IX. known and mind should be described as possessing and com- CHAPTER passing the unknown. But my whole argument has been working up to this point, and, I trust, the unrendering it credible—that the mind may possess and be possessed by thoughts of which nevertheless it is ignorant. knowable. ment how too much like a para nary use. Now, because such a statement as this will That stateappear to be a paradox to those who have not con- ever sounds sidered it; also, because to say that the field of art is the unknown, is like saying that the object of dox for ordiart is a negation, it is fit that in ordinary speech we should avoid such phrases, and be content with the less paradoxical expression—that the object of art is pleasure. The object of science, we say, is knowledge-a perfect grasp of all the facts which lie within the sphere of consciousness. The object of art is pleasure-a sensible possession or enjoyment of the world beyond consciousness. We do not know that world, yet we feel it-feel it chiefly in pleasure, but sometimes in pain, which is the shadow of pleasure. It is a vast world we have seen; of not less importance to us than the world of knowledge. It is in the hidden sphere of thought, even more than in the open one, that we live, and move, and have our being; and it is in this sense that the idea of art is always a secret. We hear much of the existence of such People do a secret, and people are apt to say-If a secret stand how a exist, and if the artist convey it in his art, why secret exists does he not plainly tell us what it is? But here not be told. not under IX. CHAPTER at once we fall into contradictions, for as all language refers to the known, the moment we begin to apply it to the unknown, it fails. Until the existence of an unknown hidden life within us be thoroughly well accepted, not only felt, but also to some extent understood, there will always be an esoteric mode of stating the doctrine, which is not for the multitude. Yet there are current which may Although at first sight it may appear absurd phrases to speak of the unknown as the domain of art, help us to and to describe the artist as communicating to understand the world, through his works, a secret that he doxical defi- and it will never unravel, yet there is a common the para nition of art. Je ne sais quoi. phrase which, if we consider it well, may help to render this paradox less difficult of belief. Montesquieu has a profound sentence at which I have often wondered: "Si notre âme n'avait point été unié au corps, elle aurait connu; mais il y a apparence qu'elle aurait aimé ce qu'elle aurait connu à présent nous n'aimons presque que ce que nous ne connaissons pas." I have wondered by what process of thought a man of the last century arrived at such a conclusion. It scarcely fits into the thinking of his time; and I imagine he must have worked it out of the phrase-Je ne sais quoi.* It was Montesquieu's remark will be found in his Essai sur le Goût, some subtle process of hidden thought, unknown to himself, it suggested the remark. The curious thing is, that he attempts to explain in measured language IX. in the last century a commonplace of French CHAPTER criticism and conversation, that what is most lovely, most attractive, in man, in nature, in art, is a certain je ne sais quoi. And adopting this phrase, it will not be much of a paradox to assert that, while the object of science is to know and to make known, the object of art is to appropriate and to communicate the nameless grace, the ineffable secret of the knownot-what. If the object the je ne sais quoi; and his explanation robs it of its richness of meaning. Nothing can be more flat; and one is puzzled to understand how the thinker who could make the remark which I have quoted above, should give us the following definition of the je ne sais quoi: "Il y a quelquefois dans les personnes ou dans les choses un charme invisible, une grâce naturelle, qu'on n'a pu définir, et qu'on a été forcé d'appeler le je ne sais quoi. Il me semble que c'est un effet principalement fondé sur la surprise. Nous sommes touchés de ce qu'une personne nous plaît plus qu'elle ne nous a paru d'abord devoir nous plaire, et nous sommes agréablement surpris de ce qu'elle a su vaincre des défauts que nos yeux nous montrent, et que le cœur ne croit plus. Voilà pourquoi les femmes laides ont trèssouvent des grâces, et qu'il est rare que les belles en aient. Car of art were to make If the ob : une belle personne fait ordinaire- IX. were to make known, it be art but science. CHAPTER known and to explain its ideas, it would no longer be art, but science. Its object is very ject of art different. The true artist recognises, however dimly, the existence within us of a double world would not of thought, and his object is, by subtle forms, tones, words, allusions, associations, to establish a connection with the unconscious hemisphere of the mind, and to make us feel a mysterious energy there in the hidden soul. For this purpose he doubtless makes use of the known. He paints what we have seen, he describes what we have heard; but his use of knowledge is ever to suggest something beyond knowledge. If he be merely dealing with the known and making it better known, then it becomes necessary to ask wherein does his work differ from science? Through knowledge, through consciousness, the artist appeals to the unconscious part of us. It is to the The poet's words, the artist's touches, are electric; and we feel those words, and the shock of known part those touches, going through us in a way we cannot define, but always giving us a thrill of pleasure, awakening distant associations, and filling us with the sense of a mental possession beyond that of which we are daily and hourly conscious. Art is poetical in proportion as it has this power of appealing to what I may call the absent mind, as distinct from the present mind, on which falls the great glare of consciousness, and to which alone science appeals. On the temple of art, as on the temple of Isis, hidden soul, the un of us, that the artist appeals. IX. might be inscribed-"I am whatsoever is, what- CHAPTER soever has been, whatsoever shall be; and the veil which is over my face no mortal hand has ever raised." art sup There are persons so little aware of a hidden This view of life within them, of an absent mind which is ported by theirs just as truly as the present mind of authority. which they are conscious, that the view of art I have just been setting forth will to them be well nigh unintelligible. Others, again, who have a faint consciousness of it, may see the truth more clearly if I present it not in my own words, but in words with which others have made them familiar. in Macau cism on Here, for example, is what Lord Macaulay It is implied says of Milton and his art: "We often hear of lay's critithe magical influence of poetry. The expres- Milton. sion in general means nothing; but applied to the writings of Milton it is most appropriate. His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its occult power. There would seem at first to be no more in his words than in other words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced than the past is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burial places of the memory give up their dead. Change the structure of the sentence, substitute one synonyme for another, and the whole effect is destroyed. The spell loses it power; and he who should then hope to conjure with it, would find |