Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/modernpaintersvoOOrusk “ The Annunciation.” Part of the famous fresco by Fra Angelico in the Convent of St. Mark , Florence, MODERN PAINTERS BY JOHN RUSKIN A Volume of Selections THOMAS NELSON & SONS LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN & NEW YORK PREFACE. John Ruskin’s Modern Painters has come to be regarded as his central and typical work, embodying his chief ideas on the study of Nature and its interpretation by the artist — using the term to include painter, sculptor, and poet. The first of the five volumes of which this work consists was published in 1843. The complete title of the original edition ran as follows: — ‘ ‘ Modern Painters: their superiority in the Art of Landscape Paint- ing to all the Ancient Masters proved by Examples of the True , the Beautiful , and the Intellectual , from the Works of Modern Artists, especially from those off. M. W. Turner , Esq. , R.AP This gives us a clear idea of the scope and purpose of the complete work. It was a burning exhortation to painters to throw aside tradition and to observe Nature afresh, each for himself, in the spirit of the humble disciple. It was clear that the Old Masters had not done so, and equally clear that the landscape artists of the writer’s own day — Harding, Cox, Copley, Fielding, Trout, and others — had learned to look independently upon the workings of Nature ; but it was most clear of all that Turner had given in his sketches and completed works the most perfect interpreta- tion of Nature that had ever been accomplished by the hand of man. The author was twenty-five years of age when the first volume of Modern Painters was published, and at the time he was strangely ignorant of early Italian painting. But before the appearance of the second volume he passed through a severe course of study, chiefly at Pisa, Florence, Verona, and Venice, embracing the whole of mediaeval history and art, with special concentration upon the works of Titian, Veronese, Bellini, and Perugino. The second volume appeared early in the summer of 1846. “Its first great assertion,” he writes in his pref- ace, “is that beautiful things are useful to men because they are beautiful, and for the sake of their beauty only ; and not to sell, or pawn, or in any other way turn into money. ... It then proceeds to ask — What makes anything beautiful, or ugly, in itself? implying, therefore, that positive beauty and positive ugliness are independent of anybody’s ii PREFACE. taste. ... I next enter on the main task of defining the nature of Beauty itself, and of the faculties of mind which recognize it and invent.” The third volume, which appeared in 1856, has been described as “one of the gems of Modern Painters .” It continues the method of the two earlier books, but is described by the author as forming, in a sense, the epitaph of Turner. “The first and second volumes were written to check, as far as I could, the attacks upon Turner, which pre- vented the public from honouring his genius at the time when his power was greatest. The check was partially given, but too late ; Turner was seized by painful illness not long after the second volume appeared ; his works, towards the close of the year 1845, showed a conclusive failure of power, and I saw that nothing remained for me to write but his epitaph.” The epitaph was of considerable length, occupying also Volumes IV. and V., which appeared in 1856 and i860 respectively. In his preface to the concluding volume the author sums up his own work in the following words, which exhibit not only his original intention in undertaking his great task, but also the manner in which it had been modified by circum- stances which arose during the seventeen years in which he was engaged upon it “ The first volume was the expansion of a reply to a magazine article ; and was not begun because I then thought myself qualified to write a systematic treatise on Art ; but because I at least knew, and knew it to be demonstrable, that Turner was right and true, and that his critics were wrong, false, and base. At that time I had seen much of Nature, and had been several times in Italy, wintering once in Rome ; but had chiefly delighted in northern art, beginning, when a mere boy, with Rubens and Rembrandt. It was long before I got quit of a boy’s veneration for Rubens’ physical art-power ; and the reader will, perhaps, on this ground forgwe the strong expressions of admiration for Rubens , which, to my great regret, occur in the first volume. “ Finding myself, however, engaged seriously in the essay, I went, before writing the second volume, to study in Italy ; where the strong reaction from the influence of Rubens threw me at first too far under that of Angelico and Raphael ; and, which was the worst harm that came of that Rubens influence, blinded me long to the deepest qualities of Venetian art ; which, the reader may see by expressions occurring not only in the second, but even in the third and fourth volumes, I thought, however powerful, yet partly luxurious and sensual, until I was led into the final inquiries above related. “These oscillations of temper and progressions of discovery, extending over a period of seventeen years, ought not to diminish the reader’s confidence in the book. Let him be assured of this , that unless impor- tant changes are occurring in his opinions continually all his life long, not one op those opinions can be on any questionable subject true. All true opinions are living, and show their life by being capable of nourish- ment ; therefore of change. But their change is that of a tree — not of a cloud. PREFACE. iii £< In the mahTaim and principle of the book there is no variation from its first syllable to its last. It declares the perfectness and eternal beauty of the work of God ; and tests all work of man by concurrence with or subjection to that. And it differs from most books, and has a chance of being in some respects better for the difference, in that it has not been written either for fame, or for money, or for conscience sake, but of necessity. “ It has not been written for praise. Had I wished to gain present reputation, by a little flattery adroitly used in some places, a sharp word or two withheld in others, and the substitution of verbiage generally for investigation, I could have made the circulation of these volumes tenfold what it has been in modern society. Had I wished for future fame I should have written one volume, not five. Also, it has not been written for money. In this wealth-producing country seventeen years’ labour could hardly have been invested with less chance of equivalent return.” The conscientious reader who sets himself the task of reading the whole of Modern Painters finds it extremely difficult to follow the argument, for Ruskin was the very apostle of inconsequence, taking pleasure in digression, and as often as not displaying his greatest powers as a writer and a prophet when he has forsaken his main line of argument. In order to fix attention upon the central thought which runs through the whole of the five volumes, we give below a kind of conspectus of their contents. Vol. I.— Part I. General Principles. §1. The Ideas conveyable by Art — namely, of Power, Imitation, Truth, Beauty, and Relation. §2. Ideas of Power, including their dependence upon execution, with a consideration of the meaning of Sublimity. Part II. Of Truth. §1. General Principles respecting Ideas of Truth and their Relative Importance, with their interpretation in the works of Old Masters and Modern Painters, particu- larly Turner. §2. General Truths, including Truths of Tone, Colour, Chiaroscuro, and Space, illustrated from Old Masters and Modern Painters, with insistence upon Turner’s pre-eminence. §3. Truth of Skies, including that of the Open Sky, and Clouds of the Upper, Central, and Lower Region, with a consideration of the effects of light as rendered by Turner. §4. Truth of Earth, including that of the Central Peaks, the Inferior Mountains, and the Foreground, illus trated as above. PREFACE. iv Vol. I. — continued. §5. Truth of Water, as interpreted by the Old Masters and Modern Painters, particularly Turner. §6. Truth of Vegetation, again comparing Old Masters and Modern Painters ; followed by a chapter on Modern Art and Criticism, and concluding with a statement of the duty of the Press with respect to the works of Turner. Vol. II. — Part III. Ideas of Beauty. §1. Of the Theoretic (or ^Esthetic) Faculty. (a) A consideration of its Rank and Relations, and its connection with Sense Impressions. (3) A discussion of the meaning of Typical Beauty, including Ideas of Infinity, Unity, Repose, Symmetry, Purity, and Moderation. (c) A consideration of Vital Beauty in Nature and in Man. §2. Of the Imaginative Faculty. (a) An inquiry into the nature of the three forms of Imagination — namely, Associative, Penetra- tive, and Contemplative. (b) The manifestation of these three forms of Imag- ination in the works of great painters, especi- ally in those of Turner. (c) A consideration of the nature of the Superhuman Ideal. Vol. III.— Part IV. Of Many Things. (a) An inquiry into (1) the Real Nature of Greatness of Style; (2) False and True Ideal; (3) Finish; (4) the Use of Pictures; (5) the Novelty of Landscape ; and (6) the Pathetic Fallacy. (5) A consideration of Classical, Mediaeval, and Modern Landscape respectively, including the “ landscape ” of the poets. (c) An inquiry into the Moral of Landscape. (d) The Teachers of Turner. Vol. IV. — Part V. Of Mountain Beauty. Dealing first with the Turnerian Picturesque, Turnerian Topography, Turnerian Light, and Turnerian Mystery ; followed by a commencement of the task of “ ascer- taining as far as possible what the proper effect of the natural beauty of different objects ought to be on the PREFACE. v VOL. IV. — continued, human mind, and the degree in which this nature of theirs, and true influence, has been understood and transmitted by Turner.” Beginning with Mountains, deals in turn with — A. The Materials of Mountains, under the headings of (a) Com- pact Crystallines ; ( b ) Slaty Crystallines ; ( c ) Slaty Coherents ; (d) Compact Coherents ; showing in each case the effect of physical environment on man. B. The Sculpture of Mountains and their Resulting Forms — [a) Aiguilles ; (6) Crests ; ( c ) Precipices ; (d) Banks ; ( : for we have seen that few surfaces are without curvature, and every curved surface must be gradated by the nature of light ; and for the gradation of the few plane io6 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. surfaces that exist, means are provided in local colour, aerial perspective, reflected lights, etc., from which it is but barely conceivable that they should ever escape. For instances of the complete absence of gradation we must look to man’s work, or to his disease or decrepitude. Compare the gradated colours of the rainbow with the stripes of a target, and the gradual deepening of the youthful blood in the cheek with an abrupt patch of rouge, or with the sharply drawn veins of old age. 22. Unrest and Repose. Both in subjects of the intellect and the senses, it is to be remembered that the love of change is a weakness and im- perfection of our nature, and implies in it the state of proba- tion ; and that it is to teach us that things about us here are not meant for our continual possession or satisfaction, that ever such passion of change was put in us as that “ custom lies upon us with a weight, heavy as frost, and deep almost as life ; ” and only such weak thews and baby grasp given to our intellect as that “ the best things we do are painful, and the exercise of them grievous, being continued without inter- mission, so as in those very actions whereby we are especially perfected in this life we are not able to persist.” And so it will be found that they are the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love variety and change : for the weakest-minded are those who both wonder most at things new, and digest worst things old ; in so far that everything they have lies rusty, and loses lustre for want of use, neither do they make any stir among their possessions, nor look over them to see wdiat may be made of them, nor keep any great store, nor are householders w r ith storehouses of things new and old ; but they catch at the new-fashioned garments, and let the moth and thief look after the rest : and the hardest-hearted men are those that least feel the endear- ing and binding power of custom, and hold on by no cords of affection to any shore, but drive with the waves that cast up mire and dirt. And certainly it is not to be held that the UNREST AND REPOSE. 107 perception of beauty, and desire of it, are greatest in the hardest heart and weakest brain ; but the love of variety is so, and therefore variety can be no cause of the beautiful, except, as I have said, when it is necessary for the perception of unity. Neither is there any better test of beauty than its surviving or annihilating the love of change ; a test which the best judges of art have need frequently to use ; for there is much that surprises by its brilliancy, or attracts by its singu- larity, that can hardly but by course of time, though assuredly it will by course of time, be winnowed away from the right and real beauty whose retentive power is for ever on the in- crease, a bread of the soul for which the hunger is continual. * * * +• * * As opposed to passion, change, fulness, or laborious exer- tion, Repose is the especial and separating characteristic of the eternal mind and power. It is the “ I am ” of the Creator opposed to the “I become” of all creatures; it is the sign alike of the supreme knowledge which is incapable of surprise, the supreme power which is incapable of labour, the supreme volition which is incapable of change ; it is the stillness of the beams of the eternal chambers laid upon the variable waters of ministering creatures. And as we saw before that the infinity which was a type of the divine nature on the one hand, became yet more desirable on the other from its peculiar address to our prison hopes, and to the expectations * of an unsatisfied and unaccomplished existence ; so the types of this third attribute of the Deity might seem to have been rendered farther attractive to mortal instinct, through the in- fliction upon the fallen creature of a curse necessitating a labour once unnatural and still most painful ; so that the desire of rest planted in the heart is no sensual nor unworthy one, but a longing for renovation and for escape from a state whose every phase is mere preparation for another equally | transitory, to one in which permanence shall have become 1 possible through perfection. Hence the great call of Christ i to men, that call on which St. Augustine fixed as the essential ! expression of Christian hope, is accompanied by the promise of rest ; 1 and the death bequest of Christ to men is peace. 1 Matt < xi. io8 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. Repose, as it is expressed in material things, is either a simple appearance of permanence and quietness, as in the massy forms of a mountain or rock, accompanied by the lulling effect of all mighty sight and sound, which all feel and none define (it would be less sacred if more explicable), evbovcnv S’ optwv KopvQaC re Kai cpApayyes. or else it is repose proper, the rest of things in which there is vitality or capability of motion actual or imagined ; and with respect to these the expression of repose is greater in propor- tion to the amount and sublimity of the action which is not taking place, as well as to the intensity of the negation of it. Thus we do not speak of repose in a pebble, because the motion of a pebble has nothing in it of energy or vitality, neither its repose of stability. But having once seen a great rock come down a mountain side, we have a noble sensation of its rest, now bedded immovably among the fern ; because the power and fearfulness of its motion were great, and its stability and negation of motion are now great in proportion. Hence the imagination, which delights in nothing more than in the enhancing of the characters of repose, effects this usually by either attributing to things visibly energetic an ideal stability, or to things visibly stable an ideal activity or vitality. Thus Wordsworth speaks of the Cloud, which in itself has too much of changefulness for his purpose, as one That heareth not the loud winds when they call, And moveth altogether if it move at all. And again the children, which, that it may remove from them the child-restlessness, the imagination conceives as rooted flowers, Beneath an old grey oak, as violets, lie. On the other hand, the scattered rocks, which have not, as such, vitality enough for rest, are gifted with it by the living image : they Lie crouched around us like a flock of sheep. Thus, as we saw that unity demanded for its expression what at first might have seemed its contrary, variety, so Repose demands for its expression the implied capability of UNREST AND REPOSE. 109 its opposite, Energy; and this even in its lower manifesta- tions, in rocks and stones and trees. By comparing the modes in which the mind is disposed to regard the boughs of a fair and vigorous tree, motionless in the summer air, with the effect produced by one of the same boughs hewn square and used for threshold or lintel, the reader will at once perceive the connection of vitality with repose, and the part they both bear in beauty. But that which in lifeless things ennobles them by seeming to indicate life, ennobles higher creatures by indicating the exaltation of their earthly vitality into a Divine vitality ; and raising the life of sense into the life of faith : faith, whether we receive it in the sense of adherence to resolution, obedi- ence to law, regardfulness of promise, in which from all time it has been the test, as the shield, of the true being and life of man ; or in the still higher sense of trustfulness in the presence, kindness, and word of God, in which form it has been exhibited under the Christian dispensation. For, whether in one or other form — whether the faithfulness of men whose path is chosen and portion fixed, in the following and receiving of that path and portion, as in the Thermopylae camp ; or the happier faithfulness of children in the good giving of their Father, and of subjects in the conduct of their King, as in the “Stand still and see the salvation of God” of the Red Sea shore — there is rest and peacefulness, the ' “ standing still,” in both, the quietness of action determined, of spirit unalarmed, of expectation unimpatient : beautiful even when based only, as of old, on the self-command and self-possession, the persistent dignity or the uncalculating love, of the creature ; 1 but more beautiful yet when the rest is one of humility instead of pride, and the trust no more in the resolution we have taken, but in the hand we hold. 1 The universal instinct of repose, The longing for confirmed tranquillity Inward and outward, humble, yet sublime. The life where hope and memory are as one. Earth quiet and unchanged ; the human soul Consistent in self-rule ; and heaven revealed To meditation, in that quietness. Wordsworth, Excursion , book iii. no MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. II. 23. Vital Beauty. I have already noticed the example of very pure and high typical beauty which is to be found in the lines and grada- tions of unsullied snow : if, passing to the edge of a sheet of it, upon the Lower Alps, early in May, we find, as we are nearly sure to find, two or three little round openings pierced in it, and through these emergent, a slender, pensive, fragile flower , 1 whose small, dark, purple-fringed bell hangs down and shudders over the icy cleft that it has cloven, as if partly wondering at its own recent grave, and partly dying of very fatigue after its hard-won victory ; we shall be, or we ought to be, moved by a totally different impression of loveliness from that which we receive among the dead ice and the idle clouds. There is now uttered to us a call for sympathy, now offered to us an image of moral purpose and achievement, which, however unconscious or senseless the creature may indeed be that so seems to call, cannot be heard without affection, nor contemplated without worship, by any of us whose heart is rightly tuned, or whose mind is clearly and surely sighted. Throughout the whole of the organic creation every being in a perfect state exhibits certain appearances or evidences of happiness; and is in its nature, its desires, its modes of nourishment, habitation, and death, illustrative or expressive of certain moral dispositions or principles. Now, first, in the keenness of the sympathy which we feel in the happiness, real or apparent, of all organic beings, and which, as we shall presently see, invariably prompts us, from the joy we have in it, to look upon those as most lovely which are most happy ; and secondly, in the justness of the moral sense which rightly reads the lesson they are all intended to teach, and classes them in orders of worthiness and beauty according to the rank and nature of that lesson, whether it be of warning or ex- ample, in those that wallow or in those that soar ; in our right accepting and reading of all this, consists, I say, the ultimately perfect condition of that noble Theoretic faculty, whose place in the system of our nature I have already partly vindicated 1 Soldanella alpina. VITAL BEAUTY. ill with respect to typical, but which can only fully be established with respect to vital beauty. Its first perfection, therefore, relating to Vital Beauty, is the kindness and unselfish fulness of heart, which receives the utmost amount of pleasure from the happiness of all things. Of which in high degree the heart of man is inca- pable ; neither what intense enjoyment the angels may have in all that they see of things that move and live, and in the part they take in the shedding of God’s kindness upon them, can we know or conceive : only in proportion as we draw near to God, and are made in measure like unto Him, can we increase this our possession of Charity, of which the entire essence is in God only. But even the ordinary exercise of this faculty implies a condition of the whole moral being in some measure right and healthy, and to the entire exercise of it there is necessary the entire perfection of the Christian character ; for he who loves not God, nor his brother, cannot love the grass beneath his feet and the creatures which live not for his uses, filling those spaces in the universe which he needs not ; while on the other hand, none can love God, nor his human brother, without loving all things which his Father loves ; nor without looking upon them, every one, as in that respect his brethren also, and perhaps worthier than he, if, in the under concords they have to fill, their part is touched more truly. It is good to read of that kindness and humble- ness of St. Francis of Assisi, who spoke never to bird nor to cicala, nor even to wolf and beast of prey, but as his brother ; and so we find are moved the minds of all good and mighty men, as in the lesson that we have from the Mariner of Coleridge, and yet more truly and rightly taught in the “Hartleap Well,” Never to blend our pleasure, or our pride, With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels ; and again in the White Doe of Rylstone, with the added teaching, that anguish of our own — Is tempered and allayed by sympathies, Aloft ascending and descending deep, Even to the inferior kinds. ii2 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. So that I know not of anything more destructive of the whole Theoretic faculty, not to say of the Christian character and human intellect, than those accursed sports in which man makes of himself, cat, tiger, serpent, chsetodon, and alligator in one ; and gathers into one continuance of cruelty, for his amusement, all the devices that brutes sparingly and at intervals use against each other for their necessities. As we pass from these beings of whose happiness and pain we are certain, to those in which it is doubtful, or only seem- ing, as possibly in plants (though I would fain hold, if I might, “the faith, that every flower enjoys the air it breathes ”), yet our feeling for them has in it more of sympathy than of actual love, as receiving from them in delight far more than we can give ; for love, I think, chiefly grows in giving ; at least its essence is the desire of doing good, or giving happi- ness. Still the sympathy of very sensitive minds usually reaches so far as to the conception of life in the plant, and so to love, as with Shakspeare always, as he has taught us in the sweet voices of Ophelia and Perdita, and Wordsworth always, as of the daffodils, and the celandine : It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold. This neither is its courage, nor its choice, But its necessity in being old : and so all other great poets ; 1 nor do I believe that any mind, however rude, is without some slight perception or acknow- ledgment of joyfulness in breathless things, as most certainly there are none but feel instinctive delight in the appearances of such enjoyment. For it is matter of easy demonstration, that setting the characters of typical beauty aside, the pleasure afforded by every organic form is in proportion to its appearance of healthy vital energy. In a rose-tree, setting aside all the con- siderations of gradated flushing of colour, and fair folding of line, which its flowers share with the cloud or the snow- wreath, we find, in and through all this, certain signs pleasant and acceptable as signs of life and strength in the plant. 1 Compare Milton : They at her coming sprung, And, touched by her fair tendance, gladlier grew. VITAL BEAUTY. 113 Every leaf and stalk is seen to have a function, to be con- stantly exercising that function, and as it seems, solely for the good and enjoyment of the plant. It is true that reflection will show us that the plant is not living for itself alone, that its life is one of benefaction, that it gives as well as receives ; but no sense of this whatsoever mingles with our perception of physical beauty in its forms. Those forms appear to be necessary to its health ; the symmetry of its leaflets, the smoothness of its stalks, the vivid green of its shoots, are looked upon by us as signs of the plant’s own happiness and perfection ; they are useless to us, except as they give us pleasure in our sympathizing with that of the plant ; and if we see a leaf withered, or shrunk, or worm-eaten, we say it is ugly, and feel it to be painful, not because it hurts us, but because it seems to hurt the plant, and conveys to us an idea of pain and disease and failure of life in it. That the amount of pleasure we receive is in exact propor- tion to the appearance of vigour and sensibility in the plant, is easily proved by observing the effect of those which show the evidences of it in the least degree, as, for instance, any of the cacti not in flower. Their masses are heavy and simple, their growth slow ; their various parts, if they are ramified, jointed on one to another, as if they were buckled or pinned together instead of growing out of each other : and the fruit imposed upon the body of the plant, so that it looks like a swelling or disease. All these circumstances so concur to deprive the plant of vital evidences, that we receive from it more sense of pain than of beauty ; and yet, even here, the sharpness or the angles, the symmetrical order and strength of the spines, the fresh and even colour of the body, are looked for earnestly as signs of healthy condition ; our pain is increased by their absence, and indefinitely increased if blotches, and other appearances of decay, interfere with that little life which the plant seems to possess. The same singular characters belong in animals to the Crustacea, as to the lobster, crab, scorpion, etc., and in great measure deprive them of the beauty which we find in higher orders ; so that we are reduced to look for their beauty to single parts and joints, and not to the whole animal. H4: MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. Now I wish particularly to impress upon the reader that all these sensations of beauty in the plant arise from our unselfish sympathy with its happiness, and not from any view of the qualities in it which may bring good to us, nor even from our acknowledgment in it of any moral condition beyond that of mere felicity ; for such an acknowledgment belongs to the second operation of the Theoretic faculty, and not to the sympathetic part which we are at present examining; so that we even find that in this respect, the moment we begin to look upon any creature as subor- dinate to some purpose out of itself, some of the sense of organic beauty is lost. Thus, when we are told that the leaves of a plant are occupied in decomposing carbonic acid, and preparing oxygen for us, we begin to look upon it with some such indifference as upon a gasometer. It has become a machine; some of our sense of its happiness is gone ; its emanation of inherent life is no longer pure. The bending trunk, waving to and fro in the wind above the waterfall, is beautiful because it is happy, though it is perfectly useless to us. 1 The same trunk, hewn down and thrown across the stream, has lost its beauty. It serves as a bridge— it has become useful ; and its beauty is gone, or what it retains is purely typical, dependent on its lines and colours, not on its functions. Saw it into planks, and, though now adapted to become permanently useful, its beauty is lost for ever, or to be regained only when decay and ruin shall have withdrawn it again from use, and left it to receive from the hand of nature the velvet moss and varied lichen, which may again suggest ideas of inherent happiness, and tint its mouldering sides with hues of life. There is something, I think, peculiarly beautiful and in- structive in this unselfishness of the Theoretic faculty, and in its abhorrence of all utility to one creature which is based on the pain or destruction of any other ; for in such services as are consistent with the essence and energy of both it takes delight, as in the clothing of the rock by the herbage, and the feeding of the herbage by the stream. But still clearer evidence of its being indeed the expression 1 Exiit ad ccelum ramis felicibus arbos. VITAL BEAUTY. 115 of happiness to which we look for our first pleasure in organic form, is to be found in the way in which we regard the bodily frame of animals : of which it is to be noted first, that there is not anything which causes so intense and tor- menting a sense of ugliness as any scar, wound, monstrosity, or imperfection which seems inconsistent with the animal’s ease and health; and that although in vegetables, where there is no immediate sense of pain, we are comparatively little hurt by excrescences and irregularities, but are some- times even delighted with them, and fond of them, as chil- dren of the oak-apple, and sometimes look upon them as more interesting than the uninjured conditions, as in the gnarled and knotted trunks of trees; yet the slightest approach to anything of the kind in animal form is regarded with in- tense horror, merely from the sense of pain it conveys. And, in the second place, it is to be noted that whenever we dissect the animal frame, or conceive it as dissected, and substitute in our thoughts the neatness of mechanical con- trivance for the pleasure of the animal ; the moment we reduce enjoyment to ingenuity, and volition to leverage, that instant all sense of beauty ceases. Take, for instance, the action of the limb of the ostrich, which is beautiful so long as we see it in its swift uplifting along the Desert sands, and trace in the tread of it her scorn of the horse and his rider, but would infinitely lose of its impressiveness, if we could see the spring ligament playing backwards and for- wards in alternate jerks over the tubercle at the hock joint. Take again the action of the dorsal fin of the shark tribe. So long as we observe the consistent energy of motion in the whole frame, the lash of the tail, bound of body, and instantaneous lowering of the dorsal, to avoid the resistance of the water, as it turns, there is high sense of organic power and beauty. But when we dissect the dorsal, and find that its superior ray is supported in its position by a peg in a notch at its base, and that, when the fin is to be lowered, the peg has to be taken out, and, when it is raised, put in again ; although we are filled with wonder at the ingenuity of the mechanical contrivance, all our sense of beauty is gone, and not to be recovered until we again see the fin n6 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. playing on the animal’s body, apparently by its own will alone, with the life running along its rays. It is by a beau- tiful ordinance of the Creator that all these mechanisms are concealed from sight, though open to investigation ; and that in all which is outwardly manifested, we seem to see His presence rather than His workmanship, and the mys- terious breath of life rather than the adaptation of matter. If, therefore, as I think appears from all evidence, it is the sense of felicity which we first desire in organic form, those forms will be the most beautiful (always, observe, leaving typical beauty out of the question) which exhibit most of power, and seem capable of most quick and joyous sensation. Hence we find gradations of beauty, from the impenetrable hide and slow movement of the elephant and the rhinoceros, from the foul occupation of the vulture, from the earthy struggling of the worm, to the brilliancy of the moth, the buoyancy of the bird, the swiftness of the fawn and the horse, the fair and kingly sensibility of man. 24. Mind and Body. The visible operation of the mind upon the body may be classed under three heads. First, the operation of the intellectual powers upon the features, in the fine cutting and chiselling of them, and removal from them of signs of sensuality and sloth, by which they are blunted and deadened ; and substitution of energy and intensity for vacancy and insipidity (by which wants alone the faces of many fair women are utterly spoiled and rendered valueless) ; and by the keenness given to the eye and fine moulding and development to the brow, of which effects Sir Charles Bell has well described the desirableness and opposition to brutal types ; only this he has not suffi- ciently observed, that there are certain virtues of the intellect in measure inconsistent with each other, as perhaps great subtlety with great comprehensiveness, and high analytical with high imaginative power : or that at least, if consistent and compatible, their signs upon the features are not the MIND AND BODY. 117 same, so that the outward form cannot express both, without in a measure expressing neither ; and so there are certain separate virtues of the outward form correspondent with the more constant employment or more prevailing capacity of the brain, as the piercing keenness, or open and reflective comprehensiveness, of the eye and forehead : and that all these virtues of form are ideal, only those the most so which are the signs of the worthiest powers of intellect, though which these may be, we will not at present stay to inquire. Secondly, the operation of the moral feelings conjointly with the intellectual powers on both the features and form. Now, the operation of the right moral feelings on the intellect is always for the good of the latter ; for it is not possible that selfishness should reason rightly in any respect, but must be blind in its estimation of the worthiness of all things, neither anger, for that overpowers the reason or outcries it ; neither sensuality, for that overgrows and chokes it ; neither agitation, for that has no time to compare things together; neither enmity, for that must be unjust ; neither fear, for that exaggerates all things ; neither cunning and deceit, for that which is voluntarily untrue will soon be unwittingly so; but the great reasoners are self-command, and trust unagitated, and deep-looking Love, and Faith, which as she is above Reason, so she best holds the reins of it from her «■ high seat ; so that they err grossly who think of the right development even of the intellectual type as possible, unless we look to higher sources of beauty first. Nevertheless, though in their operation upon them the moral feelings are thus elevatory of the mental faculties, yet in their conjunction ' with them they seem to occupy, in their own fulness, such space as to absorb and overshadow all else; so that, the ‘simultaneous exercise of both being in a sort impossible, we occasionally find the moral part in full development and action, without corresponding expansion of the intellect (though never without healthy condition of it), as in the condition described by Wordsworth, In such high hour Of visitation from the Living God, Thought was not ; n8 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. only, if we look far enough, we shall perhaps find that it is not intelligence itself, but the immediate act and effort of a laborious, struggling, and imperfect intellectual faculty, with which high moral emotion is inconsistent ; and though we cannot, while we feel deeply, reason shrewdly, yet I doubt if, except when we feel deeply, we can ever comprehend fully ; so that it is only the climbing and mole-like piercing, and not the sitting upon their central throne, nor emergence into light, of the intellectual faculties, which the full heart feel- ing allows not. Hence, therefore, in the indications of the countenance, they are only the hard cut lines, and rigid settings, and wasted hollows, speaking of past effort and painfulness of mental application, which are inconsistent with expression of moral feeling, for all these are of infelicitous augury ; but not the full and serene development of habitual command in the look, and solemn thought in the brow : only these in their unison with the signs of emotion, become softened and gradually confounded with a serenity and authority of nobler origin. But of the sweetness which that higher serenity (of happi- ness), and the dignity which that higher authority (of divine law, and not human reason) can and must stamp on the features, it would be futile to speak here at length; for I suppose that both are acknowledged on all hands, and that there is not any beauty but theirs to which men pay long obedience : at all events, if not by sympathy discovered, it is not in words explicable with what divine lines and lights the exercise of godliness and charity will mould and gild the * hardest and coldest countenance, neither to what darkness their departure will consign the loveliest. For there is not any virtue the exercise of which, even momentarily, will not impress a new fairness upon the features : neither on them only, but on the whole body, both the intelligence and the moral faculties have operation ; for even all the movements and gestures, however slight, are different in their modes according to the mind that governs them ; and on the gentleness and decision of just feeling there follows a grace of action, and, through continuance of this, a grace of form, which by no discipline may be taught or attained. DESTROYERS OF THE IDEAL FORM. 119 The third point to be considered with respect to the corporeal expression of mental character is, that there is a certain period of the soul-culture when it begins to interfere with some of the characters of typical beauty belonging to the bodily frame, the stirring of the intellect wearing down the flesh, and the moral enthusiasm burning its way out to heaven, through the emaciation of the earthen vessel ; and that there is, in this indication of subduing of the mortal by the immortal part, an ideal glory of perhaps a purer and higher range than that of the more perfect material form. We conceive, I think, more nobly of the weak presence of Paul, than of the fair and ruddy countenance of Daniel. 25. Destroyers of the Ideal Form. Those signs of evil which are commonly most manifest on the human features are roughly divisible into these four kinds : the signs of pride, of sensuality, of fear, and of cruelty. Any one of which will destroy the ideal character of the countenance and body. Now of these, the first, Pride, is perhaps the most destructive of all the four, seeing it is the undermost and original vice of all : and it is base also from the necessary foolishness of it, r because at its best, when grounded on a just estimation of our own elevation or superiority above certain others, it cannot 1 but imply that our eyes look downward only, and have never been raised above our own measure; for there is not the man so lofty in his standing or capacity, but he must be humble in thinking of the cloud habitation and far sight ! of the angelic intelligences above him ; and in perceiving what infinity there is of things he cannot know, nor even I reach unto, as it stands compared with that little body of i things he can reach, and of which nevertheless he can altogether understand not one ; not to speak of that wicked and fond attributing of such excellency as he may have to I himself, and thinking of it as his own getting, which is the real essence and criminality of Pride ; nor of those viler forms j of it, founded on false estimation of things beneath us and 120 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. irrational contemning of them ; but, taken at its best, it is still base to that degree that there is no grandeur of feature which it cannot destroy and make despicable, so that the first step towards the ennobling of any face is the ridding it of its vanity. To which aim there cannot be anything more contrary than that principle of portraiture which prevails with us in these days, whose end seems to be the expression of vanity throughout, in face and in all circumstances of accompani- ment ; tending constantly to insolence of attitude, and levity and haughtiness of expression, and worked out farther in mean accompaniments of worldly splendour and possession ; together with hints or proclamations of what the person has done or supposes himself to have done, which, if known, it is gratuitous in the portrait to exhibit, and, if unknown, it is insolent in the portrait to proclaim : whence has arisen such a school of portraiture as must make the people of the nineteenth century the shame of their descendants, and the butt of all time. To which practices are to be opposed both the glorious severity of Holbein, and the mighty and simple modesty of Raffaelle, Titian, Giorgione, and Tintoret, with whom armour does not constitute the warrior, neither silk the dame. And from what feeling the dignity of that por- traiture arose is best traceable at Venice, where we find their victorious doges painted neither in the toil of battle nor the triumph of return ; nor set forth with thrones and curtains of state, but kneeling, always crownless, and returning thanks to God for His help ; or as priests interceding for the nation in its affliction. But this feeling and its results have been so well traced by Rio, 1 that I need not speak of it farther. That second destroyer of ideal form, the appearance of Sensual character, though not less fatal in its operation on modern art, is more difficult to trace, owing to its peculiar subtlety. For it is not possible to say by what minute differ- ences the right conception of the human form is separated from that which is luscious and foul : for the root of all is in the love and seeking of the painter, who, if of impure and feeble mind, will cover all that he touches with clay staining, 1 De la Po'esie Chrilienno . Forme de V Art , chap. viii. DESTROYERS OF THE IDEAL FORM. 121 as Bandinelli puts a scent of common flesh about his marble Christ, and as many, whom I will not here name, among moderns ; but if of mighty mind or pure, may pass through all places of foulness, and none will stay upon him, as Michael Angelo ; or he will baptize all things and wash them with pure water, as our own Stothard. Now, so far as this power is dependent on the seeking of the artist, and is only to be seen in the work of good and spiritually-minded men, it is vain to attempt to teach or illustrate it ; neither is it here the place to show how it belongs to the representation of the mental image of things, instead of things themselves, of which we are to speak in treating of the imagination ; but thus much may here be noted of broad, practical principle, that the purity of flesh painting depends, in very considerable measure, on the intensity and warmth of its colour. For if it be opaque, and clay cold, and devoid of all the radiance and life of flesh, the lines of its true beauty, being severe and firm, will become so hard in the loss of the glow and grada- tion by which nature illustrates them, that the painter will be compelled to sacrifice them for a luscious fulness and roundness, in order to give the conception of flesh ; which, being done, destroys ideality of form as of colour, and gives all over to lasciviousness of surface; showing also that the painter sought for this, and this only, since otherwise he had ' not taken a subject in which he knew himself compelled to surrender all sources of dignity. Whereas right splendour of colour both bears out a nobler severity of form, and is in itself purifying and cleansing, like fire ; furnishing also to the painter an excuse for the choice of his subject, seeing that he may be supposed as not having painted it but in the admiration of its abstract glory of colour and form, and with no unworthy seeking. But the mere power of perfect and glowing colour will, in some sort, redeem even a debased tendency of mind [| itself, as eminently the case with Titian, who, though often !! treating base subjects, or elevated subjects basely, as in 1 the disgusting Magdalen of the Pitti Palace, and that of 1 the Barberigo at Venice, yet redeems all by his glory of 1 hue, so that he cannot paint altogether coarsely : and with 122 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. Giorgione, who had more imaginative intellect, the sense of nudity is utterly lost, and there is no need nor desire of concealment any more, but his naked figures move among the trees like fiery pillars, and lie on the grass like flakes of sunshine. 1 With the religious painters, on the other hand, such nudity as they were compelled to treat is redeemed as much by severity of form and hardness of line as by colour, so that generally their draped figures are preferable. But they, with Michael Angelo and most of the Venetians, form a great group, pure in sight and aim, between which and all other schools by which the nude has been treated, there is a gulf fixed, and all the rest, compared with them, seem striving how best to illustrate Spenser’s stanza in its second clause : Of all God’s works which doe this worlde adorn, There is no one more faire, and excellent Than is man’s body both for power and forme Whiles it is kept in sober government. But none than it more foul and indecent Distempered through misrule and passions bace. Of these last, however, with whom ideality is lost, there are some worthier than others, according to that measure of colour they reach, and power they possess. Much may be forgiven to Rubens ; less, as I think, to Correggio, who has more of inherent sensuality, wrought out with attractive and luscious refinement, and that alike in all subjects ; as in the Madonna of the Incoronazione, over the high altar of San Giovanni at Parma, of which the head and upper portion of the figure, now preserved in the library, might serve as a model of attitude and expression to a ballet figurante : 2 and again in the lascivious St. Catherine of the Giorno, and in the Charioted Diana (both at Parma), not to name any of his works of aim more definitely evil. Beneath which again will fall the works devoid alike of art and decency, as that Susannah of Guido, in our own gallery ; 1 As in the noble Louvre picture. 8 The Madonna turns her back to Christ, and bends her head over her shoulder to receive the crown, the arms being folded with studied grace over the bosom. DESTROYERS OF THE IDEAL FORM. 123 and so we may descend to the absolute clay of the moderns, excepting always Etty ; only noticing in all how much of what is evil and base in subject or tendency, is redeemed by what is pure and right in hue ; so that I do not assert that the purpose and object of many of the grander painters of the nude, as of Titian for instance, were always elevated, but only that we, who cannot paint the lamp of fire within the earthen pitcher, must take other weapons in our left hands. And it is to be noted also, that, in climates where the body can be more openly and frequently visited by sun and weather, the nude both comes to be regarded in a way more grand and pure, as necessarily awakening no ideas of base kind (as pre-eminently with the Greeks), and also from that exposure receives a firmness and sunny elasticity very different from the silky softness of the clothed nations of the north, where every model necessarily looks as if accidentally undressed; and hence, from the very fear and doubt with which we approach the nude, it becomes expressive of evil ; and for that daring frankness of the old men, which seldom missed of human grandeur, even when it failed of holy feeling, we have substituted a mean, carpeted, gauze- veiled, mincing sensuality of curls and crisping -pins, out of which, I believe, nothing can come but moral enervation and mental paralysis. Respecting those two other vices of the human form, the expressions of Fear and Ferocity, there is less to be noted, as they only occasionally enter into the conception of character ; only it is most necessary to make careful distinction between the conception of power, destructiveness, or majesty, in matter, influence, or agent, and the actual fear of any of these : for it is possible to conceive of terribleness, without being in a position obnoxious to the danger of it, and so without fear ; and the feeling arising from this contemplation of dreadfulness, ourselves being in safety, as of a stormy sea from the shore, is properly termed Awe, and is a most noble passion ; whereas fear, mortal and extreme, may be felt respecting things ignoble, as the falling from a window, and without any conception of terribleness or majesty in the thing, or the accident dreaded ; and even when fear is felt 124 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. respecting things sublime, as thunder, or storm of battle, the tendency of it is to destroy all power of contemplation of their majesty, and to freeze and contract all the intellect into a shaking heap of clay ; for absolute acute fear is of the same unworthiness and contempt from whatever source it arise, and degrades the mind and the outward bearing of the body alike, even though it be among hail of heaven and fire running along the ground. And so among the children of God, while there is always that fearful and bowed apprehension of His majesty, and that sacred dread of all offence to Him, which is called the Fear of God, yet of real and essential fear there is not any, but clinging of confidence to Him, as their Rock, Fortress, and Deliverer ; and perfect love, and casting out of fear ; so that it is not possible that, while the mind is rightly bent on Him, there should be dread of anything either earthly or supernatural; and the more dreadful seems the height of His majesty, the less fear they feel that dwell in the shadow of it (“Of whom shall 1 be afraid?”), so that they are as David was, “ devoted to his fear ; ” whereas, on the other hand, those who, if they may help it, never conceive of God, but thrust away all thought and memory of Him, and in His real terribleness and omnipresence fear Him not nor know Him, yet are by real, acute, piercing, and ignoble fear, haunted for evermore ; fear inconceiving and desperate, that calls to the rocks, and hides in the dust; and hence the peculiar baseness of the expression of terror, a baseness attributed to it in all times, and among all nations, as of a passion atheistical, brutal, and profane. So, also, it is always joined with ferocity, which is of all passions the least human; for of sensual desires there is license to men, as necessity ; and of vanity there is intellectual cause, so that when seen in a brute it is pleasant, and a sign of good wit; and of fear there is at times necessity and excuse, as being allowed for prevention of harm; but of ferocity there is no excuse nor palliation, but it is pure essence of tiger and demon, and it casts on the human face the paleness alike of the horse of Death, and the ashes of Heii. IMAGINATION ASSOCIATIVE. 125 26. Imagination Associative. This is Imagination, properly so called ; imagination associa- tive, the grandest mechanical power that the human intelli- gence possesses, and one which will appear more and more marvellous the longer we consider it. By its operation, two ideas are chosen out of an infinite mass (for it evidently matters not whether the imperfections be conceived out of the infinite number conceivable, or selected out of a number recollected), two ideas which are separately wrongs which together shall be right, and of whose unity, therefore, the idea must be formed at the instant they are seized, as it is only in that unity that either is good, and therefore only the conception of that unity can prompt the preference. Now, what is that prophetic action of mind, which out of an infinite mass of things that cannot be tried together, seizes, at the same instant, two that are fit for each other ; together right, yet each disagreeable alone. This operation of mind, so far as I can see, is absolutely inexplicable, but there is something like it in chemistry. The action of sulphuric acid on metallic zinc affords an instance of what was once 'called Disposing Affinity. Zinc decomposes pure water at common temperatures with extreme slowness; but as soon as sulphuric acid is added, decomposition of the water takes place rapidly, though the acid merely unites with oxide of zinc. The former explana- tion was, that the affinity of the acid for oxide of zinc disposed the metal to unite with oxygen, and thus enabled it to decompose water ; that is, the oxide of zinc was supposed to produce an effect previous to its existence. The obscurity of this explanation arises from regarding changes as consecutive, which are in reality simultaneous. There is no succession in the process, the oxide of zinc is not formed previously to its combination with the acid, but at the same instant. There is, as it were, but one chemical change, which consists in the combination, at one and the same moment, of zinc with oxygen, and of oxide of zinc with the acid ; and this change occurs because these 126 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. II. two affinities, acting together, overcome the attraction of oxygen and hydrogen for one another . 1 Now, if the imaginative artist will permit us, with all deference, to represent his combining intelligence under the figure of sulphuric acid ; and if we suppose the fragment of zinc to be embarrassed among infinitely numerous frag- ments of diverse metals, and the oxygen dispersed and mingled among gases countless and indistinguishable; we shall have an excellent type, in material things, of the action of the imagination on the immaterial. Both actions are, I think, inexplicable; for, however simultaneous the chemical changes may be, yet the causing power is the affinity of the acid for what has no existence. It is neither to be explained how that affinity operates on atoms uncombined, nor how the artist’s desire for an unconceived whole prompts him to the selection of necessary divisions. This operation would be wonderful enough, if it were concerned with two ideas only. But a powerfully imaginative mind seizes and combines at the same instant, not only two, but all the important ideas of its poem or picture ; and while it works with any one of them, it is at the same instant work ing with and modifying all in their relations to it, never losing sight of their bearings on each other ; as the motion of a snake’s body goes through all parts at once, and its volition acts at the same instant in the coils that go contrary ways. This faculty is indeed something that looks as if man were made after the image of God. It is inconceivable, admirable, altogether divine; and yet, wonderful as it may seem, it is palpably evident that no less an operation is necessary for the production of any great work : for, by the definition of Unity of Membership (the essential characteristic of greatness), not only certain couples or groups of parts, but all the parts of a noble work must be separately imperfect ; each must imply, and ask for all the rest, and the glory of every one of them must consist in its relation to the rest ; neither while so much as one is wanting can any be right. 1 Elements of Chemistry , by the late Edward Turner, M.D., part ii., sect. lv. IMAGINATION PENETRATIVE. 