"High art consists neither in altering, nor in improving nature; but in seeking throughout nature for 'whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure;' in loving these, in displaying to the utmost of the painter's power such loveliness as is in them, and directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle emphasis. Art (caeteris paribus) is great in exact proportion to the love of beauty shown by the painter, provided that love of beauty forfeit no atom of truth."—RUSKIN.
The most ancient works of Art which we possess are representations of animals, rude indeed, but often strikingly characteristic, engraved on, or carved in, stag's-horn or bone; and found in English, French, and German caves, with stone and other rude implements, and the remains of mammalia, belonging apparently to the close of the glacial epoch: not only of the deer, bear, and other animals now inhabiting temperate Europe, but of some, such as the reindeer, the musk sheep, and the mammoth, which have either retreated north or become altogether extinct. We may, I think, venture to hope that other designs may hereafter be found, which will give us additional information as to the manners and customs of our ancestors in those remote ages.
Next to these in point of antiquity come the sculptures and paintings onAssyrian and Egyptian tombs, temples, and palaces.
These ancient scenes, considered as works of art, have no doubt many faults, and yet how graphically they tell their story! As a matter of fact a king is not, as a rule, bigger than his soldiers, but in these battle-scenes he is always so represented. We must, however, remember that in ancient warfare the greater part of the fighting was, as a matter of fact, done by the chiefs. In this respect the Homeric poems resemble the Assyrian and Egyptian representations. At any rate, we see at a glance which is the king, which are officers, which side is victorious, the struggles and sufferings of the wounded, the flight of the enemy, the city of refuge—so that he who runs may read; while in modern battle-pictures the story is much less clear, and, indeed, the untrained eye sees for some time little but scarlet and smoke.
These works assuredly possess a grandeur and dignity of their own, even though they have not the beauty of later art.
In Greece Art reached a perfection which has never been excelled, and it was more appreciated than perhaps it has ever been since.
At the time when Demetrius attacked the city of Rhodes, Protogenes was painting a picture of Ialysus. "This," says Pliny, "hindered King Demetrius from taking Rhodes, out of fear lest he should burn the picture; and not being able to fire the town on any other side, he was pleased rather to spare the painting than to take the victory, which was already in his hands. Protogenes, at that time, had his painting-room in a garden out of the town, and very near the camp of the enemies, where he was daily finishing those pieces which he had already begun, the noise of soldiers not being capable of interrupting his studies. But Demetrius causing him to be brought into his presence, and asking him what made him so bold as to work in the midst of enemies, he answered the king, 'That he understood the war which he made was against the Rhodians, and not against the Arts.'"
With the decay of Greece, Art sank too, until it was revived in the thirteenth century by Cimabue, since whose time its progress has been triumphal.
Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.
"In true Art," says Ruskin, "the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together. But Art is no recreation: it cannot be learned at spare moments, nor pursued when we have nothing better to do."
It is not only in the East that great works, really due to study and labor, have been attributed to magic.
Study and labor cannot make every man an artist, but no one can succeed in art without them. In Art two and two do not make four, and no number of little things will make a great one.
It has been said, and on high authority, that the end of art is to please. But this is a very imperfect definition. It might as well be said that a library is only intended for pleasure and ornament.
Art has the advantage of nature, in so far as it introduces a human element, which is in some respects superior even to nature. "If," says Plato, "you take a man as he is made by nature and compare him with another who is the effect of art, the work of nature will always appear the less beautitiful, because art is more accurate than nature."
Bacon also, inThe Advancement of Learning, speaks of "the world being inferior to the soul, by reason whereof there is agreeable to the spirit of man a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety than can be found in the nature of things."
The poets tell us that Prometheus, having made a beautiful statue of Minerva, the goddess was so delighted that she offered to bring down anything from Heaven which could add to its perfection. Prometheus on this prudently asked her to take him there, so that he might choose for himself. This Minerva did, and Prometheus, finding that in heaven all things were animated by fire, brought back a spark, with which he gave life to his work.
In fact, Imitation is the means and not the end of Art. The story of Zeuxis and Parrhasius is a pretty tale; but to deceive birds, or even man himself, is but a trifling matter compared with the higher functions of Art. To imitate theIliad, says Dr. Young, is not imitating Homer, but as Sir J. Reynolds adds, the more the artist studies nature "the nearer he approaches to the true and perfect idea of art."
"Following these rules and using these precautions, when you have clearly and distinctly learned in what good coloring consists, you cannot do better than have recourse to Nature herself, who is always at hand, and in comparison of whose true splendor the best colored pictures are but faint and feeble." [1]
Art, indeed, must create as well as copy. As Victor Cousin well says, "The ideal without the real lacks life; but the real without the ideal lacks pure beauty. Both need to unite; to join hands and enter into alliance. In this way the best work may be achieved. Thus beauty is an absolute idea, and not a mere copy of imperfect Nature."
The grouping of the picture is of course of the utmost importance. Sir Joshua Reynolds gives two remarkable cases to show how much any given figure in a picture is affected by its surroundings. Tintoret in one of his pictures has taken the Samson of Michael Angelo, put an eagle under him, placed thunder and lightning in his right hand instead of the jawbone of an ass, and thus turned him into a Jupiter. The second instance is even more striking. Titian has copied the figure in the vault of the Sistine Chapel which represents the Deity dividing light from darkness, and has introduced it into his picture of the battle of Cadore, to represent a general falling from his horse.
We must remember that so far as the eye is concerned, the object of the artist is to train, not to deceive, and that his higher function has reference rather to the mind than to the eye.
No doubt
"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,To throw a perfume on the violet,To smooth the ice, or add another hueUnto the rainbow, or with taper-lightTo seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,Is wasteful and ridiculous excess." [2]
But all is not gold that glitters, flowers are not all arrayed like the lily, and there is room for selection as well as representation.
"The true, the good, and the beautiful," says Cousin, "are but forms of the infinite: what then do we really love in truth, beauty, and virtue? We love the infinite himself. The love of the infinite substance is hidden under the love of its forms. It is so truly the infinite which charms in the true, the good, and the beautiful, that its manifestations alone do not suffice. The artist is dissatisfied at the sight even of his greatest works; he aspires still higher."
