It is equally inconsistent with the delineation of resolute personality when a leading character, already under the predominant influence of some specific pathos, is portrayed as one overmastered by the direction or persuasion of a subordinate character, such is thus enabled to shift the responsibility upon other shoulders. This is what actually takes place in the "Phedra" of Racine when the mind of Phedra is depicted as entirely motived by the words of Oenone. A character of real distinction acts out of its own initiative, and will not suffer the views of a mere stranger to be that which determines its own resolution. Only when action is the direct result of its own reflections do we get that clear relation between personal initiative and the consequent result which carries with it the full weight of guilt or responsibility.
We find yet another type of this instability of character as quite a peculiar possession of the more recent literary output of Germany. It is a type of character in which a kind of flatulence in emotion is the rule no less than the source. The classic example is the Werther of Goethe's romance, a thoroughly morbid type of character, without any vestige of real manliness such as might carry him beyond the egotism of his love-passion. What makes him interesting is the passion and beauty of his emotional life, theintimate fellowship between himself and Nature which the course of his spiritual experience and the pliability of his temperament accentuate. This effeminacy has yet more recently embodied itself in many other forms of expression which descend with increasing rapidity to the lowest circle of jejune and tasteless egotism. We must not even omit, for instance, to include in our list that illustration of the lovely soul which we find in Jacobi's "Woldemar." In this romance we are made a present of the glory of emotional volubility in all its pretensions. It would be difficult, indeed, to cite a better example of the self-deceptive illusion of personal virtue and excellence. Here we have all that sublimity and divinity of soul, which relates itself crookedly to every possible aspect of the actual world; that type of feebleness which is wholly unable to share in or tolerate any portion of the labours or interests of practical life as it really is. So rooted is it in its own consciousness of superiority it passes everything as unworthy of it on the other side. It is, in fact, a peculiar feature of this type of "lovely soul" that, even when face to face with the truly ethical interests and wholly sane objects of life, instead of meeting them frankly, it retires into the seclusion of itself, where it weaves its own threads of finery and passes its time in hatching out its exquisite brood of religious and moral reflections. And connected closely with this personal enthusiasm for our superabundant excellence, which we set forth in front of ourselves with such a brave show, there will always be an intense sensitiveness for all other beings who may appear at any moment to sympathize with, comprehend, and appreciate this beauty of the solitary life. If such fellow-feeling is not forthcoming we find the very heart of us troubled to its depths and infinitely bruised. We have lost at one stroke all humanity, friendship, and love. We are unable to put away with whatever act of pedantry or rudeness may be in question, some trivial circumstance or stupidity over which the vision of any character of breadth or strength would pass without a tremor. It whirls away the thought of everything else, and that which is by itself of least significance proves to be that which finally most reduces us to despair. Such is the source of all that endless train of melancholy, trouble, heartache, peevishness, sickness, dejection, andpoverty of spirit which follows, such the spring of all those self-torturing reflections one on the top of another, that cramp and obstinacy, nay, finally, that cruelty of soul, through which the wretchedness and weakness of the spiritual content of such a type, of "loveliness" consummates and declares itself. No heart that is truly sound can wish to unite itself with such an emotional hermitage. For it is a fundamental characteristic of all genuine character that it carries within itself both the courage and the strength to do and to will some actual thing. The interest, therefore, that such natures which are for ever revolving round themselves may arouse in us is after all an empty interest, and necessarily so despite all the conviction with which such natures may assure us that they belong to a higher and purer sphere than our own, a sphere which has revealed to our vision that peculiar type of the Divine they have uncovered from their secret parts and finally present to us, to borrow an apt figure,en negligée.
This want of genuine solidity of character appears in yet another form where we find the particular manifestations of this world of "fine feelings" turned as it were upside down and hypostatized as independent forces. Much that passes for magic, magnetism, spiritualism, the apparitions ofclairvoyance, the morbid condition of sleep-walking, is attributable to this source. The living person in question is placed in a relation to these abstruse powers, which from one point of view identifies him with them, and in another makes them appear as something foreign to his spiritual life, which determines and controls it. It is assumed that underlying these undefined forces there is some inexplicable truth which borders on the marvellous, or at any rate passes comprehension. From the world of art, however, all such powers of darkness should be banished. In art there is no darkness at all, but all is lucid and transparent, and in adventuring after such types of myopy speech merely flounders into spiritual disease, or plays loose as poetry with the nebulous, empty, and trivial, a good example of which is the verse of Hoffmann, and that piece by Henry von Klust entitled the "Prince of Homburg." The truly ideal character has nothing in his composition, or the pathos which expresses it, of another world and its ghosts, but only actual interests,in which he finds himself at home. More particularly is this feature ofclairvoyancebecome a trivial and vulgar recipe of our more modern poets. In Schiller's "Tell," on the contrary, when the old Attinghausen on the brink of the grave foretells the destiny of his country, the prophetic instinct is quite in its right place. It is always, however, a misfortune for an artist to find himself forced to exchange the sanity of a character with some malady of the soul whether it be to motive the collision or excite interest. For this reason he should only avail himself of the condition of insanity in quite exceptional cases.
In conclusion we may connect with these distortions of a sane vision, which are so much opposed to all real unity and consistency of character, the principle of our latter-day irony. This false theory has betrayed the poet into grafting upon his characters qualities so essentially diverse that they are incapable of all homogeneous relation; the essential unity of every character is thus confounded. According to this theory a character is first presented as characterized in a certain way, and immediately after we have that very determination converted into its opposite, and the character itself is propounded to us as nothing more than the negation of what it was and is. Moreover this very futility is accepted by this irony as the supreme discovery of art. An audience should not, in short, be carried away by an essentially positive interest, but should be pulled up at the critical moment, much as the irony itself is no sooner launched upon anything than it is off again. They would even explain the characters of Shakespeare according to such a principle. We are informed that Lady Macbeth was an irreproachable wife of the tenderest feeling, despite the fact that she not only falls in with the suggestion of the murder, but actually eggs her husband on to its execution. But if the signet mark of Shakespeare is conspicuous on any one quality it is on the firm and decisive delineation of his characters, even when it is only the formal greatness and consistency of evil that is in question. Hamlet, it is true, is a case of mental indecision, but even he is only in doubt as to the way he shall carry out his purpose, not at all as to what has to be done. Yet nowadays they would assimilate even Shakespeare's characters to a world of ghosts, and appear to thinkthat this futility and indecision of ups and downs, this general squeamishness[364]in short can by itself contribute to our interest. The Ideal, however, is centred in this, that Idea is madeactual, and our humanity is associated with such actuality as subject and consequently as a unity which is essentially firm-rooted.
