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31, 18 52.] THE LEADER. 7§7
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THE AMERICAN HAMLET. Natubalists tell us...
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T II E C) P E I! A S have wooed mo, but ...
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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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Comte's Positive Philosophy. By G. H. Le...
himself , sometimes , to obey conscience . A man thoroughly imbued with the nfluence of Art will desire that which is beautiful , healthy , good , and noble . Although we have generally felt the value of Art , although we continue to repeat the m axims about its " softening the manner , " and controvert utilitarians and dogmatic sceptics who treat fiction as mischievous and w orthless , I think we seldom maintain the value of Art on true grounds . " We speak of its " example , " or enter into vague assurances about " taste " and " refinement ; " the latter ground being " void for uncertainty , " the " example" plea inapposite . It would be difficult to ensure the reading of the Orlando Furioso on the score of the example offered by Orlando , or R inaldo , or Sacripante , or Angelica , or Bradamante , or Fiordilisa ; since the conduct of those knights and damsels errant is inapplicable to existing institutions , and departs widely from the existing code of proprieties . And yet we feel that we are the better for reading the generous romance . Why ? Because it revives , in their purest and amplest form , the instincts of humanity ; because it accustoms the thoughts to move in a train of symmetry and beauty , and to turn from what is unsymmetrical , inorganic , unbeautiful ; and if our thoughts are trailed to grow in beauty , our desires , our aspirations , our intimate motives to conduct will be healthy and lifeful .
Art cannot work out a logical proposition ; but a proposition which we may justify by logical working out , may _often be put by Art in a form so vivid as to strike upon the feelings with an electric light , and so become part of our organism . The idleness of seeking effeminately to evade every form of danger , the worse risques to which it subjects us , we may prove by all the lights of r eason , of morals , and of physiology ; but the beautiful episode in the Arabian Nights—of the young man buried in the seclusion of a desert island , to avoid the knife , and there accidentally slain in sickly helplessness by the hand of the friend who nurses him—puts the truth into a living picture that speaks to us through our very senses . We feel it , remember it , carry it about with us . We may show the wretchedness of lying by logic and morals : we know , as a fact , that all liars are not stricken with convulsive death ; but when we see , in Raphael ' s cartoon , Ananias writhing with the agony of the Divine visitation—when we see , by the sublime aspect of the Apostles , that he has been lying in the presence of God's vicegerents—when we see the agonized man tended , not by the care and ministering sympathy of tliose around , but by their horror and repulsion , the sense of life within us recoils from the crime which , denying truth , frustrates existence —for such is always the effect of lying , so far as it works—and we are awed into a loving reliance on truth alone . Such is the feeling at the moment . Awaken such feelings often in the mind , and it naturally inclines to that which is truthful . Again , in presence of Giotto ' s bell-tower at Florence , so lofty , so fair , so ancient , and ever beautiful , instinctively impressed with the power of the laws of inorganic life which it brings within our cognisance , but which equally sustain the inarch of the planets and the distribution of the firmaments , —impressed with the power of one of our kind to minister to those great laws , and to be God ' s vicar in unfolding power and beauty , it would be difficult for us to do anything mean . On that white stone , not far away , says tradition , sat Dante in his greatness and his trouble—Dante , whose satires of his countrymen have grown dim in meaning to after ages , but whose simple transcripts of nobler feeling and high thought stand through all time—whose Paolo and Francesca still tell to loving hearts to what sublime discourse the sweet emotions within them may rise . Paltrinesses have happened there—petty sports , and pettier malignities , which have passed away : but the sacred presence of the departed poet remains , ever inciting generation after generation to be noble and generous . much bestirred themselves to what is
Teachers have toq encourage good , to repress what is bad ; forgetting that a stern warped by artifice seldom retains its bent , and that an organization trimmed by cutting or binding to the fashion of n day wi ) l grow again , or is feebler than it should be in presence of difficulty . If we _^ we were not so much to repress what we dislike , as to develope the faculties which go to make up the complement of oar nature , — if we seek , as far as we may , to grow men up to the standard of their type , —we shall establish a more vital discipline , self-acting , selfdeveloping ? it is through Art that wo can test that type in more than one of its phases , by Art that we can discipline ourselves to approach that type . l ' i . \ iled from Nature in our huge ; quadrate labyrinths of streets , lost amid the ugly rubbish of civilization , its false allurements and _depi-aved senses ; Art is the light at the other end which may guide us through civilization , as amid the combats and perplexities of artificial life the memory of a beloved lace fixes our thought and sustains our faculties for the light . As yet , however , it is a branch of government . _strangely curried on by a certain order whom Sand more than once (! _alls the Gipsies of Society ; and so it will remain , until the unity of truth shall be understood . Is this to bo for < _-ver : or are we coming to the spot where many paths meet—where believers shall cease to assert that which we cannot know by presumption , where sceptics shall cease to ignore ; that which we cannot cense to feel ? I do not know ; but this 1 know—that tin ; lights of truth do not extinguish but _Klrenjjjtheu each other ; as the smile of happiness adds brightness to the ¦ yes of intellect , and the blush of" loving-ness makes both divine . Wherein Haphael and Nature do but confirm each other ; as testifieth enduringly your Thornton Hunt .
31, 18 52.] The Leader. 7§7
31 , 18 52 . ] THE LEADER . 7 § 7
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The American Hamlet. Natubalists Tell Us...
