The undue importance now assigned to this coveted quality of Originality is partly the outcome of the illusion to which I have already referred,—that art is in its nature progressive and is in fact constantly and steadily progressing. It must be obvious, however, to any one who has followed the fortunes of the imaginative spirit in the past, that history affords no warrant for any such pretension. In whatever field of artistic industry we choose to enter, in the world of letters no less than the world of art, strictly so called, the testimony of the ages bears witness to the fact that the sense of restless and unceasing movement is not always accompanied by any real advancement. Fate has scattered over the centuries with impartial indifference to the onward march of time those signal examples of individual genius which mark for us the summit of human invention. No one supposes that Dryden was a greater dramatist than Shakespeare because he came later: no one would be so foolish as to suggest that a comparison between Lycidas and Adonais can be decided by reference to the historical position of their authors.
And yet it is not difficult to understand how in our more modern day this illusion of progress has fastened itself upon the judgment and consideration of the things of art. The rapid strides made by science during the last fifty or sixty years, yielding at every step some new discovery to arrest the admiration of a wondering world, has not unnaturally bred an inappropriate spirit of rivalry in the minds of men whose mission it was to deal with the widely divergent problems of the imagination. Indeed it is easy to discern in the literature of the Victorian era that some of its professors were apt to be haunted by the fear that their different appeal might be partly overborne or wholly silenced unless they too could prove to their generation that what they had to offer for its acceptance registered something of a like superiority to the product of earlier times.
The sense of inexhaustible variety, characteristic of all art that truly images the spirit of man, has by a false analogy been confused with the onward march of science where every addition to the accumulated harvest garnered in the past uplifts each succeeding generation upon the shoulders of its forerunner. Art cannot compete on such terms, and any comparison so conducted must relegate its claims to an inferior place; yet though so much may be freely confessed, it does not therefore follow that its unchanging appeal is to be counted as an unequal factor in shaping the destinies of humanity. The work of the man of science, however pre-eminent the place assigned to him in his generation, must of necessity yield place to the larger discoveries made by even the humblest of his followers; while the work of the artist, the outcome of individual vision engaged upon the unchanging passions of man and the unfading beauty of the world he inhabits, stands secure against any assault from the future; in its nature distinct from all that has preceded it as from all that may follow in the time to come. It knows neither rivalry nor competition, for in the temple wherein the artist worships, each worshipper has his separate and appointed place. In the matchless words of Shelley,
Life, like a dome of many coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity,
and although the light beyond to which the artist lifts his eyes is of unchanging purity, the myriad hues through which it is transmitted yields to each separate vision the impress of an individuality which no after achievement can challenge or destroy.
But there are recurring seasons in the history of every art when the worker becomes unduly conscious of the medium in which he labours, and correspondingly forgetful of the truth he seeks to interpret. It was this that Wordsworth had in his mind when he urged upon the poet the necessity of keeping his eye upon the object, and it is not difficult to perceive how easily in the present hour the reiterated demand for Originality, enforced by the vulgar illusion that art to be a living force must be a progressive force, invites the invasion of the charlatan. It would perhaps not be too much to say that the little corner of time we now inhabit constitutes a veritable paradise for the antics of every form of conscious imposture.
But this fact, even if it be conceded, need not greatly disturb us. The patient labour of men more worthily inspired still survives. The more aggressive spirits in every department of art, who in their haste to secure the verdict of the future are eager to cast overboard the hoarded treasure of the past, may find when time’s award comes to be recorded that they have won nothing but the gaping wonder of the fleeting moment. The judgment of posterity refuses to be hustled however loud or shrill the voices that call upon it, and we may take comfort in the thought that the whispered message, perhaps only half audible in its generation, has often been the first to win the ear of the future.
SOME MEMORIES OF MILLAIS
There are men in every walk of life who would seem deliberately to shun the outward trappings of their calling. During his later years, when I knew Robert Browning well, it always appeared to me that he was at particular pains not to make any social appeal which could be held to rest on his claims as a poet. The homage that fell to him on that score he accepted as his due, but always, as I thought, on the implied understanding that in the daily traffic of social life the subject should not be rashly intruded. In the many and varied circles in which he moved he made no demand of any formal tribute to the distinguished place he held in the world of letters; and it was sometimes matter for wonder to those who met him constantly to note with what apparently eager and sincere interest he entered into the discussion of any trivial topic in which it was not to be supposed that he could have been very deeply concerned. Like Lord Byron, whose gifts as a poet he held in no great esteem, he was rather anxious—at any rate, in the earlier stages of acquaintanceship—that his position as a poet should be regarded as a thing apart; and he was apt, I think, to be embarrassed by any persistent endeavour to penetrate the outward shard of the man of the world, wherein he preferred to render himself easily accessible to a wide circle of friends, few of whom would have deemed themselves competent to enter into any sustained discussion of literary topics.