Chapter III: The Conscious Symbolism of the Comparative Type of Art (2)

The series in which we propose now to examine the particular types we have mentioned as belonging to this phase of comparative art may be indicated as follows:

_First_ in order, as most cognate to the previous stage, the _riddle_ will enlist our attention.

_Secondly_, we have to examine the _allegory_, in which as the main feature we shall find the abstract significance assert a mastery over the external form.

_Thirdly_, we have the class of the comparison in its strict sense; _metaphor, image_, and _simile._

1. THE RIDDLE

The true symbol is essentially enigmatical in so far as the externality, by means of which a general significance is made apparent, still differs from the import it is intended to express: in other words it thereby raises the doubt as to what is the exact signification applicable to the form. The riddle, however, appertains to conscious symbolism, and an obvious distinction between it and the genuine symbol is to be found in the fact that in the former case the meaning is clearly and fully _recognized_ by the propounder of it, and the form which veils that which is to be interpreted by it is therefore _intentionally_ selected for this very purpose. The genuine symbol is both before and after the act of selection an unsolved problem, the riddle, on the contrary, is essentially a problem that is solved. It is therefore with very good reason that Sancho Panza exclaims: "I should much prefer to hear the solution first and the riddle afterwards."

(_a_) _First_, then, in the invention of the riddle, the point from which the process starts, is the apprehended meaning, the signification of it.

(_b_) The _second_ step consists in the intentional selection of traits of character and other qualities from the common experience of the external world, which--such is always the aspect of Nature and external objects of every kind--are placed relatively to one another in piecemeal fashion, and in thus setting them forth in disparate contiguity, which makes their singularity the more striking. And inasmuch as they are so placed they are without the enfolding unity of mind, and their array and association intentionally distract has so far no intrinsic significance whatever. And yet for all that, and this is the other aspect of the riddle, they do expressly point to a unity in relation to which even traits to all appearance most heterogeneous contain, notwithstanding, both a real sense and significance.

(_c_) This unity, which may be styled the subject of these distract predicates, is just the simple preconception, the word that solves our riddle, to discover or divine which from the apparently confused medley of the mode under which it is propounded is the riddle's problem. Thus interpreted we may call the riddle the facetiousness of symbolism, aware that it is such which puts to the proof acuteness of insight and aptness at putting things together, and finally, by stimulating the zest of solution, breaks into and destroys the very mode of presentation it has itself set up. In the main we shall find this, form, therefore, most employed in human speech, though we may find exceptional examples of it also in the plastic arts[89], architecture, horticulture, and painting. With regard to its historical appearance the East is first and foremost responsible, and we may date its advent in that intermediate and transitional period out of the more obtuse type of symbolism into one of more intelligent knowledge and comprehension. Entire peoples and historical epochs have taken delight in the solution of such problems. It also plays an important part in the Middle Ages among the Arabs and the Scandinavians, and as a particular example it is much in evidence in the minstrel tourneys on the Wartburg. In modern times it is mainly under the more modest guise of recreation and purely social pleasantry that we cross it.

In the riddle we have opened a practically limitless field for witty and striking conceits, which in their reference to any given circumstance, occurrence, or object take the form of a play upon words or an epigrammatical sentence. On the one hand we have presented an object trite to a degree, on the other some conceit of the mind which emphasizes unexpectedly with conspicuous force some aspect or relation, which we failed to perceive in that object on first confronting it, and which now attaches to it the light of a new significance.

2. THE ALLEGORY

The counterpart to the riddle in this sphere of comparative art, where the point of departure is from the generality of the significance, is the _allegory._ From a certain point of view this form, no less than the former, endeavours to make more visible to us the definite qualities of a general conception through qualities in materially concrete objects which are cognate therewith; but in contrast to that form this is not done in the interest of a partial concealment and a mysterious problem; rather it is now quite the other way with the express object of absolute revealment; to an extent, in fact, that all which is external, and is as such utilized by it, must become through and through transpicuous with the significance which has to make its appearance therein.

