Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see the orient colours change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in gray swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands: and then, farther north still, to see the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm, and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fall from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight.
The Stones of Venice
OTHER WRITERS OF MISCELLANEOUS PROSE
1. John Addington Symonds (1840–93) was among the foremost of the literary critics who flourished after the middle of the century. He was the son of a Bristol physician, and was educated at Harrow and Oxford. A tendency to consumption checked whatever desire he had to study the law, and much of his life was spent abroad.
A large proportion of his work was contributed to periodicals, and was collected and issued in volume form. The best collection is Studies of the Greek Poets (1873). His longest work is The Renaissance in Italy (1875–86), in which he contests Ruskin’s views on art. In style he is often ornate and even florid, and in treatment he can be diffuse to tediousness; but as a critic he is shrewd and well informed.
2. Walter Horatio Pater (1839–94) was, both as a stylist and as a literary critic, superior to Symonds. Born in London, he was educated at Canterbury and Oxford, becoming finally a Fellow of Brasenose. He devoted himself to art and literature, producing some remarkable volumes on these subjects.
His first essays appeared in book-form as Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1878), and were concerned chiefly with art; Marius the Epicurean (1885) is a remarkable philosophical novel, and is the best example of his distinguished style; Imaginary Portraits (1887) deals with artists; and Appreciations (1889) is on literary themes, and is prefaced by an important essay on style.
Pater’s individual style is among the most notable of the latter part of the century. It is the creation of immense application and forethought; every word is conned, every sentence proved, and every rhythm appraised, until we have the perfection of finished workmanship. It is never cheap, but firm and equable, with the strength and massiveness of bronze. Its very perfections are a burden, especially in his novel; it tends to become frigid and lifeless, and the subtle dallyings with refinements of meaning thin it down to mere euphuism. In the novel the action is chilled, and the characters frozen until they resemble rather a group of statuary than a collection of human beings.
3. James Anthony Froude (1818–94) was born near Totnes, where his father was archdeacon. After three years at Westminster School he proceeded to Oxford, where he was not long in feeling the effects of the High Church movement led by Newman. From this he afterward broke away, and was elected to a fellowship at Exeter College. He toiled ardently at literary work, contributing freely to The Westminster Review and other magazines. In 1860 he became editor of Fraser’s Magazine.
Froude was a man of strong opinions, to which he gave free expression both by voice and pen, and his career was often marked with controversy. His handling of the life of Carlyle provoked much angry comment. In the course of time his true merits came to be valued adequately, and after being appointed to several Government commissions he was elected (1892) Regius Professor of History at Oxford.