In taking up the clue of an inquiry, now intermitted for nearly ten
years, it may be well to do as a traveller would, who had to
recommence an interrupted journey in a guideless country; and,
ascending, as it were, some little hill beside our road, note how far
we have already advanced, and what pleasantest ways we may choose for
farther progress.
I endeavoured, in the beginning of the first volume, to divide the
sources of pleasure open to us in Art into certain groups, which might
conveniently be studied in succession. After some preliminary
discussion, it was concluded that these groups were, in the main,
three; consisting, first, of the pleasures taken in perceiving simple
resemblance to Nature (Ideas of Truth); secondly, of the pleasures
taken in the beauty of the things chosen to be painted (Ideas of
Beauty); and, lastly, of pleasures taken in the meanings and relations
of these things (Ideas of Relation).
The first volume, treating of the ideas of Truth, was chiefly occupied
with an inquiry into the various success with which different artists
had represented the facts of Nature,--an inquiry necessarily conducted
very imperfectly, owing to the want of pictorial illustration.
The second volume merely opened the inquiry into the nature of ideas
of Beauty and Relation, by analysing (as far as I was able to do so)
the two faculties of the human mind which mainly seized such ideas;
namely, the contemplative and imaginative faculties.
It remains for us to examine the various success of artists,
especially of the great landscape-painter whose works have been
throughout our principal subject, in addressing these faculties of the
human mind, and to consider who among them has conveyed the noblest
ideas of beauty, and touched the deepest sources of thought.
I do not intend, however, now to pursue the inquiry in a method so
laboriously systematic; for the subject may, it seems to me, be more
usefully treated by pursuing the different questions which rise out of
it just as they occur to us, without too great scrupulousness in
marking connections, or insisting on sequences. Much time is wasted by
human beings, in general, on establishment of systems; and it often
takes more labour to master the intricacies of an artificial
connection, than to remember the separate facts which are so carefully
connected. I suspect that system-makers, in general, are not of much
more use, each in his own domain, than, in that of Pomona, the old
women who tie cherries upon sticks, for the more convenient
portableness of the same. To cultivate well, and choose well, your
cherries, is of some importance; but if they can be had in their own
wild way of clustering about their crabbed stalk, it is a better
connection for them than any other; and, if they cannot, then, so that
they be not bruised, it makes to a boy of a practical disposition not
much difference whether he gets them by handfuls, or in beaded
symmetry on the exalting stick. I purpose, therefore, henceforward to
trouble myself little with sticks or twine, but to arrange my chapters
with a view to convenient reference, rather than to any careful
division of subjects, and to follow out, in any by-ways that may open,
on right hand or left, whatever question it seems useful at any moment
to settle.
And, in the outset, I find myself met by one which I ought to have
touched upon before--one of especial interest in the present state of
the Arts. I have said that the art is greatest which includes the
greatest ideas; but I have not endeavoured to define the nature of
this greatness in the ideas themselves. We speak of great truths, of
great beauties, great thoughts. What is it which makes one truth
greater than another, one thought greater than another? This question
is, I repeat, of peculiar importance at the present time; for, during
a period now of some hundred and fifty years, all writers on Art who
have pretended to eminence, have insisted much on a supposed
distinction between what they call the Great and the Low Schools;
using the terms "High Art," "Great or Ideal Style," and other such, as
descriptive of a certain noble manner of painting, which it was
desirable that all students of Art should be early led to reverence
and adopt; and characterizing as "vulgar," or "low," or "realist,"
another manner of painting and conceiving, which it was equally
necessary that all students should be taught to avoid.
But lately this established teaching, never very intelligible, has
been gravely called in question. The advocates and self-supposed
practisers of "High Art" are beginning to be looked upon with doubt,
and their peculiar phraseology to be treated with even a certain
degree of ridicule. And other forms of Art are partly developed among
us, which do not pretend to be high, but rather to be strong, healthy,
and humble. This matter of "highness" in Art, therefore, deserves our
most careful consideration. Has it been, or is it, a true highness, a
true princeliness, or only a show of it, consisting in courtly manners
and robes of state? Is it rocky height or cloudy height, adamant or
vapour, on which the sun of praise so long has risen and set? It will
be well at once to consider this.