It is indeed sometimes objected that Landscape painting is not true to nature; but we must ask, What is truth? Is the object to produce the same impression on the mind as that created by the scene itself? If so, let any one try to draw from memory a group of mountains, and he will probably find that in the impression produced on his mind the mountains are loftier and steeper, the valleys deeper and narrower, than in the actual reality. A drawing, then, which was literally exact would not be true, in the sense of conveying the same impression as Nature herself.
In fact, Art, says Goethe, is called Art simply because it is not Nature.
It is not sufficient for the artist to choose beautiful scenery, and delineate it with accuracy. He must not be a mere copyist. Something higher and more subtle is required. He must create, or at any rate interpret, as well as copy.
Turner was never satisfied merely to reach to even the most glorious scenery. He moved, and even suppressed, mountains.
A certain nobleman, we are told, was very anxious to see the model from whom Guido painted his lovely female faces. Guido placed his color-grinder, a big coarse man, in an attitude, and then drew a beautiful Magdalen. "My dear Count," he said, "the beautiful and pure idea must be in the mind, and then it is no matter what the model is."
Guido Reni, who painted St. Michael for the Church of the Capuchins at Rome, wished that he "had the wings of an angel, to have ascended unto Paradise, and there to have beheld the forms of those beautiful spirits, from which I might have copied my Archangel. But not being able to mount so high, it was in vain for me to seek for his resemblance here below; so that I was forced to look into mine own mind, and into that idea of beauty which I have formed in my own imagination." [3]
Science attempts, as far as the limited powers of Man permit, to reproduce the actual facts in a manner which, however bald, is true in itself, irrespective of time and scene. To do this she must submit to many limitations; not altogether unvexatious, and not without serious drawbacks. Art, on the contrary, endeavors to convey the impression of the original under some especial aspect.
In some respects, Art gives a clearer and more vivid idea of an unknown country than any description can convey. In literature rock may be rock, but in painting it must be granite or slate, and not merely rock in general.
It is remarkable that while artists have long recognized the necessity of studying anatomy, and there has been from the commencement a professor of anatomy in the Royal Academy, it is only of late years that any knowledge of botany or geology has been considered desirable, and even now their importance is by no means generally recognized.
Much has been written as to the relative merits of painting, sculpture, and architecture. This, if it be not a somewhat unprofitable inquiry, would at any rate be out of place here.
Architecture not only gives intense pleasure, but even the impression of something ethereal and superhuman.
Madame de Staël described it as "frozen music;" and a cathedral is a glorious specimen of "thought in stone," whose very windows are transparent walls of gorgeous hues.
Caracci said that poets paint in their words and artists speak in their works. The latter have indeed one great advantage, for a glance at a statue or a painting will convey a more vivid idea than a long and minute description.
Another advantage possessed by Art is that it is understood by all civilized nations, whilst each has a separate language.
Even from a material point of view Art is most important. In a recent address Sir F. Leighton has observed that the study of Art "is every day becoming more important in relation to certain sides of the waning material prosperity of the country. For the industrial competition between this and other countries—a competition, keen and eager, which means to certain industries almost a race for life—runs, in many cases, no longer exclusively or mainly on the lines of excellence of material and solidity of workmanship, but greatly nowadays on the lines of artistic charm and beauty of design."
The highest service, however, that Art can accomplish for man is to become "at once the voice of his nobler aspirations, and the steady disciplinarian of his emotions; and it is with this mission, rather than with any aesthetic perfection, that we are at present concerned." [4]
Science and Art are sisters, or rather perhaps they are like brother and sister. The mission of Art is in some respects like that of woman. It is not Hers so much to do the hard toil and moil of the world, as to surround it with a halo of beauty, to convert work into pleasure.
In science we naturally expect progress, but in Art the case is not so clear; and yet Sir Joshua Reynolds did not hesitate to express his conviction that in the future "so much will painting improve, that the best we can now achieve will appear like the work of children," and we may hope that our power of enjoying it may increase in an equal ratio. Wordsworth says that poets have to create the taste for their own works, and the same is, in some degree at any rate, true of artists.
In one respect especially modern painters appear to have made a marked advance, and one great blessing which in fact we owe to them is a more vivid enjoyment of scenery.
I have of course no pretensions to speak with authority, but even in the case of the greatest masters before Turner, the landscapes seem to me singularly inferior to the figures. Sir Joshua Reynolds tells us that Gainsborough framed a kind of model of a landscape on his table, composed of broken stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which he magnified and improved into rocks, trees, and water; and Sir Joshua solemnly discusses the wisdom of such a proceeding. "How far it may be useful in giving hints," he says, "the professors of landscape can best determine," but he does not recommend it, and is disposed to think, on the whole, the practice may be more likely to do harm than good!
In the picture of Ceyx and Alcyone, by Wilson, of whom Cunningham said that, with Gainsborough, he laid the foundation of our School of Landscape, the castle is said to have been painted from a pot of porter, and the rock from a Stilton cheese. There is indeed another version of the story, that the picture was sold for a pot of porter and a cheese, which, however, does not give a higher idea of the appreciation of the art of landscape at that date.
Until very recently the general feeling with reference to mountain scenery has been that expressed by Tacitus. "Who would leave Asia or Africa or Italy to go to Germany, a shapeless and unformed country, a harsh sky, and melancholy aspect, unless indeed it was his native land?"
