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ROOKS ON OUR TAttLI An Anal ytical Catal...
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(it'rilcnrr'tiltccord. Part. IV: It. Gro...
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apnrifiilifl
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We should do our utmost to encourage the...
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Sudden indisposition prevents the contin...
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THE DISCIPLINE OF AKT Letteb I.—To A a. ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Guizot On Corneille. Corncillc And His T...
foes , and had visibly incurred greater dangers . All the vigour of his noble genius was requisite to discover a sufficient source of interest in those singular characters which he alone could create and sustain ; he alone has succeeded in awakening our uncertainty and curiosity by their very inflexibility , which , as it is announced at the outset , does not permit them to yield to the slightest weakness , and multiplies successively around them embarrassments which ceaselessly necessitate greater and more extraordinary efforts . If we were less convinced of Emilie _' s firmness , we should feel less alarmed on her account , at the resolution of China to die if she will not permit him to break up the conspiracy . In asuch a struggle , an ordinary character should succumb , and it only remains to be seen whether it will sacrifice its love or its vengeance ; but we well know that Emilie will renounce neither the one nor the other . What course , then , will she pursue ? She hesitates ; not as to her choice , but as to her means ; what shall it be ? What but this : — ' * * * * Qu'il _achfcve et degage sa foi , Efc qu'il choisisse apres de la mort ou de moi . "
" In order to attain to this invincible power , which will make all around it bend to its influence , a man must absolutely have separated himself from all that otherwise enters into the _comppsition of human nature ; he must have completely ceased to think of all that , in real life , occurs to alter the forms of that ideal grandeur of which the imagination can conceive no possibility except when , isolating it , so to gpeak , from all the other affections , it forgets that which renders its realization so difficult and so infrequent . The imagination of Corneille had no difficulty in lending itself to this isolation ; the loftiness of his inventions was sustained b y his
inexperience in the common affairs of life ; as he introduced into his own ordinary actions none of those ideas which he employed in the creation of his heroes , so in the conception of his heroes he introduced none of the ideas of which he made use in ordinary life . He did not place Corneille himself in their position : the observation of nature did not occupy his attention ; a happy inspiration frequently led him to divine it ; but his unassisted imagination , gathering together outlines of a far more simple character , composed for him a sort of abstract model of a single quality , a being without parts , if I may be allowed the expression , capable of being set in motion by a single impulse , and of proceeding in a single direction . "
But we must refer the reader to this volume for more ample appreciation of Corneille , and , meanwhile , borrow from it another extract or so . Here is a glance at a tsotjbadotjr ' s love . " Much love , therefore , was not necessary to inspire a poet ; but the little love that he really felt , he could make large enough to fill his verses , just as scruples magnify devotion and occupy life . Pierre Vidal , a troubadour of Marseilles , who loved Adelaide de Roque-Martine , the wife of the Viscount of Marseilles , was so unfortunate in his amours as to afford sport to the Viscount himself . One day the poet found the Viscountess asleep and snatched a kiss ; she awoke and was very angry- Probably Vidal annoyed her still more as a lover than he amused her as a poet ; for , delighted at having found a pretext for getting rid of a troublesome admirer , whose poetry was his only merit , she persisted so inexorably in her anger ,
that even her husband could not obtain Vidal ' s pardon . In despair , or thinking that he ought to be so , Vidal embarked for the Holy Land , in the suite of King Richard . As poetical in his bravery as in his amours , and doubtless one of those * whose tongue / to use Petrarc ' s phrase , ' was at once their lance and sword , their casque and buckler / he fancied that he had performed great exploits , and so celebrated them in his songs . After several singular adventures , he returned to France , still enamoured of the Viscountess of Marseilles , although in the meantime be had married a wife of his own , and miserable at not having obtained a return of the kiss which he had snatched . What Vidal demanded was not a new kiss , but a liberal gift of the old one : not to have granted him this would have been very cruel . At the request of her husband , the Viscountess yielded at last ; Vidal was satisfied , and so well satisfied that , after having written a song in commemoration of his happiness , he ceased to pursue an amour which furnished no further theme for his Muse . "
And here a hint to such of our fair friends as try to keep up the delu sion of
PLATONIC LOVE . " Next to the ladies of that lofty rigidity which Mino . de Montausier displayed perhaps with unusual ostentation , came those more tender blue-stockings , whose hearts gave admission to love , but on conditions which imparted to it either the vagueness of objectless desire , or the refinement of dcsircless feeling . ' These false pretenders to delicacy / says Saint-Evreinond , ' have robbed lovo of its most natural features ; thinking to g ive it something more precious in exchange , they have transferred the seat of passion from tho heart into the mind , and changed impulses into ideas . This great purification has its orig in in an honest abhorrence of sensualit y ; but tbey are not less removed from the true nature of love than the most voluptuous ; for love has as little to do with _speculations of the understanding as with brutalit y of the appetite . '"
The translation of this work is done with _# r eat care and occasional felicity . An index ought to havo been added . When will publishers become suflieiently alive to the value of an index in all works of reference P
Ar01907
Rooks On Our Tattli An Anal Ytical Catal...
