Chapter 16

[118]Le Théâtre en France, 304.[119]Je suis une force qui va!Agent aveugle et sourd de mystères funèbres.[120]E.g., Lillo’sFatal Curiosity(1736) had a marked influence on the rise of the German fate tragedy.[121]Wo ist der, der sagen dürfe,So will ich’s, so sei’s gemacht,Unser Taten sind nur WürfeIn des Zufalls blinde Nacht.Die Ahnfrau.[122]“So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death.”Leviathan, PartI, ch.XI.[123]SeeUnpopular Review, October, 1915.[124]E. Seillière has been tracing, inLe Mal romantiqueand other volumes, the relation between Rousseauism and what he terms an “irrational imperialism.” His point of view is on the constructive side very different from mine.[125]The best account of Rousseau’s German influence is still that of H. Hettner in hisLiteraturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts. Compared with Rousseau’s German influence, says Professor Paul Hensel in hisRousseau(1907), “his influence in France seems almost trifling.” In Germany “Rousseau became the basis not of a guillotine but of a new culture (Kultur). … We have drawn his spirit over to us, we have made it our own.” (121.) See also Professor Eugen Kühnemann,Vom Weltreich des deutschen Geistes(1914), 54-62, andpassim. German idealism is, according to Kühnemann, the monument that does the greatest honor to Rousseau.[126]A robin redbreast in a cagePuts all Heaven in a rage.…He who shall hurt the little wrenShall never be belov’d by men.He who the ox to wrath has mov’dShall never be by woman lov’d.…Kill not the moth nor butterfly,For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.Auguries of Innocence.[127]SeeHart-Leap Well.[128]Beyond Good and Evil, ch.IV.[129]“Out into distant futures, which no dream hath yet seen, into warmer souths than ever sculptor conceived. … Let this love be your new nobility,—the undiscovered in the remotest seas,” etc. (Thus Spake Zarathustra, translated by Thomas Common, 240, 248.)[130]“On trouverait, en rétablissant les anneaux intermédiaires de la chaîne, qu’à Pascal se rattachent les doctrines modernes qui font passer en première ligne la connaissance immédiate, l’intuition, la vie intérieure, comme à Descartes … se rattachent plus particulièrement les philosophies de la raison pure.”La Science française(1915),I, 17.[131]Cf. Tennyson:Fantastic beauty, such as lurksIn some wild poet when he worksWithout a conscience or an aim—[132]Addison writes:’Twas then great Marlbro’s mighty soul was proved,That, in the shock of changing hosts unmoved,Amidst confusion, horror, and despair,Examin’d all the dreadful scenes of war;In peaceful thought the field of death survey’d.So far as Marlborough deserved this praise he was a general in the grand manner.[133]“Beauty resides in due proportion and order,” says Aristotle (Poetics, ch.VII).[134]A Survey of English Literature, 1780-1830(1912),II, 191.[135]Confucius and the Chinese sages were if anything even more concerned than Plato or Aristotle with the ethical quality of music.[136]Like Bishop Blougram’s his “interest’s on the dangerous edge of things.”[137]Does he take inspiration from the church,Directly make her rule his law of life?Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man.…Such is, for the Augustine that was once,This Canon Caponsacchi we see now.X, 1911-28.[138]SeeX, 1367-68.[139]Letter to Joseph d’Ortigue, January 19, 1833.[140]Here is an extreme example from Maigron’s manuscript collection (Le Romantisme et les mœurs, 153). A youth forced to be absent three weeks from the woman he loves writes to her as follows: “Trois semaines, mon amour, trois semaines loin de toi! … Oh! Dieu m’a maudit! … Hier j’ai erré toute l’après-midi comme une bête fauve, une bête traquée. … Dans la forêt, j’ai hurlé, hurlé comme un démon … je me suis roulé par terre … j’ai broyé sous mes dents des branches que mes mains avaient arrachées. … Alors, de rage, j’ai pris ma main entre mes dents; j’ai serré, serré convulsivement; le sang a jailli et j’ai craché au ciel le morceau de chair vive … j’aurais voulu lui cracher mon cœur.”[141]Maxime Du Camp asserts in hisSouvenirs littéraires(I, 118) that this anæmia was due in part to the copious blood-letting to which the physicians of the time, disciples of Broussais, were addicted.[142]This perversion was not unknown to classical antiquity. Cf. Seneca,To Lucilius,XCIX: “Quid turpius quam captare in ipso luctu voluptatem; et inter lacrymas quoque, quod juvet, quærere?”[143]Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.III, LettreVI.[144]Confessions, LivreIV.[145]The New Laokoon, ch.V.[146]Franciscae meæ laudes, inLes Fleurs du mal.[147]Architecture and Painting, LectureII. This diatribe may have been suggested by Byron’sDon Juan, CantoXIII,IX-XI:Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away:A single laugh demolished the right armOf his own country, etc.[148]“Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quærebam quid amarem, amans amare.”[149]Cf. Shelley’sAlastor:Two eyes,Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thoughtAnd seemed with their serene and azure smilesTo beckon.[150]“Some of us have in a prior existence been in love with an Antigone, and that makes us find no full content in any mortal tie.” Shelley to John Gisborne, October 22, 1821.[151]Confessions, LivreXI(1761).[152]Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe, November, 1817.[153]“Je me faisais une félicité de réaliser avec ma sylphide mes courses fantastiques dans les forêts du Nouveau Monde.”Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe, December, 1821.