(_a_) It is therefore in the first place concerned to personify abstract conditions of a general character or similar qualities both from the human and the natural world, such as religion, love, justice, strife, fame, war, peace, the seasons, death, and the like, and conceive them under the mode of _personality._ This subjective aspect, however, is neither in respect to its content nor its external form in itself either a real subject or individual, but persists as the abstraction of a general conception, whose content is merely the _barren_ form of subjectivity which may be called as truly a grammatical subject[90]. In other words an allegorical being, despite every attempt to clothe it in the lineaments of humanity, entirely falls short of concrete individuality, whether it be a Greek god, a saint, or any other genuine example. It is, in fact, so forced to pare away[91] from the substance of subjectivity, in order to make it conform with the abstract character of its significance, that all the true definition of individuality disappears. It is therefore only a just criticism of allegory to say that it is frosty and cold, and, having regard to the abstract quality of its significances, even in the point of invention, that it is rather the result of the matter-of-fact understanding than that of the complete vision and emotional depth of genuine imagination. Poets, such as Virgil, for example, are particularly ready to give us examples of allegorical individualization simply because they are unable to create gods of the Homeric type of personality.

(_b_) _Secondly_, however, the significant character of allegorical material is at once _defined_ in its abstraction, and only by means of such definition is it intelligible; the expression of such particular aspects, for the reason that it is not immediately unfolded in that which is in the first instance a purely _generalized_ conception of personality, is consequently forced to appear alongside of the subject, simply as the predicates which elucidate the same. This separation of subject from predicate, generality from particularity, is the second feature of the frostlike appearance of the allegory. The envisagement of the determinate and specific qualities is borrowed from the modes of expression, activity, and resultant effects which make their appearance in virtue of the significance, when that secures its realized form in concrete existence, or from the various means which subserve it in its true realization. For example, war is delineated through weapons, cannons, drums, and standards, etc.; the yearly seasons, by an enumeration of the flowers and fruits, which pre-eminently spring up under the favouring influence of the particular seasons. Objects of this kind may further receive purely symbolical relations, as, for instance, Justice may be brought home to our minds by means of the scales and fillet, Death by that of the hour-glass and scythe. For the reason, however, that the significance in allegory is the dominant factor, and the more specialized presentment is subordinate to it under an equally abstract form, for it is, after all, itself merely an abstraction, the embodiment of such definable characteristics only secures the validity of an _attribute_ pure and simple.

(_c_) In this way the allegory is under both these aspects without vital warmth. Its general personification is empty, the definite mode of its externalization is only a sign, which taken independently has no longer any meaning, and the _centrum_, which is thus constrained to gather up the variety of the attributes into a focus does not possess the potency of a truly subjective unity which is itself self-embodied in its real and determinate existence inter-related throughout, but is rather a purely abstract form, for which the substantial filling-up with particular traits, which, as we have seen, never succeed in rising above the rank of the formal attribute, remains as something external. Consequently we may say that in so far as the allegory sets up any claim to real self-consistency, in which it personifies its abstraction and their delineation, it is not to be taken seriously. In other words, that which is both implicitly and explicitly self-substantive is unable really to conform with an allegorical being. The _Dikê_ of the ancients, for instance, is not on all fours with allegorical individualization. She is universal Necessity personified, eternal Justice, the universally potent subject, the absolute substantivity of the relations which co-ordinate Nature and spiritual Life, that is, she is the absolute Self-subsistent itself, in the train of whom all other individuals are bound, whether gods or men. Herr Frederick von Schlegel has, it is true--we have already referred to the fact--ventured the opinion that every work of art must of necessity be an allegory. Such an expression of opinion is only true if limited to the sense that every work of art must contain a general idea and a significance which is itself essentially true. What we have above, on the contrary, included under the term allegory is a mode of presentation which only conforms to the notion of art incompletely, being itself no less in content than in form subordinate to it. Every human event and development, every relation in which life is concerned, possesses no doubt intrinsically an aspect of universality, which may be emphasized as such, but abstractions of this kind are already to be found in the general contents of consciousness, and merely to assert them in their prosaic aspect of generality and external delineation, which is the point where the allegory halts, is still to fall short of the true sphere of art.

Winckelmann has also written an immature work on allegory, in which he has ranged together a large number of examples, but failed for the most part to distinguish those which exemplify the symbol and allegory respectively.

