uses that does not come to us from the +critical spirit of Alexandria, where these forms were either +stereotyped or invented or made perfect. I say Alexandria, +not merely because it was there that the Greek spirit became most +self-conscious, and indeed ultimately expired in scepticism and +theology, but because it was to that city, and not to Athens, +that Rome turned for her models, and it was through the survival, +such as it was, of the Latin language that culture lived at +all. When, at the Renaissance, Greek literature dawned upon +Europe, the soil had been in some measure prepared for it. +But, to get rid of the details of history, which are always +wearisome and usually inaccurate, let us say generally, that the +forms of art have been due to the Greek critical spirit. To +it we owe the epic, the lyric, the entire drama in every one of +its developments, including burlesque, the idyll, the romantic +novel, the novel of adventure, the essay, the dialogue, the +oration, the lecture, for which perhaps we should not forgive +them, and the epigram, in all the wide meaning of that +word. In fact, we owe it everything, except the sonnet, to +which, however, some curious parallels of thought-movement may be +traced in the Anthology, American journalism, to which no +parallel can be found anywhere, and the ballad in sham Scotch +dialect, which one of our most industrious writers has recently +proposed should be made the basis for a final and unanimous +effort on the part of our second-rate poets to make themselves +really romantic. Each new school, as it appears, cries out +against criticism, but it is to the critical faculty in man that +it owes its origin. The mere creative instinct does not +innovate, but reproduces.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. You have been talking +of criticism as an essential part of the creative spirit, and I +now fully accept your theory. But what of criticism outside +creation? I have a foolish habit of reading periodicals, +and it seems to me that most modern criticism is perfectly +valueless.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. So is most modern +creative work also. Mediocrity weighing mediocrity in the +balance, and incompetence applauding its brother—that is +the spectacle which the artistic activity of England affords us +from time to time. And yet, I feel I am a little unfair in +this matter. As a rule, the critics—I speak, of +course, of the higher class, of those in fact who write for the +sixpenny papers—are far more cultured than the people whose +work they are called upon to review. This is, indeed, only +what one would expect, for criticism demands infinitely more +cultivation than creation does.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Really?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Certainly. +Anybody can write a three-volumed novel. It merely requires +a complete ignorance of both life and literature. The +difficulty that I should fancy the reviewer feels is the +difficulty of sustaining any standard. Where there is no +style a standard must be impossible. The poor reviewers are +apparently reduced to be the reporters of the police-court of +literature, the chroniclers of the doings of the habitual +criminals of art. It is sometimes said of them that they do +not read all through the works they are called upon to +criticise. They do not. Or at least they should +not. If they did so, they would become confirmed +misanthropes, or if I may borrow a phrase from one of the pretty +Newnham graduates, confirmed womanthropes for the rest of their +lives. Nor is it necessary. To know the vintage and +quality of a wine one need not drink the whole cask. It +must be perfectly easy in half an hour to say whether a book is +worth anything or worth nothing. Ten minutes are really +sufficient, if one has the instinct for form. Who wants to +wade through a dull volume? One tastes it, and that is +quite enough—more than enough, I should imagine. I am +aware that there are many honest workers in painting as well as +in literature who object to criticism entirely. They are +quite right. Their work stands in no intellectual relation +to their age. It brings us no new element of +pleasure. It suggests no fresh departure of thought, or +passion, or beauty. It should not be spoken of. It +should be left to the oblivion that it deserves.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. But, my dear +fellow—excuse me for interrupting you—you seem to me +to be allowing your passion for criticism to lead you a great +deal too far. For, after all, even you must admit that it +is much more difficult to do a thing than to talk about it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. More difficult to do +a thing than to talk about it? Not at all. That is a +gross popular error. It is very much more difficult to talk +about a thing than to do it. In the sphere of actual life +that is of course obvious. Anybody can make history. +Only a great man can write it. There is no mode of action, +no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower +animals. It is only by language that we rise above them, or +above each other—by language, which is the parent, and not +the child, of thought. Action, indeed, is always easy, and +when presented to us in its most aggravated, because most +continuous form, which I take to be that of real industry, +becomes simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatsoever +to do. No, Ernest, don’t talk about action. It +is a blind thing dependent on external influences, and moved by +an impulse of whose nature it is unconscious. It is a thing +incomplete in its essence, because limited by accident, and +ignorant of its direction, being always at variance with its +aim. Its basis is the lack of imagination. It is the +last resource of those who know not how to dream.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Gilbert, you treat +the world as if it were a crystal ball. You hold it in your +hand, and reverse it to please a wilful fancy. You do +nothing but re-write history.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. The one duty we owe +to history is to re-write it. That is not the least of the +tasks in store for the critical spirit. When we have fully +discovered the scientific laws that govern life, we shall realise +that the one person who has more illusions than the dreamer is +the man of action. He, indeed, knows neither the origin of +his deeds nor their results. From the field in which he +thought that he had sown thorns, we have gathered our vintage, +and the fig-tree that he planted for our pleasure is as barren as +the thistle, and more bitter. It is because Humanity has +never known where it was going that it has been able to find its +way.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. You think, then, that +in the sphere of action a conscious aim is a delusion?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. It is worse than a +delusion. If we lived long enough to see the results of our +actions it may be that those who call themselves good would be +sickened with a dull remorse, and those whom the world calls evil +stirred by a noble joy. Each little thing that we do passes +into the great machine of life which may grind our virtues to +powder and make them worthless, or transform our sins into +elements of a new civilisation, more marvellous and more splendid +than any that has gone before. But men are the slaves of +words. They rage against Materialism, as they call it, +forgetting that there has been no material improvement that has +not spiritualised the world, and that there have been few, if +any, spiritual awakenings that have not wasted the world’s +faculties in barren hopes, and fruitless aspirations, and empty +or trammelling creeds. What is termed Sin is an essential +element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, +or grow old, or become colourless. By its curiosity Sin +increases the experience of the race. Through its +intensified assertion of individualism, it saves us from monotony +of type. In its rejection of the current notions about +morality, it is one with the higher ethics. And as for the +virtues! What are the virtues? Nature, M. Renan tells +us, cares little about chastity, and it may be that it is to the +shame of the Magdalen, and not to their own purity, that the +Lucretias of modern life owe their freedom from stain. +Charity, as even those of whose religion it makes a formal part +have been compelled to acknowledge, creates a multitude of +evils. The mere existence of conscience, that faculty of +which people prate so much nowadays, and are so ignorantly proud, +is a sign of our imperfect development. It must be merged +in instinct before we become fine. Self-denial is simply a +method by which man arrests his progress, and self-sacrifice a +survival of the mutilation of the savage, part of that old +worship of pain which is so terrible a factor in the history of +the world, and which even now makes its victims day by day, and +has its altars in the land. Virtues! Who knows what +the virtues are? Not you. Not I. Not any +one. It is well for our vanity that we slay the criminal, +for if we suffered him to live he might show us what we had +gained by his crime. It is well for his peace that the +saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the +horror of his harvest.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Gilbert, you sound +too harsh a note. Let us go back to the more gracious +fields of literature. What was it you said? That it +was more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span> (<i>after a +pause</i>). Yes: I believe I ventured upon that simple +truth. Surely you see now that I am right? When man +acts he is a puppet. When he describes he is a poet. +The whole secret lies in that. It was easy enough on the +sandy plains by windy Ilion to send the notched arrow from the +painted bow, or to hurl against the shield of hide and flamelike +brass the long ash-handled spear. It was easy for the +adulterous queen to spread the Tyrian carpets for her lord, and +then, as he lay couched in the marble bath, to throw over his +head the purple net, and call to her smooth-faced lover to stab +through the meshes at the heart that should have broken at +Aulis. For Antigone even, with Death waiting for her as her +bridegroom, it was easy to pass through the tainted air at noon, +and climb the hill, and strew with kindly earth the wretched +naked corse that had no tomb. But what of those who wrote +about these things? What of those who gave them reality, +and made them live for ever? Are they not greater than the +men and women they sing of? ‘Hector that sweet knight +is dead,’ and Lucian tells us how in the dim under-world +Menippus saw the bleaching skull of Helen, and marvelled that it +was for so grim a favour that all those horned ships were +launched, those beautiful mailed men laid low, those towered +cities brought to dust. Yet, every day the swanlike +daughter of Leda comes out on the battlements, and looks down at +the tide of war. The greybeards wonder at her loveliness, +and she stands by the side of the king. In his chamber of +stained ivory lies her leman. He is polishing his dainty +armour, and combing the scarlet plume. With squire and +page, her husband passes from tent to tent. She can see his +bright hair, and hears, or fancies that she hears, that clear +cold voice. In the courtyard below, the son of Priam is +buckling on his brazen cuirass. The white arms of +Andromache are around his neck. He sets his helmet on the +ground, lest their babe should be frightened. Behind the +embroidered curtains of his pavilion sits Achilles, in perfumed +raiment, while in harness of gilt and silver the friend of his +soul arrays himself to go forth to the fight. From a +curiously carven chest that his mother Thetis had brought to his +ship-side, the Lord of the Myrmidons takes out that mystic +chalice that the lip of man had never touched, and cleanses it +with brimstone, and with fresh water cools it, and, having washed +his hands, fills with black wine its burnished hollow, and spills +the thick grape-blood upon the ground in honour of Him whom at +Dodona barefooted prophets worshipped, and prays to Him, and +knows not that he prays in vain, and that by the hands of two +knights from Troy, Panthous’ son, Euphorbus, whose +love-locks were looped with gold, and the Priamid, the +lion-hearted, Patroklus, the comrade of comrades, must meet his +doom. Phantoms, are they? Heroes of mist and +mountain? Shadows in a song? No: they are real. +Action! What is action? It dies at the moment of its +energy. It is a base concession to fact. The world is +made by the singer for the dreamer.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. While you talk it +seems to me to be so.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. It is so in +truth. On the mouldering citadel of Troy lies the lizard +like a thing of green bronze. The owl has built her nest in +the palace of Priam. Over the empty plain wander shepherd +and goatherd with their flocks, and where, on the wine-surfaced, +oily sea, οινοψ +πόντος, as Homer calls it, +copper-prowed and streaked with vermilion, the great galleys of +the Danaoi came in their gleaming crescent, the lonely +tunny-fisher sits in his little boat and watches the bobbing +corks of his net. Yet, every morning the doors of the city +are thrown open, and on foot, or in horse-drawn chariot, the +warriors go forth to battle, and mock their enemies from behind +their iron masks. All day long the fight rages, and when +night comes the torches gleam by the tents, and the cresset burns +in the hall. Those who live in marble or on painted panel, +know of life but a single exquisite instant, eternal indeed in +its beauty, but limited to one note of passion or one mood of +calm. Those whom the poet makes live have their myriad +emotions of joy and terror, of courage and despair, of pleasure +and of suffering. The seasons come and go in glad or +saddening pageant, and with winged or leaden feet the years pass +by before them. They have their youth and their manhood, +they are children, and they grow old. It is always dawn for +St. Helena, as Veronese saw her at the window. Through the +still morning air the angels bring her the symbol of God’s +pain. The cool breezes of the morning lift the gilt threads +from her brow. On that little hill by the city of Florence, +where the lovers of Giorgione are lying, it is always the +solstice of noon, of noon made so languorous by summer suns that +hardly can the slim naked girl dip into the marble tank the round +bubble of clear glass, and the long fingers of the lute-player +rest idly upon the chords. It is twilight always for the +dancing nymphs whom Corot set free among the silver poplars of +France. In eternal twilight they move, those frail +diaphanous figures, whose tremulous white feet seem not to touch +the dew-drenched grass they tread on. But those who walk in +epos, drama, or romance, see through the labouring months the +young moons wax and wane, and watch the night from evening unto +morning star, and from sunrise unto sunsetting can note the +shifting day with all its gold and shadow. For them, as for +us, the flowers bloom and wither, and the Earth, that +Green-tressed Goddess as Coleridge calls her, alters her raiment +for their pleasure. The statue is concentrated to one +moment of perfection. The image stained upon the canvas +possesses no spiritual element of growth or change. If they +know nothing of death, it is because they know little of life, +for the secrets of life and death belong to those, and those +only, whom the sequence of time affects, and who possess not +merely the present but the future, and can rise or fall from a +past of glory or of shame. Movement, that problem of the +visible arts, can be truly realised by Literature alone. It +is Literature that shows us the body in its swiftness and the +soul in its unrest.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Yes; I see now what +you mean. But, surely, the higher you place the creative +artist, the lower must the critic rank.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Why so?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Because the best that +he can give us will be but an echo of rich music, a dim shadow of +clear-outlined form. It may, indeed, be that life is chaos, +as you tell me that it is; that its martyrdoms are mean and its +heroisms ignoble; and that it is the function of Literature to +create, from the rough material of actual existence, a new world +that will be more marvellous, more enduring, and more true than +the world that common eyes look upon, and through which common +natures seek to realise their perfection. But surely, if +this new world has been made by the spirit and touch of a great +artist, it will be a thing so complete and perfect that there +will be nothing left for the critic to do. I quite +understand now, and indeed admit most readily, that it is far +more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it. But it +seems to me that this sound and sensible maxim, which is really +extremely soothing to one’s feelings, and should be adopted +as its motto by every Academy of Literature all over the world, +applies only to the relations that exist between Art and Life, +and not to any relations that there may be between Art and +Criticism.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. But, surely, +Criticism is itself an art. And just as artistic creation +implies the working of the critical faculty, and, indeed, without +it cannot be said to exist at all, so Criticism is really +creative in the highest sense of the word. Criticism is, in +fact, both creative and independent.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Independent?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes; +independent. Criticism is no more to be judged by any low +standard of imitation or resemblance than is the work of poet or +sculptor. The critic occupies the same relation to the work +of art that he criticises as the artist does to the visible world +of form and colour, or the unseen world of passion and of +thought. He does not even require for the perfection of his +art the finest materials. Anything will serve his +purpose. And just as out of the sordid and sentimental +amours of the silly wife of a small country doctor in the squalid +village of Yonville-l’Abbaye, near Rouen, Gustave Flaubert +was able to create a classic, and make a masterpiece of style, +so, from subjects of little or of no importance, such as the +pictures in this year’s Royal Academy, or in any +year’s Royal Academy for that matter, Mr. Lewis +Morris’s poems, M. Ohnet’s novels, or the plays of +Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, the true critic can, if it be his +pleasure so to direct or waste his faculty of contemplation, +produce work that will be flawless in beauty and instinct with +intellectual subtlety. Why not? Dulness is always an +irresistible temptation for brilliancy, and stupidity is the +permanent <i>Bestia Trionfans</i> that calls wisdom from its +cave. To an artist so creative as the critic, what does +subject-matter signify? No more and no less than it does to +the novelist and the painter. Like them, he can find his +motives everywhere. Treatment is the test. There is +nothing that has not in it suggestion or challenge.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. But is Criticism +really a creative art?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Why should it not +be? It works with materials, and puts them into a form that +is at once new and delightful. What more can one say of +poetry? Indeed, I would call criticism a creation within a +creation. For just as the great artists, from Homer and +Æschylus, down to Shakespeare and Keats, did not go +directly to life for their subject-matter, but sought for it in +myth, and legend, and ancient tale, so the critic deals with +materials that others have, as it were, purified for him, and to +which imaginative form and colour have been already added. +Nay, more, I would say that the highest Criticism, being the +purest form of personal impression, is in its way more creative +than creation, as it has least reference to any standard external +to itself, and is, in fact, its own reason for existing, and, as +the Greeks would put it, in itself, and to itself, an end. +Certainly, it is never trammelled by any shackles of +verisimilitude. No ignoble considerations of probability, +that cowardly concession to the tedious repetitions of domestic +or public life, affect it ever. One may appeal from fiction +unto fact. But from the soul there is no appeal.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. From the soul?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes, from the +soul. That is what the highest criticism really is, the +record of one’s own soul. It is more fascinating than +history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more +delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not +abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilised form +of autobiography, as it deals not with the events, but with the +thoughts of one’s life; not with life’s physical +accidents of deed or circumstance, but with the spiritual moods +and imaginative passions of the mind. I am always amused by +the silly vanity of those writers and artists of our day who seem +to imagine that the primary function of the critic is to chatter +about their second-rate work. The best that one can say of +most modern creative art is that it is just a little less vulgar +than reality, and so the critic, with his fine sense of +distinction and sure instinct of delicate refinement, will prefer +to look into the silver mirror or through the woven veil, and +will turn his eyes away from the chaos and clamour of actual +existence, though the mirror be tarnished and the veil be +torn. His sole aim is to chronicle his own +impressions. It is for him that pictures are painted, books +written, and marble hewn into form.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. I seem to have heard +another theory of Criticism.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes: it has been +said by one whose gracious memory we all revere, and the music of +whose pipe once lured Proserpina from her Sicilian fields, and +made those white feet stir, and not in vain, the Cumnor cowslips, +that the proper aim of Criticism is to see the object as in +itself it really is. But this is a very serious error, and +takes no cognisance of Criticism’s most perfect form, which +is in its essence purely subjective, and seeks to reveal its own +secret and not the secret of another. For the highest +Criticism deals with art not as expressive but as impressive +purely.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. But is that really +so?