THE MORAL OF LANDSCAPE.
Sec. 1. SUPPOSING then the preceding conclusions correct, respecting
the grounds and component _elements_ of the pleasure which the
moderns take in landscape, we have here to consider what are the
probable or usual _effects_ of this pleasure. Is it a safe or a
seductive one? May we wisely boast of it, and unhesitatingly indulge
it? or is it rather a sentiment to be despised when it is slight,
and condemned when it is intense; a feeling which disinclines us to
labor, and confuses us in thought; a joy only to the inactive and
the visionary, incompatible with the duties of life, and the
accuracies of reflection?
Sec. 2. It seems to me that, as matters stand at present, there is
considerable ground for the latter opinion. We saw, in the preceding
chapter, that our love of nature had been partly forced upon us by
mistakes in our social economy, and led to no distinct issues of
action or thought. And when we look to Scott--the man who feels it
most deeply--for some explanation of its effect upon him, we find a
curious tone of apology (as if for involuntary folly) running
through his confessions of such sentiment, and a still more curious
inability to define, beyond a certain point, the character of this
emotion. He has lost the company of his friends among the hills, and
turns to these last for comfort. He says, "there is a pleasure in
the pain" consisting in such thoughts
"As oft awake
By lone St. Mary's silent lake;"
but, when we look for some definition of these thoughts, all that we
are told is, that they compose
"A mingled sentiment
Of resignation and content!"[88]
a sentiment which, I suppose, many people can attain to on the loss
of their friends, without the help of lakes or mountains; while
Wordsworth definitely and positively affirms that _thought_ has
nothing whatever to do with the matter, and that though, in his
youth, the cataract and wood "haunted him like a passion," it was
without the help of any "remoter charm, by thought supplied."
Sec. 3. There is not, however, any question, but that both Scott and
Wordsworth are here mistaken in their analysis of their feelings.
Their delight, so far from being without thought, is more than half
made up of thought, but of thought in so curiously languid and
neutralized a condition that they cannot trace it. The thoughts are
beaten to a powder so small that they know not what they are; they
know only that in such a state they are not good for much, and
disdain to call them thoughts. But the way in which thought, even
thus broken, acts in producing the delight will be understood by
glancing back to Sec.Sec. 9. and 10. of the tenth chapter, in which we
observed the power of the imagination in exalting any visible
object, by gathering round it, in farther vision, all the facts
properly connected with it; this being, as it were, a spiritual or
second sight, multiplying the power of enjoyment according to the
fulness of the vision. For, indeed, although in all lovely nature
there is, first, an excellent degree of simple beauty, addressed to
the eye alone, yet often what impresses us most will form but a very
small portion of that visible beauty. That beauty may, for instance,
be composed of lovely flowers and glittering streams, and blue sky,
and white clouds; and yet the thing that impresses us most, and
which we should be sorriest to lose, may be a thin grey film on the
extreme horizon, not so large, in the space of the scene it
occupies, as a piece of gossamer on a near at hand bush, nor in any
wise prettier to the eye than the gossamer; but, because the
gossamer is known by us for a little bit of spider's work, and the
other grey film is known to mean a mountain ten thousand feet high,
inhabited by a race of noble mountaineers, we are solemnly impressed
by the aspect of it; and yet, all the while the thoughts and
knowledge which cause us to receive this impression are so obscure
that we are not conscious of them; we think we are only enjoying the
visible scene; and the very men whose minds are fullest of such
thoughts absolutely deny, as we have just heard, that they owe their
pleasure to anything but the eye, or that the pleasure consists in
anything else than "Tranquillity."
Sec. 4. And observe, farther, that this comparative Dimness and
Untraceableness of the thoughts which are the sources of our
admiration, is not a _fault_ in the thoughts, at such a time. It is,
on the contrary, a necessary condition of their subordination to the
pleasure of Sight. If the thoughts were more distinct we should not
_see_ so well; and beginning definitely to think, we must
comparatively cease to see. In the instance just supposed, as long as
we look at the film of mountain or Alp, with only an obscure
consciousness of its being the source of mighty rivers, that
consciousness adds to our sense of its sublimity; and if we have ever
seen the Rhine or the Rhone near their mouths, our knowledge, so long
as it is only obscurely suggested, adds to our admiration of the Alp;
but once let the idea define itself,--once let us begin to consider
seriously _what_ rivers flow from that mountain, to trace their
course, and to recall determinately our memories of their distant
aspects,--and we cease to behold the Alp; or, if we still behold it,
it is only as a point in a map which we are painfully designing, or as
a subordinate object which we strive to thrust aside, in order to make
room for our remembrances of Avignon or Rotterdam.
Again: so long as our idea of the multitudes who inhabit the ravines
at its foot remains indistinct, that idea comes to the aid of all
the other associations which increase our delight. But let it once
arrest us, and entice us to follow out some clear course of thought
respecting the causes of the prosperity or misfortune of the Alpine
villagers, and the snowy peak again ceases to be visible, or holds
its place only as a white spot upon the retina, while we pursue our
meditations upon the religion or the political economy of the
mountaineers.
Sec. 5. It is thus evident that a curiously balanced condition of the
powers of mind is necessary to induce full admiration of any natural
scene. Let those powers be themselves inert, and the mind vacant of
knowledge, and destitute of sensibility, and the external object
becomes little more to us than it is to birds or insects; we fall
into the temper of the clown. On the other hand, let the reasoning
powers be shrewd in excess, the knowledge vast, or sensibility
intense, and it will go hard but that the visible object will
suggest so much that it shall be soon itself forgotten, or become,
at the utmost, merely a kind of key-note to the course of purposeful
thought. Newton, probably, did not perceive whether the apple which
suggested his meditations on gravity was withered or rosy; nor could
Howard be affected by the picturesqueness of the architecture which
held the sufferers it was his occupation to relieve.