It is amusing to read the opinion of Dr. Beattie, in a special treatise onTruth, Poetry and Music, written at the close of the last century, that "The Highlands of Scotland are in general a melancholy country. Long tracts of mountainous country, covered with dark heath, and often obscured by misty weather; narrow valleys thinly inhabited, and bounded by precipices resounding with the fall of torrents; a soil so rugged, and a climate so dreary, as in many parts to admit neither the amenities of pasturage, nor the labors of agriculture; the mournful dashing of waves along the firths and lakes: the portentous noises which every change of the wind is apt to raise in a lonely region, full of echoes, and rocks, and caverns; the grotesque and ghastly appearance of such a landscape by the light of the moon: objects like these diffuse a gloom over the fancy," etc. [5]
Even Goldsmith regarded the scenery of the Highlands as dismal and hideous. Johnson, we know, laid it down as an axiom that "the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England"—a saying which throws much doubt on his distinction that the Giant's Causeway was "worth seeing but not worth going to see." [6]
Madame de Staël declared, that though she would go 500 leagues to meet a clever man, she would not care to open her window to see the Bay of Naples.
Nor was the ancient absence of appreciation confined to scenery. Even Burke, speaking of Stonehenge, says, "Stonehenge, neither for disposition nor ornament, has anything admirable."
Ugly scenery, however, may in some cases have an injurious effect on the human system. It has been ingeniously suggested that what really drove Don Quixote out of his mind was not the study of his books of chivalry, so much as the monotonous scenery of La Mancha.
The love of landscape is not indeed due to Art alone. It has been the happy combination of art and science which has trained us to perceive the beauty which surrounds us.
Art helps us to see, and "hundreds of people can talk for one who can think; but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one…. Remembering always that there are two characters in which all greatness of Art consists—first, the earnest and intense seizing of natural facts; then the ordering those facts by strength of human intellect, so as to make them, for all who look upon them, to the utmost serviceable, memorable, and beautiful. And thus great Art is nothing else than the type of strong and noble life; for as the ignoble person, in his dealings with all that occurs in the world about him, first sees nothing clearly, looks nothing fairly in the face, and then allows himself to be swept away by the trampling torrent and unescapable force of the things that he would not foresee and could not understand: so the noble person, looking the facts of the world full in the face, and fathoming them with deep faculty, then deals with them in unalarmed intelligence and unhurried strength, and becomes, with his human intellect and will, no unconscious nor insignificant agent in consummating their good and restraining their evil." [7]
May we not also hope that in this respect also still further progress may be made, that beauties may be revealed, and pleasures may be in store for those who come after us, which we cannot appreciate, or at least can but faintly feel.
Even now there is scarcely a cottage without something more or less successfully claiming to rank as Art,—a picture, a photograph, or a statuette; and we may fairly hope that much as Art even now contributes to the happiness of life, it will do so even more effectively in the future.
[1] Reynolds.
[2] Shakespeare.
[3] Dryden.
[4] Haweis.
[5] Beattie, 1776.
[6] Boswell.
[7] Ruskin.
"And here the singer for his ArtNot all in vain may plead;The song that nerves a nation's heartIs in itself a deed."TENNYSON.
After the disastrous defeat of the Athenians before Syracuse, Plutarch tells us that the Sicilians spared those who could repeat any of the poetry of Euripides.
"Some there were," he says, "who owed their preservation to Euripides. Of all the Grecians, his was the muse with whom the Sicilians were most in love. From the strangers who landed in their island they gleaned every small specimen or portion of his works, and communicated it with pleasure to each other. It is said that upon this occasion a number of Athenians on their return home went to Euripides, and thanked him in the most grateful manner for their obligations to his pen; some having been enfranchised for teaching their masters what they remembered of his poems, and others having procured refreshments, when they were wandering about after the battle, by singing a few of his verses."
Nowadays we are none of us likely to owe our lives to Poetry in this sense, yet in another we many of us owe to it a similar debt. How often, when worn with overwork, sorrow, or anxiety, have we taken down Homer or Horace, Shakespeare or Milton, and felt the clouds gradually roll away, the jar of nerves subside, the consciousness of power replace physical exhaustion, and the darkness of despondency brighten once more into the light of life.
"And yet Plato," says Jowett, "expels the poets from his Republic because they are allied to sense; because they stimulate the emotions; because they are thrice removed from the ideal truth."
In that respect, as in some others, few would accept Plato's Republic as being an ideal Commonwealth, and most would agree with Sir Philip Sidney that "if you cannot bear the planet-like music of poetry … I must send you in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never get favor for lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you die, your memory die from the earth, for want of an epitaph."
Poetry has often been compared with painting and sculpture. Simonides long ago said that Poetry is a speaking picture, and painting is mute Poetry.
"Poetry," says Cousin, "is the first of the Arts because it best represents the infinite."
And again, "Though the arts are in some respects isolated, yet there is one which seems to profit by the resources of all, and that is Poetry. With words, Poetry can paint and sculpture; she can build edifices like an architect; she unites, to some extent, melody and music. She is, so to say, the center in which all arts unite."
A true poem is a gallery of pictures.
It must, I think, be admitted that painting and sculpture can give us a clearer and more vivid idea of an object we have never seen than any description can convey. But when we have once seen it, then on the contrary there are many points which the poet brings before us, and which perhaps neither in the representation, nor even in nature, should we perceive for ourselves. Objects can be most vividly brought before us by the artist, actions by the poet; space is the domain of Art, time of Poetry. [1]
Take, for instance, as a typical instance, female beauty. How labored and how cold any description appears. The greatest poets recognize this; as, for instance, when Scott wishes us to realize the Lady of the Lake he does not attempt any description, but just mentions her attitude and then adds—
"And ne'er did Grecian chisel traceA Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,Of finer form or lovelier face!"
A great poet indeed must be inspired; he must possess an exquisite sense of beauty, and feelings deeper than those of most men, and yet well under his control. "The Milton of poetry is the man, in his own magnificent phrase, of devout prayer to that eternal spirit that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases." [2] And if from one point of view Poetry brings home to us the immeasurable inequalities of different minds, on the other hand it teaches us that genius is no affair of rank or wealth.
"I think of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,The sleepless soul, that perish'd in his pride;Of Burns, that walk'd in glory and in joyBehind his plough upon the mountain-side." [3]
A man may be a poet and yet write no verse, but not if he writes bad or poor ones.
"Mediocribus esse poetisNon homines, non Di, non concessere columnae." [4]
Second-rate poets, like second-rate writers generally, fade gradually into dreamland; but the great poets remain always.
