Chapter 15

[1]See, for example, in vol.IXof theAnnales de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseauthe bibliography (pp. 87-276) for 1912—the year of the bicentenary.[2]Literature and the American College(1908);The New Laokoon(1910);The Masters of Modern French Criticism(1912).[3]See his Oxford addressOn the Modern Element in Literature.[4]These two tendencies in Occidental thought go back respectively at least as far as Parmenides and Heraclitus.[5]In hisWorld as Imagination(1916) E. D. Fawcett, though ultra-romantic and unoriental in his point of view, deals with a problem that has always been the special preoccupation of the Hindu. A Hindu, however, would have entitled a similar volumeThe World as Illusion(māyā). Aristotle has much to say of fiction in hisPoeticsbut does not even use the word imagination (φαντασία). In thePsychology, where he discusses the imagination, he assigns not to it, but to mind or reason the active and creative rôle (νοῦς ποιητικός). It is especially the notion of thecreativeimagination that is recent. The earliest example of the phrase that I have noted in French is in Rousseau’s description of his erotic reveries at the Hermitage (Confessions, LivreIX).[6]Essay on Flaubert inEssais de Psychologie contemporaine.[7]Le Romantisme et les mœurs(1910).[8]Annales de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseau,VIII, 30-31.[9]I should perhaps say that in the case of Buddha I have been able to consult the original Pāli documents. In the case of Confucius and the Chinese I have had to depend on translations.[10]See appendix on Chinese primitivism.[11]See, for example,Majjhima(Pāli Text Society),I, 265. Later Buddhism, especially Mahāyāna Buddhism, fell away from the positive and critical spirit of the founder into mythology and metaphysics.[12]Buddha expressed on many occasions his disdain for theVedas, the great traditional authority of the Hindus.[13]I have explained the reasons for giving this place to Bacon in chapterIIofLiterature and the American College.[14]Eth. Nic., 1179 a.[15]I scarcely need remind the reader that the extant Aristotelian writings which have repelled so many by their form were almost certainly not meant for publication. For the problems raised by these writings as well as for the mystery in the method of their early transmission see R. Shute,History of the Aristotelian Writings(1888). The writings which Aristotle prepared for publication and which Cicero describes as a “golden stream of speech” (Acad.II, 38, 119) have, with the possible exception of the recently recoveredConstitution of Athens, been lost.[16]See hisEssai sur le genre dramatique sérieux.[17]Quoted in Grimm’s Dictionary.[18]Ex lectione quorundam romanticorum, i.e. librorum compositorum in gallico poeticorum de gestis militaribus, in quibus maxima pars fabulosa est.[19]Perhaps the most romantic lines in English are found in one of Camillo’s speeches inThe Winter’s Tale(IV, 4):a wild dedication of yourselvesTo unpath’d waters, undream’d shores.This “wild dedication” is, it should be noted, looked upon by Camillo with disfavor.[20]Pepys’s Diary, 13 June, 1666.[21]Thomas Shadwell, Preface to theSullen Lovers, 1668.[22]Spectator, 142, by Steele.[23]Pope, 2d Epistle,Of the Character of Women.[24]Cf.Revue d’hist. litt.,XVIII, 440. For the Early French history of the word, see also the articleRomantiqueby A. François inAnnales de la Soc. J.-J. Rousseau,V, 199-236.[25]First edition, 1698; second edition, 1732.[26]Cf. hisElégie à une dame.Mon âme, imaginant, n’a point la patienceDe bien polir les vers et ranger la science.La règle me déplaît, j’écris confusément:Jamais un bon esprit ne fait rien qu’aisément.…Je veux faire des vers qui ne soient pas contraints…Chercher des lieux secrets où rein ne me déplaise,Méditer à loisir, rêver tout à mon aise,Employer toute une heure à me mirer dans l’eau,Ouïr, comme en songeant, la course d’un ruisseau.Ecrire dans un bois, m’interrompre, me taire,Composer un quatrain sans songer à le faire.[27]Caractères, ch.V.[28]His psychology of the memory and imagination is still Aristotelian. Cf. E. Wallace,Aristotle’s Psychology, Intr., lxxxvi-cvii.[29]An Essay upon Poetry(1682).[30]The French Academy discriminates in itsSentiments sur le Cidbetween two types of probability, “ordinary” and “extraordinary.” Probability in general is more especially reserved for action. In the domain of action “ordinary” probability and decorum run very close together. It is, for example, both indecorous and improbable that Chimène in theCidshould marry her father’s murderer.[31]In hisPrefaceto Shakespeare.[32]For a similar distinction in Aristotle seeEth. Nic., 1143 b.[33]The Platonic and Aristotelian reason or mind (νοῦς) contains an element of intuition.[34]In hisLettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles.[35]Rousseau contre Molière, 238.[36]Letters on Chivalry and Romance.[37]See verses prefixed to Congreve’sDouble-Dealer.[38]Change l’état douteux dans lequel tu nous ranges,Nature élève-nous à la clarté des anges,Ou nous abaisse au sens des simples animaux.Sonnet(1657?).[39]See, for example, A. Gerard’sEssay on Genius(1774),passim.[40]The English translation of this part of theCritique of Judgment, edited by J. C. Meredith, is useful for its numerous illustrative passages from these theorists (Young, Gerard, Duff, etc.).[41]Mrs. Katharine Fullerton Gerould has dealt interestingly with this point in an article in theUnpopular Review(October, 1914) entitledTabu and Temperament.[42]SeeBiographia literaria, ch.XXII.[43]This message came to him in any case straight from German romanticism. See Walzel,Deutsche Romantik, 22, 151.