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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/887-0.txt b/887-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2a22d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/887-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5698 @@ +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: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTENTIONS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1913 Methuen and Co edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + INTENTIONS + + + BY + OSCAR WILDE + + * * * * * + + METHUEN & CO. LTD. + 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. + LONDON + + * * * * * + + _First Published_, _at 1s. net_, _in 1913_ + + * * * * * + +_This Book was First Published_ _1891_ +_Second Edition_ _1894_ +_First Published_ (_Third Edition_) _by Methuen _1908_ +and Co._ +_Fourth Edition_ _1909_ +_Fifth Edition_ _1911_ + + * * * * * + + DEDICATED + TO + MRS. CAREW + BY + THE AUTHOR’S LITERARY EXECUTOR + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +THE DECAY OF LYING 1 +PEN, PENCIL, AND POISON 57 +THE CRITIC AS ARTIST 95 +THE TRUTH OF MASKS 221 + + + + +THE DECAY OF LYING: +AN OBSERVATION + + + _A DIALOGUE_. _Persons_: _Cyril and_ + _Vivian_. _Scene_: _the Library of a country_ + _house in Nottinghamshire_. + +CYRIL (_coming in through the open window from the terrace_). 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. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. Well, you need not look at the landscape. You can lie on the +grass and smoke and talk. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. Writing an article! That is not very consistent after what you +have just said. + +VIVIAN. 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 _reductio ad absurdum_ 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. + +CYRIL. What is the subject? + +VIVIAN. I intend to call it ‘The Decay of Lying: A Protest.’ + +CYRIL. Lying! I should have thought that our politicians kept up that +habit. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. Certainly, if you give me a cigarette. Thanks. By the way, what +magazine do you intend it for? + +VIVIAN. For the _Retrospective Review_. I think I told you that the +elect had revived it. + +CYRIL. Whom do you mean by ‘the elect’? + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. I should be black-balled on the ground of animal spirits, I +suppose? + +VIVIAN. Probably. Besides, you are a little too old. We don’t admit +anybody who is of the usual age. + +CYRIL. Well, I should fancy you are all a good deal bored with each +other. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. You will find me all attention. + +VIVIAN (_reading in a very clear_, _musical voice_). THE DECAY OF LYING: +A PROTEST.—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 _document humain_, his miserable little _coin de la +création_, 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. + +‘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—’ + +CYRIL. My dear fellow! + +VIVIAN. 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. + +‘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 _The Black Arrow_ 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 _Lancet_. 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. _Robert Elsmere_ 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. + +‘In France, though nothing so deliberately tedious as _Robert Elsmere_ +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 _Germinal_, 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 _L’Assommoir_, _Nana_ and _Pot-Bouille_? 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 _Jack_ with his “mots cruels,” now +that we have learned from _Vingt Ans de ma Vie littéraire_ 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 _roman +psychologique_, 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. + +CYRIL. 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 _The +Deemster_, and _The Daughter of Heth_, and _Le Disciple_, and _Mr. +Isaacs_, and as for _Robert Elsmere_, 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 _Literature and Dogma_ with the literature left out. +It is as much behind the age as Paley’s _Evidences_, 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? + +VIVIAN. 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 _L’Assommoir_ and Balzac’s +_Illusions Perdues_ 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 _Salammbô_ or +_Esmond_, or _The Cloister and the Hearth_, or the _Vicomte de +Bragelonne_. + +CYRIL. Do you object to modernity of form, then? + +VIVIAN. 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, _The Cloister and the Hearth_, a book as +much above _Romola_ as _Romola_ is above _Daniel Deronda_, 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. + +CYRIL. 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. + +VIVIAN. 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:— + +‘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.’ + +CYRIL. What do you mean by saying that Nature is always behind the age? + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. 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. + +VIVIAN (_reading_). ‘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. + +‘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. + +‘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— + + In der Beschränkung zeigt Fsich erst der Meister, + +“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. _The Tempest_ 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. + +‘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.’ + +And now let me read you a passage which seems to me to settle the +question very completely. + +‘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 _Natural History_; in Hanno’s _Periplus_; 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 _Prodigiorum et Ostentorum +Chronicon_; in the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini; in the memoirs of +Casanova; in Defoe’s _History of the Plague_; in Boswell’s _Life of +Johnson_; in Napoleon’s despatches, and in the works of our own Carlyle, +whose _French Revolution_ 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.’ + +CYRIL. My dear boy! + +VIVIAN. 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:— + +‘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. + +‘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. + +‘No doubt there will always be critics who, like a certain writer in the +_Saturday Review_, 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.’ + +CYRIL. Ahem! Another cigarette, please. + +VIVIAN. 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: + +‘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.’ + +CYRIL. I like that. I can see it. Is that the end? + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. 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? + +VIVIAN. 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. + +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 +_débris_ 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 _Comédie Humaine_. 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 _Vanity Fair_, 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 _The +Newcomer_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +CYRIL. 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? + +VIVIAN. My dear fellow, I am prepared to prove anything. + +CYRIL. Nature follows the landscape painter, then, and takes her effects +from him? + +VIVIAN. 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? + +CYRIL. 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. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +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. + +CYRIL. 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. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. But modern portraits by English painters, what of them? Surely +they are like the people they pretend to represent? + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. Well, after that I think I should like to hear the end of your +article. + +VIVIAN. 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:— + +‘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 _Republic_ 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, _La Chimère_, 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. + +‘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.’ + +CYRIL. 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. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +PEN, PENCIL AND POISON +A STUDY IN GREEN + + +IT 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. + +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 _Monthly Review_, 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 +_Gentleman’s Magazine_ 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. + +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:— + + ‘These high and gusty relishes of life + Have no allayings of mortality.’ + +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. + +Scott, the editor of the _London Magazine_, 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. _Janus +Weathercock_, _Egomet Bonmot_, and _Van Vinkvooms_, 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 _a petit-dîner_. 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. + +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. + +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 _Cupid +and Psyche_, and the _Hypnerotomachia_, 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. + +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. + +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 _Christi Crucifixi_, one carved in ivory, the other moulded in +wax.’ He has his trays of Tassie’s gems, his tiny Louis-Quatorze +_bonbonnière_ with a miniature by Petitot, his highly prized +‘brown-biscuit teapots, filagree-worked,’ his citron morocco letter-case, +and his ‘pomona-green’ chair. + +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 _altissimo relievo_ 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. + +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.’ + +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.’ + +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:— + + 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. + +And elsewhere he talks learnedly of ‘a delicate Schiavone, various as a +tulip-bed, with rich broken tints,’ of ‘a glowing portrait, remarkable +for _morbidezza_, by the scarce Moroni,’ and of another picture being +‘pulpy in the carnations.’ + +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 _Repas Italien_, 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— + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + +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’:— + + 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,’ + + Filling the far-seen ocean with a voice. + + 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. + + From between the closely-neighboured boles astonished nymphs press + forward with loud cries— + + And deerskin-vested satyrs, crowned with ivy twists, advance; + And put strange pity in their horned countenance. + + 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. + +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. + +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 _London Magazine_ 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:— + + 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. + + 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 + _fashion for men of genius_ 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 + ‘_That_ was nothing; the lyrics were the high things—the lyrics!’ + +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 _Janus Weathercock_ 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. + +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:— + + The short tender grass was covered with marguerites—‘such that men + called _daisies_ 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.’ + +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 _nux vomica_, 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. + +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. _Egomet Bonmot_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +On the 5th of July he was brought up at the Old Bailey. The following +report of the proceedings appeared in the _Times_:— + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + +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 _circonstance attenuante_. 