chapter II of _Literature and the American College_.
[14] _Eth. Nic._, 1179 a.
[15] I scarcely need remind the reader that the extant Aristotelian writings which have repelled so many by their form were almost certainly not meant for publication. For the problems raised by these writings as well as for the mystery in the method of their early transmission see R. Shute, _History of the Aristotelian Writings_ (1888). The writings which Aristotle prepared for publication and which Cicero describes as a “golden stream of speech” (_Acad._ II, 38, 119) have, with the possible exception of the recently recovered _Constitution of Athens_, been lost.
[16] See his _Essai sur le genre dramatique sérieux_.
[17] Quoted in Grimm’s Dictionary.
[18] Ex lectione quorundam romanticorum, i.e. librorum compositorum in gallico poeticorum de gestis militaribus, in quibus maxima pars fabulosa est.
[19] Perhaps the most romantic lines in English are found in one of Camillo’s speeches in _The Winter’s Tale_ (IV, 4):
a wild dedication of yourselves To unpath’d waters, undream’d shores.
This “wild dedication” is, it should be noted, looked upon by Camillo with disfavor.
[20] _Pepys’s Diary_, 13 June, 1666.
[21] Thomas Shadwell, Preface to the _Sullen Lovers_, 1668.
[22] _Spectator_, 142, by Steele.
[23] Pope, 2d Epistle, _Of the Character of Women_.
[24] Cf. _Revue d’hist. litt._, XVIII, 440. For the Early French history of the word, see also the article _Romantique_ by A. François in _Annales de la Soc. J.-J. Rousseau_, V, 199-236.
[25] First edition, 1698; second edition, 1732.
[26] Cf. his _Elégie à une dame_.
Mon âme, imaginant, n’a point la patience De bien polir les vers et ranger la science. La règle me déplaît, j’écris confusément: Jamais un bon esprit ne fait rien qu’aisément. … Je veux faire des vers qui ne soient pas contraints … Chercher des lieux secrets où rein ne me déplaise, Méditer à loisir, rêver tout à mon aise, Employer toute une heure à me mirer dans l’eau, Ouïr, comme en songeant, la course d’un ruisseau. Ecrire dans un bois, m’interrompre, me taire, Composer un quatrain sans songer à le faire.
[27] _Caractères_, ch. V.
[28] His psychology of the memory and imagination is still Aristotelian. Cf. E. Wallace, _Aristotle’s Psychology_, Intr., lxxxvi-cvii.
[29] _An Essay upon Poetry_ (1682).
[30] The French Academy discriminates in its _Sentiments sur le Cid_ between two types of probability, “ordinary” and “extraordinary.” Probability in general is more especially reserved for action. In the domain of action “ordinary” probability and decorum run very close together. It is, for example, both indecorous and improbable that Chimène in the _Cid_ should marry her father’s murderer.
[31] In his _Preface_ to Shakespeare.
[32] For a similar distinction in Aristotle see _Eth. Nic._, 1143 b.
[33] The Platonic and Aristotelian reason or mind (νοῦς) contains an element of intuition.
[34] In his _Lettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles_.
[35] _Rousseau contre Molière_, 238.
[36] _Letters on Chivalry and Romance._
[37] See verses prefixed to Congreve’s _Double-Dealer_.
[38]
Change l’état douteux dans lequel tu nous ranges, Nature élève-nous à la clarté des anges, Ou nous abaisse au sens des simples animaux.
_Sonnet_ (1657?).
[39] See, for example, A. Gerard’s _Essay on Genius_ (1774), _passim_.
[40] The English translation of this part of the _Critique of Judgment_, edited by J. C. Meredith, is useful for its numerous illustrative passages from these theorists (Young, Gerard, Duff, etc.).
[41] Mrs. Katharine Fullerton Gerould has dealt interestingly with this point in an article in the _Unpopular Review_ (October, 1914) entitled _Tabu and Temperament_.
[42] See _Biographia literaria_, ch. XXII.
[43] This message came to him in any case straight from German romanticism. See Walzel, _Deutsche Romantik_, 22, 151.
[44] “De tous les corps et esprits, on n’en saurait tirer un mouvement de vraie charité; cela est impossible, et d’un autre ordre, surnaturel.” _Penseés_, Article XVII. “Charité,” one should recollect, here has its traditional meaning--the love, not of man, but of God.
[45] See poem, _Ce siècle avait deux ans_ in the _Feuilles d’Automne_.
[46] For amusing details, see L. Maigron, _Le Romantisme et la mode_ (1911), ch. V.
[47] For Disraeli see Wilfrid Ward, _Men and Matters_, 54 ff. Of Bulwer-Lytton at Nice about 1850 Princess von Racowitza writes as follows in her _Autobiography_ (p. 46): “His fame was at its zenith. He seemed to me antediluvian, with his long dyed curls and his old-fashioned dress … with long coats reaching to the ankles, knee-breeches, and long colored waistcoats. Also, he appeared always with a young lady who adored him, and who was followed by a man servant carrying a harp. She sat at his feet and appeared as he did in the costume of 1830, with long flowing curls called _Anglaises_. … In society, however, people ran after him tremendously, and spoilt him in every possible way. He read aloud from his own works, and, in especially poetic passages, his ‘Alice’ accompanied him with arpeggios on the harp.”
[48] See essay by Kenyon Cox on _The Illusion of Progress_, in his _Artist and Public_.
[49] See _Creative Criticism_ by J. E. Spingarn, and my article on _Genius and Taste_, reviewing this book, in the _Nation_ (New York), 7 Feb., 1918.
[50] One should note here as elsewhere points of contact between scientific and emotional naturalism. Take, for example, the educational theory that has led to the setting up of the elective system. The general human discipline embodied in the fixed curriculum is to be discarded in order that the individual may be free to work along the lines of his bent or “genius.” In a somewhat similar way scientific naturalism encourages the individual to sacrifice the general human discipline to a specialty.
[51] See his poem _L’Art_ in _Emaux et Camées_.
[52]
Quel esprit ne bat la campagne? Qui ne fait châteaux en Espagne? Picrochole, Pyrrhus, la laitière, enfin tous, Autant les sages que les fous Chacun songe en veillant; il n’est rien de plus doux. Une flatteuse erreur emporte alors nos âmes; Tout le bien du monde est à nous, Tous les honneurs, toutes les femmes. Quand je suis seul, je fais au plus brave un défi, Je m’écarte, je vais détrôner le sophi; On m’élit roi, mon peuple m’aime; Les diadèmes vont sur ma tête pleuvant: Quelque accident fait-il que je rentre en moi-même, Je suis gros Jean comme devant.
[53] _Rasselas_, ch. XLIV.
[54] _Nouvelle Héloïse_, Pt. II, Lettre XVII.
[55] Rostand has hit off this change in the Balcony Scene of his _Cyrano de Bergerac_.
[56] Essay on _Simple and Sentimental Poetry_.
[57] The life of Rousseau by Gerhard Gran is written from this point of view.
[58]
The world’s great age begins anew, The golden years return, etc.
_Hellas_, vv. 1060 ff.
[59] For an excellent analysis of Shelley’s idealism see Leslie Stephen’s _Godwin and Shelley_ in his _Hours in a Library_.
[60] _Letters_, II, 292.
[61] See his letter to Wordsworth, 30 January, 1801.
[62] _Dramatic Art and Literature_, ch. I.
[63] Cf. Voltaire: On ne peut désirer ce qu’on ne connaît pas. (_Zaïre_.)
[64] Cf. Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_. XV, 371: “Le romantique a la nostalgie, comme Hamlet; il cherche ce qu’il n’a pas, et jusque par delà les nuages; il rêve, il vit dans les songes. Au dix-neuvième siècle, il adore le moyen âge; au dix-huitième, il est déjà révolutionnaire avec Rousseau,” etc. Cf. also T. Gautier as quoted in the _Journal des Goncourt_, II, 51: “Nous ne sommes pas Français, nous autres, nous tenons à d’autres races. Nous sommes pleins de nostalgies. Et puis quand à la nostalgie d’un pays se joint la nostalgie d’un temps … comme vous par exemple du dix-huitième siècle … comme moi de la Venise de Casanova, avec embranchement sur Chypre, oh! alors, c’est complet.”
[65] See article _Goût_ in _Postscriptum de ma vie_.
[66] Schlegel’s _Dramatic Art and Literature_, Lecture XXII.
[67] For a discussion of this point see I. Rouge: _F. Schlegel et la Genèse du romantisme allemand_, 48 ff.
[68] For a development of this point of view see the essay of Novalis: _Christianity or Europe_.
[69] _Confessions_, Livre IX (1756).
[70] This is Goethe’s very classical definition of genius: Du nur, Genius, mehrst in der Natur die Natur.
[71] Greek literature, after it had lost the secret of selection and the grand manner, as was the case during the Alexandrian period, also tended to oscillate from the pole of romance to the pole of so-called realism--from the _Argonautica_ of Apollonius of Rhodes, let us say, to the _Mimes_ of Herondas.
