THE LANCE OF PALLAS.
§ 1. It might be thought that the tenor of the preceding chapter was in
some sort adverse to my repeated statement that all great art is the
expression of man's delight in God's work, not in _his own._ But
observe, he is not himself his own work: he is himself precisely the
most wonderful piece of God's workmanship extant. In this best piece not
only he is bound to take delight, but cannot, in a right state of
thought, take delight in anything else, otherwise than through himself.
Through himself, however, as the sun of creation, not as _the_ creation.
In himself, as the light of the world.[1] Not as being the world. Let
him stand in his due relation to other creatures, and to inanimate
things--know them all and love them, as made for him, and he for
them;--and he becomes himself the greatest and holiest of them. But let
him cast off this relation, despise and forget the less creation around
him, and instead of being the light of the world, he is as a sun in
space--a fiery ball, spotted with storm.
§ 2. All the diseases of mind leading to fatalest ruin consist primarily
in this isolation. They are the concentration of man upon himself,
whether his heavenly interests or his worldly interests, matters not; it
is the being _his own_ interests which makes the regard of them so
mortal. Every form of asceticism on one side, of sensualism on the
other, is an isolation of his soul or of his body; the fixing his
thoughts upon them alone: while every healthy state of nations and of
individual minds consists in the unselfish presence of the human spirit
everywhere, energizing over all things; speaking and living through all
things.
§ 3. Man being thus the crowning and ruling work of God, it will follow
that all his best art must have something to tell about himself, as the
soul of things, and ruler of creatures. It must also make this reference
to himself under a true conception of his own nature. Therefore all art
which involves no reference to man is inferior or nugatory. And all art
which involves misconception of man, or base thought of him, is in that
degree false, and base.
Now the basest thought possible concerning him is, that he has no
spiritual nature; and the foolishest misunderstanding of him possible
is, that he has or should have, no animal nature. For his nature is
nobly animal, nobly spiritual--coherently and irrevocably so; neither
part of it may, but at its peril, expel, despise, or defy the other. All
great art confesses and worships both.
§ 4. The art which, since the writings of Rio and Lord Lindsay, is
specially known as "Christian," erred by pride in its denial of the
animal nature of man;--and, in connection with all monkish and fanatical
forms of religion, by looking always to another world instead of this.
It wasted its strength in visions, and was therefore swept away,
notwithstanding all its good and glory, by the strong truth of the
naturalist art of the sixteenth century. But that naturalist art erred
on the other side; denied at last the spiritual nature of man, and
perished in corruption.
A contemplative reaction is taking place in modern times, out of which
it may be hoped a new spiritual art may be developed. The first school
of landscape, named, in the foregoing chapter, the Heroic, is that of
the noble naturalists. The second (Classical), and third (Pastoral),
belong to the time of sensual decline. The fourth (Contemplative) is
that of modern revival.
§ 5. But why, the reader will ask, is no place given in this scheme to
the "Christian" or spiritual art which preceded the naturalists? Because
all landscape belonging to that art is subordinate, and in one essential
principle false. It is subordinate, because intended only to exalt the
conception of saintly or Divine presence:--rather therefore to be
considered as a landscape decoration or type, than an effort to paint
nature. If I included it in my list of schools, I should have to go
still farther back, and include with it the conventional and
illustrative landscape of the Greeks and Egyptians.
§ 6. But also it cannot constitute a real school, because its first
assumption is false, namely, that the natural world can be represented
without the element of death.
The real schools of landscape are primarily distinguished from the
preceding unreal ones by their introduction of this element. They are
not at first in any sort the worthier for it. But they are more true,
and capable, therefore, in the issue, of becoming worthier.
It will be a hard piece of work for us to think this rightly out, but it
must be done.