127 And it is evidently impossible to conceive, in each separate feature, a certain want or wrongness which can only be cor- rected by the other features of the picture (not by one or two merely, but by all), unless, together with the want, we conceive also of what is wanted, that is, of all the rest of the work or picture. Hence Fuseli : “ Second thoughts are admissible in painting and poetry only as dressers of the first conception ; no great idea was ever formed in fragments.” “ He alone can conceive and compose who sees the whole at once before him.” There is, however, a limit to the power of all human imagination. When the relations to be observed are ab- solutely necessary, and highly complicated, the mind cannot grasp them ; and the result is a total deprivation of all power of imagination associative in such matter. For this reason, no human mind has ever conceived a new animal. For as it is evident that in an animal, every part implies all the rest ; that is, the form of the eye involves the form of the brow and nose, these the form of the forehead and lip, these of the head and chin, and so on, so that it is physically impossible to conceive of any one of these mem- bers, unless we conceive the relation it bears to the whole animal; and as this relation is necessary, certain, and com- plicated, allowing of no license or inaccuracy, the intellect utterly fails under the load, and is reduced to mere composi- tion; putting the bird’s wing on men’s shoulders, or half the human body to half the horse’s, in doing which there is no action of imagination, but only of fancy; though in the treatment and contemplation of the compound form there may be much imagination. 27. Imagination Penetrative. Every great conception of poet or painter is held and treated by this faculty. Every character that is so much as touched by men like ^Eschylus, Homer, Dante, or Shak- speare, is by them held by the heart ; and every circumstance 128 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. or sentence of their being, speaking, or seeming, is seized by process from within, and is referred to that inner secret spring of which the hold is never lost for an instant : so that every sentence, as it has been thought out from the heart, opens for us a way down to the heart, leads us to the centre, and then leaves us to gather what more we may. It is the Open Sesame of a huge, obscure, endless cave, with inex- haustible treasure of pure gold scattered in it : the wandering about and gathering the pieces may be left to any of us, all can accomplish that ; but the first opening of that invisible door in the rock is of the imagination only. Hence there is in every word set down by the imaginative mind an awful under-current of meaning, and evidence and shadow upon it of the deep places out of which it has come. It is often obscure, often half-told ; for he who wrote it, in his clear seeing of the things beneath, may have been im- patient of detailed interpretation : but, if we choose to dwell upon it and trace it, it will lead us always securely back to that metropolis of the soul’s dominion from which we may follow out all the ways and tracks to its farthest coasts. I think the “ Quel giorno piti non vi leggemmo avante ” of Francesca di Rimini, and the “ He has no children ” of Macduff, are as fine instances as can be given ; but the sign and mark of it are visible on every line of the four great men above instanced. The unimaginative writer on the other hand, as he has never pierced to the heart, so he can never touch it. If he has to paint a passion, he remembers the external signs of it, he collects expressions of it from other writers, he searches for similes, he composes, exaggerates, heaps term on term, figure on figure, till we groan beneath the cold disjointed heap : but it is all faggot and no fire ; the life breath is not in it ; his passion has the form of the leviathan, but it never makes the deep boil ; he fastens us all at anchor in the scaly ! rind of it ; our sympathies remain as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. And that virtue of originality that men so strain after is not newness, as they vainly think (there is nothing new), it is only genuineness ; it all depends on this single glorious j IMAGINATION PENETRATIVE. 129 faculty of getting to the spring of things and working out from that ; it is the coolness, and clearness, and deliciousness of the water fresh from the fountain head, opposed to the thick, hot, unrefreshing drainage from other men’s meadows. This freshness, however, is not to be taken for an infallible sign of imagination, inasmuch as it results also from a vivid operation of fancy, whose parallel function to this division of the imaginative faculty it is here necessary to distinguish. I believe it will be found that the entirely unimaginative mind sees nothing of the object it has to dwell upon or describe, and is therefore utterly unable, as it is blind itself, to set anything before the eyes of the reader. 1 The fancy sees the outside, and is able to give a portrait of the outside, clear, brilliant, and full of detail. The imagination sees the heart and inner nature, and makes them felt, but is often obscure, mysterious, and interrupted, in its giving of outer detail. Take an instance. A writer with neither imagination nor fancy, describing a fair lip, does not see it, but thinks abour it, and about what is said of it, and calls it well turned, ot rosy, or delicate, or lovely, or afflicts us with some other quenching and chilling epithet. Now hear Fancy speak : Her lips were red, and one was thin, Compared with that was next her chin, Some bee had stung it newly. 2 The real, red, bright being of the lip is there in a moment. But it is all outside ; no expression yet, no mind. Let us go a step farther with Warner, of Fair Rosamond struck by Eleanor : With that she dashed her on the lips So dyed double red ; Hard was the heart that gave the blow, Soft were those lips that bled. The tenderness of mind begins to mingle with the outside 1 Compare Arist., Rhet ., iii., n. # 1 I take this and the next instance from Leigh Hunt’s admirable piece of criticism, Imagination and Fancy , which ought to be read with care, and to which, though somewhat loosely arranged, I may refer far all the filling up and illustration that the subject requires. 5 130 MODERN PAINTERS.—VOL. II. colour, the Imagination is seen in its awakening. Next Shelley : Lamp of life, thy lips are burning Through the veil that seems to hide them, As the radiant lines of morning Through thin clouds ere they divide them. There dawns the entire soul in that morning ; yet we may stop if we choose at the image still external, at the crimson clouds. The imagination is contemplative rather than pene- trative. Last, hear Hamlet : Here hung those lips that I have kissed, I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar ? There is the essence of lip, and the full power of the imagination. Again, compare Milton’s flowers in Lj^cidas with Perdita’s. In Milton it happens, I think, generally, and in the case before us most certainly, that the imagination is mixed and broken with fancy, and so the strength of the imagery is part of iron and part of clay : Bring the rathe primrose, that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk rose, and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears. Then hear Perdita : O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let’st fall From Dis’s waggon 1 daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty ; violets, dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes, Or Cytherea’s breath ; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady Most incident to maids. Observe how the imagination in these last lines goes into Imagination . Nugatory. Fancy. Imagination. Fancy , vulgar Imagination. Mixed. IMAGINATION PENETRATIVE. 131 the very inmost soul of every flower, after having touched them all at first with that heavenly timidness, the shadow of Proserpine’s, and gilded them with celestial gathering, and never stops on their spots, or their bodily shape; while Milton sticks in the stains upon them, and puts us off with that unhappy freak of jet in the very flower that, without this bit of paper-staining, would have been the most precious to us of all. “ There is pansies, that’s for thoughts.” So, I believe, it will be found throughout the operation of the fancy, that it has to do with the outsides of things, and is content therewith.; of this there can be no doubt in such passages as that description of Mab so often given as an illus- tration of it, and many other instances will be found in Leigh Hunt’s work already referred to. Only some embarrassment is caused by passages in which Fancy is seizing the outward signs of emotion, understanding them as such, and yet, in pursuance of her proper function, taking for her share, and for that which she chooses to dwell upon, the outside sign rather than the emotion. Note in Macbeth that brilliant in- stance : Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky, And fan our people cold. The outward shiver and coldness of fear is seized on, and irregularly but admirably attributed by the fancy to the drift of the banners. Compare Solomon’s Song, where the imagi- nation stays not at the outside, but dwells on the fearful emotion itself : Who is she that looketh forth as the morning ; fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners ? Now, if these be the prevailing characteristics of the two faculties, it is evident that certain other collateral differences will result from them. Fancy, as she stays at the externals, can never feel. She is one of the hardest-hearted of the intellectual faculties, or rather one of the most purely and simply intellectual. She cannot be made serious, 1 no edge- 1 Fancy, in her third function, may, however, become serious, and gradually rise into imagination in doing so. 132 MODERN PAINTERS.—VOL. II. tools but she will play with. Whereas the Imagination is in all things the reverse. She cannot be but serious; she- sees too far, too darkly, too solemnly, too earnestly, ever to smile. There is something in the heart of everything, if we can reach it, that we shall not be inclined to laugh at. And thus there is reciprocal action between the intensity of moral feeling and the power of imagination ; for, on the one hand, those who have keenest sympathy are those who look closest and pierce deepest, and hold securest; and, on the other, those who have so pierced and seen the melancholy deeps of things are filled with the most intense passion and gentleness of sympathy. Hence, I sup- pose that the powers of the imagination may always be tested by accompanying tenderness of emotion ; and thus, as Byron said, there is no tenderness like Dante’s, neither any intensity nor seriousness like his, such seriousness that it is incapable of perceiving that which is commonplace or ridiculous, but fuses all down into its own white-hot fire. And, on the other hand, I suppose the chief bar to the action of imagination, and stop to all greatness in this present age of ours, is its mean and shallow love of jest ; so that if there be in any good and lofty work a flaw, failing, or un- dipped vulnerable part, where sarcasm may stick or stay, it is caught at, and pointed at, and buzzed about, and fixed upon, and stung into, as a recent wound is by flies ; and nothing is ever taken seriously or as it was meant, but always, if it may be, turned the wrong way, and misunder- stood : and while this is so, there is not, nor cannot be, any hope of achievement of high things ; men dare not open their hearts to us, if we are to broil them on a thorn-fire. This, then, is one essential difference between imagination and fancy ; and another is like it and resultant from it, that the imagination being at the heart of things, poises herself there, and is still, quiet, and brooding, comprehending all around her with her fixed look ; but the fancy staying at the outside of things, cannot see them all at once, but runs hither and thither, and round and about to see more and more, bounding merrily from point to point, and glittering here and there, but necessarily always settling, if she settle at all, on a IMAGINATION PENETRATIVE. 133 point only, never embracing the whole. And from these single points she can strike out analogies and catch resem- blances, which, so far as the point she looks at is concerned, are true, but would be false, if she could see through to the other side. This, however, she cares not to do ; the point of contact is enough for her, and even if there be a gap left between the two things and they do not quite touch, she will spring from one to the other like an electric spark, and be seen brighest in her leaping. ****** The most exquisite instance of this imaginative power occurs in an incident in the background of Tintoret’s Crucifixion. I will not insult this marvellous picture by an effort at a verbal account of it. I would not whitewash it with praise, and I refer to it only for the sake of two thoughts peculiarly illustrative of the intellectual faculty immediately under dis- cussion. In the common and most Catholic treatment of the subject, the mind is either painfully directed to the bodily agony, coarsely expressed by outward anatomical signs, or else it is permitted to rest on that countenance inconceiv- able by man at any time, but chiefly so in this its consum- mated humiliation. In the first case, the representation is revolting ; in the second, inefficient, false, and sometimes blasphemous. None even of the greatest religious painters have ever, so far as I know, succeeded here : Giotto and Angelico were cramped by the traditional treatment, and the latter especially, as before observed, is but too apt to indulge in those points of vitiated feeling which attained their worst development among the Byzantines; Perugino fails in his Christ in almost every instance : of other men than these, after them, we need not speak. But Tintoret here, as in all other cases, penetrating into the root and deep places of his subject, despising all outward and bodily appearances of pain, and seeking for some means of express- ing, not the rack of nerve or sinew, but the fainting of the deserted Son of God before his Eloi cry, and yet feeling himself utterly unequal to the expression of this by the countenance, has, on the one hand, filled his picture with such various and impetuous muscular exertion, that the 134 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL, II. body of the Crucified is, by comparison, in perfect repose, and, on the other, has cast the countenance altogether into shade. But the Agony is told by this, and by this only; that, though there yet remains a chasm of light on the moun- tain horizon where the earthquake darkness closes upon the day, the broad and sunlike glory about the head of the Redeemer has become wan, and of the colour of ashes} But the great painter felt he had something more to do yet. Not only that Agony of the Crucified, but the tumult of the people, that rage which invoked His blood upon them and their children. Not only the brutality of the soldier, the apathy of the Centurion, or any other merely instru- mental cause of the Divine suffering, but the fury of His own people, the noise against Him of those for whom He died, were to be set before the eye of the understanding, if the power of the picture was to be complete. This rage, be it remembered, was one of disappointed pride ; and the dis- appointment dated essentially from the time when, but five days before, the King of Zion came, and was received with hosannahs, riding upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. To this time, then, it was necessary to direct the thoughts, for therein are found both the cause and the character, the excitement of, and the witness against, this madness of the people. In the shadow behind the cross, a man, riding on an ass colt, looks back to the multitude, while he points with a rod to the Christ crucified. The ass is feeding on the remnants of withered palm-leaves. With this master-stroke, I believe, I may terminate all illustration of the peculiar power of the imagination over the feelings of the spectator, by the elevation into dignity and meaning of the smallest accessory circumstances. But I have not yet sufficiently dwelt on the fact from which this power arises, the absolute truth of statement of the central fact as it was, or must have been. Without this truth, this awful first moving principle, all direction of the feelings is 1 This circumstance, like most that lie not at the surface, has escaped Fuseli, though his remarks on the general tone of the picture are very good, as well as his opposition of it to the treatment of Rubens, (Lecture ix.) IMAGINATION CONTEMPLATIVE. 135 useless. That which we cannot excite, it is of no use to know how to govern. 28. Imagination Contemplative. The form in which conception actually occurs to ordinary minds appears to derive value and preciousness from that indefiniteness which we have already alluded to ; for there is an unfailing charm in the memory and anticipation of things beautiful, more sunny and spiritual than attaches to their presence ; for with their presence it is possible to be sated, and even wearied, but with the imagination of them never ; in so far that it needs some self-discipline to prevent the mind from falling into a morbid condition of dissatisfac- tion with all that it immediately possesses, and continual longing for things absent : and yet I think this charm is not justly to be attributed to the mere vagueness and un- certainty of the conception, except thus far, that of objects whose substantial presence was painful, the sublimity and impressiveness, if there were any, are retained in the con- ception, while the sensual offensiveness is withdrawn; thus circumstances of horror may be safely touched in verbal description, and for a time dwelt upon by the mind, as often by Homer and Spenser (by the latter frequently with too much grossness), which could not for a moment be regarded or tolerated in their reality, or on canvass ; and besides this mellowing and softening operation on those it retains, the conceptive faculty has the power of letting go many of them altogether out of its groups of ideas, and retaining only those where the meminisse juvabit will apply ; and in this way the entire group of memories becomes altogether delightful. But of those parts of anything which are in themselves beautiful, I think the indistinctness no benefit, but that the brighter they are the better ; and that the peculiar charm we feel in conception results from its grasp and blending of ideas rather than from their obscurity; for we do not usually recall, as we have seen, one part at a time only of a pleasant scene, one moment only of a happy day; but 136 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. together with each single object we summon up a kind of crowded and involved shadowing forth of all the other glories with which it was associated, and into every moment we concentrate an epitome of the day ; and it will happen frequently that even when the visible objects or actual circumstances are not in detail remembered, the feeling and joy of them are obtained we know not how or whence : and so, with a kind of conceptive burning-glass, we bend the sunshine of all the day, and the fulness of all the scene upon every point that we successively seize ; and this together with more vivid action of Fancy, for I think that the wilful and playful seizures of the points that suit her purpose, and help her springing, whereby she is distinguished from simple conception, take place more easily and actively with the memory of things than in presence of them. But, however this be, and I confess that there is much that I cannot satisfactorily to myself unravel with respect to the nature of simple conception, it is evident that this agreeable- ness, whatever it be, is not by art attainable, for all art is, in some sort, realization ; it may be the realization of ob- scurity or indefiniteness, but still it must differ from the mere conception of obscurity and indefiniteness ; so that whatever emotions depend absolutely on imperfectness of conception, as the horror of Milton’s Death, cannot be rendered by art ; for art can only lay hold of things which have shape, and destroys by its touch the fearfulness or pleasurableness of those which shape have none. But on this indistinctness of conception, itself compara- tively valueless and unaffecting, is based the operation of the Imaginative faculty with which we are at present con- cerned, and in which its glory is consummated ; whereby, depriving the subject of material and bodily shape, aud regarding such of its qualities only as it chooses for particular purpose, it forges these qualities together in such groups and forms as it desires, and gives to their abstract being consistency and reality, by striking them as it were with the die of an image belonging to other matter, which stroke having once received, they pass current at once in the peculiar conjunction and for the peculiar value desired. IMAGINATION CONTEMPLATIVE. 137 Thus, in the description of Satan quoted in the First Chapter, “And like a comet burned,” the bodily shape of the angel is destroyed, the inflaming of the formless spirit is alone regarded ; and this, and his power of evil, associated in one fearful and abstract conception, are stamped to give them distinctness and permanence with the image of the comet, “That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge.” Yet this could not be done, but that the image of the comet itself is in a measure indistinct, capable of awful expansion, and full of threatening and fear. Again, in his fall, the imagination gathers up the thunder, the resistance, the massy prostration, separates them from the external form, and binds them together by the help of that image of the mountain half sunk ; which again would be unfit but for its own indistinctness, and for that glorious addition “with all his pines,” whereby a vitality and spear-like hostility are communicated to its falling form ; and the fall is marked as not utter subversion, but sinking only, the pines remaining in their uprightness and unity and threatening of darkness upon the descended precipice ; and again, in that yet more noble passage at the close of the fourth book, where almost every operation of the contemplative imagination is con- centrated ; the angelic squadron first gathered into one burning mass by the single expression “ sharpening in mooned horns,” then told out in their unity and multitude and stooped hostility, by the image of the wind upon the corn ; Satan endowed with godlike strength and endurance in that mighty line, “ Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved,” with infinitude of size the next instant, and with all the vague- ness and terribleness of spiritual power, by the “ Horrour plumed,” and the “ what seemed both spear and shield.” The third function of Fancy, already spoken of as subor- dinate to this of the Imagination, is the highest of which she is capable ; like the Imagination, she beholds in the things submitted to her treatment things different from the actual ; but the suggestions she follows are not in their nature essential in the object contemplated ; and the images resulting, instead of illustrating, may lead the mind away from it, and change the current of contemplative feeling : 138 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. for, as in her operation parallel to Imagination penetrative we saw her dwelling upon external features, while the nobler sister faculty entered within ; so now, when both, from what they see and know in their immediate object, are conjuring up images illustrative or elevatory of it, the Fancy necessarily summons those of mere external relationship, and therefore of unaffecting influence ; while the Imagination, by every ghost she raises, tells tales about the prison house, and therefore never loses her power over the heart, nor her unity of emotion. On the other hand, the regardant or contemplative action of Fancy is in this different from, and in this nobler than, that mere seizing and likeness-catching operation we saw in her before; that, when contemplative, she verily believes in the truth of the vision she has sum- moned, loses sight of actuality, and beholds the new and spiritual image faithfully and even seriously ; whereas, before, she summoned no spiritual image, but merely caught the vivid actuality, or the curious resemblance of the real object ; not that these two operations are separate, for the Fancy passes gradually from mere vivid sight of reality, and witty suggestion of likeness, to a ghostly sight of what is unreal ; and through this, in proportion as she begins to feel, she rises towards and partakes of Imagination itself ; for Imagi- nation and Fancy are continually united, and it is necessary, when they are so, carefully to distinguish the feelingless part which is Fancy’s, from the sentient part, which is Imagination’s. Let us take a few instances. Here is Fancy, first, very beautiful, in her simple capacity of likeness - catching : To day we purpose — ay, this hour we mount, To spur three leagues towards the Apennine. Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count His dewy rosary on the eglantine. Seizing on the outside resemblances of bead form, and on the slipping from their threading bough one by one, the fancy is content to lose the heart of the thing, the solemnity of prayer : or perhaps I do the glorious poet wrong in saying this, for the sense of a sun worship and orison in beginning its race, may have been in his mind; and so IMAGINATION CONTEMPLATIVE. 139 far as it was so, the passage is imaginative and not fanciful. But that which most readers would accept from it, is the mere flash of the external image, in whose truth the Fancy herself does not yet believe, and therefore is not yet con- templative. Here, however, is Fancy believing in the images she creates : It feeds the quick growth of the serpent-vine, And the dark linked ivy tangling wild, And budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms, Which star the winds with points of coloured light As they rain through them ; and bright golden globes Of fruit suspended in their own green heaven. It is not, observe, a mere likeness that is caught here ; but the flowers and fruit are entirely deprived by the fancy of their material existence, and contemplated by her seriously and faithfully as stars and worlds ; yet it is only external likeness that she catches ; she forces the resemblance, and lowers the dignity of the adopted image. Next take two delicious stanzas of Fancy regardant (be- lieving in her creations), followed by one of heavenly imagi- nation, from Wordsworth’s ad dress to the daisy : A Nun demure — of lowly port ; Or sprightly maiden — of Love’s court— In thy simplicity the sport Of all temptations. A Queen in crown of rubies drest, A starveling in a scanty vest, Are all as seems to suit thee best — Thy appellations. I see thee glittering from afar, And then thou art a pretty star— Not quite so fair as many are In heaven above thee. Yet like a star, with glittering crest, Self-poised in air thou seem’st to rest— May peace come never to his nest Who shall reprove thee ! Sweet flower — for by that name at last, When all my reveries are past, 140 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. II. I call thee, and to that cleave fast — Sweet silent creature, That breath ’st with me, in sun and air, Do thou, as thou art wont, repair My heart with gladness, and a share Of thy meek nature. Observe how spiritual, yet how wandering and playful, the fancy is in the first two stanzas, and how far she flies from the matter in hand ; never stopping to brood on the character of any one of the images she summons, and yet for a moment truly seeing and believing in them all ; while in the last stanza the imagination returns with its deep feeling to the heart of the flower, and “ cleaves fast ” to that. Compare the operation of the Imagination in Coleridge, on one of the most trifling objects that could possibly have been submitted to its action : The thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not ; Only that film which fluttered on the grate Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me, who live, Making it a companionable form, Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling spirit By its own moods interprets, every where Echo or mirror seeking of itself, And makes a toy of thought. Lastly, observe the sweet operation of Fancy regardant* in the following well-known passage from Scott, where both her beholding and transforming powers are seen in their simplicity : The rocky summits, split and rent, Formed turret, dome, or battlement, Or seemed fantastically set With cupola or minaret. Nor were these earth-born castles bare, Nor lacked they many a banner fair, For, from their shivered brows displayed, Far o’er th’ unfathomable glade, All twinkling with the dew-drop sheen, The briar-rose fell, in streamers green — And creeping shrubs of thousand dyes Waved in the west wind’s summer sighs. IMAGINATION CONTEMPLATIVE. 141 Let the reader refer to this passage, with its pretty tremulous conclusion above the pine tree, “where glistening streamers waved and danced,” and then compare with it the following, where the Imagination operates on a scene nearly similar : Grey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed The struggling brook ; tall spires of windlestrae Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope, And nought but gnarled roots of ancient pines, Branchless and blasted, clenched, with grasping roots, Th’ unwilling soil. . . . . A gradual change was here, Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away, The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin A nd white ; and, where irradiate dewy eyes Had shone, gleam stony orbs : so from his steps Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds And musical motions . ... . . . . . Where the pass extends Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks, And seems with its accumulated crags To overhang the world ; for wide expand Beneath the wan stars, and descending moon, Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams, Dim tracts and vast , robed in the lustrous gloom Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge Of the remote horizon. The near scene, In naked and severe simplicity, Made contrast with the universe. A pine Rock-rooted, stretch’d athwart the vacancy Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast Yielding one only response at each pause , In most familiar cadence, with the howl, The thunder, and the hiss of homeless streams, Mingling its solemn song. In this last passage, the mind never departs from its solemn possession of the solitary scene, the Imagination only giving weight, meaning, and strange human sympathies to all its sights and sounds. In that from Scott 1 the Fancy, led away by the outside 1 Let it not be supposed that I mean to compare the sickly dreaming $f Shelley over clouds and waves, with the masculine and magnificent 142 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. II. resemblance of floating form and hue to the banners, loses the feeling and possession of the scene, and places herself in circumstances of character completely opposite to the quietness and grandeur of the natural objects ; this would have been unjustifiable, but that the resemblance occurs to the mind of the monarch, rather than to that of the poet ; and it is that, which, of all others, would have been the most likely to occur at the time ; in this point of view it has high imaginative propriety. Of the same fanciful char- acter is that transformation of the tree trunks into dragons noticed before in Turner’s Jason ; and in the same way this becomes imaginative, as it exhibits the effect of Fear in disposing to morbid perception. Compare with it the real and high action of the Imagination on the same matter in Wordsworth’s Yew trees (perhaps the most vigorous and solemn bit of forest landscape ever painted) : Each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine, Up-coiling and inveterately convolved, Nor unirvformed with Phantasy , and looks That threaten the profane . It is too long to quote, but the reader should refer to it : let him note especially, if painter, that pure touch of colour, “ By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged.” In the same way the blasted trunk on the left, in Turner’s drawing of the spot where Harold fell at the battle of Hastings, takes, where its boughs first separate, the shape of the head of an arrow ; this, which is mere fancy in itself, is imagination as it supposes in the spectator an excited condition of feeling dependent on the history of the spot. I have been led perhaps into too great detail in illustrating grasp of men and things which we find in Scott ; it only happens that these two passages are more illustrative, by the likeness of the scenery they treat, than any others I could have opposed, and that Shelley is peculiarly distinguished by the faculty of Contemplative ^Imagination. Scott’s healthy and truthful feeling would not allow him to represent the benighted hunter, provoked by loss of game, horse, and way at once, as indulging in any more exalted flights of imagination than those naturally consequent on the contrast between the night’s lodging he expected, and that which befitted him. IMAGINATION CONTEMPLATIVE. 143 these points ; but I think it is of no small importance to prove how in all cases the Imagination is based upon, and appeals to, a deep heart feeling ; and how faithful and earnest it is in contemplation of the subject-matter, never losing sight of it, nor disguising it, but depriving it of extraneous and material accidents, and regarding it in its disembodied essence. I have not, however, sufficiently noted, in opposition to it, that diseased action of the fancy which depends more on nervous temperament than intel- lectual power ; and which, as in dreaming, fever, insanity, and other morbid conditions of mind, is frequently a source of daring and inventive conception ; and so the visionary appearances resulting from disturbances of the frame by passion, and from the rapid tendency of the mind to invest with shape and intelligence the active influences about it, as in the various demons, spirits, and fairies, of all imagina- tive nations ; which, however, I consider are no more to be ranked as right creations of fancy or imagination than things actually seen and heard ; for the action of the nerves is, I suppose, the same, whether externally caused, or from within, although very grand imagination may be shown by the intellectual anticipation and realization of such impres- sions, as in that glorious vignette of Turner’s to the voyage of Columbus. “Slowly along the evening sky they went.” Note especially how admirably true to the natural form, and yet how suggestive of the battlement, he has rendered the level flake of evening cloud VOLUME III 29. The Nature of Poetry. I come, after some embarrassment, to the conclusion, that poetry is “the suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions.” I mean, by the noble emotions, those four principal sacred passions : Love, Venera- tion, Admiration, and Joy (this latter especially, if unselfish); and their opposites : Hatred, Indignation (or Scorn), Horror, and Grief — this last, when unselfish, becoming Compassion. These passions in their various combinations constitute what is called “poetical feeling,” when they are felt on noble grounds, that is, on great and true grounds. Indignation, for instance, is a poetical feeling, if excited by serious injury ; but it is not a poetical feeling if entertained on being cheated out of a small sum of money. It is very possible the manner of the cheat may have been such as to justify considerable indignation ; but the feeling is nevertheless not poetical unless the grounds of it be large as well as just. In like manner, energetic admiration may be excited in certain minds by a display of fireworks, or a street of handsome shops ; but the feeling is not poetical, because the grounds of it are false, and therefore ignoble. There is in reality nothing to deserve admiration either in the firing of packets of gunpowder, or in the display of the stocks of warehouses. But admiration excited by the budding of a flower is a poetical feeling, because it is impossible that this manifesta- tion of spiritual power and vital beauty can ever be enough admired. Farther, it is necessary to the existence of poetry that the grounds of these feelings should be furnished by tlu THE NATURE OF POETRY. t 45 imagination. Poetical feeling, that is to say, mere noble emotion, is not poetry. It is happily inherent in all human nature deserving the name, and is found often to be purest in the least sophisticated. But the power of assembling, by the help of the imagination , such images as will excite these feelings, is the power of the poet or literally of the “ Maker .” 1 Now this power of exciting the emotions depends of course 1 Take, for instance, the beautiful stanza in The Affliction of Margaret: I look for ghosts, but none will force Their way to me. ’Tis falsely said That ever there was intercourse Between the living and the dead ; For, surely then, I should have sight Of him I wait for, day and night, With love and longing infinite. This we call Poetry, because it is invented or made by the writer, entering into the mind of a supposed person. Next, take an instance of the actual feeling truly experienced and simply expressed by a real person. Nothing surprised me more than a woman of Argentine, whose cottage I went into to ask for milk, as I came dowrn from the glacier of Argentiere, in the month of March, 1764. An epidemic dysentery had prevailed in the village, and, a few months before, had taken away from her, her father, her husband, and her brothers, so that she was left alone, with three children in the cradle. Her face had something noble in it, and its expression bore the seal of a calm and profound sorrow. After having given me milk, she asked me w 7 hence I came, and what I came there to do, so early in the year. When she knew that I was of Geneva, she said to me, “she could not believe that all Protestants were lost souls ; that there were many honest people among us, and that God was too good and too great to condemn all without distinction.” Then, after a moment of reflection, she added, in shaking her head, “ But, that which is very strange, is that of so many who have gone away, none have ever returned. I,” she added, with an expression of grief, “ who have so mourned my husband and my brothers, who have never ceased to think of them, who every night conjure them with beseechings to tell me where they are, and in what state they are ! Ah, surely, if they lived anywhere, they would not leave me thus I But, perhaps,” she added, “ I am not worthy of this kindness, perhaps the pure and innocent spirits of these children,” and she looked at the cradle, “ may have their presence, and the joy which is denied to me .” — Saussure, Voyages dans les Alpes , chap. xxiv. This we do not call Poetry, merely because it is not invented, but the true utterance of a real person. 146 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. III. on the richness of the imagination, and on its choice of those images which, in combination, will be most effective, or, for the particular work to be done, most fit. And it is altogether impossible for a writer not endowed with invention to con- ceive what tools a true poet will make use of, or in what way he will apply them, or what unexpected results he will bring out by them ; so that it is vain to say that the details of poetry ought to possess, or ever do possess, any definite character. Generally speaking, poetry runs into finer and more delicate details than prose; but the details are not poetical because they are more delicate, but because they are employed so as to bring out an affecting result. For instance, no one but a true poet would have thought of exciting our pity for a bereaved father by describing his way of locking the door of his house : Perhaps to himself, at that moment he said, The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead ; But of this in my ears not a word did he speak, And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek. In like manner, in painting, it is altogether impossible to say beforehand what details a great painter may make poetical by his use of them to excite noble emotions : and we shall, therefore, find presently that a painting is to be classed in the great or inferior schools, not according to the kind of details which it represents, but according to the uses for which it employs them. It is only farther to be noticed, that infinite confusion has been introduced into this subject by the careless and illogical custom of opposing painting to poetry, instead of regarding poetry as consisting in a noble use, whether of colours or words. Painting is properly to be opposed to speaking or writings but not to poetry. Both painting and speaking are methods of expression. Poetry is the employ- ment of either for the noblest purposes. GREATNESS OF STYLE. 147 30. Greatness of Style. I. Choice of Noble Subject. Now greatness of style con- sists : first, in the habitual choice of subjects of thought which involve wide interests and profound passions, as opposed to those which involve narrow interests and slight passions. The style is greater or less in exact proportion to the nobleness of the interests and passions involved in the subject. The habitual choice of sacred subjects, such as the Nativity, Transfiguration, Crucifixion (if the choice be sincere), implies that the painter has a natural disposi- tion to dwell on the highest thoughts of which humanity is capable : it constitutes him so far forth a painter of the highest order, as, for instance, Leonardo, in his painting of the Last Supper : he who delights in representing the acts or meditations of great men, as, for instance, Raphael painting the School of Athens, is, so far forth, a painter of the second order : he who represents the passions and events of ordinary life, of the third. And in this ordinary life, he who represents deep thoughts and sorrows, as, for instance, Hunt, in his Claudio and Isabella, and such other works, is of the highest rank in his sphere ; and he who represents the slight malignities and passions of the drawing-room, as, for instance, Leslie, of the second rank ; he who represents the sports of boys or simplicities of clowns, as Webster or Teniers, of the third rank; and he who represents brutalities and vices (for delight in them, and not for rebuke of them), of no rank at all, or rather of a negative rank, holding a certain order in the abyss. The reader will, I hope, understand how much importance is to be attached to the sentence in the first parenthesis, “if the choice be sincere;” for choice of subject is, of course, only available as a criterion of the rank of the painter, when it is made from the heart. Indeed, in the lower orders of painting, the choice is always made from such heart as the painter has ; for his selection of the brawls of peasants or sports of children can, of course, proceed only from the fact that he has more sympathy 148 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. with such brawls or pastimes than with nobler subjects. But the choice of the higher kind of subjects is often insincere ; and may, therefore, afford no real criterion of the painter’s rank. The greater number of men who have lately painted religious or heroic subjects have done so in mere ambition, because they had been taught that it was a good thing to be a “ high art ” painter ; and the fact is that, in nine cases out of ten, the so-called historical or “ high art ” painter is a person infinitely inferior to the painter of flowers or still life. He is, in modern times, nearly always a man who has great vanity without pictorial capacity, and differs from the landscape or fruit painter merely in misunderstanding and overestimating his own powers. He mistakes his vanity for inspiration, his ambi- tion for greatness of soul, and takes pleasure in what he calls “the ideal,” merely because he has neither humility nor capacity enough to comprehend the real. But also observe, it is not enough even that the choice be sincere. It must also be wise. It happens very often that a man of weak intellect, sincerely desiring to do what is good and useful, will devote himself to high art subjects because he thinks them the only ones on which time and toil can be usefully spent, or, sometimes, because they are really the only ones he has pleasure in contemplating. But not having intellect enough to enter into the minds of truly great men, or to imagine great events as they really happened, he cannot become a great painter; he degrades the subjects he intended to honour, and his work is more utterly thrown away, and his rank as an artist in reality lower, than if he had devoted himself to the imitation of the simplest objects of natural history. The works of Over- beck are a most notable instance of this form of error. It must also be remembered, that in nearly all the great periods of art the choice of subject has not been left to the painter. His employer — abbot, baron, or monarch — deter- mined for him whether he should earn his bread by making cloisters bright with choirs of saints, painting coats of arms on leaves of romances, or decorating presence-chambers with complimentary mythology ; and his own personal feelings are GREATNESS OF STYLE. 149 ascertainable only by watching, in the themes assigned to him, what are the points in which he seems to take most pleasure. Thus, in the prolonged ranges of varied subjects with which Benozzo Gozzoii decorated the cloisters of Piza, it is easy to see that love of simple domestic incident, sweet landscape, and glittering ornament, prevails slightly over the solemn elements of religious feeling, which, nevertheless, the spirit of the age instilled into him in such measure as to form a very lovely and noble mind, though still one of the second order. In the work of Orcagna, an intense solemnity and energy in the sublimest groups of his figures, fading away as he touches inferior subjects, indicates that his home was among the archangels, and his rank among the first of the sons of men ; while Correggio, in the sidelong grace, artifi- cial smiles, and purple languors of his saints, indicates the inferior instinct which would have guided his choice in quite other directions, had it not been for the fashion of the age, and the need of the day II. Love of Beauty. The second characteristic of the great school of art is, that it introduces in the conception of its subject as much beauty as is possible, consistently with truth. 1 1 As here, for the first time, I am obliged to use the terms Truth and Beauty in a kind of opposition. I must therefore stop for a moment to state clearly the relation of these two qualities of art ; and to protest against the vulgar and foolish habit of confusing truth and beauty with each other. People with shallow powers of thought, desiring to flatter themselves with the sensation of having attained profundity, are con- tinually doing the most serious mischief by introducing confusion into plain matters, and then valuing themselves on being confounded. Nothing is more common than to hear people who desire to be thought philosophical, declare that “beauty is truth,” and “truth is beauty.” I would most earnestly beg every sensible person who hears such an assertion made, to nip the germinating philosopher in his ambiguous bud ; and beg him, if he really believes his own assertion, never thence- forward to use two words for the same thing. The fact is, truth and beauty are entirely distinct, though often related, things. One is a property of statements, the other of objects. The statement that “ two and two make four” is true, but it is neither beautiful nor ugly, for it is invisible ; a rose is lovely, but it is neither true nor false, for it is silent. That which shows nothing cannot be fair, and that which asserts nothing cannot be false. Even the ordinary use of the words 150 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. For instance, in any subject consisting of a number of figures, it will make as many of those figures beautiful as the faithful representation of humanity will admit. It will not deny the facts of ugliness or decrepitude, or relative inferiority or superiority of feature as necessarily manifested in a crowd, but it will, so far as it is in its power, seek for and dwell upon the fairest forms, and in all things insist on the beauty that is in them, not on the ugliness. In this respect, schools of art become higher in exact pro- portion to the degree in which they apprehend and love the beautiful. Thus, Angelico, intensely loving all spiritual beauty, will be of the highest rank; and Paul Veronese and Correggio, intensely loving physical and corporeal false and true, as applied to artificial and real things, is inaccurate. An artificial rose is not a “false” rose, it is not a rose at all. The falseness is in the person who states, or induces the belief, that it is a rose. Now, therefore, in things concerning art, the words true and false are only to be rightly used while the picture is considered as a state- ment of facts. The painter asserts that this which he has painted is the form of a dog, a man, or a tree. If it be not the form of a dog, a man, or a tree, the painter’s statement is false; and, therefore, we justly speak of a false line, or false colour ; not that any line or colour can in themselves be false, but they become so when they convey a statement that they resemble something which they do not resemble. But the beauty of the lines or colours is wholly independent of any such statement. They may be beautiful lines, though quite inaccurate, and ugly lines though quite faithful. A picture may be frightfully ugly, which represents with fidelity some base circumstance of daily life ; and a painted window may be exquisitely beautiful, which rep- resents men with eagles’ faces, and dogs with blue heads and crimson tails (though, by the way, this is not in the strict sens a false art, as we shall see hereafter, inasmuch as it means no assertion that men ever had eagles’ faces). If this were not so, it would be impossible to sacrifice truth to beauty ; for to attain the one would always be to attain the other. But, unfortunately, this sacrifice is exceedingly possible, and it is chiefly this which characterizes the false schools of high art, so far as high art consists in the pursuit of beauty. For although truth and beauty are independent of each other, it does not follow that we are at liberty to pursue whichever we please. They are indeed separable, but it is wrong to separate them ; they are to be sought together in the order of their worthiness; that is to say, truth first, and beauty afterwards. High art differs from low art in possessing an excess of beauty in addition to its truth, not in possess- ing excess of beauty inconsistent with truth. GREATNESS OF STYLE. 15.1 beauty, of the second rank; and Albert Diirer, Rubens, and in general the Northern artists, apparently insensible to beauty, and caring only for truth, whether shapely or not, of the third rank; and Teniers and Salvator, Cara- vaggio, and other such worshippers of the depraved, of no rank, or, as we said before, of a certain order in the abyss III. Sincerity. The next 1 characteristic of great art is that it includes the largest possible quantity of Truth in the most perfect possible harmony. If it were possible for art to give all the truths of nature, it ought to do it. But this is not possible. Choice must always be made of some facts which can be represented, from among others which must be passed by in silence, or even, in some respects, mis- represented. The inferior artist chooses unimportant and scattered truths ; the great artist chooses the most necessary first, and afterwards the most consistent with these, so as to obtain the greatest possible and most harmonious sum. For instance, Rembrandt always chooses to represent the exact force with which the light on the most illumined part of an object is opposed to its obscurer portions. In order to obtain this, in most cases, not very important truth, he sacrifices the light and colour of five -sixths of his picture ; and the expression of every character of objects which depends on tenderness of shape or tint. But he obtains his single truth, and what picturesque and forcible expression is dependent upon it, with magnificent skill and subtlety. Veronese, on the contrary, chooses to represent the great relations of visible things to each other, to the heaven above, and to the earth beneath them. He holds it more important to show how a figure stands relieved from delicate air, or marble wall ; how as a red, or purple, or white figure, it separates itself, in clear discernibility, from things not red, nor purple, nor white; how infinite daylight shines round it ; how innumerable veils of faint shadow invest it ; how its blackness and darkness are, in the excess of their nature, just as limited and local as its intensity of light : all this, I say, he feels to be more 1 I name them in order of mcreasing. not decreasing importance. 152 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. important than showing merely the exact measure of the spark of sunshine that gleams on a dagger- hill, or glows on a jewel. All this, moreover, he feels to be harmonious — capable of being joined in one great system of spacious truth. And with inevitable watchfulness, inestimable subtlety, he unites all this in tenderest balance, noting in each hair’s- breadth of colour, not merely what its rightness or wrongness is in itself, but what its relation is to every other on his canvass ; restraining, for truth’s sake, his exhaustless energy, reining back, for truth’s sake, his fiery strength; veiling, before truth, the vanity of brightness; penetrating, for truth, the discouragement of gloom ; ruling his restless invention with a rod of iron ; pardoning no error, no thoughtlessness, no forgetfulness ; and subduing all his powers, impulses, and imaginations, to the arbitra- ment of a merciless justice, and the obedience of an in- corruptible verity. I give this instance with respect to colour and shade; but, in the whole field of art, the difference between the great and inferior artists is of the same kind, and may be determined at once by the question, which of them conveys the largest sum of truth? IV. Invention. The last characteristic of great art is that it must be inventive, that is, be produced by the imagination. In this respect, it must precisely fulfil the definition already given of poetry; and not only present grounds for noble emotion, but furnish these grounds by imaginative power. Hence there is at once a great bar fixed between the two schools of Lower and Higher Art. The lower merely copies what is set before it, whether in portrait, landscape, or still-life; the higher either entirely imagines its subject, or arranges the materials presented to it, so as to manifest the imaginative power in all the three phases which have been already explained in the second volume Such, then, being the characters required in order to constitute high art, if the reader will think over them a little, and over the various ways in which they may be falsely assumed, he will easily perceive how spacious and GREATNESS OF STYLE. 153 dangerous a field of discussion they open to the ambitious critic, and of error to the ambitious artist ; he will see how difficult it must be, either to distinguish what is truly great art from the mockeries of it, or to rank the real artists in anything like a progressive system of greater and less. For it will have been observed that the various qualities which form greatness are partly inconsistent with each other (as some virtues are, docility and firmness for instance), and partly independent of each other ; and the fact is, that artists differ not more by mere capacity, than by the com- ponent elements of their capacity, each possessing in very different proportions the several attributes of greatness ; so that, classed by one kind of merit, as, for instance, purity of expression, Angelico will stand highest ; classed by another, sincerity of manner, Veronese will stand highest ; classed by another, love of beauty, Leonardo will stand highest ; and so on : hence arise continual disputes and misunderstandings among those who think that high art must always be one and the same, and that great artists ought to unite all great attributes in an equal degree. In one of the exquisitely finished tales of Marmontel, a company of critics are received at dinner by the hero of the story, an old gentleman, somewhat vain of his acquired taste, and his niece, by whose incorrigible natural taste, he is seriously disturbed and tormented. During the entertain- ment, “On parcourut tous les genres de litterature, et pour donner plus d’essor a l’erudition et a la critique, on mit sur le tapis cette question toute neuve, SQavoir, lequel meritoit la preference de Corneille ou de Racine. L’on disoit merae la-dessus les plus belles choses du monde, lorsque la petite niece, qui n’avoit pas dit un mot, s’avisa de deman der nai'vement lequel des deux fruits, de l’orange ou de la peche, avoit le gout le plus exquis et meritoit le plus d’eloges. Son oncle rougit de sa simplicity, et les convives baisserent tous les yeux sans daigner repondre k cette betise. Ma niece, dit Fintac, a votre age, il faut s9avoir ecouter, et se taire.” I cannot close this chapter with shorter or better advice to the reader, than merely, whenever he hears discussions 154 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. about the relative merits of great masters, to remember the young lady’s question. It is, indeed, true that there is a relative merit, that a peach is nobler than a hawthorn berry, and still more a hawthorn berry than a bead of the nightshade ; but in each rank of fruits, as in each rank of masters, one is endowed with one virtue, and another with another; their glory is their dissimilarity, and they who propose to themselves in the training of an artist that he should unite the colouring of Tintoret, the finish of Albert Diirer, and the tenderness of Correggio, are no wiser than a horticulturist would be, who made it the object of his labour to produce a fruit which should unite in itself the lusciousness of the grape, the crispness of the nut, and the fragrance of the pine. And from these considerations one most important practical corollary is to be deduced, with the good help of Mademoiselle Agathe’s simile, namely, that the greatness or smallness of a man is, in the most conclusive sense, determined for him at his birth, as strictly as it is deter- mined for a fruit whether it is to be a currant or an apricot. Education, favourable circumstances, resolution, and industry can do much ; in a certain sense they do everything ; that is to say, they determine whether the poor apricot shall fall in the form of a green bead, blighted by the east wind, and be trodden under foot, or whether it shall expand into tender pride, and sweet brightness of golden velvet. But apricot out of currant — great men out of small — did never yet art or effort make; and, in a general way, men have their excellence nearly fixed for them when they are born; a little cramped and frost-bitten on one side, a little sun- burnt and fortune-spotted on the other, they reach, between good and evil chances, such size and taste as generally belong to the men of their calibre, and, the small in their serviceable bunches, the great in their golden isolation, have, these no cause for regret, nor those for disdain. Therefore it is, that every system of teaching is false which holds forth “ great art ” as in any wise to be taught to students, or even to be aimed at by them. Great art is precisely that which never was, nor will be taught, it is MEN'S PROPER BUSINESS. 