And first, let us get, as quickly as may be, at the exact meaning with
which the advocates of "High Art" use that somewhat obscure and
figurative term.
I do not know that the principles in question are anywhere more
distinctly expressed than in two papers in the _Idler_, written by Sir
Joshua Reynolds, of course under the immediate sanction of Johnson;
and which may thus be considered as the utterance of the views then
held upon the subject by the artists of chief skill, and critics of
most sense, arranged in a form so brief and clear as to admit of their
being brought before the public for a morning's entertainment. I
cannot, therefore, it seems to me, do better than quote these two
letters, or at least the important parts of them, examining the exact
meaning of each passage as it occurs. There are, in all, in the
_Idler_ three letters on painting, Nos. 76, 79, and 82; of these,
the first is directed only against the impertinences of pretended
connoisseurs, and is as notable for its faithfulness as for its wit in
the description of the several modes of criticism in an artificial and
ignorant state of society: it is only, therefore, in the two last
papers that we find the expression of the doctrines which it is our
business to examine.
No. 79 (Saturday, October 20, 1759) begins, after a short preamble,
with the following passage:--
"Amongst the Painters, and the writers on Painting, there is one maxim
universally admitted and continually inculcated. _Imitate nature_
is the invariable rule; but I know none who have explained in what
manner this rule is to be understood; the consequence of which is,
that everyone takes it in the most obvious sense--that objects are
represented naturally, when they have such relief that they seem real.
It may appear strange, perhaps, to hear this sense of the rule
disputed; but it must be considered, that, if the excellency of a
Painter consisted only in this kind of imitation, Painting must lose
its rank, and be no longer considered as a liberal art, and sister to
Poetry: this imitation being merely mechanical, in which the slowest
intellect is always sure to succeed best; for the Painter of genius
cannot stoop to drudgery, in which the understanding has no part; and
what pretence has the Art to claim kindred with Poetry but by its
power over the imagination? To this power the Painter of genius
directs him; in this sense he studies Nature, and often arrives at his
end, even by being unnatural in the confined sense of the word.
"The grand style of Painting requires this minute attention to be
carefully avoided, and must be kept as separate from it as the style
of Poetry from that of History. (Poetical ornaments destroy that air
of truth and plainness which ought to characterize History; but the
very being of Poetry consists in departing from this plain narrative,
and adopting every ornament that will warm the imagination.)[36] To
desire to see the excellences of each style united--to mingle the
Dutch with the Italian school, is to join contrarieties which cannot
subsist together, and which destroy the efficacy of each other."
We find, first, from this interesting passage, that the writer
considers the Dutch and Italian masters as severally representative of
the low and high schools; next, that he considers the Dutch painters
as excelling in a mechanical imitation, "in which the slowest
intellect is always sure to succeed best"; and, thirdly, that he
considers the Italian painters as excelling in a style which
corresponds to that of imaginative poetry in literature, and which has
an exclusive right to be called the grand style.
I wish that it were in my power entirely to concur with the writer,
and to enforce this opinion thus distinctly stated. I have never been
a zealous partisan of the Dutch School, and should rejoice in claiming
Reynolds's authority for the assertion, that their manner was one "in
which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best." But
before his authority can be so claimed, we must observe exactly the
meaning of the assertion itself, and separate it from the company of
some others not perhaps so admissible. First, I say, we must observe
Reynolds's exact meaning, for (though the assertion may at first
appear singular) a man who uses accurate language is always more
liable to misinterpretation than one who is careless in his
expressions. We may assume that the latter means very nearly what we
at first suppose him to mean, for words which have been uttered
without thought may be received without examination. But when a writer
or speaker may be fairly supposed to have considered his expressions
carefully, and, after having revolved a number of terms in his mind,
to have chosen the one which _exactly_ means the thing he intends
to say, we may be assured that what costs him time to select, will
require from us time to understand, and that we shall do him wrong,
unless we pause to reflect how the word which he has actually employed
differs from other words which it seems he _might_ have employed.
