Page images
PDF
EPUB

the didactic treatment of a subject. The essence of creative art is always the same; namely, interior movement and fusion; while the method of the didactic or prosaic treatment is fixity, limitation. The latter must formulate and define; but the principle of the former is to flow, to suffuse, to mount, to escape. We can conceive of life only as something constantly becoming. It plays It is never in loco, Arrest the wind,

for ever on the verge. but always in transitu. and it is no longer the wind; close your hands upon the light, and behold, it is gone.

The antithesis of art in method is science, as Coleridge has intimated. As the latter aims at the particular, so the former aims at the universal. One would have truth of detail, the other truth of ensemble. The method of science may be symbolised by the straight line, that of art by the curve. The results of science, relatively to its aim, must be parts and pieces; while art must give the whole in every act; not quantitively of course, but qualitively-by the integrity of the spirit in which it works.

The Greek mind will always be the type of the artist mind, mainly because of its practical bent, its healthful objectivity.

The Greek never looked inward, but outward. Criticism and speculation were foreign to him. His head shows a very marked predominance of the motor and perceptive principle over the reflective. The expression of the face is never what we call intellectual or thoughtful, but commanding. His gods are not philosophers, but delight in deeds, justice, rulership

Among the differences between the modern and the classical æsthetic mind is the greater precision and definiteness of the latter. The modern genius is Gothic, and demands in art a certain vagueness and spirituality like that of music, refusing to be grasped and formulated. Hence, for us (and this is undoubtedly an improvement) there must always be something about a poem, or any work of art, besides the evident intellect or plot of it, or what is on its surface, or what it tells. This something is the Invisible, the Undefined, almost Unexpressed, and is perhaps the best part of any work of art, as it is of a noble Personality. To amuse, to exhibit culture, to formulate the æsthetic, or even to excite the emotions, is by no means all-is not even the deepest part. Beside these, and enclosing all, is the general impalpable effect, like a good air,

or the subtle presence of good spirits, wordless, but more potent far than words. As in the superbest person, it is not merely what he or she says, or knows, or shows, or even how they behave, but in the silent qualities like gravitation that insensibly but resistlessly hold us; so in a good poem, or any other expression of art.

EMERSON.

W

I.

HEREIN the race has so far lost and gained in being transplanted from Europe to the New England soil and climate, is well illustrated by the writings of Emerson. There is greater refinement and sublimation of thought, greater clearness and sharpness of outline, greater audacity of statement, but, on the other hand, there is a loss of bulk, of unction, of adipose tissue, and shall we say of power?

Emerson is undoubtedly a master on the New England scale-such a master as the land and race are capable of producing. He stands out clear and undeniable. The national type, as illustrated by that section of the country, is the purest and strongest in him of any yet. He can never suffer eclipse. Compared with the English or German master, he is undoubtedly deficient in viscera, in moral and intellectual stomach;

« PreviousContinue »