ROOKS ON OUR TAttLI An Anal ytical Catalogue of Mr . Chapman ' s Publications . John Chapman . 1 _uk various works published by Mr . John Chapman are hero classified and briefly analyzed , so that if the title of any works arrest your attention , you may at once from the analysis learn whether the subject mutter anil the tone of thought suits you . As a guide to the purchaser of hookti this catalogue ! iH worthy of general mutation ; and the analyses being performed with remarkable ability , the catalogue becomes in _itnelf a valuable work , for it contains the sort of outline of each book a student would make for himself alter reading it .
(It'rilcnrr'tiltccord. Part. Iv: It. Gro...
( _it ' rilcnrr ' _tiltccord . Part . IV : It . Groom _bridge und _ftoii . Popular Scripture _Tiutittitit / . By Maria E . Callow . Hoove and Co . J fat Home Circle . Vol . ' Vf . W . 8 . JohiiHoil . A ( _hirland if ( Jratifttdti . Hy _Jonopli Diiro . Jolui Chapman . J _<\ r * tliny * . hy William Wliitmoro . John Chapman . An h ' mdy on National- Secular l < _Jt lit tuition . By William Bunion . J . Burton , l . i » i ««« it <» r . A Pint _Utiadinn . Hook . Hy . lamttH Whitton . William CollinH . A Second _Itnad ' tnif Hook . Iiy _JiinitiH Whittoii . William Colliufl . A I'hird ' Heading Bonk . Ity . ltuiion Whitton . William _Colliiin . J he Child '» Uraminar . By Iho Hov . _Jidward _Thrinfta M . A . _Goorjjo Bull . A he Free Vomtitution of Oovernment , Hy t 5 . 1 * . _AuiWvu . John _OUapuiuu ,
(It'rilcnrr'tiltccord. Part. Iv: It. Gro...
English Alice . A Poem . By A . J . Evelyn . W . Pickering Shakipeare . P & r M . Guizot . W . Jeffs Corneille . Par M . Guizot . W . Jeffs Tracts for Electors on Finance and Trade . By H . Torrens . Chapman and Hall Sibbie marsh ' * Three JEras . Chapman and Hall Philips' _JEmigranf * Guide to Australia . J . C . Bishop Book of ihe _Sfcye . S . G . Coffins Shakspeare and his Time * . By M . Guizot . B . Bentley Woman ' s Life ; or , the Trial * of Caprice . By E . Carlen . 3 vols . K . Bentley Note * on the North-Western Province * of India . By C . Raikes . Chapman and Hall _iBlackwood't Edinburgh Magazine . Blackwood and Son The Blithedale Romance . By Nathaniel Hawthorne . 2 vols . jfc Chapman and Hall Free Church of Ancient Christendom . By B . H . , Cooper . . ' ' ™ A . _Coekshaw The Artificial Production of Fish . By Pisearius . Keeve and Son To Think or Not to Think . By W . White . E . Theobald The Parlour Library—The Wilmington * . _Sinims and M'Intyre The Bookcase—Life in Mexico . By Madame Calderon . _Siiuins and M'Intyre
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_apnrifiilifl
We Should Do Our Utmost To Encourage The...