Sec. 6. This wandering away in thought from the thing seen to the
business of life, is not, however, peculiar to men of the highest
reasoning powers, or most active benevolence. It takes place more or
less in nearly all persons of average mental endowment. They see and
love what is beautiful, but forget their admiration of it in
following some train of thought which it suggested, and which is of
more personal interest to them. Suppose that three or four persons
come in sight of a group of pine-trees, not having seen pines for
some time. One, perhaps an engineer, is struck by the manner in
which their roots hold the ground, and sets himself to examine their
fibres, in a few minutes retaining little more consciousness of the
beauty of the trees than if he were a rope-maker untwisting the
strands of a cable: to another, the sight of the trees calls up some
happy association, and presently he forgets them, and pursues the
memories they summoned: a third is struck by certain groupings of
their colors, useful to him as an artist, which he proceeds
immediately to note mechanically for future use, with as little
feeling as a cook setting down the constituents of a newly
discovered dish; and a fourth, impressed by the wild coiling of
boughs and roots, will begin to change them in his fancy into
dragons and monsters, and lose his grasp of the scene in fantastic
metamorphosis: while, in the mind of the man who has most the power
of contemplating the thing itself, all these perceptions and trains
of idea are partially present, not distinctly, but in a mingled and
perfect harmony. He will not see the colors of the tree so well as
the artist, nor its fibres so well as the engineer; he will not
altogether share the emotion of the sentimentalist, nor the trance
of the idealist; but fancy, and feeling, and perception, and
imagination, will all obscurely meet and balance themselves in him,
and he will see the pine-trees somewhat in this manner:
"Worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved;
Nor uniformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially,--beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes
May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton,
And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship."
Sec. 7. The power, therefore, of thus fully _perceiving_ any natural
object depends on our being able to group and fasten all our fancies
about it as a centre, making a garland of thoughts for it, in which
each separate thought is subdued and shortened of its own strength,
in order to fit it for harmony with others; the intensity of our
enjoyment of the object depending, first, on its own beauty, and
then on the richness of the garland. And men who have this habit of
clustering and harmonizing their thoughts are a little too apt to
look scornfully upon the harder workers who tear the bouquet to
pieces to examine the stems. This was the chief narrowness of
Wordsworth's mind; he could not understand that to break a rock with
a hammer in search of crystal may sometimes be an act not
disgraceful to human nature, and that to dissect a flower may
sometimes be as proper as to dream over it; whereas all experience
goes to teach us, that among men of average intellect the most
useful members of society are the dissectors, not the dreamers. It
is not that they love nature or beauty less, but that they love
result, effect, and progress more; and when we glance broadly along
the starry crowd of benefactors to the human race, and guides of
human thought, we shall find that this dreaming love of natural
beauty--or at least its expression--has been more or less checked by
them all, and subordinated either to hard work or watching of
_human_ nature. Thus in all the classical and mediaeval periods, it
was, as we have seen, subordinate to agriculture, war, and religion;
and in the modern period, in which it has become far more powerful,
observe in what persons it is chiefly manifested.
(1.) It is subordinate in (2.) It is intense in
Bacon. Mrs. Radclyffe.
Milton. St. Pierre.
Johnson. Shenstone.
Richardson. Byron.
Goldsmith. Shelley.
Young. Keats.
Newton. Burns.
Howard. Eugene Sue.
Fenelon. George Sand.
Pascal. Dumas.
Sec. 8. I have purposely omitted the names of Wordsworth, Tennyson, and
Scott, in the second list, because, glancing at the two columns as
they now stand, we may, I think, draw some useful conclusions from
the high honorableness and dignity of the names on one side, and the
comparative slightness of those on the other,--conclusions which may
help us to a better understanding of Scott and Tennyson themselves.
Glancing, I say, down those columns in their present form, we shall
at once perceive that the intense love of nature is, in modern
times, characteristic of persons not of the first order of
intellect, but of brilliant imagination, quick sympathy, and
undefined religious principle, suffering also usually under strong
and ill-governed passions: while in the same individual it will be
found to vary at different periods, being, for the most part,
strongest in youth, and associated with force of emotion, and with
indefinite and feeble powers of thought; also, throughout life,
perhaps developing itself most at times when the mind is slightly
unhinged by love, grief, or some other of the passions.
Sec. 9. But, on the other hand, while these feelings of delight in
natural objects cannot be construed into signs of the highest
mental powers, or purest moral principles, we see that they are
assuredly indicative of minds above the usual standard of power, and
endowed with sensibilities of great preciousness to humanity; so
that those who find themselves entirely destitute of them, must make
this want a subject of humiliation, not of pride. The apathy which
cannot perceive beauty is very different from the stern energy which
disdains it; and the coldness of heart which receives no emotion
from external nature, is not to be confounded with the wisdom of
purpose which represses emotion in action. In the case of most men,
it is neither acuteness of the reason, nor breadth of humanity,
which shields them from the impressions of natural scenery, but
rather low anxieties, vain discontents, and mean pleasures; and for
one who is blinded to the works of God by profound abstraction or
lofty purpose, tens of thousands have their eyes sealed by vulgar
selfishness, and their intelligence crushed by impious care.
Observe, then: we have, among mankind in general, the three orders
of being;--the lowest, sordid and selfish, which neither sees nor
feels; the second, noble and sympathetic, but which sees and feels
without concluding or acting; the third and highest, which loses
sight in resolution, and feeling in work.[89]
Thus, even in Scott and Wordsworth themselves, the love of nature
is more or less associated with their weaknesses. Scott shows it
most in the cruder compositions of his youth, his perfect powers of
mind being displayed only in dialogues with which description has
nothing whatever to do. Wordsworth's distinctive work was a war with
pomp and pretence, and a display of the majesty of simple feelings
and humble hearts, together with high reflective truth in his
analysis of the courses of politics and ways of men; without these,
his love of nature would have been comparatively worthless.
Sec. 10. "If this be so, it is not well to encourage the observance of
landscape, any more than other ways of dreamily and ineffectually
spending time?"
Stay a moment. We have hitherto observed this love of natural beauty
only as it distinguishes one man from another, not as it acts for
good or evil on those minds to which it necessarily belongs. It may,
on the whole, distinguish weaker men from stronger men, and yet in
those weaker men may be of some notable use. It may distinguish
Byron from St. Bernard, and Shelley from Sir Isaac Newton, and yet
may, perhaps, be the best thing that Byron and Shelley possess--a
saving element in them; just as a rush may be distinguished from an
oak by its bending, and yet the bending may be the saving element
in the rush, and an admirable gift in its place and way. So that,
although St. Bernard journeys all day by the Lake of Geneva, and
asks at evening "where it is," and Byron learns by it "to love earth
only for its earthly sake,"[90] it does not follow that Byron,
hating men, was the worse for loving the earth, nor that St.
Bernard, loving men, was the better or wiser for being blind to it.
And this will become still more manifest if we examine somewhat
farther into the nature of this instinct, as characteristic
especially of youth.
Sec. 11. We saw above that Wordsworth described the feeling as
independent of thought, and, in the particular place then quoted, he
_therefore_ speaks of it depreciatingly. But in other places he does
not speak of it depreciatingly, but seems to think the absence of
thought involves a certain nobleness:
"In such high hour
Of visitation from the living God
_Thought_ was not."
