rise to another sort of poems, differing from this one as contemplation
differs from desire. Society may be thought of as an object. The varied
scene of men,—their hopes, fears, anxieties, maxims, actions,—presents
a sight more interesting to man than any other which has ever existed,
or which can exist; and it may be viewed in all moods of mind, and with
the change of inward emotion as the external object seems to change: not
that it really does so, but that some sentiments are more favourable to
clear-sightedness than others are; and some bring before us one aspect
of the subject, and fix our attention upon it, others a different one,
and bind our minds to that likewise. Among the most remarkable of these
varied views is the world’s view of itself. The world, such as it is,
has made up its mind what it is. Childishly deceivable by charlatans
on every other subject,—imposed on by pedantry, by new and unfounded
science, by ancient and unfounded reputation, a prey to pomposity,
overrun with recondite fools, ignorant of all else,—society knows itself.
The world knows a man of the world. A certain tradition pervades it; a
_disciplina_ of the market-place teaches what the collective society of
men has ever been, and what, so long as the nature of man is the same, it
cannot and will not cease to be. Literature, the written expression of
human nature in every variety, takes up this variety likewise. Ancient
literature exhibits it from obvious causes in a more simple manner
than modern literature can. Those who are brought up in times like the
present necessarily hear a different set of opinions, fall in with
other words, are under the shadow of a higher creed. In consequence,
they cannot have the simple _naïveté_ of the old world; they cannot
speak with easy equanimity of the fugitiveness of life, the necessity of
death, of goodness as a mean, of sin as an extreme. The theory of the
universe has ceased to be an open question. Still the spirit of Horace
is alive, and as potent as that of any man. His tone is that of prime
ministers; his easy philosophy is that of courts and parliaments; you
may hear his words where no other foreign words are ever heard. He is
but the extreme and perfect type of a whole class of writers, some of
whom exist in every literary age, and who give an expression to what we
may call the poetry of equanimity, that is, the world’s view of itself;
its self-satisfaction, its conviction that you must bear what comes,
not hope for much, think _some_ evil, never be excited, admire little,
and then you will be at peace. This creed does not sound attractive in
description. Nothing, it has been said, is so easy as to be ‘religious
on paper:’ on the other hand, it is rather difficult to be worldly in
speculation; the mind of man, when its daily maxims are put before
it, revolts from anything so stupid, so mean, so poor. It requires a
consummate art to reconcile men in print to that moderate and insidious
philosophy which creeps into all hearts, colours all speech, influences
all action. We may not stiffen common sense into a creed; our very
ambition forbids:—
‘It hears a voice within us tell
Calm’s not life’s crown, though calm is well:
’Tis all perhaps which man acquires;
But ’tis not what our youth desires.’
Still a great artist may succeed in making ‘calm’ interesting. Equanimity
has its place in literature; the poetry of equipoise is possible. Poems
of society have, thus, two divisions: that which we mentioned first,
the expression of the feelings which are called out by the accidents
of society; next, the harmonised expression of that philosophy of
indifference with which the world regards the fortunes of individuals and
its own.
We have said that no modern nation can produce literature embodying
this kind of cool reflection and delineation as it was once produced.
By way of compensation, however, it may be, it no doubt is, easier now
to produce the lyrical kind of poems of society—the light expression
of its light emotions—than it was in ancient times. Society itself is
better. There is something hard in Paganism, which is always felt even
in the softest traits of the most delicate society in antiquity. The
social influence of women in modern times gives an interest, a little
pervading excitement, to social events. Civilisation, besides, has made
comfort possible; it has, at least in part, created a scene in which
society can be conducted. Its petty conveniences may or may not be
great benefits according to a recondite philosophy; but there can be
no doubt that for actual men and women in actual conversation it is of
the greatest importance that their feet should not be cold; that their
eyes and mouths should not be troubled with smoke; that sofas should be
good, and attractive chairs many. Modern times have the advantage of the
ancient in the scenery of flirtation. The little boy complained that you
could not find ‘drawing-room’ in the dictionary. Perhaps even because our
reflections are deeper, our inner life less purely pagan, our apparent
life is softer and easier. Some have said, that one reason why physical
science made so little progress in ancient times was, that people were in
doubt about more interesting things; men must have, it has been alleged,
a settled creed as to human life and human hopes, before they will
attend to shells and snails and pressure. And whether this be so or not,
perhaps a pleasant society is only possible to persons at ease as to what
is beyond society. Those only can lie on the grass who fear no volcano
underneath, and can bear to look at the blue vault above.
