human
It is always the poetry rather than the history of a place that appeals to me,
gpt
and of
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Prometheus Unbound he said,
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It is the only poem over which I have ever become enthusiastic. It satisfied one of his organic needs--variety;
human
I say organic, because I perceive that it runs throughout my constitution, beginning with likings for food. Another requirement of poetry for Spencer was intensity.
gpt
The matter embodied is idealised emotion, the vehicle is the idealised language of emotion. For this reason he was in but small measure attracted to Wordsworth.
human
Admitting, though I do, that throughout his works there are sprinkled many poems of great beauty, my feeling is that most of his writing is not wine but beer (i. p. 263). Similarly, he found the
gpt
Iliad
human
and Dante
gpt
...
human
About others' requirements I cannot of course speak; but my own requirement is--little poetry and of the best. Even the true poets are far too productive. More will agree with him when he says:
gpt
The poetry commonly produced does not bubble up as a spring, but is simply pumped up; and pumped-up poetry is not worth reading. No one should write verse if he can help it. Let him suppress it if possible; but if it bursts forth in spite of him, it may be of value.
human
Confusion to Newton, for having by his analysis destroyed the wonder of the rainbow.
gpt
In so doing, Spencer says,
human
Keats did but give more than usually definite expression to the current belief that science and poetry are antagonistic. Doubtless it is true that while consciousness is occupied in the scientific interpretation of a thing, which is now and again a thing of beauty,
gpt
(_Autobiography_, i. p. 419). This is sound sense, and is the excuse for Spencer's own limitations in regard to poetry; he usually found it too difficult to lay aside the intellectual preoccupation that gave part of the point to Huxley's jest in the course of a talk on tragedy:
human
Oh! you know, Spencer's idea of a tragedy is a deduction killed by a fact.
gpt
spoilt his enjoyment of the music.
human
That serving-men and waiting-maids should be made poetical and prompted to speak in _recitative_, because their masters and mistresses happened to be in love, was too conspicuous an absurdity; and the consciousness of this absurdity went far towards destroying what pleasure I might otherwise have derived from the work. It is with music as with painting--a great divergence from the naturalness in any part so distracts my attention from the meaning or intention of the whole, as almost to cancel gratification.
gpt
and he had to husband his energies. This is well illustrated by his note on Carlyle's _Cromwell_:
human
If, after a thorough examination of the subject, Carlyle tells us that Cromwell was a sincere man, I reply that I am heartily glad to hear it, and that I am content to take his word for it; not thinking it worth while to investigate all the evidence which has led him to that conclusion. This might seem to betray a somewhat Philistinish contempt for historical study and complacence therewith, but the real state of the case is revealed in the sentence that follows the above:
gpt
I find so many things to think about in this world of ours, that I cannot afford to spend a week in estimating the character of a man who lived two centuries ago. What he somewhat strangely calls
human
There is an æsthetic orthodoxy from which few are bold enough to dissent. On the other hand, Spencer detected in the works themselves
gpt
human
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impossible light and shade, and no end of technical defects in what he was pleased to call
human
Phoebus and Aurora, to which he allowed beauty in composition and grace in drawing, he applied commonplace physical criteria to show that
gpt
human
The entire group--the chariot and horses, the hours and their draperies, and even Phoebus himself--are represented as illuminated from without: are made visible by some unknown source of light--some other sun! Stranger still is the next thing to be noted. The only source of light indicated in the composition--the torch carried by the flying boy--radiates no light whatever. Not even the face of its bearer immediately behind it is illumined by it! Nay, this is not all. The crowning absurdity is that the non-luminous flames of this torch are themselves illuminated from elsewhere!
gpt
Venus,
human
I found myself possessed of a quite unusual amount of agility; being able to leap from rock to rock with rapidity, ease, and safety; so that I quite astonished myself. There was evidently an exaltation of the perceptive and motor powers. ...
gpt
Long-continued exertion having caused unusually great action of the lungs, the exaltation produced by stimulation of the brain was not cancelled by the diminished oxygenation of the blood. The oxygenation had been so much in excess, that deduction from it did not appreciably diminish the vital activities.
human
We passed a wayside shrine, at the foot of which were numerous offerings, each formed of two bits of lath nailed one across the other. The sight suggested to me the behaviour of an intelligent and amiable retriever, a great pet at Ardtornish. On coming up to salute one after a few hours' or a day's absence, wagging her tail and drawing back her lips so as to simulate a grinning smile, she would seek around to find a stick, or a bit of paper, or a dead leaf, and bring it in her mouth; so expressing her desire to propitiate. The dead leaf or bit of paper was symbolic, in much the same way as was the valueless cross. Probably, in respect of sincerity of feeling, the advantage was on the side of the retriever.