{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_27939/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_27939","id":"gutenberg_27939","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27939","summary":null,"tags":["Aesthetics","Category: Art","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net This file\nwas produced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive/American Libraries.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLAURUS NOBILIS\n\nBY\n\nVERNON LEE\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n The Use of Beauty\n \"Nisi Citharam\"\n Higher Harmonies\n Beauty and Sanity\n The Art and the Country\n Art and Usefulness\n Wasteful Pleasures\n\n\n\n\nLAURUS NOBILIS.\n\nCHAPTERS ON ART AND LIFE.\n\n\n\n\n TO\n ANGELICA RASPONI DALLE TESTE\n FROM\n HER GRATEFUL OLD FRIEND AND NEIGHBOUR\n VERNON LEE.\n 1885-1908.\n\n\n\n\n    Die Realitaet der Dinge ist der Dinge Werk; der Schein der Dinge\n    ist der Menschen Werk; und ein Gemuet, das sich am Scheine weidet,\n    ergoetzt sich schon nicht mehr an dem, was es empfaengt, sondern an\n    dem, was es tut. SCHILLER, _Briefe ueber Aesthetik_.\n\n\n\n\nLAURUS NOBILIS.\n\nTHE USE OF BEAUTY.\n\n\nI.\n\nOne afternoon, in Rome, on the way back from the Aventine, the\nroad-mender climbed onto the tram as it trotted slowly along, and\nfastened to its front, alongside of the place of the driver, a bough\nof budding bay.\n\nMight one not search long for a better symbol of what we may all do by\nour life? Bleakness, wind, squalid streets, a car full of\nheterogeneous people, some very dull, most very common; a laborious\njog-trot all the way. But to redeem it all with the pleasantness of\nbeauty and the charm of significance, this laurel branch.\n\n\nII.\n\nOur language does not possess any single word wherewith to sum up the\nvarious categories of things (made by nature or made by man, intended\nsolely for the purpose of subserving by mere coincidence) which\nminister to our organic and many-sided aesthetic instincts: the things\naffecting us in that absolutely special, unmistakable, and hitherto\nmysterious manner expressed in our finding them _beautiful_. It is of\nthe part which such things--whether actually present or merely\nshadowed in our mind--can play in our life; and of the influence of\nthe instinct for beauty on the other instincts making up our nature,\nthat I would treat in these pages. And for this reason I have been\nglad to accept from the hands of chance, and of that road-mender of\nthe tram-way, the bay laurel as a symbol of what we have no word to\nexpress: the aggregate of all art, all poetry, and particularly of all\npoetic and artistic vision and emotion.\n\n\nFor the Bay Laurel--_Laurus Nobilis_ of botanists--happens to be not\nmerely the evergreen, unfading plant into which Apollo metamorphosed,\nwhile pursuing, the maiden whom he loved, even as the poet, the artist\nturns into immortal shapes his own quite personal and transient moods,\nor as the fairest realities, nobly sought, are transformed, made\nevergreen and restoratively fragrant for all time in our memory and\nfancy. It is a plant of noblest utility, averting, as the ancients\nthought, lightning from the dwellings it surrounded, even as\ndisinterested love for beauty averts from our minds the dangers which\nfall on the vain and the covetous; and curing many aches and fevers,\neven as the contemplation of beauty refreshes and invigorates our\nspirit. Indeed, we seem to be reading a description no longer of the\nvirtues of the bay laurel, but of the _virtues_ of all beautiful\nsights and sounds, of all beautiful thoughts and emotions, in reading\nthe following quaint and charming words of an old herbal:--\n\n   \"The bay leaves are of as necessary use as any other in garden or\n    orchard, for they serve both for pleasure and profit, both for\n    ornament and use, both for honest civil uses and for physic; yea,\n    both for the sick and for the sound, both for the living and for\n    the dead. The bay serveth to adorn the house of God as well as of\n    man, to procure warmth, comfort, and strength to the limbs of men\n    and women;... to season vessels wherein are preserved our meats as\n    well as our drinks; to crown or encircle as a garland the heads of\n    the living, and to stick and deck forth the bodies of the dead; so\n    that, from the cradle to the grave we have still use of it, we\n    have still need of it.\"\n\n\nIII.\n\nBefore beginning to expound the virtues of Beauty, let me, however,\ninsist that these all depend upon the simple and mysterious fact\nthat--well, that the Beautiful _is_ the Beautiful. In our discussion of\nwhat the Bay Laurel symbolises, let us keep clear in our memory the\nlovely shape of the sacred tree, and the noble places in which we have\nseen it.\n\nThere are bay twigs, gathered together in bronze sheaves, in the great\ngarland surrounding Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise. There are two\ninterlaced branches of bay, crisp-edged and slender, carved in fine\nlow relief inside the marble chariot in the Vatican. There is a\nfan-shaped growth of Apollo's Laurel behind that Venetian portrait of\na poet, which was formerly called Ariosto by Titian. And, most\nsuggestive of all, there are the Mycenaean bay leaves of beaten gold,\nso incredibly thin one might imagine them to be the withered crown of\na nameless singer in a forgotten tongue, grown brittle through three\nthousand years and more.\n\nEach of such presentments, embodying with loving skill some feature of\nthe plant, enhances by association the charm of its reality,\naccompanying the delight of real bay-trees and bay leaves with\ninextricable harmonics, vague recollections of the delight of bronze,\nof delicately cut marble, of marvellously beaten gold, of deep\nVenetian crimson and black and auburn.\n\nBut best of all, most satisfying and significant, is the remembrance\nof the bay-trees themselves. They greatly affect the troughs of\nwatercourses, among whose rocks and embanked masonry they love to\nstrike their roots. In such a stream trough, on a spur of the Hill of\nFiesole, grow the most beautiful poet's laurels I can think of. The\nplace is one of those hollowings out of a hillside which, revealing\nhow high they lie only by the sky-lines of distant hills, always feel\nso pleasantly remote. And the peace and austerity of this little\nvalley are heightened by the dove-cot of a farm invisible in the\nolive-yards, and looking like a hermitage's belfry. The olives are\nscant and wan in the fields all round, with here and there the blossom\nof an almond; the oak woods, of faint wintry copper-rose, encroach\nabove; and in the grassy space lying open to the sky, the mountain\nbrook is dyked into a weir, whence the crystalline white water leaps\ninto a chain of shady pools. And there, on the brink of that weir, and\nall along that stream's shallow upper course among grass and brakes of\nreeds, are the bay-trees I speak of: groups of three or four at\nintervals, each a sheaf of smooth tapering boles, tufted high up with\nevergreen leaves, sparse bunches whose outermost leaves are sharply\nprinted like lance-heads against the sky. Most modest little trees,\nwith their scant berries and rare pale buds; not trees at all, I fancy\nsome people saying. Yet of more consequence, somehow, in their calm\ndisregard of wind, their cheerful, resolute soaring, than any other\ntrees for miles; masters of that little valley, of its rocks, pools,\nand overhanging foliage; sovereign brothers and rustic demi-gods for\nwhom the violets scent the air among the withered grass in March, and,\nin May, the nightingales sing through the quivering star night.\n\nOf all southern trees, most simple and aspiring; and certainly most\nperfect among evergreens, with their straight, faintly carmined\nshoots, their pliable strong leaves so subtly rippled at the edge, and\ntheir clean, dry fragrance; delicate, austere, alert, serene; such are\nthe bay-trees of Apollo.\n\n\nIV.\n\nI have gladly accepted, from the hands of that tram-way road-mender,\nthe Bay Laurel--_Laurus Nobilis_--for a symbol of all art, all poetry,\nand all poetic and artistic vision and emotion. It has summed up,\nbetter than words could do, what the old Herbals call the _virtues_,\nof all beautiful things and beautiful thoughts. And it has suggested,\nI hope, the contents of the following notes; the nature of my attempt\nto trace the influence which art should have on life.\n\n\nV.\n\nBeauty, save by a metaphorical application of the word, is not in the\nleast the same thing as Goodness, any more than beauty (despite\nKeats' famous assertion) is the same thing as Truth. These three\nobjects of the soul's pursuit have different natures, different laws,\nand fundamentally different origins. But the energies which express\nthemselves in their pursuit--energies vital, primordial, and necessary\neven to man's physical survival--have all been evolved under the same\nstress of adaptation of the human creature to its surroundings; and\nhave therefore, in their beginnings and in their ceaseless growth,\nbeen working perpetually in concert, meeting, crossing, and\nstrengthening one another, until they have become indissolubly woven\ntogether by a number of great and organic coincidences.\n\nIt is these coincidences which all higher philosophy, from Plato\ndownwards, has strained for ever to expound. It is these coincidences,\nwhich all religion and all poetry have taken for granted. And to three\nof these it is that I desire to call attention, persuaded as I am that\nthe scientific progress of our day will make short work of all the\nspurious aestheticism and all the shortsighted utilitarianism which\nhave cast doubts upon the intimate and vital connection between beauty\nand every other noble object of our living.\n\nThe three coincidences I have chosen are: that between development of\nthe aesthetic faculties and the development of the altruistic\ninstincts; that between development of a sense of aesthetic harmony and\na sense of the higher harmonies of universal life; and, before\neverything else, the coincidence between the preference for aesthetic\npleasures and the nobler growth of the individual.\n\n\nVI.\n\nThe particular emotion produced in us by such things as are beautiful,\nworks of art or of nature, recollections and thoughts as well as\nsights and sounds, the emotion of aesthetic pleasure, has been\nrecognised ever since the beginning of time as of a mysteriously\nennobling quality. All philosophers have told us that; and the\nreligious instinct of all mankind has practically proclaimed it, by\nemploying for the worship of the highest powers, nay, by employing for\nthe mere designation of the godhead, beautiful sights, and sounds, and\nwords by which beautiful sights and sounds are suggested. Nay, there\nhas always lurked in men's minds, and expressed itself in the\nmetaphors of men's speech, an intuition that the Beautiful is in some\nmanner one of the primordial and, so to speak, cosmic powers of the\nworld. The theories of various schools of mental science, and the\npractice of various schools of art, the practice particularly of the\npersons styled by themselves aesthetes and by others decadents, have\nindeed attempted to reduce man's relations with the great world-power\nBeauty to mere intellectual dilettantism or sensual superfineness. But\nthe general intuition has not been shaken, the intuition which\nrecognised in Beauty a superhuman, and, in that sense, a truly divine\npower. And now it must become evident that the methods of modern\npsychology, of the great new science of body and soul, are beginning\nto explain the reasonableness of this intuition, or, at all events, to\nshow very plainly in what direction we must look for the explanation\nof it. This much can already be asserted, and can be indicated even\nto those least versed in recent psychological study, to wit, that the\npower of Beauty, the essential power therefore of art, is due to the\nrelations of certain visible and audible forms with the chief mental\nand vital functions of all human beings; relations established\nthroughout the whole process of human and, perhaps, even of animal,\nevolution; relations seated in the depths of our activities, but\nradiating upwards even like our vague, organic sense of comfort and\ndiscomfort; and permeating, even like our obscure relations with\natmospheric conditions, into our highest and clearest consciousness,\ncolouring and altering the whole groundwork of our thoughts and\nfeelings.\n\nSuch is the primordial, and, in a sense, the cosmic power of the\nBeautiful; a power whose very growth, whose constantly more complex\nnature proclaims its necessary and beneficial action in human\nevolution. It is the power of making human beings live, for the\nmoment, in a more organically vigorous and harmonious fashion, as\nmountain air or sea-wind makes them live; but with the difference that\nit is not merely the bodily, but very essentially the spiritual life,\nthe life of thought and emotion, which is thus raised to unusual\nharmony and vigour. I may illustrate this matter by a very individual\ninstance, which will bring to the memory of each of my readers the\nvivifying power of some beautiful sight or sound or beautiful\ndescription. I was seated working by my window, depressed by the\nLondon outlook of narrow grey sky, endless grey roofs, and rusty elm\ntops, when I became conscious of a certain increase of vitality,\nalmost as if I had drunk a glass of wine, because a band somewhere\noutside had begun to play. After various indifferent pieces, it began\na tune, by Handel or in Handel's style, of which I have never known\nthe name, calling it for myself the _Te Deum_ Tune. And then it seemed\nas if my soul, and according to the sensations, in a certain degree my\nbody even, were caught up on those notes, and were striking out as if\nswimming in a great breezy sea; or as if it had put forth wings and\nrisen into a great free space of air. And, noticing my feelings, I\nseemed to be conscious that those notes were being played _on me_, my\nfibres becoming the strings; so that as the notes moved and soared and\nswelled and radiated like stars and suns, I also, being identified\nwith the sound, having become apparently the sound itself, must needs\nmove and soar with them.\n\nWe can all recollect a dozen instances when architecture, music,\npainting, or some sudden sight of sea or mountain, have thus affected\nus; and all poetry, particularly all great lyric poetry, Goethe's,\nShelley's, Wordsworth's, and, above all, Browning's, is full of the\nrecord of such experience.\n\nI have said that the difference between this aesthetic heightening of\nour vitality (and this that I have been describing is, I pray you to\nobserve, the aesthetic phenomenon _par excellence_), and such other\nheightening of vitality as we experience from going into fresh air and\nsunshine or taking fortifying food, the difference between the\naesthetic and the mere physiological pleasurable excitement consists\nherein, that in the case of beauty, it is not merely our physical but\nour spiritual life which is suddenly rendered more vigorous. We do not\nmerely breathe better and digest better, though that is no small\ngain, but we seem to understand better. Under the vitalising touch of\nthe Beautiful, our consciousness seems filled with the affirmation of\nwhat life is, what is worth being, what among our many thoughts and\nacts and feelings are real and organic and important, what among the\nmany possible moods is the real, eternal _ourself_.\n\nSuch are the great forces of Nature gathered up in what we call the\n_aesthetic phenomenon_, and it is these forces of Nature which, stolen\nfrom heaven by the man of genius or the nation of genius, and welded\ntogether in music, or architecture, in the arts of visible design or\nof written thoughts, give to the great work of art its power to\nquicken the life of our soul.\n\n\nVII.\n\nI hope I have been able to indicate how, by its essential nature, by\nthe primordial power it embodies, all Beauty, and particularly Beauty\nin art, tends to fortify and refine the spiritual life of the\nindividual.\n\nBut this is only half of the question, for, in order to get the full\nbenefit of beautiful things and beautiful thoughts, to obtain in the\nhighest potency those potent aesthetic emotions, the individual must\nundergo a course of self-training, of self-initiation, which in its\nturn elicits and improves some of the highest qualities of his soul.\nNay, as every great writer on art has felt, from Plato to Ruskin, but\nnone has expressed as clearly as Mr. Pater, in all true aesthetic\ntraining there must needs enter an ethical element, almost an ascetic\none.\n\nThe greatest art bestows pleasure just in proportion as people are\ncapable of buying that pleasure at the price of attention,\nintelligence, and reverent sympathy. For great art is such as is\nrichly endowed, full of variety, subtlety, and suggestiveness; full of\ndelightfulness enough for a lifetime, the lifetime of generations and\ngenerations of men; great art is to its true lovers like Cleopatra to\nAntony--\"age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety.\"\nIndeed, when it is the greatest art of all, the art produced by the\nmarvellous artist, the most gifted race, and the longest centuries, we\nfind ourselves in presence of something which, like Nature itself,\ncontains more beauty, suggests more thought, works more miracles than\nanyone of us has faculties to appreciate fully. So that, in some of\nTitian's pictures and Michael Angelo's frescoes, the great Greek\nsculptures, certain cantos of Dante and plays of Shakespeare, fugues\nof Bach, scenes of Mozart and quartets of Beethoven, we can each of\nus, looking our closest, feeling our uttermost, see and feel perhaps\nbut a trifling portion of what there is to be seen and felt, leaving\nother sides, other perfections, to be appreciated by our neighbours.\nTill it comes to pass that we find different persons very differently\ndelighted by the same masterpiece, and accounting most discrepantly\nfor their delight in it.\n\nNow such pleasure as this requires not merely a vast amount of\nactivity on our part, since all pleasure, even the lowest, is the\nexpression of an activity; it requires a vast amount of attention, of\nintelligence, of what, in races or in individuals, means special\ntraining.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nThere is a sad confusion in men's minds on the very essential subject\nof pleasure. We tend, most of us, to oppose the idea of pleasure to\nthe idea of work, effort, strenuousness, patience; and, therefore,\nrecognise as pleasures only those which cost none of these things, or\nas little as possible; pleasures which, instead of being produced\nthrough our will and act, impose themselves upon us from outside. In\nall art--for art stands halfway between the sensual and emotional\nexperiences and the experiences of the mere reasoning intellect--in\nall art there is necessarily an element which thus imposes itself upon\nus from without, an element which takes and catches us: colour,\nstrangeness of outline, sentimental or terrible quality, rhythm\nexciting the muscles, or clang which tickles the ear. But the art\nwhich thus takes and catches our attention the most easily, asking\nnothing in return, or next to nothing, is also the poorest art: the\noleograph, the pretty woman in the fashion plate, the caricature, the\nrepresentation of some domestic or harrowing scene, children being put\nto bed, babes in the wood, railway accidents, etc.; or again, dance or\nmarch music, and the equivalents of all this in verse. It catches your\nattention, instead of your attention conquering it; but it speedily\nceases to interest, gives you nothing more, cloys, or comes to a dead\nstop. It resembles thus far mere sensual pleasure, a savoury dish, a\nglass of good wine, an excellent cigar, a warm bed, which impose\nthemselves on the nerves without expenditure of attention; with the\nresult, of course, that little or nothing remains, a sensual\nimpression dying, so to speak, childless, a barren, disconnected\nthing, without place in the memory, unmarried as it is to the memory's\nclients, thought and human feeling.\n\nIf so many people prefer poor art to great, 'tis because they refuse\nto give, through inability or unwillingness, as much of their soul\nas great art requires for its enjoyment. And it is noticeable that\nbusy men, coming to art for pleasure when they are too weary for\nlooking, listening, or thinking, so often prefer the sensation-novel,\nthe music-hall song, and such painting as is but a costlier kind of\noleograph; treating all other art as humbug, and art in general as a\ntrifle wherewith to wile away a lazy moment, a trifle about which\nevery man _can know what he likes best_.\n\nThus it is that great art makes, by coincidence, the same demands as\nnoble thinking and acting. For, even as all noble sports develop\nmuscle, develop eye, skill, quickness and pluck in bodily movement,\nqualities which are valuable also in the practical business of life;\nso also the appreciation of noble kinds of art implies the acquisition\nof habits of accuracy, of patience, of respectfulness, and suspension\nof judgment, of preference of future good over present, of harmony and\nclearness, of sympathy (when we come to literary art), judgment and\nkindly fairness, which are all of them useful to our neighbours and\nourselves in the many contingencies and obscurities of real life. Now\nthis is not so with the pleasures of the senses: the pleasures of the\nsenses do not increase by sharing, and sometimes cannot be shared at\nall; they are, moreover, evanescent, leaving us no richer; above all,\nthey cultivate in ourselves qualities useful only for that particular\nenjoyment. Thus, a highly discriminating palate may have saved the\nlife of animals and savages, but what can its subtleness do nowadays\nbeyond making us into gormandisers and winebibbers, or, at best, into\ncooks and tasters for the service of gormandising and winebibbing\npersons?\n\n\nIX.\n\nDelight in beautiful things and in beautiful thoughts requires,\ntherefore, a considerable exercise of the will and the attention, such\nas is not demanded by our lower enjoyments. Indeed, it is probably\nthis absence of moral and intellectual effort which recommends such\nlower kinds of pleasure to a large number of persons. I have said\nlower _kinds_ of pleasure, because there are other enjoyments besides\nthose of the senses which entail no moral improvement in ourselves:\nthe enjoyments connected with vanity and greed. We should not--even if\nany of us could be sure of being impeccable on these points--we should\nnot be too hard on the persons and the classes of persons who are\nconscious of no other kind of enjoyment. They are not necessarily\nbase, not necessarily sensual or vain, because they care only for\nbodily indulgence, for notice and gain. They are very likely not base,\nbut only apathetic, slothful, or very tired. The noble sport, the\nintellectual problem, the great work of art, the divinely beautiful\neffect in Nature, require that one should _give oneself_; the\nFrench-cooked dinner as much as the pot of beer; the game of chance,\nwhether with clean cards at a club or with greasy ones in a tap-room;\nthe outdoing of one's neighbours, whether by the ragged heroes of Zola\nor the well-groomed heroes of Balzac, require no such coming forward\nof the soul: they _take_ us, without any need for our giving\nourselves. Hence, as I have just said, the preference for them does\nnot imply original baseness, but only lack of higher energy. We can\njudge of the condition of those who can taste no other pleasures by\nremembering what the best of us are when we are tired or ill: vaguely\ncraving for interests, sensations, emotions, variety, but quite unable\nto procure them through our own effort, and longing for them to come\nto us from without. Now, in our still very badly organised world, an\nenormous number of people are condemned by the tyranny of poverty or\nthe tyranny of fashion, to be, when the day's work or the day's\nbusiness is done, in just such a condition of fatigue and languor, of\ncraving, therefore, for the baser kinds of pleasure. We all recognise\nthat this is the case with what we call _poor people_, and that this\nis why poor people are apt to prefer the public-house to the picture\ngallery or the concert-room. It would be greatly to the purpose were\nwe to acknowledge that it is largely the case with the rich, and that\nfor that reason the rich are apt to take more pleasure in ostentatious\ndisplay of their properties than in contemplation of such beauty as is\naccessible to all men. Indeed, it is one of the ironies of the\nbarbarous condition we are pleased to call _civilisation_, that so\nmany rich men--thousands daily--are systematically toiling and moiling\ntill they are unable to enjoy any pleasure which requires vigour of\nmind and attention, rendering themselves impotent, from sheer fatigue,\nto enjoy the delights which life gives generously to all those who\nfervently seek them. And what for? Largely for the sake of those\npleasures which can be had only for money, but which can be enjoyed\nwithout using one's soul.\n\n\nX.\n\n[PARENTHETICAL]\n\n\"And these, you see,\" I said, \"are bay-trees, the laurels they used\nthe leaves of to ...\"\n\nI was going to say \"to crown poets,\" but I left my sentence in\nmid-air, because of course he knew that as well as I.\n\n\"Precisely,\" he answered with intelligent interest--\"I have noticed\nthat the leaves are sometimes put in sardine boxes.\"\n\nSoon after this conversation I discovered the curious circumstance\nthat one of the greatest of peoples and perhaps the most favoured by\nApollo, calls Laurus Nobilis \"Laurier-Sauce.\" The name is French; the\nsymbol, alas, of universal application.\n\nThis paragraph X. had been intended to deal with \"Art as it is\nunderstood by persons of fashion and eminent men of business.\"\n\n\nXI.\n\nThus it is that real aesthetic keenness--and aesthetic keenness, as I\nshall show you in my next chapter, means appreciating beauty, not\ncollecting beautiful properties--thus it is that all aesthetic keenness\nimplies a development of the qualities of patience, attention,\nreverence, and of that vigour of soul which is not called forth, but\nrather impaired, by the coarser enjoyments of the senses and of\nvanity. So far, therefore, we have seen that the capacity for aesthetic\npleasure is allied to a certain nobility in the individual. I think I\ncan show that the preference for aesthetic pleasure tends also to a\nhappier relation between the individual and his fellows.\n\nBut the cultivation of our aesthetic pleasures does not merely\nnecessitate our improvement in certain very essential moral qualities.\nIt implies as much, in a way, as the cultivation of the intellect and\nthe sympathies, that we should live chiefly in the spirit, in which\nalone, as philosophers and mystics have rightly understood, there is\nsafety from the worst miseries and room for the most complete\nhappiness. Only, we shall learn from the study of our aesthetic\npleasures that while the stoics and mystics have been right in\naffirming that the spirit only can give the highest good, they have\nbeen fatally wrong in the reason they gave for their preference. And\nwe may learn from our aesthetic experiences that the spirit is useful,\nnot in detaching us from the enjoyable things of life, but, on the\ncontrary, in giving us their consummate possession. The spirit--one of\nwhose most precious capacities is that it enables us to print off all\noutside things on to ourselves, to store moods and emotions, to\nrecombine and reinforce past impressions into present ones--the spirit\nputs pleasure more into our own keeping, making it more independent of\ntime and place, of circumstances, and, what is equally important,\nindependent of other people's strivings after pleasure, by which our\nown, while they clash and hamper, are so often impeded.\n\n\nXII.\n\nFor our intimate commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts\ndoes not exist only, or even chiefly, at the moment of seeing, or\nhearing, or reading; nay, if the beautiful touched us only at such\nseparate and special moments, the beautiful would play but an\ninsignificant part in our existence.\n\nAs a fact, those moments represent very often only the act of\n_storage_, or not much more. Our real aesthetic life is in ourselves,\noften isolated from the beautiful words, objects, or sounds; sometimes\nalmost unconscious; permeating the whole rest of life in certain\nhighly aesthetic individuals, and, however mixed with other activities,\nas constant as the life of the intellect and sympathies; nay, as\nconstant as the life of assimilation and motion. We can live off a\nbeautiful object, we can live by its means, even when its visible or\naudible image is partially, nay, sometimes wholly, obliterated; for\nthe emotional condition can survive the image and be awakened at the\nmere name, awakened sufficiently to heighten the emotion caused by\nother images of beauty. We can sometimes feel, so to speak, the\nspiritual companionship and comfort of a work of art, or of a scene in\nnature, nay, almost its particular caress to our whole being, when the\nwork of art or the scene has grown faint in our memory, but the\nemotion it awakened has kept warm.\n\nNow this possibility of storing for later use, of increasing by\ncombination, the impressions of beautiful things, makes art--and by\nart I mean all aesthetic activity, whether in the professed artist who\ncreates or the unconscious artist who assimilates--the type of such\npleasures as are within our own keeping, and makes the aesthetic life\ntypical also of that life of the spirit in which alone we can realise\nany kind of human freedom. We shall all of us meet with examples\nthereof if we seek through our consciousness. That such things\nexisted was made clear to me during a weary period of illness, for\nwhich I shall always be grateful, since it taught me, in those months\nof incapacity for enjoyment, that there is a safe kind of pleasure,\n_the pleasure we can defer_. I spent part of that time at Tangier,\nsurrounded by everything which could delight me, and in none of which\nI took any real delight. I did not enjoy Tangier at the time, but I\nhave enjoyed Tangier ever since, on the principle of the bee eating\nits honey months after making it. The reality of Tangier, I mean the\nreality of my presence there, and the state of my nerves, were not in\nthe relation of enjoyment. But how often has not the image of Tangier,\nthe remembrance of what I saw and did there, returned and haunted me\nin the most enjoyable fashion.\n\nAfter all, is it not often the case with pictures, statues, journeys,\nand the reading of books? The weariness entailed, the mere continuity\nof looking or attending, quite apart from tiresome accompanying\ncircumstances, make the apparently real act, what we expect to be the\nact of enjoyment, quite illusory; like Coleridge, \"we see, not _feel_,\nhow beautiful things are.\" Later on, all odious accompanying\ncircumstances are utterly forgotten, eliminated, and the weariness is\ngone: we enjoy not merely unhampered by accidents, but in the very way\nour heart desires. For we can choose--our mood unconsciously does it\nfor us--the right moment and right accessories for consuming some of\nour stored delights; moreover, we can add what condiments and make\nwhat mixtures suit us best at that moment. We draw not merely upon one\npast reality, making its essentials present, but upon dozens. To\nrevert to Tangier (whose experience first brought these possibilities\nclearly before me), I find I enjoy it in connection with Venice, the\nmixture having a special roundness of tone or flavour. Similarly, I\nonce heard Bach's _Magnificat_, with St. Mark's of Venice as a\nbackground in my imagination. Again, certain moonlight songs of\nSchumann have blended wonderfully with remembrances of old Italian\nvillas. King Solomon, in all his ships, could not have carried the\nthings which I can draw, in less than a second, from one tiny\nconvolution of my brain, from one corner of my mind. No wizard that\never lived had spells which could evoke such kingdoms and worlds as\nanyone of us can conjure up with certain words: Greece, the Middle\nAges, Orpheus, Robin Hood, Mary Stuart, Ancient Rome, the Far East.\n\n\nXIII.\n\nAnd here, as fit illustration of these beneficent powers, which can\nfree us from a life where we stifle and raise us into a life where we\ncan breathe and grow, let me record my gratitude to a certain young\ngoat, which, on one occasion, turned what might have been a detestable\nhour into a pleasant one.\n\nThe goat, or rather kid, a charming gazelle-like creature, with\nbudding horns and broad, hard forehead, was one of my fourteen fellow\npassengers in a third-class carriage on a certain bank holiday\nSaturday. Riding and standing in such crowded misery had cast a\ngeneral gloom over all the holiday makers; they seemed to have\nforgotten the coming outing in sullen hatred of all their neighbours;\nand I confess that I too began to wonder whether Bank Holiday was an\naltogether delightful institution. But the goat had no such doubts.\nLeaning against the boy who was taking it holiday-making, it tried\nvery gently to climb and butt, and to play with its sulky fellow\ntravellers. And as it did so it seemed to radiate a sort of poetry on\neverything: vague impressions of rocks, woods, hedges, the Alps,\nItaly, and Greece; mythology, of course, and that amusement of \"jouer\navec des chevres apprivoisees,\" which that great charmer M. Renan has\nattributed to his charming Greek people. Now, as I realised the joy of\nthe goat on finding itself among the beech woods and short grass of\nthe Hertfordshire hills, I began also to see my other fellow\ntravellers no longer as surly people resenting each other's presence,\nbut as happy human beings admitted once more to the pleasant things of\nlife. The goat had quite put me in conceit with bank holiday. When it\ngot out of the train at Berkhampstead, the emptier carriage seemed\nsuddenly more crowded, and my fellow travellers more discontented. But\nI remained quite pleased, and when I had alighted, found that instead\nof a horrible journey, I could remember only a rather exquisite little\nadventure. That beneficent goat had acted as Pegasus; and on its small\nback my spirit had ridden to the places it loves.\n\nIn this fashion does the true aesthete tend to prefer, even like the\nausterest moralist, the delights which, being of the spirit, are most\nindependent of circumstances and most in the individual's own keeping.\n\n\nXIV.\n\nIt was Mr. Pater who first pointed out how the habit of aesthetic\nenjoyment makes the epicurean into an ascetic. He builds as little as\npossible on the things of the senses and the moment, knowing how\nlittle, in comparison, we have either in our power. For, even if the\ndesired object, person, or circumstance comes, how often does it not\ncome at the wrong hour! In this world, which mankind fits still so\nbadly, the wish and its fulfilling are rarely in unison, rarely in\nharmony, but follow each other, most often, like vibrations of\ndifferent instruments, at intervals which can only jar. The _n'est-ce\nque cela_, the inability to enjoy, of successful ambition and\nfavoured, passionate love, is famous; and short of love even and\nambition, we all know the flatness of long-desired pleasures. King\nSolomon, who had not been enough of an ascetic, as we all know, and\ntherefore ended off in cynicism, knew that there is not only satiety\nas a result of enjoyment; but a sort of satiety also, an absence of\nkeenness, an incapacity for caring, due to the deferring of enjoyment.\nHe doubtless knew, among other items of vanity, that our wishes are\noften fulfilled without our even knowing it, so indifferent have we\nbecome through long waiting, or so changed in our wants.\n\n\nXV.\n\nThere is another reason for such ascetism as was taught in _Marius the\nEpicurean_ and in Pater's book on Plato: the modest certainty of all\npleasure derived from the beautiful will accustom the perfect aesthete\nto seek for the like in other branches of activity. Accustomed to the\nhappiness which is in his own keeping, he will view with suspicion all\ncraving for satisfactions which are beyond his control. He will not\nask to be given the moon, and he will not even wish to be given it,\nlest the wish should grow into a want; he will make the best of\ncandles and glowworms and of distant heavenly luminaries. Moreover,\nbeing accustomed to enjoy the mere sight of things as much as other\nfolk do their possession, he will probably actually prefer that the\nmoon should be hanging in the heavens, and not on his staircase.\n\nAgain, having experience of the aesthetic pleasures which involve, in\nwhat Milton called their sober waking bliss, no wear and tear, no\nreaction of satiety, he will not care much for the more rapturous\npleasures of passion and success, which always cost as much as they\nare worth. He will be unwilling to run into such debt with his own\nfeelings, having learned from aesthetic pleasure that there are\nactivities of the soul which, instead of impoverishing, enrich it.\n\nThus does the commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts\ntend to develop in us that healthy kind of asceticism so requisite to\nevery workable scheme of greater happiness for the individual and the\nplurality: self-restraint, choice of aims, consistent and\nthorough-paced subordination of the lesser interest to the greater;\nabove all, what sums up asceticism as an efficacious means towards\nhappiness, preference of the spiritual, the unconditional, the\ndurable, instead of the temporal, the uncertain, and the fleeting.\n\nThe intimate and continuous intercourse with the Beautiful teaches us,\ntherefore, the renunciation of the unnecessary for the sake of the\npossible. It teaches asceticism leading not to indifference and\nNervana, but to higher complexities of vitalisation, to a more\ncomplete and harmonious rhythm of individual existence.\n\n\nXVI.\n\nArt can thus train the soul because art is free; or, more strictly\nspeaking, because art is the only complete expression, the only\nconsistent realisation of our freedom. In other parts of our life,\nbusiness, affection, passion, pursuit of utility, glory or truth, we\nare for ever _conditioned_. We are twisting perpetually, perpetually\nstopped short and deflected, picking our way among the visible and\nbarely visible habits, interests, desires, shortcomings, of others and\nof that portion of ourselves which, in the light of that particular\nmoment and circumstance, seems to be foreign to us, to be another's.\nWe can no more follow the straight line of our wishes than can the\npassenger in Venice among those labyrinthine streets, whose\neverlasting, unexpected bends are due to canals which the streets\nthemselves prevent his seeing. Moreover, in those gropings among\nlooming or unseen obstacles, we are pulled hither and thither, checked\nand misled by the recurring doubt as to which, of these thwarted and\nyielding selves, may be the chief and real one, and which, of the goals\nwe are never allowed finally to touch, is the goal we spontaneously\ntend to.\n\nNow it is different in the case of Art, and of all those aesthetic\nactivities, often personal and private, which are connected with Art\nand may be grouped together under Art's name. Art exists to please,\nand, when left to ourselves, we feel in what our pleasure lies. Art is\na free, most open and visible space, where we disport ourselves\nfreely. Indeed, it has long been remarked (the poet Schiller working\nout the theory) that, as there is in man's nature a longing for mere\nunconditioned exercise, one of Art's chief missions is to give us free\nscope to be ourselves. If therefore Art is the playground where each\nindividual, each nation or each century, not merely toils, but\nuntrammelled by momentary passion, unhampered by outer cares, freely\nexists and feels itself, then Art may surely become the training-place\nof our soul. Art may teach us how to employ our liberty, how to select\nour wishes: employ our liberty so as to respect that of others; select\nour wishes in such a manner as to further the wishes of our\nfellow-creatures.\n\nFor there are various, and variously good or evil ways of following\nour instincts, fulfilling our desires, in short, of being independent\nof outer circumstances; in other words, there are worthy and worthless\nways of using our leisure and our surplus energy, of seeking our\npleasure. And Art--Art and all Art here stands for--can train us to do\nso without injuring others, without wasting the material and spiritual\nriches of the world. Art can train us to delight in the higher\nharmonies of existence; train us to open our eyes, ears and souls,\ninstead of shutting them, to the wider modes of universal life.