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. + +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.’ + +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. + +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.’ + +From Newgate he was brought to the hulks at Portsmouth, and sent from +there in the _Susan_ 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. + +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 _Paradis Artificiels_ 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. + +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 _Life of Dickens_, 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. + +This strange and fascinating figure that for a few years dazzled literary +London, and made so brilliant a _début_ 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. + +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 _Hunted Down_, the Varney of Bulwer’s +_Lucretia_; 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. + + + + +THE CRITIC AS ARTIST +WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THE +IMPORTANCE OF DOING NOTHING + + + _A DIALOGUE_. _Part I._ _Persons_: _Gilbert_ + _and Ernest_. _Scene_: _the library of a house in_ + _Piccadilly_, _overlooking the Green Park_. + +GILBERT (_at the Piano_). My dear Ernest, what are you laughing at? + +ERNEST (_looking up_). At a capital story that I have just come across +in this volume of Reminiscences that I have found on your table. + +GILBERT. What is the book? Ah! I see. I have not read it yet. Is it +good? + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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 _Hamlet_ 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. My dear fellow! + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. May I ask, Gilbert, to whom you allude? + +GILBERT. Oh! to all our second-rate _littérateurs_. 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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT (_rising from the piano_). 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. And was it? + +ERNEST. 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. . . . + +GILBERT. And if his work is incomprehensible, an explanation is wicked. + +ERNEST. I did not say that. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. There is something in what you say, but there is not everything +in what you say. In many points you are unjust. + +GILBERT. 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? + +ERNEST. Simply this: that in the best days of art there were no +art-critics. + +GILBERT. I seem to have heard that observation before, Ernest. It has +all the vitality of error and all the tediousness of an old friend. + +ERNEST. 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 _agnus castus_, +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. + +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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. But what is the difference between literature and journalism? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Really? + +GILBERT. 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? + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. But what are the two supreme and highest arts? + +GILBERT. 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 _Comus_ with the measures of +_Samson Agonistes_, or of _Paradise Lost_ or _Regained_? 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. + +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. + +ERNEST. Ah! now you are flippant. + +GILBERT. 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 +_Treatise on Poetry_. 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. + +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. + +ERNEST. Try one of mine. They are rather good. I get them direct from +Cairo. The only use of our _attachés_ 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. I should have said that great artists work unconsciously, that +they were ‘wiser than they knew,’ as, I think, Emerson remarks somewhere. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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, + + And so not built at all, + And therefore built for ever. + +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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Really? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. You think, then, that in the sphere of action a conscious aim is +a delusion? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT (_after a pause_). 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. + +ERNEST. While you talk it seems to me to be so. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Yes; I see now what you mean. But, surely, the higher you place +the creative artist, the lower must the critic rank. + +GILBERT. Why so? + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Independent? + +GILBERT. 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 _Bestia +Trionfans_ 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. + +ERNEST. But is Criticism really a creative art? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. From the soul? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. I seem to have heard another theory of Criticism. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. But is that really so? + +GILBERT. 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.’ + +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 _Tannhäuser_, 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 _Amour de l’Impossible_, 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. + +ERNEST. But is such work as you have talked about really criticism? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +ERNEST. Ah! you admit, then, that the critic may occasionally be allowed +to see the object as in itself it really is. + +GILBERT. I am not quite sure. Perhaps I may admit it after supper. +There is a subtle influence in supper. + + + + +THE CRITIC AS ARTIST +WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THE IMPORTANCE +OF DISCUSSING EVERYTHING + + + _A DIALOGUE_: _Part II._ _Persons_: _the same_. + _Scene_: _the same_. + +ERNEST. The ortolans were delightful, and the Chambertin perfect, and +now let us return to the point at issue. + +GILBERT. Ah! don’t let us do that. Conversation should touch +everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing. Let us talk about +_Moral Indignation_, _its Cause and Cure_, a subject on which I think of +writing: or about _The Survival of Thersites_, as shown by the English +comic papers; or about any topic that may turn up. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +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. + +ERNEST. I would have said that personality would have been a disturbing +element. + +GILBERT. No; it is an element of revelation. If you wish to understand +others you must intensify your own individualism. + +ERNEST. What, then, is the result? + +GILBERT. 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 _Sonata Appassionata_ 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 _Obiter Dicta_. 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. + +ERNEST. As many Hamlets as there are melancholies? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. The critic, then, considered as the interpreter, will give no +less than he receives, and lend as much as he borrows? + +GILBERT. 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 _will seek to gain their impressions +almost entirely from what Art has touched_. 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. + +ERNEST. Poor life! Poor human life! Are you not even touched by the +tears that the Roman poet tells us are part of its essence. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Life then is a failure? + +GILBERT. 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 _Divine Comedy_, +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. + +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. + +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 + + Que m’importe que tu sois sage? + Sois belle! et sois triste! + +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. + +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. + +ERNEST. Must we go, then, to Art for everything? + +GILBERT. 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? + +ERNEST. Stop a moment. It seems to me that in everything that you have +said there is something radically immoral. + +GILBERT. All art is immoral. + +ERNEST. All art? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Contemplation? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. We exist, then, to do nothing? + +GILBERT. 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 _città divina_ is colourless, and the _fruitio Dei_ +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. + +ERNEST. What then do you propose? + +GILBERT. 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. + +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. + +ERNEST. But where in this is the function of the critical spirit? + +GILBERT. 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. + +Yes, Ernest: the contemplative life, the life that has for its aim not +_doing_ but _being_, and not _being_ merely, but _becoming_—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. + +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. + +ERNEST. A charming doctrine, Gilbert. + +GILBERT. 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. + +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! + +ERNEST. You speak with strange feeling, Gilbert. Have you had this +dreadful experience, as you call it, lately? + +GILBERT. 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. + +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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. The sphere of the intellect? + +GILBERT. 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? + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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 _nouveau frisson_ which it was its aim to +produce. One analysed it, explained it, and wearied of it. At sunset +came the _Luministe_ in painting, and the _Symboliste_ 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. + +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. + +ERNEST. By its means, too, he can invent an imaginary antagonist, and +convert him when he chooses by some absurdly sophistical argument. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. What would you say they were? + +ERNEST. Well, I should say that a critic should above all things be +fair. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. The true critic will be rational, at any rate, will he not? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Well, at least, the critic will be sincere. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. I am afraid I have not been fortunate in my suggestions. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. And what are they? Tell me yourself. + +GILBERT. 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. + +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. + +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 _Symphonie en Blanc +Majeur_, 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 _Archaicistes_, 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. + +ERNEST. I wonder do you really believe what you say? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. You say that a great artist cannot recognise the beauty of work +different from his own. + +GILBERT. It is impossible for him to do so. Wordsworth saw in +_Endymion_ 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. + +ERNEST. Do you really mean that? + +GILBERT. Yes, for creation limits, while contemplation widens, the +vision. + +ERNEST. But what about technique? Surely each art has its separate +technique? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Well, I think I have put all my questions to you. And now I +must admit— + +GILBERT. Ah! don’t say that you agree with me. When people agree with +me I always feel that I must be wrong. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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 _Plain Tales from the Hills_, 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 _Le +Rouge et le Noir_, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Origin of Species_ 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. + +ERNEST. Ah! what an antinomian you are! + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. And he who is in possession of this spirit, or whom this spirit +possesses, will, I suppose, do nothing? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. His punishment? + +GILBERT. 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. + + + + +THE TRUTH OF MASKS +A NOTE ON ILLUSION + + +IN 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 _Antony +and Cleopatra_, 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 _Nineteenth Century_, 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. + +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. + +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 _Henry the +Eighth_, 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. + +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 _Measure for +Measure_, _Twelfth Night_, _The Two Gentleman of Verona_, _All’s Well +that Ends Well_, _Cymbeline_, and others, depend for their illusion on +the character of the various dresses worn by the hero or the heroine; the +delightful scene in _Henry the Sixth_, on the modern miracles of healing +by faith, loses all its point unless Gloster is in black and scarlet; and +the _dénoûment_ of the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ 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? + +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 _The Tempest_ 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 +_Hamlet_ 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. + +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— + + Have you the heart? when your head did but ache, + I knit my handkerchief about your brows, + (The best I had, a princess wrought it me) + And I did never ask it you again; + +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. + + Last night ’twas on my arm; I kissed it; + I hope it be not gone to tell my lord + That I kiss aught but he, + +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 _Cid_; and the climax of Antony’s speech is the production of Cæsar’s +cloak:— + + I remember + The first time ever Cæsar put it on. + ’Twas on a summer’s evening, in his tent, + The day he overcame the Nervii:— + Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through: + See what a rent the envious Casca made: + Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed. . . . + Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold + Our Cæsar’s vesture wounded? + +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 _Thérèse Raquin_, that masterpiece +of horror, which for terrible and tragic significance can compare with +this strange scene in _Cymbeline_. + +In the actual dialogue also some of the most vivid passages are those +suggested by costume. Rosalind’s + + Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet + and hose in my disposition? + +Constance’s + + Grief fills the place of my absent child, + Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; + +and the quick sharp cry of Elizabeth— + + Ah! cut my lace asunder!— + +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 +_Lear_, tearing the plume from Kent’s cap and applying it to Cordelia’s +lips when he came to the line, + + This feather stirs; she lives! + +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 _Richard the +Third_ 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 + + What, is my beaver easier than it was? + And all my armour laid into my tent? + Look that my staves be sound and not too heavy— + +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:— + + Therefore take with thee my most grievous curse, + Which in the day of battle tire thee more + Than all the complete armour that thou wear’st. + +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 _Comedy of Errors_; and to the picturesque accident of Miss +Ellen Terry’s brother resembling herself we owe the opportunity of seeing +_Twelfth Night_ 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 _Macbeth_, and +the apothecary in _Romeo and Juliet_, 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. + +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 +_mundus muliebris_, from the long of Autolycus in the _Winter’s Tale_ +down to the account of the Duchess of Milan’s gown in _Much Ado About +Nothing_, 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 _Sartor Resartus_. 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. + +The difficulty Ducis felt about translating _Othello_ 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 _la +tragédie philosophique_ and the drama of real life; and the introduction +for the first time of the word _mouchoir_ at the Théâtre Français was an +era in that romantic-realistic movement of which Hugo is the father and +M. Zola the _enfant terrible_, 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. + +In criticising the importance given to money in _La Comédie Humaine_, +Théophile Gautier says that Balzac may claim to have invented a new hero +in fiction, _le héros métallique_. 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. + +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 _donnée_ of the +play was after the Fall. + +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 _ennui_ 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. + +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. + +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 _Notre Dame de Paris_ have been much +puzzled over the meaning of such expressions as _la casaque à mahoitres_, +_les voulgiers_, _le gallimard taché d’encre_, _les craaquiniers_, 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 +_Claudian_, 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. + +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 _Endymion_ 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 _Nuremberg Chronicle_, with its two +thousand illustrations, reached its fifth edition, and before the century +was over seventeen editions were published of Munster’s _Cosmography_. +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. + +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. + +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 _Richard The Third_ +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. + +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. + +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 _Hamlets_ I +have seen were placed far too early. _Hamlet_ 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. + +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 _dramatis +personæ_ 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 _Divorçons_. Harry the Fifth is a pure +Englishman, and Othello a true Moor. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Henry the Fifth_ may be considered fanciful, +though Shakespeare must have often seen + + The very casque + That did affright the air at Agincourt, + +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 _Henry the Sixth_ 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. + +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 _Henry the +Sixth_, 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 _Henry the Eighth_, 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. + +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 + + ‘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.’ + +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:— + + See, see, King Richard doth himself appear + As doth the blushing discontented sun + From out the fiery portal of the east, + When he perceives the envious clouds are bent + To dim his glory. + +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 _vice versa_, 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 _Much Ado +About Nothing_, and Mr. Barrett’s _Claudian_. 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. + +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 _As You Like It_ 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. + +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 _Hamlet_ +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 +_Princesse Georges_ in Mrs. Langtry’s production. As a rule, the hero is +smothered in _bric-à-brac_ 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. + +Mademoiselle Mars, in the first production of _Hernani_, absolutely +refused to call her lover ‘_Mon Lion_!’ unless she was allowed to wear a +little fashionable _toque_ 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. + +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. + +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. _Pour être plus difficile_, _la tâche n’en est que plus +glorieuse_. 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. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. 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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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Intentions + +Author: Oscar Wilde + +Release Date: April, 1997 [EBook #887] +[This file was first posted on April 24, 1997] +[Most recently updated: May 11, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, INTENTIONS *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1913 edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + +INTENTIONS + + + + +Contents + +The Decay of Lying +Pen, Pencil, and Poison +The Critic as Artist +The Truth of Masks + + + +THE DECAY OF LYING: AN OBSERVATION + + + +A DIALOGUE. Persons: Cyril and Vivian. Scene: the Library of a +country house in Nottinghamshire. + +CYRIL (coming in through the open window from the terrace). 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. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. Well, you need not look at the landscape. You can lie on +the grass and smoke and talk. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. Writing an article! That is not very consistent after what +you have just said. + +VIVIAN. 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 reductio ad absurdum 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. + +CYRIL. What is the subject? + +VIVIAN. I intend to call it 'The Decay of Lying: A Protest.' + +CYRIL. Lying! I should have thought that our politicians kept up +that habit. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. Certainly, if you give me a cigarette. Thanks. By the +way, what magazine do you intend it for? + +VIVIAN. For the Retrospective Review. I think I told you that the +elect had revived it. + +CYRIL. Whom do you mean by 'the elect'? + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. I should be black-balled on the ground of animal spirits, I +suppose? + +VIVIAN. Probably. Besides, you are a little too old. We don't +admit anybody who is of the usual age. + +CYRIL. Well, I should fancy you are all a good deal bored with +each other. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. You will find me all attention. + +VIVIAN (reading in a very clear, musical voice). THE DECAY OF +LYING: A PROTEST.--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 modem 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 +document humain, his miserable little coin de la creation, 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 encyclopaedias 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. + +'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--' + +CYRIL. My dear fellow! + +VIVIAN. 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. + +'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 +The Black Arrow 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 Lancet. 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. Robert +Elsmere 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. + +'In France, though nothing so deliberately tedious as Robert +Elsmere 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 +genie 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 Germinal, 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 L'Assommoir, Nana and Pot-Bouille? +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 Jack with +his "mots cruels," now that we have learned from Vingt Ans de ma +Vie litteraire 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 roman +psychologique, 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. + +CYRIL. 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 The Deemster, and The Daughter of Heth, and Le Disciple, and +Mr. Isaacs, and as for Robert Elsmere, 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 Literature and Dogma with +the literature left out. It is as much behind the age as Paley's +Evidences, 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? + +VIVIAN. 