Poetry will not live unless it be alive, "that which comes from the head goes to the heart;" [5] and Milton truly said that "he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem."
For "he who, having no touch of the Muses' madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of Art—he, I say, and his Poetry are not admitted." [6]
But the work of the true poet is immortal.
"For have not the verses of Homer continued 2500 years or more without the loss of a syllable or a letter, during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished? It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, no, nor of the kings or great personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but lose of the life and truth. But the images of men's wits and knowledge remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages: so that if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?" [7]
The poet requires many qualifications. "Who has traced," says Cousin, "the plan of this poem? Reason. Who has given it life and charm? Love. And who has guided reason and love? The Will."
"All men have some imagination, butThe Lover and the PoetAre of imagination all compact.
* * * * *
"The Poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet's penTurns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name." [8]
Poetry is the fruit of genius; but it cannot be produced without labor. Moore, one of the airiest of poets, tells us that he was a slow and painstaking workman.
The works of our greatest Poets are all episodes in that one great poem which the genius of man has created since the commencement of human history.
A distinguished mathematician is said once to have inquired what was proved by Milton in hisParadise Lost; and there are no doubt still some who ask themselves, even if they shrink from putting the question to others, whether Poetry is of any use, just as if to give pleasure were not useful in itself. No true Utilitarian, however, would feel this doubt, since the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the rule of his philosophy.
"We must not estimate the works of genius merely with reference to the pleasure they afford, even when pleasure was their principal object. We must also regard the intelligence which they presuppose and exercise." [9]
Thoroughly to enjoy Poetry we must not so limit ourselves, but must rise to a higher ideal.
"Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really excellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should be present in our minds, and should govern our estimate of what we read." [10]
Cicero, in his oration for Archias, well asked, "Has not this man then a right to my love, to my admiration, to all the means which I can employ in his defence? For we are instructed by all the greatest and most learned of mankind, that education, precepts, and practice, can in every other branch of learning produce excellence. But a poet is formed by the hand of nature; he is aroused by mental vigor, and inspired by what we may call the spirit of divinity itself. Therefore our Ennius has a right to give to poets the epithet of Holy, [11] because they are, as it were, lent to mankind by the indulgent bounty of the gods."
"Poetry," says Shelley, "awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought. Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar; it reproduces all that it represents, and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand thenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all thoughts and actions with which it co-exists."
And again, "All high Poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which contained all oaks potentially. Veil after veil may be undrawn, and the inmost naked beauty of the meaning never exposed. A great poem is a fountain forever overflowing with the waters of wisdom and delight."
Or, as he has expressed himself in his Ode to a Skylark:
"Higher still and higherFrom the earth thou springestLike a cloud of fire;The blue deep thou wingest,And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
"Like a poet hiddenIn the light of thought,Singing hymns unbidden,Till the world is wroughtTo sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.
"Like a glow-worm goldenIn a dell of dew,Scattering unbeholdenIts aërial hueAmong the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view."
We speak now of the poet as the Maker or Creator—[Greek: poiaetaes]; the origin of the word "bard" seems doubtful.
The Hebrews well called their poets "Seers," for they not only perceive more than others, but also help other men to see much which would otherwise be lost to us. The old Greek word was [Greek: aoidos]—the Bard or Singer.
Poetry lifts the veil from the beauty of the world which would otherwise be hidden, and throws over the most familiar objects the glow and halo of imagination. The man who has a love for Poetry can scarcely fail to derive intense pleasure from Nature, which to those who love it is all "beauty to the eye and music to the ear."
"Yet Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done; neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more lovely." [12]
In the smokiest city the poet will transport us, as if by enchantment, to the fresh air and bright sun, to the murmur of woods and leaves and water, to the ripple of waves upon sand, and enable us, as in some delightful dream, to cast off the cares and troubles of life.
The poet, indeed, must have more true knowledge, not only of human nature, but of all Nature, than other men are gifted with.
Crabbe Robinson tells us that when a stranger once asked permission to see Wordsworth's study, the maid said, "This is master's Library, but he studies in the fields." No wonder then that Nature has been said to return the poet's love.
"Call it not vain;-they do not errWho say that, when the poet dies,Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,And celebrates his obsequies." [13]
Swinburne says of Blake, and I feel entirely with him, though in my case the application would have been different, that "The sweetness of sky and leaf, of grass and water—the bright light life of bird, child, and beast—is, so to speak, kept fresh by some graver sense of faithful and mysterious love, explained and vivified by a conscience and purpose in the artist's hand and mind. Such a fiery outbreak of spring, such an insurrection of fierce floral life and radiant riot of childish power and pleasure, no poet or painter ever gave before; such lustre of green leaves and flushed limbs, kindled cloud and fervent fleece, was never wrought into speech or shape."
To appreciate Poetry we must not merely glance at it, or rush through it, or read it in order to talk or write about it. One must compose oneself into the right frame of mind. Of course for one's own sake one will read Poetry in times of agitation, sorrow, or anxiety, but that is another matter.
The inestimable treasures of Poetry again are open to all of us. The best books are indeed the cheapest. For the price of a little beer, a little tobacco, we can buy Shakespeare or Milton—or indeed almost as many books as a man can read with profit in a year.
Nor, in considering the advantage of Poetry to man, must we limit ourselves to its past or present influence. The future of Poetry, says Mr. Matthew Arnold, and no one was more qualified to speak, "The future of Poetry is immense, because in Poetry, where it is worthy of its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and surer stay. But for Poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the ideaisthe fact. The strongest part of our religion to-day is its unconscious Poetry. We should conceive of Poetry worthily, and more highly than it has been the custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it as capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies than those which in general men have assigned to it hitherto."
Poetry has been well called the record "of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds;" it is the light of life, the very "image of life expressed in its eternal truth;" it immortalizes all that is best and most beautiful in the world; "it purges from our inward sight the film of familiarity which obscures from us the wonder of our being;" "it is the center and circumference of knowledge;" and poets are "mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity caste upon the present."
