The Beautiful.
by Vernon Lee.
PREFACE AND APOLOGY
I HAVE tried in this little volume to explain aesthetic preference, particularly as regards visible shapes, by the facts of mental science.
But my explanation is addressed to readers in whom I have no right to expect a previous knowledge of psychology, particularly in its more modern developments. I have therefore based my explanation of the problems of aesthetics as much as possible upon mental facts familiar, or at all events easily intelligible, to the lay reader. Now mental facts thus available are by no means the elementary processes with which a.n.a.lytical and, especially experimental, psychology has dealings. They are, on the contrary, the everyday, superficial and often extremely confused views which practical life and its wholly unscientific vocabulary present of those ascertained or hypothetical scientific facts. I have indeed endeavoured (for instance in the a.n.a.lysis of perception as distinguished from sensation) to impart some rudiments of psychology in the course of my aesthetical explanation, and I have avoided, as much as possible, misleading the reader about such fearful complexes and cruxes as _memory, a.s.sociation_ and _imagination._ But I have been obliged to speak in terms intelligible to the lay reader, and I am fully aware that these terms correspond only very approximately to what is, or at present pa.s.ses as, psychological fact. I would therefore beg the psychologist (to whom I offer this little volume as a possible slight addition even to his stock of facts and hypotheses) to understand that in speaking, for instance, of Empathy as involving a _thought_ of certain activities, I mean merely that whatever happens has the same result _as if we thought_; and that the processes, whatever they may be (also in the case of measuring, comparing and co-ordinating), translate themselves, _when they are detected,_ into _thoughts;_ but that I do not in the least pre-judge the question whether the processes, the "thoughts," the measuring, comparing etc. exist on subordinate planes of consciousness or whether they are mainly physiological and only occasionally ab.u.t.ting in conscious resultants.
Similarly, lack of s.p.a.ce and the need for clearness have obliged me to write as if shape-preference invariably necessitated the detailed process of ocular perception, instead of being due, as is doubtless most often the case, to every kind of a.s.sociative abbreviation and equivalence of processes.
VERNON LEE Maiano _near_ Florence,_ Easter_ 1913.
CHAPTER I
THE ADJECTIVE "BEAUTIFUL"
THIS little book, like the great branch of mental science to which it is an introduction, makes no attempt to "form the taste" of the public and still less to direct the doings of the artist. It deals not with _ought_ but with _is,_ leaving to Criticism the inference from the latter to the former. It does not pretend to tell how things can be made beautiful or even how we can recognise that things _are_ beautiful. It takes Beauty as already existing and enjoyed, and seeks to a.n.a.lyse and account for Beauty"s existence and enjoyment. More strictly speaking, it a.n.a.lyses and accounts for Beauty not inasmuch as existing in certain objects and processes, but rather as calling forth (and being called forth by) a particular group of mental activities and habits. It does not ask: What are the peculiarities of the things (and the proceedings) which we call _Beautiful?_ but: What are the peculiarities of our thinking and feeling when in the presence of a thing to which we apply this adjective? The study of single beautiful things, and even more, the comparison of various categories thereof, is indeed one-half of all scientific aesthetics, but only inasmuch as it adds to our knowledge of the particular mental activities which such "Beautiful" (and vice versa "Ugly") things elicit in us. For it is on the nature of this active response on our own part that depends the application of those terms _Beautiful_ and _Ugly_ in every single instance; and indeed their application in any instances whatsoever, their very existence in the human vocabulary.