And he refers to the intense delight which he himself felt, and
which he supposes other men feel, in nature, during their
thoughtless youth, as an intimation of their immortality, and a joy
which indicates their having come fresh from the hand of God.
Now, if Wordsworth be right in supposing this feeling to be in some
degree common to all men, and most vivid in youth, we may question if
it can be _entirely_ explained as I have now tried to explain it. For
if it entirely depended on multitudes of ideas, clustering about a
beautiful object, it might seem that the youth could not feel it so
strongly as the man, because the man knows more, and must have more
ideas to make the garland of. Still less can we suppose the pleasure
to be of that melancholy and languid kind, which Scott defines as
"Resignation" and "Content;" boys being not distinguished for either
of those characters, but for eager effort and delightsome discontent.
If Wordsworth is at all right in this matter, therefore, there must
surely be some other element in the feeling not yet detected.
Sec. 12. Now, in a question of this subtle kind, relating to a period
of life when self-examination is rare, and expression imperfect, it
becomes exceedingly difficult to trace, with any certainty, the
movements of the minds of others, nor always easy to remember those
of our own. I cannot, from observation, form any decided opinion as
to the extent in which this strange delight in nature influences the
hearts of young persons in general; and, in stating what has passed
in my own mind, I do not mean to draw any positive conclusion as to
the nature of the feeling in other children; but the inquiry is
clearly one in which personal experience is the only safe ground to
go upon, though a narrow one; and I will make no excuse for talking
about myself with reference to this subject, because, though there
is much egotism in the world, it is often the last thing a man
thinks of doing,--and, though there is much work to be done in the
world, it is often the best thing a man can do,--to tell the exact
truth about the movements of his own mind; and there is this farther
reason, that, whatever other faculties I may or may not possess,
this gift of taking pleasure in landscape I assuredly possess in a
greater degree than most men; it having been the ruling passion of
my life, and the reason for the choice of its field of labor.
Sec. 13. The first thing which I remember as an event in life, was being
taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Crag on Derwentwater; the
intense joy, mingled with awe, that I had in looking through the
hollows in the mossy roots, over the crag, into the dark lake, has
associated itself more or less with all twining roots of trees ever
since. Two other things I remember, as, in a sort, beginnings of
life;--crossing Shapfells (being let out of the chaise to run up the
hills), and going through Glenfarg, near Kinross, in a winter's
morning, when the rocks where hung with icicles; these being
culminating points in an early life of more travelling than is usually
indulged to a child. In such journeyings, whenever they brought me
near hills, and in all mountain ground and scenery, I had a pleasure,
as early as I can remember, and continuing till I was eighteen or
twenty, infinitely greater than any which has been since possible to
me in anything; comparable for intensity only to the joy of a lover in
being near a noble and kind mistress, but no more explicable or
definable than that feeling of love itself. Only thus much I can
remember, respecting it, which is important to our present subject.
Sec. 14. First: it was never independent of associated thought. Almost
as soon as I could see or hear, I had got reading enough to give me
associations with all kinds of scenery; and mountains, in
particular, were always partly confused with those of my favorite
book, Scott's Monastery; so that Glenfarg and all other glens were
more or less enchanted to me, filled with forms of hesitating creed
about Christie of the Clint Hill, and the monk Eustace; and with a
general presence of White Lady everywhere. I also generally knew, or
was told by my father and mother, such simple facts of history as
were necessary to give more definite and justifiable association to
other scenes which chiefly interested me, such as the ruins of
Lochleven and Kenilworth; and thus my pleasure in mountains or ruins
was never, even in earliest childhood, free from a certain awe and
melancholy, and general sense of the meaning of death, though in its
principal influence, entirely exhilarating and gladdening.
Sec. 15. Secondly: it was partly dependent on contrast with a very
simple and unamused mode of general life; I was born in London, and
accustomed, for two or three years, to no other prospect than that
of the brick walls over the way; had no brothers, nor sisters, nor
companions; and though I could always make myself happy in a quiet
way, the beauty of the mountains had an additional charm of change
and adventure which a country-bred child would not have felt.
Sec. 16. Thirdly: there was no definite religious feeling mingled with
it. I partly believed in ghosts and fairies; but supposed that
angels belonged entirely to the Mosaic dispensation, and cannot
remember any single thought or feeling connected with them. I
believed that God was in heaven, and could hear me and see me; but
this gave me neither pleasure nor pain, and I seldom thought of it
at all. I never thought of nature as God's work, but as a separate
fact or existence.
Sec. 17. Fourthly: it was entirely unaccompanied by powers of
reflection or invention. Every fancy that I had about nature was put
into my head by some book; and I never reflected about anything till
I grew older; and then, the more I reflected, the less nature was
precious to me: I could then make myself happy, by thinking, in the
dark, or in the dullest scenery; and the beautiful scenery became
less essential to my pleasure.
Sec. 18. Fifthly: it was, according to its strength, inconsistent with
every evil feeling, with spite, anger, covetousness, discontent, and
every other hateful passion; but would associate itself deeply with
every just and noble sorrow, joy, or affection. It had not, however,
always the power to repress what was inconsistent with it; and,
though only after stout contention, might at last be crushed by what
it had partly repressed. And as it only acted by setting one impulse
against another, though it had much power in moulding the character,
it had hardly any in strengthening it; it formed temperament, but
never instilled principle; it kept me generally good-humored and
kindly, but could not teach me perseverance or self-denial: what
firmness or principle I had was quite independent of it; and it came
itself nearly as often in the form of a temptation as of a
safeguard, leading me to ramble over hills when I should have been
learning lessons, and lose days in reveries which I might have spent
in doing kindnesses.
Sec. 19. Lastly: although there was no definite religious sentiment
mingled with it, there was a continual perception of Sanctity in the
whole of nature, from the slightest thing to the vastest:--an
instinctive awe, mixed with delight; an indefinable thrill, such as
we sometimes imagine to indicate the presence of a disembodied
spirit. I could only feel this perfectly when I was alone; and then
it would often make me shiver from head to foot with the joy and
fear of it, when after being some time away from the hills, I first
got to the shore of a mountain river, where the brown water circled
among the pebbles, or when I saw the first swell of distant land
against the sunset, or the first low broken wall, covered with
mountain moss. I cannot in the least _describe_ the feeling; but I
do not think this is my fault, nor that of the English language,
for, I am afraid, no feeling _is_ describable. If we had to explain
even the sense of bodily hunger to a person who had never felt it,
we should be hard put to it for words; and this joy in nature seemed
to me to come of a sort of heart-hunger, satisfied with the presence
of a Great and Holy Spirit. These feelings remained in their full
intensity till I was eighteen or twenty, and then, as the reflective
and practical power increased, and the "cares of this world" gained
upon me, faded gradually away, in the manner described by Wordsworth
in his Intimations of Immortality.