Poetry, in effect, lengthens life; it creates for us time, if time be realized as the succession of ideas and not of minutes; it is the "breath and finer spirit of all knowledge;" it is bound neither by time nor space, but lives in the spirit of man. What greater praise can be given than the saying that life should be Poetry put into action.
[1] See Lessing'sLaocoön.
[2] Arnold.
[3] Coleridge.
[4] Horace.
[5] Wordsworth.
[6] Plato.
[7] Bacon.
[8] Shakespeare.
[9] St. Hailare.
[10] Arnold.
[11] Plato styles poets the sons and interpreters of the gods.
[12] Sydney,Defence of Poetry.
[13] Scott.
"Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form."—PLATO.
Music is in one sense far more ancient than man, and the voice was from the very commencement of human existence a source of melody: but so far as musical instruments are concerned, it is probable that percussion came first, then wind instruments, and lastly, those with strings: first the Drum, then the Flute, and thirdly, the Lyre. The early history of Music is, however, unfortunately wrapped in much obscurity. The use of letters long preceded the invention of notes, and tradition in such a matter can tell us but little.
The contest between Marsyas and Apollo is supposed by some to typify the struggle between the Flute and the Lyre; Marsyas representing the archaic Flute, Apollo the champion of the Lyre. The latter of course was victorious: it sets the voice free, and the sound
"Of music that is born of human breathComes straighter to the soul than any strainThe hand alone can make." [1]
Various myths have grown up to explain the origin of Music. One Greek tradition was to the effect Grasshoppers were human beings themselves in a world before the Muses; that when the Muses came, being ravished with delight, they sang and sang and forgot to eat, until "they died of hunger for the love of song. And they carry to heaven the report of those who honor them on earth." [2]
The old writers and commentators tell us that Pythagoras, "as he was one day meditating on the want of some rule to guide the ear, analogous to what had been used to help the other senses, chanced to pass by a blacksmith's shop, and observing that the hammers, which were four in number, sounded very harmoniously, he had them weighed, and found them to be in the proportion of six, eight, nine, and twelve. Upon this he suspended four strings of equal length and thickness, etc., fastened weights in the above-mentioned proportions to each of them respectively, and found that they gave the same sounds that the hammers had done; viz. the fourth, fifth, and octave to the gravest tone." [3] However this may be, it would appear that the lyre had at first four strings only: Terpander is said to have given it three more, and an eighth was subsequently added.
We have unfortunately no specimens of Greek or Roman, or even of Early Christian music. The Chinese indicated the notes by words or their initials. The lowest was termed "Koung," or the Emperor, as being the Foundation on which all were supported; the second was Tschang, the Prime Minister; the third, the Subject; the fourth, Public Business; the fifth, the Mirror of Heaven. [4] The Greeks also had a name for each note. The so-called Gregorian notes were not invented until six hundred years after Gregory's death. The Monastery of St. Gall possesses a copy of Gregory's Antiphonary, made about the year 780 by a chorister who was sent from Rome to Charlemagne to reform the Northern music, and in this the notes are indicated by "pneumss," from which our notes were gradually developed, and first arranged along one line, to which others were gradually added. But I must not enlarge on this interesting subject.
In the matter of music Englishmen have certainly deserved well of the world. Even as long ago as 1185 Giraldus Cambrensis, Bishop of St. David's, says, "The Britons do not sing their tunes in unison like the inhabitants of other countries, but in different parts. So that when a company of singers meet to sing, as is usual in this country, as many different parts are heard as there are singers." [5]
The most ancient known piece of music for several voices is an English four men's song, "Summer is a coming in," which is considered to be at least as early as 1240, and is now in the British Museum.
The Venetian Ambassador in the time of Henry VIII. said of our English Church music: "The mass was sung by His Majesty's choristers, whose voices are more heavenly than human; they did not chant like men, but like angels."
Speaking of Purcell's anthem, "Be merciful to me, O God," Burney says it is "throughout admirable. Indeed, to my conception there is no better music existing of the kind than the opening of this anthem, in which the verse 'I will praise God' and the last movement in C natural are, in melody, harmony, and modulation, truly divine music."
Dr. Burney says that Purcell was "as much the pride of an Englishman in music as Shakespeare in productions of the stage, Milton in epic poetry, Locke in metaphysics, or Sir Isaac Newton in philosophy and mathematics;" and yet Purcell's music is unfortunately but little known to us now, as Macfarren says, "to our great loss."
The authors of some of the loveliest music, and even in some cases that of comparatively recent times, are unknown to us. This is the case for instance with the exquisite song "Drink to me only with thine eyes," the words of which were taken by Jonson from Philostratus, and which has been considered as the most beautiful of all "people's songs."
The music of "God save the Queen" has been adopted in more than half a dozen other countries, and yet the authorship is a matter of doubt, being attributed by some to Dr. John Bull, by others to Carey. It was apparently first sung in a tavern in Cornhill.
Both the music and words of "O Death, rock me to sleep" are said to be by Anne Boleyn: "Stay, Corydon" and "Sweet Honey-sucking Bees" by Wildye, "the first of madrigal writers." "Rule Britannia" was composed by Arne, and originally formed part of his Masque ofAlfred, first performed in 1740 at Cliefden, near Maidenhead. To Arne we are also indebted for the music of "Where the Bee sucks there lurk I." "The Vicar of Bray" is set to a tune originally known as "A Country Garden." "Come unto these yellow sands" we owe to Purcell; "Sigh no more, Ladies" to Stevens; "Home, Sweet Home" to Bishop.
There is a curious melancholy in national music which is generally in the minor key; indeed this holds good with the music of savage races generally. They appear, moreover, to have no love Songs.
Herodotus tells us that during the whole time he was in Egypt he only heard one song, and that was a sad one. My own experience there was the same. Some tendency to melancholy seems indeed inherent in music, and Jessica is not alone in the feeling
"I am never merry when I hear sweet music."
