of cultivation which at the present time people above a certain social
standing feel bound to assume. Very few ordinary persons would care to
avow that they took no interest in national politics, in games and
sport, in literature, in appreciation of nature, or in religion. As a
matter of fact the vital interest that is taken in these subjects,
except perhaps in games and sport, is far below the interest that is
expressed in them. A person who said frankly that he thought that any
of these subjects were uninteresting, tiresome or absurd, would be
thought stupid or affected, even brutal. Probably most of the people
who express a deep concern for these things believe that they are
giving utterance to a sincere feeling; but not to expatiate on the
emotions which they mistake for the real emotion in the other
departments, there are probably a good many people who mistake for a
love of nature the pleasure of fresh air, physical movement, and change
of scene. Many worthy golfers, for instance, who do not know that they
are speaking insincerely, attribute, in conversation, the pleasure they
feel in pursuing their game to the agreeable surroundings in which it
is pursued; but my secret belief is that they pay more attention to the
lie of the little white ball, and the character of bunkers, than to the
pageantry of sea and sky.
As with all other refined pleasures, there is no doubt that the
pleasure derived from the observation of nature can be, if not
acquired, immensely increased by practice. I am not now speaking of the
pursuit of natural history but the pursuit of natural emotion. The
thing to aim at, as is the case with all artistic pleasures, is the
perception of quality, of small effects. Many of the people Who believe
themselves to have an appreciation of natural scenery cannot appreciate
it except on a sensational scale. They can derive a certain pleasure
from wide prospects of startling beauty, rugged mountains, steep
gorges, great falls of water--all the things that are supposed to be
picturesque. But though this is all very well as far as it goes, it is
a very elementary kind of thing. The perception of which I speak is a
perception which can be fed in the most familiar scene, in the shortest
stroll, even in a momentary glance from a window. The things to look
out for are little accidents of light and colour, little effects of
chance grouping, the transfiguration of some well-known and even
commonplace object, such as is produced by the sudden burst into
greenness of the trees that peep over some suburban garden wall, or by
the sunlight falling, by a happy fortune, on pool or flower. Much of
course depends upon the inner mood; there are days when it seems
impossible to be thrilled by anything, when a perverse dreariness holds
the mind; and then all of a sudden the gentle and wistful mood flows
back, and the world is full of beauty to the brim.
Here, if anywhere, in this town of ancient colleges, is abundant
material of beauty for eye and mind. It is not, it is true, the simple
beauty of nature; but nature has been invoked to sanctify and mellow
art. These stately stone-fronted buildings have weathered like crags
and precipices. They rise out of dark ancient embowered gardens. They
are like bright birds of the forest dwelling contentedly in gilded
cages. These great palaces of learning, beautiful when seen in the
setting of sunny gardens, and with even a sterner dignity when planted,
like a fortress of quiet, close to the very dust and din of the street,
hold many treasures of stately loveliness and fair association; this
city of palaces, thick-set with spires and towers, as rich and dim as
Camelot, is invested with a romance that few cities can equal; and then
the waterside pleasaunces with their trim alleys, their air of ancient
security and wealthy seclusion, have an incomparable charm; day by day,
as one hurries or saunters through the streets, the charm strikes
across the mind with an incredible force, a newness of impression which
is the test of the highest beauty. Yet these again are beauties of a
sensational order which beat insistently upon the dullest mind. The
true connoisseur of natural beauty acquiesces in, nay prefers, an
economy, an austerity of effect. The curve of a wood seen a hundred
times before, the gentle line of a fallow, a little pool among the
pastures, fringed with rushes, the long blue line of the distant downs,
the cloud-perspective, the still sunset glow--these will give him ever
new delights, and delights that grow with observation and intuition.