Sec. 20. I cannot, of course, tell how far I am justified in supposing
that these sensations may be reasoned upon as common to children in
general. In the same degree they are not of course common, otherwise
children would be, most of them, very different from what they are
in their choice of pleasures. But, as far as such feelings exist, I
apprehend they are more or less similar in their nature and
influence; only producing different characters according to the
elements with which they are mingled. Thus, a very religious child
may give up many pleasures to which its instincts lead it, for the
sake of irksome duties; and an inventive child would mingle its love
of nature with watchfulness of human sayings and doings: but I
believe the feelings I have endeavored to describe are the pure
landscape-instinct; and the likelihoods of good or evil resulting
from them may be reasoned upon as generally indicating the
usefulness or danger of the modern love and study of landscape.
Sec. 21. And, first, observe that the charm of romantic association (Sec.
14.) can be felt only by the modern European child. It rises
eminently out of the contrast of the beautiful past with the
frightful and monotonous present; and it depends for its force on
the existence of ruins and traditions, on the remains of
architecture, the traces of battlefields, and the precursorship of
eventful history. The instinct to which it appeals can hardly be
felt in America, and every day that either beautifies our present
architecture and dress, or overthrows a stone of mediaeval monument,
contributes to weaken it in Europe. Of its influence on the mind of
Turner and Prout, and the permanent results which, through them, it
is likely to effect, I shall have to speak presently.
Sec. 22. Again: the influence of surprise in producing the delight, is
to be noted as a suspicious or evanescent element in it. Observe, my
pleasure was chiefly (Sec. 19.) when I _first_ got into beautiful
scenery, out of London. The enormous influence of novelty--the way
in which it quickens observation, sharpens sensation, and exalts
sentiment--is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a
very sorrowful matter. I think that what Wordsworth speaks of as a
glory in the child, because it has come fresh from God's hands, is
in reality nothing more than the freshness of all things to its
newly opened sight. I find that by keeping long away from hills, I
can in great part still restore the old childish feeling about them;
and the more I live and work among them, the more it vanishes.
Sec. 23. This evil is evidently common to all minds; Wordsworth himself
mourning over it in the same poem:
"Custom hangs upon us, with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life."
And if we grow impatient under it, and seek to recover the mental
energy by more quickly repeated and brighter novelty, it is all over
with our enjoyment. There is no cure for this evil, any more than for
the weariness of the imagination already described, but in patience
and rest: if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will
become monotonous; and then we are reduced to that old despair, "If
water chokes, what will you drink after it?" And the two points of
practical wisdom in this matter are, first, to be content with as
little novelty as possible at a time; and, secondly, to preserve, as
much as possible in the world, the sources of novelty.
Sec. 24. I say, first, to be content with as little change as possible.
If the attention is awake, and the feelings in proper train, a turn
of a country road, with a cottage beside it, which we have not seen
before, is as much as we need for refreshment; if we hurry past it,
and take two cottages at a time, it is already too much: hence, to
any person who has all his senses about him, a quiet walk along not
more than ten or twelve miles of road a day, is the most amusing of
all travelling; and all travelling becomes dull in exact proportion
to its rapidity. Going by railroad I do not consider as travelling
at all; it is merely "being sent" to a place, and very little
different from becoming a parcel; the next step to it would of
course be telegraphic transport, of which, however, I suppose it has
been truly said by Octave Feuillet,
"_Il y aurait des gens assez betes_ pour trouver ca amusant."[91]
If we walk more than ten or twelve miles, it breaks up the day too
much; leaving no time for stopping at the stream sides or shady
banks, or for any work at the end of the day; besides that the last
few miles are apt to be done in a hurry, and may then be considered
as lost ground. But if, advancing thus slowly, after some days we
approach any more interesting scenery, every yard of the changeful
ground becomes precious and piquant; and the continual increase of
hope, and of surrounding beauty, affords one of the most exquisite
enjoyments possible to the healthy mind; besides that real knowledge
is acquired of whatever it is the object of travelling to learn, and
a certain sublimity given to all places, so attained, by the true
sense of the spaces of earth that separate them. A man who really
loves travelling would as soon consent to pack a day of such
happiness into an hour of railroad, as one who loved eating would
agree, if it were possible, to concentrate his dinner into a pill.
Sec. 25. And, secondly, I say that it is wisdom to preserve as much as
possible the innocent _sources_ of novelty;--not definite
inferiorities of one place to another, if such can be done away; but
differences of manners and customs, of language and architecture. The
greatest effort ought especially to be made by all wise and
far-sighted persons, in the present crisis of civilization, to enforce
the distinction between wholesome reform, and heartless abandonment of
ancestral custom; between kindly fellowship of nation with nation, and
ape-like adoption, by one, of the habits of another. It is ludicrously
awful to see the luxurious inhabitants of London and Paris rushing
over the Continent (as they say, to _see_ it), and transposing every
place, as far as lies in their power, instantly into a likeness of
Regent Street and the Rue de la Paix, which they need not certainly
have come so far to see. Of this evil I shall have more to say
hereafter; meantime I return to our main subject.
Sec. 26. The next character we have to note in the landscape-instinct
(and on this much stress is to be laid), is its total inconsistency
with all evil passion; its absolute contrariety (whether in the
contest it were crushed or not) to all care, hatred, envy, anxiety,
and moroseness. A feeling of this kind is assuredly not one to be
lightly repressed, or treated with contempt.
But how, if it be so, the reader asks, can it be characteristic of
passionate and unprincipled men, like Byron, Shelley, and such
others, and not characteristic of the noblest and most highly
principled men?
First, because it is itself a passion, and therefore likely to be
characteristic of passionate men. Secondly, because it is (Sec. 18)
wholly a separate thing from moral principle, and may or may not be
joined to strength of will, or rectitude of purpose[92]; only, this
much is always observable in the men whom it characterizes, that,
whatever their faults or failings, they always understand and love
noble qualities of character; they can conceive (if not certain
phases of piety), at all events, self-devotion of the highest kind;
they delight in all that is good, gracious, and noble; and though
warped often to take delight also in what is dark or degraded, that
delight is mixed with bitter self-reproach; or else is wanton,
careless, or affected, while their delight in noble things is
constant and sincere.