[44]“De tous les corps et esprits, on n’en saurait tirer un mouvement de vraie charité; cela est impossible, et d’un autre ordre, surnaturel.”Penseés, ArticleXVII. “Charité,” one should recollect, here has its traditional meaning—the love, not of man, but of God.[45]See poem,Ce siècle avait deux ansin theFeuilles d’Automne.[46]For amusing details, see L. Maigron,Le Romantisme et la mode(1911), ch.V.[47]For Disraeli see Wilfrid Ward,Men and Matters, 54 ff. Of Bulwer-Lytton at Nice about 1850 Princess von Racowitza writes as follows in herAutobiography(p. 46): “His fame was at its zenith. He seemed to me antediluvian, with his long dyed curls and his old-fashioned dress … with long coats reaching to the ankles, knee-breeches, and long colored waistcoats. Also, he appeared always with a young lady who adored him, and who was followed by a man servant carrying a harp. She sat at his feet and appeared as he did in the costume of 1830, with long flowing curls calledAnglaises. … In society, however, people ran after him tremendously, and spoilt him in every possible way. He read aloud from his own works, and, in especially poetic passages, his ‘Alice’ accompanied him with arpeggios on the harp.”[48]See essay by Kenyon Cox onThe Illusion of Progress, in hisArtist and Public.[49]SeeCreative Criticismby J. E. Spingarn, and my article onGenius and Taste, reviewing this book, in theNation(New York), 7 Feb., 1918.[50]One should note here as elsewhere points of contact between scientific and emotional naturalism. Take, for example, the educational theory that has led to the setting up of the elective system. The general human discipline embodied in the fixed curriculum is to be discarded in order that the individual may be free to work along the lines of his bent or “genius.” In a somewhat similar way scientific naturalism encourages the individual to sacrifice the general human discipline to a specialty.[51]See his poemL’ArtinEmaux et Camées.[52]Quel esprit ne bat la campagne?Qui ne fait châteaux en Espagne?Picrochole, Pyrrhus, la laitière, enfin tous,Autant les sages que les fousChacun songe en veillant; il n’est rien de plus doux.Une flatteuse erreur emporte alors nos âmes;Tout le bien du monde est à nous,Tous les honneurs, toutes les femmes.Quand je suis seul, je fais au plus brave un défi,Je m’écarte, je vais détrôner le sophi;On m’élit roi, mon peuple m’aime;Les diadèmes vont sur ma tête pleuvant:Quelque accident fait-il que je rentre en moi-même,Je suis gros Jean comme devant.[53]Rasselas, ch.XLIV.[54]Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.II, LettreXVII.[55]Rostand has hit off this change in the Balcony Scene of hisCyrano de Bergerac.[56]Essay onSimple and Sentimental Poetry.[57]The life of Rousseau by Gerhard Gran is written from this point of view.[58]The world’s great age begins anew,The golden years return, etc.Hellas, vv. 1060 ff.[59]For an excellent analysis of Shelley’s idealism see Leslie Stephen’sGodwin and Shelleyin hisHours in a Library.[60]Letters,II, 292.[61]See his letter to Wordsworth, 30 January, 1801.[62]Dramatic Art and Literature, ch.I.[63]Cf. Voltaire: On ne peut désirer ce qu’on ne connaît pas. (Zaïre.)[64]Cf. Sainte-Beuve,Causeries du lundi.XV, 371: “Le romantique a la nostalgie, comme Hamlet; il cherche ce qu’il n’a pas, et jusque par delà les nuages; il rêve, il vit dans les songes. Au dix-neuvième siècle, il adore le moyen âge; au dix-huitième, il est déjà révolutionnaire avec Rousseau,” etc. Cf. also T. Gautier as quoted in theJournal des Goncourt,II, 51: “Nous ne sommes pas Français, nous autres, nous tenons à d’autres races. Nous sommes pleins de nostalgies. Et puis quand à la nostalgie d’un pays se joint la nostalgie d’un temps … comme vous par exemple du dix-huitième siècle … comme moi de la Venise de Casanova, avec embranchement sur Chypre, oh! alors, c’est complet.”[65]See articleGoûtinPostscriptum de ma vie.[66]Schlegel’sDramatic Art and Literature, LectureXXII.[67]For a discussion of this point see I. Rouge:F. Schlegel et la Genèse du romantisme allemand, 48 ff.[68]For a development of this point of view see the essay of Novalis:Christianity or Europe.[69]Confessions, LivreIX(1756).[70]This is Goethe’s very classical definition of genius: Du nur, Genius, mehrst in der Natur die Natur.[71]Greek literature, after it had lost the secret of selection and the grand manner, as was the case during the Alexandrian period, also tended to oscillate from the pole of romance to the pole of so-called realism—from theArgonauticaof Apollonius of Rhodes, let us say, to theMimesof Herondas.[72]Emile, LivreII.[73]Etudes de la nature.[74]See, for example,Tatler, 17 November, 31 December, 1709 (by Steele).[75]See her letter to Gustavus III, King of Sweden, cited inGustave III et la cour de France,II, 402, par A. Geffroy.[76]See Hastings Rashdall:Is Conscience an Emotion?(1914), especially ch.I. Cf.Nouvelle Héloïse. (Pt.VI, LettreVII): “Saint-Preux fait de la conscience morale un sentiment, et non pas un jugement.”[77]Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.V, LettreII.[78]Ibid.[79]Ibid., Pt.IV, LettreXII.[80]Schiller’s definition is well known: “A beautiful soul we call a state where the moral sentiment has taken possession of all the emotions to such a degree that it may unhesitatingly commit the guidance of life to instinct,” etc. (On Grace and Dignity.) Cf. Madame de Staël: “La vertu devient alors une impulsion involontaire, un mouvement qui passe dans le sang, et vous entraîne irrésistiblement comme les passions les plus impérieuses.” (De la Littérature: Discours préliminàire.)