It thus constantly happens that persons themselves unaccustomed to
think clearly, or speak correctly, misunderstand a logical and careful
writer, and are actually in more danger of being misled by language
which is measured and precise, than by that which is loose and
inaccurate.
Now, in the instance before us, a person not accustomed to good
writing might very rashly conclude that when Reynolds spoke of the
Dutch School as one "in which the slowest intellect was sure to
succeed best," he meant to say that every successful Dutch painter was
a fool. We have no right to take his assertion in that sense. He says,
the _slowest_ intellect. We have no right to assume that he meant
the _weakest_. For it is true, that in order to succeed in the
Dutch style, a man has need of qualities of mind eminently deliberate
and sustained. He must be possessed of patience rather than of power;
and must feel no weariness in contemplating the expression of a single
thought for several months together. As opposed to the changeful
energies of the imagination, these mental characters may be properly
spoken of as under the general term--slowness of intellect. But it by
no means follows that they are necessarily those of weak or foolish
men.
We observe, however, farther, that the imitation which Reynolds
supposes to be characteristic of the Dutch School is that which gives
to objects such relief that they seem real, and that he then speaks of
this art of realistic imitation as corresponding to _history_ in
literature.
Reynolds, therefore, seems to class these dull works of the Dutch
School under a general head, to which they are not commonly
referred--that of _historical_ painting; while he speaks of the works
of the Italian School not as historical, but as _poetical_ painting.
His next sentence will farther manifest his meaning.
"The Italian attends only to the invariable, the great and general
ideas which are fixed and inherent in universal Nature; the Dutch, on
the contrary, to literal truth and a minute exactness in the detail,
as I may say, of Nature modified by accident. The attention to these
petty peculiarities is the very cause of this naturalness so much
admired in the Dutch pictures, which, if we suppose it to be a beauty,
is certainly of a lower order, which ought to give place to a beauty
of a superior kind, since one cannot be obtained but by departing from
the other.
"If my opinion was asked concerning the works of Michael Angelo,
whether they would receive any advantage from possessing this
mechanical merit, I should not scruple to say, they would not only
receive no advantage, but would lose, in a great measure, the effect
which they now have on every mind susceptible of great and noble
ideas. His works may be said to be all genius and soul; and why should
they be loaded with heavy matter, which can only counteract his
purpose by retarding the progress of the imagination?"
Examining carefully this and the preceding passage, we find the
author's unmistakable meaning to be, that Dutch painting is _history_;
attending to literal truth and "minute exactness in the details of
nature modified by accident." That Italian painting is _poetry_,
attending only to the invariable; and that works which attend only to
the invariable are full of genius and soul; but that literal truth and
exact detail are "heavy matter which retards the progress of the
imagination."
This being then indisputably what Reynolds means to tell us, let us
think a little whether he is in all respects right. And first, as he
compares his two kinds of painting to history and poetry, let us see
how poetry and history themselves differ, in their use of _variable_
and _invariable_ details. I am writing at a window which commands a
view of the head of the Lake of Geneva; and as I look up from my
paper, to consider this point, I see, beyond it, a blue breadth of
softly moving water, and the outline of the mountains above Chillon,
bathed in morning mist. The first verses which naturally come into my
mind are--
A thousand feet in depth below
The massy waters meet and flow;
So far the fathom line was sent
From Chillon's snow-white battlement.[37]
Let us see in what manner this poetical statement is distinguished
from a historical one.
It is distinguished from a truly historical statement, first, in being
simply false. The water under the Castle of Chillon is not a thousand
feet deep, nor anything like it.[38] Herein, certainly, these lines
fulfil Reynolds's first requirement in poetry, "that it should be
inattentive to literal truth and minute exactness in detail." In
order, however, to make our comparison more closely in other points,
let us assume that what is stated is indeed a fact, and that it was to
be recorded, first historically, and then poetically.
Historically stating it, then, we should say: "The lake was sounded
from the walls of the Castle of Chillon, and found to be a thousand
feet deep."