I have spoken hitherto of nature as she appears; to the unruffled, the
perceptive mind; but let us further consider what relation nature can
bear to the burdened heart and the overshadowed mood. Is there indeed a
vis medicatrix in nature which can heal our grief and console our
anxieties? "The country for a wounded heart" says the old proverb. Is
that indeed true? I am here inclined to part company with wise men and
poets who have spoken and sung of the consoling power of nature. I
think it is not so. It is true that anything which we love very deeply
has a certain power of distracting the mind. But I think there is no
greater agony than to be confronted with tranquil passionate beauty,
when the heart and spirit are out of tune with it. In the days of one's
joy, nature laughs with us; in the days of vague and fantastic
melancholy, there is an air of wistfulness, of mystery, that ministers
to our luxurious sadness. But when one bears about the heavy burden of
a harassing anxiety of sorrow, then the smile on the face of nature has
something poisonous, almost maddening about it. It breeds an emotion
that is like the rage of Othello when he looks upon the face of
Desdemona, and believes her false. Nature has no sympathy, no pity. She
has her work to do, and the swift and bright process goes on; she casts
her failures aside with merciless glee; she seems to say to men
oppressed by sorrow and sickness, "This is no world for you; rejoice
and make merry, or I have no need of you." In a far-off way, indeed,
the gentle beauty of nature may help a sad heart, by seeming to assure
one that the mind of God is set upon what is fair and sweet; but
neither God nor nature seems to have any direct message to the stricken
heart.
"Not till the fire is dying in the grate
Look we for any kinship with the stars,"
says a subtle poet; and such comfort as nature can give is not the
direct comfort of sympathy and tenderness, but only the comfort that
can be resolutely distilled from the contemplation of nature by man's
indomitable spirit. For nature tends to replace rather than to heal;
and the sadness of life consists for most of us in the
irreplaceableness of the things we love and lose. The lesson is a hard
one, that "Nature tolerates, she does not need." Let us only be sure
that it is a true one, for nothing but the truth can give us ultimate
repose. To the youthful spirit it is different, for all that the young
and ardent need is that, if the old fails them, some new delight should
be substituted. They but desire that the truth should be hidden from
their gaze; as in the childish stories, when the hero and heroine have
been safely piloted through danger and brought into prosperity, the
door is closed with a snap. "They lived happily ever afterwards." But
the older spirit knows that the "ever" must be deleted, makes question
of the "afterwards," and looks through to the old age of bereavement
and sorrow, when the two must again be parted.
But I would have every one who cares to establish a wise economy of
life and joy, cultivate, by all means in his power, a sympathy with and
a delight in nature. We tend, in this age of ours, when communication
is so easy and rapid, when the daily paper brings the whole course of
the world into our secluded libraries, to be too busy, too much
preoccupied; to value excitement, above tranquillity, and interest
above peace. It is good for us all to be much alone, not to fly from
society, but resolutely to determine that we will not be dependent upon
it for our comfort. I would have all busy people make times in their
lives when, at the cost of some amusement, and paying the price perhaps
of a little melancholy, they should try to be alone with nature and
their own hearts. They should try to realize the quiet unwearying life
that manifests itself in field and wood. They should wander alone in
solitary places, where the hazel-hidden stream makes music, and the
bird sings out of the heart of the forest; in meadows where the flowers
grow brightly, or through the copse, purple with bluebells or starred
with anemones; or they may climb the crisp turf of the down, and see
the wonderful world lie spread out beneath their feet, with some
clustering town "smouldering and glittering" in the distance; or lie
upon the cliff-top, with the fields of waving wheat behind, and the sea
spread out like a wrinkled marble floor in front; or walk on the sand
beside the falling waves. Perhaps a soi-disant sensible man may see
these words and think that I am a sad sentimentalist. I cannot help it;
it is what I believe; nay, I will go further, and say that a man who
does not wish to do these things is shutting one of the doors of his
spirit, a door through which many sweet and true things come in.
