they are invisible. Down the façades

of the new Victoria and Albert Museum are dozens upon dozens of carved figures which no mortal eye has ever seen or ever will see. They are there, not because they count for anything to the eye, but because addition is the rule of our art.

To what extent it is so, a comparison with Greek work indicates. The Greeks made a curiously exact study of the value of smooth spaces, and employed to the full the significance which smooth spaces alone can confer, and the resulting refinement of their work has become, as I have said, its best known characteristic. At the same time, let the reader observe that it is a characteristic arising inevitably out of a study of the laws of sight. We can easily satisfy ourselves, by all our eyes look at and avoid, that there is nothing they so dislike and shrink from as complication. They cannot abide moving along lines which are apt to become entangled and involved, nor will they rest for a moment on any surface where the ornament is messy and overcrowded. Redundancy satiates the eye, and actually deprives it of its power of seeing. Hence, the aim of the Greek artist being so to place his decoration that every touch will tell with full effect, he naturally employs as a background a liberal allowance of smooth surface, for smooth surface collects, so to speak, the attention, and represents the eye's power of seeing. In many everyday ways we act on the same knowledge. We know that an object placed in a crowd is overlooked, while one standing alone is, as we call it, conspicuous. But here, again, the effectiveness of the work of the Greeks appears in the delicacy and nicety with which they apportion space to ornament. For they seem to know exactly how much attention any given space can collect, and therefore precisely the amount of

ornament which is required to satisfy without fatiguing it; the result of this discrimination being that each touch of theirs shows up unencumbered, with a kind of starry distinctness, reminding one of that thought of Wordsworth's:

Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

What, then, I would impress upon the reader with regard to a Doric temple is this, that not only are its main features and outlines subtly rounded, slanted and curved, in obedience to the eye's requirements, but that the method of its arrangement, its severe simplicity, and the strict and calcu lated parsimony of its ornament are appraised by the same standard. The stranger may think what he will about Doric architecture, but there is one fact about it which he cannot alter. As sure as one object on a table is more conspicuous than one among fifty, as sure as a tree upon the hilltop stands out more clearly than when nestling in the valley, as sure as horizontal lines are easier for sight to travel on than vertical ones, and left to right a more natural motion for it than right to left; in short, as surely as sight has laws of its own over which we have no control and which guide its every movement, so certain is it that Doric architecture, having alone subscribed to those laws and placed itself entirely under their jurisdiction, is alone in the pleasure it affords to the faculty of sight.

We have almost reached the end of our argument. We said, to start with, that a Doric temple is saturated with ideas which were not put into it as ideas at all, and which were furnished by a faculty other than the mind. That other faculty is the faculty of sight, and the motives it suggests, it suggests not as ideas, but as adaptations of form and surface to the require

ments of the eye. But though not put in as ideas, these motives can be taken out as ideas. It is, indeed, difficult to speak for a moment of Doric construction without being led insensibly into the language of ethics, for the suggestions of the eye, which, that construction everywhere obeys, turn of their own accord into ethical ideas directly they take shape in stone. Certain words and phrases, as we know, have the same tendency. Design, proportion, harmony, the subordination of the parts to the whole, are such words and phrases. They apply to art and ethics both, and are equally used to things relating to the eye and the mind. It only, therefore, needs that these principles should, in the artistic sphere, be enforced to the point at which we become sensuously conscious of their influence, and we shall at the same time become mentally conscious of it also. Let proportion, let design, be carried to a point of perfection before our eyes, and the same act of consciousness which reveals the apparent and visual significance of the prin ciple reveals also and carries deep into our minds and hearts its intellectual and ethical significance. A moment ago, in speaking of Doric proportions, we slipped unconsciously into the ethical view of the matter, and spoke of the ennobling effect of their duties and a strength adequately exercised yet not taxed. For all who have laid themselves open to the influence of Doric it will be impossible to separate this view from the purely aesthetic. Visual perception passes into ethical conception. The two are fused together. We think with the eye and see with the mind. A new certitude suffuses our being. What was only thought to be true is now seen to be true.

Let me emphasize what is the crux of the whole matter. It is the general supposition, I believe, that the eye

moves along as evenly and indifferently as the shadows and sunbeams which chase each other across a landscape, accepting as impartially all that comes in its way; and that, when it rests, it rests as easily on one thing as another. Nothing could be further from the truth. The movement of the eye is not uniform and even; it consists of a series of leaps from one thing to another, and in proportion to the speed of the sweep of the glance is the lightning swiftness of the short leaps which compose it. Yet every single leap is taken by the eye for certain reasons of its own. Like a goat, it picks its path as it goes, selecting this, avoiding that, now hesitating, now turning aside, now springing boldly forward. Its course is a zigzag one, but for each turn it has motives; and if we were to go into the matter carefully, taking our eyes slowly backwards and forwards over the same line of country, we should find that not only would they repeat their leaps and turns with the most perfect regularity, but that the eyes of all other people whom we might choose to consult would behave in exactly the same manner. Similarly, in regard to restingplaces, we should find that our eyes had likes and dislikes which are quite outside our own control; that they are particular upon what they lodge, and will not remain more than a moment at rest if surrounding objects either disquiet them or attract them in some other direction. In this respect, too, there will be the same uniformity, and the eyes of all men will be influenced in a similar way.