We may here, so far at least as this portion of our inquiry is concerned, bring our observations upon the individuality which is consistent with real character to a close. That which we have mainly sought to emphasize is a pathos which is at once self-determined and essential, the possession of a rich and complete nature, the spiritual world of which such a pathos transfuses under such a form that this process of transfusion no less than the pathos itself receives its artistic presentment. At the same time this pathos must not be allowed to come into conflict with itself in the hearts of men so as to stultify its very nature and consistency as pathos.
III. THE EXTERNAL DETERMINATION OF THE IDEAL
Our consideration of the determination of the Ideal was in thefirstinstance occupied with the general inquiry why it was and how it came about that the Ideal ever received at all the definite embodiment of a particular form. Following after this we arrived at the conclusion that inherent process was essential to our notion of it, that in fact the element of difference was only by this means asserted within it, and that this process viewed as a whole is presented us in the action. We discovered, however, that in virtue of the action the Ideal passes over into actual relations with the external world; we have therefore, and this is thethirdimportant step, to solve the further question what kind of form this its final aspect, as associated with external reality, the Ideal will receive under adequate artistic representation. We would recall the fact that the Ideal is the Idea under aform which is in union with its ownactuality.Up to the present point of our inquiry our attention has been exclusively occupied with that aspect or phase of this actuality which we may call in general terms human individuality and its character. Man is, however, also in possession of a concrete andexternal existence.In separation from this it is true he concentrates his spiritual life to a point in self-consciousness, but he remains for all that, even in this subjective unity, immediately related to the external world. To the actual existence of mankind the surrounding sphere of a world is as indispensable as the protection of a temple is to the statues of the god it contains. And for this very reason we must now advert to all or some of those many diverse threads, whereby the Ideal is woven in with this external environment and is shown in relief against it[365].
This opens to our view a practically immeasurable expanse of relations and modes under which the process of the external and relative world is determined. For in the first place we are confronted at once with the bare facts of external Nature such as particular locality, situation, whether habitable or not, temporal condition, the nature of the prevailing climate, whether in our earth's northern or southern hemispheres, and in fact in whatever direction we advance we have a fresh picture before us. Moreover, external Nature is made use of by man to satisfy his own needs and purposes; and all the ways under which he converts her to that use, that is to say the adroitness with which he discovers and then equips himself with tools and a home to live in, with weapons, with seats to recline upon, carriages to ride in, nay, all that the art of cooking may bring with it for his food, the entire apparatus of his luxury no less than his comfort, all this and much more fall within the limits of our inquiry. Add to this the further and yet more important consideration that every man lives within a comprehensiveand equally real world of spiritual relations, which itself, too, presents to his view all the different modes under which command and submission is maintained, that is to say the family, blood-relationship, property, country and town life, thecultusof religion, the organization of defence and offence, civic and political associations, private society, in short every conceivable form under which ethical customs and usages are organized in the institutions and permanent activities which contribute to the actual environment of human existence.
In all the directions enumerated above the Ideal is in immediate contact with the reality of the practical world in its everyday dress, or in other words, with the commonplace prose of life. And impressed by this fact we may easily be led to the conclusion, if we have already accepted the nebulous conception of idealism elaborated recently, that art can have no alternative but to dissever herself absolutely from all connection with this world of relative appearances. Such at least can only be logically inferred from a theory which assumes that this relation of externality is one of pure indifference, or rather, in contrast to the subjective world of spirit, is of no substantive significance or worth. Agreeably to this view art is a spiritual dominion, whose sole object is to exalt us above the sphere of material wants, necessities, and dependence, and to liberate us from the logic, and we may add the comedy, of facts, which in this field claim the exclusive attention of our humanity. For, apart from any other consideration, all that meets us upon thisterra firmaof life's prose is for the most part of a purely conventional character, and, conditioned as it is by time, space, and custom, simply a congeries of contingent facts, which it is derogatory to the nature of art to accept. This view of ideality, which is really an illusive one, is in part due to one of those highly flavoured abstractions of our latter-day thinking, in which we merely find that the thinker's courage has failed him to come to terms with the external world in question; in part also it is due to that type of prepossession which drives a man to assert summarily his independence of practical necessities when the advantages of birth, status, and social position have not already effected this for him. For such a man the only relief available is a complete withdrawalinto the secret world of the emotions, a prison-house of unreality he steps out of never. Here he remains in what he conceives to be the temple of wisdom gazing ecstatic at what he takes to be the stars, and naturally values at the price of a nutshell all that is found on the Earth. The real Ideal, however, is not confined to the shadow-like world of the emotions, but in its perfected whole must freely borrow from the definite structure of external objects of sight in every direction. And the reason of this is that man himself, whose nature is the central source that gives to that Ideal all its significance, is alive, and his life is only actual in a particular place and time, as one with the Present, as the individualized type of infinity[366]; and in short the opposition of an external garland of Nature is a fundamental characteristic of his life and its association with him and his activity is imperative. It follows that if this activity is to be apprehended by art, not merely as belonging to man alone, but in the specific form it may take in that world of appearance, the mode of its existence there will assert itself, as the mobility, reaction, and animating force of life itself in contact and transfusion with the material complex which surrounds it.
Man is, however, in virtue of his self-consciousness a world in himself[367], and as such is differentiated from the external world of Nature which confronts him; and this external world is equally with himself a rounded whole whose unity asserts itself in the principle of causality. This self-exclusion of these two worlds is, however, only apparent; they are in their separation essentially related, and it is precisely this association which constitutes concrete reality, whose artistic embodiment is the content of the Ideal. And this brings us once more to the question already mooted, namely, in what semblance or form the external material which we find in this mutually related world we have referred to as concrete reality[368]can be presented to us by art in a manner consistent with the Ideal of art.
We will once more accept the triple division of our subject-matter, and examine a work of art from three distinct points of view.First, there is the material of externality accepted in the bare abstractness of its forms, such as space, figure, time, colour, which we must consider relatively to the artistic form most adapted to it.
Secondly, we must consider externality in its full and actualized concreteness, as above explained, a mode of reality which imperatively requires in a work of art that it should be in close affiliation with the subjective content of the spiritual life of man immediately related to it.
Thirdly, our consideration will be directed to the important fact that a work of art is created for the delight of human perceptions, for a public in short, which justly claims that the objects of art should bring home to it the interests of its spiritual life, its real beliefs, emotions, and ideas, so that it may enter with a genuine response into their artistic presentation.