Among the particular arts within which we find examples of the allegory, poetry is really acting contrary to its laws when it takes refuge in such a mode of presentment; sculpture on the contrary is in most directions barely complete without it, more especially modern sculputure, which freely admits of that which is native to portraiture, and so must avail itself of allegorical figures in order to delineate more closely the relative aspects under which the individual presentment is posed. On Blucher's monument, for example, which has been raised to him here in Berlin, we find both the genius of Fame and Victory, although, having regard to the general treatment of the war of liberation, this allegorical aspect is once more set aside by means of a series of particular scenes such as the departure of the army, its march, and victorious return. Generally speaking, however, where the subject of sculpture is portraiture the sculptor will avail himself gladly of allegorical representation as offering to the simplicity of his central figure the contrast of environment and variety. The ancients on the other hand, on their sarcophagi for example, more frequently made use of general mythological representations of such figures as Sleep, Death, and the like.

Allegory generally is far less common in the antique than it is in the romantic art of the Middle Ages, although it must be added that such romance as it possesses is not really referable to allegory. The frequent appearance of allegorical conception at this particular epoch of human history is to be thus explained. From a certain point of view we find that the content of the Middle Ages is preoccupied with particular types of individuality and the personal aims, generally focussed in love and honour, and resulting in vows, wanderings, and adventures, which are common to them. Individuals of this type and the events of such lives invariably offer the imagination a wide scope for the inventive faculties, and the composition of accidental and capriciously imagined collisions and their resolution. On the other hand, in direct contrast to this motley show of worldly adventure we have the universal, taking it here as the stability of the ordinary relations and conditions of life, a universal which is not, as was the case in the ancient world, individualized in the figures of self-subsistent gods; consequently we find it freely and naturally emphasized in independent isolation as such universality alongside of these particular types of personality and their specific modes of appearance and activity. If the artist therefore happens to have before his mind the general conditions of life we have adverted to, and assuming that he is desirous of giving artistic embodiment to them in some form other than the accidental mode common to his age, that he wishes, in short, to emphasize their universality, he has no other alternative than to accept the allegorical type of presentment. This is precisely what we find in the sphere of religion.

The Virgin Mary, Christ, the actions and dramatic events of apostolic history, the saints with their penances and martyrdoms, are, it is true, even here individualities in the full sense; but Christendom is also to an equal extent concerned with the general conceptions of abstract spiritual qualities, such as will not comply with the concrete definition of actual persons inasmuch as the relation of _universality_ is precisely the mode under which they are presented, of which examples are Love, Faith, and Hope. And generally the truths and dogmas of Christendom are independently cognized by the religious consciousness, and a main interest even of their poetry consists in this that these doctrines are emphasized in their _universal_ aspect, that Truth is known and believed in as _universal_ truth. In that case, however, it is necessary that the concrete presentation should remain a subordinate factor, itself external to the content, and allegory is just the form which satisfies this want in the easiest and most sufficient way. Conformably to this the divine comedy of Dante is full of allegorical matter. Theology, for example, in this poem is run together in fusion with the image of his beloved lady Beatrice. This personification, however, wavers in the lines of its delineation; and this uncertainty of outline is that which constitutes the beauty of it, and places it halfway between genuine allegory and a vision of his youthful love. In the ninth year of his life he looked on her for the first time: she appeared to him no daughter of mortal men, but of God. His fiery Italian nature conceived a passion for her, which the years failed to extinguish. And conscious that it was she who awoke in him the genius of poetry he finally sets himself the task, after he had lost in her that which was most loved in the fairest flower of its promise, of composing that wonderful monument of the most intimate and personal religion of his heart in the poetic masterpiece of his life.

3. METAPHOR, IMAGE, SIMILE

The _third_ sphere of content attached to the riddle and the allegory consists in the _imaged thing_ generally. The riddle veiled the still independently cognized significance and the mode of its shaping in cognate, albeit heterogeneous and distantly placed traits of definition was still of most importance. Allegory on the contrary emphasized the perspicuity of the significance so strongly as the predominant aim, that the personification and its attributes appear deposed to the rank of mere signs. The imaged thing now connects this clarity of allegorical expression with that impulse of the riddle to envisage the significance which stands out clearly before the mind in the form of an externality cognate with it; the result, however, is not that it gives rise to problems which have first of all to be solved, but rather that the imaged shape appears, by means of which the preconceived conception is revealed with absolute transparency, notifying itself as that which it really is.