Sec. 27. Look back to the two lists given above, Sec. 7. I have not lately
read anything by Mrs. Radclyffe or George Sand, and cannot,
therefore, take instances from them; Keats hardly introduced human
character into his work; but glance over the others, and note the
general tone of their conceptions. Take St. Pierre's Virginia,
Byron's Myrrha, Angiolina, and Marina, and Eugene Sue's Fleur de
Marie; and out of the other lists you will only be able to find
Pamela, Clementina, and, I suppose, Clarissa,[93] to put beside
them; and these will not more than match Myrrha and Marina; leaving
Fleur de Marie and Virginia rivalless. Then meditate a little, with
all justice and mercy, over the two groups of names; and I think you
will, at last, feel that there is a pathos and tenderness of heart
among the lovers of nature in the second list, of which it is nearly
impossible to estimate either the value or the danger; that the
sterner consistency of the men in the first may, in great part, have
arisen only from the, to them, most merciful, appointment of having
had religious teaching or disciplined education in their youth;
while their want of love for nature, whether that love be originally
absent, or artificially repressed, is to none of them an advantage.
Johnson's indolence, Goldsmith's improvidence, Young's worldliness,
Milton's severity, and Bacon's servility, might all have been less,
if they could in any wise have sympathized with Byron's lonely joy
in a Jura storm,[94] or with Shelley's interest in floating paper
boats down the Serchio.
Sec. 28. And then observe, farther, as I kept the names of Wordsworth
and Scott out of the second list, I withdrew, also, certain names
from the first; and for this reason, that in all the men who are
named in that list, there is evidently _some_ degree of love for
nature, which may have been originally of more power than we
suppose, and may have had an infinitely hallowing and protective
influence upon them. But there also lived certain men of high
intellect in that age who had _no_ love of nature whatever. They do
not appear ever to have received the smallest sensation of ocular
delight from any natural scene, but would have lived happily all
their lives in drawingrooms or studies. And, therefore, in these men
we shall be able to determine, with the greatest chance of accuracy,
what the real influence of natural beauty is, and what the character
of a mind destitute of its love. Take, as conspicuous instances, Le
Sage and Smollett, and you will find, in meditating over their
works, that they are utterly incapable of conceiving a human soul as
endowed with any nobleness whatever; their heroes are simply beasts
endowed with some degree of human intellect;--cunning, false,
passionate, reckless, ungrateful, and abominable, incapable of noble
joy, of noble sorrow, of any spiritual perception or hope. I said,
"beasts with human intellect;" but neither Gil Blas nor Roderick
Random reach, morally, anything near the level of dogs; while the
delight which the writers themselves feel in mere filth and pain,
with an unmitigated foulness and cruelty of heart, is just as
manifest in every sentence as the distress and indignation which
with pain and injustice are seen by Shelley and Byron.
Sec. 29. Distinguished from these men by _some_ evidence of love for
nature, yet an evidence much less clear than that for any of those
named even in the first list, stand Cervantes, Pope, and Moliere. It
is not easy to say how much the character of these last depended on
their epoch and education; but it is noticeable that the first two
agree thus far in temper with Le Sage and Smollett,--that they delight
in dwelling upon vice, misfortune, or folly, as subjects of amusement;
while yet they are distinguished from Le Sage and Smollett by capacity
of conceiving nobleness of character, only in a humiliating and
hopeless way; the one representing all chivalry as insanity, the other
placing the wisdom of man in a serene and sneering reconciliation of
good with evil. Of Moliere I think very differently. Living in the
blindest period of the world's history, in the most luxurious city,
and the most corrupted court, of the time, he yet manifests through
all his writings an exquisite natural wisdom; a capacity for the most
simple enjoyment; a high sense of all nobleness, honor, and purity,
variously marked throughout his slighter work, but distinctly made the
theme of his two perfect plays--the Tartuffe and Misanthrope; and in
all that he says of art or science he has an unerring instinct for
what is useful and sincere, and uses his whole power to defend it,
with as keen a hatred of everything affected and vain. And, singular
as it may seem, the first definite lesson read to Europe, in that
school of simplicity of which Wordsworth was the supposed originator
among the mountains of Cumberland, was, in fact, given in the midst of
the court of Louis XIV., and by Moliere. The little canzonet "J'aime
mieux ma mie," is, I believe, the first Wordsworthian poem brought
forward on philosophical principles to oppose the schools of art and
affectation.
Sec. 30. I do not know if, by a careful analysis, I could point out any
evidences of a capacity for the love of natural scenery in Moliere
stealing forth through the slightness of his pastorals; but, if not,
we must simply set him aside as exceptional, as a man uniting
Wordsworth's philosophy with Le Sage's wit, turned by circumstances
from the observance of natural beauty to that of human frailty. And
thus putting him aside for the moment, I think we cannot doubt of
our main conclusion, that, though the absence of the love of nature
is not an assured condemnation, its presence is an invariable sign
of goodness of heart and justness of moral _perception_, though by
no means of moral _practice_; that in proportion to the degree in
which it is felt, will _probably_ be the degree in which all
nobleness and beauty of character will also be felt; that when it is
originally absent from any mind, that mind is in many other respects
hard, worldly, and degraded; that where, having been originally
present, it is repressed by art or education, that repression
appears to have been detrimental to the person suffering it; and
that wherever the feeling exists, it acts for good on the character
to which it belongs, though, as it may often belong to characters
weak in other respects, it may carelessly be mistaken for a source
of evil in them.
Sec. 31. And having arrived at this conclusion by a review of facts,
which I hope it will be admitted, whether accurate or not, has at
least been candid, these farther considerations may confirm our
belief in its truth. Observe: the whole force of education, until
very lately, has been directed in every possible way to the
destruction of the love of nature. The only knowledge which has been
considered essential among us is that of words, and, next after it,
of the abstract sciences; while every liking shown by children for
simple natural history has been either violently checked, (if it
took an inconvenient form for the housemaids,) or else scrupulously
limited to hours of play: so that it has really been impossible for
any child earnestly to study the works of God but against its
conscience; and the love of nature has become inherently the
characteristic of truants and idlers. While also the art of drawing,
which is of more real importance to the human race than that of
writing (because people can hardly draw anything without being of
some use both to themselves and others, and can hardly write
anything without wasting their own time and that of others),--this
art of drawing, I say, which on plain and stern system should be
taught to every child, just as writing is,--has been so neglected
and abused, that there is not one man in a thousand, even of its
professed teachers, who knows its first principles: and thus it
needs much ill-fortune or obstinacy--much neglect on the part of his
teachers, or rebellion on his own--before a boy can get leave to use
his eyes or his fingers; so that those who _can_ use them are for
the most part neglected or rebellious lads--runaways and bad
scholars--passionate, erratic, self-willed, and restive against all
forms of education; while your well-behaved and amiable scholars are
disciplined into blindness and palsy of half their faculties.
