Duclari, Verbrugge, and Tine also, I must confess, could not suppress a loud laugh at the thought of stepping over so unexpectedly from the west of Java to Arles or Nîmes. Havelaar, who, perhaps, had stood on the tower[1] built by [[180]]the Saracens, near the old Roman amphitheatre at Arles, had some difficulty in understanding the cause of this laugh, and then he continued:—
“Well, yes, I mean, when you are in that neighbourhood. I never saw such a thing. I was accustomed to disappointments on seeing things that are generally so loudly extolled. For instance! look at the cataracts we hear so much of;—I felt little or nothing at Tondano, Abaros, Schaffhausen, and Niagara. One requires to look at his hand-book to know the exact measure of his admiration of the ‘so many feet of fall,’ and ‘so many cubic feet of water in a minute,’ and when the figures are high, he says, ‘What!’ I won’t go to see any more cataracts, at least not when I have to make a détour to get at them. They do not tell me anything. Buildings speak louder to me, above all when they are pages out of history; but the feeling which these inspire is quite different; bringing up the past, and making its shadows pass in review before us. Amongst them are abominable ones, and therefore, however interesting they may be, one does not always find in them what satisfies æsthetical tastes. And without reference to history, there is much beauty in some buildings; but this beauty is again corrupted by guides—either in print, or of flesh and blood—who steal away your impression by their monotonous babble. ‘This chapel was erected by the Bishop of Munster in 1423; the pillars are sixty-three feet high, and are supported by.…’ I don’t [[181]]know what. This is tiresome; for one feels it necessary to have exactly sixty-three feet of admiration at hand not to be taken for a Turk or a bagman. You will tell me now, perhaps, that you keep your guide, when a printed one, in your pocket, and in the other case, order him to hold his tongue, or stand outside; but sometimes to arrive at a correct judgment, information is wanted; yet even if that could be dispensed with, we might seek in vain in some building or other for anything to gratify for more than a moment our passion for the beautiful, because there is nothing to move us. This also holds good, in my opinion, of sculpture and paintings. Nature is motion. Growth, hunger, thought, feeling, all these are examples of motion.… Stagnancy is death. Without motion there is no grief, no enjoyment, no emotion. Sit there motionless for a while, and you will see how soon you will make a ghostly impression on every one else, and even on your own imagination. At a tableaux vivants, one soon wants a new figure, however impressive the sight may have been at the commencement. As our taste for beauty is not satisfied with one look at anything beautiful, but needs a good many successive looks to watch the motion of the beautiful, we are dissatisfied when contemplating works of art, and therefore I assert that a beautiful woman, provided her beauty is not too still, comes nearest to the ideal of the divinity.
“How great is the necessity for motion that I speak of, [[182]]you can partly realize from the loathing which a dancer causes you, even if an Elssler or a Taglioni, when she having just finished a dance, stands on her left foot, and grins at the public.”
“That is beside the question,” Verbrugge said; “for it is absolutely ugly.”
“That is just my opinion; but she fancies it beautiful, and as a climax to all the previous performance, in which much beauty may have been displayed. She regards it as the point of the epigram, as the ‘aux armes!’ of the Marseillaise which she sang with her feet; or as the murmuring of the willows on the grave of the love represented in the dance. And that spectators, who generally, like us, found their taste more or less on custom and imitation, think that moment to be the most striking is evident, because just then every one explodes in applause, as if they said, ‘All the former was beautiful, but now we cannot refrain from giving vent to our feelings of admiration.’ You said that these pauses were absolutely ugly, so do I; but what is the reason? It is because motion was at an end, and with that the history which the dancer told. Believe me, stagnation is death.”
“But,” interrupted Duclari, “you also rejected as an exponent of beauty, the cataracts … yet they move.…”
“Yes, but without a history. They move; but do not change their place. They move like a rocking-horse, [[183]]minus the ‘to and fro.’ They make a noise, but don’t speak.… They cry ‘rroo … rroo … rroo!’… Try crying ‘rroo, rroo’ … for six thousand years, or more, and you will see how few persons will think you an amusing man.”
“I shall not try it,” said Duclari; “but still I do not agree with you, that this motion is so strictly necessary. I give up the cataracts;—but a good picture can express much, I should think.”
“To be sure, but only for a moment. I will try to explain my meaning by an example. This is the 8th of February.…”
“Certainly not,” said Verbrugge, “we are still in January.…”