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 +L'Assommoir and Balzac's Illusions Perdues 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 Rubempre. 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 Salammbo or Esmond, or The +Cloister and the Hearth, or the Vicomte de Bragelonne. + +CYRIL. Do you object to modernity of form, then? + +VIVIAN. 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, The Cloister and the +Hearth, a book as much above Romola as Romola is above Daniel +Deronda, 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. + +CYRIL. 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. + +VIVIAN. 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:- + +'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.' + +CYRIL. What do you mean by saying that Nature is always behind the +age? + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. 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. + +VIVIAN (reading). '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. + +'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 Caesar 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. + +'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 - + + +In der Beschrankung zeigt Fsich erst der Meister, + + +"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. +The Tempest 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. + +'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 aerial 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.' + +And now let me read you a passage which seems to me to settle the +question very completely. + +'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 +modem 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 +Natural History; in Hanno's Periplus; 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 Prodigiorum et Ostentorum +Chronicon; in the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini; in the +memoirs of Casanova; in Defoe's History of the Plague; in Boswell's +Life of Johnson; in Napoleon's despatches, and in the works of our +own Carlyle, whose French Revolution 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.' + +CYRIL. My dear boy! + +VIVIAN. 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:- + +'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. + +'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. + +'No doubt there will always be critics who, like a certain writer +in the Saturday Review, 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.' + +CYRIL. Ahem! Another cigarette, please. + +VIVIAN. 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: + +'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.' + +CYRIL. I like that. I can see it. Is that the end? + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. 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? + +VIVIAN. 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. + +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 Tourgenieff, and completed by +Dostoieffski. Robespierre came out of the pages of Rousseau as +surely as the People's Palace rose out of the debris 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 Rubempre, our +Rastignacs, and De Marsays made their first appearance on the stage +of the Comedie Humaine. 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 Vanity Fair, 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 The Newcomer 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. + +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. + +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 Caesar. + +CYRIL. 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? + +VIVIAN. My dear fellow, I am prepared to prove anything. + +CYRIL. Nature follows the landscape painter, then, and takes her +effects from him? + +VIVIAN. 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 Renes 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? + +CYRIL. 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. + +VIVIAN. Certainly not! Art never expresses anything but itself. +This is the principle of my new aesthetics; 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. + +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. + +CYRIL. 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. + +VIVIAN. 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 mediaeval stained glass, or in mediaeval stone and wood +carving, or on mediaeval 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. + +CYRIL. But modern portraits by English painters, what of them? +Surely they are like the people they pretend to represent? + +VIVIAN. 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. + +CYRIL. Well, after that I think I should like to hear the end of +your article. + +VIVIAN. 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:- + +'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 Republic 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, La Chimere, +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. + +'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.' + +CYRIL. 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 aesthetics. + +VIVIAN. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +PEN, PENCIL AND POISON--A STUDY IN GREEN + + + +It 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. + +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 Monthly Review, 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 Gentleman's +Magazine 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 +archaeologist, 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. + +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:- + + +'These high and gusty relishes of life +Have no allayings of mortality.' + + +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. + +Scott, the editor of the London Magazine, 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. +Janus Weathercock, Egomet Bonmot, and Van Vinkvooms, 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 a petit-diner. +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 Rubempre. 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. + +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. + +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 Cupid and Psyche, and the +Hypnerotomachia, 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. + +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 +aesthetic 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 +archaeological 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. + +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 [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] +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 Christi Crucifixi, one carved in +ivory, the other moulded in wax.' He has his trays of Tassie's +gems, his tiny Louis-Quatorze bonbonniere with a miniature by +Petitot, his highly prized 'brown-biscuit teapots, filagree- +worked,' his citron morocco letter-case, and his 'pomona-green' +chair. + +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 altissimo +relievo on cornelian, Jupiter AEgiochus.' 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. + +As an art-critic he concerned himself primarily with the complex +impressions produced by a work of art, and certainly the first step +in aesthetic 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.' + +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.' + +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:- + + +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. + + +And elsewhere he talks learnedly of 'a delicate Schiavone, various +as a tulip-bed, with rich broken tints,' of 'a glowing portrait, +remarkable for morbidezza, by the scarce Moroni,' and of another +picture being 'pulpy in the carnations.' + +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 Repas Italien, 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:- + + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +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':- + + +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,' + + +Filling the far-seen ocean with a voice. + + +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. + +From between the closely-neighboured boles astonished nymphs press +forward with loud cries - + + +And deerskin-vested satyrs, crowned with ivy twists, advance; +And put strange pity in their horned countenance. + + +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. + + +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. + +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 archaeological +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 London Magazine 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:- + + +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. + +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 FASHION FOR MEN OF GENIUS 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 'THAT was nothing; the +lyrics were the high things--the lyrics!' + + +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 +Janus Weathercock 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. + +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:- + + +The short tender grass was covered with marguerites--'such that men +called DAISIES 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 aether; 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.' + + +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 nux vomica, 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 pounds, +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. + +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. +Egomet Bonmot 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 pounds 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 pounds. 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. + +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. + +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. + +On the 5th of July he was brought up at the Old Bailey. The +following report of the proceedings appeared in the Times:- + + +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 pounds, with intent to defraud the +Governor and Company of the Bank of England. + +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. + +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. + + +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 circonstance attenuante. 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. + +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.' + +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. + +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.' + +From Newgate he was brought to the hulks at Portsmouth, and sent +from there in the Susan 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. + +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 Paradis Artificiels +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. + +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 Life of Dickens, 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. + +This strange and fascinating figure that for a few years dazzled +literary London, and made so brilliant a debut 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. + +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 Caesar 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 Hunted Down, the Varney of +Bulwer's Lucretia; 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. + + + +THE CRITIC AS ARTIST: WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THE IMPORTANCE OF +DOING NOTHING + + + +A DIALOGUE. Part I. Persons: Gilbert and Ernest. Scene: the +library of a house in Piccadilly, overlooking the Green Park. + +GILBERT (at the Piano). My dear Ernest, what are you laughing at? + +ERNEST (looking up). At a capital story that I have just come +across in this volume of Reminiscences that I have found on your +table. + +GILBERT. What is the book? Ah! I see. I have not read it yet. +Is it good? + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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 +Sevigne. 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 Hamlet 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. My dear fellow! + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. May I ask, Gilbert, to whom you allude? + +GILBERT. Oh! to all our second-rate litterateurs. 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 Dvorak? Shall I play you a fantasy +by Dvorak? He writes passionate, curiously-coloured things. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT (rising from the piano). 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. And was it? + +ERNEST. 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. . . . + +GILBERT. And if his work is incomprehensible, an explanation is +wicked. + +ERNEST. I did not say that. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. There is something in what you say, but there is not +everything in what you say. In many points you are unjust. + +GILBERT. 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? + +ERNEST. Simply this: that in the best days of art there were no +art-critics. + +GILBERT. I seem to have heard that observation before, Ernest. It +has all the vitality of error and all the tediousness of an old +friend. + +ERNEST. 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, [Greek text which cannot be reproduced], 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 Phaedrus bathed +his feet, and, lying there on the soft grass, beneath the tall +wind--whispering planes and flowering agnus castus, 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. + +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 Phaedra 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. [Greek text +which cannot be reproduced] or [Greek text which cannot be +reproduced] 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 Maenads 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. But what is the difference between literature and +journalism? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Really? + +GILBERT. 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 Dvorak. 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? + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. But what are the two supreme and highest arts? + +GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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 Comus with +the measures of Samson Agonistes, or of Paradise Lost or Regained? +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. + +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 paeons +have been wrongly placed. + +ERNEST. Ah! now you are flippant. + +GILBERT. 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 aesthetic criticism, Aristotle's Treatise on Poetry. +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 aesthetic +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 aesthetic 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 aesthetic 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 [Greek +text which cannot be reproduced] is, as Goethe saw, essentially +aesthetic, 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 [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] 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 aesthetic +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 archaeologists, 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 mediaevalism. 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. + +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 [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] of another +cigarette. Cigarettes have at least the charm of leaving one +unsatisfied. + +ERNEST. Try one of mine. They are rather good. I get them direct +from Cairo. The only use of our attaches 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. I should have said that great artists work unconsciously, +that they were 'wiser than they knew,' as, I think, Emerson remarks +somewhere. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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, + + +And so not built at all, +And therefore built for ever. + + +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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Really? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. You think, then, that in the sphere of action a conscious +aim is a delusion? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT (after a pause). 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. + +ERNEST. While you talk it seems to me to be so. + +GILBERT. 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, [Greek text which cannot be reproduced], 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. + +ERNEST. Yes; I see now what you mean. But, surely, the higher you +place the creative artist, the lower must the critic rank. + +GILBERT. Why so? + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Independent? + +GILBERT. 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 Bestia Trionfans 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. + +ERNEST. But is Criticism really a creative art? + +GILBERT. 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 +AEschylus, 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. + +ERNEST. From the soul? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. I seem to have heard another theory of Criticism. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. But is that really so? + +GILBERT. 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.' + +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 Tannhauser, 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 ??OS ?O? ??????O?, that Amour de l'Impossible, +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. + +ERNEST. But is such work as you have talked about really +criticism? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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. + +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. + +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 aesthetic 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 aesthetic 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. + +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. + +ERNEST. Ah! you admit, then, that the critic may occasionally be +allowed to see the object as in itself it really is. + +GILBERT. I am not quite sure. Perhaps I may admit it after +supper. There is a subtle influence in supper. + + + +THE CRITIC AS ARTIST--WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THE IMPORTANCE OF +DISCUSSING EVERYTHING + + + +A DIALOGUE: Part II. Persons: the same. Scene: the same. + +ERNEST. The ortolans were delightful, and the Chambertin perfect, +and now let us return to the point at issue. + +GILBERT. Ah! don't let us do that. Conversation should touch +everything, but should concentrate itself on nothing. Let us talk +about Moral Indignation, its Cause and Cure, a subject on which I +think of writing: or about The Survival of Thersites, as shown by +the English comic papers; or about any topic that may turn up. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +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. + +ERNEST. I would have said that personality would have been a +disturbing element. + +GILBERT. No; it is an element of revelation. If you wish to +understand others you must intensify your own individualism. + +ERNEST. What, then, is the result? + +GILBERT. 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 Sonata Appassionata 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 Obiter +Dicta. 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. + +ERNEST. As many Hamlets as there are melancholies? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. The critic, then, considered as the interpreter, will give +no less than he receives, and lend as much as he borrows? + +GILBERT. 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 WILL SEEK TO GAIN +THEIR IMPRESSIONS ALMOST ENTIRELY FROM WHAT ART HAS TOUCHED. 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. + +ERNEST. Poor life! Poor human life! Are you not even touched by +the tears that the Roman poet tells us are part of its essence. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Life then is a failure? + +GILBERT. 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 Divine Comedy, 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 Caesar. We tremble, and come forth to re-behold the stars. + +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. + +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 + + +Que m'importe que tu sois sage? +Sois belle! et sois triste! + + +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. + +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. + +ERNEST. Must we go, then, to Art for everything? + +GILBERT. 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? + +ERNEST. Stop a moment. It seems to me that in everything that you +have said there is something radically immoral. + +GILBERT. All art is immoral. + +ERNEST. All art? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Contemplation? + +GILBERT. 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 mediaeval days. + +ERNEST. We exist, then, to do nothing? + +GILBERT. 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 citta divina is +colourless, and the fruitio Dei 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 Bohme, +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 aesthetic 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. + +ERNEST. What then do you propose? + +GILBERT. 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. + +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. + +ERNEST. But where in this is the function of the critical spirit? + +GILBERT. 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. + +Yes, Ernest: the contemplative life, the life that has for its aim +not DOING but BEING, and not BEING merely, but BECOMING--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 [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] is the true +ideal. From the high tower of Thought we can look out at the +world. Calm, and self-centred, and complete, the aesthetic 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. + +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. + +ERNEST. A charming doctrine, Gilbert. + +GILBERT. 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. + +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! + +ERNEST. You speak with strange feeling, Gilbert. Have you had +this dreadful experience, as you call it, lately? + + GILBERT. 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. + +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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. The sphere of the intellect? + +GILBERT. 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? + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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 nouveau frisson +which it was its aim to produce. One analysed it, explained it, +and wearied of it. At sunset came the Luministe in painting, and +the Symboliste in poetry, and the spirit of mediaevalism, 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. + +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 Aufklarung, 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. + +ERNEST. By its means, too, he can invent an imaginary antagonist, +and convert him when he chooses by some absurdly sophistical +argument. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. What would you say they were? + +ERNEST. Well, I should say that a critic should above all things +be fair. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. The true critic will be rational, at any rate, will he +not? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. Well, at least, the critic will be sincere. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. I am afraid I have not been fortunate in my suggestions. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. And what are they? Tell me yourself. + +GILBERT. 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. + +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 aesthetic 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. + +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 Symphonie en Blanc +Majeur, 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 Archaicistes, +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 aesthetic 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. + +ERNEST. I wonder do you really believe what you say? + +GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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 Athenaeum 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. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. You say that a great artist cannot recognise the beauty of +work different from his own. + +GILBERT. It is impossible for him to do so. Wordsworth saw in +Endymion 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. + +ERNEST. Do you really mean that? + +GILBERT. Yes, for creation limits, while contemplation widens, the +vision. + +ERNEST. But what about technique? Surely each art has its +separate technique? + +GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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 aesthetic critic, and the aesthetic critic alone, can +appreciate all forms and modes. It is to him that Art makes her +appeal. + +ERNEST. Well, I think I have put all my questions to you. And now +I must admit - + +GILBERT. Ah! don't say that you agree with me. When people agree +with me I always feel that I must be wrong. + +ERNEST. 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? + +GILBERT. 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 +Plain Tales from the Hills, 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 Le +Rouge et le Noir, 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. + +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. + +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 +archaeological 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. + +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. + +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 Origin of Species +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. + +ERNEST. Ah! what an antinomian you are! + +GILBERT. 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. Aesthetics 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. Aesthetics, 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. +Aesthetics, 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. + +ERNEST. And he who is in possession of this spirit, or whom this +spirit possesses, will, I suppose, do nothing? + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. 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. + +GILBERT. 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. + +ERNEST. His punishment? + +GILBERT. 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. + + + +THE TRUTH OF MASKS--A NOTE ON ILLUSION + + + +In 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 Antony and Cleopatra, 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 +Nineteenth Century, has laid it down as a dogma of art that +archaeology 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. + +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. + +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 Henry the Eighth, 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. + +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 Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night, The Two +Gentleman of Verona, All's Well that Ends Well, Cymbeline, and +others, depend for their illusion on the character of the various +dresses worn by the hero or the heroine; the delightful scene in +Henry the Sixth, on the modern miracles of healing by faith, loses +all its point unless Gloster is in black and scarlet; and the +denoument of the Merry Wives of Windsor 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? + +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 +The Tempest 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 Hamlet 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. + +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 archaeologist 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-a-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 - + + +Have you the heart? when your head did but ache, +I knit my handkerchief about your brows, +(The best I had, a princess wrought it me) +And I did never ask it you again; + + +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. + + +Last night 'twas on my arm; I kissed it; +I hope it be not gone to tell my lord +That I kiss aught but he, + + +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 Chimene in the Cid; and the climax +of Antony's speech is the production of Caesar's cloak:- + + +I remember +The first time ever Caesar put it on. +'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, +The day he overcame the Nervii:- +Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through: +See what a rent the envious Casca made: +Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed. . . . +Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold +Our Caesar's vesture wounded? + + +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 Therese Raquin, that masterpiece of +horror, which for terrible and tragic significance can compare with +this strange scene in Cymbeline. + +In the actual dialogue also some of the most vivid passages are +those suggested by costume. Rosalind's + + +Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a +doublet and hose in my disposition? + + +Constance's + + +Grief fills the place of my absent child, +Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; + + +and the quick sharp cry of Elizabeth - + + +Ah! cut my lace asunder! - + + +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 Lear, tearing the plume from Kent's cap and applying it +to Cordelia's lips when he came to the line, + + +This feather stirs; she lives! + + +Mr. Booth, whose Lear had many noble qualities of passion, plucked, +I remember, some fur from his archaeologically-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 Richard the Third 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 + + +What, is my beaver easier than it was? +And all my armour laid into my tent? +Look that my staves be sound and not too heavy - + + +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:- + + +Therefore take with thee my most grievous curse, +Which in the day of battle tire thee more +Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st. + + +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 Comedy of Errors; +and to the picturesque accident of Miss Ellen Terry's brother +resembling herself we owe the opportunity of seeing Twelfth Night +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 realite,' says Auguste Vacquerie +somewhere; 'il ne daigne pas s'occuper de son costume. Si l'on +s'en rapportait aux indications du poete, Agamemnon serait vetu +d'un sceptre et Achille d'une epee.' But with Shakespeare it is +very different. He gives us directions about the costumes of +Perdita, Florizel, Autolycus, the Witches in Macbeth, and the +apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, 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. + +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 mundus muliebris, from the long of +Autolycus in the Winter's Tale down to the account of the Duchess +of Milan's gown in Much Ado About Nothing, 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 Sartor Resartus. 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. + +The difficulty Ducis felt about translating Othello 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 la tragedie philosophique and the drama of +real life; and the introduction for the first time of the word +mouchoir at the Theatre Francais was an era in that romantic- +realistic movement of which Hugo is the father and M. Zola the +enfant terrible, 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 archaeological accuracy in dress which has +distinguished the great actors of our age. + +In criticising the importance given to money in La Comedie Humaine, +Theophile Gautier says that Balzac may claim to have invented a new +hero in fiction, le heros metallique. 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. + +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 pounds, 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 archaeological 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 donnee of the play +was after the Fall. + +Indeed, anybody who cares to examine the age of Shakespeare will +see that archaeology 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 ennui 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. + +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 Judaea'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. Archaeology 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 Caesar,' 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 Graeco-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. + +And this use of archaeology 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 archaeological +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 Notre Dame de Paris have been much puzzled over the +meaning of such expressions as la casaque a mahoitres, les +voulgiers, le gallimard tache d'encre, les craaquiniers, 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 +encyclopaedia 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 +Claudian, 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. + +And indeed archaeology 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 +Lempriere's Dictionary is of far more value to us than Professor +Max Muller's treatment of the same mythology as a disease of +language. Better Endymion 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 archaeology 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 Nuremberg Chronicle, with its two thousand +illustrations, reached its fifth edition, and before the century +was over seventeen editions were published of Munster's +Cosmography. 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. + +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. + +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 Richard The Third 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. + +For what is the use to the stage of that archaeology 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 +archaeology 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 archaeology +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 archaeology, 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 archaeologist for the materials, to the artist for +the method. + +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 Hamlets I have seen were placed far too early. +Hamlet 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 +archaeologist is to supply us with the facts which the artist is to +convert into effects. + +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 dramatis +personae 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 Divorcons. Harry the Fifth is +a pure Englishman, and Othello a true Moor. + +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. + +Of course the aesthetic 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. + +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 Henry the Fifth may be +considered fanciful, though Shakespeare must have often seen + + +The very casque +That did affright the air at Agincourt, + + +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 Henry the Sixth is a bit of pure +archaeology, 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 archaeology, 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. + +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 archaeology, 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 Henry the Sixth, +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 Henry the Eighth, was +borrowed from France. For the historical plays, then, we may be +sure that archaeology 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 archaeological; 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. + +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 + + +'Les petits details d'histoire et de vie domestique (says Hugo) +doivent etre scrupuleusement etudies et reproduits par le poete, +mais uniquement comme des moyens d'accroitre la realite de +l'ensemble, et de faire penetrer jusque dans les coins les plus +obscurs de l'oeuvre cette vie generale et puissante au milieu de +laquelle les personnages sont plus vrais, et les catastrophes, par +consequeut, plus poignantes. Tout doit etre subordonne a ce but. +L'Homme sur le premier plan, le reste au fond.' + + +This passage is interesting as coming from the first great French +dramatist who employed archaeology 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; +'esperons qu'un jour un seigneur venitien pourra dire tout +bonnement sans peril son blason sur le theatre. C'est un progres +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 +archaeological 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. Archaeological 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:- + + +See, see, King Richard doth himself appear +As doth the blushing discontented sun +From out the fiery portal of the east, +When he perceives the envious clouds are bent +To dim his glory. + + +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 vice versa, +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 Much Ado About Nothing, and Mr, +Barrett's Claudian. 