Selections From the Works of John Ruskin Part 8

[62] _Jude_ 13.

[63] _Kings_ xxiii, 18, and _Hosea_ x, 7.

[64] _Iliad_, 3. 243. In the MS. Ruskin notes, "The insurpa.s.sably tender irony in the epithet--'life-giving earth'--of the grave"; and then adds another ill.u.s.tration:--"Compare the hammer-stroke at the close of the [32d] chapter of _Vanity Fair_--'The darkness came down on the field and city, and Amelia was praying for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart. A great deal might have been said about it. The writer is very sorry for Amelia, neither does he want faith in prayer. He knows as well as any of us that prayer must be answered in some sort; but those are the facts. The man and woman sixteen miles apart---one on her knees on the floor, the other on his face in the clay. So much love in her heart, so much lead in his. Make what you can of it." [Cook and Wedderburn.]

[65] The poem may be crudely paraphrased as follows:--

"Quick, Anna, quick! to the mirror! It is late, And I'm to dance at the amba.s.sador's ...

I'm going to the ball ...

"They're faded, see, These ribbons--they belong to yesterday.

Heavens, how all things pa.s.s! Now gracefully hang The blue ta.s.sels from the net that holds my hair.

"Higher!--no, lower!--you get nothing right!...

Now let this sapphire sparkle on my brow.

You're p.r.i.c.king me, you careless thing! That's good!

I love you, Anna dear. How fair I am....

"I hope he'll be there, too--the one I've tried To forget! no use! (Anna, my gown!) he too ...

(O fie, you wicked girl! my necklace, _this?_ These golden beads the Holy Father blessed?)

"He'll be there--Heavens! suppose he takes my hand --I scarce can draw my breath for thinking of it!

And I confess to Father Anselmo To-morrow--how can I ever tell him _all_?...

One last glance at the mirror.

O, I'm sure That they'll adore me at the ball to-night."

Before the fire she stands admiringly.

O G.o.d! a spark has leapt into her gown.

Fire, fire!--O run!--Lost thus when mad with hope?

What, die? and she so fair? The hideous flames Rage greedily about her arms and breast, Envelop her, and leaping ever higher, Swallow up all her beauty, pitiless-- Her eighteen years, alas! and her sweet dream.

Adieu to ball, to pleasure, and to love!

"Poor Constance!" said the dancers at the ball, "Poor Constance!"--and they danced till break of day.

[66] _Isaiah_ xiv, 8.

[67] _Isaiah_ lv, 12.

[68] _Night Thoughts_, 2. 345.

[69] Pastorals: _Summer, or Alexis_, 73 ff., with the omission of two couplets after the first.

[70] From the poem beginning _'T is said that some have died for love_, Ruskin evidently quoted from memory, for there are several verbal slips in the pa.s.sage quoted.

[71] Stanza 16, of Shenstone's twenty-sixth Elegy.

[72] _The Excursion_, 6. 869 ff.

[73] I cannot quit this subject without giving two more instances, both exquisite, of the pathetic fallacy, which I have just come upon, in Maud:--

For a great speculation had fail'd; And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair; And out he walk'd, when the wind like a broken worldling wail'd, And the _flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air._

There has fallen a splendid tear From the pa.s.sion-flower at the gate.

_The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near!"

And the white rose weeps, "She is late."

The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear!"

And the lily whispers, "I wait."_ [Ruskin.]

OF CLa.s.sICAL LANDSCAPE

VOLUME III, CHAPTER 13

My reason for asking the reader to give so much of his time to the examination of the pathetic fallacy was, that, whether in literature or in art, he will find it eminently characteristic of the modern mind; and in the landscape, whether of literature or art, he will also find the modern painter endeavouring to express something which he, as a living creature imagines in the lifeless object, while the cla.s.sical and mediaeval painters were content with expressing the unimaginary and actual qualities of the object itself. It will be observed that, according to the principle stated long ago, I use the words painter and poet quite indifferently, including in our inquiry the landscape of literature, as well as that of painting; and this the more because the spirit of cla.s.sical landscape has hardly been expressed in any other way than by words.