In accordance with this programme I shall not start with a formal definition of the word _Beautiful,_ but ask: on what sort of occasions we make use of it. Evidently, on _occasions when we feel satisfaction rather than dissatisfaction,_ satisfaction meaning willingness either to prolong or to repeat the particular experience which has called forth that word; and meaning also that if it comes to a choice between two or several experiences, we _prefer_ the experience thus marked by the word _Beautiful. Beautiful,_ we may therefore formulate, _implies on our part an att.i.tude of satisfaction and preference._ But there are other words which imply that much; first and foremost the words, in reality synonyms, USEFUL and GOOD. I call these synonyms because _good_ always implies _good for,_ or _good in,_ that is to say fitness for a purpose, even though that purpose may be masked under _conforming to a standard_ or _obeying a commandment,_ since the standard or commandment represents not the caprice of a community, a race or a divinity, but some (real or imaginary) utility of a less immediate kind. So much for the meaning of _good_ when implying standards and commandments; ninety-nine times out of a hundred there is, however, no such implication, and _good_ means nothing more than _satisfactory in the way of use and advantage._ Thus a _good_ road is a road we prefer because it takes us to our destination quickly and easily. A _good_ speech is one we prefer because it succeeds in explaining or persuading. And a _good_ character (good friend, father, husband, citizen) is one that gives satisfaction by the fulfilment of moral obligations.
But note the difference when we come to _Beautiful._ A _beautiful_ road is one we prefer because it affords views we like to look at; its being devious and inconvenient will not prevent its being _beautiful._ A _beautiful_ speech is one we like to hear or remember, although it may convince or persuade neither us nor anybody. A _beautiful_ character is one we like to think about but which may never practically help anyone, if for instance, it exists not in real life but in a novel. Thus the adjective _Beautiful_ implies _an att.i.tude of preference, but not an att.i.tude of present or future turning to our purposes._ There is even a significant lack of symmetry in the words employed (at all events in English, French and German) to distinguish what we like from what we dislike in the way of weather. For weather which makes us uncomfortable and hampers our comings and goings by rain, wind or mud, is described as _bad;_ while the opposite kind of weather is called _beautiful, fine,_ or _fair,_ as if the greater comfort, convenience, usefulness of such days were forgotten in the lively satisfaction afforded to our mere contemplation.
_Our mere contemplation!_ Here we have struck upon the main difference between our att.i.tude when we use the word _good_ or _useful,_ and when we use the word _beautiful._ And we can add to our partial formula "beautiful implies satisfaction and preference"--the distinguishing predicate--"_of a contemplative kind._" This general statement will be confirmed by an everyday anomaly in our use of the word beautiful; and the examination of this seeming exception will not only exemplify what I have said about our att.i.tude when employing that word, but add to this information the name of the emotion corresponding with that att.i.tude: the emotion of _admiration._ For the selfsame object or proceeding may sometimes be called _good_ and sometimes _beautiful,_ according as the mental att.i.tude is practical or contemplative. While we admonish the traveller to take a certain road because he will find it _good,_ we may hear that same road described by an enthusiastic coachman as _beautiful, anglice fine_ or _splendid,_ because there is no question of immediate use, and the road"s qualities are merely being contemplated with admiration. Similarly, we have all of us heard an engineer apply to a piece of machinery, and even a surgeon to an operation, the apparently far-fetched adjective Beautiful, or one of the various equivalents, fine, splendid, glorious (even occasionally _jolly!)_ by which Englishmen express their admiration. The change of word represents a change of att.i.tude. The engineer is no longer bent upon using the machine, nor the surgeon estimating the advantages of the operation. Each of these highly practical persons has switched off his practicality, if but for an imperceptible fraction of time and in the very middle of a practical estimation or even of practice itself. The machine or operation, the skill, the inventiveness, the fitness for its purposes, are being considered _apart from action,_ and advantage, means and time, to-day or yesterday; _platonically_ we may call it from the first great teacher of aesthetics. They are being, in one word, contemplated with admiration. And _admiration_ is the rough and ready name for the mood, however transient, for the emotion, however faint, wherewith we greet whatever makes us contemplate, because contemplation happens to give satisfaction. The satisfaction may be a mere skeleton of the "I"d rather than not" description; or it may be a ma.s.sive alteration in our being, radiating far beyond the present, evoking from the past similar conditions to corroborate it; storing itself up for the future; penetrating, like the joy of a fine day, into our animal spirits, altering pulse, breath, gait, glance and demeanour; and transfiguring our whole momentary outlook on life. But, superficial or overwhelming, _this hind of satisfaction connected with, the word Beautiful is always of the Contemplative order._
And upon the fact we have thus formulated depend, as we shall see, most of the other facts and formulae of our subject.
