,,principle ,,in ,,art ,,etc4 ,,principle ,,in ,,art ,,etc4 ,,by ,,coventry ,,patmore ,,london ,,george ,,bell ,,and ,,sons1 ,,york ,,street1 ,,covent ,,garden #ahhi ,,preface ,with one exception1 namely the last ,paper in the ,collection1 which appeared in the ,fortnightly ,review1 all these ,essays were printed in the ,st4 ,james's ,gazette during the editorship of ,mr4 ,greenwood4 ,the ,essay on 8,architectural ,styles0 contains a summary of principles which ,i stated1 some thirty years ago1 in various ,articles1 chiefly in the ,edinburgh ,review4 ,as this ,essay now stands1 ,i hope that readers1 who have knowledge enough to enable them to judge1 will find in it an example of the kind of criticism which ,i have advocated earlier in the volume4 ,,coventry ,,patmore4 ,,contents ,,essay ,,page ,i4 ,,principle ,,in ,,art #a ,,ii4 ,,real ,,apprehension #f ,,iii4 ,,seers1 ,,thinkers1 ,,and ,,talkers #ad ,,iv4 ,,possibilities ,,and ,,performances #be ,v4 ,,cheerfulness ,,in ,,life ,,and ,,art #ca ,,vi4 ,,the ,,point ,,of ,,rest ,,in ,,art #cg ,,vii4 ,,imagination #dc ,,viii4 ,,pathos #di ,,ix4 ,,poetical ,,integrity #ef ,x4 ,,the ,,poetry ,,of ,,negation #fb ,,xi4 ,,the ,,limitations ,,of ,,genius #fg ,,xii4 ,,love ,,and ,,poetry #gb ,,xiii4 ,,keats #hj ,,xiv4 ,,what ,,shelley ,,was #hg ,,xv4 ,,blake #ig ,,xvi4 ,,rossetti ,,as ,a ,,poet #ajc ,,xvii4 ,,mr4 ,,swinburne',s ,,selections #aab ,,xviii4 ,,arthur ,,hugh ,,clough #aah ,,xix4 ,,emerson #abe ,,xx4 ,,crabbe ,,and ,,shelley #acd ,,xxi4 ,,shall ,,smith ,,have ,a ,,statue8 #ada ,,xxii4 ,,ideal ,,and ,,material ,,greatness ,,in ,,architecture #adf ,,xxiii4 8,,old ,,english0 ,,architecture1 ,,ancient ,,and ,,modern #aed ,,xxiv4 ,,architectural ,,styles #afj ,,xxv4 ,,thoughts ,,on ,,knowledge1 ,,opinion1 ,,and ,,inequality #bjb ,i ,,principle ,,in ,,art ,it is not true1 though it has so often been asserted1 that criticism is of no use or of little use to art4 ,this notion prevails so widely only because--among us at least--criticism has not been criticism4 ,to criticise is to judge2 to judge requires judicial qualification2 and this is quite a different thing from a natural sensitiveness to beauty1 however much that sensitiveness may have become heightened by converse with refined and beautiful objects of nature and works of art4 8,criticism10 which has been the outcome only of such sensitiveness and such converse1 may be1 and often is1--delightful reading1 and is naturally far more popular than criticism which is truly judicial4 ,the pseudo-criticism1 of which we have had such floods during the past half-century1 delights by sympathy with1 and perhaps expansion of1 our own sensations2 true criticism appeals to the intellect1 and rebukes the reader as often as it does the artist for his ignorance and his mistakes4 ,such criticism may not be able to produce good art2 but bad art collapses at the contact of its breath1 as the steam in the cylinder of an engine collapses on each admission of the spray of cold water2 and thus1 although good criticism cannot produce art1 it removes endless hindrances to its production1 and tends to provide art with its chief motive-power1 a public prepared to acknowledge it4 ,the enunciation of a single principle has sometimes1 almost at a blow1 revolutionised not only the technical practice of an art1 but the popular taste with regard to it4 ,strawberry ,hill ,gothic vanished like a nightmare when ,pugin for the first time authoritatively asserted and proved that architectural decoration could never properly be an addition to constructive features1 but only a fashioning of them4 ,the truth was manifest at once to amateur as well as to architect2 and this one principle proves to have contained a power even of popular culture far greater than all the splendid 8sympathetic0 criticism which followed during the next fifty years4 ,and it has done nothing but good1 whereas the latter kind of writing1 together with much good1 has done much harm4 ,pugin's insight did not enable him to discover the almost equally clear and simple principle which governs the special form of decoration that properly characterises each of the great styles of architecture4 ,therefore1 while his law of constructional decoration compelled all succeeding 8critics0 to keep within its bounds1 they were still free to give the rein to mere fancy as to the nature of the decoration itself2 and this has been becoming worse and worse in proportion as critics and architects of genius1 but of no principle1 have departed from the dry tradition of decorative form which prevailed in ,pugin's day1 and which finds its orthodox expression in ,parker's ,glossary and the elementary works of ,bloxam and ,rickman4 ,sensitiveness or natural 8taste10 apart from principle1 is1 in art1 what love is apart from truth in morals4 ,the stronger it is1 the further it is likely to go wrong4 ,nothing can be more tenderly 8felt0 than a school of painting which is now much in favour2 but1 for want of knowledge and masculine principle1 it has come to delight in representing ugliness and corruption in place of health and beauty4 ,venus or ,hebe becomes1 in its hands1 nothing but a ,dame aux ,camlias in the last stage of moral and physical deterioration4 ,a few infallible and1 when once uttered1 self-evident principles would at once put a stop to this sort of representation among artists2 and the public would soon learn to be repelled by what now most attracts them1 being thenceforward guided by a critical conscience1 which is the condition of 8good taste40 ,there is little that is conclusive or fruitful in any of the criticism of the present day4 ,the very name that it has chosen1 8sthetics10 contains an implied admission of its lack of virility or principle4 ,we do not think of ,lessing's ,laocon1 which is one of the finest pieces of critical writing in the world1 as belonging to 8sthetics02 and1 like it1 the critical sayings of ,goethe and ,coleridge seem to appertain to a science deserving a nobler name--a science in which truth stands first and feeling second1 and of which the conclusions are demonstrable and irreversible4 ,a critic of the present day1 in attempting to describe the difference between the usual construction of a passage by ,fletcher and one by ,shakespeare1 would beat helplessly about the bush1 telling us many things about the different sorts of feelings awakened by the one and by the other1 and concluding1 and desiring to conclude1 nothing4 ,coleridge in a single sentence defines the difference1 and establishes ,shakespeare's immeasurable superiority with the clearness and finality of a mathematical statement2 and the delight of the reader of ,shakespeare is for ever heightened because it is less than before a zeal without knowledge4 ,there already exists1 in the writings and sayings of ,aristotle1 ,hegel1 ,lessing1 ,goethe1 and others1 the greater part of the materials necessary for the formation of a body of ,institutes of ,art which would supersede and extinguish nearly all the desultory chatter which now passes for criticism1 and which would go far to form a true and abiding popular taste--one which could render some reason for its likings and dislikings4 ,the man1 however1 who could put such materials together and add such as are wanting does not live2 or at any rate he is not known4 ,hegel might have done it1 had his artistic perception been as fine and strong as his intellect2 which would then have expressed its conclusions without the mist of obscurity in which1 for nearly all readers1 they are at present shrouded4 ,in the meantime it would be well if the professed critic would remember that criticism is not the expression1 however picturesque and glowing1 of the faith that is in him1 but the rendering of sound and intelligible reasons for that faith4 ,,ii ,,real ,,apprehension 8,man10 says ,dr4 ,newman1 8is not a reasoning animal2 he is a seeing1 feeling1 contemplating1 acting animal40 ,to see rightly is the first of human qualities2 right feeling and right acting are usually its consequences4 ,there are two ways of seeing3 one is to comprehend1 which is to see all round a thing1 or to embrace it2 one is to apprehend1 which is to see it in part1 or to take hold of it4 ,a thing may be really taken hold of which is much too big for embracing4 ,real apprehension implies reality in that which is apprehended4 ,you cannot 8take hold0 of that which is nothing4 ,the notional grasp which some people seem to have of clouds and mares' nests is a totally different thing from real apprehension2 though what this difference is could scarcely be made clear to those who have no experience of the latter4 ,a man may not be able to convey to another his real apprehension of a thing2 but there will be something in his general character and way of discoursing which will convince you1 if you too are a man acquainted with realities1 that he has truly got hold of what he professes to have got hold of1 and you will be wary of denying what he affirms4 ,the man of real apprehensions1 or the truly sensible man1 has no opinions4 ,many things may be dubious to him2 but if he is compelled to act without knowledge1 he does so promptly1 being prompt to discern which of the doubtful ways before him is the least questionable1 on the ground of such evidence as he has4 ,as to what he sees to be true or right1 he does not argue with the person who differs from him upon a vital point1 but only avoids his company1 or1 if he be of an irascible temperament1 feels inclined to knock him down4 ,of course there are some people who see things which do not exist2 but this is lunacy1 and beyond the scope of these remarks4 ,real apprehension is emphatically the quality which constitutes 8good sense40 ,common good sense has a real apprehension of innumerable things which those who add to good sense learning and reflection may comprehend2 but there is much that must for ever remain matter only of real apprehension to the best seers2 that is to say1 everything in which the infinite has a part1 i4e4 all religion1 all virtue as distinguished from temporary expediency1 the grounds of all true art1 etc4 ,a man may have an immense acquaintance with facts2 he may have all history and the whole circle of the sciences on the tip of his tongue2 he may be the author of a classical system of logic1 or may have so cunningly elaborated a false theory of nature as to puzzle and infuriate the wisest of men3 and yet may not really apprehend any part of the truth of life which is properly human knowledge4 ,at the present time it is by politics chiefly that the difference between the two great classes of men is made apparent4 ,for the first time in ,english history1 party limitations coincide almost exactly with the limitations which separate silly from sensible men4 ,if you talk with a sincere ,gladstonian--and1 wonderful to say1 there are still many such--you will soon find that he has no real apprehension of anything4 ,he only feebly and foolishly opines4 ,it is not to be concluded from what has been said that the possession of the apprehending faculty in any way supersedes the good of learning4 ,the power of really apprehending is nothing in the absence of realities to be apprehended4 ,in the great field of ordinary social relationships and duties the subject-matter of such apprehension is largely supplied by individual experience1 and the exercise by most men of that faculty is in the main limited to these2 so that the praise of 8good sense0 has acquired a much narrower signification than it ought to bear4 ,genius is nothing but great good sense1 or real apprehension1 exercised upon objects more or less out of common sight2 and the chief ingredient of even the highest and most heroic sanctity is the same apprehension taking hold upon spiritual truths and applying them to the conduct of the interior as well as the exterior life4 ,men with great strength of real apprehension are easily capable of things which inferior characters regard as great self-sacrifices2 though to them such things are no more sacrifice than in an ordinary man it would be to exchange a ton of lead for a pound of gold4 8,their hearts do not forget the things their eyes have seen20 and persons like ,general ,gordon or ,sir ,thomas ,more would stare if you called anything they did or suffered by the name of sacrifice4 ,you cannot read the writings of ,newman1 ,hooker1 ,pascal1 and ,st4 ,augustine1 without being strongly impressed with the presumption that they have a real apprehension of the things they profess to believe2 and1 since they do not justify in any other way the theory that they are lunatics1 a right-minded reader is likewise disposed to think that what they have thus seen exists1 and that his not having seen such things does not materially diminish that probability4 ,and here it may be well to recur to the text of these remarks3 8,man is not a reasoning animal2 he is a seeing1 feeling1 contemplating1 acting animal40 ,all men properly so called--but a good many who walk upright on two legs cannot properly be so called--are seeing1 feeling1 and acting animals2 but very few men1 indeed1 have as yet attained to be contemplating animals1 though the act of contemplation exercised upon the highest objects is1 according to all great philosophers1 even pagan1 the act for which he is created and in which his final perfection and felicity are attained4 ,the act of real apprehension1 as it is exerted by ordinary men1 and even for the most part by men of extraordinary vigour of intellectual vision1 is momentary1 however permanent may be its effect upon their principles and lives4 ,men of vigorous apprehension look at the heavens of truth1 as it were1 through a powerful telescope1 and see instantly as realities many living lights which are quite invisible to the common eye4 ,but contemplation--a faculty rare in all times1 but wellnigh unheard of in ours--is like the photographic plate which finds stars that no telescope can discover1 by simply setting its passively expectant gaze in certain indicated directions so long and steadily that telescopically invisible bodies become apparent by accumulation of impression4 ,such men are prophets and apostles1 whether canonical or not4 ,it is by the instrumentality of such men that religions are established and upheld2 and the term 8verifiable religion0 is a piece of mere nineteenth-century slang1 when applied to the examination of dogma by such as have probably never had the remotest apprehension of any spiritual reality4 ,certain facts of history relating to religion may or may not be capable of 8verification0 to the multitude2 but the dogmas which are the substance of a religion1 can only be really apprehended--assuming them to be real and apprehensible--by the exceedingly few to whom the highest powers of contemplation1 which are usually the accompaniments of equally extraordinary virtues1 are accorded4 ,the mass of mankind must receive and hold these things as they daily receive and hold a thousand other things--laws1 customs1 traditions1 the grounds of common moralities1 etc4--by faith2 their real apprehension in such matters extending for the most part only to the discernment of the reasonableness of so receiving and holding them4 ,now this faculty and habit of really apprehending things1 even in its lower and not uncommon degree1 is an immeasurable advantage2 but it has its drawback4 ,those who possess it are singularly capable of committing the unpardonable sin1 the sin against knowledge4 8,father1 forgive them1 for they know not what they do0 is a petition which ,he who spoke these words could not have offered for deeds or denials in clear opposition to what a man knows to be true and good4 8,my name is in him and ,he will not pardon40 ,all men agree in calling the spirit of truth--which is the spirit by which truth is really apprehended--holy2 and to deny this spirit in deliberate action may1 without any appeal to ,christian doctrine1 be proved to be unpardonable by the way such action is known to influence a man's character4 ,a single act of such denial1 if it be in some great and vital matter1 often seems to destroy the soul4 ,history affords more than one example of a statesman who has begun life with an eagle eye for truth1 a strong and tender love of honour1 and everything that makes a man among men4 ,at some crisis of temptation he chooses personal ambition before some clearly apprehended duty of patriotism2 and his whole nature seems thenceforward changed3 he drops like a scorched fly from the flame-- ,then takes his doom1 to limp and crawl1 ,blind and despised1 from fall to fall4 ,but the least practical denial of real apprehension of the truth is1 to such as have ever had a conscience and have observed themselves1 demonstrably unpardonable1 inasmuch as it destroys a portion of the capacity of the soul4 8,the remnant0 may1 indeed1 8become a great nation10 but it will be still and for ever a remnant of what it would have been1 had it preserved the integrity of its fidelity4 ,if we knew the secrets of the lives of those--alas6 innumerable--who seem to have no real apprehension of anything1 none of the light which it is said lighteth every man that cometh into the world1 it would probably be found that they have not been born without1 but have forfeited their noblest human heritage1 by repeated practical denials of the things which they have seen4 ,,iii ,,seers1 ,,thinkers1 ,,and ,,talkers ,i ,the intellect1 the understanding or discursive reason1 and the memory1 it need scarcely be said1 are three distinct faculties2 yet in their exercise and the character they acquire for their possessors1 they are apt to be confused1 and that not without damage to the public and private interests of those who make the mistake4 ,intellect1 though it is constantly spoken of as synonymous with understanding1 is really an incomparably rarer quality1 the difference being that which subsists between 8genius0 and 8talent02 and to ignorant persons a ready and well-stored memory1 which is consistent with the almost total defect of either of the nobler faculties1 is often regarded as a combination of both4 ,the intellect is the faculty of the 8seer40 ,it discerns truth as a living thing2 and1 according as it is in less or greater power1 it discerns with a more or less far-seeing glance the relationships of principles to each other1 and of facts1 circumstances1 and the realities of nature to principles1 without anything that can be properly called ratiocination4 ,it cannot be cultivated1 as the understanding and memory can be and need to be2 and it cannot in the ordinary course of things be injured1 except by one means--namely1 dishonesty1 that is1 habitual denial by the will1 for the sake of interested or vicious motives1 of its own perceptions4 ,genius and high moral--not necessarily physical--courage are therefore found to be constant companions4 ,indeed1 it is difficult to say how far an absolute moral courage in acknowledging intuitions may not be of the very nature of genius3 and whether it might not be described as a sort of interior sanctity which dares to see and confess to itself that it sees1 though its vision should place it in a minority of one4 ,everybody feels that genius is1 in a sort1 infallible4 ,that it is so1 is indeed an 8identical proposition40 ,so far as a man is not infallible in what he professes to see1 he is not a man of genius--that is1 he is not a seer4 ,it is by no figure of speech that genius is called inspiration4 ,dr4 ,newman somewhere observes that ,st4 ,augustine and some of the primitive teachers of the ,church wandered at will through all the mazes of theology with an intuitive orthodoxy of genius4 ,although this faculty of direct vision is very rare in comparison with those of ordinary ratiocination and memory1 it is not nearly so rare as is supposed by such as measure genius by its manifestations in philosophy1 science1 art1 or statesmanship4 ,for one seer who has the accomplishments and opportunities whereby his faculty can be turned to public account1 there are scores and hundreds who possess and exercise for their private use their extraordinary perceptive powers4 ,to whom has it not happened1 at one time or other1 to witness the instantaneous shattering of some splendid edifice of reasoning and memory by the brief ,socratic interrogation of some ignoramus who could see8 ,no mortal intellect or genius is other than very partial1 and1 even in that partial character1 imperfect4 ,absolute genius would be nothing more nor less than the sight of all things at once in their relationship and origin2 but the most imperfect genius has an infinite value--not only because it is actual sight of truth1 but also and still more because it is a peculiar mode of seeing1 a reflection of truth coloured but not obscured by the individual character1 which in each man of genius is entirely unique4 ,this unique character is1 in its expression1 what is called 8style0--the sure mark of genius1 though the world at large is unable to distinguish 8style0 from manner1 or even from mannerism4 ,incomparably the highest and fortunately the least uncommon form of genius is wisdom in the conduct of life2 for this form involves in a far greater degree than any other the constant exercise of that courage which is inseparable from genius4 ,the saint is simply a person who has so strong and clear a sight of the truth which concerns him individually1 and such courage to confess his vision1 that he is always ready to become a 8confessor0 under any extremity of persecution4 ,true statesmanship is another form of wisdom in the conduct of life2 and this is perhaps the rarest of all forms in which genius manifests itself1 because it requires a combination of inferior faculties and opportunities which is almost as rare as genius4 ,poetry is the only near rival of true statesmanship in this respect4 ,the immensely wider and more various range of vision which the great poet exercises when compared with other artists1 together with the necessity for the combined working of many lesser faculties and laboriously acquired accomplishments1 has always made of the poet the ideal 8genius0 in the world's esteem4 ,the separate insights into the significance of form1 colour1 and sound1 upon which the arts of the sculptor1 painter1 and musician are founded1 must be included in the vision of the poet of the first rank4 ,what is called 8common sense0 is much more nearly allied to genius1 or true intellect1 than either talent1 which is the outcome of the discursive reason1 or learning1 which is that of memory4 ,compared with the sunlight by which the purer intellect sees1 common sense is the light of a foggy day1 which is good enough to see near objects and to avoid mischief by4 ,science is generally considered to be the outcome solely of the observation of facts and the discursive reason2 but in men like ,kepler1 ,newton1 and ,faraday there is no lack of 8the vision and the faculty divine40 ,the discovery of gravitation by the fall of an apple was pure vision2 and it is doubtful whether there was ever a ,smith's ,prizeman who had not a touch of a higher faculty than that which gropes step by step from premisses to conclusions4 ,a ghastly semblance of genius is often retained by such persons as once had it1 but have ruined it by denying it in action1 and by endeavouring to prostitute it to selfish or vicious interests4 ,their judicial blindness is the reverse of that which was inflicted upon ,tiresias for daring to gaze upon unveiled wisdom4 ,he could no longer see the world2 they can no longer see the heavens4 ,but their original genius takes the perverted form of an intuitive craft in pursuing their ends which is no less amazing1 and which1 in statesmen especially1 is commonly mistaken by the people for the holy faculty which has been quenched4 ,to be a man of talent a man must be able to think2 to be a man of genius he must be able not to think1 and especially to abstain from the crazy wool-gathering which is ordinarily regarded as thought4 8,the harvest of a quiet eye10 and the learning of the ear which listens in a silence even of thought1 are the wealth of the pure intellect4 ,and the fainter and the more remote the whispers which are heard in such silence1 the more precious and potential are they likely to be4 ,it is no condemnation of the thought of ,hegel that he is reported to have replied to some question as to the meaning of a passage in his writings1 that 8he knew what it meant when he wrote it40 ,this thought1 too subtle or too simple for expression and memory1 might1 if held down and compelled to manifest itself more explicitly1 have moved mankind4 ,genius is a great disturber4 ,it is always a new thing1 and demands of old things that they should make a place for it1 which cannot be done without more or less inconvenient rearrangements2 and as it seems to threaten even worse trouble than it is finally found to give1 it is generally hated and resisted on its first appearance4 ,moreover1 to the eye which is not congenial the fresh manifestation of genius in almost any kind has something in it alarming and revolting2 and it is welcomed with an 8,ugh1 ugh6 the horrid thing6 ,it's alive60 ,a man of genius who is also a man of sense will never complain of such a reception from his fellows4 ,their opposition is even respectable from their point of view and with their faculties of beholding4 ,,ii ,genius1 like sanctity1 is commonly more or less foolish in the eyes of the world4 ,its riches are 8the riches of secret places02 and they so much exceed1 in its esteem1 those that are considered riches by the common sense of men1 that its neglect of the ordinary goods of life often amounts to real imprudence--imprudence even from its own point of view1 whereby it is bound to avoid hindrances to its free life and exercise4 ,the follies1 however1 of a ,blake or a ,hartley ,coleridge are venial when compared with those of the thoughtful and prudent fool--the fool in respect of great things1 as the other is in respect of small4 ,who can measure the harm that may be done to the world by a thoughtful and earnest fool--one who starts from data which he is too dull to verify1 and who multiplies his mistakes in proportion to the perspicuity and extent of his deductions8 ,the man of 8talent0 who is merely such1 is not a very common phenomenon--for 8talent0 is in great part the product of culture2 which 8genius10 or the power of seeing1 is not4 ,most persons of talent still possess a share of that obscure kind of genius called common sense1 which keeps them from taking up with false principles and following them into wild conclusions4 ,we need1 however1 only recall some famous figures in the present and past generation in order to be assured that immense talent is consistent with an almost complete deficiency of real insight4 ,when the discursive understanding is in great force1 and has at its command abundant stores of external information1 we behold a power that may work the ruin of empires amid applauding peoples1 though it can never build them up4 ,the natural and exact sciences are the proper fields for the exertions of such a faculty4 ,stupid persons fancy they derogate from the supremacy of the pure intellect or genius by observing that it is always associated with a vivid imagination1 which they regard as a faculty for seeing things as they are not4 ,shelley made a mistake in a totally different direction when he declared that the imagination is the power by which spiritual things are discerned2 whereas the truth is that intellect is the power by which such things are discerned1 and imagination is that by which they are expressed4 ,sensible things alone can be expressed fully and directly by sensible terms4 ,symbols and parables1 and metaphors--which are parables on a small scale--are the only means of adequately conveying1 or rather hinting1 supersensual knowledge4 8,he spake not without a parable40 ,hebrew1 ,greek1 ,indian1 and ,egyptian religions all spoke in parables2 and poets deal in images and parables simply because there is no other vehicle for what they have to say4 8,the things which are unseen may be known by the things which are seen10 but only by way of symbol and parable4 ,imagination1 though it is not1 as ,shelley says it is1 the power of spiritual insight1 is its invariable concomitant2 and even that dull kinsman of genius1 common sense1 would feel sadly hampered in its endeavours to convey its perceptions to the minds of others1 were it wholly without the faculty of speaking in parables4 ,it has often been noted that men of genius have bad memories1 and that persons having extraordinary memories1 like ,cardinal ,mezzofanti1 have little else4 ,the truth is that there are two quite distinct kinds of memory3 the memory for external facts and words1 apart from their significance2 and the memory for spiritual facts and principles4 ,the man of genius1 who may have no special reason for cultivating the lower kind of memory1 may even find it rather a hindrance than a help4 ,his prayer is1 8,let not my heart forget the things mine eyes have seen40 ,so long as his heart retains the significance of the facts he has seen and the words he has heard1 he is willing to let the words and the facts go1 as a man casts away the shells after he has eaten the oysters4 ,the 8well-informed0 person commonly differs from the man of genius in this3 that he carries about with him all the shells of all the oysters he has ever eaten1 and that his soul has grown thin under the burthen4 ,a commonplace about men of genius is that they usually have religious dispositions4 ,it would be strange were it otherwise1 seeing that genius is nothing but the power of discerning the things of the spirit4 ,the first principle of the most recent form of 8psychology0 is1 indeed1 that there is no soul2 but that man must have little genius who would not say 8,amen0 to ,st4 ,bernard's epigram1 8,he must have little spirit who thinks that a spirit is nothing40 ,after what has just been said1 it seems paradoxical to be obliged to admit that the sins to which men of genius are usually most subject are those of sense4 ,from pride1 and its offspring envy1 hatred1 and malice1 which play so terrible a part in the affairs of most men1 they are comparatively exempt4 ,that they should often be more subject than others to be misled by the ease and pleasure of the senses may be because the senses of men of genius are more subtly permeated by the spirit1 of which they are the ultimate life1 than are those of the world at large1 and are thereby rendered more acute and less sordidly wicked4 ,this may be said1 ,i hope1 without in any way condoning error4 ,men of genius1 who are therewithal men of cultivated talents and great stores of appropriate information1 are the only safe legislators and governors of empires2 not only because theirs alone is the sufficiency of sound and far-seeing wisdom1 but because they are far less likely than other men to be misled by personal motives and weak fears4 ,but such men1 unhappily1 are the last to come to the front in states of ultra-popular government2 and in such states they have accordingly to suffer that last misery 7as by one of the greatest philosophers it has been called71 the misery of being governed by worse men than themselves4 ,,iv ,,possibilities ,,and ,,performances ,if we take stock of the world's actual achievements--intellectual1 moral1 and artistic--in the six thousand years during which we know anything about it1 it is impossible not to be struck with the extreme smallness of the sum of the acquisitions and attainments of the human race which can bear any comparison with its desires and apparent possibilities4 ,if those desires and possibilities had in no instances been fulfilled1 the entire absence of attainment would have been less startling than is its actual paucity4 ,it would not have been nearly so wonderful if none had reached the high table-lands of excellence in any department of human activity1 as it is that those heights have been reached by some and by so few4 ,and the marvel of this paucity becomes yet further increased when it is considered that not only is it all that mankind has done1 but in all likelihood nearly as much as it could have done had it tried ever so hard4 ,for it is a peculiarity of the very highest work in every kind1 that it is not the result of painful labour1 but that it is easier to do it than not to do it1 when it can be done at all4 ,so that humanity must not be allowed to cover its enormous shortcomings with an 8,i could an' ,i would40 ,how many philosophers has philosophy produced8 ,if ,aristotle be the type1 where is the other specimen of the species8 ,how many statesmen have there been whose faculties and characters1 nearly inspected1 do not provoke the exclamation1 8,with how little wisdom the world is governed60 ,in how many ,christians has ,christianity flowered1 as in the souls of ,st4 ,john and ,st4 ,francis8 ,greek architecture and ,greek sculpture mean little more than the ,parthenon and its friezes4 ,what survives of ,greek poetry will scarcely fill one bookshelf1 and ,english poetry1 which forms the