1 H. M. CALDWELL CO., PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND BOSTON jt & Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, Bv Wiley & Halsted, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for 1. e Southern District of New York (Renewed in 1S86) CONTENTS. i. BEAUTY. PAGB The Perception of the Beautiful. Perfect Taste 4 Taste as distinguished from judgment, .... 5 Cultivation of Taste, 7 Typical Beauty. Infinity, 11 Unity, 15 Repose 18 Symmetry, 23 Purity, 25 Moderation 27 Vital Beauty. Evidences of Happiness in the Organic Creation, 33 Healthy vital energy in Plants, 35 Beauty in Animals, 35 Human Beauty, 38 The operation of the Mind upon the Body, . . 40 Passions which mar Human Beauty 44 The Ideal, 47 The Beauty of Repose and Felicity, how consist- ent with the Ideal 49 v VI CONTENTS. Ideality predicable of all living creatures, ... 50 Purity of Taste 51 II. NATURE. The Sky. The peculiar adaptation of the Sky to the pleas- ing and teaching of Man 56 The carelessness with which its lessons are re- ceived 57 Many of our ideas of the Sky altogether conven- tional, 57 The idea of God's immediate presence impressed upon us b} r the Sky, 59 Clouds. Variation of their character at different elevations, 61 Extent of the upper cloud region, 61 Characteristics of the upper Clouds, .... 62 Wordsworth's description of these Clouds, . 64 The central Cloud region, 66 The Clouds of Salvator and Poussin, ... 67 Clouds as seen from an isolated Mountain, . 70 Sunset in Tempest, 72 Serene Midnight, 72 Sunrise on the Alps 73 Hain Clouds 74 Marked difference in color, . 74 Value to the Painter of the Rain Cloud, . . 75 The intense blue of the Sky after rain, ... 76 The Campagna of Rome after a storm, ... 77 Typical Beauty as perceived by the Greeks in Nature 79 yfi 7 n Tit l.: .'.• ".'. — -. - : - I . '-- 11 - : . - _ ! Mi 7: Tz n :: _-t . ■ : : - - - ' : :: ::: : : : Tie :::- :: I 1 : ~r^i V:uu^::ts . . . . . - :.;_ : f .... j :--e=r: ~ :±" li i - -' - : : i. - '■'-'. ::: : :: : : ■ Vlll CONTENTS. PAGE Fribourg in Switzerland, 112 Ascent of the Montanvert from the valley of Chamouni, 117 The glaciers, 118 Is this the Earth's prime, or is it only the wreck of Paradise ? 121 Influence of natural scenery on character, . . . 127 Poetical influence of Hills and Mountains, . . 128 Mountain gloom 129 Fertility succeeds destruction, 134 Consecrated Mountains 135 Deaths of Aaron and Moses, 136 The Mount of Transfiguration, 145 Trees. Laws common to all forest trees, 149 Care of Nature to conceal uniformity 150 Characters of natural leafage, 151 Termination of Trees in symmetrical curves, . 152 Gracefulness of Trees in plains, 154 The Pine Tree as described by Shakspeare, . .155 The Olive Tree, 156 Grass. The Meadow Grass 159 Symbolical of humility and cheerfulness, . . . 161 The utility of Grass, 162 III. ARCHITECTURE. Architecture. Considered as a Fine Art 169 The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 170 The Lamp of Sacrifice, 170 CONTENTS. IX PAGE The Lamp of Truth, 175 The Lamp of Power 176 The Lamp of Beauty, 182 The Lamp of Life 193 The Lamp of Memory 195 The Lamp of Obedience, 200 European Architecture derived through Greece and Rome, 206 Doric and Corinthian Orders, 207 The work of the Lombards in Architecture, . . 207 Venice, 208 Commercial interest at first the highest aim of Venice 211 The Venice of modern fiction, 212 Venice restored from its ruins, 213 The islands on which the city was built, . . . 214 St. Mark's, 216 The interior of the Church, 219 The nobleness and sacredness of color, . . . 220 Gothic Archictecture 231 Characteristics or Moral Elements of the Gothic, 234 Savageness, 234 The Grotesque, 237 Contrast between Northern and Southern countries, 242 Gothic windows and roofs, 245 The Gothic in Domestic Architecture, . . . 249 The Rennaissance 251 Early Renaissance, 251 Effect of the sudden enthusiasm for classic architecture 255 The use of marble in Architecture 256 CONTENTS. IV. SCULPTURE. PAGE Sculptors of Egypt and Nineveh 262 Natural forms suitable for Sculpture, .... 262 The uses to which Sculpture has been perverted, 271 The Torso of the Vatican, 276 Michael Angelo, 279 Bandinelli and Canova 280 The Laocoon, . 280 No herculean form spiritual, 286 Michael Angelo's snow statue 288 How are we to get our men of genius ? . . . 290 PREFACE. A Preface need not, as a matter of course, be an apology. Yet, an apology would be offered for " Selections " from Ruskin's Works, were those valuable works accessible to readers in general. Being voluminous and expensive, they are beyond the means of many who could ap- preciate and highly enjoy them. Moreover, some of the topics discussed are merely local (English), and not specially interesting to the American public. A rich field, however, re- mains, from which these selections have been carefully culled, and methodically arranged to form a book complete in itself. For the choice and arrangement alone, is the editor responsible; the Author speaks for himself. L. C. T. Princeton, N. J. NOTICE OF JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. Although novelty is generally a source of pleasure, yet what is new sometimes meets with opposition, merely because it is new. About twenty years ago a book appeared in London, entitled, " Modern Painters : By a Graduate of Oxford;" the main object of which was, to vindicate the reputation of the landscape- painter, Turner, whose pictures had been ruth- lessly assailed by the Reviewers. The author confesses that the book originated " in indignation at the shallow and false criticism of the periodicals of the day on the works of the great living artist." And who was the presumptuous " Graduate," who thus threw down the gauntlet, and defied the mighty host of Reviewers ? A young man unknown to fame ! A mere fledgling from the University ! XIV JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. Yet in his book there was a bold originality, an uncompromising independence, quite start- ling to the lovers of the old, beaten track — the devotees to precedent. The daring champion of Turner, not contented with asserting the painter's claims to universal admiration, an- nounced, somewhat authoritatively, certain prin- ciples of Art, neither derived from Alison nor from the Royal Academy. The " Graduate " says, " when public taste seems plunging deeper and deeper into degrada- tion, day by day, and when the press universally exerts such power as it possesses, to direct the feeling of the nation more completely to all that is theatrical, affected, and false in Art; while it vents its ribald buffooneries on the most exalted truth, and the highest ideal of landscape, that this or any other age has ever witnessed, it be- comes the imperative duty of all who have any perception or knowledge of what is really great in Art, and any desire for its advancement in England, to come fearlessly forward, regardless of such individual interests as are likely to be injured by the knowledge of what is good and right, to declare" and demonstrate, wherever they exist, the essence and the authority of the Beau- tiful and the True." The " Graduate " fearlessly asserts that the old masters were not true to Nature, and claims to JOHN RUSK IN AND HIS WORKS. XV be capable of judging of these matters, for the very good reason, namely, that he has been de- voted from his youth to the laborious study of practical art; and, moreover, that whatever he affirms of the old schools of landscape-painting has been " founded on a familiar acquaintance with every important work of Art, from Antwerp to Naples." He, however, modestly apologizes for the im- perfection of his first book, and keeps back a part of it from the public for more mature re- flection, and for careful revision. The reviewers, who had so severely handled the landscape painter, now pounced upon the painter's fiery advocate, who had challenged them to the encounter. Undaunted by their fulminations, " the Gradu- ate " comes out with a second edition of " Mod- ern Painters." "Convinced of the truth," says he, "and therefore assured of the ultimate prevalence and victory of the principles which I have advocated, and equally confident that the strength of the cause must give weight to the strokes of even the weakest of its defenders, I permitted myself to yield to a somewhat hasty and hot-headed de- sire of being, at whatever risk, in the thick of the fire, and begun the contest with a part, and that the weakest and least considerable part, of the forces at my disposal. And I now find the volume thus boldly laid before the public, in a position much resembling that of the Royal Sovereign XVI JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. at Trafalgar, receiving, unsupported, the broadsides of half the enemy's fleet, while unforeseen circumstances have hitherto prevented, and must yet for a time prevent, my heavier ships of the line from taking any part in the action. I watched the first moment of the struggle with some anxiety for the solitary vessel, — an anxiety which I have now ceased to feel, — for the flag of truth waves brightly through the smoke of the battle, and my antago- nists, wholly intent on the destruction of the leading ship, have lost their position, and exposed themselves in de- fenceless disorder to the attack of the following columns." The enthusiasm of a man of genius appears to the multitude like madness. The fervor of his imagination and the intensity of his emotions, do, indeed, prevent him at times from perceiv- ing clearly, not only what is for his own interest, but, what he would more earnestly deprecate, for the interest of the cause which he zealously advocates. Thus was it with the " Graduate," when, stung to the quick like Byron, like him, he retorted upon the " Scotch Reviewer." " Writers like the present critic of Blackwood's Maga- zine deserve the respect due to honest, hopeless, helpless imbecility. There is something exalted in the innocence of their feeble-mindedness; one cannot suspect them of partiality, for it implies feeling ; nor of prejudice, for it implies some previous acquaintance with their subject. I do not know that even in this age of charlatanry, I could point to a more barefaced instance of imposture on the simplicity of the public, than the insertion of these pieces of criticism in a respectable periodical. We are not insulted JOHN RUSK IN AND HIS WORKS, xvil with opinions on music from persons ignorant of its notes; nor with treatises on philology by persons unac- quainted with the alphabet; but here is page after page of criticism, which one may read from end to end, looking for something which the author knows, and finding noth- ing. Not his own language, for he has to look in his dictionary, hj his own confession, for a word (chrysoprase) occurring in one of the most important chapters of the Bible; not the commonest traditions of the schools, for he does not know why Poussin was called ' learned;' nci; the most simple canons of art, for he prefers Lee to Gainsborough; not the most ordinary facts of Nature, for we find him puzzled by the epithet ' silver," as applied to the orange-blossom — evidently never having seen any- thing silvery about an orange in his life, except a spoon. " Nay he leaves us not to conjecture his calibre from internal evidence ; he candidly tells us, that he has been studying trees only for the last week, and bases his critical remarks chiefly on his practical experience of birch. " What is Christopher North about ? Does he receive his critiques from Eton or Harrow, — based on the experi- ence of a week's bird's-nesting and its consequences ? How low must Art and its interests sink, when the public mind is inadequate to the detection of this effrontery of incapacity. In all kindness to Maga, we warn her, that though the nature of this work precludes us from devot- ing space to the exposure, there may come a time when the public shall be themselves able to distinguish ribaldry from reasoning, and may require some better and higher qualifications in their critics of art, than the experience of a school-boy, and the capacities of a buffoon." " Moderation," though subsequently highly commended by our author, is not the governing XV111 JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. characteristic of poets or of painters, especially when their " eyes are in a fine frenzy rolling'' with either inspiration or anger. The second volume of " Modern Painters" was not issued till the first had passed through several editions. The author still chooses to ap- pear only as the " Graduate of Oxford." The main topic of this second volume is the nature of Beauty, and its influence on the human mind. Again, the novelty and boldness of the writer's views startled and irritated the ice-bound advo- cates of precedent. Though no longer treated by the Reviewers with unmitigated contempt, he was still subjected to the lash of criticism. The banner, with the defiant inscription, Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitor, was again " hung out" at Edinburgh, but the " Graduate " probably quailed as little before it as Birnam Wood quailed before the banners of Dunsinane. However, this second volume could not fail to elicit warm and earnest admiration. The North British Review pronounced it " a very extraor- dinary and delightful book, full of truth and goodness, of power and beauty," and " what is more and better than all, — everywhere, through- out this work, we trace evidences of a deep rev- erence and a godly fear, — a perpetual though subdued acknowledgment of the Almighty, as JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. XIX the sum and substance, the beginning and the ending of all truth, of all power, of all goodness, and of all beauty." Even the Edinburgh Review was compelled to acknowledge " Modern Painters " as " one of the most remarkable works on art which has appeared in our time." Discarding the incognito, the " Graduate " next appears before the public in a work entitled " The Seven Lamps of Architecture, by John Ruskin, Author of Modern Painters." The fan- ciful title and the reputation already acquired by the author of Modern Painters, at once drew at- tention to this learned and philosophical treatise on Architecture. It was discovered that the works of Mr. Ruskin " must be read ;" they must be discussed ; they must be " weighed and con- sidered." He had gained a standing-place, and possessed power enough to move, if not the world, at least a portion of its wisest and best. Three other eloquent and beautiful volumes on Architecture, entitled " The Stones of Ven- ice," were issued from time to time, while the promised volumes to complete " Modern Paint- ers " were still delayed. This delay was chiefly owing to the necessity under which the writer felt himself, of obtaining as many memoranda as possible of mediaeval buildings in Italy and Nor- mandy, now in process oj destruction, before that XX JOHN RUSKW AND HIS WORKS. destruction should be consummated by the re- storer or revolutionist. His " whole time," he says, " had been lately occupied in taking draw- ings from one side of buildings, of which masons were knocking down the other." These memo- randa, obtained in every case from personal ob- servation, had been collected at various times during seventeen years. Not satisfied, however, with these occasional visits to the sea-girt city Mr. Ruskin went again to Venice, in 1849, to examine not only every one of the older palaces, stone by stone, but every fragment throughout the city which afforded any clue to the formation of its styles. He says : " My taking the pains so to examine what I had to describe, was a subject of grave surprise to my Italian friends." " Three years' close and incessant labor to the exami- nation of the chronology of the architecture of Venice ; two long winters being wholly spent in the drawing of de- tails on the spot ; and yet I see constantly that architects who pass three or four days in a gondola, going up and down the grand canal, think that their first impressions are as likely to be true as my patiently wrought conclu- sions." From these careful studies and measurements, drawings were made by Mr. Ruskin to illustrate " The Stones of Venice," and afterwards en- graved in England by the best artists. Besides'"' JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. XXI the fine illustrations which adorn those beautiful volumes, Mr. Ruskin prepared a separate work, consisting entirely of engravings from drawings which could not be reduced to the size of an octavo volume without loss of accuracy in de- tail. These magnificent engravings were pub- lished in London, by subscription, in twelve parts, folio imperial size, at the price of one guinea each. They were fac-similes of Mr. Ruskin's drawings, and beautifully colored.* The " Seven Lamps of Architecture " and " The Stones of Venice " would alone have placed Mr. Ruskin among the very first writers on Art that England has ever nurtured. The subtle critic of Art then turned aside, by way of episode, and wrote a feuilleto?i " On the Construction of Sheepfolds." Graceful, pictur- esque, rustic sheepfolds ? By no means. The versatile " Graduate of Oxford " must give his views on a subject which at that time was agitat- ing the minds and employing the pens of some of the ablest thinkers in Great Britain, namely, ' The Church ;" its character, authority, teach- ing, government, and discipline. It was a " Tract * All Mr. Ruskin's works with the exception of two volumes of " The Stones of Venice," and these large illus- trations, have been published in this country by John Wiley & Sons, 53 East Tenth Street, New York. XXU JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. for the Times," but in direct opposition to the Tracts of his venerable alma mater. To this bold pamphlet was prefixed the fol- lowing characteristic "advertisement:" — " Many persons will probably find fault with me for publishing opinions which are not new : but I shall bear this blame contentedly, believing that opinions on this subject could hardly be just if they were not 1800 years old. Others will blame me for making proposals which are altogether new ; to whom I would answer, that things in these days seem not so far right but that they may be mended. And others will simply call the opinions false and the proposals foolish — to whose good will, if they take it in hand to contradict me, I must leave what I have written, having no purpose of being drawn, at present, into religious controversy. If, however, any should ad- mit the truth, but regret the tone of what I have said, I can only pray them to consider how much less harm is done in the world by ungraceful boldness, than by untime- ly fear. Whatever were the " opinions" thus promul- gated, there can be no doubt that the author's motive was a sincere, earnest desire to do good. Another pamphlet from the same prolific pen, entitled " Pre-Raphaelitism," caused great ex- citement among the artists, as well as the critics. At the close of the first volume of Modern Painters, Mr. Ruskin gave the following advice to the young artists of England: — " They should go to nature in all singleness of heart, and walk JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS, xxiii with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought but how best to penetrate her meaning; rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing." This he quotes in the Preface to his Pre-Raphaelitism, and says, — " Advice which, whether bad or good, involved infinite labor and humiliation in the following it; and was there- fore, for the most part, rejected. It has, however, been carried out, to the very letter, by a group of men who, for their reward, have been assailed with the most scur- rilous abuse which I ever recollect seeing issue from the public press. I have, therefore, thought it due to them (the Pre-Raphaelites) to contradict the directly false state- ments which have been made respecting their works; and to point out the kind of merit which, however deficient in some respects, those works possess beyond the possibility of dispute." Mr. Ruskin here says no more than Schiller had said before him: — " With genius, Nature is bound in eternal alliance, — Whatever mind has vowed, piously Nature performs." Then why was the hue and cry raised against his " Pre-Raphaelitism "? Sneers are not argu- ments. For the want of arguments was the Re- viewer reduced to the following absurdity: — " If there were a 'Burchell' among painters, he would in the author's presence cry, Fudge ! Nonsense !" This would-be astute critic, however, like XXIV JOHN RUSK IN AND HIS WORKS. many who had gone before him, cried " mad dog" in vain. Mr. Ruskin still lives. The third volume of Modern Painters was is- sued ten years after the publication of the two first volumes. Those two volumes, as has al- ready been mentioned, were written to check the attacks upon Turner. Little did the " Grad- uate" then foresee what a range his spirit would take, after its first venturous flight! "The check was partially given, but too late; Turner was seized by painful illness soon 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." No one can fail to admire the generous, en- thusiastic devotion of Mr. Ruskin to his favorite artist; but, as few of Turner's paintings have reached this country, his eloquent descriptions of them, and subtle criticisms, would not be generally interesting, and have therefore been omitted in the " Selections" from his Works. Engravings, however, from many of Turner's pictures are well known among us, and highly prized by genuine lovers of the Beautiful. Among these engravings the Illustrations to Rogers's Italy have been universally admired. In November, 1853, Mr. Ruskin delivered four Lectures in Edinburgh, on Architecture JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. XXV and Painting; which has since been published in a beautifully illustrated volume. He thought himself happy, he says, in his first Lecture, 'to address the citizens of Edin- burgh on the subject of Architecture; and yet, with his usual boldness and disregard of con- sequences to himself personally, he launched forth into a complete tirade against the Greek Architecture of that beautiful city. No doubt Mr. Ruskin remembered with some asperity the castigations of the Edinburgh Reviewers, and knowing that he was now strong enough to chastise the chastisers, he laid it on without mercy. Yet he is too earnest and too honest a man to say one word that he does not firmly believe to be for the advancement of noble Art. The Fourth Volume of " Modern Painters" is one of his ablest works. His versatile mind here grapples with Science as successfully as it has hitherto done with Art. Among the Alps and their glaciers, he would be a fit companion for the learned Guyot. In pursuit of his investigations he had stood " where the black thundercloud was literally dashing itself in his face, while the blue hills seen through its rents were thirty miles away." Indefatigable in the pursuit of that branch of Art, which " in all his lovings is the love," Mr. Ruskin has lately written a book for young per- XXVlJO/fAT RUSK IN AND HIS WORKS. sons, entitled " The Elements of Drawing, in three Letters to Beginners." He always writes con amore, but never more so than in this valua- ble little treatise. Mr. Ruskin is not only a practical artist, but he has also had much ex- perience in teaching, being employed at present as head-teacher of a class in Drawing, in the Working Men's College, 45 Great Ormond Street, London. "The Political Economy of Art," the last published work by Mr. Ruskin, is the substance (with additions) of two Lectures delivered at Manchester, July 10th and 13th, 1857. The great " Art Treasures Exhibition," at Manchester, had brought together a splendid collection of pictures from the galleries, public and private, of the British kingdom, and it was a fine opportunity for Mr. Ruskin to address the lovers of art in behalf of artists and working- men. He did so, with wisdom, justice, and deep feeling; it is to be hoped that the influence of those lectures will not be confined to his own country. As a Christian Philosopher, Mr. Ruskin de- servedly ranks with the " judicious" Hooker, the eloquent Jeremy Taylor, and the " divine" Herbert. A devout spirit animates and inspires all his works. In the lowly cottage and the JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. XXV11 lofty cathedral, in the smiling valley and in the sublime mountain-top, he has an ever-realizing sense of the presence of God ; and acknowl- edges that divine presence, not with light words, but with words of solemn import; — not as the God of Nature alone, but as the Almighty Father and Friend revealed in the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ. The most striking characteristic of Mr. Rus- kin, next to his deep religious sentiments, is his intense love of Nature: — " Where rose the mountains, these to him were friends; Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home; Where a blue sky and glowing clime extends, He had the passion and the power to roam ; The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, Were unto him companionship; they spoke A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For Nature's pages, glassed by sunbeams on the lake." Mr. Ruskin furnishes his readers with a lens through which all natural objects are glorified; the sky assumes new beauty — the clouds are decked with wondrous magnificence, — and even each individual tree excites curiosity and intense admiration. As he exults over them, we are ready to exclaim, with one of our own eloquent writers, — " What a thought that was, when God thought of a tree !" XXV111 JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. It is a rare and delightful privilege to know exactly how the love of the Beautiful in Nature has been developed in any one human being; more especially in a many-sided being, such as John Ruskin. He has himself given us this privilege, for which we owe him many thanks, in the following charming morsel of philosophi- cal autobiography: "I cannot, from observation, form any decided opin ion as to the extent in which this strange delight in na- ture 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 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 land- scape 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 labor. " 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 JOHN RUSK IN AND HIS WORKS. XXIX 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 Kin- ross, 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; com- parable 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 favorite book, Scott's Monastery; so that Glenfarg and all other glens were more or less en- chanted to me, filled with forms of hesitating creed atom Christie of the Cluit 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 me, such as the ruins of Loch- leven and Kenilworth; and thus my pleasure in moun- tains 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. XXX JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. " 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 min- gled with it. I partly believed in ghosts and fairies; but supposed that angels belonged entirely to the Mosaic dis- pensation, 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 be- came less essential to my pleasure. "Fifthly: it was, according to its strength, inconsist- ent with every evil feeling, with spite, anger, covetous- ness, 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 JOHN RUSK IN AND HIS WORKS. XXXI acted by setting one impulse against another, though it had much power in moulding the character, it had hardly any in strengthening it; it formed temperament, but never instilled principle ; it kept me generally good-humored 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 les- sons, and lose days in reveries which I might have spent in doing kindnesses. "Lastly: although there was no definite religious sen- timent 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 de- light; an indefinable 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 the 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 sun- set, or the first low broken wall, covered with mountain moss. I cannot in the least describe the feeling: but I do not think this is my fault, nor that of the English lan- guage, for, I am afraid, no feeling is describable. If we had to complain 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 •XXX.ll JOHN HUSHIN AND HIS WORKS. 'cares of this world* gained upon me, faded gradually away, in the manner described by Wordsworth in his Intimations of Immortality." Happily for the world, these emotions or "feelings," became enthroned in the Intellect of Ruskin. "He who feels Beauty, but cannot intellectually rec- ognize it, is ever dependent for this most joyous of emo- tions upon the vernal freshness of his senses; and as these grow dull, as youth flits past, the emotion of the beautiful gradually becomes a thing unknown. It is only through feeling that aesthetic emotion can touch such an one; and how soon, alas! does this medium between man and nature, between the soul and external things grow sluggish and torpid! But with him who has learned to know as well as to feci — whose soul is one clear sky of Intelligence, — the case is far otherwise. Intellect bright- ens as the senses grow dull; and though the sensuous imagination pass into the yellow leaf as the autumn of life draws on, still will the Beautiful, having secured for itself a retreat in the intellect, naturally pass into immor- tality along with it. An old man, with closed eyes and flowing hair, would again, as in the days of ancient Greece, form the ideal of a poet; and the taste of the age of Pericles, enlightened by modern philosophy, and puri- fied by Christianity, might again return" A higher aim even than this will, we trust, be attempted in our own country. True; Art is here yet in its infancy. Its healthful, vigorous growth and development, will depend mainly JOHN RUSKIN AND HIS WORKS. XX XI 11 upon the general cultivation of a correct Taste. We cannot expect our Artists to pursue high and noble aims until the standard of Taste is proportionably elevated. For the study of nature, — the inseparable ally of Art, — no finer field can be found on the wide earth, than our own wide country; — and no bet- ter guide and interpreter, than John Ruskin. L. C. T. flart 1. BE A U TY. Scatter diligently in susceptible minds The germs of the good and the beautiful: They will develope there to trees, bud, bloom, And bear the golden fruits of Paradise. THE TRUE AND THE BEAUTIFUL IN Nature, Art, Morals, and Religion. PART I. BE A U TY. Any material object which can give us pleas- ure in the simple contemplation of its outward qualities, without any direct and definite exer- tion of the intellect, I call in some way, or in some degree, beautiful. Why we receive pleas- ure from some forms and colors, and not from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood. The utmost subtilty of investigation will only lead us to ultimate instincts and principles of human nature, for which no further reason can be given than the simple will of the Deity that we should 4 BEA UTY. be so created. We may, indeed, perceive, as far as we are acquainted with His nature, that we have been so constructed as, when in a healthy and cultivated state of mind, to derive pleasure from whatever things are illustrative of that nature; but we do not receive pleasure from them because they are illustrative of it, nor from any perception that they are illustrative of it, but instinctively and necessarily, as we de- rive sensual pleasure from the scent of a rose. On these primary principles of our nature, edu- cation and accident operate to an unlimited extent; they may be cultivated or checked, directed or diverted, gifted by right guidance with the most acute and faultless sense, or sub- jected by neglect to every phase of error and disease. He who has followed up these natural laws of aversion and desire, rendering them more and more authoritative by constant obedi- ence, so as to derive pleasure always from that which God originally intended should give him pleasure, and who derives the greatest possible sum of pleasure from any given object, is a man of taste. This, then, is the real meaning of this disputed word. Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those ma- terial sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection. He who BE A UTY. 5 receives little pleasure from these sources, wants taste; he who receives pleasure from any other sources, has false or bad taste. And it is thus, that the term " taste " is to be distinguished from that of "judgment," with which it is constantly confounded. Judgment is a general term, expressing definite action of the intellect, and applicable to every kind of subject which can be submitted to it. There may be judgment of congruity, judgment of truth, judgment of justice, and judgment of difficulty and excellence. But all these exer- tions of intellect are totally distinct from taste, properly so called, which is the instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to another without any obvious reason, that it is proper to human nature in its perfection so to do. Observe, however, I do not mean by exclud- ing direct exertion of the intellect from ideas of beauty, that beauty has no effect upon nor con- nection with the intellect. All our moral feel- ings are so inwoven with our intellectual powers, that we cannot affect the one without, in some degree, addressing the other; and in all high ideas of beauty it is more than probable that much of the pleasure depends on delicate and untraceable perceptions of fitness, propriety, and relation, which are purely intellectual, and 6 BEAUTY. through which we arrive at our noblest ideas of what is commonly and rightly called " intellec- tual beauty." But there is yet no immediate exertion of the intellect; that is to say, if a person, receiving even the noblest ideas of sim- ple beauty, be asked why he likes the object exciting them, he will not be able to give any distinct reason, nor to trace in his mind any formal thought to which he can appeal as a source of pleasure. He will say that the thing gratifies, fills, hallows, exalts his mind, but he will not be able to say why, or how. If he can, and if he can show that he perceives in the ob- ject any expression of distinct thought, he has received more than an idea of beauty — it is an idea of relation. By the term ideas of relation, I mean to ex- press all those sources of pleasure which involve and require, at the instant of their perception, active exertion of the intellectual powers. The sensation of Beauty is not sensual on the one hand, nor is it intellectual on the other, but is dependent on a pure, right, and open state of the heart, both for its truth and its intensity, insomuch that even the right after- action of the intellect upon facts of beauty so apprehended, is dependent on the acuteness of the heart-feeling about them; and thus the apostolic words come true, in this minor respect BEA UTY. 7 as in all others, that men are alienated from the life of God, " through the ignorance that is in them, having the understanding darkened, be- cause of the hardness of their hearts, and so being past feeling, give themselves up to lasciv- iousness;" for we do indeed see constantly that men having naturally acute perceptions of the beautiful, yet not receiving it with a pure heart, nor into their hearts at all, never comprehend it, nor receive good from it, but make it a mere minister to their desires, and accompaniment and seasoning of lower sensual pleasures, until all their emotions take the same earthly stamp, and the sense of beauty sinks into the servant of lust. Nor is what the world commonly understands by the cultivation of taste, anything more or bet- ter than this, at least in times of corrupt and over-pampered civilization, when men build palaces, and plant groves, and gather luxuries, that they and their devices may hang in the corners of the world like fine-spun cobwebs, with greedy, puffed up, spider-like lusts in the middle. And this, which in Christian times is the abuse and corruption of the sense of beauty, was in that Pagan life of which St. Paul speaks little less than the essence of it, and the best they had; for I know not that of the expressions of affection towards external Nature to be found 8 BE A UTY. among Heathen writers, there are any of which the balance and leading thought cleaves not towards the sensual parts of her. Her benefi- cence they sought, and her power they shunned; her teaching through both they understood never. The pleasant influences of soft winds, and singing streamlets, and shady coverts, of the violet couch and plane-tree shade, they re- ceived, perhaps, in a more noble way than we, but they found not anything except fear, upon the bare mountain or in the ghastly glen. The Hybla heather they loved more for its sweet hives than its purple hues. But the Christian theoria seeks not, though it accepts, and touches with its own purity, what the Epicurean sought, but finds its food and the objects of its love everywhere, in what is harsh and fearful, as well as what is kind, nay even in all that seems coarse and common-place; seizing that which is good, and delighting more sometimes at finding its table spread in strange places, and in the presence of its enemies, and its honey coming out of the rock, than if all were harmonized into a less wondrous pleasure, hating only what is self-sighted and insolent of men's work, de- spising all that is not of God; yet able to find evidence of Him still, where all seems forgetful of Him, and to turn that into a witness of His working which was meant to obscure it. and so BEAUTY. 9 with clear and unoffending sight beholding Hirn for ever, according to the written promise, — " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Ideas of Beauty are among the noblest which can be presented to the human mind, invariably exalting and purifying it according to their de- gree; and it would appear that we are intended by the Deity to be constantly under their influ- ence, because there is not one single object in nature which is not capable of conveying them, and which, to the rightly perceiving mind, does not present an incalculably greater number of beautiful, than of deformed parts; there being in fact scarcely anything, in pure, undiseased Nature, like positive deformity, but only degrees of beauty, or such slight and rare points of per- mitted contrast as may render all around them more valuable by their opposition ; spots of blackness in creation, to make its colors felt. But although everything in Nature is more or less beautiful, every species of object has its own kind and degree of beauty; some being in their own nature more beautiful than others, and few, if any individuals, possessing the ut- most beauty of which the species is capable. This utmost degree of specific beauty, necessa- rily co-existent with the utmost perfection of the object in other respects, is the ideal of the object 10 BEAUTY. We must be modest and cautious in the pro- nouncing of positive opinions on the subject of beauty; for every one of us has peculiar sources of enjoyment necessarily opened to him in cer- tain scenes and things, sources which are sealed to others; and we must be wary, on the one hand, of confounding these in ourselves with ultimate conclusions of taste, and so forcing them upon all as authoritative ; and on the other, of supposing that the enjoyments, which we cannot share, are shallow or unwarrantable, because incommunicable. By the term Beauty, two things are signified; First, that external quality of bodies which may be shown to be in some sort typical of the Divine attributes, and which, therefore, I shall for distinction's sake call typical beauty; and second, the appearance of felicitous fulfilment of functions in many things, and this I shall call vital beauty. Let us briefly distinguish those qualities, or types, on whose combination is dependent the power of mere material loveliness. I pretend neither to enumerate nor to perceive them all; yet certain powerful and palpable modes there are, by observing which, we may come at such general conclusions on the subject as may be practically useful. i. Infinity, or the type of Divine Incompre- hensibility. INFINITY. II 2. Unity, or the type of the Divine Compre- hensiveness. 3. Repose, or the type of the Divine Perma- ience. 4. Symmetry, or the type of the Divine Jus- tice. 5. Purity, or the type of Divine Energy. 6. Moderation, or the type of Government by Law. 1. — INFINITY. Heaven lies about us in our infancy, — Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy. But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy. The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended. At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day. One, however, of these child instincts, I be- lieve that few forget, the emotion, namely, caused by all open ground, or lines of any spa- cious kind against the sky, behind which there might be conceived the sea. 1 2 BE A UTY. Whatever beauty there may result from effects of light on foreground objects, from the dew of the grass, the flash of the cascade, the glitter of the birch trunk, or the fair daylight hues of darker things (and joyfulness there is in all of them), there is yet a light which the eye invari- ably seeks with a deeper feeling of the beautiful, the light of the declining or breaking day, and the flakes of scarlet cloud burning like watch- fires in the green sky of the horizon; a deeper feeling, I say, not perhaps more acute, but hav- ing more of spiritual hope and longing, less of animal and present life, more manifest, invari- ably, in those of more serious and determined mind (I use the word serious, not as being opposed to cheerful, but to trivial and vola- tile); but, I think, marked and unfailing even in those of the least thoughtful dispositions. I am willing to let it rest on the determination of every reader, whether the pleasure which he has received from these effects of calm and luminous distance be not the most singular and memorable of which he has been conscious; whether all that is dazzling in color, perfect in form, gladdening in expression, be not of evanes- cent and shallow appealing, when compared with the still small voice of the level twilight behind purple hills, or the scarlet arch of dawn over the dark, troublous-edged sea. INFINITY. 13 Let us try to discover that which effects of this kind possess or suggest, peculiar to them- selves, and which other effects of light and color possess not. There must be something in them of a peculiar character, and that, whatever it be, must be one of the primal and most earnest mo- tives of beauty to human sensation. Do they show finer characters of form than can be developed by the broader daylight? Not so; for their power is almost independent of the forms they assume or display; it matters little whether the bright clouds be simple or manifold, whether the mountain line be subdued or ma- jestic; the fairer forms of earthly things are by them subdued and disguised, the round and muscular growth of the forest trunks is sunk into skeleton lines of quiet shade, the purple clefts of the hill-side are labyrinthed in the darkness, the orbed spring and whirling wave of the torrent have given place to a white, ghastly, interrupted gleaming. Have they more perfec- tion or fulness of color? Not so; for their ef- fect is oftentimes deeper when their hues are dim, than when they are blazoned with crimson and pale gold; and assuredly in the blue of the rainy sky, in the many tints of morning flowers, in the sunlight on summer foliage and field, there are more sources of mere sensual color- pleasure than in the single streak of wan and dy- 14 BEAUTY. ing light. It is not then by nobler form, it is not by positiveness of hue, it is not by intensity of light (for the sun itself at noonday is effectless upon the feelings), that this strange distant space possesses its attractive power. But there is one thing that it has, or suggests, which no other object of sight suggests in equal degree, and that is, — Infinity. It is of all visible things the least material, the least finite, the farthest withdrawn from the earth prison-house, the most typical of the nature of God, the most sug- gestive of the glory of his dwelling-place. For the sky of night, though we may know it bound- less, is dark, it is a studded vault, a roof that seems to shut us in and down; but the bright distance has no limit — we feel its infinity, as we rejoice in its purity of light. Let the reader bear constantly in mind, that I insist not on his accepting any interpretation of mine, but only on his dwelling so long on those objects, which he perceives to be beauti- ful, as to determine whether the qualities to which I trace their beauty be necessarily there or no. Farther expressions of infinity there are in the mystery of Nature, and in some measure in her vastness, but these are dependent on our own imperfections, and therefore, though they produce sublimity they are unconnected with beauty. For that which we foolishly call vast- UNITY. 15 ness is, rightly considered, not more wonderful, not more impressive, than that which we inso- lently call littleness; and the infinity of God is not mysterious^ it is only unfathomable; not concealed, but incomprehensible; it is a clear infinity, the darkness of the pure, unsearchable sea. II. UNITY. "All things," says Hooker, "(God only ex- cepted) besides the nature which they have in themselves, receive externally some perfection from other things." The Divine essence I think it better to speak of as comprehensiveness, than as unity, because unity is often understood in the sense of oneness or singleness, instead of universality, whereas the only Unity which by any means can become grateful or an object of hope to men, and whose types therefore in ma- terial things can be beautiful, is that on which turned the last words and prayer of Christ be- fore his crossing of the Kidron brook. " Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee." l6 BEA UTY. And so there is not any matter, nor any spirit, nor any creature, but it is capable of a unity of some kind with other creatures, and in that unity is its perfection and theirs, and a pleasure also for the beholding of all other creatures that can behold. So the unity of spirits is partly in their sympathy and partly in their giving and taking, and always in their love, and these are their de- light and their strength, for their strength is in their co-working and army fellowship, and their delight is in the giving and receiving of alter- nate and perpetual currents of good, their in- separable dependency on each other's being, and their essential and perfect depending on their Creator's: and so the unity of earthly creatures is their power and their peace, not like the dead and cold peace of undisturbed stones and soli- tary mountains, but the living peace of trust, and the living power of support, of hands that hold each other and are still: and so the unity of matter is, in its noblest form, the organization of it which builds it up into temples for the spirit, and in its lower form, the sweet and strange affinity, which gives to it the glory of its orderly elements, and the fair variety of change and assimilation that turns the dust into the crystal, and separates the waters that be above the firmament from the waters that be beneath; and in its lowest form, it is the working and UNITY. If walking and clinging together that gives their power to the winds, and its syllables and sound- ings to the air, and their weight to the waves, and their burning to the sunbeams, and their stability to the mountains, and to every creature whatsoever operation is for its glory and for others' good. Among all things which are to have unity of membership one with another, there must be difference or variety; and though it is possible that many like things may be made members of one body, yet it is remarkable that this structure appears characteristic of the lower creatures, rather than the higher, as the many legs of the caterpillar, and the many arms and suckers of the radiata, and that, as we rise in order of being, the number of similar members becomes less, and their structure commonly seems based on the principle of the unity of two things by a third, as Plato has it in the Timseus, § II. Hence, out of the necessity of unity, arises that of variety, a necessity often more vividly, though never so deeply felt, because lying at the surfaces of things, and assisted by an influential principle of our nature, the love of change, and the power of contrast. Receiving variety, only as that which accomplishes Unity, or makes it perceived, its operation is found to be very precious. The effect of variety is best exemplified by the 1 8 BEAUTY. melodies of music, wherein, by the differences of the notes, they are connected with each other in certain pleasant relations. This con- nection taking place in quantities is Proportion. This influence of apparent proportion — a pro- portion, be itj observed, which has no reference to ultimate ends, but which is itself, seemingly, the end and object of operation in many of the forces of nature — is therefore at the root of all our delight in any beautiful form whatsoever. It is utterly vain to endeavor to reduce this proportion to finite rules, for it is as various as musical melody, and the laws to which it is sub- ject are of the same general kind, so that the determination of right or wrong proportion is as much a matter of feeling and experience as the appreciation of good musical composition; not but that there is a science of both, and princi- ples which may not be infringed, but that with- in these limits the liberty of invention is infinite, and the degrees of excellence, infinite also. III. — REPOSE. There is probably no necessity more impera- tively felt by the artist, no test more unfailing REPOSE. 