Among modern nations it is not difficult to say where we should look for
success in the art of social poetry. ‘Wherever,’ said Mr. Lewes the other
day, ‘the French go, they take what they call their civilisation—that
is, a _café_ and a theatre.’ And though this be a trifle severe, yet in
its essence its meaning is correct. The French have in some manner or
other put their mark on all the externals of European life. The essence
of every country remains little affected by their teaching; but in all
the superficial embellishments of society they have enjoined the fashion;
and the very language in which those embellishments are spoken of, shows
at once whence they were derived. Something of this is doubtless due to
the accidents of a central position, and an early and prolonged political
influence; but more to a certain neatness of nature, a certain finish of
the senses, which enables them more easily than others to touch lightly
the light things of society, to see the _comme-il-faut_. ‘I like,’ said a
good judge, ‘to hear a Frenchman talk; he strikes a light.’ On a hundred
topics he gives the bright sharp edge, where others have only a blunt
approximation.
Nor is this anticipation disappointed. Reviewers do not advance such
theories unless they correspond with known results. For many years the
French have not been more celebrated for memoirs which professedly
describe a real society than they have been for the light social song
which embodies its sentiments and pours forth its spirit. The principle
on which such writings are composed is the taking some incident—not
voluntarily (for the incident doubtless of itself takes a hold on the
poet’s mind)—and out of that incident developing all which there is in
it. A grave form is of course inconsistent with such art. The spirit
of such things is half-mirthful; a very profound meaning is rarely to
be expected; but little incidents are not destitute of meaning, and a
delicate touch will delineate it in words. A profound excitement likewise
such poems cannot produce; they do not address the passions or the
intuitions, the heart or the soul, but a gentle pleasure, half sympathy,
half amusement, is that at which they aim. They do not please us equally
in all moods of mind: sometimes they seem nothing and nonsense, like
society itself. We must not be too active or too inactive, to like them;
the tension of mind must not be too great; in our highest moods the
littlenesses of life are petty; the mind must not be obtusely passive;
light touches will not stimulate a sluggish inaction. This dependence on
the mood of mind of the reader makes it dangerous to elucidate this sort
of art by quotation; Béranger has, however, the following:—
‘_Laideur et Beauté._
‘Sa trop grande beauté m’obsède;
C’est un masque aisément trompeur.
Oui, je voudrais qu’elle fût laide,
Mais laide, laide à faire peur.
Belle ainsi faut-il que je l’aime!
Dieu, reprends ce don éclatant;
Je le demande à l’enfer même:
Qu’elle soit laide et que je l’aime autant.
‘A ces mots m’apparaît le diable;
C’est le père de la laideur.
“Rendons-la,” dit-il, “effroyable,
De tes rivaux trompons l’ardeur.
J’aime assez ces métamorphoses.
Ta belle ici vient en chantant;
Perles, tombez; fanez-vous, roses:
La voilà laide, et tu l’aimes autant.”
‘—Laide! moi? dit-elle étonnée.
Elle s’approche d’un miroir,
Doute d’abord, puis, consternée,
Tombe en un morne désespoir.
“Pour moi seul tu jurais de vivre,”
Lui dis-je, à ses pieds me jetant;
“A mon seul amour il te livre.
Plus laide encore, je t’aimerais autant.”
‘Ses yeux éteints fondent en larmes,
Alors sa douleur m’attendrit.
“Ah! rendez, rendez-lui ses charmes.”
“—Soit!” répond Satan, qui sourit.
Ainsi que naît la fraîche aurore,
Sa beauté renaît à l’instant.
Elle est, je crois, plus belle encore:
Elle est plus belle, et moi je l’aime autant.
‘Vite au miroir elle s’assure
Qu’on lui rend bien tous ses appas;
Des pleurs restent sur sa figure,
Qu’elle essuie en grondant tout bas.
Satan s’envole, et la cruelle
Fuit et s’écrie en me quittant:
“Jamais fille que Dieu fit belle
Ne doit aimer qui peut l’aimer autant.”’
And this is even a more characteristic specimen:
‘_La Mouche._
‘Au bruit de notre gaîté folle,
Au bruit des verres, des chansons,
Quelle mouche murmure et vole,
Et revient quand nous la chassons? (_bis._)
C’est quelque dieu, je le soupçonne,
Qu’un peu de bonheur rend jaloux.