[72] _Emile_, Livre II.
[73] _Etudes de la nature._
[74] See, for example, _Tatler_, 17 November, 31 December, 1709 (by Steele).
[75] See her letter to Gustavus III, King of Sweden, cited in _Gustave III et la cour de France_, II, 402, par A. Geffroy.
[76] See Hastings Rashdall: _Is Conscience an Emotion?_ (1914), especially ch. I. Cf. _Nouvelle Héloïse_. (Pt. VI, Lettre VII): “Saint-Preux fait de la conscience morale un sentiment, et non pas un jugement.”
[77] _Nouvelle Héloïse_, Pt. V, Lettre II.
[78] _Ibid._
[79] _Ibid._, Pt. IV, Lettre XII.
[80] Schiller’s definition is well known: “A beautiful soul we call a state where the moral sentiment has taken possession of all the emotions to such a degree that it may unhesitatingly commit the guidance of life to instinct,” etc. (_On Grace and Dignity._) Cf. Madame de Staël: “La vertu devient alors une impulsion involontaire, un mouvement qui passe dans le sang, et vous entraîne irrésistiblement comme les passions les plus impérieuses.” (_De la Littérature: Discours préliminàire._)
[81] _Avenir de la Science_, 354.
[82] _Ibid._, 179-180.
[83] _Avenir de la Science_, 476.
[84] Madame de Warens felt the influence of German pietism in her youth. See _La Jeunesse de J.-J. Rousseau_ par E. Ritter; ch. XIII.
[85] _Lettre à M. Molé_ (21 October, 1803).
[86] _Le romantisme français_, 215.
[87] See _Les Amours de Milord Bomston_ at the end of _La Nouvelle Héloïse_.
[88] _Sultan Mourad_ in _La Légende des Siècles_.
[89] _Correspondence_, III, 213 (June, 1791). The date of this letter should be noted. Several of the worst terrorists of the French Revolution began by introducing bills for the abolition of capital punishment.
[90] See Burton’s _Hume_, II, 309 (note 2).
This sentimental trait did not escape the authors of the _Anti-Jacobin_:
Sweet child of sickly Fancy--Her of yore From her lov’d France Rousseau to exile bore; And while midst lakes and mountains wild he ran Full of himself and shunn’d the haunts of man, Taught her o’er each lone vale and Alpine steep To lisp the stories of his wrongs and weep; Taught her to cherish still in either eye Of tender tears a plentiful supply, And pour them in the brooks that babbled by-- Taught her to mete by rule her feelings strong, False by degrees and delicately wrong, For the crush’d Beetle, _first_--the widow’d Dove, And all the warbled sorrows of the grove, _Next_ for poor suff’ring Guilt--and _last_ of all, For Parents, Friends, or King and Country’s fall.
[91]
Shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, men Whom I already loved;--not verily For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills Where was their occupation and abode.
_Michael_
[92]
Once more the Ass, with motion dull, Upon the pivot of his skull Turned round his long left ear.
“The bard who soars to elegize an ass” and the “laureate of the long-eared kind” (_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_) is, however, not Wordsworth but Coleridge. See his poem _To a Young Ass, its mother being tethered near it_.
[93] See the poem _Acte d’accusation_ in _Les Contemplations_.
[94] _Le Crapaud_ in _La Légende des Siècles_.
[95] See _Apology_ 31D.
[96] His _Language and Wisdom of the Hindus_ appeared in 1808.
[97] See _Jugendschriften_, ed. by J. Minor, II, 362.
[98] _Dhammapada._
[99] _Sutta-Nipāta_, v. 149 (_Metta-sutta_).
[100] _Second Dialogue._
[101] _Letters_, II, 298. For Ruskin and Rousseau see _Ibid._ I, 360: “[Ruskin] said that great parts of _Les Confessions_ were so true to himself that he felt as if Rousseau must have transmigrated into his body.”
[102] “If a poet wishes an atmosphere of indistinct illusion and of moving shadow, he must use the romantic style. … Women, such as we know them, such as they are likely to be, ever prefer a delicate unreality to a true or firm art.” Essay on _Pure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art in English Poetry_ (1864).
[103] “Die Romanze auf einem Pferde” utters the following lines in the Prologue to Tieck’s _Kaiser Octavianus_:
Mondbeglänzte Zaubernacht, Die den Sinn gefangen hält, Wundervolle Märchenwelt Steig’ auf in der alten Pracht.
A special study might be made of the rôle of the moon in Chateaubriand and Coleridge--even if one is not prepared like Carlyle to dismiss Coleridge’s philosophy as “bottled moonshine.”
[104] O. Walzel points out that as soon as the women in H. von Kleist’s plays become conscious they fall into error (_Deutsche Romantik_, 3. Auflage, 147).
[105] Byron, _Sardanapalus_, IV, 5. Cf. Rousseau, _Neuvième Promenade_: “Dominé par mes sens, quoi que je puisse faire, je n’ai jamais pu résister à leurs impressions, et, tant que l’objet agit sur eux, mon cœur ne cesse d’en être affecté.” Cf. also Musset, _Rolla_:
Ce n’était pas Rolla qui gouvernait sa vie, C’étaient ses passions; il les laissait aller Comme un pâtre assoupi regarde l’eau couler.
[106] _Modern Painters_, Part V, ch. XX.
[107] _Confessions_, Pt. II, Livre IX (1756).
[108]
With nature never do _they_ wage A foolish strife; they see A happy youth and their old age Is beautiful and free.
Wordsworth: _The Fountain_.
[109] The phrase imaginative insight is, I believe, true to the spirit of Plato at his best, but it is certainly not true to his terminology. Plato puts the imagination (φαντασία) not only below intuitive reason (νοῦς) and discursive reason or understanding (διάνοια), but even below outer perception (πίστις). He recognizes indeed that it may reflect the operations of the understanding and even the higher reason as well as the impressions of sense. This notion of a superior intellectual imagination was carried much further by Plotinus and the neo-Platonists. Even the intellectual imagination is, however, conceived of as passive. Perhaps no Greek thinker, not even Plato, makes as clear as he might that reason gets its intuition of reality and the One with the aid of the imagination and, as it were, through a veil of illusion, that, in Joubert’s phrase, “l’illusion est une partie inté, grante de la réalité” (_Pensées_, Titre XI, XXXIX). Joubert again distinguishes (_ibid._, Titre III, XLVII, LI) between “l’imaginative” which is passive and “l’imagination” which is active and creative (“l’œil de l’âme”). In its failure to bring out with sufficient explicitness this _creative_ rôle of the imagination and in the stubborn intellectualism that this failure implies is to be found, if anywhere, the weak point in the cuirass of Greek philosophy.
[110] See Xenophon, _Memorabilia_, IV, 16, 3.
[111] Σωφροσύνη.
[112] See his _Lettre à d’Alembert_.
[113] _Varieties of Religious Experience_, 387.
[114] _Blütezeit der Romantik_, 126.
[115] “Parfaite illusion, réalité parfaite” (Alfred de Vigny). “Die Welt wird Traum, der Traum wird Welt” (Novalis). “This sort of dreaming existence is the best; he who quits it to go in search of realities generally barters repose for repeated disappointments and vain regrets” (Hazlitt).
[116] _Lit. Ang._, IV, 130.
[117] About 1885.
[118] _Le Théâtre en France_, 304.
[119]
Je suis une force qui va! Agent aveugle et sourd de mystères funèbres.
[120] E.g., Lillo’s _Fatal Curiosity_ (1736) had a marked influence on the rise of the German fate tragedy.
[121]
Wo ist der, der sagen dürfe, So will ich’s, so sei’s gemacht, Unser Taten sind nur Würfe In des Zufalls blinde Nacht.
_Die Ahnfrau._
[122] “So that in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of Power after power, that ceaseth only in Death.” _Leviathan_, Part I, ch. XI.
[123] See _Unpopular Review_, October, 1915.
[124] E. Seillière has been tracing, in _Le Mal romantique_ and other volumes, the relation between Rousseauism and what he terms an “irrational imperialism.” His point of view is on the constructive side very different from mine.
[125] The best account of Rousseau’s German influence is still that of H. Hettner in his _Literaturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts_. Compared with Rousseau’s German influence, says Professor Paul Hensel in his _Rousseau_ (1907), “his influence in France seems almost trifling.” In Germany “Rousseau became the basis not of a guillotine but of a new culture (Kultur). … We have drawn his spirit over to us, we have made it our own.” (121.) See also Professor Eugen Kühnemann, _Vom Weltreich des deutschen Geistes_ (1914), 54-62, and _passim_. German idealism is, according to Kühnemann, the monument that does the greatest honor to Rousseau.
[126]
A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a rage. … He who shall hurt the little wren Shall never be belov’d by men. He who the ox to wrath has mov’d Shall never be by woman lov’d. … Kill not the moth nor butterfly, For the Last Judgment draweth nigh.
