The Germ: Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art

Thus we have a formidable array of objections to the choice of present-day subjects: and first, it was objected and granted, that incidents of the present time are well nigh barren in poetic attraction for the many. Then it was objected, but not granted, that their poetic or pictorial counterparts will be equally unattractive also: but this last remains to be proved. It was said, and is believed by the author, (and such as doubt it he does not address) that all good men are more or less poetical in some way or other; while their poetry shows itself at various times. Thus the business-man in the street has other to think of than poetry; but when he is inclined to look at a picture, or in his more poetical humour, will he neglect the pictorial counterpart of what he neglected before? To test this, show him a camera obscura, where there is a more literal transcript of present-day nature than any painting can be:—what is the result? He expresses no anxiety to quit it, but a great curiosity to investigate; he feels it is very beautiful, indeed more beautiful than nature: and this he will say is because he does not see nature as an artist does. Now the solution of all this is easy: 1st. He is in a mood of mind which renders him accessible to the influences of poetry, which was not before the case. 2nd. He looks at that steadily which he before regarded cursorily; and, as the picture remains in his eye, it acquires an amount of harmony, in behoof of an intrinsic harmony resident in the organ itself, which exerts proportionately modifying influences on all things that enter within it; and of the nervous harmony, and the beautifully apportioned stimuli of alternating ocular spectra. 3rd. There is a resolution of discord effected by the instrument itself, inasmuch as its effects are homogeneous. All these harmonizing influences are equally true of the painting; and though we have no longer the homogeneous effect of the camera, we have the homogeneous effect of one mind, viz., the mind of the artist.

Thus having disproved the supposed poetical obstacles to the rendering of real life or nature in its own real garb and time, as faithfully as Art can render it, nothing need be said to answer the advantages of the antique or mediæval rendering; since they were only called in to neutralize the aforesaid obstacles, which obstacles have proved to be fictitious. It remains then to consider the artistic objection of costume, &c., which consideration ranges under the head of real differences between the things of past and present times, a consideration formerly postponed. But this requiring a patient analysis, will necessitate a further postponement, and in conclusion, there will be briefly stated the elements of the argument, thus.—It must be obvious to every physicist that physical beauty (which this subject involves on the one side [the ancient] as opposed to the want of it on the other [the modern]) was in ancient times as superior to physical beauty in the modern, as psychical beauty in the modern is superior to psychical beauty in the ancient. Costume then, as physical, is more beautiful ancient than modern. Now that a certain amount of physical beauty is requisite to constitute Fine Art, will be readily admitted; but what that amount is, must be ever undefined. That the maximum of physical beauty does not constitute the maximum of Fine Art, is apparent from the facts of the physical beauty of Early Christian Art being inferior to that of Grecian art; whilst, in the concrete, Early Christian Art is superior to Grecian. Indeed some specimens of Early Christian Art are repulsive rather than beautiful, yet these are in many cases the highest works of Art.

In the “Plague at Ashdod,” great physical beauty, resulting from picturesque costume and the exposed human figure, was so far from desirable, that it seems purposely deformed by blotches of livid color; yet the whole is a most noble work of Poussin. Containing as much physical beauty as this picture, the writer remembers to have seen an incident in the streets where a black-haired, sordid, wicked-headed man, was striking the butt of his whip at the neck of a horse, to urge him round an angle of the pavement; a smocked countryman offered him the loan of his mules: a blacksmith standing by, showed him how to free the wheel, by only swerving the animal to the left: he, taking no notice whatever, went on striking and striking; whilst a woman waiting to cross, with a child in her one hand, and with the other pushing its little head close to her side, looked with wide eyes at this monster.

This familiar incident, affording a subject fraught with more moral interest than, and as much picturesque matter as, many antique or mediæval subjects, is only wanting in that romantic attraction which, by association, attaches to things of the past. Yet, let these modern subjects once excite interest, as it really appears they can, and the incidents of to-day will acquire romantic attractions by the same association of ideas.

The claims of ancient, mediæval, and modern subjects will be considered in detail at a future period.

The Carillon. (Antwerp and Bruges)

In these and others of the Flemish Towns, the Carillon, or chimes which have a most fantastic and delicate music, are played almost continually The custom is very ancient.