§ 7. Perhaps an accurate analysis of the schools of art of all time
might show us that when the immortality of the soul was practically and
completely believed, the elements of decay, danger, and grief in visible
things were always disregarded. However this may be, it is assuredly so
in the early Christian schools. The ideas of danger or decay seem not
merely repugnant, but inconceivable to them; the expression of
immortality and perpetuity is alone possible. I do not mean that they
take no note of the absolute fact of corruption. This fact the early
painters often compel themselves to look fuller in the front than any
other men: as in the way they usually paint the Deluge (the raven
feeding on the bodies), and in all the various triumphs and processions
of the Power of Death, which formed one great chapter of religious
teaching and painting, from Orcagna's time to the close of the Purist
epoch. But I mean that this external fact of corruption is separated in
their minds from the main conditions of their work; and its horror
enters no more into their general treatment of landscape than the fear
of murder or martyrdom, both of which they had nevertheless continually
to represent. None of these things appeared to them as affecting the
general dealings of the Deity with His world. Death, pain, and decay
were simply momentary accidents in the course of immortality, which
never ought to exercise any depressing influence over the hearts of men,
or in the life of Nature. God, in intense life, peace, and helping
power, was always and everywhere. Human bodies, at one time or another,
had indeed to be made dust of, and raised from it; and this becoming
dust was hurtful and humiliating, but not in the least melancholy, nor,
in any very high degree, important; except to thoughtless persons, who
needed sometimes to be reminded of it, and whom, not at all fearing the
things much himself, the painter accordingly did remind of it, somewhat
sharply.
§ 8. A similar condition of mind seems to have been attained, not
unfrequently, in modern times, by persons whom either narrowness of
circumstance or education, or vigorous moral efforts have guarded from
the troubling of the world, so as to give them firm and childlike trust
in the power and presence of God, together with peace of conscience, and
a belief in the passing of all evil into some form of good. It is
impossible that a person thus disciplined should feel, in any of its
more acute phases, the sorrow for any of the phenomena of nature, or
terror in any material danger which would occur to another. The absence
of personal fear, the consciousness of security as great in the midst of
pestilence and storm, as amidst beds of flowers on a summer morning, and
the certainty that whatever appeared evil, or was assuredly painful,
must eventually issue in a far greater and enduring good--this general
feeling and conviction, I say, would gradually lull, and at last put to
entire rest, the physical sensations of grief and fear; so that the man
would look upon danger without dread,--accept pain without lamentation.
§ 9. It may perhaps be thought that this is a very high and right state
of mind.
Unfortunately, it appears that the attainment of it is never possible
without inducing some form of intellectual weakness.
No painter belonging to the purest religious schools ever mastered his
art. Perugino nearly did so; but it was because he was more
rational--more a man of the world--than the rest. No literature exists
of a high class produced by minds in the pure religious temper. On the
contrary, a great deal of literature exists, produced by persons in that
temper, which is markedly, and very far, below average literary work.
§ 10. The reason of this I believe to be, that the right faith of man is
not intended to give him repose, but to enable him to do his work. It is
not intended that he should look away from the place he lives in now,
and cheer himself with thoughts of the place he is to live in next, but
that he should look stoutly into this world, in faith that if he does
his work thoroughly here, some good to others or himself, with which,
however, he is not at present concerned, will come of it hereafter. And
this kind of brave, but not very hopeful or cheerful faith, I perceive
to be always rewarded by clear practical success and splendid
intellectual power; while the faith which dwells on the future fades
away into rosy mist, and emptiness of musical air. That result indeed
follows naturally enough on its habit of assuming that things must be
right, or must come right, when, probably, the fact is, that so far as
we are concerned, they are entirely wrong; and going wrong: and also on
its weak and false way of looking on what these religious persons call
"the bright side of things," that is to say, on one side of them only,
when God has given them two sides, and intended us to see both.