_Auguries of Innocence._
[127] See _Hart-Leap Well_.
[128] _Beyond Good and Evil_, ch. IV.
[129] “Out into distant futures, which no dream hath yet seen, into warmer souths than ever sculptor conceived. … Let this love be your new nobility,--the undiscovered in the remotest seas,” etc. (_Thus Spake Zarathustra_, translated by Thomas Common, 240, 248.)
[130] “On trouverait, en rétablissant les anneaux intermédiaires de la chaîne, qu’à Pascal se rattachent les doctrines modernes qui font passer en première ligne la connaissance immédiate, l’intuition, la vie intérieure, comme à Descartes … se rattachent plus particulièrement les philosophies de la raison pure.” _La Science française_ (1915), I, 17.
[131] Cf. Tennyson:
Fantastic beauty, such as lurks In some wild poet when he works Without a conscience or an aim--
[132] Addison writes:
’Twas then great Marlbro’s mighty soul was proved, That, in the shock of changing hosts unmoved, Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, Examin’d all the dreadful scenes of war; In peaceful thought the field of death survey’d.
So far as Marlborough deserved this praise he was a general in the grand manner.
[133] “Beauty resides in due proportion and order,” says Aristotle (_Poetics_, ch. VII).
[134] _A Survey of English Literature, 1780-1830_ (1912), II, 191.
[135] Confucius and the Chinese sages were if anything even more concerned than Plato or Aristotle with the ethical quality of music.
[136] Like Bishop Blougram’s his “interest’s on the dangerous edge of things.”
[137]
Does he take inspiration from the church, Directly make her rule his law of life? Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man. … Such is, for the Augustine that was once, This Canon Caponsacchi we see now.
X, 1911-28.
[138] See X, 1367-68.
[139] Letter to Joseph d’Ortigue, January 19, 1833.
[140] Here is an extreme example from Maigron’s manuscript collection (_Le Romantisme et les mœurs_, 153). A youth forced to be absent three weeks from the woman he loves writes to her as follows: “Trois semaines, mon amour, trois semaines loin de toi! … Oh! Dieu m’a maudit! … Hier j’ai erré toute l’après-midi comme une bête fauve, une bête traquée. … Dans la forêt, j’ai hurlé, hurlé comme un démon … je me suis roulé par terre … j’ai broyé sous mes dents des branches que mes mains avaient arrachées. … Alors, de rage, j’ai pris ma main entre mes dents; j’ai serré, serré convulsivement; le sang a jailli et j’ai craché au ciel le morceau de chair vive … j’aurais voulu lui cracher mon cœur.”
[141] Maxime Du Camp asserts in his _Souvenirs littéraires_ (I, 118) that this anæmia was due in part to the copious blood-letting to which the physicians of the time, disciples of Broussais, were addicted.
[142] This perversion was not unknown to classical antiquity. Cf. Seneca, _To Lucilius_, XCIX: “Quid turpius quam captare in ipso luctu voluptatem; et inter lacrymas quoque, quod juvet, quærere?”
[143] _Nouvelle Héloïse_, Pt. III, Lettre VI.
[144] _Confessions_, Livre IV.
[145] _The New Laokoon_, ch. V.
[146] _Franciscae meæ laudes_, in _Les Fleurs du mal_.
[147] _Architecture and Painting_, Lecture II. This diatribe may have been suggested by Byron’s _Don Juan_, Canto XIII, IX-XI:
Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away: A single laugh demolished the right arm Of his own country, etc.
[148] “Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quærebam quid amarem, amans amare.”
[149] Cf. Shelley’s _Alastor_:
Two eyes, Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought And seemed with their serene and azure smiles To beckon.
[150] “Some of us have in a prior existence been in love with an Antigone, and that makes us find no full content in any mortal tie.” Shelley to John Gisborne, October 22, 1821.
[151] _Confessions_, Livre XI (1761).
[152] _Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe_, November, 1817.
[153] “Je me faisais une félicité de réaliser avec ma sylphide mes courses fantastiques dans les forêts du Nouveau Monde.”
_Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe_, December, 1821.
[154] Peacock has in mind _Childe Harold_, canto IV, CXXI ff.
[155] Rousseau plans to make a nympholept of his ideal pupil, Emile: “Il faut que je sois le plus maladroit des hommes si je ne le rends d’avance passionné sans savoir de quoi”, etc. _Emile_, Liv. IV.
[156] Cf. René’s letter to Céluta in _Les Natchez_: “Je vous ai tenue sur ma poitrine au milieu du désert, dans les vents de l’orage, lorsque, après vous avoir portée de l’autre côté d’un torrent, j’aurais voulu vous poignarder pour fixer le bonheur dans votre sein, et pour me punir de vous avoir donné ce bonheur.”
[157] The romantic lover, it should be observed, creates his dream companion even less that he may adore her than that she may adore him.
[158] Walter Bagehot has made an interesting study of the romantic imagination in his essay on a figure who reminds one in some respects of Gérard de Nerval--Hartley Coleridge.
[159] Don Juan bids his servant give a coin to the beggar not for the love of God but for the love of humanity.
[160]
Demandant aux forêts, à la mer, à la plaine, Aux brises du matin, à toute heure, à tout lieu, La femme de son âme et de son premier voeu! Prenant pour fiancée un rêve, une ombre vaine, Et fouillant dans le cœur d’une hécatombe humaine, Prêtre désespéré, pour y trouver son Dieu.
A. de Musset, _Namouna_.
“Don Juan avait en lui cet amour pour la femme idéale; il a couru le monde serrant et brisant de dépit dans ses bras toutes les imparfaites images qu’il croyait un moment aimer; et il est mort épuisé de fatigue, consumé de son insatiable amour.” Prévost-Paradol, _Lettres_, 149.
[161] See Scott’s (2d) edition of Swift, XIII, 310.
[162]
Aimer c’est le grand point. Qu’importe la maîtresse? Qu’importe le flacon pourvu qu’on ait l’ivresse?
[163] It has been said that in the novels of George Sand when a lady wishes to change her lover God is always there to facilitate the transfer.
[164] “Tous les hommes sont menteurs, inconstants, faux, bavards, hypocrites, orgueilleux ou lâches, méprisables et sensuels; toutes les femmes sont perfides, artificieuses, vaniteuses, curieuses et dépravées; le monde n’est qu’un égout sans fond où les phoques les plus informes rampent et se tordent sur des montagnes de fange; mais il y a au monde une chose sainte et sublime, c’est l’union de deux de ces êtres si imparfaits et si affreux. On est souvent trompé en amour; souvent blessé et souvent malheureux; mais on aime et quand on est sur le bord de sa tombe, on se retourne pour regarder en arrière, et on se dit: J’ai souffert souvent, je me suis trompé quelquefois, mais j’ai aimé. C’est moi qui ai vécu, et non pas un être factice créé par mon orgueil et mon ennui.” (The last sentence is taken from a letter of George Sand to Musset.) _On ne badine pas avec l’Amour_, II, 5.
[165] _Table-Talk. On the Past and Future._
[166] _The Plain Speaker. On Reading Old Books._
[167] _The Round Table. On the Character of Rousseau._
[168] “Aujourd’hui, jour de Pâques fleuries, il y a précisément cinquante ans de ma première connaissance avec Madame de Warens.”
[169] Even on his death-bed the hero of Browning’s _Confessions_ gives himself up to impassionated recollection:
How sad and bad and mad it was-- But then, how it was sweet.
In his _Stances à Madame Lullin_ Voltaire is at least as poetical and nearer to normal experience:
Quel mortel s’est jamais flatté D’un rendez-vous à l’agonie?
[170] See especially _Lyceum fragment_, no. 108.
[171] A well-known example of the extreme to which the romanticists pushed their Fichtean solipsism is the following from the _William Lovell_ of the youthful Tieck: “Having gladly escaped from anxious fetters, I now advance boldly through life, absolved from those irksome duties which were the inventions of cowardly fools. Virtue is, only because I am; it is but a reflection of my inner self. What care I for forms whose dim lustre I have myself brought forth? Let vice and virtue wed. They are only shadows in the mist,” etc.
[172] _Beyond Good and Evil_, ch. IV.
[173] _On Contemporary Literature_, 206. The whole passage is excellent.
[174] M. Legouis makes a similar remark in the _Cambridge History of English Literature_ XI, 108.
[175] I scarcely need say that Wordsworth is at times genuinely ethical, but he is even more frequently only didactic. The _Excursion_, as M. Legouis says, is a “long sermon against pessimism.”
[176] “Quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te.”
[177] _Eth. Nic._, 1177 b.
[178] Cf. the chapter on _William Law and the Mystics_ in _Cambridge History of English Literature_, IX, 341-67; also the bibliography of Boehme, _ibid._, 560-74.
[179] See _Excursion_, I, VV. 943 ff.