"Consider the lilies of the field" said long ago One whom we profess to
follow as our Guide and Master. And a quiet receptiveness, an openness
of eye, a simple readiness to take in these gentle impressions is, I
believe with all my heart, of the essence of true wisdom. We have all
of us our work to do in the world; but we have our lesson to learn as
well. The man with the muck-rake in the old parable, who raked together
the straws and the dust of the street, was faithful enough if he was
set to do that lowly work; but had he only cared to look up, had he
only had a moment's leisure, he would have seen that the celestial
crown hung close above his head, and within reach of his forgetful hand.
There is a well-known passage in a brilliant modern satire, where a
trenchant satirist declares that he has tracked all human emotions to
their lair, and has discovered that they all consist of some dilution
of primal and degrading instincts. But the pure and passionless love of
natural beauty can have nothing that is acquisitive or reproductive
about it. There is no physical instinct to which it can be referred; it
arouses no sense of proprietorship; it cannot be connected with any
impulse for self-preservation. If it were merely aroused by tranquil,
comfortable amenities of scene, it might be referable to the general
sense of well-being, and of contented life under pleasant conditions.
But it is aroused just as strongly by prospects that are inimical to
life and comfort, lashing storms, inaccessible peaks, desolate moors,
wild sunsets, foaming seas. It is a sense of wonder, of mystery; it
arouses a strange and yearning desire for we know not what; very often
a rich melancholy attends it, which is yet not painful or sorrowful,
but heightens and intensifies the significance, the value of life. I do
not know how to interpret it, but it seems to me to be a call from
without, a beckoning of some large and loving power to the soul. The
primal instincts of which I have spoken all tend to concentrate the
mind upon itself, to strengthen it for a selfish part; but the beauty
of nature seems to be a call to the spirit to come forth, like the
voice which summoned Lazarus from the rock-hewn sepulchre. It bids us
to believe that our small identities, our limited desires, do not say
the last word for us, but that there is something larger and stronger
outside, in which we may claim a share. As I write these words I look
out upon a strange transfiguration of a familiar scene. The sky is full
of black and inky clouds, but from the low setting sun there pours an
intense pale radiance, which lights up house-roofs, trees, and fields,
with a white light; a flight of pigeons, wheeling high in the air,
become brilliant specks of moving light upon a background of dark
rolling vapour. What is the meaning of the intense and rapturous thrill
that this sends through me? It is no selfish delight, no personal
profit that it gives me. It promises me nothing, it sends me nothing
but a deep and mysterious satisfaction, which seems to make light of my
sullen and petty moods.
I was reading the other day, in a strange book, of the influence of
magic upon the spirit, the vague dreams of the deeper mind that could
be awakened by the contemplation of symbols. It seemed to me to be
unreal and fantastic, a manufacturing of secrets, a playing of
whimsical tricks with the mind; and yet I ought not to say that,
because it was evidently written in good faith. But I have since
reflected that it is true in a sense of all those who are sensitive to
the influences of the spirit. Nature has a magic for many of us--that
is to say, a secret power that strikes across our lives at intervals,
with a message from an unknown region. And this message is aroused too
by symbols; a tree, a flash of light on lonely clouds, a flower, a
stream--simple things that we have seen a thousand times--have
sometimes the power to cast a spell over our spirit, and to bring
something that is great and incommunicable near us. This must be called
magic, for it is not a thing which can be explained by ordinary laws,
or defined in precise terms; but the spell is there, real, insistent,
undeniable; it seems to make a bridge for the spirit to pass into a
far-off, dimly apprehended region; it gives us a sense of great issues
and remote visions; it leaves us with a longing which has no mortal
fulfilment.