§ 11. I was reading but the other day, in a book by a zealous, useful,
and able Scotch clergyman, one of these rhapsodies, in which he
described a scene in the Highlands to show (he said) the goodness of
God. In this Highland scene there was nothing but sunshine, and fresh
breezes, and bleating lambs, and clean tartans, and all manner of
pleasantness. Now a Highland scene is, beyond dispute, pleasant enough
in its own way; but, looked close at, has its shadows. Here, for
instance, is the very fact of one, as pretty as I can remember--having
seen many. It is a little valley of soft turf, enclosed in its narrow
oval by jutting rocks and broad flakes of nodding fern. From one side of
it to the other winds, serpentine, a clear brown stream, drooping into
quicker ripple as it reaches the end of the oval field, and then, first
islanding a purple and white rock with an amber pool, it dashes away
into a narrow fall of foam under a thicket of mountain ash and alder.
The autumn sun, low but clear, shines on the scarlet ash-berries and on
the golden birch-leaves, which, fallen here and there, when the breeze
has not caught them, rest quiet in the crannies of the purple rock.
Beside the rock, in the hollow under the thicket, the carcass of a ewe,
drowned in the last flood, lies nearly bare to the bone, its white ribs
protruding through the skin, raven-torn; and the rags of its wool still
flickering from the branches that first stayed it as the stream swept it
down. A little lower, the current plunges, roaring, into a circular
chasm like a well, surrounded on three sides by a chimney-like
hollowness of polished rock, down which the foam slips in detached
snow-flakes. Round the edges of the pool beneath, the water circles
slowly, like black oil; a little butterfly lies on its back, its wings
glued to one of the eddies, its limbs feebly quivering; a fish rises and
it is gone. Lower down the stream, I can just see, over a knoll, the
green and damp turf roofs of four or five hovels, built at the edge of a
morass, which is trodden by the cattle into a black Slough of Despond at
their doors, and traversed by a few ill-set stepping-stones, with here
and there a flat slab on the tops, where they have sunk out of sight;
and at the turn of the brook I see a man fishing, with a boy and a
dog--a picturesque and pretty group enough certainly, if they had not
been there all day starving. I know them, and I know the dog's ribs
also, which are nearly as bare as the dead ewe's; and the child's wasted
shoulders, cutting his old tartan jacket through, so sharp are they. We
will go down and talk with the man.
§ 12. Or, that I may not piece pure truth with fancy, for I have none of
his words set down, let us hear a word or two from another such, a
Scotchman also, and as true hearted, and in just as fair a scene. I
write out the passage, in which I have kept his few sentences, word for
word, as it stands in my private diary:--"22nd April (1851). Yesterday I
had a long walk up the Via Gellia, at Matlock, coming down upon it from
the hills above, all sown with anemones and violets, and murmuring with
sweet springs. Above all the mills in the valley, the brook, in its
first purity, forms a small shallow pool, with a sandy bottom covered
with cresses, and other water plants. A man was wading in it for cresses
as I passed up the valley, and bade me good-day. I did not go much
farther; he was there when I returned. I passed him again, about one
hundred yards, when it struck me I might as well learn all I could about
watercresses: so I turned back. I asked the man, among other questions,
what he called the common weed, something like watercress, but with a
serrated leaf, which grows at the edge of nearly all such pools. 'We
calls that brooklime, hereabouts,' said a voice behind me. I turned, and
saw three men, miners or manufacturers--two evidently Derbyshire men,
and respectable-looking in their way; the third, thin, poor, old, and
harder-featured, and utterly in rags. 'Brooklime?' I said. 'What do you
call it lime for?' The man said he did not know, it was called that.