\n\nIn such manner, to resume our symbol of the bay laurel which the\nroad-mender stuck on to the front of that tramcar, can our love for\nthe beautiful avert, like the plant of Apollo, many of the storms, and\ncure many of the fevers, of life.\n\n\n\n\n\"NISI CITHARAM.\"\n\n\nI.\n\nIt is well that this second chapter--in which I propose to show how a\ngenuine aesthetic development tends to render the individual more\nuseful, or at least less harmful, to his fellow-men--should begin,\nlike the first, with a symbol, such as may sum up my meaning, and\npoint it out in the process of my expounding it. The symbol is\ncontained in the saying of the Abbot Joachim of Flora, one of the\ngreat precursors of St. Francis, to wit: \"He that is a true monk\nconsiders nothing his own except a lyre--_nihil reputat esse suum nisi\ncitharam_.\" Yes; nothing except a lyre.\n\n\nII.\n\nBut that lyre, our only real possession, is our _Soul_. It must be\nshaped, and strung, and kept carefully in tune; no easy matter in\nsurroundings little suited to delicate instruments and delicate music.\nPossessing it, we possess, in the only true sense of possession, the\nwhole world. For going along our way, whether rough or even, there are\nformed within us, singing the beauty and wonder of _what is_ or _what\nshould_ be, mysterious sequences and harmonies of notes, new every\ntime, answering to the primaeval everlasting affinities between\nourselves and all things; our souls becoming musical under the touch\nof the universe.\n\nLet us bear this in mind, this symbol of the lyre which Abbot Joachim\nallowed as sole property to the man of spiritual life. And let us\nremember that, as I tried to show in my previous chapter, the true\nLover of the Beautiful, active, self-restrained, and indifferent to\nlower pleasures and interests, is in one sense your man of real\nspiritual life. For the symbol of Abbot Joachim's lyre will make it\neasier to follow my meaning, and easier to forestall it, while I try\nto convince you that art, and all aesthetic activity, is important as a\ntype of the only kind of pleasure which reasonable beings should admit\nof, the kind of pleasure which tends not to diminish by wastefulness\nand exclusive appropriation, but to increase by sympathy, the possible\npleasures of other persons.\n\n\nIII.\n\n'Tis no excessive puritanism to say that while pleasure, in the\nabstract, is a great, perhaps the greatest, good; pleasures, our\nactual pleasures in the concrete, are very often evil.\n\nMany of the pleasures which we allow ourselves, and which all the\nworld admits our right to, happen to be such as waste wealth and time,\nmake light of the advantage of others, and of the good of our own\nsouls. This fact does not imply either original sinfulness or\ndegeneracy--religious and scientific terms for the same thing--in poor\nmankind. It means merely that we are all of us as yet very undeveloped\ncreatures; the majority, moreover, less developed than the minority,\nand the bulk of each individual's nature very much in the rear of his\nown aspirations and definitions. Mankind, in the process of adapting\nitself to external circumstances, has perforce evolved a certain\namount of intellectual and moral quality; but that intellectual and\nmoral quality is, so far, merely a means for rendering material\nexistence endurable; it will have to become itself the origin and aim\nof what we must call a spiritual side of life. In the meanwhile, human\nbeings do not get any large proportion of their enjoyment from what\nthey admit to be their nobler side.\n\nHence it is that even when you have got rid of the mere struggle for\nexistence--fed, clothed, and housed your civilised savage, and secured\nfood, clothes, and shelter for his brood--you have by no means\nprovided against his destructive, pain-giving activities. He has spare\ntime and energy; and these he will devote, ten to one, to recreations\ninvolving, at the best, the slaughter of harmless creatures; at the\nworst, to the wasting of valuable substance, of what might be other\npeople's food; or else to the hurting of other people's feelings in\nvarious games of chance or skill, particularly in the great skilled\ngame of brag called \"Society.\"\n\nOur gentlemanly ancestors, indeed, could not amuse themselves without\nemptying a certain number of bottles and passing some hours under the\ntable; while our nimble-witted French neighbours, we are told,\nincluded in their expenditure on convivial amusements a curious item\ncalled _la casse_, to wit, the smashing of plates and glasses. The\nSpaniards, on the other hand, have bull-fights, most shocking\nspectacles, as we know, for we make it a point to witness them when\nwe are over there. Undoubtedly we have immensely improved in such\nmatters, but we need a great deal of further improvement. Most people\nare safe only when at work, and become mischievous when they begin to\nplay. They do not know how to _kill time_ (for that is the way in\nwhich we poor mortals regard life) without incidentally killing\nsomething else: proximately birds and beasts, and their neighbours'\ngood fame; more remotely, but as surely, the constitution of their\ndescendants, and the possible wages of the working classes.\n\nIt is quite marvellous how little aptness there is in the existing\nhuman being for taking pleasure either in what already exists ready to\nhand, or in the making of something which had better be there; in what\ncan be enjoyed without diminishing the enjoyment of others, as nature,\nbooks, art, thought, and the better qualities of one's neighbours. In\nfact, one reason why there is something so morally pleasant in cricket\nand football and rowing and riding and dancing, is surely that they\nfurnish on the physical plane the counterpart of what is so sadly\nlacking on the spiritual: amusements which do good to the individual\nand no harm to his fellows.\n\nOf course, in our state neither of original sinfulness nor of\ndegeneracy, but of very imperfect development, it is still useless and\nabsurd to tell people to make use of intellectual and moral resources\nwhich they have not yet got. It is as vain to preach to the majority\nof the well-to-do the duty of abstinence from wastefulness, rivalry,\nand ostentation as it is vain to preach to the majority of the\nbadly-off abstinence from alcohol; without such pleasures their life\nwould be unendurably insipid.\n\nBut inevitable as is such evil in the present, it inevitably brings\nits contingent of wretchedness; and it is therefore the business of\nall such as _could_ become the forerunners of a better state of things\nto refuse to follow the lead of their inferiors. Exactly because the\nmajority is still so hopelessly wasteful and mischievous, does it\nbehove the minority not merely to work to some profit, but to play\nwithout damage. To do this should become the mark of Nature's\naristocracy, a sign of liberality of spiritual birth and breeding, a\nquestion of _noblesse oblige_.\n\n\nIV.\n\nAnd here comes in the immense importance of Art as a type of pleasure:\nof Art in the sense of aesthetic appreciation even more than of\naesthetic creation; of Art considered as the extracting and combining\nof beauty in the mind of the obscure layman quite as much as the\nembodiment of such extracted and combined beauty in the visible or\naudible work of the great artist.\n\nFor experience of true aesthetic activity must teach us, in proportion\nas it is genuine and ample, that the enjoyment of the beautiful is not\nmerely independent of, but actually incompatible with, that tendency\nto buy our satisfaction at the expense of others which remains more or\nless in all of us as a survival from savagery. The reasons why genuine\naesthetic feeling inhibits these obsolescent instincts of rapacity and\nruthlessness, are reasons negative and positive, and may be roughly\ndivided into three headings. Only one of them is generally admitted to\nexist, and of it, therefore, I shall speak very briefly, I mean the\nfact that the enjoyment of beautiful things is originally and\nintrinsically one of those which are heightened by sharing. We know it\ninstinctively when, as children, we drag our comrades and elders to\nthe window when a regiment passes or a circus parades by; we learn it\nmore and more as we advance in life, and find that we must get other\npeople to see the pictures, to hear the music, to read the books which\nwe admire. It is a case of what psychologists call the _contagion of\nemotion_, by which the feeling of one individual is strengthened by\nthe expression of similar feeling in his neighbour, and is explicable,\nmost likely, by the fact that the greatest effort is always required\nto overcome original inertness, and that two efforts, like two horses\nstarting a carriage instead of one, combined give more than double the\nvalue of each taken separately. The fact of this aesthetic sociability\nis so obvious that we need not discuss it any further, but merely hold\nit over to add, at last, to the result of the two other reasons,\nnegative and positive, which tend to make aesthetic enjoyment the type\nof unselfish, nay, even of altruistic pleasure.\n\n\nV.\n\nThe first of these reasons, the negative one, is that aesthetic\npleasure is not in the least dependent upon the fact of personal\nownership, and that it therefore affords an opportunity of leaving\ninactive, of beginning to atrophy by inactivity, the passion for\nexclusive possession, for individual advantage, which is at the bottom\nof all bad luxury, of all ostentation, and of nearly all rapacity. But\nbefore entering on this discussion I would beg my reader to call to\nmind that curious saying of Abbot Joachim's; and to consider that I\nwish to prove that, like his true monk, the true aesthete, who nowadays\nloves and praises creation much as the true monk did in former\ncenturies, can really possess as sole personal possession only a\nmusical instrument--to wit, his own well-strung and resonant soul.\nHaving said this, we will proceed to the question of Luxury, by which\nI mean the possession of such things as minister only to weakness and\nvanity, of such things as we cannot reasonably hope that all men may\nsome day equally possess.\n\nWhen we are young--and most of us remain mere withered children, never\nattaining maturity, in similar matters--we are usually attracted by\nluxury and luxurious living. We are possessed by that youthful\ninstinct of union, fusion, marriage, so to speak, with what our soul\ndesires; we hanker after close contact and complete possession; and we\nfancy, in our inexperience, that luxury, the accumulation of\nvaluables, the appropriation of opportunities, the fact of rejecting\nfrom our life all that is not costly, brilliant, and dainty, implies\nsuch fusion of our soul with beauty.\n\nBut, as we reach maturity, we find that this is all delusion. We\nlearn, from the experience of occasions when our soul has truly\npossessed the beautiful, or been possessed by it, that if such union\nwith the harmony of outer things is rare, perhaps impossible, among\nsqualor and weariness, it is difficult and anomalous in the condition\nwhich we entitle luxury.\n\nWe learn that our assimilation of beauty, and that momentary renewal\nof our soul which it effects, rarely arises from our own ownership;\nbut comes, taking us by surprise, in presence of hills, streams,\nmemories of pictures, poets' words, and strains of music, which are\nnot, and cannot be, our property. The essential character of beauty is\nits being a relation between ourselves and certain objects. The\nemotion to which we attach its name is produced, motived by something\noutside us, pictures, music, landscape, or whatever it may be; but the\nemotion resides in us, and it is the emotion, and not merely its\nobject, which we desire. Hence material possession has no aesthetic\nmeaning. We possess a beautiful object with our soul; the possession\nthereof with our hands or our legal rights brings us no nearer the\nbeauty. Ownership, in this sense, may empower us to destroy or hide\nthe object and thus cheat others of the possession of its beauty, but\ndoes not help _us_ to possess that beauty. It is with beauty as with\nthat singer who answered Catherine II., \"Your Majesty's policemen can\nmake me _scream_, but they cannot make me _sing_;\" and she might have\nadded, for my parallel, \"Your policemen, great Empress, even could\nthey make _me_ sing, would not be able to make _you_ hear.\"\n\n\nVI.\n\nHence all strong aesthetic feeling will always prefer ownership of the\nmental image to ownership of the tangible object. And any desire for\nmaterial appropriation or exclusive enjoyment will be merely so much\nweakening and adulteration of the aesthetic sentiment. Since the mental\nimage, the only thing aesthetically possessed, is in no way diminished\nor damaged by sharing; nay, we have seen that by one of the most\ngracious coincidences between beauty and kindliness, the aesthetic\nemotion is even intensified by the knowledge of co-existence in\nothers: the delight in each person communicating itself, like a\nmusical third, fifth, or octave, to the similar yet different delight\nin his neighbour, harmonic enriching harmonic by stimulating fresh\nvibration.\n\nIf, then, we wish to possess casts, copies, or photographs of certain\nworks of art, this is, aesthetically considered, exactly as we wish to\nhave the means--railway tickets, permissions for galleries, and so\nforth--of seeing certain pictures or statues as often as we wish. For\nwe feel that the images in our mind require renewing, or that, in\ncombination with other more recently acquired images, they will, if\nrenewed, yield a new kind of delight. But this is quite another matter\nfrom wishing to own the material object, the thing we call _work of\nart itself_, forgetting that it is a work of art only for the soul\ncapable of instating it as such.\n\nThus, in every person who truly cares for beauty, there is a necessary\ntendency to replace the illusory legal act of ownership by the real\nspiritual act of appreciation. Charles Lamb already expressed this\ndelightfully in the essay on the old manor-house. Compared with his\npossession of its beauties, its walks, tapestried walls and family\nportraits, nay, even of the ghosts of former proprietors, the\npossession by the legal owner was utterly nugatory, unreal:\n\n    \"Mine too, Blakesmoor, was thy noble Marble Hall, with its mosaic\n    pavements, and its twelve Caesars;... mine, too, thy lofty Justice\n    Hall, with its one chair of authority.... Mine, too--whose\n    else?--thy costly fruit-garden ... thy ampler pleasure-garden ...\n    thy firry wilderness.... I was the true descendant of those old\n    W----'s, and not the present family of that name, who had fled the\n    old waste places.\"\n\nHow often have not some of us felt like that; and how much might not\nthose of us who never have, learn, could they learn, from those words\nof Elia?\n\n\nVII.\n\nI have spoken of _material, actual_ possession. But if we look closer\nat it we shall see that, save with regard to the things which are\nactually consumed, destroyed, disintegrated, changed to something else\nin their enjoyment, the notion of ordinary possession is a mere\ndelusion. It can be got only by a constant obtrusion of a mere idea,\nthe _idea of self_, and of such unsatisfactory ideas as one's right,\nfor instance, to exclude others. 'Tis like the tension of a muscle,\nthis constant keeping the consciousness aware by repeating\n\"Mine--mine--_mine_ and not _theirs_; not _theirs_, but _mine_.\" And\nthis wearisome act of self-assertion leaves little power for\nappreciation, for the appreciation which others can have quite\nequally, and without which there is no reality at all in ownership.\n\nHence, the deeper our enjoyment of beauty, the freer shall we become\nof the dreadful delusion of exclusive appropriation, despising such\nunreal possession in proportion as we have tasted the real one. We\nshall know the two kinds of ownership too well apart to let ourselves\nbe cozened into cumbering our lives with material properties and their\nresponsibilities. We shall save up our vigour, not for obtaining and\nkeeping (think of the thousand efforts and cares of ownership, even\nthe most negative) the things which yield happy impressions, but for\nreceiving and storing up and making capital of those impressions. We\nshall seek to furnish our mind with beautiful thoughts, not our houses\nwith pretty things.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nI hope I have made clear enough that aesthetic enjoyment is hostile to\nthe unkind and wasteful pleasures of selfish indulgence and selfish\nappropriation, because the true possession of the beautiful things of\nNature, of Art, and of thought is spiritual, and neither damages, nor\ndiminishes, nor hoards them; because the lover of the beautiful seeks\nfor beautiful impressions and remembrances, which are vested in his\nsoul, and not in material objects. That is the negative benefit of the\nlove of the beautiful. Let us now proceed to the positive and active\nassistance which it renders, when genuine and thorough-paced, to such\nthought as we give to the happiness and dignity of others.\n\n\nIX.\n\nI have said that our pleasure in the beautiful is essentially a\nspiritual phenomenon, one, I mean, which deals with our own\nperceptions and emotions, altering the contents of our mind, while\nleaving the beautiful object itself intact and unaltered. This being\nthe case, it is easy to understand that our aesthetic pleasure will be\ncomplete and extensive in proportion to the amount of activity of our\nsoul; for, remember, all pleasure is proportionate to activity, and,\nas I said in my first chapter, great beauty does not merely _take us_,\nbut _we_ must give _ourselves to it_. Hence, an increase in the\ncapacity for aesthetic pleasure will mean, _caeeteris paribus_, an\nincrease in a portion of our spiritual activity, a greater readiness\nto take small hints, to connect different items, to reject the lesser\ngood for the greater. Moreover, a great, perhaps the greater, part of\nour aesthetic pleasure is due, as I also told you before, to the\nstoring of impressions in our mind, and to the combining of them there\nwith other impressions. Indeed, it is for this reason that I have made\nno difference, save in intensity between aesthetic creation, so called,\nand aesthetic appreciation; telling you, on the contrary, that the\nartistic layman creates, produces something new and personal, only in\na less degree than the professed artist.\n\nFor the aesthetic life does not consist merely in the perception of the\nbeautiful object, not merely in the emotion of that spiritual contact\nbetween the beautiful product of art or of nature and the soul of the\nappreciator: it is continued in the emotions and images and thoughts\nwhich are awakened by that perception; and the aesthetic life _is_\nlife, is something continuous and organic, just because new forms,\nhowever obscure and evanescent, are continually born, in their turn\ncontinually to give birth, of that marriage between the beautiful\nthing outside and the beautiful soul within.\n\nHence, full aesthetic life means the creating and extending of ever new\nharmonies in the mind of the layman, the unconscious artist who merely\nenjoys, as a result of the creating and extending of new harmonies in\nthe work of the professed artist who consciously creates. This being\nthe case, the true aesthete is for ever seeking to reduce his\nimpressions and thoughts to harmony; and is for ever, accordingly,\nbeing pleased with some of them, and disgusted with others.\n\n\nX.\n\nThe desire for beauty and harmony, therefore, in proportion as it\nbecomes active and sensitive, explores into every detail, establishes\ncomparisons between everything, judges, approves, and disapproves; and\nmakes terrible and wholesome havoc not merely in our surroundings, but\nin our habits and in our lives. And very soon the mere thought of\nsomething ugly becomes enough to outweigh the actual presence of\nsomething beautiful. I was told last winter at San Remo, that the\nscent of the Parma violet can be distilled only by the oil of the\nflower being passed through a layer of pork fat; and since that\nrevelation violet essence has lost much of the charm it possessed for\nme: the thought of the suet counterbalanced the reality of the\nperfume.\n\nNow this violet essence, thus obtained, is symbolic of many of the\napparently refined enjoyments of our life. We shall find that luxury\nand pomp, delightful sometimes in themselves, are distilled through a\nlayer of coarse and repulsive labour by other folk; and the thought of\nthe pork suet will spoil the smell of the violets. For the more dishes\nwe have for dinner, the greater number of cooking-pots will have to be\ncleaned; the more carriages and horses we use, the more washing and\ngrooming will result; the more crowded our rooms with furniture and\nnicknacks, the more dust will have to be removed; the more numerous\nand delicate our clothes, the more brushing and folding there will\nbe; and the more purely ornamental our own existence, the less\nornamental will be that of others.\n\nThere is a _pensee_ of Pascal's to the effect that a fop carries on\nhis person the evidence of the existence of so many people devoted to\nhis service. This thought may be delightful to a fop; but it is not\npleasant to a mind sensitive to beauty and hating the bare thought of\nugliness: for while vanity takes pleasure in lack of harmony between\noneself and one's neighbour, aesthetic feeling takes pleasure only in\nharmonious relations. The thought of the servile lives devoted to make\nour life more beautiful counterbalances the pleasure of the beauty;\n'tis the eternal question of the violet essence and the pork suet. Now\nthe habit of beauty, the aesthetic sense, becomes, as I said, more and\nmore sensitive and vivacious; you cannot hide from it the knowledge of\nevery sort of detail, you cannot prevent its noticing the ugly side,\nthe ugly lining of certain pretty things. 'Tis a but weak and sleepy\nkind of aestheticism which \"blinks and shuts its apprehension up\" at\nyour bidding, which looks another way discreetly, and discreetly\nrefrains from all comparisons. The real aesthetic activity _is_ an\nactivity; it is one of the strongest and most imperious powers of\nhuman nature; it does not take orders, it only gives them. It is, when\nfull grown, a kind of conscience of beautiful and ugly, analogous to\nthe other conscience of right and wrong, and it is equally difficult\nto silence. If you can silence your aesthetic faculty and bid it be\nsatisfied with the lesser beauty, the lesser harmony, instead of the\ngreater, be sure that it is a very rudimentary kind of instinct; and\nthat you are no more thoroughly aesthetic than if you could make your\nsense of right and wrong be blind and dumb at your convenience, you\ncould be thoroughly moral.\n\nHence, the more aesthetic we become, the less we shall tolerate such\nmodes of living as involve dull and dirty work for others, as involve\nthe exclusion of others from the sort of life which we consider\naesthetically tolerable. We shall require such houses and such habits\nas can be seen, and, what is inevitable in all aesthetical development,\nas can also be _thought of_, in all their details. We shall require a\nhomogeneous impression of decorum and fitness from the lives of others\nas well as from our own, from what we actually see and from what we\nmerely know: the imperious demand for beauty, for harmony will be\napplied no longer to our mere material properties, but to that other\npossession which is always with us and can never be taken from us, the\nimages and feelings within our soul. Now, that other human beings\nshould be drudging sordidly in order that we may be idle and showy\nmeans a thought, a vision, an emotion which do not get on in our mind\nin company with the sight of sunset and sea, the taste of mountain air\nand woodland freshness, the faces and forms of Florentine saints and\nAntique gods, the serene poignancy of great phrases of music. This is\nby no means all. Developing in aesthetic sensitiveness we grow to think\nof ourselves also, our own preferences, moods and attitudes, as more\nor less beautiful or ugly; the inner life falling under the same\ncriticism as the outer one. We become aristocratic and epicurean about\nour desires and habits; we grow squeamish and impatient towards\nluxury, towards all kinds of monopoly and privilege on account of the\nmean attitude, the graceless gesture they involve on our own part.\n\n\nXI.\n\nThis feeling is increasing daily. Our deepest aesthetic emotions are,\nwe are beginning to recognise, connected with things which we do not,\ncannot, possess in the vulgar sense. Nay, the deepest aesthetic\nemotions depend, to an appreciable degree, on the very knowledge that\nthese things are either not such as money can purchase, or that they\nare within the purchasing power of all. The sense of being shareable\nby others, of being even shareable, so to speak, by other kinds of\nutility, adds a very keen attraction to all beautiful things and\nbeautiful actions, and, of course, _vice versa_. And things which are\nbeautiful, but connected with luxury and exclusive possession, come to\naffect one as, in a way, _lacking harmonics_, lacking those additional\nvibrations of pleasure which enrich impressions of beauty by\nimpressions of utility and kindliness.\n\nThus, after enjoying the extraordinary lovely tints--oleander pink,\nsilver-grey, and most delicate citron--of the plaster which covers the\ncommonest cottages, the humblest chapels, all round Genoa, there is\nsomething _short and acid_ in the pleasure one derives from equally\ncharming colours in expensive dresses. Similarly, in Italy, much of\nthe charm of marble, of the sea-cave shimmer, of certain palace-yards\nand churches, is due to the knowledge that this lovely, noble\nsubstance is easy to cut and quarried in vast quantities hard by: no\nwretched rarity like diamonds and rubies, which diminish by the worth\nof a family's yearly keep if only the cutter cuts one hair-breadth\nwrong!\n\nAgain, is not one reason why antique sculpture awakens a state of mind\nwhere stoicism, humaneness, simplicity, seem nearer possibilities--is\nnot one reason that it shows us the creature in its nakedness, in such\nbeauty and dignity as it can get through the grace of birth only?\nThere is no need among the gods for garments from silken Samarkand,\nfor farthingales of brocade and veils of Mechlin lace like those of\nthe wooden Madonnas of Spanish churches; no need for the ruffles and\nplumes of Pascal's young beau, showing thereby the number of his\nvalets. The same holds good of trees, water, mountains, and their\nrepresentation in poetry and painting; their dignity takes no account\nof poverty or riches. Even the lilies of the field please us, not\nbecause they toil not neither do they spin, but because they do not\nrequire, while Solomon does, that other folk should toil and spin to\nmake them glorious.\n\n\nXII.\n\nAgain, do we not prefer the books which deal with habits simpler than\nour own? Do we not love the Odyssey partly because of Calypso weaving\nin her cave, and Nausicaa washing the clothes with her maidens? Does\nit not lend additional divinity that Christianity should have arisen\namong peasants and handicraftsmen?\n\nNay more, do we not love certain objects largely because they are\nuseful; boats, nets, farm carts, ploughs; discovering therein a grace\nwhich actually exists, but which might else have remained unsuspected?\nAnd do we not feel a certain lack of significance and harmony of\nfulness of aesthetic quality in our persons when we pass in our\nidleness among people working in the fields, masons building, or\nfishermen cleaning their boats and nets; whatever beauty such things\nmay have being enhanced by their being common and useful.\n\nIn this manner our aesthetic instinct strains vaguely after a double\nchange: not merely giving affluence and leisure to others, but giving\nsimplicity and utility to ourselves?\n\n\nXIII.\n\nAnd, even apart from this, does not all true aestheticism tend to\ndiminish labour while increasing enjoyment, because it makes the\nalready existing more sufficient, because it furthers the joys of the\nspirit, which multiply by sharing, as distinguished from the pleasures\nof vanity and greediness, which only diminish?\n\n\nXIV.\n\nYou may at first feel inclined to pooh-pooh the notion that mere love\nof beauty can help to bring about a better distribution of the world's\nriches; and reasonably object that we cannot feed people on images and\nimpressions which multiply by sharing; they live on bread, and not on\nthe _idea_ of bread.\n\nBut has it ever struck you that, after all, the amount of material\nbread--even if we extend the word to everything which is consumed for\nbodily necessity and comfort--which any individual can consume is\nreally very small; and that the bad distribution, the shocking waste\nof this material bread arises from being, so to speak, used\nsymbolically, used as spiritual bread, as representing those _ideas_\nfor which men hunger: superiority over other folk, power of having\ndependants, social position, ownership, and privilege of all kinds?\nFor what are the bulk of worldly possessions to their owners: houses,\nparks, plate, jewels, superfluous expenditure of all kinds [and armies\nand navies when we come to national wastefulness]--what are all these\nill-distributed riches save _ideas_, ideas futile and ungenerous, food\nfor the soul, but food upon which the soul grows sick and corrupteth?\n\nWould it not be worth while to reorganise this diet of ideas? To\nreorganise that part of us which is independent of bodily sustenance\nand health, which lives on spiritual commodities--the part of us\nincluding ambition, ideal, sympathy, and all that I have called\n_ideas_? Would it not be worth while to find such ideas as all people\ncan live upon without diminishing each other's share, instead of the\n_ideas_, the imaginative satisfactions which each must refuse to his\nneighbour, and about which, therefore, all of us are bound to fight\nlike hungry animals? Thus to reform our notions of what is valuable\nand distinguished would bring about an economic reformation; or, if\nother forces were needed, would make the benefits of such economic\nreformation completer, its hardships easier to bear; and, altering our\nviews of loss and gain, lessen the destructive struggle of snatching\nand holding.\n\nNow, as I have been trying to show, beauty, harmony, fitness, are of\nthe nature of the miraculous loaves and fishes: they can feed\nmultitudes and leave basketfuls for the morrow.\n\nBut the desire for such spiritual food is, you will again object,\nitself a rarity, a product of leisure and comfort, almost a luxury.\n\nQuite true. And you will remember, perhaps, that I have already\nremarked that they are not to be expected either from the poor in\nmaterial comfort, nor from the poor in soul, since both of these are\ncondemned, the first by physical wretchedness, the second by spiritual\ninactivity, to fight only for larger shares of material bread; with\nthe difference that this material bread is eaten by the poor, and made\ninto very ugly symbols of glory by the rich.\n\nBut, among those of us who are neither hungry nor vacuous, there is\nnot, generally speaking, much attempt to make the best of our\nspiritual privileges. We teach our children, as we were taught\nourselves, to give importance only to the fact of exclusiveness,\nexpense, rareness, already necessarily obtruded far too much by our\nstruggling, imperfect civilisation. We are indeed angry with little\nboys and girls if they enquire too audibly whether certain people are\nrich or certain things cost much money, as little boys and girls are\napt to do in their very far from innocence; but we teach them by our\nexample to think about such things every time we stretch a point in\norder to appear richer or smarter than we are. While, on the contrary,\nwe rarely insist upon the intrinsic qualities for which things are\nreally valuable, without which no trouble or money would be spent on\nthem, without which their difficulty of obtaining would, as in the\ncase of Dr. Johnson's musical performance, become identical with\nimpossibility. I wonder how many people ever point out to a child that\nthe water in a tank may be more wonderful and beautiful in its beryls\nand sapphires and agates than all the contents of all the jewellers'\nshops in Bond Street? Moreover, we rarely struggle against the\nstandards of fashion in our habits and arrangements; which standards,\nin many cases, are those of our ladies' maids, butlers, tradesfolk,\nand in all cases the standards of our less intelligent neighbours.\nNay, more, we sometimes actually cultivate in ourselves, we superfine\nand aesthetic creatures, a preference for such kinds of enjoyment as\nare exclusive and costly; we allow ourselves to be talked into the\nnotion that solitary egoism, laborious self-assertion of ownership (as\nin the poor mad Ludwig of Bavaria) is a badge of intellectual\ndistinction. We cherish a desire for the new-fangled and far-fetched,\nthe something no other has had before; little suspecting, or\nforgetting, that to extract more pleasure not less, to enjoy the same\nthings longer, and to be able to extract more enjoyment out of more\nthings, is the sign of aesthetic vigour.\n\n\nXV.\n\nStill, on the whole, such as can care for beautiful things and\nbeautiful thoughts are beginning to care for them more fully, and are\ngrowing, undoubtedly, in a certain moral sensitiveness which, as I\nhave said, is coincident with aesthetic development.\n\nThis strikes me every time that I see or think about a certain\npriest's house on a hillside by the Mediterranean: a little house\nbuilt up against the village church, and painted and roofed, like the\nchurch, a most delicate grey, against which the yellow of the\nspalliered lemons sings out in exquisite intensity; alongside, a wall\nwith flower pots, and dainty white curtains to the windows. Such a\nhouse and the life possible in it are beginning, for many of us, to\nbecome the ideal, by whose side all luxury and worldly grandeur\nbecomes insipid or vulgar. For such a house as this embodies the\npossibility of living with grace and decorum _throughout_ by dint of\nloving carefulness and self-restraining simplicity. I say with grace\nand decorum _throughout_, because all things which might beget\nugliness in the life of others, or ugliness in our own attitude\ntowards others, would be eliminated, thrown away like the fossil which\nThoreau threw away because it collected dust. Moreover, such a life as\nthis is such as all may reasonably hope to have; may, in some more\nprosperous age, obtain because it involves no hoarding of advantage\nfor self or excluding therefrom of others.\n\nAnd such a life we ourselves may attain at least in the spirit, if we\nbecome strenuous and faithful lovers of the beautiful, aesthetes and\nascetics who recognise that their greatest pleasure, their only true\npossessions are in themselves; knowing the supreme value of their own\nsoul, even as was foreshadowed by the Abbot Joachim of Flora, when he\nsaid that the true monk can hold no property except his lyre.\n\n\n\n\nHIGHER HARMONIES.\n\n\nI.\n\n    \"To use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts\n    upwards, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms,\n    and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair\n    notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of\n    absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is;\n    this, my dear Socrates,\" said the prophetess of Mantineia, \"is\n    that life, above all others, which man should live, in the\n    contemplation of beauty absolute. Do you not see that in that\n    communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will\n    be enabled to bring forth not images of beauty, but realities; for\n    he has hold not of an image, but of a reality; and bringing forth\n    and educating true virtue to become the friend of God, and be\n    immortal, if mortal man may?\"\n\n\nSuch are the aesthetics of Plato, put into the mouth of that mysterious\nDiotima, who was a wise woman in many branches of knowledge. As we\nread them nowadays we are apt to smile with incredulity not unmixed\nwith bitterness. Is all this not mere talk, charming and momentarily\nelating us like so much music; itself mere beauty which, because we\nlike it, we half voluntarily confuse with _truth_? And, on the other\nhand, is not the truth of aesthetics, the bare, hard fact, a very\ndifferent matter? For we have learned that we human creatures will\nnever know the absolute or the essence, that notions, which Plato took\nfor realities, are mere relative conceptions; that virtue and truth\nare social ideals and intellectual abstractions, while beauty is a\nquality found primarily and literally only in material existences and\nsense-experiences; and every day we are hearing of new discoveries\nconnecting our aesthetic emotions with the structure of eye and ear,\nthe movement of muscles, the functions of nerve centres, nay, even\nwith the action of heart and lungs and viscera. Moreover, all round us\nschools of criticism and cliques of artists are telling us forever\nthat so far from bringing forth and educating true virtue, art has the\nsovereign power, by mere skill and subtlety, of investing good and\nevil, healthy and unwholesome, with equal merit, and obliterating the\ndistinctions drawn by the immortal gods, instead of helping the\nimmortal gods to their observance.\n\nThus we are apt to think, and to take the words of Diotima as merely\nso much lovely rhetoric. But--as my previous chapters must have led\nyou to expect--I think we are so far mistaken. I believe that,\nalthough explained in the terms of fantastic, almost mythical\nmetaphysic, the speech of Diotima contains a great truth, deposited in\nthe heart of man by the unnoticed innumerable experiences of centuries\nand peoples; a truth which exists in ourselves also as an instinctive\nexpectation, and which the advance of knowledge will confirm and\nexplain. For in that pellucid atmosphere of the Greek mind, untroubled\nas yet by theoretic mists, there may have been visible the very things\nwhich our scientific instruments are enabling us to see and\nreconstruct piecemeal, great groupings of reality metamorphosed into\nFata Morgana cities seemingly built by the gods.\n\nAnd thus I am going to try to reinstate in others' belief, as it is\nfully reinstated in my own, the theory of higher aesthetic harmonies,\nwhich the prophetess of Mantineia taught Socrates: to wit, that\nthrough the contemplation of true beauty we may attain, by the\nconstant purification--or, in more modern language, the constant\nselecting and enriching--of our nature, to that which transcends\nmaterial beauty; because the desire for harmony begets the habit of\nharmony, and the habit thereof begets its imperative desire, and thus\non in never-ending alternation.\n\n\nII.\n\nPerhaps the best way of expounding my reasons will be to follow the\nprocess by which I reached them; for so far from having started with\nthe theory of Diotima, I found the theory of Diotima, when I re-read\nit accidentally after many years' forgetfulness, to bring to\nconvergence the result of my gradual experience.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThinking about the Hermes of Olympia, and the fact that so far he is\npretty well the only Greek statue which historical evidence\nunhesitatingly gives us as an original masterpiece, it struck me that,\ncould one become really familiar with him, could eye and soul learn\nall the fulness of his perfection, we should have the true\nstarting-point for knowledge of the antique, for knowledge, in great\nmeasure, of all art.\n\nYes, and of more than art, or rather of art in more than one relation.\n\nIs this a superstition, a mere myth, perhaps, born of words? I think\nnot. Surely if we could really arrive at knowing such a masterpiece,\nso as to feel rather than see its most intimate organic principles,\nand the great main reasons separating it from all inferior works and\nmaking it be itself: could we do this, we should know not merely what\nart is and should be, but, in a measure, what life should be and might\nbecome: what are the methods of true greatness, the sensations of true\nsanity.\n\nIt would teach us the eternal organic strivings and tendencies of our\nsoul, those leading in the direction of life, leading away from death.