But these laws of sight, being fixed, must also be definable, and if the reader will attempt the task of defining his own eyes' likes and dislikes, he will find himself using such words as harmony, articulation, proportion, lucidity, simplicity, decision, and so on, to describe their likes, and such words as

superfluity, redundancy, weakness, vacillation, to describe their dislikes. He will find himself, that is to say, using ethical language to describe those laws which are inherent in the sight of all creatures, even to some extent in animals, which see at all. Of course of all this interpretation work sight knows nothing. It has no knowledge. It sees or it does not see; it seeks or shuns certain objects or surfaces, and there its business ends. It is the mind which, noting the eyes' movements, supplies the ethical interpretation. Still the eye provides the matter to be interpreted, and if in any given work the laws of sight are embodied fully and perfectly the ethical interpretation becomes inevitable.

Hence it follows that the more perfect an æsthetic arrangement, the more inevitable will be its ethical effect. The reason that "proportion" in architecture suggests to us now nothing ethical is that with us the principle is so inadequately carried out on the æsthetic side that it does not reach the point of ethical consciousness. In the same way the reason we never now connect artistic "design" with any ethical meaning is because our æsthetic design is not æsthetic to the required pitch. The pleasure it gives to the eye, when it gives any, is of so slight and accidental a kind that it has no chance of awakening kindred ideas in the mind. It is not æsthetic enough to be ethical.

But the Doric temple is æsthetic enough to be ethical, In the Doric temple design, proportion, harmony, unity, and so on, are carried to such perfection, purely in relation to sight, that through the eye they enter into possession of the mind. Does the reader imagine that such an influence must be slight or negligible? I venture to say that no one, puzzled by all that is obscure in life and baffled by the eager nothings that crowd LIVING AGE. VOL. XLIV.

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transient days, could desire a more effectual restorative than the contemplation of Doric architecture. Resist, says philosophy, the importunities of the passing hours; he who is diverted from his purpose by fugitive impulses will accomplish nothing; proportion your ends to your means, and, instead of frittering away energy in a thousand caprices, direct it to the purposes of some worthy design. Philosophers have much to say in this vein, but for my part no words of theirs have ever appealed to me with half the force of those mute stones which owe all the power their delicate lines are charged with to their enforcement of these and similar maxims. Remote as we are, of another race, another creed, another age, how is it possible, sitting among the olives and the asphodel under those clear-cut architraves, not to feel, as the Greeks felt, their persuasive advocacy of all that makes life sane and noble.

It was thus this architecture acted on the Greeks. There is a power of persuasion in the sense of sight that surpasses even the power of reason. It is one thing to be told that purpose implies simplicity, and another to absorb through sight a consciousness of simplicity in its visible effect. It is one thing to be told that selflessness is the cement of society and selfishness its solvent, and another to be impressed by the influence of a structural composition which achieves unity through the willing self-surrender of all its component parts. ments addressed to the mind are strong, but a spectacle addressed to the eye is stronger. Or, even if it be denied that it is stronger, it is at least an independent testimony. Though ethical in its interpretation it was not ethical but purely æsthetic in its conception. By following the eye's prompting the Greeks were led to these results. There has always ex

Argu

isted a consciousness that the act of inward perception by the mind is one with the outward act of seeing. Mystics, poets, and all who realize inward things vividly, speak of the eye of the mind and of spiritual sight, and we have the common expression "I see" for "I understand." There exists a relationship between the laws of sight and ethical laws, and so it was natural enough that the Greeks, following the eye's dictates, should have been led to an independent testimony to the value of ethical truths. Thus considered, the aesthetic faculty is no slave, but a splendid ally of the mind. It brings troops of its own into the field and supports, with all that the eye holds beautiful, all that the mind holds true.