[81]Avenir de la Science, 354.[82]Ibid., 179-180.[83]Avenir de la Science, 476.[84]Madame de Warens felt the influence of German pietism in her youth. SeeLa Jeunesse de J.-J. Rousseaupar E. Ritter; ch.XIII.[85]Lettre à M. Molé(21 October, 1803).[86]Le romantisme français, 215.[87]SeeLes Amours de Milord Bomstonat the end ofLa Nouvelle Héloïse.[88]Sultan MouradinLa Légende des Siècles.[89]Correspondence,III, 213 (June, 1791). The date of this letter should be noted. Several of the worst terrorists of the French Revolution began by introducing bills for the abolition of capital punishment.[90]See Burton’sHume,II, 309 (note 2).This sentimental trait did not escape the authors of theAnti-Jacobin:Sweet child of sickly Fancy—Her of yoreFrom her lov’d France Rousseau to exile bore;And while midst lakes and mountains wild he ranFull of himself and shunn’d the haunts of man,Taught her o’er each lone vale and Alpine steepTo lisp the stories of his wrongs and weep;Taught her to cherish still in either eyeOf tender tears a plentiful supply,And pour them in the brooks that babbled by—Taught her to mete by rule her feelings strong,False by degrees and delicately wrong,For the crush’d Beetle,first—the widow’d Dove,And all the warbled sorrows of the grove,Nextfor poor suff’ring Guilt—andlastof all,For Parents, Friends, or King and Country’s fall.[91]Shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, menWhom I already loved;—not verilyFor their own sakes, but for the fields and hillsWhere was their occupation and abode.Michael[92]Once more the Ass, with motion dull,Upon the pivot of his skullTurned round his long left ear.“The bard who soars to elegize an ass” and the “laureate of the long-eared kind” (English Bards and Scotch Reviewers) is, however, not Wordsworth but Coleridge. See his poemTo a Young Ass, its mother being tethered near it.[93]See the poemActe d’accusationinLes Contemplations.[94]Le CrapaudinLa Légende des Siècles.[95]SeeApology31D.[96]HisLanguage and Wisdom of the Hindusappeared in 1808.[97]SeeJugendschriften, ed. by J. Minor,II, 362.[98]Dhammapada.[99]Sutta-Nipāta, v. 149 (Metta-sutta).[100]Second Dialogue.[101]Letters,II, 298. For Ruskin and Rousseau seeIbid.I, 360: “[Ruskin] said that great parts ofLes Confessionswere so true to himself that he felt as if Rousseau must have transmigrated into his body.”[102]“If a poet wishes an atmosphere of indistinct illusion and of moving shadow, he must use the romantic style. … Women, such as we know them, such as they are likely to be, ever prefer a delicate unreality to a true or firm art.” Essay onPure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art in English Poetry(1864).[103]“Die Romanze auf einem Pferde” utters the following lines in the Prologue to Tieck’sKaiser Octavianus:Mondbeglänzte Zaubernacht,Die den Sinn gefangen hält,Wundervolle MärchenweltSteig’ auf in der alten Pracht.A special study might be made of the rôle of the moon in Chateaubriand and Coleridge—even if one is not prepared like Carlyle to dismiss Coleridge’s philosophy as “bottled moonshine.”[104]O. Walzel points out that as soon as the women in H. von Kleist’s plays become conscious they fall into error (Deutsche Romantik, 3. Auflage, 147).[105]Byron,Sardanapalus,IV, 5. Cf. Rousseau,Neuvième Promenade: “Dominé par mes sens, quoi que je puisse faire, je n’ai jamais pu résister à leurs impressions, et, tant que l’objet agit sur eux, mon cœur ne cesse d’en être affecté.” Cf. also Musset,Rolla:Ce n’était pas Rolla qui gouvernait sa vie,C’étaient ses passions; il les laissait allerComme un pâtre assoupi regarde l’eau couler.[106]Modern Painters, PartV, ch.XX.[107]Confessions, Pt.II, LivreIX(1756).[108]With nature never dotheywageA foolish strife; they seeA happy youth and their old ageIs beautiful and free.Wordsworth:The Fountain.[109]The phrase imaginative insight is, I believe, true to the spirit of Plato at his best, but it is certainly not true to his terminology. Plato puts the imagination (φαντασία) not only below intuitive reason (νοῦς) and discursive reason or understanding (διάνοια), but even below outer perception (πίστις). He recognizes indeed that it may reflect the operations of the understanding and even the higher reason as well as the impressions of sense. This notion of a superior intellectual imagination was carried much further by Plotinus and the neo-Platonists. Even the intellectual imagination is, however, conceived of as passive. Perhaps no Greek thinker, not even Plato, makes as clear as he might that reason gets its intuition of reality and the One with the aid of the imagination and, as it were, through a veil of illusion, that, in Joubert’s phrase, “l’illusion est une partie inté, grante de la réalité” (Pensées, TitreXI,XXXIX). Joubert again distinguishes (ibid., TitreIII,XLVII,LI) between “l’imaginative” which is passive and “l’imagination” which is active and creative (“l’œil de l’âme”). In its failure to bring out with sufficient explicitness thiscreativerôle of the imagination and in the stubborn intellectualism that this failure implies is to be found, if anywhere, the weak point in the cuirass of Greek philosophy.[110]See Xenophon,Memorabilia,IV, 16, 3.[111]Σωφροσύνη.[112]See hisLettre à d’Alembert.[113]Varieties of Religious Experience, 387.[114]Blütezeit der Romantik, 126.[115]“Parfaite illusion, réalité parfaite” (Alfred de Vigny). “Die Welt wird Traum, der Traum wird Welt” (Novalis). “This sort of dreaming existence is the best; he who quits it to go in search of realities generally barters repose for repeated disappointments and vain regrets” (Hazlitt).[116]Lit. Ang.,IV, 130.[117]About 1885.