19 of the greatness of artistical treatment, than that of the appearance of repose, and yet there is no quality whose semblance in mere matter is more difficult to define or illustrate. Nevertheless, I believe that our instinctive love of it, as well as the cause to which I attribute that love, (al- though here also, as in the former cases, I con- tend not for the interpretation, but for the fact,) will be readily allowed by the reader. As op- posed to passion, changefulness, or laborious ex- ertion, 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 labor, 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 desir- able 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 infliction upon the fallen creature of a curse necessitating a la- 20 BEAUTY. bor once unnatural and still most painful, so that the desire of rest planted in the heart is no sen- sual nor unworthy one, but a longing for reno- vation and for escape from a state whose ever)' phase is mere preparation for another equally transitory, to one in which permanence shall have become possible through perfection. Hence the great call of Christ to men, that call on which St. Augustine fixed essential expression of Christian hope, is accompanied by the promise of rest; and the death-bequest of Christ to men is "peace." Hence, I think there is no desire more intense or more exalted than that which exists in all rightly disciplined minds, for the evidences of repose in external signs. I say fearlessly respect- ing repose, that no work of art can be great without it, and that all art is great in propor- tion to the appearance of it. It is the most un- failing test of beauty, whether of matter or of motion; nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing right that has it not; and in strict proportion to its appearance in the work, is the majesty of mind to be inferred in the artificer. Without regard to other qualities, we may look to this for our evidence, and by the search of this alone we may be led to the rejection of all that is base, and the accepting of all that is REPOSE. 21 good and great, for the paths of wisdom are all peace. We shall see by this light three colossal images standing up side by side, looming in their great rest of spirituality above the whole world-hori- zon ; Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Dante ; and then, separated from their great religious thrones only by less fulness and earnestness of faith, Homer and Shakspeare ; and from these we may go down step by step among the mighty men of every age, securely and certainly observant of diminished lustre in every appearance of rest- lessness and effort, until the last trace of true inspiration vanishes in the tottering affecta- tions, or the tortured inanities of modern times. There is no art, no pursuit, whatsoever, but its results may be classed by this test alone ; every- thing of evil is betrayed and winnowed away by it, glitter and confusion and glare of color, inconsistency or absence of thought, forced expression, evil choice of subject, over accumu- lation of materials, whether in painting or litera- ture ; the shallowness of the English schools of art, the strained and disgusting horrors of the French, the distorted feverishness of the German: — pretence, over-decoration, over-division of parts in architecture, and again in music, in acting, in dancing, in whatsoever art, great or mean, there are yet degrees of greatness or mean- 22 BEAUTY. ness entirely dependent on this single quality oi repose. 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 rais- ing the life of sense into the life of faith — faith, whether we receive it in the sense of adherence to resolution, obedience 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 per- sistent dignity or the uncalculating love of the SYMMETRY. 23 creature,* 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. IV. SYMMETRY. In all perfectly beautiful objects, there is found the opposition of one part to another and a reciprocal balance obtained ; in animals the balance being commonly between opposite sides (note the disagreeableness occasioned by the exception in fiat fish, having the eyes on one side of the head), but in vegetables the opposition is less distinct, as in the boughs on opposite sides of trees, and the leaves and sprays on each side of the boughs, and in dead matter less perfect still, often amounting only to a certain tendency towards a balance, as in the opposite sides of * " The universal instinct of repose, The looping 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 hi 24 BEAUTY. valleys and alternate windings of streams. In things in which perfect symmetry is from their nature impossible or improper, a balance must be at least in some measure expressed before they can be beheld with pleasure. Hence the necessity of what artists reauire as opposing lines or masses in composition, the propriety of which, as well as their value, depends chiefly on their inartificial and natural invention. Abso- lute equality is not required, still less absolute similarity. A mass of subdued color may be balanced by a point of a powerful one, and a long and latent line overpowered by a short and conspicuous one. The only error against which it is necessary to guard the reader with respect to symmetry, is the confounding it with propor- tion, though it seems strange that the two terms could ever have been used as synonymous. Symmetry is the opposition of equal quantities to each other. Proportion the connection of unequal quantities with each other. The property of a tree in sending out equal boughs on opposite sides is symmetrical. Its sending out shorter and smaller towards the top, proportional. In the human face its balance of opposite sides is symmetry, its division upwards, proportion. Whether the agreeableness of symmetry be in any way referable to its expression of the Aris- totelian icrortjs, that is to say of abstract justice, PURITY. 25 I leave the reader to determine ; I only assert respecting it, that it is necessary to the dignity of every form, and that by the removal of it we shall render the other elements of beauty com- paratively ineffectual: though, on the other hand, it is to be observed that it is rather a mode of arrangement of qualities than a quality itself ; and hence symmetry has little power over the mind, unless all the other constituents of beauty be found together with it. v. — PURITY. There is one quality which might have escaped us in the consideration of mere matter, namely purity, and yet I think that the original notion of this quality is altogether material, and has only been attributed to color when such color is suggestive of the condition of matter from which we originally received the idea. For I see not in the abstract how one color should be considered purer than another, except as more or less com- pounded, whereas there is certainly a sense of purity or impurity in the most compound and neutral colors, as well as in the simplest, a quality difficult to define, and which the reader will probably be surprised by my calling the type 26 BEAUTY. of energy, with which it has certainly little traceable connection in the mind. The only idea which I think can be legiti- mately connected with purity of matter, is this of vital and energetic connection among its par- ticles, and the idea of foulness is essentially connected with dissolution and death. Thus the purity of the rock, contrasted with the foul- ness of dust or mould, is expressed by the epithet "living," very singularly given in the rock, in almost all languages; singularly I say, because life is almost the last attribute one would ascribe to stone, but for this visible energy and connec- tion of its particles ; and so of water as opposed to stagnancy. And I do not think that, however pure a powder or dust may be, the idea of beauty is ever connected with it, for it is not the mere purity, but the active condition of the substance which is desired, so that as soon as it shoots into crystals, or gathers into effervescence, a sensa- tion of active or real purity is received which was not felt in the calcined caput mortuum. The most lovely objects in nature are only partially transparent. I suppose the utmost possible sense of beauty (of color) is conveyed by a feebly translucent, smooth, but not lustrous surface of white, and pale warm red, subdued by the most pure and delicate greys, as in the finer portions of the human frame ; in wreaths of MODERA TION. 2J snow, and in white plumage under rose light. A fair forehead outshines its diamond diadem. The sparkle of the cascade withdraws not our eyes from the -snowy summits in their evening silence. With the idea of purity comes that of spiritu- ality, for the essential characteristic of matter is its inertia, whence, by adding to it purity or energy, we may in some measure spiritualize even matter itself. Thus in the descriptions of the Apocalypse it is its purity that fits it for its place in heaven; the river of the water of life that proceeds out of the throne of the Lamb is clear as crystal, and the pavement of the city is pure gold, like unto clear glass. VI. — MODERATION. Of objects which, in respect of the qualities hitherto considered, appear to have equal claims to regard, we find, nevertheless, that certain are preferred to others in consequence of an attrac- tive power, usually expressed by the terms "chasteness, refinement, or elegance," and it appears also that things which in other respects have little in them of natural beauty, and are of forms altogether simple and adapted to simple 2$ BEAUTY. uses, are capable of much distinction and desira- bleness in consequence of these qualities only. It is of importance to discover the real nature of the ideas thus expressed. Something of the peculiar meaning of the words is referable to the authority of fashion and the exclusiveness of pride, owing to which that which is the mode of a particular time is submis- sively esteemed, and that which by its costliness or its rarity is of difficult attainment, or in any way appears to have been chosen as the best of many things (which is the original sense of the words elegant and exquisite), is esteemed for the witness it bears to the dignity of the chooser. But neither of these ideas are in any way con- nected with eternal beauty, neither do they at all account for that agreeableness of color and form which is especially termed chasteness, and which it would seem to be a characteristic of rightly trained mind in all things to prefer, and of common minds to reject. There is, however, another character of artifi- cial productions, to which these terms have partial reference, which it is of some importance to note, that of finish, exactness, or refinement, which are commonly desired in the works of men, owing both to their difficulty of accomplish-, ment and consequent expression of care and power. And there is not a greater sign of the MODERA TION 2g imperfection of general taste, than its capability of contentment with forms and things which, professing completion, are yet not exact nor com- plete, as in the* vulgar with wax and clay, and china figures, and in bad sculptors with an unfin- ished and clay-like modelling of surface, and curves and angles of no precision or delicacy. Yet this finish is not a part or constituent of beauty, but the full and ultimate rendering of it. And therefore, as there certainly is admitted a difference of degree in what we call chasteness, even in Divine work (compare the hollyhock or the sunflower with the vale lily), we must seek for it some other explanation and source than this. And if, bringing down our ideas of it from complicated objects to simple lines and colors, we analyze and regard them carefully, I think we shall be able to trace them to an under-cur- rent of constantly agreeable feeling, excited by the appearance in material things of a self-re- strained liberty, that is to say, by the image of that acting of God with regard to all his creation, wherein, though free to operate in whatever arbitrary, sudden, violent, or inconstant ways he will, he yet, if we may reverently so speak, re- strains in himself this his omnipotent liberty, and works always in consistent modes, called by us laws. And this restraint or moderation, ac- 30 BE A UTY. cording to the words of Hooker (" that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure of working, the same we term a law"), is in the Deity not restraint, such as it is said of creatures, but, as again says Hooker, " the very being of God is a law to his working," so that every appearance of painfulness or want of power and freedom in ma- terial things is wrong and ugly; for the right re- straint, the image of Divine operation, is both in them, and in men, a willing and not painful stop- ping short of the utmost degree to which their power might reach, and the appearance of fetter- ing or confinement is the cause of ugliness in the one, as the slightest painfulness or effort in restraint is a sign of sin in the other. I have put this attribute of beauty last, be- cause I consider it the girdle and safeguard of all the rest, and in this respect the most essen- tial of all, for it is possible that a certain degree of beauty may be attained even in the absence of one of its other constituents, as sometimes in some measure without symmetry or without unity. But the least appearance of violence or extravagance, of the want of moderation and restraint, is, I think, destructive of all beauty whatsoever in everything, color, form, motion, language, or thought, giving rise to that which in color we call glaring, in form inelegant, in MODE R A TION. 3 1 motion ungraceful, in language coarse, in thought undisciplined, in all unchastened; which quali- ties are in everything most painful, because the signs of disobedient and irregular operation. In color it is not red, but rose-color, which is most beautiful, neither such actual green as we find in summer foliage, partly, and in our paint- ing of it constantly; but such grey green as that into which nature modifies her distant tints, or such pale green and uncertain as we see in sun- set sky, and in the clefts of the glacier, and the chrysoprase, and the sea-foam. And so of all colors; not that they may not sometimes be deep and full, but that there is a solemn moderation even in their very fulness, and a holy reference beyond and out of their own nature to great harmonies by which they are governed, and in obedience to which is their glory. The very bril- liancy and real power of all color is dependent on the chastening of it, as of a voice on its gentleness, and as of action on its calmness, and as all moral vigor on self-command. And there- fore as that virtue which men last, and with most difficulty attain unto, and which many at- tain not at all, and yet that which is essential to the conduct and almost to the being of all other virtues, since neither imagination, nor invention, nor industry, nor sensibility, nor energy, nor any other good having, is of full avail with- 32 BE A UTY. out this of self-command, whereby works truly masculine and mighty, are produced, and by the signs of which they are separated from that lower host of things brilliant, magnificent, and redundant, and farther yet from that of the loose, the lawless, the exaggerated, the insolent, and the profane, I would have the necessity of it foremost among all our inculcating, and the name of it largest among all our inscribing, in so far that, over the doors of every school of Art, I would have this one word, relieved out in deep letters of pure gold, — moderation. I proceed more particularly to examine the nature of that second kind of beauty of which I spoke as consisting in " the appearance of felici- tous fulfilment of function in living things." I have already noticed the example of very pure and high typical beauty which is to be found in the lines and gradations 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* 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 * Soldanella Alpine, MOD ERA T/OJV. 3 3 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 uncon- scious 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 be- sides 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 example. 34 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 incapa- ble, 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 posses- sion of charity, of which the entire essence is in God only. Wherefore it is evident that even the ordinary exercise of this faculty implies a condition of the whole moral being in some measure right and healthy, and that 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 that fill those spaces in the universe which he needs not, and which live not for his uses ; nay, he has seldom grace to be grateful even to those that love him and serve him, 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 BEAUTY IN ANIMALS. 35 his brethren also, and perhaps worthier than he, if in the under concords they have to fill, their part is touched more truly. 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; as in a rose bush, setting aside all the considerations of gradated flushing of color and fair folding of line, which it shares with the cloud or the snow-wreath, we find in and through all this certain signs pleasant and acceptable as signs of life and enjoyment in the particular individual plant itself. Every leaf and stalk is seen to have a function, to be constantly exercising that func- tion, and as it seems solely for the good and en- joyment of the plant. BEAUTY IN ANIMALS. Of eyes we shall find those ugliest which have in them no expression nor life whatever, but a corpse-like stare, or an indefinite meaningless glaring, as in some lights, those of owls and cats, and mostly of insects and of all creatures in which the eye seems rather an external, optical instrument than a bodily member through which 36 BEAUTY. emotion and virtue of soul may be expressed (as pre-eminently in the chameleon), because the seeming want of sensibility and vitality in a liv- ing creature is the most painful of all wants. And next to these in ugliness come the eyes that gain vitality indeed but only by means of the expres- sion of intense malignity, as in the serpent and alligator; and next to these, to whose malignity is added the virtue of subtlety and keenness, as of the lynx and hawk; and then, by diminishing the malignity and increasing the expressions of comprehensiveness and determination, we arrive at thos* of the lion and eagle, and at last, by destroying malignity altogether, at the fair eye of the herbivorous tribes, wherein the superiority of beauty consists always in the greater or less sweetness and gentleness primarily, as in the gazelle, camel, and ox, and in the greater or less intellect, secondarily, as in the horse and dog, and finally, in gentleness and intellect both in man. And again, taking the mouth, another source of expression, we find it ugliest where it has none, as mostly in fish, or perhaps where, without gaining much in expression of any kind, it becomes a formidable destructive instrument, as again in the alligator, and then, by some in- crease of expression, we arrive at birds' beaks, wherein there is more obtained by the different ways of setting on the mandibles than is com- BEAUTY IN ANIMALS. 37 monly supposed (compare the bills of the duck and the eagle), and thence we reach the finely- developed lips of the carnivora, which neverthe- less lose that beauty they have, in the actions of snarling and biting, and from these we pass to the nobler because gentler and more sensible, of the horse, camel, and fawn, and so again up to man, only there is less traceableness of the prin- ciple in the mouths of the lower animals, because they are in slight measure only capable of expres- sion, and chiefly used as instruments, and that of low function, whereas in man the mouth is given most definitely as a means of expression, beyond and above its lower functions. We are to take it for granted, that every crea- ture of God is in some way good, and has a duty and specific operation providentially accessory to the well-being of all; we are to look in this faith to that employment and nature of each, and to derive pleasure from their entire perfection and fitness for the duty they have to do, and in their entire fulfilment of it; and so we are to take pleasure and find beauty in the magnificent bind- ing together of the jaws of the ichthyosaurus for catching and holding, and in the adaptation of the lion for springing, and of the locust for destroying, and of the lark for singing, and in every creature for the doing of that which God has made it to do. 38 BEAUTY. HUMAN BEAUTY. We come at last to set ourselves face to face with ourselves, expecting that in creatures made after the image of God we are to find comeli- ness and completion more exquisite than in the fowls of the air and the things that pass through the paths of the sea. But behold now a sudden change from all former experience. No longer among the indi- viduals of the race is there equality or likeness, a distributed fairness and fixed type visible in each, but evil diversity, and terrible stamp of various degradation; features seamed with sick- ness, dimmed by sensuality, convulsed by pas- sion, pinched by poverty, shadowed by sorrow, branded with remorse ; bodies consumed with sloth, broken down by labor, tortured by dis- ease, dishonored in foul uses; intellects without power, hearts without hope, minds earthly and devilish; our bones full of the sin of our youth, the heaven revealing our iniquity, the earth ris- ing up against us, the roots dried up beneath, and the branch cut off above; well for us only, if, after beholding this our natural face in a glass, we desire not straightway to forget what manner of men we be. Herein there is at last something, and too much, for that short, stopping intelligence and HUMAN BEAUTY. 39 dull perception of ours to accomplish, whether in earnest fact, or in the seeking for the out- ward image of beauty: — to undo the devil's work, to restore to the body the grace and the power which inherited disease has destroyed, to return to the spirit the purity, and to the intel- lect the grasp that they had in Paradise. Now, first of all, this work, be it observed, is in no respect a work of imagination. Wrecked we are, and nearly all to pieces ; but that little good by which we are to redeem ourselves is to be got out of the old wreck, beaten about and full of sand though it be; and not out of that desert island of pride on which the devils split first, and we after them: and so the only resto- ration of the body that we can reach is not to be coined out of our fancies, but to be collected out of such uninjured and bright vestiges of the old seal as we can find and set together; and so the ideal of the features, as the good and per- fect soul is seen in them, is not to be reached by imagination, but by the seeing and reaching forth of the better part of the soul to that of which it must first know the sweetness and goodness in itself, before it can much desire, or rightly find, the signs of it in others. The operation of the mind upon the body, and evidence of it thereon, may be considered under three heads: — 40 BEAUTY. First, the intellectual powers upon the fea- tures, in the fine cutting and chiselling of them, and removal from them of signs of sensuality and sloth, by which they are blunted and dead- ened, 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. The second point to be considered in the in- fluence of mind upon body, is the mode of opera- tion and conjunction of the moral feelings on and with the intellectual powers, and then their conjoint influence on the bodily form. Now, the operation of the right moral feelings on the intellectual is always for the good of the latter, for it is not possible that selfishness should rea- son 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 de- ceit, for that which is voluntarily untrue will soon be unwittingly so: but the great reasoners are self-command, and trust unagitated, and HUMAN BEAUTY. . 4-1 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 in- tellectual type as possible, unless we look to higher sources of beauty first. For there is not any virtue the exercise of which, even momen- tarily, 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 move- ment and gestures, however slight, are different in their modes according to the mind that gov- erns 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 at- tained. 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 cul- ture when it begins to interfere with some of the characters of typical beauty belonging to the bodily frame, the stirring of the intellect wear- ing 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 42 t BEAUTY. 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. The love of the human race is increased by their individual differences, and the unity of the creature made perfect by each having something to bestow and to receive, bound to the rest by a thousand various necessities and various grati- tudes, humility in each rejoicing to admire in his fellow that which he finds not in himself, and each being in some respect the complement of his race. In investigating the signs of the ideal, or per- fect type of humanity, we must distinguish be- tween differences conceivably existing in a per- fect state, and differences resulting from imme- diate and present operation of the Adamite curse. As it is impossible that any essence short of the Divine, should at the same instant be equally receptive of all emotions, those emotions which, by right and order, have the most usual victory, both leave the stamp of their habitual presence on the body, and render the individual more and more susceptible of them in proportion to the frequency of their prevalent recurrence ; added to which, causes of distinctive character are to be taken into account, the differences of HUMAN BEAUTY. 43 age and sex, which, though seemingly of more finite influence, cannot be banished from any- human conception. David, ruddy and of a fair countenance, with the brook stone of deliver- ance in his hand, is not more ideal than David leaning on the old age of Barzillai, returning chastened to his kingly home. And they who are as the angels of God in heaven, yet cannot be conceived as so assimilated that their differ- ent experiences and affections upon earth shall then be forgotten and effectless: the child taken early to his place cannot be imagined to wear there such a body, nor to have such thoughts, as the glorified apostle who has finished his course and kept the faith on earth. And so whatever perfections and likeness of love we may attribute to either the tried or the crowned creatures, there is the difference of the stars in glory among them yet; differences of original gifts, though not of occupying till their Lord come, different dispensations of trial and of trust, of sorrow and support, both in their own inward, variable hearts, and in their positions of exposure or of peace, of the gourd shadow and the smiting sun, of calling at heat of day or eleventh hour, of the house unroofed by faith, and the clouds opened by revelation; differ- ences in warning, in mercies, in sicknesses, in signs, in time of calling to account; like only 44 BEAUTY. they all are by that which is not of them, but the gift of God's unchangeable mercy. " I will give unto this last even as unto thee." Those signs of evil which are commonly most manifest on the human features are roughly di- visible 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 story of all sin. The second destroyer of human beauty, is the appearance of sensual character, more difficult to trace, owing to its peculiar subtlety. " 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." Respecting those two other vices of the human face, the expressions of fear and ferocity, these only occasionally enter into the conception of character. 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 HUMAN BEAUTY. 45 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 earthl) 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 I 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 of 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 ne- cessity and excuse as being allowed for preven- 46 BEAUTY. tion 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 pale- ness alike of the horse of Death, and the ashes of hell. These, then, are the four passions whose pres- ence in any degree on the human face is degra- dation. But of all passion it is to be generally observed, that it becomes ignoble either when en- tertained respecting unworthy objects, and there- fore shallow or unjustifiable, or when of impious violence, and so destructive of human dignity. Thus grief is noble or the reverse, according to the dignity and worthiness of the object la- mented, and the grandeur of the mind enduring it. The sorrow of mortified vanity or avarice is simply disgusting, even that of bereaved affec- tion may be base if selfish and unrestrained. All grief that convulses the features is ignoble, because it is commonly shallow and certainly temporary, as in children, though in the shock and shiver of a strong man's features under sud- den and violent grief there may be something of sublime. " That beauty is not, as fond men misdeem An outward show of things, that only seem ; But that fair lamp, from whose celestial ray That light proceeds, which kindleth lovers' fire, Shall never be extinguished nor decay. THE IDEAL. 47 But when the vital spirits do expire, Unto her native planet shall retire, For it is heavenly born and cannot die Being a parcel of the purest sky." THE IDEAL. The perfect idea of the form and condition in which all the properties of the species are fully- developed, is called the ideal of the species. The question of the nature of ideal conception of species, and of the mode in which the mind arrives at it, has been the subject of so much discussion, and source of so much embarrass- ment, chiefly owing to that unfortunate distinc- tion between idealism and realism which leads most people to imagine the ideal opposed to the real, and therefore false, that I think it neces- sary to request the reader's most careful atten- tion to the following positions. Any work of art which represents, not a ma- terial object, but the mental conception of a material object, is in the primary sense of the word ideal ; that is to say, it represents an idea, and not a thing. Any work of art which 'rep- resents or realizes a material object, is, in the primary sense of the term, unideal. 48 BE A UTY. Ideal works of art, therefore, in this first sense, represent the result of an act of imagina- tion, and are good or bad in proportion to the healthy condition and general power of the im- agination, whose acts they represent. Unideal works of art (the studious produc- tion of which is termed realism) represent act- ual existing things, and are good or bad in pro- portion to the perfection of the representation. All entirely bad works of art may be divided into those which, professing to be imaginative, bear no stamp of imagination, and are therefore false, and those which professing to be repre- sentative of matter, miss of the representation and are therefore nugatory. The idea, therefore, of the park oak is full size, united terminal curve, equal and symmetri- cal range of branches on each side. The ideal of the mountain oak may be anything twisting, and leaning, and shattered, and rock-encum- bered, so only that amidst all its misfortunes, it maintain the dignity of oak ; and, indeed, I look upon this kind of tree as more ideal than the other, in so far as by its efforts and struggles, more of its nature, enduring power, patience in waiting for, and ingenuity in obtaining what it wants, is brought out, and so more of the essence of oak exhibited, than under more fortunate conditions. THE IDEAL. 49 ■ The ranunculus glacialis might perhaps, by cultivation, be blanched from its wan and corpse- like paleness to. purer white, and won to more branched and lofty development of its ragged leaves. But the ideal of the plant is to be found only in the last, loose stones of the mo- raine, alone there ; wet with the cold, unkindly drip of the glacier water, and trembling as the loose and steep dust to which it clings yields ever and anon, and shudders and crumbles away from about its root. And if it be asked how this conception of the utmost beauty of ideal form is consistent with what we formerly argued respecting the pleas- antness of the appearance of [felicity in the creature, let it be observed, and for ever held, that the right and true happiness of every crea- ture, is in ^this very discharge of its function, and in those efforts by which its strength and in- herent energy are developed : and that the re- pose of which we also spoke as necessary to all beauty, is, as was then stated, repose not of in- anition, nor of luxury, nor of irresolution, but the repose of magnificent energy and being ; in action, the calmness of trust and determination ; in rest, the consciousness of duty accomplished and of victory won, and this repose and this felicity can take place as well in the midst of trial, and tempest, as beside the waters of com- SO BEA UTY. i fort ; they perish only when the creature is either unfaithful to itself, or is afflicted by circum- stances unnatural and malignant to its being, and for the contending with which it was neither fitted nor ordained. Hence that rest which is indeed glorious is of the chamois couched breathless on his granite bed, not of the stalled ox over his fodder ; and that happiness which is indeed beautiful is in the bearing of those trial tests which are appointed for the proving of every creature, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. Of all creatures whose ex- istence involves birth, progress, and dissolution, ideality is predicable all through their existence, so that they be perfect with reference to their supposed period of being. Thus there is an ideal of infancy, of youth, of old age, of death, and of decay. But when the ideal form of the species is spoken of or conceived in general terms, the form is understood to be of that period when the generic attributes are perfectly developed, and previous to the commencement of their decline. At which period all the char- acters of vital and typical beauty are commonly most concentrated in them, though the arrange- ment and proportion of these characters varies at different periods, youth having more of the vigorous beauty, and age of the reposing ; youth of typical outward fairness, and age of expanded THE IDEAL. 5 1 and etherealized moral expression ; the babe, again, in some measure atoning in gracefulness for its want of strength, so that the balanced glory of the creature continues in solemn inter- change, perhaps even " Filling more and more with crystal light, As pensive evening deepens into night." Our purity of taste is best tested by its uni- versality. If we can only admire this thing or that, we may be sure that our cause for liking is of a finite and false nature. But if we can per- ceive beauty in everything of God's doing, we may argue that we have reached the true per- ception of its universal laws. Hence, false taste may be known by its fastidiousness, by its de- mands of pomp, splendor, and unusual combina- tion ; by its enjoyment only of particular styles and modes of things, and by its pride also, for it is for ever meddling, mending, accumulating, and self-exulting, its eye is always upon itself, and it tests all things around it by the way they fit it. But true taste is for ever growing, learn- ing, reading, worshipping, laying its hand upon its mouth because it is astonished, casting its shoes from off its feet because it finds all ground holy, lamenting over itself, and testing itself by the way that it fits things. And it finds whereof to feed, and whereby to grow, in all things, and 52 BEAUTY. therefore the complaint so often made by young artists that they have not within their reach materials, or subjects enough for their fancy, is utterly groundless, and the sign only of their own blindness and inefficiency ; for there is that to be seen in every street and lane of every city — that to be felt and found in every human heart and countenance, that to be loved in every road-side weed and moss-grown wall, which, in the hands of faithful men, may convey emotions of glory and sublimity continual and exalted. |)art 2. NA TURE. " Nature never did betray The lieart that loved her ; ''tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy ; for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues Rash judgment, nor the sneers of selfish men ShacZ e'er prevail against us, or disturb Ou, ateerful faith that all which we belwld Is full of blessings.'" Wordsworth. PART II. NA TU RE. THE SKY. It is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident pur- pose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. There are not many of her other works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organization ; but every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be answered, if once in three days, or thereabouts, a great ugly black rain cloud were brought up over the blue, and everything well watered, and so all left blue again till next time, with perhaps a film of morning and evening mist for dew. And instead of this, there is not a moment of any day of our lives, when nature is not producing scene after 55 $6 NA TURE. scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and con- stant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain it is all done for us, and in- tended for our perpetual pleasure. And every man, wherever placed, however far from other sources of interest or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. The noblest scenes of the earth can be seen and known but by few ; it is not intended that man should live always in the midst of them, he injures them by his presence, he ceases to feel them if he be always with them ; but the sky is for all ; bright as it is, it is not " too bright, nor good, for human nature's daily food ;" it is fitted in all its functions for the per- petual comfort and exalting of the heart, for the soothing it and purifying it from its dross and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes awful, never the same for two mo- ments together ; almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us, is as distinct, as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal is essential. And yet we never attend to it, we never make it a subject of thought, but as it has to do with our animal sensations ; we look upon all by which it speaks to us more clearly than to brutes, upon all which bears witness to the intention of the THE SKY. 57 Supreme, that we are to receive more from the covering vault than the light and the dew which we share with the weed and the worm, only as a succession of meaningless and monotonous acci- dent, too common and too vain to be worthy of a moment of watchfulness, or a glance of admira- tion. If in our moments of utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last resource, which of its phenomena do we speak of ? One says it has been wet, and another it has been windy, and another it has been warm. Who, among the whole chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms and the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon at noon yesterday ? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came out of the south and smote upon their summits until they melted and mouldered away in a dust of blue rain ? Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight left them last night, and the west wind blew them before it like withered leaves ? All has passed, unregret- ted as unseen ; or if the apathy be ever shaken off, even for an instant, it is only by what is gross, or what is extraordinary ; and yet it is not in the broad and fierce manifestations of the ele- mental energies, not in the clash of the hail, nor the drift of the whirlwind, that the highest char- acters of the sublime are developed. God is not in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still 58 NATURE. small voice. They are but the blunt and low- faculties of our nature, which can only be ad- dressed through lampblack and lightning. It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the per- petual, — that which must be sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood, — things which the angels work out for us daily, and yet vary eternally, which are never wanting, and never repeated, which are to be found always, yet each found but once ; it is through these that the lesson of devotion is chiefly taught, and the blessing of beauty given. These are what the artist of highest aim must study ; it is these, by the combination of which his ideal is to be created ; these, of which so little notice is ordi- narily taken by common observers, that I fully believe, little as people in general are concerned with art, more of their ideas of sky are derived from pictures than from reality, and that if we could examine the conception formed in the minds of most educated persons when we talk of clouds, it would frequently be found composed of fragments of blue and white reminiscences of the old masters. " The chasm of sky above my head Is Heaven's profoundest azure. No domain For fickle, short-lived clouds, to occupy, Or to pass through ; but rather an abyss THE SKY. 59 In which the everlasting ^stars abide, And whose soft gloom, and boundless depth, might tempt The curious eye to look for them by day." And, in his American Notes, I remember Dickens notices the same truth, describing himself as ly- ing drowsily on the barge deck, looking not at, but through the sky. And if you look intensely at the pure blue of a serene sky, you will see that there is a variety and fulness in its very re- pose. It is not flat dead color, but a deep, quivering, transparent body of penetrable air, in which you trace or imagine short, falling spots of deceiving light, and dim shades, faint, veiled vestiges of dark vapor. It seems to me that in the midst of the mate- rial nearness of the heavens God means us to ac- knowledge His own immediate presence as visit- ing, judging, and blessing us. " The earth shook, the heavens also dropped, at the presence of God." " He doth set his bow in the cloud," and thus renews, in the sound of every drooping swathe of rain, his promises of everlasting love. " In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun;" whose burning ball, which without the firmament would be seen as an intolerable and scorching circle in the blackness of vacuity, is by that firmament surrounded with gorgeous service, and tempered by mediatorial ministries; by the firma- ment of clouds the golden pavement is spread 60 NA TURE. for his chariot wheels at morning ; by the firma- ment of clouds the temple is built for his pres- ence to fill with light at noon; by the firmament of clouds the purple veil is closed at evening round the sanctuary of his rest; by the mists of the firmament his implacable light is divided, and its separated fierceness appeased into the soft blue that fills the depth of distance with its bloom, and the flush with which the mountains burn as they drink the overflowing of the day- spring. And in this tabernacling of the unen- durable sun with men, through the shadows of the firmament, God would seem to set forth the stooping of His own majesty to men, upon the throne of the firmament. As the Creator of all the worlds, and the Inhabiter of eternity, we cannot behold Him ; but as the Judge of the earth and the Preserver of men, those heavens are indeed His dwelling-place. " Swear not, neither by heaven ; for it is God's throne: nor by the earth, for it is his footstool." And all those passings to and fro of fruitful shower and grate- ful shade, and all those visions of silver palaces built about the horizon, and voices of moaning winds and threatening thunders, and glories of colored robe and cloven ray, are but to deepen in our hearts the acceptance, and distinctness, and dearness of the simple words, " Our Father, which art in heaven." CLOUDS. CLOUDS. 61 The first and most important character of clouds, is dependent on the different altitudes at which they are formed. The atmosphere may be conveniently considered as divided into three spaces, each inhabited by clouds of specific character altogether different, though, in reality, there is no distinct limit fixed between them by nature, clouds being formed at every altitude, and partaking, according to their altitude, more or less of the characters of the upper or lower regions. The scenery of the sky is thus formed of an infinitely graduated series of systematic forms of clouds, each of which has its own re- gion in which: alone it is formed, and each of which has specific characters which can only be properly determined by comparing them as they are found clearly distinguished by intervals of considerable space. I shall therefore consider the sky as divided into three regions — the upper region, or region of the cirrus ; the central re- gion, or region of the stratus ; the lower region, or the region of the rain-cloud. The clouds which I wish to consider as in- cluded in the upper region, never touch even the highest mountains of Europe, and may therefore be looked upon as never formed below an eleva- 62 NA TURE. tion of at least 15,000 feet ; they are the motion- less multitudinous lines of delicate vapor with which the blue of the open sky is commonly streaked or speckled after several days of fine weather. I must be pardoned for giving a de- tailedjlescription of their specific characters, as they are of constant occurrence in the works of modern artists, and I shall have occasion to speak frequently of them in future parts of the work. Their chief characters are — First, Symmetry: They are nearly always ar- ranged in some definite and evident order, com- monly in long ranks, reaching sometimes from the zenith to the horizon, each rank composed of an infinite number of transverse bars of about the same length, each bar thickest in the middle, and terminating in a traceless vaporous point at each side ; the ranks are in the direction of the wind, and the bars of course at right angles to it. The groups of fine, silky, parallel fibres, terminating in a plumy sweep, are vulgarly known as " mares' tails." Secondly, Sharpness of Edge : The edges of the bars of the upper clouds which are turned to the wind are often the sharpest which the sky shows ; no outline whatever of any other kind of cloud, however marked and energetic, ever approaches the delicate decision of those edges. Thirdly, Multitude: The delicacy of these CLOUDS. 