This great thought of the Greeks, that sight is an independent faculty, with laws of its own, lasted, as I have said, both as a philosophical idea and an æsthetic tradition, far into the Christian era. Through Byzantine art it acted on the art of Europe. It lingered to the twelfth century, and then Gothic killed it. Gothic killed it by promulgating the theory that art exThe Contemporary Review.

ists to chronicle the life of its age. The discovery produced a sensation, and mediæval life proceeded with enthusiasm to embody itself in mediæval art. We have it still with us, that incomparably vigorous rendering of the life of a period, and we are, and no doubt rightly, proud of it. But we have paid a price for it. We have given up for it the Greek idea of sight as an independent witness. The idea that the mind can receive impressions of truth through the eye has been lost. Milton laments that, in his blindness, he drags on his life,

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

Such has been our lot since the Gothic revolution. We are still active in art. We register in it our ideas and theories, our whims and caprices. But we can no longer draw from it that succor which the Greeks drew when they looked up at their temples, raised on rocky pedestals for clearer view, and read there, in visible form depicted, the beauty and pleasantness of noble conduct.

L. March Phillipps.

VII.

WHICH TELLETH OF THE DOLOUR OF THE

VASSALS OF AUMUR.

So came the pigeons to Aumur, and Thibaut caused to be built dovecotes in which they nested and increased until in numbers they were like no other flock ever before seen, nor, by God's mercy, to be seen again until the world shall dissolve into the flame of the Day of the Second Coming. When upon the uprising of the sun they spread their wings and sped into the air, the clamor of their wings was as the roar of a great gale in a

hillside of trees; and when they came at evening to their cotes again, circling against the glowing west, the shadow of them on the castle walls was like that of a cloud which of a sudden veils the sun and blots the meadows, one after one, in gloom.

Now of all Thibaut's merry frolics against Pierre, this one lacked most in good direction; for the pigeons, by no means to be compelled to visit but one small farm, did most mightily plague as they multiplied, the whole domain of Aumur. Until at length the farmers, long settled in mind and resigned

enough to the heavy tax, murmured against the birds. For did sleep hold one of these base wretches within the Gates of Ivory after the sun had arisen, his field was stripped bare of the ripening grain, and did one make motion to feed his poor flock of fowls at any time 'twixt dawn and dusk, be sure that the pigeons were there to pick the grain ere it fell from the hand. Which the varlets could ill abide, but natheless dared not speak their hearts to Thibaut.

Well they knew, too, that the Lord of Aumur, although the loss was of his own wanton making and none of theirs, would remit not one denier of the tax. So some, contenting themselves with murmuring against him, took no great harm save sore backs; but others trapped the birds and ate them, until, two, taken in this villainy, were hanged-as, God wot, most richly they merited. For surely it is of all sins the greatest to kill the wildfowl of one's master in which he taketh his delight. It is a heinous slaughter, mark you, and not one to be in any manner condoned withal.

to

It was after the hanging of these two that Thibaut came again Pierre's cottage, laughing mightily as he rode to the door to see the pigeons busy in the wheat, but composing his brow to sudden anger as his vassal bowed before him. "Is it thus, dog," he said, "that thou makest holiday? I dare wager that thou, like all the other idle varlets of the village, make great talk, saying that I, thy lord, am bowelless and without justice for that I have a mind to amuse myself with these pretty and harmless doves. Yet thou takest little pain, 'twould appear, to drive them from thy wheat. Look thou, then, that the tax be paid, for one-half this crop, which thou idly allowest to be devoured, is my crop. Yea, look thou that the tax be ready. for 'twill go hard with thee or thou

losest not thy holding with a backtickling to boot."

To this, cap in hand, very meek in aspect, but jestful in spirit, Pierre made answer: "My lord Thibaut, who am I that I should chase my master's doves from their food? I have in mind that the two sons of Magnan suffered death for that same, and I have no will to swing in the air while the black pigeons of hell feast upon my flesh.

That were folly unbefitting one who holdeth himself in no scorn for his wisdom. Besides, these doves, innocent and happy, I love them well; enjoying and admiring to see them about my farm, never growing into discontent at their soft calling, nor churlishly grudging mine eyes delight in their beauty because, forsooth, they take some small store of wheat. Why should I murmur against my lord? Continually I praise his bounty in that he still suffereth me, unworthy, to live upon this so fair earth. In the matter of the tax, be sure that your highness's steward will receive it to the last sou. As for me, I do frequently marvel, how it be so small."

Now, Thibaut was put into much admiration to hear Pierre speak thus; and not well content, for the play began to weary him, passed from the village to the Château again. Here he found fresh matter for his spleen. For in his absence had come a messenger from my Lord of Gesny, making complaint of divers pigeons which wasted and ate the substance of his vassals so that these made motion for an abatement of his tax. Credibly informed that these fowl were housed at Aumur, he would hold it but brotherly and courteous of his well-beloved Thibaut to reduce his flock in some indifferent measure.

At this was Thibaut indeed wrath, yet his anger was not toward his own unwisdom in breeding fowl to eat up the land of Gascony, but toward those