Wherein there is at once a notable ground for what difference we
have observed between the lovers of nature and its despisers;
between the somewhat immoral and unrespectable watchfulness of the
one, and the moral and respectable blindness of the other.
Sec. 32. One more argument remains, and that, I believe, an unanswerable
one. As, by the accident of education, the love of nature has been,
among us, associated with _wilfulness_, so, by the accident of time,
it has been associated with _faithlessness_. I traced, above, the
peculiar mode in which this faithlessness was indicated; but I never
intended to imply, therefore, that it was an invariable concomitant of
the love. Because it happens that, by various concurrent operations of
evil, we have been led, according to those words of the Greek poet
already quoted, "to dethrone the gods, and crown the whirlwind," it is
no reason that we should forget there was once a time when "the Lord
answered Job _out of_ the whirlwind." And if we now take final and
full view of the matter, we shall find that the love of nature,
wherever it has existed, has been a faithful and sacred element of
human feeling; that is to say, supposing all circumstances otherwise
the same with respect to two individuals, the one who loves nature
most will be _always_ found to have more _faith in God_ than the
other. It is intensely difficult, owing to the confusing and counter
influences which always mingle in the data of the problem, to make
this abstraction fairly; but so far as we can do it, so far, I boldly
assert, the result is constantly the same: the nature-worship will be
found to bring with it such a sense of the presence and power of a
Great Spirit as no mere reasoning can either induce or controvert; and
where that nature-worship is innocently pursued,--i.e. with due
respect to other claims on time, feeling, and exertion, and associated
with the higher principles of religion,--it becomes the channel of
certain sacred truths, which by no other means can be conveyed.
Sec. 33. This is not a statement which any investigation is needed to
prove. It comes to us at once from the highest of all authority. The
greater number of the words which are recorded in Scripture, as
directly spoken to men by the lips of the Deity, are either simple
revelations of His law, or special threatenings, commands, and
promises relating to special events. But two passages of God's
speaking, one in the Old and one in the New Testament, possess, it
seems to me, a different character from any of the rest, having been
uttered, the one to effect the last necessary change in the mind of
a man whose piety was in other respects perfect; and the other, as
the first statement to all men of the principles of Christianity by
Christ Himself--I mean the 38th to 41st chapters of the book of Job,
and the Sermon on the Mount. Now the first of these passages is,
from beginning to end, nothing else than a direction of the mind
which was to be perfected to humble observance of the works of God
in nature. And the other consists only in the inculcation of _three_
things: 1st, right conduct; 2nd, looking for eternal life; 3rd,
trusting God, through watchfulness of His dealings with His
creation: and the entire contents of the book of Job, and of the
Sermon on the Mount, will be found resolvable simply into these
three requirements from all men,--that they should act rightly, hope
for heaven, and watch God's wonders and work in the earth; the right
conduct being always summed up under the three heads of _justice_,
_mercy_, and _truth_, and no mention of any doctrinal point whatsoever
occurring in either piece of divine teaching.
Sec. 34. As far as I can judge of the ways of men, it seems to me that
the simplest and most necessary truths are always the last
believed; and I suppose that well-meaning people in general would
rather regulate their conduct and creed by almost any other portion
of Scripture whatsoever, than by that Sermon on the Mount, which
contains the things that Christ thought it first necessary for all
men to understand. Nevertheless, I believe the time will soon come
for the full force of these two passages of Scripture to be
accepted. Instead of supposing the love of nature necessarily
connected with the faithlessness of the age, I believe it is
connected properly with the benevolence and liberty of the age; that
it is precisely the most healthy element which distinctively belongs
to us; and that out of it, cultivated no longer in levity or
ignorance, but in earnestness and as a duty, results will spring of
an importance at present inconceivable; and lights arise, which, for
the first time in man's history, will reveal to him the true nature
of his life, the true field for his energies, and the true relations
between him and his Maker.
Sec. 35. I will not endeavor here to trace the various modes in which
these results are likely to be effected, for this would involve an
essay on education, on the uses of natural history, and the probable
future destiny of nations. Somewhat on these subjects I have spoken
in other places; and I hope to find time, and proper place, to say
more. But one or two observations maybe made merely to suggest the
directions in which the reader may follow out the subject for
himself.
The great mechanical impulses of the age, of which most of us are so
proud, are a mere passing fever, half-speculative, half-childish.
People will discover at last that royal roads to anything can no
more be laid in iron than they can in dust; that there are, in fact,
no royal roads to anywhere worth going to; that if there were, it
would that instant cease to be worth going to,--I mean so far as the
things to be obtained are in any way estimable in terms of _price_.
For there are two classes of precious things in the world: those
that God gives us for nothing--sun, air, and life (both mortal life
and immortal); and the secondarily precious things which he gives us
for a price: these secondarily precious things, worldly wine and
milk, can only be bought for definite money; they never can be
cheapened. No cheating nor bargaining will ever get a single thing
out of nature's "establishment" at half-price. Do we want to be
strong?--we must work. To be hungry?--we must starve. To be
happy?--we must be kind. To be wise?--we must look and think. No
changing of place at a hundred miles an hour, nor making of stuffs a
thousand yards a minute, will make us one whit stronger, happier, or
wiser. There was always more in the world than men could see, walked
they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast. And
they will at last, and soon too, find out that their grand
inventions for conquering (as they think) space and time, do, in
reality, conquer nothing; for space and time are, in their own
essence, unconquerable, and besides did not want any sort of
conquering; they wanted _using_. A fool always wants to shorten
space and time: a wise man wants to lengthen both. A fool wants to
kill space and kill time: a wise man, first to gain them, then to
animate them. Your railroad, when you come to understand it, is only
a device for making the world smaller: and as for being able to talk
from place to place, that is, indeed, well and convenient; but
suppose you have, originally, nothing to say.[95] We shall be
obliged at last to confess, what we should long ago have known, that
the really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does
a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a man, no
harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being.
