SIMPLICITY

No doubt one of the most charming creations in all poetry is Nausicaa,

the white-armed daughter of King Alcinous. There is no scene, no picture,

in the heroic times more pleasing than the meeting of Ulysses with this

damsel on the wild seashore of Scheria, where the Wanderer had been

tossed ashore by the tempest. The place of this classic meeting was

probably on the west coast of Corfu, that incomparable island, to whose

beauty the legend of the exquisite maidenhood of the daughter of the king

of the Phaeacians has added an immortal bloom.

We have no difficulty in recalling it in all its distinctness: the bright

morning on which Nausicaa came forth from the palace, where her mother

sat and turned the distaff loaded with a fleece dyed in sea-purple,

mounted the car piled with the robes to be cleansed in the stream, and,

attended by her bright-haired, laughing handmaidens, drove to the banks

of the river, where out of its sweet grasses it flowed over clean sand

into the Adriatic. The team is loosed to browse the grass; the garments

are flung into the dark water, then trampled with hasty feet in frolic

rivalry, and spread upon the gravel to dry. Then the maidens bathe, give

their limbs the delicate oil from the cruse of gold, sit by the stream

and eat their meal, and, refreshed, mistress and maidens lay aside their

veils and play at ball, and Nausicaa begins a song. Though all were fair,

like Diana was this spotless virgin midst her maids. A missed ball and

maidenly screams waken Ulysses from his sleep in the thicket. At the

apparition of the unclad, shipwrecked sailor the maidens flee right and

left. Nausicaa alone keeps her place, secure in her unconscious modesty.

To the astonished Sport of Fortune the vision of this radiant girl, in

shape and stature and in noble air, is more than mortal, yet scarcely

more than woman:

“Like thee, I saw of late,

In Delos, a young palm-tree growing up

Beside Apollo's altar.”

When the Wanderer has bathed, and been clad in robes from the pile on the

sand, and refreshed with food and wine which the hospitable maidens put

before him, the train sets out for the town, Ulysses following the

chariot among the bright-haired women. But before that Nausicaa, in the

candor of those early days, says to her attendants:

“I would that I might call

A man like him my husband, dwelling here

And here content to dwell.”

Is there any woman in history more to be desired than this sweet,

pure-minded, honest-hearted girl, as she is depicted with a few swift

touches by the great poet?--the dutiful daughter in her father's house,

the joyous companion of girls, the beautiful woman whose modest bearing

commands the instant homage of man. Nothing is more enduring in

literature than this girl and the scene on the--Corfu sands.

The sketch, though distinct, is slight, little more than outlines; no

elaboration, no analysis; just an incident, as real as the blue sky of

Scheria and the waves on the yellow sand. All the elements of the picture

are simple, human, natural, standing in as unconfused relations as any

events in common life. I am not recalling it because it is a conspicuous

instance of the true realism that is touched with the ideality of genius,

which is the immortal element in literature, but as an illustration of

the other necessary quality in all productions of the human mind that

remain age after age, and that is simplicity. This is the stamp of all

enduring work; this is what appeals to the universal understanding from

generation to generation. All the masterpieces that endure and become a

part of our lives are characterized by it. The eye, like the mind, hates

confusion and overcrowding. All the elements in beauty, grandeur, pathos,

are simple--as simple as the lines in a Nile picture: the strong river,

the yellow desert, the palms, the pyramids; hardly more than a horizontal

line and a perpendicular line; only there is the sky, the atmosphere, the

color-those need genius.

We may test contemporary literature by its confortuity to the canon of

simplicity--that is, if it has not that, we may conclude that it lacks

one essential lasting quality. It may please;--it may be ingenious

--brilliant, even; it may be the fashion of the day, and a fashion that

will hold its power of pleasing for half a century, but it will be a

fashion. Mannerisms of course will not deceive us, nor extravagances,

eccentricities, affectations, nor the straining after effect by the use

of coined or far-fetched words and prodigality in adjectives. But, style?

Yes, there is such a thing as style, good and bad; and the style should

be the writer's own and characteristic of him, as his speech is. But the

moment I admire a style for its own sake, a style that attracts my

attention so constantly that I say, How good that is! I begin to be

suspicious. If it is too good, too pronouncedly good, I fear I shall not

like it so well on a second reading. If it comes to stand between me and

the thought, or the personality behind the thought, I grow more and more

suspicious. Is the book a window, through which I am to see life? Then I

cannot have the glass too clear. Is it to affect me like a strain of

music? Then I am still more disturbed by any affectations. Is it to

produce the effect of a picture? Then I know I want the simplest harmony

of color. And I have learned that the most effective word-painting, as it

is called, is the simplest. This is true if it is a question only of

present enjoyment. But we may be sure that any piece of literature which

attracts only by some trick of style, however it may blaze up for a day

and startle the world with its flash, lacks the element of endurance. We

do not need much experience to tell us the difference between a lamp and

a Roman candle. Even in our day we have seen many reputations flare up,

illuminate the sky, and then go out in utter darkness. When we take a

proper historical perspective, we see that it is the universal, the

simple, that lasts.

I am not sure whether simplicity is a matter of nature or of cultivation.

Barbarous nature likes display, excessive ornament; and when we have

arrived at the nobly simple, the perfect proportion, we are always likely

to relapse into the confused and the complicated. The most cultivated

men, we know, are the simplest in manners, in taste, in their style. It

is a note of some of the purest modern writers that they avoid

comparisons, similes, and even too much use of metaphor. But the mass of

men are always relapsing into the tawdry and the over-ornamented. It is a

characteristic of youth, and it seems also to be a characteristic of

over-development. Literature, in any language, has no sooner arrived at

the highest vigor of simple expression than it begins to run into

prettiness, conceits, over-elaboration. This is a fact which may be

verified by studying different periods, from classic literature to our

own day.

