Chapter 41

But I must not allow this brief notice of Mr. Pater's new volume to degenerate into an autobiography. I remember being told in America that whenever Margaret Fuller wrote an essay upon Emerson the printers had always to send out to borrow some additional capital 'I's,' and I feel it right to accept this transatlantic warning.

Appreciations, in the fine Latin sense of the word, is the title given by Mr. Pater to his book, which is an exquisite collection of exquisite essays, of delicately wrought works of art--some of them being almost Greek in their purity of outline and perfection of form, others mediaeval in their strangeness of colour and passionate suggestion, and all of them absolutely modern, in the true meaning of the term modernity. For he to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives. To realise the nineteenth century one must realise every century that has preceded it, and that has contributed to its making. To know anything about oneself, one must know all about others. There must be no mood with which one cannot sympathise, no dead mode of life that one cannot make alive. The legacies of heredity may make us alter our views of moral responsibility, but they cannot but intensify our sense of the value of Criticism; for the true critic is he who bears within himself the dreams and ideas and feelings of myriad generations, and to whom no form of thought is alien, no emotional impulse obscure.

Perhaps the most interesting, and certainly the least successful, of the essays contained in the present volume is that on Style. It is the most interesting because it is the work of one who speaks with the high authority that comes from the noble realisation of things nobly conceived. It is the least successful, because the subject is too abstract. A true artist like Mr. Pater is most felicitous when he deals with the concrete, whose very limitations give him finer freedom, while they necessitate more intense vision. And yet what a high ideal is contained in these few pages! How good it is for us, in these days of popular education and facile journalism, to be reminded of the real scholarship that is essential to the perfect writer, who, 'being a true lover of words for their own sake, a minute and constant observer of their physiognomy,' will avoid what is mere rhetoric, or ostentatious ornament, or negligent misuse of terms, or ineffective surplusage, and will be known by his tact of omission, by his skilful economy of means, by his selection and self-restraint, and perhaps above all by that conscious artistic structure which is the expression of mind in style. I think I have been wrong in saying that the subject is too abstract. In Mr. Pater's hands it becomes very real to us indeed, and he shows us how, behind the perfection of a man's style, must lie the passion of a man's soul.

As one passes to the rest of the volume, one finds essays on Wordsworth and on Coleridge, on Charles Lamb and on Sir Thomas Browne, on some of Shakespeare's plays and on the English kings that Shakespeare fashioned, on Dante Rossetti, and on William Morris. As that on Wordsworth seems to be Mr. Pater's last work, so that on the singer of the Defence of Guenevere is certainly his earliest, or almost his earliest, and it is interesting to mark the change that has taken place in his style. This change is, perhaps, at first sight not very apparent. In 1868 we find Mr. Pater writing with the same exquisite care for words, with the same studied music, with the same temper, and something of the same mode of treatment. But, as he goes on, the architecture of the style becomes richer and more complex, the epithet more precise and intellectual. Occasionally one may be inclined to think that there is, here and there, a sentence which is somewhat long, and possibly, if one may venture to say so, a little heavy and cumbersome in movement. But if this be so, it comes from those side-issues suddenly suggested by the idea in its progress, and really revealing the idea more perfectly; or from those felicitous after-thoughts that give a fuller completeness to the central scheme, and yet convey something of the charm of chance; or from a desire to suggest the secondary shades of meaning with all their accumulating effect, and to avoid, it may be, the violence and harshness of too definite and exclusive an opinion. For in matters of art, at any rate, thought is inevitably coloured by emotion, and so is fluid rather than fixed, and, recognising its dependence upon moods and upon the passion of fine moments, will not accept the rigidity of a scientific formula or a theological dogma. The critical pleasure, too, that we receive from tracing, through what may seem the intricacies of a sentence, the working of the constructive intelligence, must not be overlooked. As soon as we have realised the design, everything appears clear and simple. After a time, these long sentences of Mr. Pater's come to have the charm of an elaborate piece of music, and the unity of such music also.

I have suggested that the essay on Wordsworth is probably the most recent bit of work contained in this volume. If one might choose between so much that is good, I should be inclined to say it is the finest also. The essay on Lamb is curiously suggestive; suggestive, indeed, of a somewhat more tragic, more sombre figure, than men have been wont to think of in connection with the author of the Essays of Elia. It is an interesting aspect under which to regard Lamb, but perhaps he himself would have had some difficulty in recognising the portrait given of him. He had, undoubtedly, great sorrows, or motives for sorrow, but he could console himself at a moment's notice for the real tragedies of life by reading any one of the Elizabethan tragedies, provided it was in a folio edition. The essay on Sir Thomas Browne is delightful, and has the strange, personal, fanciful charm of the author of the Religio Medici, Mr. Pater often catching the colour and accent and tone of whatever artist, or work of art, he deals with. That on Coleridge, with its insistence on the necessity of the cultivation of the relative, as opposed to the absolute spirit in philosophy and in ethics, and its high appreciation of the poet's true position in our literature, is in style and substance a very blameless work. Grace of expression and delicate subtlety of thought and phrase, characterise the essays on Shakespeare. But the essay on Wordsworth has a spiritual beauty of its own. It appeals, not to the ordinary Wordsworthian with his uncritical temper, and his gross confusion of ethical and aesthetical problems, but rather to those who desire to separate the gold from the dross, and to reach at the true Wordsworth through the mass of tedious and prosaic work that bears his name, and that serves often to conceal him from us. The presence of an alien element in Wordsworth's art is, of course, recognised by Mr. Pater, but he touches on it merely from the psychological point of view, pointing out how this quality of higher and lower moods gives the effect in his poetry 'of a power not altogether his own, or under his control'; a power which comes and goes when it wills, 'so that the old fancy which made the poet's art an enthusiasm, a form of divine possession, seems almost true of him.' Mr. Pater's earlier essays had their purpurei panni, so eminently suitable for quotation, such as the famous passage on Mona Lisa, and that other in which Botticelli's strange conception of the Virgin is so strangely set forth. From the present volume it is difficult to select any one passage in preference to another as specially characteristic of Mr. Pater's treatment. This, however, is worth quoting at length. It contains a truth eminently suitable for our age:

That the end of life is not action but contemplation--_being_ as distinct from _doing_--a certain disposition of the mind: is, in some shape or other, the principle of all the higher morality. In poetry, in art, if you enter into their true spirit at all, you touch this principle in a measure; these, by their sterility, are a type of beholding for the mere joy of beholding. To treat life in the spirit of art is to make life a thing in which means and ends are identified: to encourage such treatment, the true moral significance of art and poetry. Wordsworth, and other poets who have been like him in ancient or more recent times, are the masters, the experts, in this art of impassioned contemplation. Their work is not to teach lessons, or enforce rules, or even to stimulate us to noble ends, but to withdraw the thoughts for a while from the mere machinery of life, to fix them, with appropriate emotions, on the spectacle of those great facts in man's existence which no machinery affects, 'on the great and universal passions of men, the most general and interesting of their occupations, and the entire world of nature'--on 'the operations of the elements and the appearances of the visible universe, on storm and sunshine, on the revolutions of the seasons, on cold and heat, on loss of friends and kindred, on injuries and resentments, on gratitude and hope, on fear and sorrow.' To witness this spectacle with appropriate emotions is the aim of all culture; and of these emotions poetry like Wordsworth's is a great nourisher and stimulant. He sees nature full of sentiment and excitement; he sees men and women as parts of nature, passionate, excited, in strange grouping and connection with the grandeur and beauty of the natural world:--images, in his own words, 'of men suffering, amid awful forms and powers.'

Certainly the real secret of Wordsworth has never been better expressed. After having read and reread Mr. Pater's essay--for it requires re-reading--one returns to the poet's work with a new sense of joy and wonder, and with something of eager and impassioned expectation. And perhaps this might be roughly taken as the test or touchstone of the finest criticism.

Finally, one cannot help noticing the delicate instinct that has gone to fashion the brief epilogue that ends this delightful volume. The difference between the classical and romantic spirits in art has often, and with much over-emphasis, been discussed. But with what a light sure touch does Mr. Pater write of it! How subtle and certain are his distinctions! If imaginative prose be really the special art of this century, Mr. Pater must rank amongst our century's most characteristic artists. In certain things he stands almost alone. The age has produced wonderful prose styles, turbid with individualism, and violent with excess of rhetoric. But in Mr. Pater, as in Cardinal Newman, we find the union of personality with perfection. He has no rival in his own sphere, and he has escaped disciples. And this, not because he has not been imitated, but because in art so fine as his there is something that, in its essence, is inimitable.

Appreciations, with an Essay on Style. By Walter Pater, Fellow of Brasenose College. (Macmillan and Co.)

PRIMAVERA

(Pall Mall Gazette, May 24, 1890.)

In the summer term Oxford teaches the exquisite art of idleness, one of the most important things that any University can teach, and possibly as the first-fruits of the dreaming in grey cloister and silent garden, which either makes or mars a man, there has just appeared in that lovely city a dainty and delightful volume of poems by four friends. These new young singers are Mr. Laurence Binyon, who has just gained the Newdigate; Mr. Manmohan Ghose, a young Indian of brilliant scholarship and high literary attainments who gives some culture to Christ Church; Mr. Stephen Phillips, whose recent performance of the Ghost in Hamlet at the Globe Theatre was so admirable in its dignity and elocution; and Mr. Arthur Cripps, of Trinity. Particular interest attaches naturally to Mr. Ghose's work. Born in India, of purely Indian parentage, he has been brought up entirely in England, and was educated at St. Paul's School, and his verses show us how quick and subtle are the intellectual sympathies of the Oriental mind, and suggest how close is the bond of union that may some day bind India to us by other methods than those of commerce and military strength.

There is something charming in finding a young Indian using our language with such care for music and words as Mr. Ghose does. Here is one of his songs:

Over thy head, in joyful wanderings Through heaven's wide spaces, free, Birds fly with music in their wings; _And from the blue, rough sea The fishes flash and leap_; There is a life of loveliest things O'er thee, so fast asleep.

In the deep West the heavens grow heavenlier, Eve after eve; _and still The glorious stars remember to appear_; The roses on the hill Are fragrant as before: Only thy face, of all that's dear, I shall see nevermore!

It has its faults. It has a great many faults. But the lines we have set in italics are lovely. The temper of Keats, the moods of Matthew Arnold, have influenced Mr. Ghose, and what better influence could a beginner have? Here are some stanzas from another of Mr. Ghose's poems:

Deep-shaded will I lie, and deeper yet In night, where not a leaf its neighbour knows; Forget the shining of the stars, forget The vernal visitation of the rose; And, far from all delights, prepare my heart's repose.

'O crave not silence thou! too soon, too sure, Shall Autumn come, and through these branches weep: Some birds shall cease, and flowers no more endure; And thou beneath the mould unwilling creep, And silent soon shalt be in that eternal sleep.

'Green still it is, where that fair goddess strays; Then follow, till around thee all be sere. Lose not a vision of her passing face; Nor miss the sound of her soft robes, that here Sweep over the wet leaves of the fast-falling year.'

The second line is very beautiful, and the whole shows culture and taste and feeling. Mr. Ghose ought some day to make a name in our literature.

Mr. Stephen Phillips has a more solemn classical Muse. His best work is his Orestes:

Me in far lands did Justice call, cold queen Among the dead, who, after heat and haste At length have leisure for her steadfast voice, That gathers peace from the great deeps of hell. She call'd me, saying: I heard a cry by night! Go thou, and question not; within thy halls My will awaits fulfilment.

. . . . . .

And she lies there, My mother! ay, my mother now; O hair That once I play'd with in these halls! O eyes That for a moment knew me as I came, And lighten'd up, and trembled into love; The next were darkened by my hand! Ah me! Ye will not look upon me in that world. Yet thou, perchance, art happier, if thou go'st Into some land of wind and drifting leaves, To sleep without a star; but as for me, Hell hungers, and the restless Furies wait.

Milton, and the method of Greek tragedy are Mr. Phillips's influences, and again we may say, what better influences could a young singer have? His verse is dignified, and has distinction.

* * * * *

Mr. Cripps is melodious at times, and Mr. Binyon, Oxford's latest Laureate, shows us in his lyrical ode on Youth that he can handle a difficult metre dexterously, and in this sonnet that he can catch the sweet echoes that sleep in the sonnets of Shakespeare:

I cannot raise my eyelids up from sleep, But I am visited with thoughts of you; Slumber has no refreshment half so deep As the sweet morn, that wakes my heart anew.

I cannot put away life's trivial care, But you straightway steal on me with delight: My purest moments are your mirror fair; My deepest thought finds you the truth most bright

You are the lovely regent of my mind, The constant sky to the unresting sea; Yet, since 'tis you that rule me, I but find A finer freedom in such tyranny.

Were the world's anxious kingdoms govern'd so, Lost were their wrongs, and vanish'd half their woe!

On the whole Primavera is a pleasant little book, and we are glad to welcome it. It is charmingly 'got up,' and undergraduates might read it with advantage during lecture hours.

Primavera: Poems. By Four Authors. (Oxford: B. H. Blackwell.)

INDEX OF AUTHORS AND BOOKS REVIEWED

AITCHISON, JAMES: The Chronicle of Mites

ANONYMOUS: An Author's Love Annals of the Life of Shakespeare Miss Bayle's Romance Rachel Sturm und Drang The Cross and the Grail The Judgment of the City Warring Angels

ARMSTRONG, GEORGE FRANCIS: Stories of Wicklow

ARNOLD, SIR EDWIN: With Sa'di in the Garden

ASHBY-STERRY, J.: The Lazy Minstrel

AUSTIN, ALFRED: Days of the Year Love's Widowhood

Author of Flitters, Tatters, and the Counsellor: Ismay's Children

Author of Lucy: Tiff

Author of Mademoiselle Mori: A Child of the Revolution Under a Cloud

Author of The White Africans: AEonial

BALZAC, HONORE DE: Cesar Birotteau The Duchess of Langeais and Other Stories

BARKER, JOHN THOMAS: The Pilgrimage of Memory

BARR, AMELIA: A Daughter of Fife

BARRETT, FRANK: The Great Hesper

BAUCHE, EMILE: A Statesman's Love

BAYLISS, WYKE: The Enchanted Island

BEAUFORT, RAPHAEL LEDOS DE: Letters of George Sand

BELLAIRS, LADY: Gossips with Girls and Maidens

BLUNT, WILFRID SCAWEN: In Vinculis

BOISSIER, GASTON: Nouvelles Promenades Archeologiques

BOWEN, SIR CHARLES: Virgil in English Verse. Eclogues and AEneid I.-VI.

BOWLING, E. W.: Sagittulae

BRODIE, E. H.: Lyrics of the Sea

BROUGHTON, RHODA: Betty's Visions

BROWNE, PHYLLIS: Mrs. Somerville and Mary Carpenter

BUCHAN, ALEXANDER: Joseph and His Brethren

BUCHANAN, ROBERT: That Winter Night

BURNS, DAWSON: Oliver Cromwell

CAINE, HALL: Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

CAIRNS, WILLIAM: A Day after the Pair

CALDECOTT, RANDOLPH: Gleanings from the Graphic

CAMERON, MRS. HENRY LOVETT: A Life's Mistake

CARNARVON, EARL OF: The Odyssey of Homer. Books I.-XII.

CARPENTER, EDWARD: Chants of Labour

CATTY, CHARLES: Poems in the Modern Spirit

CESARESCO, COUNTESS EVELYN MARTINENGO: Essays in the Study of Folk-Songs

CHAPMAN, ELIZABETH RACHEL: The New Purgatory

CHETWYND, HON. MRS. HENRY: Mrs. Dorriman

CHRISTIAN, H. R. H. PRINCESS: Memoirs of Wilhelmine, Margravine of Baireuth

COCKLE, J.: Guilt (Mullner)

COLE, ALAN: Embroidery and Lace (Ernest Lefebure)

COLERIDGE, HON. STEPHEN: Demetrius

COLLIER, HON. JOHN: A Manual of Oil Painting

COLVIN, SIDNEY: Keats

CONWAY, HUGH: A Cardinal Sin

COOPER, ELISE: The Queen's Innocent

CORKRAN, ALICE: Margery Morton's Girlhood Meg's Friend

CRAIK, MRS.: Poems

CRANE, WALTER: Flora's Feast

CRAWFORD, JOHN MARTIN: The Kalevala, the Epic Poem of Finland

CUMBERLAND, STUART: The Vasty Deep

CURTIS, ELLA: A Game of Chance

CURZON, G.: Delamere

DALZIEL, GEORGE: Pictures in the Fire

DAVIS, CORA M.: Immortelles

DAY, RICHARD: Poems

DENMAN, HON. G.: The Story of the Kings of Rome in Verse

DENNING, JOHN RENTON: Poems and Songs

DILKE, LADY: Art in the Modern State

DIXON, CONSTANCE E.: The Chimneypiece of Bruges

DOBELL, MRS. HORACE: In the Watches of the Night

DOUDNEY, SARAH: Under False Colours

DOVETON, F. B.: Sketches in Prose and Verse

DUFFY, BELLA: Life of Madame de Stael

DURANT, HELOISE: Dante: a Dramatic Poem

DYER, REV. A. SAUNDERS: The Poems of Madame de la Mothe Guyon

EDMONDS, E. M.: Greek Lays, Idylls, Legends, etc. Mary Myles

EVANS, W.: Caesar Borgia

EVELYN, JOHN: Life of Mrs. Godolphin

FANE, VIOLET: Helen Davenant

FENN, GEORGE MANVILLE: A Bag of Diamonds The Master of the Ceremonies

FIELD, MICHAEL: Canute the Great

FITZ GERALD, CAROLINE: Venetia Victrix

FOSKET, EDWARD: Poems

FOSTER, DAVID SKAATS: Rebecca the Witch

FOUR AUTHORS: Primavera

FROUDE, J, A.: The Two Chiefs of Dunboy

FURLONG, ATHERTON: Echoes of Memory

GALLENGA, A.: Jenny Jennet

GIBERNE, AGNES: Ralph Hardcastle's Will

GILES, HERBERT A: Chuang Tzu

GLENESSA: The Discovery

GOODCHILD, JOHN A.: Somnia Medici. Second Series

GORDON, ADAM LINDSAY: Poems

GRANT, JOHN CAMERON: Vanclin

GRAVES, A. P.: Father O'Flynn and Other Irish Lyrics

GRIFFIN, EDWIN ELLIS: Vortigern and Rowena

GRIFFITHS, WILLIAM: Sonnets and Other Poems

HAMILTON, IAN: The Ballad of Hadji

HARDINGE, W. M.: The Willow Garth

HARDY, A. J.: How to be Happy Though Married

HARRISON, CLIFFORD: In Hours of Leisure

HARTE, BRET: Cressy

HAYES, ALFRED: David Westren

HEARTSEASE: God's Garden

HENLEY, WILLIAM ERNEST: A Book of Verses

HEYWOOD, J. C.: Salome

HOLE, W. G.: Procris

HOPKINS, TIGHE: 'Twixt Love and Duty

HOUSTON, MRS.: A Heart on Fire

HUNT, MRS. ALFRED: That Other Person

IRWIN, H. C.: Rhymes and Renderings

KEENE, H. E.: Verses: Translated and Original

KELLY, JAMES: Poems

K. E. V.: The Circle of Saints The Circle of Seasons

KINGSFORD, DR. ANNA.: Dreams and Dream-Stories

KNIGHT, JOSEPH: Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