[1]See, for example, in vol.IXof theAnnales de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseauthe bibliography (pp. 87-276) for 1912—the year of the bicentenary.

[2]Literature and the American College(1908);The New Laokoon(1910);The Masters of Modern French Criticism(1912).

[3]See his Oxford addressOn the Modern Element in Literature.

[4]These two tendencies in Occidental thought go back respectively at least as far as Parmenides and Heraclitus.

[5]In hisWorld as Imagination(1916) E. D. Fawcett, though ultra-romantic and unoriental in his point of view, deals with a problem that has always been the special preoccupation of the Hindu. A Hindu, however, would have entitled a similar volumeThe World as Illusion(māyā). Aristotle has much to say of fiction in hisPoeticsbut does not even use the word imagination (φαντασία). In thePsychology, where he discusses the imagination, he assigns not to it, but to mind or reason the active and creative rôle (νοῦς ποιητικός). It is especially the notion of thecreativeimagination that is recent. The earliest example of the phrase that I have noted in French is in Rousseau’s description of his erotic reveries at the Hermitage (Confessions, LivreIX).

[6]Essay on Flaubert inEssais de Psychologie contemporaine.

[7]Le Romantisme et les mœurs(1910).

[8]Annales de la Société Jean-Jacques Rousseau,VIII, 30-31.

[9]I should perhaps say that in the case of Buddha I have been able to consult the original Pāli documents. In the case of Confucius and the Chinese I have had to depend on translations.

[10]See appendix on Chinese primitivism.

[11]See, for example,Majjhima(Pāli Text Society),I, 265. Later Buddhism, especially Mahāyāna Buddhism, fell away from the positive and critical spirit of the founder into mythology and metaphysics.

[12]Buddha expressed on many occasions his disdain for theVedas, the great traditional authority of the Hindus.

[13]I have explained the reasons for giving this place to Bacon in chapterIIofLiterature and the American College.

[14]Eth. Nic., 1179 a.

[15]I scarcely need remind the reader that the extant Aristotelian writings which have repelled so many by their form were almost certainly not meant for publication. For the problems raised by these writings as well as for the mystery in the method of their early transmission see R. Shute,History of the Aristotelian Writings(1888). The writings which Aristotle prepared for publication and which Cicero describes as a “golden stream of speech” (Acad.II, 38, 119) have, with the possible exception of the recently recoveredConstitution of Athens, been lost.

[16]See hisEssai sur le genre dramatique sérieux.

[17]Quoted in Grimm’s Dictionary.

[18]Ex lectione quorundam romanticorum, i.e. librorum compositorum in gallico poeticorum de gestis militaribus, in quibus maxima pars fabulosa est.

[19]Perhaps the most romantic lines in English are found in one of Camillo’s speeches inThe Winter’s Tale(IV, 4):a wild dedication of yourselvesTo unpath’d waters, undream’d shores.This “wild dedication” is, it should be noted, looked upon by Camillo with disfavor.

[19]Perhaps the most romantic lines in English are found in one of Camillo’s speeches inThe Winter’s Tale(IV, 4):

a wild dedication of yourselvesTo unpath’d waters, undream’d shores.

a wild dedication of yourselves

To unpath’d waters, undream’d shores.

This “wild dedication” is, it should be noted, looked upon by Camillo with disfavor.

[20]Pepys’s Diary, 13 June, 1666.

[21]Thomas Shadwell, Preface to theSullen Lovers, 1668.

[22]Spectator, 142, by Steele.

[23]Pope, 2d Epistle,Of the Character of Women.