Ne souffrons point qu’elle bourdonne, }
Qu’elle bourdonne autour de nous. } (_bis._)
‘Transformée en mouche hideuse,
Amis, oui, c’est, j’en suis certain,
La Raison, déité grondeuse,
Qu’irrite un si joyeux festin.
L’orage approche, le ciel tonne,
Voilà ce que dit son courroux.
Ne souffrons point qu’elle bourdonne,
Qu’elle bourdonne autour de nous.
‘C’est la Raison qui vient me dire:
“A ton âge on vit en reclus.
Ne bois plus tant, cesse de rire,
Cesse d’aimer, ne chante plus.”
Ainsi son beffroi toujours sonne
Aux lueurs des feux les plus doux.
Ne souffrons point qu’elle bourdonne,
Qu’elle bourdonne autour de nous.
‘C’est la Raison, gare à Lisette!
Son dard la menace toujours.
Dieux! il perce la collerette:
Le sang coule! accourez, Amours!
Amours! poursuivez la félonne;
Qu’elle expire enfin sous vos coups.
Ne souffrons point qu’elle bourdonne,
Qu’elle bourdonne autour de nous.
‘Victoire! amis, elle se noie
Dans l’aï que Lise a versé.
Victoire! et qu’aux mains de la Joie
Le sceptre enfin soit replacé. (_bis._)
Un souffle ébranle sa couronne;
Une mouche nous troublait tous.
Ne craignons plus qu’elle bourdonne, }
Qu’elle bourdonne autour de nous.’ } (_bis._)
To make poetry out of a fly is a difficult operation. It used to be said
of the Lake school of criticism, in Mr. Wordsworth’s early and more rigid
days, that there was no such term as ‘elegant’ in its nomenclature. The
reason is that, dealing, or attempting to deal, only with the essential
aboriginal principles of human nature, that school had no room and no
occasion for those minor contrivances of thought and language which are
necessary to express the complex accumulation of little feelings, the
secondary growth of human emotion. The underwood of nature is ‘elegant;’
the bare ascending forest-tree despises what is so trivial,—it is grave
and solemn. To such verses, on the other hand, as have been quoted,
‘elegance’ is essential; the delicate finish of fleeting forms is the
only excellence they can have.
The characteristic deficiencies of French literature have no room to
show themselves in this class of art. ‘Though France herself denies,’
says a recent writer, ‘yet all other nations with one voice proclaim
her inferiority to her rivals in poetry and romance, and in all the
other elevated fields of fiction. A French Dante, or Michael Angelo,
or Cervantes, or Murillo, or Goethe, or Shakespeare, or Milton, we at
once perceive to be a mere anomaly; a supposition which may, indeed,
be proposed in terms, but which in reality is inconceivable and
impossible.’ In metaphysics, the reason seems to be that the French
character is incapable of being mastered by an unseen idea, without being
so tyrannised over by it as to be incapable of artistic development.
Such a character as Robespierre’s may explain what we mean. His entire
nature was taken up and absorbed in certain ideas; he had almost a vanity
in them; he was of them, and they were of him. But they appear in his
mind, in his speeches, in his life, in their driest and barest form;
they have no motion, life, or roundness. We are obliged to use many
metaphors remotely and with difficulty to indicate the procedure of the
imagination. In one of these metaphors we figure an idea of imagination
as a living thing, a kind of growing plant, with a peculiar form, and
ever preserving its identity, but absorbing from the earth and air all
kindred, suitable, and, so to say, annexable materials. In a mind such
as Robespierre’s, in the type of the fanatic mind, there is no such
thing. The ideas seem a kind of dry hard capsules, never growing, never
enlarging, never uniting. Development is denied them; they cannot expand,
or ripen, or mellow. Dogma is a dry hard husk; poetry has the soft down
of the real fruit. Ideas seize on the fanatic mind just as they do on
the poetical; they have the same imperious ruling power. The difference
is, that in the one the impelling force is immutable, iron, tyrannical;
in the other the rule is expansive, growing, free, taking up from all
around it moment by moment whatever is fit, as in the political world a
great constitution arises through centuries, with a shape that does not
vary, but with movement for its essence and the fluctuation of elements
for its vitality. A thin poor mind like Robespierre’s seems pressed and
hampered by the bony fingers of a skeleton hand; a poet’s is expanded
and warmed at the same time that it is impelled by a pure life-blood of
imagination. The French, as we have said, are hardly capable of this.