'You'll find that in the British 'Erba,' said the weak, calm voice of
the old man. I turned to him in much surprise; but he went on saying
something drily (I hardly understood what) to the cress-gatherer; who
contradicting him, the old man said he 'didn't know fresh water,' he
'knew enough of sa't.' 'Have you been a sailor?' I asked. 'I was a
sailor for eleven years and ten months of my life,' he said, in the same
strangely quiet manner. 'And what are you now?' 'I lived for ten years
after my wife's death by picking up rags and bones; I hadn't much
occasion afore.' 'And now how do you live?' 'Why, I lives hard and
honest, and haven't got to live long,' or something to that effect. He
then went on, in a kind of maundering way, about his wife. 'She had
rheumatism and fever very bad; and her second rib grow'd over her
hench-bone. A' was a clever woman, but a' grow'd to be a very little
one' (this with an expression of deep melancholy). 'Eighteen years after
her first lad she was in the family-way again, and they had doctors up
from Lunnon about it. They wanted to rip her open and take the child out
of her side. But I never would give my consent.' (Then, after a pause:)
'She died twenty-six hours and ten minutes after it. I never cared much
what come of me since; but I know that I shall soon reach her; that's a
knowledge I would na gie for the king's crown.' 'You are a Scotchman,
are not you?' I asked. 'I'm from the Isle of Skye, sir; I'm a McGregor.'
I said something about his religious faith. 'Ye'll know I was bred in
the Church of Scotland, sir,' he said, 'and I love it as I love my own
soul; but I think thae Wesleyan Methodists ha' got salvation among them,
too.'"
Truly, this Highland and English hill-scenery is fair enough; but has
its shadows; and deeper coloring, here and there, than that of heath and
rose.
§ 13. Now, as far as I have watched the main powers of human mind, they
have risen first from the resolution to see fearlessly, pitifully, and
to its very worst, what these deep colors mean, wheresoever they fall;
not by any means to pass on the other side looking pleasantly up to the
sky, but to stoop to the horror, and let the sky, for the present, take
care of its own clouds. However this may be in moral matters, with which
I have nothing here to do, in my own field of inquiry the fact is so;
and all great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without
shrinking into the darkness. If, having done so, the human spirit can,
by its courage and faith, conquer the evil, it rises into conceptions of
victorious and consummated beauty. It is then the spirit of the highest
Greek and Venetian Art. If unable to conquer the evil, but remaining in
strong, though melancholy war with it, not rising into supreme beauty,
it is the spirit of the best northern art, typically represented by that
of Holbein and Durer. If, itself conquered by the evil, infected by the
dragon breath of it, and at last brought into captivity, so as to take
delight in evil for ever, it becomes the spirit of the dark, but still
powerful sensualistic art, represented typically by that of Salvator. We
must trace this fact briefly through Greek, Venetian, and Dureresque
art; we shall then see how the art of decline came of avoiding the evil,
and seeking pleasure only; and thus obtain, at last, some power of
judging whether the tendency of our own contemplative art be right or
ignoble.
§ 14. The ruling purpose of Greek poetry is the assertion of victory, by
heroism, over fate, sin, and death. The terror of these great enemies is
dwelt upon chiefly by the tragedians. The victory over them by Homer.
The adversary chiefly contemplated by the tragedians is Fate, or
predestinate misfortune. And that under three principal forms.
A. Blindness, or ignorance; not in itself guilty, but inducing acts
which otherwise would have been guilty; and leading, no less than guilt,
to destruction.[2]
B. Visitation upon one person of the sin of another.
C. Repression, by brutal or tyrannous strength, of a benevolent will.
§ 15. In all these cases sorrow is much more definitely connected with
sin by the Greek tragedians than by Shakspere. The "fate" of Shakspere
is, indeed, a form of blindness, but it issues in little more than haste
or indiscretion. It is, in the literal sense, "fatal," but hardly
criminal.
The "I am fortune's fool" of Romeo, expresses Shakspere's primary idea
of tragic circumstance. Often his victims are entirely innocent, swept
away by mere current of strong encompassing calamity (Ophelia, Cordelia,
Arthur, Queen Katharine). This is rarely so with the Greeks. The victim
may indeed be innocent, as Antigone, but is in some way resolutely
entangled with crime, and destroyed by it, as if it struck by pollution,
no less than participation.