Now, if Reynolds be right in his idea of the difference between
history and poetry, we shall find that Byron leaves out of this
statement certain _un_necessary details, and retains only the
invariable,--that is to say, the points which the Lake of Geneva and
Castle of Chillon have in common with all other lakes and castles.
Let us hear, therefore.
A thousand feet in depth below.
"Below"? Here is, at all events, a word added (instead of anything
being taken away); invariable, certainly in the case of lakes, but not
absolutely necessary.
The massy waters meet and flow.
"Massy"! why massy? Because deep water is heavy. The word is a good
word, but it is assuredly an added detail, and expresses a character,
not which the Lake of Geneva has in common with all other lakes, but
which it has in distinction from those which are narrow, or shallow.
"Meet and flow." Why meet and flow? Partly to make up a rhyme; partly
to tell us that the waters are forceful as well as massy, and
changeful as well as deep. Observe, a farther addition of details, and
of details more or less peculiar to the spot, or, according to
Reynolds's definition, of "heavy matter, retarding the progress of the
imagination."
So far the fathom line was sent.
Why fathom line? All lines for sounding are not fathom lines. If the
lake was ever sounded from Chillon, it was probably sounded in mètres,
not fathoms. This is an addition of another particular detail, in
which the only compliance with Reynolds's requirement is, that there
is some chance of its being an inaccurate one.
From Chillon's snow-white battlement.
Why snow-white? Because castle battlements are not usually snow-white.
This is another added detail, and a detail quite peculiar to Chillon,
and therefore exactly the most striking word in the whole passage.
"Battlement"! Why battlement? Because all walls have not battlements,
and the addition of the term marks the castle to be not merely a
prison, but a fortress.
This is a curious result. Instead of finding, as we expected, the
poetry distinguished from the history by the omission of details, we
find it consist entirely in the _addition_ of details; and instead of
being characterized by regard only of the invariable, we find its
whole power to consist in the clear expression of what is singular and
particular!
The reader may pursue the investigation for himself in other
instances. He will find in every case that a poetical is distinguished
from a merely historical statement, not by being more vague, but more
specific; and it might, therefore, at first appear that our author's
comparison should be simply reversed, and that the Dutch School should
be called poetical, and the Italian historical. But the term poetical
does not appear very applicable to the generality of Dutch painting;
and a little reflection will show us, that if the Italians represent
only the invariable, they cannot be properly compared even to
historians. For that which is incapable of change has no history, and
records which state only the invariable need not be written, and could
not be read.
It is evident, therefore, that our author has entangled himself in
some grave fallacy, by introducing this idea of invariableness as
forming a distinction between poetical and historical art. What the
fallacy is, we shall discover as we proceed; but as an invading army
should not leave an untaken fortress in its rear, we must not go on
with our inquiry into the views of Reynolds until we have settled
satisfactorily the question already suggested to us, in what the
essence of poetical treatment really consists. For though, as we have
seen, it certainly involves the addition of specific details, it
cannot be simply that addition which turns the history into poetry.
For it is perfectly possible to add any number of details to a
historical statement, and to make it more prosaic with every added
word. As, for instance, "The lake was sounded out of a flat-bottomed
boat, near the crab-tree at the corner of the kitchen-garden, and was
found to be a thousand feet nine inches deep, with a muddy bottom." It
thus appears that it is not the multiplication of details which
constitutes poetry; nor their subtraction which constitutes history,
but that there must be something either in the nature of the details
themselves, or the method of using them, which invests them with
poetical power or historical propriety.
It seems to me, and may seem to the reader, strange that we should
need to ask the question, "What is poetry?" Here is a word we have
been using all our lives, and, I suppose, with a very distinct idea
attached to it; and when I am now called upon to give a definition of
this idea, I find myself at a pause. What is more singular, I do not
at present recollect hearing the question often asked, though surely
it is a very natural one; and I never recollect hearing it answered,
or even attempted to be answered. In general, people shelter
themselves under metaphors, and while we hear poetry described as an
utterance of the soul, an effusion of Divinity, or voice of nature, or
in other terms equally elevated and obscure, we never attain anything
like a definite explanation of the character which actually
distinguishes it from prose.