\n\nIf this seems mere allegory and wild talk, let us look at facts and\nsee what art is. For is not art inasmuch as untroubled by the\npractical difficulties of existence, inasmuch as the free, unconscious\nattempt of all nations and generations to satisfy, outside life, those\ncravings which life still leaves unsatisfied--is not art a delicate\ninstrument, showing in its sensitive oscillations the most intimate\nmovements and habits of the soul? Does it not reveal our most\nrecondite necessities and possibilities, by sifting and selecting,\nreinforcing or attenuating, the impressions received from without;\nshowing us thereby how we must stand towards nature and life, how we\nmust feel and be?\n\nAnd this most particularly in those spontaneous arts which, first in\nthe field, without need of adaptations of material or avoidance of the\nalready done, without need of using up the rejected possibilities of\nprevious art, or awakening yet unknown emotions, are the simple,\nstraightforward expression, each the earliest satisfactory one in its\nown line, of the long unexpressed, long integrated, organic wants and\nwishes of great races of men: the arts, for instance, which have given\nus that Hermes, Titian's pictures, and Michael Angelo's and Raphael's\nfrescoes; given us Bach, Gluck, Mozart, the serener parts of\nBeethoven, music of yet reserved pathos, braced, spring-like strength,\nlearned, select: arts which never go beyond the universal, averaged\nexpression of the soul's desires, because the desires themselves are\nsifted, limited to the imperishable and unchangeable, like the\nartistic methods which embody them, reduced to the essential by the\nlong delay of utterance, the long--century long--efforts to utter.\n\nBecoming intimate with such a statue as the Olympian Hermes, and\ncomparing the impressions received from it with the impressions both\nof inferior works of the same branch of art and with the impressions\nof equally great works--pictures, buildings, musical compositions--of\nother branches of art, becoming conversant with the difference between\nan original and a copy, great art and poor art, we gradually become\naware of a quality which exists in all good art and is absent in all\nbad art, and without whose presence those impressions summed up as\nbeauty, dignity, grandeur, are never to be had. This peculiarity,\nwhich most people perceive and few people define--explaining it away\nsometimes as _truth_, or taking it for granted under the name of\n_quality_--this peculiarity I shall call for convenience' sake\nharmony; for I think you will all of you admit that the absence or\npresence of harmony is what distinguishes bad art from good. Harmony,\nin this sense--and remember that it is this which connoisseurs most\nusually allude to as _quality_--harmony may be roughly defined as the\norganic correspondence between the various parts of a work of art, the\nfunctional interchange and interdependence thereof. In this sense there\nis harmony in every really living thing, for otherwise it could not live.\nIf the muscles and limbs, nay, the viscera and tissues, did not adjust\nthemselves to work together, if they did not in this combination\nestablish a rhythm, a backward-forward, contraction-relaxation,\ntaking-in-giving-out, diastole-systole in all their movements, there\nwould be, instead of a living organism, only an inert mass. In all\nliving things, and just in proportion as they are really alive (for in\nmost real things there is presumably some defect of rhythm tending to\nstoppage of life), there is bound to be this organic interdependence\nand interchange. Natural selection, the survival of such individuals\nand species as best work in with, are most rhythmical to, their\nsurroundings--natural selection sees to that.\n\n\nIII.\n\nIn art the place of natural selection is taken by man's selection; and\nall forms of art which man keeps and does not send into limbo, all art\nwhich man finds suitable to his wants, rhythmical with his habits,\nmust have that same quality of interdependence of parts, of\ninterchange of function. Only in the case of art, the organic\nnecessity refers not to outer surroundings, but to man's feeling; in\nfact, man's emotion constitutes necessity towards art, as surrounding\nnature constitutes necessity for natural objects. Now man requires\norganic harmony, that is, congruity and co-ordination of processes,\nbecause his existence, the existence of every cell of him, depends\nupon it, is one complete microcosm of interchange, of give-and-take,\ndiastole-systole, of rhythm and harmony; and therefore all such things\nas give him impressions of the reverse thereof, go against him, and in\na greater or lesser degree, threaten, disturb, paralyse, in a way\npoison or maim him. Hence he is for ever seeking such congruity, such\nharmony; and his artistic creativeness is conditioned by the desire\nfor it, nay, is perhaps mainly seeking to obtain it. Whenever he\nspontaneously and truly creates artistic forms, he obeys the imperious\nvital instinct for congruity; nay, he seeks to eke out the\ninsufficient harmony between himself and the things which he _cannot_\ncommand, the insufficient harmony between the uncontrollable parts of\nhimself, by a harmony created on purpose in the things which he _can_\ncontrol. To a large extent man feels himself tortured by discordant\nimpressions coming from the world outside and the world inside him;\nand he seeks comfort and medicine in harmonious impressions of his own\nmaking, in his own strange inward-outward world of art.\n\nThis, I think, is the true explanation of that much-disputed-over\n_ideal_, which, according to definitions, is perpetually being\nenthroned and dethroned as the ultimate aim of all art: the ideal,\nthe imperatively clamoured-for mysterious something, is neither\nconformity to an abstract idea, nor conformity to actual reality, nor\nconformity to the typical, nor conformity to the individual; it is, I\ntake it, simply conformity to man's requirements, to man's inborn and\nperemptory demand for greater harmony, for more perfect co-ordination\nand congruity in his feelings.\n\nNow, when, in the exercise of the artistic instincts, mankind are\npartially obeying some other call than this one--the desire for money,\nfame, or for some intellectual formula--things are quite different,\nand there is no production of what I have called harmony. There is no\ncongruity when even great people set about doing pseudo-antique\nsculpture in Canova-Thorwaldsen fashion because Winckelmann and Goethe\nhave made antique sculpture fashionable; there is no congruity when\npeople set to building pseudo-Gothic in obedience to the romantic\nmovement and to Ruskin. For neither the desire for making a mark, nor\nthe most conscientious pressure of formula gives that instinct of\nselection and co-ordination characterising even the most rudimentary\nartistic efforts in the most barbarous ages, when men are impelled\nmerely and solely by the aesthetic instinct. Moreover, where people do\nnot want and need (as they want and need food or drink or warmth or\ncoolness) one sort of effect, that is to say, one arrangement of\nimpressions rather than another, they are sure to be deluded by the\nmere arbitrary classification, the mere _names_ of things. They will\nthink that smooth cheeks, wavy hair, straight noses, limbs of such or\nsuch measure, attitude, and expression, set so, constitute the\nAntique; that clustered pillars, cross vaulting, spandrils, and Tudor\nroses make Gothic. But the Antique quality is the particular and all\npermeating relation between all its items; and Gothic the particular\nand all permeating relation between those other ones; and unless you\naim at the _specific emotion_ of Antique or Gothic, unless you feel\nthe imperious call for the special harmony of either, all the\nmeasurements and all the formulas will not avail. While, on the\ncontrary, people without any formula or any attempt at imitation, like\nthe Byzantine architects and those of the fifteenth century, merely\nbecause they are obeying their own passionate desire for congruity of\nimpressions, for harmony of structure and function, will succeed in\ncreating brand-new, harmonious, organic art out of the actual details,\nsometimes the material ruins, of an art which has passed away.\n\nIf we become intimate with any great work of art, and intimate in so\nfar with the thoughts and emotions it awakens in ourselves, we shall\nfind that it possesses, besides this congruity within itself which\nassimilates it to all really living things, a further congruity, not\nnecessarily found in real objects, but which forms the peculiarity of\nthe work of art, a congruity with ourselves; for the great work of art\nis vitally connected with the habits and wants, the whole causality\nand rhythm of mankind; it has been fitted thereto as the boat to the\nsea.\n\n\nIV.\n\nIn this manner can we learn from art the chief secret of life: the\nsecret of action and reaction, of causal connection, of suitability of\npart to part, of organism, interchange, and growth.\n\nAnd when I say _learn_, I mean learn in the least official and the\nmost efficacious way. I do not mean merely that, looking at a statue\nlike the Hermes, a certain fact is borne in upon our intelligence, the\nfact of all vitality being dependent on harmony. I mean that perhaps,\nnay probably, without any such formula, our whole nature becomes\naccustomed to a certain repeated experience, our whole nature becomes\nadapted thereunto, and acts and reacts in consequence, by what we call\nintuition, instinct. It is not with our intellect alone that we\npossess such a fact, as we might intellectually possess that twice two\nis four, or that Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII., knowing\ncasually what we may casually also forget; we possess, in such a way\nthat forgetting becomes impossible, with our whole soul and our whole\nbeing, re-living that fact with every breath that we draw, with every\nmovement we make, the first great lesson of art, that vitality means\nharmony. Let us look at this fact, and at its practical applications,\napart from all aesthetic experience.\n\nAll life is harmony; and all improvement in ourselves is therefore,\nhowever unconsciously, the perceiving, the realising, or the\nestablishing of harmonies, more minute or more universal. Yes, curious\nand unpractical as it may seem, harmonies, or, under their humbler\nseparate names--arrangements, schemes, classifications, are the chief\nmeans for getting the most out of all things, and particularly the\nmost out of ourselves.\n\nFor they mean, first of all, unity of means for the attaining of unity\nof effect, that is to say, incalculable economy of material, of time,\nand of effort; and secondly, unity of effect produced, that is to say,\neconomy even greater in our power of perceiving and feeling: nothing\nto eliminate, nothing against whose interruptions we waste our energy,\nour power of becoming more fit in the course of striving.\n\nWhen there exists harmony one impression leads to, enhances another;\nwe, on the other hand, unconsciously recognise at once what is doing\nto us, what we in return must do; the mood is indicated, fulfilled,\nconsummated; in plenitude we feel, we are; and in plenitude of feeling\nand being, we, in our turn, _do_. Neither is such habit of harmony, of\nscheme, of congruity, a mere device for sucking the full sweetness out\nof life, although, heaven knows, that were important enough. As much\nas such a habit husbands, and in a way multiplies, life's sweetness;\nso likewise does it husband and multiply man's power. For there is no\nquicker and more thorough mode of selecting among our feelings and\nthoughts than submitting them to a standard of congruity; nothing more\nefficacious than the question: \"Is such or such a notion or proceeding\nharmonious with what we have made the rest of our life, with what we\nwish our life to be?\" This is, in other words, the power of the\n_ideal_, the force of _ideas_, of thought-out, recognised habits, as\ndistinguished from blind helter-skelter impulse. This is what welds\nlife into one, making its forces work not in opposition but in\nconcordance; this is what makes life consecutive, using the earlier\nact to produce the later, tying together existence in an organic\nfatality of _must be_: the fatality not of the outside and the\nunconscious, but of the conscious, inner, upper man. Nay, it is what\nmakes up the _Ego_. For the _ego_, as we are beginning to understand,\nis no mysterious separate entity, still less a succession of\ndisconnected, conflicting, blind impulses; the _ego_ is the congruous,\nperceived, nay, thought-out system of habits, which feels all\nincongruity towards itself as accidental and external. Hence, when we\nask which are the statements we believe in, we answer instinctively\n(logic being but a form of congruity) those statements which accord\nwith themselves and with other statements; when we ask, which are the\npersons we trust? we answer, those persons whose feelings and actions\nare congruous with themselves and with the feelings and actions of\nothers. And, on the contrary, it is in the worthless, in the\ndegenerate creature, that we note moods which are destructive to one\nanother's object, ideas which are in flagrant contradiction; and it is\nin the idiot, the maniac, the criminal, that we see thoughts\ndisconnected among themselves, perceptions disconnected with\nsurrounding objects, and instincts and habits incompatible with those\nof other human beings. Nay, if we look closely, we shall recognise,\nmoreover, that those emotions of pleasure are the healthy, the safe\nones, which are harmonious not merely in themselves (as a musical note\nis composed of even vibrations), but harmonious with all preceding and\nsucceeding pleasures in ourselves, and harmonious, congruous, with the\npresent and future pleasures in others.\n\n\nV.\n\nThe instinct of congruity, of subordination of part to whole, the\ndesire for harmony which is fostered above all things by art, is one\nof the most precious parts of our nature, if only, obeying its own\ntendency to expand, we apply it to ever wider circles of being; not\nmerely to the accessories of living, but to life itself.\n\nFor this love of harmony and order leads us to seek what is most\nnecessary in our living: a selection of the congruous, an arrangement\nof the mutually dependent in our thoughts and feelings.\n\nMuch of the work of the universe is done, no doubt, by what seems the\nexercise of mere random energy, by the thinking of apparently\ndisconnected thoughts and the feeling of apparently sporadic impulses;\nbut if the thought and the impulse remained really disconnected and\nsporadic, half would be lost and half would be distorted. It is one of\nthe economical adaptations of nature that every part of us tends not\nmerely to be consistent with itself, to eliminate the hostile, to\nbeget the similar, but tends also to be connected with other parts; so\nthat, action coming in contact with action, thought in contact with\nthought, and feeling in contact with feeling, each single one will be\nstrengthened or neutralised by the other. And it is the especial\nbusiness of what we may call the central consciousness, the dominant\nthought or emotion, to bring these separate thoughts and impulses,\nthese separate groups thereof, into more complex relations, to\ncontinue on a far vaster scale that vital contact, that trying of all\nthings by the great trial of affinity or repulsion, of congruity or\nincongruity. Thus we make trial of ourselves; and by the selfsame\nprocess, by the test of affinity and congruity, the silent forces of\nthe universe make trial of _us_, rejecting or accepting, allowing us,\nour thoughts, our feelings to live and be fruitful, or condemning us\nand them to die in barrenness.\n\nWhither are we going? In what shape shall the various members of our\nsoul proceed on their journey; which forming the van, which the rear\nand centre? Or shall there be neither van, nor rear, nor wedge-like\nforward flight?\n\nIf this question remains unasked or unanswered, our best qualities,\nour truest thoughts and purest impulses, may be hopelessly scattered\ninto distant regions, become defiled in bad company, or, at least,\nbarren in isolation; the universal life rejecting or annihilating\nthem.\n\nHow often do we not see this! Natures whose various parts have rambled\nasunder, or have come to live, like strangers in an inn, casually,\npromiscuously, each refusing to be his brother's keeper: instincts of\nkindliness at various ends, unconnected, unable to coalesce and conquer;\nthoughts separated from their kind, incapable of application; and, in\nconsequence, strange superficial comradeships, shoulder-rubbings of\ntrue and false, good and evil, become indifferent to one another,\nincapable of looking each other in the face, careless, unblushing.\nNay, worse. For lack of all word of command, of all higher control,\nhostile tendencies accommodating themselves to reign alternate,\nsharing the individual in distinct halves, till he becomes like unto\nthat hero of Gautier's witch story, who was a pious priest one-half of\nthe twenty-four hours and a wicked libertine the other: all power of\nselection, of reaction gone in this passive endurance of conflicting\ntendencies; all identity gone, save a mere feeble outsider looking on\nat the alternations of intentions and lapses, of good and bad. And the\nsoul of such a person--if, indeed, we can speak of one soul or one\nperson where there exists no unity--becomes like a jangle of notes\nbelonging to different tonalities, alternating and mingling in hideous\nconfusion for lack of a clear thread of melody, a consistent system of\nharmony, to select, reject, and keep all things in place.\n\nMelody, harmony: the two great halves of the most purely aesthetic of\nall arts, symbolise, as we might expect, the two great forces of life:\nconsecutiveness and congruity, under their different names of\nintention, fitness, selection, adaptation. These are what make the\nhuman soul like a conquering army, a fleet freighted with riches, a\nband of priests celebrating a rite. And this is what art, by no paltry\nformula, but by the indelible teaching of habit, of requirement, and\nexpectation become part of our very fibre--this is what art can teach\nto those who will receive its highest lesson.\n\n\nVI.\n\nThose who can receive that lesson, that is to say, those in whom it\ncan expand and ramify to the fulness and complexity which is its very\nessence. For it happens frequently enough that we learn only a portion\nof this truth, which by this means is distorted into error. We accept\nthe aesthetic instinct as a great force of Nature; but, instead of\nacknowledging it as our master, as one of the great lords of life, of\nwhom Emerson spoke, we try to make it our servant. We attempt to get\ncongruity between the details of our everyday existence, and refuse to\nseek for congruity between ourselves and the life which is greater\nthan ours.\n\nA friend of mine, who had many better ways of spending her money, was\nunable one day to resist the temptation of buying a beautiful old\nmajolica inkstand, which, not without a slight qualm of conscience,\nshe put into a very delightful old room of her house. The room had an\ninkstand already, but it was of glass, and modern. \"This one is in\nharmony with the rest of the room,\" she said, and felt fully justified\nin her extravagance. It is this form, or rather this degree, of\naestheticism, which so often prevents our realising the higher aesthetic\nharmonies. In obedience to a perception of what is congruous on a\nsmall scale we often do oddly incongruous things: spend money we ought\nto save, give time and thought to trifles while neglecting to come to\nconclusions about matters of importance; endure, or even cultivate,\npersons with whom we have less than no sympathy; nay, sometimes, from\na keen sense of incongruity, tune down our thoughts and feelings to\nthe flatness of our surroundings. The phenomenon of what may thus\nresult from a certain aesthetic sensitiveness is discouraging, and I\nconfess that it used to discourage and humiliate me. But the\nphilosophy which the prophetess of Mautineia taught Socrates settles\nthe matter, and solves, satisfactorily what in my mind I always think\nof as the question of the majolica inkstand.\n\nDiotima, you will remember, did not allow her disciple to remain\nengrossed in the contemplation of one kind of beauty, but particularly\ninsisted that he should use various fair forms as steps by which to\nascend to the knowledge of ever higher beauties. And this I should\ntranslate into more practical language by saying that, in questions\nlike that of the majolica inkstand, we require not a lesser\nsensitiveness to congruity, but a greater; that we must look not\nmerely at the smaller, but at the larger items of our life, asking\nourselves, \"Is this harmonious? or is it, seen in some wider\nconnection, even like that clumsy glass inkstand in the oak panelled\nand brocade hung room?\" If we ask ourselves this, and endeavour to\nanswer it faithfully--with that truthfulness which is itself an item\nof _consistency_--we may find that, strange as it may seem, the glass\ninkstand, ugly as it is in itself, and out of harmony with the\nfurniture, is yet more congruous, and that we actually prefer it to\nthe one of majolica.\n\nAnd it is in connection with this that I think that many persons who\nare really aesthetic, and many more who imagine themselves to be so,\nshould foster a wholesome suspicion of the theory which makes it a\nduty to accumulate certain kinds of possessions, to seek exclusively\ncertain kinds of impressions, on the score of putting beauty and\ndignity into our lives.\n\nPut beauty, dignity, harmony, serenity into our lives. It sounds very\nfine. But _can_ we? I doubt it. We may put beautiful objects,\ndignified manners, harmonious colours and shapes, but can we put\ndignity, harmony, or beauty? Can we put them into an individual life;\ncan anything be put into an individual life save furniture and\ngarments, intellectual as well as material? For an individual life,\ntaken separately, is a narrow, weak thing at the very best; and\neverything we can put into it, everything we lay hold of for the sake\nof putting in, must needs be small also, merely the chips or dust of\ngreat things; or if it have life, must be squeezed, cut down, made so\nsmall before it can fit into that little receptacle of our egoism,\nthat it will speedily be a dead, dry thing: thoughts once thought,\nfeelings once felt, now neither thought nor felt, merely lying there\ninert, as a dead fact, in our sterile self. Do we not see this on all\nsides, examples of life into which all the dignified things have been\ncrammed and all the beautiful ones, and which despite the statues,\npictures, poems, and symphonies within its narrow compass, is yet so\nfar from dignified or beautiful?\n\nBut we need not trouble about dignity and beauty coming to our life so\nlong as we veritably and thoroughly _live_; that is to say, so long as\nwe try not to put anything into our life, but to put our life into the\nlife universal. The true, expanding, multiplying life of the spirit\nwill bring us in contact, we need not fear, with beauty and dignity\nenough, for there is plenty such in creation, in things around us, and\nin other people's souls; nay, if we but live to our utmost power the\nlife of all things and all men, seeing, feeling, understanding for the\nmere joy thereof, even our individual life will be invested with\ndignity and beauty in our own eyes.\n\nBut furniture will not do it, nor dress, nor exquisite household\nappointments; nor any of the things, books, pictures, houses, parks,\nof which we can call ourselves owners. I say _call_ ourselves: for can\nwe be sure we really possess them? And thus, if we think only of our\nlife, and the decking thereof, it is only furniture, garments, and\nhousehold appointments we can deal with; for beauty and dignity cannot\nbe confined in so narrow a compass.\n\n\nVII.\n\nI have spoken so far of the conscious habit of harmony, and of its\nconscious effect upon our conduct. I have tried to show that the\ndesire for congruity, which may seem so trivial a part of mere\ndilettanteist superfineness, may expand and develop into such love of\nharmony between ourselves and the ways of the universe as shall make\nus wince at other folks' loss united to our gain, at our\ndeterioration united to our pleasure, even as we wince at a false note\nor a discordant arrangement of colours.\n\nBut there is something more important than conscious choice, and\nsomething more tremendous than definite conduct, because conscious\nchoice and conduct are but its separate and plainly visible results. I\nmean unconscious way of feeling and organic way of living: that which,\nin the language of old-fashioned medicine, we might call the\ncomplexion or habit of the soul.\n\nThis is undoubtedly affected by conscious knowledge and reason, as it\nundoubtedly manifests itself in both. But it is, I believe, much more\nwhat we might call a permanent emotional condition, a particular way\nof feeling, of reacting towards the impressions given us by the\nuniverse. And I believe that the individual is sound, that he is\ncapable of being happy while increasing the happiness of others, or\nthe reverse, according as he reacts harmoniously or inharmoniously\ntowards those universal impressions. And here comes in what seems to\nme the highest benefit we can receive from art and from the aesthetic\nactivities, which, as I have said before, are in art merely\nspecialised and made publicly manifest.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nThe habit of beauty, of harmony, is but the habit, engrained in our\nnature by the unnoticed experiences of centuries, of _life_ in our\nsurroundings and in ourselves; the habit of beauty is the habit, I\nbelieve scientific analysis of nature's ways and means will show\nus--of the growing of trees, the flowing of water, the perfect play\nof perfect muscles, all registered unconsciously in the very structure\nof our soul. And for this reason every time we experience afresh the\nparticular emotion associated with the quality _beautiful_, we are\nadding to that rhythm of life within ourselves by recognising the life\nof all things. There is not room within us for two conflicting waves\nof emotion, for two conflicting rhythms of life, one sane and one\nunsound. The two may possibly alternate, but in most cases the weaker\nwill be neutralised by the stronger; and, at all events, they cannot\nco-exist. We can account, only in this manner, for the indisputable\nfact that great emotion of a really and purely aesthetic nature has a\nmorally elevating quality, that as long as it endures--and in finer\norganisations its effect is never entirely lost--the soul is more\nclean and vigorous, more fit for high thoughts and high decisions. All\nunderstanding, in the wider and more philosophical sense, is but a\nkind of becoming: our soul experiences the modes of being which it\napprehends. Hence the particular religious quality (all faiths and\nrituals taking advantage thereof) of a high and complex aesthetic\nemotion. Whenever we come in contact with real beauty, we become\naware, in an unformulated but overwhelming manner, of some of the\nimmense harmonies of which all beauty is the product, of which all\nseparate beautiful things are, so to speak, the single patterns\nhappening to be in our line of vision, while all around other patterns\nconnect with them, meshes and meshes of harmonies, spread out, outside\nour narrow field of momentary vision, an endless web, like the\nconstellations which, strung on their threads of mutual dependence,\ncover and fill up infinitude.\n\nIn the moments of such emotional perception, our soul also, ourselves,\nbecome in a higher degree organic, alive, receiving and giving out the\nlife of the universe; come to be woven into the patterns of harmonies,\nmade of the stuff of reality, homogeneous with themselves,\nconsubstantial with the universe, like the living plant, the flowing\nstream, the flying cloud, the great picture or statue.\n\nAnd in this way is realised, momentarily, but with ever-increasing\npower of repetition, that which, after the teaching of Diotima,\nSocrates prayed for--\"the harmony between the outer and the inner\nman.\"\n\nBut this, I know, many will say, is but a delusion. Rapture is\npleasant, but it is not necessarily, as the men of the Middle Ages\nthought, a union with God. And is this the time to revive, or seek to\nrevive, when science is for ever pressing upon us the conclusion that\nsoul is a function of matter--is this the time to revive discredited\noptimistic idealisms of an unscientific philosophy?\n\nBut if science become omniscient, it will surely recognise and explain\nthe value of such recurring optimistic idealisms; and if the soul be a\nfunction of matter, will not science recognise but the more, that the\nsoul is an integral and vitally dependent portion of the material\nuniverse?\n\n\nIX.\n\nBe this as it may, one thing seems certain, that the artistic\nactivities are those which bring man into emotional communion with\nexternal nature; and that such emotional communion is necessary for\nman's thorough spiritual health. Perception of cause and effect,\ngeneralisation of law, reduces the universe indeed to what man's\nintellect can grasp; but in the process of such reduction to the laws\nof man's thought, the universe is shorn of its very power to move\nman's emotion and overwhelm his soul. The abstract which we have made\ndoes not vivify us sufficiently. And the emotional communion of man\nwith nature is through those various faculties which we call aesthetic.\nIt is not to no purpose that poetry has for ever talked to us of skies\nand mountains and waters; we require, for our soul's health, to think\nabout them otherwise than with reference to our material comfort and\ndiscomfort; we require to feel that they and ourselves are brethren\nunited by one great law of life. And what poetry suggests in explicit\nwords, bidding us love and be united in love to external nature; art,\nin more irresistible because more instinctive manner, forces upon our\nfeelings, by extracting, according to its various kinds, the various\nvital qualities of the universe, and making them act directly upon our\nmind: rhythms of all sorts, static and dynamic, in the spatial arts of\npainting and sculpture; in the half spatial, half temporal art of\narchitecture: in music, which is most akin to life, because it is the\nart of movement and change.\n\n\nX.\n\nWe can all remember moments when we have seemed conscious, even to\noverwhelming, of this fact. In my own mind it has become indissolubly\nconnected with a certain morning at Venice, listening to the organ in\nSt. Mark's.\n\nAny old and beautiful church gives us all that is most moving and\nnoblest--organism, beauty, absence of all things momentary and\nworthless, exclusion of grossness, of brute utility and mean\ncompromise, equality of all men before God; moreover, time, eternity,\nthe past, and the great dead. All noble churches give us this; how\nmuch more, therefore, this one, which is noblest and most venerable!\n\nIt has, like no other building, been handed over by man to Nature;\nTime moulding and tinting into life this structure already so organic,\nso fit to live. For its curves and vaultings, its cupolas mutually\nsupported, the weight of each carried by all; the very colour of the\nmarbles, brown, blond, living colours, and the irregular symmetry,\nflower-like, of their natural patterning, are all seemingly organic and\nready for life. Time has added that, with the polish and dimming\nalternately of the marbles, the billowing of the pavement, the\nslanting of the columns, and last, but not least, the tarnishing of\nthe gold and the granulating of the mosaic into an uneven surface: the\ngold seeming to have become alive and in a way vegetable, and to have\nfaded and shrunk like autumn leaves.\n\n\nXI.\n\nThe morning I speak of they were singing some fugued composition by I\nknow not whom. How well that music suited St. Mark's! The constant\ninterchange of vault and vault, cupola and cupola, column and column,\nhanding on their energies to one another; the springing up of new\ndetails gathered at once into the great general balance of lines and\nforces; all this seemed to find its natural voice in that fugue, to\nexpress, in that continuous revolution of theme chasing, enveloping\ntheme, its own grave emotion of life everlasting: Being, becoming;\nbecoming, being.\n\n\nXII.\n\nIt is such an alternation as this, ceaseless, rhythmic, which\nconstitutes the upward life of the soul: that life of which the wise\nwoman of Mantineia told Socrates that it might be learned through\nfaithful and strenuous search for ever widening kinds of beauty, the\n\"life above all,\" in the words of Diotima, \"which a man should live.\"\n\nThe life which vibrates for ever between being better and conceiving\nof something better still; between satisfaction in harmony and craving\nfor it. The life whose rhythm is that of happiness actual and\nhappiness ideal, alternating for ever, for ever pressing one another\ninto being, as the parts of a fugue, the dominant and the tonic.\nBeing, becoming; becoming, being; idealising, realising; realising,\nidealising.\n\n\n\n\nBEAUTY AND SANITY.\n\n\nI.\n\nOut of London at last; at last, though after only two months! Not,\nindeed, within a walk of my clump of bay-trees on the Fiesole hill;\nbut in a country which has some of that Tuscan grace and serene\nausterity, with its Tweed, clear and rapid in the wide shingly bed,\nwith its volcanic cones of the Eildons, pale and distinct in the\ndistance: river and hills which remind me of the valley where the\nbay-trees grow, and bring to my mind all that which the bay-trees\nstand for.\n\nThere is always something peculiar in these first hours of finding\nmyself once more alone, once more quite close to external things; the\nhuman jostling over, an end, a truce at least, to \"all the neighbours'\ntalk with man and maid--such men--all the fuss and trouble of street\nsounds, window-sights\" (how he knew these things, the poet!); once\nmore in communion with the things which somehow--nibbled grass and\nstone-tossed water, yellow ragwort in the fields, blue cranesbill\nalong the road, big ash-trees along the river, sheep, birds, sunshine,\nand showers--somehow contrive to keep themselves in health, to live,\ngrow, decline, die, be born again, without making a mess or creating a\nfuss. The air, under the grey sky, is cool, even cold, with infinite\nbriskness. And this impression of briskness, by no means excluded by\nthe sense of utter isolation and repose, is greatly increased by a\nspecial charm of this place, the quantity of birds to listen to and\nwatch; great blackening flights of rooks from the woods along the\nwatercourses and sheltered hillsides (for only solitary ashes and\nwind-vexed beeches will grow in the open); peewits alighting with\nsqueals in the fields; blackbirds and thrushes in the thick coverts (I\nfound a poor dead thrush with a speckled chest like a toad, laid out\namong the beech-nuts); wagtails on the shingle, whirling over the\nwater, where the big trout and salmon leap; every sort of swallow;\npigeons crossing from wood to wood; wild duck rattling up, and\nseagulls circling above the stream; nay, two herons, standing\nimmovable, heraldic, on the grass among the sheep.\n\nIn such moments, with that briskness transferred into my feelings,\nlife seems so rich and various. All pleasant memories come to my mind\nlike tunes, and with real tunes among them (making one realise that\nthe greatest charm of music is often when no longer materially\naudible). Pictures also of distant places, tones of voice, glance of\neyes of dear friends, visions of pictures and statues, and scraps of\npoems and history. More seems not merely to be brought to me, but more\nto exist, wherewith to unite it all, within myself.\n\nSuch moments, such modes of being, ought to be precious to us; they\nand every impression, physical, moral, aesthetic, which is akin to\nthem, and we should recognise their moral worth. Since it would seem\nthat even mere bodily sensations, of pure air, bracing temperature,\nvigor of muscles, efficiency of viscera, accustom us not merely to\nhealth of our body, but also, by the analogies of our inner workings,\nto health of our soul.\n\n\nII.\n\nHow delicate an organism, how alive with all life's dangers, is the\nhuman character; and how persistently do we consider it as the thing\nof all others most easily forced into any sort of position, most\nsafely handled in ignorance! Surely some of the misery, much of the\nwaste and deadlock of the world are due to our all being made of such\nobscure, unguessed at material; to our not knowing it betimes, and\nothers not admitting it even late in the day. When, for instance,\nshall we recognise that the bulk of our psychic life is unconscious or\nsemi-unconscious, the life of long-organised and automatic functions;\nand that, while it is absurd to oppose to these the more recent,\nunaccustomed and fluctuating activity called _reason_, this same\nreason, this conscious portion of ourselves, may be usefully employed\nin understanding those powers of nature (powers of chaos sometimes)\nwithin us, and in providing that these should turn the wheel of life\nin the right direction, even like those other powers of nature outside\nus, which reason cannot repress or alter, but can understand and put\nto profit. Instead of this, we are ushered into life thinking\nourselves thoroughly conscious throughout, conscious beings of a\ndefinite and stereotyped pattern; and we are set to do things we do\nnot understand with mechanisms which we have never even been shown:\nTold to be good, not knowing why, and still less guessing how!\n\nSome folk will answer that life itself settles all that, with its\njostle and bustle. Doubtless. But in how wasteful, destructive,\nunintelligent, and cruel a fashion! Should we be satisfied with this\nkind of surgery, which cures an ache by random chopping off a limb;\nwith this elementary teaching, which saves our body from the fire by\nburning our fingers? Surely not; we are worth more care on our own\npart.\n\nThe recognition of this, and more especially of the manner in which we\nmay be damaged by dangers we have never thought of as dangers, our\nsouls undermined and made boggy by emotions not yet classified, brings\nhome to me again the general wholesomeness of art; and also the fact\nthat, wholesome as art is, in general, and, compared with the less\nabstract activities of our nature, there are yet differences in art's\nwholesomeness, there are categories of art which can do only good, and\nothers which may also do mischief.\n\nArt, in so far as it moves our fancies and emotions, as it builds up\nour preferences and repulsions, as it disintegrates or restores our\nvitality, is merely another of the great forces of nature, and we\nrequire to select among its activities as we select among the\nactivities of any other natural force.... When, I wonder, I wonder,\nwill the forces _within_ us be recognised as natural, in the same\nsense as those _without_; and our souls as part of the universe,\nprospering or suffering, according to which of its rhythms they\nvibrate to: the larger rhythm, which is for ever increasing, and which\nmeans happiness; the smaller, for ever slackening, which means\nmisery?\n\n\nIII.\n\nBut since life has got two rhythms, why should art have only one? Our\npoor mankind by no means always feel braced, serene, and energetic;\nand we are far from necessarily keeping step with the movements of the\nuniverse which imply happiness.\n\nLet alone the fact of wretched circumstances beyond our control, of\nnatural decay and death, and loss of our nearest and dearest; the\nuniverse has made it excessively difficult, nay, impossible, for us to\nfollow constantly its calm behest, \"Be as healthy as possible.\" It is\nall very fine to say _be healthy_. Of course we should be willing\nenough. But it must be admitted that the Powers That Be have not\ntroubled about making it easy. Be healthy indeed! When health is so\nnicely balanced that it is at the mercy of a myriad of microscopic\ngerms, of every infinitesimal increase of cold or heat, or damp or\ndryness, of alternations of work and play, oscillation of want and\nexcess incalculably small, any of which may disturb the beautiful\nneedle-point balance and topple us over into disease. Such Job's\ncomforting is one of the many sledge-hammer ironies with which the\nCosmos diverts itself at our expense; and of course the Cosmos may\npermit itself what it likes, and none of us can complain. But is it\npossible for one of ourselves, a poor, sick, hustled human being, to\ntake up the jest of the absentee gods of Lucretius, and say to his\nfellow-men: \"Believe me, you would do much better to be quite healthy,\nand quite happy?