are two on Carlyle. Emerson is Mr. Burroughs's godfather in literature and philosophy, and so much of the spirit of the Concord sage did he imbibe, that his first essays, published without a name, were at tributed to his master. Later our author broke away from the style thus formed, but he has always retained a love and admiration for Emerson, which it was easy to transfer to the great Scotchman who was Emerson's constant correspondent and friend. The essays on Carlyle, therefore, are written from the position of an admirer and an apologist. The admiration is not so blind that it sees no faults. Carlyle's are too glaring to admit of that; and yet it is strong enough to color Mr. Burroughs's judgment to an extent that makes it impossible to follow him with the faith that is put in his opinions on matters in his peculiar province, nat ural history. Of Carlyle's contempt he says: "There is no malice or ill will in it, but pity rather, and pity springs from love." Again: "Nothing but man, but heroes, touched him, moved him, satisfied him. . . . Bring him a brave, strong man, or the reminiscence of any noble personal trait-sacrifice, obedience, reverence—and every faculty within him stirred and responded. . . . It is the tragedy in Burns's life that attracts him, the morose heroism in Johnson's," etc. Yet how are we to reconcile these sayings with the brutality with which he wrote of Lamb? Was it "a heart bursting with sympathy and love" that made him speak so harshly of gentle Elia, whose life was a tragedy most pitiful, a sacrifice most complete, a heroism the more great and touching because it was not morose? And yet Mr. Burroughs 66 fears that poor Lamb has been stamped to last," and justifies the stamping by adding that "it was plain from the outset that Carlyle could not like such a verbal acrobat as Lamb." It is not strange at all that "none of Carlyle's characterizations have excited more ill-feeling than this same one of Lamb." Myriads of readers who love the cheery, tender spirit that was gay and childlike amid a life of sorrow, that thought only of helping and gladdening his fellows Emerson's influence on Mr. Burroughs's early style has been mentioned; his later writings, when on philosophical themes, still show the effects of that influence, and there are not a few paragraphs in the book under consideration that bear a strong tinge of Carlyleism as well. It is when he writes of nature that his style is at its best, simple, manly, and clear, with so much to tell which the world is glad to learn, that his thought is only to find the simplest way of expressing himself. Occasionally a phrase is used too homely or too colloquial to be the purest of English, and there are repetitions here and there that should have been cut out in preparing the essays for the permanency of book form; but these are minor defects. hardly worth mentioning in comparison with the pleasure and profit that Mr. Burroughs's book will give its readers. 2 Briefer Notice. The Young Men and the Churches: why Some of them are Outside, and why they ought to Come In,1 a valuable little volume, contains a review of twenty-nine reasons assigned by young men for not attending church regularly, given in response to a circular of inquiry on the subject. The topic is han dled with Mr. Gladden's usual skill.-Duxbury Doings, Our Two Homes, and Mr. Standfast's Journey, are all excellent books for the family and Sunday school library, from the same society, which is issuing many carefully prepared works for this purpose.- -Consumption; its Nature, Causes, Prevention, and Cure,5 is a manual for the general readother affections of the mucous membrane: it is writer by a competent specialist in throat diseases and ten in a manner perfectly clear and comprehensible, and intended for the very wise purpose of increasing preventative effort on the part of people themselves. Dr. Kitchen believes consumption far more preventable and far more curable than is generally supposed, and holds that the confused and ignorant state of the when there was everything to make him gloomy and public mind with regard to this disease is responsible act. depressed, could not but quarrel with the man who smote Charles Lamb cruel blows even with a dead hand. They will distrust his purpose and his judgment with a distrust so hearty and deep-rooted, that it will include all persons that excuse or palliate the Poor Lamb is not stamped to last. As long as English literature is read at all, he will win the love of men; they will honor him for his tenderness, his courage, his sweet humor, and his self-sacrificing spirit; listening rather to his gentle preaching than to the jeremiads of this prophet of pessimism, who, even Mr. Burroughs admits, "had a narrow escape from being the most formidable blackguard the world had ever seen." for its being unnecessarily contracted. 1 The Young Men and the Churches; why Some of them are Outside, and why they Ought to Come In. By Washington Gladden. Boston: Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society. 2 Duxbury Doings. By Caroline B. De Low. Boston: Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society. 