63 vapors is sometimes carried into an infinity of division. Nor is nature content with an in- finity of bars or lines alone — each bar is in its turn severed intp a number of small undulatory masses, more or less connected according to the violence of the wind. When this division is merely effected by undulation, the cloud exactly resembles sea-sand ribbed by the tide; but when the division amounts to real separation we have the mottled or " mackerel " skies. Fourthly, Purity of Color : The nearest of these clouds — those over the observer's head, being at least three miles above him, and nearly all entering the ordinary sphere of vision, farther from him still, — their dark sides are much grayer and cooler than those of other clouds, owing to their distance. They are composed of the pur- est aqueous vapor, free from all foulness of earthly gases, and of this in the lightest and most ethereal state in which it can be, to be visi- ble. Farther, they receive the light of the sun in a state of far greater intensity than lower ob- jects, the beams being transmitted to them through atmospheric air far less dense, and wholly unaffected by mist, smoke, or any other impurity. Hence their colors are more pure and vivid, and their white less sullied than those of any other clouds. Lastly, Variety: Variety is never so conspicu- 64 NA TURE. ous, as when it is united with symmetry. The perpetual change of form in other clouds, is mo- notonous in its very dissimilarity, nor is differ- ence striking where no connection is implied; but if through a range of barred clouds, crossing half the heaven, all governed by the same forces and falling into one general form, there be yet a marked and evident dissimilarity between each member of the great mass — one more finely drawn, the next more delicately moulded, the next more gracefully bent — each broken into dif- ferently modelled and variously numbered groups, the variety is doubly striking, because contrasted with the perfect symmetry of which it forms a part. Under all, perhaps the massy outline of some lower cloud moves heavily across the motionless buoyancy of the upper lines, and indicates at once their elevation and their repose. A fine and faithful description of these clouds is given by Wordsworth in " The Excursion." " But rays of light Now suddenly diverging from the orb, Retired behind the mountain tops, or veiled By the dense air, shot upwards to the crown Of the blue firmament — aloft — and wide: And multitudes of little floating clouds, Ere we, who saw, of change were conscious, pierced Through their ethereal texture, had become Vivid as fire, — Clouds separately poised, CLOUDS. 65 Innumerable multitude of forms Scattered through half the circle of the sky And giving back, and shedding each on each, With prodigal communion, the bright hues Which from the unapparent fount of glory They had imbibed, and ceased not to receive. That which the heavens displayed the liquid deep Repeated, but with unity sublime." Their slow movement Shelley has beautifully touched — "Underneath the young gray dawn A multitude of dense, white fleecy clouds, Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains, Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind." If you watch for the next sunset, when there are a considerable number of these cirri in the sky, you will see, especially at the zenith, that the sky does not remain of the same color for two inches together; one cloud has a dark side of cold blue, and a fringe of milky white; an- other, above it, has a dark side of purple and an edge of red; another, nearer the sun, has an un- der-side of orange and an edge of gold; these you will find mingled with, and passing into the blue of the sky, which in places you will not be able to distinguish from the cool gray of the darker clouds, and which will be itself full of gradation, now pure and deep, now faint and feeble; and all this is done, not in large pieces, 66 XA TURE. nor on a large scale, but over and over again in every square yard, so that there is no single part nor portion of the whole sky which has not in itself variety of color enough for a separate pic- ture, and yet no single part which is like an- other, or which has not some peculiar source of beauty, and some peculiar arrangement of color of its own. THE CENTRAL CLOUD REGION, I consider as including all clouds which are the usual characteristic of ordinary serene weather, and which touch and envelope the mountains of Switzerland; they may be consid- ered as occupying a space of air ten thousand feet in height, extending from five to fifteen thousand feet above the sea. These clouds, according to their elevation, appear with great variety of form, often partak- ing of the streaked or mottled character of the higher region, and as often, when the precursors of storm, manifesting forms closely connected with the lowest rain clouds; but the species es- pecially characteristic of the central region is a white, ragged, irregular, and scattered vapor, and which has little form and less color. THE CENTRAL CLOUD REGION. 67 But although this kind of cloud is, as I have said, typical of the central region, it is not one which nature is fond of. She scarcely ever lets an hour pass without some manifestation of finer forms, sometimes approaching the upper cirri, sometimes the lower cumulus. And then in the lower outlines, we have the nearest ap- proximation which nature ever presents to the clouds of Claude, Salvator, and Poussin. When vapor collects into masses, it is partially rounded, clumsy, and ponderous, as if it would tumble out of the sky, shaded with a dull gray, and to- tally devoid of any appearance of energy or mo- tion. Even in nature, these clouds are com- paratively uninteresting, scarcely worth raising our heads to look at; and on canvas, valuable only as a means of introducing light, and break- ing the monotony of blue; yet they are, perhaps, beyond all others the favorite clouds of the Dutch masters. The originality and vigor of separate concep- tion in cloud forms, give to the scenery of the sky a force and variety no less delightful than that of the changes of mountain outline in a hill district of great elevation; and there is added to this a spirit-like feeling, a capricious, mock- ing imagery of passion and life, totally different from any effects of inanimate form that the earth can show. 68 NA l^URE. The minor contours, out of which the larger outlines are composed, are indeed beautifully curvilinear; but they are never monotonous in their curves. First comes a concave line, then a convex one, then an angular jag, breaking off into spray, then a downright straight line, then a curve again, then a deep gap, and a place where all is lost and melted away, and so on; displaying in every inch of the form renewed and ceaseless in- vention, setting off grace with rigidity, and reliev- ing flexibility with force, in a manner scarcely less admirable, and far more changeful than even in the muscular forms of the human frame. Nay, such is the exquisite composition of all this, that you may take any single fragment of any cloud in the sky, and you will find it put together as if there had been a year's thought over the plan of it, arranged with the most stud- ied inequality — with the most delicate symme- try — with the most elaborate contrast, a picture in itself. You may try every other piece of cloud in the heaven, and you will find them every one as perfect, and yet not one in the least like another. When rain falls on a mountain composed chiefly of barren rocks, their surfaces, being vio- lently heated by the sun, whose most intense warmth always precedes rain, occasion sudden and violent evaporation, actually converting the THE CENTRAL CLOUD REGION. 69 first shower into steam. Consequently, upon all such hills, on the commencement of rain, white volumes of vapor are instantaneously and universally formed, which rise, are absorbed by the atmosphere, and again descend in rain, to rise in fresh volumes until the surfaces of the hills are cooled. Where there is grass or vege- tation, this effect is diminished; where there is foliage it scarcely takes place at all. Now this effect has evidently been especially chosen by Turner for Loch Coriskin, not only because it enabled him to relieve its jagged forms with veil- ing vapor, but to tell the tale which no pencil- ling could, the story of its utter absolute bar- renness of unlichened, dead, desolate rock: — i( The wildest glen, but this, can show Some touch of nature's genial glow, On high Benmore green mosses grow And heath-bells bud in deep Glencoe. And copse on Cruchan Ben; But here, above, around, below, On mountain, or in glen, Nor tree, nor plant, nor shrub, nor flower. Nor ought of vegetative power, The wearied eye may ken ; But all its rocks at random thrown, Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone. " Lord of the Isles, Canto III, " Be as a Presence or a motion — one Among the many there — while the mists 70 NA TURE. Flying, and rainy vapors, call out shapes And phantoms from the crags and solid earth, As fast as a musician scatters sounds Out of an instrument." — Stand upon the peak of some isolated moun- tain at daybreak, when the night-mists first rise from off the plains, and watch their white and lake-like fields as they float in level bays and winding gulphs about the islanded summits of the lower hills, untouched yet by more than dawn, colder and more quiet than a windless sea under the moon of midnight. Watch when the first sunbeam is sent upon the silver chan- nels, how the foam of their undulating surface parts and passes away; and down under their depths the glittering city and green pasture lie like Atlantis, between the white paths of wind- ing rivers; the flakes of light falling every mo- ment faster and broader among the starry spires, as the wreathed surges break and vanish above them, and the confused crests and ridges of the dark hills shorten their gray shadows upon the plain. Wait a little longer, and you shall see those scattered mists rallying in the ravines and floating up towards you, along the winding val- leys, till they couch in quiet masses, iridescent with the morning light, upon the broad breasts of the higher hills, whose leagues of massy un- dulation will melt back and back into that robe THE CENTRAL CLOUD REGLOX. 7 1 of material light, until they fade away, lost in its lustre, to appear again above, in the serene heaven, like a wild, bright, impossible dream, foundationless and inaccessible, their very bases vanishing in the unsubstantial and mocking blue of the deep lake below. Wait yet a little longer, and you shall see those mists gather themselves into white towers, and stand like fortresses along the promontories, massy and motionless, only piling with every instant higher and higher into the sky, and casting longer shadows athwart the rocks; and out of the pale blue of the horizon you will see forming and advancing a troop of narrow, dark pointed vapors, which will cover the sky, inch by inch, with their gray network, and take the light off the landscape with an eclipse which will stop the singing of the birds and the motion of the leaves together; and then you will see horizontal bars of black shad- ow forming under them, and lurid wreaths cre- ate themselves, you know not how, along the shoulders of the hills; you never see them form, but when you look back to a place which was clear an instant ago, there is a cloud on it, hang- ing by the precipices, as a hawk pauses over his prey. And then you will hear the sudden rush of the awakened wind, and you will see those watch-towers of vapor swept away from their foundations, and waving curtains of opaque rain 72 NA TURE. let down to the valleys, swinging from the bur- dened clouds in black, bending fringes, or pac- ing in pale columns along the lake level, grazing its surface into foam as they go. And then, as the sun sinks, you shall see the storm drift for an instant from off the hills, leaving their broad sides smoking, and loaded yet with snow-white, torn, steam-like rags of capricious vapor, now gone, now gathered again; while the smoulder- ing sun, seeming not far away, but burning like a red-hot ball beside you, and as if you could reach it, plunges through the rushing wind and rolling cloud with headlong fall, as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing all the air about it with blood. And then you shall hear the fainting tempest die in the hollow of the night, and you shall see a green halo kindling on the summit of the eastern hills, brighter — brighter yet, till the large white circle of the slow moon is lifted up among the barred clouds, step by step, line by line; star after star she quenches with her kindling light, setting in their stead an army of pale, penetrable, fleecy wreaths in the heaven, to give light upon the earth, which move to- gether, hand in hand, company by company, troop by troop, so measured in their [ unity of motion, that the whole heaven seems to roll with them, and the earth to reel under them. And then wait yet for one hour, until the east THE CENTRAL CLOUD REGION. 73 again becomes purple, and the heaving moun- tains, rolling against it in darkness, like waves of a wild sea, are drowned one by one in the glory of its burning; watch the white glaciers blaze in their winding paths about the moun- tains, like mighty serpents, with scales of fire; watch the columnar peaks of solitary snow, kindling downwards, chasm by chasm, each in itself a new morning; their long avalanches cast down in keen streams brighter than the light- ning, sending each his tribute of driven snow, like altar-smoke, up to the heaven; the rose- light of their silent domes flushing that heaven about them and above them, piercing with purer light through its purple lines of lifted cloud, casting a new glory on every wreath as it passes by, until the whole heaven — one scarlet canopy — is interwoven with a roof of waving flame, and tossing, vault beyond vault, as with the drifted wings of many companies of angels; and then, when you can look no more for gladness, and when you are bowed down with fear and love of the Maker and Doer of this, tell me who has best delivered this His message unto men! 74 NA TV RE. RAIN CLOUDS. The clouds which I wish to consider as char- acteristic of the lower, or rainy region, differ not so much in their real nature from those of the central and uppermost regions, as in appearance owing to their greater nearness. For the cen- tral clouds, and perhaps even the high cirri, deposit moisture, if not distinctly rain, as is sufficiently proved by the existence of snow on the highest peaks of the Himaleh; and when, on any such mountains, we are brought into close contact with the central clouds, we find them little differing from the ordinary rain-cloud of the plains, except by being slightly less dense and dark. But the apparent differences, depen- dent on proximity are, most marked and impor- tant. In the first place, the clouds of the central region have, as has been before observed, pure and aerial grays for their dark sides, owing to their necessary distance from the observer; and as this distance permits a multitude of local phenomena capable of influencing color, such as accidental sunbeams, refractions, transpar- encies, or local mists and showers, to be col- lected into a space apparently small, the colors of these clouds are always changeful and palpi- RAIN CLOUDS.' 75 tating; and whatever degree of gray or of gloom may be mixed with them is invariably pure and aerial. But the nearness of the rain-cloud ren- dering it impossible for a number of phenomena to be at once visible, makes its hue of gray monotonous, and (by losing the blue of distance) warm and brown compared to that of the upper clouds. This is especially remarkable on any part of it which may happen to be illumined, which is of a brown, bricky, ochreous tone, never bright, always coming in dark outline on the lights of the central clouds. But it is sel- dom that this takes place, and when it docs, never over large spaces, little being usually seen of the rain-cloud but its under and dark side. This, when the cloud above is dense, becomes of an inky and cold gray, and sulphureous and lurid if there be thunder in the air. To the region of the rain-cloud belong also all those phenomena of drifted smoke, heat- haze, local mists in the morning or evening; in valleys, or over water, mirage, white steaming vapor rising in evaporation from moist and open surfaces, and every thing which visibly affects the condition of the atmosphere without actu- ally assuming the form of cloud. These phe- nomena are as perpetual in all countries as they are beautiful, and afford by far the most effec- tive and valuable means which the painter pos- y6 NA TURE. sesses, for modification of the forms of fixed objects. The upper clouds are distinct and comparatively opaque, they do not modify, but conceal ; but through the rain-cloud, and its accessory phenomena, all that is beautiful may be made manifest, and all that is hurtful con- cealed ; what is paltry may be made to look vast, and what is ponderous, aerial ; mystery may be obtained without obscurity, and decora- tion without disguise. And, accordingly, nature herself uses it constantly, as one of her chief means of most perfect effect; not in one coun- try, nor another, but everywhere — everywhere, at least, where there is anything worth calling landscape. I cannot answer for the desert of the Sahara, but I know that there can be no greater mistake, than supposing that delicate and variable effects of mist and rain-cloud are peculiar to northern climates. I have never seen in any place or country effects of mist more perfect than in the Campagna of Rome, and among the hills of Sorrento. We never can see the azure so intense as when the greater part of this vapor has just fallen in rain. Then, and then only, pure blue sky becomes visible in the first openings, distinguished especially by the manner in which the clouds melt into it; their edges passing off in faint white threads and fringes, through which the blue shines more RAIN CLOUDS. TJ and more intensely, till the last trace of vapor is lost in its perfect color. It is only the upper white clouds, however, which do this, or the last fragments of rain-clouds, becoming white as they disappear, so that the blue is never corrupted by the cloud, but only paled and broken with pure white, the purest white which the sky ever shows. Thus we have a melting and palpitating color, never the same for two inches together, deepening and broadening here and there into intensity of perfect azure, then drifted and dying away through every tone of pure pale sky, into the snow white of the filmy cloud. Over this roll the determined edges of the rain-clouds, throwing it all far [back, as a retired scene, into the upper sky. Not long ago I was slowly descending the first turn after you leave Albano. It had been wild weather when I left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds were sweeping in sul- phurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and breaking gleams of sun along the Claudian aqueduct, lighting up the infinity of its arches like the bridge of chaos. But as I climbed the long slope of the Alban mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and the noble outlines of the domes of Albano, and graceful darkness of its ilex groves, rose against pure streaks of al- ternate blue and amber; the upper sky gradu- JS NA TURE. ally flashing through the last fragments cf rain- cloud in deep palpitating azure, half ether and half dew. The noon-day sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot call it color, it was conflagration; purple, and crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle. The re- joicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas, arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers clasped along their flanks for foam, and silver flakes of orange-flower-like spray tossed into the air, around them, breaking over the gray walls of rock, into a thousand sep- arate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in sudden gleams as the foliage' broke and closed above it, as sheet lightning opens in a cloud at sunset. The motionless masses of dark rock — dark, though flushed with scarlet lichen — casting their quiet shadows RAIN CLOUDS. 79 across its restless radiance, the fountain under- neath them filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound and over all the multitu- dinous bars of umber and rose, the sacred clouds that have no darkness, and only exist to illu- mine, were seen in fathomless intervals between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last white blind- ing lustre of the measureless line, where the Campagna melted into the blaze of the sea. The woods and waters which were peopled by the Greek with typical life were not different from those which now wave and murmur by the ruins of his shrines. With their visible and actual forms was his imagination filled, and the beauty of its incarnate creatures can only be understood among the pure realities which origi- nally modelled their conception. If divinity be stamped upon the features, or apparent in the form of the spiritual creature, the mind will not be shocked by its appearing to ride upon the whirlwind, and trample on the storm ; but if mortality, no violation of the characters of earth will forge one single link to bind it to heaven. Though Nature is constantly beautiful, she does not exhibit her highest powers of beauty constantly, for then they would satiate us and 80 NA TURE. pall upon the senses. It is necessary to their appreciation that they should be rarely shown. Her finest touches are things which must be watched for; her most perfect passages of beauty are the most evanescent. She is constantly do- ing something beautiful for us, but it is some- thing which she has not done before and will not do again; — some exhibition of her general powers in particular circumstances, which if we do not catch at the instant it is passing, will not be repeated for us. Now, they are these evan- escent passages of perfected beauty, these per- petually varied examples of utmost power, which the artist ought to seek for and arrest. Perhaps there is no more impressive scene on earth than the solitary extent of the Campagna of Rome, under evening light. Let the reader imagine himself, for a moment, withdrawn from the sounds and motions of the living world, and sent forth alone into this wild and wasted plain. The earth yields and crumbles beneath his foot, tread he never so lightly, for its substance is white, hollow, and carious, like the dusty wreck of the bones of men. The long, knotted grass waves and tosses feebly in the evening wind, and the shadows of its motion shake feverishly along the banks of ruin that lift themselves to the sunlight. Hillocks of mouldering earth WA TER. 8 1 heave around him, as if the dead beneath were struggling in their sleep; scattered blocks of black stone, fpur square, remnants of mighty edifices, not one left upon another, lie upon them, to keep them down. A dull purple, poisonous haze stretches level along the desert, veiling its spectral wrecks of massy ruins, on whose rents the red light rests, like dying fire on defiled al- tars. The blue ridge of the Alban Mount, lifts itself against a solemn space of green, clear, quiet sky. Watch-towers of dark clouds stand steadfastly along the promontories of the Apen- nines. From the plain to the mountains, the shattered aqueducts, pier beyond pier, melt into the darkness, like shadowy and countless troops of funeral mourners passing from a nation's grave. WATER. Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, and without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. If we think of it as the source of all the changeful- ness and beauty which we have seen in clouds; then as the instrument by which the earth we have contemplated was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiselled into grace; then as, in the 82 NA TURE. form of snow, it robes the mountains it has made, with that transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we had not seen; then as it exists in the foam of the torrent — in the iris which spans it, in the morning mist which rises from it, in the deep crystalline pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad lake and glancing river; finally, in that which is to all human minds the best emblem of unwearied, un- conquerable power, the wild, various, fantastic, tameless unity of the sea; what shall we com- pare to this mighty, this universal element, for glory and for beauty ? or how shall we follow its eternal changefulness of feeling? It is like try- ing to paint a soul. Few people, comparatively, have ever seen the effect on the sea of a powerful gale continued without intermission for three or four days and nights, and to those who have not I believe it must be unimaginable, not from the mere force or size of surge, but from the complete annihi- lation of the limit between sea and air. The water from its prolonged agitation is beaten, not into mere creaming foam, but into masses of ac- cumulated yeast,* which hangs in ropes and * The " yesty waves " of Shakspeare have made the likeness familiar, and probably most readers take the ex- pression as merely equivalent to "foamy;" but Shak- speare knew better. Sea-foam does not, under ordinary IV A TER. 83 wreaths from wave to wave, and where one curls over to break, form a festoon like a drapery, from its edge; .these are taken up by the wind, circumstances, last a moment after it is formed, but dis- appears, as above described, in a mere white film. But the foam of a prolonged tempest is altogether different ; it is " whipped " foam, — thick, permanent, and, in a foul or discolored sea, very ugly, especially in the way it hangs about the tops of the waves, and gathers into clotted con- cretions before the driving wind. The sea looks truly working or fermenting. The following passage from Fenimore Cooper is an interesting confirmation of the rest of the above description, which may be depended upon as entirely free from exaggeration: — " For the first time I now witnessed a tempest at sea. Gales, and pretty hard ones, I had often seen, but the force of the wind on this occasion as much exceeded that in ordinary gales of wind, as the force of these had exceeded that of a whole- sail breeze. The seas seemed crushed; the pressure of the swooping atmosphere, as the currents of the air went howling over the surface of the ocean, fairly preventing them from rising; or where a mound of water did appear, it was scooped up and borne off in spray, as the axe dubs inequalities from the log. When the day returned, a species of lurid, sombre light was diffused over the watery waste, though nothing was visible but the ocean and the ship. Even the sea birds seemed to have taken refuge in the caverns of the adjacent coast, none reappearing with the dawn. The air was full of spray, and it was with difficulty that the eye could penetrate as far into the humid atmosphere as half a mile." Half a mile is an over-esti- mate in coast. 84 NA TUBE. not in dissipating dust, but bodily, in writhing, hanging, coiling masses, which make the air white and thick as with snow, only the flakes are a foot or two long each; the surges them- selves are full of foam in their very bodies, un- derneath, making them white all through, as the water is under a great cataract; and their masses, being thus half water and half air, are torn to pieces by the wind whenever they rise, and car- ried away in roaring smoke, which chokes and strangles like actual water. Add to this, that when the air has been exhausted of its mois- ture by long rain, the spray of the sea is caught by it and covers its surface not merely with the smoke of finely divided water, but with boiling mist; imagine also the low rain-clouds brought down to the very level of the sea, as I have often seen them, whirling and flying in rags and fragments from wave to wave; and finally, con- ceive the surges themselves in their utmost pitch of power, velocity, vastness, and madness, lilt- ing themselves in precipices and peaks, furrowed with their whirl of ascent, through all this chaos, and you will understand that there is indeed no distinction left between the sea and air; that no object, nor horizon, nor any landmark or natural evidence of position is left; that the heaven is all spray, and the ocean all cloud, and that you can •.cc no farther in an)- direction than you could WATER. 85 see through a cataract. Few people have had the opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when theyJhave, cannot face it. To hold by a mast or a rock, and watch it, is a prolonged endurance of drowning which few people have courage to go through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest lessons of nature. All rivers, small or large, agree in one charac- ter; they like to lean a little on one side; they cannot bear to have their channels deepest in the middle, but will always, if they can, have one bank to sun themselves upon, and another to get cool under; one shingly shore to play over, where they may be shallow, and foolish, and childlike; and another steep shore, under which they can pause and purify themselves, and get their strength of waves fully together for due occasions. Rivers in this way are just like wise men, who keep one side of their life for play, and another for work; and can be brilliant, and chattering, and transparent when they are at ease, and yet take deep counsel on the other side when they set themselves to the main purpose. And rivers are just in this v/ay divided, also, like wicked and good men; the good rivers have serviceable deep places all along their banks that ships can sail in, but the wicked rivers go scoopingly, irregularly, under their banks until they get full of strangling eddies, which no boat 86 NA TURE. can row over without being twisted against the rocks, and pools like wells which no one can get out of but the water-kelpie that lives at the bot- tom; but, wicked or good, the rivers all agree in having two sides. Stand for half an hour beside the fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side where the rap- ids are long, and watch how the vault of water first bends, unbroken, in pure, polished velocity, over the arching rocks at the brow of the cata- act, covering them with a dome of crystal twenty feet thick — so swift that its motion is unseen except when a foam globe from above darts over it like a falling star; and how the trees are lighted above it under their leaves, at the in- stant that it breaks into foam; and how all the hollows of that foam burn with green fire like so much shattering chrysoprase; and how, ever and anon, startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall like a rocket, bursting in the wind and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how, through the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, showers purer than the sky through white rain-cloud; while the shuddering iris stoops in tremulous stillness over all, fading and flushing alternately through the choking WA TER. 87 spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among the thick golden leaves which toss to and fro in sympathy with the wild water; their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away; the dew gush- ing from their thick branches through drooping clusters of emerald herbage, and sparkling in white threads along the dark rocks of the shore, feeding the lichens which chase and checker them with purple and silver. There is hardly a road-side pond or pool which has not as much landscape in it as above it. It is not the brown, muddy, dull thing we suppose it to be; it has a heart like ourselves, and in the bottom of that there are the boughs of the tall trees, and the blades of the shaking grass, and all manner of hues, of variable, pleasant light out of the sky; nay, the ugly gutter, that stagnates over the drain bars, in the heart of the foul city, is not altogether base; down in that, if you will look deep enough, you may see the dark, serious blue of far-off sky, and the passing of pure clouds. It is at your own will that you see in that despised stream, either the refuse of the street, or the image of the sky — so it is with al- most all other things that we unkindly despise. When water, not in very great body, runs in a 88 NA TURE. rocky bed much interrupted by hollows, so that it can rest every now and then in a pool as it goes along, it does not acquire a continuous velo- - Lty of motion. It pauses after every leap, and curdles about, and rests a little, and then goes on again; and if in this comparatively tranquil and rational state of mind it meets with an ob- stacle, as a rock or stone, it parts on each side of it with a little bubbling foam, and goes round; if it come to a step in its bed, it leaps it lightly, and then after a little plashing at the bottom, stops again to take breath. But if its bed be on a continuous slope, not much interrupted by hollows, so that it cannot rest, or if its own mass be so increased by flood that its usual resting- places are not sufficient for it, but that it is per- petually pushed out of them by the following current, before it has come to tranquillise itself, it of course gains velocity with every yard that it runs; the impetus got at one leap is carried to the credit of the next, until the whole stream becomes one mass of unchecked, accelerating motion. Now when water in this state comes to an obstacle, it does not part at it, but clears it like a race-horse; and when it comes to a hol- low, it does not fill it up and run out leisurely at the other side, but it rushes down into it and comes up again on the other side, as a ship into the hollow of the sea. 1 [ence the whole appear- WA TER. 89 ance of the bed of the stream is changed, and all the lines of che water altered in their nature. The quiet stream is a succession of leaps and pools ; the leaps are light and springy, and para- bolic, and make a great deal of splashing when they tumble into the pool; then we have a space of quiet curdling water, and another similar leap below. But the stream when it has gained an impetus takes the shape of its bed, never stops, is equally deep and equally swift everywhere, goes down into every hollow, not with a leap, but with a swing, not foaming, nor splashing, but in the bending line of a strong sea-wave, and comes up again on the other side, over rock and ridge, with the ease of a bounding leopard ; if it meet a rock three or four feet above the level of its bed, it will neither part nor foam, nor express any concern about the matter, but clear it in a smooth dome of water, without ap- parent exertion, coming down again as smoothly on the other side ; the whole surface of the surge being drawn into parallel lines by its ex- treme velocity, but foamless, except in places where the form of the bed opposes itself at some direct angle to such a line of fall, and causes a breaker ; so that the whole river has the appear- ance of a deep and raging sea, with this only difference, that the torrent-waves always break backwards, and sea-waves forwards. Thus, then, 90 NA TURE. in [the water which has gained an impetus, we have the most exquisite arrangements of curved lines, perpetually changing from convex to con- cave, and vice versd, following every swell and hollow of the bed with their modulating grace, and all in unison of motion, presenting perhaps the most beautiful series of inorganic forms which nature can possibly produce ; for the sea runs too much into similar and concave curves with sharp edges, but every motion of the tor- rent is united, and all its curves are modifica- tions of beautiful line. Every fountain and river from the inch-deep streamlet that crosses the village lane in trem- bling clearness, to the massy and silent march of the everlasting multitude of waters in Amazon or Ganges, owe their play, and purity, and power, to the ordained elevations of the earth. Gentle or steep, extended or abrupt, some de- termined slope of the earth's surface is of course necessary before any wave can so much as over- take one sedge in its pilgrimage ; and how sel- dom do we enough consider, as we walk beside the margins of our pleasant brooks, how beauti- ful and wonderful is that ordinance, of which every blade of grass that waves in their clear water is a perpetual sign ; that the dew and rain fallen on the face of the earth shall find no IV A TER. 9 1 resting-place ; shall find, on the contrary, fixed channels traced for them, from the ravines of the central crests down which they roar in sud- den ranks of foam, to the dark hollows beneath the banks of lowland pasture, round which they must circle slowly among the stems and beneath the leaves of the lilies ; paths prepared for them, by which, at some appointed rate of journey, they must evermore descend, sometimes slow and sometimes swift, but never pausing ; the daily portion of the earth they have to glide over marked for them at each successive sunrise, the place which has known them knowing them no more, and the gateways of guarding mountains opened for them in cleft and chasm, none let- ting them in their pilgrimage ; and, from far off, the great heart of the sea calling them to itself ! Deep calleth unto deep. I know not which of the two is the more wonderful — that calm, gradated, invisible slope of the cham- paign land, which gives motion to the stream ; or that passage cloven for it through the ranks of hill, which, necessary for the health of the land immediately around them, would yet, unless so supernaturally divided, have fatally inter- cepted the flow of the waters from far-off coun- tries. When did the great spirit of the river first knock at those adamantine gates ? When did the porter open to it, and cast his keys away 92 NA TURE. for ever, lapped in whirling sand ? I am not satisfied — no one should be satisfied — with that vague answer, — the river cut its way. Not so. The river found its way. It was a maxim of Raffaelle's that the artist's object was to make things not as Nature makes them, but as she tvotdd make them ; as she ever tries to make them, but never succeeds, though her aim may be deduced from a comparison of her effects ; just as if a number of archers had aimed unsuccessfully at a mark upon a wall, and this mark were then removed, we could by the examination of their arrow-marks point out the probable position of the spot aimed at, with a certainty of being nearer to it than any of their shots. We have most of us heard of original sin, and may perhaps, in our modest moments, conjec- ture that Ave are not quite what God, or Nature, would have us to be. Raffaelle had something to mend in humanity : I should like to have seen him mending a daisy, or a pease-blossom, ir a moth, or a mustard-seed, or any other of God's slightest works ! If he had accomplished 4 hat, one might have found for him more re- spectable employment, to set the stars in better order, perhaps (they seem grievously scattered as they are, and to be of all manner of shapes IV A TER. 93 and sizes, except the ideal shape, and the proper size) ; or, to give us a corrected view of the ocean. that at least seems a very irregular and improve- able thing : the very fishermen do not know this day how far it will reach, driven up before the west wind. Perhaps some one else does, but that is not our business. Let us go down and stand on the beach by the sea — the great irregu- lar sea, and count whether the thunder of it is not out of time — one, — two: — here comes a well-formed wave at last, trembling a little at the top, but on the whole, orderly. So! Crash among the shingle, and up as far as this gray pebble ! Now, stand by and watch. Another : — Ah, careless wave ! why couldn't you have kept your crest on ? It is all gone away into spray, striking up against the cliffs there — I thought as much — missed the mark by a couple of feet: Another: — How now, impatient one! couldn't you have waited till your friend's reflux was done with, instead of rolling yourself up with it in that unseemly manner ? You go for nothing. A fourth, and a goodly one at last ! What think we of yonder slow rise, and crys- talline hollow, without a flaw ? Steady, good wave ! not so fast ! not so fast ! Where are you coming to ? This is too bad ; two yards over the mark, and ever so much of you in our face besides ; and a wave which we had some 94 A^ TURE. hope of, behind there, broken all to pieces out at sea, and laying a great white tablecloth of foam all the way to the shore, as if the marine gods were to dine off it! Alas, for these un- happy "arrow shots" of Nature! She will never hit her mark with those unruly waves of hers, nor get one of them into the ideal shape, if we Avait for a thousand years. MOUNTAINS. " And God said, Let the waters which are under the heaven be gathered unto one place, and let the dry land appear." We do not, per haps, often enough consider the deep signifi- cance of this sentence. We are too apt to re- ceive it as the description of an event vaster only in its extent, not in its nature, than the compelling the Red Sea to draw back that Is- rael might pass by. We imagine the Deity in like manner rolling the waves of the greater ocean together on a heap, and setting bars and doors to them eternally. But there is a far deeper meaning than this in the solemn words of Genesis, and in the cor- respondent verse of the Psalm, " His hands pre- pared the dry land." Up to that moment the MOUNTAINS. 95 earth had been void, for it had been without form. The command that the waters should be gathered was the command that the earth should be sculptured. The sea was not driven to his place in sudden restrained rebellion, but with- drawn to his place in perfect and patient obedi- ence. The dry land appeared, not in level sands forsaken by the surges, which those surges might again claim for their own; but in range beyond range of swelling hill and iron rock, for ever to claim kindred with the firmament, and be com- panioned by the clouds of heaven. What space of time was in reality occupied by the " day " of Genesis, is not, at present, of any importance for us to consider. By what fur- naces of fire the adamant was melted, and by what wheels of earthquake it was torn, and by what teeth of glacier and weight of sea-waves it was engraven and finished into its perfect form, we may, perhaps, hereafter endeavor to conjec- ture; but here, as in few words the work is summed up by the historian, so in few broad thoughts it should be comprehended by us; and as we read the mighty sentence, " Let the dry land appear," we should try to follow the finger of God, as it engraved upon the stone tables of the earth the letters and the law of its everlast- ing form; as gulf by gulf the channels of the deep were ploughed, and cape by cape the lines 96 NATURE. were traced, with Divine foreknowledge of the shores that were to limit the nations; and chain by chain the mountain walls were lengthened forth, and their foundations fastened for ever; and the compass was set upon the face of the deep, and the fields and the highest parts of the dust of the world were made ; and the right hand of Christ first strewed the snow on the Lebanon, and smoothed the slopes of Calvary. It is not always needful, in many respects it is not possible, to conjecture the manner or the time in which this work was done; but it is deeply necessary for all men to consider the magnificence of the accomplished purpose, and the depth of the wisdom and love which are manifested in the ordinances of the hills. For, observe, in order to bring the world into the form which it now bears, it was not mere sculpture that was needed; the mountains could not stand for a day unless they were formed of materials altogether different from those which constitute the lower hills and the surfaces of the valleys. A harder substance had to be pre- pared for every mountain chain, yet not so hard but that it might be capable of crumbling down into earth fit to nourish the Alpine forest and the Alpine flower; not so hard but that, in the midst of the utmost majesty of its enthroned strength, there should be seen on it the seal of MOUNTAINS. 97 death, and the writing of the same sentence that had gone forth against the human frame, " Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt re- turn." And with this perishable substance the most majestic forms were to be framed that were consistent with the safety of man; and the peak was to be lifted, and the cliff rent, as high and as steeply as possible, in order yet to permit the shepherd to feed his flocks upon the slope, and the cottage to nestle beneath their shadow. And observe, two distinct ends were to be ac- complished in the doing this. It was, indeed, absolutely necessary that such eminences should be created, in order to fit the earth in any wise for human habitation ; for without moun- tains the air could not be purified, nor the flowing of the rivers sustained, and the earth must have become for the most part desert plain, or stagnant marsh. But the feeding of the rivers and the purifying of the winds are the least of the services appointed to the hills. To fill the thirst of the human heart for the beauty of God's working, — to startle its lethargy with the deep and pure agitation of astonishment, — are their higher missions. They are as a great and noble architecture ; first giving shelter, comfort, and rest; and covered also with mighty sculpture and painted legend. It is impossible to examine in their connected system the 98 NA TURE. features of even the most ordinary mountain scenery, without concluding that it has been prepared in order to unite as far as possible, and in the closest compass, every means of delight- ing and sanctifying the heart of man. " As far as possible j" that is, as far as is consistent with the fulfilment of the sentence of condemnation on the whole earth. Death must be upon the hills; and the cruelty of the tempest smite them, and the briar and thorn spring up upon them ; but they so smite, as to bring their rocks into the fairest forms ; and so spring, as to make the very desert blossom as the rose. Even among our own hills of Scotland and Cumberland, though often too barren to be perfectly beauti- ful, and always too low to be perfectly sublime, it is strange how many deep sources of delight are gathered into the compass of their glens and vales ; and how, down to the most secret cluster of their far-away flowers, and the idlest leap of their straying streamlets, the whole heart of Nature seems thirsting to give, and still to give, shedding forth her everlasting beneficence with a profusion so patient, so passionate, that our utmost observance and thankfulness are but, at least, neglect of her nobleness, and apathy to her love. But among the true mountains of the greater orders the Divine purpose of appeal at once to all the faculties of the human spirit MOUNTAINS. 99 becomes still more manifest. Inferior hills ordinarily interrupt, in some degree, the rich- ness of the valleys at their feet; the gray downs of southern England, and treeless coteaux of central France, and gray swells of Scottish moor, whatever peculiar charm they may pos- sess in themselves, are at least destitute of those which belong to the woods and fields of the lowlands. But the great mountains lift the low- lands on their sides. Let the reader imagine, first, the appearance of the most varied plain of some richly cultivated country; let him imagine it dark with graceful woods, and soft with deepest pastures ; let him fill the space of it, to the utmost horizon, with innumerable and changeful incidents of scenery and life ; leading pleasant streamlets through its meadows, strew- ing clusters of cottages beside their banks, trac- ing sweet footpaths through its avenues, and animating its fields with happy flocks, and slow wandering spots of cattle ; and when he has wearied himself with endless imagining, and left no space without some loveliness of its own, let him conceive all this great plain with its infinite treasures of natural beauty and happy human life, gathered up in God's hand from one end of the horizon to the other, like a woven garment; and shaken into deep falling folds, as the robes droop from a king's shoulders; all its bright rivers 100 NATURE. leaping into cataracts along the hollows of its fall, and all its forests rearing themselves aslant against its slopes, as a rider rears himself back when his horse plunges; and all its villages nest- ling themselves into the new windings of its glens; and all its pastures thrown into steep waves of greensward, dashed with dew along the edges of their folds, and sweeping down into endless slopes, with a cloud here and there lying quietly, half on the grass, half in the air; and he will have as yet, in all this lifted world, only the foundation of one of the great Alps. 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, 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 it was 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." MOUNTAINS. 