155 pre-eminently and finally the expression of the spirits of great men ; so that the only wholesome teaching is that which simply endeavours to fix those characters of noble- ness in the pupil’s mind, of which it seems easily suscep- tible ; and without holding out to him, as a possible or even probable result, that he should ever paint like Titian, or carve like Michael Angelo, enforces upon him the manifest possibility, and assured duty, of endeavouring to draw in a manner at least honest and intelligible ; and cultivates in him those general charities of heart, sincerities of thought, and graces of habit which are likely to lead him, throughout life, co prefer openness to affectation, realities to shadows, and beauty to corruption. 3 1. Men’s Proper Business. The pursuit, by the imagination, of beautiful and strange thoughts or subjects, to the exclusion of painful or common ones, is called among us, in these modern days, the pursuit of “ the ideal;" nor does any subject deserve more attentive examination than the manner in which this pursuit is entered upon by the modern mind. The reader must pardon me for making in the outset one or two statements which may appear to him somewhat wide of the matter, but which (if he admits their truth) he will, I think, presently perceive to reach to the root of it. Namely, That men’s proper business in this world falls mainly into three divisions : First, to know themselves, and the existing state of the things they have to do with. Secondly, to be happy in themselves, and in the existing state of things. Thirdly, to mend themselves, and the existing state of things, as far as either are marred and mendable. These, I say, are the three plain divisions of proper human business on this earth. For these three, the following are usuahy substituted and adopted by human creatures : 156 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. III. First, to be totally ignorant of themselves, and the existing state of things. Secondly, to be miserable in themselves, and in the exist- ing state of things. Thirdly, to let themselves, and the existing state of things, alone (at least, in the way of correction). The dispositions which induce us to manage, thus wisely, the affairs of this life seem to be : First, a fear of disagreeable facts, and conscious shrinking from clearness of light, which keep us from examining our- selves, and increase gradually into a species of instinctive terror at all truth, and love of glosses, veils, and decorative lies of every sort. Secondly, a general readiness to take delight in anything past, future, far off, or somewhere else, rather than in things now, near, and here; leading us gradually to place our pleasure principally in the exercise of the imagination, and to build all our satisfaction on things as they are not. Which power being one not accorded to the lower animals, and having indeed, when disciplined, a very noble use, we pride ourselves upon it, whether disciplined or not, and pass our lives complacently, in substantial discontent, and visionary satisfaction. 32. Purist Idealism. Purist Idealism results from the unwillingness of men whose dispositions are more than ordinarily tender and holy, to contemplate the various forms of definite evil which neces- sarily occur in the daily aspects of the world around them. They shrink from them as from pollution, and endeavour to create for themselves an imaginary state, in which pain and imperfection either do not exist, or exist in some edgeless and enfeebled condition. As, however, pain and imperfection are, by eternal laws, bound up with existence, so far as it is visible to us, the endeavour to cast them away invariably indicates a com- parative childishness of mind, and produces a childish form PURIST IDEALISM. 157 of art. In general, the effort is most successful when it is most naive, and when the ignorance of the draughtsman is in some frank proportion to his innocence. For instance, one of the modes of treatment, the most conducive to this ideal expression, is simply drawing everything without shadows, as if the sun were everywhere at once. This, in the present state of our knowledge, we could not do with grace, because we could not do it without fear or shame. But an artist of the thirteenth century did it with no disturbance of con- science — knowing no better, or rather, in some sense, we might say, knowing no worse. It is, however, evident, at the first thought, that all representations of nature without evil must either be ideals of a future world, or be false ideals, if they ase understood to be representations of facts. They can only be classed among the branches of the true ideal, in so far as they are understood to be nothing more than expressions of the painter’s personal affections or hopes. Let us take one or two instances in order clearly to ex- plain our meaning. The life of Angelico was almost entirely spent in the endeavour to imagine the beings belonging to another world. By purity of life, habitual elevation of thought, and natural sweetness of disposition, he was enabled to express the sacred affections upon the human countenance as no one ever did before or since. In order to effect clearer dis- tinction between heavenly beings and those of this world, he represents the former as clothed in draperies of the purest colour, crowned with glories of burnished gold, and entirely shadowless. With exquisite choice of gesture, and disposition of folds of drapery, this mode of treatment gives perhaps the best idea of spiritual beings which the human mind is capable of forming. It is, therefore, a true ideal; but the mode in which it is arrived at (being so far mechanical and contradictory of the appearances of nature) necessarily pre- cludes those who. practise it from being complete masters of their art. It is always childish, but beautiful in its childishness. The works of our own Stothard are examples of the opera- tion of another mind, singular in gentleness and purity, upon mere worldly subject. It seems as if Stothard could not 158 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. conceive wickedness, coarseness, or baseness ; every one of his figures looks as if it had been copied from some creature who had never harboured an unkind thought, or permitted itself in an ignoble action. With this intense love of mental purity is joined, in Stothard, a love of mere physical smooth- ness and softness, so that he lived in a universe of soft grass and stainless fountains, tender trees, and stones at which no foot could stumble. All this is very beautiful, and may sometimes urge us to an endeavour to make the world itself more like the conception of the painter. At least, in the midst of its malice, misery, and baseness, it is often a relief to glance at the graceful shadows, and take, for momentary companionship, creatures full only of love, gladness, and honour. But the perfect truth will at last vindicate itself against the partial truth ; the help which we can gain from the unsubstantial vision will be only like that which we may sometimes receive, in weariness, from the scent of a flower or the passing of a breeze. For all firm aid, and steady use, we must look to harder realities ; and, as far as the painter himself is regarded, we can only receive such work as the sign of an amiable imbecility. It is indeed ideal; but ideal as a fair dream is in the dawn of morning, before the faculties are astir. The apparent com- pleteness of grace can never be attained without much definite falsification as well as omission ; stones, over which we cannot stumble, must be ill-drawn stones ; trees, which are all gentleness and softness, cannot be trees of wood ; nor companies without evil in them, companies of flesh and blood. The habit of falsification (with whatever aim) begins always in dulness and ends always in incapacity : nothing can be more pitiable than any endeavour by Stothard to express facts beyond his own sphere of soft pathos or graceful mirth, and nothing more unwise than the aim at a similar ideality by any painter who has power to render a sincerer truth. I remember another interesting example of ideality on this same root, but belonging to another branch of it, in the works of a young German painter, which I saw some time ago in a London drawing-room. He had been travelling in Italy, and had brought home a portfolio of sketches remarkable alike PURIST IDEALISM. 159 for their fidelity and purity. Every one was a laborious and accurate study of some particular spot. Every cottage, every cliff, every tree, at the site chosen, had been drawn ; and drawn with palpable sincerity of portraiture, and yet in such a spirit that it was impossible to conceive that any sin or misery had ever entered into one of the scenes he had represented ; and the volcanic horrors of Radicofani, the pestilent gloom of the Pontines, and the boundless despond- ency of the Campagna became, under his hand, only various appearances of Paradise. It was very interesting to observe the minute emendations or omissions by which this was effected. To set the tiles the slightest degree more in order upon a cottage roof ; to insist upon the vine-leaves at the window, and let the shadow which fell from them naturally conceal the rent in the wall ; to draw all the flowers in the foreground, and miss the weeds ; to draw all the folds of the white clouds, and miss those of the black ones ; to mark the graceful branches of the trees, and, in one way or another, beguile the eye from those which were ungainly ; to give every peasant-girl whose face was visible the expression of an angel, and every one whose back was turned the bearing of a princess ; finally, to give a general look of light, clear organization and serene vitality to every feature in the landscape; such were his artifices, and such his delights. It was impossible not to sympathize deeply with the spirit of such a painter; and it was just cause for gratitude to be permitted to travel, as it were, through Italy with such a friend. But his work had, nevertheless, its stern limitations and marks of everlasting inferiority. Always soothing and pathetic, it could never be sublime, never perfectly nor entrancingly beautiful ; for the narrow spirit of correction could not cast itself fully into any scene ; the calm cheerfulness which shrank from the shadow of the cypress, and the distortion of the olive, could not enter into the brightness of the sky that they pierced, nor the softness of the bloom that they bore : for every sorrow that his heart turned from, he lost a consolation ; for every fear which he dared not confront, he lost a portion of his hardiness ; the unsceptred sweep of the storm-clouds, the i6o MODERN PAINTERS.—VOL. III. fair freedom of glancing shower and flickering sunbeam, sank into sweet rectitudes and decent formalisms ; and, before eyes that refused to be dazzled or darkened, the hours of sunset wreathed their rays unheeded, and the mists of the Apennines spread their blue veils in vain. To this inherent shortcoming and narrowness of reach the farther defect was added, that this work gave no useful representation of the state of facts in the country which it pretended to contemplate. It was not only wanting in all the higher elements of beauty, but wholly unavailable for instruction of any kind beyond that which exists in pleasurableness of pure emotion. And considering what cost of labour was devoted to the series of drawings, it could not but be matter for grave blame, as well as for partial contempt, that a man of amiable feeling and considerable intellectual power should thus expend his life in the de- claration of his own petty pieties and pleasant reveries, leaving the burden of human sorrow unwitnessed, and the power of God’s judgments unconfessed ; and, while poor Italy lay wounded and moaning at his feet, pass by, in priestly calm, lest the whiteness of his decent vesture should be spotted with unhallowed blood. 33. Finish. There are two great and separate senses in which we call a thing finished, or well-finished. One, which refers to the mere neatness and completeness of the actual work, as we speak of a well-finished knife-handle or ivory toy (as opposed to ill-cut ones) ; and, secondly, a sense which refers to the effect produced by the thing done, as we call a picture well- finished if it is so full in its details, as to produce the effect of reality on the spectator. And, in England, we seem at present to value highly the first sort of finish which belongs to work manship, in our manufactures and general doings of any kind, but to despise totally the impressive finish which belongs to the work ; and therefore we like smooth ivories better than rough ones — but careless scrawls or daubs better FINISH, 161 than the most complete paintings. Now, I believe that we exactly reverse the fitness of judgment in this matter, and that we ought, on the contrary, to despise the finish of work manship) which is done for vanity’s sake, and to love the finish of work , which is done for truth’s sake — that we ought, in a word, to finish our ivory toys more roughly, and our pictures more delicately. Let us think over this matter. Perhaps one of the most remarkable points of difference between the English and Continental nations is in the degree of finish given to their ordinary work. It is enough to cross from Dover to Calais to feel this difference ; and to travel farther only increases the sense of it. English windows for the most part fit their sashes, and their woodwork is neatly planed and smoothed : French windows are larger, heavier, and framed with wood that looks as if it had been cut to its shape with a hatchet ; they have curious and cumbrous fastenings, and can only be forced asunder or together by some ingenuity and effort, and even then not properly. So with everything else — French, Italian, and German, and, as far as I know, Continental. Foreign drawers do not slide as well as ours ; foreign knives do not cut so well ; foreign wheels do not turn so well; and we commonly plume our- selves much upon this, believing that generally the English people do their work better and more thoroughly, or as they say, “turn it out of their hands in better style,” than foreigners. I do not know how far this is really the case. There may be a flimsy neatness, as well as a substantial roughness ; it does not necessarily follow that the window which shuts easiest will last the longest, or that the harness which glitters the most is assuredly made of the toughest leather. I am afraid, that if this peculiar character of finish in our workmanship ever arose from a greater heartiness and thoroughness in our ways of doing things, it does so only now in the case of our best manufacturers ; and that a great deal of the work done in England, however good in appearance, is but treacherous and rotten in substance. Still, I think that there is really in the English mind, for the most part, a stronger desire to do things as well as they can be done, and less inclination 6 162 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. to put up with inferiorities or insufficiencies, than in general characterize the temper of foreigners. There is in this con- clusion no ground for national vanity ; for though the desire to do things as well as they can be done at first appears like a virtue, it is certainly not so in all its forms. On the contrary, it proceeds in nine cases out of ten more from vanity than conscientiousness ; and that, moreover, often a weak vanity. I suppose that as much finish is displayed in the fittings of the private carriages of our young rich men as in any other department of English manufacture ; and that our St. James’s Street cabs, dogcarts, and liveries are singularly perfect in their way. But the feeling with which this perfection is insisted upon (however desirable as a sign of energy of purpose) is not in itself a peculiarly amiable or noble feeling; neither is it an ignoble disposition which would induce a country gentleman to put up with certain deficiencies in the appearance of his country-made carriage. It is true that such philosophy may degenerate into negli- gence, and that much thought and long discussion would be needed before we could determine satisfactorily the limiting lines between virtuous contentment and faultful carelessness ; but at all events we have no right at once to pronounce our- selves the wisest people because we like to do all things in the best way. There are many little things which to do admirably is to waste both time and cost; and the real question is not so much whether we have done a given thing as well as possible, as whether we have turned a given quantity of labour to the best account. Now, so far from the labour’s being turned to good account which is given to our English “ finishing,” I believe it to be usually destructive of the best powers of our work- men’s minds. For it is evident, in the first place, that there is almost always a useful and a useless finish ; the hammering and welding which are necessary to produce a sword blade of the best quality, are useful finishing ; the polish of its surface, useless. 1 In nearly all work this distinction will, 1 With his Yemen sword for aid ; Ornament it carried none, But the notches on the blade. FINISH. 163 more or less, take place between substantial finish and apparent finish, or what may be briefly characterized as “ Make ” and “ Polish.” And so far as finish is bestowed for purposes of “ make,” I have nothing to say against it. Even the vanity which displays itself in giving strength to our work is rather a virtue than a vice. But so far as finish is bestowed for purposes of “polish,” there is much to be said against it ; this first, and very strongly, that the qualities aimed at in common finishing, namely, smoothness, delicacy, or fineness, cannot in reality exist , in a degree worth admiring, in anything done by human hands. Our best finishing is but coarse and blundering work after all. We may smooth and soften, and sharpen till we are sick at heart ; but take a good magnifying-glass to our miracle of skill, and the invisible edge is a jagged saw, and the silky thread a rugged cable, and the soft surface a granite desert. Let all the ingenuity and all the art of the human race be brought to bear upon the attainment of the utmost possible finish, and they could not do what is done in the foot of a fly, or the film of a bubble. God alone can finish; and the more intelligent the human mind becomes, the more the infiniteness of inter- val is felt between human and divine work in this respect. So then it is not a little absurd to weary ourselves in struggling towards a point which we never can reach, and to exhaust our strength in vain endeavours to produce qualities which exist inimitably and inexhaustibly in the commonest things around us. But more than this : the fact is, that in multitudes of instances, instead of gaining greater fineness of finish by our work, we are only destroying the fine finish of Nature, and substituting coarseness and imperfection. For instance, when a rock of any kind has lain for some time exposed to the weather, Nature finishes it in her own way ; first, she takes wonderful pains about its forms, sculpturing it into exquisite variety of dint and dimple, and rounding or hollowing it into contours, which for fineness no human hand can follow ; then she colours it ; and every one of her touches of colour, instead of being a powder mixed with oil, is a minute forest of living trees, glorious in strength and 164 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. beauty, and concealing wonders of structure, which in all probability are mysteries even to the eyes of angels. Man comes, and digs up this finished and marvellous piece of work, which in his ignorance he calls a “ rough stone.” He proceeds to finish it in his fashion, that is, to split it in two, rend it into ragged blocks, and, finally, to chisel its surface into a large number of lumps and knobs, all equally shape- less, colourless, deathful, and frightful . 1 And the block, thus disfigured, he calls “finished,” and proceeds to build there- with, and thinks himself great, forsooth, and an intelligent animal. Whereas, all that he has really done is, to destroy with utter ravage a piece of divine art, which, under the laws appointed by the Deity to regulate His work in this world, it must take good twenty years to produce the like of again. This he has destroyed, and has himself given in its place a piece of work which needs no more intelligence to do than a pholas has, or a worm, or the spirit which through- out the world has authority over rending, rottenness, and decay. I do not say that stone must not be cut; it needs to be cut for certain uses ; only I say that the cutting it is not “finishing,” but ^finishing, it; and that so far as the mere fact of chiselling goes, the stone is ruined by the human touch. It is with it as with the stones of the Jewish altar : “ If thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.” In like manner, a tree is a finished thing. But a plank, though ever so polished, is not. We need stones and planks, as we need food ; but we no more bestow an additional admirableness upon stone in hewing it, or upon a tree in sawing it, than upon an animal in killing it. Well, but it will be said, there is certainly a kind of finish in stone-cutting, and in every other art, which is meritorious, and which consists in smoothing and refining as much as possible. Yes, assuredly there is a meritorious finish. First, as it has just been said, that which fits a thing for its uses — as a stone to lie well in its place, or a cog of an engine-wheel to play well on another ; and, secondly, a finish belonging properly to the arts ; but that finish does not consist in smoothing or polishing, but in the completeness of the expres- 1 See the base of the new Army and Navy Clubhouse. THE USE OF PICTURES. 165 sion of ideas . For in painting, there is precisely the same difference between the ends proposed in finishing that there is in manufacture. Some artists finish for the finish sake; dot their pictures all over, as in some kinds of miniature- painting (when a wash of colour would have produced as good an effect) ; or polish their pictures all over, making the execution so delicate that the touch of the brush cannot be seen, for the sake of the smoothness merely, and of the credit they may thus get for great labour; which kind of execution, seen in great perfection in many works of the Dutch school, and in those of Carlo Dolce, is that polished “ language ” against which I have already spoken at length ; nor is it possible to speak of it with too great severity or con- tempt, where it has been made an ultimate end. But other artists finish for the impression’s sake, not to show their skill, nor to produce a smooth piece of work, but that they may, with each stroke, render clearer the expression of knowledge. And this sort of finish is not, properly speak- ing, so much completing the picture as adding to it. It is not that what is painted is more delicately done, but that infinitely more is painted. This finish is always noble, and, like all other noblest things, hardly ever understood or appreciated. 34. The Use of Pictures. Not long ago, as I was leaving one of the towns of Switzerland, early in the morning, I saw in the clouds behind the houses an Alp which I did not know, a grander Alp than any I knew, nobler than the Schreckhorn or the Monch ; terminated, as it seemed, on one side by a precipice of almost unimaginable height ; on the other, sloping away for leagues in one field of lustrous ice, clear and fair and blue, flashing here and there into silver under the morning sun. For a moment I received a sensation of as much sublimity as any natural object could possibly excite; the next moment, I saw that my unknown Alp was the glass roof of one of the workshops of the town, rising above its 166 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. nearer houses, and rendered aerial and indistinct by some pure blue wood smoke which rose from intervening chimneys. It is evident, that so far as the mere delight of the eye was concerned, the glass roof was here equal, or at least equal for a moment, to the Alp. Whether the power of the object over the heart was to be small or great, depended altogether upon what it was understood for, upon its being taken possession of and apprehended in its full nature, either as a granite mountain or a group of panes of glass ; and thus, always, the real majesty of the appearance of the thing to us, depends upon the degree in which we ourselves possess the power of understanding it — that penetrating, possession-taking power of the imagination, which has been long ago defined 1 as the very life of the man, considered as a seeing creature. For though the casement had indeed been an Alp, there are many persons on whose minds it would have produced no more effect than the glass roof. It would have been to them a glittering object of a certain apparent length and breadth, and whether of glass or ice, whether twenty feet in length, or twenty leagues, would have made no difference to them ; or, rather, would not have been in any wise conceived or considered by them. Examine the nature of your own emotion (if you feel it) at the sight of the Alp, and you find all the brightness of that emotion hanging, like dew on gossamer, on a curious web of subtle fancy and imperfect knowledge. First, you have a vague idea of its size, coupled with wonder at the work of the great Builder of its walls and foundations, then an apprehension of its eternity, a pathetic sense of its perpetualness, and your own transientness, as of the grass upon its sides ; then, and in this very sadness, a sense of strange companionship with past generations in seeing what they saw. They did not see the clouds that are floating over your head ; nor the cottage wall on the other side of the field ; nor the road by which you are travelling. But they saw that The wall of granite in the heavens was the same to them as to you. They have ceased to look upon it ; you will soon cease to look 1 Vol. II. Chapter on “Penetrative Imagination.” THE USE OF PICTURES. 167 also, and the granite wall will be for others. Then, mingled with these more solemn imaginations, come the understand- ings of the gifts and glories of the Alps, the fancying forth of all the fountains that well from its rocky walls, and strong rivers that are born out of its ice, and of all the pleasant valleys that wind between its cliffs, and all the chalets that gleam among its clouds, and happy farmsteads couched upon its pastures ; while together with the thoughts of these, rise strange sympathies with all the unknown of human life, and happiness, and death, signified by that narrow white flame of the everlasting snow, seen so far in the morning sky. These images, and far more than these, lie at the root of the emotion which you feel at the sight of the Alp. You may not trace them in your heart, for there is a great deal more in your heart, of evil and good, than you ever can trace ; but they stir you and quicken you for all that. As- suredly, so far as you feel more at beholding the snowy mountain than any other object of the same sweet silvery grey, these are the kind of images which cause you to do so; and, observe, these are nothing more than a greater apprehension of the facts of the thing. We call the power “ Imagination,” because it imagines or conceives ; but it is only noble imagination if it imagines or conceives the truth. And, according to the degree of knowledge possessed, and of sensibility to the pathetic or impressive character of the things known, will be the degree of this imaginative delight. But the main point to be noted at present is, that if the imagination can be excited to this its peculiar work, it matters comparatively little what it is excited by. If the smoke had not cleared partially away, the glass roof might have pleased me as well as an Alp, until I had quite lost sight of it ; and if, in a picture, the imagination can be once caught, and, without absolute affront from some glaring fallacy, set to work in its own field, the imperfection of the historical details themselves is, to the spectator’s enjoyment, of small consequence. Hence it is, that poets, and men of strong feeling in general, are apt to be among the very worst judges of paint- ing. The slightest hint is enough for them. Tell them 168 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. that a white stroke means a ship, and a black stain, a thunderstorm, and they will be perfectly satisfied with both, and immediately proceed to remember all that they ever felt about ships and thunderstorms, attributing the whole current and fulness of their own feelings to the painter’s work ; while probably, if the picture be really good, full of stern fact, the poet, or man of feeling, will find some of its fact in his way , out of the particular course of his own thoughts — be offended at it, take to criticizing and wondering at it, detect, at last, some imperfection in it — such as must be inherent in all human work — and so finally quarrel with, and reject the whole thing. Thus, Wordsworth writes many sonnets to Sir George Beaumont and Hay don, none to Sir Joshua or to Turner. Hence, also the error into which many superficial artists fall, in speaking of “addressing the imagination” as the only end of art. It is quite true that the imagination must be addressed ; but it may be very sufficiently addressed by the stain left by an ink-bottle thrown at the wall. The thrower has little credit, though an imaginative observer may find, perhaps, more to amuse him in the erratic nigrescence than in many a laboured picture. And thus, in a slovenly or ill-finished picture, it is no credit to the artist that he has “addressed the imagination;” nor is the success of such an appeal any criterion whatever of the merit of the work. The duty of an artist is not only to address and awaken, but to guide the imagination; and there is no safe guidance but that of simple concurrence with fact. It is no matter that the picture takes the fancy of A or B, that C writes sonnets to it, and D feels it to be divine. This is still the only question for the artist, or for us : “ Is it a fact ? Are things really so ? ” “ Is the picture an Alp among pictures, full, firm, eternal ; or only a glass house, frail, hollow, contempt- ible, demolishable ; calling, at all honest hands, for detec- tion and demolition ? ” Hence it is also that so much grievous difficulty stands in the way of obtaining real opinio 7 i about pictures at all. Tell any man, of the slightest imaginative power, that such and such a picture is good, and means this or that : tell him, THE USE OF PICTURES. 169 for instance, that a Claude is good, and that it means trees, and grass, and water ; and forthwith, whatever faith, virtue, humility, and imagination there are in the man, rise up to help Claude, and to declare that indeed it is all “ excellent good, i’ faith ; ” and whatever in the course of his life he has felt of pleasure in trees and grass, he will begin to reflect upon and enjoy anew, supposing all the while it is the picture he is enjoying. Hence, when once a painter’s reputation is accredited, it must be a stubborn kind of person indeed whom he will not please, or seem to please ; for all the vain and weak people pretend to be pleased with him, for their own credit’s sake, and all the humble and imaginative people seriously and honestly fancy they are pleased with him, de- riving indeed, very certainly, delight from his work, but a delight which, if they were kept in the same temper, they would equally derive (and, indeed, constantly do derive) from the grossest daub that can be manufactured in imita- tion by the pawnbroker. Is, therefore, the pawnbroker’s imitation as good as the original ? Not so. There is the certain test of goodness and badness, which I am always striving to get people to use. As long as they are satisfied if they find their feelings pleasantly stirred and their fancy gaily occupied, so long there is for them no good, no bad. Anything may please, or anything displease, them ; and their entire manner of thought and talking about art is mockery, and all their judgments are laborious injustices. But let them, in the teeth of their pleasure or displeasure, simply put the calm question, Is it so ? Is that the way a stone is shaped, the way a cloud is wreathed, the way a leaf is veined ? and they are safe. They will do no more injustice to themselves nor to other men ; they will learn to whose guidance they may trust their imagination, and from whom they must for ever withhold its reins. “ Well, but why have you dragged in this poor spectator’s imagination at all, if you have nothing more to say for it than this ; if you are merely going to abuse it, and go back to your tiresome facts ? ” Nay ; I am not going to abuse it. On the contrary, I have to assert, in a temper profoundly venerant of it, that 170 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. though we must not suppose everything is right when this is aroused, we may be sure that something is wrong when this is not aroused. The something wrong may be in the spectator or in the picture; and if the picture be demon- strably in accordance with truth, the odds are, that it is in the spectator ; but there is wrong somewhere ; for the work of the picture is indeed eminently to get at this imaginative power in the beholder, and all its facts are of no use what- ever if it does not. No matter how much truth it tells if the hearer be asleep. Its first work is to wake him, then to teach him. Now, observe, while, as it penetrates into the nature of things, the imagination is pre-eminently a beholder of things as they are , it is, in its creative function, an eminent beholder of things when and where they are not ; a seer, that is, in the prophetic sense, calling “the things that are not as though they were,” and for ever delighting to dwell on that which is not tangibly present. And its great function being the calling forth, or back, that which is not visible to bodily sense, it has of course been made to take delight in the ful- filment of its proper function, and pre-eminently to enjoy, and spend its energy on, things past and future, or out of sight, rather than things present, or in sight. So that if the imagination is to be called to take delight in any object, it will not be always well, if we can help it, to put the real object there, before it. The imagination would on the whole rather have it not there ; the reality and substance are rather in the imagination’s way ; it would think a good deal more of the thing if it could not see it. Hence, that strange and sometimes fatal charm, which there is in all things as long as we wait for them, and the moment we have lost them ; but which fades while we possess them ; that sweet bloom of all that is far away, which perishes under our touch. Yet the feeling of this is not a weakness ; it is one of the most glorious gifts of the human mind, making the whole infinite future, and imperishable past, a richer inheritance, if faithfully inherited, than the changeful, frail, fleeting pres- ent ; it is also one of the many witnesses in us to the truth that these present and tangible things are not meant to THE USE OF PICTURES. 171 satisfy us. The instinct becomes a weakness only when it is weakly indulged, and when the faculty which was intended by God to give back to us what we have lost, and gild for us what is to come, is so perverted as only to darken what we possess. But, perverted or pure, the instinct itself is ever- lasting, and the substantial presence even of the things which we love the best, will inevitably and for ever be found wanting in one strange and tender charm, which belonged to the dreams of them. Another character of the imagination is equally constant, and, to our present inquiry, of yet greater importance. It is eminently a weariable faculty, eminently delicate, and in- capable of bearing fatigue ; so that if we give it too many objects at a time to employ itself upon, or very grand ones for a long time together, it fails under the effort, becomes jaded, exactly as the limbs do by bodily fatigue, and in- capable of answering any farther appeal till it has had rest. And this is the real nature of the weariness which is so often felt in travelling, from seeing too much. It is not that the monotony and number of the beautiful things seen have made them valueless, but that the imaginative power has been overtaxed ; and, instead of letting it rest, the traveller, wondering to find himself dull, and incapable of admiration, seeks for something more admirable, excites and torments, and drags the poor fainting imagination up by the shoulders : “ Look at this, and look at that, and this more wonderful still ! ” — until the imaginative faculty faints utterly away, beyond all farther torment, or pleasure, dead for many a day to come ; and the despairing prodigal takes to horse-racing in the Campagna, good now for nothing else than that; whereas, if the imagination had only been laid down on the grass, among simple things, and left quiet for a little while, it would have come to itself gradually, recovered its strength and colour, and soon been fit for work again. So that, whenever the imagination is tired, it is necessary to find for it something, not more admirable but less admirable ; such as in that weak state it can deal with ; then give it peace, and it will recover. I well recollect the walk on which I first found out this ; 172 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. it was on the winding road from Sallenche, sloping up the hills towards St. Gervais, one cloudless Sunday afternoon. The road circles softly between bits of rocky bank and mounded pasture ; little cottages and chapels gleaming out from among the trees at every turn. Behind me, some leagues in length, rose the jagged range of the mountains of the Reposoir ; on the other side of the valley, the mass of the Aiguille de Varens, heaving its seven thousand feet of cliff into the air at a single effort, its gentle gift of waterfall, the Nant d’Arpenaz, like a pillar of cloud at its feet ; Mont Blanc and all its aiguilles, one silver flame, in front of me ; marvellous blocks of mossy granite and dark glades of pine around me; but I could enjoy nothing, and could not for a long while make out what was the matter with me, until at last I discovered that if I confined myself to one thing — and that a little thing — a tuft of moss, or a single crag at the top of the Varens, or a wreath or two of foam at the bottom of the Nant d’Arpenaz, I began to enjoy it directly, because then I had mind enough to put into the thing, and the enjoyment arose from the quantity of the imaginative energy I could bring to bear upon it ; but when I looked at or thought of all together, moss, stones, Varens, Nant d’Arpenaz, and Mont Blanc, I had not mind enough to give to all, and none were of any value. The conclusion which would have been formed, upon this, by a German philosopher, would have been that the Mont Blanc was of no value ; that he and his imagination only were of value ; that the Mont Blanc, in fact, except so far as he was able to look at it, could not be con- sidered as having any existence. But the only conclusion which occurred to me as reasonable under the circumstances (I have seen no ground for altering it since) was, that I was an exceedingly small creature, much tired, and, at the moment, not a little stupid, for whom a blade of grass, or a wreath of foam, was quite food enough and to spare, and that if I tried to take any more, I should make myself ill. Whereupon, associating myself fraternally with some ants, who were deeply interested in the conveyance of some small sticks over the road, and rather, as I think they generally are, in too great a hurry about it, I returned home in a little THE USE OF PICTURES. 173 while with great contentment, thinking how well it was ordered that, as Mont Blanc and his pine forests could not be everywhere, nor all the world come to see them, the human mind, on the whole, should enjoy itself most surely in an ant-like manner, and be happy and busy with the bits of stick and grains of crystal that fall in its way to be handled, in daily duty. It follows evidently from the first of these characters of the imagination, its dislike of substance and presence, that a picture has in some measure even an advantage with us in not being real. The imagination rejoices in having some- thing to do, springs up with all its willing power, flattered and happy ; and ready with its fairest colours and most tender pencilling, to prove itself worthy of the trust, and exalt into sweet supremacy the shadow that has been con- fided to its fondness. And thus, so far from its being at all an object to the painter to make his work look real, he ought to dread such a consummation as the loss of one of its most precious claims upon the heart. So far from striving to convince the beholder that what he sees is substance, his mind should be to what he paints as the fire to the body on the pile, burning away the ashes, leaving the unconquerable shade — an immortal dream. So certain is this, that the slightest local success in giving the deceptive appearance of reality — the imitation, for instance, of the texture of a bit of wood, with its grain in relief — will instantly destroy the charm of a whole picture ; the imagination feels itself insulted and injured, and passes by with cold contempt ; nay, however beautiful the whole scene may be, as of late in much of our highly wrought painting for the stage, the mere fact of its being deceptively real is enough to make us tire of it ; we may be surprised and pleased for a moment, but the imagina- tion will not on those terms be persuaded to give any of its help, and, in a quarter of an hour, we wish the scene would change. “ Well, but then, what becomes of all these long dogmatic chapters of yours about giving nothing but the truth, and as much truth as possible ? ” The chapters are all quite right. “Nothing but the 174 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. III. Truth,” I say still. “As much Truth as possible,” I say still. But truth so presented, that it will need the help of the imagination to make it real. Between the painter and the beholder, each doing his proper part, the reality should be sustained ; and after the beholding imagination has come forward and done its best, then, with its help and in the full action of it, the beholder should be able to say, I feel as if I were at the real place, or seeing the real incident. But not without that help. Farther, in consequence of that other character of the imagination, fatiguableness, it is a great advantage to the picture that it need not present too much at once, and that what it does present may be so chosen and ordered as not only to be more easily seized, but to give the imagination rest, and, as it were, places to lie down and stretch its limbs in ; kindly vacancies, beguiling it back into action, with pleasant and cautious sequence of incident ; all jarring thoughts being excluded, all vain redundance denied, and all just and sweet transition permitted. And thus it is that, for the most part, imperfect sketches, engravings, outlines, rude sculptures, and other forms of abstraction, possess a charm which the most finished picture frequently wants. For not only does the finished picture excite the imagination less, but, like nature itself, it taxes it more. None of it can be enjoyed till the imagination is brought to bear upon it ; and the details of the completed picture are so numerous, that it needs greater strength and willingness in the beholder to follow them all out; the redundance, perhaps, being not too great for the mind of a careful observer, but too great for a casual or careless observer. So that although the perfection of art will always consist in the utmost acceptable completion, yet, as every added idea will increase the difficulty of apprehension, and every added touch advance the dangerous realism which makes the imagination languid, the difference between a noble and ignoble painter is in nothing more sharply defined than in this — that the first wishes to put into his work as much truth as possible, and yet to keep it looking un- real ; the second wishes to get through his work lazily, with as THE USE OF PICTURES. 175 little truth as possible, and yet to make it look real ; and, so far as they add colour to their abstract sketch, the first tealizes for the sake of the colour, and the second colours for the sake of the realization. 1 And then, lastly, it is another infinite advantage possessed by the picture, that in these various differences from reality it becomes the expression of the power and intelligence of a companionable human soul. In all this choice, arrange- ment, penetrative sight, and kindly guidance, we recognize a supernatural operation, and perceive, not merely the land- scape or incident as in a mirror, but, besides, the presence of what, after all, may perhaps be the most wonderful piece of divine work in the whole matter — the great human spirit through which it is manifested to us. So that, although with respect to many important scenes, it might, as we saw above, be one of the most precious gifts that could be given us to see them with our own eyes, yet also in many things it is more desirable to be permitted to see them with the eyes of others ; and although, to the small, conceited, and affected painter displaying his narrow knowledge and tiny dexterities, our only word may be, “Stand aside from between that nature and me : ” yet to the great imaginative painter — greater a million times in every faculty of soul than we — our word may wisely be, “ Come between this nature and me — this nature which is too great and too wonderful for me; temper it for me, interpret it to me ; let me see with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and have help and strength from your great spirit.” All the noblest pictures have this character. They are true or inspired ideals, seen in a moment to be ideal ; that is to say, the result of all the highest powers of the imagination, engaged in the discovery and apprehension of the purest truths, and having so arranged them as best to show their preciousness and exalt their clearness. They are always orderly, always one, ruled by one great purpose throughout, in the fulfilment of which every atom of the detail is called to help, and would be missed if removed ; this peculiar one- 1 Several other points connected with this subject have already been noticed in the last chapter of the Stones of Venice , § 21, &c. 176 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. ness being the result, not of obedience to any teachable law, but of the magnificence of tone in the perfect mind, which accepts only what is good for its great purposes, rejects what- ever is foreign or redundant, and instinctively and instan- taneously ranges whatever it accepts, in sublime subordina- tion and helpful brotherhood. 35. The Greek Notion of a God. I do not think we ever enough endeavour to enter into what a Greek’s real notion of a god was. We are so accustomed to the modern mockeries of the classical religion, so accus- tomed to hear and see the Greek gods introduced as living personages, or invoked for help, by men who believe neither in them nor in any other gods, that we seem to have infected the Greek ages themselves with the breath, and dimmed them with the shade, of our hypocrisy ; and are apt to think that Homer, as we know that Pope, was merely an ingenious fabulist ; nay, more than this, that all the nations of past time were ingenious fabulists also, to whom the universe was a lyrical drama, and by whom whatsoever was said about it was merely a witty allegory, or a graceful lie, of which the entire upshot and consummation was a pretty statue in the middle of the court, or at the end of the garden. This, at least, is one of our forms of opinion about Greek faith ; not, indeed, possible altogether to any man of honesty or ordinary powers of thought ; but still so venomously in- herent in the modern philosophy that all the pure lightning of Carlyle cannot as yet quite burn it out of any of us. And then, side by side with this mere infidel folly, stands the bitter short-sightedness of Puritanism, holding the classical god to be either simply an idol — a block of stone ignorantly, though sincerely, worshipped — or else an actual diabolic or betraying power, usurping the place of God. Both these Puritanical estimates of Greek deity are of course to some extent true. The corruption of classical worship is barren idolatry ; and that corruption was deepened, THE GREEK NOTION OF A GOD. 177 and variously directed to their own purposes, by the evil angels. But this was neither the whole, nor the principal part, of Pagan worship. Pallas was not, in the pure Greek mind, merely a powerful piece of ivory in a temple at Athens ; neither was the choice of Leonidas between the alternatives granted him by the oracle, of personal death, or ruin to his country, altogether a work of the Devil’s prompting. What, then, was actually the Greek god? In what way were these two ideas of human form, and divine power, credibly associated in the ancient heart, so as to become a subject of true faith, irrespective equally of fable, allegory, superstitious trust in stone, and demoniacal influence ? It seems to me that the Greek had exactly the same in- stinctive feeling about the elements that we have ourselves ; that to Homer, as much as to Casimir de la Vigne, fire seemed ravenous and pitiless ; to Homer, as much as to Keats, the sea- wave appeared wayward or idle, or whatever else it may be to the poetical passion. But then the Greek reasoned upon the sensation, saying to himself : “ I can light the fire, and put it out ; I can dry this water up, or drink it. It cannot be the fire or the water that rages, or that is way- ward. But it must be something in this fire and in the water, which I cannot destroy by extinguishing the one, or evaporating the other, any more than I destroy myself by cutting off my finger ; I was in my finger — something of me at least was ; I had a power over it, and felt pain in it, though I am still as much myself when it is gone. So there may be a power in the water which is not water, but to which the water is as a body; — which can strike with it, move in it, suffer in it, yet not be destroyed with it. This something, this great Water Spirit, I must not confuse with the waves, which are only its body. They may flow hither and thither, increase or diminish. That must be indivisible — imperishable — a god. So of fire also ; those rays which I can stop, and in the midst of which I cast a shadow, cannot be divine, nor greater than I. They cannot feel, but there may be something in them that feels — a glorious intelligence, as much nobler and more swift than mine, as these rays, which 178 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. are its body, are nobler and swifter than my flesh ; — the spirit of all light, and truth, and melody, and revolving hours.” It was easy to conceive, farther, that such spirits should be able to assume at will a human form, in order to hold intercourse with men, or to perform any act for which their proper body, whether of fire, earth, or air, was unfitted. And it would have been to place them beneath, instead of above, humanity, if, assuming the form of man, they could not also have tasted his pleasures. Hence the easy step to the more or less material ideas of deities, which are apt at first to shock us, but which are indeed only dishonourable so far as they represent the gods as false and unholy. It is not the materialism, but the vice, which degrades the concep- tion ; for the materialism itself is never positive or complete. There is always some sense of exaltation in the spiritual and immortal body ; and of a power proceeding from the visible form through all the infinity of the element ruled by the particular god. The precise nature of the idea is well seen in the passage of the Iliad which describes the river Sca- mander defending the Trojans against Achilles. In order to remonstrate with the hero, the god assumes a human form, which nevertheless is in some way or other instantly recog- nized by Achilles as that of the river-god : it is addressed at once as a river, not as a man ; and its voice is the voice of a river, “out of the deep whirlpools.” 