FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97  
98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   >>   >|  
especially confirmed in this latter branch of the subject, where the phenomena presented are exclusively of the Possible. Indeed, we cannot conceive how without it there could ever be such a thing as true Art; for what might be received as such in one age might also be overruled in the next: as we know to be the case with most things depending on opinion. But, happily for Art, if once established on this immutable base, there it must rest: and rest unchanged, amidst the endless fluctuations of manners, habits, and opinions; for its truth of a thousand years is as the truth of yesterday. Hence the beings described by Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton are as true to us now, as the recent characters of Scott. Nor is it the least characteristic of this important Truth, that the only thing needed for its full reception is simply its presence,--being its own evidence. How otherwise could such a being as Caliban ever be true to us? We have never seen his race; nay, we knew not that such a creature _could_ exist, until he started upon us from the mind of Shakspeare. Yet who ever stopped to ask if he were a real being? His existence to the mind is instantly felt;--not as a matter of faith, but of fact, and a fact, too, which the imagination cannot get rid of if it would, but which must ever remain there, verifying itself, from the first to the last moment of consciousness. From whatever point we view this singular creature, his reality is felt. His very language, his habits, his feelings, whenever they recur to us, are all issues from a living thing, acting upon us, nay, forcing the mind, in some instances, even to speculate on his nature, till it finds itself classing him in the chain of being as the intermediate link between man and the brute. And this we do, not by an ingenious effort, but almost by involuntary induction; for we perceive speech and intellect, and yet without a soul. What but an intellectual brute could have uttered the imprecations of Caliban? They would not be natural in man, whether savage or civilized. Hear him, in his wrath against Prospero and Miranda:-- "A wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, Light on you both!" The wild malignity of this curse, fierce as it is, yet wants the moral venom, the devilish leaven, of a consenting spirit: it is all but human. To this we may add a similar example, from our own art, in the Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, of Sir
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97  
98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Caliban
 

habits

 

creature

 
Shakspeare
 
issues
 
ingenious
 

perceive

 

speech

 

reality

 

induction


language
 
involuntary
 

feelings

 

effort

 

living

 

intellect

 

nature

 

speculate

 

intermediate

 

acting


classing
 

forcing

 

instances

 
Prospero
 

fierce

 
leaven
 
devilish
 

malignity

 

consenting

 

spirit


Goodfellow

 

similar

 
unwholesome
 
civilized
 

savage

 
natural
 

intellectual

 

uttered

 

imprecations

 

singular


Miranda

 

brushed

 
feather
 

mother

 
wicked
 
stopped
 

immutable

 

established

 
unchanged
 

amidst