101 Mountains are, to the rest of the body of the earth, what violent muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its anat- omy are, in the mountain, brought out with fierce and convulsive energy, full of expression, passion, and strength; the plains and the lower hills are the repose and the effortless motion of the frame, when its muscles lie dormant and concealed beneath the lines of its beauty, yet ruling those lines in their every undulation. This, then, is the first grand principle of the truth of the earth. The spirit of the hills is action ; that of the lowlands, repose ; and between these there is to be found every variety of motion and of rest; from the inactive plain, sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks, which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with the clouds drifting like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their Titan hands to Heaven, saying, " I live forever !" But there is this difference between the action of the earth, and that of a living creature, that while the exerted limb marks its bones and tendons through the flesh, the excited earth casts off the flesh altogether, and its bones come out from beneath. Mountains are the bones of the earth, their highest peaks are invariably those parts of its anatomy which in the plains lie buried under five and twenty thousand feet of 102 NATURE. solid thickness of superincumbent soil, and which spring up in the mountain ranges in vast pyra- mids or wedges, flinging their garment of earth away from them on each side. The masses of the lower hills are laid over and against their sides, like the masses of lateral masonry against the skeleton arch of an unfinished bridge, except that they slope up to and lean against the central ridge: and, finally, upon the slopes of these lower hills are strewed the level beds of sprinkled gravel, sand, and clay, which form the extent of the champaign. Here then is another grand principle of the truth of earth, that the moun- tains must come from under all, and be the sup- port of all; and that everything else must belaid in their arms, heap above heap, the plains being the uppermost. Snow is modified by the under forms of the hill in some sort, as dress is by the anatomy of the human frame. And as no dress can be well laid on without conceiving the body beneath, so no Alp can be drawn unless its under form is conceived first, and its snow laid on afterwards. Every high Alp has as much snow upon it as it can hold or carry. It is not, observe, a mere coating of snow of given depth throughout, but it is sno\v loaded on until the rocks can hold no more. The surplus does not fall in the winter, because, fastened by continual frost, the quantity MOUNTAINS. 103 of snow which an Alp can carry is greater than each single winter can bestow; it falls in the first mild days of spring in enormous avalanches. Afterwards the'melting continues, gradually re- moving from all the steep rocks the small quan- tity of snow which was all they could hold, and leaving them black and bare among the accumu- lated fields of unknown depth, which occupy the capacious valleys and less inclined superficies of the mountain. Hence it follows that the deepest snow does not take nor indicate the actual forms of the rocks on which it lies, but it hangs from peak to peak in unbroken and sweeping festoons, or covers whole groups of peaks, which afford it sufficient hold, with vast and unbroken domes: these festoons and domes being guided in their curves, and modified in size, by the violence and prevalent direction of the winter winds. It fell within the purpose of the Great Builder to give, in the highest peaks of mountains, examples of form more strange and majestic than any which could be obtained by structures so beneficently adapted to the welfare of the human race. And the admission of other modes of elevation, more terrific and less secure, takes place exactly in proportion to the increasing presence of such conditions in the locality as shall render it on other grounds unlikely to be 104 NA TURE. inhabited or incapable of being so. Where the soil is rich and the climate soft, the hills are low and safe; as the ground becomes poorer and the air keener, they rise into forms of more peril and pride ; and their utmost terror is shown only where their fragments fall on trackless ice, and the thunder of their ruin can be heard but by the ibex and the eagle. The work of the Great Spirit of nature is as deep and unapproachable in the lowest as in the noblest objects, the Divine mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every lowly bank and mouldering stone, as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven, and settling the foundation of the earth; and to the rightly perceiving mind, there is the same infinity, the same majesty, the same power, the same unity, and the same perfection, manifest in the casting of the clay as in the scattering of the cloud, in the mouldering of the dust as in the kindling of the day-star. It would be as absurd to think it an evil that all the world is not fit for us to inhabit, as to think it an evil that the globe is no larger than it is. As much as we shall ever aeed is evidently assigned to us for our dwelling-place; the rest, covered with rolling waves or drifting sands, fretted with ice or crested with fire, is set before us for contemplation in an uninhabitable mag- nificence; and that part which we are enabled MOUNTAINS. I05 to inhabit owes its fitness for human life chiefly to its mountain ranges, which, throwing the superfluous rain off as it falls, collect it in streams or lakes, and guide it into given places. In some sense, a person who has never seen the rose-color of the rays of dawn crossing a blue mountain twelve or fifteen miles away, can hardly be said to know what tenderness in color 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-emi- nence in mass of color, we have to estimate the influence of the finished inlaying and enamel- work of the color-jewellery on every stone; and that of the continual variety in species of flower; most of the mountain flowers being, besides, separately lovelier 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, 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 uncontested queen- liness, and the Alpine rose and Highland heather wholly without similitude. The violet, lily of Io6 NATURE. 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.* There are three great offices which mountain ranges are appointed to fulfil, in order to preserve the health and increase the happiness of man- kind. i. The mountains and hills give motion to water, so that men can build their cities in the midst of fields which will always be fertile, and establish the lines of their commerce on streams which will not fail. 2. Mountains maintain a constant change in the currents of the air. Mountains divide the earth not only into districts, but into climates, and cause perpetual currents of air to traverse their passes, and ascend or descend their ravines, altering both the temperature and nature of the air in a thousand different ways, moistening it with the spray of their waterfalls, sucking it down and beating it hither and thither in the pools of their torrents, closing it within clefts *The Savoyard's name for its flower, " Pain du Bon Dieu," is very beautiful; from, I believe, the supposed re- semblance of its white and scattered blossom to the fallen manna. MOUNTAINS. I07 and caves, where the sunbeams never reach, till it is as cold as November mists, then sending it forth again to breathe softly across the slopes of velvet fields, or to be scorched among sunburnt shales and shapeless crags, then drawing it back in moaning swirls through clefts of ice, and up into dewy wreaths above the snow-fields ; then piercing it with strange electric darts and flashes of mountain fire, and tossing it high in fantastic storm-cloud as the dried grass is tossed by the mower, only suffering it to depart at last, when chastened and pure, to refresh the faded air of the far-off plains. 3. The third great use of mountains is to cause perpetual change in the soils of the earth. Without such provisions the ground under culti- vation would in a series of years become ex- hausted and require to be upturned laboriously by the hand of man. But the elevations of the earth's surface provide for it a perpetual renova- tion. The higher mountains suffer their sum- mits to be broken into fragments and to be cast down in sheets of massy rock, full, as we shall see presently, of every substance necessary for the nourishment of plants; these fallen fragments are again broken by frost, and ground by tor- rents, into various conditions of sand and clay — materials which are distributed perpetually by the streams farther and farther from the moun- 108 NATURE. tain's base. Every shower which swells the riv- ulets enables their waters to carry certain por- tions of earth into new positions, and exposes new banks of ground to be mined in their turn. That turbid foaming of the angry water, — that tearing down of bank and rock along the flanks of its fury, — are no disturbances of the kind course of nature ; they are beneficent operations of laws necessary to the existence of man and to the beauty of the earth. The process is contin- ued more gently, but not less effectively, over all the surface of the lower undulating country ; and each filtering thread of summer rain which trickles through the short turf of the uplands is bearing its own appointed burden of earth to be thrown down on some new natural garden in the dingles below. And it is not, in reality, a degrading, but a true, large, and ennobling view of the mountain ranges of the world, if we compare them to heaps of fertile and fresh earth, laid up by a prudent gardener beside his garden beds, whence, at intervals, he casts on them some scattering of new and virgin ground. That which we so often lament as convulsion or destruction is nothing else than the momentary shaking off the dust from the spade. The winter floods, which inflict a temporary devastation, bear with them the ele- ments of succeeding fertility ; the fruitful field MOUNTAINS. IOQ is covered with sand and shingle in momentary judgment, but in enduring mercy ; and the great river, which chokes its mouth with marsh, and tosses terror along its shore, is but scattering the seeds of the harvests of futurity, and prepar- ing the seats of unborn generations. I have not spoken of the local and peculiar utilities of mountains : I do not count the bene- fit of the supply of summer streams from the moors of the higher ranges — of the various me- dicinal plants which are nested among their rocks, — of the delicate pasturage which they furnish for cattle,'" — of the forests in which they bear timber for shipping — the stones they supply for building, or the ores of metal which they collect into spots open to discovery, and easy for working. All these benefits are of a second- ary or a limited nature. But the three great functions which I have just described, — those of giving motion and change to water, air, and earth, — are indispensable to human existence ; they are operations to be regarded with as full a depth of gratitude as the laws which bid the tree bear fruit, or the seed multiply itself in the earth. And thus those desolate and threaten- ing ranges of dark mountain, which, in nearly all * The highest pasturages (at least so say the Savoyards) being always the best and richest. IIO NATURE. ages of the world, men have looked upon with aversion or with terror, and shrunk back from as if they were haunted by perpetual images of death, are, in reality, sources of life and happi- ness far fuller and more beneficent than all the bright fruitfulness of the plain. The valleys only feed ; the mountains feed, and guard, and strengthen us. We take our idea of fearfulness and sublimity alternately from the mountains and the sea ; but we associate them unjustly. The sea wave, with all its beneficence, is yet devouring and terrible, but the silent wave of the blue mountain is lifted towards heaven in a stillness of perpetual mercy ; and the one surge, unfathomable in its darkness, the other, unshaken in its faithfulness, for ever bear the seal of their appointed symbol : " Thy righteousness is like the great mountains : Thy judgmetits are a great deep." The higher mountains have their scenes of power and vastness, their blue precipices and cloud-like snows ; why should they also have the best and fairest colors given to their foreground rocks, and overburden the human mind with wonder, while the less majestic scenery, tempting us to the observance of details for which amidst the higher mountains we have no admiration left, MOUNTAINS. Ill is yet, in the beauty of those very details, as in- ferior as it is in scale of magnitude ? I believe the^answer must be, simply, that it is not good for man to live among what is most beautiful ; — that he is a creature incapable of satisfaction by anything upon earth ; and that to allow him habitually to possess, in any kind whatsoever, the utmost that earth can give, is the surest way to cast him into lassitude or dis- content. If the most exquisite orchestral music could be continued without a pause for a series of years, and children were brought up and edu- cated in the room in which it were perpetually resounding, I believe their enjoyment of music, or understanding it, would be very small. And an accurately parallel effect seems to be pro- duced upon the powers of contemplation, by the redundant and ceaseless loveliness of the high mountain districts. The faculties are paralysed by the abundance, and cease, as we before no- ticed of the imagination, to be capable of excite- ment, except by other subjects of interest than those which present themselves to the eye. So that it is, in reality, better for mankind that the forms of their common landscape should offer no violent stimulus to the emotions, — that the gen- tle upland, browned by the bending furrows of the plough, and the fresh sweep of the chalk 112 NA TURE. down, and the narrow winding of the copse-clad dingle, should be more frequent scenes of human life than the Arcadias of cloud-capped mountain or luxuriant vale ; and that, while humbler (though always infinite) sources of interest are given to each of us around the homes to which we are restrained for the greater part of our lives, these mightier and stranger glories should become the objects of adventure, — at once the cynosures of the fancies of childhood, and themes of the happy memory, and the winter's tale of age. Nor is it always that the inferiority is felt. For, so natural is it to the human heart to fix itself in hope rather than in present possession, and so subtle is the charm which the imagina- tion casts over what is distant or denied, that there is often a more touching power in the scenes which contain far-away promise of some- thing greater than themselves, than in those which exhaust the treasures and powers of Na- ture in an unconquerable and excellent glory, leaving nothing more to be by the fancy pic- tured or pursued. I do not know that there is a district in the world more calculated to illustrate this power of the expectant imagination, than that which sur- rounds the city of Fribourg in Switzerland, ex- tending from it towards Berne. It is of gray MOUNTAINS. 113 sandstone, considerably elevated, but presenting no object of striking interest to the passing traveller; so that, as it is generally seen in the course of a hasty journey from the Bernese Alps to those of Savoy, it is rarely regarded with any other sensation than that of weariness, all the more painful because accompanied with reaction from the high excitement caused by the splendor of the Bernese Oberland. The traveller, foot- sore, feverish, and satiated with glacier and pre- cipice, lies back in the corner of the diligence, perceiving little more than that the road is wind- ing and hilly, and the country through which it passes cultivated and tame. Let him, however, only do this tame country the justice of stay- ing in it a few days, until his mind has recov- ered its tone, and taken one or two long walks through its fields, and he will have other thoughts of it. It is, as I said, an undulating district of gray sandstone, never attaining any considerable height, but having enough of the mountain spirit to throw itself into continual succession of bold slope and dale; elevated, also, just far enough above the sea to render the pine a fre- quent forest tree along its irregular ridges. Through this elevated tract the river cuts its way in a ravine some five or six hundred feet in depth, which winds for leagues between the gen- tle hills, unthought of, until its edge is ap- 114 NATURE. proached ; and then suddenly, through the boughs of the firs, the eye perceives, beneath, the green and gliding stream, and the broad walls of sandstone cliff that form its banks, hol- lowed out where the river leans against them, at its turns, into perilous overhanging, and, on the other shore, at the same spots, leaving little breadths of meadow between them and the wa- ter, half-overgrown with thicket, deserted in their sweetness, inaccessible from above, and rarely visited by any curious wanderers along the hardly traceable footpath which struggles for existence beneath the rocks. And there the river ripples, and eddies, and murmurs in an utter solitude. It is passing through the midst of a thickly peopled country; but never was a stream so lonely. The feeblest and most far- away torrent among the high hills has its com- panions: the goats browse beside it; and the traveller drinks from it, and passes over it with his staff; and the peasant traces a new channel for it down to his mill-wheel. But this stream has no companions : it flows on in an infinite seclusion, not secret or threatening, but a quiet- ness of sweet daylight and open air, — a broad space of tender and deep desolateness, drooped into repose out of the midst of human labor and life; the waves plashing lowly, with none to hear them; and the wild birds building in the MOUNTAINS. 115 boughs, with none to fray them away; and the soft fragrant herbs rising, and breathing, and fading, with no hand to gather them; — and yet all bright and bare to the clouds above, and to the fresh fall of the passing sunshine and pure rain. But above the brows of those scarped cliffs, all is in an instant changed. A few steps only beyond the firs that stretch their branches, an- gular, and wild, and white, like forks of light- ning, into the air of the ravine, and we are in an arable country of the most perfect richness; the swathes of its corn glowing and burning from field to field; its pretty hamlets all vivid with fruitful orchards and flowery gardens, and goodly with steep-roofed storehouse and barn; its well- kept, hard, park-like roads rising and falling from hillside to hillside, or disappearing among brown banks of moss, and thickets of the wild raspberry and rose; or gleaming through lines of tall trees, half glade, half avenue, where the gate opens, or the gateless path turns trustedly aside, unhindered, into the garden of some statelier house, surrounded in rural pride with its golden hives, and carved granaries, and ir- regular domain of latticed and espaliered cot- tages, gladdening to look upon in their homeli- ness — delicate, yet, in some sort, rude; not like our English homes — trim, laborious, formal, ir- Il6 NATURE. reproachable in comfort; but with a peculiar carelessness and largeness in all their detail, harmonizing with the outlawed loveliness of their country. For there is an untamed strength even in all that soft and habitable land. It is, indeed, gilded with corn and fragrant with deep grass, but it is not subdued to the plough or to the scythe. It gives at its own free will, — it seems to have nothing wrested from it nor con- quered in it. It is not redeemed from desert- ness, but unrestrained in fruitfulness, — a gener- ous land, bright with capricious plenty, and laughing from vale to vale in fitful fulness, kind and wild; nor this without some sterner element mingled in the heart of it. For along all its ridges stand the dark masses of innumerable pines, taking no part in its gladness, asserting themselves for ever as fixed shadows, not to be pierced or banished, even in the intensest sun- light; fallen flakes and fragments of the night, stayed in their solemn squares in the midst of all the rosy bendings of the orchard boughs, and the yellow effulgence of the harvest, and tracing themselves in black network and motionless fringes against the blanched blue of the horizon in its saintly clearness. And yet they do not sadden the landscape, but seem to have been set there chiefly to show how bright everything else is round them; and all the clouds look of purer MOUNTAINS. 117 silver, and all the air seems filled with a whiter and more living sunshine, where they are pierced by the sable points of the pines; and all the pastures look'of more glowing green, where they run up between the purple trunks; and the sweet field footpaths skirt the edges of the for- est for the sake of its shade, sloping up and down about the slippery roots, and losing them- selves every now and then hopelessly among the violets, and ground ivy, and brown sheddings of the fibrous leaves; and, at last, plunging into some open aisle where the light through the dis- tant stems shows that there is a chance of com- ing out again on the other side; and coming out, indeed, in a little while from the scented darkness, into the dazzling air and marvellous landscape, that stretches still farther and far- ther in new wilfulnesses of grove and garden, until, at last, the craggy mountains of the Sim- menthal rise out of it, sharp into the rolling of the southern clouds. Close beside the path by which travellers as- cend the Montanvert from the valley of Cha- mouni, on the right hand, where it first begins to rise among the pines, there descends a small stream from the foot of the granite peak known to the guides as the Aiguille Charmoz. It is concealed from the traveller by a thicket of al- der, and its murmur is hardly heard, for it is one Il8 NATURE. of the weakest streams of the valley. Eut it is a constant stream; fed by a permanent though small glacier, and continuing to flow even to the close of the summer, when more copious tor- rents, depending on the melting of the lower snows, have left their beds " stony channels in the sun." I suppose that my readers must be generally aware that glaciers are masses of ice in slow mo- tion, at the rate of from ten to twenty inches a day, and that the stones which are caught be- tween them and the rocks over which they pass, or which are embedded in the ice and dragged along by it over those rocks, are of course sub- jected to a crushing and grinding power alto- gether unparalleled by any other force in con- stant action. The dust to which these stones are reduced by the friction is carried down by the streams which flow from the melting glacier, so that the water which in the morning may be pure, owing what little strength it has chiefly to the rock springs, is in the afternoon not only in- creased in volume, but whitened with dissolved dust of granite, in proportion to the heat of the preceding hours of the day, and to the power and size of the glacier which feeds it. The long drought which took place in the autumn of the year 1854, sealing every source of waters except these perpetual ones, left the tor- MOUNTAINS. 119 rent of which I am speaking, and such others, in a state peculiarly favorable to observance of their least action on the mountains from which they descend. .They were entirely limited to their own ice fountains, and the quantity of pow- dered rock which they brought down was, of course, at its minimum, being nearly unmingled with any earth derived from the dissolution of softer soil, or vegetable mould, by rains. At three in the afternoon, on a warm day in September, when the torrent had reached its average maximum strength for the day, I filled an ordinary Bordeaux wine-flask with the water where it was least turbid. From this quart of water I obtained twenty-four grains of sand and sediment, more or less fine. I cannot estimate the quantity of water in the stream ; but the runlet of it at which I filled the flask was giving about two hundred bottles a minute, or rather more, carrying down therefore about three quar- ters of a pound of powdered granite every min- ute. This would be forty-five pounds an hour ; but allowing for the inferior power of the stream in the cooler periods of the day, and taking into consideration, on the other side, its increased power in rain, we may, I think, estimate its aver- age hour's work at twenty-eight or thirty pounds, or a hundred-weight every four hours. By this insignificant runlet, therefore, some four inches 120 NATURE. wide and four inches deep, rather more than two tons of the substance of Mont Blanc are dis- placed, and carried down a certain distance every week; and as it is only for three or four months that the flow of the stream is checked by frost, we may certainly allow eighty tons for the mass which it annually moves. It is not worth while to enter into any calcu- lation of the relation borne by this runlet to the great torrents which descend from the chain of Mont Blanc into the valley of Chamouni. To call it the thousandth part of the glacier waters, would give a ludicrous under-estimate of their total power ; but even so calling it, we should find for result that eighty thousand tons of mountain must be yearly transformed into drifted sand, and carried down a certain distance.* How much greater than this is the actual quan- tity so transformed I cannot tell; but take this quantity as certain, and consider that this repre- sents merely the results of the labor of the con- stant summer streams, utterly irrespective of all sudden falls of stones and of masses of mountain (a single thunderbolt will sometimes leave a scar * How far, is another question. The sand which the stream brings from the bottom of one eddy in its course, it throws down in the next ; all that is proved by the above trial is, that so many tons of material are annually carried down by it a certain number of feet. MOUNTAINS. 121 on the flank of a soft rock, looking like a trench for a railroad); and we shall then begin to appre- hend something of the operation of the great laws of change, which are the conditions of all material existence, however apparently enduring. The hills, which, as compared with living beings, seem " everlasting," are, in truth, as perishing as they : its veins of flowing fountain weary the mountain heart, as the crimson pulse does ours; the natural force of the iron crag is abated in its appointed time, like the strength of the sinews in a human old age ; and it is but the lapse of the longer years of decay which, in the sight of its Creator, distinguishes the mountain range from the moth and the worm. And hence two questions arise of the deepest interest. From what first created forms were the mountains brought into their present condi- tion ? into what forms will they change in the course of ages ? Was the world anciently in a more or less perfect state than it is now ? was it less or more fitted for the habitation of the human race ? and are the changes which it is now undergoing favorable to that race or not ? The present conformation of the earth appears dic- tated, as has been shown in the preceding chap- ters, by supreme wisdom and kindness. And yet its former state must have been different from what it is now; as its present one from that X2Z MATURE. which it must assume hereafter. Is this, there- fore, the earth's prime into which we are born; or is it, with all its beauty, only the wreck of Paradise? I cannot entangle the reader in the intricacy of the inquiries necessary for anything like a satisfactory solution of these questions. But, were he to engage in such inquiries, their result would be his strong conviction of the earth's having been brought from a state in which it was utterly uninhabitable into one fitted for man; of its having been, when first inhabit- able, more beautiful than it is now; and of its gradually tending to still greater inferiority of aspect, and unfitness for abode. It has indeed been the endeavor of some geologists to prove that destruction and renova- tion are continually proceeding simultaneously in mountains as well as in organic creatures; that while existing eminences are being slowly lowered, others, in order to supply their place, are being slowly elevated; and that what is lost in beauty or healthiness in one spot is gained in another. But I cannot assent to such a conclu- sion. Evidence altogether incontrovertible points to a state of the earth in which it could be ten- anted only by lower animals, fitted for the cir- cumstances under which they lived by peculiar organizations. From this state it is admitted MOUNTAINS. 123 gradually to have been brought into that in which we now see it; and the circumstances of the existing dispensation, whatever may be the date of its endurance, seem to me to point not less clearly to an end than to an origin; to a creation, when " the earth was without form and void," and to a close, when it must either be renovated or destroyed. In one sense, and in one only, the idea of a continuous order of things is admissible, in so far as the phenomena which introduced, and those which are to terminate, the existing dis- pensation, may have been, and may in future be, nothing more than a gigantic development of agencies which are in continual operation around us. The experience we possess of volcanic agency is not yet large enough to enable us to set limits to its force; and as we see the rarity of subterraneous action generally proportioned to it violence, there may be appointed, in the natural order of things, convulsions to take place after certain epochs, on a scale which the human race has not yet lived long enough to witness. The soft silver cloud which writhes innocently on the crest of Vesuvius, rests there without in- termission; but the fury which lays cities in sepulchres of lava bursts forth only after inter- vals of centuries; and the still fiercer indignation of the greater volcanoes, which makes half the 124 NATURE. globe vibrate with earthquake, and shrivels up whole kingdoms with flame, is recorded only in dim distances of history: so that it is not irra- tional to admit that there may yet be powers dormant, not destroyed, beneath the apparently calm surface of the earth, whose date of rest is the endurance of the human race, and whose date of action must be that of its doom. But whether such colossal agencies are indeed in the existing order of things or not, still the effective truth, for us, is one and the same. The earth, as a tormented and trembling ball, may have rolled in space for myriads of ages before humanity was formed from its dust; and as a devastated ruin it may continue to roll, when all that dust shall again have been mingled with ashes that never were warmed by life, or polluted by sin. But for us the intelligible and substan- tial fact is that the earth has been brought, by forces we know not of, into a form fitted for our habitation: on that form a gradual but de- structive change is continually taking place, and the course of that change points clearly to a period when it will no more be fitted for the dwelling-place of men. It is, therefore, not so much what these forms of the earth actually are, as what they are con- tinually becoming, that we have to observe; nor is it possible thus to observe them without an MOUNTAINS. 125 instinctive reference to the first state out of which they have been brought. The existing torrent has dug its bed a thousand feet deep. But in what form was the mountain originally raised which gave that torrent its track and power? The existing precipice is wrought into towers and bastions by the perpetual fall of its fragments. In what form did it stand before a single fragment fell ? Yet to such questions, continually suggesting themselves, it is never possible to give a com- plete answer. For a certain distance, the past work of existing forces can be traced; but there gradually the mist gathers, and the footsteps of more gigantic agencies are traceable in the dark- ness ; and still, as we endeavor to penetrate farther and farther into departed time, the thun- der of the Almighty power sounds louder and louder ; and the clouds gather broader and more fearfully, until at last the Sinai of the world is seen altogether upon a smoke, and the fence of its foot is reached, which none can break through. If, therefore, we venture to advance towards the spot where the cloud first comes down, it is rather with the purpose of fully pointing out that there is a cloud, than of entering into it. It is well to have been fully convinced of the existence of the mystery, in an age far too apt 1 26 NA TURE. to suppose that everything which is visible is ex- plicable, and everything that is present, eter- nal. In the actual form of any mountain peak, there must usually be traceable the shadow or skeleton of its former self, like the obscure in- dications of the first frame of a war-worn tower, preserved, in some places, under the heap of its ruins, in others to be restored in imagination from the thin remnants of its tottering shell ; while here and there, in some sheltered spot, a few unfallen stones retain their Gothic sculp- ture, and a few touches of the chisel, or stains of color, inform us of the mind and perfect skill of the old designer. With this great difference, nevertheless, that in the human architecture the builder did not calculate upon ruin, nor appoint the course of impendent desolation; but that in the hand of the great Architect of the mountains, time and decay are as much the instruments of His purpose as the forces by which He first led forth the troops of hills in leaping flocks: — the lightning and the torrent, and the wasting and weariness of innumerable ages, all bear their part in the working out of one consistent plan; and the Builder of the temple for ever stands beside His work, appointing the stone that is to fall, and the pillar that is to be abased, and guiding all the seeming wildness of chance and MOUNTAINS. 127 change, into ordained splendors and foreseen harmonies. I believe, for general development of human intelligence and sensibility, country of this kind is about the most perfect that exists. A richer landscape, as that of Italy, enervates, or causes wantonness; a poorer contracts the concep- tions, and hardens the temperament of both mind and body; and one more curiously or prominently beautiful deadens the sense of beauty. Even what is here of attractiveness, — far exceeding, as it does, that of most of the thickly peopled districts of the temperate zone, — seems to act harmfully on the poetical char- acter of the Swiss; but take its inhabitants all in all, as with deep love and stern penetration they are painted in the works of their principal writer, Gotthelf, and I believe we shall not easily find a peasantry which would completely sustain comparison with them. To myself, mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery; in them, and in the forms of inferior landscape that lead to them, my affections are wholly bound up; and though I can look with happy admiration at the lowland flowers, and woods, and open skies, the happiness is tranquil and cold, like that of ex- amining detached flowers in a conservatory, or 128 NATURE. reading a pleasant book; and if the scenery be resolutely level, insisting upon the declaration of its own flatness in all the detail of it, as in Holland, or Lincolnshire, or Central Lombardy, it appears to me like a prison, and I cannot long endure it. But the slightest rise and fall in the road, — a mossy bank at the side of a crag of chalk, with brambles at its brow, overhanging it, — a ripple over three or four stones in the stream by the bridge, — above all, a wild bit of ferny ground under a fir or two, looking as if, possibly, one might see a hill if one got to the other side of the trees, will instantly give me in- tense delight, because the shadow, or the hope, of the hills is in them. And, in fact, much of the apparently harmful influence of hills on the religion of the world is nothing else than their general gift of exciting the poetical and inventive faculties, in peculiarly solemn tones of mind. Their terror leads into devotional casts of thought; their beauty and wildness prompt the invention at the same time; and where the mind is not gifted with stern rea- soning powers, or protected by purity of teach- ing, it is sure to mingle the invention with its creed, and the vision with its prayer. Strictly speaking, we ought to consider the superstitions of the hills, universally, as a form of poetry; re- gretting only that men have not yet learned MOUNTAINS. 129 how to distinguish poetry from well-founded faith. It has always appeared to me that there was, even in healthy mountain districts, a certain de- gree of inevitable melancholy; nor could I ever escape from the feeling that here, where chiefly the beauty of God's working was manifested to men, warning was also given, and that to the full, of the enduring of His indignation against sin. It seems one of the most cunning and fre- quent of self-deceptions to turn the heart away from this warning and refuse to acknowledge anything in the fair scenes of the natural crea- tion but beneficence. Men in general lean to- wards the light, so far as they contemplate such things at all, most of them passing " by on the other side," either in mere plodding pursuit of their own work, irrespective of what good or evil is around them, or else in selfish gloom, or selfish delight, resulting from their own circum- stances at the moment. Of those who give themselves to any true contemplation, the plu- rality, being humble, gentle and kindly-hearted, look only in nature for what is lovely and kind; partly, also, God gives the disposition to every healthy human mind in some degree to pass over or even harden itself against evil things, I 30 NA TURE. else the suffering would be too great to be borne; and humble people, with a quiet trust that every- thing is for the best, do not fairly represent the facts to themselves, thinking them none of their business. So, what between hard-hearted people, thoughtless people, busy people, humble people, and cheerfully-minded people, — giddiness of youth, and preoccupations of age, — philosophies of faith, and cruelties of folly, — priest and Levite, masquer and merchantman, all agreeing to keep their own side of the way, — the evil that God sends to warn us gets to be forgotten, and the evil that He sends to be mended by us gets left unmended. And then, because people shut their eyes to the dark indisputableness of the facts in front of them, their Faith, such as it is, is shaken or uprooted by every darkness in what is revealed to them. In the present day it is not easy to find a well-meaning man among our more earnest thinkers, who will not take upon himself to dispute the whole system of redemption, because he can- not unravel the mystery of the punishment of sin. But can he unravel the mystery of the punish- ment of no sin ? Can he entirely account for all that happens to a cab-horse ? Has he ever looked fairly at the fate of one of those beasts as it is dying, — measured the work it has done, and the reward it has got, put his hand upon the bloody wounds through which its bones are MOUNTAINS. 131 piercing, and so looked up to Heaven with an entire understanding of Heaven's ways about the horse! "Yet the horse is a fact — no dream — no revelation among the myrtle trees by night; and the dust it dies upon, and the dogs that eat it, are facts; and yonder happy person, whose the horse was till its knees were broken over the hurdles, who had an immortal soul to begin with, and wealth and peace to help forward his immortality; who has also devoted the powers of his soul, and body, and wealth, and peace, to the spoiling of houses, the corruption of the innocent, and the oppression of the poor; and has, at this actual moment of his prosperous life, as many curses waiting round about him in calm shadow, with their death's eyes fixed upon him, biding their time, as ever the poor cab- horse had launched at him in meaningless blas- phemies, when his failing feet stumbled at the stones, — this happy person shall have no stripes, — shall have only the horse's fate of annihila- tion; or, if other things are indeed reserved for him, Heaven's kindness or omnipotence is to be doubted therefore. We cannot reason of these things. But this I know — and this may by all men be known — that no good or lovely thing exists in this world with- out its correspondent darkness; and that the universe presents itself continually to mankind 132 NATURE. under the stern aspect of warning, or of choice, the good and the evil set on the right hand and the left. And in this mountain gloom, which weighs so strongly upon the human heart that in all time hitherto, as we have seen, the hill defiles have been either avoided in terror or inhabited in penance, there is but the fulfilment of the uni- versal law, that where the beauty and wisdom of the Divine working are most manifested, there also are manifested most clearly the terror of God's wrath, and inevitableness of His power. Nor is this gloom less wonderful so far as it bears witness to the error of human choice, even when the nature of good and evil is most definitely set before it. The trees of Paradise were fair; but our first parents hid themselves from God " in medio ligni Paradisi," — in the midst of the trees of the garden. The hills were ordained for the help of man; but, instead of raising his eyes to the hills, from whence cometh his help, he does his idol sacrifice " upon every high hill and under every green tree." The mountain of the Lord's house is established above the hills; but Nadab and Abihu shall see under His feet the body of heaven in his clear- ness, yet go down to kindle the censer against their own souls. And so to the end of time it will be; to the end, that cry will still be heard MOUNTAINS. 133 along the Alpine winds, " Hear, of ye mountains, the Lord's controversy !" Still, their gulfs of thawless ice, and unretarded roar of tormented waves, and deathful falls of fruitless waste and unredeemed decay, must be the image of the souls of those who have chosen the darkness, and whose cry shall be to the mountains to fall on them, and to the hills to cover them; and still, to the end of time, the clear waters of the unfailing springs, and the white pasture-lilies in their clothed multitude, and the abiding of the burning peaks in their nearness to the opened heaven, shall be the types, and the blessings, of those who have chosen light, and of whom it is written, " The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, righteous- ness." How were the gigantic fields of shattered marble conveyed from the ledges which were to remain exposed ? No signs of violence are found on these ledges; what marks there are, the rain and natural decay have softly traced through a long series of years. Those very time-marks may have indeed effaced mere superficial ap- pearances of convulsion; but could they have effaced all evidence of the action of such floods as would have been necessary to carry bodily away the whole ruin of a block of marble leagues in length and breadth, and a quarter of a mile 1 34 NA TURE. thick ? Ponder over the intense marvellousness of this. And yet no trace of the means by which all this was effected is left. The rock stands forth in its white and rugged mystery, as if its peak had been born out of the blue sky. The strength that raised it, and the sea that wrought upon it, have passed away, and left no sign; and we have no words wherein to describe their departure, no thoughts to form about their action, than those of the perpetual and unsatisfied interrogation, — " What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest ? And ye mountains, that ye skipped like lambs ?" As we pass beneath the hills which have been shaken by earthquake and torn by convulsion, we find that periods of perfect repose succeeded those of destruction. The pools of calm water lie clear beneath their fallen rocks, the water- lilies gleam, and the reeds whisper among their shadows; the village rises again over the for- gotten graves, and its church-tower, white through the storm-twilight, proclaims a renewed appeal to His protection in whose hand " are all the corners of the earth, and the strength of the hills is His also." There is no loveliness of Alpine valley that does not teach the same lesson. It is just where " the mountain falling cometh to naught, and the rock is removed out of his place," MOUNTAINS. 135 that, in process of years, the fairest meadows bloom between the fragments, the clearest rivu- lets murmur from their crevices among the flow- ers, and the clustered cottages, each sheltered beneath some strength of mossy stone, now to be removed no more, and with their pastured flocks around them, safe from the eagle's stoop and the wolf's ravin, have written upon their fronts, in simple words, the mountaineer's faith in the ancient promise — " Neither shalt thou be afraid of destruction when it cometh; " For thou shalt be in league with the Stones of the Field; and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee." The idea of retirement from the world for the sake of self-mortification, of combat with de- mons, or communion with angels, and with their king, — authoritatively commended as it was to all men by the continual practice of Christ himself, — gave to all mountain solitude at once a sanc- tity and a terror, in the mediaeval mind, which were altogether different from anything that it had possessed in the un-Christian periods. On the one side, there was an idea of sanctity at- tached to rocky wilderness, because it had al- ways been among hills that the Deity had mani- fested himself most intimately to men, and to I 36 NA TURE. the hills that His saints had nearly always re- tired for meditation, for especial communion with Him, and to prepare for death. Men ac- quainted 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 daugh- ter for her death among the Judea Mountains; of the continual retirement 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 walk 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 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 condem- natory of it. Just in so much as it appeared necessary for the noblest men to retire to the MOUNTAINS. 137 hill-recesses before their missions could be ac- complished 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 re- buke, 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 fun- eral service. Every association of this kind was deepened by the practice and 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, be- cause they knew the monk retired to it for pen- ance, and the hermit for contemplation. Mark the significance of the earliest mention of mountains in the Mosaic books; at least, of those in which some Divine appointment or command is stated respecting them. They are first brought before us as refuges for God's peo- ple from the two judgments of water and fire. The ark rests upon the " mountains of Ararat;" and man, having passed through that great bap- tism unto death, kneels upon the earth first where it is nearest heaven, and mingles with the mountain clouds the smoke of his sacrifice of 138 NATURE. thanksgiving. Again: from the midst of the first judgment of fire, the command of the Deity to his servant is, " Escape to the moun- tain;" and the morbid fear of the hills, which fills any human mind after long stay in places of luxury and sin, is strangely marked in Lot's complaining reply: " I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me." The third mention, in way of ordinance, is a far more sol- emn one: " Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off." "The Place," the Moun- tain of Myrrh, or of bitterness, chosen to fulfil to all the seed of Abraham, far off and near, the inner meaning of promise regarded in that view: " I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh mine help." And the fourth is the delivery of the law on Sinai. It seemed, then, to the monks, that the moun- tains were appointed by their Maker to be to man refuges from Judgment, signs of Redemp- tion, and altars of Sanctification and obedience; and they saw them afterwards connected in the manner the most touching and gracious, with the death, after his task had been accomplished, of the first anointed Priest; the death, in like manner, of the first inspired Lawgiver; and, lastly, with the assumption of his office by the Eternal Priest, Lawgiver, and Saviour. MOUNTAINS. 