"I trust," replied the lady modestly, "that I am not wholly without this feeling. Certainly I have as strong and passionate a love of Art as of Nature."
"But does it not often offend you to hear people speaking of Art and Nature as opposite and discordant things? Surely nothing can be more false. Nature is a revelation of God; Art a revelation of man. Indeed, Art signifies no more than this. Art is Power. That is the original meaning of the word. It is the creative power by which the soul of man makes itself known, through some external manifestation or outward sign. As we can always hear the voice of God, walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, or under the star-light, where, to quote one of this poet's verses, 'high prospects and the brows of all steep hills and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows';--so, under the twilight and the starlight of past ages, do we hear the voice of man, walking amid the works of his hands, and city walls and towers and the spires of churches, thrust up themselves for shows."
The lady smiled at his warmth; and he continued;
"This, however, is but a similitude; and Art and Nature are more nearly allied than by similitudes only. Art is the revelation of man; and not merely that, but likewise the revelation of Nature, speaking through man. Art preëxists in Nature, and Nature is reproduced in Art. As vaporsfrom the ocean, floating landward and dissolved in rain, are carried back in rivers to the ocean, so thoughts and the semblances of things that fall upon the soul of man in showers, flow out again in living streams of Art, and lose themselves in the great ocean, which is Nature. Art and Nature are not, then, discordant, but ever harmoniously working in each other."
Enthusiasm begets enthusiasm. Flemming spake with such evident interest in the subject, that Miss Ashburton did not fail to manifest some interest in what he said; and, encouraged by this, he proceeded;
"Thus in this wondrous world wherein we live, which is the World of Nature, man has made unto himself another world hardly less wondrous, which is the World of Art. And it lies infolded and compassed about by the other,
'And the clear region where 't was born,
Round in itself incloses.'
Taking this view of art, I think we understand more easily the skill of the artist, and the differencebetween him and the mere amateur. What we call miracles and wonders of art are not so to him who created them. For they were created by the natural movements of his own great soul. Statues, paintings, churches, poems, are but shadows of himself;--shadows in marble, colors, stone, words. He feels and recognises their beauty; but he thought these thoughts and produced these things as easily as inferior minds do thoughts and things inferior. Perhaps more easily. Vague images and shapes of beauty floating through the soul, the semblances of things as yet indefinite or ill-defined, and perfect only when put in art,--this Possible Intellect, as the Scholastic Philosophers have termed it,--the artist shares in common with us all. The lovers of art are many. But the Active Intellect, the creative power,--the power to put these shapes and images in art, to imbody the indefinite, and render perfect, is his alone. He shares the gift with few. He knows not even whence nor how this is. He knows only that it is; that God has given him the power, which has been denied to others."
"I should have known you were just from Germany," said the lady, with a smile, "even if you had not told me so. You are an enthusiast for the Germans. For my part I cannot endure their harsh language."