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Of course it +is. Who cares whether Mr. Ruskin’s views on Turner +are sound or not? What does it matter? That mighty +and majestic prose of his, so fervid and so fiery-coloured in its +noble eloquence, so rich in its elaborate symphonic music, so +sure and certain, at its best, in subtle choice of word and +epithet, is at least as great a work of art as any of those +wonderful sunsets that bleach or rot on their corrupted canvases +in England’s Gallery; greater indeed, one is apt to think +at times, not merely because its equal beauty is more enduring, +but on account of the fuller variety of its appeal, soul speaking +to soul in those long-cadenced lines, not through form and colour +alone, though through these, indeed, completely and without loss, +but with intellectual and emotional utterance, with lofty passion +and with loftier thought, with imaginative insight, and with +poetic aim; greater, I always think, even as Literature is the +greater art. Who, again, cares whether Mr. Pater has put +into the portrait of Monna Lisa something that Lionardo never +dreamed of? The painter may have been merely the slave of +an archaic smile, as some have fancied, but whenever I pass into +the cool galleries of the Palace of the Louvre, and stand before +that strange figure ‘set in its marble chair in that cirque +of fantastic rocks, as in some faint light under sea,’ I +murmur to myself, ‘She is older than the rocks among which +she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and +learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep +seas, and keeps their fallen day about her: and trafficked for +strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother +of Helen of Troy, and, as St. Anne, the mother of Mary; and all +this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and +lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing +lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands.’ +And I say to my friend, ‘The presence that thus so +strangely rose beside the waters is expressive of what in the +ways of a thousand years man had come to desire’; and he +answers me, ‘Hers is the head upon which all “the +ends of the world are come,” and the eyelids are a little +weary.’</p> +<p>And so the picture becomes more wonderful to us than it really +is, and reveals to us a secret of which, in truth, it knows +nothing, and the music of the mystical prose is as sweet in our +ears as was that flute-player’s music that lent to the lips +of La Gioconda those subtle and poisonous curves. Do you +ask me what Lionardo would have said had any one told him of this +picture that ‘all the thoughts and experience of the world +had etched and moulded therein that which they had of power to +refine and make expressive the outward form, the animalism of +Greece, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the Middle Age with its +spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan +world, the sins of the Borgias?’ He would probably +have answered that he had contemplated none of these things, but +had concerned himself simply with certain arrangements of lines +and masses, and with new and curious colour-harmonies of blue and +green. And it is for this very reason that the criticism +which I have quoted is criticism of the highest kind. It +treats the work of art simply as a starting-point for a new +creation. It does not confine itself—let us at least +suppose so for the moment—to discovering the real intention +of the artist and accepting that as final. And in this it +is right, for the meaning of any beautiful created thing is, at +least, as much in the soul of him who looks at it, as it was in +his soul who wrought it. Nay, it is rather the beholder who +lends to the beautiful thing its myriad meanings, and makes it +marvellous for us, and sets it in some new relation to the age, +so that it becomes a vital portion of our lives, and a symbol of +what we pray for, or perhaps of what, having prayed for, we fear +that we may receive. The longer I study, Ernest, the more +clearly I see that the beauty of the visible arts is, as the +beauty of music, impressive primarily, and that it may be marred, +and indeed often is so, by any excess of intellectual intention +on the part of the artist. For when the work is finished it +has, as it were, an independent life of its own, and may deliver +a message far other than that which was put into its lips to +say. Sometimes, when I listen to the overture to +<i>Tannhäuser</i>, I seem indeed to see that comely knight +treading delicately on the flower-strewn grass, and to hear the +voice of Venus calling to him from the caverned hill. But +at other times it speaks to me of a thousand different things, of +myself, it may be, and my own life, or of the lives of others +whom one has loved and grown weary of loving, or of the passions +that man has known, or of the passions that man has not known, +and so has sought for. To-night it may fill one with that +ΕΡΩΣ ΤΩΝ +ΑΔΥΝΑΤΩΝ, that <i>Amour +de l’Impossible</i>, which falls like a madness on many who +think they live securely and out of reach of harm, so that they +sicken suddenly with the poison of unlimited desire, and, in the +infinite pursuit of what they may not obtain, grow faint and +swoon or stumble. To-morrow, like the music of which +Aristotle and Plato tell us, the noble Dorian music of the Greek, +it may perform the office of a physician, and give us an anodyne +against pain, and heal the spirit that is wounded, and +‘bring the soul into harmony with all right +things.’ And what is true about music is true about +all the arts. Beauty has as many meanings as man has +moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty +reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it +shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. But is such work as +you have talked about really criticism?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. It is the highest +Criticism, for it criticises not merely the individual work of +art, but Beauty itself, and fills with wonder a form which the +artist may have left void, or not understood, or understood +incompletely.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. The highest +Criticism, then, is more creative than creation, and the primary +aim of the critic is to see the object as in itself it really is +not; that is your theory, I believe?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes, that is my +theory. To the critic the work of art is simply a +suggestion for a new work of his own, that need not necessarily +bear any obvious resemblance to the thing it criticises. +The one characteristic of a beautiful form is that one can put +into it whatever one wishes, and see in it whatever one chooses +to see; and the Beauty, that gives to creation its universal and +æsthetic element, makes the critic a creator in his turn, +and whispers of a thousand different things which were not +present in the mind of him who carved the statue or painted the +panel or graved the gem.</p> +<p>It is sometimes said by those who understand neither the +nature of the highest Criticism nor the charm of the highest Art, +that the pictures that the critic loves most to write about are +those that belong to the anecdotage of painting, and that deal +with scenes taken out of literature or history. But this is +not so. Indeed, pictures of this kind are far too +intelligible. As a class, they rank with illustrations, +and, even considered from this point of view are failures, as +they do not stir the imagination, but set definite bounds to +it. For the domain of the painter is, as I suggested +before, widely different from that of the poet. To the +latter belongs life in its full and absolute entirety; not merely +the beauty that men look at, but the beauty that men listen to +also; not merely the momentary grace of form or the transient +gladness of colour, but the whole sphere of feeling, the perfect +cycle of thought. The painter is so far limited that it is +only through the mask of the body that he can show us the mystery +of the soul; only through conventional images that he can handle +ideas; only through its physical equivalents that he can deal +with psychology. And how inadequately does he do it then, +asking us to accept the torn turban of the Moor for the noble +rage of Othello, or a dotard in a storm for the wild madness of +Lear! Yet it seems as if nothing could stop him. Most +of our elderly English painters spend their wicked and wasted +lives in poaching upon the domain of the poets, marring their +motives by clumsy treatment, and striving to render, by visible +form or colour, the marvel of what is invisible, the splendour of +what is not seen. Their pictures are, as a natural +consequence, insufferably tedious. They have degraded the +invisible arts into the obvious arts, and the one thing not worth +looking at is the obvious. I do not say that poet and +painter may not treat of the same subject. They have always +done so and will always do so. But while the poet can be +pictorial or not, as he chooses, the painter must be pictorial +always. For a painter is limited, not to what he sees in +nature, but to what upon canvas may be seen.</p> +<p>And so, my dear Ernest, pictures of this kind will not really +fascinate the critic. He will turn from them to such works +as make him brood and dream and fancy, to works that possess the +subtle quality of suggestion, and seem to tell one that even from +them there is an escape into a wider world. It is sometimes +said that the tragedy of an artist’s life is that he cannot +realise his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps +of most artists is that they realise their ideal too +absolutely. For, when the ideal is realised, it is robbed +of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new +starting-point for an ideal that is other than itself. This +is the reason why music is the perfect type of art. Music +can never reveal its ultimate secret. This, also, is the +explanation of the value of limitations in art. The +sculptor gladly surrenders imitative colour, and the painter the +actual dimensions of form, because by such renunciations they are +able to avoid too definite a presentation of the Real, which +would be mere imitation, and too definite a realisation of the +Ideal, which would be too purely intellectual. It is +through its very incompleteness that art becomes complete in +beauty, and so addresses itself, not to the faculty of +recognition nor to the faculty of reason, but to the +æsthetic sense alone, which, while accepting both reason +and recognition as stages of apprehension, subordinates them both +to a pure synthetic impression of the work of art as a whole, +and, taking whatever alien emotional elements the work may +possess, uses their very complexity as a means by which a richer +unity may be added to the ultimate impression itself. You +see, then, how it is that the æsthetic critic rejects these +obvious modes of art that have but one message to deliver, and +having delivered it become dumb and sterile, and seeks rather for +such modes as suggest reverie and mood, and by their imaginative +beauty make all interpretations true, and no interpretation +final. Some resemblance, no doubt, the creative work of the +critic will have to the work that has stirred him to creation, +but it will be such resemblance as exists, not between Nature and +the mirror that the painter of landscape or figure may be +supposed to hold up to her, but between Nature and the work of +the decorative artist. Just as on the flowerless carpets of +Persia, tulip and rose blossom indeed and are lovely to look on, +though they are not reproduced in visible shape or line; just as +the pearl and purple of the sea-shell is echoed in the church of +St. Mark at Venice; just as the vaulted ceiling of the wondrous +chapel at Ravenna is made gorgeous by the gold and green and +sapphire of the peacock’s tail, though the birds of Juno +fly not across it; so the critic reproduces the work that he +criticises in a mode that is never imitative, and part of whose +charm may really consist in the rejection of resemblance, and +shows us in this way not merely the meaning but also the mystery +of Beauty, and, by transforming each art into literature, solves +once for all the problem of Art’s unity.</p> +<p>But I see it is time for supper. After we have discussed +some Chambertin and a few ortolans, we will pass on to the +question of the critic considered in the light of the +interpreter.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Ah! you admit, then, +that the critic may occasionally be allowed to see the object as +in itself it really is.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. I am not quite +sure. Perhaps I may admit it after supper. There is a +subtle influence in supper.</p> +<h2><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 151</span>THE +CRITIC AS ARTIST<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THE +IMPORTANCE</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OF DISCUSSING EVERYTHING</span></h2> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>A DIALOGUE</i>: <i>Part +II.</i> <i>Persons</i>: <i>the same</i>.<br /> +<i>Scene</i>: <i>the same</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. The ortolans were +delightful, and the Chambertin perfect, and now let us return to +the point at issue.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Ah! don’t let +us do that. Conversation should touch everything, but +should concentrate itself on nothing. Let us talk about +<i>Moral Indignation</i>, <i>its Cause and Cure</i>, a subject on +which I think of writing: or about <i>The Survival of +Thersites</i>, as shown by the English comic papers; or about any +topic that may turn up.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. No; I want to discuss +the critic and criticism. You have told me that the highest +criticism deals with art, not as expressive, but as impressive +purely, and is consequently both creative and independent, is in +fact an art by itself, occupying the same relation to creative +work that creative work does to the visible world of form and +colour, or the unseen world of passion and of thought. +Well, now, tell me, will not the critic be sometimes a real +interpreter?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes; the critic will +be an interpreter, if he chooses. He can pass from his +synthetic impression of the work of art as a whole, to an +analysis or exposition of the work itself, and in this lower +sphere, as I hold it to be, there are many delightful things to +be said and done. Yet his object will not always be to +explain the work of art. He may seek rather to deepen its +mystery, to raise round it, and round its maker, that mist of +wonder which is dear to both gods and worshippers alike. +Ordinary people are ‘terribly at ease in Zion.’ +They propose to walk arm in arm with the poets, and have a glib +ignorant way of saying, ‘Why should we read what is written +about Shakespeare and Milton? We can read the plays and the +poems. That is enough.’ But an appreciation of +Milton is, as the late Rector of Lincoln remarked once, the +reward of consummate scholarship. And he who desires to +understand Shakespeare truly must understand the relations in +which Shakespeare stood to the Renaissance and the Reformation, +to the age of Elizabeth and the age of James; he must be familiar +with the history of the struggle for supremacy between the old +classical forms and the new spirit of romance, between the school +of Sidney, and Daniel, and Johnson, and the school of Marlowe and +Marlowe’s greater son; he must know the materials that were +at Shakespeare’s disposal, and the method in which he used +them, and the conditions of theatric presentation in the +sixteenth and seventeenth century, their limitations and their +opportunities for freedom, and the literary criticism of +Shakespeare’s day, its aims and modes and canons; he must +study the English language in its progress, and blank or rhymed +verse in its various developments; he must study the Greek drama, +and the connection between the art of the creator of the +Agamemnon and the art of the creator of Macbeth; in a word, he +must be able to bind Elizabethan London to the Athens of +Pericles, and to learn Shakespeare’s true position in the +history of European drama and the drama of the world. The +critic will certainly be an interpreter, but he will not treat +Art as a riddling Sphinx, whose shallow secret may be guessed and +revealed by one whose feet are wounded and who knows not his +name. Rather, he will look upon Art as a goddess whose +mystery it is his province to intensify, and whose majesty his +privilege to make more marvellous in the eyes of men.</p> +<p>And here, Ernest, this strange thing happens. The critic +will indeed be an interpreter, but he will not be an interpreter +in the sense of one who simply repeats in another form a message +that has been put into his lips to say. For, just as it is +only by contact with the art of foreign nations that the art of a +country gains that individual and separate life that we call +nationality, so, by curious inversion, it is only by intensifying +his own personality that the critic can interpret the personality +and work of others, and the more strongly this personality enters +into the interpretation the more real the interpretation becomes, +the more satisfying, the more convincing, and the more true.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. I would have said +that personality would have been a disturbing element.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. No; it is an element +of revelation. If you wish to understand others you must +intensify your own individualism.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. What, then, is the +result?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. I will tell you, and +perhaps I can tell you best by definite example. It seems +to me that, while the literary critic stands of course first, as +having the wider range, and larger vision, and nobler material, +each of the arts has a critic, as it were, assigned to it. +The actor is a critic of the drama. He shows the +poet’s work under new conditions, and by a method special +to himself. He takes the written word, and action, gesture +and voice become the media of revelation. The singer or the +player on lute and viol is the critic of music. The etcher +of a picture robs the painting of its fair colours, but shows us +by the use of a new material its true colour-quality, its tones +and values, and the relations of its masses, and so is, in his +way, a critic of it, for the critic is he who exhibits to us a +work of art in a form different from that of the work itself, and +the employment of a new material is a critical as well as a +creative element. Sculpture, too, has its critic, who may +be either the carver of a gem, as he was in Greek days, or some +painter like Mantegna, who sought to reproduce on canvas the +beauty of plastic line and the symphonic dignity of processional +bas-relief. And in the case of all these creative critics +of art it is evident that personality is an absolute essential +for any real interpretation. When Rubinstein plays to us +the <i>Sonata Appassionata</i> of Beethoven, he gives us not +merely Beethoven, but also himself, and so gives us Beethoven +absolutely—Beethoven re-interpreted through a rich artistic +nature, and made vivid and wonderful to us by a new and intense +personality. When a great actor plays Shakespeare we have +the same experience. His own individuality becomes a vital +part of the interpretation. People sometimes say that +actors give us their own Hamlets, and not Shakespeare’s; +and this fallacy—for it is a fallacy—is, I regret to +say, repeated by that charming and graceful writer who has lately +deserted the turmoil of literature for the peace of the House of +Commons, I mean the author of <i>Obiter Dicta</i>. In point +of fact, there is no such thing as Shakespeare’s +Hamlet. If Hamlet has something of the definiteness of a +work of art, he has also all the obscurity that belongs to +life. There are as many Hamlets as there are +melancholies.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. As many Hamlets as +there are melancholies?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes: and as art +springs from personality, so it is only to personality that it +can be revealed, and from the meeting of the two comes right +interpretative criticism.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. The critic, then, +considered as the interpreter, will give no less than he +receives, and lend as much as he borrows?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. He will be always +showing us the work of art in some new relation to our age. +He will always be reminding us that great works of art are living +things—are, in fact, the only things that live. So +much, indeed, will he feel this, that I am certain that, as +civilisation progresses and we become more highly organised, the +elect spirits of each age, the critical and cultured spirits, +will grow less and less interested in actual life, and <i>will +seek to gain their impressions almost entirely from what Art has +touched</i>. For life is terribly deficient in form. +Its catastrophes happen in the wrong way and to the wrong +people. There is a grotesque horror about its comedies, and +its tragedies seem to culminate in farce. One is always +wounded when one approaches it. Things last either too +long, or not long enough.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Poor life! Poor +human life! Are you not even touched by the tears that the +Roman poet tells us are part of its essence.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Too quickly touched +by them, I fear. For when one looks back upon the life that +was so vivid in its emotional intensity, and filled with such +fervent moments of ecstasy or of joy, it all seems to be a dream +and an illusion. What are the unreal things, but the +passions that once burned one like fire? What are the +incredible things, but the things that one has faithfully +believed? What are the improbable things? The things +that one has done oneself. No, Ernest; life cheats us with +shadows, like a puppet-master. We ask it for +pleasure. It gives it to us, with bitterness and +disappointment in its train. We come across some noble +grief that we think will lend the purple dignity of tragedy to +our days, but it passes away from us, and things less noble take +its place, and on some grey windy dawn, or odorous eve of silence +and of silver, we find ourselves looking with callous wonder, or +dull heart of stone, at the tress of gold-flecked hair that we +had once so wildly worshipped and so madly kissed.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Life then is a +failure?