The epitaphs on Musicians have been in some cases very well expressed.Such, for instance, is the following:
"Philips, whose touch harmonious could removeThe pangs of guilty power and hapless love,Rest here, distressed by poverty no more;Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;Sleep, undisturbed, within this peaceful shrine,Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!"
Still more so that on Purcell, whose premature death was so irreparable a loss to English music—
"Here lies Henry Purcell, who left this life, and is gone to thatblessed place, where only his harmony can be exceeded."
The histories of Music contain many curious anecdotes as to the circumstances under which different works have been composed.
Rossini tells us that he wrote the overture to the "Gazza Ladra" on the very day of the first performance, in the upper loft of the La Scala, where he had been confined by the manager under the guard of four scene-shifters, who threw the text out of the window to copyists bit by bit as it was composed. Tartini is said to have composed "Il trillo del Diavolo," considered to be his best work, in a dream. Rossini, speaking of the chorus in G minor in his "Dal tuo stellato soglio," tells us: "While I was writing the chorus in G minor I suddenly dipped my pen into a medicine bottle instead of the ink. I made a blot, and when I dried this with the sand it took the form of a natural, which instantly gave me the idea of the effect the change from G minor to G major would make, and to this blot is all the effect, if any, due." But these of course are exceptional cases.
There are other forms of Music, which though not strictly entitled to the name, are yet capable of giving intense pleasure. To the sportsman what Music can excel that of the hounds themselves. The cawing of rooks has been often quoted as a sound which has no actual beauty of its own, and yet which is delightful from its associations.
There is, however, a true Music of Nature,—the song of birds, the whisper of leaves, the ripple of waters upon a sandy shore, the wail of wind or sea.
There was also an ancient impression that the Heavenly bodies give out music as well as light: the Music of the Spheres is proverbial.
"There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdestBut in his motion like an angel sings,Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims;Such harmony is in immortal soulsBut while this muddy vesture of decayDoth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." [6]
Music indeed often seems as if it scarcely belonged to this material universe, but was
"A toneOf some world far from ours,Where music, and moonlight, and feeling are one." [7]
There is Music in speech as well as in song. Not merely in the voice of those we love, and the charm of association, but in actual melody; as Milton says,
"The Angel ended, and in Adam's earSo charming left his voice, that he awhileThought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear."
It is remarkable that more pains are not taken with the voice in conversation as well as in singing, for
"What plea so tainted and corruptBut, being seasoned with a gracious voice,Obscures the show of evil."
It may be true as a general rule that
"The man that hath no Music in himselfNor is not moved with concord of sweet soundsIs fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;" [8]
but there are some notable exceptions. Dr. Johnson had no love of music. On one occasion, hearing that a certain piece of music was very difficult, he expressed his regret that it was not impossible.
Poets, as might have been expected, have sung most sweetly in praise of song. They have, moreover, done so from the most opposite points of view.
Milton invokes it as a luxury—
"And ever against eating caresLap me in soft Lydian airs;Married to immortal verseSuch as the meeting soul may pierce,In notes with many a winding boutOf linked sweetness long drawn out;With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,The melting voice through mazes running;Untwisting all the chains that tieThe hidden soul of harmony."
Sometimes as a temptation; so Spenser says of Phaedria,
"And she, more sweet than any bird on boughWould oftentimes amongst them bear a part,And strive to passe (as she could well enough)Their native musicke by her skilful art."
Or as an element of pure happiness—
"There is in Souls a sympathy with sounds;And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleasedWith melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;Some chord in unison with what we hearIs touched within us, and the heart replies.How soft the music of those village bells,Falling at intervals upon the earIn cadence sweet, now dying all away,Now pealing loud again and louder stillClear and sonorous, as the gale comes on." [9]
As touching the human heart—
"The soul of music slumbers in the shell,Till waked and kindled by the master's spell,And feeling hearts—touch them but lightly—pourA thousand melodies unheard before." [10]
As an education—
"I have sent books and music there, and allThose instruments with which high spirits callThe future from its cradle, and the pastOut of its grave, and make the present lastIn thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die,Folded within their own eternity." [11]
As an aid to religion—
"As from the power of sacred laysThe spheres began to move,And sung the great Creator's praiseTo all the blessed above,So when the last and dreadful hourThis crumbling pageant shall devour,The trumpet shall be heard on high.The dead shall live, the living die,And music shall untune the sky." [12]
Or again—
"Hark how it falls! and now It steals along,Like distant bells upon the lake at eve.When all is still; and now it grows more strongAs when the choral train their dirges weaveMellow and many voiced; where every closeO'er the old minster roof, in echoing waves reflows.Oh! I am rapt aloft. My spirit soarsBeyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind;Lo! angels lead me to the happy shores,And floating paeans fill the buoyant wind.Farewell! base earth, farewell! my soul is freed."
The power of Music to sway the feelings of Man has never been more cleverly portrayed than by Dryden in "The Feast of Alexander," though the circumstances of the case precluded any reference to the influence of Music in its noblest aspects.
Poets have always attributed to Music—and who would wish to deny it?—a power even over the inanimate forces of Nature. Shakespeare accounts for shooting stars by the attraction of Music:
"The rude sea grew civil at her song,And certain stars shot madly from their spheresTo hear the Sea-maid's music."
Prose writers have also been inspired by Music to their highest eloquence. "Music," says Plato, "is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form." "Music," said Luther, "is a fair and glorious gift from God. I would not for the world renounce my humble share in music." "Music," said Halevy, "is an art that God has given us, in which the voices of all nations may unite their prayers in one harmonious rhythm." Or Carlyle, "Music is a kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into it."
Let me also quote Helmholtz, one of the profoundest exponents of modern science. "Just as in the rolling ocean, this movement, rhythmically repeated, and yet ever-varying, rivets our attention and hurries us along. But whereas in the sea blind physical forces alone are at work, and hence the final impression on the spectator's mind is nothing but solitude—in a musical work of art the movement follows the outflow of the artist's own emotions. Now gently gliding, now gracefully leaping, now violently stirred, penetrated, or laboriously contending with the natural expression of passion, the stream of sound, in primitive vivacity, bears over into the hearer's soul unimagined moods which the artist has overheard from his own, and finally raises him up to that repose of everlasting beauty of which God has allowed but few of his elect favorites to be the heralds."