This essentially unpractical att.i.tude accompanying the use of the word _Beautiful_ has led metaphysical aestheticians to two famous, and I think, quite misleading theories. The first of these defines aesthetic appreciation as _disinterested interest,_ gratuitously identifying self-interest with the practical pursuit of advantages we have not yet got; and overlooking the fact that such appreciation implies enjoyment and is so far the very reverse of disinterested.
The second philosophical theory (originally Schiller"s, and revived by Herbert Spencer) takes advantage of the non-practical att.i.tude connected with the word _Beautiful_ to define art and its enjoyment as a kind of _play._ Now although leisure and freedom from cares are necessary both for play and for aesthetic appreciation, the latter differs essentially from the former by its contemplative nature. For although it may be possible to watch _other people_ playing football or chess or bridge in a purely contemplative spirit and with the deepest admiration, even as the engineer or surgeon may contemplate the perfections of a machine or an operation, yet the concentration on the aim and the next moves const.i.tutes on the part of the players _themselves_ an eminently practical state of mind, one diametrically opposed to contemplation, as I hope to make evident in the next section.
CHAPTER II
CONTEMPLATIVE SATISFACTION
WE have thus defined the word _Beautiful_ as implying an att.i.tude of contemplative satisfaction, marked by a feeling, sometimes amounting to an _emotion,_ of admiration; and so far contrasted it with the practical att.i.tude implied by the word _good._ But we require to know more about the distinctive peculiarities of contemplation as such, by which, moreover, it is distinguished not merely from the practical att.i.tude, but also from the scientific one.
Let us get some rough and ready notions on this subject by watching the behaviour and listening to the remarks of three imaginary wayfarers in front of a view, which they severally consider in the practical, the scientific and the aesthetic manner. The view was from a hill-top in the neighbourhood of Rome or of Edinburgh, whichever the Reader can best realise; and in its presence the three travellers halted and remained for a moment absorbed each in his thoughts.
"It will take us a couple of hours to get home on foot"--began one of the three. "We might have been back for tea-time if only there had been a tram and a funicular. And that makes me think: Why not start a joint-stock company to build them? There must be water-power in these hills; the hill people could keep cows and send milk and b.u.t.ter to town. Also houses could be built for people whose work takes them to town, but who want good air for their children; the hire-purchase system, you know. It might prove a G.o.dsend and a capital investment, though I suppose some people would say it spoilt the view. The idea is quite a _good_ one. I shall get an expert--"
"These hills," put in the second man--"are said to be part of an ancient volcano. I don"t know whether that theory is _true!_ It would be _interesting_ to examine whether the summits have been ground down in places by ice, and whether there are traces of volcanic action at different geological epochs; the plain, I suppose, has been under the sea at no very distant period. It is also _interesting_ to notice, as we can up here, how the situation of the town is explained by the river affording easier shipping on a coast poor in natural harbours; moreover, this has been the inevitable meeting-place of seafaring and pastoral populations. These investigations would prove, as I said, remarkably full of interest."
"I wish"--complained the third wayfarer, but probably only to himself--"I wish these men would hold their tongues and let one enjoy this exquisite place without diverting one"s attention to _what might be done_ or to _how it all came about._ They don"t seem to feel how _beautiful_ it all is." And he concentrated himself on contemplation of the landscape, his delight brought home by a stab of reluctance to leave.
Meanwhile one of his companions fell to wondering whether there really was sufficient pasture for dairy-farming and water-power for both tramway and funicular, and where the necessary capital could be borrowed; and the other one hunted about for marks of stratification and upheaval, and ransacked his memory for historical data about the various tribes originally inhabiting that country.
"I suppose you"re a painter and regretting you haven"t brought your sketching materials?" said the scientific man, always interested in the causes of phenomena, even such trifling ones as a man remaining quiet before a landscape.