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. From the artistic +point of view, certainly. And the chief thing that makes +life a failure from this artistic point of view is the thing that +lends to life its sordid security, the fact that one can never +repeat exactly the same emotion. How different it is in the +world of Art! On a shelf of the bookcase behind you stands +the <i>Divine Comedy</i>, and I know that, if I open it at a +certain place, I shall be filled with a fierce hatred of some one +who has never wronged me, or stirred by a great love for some one +whom I shall never see. There is no mood or passion that +Art cannot give us, and those of us who have discovered her +secret can settle beforehand what our experiences are going to +be. We can choose our day and select our hour. We can +say to ourselves, ‘To-morrow, at dawn, we shall walk with +grave Virgil through the valley of the shadow of death,’ +and lo! the dawn finds us in the obscure wood, and the Mantuan +stands by our side. We pass through the gate of the legend +fatal to hope, and with pity or with joy behold the horror of +another world. The hypocrites go by, with their painted +faces and their cowls of gilded lead. Out of the ceaseless +winds that drive them, the carnal look at us, and we watch the +heretic rending his flesh, and the glutton lashed by the +rain. We break the withered branches from the tree in the +grove of the Harpies, and each dull-hued poisonous twig bleeds +with red blood before us, and cries aloud with bitter +cries. Out of a horn of fire Odysseus speaks to us, and +when from his sepulchre of flame the great Ghibelline rises, the +pride that triumphs over the torture of that bed becomes ours for +a moment. Through the dim purple air fly those who have +stained the world with the beauty of their sin, and in the pit of +loathsome disease, dropsy-stricken and swollen of body into the +semblance of a monstrous lute, lies Adamo di Brescia, the coiner +of false coin. He bids us listen to his misery; we stop, +and with dry and gaping lips he tells us how he dreams day and +night of the brooks of clear water that in cool dewy channels +gush down the green Casentine hills. Sinon, the false Greek +of Troy, mocks at him. He smites him in the face, and they +wrangle. We are fascinated by their shame, and loiter, till +Virgil chides us and leads us away to that city turreted by +giants where great Nimrod blows his horn. Terrible things +are in store for us, and we go to meet them in Dante’s +raiment and with Dante’s heart. We traverse the +marshes of the Styx, and Argenti swims to the boat through the +slimy waves. He calls to us, and we reject him. When +we hear the voice of his agony we are glad, and Virgil praises us +for the bitterness of our scorn. We tread upon the cold +crystal of Cocytus, in which traitors stick like straws in +glass. Our foot strikes against the head of Bocca. He +will not tell us his name, and we tear the hair in handfuls from +the screaming skull. Alberigo prays us to break the ice +upon his face that he may weep a little. We pledge our word +to him, and when he has uttered his dolorous tale we deny the +word that we have spoken, and pass from him; such cruelty being +courtesy indeed, for who more base than he who has mercy for the +condemned of God? In the jaws of Lucifer we see the man who +sold Christ, and in the jaws of Lucifer the men who slew +Cæsar. We tremble, and come forth to re-behold the +stars.</p> +<p>In the land of Purgation the air is freer, and the holy +mountain rises into the pure light of day. There is peace +for us, and for those who for a season abide in it there is some +peace also, though, pale from the poison of the Maremma, Madonna +Pia passes before us, and Ismene, with the sorrow of earth still +lingering about her, is there. Soul after soul makes us +share in some repentance or some joy. He whom the mourning +of his widow taught to drink the sweet wormwood of pain, tells us +of Nella praying in her lonely bed, and we learn from the mouth +of Buonconte how a single tear may save a dying sinner from the +fiend. Sordello, that noble and disdainful Lombard, eyes us +from afar like a couchant lion. When he learns that Virgil +is one of Mantua’s citizens, he falls upon his neck, and +when he learns that he is the singer of Rome he falls before his +feet. In that valley whose grass and flowers are fairer +than cleft emerald and Indian wood, and brighter than scarlet and +silver, they are singing who in the world were kings; but the +lips of Rudolph of Hapsburg do not move to the music of the +others, and Philip of France beats his breast and Henry of +England sits alone. On and on we go, climbing the +marvellous stair, and the stars become larger than their wont, +and the song of the kings grows faint, and at length we reach the +seven trees of gold and the garden of the Earthly Paradise. +In a griffin-drawn chariot appears one whose brows are bound with +olive, who is veiled in white, and mantled in green, and robed in +a vesture that is coloured like live fire. The ancient +flame wakes within us. Our blood quickens through terrible +pulses. We recognise her. It is Beatrice, the woman +we have worshipped. The ice congealed about our heart +melts. Wild tears of anguish break from us, and we bow our +forehead to the ground, for we know that we have sinned. +When we have done penance, and are purified, and have drunk of +the fountain of Lethe and bathed in the fountain of Eunoe, the +mistress of our soul raises us to the Paradise of Heaven. +Out of that eternal pearl, the moon, the face of Piccarda Donati +leans to us. Her beauty troubles us for a moment, and when, +like a thing that falls through water, she passes away, we gaze +after her with wistful eyes. The sweet planet of Venus is +full of lovers. Cunizza, the sister of Ezzelin, the lady of +Sordello’s heart, is there, and Folco, the passionate +singer of Provence, who in sorrow for Azalais forsook the world, +and the Canaanitish harlot whose soul was the first that Christ +redeemed. Joachim of Flora stands in the sun, and, in the +sun, Aquinas recounts the story of St. Francis and Bonaventure +the story of St. Dominic. Through the burning rubies of +Mars, Cacciaguida approaches. He tells us of the arrow that +is shot from the bow of exile, and how salt tastes the bread of +another, and how steep are the stairs in the house of a +stranger. In Saturn the soul sings not, and even she who +guides us dare not smile. On a ladder of gold the flames +rise and fall. At last, we see the pageant of the Mystical +Rose. Beatrice fixes her eyes upon the face of God to turn +them not again. The beatific vision is granted to us; we +know the Love that moves the sun and all the stars.</p> +<p>Yes, we can put the earth back six hundred courses and make +ourselves one with the great Florentine, kneel at the same altar +with him, and share his rapture and his scorn. And if we +grow tired of an antique time, and desire to realise our own age +in all its weariness and sin, are there not books that can make +us live more in one single hour than life can make us live in a +score of shameful years? Close to your hand lies a little +volume, bound in some Nile-green skin that has been powdered with +gilded nenuphars and smoothed with hard ivory. It is the +book that Gautier loved, it is Baudelaire’s +masterpiece. Open it at that sad madrigal that begins</p> +<blockquote><p>Que m’importe que tu sois sage?<br /> +Sois belle! et sois triste!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and you will find yourself worshipping sorrow as you have +never worshipped joy. Pass on to the poem on the man who +tortures himself, let its subtle music steal into your brain and +colour your thoughts, and you will become for a moment what he +was who wrote it; nay, not for a moment only, but for many barren +moonlit nights and sunless sterile days will a despair that is +not your own make its dwelling within you, and the misery of +another gnaw your heart away. Read the whole book, suffer +it to tell even one of its secrets to your soul, and your soul +will grow eager to know more, and will feed upon poisonous honey, +and seek to repent of strange crimes of which it is guiltless, +and to make atonement for terrible pleasures that it has never +known. And then, when you are tired of these flowers of +evil, turn to the flowers that grow in the garden of Perdita, and +in their dew-drenched chalices cool your fevered brow, and let +their loveliness heal and restore your soul; or wake from his +forgotten tomb the sweet Syrian, Meleager, and bid the lover of +Heliodore make you music, for he too has flowers in his song, red +pomegranate blossoms, and irises that smell of myrrh, ringed +daffodils and dark blue hyacinths, and marjoram and crinkled +ox-eyes. Dear to him was the perfume of the bean-field at +evening, and dear to him the odorous eared-spikenard that grew on +the Syrian hills, and the fresh green thyme, the wine-cup’s +charm. The feet of his love as she walked in the garden +were like lilies set upon lilies. Softer than sleep-laden +poppy petals were her lips, softer than violets and as +scented. The flame-like crocus sprang from the grass to +look at her. For her the slim narcissus stored the cool +rain; and for her the anemones forgot the Sicilian winds that +wooed them. And neither crocus, nor anemone, nor narcissus +was as fair as she was.</p> +<p>It is a strange thing, this transference of emotion. We +sicken with the same maladies as the poets, and the singer lends +us his pain. Dead lips have their message for us, and +hearts that have fallen to dust can communicate their joy. +We run to kiss the bleeding mouth of Fantine, and we follow Manon +Lescaut over the whole world. Ours is the love-madness of +the Tyrian, and the terror of Orestes is ours also. There +is no passion that we cannot feel, no pleasure that we may not +gratify, and we can choose the time of our initiation and the +time of our freedom also. Life! Life! +Don’t let us go to life for our fulfilment or our +experience. It is a thing narrowed by circumstances, +incoherent in its utterance, and without that fine correspondence +of form and spirit which is the only thing that can satisfy the +artistic and critical temperament. It makes us pay too high +a price for its wares, and we purchase the meanest of its secrets +at a cost that is monstrous and infinite.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Must we go, then, to +Art for everything?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. For +everything. Because Art does not hurt us. The tears +that we shed at a play are a type of the exquisite sterile +emotions that it is the function of Art to awaken. We weep, +but we are not wounded. We grieve, but our grief is not +bitter. In the actual life of man, sorrow, as Spinoza says +somewhere, is a passage to a lesser perfection. But the +sorrow with which Art fills us both purifies and initiates, if I +may quote once more from the great art critic of the +Greeks. It is through Art, and through Art only, that we +can realise our perfection; through Art, and through Art only, +that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual +existence. This results not merely from the fact that +nothing that one can imagine is worth doing, and that one can +imagine everything, but from the subtle law that emotional +forces, like the forces of the physical sphere, are limited in +extent and energy. One can feel so much, and no more. +And how can it matter with what pleasure life tries to tempt one, +or with what pain it seeks to maim and mar one’s soul, if +in the spectacle of the lives of those who have never existed one +has found the true secret of joy, and wept away one’s tears +over their deaths who, like Cordelia and the daughter of +Brabantio, can never die?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Stop a moment. +It seems to me that in everything that you have said there is +something radically immoral.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. All art is +immoral.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. All art?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes. For +emotion for the sake of emotion is the aim of art, and emotion +for the sake of action is the aim of life, and of that practical +organisation of life that we call society. Society, which +is the beginning and basis of morals, exists simply for the +concentration of human energy, and in order to ensure its own +continuance and healthy stability it demands, and no doubt +rightly demands, of each of its citizens that he should +contribute some form of productive labour to the common weal, and +toil and travail that the day’s work may be done. +Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the +dreamer. The beautiful sterile emotions that art excites in +us are hateful in its eyes, and so completely are people +dominated by the tyranny of this dreadful social ideal that they +are always coming shamelessly up to one at Private Views and +other places that are open to the general public, and saying in a +loud stentorian voice, ‘What are you doing?’ whereas +‘What are you thinking?’ is the only question that +any single civilised being should ever be allowed to whisper to +another. They mean well, no doubt, these honest beaming +folk. Perhaps that is the reason why they are so +excessively tedious. But some one should teach them that +while, in the opinion of society, Contemplation is the gravest +sin of which any citizen can be guilty, in the opinion of the +highest culture it is the proper occupation of man.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Contemplation?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Contemplation. +I said to you some time ago that it was far more difficult to +talk about a thing than to do it. Let me say to you now +that to do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the +world, the most difficult and the most intellectual. To +Plato, with his passion for wisdom, this was the noblest form of +energy. To Aristotle, with his passion for knowledge, this +was the noblest form of energy also. It was to this that +the passion for holiness led the saint and the mystic of +mediæval days.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. We exist, then, to do +nothing?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. It is to do nothing +that the elect exist. Action is limited and relative. +Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and +watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams. But we who are +born at the close of this wonderful age are at once too cultured +and too critical, too intellectually subtle and too curious of +exquisite pleasures, to accept any speculations about life in +exchange for life itself. To us the <i>città +divina</i> is colourless, and the <i>fruitio Dei</i> without +meaning. Metaphysics do not satisfy our temperaments, and +religious ecstasy is out of date. The world through which +the Academic philosopher becomes ‘the spectator of all time +and of all existence’ is not really an ideal world, but +simply a world of abstract ideas. When we enter it, we +starve amidst the chill mathematics of thought. The courts +of the city of God are not open to us now. Its gates are +guarded by Ignorance, and to pass them we have to surrender all +that in our nature is most divine. It is enough that our +fathers believed. They have exhausted the faith-faculty of +the species. Their legacy to us is the scepticism of which +they were afraid. Had they put it into words, it might not +live within us as thought. No, Ernest, no. We cannot +go back to the saint. There is far more to be learned from +the sinner. We cannot go back to the philosopher, and the +mystic leads us astray. Who, as Mr. Pater suggests +somewhere, would exchange the curve of a single rose-leaf for +that formless intangible Being which Plato rates so high? +What to us is the Illumination of Philo, the Abyss of Eckhart, +the Vision of Böhme, the monstrous Heaven itself that was +revealed to Swedenborg’s blinded eyes? Such things +are less than the yellow trumpet of one daffodil of the field, +far less than the meanest of the visible arts, for, just as +Nature is matter struggling into mind, so Art is mind expressing +itself under the conditions of matter, and thus, even in the +lowliest of her manifestations, she speaks to both sense and soul +alike. To the æsthetic temperament the vague is +always repellent. The Greeks were a nation of artists, +because they were spared the sense of the infinite. Like +Aristotle, like Goethe after he had read Kant, we desire the +concrete, and nothing but the concrete can satisfy us.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. What then do you +propose?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. It seems to me that +with the development of the critical spirit we shall be able to +realise, not merely our own lives, but the collective life of the +race, and so to make ourselves absolutely modern, in the true +meaning of the word modernity. For he to whom the present +is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in +which he lives. To realise the nineteenth century, one must +realise every century that has preceded it and that has +contributed to its making. To know anything about oneself +one must know all about others. There must be no mood with +which one cannot sympathise, no dead mode of life that one cannot +make alive. Is this impossible? I think not. By +revealing to us the absolute mechanism of all action, and so +freeing us from the self-imposed and trammelling burden of moral +responsibility, the scientific principle of Heredity has become, +as it were, the warrant for the contemplative life. It has +shown us that we are never less free than when we try to +act. It has hemmed us round with the nets of the hunter, +and written upon the wall the prophecy of our doom. We may +not watch it, for it is within us. We may not see it, save +in a mirror that mirrors the soul. It is Nemesis without +her mask. It is the last of the Fates, and the most +terrible. It is the only one of the Gods whose real name we +know.</p> +<p>And yet, while in the sphere of practical and external life it +has robbed energy of its freedom and activity of its choice, in +the subjective sphere, where the soul is at work, it comes to us, +this terrible shadow, with many gifts in its hands, gifts of +strange temperaments and subtle susceptibilities, gifts of wild +ardours and chill moods of indifference, complex multiform gifts +of thoughts that are at variance with each other, and passions +that war against themselves. And so, it is not our own life +that we live, but the lives of the dead, and the soul that dwells +within us is no single spiritual entity, making us personal and +individual, created for our service, and entering into us for our +joy. It is something that has dwelt in fearful places, and +in ancient sepulchres has made its abode. It is sick with +many maladies, and has memories of curious sins. It is +wiser than we are, and its wisdom is bitter. It fills us +with impossible desires, and makes us follow what we know we +cannot gain. One thing, however, Ernest, it can do for +us. It can lead us away from surroundings whose beauty is +dimmed to us by the mist of familiarity, or whose ignoble +ugliness and sordid claims are marring the perfection of our +development. It can help us to leave the age in which we +were born, and to pass into other ages, and find ourselves not +exiled from their air. It can teach us how to escape from +our experience, and to realise the experiences of those who are +greater than we are. The pain of Leopardi crying out +against life becomes our pain. Theocritus blows on his +pipe, and we laugh with the lips of nymph and shepherd. In +the wolfskin of Pierre Vidal we flee before the hounds, and in +the armour of Lancelot we ride from the bower of the Queen. +We have whispered the secret of our love beneath the cowl of +Abelard, and in the stained raiment of Villon have put our shame +into song. We can see the dawn through Shelley’s +eyes, and when we wander with Endymion the Moon grows amorous of +our youth. Ours is the anguish of Atys, and ours the weak +rage and noble sorrows of the Dane. Do you think that it is +the imagination that enables us to live these countless +lives? Yes: it is the imagination; and the imagination is +the result of heredity. It is simply concentrated +race-experience.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. But where in this is +the function of the critical spirit?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. The culture that +this transmission of racial experiences makes possible can be +made perfect by the critical spirit alone, and indeed may be said +to be one with it. For who is the true critic but he who +bears within himself the dreams, and ideas, and feelings of +myriad generations, and to whom no form of thought is alien, no +emotional impulse obscure? And who the true man of culture, +if not he who by fine scholarship and fastidious rejection has +made instinct self-conscious and intelligent, and can separate +the work that has distinction from the work that has it not, and +so by contact and comparison makes himself master of the secrets +of style and school, and understands their meanings, and listens +to their voices, and develops that spirit of disinterested +curiosity which is the real root, as it is the real flower, of +the intellectual life, and thus attains to intellectual clarity, +and, having learned ‘the best that is known and thought in +the world,’ lives—it is not fanciful to say +so—with those who are the Immortals.</p> +<p>Yes, Ernest: the contemplative life, the life that has for its +aim not <i>doing</i> but <i>being</i>, and not <i>being</i> +merely, but <i>becoming</i>—that is what the critical +spirit can give us. The gods live thus: either brooding +over their own perfection, as Aristotle tells us, or, as Epicurus +fancied, watching with the calm eyes of the spectator the +tragicomedy of the world that they have made. We, too, +might live like them, and set ourselves to witness with +appropriate emotions the varied scenes that man and nature +afford. We might make ourselves spiritual by detaching +ourselves from action, and become perfect by the rejection of +energy. It has often seemed to me that Browning felt +something of this. Shakespeare hurls Hamlet into active +life, and makes him realise his mission by effort. Browning +might have given us a Hamlet who would have realised his mission +by thought. Incident and event were to him unreal or +unmeaning. He made the soul the protagonist of life’s +tragedy, and looked on action as the one undramatic element of a +play. To us, at any rate, the ΒΙΟΣ +ΘΕΩΡΗΤΙΚΟΣ +is the true ideal. From the high tower of Thought we can +look out at the world. Calm, and self-centred, and +complete, the æsthetic critic contemplates life, and no +arrow drawn at a venture can pierce between the joints of his +harness. He at least is safe. He has discovered how +to live.