Masterpieces, then, will serve us as prophylactics of taste, even
from childhood; and will help us, further, to interpret the
common mind of civilisation. But they have a third and yet nobler
use. They teach us to lift our own souls.
For witness to this and to the way of it I am going to call an
old writer for whom, be it whim or not, I have an almost 18th
century reverence--Longinus. No one exactly knows who he was;
although it is usual to identify him with that Longinus who
philosophised in the court of the Queen Zenobia and was by her,
in her downfall, handed over with her other counsellors to be
executed by Aurelian: though again, as is usual, certain bold bad
men affirm that, whether he was this Longinus or not, the
treatise of which I speak was not written by any Longinus at all
but by someone with a different name, with which they are
unacquainted. Be this as it may, somebody wrote the treatise and
its first editor, Francis Robertello of Basle, in 1554 called him
Dionysius Longinus; and so shall I, and have done with it,
careless that other MSS than that used by Robertello speak of
Dionysius or Longinus. Dionysius Longinus, then, in the 3rd
century A.D.--some say in the 1st: it is no great matter--wrote a
little book [Greek: PERI UPSOUS] commonly cited as "Longinus on
the Sublime." The title is handy, but quite misleading, unless
you remember that by 'Sublimity' Longinus meant, as he expressly
defines it, 'a certain distinction and excellence in speech.' The
book, thus recovered, had great authority with critics of the
17th and 18th centuries. For the last hundred years it has quite
undeservedly gone out of vogue.
It is (I admit) a puzzling book, though quite clear in argument
and language: pellucidly clear, but here and there strangely
modern, even hauntingly modern, if the phrase may be allowed. You
find yourself rubbing your eyes over a passage more like Matthew
Arnold than something of the 3rd century: or you come without
warning on a few lines of 'comparative criticism,' as we call it
--an illustration from Genesis--'God said, Let there be Light,
and there was Light' used for a specimen of the exalted way of
saying things. Generally, you have a sense that this author's
lineage is mysterious after the fashion of Melchisedek's.
Well, to our point--Longinus finds that the conditions of lofty
utterance are five: of which the first is by far the most
important. And this foremost condition is innate: you either have
it or you have not. Here it is:
'Elsewhere,' says Longinus, 'I have written as follows:
_"Sublimity is the echo of a great soul."_ Hence even a bare
idea sometimes, by itself and without a spoken word will
excite admiration, just because of the greatness of soul
implied. Thus the silence of Ajax in the underworld is great
and more sublime than words.'
You remember the passage, how Odysseus meets that great spirit
among the shades and would placate it, would 'make up' their
quarrel on earth now, with carneying words:
'Ajax, son of noble Telamon, wilt thou not then, even in
death forget thine anger against me over that cursed
armour.... Nay, there is none other to blame but Zeus: he
laid thy doom on thee. Nay, come hither, O my lord, and
hear me and master thine indignation:
So I spake, but he answered me not a word, but strode from
me into the Darkness, following the others of the dead that
be departed.
Longinus goes on:
It is by all means necessary to point this out--that the truly
eloquent must be free from base and ignoble (or ill-bred)
thoughts. For it is not possible that men who live their lives
with mean and servile aims and ideas should produce what is
admirable and worthy of immortality. Great accents we expect to
fall from the lips of those whose thoughts are dignified.
Believe this and it surely follows, as concave implies convex,
that by daily converse and association with these great ones we
take their breeding, their manners, earn their magnanimity, make
ours their gifts of courtesy, unselfishness, mansuetude, high
seated pride, scorn of pettiness, wholesome plentiful jovial
laughter.
He that of such a height hath built his mind,
And rear'd the dwelling of his soul so strong
As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
Of his resolvèd powers, nor all the wind
Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong
His settled peace, or to disturb the same;
What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey!
And with how free an eye doth he look down
Upon these lower regions of turmoil!
Where all the storms of passions mainly beat
On flesh and blood; where honour, power, renown,
Are only gay afflictions, golden toil;
Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet
As frailty doth; and only great doth seem
To little minds, who do it so esteem....
Knowing the heart of man is set to be
The centre of this world, about the which
These revolutions of disturbances
Still roll; where all th' aspects of misery
Predominate; whose strong effects are such
As he must bear, being powerless to redress;
And that, unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man![2]