"I reckon you are one of those literary fellows, and are planning out where you can use up a description of this place"--corrected the rapid insight of the practical man, accustomed to weigh people"s motives in case they may be turned to use.
"I am _not_ a painter, and I"m _not_ a writer"--exclaimed the third traveller, "and I thank Heaven I"m not! For if I were I might be trying to engineer a picture or to match adjectives, instead of merely enjoying all this beauty. Not but that I should like to have a sketch or a few words of description for when I"ve turned my back upon it.
And Heaven help me, I really believe that when we are all back in London I may be quite glad to hear you two talking about your tramway-funicular company and your volcanic and glacial action, because your talk will evoke in my mind the remembrance of this place and moment which you have done your best to spoil for me--"
"That"s what it is to be aesthetic"--said the two almost in the same breath.
"And that, I suppose"--answered the third with some animosity--"is what you mean by being practical or scientific."
Now the att.i.tude of mind of the practical man and of the man of science, though differing so obviously from one another (the first bent upon producing new and advantageous _results,_ the second examining, without thought of advantage, into possible _causes),_ both differed in the same way from the att.i.tude of the man who was merely contemplating what he called the beauty of the scene. They were, as he complained, thinking of _what might be done_ and of _how it had all come about._ That is to say they were both thinking _away_ from that landscape. The scientific man actually turned his back to it in examining first one rock, then another. The practical man must have looked both at the plain in front and at the hill he was on, since he judged that there was pasture and water-power, and that the steepness required supplementing the tramway by a funicular. But besides the different items of landscape, and the same items under different angles, which were thus offered to these two men"s bodily eyes, there was a far greater variety, and rapider succession of items and perspectives presented to the eyes of their spirit: the practical man"s mental eye seeing not only the hills, plain, and town with details not co-existing in perspective or even in time, but tram-lines and funiculars in various stages of progress, dairy-products, pasture, houses, dynamos, waterfalls, offices, advertis.e.m.e.nts, cheques, etc., etc., and the scientific man"s inner vision glancing with equal speed from volcanoes to ice-caps and seas in various stages of geological existence, besides minerals under the microscope, inhabitants in prehistoric or cla.s.sic garb, let alone probably pages of books and interiors of libraries. Moreover, most, if not all these mental images (blocking out from attention the really existing landscape) could be called images only by courtesy, swished over by the mental eye as by an express train, only just enough seen to know what it was, or perhaps nothing seen at all, mere words filling up gaps in the chain of thought. So that what satisfaction there might be in the case was not due to these rapidly scampered through items, but to the very fact of getting to the next one, and to a looming, dominating goal, an ultimate desired result, to wit, pounds, shillings, and pence in the one case, and a coherent explanation in the other. In both cases equally there was a kaleidoscopic and cinematographic succession of aspects, but of aspects of which only one detail perhaps was noticed. Or, more strictly speaking, there was no interest whatever in aspects as such, but only in the possibilities of action which these aspects implied; whether actions future and personally profitable, like building tram-lines and floating joint-stock companies, or actions mainly past and quite impersonally interesting, like those of extinct volcanoes or prehistoric civilisations.
Now let us examine the mental att.i.tude of the third man, whom the two others had first mistaken for an artist or writer, and then dismissed as an aesthetic person.