Sec. 36. "Well; but railroads and telegraphs are so useful for
communicating knowledge to savage nations." Yes, if you have any to
give them. If you know nothing _but_ railroads, and can communicate
nothing but aqueous vapor and gunpowder,--what then? But if you have
any other thing than those to give, then the railroad is of use only
because it communicates that other thing and the question is--what
that other thing may be. Is it religion? I believe if we had really
wanted to communicate that, we could have done it in less than 1800
years, without steam. Most of the good religious communication that
I remember has been done on foot; and it cannot be easily done
faster than at foot pace. Is it science? But what science--of
motion, meat, and medicine? Well; when you have moved your savage,
and dressed your savage, fed him with white bread, and shown him how
to set a limb,--what next? Follow out that question. Suppose every
obstacle overcome; give your savage every advantage of civilization
to the full: suppose that you have put the Red Indian in tight
shoes; taught the Chinese how to make Wedgwood's ware, and to paint
it with colors that will rub off; and persuaded all Hindoo women
that it is more pious to torment their husbands into graves than to
burn themselves at the burial,--what next? Gradually, thinking on
from point to point, we shall come to perceive that all true
happiness and nobleness are near us, and yet neglected by us; and
that till we have learned how to be happy and noble, we have not
much to tell, even to Red Indians. The delights of horse-racing and
hunting, of assemblies in the night instead of the day, of costly
and wearisome music, of costly and burdensome dress, of chagrined
contention for place or power, or wealth, or the eyes of the
multitude; and all the endless occupation without purpose, and
idleness without rest, of our vulgar world, are not, it seems to me,
enjoyments we need be ambitious to communicate. And all real and
wholesome enjoyments possible to man have been just as possible to
him, since first he was made of the earth, as they are now; and they
are possible to him chiefly in peace. To watch the corn grow, and
the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over ploughshare or spade; to
read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray,--these are the things
that make men happy; they have always had the power of doing these,
they never _will_ have power to do more. The world's prosperity or
adversity depends upon our knowing and teaching these few things:
but upon iron, or glass, or electricity, or steam, in no wise.
Sec. 37. And I am Utopian and enthusiastic enough to believe, that the
time will come when the world will discover this. It has now made
its experiments in every possible direction but the right one; and
it seems that it must, at last, try the right one, in a mathematical
necessity. It has tried fighting, and preaching, and fasting, buying
and selling, pomp and parsimony, pride and humiliation,--every
possible manner of existence in which it could conjecture there was
any happiness or dignity; and all the while, as it bought, sold,
and fought, and fasted, and wearied itself with policies, and
ambitions, and self-denials, God had placed its real happiness in
the keeping of the little mosses of the wayside, and of the clouds
of the firmament. Now and then a weary king, or a tormented slave,
found out where the true kingdoms of the world were, and possessed
himself, in a furrow or two of garden ground, of a truly infinite
dominion. But the world would not believe their report, and went on
trampling down the mosses, and forgetting the clouds, and seeking
happiness in its own way, until, at last, blundering and late, came
natural science; and in natural science not only the observation of
things, but the finding out of new uses for them. Of course the
world, having a choice left to it, went wrong as usual, and thought
that these mere material uses were to be the sources of its
happiness. It got the clouds packed into iron cylinders, and made it
carry its wise self at their own cloud pace. It got weavable fibres
out of the mosses, and made clothes for itself, cheap and
fine,--here was happiness at last. To go as fast as the clouds, and
manufacture everything out of anything,--here was paradise, indeed!
Sec. 38. And now, when, in a little while, it is unparadised again, if
there were any other mistake that the world could make, it would of
course make it. But I see not that there is any other; and, standing
fairly at its wits' end, having found that going fast, when it is
used to it, is no more paradisiacal than going slow; and that all
the prints and cottons in Manchester cannot make it comfortable in
its mind, I do verily believe it will come, finally, to understand
that God paints the clouds and shapes the moss-fibres, that men may
be happy in seeing Him at His work, and that in resting quietly
beside Him, and watching His working, and--according to the power He
has communicated to ourselves, and the guidance He grants,--in
carrying out His purposes of peace and charity among all His
creatures, are the only real happinesses that ever were, or will be,
possible to mankind.
Sec. 39. How far art is capable of helping us in such happiness we
hardly yet know; but I hope to be able, in the subsequent parts of
this work, to give some data for arriving at a conclusion in the
matter. Enough has been advanced to relieve the reader from any
lurking suspicion of unworthiness in our subject, and to induce him
to take interest in the mind and work of the great painter who has
headed the landscape school among us. What farther considerations
may, within any reasonable limits, be put before him, respecting the
effect of natural scenery on the human heart, I will introduce in
their proper places either as we examine, under Turner's guidance,
the different classes of scenery, or at the close of the whole work;
and therefore I have only one point more to notice here, namely, the
exact relation between landscape-painting and natural science,
properly so-called.
Sec. 40. For it may be thought that I have rashly assumed that the
Scriptural authorities above quoted apply to that partly superficial
view of nature which is taken by the landscape-painter, instead of
to the accurate view taken by the man of science. So far from there
being rashness in such an assumption, the whole language, both of
the book of Job and the Sermon on the Mount, gives precisely the
view of nature which is taken by the uninvestigating affection of a
humble, but powerful mind. There is no dissection of muscles or
counting of elements, but the boldest and broadest glance at the
apparent facts, and the most magnificent metaphor in expressing
them. "His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. In his neck
remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him." And
in the often repeated, never obeyed, command, "Consider the lilies
of the field," observe there is precisely the delicate attribution
of life which we have seen to be the characteristic of the modern
view of landscape,--"They toil not," There is no science, or hint of
science; no counting of petals, nor display of provisions for
sustenance: nothing but the expression of sympathy, at once the most
childish, and the most profound,--"They toil not."
Sec. 41. And we see in this, therefore, that the instinct which leads
us thus to attribute life to the lowest forms of organic nature,
does not necessarily spring from faithlessness, nor the deducing a
moral out of them from an irregular and languid conscientiousness.