\"\n\nAnd, as art is one of mankind's modes of expressing itself, why in the\nworld should we expect it to be the expression only of mankind's\nhealth and happiness? Even admitting that the very existence of the\nrace proves that the healthy and happy states of living must on the\nwhole preponderate (a matter which can, after all, not be proved so\neasily), even admitting that, why should mankind be allowed artistic\nemotions only at those moments, and requested not to express itself or\nfeel artistically during the others? Bay-trees are delightful things,\nno doubt, and we are all very fond of them off and on. But why must we\npretend to enjoy them when we don't; why must we hide the fact that\nthey sometimes irritate or bore us, and that every now and then we\nvery much prefer--well, weeping-willows, upas-trees, and all the livid\nor phosphorescent eccentricities of the various _fleurs du mal_?\n\nIs it not stupid thus to \"blink and shut our apprehension up?\" Nay,\nworse, is it not positively heartless, brutal?\n\n\nIV.\n\nThis argument, I confess, invariably delights and humiliates me: it is\nso full of sympathy for all sorts and conditions of men, and so\nappreciative of what is and what is not. It is so very human and\nhumane. There is in it a sort of quite gentle and dignified Prometheus\nVinctus attitude towards the Powers That Be; and Zeus, with his\nthunderbolts and chains, looks very much like a brute by contrast.\n\nBut what is to be done? Zeus exists with his chains and thunderbolts,\nand all the minor immortals, lying down, colossal, dim, like mountains\nat night, at Schiller's golden tables, each with his fine attribute,\nolive-tree, horse, lyre, sun and what not, by his side; also his own\nparticular scourge, plague, dragon, wild boar, or sea monster, ready\nto administer to recalcitrant, insufficiently pious man. And the gods\nhave it their own way, call them what you will, children of Chaos or\nchildren of Time, dynasty succeeding dynasty, but only for the same\nold gifts and same old scourges to be handed on from one to the other.\n\nIn more prosaic terms, we cannot get loose of nature, the nature of\nourselves; we cannot get rid of the fact that certain courses, certain\nhabits, certain preferences are to our advantage, and certain others\nto our detriment. And therefore, to return to art, and to the various\nimaginative and emotional activities which I am obliged to label by\nthat very insufficient name, we cannot get rid of the fact that,\nhowever much certain sorts of art are the natural expression of\ncertain recurring and common states of being; however much certain\npreferences correspond to certain temperaments or conditions, we must\nnevertheless put them aside as much as possible, and give our\nattention to the opposite sorts of art and the opposite sorts of\npreference, for the simple reason that the first make us less fit for\nlife and less happy in the long run, while the second make us more fit\nand happier.\n\nIt is a question not of what we _are_, but of what _we shall be_.\n\n\nV.\n\nA distinguished scientific psychologist, who is also a psychologist in\nthe unscientific sense, and who writes of Intellect and Will less in\nthe spirit (and, thank heaven, less in the style) of Mr. Spencer than\nin that of Monsieur de Montaigne, has objected to music (and, I\npresume, in less degree to other art) that it runs the risk of\nenfeebling the character by stimulating emotions without affording\nthem a corresponding outlet in activity. I agree (as will be seen\nfarther on) that music more particularly may have an unwholesome\ninfluence, but not for the reason assigned by Professor James, who\nseems to me to mistake the nature and functions of artistic emotion.\n\nI doubt very much whether any non-literary art, whether even music has\nthe power, in the modern man, of stimulating tendencies to action. It\nmay have had in the savage, and may still have in the civilised child;\nbut in the ordinary, cultivated grown-up person, the excitement\nproduced by any artistic sight, sound, or idea will most probably be\nused up in bringing to life again some of the many millions of sights,\nsounds, and ideas which lie inert, stored up in our mind. The artistic\nemotion will therefore not give rise to an active impulse, but to that\nvague mixture of feelings and ideas which we call a _mood_; and if any\nalteration occur in subsequent action, it will be because all external\nimpressions must vary according to the mood of the person who receives\nthem, and consequently undergo a certain selection, some being allowed\nto dominate and lead to action, while others pass unnoticed, are\nneutralised or dismissed.\n\nMore briefly, it seems to me that artistic emotion is of practical\nimportance, not because it discharges itself in action, but, on the\ncontrary, because it produces a purely internal rearrangement of our\nthoughts and feelings; because, in short, it helps to form\nconcatenations of preferences, habits of being.\n\nWhether or not Mr. Herbert Spencer be correct in deducing all artistic\nactivities from our primaeval instincts of play, it seems to me certain\nthat these artistic activities have for us adults much the same\nimportance as the play activities have for a child. They represent the\nonly perfectly free exercise, and therefore, free development, of our\npreferences. Now, everyone will admit, I suppose, that it is extremely\nundesirable that a child should amuse itself acquiring unwholesome\npreferences and evil habits, indulging in moods which will make it or\nits neighbours less comfortable out of play-time?\n\nMind, I do not for a moment pretend that art is to become the\nconscious instrument of morals, any more than (Heaven forbid!) play\nshould become the conscious preparation of infant virtue. All I\ncontend is that if some kinds of infant amusement result in damage, we\nsuppress them as a nuisance; and that, if some kinds of art\ndisorganise the soul, the less we have of them the better.\n\nMoreover, the grown-up human being is so constituted, is so full of\nfine connections and analogies throughout his nature, that, while the\nsense of emulation and gain lends such additional zest to his\namusements, the sense of increasing spiritual health and power,\nwherever it exists, magnifies almost incredibly the pleasure derivable\nfrom beautiful impressions.\n\n\nVI.\n\nThe persons who maintained just now (and who does not feel a\nhard-hearted Philistine for gainsaying them?) that we have no right to\nostracise, still less to stone, unwholesome kinds of art, make much of\nthe fact that, as we are told in church, \"We have no health in us.\"\nBut it is the recognition of this lack of health which hardens my\nheart to unwholesome persons and things. If we must be wary of what\nmoods and preferences we foster in ourselves, it is because so few of\nus are congenitally sound--perhaps none without some organic weakness;\nand because, even letting soundness alone, very few of us lead lives\nthat are not, in one respect or another, strained or starved or\ncramped. Gods and archangels might certainly indulge exclusively in\nthe literature and art for which Baudelaire may stand in this\ndiscussion. But gods and archangels require neither filters nor\ndisinfectants, and may slake their thirst in the veriest decoction of\ntyphoid.\n\n\nVII.\n\nThe Greeks, who were a fortunate mixture of Conservatives and\nAnarchists, averred that the desire for the impossible (I do not\nquote, for, alas! I should not understand the quotation) is a disease\nof the soul.\n\nIt is not, I think, the desire for the impossible (since few can tell\nwhat seems impossible, and fewer care for what indubitably is so) so\nmuch as the desire for the topsy-turvy. Baudelaire, who admired\npersons thus afflicted, has a fine line:\n\n     \"De la realite grands esprits contempteurs\";\n\nbut what they despised was not the real, but the usual. Now the usual,\nof the sort thus despised, happens to represent the necessities of our\norganisms and of that wider organism which we call circumstances. We\nmay modify it, always in the direction in which it tends spontaneously\nto evolve; but we cannot subvert it. You might as well try to subvert\ngravitation: \"Je m'en suis apercu etant par terre,\" is the only\nresult, as in Moliere's lesson of physics.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nAlso, when you come to think of it, there is nothing showing a finer\norganisation in the incapacity for finding sugar sweet and vinegar\nsour. The only difference is that, as sugar happens to be sweet and\nvinegar sour, an organisation which perceives the reverse is at sixes\nand sevens with the universe, or a bit of the universe; and, exactly\nto the extent to which this six-and-sevenness prevails, is likely to\nbe mulcted of some of the universe's good things.\n\nHow may I bring this home, without introducing a sickly atmosphere of\ndecadent art and literature into my valley of the bay-trees? And yet,\nan instance is needed. Well; there is an old story, originating\nperhaps in Suetonius, handed on by Edgar Poe, and repeated, with\nvariations, by various modern French writers, of sundry persons who,\namong other realities, despise the fact that sheets and table-linen\nare usually white; and show the subtlety of their organisation (the\nEmperor Tiberius, a very subtle person, was one of the earliest to\napply the notion) by taking their sleep and food in an arrangement of\nblack materials; a sort of mourning warehouse of beds and\ndining-tables.\n\nNow this means simply that these people have bought \"distinction\" at\nthe price of one of mankind's most delightful birthrights, the\npleasure in white, the queen, as Leonardo put it, of all colours. Our\nminds, our very sensations are interwoven so intricately of all manner\nof impressions and associations, that it is no allegory to say that\nwhite is good, and that the love of white is akin somehow to the love\nof virtue. For the love of white has come to mean, thanks to the\npractice of all centuries and to the very structure of our nerves,\nstrength, cleanness, and newness of sensation, capacity for\nre-enjoying the already enjoyed, for preferring the already preferred,\nfor discovering new interest and pleasureableness in old things,\ninstead of running to new ones, as one does when not the old ones are\nexhausted, but one's own poor vigour. The love of white means,\nfurthermore, the appreciation of certain circumstances, delightful and\nvaluable in themselves, without which whiteness cannot be present: in\nhuman beings, good health and youth and fairness of life; in houses\n(oh! the white houses of Cadiz, white between the blue sky and blue\nsea!), excellence of climate, warmth, dryness and clearness of air;\nand in all manner of household goods and stuff, care, order,\ndaintiness of habits, leisure and affluence. All things these which,\nquite as much as any peculiarity of optic function, give for the\nhealthy mind a sort of restfulness, of calm, of virtue, and I might\nalmost say, of regal or priestly quality to white; a quality which\nsuits it to the act of restoring our bodies with food and wine, above\nall, to the act of spiritual purification, the passing through the\ncool, colourless, stainless, which constitutes true sleep.\n\nAll this the Emperor Tiberius and his imitators forego with their\nbogey black sheets and table-cloths....\n\n\nIX.\n\nBut what if we _do not care for white_? What if we are so constituted\nthat its insipidity sickens _us_ as much as the most poisonous and\nputrescent colours which Blake ever mixed to paint hell and sin? Nay,\nif those grumous and speckly viscosities of evil green, orange, poppy\npurple, and nameless hues, are the only things which give us any\npleasure?\n\nIs it a reason, because you arcadian Optimists of Evolution extract,\nor imagine you extract, some feeble satisfaction out of white, that we\nshould pretend to enjoy it, and the Antique and Outdoor Nature, and\nEarly Painters, and Mozart and Gluck, and all the whitenesses physical\nand moral? You say we are abnormal, unwholesome, decaying; very good,\nthen why should we not get pleasure in decaying, unwholesome, and\nabnormal things? We are like the poison-monger's daughter in Nathaniel\nHawthorne's story. Other people's poison is our meat, and we should be\nkilled by an antidote; that is to say, bored to death, which, in our\nopinion, is very much worse.\n\nTo this kind of speech, common since the romantic and pre-Raphaelite\nmovement, and getting commoner with the spread of theories of\nintellectual anarchy and nervous degeneracy, one is often tempted to\nanswer impatiently, \"Get out of the way, you wretched young people;\ndon't you see that there isn't room or time for your posing?\"\n\nBut unfortunately it is not all pose. There are a certain number of\npeople who really are _bored with white_; for whom, as a result of\nconstitutional morbidness, of nervous exhaustion, or of that very\ndisintegration of soul due to unwholesome aesthetic self-indulgence, to\nthe constant quest for violent artistic emotion, our soul's best food\nhas really become unpalatable and almost nauseous. These people cannot\nlive without spiritual opium or alcohol, although that opium or\nalcohol is killing them by inches. It is absurd to be impatient with\nthem. All one can do is to let them go in peace to their undoing, and\nhope that their example will be rather a warning than a model to\nothers.\n\n\nX.\n\nBut, letting alone the possibility of art acting as a poison for the\nsoul, there remains an important question. As I said, although art is\none of the most wholesome of our soul's activities, there are yet\nkinds of art, or (since it is a subjective question of profit or\ndamage to ourselves) rather kinds of artistic effect, which, for some\nevident reason, or through some obscure analogy or hidden point of\ncontact awaken those movements of the fancy, those states of the\nemotions which disintegrate rather than renew the soul, and accustom\nus rather to the yielding and proneness which we shun, than to the\nresistance and elasticity which we seek throughout life to increase.\n\nI was listening, last night, to some very wonderful singing of modern\nGerman songs; and the emotion that still remains faintly within me\nalongside of the traces of those languishing phrases and passionate\nintonations, the remembrance of the sense of--how shall I call\nit?--violation of the privacy of the human soul which haunted me\nthroughout that performance, has brought home to me, for the hundredth\ntime, that the Greek legislators were not so fantastic in considering\nmusic a questionable art, which they thought twice before admitting\ninto their ideal commonwealths. For music can do more by our emotions\nthan the other arts, and it can, therefore, separate itself from them\nand their holy ways; it can, in a measure, actually undo the good they\ndo to our soul.\n\nBut, you may object, poetry does the very same; it also expresses,\nstrengthens, brings home our human, momentary, individual emotions,\ninstead of uniting with the arts of visible form, with the harmonious\nthings of nature, to create for us another kind of emotion, the\nemotion of the eternal, unindividual, universal life, in whose\ncontemplation our souls are healed and made whole after the\ndisintegration inflicted by what is personal and fleeting.\n\nIt is true that much poetry expresses merely such personal and momentary\nemotion; but it does so through a mechanism differing from that of music,\nand possessing a saving grace which the emotion-compelling mechanism\nof music does not. For by the very nature of the spoken or written\nword, by the word's strictly intellectual concomitants, poetry, even\nwhile rousing emotion, brings into play what is most different to\nemotion, emotion's sifter and chastener, the great force which reduces\nall things to abstraction, to the eternal and typical: reason. You\ncannot express in words, even the most purely instinctive,\nhalf-conscious feeling, without placing that dumb and blind emotion in\nthe lucid, balanced relations which thought has given to words;\nindeed, words rarely, if ever, reproduce emotion as it is, but\ninstead, emotion as it is instinctively conceived, in its setting of\ncause and effect. Hence there is in all poetry a certain reasonable\nelement which, even in the heyday of passion, makes us superior to\npassion by explaining its why and wherefore; and even when the poet\nsucceeds in putting us in the place of him who feels, we enter only\ninto one-half of his personality, the half which contemplates while\nthe other suffers: we _know_ the feeling, rather than _feel_ it.\n\nNow, it is different with music. Its relations to our nerves are such\nthat it can reproduce emotion, or, at all events, emotional moods,\ndirectly and without any intellectual manipulation. We weep, but know\nnot why. Its specifically artistic emotion, the power it shares with\nall other arts of raising our state of consciousness to something more\ncomplete, more vast, and more permanent--the specific musical emotion\nof music can become subservient to the mere awakening of our latent\nemotional possibilities, to the stimulating of emotions often\nundesirable in themselves, and always unable, at the moment, to find\ntheir legitimate channel, whence enervation and perhaps degradation of\nthe soul. There are kinds of music which add the immense charm, the\nsubduing, victorious quality of art, to the power of mere emotion as\nsuch; and in these cases we are pushed, by the delightfulness of\nbeauty and wonder, by the fascination of what is finer than ourselves,\ninto deeper consciousness of our innermost, primaeval, chaotic self:\nthe stuff in which soul has not yet dawned. We are made to enjoy what\nwe should otherwise dread; and the dignity of beauty, and beauty's\nfrankness and fearlessness, are lent to things such as we regard,\nunder other circumstances, as too intimate, too fleeting, too obscure,\ntoo unconscious, to be treated, in ourselves and our neighbours,\notherwise than with decorous reserve.\n\nIt is astonishing, when one realises it, that the charm of music, the\ngood renown it has gained in its more healthful and more decorous\ndays, can make us sit out what we do sit out under its influence:\nviolations of our innermost secrets, revelations of the hidden\npossibilities of our own nature and the nature of others; stripping\naway of all the soul's veils; nay, so to speak, melting away of the\nsoul's outward forms, melting away of the soul's active structure, its\nbone and muscle, till there is revealed only the shapeless primaeval\nnudity of confused instincts, the soul's vague viscera.\n\nWhen music does this, it reverts, I think, towards being the nuisance\nwhich, before it had acquired the possibilities of form and beauty it\nnow tends to despise, it was felt to be by ancient philosophers and\nlaw-givers. At any rate, it sells its artistic birthright. It\nrenounces its possibility of constituting, with the other great arts,\na sort of supplementary contemplated nature; an element wherein to\nbuoy up and steady those fluctuations which we express in speech; a\nvast emotional serenity, an abstract universe in which our small and\nfleeting emotions can be transmuted, and wherein they can lose\nthemselves in peacefulness and strength.\n\n\nXI.\n\nI mentioned this one day to my friend the composer. His answer is\npartly what I was prepared for: this emotionally disintegrating\nelement ceases to exist, or continues to exist only in the very\nslightest degree, for the real musician. The effect on the nerves is\noverlooked, neutralised, in the activity of the intellect; much as the\nemotional effect of the written word is sent into the background by\nthe perception of cause and effect which the logical associations of\nthe word produce. For the composer, even for the performer, says my\nfriend, music has a logic of its own, so strong and subtle as to\noverpower every other consideration.\n\nBut music is not merely for musicians; the vast majority will always\nreceive it not actively through the intellect, but passively through\nthe nerves; the mood will, therefore, be induced before, so to speak,\nthe image, the musical structure, is really appreciated. And,\nmeanwhile, the soul is being made into a sop.\n\n\"For the moment,\" answers my composer, \"perhaps; but only for the\nmoment. Once the nerves accustomed to those modulations and rhythms;\nonce the form perceived by the mind, the emotional associations will\nvanish; the hearer will have become what the musician originally\nwas.... How do you know that, in its heyday, all music may not have\naffected people as Wagner's music affects them nowadays? What proof\nhave you got that the strains of Mozart and Gluck, nay, those of\nPalestrina, which fill our soul with serenity, may not have been full\nof stress and trouble when they first were heard; may not have laid\nbare the chaotic elements of our nature, brought to the surface its\nprimaeval instincts? Historically, all you know is that Gluck's\n_Orpheus_ made our ancestors weep; and that Wagner's _Tristram_ makes\nour contemporaries sob....\"\n\nThis is the musician's defence. Does it free his art from my rather\nmiserable imputation? I think not. If all this be true, if _Orpheus_\nhas been what _Tristram_ is, all one can say is _the more's the pity_.\nIf it be true, all music would require the chastening influence of\ntime, and its spiritual value would be akin to that of the Past and\nDistant; it would be innocuous, because it had lost half of its\nvitality. We should have to lay down music, like wine, for the future;\npoisoning ourselves with the acrid fumes of its must, the heady,\nenervating scent of scum and purpled vat, in order that our children\nmight drink vigour and warmth after we were dead.\n\n\nXII.\n\nBut I doubt very much whether this is true. It is possible that the\nmusic of Wagner may eventually become serene like the music of Handel;\nbut was the music of Handel ever morbid like the music of Wagner?\n\nI do not base my belief on any preference from Handel's\ncontemporaries. We may, as we are constantly being told, be\n_degenerates_; but there was no special grace whence to degenerate in\nour perruked forefathers. Moreover, I believe that any very\nspontaneous art is to a very small degree the product of one or even\ntwo or three generations of men. It has been growing to be what it is\nfor centuries and centuries. Its germ and its necessities of organism\nand development lie far, far back in the soul's world-history; and it\nis but later, if at all, when the organic growth is at an end, that\ntimes and individuals can fashion it in their paltry passing image.\nNo; we may be as strong and as pure as Handel's audiences, and our\nmusic yet be less strong and pure than theirs.\n\nMy reason for believing in a fundamental emotional difference between\nthat music and ours is of another sort. I think that in art, as in all\nother things, the simpler, more normal interest comes first, and the\nmore complex, less normal, follows when the simple and normal has\nbecome, through familiarity, the insipid. While pleasure unspiced by\npain is still a novelty there is no reason thus to spice it.\n\n\nXIII.\n\nThe question can, however, be tolerably settled by turning over the\nmeans which enable music to awaken emotion--emotion which we recognise\nas human, as distinguished from the mere emotion of pleasure attached\nto all beautiful sights and sounds. Once we have understood what these\nmeans are, we can enquire to what extent they are employed in the\nmusic of various schools and epochs, and thus judge, with some chance\nof likelihood, whether the music which strikes us as serene and\nvigorous could have affected our ancestors as turbid and enervating.\n\n'Tis a dull enough psychological examination; but one worth making,\nnot merely for the sake of music itself, but because music, being the\nmost emotional of all the arts, can serve to typify the good or\nmischief which all art may do, according to which of our emotions it\nfosters.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n'Tis repeating a fact in different words, not stating anything new, to\nsay that all beautiful things awaken a specific sort of emotion, the\nemotion or the mood of the beautiful. Yet this statement, equivalent\nto saying that hot objects give us the sensation of heat, and wet\nobjects the sensation of wetness, is well worth repeating, because we\nso often forget that the fact of beauty in anything is merely the fact\nof that thing setting up in ourselves a very specific feeling.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNow, besides this beauty or quality producing the emotion of the\nbeautiful, there exist in things a lot of other qualities also\nproducing emotion, each according to its kind; or rather, the\nbeautiful thing may also be qualified in some other way, as the thing\nwhich is useful, useless, old, young, common, rare, or whatever you\nchoose. And this coincidence of qualities produces a coincidence of\nstates of mind. We shall experience the feeling not merely of beauty\nbecause the thing is beautiful, but also of surprise because it is\nstartling, of familiarity because we meet it often, of attraction\n(independently of beauty) because the thing suits or benefits us, or\nof repulsion (despite the beauty) because the thing has done us a bad\nturn or might do us one. This is saying that beauty is only one of\nvarious relations possible between something not ourselves and our\nfeelings, and that it is probable that other relations between them\nmay exist at the same moment, in the same way that a woman may be a\nman's wife, but also his cousin, his countrywoman, his school-board\nrepresentative, his landlady, and his teacher of Latin, without one\nqualification precluding the others.\n\nNow, in the arts of line, colour, and projection, the arts which\nusually copy the appearance of objects existing outside the art, these\nother qualities, these other relations between ourselves and the\nobject which exists in the relation of beauty, are largely a matter of\nsuperficial association--I mean, of association which may vary, and of\nwhich we are most often conscious.\n\nWe are reminded by the picture or statue of qualities which do not\nexist in it, but in its prototype in reality. A certain face will\nawaken disgust when seen in a picture, or reverence or amusement,\nbesides the specific impression of beauty (or its reverse), because we\nhave experienced disgust, awe, amusement in connection with a similar\nface outside the picture.\n\nSo far, therefore, as art is imitative, its non-artistic emotional\ncapacities are due (with a very few exceptions) to association; for\nthe feelings traceable directly to fatigue or disintegration of the\nperceptive faculty usually, indeed almost always, prevent the object\nfrom affecting us as beautiful. It is quite otherwise when we come to\nmusic. Here the coincidence of other emotion resides, I believe, not\nin the _musical thing itself_, not in the musician's creation without\nprototype in reality, resembling nothing save other musical\nstructures; the coincidence resides in the elements out of which that\nstructure is made, and which, for all its complexities, are still very\nstrongly perceived by our senses. For instance, certain rhythms\nexisting in music are identical with, or analogous to, the rhythm of\nour bodily movements under varying circumstances: we know\nalternations of long and short, variously composed regularities and\nirregularities of movement, fluctuations, reinforcements or\nsubsidences, from experience other than that of music; we know them in\nconnection with walking, jumping, dragging; with beating of heart and\narteries, expansion of throat and lungs; we knew them, long before\nmusic was, as connected with energy or oppression, sickness or health,\nelation or depression, grief, fear, horror, or serenity and happiness.\nAnd when they become elements of a musical structure their\nassociations come along with them. And these associations are the more\npowerful that, while they are rudimentary, familiar like our own\nbeing, perhaps even racial, the musical structure into which they\nenter is complete, individual, _new_: 'tis comparing the efficacy of,\nsay, Mozart Op. So-and-so, with the efficacy of somebody sobbing or\ndancing in our presence.\n\nSo far for the associational power of music in awakening emotions. But\nmusic has another source of such power over us. Existing as it does in\na sequence, it is able to give sensations which the arts dealing with\nspace, and not with time, could not allow themselves, since for them a\ndisagreeable effect could never prelude an agreeable one, but merely\nco-exist with it; whereas for music a disagreeable effect is\neffaceable by an agreeable one, and will even considerably heighten\nthe latter by being made to precede it. Now we not merely associate\nfatigue or pain with any difficult perception, we actually feel it; we\nare aware of real discomfort whenever our senses and attention are\nkept too long on the stretch, or are stimulated too sharply by\nsomething unexpected. In these cases we are conscious of something\nwhich is exhausting, overpowering, unendurable if it lasted:\nexperiences which are but too familiar in matters not musical, and,\ntherefore, evoke the remembrance of such non-musical discomfort, which\nreacts to increase the discomfort produced by the music; the reverse\ntaking place, a sense of freedom, of efficiency, of strength arising\nin us whenever the object of perception can be easily, though\nenergetically, perceived. Hence intervals which the ear has difficulty\nin following, dissonances to which it is unaccustomed, and phrases too\nlong or too slack for convenient scansion, produce a degree of\nsensuous and intellectual distress, which can be measured by the\nimmense relief--relief as an acute satisfaction--of return to easier\nintervals, of consonance, and of phrases of normal rhythm and length.\n\nThus does it come to pass that music can convey emotional suggestions\nsuch as painting and sculpture, for all their imitations of reality,\ncan never match in efficacy; since music conveys the suggestions not\nof mere objects which may have awakened emotion, but of emotion\nitself, of the expression thereof in our bodily feelings and\nmovements. And hence also the curious paradox that musical emotion is\nstrong almost in proportion as it is vague. A visible object may, and\nprobably will, possess a dozen different emotional values, according\nto our altering relations therewith; for one relation, one mood, one\nemotion succeeds and obliterates the other, till nothing very potent\ncan remain connected with that particular object. But it matters not\nhow different the course of the various emotions which have expressed\nthemselves in movements of slackness, agitation, energy, or confusion;\nit matters not through what circumstances our vigour may have leaked\naway, our nerves have been harrowed, our attention worn out, so long\nas those movements, those agitations, slackenings, oppressions,\nreliefs, fatigues, harrowings, and reposings are actually taking place\nwithin us. In briefer phrase, while painting and sculpture present us\nonly with objects possibly connected with emotions, but probably\nconnected with emotions too often varied to affect us strongly; music\ngives us the actual bodily consciousness of emotion; nay (in so far as\nit calls for easy or difficult acts of perception), the actual mental\nreality of comfort or discomfort.\n\n\nXIV.\n\nThe emotion uppermost in the music of all these old people is the\nspecific emotion of the beautiful; the emotional possibilities, latent\nin so many elements of the musical structure, never do more than\nqualify the overwhelming impression due to that structure itself. The\nmusic of Handel and Bach is beautiful, with a touch of awe; that of\nGluck, with a tinge of sadness; Mozart's and his contemporaries' is\nbeautiful, with a reminiscence of all tender and happy emotions; then\nagain, there are the great Italians of the seventeenth and eighteenth\ncenturies, Carissimi, Scarlatti the elder, Marcello, whose musical\nbeauty is oddly emphasised with energy and sternness, due to their\npowerful, simple rhythms and straightforward wide intervals. But\nwhatever the emotional qualification, the chief, the never varying,\nall-important characteristic, is the beauty; the dominant emotion is\nthe serene happiness which beauty gives: happiness, strong and\ndelicate; increase of our vitality; evocation of all cognate beauty,\nphysical and moral, bringing back to our consciousness all that which\nis at once wholesome and rare. For beauty such as this is both\ndesirable and, in a sense, far-fetched; it comes naturally to us, and\nwe meet it half-way; but it does not come often enough.\n\nHence it is that the music of these masters never admits us into the\npresence of such feelings as either were better not felt, or at all\nevents, not idly witnessed. There is not ever anything in the joy or\ngrief suggested by this music, in the love of which it is an\nexpression, which should make us feel abashed in feeling or\nwitnessing. The whole world may watch _Orpheus_ or _Alcestis_, as the\nwhole world may stand (with Bach or Pergolese to make music) at the\nfoot of the Cross. But may the whole world sit idly watching the\nraptures and death-throes of Tristram and Yseult?\n\nSurely the world has grown strangely intrusive and unblushing.\n\n\nXV.\n\nI have spoken of this old music as an expression of love; and this, in\nthe face of the emotional effects of certain modern composers, may\nmake some persons smile.\n\nPerhaps I should rather have said that this old music expresses, above\neverything else, the _lovable_; for does not eminent beauty inevitably\nawaken love, either as respect or tenderness; the lovable,\n_loveliness_? And at the same time the love itself such loveliness\nawakens. Love far beyond particular cases or persons, fitting all\nnoble things, real and imaginary, complex or fragmentary. Love as a\nlyric essence.\n\n\nXVI.\n\nBut why not more than merely that? I used at one time to have frequent\ndiscussions on art and life with a certain poor friend of mine, who\nshould have found sweetness in both, giving both sweetness in return,\nbut, alas, did neither. We were sitting in the fields where the\nfrost-bitten green was just beginning to soften into minute starlike\nbuds and mosses, and the birds were learning to sing in the leafless\nlilac hedgerows, the sunshine, as it does in spring, seeming to hold\nthe world rather than merely to pour on to it. \"You see,\" said my\nfriend, \"you see, there is a fundamental difference between us. You\nare satisfied with what you call _happiness_; but I want _rapture and\nexcess_.\"\n\nAlas, a few years later, the chance of happiness had gone. That door\nwas opened, of which Epictetus wrote that we might always pass through\nit; in this case not because \"the room was too full of smoke,\" but,\nwhat is sadder by far, because the room was merely whitewashed and\ncleanly swept.\n\nBut those words \"rapture and excess,\" spoken in such childlike\nsimplicity of spirit, have always remained in my mind. Should we not\nteach our children, among whom there may be such as that one was, that\nthe best thing life can give is just that despised thing _happiness_?\n\n\nXVII.\n\nNow art, to my mind, should be one of our main sources of happiness;\nand under the inappropriate word _art_, I am obliged, as usual, to\ngroup all such activities of soul as deal with beauty, quite as much\nwhen it exists in what is (in this sense) not art's antithesis, but\nart's origin and completion, nature. Nay, art--the art exercised by\nthe craftsman, but much more so the art, the selecting, grouping\nprocess performed by our own feelings--art can do more towards our\nhappiness than increase the number of its constituent items: it can\nmould our preferences, can make our souls more resisting and flexible,\nteach them to keep pace with the universal rhythm.\n\nNow, there is not room enough in the world, and not stuff enough in\nus, for much rapture, or for any excess. The space, as it were, the\nmaterial which these occupy and exhaust, has to be paid for; rapture\nis paid for by subsequent stinting, and excess by subsequent\nbankruptcy.\n\nWe all know this in even trifling matters; the dulness, the lassitude\nor restlessness, the incapacity for enjoyment following any very acute\nor exciting pleasure. A man after a dangerous ride, a girl after her\nfirst wildly successful ball, are not merely exhausted in body and in\nmind; they are momentarily deprived of the enjoyment of slighter\nemotions; 'tis like the inability to hear one's own voice after\nlistening to a tremendous band.\n\nThe gods, one might say in Goethian phrase, did not intend us to share\ntheir own manner of being; or, if you prefer it, in the language of\nDarwin or Weissmann, creatures who died of sheer bliss, were unable to\nrear a family and to found a species. Be it as it may, rapture must\nneeds be rare, because it destroys a piece of us (makes our precious\npiece of chagrin skin, as in Balzac's story, shrink each time). And,\nas we have seen, it destroys (which is more important than destruction\nof mere life) our sensibility to those diffuse, long-drawn, gentle,\nrestorative pleasures which are not merely durable, but, because they\ninvigorate our spirit, are actually reproductive of themselves,\nmultiplying, like all sane desirable things, like grain and fruit,\nten-fold. Pleasures which I would rather call, but for the cumbersome\nwords, items of happiness. It is therefore no humiliating circumstance\nif art and beauty should be unable to excite us like a game of cards,\na steeplechase, a fight, or some violent excitement of our senses or\nour vanity. This inability, on the contrary, constitutes our chief\nreason for considering our pleasure in beautiful sights, sounds, and\nthoughts, as in a sense, holy.\n\n\nXVIII.\n\nYesterday morning, riding towards the cypress woods, I had the first\nimpression of spring; and, in fact, to-day the first almond-tree had\ncome out in blossom on our hillside.\n\nA cool morning; loose, quickly moving clouds, and every now and then a\ngust of rain swept down from the mountains. The path followed a brook,\ndescending in long, steep steps from the hillside; water perfectly\nclear, bubbling along the yellow stones between the grassy banks and\nmaking now and then a little leap into a lower basin; along the stream\ngreat screens of reeds, sere, pale, with barely a pennon of leaves,\nrustling ready for the sickle; and behind, beneath the watery sky,\nrainy but somehow peaceful, the russet oak-scrub of the hill. Of\nspring there was indeed visible only the green of the young wheat\nbeneath the olives; not a bud as yet had moved. And still, it is\nspring. The world is renewing itself. One feels it in the gusts of\ncool, wet wind, the songs of the reeds, the bubble of the brook; one\nfeels it, above all, in oneself. All things are braced, elastic, ready\nfor life.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ART AND THE COUNTRY.\n\nTUSCAN NOTES.\n\n     \"... all these are inhabitants of truly mountain cities, Florence\n     being as completely among the hills as Innsbruck is, only the\n     hills have softer outlines.\"--_Modern Painters_, iv., chap. xx.\n\n\nI.\n\nSitting in the January sunshine on the side of this Fiesole hill,\noverlooking the opposite quarries (a few long-stalked daisies at my\nfeet in the gravel, still soft from the night's frost), my thoughts\ntook the colour and breath of the place. They circled, as these paths\ncircle round the hill, about those ancient Greek and old Italian\ncities, where the cyclopean walls, the carefully-terraced olives,\nfollowed the tracks made first by the shepherd's and the goat's foot,\neven as we see them now on the stony hills all round. What\ncivilisations were those, thus sowed on the rock like the wild mint\nand grey myrrh-scented herbs, and grown under the scorch of sun upon\nstone, and the eddy of winds down the valleys! They are gone,\ndisappeared, and their existence would be impossible in our days. But\nthey have left us their art, the essence they distilled from their\nsurroundings. And that is as good for our souls as the sunshine and\nthe wind, as the aromatic scent of the herbs of their mountains.\n\n\nII.\n\nI am tempted to think that the worst place for getting to know,\ngetting to _feel_, any school of painting, is the gallery, and the\nbest, perhaps, the fields: the fields (or in the case of the\nVenetians, largely the waters), to which, with their qualities of air,\nof light, their whole train of sensations and moods, the artistic\ntemperament, and the special artistic temperament of a local school,\ncan very probably be traced.