[180] In his attitude towards sin Novalis continues Rousseau and anticipates the main positions of the Christian Scientist.
[181]
Prune thou thy words, The thoughts control That o’er thee swell and throng. They will condense within the soul And change to purpose strong. But he who lets his feelings run In soft, luxurious flow, Shrinks when hard service must be done And faints at every foe.
[182] Wesley had no liking for Boehme and cut out from Brooke’s book the theosophy that had this origin.
[183] Writing was often associated with magic formulæ. Hence γράμμα also gave Fr. “grimoire.”
[184] _Thus Spake Zarathustra_, LXIX (The Shadow to Zarathustra).
[185] _Katha-Upanishad._ The passage is paraphrased as follows by P. E. More in his _Century of Indian Epigrams_:
Seated within this body’s car The silent Self is driven afar, And the five senses at the pole Like steeds are tugging restive of control.
And if the driver lose his way, Or the reins sunder, who can say In what blind paths, what pits of fear Will plunge the chargers in their mad career?
Drive well, O mind, use all thy art, Thou charioteer!--O feeling Heart, Be thou a bridle firm and strong! For the Lord rideth and the way is long.
[186] See Brandes: _The Romantic School in Germany_, ch. XI.
[187] Alfred de Musset saw his double in the stress of his affair with George Sand (see _Nuit de Décembre_), Jean Valjean (_Les Misérables_) sees his double in the stress of his conversion. Peter Bell also sees his double at the emotional crisis in Wordsworth’s poem of that name.
[188] _Thus Spake Zarathustra_, LXIX.
[189] F. Schlegel: _Lyceumfragment_, no. 42.
[190] E.g., canto III, CVII-CXI.
[191] _Confessions_, Livre XII (1765).
[192] Cf. Th. Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_, I, 402.
[193] Wordsworth: _Miscellaneous Sonnets_, XII.
[194] In much the same spirit the Japanese hermit, Kamo Chōmei (thirteenth century), expresses the fear that he may forget Buddha because of his fondness for the mountains and the moon.--See article on nature in Japan by M. Revon in _Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics_.
[195] _Confessions_, Bk. X, ch. IX.
[196] Cf. Cicero: “Urbem, urbem, mi Rufe, cole et in ista luce vive.” (_Ad Fam._, II, 22.)
[197] March 23, 1646.
[198] It was especially easy for the poets to go for their landscapes to the painters because according to the current theory poetry was itself a form of painting (_ut pictura poesis_). Thus Thomson writes in _The Castle of Indolence_:
Sometimes the pencil, in cool airy halls, Bade the gay bloom of vernal landskips rise, Or autumn’s varied shades embrown the walls: Now the black tempest strikes the astonish’d eyes; Now down the steep the flashing torrent flies; The trembling sun now plays o’er ocean blue, And now rude mountains frown amid the skies; Whate’er _Lorrain_ light touch’d with softening hue, Or savage _Rosa_ dash’d, or learned _Poussin_ drew.
(C. I, st. 38.)
[199]
Disparaissez, monuments du génie, Pares, jardins immortels, que Le Nôtre a plantés; De vos dehors pompeux l’exacte symmétrie, Etonne vainement mes regards attristés. J’aime bien mieux ce désordre bizarre, Et la variété de ces riches tableaux Que disperse l’Anglais d’une main moins avare.
Bertin, 19e Elégie of _Les Amours_.
[200] Pt. IV, Lettre XI.
[201] _Nouvelle Héloïse_, Pt. IV, Lettre XI.
[202] _Ibid._
[203] _Ibid._, Pt. IV, Lettre XVII.
[204] _Confessions_, Livre V (1732).
[205] See especially _Childe Harold_, canto II, XXV ff.
[206] _Ibid._, canto II, XXXVII.
[207] _Ibid._, canto III, LXXII.
[208] _Ibid._, canto IV, CLXXVII.
[209] See _La Perception du changement_, 30.
[210] ASIA
My soul is an enchanted boat, Which like a sleeping swan, doth float Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing; And thine doth like an angel sit Beside a helm conducting it, Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing. It seems to float ever, for ever Upon that many-winding river, Between mountains, woods, abysses, A paradise of wildernesses! … Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions In music’s most serene dominions; Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven. And we sail on away, afar, Without a course, without a star, But by the instinct of sweet music driven; Till through Elysian garden islets By thee, most beautiful of pilots, Where never mortal pinnace glided The boat of my desire is guided; Realms where the air we breathe is love--
_Prometheus Unbound_, Act II, Sc. V.
[211] “Si tu souffres plus qu’un autre des choses de la vie, il ne faut pas t’en étonner; une grande âme doit contenir plus de douleurs qu’une petite.”
[212] Cf. Shelley, _Julian and Maddalo_:
I love all waste And solitary places; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.
[213] Cf. for example, the passage of Rousseau in the seventh _Promenade_ (“Je sens des extases, des ravissements inexprimables à me fondre pour ainsi dire dans le système des êtres,” etc.) with the revery described by Wordsworth in _The Excursion_, I, 200-218.
[214] O belles, craignez le fond des bois, et leur vaste silence.
[215] _Faust_ (Miss Swanwick’s translation).
[216] _Artist and Public_, 134 ff.
[217]
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves, etc.
Cf. Lamartine:
Quand la feuille des bois tombe dans la prairie, Le vent du soir s’élève et l’arrache aux vallons; Et moi, je suis semblable à la feuille flétrie; Emportez-moi comme elle, orageux aquilons.
_L’Isolement._
[218] Cf. Hettner, _Romantische Schule_, 156.
[219] See appendix on Chinese primitivism.
[220] G. Duval has written a _Dictionnaire des métaphores de Victor Hugo_, and G. Lucchetti a work on _Les Images dans les œuvres de Victor Hugo_. So far as the ethical values are concerned, the latter title is alone justified. Hugo is, next to Chateaubriand, the great imagist.
[221] The French like to think of the symbolists as having rendered certain services to their versification. Let us hope that they did, though few things are more perilous than this transfer of the idea of progress to the literary and artistic domain. Decadent Rome, as we learn from the younger Pliny and others, simply swarmed with poets who also no doubt indulged in many strange experiments. All this poetical activity, as we can see only too plainly at this distance, led nowhere.
[222] Grant Allen writes of the laws of nature in _Magdalen Tower_:
They care not any whit for pain or pleasure, That seems to us the sum and end of all, Dumb force and barren number are their measure, What shall be shall be, tho’ the great earth fall, They take no heed of man or man’s deserving, Reck not what happy lives they make or mar, Work out their fatal will unswerv’d, unswerving, And know not that they are!
[223] Fragment de l’_Art de jouir_, quoted by P.-M. Masson in _La Religion de J.-J. Rousseau_, II, 228.
[224] If nature merely reflects back to a man his own image, it follows that Coleridge’s celebrated distinction between fancy and imagination has little value, inasmuch as he rests his proof of the unifying power of the imagination, in itself a sound idea, on the union the imagination effects between man and outer nature--and this union is on his own showing fanciful.
[225] If I had had this consecration Wordsworth says, addressing Peele Castle,
I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile, Amid a world how different from this! Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. … A Picture had it been of lasting ease, _Elysian quiet, without toil or strife_, etc.
_Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a picture of Peele Castle in a storm._
[226] Cf. Doudan, _Lettres_, IV, 216: “J’ai parcouru le _Saint-Paul_ de Renan. Je n’ai jamais vu dans un théologien une si grande connaissance de la flore orientale. C’est un paysagiste bien supérieur à Saint-Augustin et à Bossuet. Il sème des résédas, des anémones, des pâquerettes pour recueillir l’incrédulité.”
[227] In his _Mal romantique_ (1908) E. Seillière labels the generations that have elapsed since the rise of Rousseauism as follows:
1. Sensibility (_Nouvelle Héloïse_, 1761).
2. Weltschmerz (Schiller’s _Æsthetic Letters_, 1795).
3. Mal du siècle (Hugo’s _Hernani_, 1830).
4. Pessimism (vogue of Schopenhauer and Stendhal, 1865).
5. Neurasthenia (culmination of _fin de siècle_ movement, 1900).
[228] _Eckermann_, September 24, 1827.
[229] See _La Nuit de Mai_.
[230] These lines are inscribed on the statue of Musset in front of the Théâtre Français. Cf. Shelley:
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
[231] Translation by J. E. Sandys of fragment cited in Stobæus, _Flor._ CIX, I.
[232] _Pythian Odes_, III, 20 ff.
[233] _Pythian Odes_, III, 81-82.
[234] _Song of the Banjo_, in the _Seven Seas_.
[235] XVII, 446-47.
[236] A brief survey of melancholy among the Greeks will be found in Professor S. H. Butcher’s _Some Aspects of the Greek Genius_.
[237] The exasperated quest of novelty is one of the main traits both of the ancient and the modern victim of ennui. See Seneca, _De Tranquillitate animi_: “Fastidio illis esse cœpit vita, et ipse mundus; et subit illud rabidorum deliciarum: quousque eadem?” (Cf. La Fontaine: Il me faut du nouveau, n’en fût-il plus au monde.)