CHAPTER III
ASPECTS _VERSUS_ THINGS
HAVING settled upon a particular point of view as the one he liked best, he remained there in contemplation of the aspect it afforded him. Had he descended another twenty minutes, or looked through powerful gla.s.ses, he would have seen the plain below as a juxtaposition of emerald green, raw Sienna, and pale yellow, whereas, at the distance where he chose to remain, its colours fused into indescribably lovely lilacs and russets. Had he moved freely about he would have become aware that a fanlike arrangement of sharply convergent lines, tempting his eye to run rapidly into their various angles, must be thought of as a chessboard of dikes, hedges, and roads, dull as if drawn with a ruler on a slate. Also that the foothills, instead of forming a monumental ma.s.s with the mountains behind them, lay in a totally different plane and distracted the attention by their aggressive projection. While, as if to spoil the aspect still more, he would have been forced to recognise (as Ruskin explains by his drawing of the cottage roof and the Matterhorn peak) that the exquisitely phrased skyline of the furthermost hills, picked up at rhythmical intervals into sharp crests, dropping down merely to rush up again in long concave curves, was merely an illusion of perspective, nearer lines seeming higher and further ones lower, let alone that from a balloon you would see only flattened mounds. But to how things might look from a balloon, or under a microscope, that man did not give one thought, any more than to how they might look after a hundred years of tramways and funiculars or how they had looked before thousands of years of volcanic and glacial action.
He was satisfied with the wonderfully harmonised scheme of light and colour, the pattern (more and more detailed, more and more co-ordinated with every additional exploring glance) of keenly thrusting, delicately yielding lines, meeting as purposefully as if they had all been alive and executing some great, intricate dance. He did not concern himself whether what he was looking at was an aggregate of things; still less what might be these things" other properties. He was not concerned with things at all, but only with a particular appearance (he did not care whether it answered to reality), only with one (he did not want to know whether there might be any other) _aspect._
For, odd as it may sound, a _Thing_ is both much more and much less than an _Aspect._ Much more, because a _Thing_ really means not only qualities of its own and reactions of ours which are actual and present, but a far greater number and variety thereof which are potential. Much _less,_ on the other hand, because of these potential qualities and reactions const.i.tuting a Thing only a minimum need be thought of at any given time; instead of which, an aspect is all there, its qualities closely interdependent, and our reactions entirely taken up in connecting them as whole and parts. A rose, for instance, is not merely a certain a.s.semblage of curves and straight lines and colours, seen as the painter sees it, at a certain angle, petals masking part of stem, leaf protruding above bud: it is the possibility of other combinations of shapes, including those seen when the rose (or the person looking) is placed head downwards. Similarly it is the possibility of certain sensations of resistance, softness, moisture, p.r.i.c.king if we attempt to grasp it, of a certain fragrance if we breathe in the air. It is the possibility of turning into a particular fruit, with the possibility of our finding that fruit bitter and non-edible; of being developed from cuttings, pressed in a book, made a present of or cultivated for lucre. Only one of these groups of possibilities may occupy our thoughts, the rest not glanced at, or only glanced at subsequently; but if, on trial, any of these grouped possibilities disappoint us, we decide that this is not a real rose, but a paper rose, or a painted one, or no rose at all, but some _other thing._ For, so far as our consciousness is concerned, _things_ are merely groups of actual and potential reactions on our own part, that is to say of expectations which experience has linked together in more or less stable groups. The practical man and the man of science in my fable, were both of them dealing with _Things_: pa.s.sing from one group of potential reaction to another, hurrying here, dallying there, till of the actual _aspect_ of the landscape there remained nothing in their thoughts, trams and funiculars in the future, volcanoes and icecaps in the past, having entirely altered all that; only the material const.i.tuents and the geographical locality remaining as the unshifted item in those much pulled about bundles of thoughts of possibilities.