[154]Peacock has in mindChilde Harold, cantoIV,CXXIff.[155]Rousseau plans to make a nympholept of his ideal pupil, Emile: “Il faut que je sois le plus maladroit des hommes si je ne le rends d’avance passionné sans savoir de quoi”, etc.Emile, Liv.IV.[156]Cf. René’s letter to Céluta inLes Natchez: “Je vous ai tenue sur ma poitrine au milieu du désert, dans les vents de l’orage, lorsque, après vous avoir portée de l’autre côté d’un torrent, j’aurais voulu vous poignarder pour fixer le bonheur dans votre sein, et pour me punir de vous avoir donné ce bonheur.”[157]The romantic lover, it should be observed, creates his dream companion even less that he may adore her than that she may adore him.[158]Walter Bagehot has made an interesting study of the romantic imagination in his essay on a figure who reminds one in some respects of Gérard de Nerval—Hartley Coleridge.[159]Don Juan bids his servant give a coin to the beggar not for the love of God but for the love of humanity.[160]Demandant aux forêts, à la mer, à la plaine,Aux brises du matin, à toute heure, à tout lieu,La femme de son âme et de son premier voeu!Prenant pour fiancée un rêve, une ombre vaine,Et fouillant dans le cœur d’une hécatombe humaine,Prêtre désespéré, pour y trouver son Dieu.A. de Musset,Namouna.“Don Juan avait en lui cet amour pour la femme idéale; il a couru le monde serrant et brisant de dépit dans ses bras toutes les imparfaites images qu’il croyait un moment aimer; et il est mort épuisé de fatigue, consumé de son insatiable amour.” Prévost-Paradol,Lettres, 149.[161]See Scott’s (2d) edition of Swift,XIII, 310.[162]Aimer c’est le grand point. Qu’importe la maîtresse?Qu’importe le flacon pourvu qu’on ait l’ivresse?[163]It has been said that in the novels of George Sand when a lady wishes to change her lover God is always there to facilitate the transfer.[164]“Tous les hommes sont menteurs, inconstants, faux, bavards, hypocrites, orgueilleux ou lâches, méprisables et sensuels; toutes les femmes sont perfides, artificieuses, vaniteuses, curieuses et dépravées; le monde n’est qu’un égout sans fond où les phoques les plus informes rampent et se tordent sur des montagnes de fange; mais il y a au monde une chose sainte et sublime, c’est l’union de deux de ces êtres si imparfaits et si affreux. On est souvent trompé en amour; souvent blessé et souvent malheureux; mais on aime et quand on est sur le bord de sa tombe, on se retourne pour regarder en arrière, et on se dit: J’ai souffert souvent, je me suis trompé quelquefois, mais j’ai aimé. C’est moi qui ai vécu, et non pas un être factice créé par mon orgueil et mon ennui.” (The last sentence is taken from a letter of George Sand to Musset.)On ne badine pas avec l’Amour,II, 5.[165]Table-Talk. On the Past and Future.[166]The Plain Speaker. On Reading Old Books.[167]The Round Table. On the Character of Rousseau.[168]“Aujourd’hui, jour de Pâques fleuries, il y a précisément cinquante ans de ma première connaissance avec Madame de Warens.”[169]Even on his death-bed the hero of Browning’sConfessionsgives himself up to impassionated recollection:How sad and bad and mad it was—But then, how it was sweet.In hisStances à Madame LullinVoltaire is at least as poetical and nearer to normal experience:Quel mortel s’est jamais flattéD’un rendez-vous à l’agonie?[170]See especiallyLyceum fragment, no. 108.[171]A well-known example of the extreme to which the romanticists pushed their Fichtean solipsism is the following from theWilliam Lovellof the youthful Tieck: “Having gladly escaped from anxious fetters, I now advance boldly through life, absolved from those irksome duties which were the inventions of cowardly fools. Virtue is, only because I am; it is but a reflection of my inner self. What care I for forms whose dim lustre I have myself brought forth? Let vice and virtue wed. They are only shadows in the mist,” etc.[172]Beyond Good and Evil, ch.IV.[173]On Contemporary Literature, 206. The whole passage is excellent.[174]M. Legouis makes a similar remark in theCambridge History of English LiteratureXI, 108.[175]I scarcely need say that Wordsworth is at times genuinely ethical, but he is even more frequently only didactic. TheExcursion, as M. Legouis says, is a “long sermon against pessimism.”[176]“Quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te.”[177]Eth. Nic., 1177 b.[178]Cf. the chapter onWilliam Law and the MysticsinCambridge History of English Literature,IX, 341-67; also the bibliography of Boehme,ibid., 560-74.[179]SeeExcursion,I,VV. 943 ff.[180]In his attitude towards sin Novalis continues Rousseau and anticipates the main positions of the Christian Scientist.[181]Prune thou thy words,The thoughts controlThat o’er thee swell and throng.They will condense within the soulAnd change to purpose strong.But he who lets his feelings runIn soft, luxurious flow,Shrinks when hard service must be doneAnd faints at every foe.[182]Wesley had no liking for Boehme and cut out from Brooke’s book the theosophy that had this origin.[183]Writing was often associated with magic formulæ. Hence γράμμα also gave Fr. “grimoire.”[184]Thus Spake Zarathustra,LXIX(The Shadow to Zarathustra).[185]Katha-Upanishad.The passage is paraphrased as follows by P. E. More in hisCentury of Indian Epigrams:Seated within this body’s carThe silent Self is driven afar,And the five senses at the poleLike steeds are tugging restive of control.And if the driver lose his way,Or the reins sunder, who can sayIn what blind paths, what pits of fearWill plunge the chargers in their mad career?Drive well, O mind, use all thy art,Thou charioteer!