These are of course merely idiosyncrasies of perception; but it is a
far more difficult task to attempt to indicate what the perception of
beauty is, and whence the mind derives the unhesitating canons with
which it judges and appraises beauty. The reason, I believe, why the
sense is weaker than it need be in many people, is that, instead of
trusting their own instinct in the matter, they from their earliest
years endeavour to correct their perception of what is beautiful by the
opinions of other people, and to superimpose on their own taste the
taste of others. I myself hold strongly that nothing is worth admiring
which is not admired sincerely. Of course, one must not form one's
opinions too early, or hold them arrogantly or self-sufficiently. If
one finds a large number of people admiring or professing to admire a
certain class of objects, a certain species of scene, one ought to make
a resolute effort to see what it is that appeals to them. But there
ought to come a time, when one has imbibed sufficient experience, when
one should begin to decide and to distinguish, and to form one's own
taste. And then I believe it is better to be individual than catholic,
and better to attempt to feed one's own genuine sense of preference,
than to continue attempting to correct it by the standard of other
people.
It remains that the whole instinct for admiring beauty is one of the
most mysterious experiences of the mind. There are certain things, like
the curves and colours of flowers, the movements of young animals, that
seem to have a perennial attraction for the human spirit. But the
enjoyment of natural scenery, at all events of wild and rugged
prospects, seems hardly to have existed among ancient writers, and to
have originated as late as the eighteenth century. Dr. Johnson spoke of
mountains with disgust, and Gray seems to have been probably the first
man who deliberately cultivated a delight in the sight of those
"monstrous creatures of God," as he calls mountains. Till his time, the
emotions that "nodding rocks" and "cascades" gave our forefathers seem
mostly to have been emotions of terror; but Gray seems to have had a
perception of the true quality of landscape beauty, as indeed that
wonderful, chilly, unsatisfied, critical nature seems to have had of
almost everything. His letters are full of beautiful vignettes, and it
pleases me to think that he visited Rydal and thought it beautiful,
about the time that Wordsworth first drew breath.
But the perception of beauty in art, in architecture, in music, is a
far more complicated thing, for there seem to be no fixed canons here;
what one needs in art, for instance, is not that things should be
perfectly seen and accurately presented; a picture of hard fidelity is
often entirely displeasing; but one craves for a certain sense of
personality, of emotion, of inner truth; something that seizes
tyrannously upon the soul, and makes one desire more of the intangible
and indescribable essence.
I always feel that the instinct for beauty is perhaps the surest
indication of some essence of immortality in the soul; and indeed there
are moments when it gives one the sense of pre-existence, the feeling
that one has loved these fair things in a region that is further back
even than the beginnings of consciousness. Blake, indeed, in one of his
wild half-inspired utterances, went even further, and announced that a
man's hopes of immortality depended not upon virtuous conduct but upon
intellectual perception. And it is hard to resist the belief, when one
is brought into the presence of perfect beauty, in whatever form it may
come, that the deep craving it arouses is meant to receive a
satisfaction more deep and real than the act of mere contemplation can
give. I have felt in such moments as if I were on the verge of grasping
some momentous secret, as if only the thinnest of veils hung between me
and some knowledge that would set my whole life and being on a
different plane. But the moment passes, and the secret delays. Yet we
are right to regard such emotions as direct messages from God; because
they bring with them no desire of possession, which is the sign of
mortality, but rather the divine desire to be possessed by them; that
the reality, whatever it be, of which beauty is the symbol, may enter
in and enthral the soul. It remains a mystery, like all the best things
to which we draw near. And the joy of all mysteries is the certainty
which comes from their contemplation, that there are many doors yet for
the soul to open on her upward and inward way; that we are at the
threshold and not near the goal; and then, like the glow of sunset,
rises the hope that the grave, far from being the gate of death, may be
indeed the gate of life.
VII
ART
I often wish that we had a more beautiful word than "art" for so
beautiful a thing; it is in itself a snappish explosive word, like the
cry of an angry animal; and it has, too, to bear the sad burden of its
own misuse by affected people. Moreover, it stands for so many things,
that one is never quite sure what the people who use it intend it to
mean; some people use it in an abstract, some in a concrete sense; and
it is unfortunate, too, in bearing, in certain usages, a nuance of
unreality and scheming.