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 +archaeology. + +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 As You Like It 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 archaeology 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 archaeologically correct, and artistically +appropriate, it always looks unreal, unnatural, and theatrical in +the sense of artificial. + +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 Hamlet 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 celebrons tous quelque enterrement.' The archaeologist +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 +Princesse Georges in Mrs. Langtry's production. As a rule, the +hero is smothered in bric-a-brac 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. + +Mademoiselle Mars, in the first production of Hernani, absolutely +refused to call her lover 'Mon Lion!' unless she was allowed to +wear a little fashionable toque 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. + +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. + +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 archaeology 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. Pour etre plus +difficile, la tache n'en est que plus glorieuse. 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 aesthetic +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. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, INTENTIONS *** + +This file should be named ntntn10.txt or ntntn10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, ntntn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ntntn10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/ntntn10.zip b/old/ntntn10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f39629 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ntntn10.zip diff --git a/old/ntntn10h.htm b/old/ntntn10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d5b56f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ntntn10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5528 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Intentions</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Intentions, by Oscar Wilde</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Intentions, by Oscar Wilde +(#11 in our series by Oscar Wilde) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Intentions + +Author: Oscar Wilde + +Release Date: April, 1997 [EBook #887] +[This file was first posted on April 24, 1997] +[Most recently updated: May 11, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1913 edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h1>INTENTIONS</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>Contents</p> +<p>The Decay of Lying<br />Pen, Pencil, and Poison<br />The Critic as +Artist<br />The Truth of Masks</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE DECAY OF LYING: AN OBSERVATION</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>A DIALOGUE. Persons: Cyril and Vivian. Scene: the Library +of a country house in Nottinghamshire.</p> +<p>CYRIL (coming in through the open window from the terrace). +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>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. Well, you need not look at the landscape. You +can lie on the grass and smoke and talk.</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. Writing an article! That is not very consistent +after what you have just said.</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. What is the subject?</p> +<p>VIVIAN. I intend to call it ‘The Decay of Lying: A Protest.’</p> +<p>CYRIL. Lying! I should have thought that our politicians +kept up that habit.</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. Certainly, if you give me a cigarette. Thanks. +By the way, what magazine do you intend it for?</p> +<p>VIVIAN. For the <i>Retrospective Review</i>. I think +I told you that the elect had revived it.</p> +<p>CYRIL. Whom do you mean by ‘the elect’?</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. I should be black-balled on the ground of animal spirits, +I suppose?</p> +<p>VIVIAN. Probably. Besides, you are a little too old. +We don’t admit anybody who is of the usual age.</p> +<p>CYRIL. Well, I should fancy you are all a good deal bored with +each other.</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. You will find me all attention.</p> +<p>VIVIAN (reading in a very clear, musical voice). THE DECAY +OF LYING: A PROTEST.—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 modem 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 encyclopaedias 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>CYRIL. My dear fellow!</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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</i> +<i>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>CYRIL. 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</i> <i>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>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. Do you object to modernity of form, then?</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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</i> <i>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>CYRIL. 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>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. What do you mean by saying that Nature is always behind +the age?</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. 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>VIVIAN <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 Caesar 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>In der Beschränkung zeigt Fsich erst der Meister,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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 modem +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>CYRIL. My dear boy!</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. Ahem! Another cigarette, please.</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. I like that. I can see it. Is that the end?</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. 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>VIVIAN. 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 Caesar.</p> +<p>CYRIL. 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>VIVIAN. My dear fellow, I am prepared to prove anything.</p> +<p>CYRIL. Nature follows the landscape painter, then, and takes +her effects from him?</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. 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>VIVIAN. Certainly not! Art never expresses anything but +itself. This is the principle of my new aesthetics; 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>CYRIL. 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>VIVIAN. 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 mediaeval stained glass, or in mediaeval stone and wood carving, +or on mediaeval 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>CYRIL. But modern portraits by English painters, what of them? +Surely they are like the people they pretend to represent?</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. Well, after that I think I should like to hear the end +of your article.</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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>CYRIL. 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 aesthetics.</p> +<p>VIVIAN. 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>PEN, PENCIL AND POISON—A STUDY IN GREEN</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>It 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 archaeologist, 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>‘These high and gusty relishes of life<br />Have no allayings +of mortality.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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 aesthetic +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 archaeological 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 AEgiochus.’ 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 aesthetic 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Filling the far-seen ocean with a voice.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And deerskin-vested satyrs, crowned with ivy twists, advance;<br />And +put strange pity in their horned countenance.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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 archaeological 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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</i> <i>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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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 aether; 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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</i> <i>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 Caesar 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE CRITIC AS ARTIST: WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THE IMPORTANCE OF DOING +NOTHING</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>A DIALOGUE. Part I. Persons: Gilbert and Ernest. +Scene: the library of a house in Piccadilly, overlooking the Green Park.</p> +<p>GILBERT (at the Piano). My dear Ernest, what are you laughing +at?</p> +<p>ERNEST (looking up). At a capital story that I have just come +across in this volume of Reminiscences that I have found on your table.</p> +<p>GILBERT. What is the book? Ah! I see. I have not +read it yet. Is it good?</p> +<p>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. My dear fellow!</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. May I ask, Gilbert, to whom you allude?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT (rising from the piano). 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. And was it?</p> +<p>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. And if his work is incomprehensible, an explanation +is wicked.</p> +<p>ERNEST. I did not say that.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. There is something in what you say, but there is not +everything in what you say. In many points you are unjust.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. Simply this: that in the best days of art there were +no art-critics.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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 λαμπροτατου +βαινοντες αβρως +αιθερος, 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 Phaedrus 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 Phaedra 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 Maenads 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. But what is the difference between literature and journalism?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. Really?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. But what are the two supreme and highest arts?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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 +paeons have been wrongly placed.</p> +<p>ERNEST. Ah! now you are flippant.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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 +aesthetic 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 aesthetic 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 aesthetic 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 καθαρσις is, +as Goethe saw, essentially aesthetic, 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 καθαρσις +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 aesthetic +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 archaeologists, 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 mediaevalism. 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 +μονοχρονος ηδονη +of another cigarette. Cigarettes have at least the charm of leaving +one unsatisfied.</p> +<p>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. I should have said that great artists work unconsciously, +that they were ‘wiser than they knew,’ as, I think, Emerson +remarks somewhere.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And so not built at all,<br />And therefore built for ever.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. Really?