Marginalia — 1902 historical reading — reading text

————— Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term “Art,” I should call it “the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.” The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of “Artist.” Denner was no artist. The grapes of Zeuxis were inartistic — unless in a bird's-eye view; and not even the curtain of Parrhasius could conceal his deficiency in point of genius. I have mentioned “the veil of the soul.” Something of the kind appears indispensable in Art. We can, at any time, double the true beauty of an actual landscape by half closing our eyes as we look at it. The naked Senses sometimes see too little — but then always they see too much. ————— A clever French writer of “Memoirs” is quite right in saying that “if the Universities had been willing to permit it, the disgusting old débauché of Teos, with his eternal Batyllis, would long ago have been buried in the darkness of oblivion.” ————— “Philosophy,” says Hegel, “is utterly useless and fruitless, and, for this very reason, is the sublimest of all pursuits, the most deserving attention, and the most worthy of our zeal.” This jargon was suggested, no doubt, by Tertullian's “Mortuus est Dei filius; credibile est quia ineptum — et sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile.” ————— I have great faith in fools: — self-confidence my friends will call it: — Si demain, oubliant d’éclore, Le jour manquait, eh bien! demain Quelque fou trouverait encore Un flambeau pour le genre humain. By the way, what with the new electric light and other matters, De Béranger's idea is not so very extravagant. ————— I have sometimes amused myself by endeavoring to fancy what would be the fate of any individual gifted, or rather accursed, with an intellect very far superior to that of his race. Of course, he would be conscious of his superiority; nor could he (if otherwise constituted as man is) help manifesting his consciousness. Thus he would make himself enemies at all points. And since his opinions and speculations would widely differ from those of all mankind — that he would be considered a madman, is evident. How horribly painful such a condition! Hell could invent no greater torture than that of being charged with abnormal weakness on account of being abnormally strong. In like manner, nothing can be clearer than that a very generous spirit — truly feeling what all merely profess — must inevitably find itself misconceived in every direction — its motives misinterpreted. Just as extremeness of intelligence would be thought fatuity, so excess of chivalry could not fail of being looked upon as meanness in its last degree: — and so on with other virtues. This subject is a painful one indeed. That individuals have so soared above the plane of their race, is scarcely to be questioned; but, in looking back through history for traces of their existence, we should pass over all biographies of “the good and the great,” while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows. ————— My friend, ——, can never commence what he fancies a poem, (he is a fanciful man, after all) without first elaborately “invoking the Muses.” Like so many she-dogs of John of Nivelles, however, the more he invokes them, the more they decline obeying the invocation. ————— The German “Schwärmerei” — not exactly “humbug,” but “sky-rocketing” — seems to be the only term by which we can conveniently designate that peculiar style of criticism which has lately come into fashion, through the influence of certain members of the Fabian family — people who live (upon beans) about Boston. ————— “This is right,” says Epicurus, “precisely because the people are displeased with it.” “II y a à parier,” says Chamfort — one of the Kankars of Mirabeau — “que toute idée publique — toute convention reçue — est une sottise; car elle a convenu au plus grand nombre.” “Si proficere cupis,” says the great African bishop, “primo id verum puta quod sana mens omnium hominum attestatur.” Now, “Who shall decide where Doctors disagree?” To me, it appears that, in all ages, the most preposterous falsities have been received as truths by at least the mens omnium hominum. As for the sana mens — how are we ever to determine what that is? ————— There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad humanity must assume the aspect of Hell; but the Imagination of Man is no Carathis, to explore with impunity its every cavern. Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful; but like the Demons in whose company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must sleep, or they will devour us — they must be suffered to slumber, or we perish. ————— What can be more soothing, at once to a man's Pride and to his Conscience, than the conviction that, in taking vengeance on his enemies for injustice done him, he has simply to do them justice in return? ————— Talking of puns: — “Why do they not give us quail for dinner, as usual?” demanded Count Fessis, the other day, of H——, the classicist and sportsman. “Because at this season,” replied H——, who was dozing, “qualis sopor fessis.” (Quail is so poor, Fessis.) ————— An infinity of error makes its way into our Philosophy, through Man's habit of considering himself a citizen of a world solely — of an individual planet — instead of at least occasionally contemplating his position as cosmopolite proper — as a denizen of the universe. ————— The Carlyle-ists should adopt, as a motto, the inscription on the old bell from whose metal was cast the Great Tom, of Oxford: — “In Thomœ laude resono ‘Bim! Bom!’ sine fraude:” — and “Bim! Bom,” in such case, would be a marvellous “echo of sound to sense.” ————— Paulus Jovius, living in those benighted times when diamond-pointed styluses were as yet unknown, thought proper, nevertheless, to speak of his goosequill as “aliquando ferreus, aureus