\n\nFor to appreciate any kind of art means, after all, not to understand\nits relations with other kinds of art, but to feel its relations with\nourselves. It is a matter of living, thanks to that art, according to\nthe spiritual and organic modes of which it is an expression. Now, to\ngo from room to room of a gallery, allowing oneself to be played upon\nby very various kinds of art, is to prevent the formation of any\ndefinite mood, and to set up what is most hostile to all mood, to all\nunity of being: comparison, analysis, classification. You may know\nquite exactly the difference between Giotto and Simon Martini, between\na Ferrarese and a Venetian, between Praxiteles and Scopas; and yet be\nignorant of the meaning which any of these might have in your life,\nand unconscious of the changes they might work in your being. And\nthis, I fear, is often the case with connoisseurs and archaeologists,\naccounting for the latent suspicion of the ignoramus and the good\nphilistine, that such persons are somehow none the better for their\nintercourse with art.\n\nAll art which is organic, short of which it cannot be efficient,\ndepends upon tradition. To say so sounds a truism, because we rarely\nrealise all that tradition implies: on the side of the artist, _what\nto do_, and on the side of his public, _how to feel_: a habit, an\nexpectation which accumulates the results of individual creative\ngenius and individual appreciative sensibility, giving to each its\ngreatest efficacy. When one remembers, in individual instances--Kant,\nDarwin, Michel Angelo, Mozart--how very little which is absolutely\nnew, how slight a variation, how inevitable a combination, marks,\nafter all, the greatest strokes of genius in all things, it seems\nquite laughable to expect the mediocre person, mere looker-on or\nlistener, far from creative, to reach at once, without a similar\nsequence of initiation, a corresponding state of understanding and\nenjoyment. But, as a rule, this thought does not occur to us; and,\nwhile we expatiate on the creative originality of artists and poets,\nwe dully take for granted the instant appreciation of their creation;\nforgetting, or not understanding, in both cases, the wonderful\nefficacy of tradition.\n\nAs regards us moderns, for whom the tradition of, say, Tuscan art has\nso long been broken off or crossed by various other and very different\nones--as regards ourselves, I am inclined to think that we can best\nrecover it by sympathetic attention to those forms of art, humbler or\nmore public, which must originally have prepared and kept up the\ninterest of the people for whom the Tuscan craftsmen worked.\n\nPictures and statues, even in a traditional period, embody a large\namount of merely personal peculiarities of individual artists,\ntestifying to many activities--imitation, self-assertion,\nrivalry--which have no real aesthetic value. And, during the fifteenth\ncentury and in Tuscany especially, the flow of traditional aesthetic\nfeeling is grievously altered and adulterated by the merest scientific\ntendencies: a painter or sculptor being often, in the first instance,\na student of anatomy, archaeology or perspective. One may, therefore,\nbe familiar for twenty years with Tuscan Renaissance painting or\nsculpture, and yet remain very faintly conscious of the special\naesthetic character, the _virtues_ (in the language of herbals) of\nTuscan art. Hence I should almost say, better let alone the pictures\nand statues until you are sufficiently acquainted with the particular\nquality lurking therein to recognise, extricate and assimilate it,\ndespite irrelevant ingredients. Learn the _quality_ of Tuscan art from\nthose categories of it which are most impersonal, most traditional,\nand most organic and also freer from scientific interference, say\narchitecture and decoration; and from architecture rather in its\nhumble, unobtrusive work than in the great exceptional creations which\nimply, like the cupola of Florence, the assertion of a personality,\nthe surmounting of a difficulty, and even the braving of other folks'\nopinion. I believe that if one learned, not merely to know, but to\nfeel, to enjoy very completely and very specifically, the quality of\ndistinctness and reserve, slightness of means and greatness of\nproportions, of the domestic architecture and decoration of the\nfifteenth century, if one made one's own the mood underlying the\nspecial straight lines and curves, the symmetry and hiatus of the\ncolonnades, for instance, inside Florentine houses; of the little bits\nof carving on escutcheon and fireplace of Tuscan hillside farms; let\nalone of the plainest sepulchral slabs in Santa Croce, one would be\nin better case for really appreciating, say, Botticelli or Pier della\nFrancesca than after ever so much comparison of their work with that\nof other painters. For, through familiarity with that humbler, more\npurely impersonal and traditional art, a certain mode of being in\noneself, which is the special aesthetic mood of the Tuscan's would have\nbecome organised and be aroused at the slightest indication of the\nqualities producing it, so that their presence would never escape one.\nThis, I believe, is the secret of all aesthetic training: the growing\naccustomed, as it were automatically, to respond to the work of art's\nbidding; to march or dance to Apollo's harping with the irresistible\ninstinct with which the rats and the children followed the pied\npiper's pipe. This is the aesthetic training which quite unconsciously\nand incidentally came to the men of the past through daily habit of\nartistic forms which existed and varied in the commonest objects just\nas in the greatest masterpieces. And through it alone was the highest\nart brought into fruitful contact with even the most everyday persons:\nthe tradition which already existed making inevitable the tradition\nwhich followed.\n\nBut to return to us moderns, who have to reconstitute deliberately a\nvanished aesthetic tradition, it seems to me that such familiarity with\nTuscan art once initiated, we can learn more, producing and canalising\nits special moods, from a frosty afternoon like this one on the\nhillside, with its particular taste of air, its particular line of\nshelving rock and twisting road and accentuating reed or cypress in\nthe delicate light, than from hours in a room where Signorelli and\nLippi, Angelico and Pollaiolo, are all telling one different things\nin different languages.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThese thoughts, and the ones I shall try to make clear as I go on,\nbegan to take shape one early winter morning some ten years ago, while\nI was staying among the vineyards in the little range of hills which\nseparate the valley of the Ombrone from the lower valley of the Arno.\nStony hills, stony paths between leafless lilac hedges, stony outlines\nof crest, fringed with thin rosy bare trees; here and there a few\nbright green pines; for the rest, olives and sulphur-yellow sere vines\namong them; the wide valley all a pale blue wash, and Monte Morello\nopposite wrapped in mists. It was visibly snowing on the great\nApennines, and suddenly, though very gently, it began to snow here\nalso, wrapping the blue distance, the yellow vineyards, in thin veils.\nBrisk cold. At the house, when I returned from my walk, the children\nwere flattened against the window-panes, shouting for joy at the snow.\nWe grown-up folk, did we live wiser lives, might be equally delighted\nby similar shows.\n\nA very Tuscan, or rather (what I mean when I make use of that word,\nfor geographically Tuscany is very large and various) a very\nFlorentine day. Beauty, exquisiteness, serenity; but not without\nausterity carried to a distinct bitingness. And this is the quality\nwhich we find again in all very characteristic Tuscan art. Such a\ncountry as this, scorched in summer, wind-swept in winter, and\nconstantly stony and uphill, a country of eminently dry, clear, moving\nair, puts us into a braced, active, self-restrained mood; there is in\nit, as in these frosty days which suit it best, something which gives\nlife and demands it: a quality of happy effort. The art produced by\npeople in whom such a condition of being is frequent, must necessarily\nreproduce this same condition of being in others.\n\nTherefore the connection between a country and its art must be sought\nmainly in the fact that all art expresses a given state of being, of\nemotion, not human necessarily, but vital; that is to say, expresses\nnot whether we love or hate, but rather _how_ we love or hate, how we\n_are_. The mountain forms, colour, water, etc., of a country are\nincorporated into its art less as that art's object of representation,\nthan as the determinant of a given mode of vitality in the artist.\nHence music and literature, although never actually reproducing any\npart of them, may be strongly affected by their character. The _Vita\nNuova_, the really great (not merely historically interesting)\npassages of the Divine Comedy, and the popular songs of Tigri's\ncollection, are as much the outcome of these Tuscan mountains and\nhills, as is any picture in which we recognise their outlines and\ncolours. Indeed, it happens that of literal rendering (as\ndistinguished from ever-present reference to quality of air or light,\nto climbing, to rock and stone as such) there is little in the\n_Commedia_, none at all in either the old or the more modern lyrics,\nand not so much even in painted landscape. The Tuscan backgrounds of\nthe fifteenth century are _not_ these stony places, sun-burnt or\nwind-swept; they are the green lawns and pastures in vogue with the\nwhole international Middle Ages, but rendered with that braced,\nselecting, finishing temper which _is_ the product of those stony\nhills. Similarly the Tuscans must have been influenced by the grace,\nthe sparseness, the serenity of the olive, its inexhaustible vigour\nand variety; yet how many of them ever painted it? That a people\nshould never paint or describe their landscape may mean that they have\nnot consciously inventoried the items; but it does not mean that they\nhave not aesthetically, so to speak _nervously_, felt them. Their\nquality, their virtue, may be translated into that people's way of\ntalking of or painting quite different things: the Tuscan quality is a\nquality of form, because it is a quality of mood.\n\n\nIV.\n\nThis Tuscan, and more than Attic, quality--for there is something akin\nto it in certain Greek archaic sculpture--is to be found, already\nperfect and most essential, in the facades of the early mediaeval\nchurches of Pistoia. _Is to be found_; because this quality, tense and\nrestrained and distributed with harmonious evenness, reveals itself\nonly to a certain fineness and carefulness of looking. The little\nchurches (there are four or five of them) belong to the style called\nPisan-Romanesque; and their fronts, carved arches, capitals, lintels,\nand doorposts, are identical in plan, in all that the mind rapidly\ninventories, with the fronts of the numerous contemporary churches of\nLucca. But a comparison with these will bring out most vividly the\nspecial quality of the Pistoia churches. The Lucchese ones (of some of\nwhich, before their restoration, Mr. Ruskin has left some marvellous\ncoloured drawings at Oxford) run to picturesqueness and even\nsomething more; they do better in the picture than in the reality,\nand weathering and defacement has done much for them. Whereas the\nlittle churches at Pistoia, with less projection, less carving in the\nround, few or no animal or clearly floral forms, and, as a rule,\npilasters or half-pillars instead of columns, must have been as\nperfect the day they were finished; the subtle balancings and tensions\nof lines and curves, the delicate fretting and inlaying of flat\nsurface pattern, having gained only, perhaps, in being drawn more\nclearly by dust and damp upon a softer colour of marble. I have\nmentioned these first, because their apparent insignificance--tiny\nflat facades, with very little decoration--makes it in a way easier to\ngrasp the special delicate austerity of their beauty. But they are\nhumble offshoots, naturally, of two great and complex masterpieces,\nand very modest sisters of a masterpiece only a degree less\nmarvellous: Pisa Cathedral, the Baptistery of Florence and San\nMiniato. The wonderful nature of the most perfect of these three\nbuildings (and yet I hesitate to call it so, remembering the apse and\nlateral gables of Pisa) can be the better understood that, standing\nbefore the Baptistery of Florence, one has by its side Giotto's very\nbeautiful belfry. Looking at them turn about, one finds that the\nGothic boldness of light and shade of the Campanile makes the windows,\npillars and cornices of the Baptistery seem at first very flat and\nuninteresting. But after the first time, and once that sense of\nflatness overcome, it is impossible to revert to the belfry with the\nsame satisfaction. The eye and mind return to the greater perfection\nof the Baptistery; by an odd paradox there is deeper feeling in those\napparently so slight and superficial carvings, those lintels and\nfluted columns of green marble which scarcely cast a shadow on their\nivory-tinted wall. The Tuscan quality of these buildings is the better\nappreciated when we take in the fact that their architectural items\nhad long existed, not merely in the Romanesque, but in the Byzantine\nand late Roman. The series of temple-shaped windows on the outside of\nthe Florence Baptistery and of San Miniato, has, for instance, its\noriginal in the Baptistery of Ravenna and the arch at Verona. What the\nTuscans have done is to perfect the inner and subtler proportions, to\nrestrain and accentuate, to phrase (in musical language) every detail\nof execution. By an accident of artistic evolution, this style of\narchitecture, rather dully elaborated by a worn-out civilisation, has\nhad to wait six centuries for life to be put into it by a finer-strung\npeople at a chaster and more braced period of history. Nor should we\nbe satisfied with such loose phrases as this, leading one to think, in\na slovenly fashion (quite unsuitable to Tuscan artistic lucidity),\nthat the difference lay in some vague metaphysical entity called\n_spirit_: the spirit of the Tuscan stonemasons of the early Middle\nAges altered the actual tangible forms in their proportions and\ndetails: this spiritual quality affects us in their carved and inlaid\nmarbles, their fluted pilasters and undercut capitals, as a result of\nactual work of eye and of chisel: they altered the expression by\naltering the stone, even as the frosts and August suns and trickling\nwater had determined the expression, by altering the actual surface,\nof their lovely austere hills.\n\n\nV.\n\nThe Tuscan quality in architecture must not be sought for during the\nhundred years of Gothic--that is to say, of foreign--supremacy and\ninterregnum. The stonemasons of Pisa and of Florence did indeed apply\ntheir wholly classic instincts to the detail and ornament of this\nalien style; and one is struck by the delicacy and self-restraint of,\nsay, the Tuscan ones among the Scaliger tombs compared with the more\npicturesque looseness of genuine Veronese and Venetian Gothic\nsculpture. But the constructive, and, so to speak, space enclosing,\nprinciples of the great art of mediaeval France were even less\nunderstood by the Tuscan than by any other Italian builders; and, as\nthe finest work of Tuscan facade architecture was given before the\nGothic interregnum, so also its most noble work, as actual spatial\narrangement, must be sought for after the return to the round arch,\nthe cupola and the entablature of genuine Southern building. And then,\nby a fortunate coincidence (perhaps because this style affords no real\nunity to vast naves and transepts), the architectural masterpieces of\nthe fifteenth century are all of them (excepting, naturally,\nBrunelleschi's dome) very small buildings: the Sacristies of S.\nLorenzo and S. Spirito, the chapel of the Pazzi, and the late, but\nexquisite, small church of the Carceri at Prato. The smallness of\nthese places is fortunate, because it leaves no doubt that the sense\nof spaciousness--of our being, as it were, enclosed with a great part\nof world and sky around us--is an artistic illusion got by\nco-ordination of detail, greatness of proportions, and, most of all,\nperhaps, by quite marvellous distribution of light. These small\nsquares, or octagons, most often with a square embrasure for the\naltar, seem ample habitations for the greatest things; one would wish\nto use them for Palestrina's music, or Bach's, or Handel's; and then\none recognises that their actual dimensions in yards would not\naccommodate the band and singers and the organ! Such music must remain\nin our soul, where, in reality, the genius of those Florentine\narchitects has contrived the satisfying ampleness of their buildings.\n\nThat they invented nothing in the way of architectural ornament, nay,\ntook their capitals, flutings, cornices, and so forth, most\nmechanically from the worst antique, should be no real drawback to\nthis architecture; it was, most likely, a matter of negative instinct.\nFor these meagre details leave the mind free, nay, force it rather, to\nsoar at once into the vaultings, into the serene middle space opposite\nthe windows, and up into the enclosed heaven of the cupolas.\n\n\nVI.\n\nThe Tuscan sculpture of this period stands, I think, midway between\nthe serene perfection of the buildings (being itself sprung from the\narchitecture of the Gothic time), and the splendid but fragmentary\naccomplishment of the paintings, many of whose disturbing problems, of\nanatomy and anatomic movement, it shared to its confusion. It is not\nfor beautiful bodily structure or gesture, such as we find even in\npoor antiques, that we should go to the Florentine sculptors, save,\nperhaps, the two Robbias. It is the almost architectural distribution\nof space and light, the treatment of masses, which makes the\nimmeasurable greatness of Donatello, and gives dignity to his greatest\ncontemporary, Jacopo della Quercia. And it is again an architectural\nquality, though in the sense of the carved portals of Pistoia, the\nflutings and fretwork and surface pattern of the Baptistery and S.\nMiniato, which gives such poignant pleasure in the work of a very\ndifferent, but very great, sculptor, Desiderio. The marvel (for it is\na marvel) of his great monument in Santa Croce, depends not on\nanatomic forms, but on the exquisite variety and vivacity of surface\narrangement; the word symphony (so often misapplied) fitting exactly\nthis complex structure of minute melodies and harmonies of rhythms and\naccents in stone.\n\nBut the quality of Tuscan sculpture exists in humbler, often anonymous\nand infinitely pathetic work. I mean those effigies of knights and\nburghers, coats of arms and mere inscriptions, which constitute so\nlarge a portion of what we walk upon in Santa Croce. Things not much\nthought of, maybe, and ruthlessly defaced by all posterity. But the\nmasses, the main lines, were originally noble, and defacement has only\nmade their nobleness and tenderness more evident and poignant: they\nhave come to partake of the special solemnity of stone worn by frost\nand sunshine.\n\n\nVII.\n\nThere are a great many items which go to make up Tuscany and the\nspecially Tuscan mood. The country is at once hilly and mountainous,\nbut rich in alluvial river valleys, as flat and as wide, very often,\nas plains; and the chains which divide and which bound it are as\nvarious as can be: the crystalline crags of Carrara, the washed away\ncones and escarpments of the high Apennines, repeating themselves in\ncounter forts and foothills, and the low, closely packed ridges of the\nhills between Florence and Siena. Hence there is always a view,\ndefinite and yet very complex, made up of every variety of line, but\nalways of clearest perspective: perfect horizontals at one's feet,\nperfect perpendiculars opposite the eye, a constant alternation of\nlooking up and looking down, a never-failing possibility of looking\n_beyond_, an outlet everywhere for the eye, and for the breath; and\nendless intricacy of projecting spur and engulfed ravine, of valley\nabove valley, and ridge beyond ridge; and all of it, whether\ndefinitely modelled by stormy lights or windy dryness, or washed to\nmere outline by sunshine or mist, always massed into intelligible,\nharmonious, and ever-changing groups. Ever changing as you move, hills\nrising or sinking as you mount or descend, furling or unfurling as you\ngo to the right or to the left, valleys and ravines opening or closing\nup, the whole country altering, so to speak, its attitude and gesture\nas quickly almost, and with quite as perfect consecutiveness, as does\na great cathedral when you walk round it. And, for this reason, never\nletting you rest; keeping _you_ also in movement, feet, eyes and\nfancy. Add to all this a particular topographical feeling, very strong\nand delightful, which I can only describe as that of seeing all the\nkingdoms of the earth. In the high places close to Florence (and with\nthat especial lie of the land everything is a _high place_) a view is\nnot only of foregrounds and backgrounds, river troughs and mountain\nlines of great variety, but of whole districts, or at least\nindications of districts--distant peaks making you feel the places at\ntheir feet--which you know to be extremely various: think of the\nCarraras with their Mediterranean seaboard, the high Apennines with\nLombardy and the Adriatic behind them, the Siena and Volterra hills\nleading to the Maremma, and the great range of the Falterona, with the\nTiber issuing from it, leading the mind through Umbria to Rome!\n\nThe imagination is as active among these Florentine hills as is the\neye, or as the feet and lungs have been, pleasantly tired, delighting\nin the moment's rest, after climbing those steep places among the\npines or the myrtles, under the scorch of the wholesome summer sun, or\nin the face of the pure, snowy wind. The wind, so rarely at rest, has\nhelped to make the Tuscan spirit, calling for a certain resoluteness\nto resist it, but, in return, taking all sense of weight away, making\nthe body merge, so to speak, into eye and mind, and turning one, for a\nlittle while, into part of the merely visible and audible. The\nfrequent possibility of such views as I have tried to define, of such\nmoments of fulness of life, has given, methinks, the quality of\ndefiniteness and harmony, of active, participated in, greatness, to\nthe art of Tuscany.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nIt is a pity that, as regards painting, this Tuscan feeling (for\nGiottesque painting had the cosmopolitan, as distinguished from local,\nquality of the Middle Ages and of the Franciscan movement) should have\nbeen at its strongest just in the century when mere scientific\ninterest was uppermost. Nay, one is tempted to think that matters were\nmade worse by that very love of the strenuous, the definite, the\nlucid, which is part of the Tuscan spirit. So that we have to pick\nout, in men like Donatello, Uccello, Pollaiolo and Verrocchio, nay,\neven in Lippi and Botticelli, the fragments which correspond to what\nwe get quite unmixed and perfect in the Romanesque churches of Pisa,\nFlorence, and Pistoia, in the sacristies and chapels of Brunelleschi,\nAlberti, and Sangallo, and in a hundred exquisite cloisters and\nloggias of unnoticed town houses and remote farms. But perhaps there\nis added a zest (by no means out of keeping with the Tuscan feeling)\nto our enjoyment by the slight effort which is thus imposed upon us:\nTuscan art does not give its exquisiteness for nothing.\n\nBe this as it may, the beauty of Florentine Renaissance painting must\nbe sought, very often, not in the object which the picture represents,\nbut in the mode in which that object is represented. Our habits of\nthought are so slovenly in these matters, and our vocabulary so poor\nand confused, that I find it difficult to make my exact meaning clear\nwithout some insistence. I am not referring to the mere moral\nqualities of care, decision, or respectfulness, though the recognition\nthereof adds undoubtedly to the noble pleasure of a work of art; still\nless to the technical or scientific lucidity which the picture\nexhibits. The beauty of fifteenth-century painting is a visible\nquality, a quality of the distribution of masses, the arrangement of\nspace; above all, of the lines of a picture. But it is independent of\nthe fact of the object represented being or not what in real life we\nshould judge beautiful; and it is, in large works, unfortunately even\nmore separate from such arrangement as will render a complicated\ncomposition intelligible to the mind or even to the eye. The problems\nof anatomy, relief, muscular action, and perspective which engrossed\nand in many cases harassed the Florentines of the Renaissance, turned\ntheir attention away from the habit of beautiful general composition\nwhich had become traditional even in the dullest and most effete of\ntheir Giottesque predecessors, and left them neither time nor\ninclination for wonderful new invention in figure distribution like\nthat of their contemporary Umbrians. Save in easel pictures,\ntherefore, there is often a distressing confusion, a sort of dreary\nrandom packing, in the works of men like Uccello, Lippi, Pollaiolo,\nFilippino, Ghirlandaio, and even Botticelli. And even in the more\nsimply and often charmingly arranged easel pictures, the men and women\nrepresented, even the angels and children, are often very far from\nbeing what in real life would be deemed beautiful, or remarkable by\nany special beauty of attitude and gesture. They are, in truth,\nstudies, anatomical or otherwise, although studies in nearly every\ncase dignified by the habit of a very serious and tender devoutness:\nrarely soulless or insolent studio drudgery or swagger such as came\nwhen art ceased to be truly popular and religious. Studies, however,\nwith little or no selection of the reality studied, and less thought\neven for the place or manner in which they were to be used.\n\nBut these studies are executed, however scientific their intention,\nunder the guidance of a sense and a habit of beauty, subtle and\nimperious in proportion, almost, as it is self-unconscious. These\nfigures, sometimes ungainly, occasionally ill-made, and these\nfeatures, frequently homely or marred by some conspicuous ugliness,\nare made up of lines as enchantingly beautiful, as seriously\nsatisfying, as those which surrounded the Tuscans in their landscape.\nAnd it is in the extracting of such beauty of lines out of the\nbewildering confusion of huge frescoes, it is in the seeing as\narrangements of such lines the sometimes unattractive men and women\nand children painted (and for that matter, often also sculptured) by\nthe great Florentines of the fifteenth century, that consists the true\nappreciation and habitual enjoyment of Tuscan Renaissance painting.\nThe outline of an ear and muscle of the neck by Lippi; the throw of\ndrapery by Ghirlandaio; the wide and smoke-like rings of heavy hair by\nBotticelli; the intenser, more ardent spiral curls of Verrocchio or\nthe young Leonardo; all that is flower-like, flame-like, that has the\nswirl of mountain rivers, the ripple of rocky brooks, the solemn and\npoignant long curves and sudden crests of hills, all this exists in\nthe paintings of the Florentines; and it is its intrinsic nobility and\nexquisiteness, its reminiscence and suggestion of all that is\nloveliest and most solemn in nature, its analogy to all that is\nstrongest and most delicate in human emotion, which we should seek for\nand cherish in their works.\n\n\nIX.\n\nThe hour of low lights, which the painters of the past almost\nexclusively reproduced, is naturally that in which we recognise\neasiest, not only the identity of mood awakened by the art and by the\ncountry, but the closer resemblance between the things which art was\nable to do, and the things which the country had already done. Even\nmore, immediately after sunset. The hills, becoming uniform masses,\nassert their movement, strike deep into the valley, draw themselves\nstrongly up towards the sky. The valleys also, with their purple\ndarkness, rising like smoke out of them, assert themselves in their\nturn. And the sky, the more diaphanous for all this dark solidity\nagainst it, becomes sky more decisively; takes, moreover, colour which\nonly fluid things can have; turns into washes of pale gold, of palest\ntea-rose pink and beryl green. Against this sky the cypresses are\ndelicately finished off in fine black lacework, even as in the\nbackground of Botticelli's _Spring_, and Leonardo's or Verrocchio's\n_Annuniciation_. One understands that those passionate lovers of line\nloved the moment of sunset apart even from colour. The ridges of pines\nand cypresses soon remain the only distinguishable thing in the\nvalleys, pulling themselves (as one feels it) rapidly up, like great\nprehistoric shapes of Saurians. Soon the sky only and mountains will\nexist. Then begins the time, before the starlit night comes to say its\nsay, when everything grows drowsy, a little vague, and the blurred\nmountains go to sleep in the smoke of dusk. Then only, due west, the\ngreat Carrara peaks stand out against the sanguine sky, long pointed\ncurves and flame-shaped sudden crests, clear and keen beyond the power\nof mortal hand to draw.\n\n\nX.\n\nThe quality of such sights as these, as I have more than once\nrepeated, requires to be diligently sought for, and extricated from\nmany things which overlay or mar it, throughout nearly the whole of\nFlorentine Renaissance painting. But by good luck there is one painter\nin whom we can enjoy it as subtle, but also as simple, as in the\nhills and mountains outlined by sunset or gathered into diaphanous\nfolds by the subduing radiance of winter moon. I am speaking, of\ncourse, of Pier della Francesca; although an over literal school of\ncriticism stickles at classing him with the other great Florentines.\nNay, by a happy irony of things, the reasons for this exclusion are\nprobably those to which we owe the very purity and perfection of this\nman's Tuscan quality. For the remoteness of his home on the\nsouthernmost border of Tuscany, and in a river valley--that of the\nUpper Tiber--leading away from Florence and into Umbria, may have kept\nhim safe from that scientific rivalry, that worry and vexation of\nprofessional problems, which told so badly on so many Florentine\ncraftsmen. And, on the other hand, the north Italian origin of one of\nhis masters, the mysterious Domenico Veneziano, seems to have given\nhim, instead of the colouring, always random and often coarse, of\ncontemporary Florence, a harmonious scheme of perfectly delicate,\nclear, and flower-like colour. These two advantages are so distinctive\nthat, by breaking through the habits one necessarily gets into with\nhis Florentine contemporaries, they have resulted in setting apart,\nand almost outside the pale of Tuscan painting, the purest of all\nTuscan artists. For with him there is no need for making allowances or\ndisentangling essentials. The vivid organic line need not be sought in\ndetails nor, so to speak, abstracted: it bounds his figures, forms\nthem quite naturally and simply, and is therefore not thought about\napart from them. And the colour, integral as it is, and perfectly\nharmonious, masses the figures into balanced groups, bossiness and\nbulk, detail and depth, all unified, co-ordinated, satisfying as in\nthe sun-merged mountains and shelving valleys of his country; and with\nthe immediate charm of whiteness as of rocky water, pale blue of\nwashed skies, and that ineffable lilac, russet, rose, which makes the\nbasis of all southern loveliness. One thinks of him, therefore, as\nsomething rather apart, a sort of school in himself, or at most with\nDomenico, his master, and his follower, della Gatta. But more careful\nlooking will show that his greatest qualities, so balanced and so\nclear in him, are shared--though often masked by the ungainlinesses of\nhurried artistic growth--by Pollaiolo, Baldovinetti, Pesellino, let\nalone Uccello, Castagno, and Masaccio; are, in a word, Tuscan,\nFlorentine. But more than by such studies, the kinship and nationality\nof Pier della Francesca is proved by reference to the other branches\nof Tuscan art: his peculiarities correspond to the treatment of line\nand projection by those early stonemasons of the Baptistery and the\nPistoia churches, to the treatment of enclosed spaces and manipulated\nlight in those fifteenth-century sacristies and chapels, to the\ntreatment of mass and boundary in the finest reliefs of Donatello and\nDonatello's great decorative follower Desiderio. To persons, however,\nwho are ready to think with me that we may be trained to art in fields\nand on hillsides, the essential Tuscan character of Pier della\nFrancesca is brought home quite as strongly by the particular\nsatisfaction with which we recognise his pictures in some unlikely\nplace, say a Northern gallery. For it is a satisfaction, _sui generis_\nand with its own emotional flavour, like that which we experience on\nreturn to Tuscany, on seeing from the train the white houses on the\nslopes, the cypresses at the cross roads, the subtler, lower lines of\nhills, the blue of distant peaks, on realising once more our depth of\ntranquil love for this austere and gentle country.\n\n\nXI.\n\nSave in the lushness of early summer, Tuscany is, on the whole, pale;\na country where the loveliness of colour is that of its luminousness,\nand where light is paramount. From this arises, perhaps, the austerity\nof its true summer--summer when fields are bare, grass burnt to\ndelicate cinnamon and russet, and the hills, with their sere herbs and\nbushes, seem modelled out of pale rosy or amethyst light; an austerity\nfor the eye corresponding to a sense of healthfulness given by steady,\nintense heat, purged of all damp, pure like the scents of dry leaves,\nof warm, cypress resin and of burnt thyme and myrrh of the stony\nravines and stubbly fields. On such August days the plain and the more\ndistant mountains will sometimes be obliterated, leaving only the\ninexpressible suavity of the hills on the same side as the sun, made\nof the texture of the sky, lying against it like transparent and still\nluminous shadows. All pictures of such effects of climate are false,\neven Perugino's and Claude's, because even in these the eye is not\nsufficiently attracted and absorbed away from the foreground, from the\nearth to the luminous sky. That effect is the most powerful, sweetest,\nand most restorative in all nature perhaps; a bath for the soul in\npure light and air. That is the incomparable buoyancy and radiance of\ndeepest Tuscan summer. But the winter is, perhaps, even more Tuscan\nand more austerely beautiful. I am not even speaking of the fact that\nthe mountains, with their near snows and brooding blue storms and ever\ncontending currents of wind and battles and migrations of great\nclouds, necessarily make much of winter very serious and solemn, as it\nsweeps down their ravines and across their ridges. I am thinking of\nthe serene winter days of mist and sun, with ranges of hills made of a\nluminous bluish smoke, and sky only a more luminous and liquid kind,\nand the olives but a more solid specimen, of the mysterious silvery\nsubstance of the world. The marvellous part of it all, and quite\nimpossible to convey, is that such days are not pensive, but\neffulgent, that the lines of the landscape are not blurred, but\nexquisitely selected and worked.\n\n\nXII.\n\nA quality like that of Tuscan art is, as I have once before remarked,\nin some measure, abstract; a general character, like that of a\ncomposite photograph, selected and compounded by the repetition of the\nmore general and the exclusion of more individual features. In so far,\ntherefore, it is something rather tended towards in reality than\nthoroughly accomplished; and its accomplishment, to whatever extent,\nis naturally due to a tradition, a certain habit among artists and\npublic, which neutralises the refractory tendencies of individuals\n(the personal morbidness evident, for instance, in Botticelli) and\nmakes the most of what the majority may have in common--that dominant\ninterest, let us say, in line and mass. Such being the case, this\nTuscan quality comes to an end with the local art of the middle ages,\nand can no longer be found, or only imperfect, after the breaking up\nand fusion of the various schools, and the arising of eclectic\npersonalities in the earliest sixteenth century. After the painters\nborn between 1450 and 1460, there are no more genuine Tuscans.\nLeonardo, once independent of Verrocchio and settled in Lombardy, is\nbarely one of them; and Michel Angelo never at all--Michel Angelo with\nhis moods all of Rome or the great mountains, full of trouble, always,\nand tragedy. These great personalities, and the other eclectics,\nRaphael foremost, bring qualities to art which it had lacked before,\nand are required to make its appeal legitimately universal. I should\nshrink from judging their importance, compared with the older and more\nlocal and traditional men. Still further from me is it to prefer this\nTuscan art to that, as local and traditional in its way, of Umbria or\nVenetia, which stands to this as the most poignant lyric or the\nrichest romance stands, let us say, to the characteristic quality,\nsober yet subtle, of Dante's greatest passages. There is, thank\nheaven, wholesome art various enough to appeal to many various healthy\ntemperaments; and perhaps for each single temperament more than one\nkind of art is needful. My object in the foregoing pages has not been\nto put forward reasons for preferring the art of the Tuscans any more\nthan the climate and landscape of Tuscany; but merely to bring home\nwhat the especial charm and power of Tuscan art and Tuscan nature seem\nto me to be. More can be gained by knowing any art lovingly in itself\nthan by knowing twenty arts from each other through dry comparison.\n\nI have tried to suggest rather than to explain in what way the art of\na country may answer to its natural character, by inducing recurrent\nmoods of a given kind. I would not have it thought, however, that such\nmoods need be dominant, or even exist at all, in all the inhabitants\nof that country. Art, wide as its appeal may be, is no more a product\nof the great mass of persons than is abstract thought or special\ninvention, however largely these may be put to profit by the\ngenerality. The bulk of the inhabitants help to make the art by\nfurnishing the occasional exceptionally endowed creature called an\nartist, by determining his education and surroundings, in so far as he\nis a mere citizen; and finally by bringing to bear on him the\nstored-up habit of acquiescence in whatever art has been accepted by\nthat public from the artists of the immediate past. In fact, the\nmajority affects the artist mainly as itself has been affected by his\npredecessors. If, therefore, the scenery and climate call forth moods\nin a whole people definite enough to influence the art, this will be\ndue, I think, to some especially gifted individual having, at one time\nor another, brought home those moods to them.\n\nTherefore we need feel no surprise if any individual, peasant or man\nof business or abstract thinker, reveal a lack, even a total lack, of\nsuch impressions as I am speaking of; nor even if among those who love\nart a great proportion be still incapable of identifying those vague\ncontemplative emotions from which all art is sprung. It is not merely\nthe special endowment of eye, ear, hand, not merely what we call\nartistic talent, which is exceptional and vested in individuals only.\nIt takes a surplus of sensitiveness and energy to be determined in\none's moods by natural surroundings instead of solely by one's own\nwants or circumstances or business. Now art is born of just this\nsurplus sensitiveness and energy; it is the response not to the\nimpressions made by our private ways and means, but to the impressions\nmade by the ways and means of the visible, sensible universe.\n\nBut once produced, art is received, and more or less assimilated, by\nthe rest of mankind, to whom it gives, in greater or less degree, more\nof such sensitiveness and energy than it could otherwise have had. Art\nthus calls forth contemplative emotions, otherwise dormant, and\ncreates in the routine and scramble of individual wants and habits a\nsanctuary where the soul stops elbowing and trampling, and being\nelbowed and trampled; nay, rather, a holy hill, neither ploughed nor\nhunted over, a free high place, in which we can see clearly, breathe\nwidely, and, for awhile, live harmlessly, serenely, fully.\n\n\nXIII.