—O feeling Heart,Be thou a bridle firm and strong!For the Lord rideth and the way is long.[186]See Brandes:The Romantic School in Germany, ch.XI.[187]Alfred de Musset saw his double in the stress of his affair with George Sand (seeNuit de Décembre), Jean Valjean (Les Misérables) sees his double in the stress of his conversion. Peter Bell also sees his double at the emotional crisis in Wordsworth’s poem of that name.[188]Thus Spake Zarathustra,LXIX.[189]F. Schlegel:Lyceumfragment, no. 42.[190]E.g., cantoIII,CVII-CXI.[191]Confessions, LivreXII(1765).[192]Cf. Th. Gomperz,Greek Thinkers,I, 402.[193]Wordsworth:Miscellaneous Sonnets,XII.[194]In much the same spirit the Japanese hermit, Kamo Chōmei (thirteenth century), expresses the fear that he may forget Buddha because of his fondness for the mountains and the moon.—See article on nature in Japan by M. Revon inEncyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.[195]Confessions, Bk.X, ch.IX.[196]Cf. Cicero: “Urbem, urbem, mi Rufe, cole et in ista luce vive.” (Ad Fam.,II, 22.)[197]March 23, 1646.[198]It was especially easy for the poets to go for their landscapes to the painters because according to the current theory poetry was itself a form of painting (ut pictura poesis). Thus Thomson writes inThe Castle of Indolence:Sometimes the pencil, in cool airy halls,Bade the gay bloom of vernal landskips rise,Or autumn’s varied shades embrown the walls:Now the black tempest strikes the astonish’d eyes;Now down the steep the flashing torrent flies;The trembling sun now plays o’er ocean blue,And now rude mountains frown amid the skies;Whate’erLorrainlight touch’d with softening hue,Or savageRosadash’d, or learnedPoussindrew.(C.I, st. 38.)[199]Disparaissez, monuments du génie,Pares, jardins immortels, que Le Nôtre a plantés;De vos dehors pompeux l’exacte symmétrie,Etonne vainement mes regards attristés.J’aime bien mieux ce désordre bizarre,Et la variété de ces riches tableauxQue disperse l’Anglais d’une main moins avare.Bertin, 19eElégie ofLes Amours.[200]Pt.IV, LettreXI.[201]Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.IV, LettreXI.[202]Ibid.[203]Ibid., Pt.IV, LettreXVII.[204]Confessions, LivreV(1732).[205]See especiallyChilde Harold, cantoII, XXVff.[206]Ibid., cantoII, XXXVII.[207]Ibid., cantoIII, LXXII.[208]Ibid., cantoIV, CLXXVII.[209]SeeLa Perception du changement, 30.[210]ASIAMy soul is an enchanted boat,Which like a sleeping swan, doth floatUpon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;And thine doth like an angel sitBeside a helm conducting it,Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.It seems to float ever, for everUpon that many-winding river,Between mountains, woods, abysses,A paradise of wildernesses!…Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinionsIn music’s most serene dominions;Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.And we sail on away, afar,Without a course, without a star,But by the instinct of sweet music driven;Till through Elysian garden isletsBy thee, most beautiful of pilots,Where never mortal pinnace glidedThe boat of my desire is guided;Realms where the air we breathe is love—Prometheus Unbound, ActII, Sc.V.[211]“Si tu souffres plus qu’un autre des choses de la vie, il ne faut pas t’en étonner; une grande âme doit contenir plus de douleurs qu’une petite.”[212]Cf. Shelley,Julian and Maddalo:I love all wasteAnd solitary places; where we tasteThe pleasure of believing what we seeIs boundless, as we wish our souls to be.[213]Cf. for example, the passage of Rousseau in the seventhPromenade(“Je sens des extases, des ravissements inexprimables à me fondre pour ainsi dire dans le système des êtres,” etc.) with the revery described by Wordsworth inThe Excursion,I, 200-218.[214]O belles, craignez le fond des bois, et leur vaste silence.[215]Faust(Miss Swanwick’s translation).[216]Artist and Public, 134 ff.[217]Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:What if my leaves are falling like its own!The tumult of thy mighty harmoniesWill take from both a deep, autumnal tone,Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!Drive my dead thoughts over the universeLike withered leaves, etc.Cf. Lamartine:Quand la feuille des bois tombe dans la prairie,Le vent du soir s’élève et l’arrache aux vallons;Et moi, je suis semblable à la feuille flétrie;Emportez-moi comme elle, orageux aquilons.L’Isolement.[218]Cf. Hettner,Romantische Schule, 156.[219]See appendix on Chinese primitivism.[220]G. Duval has written aDictionnaire des métaphores de Victor Hugo, and G. Lucchetti a work onLes Images dans les œuvres de Victor Hugo. So far as the ethical values are concerned, the latter title is alone justified. Hugo is, next to Chateaubriand, the great imagist.[221]The French like to think of the symbolists as having rendered certain services to their versification. Let us hope that they did, though few things are more perilous than this transfer of the idea of progress to the literary and artistic domain. Decadent Rome, as we learn from the younger Pliny and others, simply swarmed with poets who also no doubt indulged in many strange experiments. All this poetical activity, as we can see only too plainly at this distance, led nowhere.[222]Grant Allen writes of the laws of nature inMagdalen Tower:They care not any whit for pain or pleasure,That seems to us the sum and end of all,Dumb force and barren number are their measure,What shall be shall be, tho’ the great earth fall,They take no heed of man or man’s deserving,Reck not what happy lives they make or mar,Work out their fatal will unswerv’d, unswerving,And know not that they are!

