Val d'Arno Part 10

I do not know whether you yet feel that the position of your boat on the river also depends entirely on the reign of law, or whether, as your churches and concert-rooms are privileged in the possession of organs blown by steam, you are learning yourselves to sing by gas, and expect the Dies Irae to the announced by a steam-trumpet. But I can very positively a.s.sure you that, in my poor domain of imitative art, not all the mechanical or gaseous forces of the world, nor all the laws of the universe, will enable you either to see a colour, or draw a line, without that singular force anciently called the soul, which it was the function of the Greek to discipline in the duty of the servants of G.o.d, and of the Goth to lead into the liberty of His children.

206. But in one respect I wish you were more conscious of the existence of law than you appear to be. The difference which I have pointed out to you as existing between these great nations, exists also between two orders of intelligence among men, of which the one is usually called Cla.s.sic, the other Romantic. Without entering into any of the fine distinctions between these two sects, this broad one is to be observed as constant: that the writers and painters of the Cla.s.sic school set down nothing but what is known to be true, and set it down in the perfectest manner possible in their way, and are thenceforward authorities from whom there is no appeal. Romantic writers and painters, on the contrary, express themselves under the impulse of pa.s.sions which may indeed lead them to the discovery of new truths, or to the more delightful arrangement or presentment of things already known: but their work, however brilliant or lovely, remains imperfect, and without authority. It is not possible, of course, to separate these two orders of men trenchantly: a cla.s.sic writer may sometimes, whatever his care, admit an error, and a romantic one may reach perfection through enthusiasm. But, practically, you may separate the two for your study and your education; and, during your youth, the business of us your masters is to enforce on you the reading, for school work, only of cla.s.sical books: and to see that your minds are both informed of the indisputable facts they contain, and accustomed to act with the infallible accuracy of which they set the example.

207. I have not time to make the calculation, but I suppose that the daily literature by which we now are princ.i.p.ally nourished, is so large in issue that though St. John's "even the world itself could not contain the books which should be written" may be still hyperbole, it is nevertheless literally true that the world might be _wrapped_ in the books which are written; and that the sheets of paper covered with type on any given subject, interesting to the modern mind, (say the prospects of the Claimant,) issued in the form of English morning papers during a single year, would be enough literally to pack the world in.

208. Now I will read you fifty-two lines of a cla.s.sical author, which, once well read and understood, contain more truth than has been told you all this year by this whole globe's compa.s.s of print.

Fifty-two lines, of which you will recognize some as hackneyed, and see little to admire in others. But it is not possible to put the statements they contain into better English, nor to invalidate one syllable of the statements they contain. [1]

[Footnote 1: 'The Deserted Village,' line 251 to 302.]

209. Even those, and there may be many here, who would dispute the truth of the pa.s.sage, will admit its exquisite distinctness and construction.

If it be untrue, that is merely because I have not been taught by my modern education to recognize a cla.s.sical author; but whatever my mistakes, or yours, may be, there _are_ certain truths long known to all rational men, and indisputable. You may add to them, but you cannot diminish them. And it is the business of a University to determine what books of this kind exist, and to enforce the understanding of them.

210. The cla.s.sical and romantic arts which we have now under examination therefore consist,--the first, in that which represented, under whatever symbols, truths respecting the history of men, which it is proper that all should know; while the second owes its interest to pa.s.sionate impulse or incident. This distinction holds in all ages, but the distinction between the franchise of Northern, and the constancy of Byzantine, art, depends partly on the unsystematic play of emotion in the one, and the appointed sequence of known fact or determined judgment in the other.

You will find in the beginning of M. Didron's book, already quoted, an admirable a.n.a.lysis of what may be called the cla.s.sic sequence of Christian theology, as written in the sculpture of the Cathedral of Chartres. You will find in the treatment of the facade of Orvieto the beginning of the development of pa.s.sionate romance,--the one being grave sermon writing; the other, cheerful romance or novel writing: so that the one requires you to think, the other only to feel or perceive; the one is always a parable with a meaning, the other only a story with an impression.

211. And here I get at a result concerning Greek art, which is very sweeping and wide indeed. That it is all parable, but Gothic, as distinct from it, literal. So absolutely does this hold, that it reaches down to our modern school of landscape. You know I have always told you Turner belonged to the Greek school. Precisely as the stream of blood coming from under the throne of judgment in the Byzantine mosaic of Torcello is a sign of condemnation, his scarlet clouds are used by Turner as a sign of death; and just as on an Egyptian tomb the genius of death lays the sun down behind the horizon, so in his Cephalus and Procris, the last rays of the sun withdraw from the forest as the nymph expires.