"There are but seven notes in the scale; make them fourteen," says Newman, "yet what a slender outfit for so vast an enterprise! What science brings so much out of so little? Out of what poor elements does some great master in it create his new world! Shall we say that all this exuberant inventiveness is a mere ingenuity or trick of art, like some game of fashion of the day, without reality, without meaning?… Is it possible that that inexhaustible evolution and disposition of notes, so rich yet so simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so majestic, should be a mere sound, which is gone and perishes? Can it be that those mysterious stirrings of the heart, and keen emotions, and strange yearnings after we know not what, and awful impressions from we know not whence, should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and goes, and begins and ends in itself? it is not so; it cannot be. No; they have escaped from some higher sphere; they are the outpourings of eternal harmony in the medium of created sound; they are echoes from our Home; they are the voices of Angels, or the Magnificat of Saints, or the living laws of Divine Governance, or the Divine Attributes; something are they besides themselves, which we cannot compass, which we cannot utter, though mortal man, and he perhaps not otherwise distinguished above his fellows, has the gift of eliciting them."
Poetry and Music unite in song. From the earliest ages song has been the sweet companion of labor. The rude chant of the boatman floats upon the water, the shepherd sings upon the hill, the milkmaid in the dairy, the ploughman at the plough. Every trade, every occupation, every act and scene of life, has long had its own especial music. The bride went to her marriage, the laborer to his work, the old man to his last long rest, each with appropriate and immemorial music.
Music has been truly described as the mother of sympathy, the handmaid ofReligion, and will never exercise its full effect, as the Emperor CharlesVI. said to Farinelli, unless it aims not merely to charm the ear, but totouch the heart.
There are many who consider that our life at present is peculiarly prosaic and mercenary. I greatly doubt whether that be the case, but if so our need for Music is all the more imperative.
Much as Music has already done for man, we may hope even more from it in the future.
It is, moreover, a joy for all. To appreciate Science or Art requires some training, and no doubt the cultivated ear will more and more appreciate the beauties of Music; but though there are exceptional individuals, and even races, almost devoid of any love of Music, still they are happily but rare.
Good Music, moreover, does not necessarily involve any considerable outlay; it is even now no mere luxury of the rich, and we may hope that as time goes on, it will become more and more the comfort and solace of the poor.
[1] Morris.
[2] Plato.
[3] Crowest.
[4]Rowbotham, History of Music.
[5] Wakefield.
[6] Shakespeare.
[7] Swinburne.
[8] Shakespeare.
[9] Cowper.
[10] Rogers.
[11] Shelley.
[12] Dryden.
"Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee."
"And this our life, exempt from public haunt,Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,Sermons in stones, and good in everything."
We are told in the first chapter of Genesis that at the close of the sixth day "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Not merely good, but very good. Yet how few of us appreciate the beautiful world in which we live!
In preceding chapters I have incidentally, though only incidentally, referred to the Beauties of Nature; but any attempt, however imperfect, to sketch the blessings of life must contain some special reference to this lovely world itself, which the Greeks happily called [Greek: chosmos] —beauty.
Hamerton, in his charming work onLandscape, says, "There are, I believe, four new experiences for which no description ever adequately prepares us, the first sight of the sea, the first journey in the desert, the sight of flowing molten lava, and a walk on a great glacier. We feel in each case that the strange thing is pure nature, as much nature as a familiar English moor, yet so extraordinary that we might be in another planet." But it would, I think, be easier to enumerate the Wonders of Nature for which description can prepare us, than those which are altogether beyond the power of language.
Many of us, however, walk through the world like ghosts, as if we were in it, but not of it. We have "eyes and see not, ears and hear not." To look is much less easy than to overlook, and to be able to see what we do see, is a great gift. Ruskin maintains that "The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way." I do not suppose that his eyes are better than ours, but how much more he sees with them!
We must look before we can expect to see. "To the attentive eye," says Emerson, "each moment of the year has its own beauty; and in the same field it beholds every hour a picture that was never seen before, and shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment and reflect their glory or gloom on the plains beneath."
The love of Nature is a great gift, and if it is frozen or crushed out, the character can hardly fail to suffer from the loss. I will not, indeed, say that a person who does not love Nature is necessarily bad; or that one who does, is necessarily good; but it is to most minds a great help. Many, as Miss Cobbe says, enter the Temple through the gate called Beautiful.
There are doubtless some to whom none of the beautiful wonders of Nature; neither the glories of the rising or setting sun; the magnificent spectacle of the boundless ocean, sometimes so grand in its peaceful tranquillity, at others so majestic in its mighty power; the forests agitated by the storm, or alive with the song of birds; nor the glaciers and mountains—there are doubtless some whom none of these magnificent spectacles can move, whom "all the glories of heaven and earth may pass in daily succession without touching their hearts or elevating their minds." [1]
Such men are indeed pitiable. But, happily, they are exceptions. If we can none of us as yet fully appreciate the beauties of Nature, we are beginning to do so more and more.
For most of us the early summer has a special charm. The very life is luxury. The air is full of scent, and sound, and sunshine, of the song of birds and the murmur of insects; the meadows gleam with golden buttercups, it almost seems as if one could see the grass grow and the buds open; the bees hum for very joy, and the air is full of a thousand scents, above all perhaps that of new-mown hay.
The exquisite beauty and delight of a fine summer day in the country has never perhaps been more truly, and therefore more beautifully, described than by Jefferies in his "Pageant of Summer." "I linger,'" he says, "in the midst of the long grass, the luxury of the leaves, and the song in the very air. I seem as if I could feel all the glowing life the sunshine gives and the south wind calls to being. The endless grass, the endless leaves, the immense strength of the oak expanding, the unalloyed joy of finch and blackbird; from all of them I receive a little…. In the blackbird's melody one note is mine; in the dance of the leaf shadows the formed maze is for me, though the motion is theirs; the flowers with a thousand faces have collected the kisses of the morning. Feeling with them, I receive some, at least, of their fulness of life. Never could I have enough; never stay long enough…. The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things so much the more is snatched from inevitable Time…. These are the only hours that are not wasted-these hours that absorb the soul and fill it with beauty. This is real life, and all else is illusion, or mere endurance. To be beautiful and to be calm, without mental fear, is the ideal of Nature. If I cannot achieve it, at least I can think it."