When great remote ideas seize upon them at all, they become fanatics.
The wild, chimerical, revolutionary, mad Frenchman has the stiffest of
human minds. He is under the law of his creed; he has not attained to
the higher freedom of the impelling imagination. The prosing rhetoric
of the French tragedy shows the same defect in another form. The ideas
which should have become living realities, remain as lean abstractions.
The characters are speaking officials, jets of attenuated oratory. But
exactly on this very account the French mind has a genius for the poetry
of society. Unable to remove itself into the higher region of imagined
forms, it has the quickest detective insight into the exact relation
of surrounding superficial phenomena. There are two ways of putting
it: either, being fascinated by the present, they cannot rise to what
is not present; or being by defect of nature unable to rise to what is
not present, they are concentrated and absorbed in that which is so. Of
course there ought not to be, but there is, a world of _bonbons_, of
_salons_, of _esprit_. Living in the present, they have the poetry of the
present. The English genius is just the opposite. Our cumbrous intellect
has no call to light artificialities. We do not excel in punctuated
detail or nicely-squared elaboration. It puts us out of patience that
others should. A respectable Englishman murmured in the _Café de Paris_,
‘I wish I had a hunch of mutton.’ He could not bear the secondary
niceties with which he was surrounded. Our art has the same principle.
We excel in strong, noble imagination, in solid stuff. Shakespeare is
tough work; he has the play of the rising energy, the buoyant freedom
of the unbounded mind; but no writer is so destitute of the simplifying
dexterities of the manipulating intellect.
It is dangerous for a foreigner to give an opinion on _minutiæ_ of style,
especially on points affecting the characteristic excellences of national
style. The French language is always neat; all French styles somehow seem
good. But Béranger appears to have a peculiar neatness. He tells us that
all his songs are the production of a painful effort. If so, the reader
should be most grateful; _he_ suffers no pain. The delicate elaboration
of the writer has given a singular currency to the words. Difficult
writing is rarely easy reading. It can never be so when the labour is
spent in piecing together elements not joined by an insensible touch of
imagination. The highest praise is due to a writer whose ideas are more
delicately connected by unconscious genius than other men’s are, and
yet who spends labour and toil in giving the production a yet cunninger
finish, a still smoother connection. The characteristic aloofness of the
Gothic mind, its tendency to devote itself to what is not present, is
represented in composition by a want of care in the pettinesses of style.
A certain clumsiness pervades all tongues of German origin. Instead of
the language having been sharpened and improved by the constant keenness
of attentive minds, it has been habitually used obtusely and crudely.
Light, loquacious Gaul has for ages been the contrast. If you take up a
pen just used by a good writer, for a moment you seem to write rather
well. A language long employed by a delicate and critical society is
a treasure of dexterous felicities. It is not, according to the fine
expression of Mr. Emerson, ‘fossil poetry;’ it is crystallised _esprit_.
A French critic has praised Béranger for having retained the _refrain_,
or burden, ‘_la rime de l’air_,’ as he calls it. Perhaps music is more
necessary as an accompaniment to the poetry of society than it is to
any other poetry. Without a sensuous reminder, we might forget that it
was poetry; especially in a sparkling, glittering, attenuated language,
we might be absorbed as in the defined elegances of prose. In half
trivial compositions we easily forget the little central fancy. The
music prevents this: it gives oneness to the parts, pieces together the
shavings of the intellect, makes audible the flow of imagination.