greater part of the rest of the poetry of the human race1 would rest easily on three4 ,the building of the ,middle ,ages is nothing but the repetition of one inspiration1 which would remain transmitted to us almost in its entirety were the ,cathedral of ,freiburg the only specimen left to us4 ,a single gallery of the ,vatican would provide wall-room sufficient for all the paintings of the world that are able to fill with satisfying peace the eye which has been educated by ,botticelli1 ,luini1 and ,raphael4 ,an ordinary life affords abundant leisure to take in all that two hundred generations of mankind have so done as to fill the craving for what all men feel to be alone satisfyingly human4 ,that is to say1 one man in twenty millions or so has been able1 during some--often very small--proportion of his life1 to be and to do that which all men1 when they behold such being and doing1 feel to be their natural though utterly unattainable prerogative4 ,thousands and thousands climb1 with praiseworthy struggles and integrity of purpose and with shouts of 8,excelsior60 the minor peaks of life2 while two or three in a generation are seen walking with easy breath about those great and tranquil table-lands for which all of us1 on beholding them1 feel that we were born4 ,it is not that1 in a world of inequalities1 some two or three in a generation must naturally stand higher than all the rest1 as only one among many competitors can be ,senior ,wrangler4 ,that fuller excellence is a region1 and not a pinnacle2 and those who reach it are all upon a great and facile equality1 their altitude being simply that of right and unhindered human faculty4 ,every individual of the human race is1 in this regard1 an image of the race itself4 ,only for a few hours1 perhaps1 of the million which is about the sum of the longest lifetime1 has each one easily and unaccountably found himself to be living indeed4 ,some accident1 some passing occasion which has called upon him to be more than himself1 some glimpse of grace in nature or in woman1 some lucky disaster even1 or some mere wayward tide of existence1 has caused the black walls of his prison-house to vanish2 and he has breathed in a realm of vision1 generosity1 and gracious peace1 8too transient for delight and too divine40 ,these prophetic moments--one in a million--pass2 but1 unless he has despised and denied them1 they leave him capable1 more or less1 of understanding prophecy2 and he knows that in him also there is a potentiality1 realisable perhaps under other than present conditions1 of becoming one in that great society in which such states of life appear to be not momentary crises but habits4 ,the wider and the deeper his personal experience of beauty and felicity1 the more readily will a man confess that life contains scarcely anything for fruition but abundance for hope2 and the better he is acquainted with that which has been best done and said in all ages1 the less he will be inclined to believe that the world is making any advances towards the realisation of the promise which every age repeats4 ,an enigma for which science has no key is the certain fact1 that if the world be not a prophecy of good things which it shows no likelihood of providing1 then it is all nothing but a purposeless and badly conceived tragedy1 upon which the sooner the black curtain drops the better4 ,for if the world be not such a prophecy1 then the best of men are of all men the most miserable2 to these is given beyond others the 8transitory gleam0 which shows the dulness of their ordinary life for the lingering death it really is2 but1 knowing little or nothing of life as it is known to such1 the stupid and 8the wicked have no bonds in their death10 and can only feel the comparatively tolerable evils of external and accidental adversity4 ,there never was a time in which the 8higher life10 8high art10 etc41 were less known than in the present1 when every goose is gabbling about them4 ,the proof is in the way these names are constantly associated with that of 8progress02 whereas progress1 as respects the realities1 is1 if it exists at all1 most certainly a progress backwards4 ,the rejoicings of ,lord ,macaulay and his like over the recent advances of mankind are exactly those of a prosperous shopman over the increase of his business2 and the hallelujahs of science are mainly over the elaboration of mighty means for petty ends and of theories which explain away ,god and exhibit all that past ages have called wisdom as folly4 ,it is too absurd6 ,yet we must not allow the present eclipse of the electric lights of true learning by the flaring tar-barrels of jubilant ignorance to discourage us in the belief that there is1 on the whole1 no cessation of the work for which the world goes on4 ,the conscience of mankind1 though occasionally confused and obscured1 will always cry 8,amen0 to the great word of ,st4 ,augustine1 8,what ought to be must be20 and the rare achievements of genius and sanctity and the few and far-between glimpses of the life that is indeed life1 which are accorded to all1 will continue to be accepted as 8the substance of things hoped for1 the evidence of things not seen40 ,v ,,cheerfulness ,,in ,,life ,,and ,,art 8,rejoice always3 and again ,i say1 ,rejoice10 says one of the highest authorities2 and a poet who is scarcely less infallible in psychological science writes-- ,a cheerful heart is what the ,muses love4 ,dante makes ,melancholy dismally punished in ,purgatory2 though his own interior gaiety--of which a word by and by--is so interior1 and its outward aspect often so grim1 that he is vulgarly considered to have himself been a sinner in this sort4 ,good art is nothing but a representation of life2 and that the good are gay is a commonplace1 and one which1 strange to say1 is as generally disbelieved as it is1 when rightly understood1 undeniably true4 ,the good and brave heart is always gay in this sense3 that1 although it may be afflicted and oppressed by its own misfortunes and those of others1 it refuses in the darkest moment to consent to despondency2 and thus a habit of mind is formed which can discern in most of its own afflictions some cause for grave rejoicing1 and can thence infer at least a probability of such cause in cases where it cannot be discerned4 ,regarding thus cheerfully and hopefully its own sorrows1 it is not over-troubled by those of others1 however tender and helpful its sympathies may be4 ,it is impossible to weep much for that in others which we should smile at in ourselves2 and when we see a soul writhing like a worm under what seems to us a small misfortune1 our pity for its misery is much mitigated by contempt for its cowardice4 ,a couple of generations ago most people would have opened their eyes wide at any one who should have thought remarks like these worth making4 ,such truth formed part of the universal tradition of civilisation and moral culture4 ,but a wilful melancholy1 and1 the twin sign of corruption1 a levity which acutely fears and sympathises with pains which are literally only skin-deep1 have been increasing upon us of late in a most portentous way4 ,the much-vaunted growth of 8humanity0 has been due rather to a softening of the brain than of the heart4 ,huge moral ill1 the fact of national degradation1 the prospect of national disaster1 arouses less pain in the sympathetic hearts of humanitarians than the yelp of a poodle which has had its ear pinched4 ,men and times do not talk about the virtues they possess4 ,which is more inhuman3 to punish with rack and wheel the treason which voluntarily sacrifices or jeopardises the welfare of millions1 or to condone or ignore it for the sake of momentary ease8 ,the ,england in which melancholy and levity are becoming prevalent habits is merry ,england no more4 8,the nation thou hast multiplied1 but not increased the joy40 ,and we are not the only nation which deserves this lamentation of the prophet4 ,the growths of melancholy and levity have been still more marked in ,france4 ,in ,america1 some traveller has remarked1 8there is comfort everywhere1 but no joy40 ,america is accordingly the only country which has no art4 ,it is1 as we have said1 a vulgar error to consider ,dante a melancholy poet4 ,in the whole range of art1 joy is nowhere expressed so often and with such piercing sweetness as in the ,paradiso2 and it flashes occasionally through the dun atmosphere of the other parts of the poem4 ,the ,inferno is pervaded by the vigorous joy of the poet at beholding thoroughly bad people getting their deserts2 and the penances of purgatory are contemplated by him with the grave pleasure which is often felt by the saner sort of persons1 even in this world1 under the sufferings they acknowledge to be the appropriate punishment of and purification from the sins they have fallen into4 ,shakespeare is the most cheerful of poets4 ,we read his deepest tragedies without contracting even a momentary stain of melancholy1 however many tears they may have drawn from us4 ,calderon flies among horrors and disasters on the wings of a bird of ,paradise1 without any resulting incongruity2 and like things may be said of the greatest painters and musicians1 until quite recent times4 ,but since about the beginning of this century how many of our geniuses have mingled their songs with tears and sighs over 8insoluble problems0 and 8mysteries of life0 which have no existence for a man who is in his right senses and who minds his own business2 while the 8scrannel pipes0 of the smaller wits have been playing to the sorry ,yankee tune of 8,there's nothing new1 and there's nothing true1 and it doesn't signify40 ,music has taken to imitate the wailing of lost spirits or the liveliness of the casino2 and the highest ambition of several of our best painters seems to have been to evoke a pathos from eternal gloom4 ,this is false art1 and represents a false life1 or rather that which is not life at all2 for life is not only joyful1 it is joy itself4 ,life1 unhindered by the internal obstruction of vice or the outward obscurations of pain1 sorrow1 and anxiety1 is pure and simple joy2 as we have most of us experienced during the few hours of our lives in which1 the conscience being free1 all bodily and external evils have been removed or at least quiescent4 ,and1 though these glimpses of perfect sunshine are few and far between1 the joy of life will not be wholly obscured to us by any external evil--provided the breast is clear of remorse1 envy1 discontent1 or any other habitually cherished sin4 ,the opportunities and hindrances of joyful life are pretty fairly distributed among all classes and persons4 ,god is just1 and ,his mercy is over all ,his works4 ,if gardens and parks are denied to the inhabitant of a city lane1 his eye is so sharpened by its fasts that it can drink in its full share of the sweetness of nature from a flowering geranium or a pot of crocuses on his window-sill4 ,there are really very few persons who have not enough to eat4 ,marriage is open almost equally to all1 except1 perhaps1 the less wealthy members of the upper orders4 ,none are without opportunities of joy and abundant reasons for gratitude3 and the hindrances of joy are1 if justly considered1 only opportunities of acquiring new capacities for delight4 ,in proportion as life becomes high and pure it becomes gay4 ,the profound spiritualities of the ,greek and ,indian myths laugh for joy2 and there are1 perhaps1 no passages of ,scripture more fondly dwelt upon in the ,roman ,breviary than those which paint the gladness of the ,uncreated ,wisdom3 8,when he balanced the foundations of the earth1 ,i was with him1 forming all things3 and was delighted every day1 playing before him at all times1 playing in the world3 and my delight is to be with the children of men40 ,,vi ,,the ,,point ,,of ,,rest ,,in ,,art ,coleridge1 who had little technical knowledge of any art but that in which1 when he was himself1 he supremely excelled--poetry--had nevertheless a deeper insight into the fundamental principles of art than any modern writer1 with the sole exception of ,goethe4 ,and this is one of his many fruitful sayings3 8,all harmony is founded on a relation to rest--on relative rest4 ,take a metallic plate and strew sand on it1 sound an harmonic chord over the sand1 and the grains will whirl about in circles and other geometrical figures1 all1 as it were1 depending on some point of sand relatively at rest4 ,sound a discord1 and every grain will whisk about without any order at all1 in no figures1 and with no point of rest40 ,without pretending to be able to trace this principle of rest to more than a very limited distance1 and in a very few examples1 ,i think it is worth notice in a time when art generally is characterised by a want of that repose which until recent times has especially 8marked the manners of the great40 ,look through the ,national ,gallery1 and few pictures will be found which would not add a grace of peace to the house they were hung in1 no matter how wild the subject or passionate the motive4 ,step into an ,academy ,exhibition1 and there will scarcely be discovered a dozen canvases in a thousand which1 however skilful and in many respects admirable they may be1 would not constitute points of unrest1 if they were in daily and hourly sight4 ,it is the same with nearly all modern poetry1 sculpture1 and architecture2 and if it is not true of music1 it is because music absolutely cannot exist without some reference to a point or points of rest1 in keynote1 fundamental strain1 or reiterated refrain4 ,it might at first be supposed that1 in a picture1 this point should be that on which the eye should repose in order to bring the remainder into focal proportion2 and this is true with regard to those painters who paint on the theory that the eye is fixed1 and not roving in its regard4 ,but this theory has never been that of the greatest times of art4 ,crome1 ,constable1 and ,gainsborough's landscapes do not fade off from a certain point on which the eye is supposed to be fixed2 yet there will usually be found some point1 generally quite insignificant in matter1 on which1 indeed1 the eye does not necessarily fix itself1 but to which it involuntarily returns for repose4 ,the most noteworthy remark to be made about this point of rest is1 that it is not in itself the most but the least interesting point in the whole work4 ,it is the punctum indifferens to which all that is interesting is more or less unconsciously referred4 ,in an elaborate landscape it may be--as it is in one of ,constable's--the sawn-off end of a branch of a tree3 or a piece of its root1 as it is in one of ,michael ,angelo's pieces in the ,sistine ,chapel4 ,in the ,dresden 8,madonna0 of ,raphael it is the heel of the ,infant4 ,no one who has not given some thought to the subject can have any idea of the value of these apparently insignificant points in the pictures in which they occur1 unless he tries the experiment of doing away with them4 ,cover them from sight and1 to a moderately sensitive and cultivated eye1 the whole life of the picture will be found to have been lowered4 ,in proportion to the extent and variety of points of interest in a painting or a poem the necessity for this point of rest seems to increase4 ,in a lyric or idyll1 or a painting with very few details1 there is little need for it4 ,it is accordingly in the most elaborate plays of ,shakespeare that we find this device in its fullest value2 and it is from two or three of these that we shall draw our main illustrations of a little-noticed but very important principle of art4 ,in ,king ,lear it is by the character of ,kent1 in ,romeo and ,juliet by ,friar ,laurence1 in ,hamlet by ,horatio1 in ,othello by ,cassio1 and in the ,merchant of ,venice by ,bassanio1 that the point of rest is supplied2 and this point being also in each case a point of vital comparison by which we measure and feel the relationships of all the other characters1 it becomes an element of far higher value than when it is simply an1 as it were1 accidental point of repose1 like the lopped branch in ,constable's landscape4 ,each of these five characters stands out of the stream of the main interest1 and is additionally unimpressive in itself by reason of its absolute conformity to reason and moral order from which every other character in the play departs more or less4 ,thus ,horatio is the exact punctum indifferens between the opposite excesses of the characters of ,hamlet and ,laertes--over-reasoning inaction and unreasoning action--between which extremes the whole interest of the play vibrates4 ,the unobtrusive character of ,kent is1 as it were1 the eye of the tragic storm which rages round it2 and the departure1 in various directions1 of every character more or less from moderation1 rectitude1 or sanity1 is the more clearly understood or felt from our more or less conscious reference to him4 ,so with the central and comparatively unimpressive characters in many other plays--characters unimpressive on account of their facing the exciting and trying circumstances of the drama with the regard of pure reason1 justice1 and virtue4 ,each of these characters is a peaceful focus radiating the calm of moral solution throughout all the difficulties and disasters of surrounding fate3 a vital centre1 which1 like that of a great wheel1 has little motion in itself1 but which at once transmits and controls the fierce revolution of the circumference4 ,it is obvious1 as ,i have indicated1 that a point of rest and comparison is necessary only when the objects and interests are many and more or less conflicting2 but the principle is sometimes at play in forms and works in which we should scarcely have expected to find it4 ,an armlet1 or even a finger-ring1 gives every portion of the nude figure an increase of animation1 unity1 and repose4 ,the artistic justification of the unmeaning 8burthen0 of many an old ballad may probably be found1 at least in part1 in the same principle2 as may also be that of the trick--as old as poetry--of occasionally repeating a line or phrase without any apparent purpose in the repetition4 ,of course the 8point of rest0 will not create harmony where--as in most modern works--its elements are absent2 but1 where harmony exists1 it will be strangely brought out and accentuated by this in itself often trifling1 and sometimes1 perhaps1 even accidental accessory4 ,,vii ,,imagination ,there are things which can never be more than approximately defined1 and which1 even when so defined1 are only to be rightly understood in proportion to the degrees in which they are possessed by those who would attempt to comprehend them4 ,such are1 for example1 8imagination0 and 8genius02 which1 being faculties that are possessed in a very low degree by nearly all and in a very high degree by extremely few1 are matters of the most general interest and the most variable apprehension4 ,that such faculties should1 however1 as far as possible1 be understood is of great practical importance to all persons2 inasmuch as it greatly concerns all to know something of the signs1 sanctions1 and claims of those powers by which they are inevitably more or less ruled1 externally and internally4 ,it is nothing against a definition of an entity which cannot be fully defined to say that such definition is 8new40 ,it was objected against an interpretation by ,st4 ,augustine of some ,old ,testament history or parable1 that other authorities had given other interpretations4 8,the more interpretations the better10 was the saint's reply4 ,in such cases various definitions and interpretations are merely apprehensions of various sides of a matter not wholly to be embraced or comprehended by any single definition or interpretation4 ,in recent times genius and imagination have come to be widely regarded as one and the same thing4 ,they are not so1 however1 though they are perhaps indissolubly connected4 ,the most peculiar and characteristic mark of genius is insight into subjects which are dark to ordinary vision and for which ordinary language has no adequate expression4 ,imagination is rather the language of genius3 the power which traverses at a single glance the whole external universe1 and seizes on the likenesses and images1 and their combinations1 which are best able to embody ideas and feelings which are otherwise inexpressible2 so that the 8things which are unseen are known by the things which are seen40 ,imagination1 in its higher developments1 is so quick and subtle a power that the most delicate analysis can scarcely follow its shortest flights4 ,coleridge said that it would take a whole volume to analyse the effect of a certain passage of only a few syllables in length4 ,in dealing with such a work as ,the ,tempest criticism is absolutely helpless1 and its noblest function is to declare its own helplessness by directing attention to beauty beyond beauty which defies analysis4 ,the ,tempest1 like all very great works of art1 is the shortest and simplest1 and indeed the only possible expression of its 8idea40 ,the idea is the product of genius proper2 the expression is the work of imagination4 ,there are cases1 however1 in which it is hard to distinguish at all between these inseparable qualities4 ,the initiation of a scientific theory seems often to have been due to the action of the imagination working independently of any peculiar direct insight2 the analogy-discovering faculty--that is1 the imagination--finding a law for a whole sphere of unexplained phenomena in the likeness of such phenomena to others of a different sphere of which the law is known4 ,hence the real discoverers of such theories are scarcely ever those who have obtained the credit of them2 for nothing is usually more abhorrent to men of extraordinary imagination than 8fact-grinding40 ,such men1 after having flung out their discoveries to the contempt or neglect of their contemporaries1 leave the future proof of them to mental mechanics2 religiously avoiding such work themselves1 lest1 as ,goethe said of himself1 they should find themselves imprisoned in 8the charnel-house of science40 ,genius and imagination of a very high kind are not at all uncommon in children under twelve years of age1 especially when their education has been 8neglected40 ,the writer can guarantee the following facts from personal witness3 ,a clever child of seven1 who could not read1 and had certainly never heard of the ,newtonian theory of gravitation1 said to his mother suddenly1 8,what makes this ball drop when ,i leave hold of it8--,oh1 ,i know3 the ground pulls it40 ,another child1 a year or two older1 lay stretched on a gravel path1 staring intently on the pebbles4 8,they are alive10 he cried1 in the writer's hearing2 8they are always wanting to burst1 but something draws them in40 ,this infantine rediscovery of the doctrine of the coinherence of attraction and repulsion in matter seems to have been an effort of direct insight4 ,the repetition of the ,newtonian apple revelation seems rather to have been the work of the imagination1 tracking likeness in difference2 but to discern such likeness is1 again1 an effort of direct insight1 and justifies ,aristotle's saying that this power of finding similitude in things diverse is a proof of the highest human faculty1 and that thence poetry is worthier than history4 ,the poet's eye glances from heaven to earth1 from earth to heaven2 and his faculty of discerning likeness in difference enables him to express the unknown in the terms of the known1 so as to confer upon the former a sensible credibility1 and to give the latter a truly sacramental dignity4 ,the soul contains world upon world of the most real of realities of which it has no consciousness until it is awakened to their existence by some parable or metaphor1 some strain of rhythm or music1 some combination of form or colour1 some scene of beauty or sublimity1 which suddenly expresses the inexpressible by a lower likeness4 ,the vulgar cynic1 blessing when he only means to bray1 declares that love between the sexes is 8all imagination40 ,what can be truer8 ,what baser thing is there than such love1 when it is not of imagination all compact8 or what more nearly divine when it is8 ,why8 ,because the imagination deals with the spiritual realities to which the material realities correspond1 and of which they are only1 as it were1 the ultimate and sensible expressions4 ,and here it may be noted1 by the way1 that ,nature supplies the ultimate analogue of every divine mystery with some vulgar use or circumstance1 in order1 as it would seem1 to enable the stupid and the gross to deny the divine without actual blasphemy4 ,profligacy and 8fact-grinding0 destroy the imagination by habitually dwelling in ultimate expressions while denying or forgetting the primary realities of which they are properly only the vessels4 ,purity ends by finding a goddess where impurity concludes by confessing carrion4 ,which of these is the reality let each man judge according to his taste4 8,fact-grinding0--which ,darwin confessed and lamented had destroyed his imagination and caused him to 8nauseate ,shakespeare0--commonly ends in destroying the religious faculty1 as profligacy destroys the faculty of love2 for neither love nor religion can survive without imagination1 which ,shelley1 in one of his prefaces1 identifying genius with imagination1 declares to be the power of discerning spiritual facts4 ,those who have no imagination regard it as all one with 8fancy10 which is only a playful mockery of imagination1 bringing together things in which there is nothing but an accidental similarity in externals4 ,,viii ,,pathos ,neither ,aristotle nor ,hegel1 the two great expositors of the relation of the emotions to art1 has discussed the nature of that which is understood by moderns as 8pathos40 ,aristotle has described in his ,rhetoric1 with the greatest acuteness and sensibility1 the conditions and modes of exciting pity4 ,but pity includes much that is excluded by pathos2 and it may be useful to endeavour to ascertain what the limitations of the latter are1 and what are its conditions in relation more particularly to art1 in which it plays so important a part4 ,pity1 then1 differs from pathos in this3 the latter is simply emotional1 and reaches no higher than the sensitive nature2 though the sensitive nature1 being dependent for its power and delicacy very much upon the cultivation of will and intellect1 may be indefinitely developed by these active factors of the soul4 ,pity is helpful1 and is not deadened or repelled by circumstances which disgust the simply sensitive nature2 and its ardour so far consumes such obstacles to merely emotional sympathy1 that the person who truly pities finds the field of pathos extended far beyond the ordinary limits of the dainty passion which gives tears to the eyes of the selfish as well as the self-sacrificing4 ,in an ideally perfect nature1 indeed1 pity and pathos1 which is the feeling of pity1 would be coextensive2 and the latter would demand for its condition the existence of the former1 with some ground of actual reality to work beneficially upon4 ,on the other hand1 entire selfishness would destroy even the faintest capacity for discerning pathos in art or circumstance4 ,in the great mass of men and women there is sufficient virtue of pity--pity that would act if it had the opportunity--to extend in them the feeling of pity1 that is pathos1 to a far larger range of circumstances than their active virtue would be competent to encounter1 even if it had the chance4 ,suffering is of itself enough to stir pity2 for absolute wickedness1 with the torment of which all wholesome minds would be quite content1 cannot be certainly predicated of any individual sufferer2 but pathos1 whether in a drawing-room tale of delicate distress or in a tragedy of schylus or ,shakespeare1 requires that some obvious goodness1 or beauty1 or innocence1 or heroism should be the subject of suffering1 and that the circumstance or narration of it should have certain conditions of repose1 contrast1 and form4 ,the range of pathos is immense1 extending from the immolation of an ,isaac or an ,iphigenia to the death of a kitten that purrs and licks the hand about to drown it4 ,next to the fact of goodness1 beauty1 innocence1 or heroism in the sufferer1 contrast is the chief factor in artistic pathos4 ,the celestial sadness of ,desdemona's death is immensely heightened by the black shadow of ,iago2 and perhaps the most intense touch of pathos in all history is that of ,gordon murdered at ,khartoum1 while his betrayer occupies himself1 between the acts of a comedy at the ,criterion1 in devising how best he may excuse his presence there by denying that he was aware of the contretemps or by representing his news of it as non-official4 ,the singer of ,fair ,rosamund's sorrows knew the value of contrast when he sang-- ,hard was the heart that gave the blow1 ,soft were the lips that bled4 ,every one knows how irresistible are a pretty woman's tears4 ,nought is there under heav'n's wide hollowness ,that moves more dear compassion of mind ,than beauty brought to unworthy wretchedness4 ,it is partly the contrast of beauty1 which is the natural appanage of happiness1 that renders her tears so pathetic2 but it is still more the way in which she is given to smiling through them4 ,the author of the ,rhetoric shows his usual incomparable subtilty of observation when he notes that a little good coming upon or in the midst of extremity of evil is a source of the sharpest pathos2 and when the shaft of a passionate female sorrow is feathered with beauty and pointed with a smile there is no heart that can refuse her her will4 ,in absolute and uncontrolled suffering there is no pathos4 ,nothing in the ,inferno has this quality except the passage of ,paolo and ,francesca1 still embracing1 through the fiery drift4 ,it is the embrace that makes the pathos1 8tempering extremities with extreme sweet10 or at least with the memory of it4 ,our present sorrows generally owe their grace of pathos to their 8crown10 which is 8remembering happier things40 ,no one weeps in sympathy with the 8base self-pitying tears0 of ,thersites1 or with those of any whose grief is without some contrasting dignity of curb4 ,even a little child does not move us by its sorrow1 when expressed by tears and cries1 a tenth part so much as by the quivering lip of attempted self-control4 ,a great and present evil1 coupled with a distant and uncertain hope1 is also a source of pathos2 if indeed it be not the same with that which ,aristotle describes as arising from the sequence of exceeding ill and a little good4 ,there is pathos in a departing pleasure1 however small4 ,it is the fact of sunset1 not its colours--which are the same as those of sunrise--that constitutes its sadness2 and in mere darkness there may be fear and distress1 but not pathos4 ,there are few things so pathetic in literature as the story of the supper which ,amelia1 in ,fielding's novel1 had prepared for her husband1 and to which he did not come1 and that of ,colonel ,newcome becoming a ,charterhouse pensioner4 ,in each of these cases the pathos arises wholly from the contrast of noble reticence with a sorrow which has no direct expression4 ,the same necessity for contrast renders reconciliations far more pathetic than quarrels1 and the march to battle of an army to the sound of cheerful military music more able to draw tears than the spectacle of the battle itself4 ,the soul of pathos1 like that of wit1 is brevity4 ,very few writers are sufficiently aware of this4 ,humour is cumulative and diffusive1 as ,shakespeare1 ,rabelais1 and ,dickens well knew2 but how many a good piece of pathos has been spoiled by the historian of ,little ,nell by an attempt to make too much of it6 ,a drop of citric acid will give poignancy to a feast2 but a draught of it----6 ,hence it is doubtful whether an ,english eye ever shed a tear over the ,vita ,nuova1 whatever an ,italian may have done4 ,next to the patient endurance of heroism1 the bewilderment of weakness is the most fruitful source of pathos4 ,hence the exquisitely touching points in ,a ,pair of ,blue ,eyes1 ,two on a ,tower1 ,the ,trumpet-,major1 and other of ,hardy's novels4 ,pathos is the luxury of grief1 and when it ceases to be other than a keen-edged pleasure it ceases to be pathos4 ,hence ,tennyson's question in 8,love and ,duty10 8,shall sharpest pathos blight us80 involves a misunderstanding of the word2 although his understanding of the thing is well proved by such lyrics as 8,tears1 idle tears10 and 8,o well for the fisherman's boy40 ,pleasure and beauty--which may be said to be pleasure visible--are without their highest perfection if they are without a touch of pathos4 ,this touch1 indeed1 accrues naturally to profound pleasure and to great beauty by the mere fact of the incongruity of their earthly surroundings and the sense of isolation1 peril1 and impermanence caused thereby4 ,it is a doctrine of that inexhaustible and 7except by ,dante7 almost unworked mine of poetry1 ,catholic theology1 that the felicity of the angels and glorified saints and of ,god ,himself would not be perfect