[238] “A quoi bon m’avoir fait naître avec des facultés exquises pour les laisser jusqu’à la fin sans emploi? Le sentiment de mon prix interne en me donnant celui de cette injustice m’en dédommageait en quelque sorte, et me faisait verser des larmes que j’aimais a laisser couler.” _Confessions._ Livre IX (1756).
[239] _Nouvelle Héloise_, Pt. VI, Lettre VIII.
[240] “Encore enfant par la tête, vous êtes déjà vieux par le cœur.” _Ibid._
[241] See the examples quoted in Arnold: _Essays in Criticism_, Second Series, 305-06.
[242] This is the thought of Keats’s _Ode to Melancholy_:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine.
Cf. Chateaubriand: _Essai sur les Révolutions_, Pt. II, ch. LVIII: “Ces jouissances sont trop poignantes: telle est notre faiblesse, que les plaisirs exquis deviennent des douleurs,” etc.
[243] See his sonnet _Les Montreurs_. This type of Rousseauist is anticipated by “Milord” Bomston in _La Nouvelle Héloïse_. Rousseau directed the engraver to depict him with “un maintien grave et stoïque sous lequel il cache avec peine une extrême sensibilité.”
[244] “Qui es-tu? À coup sûr tu n’es pas un être pétri du même limon et animé de la même vie que nous! Tu es un ange ou un démon mais tu n’es pas une créature humaine. … Pourquoi habiter parmi nous, qui ne pouvons te suffire ni te comprendre?” G. Sand, _Lélia_, I, 11.
[245] See p. 51.
[246] See _Lara_, XVIII, XIX, perhaps the best passage that can be quoted for the Byronic hero.
[247] Cf. Gautier, _Histoire du romantisme_: “Il était de mode alors dans l’école romantique d’être pâle, livide, verdâtre, un peu cadavéreux, s’il était possible. Cela donnait l’air fatal, byronien, giaour, dévoré par les passions et les remords.”
[248] Hugo, _Hernani_.
[249]
Lorsque, par un décret des puissances suprêmes, Le Poète apparaît dans ce monde ennuyé, Sa mère épouvantée et pleine de blasphèmes Crispe ses poings vers Dieu, qui la prend en pitié.
_Fleurs du mal: Bénédiction._
Cf. _Nouvelle Héloïse_, Pt. III, Lettre XXVI:
“Ciel inexorable! … O ma mère, pourquoi vous donna-t-il un fils dans sa colère?”
[250] Coleridge has a side that relates him to the author of _Les Fleurs du mal_. In his _Pains of Sleep_ he describes a dream in which he felt
Desire with loathing strangely mix’d, _On wild or hateful objects fix’d_.
[251] Keats according to Shelley was an example of the _poète maudit_. “The poor fellow” he says “was literally hooted from the stage of life.” Keats was as a matter of fact too sturdy to be snuffed out by an article and had less of the quivering Rousseauistic sensibility than Shelley himself. Cf. letter of Shelley to Mrs. Shelley (Aug. 7, 1820): “Imagine my despair of good, imagine how it is possible that one of so weak and sensitive a nature as mine can run further the gauntlet through this hellish society of men.”
[252] Euripides speaks of the Χάρις γόων in his Ἱκέτιδες (Latin, “dolendi voluptas”; German, “die Wonne der Wehmut”).
[253] Chesterton is anticipated in this paradox by Wordsworth:
In youth we love the darksome lawn Brushed by the owlet’s wing. Then Twilight is preferred to Dawn And autumn to the spring. Sad fancies do we then affect In luxury of disrespect To our own prodigal excess Of too familiar happiness.
_Ode to Lycoris._
[254] _Souvenirs d’enfance et de jeunesse_, 329-30.
[255] “[Villiers] était de cette famille des néo-catholiques littéraires dont Chateaubriand est le père commun, et qui a produit Barbey d’Aurevilly, Baudelaire et plus récemment M. Joséphin Peladan. Ceux-là ont goûté par-dessus tout dans la religion les charmes du péché, la grandeur du sacrilège, et leur sensualisme a caressé les dogmes qui ajoutaient aux voluptés la suprême volupté de se perdre.” A. France, _Vie Littéraire_, III, 121.
[256] _Première Promenade._
[257] _Ibid._
[258] E.g., Hölderlin and Jean Polonius.
[259] A striking passage on solitude will be found in the _Laws of Manu_, IV, 240-42. (“Alone a being is born: alone he goes down to death.” His kin forsake him at the grave; his only hope then is in the companionship of the Law of righteousness [Dharma]. “With the Law as his companion he crosses the darkness difficult to cross.”)
[260] “Be good and you will be lonely.”
[261] In the poem by the Swiss poet C. Didier from which Longfellow’s poem seems to be derived, the youth who persists in scaling the heights in spite of all warnings is Byron!
Et Byron … disparaît aux yeux du pâtre épouvanté.
(See E. Estève, _Byron en France_, 147).
[262] In the _Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe_ Chateaubriand quotes from the jottings of Napoleon on the island of Elba. “Mon cœur se refuse aux joies communes comme à la douleur ordinaire.” He says of Napoleon elsewhere in the same work: “Au fond il ne tenait à rien: homme solitaire, il se suffisait; le malheur ne fit que le rendre au désert de sa vie.”
[263] The solitude of the “genius” is already marked in Blake:
O! why was I born with a different face? Why was I not born like the rest of my race? When I look, each one starts; when I speak, I offend; Then I’m silent and passive and lose every friend.
[264] Froude’s _Carlyle_, II, 377.
[265] No finer lines on solitude are found in English than those in which Wordsworth relates how from his room at Cambridge he could look out on
The antechapel where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.
(_Prelude_ III, 61-63.)
Cf. also the line in the Sonnet on Milton:
His soul was like a star and dwelt apart.
[266] _Eth. Nic._, 1109 b.
[267] James Thomson in _The City of Dreadful Night_ says that he would have entered hell
gratified to gain That positive eternity of pain Instead of this insufferable inane.
[268] R. Canat has taken this phrase as the title of his treatment of the subject: _La Solitude morale dans le mouvement romantique_.
[269] Decadent Rome had the equivalent of Des Esseintes. Seneca (_To Lucilius_, CXXII) speaks of those who seek to affirm their originality and attract attention to themselves by doing everything differently from other people and, “ut ita dicam, _retro vivunt_.”
[270] Tennyson has traced this change of the æsthetic dream into a nightmare in his _Palace of Art_.
[271] _Contemporains_, I, 332.
[272] _Génie du Christianisme_, Pt. II, Livre III, ch. IX.
[273]
L’orage est dans ma voix, l’éclair est sur ma bouche; Aussi, loin de m’aimer, voilà qu’ils tremblent tous, Et quand j’ouvre les bras, on tombe à mes genoux.
[274]
Que vous ai-je donc fait pour être votre élu? … Hélas! je suis, Seigneur, puissant et solitaire, Laissez-moi m’endormir du sommeil de la terre!
[275]
Le juste opposera le dédain à l’absence Et ne répondra plus que par un froid silence Au silence éternel de la Divinité.
[276] See Sainte-Beuve’s poetical epistle _A. M. Villemain_ (_Pensées d’Août 1837_).
[277] See _Masters of Modern French Criticism_, 233, 238.
[278] Wordsworth writes
A piteous lot it were to flee from man Yet not rejoice in Nature.
(_Excursion_, IV, 514.)
This lot was Vigny’s:
Ne me laisse jamais seul avec la Nature Car je la connais trop pour n’en avoir pas peur.
[279] Madame Dorval.
[280] _La Maison du Berger._ Note that in Wordsworth the “still sad music of humanity” is very closely associated with nature.
[281] _La Bouteille à la Mer._
[282] See Book IX of the _Nicomachean Ethics_.
[283] “All salutary conditions have their root in strenuousness” (appamāda), says Buddha.
[284] See _Masters of Modern French Criticism_, Essay on Taine, _passim_. Paul Bourget in his _Essais de Psychologie contemporaine_ (2 vols.) has followed out during this period the survivals of the older romantic melancholy and their reinforcement by scientific determinism.
[285] “Le pauvre M. Arago, revenant un jour de l’Hôtel de Ville en 1848 après une épouvantable émeute, disait tristement à l’un de ses aides de camp au ministère de la marine: ‘En vérité ces gens-là ne sont pas raisonnables.’” Doudan, _Lettres_, IV, 338.
[286] See Preface (pp. viii-ix) to his _Souvenirs d’enfance et de jeunesse_ and my comment in _The New Laokoon_, 207-08.
[287] Most of the political implications of the point of view I am developing I am reserving for a volume I have in preparation to be entitled _Democracy and Imperialism_. Some of my conclusions will be found in two articles in the (New York) _Nation: The Breakdown of Internationalism_ (June 17 and 24, 1915), and _The Political Influence of Rousseau_ (Jan. 18, 1917).