139 Observe the connection of these three events. Although the time of the deaths of Aaron and Moses was hastened by God's displeasure, we have not, it seems to me, the slightest warrant for concluding that the manner of their deaths was intended to be grievous or dishonorable to them. Far from this: it cannot, I think, be doubted that in the denial of the permission to enter the Promised Land, the whole punishment of their sins was included; and that as far as re- garded the manner of their deaths, it must have been appointed for them by their Master in all tenderness and love; and with full purpose of ennobling the close of their service upon the earth. It might have seemed to us more honor- able that both should have been permitted to die beneath the shadow of the Tabernacle, the congregation of Israel watching by their side; and all whom they loved gathered together to receive the last message from the lips of the meek lawgiver, and the last blessing from the prayer of the anointed priest. But it was not thus that they were permitted to die. Try to realize that going forth of Aaron from the midst of the congregation. He who had so often done sacrifice for their sins, going forth now to offer up his own spirit. He who had stood among them, between the dead and the living, and had seen the eyes of all that great multitude turned I40 NATURE. to him, that by his intercession their breath might yet be drawn a moment more, going forth now to meet the Angel of Death face to face, and deliver himself into his hand. Try if you cannot walk, in thought, with those two broth- ers, and the son, as they passed the outmost tents of Israel, and turned, while yet the dew lay round about the camp, towards the slopes of Mount Hor; talking together for the last time, as step by step, they felt the steeper rising of the rocks, and hour after hour, beneath the as- cending sun, the horizon grew broader as they climbed, and all the folded hills of Idumea, one by one subdued, showed amidst their hollows in the haze of noon, the windings of that long des- ert journey, now at last to close. But who shall enter into the thoughts of the High Priest, as his eye followed those paths of ancient pilgrim- age; and, through the silence of the arid and endless hills, stretching even to the dim peak of Sinai, the whole history of those forty years was unfolded before him, and the mystery of his own ministries revealed to him; and that other Holy of Holies, of which the mountain peaks were the altars, and the mountain clouds the veil, the firmament of his Father's dwelling, opened to him still more brightly and infinitely as he drew nearer his death; until at last, on the shadeless summit, — from him on whom sin was to be laid MOUNTAINS. 14 r no more — from him, on whose heart the names of sinful nations were to press their graven fire no longer, — the brother and the son took breast- plate and ephod, and left him to his rest. There is indeed a secretness in this calm faith and deep restraint of sorrow, into which it is difficult for us to enter; but the death of Moses himself is more easily to be conceived, and had in it circumstances still more touching, as far as regards the influence of the external scene. For forty years Moses had not been alone. The care and burden of all the people, the weight of their woe, and guilt, and death, had been upon him continually. The multitude had been laid upon him as if he had conceived them; their tears had been his meat, night and day, until he had felt as if God had withdrawn His favor from him, and he had prayed that he might be slain, and not see his wretchedness.* And now, at last, the command came, " Get thee up into this mountain." The weary hands that had been [so long stayed up against the enemies of Israel, might lean again upon the shepherd's staff, and fold themselves for the shepherd's prayer — for the shepherd's slumber. Not strange to his feet, though forty years unknown, the roughness of the bare mountain-path, as he * Numbers xi. 12, 15. 142 NATURE. climbed from ledge to ledge of Abarim; not strange to his aged eyes the scattered clusters of the mountain herbage, and the broken shadows of the cliffs, indented far across the silence of uninhabited ravines; scenes such as those among which, with none, as now, beside him but God, he had led his flocks so often; and which he had left, how painfully! taking upon him the ap- pointed power, to make of the fenced city a wilderness, and to fill the desert with songs of deliverance. It was not to embitter the last hours of his life that God restored to him, for a day, the beloved solitudes he had lost; and breathed the peace of the perpetual hills around him, and cast the world in which he had labored and sinned far beneath his feet, in that mist of dying blue; — all sin, all wandering, soon to be forgotten for ever; the Dead Sea — a type of God's anger understood by him, of all men, most clearly, who had seen the earth open her mouth, and the sea his depth, to overwhelm the companies of those who contended with his Master — laid waveless beneath him; and beyond it, the fair hills of Judah, and the soft plains and banks of Jordan, purple in the evening light as with the blood of redemption, and fading in their distant fulness into mysteries of promise and of love. There, with his unabated strength, his undimmed glance, lying down upon the ut- MOUNTAINS, 143 most rocks, with angels waiting near to contend for the spoils of his spirit, he put off his earthly armor. We do deep reverence to his companion prophet, for whom the chariot of fire came down from heaven; but was his death less noble, whom his Lord Himself buried in the vales of Moab, keeping, in the secrets of the eternal counsels, the knowledge of a sepulchre, from which he was to be called, in the fulness of time, to talk with that Lord upon Hermon, of the death that He should accomplish at Jerusalem? And lastly, let us turn our thoughts for a few moments to the cause of the resurrection of these two prophets. We are all of us too much in the habit of passing it by, as a thing mystical and inconceivable, taking place in the life of Christ for some purpose not by us to be under- stood, or, at the best, merely as a manifestation of his divinity by brightness of heavenly light, and the ministering of the spirits of the dead, intended to strengthen the faith of His three chosen apostles. And in this, as in many other events recorded by the Evangelists, we lose half the meaning and evade the practical power upon ourselves, by never accepting in its fulness the idea that our Lord was "perfect man," " tempted in all things like as we are." Our preachers are continually trying, in all manner of subtle ways, to explain the union of the Divinity with the 144 NATURE. Manhood, an explanation which certainly in- volves first their being able to describe the nature of Deity itself, or, in plain words, to com- prehend God. They never can explain in any one particular, the union of the natures; they only succeed in weakening the faith of their hearers as to the entireness of either. The thing they have to do is precisely the contrary to this — to insist upon the entireness of both. We never think of Christ enough as God, never enough as Man; the instinctive habit of our minds being always to miss of the Divinity, and the reasoning and enforced habit to miss of the Humanity. We are afraid to harbor in our own hearts, or to utter in the hearing of others, any thought of our Lord, as hungering, tired, sorrow- ful, having a human soul, a human will, and affected by events of human life as a finite crea- ture is; and yet one half of the efficiency of His atonement, and the whole of the efficiency of His example, depend on His having been this to the full. Consider, therefore, the Transfiguration as it relates to the human feelings of our Lord. It was the first definite preparation for His death. He had foretold it to His disciples six days before; then takes with Him the three chosen ones into " an high mountain apart." From an exceeding high mountain, at the first taking on MOUNTAINS. 145 Him the ministry of life, He had beheld, and rejected the kingdoms of the earth and their glory: now, oh a high mountain, He takesupon Him the ministry of death. Peter, and they that were with him, as in Gethsemane, were heavy with sleep. Christ's work had to be done alone. The tradition is, that the Mount of Trans- figuration was the summit of Tabor; but Tabor is neither a high mountain, nor was it in any sense a mountain " apart;' being in those years both inhabited and fortified. All the immedi- ately preceding ministries of Christ had been at Cesarea Philippi. There is no mention of travel southward in the six days that intervened be- tween the warning given to His disciples, and the going up into the hill. What other hill could it be than the southward slope of that goodly mountain, Hermon, which is indeed the centre of all the Promised Land, from the enter- ing in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt; the mount of fruitfulness, from which the springs of Jordan descended to the valleys of Israel. Along its mighty forest avenues, until the grass grew fair with the mountain lilies His feet dashed in the dew of Hermon, He must have gone to pray His first recorded prayer about death; and from the steep of it, before He knelt, could see to the south all the dwelling- I46 NATURE. place of the people that had sat in darkness, and seen the great light, the land of Zabulon and of Naphtali, Galilee of the nations; — could see, even with His human sight, the gleam of that lake by Capernaum and Chorazin, and many a place loved by Him, and vainly ministered to, whose house was now left unto them desolate; and, chief of all, far in the utmost blue, the hills above Nazareth, sloping down to His old home: hills on which yet the stones lay loose, that had been taken up to cast at Him, when He left them for ever. " And as he prayed, two men stood by him." Among many ways in which we miss the help and hold of Scripture, none is more subtle than our habit of supposing that, even as man, Christ was free from the Fear of Death. How could He then have been tempted as we are ? since among all the trials of the earth, none spring from the dust more terrible than that Fear. It had to be borne by Him indeed, in a unity, which we can never comprehend, with the fore- knowledge of victory, — as His sorrow for Laza- rus, with the consciousness of the power to restore him; but it had to be borne, and that in its full earthly terror; and the presence of it is surely marked for us enough by the rising of those two at His side. When, in the desert, he was girding himself for the work of life, angels MOUNTAINS. 147 of life came and ministered unto Him; now, in the fair world, when He is girding himself for the work of death, the ministrants come to Him from the grave. But from the grave conquered. One, from that tomb under Abarim, which his own hand had sealed so long ago; the other from the rest into which he had entered, without seeing cor- ruption. There stood by Him Moses and Elias, and spake of his decease. Then, when the prayer is ended, the task ac- cepted, first since the star paused over Him at Bethlehem, the full glory falls upon Him from heaven, and the testimony is borne to his ever- lasting Sonship and power. " Hear ye him." If, in their remembrance of these things, and in their endeavor to follow in the footsteps of their Master, religious men of by-gone days, closing themselves in the hill solitudes, forgot sometimes, and sometimes feared, the duties they owed to the active world, we may perhaps par- don them more easily than we ought to pardon ourselves, if we neither seek any influence for good nor submit to it unsought, in scenes to which thus all the men whose writings we re- ceive as inspired, together with their Lord, re- tired whenever they had any task or trial laid upon them needing more than their usual strength of spirit. Nor, perhaps, should we have unprofit- I48 NATURE. ably entered into the mind of the earlier ages, if among our other thoughts, as we watch the chains of the snowy mountains rise on the hori- zon, we should sometimes admit the memory of the hour in which their Creator, among their solitudes, entered on His travail for the salva- tion of our race; and indulge the dream, that as the flaming and trembling mountains of the earth seem to be the monuments of the manifest- ing of His terror on Sinai, — these pure and white hills, near to the heaven, and sources of all good to the earth, are the appointed memorials of that Light of His Mercy, that fell, snow-like, on the Mount of Transfiguration. TREES. In speaking of trees generally, be it observed, when I say all trees I mean only those ordinary forest or copse trees of Europe, which are the chief subjects of the landscape painter. I do not mean to include every kind of foliage which by any accident can find its way into a picture, but the ordinary trees of Europe, — oak, elm, ash, hazel, willow, birch, beech, poplar, chestnut, pine, mulberry, olive, ilex, carubbe, and such others. I do not purpose to examine the characteristics TREES. 149 of each tree; it will be enough to observe the laws common to all. First, then, neither the stems nor the - boughs of any of the above trees taper, except where they fork. Wherever a stem sends off a branch, cr a branch a lesser bough, or a lesser bough a bud, the stem or the branch is, on the instant, less in diameter by the exact quantity of the branch or the bough they have sent off, and they remain of the same diameter; or if there be any change, rather increase than diminish until they send off another branch or bough. This law is imperative and without ex- ception; no bough, nor stem, nor twig, ever tapering or becoming narrower towards its ex- tremity by a hairbreadth, save where it parts with some portion of its substance at a fork or bud, so that if all the twigs and sprays at the top and sides of the tree, which are, and have beat, could be united without loss of space, they would form a round log of the diameter of the trunk from which they spring. But as the trunks of most trees send off twigs and sprays of light under foliage, of which every individual fibre takes precisely its own thickness of wood from the parent stem, and as many of these drop off, leaving nothing but a small excrescence to record their existence, there is frequently a slight and delicate appearance of tapering bestowed on the trunk itself ; while the 1 50 NA TURE. same operation takes place much more extensive- ly in the branches, it being natural to almost all trees to send out from their young limbs more wood than they can support, which, as the stem increases, gets contracted at the point of inser- tion, so as to check the flow of the sap, and then dies and drops off, leaving all along the bough, first on one side, then on another, a series of small excrescences, sufficient to account for a de- gree of tapering, which is yet so very slight, that if we select a portion of a branch with no real fork or living bough to divide it or diminish it, the tapering is scarcely to be detected by the eye ; and if we select a portion without such evi- dence of past ramification, there will be found none whatsoever. But nature takes great care and pains to con- ceal this uniformity in her boughs. They are perpetually parting with little sprays here and there, which steal away their substance cautious- ly, and where the eye does not perceive the theft, until, a little way above, it feels the loss ; and in the upper parts of the tree, the ramifica- tions take place so constantly and delicately, that the effect upon the eye is precisely the same as if the boughs actually tapered, except here and there, where some avaricious one, greedy of substance, runs on for two or three TREES. 1 5 l yards without parting with anything, and becomes ungraceful in so doing. Hence we see that although boughs may, and must be represented as actually tapering, they must only be so when they are sending off foli- age and sprays, and when they are at such a dis- tance that the particular forks and divisions can- not be evident to the eye ; and farther, even in such circumstances the tapering never can be sudden or rapid. No bough ever, with appear- ance of smooth tapering, loses more than one- tenth of its diameter in a length of ten diameters. Any greater diminution than this must be ac counted for by visible ramification, and must take place by steps, at each fork. One of ' the most remarkable characters ot natural leafage is the constancy with which, while the leaves are arranged on the spray with exquisite regularity, that regularity is modified in their actual effect. For as in every group of leaves some are seen sideways, forming merely long lines, some foreshortened, some crossing each other, every one differently turned and placed from all the others, the forms of the leaves, though in themselves similar, give rise to a thousand strange and differing forms in the group ; and the shadows of some, passing over the others, still farther disguise and confuse the mass, until the eye can distinguish nothing but a 152 NATURE. graceful and flexible disorder of innumerable forms, with here and there a perfect leaf on the extremity, or a symmetrical association of one or two, just enough to mark the specific charac- ter and to give unity and grace, but never enough to repeat in one group what was done in another — never enough to prevent the eye from feeling that, however regular and mathematical may be the structure of parts, what is composed out of them is as various and infinite as any other part of nature. Nor does this take place in gen- eral effect only. Break off an elm bough, three feet long, in full leaf, and lay it on the table be- fore you, and try to draw it, leaf for leaf. It is ten to one if in the whole bough (provided you do not twist it about as you work), you find one form of a leaf exactly like another ; perhaps you will not even have one complete. Every leaf will be oblique, or foreshortened, or curled, or crossed by another, or shaded by another, or have something or other the matter with it ; and though the whole bough will look graceful and symmetrical, you will scarcely be able to tell how or why it does so, since there is not one line of it like another. The last and most important truth to be ob- served respecting trees, is that their boughs al- ways, in finely grown individuals, bear among themselves such a ratio of length as to describe TREES. 153 with their extremities a symmetrical curve, con- stant for each species; and within this curve all the irregularities, segments, and divisions of the tree are included, each bough reaching the limit with its extremity, but not passing it. When a tree is perfectly grown, each bough starts from the trunk with just so much wood as, allowing for constant ramification, will enable it to reach the terminal line ; or if by mistake, it start with too little, it will proceed without ramifying till within a distance where it may safely divide ; if on the contrary it start with too much, it will ramify quickly and constantly ; or, to express the real operation more accurately, each bough, growing on so as to keep even with its neigh- bors, takes so much wood from the trunk as is sufficient to enable it to do so, more or less in proportion as it ramifies fast or slowly. In badly grown trees, the boughs are apt to fall short of the curve, or at least, there are so many jags and openings that its symmetry is interrupted ; and in young trees, the impatience of the upper shoots frequently breaks the line ; but in perfect and mature trees, every bough does its duty completely, and the line of curve is quite filled up, and the mass within it unbroken, so that the tree assumes the shape of a dome, as in the oak, or, in tall trees, of a pear, with the stalk down- most. I 54 MA TURE. It is possible among plains, in the species of trees which properly belong to them, the pop- lars 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 conditions of symmetrical lux- uriance developed in the park and avenue, rarely rivalled in their way among mountains; 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 navigable 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 rich- est 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 con- tend with; neither their tenderness of brotherly love and harmony, till they are forced to choose their ways of various life where there is con- tracted room for them, talking to each other with their restrained branches. The various action of trees rooting themselves in inhospita- ble rocks, stooping to look into ravines, hiding from the search of glacier winds, reaching forth to the rays of rare sunshine, crowding down to- TREES, 155 gether to drink at sweetest streams, climbing hand in hand among the difficult slopes, opening in sudden dances round the mossy knolls, gather- ing into companies at rest among the fragrant fields, gliding in grave procession over the heavenward ridges, — nothing of this can be con- ceived among the unvexed and unvaried felici- ties of the lowland forest: while to all these direct sources of greater beauty are added, first the power of redundance, — the mere quality of foli- age visible in the folds and on the promontories of a single Alp being greater than that of an en- tire lowland landscape (unless a view from some cathedral tower); and to this charm of redun- dance, 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. There was only one thing belonging to hills that Shakespere seemed to feel as noble — the pine tree, and that was because he had seen it in Warwickshire, clumps of pine occasionlly ris- ing on little sandstone mounds, as at the place of execution of Piers Gaveston, above the low- 1 56 XA TURE. land woods. He touches on this tree fondly again and again. "As rough, Their royal blood enchafed, 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 hori- zontal 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 promontories at their bases which I have always called their spurs, this observance of the pine's strength and ani- mal-like grasp being the chief reason for his choosing it, above all 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." I challenge the untravelled English reader to tell me what an olive-tree is like ? 1 know he cannot answer my challenge. He TREES. 157 has no more idea of an olive-tree than if olives grew only in the fixed stars. Let him meditate a little on this one fact, and consider its strange- ness, and what a wilful and constant closing of the eyes to the most important truths ii indi- cates on the part of the modern artist. Observe, a want of perception, not of science. I do not want painters to tell me any scientific facts about olive-trees. But it had been well for them to have felt and seen the olive-tree; to have loved it for Christ's sake, partly also for the helmed Wisdom's sake which was to the heathen in some sort as that nobler Wisdom which stood at God's right hand, when He founded the earth and established the heavens. To have loved it even to the hoary dimness of its delicate foliage, subdued and faint of hue, as if the ashes of the Gethsemane agony had been cast upon it for ever; and to have traced, line for line, the gnarled writhings of its intricate branches, and the pointed fretwork of its light and narrow leaves, inlaid on the blue field of the sky, and the small rosy-white stars of its spring blossom- ing, and the beads of sable fruit scattered by autumn along its topmost boughs — the right, in Israel, of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, — and, more than all, the softness of the mantle, silver gray, and tender like the down on a bird's breast, with which, far away, it veils the 158 NATURE. undulation of the mountains; these it had been well for them to have seen and drawn, whatever they had left unstudied in the gallery. The Greek delighted in the grass for its use- fulness ; the mediaeval, as also we moderns, for its color and beauty. But both dwell on it as the first element of the lovely landscape; Dante thinks the righteous spirits of the heathen enough comforted in Hades by having even the image of green grass put beneath their feet ; the happy resting-place in Purgatory has no other delight than its grass and flowers ; and, finally, in the terrestrial paradise, the feet of Matilda pause where the Lethe stream first bends the blades of grass. Consider a little what a depth there is in this great instinct of the human race. Gather a single blade of grass, and examine for a minute, quietly, its narrow sword-shaped strip of fluted green. Nothing, as it seems there, of notable goodness or beauty. A very little strength, and a very little tallness, and a few delicate long lines meeting in a point, — not a perfect point neither, but blunt and unfinished, by no means a creditable or apparently much cared for ex- ample of Nature's workmanship, made, as it seems, only to be trodden on to-day, and to- morrow to be cast into the oven; and a little pale and hollow stalk, feeble and flaccid, lead- GRASS. 159 ing down to the dull brown fibres of roots. And yet, think of it well, and judge whether of all the gorgeous flowers that beam in summer air, and of all strong and goodly trees, pleasant to the eyes and good for food, — stately palm and pine, strong ash and oak, scented citron, burdened vine, — there be any by man so deeply loved, by God so highly graced, as that narrow point of feeble green. It seems to me not to have been without a peculiar significance, that our Lord, when about to work the miracle which, of all that He showed, appears to have been felt by the multitude as the most impressive, — the mira- cle of the loaves, — commanded the people to sit down by companies "upon the green grass." He was about to feed them with the principal produce of earth and the sea, the simplest repre- sentations of the food of mankind. He gave them the seed of the herb; He bade them sit down upon the herb itself, which was as great a gift, in its fitness for their joy and rest, as its perfect fruit, for their sustenance; thus, in this single order and act, when rightly understood, indicating for evermore how the Creator had en- trusted the comfort, consolation, and sustenance of man, to the simplest and most despised of all the leafy families of the earth. And well does it fulfil its mission. Consider what we owe merely to the meadow grass, to the covering of l60 NA TURE. the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those soft, and countless, and peaceful spears. The fields ! Follow but forth for a little time the thoughts of all that we ought to recognize in those words. All spring and summer is in them, — the walks by silent, scented paths, — the rests in noonday heat, — the joy of herds and flocks, — the power of all shep- herd life and meditation, — the life of sunlight upon the world, falling in emerald streaks, and falling in soft blue shadows, where else it would have struck upon the dark mould, or scorching dust, — pastures beside the pacing brooks, soft banks and knolls of lowly hills, — thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea, — crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, and softening in their fall the sound of loving voices: all these are summed in those simple words; and these are not all. We may not measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift, in our own land; though still, as we think of it longer, the infinite of that meadow sweetness, Shakspere's peculiar joy, would open on us more and more, yet we have it but in part. Go out, in the spring time, among the meadows that slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, mingled with the taller gentians and the white narcissus, GRASS. l6l the grass grows deep and free; and as you fol- low the winding mountain paths, beneath arch- ing boughs all- veiled and dim with blossom, — paths that for ever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweeping down in scented undulation, steep to the blue water, studded here and there with new-mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness, — look up towards the higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines; and we may, perhaps, at last know the meaning of those quiet words of the 147th Psalm, " He maketh grass to grow upon the mountains." There are also several lessons symbolically connected with this subject, which we must not allow to escape us. Observe, the peculiar char- acters of the grass, which adapt it especially for the service of man, are its apparent humility and cheerfulness. Its humility, in that it seems created only for lowest service, — appointed to be trodden on, and fed upon. Its cheerfulness, in that it seems to exult under all kinds of vio- lence and suffering. You roll it, and it is strong- er the next day; you mow it, and it multiplies its shoots, as if it were grateful; you tread upon it, and it only sends up richer perfume. Spring comes, and it rejoices with all the earth, — glow- ing with variegated flame of flowers, — waving in 1 62 ATA TURE. soft depth of fruitful strength. Winter comes, and though it will not mock its fellow plants by growing then, it will not pine and mourn, and turn colorless or leafless as they. It is always green; and it is only the brighter and gayer for the hoar-frost. Now, these two characters — of humility, and joy under trial — are exactly those which most definitely distinguish the Christian from the Pagan spirit. Whatever virtue the pagan pos- sessed was rooted in pride, and fruited with sor- row. It began in the elevation of his own na- ture; it ended but in the " verde smalto" — the hopeless green — of the Elysian fields. But the Christian virtue is rooted in self-debasement, and strengthened under suffering by gladness of hope. And remembering this, it is curious to observe how utterly without gladness the Greek heart appears to be in watching the flowering grass, and what strange discords of expression arise sometimes in consequence. Ther.e is one, recurring once or twice in Homer, which has always pained me. He says, " the Greek army was on the fields, as thick as flowers in the spring." It might be so ; but flowers in spring time are not the image by which Dante would have numbered soldiers on their path of battle. Dante could not have thought of the flowering of the grass but as associated with happiness. GRASS. 163 There is a still deeper significance in a passage from Homer, describing Ulysses casting himself down on the rushes and the corn-giving land at the river shore, — the rushes and corn being to him only good for rest and sustenance, — when we compare it with that in which Dante tells us he was ordered to descend to the shore of the lake as he entered Purgatory, to gather a rush, and gird himself with it, it being to him the emblem not only of rest, but of humility under chastisement, the rush (or reed) being the only plant which can grow there; — "no plant which bears leaves, or hardens its bark, can live on that shore, because it does not yield to the chastise- ment of its waves." It cannot but strike the reader singularly how deep and harmonious a significance runs through all these words of Dante — how every syllable of them, the more we penetrate it, becomes a seed of farther thought. For, follow up this image of the gird- ling with the reed, under trial, and see to whose feet it will lead us. As the grass of the earth, thought of as the herb yielding seed, leads us to the place where our Lord commanded the multi- tude to sit down by companies upon the green grass; so the grass of the waters, thought of as sustaining itself among the waters of affliction, leads us to the place where a stem of it was put into our Lord's hand for his sceptre; and in the 1 64 NATURE. crown of thorns, and the rod of reed, was fore- shown the everlasting truth of the Christian ages — that all glory was to be begun in suffering, and all power in humility. Assembling the images we have traced, and adding the simplest of all, from Isaiah xl. 6, we find, the grass and flowers are types, in their passing, of the passing of human life, and, in their excellence, of the excellence of human life; and this in a twofold way; first, by their Benefi- cence, and then, by their endurance : — the grass of the earth, in giving the seed of corn, and in its beauty under tread of foot and stroke of scythe; and the grass of the waters, in giving its freshness for our rest, and in its bending before the wave.* But understood in the broad human and Divine sense, the "herb yielding seed " (as opposed to the fruit-tree yielding fruit) includes a third family of plants, and fulfils a third office to the human race. It includes the great family of the lints and flaxes, and fulfils thus the three offices of giving food, raiment, and rest. Fol- low out this fulfilment; consider the association of the linen garment and the linen embroidery, with the priestly office, and the furniture of the * So also in Isa. xxxv. 7, the prevalence of righteous- ness and peace over all evil is thus foretold : " In the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass, with reeds and rushes." GRASS. 165 tabernacle; and consider how the rush has been, in all time, the first natural carpet thrown under the human foot. Then next observe the three virtues definitely set forth by the three families of plants; not arbitrarily or fancifully associated with them, but in all the three cases marked for us by Scriptural words : 1st. Cheerfulness, or joyful serenity; in the grass for food and beauty. — " Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin." 2nd. Humility ; in the grass for rest. — " A bruised reed shall He not break." 3rd. Love; in the grass for clothing (because of its swift kindling), — " The smoking flax shall He not quench." And then, finally, observe the confirmation of these last two images in, I suppose, the most important prophecy, relating to the future state of the Christian Church, which occurs in the Old Testament, namely, that contained in the closing chapters of Ezekiel. The measures of the Temple of God are to be taken ; and be- cause it is only by charity and humility that those measures ever can be taken, the angel has " a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed." The use of the line was to measure the land, and of the reed to take the dimensions of the buildings; so the buildings of the church, or 1 66 NATURE. its labors, are to be measured by humility, and its territory or land, by love. The limits of the Church have, indeed, in later days, been measured, to the world's sorrow, by another kind of flaxen line, burning with the fire of unholy zeal, not with that of Christian charity; and perhaps the best lesson which we can finally take to ourselves, in leaving these sweet fields, is the memory that, in spite of all the fettered habits of thought of his age, this great Dante, this inspired exponent of what lay deepest at the heart of the early Church, placed his terrestrial paradise where there had ceased to be fence or division, and where the grass of the earth was bowed down, in unity of direc- tion, only by the soft waves that bore with them the forgetfulness of evil. fllart 3. ARCHITECTURE. Every man has at some time of his life personal interest in Architecture. He has influence on the design of some public building; or he has to buy, or build, or alter his own house. It signifies less whether the knowledge of other arts be general or not ; men may live without buying pictures or statues. They must do mischief, and waste their money if they do not know fww to turn it to account. PART III. ARCHITECTURE. ART. Architecture (considered as a fine art) is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them contributes to his mental health, power, and pleasure. Architecture proper, then, naturally arranges itself under five heads: — Devotional; including all buildings raised for God's service or honor. Memorial; including both monuments and tombs. Civil; including every edifice raised by nations or societies, for purposes of common business or pleasure. Military; including all private and public architecture of defence. Domestic; including every rank and kind of dwelling-place. 169 170 ARCHITECTURE. Those peculiar aspects which belong to the first of the arts, I have endeavored to trace; and since, if truly stated, they must necessarily be, not only safeguards against error, but sources of every measure of success, I do not think I claim too much for them in calling them the Lamps of Architecture. The seven Lamps of Architecture— i. The Lamp of Sacrifice. 2. The Lamp of Truth. 3. The Lamp of Power. 4. The Lamp of Beauty. 5. The Lamp of Life. 6. The Lamp of Memory. 7. The Lamp of Obedience. I. The Lamp or Spirit of Sacrifice prompts us to the offering of precious things, merely because they are precious, not because they are useful or necessary. Was it necessary to the complete- ness, as a type, of the Levitical sacrifice, or to its utility as an explanation of divine purposes, that it should cost anything to the person in whose behalf it was offered ? Costliness was generally a condition of the acceptableness of the sacrifice. " Neither will I offer unto the Lord my God of that which did cost me nothing." That costliness, therefore, must be an acceptable condition in all human offerings at all times; for if it was pleasing to God once, it must please ART. 171 Him always, unless directly forbidden by Him afterwards, which it has never been. Was the glory of the tabernacle necessary to set forth or image His Divine glory to the minds of His people? What! purple or scarlet neces- sary to the people who had seen the great river of Egypt run scarlet to the sea, under His con- demnation ? What ! golden lamp and cherub necessary for those who had seen the fires of heaven falling like a mantle on Mount Sinai, and its golden courts opened to receive their mortal lawgiver? What! silver clasp and fillet neces- sary when they had seen the silver waves of the Red Sea clasp in their arched hollows the corpses of the horse and his rider ? Nay — not so. There was but one reason, and that an eternal one; that as the covenant that He made with man was accompanied with some external sign of its continuance, and of His remembrance of it, so the acceptance of that covenant might be marked and signified by use, in some external sign of their love and obedience, and surrender of themselves and theirs to His will; and that their gratitude to Him, and continual remem- brance of Him, might have at once their expres- sion and their enduring testimony in the presen- tation to Him, not only of the firstlings of the herd and fold, not only of the fruits of the earth and the tithe of time, but of all treasures of wis- 172 ARCHITECTURE. dom and beauty; of the thought that invents, and the hand that labors; of wealth of wood, and weight of stone; of the strength of iron, and of the light of gold. It has been said — it ought always to be said, for it is true — that a better and more honorable offering is made to our Master in ministry to the poor, in extending the knowledge of His name, in the practice of the virtues by which that name is hallowed, than in material presents to His temple. Assuredly it is so; woe to all who think that any other kind or manner f ooffering may in any wise take the place of these! Do the people need place to pray, and calls to hear His word ? Then it is no time for smoothing pillars or carving pulpits; let us have enough first of walls and roofs. Do the people need teaching from house to house, and bread from day to day ? Then they are deacons and ministers we want, not architects. I insist on this, I plead for this; but let us examine ourselves, and see if this be indeed the reason for our backwardness in the lesser work. The question is not between God's house and His poor: it is not between God's house and His gospel. It is between God's house and ours. Have we no tesselated colors on our floors ? no frescoed fancies on our roofs ? no niched statuary in our corridors ? no gilded furniture in our chambers ? no costly stones in ART. If3 our cabinets ? Has even the tithe of these been offered ? They are, or they ought to be, the signs that enough has been devoted to the great purposes of human stewardship, and that there remains to us what we can spend in luxury; but there is a greater and prouder luxury than this selfish one — that of bringing a portion of such things as these into sacred service, and present- ing them for a memorial that our pleasure as well as our toil has been hallowed by the re- membrance of Him who gave both the strength and the reward. And until this has been done, I do not see how suca possessions can be re- tained in happiness. I do not understand the feeling which would arch our own gates and pave our own thresholds, and leave the church with its narrow door and foot-worn sill; the feel- ing which enriches our own chambers with all manner of costliness, and endures the bare wall and mean compass of the temple. The tenth part of the expense which is sacri- ficed in domestic vanities, would, if collectively offered and wisely employed, build a marble church for every town in England; such a church as it should be a joy and a blessing even to pass near in our daily ways and walks, and as it would bring the light into the eyes to see from far, lifting its fair height above the purple crowd of humble roofs. 174 ARCHITECTURE. I have said for every town: I do not want a marble church for every village; nay, I do not want marble churches at all for their own sakes, but for the sake of the spirit that v/ould build them. The church has no need of any visible splendors; her power is independent of them, her purity is in some degree opposed to them. The simplicity of a pastoral sanctuary is love- lier than the majesty of an urban temple; and it may be more than questioned whether, to the people, such majesty has ever been the source of any increase of effective piety; but to the builders it has been, and must ever be. It is not the church we want, but the sacrifice; not the emotion of admiration, but the act of adora- tion; not the gift, but the giving (St. John xii. 5). God never forgets any work or labor of love; and whatever it may be of which the first and best portions or powers have been presented to Him, He will multiply and increase sevenfold. Therefore, though it may not be necessarily the interest of religion to admit the service of the arts, the arts will never flourish till they have been primarily devoted to that service — devoted both by architect and employer; by the one in scrupulous, earnest, affectionate design; by the other in expenditure at least more frank, at least less calculating than that which he would admit, in the indulgence of his 'own private feelings. THE LAMP OF TRUTH. 17$ II. THE LAMP OF TRUTH. There are some faults slight in the sight of love, some errors slight in the estimate of wis- dom; but Truth forgives no insult, and endures no stain. I would have the Spirit or Lamp of Truth clear in the hearts of our artists and handicrafts- men, not as if the truthful practice of handi- crafts could far advance the cause of Truth, but because I would fain see the handicrafts themselves urged by the spurs of chivalry. We may not be able to command good, or beautiful, or inventive architecture, but we can command an honest architecture: the meagre- ness of poverty may be pardoned, the sternness of utility respected; but what is there but scorn for the meanness of deception ? The worth of a diamond is simply the under- standing of the time it must take to look for it before it is found, and the worth of an ornament is the time it must take before it can be cut. I suppose that hand-wrought ornament can no more be generally known from machine-work than a diamond can be known from paste. Yet exactly as a woman of feeling would not wear false jewels, so would a builder of honor disdain 1 76 ARCHITECTURE. false ornaments. The using of them is just as downright and inexcusable as a lie. You use that which pretends to a worth which it has not; which pretends to have cost, and to be, what it did not, and is not; it is an imposition, a vul- garity, an impertinence, and a sin. Nobody wants ornaments in this world, but everybody wants integrity. All the fair devices that ever were fancied, are not worth a lie. This being a general law, there are, neverthe- less, certain exceptions respecting particular substances and their uses. Thus in the use of brick; since that is known to be originally moulded, there is no reason why it should not be moulded into divers forms. It will never be supposed to have been cut, and therefore will cause no deception; it will have only the credit it deserves. III. — THE LAMP OF POWER. All building shows man either as gathering or governing; and the secrets of his success are his knowing what to gather, and how to rule. There is a sympathy in the forms of noble building, with what is most sublime in natural things; and it is the governing Power, directed THE LAMP OF POWER. IJ7 by this sympathy, whose operation I shall en- deavor to trace. In the edifices of Man there should be found reverent worship and following, not only of the spirit which rounds the pillars of the forest, and arches the vault of the avenue — which gives veining to the leaf, and polish to the shell, and grace to every pulse that agitates animal organi- zation, — but of that also which upheaves the pillars of the earth, and builds up her barren precipices into the coldness of the clouds, and lifts her shadowy cones of mountain purple into the pale arch of the sky; for these, and other glories more than these, refuse not to connect themselves in his thoughts, with the work of his own hand; the gray cliff loses not its nobleness when it reminds us of some Cyclopean waste of mural stone; the pinnacles of the rocky pro- montory 'arrange themselves, undegraded, into fantastic semblances of fortress towers; and even the awful cone of the far-off mountain has a melancholy mixed with that of its own solitude, which is cast from the images of nameless tu- muli on white sea-shores, and of the heaps of reedy clay, into which chambered cities melt in their mortality. Though mere size will not ennoble a mean design, yet every increase of magnitude will be- stow upon it a certain degree of nobleness; so 1 78 ARCHITECTURE. that it is well to determine, at first, whether the building is to be markedly beautiful, or marked- ly sublime. It has often been observed that a building, in order to show its magnitude, must be seen all at once. It would be better to say, that it must have one visible bounding line from top to bot- tom, and from end to end. This bounding line from top to bottom may be inclined inwards, and the mass, therefore, pyramidal; or vertical, and the mass form one grand cliff; or inclined outwards, as in the advancing fronts of old houses, and, in a sort, in the Greek temple, and all buildings with heavy cornices or heads. I am much inclined, myself, to love the true verti- cal, or the vertical with a solemn frown of pro- jection. What is needful in the setting forth of magni- tude in height, is right also in the marking it in area, — let it be gathered well together. What- ever infinity of fair form there may be in the maze of the forest, there is a fairer in the sur- face of the quiet lake, and I hardly know that association of shaft or tracery, for which I would exchange the warm sleep of sunshine on some smooth, broad, human-like front of marble. Nevertheless, if breadth is to be beautiful, its substance must in some sort be beautiful. Positive shade is a more necessary and more THE LAMP OF POWER. 