Chapter 8

Personally speaking, I consider the possession of the artistic temperament a distinct curse to those unfortunate folk who have to live with the owner of this fantastic demon; while if the possessor knows how to deal with his old Man of the Sea he has a most powerful engine at his command: for once let the world at large know that the "artistic temperament" has entered into him, his strangest freaks become more than put-up-able with, and the brighter he is in company, and the more irritable and offensive he is at home, the more law is given him, and the less work, and, may I add, decency, is expected of him, until he appears to agree with his compeers or followers, and begins to be as eccentric as he likes. Commencing with long hair touching his shoulders, and with an absence of the use of Someone's soap, he passes on through mystic moonlight glances to a still more artistic appreciation of the charms of Nature at her simplest, until Mrs. Grundy looks askance, and duchesses and other leaders of Society squabble over him, and try one against the other for the honour and pleasure of his society. So far, then, the artistic temperament is for its possessor a fine thing, for it cannot put up with indifferent fare and lodging: it can only prove its existence by the manner in which it annexes all that is richest, most beautiful, and, to use a byegone slang word, most Precious. For it is reserved the luxurious Chesterfield or Divan, heaped with rainbow-like cushions, and placed in the most becoming light, until the quick, unhappy day dawns when another "artistic temperament" comes to the fore, and the first retires perforce, if not a better, certainly a sadder, man, for all that has been happening unto him. Now comes the time when one sees the slow-witted creature sinking gradually into the mere haunter of the Gaiety bar: when the sacred lamp burns brightly, and causes him to recollect, sadly indeed, the days that are no more. Or we find the man who has learned his bitter lesson, and recognising that _he_ still exists--albeit the beast is dead--turns to the work he was meant to do, and does that nobly, though the mad and beautiful days of his youth have done, and all that caused life to be lovely has faded slowly into the _ewigkeit_.

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[Sidenote: But that, if true, it must often be a delight.]

If the "artistic temperament" is true and not a sham, to the owner at least it must often be a sheer delight, for the elf or "troll" which goes by this name takes such possession of the owner that under his guidance he sees "What man may never see, the star that travels far." "The light" that the poet declares shone on sea or shore, shines for him always, if for no one else: he walks with Beatrice in Paradise, not in the "other place;" and his delight in the mere rapture of existence is such that he hardly cares to speak for joy, and for the certainty that not one living creature on earth would understand him if he did. For even if he recognised another elf or troll, peeping out of the eyes of a friend, it would not be his own familiar spirit, and, in consequence, he would not understand the other, because no two of these fantastic creatures ever speak entirely alike. But if we mention those who have to exist with the owner of this fantastic Will-o'-the-wisp--for he is as often absent as present--this makes the whole thing a matter of speculation. I feel as if I could not do justice to the idea, for I, too, have lived once on a time with these others; and I would rather not repeat the experiment.

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[Sidenote: Joseph Hatton declares it to be the choicest gift of all.]

_Punch's_ illustration of Lord Beaconsfield's announcement that he was "on the side of the angels" casts somewhat of a shadow over the sentiment; yet I feel constrained to quote it, as representing my own feelings in regard to the question whether the artistic temperament is a curse or a blessing. Shakespeare had it; Dickens had it; and Thackeray confessed that he would have been glad to black Shakespeare's boots. One may well be convinced that it is a blessing by the penalties which Heaven exacts from its possessors. It means the capacity to enjoy and appreciate the beautiful; with the great poets and novelists it means the power to express the beautiful and describe it "in thoughts that breathe and words that burn." On the other hand, it means experiencing a keener sense of pain than those are capable of who do not possess tender susceptibilities. But in the spirit of "better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathy" the miseries that belong to the poetic temperament are better than the pleasures that go with its opposite. To feel the full glory of the sun, the joy of the Western wind, to hear the aphonous whisperings of the flowers, to be fancifully cognisant of "the music of the spheres"; better this with only a garret for your environment, than to be a wealthy Peter Bell in a palace, or a lord of many acres who sees nothing beyond its intrinsic value in a Turner, and finds Shelley poor stuff and Tennyson only a rhymster. It is the artistic temperament that lives up to the glories of Nature, and understands the parables; and you need not be a writing poet to have it. There is many a poet who never wrote a line, many a romancist who never contributed to a magazine. The ploughboy whistling behind his team, the gardener lovingly pruning his vines, the angler sitting in the shade of summer trees, even the playgoer craning his neck over the gallery and failing to catch the last words of Hamlet on the stage, may be blessed with something of "the divine afflatus," to be born utterly without which is to require at the Maker's hands a compensation. Thus He gives in a lower form the trick of money-making, the rank of birthright, the cheap distinction of a high place in society; with poverty He joins the peace of humble content, a solid faith in the bliss of a future state, and the rough enjoyment of perfect health. But the poetic temperament is the choicest gift of all; it may have occasional glimpses of the bottomless pit, but it can make its own heaven, and paint its own rainbow upon "the storms of life."