The victory over sin and death is therefore also with the Greek
tragedians more complete than with Shakspere. As the enemy has more
direct moral personality,--as it is sinfulness more than mischance, it
is met by a higher moral resolve, a greater preparation of heart, a more
solemn patience and purposed self-sacrifice. At the close of a Shakspere
tragedy nothing remains but dead march and clothes of burial. At the
close of a Greek tragedy there are far-off sounds of a divine triumph,
and a glory as of resurrection.[3]
§ 16. The Homeric temper is wholly different. Far more tender, more
practical, more cheerful; bent chiefly on present things and giving
victory now, and here, rather than in hope, and hereafter. The enemies
of mankind, in Homer's conception, are more distinctly conquerable; they
are ungoverned passions, especially anger, and unreasonable impulse
generally ([Greek: atê]). Hence the anger of Achilles, misdirected by
pride, but rightly directed by friendship, is the subject of the
_Iliad_. The anger of Ulysses ([Greek: Odysseus] "the angry"),
misdirected at first into idle and irregular hostilities, directed at
last to execution of sternest justice, is the subject of the _Odyssey_.
Though this is the central idea of the two poems, it is connected with
general display of the evil of all unbridled passions, pride,
sensuality, indolence, or curiosity. The pride of Atrides, the passion
of Paris, the sluggishness of Elpenor, the curiosity of Ulysses himself
about the Cyclops, the impatience of his sailors in untying the winds,
and all other faults or follies, down to that--(evidently no small one
in Homer's mind)--of domestic disorderliness, are throughout shown in
contrast with conditions of patient affection and household peace.
Also, the wild powers and mysteries of Nature are in the Homeric mind
among the enemies of man; so that all the labors of Ulysses are an
expression of the contest of manhood, not only with its own passions or
with the folly of others, but with the merciless and mysterious powers
of the natural world.
§ 17. This is perhaps the chief signification of the seven years' stay
with Calypso, "the concealer." Not, as vulgarly thought, the concealer
of Ulysses, but the great concealer--the hidden power of natural things.
She is the daughter of Atlas and the Sea (Atlas, the sustainer of
heaven, and the Sea, the disturber of the Earth). She dwells in the
island of Ogygia ("the ancient or venerable"). (Whenever Athens, or any
other Greek city, is spoken of with any peculiar reverence, it is called
"Ogygian.") Escaping from this goddess of secrets, and from other
spirits, some of destructive natural force (Scylla), others signifying
the enchantment of mere natural beauty (Circe, daughter of the Sun and
Sea), he arrives at last at the Phæacian land, whose king is "strength
with intellect," and whose queen, "virtue." These restore him to his
country.
§ 18. Now observe that in their dealing with all these subjects the
Greeks never shrink from horror; down to its uttermost depth, to its
most appalling physical detail, they strive to sound the secrets of
sorrow. For them there is no passing by on the other side, no turning
away the eyes to vanity from pain. Literally, they have not "lifted up
their souls unto vanity." Whether there be consolation for them or not,
neither apathy nor blindness shall be their saviours; if, for them, thus
knowing the facts of the grief of earth, any hope, relief, or triumph
may hereafter seem possible,--well; but if not, still hopeless,
reliefless, eternal, the sorrow shall be met face to face. This Hector,
so righteous, so merciful, so brave, has, nevertheless, to look upon his
dearest brother in miserablest death. His own soul passes away in
hopeless sobs through the throat-wound of the Grecian spear. That is one
aspect of things in this world, a fair world truly, but having, among
its other aspects, this one, highly ambiguous.
§ 19. Meeting it boldly as they may, gazing right into the skeleton face
of it, the ambiguity remains; nay, in some sort gains upon them. We
trusted in the gods;--we thought that wisdom and courage would save us.
Our wisdom and courage themselves deceive us to our death. Athena had
the aspect of Deiphobus--terror of the enemy. She has not terrified him,
but left us, in our mortal need.