1 Achilles refuses to obey its commands ; and from the human form it returns instantly into its natural or divine one, and endeavours to overwhelm him with waves. Vulcan defends Achilles, and sends fire against the river, which suffers in its water-body, till it is able to bear no more. At last even the “ nerve of the river,” or “ strength of the river ” (note the expression), feels the fire, and this “strength of the river” addresses Vulcan in supplications for respite. There is in this pre- cisely the idea of a vital part of the river-body, which acted and felt, and which, if the fire reached, it was death, just as 1 Compare Lay of the Last Minstrel , canto L, stanza 15, and canto v., stanza 2. In the first instance, the river-spirit is accurately the Homeric god, only Homer would have believed in it-— Scott did not ; at least altogether. THE GREEK NOTION OF A GOD. 179 would be the case if it touched a vital part of the human body. Throughout the passage the manner of conception is perfectly clear and consistent 3 and if, in other places, the exact connection between the ruling spirit and the thing ruled is not so manifest, it is only because it is almost im- possible for the human mind to dwell long upon such sub- jects without falling into inconsistencies, and gradually slackening its effort to grasp the entire truth ; until the more spiritual part of it slips from its hold, and only the human form of the god is left, to be conceived and described as subject to all the errors of humanity. But I do not believe that the idea ever weakens itself down to mere allegory. When Pallas is said to attack and strike down Mars, it does not mean merely that Wisdom at that moment prevailed against Wrath. It means that there are indeed two great spirits, one entrusted to guide the human soul to wisdom and chastity, the other to kindle wrath and prompt to battle. It means that these two spirits, on the spot where, and at the moment when, a great contest was to be decided between all that they each governed in man, then and there assumed human form, and human weapons, and did verily and materially strike at each other, until the Spirit of Wrath was crushed. And when Diana is said to hunt with her nymphs in the woods, it does not mean merely, as Wordsworth puts it, that the poet or shepherd saw the moon and stars glancing between the branches of the trees, and wished to say so figuratively. It means that there is a living spirit, to which the light of the moon is a body ; which takes delight in glancing between the clouds and following the wild beasts as they wander through the night; and that this spirit some- times assumes a perfect human form, and in this form, with real arrows, pursues and slays the wild beasts, which with its mere arrows of moonlight it could not slay ; retaining, never- theless, all the while, its power and being in the moonlight, and in all else that it rules. There is not the smallest inconsistency or unspirituality in this conception. If there were, it would attach equally to the appearance of the angels to Jacob, Abraham, Joshua, or Manoah. In all those instances the highest authority which i8o MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. governs our own faith requires us to conceive divine power clothed with a human form (a form so real that it is re- cognized for superhuman only by its “ doing wondrously ”), and retaining, nevertheless, sovereignty and omnipresence in all the world. This is precisely, as I understand it, the heathen idea of a God ; and it is impossible to comprehend any single part of the Greek mind until we grasp this faith- fully, not endeavouring to explain it away in any wise, but accepting, with frank decision and definition, the tangible existence of its deities ; — blue-eyed — white-fleshed — human- hearted, — capable at their choice of meeting man absolutely in his own nature — feasting with him — talking with him — fighting with him, eye to eye, or breast to breast, as Mars with Diomed ; or else, dealing with him in a more retired spirituality, as Apollo sending the plague upon the Greeks, when his quiver rattles at his shoulders as he moves, and yet the darts sent forth of it strike not as arrows, but as plague; or, finally, retiring completely into the material universe which they properly inhabit, and dealing with man through that, as Scamander with Achilles through his waves. Nor is there anything whatever in the various actions re- corded of the gods, however apparently ignoble, to indicate weakness of belief in them. Very frequently things which appear to us ignoble are merely the simplicities of a pure and truthful age. When Juno beats Diana about the ears with her own quiver, for instance, we start at first, as if Homer could not have believed that they were both real goddesses. But what should Juno have done? Killed Diana with a look ? Nay, she neither wished to do so, nor could she have done so, by the very faith of Diana’s goddess- ship. Diana is as immortal as herself. Frowned Diana into submission ? But Diana has come expressly to try conclu- sions with her, and will by no means be frowned into sub- mission. Wounded her with a celestial lance ? That sounds more poetical, but it is in reality partly more savage, and partly more absurd, than Homer. More savage, for it makes Juno more cruel, therefore less divine; and more absurd, for it only seems elevated in tone, because we use the word “celestial,” which means nothing. What sort of THE GREEK NOTION OF A GOD. 181 a thing is a “celestial” lance? Not a wooden one. Of what then? Of moonbeams, or clouds, or mist. Well, therefore, Diana’s arrows were of mist too ; and her quiver, and herself, and Juno, with her lance, and all, vanish into mist. Why not have said at once, if that is all you mean, that two mists met, and one drove the other back ? That would have been rational and intelligible, but not to talk of celestial lances. Homer had no such misty fancy; he believed the two goddesses were there in true bodies, with true weapons, on the true earth ; and still I ask, what should Juno have done ? Not beaten Diana? No ; for it is unlady-like. Un-English-lady-like, yes ; but by no means un-Greek-lady-like, nor even un-natural-lady-like. If a mod- ern lady does not beat her servant or her rival about the ears, it is oftener because she is too weak, or too proud, than because she is of purer mind than Homer’s Juno. She will not strike them ; but she will overwork the one or slander the other without pity; and Homer would not have thought that one whit more goddess-like than striking them with her open hand. If, however, the reader likes to suppose that while the two goddesses in personal presence thus fought with arrow and quiver, there was also a broader and vaster contest supposed by Homer between the elements they ruled ; and that the goddess of the heavens, as she struck the goddess of the moon on the flushing cheek, was at the same instant exer- cising omnipresent power in the heavens themselves, and gathering clouds, with which, filled with the moon’s own arrows or beams, she was encumbering and concealing the moon ; he is welcome to this out-carrying of the idea, pro- vided that he does not pretend to make it an interpretation instead of a mere extension, nor think to explain away my real, running, beautiful, beaten Diana, into a moon behind clouds. 1 1 Compare the exquisite lines of Longfellow on the sunset in The Golden Legend: The day is done, and slowly from the scene The stooping sun upgathers his spent shafts, And puts them back into his golden quiver. 182 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. It is only farther to be noted, that the Greek conception of Godhead, as it was much more real than we usually sup- pose, so it was much more bold and familiar than to a modern mind would be possible. I shall have something more to observe, in a little while, of the danger of our modern habit of endeavouring to raise ourselves to something like comprehension of the truth of divinity, instead of simply believing the words in which the Deity reveals Himself to us. The Greek erred rather on the other side, making hardly any effort to conceive divine mind as above the human ; and no more shrinking from frank intercourse with a divine being, or dreading its immediate presence, than that of the simplest of mortals. Thus Atrides, enraged at his sword’s breaking in his hand upon the helmet of Paris, after he had expressly invoked the assistance of Jupiter, exclaims aloud, as he would to a king who had betrayed him, “Jove, Father, there is not another god more evil-minded than thou ! ” and Helen, provoked at Paris’s defeat, and oppressed with pouting shame both for him and for herself, when Venus appears at her side, and would lead her back to the delivered Paris, impatiently tells the goddess to “go and take care of Paris herself.” The modern mind is naturally, but vulgarly and unjustly, shocked by this kind of familiarity. Rightly understood, it is not so much a sign or misunderstanding of the divine nature as of good understanding of the human. The Greek lived, in all things, a healthy, and, in a certain degree, a perfect, life. He had no morbid or sickly feeling of any kind. He was accustomed to face death without the slightest shrinking, to undergo all kinds of bodily hardship without complaint, and to do what he supposed right and honourable in most cases, as a matter of course. Confident of his own immor- tality, and of the power of abstract justice, he expected to be dealt with in the next world as was right, and left the matter much in his god’s hands; but being thus immortal, and finding in his own soul something which it seemed quite as difficult to master, as to rule the elements, he did not feel that it was an appalling superiority in those gods to have bodies of water, or fire, instead of flesh, and to have various work to THE GREEK NOTION OF A GOD. 183 do among the clouds and waves, out of his human way ; or sometimes, even, in a sort of service to himself. Was not the nourishment of herbs and flowers a kind of ministering to his wants ? were not the gods in some sort his husband- men, and spirit-servants? Their mere strength or omni- presence did not seem to him a distinction absolutely terrific. It might be the nature of one being to be in two places at once, and of another to be only in one ; but that did not seem of itself to infer any absolute lordliness of one nature above the other, any more than an insect must be a nobler creature than a man, because it can see on four sides of its head, and the man only in front. They could kill him or torture him, it was true ; but even that not unjustly, or not for ever. There was a fate, and a Divine Justice, greater than they ; so that if they did wrong, and he right, he might fight it out with them, and have the better of them at last. In a general way, they were wiser, stronger, and better than he ; and to ask counsel of them, to obey them, to sacrifice to them, to thank them for all good, this was well ; but to be utterly downcast before them, or not to tell them his mind in plain Greek if they seemed to him to be conducting them- selves in an ungodly manner — this would not be well. Such being their general idea of the gods, we can now easily understand the habitual tone of their feelings towards what was beautiful in nature. With us, observe, the idea of the Divinity is apt to get separated from the life of nature ; and imagining our God upon a cloudy throne, far above the earth, and not in the flowers or waters, we approach those visible things with a theory that they are dead, governed by physical laws, and so forth. But coming to them, we find the theory fail ; that they are not dead ; that, say what we choose about them, the instinc- tive sense of their being alive is too strong for us ; and in scorn of all physical law, the wilful fountain sings, and the kindly flowers rejoice. And then, puzzled, and yet happy; pleased, and yet ashamed of being so ; accepting sympathy from nature, which we do not believe it gives, and giving sympathy to nature, which we do not believe it receives — mixing, besides, all manner of purposeful play and conceit 184 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. with these involuntary fellowships — we fall necessarily into the curious web of hesitating sentiment, pathetic fallacy, and wandering fancy, which form a great part of our modern view of nature. But the Greek never removed his god out of nature at all ; never attempted for a moment to contradict his instinctive sense that God was everywhere. “ The tree is glad,” said he, “I know it is; I can cut it down; no matter, there was a nymph in it. The water does sing,” said he ; “I can dry it up ; but no matter, there was a naiad in it.” But in thus clearly defining his belief, observe, he threw it entirely into a human form, and gave his faith to nothing but the image of his own humanity. What sympathy and fellowship he had, were always for the spirit in the stream, not for the stream ; always for the dryad in the wood, not for the wood. Content with this human sympathy, he approached the actual waves and woody fibres with no sympathy at all. The spirit that ruled them, he received as a plain fact. Them, also, ruled and material, he received as plain facts ; they, without their spirit, were dead enough. A rose was good for scent, and a stream for sound and coolness ; for the rest, one was no more than leaves, the other no more than water ; he could not make anything else of them ; and the divine power, which was involved in their existence, having been all distilled away by him into an independent Flora or Thetis, the poor leaves or waves were left, in mere cold corporealness, to make the most of their being discernibly red and soft, clear and wet, and unacknowledged in any other power whatsoever. Then, observe farther, the Greeks lived in the midst of the most beautiful nature, and were as familiar with blue sea, clear air, and sweet outlines of mountain, as we are with brick walls, black smoke, and level fields. This perfect familiarity rendered all such scenes of natural beauty un- exciting, if not indifferent to them, by lulling and overweary- ing the imagination as far as it was concerned with such things ; but there was another kind of beauty which they found it required effort to obtain, and which, when thoroughly obtained, seemed more glorious than any of this wild loveli- ness — the beauty of the human countenance and form. THE GREEK NOTION OF A GOD. 185 This, they perceived, could only be reached by continual exercise of virtue ; and it was in Heaven’s sight, and theirs, all the more beautiful because it needed this self-denial to obtain it. So they set themselves to reach this, and having gained it, gave it their principal thoughts, and set it off with beautiful dress as best they might. But making this their object, they were obliged to pass their lives in simple ex- ercise and disciplined employments. Living wholesomely, giving themselves no fever fits, either by fasting or overeating, constantly in the open air, and full of animal spirit and physical power, they became incapable of every morbid condition of mental emotion. Unhappy love, disappointed ambition, spiritual despondency, or any other disturbing sensation, had little power over the well-braced nerves, and healthy flow of the blood ; and what bitterness might yet fasten on them was soon boxed or raced out of a boy, and spun or woven out of a girl, or danced out of both. They had indeed their sorrows, true and deep, but still, more like children’s sorrows than ours, whether bursting into open cry of pain, or hid with shuddering under the veil, still passing over the soul as clouds do over heaven, not sullying it, not mingling with it ; — darkening it perhaps long or utterly, but still not becoming one with it, and for the most part passing away in dashing rain of tears, and leaving the man un- changed ; in nowise affecting, as our sorrow does, the whole tone of his thought and imagination thenceforward. How far our melancholy may be deeper and wider than theirs, in its roots and view, and therefore nobler, we shall consider presently ; but at all events, they had the advantage of us in being entirely free from all those dim and feverish sensations which result from unhealthy state of the body. I believe that a large amount of the dreamy and sentimental sadness, tendency to reverie, and general patheticalness of modern life results merely from derangement of stomach; holding to the Greek life the same relation that the feverish night of an adult does to a child’s sleep. i86 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. 36. The Landscape of Homer. As far as I recollect, without a single exception, every Homeric landscape, intended to be beautiful, is composed of a fountain, a meadow, and a shady grove. This ideal is very interestingly marked, as intended for a perfect one, in the fifth book of the Odyssey ; when Mercury himself stops for a moment, though on a message, to look at a landscape “ which even an immortal might be gladdened to behold.” This landscape consists of a cave covered with a running vine, all blooming into grapes, and surrounded by a grove of alder, poplar, and sweet-smelling cypress. Four fountains of white (foaming) water, springing in succession (mark the orderliness), and close to one another, flow away in different directions, through a meadow full of violets and parsley (parsley, to mark its moisture, being elsewhere called “ marsh- nourished,” and associated with the lotus J ) ; the air is per- fumed not only by these violets and by the sweet cypress, but by Calypso’s fire of finely-chopped cedar wood, which sends a smoke, as of incense, through the island; Calypso herself is singing; and finally, upon the trees are resting, or roosting, owls, hawks, and “long-tongued sea-crows.” Whether these last are considered as a part of the ideal landscape, as marine singing-birds, I know not; but the approval of Mercury appears to be elicited chiefly by the fountains and violet meadow. Now the notable things in this description are, first, the evident subservience of the whole landscape to human com- fort, to the foot, the taste, or the smell ; and, secondly, that throughout the passage there is not a single figurative word expressive of the things being in any wise other than plain grass, fruit, or flower. I have used the term “ spring ” of the fountains, because, without doubt, Homer means that they sprang forth brightly, having their source at the foot of the rocks (as copious fountains nearly always have) ; but Homer does not say “ spring,” he says simply flow, and uses only one 1 Iliad \ ii., 77 6 . THE LANDSCAPE OF HOMER. 187 word for “ growing softly,” or “ richly,” of the tall trees, the vine, and the violets. There is, however, some expression of sympathy with the sea-birds ; he speaks of them in precisely the same terms, as in other places of naval nations, saying they “have care of the works of the sea.” If we glance through the references to pleasant landscape which occur in other parts of the Odyssey, we shall always be struck by this quiet subjection of their every feature to human service, and by the excessive similarity in the scenes. Perhaps the spot intended, after this, to be most perfect, may be the garden of Alcinous, where the principal ideas are, still more definitely, order, symmetry, and fruitfulness ; the beds being duly ranged between rows of vines, which, as well as the pear, apple, and fig-trees, bear fruit continually, some grapes being yet sour, while others are getting black ; there are plenty of “ orderly square beds of herbs,” chiefly leeks, and two fountains, one running through the garden, and one under the pavement of the palace to a reservoir for the citizens. Ulysses, pausing to contemplate this scene, is described nearly in the same terms as Mercury pausing to contemplate the wilder meadow; and it is interesting to observe, that, in spite of all Homer’s love of symmetry, the god’s admiration is excited by the free fountains, wild violets, and wandering vine ; but the mortal’s, by the vines in rows, the leeks in beds, and the fountains in pipes. Ulysses has, however, one touching reason for loving vines in rows. His father had given him fifty rows for himself, when he was a boy, with corn between them (just as it now grows in Italy). Proving his identity afterwards to his father, whom he finds at work in his garden, “ with thick gloves on, to keep his hands from the thorns,” he reminds him of these fifty rows of vines, and of the “ thirteen pear-trees and ten apple-trees ” which he had given him ; and Laertes faints upon his neck. If Ulysses had not been so much of a gardener, it might have been received as a sign of considerable feeling for land- scape beauty, that, intending to pay the very highest possible compliment to the Princess Nausicaa (and having indeed, the moment before, gravely asked her whether she was a 1 88 MODERN PAINTERS.—VOL. III. goddess or not), he says that he feels, at seeing her, exactly as he did when he saw the young palm-tree growing at Apollo’s shrine at Delos. But I think the taste for trim hedges and upright trunks has its usual influence over him here also, and that he merely means to tell the princess that she is delightfully tall and straight. The princess is, however, pleased by his address, and tells him to wait outside the town, till she can speak to her father about him. The spot to which she directs him is another ideal piece of landscape, composed of a “beautiful grove of aspen poplars, a fountain, and a meadow,” near the roadside ; in fact, as nearly as possible such a scene as meets the eye of the traveller every instant on the much-despised lines of road through lowland France ; for instance, on the railway between Arras and Amiens ; — scenes, to my mind, quite exquisite in the various grouping and grace of their innumerable poplar avenues, casting sweet, tremulous shadows over their level meadows and labyrinthine streams. We know that the prin- cess means aspen poplars, because soon afterwards we find her fifty maidservants at the palace, all spinning, and in per- petual motion, compared to the “ leaves of the tall poplar ; ” and it is with exquisite feeling that it is made afterwards 1 the chief tree in the groves of Proserpine ; its light and quivering leafage having exactly the melancholy expression of fragility, faintness, and inconstancy which the ancients attributed to the disembodied spirit. The likeness to the poplars by the streams of Amiens is more marked still in the Iliad, where the young Simois, struck by Ajax, falls to the earth “ like an aspen that has grown in an irrigated meadow, smooth- trunked, the soft shoots springing from its top, which some coach-making man has cut down with his keen iron, that he may fit a wheel of it to a fair chariot, and it lies parching by the side of the stream.” It is sufficiently notable that Homer, living in mountainous and rocky countries, dwells thus delightedly on all the flat bits ; and so I think invari- ably the inhabitants of mountain countries do, but the in- habitants of the plains do not, in any similar way, dwell delightedly on the mountains. The Dutch painters are per- 1 Odyssey , x., 510. THE LANDSCAPE OF HOMER. 189 fectly contented with their flat fields and pollards : Rubens, though he had seen the Alps, usually composes his landscapes of a hayfield or two, plenty of pollards and willows, a distant spire, a Dutch house with a moat about it, a windmill, and a ditch. The Flemish sacred painters are the only ones who introduce mountains in the distance, as we shall see pres- ently ; but rather in a formal way than with any appearance of enjoyment. So Shakspeare never speaks of mountains with the slightest joy, but only of lowland flowers, flat fields, and Warwickshire streams. And if we talk to the moun- taineer, he will usually characterize his own country to us as a “ pays affreux,” or in some equivalent, perhaps even more violent, German term : but the lowland peasant does not think his country frightful ; he either will have no ideas beyond it, or about it ; or will think it a very perfect country, and be apt to regard any deviation from its general principle of flatness with extreme disfavour; as the Lincolnshire farmer in Alton Locke : “ I’ll shaw ’ee some’at like a field o’ beans, I wool — none o’ this here darned ups and downs o’ hills, to shake a body’s victuals out of his inwards — all so vlat as a barn’s vloor, for vorty mile on end — there’s the country to live in ! ” I do not say whether this be altogether right (though cer- tainly not wholly wrong), but it seems to me that there must be in the simple freshness and fruitfulness of level land, in its pale upright trees, and gentle lapse of silent streams, enough for the satisfaction of the human mind in general ; and I so far agree with Homer, that, if I had to educate an artist to the full perception of the meaning of the word “ gracefulness ” in landscape, I should send him neither to Italy nor to Greece, but simply to those poplar groves between Arras and Amiens. But to return more definitely to our Homeric landscape. When it is perfect, we have, as in the above instances, the foliage and meadows together ; when imperfect, it is always either the foliage or the meadow ; pre-eminently the meadow, or arable field. Thus, meadows of asphodel are prepared for the happier dead ; and even Orion, a hunter among the mountains in his lifetime, pursues the ghosts of beasts in 190 MODERN PAINTERS,— VOL. III. these asphodel meadows after death. 1 So the sirens sing in a meadow ; and throughout the Odyssey there is a general tendency to the depreciation of poor Ithaca, because it is rocky, and only fit for goats, and has “ no meadows ; ” for which reason Telemachus refuses Atrides’s present of horses, congratulating the Spartan king at the same time on ruling over a plain which has “ plenty of lotus in it, and rushes,” with corn and barley. Note this constant dwelling on the marsh plants, or, at least, those which grow in flat and well- irrigated land, or beside streams : when Scamander, for instance, is restrained by Vulcan, Homer says, very sorrow- fully, that “ all his lotus, and reeds, and rushes were burnt ; ” and thus Ulysses, after being shipwrecked and nearly drowned, and beaten about the sea for many days and nights, on raft and mast, at last getting ashore at the mouth of a large river, casts himself down first upon its rushes , and then, in thankfulness, kisses the “corn-giving land,” as most opposed, in his heart, to the fruitless and devouring sea. 2 In this same passage, also, we find some peculiar expres- sions of the delight which the Greeks had in trees ; for, when Ulysses first comes in sight of land, which gladdens him, “ as the reviving of a father from his sickness gladdens his chil- dren,” it is not merely the sight of the land itself which gives him such pleasure, but of the “land and wood.” Homer never throws away any words, at least in such a place as this ; and what in another poet would have been merely the filling up of the deficient line with an otherwise useless word, is in him the expression of the general Greek sense, that land of any kind was in nowise grateful or acceptable till there was wood upon it (or corn ; but the corn, in the flats, could not be seen so far as the black masses of forest on the hill sides), and that, as in being rushy and corn-giving, the low land, so in being woody, the high land, was most grate- ful to the mind of the man who for days and nights had been wearied on the engulphing sea. And this general idea of wood and corn, as the types of the fatness of the whole 1 Odyssey, xi., 571, xxiv., 13. The couch of Ceres, with Homer’s usual faithfulness, is made of a ploughed field, v., 127. 9 Odyssey , v., 39S. THE MEDIAEVAL VIEW OF NATURE. 191 earth, is beautifully marked in another place of the Odyssey} where the sailors in a desert island, having no flour of corn to offer as a meat offering with their sacrifices, take the leaves of the trees, and scatter them over the burnt offering instead. 37. The Mediaeval View of Nature. The testimony of mediaeval art, sculpture, and literature, taken in its breadth, is very curiously conclusive. It marks the mediseval mind as agreeing altogether with the ancients, in holding that flat land, brooks, and groves of aspens, com- pose the pleasant places of the earth, and that rocks and mountains are, for inhabitation, altogether to be reprobated and detested ; but as disagreeing with the classical mind totally in this other most important respect, that the pleasant flat land is never a ploughed field, nor a rich lotus meadow good for pasture, but garden ground covered with flowers, and divided by fragrant hedges, with a castle in the middle of it. The aspens are delighted in, not because they are good for “ coach- making men ” to make cart-wheels of, but because they are shady and graceful ; and the fruit-trees, ¥ covered with delicious fruit, especially apple and orange, occupy still more important positions in the scenery. Sing- ing-birds — not “sea-crows,” but nightingales 1 2 — perch on every bough ; and the ideal occupation of mankind is not to cultivate either the garden or the meadow, but to gather roses and eat oranges in the one, and ride out hawking over the other. Finally, mountain scenery, though considered as disagree- able for general inhabitation, is always introduced as being proper to meditate in, or to encourage communion with higher beings; and in the ideal landscape of daily life, 1 Odyssey, xii., 357. 2 The peculiar dislike felbby the medisevals for the sea, is so interest- ing a subject of inquiry, that I have reserved it for separate discussion in another work, in present preparation, Harbours of England (published in 1856). 192 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. III. mountains are considered agreeable things enough, so that they be far enough away. In this great change there are three vital points to be noticed. The first, the disdain of agricultural pursuits by the nobility; a fatal change, and one gradually bringing about the ruin of that nobility. It is expressed in the mediaeval landscape by the eminently pleasurable and horticultural character of everything ; by the fences, hedges, castle walls, and masses of useless, but lovely flowers, especially roses. The knights and ladies are represented always as singing, or making love, in these pleasant places. The idea of setting an old knight, like Laertes (whatever his state of fallen for- tune), “with thick gloves on to keep his hands from the thorns,” to prune a row of vines, would have been regarded as the most monstrous violation of the decencies of life ; and a senator, once detected in the home employments of Cin- cinnatus, could, I suppose, thenceforward hardly have ap- peared in society. The second vital point is the evidence of a more senti- mental enjoyment of external nature. A Greek, wishing really to enjoy himself, shut himself into a beautiful atrium, with an excellent dinner, and a society of philosophical or musical friends. But a mediaeval knight went into his pleas- ance, to gather roses and hear the birds sing ; or rode out hunting or hawking. His evening feast, though riotous enough sometimes, was not the height of his day’s enjoy- ment ; and if the attractions of the world are to be shown typically to him, as opposed to the horrors of death, they are never represented by a full feast in a chamber, but by a delicate dessert in an orange grove, with musicians under the trees ; or a ride on a May morning, hawk on fist. This change is evidently a healthy, and a very interesting one. The third vital point is the marked sense that this hawking and apple-eating are not altogether right ; that there is some- thing else to be done in the world than that ; and that the mountains, as opposed to the pleasant garden-ground, are places where that other something may best be learned; THE MEDIAEVAL VIEW OF NATURE. 193 which is evidently a piece of infinite and new respect for the mountains, and another healthy change in the tone of the human heart. Let us glance at the signs and various results of these changes, one by one. The two first named, evil and good as they are, are very closely connected. The more poetical delight in external nature proceeds just from the fact that it is no longer looked upon with the eye of the farmer ; and in proportion as the herbs and flowers cease to be regarded as useful, they are felt to be charming. Leeks are not now the most important objects in the garden, but lilies and roses ; the herbage which a Greek would have looked at only with a view to the number of horses it would feed, is regarded by the mediaeval knight as a green carpet for fair feet to dance upon, and the beauty of its softness and colour is proportionately felt by him ; while the brook, which the Greek rejoiced to dismiss into a reservoir under the palace threshold, would be, by the mediaeval, distributed into pleasant pools, or forced into fountains ; and regarded alternately as a mirror for fair faces, and a witchery to ensnare the sunbeams and the rainbow. And this change of feeling involves two others, very important. When the flowers and grass were regarded as means of life, and theiefore (as the thoughtful labourer of the soil must always regard them) with the reverence due to those gifts of God which were most necessary to his exist- ence; although their own beauty was less felt, their pro- ceeding from the Divine hand was more seriously acknow- ledged, and the herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree yielding fruit, though in themselves less admired, were yet solemnly connected in the heart with the reverence of Ceres, Pomona, or Pan. But when the sense of these necessary uses was more or less lost, among the upper classes, by the delegation of the art of husbandry to the hands of the peasant, the flower and fruit, whose bloom or richness thus became a mere source of pleasure, were regarded with less solemn sense of the Divine gift in them ; and were converted rather into toys than treasures, chance gifts for gaiety, rather than promised rewards of labour ; so that while the Greek could 7 194 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. hardly have trodden the formal furrow, or plucked the clusters from the trellised vine, without reverent thoughts of the deities of field and leaf, who gave the seed to fructify, and the bloom to darken, the mediaeval knight plucked the violet to wreathe in his lady’s hair, or strewed the idle rose on the turf at her feet, with little sense of anything in the nature that gave them, but a frail, accidental, involuntary exuberance; while also the Jewish sacrificial system being now done away, as well as the Pagan mythology, and, with it, the whole conception of meat offering or firstfruits offering, the chiefest seriousnesses of all the thoughts connected with the gifts of nature faded from the minds of the classes of men concerned with art and literature ; while the peasant, reduced to serf level, was incapable of imaginative thought, owing to his want of general cultivation. But on the other hand, exactly in proportion as the idea of definite spiritual presence in material nature was lost, the mysterious sense of unaccountable life in the things themselves would be increased, and the mind would instantly be laid open to all those cur- rents of fallacious, but pensive and pathetic sympathy, which we have seen to be characteristic of modern times. Farther : a singular difference would necessarily result from the far greater loneliness of baronial life, deprived as it was of all interest in agricultural pursuits. The palace of a Greek leader in early times might have gardens, fields, and farms around it, but was sure to be near some busy city or seaport : in later times, the city itself became the principal dwelling- place, and the country was visited only to see how the farm went on, or traversed in a line of march. Far other was the life of the mediaeval baron, nested on his solitary jut of crag ; entering into cities only occasionally for some grave political or warrior’s purpose, and, for the most part, passing the years of his life in lion-like isolation ; the village inhabited by his retainers straggling indeed about the slopes of the rocks at his feet, but his own dwelling standing gloomily apart, be- tween them and the uncompanionable clouds, commanding, from sunset to sunrise, the flowing flame of some calm unvoyaged river, and the endless undulation of the untravers- able hills. How different must the thoughts about nature THE MEDIAEVAL VIEW OF NATURE. 195 have been, of the noble who lived among the bright marble porticoes of the Greek groups of temple or palace — in the midst of a plain covered with corn and olives, and by the shore of a sparkling and freighted sea — from those of the master of some mountain promontory in the green recesses of Northern Europe, watching night by night, from amongst his heaps of storm-broken stone, rounded into towers, the lightning of the lonely sea flash round the sands of Harlech, or the mists changing their shapes for ever, among the changeless pines, that fringe the crests of Jura. Nor was it without similar effect on the minds of men that their journeyings and pilgrimages became more frequent than those of the Greek, the extent of ground traversed in the course of them larger, and the mode of travel more com- panionless. To the Greek, a voyage to Egypt, or the Helles- pont, was the subject of lasting fame and fable, and the forests of the Danube and the rocks of Sicily closed for him the gates of the intelligible world. What parts of that narrow world he crossed were crossed with fleets or armies ; the camp always populous on the plain, and the ships drawn in cautious symmetry around the shore. But to the mediaeval knight, from Scottish moor to Syrian sand, the world was one great exercise ground, or field of adventure ; the staunch pacing of his charger penetrated the pathlessness of outmost forest, and sustained the sultriness of the most secret desert. Frequently alone — or, if accompanied, for the most part only by retainers of lower rank, incapable of entering into com- plete sympathy with any of his thoughts — he must have been compelled often to enter into dim companionship with the silent nature around him, and must assuredly sometimes have talked to the wayside flowers of his love, and to the fading clouds of his ambition. But, on the other hand, the idea of retirement from the world for the sake of self-mortification, of combat with demons, or communion with angels, and with their King — authoritatively commended as it was to all men by the con- tinual practice of Christ Himself — gave to all mountain soli- tude at once a sanctity and a terror, in the mediaeval mind, which were altogether different from anything that it had pos- 196 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL III. sessed in the un-Christian periods. On the one side, there was an idea of sanctity attached to rocky wilderness, because it had always been among hills that the Deity had manifested Himself most intimately to men, and to the hills that His saints had nearly always retired for meditation, for especial communion with Him, and to prepare for death. Men acquainted with the history of Moses, alone at Horeb, or with Israel at Sinai — of Elijah by the brook Cherith, and in the Horeb cave ; of the deaths of Moses and Aaron on Hor and Nebo; of the preparation of Jephthah’s daughter for her death among the Judea mountains; of the continual retire- ment of Christ Himself to the mountains for prayer, His temptation in the desert of the Dead Sea, His sermon on the hills of Capernaum, His transfiguration on the crest of Tabor, and His evening and morning walks over Olivet for the four or five days preceding His crucifixion — were not likely to look with irreverent or unloving eyes upon the blue hills that girded their golden horizon, or drew down upon them the mysterious clouds out of the height of the darker heaven. But with this impression of their greater sanctity was involved also that of a peculiar terror. In all this — their haunting by the memories of prophets, the presences of angels, and the everlasting thoughts and words of the Redeemer — the mountain ranges seemed separated from the active world, and only to be fitly approached by hearts which were condemnatory of it. Just in so much as it appeared necessary for the noblest men to retire to the hill-recesses before their missions could be accomplished, or their spirits perfected, in so far did the daily world seem by comparison to be pronounced profane and dangerous ; and to those who loved that world, and its work, the mountains were thus voiceful with perpetual rebuke, and necessarily contemplated with a kind of pain and fear, such as a man engrossed by vanity feels at being by some accident forced to hear a startling sermon, or to assist at a funeral service. Every association of this kind was deepened by the practice and the precept of the time; and thousands of hearts, which might otherwise have felt that there was loveliness in the wild landscape, shrank from it in dread, because they knew THE MEDIAEVAL VIEW OF NATURE. 197 that the monk retired to it for penance, and the hermit for contemplation. The horror which the Greek had felt for hills only when they were uninhabited and barren, attached itself now to many of the sweetest spots of earth ; the feeling was conquered by political interests, but never by admira- tion ; military ambition seized the frontier rock, or main- tained itself in the unassailable pass ; but it was only for their punishment, or in their despair, that men consented to tread the crocused slopes of the Chartreuse, or the soft glades and dewy pastures of Vallombrosa. In all these modifications of temper and principle there appears much which tends to a passionate, affectionate, or awe-struck observance of the features of natural scenery, closely resembling, in all but this superstitious dread of mountains, our feelings at the present day. But one char- acter which the medisevals had in common with the ancients, and that exactly the most eminent character in both, opposed itself steadily to all the feelings we have hitherto been examining, the admiration, namely, and constant watchful- ness, of human beauty. Exercised in nearly the same manner as the Greeks, from their youth upwards, their countenances were cast even in a higher mould ; for, although somewhat less regular in feature, and affected by minglings of Northern bluntness and stolidity of general expression, together with greater thinness of lip and shaggy formlessness of brow, these less sculpturesque features were, nevertheless, touched with a seriousness and refinement proceeding first from the modes of thought inculcated by the Christian religion, and secondly from their more romantic and various life. Hence a degree of personal beauty, both male and female, was attained in the Middle Ages, with which classical periods could show nothing for a moment comparable : and this beauty was set forth by the most perfect splendour, united with grace, in dress, which the human race have hitherto invented. The strength of their art-genius was directed in great part to this object ; and their best workmen and most brilliant fanciers were employed in wreathing the mail or embroidering the robe. The exquisite arts of enamel- ling and chasing metal enabled them to make the armour as i 9 S MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. III. radiant and delicate as the plumage of a tropical bird ; and the most various and vivid imaginations were displayed in the alternations of colour, and fiery freaks of form, on shield and crest : so that of all the beautiful things which the eyes of men could fall upon in the world about them, the most beautiful must have been a young knight riding out in morning sunshine, and in faithful hope : His broad, clear bmw in sunlight glowed ; On burnished hooves his war-horse trode ; From underneath his helmet flowed His coal-black curls, as on he rode. All in the blue, unclouded weather, Thick jewelled shone the saddle leather ; The helmet and the helmet feather Burned like one burning flame together ; And the gemmy bridle glittered free. Like to some branch of stars we see Hung in the golden galaxy. Now, the effect of this superb presence of human beauty on men in general was, exactly as it had been in Greek times, first, to turn their thoughts and glances in great part away from all other beauty but that, and to make the grass of the field take to them always more or less the aspect of a carpet to dance upon, a lawn to tilt upon, or a serviceable , crop of hay ; and, secondly, in what attention they paid to this lower nature, to make them dwell exclusively on what was graceful, symmetrical, and bright in colour. All that was rugged, rough, dark, wild, unterminated, they rejected at once, as the domain of “ salvage men ” and monstrous giants : all that they admired was tender, bright, balanced, enclosed, symmetrical — only symmetrical in the noble and free sense : for what we moderns call “ symmetry ” or f “ balance,” differs as much from mediaeval symmetry as the poise of a grocer’s scales, or the balance of an Egyptian mummy with its hands tied to its sides, does from the balance of a knight on his horse, striking with the battle-axe, at the gallop ; the mummy’s balance looking wonderfully perfect, and yet sure to be one-sided if you weigh the dust of it — the knight’s balance swaying and changing like the wind, and yet as true and accurate as the laws of life. THE MEDIAEVAL VIEW OF NATURE. 199 And this love of symmetry was still farther enhanced by the peculiar duties required of art at the time ; for, in order to fit a flower or leaf for inlaying in armour, or showing clearly in glass, it was absolutely necessary to take away its complexity, and reduce it to the condition of a disciplined and orderly pattern ; and this the more, because, for all military purposes, the device, whatever it was, had to be distinctly intelligible at extreme distance. That it should be a good imitation of nature, when seen near, was of no moment ; but it was of highest moment that when first the knight’s banner flashed in the sun at the turn of the moun- tain road, or rose, torn and bloody, through the drift of the battle dust, it should still be discernible what the bearing was : At length, the freshening western blast Aside the shroud of battle cast ; And first the ridge of mingled spears Above the brightening cloud appears ; And in the smoke the pennons flew, As in the storm the white sea-mew ; Then marked they, dashing broad and far The broken billows of the war. Wide ranged the battle on the plain ; Spears shook, and falchions flashed amain $ Fell England’s arrow-flight like rain ; Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again, Wild and disorderly. Amidst the scene of tumult, high, They saw Lord Marmion' s falcon fly , And stainless Tunsiall's banner white , And Edmund Howard's lion bright . It was needed, not merely that they should see it was a falcon, but Lord Marmion’s falcon ; not only a lion, but the Howards’ lion. Hence, to the one imperative end of intel- ligibility , every minor resemblance to nature was sacrificed, and above all, the curved , , which are chiefly the confusing lines ; so that the straight, elongated back, doubly elongated tail, projected and separate claws, and other rectilinear unnaturalnesses of form, became the means by which the leopard was, in midst of the mist and storm of battle, dis- tinguished from the dog, or the lion from the wolf ; the most 200 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. admirable fierceness and vitality being, in spite of these necessary changes (so often shallowly sneered at by the modern workman), obtained by the old designer. Farther, it was necessary to the brilliant harmony of colour, and clear setting forth of everything, that all con- fusing shadows, all dim and doubtful lines should be re- jected : hence at once an utter denial of natural appearances by the great body of workmen ; and a calm rest in a practice of representation which would make either boar or lion blue, scarlet, or golden, according to the device of the knight, or the need of such and such a colour in that place of the pattern ; and which wholly denied that any substance ever cast a shadow, or was affected by any kind of obscurity. All this was in its way, and for its end, absolutely right, admirable, and delightful ; and those who despise it, laugh at it, or derive no pleasure from it, are utterly ignorant of the highest principles of art, and are mere tyros and beginners in the practice of colour. But, admirable though it might be, one necessary result of it was a farther withdrawal of the observation of men from the refined and subtle beauty of nature; so that the workman who first was led to think lightly of natural beauty, as being subservient to human, was next led to think innaccu?’ately of natural beauty, because he had continually to alter and simplify it for his practical purposes. 38. Modern Landscape. We turn our eyes, as boldly and as quickly as may be, from the serene fields and skies of mediaeval art, to the most characteristic examples of modern landscape. And, I be- lieve, the first thing that will strike us, or that ought to strike us, is their cloudiness . Out of perfect light and motionless air, we find ourselves on a sudden brought under sombre skies, and into drifting wind; and, with fickle sunbeams flashing in our face, or utterly drenched with sweep of rain, we are reduced to track the changes of the shadows on the grass, or watch the rents MODERN LANDSCAPE. 201 of twilight through angry cloud. And we find that whereas all the pleasure of the mediaeval was in stability , defi?iite 7 iess, and luminous?iess , we are expected to rejoice in darkness, and triumph in mutability ; to lay the foundation of happiness in things which momentarily change or fade ; and to expect the utmost satisfaction and instruction from what it is impossible to arrest, and difficult to comprehend. We find, however, together with this general delight in breeze and darkness, much attention to the real form of clouds, and careful drawing of effects of mist ; so that the appearance of objects, as seen through it, becomes a subject of science with us ; and the faithful representation of that appearance is made of primal importance, under the name of aerial perspective. The aspects of sunset and sunrise, with all their attendant phenomena of cloud and mist, are watchfully delineated; and in ordinary daylight landscape, the sky is considered of so much importance, that a principal mass of foliage, or a whole foreground, is unhesitatingly thrown into shade merely to bring out the form of a white cloud. So that, if a general and characteristic name were needed for modem landscape art, none better could be invented than “ the service of clouds.’’ And this name would, unfortunately, be characteristic of our art in more ways than one. In a former chapter, I said that all the Greeks spoke kindly about the clouds, except r Aristophanes ; and he, I am sorry to say (since his report is so unfavourable) is the only Greek who had studied them attentively. He tells us, first, that they are “ great goddesses to idle men ; ” then, that they are “ mistresses of disputings, and logic, and monstrosities, and noisy chattering ; ” declares that whoso believes in their divinity must first disbelieve in Jupiter, and place supreme power in the hands of an un- known god “ Whirlwind ; ” and, finally, he displays their influence over the mind of one of their disciples, in his ; sudden desire “ to speak ingeniously concerning smoke.” There is, I fear, an infinite truth in this Aristophanic judgment applied to our modern cloud- worship. Assuredly, much of the love of mystery in our romances, our poetry, | our art, and, above all, in our metaphysics, must come under 202 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. that definition so long ago given by the great Greek, “ speak- ing ingeniously concerning smoke.” And much of the instinct, which, partially developed in painting, may be now seen throughout every mode of exertion of mind, — the easily encouraged doubt, easily excited curiosity, habitual agitation, and delight in the changing and the marvellous, as opposed to the old quiet serenity of social custom and religious faith,— is again deeply defined in those few words, the “ dethroning of Jupiter,” the “ coronation of the whirlwind.” Nor of whirlwind merely, but also of darkness or ignorance respecting all stable facts. That darkening of the foreground to bring out the white clouds, is, in one aspect of it, a type of the subjection of all plain and positive fact, to what is uncertain and unintelligible. And as we examine farther into the matter, we shall be struck by another great differ- ence between the old and modern landscape, namely, that in the old no one ever thought of drawing anything but as well as he could. That might not be well, as we have seen in the case of rocks ; but it was as well as he could, and always distinctly. Leaf, or stone, or animal, or man, it was equally drawn with care and clearness, and its essential characters shown. If it was an oak tree, the acorns were drawn ; if a flint pebble, its veins were drawn; if an arm of the sea, its fish were drawn ; if a group of figures, their faces and dresses were drawn — to the very last subtlety of expression and end of thread that could be got into the space, far off or near. ' But now our ingenuity is all “concerning smoke.” Nothing is truly drawn but that ; all else is vague, slight, imperfect ; got with as little pains as possible. You examine your closest foreground, and find no leaves ; your largest oak, and find no acorns ; your human figure, and find a spot of red paint instead of a face ; and in all this, again and again, the Aristo- i phanic words come true, and the clouds seem to be “great goddesses to idle men.” The next thing that will strike us, after this love of clouds, is the love of liberty. Whereas the mediaeval was always shutting himself into castles, and behind fosses, and drawing brickwork neatly, and beds of flowers primly, our painters delight in getting to the open fields and moors ; abhor all MODERN LANDSCAPE. 203 hedges and moats ; never paint anything but free-growing trees, and rivers gliding “ at their own sweet will ; ” eschew formality down to the smallest detail; break and displace the brickwork which the mediaeval would have carefully cemented ; leave unpruned the thickets he would have deli- cately trimmed ; and, carrying the love of liberty even to license, and the love of wildness even to ruin, take pleasure at last in every aspect of age and desolation which eman- cipates the objects of nature from the government of men ; on the castle wall displacing its tapestry with ivy, and spread- ing, through the garden, the bramble for the rose. Connected with this love of liberty we find a singular manifestation of love of mountains, and see our painters traversing the wildest places of the globe in order to obtain subjects with craggy foregrounds and purple distances. Some few of them remain content with pollards and fiat land ; but these are always men of third-rate order ; and the leading masters, while they do not reject the beauty of the low grounds, reserve their highest powers to paint Alpine peaks or Italian promontories. And it is eminently noticeable, also, that this pleasure in the mountains is never mingled with fear, or tempered by a spirit of meditation, as with the mediaeval ; but is always free and fearless, brightly ex- hilarating, and wholly unreflective : so that the painter feels that his mountain foreground may be more consistently animated by a sportsman than a hermit ; and our modern society in general goes to the mountains, not to fast, but to feast, and leaves their glaciers covered with chicken-bones and egg-shells. Connected with this want of any sense of solemnity in mountain scenery, is a general profanity of temper in regard- ing all the rest of nature ; that is to say, a total absence of faith in the presence of any deity therein. Whereas the mediaeval never painted a cloud, but with the purpose of placing an angel in it ; and a Greek never entered a wood without expecting to meet a god in it ; we should think the appearance of an angel in the cloud wholly unnatural, and should be seriously surprised by meeting a god anywhere. Our chief ideas about the wood are connected with poaching. 204 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. We have no belief that the clouds contain more than so many inches of rain or hail, and from our ponds and ditches expect nothing more divine than ducks and watercresses. Finally : connected with this profanity of temper is a strong tendency to deny the sacred element of colour, and make our boast in blackness. For though occasionally glaring, or violent, modern colour is on the whole eminently sombre, tending continually to grey or brown, and by many of our best painters consistently falsified, with a confessed pride in what they call chaste or subdued tints; so that, whereas a mediaeval paints his sky bright blue, and his fore- ground bright green, gilds the towers of his castle, and clothes his figures with purple and white, we paint our sky grey, our foreground black, and our foliage brown, and think that enough is sacrificed to the sun in admitting the dangerous brightness of a scarlet cloak or a blue jacket. 39. Scott’s View of Nature. First, observe Scott’s habit of looking at nature neither as dead, or merely material, in the way that Homer regards it, nor as altered by his own feelings, in the way that Keats and Tennyson regard it, but as having an animation and pathos of its oivn , wholly irrespective of human presence or passion — an animation which Scott loves and sympathizes with, as he would with a fellow-creature, forgetting himself altogether, and subduing his own humanity before what seems to him the power of the landscape : Yon lonely thorn, — would he could tell The changes of his parent dell, Since he, so grey and stubborn now, Waved in each breeze a sapling bough ! Would he could tell, how deep the shade A thousand mingled branches made, How broad the shadows of the oak, How clung the rowan to the rock, And through the foliage showed his head, With narrow leaves and berries red ! SCOTT'S VIEW OF NATURE. 