</p> +<p>Is such a mode of life immoral? Yes: all the arts are +immoral, except those baser forms of sensual or didactic art that +seek to excite to action of evil or of good. For action of +every kind belongs to the sphere of ethics. The aim of art +is simply to create a mood. Is such a mode of life +unpractical? Ah! it is not so easy to be unpractical as the +ignorant Philistine imagines. It were well for England if +it were so. There is no country in the world so much in +need of unpractical people as this country of ours. With +us, Thought is degraded by its constant association with +practice. Who that moves in the stress and turmoil of +actual existence, noisy politician, or brawling social reformer, +or poor narrow-minded priest blinded by the sufferings of that +unimportant section of the community among whom he has cast his +lot, can seriously claim to be able to form a disinterested +intellectual judgment about any one thing? Each of the +professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career +forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the +overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are +so industrious that they become absolutely stupid. And, +harsh though it may sound, I cannot help saying that such people +deserve their doom. The sure way of knowing nothing about +life is to try to make oneself useful.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. A charming doctrine, +Gilbert.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. I am not sure about +that, but it has at least the minor merit of being true. +That the desire to do good to others produces a plentiful crop of +prigs is the least of the evils of which it is the cause. +The prig is a very interesting psychological study, and though of +all poses a moral pose is the most offensive, still to have a +pose at all is something. It is a formal recognition of the +importance of treating life from a definite and reasoned +standpoint. That Humanitarian Sympathy wars against Nature, +by securing the survival of the failure, may make the man of +science loathe its facile virtues. The political economist +may cry out against it for putting the improvident on the same +level as the provident, and so robbing life of the strongest, +because most sordid, incentive to industry. But, in the +eyes of the thinker, the real harm that emotional sympathy does +is that it limits knowledge, and so prevents us from solving any +single social problem. We are trying at present to stave +off the coming crisis, the coming revolution as my friends the +Fabianists call it, by means of doles and alms. Well, when +the revolution or crisis arrives, we shall be powerless, because +we shall know nothing. And so, Ernest, let us not be +deceived. England will never be civilised till she has +added Utopia to her dominions. There is more than one of +her colonies that she might with advantage surrender for so fair +a land. What we want are unpractical people who see beyond +the moment, and think beyond the day. Those who try to lead +the people can only do so by following the mob. It is +through the voice of one crying in the wilderness that the ways +of the gods must be prepared.</p> +<p>But perhaps you think that in beholding for the mere joy of +beholding, and contemplating for the sake of contemplation, there +is something that is egotistic. If you think so, do not say +so. It takes a thoroughly selfish age, like our own, to +deify self-sacrifice. It takes a thoroughly grasping age, +such as that in which we live, to set above the fine intellectual +virtues, those shallow and emotional virtues that are an +immediate practical benefit to itself. They miss their aim, +too, these philanthropists and sentimentalists of our day, who +are always chattering to one about one’s duty to +one’s neighbour. For the development of the race +depends on the development of the individual, and where +self-culture has ceased to be the ideal, the intellectual +standard is instantly lowered, and, often, ultimately lost. +If you meet at dinner a man who has spent his life in educating +himself—a rare type in our time, I admit, but still one +occasionally to be met with—you rise from table richer, and +conscious that a high ideal has for a moment touched and +sanctified your days. But oh! my dear Ernest, to sit next +to a man who has spent his life in trying to educate +others! What a dreadful experience that is! How +appalling is that ignorance which is the inevitable result of the +fatal habit of imparting opinions! How limited in range the +creature’s mind proves to be! How it wearies us, and +must weary himself, with its endless repetitions and sickly +reiteration! How lacking it is in any element of +intellectual growth! In what a vicious circle it always +moves!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. You speak with +strange feeling, Gilbert. Have you had this dreadful +experience, as you call it, lately?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Few of us escape it. +People say that the schoolmaster is abroad. I wish to +goodness he were. But the type of which, after all, he is +only one, and certainly the least important, of the +representatives, seems to me to be really dominating our lives; +and just as the philanthropist is the nuisance of the ethical +sphere, so the nuisance of the intellectual sphere is the man who +is so occupied in trying to educate others, that he has never had +any time to educate himself. No, Ernest, self-culture is +the true ideal of man. Goethe saw it, and the immediate +debt that we owe to Goethe is greater than the debt we owe to any +man since Greek days. The Greeks saw it, and have left us, +as their legacy to modern thought, the conception of the +contemplative life as well as the critical method by which alone +can that life be truly realised. It was the one thing that +made the Renaissance great, and gave us Humanism. It is the +one thing that could make our own age great also; for the real +weakness of England lies, not in incomplete armaments or +unfortified coasts, not in the poverty that creeps through +sunless lanes, or the drunkenness that brawls in loathsome +courts, but simply in the fact that her ideals are emotional and +not intellectual.</p> +<p>I do not deny that the intellectual ideal is difficult of +attainment, still less that it is, and perhaps will be for years +to come, unpopular with the crowd. It is so easy for people +to have sympathy with suffering. It is so difficult for +them to have sympathy with thought. Indeed, so little do +ordinary people understand what thought really is, that they seem +to imagine that, when they have said that a theory is dangerous, +they have pronounced its condemnation, whereas it is only such +theories that have any true intellectual value. An idea +that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at +all.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Gilbert, you bewilder +me. You have told me that all art is, in its essence, +immoral. Are you going to tell me now that all thought is, +in its essence, dangerous?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes, in the +practical sphere it is so. The security of society lies in +custom and unconscious instinct, and the basis of the stability +of society, as a healthy organism, is the complete absence of any +intelligence amongst its members. The great majority of +people being fully aware of this, rank themselves naturally on +the side of that splendid system that elevates them to the +dignity of machines, and rage so wildly against the intrusion of +the intellectual faculty into any question that concerns life, +that one is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always +loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with +the dictates of reason. But let us turn from the practical +sphere, and say no more about the wicked philanthropists, who, +indeed, may well be left to the mercy of the almond-eyed sage of +the Yellow River Chuang Tsu the wise, who has proved that such +well-meaning and offensive busybodies have destroyed the simple +and spontaneous virtue that there is in man. They are a +wearisome topic, and I am anxious to get back to the sphere in +which criticism is free.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. The sphere of the +intellect?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes. You +remember that I spoke of the critic as being in his own way as +creative as the artist, whose work, indeed, may be merely of +value in so far as it gives to the critic a suggestion for some +new mood of thought and feeling which he can realise with equal, +or perhaps greater, distinction of form, and, through the use of +a fresh medium of expression, make differently beautiful and more +perfect. Well, you seemed to be a little sceptical about +the theory. But perhaps I wronged you?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. I am not really +sceptical about it, but I must admit that I feel very strongly +that such work as you describe the critic producing—and +creative such work must undoubtedly be admitted to be—is, +of necessity, purely subjective, whereas the greatest work is +objective always, objective and impersonal.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. The difference +between objective and subjective work is one of external form +merely. It is accidental, not essential. All artistic +creation is absolutely subjective. The very landscape that +Corot looked at was, as he said himself, but a mood of his own +mind; and those great figures of Greek or English drama that seem +to us to possess an actual existence of their own, apart from the +poets who shaped and fashioned them, are, in their ultimate +analysis, simply the poets themselves, not as they thought they +were, but as they thought they were not; and by such thinking +came in strange manner, though but for a moment, really so to +be. For out of ourselves we can never pass, nor can there +be in creation what in the creator was not. Nay, I would +say that the more objective a creation appears to be, the more +subjective it really is. Shakespeare might have met +Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the white streets of London, or +seen the serving-men of rival houses bite their thumbs at each +other in the open square; but Hamlet came out of his soul, and +Romeo out of his passion. They were elements of his nature +to which he gave visible form, impulses that stirred so strongly +within him that he had, as it were perforce, to suffer them to +realise their energy, not on the lower plane of actual life, +where they would have been trammelled and constrained and so made +imperfect, but on that imaginative plane of art where Love can +indeed find in Death its rich fulfilment, where one can stab the +eavesdropper behind the arras, and wrestle in a new-made grave, +and make a guilty king drink his own hurt, and see one’s +father’s spirit, beneath the glimpses of the moon, stalking +in complete steel from misty wall to wall. Action being +limited would have left Shakespeare unsatisfied and unexpressed; +and, just as it is because he did nothing that he has been able +to achieve everything, so it is because he never speaks to us of +himself in his plays that his plays reveal him to us absolutely, +and show us his true nature and temperament far more completely +than do those strange and exquisite sonnets, even, in which he +bares to crystal eyes the secret closet of his heart. Yes, +the objective form is the most subjective in matter. Man is +least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a +mask, and he will tell you the truth.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. The critic, then, +being limited to the subjective form, will necessarily be less +able fully to express himself than the artist, who has always at +his disposal the forms that are impersonal and objective.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Not necessarily, and +certainly not at all if he recognises that each mode of criticism +is, in its highest development, simply a mood, and that we are +never more true to ourselves than when we are inconsistent. +The æsthetic critic, constant only to the principle of +beauty in all things, will ever be looking for fresh impressions, +winning from the various schools the secret of their charm, +bowing, it may be, before foreign altars, or smiling, if it be +his fancy, at strange new gods. What other people call +one’s past has, no doubt, everything to do with them, but +has absolutely nothing to do with oneself. The man who +regards his past is a man who deserves to have no future to look +forward to. When one has found expression for a mood, one +has done with it. You laugh; but believe me it is so. +Yesterday it was Realism that charmed one. One gained from +it that <i>nouveau frisson</i> which it was its aim to +produce. One analysed it, explained it, and wearied of +it. At sunset came the <i>Luministe</i> in painting, and +the <i>Symboliste</i> in poetry, and the spirit of +mediævalism, that spirit which belongs not to time but to +temperament, woke suddenly in wounded Russia, and stirred us for +a moment by the terrible fascination of pain. To-day the +cry is for Romance, and already the leaves are tremulous in the +valley, and on the purple hill-tops walks Beauty with slim gilded +feet. The old modes of creation linger, of course. +The artists reproduce either themselves or each other, with +wearisome iteration. But Criticism is always moving on, and +the critic is always developing.</p> +<p>Nor, again, is the critic really limited to the subjective +form of expression. The method of the drama is his, as well +as the method of the epos. He may use dialogue, as he did +who set Milton talking to Marvel on the nature of comedy and +tragedy, and made Sidney and Lord Brooke discourse on letters +beneath the Penshurst oaks; or adopt narration, as Mr. Pater is +fond of doing, each of whose Imaginary Portraits—is not +that the title of the book?—presents to us, under the +fanciful guise of fiction, some fine and exquisite piece of +criticism, one on the painter Watteau, another on the philosophy +of Spinoza, a third on the Pagan elements of the early +Renaissance, and the last, and in some respects the most +suggestive, on the source of that Aufklärung, that +enlightening which dawned on Germany in the last century, and to +which our own culture owes so great a debt. Dialogue, +certainly, that wonderful literary form which, from Plato to +Lucian, and from Lucian to Giordano Bruno, and from Bruno to that +grand old Pagan in whom Carlyle took such delight, the creative +critics of the world have always employed, can never lose for the +thinker its attraction as a mode of expression. By its +means he can both reveal and conceal himself, and give form to +every fancy, and reality to every mood. By its means he can +exhibit the object from each point of view, and show it to us in +the round, as a sculptor shows us things, gaining in this manner +all the richness and reality of effect that comes from those side +issues that are suddenly suggested by the central idea in its +progress, and really illumine the idea more completely, or from +those felicitous after-thoughts that give a fuller completeness +to the central scheme, and yet convey something of the delicate +charm of chance.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. By its means, too, he +can invent an imaginary antagonist, and convert him when he +chooses by some absurdly sophistical argument.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Ah! it is so easy to +convert others. It is so difficult to convert +oneself. To arrive at what one really believes, one must +speak through lips different from one’s own. To know +the truth one must imagine myriads of falsehoods. For what +is Truth? In matters of religion, it is simply the opinion +that has survived. In matters of science, it is the +ultimate sensation. In matters of art, it is one’s +last mood. And you see now, Ernest, that the critic has at +his disposal as many objective forms of expression as the artist +has. Ruskin put his criticism into imaginative prose, and +is superb in his changes and contradictions; and Browning put his +into blank verse and made painter and poet yield us their secret; +and M. Renan uses dialogue, and Mr. Pater fiction, and Rossetti +translated into sonnet-music the colour of Giorgione and the +design of Ingres, and his own design and colour also, feeling, +with the instinct of one who had many modes of utterance; that +the ultimate art is literature, and the finest and fullest medium +that of words.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Well, now that you +have settled that the critic has at his disposal all objective +forms, I wish you would tell me what are the qualities that +should characterise the true critic.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. What would you say +they were?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Well, I should say +that a critic should above all things be fair.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Ah! not fair. +A critic cannot be fair in the ordinary sense of the word. +It is only about things that do not interest one that one can +give a really unbiassed opinion, which is no doubt the reason why +an unbiassed opinion is always absolutely valueless. The +man who sees both sides of a question, is a man who sees +absolutely nothing at all. Art is a passion, and, in +matters of art, Thought is inevitably coloured by emotion, and so +is fluid rather than fixed, and, depending upon fine moods and +exquisite moments, cannot be narrowed into the rigidity of a +scientific formula or a theological dogma. It is to the +soul that Art speaks, and the soul may be made the prisoner of +the mind as well as of the body. One should, of course, +have no prejudices; but, as a great Frenchman remarked a hundred +years ago, it is one’s business in such matters to have +preferences, and when one has preferences one ceases to be +fair. It is only an auctioneer who can equally and +impartially admire all schools of Art. No; fairness is not +one of the qualities of the true critic. It is not even a +condition of criticism. Each form of Art with which we come +in contact dominates us for the moment to the exclusion of every +other form. We must surrender ourselves absolutely to the +work in question, whatever it may be, if we wish to gain its +secret. For the time, we must think of nothing else, can +think of nothing else, indeed.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. The true critic will +be rational, at any rate, will he not?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Rational? +There are two ways of disliking art, Ernest. One is to +dislike it. The other, to like it rationally. For +Art, as Plato saw, and not without regret, creates in listener +and spectator a form of divine madness. It does not spring +from inspiration, but it makes others inspired. Reason is +not the faculty to which it appeals. If one loves Art at +all, one must love it beyond all other things in the world, and +against such love, the reason, if one listened to it, would cry +out. There is nothing sane about the worship of +beauty. It is too splendid to be sane. Those of whose +lives it forms the dominant note will always seem to the world to +be pure visionaries.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Well, at least, the +critic will be sincere.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. A little sincerity +is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely +fatal. The true critic will, indeed, always be sincere in +his devotion to the principle of beauty, but he will seek for +beauty in every age and in each school, and will never suffer +himself to be limited to any settled custom of thought or +stereotyped mode of looking at things. He will realise +himself in many forms, and by a thousand different ways, and will +ever be curious of new sensations and fresh points of view. +Through constant change, and through constant change alone, he +will find his true unity. He will not consent to be the +slave of his own opinions. For what is mind but motion in +the intellectual sphere? The essence of thought, as the +essence of life, is growth. You must not be frightened by +word, Ernest. What people call insincerity is simply a +method by which we can multiply our personalities.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. I am afraid I have +not been fortunate in my suggestions.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Of the three +qualifications you mentioned, two, sincerity and fairness, were, +if not actually moral, at least on the borderland of morals, and +the first condition of criticism is that the critic should be +able to recognise that the sphere of Art and the sphere of Ethics +are absolutely distinct and separate. When they are +confused, Chaos has come again. They are too often confused +in England now, and though our modern Puritans cannot destroy a +beautiful thing, yet, by means of their extraordinary prurience, +they can almost taint beauty for a moment. It is chiefly, I +regret to say, through journalism that such people find +expression. I regret it because there is much to be said in +favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of +the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the +community. By carefully chronicling the current events of +contemporary life, it shows us of what very little importance +such events really are. By invariably discussing the +unnecessary it makes us understand what things are requisite for +culture, and what are not. But it should not allow poor +Tartuffe to write articles upon modern art. When it does +this it stultifies itself. And yet Tartuffe’s +articles and Chadband’s notes do this good, at least. +They serve to show how extremely limited is the area over which +ethics, and ethical considerations, can claim to exercise +influence. Science is out of the reach of morals, for her +eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out of the reach +of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon things beautiful and +immortal and ever-changing. To morals belong the lower and +less intellectual spheres. However, let these mouthing +Puritans pass; they have their comic side. Who can help +laughing when an ordinary journalist seriously proposes to limit +the subject-matter at the disposal of the artist? Some +limitation might well, and will soon, I hope, be placed upon some +of our newspapers and newspaper writers. For they give us +the bald, sordid, disgusting facts of life. They chronicle, +with degrading avidity, the sins of the second-rate, and with the +conscientiousness of the illiterate give us accurate and prosaic +details of the doings of people of absolutely no interest +whatsoever. But the artist, who accepts the facts of life, +and yet transforms them into shapes of beauty, and makes them +vehicles of pity or of awe, and shows their colour-element, and +their wonder, and their true ethical import also, and builds out +of them a world more real than reality itself, and of loftier and +more noble import—who shall set limits to him? Not +the apostles of that new Journalism which is but the old +vulgarity ‘writ large.’ Not the apostles of +that new Puritanism, which is but the whine of the hypocrite, and +is both writ and spoken badly. The mere suggestion is +ridiculous. Let us leave these wicked people, and proceed +to the discussion of the artistic qualifications necessary for +the true critic.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. And what are +they? Tell me yourself.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Temperament is the +primary requisite for the critic—a temperament exquisitely +susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty +gives us. Under what conditions, and by what means, this +temperament is engendered in race or individual, we will not +discuss at present. It is sufficient to note that it +exists, and that there is in us a beauty-sense, separate from the +other senses and above them, separate from the reason and of +nobler import, separate from the soul and of equal value—a +sense that leads some to create, and others, the finer spirits as +I think, to contemplate merely. But to be purified and made +perfect, this sense requires some form of exquisite +environment. Without this it starves, or is dulled. +You remember that lovely passage in which Plato describes how a +young Greek should be educated, and with what insistence he +dwells upon the importance of surroundings, telling us how the +lad is to be brought up in the midst of fair sights and sounds, +so that the beauty of material things may prepare his soul for +the reception of the beauty that is spiritual. Insensibly, +and without knowing the reason why, he is to develop that real +love of beauty which, as Plato is never weary of reminding us, is +the true aim of education. By slow degrees there is to be +engendered in him such a temperament as will lead him naturally +and simply to choose the good in preference to the bad, and, +rejecting what is vulgar and discordant, to follow by fine +instinctive taste all that possesses grace and charm and +loveliness. Ultimately, in its due course, this taste is to +become critical and self-conscious, but at first it is to exist +purely as a cultivated instinct, and ‘he who has received +this true culture of the inner man will with clear and certain +vision perceive the omissions and faults in art or nature, and +with a taste that cannot err, while he praises, and finds his +pleasure in what is good, and receives it into his soul, and so +becomes good and noble, he will rightly blame and hate the bad, +now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the +reason why’: and so, when, later on, the critical and +self-conscious spirit develops in him, he ‘will recognise +and salute it as a friend with whom his education has made him +long familiar.’ I need hardly say, Ernest, how far we +in England have fallen short of this ideal, and I can imagine the +smile that would illuminate the glossy face of the Philistine if +one ventured to suggest to him that the true aim of education was +the love of beauty, and that the methods by which education +should work were the development of temperament, the cultivation +of taste, and the creation of the critical spirit.</p> +<p>Yet, even for us, there is left some loveliness of +environment, and the dulness of tutors and professors matters +very little when one can loiter in the grey cloisters at +Magdalen, and listen to some flute-like voice singing in +Waynfleete’s chapel, or lie in the green meadow, among the +strange snake-spotted fritillaries, and watch the sunburnt noon +smite to a finer gold the tower’s gilded vanes, or wander +up the Christ Church staircase beneath the vaulted +ceiling’s shadowy fans, or pass through the sculptured +gateway of Laud’s building in the College of St. +John. Nor is it merely at Oxford, or Cambridge, that the +sense of beauty can be formed and trained and perfected. +All over England there is a Renaissance of the decorative +Arts. Ugliness has had its day. Even in the houses of +the rich there is taste, and the houses of those who are not rich +have been made gracious and comely and sweet to live in. +Caliban, poor noisy Caliban, thinks that when he has ceased to +make mows at a thing, the thing ceases to exist. But if he +mocks no longer, it is because he has been met with mockery, +swifter and keener than his own, and for a moment has been +bitterly schooled into that silence which should seal for ever +his uncouth distorted lips. What has been done up to now, +has been chiefly in the clearing of the way. It is always +more difficult to destroy than it is to create, and when what one +has to destroy is vulgarity and stupidity, the task of +destruction needs not merely courage but also contempt. Yet +it seems to me to have been, in a measure, done. We have +got rid of what was bad. We have now to make what is +beautiful. And though the mission of the æsthetic +movement is to lure people to contemplate, not to lead them to +create, yet, as the creative instinct is strong in the Celt, and +it is the Celt who leads in art, there is no reason why in future +years this strange Renaissance should not become almost as mighty +in its way as was that new birth of Art that woke many centuries +ago in the cities of Italy.</p> +<p>Certainly, for the cultivation of temperament, we must turn to +the decorative arts: to the arts that touch us, not to the arts +that teach us. Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to +look at. At least, some of them are. But they are +quite impossible to live with; they are too clever, too +assertive, too intellectual. Their meaning is too obvious, +and their method too clearly defined. One exhausts what +they have to say in a very short time, and then they become as +tedious as one’s relations. I am very fond of the +work of many of the Impressionist painters of Paris and +London. Subtlety and distinction have not yet left the +school. Some of their arrangements and harmonies serve to +remind one of the unapproachable beauty of Gautier’s +immortal <i>Symphonie en Blanc Majeur</i>, that flawless +masterpiece of colour and music which may have suggested the type +as well as the titles of many of their best pictures. For a +class that welcomes the incompetent with sympathetic eagerness, +and that confuses the bizarre with the beautiful, and vulgarity +with truth, they are extremely accomplished. They can do +etchings that have the brilliancy of epigrams, pastels that are +as fascinating as paradoxes, and as for their portraits, whatever +the commonplace may say against them, no one can deny that they +possess that unique and wonderful charm which belongs to works of +pure fiction. But even the Impressionists, earnest and +industrious as they are, will not do. I like them. +Their white keynote, with its variations in lilac, was an era in +colour. Though the moment does not make the man, the moment +certainly makes the Impressionist, and for the moment in art, and +the ‘moment’s monument,’ as Rossetti phrased +it, what may not be said? They are suggestive also. +If they have not opened the eyes of the blind, they have at least +given great encouragement to the short-sighted, and while their +leaders may have all the inexperience of old age, their young men +are far too wise to be ever sensible. Yet they will insist +on treating painting as if it were a mode of autobiography +invented for the use of the illiterate, and are always prating to +us on their coarse gritty canvases of their unnecessary selves +and their unnecessary opinions, and spoiling by a vulgar +over-emphasis that fine contempt of nature which is the best and +only modest thing about them. One tires, at the end, of the +work of individuals whose individuality is always noisy, and +generally uninteresting. There is far more to be said in +favour of that newer school at Paris, the <i>Archaicistes</i>, as +they call themselves, who, refusing to leave the artist entirely +at the mercy of the weather, do not find the ideal of art in mere +atmospheric effect, but seek rather for the imaginative beauty of +design and the loveliness of fair colour, and rejecting the +tedious realism of those who merely paint what they see, try to +see something worth seeing, and to see it not merely with actual +and physical vision, but with that nobler vision of the soul +which is as far wider in spiritual scope as it is far more +splendid in artistic purpose. They, at any rate, work under +those decorative conditions that each art requires for its +perfection, and have sufficient æsthetic instinct to regret +those sordid and stupid limitations of absolute modernity of form +which have proved the ruin of so many of the +Impressionists. Still, the art that is frankly decorative +is the art to live with. It is, of all our visible arts, +the one art that creates in us both mood and temperament. +Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite +form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways. +The harmony that resides in the delicate proportions of lines and +masses becomes mirrored in the mind. The repetitions of +pattern give us rest. The marvels of design stir the +imagination. In the mere loveliness of the materials +employed there are latent elements of culture. Nor is this +all. By its deliberate rejection of Nature as the ideal of +beauty, as well as of the imitative method of the ordinary +painter, decorative art not merely prepares the soul for the +reception of true imaginative work, but develops in it that sense +of form which is the basis of creative no less than of critical +achievement. For the real artist is he who proceeds, not +from feeling to form, but from form to thought and passion. +He does not first conceive an idea, and then say to himself, +‘I will put my idea into a complex metre of fourteen +lines,’ but, realising the beauty of the sonnet-scheme, he +conceives certain modes of music and methods of rhyme, and the +mere form suggests what is to fill it and make it intellectually +and emotionally complete. From time to time the world cries +out against some charming artistic poet, because, to use its +hackneyed and silly phrase, he has ‘nothing to +say.’ But if he had something to say, he would +probably say it, and the result would be tedious. It is +just because he has no new message, that he can do beautiful +work. He gains his inspiration from form, and from form +purely, as an artist should. A real passion would ruin +him. Whatever actually occurs is spoiled for art. All +bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is +to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. I wonder do you +really believe what you say?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Why should you +wonder? It is not merely in art that the body is the +soul. In every sphere of life Form is the beginning of +things. The rhythmic harmonious gestures of dancing convey, +Plato tells us, both rhythm and harmony into the mind. +Forms are the food of faith, cried Newman in one of those great +moments of sincerity that make us admire and know the man. +He was right, though he may not have known how terribly right he +was. The Creeds are believed, not because they are +rational, but because they are repeated. Yes: Form is +everything. It is the secret of life. Find expression +for a sorrow, and it will become dear to you. Find +expression for a joy, and you intensify its ecstasy. Do you +wish to love? Use Love’s Litany, and the words will +create the yearning from which the world fancies that they +spring. Have you a grief that corrodes your heart? +Steep yourself in the Language of grief, learn its utterance from +Prince Hamlet and Queen Constance, and you will find that mere +expression is a mode of consolation, and that Form, which is the +birth of passion, is also the death of pain. And so, to +return to the sphere of Art, it is Form that creates not merely +the critical temperament, but also the æsthetic instinct, +that unerring instinct that reveals to one all things under their +conditions of beauty. Start with the worship of form, and +there is no secret in art that will not be revealed to you, and +remember that in criticism, as in creation, temperament is +everything, and that it is, not by the time of their production, +but by the temperaments to which they appeal, that the schools of +art should be historically grouped.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Your theory of +education is delightful. But what influence will your +critic, brought up in these exquisite surroundings, +possess? Do you really think that any artist is ever +affected by criticism?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. The influence of the +critic will be the mere fact of his own existence. He will +represent the flawless type. In him the culture of the +century will see itself realised. You must not ask of him +to have any aim other than the perfecting of himself. The +demand of the intellect, as has been well said, is simply to feel +itself alive. The critic may, indeed, desire to exercise +influence; but, if so, he will concern himself not with the +individual, but with the age, which he will seek to wake into +consciousness, and to make responsive, creating in it new desires +and appetites, and lending it his larger vision and his nobler +moods. The actual art of to-day will occupy him less than +the art of to-morrow, far less than the art of yesterday, and as +for this or that person at present toiling away, what do the +industrious matter? They do their best, no doubt, and +consequently we get the worst from them. It is always with +the best intentions that the worst work is done. And +besides, my dear Ernest, when a man reaches the age of forty, or +becomes a Royal Academician, or is elected a member of the +Athenæum Club, or is recognised as a popular novelist, +whose books are in great demand at suburban railway stations, one +may have the amusement of exposing him, but one cannot have the +pleasure of reforming him. And this is, I dare say, very +fortunate for him; for I have no doubt that reformation is a much +more painful process than punishment, is indeed punishment in its +most aggravated and moral form—a fact which accounts for +our entire failure as a community to reclaim that interesting +phenomenon who is called the confirmed criminal.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. But may it not be +that the poet is the best judge of poetry, and the painter of +painting? Each art must appeal primarily to the artist who +works in it. His judgment will surely be the most +valuable?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. The appeal of all +art is simply to the artistic temperament. Art does not +address herself to the specialist. Her claim is that she is +universal, and that in all her manifestations she is one. +Indeed, so far from its being true that the artist is the best +judge of art, a really great artist can never judge of other +people’s work at all, and can hardly, in fact, judge of his +own. That very concentration of vision that makes a man an +artist, limits by its sheer intensity his faculty of fine +appreciation. The energy of creation hurries him blindly on +to his own goal. The wheels of his chariot raise the dust +as a cloud around him. The gods are hidden from each +other. They can recognise their worshippers. That is +all.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. You say that a great +artist cannot recognise the beauty of work different from his +own.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. It is impossible for +him to do so. Wordsworth saw in <i>Endymion</i> merely a +pretty piece of Paganism, and Shelley, with his dislike of +actuality, was deaf to Wordsworth’s message, being repelled +by its form, and Byron, that great passionate human incomplete +creature, could appreciate neither the poet of the cloud nor the +poet of the lake, and the wonder of Keats was hidden from +him. The realism of Euripides was hateful to +Sophokles. Those droppings of warm tears had no music for +him. Milton, with his sense of the grand style, could not +understand the method of Shakespeare, any more than could Sir +Joshua the method of Gainsborough. Bad artists always +admire each other’s work. They call it being +large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great +artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, +under any conditions other than those that he has selected. +Creation employs all its critical faculty within its own +sphere. It may not use it in the sphere that belongs to +others. It is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that +he is the proper judge of it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Do you really mean +that?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes, for creation +limits, while contemplation widens, the vision.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. But what about +technique? Surely each art has its separate technique?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Certainly: each art +has its grammar and its materials. There is no mystery +about either, and the incompetent can always be correct. +But, while the laws upon which Art rests may be fixed and +certain, to find their true realisation they must be touched by +the imagination into such beauty that they will seem an +exception, each one of them. Technique is really +personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach +it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the æsthetic +critic can understand it. To the great poet, there is only +one method of music—his own. To the great painter, +there is only one manner of painting—that which he himself +employs. The æsthetic critic, and the æsthetic +critic alone, can appreciate all forms and modes. It is to +him that Art makes her appeal.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Well, I think I have +put all my questions to you. And now I must +admit—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Ah! don’t say +that you agree with me. When people agree with me I always +feel that I must be wrong.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. In that case I +certainly won’t tell you whether I agree with you or +not. But I will put another question. You have +explained to me that criticism is a creative art. What +future has it?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. It is to criticism +that the future belongs. The subject-matter at the disposal +of creation becomes every day more limited in extent and +variety. Providence and Mr. Walter Besant have exhausted +the obvious. If creation is to last at all, it can only do +so on the condition of becoming far more critical than it is at +present. The old roads and dusty highways have been +traversed too often. Their charm has been worn away by +plodding feet, and they have lost that element of novelty or +surprise which is so essential for romance. He who would +stir us now by fiction must either give us an entirely new +background, or reveal to us the soul of man in its innermost +workings. The first is for the moment being done for us by +Mr. Rudyard Kipling. As one turns over the pages of his +<i>Plain Tales from the Hills</i>, one feels as if one were +seated under a palm-tree reading life by superb flashes of +vulgarity. The bright colours of the bazaars dazzle +one’s eyes. The jaded, second-rate Anglo-Indians are +in exquisite incongruity with their surroundings. The mere +lack of style in the story-teller gives an odd journalistic +realism to what he tells us. From the point of view of +literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. +From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows +vulgarity better than any one has ever known it. Dickens +knew its clothes and its comedy. Mr. Kipling knows its +essence and its seriousness. He is our first authority on +the second-rate, and has seen marvellous things through keyholes, +and his backgrounds are real works of art. As for the +second condition, we have had Browning, and Meredith is with +us. But there is still much to be done in the sphere of +introspection. People sometimes say that fiction is getting +too morbid. As far as psychology is concerned, it has never +been morbid enough. We have merely touched the surface of +the soul, that is all. In one single ivory cell of the +brain there are stored away things more marvellous and more +terrible than even they have dreamed of, who, like the author of +<i>Le Rouge et le Noir</i>, have sought to track the soul into +its most secret places, and to make life confess its dearest +sins. Still, there is a limit even to the number of untried +backgrounds, and it is possible that a further development of the +habit of introspection may prove fatal to that creative faculty +to which it seeks to supply fresh material. I myself am +inclined to think that creation is doomed. It springs from +too primitive, too natural an impulse. However this may be, +it is certain that the subject-matter at the disposal of creation +is always diminishing, while the subject-matter of criticism +increases daily. There are always new attitudes for the +mind, and new points of view. The duty of imposing form +upon chaos does not grow less as the world advances. There +was never a time when Criticism was more needed than it is +now. It is only by its means that Humanity can become +conscious of the point at which it has arrived.</p> +<p>Hours ago, Ernest, you asked me the use of Criticism. +You might just as well have asked me the use of thought. It +is Criticism, as Arnold points out, that creates the intellectual +atmosphere of the age. It is Criticism, as I hope to point +out myself some day, that makes the mind a fine instrument. +We, in our educational system, have burdened the memory with a +load of unconnected facts, and laboriously striven to impart our +laboriously-acquired knowledge. We teach people how to +remember, we never teach them how to grow. It has never +occurred to us to try and develop in the mind a more subtle +quality of apprehension and discernment. The Greeks did +this, and when we come in contact with the Greek critical +intellect, we cannot but be conscious that, while our +subject-matter is in every respect larger and more varied than +theirs, theirs is the only method by which this subject-matter +can be interpreted. England has done one thing; it has +invented and established Public Opinion, which is an attempt to +organise the ignorance of the community, and to elevate it to the +dignity of physical force. But Wisdom has always been +hidden from it. Considered as an instrument of thought, the +English mind is coarse and undeveloped. The only thing that +can purify it is the growth of the critical instinct.