(_a_) _The Metaphor_

The _first_ point we have to draw attention to in the _metaphor_ is this, that it may be accepted at once as essentially a simile, in so far as it expresses clear and self-subsistent significance in a similar phenomenon of reality comparable with it. In the comparison as such, however, both sides of the comparison, that is the real meaning and the image, are definitely kept apart from each other, while on the contrary in the metaphor this separation, albeit it is essentially present, is _not_ as yet clearly _posited._ For this reason Aristotle long ago distinguished comparison and metaphor by his statement that a "how" is added to the former which is absent from the latter. In other words the metaphorical expression specifies but _one_ aspect, the image. In the context, however, to which the image is attached, the real significance which is intended lies so near that it is at the same time immediately asserted without any direct separation of it from the image. When it is said, for example: "the Spring-time of these cheeks," or "a sea of tears," we are inevitably forced to accept such an expression as an image rather than an actual fact, an image whose significance the context at the same time expressly designates. In the symbol and allegory the relation of actual meaning to external form is not asserted either so immediately or necessarily. From the fact that an Egyptian staircase consists of nine stages, and a hundred other circumstances of similar pregnancy, it is only the adept, the connoisseur, and the professor who will derive a symbolical significance, and doubtless will scent out and discover much that is both mystical and symbolical into the bargain, which is so much ingenuity of research thrown away for the reason that what is discovered is not there. This may have happened often enough to my honoured friend Creutzer, no less than our latter-day Platonists and the commentators of Dante.

(_a_) In range and variety of form it is impossible to exhaust the resources of metaphor; its definition, however, is simple. It is a wholly abbreviated comparison, in which we find, as a fact, image and significance are not as yet set in opposition to one another, but only the image is introduced by it; at the same time, however, the meaning which is thus attached to the image is not its real meaning; this is as it were effaced, and by virtue of the content in which it is set we are enabled to recognize the significance which is really intended in the image itself, albeit that meaning is not expressly asserted.

For the reason, however, that the meaning that is thus rendered intelligible under the image only comes to light by virtue of the context, the significance which is expressed in metaphor cannot claim the importance of an independent artistic presentation; their mode of appearance is purely incidental, so that metaphors, in a still more emphatic degree, can only be employed as the external embellishment of an essentially independent work of art.

(_β_) The metaphor is mainly used in the expressions of speech, which we may usefully consider in this relation under the following aspects.

(_αα_) In the first place every language includes within its own compass a host of metaphors. They arise from the fact that a word, which in the first instance merely designates something entirely sensuous, is carried over into a spiritual sphere. "_Grasp"_, "_comprehend"_[92], and generally a number of words connected with the processes of thought, have in regard to their original meaning a content that is wholly sensuous, which is consequently abandoned and exchanged for the meaning applicable to mind; the first meaning is sensuous, the second spiritual.

(_ββ_) By degrees, however, the metaphorical aspect disappears in the general use of such a word, which as the current coin of language is converted from an expression which is not strictly accurate to one that is so, the effect of this process being that image and import, owing to the habitual frequency with which the latter is only conceived in the former, cease to differ from one another, and the image merely immediately presents the abstract significance itself instead of a concrete mode of vision[93].

When we take, for example, the word "grasp" in the sense applicable to mental life it entirely escapes us that there is any sensuous relation implied between the hand and external objects[94]. In living languages this distinction between genuine metaphor and words which already through usage have fallen to the level of a mere means of expression is readily established; the reverse is the case with dead languages, for the reason that here mere etymology is unable finally to bring our minds to a decision, inasmuch and in so far as the question does not depend on the original source of that word, and its general development in speech, but first and foremost on the fact whether a word which has all the appearance of being used in a picturesque and metaphorical sense had or had not already lost by habitual usage under a meaning applying exclusively to spirit, and in the speech when alive, its first sensuous significance and been absorbed wholly in that higher sense.

(_γγ_) When this takes place the invention of new metaphors, which are the exclusive product of the poetical imagination becomes for the first time a vital necessity. That in which this invention is mainly concerned consists _first_ in transferring the phenomena, activities, and conditions of a higher level of fact in a way that illustrates the content of less important material, and in bringing to light significances of such inferior matter in the form and image which stands above them. The organic, for example, is by itself essentially of higher importance than the inorganic, and to carry forward that which has no life within, the range of vital phenomenal enhances its expression. We may illustrate this with the saying of Ferdusi: "The keenness of my sword _devours_ the brain of the lion, and _drinks_ the dark blood of the courageous." In a yet more enhanced degree we find the same result when that which is of Nature and sensuous is imaged, and thereby raised and ennobled in the form of _spiritual_ phenomena. So we have such common turns of speech as "_smiling_ fields," and "_angry_ flood," or in the language of Calderon: "The waves _sigh_ beneath the burden of ships." In these examples that which exclusively applies to humanity is diverted to the expression of Nature. The Latin poets use such metaphorical language often enough, as we may find in our Virgil, take the example: _Quum graviter tunsis gemit area frugibus_ (Georg., III, 132).