And, beyond that mortality, what hope have we? Nothing is clear to us on
that horizon, nor comforting. Funeral honors; perhaps also rest; perhaps
a shadowy life--artless, joyless, loveless. No devices in that darkness
of the grave, nor daring, nor delight. Neither marrying nor giving in
marriage, nor casting of spears, nor rolling of chariots, nor voice of
fame. Lapped in pale Elysian mist, chilling the forgetful heart and
feeble frame, shall we waste on forever? Can the dust of earth claim
more of immortality than this? Or shall we have even so much as rest?
May we, indeed, lie down again in the dust, or have our sins not hidden
from us even the things that belong to that peace? May not chance and
the whirl of passion govern us there; when there shall be no thought,
nor work, nor wisdom, nor breathing of the soul?[4]
Be it so. With no better reward, no brighter hope, we will be men while
we may: men, just, and strong, and fearless, and up to our power,
perfect. Athena herself, our wisdom and our strength, may betray
us;--Phoebus, our sun, smite us with plague, or hide his face from us
helpless;--Jove and all the powers of fate oppress us, or give us up to
destruction. While we live, we will hold fast our integrity; no weak
tears shall blind us, no untimely tremors abate our strength of arm nor
swiftness of limb. The gods have given us at least this glorious body
and this righteous conscience; these will we keep bright and pure to the
end. So may we fall to misery, but not to baseness; so may we sink to
sleep, but not to shame.
§ 20. And herein was conquest. So defied, the betraying and accusing
shadows shrank back; the mysterious horror subdued itself to majestic
sorrow. Death was swallowed up in victory. Their blood, which seemed to
be poured out upon the ground, rose into hyacinthine flowers. All the
beauty of earth opened to them; they had ploughed into its darkness, and
they reaped its gold; the gods, in whom they had trusted through all
semblance of oppression, came down to love them and be their helpmates.
All nature round them became divine,--one harmony of power and peace.
The sun hurt them not by day, nor the moon by night; the earth opened no
more her jaws into the pit; the sea whitened no more against them the
teeth of his devouring waves. Sun, and moon, and earth, and sea,--all
melted into grace and love; the fatal arrows rang not now at the
shoulders of Apollo the healer; lord of life and of the three great
spirits of life--Care, Memory, and Melody. Great Artemis guarded their
flocks by night; Selene kissed in love the eyes of those who slept. And
from all came the help of heaven to body and soul; a strange spirit
lifting the lovely limbs; strange light glowing on the golden hair; and
strangest comfort filling the trustful heart, so that they could put off
their armor, and lie down to sleep,--their work well done, whether at
the gates of their temples[5] or of their mountains;[6] accepting the
death they once thought terrible, as the gift of Him who knew and
granted what was best.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Matt. v. 14.
[2] The speech of Achilles to Priam expresses this idea of fatality
and submission clearly, there being two vessels--one full of sorrow,
the other of great and noble gifts (a sense of disgrace mixing with
that of sorrow, and of honor with that of joy), from which Jupiter
pours forth the destinies of men; the idea partly corresponding to
the scriptural--" In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the
wine is red; it is full mixed, and He poureth out of the same." But
the title of the gods, nevertheless, both with Homer and Hesiod, is
given not from the cup of sorrow, but of good; "givers of good"
([Greek: dotêres heaon]).--_Hes. Theog._ 664: _Odyss._ viii. 325.
[3] The Alcestis is perhaps the central example of the _idea_ of all
Greek drama.
[4]
[Greek: tô kai tethneiôti noon pore Persephoneia,
oiô pepnusthai; toi de skiai aissousin].
Od. x. 495.
[5] [Greek: ouketi anestesan, all' en telei toutô eschonto.] Herod,
i. 31.
[6] [Greek: ho de apopempomenos, autos men ouk apelipeto ton de paida
sustrateuomenon, eonta oi mounogenea, apepempse.] Herod, vii. 221.