\n\nThinking these thoughts for the hundredth time, feeling them in a way\nas I feel the landscape, I walk home by the dear rock path girdling\nFiesole, within sound of the chisels of the quarries. Blackthorn is\nnow mixed in the bare purple hedgerows, and almond blossom, here and\nthere, whitens the sere oak, and the black rocks above. These are the\nheights from which, as tradition has it, Florence descended, the\npeople of which Dante said--\n\n     \"Che discese da Fiesole ab antico,\n      E tiene ancor del monte e del macigno,\"\n\nmeaning it in anger. But it is true, and truer, in the good sense\nalso. Mountain and rock! the art of Tuscany is sprung from it, from\nits arduous fruitfulness, with the clear stony stream, and the sparse\ngentle olive, and the cypress, unshaken by the wind, unscorched by the\nsun, and shooting inflexibly upwards.\n\n\n\n\nART AND USEFULNESS.\n\n     \"Time was when everybody that made anything made a work of art\n     besides a useful piece of goods, and it gave them pleasure to\n     make it.\"--WILLIAM MORRIS, Address delivered at Burslem, 1881.\n\n\nI.\n\nAmong the original capitals removed from the outer colonnade of the\nducal palace at Venice there is a series devoted to the teaching of\nnatural history, and another to that of such general facts about the\nraces of man, his various moral attributes and activities, as the\nVenetians of the fourteenth century considered especially important.\nFirst, botany, illustrated by the fruits most commonly in use, piled\nup in baskets which constitute the funnel-shaped capital; each kind\nseparate, with the name underneath in funny Venetian spelling: _Huva_,\ngrapes; _Fici_, figs; _Moloni_, melons; _Zuche_, pumpkins; and\n_Persici_, peaches. Then, with Latin names, the various animals:\n_Ursus_, holding a honeycomb with bees on it; _Chanis_, mumbling only\na large bone, while his cousins, wolf and fox, have secured a duck and\na cock; _Aper_, the wild boar, munching a head of millet or similar\ngrain.\n\nNow had these beautiful carvings been made with no aim besides their\nown beauty, had they represented and taught nothing, they would have\nreceived only a few casual glances, quite insufficient to make their\nexcellence familiar or even apparent; at best the occasional\ndiscriminative examination of some art student; while the pleased,\nspontaneous attentiveness which carries beauty deep into the soul and\nthe soul's storehouse would have been lacking. But consider these\ncapitals to have been what they undoubtedly were meant for: the\npicture books and manuals off which young folks learned, and older\npersons refreshed, their notions of natural history, of geography,\nethnology, and even of morals, and you will realise at once how much\nattention, and of how constant and assimilative a kind, they must have\nreceived. The child learns off them that figs (which he never sees\nsave packed in baskets in the barges at Rialto) have leaves like funny\ngloves, while _huva_, grapes, have leaves all ribbed and looking like\ntattered banners; that the bear is blunt-featured and eats honeycomb;\nthat foxes and wolves, who live on the mainland, are very like the\ndogs we keep in Venice, but that they steal poultry instead of being\ngiven bones from the kitchen. Also that there are in the world,\nbesides these clean-shaved Venetians in armour or doge's cap, bearded\nAsiatics and thick-lipped negroes--the sort of people with whom uncle\nand cousins traffic in the big ships, or among whom grandfather helped\nthe Doge to raise the standard of St. Mark. Also that carpenters work\nwith planes and vices, and stonemasons with mallets and chisels; and\nthat good and wise men are remembered for ever: for here is the story\nof how Solomon discovered the true mother, and here again the Emperor\nTrajan going to the wars, and reining in his horse to do justice first\nto the poor widow. The child looks at the capitals in order to see\nwith his eyes all these interesting things of which he has been told;\nand, during the holiday walk, drags his parents to the spot, to look\nagain, and to beg to be told once more. And later, he looks at the\nfamiliar figures in order to show them to his children; or, perhaps,\nmore wistfully, loitering along the arcade in solitude, to remember\nthe days of his own childhood. And in this manner, the things\nrepresented, fruit, animals and persons, and the exact form in which\nthey are rendered: the funnel shape of the capitals, the cling and\ncurl of the leafage, the sharp black undercutting, the clear, lightly\nincised surfaces, the whole pattern of line and curve, light and\nshade, the whole pattern of the eye's progress along it, of the rhythm\nof expansion and restraint, of pressure and thrust, in short, the real\nwork of art, the visible form--become well-known, dwelling in the\nmemory, cohabiting with the various moods, and haunting the fancy; a\npart of life, familiar, everyday, liked or disliked, discriminated in\nevery particular, become part and parcel of ourselves, for better or\nfor worse, like the tools we handle, the boats we steer, the horses we\nride and groom, and the furniture and utensils among which and through\nwhose help we live our lives.\n\n\nII.\n\nFurniture and utensils; things which exist because we require them,\nwhich we know because we employ them, these are the type of all great\nworks of art. And from the selfsame craving which insists that these\nshould be shapely as well as handy, pleasant to the eye as well as\nrational; through the selfsame processes of seeing and remembering and\naltering their shapes--according to the same aesthetic laws of line and\ncurve, of surface and projection, of spring and restraint, of\nclearness and compensation; and for the same organic reasons and by\nthe same organic methods of preference and adaptation as these\nhumblest things of usefulness, do the proudest and seemingly freest\nworks of art come to exist; come to be _just what they are_, and even\ncome _to be at all_.\n\nI should like to state very clearly, before analysing its reasons,\nwhat seems to me (and I am proud to follow Ruskin in this as in so\nmany essential questions of art and life) the true formula of this\nmatter. Namely: that while beauty has always been desired and obtained\nfor its own sake, the works in which we have found beauty embodied,\nand the arts which have achieved beauty's embodying, have always\nstarted from impulses or needs, and have always aimed at purposes or\nproblems entirely independent of this embodiment of beauty.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe desire for beauty stands to art as the desire for righteousness\nstands to conduct. People do not feel and act from a desire to feel and\nact righteously, but from a hundred different and differently-combined\nmotives; the desire for righteousness comes in to regulate this feeling\nand acting, to subject it all to certain preferences and repugnances\nwhich have become organic, if not in the human being, at least in human\nsociety. Like the desire for righteousness, the desire for beauty is not\na spring of action, but a regulative function; it decides the _how_ of\nvisible existence; in accordance with deep-seated and barely guessed at\nnecessities of body and soul, of nerves and perceptions, of brain and\njudgments; it says to all visible objects: since you needs must be, you\nshall be in _this_ manner, and not in that other. The desire for beauty,\nwith its more potent negative, the aversion to ugliness, has, like the\nsense of right and wrong, the force of a categorical imperative.\n\nSuch, to my thinking, is the aesthetic instinct. And I call _Art_\nwhatever kind of process, intellectual and technical, creates,\nincidentally or purposely, visible or audible forms, and creates them\nunder the regulation of this aesthetic instinct. Art, therefore, is art\nwhenever any object or any action, or any arrangement, besides being\nsuch as to serve a practical purpose or express an emotion or transfer\na thought, is such also as to afford the _sui generis_ satisfaction\nwhich we denote by the adjective: beautiful.\n\nBut, asks the reader, if every human activity resulting in visible or\naudible form is to be considered, at least potentially, as art; what\nbecomes of _art_ as distinguished from _craft_, or rather what is the\ndifference between what we all mean by art and what we all mean by\n_craft_?\n\nTo this objection, perfectly justified by the facts of our own day, I\nwould answer quite simply: There is no necessary or essential\ndistinction between what we call _art_ and what we call _craft_. It is\na pure accident, and in all probability a temporary one, which has\nmomentarily separated the two in the last hundred years. Throughout\nthe previous part of the world's history art and craft have been one\nand the same, at the utmost distinguishable only from a different\npoint of view: _craft_ from the practical side, _art_ from the\ncontemplative. Every trade concerned with visible or audible objects\nor movements has also been an art; and every one of those great\ncreative activities, for which, in their present isolation, we now\nreserve the name of _art_, has also been a craft; has been connected\nand replenished with life by the making of things which have a use, or\nby the doing of deeds which have a meaning.\n\n\nIV.\n\nWe must, of course, understand _usefulness_ in its widest sense;\notherwise we should be looking at the world in a manner too little\nutilitarian, not too much so. Houses and furniture and utensils,\nclothes, tools and weapons, must undoubtedly exemplify utility first\nand foremost because they serve our life in the most direct,\nindispensable and unvarying fashion, always necessary and necessary to\neveryone. But once these universal unchanging needs supplied, a great\nmany others become visible: needs to the individual or to individuals\nand races under definite and changing circumstances. The sonnet or the\nserenade are useful to the romantic lover in the same manner that\ncarriage-horses and fine clothes are useful to the man who woos more\npractically-minded ladies. The diamonds of a rich woman serve to mark\nher status quite as much as to please the unpleasable eye of envy; in\nthe same way that the uniform, the robes and vestments, are needed to\nset aside the soldier, the magistrate or priest, and give him the\nright of dealing _ex officio_, not as a mere man among men. And the\nconsciousness of such apparent superfluities, whether they be the\nexpression of wealth or of hierarchy, of fashion or of caste, gives to\ntheir possessor that additional self-importance which is quite as much\nwanted by the ungainly or diffident moral man as the additional warmth\nof his more obviously needed raiment is by the poor, chilly, bodily\nhuman being. I will not enlarge upon the practical uses which recent\nethnology has discovered in the tattooing, the painting, the masks,\nheaddresses, feather skirts, cowries and beads, of all that elaborate\nornamentation with which, only a few years back, we were in the habit\nof reproaching the poor, foolish, naked savages; additional knowledge\nof their habits having demonstrated rather our folly than theirs, in\ntaking for granted that any race of men would prefer ornament to\nclothes, unless, as was the case, these ornaments were really more\nindispensable in their particular mode of life. For an ornament which\nterrifies an enemy, propitiates a god, paralyses a wild beast, or\ngains a wife, is a matter of utility, not of aesthetic luxury, so long\nas it happens to be efficacious, or so long as its efficacy is\nbelieved in. Indeed, the gold coach and liveried trumpeters of the\nnostrum vendor of bygone days, like their less enlivening equivalents\nin many more modern professions, are of the nature of trade tools,\nalthough the things they fashion are only the foolish minds of\npossible customers.\n\nAnd this function of expressing and impressing brings us to the other\ngreat category of utility. The sculptured pediment or frescoed wall,\nthe hieroglyph, or the map or the book, everything which records a\nfact or transmits a feeling, everything which carries a message to men\nor gods, is an object of utility: the coat-of-arms painted on a panel,\nor the emblem carved upon a church front, as much as the helmet of the\nknight or the shield of the savage. A church or a religious ceremony,\nnay, every additional ounce of gilding or grain of incense, or day or\nhour, bestowed on sanctuary and ritual, are not useful only to the\nselfish devotee who employs them for obtaining celestial favours; they\nare more useful and necessary even to the pure-minded worshipper,\nbecause they enable him to express the longing and the awe with which\nhis heart is overflowing. For every oblation faithfully brought means\nso much added moral strength; and love requires gifts to give as much\nas hunger needs food and vanity needs ornament and wealth. All things\nwhich minister to a human need, bodily or spiritual, simple or\ncomplex, direct or indirect, innocent or noble, or base or malignant,\nall such things exist for their use. They do exist, and would always\nhave existed equally if no such quality as beauty had ever arisen to\nenhance or to excuse their good or bad existence.\n\n\nV.\n\nThe conception of art as of something outside, and almost opposed to,\npractical life, and the tendency to explain its gratuitous existence\nby a special \"play instinct\" more gratuitous itself, are due in great\nmeasure to our wrong way of thinking and feeling upon no less a matter\nthan human activity as such. The old-fashioned psychology which,\nignoring instinct and impulse, explained all action as the result of\na kind of calculation of future pleasure and pain, has accustomed us\nto account for all fruitful human activity, whatever we call _work_,\nby a wish for some benefit or fear of some disadvantage. And, on the\nother hand, the economic systems of our time (or, at all events, the\nsystematic exposition of our economic arrangements) have furthermore\naccustomed us to think of everything like _work_ as done under\ncompulsion, fear of worse, or a kind of bribery. It is really taken as\na postulate, and almost as an axiom, that no one would make or do\nanything useful save under the goad of want; of want not in the sense\nof _wanting to do or make that thing_, but of _wanting to have or be\nable to do something else_. Hence everything which is manifestly done\nfrom no such motive, but from an inner impulse towards the doing,\ncomes to be thought of as opposed to _work_, and to be designated as\n_play_. Now art is very obviously carried on for its own sake:\nexperience, even of our mercantile age, teaches that if a man does not\npaint a picture or compose a symphony from an inner necessity as\ndisinterested as that which makes another man look at the picture or\nlisten to the symphony, no amount of self-interest, of disadvantages\nand advantages, will enable him to do either otherwise than badly.\nHence, as I said, we are made to think of art as _play_, or a kind of\nplay.\n\nBut play itself, being unaccountable on the basis of external\nadvantage and disadvantage, being, from the false economic point of\nview, unproductive, that is to say, pure waste, has in its turn to be\naccounted for by the supposition of surplus energy occasionally\nrequiring to be let off to no purpose, or merely to prevent the\nmachine from bursting. This opposition of work and play is founded in\nour experience of a social state which is still at sixes and sevens;\nof a civilisation so imperfectly developed and organised that the\nmajority does nothing save under compulsion, and the minority does\nnothing to any purpose; and where that little boy's Scylla and\nCharybdis _all work_ and _all play_ is effectually realised in a\nnightmare too terrible and too foolish, above all too wakingly true,\nto be looked at in the face without flinching. One wonders,\nincidentally, how any creature perpetually working from the reasons\ngiven by economists, that is to say, working against the grain, from\nno spontaneous wish or pleasure, can possibly store up, in such\nexhausting effort, a surplus of energy requiring to be let off! And\none wonders, on the other hand, how any really good work of any kind,\nwork not merely kept by dire competitive necessity up to a standard,\nbut able to afford any standard to keep up to, can well be produced\nsave by the letting off of surplus energy; that is to say, how good\nwork can ever be done otherwise than by impulses and instincts acting\nspontaneously, in fact as play. The reality seems to be that,\nimperfect as is our poor life, present and past, we are maligning it;\nfounding our theories, for simplicity's sake and to excuse our lack of\nhope and striving, upon its very worst samples. Wasteful as is the\nmal-distribution of human activities (mal-distribution worse than that\nof land or capital!), cruel as is the consequent pressure of want,\nthere yet remains at the bottom of an immense amount of work an inner\npush different from that outer constraint, an inner need as fruitful\nas the outer one is wasteful: there remains the satisfaction in work,\nthe wish to work. However outer necessity, \"competition,\" \"minimum of\ncost,\" \"iron law of wages,\" call it what you choose, direct and\nmisdirect, through need of bread or greed of luxury, the application\nof human activity, that activity has to be there, and with it its own\nalleviation and reward: pleasure in work. All decent human work\npartakes (let us thank the great reasonablenesses of real things!) of\nthe quality of play: if it did not it would be bad or ever on the\nverge of badness; and if ever human activity attains to fullest\nfruitfulness, it will be (every experience of our own best work shows\nit) when the distinction of _work_ and of _play_ will cease to have a\nmeaning, play remaining only as the preparatory work of the child, as\nthe strength-repairing, balance-adjusting work of the adult.\n\nAnd meanwhile, through all the centuries of centuries, art, which is\nthe type and sample of all higher, better modes of life, art has given\nus in itself the concrete sample, the unmistakable type of that\nneedful reconciliation of work and play; and has shown us that there\nis, or should be, no difference between them. For art has made the\nthings which are useful, and done the things which are needed, in\nthose shapes and ways of beauty which have no aim but our\nsatisfaction.\n\n\nVI.\n\nThe way in which the work of art is born of a purpose, of something\nuseful to do or desirable to say, and the way in which the suggestions\nof utility are used up for beauty, can best be shown by a really\nexisting object. Expressed in practical terms the object is humble\nenough: a little trough with two taps built into a recess in a wall; a\nplace for washing hands and rinsing glasses, as you see the Dominican\nbrothers doing it all day, for I am speaking of the _Lavabo_ by\nGiovanni della Robbia in the Sacristy of Santa Maria Novella in\nFlorence. The whole thing is small, and did not allow of the adjoining\nroom usually devoted to this purpose. The washing and rinsing had to\ntake place in the sacristy itself. But this being the case, it was\ndesirable that the space set apart for these proceedings should at\nleast appear to be separate; the trough, therefore, was sunk in a\nrecess, and the recess divided off from the rest of the wall by\npillars and a gable, becoming in this manner, with no loss of real\nstanding room, a building inside a building; the operations,\nfurthermore, implying a certain amount of wetting and slopping, the\ndryness of the rest of the sacristy, and particularly the _idea_ of\nits dryness (so necessary where precious stuffs and metal vessels are\nkept) had to be secured not merely by covering a piece of wainscot and\nfloor with tiles, but by building the whole little enclosure (all save\nthe marble trough) of white and coloured majolica, which seemed to say\nto the oaken and walnut presses, to the great table covered with\nvestments: \"Don't be afraid, you shall not feel a drop from all this\nwashing and rinsing.\"\n\nSo far, therefore, we have got for our lavabo-trough a shallow recess,\nlined and paved with tiles, and cut off from the frescoed and panelled\nwalls by two pilasters and a rounded gable, of tile work also, the\ngeneral proportions being given by the necessity of two monks or two\nacolytes washing the sacred vessels at the same moment. The word\n_sacred_ now leads us to another determining necessity of our work of\nart. For this place, where the lavabo stands, is actually consecrated;\nit has an altar; and it is in it that take place all the preparations\nand preliminaries for the most holy and most magnificent of rites. The\nsacristy, like the church, is moreover an offering to heaven; and the\nlavabo, since it has to exist, can exist with fitness only if it also\nbe offered, and made worthy of offering, to heaven. Besides,\ntherefore, those general proportions which have had to be made\nharmonious for the satisfaction not merely of the builder, but of the\npeople whose eye rests on them daily and hourly; besides the\nshapeliness and dignity which we insist upon in all things needful; we\nfurther require of this object that it should have a certain\nsuperabundance of grace, that it should have colour, elaborate\npattern, what we call _ornament_; details which will show that it is a\ngift, and make it a fit companion for the magnificent embroideries and\ndamasks, the costly and exquisite embossed and enamelled vessels which\ninhabit that place; and a worthy spectator of the sacred pageantry\nwhich issues from this sacristy. The little tiled recess, the trough\nand the little piece of architecture which frames it all, shall not\nonly be practically useful, they shall also be spiritually useful as\nthe expression of men's reverence and devotion. To whom? Why, to the\ndear mother of Christ and her gracious angels, whom we place, in\neffigy, on the gable, white figures on a blue ground. And since this\nhumble thing is also an offering, what can be more appropriate than to\nhang it round with votive garlands, such as we bind to mark the course\nof processions, and which we garnish (filling the gaps of glossy bay\nand spruce pine branches) with the finest fruits of the earth, lemons,\nand pears, and pomegranates, a grateful tithe to the Powers who make\nthe orchards fruitful. But, since such garlands wither and such fruits\ndecay, and there must be no withering or decaying in the sanctuary,\nthe bay leaves and the pine branches, and the lemons and pears and\npomegranates, shall be of imperishable material, majolica coloured\nlike reality, and majolica, moreover, which leads us back, pleasantly,\nto the humble necessity of the trough, the spurting and slopping of\nwater, which we have secured against by that tiled floor and wainscot.\n\nBut here another suggestion arises. Water is necessary and infinitely\npleasant in a hot country and a hot place like this domed sacristy.\nBut we have very, oh, so very, little of it in Florence! We cannot\neven, however great our love and reverence, offer Our Lady and the\nAngels the thinnest perennial spurt; we must let out the water only\nfor bare use, and turn the tap off instantly after. There is something\nvery disappointing in this; and the knowledge of that dearth of water,\nof those two taps symbolical of chronic drought, is positively\ndisheartening. Beautiful proportions, delicate patterns, gracious\neffigies of the Madonna and the angels we can have, and also the most\nlovely garlands. But we cannot have a fountain. For it is useless\ncalling this a fountain, this poor little trough with two taps....\n\nBut you _shall_ have a fountain! Giovanni della Robbia answers in his\nheart; or, at least, you shall _feel_ as if you had one! And here we\nmay witness, if we use the eyes of the spirit as well as of the body,\none of the strangest miracles of art, when art is married to a\npurpose. The idea of a fountain, the desirability of water, becomes,\nunconsciously, dominant in the artist's mind; and under its sway, as\nunder the divining rod, there trickle and well up every kind of\nthought, of feeling, about water; until the images thereof, visible,\naudible, tactile, unite and steep and submerge every other notion.\nNothing deliberate; and, in all probability, nothing even conscious;\nthose watery thoughts merely lapping dreamily round, like a half-heard\nmurmur of rivers, the waking work with which his mind is busy. Nothing\ndeliberate or conscious, but all the more inevitable and efficacious,\nthis multifold suggestion of water.\n\nAnd behold the result, the witness of the miracle: In the domed\nsacristy, the fountain cooling this sultry afternoon of June as it has\ncooled four hundred Junes and more since set up, arch and pilasters\nand statued gables hung with garlands by that particular Robbia;\ncooling and refreshing us with its empty trough and closed taps,\nwithout a drop of real water! For it is made of water itself, or the\nessence, the longing memory of water. It is water, this shining pale\namber and agate and grass-green tiling and wainscotting, starred at\nregular intervals by wide-spread patterns as of floating weeds; water\nwhich makes the glossiness of the great leaf-garlands and the\njuiciness of the smooth lemons and cool pears and pomegranates; water\nwhich has washed into ineffable freshness this piece of blue heaven\nwithin the gable; and water, you would say, as of some shining\nfountain in the dusk, which has gathered together into the white\nglistening bodies and draperies which stand out against that\nnewly-washed aether. All this is evident, and yet insufficient to\naccount for our feelings. The subtlest and most potent half of the\nspell is hidden; and we guess it only little by little. In this little\nGrecian tabernacle, every line save the bare verticals and horizontals\nis a line suggestive of trickling and flowing and bubbles; a line\nsuggested by water and water's movement; and every light and shadow is\na light or a shadow suggested by water's brightness or transparent\ngloom; it is water which winds in tiny meanders of pattern along the\nshallow shining pillars, and water which beads and dimples along the\nshady cornice. The fountain has been thought out in longing for water,\nand every detail of it has been touched by the memory thereof. Water!\nthey wanted water, and they should have it. By a coincidence almost,\nGiovanni della Robbia has revealed the secret which himself most\nprobably never guessed, in the little landscape of lilac and bluish\ntiles with which he filled up the arch behind the taps. Some Tuscan\nscene, think you? Hills and a few cypresses, such as his\ncontemporaries used for background? Not a bit. A great lake, an\nestuary, almost a sea, with sailing ships, a flooded country, such as\nno Florentine had ever seen with mortal eyes; but such as, in his\nlonging for water, he must have dreamed about. Thus the landscape sums\nup this dream, this realisation of every cool and trickling sight and\ntouch and sound which fills that sacristy as with a spray of watery\nthoughts. In this manner, with perhaps but a small effort of invention\nand a small output of fancy, and without departing in the least from\nthe general proportions and shapes and ornaments common in his day,\nhas an artist of the second order left us one of the most exquisitely\nshapely and poetical of works, merely by following the suggestions of\nthe use, the place, the religious message and that humble human wish\nfor water where there was none.\n\n\nVII.\n\nIt is discouraging and humiliating to think (and therefore we think it\nvery seldom) that nowadays we artists, painters of portraits and\nlandscapes, builders and decorators of houses, pianists, singers,\nfiddlers, and, quite as really though less obviously, writers, are all\nof us indirectly helping to keep up the greed which makes the\nprivileged and possessing classes cling to their monopolies and\naccumulate their possessions. Bitter to realise that, disinterested as\nwe must mostly be (for good artistic work means talent, talent\npreference, and preference disinterestedness), we are, as Ruskin has\nalready told us, but the parasites of parasites.\n\nFor of the pleasure-giving things we make, what portion really gives\nany pleasure, or comes within reach of giving pleasure, to those whose\nhands _as a whole class_ (as distinguished from the brain of an\noccasional individual of the other class) produce the wealth we all of\nus have to live, or try to live, upon? Of course there is the seeming\nconsolation that, like the Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs, the Watteaus\nand the Fragonards of the past, the Millais and the Sargents (charming\nsitters, or the reverse, and all), and the Monets and Brabazons, will\nsooner or later become what we call public property in public\ngalleries. But, meanwhile, the Reynoldses and Gainsboroughs and\nWatteaus and Fragonards themselves, though the legal property of\neverybody, are really reserved for those same classes who own their\nmodern equivalents, simply because those alone have the leisure and\nculture necessary to enjoy them. The case is not really different for\nthe one or two seemingly more independent and noble artistic\nindividualities, the great decorators like Watts or Besnard; their own\nwork, like their own conscience, is indeed the purer and stronger for\ntheir intention of painting not for smoking-rooms and private\ncollections, but for places where all men can see and understand; but\nthen all men cannot see--they are busy or too tired--and they cannot\nunderstand, because the language of art has become foreign to them.\nThe same applies to composers and to writers: music and books are\ncheap enough, but the familiarity with musical forms and literary\nstyles, without which music and books are mere noise and waste-paper,\nis practically unattainable to the classes who till the ground,\nextract its stone and minerals, and make, with their hands, every\nmaterial thing (save works of art) that we possess.\n\nIndeed, one additional reason why, ever since the eighteenth century,\nart has been set up as the opposite of useful work, and explained as a\nform of play (though its technical difficulties grew more exorbitant\nand exhausting year by year) is probably that, in our modern\ncivilisations, art has been obviously produced for the benefit of the\nclasses who virtually do not work, and by artists born or bred to\nbelong to those idle classes themselves. For it is a fact that, as the\nartist nowadays finds his public only among the comparatively idle\n(or, at all events, those whose activity distributes wealth in their\nown favour rather than creates it), so also he requires to be, more\nand more, in sympathy with their mode of living and thinking: the\nfriend, the client, most often the son, of what we call (with terrible\nunperceived irony in the words) _leisured_ folk. As to the folk who\nhave no leisure (and therefore, according to our modern aesthetics, no\n_art_ because no _play_) they can receive from us privileged persons\n(when privilege happens to be worth its keep) no benefits save very\npractical ones. The only kind of work founded on \"leisure\"--which does\nin our day not merely increase the advantages of already well-off\npersons, but actually filter down to help the unleisured producers of\nour wealth--is not the work of the artist, but of the doctor, the\nnurse, the inventor, the man of science; who knows? Perhaps almost of\nthe philosopher, the historian, the sociologist: the clearer away of\nconvenient error, the unmaker and remaker of consciences.\n\nAs I began by saying, it is not very comfortable, nowadays, to be an\nartist, and yet possess a mind and heart. And two of the greatest\nartists of our times, Ruskin and Tolstoi, have done their utmost to\nmake it more uncomfortable still. So that it is natural for our\nartists to decide that art exists only for art's own sake, since it\ncannot nowadays be said to exist for the sake of anything else. And as\nto us, privileged persons, with leisure and culture fitting us for\nartistic enjoyment, it is even more natural to consider art as a kind\nof play: play in which we get refreshed after somebody else's work.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nAnd are we really much refreshed? Watching the face and manner,\nlistless, perfunctory or busily attentive, of our fellow-creatures in\ngalleries and exhibitions, and in great measure in concert rooms and\ntheatres, one would imagine that, on the contrary, they were\nfulfilling a social duty or undergoing a pedagogical routine. The\nobject of the proceeding would rather seem to be negative; one might\njudge that they had come lest their neighbours should suspect that\nthey were somewhere else, or perhaps lest their neighbours should come\ninstead, according to our fertile methods of society intercourse and\nof competitive examinations. At any rate, they do not look as if they\ncame to be refreshed, or as if they had taken the right steps towards\nsuch spiritual refreshment: the faces and manner of children in a\nplayground, of cricketers on a village green, of Sunday trippers on\nthe beach, or of German townsfolk walking to the beerhouse or cafe in\nthe deep fragrant woods, present a different appearance. And if we\nexamine into our own feelings, we shall find that even for the most\nart-loving of us the hours spent in galleries of pictures and statues,\nor listening to music at concerts, are largely stolen from our real\nlife of real interests and real pleasures; that there enters into them\na great proportion of effort and boredom; at the very best that we do\nnot enjoy (nor expect to enjoy) them at all in the same degree as a\ngood dinner in good company, or a walk in bright, bracing weather, let\nalone, of course, fishing, or hunting, or digging and weeding our\nlittle garden.\n\nOf course, if we are really artistic, and if we have the power of\nanalysing our own feelings and motives, we shall know that the gallery\nor the concert afford occasion for laying in a store of pleasurable\nimpressions, to be enjoyed at the right moment and in the right mood\nlater: outlines of pictures, washes of colour, grouped masses of\nsculpture, bars of melody, clang of especial chords or timbre\ncombinations, and even the vague aesthetic emotion, the halo\nsurrounding blurred recollections of sights and sounds. And knowing\nthis, we are content that the act of garnering, of preparing, for such\nfuture enjoyment, should lack any steady or deep pleasurableness about\nitself. But, thinking over the matter, there seems something wrong,\nderogatory to art and humiliating to ourselves, in this admission that\nthe actual presence of the work of art, sometimes the masterpiece,\nshould give us the minimum, and not the maximum, of our artistic\nenjoyment. And comparing the usual dead level of such merely potential\npleasure with certain rare occasions when we have enjoyed art more at\nthe moment than afterwards, quite vividly, warmly and with the proper\nreluctant clutch at the divine minute as it passes; making this\ncomparison, we can, I think, guess at the nature of the mischief and\nthe possibility of its remedy.\n\nExamining into our experience, we shall find that, while our lack of\nenjoyment (our state of aesthetic _aridity_, to borrow the expression\nof religious mystics) had coincided with a deliberate intention to see\nor hear works of art, and a consequent clearing away of other claims,\nand on our attention, in fact, to an effort made more or less in\n_vacuo_; on the contrary, our Faust-moments (\"Stay, thou art\nbeautiful!\") of plenitude and consummation, have always come when our\nactivity was already flowing, our attention stimulated, and when, so\nto speak, the special artistic impressions were caught up into our\nother interests, and woven by them into our life. We can all recall\nunexpected delights like Hazlitt's in the odd volume of Rousseau found\non the window-seat, and discussed, with his savoury supper, in the\nroadside inn, after his long day's pleasant tramp.\n\nIndeed, this preparing of the artistic impression by many others, or\nfocussing of others by it, accounts for the keenness of our aesthetic\npleasure when on a journey; we are thoroughly alive, and the seen or\nheard thing of beauty lives _into_, us, or we into it (there is an\nimportant psychological law, a little too abstract for this moment of\nexpansiveness, called \"the Law of the Summation of Stimuli\"). The\ntruth of what I say is confirmed by the frequent fact that the work of\nart which gives us this full and vivid pleasure (actually refreshing!\nfor here, at last, is refreshment!) is either fragmentary or by no\nmeans first-rate. We have remained arid, hard, incapable of absorbing,\nwhile whole Joachim quartets flowed and rippled all _round_, but never\n_into_, us; and then, some other time, our soul seems to have drunk\nup (every fibre blissfully steeping) a few bars of a sonata (it was\nBeethoven's 10th violin, and they were stumbling through it for the\nfirst time) heard accidentally while walking up and down under an open\nwindow.\n\nIt is the same with painting and sculpture. I shall never forget the\nexquisite poetry and loveliness of that Matteo di Giovanni, \"The\nGiving of the Virgin's Girdle,\" when I saw it for the first time, in\nthe chapel of that villa, once a monastery, near Siena. Even through\nthe haze of twenty years (like those delicate blue December mists\nwhich lay between the sunny hills) I can see that picture, illumined\npiecemeal by the travelling taper on the sacristan's reed, far more\ndistinctly than I see it to-day with bodily eyes in the National\nGallery. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that where it hangs in\nthat gallery it has not once given me one half-second of real\npleasure. It is a third-rate picture now; but even the masterpieces,\nPerugino's big fresco, Titian's \"Bacchus and Ariadne,\" Pier della\nFrancesca's \"Baptism\"; have they ever given me the complete and steady\ndelight which that mediocre Sienese gave me at the end of the wintry\ndrive, in the faintly illumined chapel? More often than not, as\nColeridge puts it, I have \"seen, not _felt_, how beautiful they are.\"\nBut, apart even from fortunate circumstances or enhancing activities,\nwe have all of us experienced how much better we see or hear a work of\nart with the mere dull help of some historical question to elucidate\nor technical matter to examine into; we have been able to follow a\npiece of music by watching for some peculiarity of counterpoint or\nexcellence or fault of execution; and our attention has been carried\ninto a picture or statue by trying to make out whether a piece of\ndrapery was repainted or an arm restored. Indeed, the irrelevant\nliterary programme of concerts and all that art historical lore\n(information about things of no importance, or none to us) conveyed in\ndreary monographs and hand-books, all of them perform a necessary\nfunction nowadays, that of bringing our idle and alien minds into some\nsort of relation of business with the works of art which we should\notherwise, nine times out of ten, fail really to approach.\n\nAnd here I would suggest that this necessity of being, in some way,\nbusy about beautiful things in order thoroughly to perceive them, may\nrepresent some sterner necessity of life in general; art being, in\nthis as in so many other cases, significantly typical of what is\nlarger than itself. Can we get the full taste of pleasure sought for\npleasure's own sake? And is not happiness in life, like beauty in art,\nrather a means than an aim: the condition of going on, the\nreplenishing of force; in short, the thing by whose help, not for the\nsake of which, we feel and act and live?\n\n\nIX.\n\nBeauty is an especial quality in visible or audible shapes and movements\nwhich imposes on our soul a certain rhythm and pattern of feeling entirely\n_sui generis_, but unified, harmonious, and, in a manner, consummate.\nBeauty is a power in our life, because, however intermittent its\naction and however momentary, it makes us live, by a kind of sympathy\nwith itself, a life fuller, more vivid, and at the same time more\npeaceful. But, as the word _sympathy_, _with-feeling_--(_Einfuehlen_,\n\"feeling into,\" the Germans happily put it)--as the word _sympathy_ is\nintended to suggest, this subduing and yet liberating, this enlivening\nand pacifying power of beautiful form over our feelings is exercised\nonly when our feelings enter, and are absorbed into, the form we\nperceive; so that (very much as in the case of sympathy with human\nvicissitudes) we participate in the supposed life of the form while in\nreality lending _our_ life to it. Just as in our relations with our\nfellow-men, so also in our subtler but even more potent relations with\nthe appearances of things and actions, our heart can be touched,\npurified, and satisfied only just in proportion as we _give_ our\nheart. And even as it is possible to perceive other human beings and\nto adjust our action (sometimes heartlessly enough) to such qualities\nin them as we find practically important to ourselves, without putting\nout one scrap of sympathy with their own existence as felt by them; so\nalso it is possible to recognise things and actions, to become rapidly\naware of such of their peculiarities as most frequently affect us\npractically, and to consequently adjust our behaviour, without giving\nour sympathy to their form, without entering into and _living into_\nthose forms; and in so far it is possible for us to remain indifferent\nto those forms' quality of beauty or ugliness, just as, in the hurry\nof practical life, we remain indifferent to the stuff our neighbours'\nsouls are made of. This rapid, partial, superficial, perfunctory mode\nof dealing with what we see and hear constitutes the ordinary,\nconstant, and absolutely indispensable act of recognising objects and\nactions, of _spotting_ their qualities and _twigging_ their meaning:\nan act necessarily tending to more and more abbreviation and rapidity\nand superficiality, to a sort of shorthand which reduces what has to\nbe understood, and enables us to pass immediately to understanding\nsomething else; according to that law of necessarily saving time and\nenergy.