8 Our Two Homes; or Without and Within the Gates. By Mrs. S. A. F. Herbert ("Herbert NewPublishing Society. bury"). Boston: Congregational Sunday School and 4 Mr. Standfast's Journey; or The Path of the Just. By Mrs. Julia McNair Wright. Boston: Congregational Sunday School and Publishing Society. 5 Consumption; its Nature, Causes, Prevention, and Cure. By J. M. W. Kitchen, M. D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1885. THE OVERLAND MONTHLY. DEVOTED TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY. VOL. V. (SECOND SERIES.)-APRIL, 1885.-No. 28. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF ART AND THEIR APPLICATION TO THE "NOVEL."1 As the novel is a branch of fine art, some preliminary words on the true nature and end of art become necessary. In fact, these preliminary words may be regarded as the most important part of what I have to say. In all subjects the chief difficulty of the writer or speaker is to bring his audience to his point of view. If this is successfully achieved, there is little more to be done, for his audience can then see as well as he. If you agree with me as to the essential nature and ends of true art, there will be little difficulty in making you agree with me also in their application to any particular branch, as the "novel." timent and feeling-the one, therefore, with physics; the other, with aesthetics. The physical or useful art is the more fundamental, and is, therefore, independent of the fine; but not so, conversely; fine art is usually— perhaps always-underlaid and conditioned by the mechanical. I need not say that it is only with fine art that we are here concerned. To Again, fine art may be divided into the imitative and non-imitative. This may not be a thoroughly philosophic division, but in some respects, at least, it suits our purpose. To the former class belong, first of all, sculpture and painting. These represent some natural object, actual or conceivable, of which the work is professedly an imitation, though it may be and ought to be much more. the same class belong also, although to a less degree, the drama and the novel; for these are supposed to represent truly events, actual or conceivable. To the other class belong music, poetry, and architecture. These are in no sense a representation of anything which exists, or could exist, in external nature. They are pure creations of the human mind. The former are works produced from materials furnished from without; the latter, from materials furnished from within. The (Copyright, 1884, by SAMUEL CARSON & Co. All Rights Reserved.) Art, then, may be primarily divided into two groups useful and fine. The end of one is fitness, of the other, beauty. The one is an embodiment of the laws of force; the other, of the laws of form. The one contributes to our comfort; the other, to our delight. The one is more closely connected with the understanding; the other, with sen 1 This article was read at a recent meeting of the Longfellow Society of the University of California. Its substance may be found in a much more extended article published in the Southern Presbyterian Review, 1863. A portion of the latter was entirely recast in the present form for the occasion mentioned. VOL. V.-22. two groups may seem, therefore, at first sight, widely diverse. They are so in materials, but not in the mode of using them. The raw materials, however derived, are composed into a work of art by the same creative imagination, and the result is addressed to the same faculties. It is evident, then, that the so-called imitative arts must be more than imitative, otherwise they would not be long at all in the category of fine art. too strong; the higher relatively too weak. The higher faculties are overborne by and in bondage to the lower, and all is discord instead of harmony. Our sensuous and animal nature is stronger than our spiritual; and among our spiritual faculties, those most nearly related to the sensuous and animal are stronger than the higher and more distinctively human. Thus our several faculties are feebler in proportion as they are higher. It matters We have said that the end of fine art is not how it came so-whether by a sad fall to please, to delight. We must not, however, from a more ideal pristine condition, as is genon that account, imagine that it addresses it- erally thought, or whether the human spirit, self only to our lower and sensuous nature. born of the animal soul, is struggling to adapt The end of fine art is indeed to delight, as itself to its higher spiritual environment, but of science to inform; but our delights are sadly hindered by its animal inheritance, as of grades as infinite as our knowledges. As others think-the fact is all that concerns us knowledges rise through all grades from sense- here. Now all culture strives to bring order impressions to apprehension of general laws, into this chaos, by strengthening the higher, so our delights are of every grade from sense- and, if necessary, by weakening the lower; delights to the perception of the divine beau- but at any cost, to bring all into harmonious ty of holiness. activity. This ideal condition is what we call the divine image. All noblest effort— science, art, religion—strives ever to restore or perfect-take it either way, the divine image in the human spirit: science strives ever to restore that image in the human reason, as truth; art in the human imagination, as beauty-the type of spiritual