Every _thing_ may have a great number of very different _Aspects;_ and some of these _Aspects_ may invite contemplation, as that landscape invited the third man to contemplate it; while other _aspects_ (say the same place after a proper course of tramways and funiculars and semi-detached residences, or _before_ the needful volcanic and glacial action) may be such as are dismissed or slurred as fast as possible. Indeed, with the exception of a very few cubes not in themselves especially attractive, I cannot remember any _things_ which do not present quite as many displeasing aspects as pleasing ones. The most beautiful building is not beautiful if stood on its head; the most beautiful picture is not beautiful looked at through a microscope or from too far off; the most beautiful melody is not beautiful if begun at the wrong end. . . . Here the Reader may interrupt: "What nonsense! Of course the building _is_ a building only when right side up; the picture isn"t a picture any longer under a microscope; the melody isn"t a melody except begun at the beginning"--all which means that when we speak of a building, a picture, or a melody, we are already implicitly speaking, no longer of a _Thing,_ but of one of the possible _Aspects_ of a thing; _and that when we say that a thing is beautiful, we mean that it affords one or more aspects which we contemplate with satisfaction._ But if a beautiful mountain or a beautiful woman could only be _contemplated,_ if the mountain could not also be climbed or tunnelled, if the woman could not also get married, bear children and have (or not have!) a vote, we should say that the mountain and the woman were not _real things._ Hence we come to the conclusion, paradoxical only as long as we fail to define what we are talking about, _that what we contemplate as beautiful is an Aspect of a Thing, but never a Thing itself._ In other words: Beautiful is an adjective applicable to Aspects not to Things, or to Things only, inasmuch as we consider them as possessing (among other potentialities) beautiful Aspects. So that we can now formulate: _The word beautiful implies the satisfaction derived from the contemplation not of things but of aspects._
This summing up has brought us to the very core of our subject; and I should wish the Reader to get it by heart, until he grow familiarised therewith in the course of our further examinations.
Before proceeding upon these, I would, however, ask him to reflect how this last formula of ours bears upon the old, seemingly endless, squabble as to whether or not beauty has anything to do with truth, and whether art, as certain moralists contend, is a school of lying.
For _true_ or _false_ is a judgment of existence; it refers to _Things;_ it implies that besides the qualities and reactions shown or described, our further action or a.n.a.lysis will call forth certain other groups of qualities and reactions const.i.tuting the _thing which is said to exist._ But aspects, in the case in which I have used that word, _are_ what they are and do not necessarily imply anything beyond their own peculiarities. The words _true_ or _false_ can be applied to them only with the meaning of _aspects truly existing_ or _not truly existing;_ _i.e._ aspects of which it is true or not to _say that they exist._ But as to an aspect being true or false in the sense of _misleading,_ that question refers not to the _aspect_ itself, but to the thing of which the aspect is taken as a part and a sign. Now the contemplation of the mere aspect, the beauty (or ugliness) of the aspect, does not itself necessitate or imply any such reference to a thing. Our contemplation of the beauty of a statue representing a Centaur may indeed be disturbed by the reflexion that a creature with two sets of lungs and digestive organs would be a monster and not likely to grow to the age of having a beard. But this disturbing thought need not take place. And when it takes place it is not part of our contemplation of the _aspect_ of that statue; it is, on the contrary, outside it, an excursion away from it due to our inveterate (and very necessary) habit of interrupting the contemplation of _Aspects_ by the thinking and testing of _Things._ The Aspect never implied the existence of a Thing beyond itself; it did not affirm that anything was true, _i.e._ that anything could or would happen besides the fact of our contemplation. In other words the formula that _beautiful is an adjective applying only to aspects,_ shows us that art can be truthful or untruthful only in so far as art (as is often the case) deliberately sets to making statements about the existence and nature of Things. If Art says "Centaurs can be born and grow up to man"s estate with two sets of respiratory and digestive organs"--then Art is telling lies. Only, before accusing it of being a liar, better make sure that the statement about the possibility of centaurs has been intended by the Art, and not merely read into it by ourselves.
But more of this when we come to the examination of Subject and Form.
CHAPTER IV
SENSATIONS
IN the contemplation of the _Aspect_ before him, what gave that aesthetic man the most immediate and undoubted pleasure was its colour, or, more correctly speaking, its colours. Psycho-Physiologists have not yet told us why colours, taken singly and apart from their juxtaposition, should possess so extraordinary a power over what used to be called our animal spirits, and through them over our moods; and we can only guess from a.n.a.logy with what is observed in plants, as well as from the nature of the phenomenon itself, that various kinds of luminous stimulation must have some deep chemical repercussion throughout the human organism. The same applies, though in lesser degree, to sounds, quite independent of their juxtaposition as melodies and harmonies.