I come, after some embarrassment, to the conclusion, that poetry is
"the suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble
emotions."[39] I mean, by the noble emotions, those four principal
sacred passions--Love, Veneration, Admiration, and Joy (this latter
especially, if unselfish); and their opposites--Hatred, Indignation
(or Scorn), Horror, and Grief,--this last, when unselfish, becoming
Compassion. These passions in their various combinations constitute
what is called "poetical feeling," when they are felt on noble
grounds, that is, on great and true grounds. Indignation, for
instance, is a poetical feeling, if excited by serious injury; but it
is not a poetical feeling if entertained on being cheated out of a
small sum of money. It is very possible the manner of the cheat may
have been such as to justify considerable indignation; but the feeling
is nevertheless not poetical unless the grounds of it be large as well
as just. In like manner, energetic admiration may be excited in
certain minds by a display of fireworks, or a street of handsome
shops; but the feeling is not poetical, because the grounds of it are
false, and therefore ignoble. There is in reality nothing to deserve
admiration either in the firing of packets of gunpowder, or in the
display of the stocks of warehouses. But admiration excited by the
budding of a flower is a poetical feeling, because it is impossible
that this manifestation of spiritual power and vital beauty can ever
be enough admired.
Farther, it is necessary to the existence of poetry that the grounds
of these feelings should be _furnished by the imagination_. Poetical
feeling, that is to say, mere noble emotion, is not poetry. It is
happily inherent in all human nature deserving the name, and is found
often to be purest in the least sophisticated. But the power of
assembling, by _the help of the imagination_, such images as will
excite these feelings, is the power of the poet or literally of the
"Maker."[40]
Now this power of exciting the emotions depends of course on the
richness of the imagination, and on its choice of those images which,
in combination, will be most effective, or, for the particular work to
be done, most fit. And it is altogether impossible for a writer not
endowed with invention to conceive what tools a true poet will make
use of, or in what way he will apply them, or what unexpected results
he will bring out by them; so that it is vain to say that the details
of poetry ought to possess, or ever do possess, any _definite_
character. Generally speaking, poetry runs into finer and more
delicate details than prose; but the details are not poetical because
they are more delicate, but because they are employed so as to bring
out an affecting result. For instance, no one but a true poet would
have thought of exciting our pity for a bereaved father by describing
his way of locking the door of his house:
Perhaps to himself at that moment he said,
The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead;
But of this in my ears not a word did he speak;
And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.[41]
In like manner, in painting, it is altogether impossible to say
beforehand what details a great painter may make poetical by his use
of them to excite noble emotions: and we shall, therefore, find
presently that a painting is to be classed in the great or inferior
schools, not according to the kind of details which it represents, but
according to the uses for which it employs them.
It is only farther to be noticed, that infinite confusion has been
introduced into this subject by the careless and illogical custom of
opposing painting to poetry, instead of regarding poetry as consisting
in a noble use, whether of colours or words. Painting is properly to
be opposed to _speaking_ or _writing_, but not to _poetry_. Both
painting and speaking are methods of expression. Poetry is the
employment of either for the noblest purposes.
This question being thus far determined, we may proceed with our paper
in the _Idler_.
"It is very difficult to determine the exact degree of enthusiasm that
the arts of Painting and Poetry may admit. There may, perhaps, be too
great indulgence as well as too great a restraint of imagination; if
the one produces incoherent monsters, the other produces what is full
as bad, lifeless insipidity. An intimate knowledge of the passions,
and good sense, but not common sense, must at last determine its
limits. It has been thought, and I believe with reason, that Michael
Angelo sometimes transgressed those limits; and, I think, I have seen
figures of him of which it was very difficult to determine whether
they were in the highest degree sublime or extremely ridiculous. Such
faults may be said to be the ebullitions of genius; but at least he
had this merit, that he never was insipid; and whatever passion his
works may excite, they will always escape contempt.