Taking, therefore, this wide field, it is surely a very notable circ.u.mstance, to begin with, that this pathetic fallacy is eminently characteristic of modern painting. For instance, Keats, describing a wave breaking out at sea, says of it:--

Down whose green back the short-lived foam, all h.o.a.r, Bursts gradual, with a wayward indolence.[74]

That is quite perfect, as an example of the modern manner. The idea of the peculiar action with which foam rolls down a long, large wave could not have been given by any other words so well as by this "wayward indolence." But Homer would never have written, never thought of, such words. He could not by any possibility have lost sight of the great fact that the wave, from the beginning to the end of it, do what it might, was still nothing else than salt water; and that salt water could not be either wayward or indolent. He will call the waves "over-roofed," "full-charged," "monstrous," "compact-black,"

"dark-clear," "violet-coloured," "wine-coloured," and so on. But every one of these epithets is descriptive of pure physical nature.

"Over-roofed" is the term he invariably uses of anything--rock, house, or wave--that nods over at the brow; the other terms need no explanation; they are as accurate and intense in truth as words can be, but they never show the slightest feeling of anything animated in the ocean. Black or clear, monstrous or violet-coloured, cold salt water it is always, and nothing but that.

"Well, but the modern writer, by his admission of the tinge of fallacy, has given an idea of something in the action of the wave which Homer could not, and surely, therefore, has made a step in advance? Also there appears to be a degree of sympathy and feeling in the one writer, which there is not in the other; and as it has been received for a first principle that writers are great in, proportion to the intensity of their feelings, and Homer seems to have no feelings about the sea but that it is black and deep, surely in this respect also the modern writer is the greater?"

Stay a moment. Homer _had_ some feeling about the sea; a faith in the animation of it much stronger than Keats's. But all this sense of something living in it, he separates in his mind into a great abstract image of a Sea Power. He never says the waves rage, or the waves are idle. But he says there is somewhat in, and greater than, the waves, which rages, and is idle, and _that_ he calls a G.o.d.

I do not think we ever enough endeavour to enter into what a Greek's real notion of a G.o.d was. We are so accustomed to the modern mockeries of the cla.s.sical religion, so accustomed to hear and see the Greek G.o.ds introduced as living personages, or invoked for help, by men who believe neither in them nor in any other G.o.ds, that we seem to have infected the Greek ages themselves with the breath, and dimmed them with the shade, of our hypocrisy; and are apt to think that Homer, as we know that Pope, was merely an ingenious fabulist; nay, more than this, that all the nations of past time were ingenious fabulists also, to whom the universe was a lyrical drama, and by whom whatsoever was said about it was merely a witty allegory, or a graceful lie, of which the entire upshot and consummation was a pretty statue in the middle of the court, or at the end of the garden.

This, at least, is one of our forms of opinion about Greek faith; not, indeed, possible altogether to any man of honesty or ordinary powers of thought; but still so venomously inherent in the modern philosophy that all the pure lightning of Carlyle cannot as yet quite burn it out of any of us. And then, side by side with this mere infidel folly, stands the bitter short-sightedness of Puritanism, holding the cla.s.sical G.o.d to be either simply an idol,--a block of stone ignorantly, though sincerely, wors.h.i.+pped--or else an actual diabolic or betraying power, usurping the place of G.o.d.

Both these Puritanical estimates of Greek deity are of course to some extent true. The corruption of cla.s.sical wors.h.i.+p is barren idolatry; and that corruption was deepened, and variously directed to their own purposes, by the evil angels. But this was neither the whole, nor the princ.i.p.al part, of Pagan wors.h.i.+p. Pallas was not, in the pure Greek mind, merely a powerful piece of ivory in a temple at Athens; neither was the choice of Leonidas between the alternatives granted him by the oracle, of personal death, or ruin to his country, altogether a work of the Devil's prompting.