As there are colours which _feel, i.e._ make _us_ feel, more or less warm or cool, colours which are refreshing or stifling, depressing or exhilarating quite independent of any a.s.sociations, so also there are qualities of sound which enliven us like the blare of the trumpet, or harrow us like the quaver of the accordion. Similarly with regard to immediacy of effect: the first chords of an organ will change our whole mode of being like the change of light and colour on first entering a church, although the music which that organ is playing may, after a few seconds of listening, bore us beyond endurance; and the architecture of that church, once we begin to take stock of it, entirely dispel that first impression made by the church"s light and colour. It is on account of this doubtless physiological power of colour and sound, this way which they have of invading and subjugating us with or without our consent and long before our conscious co-operation, that the Man-on-the-Hill"s pleasure in the aspect before him was, as I have said, first of all, pleasure in colour.
Also, because pleasure in colour, like pleasure in mere sound-quality or _timbre,_ is accessible to people who never go any further in their aesthetic preference. Children, as every one knows, are sensitive to colours, long before they show the faintest sensitiveness for shapes.
And the timbre of a perfect voice in a single long note or shake used to bring the house down in the days of our grandparents, just as the subtle orchestral blendings of Wagner entrance hearers incapable of distinguishing the notes of a chord and sometimes even incapable of following a modulation.
The Man on the Hill, therefore, received immediate pleasure from the colours of the landscape. _Received_ pleasure, rather than _took_ it, since colours, like smells, seem, as I have said, to invade us, and insist upon pleasing whether we want to be pleased or not. In this meaning of the word we may be said to be _pa.s.sive_ to sound and colour quality: our share in the effects of these sensations, as in the effect of agreeable temperatures, contacts and tastes, is a question of bodily and mental reflexes in which our conscious activity, our voluntary attention, play no part: we are not _doing,_ but _done to_ by those stimulations from without; and the pleasure or displeasure which they set up in us is therefore one which we _receive,_ as distinguished from one which _we take._
Before pa.s.sing on to the pleasure which the Man on the Hill _did take,_ as distinguished from thus pa.s.sively _receiving,_ from the aspect before him, before investigating into the activities to which this other kind of pleasure, _pleasure taken, not received,_ is due, we must dwell a little longer on the colours which delighted him, and upon the importance or unimportance of those colours with regard to that _Aspect_ he was contemplating.
These colours--particularly a certain rain-washed blue, a pale lilac and a faded russet--gave him, as I said, immediate and ma.s.sive pleasure like that of certain delicious tastes and smells, indeed anyone who had watched him attentively might have noticed that he was making rather the same face as a person rolling, as Meredith says, a fine vintage against his palate, or drawing in deeper draughts of exquisitely scented air; he himself, if not too engaged in looking, might have noticed the accompanying sensations in his mouth, throat and nostrils; all of which, his only active response to the colour, was merely the attempt to _receive more_ of the already received sensation. But this pleasure which he received from the mere colours of the landscape was the same pleasure which they would have given him if he had met them in so many skeins of silk; the more complex pleasure due to their juxtaposition, was the pleasure he might have had if those skeins, instead of being on separate leaves of a pattern-book, had been lying tangled together in an untidy work-basket. He might then probably have said, "Those are exactly the colours, and in much the same combination, as in that landscape we saw such and such a day, at such and such a season and hour, from the top of that hill." But he would never have said (or been crazy if he had) "Those skeins of silk are the landscape we saw in that particular place and oh that particular occasion." Now the odd thing is that he would have used that precise form of words, "that is the landscape," etc. etc., if you had shown him a pencil drawing or a photograph taken from that particular place and point of view. And similarly if you had made him look through stained gla.s.s which changed the pale blue, pale lilac and faded russet into emerald green and blood red. He would have exclaimed at the loss of those exquisite colours when you showed him the monochrome, and perhaps have sworn that all his pleasure was spoilt when you forced him to look through that atrocious gla.s.s. But he would have identified the aspect as the one he had seen before; just as even the least musical person would identify "G.o.d save the King" whether played with three sharps on the flute or with four flats on the trombone.