205 Scott does not dwell on the grey stubbornness of the thorn, because he himself is at that moment disposed to be dull, or stubborn ; neither on the cheerful peeping forth of the rowan, because he himself is at that moment cheerful or curious, but he perceives them both with the kind of interest that he would take in an old man, or a climbing boy ; for- getting himself, in sympathy with either age or youth. And from the grassy slope he sees The Greta flow to meet the Tees. Where issuing from her darksome bed, She caught the morning’s eastern red, And through the softening vale below Rolled her bright waves in rosy glow, All blushing to her bridal bed, Like some shy maid, in convent bred ; While linnet, lark, and blackbird gay Sing forth her nuptial roundelay. Is Scott, or are the persons of his story, gay at this moment ? Far from it. Neither Scott nor Risingham are happy, but the Greta is ; and all Scott’s sympathy is ready for the Greta, on the instant. Observe, therefore, this is not pathetic fallacy ; for there is no passion in Scott which alters nature. It is not the lover’s passion, making him think the larkspurs are listening for his lady’s foot ; it is not the miser’s passion, making him think that dead leaves are falling coins ; but it is an inherent and continual habit of thought, which Scott shares with the moderns in general, being, in fact, nothing else than the instinctive sense which men must have of the Divine pres- ence, not formed into distinct belief. In the Greek it created, as we saw, the faithfully believed gods of the elements ; in Dante and the medisevals, it formed the faith- fully believed angelic presence : in the modern, it creates no perfect form, does not apprehend distinctly any Divine being or operation ; but only a dim, slightly credited animation in the natural object, accompanied with great interest and affection for it. This feeling is quite universal with us, only varying in depth according to the greatness of the heart that holds it ; and in Scott, being more than usually intense, and accompanied with infinite affection and quickness of sym- 206 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. III. pathy, it enables him to conquer all tendencies to the pathetic fallacy, and, instead of making Nature anywise sub- ordinate to himself, he makes himself subordinate to her — follows her lead simply — does not venture to bring his own cares and thoughts into her pure and quiet presence — paints her in her simple and universal truth, adding no result of momentary passion or fancy, and appears, therefore, at first shallower than other poets, being in reality wider and healthier. “ What am I ? ” he says continually, “ that I should trouble this sincere nature with my thoughts. I happen to be feverish and depressed, and I could see a great many sad and strange things in those waves and flowers ; but I have no business to see such things. Gay Greta ! sweet harebells ! you are not sad nor strange to most people ; you are but bright water and blue blossoms ; you shall not be anything else to me, except that I cannot help thinking you are a little alive — no one can help thinking that.” And thus, as Nature is bright, serene, or gloomy, Scott takes her temper, and paints her as she is ; nothing of himself being ever intruded, except that far-away Eolian tone, of which he is unconscious ; and sometimes a stray syllable or two, like that about Blackford Hill, distinctly stating personal feeling, but all the more modestly for that distinctness, and for the clear consciousness that it is not the chiming brook, nor the cornfields, that are sad, but only the boy that rests by them ; so returning on the instant to reflect, in all honesty, the image of Nature as she is meant by all men to be received ; nor that in fine words, but in the first that come ; nor with comment of far-fetched thoughts, but with easy thoughts, such as all sensible men ought to have in such places, only spoken sweetly ; and evidently also with an undercurrent of more profound reflection, which here and there murmurs for a moment, and which I think, if we choose, we may con- tinually pierce down to, and drink deeply from, but which Scott leaves us to seek, or shun, at our pleasure. And in consequence of this unselfishness and humility, Scott’s enjoyment of Nature is incomparably greater than that of any other poet I know. All the rest carry their cares to her, and begin maundering in her ears about their own SCOTT’S VIEW OF NATURE. 207 affairs. Tennyson goes out on a furzy common, and sees it is calm autumn sunshine, but it gives him no pleasure. He only remembers that it is Dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep. He sees a thunder-cloud in the evening, and would have “doted and pored” on it, but cannot, for fear it should bring the ship bad weather. Keats drinks the beauty of Nature violently ; but has no more real sympathy with her than he has with a bottle of claret. His palate is fine \ but he “ bursts joy’s grape against it,” gets nothing but misery, and a bitter taste of dregs, out of his desperate draught. Byron and Shelley are nearly the same, only with less truth of perception, and even more troublesome selfishness. Wordsworth is more like Scott, and understands how to be happy, but yet cannot altogether rid himself of the sense that he is a philosopher, and ought always to be saying some- thing wise. He has also a vague notion that Nature would not be able to get on well without Wordsworth ; and finds a considerable part of his pleasure in looking at himself as well as at her. But with Scott the love is entirely humble and unselfish. “ I, Scott, am nothing, and less than noth- ing ; but these crags, and heaths, and clouds, how great they are, how lovely, how for ever to be beloved, only for their own silent, thoughtless sake ! ” This pure passion for nature in its abstract being, is still increased in its intensity by the two elements above taken notice of, — the love of antiquity, and the love of colour and beautiful form, mortified in our streets, and seeking for food in the wilderness and the ruin : both feelings, observe, in- stinctive in Scott from his childhood, as everything that makes a man great is always. And well the lonely infant knew Recesses where the wallflower grew, And honeysuckle loved to crawl Up the lone crag and ruined wall. I deemed such nooks the sweetest shade The sun in all its round surveyed. 2o8 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. Not that these could have been instinctive in a chile in the Middle Ages. The sentiments of a people increase or diminish in intensity from generation to generation — every disposition of the parents affecting the frame of the mind in their offspring : the soldier’s child is born to be yet more a soldier, and the politician’s to be still more a politician ; even the slightest colours of sentiment and affection are transmitted to the heirs of life ; and the crowning expres- sion of the mind of a people is given when some infant of highest capacity, and sealed with the impress of this national character, is born where providential circumstances permit the full development of the powers it has received straight from Heaven, and the passions which it has inherited from its fathers. This love of ancientness, and that of natural beauty, associate themselves also in Scott with the love of liberty, which was indeed at the root even of all his Jacobite ten- dencies in politics. For, putting aside certain predilections about landed property, and family name, and “gentlemanli- ness ” in the club sense of the word — respecting which I do not now inquire whether they were weak or wise — the main element which makes Scott like Cavaliers better than Puritans is, that he thinks the former free and masterful as well as loyal ; and the latter formal and slavish. He is loyal, not so much in respect for law, as in unselfish love for the king ; and his sympathy is quite as ready for any active borderer who breaks the law, or fights the king, in what Scott thinks a generous way, as for the king himself. Rebel- lion of a rough, free, and bold kind he is always delighted by; he only objects to rebellion on principle and in form : bare- headed and open-throated treason he will abet to any extent, but shrinks from it in a peaked hat and starched collar : nay, politically, he only delights in kingship itself, because he looks upon it as the head and centre of liberty ; and thinks that, keeping hold of a king’s hand, one may get rid of the cramps and fences of law; and that the people may be governed by the whistle, as a Highland clan on the open hill-side, instead of being shut up into hurdled folds or hedged fields, as sheep or cattle left masterless. SCOTT’S VIEW OF NATURE. 209 And thus Nature becomes dear to Scott in a threefold wsy : dear to him, first, as containing those remains or memories of the past, which he cannot find in cities, and giving hope of Praetorian mound or knight’s grave, in every green slope and shade of its desolate places ; — dear, secondly, in its moorland liberty, which has for him just as high a charm as the fenced garden had for the mediaeval ; For I was wayward, bold, and wild, A self-willed imp — a grandame’s child ; But, half a plague, and half a jest, Was still endured, beloved, caressed : For me. thus nurtured, dost thou ask The classic poet’s well-conned task ? Nay, Erskine, nay. On the wild hill Let the wild heathbell flourish still ; Cherish the tulip, prune the vine ; But freely let the woodbine twine, And leave untrimmed the eglantine ; — and dear to him, finally, in that perfect beauty, denied alike in cities and in men, for which every modern heart had begun at last to thirst, and Scott’s, in its freshness and power, of all men’s, most earnestly. And in this love of beauty, observe, that (as I said we might except) the love of colour is a leading element, his healthy mind being incapable of losing, under any modern false teaching, its joy in brilliancy of hue. Though not so subtle a colourist as Dante, which, under the circumstances of the age, he could not be, he depends quite as much upon colour for his power or pleasure. And, in general, if he does not mean to say much about things, the one character which he will give is colour, using it with the most perfect mastery and faithfulness, up to the point of possible modern perception. For instance, if he has a sea-storm to paint in a single line, he does not, as a feebler poet would probably have done, use any expression about the temper or form of the waves ; does not call them angry or mountainous. He is content to strike them out with two dashes of Tintoret’s favourite colours : The blackening wave is edged with white ; To inch and rock the seamews fly. 210 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. There is no form in this. Nay, the main virtue of it is, that it gets rid of all form. The dark raging of the sea — what form has that? But out of the cloud of its darkness those lightning flashes of the foam, coming at their terrible intervals — you need no more. Again : where he has to describe tents mingled among oaks, he says nothing about the form of either tent or tree, but only gives the two strokes of colour : Thousand pavilions, white as snow , Chequered the borough moor below, Oft giving way, where still there stood Some relics of the old oak wood, That darkly huge did intervene. And tamed the glaring white with green. Again : of tents at Flodden : Next morn the Baron climbed the tower, To view, afar, the Scottish power, Encamped on Flodden edge. The white pavilions made a show, Like remnants of the winter snow. Along the dusky ridge. Again : of trees mingled with dark rocks : Until, where Teith’s young waters roll Betwixt him and a wooded knoll, That graced the sable strath with green y The chapel of St. Bride was seen. Again : there is hardly any form, only smoke and colour, in his celebrated description of Edinburgh : The wandering eye could o’er it go, And mark the distant city glow With gloomy splendour red ; For on the smoke- wreaths, huge and slow, That round her sable turrets flow, The morning beams were shed, And tinged them with a lustre proud, Like that which streaks a thunder-cloud. Such dusky grandeur clothed the height, Where the huge Castle holds its state, And all the steep slope down, Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky, Piled deep and massy, close and high, Mine own romantic town ! SCOTT’S VIEW OF NATURE. 211 But northward far, with purer blaze, On Ochil mountains fell the rays, And as each heathy top they kissed, It gleamed a purple amethyst. Yonder the shores of Fife you saw ; Here Preston Bay and Berwick Law : And, broad between them, rolled The gallant Firth the eye might note, Whose islands on its bosom float. Like emeralds chased in gold. I do not like to spoil a fine passage by italicizing it ; but observe, the only hints at form, given throughout, are in the somewhat vague words, “ridgy,” “massy,” “close,” and “high;” the whole being still more obscured by modern mystery, in its most tangible form of smoke. But the colours are all definite ; note the rainbow band of them — gloomy or dusky red, sable (pure black), amethyst (pure purple), green, and gold — a noble chord throughout ; and then, moved doubtless less by the smoky than the amethystine part of the group, Fitz Eustace' heart felt closely pent, The spur he to his charger lent, And raised his bridle hand, And, making demivolte in air, Cried, “ Where’s the coward would not dare To fight for such a land?” I need not multiply examples : the reader can easily trace for himself, through verse familiar to us all, the force of these colour instincts. I will therefore add only two passages, not so completely known by heart as most of the poems in which they occur. ’Twas silence all. He laid him down Where purple heath profusely strown, And throatwort, with its azure bell, And moss and thyme his cushion swell. There, spent with toil, he listless eyed The course of Greta’s playful tide ; Beneath her banks, now eddying dun, Now brightly gleaming to the sun, As, dancing over rock and stone, In yellow light her currents shone, Matching in hue the favourite gem Of Albin’s mountain diadem. 212 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. Then tired to watch the current play, He turned his weary eyes away To where the bank opposing showed Its huge square cliffs through shaggy wood. One, prominent above the rest, Reared to the sun its pale grey breast ; Around its broken summit grew The hazel rude, and sable yew ; A thousand varied lichens dyed Its waste and weather-beaten side ; And round its rugged basis lay, By time or thunder rent away, Fragments, that, from its frontlet torn, Were mantled now by verdant thorn. Note, first, what an exquisite chord of colour is given in the succession of this passage. It begins with purple and blue ; then passes to gold, or cairngorm colour (topaz colour) ; then to pale grey, through which the yellow passes into black ; and the black, through broken dyes of lichen, into green. Note, secondly, — what is indeed so manifest throughout Scott’s landscape as hardly to need pointing out, — the love of rocks, and true understanding of their colours and characters, opposed as it is in every conceivable way to Dante’s hatred and misunderstanding of them. I have already traced, in various places, most of the causes of this great difference; namely, first, the ruggedness of northern temper (compare § 8 of the chapter on the Nature of Gothic in The Stones of Venice ); then the really greater beauty of the northern rocks, as noted when we were speak- ing of the Apennine limestone ; then the need of finding beauty among them, if it were to be found anywhere, — no well-arranged colours being any more to be seen in dress, but only in rock lichens ; and, finally, the love of irregularity, liberty, and power springing up in glorious opposition to laws of prosody, fashion, and the five orders. The other passage I have to quote is still more interesting ; because it has no form in it at all except in one word (chalice), but wholly composes its imagery either of colour, or of that delicate half-believed life which we have seen to be so important an element in modern landscape : SCOTT’S VIEW OF NATURE. 213 The summer dawn’s reflected hue To purple changed Loch Katrine blue ; Mildly and soft the western breeze Just kissed the lake, just stirred the trees ; And the pleased lake , like maiden coy , Trembled , but dimpled not , for joy ; The mountain-shadows on her breast Were neither broken nor at rest ; In bright uncertainty they lie, Like future joys to Fancy’s eye. The water-lily to the light Her chalice reared of silver bright ; The doe awoke, and to the lawn, Begemmed with dew-drops, led her fawn ; The grey mist left the mountain-side ; The torrent showed its glistening pride ; Invisible in flecked sky. The lark sent down her revelry ; The blackbird and the speckled thrush Good-morrow gave from brake and bush ; In answer cooed the cushat dove Her notes of peace, and rest, and love. Two more considerations are, however, suggested by the above passage. The first, that the love of natural history, excited by the continual attention now given to all wild landscape, heightens reciprocally the interest of that land- scape, and becomes an important element in Scott’s descrip- tion, leading him to finish, down to the minutest speckling of breast, and slightest shade of attributed emotion, the por- traiture of birds and animals; in strange opposition to Homer’s slightly named “ sea-crows, who have care of the works of the sea,” and Dante’s singing-birds, of undefined species. Compare carefully a passage, too long to be quoted — the 2nd and 3rd stanzas of canto vi. of Rokeby . The second, and the last point I have to note, is Scott’s habit of drawing a slight moral from every scene, just enough to excuse to his conscience his want of definite religious feeling ; and that this slight moral is almost always melan- choly. Here he has stopped short without entirely ex- pressing it. The mountain shadows . . . . . iie Like future joys to Fancy’s eye. 214 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. His completed thought would be that those future joys, like the mountain shadows, were never to be attained. It occurs fully uttered in many other places. He seems to have been constantly rebuking his own worldly pride and vanity, but never purposefully : The foam-globes on her eddies ride, Thick as the schemes of human pride That down life’s current drive amain, As frail, as frothy, and as vain. Foxglove, and nightshade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride. Her dark eye flashed ; she paused, and sighed, — “ Ah, what have I to do with pride ! ” xAnd hear the thought he gathers from the sunset (noting first the Turnerian colour — as usual, its principal element) : The sultry summer day is done. The western hills have hid the sun, But mountain peak and village spire Retain reflection of his fire. Old Barnard’s towers are purple still. To those that gaze from Toller Hill ; Distant and high the tower of Bowes, Like steel upon the anvil glows ; And Stanmore’s ridge, behind that lay, Rich with the spoils of parting day, In crimson and in gold arrayed, Streaks yet awhile the closing shade ; Then slow resigns to darkening heaven The tints which brighter hours had given. Thus, aged men, full loath and slow, The vanities of life forego, And count their youthful follies o’er Till memory lends her light no more. That is, as far as I remember, one of the most finished pieces of sunset he has given ; and it has a woful moral ; yet one which, with Scott, is inseparable from the scene. Hark, again : ’Twere sweet to mark the setting day On Bourhope’s lonely top decay ; And, as it faint and feeble died On the broad lake and mountain’s side, 215 SCOTT’S VIEW OF NATURE. To say, “ Thus pleasures fade away ; Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay, And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey.” And again, hear Bertram : Mine be the eve of tropic sun : With disk like battle-target red, He rushes to his burning bed, Dyes the wide wave with bloody light, Then sinks at once ; and all is night. In all places of this kind, where a passing thought is suggested by some external scene, that thought is at once a slight and sad one. Scott’s deeper moral sense is marked in the conduct of his stories, and in casual reflections or ex- clamations arising out of their plot, and therefore sincerely uttered ; as that of Marmion : Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive ! But the reflections which are founded, not on events, but on scenes, are, for the most part, shallow, partly insincere, and, as far as sincere, sorrowful. This habit of ineffective dreaming and moralizing over passing scenes, of which the earliest type I know is given in Jaques, is, as aforesaid, usually the satisfaction made to our modern consciences for the want of a sincere acknowledgment of God in nature : and Shakspeare has marked it as the characteristic of a mind “ compact of jars ” (Act ii., Sc. vii., As You Like It). That description attaches but too accurately to all the modes which we have traced in the moderns generally, and in Scott as the first representative of them ; and the question now is, what this love of landscape, so composed, is likely to lead us to, and what use can be made of it. We began our investigation, it will be remembered, in order to determine whether landscape-painting was worth studying or not. We have now reviewed the three principal phases of temper in the civilized human race, and we find that landscape has been mostly disregarded by great men, or cast into a second place, until now ; and that now it seems dear to us, partly in consequence of our faults, and partly 2i6 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. owing to accidental circumstances, soon, in all likelihood, to pass away : and there seems great room for question still, whether our love of it is a permanent and healthy feeling, or only a healthy crisis in a generally diseased state of mind. If the former, society will for ever hereafter be affected by its results; and Turner, the first great landscape-painter, must take a place in the history of nations corresponding in art accurately to that of Bacon in philosophy; Bacon having first opened the study of the laws ol material nature, when, formerly, men had thought only of the laws of human mind ; and Turner having first opened the study of the aspect of material nature, when, before, men had thought only of the aspect of the human form. Whether, therefore, the love of landscape be trivial and transient, or important and per- manent, it now becomes necessary to consider. We have, I think, data enough before us for the solution of the question, and we will enter upon it, accordingly, in the following pages. 40. The Child’s Attitude towards Nature. Now, in a question of this subtle kind, relating to a period of life when self-examination is rare, and expression imperfect, it becomes exceedingly difficult to trace, with any certainty, the movements of the minds of others, nor always easy to remember those of our own. I cannot, from obser- vation, form any decided opinion as to the extent in which this strange delight in nature influences the hearts of young persons in general; and, in stating what has passed in my own mind, I do not mean to draw any positive conclusion as to the nature of the feeling in other children ; but the inquiry is clearly one in which personal experience is the only safe ground to go upon, though a narrow one ; and I will make no excuse for talking about myself with reference to this subject, because, though there is much egotism in the world, it is often the last thing a man thinks of doing —and, though there is much work to be done in the world, it is often the best thing a man can do — to tell the exact CHILD’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS NATURE. 217 truth about the movements of his own mind; and there is this farther reason, that whatever other faculties I may or may not possess, this gift of taking pleasure in landscape I assuredly possess in a greater degree than most men ; it having been the ruling passion of my life, and the reason for the choice of its field of labour. The first thing which I remember, as an event in life, was being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar’s Crag on Derwent water ; the intense joy, mingled with awe, that I had in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots, over the crag, into the dark lake, has associated itself more or less with all twining roots of trees ever since. Two other things I remember, as, in a sort, beginnings of life ; crossing Shapfells (being let out of the chaise to run up the hills), and going through Glenfarg, near Kinross, in a winter’s morning, when the rocks were hung with icicles ; these being culminating points in an early life of more travelling than is usually indulged to a child. In such journeyings, whenever they brought me near hills, and in all mountain ground and scenery, I had a pleasure, as early as I can remember, and continuing till I was eighteen or twenty, infinitely greater than any which has been since possible to me in anything ; comparable for intensity only to the joy of a lover in being near a noble and kind mistress, but no more explicable or definable than that feeling of love itself. Only thus much I can remember, respecting it, which is important to our present subject. First : it was never independent of associated thought. Almost as soon as I could see or hear, I had got reading enough to give me associations with all kinds of scenery ; and mountains, in particular, were always partly confused with those of my favourite book, Scott’s Monastery; so that Glenfarg and all other glens were more or less enchanted to me, filled with forms of hesitating creed about Christie of the Clint Hill, and the monk Eustace ; and with a general presence of White Lady everywhere. I also generally knew, or was told by my father and mother, such simple facts of history as were necessary to give more definite and justifiable association to other scenes which chiefly interested 21 8 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. me, such as the ruins of Lochleven and Kenilworth; and thus my pleasure in mountains or ruins was never, even in earliest childhood, free from a certain awe and melancholy, and general sense of the meaning of death, though, in its principal influence, entirely exhilarating and gladdening. Secondly : it was partly dependent on contrast with a very simple and unamused mode of general life. I was born in London, and accustomed, for two or three years, to no other prospect than that of the brick walls over the way ; had no brothers nor sisters, nor companions; and though I could always make myself happy in a quiet way, the beauty of the mountains had an additional charm of change and adventure which a country-bred child would not have felt. Thirdly : there was no definite religious feeling mingled with it. I partly believed in ghosts and fairies ; but sup- posed that angels belonged entirely to the Mosaic dispen- sation, and cannot remember any single thought or feeling connected with them. I believed that God was in heaven, and could hear me and see me ; but this gave me neither pleasure nor pain, and I seldom thought of it at all. I never thought of nature as God’s work, but as a separate fact or existence. Fourthly : it was entirely unaccompanied by powers of reflection or invention. Every fancy that I had about nature was put into my head by some book; and I never reflected about anything till I grew older; and then, the more I reflected, the less nature was precious to me : I could then make myself happy, by thinking, in the dark, or in the dullest scenery; and the beautiful scenery became less essential to my pleasure. Fifthly : it was, according to its strength, inconsistent with every evil feeling, with spite, anger, covetousness, discontent, and every other hateful passion ; but would associate itself deeply with every just and noble sorrow, joy, or affection. It had not, however, always the power to repress what was inconsistent with it ; and, though only after stout contention, might at last be crushed by what it had partly repressed. And as it only acted by setting one impulse against another, though it had much power in moulding the character, it had MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. 219 hardly any in strengthening it ; it formed temperament, but never instilled principle ; it kept me generally good-humoured and kindly, but could not teach me perseverance or self- denial : what firmness or principle I had was quite inde- pendent of it ; and it came itself nearly as often in the form of a temptation as of a safeguard, leading me to ramble over hills when I should have been learning lessons, and lose days in reveries which I might have spent in doing kindnesses. Lastly : although there was no definite religious sentiment mingled with it, there was a continual perception of Sanctity in the whole of nature, from the slightest thing to the vastest * — an instinctive awe, mixed with delight ; an indefin- able thrill, such as we sometimes imagine to indicate the presence of a disembodied spirit. I could only feel this perfectly when I was alone ; and then it would often make me shiver from head to foot with the joy and fear of it, when after being some time away from hills, I first got to the shore of a mountain river, where the brown water circled among the pebbles, or when I saw the first swell of distant land against the sunset, or the first low broken wall, covered with mountain moss. I cannot in the least desci'ibe the feeling ; but I do not think this is my fault, nor that of the English language, for, I am afraid, no feeling is describable. If we had to explain even the sense of bodily hunger to a person who had never felt it, we should be hard put to it for words ; and this joy in nature seemed to me to come of a sort of heart-hunger, satisfied with the presence of a Great and Holy Spirit. These feelings remained in their full intensity till I was eighteen or twenty, and then, as the reflective and practical power increased, and the “cares of this world” gained upon me, faded gradually away, in the manner described by Wordsworth in his Intimations of Immortality . 41. Modern Improvements. The great mechanical impulses of the age, of which most of us are so proud, are a mere passing fever, half-speculative, 220 MODERN PAINTERS.-— VOL. III. half-childish. People will discover at last that royal roads to anything can no more be laid in iron than they can in dust ; that there are, in fact, no royal roads to anywhere worth going to ; that if there were, it would that instant cease to be worth going to — I mean, so far as the things to be obtained are in any way estimable in terms of price. For there are two classes of precious things in the world : those that God gives us for nothing — sun, air, and life (both mortal life and immortal) ; and the secondarily precious things which He gives us for a price : these secondarily precious things, worldly wine and milk, can only be bought for definite money ; they never can be cheapened. No cheating nor bargaining will ever get a single thing out of nature’s “establishment” at half-price. Do we want to be strong? — we must work. To be hungry? — we must starve. To be happy? — we must be kind. To be wise? — we must look and think. No changing of place at a hundred miles an hour, nor making of stuffs a thousand yards a minute, will make us one whit stronger, happier, or wiser. There was always more in the world than men could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast. And they will at last, and soon too, find out that their grand inventions for conquering (as they think) space and time, do, in reality, conquer nothing; for space and time are, in their own essence, unconquerable, and besides did not want any sort of conquering ; they wanted using. A fool always wants to shorten space and time : a wise man wants to lengthen both. A fool wants to kill space and kill time : a wise man, first to gain them, then to animate them. Your railroad, when you come to understand it, is only a device for making the world smaller : and as for being able to talk from place to place, that is, indeed, well and con- venient ; but suppose you have, originally, nothing to say . 1 We shall be obliged at last to confess, what we should long ago have known, that the really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast; 1 The light-outspeeding telegraph Bears nothing on its beam. Emerson. MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. 221 and a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow ; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being. “Well; but railroads and telegraphs are so useful for communicating knowledge to savage nations.” Yes, if you have any to give them. If you know nothing but railroads, and can communicate nothing but aqueous vapour and gunpowder — what then? But if you have any other thing than those to give, then the railroad is of use only because it communicates that other thing ; and the question is — what that other thing may be. Is it religion ? I believe if we had really wanted to communicate that, we could have done it in less than 1800 years, without steam. Most of the good religious communication that I remember, has been done on foot; and it cannot be easily done faster than at foot pace. Is it science? But what science — of motion, meat, and medicine ? Well ; when you have moved your savage, and dressed your savage, fed him with white bread, and shown him how to set a limb — what next ? Follow out that question. Suppose every obstacle overcome ; give your savage every advantage of civilization to the full ; suppose that you have put the Red Indian in tight shoes; taught the Chinese how to make Wedgwood’s ware, and to paint it with colours that will rub off; and persuaded all Hindoo women that it is more pious to torment their husbands into graves than to burn themselves at the burial — what next? Gradually, thinking on from point to point, we shall come to perceive that all true happiness and nobleness are near us, and yet neglected by us ; and that till we have learned how to be happy and noble we have not much to tell, even to Red Indians. The delights of horse-racing and hunting, of assemblies in the night instead of the day, of costly and wearisome music, of costly and burdensome dress, of cha- grined contention for place or power, or wealth, or the eyes of the multitude ; and all the endless occupation without purpose, and idleness without rest, of our vulgar world, are not, it seems to me, enjoyments we need be ambitious to communicate. And all real and wholesome enjoyments possible to man have been just as possible to him, since first he was made of the earth, as they are now ; and they 222 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. III. are possible to him chiefly in peace. To watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over ploughshare or spade; to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray — these are the things that make men happy ; they have always had the power of doing these, they never will have power to do more. The world’s prosperity or adversity depends upon our knowing and teaching these few things : but upon iron, or glass, or electricity, or steam, in no wise. And I am Utopian and enthusiastic enough to believe, that the time will come when the world will discover this. It has now made its experiments in every possible direction but the right one ; and it seems that it must, at last, try the right one, in a mathematical necessity. It has tried fighting, and preaching, and fasting, buying and selling, pomp and parsimony, pride and humiliation — every possible manner of existence in which it could conjecture there was any happiness or dignity; and all the while, as it bought, sold, and fought, and fasted, and wearied itself with policies, and ambitions, and self-denials, God had placed its real happiness in the keeping of the little mosses of the way- side, and of the clouds of the firmament. Now and then a wearied king, or a tormented slave, found out where the true kingdoms of the world were, and possessed himself, in a furrow or two of garden ground, of a truly infinite dominion. But the world would not believe their report, and went on trampling down the mosses, and forgetting the clouds, and seeking happiness in its own way, until, at last, blundering and late, came natural science; and in natural science not only the observation of things, but the finding out of new uses for them. Of course the world, having a choice left to it, went wrong as usual, and thought that these mere material uses were to be the sources of its happiness. It got the clouds packed into iron cylinders, and made them carry its wise self at their own cloud pace. It got weavable fibres out of the mosses, and made clothes for itself, cheap and fine — here was happiness at last. To go as fast as the clouds, and manufacture everything out of anything— here was paradise, indeed ! VOLUME IV. 42. The Tower of Calais Church. The essence of picturesque character has been already defined 1 to be a sublimity not inherent in the nature of the thing, but caused by something external to it ; as the ruggedness of a cottage roof possesses something of a mountain aspect, not belonging to the cottage as such. And this sublimity may be either in mere external ruggedness, and other visible character, or it may lie deeper, in an expression of sorrow and old age, attributes which are both sublime ; not a dominant expression, but one mingled with such familiar and common characters as prevent the object from becoming perfectly pathetic in its sorrow, or perfectly venerable in its age. For instance, I cannot find words to express the intense , pleasure I have always in first finding myself, after some prolonged stay in England, at the foot of the old tower of Calais church. The large neglect, the noble unsightliness of it ; the record of its years written so visibly, yet without sign of weakness or decay ; its stern wasteness and gloom, eaten away by the Channel winds, and overgrown with the bitter sea grasses ; its slates and tiles all shaken and rent, and yet not falling ; its desert of brickwork full of bolts, and holes, and ugly fissures, and yet strong, like a bare brown rock ; its carelessness of what any one thinks or feels about it, putting forth no claim, having no beauty nor desirableness, pride, noi grace ; yet neither asking for pity ; not, as ruins are, useless and piteous, feebly or fondly garrulous of better days ; but useful still, going through its own daily work, as some old 1 Seven Lamps of Architecture , chap, vi,, § 12. 224 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. fisherman beaten grey by storm, yet drawing his daily nets : so it stands, with no complaint about its past youth, in blanched and meagre massiveness and serviceableness, gathering human souls together underneath it ; the sound of its bells for prayer still rolling through its rents ; and the grey peak of it seen far across the sea, principal of the three that rise above the waste of surfy sand and hillocked shore — the lighthouse for life, and the belfry for labour, and this for patience and praise. I cannot tell the half of the strange pleasures and thoughts that come about me at the sight of that old tower ; for, in some sort, it is the epitome of all that makes the Continent of Europe interesting, as opposed to new countries ; and, above all, it completely expresses that agedness in the midst of active life which binds the old and the new into harmony. We, in England, have our new street, our new inn, our green shaven lawn, and our piece of ruin emergent from it — a mere specimen of the middle ages put on a bit of velvet carpet to be shown, which, but for its size, might as well be on a museum shelf at once, under cover. But, on the Continent, the links are unbroken between the past and present, and in such use as they can serve for, the greyheaded wrecks are suffered to stay with men ; while, in unbroken line, the generations of spared buildings are seen succeeding each in its place. And thus in its largeness, in its permitted evi- dence of slow decline, in its poverty, in its absence of all pretence, of all show and care for outside aspect, that Calais tower has an infinite of symbolism in it, all the more striking because usually seen in contrast with English scenes express- ive of feelings the exact reverse of these. And I am sorry to say that the opposition is most distinct in that noble carelessness as to what people think of it. Once, on coming from the Continent, almost the first in- scription I saw in my native English was this : TO LET, A GENTEEL HOUSE, UP THIS ROAD. And it struck me forcibly, for I had not come across the idea of gentility, among the upper limestones of the Alps, THE TOWER OF CALAIS CHURCH. 225 for seven months ; nor do I think that the Continental nations in general have the idea. They would have adver- tised a “ pretty ” house, or a “ large ” one, or a “ convenient ” one ; but they could not, by any use of the terms afforded by their several languages, have got at the English “ genteel.” Consider, a little, all the meanness that there is in that epithet, and then see, when next you cross the Channel, how scornful of it that Calais spire will look. Of which spire the largeness and age are also opposed exactly to the chief appearances of modern England, as one feels them on first returning to it ; that marvellous smallness both of houses and scenery, so that a ploughman in the valley has his head on a level with the tops of all the hills in the neighbourhood ; and a house is organized into complete establishment, parlour, kitchen, and all, with a knocker to its door, and a garret window to its roof, and a bow to its second story , 1 on a scale of twelve feet wide by fifteen high, so that three such at least would go into the granary of an ordinary Swiss cottage : and also our serenity of perfection, our peace of conceit, everything being done that vulgar minds can conceive as wanting to be done ; the spirit of well-principled housemaids everywhere, exerting itself for perpetual pro- priety and renovation, so that nothing is old, but only “ old- fashioned,” and contemporary, as it were, in date and im- pressiveness only with last year’s bonnets. Abroad, a building of the eighth or tenth century stands ruinous in the open street; the children play round it, the peasants heap their corn in it, the buildings of yesterday nestle about it, and fit their new stones into its rents, and tremble in sympathy as it trembles. No one wonders at it, or thinks of it as separate, and of another time ; we feel the ancient world to be a real thing, and one with the new : antiquity is no dream ; it is rather the children playing about the old stones that are the dream. But all is continuous ; and the words “ from generation to generation ” understandable there. Whereas here we have a living present, consisting merely of what is “ fashionable ” and “ old-fashioned ; ” and 1 The principal street of Canterbury has some curious examples of this tminess. 8 226 MODERN PAINTERS.—VOL. IV. a past, of which there are no vestiges ; a past which peasant or citizen can no more conceive; all equally far away; Queen Elizabeth as old as Queen Boadicea, and both incredible. At Verona we look out of Can Grande’s window to his tomb ; and if he does not stand beside us, we feel only that he is in the grave instead of the chamber — not that he is old , but that he might have been beside us last night. But in England the dead are dead to purpose. One cannot believe they ever were alive, or anything else than what they are now — names in school-books. Then that spirit of trimness. The smooth paving-stones ; the scraped, hard, even, rutless roads ; the neat gates and plates, and essence of border and order, and spikiness and spruceness. Abroad, a country-house has some confession of human weakness and human fates about it. There are the old grand gates still, which the mob pressed sore against at the Revolution, and the strained hinges have never gone so well since ; and the broken greyhound on the pillar — still broken — better so : but the long avenue is gracefully pale with fresh green, and the courtyard bright with orange trees ; the garden is a little run to waste — since Mademoiselle was married nobody cares much about it ; and one range of apartments is shut up — nobody goes into them since Madame died. But with us, let who will be married or die, we neglect nothing. All is polished and precise again next morning ; and whether people are happy or miserable, poor or prosperous, still we sweep the stairs of a Saturday . 1 Now, I have insisted long on this English character, because I want the reader to understand thoroughly the opposite element of the noble picturesque; its expression, namely, of sufferings of poverty , or decay , nobly endured by unpretending strength of heart. Nor only unpretending, but unconscious. If there be visible pensiveness in the building, as in a ruined abbey, it becomes, or claims to become, beautiful ; but the picturesqueness is in the uncon- 1 This, however, is of course true only of insignificant duties, neces sary for appearance’ sake. Serious duties, necessary for kindness’ sake, must be pretermitted in any domestic affliction, under pain of shocking the English public. THE TOWER OF CALAIS CHURCH. 227 scious suffering — the look that an old labourer has, not knowing that there is anything pathetic in his grey hair, and withered arms, and sunburnt breast ; and thus there are the two extremes, the consciousness of pathos in the confessed ruin, which may or may not be beautiful, according to the kind of it ; and the entire denial of all human calamity and care, in the swept proprieties and neatnesses of English modernism : and, between these, there is the unconscious confession of the facts of distress and decay, in by- words ; the world’s hard work being gone through all the while, and no pity asked for, nor contempt feared. And this is the expression of that Calais spire, and of all picturesque things, in so far as they have mental or human expression at all. I say, in so far as they have mental expression, because their merely outward delightfulness — that which makes them pleasant in painting, or, in the literal sense, picturesque — is their actual variety of colour and form. A broken stone has necessarily more various forms in it than a whole one; a bent roof has more various curves in it than a straight one ; every excrescence or cleft involves some additional com- plexity of light and shade, and every stain of moss on eaves or wall adds to the delightfulness of colour. Hence, in a completely picturesque object, as an old cottage or mill, there are introduced, by various circumstances not essential ' to it, but, on the whole, generally somewhat detrimental to it as cottage or mill, such elements of sublimity — complex light and shade, varied colour, undulatory form, and so on — as can generally be found only in noble natural objects, woods, rocks, or mountains. This sublimity, belonging in a parasitical manner to the building, renders it, in the usual 1 sense of the word, “ picturesque.” Now, if this outward sublimity be sought for by the j painter, without any regard for the real nature of the i thing, and without any comprehension of the pathos of I character hidden beneath, it forms the low school of the j surface-picturesque ; that which fills ordinary drawing-books i and scrap-books, and employs, perhaps, the most popular living landscape painters of France, England, and Germany. But if these same outward characters be sought for in sub- 228 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. ordination to the inner character of the object, every source of pleasurableness being refused which is incompatible with that, while perfect sympathy is felt at the same time with the object as to all that it tells of itself in those sorrowful by- words, we have the school of true or noble picturesque ; still distinguished from the school of pure beauty and sublimity, because, in its subjects, the pathos and sublimity are all by the way , as in Calais old spire — not inherent, as in a lovely tree or mountain ; while it is distinguished still more from the schools of the lower picturesque by its tender sympathy, and its refusal of all sources of pleasure inconsistent with the perfect nature of the thing to be studied. The reader will only be convinced of the broad scope of this law by careful thought, and comparison of picture with picture ; but a single example will make the principle of it clear to him. On the whole, the first master of the lower picturesque, among our living artists, is Clarkson Stanfield ; his range of art being, indeed, limited by his pursuit of this character. I take, therefore, a windmill, forming the principal subject in his drawing of Brittany, near Dol (engraved in the Coast Scenery ), Fig. i, Plate XIX., and beside it I place a wind- mill, which forms also the principal subject in Turner’s study of the Lock, in the Liber Studiorum. At first sight I dare say the reader may like Stanfield’s best ; and there is, indeed, a great deal more in it to attract liking. Its roof is nearly as interesting in its ruggedness as a piece of the stony peak of a mountain, with a chalet built on its side; and it is exquisitely varied in swell and curve. Turner’s roof, on the contrary, is a plain, ugly gable — a windmill roof, and nothing more. Stanfield’s sails are twisted into most effective wrecks, as beautiful as pine bridges over Alpine streams ; only they do not look as if they had ever been serviceable windmill sails ; they are bent about in cross and awkward ways, as if they were warped or cramped ; and their timbers look heavier than necessary. Turner’s sails have no beauty about them like that of Alpine bridges ; but they have the exact switchy sway of the sail that is always straining against the wind; and the timbers form clearly the lightest possible ! THE TOWER OF CALAIS CHURCH. 229 framework for the canvass, thus showing the essence of windmill sail. Then the clay wall of Stanfield’s mill is as beautiful as a piece of chalk cliff, all worn into furrows by the rain, coated with mosses, and rooted to the ground by a heap of crumbled stone, embroidered with grass and creep- ing plants. But this is not a serviceable state for a windmill to be in. The essence of a windmill, as distinguished from all other mills, is, that it should turn round, and be a spinning thing, ready always to face the wind ; as light, therefore, as possible, and as vibratory ; so that it is in no wise good for it to approximate itself to the nature of chalk cliffs. Now observe how completely Turner has chosen his mill so as to mark this great fact of windmill nature ; how high he has set it ; how slenderly he has supported it ; how he has built it all of wood ; how he has bent the lower planks so as to give the idea of the building lapping over the pivot on which it rests inside ; and how, finally, he has insisted on the great leverage of the beam behind it, while Stanfield’s lever looks more like a prop than a thing to turn the roof with. And he has done all this fearlessly, though none of these elements of form are pleasant ones in themselves, but tend, on the whole, to give a somewhat mean and spider-like look to the principal feature in his picture ; and then, finally, because he could not get the windmill dissected, and show us the real heart and centre of the whole, behold, he has put a pair of old millstones, lying outside , at the bottom of it. These — the first cause and motive of all the fabric — laid at its foundation ; and beside them the cart which is to fulfil the end of the fabric’s being, and take home the sacks of flour. So far of what each painter chooses to draw. But do not fail also to consider the spirit in which it is drawn. Observe, that though all this ruin has befallen Stanfield’s mill, Stan- field is not in the least sorry for it. On the contrary, he is delighted, and evidently thinks it the most fortunate thing possible. The owner is ruined, doubtless, or dead ; but his mill forms an admirable object in our view of Brittany. So tar from being grieved about it, we will make it our principal 230 MODERN PAINTERS. —VOL. IV. light ; if it were a fruit-tree in spring-blossom, instead of a desolate mill, we could not make it whiter or brighter ; we illume our whole picture with it, and exult over its every rent as a special treasure and possession. Not so Turner. His mill is still serviceable; but, for all that, he feels somewhat pensive about it. It is a poor property, and evidently the owner of it has enough to do to get his own bread out from between its stones. Moreover, there is a dim type of all melancholy human labour in it — catching the free winds, and setting them to turn grindstones. It is poor work for the winds ; better, indeed, than drowning sailors or tearing down forests, but not their proper work of marshalling the clouds, and bearing the wholesome rains to the place where they are ordered to fall, and fanning the flowers and leaves when they are faint with heat. Turning round a couple of stones, for the mere pulverization of human food, is not noble work for the winds. So, also, of all low labour to which one sets human souls. It is better than no labour; and, in a still higher degree, better than destructive wandering of imagination ; but yet, that grinding in the darkness, for mere food’s sake, must be melancholy work enough for many a living creature. All men have felt it so ; and this grinding at the mill, whether it be breeze or soul that is set to it, we cannot much rejoice in. Turner has no joy of his mill. It shall be dark against the sky, yet proud, and on the hill-top ; not ashamed of its labour, and brightened from beyond, the golden clouds stooping over it, and the calm summer sun going down behind, far away, to his rest Now in all this observe how the higher condition of art (for I suppose the reader will feel, with me, that Turner’s is the highest) depends upon largeness of sympathy. It is mainly because the one painter has communion of heart with his subject, and the other only casts his eyes upon it feeling- lessly, that the work of the one is greater than that of the other. And, as we think farther over the matter, we shall see that this is indeed the eminent cause of the difference between the lower picturesque and the higher. For, in a certain sense, the lower picturesque ideal is eminently a THE TOWER OF CALAIS CHURCH. 231 heartless one : the lover of it seems to go forth into the world in a temper as merciless as its rocks. All other men feel some regret at the sight of disorder and ruin. He alone delights in both ; it matters not of what. Fallen cottage — desolate villa — deserted village — blasted heath — mouldering castle — to him, so that they do but show jagged angles of stone and timber, all are sights equally joyful. Poverty, and darkness, and guilt, bring in their several contributions to his treasury of pleasant thoughts. The shattered window, opening into black and ghastly rents of wall, the foul rag or straw wisp stopping them, the dangerous roof, decrepit floor and stair, ragged misery or wasting age of the inhabitants — all these conduce, each in due measure, to the fulness of his satisfaction. What is it to him that the old man has passed his seventy years in helpless darkness and untaught waste of soul ? The old man has at last accomplished his destiny, and filled the corner of a sketch, where something of an unshapely nature was wanting. What is it to him that the people fester in that feverish misery in the low quarter of the town, by the river? Nay, it is much to him. What else were they made for? what could they have done better? The black timbers, and the green water, and the soaking wrecks of boats, and the torn remnants of clothes hung out to dry in the sun truly the fever-struck creatures, whose lives have been given for the production of these materials of effect, have not died in vain. 1 1 I extract from my private diary a passage bearing somewhat on the matter in hand : “Amiens, nth May, 18 — . I had a happy walk here c * e y b ending abruptly, or returning to some point from which they set out ; the second class, of those lines whose nature is Again : if along the horizontal line, a b, accompany- first class consists of those which x numerable lines, however, there is < source of difference in character wb divides them, infinite as they are in m ber, into two great classes. The ON CURVATURE. 263 to proceed for ever into space. Any portion of a circle, for instance, is, by the law of its being, compelled, if it continue its course, to return to the point from which it set out ; so also any portion of the oval curve (called an ellipse), pro- duced by cutting a cylinder obliquely across. And if a single point be marked on the rim of a carriage wheel, this point, as the wheel rolls along the road, will trace a curve in the air from one part of the road to another, which is called a cycloid, and to which the law of its existence appoints that it shall always follow a similar course, and be terminated by the level line on which the wheel rolls. All such curves are of inferior beauty : and the curves which are incapable of being completely drawn, because, as in the two cases above given, the law of their being supposes them to proceed for ever into space, are of a higher beauty. Thus, in the very first elements of form, a lesson is given us as to the true source of the nobleness and choose- ableness of all things. The two classes of- curves thus sternly separated from each other, may most properly be distin- guished as the “ Mortal and Immortal Curves ; ” the one having an appointed term of existence, the other absolutely incomprehensible and endless, only to be seen or grasped during a certain moment of their course. And it is found universally that the class to which the human mind is attached for its chief enjoyment are the Endless or Immortal lines. “ Nay, but,” the reader answers, “ what right have you to say that one class is more beautiful than the other ? Suppose I like the finite curves best, who shall say which of us is right ? ” No one. It is simply a question of experience. You will not, I think, continue to like the finite curves best as you contemplate them carefully, and compare them with the others. And if you should do so, it then yet becomes a question to be decided by longer trial, or more widely canvassed opinion. And when we find on examination that every form which, by the consent of human kind, has been received as lovely, in vases, flowing ornaments, embroideries, and all other things dependent on abstract line, is composed of these infinite 264 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. curves, and that Nature uses them for every important con- tour, small or large, which she desires to recommend to human observance, we shall not, I think, doubt that the preference of such lines is a sign of healthy taste, and true instinct. 