</p> +<p>It is Criticism, again, that, by concentration, makes culture +possible. It takes the cumbersome mass of creative work, +and distils it into a finer essence. Who that desires to +retain any sense of form could struggle through the monstrous +multitudinous books that the world has produced, books in which +thought stammers or ignorance brawls? The thread that is to +guide us across the wearisome labyrinth is in the hands of +Criticism. Nay more, where there is no record, and history +is either lost, or was never written, Criticism can re-create the +past for us from the very smallest fragment of language or art, +just as surely as the man of science can from some tiny bone, or +the mere impress of a foot upon a rock, re-create for us the +winged dragon or Titan lizard that once made the earth shake +beneath its tread, can call Behemoth out of his cave, and make +Leviathan swim once more across the startled sea. +Prehistoric history belongs to the philological and +archæological critic. It is to him that the origins +of things are revealed. The self-conscious deposits of an +age are nearly always misleading. Through philological +criticism alone we know more of the centuries of which no actual +record has been preserved, than we do of the centuries that have +left us their scrolls. It can do for us what can be done +neither by physics nor metaphysics. It can give us the +exact science of mind in the process of becoming. It can do +for us what History cannot do. It can tell us what man +thought before he learned how to write. You have asked me +about the influence of Criticism. I think I have answered +that question already; but there is this also to be said. +It is Criticism that makes us cosmopolitan. The Manchester +school tried to make men realise the brotherhood of humanity, by +pointing out the commercial advantages of peace. It sought +to degrade the wonderful world into a common market-place for the +buyer and the seller. It addressed itself to the lowest +instincts, and it failed. War followed upon war, and the +tradesman’s creed did not prevent France and Germany from +clashing together in blood-stained battle. There are others +of our own day who seek to appeal to mere emotional sympathies, +or to the shallow dogmas of some vague system of abstract +ethics. They have their Peace Societies, so dear to the +sentimentalists, and their proposals for unarmed International +Arbitration, so popular among those who have never read +history. But mere emotional sympathy will not do. It +is too variable, and too closely connected with the passions; and +a board of arbitrators who, for the general welfare of the race, +are to be deprived of the power of putting their decisions into +execution, will not be of much avail. There is only one +thing worse than Injustice, and that is Justice without her sword +in her hand. When Right is not Might, it is Evil.</p> +<p>No: the emotions will not make us cosmopolitan, any more than +the greed for gain could do so. It is only by the +cultivation of the habit of intellectual criticism that we shall +be able to rise superior to race-prejudices. +Goethe—you will not misunderstand what I say—was a +German of the Germans. He loved his country—no man +more so. Its people were dear to him; and he led +them. Yet, when the iron hoof of Napoleon trampled upon +vineyard and cornfield, his lips were silent. ‘How +can one write songs of hatred without hating?’ he said to +Eckermann, ‘and how could I, to whom culture and barbarism +are alone of importance, hate a nation which is among the most +cultivated of the earth and to which I owe so great a part of my +own cultivation?’ This note, sounded in the modern +world by Goethe first, will become, I think, the starting point +for the cosmopolitanism of the future. Criticism will +annihilate race-prejudices, by insisting upon the unity of the +human mind in the variety of its forms. If we are tempted +to make war upon another nation, we shall remember that we are +seeking to destroy an element of our own culture, and possibly +its most important element. As long as war is regarded as +wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is +looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. The +change will of course be slow, and people will not be conscious +of it. They will not say ‘We will not war against +France because her prose is perfect,’ but because the prose +of France is perfect, they will not hate the land. +Intellectual criticism will bind Europe together in bonds far +closer than those that can be forged by shopman or +sentimentalist. It will give us the peace that springs from +understanding.</p> +<p>Nor is this all. It is Criticism that, recognising no +position as final, and refusing to bind itself by the shallow +shibboleths of any sect or school, creates that serene +philosophic temper which loves truth for its own sake, and loves +it not the less because it knows it to be unattainable. How +little we have of this temper in England, and how much we need +it! The English mind is always in a rage. The +intellect of the race is wasted in the sordid and stupid quarrels +of second-rate politicians or third-rate theologians. It +was reserved for a man of science to show us the supreme example +of that ‘sweet reasonableness’ of which Arnold spoke +so wisely, and, alas! to so little effect. The author of +the <i>Origin of Species</i> had, at any rate, the philosophic +temper. If one contemplates the ordinary pulpits and +platforms of England, one can but feel the contempt of Julian, or +the indifference of Montaigne. We are dominated by the +fanatic, whose worst vice is his sincerity. Anything +approaching to the free play of the mind is practically unknown +amongst us. People cry out against the sinner, yet it is +not the sinful, but the stupid, who are our shame. There is +no sin except stupidity.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. Ah! what an +antinomian you are!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. The artistic critic, +like the mystic, is an antinomian always. To be good, +according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite +easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, +a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion +for middle-class respectability. Æsthetics are higher +than ethics. They belong to a more spiritual sphere. +To discern the beauty of a thing is the finest point to which we +can arrive. Even a colour-sense is more important, in the +development of the individual, than a sense of right and +wrong. Æsthetics, in fact, are to Ethics in the +sphere of conscious civilisation, what, in the sphere of the +external world, sexual is to natural selection. Ethics, +like natural selection, make existence possible. +Æsthetics, like sexual selection, make life lovely and +wonderful, fill it with new forms, and give it progress, and +variety and change. And when we reach the true culture that +is our aim, we attain to that perfection of which the saints have +dreamed, the perfection of those to whom sin is impossible, not +because they make the renunciations of the ascetic, but because +they can do everything they wish without hurt to the soul, and +can wish for nothing that can do the soul harm, the soul being an +entity so divine that it is able to transform into elements of a +richer experience, or a finer susceptibility, or a newer mode of +thought, acts or passions that with the common would be +commonplace, or with the uneducated ignoble, or with the shameful +vile. Is this dangerous? Yes; it is +dangerous—all ideas, as I told you, are so. But the +night wearies, and the light flickers in the lamp. One more +thing I cannot help saying to you. You have spoken against +Criticism as being a sterile thing. The nineteenth century +is a turning point in history, simply on account of the work of +two men, Darwin and Renan, the one the critic of the Book of +Nature, the other the critic of the books of God. Not to +recognise this is to miss the meaning of one of the most +important eras in the progress of the world. Creation is +always behind the age. It is Criticism that leads us. +The Critical Spirit and the World-Spirit are one.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. And he who is in +possession of this spirit, or whom this spirit possesses, will, I +suppose, do nothing?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Like the Persephone +of whom Landor tells us, the sweet pensive Persephone around +whose white feet the asphodel and amaranth are blooming, he will +sit contented ‘in that deep, motionless quiet which mortals +pity, and which the gods enjoy.’ He will look out +upon the world and know its secret. By contact with divine +things he will become divine. His will be the perfect life, +and his only.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. You have told me many +strange things to-night, Gilbert. You have told me that it +is more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it, and that +to do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world; +you have told me that all Art is immoral, and all thought +dangerous; that criticism is more creative than creation, and +that the highest criticism is that which reveals in the work of +Art what the artist had not put there; that it is exactly because +a man cannot do a thing that he is the proper judge of it; and +that the true critic is unfair, insincere, and not +rational. My friend, you are a dreamer.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. Yes: I am a +dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by +moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the +rest of the world.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>. His punishment?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Gilbert</span>. And his +reward. But, see, it is dawn already. Draw back the +curtains and open the windows wide. How cool the morning +air is! Piccadilly lies at our feet like a long riband of +silver. A faint purple mist hangs over the Park, and the +shadows of the white houses are purple. It is too late to +sleep. Let us go down to Covent Garden and look at the +roses. Come! I am tired of thought.</p> +<h2><a name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 221</span>THE +TRUTH OF MASKS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">A NOTE ON ILLUSION</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> many of the somewhat violent +attacks that have recently been made on that splendour of +mounting which now characterises our Shakespearian revivals in +England, it seems to have been tacitly assumed by the critics +that Shakespeare himself was more or less indifferent to the +costumes of his actors, and that, could he see Mrs. +Langtry’s production of <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>, he +would probably say that the play, and the play only, is the +thing, and that everything else is leather and prunella. +While, as regards any historical accuracy in dress, Lord Lytton, +in an article in the <i>Nineteenth Century</i>, has laid it down +as a dogma of art that archæology is entirely out of place +in the presentation of any of Shakespeare’s plays, and the +attempt to introduce it one of the stupidest pedantries of an age +of prigs.</p> +<p>Lord Lytton’s position I shall examine later on; but, as +regards the theory that Shakespeare did not busy himself much +about the costume-wardrobe of his theatre, anybody who cares to +study Shakespeare’s method will see that there is +absolutely no dramatist of the French, English, or Athenian stage +who relies so much for his illusionist effects on the dress of +his actors as Shakespeare does himself.</p> +<p>Knowing how the artistic temperament is always fascinated by +beauty of costume, he constantly introduces into his plays +masques and dances, purely for the sake of the pleasure which +they give the eye; and we have still his stage-directions for the +three great processions in <i>Henry the Eighth</i>, directions +which are characterised by the most extraordinary elaborateness +of detail down to the collars of S.S. and the pearls in Anne +Boleyn’s hair. Indeed it would be quite easy for a +modern manager to reproduce these pageants absolutely as +Shakespeare had them designed; and so accurate were they that one +of the court officials of the time, writing an account of the +last performance of the play at the Globe Theatre to a friend, +actually complains of their realistic character, notably of the +production on the stage of the Knights of the Garter in the robes +and insignia of the order as being calculated to bring ridicule +on the real ceremonies; much in the same spirit in which the +French Government, some time ago, prohibited that delightful +actor, M. Christian, from appearing in uniform, on the plea that +it was prejudicial to the glory of the army that a colonel should +be caricatured. And elsewhere the gorgeousness of apparel +which distinguished the English stage under Shakespeare’s +influence was attacked by the contemporary critics, not as a +rule, however, on the grounds of the democratic tendencies of +realism, but usually on those moral grounds which are always the +last refuge of people who have no sense of beauty.</p> +<p>The point, however, which I wish to emphasise is, not that +Shakespeare appreciated the value of lovely costumes in adding +picturesqueness to poetry, but that he saw how important costume +is as a means of producing certain dramatic effects. Many +of his plays, such as <i>Measure for Measure</i>, <i>Twelfth +Night</i>, <i>The Two Gentleman of Verona</i>, <i>All’s +Well that Ends Well</i>, <i>Cymbeline</i>, and others, depend for +their illusion on the character of the various dresses worn by +the hero or the heroine; the delightful scene in <i>Henry the +Sixth</i>, on the modern miracles of healing by faith, loses all +its point unless Gloster is in black and scarlet; and the +<i>dénoûment</i> of the <i>Merry Wives of +Windsor</i> hinges on the colour of Anne Page’s gown. +As for the uses Shakespeare makes of disguises the instances are +almost numberless. Posthumus hides his passion under a +peasant’s garb, and Edgar his pride beneath an +idiot’s rags; Portia wears the apparel of a lawyer, and +Rosalind is attired in ‘all points as a man’; the +cloak-bag of Pisanio changes Imogen to the Youth Fidele; Jessica +flees from her father’s house in boy’s dress, and +Julia ties up her yellow hair in fantastic love-knots, and dons +hose and doublet; Henry the Eighth woos his lady as a shepherd, +and Romeo his as a pilgrim; Prince Hal and Poins appear first as +footpads in buckram suits, and then in white aprons and leather +jerkins as the waiters in a tavern: and as for Falstaff, does he +not come on as a highwayman, as an old woman, as Herne the +Hunter, and as the clothes going to the laundry?</p> +<p>Nor are the examples of the employment of costume as a mode of +intensifying dramatic situation less numerous. After +slaughter of Duncan, Macbeth appears in his night-gown as if +aroused from sleep; Timon ends in rags the play he had begun in +splendour; Richard flatters the London citizens in a suit of mean +and shabby armour, and, as soon as he has stepped in blood to the +throne, marches through the streets in crown and George and +Garter; the climax of <i>The Tempest</i> is reached when +Prospero, throwing off his enchanter’s robes, sends Ariel +for his hat and rapier, and reveals himself as the great Italian +Duke; the very Ghost in <i>Hamlet</i> changes his mystical +apparel to produce different effects; and as for Juliet, a modern +playwright would probably have laid her out in her shroud, and +made the scene a scene of horror merely, but Shakespeare arrays +her in rich and gorgeous raiment, whose loveliness makes the +vault ‘a feasting presence full of light,’ turns the +tomb into a bridal chamber, and gives the cue and motive for +Romeo’s speech of the triumph of Beauty over Death.</p> +<p>Even small details of dress, such as the colour of a +major-domo’s stockings, the pattern on a wife’s +handkerchief, the sleeve of a young soldier, and a fashionable +woman’s bonnets, become in Shakespeare’s hands points +of actual dramatic importance, and by some of them the action of +the play in question is conditioned absolutely. Many other +dramatists have availed themselves of costume as a method of +expressing directly to the audience the character of a person on +his entrance, though hardly so brilliantly as Shakespeare has +done in the case of the dandy Parolles, whose dress, by the way, +only an archæologist can understand; the fun of a master +and servant exchanging coats in presence of the audience, of +shipwrecked sailors squabbling over the division of a lot of fine +clothes, and of a tinker dressed up like a duke while he is in +his cups, may be regarded as part of that great career which +costume has always played in comedy from the time of Aristophanes +down to Mr. Gilbert; but nobody from the mere details of apparel +and adornment has ever drawn such irony of contrast, such +immediate and tragic effect, such pity and such pathos, as +Shakespeare himself. Armed cap-à-pie, the dead King +stalks on the battlements of Elsinore because all is not right +with Denmark; Shylock’s Jewish gaberdine is part of the +stigma under which that wounded and embittered nature writhes; +Arthur begging for his life can think of no better plea than the +handkerchief he had given Hubert—</p> +<blockquote><p>Have you the heart? when your head did but +ache,<br /> +I knit my handkerchief about your brows,<br /> +(The best I had, a princess wrought it me)<br /> +And I did never ask it you again;</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and Orlando’s blood-stained napkin strikes the first +sombre note in that exquisite woodland idyll, and shows us the +depth of feeling that underlies Rosalind’s fanciful wit and +wilful jesting.</p> +<blockquote><p>Last night ’twas on my arm; I kissed it;<br +/> +I hope it be not gone to tell my lord<br /> +That I kiss aught but he,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>says Imogen, jesting on the loss of the bracelet which was +already on its way to Rome to rob her of her husband’s +faith; the little Prince passing to the Tower plays with the +dagger in his uncle’s girdle; Duncan sends a ring to Lady +Macbeth on the night of his own murder, and the ring of Portia +turns the tragedy of the merchant into a wife’s +comedy. The great rebel York dies with a paper crown on his +head; Hamlet’s black suit is a kind of colour-motive in the +piece, like the mourning of the Chimène in the <i>Cid</i>; +and the climax of Antony’s speech is the production of +Cæsar’s cloak:—</p> + +<blockquote><p> I +remember<br /> +The first time ever Cæsar put it on.<br /> +’Twas on a summer’s evening, in his tent,<br /> +The day he overcame the Nervii:—<br /> +Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through:<br /> +See what a rent the envious Casca made:<br /> +Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed. . . .<br /> +Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold<br /> +Our Cæsar’s vesture wounded?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The flowers which Ophelia carries with her in her madness are +as pathetic as the violets that blossom on a grave; the effect of +Lear’s wandering on the heath is intensified beyond words +by his fantastic attire; and when Cloten, stung by the taunt of +that simile which his sister draws from her husband’s +raiment, arrays himself in that husband’s very garb to work +upon her the deed of shame, we feel that there is nothing in the +whole of modern French realism, nothing even in +<i>Thérèse Raquin</i>, that masterpiece of horror, +which for terrible and tragic significance can compare with this +strange scene in <i>Cymbeline</i>.</p> +<p>In the actual dialogue also some of the most vivid passages +are those suggested by costume. Rosalind’s</p> +<blockquote><p>Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a +man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Constance’s</p> +<blockquote><p>Grief fills the place of my absent child,<br /> +Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and the quick sharp cry of Elizabeth—</p> +<blockquote><p>Ah! cut my lace asunder!—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>are only a few of the many examples one might quote. One +of the finest effects I have ever seen on the stage was Salvini, +in the last act of <i>Lear</i>, tearing the plume from +Kent’s cap and applying it to Cordelia’s lips when he +came to the line,</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">This feather stirs; she +lives!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mr. Booth, whose Lear had many noble qualities of passion, +plucked, I remember, some fur from his +archæologically-incorrect ermine for the same business; but +Salvini’s was the finer effect of the two, as well as the +truer. And those who saw Mr. Irving in the last act of +<i>Richard the Third</i> have not, I am sure, forgotten how much +the agony and terror of his dream was intensified, by contrast, +through the calm and quiet that preceded it, and the delivery of +such lines as</p> +<blockquote><p>What, is my beaver easier than it was?<br /> +And all my armour laid into my tent?<br /> +Look that my staves be sound and not too heavy—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>lines which had a double meaning for the audience, remembering +the last words which Richard’s mother called after him as +he was marching to Bosworth:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Therefore take with thee my most grievous +curse,<br /> +Which in the day of battle tire thee more<br /> +Than all the complete armour that thou wear’st.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>As regards the resources which Shakespeare had at his +disposal, it is to be remarked that, while he more than once +complains of the smallness of the stage on which he has to +produce big historical plays, and of the want of scenery which +obliges him to cut out many effective open-air incidents, he +always writes as a dramatist who had at his disposal a most +elaborate theatrical wardrobe, and who could rely on the actors +taking pains about their make-up. Even now it is difficult +to produce such a play as the <i>Comedy of Errors</i>; and to the +picturesque accident of Miss Ellen Terry’s brother +resembling herself we owe the opportunity of seeing <i>Twelfth +Night</i> adequately performed. Indeed, to put any play of +Shakespeare’s on the stage, absolutely as he himself wished +it to be done, requires the services of a good property-man, a +clever wig-maker, a costumier with a sense of colour and a +knowledge of textures, a master of the methods of making-up, a +fencing-master, a dancing-master, and an artist to direct +personally the whole production. For he is most careful to +tell us the dress and appearance of each character. +‘Racine abhorre la réalité,’ says +Auguste Vacquerie somewhere; ‘il ne daigne pas +s’occuper de son costume. Si l’on s’en +rapportait aux indications du poète, Agamemnon serait +vêtu d’un sceptre et Achille d’une +épée.’ But with Shakespeare it is very +different. He gives us directions about the costumes of +Perdita, Florizel, Autolycus, the Witches in <i>Macbeth</i>, and +the apothecary in <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, several elaborate +descriptions of his fat knight, and a detailed account of the +extraordinary garb in which Petruchio is to be married. +Rosalind, he tells us, is tall, and is to carry a spear and a +little dagger; Celia is smaller, and is to paint her face brown +so as to look sunburnt. The children who play at fairies in +Windsor Forest are to be dressed in white and green—a +compliment, by the way, to Queen Elizabeth, whose favourite +colours they were—and in white, with green garlands and +gilded vizors, the angels are to come to Katherine in +Kimbolton. Bottom is in homespun, Lysander is distinguished +from Oberon by his wearing an Athenian dress, and Launce has +holes in his boots. The Duchess of Gloucester stands in a +white sheet with her husband in mourning beside her. The +motley of the Fool, the scarlet of the Cardinal, and the French +lilies broidered on the English coats, are all made occasion for +jest or taunt in the dialogue. We know the patterns on the +Dauphin’s armour and the Pucelle’s sword, the crest +on Warwick’s helmet and the colour of Bardolph’s +nose. Portia has golden hair, Phoebe is black-haired, +Orlando has chestnut curls, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek’s hair +hangs like flax on a distaff, and won’t curl at all. +Some of the characters are stout, some lean, some straight, some +hunchbacked, some fair, some dark, and some are to blacken their +faces. Lear has a white beard, Hamlet’s father a +grizzled, and Benedick is to shave his in the course of the +play. Indeed, on the subject of stage beards Shakespeare is +quite elaborate; tells us of the many different colours in use, +and gives a hint to actors always to see that their own are +properly tied on. There is a dance of reapers in rye-straw +hats, and of rustics in hairy coats like satyrs; a masque of +Amazons, a masque of Russians, and a classical masque; several +immortal scenes over a weaver in an ass’s head, a riot over +the colour of a coat which it takes the Lord Mayor of London to +quell, and a scene between an infuriated husband and his +wife’s milliner about the slashing of a sleeve.</p> +<p>As for the metaphors Shakespeare draws from dress, and the +aphorisms he makes on it, his hits at the costume of his age, +particularly at the ridiculous size of the ladies’ bonnets, +and the many descriptions of the <i>mundus muliebris</i>, from +the long of Autolycus in the <i>Winter’s Tale</i> down to +the account of the Duchess of Milan’s gown in <i>Much Ado +About Nothing</i>, they are far too numerous to quote; though it +may be worth while to remind people that the whole of the +Philosophy of Clothes is to be found in Lear’s scene with +Edgar—a passage which has the advantage of brevity and +style over the grotesque wisdom and somewhat mouthing metaphysics +of <i>Sartor Resartus</i>. But I think that from what I +have already said it is quite clear that Shakespeare was very +much interested in costume. I do not mean in that shallow +sense by which it has been concluded from his knowledge of deeds +and daffodils that he was the Blackstone and Paxton of the +Elizabethan age; but that he saw that costume could be made at +once impressive of a certain effect on the audience and +expressive of certain types of character, and is one of the +essential factors of the means which a true illusionist has at +his disposal. Indeed to him the deformed figure of Richard +was of as much value as Juliet’s loveliness; he sets the +serge of the radical beside the silks of the lord, and sees the +stage effects to be got from each: he has as much delight in +Caliban as he has in Ariel, in rags as he has in cloth of gold, +and recognises the artistic beauty of ugliness.</p> +<p>The difficulty Ducis felt about translating <i>Othello</i> in +consequence of the importance given to such a vulgar thing as a +handkerchief, and his attempt to soften its grossness by making +the Moor reiterate ‘Le bandeau! le bandeau!’ may be +taken as an example of the difference between <i>la +tragédie philosophique</i> and the drama of real life; and +the introduction for the first time of the word <i>mouchoir</i> +at the Théâtre Français was an era in that +romantic-realistic movement of which Hugo is the father and M. +Zola the <i>enfant terrible</i>, just as the classicism of the +earlier part of the century was emphasised by Talma’s +refusal to play Greek heroes any longer in a powdered +periwig—one of the many instances, by the way, of that +desire for archæological accuracy in dress which has +distinguished the great actors of our age.</p> +<p>In criticising the importance given to money in <i>La +Comédie Humaine</i>, Théophile Gautier says that +Balzac may claim to have invented a new hero in fiction, <i>le +héros métallique</i>. Of Shakespeare it may +be said he was the first to see the dramatic value of doublets, +and that a climax may depend on a crinoline.</p> +<p>The burning of the Globe Theatre—an event due, by the +way, to the results of the passion for illusion that +distinguished Shakespeare’s stage-management—has +unfortunately robbed us of many important documents; but in the +inventory, still in existence, of the costume-wardrobe of a +London theatre in Shakespeare’s time, there are mentioned +particular costumes for cardinals, shepherds, kings, clowns, +friars, and fools; green coats for Robin Hood’s men, and a +green gown for Maid Marian; a white and gold doublet for Henry +the Fifth, and a robe for Longshanks; besides surplices, copes, +damask gowns, gowns of cloth of gold and of cloth of silver, +taffeta gowns, calico gowns, velvet coats, satin coats, frieze +coats, jerkins of yellow leather and of black leather, red suits, +grey suits, French Pierrot suits, a robe ‘for to goo +invisibell,’ which seems inexpensive at £3, 10s., and +four incomparable fardingales—all of which show a desire to +give every character an appropriate dress. There are also +entries of Spanish, Moorish and Danish costumes, of helmets, +lances, painted shields, imperial crowns, and papal tiaras, as +well as of costumes for Turkish Janissaries, Roman Senators, and +all the gods and goddesses of Olympus, which evidence a good deal +of archæological research on the part of the manager of the +theatre. It is true that there is a mention of a bodice for +Eve, but probably the <i>donnée</i> of the play was after +the Fall.</p> +<p>Indeed, anybody who cares to examine the age of Shakespeare +will see that archæology was one of its special +characteristics. After that revival of the classical forms +of architecture which was one of the notes of the Renaissance, +and the printing at Venice and elsewhere of the masterpieces of +Greek and Latin literature, had come naturally an interest in the +ornamentation and costume of the antique world. Nor was it +for the learning that they could acquire, but rather for the +loveliness that they might create, that the artists studied these +things. The curious objects that were being constantly +brought to light by excavations were not left to moulder in a +museum, for the contemplation of a callous curator, and the +<i>ennui</i> of a policeman bored by the absence of crime. +They were used as motives for the production of a new art, which +was to be not beautiful merely, but also strange.</p> +<p>Infessura tells us that in 1485 some workmen digging on the +Appian Way came across an old Roman sarcophagus inscribed with +the name ‘Julia, daughter of Claudius.’ On +opening the coffer they found within its marble womb the body of +a beautiful girl of about fifteen years of age, preserved by the +embalmer’s skill from corruption and the decay of +time. Her eyes were half open, her hair rippled round her +in crisp curling gold, and from her lips and cheek the bloom of +maidenhood had not yet departed. Borne back to the Capitol, +she became at once the centre of a new cult, and from all parts +of the city crowded pilgrims to worship at the wonderful shrine, +till the Pope, fearing lest those who had found the secret of +beauty in a Pagan tomb might forget what secrets +Judæa’s rough and rock-hewn sepulchre contained, had +the body conveyed away by night, and in secret buried. +Legend though it may be, yet the story is none the less valuable +as showing us the attitude of the Renaissance towards the antique +world. Archæology to them was not a mere science for +the antiquarian; it was a means by which they could touch the dry +dust of antiquity into the very breath and beauty of life, and +fill with the new wine of romanticism forms that else had been +old and outworn. From the pulpit of Niccola Pisano down to +Mantegna’s ‘Triumph of Cæsar,’ and the +service Cellini designed for King Francis, the influence of this +spirit can be traced; nor was it confined merely to the immobile +arts—the arts of arrested movement—but its influence +was to be seen also in the great Græco-Roman masques which +were the constant amusement of the gay courts of the time, and in +the public pomps and processions with which the citizens of big +commercial towns were wont to greet the princes that chanced to +visit them; pageants, by the way, which were considered so +important that large prints were made of them and +published—a fact which is a proof of the general interest +at the time in matters of such kind.</p> +<p>And this use of archæology in shows, so far from being a +bit of priggish pedantry, is in every way legitimate and +beautiful. For the stage is not merely the meeting-place of +all the arts, but is also the return of art to life. +Sometimes in an archæological novel the use of strange and +obsolete terms seems to hide the reality beneath the learning, +and I dare say that many of the readers of <i>Notre Dame de +Paris</i> have been much puzzled over the meaning of such +expressions as <i>la casaque à mahoitres</i>, <i>les +voulgiers</i>, <i>le gallimard taché d’encre</i>, +<i>les craaquiniers</i>, and the like; but with the stage how +different it is! The ancient world wakes from its sleep, +and history moves as a pageant before our eyes, without obliging +us to have recourse to a dictionary or an encyclopædia for +the perfection of our enjoyment. Indeed, there is not the +slightest necessity that the public should know the authorities +for the mounting of any piece. From such materials, for +instance, as the disk of Theodosius, materials with which the +majority of people are probably not very familiar, Mr. E. W. +Godwin, one of the most artistic spirits of this century in +England, created the marvellous loveliness of the first act of +<i>Claudian</i>, and showed us the life of Byzantium in the +fourth century, not by a dreary lecture and a set of grimy casts, +not by a novel which requires a glossary to explain it, but by +the visible presentation before us of all the glory of that great +town. And while the costumes were true to the smallest +points of colour and design, yet the details were not assigned +that abnormal importance which they must necessarily be given in +a piecemeal lecture, but were subordinated to the rules of lofty +composition and the unity of artistic effect. Mr. Symonds, +speaking of that great picture of Mantegna’s, now in +Hampton Court, says that the artist has converted an antiquarian +motive into a theme for melodies of line. The same could +have been said with equal justice of Mr. Godwin’s +scene. Only the foolish called it pedantry, only those who +would neither look nor listen spoke of the passion of the play +being killed by its paint. It was in reality a scene not +merely perfect in its picturesqueness, but absolutely dramatic +also, getting rid of any necessity for tedious descriptions, and +showing us, by the colour and character of Claudian’s +dress, and the dress of his attendants, the whole nature and life +of the man, from what school of philosophy he affected, down to +what horses he backed on the turf.</p> +<p>And indeed archæology is only really delightful when +transfused into some form of art. I have no desire to +underrate the services of laborious scholars, but I feel that the +use Keats made of Lemprière’s Dictionary is of far +more value to us than Professor Max Müller’s treatment +of the same mythology as a disease of language. Better +<i>Endymion</i> than any theory, however sound, or, as in the +present instance, unsound, of an epidemic among adjectives! +And who does not feel that the chief glory of Piranesi’s +book on Vases is that it gave Keats the suggestion for his +‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’? Art, and art only, can +make archæology beautiful; and the theatric art can use it +most directly and most vividly, for it can combine in one +exquisite presentation the illusion of actual life with the +wonder of the unreal world. But the sixteenth century was +not merely the age of Vitruvius; it was the age of Vecellio +also. Every nation seems suddenly to have become interested +in the dress of its neighbours. Europe began to investigate +its own clothes, and the amount of books published on national +costumes is quite extraordinary. At the beginning of the +century the <i>Nuremberg Chronicle</i>, with its two thousand +illustrations, reached its fifth edition, and before the century +was over seventeen editions were published of Munster’s +<i>Cosmography</i>. Besides these two books there were also +the works of Michael Colyns, of Hans Weigel, of Amman, and of +Vecellio himself, all of them well illustrated, some of the +drawings in Vecellio being probably from the hand of Titian.</p> +<p>Nor was it merely from books and treatises that they acquired +their knowledge. The development of the habit of foreign +travel, the increased commercial intercourse between countries, +and the frequency of diplomatic missions, gave every nation many +opportunities of studying the various forms of contemporary +dress. After the departure from England, for instance, of +the ambassadors from the Czar, the Sultan and the Prince of +Morocco, Henry the Eighth and his friends gave several masques in +the strange attire of their visitors. Later on London saw, +perhaps too often, the sombre splendour of the Spanish Court, and +to Elizabeth came envoys from all lands, whose dress, Shakespeare +tells us, had an important influence on English costume.</p> +<p>And the interest was not confined merely to classical dress, +or the dress of foreign nations; there was also a good deal of +research, amongst theatrical people especially, into the ancient +costume of England itself: and when Shakespeare, in the prologue +to one of his plays, expresses his regret at being unable to +produce helmets of the period, he is speaking as an Elizabethan +manager and not merely as an Elizabethan poet. At +Cambridge, for instance, during his day, a play of <i>Richard The +Third</i> was performed, in which the actors were attired in real +dresses of the time, procured from the great collection of +historical costume in the Tower, which was always open to the +inspection of managers, and sometimes placed at their +disposal. And I cannot help thinking that this performance +must have been far more artistic, as regards costume, than +Garrick’s mounting of Shakespeare’s own play on the +subject, in which he himself appeared in a nondescript fancy +dress, and everybody else in the costume of the time of George +the Third, Richmond especially being much admired in the uniform +of a young guardsman.</p> +<p>For what is the use to the stage of that archæology +which has so strangely terrified the critics, but that it, and it +alone, can give us the architecture and apparel suitable to the +time in which the action of the play passes? It enables us +to see a Greek dressed like a Greek, and an Italian like an +Italian; to enjoy the arcades of Venice and the balconies of +Verona; and, if the play deals with any of the great eras in our +country’s history, to contemplate the age in its proper +attire, and the king in his habit as he lived. And I +wonder, by the way, what Lord Lytton would have said some time +ago, at the Princess’s Theatre, had the curtain risen on +his father’s Brutus reclining in a Queen Anne chair, +attired in a flowing wig and a flowered dressing-gown, a costume +which in the last century was considered peculiarly appropriate +to an antique Roman! For in those halcyon days of the drama +no archæology troubled the stage, or distressed the +critics, and our inartistic grandfathers sat peaceably in a +stifling atmosphere of anachronisms, and beheld with the calm +complacency of the age of prose an Iachimo in powder and patches, +a Lear in lace ruffles, and a Lady Macbeth in a large +crinoline. I can understand archæology being attacked +on the ground of its excessive realism, but to attack it as +pedantic seems to be very much beside the mark. However, to +attack it for any reason is foolish; one might just as well speak +disrespectfully of the equator. For archæology, being +a science, is neither good nor bad, but a fact simply. Its +value depends entirely on how it is used, and only an artist can +use it. We look to the archæologist for the +materials, to the artist for the method.</p> +<p>In designing the scenery and costumes for any of +Shakespeare’s plays, the first thing the artist has to +settle is the best date for the drama. This should be +determined by the general spirit of the play, more than by any +actual historical references which may occur in it. Most +<i>Hamlets</i> I have seen were placed far too early. +<i>Hamlet</i> is essentially a scholar of the Revival of +Learning; and if the allusion to the recent invasion of England +by the Danes puts it back to the ninth century, the use of foils +brings it down much later. Once, however, that the date has +been fixed, then the archæologist is to supply us with the +facts which the artist is to convert into effects.</p> +<p>It has been said that the anachronisms in the plays themselves +show us that Shakespeare was indifferent to historical accuracy, +and a great deal of capital has been made out of Hector’s +indiscreet quotation from Aristotle. Upon the other hand, +the anachronisms are really few in number, and not very +important, and, had Shakespeare’s attention been drawn to +them by a brother artist, he would probably have corrected +them. For, though they can hardly be called blemishes, they +are certainly not the great beauties of his work; or, at least, +if they are, their anachronistic charm cannot be emphasised +unless the play is accurately mounted according to its proper +date. In looking at Shakespeare’s plays as a whole, +however, what is really remarkable is their extraordinary +fidelity as regards his personages and his plots. Many of +his <i>dramatis personæ</i> are people who had actually +existed, and some of them might have been seen in real life by a +portion of his audience. Indeed the most violent attack +that was made on Shakespeare in his time was for his supposed +caricature of Lord Cobham. As for his plots, Shakespeare +constantly draws them either from authentic history, or from the +old ballads and traditions which served as history to the +Elizabethan public, and which even now no scientific historian +would dismiss as absolutely untrue. And not merely did he +select fact instead of fancy as the basis of much of his +imaginative work, but he always gives to each play the general +character, the social atmosphere in a word, of the age in +question. Stupidity he recognises as being one of the +permanent characteristics of all European civilisations; so he +sees no difference between a London mob of his own day and a +Roman mob of pagan days, between a silly watchman in Messina and +a silly Justice of the Peace in Windsor. But when he deals +with higher characters, with those exceptions of each age which +are so fine that they become its types, he gives them absolutely +the stamp and seal of their time. Virgilia is one of those +Roman wives on whose tomb was written ‘Domi mansit, lanam +fecit,’ as surely as Juliet is the romantic girl of the +Renaissance. He is even true to the characteristics of +race. Hamlet has all the imagination and irresolution of +the Northern nations, and the Princess Katharine is as entirely +French as the heroine of <i>Divorçons</i>. Harry the +Fifth is a pure Englishman, and Othello a true Moor.</p> +<p>Again when Shakespeare treats of the history of England from +the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, it is wonderful how +careful he is to have his facts perfectly right—indeed he +follows Holinshed with curious fidelity. The incessant wars +between France and England are described with extraordinary +accuracy down to the names of the besieged towns, the ports of +landing and embarkation, the sites and dates of the battles, the +titles of the commanders on each side, and the lists of the +killed and wounded. And as regards the Civil Wars of the +Roses we have many elaborate genealogies of the seven sons of +Edward the Third; the claims of the rival Houses of York and +Lancaster to the throne are discussed at length; and if the +English aristocracy will not read Shakespeare as a poet, they +should certainly read him as a sort of early Peerage. There +is hardly a single title in the Upper House, with the exception +of course of the uninteresting titles assumed by the law lords, +which does not appear in Shakespeare along with many details of +family history, creditable and discreditable. Indeed if it +be really necessary that the School Board children should know +all about the Wars of the Roses, they could learn their lessons +just as well out of Shakespeare as out of shilling primers, and +learn them, I need not say, far more pleasurably. Even in +Shakespeare’s own day this use of his plays was +recognised. ‘The historical plays teach history to +those who cannot read it in the chronicles,’ says Heywood +in a tract about the stage, and yet I am sure that +sixteenth-century chronicles were much more delightful reading +than nineteenth-century primers are.</p> +<p>Of course the æsthetic value of Shakespeare’s +plays does not, in the slightest degree, depend on their facts, +but on their Truth, and Truth is independent of facts always, +inventing or selecting them at pleasure. But still +Shakespeare’s use of facts is a most interesting part of +his method of work, and shows us his attitude towards the stage, +and his relations to the great art of illusion. Indeed he +would have been very much surprised at any one classing his plays +with ‘fairy tales,’ as Lord Lytton does; for one of +his aims was to create for England a national historical drama, +which should deal with incidents with which the public was well +acquainted, and with heroes that lived in the memory of a +people. Patriotism, I need hardly say, is not a necessary +quality of art; but it means, for the artist, the substitution of +a universal for an individual feeling, and for the public the +presentation of a work of art in a most attractive and popular +form. It is worth noticing that Shakespeare’s first +and last successes were both historical plays.