The poetry of society tends to the poetry of love. All poetry tends that
way. By some very subtle links, which no metaphysician has skilfully
tracked, the imagination, even in effects and employments which seem
remote, is singularly so connected. One smiles to see the feeling
recur. Half the poets can scarcely keep away from it: in the high and
dry epic you may see the poet return to it. And perhaps this is not
unaccountable. The more delicate and stealing the sensuous element, the
more the mind is disposed to brood upon it; the more we dwell on it in
stillness, the more it influences the wandering, hovering faculty which
we term imagination. The first constructive effort of imagination is
beyond the limit of consciousness; the faculty works unseen. But we
know that it works in a certain soft leisure only: and this in ordinary
minds is almost confined to, in the highest is most commonly accompanied
by, the subtlest emotion of reverie. So insinuating is that feeling,
that no poet is alive to all its influences; so potent is it, that the
words of a great poet, in our complex modern time, are rarely ever free
from its traces. The phrase ‘stealing calm,’ which most naturally and
graphically describes the state of soul in which the imagination works,
quite equally expresses, it is said, the coming in and continuance of the
not uncommon emotion. Passing, however, from such metaphysics, there is
no difficulty in believing that the poetry of society will tend to the
most romantic part of society,—away from aunts and uncles, antiquaries
and wigs, to younger and pleasanter elements. The talk of society does
so, probably its literature will do so likewise. There are, nevertheless,
some limiting considerations, which make this tendency less all-powerful
than we might expect it to be. In the first place, the poetry of society
cannot deal with passion. Its light touch is not competent to express
eager, intense emotion. Rather, we should say, the essential nature
of the poetry of amusement is inconsistent with those rugged, firm,
aboriginal elements which passion brings to the surface. The volcano is
inconsistent with careless talk; you cannot comfortably associate with
lava. Such songs as those of Burns are the very antithesis to the levity
of society. A certain explicitness pervades them:
‘Come, let me take thee to my breast,
And pledge we ne’er shall sunder;
And I shall spurn as vilest dust
The warld’s wealth and grandeur.’
There is a story of his having addressed a lady in society, some time
after he came to Edinburgh, in this direct style, and being offended that
she took notice of it. The verses were in English, and were not intended
to mean anything particular, only to be an elegant attention; but you
might as well ask a young lady to take brandy with you as compliment
her in this intense manner. The eager peasant-poet was at fault in
the polished refinements of the half-feeling drawing-room. Again, the
poetry of society can scarcely deal with affection. No poetry, except
in hints, and for moments, perhaps ever can. You might as well tell
secrets to the town-crier. The essence of poetry somehow is publicity.
It is very odd when one reads many of the sentiments which are expressed
there,—the brooding thought, the delicate feeling, the high conception.
What is the use of telling these to the mass of men? Will the grocer feel
them?—will the greasy butcher in the blue coat feel them? Are there not
some emphatic remarks by Lord Byron on Mr. Sanders (‘the d—d saltfish
seller’ of Venice), who could not appreciate _Don Juan_? Nevertheless,
for some subtle reason or other, poets do crave, almost more than other
men, the public approbation. To have a work of art in your imagination,
and that no one else should know of it, is a great pain. But even this
craving has its limits. Art can only deal with the universal. Characters,
sentiments, actions, must be described in what in the old language
might be called their conceptual shape. There must always be an idea in
them. If one compares a great character in fiction, say that of Hamlet,
with a well-known character in life, we are struck almost at once by
the typical and representative nature of the former. We seem to have a
more _summary_ conception of it, if the phrase may be allowed, than we
have of the people we know best in reality. Indeed, our notion of the
fictitious character rather resembles a notion of actual persons of whom
we know a little, and but a little,—of a public man, suppose, of whom
from his speeches and writings we know something, but with whom we never
exchanged a word. We generalise a few traits; we do what the historian
will have to do hereafter; we _make_ a man, so to speak, resembling the
real one, but more defined, more simple and comprehensible. The objects
on which affection turns are exactly the opposite. In their essence
they are individual, peculiar. Perhaps they become known under a kind
of confidence; but even if not, nature has hallowed the details of near
life by an inevitable secrecy. You cannot expect other persons to feel
them; you cannot tell your own intellect what they are. An individuality
lurks in our nature. Each soul (as the divines speak) clings to each
soul. Poetry is impossible on such points as these: they seem too sacred,
too essential. The most that it can do is, by hints and little marks in
the interstices of a universalised delineation, to suggest that there is
something more than what is stated, and more inward and potent than what
is stated. Affection as a settled subject is incompatible with art. And
thus the poetry of society is limited on its romantic side in two ways:
first, by the infinite, intense nature of passion, which forces the voice
of art beyond the social tone; and by the confidential, incomprehensible
nature of affection, which will not bear to be developed for the public
by the fancy in any way.
Being so bounded within the ordinary sphere of their art, poets of this
world have contrived or found a substitute. In every country there is a
society which is no society. The French, which is the most worldly of
literatures, has devoted itself to the delineation of this outside world.
There is no form, comic or serious, dramatic or lyrical, in which the
subject has not been treated: the burden is—
‘Lisette, ma Lisette,
Tu m’as trompé toujours;
Mais vive la grisette!
Je veux, Lisette,
Boire à nos amours.’