What, then, was actually the Greek G.o.d? In what way were these two ideas of human form, and divine power, credibly a.s.sociated in the ancient heart, so as to become a subject of true faith irrespective equally of fable, allegory, superst.i.tious trust in stone, and demoniacal influence?

It seems to me that the Greek had exactly the same instinctive feeling about the elements that we have ourselves; that to Homer, as much as to Casimir de la Vigne,[75] fire seemed ravenous and pitiless; to Homer, as much as to Keats, the sea-wave appeared wayward or idle, or whatever else it may be to the poetical pa.s.sion. But then the Greek reasoned upon this sensation, saying to himself: "I can light the fire, and put it out; I can dry this water up, or drink it. It cannot be the fire or the water that rages, or that is wayward. But it must be something _in_ this fire and _in_ the water, which I cannot destroy by extinguis.h.i.+ng the one, or evaporating the other, any more than I destroy myself by cutting off my finger; _I_ was _in_ my finger,--something of me at least was; I had a power over it and felt pain in it, though I am still as much myself when it is gone. So there may be a power in the water which is not water, but to which the water is as a body;--which can strike with it, move in it, suffer in it, yet not be destroyed with it. This something, this Great Water Spirit, I must not confuse with the waves, which are only its body. _They_ may flow hither and thither, increase or diminish. _That_ must be invisible--imperishable--a G.o.d. So of fire also; those rays which I can stop, and in the midst of which I cast a shadow, cannot be divine, nor greater than I. They cannot feel, but there may be something in them that feels,--a glorious intelligence, as much n.o.bler and more swift than mine, as these rays, which are its body, are n.o.bler and swifter than my flesh;--the spirit of all light, and truth, and melody, and revolving hours."

It was easy to conceive, farther, that such spirits should be able to a.s.sume at will a human form, in order to hold intercourse with men, or to perform any act for which their proper body, whether of fire, earth, or air, was unfitted. And it would have been to place them beneath, instead of above, humanity, if, a.s.suming the form of man, they could not also have tasted his pleasures. Hence the easy step to the more or less material ideas of deities, which are apt at first to shock us, but which are indeed only dishonourable so far as they represent the G.o.ds as false and unholy. It is not the materialism, but the vice, which degrades the conception; for the materialism itself is never positive or complete. There is always some sense of exaltation in the spiritual and immortal body; and of a power proceeding from the visible form through all the infinity of the element ruled by the particular G.o.d. The precise nature of the idea is well seen in the pa.s.sage of the _Iliad_ which describes the river Scamander defending the Trojans against Achilles.[76] In order to remonstrate with the hero, the G.o.d a.s.sumes a human form, which nevertheless is in some way or other instantly recognized by Achilles as that of the river-G.o.d: it is addressed at once as a river, not as a man; and its voice is the voice of a river "out of the deep whirlpools."[77] Achilles refuses to obey its commands; and from the human form it returns instantly into its natural or divine one, and endeavours to overwhelm him with waves.

Vulcan defends Achilles, and sends fire against the river, which suffers in its water-body, till it is able to bear no more. At last even the "nerve of the river," or "strength of the river" (note the expression), feels the fire, and this "strength of the river"