1. THE CONDITION OF EXTERNALITY IN ITS SIMPLE ABSTRACTNESS
The Ideal in passing out of the bare image of its essential form into external or determinate existence secures for itself a reality which presents two distinct aspects. From one point of view we see that a work of art discloses necessarily in the content of the Ideal the concrete semblance of reality, that is to say it presents that content as a definite situation or particular circumstance, action, event or character, and presents it moreover in the mode of external existence. From another it is equally obvious that art makes some specific and sensuous material the vehicle of the particular content in its entirety of all that we have above summarized; it creates in short a new world sensible to eye and ear, the world of art. Under both these aspects we may further observe that art penetrates to the remotest limits of externality which are compatible with its form as the self-including unity of the Ideal and conformable to its appearance as a concrete whole permeated with the energy ofspirit[369]. A work of art moreover itself may, as an object qualified by externality, be viewed in two distinct ways. We may regard it simply as an external thing, and as such only conformable to a unity that is external in the sense external objects are such. In considering it from this latter point of view we have once more to consider that relation of externality which we found it necessary to discuss in our examination of the beauty of Nature. And for this reason we shall again have to make use of those specific determinants which we previously discussed, and even then primarily in their connection with art. The modes under which external form was in the previous section exhaustively considered were then treated in a twofold way. First we analysed such conceptions as uniformity, symmetry, and conformity to rule; we then examined unity itself regarded as the simplicity and purity of the sensuous material, which art makes use of as the external medium for the existence of her expositions.
(a) We will start our inquiry by examining the position in which we now find ourselves relatively to such conceptions as uniformity and symmetry. It is obvious that these, expressing as they do the entirely lifeless unity of the geometrical logic, can by no means exhaust the nature of a work of art even when entirely regarded as an external object. Such determinations are only exhaustive in their relation to what is in itself lifeless, such as time and the configuration of space. Confined in this way though they be to the barest forms of externality, they are then true witnesses both to the power and substance of reason. And consequently we find they assert themselves in a twofold manner even in art. In the first of these, it is this very quality of their abstractness which operates by way of contrast to the living pulse of art, which is forced even in the confines of its sensuous material to raise itself over and beyond mere symmetry into the freedom of the Ideal. In this process of liberation which may be exemplified in the melodies of the art of music we do not, however, find that the conformity to rule disappears altogether, it is merely made subservient as a foundation. Inthe second, this principle of measure and rule in its application to the indefinite and unlimited is the one and only qualifying principle which certain arts can accept owing to the nature of the media which those arts make use of. In such cases uniformity is itself and alone raised to the ideal significance of the art. The principal example of an art of this type is that of architecture; and the reason of this is that a work of art which is wholly architectonic is directed to the one object of reconstituting, by means of an artistic form, that which is essentially the external and inorganic environment of spirit. In this art, consequently, all that is rectilinear, right-angled, circular, or presents uniformity of pillars, windows, arches, piers, vaults, and so forth is the dominant principle of unity.
The artistic structure of architecture is not erected entirely as an object in itself, but rather as an external frame, embellishment and local habitation for something else which it subserves. A building is not complete until it has received the statue of the god or the society of human beings who make their dwelling therein. An artistic work of this kind should not therefore receive all or indeed the main attention. Holding this in our minds, it will appear obviously to the purpose that uniformity and symmetry should be here the prevailing characteristic of the structure; the mind passes over very readily one that is throughout uniform, and will not trouble itself about it for any length of time. Of course, we cannot here discuss the symbolical significance, which, in addition to that above examined, may attach to architectural form in its immediate relation to the spiritual content it envelops and emphasizes with a positive localization. The same principle applies to the art of making gardens, which we may define as a specific mode of architecture, in so far at least as an artistic conformation is imposed on external Nature[370]. In the garden no less than in the building man himself is the main object. There are two distinct types in this art of garden-construction. The one adopts as its main principle uniformity and symmetry; the other thoseof variety and irregularity. As an artistic product the former is to be preferred. Labyrinths, however numerous and intricate, garden-beds in endless alternation of spiral lines, bridges over water usually stagnant, with every conceivable surprise that gothic church, temples, Chinese pagodas, hermitages, urns, summer-houses, mounds, statues may claim to afford us—one glance and only one glance at such things is sufficient, the vulgar and artificial pretensions of it all is too patent, and we do not seek for another. It is quite another matter when we cross any actual situation of real natural beauty, which has not at least been exploited expressly for our enjoyment[371], and by its own exceptional merit makes an irresistible appeal to our love of Nature and our sense of her beauty. A garden laid out with strict reference to the other extreme of regularity, makes no such attempts at surprises, but permits human beings to appear as the principal object in the external framework of natural beauty[372]. And this is really what a garden should be. Again in the art of painting the principle of uniformity and symmetry is clearly visible in the co-ordination of the whole, the grouping of the figures, their place and pose in the composition. But inasmuch as in painting the animation of life can assert itself through objects in a far profounder degree than is possible in architecture we find that it presents much less scope for the purely formal unity of the symmetrical, and the rule of uniformity in all its severity is for the most part to be traced only as the fundamental principle of composition inthe earliest phases of art, making way in its more advanced forms to the freer line, which is associated in our minds with organic form rather than such we meet with in the pyramid and similar geometrical shapes. Conformity to rule and symmetry are further important factors in the composition of music and poetry. Owing to the incident of duration in the length of tones we find in these arts an aspect of what is intrinsically a purely external relation, which is incompatible with any other more concrete mode of presentation. If we take the spatial condition it is obvious that here everything which lies in juxtaposition can be seen at a glance. It is otherwise with that which occurs in Time. Here we have merely a succession of moments, every one of which takes the place of another, and in this vanishing procession they flow on for ever. And it is precisely this indeterminacy which it is the function of musical time or beat to inform by adding thereto a real definition capable of uniform repetition. In this way the indefinite progression is subordinated to a rational principle. In musical time we have a power which exerts such a fascination upon us, that, so far from being able to treat it with indifference, we not unfrequently find ourselves beating time quite unconsciously with it while listening. This constant recurrence of equal lengths of time according to a definite measure has nothing to do with tones and their duration as we find them in Nature. Tone simply as musical sound and time abstractly regarded, are both of them equally indifferent to such uniform divisions and repetitions. Musical time is consequently something wholly created by the human mind; and indeed there is more than a suggestion of this in the fact that in listening to musical time we are at once impressed with the conviction, that we have, in this control of time according to fixed rule, nothing less than a real reflection of our spiritual nature, or rather that of the fundamental truth of self-identity, an illustration absolutely precise of the way in which the subject of consciousness applies this very principle of uniformity, unity with itself, that is to say, in constant recurrence, throughout all the variety and most intricate multiplicity of experience. And it is for this reason that the beat of musical time meets with such a startling response in the very depths of our being, gripping hold, as it does, ofthat self-identity, which is the fundamental abstract principle of our inmost life. Considered in this relation it is not; the spiritual content, not the concrete soul of our emotions, any more than it is the musical tone as tone, which appeals to us so intimately; it is simply the formal unity which the unity of consciousness transfers to the temporal process, and which is thus re-echoed back to our conscious life. And the same remarks apply to the measure and rhyme of poetry. The sensuous medium is here, too, in the same way carried out of the sphere of that which is external to ourselves, and at once asserts there the presence of something over and above that which is expressed by our ordinary consciousness, which in its general use treats the time-divisions of tones with indifference or caprice.