What I mean by art, in its deepest and truest sense, is a certain
perceptiveness, a power of seeing what is characteristic, coupled as a
rule, in the artistic temperament, with a certain power of expression,
an imaginative gift which can raise a large fabric out of slender
resources, building a palace, like the Genie in the story of Aladdin,
in a single night.
The artistic temperament is commoner, I think, than is supposed. Most
people find it difficult to believe in the existence of it, unless it
is accompanied by certain fragile signs of its existence, such as
water-colour drawing, or a tendency to strum on a piano. But, as a
matter of fact, the possession of an artistic temperament, without the
power of expression, is one of the commonest causes of unhappiness in
the world. Who does not know those ill-regulated, fastidious people,
who have a strong sense of their own significance and position, a sense
which is not justified by any particular performance, who are
contemptuous of others, critical, hard to satisfy, who have a general
sense of disappointment and dreariness, a craving for recognition, and
a feeling that they are not appreciated at their true worth? To such
people, sensitive, ineffective, proud, every circumstance of life gives
food for discontent. They have vague perceptions which they cannot
translate into words or symbols. They find their work humdrum and
unexciting, their relations with others tiresome; they think that under
different circumstances and in other surroundings they might have
played a braver part; they never realize that the root of their
unhappiness lies in themselves; and, perhaps, it is merciful that they
do not, for the fact that they can accumulate blame upon the conditions
imposed on them by fate is the only thing that saves them from
irreclaimable depression.
Sometimes, again, the temperament exists with a certain power of
expression, but without sufficient perseverance or hard technical merit
to produce artistic successes; and thus we get the amateur. Sometimes
it is the other way, and the technical power of production is developed
beyond the inner perceptiveness; and this produces a species of dull
soulless art, and the role of the professional artist. Very rarely one
sees the outward and the inward combined, but then we get the humble,
hopeful artist who lives for and in his work; he is humble because he
cannot reach the perfection for which he strives; he is hopeful because
he gets nearer to it day by day. But, speaking generally, the
temperament is not one that brings steady happiness; it brings with it
moments of rapture, when some bright dream is being realized; but it
brings with it also moments of deep depression, when dreams are silent,
and the weary brain fears that the light is quenched. There are,
indeed, instances of the equable disposition being found in connection
with the artistic temper; such were Reynolds, Handel, Wordsworth. But
the annals of art are crowded with the figures of those who have had to
bear the doom of art, and have been denied the tranquil spirit.
But besides all these, there are artistic temperaments which do not
express themselves in any of the recognized mediums of art, but which
apply their powers direct to life itself. I do not mean successful,
professional people, who win their triumphs by a happy sanity and
directness of view, to whom labour is congenial and success enjoyable;
but I mean those who have a fine perception of quality in innumerable
forms; who are interested in the salient points of others, who delight
to enter into appropriate relations with those they meet, to whom life
itself, its joys and sorrows, its gifts and its losses, has a certain
romantic, beautiful, mysterious savour. Such people have a strong sense
of the significance of their relations with others, they enjoy dealing
with characters, with problems, with situations. Having both interest
and sympathy, they get the best out of other people; they pierce
through the conventional fence that so many of us erect as a protection
against intrusion. Such people bring the same perception to bear on
technical art. They enjoy books, art, music, without any envious desire
to produce; they can enjoy the noble pleasure of admiring and praising.
Again and again, in reading the lives of artists, one comes across
traces of these wise and generous spirits, who have loved the society
of artists, have understood them, and whose admiration has never been
clouded by the least shadow of that jealousy which is the curse of most
artistic natures. People without artistic sensibilities find the
society of artists trying; because they see only their irritability,
their vanity, their egotism, and cannot sympathize with the visions by
which they are haunted. But those who can understand without jealousy,
pass by the exacting vagaries of the artist with a gentle and tender
compassion, and evoke what is sincere and generous and lovable, without
any conscious effort.