addresses Vulcan in supplications for respite. There is in this precisely the idea of a vital part of the river-body, which acted and felt, and which, if the fire reached, it was death, just as would be the case if it touched a vital part of the human body. Throughout the pa.s.sage the manner of conception is perfectly clear and consistent; and if, in other places, the exact connection between the ruling spirit and the thing ruled is not so manifest, it is only because it is almost impossible for the human mind to dwell long upon such subjects without falling into inconsistencies, and gradually slackening its effort to grasp the entire truth; until the more spiritual part of it slips from its hold, and only the human form of the G.o.d is left, to be conceived and described as subject to all the errors of humanity. But I do not believe that the idea ever weakens itself down to mere allegory. When Pallas is said to attack and strike down Mars, it does not mean merely that Wisdom at that moment prevailed against Wrath. It means that there are, indeed, two great spirits, one entrusted to guide the human soul to wisdom and chast.i.ty, the other to kindle wrath and prompt to battle. It means that these two spirits, on the spot where, and at the moment when, a great contest was to be decided between all that they each governed in man, then and there (a.s.sumed) human form, and human weapons, and did verily and materially strike at each other, until the Spirit of Wrath was crushed. And when Diana is said to hunt with her nymphs in the woods, it does not mean merely, as Wordsworth puts it,[78] that the poet or shepherd saw the moon and stars glancing between the branches of the trees, and wished to say so figuratively. It means that there is a living spirit, to which the light of the moon is a body; which takes delight in glancing between the clouds and following the wild beasts as they wander through the night; and that this spirit sometimes a.s.sumes a perfect human form, and in this form, with real arrows, pursues and slays the wild beasts, which with its mere arrows of moonlight it could not slay; retaining, nevertheless, all the while, its power and being in the moonlight, and in all else that it rules.

There is not the smallest inconsistency or unspirituality in this conception. If there were, it would attach equally to the appearance of the angels to Jacob, Abraham, Joshua, or Manoah.[79] In all those instances the highest authority which governs our own faith requires us to conceive divine power clothed with a human form (a form so real that it is recognized for superhuman only by its "doing wondrously"), and retaining, nevertheless, sovereignty and omnipresence in all the world. This is precisely, as I understand it, the heathen idea of a G.o.d; and it is impossible to comprehend any single part of the Greek mind until we grasp this faithfully, not endeavouring to explain it away in any wise, but accepting, with frank decision and definition, the tangible existence of its deities;--blue-eyed--white-fleshed-- human-hearted,--capable at their choice of meeting man absolutely in his own nature--feasting with him--talking with him--fighting with him, eye to eye, or breast to breast, as Mars with Diomed;[80] or else, dealing with him in a more retired spirituality, as Apollo sending the plague upon the Greeks,[81] when his quiver rattles at his shoulders as he moves, and yet the darts sent forth of it strike not as arrows, but as plague; or, finally, retiring completely into the material universe which they properly inhabit, and dealing with man through that, as Scamander with Achilles, through his waves.

Nor is there anything whatever in the various actions recorded of the G.o.ds, however apparently ign.o.ble, to indicate weakness of belief in them. Very frequently things which appear to us ign.o.ble are merely the simplicities of a pure and truthful age. When Juno beats Diana about the ears with her own quiver,[82] for instance, we start at first, as if Homer could not have believed that they were both real G.o.ddesses.

But what should Juno have done? Killed Diana with a look? Nay, she neither wished to do so, nor could she have done so, by the very faith of Diana's G.o.ddess-s.h.i.+p. Diana is as immortal as herself. Frowned Diana into submission? But Diana has come expressly to try conclusions with her, and will by no means be frowned into submission. Wounded her with a celestial lance? That sounds more poetical, but it is in reality partly more savage and partly more absurd, than Homer. More savage, for it makes Juno more cruel, therefore less divine; and more absurd, for it only seems elevated in tone, because we use the word "celestial," which means nothing. What sort of a thing is a "celestial"

lance? Not a wooden one. Of what then? Of moonbeams, or clouds, or mist. Well, therefore, Diana's arrows were of mist too; and her quiver, and herself, and Juno, with her lance, and all, vanish into mist. Why not have said at once, if that is all you mean, that two mists met, and one drove the other back? That would have been rational and intelligible, but not to talk of celestial lances. Homer had no such misty fancy; he believed the two G.o.ddesses were there in true bodies, with true weapons, on the true earth; and still I ask, what should Juno have done? Not beaten Diana? No; for it is unlady-like.