A uniformity of similar character, if not so consistently defined, may be traced still further, and is involved in the living content of poetry itself, although the relation here is quite an external one. By this we mean that in an epic poem or a drama, both of which have their particular subdivisions, cantos, or acts, whatever may be the specific term applicable, there is an approximate principle of equality apparent in the division of subject-matter. And the same characteristic is generally true in the grouping of the subject in pictures, although such should not appear to be a necessary result of the nature of the subject-matter itself, nor create the impression that this uniform distribution is due to any controlling principle of first importance.
Conformity to rule and symmetry, which are the abstract unity and definition of all that is essentially spatial and its configuration no less than of all which is external under temporal condition, are mainly the co-ordinating principles of quantity and size, as we have already noticed in our consideration of the beauty of Nature. All that which does not, in virtue of its own specific medium[373], strictly form part of external extension, is consequently freed from the range of those principles which assert themselves exclusively in the relations of quantity, and are determined through relations of deeper significance, and the unity which co-ordinates them. It follows from this that the further art embraces subject-matter which is independent of the external condition,so much the less significant the principle of uniformity becomes, in the co-ordination of that art's subject-matter and the more completely is it restricted to a subordinate position.
It will be, perhaps, advisable here to close the above discussion of symmetry with a few general observations uponharmony. The relation of harmony is no longer one to mere quantity, but rather one to essential distinctions ofquality, differences of tone, that is to say, which do not persist against each other in their native opposition, but as harmony or music have to be brought into concord. In music we find that the relation of the tonic to the mediant and dominant notes of the scale is no relation of bare quantity[374], but implies the presence of tones whose difference isessentiallya qualitative difference; which, that is to say, combine naturally in a unity, rather than continue to assert their distinguishingtimbrein all its glaring antithesis and contradiction. The true discord, on the contrary, requires its harmonic resolution. The same qualitative consistency is to be found in the harmony of colour, in reference to which it is likewise one of the requirements of art that it should neither manifest itself in a picture as a motley and haphazard juxtaposition of pigments, nor as a neutral surface whereon all fundamental distinction is dissolved[375], but as the artistic expression of a whole in which essential contrast is mediated through some principle of harmonious unity. Furthermore, we observe that harmony contains in itself a definite number of contrasted differences, which have naturally a particular significance of their own. Thus we find under the differentiation of colour a definite number known as the cardinal colours, which are primary derivatives of the fundamental notion of colour, and are not due to accidental composition. Harmony consists in bringing together a number of positive colours such as this classification implies, and uniting them in concordant unity. We must, that is to say, have in apicture not merely all the primary colours, yellow, blue, green, and red present, but also a harmonious scheme under which they are related; and the old masters have, without direct consciousness of the principle involved, paid express attention to this completeness of effect and arrived at artistic results which flowed out of it. And furthermore, for the very reason that we find in harmony the beginnings of a release from the bare condition of externality it is duly qualified to absorb and express a spiritual content of wider significance. We may mark an illustration of this in the way the old masters distinguished between the drapery of their principal figures and of those of less importance, painting that of the former in elementary colours of absolute purity, but only conceding to that of the rest compound varieties. The mantle of the Virgin Mary is almost always blue; blue in its assuaging sense of tranquillity is accepted as the counterfeit of the repose and tenderness of the heart. It is only rarely that we find her in a drapery of emphatic red.
(b) The second aspect of externality is the relation it occupies directly in the various material which art employs in the various media of its presentations. The unity here consists in the clear definition and homogeneousness of the material, which ought not to deviate in the direction of a vague characterization and mere confusion, or, speaking generally, give us the impression of dirtiness. This determinacy is also entirely dependent upon the spatial condition, that is to say, upon the purity of its delineation, the distinctness of its rectilinear and circular lines, and so on, no less than upon a consistent definition of Time such as we find in the accurate measure of the musical beat. It depends furthermore on the translucency both of specific tones and colours. In a good picture we shall find that there is nothing unclean or "dirty"[376]in the colours employed, but everything is clear and asserts itself openly for what it is. The directness of its purity is, in fact, that which constitutes the lovely impression of colour upon our sense; and those colourswhich are most direct in their simplicity, such as a yellow which has no dash of green in it, or a red that is wholly independent of blue or yellow, produce the most emphatic effect. On the other hand, it is obviously more difficult to maintain a harmony of the whole when colours are thus contrasted in all their pristine simplicity. Yet in despite of this these essentially simple colours form the foundation of every true colour scheme, and although it may be impossible to dispense with a considerable use of their compounds, even these should not be allowed to appear in one dead and dull interfusion, but with their simple and luminous derivations shining through them[377]; otherwise instead of the clear lambency of colour we shall get nothing but a muddy residuum. We shall find that the same thing is necessary in thetimbreof musical tone. In the case of strings whether of metal or catgut it is the vibration of the material, and, moreover, of a material of definite tension and length, which educes the musical note. If the tension is insufficient, or the length of the string which is struck is not the right one, the tone inevitably loses its clearness of definition, rings false, as we say, owing to the interfusion with it of other tones[378]. We have the same kind of result when a purely mechanical fretting or scraping is suffered to interfere with the purity of the vibratory motion, and so to render the emitted sound confused and harsh. In the same way, it is of the first importance to the art of singing that the human voice should be produced from throat and chest freely and with purest intonation; the voice should be heard without the least indication of itsorganic instrument, or, as in the case of hoarseness, with an obstructive accompaniment the singer fails to repress. We may conclude, then, that this translucency and purity, free from all admixture with anything foreign to it, and consistent throughout in its clearness, is that which creates the beauty of tone as immediately apprehended by our senses, and which distinguishes it from every kind of mere noise. And we may add further it is this which in human speech conspicuously applies to the articulation of the vowels. A language which enunciates the five vowels with distinction and purity, as is strongly the case in the Italian, is essentially musical and adapted to song. The diphthongs, on the contrary, always produce a confused tone. In literature little attention is paid to the direct reproduction of folk-dialects; we find them rather reduced to the simplest form of expression. In actual speech, however, this clearness of intonation only too often entirely disappears, so that we find, and markedly so in the case of dialects such as the South German, Swabian, and Swiss, men actually speak with an articulation of sound it is quite impossible to write down. We do not regard this, however, to be necessarily a defect in human speech, but rather a reflection of the rawness of the common folk. And here we must close our observations upon that external aspect of art, which, from the fact that it is external, and nothing more, is only capable of receiving an external and abstract unity.