without the edge of pathos1 which it receives from the fall and reconciliation of man4 ,hence1 on ,holy ,saturday the ,church exclaims1 8,o felix culpa60 and hence 8there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine righteous who need no repentance40 ,sin1 says ,st4 ,augustine1 is the necessary shadow of heaven2 and pardon1 says some other1 is the highest light of its beatitude4 ,,ix ,,poetical ,,integrity ,the assertion that the value of the words of a poet does and ought to depend very much upon his personal character may seem1 at the first glance1 a violent paradox2 but it is demonstrably true4 ,a wise or tender phrase in the mouth of a ,byron or a ,moore will be despised1 where a commonplace of morality or affection in that of a ,wordsworth or a ,burns is respected4 ,if the author of ,don ,juan had said that for him 8the meanest flower that blows could give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears10 as he would have said had it occurred to him to do so1 no one would have believed him2 it would have passed for a mere 8poetical licence10 and would have been excused as such and forgotten4 ,byron and ,wordsworth have both declared in words of similar force and beauty that the sights and sounds of nature 8haunted them like a passion40 ,but the declaration was not consistent with what we know of ,byron1 and it was consistent with what we know of ,wordsworth2 and in the one case it creates a like frame of mind in the reader1 while in the other it passes like a melodious wind1 leaving no impression4 ,now this mighty element of character resides1 not in the poet's active life1 by which he is and ought to be socially judged2 but in the spiritual consistency and integrity of his mind and heart1 as it is to be inferred from the cumulative testimony of his words1 which are1 after all1 the safest witnesses of what the man truly is4 ,a man's actions--although we are bound socially to judge him thereby--may belie him3 his words never4 ,out of his mouth shall the interior man be judged2 for the interior man is what he heartily desires to be1 however miserably he may fail to bring his external life into correspondence with his desire2 and the words of the man will infallibly declare what he thus inwardly is1 especially when1 as in the case of the poet1 the powers of language are so developed as to become the very glass of the soul1 reflecting its purity and integrity1 or its stains and insincerities1 with a fidelity of which the writer himself is but imperfectly conscious4 ,to a soundly trained mind there is no surer sign of shallowness and of interior corruption than that habitual predominance of form over formative energy1 of splendour of language and imagery over human significance1 which has so remarkably distinguished a great deal of the most widely praised poetry of the past eighty years4 ,much of this poetry has about as much relation to actual or imaginative reality as the transformation scene of a pantomime2 and much more--called 8descriptive0--has so low a degree of significance and betrays so inhuman an absorption in the merest superficies of nature1 that when the writer pretends to deal with those facts and phenomena of humanity which1 directly or indirectly1 are the main region of every true poet's song1 he has to overcome our sense that he is an habitual trifler before he can gain credit for sincerity1 even when he is giving utterance to what may really be a passing strain of true poetic thought and feeling4 ,a poet who is thus constantly occupied with the superficies of nature may probably attain to an accuracy and splendour of analytical description which has its value in its way1 and which may1 in certain transitory conditions of popular taste1 raise him to the highest pinnacle of favour4 ,but such poetry will be judged1 in the end1 by its human significance2 and the writer of it will have the fatal verdict of 8heartless0 recorded against him--a verdict which even in the time of his favour is implicitly pronounced by the indifference with which his professions of human principle and feeling are received1 even by his admirers4 ,the slightest touch of genuine humanity is of more actual and poetic value than all that is not human which the sun shines on4 ,the interest of what is called 8descriptive0 or 8representative0 in real poetry and all real art is always human1 or1 in other words1 8imaginative40 ,a description by ,wordsworth1 ,coleridge1 or ,burns1 a landscape by ,crome1 ,gainsborough1 or ,constable1 is not merely nature1 but nature reflected in and giving expression to a state of mind4 ,the state of mind is the true subject1 the natural phenomena the terms in which it is uttered2 and there has never been a greater critical fallacy than that contained in ,mr4 ,ruskin's strictures on the 8pathetic fallacy40 ,nature has no beauty or pathos 7using the term in its widest sense7 but that with which the mind invests it4 ,without the imaginative eye it is like a flower in the dark1 which is only beautiful as having in it a power of reflecting the colours of the light4 ,the true light of nature is the human eye2 and if the light of the human eye is darkness1 as it is in those who see nothing but surfaces1 how great is that darkness6 ,the saying of ,wordsworth concerning the ,poet1 that ,you must love him ere to you ,he will seem worthy of your love1 which at first reading sounds very much like nonsense1 is absolutely true4 ,he must have won your credit and confidence in his words1 by proofs of habitual veracity and sincerity1 before you can so receive the words which come from his heart that they will move your own4 ,if1 in the utterance of what he offers to you as the cry or the deep longing of passion1 you catch him in busily noticing trifles--for which very likely he gets praised for 8accurate observation of nature0--you will put him down as one who knows nothing of the passion he is pretending to express4 ,if you detect him in the endeavour to say 8fine things0 in order to win your admiration for himself1 instead of rendering his whole utterance a single true thing1 which shall win your sympathy with the thought or feeling by which he declares himself to be dominated1 the result will be the same2 as also it will be if you discover that the beauty of his words is obtained rather by the labour of polish than the inward labour and true finish of passion4 ,when1 on the other hand1 some familiarity with the poet's work has assured you that1 though his speech may be unequal and sometimes inadequate1 it is never false2 that he has always something to say1 even when he fails in saying it3 then you will not only believe in and be moved by what he says well2 but when the form is sometimes imperfect you will be carried over such passages1 as over thin ice1 by the formative power of passion or feeling which quickens the whole2 although you would reject such passages with disgust were they found in the writing of a man in whose thoughts you know that the manner stands first and the matter second4 ,x ,,the ,,poetry ,,of ,,negation ,poetry is essentially catholic and affirmative1 dealing only with the permanent facts of nature and humanity1 and interested in the events and controversies of its own time only so far as they evolve manifestly abiding fruits4 ,but the abiding fruits of such events and controversies are very rarely manifest until the turmoil in which they are produced has long since subsided2 and therefore poets1 in all times before our own1 have either allowed the present to drift unheeded by or have so handled its phenomena as to make them wholly subsidiary to and illustrative of matters of well-ascertained stability4 ,the many occasional poems of past times1 of which temporary incidents have been the subjects1 in no way contradict this assertion in the main2 and the casual example of a poet like ,dryden affords only the confirming exception4 ,dryden was fond of protesting1 especially when he was a ,catholic2 and there is no doubt but that this habit added greatly to his popularity in his lifetime1 as it does to the favour in which some of the most distinguished of our modern poets are now held2 but all those points which probably constituted the high lights of ,dryden's poetry to his contemporaries have suffered in course of time a change like that which has come over the whites of many of ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds' pictures2 and it is much to be feared that a similar fate awaits a large proportion of what has been written by several of the best poets of the generation which is now passing away4 ,most of our recent poets1 even while condemning political revolution1 have shared in the ideas or feelings which are at the bottom of revolutions1 a hope which the facts of nature do not justify1 and a disbelief in what those facts do justify--namely1 the ineradicable character of moral evil1 with its circumstantial consequences4 ,the heart of the modern poet is1 as a rule1 always vibrating between the extremes of despondent grumbling at the present conditions and hasty and unreasonable aspirations for the improvement of his kind2 his tragedies and hymns of rejoicing are alike void of the dignity and repose which arise from a sound confession of the facts of humanity and a cheerful resignation to its imperfections2 and he whose true function is to stand aside as the tranquil seer too often now becomes the excited agent in matters which concern him least of all men1 because of all men he is the least fitted to meddle with them4 ,it is hard to say which is more wonderful--the clearness of the true poet's vision for things when he is contented with looking at them as they are1 or his blindness when he fancies he can mend them4 ,famous statesmen have marvellously drivelled in verse1 but not more marvellously than famous poets have drivelled in what pertains to statesmanship4 ,it is scarcely without a feeling of amazement that a man of ordinary good sense contrasts the power of poetic vision in writers like ,victor ,hugo and ,carlyle with the childishness of their judgments when they propose antidotes for evils which they so clearly see1 but for which they do not see that there are no antidotes1 but only palliatives4 ,looking for what they fancy may be1 when their vocation is to proclaim with clearness that which is1 one poet will shriek to us 7for untruths cannot be sung7 that all will be well when ,king ,log is down and ,king ,stork reigns in his stead2 another that ,niagara may yet be dammed if country gentlemen will hire drill-sergeants to put their gardeners and farm-labourers through the goose-step2 another says the world will be saved if a few gentlemen and ladies1 with nothing better to do1 will take to playing at being their own domestics2 a fourth1 in order to save morals1 proposes their abolition2 a fifth proclaims that all will have good wages when there remains no one to pay them2 a sixth discovers in the science of the future a sedative for human passions instead of a wider platform for their display2 and so on4 ,others1 who have no patent medicines on hand1 impotently grumble or rage at evils in which1 if they looked steadily1 they might discern the good of justice1 or that of trial1 or both 7as great poets in past times always have done72 and1 instead of truly singing1 they sob hysterical sympathy with such sufferings in others as1 if they were their own1 they either would bear or know that they ought to bear with equanimity4 ,the statesman1 the social reformer1 the political economist1 the natural philosopher1 the alms-giver1 the hospital visitor1 the preacher1 even the cynical humorist1 has each his function1 and each is rightly more or less negative2 but the function of the poet is clearly distinguished from all of these1 and is higher though less obtrusive than any4 ,it is simply affirmative of things which it greatly concerns men to know1 but which they have either not discovered or have allowed to lapse into the death of commonplace4 ,he alone has the power of revealing by his insight and magic words the undreamt-of mines of felicity which exist potentially for all in social relationships and affections4 ,the inexhaustible glories of nature are a blank for many who are yet able to behold them reflected in his perceptions4 ,his convincing song can persuade many to believe in1 if they do not attain to taste--as he1 if indeed he be a poet1 must have tasted--the sweet and wholesome kernel which the rough shell of unmerited suffering conceals for those who are patient4 ,and he can so contemplate the one real evil in the world as to give body and life and intelligibility to that last and sharpest cry of faith1 8,o felix culpa60 ,the temptations which our time offers to the poet in order to induce him to forsake his own line are very great1 and poets are human4 ,the conceited present craves to have singers of its own1 who will praise it1 or at least abuse it2 and it pays them well for pandering to its self-consciousness1 lavishing its best honours upon them as leaders of the 8,liberal movement10 and scoffing at those1 as 8behind their time10 who stand apart and watch and help those abiding developments of humanity which advance 8with the slow process of the suns40 ,,xi ,,the ,,limitations ,,of ,,genius ,in art1 as in higher matters1 8strait is the gate1 and narrow is the way1 which leadeth unto life1 and few there be that find it20 and the initial cause of failure1 in many who seem to have faculties which should ensure success1 is not so much the difficulty of the road which leads to it1 as want of humility in confessing its narrowness4 ,each man is by birth a unique individuality1 which the circumstances of his life will increase and develop continually1 if he be content to do his duty in the station1 intellectual and otherwise1 to which it has pleased ,god to call him1 without falling below its obligations or assuming others which have not been laid upon him4 ,the low but still priceless degree of genius which consists in individuality in manners1 and which renders the possessor of it powerfully though imperceptibly edifying in all companies1 is open to all1 though few are sufficiently simple and honest and unambitious to attain to it1 by turning neither to the right hand nor the left in pursuit of their particular good of life4 8,originality10 whether in manners1 action1 or art1 consists simply in a man's being upon his own line2 in his advancing with a single mind towards his unique apprehension of good2 and in his doing so in harmony with the universal laws which secure to all men the liberty of doing as he is doing1 without hindrance from his or any other's individuality4 ,unless 8originality0 thus works in submission to and harmony with general law1 it loses its nature4 ,in morals it becomes sin or insanity1 in manners and in art oddity and eccentricity1 which are in reality the extreme opposites and travesties of originality4 ,as in religion it is said that 8no man can know whether he is worthy of love10 so in art and ordinary life no man can know whether he is original4 ,if through habitual fidelity to his idea of good he has attained to originality1 he will be the last person in the world to know it4 ,if he thinks he is original1 he is probably not so2 and if he is commonly praised for originality1 he may hardly hope to attain to any such distinction4 ,originality never expresses itself in harsh and obtrusive singularities4 ,a society of persons of true originality in manners would be like an oak-tree1 the leaves of which all look alike until they are carefully compared1 when it is found that they are all different4 ,in art1 the sphere of extraordinary originalities1 there is the same absence of strongly pronounced distinctions1 and therefore the same withdrawal from the recognition of the vulgar1 who look for originality in antics1 oddities1 crudities1 and incessant violations of the universal laws1 which true originality religiously observes2 its very function consisting1 as it does1 in upholding those laws and illustrating them and making them unprecedentedly attractive by its own peculiar emphases and modulations4 ,the individuality or 8genius0 of a man1 which results from fidelity in life and art to his 8ruling love10 is almost necessarily narrow4 ,shakespeare is the only artist that ever lived whose genius has even approached to universality4 ,his range is so great that ordinary readers1 if1 like ,mr4 ,frederic ,harrison1 they had the courage to speak their impressions1 would with him condemn the greater part of his work as 8rubbish0--that is1 as having no counterpart in the 8positivism0 of their actual or imaginative experience4 ,every play of ,shakespeare is a new vision--not only a new aspect of his vision1 as is the case with the different works of nearly all other artists1 even the greatest4 ,narrowness1 indeed1 so far from being opposed to greatness in art1 is often its condition4 ,dante and ,wordsworth are proofs that greatness of genius consists in seeing clearly rather than much2 and well it would have been both for poets and for readers had the former always or even generally understood the economy of moving always on their own lines4 ,nothing has so much injured modern art as the artist's ambition to show off his 8breadth02 and many an immortal lyric or idyll has been lost because the lyric or idyllic poet has chosen to forsake his line for the production of exceedingly mortal epics or tragedies4 ,the modern custom of exhibiting all the works of a single painter at a time affords proof which every one will understand of what has been said4 ,who1 with an eye for each painter's true quality1 can have gone over the collections in recent years of the pictures of ,landseer1 ,reynolds1 ,rossetti1 ,blake1 ,holman ,hunt1 and others1 without a feeling of surprise1 and some perhaps irrational disappointment1 at the discovery for the first time of the artist's limitations8 ,each had painted the same vision over and over again6 ,there was no harm in that4 ,the mistake was in bringing together the replicas which should have adorned 8palace chambers far apart40 ,but poets1 whose 8works0 are always collectively exhibited1 should beware how they betray the inevitable fact of the narrowness of genius4 ,not only should they never leave their own line for another which is not their own1 but they should be equally careful not to go over it again when they have once got to the end of it4 ,,xii ,,love ,,and ,,poetry ,every man and woman who has not denied or falsified nature knows1 or at any rate feels1 that love1 though the least 8serious10 is the most significant of all things4 ,the wise do not talk much about this knowledge1 for fear of exposing its delicate edge to the stolid resistance of the profligate and unbelieving1 and because its light1 though1 and for the reason that1 it exceeds all other1 is deficient in definition4 ,but they see that to this momentary transfiguration of life all that is best in them looks forward or looks back1 and that it is for this the race exists1 and not this for the race--the seed for the flower1 not the flower for the seed4 ,all religions have sanctified this love1 and have found in it their one word for and image of their fondest and highest hopes2 and the ,catholic has exalted it into a 8great ,sacrament10 holding that1 with ,transubstantiation--which it resembles--it is only unreasonable because it is above reason4 8,the love which is the best ground of marriage10 writes also the ,protestant and 8judicious0 ,hooker1 8is that which is least able to render a reason for itself40 ,indeed1 the extreme unreasonableness of this passion1 which gives cause for so much blaspheming to the foolish1 is one of its surest sanctions and a main cause of its inexhaustible interest and power2 for who but a 8scientist0 values greatly or is greatly moved by anything he can understand--that which can be comprehended being necessarily less than we are ourselves8 ,in this matter the true poet must always be a mystic--altogether to the vulgar1 and more or less to all who have not attained to his peculiar knowledge4 ,for what is a mystery but that which one does not know8 ,the common handicrafts used to be called mysteries2 and their professors were mystics to outsiders exactly in the sense that poets or theologians1 with sure1 but to them uncommunicated and perhaps incommunicable1 knowledge1 are mystics to the many4 ,the poet simply knows more than they do2 but it flatters their malignant vanity to call him names which they mean to be opprobrious1 though they are not1 because he is not such a spiritual pauper as themselves4 ,but poets are mystics1 not only by virtue of knowledge which the greater part of mankind does not possess1 but also because they deal with knowledge against which the accusation of dunces who know the differential calculus is etymologically true--namely1 that it is absurd4 ,love is eternally absurd1 for that which is the root of all things must itself be without root4 ,aristotle says that things are unintelligible to man in proportion as they are simple2 and another says1 in speaking of the mysteries of love1 that the angels themselves desire in vain to look into these things4 ,in the hands of the poet mystery does not hide knowledge1 but reveals it as by its proper medium4 ,parables and symbols are the only possible modes of expressing realities which are clear to perception though dark to the understanding4 8,without a parable he spake not0 who always spake of primary realities4 ,every spiritual reality fades into something else1 and none can tell the point at which it fades4 ,the only perfectly definite things in the universe are the conceptions of a fool1 who would deny the sun he lives by if he could not see its disk4 ,natural sciences are definite1 because they deal with laws which are not realities but conditions of realities4 ,the greatest and perhaps the only real use of natural science is to supply similes and parables for poets and theologians4 ,but if the realities of love were not in themselves dark to the understanding1 it would be necessary to darken them--not only lest they should be profaned1 but also because1 as ,st4 ,bernard says1 8,the more the realities of heaven are clothed with obscurity1 the more they delight and attract1 and nothing so much heightens longing as such tender refusal40 8,night10 says the inspirer of ,st4 ,bernard1 8is the light of my pleasures40 ,love is rooted deeper in the earth than any other passion2 and for that cause its head1 like that of the ,tree ,igdrasil1 soars higher into heaven4 ,the heights demand and justify the depths1 as giving them substance and credibility4 8,that ,he hath ascended--what is it but because ,he first also descended into the lower parts of the earth80 ,love 8reconciles the highest with the lowest1 ordering all things strongly and sweetly from end to end40 ,st4 ,bernard says that 8divine love0 7religion7 8has its first root in the most secret of the human affections40 ,this affection is the only key to the inner sanctuaries of that faith which declares1 8,thy ,maker is thy ,husband20 the only clue by which searchers of the 8secret of the ,king10 in the otherwise inscrutable writings of prophet and apostle1 discover1 as ,keble writes1 8the loving hint that meets the longing guess10 which looks to the future for the satisfying and abiding reality1 the passage of whose momentary shadow forms the supreme glory of our mortality4 ,the whole of after-life depends very much upon how life's transient transfiguration in youth by love is subsequently regarded2 and the greatest of all the functions of the poet is to aid in his readers the fulfilment of the cry1 which is that of nature as well as religion1 8,let not my heart forget the things mine eyes have seen40 ,the greatest perversion of the poet's function is to falsify the memory of that transfiguration of the senses1 and to make light of its sacramental character4 ,this character is instantly recognised by the unvitiated heart and apprehension of every youth and maiden2 but it is very easily forgotten and profaned by most1 unless its sanctity is upheld by priests and poets4 ,poets are naturally its prophets--all the more powerful because1 like the prophets of old1 they are wholly independent of the priests1 and are often the first to discover and rebuke the lifelessness into which that order is always tending to fall4 ,if society is to survive its apparently impending dangers1 it must be mainly by guarding and increasing the purity of the sources in which society begins4 ,the world is finding out1 as it has often done before1 and more or less forgotten1 that it cannot do without religion4 ,love is the first thing to wither under its loss4 ,what love does in transfiguring life1 that religion does in transfiguring love3 as any one may see who compares one state or time with another4 ,love is sure to be something less than human if it is not something more2 and the so-called extravagances of the youthful heart1 which always claims a character for divinity in its emotions1 fall necessarily into sordid1 if not shameful1 reaction1 if those claims are not justified to the understanding by the faith which declares man and woman to be priest and priestess to each other of relations inherent in ,divinity itself1 and proclaimed in the words 8,let us make man in our own image0 and 8male and female created he them40 ,nothing can reconcile the intimacies of love to the higher feelings1 unless the parties to them are conscious--and true lovers always are--that1 for the season at least1 they justify the words 8,i have said1 ,ye are gods40 ,nuptial love bears the clearest marks of being nothing other than the rehearsal of a communion of a higher nature4 ,its felicity consists in a perpetual conversion of phase from desire to sacrifice1 and from sacrifice to desire1 accompanied by unchangeable complaisance in the delight shining in the beauty of the beloved2 and it is agitated in all its changes by fear1 without which love cannot long exist as emotion4 ,such a state1 in proportion to its fervour1 delicacy1 and perfection1 is ridiculous unless it is regarded as a 8great sacrament40 ,it is the inculcation of this significance which has made love between man and woman what it is now--at least to the idea and aspirations of all good minds4 ,it is time that the sweet doctrine should be enforced more clearly4 ,love being much more respected and religion much less than of old1 the danger of profanation is not so great as it was when religion was revered and love despised4 ,the most characteristic virtue of woman1 or at least the most alluring of her weaknesses--her not caring for masculine truth and worth unless they woo her with a smile or a touch or some such flattery of her senses--is the prevailing vice of most men1 especially in these times4 ,this general effeminacy is the poet's great opportunity4 ,it is his pontifical privilege to feel the truth2 and his function is to bridge the gulf between severe verity and its natural enemy1 feminine sentiment1 by speech which1 without any sacrifice of the former1 is 8simple1 sensuous1 and passionate40 ,he insinuates in nerve-convincing music the truths which the mass of mankind must feel before they believe4 ,he leads them by their affections to things above their affections1 making ,urania acceptable to them by her prnomen ,venus4 ,he is the apostle of the ,gentiles1 and conveys to them1 without any flavour of cant or exclusiveness1 the graces which the chosen people have too often denied or disgraced in their eyes4 ,,xiii ,,keats ,mr4 ,sidney ,colvin's book upon ,keats is1 in the main1 a welcome exception to what has become1 of late1 the rule in this class of work4 ,it is remarkably just1 and every good reader will feel it to be the more warmly appreciative because it is scarcely ever extravagantly so4 ,the bulk of ,keats's poetry1 including 8,endymion10 is estimated at its true worth1 which1 as ,keats--the severest judge of his own work--knew and confessed1 was not much2 and the little volume 7justly styled by ,mr4 ,colvin 8immortal07 which was published in #ahbj1 and which does not consist of more than about #cjjj lines1 is declared to contain nearly the whole of the poet's effective writing4 ,and even in this little volume--which includes 8,lamia10 8,isabella10 8,the ,eve of ,st4 ,agnes10 the five 8,odes10 and 8,hyperion0--,mr4 ,colvin acutely detects and boldly points out many serious defects4 ,from the comparatively worthless waste of the rest of ,keats's writing1 ,mr4 ,colvin picks out with accurate discernment the few pieces and passages of real excellence2 and he does criticism good service in directing attention to the especial value of the fragment called 8,the ,eve of ,st4 ,mark10 and of that which is probably the very finest lyric in the ,english language1 8,la ,belle ,dame sans ,merci40 ,as long as ,mr4 ,colvin limits himself to the positive beauties and defects of ,keats's poetry he is nearly always right2 it is only in his summing up and in his estimate of the comparative worth of his subject that a less enthusiastic critic must part company with him4 8,i think it probable that by power1 as well as by temperament and aim1 he was the most ,shakespearian spirit that has lived since ,shakespeare40 ,is not the truth rather that1 among real poets1 ,keats was the most un-,shakespearian poet that ever lived8 ,true poets may be divided into two distinct classes1 though there is a border-line at which they occasionally become confused4 ,in the first class1 which contains all the greatest poets1 with ,shakespeare at their head1 intellect predominates2 governing and thereby strengthening passion1 and evolving beauty and sweetness as accidents--though inevitable accidents--of its operation4 ,the vision of such poets may almost be described in the words of ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas1 in speaking of the ,beatific ,vision4 8,the vision10 he writes1 8is a virtue1 the beatitude an accident40 ,such poets are truly spoken of as masculine4 ,in the other class--in which ,keats stands as high as any other1 if not higher--the 8beatitude10 the beauty and sweetness1 is the essential1 the truth and power of intellect and passion the accident4 ,these poets are1 without any figure of speech1 justly described as feminine 7not necessarily effeminate72 and they are separated from the first class by a distance as great as that which separates a truly manly man from a truly womanly woman4 ,the trite saying that the spirit of the great poet has always a feminine element is perfectly true notwithstanding4 8,the man is not without the woman20 though 8the man is not for the woman1 but the woman for the man40 ,the difference lies in that which has the lead and mastery4 ,in ,keats the man had not the mastery4 ,for him a thing of beauty was not only a joy for ever1 but was the supreme and only good he knew or cared to know2 and the consequence is that his best poems are things of exquisite and most sensitively felt beauty1 and nothing else4 ,but it is a fact of primary significance1 both in morals and in art 7a fact which is sadly lost sight of just now71 that the highest beauty and joy are not attainable when they occupy the first place as motives1 but only when they are more or less the accidents of the exercise of the manly virtue of the vision of truth4 ,there is at fitting seasons a serene splendour and a sunny sweetness about that which is truly masculine1 whether in character or in art1 which women and womanly artists never attain--an inner radiance of original loveliness and joy which comes1 and can only come1 of the purity of motive which regards external beauty and delight as accidental4 ,in his individual criticisms of ,keats's poems ,mr4 ,colvin fully recognises their defect of masculine character4 ,in speaking of 8,isabella0 he says3 8,its personages appeal to us1 not so much humanly and in themselves1 as by the circumstances1 scenery1 and atmosphere amidst which we see them move4 ,herein lies the strength1 and also the weakness1 of modern romance3 its strength1 inasmuch as the charm of the medival colour and mystery is unfailing for those who feel it at all2 its weakness1 inasmuch as under the influence of that charm both writer and reader are too apt to forget the need for human and moral truth2 and without these no great literature can exist40 ,again3 8,in ,keats's conceptions of his youthful heroes there is at all times a touch1 not the wholesomest1 of effeminacy and physical softness1 and the influence of passion he is apt to make fever and unman them quite2 as1 indeed1 a helpless and enslaved submission of all the faculties to love proved1 when it came to the trial1 to be the weakness of his own nature40 ,and again3 8,in matters of poetic feeling and fancy ,keats and ,hunt had not a little in common4 ,both alike were given to #8luxuriating' somewhat effusively and fondly over the #8deliciousness' of whatever they liked in art1 books1 and nature40 ,in these and other equally just and unquestionable criticisms of ,keats's character and works1 surely ,mr4 ,colvin sufficiently refutes his own assertion that this writer was 8by temperament0 8the