At Antwerp, there is a low wallBinding the city, and a moatBeneath, that the wind keeps afloat.You pass the gates in a slow drawlOf wheels. If it is warm at allThe Carillon will give you thought.I climbed the stair in Antwerp church,What time the urgent weight of soundAt sunset seems to heave it round.Far up, the Carillon did searchThe wind; and the birds came to perchFar under, where the gables wound.In Antwerp harbour on the ScheldtI stood along, a certain spaceOf night. The mist was near my face:Deep on, the flow was heard and felt.The Carillon kept pause, and dweltIn music through the silent place.At Bruges, when you leave the train,—A singing numbness in your ears,—The Carillon's first sound appearsOnly the inner moil. AgainA little minute though—your brainTakes quiet, and the whole sense hears.John Memmeling and John Van EyckHold state at Bruges. In sore shameI scanned the works that keep their name.The Carillon, which then did strikeMine ears, was heard of theirs alike:It set me closer unto them.I climbed at Bruges all the flightThe Belfry has of ancient stone.For leagues I saw the east wind blown:The earth was grey, the sky was white.I stood so near upon the heightThat my flesh felt the Carillon. October, 1849.

Emblems

I lay through one long afternoon,Vacantly plucking the grass.I lay on my back, with steadfast gazeWatching the cloud-shapes pass;Until the evening's chilly dampsRose from the hollows below,Where the cold marsh-reeds grow.I saw the sun sink down behindThe high point of a mountain;Its last light lingered on the weedsThat choked a shattered fountain,Where lay a rotting bird, whose plumesHad beat the air in soaring.On these things I was poring:—The sun seemed like my sense of life,Now weak, that was so strong;The fountain—that continual pulseWhich throbbed with human song:The bird lay dead as that wild hopeWhich nerved my thoughts when young.These symbols had a tongue,And told the dreary lengths of yearsI must drag my weight with me;Or be like a mastless ship stuck fastOn a deep, stagnant sea.A man on a dangerous height alone,If suddenly struck blind,Will never his home path find.When divers plunge for ocean's pearls,And chance to strike a rock,Who plunged with greatest force belowReceives the heaviest shock.With nostrils wide and breath drawn in,I rushed resolved on the race;Then, stumbling, fell in the chase.Yet with time's cycles forests swellWhere stretched a desert plain:Time's cycles make the mountains riseWhere heaved the restless main:On swamps where moped the lonely stork,In the silent lapse of timeStands a city in its prime.I thought: then saw the broadening shadeGrow slowly over the mound,That reached with one long level slopeDown to a rich vineyard ground:The air about lay still and hushed,As if in serious thought:But I scarcely heeded aught,Till I heard, hard by, a thrush break forth,Shouting with his whole voice,So that he made the distant airAnd the things around rejoice.My soul gushed, for the sound awokeMemories of early joy:I sobbed like a chidden boy.

Sonnet: Early Aspirations

How many a throb of the young poet-heart,Aspiring to the ideal bliss of Fame,Deems that Time soon may sanctify his claimAmong the sons of song to dwell apart.—Time passes—passes! The aspiring flameOf Hope shrinks down; the white flower PoesyBreaks on its stalk, and from its earth-turned eyeDrop sleepy tears instead of that sweet dewRich with inspiring odours, insect wingsDrew from its leaves with every changing sky,While its young innocent petals unsunn'd grew.No more in pride to other ears he sings,But with a dying charm himself unto:—For a sad season: then, to active life he springs.

From the Cliffs: Noon

The sea is in its listless chime:Time's lapse it is, made audible,—The murmur of the earth's large shell.In a sad blueness beyond rhymeIt ends: sense, without thought, can passNo stadium further. Since time was,This sound hath told the lapse of time.No stagnance that death wins,—it hathThe mournfulness of ancient life,Always enduring at dull strife.As the world's heart of rest and wrath,Its painful pulse is in the sands.Last utterly, the whole sky stands,Grey and not known, along its path.