Conversely and in the _second_ place that which pertains to mind is brought in the same way more close to our powers of vision through the image of natural objects. Such fanciful presentations, however, can very readily degenerate into mere trifling and far-fetched conceits, when that which is essentially without life receives notwithstanding every appearance of individuality, and really spiritual activities are assigned to it with perfect seriousness. The Italians more especially have given themselves over to illusive trickery of this kind, and even Shakespeare is not wholly free from them, as in that passage from "Richard II" (Act V, sc. I), where he makes the King say to the Queen on parting:

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For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
The heavy accent of thy moving tongue
And in compassion weep the fire out;
And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black
For the deposing of a rightful king.
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(_γ_) Finally, if we look at the aim and interest of that which is metaphorical, the first thing which strikes us is that a word in the strict sense is an independently intelligible expression, the metaphor otherwise. The question consequently presents itself, what is the reason of this twofold means of expression, or, to put it another way, why is it that we have the metaphorical which essentially implies this division? The common explanation is that metaphors are used to give vivacity to poetical composition, and this animating effect is the ground in virtue of which Heyne, in particular, insists on their value. The vivacity consists in the support they offer to imaginative vision in the direction of clear definition, divesting the word, which is always something generalized, of its purely indefinite character, and bringing it home to sense by means of an image. No doubt a greater degree of vivacity is to be found in metaphors than in the strict expressions of ordinary speech; genuine vitality, however, is not to be sought for in metaphors, whether in isolation or combination, whose figurative plasticity, it is true, may frequently include a relation, which by good chance attaches at the same time to the expression an increased perspicuity and a higher definition, but quite as often, if every detail of the process of thought is thus figuratively emphasized in isolation, makes the whole unwieldy, overloading it thus with its emphasis on singular aspects.

The genius of metaphorical diction is consequently, as we shall have to elucidate more closely in our consideration of simile, to be regarded as responding to a need and potency of mind and the emotional life, which will not rest satisfied with that which is entirely simple, ordinary, and homely, but make an effort beyond this and over into something more recondite under the attraction which distinction offers and the impulse to co-ordinate contrasted effects. This binding together has itself again various causes, which may be notified as follows.

(_αα_) _First_, we have it for the sake of _reinforcing_ an effect. The emotional life, under the pressure and movement of its passions, gives visible utterance to these forces by means of the piling up of sensuous image. More than this, it strives to express its own whirl and tumble, or persistence in the ideas which crowd upon it by means of a similar letting itself go into phenomena cognate with such a condition, and its own free movement among images of the greatest variety. In Calderon's supplication to the Cross Julia utters the following words when she looks upon the dead body of her only just deceased brother, and her lover, Eusebio, the man who has killed Lisardo, stands before her:

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O that I might close for ever
Eyes before this blood here guiltless,
Blood which cries for vengeance with its
Flooding stream of purple flowers!
Would that I could deem thee pardoned
In the rush of tears that blind thee:
Wounds and eyes are mouths which swallow
Lies which seek admittance never, etc.
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With a still more vehement burst of passion Eusebio starts back from the sight of her, when Julia finally is for surrendering herself to him, as he exclaims:

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Flaming sparks thine eyeballs scatter;
Every sigh is breath that scorches;
Every word is a volcano,
Every hair a scribbled lightning,
Every word is Death, and every
Soft caress is Hell's own anguish;
Such the horror stirs within me
As I see--O awful symbol,
Crucifix thy bosom carries.
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The human soul on the swell of its emotion keeps adding image on image to that immediately confronting it, and with all this impetuous seeking to and fro for new means of expression barely lays to rest its own tumult.

(_ββ_) A _second_ rationale of the metaphorical consists in this that the human soul, after adding to its own depth by this the motion of its own life into the varied survey of objects cognate with it, is stirred at the same time to cast itself free of the externality of such objects, to the extent that it seeks to rediscover itself in what is external; it transmutes that external in its own free activity, and by clothing both itself and its passions in the forms of beauty, proclaims furthermore its power to present in visible semblance its own exaltation above the bare fact.