KNIGHT, WILLIAM: Wordsworthiana

LAFFAN, MRS. DE COURCY: A Song of Jubilee

LANGRIDGE, REV. FREDERICK: Poor Folks' Lives

LAUDER, SIR THOMAS: The Wolfe of Badenoch

LEE, MARGARET: Faithful and Unfaithful

LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD: Volumes in Folio

LEVY, AMY: The Romance of a Shop

LINDSAY, LADY: Caroline

LINTON, W. J.: Poems and Translations

LLOYD, J. SALE: Scamp

LYALL, EDNA: In the Golden Days

MACEWEN, CONSTANCE: Soap

MACK, ROBERT ELLICE: Treasures of Art and Song

MACKENZIE, GEORGE: Highland Daydreams

MACQUOID, KATHERINE S.: Louisa

MAHAFFY, J. P.: Greek Life and Thought The Principles of the Art of Conversation

MARTIN, FRANCES: Life of Elizabeth Gilbert

MARZIALS, FRANK T.: Life of Charles Dickens

MASSON, GUSTAVE: George Sand (Elme Caro)

MATTHEWS, BRANDER: Pen and Ink

MCKIM, JOSEPH: Poems

MOLESWORTH, MRS.: A Christmas Posy The Third Miss St. Quentin

MONTGOMERY, FLORENCE: The Fisherman's Daughter

MORINE, GEORGE: Poems

MORRIS, WILLIAM: A Tale of the House of the Wolfings The Odyssey of Homer done into English Verse

MOULTON, LOUISE CHANDLER: Ourselves and Our Neighbours

MULHOLLAND, ROSA: Gianetta Marcella Grace

MUNSTER, LADY: Dorinda

NADEN, CONSTANCE: A Modern Apostle

NASH, CHARLES: The Story of the Cross

NESBIT, E.: Lays and Legends Leaves of Life

NOEL, HON. RODEN: Essays on Poetry and Poets

NOEL, LADY AUGUSTA: Hithersea Mere

OLIPHANT, MRS.: Makers of Venice

OLIVER, PEN: All But

OUIDA: Guilderoy

OWEN, EVELYN: Driven Home

OXONIENSIS: Juvenal in Piccadilly

PATER, WALTER: Appreciations, with an Essay on Style Imaginary Portraits

PEACOCK, THOMAS BOWER: Poems of the Plain and Songs of the Solitudes

PERKS, MRS. J. HARTLEY: From Heather Hills

PFEIFFER, EMILY: Women and Work

PHILLIMORE, MISS: Studies in Italian Literature

PIERCE, J.: Stanzas and Sonnets

PIMLICO, LORD: The Excellent Mystery

PLEYDELL-BOUVERIE, EDWARD OLIVER: J. S.; or, Trivialities

PRESTON, HARRIET WATERS: A Year in Eden

PREVOST, FRANCIS: Fires of Green Wood

QUILTER, HARRY: Sententiae Artis

RAFFALOVICH, MARK ANDRE: Tuberose and Meadowsweet

RISTORI, MADAME: Etudes et Souvenirs

RITCHIE, DAVID: Darwinism and Politics

ROBERTSON, ERIC S.: Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Children of the Poets

ROBERTSON, J. LOGIE: Poems by Allan Ramsay

ROBINS, G. M.: Keep My Secret

ROBINSON, A. MARY F.: Poems, Ballads, and a Garden Play

ROBINSON, MABEL: The Plan of Campaign

RODD, RENNELL: The Unknown Madonna

ROSS, JAMES: Seymour's Inheritance The Wind and Six Sonnets

ROSS, JANET: Three Generations of English Women

ROSSETTI, WILLIAM MICHAEL: Life of John Keats

RUETE, PRINCESS EMILY: Memoirs of an Arabian Princess

SAFFORD, MARY J.: Aphrodite (Ernst Eckstein)

SAINTSBURY, GEORGE: George Borrow

SARASVATI, PUNDITA RAMABAI: The High-Caste Hindu Woman

SCHWARTZ, J. M. W.: Nivalis

SHARP, ISAAC: Saul of Tarsus

SHARP, MRS. WILLIAM: Women's Voices