179 sublime thing in an architect's hands than in a painter's. After size and weight the Power of architecture may be said to depend on the quantity of its shadow. As the great poem and the great fiction generally affect us most by the majesty of their masses of shade, and cannot take hold upon us if they affect a continuance of lyric sprightliness, but must be serious often, and sometimes melancholy, else they do not ex- press the truth of this wild world of ours; so there must be, in this magnificently human art of architecture, some equivalent expression for the trouble and wrath of life, for its sorrow and its mystery; and this it can only give by depth or diffusion of gloom, by the frown upon its front, and the shadow of its recess. So that Rembrandtism is a noble manner in architecture, though a false one in painting; and I do not believe that ever any building was truly great, unless it had mighty masses, vigorous and deep, of shadow mingled with its surface. And among the first habits that a young architect should learn, is that of thinking in shadow, not looking at a design in its miserable liny skeleton, but conceiving it as it will be, when the dawn lights it, and the dusk leaves it, when its stones will be hot, and its crannies cool; when the lizards will bask on the one, and the birds build in the other. Let him design with the sense of l8o ARCHITECTURE. cold and heat upon him; let him cut out the shadows, as men dig wells in unwatered plains; and lead along the lights, as a founder does his hot metal; let him keep the full command of both, and see that he knows how they fall and where they fade. Until our street architecture is bettered, until we give it some size and boldness, until we give our windows recess and our walls thickness, 1 know not how we can blame our architects for their feebleness in more important works. Their eyes are inured to narrowness and slightness; can we expect them at a word to conceive and deal with breadth and solidity? They ought not to live in our cities; there is that in their miserable walls which bricks up to death men's imaginations, as surely as ever perished forsworn men. An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a but- tress, and what by a dome. We have sources of Power in the imagery of our iron coasts and azure hills; of power more pure, nor less serene than that of the hermit spirit which once lighted with white lines of cloisters the glades of the Alpine pine, and raised into ordered spires the wild rocks of the Nor- man sea; which gave to the temple gate the depth and darkness of Elijah's Horeb cave; and THE LAMP OF POWER. l8l lifted, out of the populous city, gray cliffs of lonely stone, into the midst of sailing birds and silent air. Do not think you can have good architecture merely by paying for it. It is only by active and sympathetic attention to the domestic and every-day-work which is done for each of you, that you can educate either yourselves to the feeling or your builders to the doing of what is truly great. Well but, you will answer, you cannot feel interested in Architecture : you do not care about and cannot care about it. You think within yourselves, " it is not right that architecture should be interesting. It is a very grand thing this architecture, but essen- tially unentertaining. It is its duty to be dull, it is monotonous by law: it cannot be correct and yet amusing." Believe me, it is not so. All things that are worth doing in art,"are interesting and attractive when they are done. There is no law of right which consecrates dulness. The proof of a thing's being right is, that it has power over the heart, that it excites us, wins us, or helps us. All good art has the capacity of pleasing, if people will attend to it; there is no law against its pleasing; but on the contrary, something 1 82 ARCHITECTURE. wrong either in the spectator or the art when it ceases to please. " But what are we to do ? We cannot make architects of ourselves." Pardon me, you can — and you ought. Architecture is an art for all men to learn, because all are concerned with it; and it is so simple, that there is no excuse for not being acquainted with its primary rules, any more than for ignorance of grammar or spelling, which are both of them far more difficult sci- ences. Far less trouble than is necessary to learn how to play chess, or whist, or goff, tolerably, — far less than a schoolboy takes to win the meanest prize of the passing year, would acquaint you with all the main principles of the construction of a Gothic cathedral, and I believe you would hardly find the study less amusing. IV. — THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. The value of Architecture depends on two distinct characters: — the one, the impression it receives from human power, the other, the image it bears of the natural creation. It will be thought that I have somewhat lim- ited the elements of architectural beauty to THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 1 83 imitative forms. I do not mean to assert that every arrangement of line is directly suggested by a natural object; but that all beautiful lines are adaptations of those which are commonest in the external creation; that in proportion to the richness of their association, the resem- blance to natural work, as a type and help, must be more closely attempted, and more clearly seen; and that beyond a certain point, and that a very low one, man cannot advance in the in- vention of beauty, without directly imitating natural form. There are many forms of so called decoration in Architecture, habitual, and received there- fore with approval, or at all events without any venture at expression of dislike, which I have no hesitation in asserting to be not ornament at all, but to be ugly things, the expense of which ought, in truth, to be set down in the architect's contract, as "For Monstrification." I believe that we regard these customary deformities with a savage complacency, as an Indian does his flesh patterns and paint — all nations being in certain degrees and senses savage. I suppose there is no conceivable form or grouping of forms but in some part of the uni- verse an example of it may be found. On the shapes which in the every-day world are familiar to the eyes of men, God has stamped those 1 84 ARCHITECTURE. characters of beauty which He has made it man's nature to love; while in certain excep- tional forms He has shown that the adoption of the others was not a matter of necessity, but- part of the adjusted harmony of creation- Knowing a thing to be frequent, we may assume it to be beautiful; and assume that which is most frequent to be most beautiful: I mean, of course, visibly frequent; for the forms of things which are hidden in caverns of the earth, or in the anatomy of animal*frames, are evidently not intended by their Maker to bear the habitual gaze of man. And, again, by frequency I mean that limited and isolated frequency which is characteristic of all perfection, as a rose is a common flower, but yet there are not so many roses on the tree as there are leaves. In this respect Nature is sparing of her highest, and lavish of her less beauty; but I call the flower as frequent as the leaf, because, each in its al- lotted quantity, where the one is, there will ordinarily be the other. Architecture, in borrowing the objects of Nature, is bound to place them, as far as may be in her power, in such associations as may befit and express their origin. She is not to imitate directly the natural arrangement; she is not to carve irregular stems of ivy up her columns to account for the leaves at the top, but she is THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 1 8$ nevertheless to place her most exuberant vege- table ornament just where Nature would have placed it, and to give some indication of that radical and connected structure which Nature would have given it. Thus, the Corinthian cap- ital is beautiful, because it expands under the abacus just as Nature would have expanded it; and because it looks as if the leaves had one root, though that root is unseen. And the flam- boyant leaf-mouldings are beautiful, because they nestle and run up the hollows, and fill the angles, and clasp the shafts which natural leaves would have delighted to fill and to clasp. They are no mere cast of natural leaves: they are counted, orderly, and architectural; but they are naturally, and therefore beautifully placed. What is the right place for architectural or- nament? What is the peculiar treatment of ornament which renders it architectural ? Suppose that in time of serious occupation, of stern business, a companion should repeat in our ears, continually, some favorite passage of poetry, over and over again all day long. We should not only soon be utterly sick and weary of the sound of it, but that sound would, at the end of the day, have so sunk into the habit of the ear that the entire meaning of the passage would be dead to us, and it would ever thence- forward require some effort to fix and recover 1 86 ARCHITECTURE. it. The music of it would not meanwhile have aided the business in hand, while its own de- lightfulness would thenceforward be in a meas- ure destroyed. It is the same with every other form of definite thought. If you violently press its expression to the senses, at times when the mind is otherwise engaged, that expression will be ineffective at the time, and will have its sharpness and clearness destroyed for ever. Apply this to expressions of thought received by the eye. Remember that the eye is at your mercy more than the ear. " The eye it cannot choose but see." Now, if you present lovely forms to it when it cannot call the mind to help it in its work, and among objects of vulgar use and unhappy position, you will neither please the eye nor elevate the vulgar object. But you will fill and weary the] eye with the beautiful form. It will never be of much use to you any more — its freshness and purity are gone. Hence then a general law, of singular import- ance in the present day, a law of common sense not to decorate things belonging to purposes of active and occupied life. Wherever you can rest, there decorate; where rest is forbidden, so is beauty. You must not mix ornament with business, any more than you may mix play. Work first, and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 1 87 bind ledgers in enamel. Do not thrash with sculptured flails; nor put bas-reliefs on mill- stones. The most familiar position of Greek mould- ings is in these days on shop-fronts — ornaments which were invented to adorn temples and beau- tify king's palaces. There is not the smallest advantage in them where they are. Absolutely valueless — utterly without the power of giving pleasure, they only satiate the eye, and vulgarise their own forms. It is curious, and it says little for our national probity on the one hand, or prudence on the other, to see the whole system of our street decoration based on the idea that people must be baited to a shop as moths are to a candle. Must not beauty, then, it will be asked, be sought for in the forms which we associate with our every-day life? Yes, if you do it consist- ently, and in places where it can be calmly seen. Put it in the drawing-room, not into the work- shop; put it upon domestic furniture, not upon tools of handicraft. All men have sense of what is right in this manner, if they would only use and apply that sense. There is no subject of street ornament so wisely chosen as the fountain, where it is a foun- tain of use ; for it is just there that perhaps the happiest pause takes place in the labor of the 1 88 ARCHITECTURE. day, when the pitcher is rested on the edge of it, and the breath of the bearer is drawn deeply, and the hair swept from the forehead, and the uprightness of the form declined against the marble ledge, and the sound of the kind word or light laugh mixes with the trickling of the falling water, heard shriller and shriller as the pitcher fills. What pause is so sweet as that — so full of the depth of ancient days, so softened with the calm of pastoral solitude ? Proportion and Abstraction are the two especial marks of architectural design as distin- guished from all other. Proportions are as infinite as possible airs in music ; and it is just as rational an attempt to teach a young architect how to proportion truly and well by calculating for him the proportions of fine works, as it would be to teach him to compose melodies by calculating the mathemati- cal relations of the notes in Beethoven's Adelaide or Mozart's Requiem. The man who has eye and intellect will invent beautiful proportions, and cannot help it; but he can no more tell us how to do it than Wordsworth could tell us how to write a sonnet, or than Scott could have told us how to plan a romance. There is no proportion between equal things; they can have symmetry only, and symmetry without proportion is not composition. To THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. 1 89 compose is to arrange unequal things, and the first thing to be done in beginning a composition is to determine which is to be the principal thing. " Have one large thing and several smaller things, or one principal thing and several inferior things, and bind them well together." Proportion is between three terms at least. All art is abstract in its beginnings; that is to say, // expresses only a small number of the quali- ties of the thing represented. The form of a tree on the Ninevite sculptures is much like that which, some twenty years ago, was familiar upon samplers. There is a resem- blance between the work of a great nation, in this phase, and the work of childhood and ignorance. In the next stage of art there is a condition of strength, in which the abstraction which was begun in incapability is continued in free will. "Greater completion marks the progress of art, absolute completion usually its decline." It is well that the young architect should be taught to think of imitative ornament as of the extreme grace of language; not to be regarded at first, not to be obtained at the cost of purpose, meaning, force, or conciseness, yet, indeed, a perfection — the least of all perfections, and yet the crowning one of all, — one which, by itself, I90 ARCHITECTURE. and regarded in itself, is an architectural cox- combry, but yet is the sign of the most highly- trained mind and power when it is associated with others. It is a safe manner to design all things at first in severe abstraction, and to be prepared, if need were, to carry them out in that form; then to mark the parts where high finish would be admissible. I think the colors of architecture should be those of natural stones, partly because more durable, but also because more perfect and graceful. I do not feel able to speak with any confi- dence respecting the touching of sculpture with color. I would only note one point, that sculp- ture is the representation of an idea, while archi- tecture is itself a real thing. The idea may, as I think, be left colorless, and colored by the beholder's mind ; but a reality ought to have reality in all its attributes; its color should be as fixed as its form. The following list of noble characteristics occurs more or less in different buildings, some in one and some in another: — 1. Projection towards the top. 2. Breadth of flat surface. 3. Square compartments of that surface. 4. Varied and visible masonry. 5. Vigorous depth of shadow, exhibited especially by pierced traceries. 6. Varied proportion in THE LAMP OF BEAUTY. I9I ascent. 7. Lateral symmetry. 8. Sculpture most delicate at the base. 9. Enriched quan- tity of ornament at the top. 10. Sculpture abstract in inferior ornaments and mouldings, complete in animal forms, both to be executed in white marble, n. Vivid color introduced in flat geometrical patterns, and obtained by the use of naturally colored stones. These characteristics all together, and in their highest possible relative degrees, exist, as far as I know, only in one building in the world, the Campanile of Giotto at Florence. I remember well how, when a boy, I used to despise that Campanile, and think it meanly smooth and finished. But I have since lived beside it many a day, and looked out upon it from my windows by sunlight and moonlight, and I shall not soon forget how profound and gloomy appeared to me the savageness of the Northern Gothic, when I afterwards stood, for the first time, beneath the front of Salisbury Cathedral. The contrast is indeed strange, if it could be quickly felt, between the rising of those gray walls out of their quiet swarded space, like dark and barren rocks out of a green lake, with their rude, mouldering, rough-grained shafts, and triple lights, without tracery or other ornament than the martins' nests in the height of them, and that bright, smooth, sunny surface of glow- I92 ARCHITECTURE. ing jasper, those spiral shafts and fairy traceries, so white, so faint, so crystalline, that their slight shapes are hardly traced in darkness on the pal- lor of the Eastern sky, that serene height of mountain alabaster, colored like a morning cloud, and chased like a sea-shell. And if this be, as I believe it, the model and mirror of per- fect architecture, is there not something to be learned by looking back to the early life of him who raised it ? I said that the Power of the human mind had its growth in the Wilderness ; much more must the love and the conception of that beauty, whose every line and hue we have seen to be, at the best, a faded image of God's daily work, and an arrested ray of some star of creation, be given chiefly in the places which he has gladdened by planting there the fir tree and the pine. Not within the walls of Florence, but among the far- away fields of her lilies, was the child trained who was to raise that headstone of Beauty above the towers of watch and war. Remember all that he became ; count the sacred thoughts with which he filled the heart of Italy ; ask those who followed him what they learned at his feet ; and when you have numbered his labors, and received their testimony, if it seem to you that God had verily poured out upon this His servant no com- mon nor restrained portion of His Spirit, and THE LAMP OF LIFE. 1 93 that he was indeed a king among the children of men, remember also that the legend upon his crown was that of David's: — "I took thee from the sheepcote, and from following the sheep." V. — THE LAMP OF LIFE. The creations of Architecture, being not essen- tially composed of things pleasant in themselves, as music of sweet sounds, or painting of fair colors, but of inert substance, depend for their dignity and pleasurableness, in the utmost de- gree, upon the vivid expression of the intellectu- al life which has been concerned in their produc tion. It is no sign of deadness in a present art that it borrows or imitates, but only if it borrows without paying interest, or if it imitates without choice. The art of a great nation, which is de- veloped without any acquaintance with nobler examples than its own early efforts furnish, ex- hibits always the. most consistent and compre- hensible growth, and perhaps is regarded usually as peculiarly venerable in its self-origination. But there is something to my mind more majes- tic yet in the life of an architecture like that of the Lombards, rude and infantine in itself, and 194 ARCHITECTURE. surrounded by fragments of a nobler art of which it is quick in admiration, and ready in imitation, and yet so strong in its own new in- stincts that it re-constructs and re-arranges every fragment that it copies or borrows into harmony with its own thoughts, — a harmony at first disjointed and awkward, but completed in the end, and fused into perfect organization ; all the borrowed elements being subordinated to its own primal, unchanged life. Two very distinguishing characters of vital imitation are, its Frankness and its Audacity ; its Frankness is especially singular ; there is never any effort to conceal the degree of the sources of its borrowing. Raffaelle carries off a whole figure from Masaccio, or borrows an en- tire composition from Perugino, with as much tranquillity and simplicity of innocence as a young Spartan pickpocket ; and the architect of a Romanesque basilica gathered his columns and his capitals where he could find them, as an ant picks up sticks. Frankness, however, is in itself no excuse for repetition, nor Audacity for innovation, when the one is indolent and the other unwise. I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this : Was it done with enjoyment — was the carver happy while he was about it ? It may be the hardest work possible, THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 195 and the harder because so much pleasure was taken in it ; but it must have been happy too or it will not be living. We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be done strenuously ; other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done hearti- ly ; neither is to be done by halves or shifts, but with a will ; and what is not worth this ef- fort is not to be done at all. There is dreaming enough, and earthiness enough, and sensuality enough in human existence, without our turning the few glowing moments of it into mechanism ; and since our life must at the best be but a vapor that appears but for a little time and then van- ishes away, let it at least appear as a cloud in the height of Heaven, not as the thick darkness that broods over the blast of the Furnace, and rolling of the Wheel. VI. — THE LAMP OF MEMORY. As the centralisation and protectress of Mem- ory and Association, Architecture is to be re- garded by us with the most serious thought. We may live without her, and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her. How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, I96 ARCHITECTURE. compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears ! How many- pages of doubtful record might we not often spare, for a few stones left one upon another ? The ambition of the old Babel-builders was well directed for this world. There are but two strong conquerors of the forgetfulness of men, Poetry and Architecture ; and the latter in some sort includes the former, and is mightier in its reality. It is well to have, not only what men have thought and felt, but what their hands have handled and their strength wrought, and their eyes beheld, all the days of their life. The age of Homer is surrounded with darkness, his very personality with doubt. Not so that of Pericles : and the day is coming when we shall confess we have learned more of Greece out of the crumbled fragments of her sculpture than even from her sweet singers or soldier historians. And if indeed there be any profit in our knowl- edge of the past, or any joy in the thought of be- ing remembered hereafter, which can give strength to present exertion, or patience to pres- ent endurance, there are two duties respecting national Architecture whose importance it is impossible to overrate ; the first to render the Architecture of the day historical ; and the sec- ond, to preserve, as the most precious of inherit- ances, that of past ages. It is in becoming me- THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 197 morial or monumental that a true perfection is attained by civil and domestic buildings. As regards domestic buildings, there must al- ways be a certain limitation to views of this kind in the power as well as in the hearts of men ; still I cannot but think it an evil sign of a people when their houses are built to last but one generation only. There is a sanctity in a good man's house which cannot be renewed in every tenement that rises on its ruins ; and I believe that good men would generally feel this ; and that having spent their lives happily and honorably, they would be grieved at the close of them to think that the place of their earthly abode, which had seen, and seemed almost to sympathise in all their honor, their gladness, or their suffering, — that this, with all the record it bare of them, and all of material things that they had loved and ruled over, and set the stamp of themselves upon, was to be swept away, as soon as there was room for them made in the grave ; that no respect was to be shown to it, no affec- tion felt for it, no good to be drawn from it by their children ; that though there was a monu- ment in the church, there was no warm monu- ment in the hearth and house to them ; that all that they ever treasured was despised, and the places that had sheltered them were dragged down to the dust. I say that a good man would I98 ARCHITECTURE. fear this ; and that, far more, a good son, a noble descendant, would fear doing it to his father's house. If men lived like men indeed, their houses would be temples — which we should hardly dare to injure, and in which it would make us holy to be permitted to live ; and there must be a strange dissolution of natural affection, a strange unthankfulness for all that homes have given and parents taught, a strange con- sciousness that we have been unfaithful to our father's honor, or that our own lives are not such as would make our dwellings sacred to our chil- dren, when each man would fain build to him- self, and build for the little revolution of his own life only. When men do not love their hearths, nor rev- erence their thresholds, it is a sign that they have dishonored both. Our God is a household God, as well as a heavenly one; He has an altar in every man's dwelling; let men look to it when they rend it lightly, and pour out its ashes. It would be better if, in every possible in- stance, men built their own houses on a scale commensurate rather with their condition at the commencement, than their attainments at the termination of their worldly career; and built them to stand as long as human work, at its strongest, can be hoped to stand, recording to their children what they have been, and from THE LAMP OF MEMORY. 1 99 what, if so it had been permitted them, they had risen. I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling-houses built to last, and built to be lovely; as rich and full of pleasantness as may be, within and without, and with such differ- ences as might suit and express each man's char- acter and occupation, and partly his history. In public buildings the historical purpose should be still more definite. Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning. There should not be a single ornament put upon great civic build- ings, without some intellectual intention. It is one of the advantages of gothic architecture, that it admits of a richness of record altogether unlimited. Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that, above all other at- tributes, separate man from man, and near him to his Maker; and there is no action nor art, whose majesty we may not measure by this test. Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build (public edifices) for ever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone, let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sa- 200 ARCHITECTURE. cred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, " See! this our fa thers did for us." For, indeed, the greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, or in its gold. Its glory is in its age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay even of approval or condemna- tion, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity. VII. — THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. It has been my endeavor to show how every form of noble architecture is in some sort the embodiment of the Polity, Life, History, and Religious Faith of nations. Once or twice in doing this, I have named a principle to which I would now assign a definite place among those which direct that embodiment; — the crowning grace of all the rest: that principle to which Polity owes its stability, Life its happiness, Faith its acceptance, Creation its continuance, — Obe- dience. How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty! There is no such thing in the THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 201 universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment. The enthusiast would reply that by Liberty he meant the Law of Liberty. Then why use the single and misunderstood word ? If by lib- erty you mean chastisement of the passions, dis- cipline of the intellect, subjection of the will; if you mean the fear of inflicting, the shame of committing a wrong; if you mean respect for all who are in authority, and consideration for all who are in dependence; veneration for the good, mercy to the evil, sympathy with the weak; — if you mean, in a word, that service which is defined in the liturgy of the English church to be " perfect Freedom," why do you name this by the same word by which the lux- urious mean license, and the reckless mean change; — by which the rogue means rapine, and the fool, equality; by which the proud mean anarchy, and the malignant mean violence ? Call it by any name rather than this, but its best and truest test is, Obedience. Obedience is, indeed, founded on a kind of freedom, else it would become mere s?tbjugation, but that freedom is only granted that obedience may be more perfect. If there be any one condition which, in watch- 202 ARCHITECTURE. ing the progress of Architecture, we see distinct and general, it is this; that the Architecture of a nation is great only when it is as universal and as established as its language; and when provin- cial differences of style are nothing more than so many dialetcs. Other necessities are matters of doubt: nations have been alike successful in their architecture in times of poverty and of wealth; in times of war and of peace; in times of barbarism and of refinement; under governments the most liberal or the most arbitrary; but this one condition has been constant, this one require- ment clear in all places and at all times, that the work shall be that of a school, that no individual caprice shall dispense with, or materially vary, accepted types and customary decorations; and that from the cottage to the palace, and from the chapel to the basilica, and from the garden fence to the fortress wall, every member and fea- ture of the architecture of the nation shall be as commonly current, as frankly accepted, as its language or its coin. A day never passes without our hearing our English architects called upon to be original, and to invent a new style: About as sensible and necessary an exhortation as to ask a man who has never had rags on his back to keep out cold, to invent a new mode of cutting a coat. Give him a whole coat first and let him concern THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 203 himself about the fashion of it afterwards. We want no new style of architecture. Who wants a new style of painting or sculpture ? But we want some style'. It is of marvellously little im- portance, if we have a code of laws and they be good laws, whether they be new or old, foreign or native, Roman or Saxon, or Norman or Eng- lish laws. But it is of considerable importance that we should have a code of laws of one kind or another, and that code accepted and en- forced from one side of the island to the other, and not one law made ground of judgment at York and another at Exeter. There seems to be a wonderful misunderstand- ing among the majority of architects at the present day, as to the very nature and meaning of Originality, and of all wherein it consists. Originality in expression does not depend on invention of new words ; nor originality in poetry on invention of new measures ; nor, in painting, on invention of new colors, or new modes of using them. The chords of music, the harmonies of color, the general principles of the arrangement of sculptural masses, have been determined long ago, and, in all probabili- ty, cannot be added to any more than they can be altered. A man who has the gift, will take up any style that is going, the style of his day, and will work 204 ARCHITECTURE. in that, and be great in that, and make every- thing that he does in it look as fresh as if every thought of it had just come down from heaven. I do not say that he will not take liberties with his materials, or with his rules. I do not say that strange changes will not sometimes be wrought by his efforts, or his fancies, in both. But those changes will be instructive, natural, facile, though sometimes marvellous; and those liberties will be like the liberties that a great speaker takes with the language, not a defiance of its rules for the sake of singularity, but inevit- able, uncalculated, and brilliant consequences of an effort to express what the language, with- out such infraction, could not. I know too well the undue importance which the study that every man follows must assume in his own eyes, to trust my own impressions of the dignity of that of Architecture; and yet I think I cannot be utterly mistaken in regarding it as at least useful in the sense of a National employment. I am confirmed in this impression by what I see passing among the states of Europe at this instant. All the horror, distress, and tumult which oppress the foreign nations, are traceable, among the other secondary causes through which God is working out His will upon them, to the simple one of their not having enough to do. I am not blind to the distress THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 205 among their operatives ; nor do I deny the nearer and visibly active causes of the move- ment: the recklessness of villany in the leaders of revolt, the absence of common moral princi- ple in the upper classes, and of common cour- age and honesty in the heads of governments. But these causes are ultimately traceable to a deeper and simpler one; the recklessness of the demagogue, the immorality of the middle class, and the effeminacy and treachery of the noble, are traceable in all these nations to the com- monest and most fruitful cause of calamity in households — Idleness. We think too much in our benevolent efforts, more multiplied and more vain day by day, of bettering men by giving them advice and in- struction. There are few who will take either; the chief thing they need is occupation. I do not mean work in the sense of bread — I mean work in the sense of mental interest j for those who either are placed above the necessity of labor for their bread, or who will not work al- though they should. There are multitudes of idle semi-gentlemen who ought to be shoemakers and carpenters* It is of no use to tell them they are fools, and that they will only make themselves miserable in the end as Avell as others; if they have noth- ing else to do, they will do mischief; and the 206 ARCHITECTURE. man who will not work, and has no means of intellectual pleasure, is as sure to become an instrument of evil as if he had sold himself bodi- ly to Satan. It would be wise to consider whether the forms of employment which we chiefly adopt or promote, are as well calculated as they might be to improve and elevate us. I have paused, not once nor twice as I wrote, and often have checked the course of what might otherwise have been importunate persua- sion, as the thought has crossed me, how soon all Architecture may be vain, except that which is "not made with hands." All European architecture, bad and good, old and new, is derived from Greece through Rome, and colored and perfected from the East. The history of Architecture is nothing but the trac- ing of the various modes and directions of this derivation. The Doric and the Corinthian or- ders are the roots, the one of all Romanesque, massy-capitaled buildings — Norman, Lombard, Byzantine, and what else you can name of the kind; and the Corinthian of all Gothic, Early English, French, German, and Tuscan. Now observe: those old Greeks gave the shaft: Rome gave the arch; the Arabs pointed and foliated the arch. The shaft and arch, the frame-work THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 207 and strength of architecture, are from the race of Japheth: the spirituality and sanctity of it from Ismael, Abraham, and Shem. I have said that the two orders, Doric and Corinthian, are the roots of all European archi- tecture. You have, perhaps, heard of five or- ders: but there are only two real orders; and there never can be any more till doomsday. On one of these orders the ornament is convex: those are Doric, Norman, and what else you recollect of the kind. On the other the orna- ment is concave; those are Corinthian, Early English, Decorated, and what else you recollect of that kind. The work of the Lombard was to give hardi- hood and system to the enervated body and enfeebled mind of Christendom ; that of the Arab was to punish idolatry, and to proclaim the spirituality of worship. The Lombard cov- ered every church which he built with the sculp- tured representations of bodily exercises — hunt- ing and war. The Arab banished all imagination of creature form from his temples, and pro- claimed from their minarets, "There is no god but God." Opposite in their character and mission, alike in their magnificence of energy, they came from the North and from the South, the glacier torrent and the lava stream; they met and contended over the wreck of the 208 ARCHITECTURE. Roman empire ; and the very centre of the struggle, the point of pause of both, the dead- water of the opposite eddies, charged with embayed fragments of the Roman wreck, is Venice. The Ducal Palace of Venice contains the three elements in exactly equal proportions — the Roman, Lombard, and Arab. It is the cen- tral building of the world. Now Venice, as she was once the most relig- ious, was in her fall the most corrupt, of Euro- pean states; and as she was in her strength the centre of the pure currents of Christian architect- ure, so she is in her decline the source of the Renaissance. Come, then, if truths such as these are worth our thoughts; come, and let us know, before we enter the streets of the Sea City, whether we are indeed to submit ourselves to their undis- tinguished enchantment, and to look upon the last changes which were wrought on the lifted forms of her palaces, as we should on the ca- pricious towering of summer clouds in the sun- set, ere they sank into the deep of night; or whether, rather, we shall not behold in the brightness of their accumulated marble, pages on which the sentence of her luxury was to be written until the waves should efface it, as they THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 209 fulfilled — " God has numbered thy kingdom, and finished it." Since the first dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, three thrones, of mark beyond all others, have been set upon its sands: the thrones of Tyre, Venice, and England. Of the first of these great powers only the memory re- mains; of the second, the ruin; the third, which inherits their greatness, if it forget their exam- ple, may be led through prouder eminence to less pitied destruction. The exaltation, the sin, and the punishment of Tyre, have been recorded for us, in perhaps the most touching words ever uttered by the Prophets of Israel against the cities of the stranger. But we read them as a lovely song; and close our ears to the sternness of their warn- ing; for the very depth of the fall of Tyre has blinded us to its reality, and we forget, as we watch the bleaching of the rocks between the sunshine and the sea, that they were once " as in Eden, the garden of God." Her successor, like her in perfection of beauty, though less in endurance of dominion, is still left for our beholding in the final period of her decline: a ghost upon the sands of the sea, so weak — so quiet, — so bereft of all but her loveli- ness, that we might well doubt, as we watched her faint reflection in the mirage of the lagoon, 2IO ARCHITECTURE. which was the City, and which the Shadow. A warning seems to me to be uttered by every one of the fast-gaining waves, that beat like passing bells against the stones of Venice. The state of Venice existed thirteen hundred and seventy-six years. Of this period two hun- dred and seventy-six years were passed in a nominal subjection to the cities of old Venetia, and in a nagitated form of democracy. Forsix hundred years, during which the power of Venice was continually on the increase, her gov- ernment was an elective monarchy, her king or Doge possessing, in early times at least, as much independent authority as any other European sovereign; but an authority gradually subjected to limitation, and shortened almost daily of its prerogatives, while it increased in a spectral and incapable magnificence. The final government of the nobles, under the image of a king, lasted for five hundred years, during which Venice reaped the fruits of her former energies, con- sumed them, — and expired. Throughout her career, the victories of Venice, and at many periods of it, her safety, were pur- chased by individual heroism; and the man who exalted or saved her was sometimes her king, sometimes a noble, sometimes a citizen. The most curious phenomenon in all Venetian history, is the vitality of religion in private life, THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 211 and its deadness in public policy. Amidst the enthusiasm, chivalry, or fanaticism of the other states of Europe, Venice stands, from first to last, like a masked statue; her coldness impene- trable, her exertion only aroused by the touch of a secret spring. That spring was her commer- cial interest, — this the one motive of all her im- portant political acts, or enduring national animosities. She could forgive insults to her honor, but never rivalship in her commerce. She calculated the glory of her conquests by their value, and estimated their justice by their facil- ity. There are, therefore, two strange and solemn lights in which we have to regard almost every scene in the fitful history of the Rivo Alto. We find, on the one hand, a deep and constant tone of individual religion characterizing the lives of the citizens of Venice in her greatness; we find this spirit influencing them in all the familiar and immediate concerns of life, giving a peculiar dignity to the conduct even of their commercial transactions, and confessed by them with a simplicity of faith that may well put to shame the hesitation with which a man of the world at present admits (even if it be so in reality), that religious feeling has any influence over the minor branches of his conduct. With the fulness of this spirit the prosperity of the 212 ARCHITECTURE. state is exactly correspondent, and with its fail- ure her decline. There is another most interesting feature in the policy of Venice, namely, the magnificent and successful struggle which she maintained against the temporal authority of the Church of Rome. One more circumstance remains to be noted respecting the Venetian government, the singu- lar unity of the families composing it, — unity far from sincere or perfect, but still admirable when contrasted with the fiery feuds, the almost daily revolutions, which fill the annals of the other states of Italy. Venice may well call upon us to note with reverence, that of all the towers which are still seen rising, like a branchless for- est, from her islands, there is but one whose office was other than that of summoning to prayer, and that one was a watch-tower only. The Venice of Modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of de- cay, a stage-dream which the first ray of day- light must dissipate into dust. No prisoner, whose name is worth remembering, or whose sorrow deserved sympathy, ever crossed that " Bridge of Sighs," which is the centre of the Byronic ideal of Venice, no great Merchant of Venice ever saw that Rialto under which the traveller now passes with breathless interest: THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 213 the statue, which Byron makes Faliero address as one of his great ancestors, was erected to a soldier of fortune a hundred and fifty years after Faliero's death; and the most conspicuous parts of the city have been so entirely altered in the course of the last three centuries, that if Henry Dandola or Francis Foscari could be summoned from their tombs, and stood each on the deck of his galley, at the entrance of the Grand Canal, that renowned entrance, the painter's favorite subject, the novelist's favorite scene, where the water first narrows by the steps of the church of La Salute — the mighty Doges would not know in what spot of the world they stood, would literally not recognise one stone of the great city, for whose sake and by whose in- gratitude their gray hairs had been brought down with bitterness to the grave. The remains of their Venice lie hidden behind the cumbrous masses which were the delight of the nation in its dotage; hidden in many a grass-grown court, and silent pathway, and lightless canal, where the slow waves have sapped their foundations for five hundred years, and must soon prevail over them for ever. It must be our task to glean and gather them forth, and restore out of them some faint image of the lost city; more gorgeous a thousand fold, than that which now exists, yet not created in the day-dream of the 214 ARCHITECTURE. prince, nor by the ostentation of the noble, but built by iron hands and patient hearts, contend- ing against the adversity of nature and the fury of man, so that its wonderfulness cannot be grasped by the indolence of imagination, but only after frank inquiry into the true nature of that wild and solitary scene, whose restless tide and trembling sands did, indeed, shelter the birth of the city, but long denied her dominion. It is enough for us to know that from the mouths of the Adige to those of the Piave there stretches, at a variable distance of from three to five miles from the actual shore, a bank of sand divided into long islands by narrow channels of sea. The space between this bank and the true shore consists of the sedimentary deposits from these and other rivers, a great plain of calcare- ous mud, covered, in the neighborhood of Venice by the sea at high water, to the depth in most places of a foot or a foot and a half, and nearly everywhere exposed at low tide, but divided by an intricate network of narrow and winding channels, from which the sea never retires. In some places, according to the run of the cur- rents, the land has risen into marshy islets, con- solidated, some by art and some by time, into ground firm enough to be built upon, or fruitful enough to be cultivated; in others, on the con- trary, it has not reached the sea level; so that, THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 21 5 at the average low water, shallow lakelets glitter among its irregularly-exposed fields of sea-weed. In the midst of the largest of these, increased in importance by the confluence of several large river channels towards one of the openings in the sea bank, the city of Venice itself is built, on a crowded cluster of islands. If, two thousand years ago, we had been per- mitted to see the slow settling of the slime of those turbid waters into the polluted sea, and the gaining upon its deep and fresh waters of the lifeless, impassable, unvoyageable plain, how little could we have understood the purpose with which those islands were shaped out of the void, and the torpid waters enclosed with their deso- late walls of sand ! How little could we have known, any more than of what now seems to us most distressful, dark, and objectless, the glorious aim which was then in the mind of Him in whose hand are all the corners of the earth ! how little imagined that in the laws which were stretching forth the gloomy mud of those fruitless banks, and feeding the bitter grass among their shal- lows, there was indeed a preparation, and the only preparation possible, for the founding of a city which was to be set like a golden clasp on the girdle of the earth, to write her history on the white scrolls of the sea-surges, and to word it in their thunder, and to gather and give 2l6 ARCHITECTURE. forth, in the world-wide pulsation, the glory of the West and of the East, from the burning heart of her Fortitude and Splendor. The vast tower of St. Mark seems to lift itself visibly forth from the level field of chequered stones ; and, on each side, the countless arches prolong themselves into ranged symmetry, as if the rugged and irregular houses that pressed together above us in the dark alley had been struck back into sudden obedience and lovely order, and all their rude casements and broken walls had been transformed into arches charged with goodly sculpture, and fluted shafts of deli- cate stone. And Avell may they fall back, for beyond those troops of ordered arches there rises a vision out of the earth, and all the great square seems to have opened from it in a kind of awe, that we may see far away ; — a multitude of pillars and white domes, clustered into a long low pyramid of colored light ; a treasure-heap, it seems, partly of gold, and partly of opal, and mother- of-pearl, hollowed beneath into five great vaulted porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and deli- cate as ivory, — sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pome- granates, and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches, all twined together into an endless THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 2\J network of buds and plumes ; and, in the midst of it, the solemn form of angels, sculptured, and robed to the feet, and leaning to each other across the gates, their figures indistinct among the gleaming of the golden ground through the leaves beside them, interrupted and dim, like the morning light as it faded among the branches of Eden, when first its gates were angel-guarded long ago. And round the walls of the porches there are set pillars of variegated stones, jasper and porphyry, and deep-green serpentine spotted with flakes of snow, and marbles, that half refuse and half yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-like, " their bluest veins to kiss" — the shadow, as it steals back from them, revealing line after line of azure undulation, as a receding tide leaves the waved sand; their capitals rich with interwoven tracery, rooted knots of herbage, and drifting leaves of acanthus and vine, and mystical signs, all beginning and ending in the Cross ; and above them, in the broad archivolts, a continu- ous chain of language and of life — angels, and the signs of heaven, and the labors of men, each in its appointed season upon the earth ; and above these, another range of glittering pinna- cles, mixed with white arches edged with scarlet flowers, — a confusion of delight, amidst which the breasts of the Greek horses are seen blazing in their breadth