aliquando” — intending, of course, a mere figure of speech; and from the class of modern authors who use really nothing to write with but steel and gold, some, no doubt, will let their pens, vice versâ, descend to posterity under the designation of “anserine” — of course, intending always a mere figure of speech. XIV. [Southern Literary Messenger, July, 1849.] The fishes described by Athenæus as άθανατοισι θεοισι φνἡν και είδος οίμοιαι were, beyond doubt, a shoal of Preserved Fish, like the one who spoke up so boldly for President Tyler. ————— The eloquence of the Honorable G—— strikes me as being of that class which, “si absit,” as Cicero says, speaking generally of eloquence in a philosopher, “non magnopere desideranda.” ————— In saying that “grace will save any book and without it none can live long,” Horace Walpole had reference, I fancy, to that especial grace which managed to save so many books of his own — his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. ————— Until we analyze a religion, or a philosophy, in respect of its inducements, independently of its rationality, we shall never be in condition to estimate that religion, or that philosophy, by the mere number of its adherents: — unluckily, “No Indian Prince has to his palace More followers than a thief to the gallows.” —— In omitting to envelop our Gothic architecture in foliage, we omit, in fact, an essential point in the Gothic architecture itself. Of a Gothic church, especially, trees are as much a portion as the pointed arch. “Ubi tres, ecclesia,” says Tertullian; — but no doubt he meant that “ubi ecclesia, tres.” ————— “If, in any point,” says Lord Bacon, “I have receded from what is commonly received, it hath been for the purpose of proceeding melius and not in aliud” — but the character assumed, in general, by modern “Reform” is, simply, that of Opposition. ————— A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this — that offenses against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made — not to understand — but to feel — as crime. ————— That Demosthenes “turned out very badly,” appears, beyond dispute, from a passage in “Meker de vet. et rect. Pron. Ling. Græcæ,” where we read “Nec illi (Demostheni) turpe videbatur, optimis relictis magistris, ad canes se conferre,” etc. etc. — that is to say, Demosthenes was not ashamed to quit good society and “go to the dogs.” ————— When —— and —— pavoneggiarsi about the celebrated personages whom they have “seen” in their travels, we shall not be far wrong in inferring that these celebrated personages were seen έκας — as Pindar says he “saw” Archilochus, who died ages before the former was born. ————— To see distinctly the machinery — the wheels and pinions — of any work of Art is, unquestionably, of itself, a pleasure, but one which we are able to enjoy only just in proportion as we do not enjoy the legitimate effect designed by the artist: — and, in fact, it too often happens that to reflect analytically upon Art, is to reflect after the fashion of the mirrors in the temple of Smyrna, which represent the fairest images as deformed. ————— The modern reformist Philosophy which annihilates the individual by way of aiding the mass; and the late reformist Legislation, which prohibits pleasure with the view of advancing happiness, seem to be chips of that old block of a French feudal law which, to prevent young partridges from being disturbed, imposed penalites upon hoeing and weeding. ————— I cannot help thinking that romance-writers, in general, might, now and then, find their account in taking a hint from the Chinese, who, in spite of building their houses downwards, have still sense enough to begin their books at the end. ————— Surely M—— cannot complain of the manner in which his book has been received; for the Public, in regard to it, has given him just such an assurance as Polyphemus pacified Ulysses with, while his companions were being eaten up before his eyes. “Your book, Mr. M——,” says the Public, “shall be — I pledge you my word — the very last that I devour.” ————— In examining trivial details, we are apt to overlook essential generalities. Thus M——, in making a to-do about the “typographical mistakes” in his book, has permitted the printer to escape a scolding which he did richly deserve — a scolding for a “typographical mistake” of really vital importance — the mistake of having printed the book at all. ————— Mozart declared, on his death-bed, that he “began to see what may be done in music;” and it is to be hoped that DeMeyer and the rest of the spasmodists will, eventually, begin to understand what may not be done in this particular branch of the Fine Arts. ————— Nicholas Ferrar, were he now living, would be not a little astonished to find thoroughly established here, by our Magazine poets, that very “perpetual chant” which he so unsuccessfully struggled to establish in the village of Little Gidding. ————— In the tale proper — where there is no space for development of character or for great profusion and variety of incident — mere construction is, of course, far more imperatively demanded than in the novel. Defective plot, in this latter, may escape observation, but in the tale, never. Most of our tale-writers, however, neglect the distinction. They seem to begin their stories without knowing how they are to end; and their ends, generally, — like so many governments of Trinculo — appear to have forgotten their beginnings. ————— It has been well said of the French orator, Dupin, that “he spoke, as nobody else, the language of every body;” and thus his manner seems to be exactly conversed in that of the Frogpondian Euphuists, who, on account of the familiar tone in which they lisp their outré phrases, may be said to speak, as every body, the language of nobody — that is to say, a language emphatically their own. ————— The vox populi, so much talked about to so little purpose, is,