Now according to its more comprehensive definition it is theconcrete individualityof the Ideal impregnated with reason, which takes to itself externality as the form of its embodiment, and, moreover, in such a way that the external semblance, which is thus the medium of its expression, is throughout suffused with the mind inherent in this concrete individual form. In consequence of this such modes of relation as uniformity, symmetry, and harmony, or, in other words, the more simple determinations of the sensuous material are no longer adequate. This defect naturally extends our inquiry to that second aspect of the external determination of the Ideal already stated.
2. THE COALESCENCE OF THE CONCRETE IDEAL WITH ITS EXTERNAL REALITY
The fundamental truth which we shall endeavour to substantiate before everything in the matter which now immediately engages our attention is this, that man is under an obligation to make himself at peace and at home in the environment of the world; or, to put it rather differently, his individuality must live itself into Nature and all the conditions of that external world, and by doing so assert its freedom visibly. And, moreover, this must take place in such a way that these two related factors, that is, on the one side, the entirety of his inward life and the character it possesses or displays in all conditions or actions whatsoever, and, on the other, that objective entirety of external existence which confronts him, must wholly lose the appearance of two worlds which are either indifferent to or not homogeneous with[379]each other, and forthwith proclaim themselves as harmoniously related and identical in substance. This externally objective world must, in so far as it is the reality of the Ideal, surrender the semblance of its own objective self-subsistency and stubbornness, in order that its fundamental unity with that to which it supplies the external and particular embodiment may be exhibited in truth.
To establish this unity with more conclusiveness we propose now to examine our subject under three different heads of discussion.
First, we may investigate the same from the point of view that this unity which binds the two factors already defined is merely a bond which possessesno positive reality[380], but is merely a mysterious and secret connection both in its origin and appearance, by virtue of which our humanity is looped together with its environment.
Secondly, however, as a deduction from the fact that it is the concretespirituallife of man and the individualitywhich pertains to it which constitutes the point of departure, or rather the essential content of the Ideal, we shall further examine this association, as in truth the creation ofhumanactivity itself and only possible as such a creation.
Finally, we shall prove that this unified world created by the human Spirit is itself a complete entirety, which, in the determinate form of its existence, is objectively valid, and in essential relation with which every unit of our common humanity who is actively engaged with the vital concerns of art must infallibly remain.
In opening our discussion of the position we proposed first we would at once point out an important conclusion involved in it. We have here posited that the environment of the Ideal is not directly due to human activity, it can therefore only be regarded in this first step of our inquiry as something external to man, that is to say Nature. How, then, is this something outside man to be exhibited in the ideal work of art? We will discuss this at least in its more general terms, and here, too, draw attention to three aspects of importance.
(α) In the first place external Nature, so far as the reproduction of its external form is concerned, is in every respect a reality which is embodied in somedefiniteshape. If our representation is in every respect to satisfy really all that is implied in this condition it must be the exact counterpart of the phenomenal truth of Nature. We have, however, already drawn attention to material points of difference between the truth of Nature and its reproduction by art which cannot be disregarded. We may, however, observe that it is an almost universal characteristic of the great masters that they are conspicuously true in their delineation and elaboration of the broad facts of Nature. And this is not so much due to a love of imitation as it is due to the fact that Nature is not merely in a general way the objective facts of a heaven and an Earth with humanity suspended, as it were, in avacuobetween them; but rather that the emotional life and activity of man can only be rightly conceived as alive and operative in a given place with all its associations of streams, rivers, hills, mountains, plains, dales, and forests. Take the case, for example, of Homer, who is not at all a poet ofthe picturesque in natural scenery as we now understand it; we shall, nevertheless, find even in him the descriptions and indications he gives us of actual places or natural features such as the rivers Scamander or Simois, the coast and bays of the sea and so forth correspond with such truth to Nature that geographical investigators only quite recently have been able to map out the locality to which he refers in entire accordance with his descriptions. The ballad-singers of the Middle Ages present a sordid[381]contrast to him in this respect, no less than in their power of depicting character; the effect of their productions either way is bald, jejune and nebulous. Even in the case of the Meistersingers, though they versify old biblical stories which they locate in Jerusalem and elsewhere, it is little more than the bare names which we get. In the Book of heroes[382]the effect is precisely similar. Otnith rides through the pine-forest, fights with the dragon, but it is no world of men or distinct locality we can recognize, and our imagination is consequently in this respect left without any support. Even in the Nibelungenlied there is no real increase of local interest. It is true the names of Worms, the Rhine, and the Danube are mentioned; but practically all further detail is omitted and the result is as barren as before. And yet it is clearly through this very clearness of definition that our narration becomes individual and real; without this it is a mere abstraction which directly gives the lie to the concrete reality it proposes to present.
(β) In addition to these fundamental requirements of clear definition and correspondence with the natural facts a certain elaboration of detail will frequently much assist us in presenting the external aspects of a picture which our perception or imagination can readily seize. Unquestionably, owing to the nature of the particular medium in which the several arts express themselves, there will be a marked difference of range to which, in any particular case, this process may be carried. If we take the art of sculpture, for example,we shall find that the repose and universality, which are the fundamental features of its characterization, are less consistent with this elaboration of external detail than is the case in some other arts. Externality is here neither defined as a particular place nor a particular environment, but is entirely concentrated upon such details as drapery, arrangement of hair, dress, weapons of war, mode of seat and the like. Nay more, the actual definition of many figures in antique sculpture is only obtained through an entirely conventional arrangement of drapery or hair, or other distinguishing accessories. This is not, however, the place to discuss further the significance of the conventional. It is obviously outside the sphere of natural fact and rather related to the contingent; or, to put the matter in this particular case more fully, it is the means through which we arrive at that which is more universal and persistent in our final artistic effect.