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. You think, then, that in the sphere of action a conscious +aim is a delusion?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT (after a pause). 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>ERNEST. While you talk it seems to me to be so.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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 ποντος, +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>ERNEST. Yes; I see now what you mean. But, surely, the +higher you place the creative artist, the lower must the critic rank.</p> +<p>GILBERT. Why so?</p> +<p>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. Independent?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. But is Criticism really a creative art?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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 AEschylus, 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>ERNEST. From the soul?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. I seem to have heard another theory of Criticism.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. But is that really so?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. But is such work as you have talked about really criticism?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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 aesthetic 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 aesthetic +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>ERNEST. Ah! you admit, then, that the critic may occasionally +be allowed to see the object as in itself it really is.</p> +<p>GILBERT. I am not quite sure. Perhaps I may admit it +after supper. There is a subtle influence in supper.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE CRITIC AS ARTIST—WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THE IMPORTANCE +OF DISCUSSING EVERYTHING</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>A DIALOGUE: Part II. Persons: the same. Scene: the same.</p> +<p>ERNEST. The ortolans were delightful, and the Chambertin perfect, +and now let us return to the point at issue.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. I would have said that personality would have been +a disturbing element.</p> +<p>GILBERT. No; it is an element of revelation. If you wish +to understand others you must intensify your own individualism.</p> +<p>ERNEST. What, then, is the result?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. As many Hamlets as there are melancholies?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. The critic, then, considered as the interpreter, will +give no less than he receives, and lend as much as he borrows?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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</i> <i>gain +their impressions almost entirely from what</i> <i>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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. Life then is a failure?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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 Caesar. 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Que m’importe que tu sois sage?<br />Sois belle! et sois triste!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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>ERNEST. Must we go, then, to Art for everything?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. Stop a moment. It seems to me that in everything +that you have said there is something radically immoral.</p> +<p>GILBERT. All art is immoral.</p> +<p>ERNEST. All art?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. Contemplation?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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 mediaeval days.</p> +<p>ERNEST. We exist, then, to do nothing?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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>ERNEST. What then do you propose?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. But where in this is the function of the critical spirit?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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 aesthetic +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>ERNEST. A charming doctrine, Gilbert.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. You speak with strange feeling, Gilbert. Have +you had this dreadful experience, as you call it, lately?</p> +<p> GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. The sphere of the intellect?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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 mediaevalism, 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>ERNEST. By its means, too, he can invent an imaginary antagonist, +and convert him when he chooses by some absurdly sophistical argument.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. What would you say they were?</p> +<p>ERNEST. Well, I should say that a critic should above all things +be fair.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. The true critic will be rational, at any rate, will +he not?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. Well, at least, the critic will be sincere.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. I am afraid I have not been fortunate in my suggestions.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. And what are they? Tell me yourself.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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 +aesthetic 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>ERNEST. I wonder do you really believe what you say?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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 Athenaeum 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. You say that a great artist cannot recognise the beauty +of work different from his own.</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. Do you really mean that?</p> +<p>GILBERT. Yes, for creation limits, while contemplation widens, +the vision.</p> +<p>ERNEST. But what about technique? Surely each art has +its separate technique?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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 aesthetic 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 aesthetic critic, and the aesthetic critic alone, +can appreciate all forms and modes. It is to him that Art makes +her appeal.</p> +<p>ERNEST. Well, I think I have put all my questions to you. +And now I must admit -</p> +<p>GILBERT. Ah! don’t say that you agree with me. +When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong.</p> +<p>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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 archaeological 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>ERNEST. Ah! what an antinomian you are!</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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. Aesthetics 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. Aesthetics, 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. Aesthetics, 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>ERNEST. And he who is in possession of this spirit, or whom +this spirit possesses, will, I suppose, do nothing?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. 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>GILBERT. 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>ERNEST. His punishment?</p> +<p>GILBERT. 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>THE TRUTH OF MASKS—A NOTE ON ILLUSION</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>In 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</i> <i>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 archaeology 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</i> <i>Measure</i>, <i>Twelfth Night</i>, <i>The Two Gentleman of</i> +<i>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</i> <i>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 archaeologist +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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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 Caesar’s +cloak:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I remember<br />The first time ever Caesar 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 +Caesar’s vesture wounded?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet +and hose in my disposition?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Constance’s</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Grief fills the place of my absent child,<br />Stuffs out his vacant +garments with his form;</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>and the quick sharp cry of Elizabeth -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Ah! cut my lace asunder! -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This feather stirs; she lives!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Mr. Booth, whose Lear had many noble qualities of passion, plucked, +I remember, some fur from his archaeologically-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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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 archaeological 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 archaeological 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 archaeology 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 Judaea’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. +Archaeology 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 Caesar,’ 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 Graeco-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 archaeology 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 archaeological 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</i> +<i>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 encyclopaedia +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 archaeology 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 archaeology 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 archaeology 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 archaeology 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 archaeology +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 archaeology, 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 archaeologist 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 archaeologist +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 personae</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 aesthetic 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The very casque<br />That did affright the air at Agincourt,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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</i> <i>the Sixth</i> is a bit +of pure archaeology, 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 archaeology, 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 archaeology, 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 archaeology 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 archaeological; 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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’oeuvre 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This passage is interesting as coming from the first great French +dramatist who employed archaeology 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 archaeological +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. +Archaeological 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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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 +archaeology.</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 <i>of 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 archaeology +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 archaeologically +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 archaeologist 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 archaeology 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 aesthetic +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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, INTENTIONS ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named ntntn10h.htm or ntntn10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, ntntn11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ntntn10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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