[24]Cf.Revue d’hist. litt.,XVIII, 440. For the Early French history of the word, see also the articleRomantiqueby A. François inAnnales de la Soc. J.-J. Rousseau,V, 199-236.

[25]First edition, 1698; second edition, 1732.

[26]Cf. hisElégie à une dame.Mon âme, imaginant, n’a point la patienceDe bien polir les vers et ranger la science.La règle me déplaît, j’écris confusément:Jamais un bon esprit ne fait rien qu’aisément.…Je veux faire des vers qui ne soient pas contraints…Chercher des lieux secrets où rein ne me déplaise,Méditer à loisir, rêver tout à mon aise,Employer toute une heure à me mirer dans l’eau,Ouïr, comme en songeant, la course d’un ruisseau.Ecrire dans un bois, m’interrompre, me taire,Composer un quatrain sans songer à le faire.

[26]Cf. hisElégie à une dame.

Mon âme, imaginant, n’a point la patienceDe bien polir les vers et ranger la science.La règle me déplaît, j’écris confusément:Jamais un bon esprit ne fait rien qu’aisément.…Je veux faire des vers qui ne soient pas contraints…Chercher des lieux secrets où rein ne me déplaise,Méditer à loisir, rêver tout à mon aise,Employer toute une heure à me mirer dans l’eau,Ouïr, comme en songeant, la course d’un ruisseau.Ecrire dans un bois, m’interrompre, me taire,Composer un quatrain sans songer à le faire.

Mon âme, imaginant, n’a point la patience

De bien polir les vers et ranger la science.

La règle me déplaît, j’écris confusément:

Jamais un bon esprit ne fait rien qu’aisément.

…

Je veux faire des vers qui ne soient pas contraints

…

Chercher des lieux secrets où rein ne me déplaise,

Méditer à loisir, rêver tout à mon aise,

Employer toute une heure à me mirer dans l’eau,

Ouïr, comme en songeant, la course d’un ruisseau.

Ecrire dans un bois, m’interrompre, me taire,

Composer un quatrain sans songer à le faire.

[27]Caractères, ch.V.

[28]His psychology of the memory and imagination is still Aristotelian. Cf. E. Wallace,Aristotle’s Psychology, Intr., lxxxvi-cvii.

[29]An Essay upon Poetry(1682).

[30]The French Academy discriminates in itsSentiments sur le Cidbetween two types of probability, “ordinary” and “extraordinary.” Probability in general is more especially reserved for action. In the domain of action “ordinary” probability and decorum run very close together. It is, for example, both indecorous and improbable that Chimène in theCidshould marry her father’s murderer.

[31]In hisPrefaceto Shakespeare.

[32]For a similar distinction in Aristotle seeEth. Nic., 1143 b.

[33]The Platonic and Aristotelian reason or mind (νοῦς) contains an element of intuition.

[34]In hisLettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles.

[35]Rousseau contre Molière, 238.

[36]Letters on Chivalry and Romance.

[37]See verses prefixed to Congreve’sDouble-Dealer.

[38]Change l’état douteux dans lequel tu nous ranges,Nature élève-nous à la clarté des anges,Ou nous abaisse au sens des simples animaux.Sonnet(1657?).

[38]

Change l’état douteux dans lequel tu nous ranges,Nature élève-nous à la clarté des anges,Ou nous abaisse au sens des simples animaux.Sonnet(1657?).

Change l’état douteux dans lequel tu nous ranges,

Nature élève-nous à la clarté des anges,

Ou nous abaisse au sens des simples animaux.

Sonnet(1657?).

[39]See, for example, A. Gerard’sEssay on Genius(1774),passim.

[40]The English translation of this part of theCritique of Judgment, edited by J. C. Meredith, is useful for its numerous illustrative passages from these theorists (Young, Gerard, Duff, etc.).

[41]Mrs. Katharine Fullerton Gerould has dealt interestingly with this point in an article in theUnpopular Review(October, 1914) entitledTabu and Temperament.

[42]SeeBiographia literaria, ch.XXII.

[43]This message came to him in any case straight from German romanticism. See Walzel,Deutsche Romantik, 22, 151.

[44]“De tous les corps et esprits, on n’en saurait tirer un mouvement de vraie charité; cela est impossible, et d’un autre ordre, surnaturel.”Penseés, ArticleXVII. “Charité,” one should recollect, here has its traditional meaning—the love, not of man, but of God.

[45]See poem,Ce siècle avait deux ansin theFeuilles d’Automne.

[46]For amusing details, see L. Maigron,Le Romantisme et la mode(1911), ch.V.

[47]For Disraeli see Wilfrid Ward,Men and Matters, 54 ff. Of Bulwer-Lytton at Nice about 1850 Princess von Racowitza writes as follows in herAutobiography(p. 46): “His fame was at its zenith. He seemed to me antediluvian, with his long dyed curls and his old-fashioned dress … with long coats reaching to the ankles, knee-breeches, and long colored waistcoats. Also, he appeared always with a young lady who adored him, and who was followed by a man servant carrying a harp. She sat at his feet and appeared as he did in the costume of 1830, with long flowing curls calledAnglaises. … In society, however, people ran after him tremendously, and spoilt him in every possible way. He read aloud from his own works, and, in especially poetic passages, his ‘Alice’ accompanied him with arpeggios on the harp.”

[48]See essay by Kenyon Cox onThe Illusion of Progress, in hisArtist and Public.

[49]SeeCreative Criticismby J. E. Spingarn, and my article onGenius and Taste, reviewing this book, in theNation(New York), 7 Feb., 1918.

[50]One should note here as elsewhere points of contact between scientific and emotional naturalism. Take, for example, the educational theory that has led to the setting up of the elective system. The general human discipline embodied in the fixed curriculum is to be discarded in order that the individual may be free to work along the lines of his bent or “genius.” In a somewhat similar way scientific naturalism encourages the individual to sacrifice the general human discipline to a specialty.

[51]See his poemL’ArtinEmaux et Camées.

[52]Quel esprit ne bat la campagne?Qui ne fait châteaux en Espagne?Picrochole, Pyrrhus, la laitière, enfin tous,Autant les sages que les fousChacun songe en veillant; il n’est rien de plus doux.Une flatteuse erreur emporte alors nos âmes;Tout le bien du monde est à nous,Tous les honneurs, toutes les femmes.Quand je suis seul, je fais au plus brave un défi,Je m’écarte, je vais détrôner le sophi;On m’élit roi, mon peuple m’aime;Les diadèmes vont sur ma tête pleuvant:Quelque accident fait-il que je rentre en moi-même,Je suis gros Jean comme devant.

[52]

Quel esprit ne bat la campagne?Qui ne fait châteaux en Espagne?Picrochole, Pyrrhus, la laitière, enfin tous,Autant les sages que les fousChacun songe en veillant; il n’est rien de plus doux.Une flatteuse erreur emporte alors nos âmes;Tout le bien du monde est à nous,Tous les honneurs, toutes les femmes.Quand je suis seul, je fais au plus brave un défi,Je m’écarte, je vais détrôner le sophi;On m’élit roi, mon peuple m’aime;Les diadèmes vont sur ma tête pleuvant:Quelque accident fait-il que je rentre en moi-même,Je suis gros Jean comme devant.

Quel esprit ne bat la campagne?

Qui ne fait châteaux en Espagne?

Picrochole, Pyrrhus, la laitière, enfin tous,

Autant les sages que les fous

Chacun songe en veillant; il n’est rien de plus doux.

Une flatteuse erreur emporte alors nos âmes;

Tout le bien du monde est à nous,

Tous les honneurs, toutes les femmes.

Quand je suis seul, je fais au plus brave un défi,

Je m’écarte, je vais détrôner le sophi;

On m’élit roi, mon peuple m’aime;

Les diadèmes vont sur ma tête pleuvant:

Quelque accident fait-il que je rentre en moi-même,

Je suis gros Jean comme devant.

[53]Rasselas, ch.XLIV.

[54]Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.II, LettreXVII.

[55]Rostand has hit off this change in the Balcony Scene of hisCyrano de Bergerac.

[56]Essay onSimple and Sentimental Poetry.

[57]The life of Rousseau by Gerhard Gran is written from this point of view.

[58]The world’s great age begins anew,The golden years return, etc.Hellas, vv. 1060 ff.

[58]

The world’s great age begins anew,The golden years return, etc.Hellas, vv. 1060 ff.

The world’s great age begins anew,

The golden years return, etc.

Hellas, vv. 1060 ff.

[59]For an excellent analysis of Shelley’s idealism see Leslie Stephen’sGodwin and Shelleyin hisHours in a Library.

[60]Letters,II, 292.

[61]See his letter to Wordsworth, 30 January, 1801.

[62]Dramatic Art and Literature, ch.I.

[63]Cf. Voltaire: On ne peut désirer ce qu’on ne connaît pas. (Zaïre.)

[64]Cf. Sainte-Beuve,Causeries du lundi.XV, 371: “Le romantique a la nostalgie, comme Hamlet; il cherche ce qu’il n’a pas, et jusque par delà les nuages; il rêve, il vit dans les songes. Au dix-neuvième siècle, il adore le moyen âge; au dix-huitième, il est déjà révolutionnaire avec Rousseau,” etc. Cf. also T. Gautier as quoted in theJournal des Goncourt,II, 51: “Nous ne sommes pas Français, nous autres, nous tenons à d’autres races. Nous sommes pleins de nostalgies. Et puis quand à la nostalgie d’un pays se joint la nostalgie d’un temps … comme vous par exemple du dix-huitième siècle … comme moi de la Venise de Casanova, avec embranchement sur Chypre, oh! alors, c’est complet.”

[65]See articleGoûtinPostscriptum de ma vie.

[66]Schlegel’sDramatic Art and Literature, LectureXXII.

[67]For a discussion of this point see I. Rouge:F. Schlegel et la Genèse du romantisme allemand, 48 ff.

[68]For a development of this point of view see the essay of Novalis:Christianity or Europe.

[69]Confessions, LivreIX(1756).

[70]This is Goethe’s very classical definition of genius: Du nur, Genius, mehrst in der Natur die Natur.

[71]Greek literature, after it had lost the secret of selection and the grand manner, as was the case during the Alexandrian period, also tended to oscillate from the pole of romance to the pole of so-called realism—from theArgonauticaof Apollonius of Rhodes, let us say, to theMimesof Herondas.

[72]Emile, LivreII.

[73]Etudes de la nature.

[74]See, for example,Tatler, 17 November, 31 December, 1709 (by Steele).

[75]See her letter to Gustavus III, King of Sweden, cited inGustave III et la cour de France,II, 402, par A. Geffroy.

[76]See Hastings Rashdall:Is Conscience an Emotion?(1914), especially ch.I. Cf.Nouvelle Héloïse. (Pt.VI, LettreVII): “Saint-Preux fait de la conscience morale un sentiment, et non pas un jugement.”

[77]Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.V, LettreII.

[78]Ibid.

[79]Ibid., Pt.IV, LettreXII.

[80]Schiller’s definition is well known: “A beautiful soul we call a state where the moral sentiment has taken possession of all the emotions to such a degree that it may unhesitatingly commit the guidance of life to instinct,” etc. (On Grace and Dignity.) Cf. Madame de Staël: “La vertu devient alors une impulsion involontaire, un mouvement qui passe dans le sang, et vous entraîne irrésistiblement comme les passions les plus impérieuses.” (De la Littérature: Discours préliminàire.)

[81]Avenir de la Science, 354.

[82]Ibid., 179-180.

[83]Avenir de la Science, 476.

[84]Madame de Warens felt the influence of German pietism in her youth. SeeLa Jeunesse de J.-J. Rousseaupar E. Ritter; ch.XIII.

[85]Lettre à M. Molé(21 October, 1803).

[86]Le romantisme français, 215.

[87]SeeLes Amours de Milord Bomstonat the end ofLa Nouvelle Héloïse.

[88]Sultan MouradinLa Légende des Siècles.

[89]Correspondence,III, 213 (June, 1791). The date of this letter should be noted. Several of the worst terrorists of the French Revolution began by introducing bills for the abolition of capital punishment.

[90]See Burton’sHume,II, 309 (note 2).This sentimental trait did not escape the authors of theAnti-Jacobin:Sweet child of sickly Fancy—Her of yoreFrom her lov’d France Rousseau to exile bore;And while midst lakes and mountains wild he ranFull of himself and shunn’d the haunts of man,Taught her o’er each lone vale and Alpine steepTo lisp the stories of his wrongs and weep;Taught her to cherish still in either eyeOf tender tears a plentiful supply,And pour them in the brooks that babbled by—Taught her to mete by rule her feelings strong,False by degrees and delicately wrong,For the crush’d Beetle,first—the widow’d Dove,And all the warbled sorrows of the grove,Nextfor poor suff’ring Guilt—andlastof all,For Parents, Friends, or King and Country’s fall.

[90]See Burton’sHume,II, 309 (note 2).

This sentimental trait did not escape the authors of theAnti-Jacobin:

Sweet child of sickly Fancy—Her of yoreFrom her lov’d France Rousseau to exile bore;And while midst lakes and mountains wild he ranFull of himself and shunn’d the haunts of man,Taught her o’er each lone vale and Alpine steepTo lisp the stories of his wrongs and weep;Taught her to cherish still in either eyeOf tender tears a plentiful supply,And pour them in the brooks that babbled by—Taught her to mete by rule her feelings strong,False by degrees and delicately wrong,For the crush’d Beetle,first—the widow’d Dove,And all the warbled sorrows of the grove,Nextfor poor suff’ring Guilt—andlastof all,For Parents, Friends, or King and Country’s fall.

Sweet child of sickly Fancy—Her of yore

From her lov’d France Rousseau to exile bore;

And while midst lakes and mountains wild he ran

Full of himself and shunn’d the haunts of man,

Taught her o’er each lone vale and Alpine steep

To lisp the stories of his wrongs and weep;

Taught her to cherish still in either eye

Of tender tears a plentiful supply,

And pour them in the brooks that babbled by—

Taught her to mete by rule her feelings strong,

False by degrees and delicately wrong,

For the crush’d Beetle,first—the widow’d Dove,

And all the warbled sorrows of the grove,

Nextfor poor suff’ring Guilt—andlastof all,

For Parents, Friends, or King and Country’s fall.

[91]Shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, menWhom I already loved;—not verilyFor their own sakes, but for the fields and hillsWhere was their occupation and abode.Michael

[91]

Shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, menWhom I already loved;—not verilyFor their own sakes, but for the fields and hillsWhere was their occupation and abode.Michael

Shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, men

Whom I already loved;—not verily

For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills

Where was their occupation and abode.

Michael

[92]Once more the Ass, with motion dull,Upon the pivot of his skullTurned round his long left ear.“The bard who soars to elegize an ass” and the “laureate of the long-eared kind” (English Bards and Scotch Reviewers) is, however, not Wordsworth but Coleridge. See his poemTo a Young Ass, its mother being tethered near it.

[92]

Once more the Ass, with motion dull,Upon the pivot of his skullTurned round his long left ear.

Once more the Ass, with motion dull,

Upon the pivot of his skull

Turned round his long left ear.

“The bard who soars to elegize an ass” and the “laureate of the long-eared kind” (English Bards and Scotch Reviewers) is, however, not Wordsworth but Coleridge. See his poemTo a Young Ass, its mother being tethered near it.

[93]See the poemActe d’accusationinLes Contemplations.

[94]Le CrapaudinLa Légende des Siècles.

[95]SeeApology31D.

[96]HisLanguage and Wisdom of the Hindusappeared in 1808.

[97]SeeJugendschriften, ed. by J. Minor,II, 362.

[98]Dhammapada.

[99]Sutta-Nipāta, v. 149 (Metta-sutta).

[100]Second Dialogue.

[101]Letters,II, 298. For Ruskin and Rousseau seeIbid.I, 360: “[Ruskin] said that great parts ofLes Confessionswere so true to himself that he felt as if Rousseau must have transmigrated into his body.”

[102]“If a poet wishes an atmosphere of indistinct illusion and of moving shadow, he must use the romantic style. … Women, such as we know them, such as they are likely to be, ever prefer a delicate unreality to a true or firm art.” Essay onPure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art in English Poetry(1864).

[103]“Die Romanze auf einem Pferde” utters the following lines in the Prologue to Tieck’sKaiser Octavianus:Mondbeglänzte Zaubernacht,Die den Sinn gefangen hält,Wundervolle MärchenweltSteig’ auf in der alten Pracht.A special study might be made of the rôle of the moon in Chateaubriand and Coleridge—even if one is not prepared like Carlyle to dismiss Coleridge’s philosophy as “bottled moonshine.”

[103]“Die Romanze auf einem Pferde” utters the following lines in the Prologue to Tieck’sKaiser Octavianus:

Mondbeglänzte Zaubernacht,Die den Sinn gefangen hält,Wundervolle MärchenweltSteig’ auf in der alten Pracht.

Mondbeglänzte Zaubernacht,

Die den Sinn gefangen hält,

Wundervolle Märchenwelt

Steig’ auf in der alten Pracht.

A special study might be made of the rôle of the moon in Chateaubriand and Coleridge—even if one is not prepared like Carlyle to dismiss Coleridge’s philosophy as “bottled moonshine.”

[104]O. Walzel points out that as soon as the women in H. von Kleist’s plays become conscious they fall into error (Deutsche Romantik, 3. Auflage, 147).

[105]Byron,Sardanapalus,IV, 5. Cf. Rousseau,Neuvième Promenade: “Dominé par mes sens, quoi que je puisse faire, je n’ai jamais pu résister à leurs impressions, et, tant que l’objet agit sur eux, mon cœur ne cesse d’en être affecté.” Cf. also Musset,Rolla:Ce n’était pas Rolla qui gouvernait sa vie,C’étaient ses passions; il les laissait allerComme un pâtre assoupi regarde l’eau couler.

Ce n’était pas Rolla qui gouvernait sa vie,C’étaient ses passions; il les laissait allerComme un pâtre assoupi regarde l’eau couler.

Ce n’était pas Rolla qui gouvernait sa vie,

C’étaient ses passions; il les laissait aller

Comme un pâtre assoupi regarde l’eau couler.

[106]Modern Painters, PartV, ch.XX.

[107]Confessions, Pt.II, LivreIX(1756).

[108]With nature never dotheywageA foolish strife; they seeA happy youth and their old ageIs beautiful and free.Wordsworth:The Fountain.

[108]

With nature never dotheywageA foolish strife; they seeA happy youth and their old ageIs beautiful and free.Wordsworth:The Fountain.

With nature never dotheywage

A foolish strife; they see

A happy youth and their old age

Is beautiful and free.

Wordsworth:The Fountain.

[109]The phrase imaginative insight is, I believe, true to the spirit of Plato at his best, but it is certainly not true to his terminology. Plato puts the imagination (φαντασία) not only below intuitive reason (νοῦς) and discursive reason or understanding (διάνοια), but even below outer perception (πίστις). He recognizes indeed that it may reflect the operations of the understanding and even the higher reason as well as the impressions of sense. This notion of a superior intellectual imagination was carried much further by Plotinus and the neo-Platonists. Even the intellectual imagination is, however, conceived of as passive. Perhaps no Greek thinker, not even Plato, makes as clear as he might that reason gets its intuition of reality and the One with the aid of the imagination and, as it were, through a veil of illusion, that, in Joubert’s phrase, “l’illusion est une partie inté, grante de la réalité” (Pensées, TitreXI,XXXIX). Joubert again distinguishes (ibid., TitreIII,XLVII,LI) between “l’imaginative” which is passive and “l’imagination” which is active and creative (“l’œil de l’âme”). In its failure to bring out with sufficient explicitness thiscreativerôle of the imagination and in the stubborn intellectualism that this failure implies is to be found, if anywhere, the weak point in the cuirass of Greek philosophy.

[110]See Xenophon,Memorabilia,IV, 16, 3.

[111]Σωφροσύνη.

[112]See hisLettre à d’Alembert.

[113]Varieties of Religious Experience, 387.

[114]Blütezeit der Romantik, 126.

[115]“Parfaite illusion, réalité parfaite” (Alfred de Vigny). “Die Welt wird Traum, der Traum wird Welt” (Novalis). “This sort of dreaming existence is the best; he who quits it to go in search of realities generally barters repose for repeated disappointments and vain regrets” (Hazlitt).

[116]Lit. Ang.,IV, 130.

[117]About 1885.

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