As a reverse case to that of sculpture the subject-matter of lyrical poetry is pre-eminently man's emotional life; for this reason it is not so necessary in this type of poetry to lay stress on the detail of actual facts even when reference is made to the external world. It is, on the other hand, part of the function of epic poetry to state events as actual facts, to be precise as to the place where actions occurred and in what manner they were performed; and, in short, of all types of poetry it is the one to which the widest latitude and the closest accuracy of local detail is most essential. And, furthermore, if we contrast all the arts together in this respect we shall find that not one of them is, by virtue of its medium[383], so exclusively occupied with the detail of external Nature as that of painting. At the same time we must add a word that applies equally to all of them. Whatever the definition of Nature may be, it never ought to give the erroneous impression of Nature's prose reality, that is to say, as the immediate imitation of such; nor should that fulness of detail, which is devoted to the spiritual aspect of individual life and its events, be carried by enthusiasm out of the due relation of its importance to the whole. And generally we may affirm of both that such exclusive definition oughtnot to be all that is anywhere presented, inasmuch as everywhere in a work of art that which is a natural fact should only receive its artistic embodiment in close relation to man's spiritual life.
(γ) We have here struck the very note we wish particularly to emphasize. We have already remarked that there are two essential conditions to any effective presentation of a real personality; we must have before us both the reflection of the man's inner life and the natural environment which surrounds him. And in order that this external surrounding appear as one that is truly his own an essential bond of relation must be established between him and it, one which to a greater or less degree is part of his own spiritual substance, where we may, doubtless, cross many traces of contingent matter and yet find the spiritual bed of this nexus still maintained. Throughout the entire spiritualapparatusof the heroes of Epic poetry, for example, their mode of life, that is, opinions, emotions, and all that they do we ought to be able to recognize a subtle homogeneousness, a harmoniousen rapport, which fuses the two aspects of such a life into one concordant whole. The Arab is thus united with Nature, and, indeed, apart from his sky, his stars, his torrid deserts, his tents, his camels, and his horses is unintelligible. He is only truly himself and at home under such conditions. In the same way the heroes of Ossian possess in the highest degree an intense inward life; but in their very gloominess and melancholy they appear as the genuine growth of their hills of heather, whose thistles are swept by the wind, of their rain-clouds, mists, mountains, and dark caves. The physiognomy of the conditions under which they live reveals to us as nothing else can the secret of that inner life of emotion which is lived through with all its sadness, mourning, its pains, its battles, and its mist-like apparitions in such a natural setting; they are, in short, entirely at home in it and in it alone.
Such considerations supply us with ample ground for the statement we let fall previously unsupported that the subject-matter of history offers unrivalled opportunities for perfecting this intimate relation between the two aspects of human life we have been discussing, and enabling, us to carry the same directly into the minutest particulars. Veryrarely, indeed, are we likely to find that the imagination can simply through its own initiative create such a harmony, although we ought to feel its presence throughout, however little it may, in fact, have produced of the raw material it combines into artistic completeness. No doubt there is a common tendency to rate what we fancy is the free creation of imaginative genius above the effort of assimilating in artistic form a material which is borrowed; but it is for all that quite impossible that the imagination should alone create that harmoniousentente, the unity of the Ideal requires in the consistent and defined form which lies before us in actual existence, where national traits, to cite the examples above, are the veritable growth of such a harmony.
And here we close our consideration of the principle accordant with which we have rendered more clear that aspect of the unity of the inner life with its natural environment which we posited as secret or potential, not at any rate directly due to human activity.
(b) The second phase of this harmonious relation may be explained more positively, being expressly due to man's own activity and his adaptation of means to ends. For man adapts external objects to his own uses and, by means of the satisfaction which his work supplies, places himself in a harmonious relation to them. In contrast therefore to our first indefinite[384], and, in fact, entirely general type of harmonious association the present one is directly concerned with what is particular, as exemplified in the particular needs of man and their satisfaction by his converting to his use such natural objects as he may require. The range of his wants and the consequent impulse of their satisfaction is of a practically unlimited variety; yet it is nothing in comparison with the variety of Nature herself. Simplification is therefore inseparable from the task whereby, our humanity imposes on the facts of Nature its own vital purposes, and interpenetrates the external world with its own volitions. In this way man's environment is humanized; he proves by his own acts that it is capable of satisfying his nature and is unable to preserve any predominant independence over against him. Here at last, by virtue, that is, of his own productiveexertions, we find him no longer in a merely general sense of the term, but actually in every detail of his particular surroundings a real centre of his own substance and at home.
The fundamental conception which it is most important to emphasize as that which affects art throughout in its relation to all we have above considered may be thus stated. If we look closely at the relative position man occupies in all the infinite variety of his material wants, desires, and aims, we shall find that it is not one merely ofgeneralsignificance, but one of actualdependence. The absence of freedom implied in this relative position is antagonistic to the Ideal; and in order that man may become a suitable object for art, he must have already released himself from the travail of this enforced condition, and thrown off the chains of his dependence. Moreover, this act of mutual accommodation, when we trace it to its origin, may strike us in one of two different ways. Either he may conclude that Nature in all friendliness on her own part supplies man with what he needs, and so far from throwing obstacles in the path of his interests and objects, rather freely gives them him as one who meets him half way wherever he goes. Or, on the contrary, we shall not fail to observe that our humanity has wants and desires, whose immediate satisfaction Nature is quite unable to secure. In cases that fall under the second type it is obvious that man can only work out the self-satisfaction vital to him through his own energies; he must take possession of that which Nature possesses, set to rights the defects which appear, modify their form, removing all that stands in his way with adroitness; and, in short, convert Nature's raw material into means through which he will be able to attain all that he proposes. The relation in which the unity between man and his environment will be most conspicuous must be sought for in an example, where there is already a real contact between them, where, that is to say, human ability is on such good terms with the amenability of Nature that all the severity of a conflict between them as unreconciled forces disappears, and we have forthwith the completed symphony under our eyes.
For the reasons, then, already advanced the ideal provinceof art must be held secure from the bare necessities of life. Property and the favour of circumstances, in so far as they supply a condition, under which poverty and labour vanish not merely for this or that hour, but for the most part altogether, are for this reason, we will not say incompatible with art, but rather in full concurrence with the Ideal. Yet it would only betray a real lack of comprehension[385], if in cases where the conditions of our art compelled us to consider the facts of life in all their multifold variety, we nevertheless omitted from our composition all reference to the relation in which human life is placed to these very natural constraints. It is true enough that such are purely finite conditions; but art is not therefore able to dispense with them. They must not, in fact, even be treated by her as something merely bad. It is rather her function to reconcile them with the Real in her embracing unity. And indeed the finest actions and opinions which she reflects on her mirror, if we consider the particular form of the determination and content alone[386], are necessarily limited and consequently finite. That I find it necessary to provide myself with nourishment, food and drink, a house to live in, and clothing to wear, seats to sit upon, and everything else incidental to domestic life is no doubt an inevitable concomitant of the fact that I live in the world; but the life that only I myself experience within me permeates, this external aspect of my life so completely, that men are fain to clothe and arm the very gods themselves, and to picture them under conditions inseparable from a variety of things they seek to possess, and find their satisfaction in obtaining. In short, for art to be possible, this satisfaction of the necessities of life must be assured to us. Or to take an example where this is not so, there is that of adventurous knights who only secure their immunity from external hardship through the continued success of their enterprise, which is therefore itself but a contingency, in much the same way as the prosperity of savages is contingentupon the amenities of Nature. The conditions in both cases are not favourable to Art. Her true Ideal is not merely to be found where our humanity is barely lifted above the most rigorous condition of dependence upon the smiles or frowns of Nature, but is most of all at home in that superfluity which suffers it in conjunction with Nature's bounty to expatiate with freedom no less than delight.