In this, as in almost all things connected with moral discipline,
the same results may follow from contrary causes; and as there are a
good and evil contentment, a good and evil discontent, a good and
evil care, fear, ambition, and so on, there are also good and evil
forms of this sympathy with nature, and disposition to moralize over
it.[96] In general, active men, of strong sense and stern principle,
do not care to see anything in a leaf, but vegetable tissue, and are
so well convinced of useful moral truth, that it does not strike
them as a new or notable thing when they find it in any way
symbolized by material nature; hence there is a strong presumption,
when first we perceive a tendency in any one to regard trees as
living, and enunciate moral aphorisms over every pebble they stumble
against, that such tendency proceeds from a morbid temperament, like
Shelley's, or an inconsistent one, like Jaques's. But when the
active life is nobly fulfilled, and the mind is then raised beyond
it into clear and calm beholding of the world around us, the same
tendency again manifests itself in the most sacred way: the simplest
forms of nature are strangely animated by the sense of the Divine
presence; the trees and flowers seem all, in a sort, children of
God; and we ourselves, their fellows, made out of the same dust, and
greater than they only in having a greater portion of the Divine
power exerted on our frame, and all the common uses and palpably
visible forms of things, become subordinate in our minds to their
inner glory,--to the mysterious voices in which they talk to us
about God, and the changeful and typical aspects by which they
witness to us of holy truth, and fill us with obedient, joyful, and
thankful emotion.
Sec. 42. It is in raising us from the first state of inactive reverie
to the second of useful thought, that scientific pursuits are to be
chiefly praised. But in restraining us at this second stage, and
checking the impulses towards higher contemplation, they are to be
feared or blamed. They may in certain minds be consistent with such
contemplation; but only by an effort: in their nature they are
always adverse to it, having a tendency to chill and subdue the
feelings, and to resolve all things into atoms and numbers. For most
men, an ignorant enjoyment is better than an informed one; it is
better to conceive the sky as a blue dome than a dark cavity, and
the cloud as a golden throne than a sleety mist. I much question
whether any one who knows optics, however religious he may be, can
feel in equal degree the pleasure or reverence which an unlettered
peasant may feel at the sight of a rainbow. And it is mercifully
thus ordained, since the law of life, for a finite being, with
respect to the works of an infinite one, must be always an infinite
ignorance. We cannot fathom the mystery of a single flower, nor is
it intended that we should; but that the pursuit of science should
constantly be stayed by the love of beauty, and accuracy of
knowledge by tenderness of emotion.
Sec. 43. Nor is it even just to speak of the love of beauty as in all
respects unscientific; for there is a science of the aspects of
things as well as of their nature; and it is as much a fact to be
noted in their constitution, that they produce such and such an
effect upon the eye or heart (as, for instance, that minor scales of
sound cause melancholy), as that they are made up of certain atoms
or vibrations of matter.
It is as the master of this science of _Aspects_, that I said, some
time ago, Turner must eventually be named always with Bacon, the
master of the science of _Essence_. As the first poet who has, in
all their range, understood the grounds of noble emotion which exist
in Landscape, his future influence will be of a still more subtle
and important character. The rest of this work will therefore be
dedicated to the explanation of the principles on which he composed,
and of the aspects of nature which he was the first to discern.
[88] Marmion, Introduction to canto II.
[89] The investigation of this subject becomes, therefore,
difficult beyond all other parts of our inquiry, since
precisely the same sentiments may arise in different minds
from totally opposite causes; and the extreme of frivolity
may sometimes for a moment desire the same things as the
extreme of moral power and dignity. In the following extract
from "Marriage," the sentiment expressed by Lady Juliana (the
ineffably foolish and frivolous heroine of the story) is as
nearly as possible what Dante would have felt, under the same
circumstances:
"The air was soft and genial; not a cloud stained the bright
azure of the heavens; and the sun shone out in all his
splendor, shedding life and beauty even over the desolate
heath-clad hills of Glenfern. But, after they had journeyed a
few miles, suddenly emerging from the valley, a scene of
matchless beauty burst at once upon the eye. Before them lay
the dark blue waters of Lochmarlie, reflecting, as in a
mirror, every surrounding object, and bearing on its placid,
transparent bosom a fleet of herring-boats, the drapery of
whose black, suspended nets contrasted, with picturesque
effect, the white sails of the larger vessels, which were
vainly spread to catch a breeze. All around, rocks, meadows,
woods, and hills mingled in wild and lovely irregularity.
"Not a breath was stirring, not a sound was heard, save the
rushing of a waterfall, the tinkling of some silver rivulet,
or the calm rippling of the tranquil lake; now and then, at
intervals, the fisherman's Gaelic ditty, chanted as he lay
stretched on the sand in some sunny nook; or the shrill,
distant sound of childish glee. How delicious to the feeling
heart to behold so fair a scene of unsophisticated nature, and
to listen to her voice alone, breathing the accents of
innocence and joy! But none of the party who now gazed on it
had minds capable of being touched with the emotions it was
calculated to inspire.
"Henry, indeed, was rapturous in his expressions of admiration;
but he concluded his panegyrics by wondering his brother did
not keep a cutter, and resolving to pass a night on board one
of the herring-boats, that he might eat the fish in perfection.
"Lady Juliana thought it might be very pretty, if, instead of
those frightful rocks and shabby cottages, there could be
villas, and gardens, and lawns, and conservatories, and
summer-houses, and statues.
"Miss Bella observed, if it was hers she would cut down the
woods, and level the hills, and have races."
[90] Childe Harold, canto iii. st. 71.
[91] Scenes et Proverbes. La Crise; (Scene en caleche, hors
Paris.)
[92] Compare the characters of Fleur de Marie and Rigolette, in
the Mysteres de Paris. I know no other instance in which the
two tempers are so exquisitely delineated and opposed. Read
carefully the beautiful pastoral, in the eighth chapter of
the first Part, where Fleur de Marie is first taken into the
fields under Montmartre, and compare it with the sixth of the
second Part, its accurately traced companion sketch, noting
carefully Rigolette's "Non, _je deteste la campagne_." She
does not, however, dislike flowers or birds: "Cette caisse de
bois, que Rigolette appellait le jardin de ses oiseaux, etait
remplie de terre recouverte de mousse, pendant l'hiver. Elle
travaillait aupres de la fenetre ouverte, a-demi-voilee par
un verdoyant rideau de pois de senteur roses, de capucines
oranges, de volubilis bleus et blancs."
[93] I have not read Clarissa.
[94] It might be thought that Young _could_ have sympathized with
it. He would have made better use of it, but he would not
have had the same delight in it. He turns his solitude to
good account; but this is because, to him, solitude is
sorrow, and his real enjoyment would have been of amiable
society, and a place at court.
[95] "The light-outspeeding telegraph
Bears nothing on its beam." EMERSON.
See Appendix III., Plagiarism.
[96] Compare what is said before in various places of good and bad
finish, good and bad mystery, &c. If a man were disposed to
system-making, he could easily throw together a
counter-system to Aristotle's, showing that in all things
there were two extremes which exactly resembled each other,
but of which one was bad, the other good; and a mean,
resembling neither, but better than the one, and worse than
the other.