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[Sidenote: Angelina wants to concentrate genius.]

The artistic temperament implies genius--and "there's the rub," for we others don't understand genius. The Almighty bestowed the blessing; we have superadded the curse of an ignorant reception. The Genius is the child of his century. _We_ persist in relegating him to his family. He asks for materials and room to create. We answer him, "Go to--thou art idle. Put money in thy purse." We bind him with cords of conventionality, and deliver him into the hands of the Philistines. We declare him to be a rational animal who could pay his bills if he chose--and we County Court him if he does not. We build and maintain stately edifices for the accommodation of paupers, criminals, and idiots; but for the Genius there is not even the smallest parish allowance made to his relatives to pay for a keeper. How _can_ he expand under present conditions? "_Es bildet ein Talent sich in der stille_," says Goethe, and I think you will admit that there is precious little of "_der stille_" to be found either in ordinary domestic life, or that refuge of the desperate, a garret in Bloomsbury. Picture to yourself Orpheus executing frenzied violin _obbligati_ to the family baby (teething)--or Apollo hastily descending the slopes of Olympus to argue with a tax collector, or irate landlady! Alas! few survive this sort of thing. What I would propose is a Grand National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Genius--including a National Asylum for its reception and maintenance. Geniuses would be fed and clothed, and have their hair cut by the State, who would adopt and cherish them during life, and bequeath them to posterity at death. In this blissful retreat they would be preserved from the chilling influences of the outer world, liberally supplied with foolscap, musical instruments, and padded cells, and protected from all that had hitherto oppressed them--including cats, organ-grinders, creditors, and matrimony. Worshippers of the opposite sex would be allowed to express their appreciation sensibly, by contributions to the box at the door. Just think of the enormous advantage which would be gained by thus concentrating our Genius as we do our other illuminating forces; the saving of brain power by avoiding outside friction. Why there need be absolutely _no_ waste! Genius could be "laid on," at a fixed rate, and "lions" supplied by annual subscription.

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[Sidenote: Florence Marryat believes it to be a blessing.]

Surely--without a manner of doubt--a Blessing--the greatest blessing ever bestowed by Heaven on Man--the best panacea for the troubles of this life--the magic wand that, for the time being, opens the door of a Paradise of our own creation. And in order to procure this enjoyment, it is not necessary that the artist should be successful. Disappointment may be the issue of his attempt, but the attempt itself--the knowledge that he _can_ attempt--is so delightful. The work may never reach the artistic ideal--it seldom does--but no artist believes in failure, whilst the child of his brain is germinating. It looks so promising--it grows so fast--the ideas which are to render it immortal press so quickly one upon the other, that he has hardly time to grasp them--whilst his breast heaves and his eye sparkles, and his whole frame quivers with the sense of power to conceive and to bring to the birth. No fear enters his mind then that his offspring will prove to be stunted, deformed, or weakly. It is his own--no man has begot it before him--and he can take no interest in anything else, until it is completed. Is this not true of the Painter, as he stands with his charcoal in hand thinking out his picture for next year's Academy?--of the Composer, seated before his piano and running his fingers with apparent want of design over the keys?--of the Author, as he walks to and fro and plans the details of his new plot?--of the Poet, as he gazes up into the skies and hears the rhythm of his lines in the "music of the stars?" True, that the finely-organised and sensitive temperament of the Artist suffers keenly when jarred by the discord of the world--that it amounts almost to a curse to be interrupted when in the throes of a new conception (just thought of and hardly grasped) by someone who has no more notion of what he is undergoing than a deal table would have, and pulls him back roughly from his Paradise to the sordid details of Life, putting all his airy fancies to flight, perhaps, by the process. But neither this materialistic world, nor all the fools that inhabit it, can ever really rob the Artist of the joy--in which "no stranger intermeddleth"--of the Realm of fancy which is his own domain, inherited by right of his genius. Though he may pass through Life unappreciated and unsuccessful, let him still thank God for the Divine power which has been given him--the power to create! It will tide him over the loss of things, which other men cut their throats for--it will stand him in stead of wife and child--in stead of friends and companionship.