of golden strength, and the St. 2l8 ARCHITECTURE. Mark's Lion, lifted on a blue field covered with stars, until at last, as if in ecstasy, the crests of the arches break into a marble foam, and toss themselves far into the blue sky in flashes and wreaths of sculptured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido shore had been frostbound before they fell, and the sea nymphf" had inlaid them with coral and amethyst. Between that grim cathedral of England and this, what an interval ! There is a type of it in the very birds that haunt them; for, instead of the restless crowd, hoarse-voiced and sable- winged, drifting on the black upper air, the St. Mark's porches are full of doves, that nestle among the marble foliage, and mingle the soft iridescence of their living plumes, changing at every motion, the tints, hardly less lovely, that have stood unchanged for seven hundred years. And what effect has this splendor on those who pass beneath it ? You may walk from sun- rise to sunset, to and fro, before the gateway of St. Mark's, and you will not see an eye lifted to it, nor a countenance brightened by it. Priest and layman, soldier and civilian, rich and poor, pass by it alike regardless. Up to the very re- cesses of the porches, the meanest tradesmen of the city push their counters ; nay, the founda- tions of its pillars are themselves the seats — not " of them that sell doves" for sacrifice, but of THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 219 the vendors of toys and caricatures. Round the whole square in front of the church, there is almost a continuous line of cafes, where the idle Venetians of the middle classes lounge, and read empty journals; in its centre the Austrian bands play during the time of vespers, their martial music jarring with the organ notes, — the march drowning the miserere, and the sullen crowd thickening around them — a crowd, which, if it had its will, would stiletto every soldier that pipes to it. And in the recesses of the porches, all day long, knots of men of the lowest classes, unemployed and listless, lie basking in the sun like lizards ; and unregarded children — every heavy glance of their young eyes full of despera- tion and stony depravity ; and their throats hoarse with cursing — gamble, and fight, and snarl, and sleep, hour after hour, clashing their bruised centesimi upon the marble ledges of the church porch. And the images of Christ and His angels look down upon it continually. Let us enter the church itself. It is lost in still deeper twilight, to which the eye must be accustomed for some moments before the form of the building can be traced; and then there opens before us a vast cave, hewn out into the form of a cross, and divided into shadowy aisles by many pillars. Round the domes of its roof 220 ARCHITECTURE. the light enters only through narrow apertures like large stars; and here and there a ray or two from some far-away casement wanders into the darkness, and casts a narrow phosphoric stream upon the waves of marble that heave and fall in a thousand colors along the floor. What else there is of light is from torches, or silver lamps, burning carelessly in the recesses of the chapels; the roof sheeted with gold, and the polished wall covered with alabaster, give at every curve and angle some feeble gleaming to the flames ; and the glories around the heads of the sculp- tured saints flash upon us as we pass them, and sink into the gloom. Under foot and over head a continual succession of crowded imagery, one picture passing into another, as in a dream; forms beautiful and terrible mixed together, dragons and serpents, and ravening beasts of prey, and graceful birds that in the midst of them drink from running fountains and feed from vases of crystal; the passions and the pleasures of human life symbolised together, and the mystery of its redemption; for the mazes of interwoven lines and changeful pictures lead always at least to the Cross, lifted and carved in every place and upon every stone ; sometimes with the serpent of eternity wrapt around it, sometimes with doves against its arms, and sweet herbage growing forth from its feet; but con- THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 221 spicuous most of all on the great rood that crosses the church before the altar, raised in bright blazonry against the shadow of the apse. And although in the recesses of the aisles and chapels, when the mist of the incense hangs heavily, we may see continually a figure traced in faint lines upon their marble, a woman stand- ing with her eyes raised to heaven, and the in- scription above her, "Mother of God;" she is not here the presiding deity. It is the Cross that is first seen, and always burning in the centre of the temple; and the hollow of its roof has the figure of Christ in the utmost height of it, raised in power, or returning in judgment. The third cupola, that over the altar, repre- sents the witness of the Old Testament to Christ, showing him enthroned in its centre, and sur- rounded by the patriarchs and prophets. But this dome was little seen by the people ; their contemplation was intended to be chiefly drawn to that of the centre of the church, and thus the mind of the worshipper was at once fixed on the main groundwork and hope of Christianity, — " Christ is risen," and " Christ shall come." If he had time to explore the minor lateral chapels and cupolas, he could find in them the whole series of New Testament history, the events of the Life of Christ, and the apostolic miracles in their order, and finally, the scenery 222 ARCHITECTURE. of the Book of Revelation; but if he only en- tered, as often the common people do this hour, snatching a few moments before beginning the labor of the day to offer up an ejaculatory prayer, and advanced but from the main en- trance as far as the altar screen, all the splendor of the glittering nave and variegated dome, if they smote upon his heart, as they might often, in strange contrast with his reed cabin among the shallows of the lagoon, smote upon it only that they might proclaim the two great mes- sages — "Christ is risen," and "Christ shall come." Daily, as the white cupolas rose like wreaths of sea-foam in the dawn, while the shadowy campanile and frowning palace were still withdrawn into the night, they rose with the Easter Voice of Triumph, — " Christ is risen ;" and daily, as they looked down upon the tumult of the people, deepening and eddying in the wide square that opened from their feet to the sea, they uttered above them the sentence of warning, — " Christ shall come." And this thought may surely dispose the reader to look with some change of temper upon the gorgeous building and wild blazonry of that shrine of St. Mark's. He now perceives that it was in the hearts of the old Venetian people far more than a place of worship. It was at once a type of the Redeemed Church of God, and a THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 223 scroll for the written word of God. It was to be to them both an image of the Bride, all glo- rious within, her clothing of wrought gold ; and the actual Table of the Law and the Testimony, written within and without. And whether hon- ored as the Church or as the Bible, was it not fitting that neither the gold nor the crystal should be spared in the adornment of it; that, as the symbol of the Bride, the building of the wall thereof should be of jasper, and the foun- dations of it garnished with all manner of pre- cious stones; and that, as the channel of the Word, that triumphant utterance of the Psalmist should be true of it, — " I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches " ? And shall we not look with changed temper down the long perspective of St. Mark's Place toward the sevenfold gates and glowing domes of its temple, when we know with what solemn purpose the shafts of it were lifted above the pavement of the popular square ? Men met there from all countries of the earth, for traffic or for pleasure; but, above the crowd swaying for ever to and fro in the restlessness of avarice or thirst of delight, was seen perpetually the glory of the temple, attesting to them, whether they would hear or whether they would forbear, that there was one treasure which the merchant- man might buy without a price, and one delight 224 ARCHITECTURE. better than all others, in the word and the stat- utes of God. Not in the wantonness of wealth, not in vain ministry to the desire of the eyes or the pride of life, were those marbles hewn into trans- parent strength, and those arches arrayed in the colors of the iris. There is a message written in the dyes of them, that once was written in blood; and a sound in the echoes of their vaults, that one day shall fill the vault of heaven, — "He shall return, to do judgment and justice." The strength of Venice was given her, so long as she remembered this ; her destruction found her when she had forgotten this; and it found her irrevocably, because she forgot it without excuse. Never had a city a more glorious Bible. Among the nations of the North, a rude and shadowy sculpture filled their temples with con- fused and hardly legible imagery; but, for her, the skill and the treasures of the East had gilded every letter, and illumined every page, till the Book-Temple shone from afar off like the star of the Magi. In other cities, the meetings of the people were often in places withdrawn from religious association, subject to violence and to change; and on the grass of the dangerous ram- part, and in the dust of the troubled street, there were deeds done and counsels taken, which if we cannot justify, we may sometimes THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 22$ forgive. But the sins of Venice, whether in her palace or in her piazza, were done with the Bible at her right hand. The walls on which its testimony was written were separated but by a few inches of marble from those which guarded the secrets of her councils, or confined the vic- tims of her policy. And when in her last hours she threw off all shame and all restraint, and the great square of the city became filled with the madness of the whole earth, be it remembered how much her sin was greater, because it was done in the face of the House of God, burning with the letters of His Law. Mountebank and masquer laughed their laugh ; and went their way; and a silence has followed them, not un- foretold; for amidst them all, through century after century of gathering vanity and festering guilt, the white dome of St. Mark's had uttered in the dead ear of Venice, " Know thou, that for all these things, God will bring thee into judgment." Such, then, was that first and fairest Venice which rose out of the barrenness of the lagoon, and the sorrow of her people; a city of graceful arcades and gleaming walls, veined with azure and warm with gold, and fretted with white sculpture like frost upon forest branches turned to marble. And yet, in this beauty of her youth, she was no city of thoughtless pleasure. There 226 ARCHITECTURE. was still a sadness of heart upon her, and a depth of devotion, in which lay all her strength. I do not insist upon the probable religious sig- nification of many of the sculptures which are now difficult of interpretation; but the temper which made the cross the principal ornament of every building is not to be misunderstood, nor can we fail to perceive, in many of the minor sculptural subjects, meanings perfectly familiar to the mind of early Christianity. The pea- cock, used in preference to every other kind of bird, is the well-known symbol of the resurrec- tion; and, when drinking from a fountain or from a font, is, I doubt not, also a type of the new life received in faithful baptism. The vine, used in preference to all other trees, was equally recognised as, in all cases, a type either of Christ Himself or of those who were in a state of visible or professed union with Him. The dove, at its foot, represents the coming of the Comforter; and even the groups of contending animals had, probably, a distinct and universally apprehended reference to the powers of evil. But I lay no stress on these more occult mean- ings. The principal circumstance which marks the seriousness of the early Venetian mind is perhaps the last in which the reader would sup- pose it was traceable ; — that love of bright and pure color which, in a modified form, was after- THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 227 wards the root of all the triumph of the Vene- tian schools of painting, but which, in its utmost simplicity, was .characteristic of the Byzantine period only ; and of which, therefore, in the close of our review of that period, it will be well that we should truly estimate the significance. The fact is, we none of us enough appreciate the nobleness and sacredness of color. Noth- ing is more common than to hear it spoken of as a subordinate beauty, — nay, even as the mere source of a sensual pleasure; and we might al- most believe that we were daily among men who ' ' Could strip, for aught the prospect yields To them, their verdure from the fields; And take the radiance from the clouds With which the sun his setting shrouds." But it is not so. Such expressions are used for the most part in thoughtlessness; and if the speakers would only take the pains to imagine what the world and their own existence would become, if the blue were taken from the sky, and the gold from the sunshine, and the verdure from the leaves, and the crimson from the blood which is the life of man, the flush from the cheek, the darkness from the eye, the radiance from the hair, — if they could but see, for an in- stant, white human creatures living in a white world, — they would soon feel what they owe to 228 ARCHITECTURE. color. The fact is, that of all God's gifts to the sight of man, color is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. We speak rashly of gay color and sad color, for color cannot at once be good and gay. All good color is in some degree pensive, the loveliest is melancholy, and the purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most. I know that this will sound strange in many ears, and will be especially startling to those who have considered the subject chiefly with refer- ence to painting; for the great Venetian schools of color are not usually understood to be either pure or pensive, and the idea of its pre-eminence is associated in nearly every mind with the coarseness of Rubens, and the sensualities of Correggio and Titian. But a more comprehen- sive view of art will soon correct this impression. It will be discovered, in the first place, that the more faithful and earnest the religion of the painter, the more pure and prevalent is the sys- tem of his color. It will be found, in the second place, that where color becomes a primal inten- tion with a painter otherwise mean or sensual, it instantly elevates him, and becomes the one sa- cred and saving element in his work. The very depth of the stoop to which the Venetian paint- ers and Rubens sometimes condescend, is a con- sequence of their feeling confidence in the power THE LAMP OF OBEDIENCE. 229 of their color to keep them from falling. They hold on by it, as by a chain let down from heaven, with one hand, though they may sometimes seem to gather dust and ashes with the other. And, in the last place, it will be found that so surely as a painter is irreligious, thoughtless, or obscene in disposition, so surely is his coloring cold, gloomy, and valueless. The opposite poles of art in this respect are Frit Angelico and Salvator Rosa; of whom the one was a man who smiled seldom, wept often, prayed constantly, and never harbored an impure thought. His pictures are simply so many pieces of jewellery, the colors of the draperies being perfectly pure, as various as those of a painted window, chastened only by paleness, and relieved upon a gold ground. Sal- vator was a dissipated jester and satirist, a man who spent his life in masquing and revelry. But his pictures are full of horror, and their color is for the most part gloomy-gray. Truly, it would seem as if art had so much of eternity in it, that it must take its dye from the close rather than the course of life. " In such laughter the heart of man is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness." These are no singular instances. I know no law more severely without exception than this of the connection of pure color with profound and noble thought. The late Flemish pictures, 230 ARCHITECTURE. shallow in conception and obscure in subject, are always sombre in color. But the early re- ligious painting of the Flemings is as brilliant in hue as it is holy in thought. The Bellinis, Francias, Peruginos, painted in crimson, and blue, and gold. The Caraccis, Guidos, and Rem- brandts in brown and gray. The builders of our great cathedrals veiled their casements and wrapped their pillars with one robe of purple splendor. The builders of the luxurious Renais- sance left their palaces filled only with cold white light, and in the paleness of their native stone. Nor does it seem difficult to discern a noble reason for this universal law. In that heavenly circle which binds the statutes of color upon the front of the sky, when it became the sign of the covenant of peace, the pure hues of divided light were sanctified to the human heart for ever, nor this, it would seem, by mere arbitrary appointment, but in consequence of the fore- ordained and marvellous constitution of those hues into a sevenfold, or, more strictly still, a threefold order, typical of the Divine nature it- self. The whole church of St. Mark's was a great Book of Common Prayer, the mosaics were its illuminations, and the common people of the time were taught their scripture history by means of them, more impressively perhaps, though far GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. 23 1 less fully, than ours are now by scripture read- ing. They had no other bible — and Protestants do not often enough consider this — could have no other. We find it somewhat difficult to fur- nish our poor with printed bibles; consider what the difficulty must have been when they could be given only in manuscript. The walls of the church necessarily became the poor man's Bible, and a picture was more easily read upon the walls than a chapter. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. We all have some notion, most of us a very determined one, of the meaning of the term Gothic; but I know that many persons have this idea in their minds without being able to define it: that is to say, understanding generally that Westminster Abbey is Gothic, and St. Paul's is not, that Strasburgh Cathedral is Gothic and St. Peter's is not, they have, nevertheless, no clear notion of what it is that they recognise in one or miss in the other, such as would enable them to say how far the work at Westminster or Strasburgh is good and pure of its kind; still less to say of any nondescript building, like St. James's Palace or Windsor Castle, how much 232 ARCHITECTURE. right Gothic element there is in it, and how much wanting. And I believe this inquiry to be a pleasant and profitable one, and that there will be found something more than usually inter- esting in tracing out this gray, shadowy, many pinnacled image of the Gothic spirit within us; and discerning what fellowship there is between it and our Northern hearts. And if, at any point of the inquiry, I should interfere with any of the reader's previously formed conceptions, and use the term Gothic in any sense which he would not willingly attach to it, I do not ask him to accept, but only to examine and under- stand my interpretation, as necessary to the in- telligibility of what follows. We have, then, the Gothic character sub- mitted to our analysis, just as the rough mineral is substituted to that of the chemist, entangled with many other foreign substances, itself per- haps in no place pure, or ever to be obtained or seen in purity for more than an instant; but nevertheless a thing of definite and separate nature, however inextricable or confused in ap- pearance. Now observe: the chemist defines his mineral by two separate kinds of characters; one external, its crystalline form, hardness, lus- tre, etc.; the other, internal; the proportions and nature of its constituent atoms. Exactly in the same manner, we shall find that Gothic GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. 233 architecture has external forms, and internal elements. Its elements are certain mental ten- dencies of the builders, legibly expressed in it; as fancifulness, love of variety, love of richness, and such others. Its external forms are pointed arches, vaulted roofs, etc. And unless both the elements and the forms are there, we have no right to call the style Gothic. It is not enough that it has the Form, if it have not also the power and life. It is not enough that it has the Power, if it have not the form. We must there- fore inquire into each of these characters suc- cessively; and determine, first, what is the Mental Expression, and secondly, what the Material Form, of Gothic Architecture, properly so called. 1st. Mental Power or Expression. What characters, we have to discover, did the Gothic builders love, or instinctively express in their work, as distinguished from all other builders ? Let us go back for a moment to our chemis- try, and note that, in defining a mineral by its constituent parts, it is not one nor another of them that can make up the mineral, but the union of all: for instance, it is neither in char- coal, nor in oxygen, nor in lime, that there is the making of chalk, but in the combination of all three in certain measures; they are all found in very different things from chalk, and there is 234 ARCHITECTURE. nothing like chalk either in charcoal or in oxy- gen, but they are nevertheless necessary to its existence. So in various mental characters which make up the soul of Gothic. It is not one nor an- other that produces it, but their union in certain measures. Each one of them is found in many other architectures besides Gothic; but Gothic cannot exist where they are not found, or, at least, where their place is not in some way sup- plied. Only there is this great difference be- tween the composition of the mineral, and of the architectural style, that if we withdraw one of its elements from the stone, its form is utterly changed, and its existence as such and such a mineral is destroyed; but if we withdraw one of its mental elements from the Gothic style, it is only a little less Gothic than it was before, and the union of two or three of its elements is enough already to bestow a certain Gothicness of character which gains in intensity as we add the others, and loses as we again withdraw them. I believe, then, that the characteristic or moral elements of Gothic are the following, placed in the order of their importance: i. Savageness. 4. Grotesqueness. 2. Changefulness. 5. Rigidity. 3. Naturalism. 6. Redundance. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. 235 These characters are here expressed as be- longing to the buildings ; as belonging to the builder, they would be expressed thus: — 1. Sav- ageness or Rudeness. 2. Love of Change. 3. Love of Nature. 4. Disturbed Imagination. 5. Obstinacy. 6. Generosity. And I repeat, that the withdrawal of any one, or any two, will not at once destroy the Gothic character of a build- ing, but the removal of a majority of them will. I am not sure when the word " Gothic " was first generally applied to the architecture of the North; but I presume that, whatever the date of its original usage, it was intended to imply reproach, and express the barbaric character of the nations among whom that architecture arose. It never implied that they were literally of Gothic lineage, far less that their architecture had been originally invented by the Goths them- selves; but it did imply that they and their buildings together exhibited a degree of stern- ness and rudeness which, in contradistinction to the character of Southern and Eastern nations, appeared like a perpetual reflection of the con- trast between the Goth and Roman in their first encounter. And when that fallen Roman, in the utmost impotence of his luxury, and inso- lence of his guilt, became the model for the imi- tation of civilized Europe, at the close of the so- called Dark ages, the word Gothic became a 236 ARCHITECTURE. terra of unmitigated contempt, not unmixed with aversion. From that contempt, by the exertion of the antiquaries and architects of this century, Gothic architecture has been suffi- ciently vindicated; and perhaps some among us, in our admiration of the magnificent science of its structure and sacredness of its expression, might desire that the term of ancient reproach should be withdrawn, and some other, of more apparent honorableness, adopted in its place. There is no chance, as there is no need, of such a substitution. As far as the epithet was used scornfully, it was used falsely; but there is no reproach in the word rightly understood; on the contrary, there is a profound truth, which the. instinct of mankind almost unconsciously recog- nises. It is true, greatly and deeply true, that the architecture of the North is rude and wild; but it is not true that, for this reason, we are to con- demn it, or despise. Far otherwise: I believe it is in this very character that it deserves out profoundest reverence. THE GROTESQUE. 2tf THE GROTESQUE. The grotesque which comes to all men in a disturbed dream, is the most intelligible example (of the error and wildness of the mental impres- sions caused by fear operating upon strong powers of imagination) but also the most igno- ble; the imagination, in this instance, being en- tirely deprived of all aid from reason, and incap- able of self-government. I believe, however, that the noblest forms of imaginative power are also in some sort ungovernable, and have in them something of the character of dreams; so that the vision, of whatever kind, comes un- called, and will not submit itself to the seer, but conquers him, and forces him to speak as a prophet, having no power over his words or thoughts. Only, if the whole man be trained perfectly, and his mind calm, consistent, and powerful, the vision which comes to him is seen as in a perfect mirror, serenely, and in consist- ence with the rational powers; but if the mind be imperfect and ill trained, the vision is seen as in a broken mirror, with strange distortions and discrepancies, all the passions of the heart breathing upon it in cross ripples, till hardly a trace of it remains unbroken. So that, strictly speaking, the imagination is never governed; it 238 ARCHITECTURE. is always the ruling and Divine power: and the rest of the man is to it only as an instrument which it sounds, or a tablet on which it writes; clearly and sublimely if the wax be smooth and the strings true, grotesquely and wildly if they are strained and broken. And thus the " Iliad," the " Inferno," the " Pilgrim's Progress," the " Faerie Queene," are all of them true dreams; only the sleep of the men to whom they came was the deep, living sleep which God sends, with a sacredness in it as of death, the revealer of secrets. Now observe in this matter, carefully, the difference between a dim mirror and a distorted one; and do not blame me for pressing the analogy too far, for it will enable me to explain my meaning every way more clearly. Most men's minds are dim mirrors, in which all truth is seen, as St. Paul tells us, darkly: this is the fault most common and most fatal; dulness of the heart and mistiness of sight, increasing to utter hardness and blindness; Satan breathing upon the glass, so that, if we do not sweep the mist laboriously away, it will take no image. But, even so far as we are able to do this, we have still the distortion to fear, yet not to the same extent, for we can in some sort allow for the distortion of an image, if only we can see it clearly. And the fallen human soul, at its best,, THE GROTESQUE. 239 must be as a diminishing glass, and that a broken one, to the mighty truths of the universe around it; and the wider the scope of its glance, and the vaster the truths into which it obtains an insight, the more fantastic their distortion is likely to be, as the winds and the vapors trouble the field of the telescope most when it reaches farthest. It is not, however, in every symbolical subject that the fearful grotesque becomes embodied to the full. The element of distortion which af- fects the intellect when dealing with subjects above its proper capacity, is as nothing com- pared with that which it sustains from the direct impressions of terror. It is the trembling of the human soul in the presence of death which most of all disturbs the images on the intellectual mirror, and invests them with the fitfulness and ghastliness of dreams. And from the contemplation of death, and of the pangs which follow his footsteps, arise in men's hearts the troop of strange and irresistible supersti- tions, which, more or less melancholy or majes- tic according to the dignity of the mind they impress, are yet never without a certain gro- tesqueness, following on the paralysis of the reason and over-excitement of the fancy. I do not mean to deny the actual existence of spirit- ual manifestations: I have never weighed the 240 ARCHITECTURE. evidence upon the subject; but with these, if such exist, we are not here concerned. The grotesque which we are examining arises out of that condition of mind which appears to follow naturally upon the contemplation of death, and in which the fancy is brought into morbid action by terror, accompanied by the belief in spiritual presence, and in the possibility of spir- itual apparition. Hence are developed its most sublime, because its least voluntary, creations, aided by the fearfulness of the phenomena of nature which are in any wise the ministers of death, and primarily directed by the peculiar ghastliness of expression in the skeleton, itself a species of terrible grotesque in its relation to the perfect human frame. Thus, first born from the dusty and dreadful whiteness of the charnel house, but softened in their forms by the holiest of human affections, went forth the troop of wild and wonderful images, seen through tears, that had the mas- tery over our Northern hearts for so many ages. The powers of sudden destruction lurking in the woods and waters, in the rocks and clouds; — kelpie and gnome, Lurlei and Hartz spirits: the wraith and foreboding phantom; the spectra of second sight; the various conceptions of aveng- ing or tormented ghost, haunting the perpetra- tor of crime, or expiating its commission; and THE GROTESQUE. 24 1 the half fictitious and contemplative, half vi- sionary and believed images of the presence of death itself, doing its daily work in the cham- bers of sickness and sin, and waiting for its hour in the fortalices of strength and the high places of pleasure; — these, partly degrading us by the instinctive and paralysing terror with which they are attended, and partly ennobling us by leading our thoughts to dwell in the eternal world, fill the last and the most important circle in that great kingdom of dark and distorted power, of which we all must be in some sort the subjects until mortality shall be swallowed up of life; until the waters of the last fordless river cease to roll their untransparent volume between us and the light of heaven, and neither death stand between us and our brethren, nor symbols between us and our God. If, then, ridding ourselves as far as possible of prejudices owing merely to the school-teach- ing which remains from the system of the Re- naissance, we set ourselves to discover in what races the human soul, taken all in all, reached its highest magnificence, we shall find, I believe, two great families of men, one of the East and South, the other of the West and North: the one including the Egyptians, Jews, Arabians, Assyrians, and Persians; the other I know not 242 ARCHITECTURE. whence derived, but seeming to flow forth from Scandinavia, and filling the whole of Europe with its Norman and Gothic energy. And in both these families, wherever they are seen in.' their utmost nobleness, there the grotesque is developed in its utmost energy; and I hardly know whether most to admire the winged bulls of Nineveh, or the winged dragons of Verona. The charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern science have thrown into a narrow space the expression of a vast amount of knowledge, but I have never yet seen any one pictorial enough to enable the spectator to imagine the kind of contrast in physical charac- ter which exists between northern and southern countries. We know the differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp which would enable us to feel them in their ful- ness. We know that gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apennines; but we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of the world's surface which a bird sees in its migration, that difference between the district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the swallow see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind. Let us, for a mo- ment, try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean THE GROTESQUE. 243 lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun; here and there -an angry spot of thunder, a gray stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; and here and there a fixed wreath of white vol- cano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes; but for the most part a great peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop near to them, with bossy beat- en work of mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange, and plumy palm, that abate with their gray-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see the orient colors change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in gray swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands, and then, farther north still, to see the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, border- ing with a broad waste of gloomy purple that 244 ARCHITECTURE. 6elt of field and wood, and splintering into irreg- ular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm, and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks into barrenness, and. at last, the wall of ice durable like iron, sets, death-like, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight. And, having once traversed in thought this gradation of the zoned iris of the earth in all its material vastness, let us go down nearer to it, and watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life : the multitudes of swift and brilliant creatures that glance in the air and sea, or tread the sands of the southern zone ; striped zebras and spotted leopards, glistening serpents, and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet. Let us contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of color, and swiftness of motion, with the frost-cramped strength, and shaggy covering, and dusky plum- age of the northern tribes ; contrast the Arabian horse with the Shetland, the tiger and leopard with the wolf and bear, the antelope with the elk, the bird of paradise with the osprey ; and then, submissively acknowledging the great laws by which the earth and all that it bears are ruled throughout their being, let us not condemn, but rejoice in the expression by man of his own THE GROTESQUE. 245 rest in the statutes of the land that gave him birth. Let us watch him with reverence as he sets side by side, the burning gems, and smooths with soft sculpture the jasper pillars, that are to reflect a ceaseless sunshine, and rise into a cloud- less sky ; but not with less reverence let us stand by him, when, with rough strength and hurried stroke, he smites an uncouth animation out of the rocks which he has torn from among the moss of the moorland, and heaves into the darkened air the pile of iron buttress and rugged wall, instinct with work of an imagination as wild and wayward as the northern sea, creations of ungainly shape and rigid limb but full of wolfish life ; fierce as the winds that beat, and changeful as the clouds that shade them. In one point of view Gothic is not only the best but the only rational architecture, as being that which can fit itself most easily to all ser- vices, vulgar or noble. Undefined in its slope of roof, height of shaft, breadth of arch, or disposi- tion of ground plan, it can shrink into a turret, expand into a hall, coil into a staircase, or spring into a spire, with undegraded grace and unex- hausted energy ; and whenever it finds occasion for change in its form or purpose, it submits to it without the slightest sense of loss either to its unity or majesty, — subtle and flexible like a fiery 246 ARCHITECTURE. serpent, but ever attentive to the voice of the charmer. And it is one of the chief virtues of the Gothic builders, that they never suffered ideas of outside symmetries and consistencies to interfere with the real use and value of what they did. If they wanted a window, they opened one ; a room, they added one ; a buttress, they built one ; utterly regardless of any estab- lished conventionalities of external appearance, knowing (as indeed it always happened) that such daring interruptions of the formal plan would rather give additional interest to its sym- metry than injure it. So that, in the best times of Gothic, a useless window would rather have been opened in an unexpected place for the sake of the surprise, than a useful one forbidden for the sake of symmetry. Every successive architect, employed upon a great work, built the pieces he added in his own way, utterly regard- less of the style adopted by his predecessors ; and if two towers were raised in nominal corres- pondence at the sides of a cathedral front, one was nearly sure to be different from the other, and in each the style at the top to be different from the style at the bottom. The most striking outward feature in all Gothic architecture is, that it is composed of pointed arches, as in Romanesque that it is in like man- THE GROTESQUE. 247 ner composed of round : and this distinction would be quite as clear, though the roofs were taken off every cathedral in Europe. And yet, if we examine carefully into the real force and meaning of the term " roof," we shall, perhaps, be able to retain the old popular idea in a defini- tion of Gothic architecture, which shall also ex- press whatever dependence that architecture has upon true forms of roofing. Roofs are generally divided into two parts ; the roof proper, that is to say, the shell, vault, or ceiling, internally visible ; and the roof-mask, which protects this lower roof from the weather. In some buildings these parts are united in one frame-work ; but in most they are more or less independent of each other, and in nearly all Gothic buildings there is a considerable interval between them. Now it will often happen, that owing to the nature of the apartments required, or the mate- rials at hand, the roof proper maybe flat, coved, or domed, in buildings which in their walls em- ploy pointed arches, and are, in the straitest sense of the word, Gothic in all other respects. Yet so far forth as the roofing alone is concerned, they are not Gothic unless the pointed arch be the principal form adopted either in the stone vaulting or the timbers of the roof proper. I shall say then, in the first place, that " Gothic 248 ARCHITECTURE. architecture is that which uses, if possible, the pointed arch in the roof proper." This is the first step in our definition. Secondly. Although there may be many ad- visable or necessary forms for the lower roof or ceiling, there is, in cold countries exposed to rain and snow, only one advisable form for the roof -mask, and that is the gable, for this alone will throw off both rain and snow from all parts of its surface as speedily as possible. Snow can lodge on the top of a dome, not on the ridge of a gable. And thus, as far as roofing is concerned, the gable is a far more essential feature of Northern architecture than the pointed vault, for the one is a thorough necessity, the other often a grateful conventionality ; the gable oc- curs in the timber-roof of every dwelling-house and every cottage, but not the vault ; and the gable built on a polygonal or circular plan, is the origin of the turret and spire ; and all the so- called aspiration of Gothic architecture is nothing more than its development. So that we must add to our definition another clause, which will be at present by far the most impor- tant, and it will stand thus : " Gothic architect- ure is that which uses the pointed arch for the roof proper, and the gable for the roof-mask." And here, in passing, let us notice a principle as true in architecture as in morals. It is not THE GROTESQUE. 249 the compelled, but the wilful, transgression of iaw which corrupts the character. Sin is not in the act, but in the choice. It is a law for Gothic architecture, that it shall use the pointed arch for its roof proper ; but because, in many cases of domestic building, this becomes impossible for want of room (the whole height of the apart- ment being required every where), or in various other ways inconvenient, flat ceilings may be used, and yet the Gothic shall not lose its purity. But in the roof -mask there can be no necessity nor reason for a change of form : the gable is the best ; and if any other — dome, or bulging crown, or whatsoever else — be employed at all, it must be in pure caprice and wilful transgres- sion of law. And wherever, therefore, this is done, the Gothic has lost its character ; it is pure Gothic no more. I plead for the introduction of the Gothic form into our domestic architecture, not merely because it is lovely, but because it is the only form of faithful, strong, enduring, and honorable building, in such materials as come daily to our hands. By an increase of scale and costs it is impossible to build, in any style, what will last for ages; but only in the Gothic is it possible to give security and dignity to work wrought with imperfect means and materials. And I trust 25O ARCHITECTURE. that there will come a time when the English people may see the folly of building basely and insecurely. It is common with those architects against whose practice my writings have hither- to been directed, to call them merely theoretical and imaginative. I answer, that there is not a single principle asserted either in the " Seven Lamps" or here, but is of the simplest, sternest veracity, and the easiest practicability ; that buildings, raised as I would have them, would stand unshaken for a thousand years; and the buildings raised by the architects who oppose them will not stand for one hundred and fifty, they sometimes do not stand for an hour. There is hardly a week passes without some catastrophe brought about by the base princi- ples of modern building : some vaultless floor that drops the staggering crowd through the jagged rents of its rotten timbers; some baseless bridge that is washed away by the first wave of a common flood; some fungous wall of nascent rottenness that a thunder-shower soaks down with its workmen into a heap of slime and death. These we hear of, day by day ; yet these indicate but a thousandth part of the evil. The portion of the national income sacrificed in mere bad building, in the perpetual repairs, and swift condemnation and pulling down of ill-built shells of houses, passes all calculation. And THE RENAISSANCE. 251 the weight of the penalty is not yet felt; it will tell upon our children some fifty years hence, when- the cheap work, and contract work, and stucco and plaster work, and bad iron work, and all the other expedients of modern rivalry, vanity, and dishonesty, begin to show them- selves for what they are. THE RENAISSANCE. Although Renaissance architecture assumes very different forms among different nations, it may be conveniently referred to three heads : — Early Renaissance, consisting of the first cor- ruptions introduced into the Gothic schools : Central or Roman Renaissance, which is the perfectly formed style; and Grotesque Renais- sance, which is the corruption of the Renaissance itself. Now, in order to do full justice to the ad- verse cause, we will consider the abstract nature of the school with reference only to its best or central examples. The forms of building which must be classed generally under the term early Renaissance are, in many cases, only the ex- travagances and corruptions of the languid Gothic, for whose errors the classical principle 252 ARCHITECTURE. is in no wise answerable. It was stated in the " Seven Lamps," that unless luxury had ener- vated and subtlety falsified the Gothic forms, Roman traditions could not have prevailed against them ; and, although these enervated and false conditions are almost instantly col- ored by the classical influence, it would be ut- terly unfair to lay to the charge of that influence the first debasement of the earlier schools, which had lost the strength of their system before they could be struck by the plague. The manner, however, of the debasement of all schools of art, so far as it is natural, is in all ages the same; luxuriance of ornament, refine- ment of execution, and idle subtleties of fancy, taking the place of true thought and firm hand- ling *, and I do not intend to delay the reader long by the Gothic sick-bed, for our task is not so much to watch the wasting of fever in the features of the expiring King, as to trace the character of that Hazael who dipped the cloth in water, and laid it upon his face. Neverthe- less, it is necessary to the completeness of our view of the architecture of Venice, as well as to our understanding of the manner in which the Central Renaissance obtained its universal do- minion, that we glance briefly at the principal forms into which Venetian Gothic first declined. They are two in number: one the corruption of THE RENAISSANCE. 2$$ the Gothic itself; the other a partial return to Byzantine forms: for the Venetian mind having carried the Gothic to a point at which it was dissatisfied, tried to retrace its steps, fell back first upon Byzantine types, and through them passed to the first Roman. But in thus retrac- ing its steps, it does not recover its own lost energy. It revisits the places through which it had passed in the morning light, but it is now with wearied limbs and under the gloomy shadow of the evening. Against this degraded Gothic, then, came up the Renaissance armies; and their first assault was in the requirement of universal perfection. For the first time since the destruction of Rome, the world has seen, in the work of the greatest artists of the fifteenth century, — in the painting of Ghirlandajo, Masaccio, Francia, Perugino, Pinturicchio, and Bellini ; in the sculpture of Mino da Fiesole, of Ghiberti, and Verrocchio, — a perfection of execution and fulness of knowl- edge which cast all previous art into the shade, and which, being in the work of those men united with all that was great in that of former days, did indeed justify the utmost enthusiasm with which their efforts were, or could be, re- garded. But when this perfection had once been exhibited in anything, it was required in 254 ARCHITECTURE. everything ; the world could no longer be satis- fied with less exquisite execution, or less disci- plined knowledge. The first thing that it de- manded in all work was, that it should be done in a consummate and learned way; and men altogether forgot that it was possible to con- summate what was contemptible, and to know what was useless. Imperatively requiring dex- terity of touch, they gradually forgot to look for tenderness of feeling; imperatively requiring ac- curacy of knowledge, they gradually forgot to ask for originality of thought. The thought and the feeling which they despised departed from them, and they were left to felicitate themselves on their small science and their neat fingering. This is the history of the first attack of the Renaissance upon the Gothic schools, and of its rapid results; more fatal and immediate in arch- itecture than in any other art, because there the demand for perfection was less reasonable, and less consistent with the capabilities of the workman ; being utterly opposed to that rude- ness or savageness on which, as we saw above, the nobility of the elder schools in great part depends. But, inasmuch as the innovations were founded on some of the most beautiful ex' amples of art, and headed by some of the great- est men that the world ever saw, and as the Gothic with which they had interfered was cor- THE RENAISSANCE. 