\n\nAnd so we rush on, recognising, naming, spotting, twigging, answering,\nusing, or parrying; we need not fully _see_ the complete appearance of\nthe word we read, of the man we meet, of the street we run along, of\nthe water we drink, the fire we light, the adversary whom we pursue or\nwhom we evade; and in the selfsame manner we need not fully see the\nform of the building of which we say \"This is a Gothic cathedral\"--of\nthe picture of which we say \"Christ before Pilate\"--or of the piece of\nmusic of which we say \"A cheerful waltz by Strauss\" or \"A melancholy\nadagio by Beethoven.\" Now it is this fragmentary, superficial\nattention which we most often give to art; and giving thus little, we\nfind that art gives us little, perhaps nothing, in return. For\nunderstand: you can be utterly perfunctory towards a work of art\nwithout hurrying away from in front of it, or setting about some\nvisible business in its presence. Standing ten minutes before a\npicture or sitting an hour at a concert, with fixed sight or tense\nhearing, you may yet be quite hopelessly inattentive if, instead of\nfollowing the life of the visible or audible forms, and _living\nyourself_ into their pattern and rhythm, you wander off after dramatic\nor sentimental associations suggested by the picture's subject; or if\nyou let yourself be hypnotised, as pious Wagnerians are apt to be,\ninto monotonous over response (and over and over again response) to\nthe merely emotional stimulation of the sounds. The activity of the\nartist's soul has been in vain for you, since you do not let your soul\nfollow its tracks through the work of art; he has not created for you,\nbecause you have failed to create his work afresh in vivid\ncontemplation.\n\nBut attention cannot be forced on to any sort of contemplation, or at\nleast it cannot remain, steady and abiding, by any act of forcing.\nAttention, to be steady, must be held by the attraction of the thing\nattended to; and, to be spontaneous and easy, must be carried by some\nprevious interest within the reach of that attractiveness. Above all,\nattention requires that its ways should have been made smooth by\nrepetition of similar experience; it is excluded, rebutted by the dead\nwall of utter novelty; for seeing, hearing, understanding is\ninterpreting the unknown by the known, assimilation in the literal\nsense also of rendering similar the new to the less new. This will\nexplain why it is useless trying to enjoy a totally unfamiliar kind of\nart: as soon expect to take pleasure in dancing a dance you do not\nknow, and whose rhythm and step you fail as yet to follow. And it is\nnot only music, as Nietzsche said, but all art, that is but a kind of\ndancing, a definite rhythmic carrying and moving of the soul. And for\nthis reason there can be no artistic enjoyment without preliminary\ninitiation and training.\n\nArt cannot be enjoyed without initiation and training. I repeat this\nstatement, desiring to impress it on the reader, because, by a\ncoincidence of misunderstanding, it happens to constitute the\nweightiest accusation in the whole of Tolstoi's very terrible (and,\nin part, terribly justified) recent arraignment of art. For of what\nuse is the restorative and refreshing power, this quality called\nbeauty, if the quality itself cannot be recognised save after previous\ntraining? And what moral dignity, nay, what decent innocence, can\nthere be in a kind of relaxation from which lack of initiation\nexcludes the vast majority of men, the majority which really labours,\nand therefore has a real claim to relaxation and refreshment?\n\nThis question of Tolstoi's arises from that same limiting of\nexamination to a brief, partial, and, as it happens, most transitional\nand chaotic present, which has given us that cut-and-dried distinction\nbetween work and play; and, indeed, the two misconceptions are very\nclosely connected. For even as our present economic system of\nproduction for exchange rather than for consumption has made us\nconceive _work_ as _work_ done under compulsion for someone else, and\n_play_ as _play_, with no result even to ourselves; so also has the\neconomic system which employs the human hand and eye merely as a\nportion of a complicated, monotonously working piece of machinery, so\nalso has our present order of mechanical and individual production\ndivided the world into a small minority which sees and feels what it\nis about, and a colossal majority which has no perception, no\nconception, and, consequently, no preferences attached to the objects\nit is employed (by the methods of division of labour) to produce, so\nto speak, without seeing them. Tolstoi has realised that this is the\npresent condition of human labour, and his view of it has been\ncorrected neither by historical knowledge nor by psychological\nobservation. He has shown us _art_, as it nowadays exists, divided and\nspecialised into two or three \"fine arts,\" each of which employs\nexceptional and highly trained talent in the production of objects so\nelaborate and costly, so lacking in all utility, that they can be\npossessed only by the rich few; objects, moreover, so unfamiliar in\nform and in symbol that only the idle can learn to enjoy (or pretend\nto enjoy) them after a special preliminary initiation and training.\n\n\nX.\n\n_Initiation and training_, we have returned to those wretched words,\nfor we also had recognised that without initiation and training there\ncould be no real enjoyment of art. But, looking not at this brief,\ntransitional, and topsy-turvey present, but at the centuries and\ncenturies which have evolved, not only art, but the desire and habit\nthereof, we have seen what Tolstoi refused to see, namely, that\nwherever and whenever (that is to say, everywhere and at all times\nsave these present European days) art has existed spontaneously, it\nhas brought with it that initiation and training. The initiation and\ntraining, the habit of understanding given qualities of form, the\ndiscrimination and preference thereof, have come, I maintain, as a\nresult of practical utility.\n\nOr rather: out of practical utility has arisen the art itself, and the\nneed for it. The attention, the familiarity which made beauty\nenjoyable had previously made beauty necessary. It was because the\nearthenware lamp, the bronze pitcher, the little rude household idols\ndisplayed the same arrangements of lines and surfaces, presented the\nsame patterns and features, embodied, in a word, the same visible\nrhythms of being, that the Greeks could understand without being\ntaught the temples and statues of Athens, Delphi or Olympia. It was\nbecause the special form qualities of ogival art (so subtle in\nmovement, unstable in balance and poignant in emotion that a whole\ncentury of critical study has scarce sufficed to render them familiar\nto us) were present in every village tower, every window coping, every\nchair-back, in every pattern carved, painted, stencilled or woven\nduring the Gothic period; it was because of this that every artisan of\nthe Middle Ages could appreciate less consciously than we, but far\nmore deeply, the loveliness and the wonder of the great cathedrals.\nNay, even in our own times we can see how, through the help of all the\ncheapest and most perishable household wares, the poorest Japanese is\nable to enjoy that special peculiarity and synthesis of line and\ncolour and perspective which strikes even initiated Westerns as so\nexotic, far-fetched and almost wilfully unintelligible.\n\nI have said that thanks to the objects and sights of everyday use and\nlife the qualities of art could be perceived and enjoyed. It may be\nthat it was thanks to them that art had any qualities and ever existed\nat all. For, however much the temple, cathedral, statue, fresco, the\nelaborate bronze or lacquer or coloured print, may have reacted on the\nform, the proportions and linear rhythms and surface arrangements, of\nall common useful objects; it was in the making of these common useful\nobjects (first making by man of genius and thousandfold minute\nadaptation by respectful mediocrity) that the form qualities came to\nexist. One may at least hazard this supposition in the face of the\nextreme unlikeliness that the complexity and perfection of the great\nworks of art could have been obtained solely in works so necessarily\nrare and few; and that the particular forms constituting each separate\nstyle could have originated save under the repeated suggestion of\neveryday use and technique. And can we not point to the patterns grown\nout of the necessities of weaving or basket-making, the shapes started\nby the processes of metal soldering or clay squeezing; let alone the\ninnumerable categories of form manifestly derived from the mere\nconvenience of handling or using, of standing, pouring, holding,\nhanging up or folding? This much is certain, that only the manifold\napplication of given artistic forms in useful common objects is able\nto account for that very slow, gradual and unconscious alteration of\nthem which constitutes the spontaneous evolution of artistic form; and\nonly such manifold application could have given that almost automatic\ncertainty of taste which allowed the great art of the past to continue\nperpetually changing, through centuries and centuries, and adapting\nitself over immense geographical areas to every variation of climate,\ntopography, mode of life, or religion. Unless the forms of ancient art\nhad been safely embodied in a hundred modest crafts, how could they\nhave undergone the imperceptible and secure metamorphosis from\nEgyptian to Hellenic, from Greek to Graeco-Roman, and thence, from\nByzantine, have passed, as one great half, into Italian mediaeval art?\nor how, without such infinite and infinitely varied practice of minute\nadaptation to humble needs, could Gothic have given us works so\ndifferent as the French cathedrals, the Ducal Palace, the tiny chapel\nat Pisa, and remained equally great and wonderful, equally _Gothic_,\nin the ornament of a buckle as in the porch of Amiens or of Reims?\n\nBeauty is born of attention, as happiness is born of life, because\nattention is rendered difficult and painful by lack of harmony, even\nas life is clogged, diminished or destroyed by pain. And therefore,\nwhen there ceases to exist a close familiarity with visible objects or\nactions; when the appearance of things is passed over in perfunctory\nand partial use (as we see it in all mechanical and divided labour);\nwhen the attention of all men is not continually directed to shape\nthrough purpose, then there will cease to be spontaneous beauty and\nthe spontaneous appreciation of beauty, because there will be no need\nfor either. Beauty of music does not exist for the stone-deaf, nor\nbeauty of painting for the purblind; but beauty of no kind whatever,\nnor in any art, can really exist for the inattentive, for the\nover-worked or the idle.\n\n\nXI.\n\nThat music should be so far the most really alive of all our modern\narts is a fact which confirms all I have argued in the foregoing\npages. For music is of all arts the one which insists on most\nco-operation on the part of its votaries. Requiring to be performed\n(ninety-nine times out of a hundred) in order to be enjoyed, it has\nmade merely _musical people_ into performers, however humble; and has\nby this means called forth a degree of attention, of familiarity, of\npractical effort, which makes the art enter in some measure into\nlife, and in that measure, become living. To play an instrument,\nhowever humbly, to read at sight, or to sing, if only in a choir, is\nsomething wholly different from lounging in a gallery or wandering on\na round of cathedrals: it means acquired knowledge, effort,\ncomparison, self-restraint, and all the realities of manipulation;\nquite apart even from trying to read the composer's intentions, there\nis in learning to strike the keys with a particular part of the\nfinger-tips, or in dealing out the breath and watching intonation and\ntimbre in one's own voice, an output of care and skill akin to those\nof the smith, the potter or the glass blower: all this has a purpose\nand is work, and brings with it disinterested work's reward, love.\n\nTo find the analogy of this co-operation in the arts addressing\nthemselves to the eye, we require, nowadays, to leave the great number\nwho merely enjoy (or ought to enjoy) painting, sculpture or\narchitecture, and seek, now that craft is entirely divorced from art,\namong the small minority which creates, or tries to create. Artistic\nenjoyment exists nowadays mainly among the class of executive artists;\nand perhaps it is for this very reason, and because all chance of\nseeing or making shapely things has ceased in other pursuits, that the\n\"fine arts\" are so lamentably overstocked; the man or woman who would\nhave been satisfied with playing the piano enough to read a score or\nsing sufficiently to take part in a chorus, has, in the case of other\narts, to undergo the training of a painter, sculptor or art critic,\nand often to delude himself or herself with grotesque ambitions in one\nof these walks.\n\n\nXII.\n\nBe this as it may, and making the above happy and honourable exception\nin favour of music, it is no exaggeration to say that in our time it\nis only artists who get real pleasure out of art, because it is only\nartists who approach art from the side of work and bring to it work's\nfamiliar attention and habitual energy. Indeed, paradoxical as it may\nsound, art has remained alive during the nineteenth century, and will\nremain alive during the twentieth, only and solely because there has\nbeen a large public of artists.\n\nOf artists, I would add, of quite incomparable vigour and elasticity\nof genius, and of magnificent disinterestedness and purity of heart.\nFor let us remember that they have worked without having the sympathy\nof their fellow-men, and worked without the aid and comfort of allied\ncrafts: that they have created while cut off from tradition, unhelped\nby the manifold suggestiveness of useful purpose or necessary message;\nseparated entirely from the practical and emotional life of the world\nat large; tiny little knots of voluntary outlaws from a civilisation\nwhich could not understand them; and, whatever worldly honours may\nhave come to mock their later years, they have been weakened and\nembittered by early solitude of spirit. No artistic genius of the past\nhas been put through such cruel tests, has been kept on such miserably\nshort commons, as have our artists of the last hundred years, from\nTurner to Rossetti and Watts, from Manet and Degas and Whistler to\nRodin and Albert Besnard. And if their work has shown lapses and\nfailings; if it has been, alas, lacking at times in health or joy or\ndignity or harmony, let us ask ourselves what the greatest\nindividualities of Antiquity and the Middle Ages would have produced\nif cut off from the tradition of the Past and the suggestion of the\nPresent--if reduced to exercise art outside the atmosphere of life;\nand let us look with wonder and gratitude on the men who have been\nable to achieve great art even for only art's own sake.\n\n\nXIII.\n\nNo better illustration of this could be found than the sections of the\nParis Exhibition which came under the heading of _Decorative Art_.\n\nDecoration. But decoration of what? In reality of nothing. All the\nobjects--from the jewellery and enamels to the furniture and\nhangings--which this decorative art is supposed to decorate, are the\nmerest excuse and sham. Not one of them is the least useful, or at all\nevents useful once it is decorated. And nobody wants it to be useful.\nWhat _is_ wanted is a pretext, for _doing art_ on the side of the\nartist, for buying costly things on the side of the public. And behind\nthis pretext there is absolutely no genuine demand for any definite\nobject serving any definite use; none of that insistence (which we see\nin the past) that the shape, material, and colour should be the very\nbest for practical purposes; and of that other insistence,\nmarvellously blended with the requirements of utility, that the shape,\nmaterial and colour should also be as beautiful as possible. The\ninvaluable suggestions of real practical purpose, the organic dignity\nof integrated habit and necessity, the safety of tradition, the\nspiritual weightiness of genuine message, all these elements of\ncreative power are lacking. And in default of them we see a great\namount of artistic talent, artificially fed and excited by the\nteaching and the example of every possible past or present art,\nexhausting itself in attempts to invent, to express, to be something,\nanything, so long as it is new. Hence forms gratuitous, without\norganic quality or logical cogency, pulled about, altered and\nre-altered, carried to senseless finish and then wilfully blurred.\nHence that sickly imitation, in a brand-new piece of work, of the\neffects of time, weather, and of every manner of accident or\ndeterioration: the pottery and enamels reproducing the mere patina of\nage or the trickles of bad firing; the relief work in marble or metal\nwhich looks as if it had been rolled for centuries in the sea, or\ncorroded by acids under ground. And the total effect, increased by all\nthese methods of wilful blunting and blurring, is an art without\nstamina, tired, impotent, short-lived, while produced by an excessive\nexpense of talent and effort of invention.\n\nFor here we have the mischief: all the artistic force is spent by the\nart in merely keeping alive; and there is no reserve energy for living\nwith serenity and depth of feeling. The artist wears himself out, to a\ngreat extent, in wondering what he shall do (there being no practical\nreason for doing one thing more than another, or indeed anything at\nall), instead of applying his power, with steady, habitual certainty\nof purpose and efficiency of execution, to doing it in the very best\nway. Hence, despite this outlay of inventive force, or rather in\ndirect consequence thereof, there is none of that completeness and\nmeasure and congruity, that restrained exuberance of fancy, that more\nthan adequate carrying out, that all-round harmony, which are possible\nonly when the artist is altering to his individual taste some shape\nalready furnished by tradition or subduing to his pleasure some\nproblem insisted on by practical necessity.\n\nMeanwhile, all round these galleries crammed with useless objects\nbarely pretending to any utility, round these pavilions of the\nDecorative Arts, the Exhibition exhibits (most instructive of all its\nshows) samples of the most marvellous indifference not merely to\nbeauty, peace and dignity, but to the most rudimentary aesthetic and\nmoral comfort. For all the really useful things which men take\nseriously because they increase wealth and power, because they save\ntime and overcome distance; all these \"useful\" things have the naive\nand colossal ugliness of rudimentary animals, or of abortions, of\neverything hurried untimely into existence: machines, sheds, bridges,\ntrams, motor-cars: not one line corrected, not one angle smoothed, for\nthe sake of the eye, of the nerves of the spectator. And all of it,\nboth decorative futility and cynically hideous practicality (let alone\nthe various exotic raree shows from distant countries or more distant\ncenturies) expect to be enjoyed after a jostle at the doors and a\nscurry along the crowded corridors, and to the accompaniment of every\nrattling and shrieking and jarring sound. For mankind in our days\nintends to revel in the most complicated and far-fetched kinds of\nbeauty while cultivating convenient callousness to the most elementary\nand atrocious sorts of ugliness. The art itself reveals it; for even\nin its superfine isolation and existence for its own sake only, art\ncannot escape its secondary mission of expressing and recording the\nspirit of its times. These elaborate aesthetic baubles of the\n\"Decorative Arts\" are full of quite incredibly gross barbarism. And,\neven as the iron chest, studded with nails, or the walnut press,\nunadorned save by the intrinsic beauty and dignity of their\nproportions, and the tender irregularities of their hammered surface,\nthe subtle bevelling of their panels; even as these humble objects in\nsome dark corner of an Italian castle or on the mud floor of a Breton\ncottage, symbolise in my mind the most intense artistic sensitiveness\nand reverence of the Past; so, here at this Exhibition, my impressions\nof contemporary over-refinement and callousness are symbolised in a\ncertain cupboard, visibly incapable of holding either linen or\ngarments or crockery or books, of costly and delicately polished wood,\nbut shaped like a packing-case, and displaying with marvellous\nimpartiality two exquisitely cast and chased doorguard plates of\nfar-fetched, many-tinted alloys of silver, and--a set of hinges, a\nlock and a key, such as the village ironmonger supplies in blue paper\nparcels of a dozen. A mere coincidence, an accident, you may object;\nan unlucky oversight which cannot be fairly alleged against the art of\nour times. Pardon me: there may be coincidences and accidents in other\nmatters, but there are none in art; because the essence of art is to\nsacrifice even the finest irrelevancies, to subordinate the most\nrefractory details, to subdue coincidence and accident into seeming\npurpose and harmony. And whatever our practical activity, in its\nidentification of time and money, may allow itself in the way of\n\"scamping\" and of \"shoddy\"--art can never plead an oversight, because\nart, in so far as it _is_ art, represents those organic and organised\npreferences in the domain of form, those imperative and stringent\ndemands for harmony, which see everything, feel everything, and know\nno law or motive save their own complete satisfaction.\n\nArt for art's sake! We see it nowhere revealed so clearly as in the\nExhibition, where it masks as \"Decorative Art.\" Art answering no claim\nof practical life and obeying no law of contemplative preference, art\nwithout root, without organism, without logical reason or moral\ndecorum, art for mere buying and selling, art which expresses only\nself-assertion on the part of the seller, and self-satisfaction on the\npart of the buyer. A walk through this Exhibition is an object-lesson\nin a great many things besides aesthetics; it forces one to ask a good\nmany of Tolstoi's angriest questions; but it enables one also, if duly\nfamiliar with the art of past times, to answer them in a manner\ndifferent from Tolstoi's.\n\nOne carries away the fact, which implies so many others, that not one\nof these objects is otherwise than expensive; expensive, necessarily\nand intentionally, from the rarity both of the kind of skill and of\nthe kind of material; these things are reserved by their price as well\nas their uselessness, for a small number of idle persons. They have no\nconnection with life, either by penetrating, by serviceableness, deep\ninto that of the individual; or by spreading, by cheapness, over a\nwide surface of the life of the nations.\n\n\nXIV.\n\nThe moment has now come for that inevitable question, with which\nfriendly readers unintentionally embarrass, and hostile ones purposely\ninterrupt, any exposition of mal-adjustment in the order of the\nuniverse: But what remedy do you propose?\n\nMal-adjustments of a certain gravity are not set right by proposable\narrangements: they are remedied by the fulness and extent of the\nfeeling against them, which employs for its purposes and compels into\nits service all the unexpected and incalculable coincidences and\naccidents which would otherwise be wasted, counteracted or even used\nby some different kind of feeling. And the use that a writer can\nbe--even a Ruskin or a Tolstoi--is limited not to devising programmes\nof change (mere symptoms often that some unprogrammed change is\npreparing), but to nursing the strength of that great motor which\ncreates its own ways and instruments: impatience with evil conditions,\ndesire for better.\n\nA cessation of the special aesthetic mal-adjustment of our times, by\nwhich art is divorced from life and life from art, is as difficult to\nforetell in detail as the new-adjustment between labour and the other\nelements of production which will, most probably, have to precede it.\n\nA healthy artistic life has indeed existed in the past through\ncenturies of social wrongness as great as our own, and even greater;\nindeed, such artistic life, more or less continuous until our day,\nattests the existence of great mitigations in the world's former\nwretchedness (such as individuality in labour, spirit of co-operative\nsolidarity, religious feeling: but perhaps the most important\nalleviations lie far deeper and more hidden)--mitigations without\nwhich there would not have been happiness and strength enough to\nproduce art; nor, for the matter of that, to produce what was then the\nfuture, including ourselves and our advantages and disadvantages. The\nexistence of art has by no means implied, as Ruskin imagined, with his\nteleological optimism and tendency to believe in Eden and banishment\nfrom Eden, that people once lived in a kind of millennium; it merely\nshows that, however far from millennial their condition, there was\nstability enough to produce certain alleviations, and notably the\nalleviations without which art cannot exist, and the alleviations\nwhich art itself affords.\n\nIt is not therefore the badness of our present social arrangements (in\nmany ways far less bad than those of the past) which is responsible\nfor our lack of all really vital, deep-seated, widely spread and\nhappiness-giving art; but merely the feature in this latter-day\nbadness which, after all, is our chief reason for hope: the fact that\nthe social mal-adjustments of this century are, to an extent hitherto\nunparalleled, the mal-adjustments incident to a state of over-rapid\nand therefore insufficiently deep-reaching change, of superficial\nlegal and material improvements extending in reality only to a very\nsmall number of persons and things, and unaccompanied by any real\nrenovation in the thought, feeling or mode of living of the majority;\nthe mal-adjustment of transition, of disorder, and perfunctoriness, by\nthe side of which the regularly recurring disorders of the past--civil\nwars, barbarian invasions, plagues, etc., are incidents leaving the\nfoundation of life unchanged, transitional disorders, which we fail to\nremark only because we are ourselves a part of the hurry, the scuffle,\nand the general wastefulness. How soon and how this transition period\nof ours will come to an end, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to\nforetell; but that it _must_ soon end is certain, if only for one\nreason: namely, that the changes accumulated during our times must\ninevitably work their way below the surface; the new material and\nintellectual methods must become absorbed and organised, and thereby\nproduce some kind of interdependent and less easily disturbed new\nconditions; briefly, that the amount of alteration we have witnessed\nwill occasion a corresponding integration. And with this period of\nintegration and increasing organisation and comparative stability\nthere will come new alleviations and adjustments in life, and with\nthese, the reappearance in life of art.\n\n\nXV.\n\nIn what manner it is absurd, merely foolishly impatient or foolishly\ncavilling, to ask. Not certainly by a return to the past and its\nmethods, but by the coming of the future with new methods having the\nsame result: the maintenance and tolerable quality of human life, of\nbody and soul. Hence probably by a further development of democratic\ninstitutions and machine industry, but democratic institutions neither\nauthoritative nor _laissez faire_; machinery of which the hand and\nmind of men will be the guide, not the slave.\n\nOne or two guesses may perhaps be warranted. First, that the\ndistribution of wealth, or more properly of work and idleness, will\ngradually be improved, and the exploitation of individuals in great\ngangs cease; hence that the workman will be able once more to see and\nshape what he is making, and that, on the other side, the possessor of\nobjects will have to use them, and therefore learn their appearance\nand care for them; also that many men will possess enough, and\nscarcely any men possess much more than enough, so that what there is\nof houses, furniture, chattels, books or pictures in private\npossession may be enjoyed at leisure and with unglutted appetite, and\nfor that reason be beautiful. We may also guess that willing\nco-operation in peaceful employments, that spontaneous formation of\ngroups of opinion as well as of work, and the multiplication of small\ncentres of activity, may create a demand for places of public\neducation and amusement and of discussion and self-expression, and\nrevive those celebrations, religious and civil, in which the art of\nAntiquity and of the Middle Ages found its culmination; the service of\nlarge bodies and of the community absorbing the higher artistic gifts\nin works necessarily accessible to the multitude; and the humbler\ntalents--all the good amateur quality at present wasted in ambitious\nefforts--being applied in every direction to the satisfaction of\nindividual artistic desire.\n\nIf such a distribution of artistic activity should seem, to my\ncontemporaries, Utopian, I would point out that it has existed\nthroughout the past, and in states of society infinitely worse than\nare ever likely to recur. For even slaves and serfs could make unto\nthemselves some kind of art befitting their conditions; and even the\nmost despotic aristocracies and priesthoods could adequately express\ntheir power and pride only in works which even the slave and serf was\nable to see. In the whole of the world's art history, it is this\npresent of ours which forms the exception; and as the changes of the\nfuture will certainly be for greater social health and better social\norganisation, it is not likely that this bad exception will be the\nbeginning of a new rule.\n\n\nXVI.\n\nMeanwhile we can, in some slight measure, foretell one or two of the\ndirections in which our future artistic readjustment is most likely to\nbegin, even apart from that presumable social reorganisation and\nindustrial progress which will give greater leisure and comfort to the\nworkers, and make their individual character the guide, and not the\nslave, of this machinery. Such a direction is already indicated by one\nof our few original and popular forms of art: the picture-book and the\nposter, which, by the new processes of our colour printing, have\nplaced some of the most fanciful and delicate of our artists--men like\nCaldecott and Walter Crane, like Cheret and Boutet de Monvel, at the\nservice of everyone equally. Moreover, it is probable that long before\nmachinery is so perfected as to demand individual guidance, preference\nand therefore desire for beauty, and long before a corresponding\nreadjustment of work and leisure, the eye will have again become\nattentive through the necessities of rational education. The habit of\nteaching both adults and children by demonstration rather than\nprecept, by awaking the imagination rather than burdening the memory,\nwill quite undoubtedly recall attention to visible things, and thereby\nopen new fields to art: geography, geology, natural history, let alone\nhistory in its vaster modern sociological and anthropological aspect,\nwill insist upon being taught no longer merely through books, but\nthrough collections of visible objects; and, for all purposes of\nreconstructive and synthetic conception, through pictures.\n\nAnd, what is more, the sciences will afford a new field for poetic\ncontemplation; while the philosophy born of such sciences will\nsynthetise new modes of seeing life and demand new visible symbols.\nThe future will create cosmogonies and Divine Comedies more numerous,\nmore various, than those on sculptured Egyptian temples and Gothic\ncathedrals, and Bibles more imaginative perhaps than the ones painted\nin the Pisa Campo Santo and in the Sixtine Chapel. The future? Nay, we\ncan see a sample already in the present. I am alluding to the panels\nby Albert Besnard in the School of Pharmacy in Paris, a series\nillustrating the making of medicinal drugs, their employment and the\nmethod and subject-matter of the sciences on which pharmaceutical\npractice is based. Not merely the plucking and drying of the herbs in\nsunny, quiet botanical gardens, and the sorting and mingling of earths\nand metals among the furnaces of the laboratory; not merely the first\ntremendous tragic fight between the sudden sickness and the physician,\nand the first pathetic, hard-won victory, the first weary but\nrapturous return out of doors of the convalescent; but the life of the\nmen on whose science our power for life against death is based: the\nbotanists knee-deep in the pale spring woods; the geologists in the\nsnowy hollows of the great blue mountain; the men themselves, the\nyouths listening and the elder men teaching, grave and eager\nintellectual faces, in the lecture rooms. And, finally, the things\nwhich fill the minds of these men, their thoughts and dreams, the\npoetry they have given to the world; the poetry of that infinitely\nremote, dim past, evoked out of cavern remains and fossils--the lake\ndwellers among the mists of melting glaciers; the primaeval horses\nplaying on the still manless shores; the great saurians plunging in\nthe waves of long-dried seas; the jungles which are now our coal beds;\nand see! the beginning of organic life, the first callow vegetation on\nthe stagnant waters in the dawn-light of the world. The place is but a\nmean boarded and glazed vestibule; full of the sickly fumes of\nchemicals; and the people who haunt it are only future apothecaries.\nBut the compositions are as spacious and solemn, the colours as tender\nand brilliant, and the poetry as high and contemplative as that of any\nmediaeval fresco; it is all new also, undreamed of, _sui generis_, in\nits impersonal cosmic suggestiveness, as in its colouring of opal, and\nmetallic patinas, and tea rose and Alpine ice cave.\n\n\nXVII.\n\nI have alluded already to the fact that, perhaps because of the part\nof actual participating work which it entails, music is the art which\nhas most share in life and of life, nowadays. It seems probable\ntherefore that its especial mission may be to keep alive in us the\nfeeling and habit of art, and to transmit them back to those arts of\nvisible form to which it owes, perhaps, the training necessary to its\nown architectural structure and its own colour combinations. Compared\nwith the arts of line and projection, music seems at a certain moral\ndisadvantage, as not being applicable to the things of everyday use,\nand also not educating us to the better knowledge of the beautiful and\nsignificant things of nature. In connection with this kind of\nblindness, music is also compatible (as we see by its flourishing in\ngreat manufacturing towns) with a great deal of desecration of nature\nand much hand-to-mouth ruthlessness of life. But, on the other hand,\nmusic has the especial power of suggesting and regulating emotion, and\nthe still more marvellous faculty of creating an inner world for\nitself, inviolable because ubiquitous.\n\nAnd, therefore, with its audible rhythms and harmonies, its restrained\nclimaxes and finely ordered hierarchies, music may discipline our\nfeelings, or rather what underlies our feelings, the almost\nunconscious life of our nerves, to modalities of order and selection,\nand make the spaceless innermost of our spirit into some kind of\nsanctuary, swept and garnished, until the coming of better days.\n\n\nXVIII.\n\nAccording to a certain class of thinkers, among whom I find Guyau and\nother men of note, art is destined partially to replace religion in\nour lives. But with what are you going to replace religion itself in\nart? For the religious feeling, whenever it existed, gave art an\nelement of thoroughness which the desire for pleasure and interest,\neven for aesthetic pleasure and interest, does not supply. An immense\nfulness of energy is due to the fact that beautiful things, as\nemployed by religion, were intended to be beautiful all through,\nadequate in the all-seeing eye of God or Gods, not merely beautiful on\nthe surface, on the side turned towards the glance of man. For, in\nreligious art, beautiful things are an oblation; they are the best\nthat we can give, as distinguished from a pleasure arranged for\nourselves and got as cheap as possible. Herein lies the impassable\ngulf between the church and theatre, considered aesthetically; for it\nis only in the basest times, of formalism in art as in religion, of\nsuperstition and sensualism, that we find the church imitating the\ntheatre in its paper glories and plaster painted like marble. The\nreal, living religious spirit insists on bringing, as in St Mark's, a\ngift of precious material, of delicate antique ornament, with every\nshipload. The crown of the Madonna is not, like the tragedy queen's,\nof tinsel, the sacrament is not given in an empty chalice. The priest,\neven where he makes no effort to be holy as a man, is at least sacred\nas a priest; whereas there is something uncomfortable in the sense\nthat the actor is only pretending to be this or the other, and we\nourselves pretending to believe him; there is a thin and acid taste in\nthe shams of the stage and in all art which, like that of the stage,\nexists only to the extent necessary to please our fancy or excite our\nfeelings. Why so? For is not pleasing the fancy and exciting the\nfeelings the real, final use of art? Doubtless. But there would seem\nto be in nature a law not merely of the greater economy of means, but\nalso of the greatest output of efficacy: effort helping effort, and\nfunction, function; and many activities, in harmonious interaction,\nobtaining a measure of result far surpassing their mere addition. The\ncreations of our mind are, of course, mere spiritual existences,\nthings of seeming, akin to illusions; and yet our mind can never rest\nsatisfied with an unreality, because our mind is active, penetrative\nand grasping, and therefore craves for realisation, for completeness\nand truth, and feels bruised and maimed whenever it hits against a\ndead wall or is pulled up by a contradiction; nay, worst of all, it\ngrows giddy and faint when suddenly brought face to face with\nemptiness. All insufficiency and shallowness means loss of power; and\nit is such loss of power that we remark when we compare with the\nreligious art of past times the art which, every day more and more, is\ngiven us by the hurried and over-thrifty (may I say \"Reach-me-down\"?)\nhands of secularism. The great art of Greece and of the Middle Ages\nmost often represents something which, to our mind and feelings, is as\nimportant, and even as beautiful, as the representation itself; and\nthe representation, the actual \"work of art\" itself, gains by that\nadded depth and reverence of our mood, is carried deeper (while\nhelping to carry deeper) into our soul. Instead of which we moderns\ntry to be satisfied with allowing the seeing part of us to light on\nsomething pleasant and interesting, while giving the mind only\ntriviality to rest upon; and the mind goes to sleep or chafes to move\naway. We cannot live intellectually and morally in presence of the\nidea, say, of a jockey of Degas or one of his ballet girls in\ncontemplation of her shoe, as long as we can live aesthetically in the\narrangement of lines and masses and dabs of colour and interlacings of\nlight and shade which translate themselves into this _idea_ of jockey\nor ballet girl; we are therefore bored, ruffled, or, what is worse, we\nlearn to live on insufficient spiritual rations, and grow anaemic. Our\nshortsighted practicality, which values means while disregarding ends,\nand conceives usefulness only as a stage in making some other\n_utility_, has led us to suppose that the desire for beauty is\ncompatible, nay commensurate, with indifference to reality: the _real_\nhaving come to mean that which you can plant, cook, eat or sell, not\nwhat you can feel and think.