"What I have had under consideration is the sublimest style,
particularly that of Michael Angelo, the Homer of painting. Other
kinds may admit of this naturalness, which of the lowest kind is the
chief merit; but in painting, as in poetry, the highest style has the
least of common nature."
From this passage we gather three important indications of the
supposed nature of the Great Style. That it is the work of men in a
state of enthusiasm. That it is like the writing of Homer; and that it
has as little as possible of "common nature" in it.
First, it is produced by men in a state of enthusiasm. That is, by men
who feel _strongly_ and _nobly_; for we do not call a strong feeling
of envy, jealousy, or ambition, enthusiasm. That is, therefore, by men
who feel poetically. This much we may admit, I think, with perfect
safety. Great art is produced by men who feel acutely and nobly; and
it is in some sort an expression of this personal feeling. We can
easily conceive that there may be a sufficiently marked distinction
between such art, and that which is produced by men who do not feel at
all, but who reproduce, though ever so accurately, yet coldly, like
human mirrors, the scenes which pass before their eyes.
Secondly, Great Art is like the writing of Homer, and this chiefly
because it has little of "common nature" in it. We are not clearly
informed what is meant by common nature in this passage. Homer seems
to describe a great deal of what is common:--cookery, for instance,
very carefully in all its processes.[42] I suppose the passage in the
_Iliad_ which, on the whole, has excited most admiration, is that
which describes a wife's sorrow at parting from her husband, and a
child's fright at its father's helmet;[43] and I hope, at least, the
former feeling may be considered "common nature." But the true
greatness of Homer's style is, doubtless, held by our author to
consist in his imaginations of things not only uncommon but impossible
(such as spirits in brazen armour, or monsters with heads of men and
bodies of beasts), and in his occasional delineations of the human
character and form in their utmost, or heroic, strength and beauty. We
gather then on the whole, that a painter in the Great Style must be
enthusiastic, or full of emotion, and must paint the human form in its
utmost strength and beauty, and perhaps certain impossible forms
besides, liable by persons not in an equally enthusiastic state of
mind to be looked upon as in some degree absurd. This I presume to be
Reynolds's meaning, and to be all that he intends us to gather from
his comparison of the Great Style with the writings of Homer. But if
that comparison be a just one in all respects, surely two other
corollaries ought to be drawn from it, namely,--first, that these
Heroic or Impossible images are to be mingled with others very
unheroic and very possible; and, secondly, that in the representation
of the Heroic or Impossible forms, the greatest care must be taken in
_finishing the details_, so that a painter must not be satisfied with
painting well the countenance and the body of his hero, but ought to
spend the greatest part of his time (as Homer the greatest number of
verses) in elaborating the sculptured pattern on his shield.
Let us, however, proceed with our paper.
"One may very safely recommend a little more enthusiasm to the modern
Painters; too much is certainly not the vice of the present age. The
Italians seem to have been continually declining in this respect, from
the time of Michael Angelo to that of Carlo Maratti,[44] and from
thence to the very bathos of insipidity to which they are now sunk; so
that there is no need of remarking, that where I mentioned the Italian
painters in opposition to the Dutch, I mean not the moderns, but the
heads of the old Roman and Bolognian schools; nor did I mean to
include, in my idea of an Italian painter, the Venetian school, _which
may be said to be the Dutch part of the Italian genius_. I have only
to add a word of advice to the Painters,--that, however excellent they
may be in painting naturally, they would not flatter themselves very
much upon it; and to the Connoisseurs, that when they see a cat or a
fiddle painted so finely, that, as the phrase is, it looks as if you
could take it up, they would not for that reason immediately compare
the Painter to Raffaelle and Michael Angelo."
In this passage there are four points chiefly to be remarked. The
first, that in the year 1759 the Italian painters were, in our
author's opinion, sunk in the very bathos of insipidity. The second,
that the Venetian painters, _i.e._ Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese,
are, in our author's opinion, to be classed with the Dutch; that is to
say, are painters in a style "in which the slowest intellect is always
sure to succeed best." Thirdly, that painting naturally is not a
difficult thing, nor one on which a painter should pride himself. And,
finally, that connoisseurs, seeing a cat or a fiddle successfully
painted, ought not therefore immediately to compare the painter to
Raphael or Michael Angelo.
