Part 20 (1/2)
DORA. That is very kindly said for us. Some people would not allow so much as that girls had any minds to know.
L. They will at least admit that you have minds to change, Dora.
MARY. You might have left us the last speech, without a retouch.
But we'll put our little minds, such as they are, in the best trim we can, for to-morrow.
LECTURE 10.
THE CRYSTAL REST
Evening. The fireside. L's arm-chair in the comfortablest corner.
L. (perceiving various arrangements being made of footstool, cus.h.i.+on, screen, and the like.) Yes, yes, it's all very fine! and I am to sit here to be asked questions till supper-time, am I?
DORA. I don't think you can have any supper to-night:--we've got so much to ask.
LILY. Oh, Miss Dora! We can fetch it him here, you know, so nicely!
L. Yes, Lily, that will be pleasant, with compet.i.tive examination going on over one's plate: the compet.i.tion being among the examiners. Really, now that I know what teasing things girls are, I don't so much wonder that people used to put up patiently with the dragons who took THEM for supper. But I can't help myself, I suppose;--no thanks to St. George. Ask away, children, and I'll answer as civilly as may be.
DORA. We don't so much care about being answered civilly, as about not being asked things back again.
L. ”Ayez seulement la patience que je le parle.” There shall be no requitals.
DORA. Well, then, first of all--What shall we ask first, Mary?
MARY. It does not matter. I think all the questions come into one, at last, nearly.
DORA. You know, you always talk as if the crystals were alive; and we never understand how much you are in play, and how much in earnest. That's the first thing.
L. Neither do I understand, myself, my dear, how much I am in earnest. The stones puzzle me as much as I puzzle you. They look as if they were alive, and make me speak as if they were; and I do not in the least know how much truth there is in the appearance.
I'm not to ask things back again to-night, but all questions of this sort lead necessarily to the one main question, which we asked, before, in vain, ”What is it to be alive?”
DORA. Yes; but we want to come back to that: for we've been reading scientific books about the ”conservation of forces,” and it seems all so grand, and wonderful; and the experiments are so pretty; and I suppose it must be all right: but then the books never speak as if there were any such thing as ”life.”
L. They mostly omit that part of the subject, certainly, Dora; but they are beautifully right as far as they go; and life is not a convenient element to deal with. They seem to have been getting some of it into and out of bottles, in their ”ozone” and ”antizone” lately; but they still know little of it: and, certainly, I know less.
DORA. You promised not to be provoking, to-night.
L. Wait a minute. Though, quite truly, I know less of the secrets of life than the philosophers do; I yet know one corner of ground on which we artists can, stand, literally as ”Life Guards” at bay, as steadily as the Guards at Inkermann; however hard the philosophers push. And you may stand with us, if once you learn to draw nicely.
DORA. I'm sure we are all trying! but tell us where we may stand.
L. You may always stand by Form, against Force. To a painter, the essential character of anything is the form of it, and the philosophers cannot touch that. They come and tell you, for instance, that there is as much heat, or motion, or calorific energy (or whatever else they like to call it), in a tea-kettle as in a Gier-eagle. Very good; that is so; and it is very interesting. It requires just as much heat as will boil the kettle, to take the Gier-eagle up to his nest; and as much more to bring him down again on a hare or a partridge. But we painters, acknowledging the equality and similarity of the kettle and the bird in all scientific respects, attach, for our part, our princ.i.p.al interest to the difference in their forms. For us the primarily cognizable facts, in the two things, are, that the kettle has a spout, and the eagle a beak, the one a lid on its back, the other a pair of wings,--not to speak of the distinction also of volition which the philosophers may properly call merely a form or mode of force,--but then, to an artist, the form or mode, is the gist of the business. The kettle chooses to sit still on the hob, the eagle to recline on the air. It is the fact of the choice, not the equal degree of temperature in the fulfillment of it, which appears to us the more interesting circ.u.mstance--though the other is very interesting too. Exceedingly so! Don't laugh children, the philosophers have been doing quite splendid work lately, in their own way especially, the transformation of force into light is a great piece of systematized discovery and this notion about the sun being supplied with his flame by ceaseless meteoric hail is grand, and looks very likely to be true. Of course, it is only the old gunlock,--flint and steel,--on a large scale but the order and majesty of it are sublime. Still, we sculptors and painters care little about it. ”It is very fine,” we say, ”and very useful, this knocking the light out of the sun, or into it, by an eternal cataract of planets. But you may hail away, so, forever, and you will not knock out what we can. Here is a bit of silver, not the size of half-a-crown, on which, with a single hammer stroke, one of us, two thousand and odd years ago, hit out the head of the Apollo of Clazomenas. It is merely a matter of form; but if any of you philosophers, with your whole planetary system to hammer with, can hit out such another bit of silver as this,--we will take off our hats to you. For the present, we keep them on.”
MARY. Yes, I understand; and that is nice; but I don't think we shall any of us like having only form to depend upon.
L. It was not neglected in the making of Eve, my dear.