It is the same with architecture. The classic Greek runs into the

excessive elaboration of the Roman period, the Gothic into the

flamboyant, and so on. We, have had several attacks of architectural

measles in this country, which have left the land spotted all over with

houses in bad taste. Instead of developing the colonial simplicity on

lines of dignity and harmony to modern use, we stuck on the

pseudo-classic, we broke out in the Mansard, we broke all up into the

whimsicalities of the so-called Queen Anne, without regard to climate or

comfort. The eye speedily tires of all these things. It is a positive

relief to look at an old colonial mansion, even if it is as plain as a

barn. What the eye demands is simple lines, proportion, harmony in mass,

dignity; above all, adaptation to use. And what we must have also is

individuality in house and in furniture; that makes the city, the

village, picturesque and interesting. The highest thing in architecture,

as in literature, is the development of individuality in simplicity.

Dress is a dangerous topic to meddle with. I myself like the attire of

the maidens of Scheria, though Nausicaa, we must note, was “clad

royally.” But climate cannot be disregarded, and the vestment that was so

fitting on a Greek girl whom I saw at the Second Cataract of the Nile

would scarcely be appropriate in New York. If the maidens of one of our

colleges for girls, say Vassar for illustration, habited like the

Phaeacian girls of Scheria, went down to the Hudson to cleanse the rich

robes of the house, and were surprised by the advent of a stranger from

the city, landing from a steamboat--a wandering broker, let us say, clad

in wide trousers, long topcoat, and a tall hat--I fancy that he would be

more astonished than Ulysses was at the bevy of girls that scattered at

his approach. It is not that women must be all things to all men, but

that their simplicity must conform to time and circumstance. What I do

not understand is that simplicity gets banished altogether, and that

fashion, on a dictation that no one can trace the origin of, makes that

lovely in the eyes of women today which will seem utterly abhorrent to

them tomorrow. There appears to be no line of taste running through the

changes. The only consolation to you, the woman of the moment, is that

while the costume your grandmother wore makes her, in the painting, a guy

in your eyes, the costume you wear will give your grandchildren the same

impression of you. And the satisfaction for you is the thought that the

latter raiment will be worse than the other two--that is to say, less

well suited to display the shape, station, and noble air which brought

Ulysses to his knees on the sands of Corfu.

Another reason why I say that I do not know whether simplicity belongs to

nature or art is that fashion is as strong to pervert and disfigure in

savage nations as it is in civilized. It runs to as much eccentricity in

hair-dressing and ornament in the costume of the jingling belles of

Nootka and the maidens of Nubia as in any court or coterie which we

aspire to imitate. The only difference is that remote and unsophisticated

communities are more constant to a style they once adopt. There are

isolated peasant communities in Europe who have kept for centuries the

most uncouth and inconvenient attire, while we have run through a dozen

variations in the art of attraction by dress, from the most puffed and

bulbous ballooning to the extreme of limpness and lankness. I can only

conclude that the civilized human being is a restless creature, whose

motives in regard to costumes are utterly unfathomable.

We need, however, to go a little further in this question of simplicity.

Nausicaa was “clad royally.” There was a distinction, then, between her

and her handmaidens. She was clad simply, according to her condition.

Taste does not by any means lead to uniformity. I have read of a commune

in which all the women dressed alike and unbecomingly, so as to

discourage all attempt to please or attract, or to give value to the

different accents of beauty. The end of those women was worse than the

beginning. Simplicity is not ugliness, nor poverty, nor barrenness, nor

necessarily plainness. What is simplicity for another may not be for you,

for your condition, your tastes, especially for your wants. It is a

personal question. You go beyond simplicity when you attempt to

appropriate more than your wants, your aspirations, whatever they are,

demand--that is, to appropriate for show, for ostentation, more than your

life can assimilate, can make thoroughly yours. There is no limit to what

you may have, if it is necessary for you, if it is not a superfluity to

you. What would be simplicity to you may be superfluity to another. The

rich robes that Nausicaa wore she wore like a goddess. The moment your

dress, your house, your house-grounds, your furniture, your scale of

living, are beyond the rational satisfaction of your own desires--that

is, are for ostentation, for imposition upon the public--they are

superfluous, the line of simplicity is passed. Every human being has a

right to whatever can best feed his life, satisfy his legitimate desires,

contribute to the growth of his soul. It is not for me to judge whether

this is luxury or want. There is no merit in riches nor in poverty. There

is merit in that simplicity of life which seeks to grasp no more than is

necessary for the development and enjoyment of the individual. Most of

us, in all conditions; are weighted down with superfluities or worried to

acquire them. Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just

baggage enough.

The needs of every person differ from the needs of every other; we can

make no standard for wants or possessions. But the world would be greatly

transformed and much more easy to live in if everybody limited his

acquisitions to his ability to assimilate them to his life. The

destruction of simplicity is a craving for things, not because we need

them, but because others have them. Because one man who lives in a plain

little house, in all the restrictions of mean surroundings, would be

happier in a mansion suited to his taste and his wants, is no argument

that another man, living in a palace, in useless ostentation, would not

be better off in a dwelling which conforms to his cultivation and habits.

It is so hard to learn the lesson that there is no satisfaction in

gaining more than we personally want.

The matter of simplicity, then, comes into literary style, into building,

into dress, into life, individualized always by one's personality. In

each we aim at the expression of the best that is in us, not at imitation

or ostentation.

The women in history, in legend, in poetry, whom we love, we do not love

because they are “clad royally.” In our day, to be clad royally is

scarcely a distinction. To have a superfluity is not a distinction. But

in those moments when we have a clear vision of life, that which seems to

us most admirable and desirable is the simplicity that endears to us the

idyl of Nausicaa.