THE AMERICAN HAMLET . _Natubalists tell us that the traveller on the Caspian shores is startled of an evening by the sounds of joyous laughter , seeming to proceed from some excited assembly of men and women , taking existence in Homeric moo 4 ? he approaches , curious ; and finds amongst the slimy rocks a gathering of enormous black toads _celebrating their nuptial rites , —the laughter _proceeding from them ! I thought of this on Monday night , when I , fresh , from the verdant plains and . sweet umbrageoisty ( I'll trouble you for that expression !) of sylvan retreats , wandered to the unfamiliar scene of Drury Lane , and heard , with startled ears , sounds such as those which saluted Dante in—( oh no , we never mention it !) Diverse lingue , orribili favelle Parole di dolore , accenti d'ira Voce alte e fioche , e suon di man con ellemethodism led
or , in plain English , horrible sounds of forty- power , ming with the cracked declamation of speaking trumpets , and the clapping of approving hands—suon di man con elle ! I approached , curious ; what think you I found there ? Toads in nuptial abandon and epithalamic gaiety ? No—a " legitimate" performance of Shakspeare , on the boards which _Kemble , Siddons , Kean , and Bunn have consecrated . The playwas Hamlet . The occasion was grave ; it introduced a " great American tragedian" to the British public . America ! land of hope , child of England , and nation of the Future , I love thee dearly , and look with anxious interest after all thy new births in Literature , in Art , but do not , I implore thee , send us any more " great tragedians" 1 I am deeply interested in thy Hawthorne , Melville , Poe , Lowell , Emerson , Parker , Longfellow , Peggy Fuller ( who " couldn't abide me" ) , Cornelius Mathews ( whose strange tragedy of Witchcraft I have just been reading ) , and many other writers worthy to find welcome among the best ; but if more tragedians afflict ; me I shall feel my love grow cold . If America only knew how little we want her tragedians ! If tliose _tragedians only knew how happy we should be to ignore them ! But they don t : ai , ai \ Hamlet , and in the dog days , too ! Merci , je sors d ' _enprendre ! I hare only half recovered from Emil Devrient . lie at any rate declaimed like a gentleman , and uttered the words with appreciation ; if he did not act Hamlet , he read it with a noble voice , and reasonable correctness . But if with him I felt like Tennyson ' s Marianna : I said " I am aweary , aweary j " " He endeth not , " I said ; I said " I am aweary , aweary , I wish that he were dead . "
language has no power to express my melting ennui at Mr . Buchanan , " the great American tragedian . " The temperature of the house was not eminently agreeable ; and yet the crowded audience perspired and applauded with an energy which denoted the character of the persevering , perspiring Anglo-Saxon- I saw very little of this performance , but more than enough to make up my mind as to the complete absence of all the higher qualities in Mr . Buchanan . His cavernous sostenutp ahs , ohs , and ors ( or , as he pronounced the word , or-a )—his capricious intonation—the careful error of his interpretation—and the cold formality of his gestures —were anything but tragic , ideal . He is young , has a good figure , a , nd may train into a fair second-rate actor , but all attempt at the personation of high tragic character should be abandoned by him . There was a farce played after Hamlet , but as _Vivianesqtie patience would not endure sitting out the tragedy , I am willing to believe that it was the most humourous , most inventive , most farcial of farces—willing to believe anything but my capacity for witnessing it . Oh ! to thing of my leaving those pleasant scenes , where the idle day was passed in " talking of lovely things that conquer death , " varied by an occasional glimpse at that strange aspect of British life , known to most of my shuddering readers as " provincial tea-parties "—to quit lounging in the sun or sauntering in the shade , with lazy eigar , loved ; friend , ana pleasant books , and to find oneself once more in a hot theatre , time July , listening to tho " divine Shakspeare , " whom you don't want to listen to again for several years ; and criticising " great A ' mcrican tragedians , " whom you fervently hope never to see again . Now , I appeal to you , Sir , is that likely to make a critic mild , applausive , " genial r" ] Sfo , Sir , no . And if I am savage , depend on it my tone is justifiable . I should like , on reading over tho proof , to mollify tho sentence on Mr . Buchanan , if I can . [ t can ' t . ]
T Ii E C) P E I! A S Have Wooed Mo, But ...
T II E C ) P E I ! A S have wooed mo , but found mo coy . I could not resist going to hear {\ i & Huguenots on Thursday , because it was the " limt Umo this season ; " and tho last time 1 hoard it , _connee-rated it for ever in my affections . ( It waa _< on that Oceanian Fanny " ref ' _uned" mo . What an escape ! I moan for me , not , for Fanny . ) Mario was greater than over in tho passionate * duot of the third act . I should like Emil Devrient , Charles Kean , or any other legitimate bad actor to watch Mario for one ; night , and _neo what caa bo done by a man with real emotion in him ! On Tuesday , _Griai _was magnificent in that , dreary opera , Anna HoUma , but I stayed away , and ' only sneak by hearsay and " foregone conclusion ; " aH | do in Baying how charming O hair ton was in La Sonnambiila , at Hick _MajkhtVs , on . tho Baino evening . The Italian Opera _hccuis incessantly increasing its ' _BUooeHHoa with ( ionium , French , Greek , and EngliHh wingers , never with italiunH . Shortly wo are to have _bullion ' s new opera . I have immense faith in Jullion ; aud if tho _conNoioutmoBH of his popularity , and the estimation in which ho in held , have not / breed him in to tho error of writing (/ rand music , of the _Haleyy school , t prophecy a _gveut ; success for \ dm _* . Lot him bo _Jullion , and ho will _succeed . Vivian .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 31, 1852, page 21, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31071852/page/21/
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