49. Stones. It is somewhat singular that the indistinctness of treatment which has been so often noticed as characteristic of our present art shows itself always most when there is least apparent reason for it. Modern artists, having some true sympathy with what is vague in nature, draw all that is uncertain and evasive without evasion, and render faithfully whatever can be discerned in faithless mist or mocking vapours ; but having no sympathy with what is solid and serene, they seem to become uncertain themselves in pro- portion to the certainty of what they see ; and while they render flakes of far-away cloud, or fringes of inextricable forest, with something like patience and fidelity, give nothing but the hastiest indication of the ground they can tread upon or touch. It is only in modern art that we find any com- plete representation of clouds, and only in ancient art that, generally speaking, we find any careful realization of Stones. This is all the more strange, because, as we saw some time back, the ruggedness of the stone is more pleasing to the modern than the mediaeval, and he rarely completes any picture satisfactorily to himself unless large spaces of it are filled with irregular masonry, rocky banks, or shingly shores : whereas the mediaeval could conceive no desirableness in the loose and unhewn masses ; associated them generally in his mind with wicked men, and the Martyrdom of St. Stephen ; and always threw them out of his road, or garden, to the best of his power. Yet with all this difference in predilection, such was the honesty of the mediaeval, and so firm his acknowledgment of the necessity to paint completely whatever was to be painted at all, that there is hardly a strip of earth under the STONES. 265 feet of a saint, in any finished work of the early painters, but more, and better painted, stones are to be found upon it than in an entire exhibition full of modern mountain scenery. Not better painted in every respect. In those interesting and popular treatises on the art of drawing, which tell the public that their colours should neither be too warm nor too cold, and that their touches should always be characteristic of the object they are intended to represent, the directions given for the manufacture of stones usually enforce “ crisp- ness of outline ” and “ roughness of texture.” And, accord- ingly, in certain expressions of frangibility, irregular accumu- lation, and easy resting of one block upon another, together with some conditions of lichenous or mossy texture, modern stone-painting is far beyond the ancient ; for these are just the characters which first strike the eye, and enable the foreground to maintain its picturesque influence without inviting careful examination. The mediaeval painter, on the other hand, not caring for this picturesque general effect, nor being in anywise familiar with mountain scenery, perceived in stones, when he was forced to paint them, eminently the characters which they had in common with figures ; that is to say, their curved outlines, rounded surfaces, and varieties of delicate colour, and, accordingly, was somewhat too apt to lose their angular and fragmentary character in a series of muscular lines resembling those of an anatomical prepara- tion ; for, although in large rocks the cleavable or frangible nature was the thing that necessarily struck him most, the pebbles under his feet were apt to be oval or rounded in the localities of almost all the important schools of Italy. In Lombardy, the mass of the ground is composed of nothing but Alpine gravel, consisting of rolled oval pebbles, on the average about six inches long by four wide — awkward build- ing materials, yet used in ingenious alternation with the bricks in all the lowland Italian fortresses. Besides this universal rotundity, the qualities of stones which rendered them valuable to the lapidary were forced on the painter’s attention by the familiar arts of inlaying and mosaic. Hence, in looking at a pebble, his mind was divided between its roundnesses and its veins ; and Leonardo covers the shelves 266 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. of rock under the feet of St. Anne with variegated agates ; while Mantegna often strews the small stones about his mountain caves in a polished profusion, as if some repentant martyr princess had been just scattering her caskets of pearls into the dust. Some years ago, as I was talking of the curvilinear forms in a piece of rock to one of our academicians, he said to me, in a somewhat despondent accent : “ If you look for curves, you will see curves; if you look for angles, you will see angles.” The saying appeared to me an infinitely sad one. It was the utterance of an experienced man ; and in many ways true, for one of the most singular gifts, or, if abused, most singular weaknesses, of the human mind is its power of persuading itself to see whatever it chooses — a great gift, if directed to the discernment of the things needful and pertinent to its own work and being; a great weakness, if directed to the discovery of things profitless or discouraging. In all things throughout the world, the men who look for the crooked will see the crooked, and the men who look for the straight will see the straight. But yet the saying was a notably sad one ; for it came of the conviction in the speaker’s mind that there was in reality no crooked and no straight ; that all so-called discernment was fancy, and that men might, with equal rectitude of judgment, and good-deserving of their fellow- men, perceive and paint whatever was convenient to them. Whereas things may always be seen truly by candid people, though never completely. No human capacity ever yet saw the whole of a thing ; but we may see more and more of it the longer we look. Every individual temper will see some- thing different in it : but supposing the tempers honest, all the differences are there. Every advance in our acuteness of perception will show us something new ; but the old and first discerned thing will still be there, not falsified, only modified and enriched by the new perceptions, becoming continually more beautiful in its harmony with them, and more approved as a part of the Infinite truth. There are no natural objects out of which more can be thus learned than out of stones. They seem to have been THE MOUNTAIN GLOOM. 267 created especially to reward a patient observer. Nearly all other objects in nature can be seen, to some extent, without patience, and are pleasant even in being half seen. Trees, clouds, and rivers are enjoyable even by the careless; but the stone under his foot has for carelessness nothing in it but stumbling : no pleasure is languidly to be had out of it, nor food, nor good of any kind ; nothing but symbolism of the hard heart and the unfatherly gift. And yet, do but give it some reverence and watchfulness, and there is bread of thought in it, more than in any other lowly feature of all the landscape. For a stone, when it is examined, will be found a mountain in miniature. The fineness of Nature’s work is so great, that, into a single block, a foot or two in diameter, she can compress as many changes of form and structure, on a small scale, as she needs for her mountains on a large one ; and, taking moss for forests, and grains of crystal for crags, the surface of a stone, in by far the plurality of instances, is more interesting than the surface of an ordinary hill; more fan- tastic in form, and incomparably richer in colour. 50. The Mountain Gloom. I do not know any district possessing a more pure or un- interrupted fulness of mountain character (and that of the highest order), or which appears to have been less disturbed by foreign agencies, than that which borders the course of the Trient between Yalorsine and Martigny. The paths which lead to it out of the valley of the Rhone, rising at first in steep circles among the walnut trees, like winding stairs among the pillars of a Gothic tower, retire over the shoulders of the hills into a valley almost unknown, but thickly in- habited by an industrious and patient population. Along the ridges -of the rocks, smoothed by old glaciers into long, dark, billowy swellings, like the backs of plunging dolphins, the peasant watches the slow colouring of the tufts of moss and roots of herb which, little by little, gather a feeble soil over the iron substance ; then, supporting the narrow strip 268 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. of clinging ground with a few stones, he subdues it to the spade; and in a year or two a little crest of corn is seen waving upon the rocky casque. The irregular meadows tun in and out like inlets of lake among these harvested rocks, sweet with perpetual streamlets, that seem always to h &.ve chosen the steepest places to come down, for the sake of the leaps, scattering their handfuls of crystal this way and that, as the wind takes them, with all the grace, but with none of the formalism, of fountains ; dividing into fanciful change of dash and spring, yet with the seal of their granite channels upon them, as the lightest play of human speech may bear the seal of past toil, and closing back out of their spray to lave the rigid angles, and brighten with silver fringes and glassy films each lower and lower step of sable stone ; until at last, gathered altogether again — except, perhaps, some chance drops caught on the apple-blossom, where it has budded a little nearer the cascade than it did last spring — they find their way down to the turf, and lose themselves in that, silently ; with quiet depth of clear water furrowing among the grass blades, and looking only like their shadow, but presently emerging again in little startled gushes and laughing hurries, as if they had remembered suddenly that the day was too short for them to get down the hill. Green field, and glowing rock, and glancing streamlet, all slope together in the sunshine towards the brows of ravines, where the pines take up their own dominion of saddened shade ; and with everlasting roar in the twilight, the stronger torrents thunder down, pale from the glaciers, filling all their chasms with enchanted cold, beating themselves to pieces against the great rocks that they have themselves cast down, and forcing fierce way beneath their ghastly poise. The mountain paths stoop to these glens in forky zigzags, leading to some grey and narrow arch, all fringed under its shuddering curve with the ferns that fear the light ; a cross of rough-hewn pine, iron-bound to its parapet, standing dark against the lurid fury of the foam. Far up the glen, as we pause beside the cross, the sky is seen through the openings in the pines, thin with excess of light ; and, in its clear, consuming flame of white space, the summits of the rocky THE MOUNTAIN GLOOM. 269 mountains are gathered into solemn crowns and circlets, all flushed in that strange, faint silence of possession by the sunshine which has in it so deep a melancholy ; full of power, yet as frail as shadows ; lifeless, like the walls of a sepulchre, yet beautiful in tender fall of crimson folds, like the veil of some sea spirit, that lives and dies as the foam flashes ; fixed on a perpetual throne, stern against all strength, lifted above all sorrow, and yet effaced and melted utterly into the air by that last sunbeam that has crossed to them from between the two golden clouds. High above all sorrow : yes ; but not unwitnessing to it. The traveller on his happy journey, as his foot springs from the deep turf and strikes the pebbles gaily over the edge of the mountain road, sees with a glance of delight the clusters of nutbrown cottages that nestle among those sloping orchards, and glow beneath the boughs of the pines. Here, it may well seem to him, if there be sometimes hardship, there must be at least innocence and peace, and fellowship of the human soul with nature. It is not so. The wild goats that leap along those rocks have as much passion of joy in all that fair work of God as the men that toil among them. Perhaps more. Enter the street of one of those villages, and you will find it foul with that gloomy foulness that is suffered only by torpor, or by anguish of soul. Here, it is torpor — not absolute suffering — not starvation or disease, but darkness of calm enduring ; the spring known only as the time of the scythe, and the autumn as the time of the sickle, and the sun only as a warmth, the wind as a chill, and the mountains as a danger. They do not understand so much as the name of beauty, or of knowledge. They understand dimly that of virtue. Love, patience, hospitality, faith — these things they know. To glean their meadows side by side, so happier ; to bear the burden up the breathless mountain flank, unmur- muringly; to bid the stranger drink from their vessel of milk ; to see at the foot of their low deathbeds a pale figure upon a cross, dying also, patiently ; — in this they are different from the cattle and from the stones, but in all this unre- warded as far as concerns the present life. For them, there is neither hope nor passion of spirit; for them neither 270 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. advance nor exultation. Black bread, rude roof, dark nigjit, laborious day, weary arm at sunset; and life ebbs away. No books, no thoughts, no attainments, no rest; except obly sometimes a little sitting in the sun under the church wall, as the bell tolls thin and far in the mountain air ; a pattering of a few prayers, not understood, by the altar rails of the dimly gilded chapel, and so back to the sombre home, with the cloud upon them still unbroken — that cloud of rocky gloom, born out of the wild torrents and ruinous stones, add unlightened, even in their religion, except by the vague promise of some better thing unknown, mingled with threaten- ing, and obscured by an unspeakable horror — a smoke, as it were, of martyrdom, coiling up with the incense, and, amidst the images of tortured bodies and lamenting spirits in hurtling flames, the very cross, for them, dashed more deeply than for others, with gouts of blood. Do not let this be thought a darkened picture of the life of these mountaineers. It is literal fact. No contrast can be more painful than that between the dwelling of any well- conducted English cottager, and that of the equally honest Savoyard. The one, set in the midst of its dull flat fields and uninteresting hedgerows, shows in itself the love of brightness and beauty; its daisy-studded garden-beds, its smoothly swept brick path to the threshold, its freshly sanded floor and orderly shelves of household furniture, all testify to energy of heart, and happiness in the simple course and simple possessions of daily life. The other cottage, in the midst of an inconceivable, inexpressible beauty, set on some sloping bank of golden sward, with clear fountains flowing beside it, and wild flowers, and noble trees, and goodly rocks gathered round into a perfection as of Paradise, is itself a dark and plague-like stain in the midst of the gentle land- scape. Within a certain distance of its threshold the ground is foul and cattle-trampled ; its timbers are black with smoke, its garden choked with weeds and nameless refuse, its chambers empty and joyless, the light and wind gleaming and filtering through the crannies of their stones. All testi- fies that to its inhabitant the world is labour and vanity; that for him neither flowers bloom, nor birds sing, nor foun- THE MOUNTAIN GLOOM. 271 tains glisten ; and that his soul hardly differs from the grey cloud that coils and dies upon his hills, except in having no fold of it touched by the sunbeams. Is it not strange to reflect, that hardly an evening passes in London, or Paris, but one of those cottages is painted for the better amusement of the fair and idle, and shaded with pasteboard pines by the scene-shifter ; and that good and kind people, poetically minded, delight themselves in imagin- ing the happy life led by peasants who dwell by Alpine foun- tains, and kneel to crosses upon peaks of rock ? that nightly we lay down our gold, to fashion forth simulacra of peasants, in gay ribands and white bodices, singing sweet songs, and bowing gracefully to the picturesque crosses ; and all the while the veritable peasants are kneeling, songlessly, to veri- table crosses, in another temper than the kind and fair audiences deem of, and assuredly with another kind of answer than is got out of the opera catastrophe ; an answer having reference, it may be, in dim futurity, to those very audiences themselves? If all the gold that has gone to paint the simulacra of the cottages, and to put new songs in the mouths of the simulacra of the peasants, had gone to brighten the existent cottages, and to put new songs in the mouths of the existent peasants, it might in the end, perhaps, have turned out better so, not only for the peasant, but for even the audience. For that form of the False Ideal has also its correspondent True Ideal, consisting not in the naked beauty of statues, nor in the gauze flowers and crack- ling tinsel of theatres, but in the clothed and fed beauty of living men, and in the lights and laughs of happy homes. Night after night, the desire of such an ideal springs up in every idle human heart; and night after night, as far as idleness can, we work out this desire in costly lies. We paint the faded actress, build the lath landscape, feed our benevolence with fallacies of felicity, and satisfy our right- eousness with poetry of justice. The time will come when, as the heavy-folded curtain falls upon our own stage of life, we shall begin to comprehend that the justice we loved was intended to have been done in fact, and not in poetry, and the felicity we sympathized in, to have been bestowed and 272 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. not feigned. We talk much of money’s worth, yet perhaps may one day be surprised to find that what the wise ahd charitable European public gave to one night’s rehearsal of hypocrisy — to one hour’s pleasant warbling of Linda or Lucia — would have filled a whole Alpine valley with happi- ness, and poured the waves of harvest over the famine of many a Lammermoor. “Nay,” perhaps the reader answers, “it is vain to hope that this could ever be. The perfect beauty of the idbal must always be fictitious. It is rational to amuse ourselves with the fair imagination ; but it would be madness to en- deavour to put it into practice, in the face of the ordinances of Nature. Real shepherdesses must always be rude, and real peasants miserable ; suffer us to turn away our gentle eyes from their coarseness and their pain, and to seek comfort in cultivated voices and purchased smiles. We cannot hew down the rocks, nor turn the sands of the torrent into gold.” This is no answer. Be assured of the great truth — that what is impossible in reality, is ridiculous in fancy. If it is not in the nature of things that peasants should be gentle and happy, then the imagination of such peasantry is ridicu- lous, and to delight in such imagination, wrong ; as delight in any kind of falsehood is always. But if in the nature of things it be possible that among the wildness of hills the human heart should be refined, and if the comfort of dress, and the gentleness of language, and the joy of progress in knowledge, and of variety in thought, are possible to the mountaineer in his true existence, let us strive to write this 'true poetry upon the rocks before we indulge it in our visions, and try whether, among all the fine arts, one of the finest be mot that of painting cheeks with health rather than rouge. 51. The Mountain Glory. Let us consider the difference produced in the whole tone of landscape colour by the introductions of purple, violet, and 'deep ultramarine blue, which we owe to mountains. In an THE MOUNTAIN GLORY. 273 ordinary lowland landscape we have the blue of the sky ; the green of grass, which I will suppose (and this is an unneces- sary concession to the lowlands) entirely fresh and bright ; the green of trees ; and certain elements of purple, far more rich and beautiful than we generally should think, in their bark and shadows (bare hedges and thickets, or tops of trees, in subdued afternoon sunshine, are nearly perfect purple, and of an exquisite tone), as well as in ploughed fields, and dark ground in general. But among mountains, in addition to all this, large unbroken spaces of pure violet and purple are introduced in their distances ; and even near, by films of cloud passing over the darkness of ravines or forests, blues are produced of the most subtle tenderness ; these azures and purples 1 passing into rose-colour of otherwise wholly unattainable delicacy among the upper summits, the blue of the sky being at the same time purer and deeper than in the plains. Nay, in some sense, a person who has never seen the rose-colour of the rays of dawn crossing a blue mountain twelve or fifteen miles away, can hardly be said to know what tenderness in colour means at all ; bright tenderness he may, indeed, see in the sky or in a flower, but this grave tenderness of the far-away hill-purples he cannot conceive. Together with this great source of pre-eminence in mass of colour, we have to estimate the influence of the finished inlaying and enamel- work of the colour-jewellery on every stone ; and that of the continual variety in species of flower ; most of the mountain flowers being, besides, separately love- lier than the lowland ones. The wood hyacinth and wild rose are, indeed, the only supreme flowers that the lowlands can generally show ; and the wild rose is also a mountaineer, 1 One of the principal reasons for the false supposition that Switzer- land is not picturesque, is the error of most sketchers and painters in representing pine forest in middle distance as dark green , or grey green, whereas its true colour is always purple, at distances of even two or three miles. Let any traveller coming down the Montanvert look for an aperture, three or four inches wide, between the near pine branches, through which, standing eight or ten feet from it, he can see the opposite , forests on the Breven or Fleg&re. These forests are not above two or two and a half miles from him ; but he will find the aperture is filled by a tint of nearly pure azure or purple, not, by green. 274 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. and more fragrant in the hills, while the wood hyacinth, or grape hyacinth, at its best, cannot match even the dark bell- gentian, leaving the light-blue star-gentian in its uncontented queenliness, and the Alpine rose and Highland heather wholly without similitude. The violet, lily of the valley, crocus, and wood anemone are, I suppose, claimable partly by the plains as well as the hills ; but the large orange lily and narcissus I have never seen but on hill pastures, and the exquisite oxalis is pre-eminently a mountaineer . 1 To this supremacy in mosses and flowers we have next to add an inestimable gain in the continual presence and power of water. Neither in its clearness, its colour, its fantasy of motion, its calmness of space, depth, and reflection, or its wrath, can water be conceived by a lowlander, out of sight of sea. A sea wave is far grander than any torrent — but of the sea and its influences we are not now speaking ; and the sea itself, though it can be clear, is never calm, among our shores, in the sense that a mountain lake can be calm. The sea seems only to pause ; the mountain lake to sleep, and to dream. Out of sight of the ocean a lowlander cannot be considered ever to have seen water at all. The mantling of the pools in the rock shadows, with the golden flakes of light sinking down through them like falling leaves, the ringing of the thin currents among the shallows, the flash and the cloud of the cascade, the earthquake and foam- fire of the cataract, the long lines of alternate mirror and mist that lull the imagery of the hills reversed in the blue of morning — all these things belong to those hills as their un- divided inheritance. To this supremacy in wave and stream is joined a no less manifest pre-eminence in the character of trees. It is pos- sible among plains, in the species of trees which properly belong to them, the poplars of Amiens, for instance, to obtain a serene simplicity of grace, which, as I said, is a better help to the study of gracefulness, as such, than any of the wilder groupings of the hills ; so also, there are certain 1 The Savoyard’s name for its flower, “ Pain du Bon Dieu,” is very beautiful ; from, I believe, the supposed resemblance of its white and scattered blossom to the fallen manna. THE MOUNTAIN GLORY. 275 conditions of symmetrical luxuriance developed in the park and avenue, rarely rivalled in their way among moun- tains ; and yet the mountain superiority in foliage is, on the whole, nearly as complete as it is in water : for exactly as there are some expressions in the broad reaches of a navi- gable lowland river, such as the Loire or Thames, not, in their way, to be matched among the rock rivers, and yet for all that a lowlander cannot be said to have truly seen the element of water at all ; so even in his richest parks and avenues he cannot be said to have truly seen trees. For the resources of trees are not developed until they have difficulty to contend with ; neither their tenderness of brotherly love and harmony, till they are forced to choose their ways of various life where there is contracted room for them, talking to each other with their restrained branches. The various action of trees rooting themselves in inhospitable rocks, stooping to look into ravines, hiding from the search of glacier winds, reaching forth to the rays of rare sunshine, crowding down together to drink at sweetest streams, climbing hand in hand among the difficult slopes, opening in sudden dances round the mossy knolls, gathering into companies at rest among the fragrant fields, gliding in grave procession over the heavenward ridges — nothing of this can be conceived among the unvexed and unvaried felicities of the lowland forest : while to all these direct sources of greater beauty are added, first the power of redundance — the mere quantity of foliage visible in the folds and on the promontories of a single Alp being greater than that of an entire lowland land- scape (unless a view from some cathedral tower) ; and to this charm of redundance, that of clearer visibility — tree after tree being constantly shown in successive height, one behind another, instead of the mere tops and flanks of masses, as in the plains; and the forms of multitudes of them continually defined against the clear sky, near and above, or against white clouds entangled among their branches, instead of being confused in dimness of distance. Finally, to this supremacy in foliage we have to add the still less questionable supremacy in clouds. There is no effect of sky possible in the lowlands which may not in equal 276 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. IV. perfection be seen among the hills ; but there are effects by tens of thousands, for ever invisible and inconceivable to the inhabitant of the plains, manifested among the hills in the course of one day. The mere power of familiarity with the clouds, of walking with them and above them, alters and renders clear our whole conception of the baseless architec- ture of the sky ; and for the beauty of it, there is more in a single wreath of early cloud, pacing its way up an avenue of pines, or pausing among the points of their fringes, than in all the white heaps that fill the arched sky of the plains from one horizon to the other. And of the nobler cloud mani- festations — the breaking of their troublous seas against the crags, their black spray sparkling with lightning ; or the going forth of the morning along their pavements of moving marble, level-laid between dome and dome of snow ; of these things there can be as little imagination or under- standing in an inhabitant of the plains as of the scenery of another planet than his own. And, observe, all these superiorities are matters plainly measurable and calculable, not in any wise to be referred to estimate of sensation. Of the grandeur or expression of the hills I have not spoken ; how far they are great, or strong, or terrible, I do not for the moment consider, because vastness, and strength, and terror, are not to all minds subjects of de- sired contemplation. It may make no difference to some men whether a natural object be large or small, whether it be strong or feeble. But loveliness of colour, perfectness of form, endlessness of change, wonderfulness of structure, are precious to all undiseased human minds ; and the superiority of the mountains in all these things to the lowland is, I repeat, as measurable as the richness of a painted window matched with a white one, or the wealth of a museum com- pared with that of a simply furnished chamber. They seem to have been built for the human race, as at once their schools and cathedrals ; full of treasures of illuminated manuscript for the scholar, kindly in simple lessons to the worker, quiet in pale cloisters for the thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper. And of these great cathedrals of the earth, with their gates of rock, pavements of cloud, THE MOUNTAIN GLORY. 277 choirs of stream and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple traversed by the continual stars — of these, as we have seen, it was written, nor long ago, by one of the best of the poor human race for whom they were built, wondering in himself for whom their Creator could have made them, and thinking to have entirely discerned the Divine intent in them — “ They are inhabited by the Beasts.” Was it then indeed thus with us, and so lately? Had mankind offered no worship in their mountain churches? Was all that granite sculpture and floral painting done by the angels in vain ? Not so. It will need no prolonged thought to convince us that in the hills the purposes of their Maker have indeed been accomplished in such measure as, through the sin or folly of men, He ever permits them to be accomplished. It may not seem, from the general language held concerning them, or from any directly traceable results, that mountains have had serious influence on human intellect ; but it will not, I think, be difficult to show that their occult influence has been both constant and essential to the progress of the race. Consider, first, whether we can justly refuse to attribute to their mountain scenery some share in giving the Greeks and Italians their intellectual lead among the nations of Europe. There is not a single spot of land in either of these countries from which mountains are not discernible ; almost always they form the principal feature of the scenery. The mountain outlines seen from Sparta, Corinth, Athens, Rome, Florence, Pisa, Verona, are of consummate beauty; and whatever dislike or contempt may be traceable in the mind of the Greeks for mountain ruggedness, their placing the shrine of Apollo under the cliffs of Delphi, and his throne upon Parnassus, was a testimony to all succeeding time that they themselves attributed the best part of their intellectual inspiration to the power of the hills. Nor would it be difficult to show that every great writer of either of those nations, however little definite regard he might manifest for the landscape of his country, had been mentally formed and disciplined by it, so that even such enjoyment as Homer's 278 MODERN PAINTERS. —VOL. IV. of the ploughed ground and poplar groves owes its intensity and delicacy to the excitement of the imagination produced, without his own consciousness, by other and grander features of the scenery to which he had been accustomed from a child ; and differs in every respect from the tranquil, vegeta- tive, and prosaic affection with which the same ploughed land and poplars would be regarded by a native of the Nether- lands. 52. Mountains and Literature. For this also the mountain influence is still necessary, only in a subordinate degree. It is true, indeed, that the Avon is no mountain torrent, and that the hills round the vale of Stratford are not sublime ; true, moreover, that the cantons Berne or Uri have never yet, so far as I know, produced a great poet ; but neither, on the other hand, has Antwerp or Amsterdam. And, I believe, the natural scenery which will be found, on the whole, productive of most literary intellect is that mingled of hill and plain, as all available light is of flame and darkness ; the flame being the active element, and the darkness the tempering one. In noting such evidence as bears upon this subject, the reader must always remember that the mountains are at an unfair disadvantage, in being much out of the way of the masses of men employed in intellectual pursuits. The posi- tion of a city is dictated by military necessity or commercial convenience : it rises, flourishes, and absorbs into its activity whatever leading intellect is in the surrounding population. The persons who are able and desirous to give their children education naturally resort to it ; the best schools, the best society, and the strongest motives assist and excite those bom within its walls; and youth after youth rises to distinc- tion out of its streets, while among the blue mountains, twenty miles away, the goatherds live and die in unregarded lowliness. And yet this is no proof that the mountains have little effect upon the mind, or that the streets have a helpful one. The men who are formed by the schools, and polished MOUNTAINS AND LITERATURE. 279 by the society of the capital, may yet in many ways have their powers shortened by the absence of natural scenery ; and the mountaineer, neglected, ignorant, and unambitious, may have been taught things by the clouds and streams which he could not have learned in a college, or a coterie. And in reasoning about the effect of mountains we are therefore under a difficulty like that which would occur to us if we had to determine the good or bad effect of light on the human constitution, in some place where all corporal exercise was necessarily in partial darkness, and only idle people lived in the light. The exercise might give an advantage to the occupants of the gloom, but we should neither be justified in therefore denying the preciousness of light in general, nor the necessity to the workers of the few rays they possessed; and thus I suppose the hills around Stratford, and such glimpses as Shakspeare had of sand- stone and pines in Warwickshire, or of chalk cliffs in Kent, to have been essential to the development of his genius. This supposition can only be proved false by the rising of a Shakspeare at Rotterdam or Bergen-op-Zoom, which I think not probable ; whereas, on the other hand, it is con- firmed by myriads of collateral evidences. The matter could only be tested by placing for half a century the British uni- versities at Keswick and Beddgelert, and making Grenoble the capital of France; but if, throughout the history of Britain and France, we contrast the general invention and pathetic power, in ballads or legends, of the inhabitants of the Scottish Border with those manifested in Suffolk or Essex; and similarly the inventive power of Normandy, Provence, and the Bearnois with that of Champagne or Picardy, we shall obtain some convincing evidence respect- ing the operation of hills on the masses of mankind, and be disposed to admit, with less hesitation, that the apparent inconsistencies in the effect of scenery on greater minds pro- ceed in each case from specialities of education, accident, and original temper, which it would be impossible to follow out in detail. Sometimes only, when the original resem- blance in character of intellect is very marked in two indi- viduals, and they are submitted to definitely contrary cir- 280 MODERN PAINTERS.—VOL. IV. cumstances of education, an approximation to evidence may be obtained. Thus Bacon and Pascal appear to be men naturally very similar in their temper and powers of mind. One, born in York House, Strand, of courtly parents, edu- cated in court atmosphere, and replying, almost as soon as he could speak, to the queen asking how old he was — “ Two years younger than Your Majesty’s happy reign ! ” — has the world’s meanness and cunning engrafted into his intellect, and remains smooth, serene, unenthusiastic, and in some degree base, even with all his sincere devotion and universal wisdom ; bearing, to the end of life, the likeness of a marble palace in the street of a great city, fairly furnished within, and bright in wall and battlement, yet noisome in places about the foundations. The other, born at Clermont in Auvergne, under the shadow of the Puy de Dome, though taken to Paris at eight years old, retains for ever the impress of his birthplace ; pursuing natural philosophy with the same zeal as Bacon, he returns to his own mountains to put him- self under their tutelage, and by their help first discovers the great relations of the earth and the air : struck at last with mortal disease ; gloomy, enthusiastic, and superstitious, with a conscience burning like lava, and inflexible like iron, the clouds gather about the majesty of him, fold after fold ; and, with his spirit buried in ashes, and rent by earthquake, yet fruitful of true thought and faithful aJTection, he stands like that mound of desolate scoria that crowns the hill ranges of his native land, with its sable summit far in heaven, and its foundations green with the ordered garden and the trellised vine. When, however, our inquiry thus branches into the suc- cessive analysis of individual characters, it is time for us to leave it; noting only one or two points respecting Shak- speare He seems to have been sent essentially to take uni- versal and equal grasp of the human nature; and to have been removed, therefore, from all influences which could in the least warp or bias his thoughts. It was necessary that he should lean no way; that he should contemplate, with absolute equality of judgment, the life of the court, cloister, and tavern, and be able to sympathize so completelv with all creatures as to MOUNTAINS AND LITERATURE. 281 deprive himself, together with his personal identity, even of his conscience, as he casts himself into their hearts. He must be able to enter into the soul of Falstaff or Shylock with no more sense of contempt or horror than Falstaff or Shylock themselves feel for or in themselves; otherwise his own conscience and indignation would make him unjust to them ; he would turn aside from something, miss some good, or overlook some essential palliation. He must be utterly without anger, utterly without purpose ; for if a man has any serious purpose in life, that which runs counter to it, or is foreign to it, will be looked at frowningly or carelessly by him. Shakspeare was for- bidden of Heaven to have any plans. To do any good or get any good, in the common sense of good, was not to be within his permitted range of work. Not, for him, the founding of institutions, the preaching of doctrines, or the repression of abuses. Neither he, nor the sun, did on any morning that they rose together, receive charge from their Maker concerning such things. They were both of them to shine on the evil and good ; both to behold unoffendedly all that was upon the earth, to burn unappalled upon the spears of kings, and undisdaining, upon the reeds of the river. Therefore, so far as nature had influence over the early training of this man, it was essential to his perfectness that the nature should be quiet. No mountain passions were to be allowed in him. Inflict upon him but one pang of the monastic conscience ; cast upon him but one cloud of the mountain gloom ; and his serenity had been gone for ever — his equity — his infinity. You would have made another Dante of him ; and all that he would have ever uttered about poor, soiled, and frail humanity would have been the quarrel between Sinon and Adam of Brescia — speedily retired from, as not worthy a man’s hearing, nay, not to be heard without heavy fault. All your Falstaffs, Slenders, Quicklys, Sir Tobys, Lances, Touchstones, and Quinces would have been lost in that. Shakspeare could be allowed no mountains ; nay, not even any supreme natural beauty. He had to be left with his kingcups and clover — pansies — the passing clouds — the Avon’s flow — and the undulating hills 282 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. and woods of Warwick ; nay, he was not to love even these in any exceeding measure, lest it might make him in the least overrate their power upon the strong, full-fledged minds of men. He makes the quarrelling fairies concerned about them ; poor lost Ophelia find some comfort in them ; fear- ful, fair, wise-hearted Perdita trust the speaking of her good will and good hostess-ship to them ; and one of the brothers of Imogen confide his sorrow to them — rebuked instantly by his brother for “wench-like words;” 1 but any thought of them in his mighty men I do not find : it is not usually in the nature of such men ; and if he had loved the flowers the least better himself, he would assuredly have been offended at this, and given a botanical turn of mind to Caesar, or Othello. And it is even among the most curious proofs of the necessity to all high imagination that it should paint straight from the life, that he has not given such a turn of mind to some of his great men — Henry the Fifth, for instance. Doubtless some of my readers, having been accustomed to hear it repeated thoughtlessly from mouth to mouth that Shakspeare conceived the spirit of all ages, were as much offended as surprised at my saying that he only painted 1 With fairest flowers While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I’ll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack The flower that’s like thy face— pale primrose, nor The azured harebell — like thy veins ; no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Gutsweetened not thy breath. The ruddock would With charitable bill bring thee all this ; Yea, and furred moss besides, when flowers are none, To winter-ground thy corse. Gui. Prithee, have done, And do not play in wench-like words with that Which is so serious. Imogen herself, afterwards, in deeper passion, will give weeds — not flowers— and something more : And when With wildwood leaves, and weeds, I have strewed his grave, And on it said a century of prayers, Such as I can, twice o’er, I’ll weep, and sigh, And, leaving so his service, follow you. MOUNTAINS AND LITERATURE. 283 human nature as he saw it in his own time. They will find, if they look into his work closely, as much antiquarianism as they do geography, and no more. The commonly received notions about the things that had been, Shakspeare took as he found them, animating them with pure human nature, of any time and all time ; but inquiries into the minor detail of temporary feeling, he despised as utterly as he did maps; and wheresoever the temporary feeling was in any wise con- trary to that of his own day, he errs frankly, and paints from his own time. For instance in this matter of love of flowers ; we have traced already, far enough for our general purposes, the mediaeval interest in them, whether to be enjoyed in the fields, or to be used for types of ornamentation in dress. If Shakspeare had cared to enter into the spirit even of the early fifteenth century, he would assuredly have marked this affection in some of his knights, and indicated, even then, in heroic tempers, the peculiar respect for loveliness of dress which we find constantly in Dante. But he could not do this ; he had not seen it in real life. In his time dress had become an affectation and absurdity. Only fools, or wise men in their weak moments, showed much concern about it ; and the facts of human nature which appeared to him general in the matter were the soldier’s disdain, and the coxcomb’s care of it. Hence Shakspeare’s good soldier is almost always in plain or battered armour ; even the speech of Vernon in Henry the Fourth, which, as far as I remember, is the only one that bears fully upon the beauty of armour, leans more upon the spirit and hearts of men — “ bated, like eagles having lately bathed ; ” and has an under-current of slight contempt running through the following line : “ Glitter- ing in golden coats, like images ; ” while the beauty of the young Harry is essentially the beauty of fiery and perfect youth, answering as much to the Greek, or Roman, or Elizabethan knight as to the mediaeval one; whereas the definite interest in armour and dress is opposed by Shak- speare in the French (meaning to depreciate them), to the English rude soldierliness : Con . Tut, I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day ! Orl. You have an excellent armour, but let my horse have his due. 284 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. And again : My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars, or suns, upon it ? while Henry, half proud of his poorness of array, speaks of armorial splendour scornfully ; the main idea being still of its being a gilded show and vanity : Our gay ness and our gilt are all besmirched. This is essentially Elizabethan. The quarterings on a knight’s shield, or the inlaying of his armour, would never have been thought of by him as mere “ gayness or gilt ” in earlier days. 1 In like manner, throughout every scale of rank or feeling, from that of the French knights down to FalstafFs “ I looked he should have sent me two-and-twenty yards of satin, as I am true knight, and he sends me secur- ity ! ” care for dress is always considered by Shakspeare as contemptible ; and Mrs. Quickly distinguishes herself from a true fairy by her solicitude to scour the chairs of order — and “each fair instalment, coat, and several crest;” and the association in her mind of the flowers in the fairy rings with the Sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood’s bending knee ; while the true fairies, in field simplicity, are only anxious to “ sweep the dust behind the door ; ” and With this field dew consecrate, Every several chamber bless Through this palace with sweet peace. Note the expression “Field dew consecrate.” Shakspeare loved courts and camps; but he felt that sacredness and peace were in the dew of the Fields only. 1 If the reader thinks that in Henry the Fifth’s time the Elizabethan temper might already have been manifesting itself, let him compare the English herald’s speech, act 2, scene 2, of King John ; and by way of specimen of Shakspeare’s historical care, or regard of mediaeval char- acter, the large use of artillery in the previous scene. MOUNTAINS AND LITERATURE. 285 There is another respect in which he was wholly incapable of entering into the spirit of the Middle Ages. He had no great art of any kind around him in his own country, and was, consequently, just as powerless to conceive the general influence of former art, as a man of the most inferior calibre. Therefore it was, that I did not care to quote his authority respecting the power of imitation, in the second chapter of the preceding volume. If it had been needful to add his testimony to that of Dante I might have quoted multitudes of passages wholly concurring with that, of which the “ fair Portia’s counterfeit,” with the following lines, and the implied ideal of sculpture in the Winter's Tale , are wholly unanswer- able instances. But Shakspeare’s evidence in matters of art is as narrow as the range of Elizabethan art in England, and resolves itself wholly into admiration of two things — mockery of life (as in this instance of Hermione as a statue), or absolute splendour, as in the close of Romeo and Juliet, where the notion of gold as the chief source of dignity of aspect, coming down to Shakspeare from the times of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and, as I said before, strictly Elizabethan, would interfere seriously with the pathos of the whole passage, but for the sense of sacrifice implied in it : As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie, Poor sacrifices of our enmity. And observe, I am not giving these examples as proof of ' any smallness in Shakspeare, but of his greatness ; that is to say, of his contentment, like every other great man who ever breathed, to paint nothing but what he saiv ; and therefore giving perpetual evidence that his sight was of the sixteenth, and not of the thirteenth century, beneath all the broad and eternal humanity of his imagination. How far in these ! modern days, emptied of splendour, it may be necessary for great men having certain sympathies for those earlier ages, ; to act in this differently from all their predecessors ; and how i far they may succeed in the resuscitation of the past by habitually dwelling in all their thoughts among vanished | generations, are questions, of all practical and present ones 286 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV concerning art, the most difficult to decide ; for already in poetry several of our truest men have set themselves to this task, and have indeed put more vitality into the shadows of the dead than most others can give the presences of the living. Thus Longfellow, in The Golden Legend, has entered more closely into the temper of the Monk, for good and for evil, than ever yet theological writer or historian, though they may have given their life’s labour to the analysis : and, again, Robert Browning is unerring in every sentence he writes of the Middle Ages ; always vital, right, and profound ; so that in the matter of art, with which we have been specially concerned, there is hardly a principle connected with the mediaeval temper, that he has not struck upon in those seemingly careless and too rugged rhymes of his. There is a curious instance, by the way, in a short poem referring to this very subject of tomb and image sculpture ; and illustrating just one of those phases of local human character which, though belonging to Shakspeare’s own age, he never noticed, because it was specially Italian and un-English ; connected also closely with the influence of mountains on the heart, and therefore with our immediate inquiries. I mean the kind of admiration with which a southern artist regarded the stone he worked in; and the pride which populace or priest took in the possession of precious mountain substance, worked into the pavements of their cathedrals, and the shafts of their tombs. Observe, Shakspeare, in the midst of architecture and tombs of wood, or freestone, or brass, naturally thinks of gold as the best enriching and ennobling substance for them ; in the midst also of the fever of the Renaissance he writes, as every one else did, in praise of precisely the most vicious master of that school — Giulio Romano; but the modern poet, living much in Italy, and quit of the Renaissance influence, is able fully to enter into the Italian feel- ing, and to see the evil of the Renaissance tendency, not because he is greater than Shakspeare, but because he is in another element, and has seen other things. I miss frag- ments here and there not needed for my purpose in the pas- sage quoted, without putting asterisks, for I weaken the MOUNTAINS AND LITERATURE. 287 poem enough by the omissions, without spoiling it also by breaks. The Bishop orders his Tomb in St. Praxed's Church. As here I lie In this state chamber, dying by degrees, Hours, and long hours, in the dead night, I ask, Do I live — am I dead ? Peace, peace, seems all : St. Praxed’s ever was the church for peace. And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know ; Old Gandolf 1 cozened me, despite my care. Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south He graced his carrion with. Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence One sees the pulpit o’ the epistle side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats ; And up into the aery dome where live The angels, and a sunbeam’s sure to lurk. And I shall fill my slab of basalt there. And ’neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet, where Anselm 2 3 * * * * stands ; Peach-blossom marble all. Swift as a weaver’s shuttle fleet our years : Man goeth to the grave, and where is he ? Did I say basalt for my slab, sons ? Black — ’Twas ever antique-black 8 I meant ! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath ? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, f St. Praxed in a glory, and one Pan, And Moses with the tables . . . but I know Ye mark me not ! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm ? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp, Bricked o’er with beggar’s mouldy travertine, 1 The last bishop. 2 His favourite son ; nominally his nephew. 3 “Nero Antico” is more familiar to our ears; but Browning does | right in translating it; as afterwards “ cipollino ’’ into “onion-stone.” 1 Our stupid habit of using foreign words without translation is continu- | ally losing us half the force of the foreign language. How many 1 travellers hearing the term “ cipollino” recognize the intended sense of a stone splitting into concentric coats, like an onion ? 288 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at ! Nay, boys, ye love me — all of jaspei, then 1 There’s plenty jasper somewhere in the world— And have 1 not St. Praxed’s ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts. That’s if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully’s every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolfs second line — Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need. I know no other piece of modern English, prose or poetry, in which there is so much told, as in these lines, of the Renaissance spirit — its worldliness, inconsistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of art, of luxury, and of good Latin. It is nearly all that I said of the central Renaissance in thirty pages of The Stones of Venice put into as many lines, Browning’s being also the antecedent work. The worst of it is that this kind of concentrated writing needs so much solution before the reader can fairly get the good of it, that people’s patience fails them, and they give the thing up as insoluble ; though, truly, it ought to be to the current of common thought like Saladin’s talisman, dipped in clear water, not soluble altogether, but making the element medicinal. It is interesting, by the way, with respect to this love of stones in the Italian mind, to consider the difference necessitated in the English temper merely by the general domestic use of wood instead of marble. In that old Shakspearian England, men must have rendered a grateful homage to their oak forests, in the sense of all that they owed to their goodly timbers in the wainscot and furniture of the rooms they loved best, when the blue of the frosty midnight was contrasted, in the dark diamonds of the lattice, with the glowing brown of the warm, fire-lighted, crimson- tapestried walls. Not less would an Italian look with a grateful regard on the hill summits, to which he owed, in the scorching of his summer noonday, escape into the marble corridor or crypt palpitating only with cold and smooth variegation of the unfevered mountain veins. In some sort, as, both in our stubbornness and our comfort, we not unfitly describe ourselves typically as Hearts of Oak, the MOUNTAINS AND LITERATURE. 289 Italians might in their strange and variegated mingling of passion, like purple colour, with a cruel sternness, like white rock, truly describe themselves as Hearts of Stone. Into this feeling about marble in domestic use, Shak- speare, having seen it even in northern luxury, could partly enter, and marks it in several passages of his Italian plays. But if the reader still doubts his limitation to his own experience in all subjects of imagination, let him consider how the removal from mountain influence in his youth, so necessary for the perfection of his lower human sympathy, prevented him from ever rendering with any force the feel- ings of the mountain anchorite, or indicating in any of his monks the deep spirit of monasticism. Worldly cardinals or nuncios he can fathom to the uttermost ; but where, in all his thoughts, do we find St. Francis, or Abbot Samson? The “Friar” of Shakspeare’s plays is almost the only stage conventionalism which he admitted ; generally nothing more than a weak old man, who lives in a cell, and has a rope about his waist. While, finally, in such slight allusions as he makes to mountain scenery itself, it is very curious to observe the accurate limitation of his sympathies to such things as he had known in his youth ; and his entire preference of human interest, and of courtly and kingly dignities, to the nobleness of the hills. This is most marked in Cymbeline, where the term “mountaineer” is, as with Dante, always one of re- j proach ; and the noble birth of Arviragus and Guiderius is shown by their holding their mountain cave as A cell of ignorance ; travelling abed. A prison for a debtor ; and themselves, educated among hills, as in all things contemptible : We are beastly ; subtle as the fox, for prey ; Like warlike as the wolf, for what we eat : | Our valour is to chase what flies ; our cage We make our choir, as doth the prisoned bird. j A few phrases occur here and there which might justify IQ 290 MODERN PAINTERS.—VOL. IV. the supposition that he had seen high mountains, but never implying awe or admiration. Thus Demetrius : These things seem small and indistinguishable , Like far -off mountains turned- into clouds. “ Taurus snow,” and the “ frosty Caucasus,” are used merely as types of purity or cold ; and though the avalanche is once spoken of as an image of power, it is with instantly following depreciation : Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow Upon the vallies, whose low vassal seat The Alps doth spit, and void his rheum upon. There was only one thing belonging to hills that Shak- speare seemed to feel as noble — the pine tree, and that was because he had seen it in Warwickshire, clumps of pine occasionally rising on little sandstone mounds, as at the place of execution of Piers Gaveston, above the lowland woods. He touches on this tree fondly again and again : As rough, Their royal blood enehafed, as the rud’st wind That by his top doth take the mountain pine, And make him stoop to the vale. The strong-based promontory Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up The pine and cedar. Where note his observance of the peculiar horizontal roots of the pine, spurred as it is by them like the claw of a bird, and partly propped, as the aiguilles by those rock promon- tories at their bases which I have always called their spurs, this observance of the pine’s strength and animal-like grasp being the chief reason for his choosing it, above other trees, for Ariel’s prison. Again : You may as well forbid the mountain pines To wag their high tops, and to make no noise When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven. And yet again : But when, from under this terrestrial ball, He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines. MOUNTAINS AND LITERATURE. 