FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   >>  
calls a "moral discovery"--using, no doubt, the words in their widest sense. I would maintain, however, that such finality is not confined to positively discovering the true conclusion of premises laid down; but that it may also distil gradually, negatively from the whole work, in a moral discovery, as it were, of Author. In other words, that, permeation by an essential point of view, by emanation of author, may so unify and vitalize a work, as to give it all the finality that need be required of Art. For the finality that is requisite to Art, be it positive or negative, is not the finality of dogma, nor the finality of fact, it is ever the finality of feeling--of a spiritual light, subtly gleaned by the spectator out of that queer luminous haze which one man's nature must ever be to others. And herein, incidentally, it is that Art acquires also that quality of mystery, more needful to it even than finality, for the mystery that wraps a work of Art is the mystery of its maker, and the mystery of its maker is the difference between that maker's soul and every other soul. But let me take an illustration of what I mean by these two kinds of finality that Art may have, and show that in essence they are but two halves of the same thing. The term "a work of Art" will not be denied, I think, to that early novel of M. Anatole France, "Le Lys Rouge." Now, that novel has positive finality, since the spiritual conclusion from its premises strikes one as true. But neither will the term "a work of Art" be denied to the same writer's four "Bergeret" volumes, whose negative finality consists only in the temperamental atmosphere wherein they are soaked. Now, if the theme of "Le Lys Rouge" had been treated by Tolstoy, Meredith, or Turgenev, we should have had spiritual conclusions from the same factual premises so different from M. France's as prunes from prisms, and yet, being the work of equally great artists, they would, doubtless, have struck us as equally true. Is not, then, the positive finality of "Le Lys Rouge," though expressed in terms of a different craftsmanship, the same, in essence, as the negative finality of the "Bergeret" volumes? Are not both, in fact, merely flower of author true to himself? So long as the scent, colour, form of that flower is strong and fine enough to affect the senses of our spirit, then all the rest, surely, is academic--I would say, immaterial. But here, in regard to Art, is where m
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   >>  



Top keywords:

finality

 

mystery

 

spiritual

 

negative

 
positive
 

premises

 

denied

 

equally

 

flower

 

volumes


Bergeret
 

France

 
discovery
 
essence
 

author

 

conclusion

 
Turgenev
 

Meredith

 
Tolstoy
 
treated

conclusions

 

factual

 

gradually

 

prisms

 
negatively
 
prunes
 

soaked

 

writer

 

strikes

 

atmosphere


temperamental

 
consists
 

senses

 

spirit

 

affect

 
strong
 

surely

 

regard

 
immaterial
 

academic


colour

 

expressed

 

struck

 
artists
 

doubtless

 

craftsmanship

 

distil

 

Anatole

 

nature

 

luminous