The Mystery of Life and Its Arts
BY . New York : John Wiley and Son. pp. 45.
THIS little book comes to us in the American edition without any explanatory preface or introduction of any sort. It appears to be a lecture delivered before some society of young people in Ireland, the subject requested being Art. The lecturer, however, apologizes gracefully,—just relieving the reader from the fear of a touch too strong of egotism, — for not keeping exactly to the letter of his requirement, and proceeds to preach an excellent sermon on the text, “ What is your life ? It is even as a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” In truth, Mr. Ruskin seems admirably fitted for the sacred desk, —we say it in all soberness, and not in the least as satire. His discourse is serious, earnest, and eloquent, blurred a little with the author’s besetting infirmity of paradox and lack of homogeneousness in doctrine, and pervaded with a tone of sadness, as much from his own confessed disappointment and failure in having convinced the world of the truth and importance of his views of art, as from a sense of the deep mystery of life in general.
In Mr. Ruskin’s mind all art is inseparably connected with life, character, religion, motive. So that in treating of the Mystery of Life he is treating of Art. The prevailing apathy of men about the future life (which Mr. Ruskin seems to think the same thing as being without high religious motives in life is the first great mystery to him. Are we sure, he asks, that there is a heaven and a hell ? And if we are not sure, and do not care to be sure, “how can anything we think be wise : what honor can there be in the arts that amuse us, or what profit in the possessions that please ? ” This apathy is a mystery of life. But at least, he says, we might have expected the great teachers to throw light on this future life. Have they done it ? Dante and Milton, according to Mr. Ruskin, “are the highest representatives of men who have searched out these deep things.” They are his representative men as seers (to sustain which rôle we suppose never entered their heads, certainly not Milton’s), and he thus criticises their shortcomings and vagaries in this line : —
“ Do you know, as I strive more sternly with this strange lethargy and trance in myself, it seems daily more amazing to me that men such as these should dare to play with the most precious truths (or the most deadly untruths) by which the whole human race, listening to them, could be informed or deceived ; — all the world their audiences forever, with pleased ear and passionate heart; — and yet to this submissive infinitude of souls, and evermore succeeding and succeeding multitude, hungry for bread of life, they do but play upon sweetly modulated pipes ; with pompous nomenclature adorn the councils of hell; touch a troubadour’s guitar to the courses of the suns; and fill the openings of eternity, before which prophets have veiled their faces, and which angels desire to look into, with idle puppets of their scholastic imagination, and melancholy lights of frantic faith, in their lost mortal love.”
Now all this is very beautifully expressed, but it strikes us as a poetic flying away from the question, which seems almost too evident for argument. And yet we can fancy young and enthusiastic people thinking it all sound reasoning. But did Dante or Milton choose heaven and hell for their themes with the least idea that their readers would take their wonderful imaginings for facts, or even for crude and imperfect sketches of what they really believed ? Is it not clearly understood that they are poets, not seers, not clairvoyants ? And why is Mr. Ruskin so amazed that such poets as they are should people the great unknown world with the creations of their imagination ? Is not every one free to paint what pictures he pleases on the great, dark, void spaces which the wisest mortal could never penetrate, and which are made easy and cheap and legible only to a blind faith in the letter of the Scriptures ? And why is the mysterious future more sacred than the mysterious present in which we live ?
In fine, the author, by a strange mental confusion, confounds here the office of seer and teacher with that of the poet, just as he confounds high art with religion.
He next proceeds to criticise Homer and Shakespeare from the same point of view. Concerning the latter, it is a mystery of life to Mr. Ruskin that he is not something different from what he is, — that the heavens are not ever open to him,—that so great an intellect and genius does not teach the perpetual presence of the Deity,— and that we find in his writings only the consciousness of a moral law, and the confession that “ there’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”
Then the author questions the wise religious men and the wise contemplative men in vain. Next he shows that the practical people of the world, whose motives are selfish, — the wise worldly men,— don’t clear up the mystery of life any better. But, lastly, he confesses to getting some light on the subject out of the sincere, honest workers of the earth. And here he seems to touch upon sounder doctrine; and concludes with several pages of wholesome, humane, and wise matter upon clothing, food, and houses for the working classes. The religious opinions he inculcates here are so broad and healthy in comparison with those expressed in the first part of his discourse, that we quote his words, wondering how the same writer could find room for both in the same creed. After speaking of the needs of the people for a proper social environment, and of the value of right action, and subservience to duty, he says : —
“ On such holy and simple practice will be founded, indeed, at last, an infallible religion. The greatest of all the mysteries of life, and the most terrible, is the corruption of even the sincerest religion, which is not daily founded on rational, effective, humble, and helpful action. Helpful action, observe ! for there is just one law, which obeyed, keeps all religions pure, — forgotten, makes them all false. Whenever in any religious faith, dark or bright, we allow our minds to dwell upon the points in which we differ from other people, we are wrong, and in the Devil’s power. That is the essence of the Pharisee’s thanksgiving, — ' Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are.’ At every moment of our lives we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ with other people, but in what we agree with them ; and the moment we find we can agree as to anything that should be done, kind or good, (and who but fools could n’t ?) then do it; push at it together ; you can’t quarrel in a side-by-side push : but the moment that even the best men stop pushing and begin talking, they mistake their pugnacity for piety, and it’s all over.”
The truth must be that Mr. Ruskin, like many men of genius, is a man of moods ; and this may account for much inconsistency. In this lecture, for instance, he begins in despair, and ends in hope. He is invited to talk of art ; but he tells his hearers that “ the main thing he has to say is that art must not be talked about.” What a confession for Mr. Ruskin to make !
Modestly or despairingly he talks as if he had spent much vain labor in writing about art, though still holding to his old convictions, He hints, too, that his power of saying apt and beautiful things is declining. We do not see any falling off in ideas or expression or rhetorical beauty. But we think that we do see that his moods color and even shape his ideas. And if this be so, it may help to give us a key by which we may in a measure explain much in his writings that seems paradoxical and capricoius.