291 We may judge, by the impression which this single feature of hill scenery seems to have made on Shakspeare’s mind, because he had seen it in his youth, how his whole temper would have been changed if he had lived in a more sublime country, and how essential it was to his power of contemplation of mankind that he should be removed from the sternei influences of nature. For the rest, so far as Shakspeare’s work has imperfections of any kind — the trivial- ness of many of his adopted plots, for instance, and the comparative rarity with which he admits the ideal of an enthusiastic virtue arising out of principle; virtue being with him, for the most part, founded simply on the affections joined with inherent purity in his women, or on mere manly pride and honour in his men 1 ; in a word, whatever differ- ence, involving inferiority, there exists between him and 1 I mean that Shakspeare almost always implies a total difference in nature hetween one human being and another ; one being from the birth, pure and affectionate, another base and cruel ; and he displays each, in its sphere, as having the nature of dove, wolf, or lion, never much implying the government or change of nature by any external principle. There can be no question that in the main he is right in this 1 view of human nature; still, the other form of virtue does exist occasion- ally, and was never, as far as I recollect, taken much note of by him. And with this stern view of humanity, Shakspeare joined a sorrowful view of Fate, closely resembling that of the ancients. He is distin- guished from Dante eminently by his always dwelling on last causes 1 instead of hrst causes. Dante invariably points to the moment of the soul’s choice which fixed its fate, to the instant of the day when it read no farther, or determined to give bad advice about Penestrino. But I Shakspeare always leans on the force of Fate, as it urges the final evil; ✓ and dwells with infinite bitterness on the power of the wicked, and the I infinitude of result dependent seemingly on little things. A fool brings ! the last piece of news from Verona, and the dearest lives of its noble 1 houses are lost ; they might have been saved, if the sacristan had not stumbled as be walked. Othello mislays his handkerchief, and there remains nothing for him but death, Hamlet gets hold of the wrong foil, | and the rest is silence. Edmund’s runner is a moment too late at the prison, and the feather will not move at Cordelia’s lips. Salisbury ! a moment too late at the tower, and Arthur lies on the stones dead. Goneril and Iago have on the whole, in this world, Shakspeare sees, | much of their own way, though they come to a bad end. It is a pin ! that Death pierces the king’s fortress wall with ; and Carelessness and ! Folly sit sceptred and dreadful, side by side with the pin -armed 1 skeleton. 292 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. IV. Dante, in his conceptions of the relation between this world and the next, we may partly trace, as we did the difference between Bacon and Pascal, to the less noble character of the scenes around him in his youth ; and admit that, though it was necessary for his special work that he should be put, as it were, on a level with his race, on those plains of Stratford, we should see in this a proof, instead of a negation, of the mountain power over human intellect. For breadth and perfectness of condescending sight, the Shakspearian mind stands alone; but in ascending sight it is limited. The breadth of grasp was innate ; the stoop and slightness of it was given by the circumstances of scene : and the difference between those careless masques of heathen gods, or unbelieved, though mightily conceived visions of fairy, witch, or risen spirit, and the earnest faith of Dante’s vision of Paradise, is the true measure of the difference in influence between the willowy banks of Avon, and the purple hills of Amo. VOLUME V. 53. The Earth-Veil. “To dress it and to keep it.” That, then, was to be our work. Alas ! what work have we set ourselves upon instead ! How have we ravaged the garden instead of kept it — feeding our war-horses with its flowers, and splintering its trees into spear-shafts ! “ And at the East a flaming sword.” Is its flame quenchless ? and are those gates that keep the way indeed passable no more ? or is it not rather that we no more desire to enter? For what can we conceive of that first Eden which we might not yet win back, if we chose. It was a place full of flowers, we say. Well : the flowers are always striving to grow wherever we suffer them; and the fairer, the closer. There may indeed have been a Fall of Flowers, as a Fall of Man ; but assuredly creatures such as we are can now fancy nothing lovelier than roses and lilies, which would grow for us side by side, leaf overlapping leaf, ’"till the earth was white and red with them, if we cared to have it so. And Paradise was full of pleasant shades and fruitful avenues. Well : what hinders us from covering as much of the world as we like with pleasant shade and pure blossom, and goodly fruit ? Who forbids its valleys to be covered over with corn, till they laugh and sing ? Who pre- 1 vents its dark forests, ghostly and uninhabitable, from being changed into infinite orchards, wreathing the hills with frail- , fioretted snow, far away to the half-lighted horizon of April, I and flushing the face of all the autumnal earth with glow of I clustered food ? But Paradise was a place of peace, we say, j and all the animals were gentle servants to us. Well : the 294 MODERN PAINTERS.-— VOL. V. world would yet be a place of peace if we were all peace- makers, and gentle service should we have of its creatures if we gave them gentle mastery. But so long as we make sport of slaying bird and beast, so long as we choose to con- tend rather with our fellows than with our faults, and make battlefield of our meadows instead of pasture — so long, truly, the Flaming Sword will still turn every way, and the gates of Eden remain barred close enough, till we have sheathed the sharper flame of our own passions, and broken down the closer gates of our own hearts. I have been led to see and feel this more and more, as I considered the service which the flowers and trees, which man was at first appointed to keep, were intended to render to him in return for his care ; and the services they still render to him, as far as he allows their influence, or fulfils his own task towards them. For what infinite wonderfulness there is in this vegetation, considered, as indeed it is, the means by which the earth becomes the companion of man — his friend and his teacher S In the conditions which we have traced in its rocks, there could only be seen preparation for his existence ; — the characters which enable him to live on it safely, and to work with it easily — in all these it has been inanimate and passive; but vegetation is to it as an imperfect soul, given to meet the soul of man. The earth in its depths must remain dead and cold, incapable except of slow crystalline change ; but at its surface, which human beings look upon and deal with, it ministers to them through a veil of strange intermediate being ; which breathes, but has no voice ; moves, but cannot leave its appointed place ; passes through life without consciousness, to death without bitterness ; wears the beauty of youth, without its passion ; and declines to the weakness of age, without its regret. And in this mystery of intermediate being, entirely sub- ordinate to us, with which we can deal as we choose, having , just the greater power as we have the less responsibility for 1 our treatment of the unsuffering creature, most of the pleasures which we need from the external world are gathered, and most of the lessons we need are written, all kinds of precious grace and teaching being united in this THE EARTH-VEIL. 295 link between the Earth and Man : wonderful in universal adaptation to his need, desire, and discipline ; God’s daily preparation of the earth for him, with beautiful means of life. First, a carpet to make it soft for him ; then, a coloured fantasy of embroidery thereon ; then, tall spreading of foliage to shade him from sun-heat, and shade also the fallen rain, that it may not dry quickly back into the clouds, but stay to nourish the springs among the moss. Stout wood to bear this leafage : easily to be cut, yet tough and light, to make houses for him, or instruments (lance-shaft, or plough-handle, according to his temper) ; useless it had been, if harder ; useless, if less fibrous ; useless, if less elastic. Winter comes, and the shade of leafage falls away, to let the sun warm the earth ; the strong boughs remain, breaking the strength of winter winds. The seeds which are to prolong the race, innumerable according to the need, are made beautiful and palatable, varied into infinitude of appeal to the fancy of man, or provision for his service : cold juice, or glowing spice, or balm, or incense, softening oil, preserving resin, medicine of styptic, febrifuge, or lulling charm : and all these presented in forms of endless change. Fragility or force, softness and strength, in all degrees and aspects ; unerring uprightness, as of temple pillars, or undivided wandering of feeble tendrils on the ground ; mighty resistances of rigid arm and limb to the storms of ages, or wavings to and fro with faintest pulse of summer streamlet. Roots cleaving the strength of rock, or binding the transience of the sand; I crests basking in sunshine of the desert, or hiding by drip- ping spring and lightless cave; foliage far tossing in en- tangled fields beneath every wave of ocean-clothing with variegated, everlasting films, the peaks of the trackless mountains, or ministering at cottage doors to every gentlest I passion and simplest joy of humanity. i Being thus prepared for us in all w r ays, and made beauti- 1 ful, and good for food, and for building, and for instruments of our hands, this race of plants, deserving boundless affec- tion and admiration from us, become, in proportion to their obtaining it, a nearly perfect test of our being in right tem- per of mind and way of life ; so that no one can be far 296 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. wrong in either who loves the trees enough, and every one is assuredly wrong in both, who does not love them, if his life has brought them in his way. It is clearly possible to do without them, for the great companionship of the sea and sky are all that sailors need; and many a noble heart has been taught the best it had to learn between dark stone walls. Still if human life be cast among trees at all, the love borne to them is a sure test of its purity. And it is a sorrowful proof of the mistaken ways of the world that the “ country,” in the simple sense of a place of fields and trees, has hitherto been the source of reproach to its inhabitants, and that the words “countryman, rustic, clown, paysan , villager,” still signify a rude and untaught person, as opposed to the words “townsman” and “citizen.” We accept this usage of words, or the evil which it signifies, somewhat too quietly; as if it were quite necessary and natural that country-people should be rude, and townspeople gentle. Whereas I believe that the result of each mode of life may, in some stages of the world’s progress, be the exact reverse ; and that another use of words may be forced upon us by a new aspect of facts, so that we may find ourselves saying “Such and such a person is very gentle and kind — he is quite rustic ; and such and such another person is very rude and ill-taught — he is quite urbane.” At all events, cities have hitherto gained the better part of their good report through our evil ways of going on in the world generally — chiefly and eminently through our bad habit of fighting with each other. No field, in the middle ages, being safe from devastation, and every country lane yielding easier passage to the marauders, peacefully-minded men necessarily congregated in cities, and walled themselves in, making as few cross-country roads as possible : while the men who sowed and reaped the harvests of Europe were only the servants or slaves of the barons. The disdain of all agricultural pursuits by the nobility, and of all plain facts by the monks, kept educated Europe in a state of mind over which natural phenomena could have no power ; body and intellect being lost in the practice of war without purpose, and the meditation of words without meaning. Men learned THE LEAF ORDERS. 297 the dexterity with sword and syllogism, which they mistook for education, within cloister and tilt-yard ; and looked on all the broad space of the world of God mainly as a place for exercise of horses, or for growth of food. 54. The Leaf Orders. A child’s division of plants is into “ trees and flowers.” If, however, we were to take him in spring, after he had gathered his lapful of daisies, from the lawn into the orchard, and ask him how he would call those wreaths of richer floret, whose frail petals tossed their foam of promise between him and the sky, he would at once see the need of some intermediate name, and call them, perhaps, “tree-flowers.” If, then, we took him to a birch-wood, and showed him that catkins were flowers, as well as cherry-blossoms, he might, with a little help, reach so far as to divide all flowers into two classes : one, those that grew on ground; and another, those that grew on trees. The botanist might smile at such a division ; but an artist would not. To him, as to the child, there is something specific and distinctive in those rough trunks that carry the higher flowers. To him, it makes the main differ- ence between one plant and another, whether it is to tell as j a light upon the ground, or as a shade upon the sky. And if, after this, we asked for a little help from the botanist, and ! he were to lead us, leaving the blossoms, to look more care- | fully at leaves and buds, we should find ourselves able in ] some sort to justify, even to him, our childish classification. For our present purposes, justifiable or not, it is the most , suggestive and convenient. Plants are, indeed, broadly referable to two great classes. The first we may, perhaps, not inexpediently call tented plants. They live in en- campments, on the ground, as lilies ; or on surfaces of rock, j or stems of other plants, as lichens and mosses. They live — i some for a year, some for many years, some for myriads of j years ; but, perishing, they pass as the tented Arab passes : i ! they leave no memorials of themselves , except the seed, or j bulb, or root which is to perpetuate the race. 29S MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. The other great class of plants we may perhaps best call building plants. These will not live on the ground, but eagerly raise edifices above it. Each works hard with solemn forethought all its life. Perishing, it leaves its work in the form which will be most useful to its successors — its own monument, and their inheritance. These architectural edifices we call “Trees.” It may be thought that this nomenclature already involves a theory. But I care about neither the nomenclature, nor about anything questionable in my description of the classes. The reader is welcome to give them what names he likes, and to render what account of them he thinks fittest. But to us, as artists, or lovers of art, this is the first and most vital question concerning a plant : “ Has it a fixed form or a changing one ? Shall I find it always as I do to-day — this Parnassia palustris — with one leaf and one flower ? or may it some day have incalculable pomp of leaves and unmeasured treasure of flowers? Will it rise only to the height of a man— as an ear of corn — and perish tike a man ; or will it spread its boughs to the sea and branches to the river, and enlarge its circle of shade in heaven for a thousand years ? ” This, I repeat, is the first question I ask the plant. And as it answers, I range it on one side or the other, among those that rest or those that toil : tent-dwellers, who toil not, neither do they spin ; or tree-builders, whose days are as the days of a people. I find again, on farther questioning these plants who rest, that one group of them does indeed rest always, contentedly, on the ground, but that those of another group, more ambitious, emulate the builders ; and though they cannot build rightly, raise for themselves pillars out of the remains of past generations, on which they themselves, living the life of St. Simeon Stylites, are called, by courtesy, Trees ; being, in fact, many of them (palms, for instance) quite as stately as real trees . 1 1 I am not sure that this is a fair account of palms. I have never had opportunity of studying stems of Endogens, and I cannot understand the descriptions given of them in books, nor do I know how far some of their branched conditions approximate to real tree-structure. If this work, whatever errors it may involve, provokes the curiosity of the THE LIVING TREE. 299 These two classes we might call earth-plants, and pillar- plants. Again, in questioning the true builders as to their modes of work, 1 find that they also are divisible into two great classes. Without in the least wishing the reader to accept the fanciful nomenclature, I think he may yet most con- veniently remember these as “ Builders with the shield,” and “Builders with the sword.” Builders with the shield have expanded leaves, more or less resembling shields, partly in shape, but still more in office; for under their lifted shadow the young bud of the next year is kept from harm. These are the gentlest of the builders, and live in pleasant places, providing food and shelter for man. Builders with the sword, on the contrary, have sharp leaves in the shape of swords, and the young buds, instead of being as numerous as the leaves, crouching each under a leaf-shadow, are few in number, and grow fear- lessly, each in the midst of a sheaf of swords. These builders live in savage places, are sternly dark in colour, and though they give much help to man by their merely physical strength, they (with few exceptions) give him no food, and imperfect shelter. Their mode of building is ruder than that of the shield-builders, and they in many ways resemble the pillar-plants of the opposite order. We call them gener- ally “Pines.” 55. The Living Tree. The leaves, as we shall see immediately, are the feeders of the plant. Their own orderly habits of succession must not interfere with their main business of finding food. Where the sun and air are, the leaf must go, whether it be out of order or not. So, therefore, in any group, the first con- sideration with the young leaves is much like that of young bees, how to keep out of each other’s way, that every one may at once leave its neighbours as much free-air pasture reader so as to lead him to seek for more and better knowledge, it will do all the service I hope from it. 300 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. V. as possible, and obtain a relative freedom for itself. This would be a quite simple matter, and produce other simply balanced forms, if each branch, with open air all round it, had nothing to think of but reconcilement of interests among its own leaves. But every branch has others to m6et or to cross, sharing with them, in various advantage, what shade, or sun, or rain is to be had. Hence every single leaf- cluster presents the general aspect of a little family, entirely at unity among themselves, but obliged to get their living by various shifts, concessions, and infringements of the family rules, in order not to invade the privileges of other people in their neighbourhood. And in the arrangement of these concessions there is an exquisite sensibility among the leaves. They do not grow each to his own liking, till they run against one another, and then turn back sulkily ; but by a watchful instinct, far apart, they anticipate their companions’ courses, as ships at sea, and in every new unfolding of their edged tissue, guide themselves by the sense of each other’s remote presence, and by a watchful penetration of leafy purpose in the far future. So that every shadow which one casts on the next, and every glint of sun which each reflects to the next, and every touch which in toss of storm each receives from the next, aid or arrest the development of their advancing form, and direct, as will be safest and best, the curve of every fold and the current of every vein. * * # * * * When, some few years ago, the pre-Raphaelites began to lead our wandering artists back into the eternal paths of all great Art, and showed that whatever men drew at all, ought to be drawn accurately and knowingly; not blunderingly nor by guess (leaves of trees, among other things) : as ignorant pride on the one hand refused their teaching, ignorant hope caught at it on the other. “What!” said many a feeble young student to himself ; “ painting is not a matter of science then, nor of supreme skill, nor of inventive brain. I have only to go and paint the leaves of the trees as they grow, and l shall produce beautiful landscapes directly.” Alas ! my innocent young friend. “ Paint the leaves as THE LIVING TREE. 301 they grow 1 ” If you can paint one leaf, you can paint the world. These pre-kaphaelite laws, which you think so light, lay stern on the strength of Apelles and Zeuxis ; put Titian tc thoughtful trouble ; are unrelaxed yet, and unrelaxable for ever. Paint a leaf indeed ! Above-named Titian has done it: Correggio, moreover, and Giorgione: and Leonardo, very nearly, trying hard. Holbein, three or four times, in precious pieces, highest wrought. Raphael, it may be, in one or two crowns of Muse or Sibyl. If any one else, in later times, we have to consider. ****** It is evident that the more leaves the stalk has to sustain, the more strength it requires. It might appear, therefore, not unadvisable that every leaf should, as it grew, pay a small tax to the stalk for its sustenance ; so that there might be no fear of any number of leaves being too oppressive to their bearer. Which, accordingly, is just what the leaves do. Each, from the moment of his complete majority, pays a stated tax to the stalk ; that is to say, collects for it a certain quantity of wood, or materials for wood, and sends this wood, or what ultimately will become wood, down the stalk to add to its thickness. “ Down the stalk ? ” — yes, and down a great way farther. For, as the leaves, if they did not thus contribute to their own support, would soon be too heavy for the spray, so if the spray, with its family of leaves, contributed nothing to jj the thickness of the branch, the leaf-families would soon break down their sustaining branches. And, similarly, if the branches gave nothing to the stem, the stem would soon fall , under its boughs. Therefore, by a power of which I believe no sufficient account exists, as each leaf adds to the thick- | ness of the shoot, so each shoot to the branch, so each branch to the stem, and that with so perfect an order and regularity of duty, that from every leaf in all the countless crowd at the tree’s summit, one slender fibre, or at least fibre’s thickness of wood, descends through shoot, through spray, through branch, and through stem ; and having thus j added, in its due proportion, to form the strength of the tree, labours yet farther and more painfully to provide for its 302 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. security ; and thrusting for ward into the root, loses nothing of its mighty energy, until, mining through the darkness, ft has taken hold in cleft of rock or depth of earth, as extended as the sweep of its green crest in the free air. Such at least is the mechanical aspect of the tree. Tile work of its construction, considered as a branched towqr, partly propped by buttresses, partly lashed by cables, is thus shared in by every leaf. But considering it as a living body to be nourished, it is probably an inaccurate analogy to speak of the leaves being taxed for the enlargement of the trunk. Strictly speaking, the trunk enlarges by sustaining them. For each leaf, however far removed from the ground, stands in need of nourishment derived from the ground, as well as of that which it finds in the air ; and it simply sends its root down along the stem of the tree, until it reaches the ground and obtains the necessary mineral ele- ments. The trunk has been therefore called by some bot- anists a “bundle of roots,” but I think inaccurately. It is rather a messenger to the roots. A root, properly so called, is a fibre, spongy or absorbent at the extremity, which secretes certain elements from the earth. The stem is by this definition no more a cluster of roots than a cluster of leaves, but a channel of intercourse between the roots and the leaves. It can gather no nourishment. It only carries nourishment, being, in fact, a group of canals for the convey- ance of marketable commodities, with an electric telegraph attached to each, transmitting messages from leaf to root, and root to leaf, up and down the tree. But whatever view we take of the operative causes, the external and visible fact is simply that every leaf does send down from its stalk a slender thread of woody matter along the side of the shoot it grows upon ; and that the increase of thickness in stem, proportioned to the advance of the leaves, corresponds with an increase of thickness in roots, proportioned to the advance of their outer fibres. How far interchange of elements ^ takes place between root and leaf, it is not our work here to examine ; the general and broad idea is this, that the whole tree is fed partly by the earth, partly by the air — -strengthened and sustained by the one, agitated THE LIVING TREE. 303 md educated by the other — all of it which is best, in sub- stance, life, and beauty, being drawn more from the dew of leaven than the fatness of the earth. * * * * * #• Perhaps nothing is more curious in the history of human mind than the way in which the science of botany has become oppressed by nomenclature. Here is perhaps the first question which an intelligent child would think of asking about a tree: “Mamma, how does it make its trunk?” — and you may open one botanical work after another, and good ones too, and by sensible men — you shall not find this child’s question fairly put, much less fairly answered. You will be told gravely that a stem has received many names, such as culmus , stipes , and tmncus ; that twigs were once called flagella , but are now called ramuli ; and that Mr. ; Link calls a straight stem, with branches on its sides, a caulis excurrens ; and a stem, which at a certain distance above ; the earth breaks out into irregular ramifications, a caulis deli- quescens , All thanks and honour be to Mr. Link ! But at this moment, when we want to know why one stem breaks 1 out “at a certain distance,” and the other not at all, we find j no great help in those splendid excurrencies and deliques- cencies. “At a certain distance?” Yes: but why not before ? or why then ? How was it that, for many and many a year, the young shoots agreed to construct a vertical tower, or, at least, the nucleus of one, and then, one merry day, changed their minds, and built about their metropolis in all directions, nobody knows where, far into the air in free delight ? How is it that yonder larch-stem grows straight ' and true, while all its branches, constructed by the same process as the mother trunk, and under the mother trunk’s careful inspection and direction, nevertheless have lost all their manners, and go forking and flashing about, more like cracklings of spitefullest lightning than decent branches of trees that dip green leaves in dew ? We have probably, many of us, missed the point of such questions as these, because we too readily associated the structure of trees with that of flowers. The flowering part of a plant shoots out or up. in some given direction* until, at 304 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. a stated period, it opens or branches into perfect form by s law just as fixed, and just as inexplicable, as that whicj. numbers the joints of an animal’s skeleton, and puts the head on its right joint. In many forms of flowers — foxglove, aloe, hemlock, or blossom of maize — the structure of the flowering part so far assimilates itself to that of a tree, thtt we not unnaturally think of a tree only as a large flower, cr large remnant of flower, run to seed. And we suppose thb time and place of its branching to be just as organically determined as the height of the stalk of straw, or hemlock pipe, and the fashion of its branching just as fixed as the shape of petals in a pansy or cowslip. But that is not so; not so in anywise. So far as you can watch a tree, it is produced throughout by repetitions of the same process, which repetitions, however, are arbi- trarily directed so as to produce one effect at one time, and another at another time. A young sapling has his branches as much as the tall tree. He does not shoot up in a long thin rod, and begin to branch when he is ten or fifteen feet high, as the hemlock or foxglove does when each has reached its ten or fifteen inches. The young sapling conducts himself with all the dignity of a tree from the first ; — only he so manages his branches as to form a support for his future life, in a strong straight trunk, that will hold him well off the ground. Prudent little sapling ! — but how does he manage this? how keep the young branches from rambling about, till the proper time, or on what plea dis- miss them from his service if they will not help his provident purpose ? So again, there is no difference in mode of con- struction between the trunk of a pine and its branch. But external circumstances so far interfere with the results of this repeated construction, that a stone pine rises for a hundred feet like a pillar, and then suddenly bursts into a cloud. It is the knowledge of the mode in which such change may take place which forms the true natural history of trees ; or, more accurately, their moral history. An animal is born with so many limbs, and a head of such a shape. That is, strictly speaking, not its history, but one fact in its history : a fact of which no other account can be given than that it THE LIVING TREE. 305 was so appointed. But a tree is born without a head. It has got to make its own head. It is born like a little family from which a great nation is to spring ; and at a certain time, under peculiar external circumstances, this nation, every individual of which remains the same in nature and temper, yet gives itself a new political constitution, and sends cut branch colonies, which enforce forms of law and life entirely different from those of the parent state. That is the history of the state. It is also the history of a tree. ****** We men, sometimes, in what we presume to be humility, compare ourselves with leaves ; but we have as yet no right to do so. The leaves may well scorn the comparison. We, who live for ourselves, and neither know how to use nor keep the work of past time, may humbly learn — as from the ant, foresight — from the leaf, reverence. The power of every great people, as of every living tree, depends on its not effacing, but confirming and concluding, the labours of its ancestors. Looking back to the history of nations, we may date the beginning of their decline from the moment when they ceased to be reverent in heart, and accumulative in hand and brain ; from the moment when the redundant fruit of age hid in them the hollowness of heart, whence the simplicities of custom and sinews of tradition had withered away. Had men but guarded the righteous laws, and protected the precious works of their fathers, with half the industry they have given to change and to ravage, they would not now have been seeking vainly, in millennial visions and mechanic servitudes, the accomplishment of the ' promise made to them so long ago : “ As the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands ; they shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble ; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them.” This lesson we have to take from the leaf’s life. One more we may receive from its death. If ever in autumn ;j a pensiveness falls upon us as the leaves drift by in their I fading, may we not wisely look up in hope to their mighty ; monuments? Behold how fair, how far prolonged, in arch 3q6 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. and aisle, the avenues of the valleys ; the fringes of the hills! So stately, so eternal : the joy of man, the comfort of all living creatures, the glory of the earth — they are but the monuments of those poor leaves that flit faintly past us to die. Let them not pass, without our understanding their last counsel and example : that we also, careless of monu- ment by the grave, may build it in the world — monument by which men may be taught to remember, not where we died, but where we lived. 56. The Character of the Pine. Of the many marked adaptations of nature to the mind of man, it seems one of the most singular, that trees intended especially for the adornment of the wildest mountains should be in broad outline the most formal of trees. The vine, which is to be the companion of man, is waywardly docile in its growth. falling into festoon* beside his corn-fields, or roofing his garden walks, or casting its shadow all summer upon his door. Associated always with the trimness of cultivation, it introduces all possible elements of sweet wild- ness. The pine, placed nearly always among scenes dis- ordered and desolate, brings into them all possible elements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends them, or a bank of cowslips from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight. Thrust a rod from its last shoot down the stem ; it shall point to the centre of the earth as long as the tree lives. Also it may be well for lowland branches to reach hither and thither for what they need, and to take all kinds of irregular shape and extension. But the pine is trained to need nothing, and to endure everything. It is resolvedly whole, self-contained, desiring nothing but rightness, content with restricted completion. Tall or short, it will be straight. Small or large, it will be round. It may be permitted also THE CHARACTER OF THE PINE. 307 to these soft lowland trees that they should make themselves gay with show of blossom, and glad with pretty charities of fruitfulness. We builders with the sword have harder work to do for man, and must do it in close-set troops. To stay the sliding of the mountain snows, which would bury him ; to hold in divided drops, at our sword-points, the rain, which would sweep away him and his treasure-fields ; to nurse in shade among our brown fallen leaves the tricklings that feed the brooks in drought ; to give massive shield against the winter wind, which shrieks through the bare branches of the plain : such service must we do him stedfastly while we live. Our bodies, also, are at his service : softer than the bodies of other trees, though our toil is harder than theirs. Let him take them as pleases him, for his houses and ships. So also it may be well for these timid lowland trees to tremble with all their leaves, or turn their paleness to the sky, if but a rush of rain passes by them ; or to let fall their leaves at last, sick and sere. But we pines must live carelessly amidst the wrath of clouds. We only wave our branches to and fro when the storm pleads with us, as men toss their arms in a dream. And finally, these weak lowland trees may struggle fondly for the last remnants of life, and send up feeble saplings again from their roots when they are cut down. But we builders with the sword perish boldly ; our dying shall be perfect and solemn, as our warring : we give up our lives without reluctance, and for ever. 1 I wish the reader to fix his attention for a moment on these two great characters of the pine, its straightness and rounded perfectness ; both wonderful, and in their issue lovely, though they have hitherto prevented the tree from being drawn. I say, first, its straightness. Because we constantly see it in the wildest scenery, we are apt to remember only as characteristic examples of it those which have been disturbed by violent accident or disease. Of course such instances are frequent. The soil of the pine is 1 “ Croesus, therefore, having heard these things, sent word to the people of Lampsacus that they should let Miltiades go; and, if not, he would cut them down like a pine-tree.” — Herodotus , vi. 37. 308 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. V. subject to continual change ; perhaps the rock in which it is rooted splits in frost and falls forward, throwing the young stems aslope, or the whole mass of earth round it is under- mined by rain, or a huge boulder falls on its stem from above, and forces it for twenty years to grow with weight of a couple of tons leaning on its side. Hence, especially at edges of loose cliffs, about waterfalls, or at glacier banks, and in other places liable to disturbance, the pine may be seen distorted and oblique; and in Turner’s “Source of the Arveron ” he has, with his usual unerring perception of the main point in any matter, fastened on this means of relating the glacier’s history. The glacier cannot explain its own motion ; and ordinary observers saw in it only its rigidity ; but Turner saw that the wonderful thing was its non-rigidity. Other ice is fixed, only this ice stirs. All the banks are staggering beneath its waves, crumbling and withered as by the blast of a perpetual storm. He made the rocks of his foreground loose — rolling and tottering down together ; the pines smitten aside by them, their tops dead, bared by the ice wind. Nevertheless, this is not the truest or universal expression of the pine’s character. I said long ago, even of Turner : “ Into the spirit of the pine he cannot enter.” He under- stood the glacier at once ; he had seen the force of sea on shore too often to miss the action of those crystal-crested waves. But the pine was strange to him, adverse to his delight in broad and flowing line ; he refused its magnificent erectness. Magnificent ! — nay, sometimes, almost terrible. Other trees, tufting crag or hill, yield to the form and sway of the ground, clothe it with soft compliance, are partly its subjects, partly its flatterers, partly its comforters. But the pine rises in serene resistance, self-contained ; nor can I ever without awe stay long under a great Alpine cliff, far from all house or work of men, looking up to its companies of pine, as they stand on the inaccessible juts and perilous ledges of the enormous wall, in quiet multitudes, each like the shadow of the one beside it— upright, fixed, spectral, as troop of ghosts standing on the walls of Hades, not knowing each other — dumb for ever. You cannot reach them, cannot cry THE CHARACTER OF THE PINE. 309 to them ; those trees never heard human voice ; they are far above all sound but of the winds. No foot ever stirred fallen leaf of theirs. All comfortless they stand, between the two eternities of the Vacancy and the Rock : yet with such iron will, that the rock itself looks bent and shattered beside them — fragile, weak, inconsistent, compared to their dark energy of delicate life, and monotony of enchanted pride : unnumbered, unconquerable. Then note, farther, their perfectness. The impression on most people’s minds must have been received more from pictures than reality, so far as I can judge ; so ragged they think the pine ; whereas its chief character in health is green and full roundness. It stands compact, like one of its own cones, slightly curved on its sides, finished and quaint as a carved tree in some Elizabethan garden ; and instead of being wild in expression, forms the softest of all forest scenery; for other trees show their trunks and twisting boughs : but the pine, growing either in luxuriant mass or in happy isolation, allows no branch to be seen. Summit behind summit rise its pyramidal ranges, or down to the very grass sweep the circlets of its boughs ; so that there is nothing but green cone and green carpet. Nor is it only softer, but in one sense more cheerful than other foliage; for it casts only a pyramidal shadow. Lowland forest arches overhead, and chequers the ground with darkness ; but the ' pine, growing in scattered groups, leaves the glades between emerald-bright. Its gloom is all its own ; narrowing into the sky, it lets the sunshine strike down to the dew. And if ever a superstitious feeling comes over me among the pine- glades, it is never tainted with the old German forest fear ; but is only a more solemn tone of the fairy enchantment that haunts our English meadows ; so that I have always called the prettiest pine glade in Chamouni “ Fairies’ 1 Hollow.” It is in the glen beneath the steep ascent above I Pont Pelissier, and may be reached by a little winding path I which goes down from the top of the hill ; being, indeed, '} not truly a glen, but a broad ledge of moss and turf, leaning j in a formidable precipice (which, however, the gentle branches I hide) over the Arve. An almost isolated rock promontory, 310 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. many-coloured, rises at the end of it. On the other sides it is bordered by cliffs, from which a little cascade falls, literally, down among the pines, for it is so light, shaking itself into mere showers of seed pearl in the sun, that the pines don’t know it from mist, and grow through it without minding. Underneath, there is only the mossy silence, and above, for ever, the snow of the nameless Aiguille. And then the third character which 1 want you to notice in the pine is its exquisite fineness. Other trees rise against the sky in dots and kpots, but this in fringes. 1 You never see the edges of it, so subtle are they ; and for this reason, it alone of trees, so far as I know, is capable of the fiery change which we saw before had been noticed by Shak- speare. When the sun rises behind a ridge crested with pine, provided the ridge be at a distance of about two miles, and seen clear, all the trees, for about three or four degrees on each side of the sun, become trees of light, seen in clear flame against the darker sky, and dazzling as the sun itself. 1 Keats (as is his way) puts nearly all that may be said of the pine into one verse, though they are only figurative pines of which he is speaking. I have come to that pass of admiration for him now, that I lare not read him, so discontented he makes me with my own work : out others must not leave unread, in considering the influence of trees upon the human soul, that marvellous Ode to Psyche. Here is the piece about pines : Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown w T ith pleasant pain, Instead of pines, shall murmur in the wind : Far, far around shall those dark-clustered trees Fledge the wild-ridged mountains , steep by steep ; And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees, The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulled to sleep ; And in the midst of this wide quietness A rosy sanctuary will I dress With the wreathed trellis of a working brain, With buds, and bells, and stars without a name, With all the Gardener Fancy e’er could feign, Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same. And there shall be for thee all soft delight That shadowy thought can win ; A bright torch, and a easement ope, at night, To let the warm Love in. THE CHARACTER OF THE PINE. 311 I thought at first this was owing to the actual lustre of the leaves ; but I believe now it is caused by the cloud-dew upon them — every minutest leaf carrying its diamond. It seems as if these trees, living always among the clouds, had caught part of their glory from them ; and themselves the darkest of vegetation, could yet add splendour to the sun itself. Yet I have been more struck by their character of fin- ished delicacy at a distance from the central Alps, among the pastoral hills of the Emmenthal, or lowland districts of Berne, where they are set in groups between the cottages, whose shingle roofs (they also of pine) of deep grey blue, and lightly carved fronts, golden and orange in the autumn sunshine , 1 gleam on the banks and lawns of hill-side — end- less lawns, mounded, and studded, and bossed all over with deeper green hay-heaps, orderly set, like jewellery (the mountain hay, when the pastures are full of springs, being strangely dark and fresh in verdure for a whole day after it is cut). And amidst this delicate delight of cottage and field, the young pines stand delicatest of all, scented as with frankincense, their slender stems straight as arrows, and crystal white, looking as if they would break with a touch, like needles ; and their arabesques of dark leaf pierced through and through by the pale radiance of clear sky, opal ✓ blue, where they follow each other along the soft hill-ridges, | up and down. 1 I have watched them in such scenes with the deeper interest, because of all trees they have hitherto had most influence on human character. The effect of other vegeta- tion, however great, has been divided by mingled species; elm and oak in England, poplar in France, birch in Scot- land, olive in Italy and Spain, share their power with inferior j trees, and with all the changing charm of successive agri- I culture. But the tremendous unity of the pine absorbs and I moulds the life of a race. The pine shadows rest upon I a nation. The Northern peoples, century after century, I 1 There has been much cottage-building about the hills lately, with ti ! very pretty carving, the skill in which has been encouraged by travellers; 1 and the fresh-cut larch is splendid in colour under rosy sunlight. 312 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. lived under one or other of the two great powers of the Pine and the Sea, both infinite. They dwelt amidst the forests, as they wandered on the waves, and saw no end, nor any other horizon ; — still the dark green trees, or the dark green waters, jagged the dawn with their fringe, or their foam. And whatever elements of imagination, or of warrior strength, or of domestic justice, were brought down by the Norwegian and the Goth against the dissoluteness or degradation of the South of Europe, were taught them under the green roofs and wild penetralia of the pine. I do not attempt, delightful as the task would be, to trace this influence (mixed with superstition) in Scandinavia, or North Germany ; but let us at least note it in the instance which we speak of so frequently, yet so seldom take to heart. There has been much dispute respecting the character of the Swiss, arising out of the difficulty which other nations had to understand their simplicity. They were assumed to be either romantically virtuous, or basely mercenary, when in fact they were neither heroic nor base, but were true- hearted men, stubborn with more than any recorded stub- bornness ; not much regarding their lives, yet not casting them causelessly away ; forming no high ideal of improve- ment, but never relaxing their grasp of a good they had once gained ; devoid of all romantic sentiment, yet loving with a practical and patient love that neither wearied nor forsook; little given to enthusiasm in religion, but maintaining their faith in a purity which no worldliness deadened and no hypocrisy soiled ; neither chivalrously generous nor pathetic- ally humane, yet never pursuing their defeated enemies, nor suffering their poor to perish ; proud, yet not allowing their pride to prick them into unwary or unworthy quarrel ; avaricious, yet contentedly rendering to their neighbour his due ; dull, but clear-sighted to all the principles of justice ; and patient, without ever allowing delay to be prolonged by sloth, or forbearance by fear. This temper of Swiss mind, while it animated the whole confederacy, was rooted chiefly in one small district which formed the heart of their country, yet lay not among its highest mountains. Beneath the glaciers of Zermatt and THE CHARACTER OF THE PINE. 313 Evolena, and on the scorching slopes of the Valais, the peasants remained in an aimless torpor, unheard of but as the obedient vassals of the great Bishopric of Sion. But where the lower ledges of calcareous rock were broken by the inlets of the Lake Lucerne, and bracing winds penetrat- ing from the north forbade the growth of the vine, com- pelling the peasantry to adopt an entirely pastoral life, was reared another race of men. Their narrow domain should be marked by a small green spot on every map of Europe. It is about forty miles from east to west; as many from north to south : yet on that shred of rugged ground, while every kingdom of the world around it rose or fell in fatal change, and every multitudinous race mingled or wasted itself in various dispersion and decline, the simple shepherd dynasty remained changeless. There is no record of their origin. They are neither Goths, Burgundians, Romans, nor Germans. They have been for ever Helvetii, and for ever free. Voluntarily placing themselves under the protection of the House of Habsburg, they acknowledged its supremacy, but resisted its oppression ; and rose against the unjust governors it appointed over them, not to gain, but to redeem, their liberties. Victorious in the struggle by the Lake of Egeri, they stood the foremost standard-bearers among the nations of Europe in the cause of loyalty and life — loyalty in its highest sense, to the laws of God’s helpful justice, and of man’s faithful and brotherly fortitude. You will find among them, as I said, no subtle wit nor high enthusiasm, only an undeceivable common sense, and an obstinate rectitude. They cannot be persuaded into their duties, but they feel them ; they use no phrases of friendship, but do not fail you at your need. Questions of creed, which other nations sought to solve by logic or reverie, these shepherds brought to practical tests : sus- tained with tranquillity the excommunication of abbots who wanted to feed their cattle on other people’s fields, and, halbert in hand, struck down the Swiss Reformation, because the Evangelicals of Zurich refused to send them their due supplies of salt. Not readily yielding to the demands of superstition, they were patient under those of 314 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. economy ; they would purchase the remission of taxes, but not of sins ; and while the sale of indulgences was arrested in the church of Ensiedlen as boldly as at the gates of Wittenberg, the inhabitants of the valley of Frutigen 1 ate no meat for seven years, in order peacefully to free them- selves and their descendants from the seigniorial claims of the Baron of Thurm. What praise may be justly due to this modest and rational virtue, we have perhaps no sufficient grounds for defining. It must long remain questionable how far the vices of superior civilization may be atoned for by its achievements, and the errors of more transcendental devotion forgiven to its rapture. But, take it for what we may, the character of this peasantry is, at least, serviceable to others and sufficient for their own peace ; and in its consistency and simplicity, it stands alone in the history of the human heart. How far it was developed by circumstances of natural phenomena may also be disputed ; nor should I enter into such dispute with any strongly held conviction. The Swiss have certainly no feelings respecting their mountains in anywise corre- spondent to ours. It was rather as fortresses of defence, than as spectacles of splendour, that the cliffs of the Roth- stock bare rule over the destinies of those who dwelt at their feet ; and the training for which the mountain children had to thank the slopes of the Muotta-Thal, was in soundness of breath, and steadiness of limb, far more than in elevation of idea. But the point which l desire the reader to note is, that the character of the scene which, if any, appears to have been impressive to the inhabitant, is not that which we our- selves feel when we enter the district. It was not from their lakes, nor their cliffs, nor their glaciers — though these were all peculiarly their possession — that the three venerable can- tons or states received their name. They were not called the States of the Rock, nor the States of the Lake, but the States of the Forest . And the one of the three which con- tains the most touching record of the spiritual power of Swiss religion, in the name of the convent of the “ Hill of 1 This valley is on the pass of the Gemmi in Canton Berne, but the people are the same in temper as those of the Waldstetten. THE ANGEL OF THE SEA. 315 Angels,” has, for its own, none but the sweet childish name of “ Under the Woods.” And indeed you may pass under them if, leaving the most sacred spot in Swiss history, the Meadow of the Three Fountains, you bid the boatman row southward a little way by the shore of the Bay of Uri. Steepest there on its western side, the walls of its rocks ascend to heaven. Far in the blue of evening, like a great cathedral pavement, lies the lake in its darkness ; and you may hear the whisper of innumerable falling waters return from the hollows of the cliff, like the voices of a multitude praying under their breath. From time to time the beat of a wave, slow lifted, where the rocks lean over the black depth, dies heavily as the last note of a requiem. Opposite, green with steep grass, and set with chalet villages, the h run Alp rises in one solemn glow of pastoral light and peace; and above, against the clouds of twilight, ghostly on the grey precipice, stand, myriad by myriad, the shadowy armies of the Unterwalden pine . 1 I have seen that it is possible for the stranger to pass through this great chapel, with its font of waters, and moun- tain pillars, and vaults of cloud, without being touched by one noble thought, or stirred by any sacred passion ; but for those who received from its waves the baptism of their youth, and learned beneath its rocks the fidelity of their manhood, and watched amidst its clouds the likeness of the dream of life, with the eyes of age — for these I will not believe that the mountain shrine was built, or the calm of its forest-shadows guarded by their God, in vain. 57. The Angel of the Sea. The climates or lands into which our globe is divided may, j with respect to their fitness for Art, be perhaps conveniently | ranged under five heads : 1 The cliff immediately bordering the lake is in Canton Uri ; the green hills of Unterwalden rise above. This is the grandest piece of j the shore of Lake Lucerne ; the rocks near Tell’s Chapel are neither so lofty nor so precipitous. 316 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. 1. Forest-lands, sustaining the great mass of the magnifi- cent vegetation of the tropics, for the most part characterized by moist and unhealthy heat, and watered by enormous rivers, or periodical rains. This country cannot, I believe, develop the mind or art of man. He may reach great subtlety of intellect, as the Indian, but not become learned, nor produce any noble art, only a savage or grotesque form of it. Even supposing the evil influences of climate could be vanquished, the scenery is on too large a scale. It would be difficult to conceive of groves less fit for academic purposes than those mentioned by Humboldt, into which no one can enter except under a stout wooden shield, to avoid the chance of being killed by the fall of a nut. 2. Sand-lands, including the desert and dry rock-plains of the earth, inhabited generally by a nomad population, capable of high mental cultivation and of solemn monumental or religious art, but not of art in which pleasurableness forms a large element, their life being essentially one of hardship. 3. Grape and wheat lands, namely, rocks and hills, such as are good for the vine, associated with arable ground, forming the noblest and best ground given to man. In these districts only art of the highest kind seems possible, the religious art of the sand-lands being here joined with that of pleasure or sense. 4. Meadow-lands, including the great pastoral and agricul- tural districts of the north, capable only of an inferior art : apt to lose its spirituality and become wholly material. 