[288] _Reden an die deutsche Nation_, XII.
[289] I should perhaps allow for the happiness that may be experienced in moments of supernormal consciousness--something quite distinct from emotional or other intoxication. Fairly consistent testimony as to moments of this kind is found in the records of the past from the early Buddhists down to Tennyson.
[290] I scarcely need say that I am speaking of the man of science only in so far as he is purely naturalistic in his point of view. There may enter into the total personality of Edison or any particular man of science other and very different elements.
[291] M. René Berthelot has written a book on pragmatism and similar tendencies in contemporary philosophy entitled _Un Romantisme utilitaire_. I have not read it but the title alone is worth more than most books on the subject I have read.
[292] _Dedication of the Æneis_ (1697).
[293] _Adventure of one Hans Pfaal._
[294] His attempt to rewrite _Hyperion_ from a humanitarian point of view is a dismal failure.
[295] There is also a strong idyllic element in _Paradise Lost_ as Rousseau (_Emile_, V) and Schiller (_Essay on Naïve and Sentimental Poetry_) were among the first to point out. Critics may be found even to-day who, like Tennyson, prefer the passages which show a richly pastoral imagination to the passages where the ethical imagination is required but where it does not seem to prevail sufficiently over theology.
[296] XII, 74.
[297] _Three Philosophical Poets_, 188.
[298] After telling of the days when “il n’y avait pour moi ni passé ni avenir et je goûtais à la fois les délices de mille siècles,” Saint-Preux concludes: “Hélas! vous avez disparu comme un éclair. Cette éternité de bonheur ne fut qu’un instant de ma vie. Le temps a repris sa lenteur dans les moments de mon désespoir, et l’ennui mesure par longues années le reste infortuné de mes jours” (_Nouvelle Héloïse_, Pt. III, Lettre VI).
[299] The Church, so far as it has become humanitarian, has itself succumbed to naturalism.
[300] _Sutta of the Great Decease._
[301] If a man recognizes the supreme rôle of fiction or illusion in life while proceeding in other respects on Kantian principles, he will reach results similar to the “As-if Philosophy” (_Philosophie des Als Ob_) of Vaihinger, a leading authority on Kant and co-editor of the _Kantstudien_. This work, though not published until 1911, was composed, the author tells us in his preface, as early as 1875-78. It will be found to anticipate very strikingly pragmatism and various other isms in which philosophy has been proclaiming so loudly of late its own bankruptcy.
[302] “C’est en vain qu’on voudrait assigner à la vie un but, au sens humain du mot.” _L’Evolution créatrice_, 55.
[303] _Metaphysics_, 1078 b.
[304] In the beginning was the Word! To seek to substitute, like Faust, the Deed for the Word is to throw discrimination to the winds. The failure to discriminate as to the _quality_ of the deed is responsible for the central sophistry of _Faust_ (see p. 331) and perhaps of our modern life in general.
[305] “J’adore la liberté; j’abhorre la gêne, la peine, l’assujettissement.” _Confessions_, Livre I.
[306] _Analects_, XI, CXI. Cf. _ibid._, VI, CXX: “To give one’s self earnestly to the duties due to men, and while respecting spiritual beings, to keep aloof from them, may be called wisdom.” Much that has passed current as religion in all ages has made its chief appeal, not to awe but to wonder; and like many humanists Confucius was somewhat indifferent to the marvellous. “The subjects on which the Master did not talk were: extraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder and spiritual beings” (_ibid._, VII, CXX).
[307] One of the last Chinese, I am told, to measure up to the Confucian standard was Tsêng Kuo-fan (1811-1872) who issued forth from poverty, trained a peasant soldiery and, more than any other one person, put down the Taiping Rebellion.
[308] See J. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire’s Introduction to his translation of the _Nicomachean Ethics_, p. cxlix.
[309] _Eth. Nic._, 1122-25.
[310] I have in mind such passages as _P._, VIII, 76-78, 92-96; _N._, VI, 1-4; _N._, XI, 13-16.
[311] “II n’y eut jamais pour moi d’intermédiaire entre tout et rien.” _Confessions_, Livre VII.
[312] Some wag, it will be remembered, suggested as an alternative title for this work: _Wild Religions I have known_.
[313] _Letters_, II, 298; cf. _ibid._, 291: “I have never known a life less wisely controlled or less helped by the wisdom of others than his. The whole retrospect of it is pathetic; waste, confusion, ruin of one of the most gifted and sweetest natures the world ever knew.”
[314] _Nic. Eth._, 1145 b. The opposition between Socrates or Plato and Aristotle, when put thus baldly, is a bit misleading. Socrates emphasized the importance of practice (μελέτη) in the acquisition of virtue, and Plato has made much of habit in the _Laws_.
[315] _Analects_, II, CIV.
[316] This belief the Oriental has embodied in the doctrine of Karma.
[317] “La seule habitude qu’on doit laisser prendre à l’enfant est de n’en contractor aucune.” _Emile_, Livre I.
[318] Emile was to be trained to be a cabinet-maker.
[319] _Eth. Nic._, 1172 b.
[320] _Doctrine of the Mean_ (c. XXXIII, v. 2).
[321] See his poem _Ibo_ in _Les Contemplations_.
[322] La. 55, p. 51. (In my references La. stands for Lao-tzŭ, Li. for Lieh-tzŭ, Ch. for Chuang-tzŭ. The first number gives the chapter; the second number the page in Wieger’s edition.)
[323] Ch. 22 C, p. 391.
[324] Ch. 12 n, p. 305.
[325] Ch. 11 D, p. 291. Ibid. 15, p. 331. See also Li. 31, p. 113.
[326] Ch. 19 B, p. 357.
[327] Ch. 19 L, p. 365.
[328] Ch. 10, pp. 279-80.
[329] Ch. 9, pp. 274-75.
[330] Ch. 29, pp. 467 ff.
[331] Ch. 2, p. 223.
[332] La. 27, p. 37.
[333] Ch. 8 A, p. 271.
[334] Li. 5, p. 143.
[335] Ch. 14 C, p. 321.
[336] For an extreme form of Epicureanism see the ideas of Yang-chu, Li. 7, pp. 165 ff. For stoical apathy see Ch. 6 C., p. 253. For fate see Li. 6, p. 165, Ch. 6 K, p. 263.
[337] Ch. 33, pp. 499 ff.
[338] Ch. 33 C, p. 503.
[339] Bk. III, Part 2, ch. 9.
[340] Li. 3, p. 111. Ch. 24, pp. 225-27.
[341] Ch. 6 E, p. 255.
[342] See _The Religion of the Samurai: a Study of Zen Philosophy_ (1913) by Kaiten Nukariya (himself a Zenist), p. 23.
INDEX OF NAMES
Abelard, 238.
Addison, 12, 35, 37, 38, 202 _n._
Æschylus, 292, 359.
Ajax, 144.
Allen, Grant, 299 _n._
Amiel, 315.
Ananda, 370.
Angélique, Mother, 123.
d’Angoulême, Marguerite, 251.
Antisthenes, 244.
Apollonius of Rhodes, 104.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 101, 112.
Arago, 244 _n._
Ariosto, 264.
Aristophanes, 181, 243, 285.
Aristotle, xv _n._, xix, xxi, xxii, 4, 12 _n._, 15-19, 24, 28 _n._, 29, 33, 47, 148, 166, 171, 173, 202, 205 _n._, 211, 222, 237, 253, 254, 295, 329, 330, 343, 349, 354, 355, 363, 365, 372, 374, 381, 382, 385, 386, 389, 390.
Arnold, Matthew, xi, 281, 308, 315 _n._, 323, 325, 351.
Augustine, St., 116, 213, 224, 252, 273, 304 _n._
Bacon, F., xxi _n._, 26, 63, 64, 119, 122.
Bacon, Roger, 26.
Bagehot, W., 25, 41, 159, 231 _n._, 377.
Balzac, 11, 58, 106, 107, 192, 193.
Barbauld, Mrs., 154.
Barbey d’Aurevilly, 92, 324.
Baudelaire, 63, 222, 230, 251, 319, 321, 324 _n._, 332, 350.
Bayle, Pierre, 114.
Beaumarchais, 2.
Bergson, Henri, xii, xiii, 1, 147, 167, 186, 200, 281, 295, 300, 364, 372.
Berlioz, 79, 112, 162, 211, 215.
Berthelot, René, 350 _n._
Bertin, Edouard, 275 _n._
Blake, William, 47, 94, 152, 168, 196, 197, 242, 254-256, 297, 327 _n._
Boehme, Jacob, 46, 254, 255, 258.
Boileau, 5, 11, 16, 20, 21, 27, 66, 76, 87, 268.
Bossuet, 251, 304 _n._, 392.
Boswell, 356.
Boufflers, Mme. de, 129.