And yet, observe, both the cla.s.sic and romantic teaching may be equally earnest, only different in manner. But from cla.s.sic art, unless you understand it, you may get nothing; from romantic art, even if you don't understand it, you get at least delight.

212. I cannot show the difference more completely or fortunately than by comparing Sir Walter Scott's type of libertas, with the franchise of Chartres Cathedral, or Debonnairete of the Painted Chamber.

At Chartres, and Westminster, the high birth is shown by the crown; the strong bright life by the flowing hair; the fort.i.tude by the conqueror's s.h.i.+eld; and the truth by the bright openness of the face:

"She was not brown, nor dull of hue, But white as snowe, fallen newe."

All these are symbols, which, if you cannot read, the image is to you only an uninteresting stiff figure. But Sir Walter's Franchise, Diana Vernon, interests you at once in personal aspect and character. She is no symbol to you; but if you acquaint yourself with her perfectly, you find her utter frankness, governed by a superb self-command; her spotless truth, refined by tenderness; her fiery enthusiasm, subdued by dignity; and her fearless liberty, incapable of doing wrong, joining to fulfil to you, in sight and presence, what the Greek could only teach by signs.

213. I have before noticed--though I am not sure that you have yet believed my statement of it--the significance of Sir Walter's as of Shakspeare's names; Diana 'Vernon, semper viret,' gives you the conditions of purity and youthful strength or spring which imply the highest state of libertas. By corruption of the idea of purity, you get the modern heroines of London Journal--or perhaps we may more fitly call it 'c.o.c.kney-daily'--literature. You have one of them in perfection, for instance, in Mr. Charles Reade's 'Griffith Gaunt'--"Lithe, and vigorous, and one with her great white gelding;" and liable to be entirely changed in her mind about the destinies of her life by a quarter of an hour's conversation with a gentleman unexpectedly handsome; the hero also being a person who looks at people whom he dislikes, with eyes "like a dog's in the dark;" and both hero and heroine having souls and intellects also precisely corresponding to those of a dog's in the dark, which is indeed the essential picture of the practical English national mind at this moment,--happy if it remains doggish,--Circe not usually being content with changing people into dogs only. For the Diana Vernon of the Greek is Artemis Laphria, who is friendly to the dog; not to the swine. Do you see, by the way, how perfectly the image is carried out by Sir Walter in putting his Diana on the border country? "Yonder blue hill is in Scotland," she says to her cousin,--not in the least thinking less of him for having been concerned, it may be, in one of Bob Roy's forays.

And so gradually you get the idea of Norman franchise carried out in the free-rider or free-booter; not safe from degradation on that side also; but by no means of swinish temper, or foraging, as at present the British speculative public, only with the snout.

214. Finally, in the most soft and domestic form of virtue, you have Wordsworth's ideal:

"Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty."

The distinction between these northern types of feminine virtue, and the figures of Alcestis, Antigone, or Iphigenia, lies deep in the spirit of the art of either country, and is carried out into its most unimportant details. We shall find in the central art of Florence at once the thoughtfulness of Greece and the gladness of England, a.s.sociated under images of monastic severity peculiar to herself.

And what Diana Vernon is to a French ballerine dancing the Cancan, the 'libertas' of Chartres and Westminster is to the 'liberty' of M. Victor Hugo and Mr. John Stuart Mill.

LECTURE IX.

THE TYRRHENE SEA.

215. We may now return to the points of necessary history, having our ideas fixed within accurate limits as to the meaning of the word Liberty; and as to the relation of the pa.s.sions which separated the Guelph and Ghibelline to those of our own days.

The Lombard or Guelph league consisted, after the accession of Florence, essentially of the three great cities--Milan, Bologna, and Florence; the Imperial or Ghibelline league, of Verona, Pisa, and Siena. Venice and Genoa, both nominally Guelph, are in furious contention always for sea empire while Pisa and Genoa are in contention, not so much for empire, as honour. Whether the trade of the East was to go up the Adriatic, or round by the Gulf of Genoa, was essentially a mercantile question; but whether, of the two ports in sight of each other, Pisa or Genoa was to be the Queen of the Tyrrhene Sea, was no less distinctly a personal one than which of two rival beauties shall preside at a tournament.

216. This personal rivalry, so far as it was separated from their commercial interests, was indeed mortal, but not malignant. The quarrel was to be decided to the death, but decided with honour; and each city had four observers permittedly resident in the other, to give account of all that was done there in naval invention and armament.

217. Observe, also, in the year 1251, when we quitted our history, we left Florence not only Guelph, as against the Imperial power, (that is to say, the body of her knights who favoured the Pope and Italians, in dominion over those who favoured Manfred and the Germans), but we left her also definitely with her ap.r.o.n thrown over her s.h.i.+eld; and the tradesmen and craftsmen in authority over the knight, whether German or Italian, Papal or Imperial.

That is in 1251. Now in these last two lectures I must try to mark the gist of the history of the next thirty years. The Thirty Years' War, this, of the middle ages, infinitely important to all ages; first observe, between Guelph and Ghibelline, ending in the humiliation of the Ghibelline; and, secondly, between s.h.i.+eld and Ap.r.o.n, or, if you like better, between Spear and Hammer, ending in the breaking of the Spear.

218. The first decision of battle, I say, is that between Guelph and Ghibelline, headed by two men of precisely oppposite characters, Charles of Anjou and Manfred of Suabia. That I may be able to define the opposition of their characters intelligibly, I must first ask your attention to some points of general scholars.h.i.+p. I said in my last lecture that, in this one, it would be needful for us to consider what piety was, if we happened not to know; or worse than that, it may be, not instinctively to feel. Such want of feeling is indeed not likely in you, being English-bred; yet as it is the modern cant to consider all such sentiment as useless, or even shameful, we shall be in several ways advantaged by some examination of its nature. Of all cla.s.sical writers, Horace is the one with whom English gentlemen have on the average most sympathy; and I believe, therefore, we shall most simply and easily get at our point by examining the piety of Horace.

219. You are perhaps, for the moment, surprised, whatever might have been admitted of aeneas, to hear Horace spoken of as a pious person. But of course when your attention is turned to the matter you will recollect many lines in which the word 'pietas' occurs, of which you have only hitherto failed to allow the force because you supposed Horace did not mean what he said.

220. But Horace always and altogether means what he says. It is just because--whatever his faults may have been--he was not a hypocrite, that English gentlemen are so fond of him. "Here is a frank fellow, anyhow,"

they say, "and a witty one." Wise men know that he is also wise. True men know that he is also true. But pious men, for want of attention, do not always know that he is pious.

One great obstacle to your understanding of him is your having been forced to construct Latin verses, with introduction of the word 'Jupiter' always, at need, when you were at a loss for a dactyl. You always feel as if Horace only used it also when he wanted a dactyl.

221. Get quit of that notion wholly. All immortal writers speak out of their hearts. Horace spoke out of the abundance of his heart, and tells you precisely what he is, as frankly as Montaigne. Note then, first, how modest he is: "Ne parva Tyrrhenum per aequor, vela darem;--Operosa parvus, carmina fingo." Trust him in such words; he absolutely means them; knows thoroughly that he cannot sail the Tyrrhene Sea,--knows that he cannot float on the winds of Matinum,--can only murmur in the sunny hollows of it among the heath.

But note, secondly, his pride: "Exegi monumentum sere perennius." He is not the least afraid to say that. He did it; knew he had done it; said he had done it; and feared no charge of arrogance.

222. Note thirdly, then, his piety, and accept his a.s.sured speech of it: "Dis pietas mea, et Musa, cordi est." He is perfectly certain of that also; serenely tells you so; and you had better believe him. Well for you, if you can believe him; for to believe him, you must understand him first; and I can tell you, you won't arrive at that understanding by looking out the word 'pietas' in your White-and-Riddle. If you do you will find those tiresome contractions, Etym. Dub., stop your inquiry very briefly, as you go back; if you go forward, through the Italian pieta, you will arrive presently in another group of ideas, and end in misericordia, mercy, and pity. You must not depend on the form of the word; you must find out what it stands for in Horace's mind, and in Virgil's. More than race to the Roman; more than power to the statesman; yet helpless beside the grave,--"Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te, Rest.i.tvet pietas."

Nay, also what it stands for as an attribute, not only of men, but of G.o.ds; nor of those only as merciful, but also as avenging. Against aeneas himself, Dido invokes the waves of the Tyrrhene Sea, "si quid pia numina possunt." Be a.s.sured there is no getting at the matter by dictionary or context. To know what love means, you must love; to know what piety means, you must be pious.

223. Perhaps you dislike the word, now, from its vulgar use. You may have another if you choose, a metaphorical one,--close enough it seems to Christianity, and yet still absolutely distinct from it,--[Greek: *christos*]. Suppose, as you watch the white bloom of the olives of Val d'Arno and Val di Nievole, which modern piety and economy suppose were grown by G.o.d only to supply you with fine Lucca oil, you were to consider, instead, what answer you could make to the Socratio question, [Greek: *pothen un tis tovto to chrisma labot*]. [1]

[Footnote 1: Xem. Conviv., ii.]