\n\nThis notion credits us with an actual craving for something which\nshould exist as little as possible, in one dimension only, so to\nspeak, or as upon a screen (for fear of occupying valuable space which\nmight be given to producing more food than we can eat); whereas what\nwe desire is just such beauty as will surround us on all sides, such\nharmony as we can live in; our soul, dissatisfied with the reality\nwhich happens to surround it, seeks on the contrary to substitute a\nnew reality of its own making, to rebuild the universe, like Omar\nKhayyam, according to the heart's desire. And nothing can be more\ndifferent than such an instinct from the alleged satisfaction in\nplaying with dolls and knowing that they are not real people. By an\nodd paradoxical coincidence, that very disbelief in the _real_\ncharacter of art, and that divorce betwixt art and utility, is really\ndue to our ultra-practical habit of taking seriously only the\nserviceable or instructive sides of things: the quality of beauty,\nwhich the healthy mind insists upon in everything it deals with,\ngetting to be considered as an idle adjunct, fulfilling no kind of\npurpose; and therefore, as something detachable, separate, and\nspeedily relegated to the museum or lumber-room where we keep our\nvarious shams: ideals, philosophies, all the playthings with which we\nsometimes wile away our idleness. Whereas in fact a great work of art,\nlike a great thought of goodness, exists essentially for our more\nthorough, our more _real_ satisfaction: the soul goes into it with all\nits higher hankerings, and rests peaceful, satisfied, so long as it is\nenclosed in this dwelling of its own choice. And it is, on the\ncontrary, the flux of what we call real life, that is to say, of life\nimposed on us by outer necessities and combinations, which is so often\none-sided, perfunctory, not to be dwelt upon by thought nor penetrated\ninto by feeling, and endurable only according to the angle or the\nlighting up--the angle or lighting up called \"purpose\" which we apply\nto it.\n\n\nXIX.\n\nWith what, I ventured to ask just now, are you going to fill the place\nof religion in art?\n\nWith nothing, I believe, unless with religion itself. Religion,\nperhaps externally unlike any of which we have historical experience;\nbut religion, whether individual or collective, possessing, just\nbecause it is immortal, all the immortal essence of all past and\npresent creeds. And just because religion is the highest form of human\nactivity, and its utility is the crowning one of thoughtful and\nfeeling life, just for this reason will religion return, sooner or\nlater, to be art's most universal and most noble employer.\n\n\nXX.\n\nIn the foregoing pages I have tried to derive the need of beauty from\nthe fact of attention, attention to what we do, think and feel, as\nwell as see and hear; and to demonstrate therefore that all\nspontaneous and efficient art is _the making and doing of useful\nthings in such manner as shall be beautiful_. During this\ndemonstration I have, incidentally, though inexplicitly, pointed out\nthe utility of art itself and of beauty. For beauty is that mode of\nexistence of visible or audible or thinkable things which imposes on\nour contemplating energies rhythms and patterns of unity, harmony and\ncompleteness; and thereby gives us the foretaste and the habit of\nhigher and more perfect forms of life. Art is born of the utilities of\nlife; and art is in itself one of life's greatest utilities.\n\n\n\n\nWASTEFUL PLEASURES.\n\n     \"Er muss lernen edler begehren, damit er nicht noetig habe,\n     erhaben zu wollen.\"--SCHILLER, \"_Aesthetische Erziehung_.\"\n\n\nI.\n\nA pretty, Caldecott-like moment, or rather minute, when the huntsmen\nstood on the green lawn round the moving, tail-switching, dapple mass\nof hounds; and the red coats trotted one by one from behind the\nscreens of bare trees, delicate lilac against the slowly moving grey\nsky. A delightful moment, followed, as the hunt swished past, by the\nsudden sense that these men and women, thus whirled off into what may\nwell be the sole poetry of their lives, are but noisy intruders into\nthese fields and spinnies, whose solemn, secret speech they drown with\nclatter and yelp, whose mystery and charm stand aside on their\npassage, like an interrupted, a profaned rite.\n\nGone; the yapping and barking, the bugle-tootling fade away in the\ndistance; and the trees and wind converse once more.\n\nThis West Wind, which has been whipping up the wan northern sea, and\nrushing round the house all this last fortnight, singing its big\nballads in corridor and chimney, piping its dirges and lullabies in\none's back-blown hair on the sand dunes--this West Wind, with its\nmany chaunts, its occasional harmonies and sudden modulations mocking\nfamiliar tunes, can tell of many things: of the different way in which\nthe great trunks meet its shocks and answer vibrating through\ninnermost fibres; the smooth, muscular boles of the beeches, shaking\ntheir auburn boughs; the stiff, rough hornbeams and thorns isolated\namong the pastures; the ashes whose leaves strew the roads with green\nrushes; the creaking, shivering firs and larches. The West Wind tells\nus of the way how the branches spring outwards, or balance themselves,\nor hang like garlands in the air, and carry their leaves, or needles,\nor nuts; and of their ways of bending and straightening, of swaying\nand trembling. It tells us also, this West Wind, how the sea is lashed\nand furrowed; how the little waves spring up in the offing, and the\nbig waves rise and run forward and topple into foam; how the rocks are\nshaken, the sands are made to hiss and the shingle is rattled up and\ndown; how the great breakers vault over the pier walls, leap\nthundering against the breakwaters, and disperse like smoke off the\ncannon's mouth, like the whiteness of some vast explosion.\n\nThese are the things which the Wind and the Woods can talk about with\nus, nay, even the gorse and the shaking bents. But the hunting folk\npass too quickly, and make too much noise, to hear anything save\nthemselves and their horses' hoofs and their bugle and hounds.\n\n\nII.\n\nI have taken fox-hunting as the type of a pleasure _which destroys\nsomething_, just because it is, in many ways, the most noble and, if I\nmay say so, the most innocent of such pleasures. The death, the,\nperhaps agonising, flight of the fox, occupy no part of the hunter's\nconsciousness, and form no part of his pleasure; indeed, they could,\nbut for the hounds, be dispensed with altogether. There is a fine\ncommunity of emotion between men and creatures, horses and dogs adding\ntheir excitement to ours; there is also a fine lack of the mere\nfeeling of trying to outrace a competitor, something of the collective\nand almost altruistic self-forgetfulness of a battle. There is the\nbreak-neck skurry, the flying across the ground and through the air at\nthe risk of limbs and life, and at the mercy of one's own and one's\nhorse's pluck, skill and good fellowship. All this makes up a rapture\nin which many ugly things vanish, and certain cosmic intuitions flash\nforth for some, at least, of the hunters. The element of poetry is\ngreater, the element of brutality less, in this form of intoxication\nthan in many others. It has a handsomer bearing than its modern\nsuccessor, the motor-intoxication, with its passiveness and (for all\nbut the driver) its lack of skill, its confinement, moreover, to\nbeaten roads, and its petrol-stench and dustcloud of privilege and of\ninconvenience to others. And the intoxication of hunting is, to my\nthinking at least, cleaner, wholesomer, than the intoxication of, let\nus say, certain ways of hearing music. But just because so much can be\nsaid, both positive and negative, in its favour, I am glad that\nhunting, and not some meaner or some less seemly amusement, should\nhave set me off moralising about such pleasures as are wasteful of\nother things or of some portion of our soul.\n\n\nIII.\n\nFor nothing can be further from scientific fact than that\ncross-grained and ill-tempered puritanism identifying pleasure with\nsomething akin to sinfulness. Philosophically considered, Pain is so\nfar stronger a determinant than Pleasure, that its _vis a tergo_ might\nhave sufficed to ensure the survival of the race, without the far\nmilder action of Pleasure being necessary at all; so that the very\nexistence of Pleasure would lead us to infer that, besides its\nfunction of selecting, like Pain, among life's possibilities, it has\nthe function of actually replenishing the vital powers, and thus\nmaking amends, by its healing and invigorating, for the wear and tear,\nthe lessening of life's resources through life's other great Power of\nSelection, the terror-angel of Pain. This being the case, Pleasure\ntends, and should tend more and more, to be consistent with itself, to\nmean a greater chance of its own growth and spreading (as opposed to\nPain's dwindling and suicidal nature), and in so far to connect itself\nwith whatsoever facts make for the general good, and to reject,\ntherefore, all cruelty, injustice, rapacity and wastefulness of\nopportunities and powers.\n\nNay, paradoxical though such a notion may seem in the face of our past\nand present state of barbarism, Pleasure, and hence amusement, should\nbecome incompatible with, be actually _spoilt by_, any element of\nloss to self and others, of mischief even to the distant, the future,\nand of impiety to that principle of Good which is but the summing up\nof the claims of the unseen and unborn.\n\n\nIV.\n\nI was struck, the other day, by the name of a play on a theatre\nposter: _A Life of Pleasure_. The expression is so familiar that we\nhear and employ it without thinking how it has come to be. Yet, when\nby some accident it comes to be analysed, its meaning startles with an\nodd revelation. Pleasure, a life of pleasure.... Other lives, to be\nlivable, must contain more pleasure than pain; and we know, as a fact,\nthat all healthy work is pleasurable to healthy creatures. Intelligent\nconverse with one's friends, study, sympathy, all give pleasure; and\nart is, in a way, the very type of pleasure. Yet we know that none of\nall that is meant in the expression: a life of pleasure. A curious\nthought, and, as it came to me, a terrible one. For that expression is\nsymbolic. It means that, of all the myriads of creatures who surround\nus, in the present and past, the vast majority identifies pleasure\nmainly with such a life; despises, in its speech at least, all other\nsorts of pleasure, the pleasure of its own honest strivings and\naffections, taking them for granted, making light thereof.\n\n\nV.\n\nWe are mistaken, I think, in taxing the generality of people with\nindifference to ideals, with lack of ideas directing their lives. Few\nlives are really lawless or kept in check only by the _secular arm_,\nthe judge or policeman. Nor is conformity to _what others do, what is\nfit for one's class_ or _seemly in one's position_ a result of mere\nunreasoning imitation or of the fear of being boycotted. The potency\nof such considerations is largely that of summing up certain rules and\ndefining the permanent tendencies of the individual, or those he would\nwish to be permanent; in other words, we are in the presence of\n_ideals of conduct_.\n\nWhy else are certain things _those which have to be done_; whence\notherwise such expressions as _social duties_ and _keeping up one's\nposition_? Why such fortitude under boredom, weariness, constraint;\nsuch heroism sometimes in taking blows and snubs, in dancing on with\nbroken heart-strings like the Princess in Ford's play? All this means\nan ideal, nay, a religion. Yes; people, quite matter-of-fact, worldly\npeople, are perpetually sacrificing to ideals. And what is more, quite\nsuperior, virtuous people, religious in the best sense of the word,\nare apt to have, besides the ostensible and perhaps rather obsolete\none of churches and meeting-houses, another cultus, esoteric, unspoken\nbut acted upon, of which the priests and casuists are ladies'-maids\nand butlers.\n\nNow, if one could only put to profit some of this wasted dutifulness,\nthis useless heroism; if some of the energy put into the ideal\nprogress (as free from self-interest most often as the _accumulating\nmerit_ of Kim's Buddhist) called _getting on in the world_ could only\nbe applied in _getting the world along_!\n\n\nVI.\n\nAn eminent political economist, to whom I once confided my aversion\nfor such _butler's and lady's-maid's ideals of life_, admonished me\nthat although useless possessions, unenjoyable luxury, ostentation,\nand so forth, undoubtedly represented a waste of the world's energies\nand resources, they should nevertheless be tolerated, inasmuch as\nconstituting a great incentive to industry. People work, he said,\nlargely that they may be able to waste. If you repress wastefulness\nyou will diminish, by so much, the production of wealth by the\nwasteful, by the luxurious and the vain....\n\nThis may be true. Habits of modesty and of sparingness might perhaps\ndeprive the world of as much wealth as they would save. But even\nsupposing this to be true, though the wealth of the world did not\nimmediately gain, there would always be the modesty and sparingness to\nthe good; virtues which, sooner or later, would be bound to make more\nwealth exist or to make existing wealth _go a longer way_. Appealing\nto higher motives, to good sense and good feeling and good taste, has\nthe advantage of saving the drawbacks of lower motives, which _are_\nlower just because they have such drawbacks. You may get a man to do a\ndesirable thing from undesirable motives; but those undesirable\nmotives will induce him, the very next minute, to do some undesirable\nthing. The wages of good feeling and good taste is the satisfaction\nthereof. The wages of covetousness and vanity is the grabbing of\nadvantages and the humiliating of neighbours; and these make life\npoorer, however much bread there may be to eat or money to spend. What\nare called higher motives are merely those which expand individual\nlife into harmonious connection with the life of all men; what we call\nlower motives bring us hopelessly back, by a series of vicious\ncircles, to the mere isolated, sterile egos. Sterile, I mean, in the\nsense that the supply of happiness dwindles instead of increasing.\n\n\nVII.\n\nWaste of better possibilities, of higher qualities, of what we call\n_our soul_. To denounce this is dignified, but it is also easy and\nmost often correspondingly useless. I wish to descend to more prosaic\nmatters, and, as Ruskin did in his day, to denounce the _mere waste of\nmoney_. For the wasting of money implies nearly always all those other\nkinds of wasting. And although there are doubtless pastimes (pastimes\npromoted, as is our wont, for fear of yet _other_ pastimes), which are\nin themselves unclean or cruel, these are less typically evil, just\nbecause they are more obviously so, than the amusements which imply\nthe destruction of wealth, the destruction of part of the earth's\nresources and of men's labour and thrift, and incidentally thereon of\nhuman leisure and comfort and the world's sweetness.\n\nDo you remember La Bruyere's famous description of the peasants under\nLouis XIV.? \"One occasionally meets with certain wild animals, both\nmale and female, scattered over the country; black, livid and parched\nby the sun, bound to the soil which they scratch and dig up with\ndesperate obstinacy. They have something which sounds like speech, and\nwhen they raise themselves up they show a human face. And, as a fact,\nthey are human beings.\" The _Ancien Regime_, which had reduced them to\nthat, and was to continue reducing them worse and worse for another\nhundred years by every conceivable tax, tithe, toll, servage, and\nprivilege, did so mainly to pay for amusements. Amusements of the\n_Roi-Soleil_, with his Versailles and Marly and aqueducts and\nwaterworks, plays and operas; amusements of Louis XV., with his\nParc-aux-Cerfs; amusements of Marie-Antoinette, playing the virtuous\nrustic at Trianon; amusements of new buildings, new equipages, new\nribbons and bibbons, new diamonds (including the fatal necklace);\namusements of hunting and gambling and love-making; amusements\nsometimes atrocious, sometimes merely futile, but all of them leaving\nnothing behind, save the ravaged grass and stench of brimstone of\nburnt-out fireworks.\n\nMoreover, wasting money implies _getting more_. And the processes by\nwhich such wasted money is replaced are, by the very nature of those\nwho do the wasting, rarely, nay, never, otherwise than wasteful in\nthemselves. To put into their pockets or, like Marshall Villeroi\n(\"a-t-on mis de l'or dans mes poches?\"), have it put by their valets,\nto replace what was lost overnight, these proud and often honourable\nnobles would ante-chamber and cringe for sinecures, pensions,\nindemnities, privileges, importune and supplicate the King, the King's\nmistress, pandar or lacquey. And the sinecure, pension, indemnity or\nprivilege was always deducted out of the bread--rye-bread,\nstraw-bread, grass-bread--which those parched, prone human animals\ndescribed by La Bruyere were extracting \"with desperate\nobstinacy\"--out of the ever more sterile and more accursed furrow.\n\nIt is convenient to point the moral by reference to those kings and\nnobles of other centuries, without incurring pursuit for libel, or\nwounding the feelings of one's own kind and estimable contemporaries.\nStill, it may be well to add that, odd though it appears, the vicious\ncircle (in both senses of the words) continues to exist; and that,\neven in our democratic civilisation, _you cannot waste money without\nwasting something else in getting more money to replace it_.\n\nWaste, and _lay waste_, even as if your pastime had consisted not in\nharmless novelty and display, in gentlemanly games or good-humoured\nsport, but in destruction and devastation for their own sake.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nIt has been laid waste, that little valley which, in its delicate and\naustere loveliness, was rarer and more perfect than any picture or\npoem. Those oaks, ivy garlanded like Maenads, which guarded the\nshallow white weirs whence the stream leaps down; those ilexes, whose\ndark, loose boughs hung over the beryl pools like hair of drinking\nnymphs; those trees which were indeed the living and divine owners of\nthat secluded place, dryads and oreads older and younger than any\nmortals,--have now been shamefully stripped, violated and maimed,\ntheir shorn-off leafage, already withered, gathered into faggots or\ntrodden into the mud made by woodcutters' feet in the place of violets\nand tender grasses and wild balm; their flayed bodies, hacked grossly\nout of shape, and flung into the defiled water until the moment when,\nthe slaughter and dishonour and profanation being complete, the\ndealers' carts will come cutting up the turf and sprouting reeds, and\ncarry them off to the station or timber-yard. The very stumps and\nroots will be dragged out for sale; the earthy banks, raw and torn,\nwill fall in, muddying and clogging that pure mountain brook; and the\nhillside, turning into sliding shale, will dam it into puddles with\nthe refuse from the quarries above. And thus, for less guineas than\nwill buy a new motor or cover an hour of Monte Carlo, a corner of the\nworld's loveliness and peace will be gone as utterly as those chairs\nand tables and vases and cushions which the harlot in Zola's novel\nbroke, tore, and threw upon the fire for her morning's amusement.\n\n\nIX.\n\nThere is in our imperfect life too little of pleasure and too much of\nplay. This means that our activities are largely wasted in\npleasureless ways; that, being more tired than we should be, we lose\nmuch time in needed rest; moreover, that being, all of us more or\nless, slaves to the drudgery of need or fashion, we set a positive\nvalue on that negative good called freedom, even as the pause between\npain takes, in some cases, the character of pleasure.\n\nThere is in all play a sense not merely of freedom from\nresponsibility, from purpose and consecutiveness, a possibility of\nbreaking off, or slackening off, but a sense also of margin, of\npermitted pause and blank and change; all of which answer to our\nbeing on the verge of fatigue or boredom, at the limit of our energy,\nas is normal in the case of growing children (for growth exhausts),\nand inevitable in the case of those who work without the renovation of\ninterest in what they are doing.\n\nIf you notice people on a holiday, you will see them doing a large\namount of \"nothing,\" dawdling, in fact; and \"amusements\" are, when\nthey are not excitements, that is to say, stimulations to deficient\nenergy, full of such \"doing nothing.\" Think, for instance, of \"amusing\nconversation\" with its gaps and skippings, and \"amusing\" reading with\nits perpetual chances of inattention.\n\nAll this is due to the majority of us being too weak, too badly born\nand bred, to give full attention except under the constraint of\nnecessary work, or under the lash of some sort of excitement; and as a\nconsequence to our obtaining a sense of real well-being only from the\nspare energy which accumulates during idleness. Moreover, under our\npresent conditions (as under those of slave-labour) \"work\" is rarely\nsuch as calls forth the effortless, the willing, the pleased\nattention. Either in kind or length or intensity, work makes a greater\ndemand than can be met by the spontaneous, happy activity of most of\nus, and thereby diminishes the future chances of such spontaneous\nactivity by making us weaker in body and mind.\n\nNow, so long as work continues to be thus strained or against the\ngrain, play is bound to be either an excitement which leaves us poorer\nand more tired than before (the fox-hunter, for instance, at the close\nof the day, or on the off-days), or else play will be mere dawdling,\ngetting out of training, in a measure demoralisation. For\ndemoralisation, in the etymological sense being _debauched_, is the\ncorrelative of over-great or over-long effort; both spoil, but the one\nspoils while diminishing the mischief made by the other.\n\nArt is so much less useful than it should be, because of this bad\ndivision of \"work\" and \"play,\" between which two it finds no place.\nFor Art--and the art we unwittingly practice whenever we take pleasure\nin nature--is without appeal either to the man who is straining at\nbusiness and to the man who is dawdling in amusement.\n\nAEsthetic pleasure implies energy during rest and leisureliness during\nlabour. It means making the most of whatever beautiful and noble\npossibilities may come into our life; nay, it means, in each single\nsoul, _being_ for however brief a time, beautiful and noble because\none is filled with beauty and nobility.\n\n\nX.\n\nTo eat his bread in sorrow and the sweat of his face was, we are apt\nto forget, the first sign of man's loss of innocence. And having\nlearned that we must reverse the myth in order to see its meaning\n(since innocence is not at the beginning, but rather at the end of the\nstory of mankind), we might accept it as part of whatever religion we\nmay have, that the evil of our world is exactly commensurate with the\nhardship of useful tasks and the wastefulness and destructiveness of\npleasures and diversions. Evil and also folly and inefficiency, for\neach of these implies the existence of much work badly done, of much\nwork to no purpose, of a majority of men so weak and dull as to be\nexcluded from choice and from leisure, and a minority of men so weak\nand dull as to use choice and leisure mainly for mischief. To reverse\nthis original sinful constitution of the world is the sole real\nmeaning of progress. And the only reason for wishing inventions to be\nperfected, wealth to increase, freedom to be attained, and, indeed,\nthe life of the race to be continued at all, lies in the belief that\nsuch continued movement must bring about a gradual diminution of\npleasureless work and wasteful play. Meanwhile, in the wretched past\nand present, the only aristocracy really existing has been that of the\nprivileged creatures whose qualities and circumstances must have been\nsuch that, whether artisans or artists, tillers of the ground or\nseekers after truth, poets, philosophers, or mothers and nurses, their\nwork has been their pleasure. This means _love_; and love means\nfruitfulness.\n\n\nXI.\n\nThere are moments when, catching a glimpse of the frightful weight of\ncare and pain with which mankind is laden, I am oppressed by the\nthought that all improvement must come solely through the continued\nselfish shifting of that burden from side to side, from shoulder to\nshoulder; through the violent or cunning destruction of some of the\nintolerable effects of selfishness in the past by selfishness in the\npresent and the future. And that in the midst of this terrible but\nsalutary scuffle for ease and security, the ideals of those who are\nprivileged enough to have any, may be not much more useful than the\nfly on the axle-tree.\n\nIt may be, it doubtless is so nowadays, although none of us can tell\nto what extent.\n\nBut even if it be so, let us who have strength and leisure for\npreference and ideals prepare ourselves to fit, at least to acquiesce,\nin the changes we are unable to bring about. Do not let us seek our\npleasure in things which we condemn, or remain attached to those which\nare ours only through the imperfect arrangements which we deplore. We\nare, of course, all tied tight in the meshes of our often worthless\nand cruel civilisation, even as the saints felt themselves caught in\nthe meshes of bodily life. But even as they, in their day, fixed their\nhopes on the life disembodied, so let us, in our turn, prepare our\nsouls for that gradual coming of justice on earth which we shall never\nwitness, by forestalling its results in our valuations and our wishes.\n\n\nXII.\n\nThe other evening, skirting the Links, we came upon a field, where,\namong the brown and green nobbly grass, was gathered a sort of\nparliament of creatures: rooks on the fences, seagulls and peewits\nwheeling overhead, plovers strutting and wagging their tails; and,\nundisturbed by the white darting of rabbits, a covey of young\npartridges, hopping leisurely in compact mass.\n\nIs it because we see of these creatures only their harmlessness to us,\nbut not the slaughter and starving out of each other; or is it because\nof their closer relation to simple and beautiful things, to nature;\nor is it merely because they are _not human beings_--who shall tell?\nbut, for whatever reason, such a sight does certainly bring up in us a\nsense, however fleeting, of simplicity, _mansuetude_ (I like the\ncharming mediaeval word), of the kinship of harmlessness.\n\nI was thinking this while wading up the grass this morning to the\ncraig behind the house, the fields of unripe corn a-shimmer and\na-shiver in the light, bright wind; the sea and distant sky so merged\nin delicate white mists that a ship, at first sight, seemed a bird\npoised in the air. And, higher up, among the ragwort and tall\nthistles, I found in the coarse grass a dead baby-rabbit, shot and not\nkilled at once, perhaps; or shot and not picked up, as not worth\ntaking: a little soft, smooth, feathery young handful, laid out very\ndecently, as human beings have to be laid out by one another, in\ndeath.\n\nIt brought to my mind a passage where Thoreau, who understood such\nmatters, says, that although the love of nature may be fostered by\nsport, such love, when once consummate, will make nature's lover\nlittle by little shrink from slaughter, and hanker after a diet\nwherein slaughter is unnecessary.\n\nIt is sad, not for the beasts but for our souls, that, since we must\nkill beasts for food (though may not science teach a cleaner, more\nhuman diet?) or to prevent their eating us out of house and home, it\nis sad that we should choose to make of this necessity (which ought to\nbe, like all our baser needs, a matter if not of shame at least of\ndecorum) that we should make of this ugly necessity an opportunity for\namusement. It is sad that nowadays, when creatures, wild and tame,\nare bred for killing, the usual way in which man is brought in contact\nwith the creatures of the fields and woods and streams (such man, I\nmean, as thinks, feels or is expected to) should be by slaughtering\nthem.\n\nSurely it might be more akin to our human souls, to gentleness of\nbringing up, Christianity of belief and chivalry of all kinds, to be,\nrather than a hunter, a shepherd. Yet the shepherd is the lout in our\nidle times; the shepherd, and the tiller of the soil; and alas, the\nnaturalist, again, is apt to be the _muff_.\n\nBut may the time not come when, apart from every man having to do some\nuseful thing, something perchance like tending flocks, tilling the\nground, mowing and forestering--the mere love of beauty, the desire\nfor peace and harmony, the craving for renewal by communion with the\nlife outside our own, will lead men, without dogs or guns or rods,\ninto the woods, the fields, to the river-banks, as to some ancient\npalace full of frescoes, as to some silent church, with solemn rites\nand liturgy?\n\n\nXIII.\n\nThe killing of creatures for sport seems a necessity nowadays. There\nis more than mere bodily vigour to be got by occasional interludes of\noutdoor life, early hours, discomfort and absorption in the ways of\nbirds and beasts; there is actual spiritual renovation. The mere\nreading about such things, in Tolstoi's _Cossacks_ and certain\nchapters of _Anna Karenina_ makes one realise the poetry attached to\nthem; and we all of us know that the genuine sportsman, the man of\ngun and rod and daybreak and solitude, has often a curious halo of\npurity about him; contact with natural things and unfamiliarity with\nthe sordidness of so much human life and endeavour, amounting to a\nkind of consecration. A man of this stamp once told me that no emotion\nin his life had ever equalled that of his first woodcock.\n\nYou cannot have such open-air life, such clean and poetic emotion\nwithout killing. Men are men; they will not get up at cock-crow for\nthe sake of a mere walk, or sleep in the woods for the sake of the\nwood's noises: they must have an object; and what object is there\nexcept killing beasts or birds or fish? Men have to be sportsmen\nbecause they can't all be either naturalists or poets. Killing animals\n(and, some persons would add, killing other men) is necessary to keep\nman manly. And where men are no longer manly they become cruel, not\nfor the sake of sport or war, but for their lusts and for cruelty's\nown sake. And that seems to settle the question.\n\n\nXIV.\n\nBut the question is not really settled. It is merely settled for the\npresent, but not for the future. It is surely a sign of our weakness\nand barbarism that we cannot imagine to-morrow as better than to-day,\nand that, for all our vaunted temporal progress and hypocritical talk\nof duty, we are yet unable to think and to feel in terms of\nimprovement and change; but let our habits, like the vilest vested\ninterests, oppose a veto to the hope and wish for better things.\n\nTo realise that _what is_ does not mean what _will be_, constitutes,\nmethinks, the real spirituality of us poor human creatures, allowing\nour judgments and aspirations to pass beyond our short and hidebound\nlife, to live on in the future, and help to make that _yonside of our\nmortality_, which some of us attempt to satisfy with theosophic\nreincarnation and planchette messages!\n\nBut such spirituality, whose \"it shall\"--or \"it shall not\"--will\nbecome an ever larger part of all _it is_, depends upon the courage of\nrecognising that much of what the past forces us to accept is not good\nenough for the future; recognising that, odious as this may seem to\nour self-conceit and sloth, many of the things we do and like and are,\nwill not bear even our own uncritical scrutiny. Above all, that the\nlesser evil which we prefer to the greater is an evil for all that,\nand requires riddance.\n\nMuch of the world's big mischief is due to the avoidance of a bigger\none. For instance, all this naively insisted on masculine inability to\nobtain the poet's or naturalist's joys without shooting a bird or\nhooking a fish, this inability to love wild life, early hours and\nwholesome fatigue unless accompanied by a waste of life and of money;\nin short, all this incapacity _for being manly without being\ndestructive_, is largely due among us Anglo-Saxons to the bringing up\nof boys as mere playground dunces, for fear (as we are told by parents\nand schoolmasters) that the future citizens of England should take to\nevil communications and worse manners if they did not play and talk\ncricket and football at every available moment. For what can you\nexpect but that manly innocence which has been preserved at the\nexpense of every higher taste should grow up into manly virtue unable\nto maintain itself save by hunting and fishing, shooting and\nhorse-racing; expensive amusements requiring, in their turn, a further\nsacrifice of all capacities for innocent, noble and inexpensive\ninterests, in the absorbing, sometimes stultifying, often debasing\nprocesses of making money?\n\nThe same complacency towards waste and mischief for the sake of moral\nadvantages may be studied in the case also of our womankind. The\nabsorption in their _toilettes_ guards them from many dangers to\nfamily sanctity. And from how much cruel gossip is not society saved\nby the prevalent passion for bridge!\n\nSo at least moralists, who are usually the most complacently\ndemoralised of elderly cynics, are ready to assure us.\n\n\nXV.\n\n\"We should learn to have noble desires,\" wrote Schiller, \"in order to\nhave no need for sublime resolutions.\" And morality might almost take\ncare of itself, if people knew the strong and exquisite pleasures to\nbe found, like the aromatic ragwort growing on every wall and\nstone-heap in the south, everywhere in the course of everyday life.\nBut alas! the openness to cheap and simple pleasures means the fine\ntraining of fine faculties; and mankind asks for the expensive and\nfar-fetched and unwholesome pleasures, because it is itself of poor\nand cheap material and of wholesale scamped manufacture.\n\n\nXVI.\n\nBiological facts, as well as our observation of our own self (which is\npsychology), lead us to believe that, as I have mentioned before,\nPleasure fulfils the function not merely of leading us along livable\nways, but also of creating a surplus of vitality. Itself an almost\nunnecessary boon (since Pain is sufficient to regulate our choice),\nPleasure would thus tend to ever fresh and, if I may use the word,\ngratuitous supplies of good. Does not this give to Pleasure a certain\nfreedom, a humane character wholly different from the awful,\nunappeasable tyranny of Pain? For let us be sincere. Pain, and all the\ncruel alternatives bidding us obey or die, are scarcely things with\nwhich our poor ideals, our good feeling and good taste, have much\nchance of profitable discussion. There is in all human life a side\nakin to that of the beast; the beast hunted, tracked, starved, killing\nand killed for food; the side alluded to under decent formulae like\n\"pressure of population,\" \"diminishing returns,\" \"competition,\" and so\nforth. Not but this side of life also tends towards good, but the\nmeans by which it does so, nature's atrocious surgery, are evil,\nalthough one cannot deny that it is the very nature of Pain to\ndiminish its own recurrence. This thought may bring some comfort in\nthe awful earnestness of existence, this thought that in its cruel\nfashion, the universe is weeding out cruel facts. But to pretend that\nwe can habitually exercise much moral good taste, be of delicate\nforethought, squeamish harmony when Pain has yoked and is driving us,\nis surely a bad bit of hypocrisy, of which those who are being\nstarved or trampled or tortured into acquiescence may reasonably bid\nus be ashamed. Indeed, stoicism, particularly in its discourses to\nothers, has not more sense of shame than sense of humour.\n\nBut since our power of choosing is thus jeopardised by the presence of\nPain, it would the more behove us to express our wish for goodness,\nour sense of close connection, wide and complex harmony with the\nhappiness of others, in those moments of respite and liberty which we\ncall happiness, and particularly in those freely chosen concerns which\nwe call play.\n\nAlas, we cannot help ourselves from becoming unimaginative,\nunsympathising, destructive and brutish when we are hard pressed by\nagony or by fear. Therefore, let such of us as have stuff for finer\nthings, seize some of our only opportunities, and seek to become\nharmless in our pleasures.\n\nWho knows but that the highest practical self-cultivation would not be\ncompassed by a much humbler paraphrase of Schiller's advice: let us\nlearn to like what does no harm to the present or the future, in order\nnot to throw away heroic efforts or sentimental intentions, in doing\nwhat we don't like for someone else's supposed benefit.\n\n\nXVII.\n\nThe various things I have been saying have been said, or, better\nstill, taken for granted, by Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Ruskin,\nPater, Stevenson, by all our poets in verse and prose. What I wish to\nadd is that, being a poet, seeing and feeling like a poet, means\nquite miraculously multiplying life's resources for oneself and\nothers; in fact the highest practicality conceivable, the real\ntransmutation of brass into gold. Now what we all waste, more even\nthan money, land, time and labour, more than we waste the efforts and\nrewards of other folk, and the chances of enjoyment of unborn\ngenerations (and half of our so-called practicality is nothing but\nsuch waste), what we waste in short more than anything else, is our\nown and our children's inborn capacity to see and feel as poets do,\nand make much joy out of little material.\n\n\nXVIII.\n\nThere is no machine refuse, cinder, husk, paring or rejected material\nof any kind which modern ingenuity cannot turn to profit, making\nuseful and pleasant goods out of such rubbish as we would willingly,\nat first sight, shoot out of the universe into chaos. Every material\nthing can be turned, it would seem, into new textures, clean metal,\nmanure, fuel or what not. But while we are thus economical with our\ndust-heaps, what horrid wastefulness goes on with our sensations,\nimpressions, memories, emotions, with our souls and all the things\nthat minister to their delight!\n\n\nXIX.\n\nAn ignorant foreign body--and, after all, everyone is a foreigner\nsomewhere and ignorant about something--once committed the enormity of\nasking his host, just back from cub-hunting, whether the hedgerows,\nwhen he went out of a morning, were not quite lovely with those dewy\ncobwebs which the French call Veils of the Virgin. It had to be\nexplained that such a sight was the most unwelcome you could imagine,\nsince it was a sure sign there would be no scent. The poor foreigner\nwas duly crestfallen, as happens whenever one has nearly spoilt a\nfriend's property through some piece of blundering.\n\nBut the blunder struck me as oddly symbolical. Are we not most of us\npursuing for our pleasure, though sometimes at risk of our necks, a\nfox of some kind: worth nothing as meat, little as fur, good only to\ngallop after, and whose unclean scent is incompatible with those\nsparkling gossamers flung, for everyone's delight, over gorse and\nhedgerow?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:\n\nThe edition from which this text was drawn is volume 4175 of the\nTauchnitz Edition of British Authors, where it appeared together with\n_The Spirit of Rome_, also by Vernon Lee. The volume was published in\n1910.\n\nThe following changes were made to the text:\n\n solely for the purpose or          solely for the purpose of\n\n coeteris paribus                   caeeteris paribus\n\n Mautineia (Higher Harmonies I)     Mantineia\n\n The Gothic boldness of light and   The Gothic boldness of light and\n shade of the Campanile make        shade of the Campanile makes\n\n Tuskan                             Tuscan\n\n the workmen will be able (...)     the workman will be able (...)\n\n learn their appearance and care    learn their appearance and care\n for it                             for them\n\n The death, (...) the (...)         The death, (...) the (...)\n flight of the fox, occupy no part  flight of the fox, occupy no part\n (...) and forms no part            (...) and form no part\n\n the Monnets                        the Monets","title":"Laurus Nobilis: Chapters on Art and Life","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":54510}