Fancies at Leisure

I. In SpringThe sky is blue here, scarcely with a stainOf grey for clouds: here the young grasses gainA larger growth of green over this splinterFallen from the ruin. Spring seems to have told WinterHe shall not freeze again here. Tho' their lossOf leaves is not yet quite repaired, trees tossSprouts from their boughs. The ash you called so stiffCurves, daily, broader shadow down the cliff.II. In SummerHow the rooks caw, and their beaks seem to clank!Let us just move out there,—(it might be coolUnder those trees,) and watch how the thick tankBy the old mill is black,—a stagnant poolOf rot and insects. There goes by a lankDead hairy dog floating. Will Nature's ruleOf life return hither no more? The plankRots in the crushed weeds, and the sun is cruel.III. The Breadth of NoonLong time I lay there, while a breeze would blowFrom the south softly, and, hard by, a slenderPoplar swayed to and fro to it. SurrenderWas made of all myself to quiet. NoLeast thought was in my mind of the least woe:Yet the void silence slowly seemed to renderMy calmness not less calm, but yet more tender,And I was nigh to weeping.—‘Ere I go,’I thought, ‘I must make all this stillness mine;The sky's blue almost purple, and these threeHills carved against it, and the pine on pineThe wood in their shade has. All this I seeSo inwardly I fancy it may beSeen thus of parted souls by their sunshine.’IV. Sea-FreshnessLook at that crab there. See if you can't haulHis backward progress to this spar of a shipThrown up and sunk into the sand here. ClipHis clipping feelers hard, and give him allYour hand to gripe at: he'll take care not fall:So,—but with heed, for you are like to slipIn stepping on the plank's sea-slime. Your lip—No wonder—curves in mirth at the slow drawlOf the squat creature's legs. We've quite a shineOf waves round us, and here there comes a windSo fresh it must bode us good luck. How longBoatman, for one and sixpence? Line by lineThe sea comes toward us sun-ridged. Oh! we sinnedTaking the crab out: let's redress his wrong.V. The Fire SmoulderingI look into the burning coals, and seeFaces and forms of things; but they soon pass,Melting one into other: the firm massCrumbles, and breaks, and fades gradually,Shape into shape as in a dream may be,Into an image other than it was:And so on till the whole falls in, and hasNot any likeness,—face, and hand, and tree,All gone. So with the mind: thought follows thought,This hastening, and that pressing upon this,A mighty crowd within so narrow room:And then at length heavy-eyed slumbers come,The drowsy fancies grope about, and missTheir way, and what was so alive is nought.

Papers of “The M.S. Society”12

No. I. An Incident in the Siege of Troy, seen from a modern Observatory

Sixteen Specials in Priam's KeepSat down to their mahogany:The League, just then, had made busters cheap,And Hesiod writ his “Theogony,”A work written to prove “that, if men would be men,And demand their rights again and again,They might live like gods, have infinite smokes,Drink infinite rum, drive infinite mokes,Which would come from every part of the knownAnd civilized globe, twice as good as their own,And, finally, Ilion, the work-shop should beOf the world—one vast manufactory!”From arrow-slits, port-holes, windows, what not,Their sixteen quarrels the Specials had shotFrom sixteen arblasts, their daily task;Why they'd to do it they didn't ask,For, after they'd done it, they sat down to dinner;The sixteen Specials they didn't get thinner;But kept quite loyal, and every dayAsked no questions but fired away.Would you like me to tell you the reason whyThese sixteen Specials kept letting flyFrom eleven till one, as the Chronicle speaks?They did it, my boys, to annoy the Greeks,Who kept up a perpetual cannonadeOn the walls, and threaten'd an escalade.The sixteen Specials were so arrangedThat the shots they shot were not shots exchanged,But every shot so told on the foeThe Greeks were obliged to draw it mild:Diomedes—“A fix,” Ulysses—“No go”Declared it, the “king of men” cried like a child;Whilst the Specials, no more than a fine black TomI keep to serenade Mary fromThe tiles, where he lounges every night,Knew nor cared what they did, and were perfectly right.But the fact was thus: one Helenus,A man much faster than any of us,More fast than a gent at the top of a “bus,”More fast than the coming of “Per col. sus.”Which Shakespeare says comes galloping,(I take his word for anything)This Helenus had a cure of souls—He had cured the souls of several Greeks,Achilles sole or heel,—the rollsOf fame (not French) say Paris:—speaksAnatomist Quain thereof. Who seeksMay read the story from z to a;He has handled and argued it every way;—A subject on which there's a good deal to say.His work was ever the best, and still is,Because of this note on the Tendo Achillis.This Helenus was a man well bred,He was up in Electricity,Fortification, Theology,Æsthetics and Pugilicity;Celsus and Gregory he'd read;Knew every “dodge” of glove and fist;Was a capital curate, (I think I've said)And Transcendental Anatomist:Well up in Materia Medica,Right up in Toxicology,And Medical Jurisprudence, that sell!And the dead sell Physiology:Knew what and how much of any potationWould get him through any examination:With credit not small, had passed the HallAnd the College–and they couldn't pluck him at all.He'd written on Rail-roads, delivered a lectureUpon the Electric Telegraph,Had played at single-stick with Hector,And written a paper on half-and-half.With those and other works of noteHe was not at all a “people's man,”Though public, for the works he wroteWere not that sort the people canAdmire or read; they were MathematicThe most part, some were Hydrostatic;But Algebraic, in the main,And full of a, b, c, and n—And other letters which perplex—The last was full of double x!In fact, such stuff as one may easilyImagine, didn't go down greasily,Nor calculated to produceSuch heat as “cooks the public goose,”And does it of so brown a hueMen wonder while they relish too.It therefore was that much aloneHe studied; and a room is shownIn a coffee-house, an upper room,Where none but hungry devils come,Wherein 'tis said, with animationHe read “Vestiges of Creation.”Accordingly, a month aboutAfter he'd chalked up steak and stoutFor the last time, he gave the worldA pamphlet, wherein he unfurledA tissue of facts which, soon as blown,Ran like wildfire through the town.And, first of all, he plainly showedA capital error in the modeOf national defences, thus—“The Greek one thousand miles from us,”Said he, (for nine hundred and ninety-nineThe citadel stood above the brineIn perpendicular height, allowingFor slope of glacis, thereby showingAn increase of a mile,) “'tis plainThe force that shot and shell would gain,By gravitation, with their own,Would fire the ground by friction alone;Which, being once in fusion schooledEre cool, as Fire-mist had cooled”Would gain a motion, which must soon,Just as the earth detached the moonAnd gave her locomotive birth,Detach some twenty miles of earth,And send it swinging in the air,The Devil only could tell where!Then came the probabilityWith what increased facilityThe Greeks, by this projectile power,Might land on Ilion's highest tower,All safe and sound, in battle array,With howitzers prepared to play,And muskets to the muzzles rammed;—Why, the town would be utterly smashed and jammed,And positively, as the phrase isVernacular, be “sent to blazes”!In the second place, he then would ask,(And here he took several members to task,And wondered—“he really must presumeTo wonder” a statesman like—you know whom—Who ever evinced the deepest senseOf a crying sin in any expense,Should so besotted be, and lostTo the fact that now, at public cost,Powder was being day by dayWantonly wasted, blown away);—Yes, he would ask, “with what intentBut to perch the Greeks on a battlementFrom which they might o'erlook the town,The easier to batter it down,Which he had proved must be the case(If it hadn't already taken place):He called on his readers to fear and dread it,Whilst he wrote it,—whilst they read it!”“How simple! How beautifully simple,” said he,“And obvious was the remedy!Look back a century or so—And there was the ancient Norman bow,A weapon (he gave them leave to laugh)Efficient, better, cheaper by half:(He knew quite well the age abused itBecause, forsooth, the Normans used it)These, planted in the citadel,Would reach the walls say,—very well;There, having spent their utmost force,They'd drop down right, as a matter of course,A thousand miles! Think—a thousand miles!What was the weight for driving pilesTo this? He calculated it—'Twould equal, when both Houses sit,The weight of the entire building,Including Members, paint, and gilding;But, if a speech or the addressFrom the throne were given, something less,Because, as certain snores aver,The House is then much heavier.Now this, though very much a rub likeFor Ministers, convinced the public;And Priam, who liked to hear its braysTo any tune but “the Marseillaise,”Summoned a Privy Council, where'Twas shortly settled to conferOn Helenus a sole commandOf Specials.—He headed that daring band!And sixteen Specials in Priam's keepGot up from their mahogany;They smoked their pipes in silence deepTill there was such a fog—anyAttempt to discover the priest in the smotherHad bothered old Airy and Adams and t'otherAnd—Every son of an English mother.June, 1848.

No. II. Swift's Dunces

“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the DUNCES are all in confederacy against him.”—Swift.

How shall we know the dunces from the man of genius, who is no doubt our superior in judgment, yet knows himself for a fool—by the proverb?

At least, my dear Doctor, you will let me, with the mass of readers, have clearer wits than the dunces—then why should I not know what you are as soon as, or sooner than Bavius, &c.—unless a dunce has a good nose, or a natural instinct for detecting wit.