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[Sidenote: And that the true artist is never alone.]

Is the true Artist ever alone? Do not the creatures of his brain walk beside him wherever he may go? Do they not lie down with him and rise up with him, and even when he is old and grey, his heart still keeps fresh, from association with the Young and Beautiful, with the blossoms of Womanhood and of Spring, that have bloomed upon his canvas--with the notes of the birds and the sounds of falling water that his fingers have conjured to life upon his instrument--with the fair maidens and noble youths that he has accompanied through so many trials and conducted to such a blissful termination in his pages. And beyond all this--beyond the joy of conception and the pride of fruition--there is an added blessing on the artistic temperament. Surely the minds which are always striving after the ideally Perfect must be, in a measure, refined and purified by the height of the summit they try to reach. "We needs must love the highest, when we see it." It is a Blessing to have the desire to reach the highest, even though we fail, and our natures are raised by the mere contemplation of it. So that the Artist may well forget the rebuffs and cold douches which he receives from those who cannot sympathise with him, and thank Heaven that he can walk out of their world into his own.

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[Sidenote: Zangwill draweth a distinction.]

There are two aspects of the artistic temperament--the active or creative side, and the passive or receptive side. It is impossible to possess the power of creation without possessing also the power of appreciation; but it is quite possible to be very susceptible to artistic influences while dowered with little or no faculty of origination. On the one hand is the artist--poet, musician, or painter--on the other, the artistic person to whom the artist appeals. Between the two, in some arts, stands the artistic interpreter--the actor who embodies the aery conceptions of the poet, the violinist or pianist who makes audible the inspirations of the musician. But in so far as this artistic interpreter rises to greatness in his field, in so far he will be found soaring above the middle ground, away from the artistic person, and into the realm of the artist or creator. Joachim and De Reszke, Paderewski and Irving, put something of themselves into their work; apart from the fact that they could all do (in some cases have done) creative work on their own account. So that when the interpreter is worth considering at all, he may be considered in the creative category. Limiting ourselves then to these two main varieties of the artistic temperament, the active and the passive, I should say that the latter is an unmixed blessing, and the former a mixed curse.

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[Sidenote: He speaketh of ye curse.]

What, indeed, can be more delightful than to possess good aesthetic faculties--to be able to enjoy books, music, pictures, plays! This artistic sensibility is the one undoubted advantage of man over other animals, the extra octave in the gamut of life. Most enviable of mankind is the appreciative person, without a scrap of originality, who has every temptation to enjoy, and none to create. He is the idle heir to treasures greater than India's mines can yield; the bee who sucks at every flower, and is not even asked to make honey. For him poets sing, and painters paint, and composers write. "_O fortunatos nimium_," who not seldom yearn for the fatal gift of genius! For _this_ artistic temperament is a curse--a curse that lights on the noblest and best of mankind! From the day of Prometheus to the days of his English laureate it has been a curse

"To vary from the kindly race of men,"

and the eagles have not ceased to peck at the liver of men's benefactors. All great and high art is purchased by suffering--it is not the mechanical product of dexterous craftsmanship. This is one part of the meaning of that mysterious _Master Builder_ of Ibsen's. "Then I saw plainly why God had taken my little children from me. It was that I should have nothing else to attach myself to. No such thing as love and happiness, you understand. I was to be only a master builder--nothing else." And the tense strings that give the highest and sweetest notes are most in danger of being overstrung.

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[Sidenote: And its compensations.]

But there are compensations. The creative artist is higher in the scale of existence than the man, as the man is higher than the beatified oyster for whose condition, as Aristotle pointed out, few would be tempted to barter the misery of human existence. The animal has consciousness, man self-consciousness, and the artist over-consciousness. Over-consciousness may be a curse, but, like the primitive curse--labour--there are many who would welcome it!

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] _i.e._, Gambled at Faro.

[2] See the writer's _Life of David Gray_.

[3] I have given a detailed account of Peacock in my "Look Round Literature."

[4] O those "Tendencies of one's Time"! O those dismal Phantoms, conjured up by the blatant Book-taster and the Indolent Reviewer! How many a poor Soul, that would fain have been honest, have they bewildered into the Slough of Despond and the Bog of Beautiful Ideas!--R.B.

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End of Project Gutenberg's The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893, by Various