most ,shakespearian0 of poets since ,shakespeare4 ,and whether he was also such 7as ,mr4 ,colvin further asserts him to have been7 8by power10 let the poet's work declare4 ,in his own lovely line--which he faithfully kept to in 8,lamia10 8,isabella10 8,the ,eve of ,st4 ,agnes10 and the 8,odes0--he is unsurpassed and perhaps unequalled4 ,when he is true to that line we do not feel the want of anything better1 though we may know that there is something better3 as1 in the presence of a beautiful woman1 we do not sigh because she is not a ,general ,gordon or a ,sir ,thomas ,more4 ,but let ,keats try to assume the man--as he does in his latest work1 his attempts at dramatic composition or at satirical humour1 in the 8,cap and ,bells0--and all his life and power seem to shrivel and die1 like the beauty of ,lamia in the presence of ,apollonius4 ,some of his readers may object the semblance of ,miltonic strength in certain passages of the fragment 8,hyperion02 but ,keats himself knew and admitted that it was only a semblance and an echo1 and therefore wisely abandoned the attempt1 having satisfied himself with having shown the world that there was no object of merely external nature1 from 8roses amorous of the moon0 to ,the solid roar ,of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse1 ,pouring a constant bulk1 uncertain where1 which he had not nerves to feel and words so to utter that others should feel as he did4 ,in making this distinction between poetry of a masculine and that of a feminine order1 it must be understood that no sort of disrespect is intended to the latter in saying a good word for that 8once important sex0 of poetry which the bewitching allurements of ,keats and ,shelley and their followers have caused1 for a season1 to be comparatively despised4 ,the femininity of such poets as these is a glorious and immortal gift1 such as no mortal lady has ever attained or ever will attain4 ,it has been proved to us how well a mortal lady may become able to read the classics2 but1 humbled as some of us may feel by her having headed the ,tripos1 it is still some compensation for those of our sex to remember that we alone can write 8classics10 even of the feminine order4 ,nor let it be thought that we have been insisting upon a modern and fanciful distinction in thus dividing great men into two classes1 in one of which the masculine and in the other the feminine predominates4 ,it is a fact the observation of which is as old as the mythology which attributed the parentage of heroes in whom the intellectual powers prevailed to the union of gods with women1 while those who distinguished themselves by more external and showy faculties were said to have been born of the commerce of goddesses with men4 ,,xiv ,,what ,,shelley ,,was ,professor ,dowden has had access to a very large quantity of hitherto unpublished correspondence and other matter1 some of which throws much new light upon ,shelley's singular character2 and1 but for one most important point--his sudden separation from ,harriet ,westbrook1 for which no substantial reason is given--the ,professor's eleven hundred closely printed pages contain all and more than all that any reasonable person can want to know about the subject4 ,professor ,dowden's arrangement of this mass of material is so lucid that interest seldom flags2 and the whole work reads like a first-class sensational novel1 of which the only faults are that the characters are unnatural and the incidents improbable4 ,a beautiful youth of almost superhuman genius1 sensitiveness1 and self-abnegation1 is the hero4 ,he is given early to blaspheming whatever society has hitherto respected2 and to cursing the ,king and his father--an old gentleman whose chief foible seems to have been attachment to the ,church of ,england4 ,his charity is so angelical that he remains on the best of terms with one man who has tried to seduce his wife1 and with another--a beautiful young lord with a club-foot1 whom he finds wallowing in a society given to vices which cannot be named1 and who is also a supreme poet--notwithstanding the fact that this lord has had a child by one of the ladies of his 7the hero's7 wife's family and treats her with the most unmerited contempt and cruelty4 ,he adores three really respectable and attractive young ladies--by name ,harriet ,westbrook1 ,elizabeth ,hitchener1 and ,emilia ,viviani--with a passion which eternity cannot exhaust1 and praises them in music like that of the spheres 7witness 8,epipsychidion072 and1 anon1 ,harriet is 8a frantic idiot10 ,elizabeth a 8brown demon10 and ,emilia a 8centaur40 8,it was10 says his biographer1 8one of the infirmities of ,shelley's character that1 from thinking the best of a friend or acquaintance1 he could of a sudden1 and with insufficient cause1 pass over to the other side and think the worst40 ,it is1 perhaps1 fortunate that ,providence should afflict supreme sanctities and geniuses with such 8infirmities02 otherwise we might take them for something more than mere saints and poets4 ,the hero1 as became absolute charity1 gave every one credit--at least1 when it suited his mood and convenience--for being as charitable as himself3 witness his soliciting ,harriet ,westbrook for money after he had run away with his fresh 8wife10 her rival4 ,he was addicted even from his babyhood to the oddest and most 8charming0 eccentricities4 8,when ,bysshe10 then quite a child1 8one day set a fagot-stack on fire1 the excuse was a charming one3 he did so that he might have #8a little hell of his own4'0 ,at ,eton 8in a paroxysm of rage he seized the nearest weapon1 a fork1 and stuck it into the hand of his tormentor40 ,on another occasion1 when his tutor found him apparently setting fire to himself and the house1 and asked him 8,what on earth are you doing1 ,shelley80 he replied1 8,please1 sir1 ,i'm raising the devil40 ,the pet virtue of the hero was tolerance4 8,here ,i swear10 he writes to ,mr4 ,hogg1 8and as ,i break my oaths1 may ,infinity1 ,eternity blast me--here ,i swear that never will ,i forgive intolerance6 ,it is the only point on which ,i allow myself to encourage revenge 444 not one that leaves the wretch at rest1 but lasting1 long revenge40 ,his resolutions to be himself tolerant often broke down1 and he could not abide 8men who pray0 and such-like2 but what could be expected from such a hero in such a world6 ,he had all the navet as well as the self-reliance of true greatness4 ,he had no sooner become an undergraduate at ,oxford than he printed a pamphlet on 8,the ,necessity of ,atheism10 and sent copies to the ,vice-,chancellor1 the heads of houses1 and all the bishops1 with 8a pretty letter in his own handwriting0 to each4 ,he was summoned before the ,university authorities1 who 8pleaded1 implored1 and threatened2 on the other side1 the unabashed and beardless boy maintaining his right to think1 and declare his thoughts to others40 ,much evil as he believed of such vermin1 he does not seem to have dreamed of the intolerance of which they were capable4 ,hogg--the dear and life-long friend who tried to seduce his wife--writes3 8,he rushed in2 he was terribly agitated4 #8,i am expelled1' he said1 as soon as he had recovered himself a little2 #8,i am expelled6'444 ,he sat on the sofa1 repeating with convulsive vehemence the words #8,expelled6 expelled6'0 ,professor ,dowden thinks 8it was natural and perhaps expedient that measures should have been taken to vindicate the authority of the heads of the institution2 444 but good feeling0 would not have punished so severely what 8was more an offence of the intellect than of the heart and will03 for what was it 8to fling out a boy's defiance against the first article of the ,creed10 compared with the drinking and disorderly life of some other undergraduates who were yet allowed to remain in the ,university8 ,the conduct of the authorities was the less excusable that we have ,mr4 ,hogg's authority for the fact that at this time 8the purity and sanctity of his life were most conspicuous10 and that 8in no individual1 perhaps1 was the moral sense ever more completely developed than in ,shelley40 ,of course1 in face of such an authority as ,mr4 ,hogg1 the assertion of ,thornton ,hunt that 8he was aware of facts which gave him to understand that ,shelley while at college1 in tampering with venal passions1 had seriously injured his health2 and that this was followed by a reaction #8marked by horror1'0 is not to be listened to1 and is therefore relegated to a footnote4 ,professor ,dowden rightly thinks that ,shelley might have been all the better had he left the ,university at the usual time1 and with his mind weighted with more discipline and knowledge4 8,his voyage10 says his biographer1 8must needs have been fleet and far1 and the craft1 with fore and flying sails set1 must often have run upon her side and drunk the water2 all the more reason1 therefore1 for laying in some ballast below before she raced into the gale40 ,every one knows how the craft raced into the gale1 with ,miss ,westbrook on board1 as soon as the ,oxford hawser was cut4 ,shelley might have done much worse4 ,she was a good and attractive person4 ,he began by liking her4 8,there are some hopes10 he says1 8of this dear little girl2 she would be a divine little scion of infidelity if ,i could get hold of her40 ,she seems to have been sincerely devoted to him and he afterwards to her1 until circumstances unknown or undivulged made his home insupportable to her1 and she became the 8frantic idiot0 who1 though she would give ,shelley money when she had it1 was apparently not sufficiently 8tolerant0 upon other points--such as that of his proposition that she should enjoy the scenery of ,switzerland in his company and that of her supplanter2 and it certainly showed some narrowness of mind to cast herself1 upon his final desertion of her1 first into some desperation of living and afterwards into the ,serpentine1 when she might have shared1 or at least witnessed1 the 8eternal rapture0 and 8divine aspirations0 which her husband was enjoying in the arms of another woman4 ,poor little 8idiot0 as she was1 she constitutes almost the only point in all this bewildering 8romance of reality0 upon which the mind can rest with any peace or pleasure4 ,what ,shelley was at first he remained to the last3 a beautiful1 effeminate1 arrogant boy--constitutionally indifferent to money1 generous by impulse1 self-indulgent by habit1 ignorant to the end of all that it most behoves a responsible being to know1 and so conceited that his ignorance was incurable2 showing at every turn the most infallible sign of a feeble intellect1 a belief in human perfectibility2 and rushing at once to the conclusion1 when he or others met with suffering1 that some one1 not the sufferer1 was doing grievous wrong4 ,if to do what is right in one's own eyes is the whole of virtue1 and to suffer for so doing is to be a martyr1 then ,shelley was the saint and martyr which a large number of--chiefly young--persons consider him to have been as a man2 and if to have the faculty of saying everything in the most brilliant language and imagery1 without having anything particular to say beyond sublime commonplaces and ethereal fallacies about love and liberty1 is to be a 8supreme0 poet1 then ,shelley undoubtedly was such4 ,but1 as a man1 ,shelley was almost wholly devoid of the instincts of the 8political animal10 which ,aristotle defines a man to be4 ,if he could not see the reasons for any social institution or custom1 he could not feel any2 and forthwith set himself to convince the world that they were the invention of priests and tyrants4 ,he was equally deficient in what is commonly understood by natural affection4 ,the ties of relationship were no ties to him3 for he could only see them as accidents4 8,i1 like the ,god of the ,jews10 writes ,shelley1 8set up myself as no respecter of persons2 and relationship is regarded by me as bearing that relation to reason which a band of straw does to fire40 ,as these deficiencies were the cause of all the abnormal phenomena of his life1 so they are at the root of1 or rather are1 the imperfections of his poetry1 which is all splendour and sentiment and sensitiveness1 and little or no true wisdom or true love4 ,the very texture of his verse suffers from these causes4 ,in his best poems it is firm1 fluent1 various1 and melodious2 but the more serious and subtle music of life which he had not in his heart he could not put into his rhythms2 which no one who knows what rhythm is will venture to compare with the best of ,tennyson's or ,wordsworth's1 far less with the best of our really 8supreme0 poets4 ,a very great deal of his poetry is much like the soap-bubbles he was so fond of blowing--its superficies beauty1 its substance wind2 or like many a young lady who looks and moves and modulates her speech like a goddess1 and chatters like an ape4 ,after ,shelley1 the chief male figure in this romance--which would be altogether incredible were it not real--is that of the guide1 philosopher1 and friend of the poet's youth1 ,godwin4 ,pecksniff is genteel comedy compared with the grim farce of this repulsive lover of wisdom as embodied in himself4 ,like the ,german poet who was entrusted by one friend to be the bearer of a sausage to another1 and1 bit by bit1 ate it all on his way1 ,godwin 8sincerely abhorred all that was sordid and mean2 but he liked sausage02 and the way he combined the necessity for nibbling at ,shelley's future fortune by making incessant claims1 which the latter could only satisfy by repeated and ruinous post-obits1 with the other necessity for keeping up the insulted and injured dignity of a man whom ,shelley had wronged past pardon1 is funny beyond description4 ,his writing to tell ,shelley that he had insulted him by giving him a heavy sum of money in the form of a cheque made payable to his 7,godwin's7 own name1 thereby making the gift liable to be construed as such by the banker1 and threatening solemnly not to receive the gift at all1 unless the name was changed to 8,hume0 or any other the poet might select1 is a touch which ,shakespeare might have coveted for ,ancient ,pistol4 ,it appears that there still exists a good deal of writing by and concerning ,shelley which it has not been deemed expedient to publish4 ,a footnote1 for instance1 assures us that 8a poetical epistle to ,graham referring to his father in odious terms0 is still 8in existence02 and various other unprinted letters and poems are alluded to4 ,but it is scarcely to be supposed that any future ,life of ,shelley will supersede ,professor ,dowden's--unless1 indeed1 it should be an abridgment1 more suitable in bulk and perhaps in tone than the present publication is1 for the use of those who1 undazzled1 or possibly repelled1 by the glamour of ,shelley's personality and revolutionary convictions1 admire the meteoric splendour of his genius and allow it its not unimportant place in the permanent literature of ,england4 ,,xv ,,blake ,blake's poetry1 with the exception of four or five lovely lyrics and here and there in the other pieces a startling gleam of unquestionable genius1 is mere drivel4 ,a sensible person can easily distinguish between that which he cannot understand and that in which there is nothing to be understood4 ,mr4 ,w4 ,rossetti1 who is an enthusiast for 8the much-maligned ,paris ,commune0 and for ,blake's poetry1 says of some of the latter1 where it is nearly at its worst1 8,we feel its potent and arcane influence1 but cannot dismember this into articulated meanings40 ,this sentence1 if put into less exalted ,english1 expresses tolerably well the aspect of mind with which we regard much of the writing of the ,prophets and of the great ancient and modern mystics4 ,some light of their meaning forces itself through the1 in most cases1 purposely obscure cloud of their words and imagery2 but when1 by chance1 a glimpse of the disk itself is caught1 it is surprisingly strong1 bright1 and intelligible4 ,such writers are only spoken of with irreverence by those that would have given their verdict in favour of the famous ,irishman who1 being confronted with one witness swearing to having seen him take a handkerchief from another gentleman's pocket1 brought four who testified with equal solemnity to not having seen him do any such thing4 ,the obvious rule in regard to such writers is1 8,when you cannot understand a man's ignorance1 think yourself ignorant of his understanding40 ,again1 if a man's sayings are wholly unintelligible to us1 he may claim the benefit of a small possibility of a doubt that his meanings may be too great and necessarily 8arcane0 for our powers of reception4 ,but when a writer's works consist of a few passages of great beauty and such simplicity that a child may understand them--like ,blake's 8,chimney-,sweep10 8,tiger10 8,piping down the valleys wild10 8,why was ,cupid a boy80 and 8,auguries of ,innocence0--and a great deal more that is mere ill-expressed but perfectly intelligible platitude and commonplace mixed with petty spite1 and a far larger quantity still which to the ear of the natural understanding is mere gibberish1 he has no right to claim1 as ,blake does1 that the latter shall be regarded as plenarily inspired1 or1 indeed1 as being anything better than the delirious rubbish it obviously is4 ,mr4 ,w4 ,rossetti1 though he goes a great way further in his admiration of ,blake than reason can be shown for1 does the cause of reason a good service in declaring his opinion that the poet was probably mad4 8,when10 says he1 8,i find a man pouring forth conceptions and images for which he professes himself not responsible1 and which are in themselves in the highest degree remote1 nebulous1 and intangible1 and putting some of these1 moreover1 into words wherein congruent sequence and significance of expression or analogy are not to be traced1 then ,i cannot resist a strong presumption that that man was in some true sense of the word mad40 ,as ,pope 8could not take his tea without a stratagem10 so ,blake could not 8mix his colours with diluted glue0 without declaring that 8the process was revealed to him by ,st4 ,joseph02 and it was the ghost of his brother who taught him the new1 though1 had we not been told otherwise1 the not supernaturally wonderful device of saving the expense of ordinary typography by etching the words of his verses on the copper plate which bore their illustrations4 ,blake was morally as well as intellectually mad2 proposing on one occasion1 for example1 that his wife should allow him to introduce a second partner to his bed1 and doing so with a bon fide unconsciousness of anything amiss in such a suggestion as perfect as that with which ,shelley urged his wife to come and share the delights of a tour in ,switzerland with him and his mistress ,mary ,godwin4 ,that 8great wits to madness nearly are allied0 is not true2 but it is not only true but psychologically explicable that small 8geniuses0 often are so4 ,most children are geniuses before the dawn of moral and intellectual responsibilities2 and there are some who remain1 not children1 but moral and intellectual manikins1 all their lives4 ,it must be confessed that conscience makes1 not only cowards1 but more or less dullards1 of us all4 ,the child1 that ,mighty prophet1 seer blest1 ,on whom those truths do rest ,which we are toiling all our lives to find1 owes his power of vision to his not being able to see the flaming sword of conscience which turns every way1 and hinders all men but a very few from getting a glimpse through the closed gates of ,paradise4 ,yet it is better to be a purblind man with a conscience than a seeing manikin with none4 ,it is better still1 and best of all1 when the man of developed intellect and fully accepted responsibilities retains a cherished memory of and an innocent sympathy with the knowledge that came to him in childhood and early youth1 and uses his trained powers of expression in order to make the world partakers of those thoughts and feelings which had no tongue when they first arose in him1 and leave no memory in the mass of men until the man of true and sane genius touches chords of recollection that would otherwise have slept in them for ever4 ,one of the few really good things ever said by ,hazlitt is that 8men of genius spend their lives in teaching the world what they themselves learned before they were twenty40 ,for the time1 however1 the manikin type of genius is all the fashion1 especially with a class of critics who have it in their power to give notoriety1 if they cannot give fame4 ,craziness alone passes at present for a strong presumption of genius1 and where genius is really found in company therewith it is at once pronounced 8supreme40 ,this is partly because most people can see that craziness has something abnormal about it1 and are ready1 therefore1 to identify it with genius1 of which most persons only know that it also is 8abnormal02 and partly because the manikin mind is always red republican1 and ardent in its hatred of kings1 priests1 8conventions10 the 8monopoly0 of property and of women1 and all other hindrances put in the way of virtue1 liberty1 and happiness by the wicked 8civilizee40 ,blake1 as an artist1 is a more important figure than ,blake the poet2 and naturally so1 for the smallest good poem involves a consecutiveness and complexity of thought which are only required in paintings of a character which ,blake rarely attempted4 ,yet1 even as a painter his reputation has until lately been much exaggerated4 ,the recent exhibition of his collected drawings and paintings was a great blow to the fame which had grown up from a haphazard acquaintance by his admirers with a few sketches or an illustrated poem4 ,here and there there was a gleam of such pure and simple genius as is often revealed in the speech of a finely natured child amid its ordinary chatter2 here and there the expression of a tender or distempered dream1 which was not like anything else in the spectator's experience2 now and then an outline that had a look of ,michael ,angelo1 with sometimes hints which might have formed the themes of great works1 and which justified the saying of ,fuseli that 8,blake is damned good to steal from02 but the effect of the whole collection was dejecting and unimpressive1 and did little towards confirming its creator's opinion that ,titian1 ,reynolds1 and ,gainsborough were bad artists1 and ,blake1 ,barry1 and ,fuseli good ones4 ,,xvi ,,rossetti ,,as ,a ,,poet ,the claims of ,rossetti as a painter and a poet have obtained a full and generous recognition2 and he has acquired a standing in either art which will in all probability abide1 though it is far too soon to attempt any estimate of his relative position in the permanent ranks of artists and writers4 ,his thoughtfulness1 and the clearness and intensity of his perceptions1 do not require to be insisted upon1 nor the almost unexampled way in which he has merged--and often1 it must be admitted1 confounded--the functions of painter and poet4 ,this he has done to the detriment of his perfection in either art2 in neither of which can he be truly said to have attained the character of mastery which may be found1 more or less1 in almost all other workers of equal genius with himself1 and sometimes in those whose natural qualifications have been inferior to his4 ,little of his drawing and none of his painting can be enjoyed without the drawback of some sense of manifest technical failure2 and nearly all his poetry--which is more or less difficult by reason of the quick succession of out-of-the-way thoughts and images1 needing the closest attention for their appreciation--is rendered unnecessarily so by language which rarely has the fluency of perfection4 ,in the two or three instances in which his verse becomes fluent and more or less masterly--notably in the 8,burden of ,nineveh0 and 8,jenny0--it ceases to be characteristic or subtle4 ,the 8,burden of ,nineveh0 might have been written by ,southey1 or any other writer of forcible words and thoughts in somewhat commonplace rhythm4 ,this fact1 that fluency fails him as soon as he gets upon his own proper ground1 renders it extremely difficult to discern and to describe exactly what that ground is4 ,style1 which is the true expression of the poet's individuality--the mark by which we discover1 not what1 but how1 he thinks and feels--is almost suffocated1 in ,rossetti's most characteristic work1 by voluntary oddities of manner and by a manifest difficulty in so moving in the bonds of verse as to convert them into graces4 ,if subtle thoughts and vivid imagery were all that went to make a poet1 ,rossetti would stand very high4 ,but these qualities must have the running commentary and musical accompaniment of free feeling1 which only a correspondingly subtle and vivid versification can express1 before they can be allowed to constitute a claim to the highest poetical rank4 ,rossetti as a versifier was as technically defective as ,rossetti as a painter2 his best poems and his best paintings are the outcome1 not only of very high aims--which are as common as blackberries--but of very high aims deeply and characteristically felt2 and his superiority to many far more technically perfect artists results from the fact that his characteristic feeling is strong enough to make itself powerfully1 however indistinctly1 perceived through the mist and obstructions of his mannerism and defective verse4 ,like all men of strong artistic individuality combined with serious artistic faults1 ,rossetti has had a great influence upon the literature of his day--such an influence as comparatively faultless writers never exert1 at least in their time4 ,many young versifiers and painters fancy they are reproducing ,rossetti's intensity when they are only imitating the most prevailing fault of his art1 its tensity4 ,his brother1 ,william ,rossetti1 in his modest and judicious introduction to these volumes1 tells how he and ,gabriel used to amuse themselves in making bouts-rims4 ,william says of his brother's literary toys of this sort3 8,some have a faux air of intensity of meaning1 as well as of expression2 but their real core of significance is small40 ,it cannot be denied that a careful scrutiny of much of ,rossetti's published work is open to this criticism4 ,it is tense without being intense4 ,this fault is his great attraction to his imitators1 whose every sensation is represented as a pang1 delicious or otherwise1 and whose mental sky is a canopy of iron destiny compared with which the melancholy of ,byron1 which likewise had so many copyists1 was no more than a pleasant shade4 ,in endeavouring to do justice to ,rossetti it must be remembered that1 though born and bred in ,england1 he was an ,italian by blood and sympathy4 ,his acquaintance with ,englishmen and ,english books was by no means wide4 ,love1 the constant theme of his art1 is in some of his most important poems1 not the ,english love whose stream is steady affection and only its occasional eddies passion1 and which1 when disappointed1 does not cease to be love1 though it becomes sorrow3 but the ,italian ardour1 in perennial crisis1 which stabs its rival and hates its object1 if she refuses its satisfaction1 as ardently as it worships her so long as there is hope4 ,the limitations1 also1 which characterise ,rossetti's poetry belong to ,italian poetry itself4 ,there is little breadth in it1 but much acuteness4 ,dante is to ,shakespeare as the ,peak of ,teneriffe to the tableland of ,tibet2 and1 as any reader of ,rossetti's translations of the minor ,italian poets may see1 the same proportion prevails between them and the lesser singers of ,england4 ,it is therefore quite unfair to try an essentially ,italian poet1 like ,rossetti1 by comparing his works with the classical poetry of a nation which1 for combined breadth and height1 far surpasses the poetry of all other languages present and past1 with the doubtful exception of the ,greek4 ,the ,english language itself is not made for ,italian thought and passion4 ,it has about four times as many vowel sounds as ,italian and a corresponding consonantal power2 that is to say1 it differs from the ,italian about as much as an organ differs from a flute4 ,rossetti uses little beside the flute-notes of our ,english organ2 and1 if he had made himself complete master of those notes1 it would have been the most that could have been expected of him4 ,in appearance and manners ,rossetti was thoroughly ,italian4 ,in his youth especially he had the sweet and easy courtesy peculiar to his nation4 ,his brother says1 8,there was a certain ,british bluffness streaking the finely poised ,italian suppleness and facility40 ,this describes1 better than perhaps ,mr4 ,william ,rossetti intended1 a characteristic which occasionally1 but fortunately not often1 appears in his poetry1 which is most pleasing when it is least 8streaked0 with ,british bluffness3 as it is1 for example1 in 8,jenny40 ,rossetti's power is chiefly shown in his long ballads1 such as 8,sister ,helen10 8,the ,bride's ,prelude10 8,rose ,mary10 and 8,the ,king's ,tragedy40 ,had these been found in ,percy's 8,relics10 they would have constituted the chief ornaments of that collection4 ,as it is1 it is impossible not to feel that they are more or less anachronisms1 both in spirit and in form4 ,the repetition of a refrain through the fifty stanzas or so of 8,sister ,helen10 the most forcible of all these lyrical narratives1 has no sufficient justification for its interruption of the fiercely flowing history4 ,a refrain which extends to more than three or four stanzas requires and originally assumed a musical accompaniment4 ,the constant high-pressure of passion in these ballads is also an anachronism2 and to the cultured modern reader this character is calculated to defeat the poet's purpose1 giving him an impression of cold instead of warmth1 as if the fire had a salamander instead of a heart in its centre4 ,a kindred fault1 which ,rossetti has in common with some of the most famous poets of the century1 is that of conferring upon all his images an acute and independent clearness which is never found in the natural and truly poetical expression of feeling4 ,it is true1 and great poets 7especially ,shakespeare7 have noted it1 that in extreme crises of passion there will sometimes be a moment of calm in which the minuti of some most trifling object or circumstance will1 as it were1 photograph themselves upon the mind4 ,but this prternatural calm is only the 8eye of the storm02 and to scatter broadcast1 over a long poem1 imagery with the sharpest outlines is to prove1 not only that it has not been written from true passion1 but that the poet has not even observed the phenomena of true passion4 ,such independent force and clearness of imagery can only be justified in poems of the very lowest type of artistic construction1 such as ,schiller's 8,song of the ,bell0 and 8,childe ,harold10 which scarcely profess to have more unity than is to be found in a scrap-book4 ,a fine poem may or may not be full of 8fine things02 but1 if it does abound in them1 their independent value should only appear when they are separated from their context4 ,in ,rossetti1 as in several other modern poets of great reputation1 we are constantly being pulled up1 in the professedly fiery course of a tale of passion1 to observe the moss on a rock or the note of a chaffinch4 ,high finish has nothing to do with this quality of extreme definiteness in detail2 indeed1 it is more often exercised by the perfect poet in blurring outlines than in giving them acuteness4 ,it must be admitted1 however1 that ,rossetti had an unusual temptation to this kind of excess in his extraordinary faculty for seeing objects in such a fierce light of imagination as very few poets have been able to throw upon external things4 ,he can be forgiven for spoiling a tender lyric by a stanza such as this1 which seems scratched with an adamantine pen upon a slab of agate-- ,but the sea stands spread ,as one wall with the flat skies1 ,where the lean black craft1 like flies1 ,seem wellnigh stagnated1 ,soon to drop off dead4 ,though the foregoing strictures apply to a large portion of ,rossetti's work1 there is a really precious residuum which they do not touch4 ,there are several pieces--such as 8,love's ,nocturn10 8,the ,portrait10 8,a ,little ,while10 and many sonnets--which are full of natural feeling expressed with simple and subtle art2 and in much of his work there is a rich and obscure glow of insight into depths too profound and too sacred for clear speech1 even if they could be spoken3 a sort of insight not at all uncommon in the great art of past times1 but exceedingly rare in the art of our own4 ,,xvii ,,mr4 ,,swinburne',s ,,selections ,it has probably been a misfortune for ,mr4 ,swinburne's growth as a poet that no winter of critical neglect preceded the full recognition of his very remarkable talents4 ,his best friends must allow that he is still somewhat younger in judgment than in his years and experience of authorship4 ,it is not1 however1 much to be wondered at that he should have been tempted to rest content with having apparently attained at