We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the _TJseful enco _\ _iragfe itself!—Goexhe .
Sudden Indisposition Prevents The Contin...
Sudden indisposition prevents the continuation of the series of articles on COMTE'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY this week . [ A further subscription from J . P ., of Penzance , and from two friends , amounting to 10 s ., has to he acknowledged for the Comte Fund . With regard to the book J . P inquires after , nothing as yet can be decided . ]
The Discipline Of Akt Letteb I.—To A A. ...
THE DISCIPLINE OF AKT Letteb I . —To A a . Art is that perfection of human culture which restores civilization to nature . It supplies the means of cultivating faculties which otherwise , in cities and enclosed lands , mig ht remain with feebler exercise . But from writings which I have recently seen , unpublished as well as published , by men with an enlarged faith in Art as well as hy unlucky sceptics , it appears to me that the precise nature of its operation is not so well understood as it should be ; and if I can better that understanding to some extent it will be by repeating that which you and I , most excellent friend , have already considered on this head .
Be it understood that I use the word Art in its widest sense , to signify that symmetrical reflex of nature which consists of poetry , music , painting , sculpture , and architecture . Criticism is not more necessary to Art than St . Pierra was necessary to the existence of a Paul and Virginia ; and yet a right understanding is the atmosphere in which Art best flourishes and best works , out its great ends . It is commonly g ranted that it " refines the mind , " but we are not often told very intelligibly how it does so . By " ministering to a refined pleasure , " is the ordinary notion ; and the perfection of that operation is supposed to be attained when Art realizes so much " purity" as to give no pleasure at all . It is then , we are told , truly " intellectual . "
Art is not "intellectual , " in the ordinary sense of that word ; and heioce it follows that the best artists are not always the best critics , since they do not always perceive the intellectual relations of their own office . It no more needs a critically intellectual faculty of review to make an artist , than a healthy man needs the science of physiology to digest his dinner . The work of other faculties , Art is destined to the development of other faculties : it belongs to a range of faculties which lie between the scientific intellect and the material instincts , and especially to those feelings of the " heart" or " soul" whose development is usually considered to distinguish man from the lower creation . Poetry may be intellectual ; but we are all conscious that didactic poetry is calculated to have a much feebler hold of
the mind than other kinds . Music and painting cannot be didactic . The emotions expressed by the inflections of the voice teach us , by an inverse operation on the nervous perceptions , to excite similar emotions with tho inflections of the voice : those inflections , rendered symmetrical and uttered by the voice itself , or by the instruments which the voice can make to vibrate in sympathy with itself , arc Music . Music is nothing else but the rhythmical expression of feelings through the medium of sound . Lven "imitative music" is not properly so called , but as an imitation of feelings it only suggests the idea of objects which it cannot depict . Painting is the representation of visual objects ; amongst others , the class of objects with which it most chiefly deals are such as express the emotions by the
outward signs . It is common to hear people talk of " an inward expression ; " but we must bear in mind that the most inward feeling can only be set forth in painting by an imitation of the . surface . —ia sculpture , by the material form . Certain emotions produce certain changes of form and colour : the si g ht of such forms and colours sympathetically suggests those emotions—a gay face produces a sense of gaiety . —a melancholy face , ol melancholy—an awe-stricken face , of awe—and so on ; but the painter ' s sole medium is the surface , and he can only suggest that which can be
u ., r ... i _>„ _± „ A l .., .. w _....... .. I' * l ... „; .,.., I o _..,.. ' , w . / . _Nh-. _t ! .. _>¦• ilw musician nor the suggested by means of the visual surface . Neither the musician nor the painter can pourtray thoughts , but only the feelings which thoughts produce , aa they are expressed on surface or in sound ; and although the poet can extend his art most nobly in the region of thought , yet we are all conscious that his strength declines as he wanders from the common domain of Art into the alien region of intellectual propositions . Why it is that art derives additional strength from becoming rhythmical we do not clearly know ; probably the reason lies ao deeply within our inti-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 3, 1852, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03071852/page/19/
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