beauty, which is holiness; religion in human life and conduct, as duty and love. Thus, in the human spirit there is a kind of antago nism between the higher and lower, which has been often compared to warfare; and it is the business of all culture to help the right: not, indeed, to destroy the lower, but to bring it into subjection, as the willing and useful servant, to the higher. Now, it is evident that the question of the true end of art must find its solution in the nature of man-actual and ideal. Man's mind, like his body, may be regarded as a complex organism, consisting of many correlative faculties or functions. These faculties must not be classed as good and evil, but only as higher and lower. Evil consists in the dominance of the lower over the higher. All culture consists in the increasing dominance of the higher over the lower, and the final subjection of all to the highest. When this is completely attained; when the whole nature of man, with every faculty in its highest possible activity, but each under each in due subordination, work together in perfect accord, and the whole. strives upward to still higher planes, with eye fixed steadily on the highest, the infinite, the divine-when, I say, this is completely attained, then we have reached the ideal; for this is true holiness, and the only true free dom. But the actual man is far otherwise. There is no doubt about the fact-we all feel and acknowledge it-that in most men always, and even in the best men, except in their highest moments, the lower are relatively far Now, there are two forms in which this antagonistic relation between the higher and lower may be considered, viz: 1, as intellect and aesthetic sentiment, in their relation to the bodily senses or sense-impressions; and 2, the same in their relation to appetites, passions, and lower emotions. The state of balance in the one case determines the grade of intelligence or higher susceptibility; in the other, the grade of character. Dominance of the lower in the one case tends to stupidity or levity, in the other to vice. As respects art, the one determines the grade of art, whether high or low; the other not only the grade, but also the character of art, whether pure or corrupt, whether healthy or morbid, whether elevating or debasing in its effects. In the one case, Nature external is too diverse, too complex, for us to understand and appreciate the higher is overpowered, covered, buried, by the multiplicity of sense-impressions, and art, like science, is the revealer and interpreter; in the other, Nature internal is too strong for us. Art, like religion, must help us to conquer. High and Low Art. We have said that the effect of a true art is to kindle and strengthen the higher and repress the lower, and thus to bring the mind of the beholder into a condition approaching the ideal man. This is done by emphasis on whatever appeals to the higher, and a subduing of whatever appeals to the lower; so that an exalted state of the whole nature is produced. In proportion as this effect is attained, the art is high; in proportion as the artist attains only clever imitation of what any one may see in the object represented, the art is low. I know no department of art which illustrates these principles so well and in so simple a way as portrait painting. If any department is purely imitative, surely it is this. It is generally supposed that the portrait painter is successful in proportion as he reproduces with mathematical accuracy the outline and color of every feature, so that the man stands before us exactly as he looks in his ordinary daily life; so that, taking the picture frame as a window, we actually imagine we are looking at the man in another If this be the ideal portrait-painting, then has it become a useless art; for the photograph is far superior in everything except color, and this is easily added. If this be so, then genius is a useless endowment, for it is far outstripped by sunlight. Yet who does not feel that the pleasure we take in a successful photograph is far differ ent from and lower than that which we feel in viewing a real work of higher art. Why is this? We explain it thus: of high and low, divine and animal, well expressed in the beautiful outlines of Retzsch by the figure of the Sphinx, with its animal body half buried in the earth, and its divinely human head among the clouds. The whole of this mixed nature is expressed in the human face, the several elements in various proportions according to our original character or degree of culture; but in all, under ordinary circumstances, the lower and sensuous too strong, or perhaps the higher or divine too weak. In many, alas! the divine is so obscured by the animal that it seems utterly gone. It exists, however, though invisible to us; otherwise the face would be no longer human. There is not a human face, however revolting, there is not a human character, however degraded, but has in it something worthy of love-yea, even of reverence. If we cannot see it, it is our fault. God sees it, and compassionates its eclipsed condition. It is the business of genius, amid all the obscurations of inherited depravity, amid the still sadder obscurations of individual vice and passion, to detect, bring out, and embody it in art-to disentangle and separate the gold