255 rupt and valueless, the first appearance of the Renaissance feeling had the appearance of a healthy movement. A new energy replaced whatever weariness or dulness had affected the Gothic mind; an exquisite taste and refinement, aided by extended knowledge, furnished the first models of the new school; and over the whole of Italy a style arose, generally known as cinque- cento, which in sculpture and painting, as I just stated, produced the noblest masters whom the world ever saw, headed by Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Leonardo ; but which failed in doing the same in architecture, because, as we have seen above, perfection is therein not possi- ble, and failed more totally than it would other- wise have done, because the classical enthusiasm had destroyed the best types of architectural form. The effect, then, of the sudden enthusiasm for classical literature, which gained strength during every hour of the fifteenth century, was, as far as respected architecture, to do away with the entire system of Gothic science. The pointed arch, the shadowy vault, the clustered shaft, the heaven-pointing spire, were all swept away; and no structure was any longer permitted but that of the plain cross-beam from pillar to pillar, over the round arch with square or cir- 256 ARCHITECTURE. cular shafts, and a low gabled roof and pediment; two elements of noble form, which had fortu- nately existed in Rome, were, however, for that reason, still permitted; the cupola, and, inter- nally, the waggon vault. Do not let me be misunderstood when I speak generally of the evil spirit of the Renaissance. The reader may look through all I have written, from first to last, and he will not find one word but the most profound reverence for those mighty men who could wear the Renaissance armor of proof, and yet not feel it encumber their living limbs, — Leonardo and Michael Angelo, Ghirlandajo and Masaccio, Titian and Tintoret. But I speak of the Renaissance as an evil time, because, when it saw those men go burning forth into the battle, it mistook their armor for their strength; and forthwith encum- bered with the painful panoply every stripling who ought to have gone forth only with his own choice of three small stones out of the brook. Over the greater part of the surface of the world, we find that a rock has been providen- tially distributed, in a manner particularly point- ing it out as intended for the service of man. Not altogether a common rock, it is yet rare enough to command a certain degree of interest and attention wherever it is found; but not 50 THE RENAISSANCE. 2$? rare as to preclude its use for any purpose to which it is fitted. It is exactly of the con- sistence which is best adapted for sculpture; that is to say, neither hard nor brittle, nor flaky nor splintery, but uniform, and delicately, yet not ignobly soft — exactly soft enough to allow the sculptor to work it without force, and trace on it the finest lines of finished forms; and yet so hard as never to betray the touch or moulder away beneath the steel; and so admirably crys- tallized, and of such permanent elements, that no rains dissolve it, no time changes it, no atmosphere decomposes it; once shaped, it is shaped for ever, unless subjected to actual vio- lence or attrition. This rock, then, is prepared by Nature for the sculptor and architect, just as paper is prepared by the manufacturer for the artist, with as great — nay, with greater — care, and more perfect adaptation of the material to the requirements. And of this marble paper, some is white and some colored; but more is colored than white, because the white is evidently meant for sculpture, and the colored for the covering of large surfaces. Now if we would take Nature at her word, and use this precious paper which she has taken so much care to provide for us (it is a long process, the making of that paper ; the pulp of it needed the subtlest possible solution, and the pressing of it — for it is all hot pressed — 258 ARCHITECTURE. having to be done under the sea, or under some- thing at least as heavy); if, I say, we use it as Nature would have us, consider what advantages would follow. The colors of marble are mingled for us just as if on a prepared palette. They are of all shades and hues (except bad ones), some being united and even, some broken, mixed, and inter- rupted, in order to supply, as far as possible, the Avant of the painter's power of breaking and mingling the color with the brush. But there is more in the colors than this delicacy of adapta- tion. There is history in them. By the manner in which they are arranged in every piece of marble, they record the means by which that marble has been produced, and the successive changes through which it has passed. And in all their veins and zones, and flame-like stain- ings, or broken and disconnected lines, they write various legends, never untrue, of the former political state of the mountain kingdom to which they belonged, of its infirmities and fortitudes, convulsions and consolidations, from the begin- ning of time. Part 4. SCULPTURE. *' My friend, all speech and humor is short-lived, foolish, untrue. Genuine work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal. " Take courage, then — raise the ar?n — strike home and that right lustily — the citadel of Hope must yield to noble desire, thus seconded by noble efforts.''' 1 PART IV. SCULPTURE. Architecture is the work of nations; but we cannot have nations of great sculptors. Every house in every street of every city ought to be good architecture, but we cannot have Flaxman or Thorwaldsen at work upon it, nor if we choose only to devote ourselves to our public buildings, could the mass and majority of them be great, if we required all to be executed by great men; greatness is not to be had in the required quantity. Giotto may design a Cam- panile, but he cannot carve it, he can only carve one or two of the bas-reliefs at the base of it. And with every increase of your fastidiousness in the execution of your ornament, you diminish the possible number and grandeur of your build- ings. Do not think you can educate your work- men, or that the demand for perfection will increase the supply; educated imbecility and finessed foolishness are the worst of all imbecili- ties and foolishness, and there is no free-trade 261 262 SCULPTURE. measure which will ever lower the price of brains, — there is no California of common sense. Suppose one of those old Ninevite or Egyptian builders, with a couple of thousand men — mud- bred, onion-eating creatures, under him, to be set to work, like so many ants, on his temple sculptures. What is he to do with them ? He can put them through a granitic exercise of current hand; he can teach them all how to curl hair thoroughly into croche-cceurs, as you teach a bench of school-boys how to shape pot- hooks; he can teach them all how to draw long eyes and straight noses, and how to copy accu- rately certain well-defined lines. Then he fits his own great designs to their capacities; he takes out of king, or lion, or god, as much as was expressible by croche-cceurs and granitic pothooks; he throws this into noble forms of his own imagining, and having mapped out their lines so that there can be no possibility of error, sets his two thousand men to work upon them, with a will and so many onions a day. Those times cannot now return. We have, with Christianity, recognised the individual value of every soul; and there is no intelligence so feeble but that its single ray may in some sort contribute to the general light. It is foolish to carve what is to be seen forty SCULPTURE. 263 yards off with the delicacy which the eye de- mands within two yards; not merely because it is lost in the distance, but because it is a great deal worse than lost; the delicate work has actu- ally worse effect in the distance than rough work. We may be asked, whether in advocating this adaptation to the distance of the eye, I obey my adopted rules of observance of natural law. Are not all natural things, it may be asked, as lovely near as far away ? Nay, not so. Look at the clouds, and watch the delicate sculpture of their alabaster sides, and the rounded lustre of their magnificent rolling. They are meant to be beheld far away; they were shaped for their place, high above your head; approach them, and they fuse into vague mists, or whirl away in fierce fragments of thunderous vapor. Look at the crest of the Alp, from the far-away plains over which the light is cast, whence human souls have communion with it by their myriads. The child looks up to it in the dawn, and the hus- bandman in the burden and heat of the day, and the old man in the going down of the sun, and it is to them all as the celestial city on the world's horizon; dyed with the depths of heaven, and clothed with the calm of eternity. There was it set, for holy dominion, by Him who marked for the sun his journey, and bade the moon know her going down. It was built /or its 264 SCULPTURE. place in the far-off sky; approach it, and as the sound of the voice of man dies away about its foundations, and the tide of human life, shallowed upon the vast arid shore, is at last met by the Eternal " Here shall thy proud waves be stayed," the glory of its aspect fades into blanched fear- fulness; its purple walls are rent into grisly rocks; its silver fretwork saddened into wasting snow; the storm-brands of ages are on its breast, the ashes of its own ruin lie solemnly on its white raiment. Now it is indeed true that where nature loses one kind of beauty, as you approach it, she sub- stitutes another; this is worthy of her infinite power, and art can sometimes follow her even in doing this. Take a singular and marked in- stance. When the sun rises behind a ridge of pines, and those pines are seen from a distance of a mile or two; against his light, the whole form of the tree, trunk, branches, and all be- comes one frostwork of intensely brilliant silver, which is relieved against the day sky like a burn- ing fringe, for some distance on either side of the sun! Shakspeare and Wordsworth have no- ticed this. Shakspeare in Richard II. : — " But when, from under this terrestrial ball, He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines." And Wordsworth, in one of his minor poems, on leaving Italy: — SCULPTURE. 265 'My thoughts become bright, like yon edging of pines: On the steep's lofty verge, how it blackened the air. But touched from behind by the sun, it now shines With threads that seem part of his own silver hair." Now, suppose one who had never seen pines, were, for the first time in his life, to see them under this strange aspect, and, reasoning as to the means by which such effect could be pro- duced, laboriously to approach the eastern ridge> how would he be amazed to find that the fiery spectres had been produced by trees with swarthy and grey trunks, and dark green leaves ! We in our simplicity, if we had been required to pro- duce such an appearance, should have built up trees of chased silver, with trunks of glass, and then been grievously amazed to find that, at two miles off, neither silver nor glass were any more visible; but Nature knew better, and prepared for her fairy work with the strong branches and dark leaves, in her own mysterious way. Now this is exactly what you have to do with your good ornament. It may be that it is capa- ble of being approached, as well as likely to be seen far away, and then it ought to have micro- scopic qualities, as the pine leaves have, which will bear approach. But your calculation of its purpose is for a glory to be produced at a given distance. 266 SCULPTURE. All noble ornament is the expression of man's delight in God's work. The function of ornament is to make you happy. Now, in what are you rightly happy? Not in thinking what you have done yourself; not in your own pride; not in your own birth; not in your own being, or your own will, but in looking at God; watching what He does, what He is; and obeying His law, and yielding your- self to His will. You are to be made happy by ornaments; therefore they must be the expression of all this. Then the proper material of ornament will be whatever God has created; and its proper treat- ment, that which seems in accordance with, or symbolical of, His laws. And, for material, we shall therefore have, first, the abstract lines which are most frequent in nature; and then, from lower to higher, the whole range of system- atized inorganic and organic forms. We shall rapidly glance in order at their kinds, and how- ever absurd the elemental division of inorganic matter by the ancients may seem to the modern chemist, it is so grand and simple for arrange- ment of external appearances, that I shall here follow it; noticing first, after Abstract Lines, the inimitable forms of the four elements, of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air, and then those of animal organisms. SCULPTURE. 267 It may be convenient to have the order stated in succession, thus: — ' 1. Abstract Lines. 2. Forms of Earth (Crystals). 3. Forms of Water (Waves). 4. Forms of Fire (Flames and Rays). 5. Forms of Air (Clouds). 6. Organic Forms. Shells. 7. Fish. 8. Reptiles and Insects. 9. Vegetation. Stems and Trunks. 10. Vegetation. Foliage, Flowers, and Fruit. n. Birds. 12. Mammalian Animals and Man. We find, at the close of the sixteenth century, the arts of painting and sculpture wholly de- voted to entertain the indolent and satiate the luxurious. To effect these noble ends, they took a thousand different forms; painting, how- ever, of course being the most complying, aim- ing sometimes at mere amusement by deception in landscapes, or minute imitation of natural ob- jects; sometimes giving more piquant excite- ment in battle-pieces full of slaughter, or revels deep in drunkenness; sometimes entering upon serious subjects, for the sake of grotesque fiends and picturesque infernos, or that it might intro- duce pretty children as cherubs, and handsome 268 SCULPTURE. women as Magdalenes and Maries of Egypt, or portraits of patrons in the character of the more decorous saints; but more frequently, for direct flatteries of this kind, recurring to Pagan my- thology, and painting frail ladies as goddesses or graces, and foolish kings in radiant apotheosis; while, for the earthly delight of the persons whom it honored as divine, it ransacked the rec- ords of luscious fable, and brought back, in full- est depth of dye and flame of fancy, the impur- est dreams of the un-Christian ages. Meanwhile, the art of sculpture, less capable of ministering to mere amusement, was more or less reserved for the affectations of taste; and the study of the classical statutes introduced various ideas on the subjects of " purity," " chas- tity," and " dignity," such as it was possible for people to entertain who were themselves impure, luxurious, and ridiculous. It is a matter of ex- treme difficulty to explain the exact character of this modern sculpturesque ideal; but its rela- tion to the true ideal may be best understood by considering it as in exact parallelism with the relation of the word " taste " to the word "love." Wherever the word " taste " is used with respect to matters of art, it indicates either that the thing spoken of belongs to some infe- rior class of objects, or that the person speak- ing has a false conception of its nature. For, SCULPTURE. 269 consider the exact sense in which a work of art is said to be " in good or bad taste." It does not mean thjat it is true or false; that it is beautiful or ugly; but that it does or does not comply either with the laws of choice, which are enforced by certain modes of life; or the habits of mind produced by a particular sort of educa- tion. It does not mean merely fashionable, that is, complying with a momentary caprice of the upper classes; but it means agreeing with the habitual sense which the most refined edu- cation, common to those upper classes at the period, gives to their whole mind. Now, therefore, so far as that education does indeed tend to make the senses delicate, and the perceptions accurate, and thus enables people to be pleased with quiet instead of gaudy color, and with grace- ful instead of coarse form; and, by long ac- quaintance with the best things, to discern quickly what is fine from what is common; — so far, acquired taste is an honorable faculty, and it is true praise of anything to say it is " in good taste." But so far as this higher education has a tendency to narrow the sympathies and har- den the heart, diminishing the interest of all beautiful things by familiarity, until even what is best can hardly please, and what is brightest hardly entertain; — so far as it fosters pride, and leads men to found the pleasure they take in 270 SCULPTURE. anything, not on the worthiness of the thing, but on the degree in which it indicates some greatness of their own (as people build marble porticos, and inlay marble floors, not so much because they like the colors of marble, or find it pleasant to the foot, as because such porches and floors are costly, and separated in all human eyes from plain entrances of stone and timber); — so far as it leads people to prefer gracefulness of dress, manner, and aspect, to value of sub- stance and heart, liking a well said thing better than a true thing, and a well trained manner better than a sincere one, and a delicately formed face better than a good-natured one, and in all other ways and things setting custom and semblance above everlasting truth ; — so far, finally, as it induces a sense of inherent dis- tinction between class and class, and causes everything to be more or less despised which has no social rank, so that the affection, pleas- ure, or grief of a clown are looked upon as of no interest compared with the affection and grief of a well-bred man ; — just so far, in all these several ways, the feeling induced by what is called a " liberal education" is utterly adverse to the understanding of noble art ; and the name which is given to the feeling, — Taste, Gout, Gusto, — in all languages, indicates the baseness of it, for it implies that art gives only a kind of SCULPTURE. 271 pleasure analogous to that derived from eating by the palate. Modern education, not in art only, but in all other things referable to the same standard, has invariably given taste in this bad sense; it has given fastidiousness of choice without judgment, superciliousness of manner without dignity, re- finement of habit without purity, grace of ex- pression without sincerity, and desire of loveli- ness without love; and the modern "Ideal" of high art is a curious mingling of the gracefulness and reserve of the drawing-room with a certain measure of classical sensuality. Of this last ele- ment, and the singular artifices by which vice succeeds in combining it with what appears to be pure and severe, it would take us long to reason fully; I would rather leave the reader to follow out for himself the consideration of the influence, in this direction, of statues, bronzes, and paintings, as at present employed by the upper circles of London, and (especially) Paris; and this not so much in the works which are really fine, as in the multiplied coarse copies of them; taking the widest range, from Dannae- ker's Ariadne down to the amorous shepherd and shepherdess in China on the drawing-room time-piece, rigidly questioning in each case, how far the charm of the art does indeed depend on some appeal to the inferior passions. Let it be 272 SCULPTURE. considered, for instance, exactly how far the value of a picture of a girl's head by Greuze would be lowered in the market, if the dress, which now leaves the bosom bare, were raised to the neck; and how far, in the commonest litho- graph of some utterly popular subject, — for in- stance, the teaching of Uncle Tom by Eva — the sentiment which is supposed to be excited by the exhibition of Christianity in youth is com- plicated with that which depends upon Eva's having a dainty foot and a well-made satin slip- per; and then, having completely determined for himself how far the element exists, consider farther, whether, when art is thus frequent (for frequent he will assuredly find it to be) in its ap- peal to the lower passions, it is likely to attain the highest order of merit, or be judged by the truest standards of judgment. For, of all the causes which ha^e combined, in modern times, to lower the rank of art, I believe this to be one of the most fatal; while, reciprocally, it may be questioned how far society suffers, in its turn, from the influences possessed over it by the arts it has degraded. It seems to me a subject of the very deepest interest to determine what has been the effect upon the European nations of the great change by which art became again capable of ministering delicately to the lower passions, as it had in the worst days of Rome; SCULPTURE. 273 how far, indeed, in all ages, the fall of nations may be attributed to art's arriving at this par- ticular stage among them. I do not mean that, in any of its stages, it is incapable of being em- ployed for evil, but that assuredly an Egyptian, Spartan, or Norman was unexposed to the kind of temptation which is continually offered by the delicate painting and sculpture of modern days; and, although the diseased imagination might complete the perfect image of beauty from the colored image on the wall,* or the most revolt- ing thoughts be suggested by the mocking bar- barism of the Gothic sculpture, their hard out- line and rude execution were free from all the subtle treachery which now fills the flushed can- vass and the rounded marble. I cannot, however, pursue this inquiry here. For our present purpose it is enough to note that the feeling, in itself so debased, branches up- wards into that of which, while no one has cause to be ashamed, no one, on the other hand, has cause to be proud, namely, the admiration of physical beauty in the human form, as distin- guished from expression of character. Every one can easily appreciate the merit of regular features and well-formed limbs, but it requires some attention, sympathy, and sense, to detect the charm of passing expression, or life-disci- * Ezek. xxiii. 14. 274 SCULPTURE. plined character. The beauty of the Apollo Bel- videre, or Venus de Medicis, is perfectly palpa- ble to any shallow fine lady or fine gentleman, though they would have perceived none in the face of an old weather-beaten St. Peter, or a gray-haired " Grandmother Lois." The knowl- edge that long study is necessary to produce these regular types of the human form renders the facile admiration matter of eager self-com- placency; the shallow spectator, delighted that he can really, and without hypocrisy, admire what required much thought to produce, sup- poses himself endowed with the highest critical faculties, and easily lets himself be carried into rhapsodies about the " ideal," which, when all is said, if they be accurately examined, will be found literally to mean nothing more than that the figure has got handsome calves to its legs, and a straight nose. That they do mean, in reality, nothing more than this may be easily ascertained by watching the taste of the same persons in other things. The fashionable lady who will write five or six pages in her diary respecting the effect upon her mind of such and such an "ideal" in marble, will have her drawing-room table covered with Books of Beauty, in which the engravings repre- sent the human form in every possible aspect of distortion and affectation; and the connoisseur SCULPTURE. 275 who, in the morning, pretends to the most ex- quisite taste in the antique, will be seen, in the evening, in his opera-stall, applauding the least graceful gestures of the least modest figurante. But even this vulgar pursuit of physical beauty (vulgar in the profoundest sense, for there is no vulgarity like the vulgarity of education) would be less contemptible if it really succeeded in its object; but, like all pursuits carried to inordi- nate length, it defeats itself. Physical beauty is a noble thing when it is seen in perfectness; but the manner in which the moderns pursue their ideal prevents their ever really seeing what they are always seeking; for, requiring that all forms should be regular and faultless, they permit, or even compel, their painters and sculptors to work chiefly by rule, altering their models to fit their preconceived notions of what is right. When such artists look at a face, they do not give it the attention necessary to discern what beauty is al- ready in its peculiar features; but only to see how best it may be altered into something for which they have themselves laid down the laws. Na- ture never unveils her beauty to such a gaze. She keeps whatever she has done best, close sealed, until it is regarded with reverence. To the painter who honors her, she will open a reve- lation in the face of a street mendicant; but in the work of the painter who alters her, she will 2j6 SCULPTURE. make Portia become ignoble and Perdita grace- less. Nor is the effect less for evil on the mind of the general observer. The lover of ideal beauty, with all his conceptions narrowed by rule, never looks carefully enough upon the features which do not come under his law (or any others), to discern the inner beauty in them. The strange intricacies about the lines of the lips, and mar- vellous shadows and watchfires of the eye, and wavering traceries of the eyelash, and infinite modulations of the brow, wherein high humani- ty is embodied, are all invisible to him. He finds himself driven back at last, with all his idealism, to the lionne of the ball-room, whom youth and passion can as easily distinguish as his utmost critical science ; whereas, the ob- server who has accustomed himself to take human faces as God made them, will often find as much beauty on a village green as in the proudest room of state, and as much in the free seats of a church aisle, as in all the sacred paint- ings of the Vatican or the Pitti. The difference in the accuracy of the lines of the Torso of the Vatican (the Maestro of M. Angelo) from those in one of M. Angelo's finest works, could perhaps scarcely be appreciated by any eye or feeling undisciplined by the most perfect and practical anatomical knowledge. It SCULPTURE. 277 rests on points of such traceless and refined delicacy, that though we feel them in the result, we cannot follow them in the details. Yet they are such and so great as to place the Torso alone in art, solitary and supreme; while the finest of M. Angelo's works, considered with respect to truth alone, are said to be only on a level with antiques of the second class, under the Apollo and Venus, that is, two classes or grades below the Torso. But suppose the best sculptor in the world, possessing the most entire appreciation of the excellence of the Torso, were to sit down, pen in hand, to try and tell us wherein the peculiar truth of each line con- sisted? Could any words that he could use make us feel the hairbreadth of depth and dis- tance on which all depends ? or end in anything more than bare assertions of the inferiority of this line to that, which, if we did not perceive for ourselves, no explanation could ever illus- trate to us ? He might as well endeavor to ex- plain to us by words some taste or other subject of sense, of which we had no experience. And so it is with all truths of the highest order; they are separated from those of average precision by points of extreme delicacy, which none but the cultivated eye can in the least feel, and to express which, all words are absolutely meaning- less and useless. So far as the sight and knowl- 2/8 SCULPTURE. edge of the human form, of the purest race, exercised from infancy constantly, but not ex- cessively, in all exercises of dignity, not in twists and straining dexterities, but in natural exercises of running, casting, or riding; practised in en- durance, not of extraordinary hardship, for that hardens and degrades the body, but of natural hardship, vicissitudes of winter and summer, and cold and heat, yet in a climate where none of these are severe; surrounded also by a certain degree of right luxury, so as to soften and refine the forms of strength; so far as the sight of this could render the mental intelligence of what is right in human form so acute as to be able to abstract and combine from the best examples so produced, that which was most perfect in each, so far the Greek conceived and attained the ideal of bodily form. Form we find abstractedly considered by the sculptor; how far it would be possible to advan- tage a statue by the addition of color, I venture not to affirm; the question is too extensive to be here discussed. High authorities and an- cient practice, are in favor of color; so the sculpture of the middle ages: the two statues of Mina da Fiesole in the church of St a . Caterina at Pisa have been colored, the irises of the eyes painted dark, and the hair gilded, as also I think the Madonna in St a . Maria della Spina ; the SCULPTURE. 279 eyes have been painted in the sculptures of Orcagna in Or San Michele, but it looks like a remnant of barbarism (compare the pulpit of Guida da Como, in the church of San Bartol- omeo at Pistoja), and I have never seen color on any solid forms, that did not, to my mind, neutralize all other power ; the porcelains of Luca Delia Robbia are painful examples, and in lower art, Florentine mosaic in relief; gilding is more admissible, and tells sometimes sweetly upon figures of quaint design, as on the pulpit of St a . Maria Novella, while it spoils the classi- cal ornaments of the mouldings. But the truest grandeur of sculpture I believe to be in the white form. It was said by Michael Angelo that " non ha l'ottimo scultore alcun concetto, Ch'un marmo solo in se non circoscriva," a sentence which, though in the immediate sense intended by the writer it may remind us a little of the indigna- tion of Boileau's Pluto, " II s'ensuit de la que tout ce qui se peut dire de beau, est dans les dictionnaires, — il n'y a que les paroles qui sont transposees," yet is valuable, because it shows us that Michael Angelo held the imagination to be entirely expressible in rock, and therefore al- together independent, in its own nature, of those aids of color and shade by which it is recom- 2 So SCULPTURE. mended in Tintoret, though the sphere of its operation is of course by these incalculably- extended. But the presence of the imagination may be rendered in marble as deep, thrilling, and awful as in painting, so that the sculptor seek for the soul and govern the body thereby. Of unimaginative work, Bandinelli and Can- ova supply us with characteristic instances of every kind, the Hercules and Cacus of the former, and its criticism by Cellini, will occur at once to every one; the disgusting statue now placed so as to conceal Giotto's important tem- pera picture in Santa Croce is a better instance, but a still more important lesson might be re- ceived by comparing the inanity of Canova's garland grace and ball-room sentiment with the intense truth, tenderness, and power of men like Mino da Fiesole, whose chisel leaves many a hard edge, and despises down and dimple, but it seems to cut light and carve breath, the marble burns beneath it, and becomes transpar- ent with every spirit. Yet Mino stopped at the human nature; he saw the soul, but not the ghostly presences about it; it was reserved for Michael Angelo to pierce deeper yet, and to see the indwelling angels. No man's soul is alone: Laocoon or Tobit, the serpent has it by the heart or the angel by the hand, the light or the fear of the spiritual things that move beside it SCULPTURE. 28 1 may be seen on the body, and that bodily form with Buonaroti, white, solid, distinct material, though it be, is invariably felt as the instru- ment or the habitation of some infinite, invisible power. The earth of the Sistine Adam that begins to burn; the woman embodied burst of adoration from his sleep; the twelve great tor- rents of the Spirit of God that pause above us there, urned in their vessels of clay; the waiting in the shadow of futurity of those through whom the promise and presence of God went down from the Eve to the Mary, each still and fixed, fixed in his expectation, silent, foreseeing, faithful, seated each on his stony throne, the building stones of the word of God, building on and on, tier by tier, to the Refused one, the head of the corner; not only these, not only the troops of terror torn up from the earth by the four quartered winds of the Judgment, but every fragment and atom of stone though compelled to represent the Sinai under conventional form, in order that the receiving of the tables might be seen at the top of it, yet so soon as it is pos- sible to give more truth, he is ready with it; he takes a grand fold of horizontal cloud straight from the flanks of the Alps, and shows the for- ests of the mountains through its misty volume, like sea-weed through deep sea. Nevertheless when the realization is impossible, bold sym- 282 SCULPTURE. bolism is of the highest value, and in religious art, as we shall presently see, even necessary, as of the rays of light in the Titian woodcut of St. Francis before noticed; and sometimes the at- tention is directed by some such strange form to the meaning of the image, which may be missed if it remains in its natural purity (as, I suppose, few in looking at the Cephalus and Procris of Turner, note the sympathy of those faint rays that are just drawing back and dying between the trunks of the far-off forest, with the ebbing life of the nymph; unless, indeed, they happen to recollect the same sympathy marked by Shelley in the Alastor); but the im- agination is not shown in any such modifica- tions; however, in some cases they may be valu- able (in the Cephalus they would be utterly de- structive) and I note them merely in conse- quence of their peculiar use in religious art, presently to be examined. The last mode we have here to note, in which the imagination regardant may be expressed in art is exaggeration, of which, as it is the vice of all bad artists, and may be constantly resorted to without any warrant of imagination, it is nec- essary to note strictly the admissible limits. By comparing the disgusting convulsions of the Laocoon, with the Elgin Theseus, we may obtain a general idea of the effect cf the influ- SCULPTURE. 283 ence, as shown by its absence in one, and pres- ence in the other, of two works which, as far as artistical merit is .concerned, are in some meas- ure parallel, not that I believe, even in this re- spect, the Laocoon justifiably comparable with the Theseus. I suppose that no group has ex- ercised so pernicious an influence on art as this, a subject ill chosen, meanly conceived and unnaturally treated, recommended to imitation by subtleties of execution and accumulation of technical knowledge. I would also have the reader compare with the meagre lines and contemptible tortures of the Laocoon, the awfulness and quietness of M. Angelo's treatment of a subject in most respects similar (the plague of the Fiery Serpents), but of which the choice was justified both by the place which the event holds in the typical sys- tem he had to arrange, and by the grandeur of the plague itself, in its multitudinous grasp, and its mystical salvation; sources of sublimity en- tirely wanting to the slaughter of the Dardan priest. It is good to see how his gigantic intel- lect reaches after repose, and truthfully finds it, in the falling hand of the near figure, and in the deathful decline of that whose hands are held up even in their venomed coldness to the cross; and though irrelevant to our present pur- pose, it is well also to note how the grandeur of 284 SCULPTURE. this treatment results, not merely from choice, but from a greater knowledge and more faithful rendering of truth. For whatever knowledge of the human frame there may be in the Laocoon, there is certainly none of the habits of serpents. The fixing of the snake's head in the side of the principal figure is as false to nature, as it is poor in composition of line. A large serpent never wants to bite, it wants to hold, it seizes there- fore always where it can hold best, by the ex- tremities or throat, it seizes once and for ever, and that before it coils, following up the seizure with the twist of its body round the victim, as invisibly swift as the twist of a whip lash round any hard object it may strike, and then it holds fast, never moving the jaws or the body; if its prey has any power of struggling left, it throws round another coil, without quitting the hold with the jaws; if Laocoon had had to do with real serpents, instead of pieces of tape with heads to them, he would have been held still, and not allowed to throw his arms or legs about. It is most instructive to observe the accuracy of Michael Angelo in the rendering of these cir- cumstances; the binding of the arms to the body, and the knotting of the whole mass of agony together, until we hear the crashing of the bones beneath the grisly sliding of the engine folds. Note also the expression in all the figures SCULPTURE. 285 of another circumstance, the torpor and cold numbness of the limbs induced by the serpent venom, which, though justifiably overlooked by the sculptor of the Laocoon, as well as by Virgil — in consideration of the rapidity of the death by crushing, adds infinitely to the power of the Florentine's conception, and would have been better hinted by Virgil, than that sickening dis- tribution of venom on the garlands. In fact, Virgil has missed both of truth and impressive- ness every way — the " morsu depascitur " is un- natural butchery — the " perfusus veneno " gra- tuitous foulness — the " clamores horrendos," impossible degradation; compare carefully the remarks on this statue in Sir Charles Bell's Es- say on Expression (third edition, p. 192), where he has most wisely and uncontrovertibly de- prived the statue of all claim to expression of energy and fortitude of mind, and shown its common and coarse intent of mere bodily exer- tion and agony, while he has confirmed Payne Knight's just condemnation of the passage in Virgil. If the reader wishes to see the opposite or imaginative view of the subject, let him compare Winkelmann; and Schiller, Letters on ^Esthetic Culture. Whenever, in monumental work, the sculptor reaches a deceptive appearance of life or death. 286 SCULPTURE. or of concomitant details, he has gone too far. The statue should be felt for such, not look like a dead or sleeping body; it should not convey the impression of a corpse, nor of sick and out- wearied flesh, but it should be the marble image of death or weariness. So the concomitants should be distinctly marble, severe and monu- mental in their lines, not shroud, not bedclothes, not actual armor nor brocade, not a real soft pillow, not a downright hard stuffed mattress, but the mere type and suggestion of these; a certain rudeness and incompletion of finish is very noble in all. Not that they are to be un- natural, such lines as are given should be pure and true, and clear of the hardness and man- nered rigidity of the strictly Gothic types, but lines so few and grand as to appeal to the imagi- nation only, and always to stop short of realiza- tion. There is a monument put up lately by a modern Italian sculptor in one of the side chapels of Santa Croce, the face fine and the execution dexterous. But it looks as if the per- son had been restless all night, and the artist admitted to a faithful study of the disturbed bedclothes in the morning. No herculean form is spiritual, for it is degrad- ing the spiritual creature to suppose it operative through impulse of bone and sinew; its power SCULPTURE. 287 is immaterial and constant, neither dependent on, nor developed^ by exertion. Generally, it is well to conceal anatomical development as far as may be; even Michael Angelo's anatomy inter- feres with his divinity; in the hands of lower men the angel becomes a preparation. How far it is possible to subdue or generalize the naked form I venture not to affirm, but I believe that it is best to conceal it as far as may be, not with draperies light and undulating, that fall in with, and exhibit its principal lines, but with draperies severe and linear, such as were constantly em- ployed before the time of Raffaelle. I recollect no single instance of a naked angel that does not look boylike or childlike, and unspiritualized; even Fra Bartolomeo's might with advantage be spared from the pictures at Lucca, and in the hands of inferior men, the sky is merely encum- bered with sprawling infants; those of Domeni- chino in the Madonna del Rosario, and Martyr- dom of St. Agnes, are peculiarly offensive, studies of bare-legged children howling and kicking in volumes of smoke. Confusion seems to exist in the minds of subsequent painters between Angels and Cupids. The sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but for the common observer of life and nature. Yet the sculptor is not, for this reason, permitted to be wanting either in knowledge or expression 2S8 SCULPTURE. of anatomical detail; and the more refined that expression can be rendered, the more perfect is his work. That which, to the anatomist, is the end, — is, to the sculptor, the means. The former desires details, for their own sake; the latter, that by means of them he may kindle his work with life, and stamp it with beauty. A colossal statue is necessarily no more an exaggeration of what it represents than a minia- ture is a diminution; it need not be a represen- tation of a giant, but a representation, on a large scale, of a man; only it is to be observed, that as any plane intersecting the cone of rays be- tween us and the object, must receive an image smaller than the object; a small image is ration- ally and completely expressive of a larger one; but not a large of a small one. Hence I think that all statues above the Elgin standard, or that of Michael Angelo's Night and Morning, are, in a measure, taken by the eye for represen- tations of giants. Michael Angelo was once commanded by Pietro di Medici to mould a statue out of snow, and he obeyed the command. I am glad, and we have all reason to be glad, that such a fancy ever came into the mind of the unworthy prince, and for this cause: that Pietro di Medici then gave, at the period of one great epoch of con' SCULPTURE. 2S9 summate power in the arts, the perfect, accurate, and intensest possible type of the greatest error which nations and princes can commit, respect- ing the power of genius entrusted to their guid- ance. You had there, observe, the strongest genius in the most perfect obedience; capable of iron independence, yet wholly submissive to the patron's will; at once the most highly ac- complished and the most original, capable of doing as much as man could do, in any direction that man could ask. And its governor, and guide, and patron sets it to build a statue in snow — to put itself into the service of annihila- tion — to make a cloud of itself, and pass away from the earth. Now this, so precisely and completely done by Pietro di Medici, is what we are all doing, exactly in the degree in which we direct the genius under our patronage to work in more or less perishable materials. So far as we induce painters to work in fading colors, or architects to build with imperfect structure, or in any other way consult only immediate ease and cheapness in the production of what we want, to the ex- clusion of provident thought as to its perma- nence and serviceableness in after ages, so far we are forcing our Michael Angelos to carve in snow. The first duty of the economist in art is, to see that no intellect shall thus glitter merely 29O SCULPTURE. in the manner of hoar-frost; but that it shall be well vitrified, like a painted window, and shall be set so between shafts of stone and bands of iron, that it shall bear the sunshine upon it, and send the sunshine through it from generation to generation. How are we to get our men of genius: that is to say, by what means may we produce among us, at any given time, the greatest quantity of effective art-intellect ? A wide question, you say, involving an account of all the best means of art education. Yes, but I do not mean to go into the consideration of those; I want only to state the few principles which lie at the founda- tion of the matter. Of these, the first is that you have always to find your artist, not to make him; you can't manufacture him, any more than you can manufacture gold. You can find him, and refine him: you dig him out as he lies nug- get-fashion in the mountain-stream; you bring him home; and you make him into current coin, or household plate, but not one grain of him can you originally produce. A certain quantity of art-intellect is born annually in every nation, greater or less according to the nature and cul- tivation of the nation, or race of men; but a perfectly fixed quantity annually, not increasable by one grain. You may lose it, or you may gather it; you may let it lie loose in the ravine, SCULPTURE. 29I and buried in the sands, or you may make kings' thrones of it, and overlay temple gates with it, as you choose; but the best you can do with it is always merely sifting, melting, hammering, purify- ing — never creating. And there is another thing notable about this artistical gold; not only is it limited in quantity, but in use. You need not make thrones or golden gates with it unless you like, but assuredly you can't do anything else with it. You can't make knives of it, nor ar- mor, nor railroads. The gold won't cut you, and it won't carry you; put it to a mechanical use, and you destroy it at once. It is quite true that in the greatest artists, their proper, artistical faculty is united with every other; and you may make use of the other faculties, and let the ar- tistical one lie dormant. For aught I know there may be two or three Leonardo da Vincis employed at this moment in your harbors and railroads: but you are not employing their Leon- ardesque or golden faculty there, you are only oppressing and destroying it. And the artistical gift in average men is not joined with others; your born painter, if you don't make a painter of him, won't be a first-rate merchant, or lawyer; at all events, whatever he turns out, his own spe- cial gift is unemployed by you; and in no wise helps him in that other business. So here you have a certain quantity of a particular sort of in- 292 SCULPTURE. telligence, produced for you annually by provi- dential laws, which you can only make use of by setting it to its own proper work, and which any attempt to use otherwise involves the dead loss of so much human energy. I believe that much of the best artistical in- tellect is daily lost in other avocations. Gen- erally, the temper which would make an admir- able artist is humble and observant, capable of taking much interest in little things, and of en* tertaining itself pleasantly in the dullest circum- stances. Suppose, added to these characters, a steady conscientiousness which seeks to do its duty wherever it may be placed, and the power, denied to few artistical minds, of ingenious in- vention in almost any practical department of human skill, and it can hardly be doubted that the very humility and conscientiousness which would have perfected the painter, have in many instances prevented his becoming one; and that in the quiet life of our steady craftsmen — saga- cious manufacturers, and uncomplaining clerks — there may frequently be concealed more genius than ever is raised to the direction of our public works, or to be the mark of our public praises. Ornamentation is the principal part of archi- tecture, considered as a subject of fine art. Now observe. It will at once follow from this SCULPTURE. 293 principle, that a great architect must be a great sculptor or painter. This is a universal law. No person who is not a great sculptor or painter can be an archi- tect. If he is not a sculptor or painter, he can only be a builder. The three greatest architects hitherto known in the world were Phidias, Giotto, and Michael Angelo; with all of whom, archi- tecture was only their play, sculpture and paint- ing their work. All great works of architecture in existence are either the work of single sculp- tors or painters, or of societies of sculptors and painters, acting collectively for a series of years. A Gothic cathedral is properly to be defined as a piece of the most magnificent associative sculpture, arranged on the noblest principles of building, for the service and delight of multi- tudes; and the proper definition of architecture, as distinguished from sculpture, is merely " the art of designing sculpture for a particular place, and placing it there on the best principles of building." Hence it clearly follows, that in modern days we have no architects. The term " architecture " is not so much as understood by us. I am very sorry to be compelled to the discourtesy of stat- ing this fact, but a fact it is, and a fact which it is necessary to state strongly. University of California Library Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. newali -9188 JAN 3 1 2008 liilipi /V/\ 000 837 498 5