The above remarks are obviously of very general application. Two considerations, however, of a somewhat more restricted interest may be deduced from them.
(α) The first of these relates to the kind of use to which mankind put the objects of Nature in seeking for a satisfaction which is whollyaesthetic, or due to some habit of the mind. Everything in the nature of ornament and finery, or, in general terms, everything that men convert to their use for the sake of mere show comes under this head. And the point to which we draw attention is this, that when we find men thus decorating themselves no less than their immediate surroundings, we ought not so much to conclude that all that they thus collect together from Nature's most costly and beautiful storehouse, whatever may most attract their eyes in the same—whether it be gold, precious stones, pearls, ivory, or precious raiment—that all this unrivalled rarity and brilliancy, in short, is that which for its own sake, and primarily as a product of Nature, interests them: rather their interest in it all is essentially personal as a thing suitable for the houses they live in, or for that which they most love and honour, whether it be their rulers, their temples, or their gods. A man selects in this way that which already appears to him as externally beautiful, pure translucent colour, glitter of metals, fragrant woods, marble, and all the rest. Poetry, and particularly Oriental poetry, makes a willing use of such wealth, a fact we may even illustrate from such a poem as the Nibelungenlied: and generally it is true enough that Art in such matters is not merely content with a general description of the beauty or value of such fine things; but, where the artistic form and the occasion allows, will describe such works in all the detail of their workmanship with as royal a bounty as the works themselves. There was no stint of either gold or ivory on the statue of Pallas at Athens, or that of Zeus at Olympia;and the temples of the ancient gods, the churches of Christendom, the pictures of saints, and the palaces of kings, are notable illustrations among all nations that possess any of them, to what kind of service splendour and brilliant show may be devoted; thus have nations in every age delighted in seeing upon their gods the visible presence of their own wealth, precisely as they have found delight in the splendour of their princes as a glory they still possessed, though ravished from themselves.
We all know, of course, that type of moralist who is only too ready to disturb the vision of such an enjoyment. We shall, no doubt, be reminded how many poor Athenians the aegis of Pallas could have supplied with a hearty meal, or how many slaves could have thus been liberated; and, doubtless, we must admit that in the case of the ancient world, no less than in days more near to our own wealth, all that has been lavished on temple, cloister, or cathedral, or other objects of public utility, has been expended under social conditions of the direst need to many. Nay, we may carry such melancholy reflections yet further, and find in them a condemnation not merely of particular works of art, but of Art herself and all that she gives us. What sums of money are involved in the building by the State of an Academy of Arts, or the purchase of ancient and modern works of art, and the appropriate embellishment of public galleries, theatres, and museums! But whatever the effect of such reflections may be upon us, whether ethical or otherwise, such is, after all, only due to the fact that we are once more reminded of those very constraints and hardships whose removal is a vital condition of the appearance of Fine Art. The appropriation of a unique sphere in its life for the exposition of its artistic treasures, which stands safe above the stress of that reality to which it contributes so largely, can therefore only redound to the glory and supreme honour of any people.
(β) But, further, mankind is not merely interested in the adornment of individuals and the environment of their life, but is actively employed in adapting the objects of Nature to its practical needs and purposes. It is on this plane that we come into contact for the first time with all the labour and struggle which the dependence of our humanity uponthe prose of its finite life implies. And the question inevitably arises, how far all that is involved in this practical effort is suitable to artistic presentation.
(αα) In attempting some answer to this problem, we would draw attention to the historical fact that the earliest way in which Art attempted to banish all the prose reality of human life was the conception of the well-known golden age or, if we care to call it so, the idyllic state. In this we have Nature depicted as satisfying man's every want with no trouble to himself: while he, for his part, enjoys in a state of innocence all that mead, wood, flocks, garden, shelter, and so forth, can supply him with nourishment, dwelling, and all other comforts incidental to such a life. Of the passions of ambition or avarice, indeed of every impulse that may appear to run counter to the nobility of man's spiritual nature, we hear no word at all. At first blush, no doubt, a state of this description may strike us more or less as ideal, and certain types of art, limited in their range, may find definite satisfaction in presenting us with a picture of it. But we have only to penetrate further below the surface and we shall quickly have enough of such a vision. The writings of Gessner are little read nowadays, and when we do read them we find in such little satisfaction. The truth is that a restricted state of life, such as the above described, presupposes a very elementary stage in human development. Manhood which has attained to any real fulness of spiritual stature is moved by impulses of loftier range, and is not likely to be satisfied with the life which clings closest to Nature and its immediate products. In such idyllic poverty of soul no man ought to live, but rather to accept his birthright of toil: that which his spiritual impulse urges him forward to, that he must secure through his own activity. Once regard the matter in this way and these very physical wants of man will be found to bring into being a wide and diverse range of activities, implanting in him the conscious sense of his own powers, from the heart of which the profounder interests and forces of his life can slowly unravel themselves. But, at the same time, it is necessary that here, too, the harmonious relation between the outward and inner life should be maintained as the fundamental principle of artistic presentation. Fewthings are more offensive to our aesthetic taste than to find in a work of art the severity of some physical disaster portrayed through every detail of horror. Dante flashes on us the starvation of Ugolino in a few trenchant strokes. When a Gerstenberg, in his tragedy of Ugolino, wrings out every detail of the catastrophe to the last drop, telling us precisely how first Ugolino's two sons, and after them their father, were done to death by starvation, we feel at once that the subject, as thus handled, is entirely at variance with the principles of fine art.