a single step a height of reputation to reach which has been with most poets the work of hard climbing during many years4 ,mr4 ,swinburne is still in the prime of life and in full possession of his powers1 and some of his later work shows that he has that continued power of growth which is one of the greatest privileges of genius4 ,if he will only listen to his own critical conscience1 he may yet do work better and much more enduring than any he has yet done4 ,he cannot1 indeed1 hope to excel certain single passages of prose and verse in which he has attained a character of breadth and poetic ardour scarcely to be found in any other writer of the time2 but he can 7and there have of late been signs that he intends to7 modify his manner of thinking and writing so that his best--which is very good indeed--may not be discredited by so much of the jejune in thought and composition as is to be found in a great deal of his work heretofore4 ,hitherto ,mr4 ,swinburne has been too much given to protesting2 which is not the poet's work1 even when it is done wisely4 ,in his future writing we shall probably hear more of the whisper of affirmative wisdom than the whirlwind of passionate negation2 he will recognise more and more fully that the world is not and never will be made up of ,swinburnes and ,rossettis1 and that it is vain to denounce popular beliefs and institutions1 when he has only1 to set up in their places1 others which are1 and for ever will be1 unintelligible by the great majority of mankind1 and inapplicable to their demands4 ,the people will always insist on having kings and priests2 and ,mr4 ,swinburne has1 no doubt1 had his eyes too well opened by very recent history not to discern that it would be of little use to dethrone ,king ,log in favour of ,prime ,minister ,stork1 or to unfrock an ,archbishop of ,canterbury in order to transfer his authority to a ,general ,booth4 ,hitherto it has been impossible not to feel that there has been some disproportion between ,mr4 ,swinburne's power of saying things and the things he has to say4 ,this defect of the 8body of thought10 which ,coleridge once complained was wanting in an otherwise good poem1 has reacted upon ,mr4 ,swinburne's language itself1 producing sometimes a reiteration of words and imagery surpassing even that which is to be found in the works of ,shelley1 and which in them arose from the same inadequacy of matter4 ,for example1 in a passage of thirteen lines in the present volume we have 8flowery forefront of the year10 8foam-flowered strand10 8blossom-fringe10 8flower-soft face10 and 8spray-flowers02 and in ,mr4 ,swinburne's poems generally it must be confessed that flowers1 stars1 waves1 flames and three or four other entities of the natural order1 come in so often as to suggest some narrowness of observation and vocabulary4 ,this defect1 also1 is less manifest than it used to be1 though probably the abandonment to the mere joy of words1 which is natural and not altogether ungraceful in a writer who can use them so splendidly1 will always be a characteristic of ,mr4 ,swinburne's poetry4 ,it reminds us of the rapture of ,tristram in the truly magnificent description of the bath he took before breakfast in 8,sea and ,sunrise10 and the reader is often carried with like joy upon the waves of words without troubling himself as to whether he and the poet are not both out of their depth4 ,mr4 ,swinburne's mode of dealing with human passions is somewhat of an anachronism4 ,his heroes and heroines1 like those of the old ,english drama and the ,scandinavian poems1 often become heroic by the sacrifice of humanity1 and1 thereby1 of the reader's sympathy4 ,the pictures of ,mary ,queen of ,scots and of ,iseult in this volume1 for instance1 though painted with a great brush are not truly great1 because they are not greatly true--at all events1 to any conditions which the modern world recognises or should desire to recognise4 ,nor1 granting that the characters and situations are poetical1 is the execution quite what it ought to be4 ,the effects are obtained by a cumulative rather than a developing process2 and1 at the end of a long poem or passage full of strong words and images1 the idea of strength thence derived is rather that given by a hill than the living hole of a huge tree4 ,mr4 ,swinburne's metrical practice should be criticised with respect2 for he has an unquestionably fine ear1 and has ransacked the literature of all times in order to discover and appropriate1 or modify to his own uses1 a number of movements which1 unlike our familiar ,english metres1 are whirlwinds and blasts of passion in themselves4 ,such metres1 however1 should be sparingly used4 ,they almost satisfy the ear without any accompaniment of sound meaning1 and evoke1 as it were by a trick1 a current of emotion that is independent of any human feeling in the poet himself4 ,this is a great temptation1 and ,mr4 ,swinburne has not always avoided the traps which he has thus set for himself4 ,such metres have1 moreover1 the disadvantage of fixing in too peremptory a manner the key in which the poems written in them must be sustained4 ,they allow none of the endless modulations which are open to the poet who writes in almost any of our native and less emphatic measures4 ,mr4 ,swinburne has the less reason for resorting so habitually as he does to this too easy means of obtaining passionate effect1 inasmuch as some of his very best and most effective passages are written in our common metres4 ,witness the almost incomparable apostrophe to ,athens1 in 8,erechtheus0 7unfortunately not included in these selections71 and 8,sea and ,sunrise10 and 8,herse40 ,there is one still easier and far less excusable source of effect which every friend of the poet must rejoice to see that he has of late abandoned4 ,there is nothing in the ,selections which a schoolgirl might not be permitted to read and understand1 if she could2 and there are a number of pieces about children which are so full of pure and tender perceptions as to cause a doubt whether1 in some of his earlier writings1 the poet was not wantonly flouting the world's opinion rather than expressing any very real phase of his own feeling4 ,,xviii ,,arthur ,,hugh ,,clough ,clough worshipped ,truth with more than the passion of a lover1 and his writings are1 for the most part1 the tragic records of a life-long devotion to a mistress who steadily refused his embraces2 but as it is greatly better to have loved without attaining than to have attained without loving1 so ,clough's ardent and unrewarded stumblings in the dark towards his adored though unseen divinity are greatly more attractive and edifying to those who have shared1 successfully or not1 the same passion1 than is that complacent fruition of her smiles which she often accords to those who are contented to be no more than her speaking acquaintances4 ,regarded from a purely intellectual point of view1 ,clough's utterances on religion1 duty1 etc41 are little better than the commonplaces which in these days pass through the mind and more or less affect the feelings of almost every intelligent and educated youth before he is twenty years of age2 but there are commonplaces which cease to be such1 and become indefinitely interesting1 in proportion as they are animated by moral ardour and passion4 ,speech may work good by warming as well as by enlightening2 and if ,clough's writings teach no new truth1 they may inflame the love of truth1 which is perhaps as great a service4 ,though he professes that he can nowhere see light where light is most necessary and longed for1 his mind is utterly opposed to the negative type2 and he exactly exemplifies the class of believer whom ,richard ,hooker endeavours to comfort1 in his great sermon on 8the perpetuity of faith in the elect10 by the reminder that a longing to believe is implicit faith1 and that we cannot sorrow for the lack of that which we interiorly hold to be nonexistent4 ,a question that must suggest itself to most readers is1 ,what is the use and justification of these endless and tautological lamentations over the fact--as ,clough conceived it to be--that1 for such as him at least1 8,christ is not risen08 ,the reply is1 that the responsibility of the publication of so much that is profoundly passionate but far from profoundly intellectual scepticism was not his4 ,with the exception of some not very significant critical essays1 his prose consists of letters1 which were of course not meant for the public2 and the greater part of his poetry remained to the day of ,clough's death in his desk1 and would probably never have left it1 with his consent1 unless to be put in the fire4 ,those who recognise in the 8,bothie0 ,clough's almost solitary claim to literary eminence must somewhat wonder at the considerable figure he stands for in the estimation of the present generation4 ,the fact is that ,clough1 like ,james ,spedding1 was personally far more impressive than his works2 and the singularly strong effect produced among his friends by the extreme simplicity and shy kindliness of his life and manners1 and the at once repellent and alluring severity of his truthfulness1 gave his character a consequence beyond that of his writings with all who knew him though ever so slightly2 and the halo of this sanctity hangs1 through the report of his friends1 about all that he has done1 and renders cold criticism of it almost impossible4 ,no one who knew ,clough can so separate his personality from his writings as to be able to criticise them fairly as literature2 no one who has not known him can understand their value as the outcome of character4 ,the impressionable and feminine element1 which is manifest in all genius1 but which in truly effective genius is always subordinate to power of intellect1 had in ,clough's mind the preponderance4 ,the masculine power of intellect consists scarcely so much in the ability to see truth1 as in the tenacity of spirit which cleaves to and assimilates the truth when it is found1 and which steadfastly refuses to be blown about by every wind of doctrine and feeling4 ,the reiterated theme of ,clough's poetry is that the only way of forgetting certain problems now1 and of securing their solution hereafter1 is to do faithfully our nearest duty4 ,this is no new teaching3 it is that of every religion and all philosophy4 ,but ,clough had no power of trusting patiently to the promise1 8,do my commandments1 and you shall know of the doctrine40 ,this was the ruin of what might otherwise have been a fine poetic faculty4 ,a 8,problem0 will not sing even in the process of solution1 much less while it is only a hopeless and irritating 8,pons40 ,clough was curiously attracted by ,emerson1 of whom he spoke as the only great contemporary ,american4 ,now ,emerson1 at his very best1 never approached greatness4 ,he was at highest only a brilliant metaphysical epigrammatist4 ,but a religion without a dogma1 and with only one commandment1 8,thou shalt neither think nor do anything that is customary10 had great attractions for ,clough2 to whom it never seems to have occurred that the vast mass of mankind1 for whose moral and religious welfare he felt so keenly1 has not and never can have a religion of speechless aspirations and incommunicable feelings1 and that to teach men to despise custom is to cut the immense majority of them adrift from all moral restraint4 ,the promise that we shall all be priests and kings seems scarcely to be for this world4 ,at all events we are as far from its fulfilment now as we were two thousand years ago2 and we shall not be brought nearer to it by any such outpourings of sarcastic discontent as go to the making of such poems as the tedious ,mephistophelian drama called 8,dipsychus10 which ,clough had the good sense not to publish1 though it is included with many others of equally doubtful value in posthumous editions of his works4 ,this class of his poems possesses1 indeed1 a lively interest for a great many people of our own time1 who are in the painful state of moral and religious ferment which these verses represent2 but it is a mere accident of the time that there is any considerable audience for such utterances1 and in a generation or two it is probable that most men will feel surprise that there could ever have been a public who found poetry in this sort of matter4 ,the 8,bothie of ,tober-na-,vuolich0 is the only considerable poem of ,clough's in which he seems1 for a time1 to have got out of his slough of introspection and doubt and to have breathed the healthy air of nature and common humanity4 ,in spite of many artistic shortcomings1 this poem is so healthy1 human1 and original1 that it can scarcely fail to survive when a good deal of far more fashionable verse shall have disappeared from men's memories4 ,the one infallible note of a true poet--the power of expressing himself in rhythmical movements of subtilty and sweetness which baffle analysis--is also distinctly manifest in passages of the 8,bothie10 passages the music of which was1 we fancy1 lingering in the ear of ,tennyson when he wrote certain parts of 8,maud40 ,the originality of this idyl is beyond question4 ,it is not in the least like any other poem1 and an occasionally ostentatious touch of the manner of 8,herman and ,dorothea0 seems to render this originality all the more conspicuous in the main4 ,another note of poetical power1 scarcely less questionable than is that of sweetness and subtilty of rhythm1 is the warm and pure breath of womanhood which is exhaled from the love-passages of this poem4 ,clough seems to have felt1 in the presence of a simple and amiable woman1 a mystery of life which acted for a time as the rebuke and speechless solution of all doubts and intellectual distresses4 ,these passages in the 8,bothie10 and1 in a less degree1 some others in the 8,amours de ,voyage10 stand1 in the disturbed course of ,clough's ordinary verse1 like the deep1 pure1 and sky-reflecting pools which occasionally appear in the course of a restless mountain river4 ,,xix ,,emerson ,the life and writings of ,emerson owe their chief claim on our attention to the fact that they represent with singular force a line of thought and belief--if belief it can be called--which an immense number of the young1 intelligent1 and sincere of the past and present generation have been endeavouring to follow1 though as yet without any remarkable or satisfactory results4 8,every man is potentially a man of genius10 is the one dogma of ,emerson's religion--though it is nowhere put thus plainly by him2 and its one commandment is 8,be a man of genius40 ,absolute nonconformity with everything1 we are taught1 is the first condition of personal and social well-being2 and we are enjoined to look upon our individual insight as our one infallible guide1 though it may bid us go one way to-day and the opposite to-morrow4 ,at the time when ,emerson was debating with himself as to whether he should throw up his office as ,unitarian preacher he seems to have had some searchings of heart as to the validity of the new doctrine4 8,how10 he writes1 in his ,journal1 8shall the droning world get on if all its beaux esprits recalcitrate upon its approved forms and accepted constitutions and quit them in order to be single-minded8 ,the double-refiners would produce at the other end the double-damned40 ,this is perhaps the wisest thing ever said by ,emerson2 but he nevertheless chose his part definitively with the 8double refiners40 8,i hate preaching10 he writes in a subsequent page of his ,journal4 8,preaching is a pledge1 and ,i wish to say what ,i feel and think to-day1 with the proviso that to-morrow perhaps ,i shall contradict it all40 ,in the free use of his proviso he accordingly1 for the remainder of his life1 followed and taught others to follow what he called 8intuition10 even though it should not wait for 8to-morrow0 to contradict itself4 ,for example1 in the last page but one of the essay on 8,character0 we are instructed to reject the doctrine of the divinity of ,christ because 8the mind requires a victory to the senses1 a force of character which will convert judge1 jury1 soldier1 and king and on the following page we are told that1 8when that love which is all-suffering1 all-abstaining1 all-aspiring 444 comes into our streets and houses1 only the pure and aspiring can know its face40 ,emerson's life1 journals1 and letters considerably modify the impression which his published essays and lectures are calculated to leave--namely1 that he was a mere stringer-together of lively thoughts1 images1 and poetical epigrams4 ,he seems to have made the best of his own humanity1 and to have always done the right according to his judgment1 though the doing of it sometimes involved serious pecuniary inconvenience1 and1 as in the case of his opposition to the fugitive slave law1 violent popular disapprobation4 ,he was kindly and moral in his family and social relationships1 and was conscientious even to a fault in avoiding those venial sins of language to which the most of us are perhaps too indifferent4 ,his ,american admirers sometimes spoke of him as an 8angel40 ,at any rate1 he was a sort of sylph4 ,he noted of his compatriots generally that 8they have no passions1 only appetites40 ,he seems to have had neither passion nor appetite2 and there was an utter absence of 8nonsense0 about him which made it almost impossible to be intimate with him4 ,margaret ,fuller1 his closest friend1 and even his wife1 whom he loved in his own serene way1 seem to have chafed under the impossibility of getting within the adamantine sphere of self-consciousness which surrounded him4 ,he not only could not forget himself1 but he could not forget his grammar2 and when he talked he seemed rather to be 8composing0 his thoughts than thinking them4 ,his friend and admirer1 ,mr4 ,henry ,james the elder1 complains that for this reason his conversation was without charm4 8,for nothing ever came but epigrams1 sometimes clever1 sometimes not40 ,his manners and discourse were1 however1 invariably kind and amiable4 ,he never seems to have uttered a personal sarcasm1 and only once in his life to have been seriously angry4 ,this was on occasion of the famous fugitive slave law1 which he indignantly declared would be disobeyed1 if need be1 by himself and every honest man4 ,dr4 ,w4 ,h4 ,furness writes of ,emerson3 8,we were babies and schoolfellows together4 ,i don't think he ever engaged in boys' plays4444 ,i can as little remember when he was not literary in his pursuits as when ,i first made his acquaintance40 ,indeed1 8orating0 was in ,emerson's blood4 ,nearly all his known ancestors and relatives seem to have been 8ministers0 of some denomination or other4 ,his school-days--though he never became a scholar in any department of learning--began before he was three years old4 ,his father complains of the baby of two years and odd months--8,ralph does not read very well yet02 and during all the rest of his youth ,dr4 ,furness says that he grew up under 8the pressure of ,i know not how many literary atmospheres40 ,add to this the fact that his father and mother and his aunt--who was the chief guide of his nonage--were persons who seemed to think that love could only be manifested by severe duty1 and rarely showed him any signs of the weaknesses of 8affection10 and we have as bad a bringing-up for a moral1 philosophical1 and religious teacher as could well have been devised4 8,the natural first1 and afterwards the spiritual40 ,where innocent joy and personal affection have not been main factors of early experience the whole life wants the key to ,christianity2 and a rejection of all faith--except that in 8genius10 8over-soul10 8a somewhat which makes for righteousness10 or some other such impotent abstraction--is1 in our day1 almost inevitable in a mind of constitutional sincerity like ,emerson's1 especially when such sincerity is unaccompanied1 as it was in him1 by a warm and passionate nature and its intellectual correlative1 a vigorous conscience4 ,emerson1 though a good man--that is1 one who lived up to his lights--had little or no conscience4 ,he admired good1 but did not love it2 he denounced evil1 but did not hate it1 and did not even maintain that it was hateful1 but only greatly inexpedient4 ,though ,emerson could not see that a religion of which there is nothing left but an 8over-soul0 is much the same thing as a man of whom there is nothing left but his hat1 the religious bodies to which he was for many years more or less attached were less devoid of humour1 and the joke of a faith without a dogma became1 in time1 too much for their seriousness4 ,consequently they agreed amicably to part1 and ,emerson pursued his course2 that which had hitherto been called 8preaching0 becoming thenceforward lecturing and 8orating40 ,there can be no greater misfortune for a sincere and truthful mind like ,emerson's than to have to get a living by 8orating40 ,this was his predicament1 however2 and there can be no doubt that his mind and his writings were the worse for this necessity4 ,his philosophy afforded him only a very narrow range of subject4 ,in all his essays and lectures he is but ringing the changes upon three or four ideas--which are really commonplace1 though his sprightly wit and imagination give them freshness2 and it is impossible to read any single essay1 much less several in succession1 without feeling that the licence of tautology is used to its extremest limits4 ,in a few essays--for example1 8,the ,poet10 8,character10 and 8,love0--the writer's heart is so much in the matter that these endless variations of one idea have the effect of music which delights us to the end with the reiteration of an exceedingly simple theme2 but in many other pieces it is impossible not to detect that weariness of the task of having to coin dollars out of transcendental sentiments to which ,emerson's letters and journals often bear witness4 ,but1 whether delighted with or weary of his labour1 there is no progress in his thought1 which resembles the spinning of a cockchafer on a pin rather than the flight of a bird on its way from one continent to another4 ,emerson's was a sweet and uniformly sunny spirit2 but the sunshine was that of the long ,polar day1 which enlightens but does not fructify4 ,it never even melted the icy barrier which separated his soul from others2 and men and women were nothing to him1 because he never got near enough to understand them4 ,hence his journals and letters about his visits to ,europe1 and especially to ,england1 are curiously superficial in observation4 ,he made many acute and witty remarks1 such as1 8,every ,englishman is a ,house of ,commons1 and expects that you will not end your speech without proposing a measure20 but1 on the whole1 he quite misunderstood the better class of our countrymen1 of whom1 in his second visit to ,england1 he had the opportunity of seeing a good deal4 ,although there was much constitutional reserve1 there was no real reticence in him4 ,his ethereal1 unimpassioned ideas had1 indeed1 nothing in them that1 for him1 commanded reticence2 and he concluded that the best sort of ,englishmen were without any motives that 8transcend0 sense1 because he did not feel1 as all such ,englishmen do1 that though that which transcends sense may be infinitely dearer than all else1 and even because it is so dear1 it is better not to talk of things which can scarcely be spoken of without inadequacy and even an approach to nonsense4 ,many an ,englishman would turn aside with a jest from any attempt to lead him into 8transcendental0 talk1 not because he was less1 but because he was more 8serious0 than his interlocutor2 and also because the very recognition of certain kinds of knowledge involves the recognition of obligations1 to confess directly or indirectly the fulfilment or neglect of which implies either self-praise or self-blame1 which1 in ordinary circumstances1 are alike indecent4 ,in fact1 ,emerson was totally deficient in the religious sense1 which is very strong in the hearts of a vast number of ,englishmen who own to no fixed creed1 but who would be revolted by the profound and unconscious irreverence with which ,emerson was in the habit of speaking and writing of the most sacred things and names4 ,the name of 8,jesus0 frequently occurs in such sentences as this3 8,nor ,jesus1 nor ,pericles1 nor ,csar1 nor ,angelo1 nor ,washington10 etc4 ,if we put aside ,emerson's unconscious malpractices in this sort1 the attitude of his mind with regard to the serious beliefs of the world were too childish for resentment or exposure4 ,it is as if one should be angry with a young lady who should simper1 8,oh1 my religion is the religion of the ,sermon on the ,mount60 in answer to an attempt to talk with her about ,bossuet or ,hooker4 ,,xx ,,crabbe ,,and ,,shelley ,the firmament of fame is full of variable stars1 and they are nowhere thicker than in that great constellation of poets which marks the end of the last and the commencement of this century4 ,among the names of ,byron1 ,moore1 ,rogers1 ,southey1 ,wordsworth1 ,coleridge1 ,keats1 ,shelley1 ,burns1 ,campbell1 ,crabbe1 ,cowper1 and ,scott1 there are only two the lustre of whose names has remained perfectly steady and seems likely to remain so4 ,two or three1 which blazed forth at once as luminaries of the first magnitude1 have gradually and persistently waned--whether or not ever to recover any part of their lost splendour is very doubtful4 ,the light of one or two others has fluctuated violently1 and continues to do so1 with a manifest diminution1 however1 in their total sum of light2 one or two others have suffered a distinct degradation from first into second or third class lustres1 and at present show no sign of further alteration4 ,two at least have grown astonishingly in conspicuousness1 and now glow like the ,dog-star and ,aldebaran--though there are not wanting sky-critics who declare that they discern conditions of coming change and retrogression2 and one at least has almost disappeared from the heaven of public recognition1 not1 however1 without prognostications from some of an assured reassertion of a moderate if not predominating position4 ,to quit figures of speech1 ,coleridge and ,burns--though poets of very different calibre--are the only two of the thirteen above mentioned whose reputations have been altogether unaffected by the violent changes of literary fashion which have taken place in the course of the century4 ,each of these two poets has written a good deal which the world will willingly let die2 but ,coleridge in his great way1 and ,burns in his comparatively small way1 have done a certain moderate amount of work so thoroughly and manifestly well that no sane critic has ever called it into question or ever will4 ,by the leaders of poetic fashion ,moore and ,rogers have come to be accounted as almost nowhere as poets4 ,southey and ,cowper now depend mainly for their fame upon a few small pieces1 which in their own day were not regarded as of much account in comparison with such works as ,the ,task and ,the ,curse of ,kehama2 ,campbell now lives only1 but vigorously1 in a few lyrics4 ,who but ,mr4 ,ruskin is there that would not laugh now to hear the name of ,scott coupled with those of ,keats and ,shelley8 ,byron1 who once outblazed all others1 is now considered1 by many judges not altogether to be disregarded1 less as a great fixed star than as a meteor formed from earthly fumes condensed and for a time incandescent in the upper air4 ,wordsworth's fame1 though all agree that it is assured1 has suffered and is likely still to suffer some fluctuations2 and1 when poetry is talked about in circles of modern experts1 no one ever hears of ,crabbe1 though here and there one comes upon some literary oddity who maintains that he has as good a claim as ,shelley to a place in the heavens of abiding fame4 ,as this1 to most modern ears astounding1 paradox is certainly maintained1 in private at least1 by several persons whose opinion the most advanced critic would not think of despising1 it may be worth while to see what can be said for it4 ,things1 it is said1 are best known by comparison with their opposites2 and1 if so1 surely ,crabbe must be best illustrated by ,shelley and ,shelley by ,crabbe4 ,shelley was an atheist and profoundly immoral2 but his irreligion was radiant with pious imagination1 and his immorality delicately and strictly conscientious4 ,crabbe was a most sincere ,christian in faith and life2 but his religion and morality were intolerant1 narrow1 and scrupulous1 and sadly wanting in all the modern graces4 ,shelley had no natural feeling or affection and the greatest sensitiveness2 ,crabbe had the tenderest and strongest affections1 but his nerves and sthetic constitution were of the coarsest4 ,shelley's taste often stood him in the stead of morality4 ,he would have starved rather than write begging letters to ,thurlow1 ,burke1 and other magnates1 as ,crabbe did when he wanted to better his condition as an apothecary's apprentice4 ,crabbe's integrity produced some of the best effects of taste1 and made him at once an equal in manners with the dukes and statesmen with whom he associated as soon as he had been taken from his beggary by ,burke4 ,through years and years of poverty and almost hopeless trial ,crabbe was a devoted and faithful lover1 and afterwards as devoted and faithful a husband to his 8,myra10 whom he adored in verses that justified some one's description of his style as 8,pope in worsted stockings40 ,shelley breathes eternal vows in music of the spheres1 to woman after woman1 whom he will abandon and speak or write of with hatred and contempt as soon as their persons have ceased to please him4 ,crabbe knew nothing of the 8ideal10 but loved all actualities1 especially unpleasant ones1 upon which he would turn the electric light of his peculiar powers of perception till the sludge and dead dogs of a tidal river shone4 ,jeffrey described the true position of ,crabbe among poets better than any one else has done when he wrote1 8,he has represented his villagers and humble burghers as altogether as dissipated and more dishonest and discontented than the profligates of higher life4444 ,he may be considered as the satirist of low life--an occupation sufficiently arduous1 and in a great degree new and original in our language40 ,in this his proper vocation ,crabbe is so far from being a 8,pope in worsted stockings10 that his lines often resemble the strokes of ,dryden's sledge-hammer rather than the stings of his successor's cane4 ,but1 when uninspired by the intensely disagreeable or vicious1 ,crabbe's 8diction0 is to modern ears1 for the most part1 intolerable4 ,in his cooler moments he poured forth thousands of such couplets as ,it seems to us that our ,reformers knew ,th' important work they undertook to do4 ,and to such vile newspaper prose he not only added the ghastly adornment of verse1 but also frequently enlivened it with the 8poetic licences0 and ,parnassian 8lingo0 of the ,pope period4 ,what a contrast with ,shelley6 ,he erred quite as much as ,crabbe did from the imaginative reality which is the true ideal2 but it was all in the opposite way4 ,if ,crabbe's eye1 in its love for the actual and concrete1 dwelt too habitually upon the hardness and ugliness of the earth on which he trod1 ,shelley's thoughts and perceptions were for the most part ,pinnacled dim in the intense inane of a fancy which had no foundation in earth or heaven4 ,his poetry has1 however1 the immortal reality of music2 and his songs are songs1 though they may be often called 8songs without words10 the words meaning so little though they sound so sweet4 ,this 8parallel0--as lines starting and continued in opposite directions have got to be called--might be carried much further with advantage to the student of poetry2 and the comparison might be still more profitable if the best poems of ,coleridge were examined as illustrations of the true poetic reality from which ,crabbe and ,shelley diverge equally1 but in contrary ways4 ,crabbe mistakes actuality for reality2 ,shelley's imagination is unreal4 ,coleridge1 when he is himself1 whether he is in the region of actuality1 as in 8,genevieve10 or in that of imagination1 as in 8,christabel10 is always both real and ideal in the only true poetic sense1 in which reality and ideality are truly one4 ,in each of these poems1 as in every work of true art1 there is a living idea which expresses itself in every part1 while the complete work remains its briefest possible expression1 so that it is as absurd to ask ,what is its idea8 as it would be to ask what is the idea of a man or of an oak4 ,this idea cannot be a simple negation2 and simple evil--which is so often ,crabbe's theme--is simple negation4 ,on the other hand1 good1 in order to be the ground of the ideal in art1 must be intelligible--that is to say1 imaginatively credible1 though it may want the conditions of present actuality4 ,but is there any such ideal as this in ,shelley8 ,,xxi ,,shall ,,smith ,,have ,a ,,statue8 ,the modern practice of sending the hat round for money to set up in the ,abbey or elsewhere a statue1 or at least