Bourget, Paul, xvi, 343 _n._
Bowles, Samuel, 101.
Brandes, G., 262 _n._
Brooke, Henry, 258.
Broussais, 215 _n._
Browne, Sir Thomas, 286.
Brownell, W. C., 67.
Browning, Robert, 211-213, 216, 217, 234, 236 _n._, 287, 307.
Brunetière, F., 28.
Buddha, xix-xxi, 149-153, 272 _n._, 343, 349, 367, 370, 372, 381.
Buffon, 56, 57, 66.
Bulwer-Lytton, 62.
Bunyan, 133.
Burke, Edmund, 128, 142, 147, 346, 380.
Burns, Robert, 229.
Burton, 143 _n._
Butcher, S. H., 312 _n._
Byrom, John, 257, 258.
Byron, 54, 101, 161 _n._, 181, 186, 220, 223 _n._, 228, 229, 232, 266, 269, 280, 283, 308, 318, 322, 324, 327 _n._
Calvin, 118.
Canat, R., 332 _n._
Carlyle, 52, 53, 147, 154, 159 _n._, 193, 300, 309, 327-329.
Catullus, 229, 285.
Cervantes, 99, 176, 223, 224, 264.
Cézanne, 63.
Chapelain, 28.
Charpentier, Julie von, 226.
Chateaubriand, 50, 54, 57, 58, 60, 61, 91, 126, 134, 151, 155, 159 _n._, 206, 207, 209, 227-229, 232, 249, 252, 276-278, 281, 283-285, 297 _n._, 304, 309, 310, 313, 316 _n._, 318, 322, 324 _n._, 327 _n._, 333, 334.
Chatterton, 90, 320, 321.
Chaucer, 334.
Chesterfield, 24, 25.
Chesterton, G., 322.
Christ (Jesus), 36, 52, 115, 254, 265, 304, 336, 359, 360, 379.
Cicero, xxii, 134, 273 _n._
Clifford, W. K., 138, 139.
Coleridge, Hartley, 231 _n._
Coleridge, Samuel T., 51, 52, 126, 146 _n._, 154, 159 _n._, 181, 296, 303, 305, 319 _n._
Common, T., 198 _n._
Confucius, xix-xxi, 176, 211 _n._, 380, 386, 390.
Congreve, 35 _n._
Constant, Benjamin, 316.
Cortez, F., 277.
Cowley, 12.
Cox, Kenyon, 64 _n._, 291.
Croce, Benedetto, xiii.
Dante, 112, 215, 259, 357, 358.
Daunou, 99.
Davidson, John, 90.
Descartes, xvi, 26, 27, 138, 168, 169, 172, 176, 200.
Dewey, John, xiii, 388.
Diderot, xi, xii, 38, 70, 100, 122, 126, 130, 191, 192, 326.
Didier, C., 327 _n._
Disraeli, 62.
Dorval, Mme., 337 _n._
Doudan, 214, 304 _n._, 344 _n._
Dryden, 13, 34, 223, 353, 354.
Du Camp, M., 215 _n._
Duff, 40 _n._
D’Urfé, 76.
Duval, G., 297 _n._
Eckermann, 96, 309.
Edison, 350.
Edwards, Jonathan, 123, 124, 139.
Elton, O., 206.
Emerson, R. W., x, 67, 93, 111, 176, 257, 348.
Epicurus, 270.
Euripides, 183, 204, 244, 322 _n._
Evelyn, 6, 274.
Faguet, E., 30.
Fawcett, E. D., xv _n._
Fichte, 241, 347.
FitzGerald, 204.
Flaubert, xvi _n._, 67, 87, 105, 107-109, 218, 299, 314, 339-342.
Fontenelle, 27.
Foster, John, 8, 9, 96.
France, A., 88, 265, 324 _n._, 370.
Francis, St., 222.
François, A. F., 7 _n._
Francueil, Mme. de, 155.
Froude, 309, 327 _n._
Galileo, 119.
Galsworthy, John, 252.
Gautier, T., 60, 61, 67, 93 _n._, 108, 230, 318 _n._, 320, 341.
Geffroy, A., 129 _n._
Gerard, A., 40 _n._
Gérard de Nerval, 230, 231 _n._
Gerould, Katherine F., 49 _n._
Gisborne, John, 227 _n._, 391.
Gissing, George, 309.
Godard, Colonel, 73.
Godwin, Mary, 226.
Goethe, xi, xvii, xviii, 2, 19, 22, 23, 32, 73, 85, 86, 89, 92, 96, 101, 103 _n._, 147, 170, 171, 192, 215, 224, 246, 252, 275, 309, 310, 331, 339, 346, 360-363, 378, 389.
Gomperz, Th., 268 _n._
Gran, Gerhard, 78 _n._
Gray, 311, 323.
Greville, F., 6.
Grillparzer, 191.
Grimm, H., 360.
Guérin, M. de, 281, 342.
Gustavus III, 129.
Hardy, T., 191.
Havemeyer, H. O., 141.
Hawthorne, N., 67, 326, 327.
Hazlitt, 97, 181, 186 _n._, 224, 235, 236, 289.
Hearn, Lafcadio, 111.
Heidigger, 7, 8.
Heine, 31, 221, 265.
Hensel, P., 194 _n._
Heraclitus, xiii _n._
Herder, 97, 98.
Herford, C. H., 359.
Herondas, 104.
Hettner, H., 194 _n._, 292 _n._
Hitchener, Elizabeth, 266.
Hobbes, 12, 13, 131, 192, 196, 197.
Hoffmann, E. T. A., 86, 262.
Hölderlin, 81, 82, 86, 90, 98, 110, 325 _n._
Homer, 38, 80, 92, 144, 146, 208, 295, 311, 312, 391.
Horace, 24, 36, 77, 81, 115, 285, 379, 391.
d’Houdetot, Mme., 227.
Huch, Ricarda, 184, 261.
Hugo, 50, 52, 57, 59, 94, 140-142, 146, 189, 190, 213, 214, 236, 297 _n._, 307 _n._, 318 _n._, 340, 392, 393.
Hurd, 31.
Hutcheson, 44, 121, 131, 179.
Huysmans, 332.
Ibsen, H., 330.
James, W., xiii, 78, 181, 183, 384.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, xx, 12, 21, 25, 33, 46, 50, 69, 71, 72, 91, 174, 223, 256, 348, 356, 357, 360, 362, 370.
Jonson, Ben, 209.
Joubert, 134, 158, 172 _n._, 179, 221, 253, 314, 393.
Kamo Chōmei, 272 _n._
Kant, xvi, 40, 42, 43, 70, 370.
Keats, 316 _n._, 321 _n._, 357, 358, 360.
Keble, 285.
Kepler, 119.
Kipling, 312.
Kleist, H. von, 160 _n._
Kühn, Sophie von, 226.
Kühnemann, E., 194 _n._
La Bruyère, 11, 125.
La Fontaine, 71, 72, 157, 285, 313 _n._
La Harpe, 100.
Lamartine, 61, 103, 126, 187, 236, 279, 281, 292 _n._, 310.
Lamb, Charles, 91, 92, 209.
La Motte Houdard, 55.
Lanson, Gustave, xvii, xviii.
La Place, 138.
La Rochefoucauld, 160.
Lasserre, Pierre, 140.
Law, 258.
Leconte de Lisle, xiv, 149, 299, 317, 324, 341, 365.
Legouis, E., 249 _n._, 250 _n._
Lemaître, Jules, 106, 127, 141, 155, 332.
Lenau, 91.
Lenclos, Ninon de, 307.
Le Nôtre, 275.
Leopardi, 238.
Levasseur, Thérèse, 78, 220, 224.
Levet, 356.
Lillo, 190 _n._
Lionardo da Vinci, 117.
Littré, 234.
Locke, 12, 26, 32.
Longfellow, H. W., 327 _n._
Longinus, 37.
Lorrain, C., 274 _n._
Loti, Pierre, 232.
Louis XIV, 154.
Lowell, J. R., 10, 270, 286, 287.
Lucchetti, G., 297 _n._
Lucretius, 270.
Maeterlinck, 52, 295, 296.
Maigron, L., xvi, 61 _n._, 215 _n._
Malherbe, 11.
Malesherbes, de, 84.
Manu, 326 _n._
Marat, 340.
Marinetti, 208.
Marini, Cavalier, 353.
Marlborough, 202 _n._
Mary, the Virgin, 221, 222.
Masson, P. M., 302, 303 _n._, 304.
Mather, F. J., Jr., 192.
Maupassant, 203.
Mazzini, 338.
Mercier, 100.
Meredith, J. C., 40 _n._
Mérimée, P., 203.
Michelet, 209.
Milton, 22, 25, 114, 323, 328 _n._, 358.
Mirabeau, Bailli de, 74.
Mohammed, 91.
Molière, 29, 30, 76, 214, 231, 268.
Montaigne, 260.
Moore, George, 128.
