Platform Monologues | Page 4

literary gift does not imply any special
expression of truth or instruction, moral, religious or other. Homer and
Dante cannot both be right. If Homer is right, then Dante is lamentably
wrong; and if Dante is right, Goethe is unforgivably wrong.
Wordsworth cannot be harmonized with Shelley. Milton was a Puritan,
Keats a neo-pagan. In the domain of literal and historical truth what
becomes of Gulliver's Travels, or Scott's novels, or, for the matter of
that, Paradise Lost?
All this is self-evident. Yet, if we do not ask our superlative writers to

be heaven-sent teachers, to be prophets, to be discoverers, what do we
ask of them? Is it to write in a particular style, in a given lucid style, a
given figurative style, or a given dignified style? Nay, it is only very
mediocre writers who could obey such precepts. Every supreme writer
has his own style, inalienable and inimitable, which is as much a part of
him as his own soul, the look in his eyes, or his tones of voice. Bethink
yourselves of Carlyle, how his abrupt, crabbed, but withal sinewy and
picturesque, prose compares with the pure crystalline sentences of
Cardinal Newman, and how these again compare with the quaintly and
pathetically humorous chat, the idealized talk of Charles Lamb. Think
how easy it is to recognize a line of Shakespeare, of Milton, or of
Wordsworth, almost by the ear; how audibly they are stamped with the
character of their creator. There are, in fact, exactly as many styles as
there are superlative writers. Indeed this individuality of style is the
outward and visible sign of their inward and spiritual literary gift,
which is the gift to express--oneself.
* * * * *
Then what does the superlative writer do? The fact is that literature in
the proper sense is an art, as much an art as painting or sculpture or
music. The supreme masters in literature are artists, and the consensus
of the world, though unconsciously, comes to judge them simply as
such--not as thinkers or teachers, sages or prophets. They are artists.
And what is the province of art? After all the definitions and
discussions are exhausted, we are, I believe, brought down to one solid
answer, the answer of Goethe, "art is only the giving of shape and
form." That is to say, the object of art, whether in words or colours or
shapes or sounds, is simply to give expression to a conception, to a
thought, a feeling, an imagined picture which exists in the mind of the
artist. His aim is to communicate it truly, wholly, perfectly to the minds
of his fellow men, by one of the only two possible channels. By means
of art mind can communicate itself to mind either through the eyes or
through the ears; by spoken words and music through the ears, by
painting and sculpture and written words through the eyes.
I need not dwell upon the thought what a wonderful thing this

communication is, whereby the pictures and feelings existing in one
brain are flashed upon another brain. Nor need I elaborate the point that
this communication is rarely absolute, rarely even adequate. To make
people understand, even those who know us best, how difficult that is!
The Greek sculptor Praxiteles conceives a human form of perfect
beauty, posed in an attitude of perfect grace, wearing an expression of
perfect charm and serenity. It exists but as a picture in his brain; but he
takes marble and hews it and chisels it till there stands visible and
unmistakable before us his very conception. He has given body and
form to his imagination. Perfect artist as he is, he communicates with
absolute exactness his mental picture to all the world of them who
behold his work.
The Italian painter Raphael conceives a woman of infinite loveliness
and purity and tenderness to represent the mother of Christ. How are
we to be sharers in that conception? He takes brushes and paint, and
there grows upon his canvas the Sistine Madonna, that picture of such
mystic potency, which to see at Dresden is never to forget. He stamps
upon our minds the very image and the very feeling which were upon
his own.
The great musician hears imaginary sounds and harmonies within his
brain, proceeding from or accompanying emotions of divers kinds. He
forthwith, by arrangements and combinations of musical notes, their
times and qualities, communicates to us also those sounds and
harmonies; he reproduces in us those same emotions.
Do not say that it is the function of an artist to communicate to us
beautiful things or ugly things, things graceful or things profound,
things of pleasure or things of grief. Say rather, simply, it is his
function, as artist, to communicate--perfectly, absolutely--whatsoever
he seeks to communicate,