(ββ) We shall, however, find that the condition of life which offers the strongest contrast to that we have described as the idyllic state, we will call it the generally civilized life[387], presents, though on other grounds, difficulties to an ideal exposition which are equally serious. In a Culture-State the complexus of social wants and labour, of interests and all that may go to satisfying the same, is throughout and in all its comprehensiveness completely evolved. Every individual here is immersed in an infinite network of relations with other units of the whole, and with so much loss to his complete independence. What he himself requires for himself is either nothing at all, or only, in a quite insignificant fraction of it, the result of his own labour: add to this the tendency of all a man's normal activities is to become more and more mechanical. We find, too, at the heart of this industrial development and the interchange of employment and rejection of human labour which it implies, on the one hand the most ruthless conditions of poverty, and on the other a class which, raised as it is above the bare necessities of existence, stands out in relief as wealthy, entirely released from all toil for the sake of a subsistence, able at any rate to devote individual attention to the finer interests of life and its pathetic contrasts. No doubt the possession of such a superfluity may create an impression as though for the favoured few the constant recurrence of a position of dependence had passed away, and a man is just so much the more released from the accidents incidental to property because his hands are at length free from thegrime which soils them in securing it. But such a consolatory reflection will never make a man thoroughly at home in all that immediately surrounds him in the real sense that such is the garland of his own labour. For he is the centre of that to the upraising of which he has not himself been instrumental; it has come there out of that provision store which was already full without him, which quite other persons and for the most part in a quite mechanical and, therefore, formal way have provided, and to which he is only introduced after a long series of effort and struggle wholly strange to himself.
(γγ) We are consequently led to the conclusion that it is rather athirdtype of human society, a society which we may place halfway between the idyllic golden age and the burgher State in its fully developed industrial form, which is most fitted to be the subject matter of ideal art. We have already analysed this state of society in another connection under the description of theheroicand pre-eminently ideal world-condition. The heroic age is no longer restricted to that idyllic garden of spiritual attenuation, but includes within its borders passions and aims of deeper moment; and yet withal that which in the circle of the individual life touches closest the satisfaction of each man's immediate wants is still the entire product of his own activity.
Moreover, the means of nourishment such as honey, milk, and wine are less complex and consequently lend themselves more readily to ideal treatment[388]. A diet which includes coffee, brandy, and such like luxuries is associated in our minds with countless industries which are necessary to their preparation. Our heroes, on the contrary, kill and roast their own food, break in their own chargers, are the makers to a considerable extent of all their household gods; ploughs, armour for defence, shields, coats of mail, swords, spears, all are either the work of the possessor, orare made directly under his supervision. In a condition of life of this kind a man necessarily feels that in all the things he makes use of, and in all that encircles him, he is in touch with something produced by himself; that in contact with external objects he is in contact with his own substance rather than with objects which emanate from a world strange to himself and outside that in which he is himself master. It is, of course, assumed that all the energy he expends upon working up the material into forms adapted for his use is not so much troublesome labour, but a work which, through the satisfaction it brings him, falls easy from his shoulders, a work, in short, which he can carry over every obstacle to success.
We find a society of this type in Homer. Agamemnon's sceptre is a family staff which his ancestor himself shaped from the block and left as an heirloom to his descendants. Odysseus put together with his own hands the mighty bed he shared with Penelope; and if the famous weapons of Achilles are no work of his own we only find the various and interfused array of his own activities abated that a god, Hephaestus himself, may provide them at the request of his mother Thetis. In a word, we meet everywhere the youthful delight in novel discovery, the freshness of personal possession, the victorious sense of enjoyment. Everything is in its place and at home, in everything a man discovers the energy of his own sinew, the adroitness of his own hand, the cunning of his own spirit, or somewhat that follows from his own courage and bravery. In this way, and by this alone, the instruments which satisfy our human sense are not as yet relegated to a merely external relation, but men have before them the living process of the instruments themselves, the vital consciousness of the human worth they attach to them; and they find it there inasmuch as for them they are not mere lifeless things or things which habit has made lifeless, but creations impregnated with their own energies. And for the same reason we find here an idyllic condition of things, it is true, but not in that restricted sense of the term that the Earth and her streams, seas, forests, and cattle supply to mankind their sustaining substance, while man himself is only visible to us as a passive creature limited by the active powers which support him and their enjoyment.Rather we already see within this morning-time of human life deep interests at work, in relation to which the great world itself is but a subordinate realm, the ground and the instrument for bringing into being the higher aims which are present, as a ground and environment, however, over which that harmonious concord, yet withal independence, of both sides of our human world prevails; and which does prevail in the sight of all for this reason that everything there exists as the product and for the use of human life, is at the same time the creation and enjoyment of the man who creates and enjoys its use[389].
To apply such a mode of artistic presentation to material borrowed from more recent times, whose completed culture offers the strongest contrast to the heroic age above-mentioned, is always beset with extreme difficulty and liable to failure. Yet for all that Goethe in his "Hermann and Dorothea" has furnished us in this respect with an admirable masterpiece. Here an attempt will only be made to elucidate a few significant points by contrasting the same with a composition of similar type. Voss, in his famous romance "Louise," had depicted on much the same idyllic lines our human life and activity in a quiet circle of narrow range, if also marked with independent characteristics of its own. The country parson, the tobacco-pipe, the dressing-gown, the garden-bench, and finally our coffee-pot, have all of them here important parts to play. Coffee and sugar are, however, products, which are really here out of place; they belong to an entirely different world[390]throughout associated with all the varied ramifications of commercial and textile industries. This circle of country life is consequently not self-inclusive. In the beautiful picture of "Hermann andDorothea" we are, on the contrary, under no necessity to demand such a consistency. As we already have pointed out in another connection, we find interwoven with the main threads of this poem, which is, no doubt, in its prevailing atmosphere entirely idyllic, the great political interests of the time, the struggles of the French Revolution, the defence of the Fatherland, asserted in a worthy way no less than with decision. The more limited scope of family life in a little country town is not so presented us as a whole which can even possibly remain in total ignorance of that mighty wave of the great world under stress of a real cataclysm of events, which is the view we are given of the pastor in the "Louise" of Voss. In Goethe's poem we have, on the contrary, by means of the interfusion of these great world-movements, within which the idyllic characters and events are portrayed, the picture of a life with a typical character of its own set in the frame of a world of more significant content; and the apothecary, who is here presented as the out-and-out Philistine, and who merely lives within the more narrow borders of that country life's surroundings, affected by that only, is excellently sketched for us with the good heart, but at the same time peevish isolation, which we find so natural. Add to this, in that which most closely touches the life of the characters thus portrayed, we find a particular emphasis laid on the fundamental aspect of this idyllic life as previously indicated in our former discussion of it. To mention one point only, we may observe that the host does not by any means drink coffee with his guests, the parson and the apothecary; on the contrary, to cite a line or two: