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

Standard of Freedom.

The Germ: Thoughts towards Nature In Poetry, Literature, and Art.

No. 1. January, 1850

With an Etching by W. HOLMAN HUNTWhen whoso merely hath a little thoughtWill plainly think the thought which is in him,—Not imaging another's bright or dim,Not mangling with new words what others taught;When whoso speaks, from having either soughtOr only found,—will speak, not just to skimA shallow surface with words made and trim,But in that very speech the matter brought:Be not too keen to cry—“So this is all!—A thing I might myself have thought as well,But would not say it, for it was not worth!”Ask: “Is this truth?” For is it still to tellThat, be the theme a point or the whole earth,Truth is a circle, perfect, great or small?

My Beautiful Lady

I love my lady; she is very fair;Her brow is white, and bound by simple hair;Her spirit sits aloof, and high,Altho' it looks thro' her soft eyeSweetly and tenderly.As a young forest, when the wind drives thro',My life is stirred when she breaks on my view.Altho' her beauty has such power,Her soul is like the simple flowerTrembling beneath a shower.As bliss of saints, when dreaming of large wings,The bloom around her fancied presence flings,I feast and wile her absence, byPressing her choice hand passionately—Imagining her sigh.My lady's voice, altho' so very mild,Maketh me feel as strong wine would a child;My lady's touch, however slight,Moves all my senses with its might,Like to a sudden fright.A hawk poised high in air, whose nerved wing-tipsTremble with might suppressed, before he dips,—In vigilance, not more intenseThan I; when her word's gentle senseMakes full-eyed my suspense.Her mention of a thing—august or poor,Makes it seem nobler than it was before:As where the sun strikes, life will gush,And what is pale receive a flush,Rich hues—a richer blush.My lady's name, if I hear strangers use,—Not meaning her—seems like a lax misuse.I love none by my lady's name;Rose, Maud, or Grace, are all the same,So blank, so very tame.My lady walks as I have seen a swanSwim thro' the water just where the sun shone.There ends of willow branches ride,Quivering with the current's glide,By the deep river-side.Whene'er she moves there are fresh beauties stirred;As the sunned bosom of a humming-birdAt each pant shows some fiery hue,Burns gold, intensest green or blue:The same, yet ever new.What time she walketh under flowering May,I am quite sure the scented blossoms say,“O lady with the sunlit hair!“Stay, and drink our odorous air—“The incense that we bear:“Your beauty, lady, we would ever shade;“Being near you, our sweetness might not fade.”If trees could be broken-hearted,I am sure that the green sap smarted,When my lady parted.This is why I thought weeds were beautiful;—Because one day I saw my lady pullSome weeds up near a little brook,Which home most carefully she took,Then shut them in a book.A deer when startled by the stealthy ounce,—A bird escaping from the falcon's trounce,Feels his heart swell as mine, when sheStands statelier, expecting me,Than tall white lilies be.The first white flutter of her robe to trace,Where binds and perfumed jasmine interlace,Expands my gaze triumphantly:Even such his gaze, who sees on highHis flag, for victory.We wander forth unconsciously, becauseThe azure beauty of the evening draws:When sober hues pervade the ground,And life in one vast hush seems drowned,Air stirs so little sound.We thread a copse where frequent bramble sprayWith loose obtrusion from the side roots stray,(Forcing sweet pauses on our walk):I'll lift one with my foot, and talkAbout its leaves and stalk.Or may be that the prickles of some stemWill hold a prisoner her long garment's hem;To disentangle it I kneel,Oft wounding more than I can heal;It makes her laugh, my zeal.Then on before a thin-legged robin hops,Or leaping on a twig, he pertly stops,Speaking a few clear notes, till nighWe draw, when quickly he will flyInto a bush close by.A flock of goldfinches may stop their flight,And wheeling round a birchen tree alightDeep in its glittering leaves, untilThey see us, when their swift rise willStartle a sudden thrill.I recollect my lady in a wood,Keeping her breath and peering—(firm she stoodHer slim shape balanced on tiptoe—)Into a nest which lay below,Leaves shadowing her brow.I recollect my lady asking me,What that sharp tapping in the wood might be?I told her blackbirds made it, which,For slimy morsels they count rich,Cracked the snail's curling niche:She made no answer. When we reached the stoneWhere the shell fragments on the grass were strewn,Close to the margin of a rill;“The air,” she said, “seems damp and chill,“We'll go home if you will.”“Make not my pathway dull so soon,” I cried,“See how those vast cloudpiles in sun-glow dyed,“Roll out their splendour: while the breeze“Lifts gold from leaf to leaf, as these“Ash saplings move at ease.”Piercing the silence in our ears, a birdThrew some notes up just then, and quickly stirredThe covert birds that startled, sentTheir music thro' the air; leaves lentTheir rustling and blent,Until the whole of the blue warmth was filledSo much with sun and sound, that the air thrilled.She gleamed, wrapt in the dying day'sGlory: altho' she spoke no praise,I saw much in her gaze.Then, flushed with resolution, I told all;—The mighty love I bore her,—how would pallMy very breath of life, if sheFor ever breathed not hers with me;—Could I a cherub be,How, idly hoping to enrich her grace,I would snatch jewels from the orbs of space;—Then back thro' the vague distance beat,Glowing with joy her smile to meet,And heap them round her feet.Her waist shook to my arm. She bowed her head,Silent, with hands clasped and arms straightened:(Just then we both heard a church bell)O God! It is not right to tell:But I remember wellEach breast swelled with its pleasure, and her wholeBosom grew heavy with love; the swift rollOf new sensations dimmed her eyes,Half closing them in ecstasies,Turned full against the skies.The rest is gone; it seemed a whirling round—No pressure of my feet upon the ground:But even when parted from her, brightShowed all; yea, to my throbbing sightThe dark was starred with light.

Of My Lady In Death

All seems a painted show. I lookUp thro' the bloom that's shedBy leaves above my head,And feel the earnest life forsookAll being, when she died:—My heart halts, hot and driedAs the parched course where once a brookThro' fresh growth used to flow,—Because her past is nowNo more than stories in a printed book.The grass has grown above that breast,Now cold and sadly still,My happy face felt thrill:—Her mouth's mere tones so much expressed!Those lips are now close set,—Lips which my own have met;Her eyelids by the earth are pressed;Damp earth weighs on her eyes;Damp earth shuts out the skies.My lady rests her heavy, heavy rest.To see her slim perfection sweep,Trembling impatiently,With eager gaze at me!Her feet spared little things that creep:—“We've no more right,” she'd say,“In this the earth than they.”Some remember it but to weep.Her hand's slight weight was such,Care lightened with its touch;My lady sleeps her heavy, heavy sleep.My day-dreams hovered round her brow;Now o'er its perfect formsGo softly real worms.Stern death, it was a cruel blow,To cut that sweet girl's lifeSharply, as with a knife.Cursed life that lets me live and grow,Just as a poisonous root,From which rank blossoms shoot;My lady's laid so very, very low.Dread power, grief cries aloud, “unjust,”—To let her young life playIts easy, natural way;Then, with an unexpected thrust,Strike out the life you lent,Just when her feelings blentWith those around whom she saw trustHer willing power to bless,For their whole happiness;My lady moulders into common dust.Small birds twitter and peck the weedsThat wave above her head,Shading her lowly bed:Their brisk wings burst light globes of seeds,Scattering the downy prideOf dandelions, wide:Speargrass stoops with watery beads:The weight from its fine tipsOccasionally drips:The bee drops in the mallow-bloom, and feeds.About her window, at the dawn,From the vine's crooked boughsBirds chirupped an arouse:Flies, buzzing, strengthened with the morn;—She'll not hear them againAt random strike the pane:No more upon the close-cut lawn,Her garment's sun-white hemBend the prim daisy's stem,In walking forth to view what flowers are born.No more she'll watch the dark-green ringsStained quaintly on the lea,To image fairy glee;While thro' dry grass a faint breeze sings,And swarms of insects revelAlong the sultry level:—No more will watch their brilliant wings,Now lightly dip, now soar,Then sink, and rise once more.My lady's death makes dear these trivial things.Within a huge tree's steady shade,When resting from our walk,How pleasant was her talk!Elegant deer leaped o'er the glade,Or stood with wide bright eyes,Staring a short surprise:Outside the shadow cows were laid,Chewing with drowsy eyeTheir cuds complacently:Dim for sunshine drew near a milking-maid.Rooks cawed and labored thro' the heat;Each wing-flap seemed to makeTheir weary bodies ache:The swallows, tho' so very fleet,Made breathless pauses thereAt something in the air:—All disappeared: our pulses beatDistincter throbs: then eachTurned and kissed, without speech,—She trembling, from her mouth down to her feet.My head sank on her bosom's heave,So close to the soft skinI heard the life within.My forehead felt her coolly breathe,As with her breath it rose:To perfect my reposeHer two arms clasped my neck. The eveSpread silently around,A hush along the ground,And all sound with the sunlight seemed to leave.By my still gaze she must have knownThe mighty bliss that filledMy whole soul, for she thrilled,Drooping her face, flushed, on my own;I felt that it was suchBy its light warmth of touch.My lady was with me alone:That vague sensation broughtMore real joy than thought.I am without her now, truly alone.We had no heed of time: the causeWas that our minds were quiteAbsorbed in our delight,Silently blessed. Such stillness awes,And stops with doubt, the breath,Like the mute doom of death.I felt Time's instantaneous pause;An instant, on my eyeFlashed all Eternity:—I started, as if clutched by wild beasts' claws,Awakened from some dizzy swoon:I felt strange vacant fears,With singings in my ears,And wondered that the pallid moonSwung round the dome of nightWith such tremendous might.A sweetness, like the air of June,Next paled me with suspense,A weight of clinging sense—Some hidden evil would burst on me soon.My lady's love has passed away,To know that it is soTo me is living woe.That body lies in cold decay,Which held the vital soulWhen she was my life's soul.Bitter mockery it was to say—“Our souls are as the same:”My words now sting like shame;Her spirit went, and mine did not obey.It was as if a fiery dartPassed seething thro' my brainWhen I beheld her lainThere whence in life she did not part.Her beauty by degrees,Sank, sharpened with disease:The heavy sinking at her heartSucked hollows in her cheek,And made her eyelids weak,Tho' oft they'd open wide with sudden start.The deathly power in silence drewMy lady's life away.I watched, dumb with dismay,The shock of thrills that quivered thro'And tightened every limb:For grief my eyes grew dim;More near, more near, the moment grew.O horrible suspense!O giddy impotence!I saw her fingers lax, and change their hue.Her gaze, grown large with fate, was castWhere my mute agoniesMade more sad her sad eyes:Her breath caught with short plucks and fast:—Then one hot choking strain.She never breathed again:I had the look which was her last:Even after breath was gone,Her love one moment shone,—Then slowly closed, and hope for ever passed.Silence seemed to start in spaceWhen first the bell's harsh tollRang for my lady's soul.Vitality was hell; her graceThe shadow of a dream:Things then did scarcely seem:Oblivion's stroke fell like a mace:As a tree that's just hewnI dropped, in a dead swoon,And lay a long time cold upon my face.Earth had one quarter turned beforeMy miserable fatePressed on with its whole weight.My sense came back; and, shivering o'er,I felt a pain to bearThe sun's keen cruel glare;It seemed not warm as heretofore.Oh, never more its raysWill satisfy my gaze.No more; no more; oh, never any more.

The Love of Beauty

John Boccaccio, love's own squire, deep swornIn service to all beauty, joy, and rest,—When first the love-earned royal Mary press'd,To her smooth cheek, his pale brows, passion-worn,—'Tis said, he, by her grace nigh frenzied, tornBy longings unattainable, address'dTo his chief friend most strange misgivings, lestSome madness in his brain had thence been born.The artist-mind alone can feel his meaning:—Such as have watched the battle-rank'd arrayOf sunset, or the face of girlhood seen inLine-blending twilight, with sick hope. Oh! theyMay feed desire on some fond bosom leaning:But where shall such their thirst of Nature stay?

The Subject in Art

(No. 1.)

If Painting and Sculpture delight us like other works of ingenuity, merely from the difficulties they surmount; like an ‘egg in a bottle,’ a tree made out of stone, or a face made of pigment; and the pleasure we receive, is our wonder at the achievement; then, to such as so believe, this treatise is not written. But if, as the writer conceives, works of Fine Art delight us by the interest the objects they depict excite in the beholder, just as those objects in nature would excite his interest; if by any association of ideas in the one case, by the same in the other, without reference to the representations being other than the objects they represent:—then, to such as so believe, the following upon ‘SUBJECT’ is addressed. Whilst, at the same time, it is not disallowed that a subsequent pleasure may and does result, upon reflecting that the objects contemplated were the work of human ingenuity.

Now the subject to be treated, is the ‘subject’ of Painter and Sculptor; what ought to be the nature of that ‘subject,’ how far that subject may be drawn from past or present time with advantage, how far the subject may tend to confer upon its embodiment the title, ‘High Art,’ how far the subject may tend to confer upon its embodiment the title ‘Low Art;’ what is ‘High Art,’ what is ‘Low Art’?

To begin then (at the end) with ‘High Art.’ However we may differ as to facts, the principle will be readily granted, that ‘High Art,’ i. e. Art, par excellence, Art, in its most exalted character, addresses pre-eminently the highest attributes of man, viz.: his mental and his moral faculties.

‘Low Art,’ or Art in its less exalted character, is that which addresses the less exalted attributes of man, viz.: his mere sensory faculties, without affecting the mind or heart, excepting through the volitional agency of the observer.

These definitions are too general and simple to be disputed; but before we endeavour to define more particularly, let us analyze the subject, and see what it will yield.

All the works which remain to us of the Ancients, and this appears somewhat remarkable, are, with the exception of those by incompetent artists, universally admitted to be ‘High Art.’ Now do we afford them this high title, because all remnants of the antique world, by tempting a comparison between what was, and is, will set the mental faculties at work, and thus address the highest attributes of man? Or, as this is owing to the agency of the observer, and not to the subject represented, are we to seek for the cause in the subjects themselves!

Let us examine the subjects. They are mostly in sculpture; but this cannot be the cause, unless all modern sculpture be considered ‘High Art.’ This is leaving out of the question in both ages, all works badly executed, and obviously incorrect, of which there are numerous examples both ancient and modern.

The subjects we find in sculpture are, in “the round,” mostly men or women in thoughtful or impassioned action: sometimes they are indeed acting physically; but then, as in the Jason adjusting his Sandal, acting by mechanical impulse, and thinking or looking in another direction. In relievo we have an historical combat, such as that between the Centaurs and Lapithæ; sometimes a group in conversation, sometimes a recitation of verses to the Lyre; a dance, or religious procession.

As to the first class in “the round,” as they seem to appeal to the intellectual, and often to the moral faculties, they are naturally, and according to the broad definition, works of ‘High Art.’ Of the relievo, the historical combat appeals to the passions; and, being historical, probably to the intellect. The like may be said of the conversational groups, and lyrical recitation which follow. The dance appeals to the passions and the intellect; since the intellect recognises therein an order and design, her own planning; while the solemn, modest demeanour in the religious procession speaks to the heart and the mind. The same remarks will apply to the few ancient paintings we possess, always excluding such merely decorative works as are not fine art at all.

Thus it appears that all these works of the ancients might rationally have been denominated works of ‘High Art;’ and here we remark the difference between the hypothetical or rational, and the historical account of facts; for though here is reason enough why ancient art might have been denominated ‘High Art,’ that it was so denominated on this account, is a position not capable of proof: whereas, in all probability, the true account of the matter runs thus—The works of antiquity awe us by their time-hallowed presence; the mind is sent into a serious contemplation of things; and, the subject itself in nowise contravening, we attribute all this potent effect to the agency of the subject before us, and ‘High Art,’ it becomes then and for ever, with all such as “follow its cut.” But then as this was so named, not from the abstract cause, but from a result and effect; when a new work is produced in a similar spirit, but clothed in a dissimilar matter, and the critics have to settle to what class of art it belongs,—then is the new work dragged up to fight with the old one, like the poor beggar Irus in front of Ulysses; then are they turned over and applied, each to each, like the two triangles in Euclid; and then, if they square, fit and tally in every quarter—with the nude to the draped in the one, as the nude to the draped in the other—with the standing to the sitting in the one, as the standing to the sitting in the other—with the fat to the lean in the one, as the fat to the lean in the other—with the young to the old in the one, as the young to the old in the other—with head to body, as head to body; and nose to knee, as nose to knee, &c. &c., (and the critics have done a great deal)—then is the work oracularly pronounced one of ‘High Art;’ and the obsequious artist is pleased to consider it is.

But if, per contra, as in the former case, the works are not to be literally reconciled, though wrought in the self-same spirit; then this unfortunate creature of genius is degraded into a lower rank of art; and the artist, if he have faith in the learned, despairs; or, if he have none, he swears. But listen, an artist speaks: “If I have genius to produce a work in the true spirit of high art, and yet am so ignorant of its principles, that I scarce know whereon the success of the work depends, and scarcely whether I have succeeded or no; with this ignorance and this power, what needs your knowledge or your reasoning, seeing that nature is all-sufficient, and produces a painter as she produces a plant?” To the artist (the last of his race), who spoke thus, it is answered, that science is not meant for him, if he like it not, seeing he can do without it, and seeing, moreover, that with it alone he can never do. Science here does not make; it unmakes, wonderingly to find the making of what God has made—of what God has made through the poet, leading him blindly by a path which he has not known; this path science follows slowly and in wonder. But though science is not to make the artist, there is no reason in nature that the artist reject it. Still, science is properly the birthright of the critic; 'tis his all in all. It shows him poets, painters, sculptors, his fellow men, often his inferiors in their want of it, his superiors in the ability to do what he cannot do; it teaches him to love them as angels bringing him food which he cannot attain, and to venerate their works as a gift from the Creator.