5. Moss-lands, including the rude forest-mountain and ground of th' North, inhabited by a healthy race, capable of high mental cultivation and moral energy, but wholly in- capable of art, except savage, like that of the forest-lands, or as in Scandinavia. We might carry out these divisions into others, but these are, I think, essential, and easily remembered in a tabular form; saying “wood ” instead of “forest,” and “field” for “ meadow,” we can get such a form shortly worded : Wood-lands . . . Shrewd intellect . . . No art Sand-lands . . . High intellect . . . Religious art 317 THE ANGEL OF THE SEA. Vine-lands . . . Highest intellect . . . Perfect art Field-lands . . . High intellect . . . Material art Moss-lands . . , Shrewd intellect . . . No art In this table the moss-lands appear symmetrically opposed to the wood-lands, which in a sort they are ; the too diminu- tive vegetation under bleakest heaven, opposed to the too colossal under sultriest heaven, while the perfect ministry of the elements, represented by bread and wine, produces the perfect soul of man. But this is not altogether so. The moss-lands have one great advantage over the forest-lands, namely, sight of the sky. And not only sight of it, but continual and beneficent help from it. What they have to separate them from barren rock, namely, their moss and streams, being dependent on its direct help, not on great rivers coming from distant moun- tain chains, nor on vast tracts of ocean-mist coming up at evening, but on the continual play and change of sun and cloud. Note this word “change.” The moss-lands have an in- finite advantage, not only in sight, but in liberty; they are the freest ground in all the world. You can only traverse the great woods by crawling like a lizard, or climbing like a ^ monkey — the great sands with slow steps and veiled head. But bare-headed, and open-eyed, and free-limbed, command- ing all the horizon’s space of changeful light, and all the horizon’s compass of tossing ground, you traverse the moss-land. In discipline it is severe as the desert, but it is a discipline compelling to action ; and the moss-lands seem, therefore, the rough schools of the world, in which its strongest human frames are knit and tried, and so sent down, like the northern winds, to brace and brighten the !| languor into which the repose of more favoured districts may degenerate. It would be strange, indeed, if there were no beauty in the phenomena by which this great renovating and purifying i! work is done. And it is done almost entirely by the Great J Angel of the Sea — rain ; — the Angel observe, the messenger ; sent to a special place on a special errand. Not the diffused perpetual presence of the burden of mist, but the going and 3 i8 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. returning of intermittent cloud. All turns upon that inter- mittence. Soft moss on stone and rock ; cave-fern of tangled glen ; wayside well — perennial, patient, silent, clear ; stealing through its square font of rough-hewn stone ; ever thus deep — no more — which the winter wreck sullies not, the summer thirst wastes not, incapable of stain as of decline — where the fallen leaf floats undecayed, and the insect darts undefiling. Crossed brook and ever-eddying river, lifted even in flood scarcely over its stepping-stones — but through all sweet summer keeping tremulous music with harp-strings of dark water among the silver fingering of the pebbles. Far away in the south the strong river Gods have all hasted, and gone down to the sea. Wasted and burning, white furnaces of blasting sand, their broad beds lie ghastly and bare ; but here the soft wings of the Sea Angel droop still with dew, and the shadows of their plumes falter on the hills : strange laughings and glitterings of silver streamlets, born suddenly, and twined about the mossy heights in trickling tinsel, answering to them as they wave. 1 Nor are those wings colourless. We habitually think of the rain-cloud only as dark and grey ; not knowing that we owe to it perhaps the fairest, though not the most daz/ling of the hues of heaven Often in our English mornings, the rain-clouds in the dawn form soft level fields, which melt imperceptibly into the blue ; or when of less extent, gather into apparent bars, crossing the sheets of broader cloud above ; and all these bathed throughout in an unspeakable light of pure rose-colour, and purple, and amber, and blue; not shining, but misty-soft ; the barred masses, when seen nearer, composed of clusters or tresses of cloud, like floss silk ; looking as if each knot were a little swathe or sheaf of lighted rain. No clouds form such skies, none are so tender, various, inimitable. Turner himself never caught them. Correggio, putting out his whole strength, could have painted them, no other man. For these are the robes of love of the Angel of the Sea. To these that name is chiefly given, the “ spreadings of the 1 Compare the beautiful stanza beginning the epilogue of The Golden Legend \ THE ANGEL OF THE SEA. 319 clouds,” from their extent, their gentleness, their fulness of rain. Note how they are spoken of in Job , xxxvi., v. 29-31. “By them judgeth he the people ; he giveth meat in abun- dance. With clouds he covereth the light. 1 He hath hidden the light in his hands, and commanded it that it should return. He speaks of it to his friend ; that it is his possession, and that he may ascend thereto.” That, then, is the Sea Angel’s message to God’s friends ; that , the meaning of those strange golden lights and purple flushes before the morning rain. The rain is sent to judge, and feed us ; but the light is the possession of the friends of God, and they may ascend thereto — where the tabernacle veil will cross and part its rays no more. But the Angel of the Sea has also another message — -in i the “great rain of his strength,” rain of trial, sweeping away ill-set foundations. Then his robe is not spread softly over the whole heaven, as a veil, bui sweeps back from his shoulders, ponderous, oblique, terrible — leaving his sword-arm free. The approach of trial-storm, hurricane-storm, is indeed in its vastness as the clouds of the softer rain. But it is not slow nor horizontal, but swift and steep : swift with passion of ravenous winds ; steep as slope of some dark, hollowed hill. The fronting clouds come leaning forward, one thrust- ing the other aside, or on ; impatient, ponderous, impendent, like globes of rock tossed of Titans — Ossa on Olympus-— but hurled forward all, in one wave of cloud-lava — cloud whose ' throat is as a sepulchre. Fierce behind them rages the oblique wrath of the rain, white as ashes, dense as showers of driven steel ; the pillars of it full of ghastly life ; Rain- Furies, shrieking as they fly — scourging, as with whips of scorpions — the earth ringing and trembling under them, heaven wailing wildly, the trees stooped blindly down, cover- ing their faces, quivering in every leaf with horror, ruin of their branches flying by them like black stubble. I wrote Furies. I ought to have written Gorgons. Per- 1 I do not copy the interpolated words which follow, “and com- i| mandeth it not to shine” The closing verse of the chapter, as we |j have it, is unintelligible; not so in the Vulgate, the reading ©f which I give. 320 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. haps the reader does not know that the Gorgons are not dead, are ever undying. We shall have to take our chance of being turned into stones by looking them in the face, presently. Meantime, I gather what part of the great Greek story of the Sea Angels, has meaning for us here. Nereus, the God of the Sea, who dwells in it always (Neptune being the God who rules it from Olympus), has children by the Earth ; namely, Thaumas, the father of Iris ; that is, the “ wonderful ” or miracle-working angel of the sea ; Phorcys, the malignant angel of it (you will find him degraded through many forms, at last, in the story of Sin bad, into the old man of the sea) ; Ceto, the deep places of the sea, meaning its bays and rocks, therefore called by Hesiod “Fair-cheeked ” Ceto ; and Eurybia, the tidal force or sway of the sea. Phorcys and Ceto, the malignant angel of the sea, and the spirit of its deep rocky places, have children, namely, first, ‘ Graise, the soft rain- clouds. The Greeks had a greater dis- like of storm than we have, and therefore whatever violence is in the action of rain, they represented by harsher types than we should — types given in one group by Aristophanes (speaking in mockery of the poets) : “ This was the reason, then, that they made so much talk about the fierce rushing of the moist clouds, coiled in glittering ; and the locks of the hundred-headed Typhon ; and the blowing storms ; and the bent-clawed birds drifted on the breeze, fresh, and aerial.” Note the expression “bent-clawed birds.” It illustrates two characters of these clouds; partly their coiling form; but more directly the way they tear down the earth from the hill-sides ; especially those twisted storm-clouds which in violent action become the waterspout. These always strike at a narrow point, often opening the earth on a hill-side into a trench as a great pickaxe would (whence the Graiae are said to have only one beak between them). Nevertheless, the rain-cloud was, on the whole, looked upon by the Greeks as beneficent, so that it is boasted of in the CEdipus Coloneus for its perpetual feeding of the springs of Cephisus, 1 and else- 1 I assume the avjrvoL Kprjvat vopaSes to mean clouds, not springs ; but this does not matter, the whole passage being one of rejoicing in moisture and dew of heaven. THE ANGEL OF THE SEA. 321 where often ; and the opening song of the rain-clouds in Aristophanes is entirely beautiful : “ O eternal Clouds ! let us raise into open sight our dewy existence, from the deep-sounding Sea, our Father, up to the crests of the wooded hills, whence we look down over the sacred land, nourishing its fruits, and over the rippling of the divine rivers, and over the low murmuring bays of the deep.” I cannot satisfy myself about the meaning of the names of the Graiae — Pephredo and Enuo — but the epithets which Hesiod gives them are interesting : “ Pephredo, the well- robed ; Enuo, the crocus-robed ; ” probably, it seems to me, from their beautiful colours in morning. Next to the Graiie, Phorcys and Ceto begat the Gorgons, which are the uue storm-clouds. The Graiae have only one beak or tooth, but all the Gorgons have tusks like boars; brazen hands (brass being the word used for the metal of which the Greeks made their spears), and golden wings. Their names are “ Steino ” (straitened), of storms com- pressed into narrow compass ; “ Euryale ” (having wide threshing - floor), of storms spread over great space ; i “ Medusa ” (the dominant), the most terrible. She is essentially the highest storm-cloud ; therefore the hail-cloud or cloud of cold, her countenance turning all who beheld it to stone. (“ He casteth forth his ice like morsels. Who can stand before his cold?”) The serpents about her head ! are the fringes of the hail, the idea of coldness being con- nected by the Greeks with the bite of the serpent, as with j the hemlock. On Minerva’s shield, her head signifies, I believe, the cloudy coldness of knowledge, and its venomous character (“ Knowledge puffeth up.” Compare Bacon in Advance- ment of Learnmg). But the idea of serpents rose essen- | tially from the change of form in the cloud as it broke; the cumulus cloud not breaking into full storm till it is ! cloven by the cirrus ; which is twice hinted at in the ! story of Perseus ; only we must go back a little to gather ; it together. Perseus was the son of Jupiter by Danae, who being 1 shut in a brazen tower, J upiter came to her in a shower ot 322 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. gold : the brazen tower being, I think, only another expres- sion for the cumulus or Medusa cloud ; and the golden rain for the rays of the sun striking it ; but we have not only this rain of Danae’s to remember in connection with the Gorgon, but that also of the sieves of the Danaides, said to represent the provision of Argos with water by their father Danaiis, who dug wells about the Acropolis ; nor only wells, but opened, I doubt not, channels of irrigation for the fields, because the Danaides are said to have brought the mysteries of Ceres from Egypt. And though I cannot trace the root of the names Danaiis and Danae, there is assuredly some farther link of connection in the deaths of the lovers of the Danaides, whom they slew, as Perseus Medusa. And again note, that when the father of Danae, Acrisius, is detained in Seriphos by storms, a disk thrown by Perseus is carried by the wind against his head , and kills him ; and lastly, when Perseus cuts off the head of Medusa, from her blood springs Chrysaor, “wielder of the golden sword,” the Angel of the Lightning, and Pegasus, the Angel of the “ Wild Fountains,” that is to say, the fastest flying or lower rain-cloud ; winged, but racing as upon the earth. I say “ wild ” fountains ; because the kind of fountain from which Pegasus is named is especially the “ fountain of the great deep” of Ge?iesis ; sudden and furious (cataracts of heaven, not windows, in the Septuagint) ; the mountain torrent caused by thunderous storm, or as our “ fountain ” — a geyser-like leaping forth of water. Therefore, it is the deep and full source of streams, and so used typically of the source of evils, or of passions; whereas the word “spring” with the Greeks is like our “well-head” — a gentle issuing forth of water continually. But, because both the lightning-fire and the gushing forth, as of a fountain, are the signs of the poet’s true power, together with perpetuity, it is Pegasus who strikes the earth with his foot, on Helicon, 1 1 I believe, however, that when Pegasus strikes forth this fountain, he is to be regarded, not as springing from Medusa’s blood, but as born of Medusa by Neptune ; the true horse was given by Neptune striking the earth with his trident ; the divine horse is born to Neptune and the storm-cloud. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HELP. 323 and causes Hippocrene to spring forth — “the horse's well- head.” It is perpetual ; but has, nevertheless, the Pegasean storm-power. Wherein we may find, I think, sufficient cause for putting honour upon the rain-cloud. Few of us, perhaps, have thought, in watching its career across our own mossy hills, or listening to the murmur of the springs amidst the mountain quietness, that the chief masters of the human imagination owed, and confessed that they owed, the force of their noblest thoughts, not to the flowers of the valley, nor the majesty of the hill, but to the flying cloud. Yet they never saw it fly, as we may in our own England. So far, at least, as I know the clouds of the south, they are often more terrible than ours, but the English Pegasus is swifter. On the Yorkshire and Derbyshire hills, when the rain-cloud is low and much broken, and the steady west wind fills all space with its strength, 1 the sun-gleams fly like golden vultures: they are flashes rather than shinings; the dark spaces and the dazzling race and skim along the acclivities, and dart and dip from crag to dell, swallow-like; no Graiae these, grey and withered : Grey Hounds rather, following the Cerinthian stag with the golden antlers. 58. The Significance of Help. Composition may be best defined as the help of everything in the picture by everything else. I wish the reader to dwell a little on this word “ Help.” It is a grave one. 1 I have been often at great heights on the Alps in rough weather, and have seen strong gusts of storm in the plains of the south. But, to get full expression of the very heart and meaning of wind, there is no place like a Yorkshire moor. I think Scottish breezes are thinner, very bleak and piercing, but not substantial. If you lean on them they will let you fall, but one may rest against a Yorkshire breeze as one would on a quickset hedge. I shall not soon forget — having had the good fortune to meet a vigorous one on an April morning, between Hawes and Settle, just on the flat under Wharnside — the vague sense of wonder with which I watched Ingleborough stand without rocking. 324 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. In substance which we call “inanimate,” as of clouds, or stones, their atoms may cohere to each other, or consist with each other, but they do not help each other. The removal of one part does not injure the rest. But in a plant, the taking away of any one part does injure the rest. Hurt or remove any portion of the sap, bark, or pith, the rest is injured. If any part enters into a state in which it no more assists the rest, and has thus become “ help- less,” we call it also “ dead.” The power which causes the several portions of the plant to help each other, we call life. Much more is this so in an animal. We may take away the branch of a tree without much harm to it ; but not the animal’s limb. Thus, intensity of life is also intensity of helpfulness — completeness of de- pending of each part on all the rest. The ceasing of this help is what we call corruption ; and in proportion to the perfectness of the help, is the dreadfulness of the loss. The more intense the life has been, the more terrible is its corruption. The decomposition of a crystal is not necessarily impure at all. The fermentation of a wholesome liquid begins to admit the idea slightly ; the decay of leaves yet more ; of flowers, more ; of animals, with greater pain fulness and ter- ribleness in exact proportion to their original vitality; and the foulest of all corruption is that of the body of man ; and, in his body, that which is occasioned by disease, more than that of natural death. I said jujt now, that though atoms of inanimate substance could not help each other, they could “consist” with each other. “ Consistence ” is their virtue. Thus the parts of a crystal are consistent, but of dust, inconsistent. Orderly adherence, the best help its atoms can give, constitutes the nobleness of such substance. When matter is either consistent, or living, we call it pure, or clean; when inconsistent or corrupting (unhelpful), we call it impure, or unclean. The greatest uncleanliness being that which is essentially most opposite to life. Life and consistency, then, both expressing one character (namely* helpfulness, of a higher or lower order), the Maker THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HELP. 323 of all creatures and things, 18 by whom all creatures live, and all things consist,” is essentially and for ever the Helpful One, or in softer Saxon, the “ Holy ” One. The word has no other ultimate meaning : Helpful, harm- less, undefiled : “ living ” or “ Lord of life.” The idea is clear and mighty in the cherubim’s cry : 88 Helpful, helpful, helpful, Lord God of Hosts,” i.e. of all the hosts, armies, and creatures of the earth . 1 A pure or holy state of anything, therefore, is that in which all its parts are helpful or consistent. They may or may not be homogeneous. The highest or organic purities are composed of many elements in an entirely helpful state. The highest and first law of the universe — and the other name of life, is, therefore, “help.” The other name of death is “separation.” Government and co-oper- ation are in all things and eternally the laws of life. Anarchy and competition, eternally, and in all things, the laws of death. Perhaps the best, though the most familiar example we could take of the nature and power of consistence, will be that of the possible changes in the dust we tread on. Exclusive of animal decay, we can hardly arrive at a more absolute type of impurity than the mud or slime of a damp, Over-trodden path, in the outskirts of a manufacturing town. I do not say mud of the road, because that is mixed with animal refuse ; but take merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime of a beaten footpath on a rainy day, near a large manufacturing town. That slime we shall find in most cases composed of clay (or brickdust, which is burnt clay) mixed with soot, a little sand, and water. All these elements are at helpless war with each other, and destroy reciprocally each other’s nature and power, competing and fighting for place at every tread 1 “The cries of them which have reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth (of all the creatures of the earth).” You will find a wonderful clearness come into many texts by reading, habitually, “helpful” and “helpfulness” for “holy” and “holiness,” or else “living,” as in AW., xi. 16. The sense “dedicated” (the Latin sanctus), being of course inapplicable to the Supreme Being, is an entirely secondary and accidental one. 326 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. V. of your foot — sand squeezing out clay, and clay squeezing out water, and soot meddling everywhere and defiling the whole. Le f us suppose that this ounce of mud is left in perfect rest, and that its elements gather together, like to like, so that their atoms may get into the closest relations possible. j Let the clay begin. Ridding itself of all foreign substance, it gradually becomes a white earth, already very beautiful ; and fit, with help of congealing fire, to be made into finest porcelain, and painted on, and be kept in kings’ palaces. But such artificial consistence is not its best. Leave it still quiet to follow its own instinct of unity, and it becomes not only white, but clear ; not only clear, but hard ; nor only clear and hard, but so set that it can deal with light in a wonderful way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays only, refusing the rest. We call it then a sapphire. Such being the consummation of the clay, we give similar permission of quiet to the sand. It also becomes, first, a white earth, then proceeds to grow clear and hard, and at last arranges itself in mysterious, infinitely fine, parallel lines, which have the power of reflecting not merely the blue rays, but the blue, green, purple, and red rays in the greatest beauty in which they can be seen through any fired material whatsoever. We call it then an opal. In next order the soot sets to work ; it cannot make itself white at first, but instead of being discouraged, tries harder and harder, and comes our clear at last, and the hardest thing in the world ; and for the blackness that it had, obtains in exchange the power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once in the vividest blaze that any solid thing can shoot. We call it then a diamond. Last of all the water purifies or unites itself, contented enough if it only reach the form of a dewdrop ; but if we insist on its proceeding to a more perfect consistence, it crystallizes into the shape of a star. And for the ounce of slime which we had by political economy of competition, we have by political economy of co-operation, a sapphire, an opal, and a diamond, set in the midst of a star of snow. THE GREEK ASSERTION OF VICTORY. 327 59. The Greek Assertion of Victory. The ruling purpose of Greek poetry is the assertion of victory, by heroism, over fate, sin, and death. The terror of these great enemies is dwelt upon chiefly by the tragedians. The victory over them, by Homer. The adversary chiefly contemplated by the tragedians is Fate, or predestinate misfortune. And that under three principal forms. (a) Blindness, or ignorance ; not in itself guilty, but induc- ing acts which otherwise would have been guilty ; and leading, no less than guilt, to destruction . 1 (b) Visitation upon one person of the sin of another. (c) Repression by brutal, or tyrannous strength, of a benevolent will. In all these cases sorrow is much more definitely connected with sin by the Greek tragedians than by Shakspeare. The “ fate ” of Shakspeare is, indeed, a form of blindness, but it issues in little more than haste or indiscretion. It is, in the literal sense, “ fatal,” but hardly criminal. The “ I am fortune’s fool ” of Romeo, expresses Shakspeare’s primary idea of tragic circumstance. Often his victims are entirely innocent, swept away by mere current of strong encompassing calamity (Ophelia, Cordelia, Arthur, Queen Katharine). This is rarely so with the Greeks. The victim may indeed be innocent, as Antigone, but is in some way resolutely entangled with crime, and destroyed by it, as if it struck by pollution, no less than participation. The victory over sin and death is therefore also with the 1 The speech of Achilles to Priam expresses this idea of fatality and submission cleariy, there being two vessels — one full of sorrow, the other of great and noble gifts (a sense of disgrace mixing with that of sorrow, and of honour with that of joy), from which Jupiter pours forth the destinies of men ; the idea partly corresponding to the scriptural “ In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red ; it is full mixed, and He poureth out of the same.” But the title of the gods, neverthe- less, both with llomer and Hesiod, is given not from the cup of sorrow, but of good: “givers of good” (durijpes iduv). — Hes., Theog ., 664; Odyss. t viii. 325. 328 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. Greek tragedians more complete than with Shakspeare. As the enemy has more direct moral personality, as it is sinful- ness more than mischance, it is met by a higher moral re- solve, a greater preparation of heart, a more solemn patience and purposed self-sacrifice. At the close of a Shakspeare tragedy nothing remains but dead march and clothes of burial. At the close of a Greek tragedy there are far-off sounds of a divine triumph, and a glory as of resurrection . 1 The Homeric temper is wholly different. Far more tender, more practical, more cheerful ; bent chiefly on present things and giving victory now, and here, rather than in hope, and hereafter. The enemies of mankind, in Homer’s concep- tion, are more distinctly conquerable ; they are ungoverned passions, especially anger, and unreasonable impulse generally (ari)). Hence the anger of Achilles, misdirected by pride, but rightly directed by friendship, is the subject of the Iliad. The anger of Ulysses (’OSucrcrens “the angry”), misdirected at first into idle and irregular hostilities, directed at last to execution of sternest justice, is the subject of the Odyssey. Though this is the central idea of the two poems, it is connected with general display of the evil of all unbridled passions, pride, sensuality, indolence, or curiosity. The pride of Atrides, the passion of Paris, the sluggishness of Elpenor, the curiosity of Ulysses himself about the Cyclops, the impatience of his sailors in untying the winds, and all other faults or follies, down to that — (evidently no small one in Homer’s mind) — of domestic disorderliness, are throughout shown in contrast with conditions of patient affection and household peace. Also, the wild powers and mysteries of Nature are in the Homeric mind among the enemies of man ; so that all the labours of Ulysses are an expression of the contest of man- hood, not only with its own passions or with the folly of others, but with the merciless and mysterious powers of the natural world. This is perhaps the chief signification of the seven years* stay with Calypso, “ the concealer.” Not, as vulgarly thought, 1 The Alcestis is perhaps the central example of the idea of all Greek drama. THE GREEK ASSERTION OF VICTORY. 329 the concealer of Ulysses, but the great concealer — the hidden power of natural things. She is the daughter of Atlas and the Sea (Atlas, the sustainer of heaven, and the Sea, the disturber of the Earth). She dwells in the island of Ogygia (“the ancient or venerable"). (Whenever Athens, or any other Greek city, is spoken of with any peculiar reverence, it is called “Ogygian.”) Escaping from this goddess of secrets, and from other spirits, some of destructive natural force (Scylla), others signifying the enchantment of mere natural beauty (Circe, daughter of the Sun and Sea), he arrives at last at the Phaeacian land, whose king is “strength with intellect," and whose queen, “ virtue.” These restore him to his country. Now observe that in their dealing with all these subjects the Greeks never shrink from horror ; down to its uttermost depth, to its most appalling physical detail, they strive to sound the secrets of sorrow. For them there is no passing by on the other side, no turning away the eyes to vanity from pain. Literally, they have not “ lifted up their souls unto vanity.” Whether there be consolation for them or not, neither apathy nor blindness shall be their saviours ; if, for them, thus knowing the facts of the grief of earth, any hope, relief, or triumph may hereafter seem possible-well ; but if not, still hopeless, reliefless, eternal, the sorrow shall be met face to face. This Hector, so righteous, so merciful, so brave, has, nevertheless, to look upon his dearest brother in miserablest death. His own soul passes away in hopeless sobs through the throat-wound of the Grecian spear. That is one aspect of things in this world, a fair world truly, but having, among its other aspects, this one, highly ambiguous. Meeting it boldly as they may, gazing right into the skeleton face of it, the ambiguity remains ; nay, in some sort gains upon them. We trusted in the gods ; we thought that wisdom and courage would save us. Our wisdom and courage themselves deceive us to our death. Athena had the aspect of Deiphobus — terror of the enemy. She has not terrified him, but left us, in our mortal need. And beyond that mortality, what hope have we? Nothing is clear to us on that horizon, nor comforting. Funeral 330 MODERN PAINTERS. — VOL. V. honours ; perhaps also rest ; perhaps a shadowy life — artless, joyless, loveless. No devices in that darkness of the grave, nor daring, nor delight. Neither marrying nor giving in marriage, nor casting of spears, nor rolling of chariots, nor voice of fame. Lapped in pale Elysian mist, chilling the forgetful heart and feeble frame, shall we waste on for ever ? Can the dust of earth claim more of immortality than this ? Or shall we have even so much as rest ? May we, indeed, lie down again in the dust, or have our sins not hidden from us, even the things that belong to that peace ? May not chance and the whirl of passion govern us there ; when there shall be no thought, nor work, nor wisdom, nor breathing of the soul ? Be it so. With no better reward, no brighter hope, we will be men while we may : men, just, and strong, and fearless, and up to our power, perfect. Athena herself, our wisdom and our strength, may betray us ; Phoebus, our sun, smite us with plague, or hide his face from us helpless; Jove and all the powers of fate oppress us, or give us up to destruction. While we live, we will hold fast our integrity ; no weak tears shall blind us, no untimely tremors abate our strength of arm nor swiftness of limb. The gods have given us at least this glorious body and this righteous conscience ; these will we keep bright and pure to the end. So may we fall to misery, but not to baseness; so may we sink to sleep, but not to shame. And herein -was conquest. So defied, the betraying and accusing shadows shrank back; the mysterious horror subdued itself to majestic sorrow. Death was swallowed up in victory. Their blood, which seemed to be poured out upon the ground, rose into hyacinthine flowers. All the beauty of earth opened to them ; they had ploughed into its darkness, and they reaped its gold ; the gods, in whom they had trusted through all semblance of oppression, came down to love them and be their helpmates. All nature round them became divine — one harmony of power and peace. The sun hurt them not by day, nor the moon by night ; the earth opened no more her jaws into the pit ; the sea whitened no more against them the teeth of his devouring waves. Sun, and moon, and earth. THE VENETIAN GARDEN. 33* and sea — all melted into grace and love; the fatal arrows rang not now at the shoulders of Apollo the healer ; lord of life, and of the three great spirits of life — Care, Memory, and Melody. Great Artemis guarded their flocks by night; Selene kissed in love the eyes of those who slept. And from all came the help of heaven to body and soul ; a strange spirit lifting the lovely limbs ; strange light glowing on the golden hair ; 'and strangest comfort filling the trustful heart, so that they could put off their armour, and lie down to sleep — their work well done, whether at the gates of their temples or of their mountains ; accepting the death they once thought terrible, as the gift of Him who knew and granted what was best. 6o. The Venetian Garden. The Venetians had a garden, deep-furrowed, with blossom in white wreaths — fruitless. Perpetual May therein, and singing of wild, nestless birds .The destiny of Pisa was changed, in all probability, by the ten miles of marshland and poisonous air between it and the beach. The Genoese energy was feverish ; too much heat reflected from their torrid Apennine, But the Venetian had his free horizon, his salt breeze, and sandy Lido-shore ; sloped far and flat — ridged sometimes under the Tramontane winds with half a mile’s breadth of rollers — sea and sand shrivelled up together in one yellow careering field of fall and roar. They were, also, we said, always quarrelling with the Pope. Their religious liberty came, like their bodily health, from that wave-training ; for it is one notable effect of a life passed on shipboard to destroy weak beliefs in appointed forms of religion. A sailor may be grossly superstitious, but his superstitions will be connected with amulets and omens, not cast in systems. He must accustom himself, if he prays at all, to pray anywhere and anyhow. Candlesticks and incense not being portable into the maintop, he perceives those decorations to be, on the whole, inessential to a maintop mass. Sails must be set and cables bent, be it never so strict 332 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. a saint’s day, and it is found that no harm comes of it. Absolution on a lee-shore must be had of the breakers, it appears, if at all, and they give it plenary and brief, without listening to confession. Whereupon our religious opinions become vague, but our religious confidences strong ; and the end of it all is that we perceive the Pope to be on the other side of the Apennines, and able, indeed, to sell indulgences, but not winds, for any money. Whereas, God and the sea are with us, and we must even trust them both, and take what they shall send. Then, farther. This ocean-work is wholly adverse to any morbid conditions of sentiment. Reverie, above all things, is forbidden by Scylla and Charybdis. By the dogs and the depths, no dreaming ! The first thing required of us is presence of mind. Neither love, nor poetry, nor piety, must ever so take up our thoughts as to make us slow or unready. In sweet Val d’Arno it is permissible enough to dream among the orange-blossoms, and forget the day in twilight of ilex. But along the avenues of the Adrian waves there can be no careless walking. Vigilance, night and day, required of us, besides learning of many practical lessons in severe and humble dexterities. Is is enough for the Florentine to know how to use his sword and to ride. We Venetians, also, must be able to use our swords, and on ground which is none of the steadiest ; but, besides, we must be able to do nearly every thing that hands can turn to — rudders, and yards, and cables, all needing workmanly handling and workmanly know- ledge, from captain as well as from men. To drive a nail, lash a spar, reef a sail — rude work this for noble hands ; but to be done sometimes, and done well, on pain of death. All which not only takes mean pride out of us, and puts nobler pride of power in its stead; but it tends partly to soothe, partly to chasten, partly to employ and direct, the hot Italian temper, and make us every way greater, calmer, and happier. Moreover, it tends to induce in us great respect for the whole human body ; for its limbs, as much as for its tongue or its wit. Policy and eloquence are well ; and, indeed, we Venetians can be politic enough, and can speak melodiously when we choose; but to put the helm up at the right THE VENETIAN GARDEN. 333 moment is the beginning of all cunning — and for that we need arm and eye, not tongue. And with this respect for the body as such, comes also the sailor’s preference of massive beauty in bodily form. The landsmen, among their roses and orange-blossoms, and chequered shadows of twisted vine, may well please themselves with pale faces, and finely drawn eyebrows, and fantastic braiding of hair. But from the sweep- ing glory of the sea we learn to love another kind of beauty ; broad-breasted ; level-browed, like the horizon ; thighed and shouldered like the billows ; footed like their stealing foam ; bathed in cloud of golden hair, like their sunsets. Such were the physical influences constantly in operation on the Venetians ; their painters, however, were partly pre- pared for their work by others in their infancy. Associations connected with early life among mountains softened and deepened the teaching of the sea ; and the wildness of form of the Tyrolese Alps gave greater strength and grotesqueness to their imaginations than the Greek painters could have found among the cliffs of the ^Egean. Thus far, however, the influences on both are nearly similar. The Greek sea was indeed less bleak, and the Greek hills less grand ; but the difference was in degree rather than in the nature of their power. The moral influences at work on the two races were far more sharply opposed. Evil, as we saw, had been fronted by the Greek, and thrust out of his path. Once conquered, if he thought of it more, it was involuntarily, as we remember a painful dream, yet with a secret dread that the dream might return and continue for ever. But the teaching of the church in the middle ages had made the contemplation of evil one of the duties of men. As sin, it was to be duly thought upon, that it might be con- fessed. As suffering, endured joyfully, in hope of future reward. Hence conditions of bodily distemper which an Athenian would have looked upon with the severest contempt and aversion, were in the Christian church regarded always with pity, and often with respect ; while the partial practice of celibacy by the clergy, and by those over whom they had influence — together with the whole system of conventual penance and pathetic ritual (with the vicious reactionary 334 MODERN PAINTERS., —VOL. V. tendencies necessarily following), introduced calamitous con- ditions both of body and soul, which added largely to the pagan’s simple list of elements of evil, and introduced the most complicated states of mental suffering and decrepitude. Therefore the Christian painters differed from the Greek in two main points. They had been taught a faith which put an end to restless questioning and discouragement. All was at last to be well — and their best genius might be peacefully given to imagining the glories of heaven and the happiness of its redeemed. But on the other hand, though suffering was to cease in heaven, it was to be not only endured, but honoured upon earth. And from the Crucifixion, down to a beggar’s lameness, all the tortures and maladies of men were to be made, at least in part, the subjects of art. The Venetian was, therefore, in his inner mind, less serious than the Greek : in his superficial temper, sadder. In his heart there was none of the deep horror which vexed the soul of JEschylus or Homer. His Pallas-shield was the shield of Faith, not the shield of the Gorgon. All was at last to issue happily ; in sweetest harpings and seven-told circles of light. But for the present he had to dwell with the maimed and the blind, and to revere Lazarus more than Achilles. This reference to a future world has a morbid influence on all their conclusions. For the earth and all its natural elements are despised They are to pass away like a scroll. Man, the immortal, is alone revered ; his work and presence are all that can be noble or desirable. Men, and fair archi- tecture, temples and courts such as may be in a celestial city, or the clouds and angels of Paradise ; these are what we must paint when we want beautiful things. But the sea, the mountains, the forests, are all adverse to us — a desolation. The ground that was cursed for our sake ; the sea that executed judgment on all our race, and rages against us still, though bridled; storm-demons churning it into loam in nightly glare on Lido, and hissing from it against our palaces. Nature is but a terror, or a temptation. She is for hermits, martyrs, murderers — for St. Jerome, and St. Mary of Egypt, and the Magdalen in the desert, and monk Peter, falling before the sword. VULGARITY. 335 61. Vulgarity. Two great errors, colouring, or rather discolouring, severally, the minds of the higher and lower classes, have sown wide dissension, and wider misfortune, through the society of modern days. These errors are in our modes of interpreting the word “ gentleman.” Its primal, literal, and perpetual meaning is “a man of pure race ; ” well bred, in the sense that a horse or dog is well bred. The so-called higher classes, being generally of purer race than the lower, have retained the true idea and the convic- tions associated with it ; but are afraid to speak it out ; and equivocate about it in public, this equivocation mainly proceeding from their desire to connect another meaning with it, and a false one — that of “ a man living in idleness on other people’s labour” — with which idea the term has nothing whatever to do. The lower classes, denying vigorously and with reason, the notion that a gentleman means an idler, and rightly feeling that the more any one works, the more of a gentleman he becomes, and is likely to become — have nevertheless got little of the good they otherwise might, from the truth, because, with it, they wanted to hold a falsehood, namely, that race was of no consequence. It being precisely of as much con- sequence in man as it is in any other animal. The nation cannot truly prosper till both these errors are finally got quit of. Gentlemen have to learn that it is no part of their duty or privilege to live on other people’s toil. They have to learn that there is no degradation in the hardest manual, or the humblest servile, labour, when it is honest. But that there is degradation, and that deep, in extravagance, in bribery, in indolence, in pride, in taking places they are not fit for, or in coining places for which there is no need. It does not disgrace a gentleman to become an errand boy, or a day labourer ; but it disgraces him much to become a knave, or a thief And knavery is not the less knavery because it involves large interests, nor theft the less theft 336 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. because it is countenanced by usage, or accompanied by failure in undertaken duty. It is an incomparably less guilty form of robbery to cut a purse out of a man’s pocket, than to take it out of his hand on the understanding that you are to steer his ship up channel, when you do not know the soundings. On the other hand, the lower orders, and all orders, have to learn that every vicious habit and chronic disease com- municates itself by descent ; and that by purity of birth the entire system of the human body and soul may be gradually elevated, or, by recklessness of birth, degraded ; until there shall be as much difference between the well-bred and ill-bred human creature (whatever pains be taken with their education) as between a wolf-hound and the vilest mongrel cur. And the knowledge of this great fact ought to regulate the educa- tion of our youth, and the entire conduct of the nation. 1 Gentlemanliness, however, in ordinary parlance, must be taken to signify those qualities which are usually the evidence of high breeding, and which, so far as they can be acquired, it should be every man’s effort to acquire ; or, if he has them by nature, to preserve and exalt. Vulgarity, on the other hand, will signify qualities usually characteristic of ill-breeding, 1 We ought always in pure English to use the term “good breeding” literally; and to say “good nurture” for what we usually mean by good breeding. Given the race and make of the animal, you may turn it to good or bad account ; you may spoil your good dog or colt, and make him as vicious as you choose, or break his back at once by ill-usage ; and you may, on the other hand, make something serviceable and respectable out of your poor cur or colt if you educate them carefully; but ill-bred they will both of them be to their lives’ end ; and the best you will ever be able to say of them is, that they are useful, and decently-behaved, ill- bred creatures. An error, which is associated with the truth, and which makes it always look weak and disputable, is the confusion of race with name ; and the supposition that the blood of a family must still be good, if its genealogy be unbroken and its name not lost, though sire and son have been indulging age after age in habits involving perpetual degeneracy of race. Of course it is equally an error to suppose that, because a man’s name is common, his blood must be base ; since his family may have been ennobling it by pureness of moral habit for many generations, and yet may not have got any title, or other sign of nobleness, attached t«» their names. Nevertheless, the probability is alw'ays in favour of the race which has had acknowledged supremacy, and in which every motive leads to the endeavour to preserve their true nobility. VULGARITY. 337 which, according to his power, it becomes every person’s duty to subdue. We have briefly to note what these are. A gentleman’s first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body, which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation ; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies— one may say, simply, “ fineness of nature.” This is, of course, compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental firmness ; in fact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy. Elephantine strength may drive its way through a forest and feel no touch of the boughs ; but the white skin of Homer’s Atrides would have felt a bent rose-leaf, yet subdue its feeling in glow of battle, and behave itself like iron. I do not mean to call an elephant a vulgar animal ; but if you think about him care- fully, you will find that his non-vulgarity consists in such gentleness as is possible to elephantine nature ; not in his insensitive hide, nor in his clumsy foot ; but in the way he will lift his foot if a child lies in his way ; and in his sensitive trunk, and still more sensitive mind, and capability of pique on points of honour. And, though rightness of moral conduct is ultimately the great purifier of race, the sign of nobleness is not in this rightness of moral conduct, but in sensitiveness. When the make of the creature is fine, its temptations are strong, as well as its perceptions ; it is liable to all kinds of impressions from without in their most violent form ; liable therefore to be abused and hurt by all kinds of rough things which would do a coarser creature little harm, and thus to fall into fright- ful wrong if its fate will have it so. Thus David, coming of gentlest as well as royalest race, of Ruth as well as of Judah, is sensitiveness through all flesh and spirit ; not that his com- passion will restrain him from murder when his terror urges him to it ; nay, he is driven to the murder all the more by his sensitiveness to the shame which otherwise threatens him. But when his own story is told him under a disguise, though only a lamb is now concerned, his passion about it leaves him no time for thought. “The man shall die” — note the reason — “ because he had no pity.” He is so eager and indignant that it never occurs to him as strange that Nathan 338 MODERN PAINTERS.— VOL. V. hides the name. This is true gentleman. A vulgar man would assuredly have been cautious, and asked “who it was.” Hence it will follow that one of the probable signs of high breeding in men generally, will be their kindness and merci- fulness ; these always indicating more or less fineness of make in the mind ; and miserliness and cruelty the contrary; hence that of Isaiah: “The vile person shall no more be called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.” But a thousand things may prevent this kindness from displaying or continuing itself ; the mind of the man may be warped so as to bear mainly on his own interests, and then all his sensibilities will take the form of pride, or fastidiousness, or revengeful ness ; and other wicked, but not ungentlemanly tempers ; or, further, they may run into utter sensuality and covetousness, if he is bent on pleasure, accompanied with quite infinite cruelty when the pride is wounded or the passions thwarted — until your gentleman becomes Ezzelin and your lady, the deadly Lucrece ; yet still gentleman and lady, quite incapable of making anything else of themselves, being so born. A truer sign of breeding than mere kindness is therefore sympathy ; a vulgar man may often be kind in a hard way, on principle, and because he thinks he ought to be ; whereas, a highly-bred man, even when cruel, will be cruel in a softer way, understanding and feeling what he inflicts, and pitying his victim. Only we must carefully remember that the quantity of sympathy a gentleman feels can never be judged of by its outward expression, for another of his chief character- istics is apparent reserve. I say “ apparent ” reserve ; for the sympathy is real, but the reserve not : a perfect gentleman is never reserved, but sweetly and entirely open, so far as it is good for others, or possible, that he should he. In a great many respects it is impossible that he should be open except to men of his own kind. To them, he can open himself, by a word, or syllable, or a glance ; but to men not of his kind he cannot open himself, though he tried it through an eternity of clear grammatical speech. By the very acuteness of his sympathy he knows how much of himself he can give to anj» VULGARITY.. 339 body ; and he gives that much frankly— would always be glad to give more if he could, but is obliged, nevertheless, in his general intercourse with the world, to be a somewhat silent person ; silence is to most people, he finds, less re- serve than speech. Whatever he said, a vulgar man would misinterpret : no words that he could use would bear the same sense to the vulgar man that they do to him ; if he used any, the vulgar man would go away saying “ He had said so and so, and meant so and so ” (something assuredly he never meant) ; but he keeps silence, and the vulgar man goes away saying “ He didn’t know what to make of him.” Which is precisely the fact, and the only fact which he is anywise able to announce to the vulgar man concerning himself. There is yet another quite as efficient cause of the apparent reserve of a gentleman. His sensibility being constant and intelligent, it will be seldom that a feeling touches him, however acutely, but it has touched him in the same way often before, and in some sort is touching him always. It is not that he feels little, but that he feels habitually ; a vulgar man having some heart at the bottom of him, if you can by talk or by sight fairly force the pathos of anything down to his heart, will be excited about it and demonstrative ; the sensation of pity being strange to him, and wonderful. But your gentleman has walked in pity all day long ; the tears have never been out of his eyes ; you thought the eyes were bright only ; but they were wet. You tell him a sorrowful story, and his countenance does not change ; the eyes can but be wet still , he does not speak neither, there being, in fact, nothing to be said, only something to be done ; some vulgar person, beside you both, goes away saying “ How hard he is!” Next day he hears that the hard person has put good end to the sorrow he said nothing about ; and then he changes his wonder, and exclaims “ How reserved he is ! ” Self-command is often thought a characteristic of high breeding : and to a certain extent it is so, at least it is one of the means of forming and strengthening character ; but it is rather a way of imitating a gentleman than a characteristic of him; a true gentleman has no need of self-command ; he 340 MODERN PAINTERS.— -VOL. V. simply feels rightly on all occasions ; and desiring to express only so much of his feeling as it is right to express, does not need to command himself. Hence perfect ease is indeed characteristic of him ; but perfect ease is inconsistent with self-restraint. Nevertheless gentlemen, so far as they fail of their own ideal, need to command themselves, and do so; while, on the contrary, to feel unwisely, and to be unable to restrain the expression of the unwise feeling, is vulgarity ; and yet even then, the vulgarity, at its root, is not in the mistimed expression, but in the unseemly feeling ; and when we find fault with a vulgar person for “exposing himself,” it is not his openness, but clumsiness ; and yet more the want of sensibility to his own failure, which we blame ; so that still the vulgarity resolves itself into want of sensibility. Also, it is to be noted that great powers of self-restraint may be attained by very vulgar persons, when it suits their purposes. Closely, but strangely, connected with this openness is that form of truthfulness which is opposed to cunning, yet not opposed to falsity absolute. And herein is a distinction of great importance. Cunning signifies especially a habit or gift of over-reaching, accompanied with enjoyment and a sense of superiority. It is associated with small and dull conceit, and with an absolute want of sympathy or affection. Its essential con- nection with vulgarity may be at once exemplified by the expression of the butcher’s dog in Landseer’s “ Low Life.” Cruikshank’s “ Noah Claypole,” in the illustrations to Oliver Twist , in the interview with the Jew, is, however, still more characteristic. It is the intensest rendering of vulgarity ab- solute and utter with which I am acquainted. 1 The truthfulness which is opposed to cunning ought, perhaps, rather to be called the desire of truthfulness ; it consists more in unwillingness to deceive than in not deceiv- ing — an unwillingness implying sympathy with and respect 1 Among the reckless losses of the right service of intellectual power with which this century must be charged, very few are, to my mind, more to be regretted than that which is involved in its having turned to no higher purpose than the illustration of the career of Jack Sheppard, and of the Irish Rebellion, the great, grave (I use the words deliberately and with large meaning), and singular genius of Cruikshank. VULGARITY. 341 for the person deceived ; and a fond observance of truth up to the possible point, as in a good soldier’s mode of retaining his honour through a ruse-de-guerre. A cunning person seeks for opportunities to deceive; a gentleman shuns them. A cunning person triumphs in deceiving ; a gentleman is humili- ated by his success, or at least by so much of the success as is dependent merely on the falsehood, and not on his intel- lectual superiority. The absolute disdain of all lying belongs rather to Christian chival ry than to mere high breeding ; as connected merely with this latter, and with general refinement and courage, the exact relations of truthfulness may be best studied in the well-trained Greek mind. The Greeks believed that mercy and truth were co-relative virtues — cruelty and falsehood, co-relative vices. But they did not call necessary severity, cruelty ; nor necessary deception, falsehood. It was needful sometimes to slay men, and sometimes to deceive them. When this had to be done, it should be done well and thoroughly ; so that to direct a spear well to its mark, or a lie well to its end, was equally the accomplishment of a perfect gentleman. Hence, in the pretty diamond-cut-diamond scene between Pallas and Ulysses, when she receives him on the coast of Ithaca, the goddess laughs delightedly at her hero’s good lying, and gives him her hand upon it — showing herself then in her woman’s form, as just a little more than his match, “Subtle would he be, and stealthy, who should go beyond thee in deceit, even were he a god, thou many- witted ! What ! here in thine own land, too, wilt thou not cease from cheating ? Knowest thou not me, Pallas Athena, maid of Jove, who am with thee in all thy labours, and gave thee favour with the Phseacians, and keep thee, and have come now to weave cunning with thee?” But how com- pletely this kind of cunning was looked upon as a part of a man’s power, and not as a diminution of faithfulness, is perhaps best shown by the single line of praise in which the hi^h qualities of his servant are summed up by Chremulus in the Flu tvs : “ Of all my house servants, I hold you to be the faith ful lest, and the greatest cheat (or thief)-” Thus, the primal difference between honourable and base 342 MODERN PAINTERS.—VOL. V. lying in the Greek mind lay in honourable purpose. A man who used his strength wantonly to hurt others was a mon- ster ; so, also, a man who used his cunning wantonly to hurt others. Strength and cunning were to be used only in self- defence or to save the weak, and then were alike admirable. This was their first idea. Then the second, and perhaps the more essential, difference between noble and ignoble lying in the Greek mind, was that the honourable lie — or, if we may use the strange, yet just, expression, the true lie — knew and confessed itself for such — was ready to take the full respon- sibility of what it did. As the sword answered for its blow, so the lie for its snare. But what the Greeks hated with all their heart was the false lie ; — the lie that did not know itself, feared to confess itself, which slunk to its aim under a cloak of truth, and sought to do liars’ work, and yet not take liars’ pay, excusing itself to the conscience by quibble and quirk. Hence the great expression of Jesuit principle by Euripides “ The tongue has sworn, but not the heart ” was a subject of execration throughout Greece, and the satirists exhausted their arrows on it — no audience was ever tired of hearing “that Euripidean thing” (to EvpLTnSeLov ei