from the dross. In a state of repose or mental vacuity, only the low, and sensuous, and animal is visible. The eye must be kindled and the whole face lighted by noble emotions, by high thoughts or holy purpose. The face must be taken at its best. Now, it is impossible that the photograph should take the face except in repose and mental vacuity, and therefore in its lowest condition. Any attempt at expression becomes affectation, and is worse than mere vacuity. The photograph is powerless to express what is best in any face. The highest ambition of the mere imitative artist is to emulate the accuracy of the photograph to make an exact copy of what a clown might see, or a mechanic with rule and compass might execute. The great artist, on the other hand, may be less minutely accurate in reproducing every wrinkle, pimple, or blotch on the skin, or every fold of the cravat; but he will catch something of its highest expression. Whatever is base and aniOur nature, as already said, is a mixture mal he will soften, and whatever is noble he will emphasize. He does not violate nature, but only carries out what nature intended. It is we ourselves who violate our higher nature through sin. The true but unattainable ideal of portrait painting, then, is the clear seeing and complete expression on canvas of an individual human face, not exactly as it is, but as it should be--as God intended it to be—and as it would have been if it had not been marred by vice and passion inherited and individual. What a teacher would such a painter be! To see ourselves as we might have been, and such as through much conflict we might still hope to be, and then to see ourselves such as we are "to look on this picture and then on that"! This is the ideal, but, as already said, the unattainable ideal of art. All we can expect is some distant approach to this ideal. All we can hope is that the artist shall watch his opportunity, shall skillfully draw out from its deep sleep whatever is noble, so that it may for a moment flash upon and enlighten the features, and then embody it on canvas. In a word, he must paint the face in its best and highest moments, and if possible, even carry it beyond in the same direction. This is the best idealism which we can expect in portrait painting; and even this is rare, for nearly all that is called idealism is false and worthless. The artist sees not and cannot embody the noble and divine, but seeks to embody, not what he distinctly sees, but something which has no existence except in his own vain imagination. There are, therefore, three kinds of portrait painters as of all kinds of artists. The first honestly and accurately sets down all he sees, but he sees only the low and commonplace. The second equally honestly sets down all that he sees, but he sees also the noble sets down honestly all that he sees, only varying their relative strength, here softening, there strengthening, until all is brought into divine harmony; varying thus their relative strength, not in the spirit of dishonesty and conceit, but as a faithful, loving teacher. The third class, despising the first class, and not able to attain to the second; leaving the firm basis of mechanical execution, and not able to attain to the divine conception; loosing his firm grasp of the actual and material, and not able to take hold of the ideal, merely floats about in a cloud-land of vain imaginations and foolish conceits. The first is low art, the second high art; but both genuine and useful, each in its degree. The third is simply false and hurtful. High art in portrait painting is so very rare that most of us would probably prefer mechanical accuracy, lest we get instead a false idealism. Therefore we will be wise to be satisfied with the accurate representation of our loved ones in their usual every-day faces. Love is closely allied to genius. Love, like genius, enjoys the privilege of seeing the noble and godlike in the human face, however veiled by material clothing or darkened by error. the faces of our loved ones become indissolubly associated in our minds with whatever is noblest in their characters. Thus, if we only have a faithful copy, even of what is most commonplace, love does for us exactly what art so often strives in vain to accomplish-transfigures the commonplace into the image of the divine. Thus Thus we may with justice prefer photography in the representation of our friends, but this is only because we are ourselves, through love, in the position of the high artist; because in this matter our perceptions are so acute, and affections so jealous, that it would require almost superhuman genius to satisfy them; and therefore we prefer that imitative art should only furnish the materials on which we ourselves may exercise our own creative power. Landscape. The principle I am trying to enforce is also well illustrated by landscape painting; we will, therefore, add a very few words on this subject. Most persons, I think, would regard it as a complete triumph of this art to represent a natural scene so accurately in outline and color of every minutest detail, that, taking the picture frame as a window, we are completely deceived into the belief that we are looking through at a real scene, instead of a painting. Now, even were such deception possible, it would not |