a bust1 of ,smith1 during or immediately after his lifetime1 in grateful remembrance of the service or pleasure he may have done us1 can rarely be indulged without danger of making him and ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of our children2 or even in our own1 should we survive for a few years the amiable folly of having raised an abiding memorial of our possibly transient enthusiasm4 ,there could have been no doubt of the propriety of setting up a statue to the ,duke of ,wellington after ,waterloo1 however much there may reasonably have been about the propriety of the statue itself which the ladies of ,england dedicated to the hero4 ,but even in the case of such obvious and measurable merits as those of warriors1 it is best not to be in a hurry4 ,historical criticism has discovered that the credit of great battles and even campaigns has not always been rightly due to the commanders-in-chief4 ,again1 improvements like those of the steam jet1 by which it became at once possible to raise the rate of railway travelling from under ten to over fifty miles an hour1 the penny post1 and the electric telegraph1 are certainly matters for permanent memorials1 provided that they are raised to the right men4 ,but improvements and inventions of this magnitude scarcely ever are1 in the first instance1 attributed to the right men1 who are generally more or less obscure and unrewarded geniuses4 ,it is the practical man1 who has the quickness to see the money value of a great invention and the means of removing the last external hindrance to its popular use1 that gets the statue1 and the money too4 ,few would envy him the latter2 but it is cruel to him no less than to ourselves to be in such haste to decorate him with a laurel crown1 which the touch of time may change into a fool's cap4 ,again1 unless statues are due to good intentions ardently prosecuted without reference to results1 we ought to be very careful how we impose immortality upon great philanthropists and humanitarians4 ,it would not have been for the abiding happiness and honour of the two eminent prelates and the able editor who lately constituted themselves high commissioners of public morality1 to have had their images set up in ,hyde ,park back to back1 like the figure of ,hecate ,triformis1 and so to have been forbidden eternally to blush unseen1 as no doubt they now desire to do4 ,it would be prudent1 also1 to wait a while before conferring diplomas of immortality upon the heroes of legislation4 ,the fame of repealers of navigation laws and founders of household franchise should be considered as in a state of pupilage for at least fifty years2 and they should not be allowed to sport bronze thighs and the toga virilis1 before the public buildings or in the squares of the metropolis1 ere the paper on which their ,bills are printed is well dry4 ,it should be remembered that1 in our haste1 we may be placing an awful and easy vengeance in the hands of posterity2 which might choose1 not to pull down such monuments1 but--to let them stand4 ,but of all modes of premature insistence upon the verdict of fame1 that which is most to be avoided1 if we would avoid making ourselves unnecessarily absurd1 is that of decreeing immortality during or soon after their lifetime to literary men and artists4 ,if1 indeed1 there existed academies of art and literature1 which should consist of all the best men of their kind1 all actuated by the most disinterested appreciation of merit not their own in their own profession1 then we might have some approximation--but only an approximation--to a safe tribunal2 and if ,smith and his friends were such boobies as to want the cake of fame before it was baked1 ,smith might be 8busted up0 in the ,abbey1 or obtain a parliamentary guarantee of being puff-worthy1 in his own day or immediately after1 with little more to be said against it than that it was a want of decorum1 all the more disgusting on account of the dignity of the occasion and the absence of any call for hurry4 ,but1 as no such academy could exist1 or1 if it existed1 could make its decrees prevail with those who are the decreers of statues1 how does the matter stand8 ,a man who has done his best1 perhaps1 to give us harmless amusement1 and whose only crime is that of having succeeded too well in adapting himself to the poor capacities and passing moods of his present audience1 is now in such danger as he never was at any former time of finding himself rewarded with ten thousand per annum here and an eternity of contempt hereafter4 ,if persons of culture and natural taste have often to confess that the painter or poet or novelist whose muse was the seemingly faultless mistress of his affections five-and-twenty years ago1 now stands before him as a false ,duessa1 what should we think of the right to raise monuments claimed by that public which is as changeable in its tastes as it is liberal in paying for their indulgence8 ,yet it is this public that is venturing more and more audaciously to anticipate the verdict of time4 ,true1 it often uses a ,minister or a committee of experts as its agent1 councillor1 and representative2 but it is none the safer for that4 ,if the agents themselves know better1 they know the value of their own popularity too well to say so2 or they may have a secret grudge against ,smith1 and so cry 8,ay0 with all their hearts when the people ask1 8,shall ,smith have a statue80 ,,xxii ,,ideal ,,and ,,material ,,greatness ,,in ,,architecture ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas writes1 8,great riches are not required for the habit of magnificence2 it is enough that a man should dispose of such as he possesses greatly1 according to time and place40 ,as in life1 so in art1 and especially in architecture1 greatness of style is quite independent of wealth of material2 indeed1 wealth of material is constantly found by true artists to be a fatal hindrance to grandeur of effect4 ,hence great poets and painters are usually very shy of what commonly pass for great subjects--that is1 subjects full of obvious interest and splendour2 and1 if they treat such subjects at all1 they begin by denuding them as far as possible of all that makes them attractive to the novice in art1 until they come to a simple greatness which was hitherto a secret4 ,now ,i wish to point out what ,i conceive to be a principal condition of great effect with small means and in small or comparatively small buildings4 ,it is magnificence in the expenditure of such material as the architect possesses1 and especially of stone1 brick1 and timber4 ,it is commonly supposed1 even by architects1 that a solidity of wall and roof sufficient to put far out of sight any idea of insecurity or decay1 if properly shown forth and expressed by chamfer1 moulding1 cornice1 shafted recess1 and the many other 8decorations0 which are principally methods of showing the thickness of wall and weight of roof1 is all that noble building calls for2 and that the frequent--nay1 general--practice of ancient architecture in going much further than this was simply waste of material caused by want of mechanical knowledge4 ,but those who know most of ancient architecture know best that there was no want of mechanical knowledge displayed in it1 but quite the reverse4 ,not only is mechanical knowledge1 equal if not beyond our own1 proved by such buildings as ,york and ,salisbury ,cathedrals1 but the house and cottage builder of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries seems to have known all the details of his business fully as well as the most ingenious economist of material that ever 8scamped0 a modern tenement of the same order4 ,he was fully aware that the strength of a rafter lay rather in its depth than its breadth1 and that1 for a time at least1 a few boards two inches thick and ten inches deep1 set edgeways1 would suffice to carry the roof1 which nevertheless it pleased him better to lay upon a succession of beams ten inches square4 ,it is the reality1 and the modest ostentation of the reality1 of such superfluous substantiality that constitutes the whole secret of effect in many an old house that strikes us as 8architectural0 though it may not contain a single item of architectural ornament2 and1 in the very few instances in which modern buildings have been raised in the same fashion1 the beholder at once feels that their generous regard for the far future is of almost as poetical a character as the aged retrospect of a similar house of the time of ,henry ,,vii or ,elizabeth4 ,a man now hires a bit of ground for eighty or ninety years2 and1 if he has something to spare to spend on beauty1 he says to himself3 8,i will build me a house that will last my time1 and what money ,i have over ,i will spend in decorating it4 ,why should ,i waste my means in raising wall and roof which will last five times as long as ,i or mine shall want them80 ,the answer is3 ,because that very 8waste0 is the truest and most striking ornament2 and though you and your family's usufruct of a house thus magnanimously built may be but a fifth of its natural age1 there lies in that very fact an 8ornament0 of the most noble and touching kind1 which will be obvious at all seasons to yourself and every beholder1 though the consciousness of its cause may be dormant2 whereas the meanness of your own plan will be only the more apparent with every penny you spend in making it meretricious4 ,i have said that a modest ostentation of extreme substantiality is also an element of architectural effect in the kind of building contemplated4 ,this1 indeed1 is the properly architectural or artistic element4 ,a house will look respectable1 and something more than respectable1 which has only the reality of being built somewhat better than well4 ,but consciousness is the life of art1 and there must be a quiet rejoicing in strength1 solidity1 and permanence1 to give these characters that power over the imagination which a work of art must have4 ,a labourer's cottage or the smallest village church which has this character is an artistic and rightly architectural work2 and the nobleman's mansion or the cathedral which wants it is not4 ,here comes in that true 8decoration0 which scarcely the humblest house of the sixteenth or early part of the seventeenth century was altogether without4 ,in out-of-the-way villages and roadside inns of that period1 you will find your attention directed to the thickness and weight of the roof-timbers by a carved or moulded cornice1 which measures and expatiates upon the depth and substance of the rafters which terminate therein2 or one or more of the brackets supporting the joists of the overhanging bedroom floor will have a touch of carving1 to declare with what ease and pleasure the burthen is borne upon their sturdy shoulders2 or the lintel of the door will show and boast of the thickness of the wall by a moulded chamfer4 ,a single touch of such decoration glorifies the whole1 and puts the living spirit of art into the body of an honest building1 however humble it may be4 ,so far is size from being needful to greatness in architecture1 that one of the very grandest pieces of domestic building ,i ever saw is a little village inn of extremely early date in a ,sussex village which scarcely anybody has ever heard of1 though it stands but two miles from ,berwick ,station on the ,south ,coast ,railway4 ,this village is ,aldfriston4 ,it has in its little market-place an extremely ancient stone cross1 far gone in decay1 having never been touched by restorer4 ,the whole village has an air of antiquity such as breathes from no other ,english village ,i have ever seen2 but older than anything1 except the cross1 is its hostelry--no bigger than a well-to-do bailiff's cottage1 showing no ,elizabethan 8variety0 in its ground-plan1 and the front to the street having but three windows above and one on either side of the doorway4 ,coming upon it quite unprepared for seeing anything particular in the village1 this house fairly took my breath away by its exemplification of the way in which ideal and material greatness differ4 ,it was like coming1 in a newspaper article1 upon three or four lines of great and unknown poetry4 ,yet it was nothing but a cottage built mightily1 and with a mighty consciousness of being so built4 ,it seems never to have been touched1 except here and there by the house-painter1 since the date at which it was raised1 which was probably in the fifteenth century1 the carved foliage in the spandrels of the small arched doorway indicating that period4 ,an architect learned in mouldings might perhaps fix the date to within twenty-five years1 from those of the cornice4 ,the bedroom story projects considerably over the ground-floor1 and is borne by great oak brackets1 the faces of which are adorned with painted carvings of figures in mitres1 one being ,st4 ,hubert1 as is shown by the stag at his feet4 ,the spaces between these brackets are ceiled with a great plaster 8cavetto10 which1 together with the brackets1 springs from a wide timber cornice above the door and windows of the ground-floor4 ,in the hollow of this cornice are four or five grotesque faces1 the painting of which1 though fresh1 seems1 like the painting of all the other decorations1 to be nothing but the original colouring faithfully transmitted4 ,the three windows of the upper floor are bays1 and are carried by great spread brackets1 carved and painted with most curiously quaint and simple representations of ,st4 ,george and the ,dragon and symbols of his tradition1 the tails of two dragons in the central bracket running in their extremities into the outlines of a pointed and foliated arch4 ,the roof is covered in with slabs of ragged stone1 thick enough for a ,london pavement4 ,the dimensions of the timbers of the roof are proved inferentially by the fact that the roof-tree has not sagged an inch under some four hundred years of this burthen2 and their mass and power are expressed artistically by their termination in a cornice of immense depth1 and consisting of a greater number of moulded 8members0 than ,i remember to have seen in any other feature of the kind4 ,the walls are plastered in their plain spaces1 but indicate their construction of solid oak--which1 by the way1 is far more durable than either brick or any ordinary stone--by the chance appearance in one place of a strange animal which runs up the face of the wall and is obviously carved out of a beam otherwise hid by the plaster4 ,there is nothing heavy in the total effect of this extraordinary piece of cottage architecture2 for there is artistic animation everywhere1 and the expression of its strength is that of living power and not mere passive sufficiency4 ,to build such a cottage now might cost about three times as much as it does to build a common country inn of the same dimensions4 ,it would not1 of course1 suit a ,london citizen so well as a ,chiselhurst villa of like size and cost2 but it would be a fit abode for a duke in difficulties4 ,,xxiii 8,,old ,,english0 ,,architecture1 ,,ancient ,,and ,,modern ,the style of architecture in which the great majority of country houses1 and very many town houses1 from the cottage to the mansion1 have been built during the past fifteen years1 is a very great improvement upon the nameless mode--for which no better title could be invented than the 8factory style0--which prevailed in house architecture during great part of last century and the first half of this4 ,and it is a yet greater improvement upon the falsification of that simple though sordid way of building1 by attempting to change its misery into magnificence by 8compo0 mockeries of stone construction and a style of ornament created to express the thickness of the wall or the weight of roof of a ,renaissance palace4 ,most persons are contented with describing the improved mode as ,old ,english1 fancying that it is a real return to the way in which houses were built in the reign of ,elizabeth or ,james or thereabouts4 ,but there is a notable distinction between ancient and modern 8,old ,english40 ,it is this3 the 8variety0 in form which is of the essence of the last was but the accident of the first4 ,whitehall and the ,parthenon are not more simply symmetrical in their masses than are many of the finest specimens of ,early ,english domestic architecture2 and the 8variety0 which we moderns suppose we are copying is1 in nearly all cases1 either the result of change of plan in the process of building1 or of subsequent additions by which the original symmetry was sacrificed4 ,that the sacrifice was often without loss1 and often even a gain--as such a sacrifice could never be in the case of a ,greek or ,renaissance building--is owing to the fact that domesticity is the central thought and expression of the one kind of architecture and public ostentation of the other4 ,accordingly1 the keynote of an ,early ,english house is its stack of chimneys1 upon which it was considered impossible to lavish too much ornament4 ,from the cottage of the ,sussex labourer to the great nobleman's mansion--such as that most exquisite of all existing specimens of ,tudor building1 8,compton in the ,hole0--the chimneys are the things which first attract the eye and delight it longest2 whereas the ,greek1 ,roman1 or ,renaissance house is heartily ashamed of its smoke1 and has never yet succeeded thoroughly in dealing with its disgrace4 ,symmetry1 then1 in the old country house was looked upon as good2 but convenience and comfort1 and the expression of convenience and comfort1 better4 ,now1 in a house well and deliberately planned for the convenience of any household1 large or small1 the ground-plan and elevation will be naturally simple and symmetrical2 simplicity1 too1 is economical1 and economy a part of domesticity4 ,accordingly1 the great ,tudor mansions and palaces of ,england1 the builders of which could have best afforded to pay for the supposed charm of 8variety10 are1 for the most part1 the simplest in plan and elevation2 while it is in the ill-planned and often-added-to village inn or rectory that the vagaries of 8variety10 so alluring to the modern mind1 are almost exclusively found4 ,in ,old ,english architecture this variety is a very real though accidental beauty4 ,it has the double charm of intensifying the primary expression of domesticity by the very sense of the sacrifice which has been made to it1 and of giving the building1 however small1 a touch of historical character4 ,but what if these beauties of the old architecture are sought to be obtained in the modern by sacrifices of convenience1 economy1 and domesticity1 and by a deliberate planning of structural 8after-thoughts10 or subsequent necessities1 from the beginning6 ,what if a house1 full of small and uncomfortable rooms connected1 or rather isolated1 by mazes of dark staircases1 landings1 and passages1 has been manifestly built at one blow1 and at twice the cost at which a simple and symmetrical and scarcely less--nay1 to the initiated1 more--beautiful house of the same period of architecture might have been built1 without the sacrifice of any modern convenience8 ,surely1 if the devil were an architect his 8favourite sin0 would be this kind of 8cottage of gentility40 ,the 8variety0 of a real ,old ,english house is not only nearly always the outcome of some convenience or necessity discovered or arising after the first building of it1 but is nearly always obviously so4 ,some little difference of style not too great to break harmony1 will indicate a difference of date2 or it will be shown by some infraction of the lines of the original building4 ,the library or parlour which cuts off a return of the label of the pantry window is manifestly an addition4 ,but it would be too ridiculous to copy such proofs of accident and alteration into a nineteenth-century rectory1 villa1 or mansion2 and the consequence is1 that to an understanding eye its variety is often in appearance1 as it is in reality1 mere imbecility aping the movements of reason4 ,there is no real anachronism in the revival of the ordinary details of ,old ,english house architecture1 though there is sometimes in that of the material4 ,the 8half-timbered0 wall belongs only to times and places in which bricks and tiles are not to be had1 and in which abundance of the best oak timber is4 ,but hooded gables1 deep cornices1 bracketed bays1 weather-tiled walls1 the projection of upper over lower stories1 and almost all the other charming features of the mode1 have sound reasons of use which hold as good now as they did in the year #afjj2 and in these reasons alone consists their architectural charm4 ,the characteristic ,old ,english chimney--the most ornamental feature of the style--has its full justification in use2 the loading of the top with projecting layer after layer of bricks1 laid even or notch-wise1 forming that security against hurricane which is so often sought1 in the 8factory0 style1 by the one or more long iron rods which agreeably break the sky-line of many modern mansions4 ,even the scalloped tile1 which so often replaces the square in old weather-tiled walls1 has its utilitarian purpose--a saving of material2 the greatest breadth of the scallop being superposed upon the juncture of the tiles below1 so as to protect it from wet4 ,the projection1 in a long low house of the modest rectory or farmhouse type1 of the bedroom story over the basement is the feature farthest of all from being merely ornamental4 ,in such a house more space was usually wanted for bedrooms than for living-rooms and offices1 and a very moderate projection of the upper story supplies this additional space4 ,,xxiv ,,architectural ,,styles ,i ,every one has a perfectly definite impression of what is meant by an architectural style2 and would recognise a building as ,egyptian1 ,greek1 ,ecclesiastical ,gothic1 ,norman1 or ,moresque1 not merely by the characteristic details of each of these manners1 but still more by a perfectly distinct character attained in each manner by the combination of those details--a character which is totally different from any effect that could result from any such random though more or less constant collocation of details as is to be found1 for example1 in the bastard 8,italian ,gothic40 ,this1 though it was made popular by ,mr4 ,ruskin1 has about as much relation to a true style as a curiosity-shop has to a well-ordered living-room4 ,it is a remarkable fact1 and one especially worth dwelling upon in this context1 that ,italy1 the country of the arts1 never had an architecture1 and could never even adopt one from its neighbours without degrading or abolishing its character as a style4 ,the so-called 8,romanesque0 was an incongruous hybrid until it was developed into the 8,norman0 by the northern nations of ,europe2 and though the pointed arch made its appearance in ,italy very early1 no ,italian architect ever seems to have had any perception of its artistic capacity1 even when he adopted in his buildings the constructive system to which that feature belonged4 ,italy had great architects1 but no great architecture4 ,buildings like ,st4 ,mark's1 the ,doge's ,palace1 the ,duomo of ,florence1 etc41 owe their influence upon the imagination to the personality of the architect1 which has known how to impress itself on a combination of in themselves unmeaning or incongruous forms1 rather than to that imaginative integrity of style which makes every ,old ,english parish church look as if the ,spirit had builded its own house4 ,every great architect--like every great poet1 painter1 or musician--has his own style1 whether he works on the lines of a great integral style like the ,northern ,pointed1 or in a mongrel mode like that of the ,romanesque1 or in no accepted manner at all4 ,sir ,christopher ,wren could not build a common brick house without imposing his own character upon it4 ,but this personal character or style1 which always marks the work of the great artist1 is usually almost beyond the power of analysis2 and1 were it otherwise1 would scarcely be worth the trouble of analysis1 which would only serve the purpose of encouraging imitations of that which owes its value to its unique individuality4 ,the five styles above named--i4e4 the ,egyptian1 the ,greek1 the ,pointed ,gothic1 the ,norman1 and the ,moresque--are so much distinguished from all other modes of building by the integrity with which a single idea is carried out in every detail1 that in comparison with them there is no other manner which deserves to be called a style4 ,and it is hard to conjecture the possibility of the development in the future of any sixth style which shall deserve to rank with them2 for these five seem to have exhausted the five possible modes in which weight or mass of material--apparently the foundations of all architectural expression--can be treated4 ,two of these styles1 the ,norman and the ,moresque1 though equal to the others in artistic integrity1 are immeasurably inferior to them in significance2 the first three having dealt with and exhausted the only modes in which the primary fact of weight of material in stone construction can be subordinated to religious expression1 and the field itself of religious expression in architecture having been in like manner cleared by these styles3 for when the ,material1 the ,rational1 and the ,spiritual have once found utterance in stone--as they have done in the temple-architectures of ,egypt1 ,greece1 and ,northern ,europe--what fourth religious aspect remains to inspire a new art8 ,it is proposed in these papers to consider the several expressional themes of the five great architectures1 and to give a brief exposition of the way in which they are worked out4 ,it should be premised1 however1 that as it does not require a knowledge of how an effect is produced in order to feel that effect1 so it is not pretended that any very distinct consciousness of the adaptation of means to expressional ends must have existed in the minds of the inventors of the great styles of architecture4 ,all artistic production involves a large element of lucky accident1 of which the true artist alone knows how to avail himself2 and it is often from a lucky accident in a happy season that a great work or a great art will take its origin1 as the dropping of a grain of sand into a saturated solution of certain salts will form the centre and cause of its sudden crystallisation4 ,as sound philosophy is only sound sense spread out1 so true criticism of great work is only right perception spread out2 and the use of criticism of such work is not so much to teach men to enjoy it1 as to enable them to pronounce a prompt and assured and demonstrable condemnation of bad or inferior work when false or exaggerated claims are put forth in its favour4 ,the three primary architectures seem to have owed their origin to three accidents4 ,the immense and wholly unreasonable massiveness which characterises the ,egyptian style is probably due to its having emerged from caverns4 ,it carried into the air its memory of having had the rocky earth for its roof and walls1 and of the time when its close-packed squadrons of granite shafts were a necessity which it cost nothing to provide4 ,the ,parthenon1 again1 is a manifest glorification in stone of the forms of the wooden hut2 and the pointed arch1 with all its immense consequences1 arose from the constructional accident of cross-vaulting4 ,weight1 then1 which is the most general and characteristic attribute of matter1 was taken by the ,egyptian1 ,greek1 and ,gothic architects as the ground of their several ideas--whether consciously or not1 is no concern of ours4 ,the ,egyptian architect1 as will be shown1 subordinated every detail1 from the mass of the pyramid--which may be regarded as the form taken by weight in the abstract--down to almost every particular of decoration1 to the creation of an effect of compulsory submission to an irresistible and for-ever-enduring material power4 ,the mightiest bulk of ,alp or ,apennine is a bubble compared with an ,egyptian temple1 which is the awful life of ponderosity and crushing earthliness2 and there is no need to pause in order to point out how aptly this expression suited the political and religious character of the people out of whom ,israel fled4 ,in the architecture of ,greece1 weight--representative of material force--was still the theme2 but it was material force which had met with its match1 the force of mind2 and the ponderous entablature1 every detail of which expresses weight1 is lifted and borne beautifully in air by a series of members every one of which conveys the impression of an opposite ascendant force1 which recognises but does not suffer in the least degree from its burthen1 beneath which the animated shaft is seen to fling away a part of its supporting power just at the point where most weight is borne1 and the ,caryatides of the ,pandrosium can afford to stand with one knee bent easily forward4 ,here1 then1 again was a great and new phase of the human mind envisaging the universe1 expressed by simple reference to weight of material in its temples4 ,the third great phase--that in which an ascetic spirituality1 refusing all willing alliance with earthliness1 only recognises it as a thing to sbe defied and to be made the measure of the spirit's predominance--obtained its artistic expression by employing material weight as the symbol of its opponent2 which it neither suffers from nor enters into alliance with1 but vanquishes1 converts1 and glorifies in ascending streams of life4 ,the ,moresque style also owes its singular integrity of effect to a peculiar mode of regarding the idea of gravitation3 if that can be called a mode of regarding it which consists in a most ingenious and fanciful ignoring of it1 either as an oppressor1 an ally1 or a vanquished foe4 ,the honeycombed domes of the ,alhambra and the ,mosque of ,cordova hang apparently suspended in air upon 8pendentives10 like sunny clouds in station2 and the astonishing art by which innumerable details are made to concur in this effect would justify this style in ranking with the three foregoing1 had this effect any symbolic meaning for the human race and its religions2 but it has no meaning for men who have their feet upon the earth1 and is only adapted for the palaces and temples of a race of sylphs or gnomes4 ,lastly1 the ,norman style1 though no less consistent an exponent of one idea than are the other temple styles1 is founded upon no reference to superincumbent weight1 but depends almost wholly upon its boast of the mass and eternal stability of the wall4 ,it well conveys the solemn expression of a calm eternity of time2 but for religious purposes it will not bear the least comparison with the flamelike ,gothic1 expressing at once the peace and ardour of the 8eternal moment40 ,in the following papers a short analysis will be given of the somewhat obscure means by which the well-recognised expressions of these five great architectures are obtained4 ,,ii ,the symbolisation of material life and power by an elaborately artistic treatment of the mere fact of weight1 which is the most universal and obvious attribute of matter1 is the object of every general form and of almost every1 so-called decorative1 detail of ,egyptian architecture2 the few exceptions1 such as the occasional intrusion of the lotus and palm into the capitals of the columns1 being due to an obscure but probably intimately related symbolism of a different kind4 ,the pyramid is the simplest artistic form by which mere weight can be expressed4 ,it is nothing more nor less than a mound or mountain shaped so as to give it an artistic consciousness4 ,the form of the ,egyptian ,temple is nothing but the expression of this elementary form of weight with emphasis upon emphasis1 until there results such an accumulation and concentration of the idea of weight that the whole building seems as if it would crush the earth on which it stands4 ,this effect is mainly produced by a multiplication of the pyramidal form in the masses of the building2 by its truncation at various heights1 which introduces the powerful element of suggestion2 by numerous inferior members which emphasise the expression by contrast2 and by such a multiplication and formation of shaft and capital as to convey the idea of an overwhelming burthen above them4 ,the great double-towered ,propylon of the typical ,egyptian ,temple is1 in its entire mass1 a truncated pyramid2 and1 as simply such1 is a much more forcible expression of pyramidal form than the pyramid itself4 ,this expression is doubled by the division of the upper part of the mass into two low towers4 ,immense cavetto cornices crown these towers1 and intensify their effect by the strongest contrast4 ,their pyramidal outline is emphasised to the eye by the great roll-mouldings which follow the angles of the masonry from summit to base4 ,finally1 the plane of the great doorway by which the two masses of the ,propylon are joined leaves that of the pyramidal mass and becomes nearly perpendicular1 while the sides of the doorway become actually perpendicular--constituting a cumulative contrast which seems to double the already manifold