This chapter is already so long that I cannot touch on the contrast and variety of the seasons, each with its own special charm and interest, as
"The daughters of the yearDance into light and die into the shade." [2]
Our countrymen derive great pleasure from the animal kingdom, in hunting, shooting, and fishing, thus obtaining fresh air and exercise, and being led into much varied and beautiful scenery. Still it will probably ere long be recognized that even from a purely selfish point of view, killing animals is not the way to get the greatest enjoyment from them. How much more interesting would every walk in the country be, if Man would but treat other animals with kindness, so that they might approach us without fear, and we might have the constant pleasure of watching their winning ways. Their origin and history, structure and habits, senses and intelligence, offer an endless field of interest and wonder.
The richness of life is wonderful. Any one who will sit down quietly on the grass and watch a little will be indeed surprised at the number and variety of living beings, every one with a special history of its own, every one offering endless problems of great interest.
"If indeed thy heart were right, then would every creature be to thee a mirror of lifer and a book of holy doctrine." [3]
The study of Natural History has the special advantage of carrying us into the country and the open air.
Not but what towns are beautiful too. They teem with human interest and historical associations.
Wordsworth was an intense lover of nature; yet does he not tell us, in lines which every Londoner will appreciate, that he knew nothing in nature more fair, no calm more deep, than the city of London at early dawn?
"Earth has not anything to show more fair;Dull would he be of soul who could pass byA sight so touching in its majesty:This City now doth, like a garment, wearThe beauty of the morning; silent, bare,Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lieOpen unto the fields, and to the sky;All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.Never did sun more beautifully steepIn his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!The river glideth at its own sweet will:Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;And all that mighty heart is lying still!"
Milton also described London as
"Too blest abode, no loveliness we seeIn all the earth, but it abounds in thee."
But after being some time in a great city, one feels a longing for the country.
"The meanest floweret of the vale,The simplest note that swells the gale,The common sun, the air, the skies,To him are opening paradise." [4]
Here Gray justly places flowers in the first place, for when in any great town we think of the country, flowers seem first to suggest themselves.
"Flowers," says Ruskin, "seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity. Children love them; quiet, tender, contented, ordinary people love them as they grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them gathered. They are the cottager's treasure; and in the crowded town mark, as with a little broken fragment of rainbow the windows of the workers in whose heart rest the covenant of peace." But in the crowded street, or even in the formal garden, flowers always seem, to me at least, as if they were pining for the freedom of the woods and fields, where they can live and grow as they please.
There are flowers for almost all seasons and all places. Flowers for spring, summer, and autumn, while even in the very depth of winter here and there one makes its appearance. There are flowers of the fields and woods and hedgerows, of the seashore and the lake's margin, of the mountain-side up to the very edge of the eternal snow.
And what an infinite variety they present.
"Daffodils,That come before the swallow dares, and takeThe winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,That die unmarried, ere they can beholdBright Phoebus in his strength, a maladyMost incident to maids; bold oxlips andThe crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,The flower-de-luce being one." [5]
Nor are they mere delights to the eye; they are full of mystery and suggestions. They almost seem like enchanted princesses waiting for some princely deliverer. Wordsworth tells us that
"To me the meanest flower that blows can giveThoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
Every color again, every variety of form, has some purpose and explanation.
And yet, lovely as Flowers are, Leaves add even more to the Beauty of Nature. Trees in our northern latitudes seldom own large flowers; and though of course there are notable exceptions, such as the Horse-chestnut, still even in these cases the flowers live only a few days, while the leaves last for months. Every tree indeed is a picture in itself: The gnarled and rugged Oak, the symbol and source of our navy, sacred to the memory of the Druids, the type of strength, the sovereign of British trees; the Chestnut, with its beautiful, tapering, and rich green, glossy leaves, its delicious fruit, and to the durability of which we owe the grand and historic roof of Westminster Abbey.
The Birch is the queen of trees, with her feathery foliage, scarcely visible in spring but turning to leaves of gold in autumn; the pendulous twigs tinged with purple, and silver stems so brilliantly marked with black and white.
The Elm forms grand masses of foliage which turn a beautiful golden yellow in autumn; and the Black Poplar with its perpendicular leaves, rustling and trembling with every breath of wind, towers over most other forest trees.
The Beech enlivens the country by its tender green in spring, rich green in summer, and glorious gold and orange in autumn, set off by the graceful gray stems; and has moreover, such a wealth of leaves that in autumn there are enough not only to clothe the tree itself but to cover the grass underneath.
If the Beech owes much to its delicate gray stem, even more beautiful is the reddish crimson of the Scotch Pines, in such charming contrast with the rich green of the foliage, by which it is shown off rather than hidden; and, with the green spires of the Firs, they keep the woods warm in winter.
Nor must I overlook the smaller trees: the Yew with its thick green foliage; the wild Guelder rose, which lights up the woods in autumn with translucent glossy berries and many-tinted leaves; or the Bryonies, the Briar, the Traveler's Joy, and many another plant, even humbler perhaps, and yet each with some exquisite beauty and grace of its own, so that we must all have sometimes felt our hearts overflowing with gladness and gratitude, as if the woods were full of music—as if
"The woods were filled so full with songThere seemed no room for sense of wrong." [6]
On the whole no doubt, woodlands are less beautiful in the winter: yet even then the delicate tracery of the branches, which cannot be so well seen when they are clothed with leaves, has a special beauty of its own; while every now and then hoar frost or snow settles like silver on every branch and twig, lighting up the forest as if by enchantment in preparation for some fairy festival.