[118]Le Théâtre en France, 304.

[119]Je suis une force qui va!Agent aveugle et sourd de mystères funèbres.

[119]

Je suis une force qui va!Agent aveugle et sourd de mystères funèbres.

Je suis une force qui va!

Agent aveugle et sourd de mystères funèbres.

[120]E.g., Lillo’sFatal Curiosity(1736) had a marked influence on the rise of the German fate tragedy.

[121]Wo ist der, der sagen dürfe,So will ich’s, so sei’s gemacht,Unser Taten sind nur WürfeIn des Zufalls blinde Nacht.Die Ahnfrau.

[121]

Wo ist der, der sagen dürfe,So will ich’s, so sei’s gemacht,Unser Taten sind nur WürfeIn des Zufalls blinde Nacht.Die Ahnfrau.

Wo ist der, der sagen dürfe,

So will ich’s, so sei’s gemacht,

Unser Taten sind nur Würfe

In des Zufalls blinde Nacht.

Die Ahnfrau.

[122]“So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death.”Leviathan, PartI, ch.XI.

[123]SeeUnpopular Review, October, 1915.

[124]E. Seillière has been tracing, inLe Mal romantiqueand other volumes, the relation between Rousseauism and what he terms an “irrational imperialism.” His point of view is on the constructive side very different from mine.

[125]The best account of Rousseau’s German influence is still that of H. Hettner in hisLiteraturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts. Compared with Rousseau’s German influence, says Professor Paul Hensel in hisRousseau(1907), “his influence in France seems almost trifling.” In Germany “Rousseau became the basis not of a guillotine but of a new culture (Kultur). … We have drawn his spirit over to us, we have made it our own.” (121.) See also Professor Eugen Kühnemann,Vom Weltreich des deutschen Geistes(1914), 54-62, andpassim. German idealism is, according to Kühnemann, the monument that does the greatest honor to Rousseau.

[126]A robin redbreast in a cagePuts all Heaven in a rage.…He who shall hurt the little wrenShall never be belov’d by men.He who the ox to wrath has mov’dShall never be by woman lov’d.…Kill not the moth nor butterfly,For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.Auguries of Innocence.

[126]

A robin redbreast in a cagePuts all Heaven in a rage.…He who shall hurt the little wrenShall never be belov’d by men.He who the ox to wrath has mov’dShall never be by woman lov’d.…Kill not the moth nor butterfly,For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.Auguries of Innocence.

A robin redbreast in a cage

Puts all Heaven in a rage.

…

He who shall hurt the little wren

Shall never be belov’d by men.

He who the ox to wrath has mov’d

Shall never be by woman lov’d.

…

Kill not the moth nor butterfly,

For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.

Auguries of Innocence.

[127]SeeHart-Leap Well.

[128]Beyond Good and Evil, ch.IV.

[129]“Out into distant futures, which no dream hath yet seen, into warmer souths than ever sculptor conceived. … Let this love be your new nobility,—the undiscovered in the remotest seas,” etc. (Thus Spake Zarathustra, translated by Thomas Common, 240, 248.)

[130]“On trouverait, en rétablissant les anneaux intermédiaires de la chaîne, qu’à Pascal se rattachent les doctrines modernes qui font passer en première ligne la connaissance immédiate, l’intuition, la vie intérieure, comme à Descartes … se rattachent plus particulièrement les philosophies de la raison pure.”La Science française(1915),I, 17.

[131]Cf. Tennyson:Fantastic beauty, such as lurksIn some wild poet when he worksWithout a conscience or an aim—

[131]Cf. Tennyson:

Fantastic beauty, such as lurksIn some wild poet when he worksWithout a conscience or an aim—

Fantastic beauty, such as lurks

In some wild poet when he works

Without a conscience or an aim—

[132]Addison writes:’Twas then great Marlbro’s mighty soul was proved,That, in the shock of changing hosts unmoved,Amidst confusion, horror, and despair,Examin’d all the dreadful scenes of war;In peaceful thought the field of death survey’d.So far as Marlborough deserved this praise he was a general in the grand manner.

[132]Addison writes:

’Twas then great Marlbro’s mighty soul was proved,That, in the shock of changing hosts unmoved,Amidst confusion, horror, and despair,Examin’d all the dreadful scenes of war;In peaceful thought the field of death survey’d.

’Twas then great Marlbro’s mighty soul was proved,

That, in the shock of changing hosts unmoved,

Amidst confusion, horror, and despair,

Examin’d all the dreadful scenes of war;

In peaceful thought the field of death survey’d.

So far as Marlborough deserved this praise he was a general in the grand manner.

[133]“Beauty resides in due proportion and order,” says Aristotle (Poetics, ch.VII).

[134]A Survey of English Literature, 1780-1830(1912),II, 191.

[135]Confucius and the Chinese sages were if anything even more concerned than Plato or Aristotle with the ethical quality of music.

[136]Like Bishop Blougram’s his “interest’s on the dangerous edge of things.”

[137]Does he take inspiration from the church,Directly make her rule his law of life?Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man.…Such is, for the Augustine that was once,This Canon Caponsacchi we see now.X, 1911-28.

[137]

Does he take inspiration from the church,Directly make her rule his law of life?Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man.…Such is, for the Augustine that was once,This Canon Caponsacchi we see now.X, 1911-28.

Does he take inspiration from the church,

Directly make her rule his law of life?

Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man.

…

Such is, for the Augustine that was once,

This Canon Caponsacchi we see now.

X, 1911-28.

[138]SeeX, 1367-68.

[139]Letter to Joseph d’Ortigue, January 19, 1833.

[140]Here is an extreme example from Maigron’s manuscript collection (Le Romantisme et les mœurs, 153). A youth forced to be absent three weeks from the woman he loves writes to her as follows: “Trois semaines, mon amour, trois semaines loin de toi! … Oh! Dieu m’a maudit! … Hier j’ai erré toute l’après-midi comme une bête fauve, une bête traquée. … Dans la forêt, j’ai hurlé, hurlé comme un démon … je me suis roulé par terre … j’ai broyé sous mes dents des branches que mes mains avaient arrachées. … Alors, de rage, j’ai pris ma main entre mes dents; j’ai serré, serré convulsivement; le sang a jailli et j’ai craché au ciel le morceau de chair vive … j’aurais voulu lui cracher mon cœur.”

[141]Maxime Du Camp asserts in hisSouvenirs littéraires(I, 118) that this anæmia was due in part to the copious blood-letting to which the physicians of the time, disciples of Broussais, were addicted.

[142]This perversion was not unknown to classical antiquity. Cf. Seneca,To Lucilius,XCIX: “Quid turpius quam captare in ipso luctu voluptatem; et inter lacrymas quoque, quod juvet, quærere?”

[143]Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.III, LettreVI.

[144]Confessions, LivreIV.

[145]The New Laokoon, ch.V.

[146]Franciscae meæ laudes, inLes Fleurs du mal.

[147]Architecture and Painting, LectureII. This diatribe may have been suggested by Byron’sDon Juan, CantoXIII,IX-XI:Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away:A single laugh demolished the right armOf his own country, etc.

[147]Architecture and Painting, LectureII. This diatribe may have been suggested by Byron’sDon Juan, CantoXIII,IX-XI:

Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away:A single laugh demolished the right armOf his own country, etc.

Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away:

A single laugh demolished the right arm

Of his own country, etc.

[148]“Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quærebam quid amarem, amans amare.”

[149]Cf. Shelley’sAlastor:Two eyes,Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thoughtAnd seemed with their serene and azure smilesTo beckon.

[149]Cf. Shelley’sAlastor:

Two eyes,Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thoughtAnd seemed with their serene and azure smilesTo beckon.

Two eyes,

Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought

And seemed with their serene and azure smiles

To beckon.

[150]“Some of us have in a prior existence been in love with an Antigone, and that makes us find no full content in any mortal tie.” Shelley to John Gisborne, October 22, 1821.

[151]Confessions, LivreXI(1761).

[152]Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe, November, 1817.

[153]“Je me faisais une félicité de réaliser avec ma sylphide mes courses fantastiques dans les forêts du Nouveau Monde.”Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe, December, 1821.

[153]“Je me faisais une félicité de réaliser avec ma sylphide mes courses fantastiques dans les forêts du Nouveau Monde.”

Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe, December, 1821.

[154]Peacock has in mindChilde Harold, cantoIV,CXXIff.

[155]Rousseau plans to make a nympholept of his ideal pupil, Emile: “Il faut que je sois le plus maladroit des hommes si je ne le rends d’avance passionné sans savoir de quoi”, etc.Emile, Liv.IV.

[156]Cf. René’s letter to Céluta inLes Natchez: “Je vous ai tenue sur ma poitrine au milieu du désert, dans les vents de l’orage, lorsque, après vous avoir portée de l’autre côté d’un torrent, j’aurais voulu vous poignarder pour fixer le bonheur dans votre sein, et pour me punir de vous avoir donné ce bonheur.”

[157]The romantic lover, it should be observed, creates his dream companion even less that he may adore her than that she may adore him.

[158]Walter Bagehot has made an interesting study of the romantic imagination in his essay on a figure who reminds one in some respects of Gérard de Nerval—Hartley Coleridge.

[159]Don Juan bids his servant give a coin to the beggar not for the love of God but for the love of humanity.

[160]Demandant aux forêts, à la mer, à la plaine,Aux brises du matin, à toute heure, à tout lieu,La femme de son âme et de son premier voeu!Prenant pour fiancée un rêve, une ombre vaine,Et fouillant dans le cœur d’une hécatombe humaine,Prêtre désespéré, pour y trouver son Dieu.A. de Musset,Namouna.“Don Juan avait en lui cet amour pour la femme idéale; il a couru le monde serrant et brisant de dépit dans ses bras toutes les imparfaites images qu’il croyait un moment aimer; et il est mort épuisé de fatigue, consumé de son insatiable amour.” Prévost-Paradol,Lettres, 149.

[160]

Demandant aux forêts, à la mer, à la plaine,Aux brises du matin, à toute heure, à tout lieu,La femme de son âme et de son premier voeu!Prenant pour fiancée un rêve, une ombre vaine,Et fouillant dans le cœur d’une hécatombe humaine,Prêtre désespéré, pour y trouver son Dieu.A. de Musset,Namouna.

Demandant aux forêts, à la mer, à la plaine,

Aux brises du matin, à toute heure, à tout lieu,

La femme de son âme et de son premier voeu!

Prenant pour fiancée un rêve, une ombre vaine,

Et fouillant dans le cœur d’une hécatombe humaine,

Prêtre désespéré, pour y trouver son Dieu.

A. de Musset,Namouna.

“Don Juan avait en lui cet amour pour la femme idéale; il a couru le monde serrant et brisant de dépit dans ses bras toutes les imparfaites images qu’il croyait un moment aimer; et il est mort épuisé de fatigue, consumé de son insatiable amour.” Prévost-Paradol,Lettres, 149.

[161]See Scott’s (2d) edition of Swift,XIII, 310.

[162]Aimer c’est le grand point. Qu’importe la maîtresse?Qu’importe le flacon pourvu qu’on ait l’ivresse?

[162]

Aimer c’est le grand point. Qu’importe la maîtresse?Qu’importe le flacon pourvu qu’on ait l’ivresse?

Aimer c’est le grand point. Qu’importe la maîtresse?

Qu’importe le flacon pourvu qu’on ait l’ivresse?

[163]It has been said that in the novels of George Sand when a lady wishes to change her lover God is always there to facilitate the transfer.

[164]“Tous les hommes sont menteurs, inconstants, faux, bavards, hypocrites, orgueilleux ou lâches, méprisables et sensuels; toutes les femmes sont perfides, artificieuses, vaniteuses, curieuses et dépravées; le monde n’est qu’un égout sans fond où les phoques les plus informes rampent et se tordent sur des montagnes de fange; mais il y a au monde une chose sainte et sublime, c’est l’union de deux de ces êtres si imparfaits et si affreux. On est souvent trompé en amour; souvent blessé et souvent malheureux; mais on aime et quand on est sur le bord de sa tombe, on se retourne pour regarder en arrière, et on se dit: J’ai souffert souvent, je me suis trompé quelquefois, mais j’ai aimé. C’est moi qui ai vécu, et non pas un être factice créé par mon orgueil et mon ennui.” (The last sentence is taken from a letter of George Sand to Musset.)On ne badine pas avec l’Amour,II, 5.

[165]Table-Talk. On the Past and Future.

[166]The Plain Speaker. On Reading Old Books.

[167]The Round Table. On the Character of Rousseau.

[168]“Aujourd’hui, jour de Pâques fleuries, il y a précisément cinquante ans de ma première connaissance avec Madame de Warens.”

[169]Even on his death-bed the hero of Browning’sConfessionsgives himself up to impassionated recollection:How sad and bad and mad it was—But then, how it was sweet.In hisStances à Madame LullinVoltaire is at least as poetical and nearer to normal experience:Quel mortel s’est jamais flattéD’un rendez-vous à l’agonie?

[169]Even on his death-bed the hero of Browning’sConfessionsgives himself up to impassionated recollection:

How sad and bad and mad it was—But then, how it was sweet.

How sad and bad and mad it was—

But then, how it was sweet.

In hisStances à Madame LullinVoltaire is at least as poetical and nearer to normal experience:

Quel mortel s’est jamais flattéD’un rendez-vous à l’agonie?

Quel mortel s’est jamais flatté

D’un rendez-vous à l’agonie?

[170]See especiallyLyceum fragment, no. 108.

[171]A well-known example of the extreme to which the romanticists pushed their Fichtean solipsism is the following from theWilliam Lovellof the youthful Tieck: “Having gladly escaped from anxious fetters, I now advance boldly through life, absolved from those irksome duties which were the inventions of cowardly fools. Virtue is, only because I am; it is but a reflection of my inner self. What care I for forms whose dim lustre I have myself brought forth? Let vice and virtue wed. They are only shadows in the mist,” etc.

[172]Beyond Good and Evil, ch.IV.

[173]On Contemporary Literature, 206. The whole passage is excellent.

[174]M. Legouis makes a similar remark in theCambridge History of English LiteratureXI, 108.

[175]I scarcely need say that Wordsworth is at times genuinely ethical, but he is even more frequently only didactic. TheExcursion, as M. Legouis says, is a “long sermon against pessimism.”

[176]“Quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te.”

[177]Eth. Nic., 1177 b.

[178]Cf. the chapter onWilliam Law and the MysticsinCambridge History of English Literature,IX, 341-67; also the bibliography of Boehme,ibid., 560-74.

[179]SeeExcursion,I,VV. 943 ff.

[180]In his attitude towards sin Novalis continues Rousseau and anticipates the main positions of the Christian Scientist.

[181]Prune thou thy words,The thoughts controlThat o’er thee swell and throng.They will condense within the soulAnd change to purpose strong.But he who lets his feelings runIn soft, luxurious flow,Shrinks when hard service must be doneAnd faints at every foe.

[181]

Prune thou thy words,The thoughts controlThat o’er thee swell and throng.They will condense within the soulAnd change to purpose strong.But he who lets his feelings runIn soft, luxurious flow,Shrinks when hard service must be doneAnd faints at every foe.

Prune thou thy words,

The thoughts control

That o’er thee swell and throng.

They will condense within the soul

And change to purpose strong.

But he who lets his feelings run

In soft, luxurious flow,

Shrinks when hard service must be done

And faints at every foe.

[182]Wesley had no liking for Boehme and cut out from Brooke’s book the theosophy that had this origin.

[183]Writing was often associated with magic formulæ. Hence γράμμα also gave Fr. “grimoire.”

[184]Thus Spake Zarathustra,LXIX(The Shadow to Zarathustra).

[185]Katha-Upanishad.The passage is paraphrased as follows by P. E. More in hisCentury of Indian Epigrams:Seated within this body’s carThe silent Self is driven afar,And the five senses at the poleLike steeds are tugging restive of control.And if the driver lose his way,Or the reins sunder, who can sayIn what blind paths, what pits of fearWill plunge the chargers in their mad career?Drive well, O mind, use all thy art,Thou charioteer!—O feeling Heart,Be thou a bridle firm and strong!For the Lord rideth and the way is long.

[185]Katha-Upanishad.The passage is paraphrased as follows by P. E. More in hisCentury of Indian Epigrams:

Seated within this body’s carThe silent Self is driven afar,And the five senses at the poleLike steeds are tugging restive of control.And if the driver lose his way,Or the reins sunder, who can sayIn what blind paths, what pits of fearWill plunge the chargers in their mad career?Drive well, O mind, use all thy art,Thou charioteer!—O feeling Heart,Be thou a bridle firm and strong!For the Lord rideth and the way is long.

Seated within this body’s carThe silent Self is driven afar,And the five senses at the poleLike steeds are tugging restive of control.

Seated within this body’s car

The silent Self is driven afar,

And the five senses at the pole

Like steeds are tugging restive of control.

And if the driver lose his way,Or the reins sunder, who can sayIn what blind paths, what pits of fearWill plunge the chargers in their mad career?

And if the driver lose his way,

Or the reins sunder, who can say

In what blind paths, what pits of fear

Will plunge the chargers in their mad career?

Drive well, O mind, use all thy art,Thou charioteer!—O feeling Heart,Be thou a bridle firm and strong!For the Lord rideth and the way is long.

Drive well, O mind, use all thy art,

Thou charioteer!—O feeling Heart,

Be thou a bridle firm and strong!

For the Lord rideth and the way is long.

[186]See Brandes:The Romantic School in Germany, ch.XI.

[187]Alfred de Musset saw his double in the stress of his affair with George Sand (seeNuit de Décembre), Jean Valjean (Les Misérables) sees his double in the stress of his conversion. Peter Bell also sees his double at the emotional crisis in Wordsworth’s poem of that name.

[188]Thus Spake Zarathustra,LXIX.

[189]F. Schlegel:Lyceumfragment, no. 42.

[190]E.g., cantoIII,CVII-CXI.

[191]Confessions, LivreXII(1765).

[192]Cf. Th. Gomperz,Greek Thinkers,I, 402.

[193]Wordsworth:Miscellaneous Sonnets,XII.

[194]In much the same spirit the Japanese hermit, Kamo Chōmei (thirteenth century), expresses the fear that he may forget Buddha because of his fondness for the mountains and the moon.—See article on nature in Japan by M. Revon inEncyclopedia of Religion and Ethics.

[195]Confessions, Bk.X, ch.IX.

[196]Cf. Cicero: “Urbem, urbem, mi Rufe, cole et in ista luce vive.” (Ad Fam.,II, 22.)

[197]March 23, 1646.

[198]It was especially easy for the poets to go for their landscapes to the painters because according to the current theory poetry was itself a form of painting (ut pictura poesis). Thus Thomson writes inThe Castle of Indolence:Sometimes the pencil, in cool airy halls,Bade the gay bloom of vernal landskips rise,Or autumn’s varied shades embrown the walls:Now the black tempest strikes the astonish’d eyes;Now down the steep the flashing torrent flies;The trembling sun now plays o’er ocean blue,And now rude mountains frown amid the skies;Whate’erLorrainlight touch’d with softening hue,Or savageRosadash’d, or learnedPoussindrew.(C.I, st. 38.)

Sometimes the pencil, in cool airy halls,Bade the gay bloom of vernal landskips rise,Or autumn’s varied shades embrown the walls:Now the black tempest strikes the astonish’d eyes;Now down the steep the flashing torrent flies;The trembling sun now plays o’er ocean blue,And now rude mountains frown amid the skies;Whate’erLorrainlight touch’d with softening hue,Or savageRosadash’d, or learnedPoussindrew.(C.I, st. 38.)

Sometimes the pencil, in cool airy halls,

Bade the gay bloom of vernal landskips rise,

Or autumn’s varied shades embrown the walls:

Now the black tempest strikes the astonish’d eyes;

Now down the steep the flashing torrent flies;

The trembling sun now plays o’er ocean blue,

And now rude mountains frown amid the skies;

Whate’erLorrainlight touch’d with softening hue,

Or savageRosadash’d, or learnedPoussindrew.

(C.I, st. 38.)

[199]Disparaissez, monuments du génie,Pares, jardins immortels, que Le Nôtre a plantés;De vos dehors pompeux l’exacte symmétrie,Etonne vainement mes regards attristés.J’aime bien mieux ce désordre bizarre,Et la variété de ces riches tableauxQue disperse l’Anglais d’une main moins avare.Bertin, 19eElégie ofLes Amours.

[199]

Disparaissez, monuments du génie,Pares, jardins immortels, que Le Nôtre a plantés;De vos dehors pompeux l’exacte symmétrie,Etonne vainement mes regards attristés.J’aime bien mieux ce désordre bizarre,Et la variété de ces riches tableauxQue disperse l’Anglais d’une main moins avare.Bertin, 19eElégie ofLes Amours.

Disparaissez, monuments du génie,

Pares, jardins immortels, que Le Nôtre a plantés;

De vos dehors pompeux l’exacte symmétrie,

Etonne vainement mes regards attristés.

J’aime bien mieux ce désordre bizarre,

Et la variété de ces riches tableaux

Que disperse l’Anglais d’une main moins avare.

Bertin, 19eElégie ofLes Amours.

[200]Pt.IV, LettreXI.

[201]Nouvelle Héloïse, Pt.IV, LettreXI.

[202]Ibid.

[203]Ibid., Pt.IV, LettreXVII.

[204]Confessions, LivreV(1732).

[205]See especiallyChilde Harold, cantoII, XXVff.

[206]Ibid., cantoII, XXXVII.

[207]Ibid., cantoIII, LXXII.

[208]Ibid., cantoIV, CLXXVII.

[209]SeeLa Perception du changement, 30.

[210]ASIAMy soul is an enchanted boat,Which like a sleeping swan, doth floatUpon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;And thine doth like an angel sitBeside a helm conducting it,Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.It seems to float ever, for everUpon that many-winding river,Between mountains, woods, abysses,A paradise of wildernesses!…Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinionsIn music’s most serene dominions;Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.And we sail on away, afar,Without a course, without a star,But by the instinct of sweet music driven;Till through Elysian garden isletsBy thee, most beautiful of pilots,Where never mortal pinnace glidedThe boat of my desire is guided;Realms where the air we breathe is love—Prometheus Unbound, ActII, Sc.V.

[210]

ASIAMy soul is an enchanted boat,Which like a sleeping swan, doth floatUpon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;And thine doth like an angel sitBeside a helm conducting it,Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.It seems to float ever, for everUpon that many-winding river,Between mountains, woods, abysses,A paradise of wildernesses!…Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinionsIn music’s most serene dominions;Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.And we sail on away, afar,Without a course, without a star,But by the instinct of sweet music driven;Till through Elysian garden isletsBy thee, most beautiful of pilots,Where never mortal pinnace glidedThe boat of my desire is guided;Realms where the air we breathe is love—Prometheus Unbound, ActII, Sc.V.

ASIA

My soul is an enchanted boat,

Which like a sleeping swan, doth float

Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;

And thine doth like an angel sit

Beside a helm conducting it,

Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.

It seems to float ever, for ever

Upon that many-winding river,

Between mountains, woods, abysses,

A paradise of wildernesses!

…

Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions

In music’s most serene dominions;

Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.

And we sail on away, afar,

Without a course, without a star,

But by the instinct of sweet music driven;

Till through Elysian garden islets

By thee, most beautiful of pilots,

Where never mortal pinnace glided

The boat of my desire is guided;

Realms where the air we breathe is love—

Prometheus Unbound, ActII, Sc.V.

[211]“Si tu souffres plus qu’un autre des choses de la vie, il ne faut pas t’en étonner; une grande âme doit contenir plus de douleurs qu’une petite.”

[212]Cf. Shelley,Julian and Maddalo:I love all wasteAnd solitary places; where we tasteThe pleasure of believing what we seeIs boundless, as we wish our souls to be.

[212]Cf. Shelley,Julian and Maddalo:

I love all wasteAnd solitary places; where we tasteThe pleasure of believing what we seeIs boundless, as we wish our souls to be.

I love all waste

And solitary places; where we taste

The pleasure of believing what we see

Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.

[213]Cf. for example, the passage of Rousseau in the seventhPromenade(“Je sens des extases, des ravissements inexprimables à me fondre pour ainsi dire dans le système des êtres,” etc.) with the revery described by Wordsworth inThe Excursion,I, 200-218.

[214]O belles, craignez le fond des bois, et leur vaste silence.

[215]Faust(Miss Swanwick’s translation).

[216]Artist and Public, 134 ff.

[217]Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:What if my leaves are falling like its own!The tumult of thy mighty harmoniesWill take from both a deep, autumnal tone,Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!Drive my dead thoughts over the universeLike withered leaves, etc.Cf. Lamartine:Quand la feuille des bois tombe dans la prairie,Le vent du soir s’élève et l’arrache aux vallons;Et moi, je suis semblable à la feuille flétrie;Emportez-moi comme elle, orageux aquilons.L’Isolement.

[217]

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:What if my leaves are falling like its own!The tumult of thy mighty harmoniesWill take from both a deep, autumnal tone,Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!Drive my dead thoughts over the universeLike withered leaves, etc.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:What if my leaves are falling like its own!The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

What if my leaves are falling like its own!

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!Drive my dead thoughts over the universeLike withered leaves, etc.

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like withered leaves, etc.

Cf. Lamartine:

Quand la feuille des bois tombe dans la prairie,Le vent du soir s’élève et l’arrache aux vallons;Et moi, je suis semblable à la feuille flétrie;Emportez-moi comme elle, orageux aquilons.L’Isolement.

Quand la feuille des bois tombe dans la prairie,

Le vent du soir s’élève et l’arrache aux vallons;

Et moi, je suis semblable à la feuille flétrie;

Emportez-moi comme elle, orageux aquilons.

L’Isolement.

[218]Cf. Hettner,Romantische Schule, 156.

[219]See appendix on Chinese primitivism.

[220]G. Duval has written aDictionnaire des métaphores de Victor Hugo, and G. Lucchetti a work onLes Images dans les œuvres de Victor Hugo. So far as the ethical values are concerned, the latter title is alone justified. Hugo is, next to Chateaubriand, the great imagist.

[221]The French like to think of the symbolists as having rendered certain services to their versification. Let us hope that they did, though few things are more perilous than this transfer of the idea of progress to the literary and artistic domain. Decadent Rome, as we learn from the younger Pliny and others, simply swarmed with poets who also no doubt indulged in many strange experiments. All this poetical activity, as we can see only too plainly at this distance, led nowhere.

[222]Grant Allen writes of the laws of nature inMagdalen Tower:They care not any whit for pain or pleasure,That seems to us the sum and end of all,Dumb force and barren number are their measure,What shall be shall be, tho’ the great earth fall,They take no heed of man or man’s deserving,Reck not what happy lives they make or mar,Work out their fatal will unswerv’d, unswerving,And know not that they are!

[222]Grant Allen writes of the laws of nature inMagdalen Tower:

They care not any whit for pain or pleasure,That seems to us the sum and end of all,Dumb force and barren number are their measure,What shall be shall be, tho’ the great earth fall,They take no heed of man or man’s deserving,Reck not what happy lives they make or mar,Work out their fatal will unswerv’d, unswerving,And know not that they are!

They care not any whit for pain or pleasure,

That seems to us the sum and end of all,

Dumb force and barren number are their measure,

What shall be shall be, tho’ the great earth fall,

They take no heed of man or man’s deserving,

Reck not what happy lives they make or mar,

Work out their fatal will unswerv’d, unswerving,

And know not that they are!

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