224. I spoke to you first of Horace's modesty. All piety begins in modesty. You must feel that you are a very little creature, and that you had better do as you are bid. You will then begin to think what you are bid to do, and who bids it. And you will find, unless you are very unhappy indeed, that there is always a quite clear notion of right and wrong in your minds, which you can either obey or disobey, at your pleasure. Obey it simply and resolutely; it will become clearer to you every day: and in obedience to it, you will find a sense of being in harmony with nature, and at peace with G.o.d, and all His creatures. You will not understand how the peace comes, nor even in what it consists.

It is the peace that pa.s.ses understanding;--it is just as visionary and imaginative as love is, and just as real, and just as necessary to the life of man. It is the only source of true cheerfulness, and of true common sense; and whether you believe the Bible, or don't,--or believe the Koran, or don't--or believe the Vedas, or don't--it will enable you to believe in G.o.d, and please Him, and be such a part of the [Greek: *eudokia*] of the universe as your nature fits you to be, in His sight, faithful in awe to the powers that are above you, and gracious in regard to the creatures that are around.

225. I will take leave on this head to read one more piece of Carlyle, bearing much on present matters. "I hope also they will attack earnestly, and at length extinguish and eradicate, this idle habit of 'accounting for the moral sense,' as they phrase it. A most singular problem;--instead of bending every thought to have more, and ever more, of 'moral sense,' and therewith to irradiate your own poor soul, and all its work, into something of divineness, as the one thing needful to you in this world! A very futile problem that other, my friends; futile, idle, and far worse; leading to what moral ruin, you little dream of!

The moral sense, thank G.o.d, is a thing you never will 'account for;'

that, if you could think of it, is the perennial miracle of man; in all times, visibly connecting poor transitory man, here on this bewildered earth, with his Maker who is eternal in the heavens. By no greatest happiness principle, greatest n.o.bleness principle, or any principle whatever, will you make that in the least clearer than it already is;--forbear, I say, or you may darken it away from you altogether!

'Two things,' says the memorable Kant, deepest and most logical of metaphysical thinkers, 'two things strike me dumb: the infinite starry heavens; and the sense of right and wrong in man.' Visible infinites, both; say nothing of them; don't try to 'account for them;' for you can say nothing wise."

226. Very briefly, I must touch one or two further relative conditions in this natural history of the soul. I have asked you to take the metaphorical, but distinct, word '[Greek: *chrisma*]' rather than the direct but obscure one 'piety'; mainly because the Master of your religion chose the metaphorical epithet for the perpetual one of His own life and person.

But if you will spend a thoughtful hour or two in reading the scripture, which pious Greeks read, not indeed on daintily printed paper, but on daintily painted clay,--if you will examine, that is to say, the scriptures of the Athenian religion, on their Pan-Athenaic vases, in their faithful days, you will find that the gift of the literal [Greek: *chrisma*], or anointing oil, to the victor in the kingly and visible contest of life, is signed always with the image of that spirit or G.o.ddess of the air who was the source of their invisible life. And let me, before quitting this part of my subject, give you one piece of what you will find useful counsel. If ever from the right apothecary, or [Greek: muropolaes]', you get any of that [Greek: *chrisma*],--don't be careful, when you set it by, of looking for dead dragons or dead dogs in it. But look out for the dead flies.

227. Again; remember, I only quote St. Paul as I quote Xenophon to you; but I expect you to get some good from both. As I want you to think what Xenophon means by '[Greek: *manteia*],' so I want you to consider also what St. Paul means by '[Greek: *prophetia*].' He tells you to prove all things,--to hold fast what is good, and not to despise 'prophesyings.'

228. Now it is quite literally probable, that this world, having now for some five hundred years absolutely refused to do as it is plainly bid by every prophet that ever spoke in any nation, and having reduced itself therefore to Saul's condition, when he was answered neither by Urim nor by prophets, may be now, while you sit there, receiving necromantic answers from the witch of Endor. But with that possibility you have no concern. There is a prophetic power in your own hearts, known to the Greeks, known to the Jews, known to the Apostles, and knowable by you.

If it is now silent to you, do not despise it by tranquillity under that privation; if it speaks to you, do not despise it by disobedience.

229. Now in this broad definition of Pietas, as reverence to sentimental law, you will find I am supported by all cla.s.sical authority and use of this word. For the particular meaning of which I am next about to use the word Religion, there is no such general authority, nor can there be, for any limited or accurate meaning of it. The best authors use the word in various senses; and you must interpret each writer by his own context. I have myself continually used the term vaguely. I shall endeavour, henceforward, to use it under limitations which, willing always to accept, I shall only transgress by carelessness, or compliance with some particular use of the word by others. The power in the word, then, which I wish you now to notice, is in its employment with respect to doctrinal divisions. You do not say that one man is of one piety, and another of another; but you do, that one man is of one religion, and another of another.