More, Henry, 109.
More, Paul Elmer, 261 _n._
Mulgrave, 13.
Musset, A. de, 126, 161 _n._, 214, 216, 231 _n._, 232-234, 236, 262 _n._, 310, 311, 328, 338.
Napoleon, 24, 58, 138, 317, 327, 330, 346.
Nero, 313.
Newman, Cardinal, 258, 272, 391, 392.
Newton, 2, 26, 27, 41.
Nietzsche, 25, 95, 144, 197-199, 242, 245, 246, 250, 260, 263, 327, 352.
Nisard, D., 23.
Norton, C. E., 90, 158, 163, 384.
Novalis, 74, 86, 94, 99 _n._, 110, 166, 186 _n._, 226, 241, 256, 262, 300.
d’Ortigue, J., 215 _n._
Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 295, 296.
Ossian, 38, 276.
Ovid, 92, 129.
Parmenides, xiii _n._
Pascal, 8, 24, 28-30, 53, 71, 123, 138, 151, 167, 177, 178, 200, 246, 266, 304, 375, 393.
Pater, W., 292.
Paul, St., 78, 349.
Peacock, 229.
Peladan, Joséphin, 324 _n._
Pepys, 6 _n._
Pericles, 24, 60.
Perrault, 27.
Peterborough, Earl of, 232.
Peter the Hermit, 222.
Petit de Julleville, 188.
Petrarch, xi, xii, 224, 273.
Pindar, 38, 182, 311, 316, 382.
Plato, xiii, xx, 29, 146, 161, 166, 171, 211 _n._, 220, 221, 253, 294, 359, 360, 385.
Pliny, the Younger, 298 _n._
Plotinus, 171 _n._, 254.
Plutarch, 84.
Poe, E. A., 50, 63, 230, 292, 321, 326, 354, 355.
Polonius, Jean, 325 _n._
Pope, 6 _n._, 12, 25, 33, 34, 38, 91, 174, 177, 268.
Poussin, 274 _n._
Prévost-Paradol, 231 _n._
Rabelais, 117, 268.
Racine, 100.
Racowitza, Princess von, 62 _n._
Radcliffe, Anne, 106.
Rambouillet, Marquise de, 75.
Raphael, 289, 290.
Rashdall, Hastings, 131 _n._
Rawnsley, Canon, 328.
Régnier, M., 62.
Renan, xi, 133, 183, 203, 238, 251, 265, 304, 323, 342, 344, 345.
Revon, M., 272 _n._
Richardson, 208.
Richter, Jean Paul, 93, 264.
Ritter, E., 134 _n._
Rivarol, xxiii, 215, 225.
Robespierre, M., 135, 136, 180, 340.
Rochambeau, 278.
Ronsard, 11.
Rosa, Salvator, 274.
Rostand, 76 _n._, 89, 295.
Rouge, I., 96 _n._
Rousseau, ix, xv _n._, xvii, xviii, 1, 5, 7, 23-25, 30, 32, 34, 43-45, 47, 50, 54, 58, 60, 61, 63, 68, 70, 72-82, 85-87, 90, 93, 97, 98, 102-104, 106-108, 110-112, 114, 115, 117, 119, 122, 123, 126-132, 135, 136, 140, 143, 144, 147, 153-158, 160-167, 174, 175, 179-181, 183, 185, 187, 188, 193-197, 210, 216, 218, 220, 221, 224, 227, 229, 234, 236, 245, 247, 248, 253, 256, 258, 263, 267, 269, 270, 275, 278, 279, 281, 282, 284-286, 289, 292, 300, 302, 303, 305-307, 309, 314, 317 _n._, 322, 325, 326, 330, 331, 342, 345-349, 352, 358 _n._, 361, 362, 364, 370, 373, 375, 377, 379, 380, 382, 383, 386-388.
Ruskin, 83, 90, 158, 163, 164, 269, 279, 290, 301, 328, 384.
Rymer, T., 13, 14.
Sainte-Beuve, xi, 14, 50, 57, 58, 93 _n._, 305, 313, 333, 336, 342.
Saint-Evremond, 39, 166.
Saint-Hilaire, Geoffroy, 270.
Saint-Hilaire, J. Barthélemy, 381 _n._
Saint-Pierre, B. de, 122.
Sand, George, 107, 232, 233 _n._, 262 _n._, 318 _n._, 328, 338-342, 344.
Sandys, J. E., 311 _n._
Santayana, G., 77, 361.
Sappho, 229.
Sargent, John, 291.
Scaliger, 19, 144, 146, 273.
Schelling, 293-295.
Schiller, 43, 44, 70, 77, 80-82, 96-98, 102, 110, 112, 129, 132 _n._, 140, 141, 241, 307 _n._, 312, 330, 358 _n._
Schlegel, A. W., 92, 94-97, 101, 149, 241, 293.
Schlegel, F., 95-99, 148, 149, 182, 241, 242, 245, 251, 263-265 _n._
Schomberg, Marshal, 73.
Schopenhauer, 149, 307 _n._
Scott, Walter, 232 _n._, 260.
Seillière, E., 194 _n._, 307 _n._
Senancour, 308, 315, 323.
Seneca, 216 _n._, 313 _n._, 332 _n._
Shackleton, Sir Ernest, 277.
Shadwell, T., 6 _n._
Shaftesbury, 44, 45, 121, 122, 131, 179, 196, 197, 207, 253, 257, 294, 324, 357.
Shakespeare, 21 _n._, 33, 38, 41, 99, 208, 264, 281, 290, 295.
Shelley, 82, 137, 161, 180, 196, 206, 224, 225 _n._-228, 256, 266, 282-284 _n._, 291, 310 _n._, 321 _n._, 358-360, 376, 391.
Shelley, Mrs., 161, 321 _n._
Sherman, Stuart P., 243.
Shute, R., xxii _n._
Sidney, Sir Phillip, 6, 18.
Smith, Horace, 227.
Socrates, 1, 112, 146, 147, 175, 195, 242-245, 266, 272, 356, 362, 374, 375, 385.
Solomon, 295.
Solon, xxi.
Sophocles, 23, 48, 53, 174, 204, 358, 360.
Spingarn, J. E., 65 _n._
Staël, Mme. de, 45, 99, 101, 132 _n._, 306, 316.
Stedman, E. C., 230.
Steele, 6 _n._, 127 _n._
Stendhal, 192, 213, 307 _n._, 317.
Stephen, Leslie, 82 _n._, 107, 258.
Sterne, L., 144.
Stobæus, 311 _n._
Swanwick, Miss, 288 _n._
Swift, 8, 266, 267.
Synge, 243.
Tagore, 149.
Taine, 28, 89, 170, 188, 237, 275, 337, 343 _n._
Talleyrand, 24, 25.
Tasso, 85, 89.
Taylor, Jeremy, 115.
Tennyson, 92, 197, 202 _n._, 312, 332 _n._, 348 _n._, 358, 393.
Theocritus, 238, 281, 285.
Thiers, 321.
Thomson, James (author of _The Seasons_), 8, 274 _n._
Thomson, James (“B.V.”), 332 _n._
Tiberius, 313.
Tieck, 94, 159 _n._, 241 _n._, 243, 292.
Titian, 291.
Tolstoy, 197, 198, 352.
Tsêng Kuo-fan, 381 _n._
Turner, 290.
Twain, Mark, 326.
Uhland, 293.
Vaihinger, H., 370.
Vida, 144.
Vidal, Pierre, 238.
Vigny, A. de., 186 _n._, 305, 320, 324, 335-338, 365.
Villemain, 336 _n._
Villers, 45.
Villiers de l’Isle Adam, 88, 322, 324 _n._
Villon, 238.
Violet, 278.
Virgil, 19, 271, 312, 354, 377.
Viviani, Emilia, 228.
Voltaire, 32-34, 39, 93 _n._, 100, 103, 119, 177, 216, 236 _n._, 369.
Wackenroder, 86.
Wagner, 170, 210, 230.
Wallace, E., 12 _n._
Walpole, H., 127, 314.
Walzel, O. F., 52 _n._, 160 _n._
Ward, Wilfrid, 62 _n._
Warens, Mme. de, 74, 134 _n._, 135, 236.
Wellington, 386.
Wesley, John, 258.
West, Richard, 323.
Westbrook, Harriet, 226.
Whitman, Walt, 137, 166, 286, 349.
Wilde, Oscar, 238.
Williams, Mrs., 226.
Wolseley, R., 65.
Wordsworth, xvii, 1, 52, 74, 83, 91, 92 _n._, 145, 146, 166 _n._, 171, 197, 237, 247-250 _n._, 256, 262 _n._, 272, 277, 279, 283-285, 293, 296, 301-303, 322 _n._, 328, 337 _n._, 343, 351.
Xenophon, 175 _n._
Yalden, 50.
Yeats, W. B., 149.
Young, E., 37, 38, 40.
Zola, 58, 103, 106, 107, 187, 220.