Yet Raphael painted fiddles very carefully in the foreground of his
St. Cecilia,--so carefully, that they quite look as if they might be
taken up. So carefully, that I never yet looked at the picture without
wishing that somebody _would_ take them up, and out of the way. And I
am under a very strong persuasion that Raphael did not think painting
"naturally" an easy thing. It will be well to examine into this point
a little; and for the present, with the reader's permission, we will
pass over the first two statements in this passage (touching the
character of Italian art in 1759, and of Venetian art in general), and
immediately examine some of the evidence existing as to the real
dignity of "natural" painting--that is to say, of painting carried to
the point at which it reaches a deceptive appearance of reality.
[35] The full title of this chapter is "Of the Received Opinions
touching the 'Grand Style.'"
[36] I have put this sentence in a parenthesis, because it is
inconsistent with the rest of the statement, and with the general
teaching of the paper; since that which "attends only to the
invariable" cannot certainly adopt "every ornament that will warm
the imagination." [Ruskin.]
[37] Stanza 6 of Byron's _Prisoner of Chillon_, quoted with a slight
inaccuracy.
[38] "Messrs. Mallet and Pictet, being on the lake, in front of the
Castle of Chillon, on August 6, 1774, sunk a thermometer to the
depth of 312 feet." ... --SAUSSURE, _Voyages dans les Alpes_, chap.
ii, § 33. It appears from the next paragraph, that the thermometer
was at the bottom of the lake. [Ruskin, altered.]
[39] Ruskin later wrote: "It leaves out rhythm, which I now consider
a defect in said definition; otherwise good."
[40] Take, for instance, the beautiful stanza in the _Affliction of
Margaret_:
I look for ghosts, but none will force
Their way to me. 'T is falsely said
That ever there was intercourse
Between the living and the dead;
For, surely, then, I should have sight
Of him I wait for, day and night.
With love and longing infinite.
This we call Poetry, because it is invented or _made_ by the writer,
entering into the mind of a supposed person. Next, take an instance
of the actual feeling truly experienced and simply expressed by a
real person.
"Nothing surprised me more than a woman of Argentière, whose
cottage I went into to ask for milk, as I came down from the
glacier of Argentière, in the month of March, 1764. An epidemic
dysentery had prevailed in the village, and, a few months before,
had taken away from her, her father, her husband, and her
brothers, so that she was left alone, with three children in the
cradle. Her face had something noble in it, and its expression
bore the seal of a calm and profound sorrow. After having given me
milk, she asked me whence I came, and what I came there to do, so
early in the year. When she knew that I was of Geneva, she said to
me, 'she could not believe that all Protestants were lost souls;
that there were many honest people among us, and that God was too
good and too great to condemn all without distinction.' Then,
after a moment of reflection, she added, in shaking her head, 'But
that which is very strange is that of so many who have gone away,
none have ever returned. I,' she added, with an expression of
grief, 'who have so mourned my husband and my brothers, who have
never ceased to think of them, who every night conjure them with
beseechings to tell me where they are, and in what state they are!
Ah, surely, if they lived anywhere, they would not leave me thus!
But, perhaps,' she added, 'I am not worthy of this kindness,
perhaps the pure and innocent spirits of these children,' and she
looked at the cradle, 'may have their presence, and the joy which
is denied to _me_.'"--SAUSSURE, _Voyages dans les Alpes_, chap.
xxiv.
This we do not call Poetry, merely because it is not invented, but
the true utterance of a real person. [Ruskin.]
[41] The closing lines of Wordsworth's _Childless Father_.
[42] _Iliad_, 1. 463 ff., 2. 425 ff.; _Odyssey_, 3. 455 ff., etc.
[43] _Iliad_, 6. 468 ff.
[44] 1625-1713. Known also as Carlo delle Madonne.