emphasis of the main bulk of the building4 ,the comparatively low mass of the body of the temple behind the ,propylon is still the truncated pyramid crowned with the contrasting cornice2 but the truncation occurs so near the ground1 and so far from what would be the apex were the converging lines of wall continued upwards1 that the pyramidal form would scarcely have been suggested1 were it not for its plainer manifestation in the ,propylon2 but1 with this aid1 the eye at once catches the idea of the decapitated pyramid throughout4 ,through openings in these strongly inclined walls appeared the vertical colonnades2 and such niches or apertures as were practised in these walls had the contrast of perpendicular jambs4 ,in front of the vast ponderosity of the ,egyptian ,temple rose the final and most effective contrast to the whole--the 8fingers of the sun03 the pair of tall and slender monoliths1 which only tapered sufficiently to give them the reality and the appearance of security4 ,in the interior of the building the idea of weight had to be conveyed in a different manner--namely1 by the bulk1 number1 and form of the columns4 ,every detail of shaft and capital--with the two or three exceptions already spoken of--was calculated to express actual sufferance from the burthen borne by them4 ,the shafts bulge towards the base1 and the capitals likewise swell as they approach their juncture with the shafts2 shaft and capital being usually clothed with vertical convex mouldings3 the exact reverse of the ,doric shaft1 which1 as will be shown1 had exactly the opposite idea to convey4 ,unlike the repose and sufficiency of the ,doric column1 the ,egyptian expresses violent and yet insufficient energy1 which seems to rush towards and to be partially driven back by the entablature4 ,the immense thickness of wall1 wherever it was shown1 was emphasised by sculpture in very low relief4 ,these are only the main elements of an effect which1 and the means of producing which1 will be more forcibly felt by a corresponding analysis of ,greek architecture1 which culminates in the ,doric of the ,parthenon4 ,this temple has a double basement1 the first of which is on a 8dead level02 from this rises the second basement1 in which the true life of the building commences4 ,in #ahcg ,mr4 ,pennethorne announced the important discovery that the lines of this basement1 together with those of the entablature1 are not horizontal lines1 but parabolic curves2 and ,mr4 ,penrose1 in #aheb1 in a work published by the ,society of ,dilettanti1 gave the actual measurements of these curves2 which are found to prevail not only in the horizontal but in all the vertical lines and faces1 in the inclined lines of the pediment1 and in the axes of the shafts4 ,these curves are so subtle--the rise being only an inch or two in as many hundred feet--that they are rather felt than seen2 but that they are felt1 even by the comparatively gross modern eye1 is clear enough from the different way in which it is affected by the ,parthenon itself and by any imitation of it by modern builders4 ,it is probable that these curves were in some instances meant to correct optical illusions1 by which straight lines would look hollow1 etc42 but a far greater motive for their introduction was an effect of animation in the whole and in every part and of unity through the predominance of general curves1 which a cultivated eye can discern very easily1 but which is probably beyond our present powers of analysis4 ,above the basement the ,doric ,temple externally--and the ,greek ,temple's architectural beauty is all outside--consists of two parts1 of opposite and exactly balanced significance4 ,the first consists of a colonnade of shafts1 each of which rises at once from the stylobate1 without the footing or 8base0 found in subsequent styles4 ,the shaft diminishes somewhat rapidly1 until it impinges upon and ends in the capital2 which is an hyperbolic 8ovolo10 spreading widely under the 8abacus0 or tile1 which constitutes the neutral point1 or point of rest1 between the column and the entablature4 ,the outlines of the shaft 7always fluted in early ,greek architecture7 converge from the base towards the capital--not in straight lines1 but in decided parabolic curves1 of which the departure from straight lines is greatest at about two-thirds of the height of the shaft4 ,this curve of the shaft is called the entasis2 and upon it depends mainly the expressional life of the shaft4 ,it will be remembered that there is a similar swelling in the ,egyptian shaft2 but this is where it approaches the base4 ,its position in the ,greek shaft expresses an ascendant energy of force1 which is manifested most strongly as it approaches the capital4 ,in the one case yielding under weight is expressed1 in the other superabundant power4 ,this animated expression is multiplied by every multiplication of the outline provided by the flutings1 which in the ,greek shaft are concave1 expressing concentration of force towards the centre2 whereas1 in the ,egyptian the flutings are convex1 expressing further a tendency to bulge and burst under their burthen4 ,a little under the capital1 and just where the ,greek shaft is thinnest1 one or more deep channels are incised in its substance1 showing that power can be triumphantly cast away just where power is most needed4 ,the ,egyptian shaft1 at the same point1 is usually bound with a heavy thonglike moulding1 as if to prevent it from being crushed4 ,the ovolo1 which constitutes the ,doric capital1 provides and expresses the distribution of the power of the shaft to meet the superincumbent entablature2 and the 8quirk0 or sudden diminution of its breadth immediately under the abacus is a repetition of the device of the incised channels for proving the existence of superabundant power4 ,at the point where the ,greek entablature is met with easy grace by the noble spread of the hyperbolic ovolo1 the ,egyptian capital1 as a rule1 diminishes and seems to dash itself with violence towards the point of conflict4 ,as every feature of the column thus expresses cheerful and abundant energy1 every detail of the entablature is a mode of expressing the weight which is thus met and carried with such graceful power4 ,the ,doric entablature is made up of three parts--architrave1 frieze1 and cornice--each expressing in a different manner the idea of weight4 ,the architrave is a massive layer of stone with its face unbroken by any sort of 8decoration02 it projects beyond the neck of the shaft1 so that a line dropped from it would about touch the outer circumference of the shaft at its base4 ,in this member1 then1 weight is expressed by a simple mass directly imposed upon the centres of support4 ,the frieze is a similar layer of masonry having its face broken up by triglyphs--members resembling1 and no doubt originating in1 the terminations of beams of timber4 ,these triglyphs are slightly projecting quadrilateral masses of stone1 considerably higher than they are broad1 and cut into deep vertical channels4 ,they would express little besides the memory of the old timber construction1 were it not for the gutt which hang below them1 separated from them by a fillet4 ,these gutt1 by multiplying the vertical lines of the triglyphs1 confer upon them the appearance of pendants1 the force of the earthward tendency being increased by the fillets1 whose momentary interruption of that tendency seems to increase it4 ,to increase what ,franz ,kugler calls the 8triglyphic character10 little pendants sometimes occur at the top of the chamfered sides of the triglyphs4 ,no one can realise the whole force of this extremely simple means of expression except by trying what the ,doric entablature would be without it4 ,there is1 or was1 a church in the ,waterloo ,road1 massively built and preserving pretty well all the features of the ,doric ,temple1 except the triglyphs and gutt4 ,their omission makes the whole building light-headed4 ,there seems to be no meaning in the vast current of upward force in the fluted shafts1 if that is all they have to carry4 ,any one can satisfy himself of this point by simply covering the frieze1 in a print of a ,doric ,temple1 by a slip of white paper4 ,of course this all-important triglyphic character1 though only expressed in the frieze1 is felt to apply to the entire mass of the entablature1 of which the weight is thus made visible4 ,as the architrave expresses simple weight1 and the frieze weight depending1 so the cornice is weight impending4 ,the great projection of this massive member beyond the face of the frieze and architrave contains in itself the ground of that expression2 but it is carefully heightened by the deep undercutting of the corona1 which throws the mass forward and separates it by a dark shadow from the top of the frieze2 and it is still further heightened by a repetition of the rows of gutt--which1 however1 in this instance seem to be sliding off the inclined faces of the mutules 7inclined slabs set in the undercutting of the corona72 so that the same device which gives dependent weight in the frieze1 expresses weight impendent in the cornice4 ,these are only a few of the more obvious means by which the lovely equilibrium of the ,doric style is created4 ,there are many other details which it is impossible to notice here2 but every one bears the central thought constantly in view1 and adds to the most perfect--though not perhaps the highest--architectural beauty which the world has ever seen4 ,the other so-called 8orders0 are only modifications or corruptions of the same idea4 ,,iii ,before proceeding to show how the idea of ,greek architecture1 symbolised in a system of construction and decoration which emphasised to the eye in every detail an exact adequacy of endeavour to effect1 was modified or corrupted in the so-called 8,ionic10 8,corinthian10 and other 8orders10 a few words should be said about the very peculiar and little understood treatment of the wall by the ,doric architects4 ,as a contrast to the active conflict of apparently ascending power in the columns with the gravitating power1 rendered1 as it were1 visible in the entablature1 the treatment of the walls of the naos1 pronaos1 and posticum--that is1 of the body of the temple and of the porches created by the prolongation of the side walls--is emphatically passive and neutral1 and just the reverse of the treatment of the wall by the ,egyptians1 who made it the base of a truncated pyramid1 a mass of conscious ponderosity1 which 8lean'd down on earth with all its weight40 ,the vertical junctures of the stones of the walls of the ,greek ,temple were rendered invisible by polishing their adjacent faces2 but the horizontal faces were rough-worked1 so that the wall-face presented a series of straight lines parallel to the base4 ,these lines were only strong enough to be plainly seen1 through the gaps in that torrent of ascending power1 the fluted colonnade2 increasing that force by their contrast1 but themselves expressing nothing but the fact that the wall was a wall1 built in ordinary courses of masonry4 ,had the perpendicular junctures of the masonry been visible1 the contrast to the shafts--which were either monoliths or had the junctures of the frustra so polished that they looked like monoliths--would have been lost4 ,the ant1 or ends of the walls1 are treated in a way which is particularly noteworthy4 ,in the ,roman corruptions of ,greek architecture these ant were confused with and often treated as flattened and applied shafts4 ,the fact of passive resistance of the wall1 in contrast to the active resistance of the colonnade1 is carefully but very unobtrusively expressed in these wall-terminations in the purest ,doric4 ,where the strongly ascending force of the shaft sacrifices power in order to prove its abundance1 the ant are increased in breadth and strength by successive cappings1 or by mouldings so undercut as to express a rolling over or sufferance from superimposed weight2 there is no entasis or visible swell in the ant--until they were used by later architects who had lost the sense of what entasis meant2 these wall-terminations were further strengthened by a base1 which no ,doric shaft ever had4 ,the base and capping were1 more or less1 continued along the top and bottom of the whole wall1 the doors and other apertures of which usually diminished in width towards the top1 suggesting--but still in a passive and unobtrusive way--the simple reality of weight and pressure in the wall1 and affording a further and most important contrast to the living 8emporstreben10 as the ,german critics call it1 of the line of shafts4 ,thus ,mr4 ,ruskin is wrong in saying that 8in the ,greek ,temple the wall is as nothing2 the entire interest is in the detached columns and the frieze 7entablature87 they bear40 ,the wall is the expression of the passive life that becomes active when it is concentrated in the colonnade1 and has so much more work to do4 ,in the 8,ionic ,order0 exactly the same idea of the symbolisation of the balance of material and intellectual forces is carried out with the same integrity as in the ,doric1 though with less simplicity and obviousness4 ,the idea of elasticity--as noticed by ,franz ,kugler in his ,handbuch der ,kunstgeschichte for the first time--is added to that of simple upward met by simple downward force4 ,it occurs especially in the base and the volutes of the column1 as these members are found modified and perfected by the ,attic architects4 ,by tracing the growth of the ,attic base1 much light will be thrown upon the ,greek architectural idea4 ,a base is a support for the shaft4 ,the ,doric had no base1 because the notion of any weight to be supported was not allowed to be expressed anywhere but in the entablature2 the ,ionic differing from the ,doric mainly in this--that the visible conflict between weight and supporting power1 which in the ,doric was wholly concentrated upon the abacus1 or tile1 where the column met the entablature1 was in the ,ionic so distributed that almost every member was at once agent and reagent1 expressing an adequate power of supporting what was above it1 but also requiring support from that which was below4 ,a great square stone or plinth is the simplest form of base2 but this would have looked poor and inorganic underneath the elaborately fluted and voluted column4 ,the square stone cut into a circle with its edges rounded is the next simplest form2 but it was left for the ,romans to use this base1 for they had not the sensitive eye that discerned the fatal effect of swelling or sufferance from weight which this cushion-like form conveys4 ,the first ,ionic base had a scotia1 or hollow receding moulding1 under the round torus4 ,this contradicted the above impression2 but it did it violently and awkwardly4 ,finally1 the ,attic base was formed of a large torus below1 a smaller one above1 and the scotia1 or receding moulding1 between them2 so that the base--which1 on the whole1 was a spreading and supporting member--was nevertheless narrowest where it would have been thickest had it suffered1 like a cushion1 from the weight it carried4 ,the fluting of the ,ionic order1 while it expressed ascendant force like the ,doric1 had a flat space or fillet instead of a sharp edge between each concavity1 and each line of fluting had semicircular terminations4 ,the effect of this was to endow the shaft itself with a substantive expression of weight1 which had no existence in the ,doric shaft1 that flew1 like a sheaf of arrows1 from the earth to strike against the ovolo of the capital4 ,the ,ionic capital1 like the ,ionic base1 had its elastic character perfectly developed by ,attic architects4 ,in the original ,ionic the ears of the volutes simply hang on either side of the ovolo like horns2 but in ,attic specimens they appear to be formed by the pressure of the entablature upon a series of elastic curves4 ,the ,ionic abacus differs from the ,doric in expressing1 in common with all the other members of the ,ionic column1 an active supporting power2 whereas the ,doric tile is simply negative1 the 8point of rest0 between the opposing forces of the column and entablature4 ,the architrave1 the first member of the ,ionic entablature1 instead of expressing weight by simple mass1 as the ,doric architrave does1 consists of two or three layers of masonry1 the upper projecting over the other1 and giving to the entire entablature the expression of impending weight1 which in the ,doric is limited to the corona4 ,in the frieze there are no gutt or triglyphs1 because the pendent effect which these give to the ,doric frieze would be inconsistent with the continuation of the idea of support as well as weight throughout all the members of the ,ionic order4 ,in the pure ,doric there is absolutely no such thing as ornament2 though ,kugler1 notwithstanding that he is of all critics the one who has come nearest to the perception of the true sense of ,greek architecture1 asserts that the head and foot members of the ant are merely ornamental4 ,how far this is from being the case has been now shown4 ,the so-called 8egg and arrow0 and other figures into which ,greek mouldings were cut have nothing to do with ornament4 ,they are simply the means of emphasising the forms of the mouldings and rendering them visible at distances at which otherwise they would not be distinguished4 ,but in the ,ionic we have real architectural ornament1 and lines of roses or bands of foliage are inserted at points where it is desirable to express--in the absence of more severe means of expression--the freedom and cheerfulness with which a superincumbent weight is carried4 ,the 8,corinthian0 is only a highly decorated ,ionic1 and the ,greeks of the good age seem to have thought it fittest for secular or semi-secular purposes4 ,it only attained somewhat of the character of an 8,order0 in the hands of the ,romans1 who had little taste for or understanding of pure ,greek art1 but had sufficient intelligence to see how to apply ornament for the most part in the right places4 ,when they tried to improve upon the ,doric of the ,parthenon1 they did it in a very characteristic way4 ,they simplified it by doing away with the fluting of the shaft and setting it upon a base of the single torus or roll-moulding1 so that it looked like a big sausage set on end upon a small curly one2 and instead of the channel cut in the neck of the shaft--which must have been a hopeless puzzle to them--they bound the shaft at the same point with a projecting moulding3 as the ,egyptians did rightly1 because they wanted to express an idea the exact opposite of the ,greek one4 ,meretricious ornament and mock simplicity went hand in hand1 and all pretensions to integrity of style had to be abandoned when the arch and the entablature had to be reconciled4 ,as builders the ,romans perhaps surpassed all others before or since2 and as architects also they were as great as they could be1 in the absence of the ,greek devotion to the unity produced by one all-pervading symbolic thought4 ,,iv ,the pointed ,gothic1 though it took its rise more than fifteen hundred years after the decay of ,attic architecture1 and after the intervention of several other styles1 of which the 8,norman0 constitutes one of the five great and only pure styles which the world has seen1 is nevertheless in closer artistic relationship with the ,attic style than the ,norman is1 and should be therefore treated earliest4 ,the immense effort which was made to develop a great style from the dome--the natural outcome of the circular arch introduced by the ,romans--never came to anything but the production of here and there an edifice which1 like the ,pantheon and ,st4 ,sophia1 were miracles of technical skill1 until the idea was taken up by the fanciful ,moresque architects4 ,again1 the ,norman1 though a great integral style1 as will be shown1 is not based upon any relation to weight of material2 which is at once the great fact of building1 and as such is made by the ,egyptian1 ,greek1 and ,gothic architects to express the material1 intellectual1 and spiritual character of worship in ways that exhaust this primary source of architectural symbolism4 ,weight--simple and irresistible in the ,egyptian1 adequately supported in the ,greek--is1 in the pointed ,gothic1 not abolished as in the ,moresque1 but totally vanquished and borne above1 as by a superior spiritual power4 ,two happy accidents gave rise to this architectural development4 ,as the ,egyptian architecture was an artistic transfiguration of the necessities of an original cavern architecture1 and as the ,doric ,temple in a similar way transmuted to undreamt-of significance the forms of the timber hut1 so the ,gothic architecture found in the ,basilica--the main forms of which were transmitted through the ,norman cathedral--the accidental key to what probably will for ever remain the supreme glory of the art of temple-building4 ,the ,basilica itself contained nothing but the discovery of the most convenient way of roofing-in and lighting a great oblong hall4 ,it consisted of nave and aisles2 the walls of the nave rising within and above those of the aisles1 to form the clerestory1 which gave the centre of the edifice externally the appearance of unsheathing itself from and soaring above the rest4 ,the means of emphasising and multiplying this effect indefinitely--as the pyramidal effect was multiplied and emphasised in the ,egyptian ,temple--were provided by another fortunate accident1 the development of the pointed arch from the mechanical necessities of cross-vaulting4 ,no sooner did a row of pointed arches make its appearance in the clerestory windows than the power of ,gothic expression1 latent in the main body of the building1 became obvious4 ,the tower1 with its spire1 was the first and simplest sequence4 ,it was to the clerestory what this was to the main body of the building4 ,in the course of a few years every detail of construction and decoration became subordinated to the heavenward flight which the main masses of the building had thus taken4 ,this fact is a threadbare commonplace of architectural criticism1 and one which is obvious to the eye of the dullest beholder of the interior or exterior of every ,gothic cathedral2 but the number and subtlety of the means by which the effect is gained is beyond all reckoning and analysis2 and the object of this paper is to point out only a few of them which are not to be found in architectural manuals1 and to show how this all-prevailing stream of ardent aspiration was moderated and governed so as to acquire the expression of peace as well as ardour1 as befitted the beauty of the ,christian temple4 ,mr4 ,freeman comes nearer than any other eminent architectural critic to a clear discernment of ,gothic character when he says3 8,where there is no strife there is no victory2 the vertical line cannot be called predominant unless the horizontal exist in a visible condition of subjection and inferiority40 ,but the vertical line exists in ,gothic architecture as much more than a foil to vertical character2 it checks and keeps it within bounds1 and exhibits it as an expression of the infinite bounded and peacefully bounded by the finite--which is the true character of the life and worship symbolised4 ,hence the square-headed tower is as fine1 if not a finer finish to the ,gothic cathedral than the spire4 ,compare the tower of ,york with the spire of ,freyburg in ,breisgau--the finest spire in the world1 rising as it does as a spire from the ground--and it will be found that the cessation of the great1 steady heavenward current in ,york1 gradually prepared for as it is by the treatment of the face of the tower1 and culminating in the compromise of open battlements1 each of which frames the pointed arch1 creates a more solemn and heart-expanding sense of infinite aspiration than the apparently greater flight of endeavour in the famous spire1 which soars indeed twice the height of the tower1 but1 as it were1 evaporates as it soars4 ,the minds of the ,gothic architects seem to have been much divided as to which was better3 the checked and contained expression of the tower1 in which an undiminished force of ascension was suggested1 or the exhausting flight of the spire4 ,the tower of ,salisbury1 for example1 was not originally intended to carry the spire1 which was added long after the cathedral was completed4 ,they often obtained both features1 giving a spire to only one of the west-end towers4 ,there is1 perhaps1 no more satisfactory treatment of the west front than this1 as may be seen in ,strasburg ,cathedral4 ,like many other fine effects1 this most probably arose from accident--the accident of its not being convenient at the time to add the second spire2 but that the incompleteness was fully recognised as a perfection is proved by the many instances of its having been1 if not devised1 allowed to remain4 ,there are three ways of treating the spire4 ,it may commence at the earth1 as that of ,freyburg does1 without the intervention of a tower2 or it may rise from a tower the head of which is considerably larger than the base of the spire2 or the base of the spire may coincide with the top of the tower1 in which case it is called a 8broach spire40 ,the second is the finest and by far the most frequent arrangement1 as it combines the effects of spire and tower without confusing them2 a part of the force of the tower being contained and checked1 and a part being allowed to take its self-exhausting flight4 ,it is to be observed1 however1 that even when the spire is most prominent--as in ,lichfield1 where there are three of them--it is1 when compared with the whole building1 only as it were an accidental escape and waste of the vast current of vertical force expressed by the entire mass of the building4 ,perhaps the most expressive treatment of the tower is in the innumerable examples in which only a very small proportion of its vertical force is permitted to escape in four or more pinnacles1 one of which is often larger than the others4 ,spires and pinnacles are in most cases covered with lines of 8crockets03 figures in which ascending power is usually expressed by the upward growth of a leaf2 which is emphasised by some check1 made apparent to the eye by a strong bulge1 like that of a current flowing over a stone4 ,wherever the idea of weight or side-thrust would occur naturally to the eye--as in buttresses1 lower angles of gables1 etc4--there is an especial outburst of flaming finial or pinnacle1 or other mode of contradicting and reversing the idea1 which the ,greek architect would have been contented with accepting and beautifying4 ,let us now enter the church1 which is1 within as well as without1 a great geyser of ascending life2 which may indeed lose itself in the dimness of the vaulted roof1 as the spire loses itself in air1 but never shows weariness of its flight or a memory of the earth from which it started4 ,as in ,egyptian and ,greek architecture1 so in the ,gothic1 we must look to the column for the strongest expression of the characterising idea4 ,the ,egyptian column suffered and seemed half-crushed under the weight it bore2 the ,greek rose to its burthen with the glad assurance of being fully adequate to its task4 ,the ,gothic is conscious of no task at all2 but flies1 without the least diminution of its substance1 and without swelling either under sufferance or gathering of strength by entasis at any particular point1 to the commencement of the arch2 where it divides itself1 sending up the streams of its clustered shafts1 some into the lines of the arch and others to the top of the clerestory wall2 then dividing again to follow the lines of the vaulting1 there to meet like fingers joined in prayer1 but still having no thought of the weight of the roof they really help to carry4 ,mr4 ,ruskin complains of ,gothic capitals--as he might also have done of ,gothic bases--that they are unnecessary and ridiculous because they have no bearing power4 ,if they had1 they would cease to be ,gothic1 and the whole character of the wonderful art would be ruined4 ,capitals are sometimes entirely omitted1 as in the shafted piers of ,cologne2 but when this is the case the point at which the arch springs becomes doubtful to the eye1 and there is something exhausting in the wholly uninterrupted flight of the vertical lines4 ,the capitals1 like the horizontal astragal which often binds at intervals the clustered column1 have no other purpose but to correct these effects of unrelieved continuity2 and the mouldings of capitals1 when they exist1 not only have no and express no 8bearing-power10 but they very carefully express the contrary by various devices of undercutting1 etc4 ,it is the same with the base1 when it is not altogether dispensed with4 ,the most common form of ,gothic base is a curious caricature of the ,attic base1 the form of which had been transmitted unimpaired to the ,gothic architect through the ,romanesque and ,norman4 ,it was perched upon and overhung a stilted plinth1 which was itself a reversal of the expression of elementary support in the original flat plinth2 and the curves of this base were so diminished in one part and exaggerated in another that all reference to supporting power seemed to be derisively abolished4 ,the 8ogee0 is a moulding which strongly expresses carrying power4 ,a favourite ,gothic base was two reversed ogees1 the lower projecting far over the edge of the plinth1 which1 in classic architecture1 always afforded a wide-spreading field for the base4 ,and so on4 ,it would take a bulky volume to trace the wonderful integrity with which the three modes of envisaging the idea of weight are carried out in the three great architectures2 but enough has been said to give the clue by which a fairly cultivated and perceptive student may follow up the subject for himself4 ,v ,before proceeding to consider the ,norman and ,moresque styles1 a word should be said about that portion of ,gothic decoration which does not directly help the main effect of aspiration--namely1 cusped and foliated tracery1 diaper-work1 the foliage of spandrels1 etc4 etc4 ,kugler says3 8,this filling-in appears as a peculiar sort of architecture of independent signification40 ,he does not1 however1 give the interpretation which he sees to be required4 ,yet there is an interpretation which only needs to be put in words to be obvious to every eye which has made itself familiar with these objects4 ,in exact proportion to the recognised perfection of these details1 as it was attained in the middle or 8decorated0 period of pointed architecture1 they become expressions of an idea almost identical with that which has been traced in the mode by which contented suspension or delay of the infinitely aspiring character in the main lines of the building is conveyed4 ,as the inexhaustible torrent of upward life is checked peacefully1 but with no denial of infinite potential aspiration1 in the square-headed tower1 so the same reconciliation of life with law without the least detriment to either--that reconciliation which is the consummation of ,christianity--is expressed even more completely in the more essentially decorative details of pointed architecture4 ,it is in the treatment of foliage that this character can be most easily traced1 and this can be done best by comparing it with other modes of treatment4 ,by the ,greek architect this and other natural objects1 when wanted for ornament1 were what is called 8conventionalised02 honeysuckles1 roses1 and waves of the sea were represented by certain formal figures which suited the lines of the architecture1 and were not too much like nature to attract attention from those all-important lines to themselves4 ,in the ,italian ,gothic1 again1 such natural objects are represented as nearly as possible like nature1 but with such slight modifications and arrangements as were necessary to give them the consciousness of art4 ,this is the sort of imitation which ,mr4 ,ruskin recommends1 and into which the northern ,gothic fell in the decay of the art4 ,but in fourteenth-century ,gothic--that is to say1 in the ,gothic which was as much superior to that of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries as the art of ,athens was superior to that of ,pstum or ,rome--nature was neither imitated nor conventionalised4 ,the special aim of the fourteenth-century ornamentation is to show a vigorous life playing with perfect freedom in severely geometrical forms--with freedom so perfect that it is difficult to say whether the life shapes the law or the law the life4 ,this highly and essentially symbolic character is the most marked expression of ,gothic tracery4 ,in its decay it took the form of licence and weakness in the ,french 8flamboyant10 and of hardness and rigidity in the ,english 8perpendicular02 the life prevailing--to its own destruction--in the one1 the lifeless law preponderating in the other4 ,gothic foliage1 again1 always feels the law2 though1 so far from suffering thereby1 it is1 in its place1 far more beautiful than nature4 ,the leafage not only follows geometrical outlines1 but swells under its limitation into rich protuberances4 ,the yearning for and potentiality of infinite ascension1 peacefully accepting its temporal limitations1 and the freedom of life perfected by law1 are the artistic motives of every detail as well as of the main masses of pure ,gothic4 ,the ,romano-,byzantine style attained in its final development1 the 8,norman10 to the unity of idea which is the criterion of a true style4 ,the arch up to this time had been treated partly as a thing of beauty in itself and partly as the constructive theme2 in the ,norman it took its place1 expressionally1 as subordinate to the wall1 the mass of which it carries and distributes between the piers4 ,the wall itself is the artistic theme of ,norman architecture1 and all decorative and some constructional features are devoted to making a boast of its mass and thickness4 ,weight--the theme in the three highly contrasted modes of the ,egyptian1 ,greek1 and ,pointed architectures--plays no part in the ,norman expression4 ,the arch1 being recognised by the eye for what it is1 an infinitely powerful supporter1 can express no proportion to finite superincumbent weight2 and it is treated as a mere head to the gap in the wall between nave and aisle4 ,the expressional intention of the ,norman architects in this matter is curiously and decisively proved by the fact that their favourite arch-mouldings were the billet and chevron--i4e4 lines of notches and angles which completely broke up all idea of arch-character as referable to supporting power or to weight distributed on to the piers1 and transferred the interest of the eye to the material substance of the wall out of which these figures were cut4 ,the piers between these arches were huge masses of wall1 either quadrangular or turned into great cylinders1 without entasis or any other sign of having to bear anything2 and such decoration as they had was devised so as to deny emphatically any reference to superimposed burthen4 ,the figure of the weight-carrying shaft set in the angles of these piers was their principal decoration2 but they were ,lilliputian mockeries of the ,attic shaft1 or were twisted singly or doubly1 and in various other ways ridiculed1 as it were1 the idea that shaft-power was demanded in the huge masses of masonry to which they were attached4 ,the only thing that these little shafts--whether in notch of pier or in recess of porch1 blind arcade1 or window--ever carried or appeared to carry was a single line of the often innumerable mouldings1 the purpose of which was simply to display the immense thickness of the wall1 which was the true and only theme of this style4 ,this system of emphasising the wall by negativing the shaft-power was occasionally carried into the almost grotesque excess of representing the shaft as broken in the middle6 ,the favourite treatment of the ,norman wall was to boast of its thickness exactly as the ,doric shaft boasted of its supporting power--that is1 by throwing away some portion of it4 ,the face of the wall was recessed in panels1 which were often filled with blind arcades4 ,modern builders often recess walls in this way in order to save material1 leaving the wall thickest where it has most work to do2 but the ,norman and ,lombard architects had no such economy in view4 ,the windows and other apertures in the wall showed1 by their shafted and moulded chamfers1 the reality of thickness so great that the panelling and blank arcading was seen to be no sacrifice1 though it was a delicate and effective suggestion of one4 ,this arcaded panelling is not only on one plane of the wall-surface4 ,the recessed plane is again recessed in the same way1 and yet again1 arcade within arcade2 and finally1 in the higher portions of the wall1 open galleries are worked in its thickness4 ,in apertures the constructive rule which requires that the bevel or chamfer should slant inwards1 to give the better light1 is sacrificed to the opportunity of showing the mass of the wall2 and the chamfer is external1 and is so treated in its decoration as to increase in every possible way the appearance of thickness4 ,the treatment of the doorway1 which is the point from which the expressional idea may be best enforced upon every beholder1 is very peculiar4 ,when there is no advanced porch1 a deep arch is practised through a great part of the wall1 and the thickness is emphasised by an elaborate perspective of shafts and mouldings4 ,within this deeply recessed arch the actual doorway is often worked as a horizontal-headed aperture in a plane face of wall without chamfer2 the remaining thickness of the wall1 not shown by the recessed arch1 being thus left to be measured by the imagination1 which has already been excited by the display of thickness within thickness of decorated archway4 ,the ,norman architects1 in order still further to increase this effect1 had sometimes recourse to a device that can scarcely be justified by strict architectural principles1 which should never falsify construction in order to heighten expression4 ,a face of wall was advanced in front of the main wall of the building1 in order to obtain a much greater depth of masonry for showing off the multitudinously moulded entrance-arch4 ,this projection did not form a real advanced porch1 having its proper ecclesiastical purposes1 but was nothing but a boast and display of mass in the masonry which really had no existence1 the advanced face of wall concealing the fact that there was only mass enough behind it to allow of this misleading display4 ,it may be said that the ,gothic spire is constructed simply for display4 ,it is quite true2 but it is avowedly so constructed1 and there was no concealment about it4 ,mr4 ,ruskin1 by the way1 strangely affirms that 8the direct symbolisation of a sentiment is a weak motive with all men02 inferring thence that there was no intention of aspiration in the ,pointed architecture which he cares so little for4 ,but surely the reverse is the case2 and such symbolisation1 in one way or other1 constitutes a great part of the life of all men4 ,the ,gothic spire1 which was the most costly as well as the most useless feature of the ,gothic cathedral1 is a final answer to such doctrine1 which strikes indeed at the life of all artistic work4 ,if it did not 8symbolise a sentiment10 what was done by it8 ,the round arch1 which was the accident of the ,norman architecture1 being treated therein as a mere cavernous gap in masses of1 in themselves1 all-sufficient masonry1 was1 as it has been already said1 adopted by the ,byzantine architects as the principal theme of their art2 but this arch could be made nothing of1 as the main source of expression1 until it developed the dome2 and the dome1 as it proved1 could not be made much of1 until the ,moresque builders took it in hand4 ,it had the fatal defect1 when on a large scale1 of lateral thrust1 which could only be met by a construction which had the double defect of positive and negative falsehood4 ,the domes of ,st4 ,sophia and ,st4 ,vitale1 which the eye naturally presumes to be of one mass or substance with the substructure1 are really formed1 for lightness1 of ,rhodian bricks1 pumice-stone1 and coils of empty jars2 and yet the lateral thrust is so great that it has to be opposed by a vast buttress-system1 which is carefully concealed1 because it would contradict1 if exposed1 the inevitable effect of extreme lightness in the dome4 ,the ,renaissance architects found themselves equally at a loss1 as we know1 in dealing with this feature4 ,both in ,st4 ,peter's and ,st4 ,paul's there is not one but two entirely separate domes4 ,and when all is done the ,byzantine and ,renaissance domes are nothing to the eye but hollow shells1 with no special artistic expression4 ,the ,moresque architects hit upon the astonishing fancy of giving the dome substance1 and thereby reconciling it with the constructive masses which supported and abutted upon it1 and at the same time annihilating the idea of weight4 ,this last idea already lurked in the ,byzantine domes of ,st4 ,sophia1 which seem to be carried wholly by 8pendentives10 and not at all by the piers to which these are attached4 ,but it only lurked therein2 for the eye necessarily inferred the immense lateral weight which piers and walls received4 ,now the honeycombed domes of the ,moresque architecture are multiplied masses of pendentive forms hanging actually in air1 and making it impossible for the eye to entertain any idea of lateral thrust in the whole or any part2 and every detail of column1 wall1 and arch corroborates this fanciful negation of weight so perfectly that1 for unity of effect1 the ,attic architecture remains the only rival of the ,moresque1 though there is this infinite difference between them3 that1 whereas the first appeals to the imagination and symbolises the ,greek ideal of mental and moral equilibrium in forms of true construction1 the latter only excites the fancy by a fairy tale4 ,the whole carrying and resisting power of the arch is flung away by conferring upon it outlines which have no such power 7the real carrying arch being hidden in the wall far outside the visible arch73 the arches in colonnades1 etc41 seldom rest on1 but simply abut against1 the columns1 which usually carry broad perpendicular beams1 these being crossed above the arch-head by similar horizontal beams2 so that there is only a small rectangular space of wall over each arch1 and the idea of the weight of this being carried by the arch is contradicted by a network of bars carrying the lines of the wall into the upright beams4 ,when a single arch is set in a wall1 it is similarly framed in fretwork1 the lines of which carry the eye off the arch without being pronounced enough to convey the idea that the force of the wall is thus conducted laterally to some support outside the arch4 ,it is impossible1 in the space which can here be given to the matter1 to notice one in a score of the details which combine to produce the effect with which every one is familiar4 ,the purpose of these papers will have been answered if the vivifying thought of each of the five architectures which alone are integral styles1 and not mixtures of styles1 has been stated clearly1 and such hints of the means by which such thought is conveyed have been given as will enable those who care to go further into the subject to do the rest of the analysis by themselves4 ,,xxv ,,thoughts ,,on ,,knowledge1 ,,opinion1 ,,and ,,inequality ,some learned men have maintained that we can know nothing4 ,the truth is better stated by ,st4 ,paul3 8,if a man thinks that he knows anything1 he knows nothing as he ought10 that is nothing other than imperfectly4 ,it is the more difficult to deal systematically with this matter1 because we want1 in our tongue1 words of such relative meaning as scire1 cognoscere1 intelligere1 etc4 ,i propose only to run together a few such observations as simple good sense can make1 and accept1 and find use for4 ,a great and increasing proportion of persons would1 if you asked them1 maintain that all convictions are merely opinions4 ,but it is not so4 ,a fool may opine absolutely that a wise man is a fool1 but the wise man knows that the fool is one4 ,the same or opposite conclusions1 political or otherwise1 may be arrived at by two persons from a view of the same facts1 and each may be equally confident2 but the conclusions of one may be knowledge1 and those of the other opinion4 ,the reality of the difference is indicated by the difference of the feelings which commonly subsist between those who opine and those who know4 ,those who opine hate those who know1 and who speak as those who know4 ,they think it an assumption of superiority1 whereas it is only its reality1 and cannot but appear more or less in its manner of expression4 ,those who know1 are only contemptuous or indifferent towards such as impudently or ignorantly opine4 ,the consequence is that the knowledge which is wisdom is nowhere1 as an acknowledged force and factor in worldly affairs1 and is only able to assert itself sub rosa1 or by accident1 or by the more or less underhand management of folly and ignorance4 ,what most people call 8deep and earnest convictions0 on political and social topics are generally muddle-headed medleys of knowledge of fact and opinion4 ,they know that such and such a thing is an evil1 and they opine that they see a way to amend it2 and if wiser people point out to them that the evil would not be so amended1 or that greater evils would accrue from the attempt1 they only feel that their 8convictions0 are affronted and opposed by cold-blooded calculations4 ,this kind of opinion is often as confident as actual knowledge4 ,when ,carlyle said that it was impossible to believe a lie1 he can only have meant that it was impossible to believe it with that highest kind of certitude which consists in intellectual perception4 ,probably no one could believe a lie with that degree of faith which would enable him to suffer deliberate martyrdom for it4 ,protestant and ,catholic martyrs have usually been sufferers for one and the same faith1 or1 at least1 parts of the same faith1 in which parts they have considered the whole to be involved4 ,very few1 if any1 have ever carried the courage of mere 8opinions0 to the stake4 ,there can be no absolute certitude about the impressions of the senses or the inferences drawn from them4 ,there can be about moral and spiritual things4 ,the knave may sincerely opine that it is best for his interests to lie and cheat2 but the honest man knows that he is a being whose interests are above all external contingencies1 and that under certain circumstances it would be madness to behave otherwise than in a way which would be directly opposed to every argument and persuasion of the senses4 ,it is only the mind of the most highly 8scientific0 constitution that will have its confidence in knowledge of this kind tried by considerations of its moral and intellectual obligations to ,hottentots and ,australian aborigines4 8,we can live in houses without being architects02 and we can know1 without knowing or caring to know how we came by our knowledge4 ,the house of the gods has lasted intact since ,abraham and ,hesiod1 and shows no sign yet of tumbling about our ears4 ,the faculty of knowing1 as differing from that of opining1 seems1 as might be expected from what has been said1 to have as much to do with the character of the will as of the mind4 ,to be honest1 ,shakespeare tells us1 is to be one in ten thousand2 and to discern intellectually1 or to know1 is a part1 and a very great part1 of honesty4 ,a man may have learned a dozen languages1 and have the whole circle of the sciences at his fingers' ends1 and may know nothing worthy of being called knowledge2 indeed1 there is nothing which seems to be a greater hindrance to the acquisition of living knowledge than an engrossing devotion to the acquisition of words1 facts1 logical methods1 and natural laws4 ,it requires little learning to make a wise or truly knowing man1 but much learning may not impossibly spoil one4 ,mr4 ,matthew ,arnold has said that a thorough classical education has often the same effects on a man's character as a grave experience4 ,the reason is that it is a grave experience1 a long series of small exercises of honesty1 patience1 and self-sacrifice1 the sum of which is equal to a great and soul-sobering calamity4 ,the author of the ,imitation notes a kindred fact when he says1 8,no man can know anything till he is tried40 ,not only is the discipline of such an education1 which1 in its early stage at least has much in it that is repugnant and compulsory1 fitted to qualify the character for the reception of true knowledge1 but it conveys also1 in an eminent degree1 the matter of true knowledge4 ,without any disrespect to ,mr4 ,huxley1 ,mr4 ,herbert ,spencer1 and ,professor ,max ,mller1 we may affirm that the man who knew ,plato1 ,homer1 and schylus rightly1 and knew little else1 would know far more than he who knew all that these great scientists could teach1 and knew nothing else4 ,the man who knows1 often finds himself at great disadvantage in the presence of fact-gatherers and persons who opine4 ,his attitude is necessarily affirmative1 and often1 to the great scandal and contempt of his adversaries1 simply affirmative4 ,it does not enter into his calculations to have actively to defend a position which he sees to be impregnable2 and when he leaves his proper occupation of 8climbing trees in the ,hesperides0 to wield his club against those who know of no such trees1 he is like a ,hercules fighting mosquitoes4 ,they cannot even see his club1 and the conflict generally ends1 as did that between the ,lady and ,comus1 with an angry and wholly unconvincing assertion of incompetence4 ,fain would ,i something say1 yet to what end8 ,thou hast nor ear1 nor soul to apprehend ,the sublime notion and high mystery ,that must be utter'd to unfold the sage ,and serious doctrine of virginity4 ,and thou art worthy that thou should'st not know ,more happiness than is thy present lot4 ,enjoy your dear wit and gay rhetoric1 ,that hath so well been taught her dazzling fence2 ,thou art not fit to hear thyself convinced4 ,wordsworth1 in a still greater passion1 calls his scientific adversary 8a fingering slave40 ,of course this sort of thing tends to make the relations of the parties unpleasant2 and in the eyes of the world the man of immense 8information0 and convinced ignorance goes off with the laurels4 ,metaphysics for the most part is justly open to the objection that it attempts to explain things which ,aristotle declares to be too simple to be intelligible--things which we cannot see with definiteness1 not because they are beyond the focus of the mind's eye1 but because they are too much within it4 ,the metaphysician ,hegel says that the sense of honour arises from our consciousness of infinite personal value4 ,this may not be wholly satisfactory1 but it is helpful2 it is a part of the truth4 ,but what do physicists make of such things as honour and chastity8 ,they certainly endeavour to explain such ideas and feelings as they do everything else1 but their explanations necessarily discredit these and all other things which profess to have 8infinite value10 and which wise men know to have infinite value4 ,the knowledge which can be made common to all1 is a foundation upon which a certain increasing school1 finding popular 8opinion0 too sandy1 is endeavouring to build up a new state of things1 religious1 moral1 political1 and social4 ,this kind of 8positivism10 which claims for its sanction the common1 that is to say1 the lowest experience of mankind1 is and always has been the religion of the vulgar1 to whatever class they belong4 ,the growth of an unconscious and undogmatic positivism among the people at large is perhaps the most notable fact of the time4 ,it shows itself not only in an increasing impatience of the notion that there is any reality which cannot be seen and felt1 but in an intolerance even of any experience which is not1 or cannot immediately be made1 the experience of all4 ,as boards and committees proverbially have to work on the level of the least wise of their members1 so the ideal perfection of this positivism would be government by the insight of the greatest dunderhead1 since his experiences and perceptions alone would be sufficiently communicable to have the character of universality4 ,under such ideal conditions1 every reality that makes life human would be completely eliminated4 ,a man who should be detected in secretly entertaining principles of abstract honour1 or trying to form his life upon the pattern of a beauty unknown to the arch-dunderhead1 would fare as it fared in ,athens with the man who dared to crown his house with a pediment2 and vestries1 consisting of the prophets of commonplace and popular experience1 would vote everything in painting and poetry to be 8bosh0 which should be more esoteric in character than ,frith's 8,railway ,station0 or ,martin ,tupper's ,proverbial ,philosophy4 ,science has already come very generally to mean1 not that which may be known1 but only such knowledge as every animal with faculties a little above those of an ant or a beaver can be induced to admit4 ,incommunicable knowledge1 or knowledge which can be communicated at present only to a portion--perhaps a small portion--of mankind1 is already affirmed to be no knowledge at all4 ,a man who knows and acts up to his knowledge that it is better to suffer or inflict any extremity of temporal evil1 rather than lie or cheat1 though he may not be able to give any universally intelligible account of his knowledge1 is already beginning to be looked upon as a prig or a fanatic2 and chastity is already widely declared to be one of the 8dead virtues10 and marriage only legalised fornication1 because 8the sublime notion and high mystery that must be uttered to unfold the sage and serious doctrine0 of purity must be taken1 if taken at all by the many1 upon trust4 ,the pure and simple ideal of life founded upon facts of universal experience is1 however1 too base ever to be perfectly attained in this world4 ,there will always be a lingering suspicion with many that some have powers of discernment and an experience which are not granted to all2 there will always be hidden heretics who will believe that there are realities which cannot be seen or touched by the natural eye or hand1 or even by the rational perception of the many2 and the present downward tendency may perhaps be checked1 or at least delayed1 by recalling to the minds of men that1 as yet1 we are all living more or less by faith in the better knowledge of the few1 and by reminding them of that abyss towards which a new step is taken whenever any item of that knowledge is denied1 in order to widen the foundations of the throne of popular experience4 ,the religion of universal experience must of course begin1 as the dogmatic positivist insists1 in the denial of ,god1 or1 what is exactly equivalent1 in the assertion that1 if ,god exists1 ,he is altogether unknowable and removed from the practical interests of life4 ,now1 let it be remembered that for a man to deny that ,god can be known is quite a different thing from his not being able to affirm1 from positive knowledge1 the reverse4 ,a very small minority of mankind1 but a minority which includes almost all who have attained the highest peaks of heroic virtue1 and many who have been no less eminent for power of intellect and practical wisdom1 have declared that1 to them at least1 ,god is knowable1 communicable with1 and personally discernible with a certainty which exceeds all other certainties2 and they have further affirmed that this knowledge comes and can only come from a man's putting himself en rapport with the ,divinity by an1 in the beginning1 more or less experimental faith1 and by a conformity to the dictates of the highest conscience1 so perfect as to involve1 for a considerable period at least1 laborious and painful self-denial4 ,now it would be placing oneself upon a level with such assertors of the highest knowledge to say that one knows that these declarations are true1 however strong the presumption of their truth may appear2 but it is simply vulgar and brutal impudence for any one to assert positively that they are untruths or illusions1 merely because his own experience and that of his pot-companions contains nothing which gives the least clue to their meaning4 ,the reductio ad absurdum becomes complete when the same argument is carried into regions of more extended experience4 ,a drunken bargeman has exactly the same right to deny the reality of the asserted experiences of a ,petrarch or a ,wordsworth as these would have to deny those of the saint or the apostle2 and to descend a few steps farther1 the amateur of abominable delights and the violator of natural relationships would justly1 upon the widest experimental grounds1 claim exemption from a condemnation chiefly founded upon an obscure perception and an intuitive horror of which he for his part had no experience4 ,popular positivism will1 however1 always stop short of the length to which the doctrines of its prophets would lead it1 and will1 from time to time1 be beaten back into the paths of the positivism of the nobler few on which all virtue and religion are founded1 by finding itself in contact with the tremendous paradox1 that the most universally beneficial and admired fruits of civilisation are and always have been gathered from trees of which the roots are wholly out of common view4 ,the heroes themselves of the people will always refute popular experience better than any philosopher can4 ,though a ,gladstone may dazzle them for a day by investing with a fatuous glamour the principles and platitudes with which the vulgar are familiar1 it is to a ,gordon1 with inimitable courage and honour1 the obvious outcome of unintelligible thoughts and experiences1 that they will look with abiding reverence1 and an elevating instinct that such men habitually move about in worlds by them unrealised4 ,the immense and unalterable inequalities in the knowing faculties of man are the source and in part the justification of that social inequality which roughly and very partially reflects them4 ,many otherwise amiable and conservative thinkers have1 however1 made the mistake of conceding that such inequality is1 abstractedly considered1 an evil1 though a hopelessly incurable one4 ,conservative teaching would be much more effective than it is1 were it more frequently occupied with proving that such inequality is no evil1 but a very great good for all parties4 ,dr4 ,johnson1 who sometimes let fall1 in off-hand talk1 sayings of such depth1 simplicity1 and significance that we must go back to the philosophers of antiquity to find the like of them1 once remarked that 8inequality is the source of all delight40 ,this saying1 which must seem surprising to most modern ears1 is absolutely true and even demonstrable4 ,all delight--not all pleasure1 which is quite a different thing--will be found1 when thoroughly examined1 to consist in the rendering and receiving of love and the services of love4 ,hence the great and fortunately inextinguishable fountains of delight in the relationships of man and woman and of parents and children4 ,it is true that a low and inorganic form of national polity may1 to some extent1 suppress even these pure springs of felicity2 but1 so long as there are women and children in the world1 it can never become quite joyless4 ,the doctrines of liberty1 fraternity1 and equality are known instinctively only by very bad children1 and most women1 when once they have been in love1 repudiate such teaching indignantly1 under whatever polity they may have been born4 ,between unequals sweet is equal love2 and the fact is that there is no love1 and therefore no sweetness1 which is not thus conditioned2 and the greater the inequality the greater the sweetness4 ,hence the doctrine that infinite felicity can only arise from the mutual love of beings infinitely unequal--that is1 of the creator and the creature4 ,inequality1 far from implying any dishonour on either side of the mutual compact of love1 is the source of honour to both4 ,hooker1 writing of marriage1 says3 8,it is no small honour to a man that a creature so like himself should be subjected to him02 and we all know that the honour to woman which the chivalry of the middle ages made an abiding constituent of civilisation1 was founded upon ,catholic views of her subjection1 and the obligation to give special honour1 as of right1 to the weaker vessel4 ,look also at the relations which usually subsist between an hereditary gentleman and his hereditary unequals and dependants1 and compare them with the ordinary fraternal relations between a ,radical master-tradesman and his workmen4 ,the intercourse between the gentleman and his hind or labourer is free1 cheerful1 and exhilarating1 because there is commonly in it the only equality worth regarding1 that of goodwill2 whereas the commands of the sugar-boiler or the screw-maker to their brothers are probably given with a frown and received with a scowl4 ,social inequality1 since it arises from unalterable nature and inevitable chance1 is irritating only when it is not recognised4 ,the ,american plutocrat may be forced to travel for a week in the company of a hodman1 because ,american theories discountenance first and third class carriages2 but catch him speaking to him6 ,whereas an ,english duke1 if by chance thrown into the companionship of an honest countryman1 would be on the best of terms with him before an hour was over1 and the good understanding between the two would be made all the easier should the latter have on his distinguishing smock-frock4 ,the genuine ,tory is the most accessible of persons1 the genuine ,radical the least so4 ,the one takes things as they are and must be1 the other views them as they are not and cannot be1 and1 kicking against imaginary evils1 often pays the penalty of finding himself firmly saddled with the realities4 8,one can live in a house without being an architect10 and it is not at all necessary that the common people should understand the ,english constitution in order to feel that their lives are the sweeter and nobler because they are members of its living organism4 ,not a ploughboy or a milkmaid but would feel1 without in the least knowing why1 that a light had passed from their lives with the disappearance of social inequalities1 and the consequent loss of their dignity as integral parts of a somewhat that was greater than themselves4 ,the other day1 walking in a country lane1 ,i saw what appeared at a little distance to be a dying animal4 ,on a closer view it proved to be the carcase of a sheep which had in great measure been actually transformed into a mass of the soft1 white1 malodorous grubs known to anglers by the name of gentles4 ,the struggles of these creatures to get at the food which they concealed produced a strong and regular pulsation throughout the whole mass1 and gave it a ghastly semblance of breathing4 ,the ordered state of ,england1 according to its ideal1 which for many generations has been more or less realised1 compared with the sort of democracy to which we are fast drifting and have wellnigh attained1 is much like the animal in which myriads of individual organs1 nerves1 veins1 tissues1 and cells formed subordinated parts of one living thing1 compared with this pulsating mass of grubs1 each one of which had no thought but of its just share of carrion4 ,democracy is only a continually shifting aristocracy of money1 impudence1 animal energy1 and cunning1 in which the best grub gets the best of the carrion2 and the level to which it tends to bring all things is not a mountain tableland1 as its promoters would have their victims think1 but the unwholesome platitude of the fen and the morass1 of which black envy would enjoy the malaria so long as all others shared in it4 ,whatever may be the pretences set forth by the leading advocates of such a state of things among us1 it is manifest enough that black envy is the principal motive with many of them1 who hate the beauty of the ordered life1 to be ruling stars of which they cannot attain1 just as certain others are said to 8hate the happy light from which they fell40 ,they hate hereditary honours1 chiefly because they produce hereditary honour1 and create a standard of truth and courage for which even the basest are the better in so far as they are shamed by it4 ,do the ,united ,states1 some may ask1 justify this condemnation8 ,they are but a poor approach to the idea of democracy which seems now about to be realised among us3 but they have already gone a long way towards extinguishing that last glory of1 and now best substitute for1 a generally extinct religion--a sense of honour among the people4 8,why1 what a dern'd fool you must be60 exclaimed a ,new ,york shopkeeper to a friend of mine1 who had received a dollar too much in changing a note1 and returned it4 ,if there is a shopkeeper in ,england who would think such a thing1 there is certainly not one who would dare to say it4 ,nor1 in losing sight of the sense of 8infinite personal value10 which is the source of honour and the growth of a long-enduring recognition of inevitable inequalities1 have the ,americans preserved delight4 ,dr4 ,johnson's saying finds a remarkable comment in the observation of a recent ,american traveller3 8,in the ,united ,states there is everywhere comfort1 but no joy40 ,to conclude1 it is quite possible to change the forms of social inequality1 but to do away with the fact is of all things the most impossible4 ,it is the trick or ignorance of the demagogue to charge existing inequalities with the evils and injustices in which they began1 and with which they were attended for a long time afterwards4 ,when conquest or revolution establishes the ever-inevitable political and social inequalities in new forms1 it takes many generations of misery and turmoil to introduce into them the moral equality which renders them not only tolerable1 but the source of true freedom and happiness4 ,,the ,,end ,printed by ,r4 ,r4 ,,clark1 ,edinburgh