</p> +<p>It may be asked, what has this to do with Shakespeare’s +attitude towards costume? I answer that a dramatist who +laid such stress on historical accuracy of fact would have +welcomed historical accuracy of costume as a most important +adjunct to his illusionist method. And I have no hesitation +in saying that he did so. The reference to helmets of the +period in the prologue to <i>Henry the Fifth</i> may be +considered fanciful, though Shakespeare must have often seen</p> + +<blockquote><p> The +very casque<br /> +That did affright the air at Agincourt,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>where it still hangs in the dusky gloom of Westminster Abbey, +along with the saddle of that ‘imp of fame,’ and the +dinted shield with its torn blue velvet lining and its tarnished +lilies of gold; but the use of military tabards in <i>Henry the +Sixth</i> is a bit of pure archæology, as they were not +worn in the sixteenth century; and the King’s own tabard, I +may mention, was still suspended over his tomb in St. +George’s Chapel, Windsor, in Shakespeare’s day. +For, up to the time of the unfortunate triumph of the Philistines +in 1645, the chapels and cathedrals of England were the great +national museums of archæology, and in them were kept the +armour and attire of the heroes of English history. A good +deal was of course preserved in the Tower, and even in +Elizabeth’s day tourists were brought there to see such +curious relics of the past as Charles Brandon’s huge lance, +which is still, I believe, the admiration of our country +visitors; but the cathedrals and churches were, as a rule, +selected as the most suitable shrines for the reception of the +historic antiquities. Canterbury can still show us the helm +of the Black Prince, Westminster the robes of our kings, and in +old St. Paul’s the very banner that had waved on Bosworth +field was hung up by Richmond himself.</p> +<p>In fact, everywhere that Shakespeare turned in London, he saw +the apparel and appurtenances of past ages, and it is impossible +to doubt that he made use of his opportunities. The +employment of lance and shield, for instance, in actual warfare, +which is so frequent in his plays, is drawn from +archæology, and not from the military accoutrements of his +day; and his general use of armour in battle was not a +characteristic of his age, a time when it was rapidly +disappearing before firearms. Again, the crest on +Warwick’s helmet, of which such a point is made in <i>Henry +the Sixth</i>, is absolutely correct in a fifteenth-century play +when crests were generally worn, but would not have been so in a +play of Shakespeare’s own time, when feathers and plumes +had taken their place—a fashion which, as he tells us in +<i>Henry the Eighth</i>, was borrowed from France. For the +historical plays, then, we may be sure that archæology was +employed, and as for the others I feel certain that it was the +case also. The appearance of Jupiter on his eagle, +thunderbolt in hand, of Juno with her peacocks, and of Iris with +her many-coloured bow; the Amazon masque and the masque of the +Five Worthies, may all be regarded as archæological; and +the vision which Posthumus sees in prison of Sicilius +Leonatus—‘an old man, attired like a warrior, leading +an ancient matron’—is clearly so. Of the +‘Athenian dress’ by which Lysander is distinguished +from Oberon I have already spoken; but one of the most marked +instances is in the case of the dress of Coriolanus, for which +Shakespeare goes directly to Plutarch. That historian, in +his Life of the great Roman, tells us of the oak-wreath with +which Caius Marcius was crowned, and of the curious kind of dress +in which, according to ancient fashion, he had to canvass his +electors; and on both of these points he enters into long +disquisitions, investigating the origin and meaning of the old +customs. Shakespeare, in the spirit of the true artist, +accepts the facts of the antiquarian and converts them into +dramatic and picturesque effects: indeed the gown of humility, +the ‘woolvish gown,’ as Shakespeare calls it, is the +central note of the play. There are other cases I might +quote, but this one is quite sufficient for my purpose; and it is +evident from it at any rate that, in mounting a play in the +accurate costume of the time, according to the best authorities, +we are carrying out Shakespeare’s own wishes and +method.</p> +<p>Even if it were not so, there is no more reason that we should +continue any imperfections which may be supposed to have +characterised Shakespeare’s stage mounting than that we +should have Juliet played by a young man, or give up the +advantage of changeable scenery. A great work of dramatic +art should not merely be made expressive of modern passion by +means of the actor, but should be presented to us in the form +most suitable to the modern spirit. Racine produced his +Roman plays in Louis Quatorze dress on a stage crowded with +spectators; but we require different conditions for the enjoyment +of his art. Perfect accuracy of detail, for the sake of +perfect illusion, is necessary for us. What we have to see +is that the details are not allowed to usurp the principal +place. They must be subordinate always to the general +motive of the play. But subordination in art does not mean +disregard of truth; it means conversion of fact into effect, and +assigning to each detail its proper relative value</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Les petits détails d’histoire +et de vie domestique (says Hugo) doivent être +scrupuleusement étudiés et reproduits par le +poète, mais uniquement comme des moyens +d’accroître la réalité de +l’ensemble, et de faire pénétrer jusque dans +les coins les plus obscurs de l’œuvre cette vie +générale et puissante au milieu de laquelle les +personnages sont plus vrais, et les catastrophes, par +conséqueut, plus poignantes. Tout doit être +subordonné à ce but. L’Homme sur le +premier plan, le reste au fond.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This passage is interesting as coming from the first great +French dramatist who employed archæology on the stage, and +whose plays, though absolutely correct in detail, are known to +all for their passion, not for their pedantry—for their +life, not for their learning. It is true that he has made +certain concessions in the case of the employment of curious or +strange expressions. Ruy Blas talks of M, de Priego as +‘sujet du roi’ instead of ‘noble du roi,’ +and Angelo Malipieri speaks of ‘la croix rouge’ +instead of ‘la croix de gueules.’ But they are +concessions made to the public, or rather to a section of +it. ‘J’en offre ici toute mes excuses aux +spectateurs intelligents,’ he says in a note to one of the +plays; ‘espérons qu’un jour un seigneur +vénitien pourra dire tout bonnement sans péril son +blason sur le théâtre. C’est un +progrès qui viendra.’ And, though the +description of the crest is not couched in accurate language, +still the crest itself was accurately right. It may, of +course, be said that the public do not notice these things; upon +the other hand, it should be remembered that Art has no other aim +but her own perfection, and proceeds simply by her own laws, and +that the play which Hamlet describes as being caviare to the +general is a play he highly praises. Besides, in England, +at any rate, the public have undergone a transformation; there is +far more appreciation of beauty now than there was a few years +ago; and though they may not be familiar with the authorities and +archæological data for what is shown to them, still they +enjoy whatever loveliness they look at. And this is the +important thing. Better to take pleasure in a rose than to +put its root under a microscope. Archæological +accuracy is merely a condition of illusionist stage effect; it is +not its quality. And Lord Lytton’s proposal that the +dresses should merely be beautiful without being accurate is +founded on a misapprehension of the nature of costume, and of its +value on the stage. This value is twofold, picturesque and +dramatic; the former depends on the colour of the dress, the +latter on its design and character. But so interwoven are +the two that, whenever in our own day historical accuracy has +been disregarded, and the various dresses in a play taken from +different ages, the result has been that the stage has been +turned into that chaos of costume, that caricature of the +centuries, the Fancy Dress Ball, to the entire ruin of all +dramatic and picturesque effect. For the dresses of one age +do not artistically harmonise with the dresses of another: and, +as far as dramatic value goes, to confuse the costumes is to +confuse the play. Costume is a growth, an evolution, and a +most important, perhaps the most important, sign of the manners, +customs and mode of life of each century. The Puritan +dislike of colour, adornment and grace in apparel was part of the +great revolt of the middle classes against Beauty in the +seventeenth century. A historian who disregarded it would +give us a most inaccurate picture of the time, and a dramatist +who did not avail himself of it would miss a most vital element +in producing an illusionist effect. The effeminacy of dress +that characterised the reign of Richard the Second was a constant +theme of contemporary authors. Shakespeare, writing two +hundred years after, makes the king’s fondness for gay +apparel and foreign fashions a point in the play, from John of +Gaunt’s reproaches down to Richard’s own speech in +the third act on his deposition from the throne. And that +Shakespeare examined Richard’s tomb in Westminster Abbey +seems to me certain from York’s speech:—</p> +<blockquote><p>See, see, King Richard doth himself appear<br /> +As doth the blushing discontented sun<br /> +From out the fiery portal of the east,<br /> +When he perceives the envious clouds are bent<br /> +To dim his glory.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>For we can still discern on the King’s robe his +favourite badge—the sun issuing from a cloud. In +fact, in every age the social conditions are so exemplified in +costume, that to produce a sixteenth-century play in +fourteenth-century attire, or <i>vice versa</i>, would make the +performance seem unreal because untrue. And, valuable as +beauty of effect on the stage is, the highest beauty is not +merely comparable with absolute accuracy of detail, but really +dependent on it. To invent, an entirely new costume is +almost impossible except in burlesque or extravaganza, and as for +combining the dress of different centuries into one, the +experiment would be dangerous, and Shakespeare’s opinion of +the artistic value of such a medley may be gathered from his +incessant satire of the Elizabethan dandies for imagining that +they were well dressed because they got their doublets in Italy, +their hats in Germany, and their hose in France. And it +should be noted that the most lovely scenes that have been +produced on our stage have been those that have been +characterised by perfect accuracy, such as Mr. and Mrs. +Bancroft’s eighteenth-century revivals at the Haymarket, +Mr. Irying’s superb production of <i>Much Ado About +Nothing</i>, and Mr. Barrett’s <i>Claudian</i>. +Besides, and this is perhaps the most complete answer to Lord +Lytton’s theory, it must be remembered that neither in +costume nor in dialogue is beauty the dramatist’s primary +aim at all. The true dramatist aims first at what is +characteristic, and no more desires that all his personages +should be beautifully attired than he desires that they should +all have beautiful natures or speak beautiful English. The +true dramatist, in fact, shows us life under the conditions of +art, not art in the form of life. The Greek dress was the +loveliest dress the world has ever seen, and the English dress of +the last century one of the most monstrous; yet we cannot costume +a play by Sheridan as we would costume a play by Sophokles. +For, as Polonius says in his excellent lecture, a lecture to +which I am glad to have the opportunity of expressing my +obligations, one of the first qualities of apparel is its +expressiveness. And the affected style of dress in the last +century was the natural characteristic of a society of affected +manners and affected conversation—a characteristic which +the realistic dramatist will highly value down to the smallest +detail of accuracy, and the materials for which he can get only +from archæology.</p> +<p>But it is not enough that a dress should be accurate; it must +be also appropriate to the stature and appearance of the actor, +and to his supposed condition, as well as to his necessary action +in the play. In Mr. Hare’s production of <i>As You +Like It</i> at the St. James’s Theatre, for instance, the +whole point of Orlando’s complaint that he is brought up +like a peasant, and not like a gentleman, was spoiled by the +gorgeousness of his dress, and the splendid apparel worn by the +banished Duke and his friends was quite out of place. Mr. +Lewis Wingfield’s explanation that the sumptuary laws of +the period necessitated their doing so, is, I am afraid, hardly +sufficient. Outlaws, lurking in a forest and living by the +chase, are not very likely to care much about ordinances of +dress. They were probably attired like Robin Hood’s +men, to whom, indeed, they are compared in the course of the +play. And that their dress was not that of wealthy noblemen +may be seen by Orlando’s words when he breaks in upon +them. He mistakes them for robbers, and is amazed to find +that they answer him in courteous and gentle terms. Lady +Archibald Campbell’s production, under Mr. E. W. +Godwin’s direction, of the same play in Coombe Wood was, as +regards mounting, far more artistic. At least it seemed so +to me. The Duke and his companions were dressed in serge +tunics, leathern jerkins, high boots and gauntlets, and wore +bycocket hats and hoods. And as they were playing in a real +forest, they found, I am sure, their dresses extremely +convenient. To every character in the play was given a +perfectly appropriate attire, and the brown and green of their +costumes harmonised exquisitely with the ferns through which they +wandered, the trees beneath which they lay, and the lovely +English landscape that surrounded the Pastoral Players. The +perfect naturalness of the scene was due to the absolute accuracy +and appropriateness of everything that was worn. Nor could +archæology have been put to a severer test, or come out of +it more triumphantly. The whole production showed once for +all that, unless a dress is archæologically correct, and +artistically appropriate, it always looks unreal, unnatural, and +theatrical in the sense of artificial.</p> +<p>Nor, again, is it enough that there should be accurate and +appropriate costumes of beautiful colours; there must be also +beauty of colour on the stage as a whole, and as long as the +background is painted by one artist, and the foreground figures +independently designed by another, there is the danger of a want +of harmony in the scene as a picture. For each scene the +colour-scheme should be settled as absolutely as for the +decoration of a room, and the textures which it is proposed to +use should be mixed and re-mixed in every possible combination, +and what is discordant removed. Then, as regards the +particular kinds of colours, the stage is often too glaring, +partly through the excessive use of hot, violent reds, and partly +through the costumes looking too new. Shabbiness, which in +modern life is merely the tendency of the lower orders towards +tone, is not without its artistic value, and modern colours are +often much improved by being a little faded. Blue also is +too frequently used: it is not merely a dangerous colour to wear +by gaslight, but it is really difficult in England to get a +thoroughly good blue. The fine Chinese blue, which we all +so much admire, takes two years to dye, and the English public +will not wait so long for a colour. Peacock blue, of +course, has been employed on the stage, notably at the Lyceum, +with great advantage; but all attempts at a good light blue, or +good dark blue, which I have seen have been failures. The +value of black is hardly appreciated; it was used effectively by +Mr. Irving in <i>Hamlet</i> as the central note of a composition, +but as a tone-giving neutral its importance is not +recognised. And this is curious, considering the general +colour of the dress of a century in which, as Baudelaire says, +‘Nous célébrons tous quelque +enterrement.’ The archæologist of the future +will probably point to this age as the time when the beauty of +black was understood; but I hardly think that, as regards +stage-mounting or house decoration, it really is. Its +decorative value is, of course, the same as that of white or +gold; it can separate and harmonise colours. In modern +plays the black frock-coat of the hero becomes important in +itself, and should be given a suitable background. But it +rarely is. Indeed the only good background for a play in +modern dress which I have ever seen was the dark grey and +cream-white scene of the first act of the <i>Princesse +Georges</i> in Mrs. Langtry’s production. As a rule, +the hero is smothered in <i>bric-à-brac</i> and +palm-trees, lost in the gilded abyss of Louis Quatorze furniture, +or reduced to a mere midge in the midst of marqueterie; whereas +the background should always be kept as a background, and colour +subordinated to effect. This, of course, can only be done +when there is one single mind directing the whole +production. The facts of art are diverse, but the essence +of artistic effect is unity. Monarchy, Anarchy, and +Republicanism may contend for the government of nations; but a +theatre should be in the power of a cultured despot. There +may be division of labour, but there must be no division of +mind. Whoever understands the costume of an age understands +of necessity its architecture and its surroundings also, and it +is easy to see from the chairs of a century whether it was a +century of crinolines or not. In fact, in art there is no +specialism, and a really artistic production should bear the +impress of one master, and one master only, who not merely should +design and arrange everything, but should have complete control +over the way in which each dress is to be worn.</p> +<p>Mademoiselle Mars, in the first production of <i>Hernani</i>, +absolutely refused to call her lover ‘<i>Mon +Lion</i>!’ unless she was allowed to wear a little +fashionable <i>toque</i> then much in vogue on the Boulevards; +and many young ladies on our own stage insist to the present day +on wearing stiff starched petticoats under Greek dresses, to the +entire ruin of all delicacy of line and fold; but these wicked +things should not be allowed. And there should be far more +dress rehearsals than there are now. Actors such as Mr. +Forbes-Robertson, Mr. Conway, Mr. George Alexander, and others, +not to mention older artists, can move with ease and elegance in +the attire of any century; but there are not a few who seem +dreadfully embarrassed about their hands if they have no side +pockets, and who always wear their dresses as if they were +costumes. Costumes, of course, they are to the designer; +but dresses they should be to those that wear them. And it +is time that a stop should be put to the idea, very prevalent on +the stage, that the Greeks and Romans always went about +bareheaded in the open air—a mistake the Elizabethan +managers did not fall into, for they gave hoods as well as gowns +to their Roman senators.</p> +<p>More dress rehearsals would also be of value in explaining to +the actors that there is a form of gesture and movement that is +not merely appropriate to each style of dress, but really +conditioned by it. The extravagant use of the arms in the +eighteenth century, for instance, was the necessary result of the +large hoop, and the solemn dignity of Burleigh owed as much to +his ruff as to his reason. Besides until an actor is at +home in his dress, he is not at home in his part.</p> +<p>Of the value of beautiful costume in creating an artistic +temperament in the audience, and producing that joy in beauty for +beauty’s sake without which the great masterpieces of art +can never be understood, I will not here speak; though it is +worth while to notice how Shakespeare appreciated that side of +the question in the production of his tragedies, acting them +always by artificial light, and in a theatre hung with black; but +what I have tried to point out is that archæology is not a +pedantic method, but a method of artistic illusion, and that +costume is a means of displaying character without description, +and of producing dramatic situations and dramatic effects. +And I think it is a pity that so many critics should have set +themselves to attack one of the most important movements on the +modern stage before that movement has at all reached its proper +perfection. That it will do so, however, I feel as certain +as that we shall require from our dramatic critics in the future +higher qualification than that they can remember Macready or have +seen Benjamin Webster; we shall require of them, indeed, that +they cultivate a sense of beauty. <i>Pour être plus +difficile</i>, <i>la tâche n’en est que plus +glorieuse</i>. And if they will not encourage, at least +they must not oppose, a movement of which Shakespeare of all +dramatists would have most approved, for it has the illusion of +truth for its method, and the illusion of beauty for its +result. Not that I agree with everything that I have said +in this essay. There is much with which I entirely +disagree. The essay simply represents an artistic +standpoint, and in æsthetic criticism attitude is +everything. For in art there is no such thing as a +universal truth. A Truth in art is that whose contradictory +is also true. And just as it is only in art-criticism, and +through it, that we can apprehend the Platonic theory of ideas, +so it is only in art-criticism, and through it, that we can +realise Hegel’s system of contraries. The truths of +metaphysics are the truths of masks.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTENTIONS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 887-h.htm or 887-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/8/8/887 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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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