Now I take it that these people stigmatized as dunces are but men of ill-balanced mental faculties, yet perhaps, in a great degree, superior to the average of minds. For instance, a poet of much merit, but more ambition, has written the “Lampiad,” an epic; when he should not have dared beyond the Doric reed: his ambitious pride has prevented the publication of excellent pastorals, therefore the world only knows him for his failure. This, I say, is a likely man to become a detractor; for his good judgment shows the imperfections of most works, his own included; his ambition (an ill-combination of self-conscious worth and spleen) leads him to compare works of the highest repute; the works of contemporaries; and his own. In all cases where success is most difficult, he will be most severe; this naturally leads him to criticise the very best works.

He has himself failed; he sees errors in successful writers; he knows he possesses certain merits, and knows what the perfection of them should be. This is the ground work of envy, which makes a man of parts a comparative fool, and a confederate against “true genius.”

No. III. Mental Scales

I make out my case thus—

There is an exact balance in the distribution of causes of pleasure and pain: this has been satisfactorily proved in my next paper, upon “Cause and Effect,” therefore I shall take it for granted. What, then, is there but the mind to determine its own state of happiness, or misery: just as the motion of the scales depends upon themselves, when two equal weights are put into them. The balance ought to be truly hung; but if the unpleasant scale is heavier, then the motion is in favor of the pleasant scale, and vice versa. Whether the beam stands horizontally, or otherwise, does not matter (that only determines the key): draw a line at right angles to it, then put in your equal weights; if the angle becomes larger on the unpleasant scale's side of the line, happiness is the result, if on the other, misery.

It requires but a slight acquaintance with mechanics to see that he who would be happy should have the unpleasant side heavier. I hate corollaries or we might have a group of them equally applicable to Art and Models.

June, 1848.

Reviews

Some Account of the Life and Adventures of Sir Reginald Mohun, Bart. Done in Verse by George John Cayley. Canto 1st. Pickering. 1849.

Inconsistency, whether in matters of importance or in trifles, whether in substance or in detail, is never pleasant. We do not here impute to this poem any inconsistency between one portion and another; but certainly its form is at variance with its subject and treatment. In the wording of the title, and the character of typography, there is a studious archaism: more modern the poem itself could scarcely be.

“Sir Reginald Mohun” aims, to judge from the present sample, at depicting the easy intercourse of high life; and the author enters on his theme with a due amount of sympathy. It is in this respect, if in any, that the mediæval tone of the work lasts beyond the title page. In Mr. Cayley's eyes, the proof of the comparative prosperity of England is that

“Still Queen Victoria sits upon her throne;Our aristocracy still keep alive,And, on the whole, may still be said to thrive,—Tho' now and then with ducal acres groanThe honored tables of the auctioneer.Nathless, our aristocracy is dear,Tho' their estates go cheap; and all must ownThat they still give society its tone.”—p. 16.

He proceeds in these terms:

“Our baronets of late appear to beUnjustly snubbed and talked and written down;Partly from follies of Sir Something Brown,Stickling for badges due to their degree,And partly that their honor's late editionsHave been much swelled with surgeons and physicians;For ‘honor hath small skill in surgery,’And skill in surgery small honor.”—p. 17.

What “honor” is here meant? and against whom is the taunt implied?—against the “surgeons and physicians,” or against the depreciation of them. Surely the former can hardly have been intended. The sentence will bear to be cleared of some ambiguity, or else to be cleared off altogether.

Our introduction to Sir Reginald Mohun, Lord of Nornyth Place, and of “an income clear of 20,000 pounds,” and to his friends Raymond St. Oun, De Lacy, Wilton, Tancarville, and Vivian—(for the author's names are aristocratic, like his predilections)—is effected through the medium of a stanza, new, we believe, in arrangement, though differing but slightly from the established octave, and of verses so easy and flowing as to make us wonder less at the promise of

“provision plentyFor cantos twelve, or may be, four and twenty,”

than at Mr. Cayley's assertion that he “Can never get along at all in prose.”

The incidents, as might be expected of a first canto, are neither many nor important, and will admit of compression into a very small compass.

Sir Reginald, whose five friends had arrived at Nornyth Place late on the preceding night, is going over the grounds with them in a shooting party after a late breakfast. St. Oun expresses a wish to “prowl about the place” in preference, not feeling in the mood for the required exertion.