But to return to the critical errors relating to ‘High Art.’ While the constituents of high art were unknown, whilst its abstract principles were unsought, and whilst it was only recognized in the concrete, the critics, certainly guilty of the most unpardonable blindness, blundered up to the masses of ‘High Art,’ left by antiquity, saying, “there let us fix our observatory,” and here came out perspective glass, and callipers and compasses; and here they made squares and triangles, and circles, and ellipses, for, said they, “this is ‘High Art,’ and this hath certain proportions;” then in the logic of their hearts, they continued, “all these proportions we know by admeasurement, whatsoever hath these is ‘High Art,’ whatsoever hath not, is ‘Low Art.’” This was as certain as the fact that the sun is a globe of glowing charcoal, because forsooth they both yield light and heat. Now if the phantom of a then embryon-electrician had arisen and told them that their “high art marbles possessed an electric influence, which, acting in the brain of the observer, would awake in him emotions of so exalted a character, that he forthwith, inevitably nodding at them, must utter the tremendous syllables ‘High Art;’” he, the then embryon-electrician, from that age withheld to bless and irradiate the physiology of ours, would have done something more to the purpose than all the critics and the compasses.

Thus then we see, that the antique, however successfully it may have wrought, is not our model; for, according to that faith demanded at setting out, fine art delights us from its being the semblance of what in nature delights. Now, as the artist does not work by the instrumentality of rule and science, but mainly by an instinctive impulse; if he copy the antique, unable as he is to segregate the merely delectable matter, he must needs copy the whole, and thereby multiply models, which the casting-man can do equally well; whereas if he copy nature, with a like inability to distinguish that delectable attribute which allures him to copy her, and under the same necessity of copying the whole, to make sure of this “tenant of nowhere;” we then have the artist, the instructed of nature, fulfilling his natural capacity, while his works we have as manifold yet various as nature's own thoughts for her children.

But reverting to the subject, it was stated at the beginning that ‘Fine Art’ delights, by presenting us with objects, which in nature delight us; and ‘High Art’ was defined, that which addresses the intellect; and hence it might appear, as delight is an emotion of the mind, that ‘Low Art,’ which addresses the senses, is not Fine Art at all. But then it must be remembered, that it was neither stated of ‘Fine Art,’ nor of ‘High Art,’ that it always delights; and again, that delight is not entirely mental. To point out the confines of high and low art, where the one terminates and the other commences, would be difficult, if not impracticable without sub-defining or circumscribing the import of the terms, pain, pleasure, delight, sensory, mental, psychical, intellectual, objective, subjective, &c. &c.; and then, as little or nothing would be gained mainly pertinent to the subject, it must be content to receive no better definitions than those broad ones already laid down, with their latitude somewhat corrected by practical examples. Yet before proceeding to give these examples, it might be remarked of ‘High Art,’ that it always might, if it do not always excite some portion of delight, irrespective of that subsequent delight consequent upon the examination of a curiosity; that its function is sometimes, with this portion of delight, to commingle grief or distress, and that it may, (though this is not its function,) excite mental anguish, and by a reflex action, actual body pain. Now then to particularize, by example; let us suppose a perfect and correct painting of a stone, a common stone such as we walk over. Now although this subject might to a religious man, suggest a text of scripture; and to the geologist a theory of scientific interest; yet its general effect upon the average number of observers will be readily allowed to be more that of wonder or admiration at a triumph over the apparently impossible (to make a round stone upon a flat piece of canvass) than at aught else the subject possesses. Now a subject such as this belongs to such very low art, that it narrowly illudes precipitation over the confines of Fine Art; yet, that it is Fine Art is indisputable, since no mere mechanic artisan, or other than one specially gifted by nature, could produce it. This then shall introduce us to “Subject.” This subject then, standing where fine art gradually confines with mechanic art, and almost midway between them; of no use nor beauty; but to be wondered at as a curiosity; is a subject of scandalous import to the artist, to the artist thus gifted by nature with a talent to reproduce her fleeting and wondrous forms. But if, as the writer doubts, nature could afford a monster so qualified for a poet, yet destitute of poetical genius; then the scandal attaches if he attempt a step in advance, or neglect to join himself to those, a most useful class of mechanic artists, who illustrate the sciences by drawing and diagram.