(_γγ_) A _third_ ground of figurative expression, and one of at least equal force, may be found in the purely ribald exuberance of the phantasy, which is unable to set before us an object in its own outlines for what they are worth, or a significance in its unadorned simplicity, but on all occasions hankers after some concrete embodiment cognate with it, or is overmastered by the ingenuity of a personal caprice, which, in order to escape the commonplace, abandons itself to the charms of the piquant novelty, a caprice that is never satisfied until it has discovered for us points of affinity in material the most remote apparently from that before us, and has thereby related the same to the most distant objects.

And we may here observe that it is not so much the _prosaic_ and _poetic_ style generally as the style of the _classic_ world in contrast with that of later periods which presents such a marked difference in the pre-eminent importance they attach to genuine or metaphorical expression respectively. It is not merely the Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, or the great historians and orators, such as Thucydides and Demosthenes, but also the great poets, Homer and Sophocles, who, albeit we find examples of the simile in all them, remain on the whole, and without exception, constant in the use of their direct form of expression[95]. Their plastic severity and sterling substance will not permit them such a multifarious product, as is bound up with the use of metaphor, nor will it suffer them, even for the sake of gathering the so-called flowers of expression, to waver fitfully in devious ways from their ideal mintage of the completely simple and co-ordinate result as of one metal cast in one mould. The metaphor, in fact, is always an interruption to the logical course of conception and invariably to that extent a distraction, because it starts images and brings them together, which are not immediately connected with the subject and its significance, and for this reason tend to a like extent to divert the attention from the same to matter cognate with themselves, but strange to both. The prose of ancient writers in the extraordinary clarity and flexibility of its utterance and their poetry in the repose of its completely unfolded content[96], are equally removed from the frequent use of metaphor by modern writers.

On the other hand it is particularly in the East, and above all the later literature of Mohammedan poetry, which makes use of the indirect or figurative modes of expression, and, indeed, finds them essential. The same thing may be said, if less emphatically, of modern European literature. The diction of Shakespeare, for instance, is full of metaphor. The Spaniards, too, are very fond of this flowery region, and, indeed, have wandered off into it to the point of the most tasteless exaggeration and superfluity. Jean Paul falls under the same charge. Goethe by virtue of the equal strength and clarity of his vision to a less extent. Schiller, however, is even in his prose exceedingly rich both in image and metaphor; in his case this is rather due to his effort to bring really profound ideas within the range of the imaginative vision without being forced to expound all they imply for the mind in the technical language of philosophy. We behold and find there the essential unity of the speculative reason reflected on the mirror of Life as it stands before us.

(_b_) _The Image_

We may place the _image_ midway between the metaphor and the simile. It has, in fact, so close an affinity with the metaphor that we may regard it as merely a metaphor _fully amplified_[97], an aspect which at the same time marks its very close resemblance to the simile; there is, however, this distinction, that in the case of the image as such the significance is not set forth in its independent opposition to the concrete external object expressly compared with it. That which we term the image arises when two phenomena or conditions, which by themselves stand substantially apart, are placed in concurrence so that one condition supplies the significance which is made intelligible by means of the other. The first, that is to say, the fundamental _modus_ of the definition constitutes here the relation of _independent consistency_[98], and is the line of _division_ of the spheres in their separation, from which both the significance and its image are deduced; and that which is common to them, the qualities and relations and so forth, are not, as in the symbol, the indefinite universal and substantive itself, but the self-defined concrete existence on the one side no less than on the other[99].

(_a_) Under a relation such as this the image may possess as its significance a whole series of conditions, activities, contrasts, and modes of existence, and manifest the same through a series of a similar nature from an independent if cognate source, without emphasizing in so many words the significance as such within the limits of the image. The poem of Goethe, entitled "The Song of Mahomet," is of this kind. It is merely the title here which shows us that in the image of a rocky water-spring which, in the freshness of youth, leaps over the cliff's edge into the abyss, and which then spreads away with the rush of tributary springs down the plain, ever and anon taking up fraternal rivers, which gives further a name to localities, and sees whole towns subject to its glory, until it finally bears in the tumultuous folds of its rapturous heart all these splendours, the brothers, its possessions, its children, to the great source that awaits them--it is, we repeat, merely the title which explains to us that in this comprehensive and radiant image of a mighty river we have the first bold appearance of Mahomet, then the rapid spread of his teaching, and, finally, the deliberately planned attempt to bring all nations to the _one_ faith set forth with such singular directness. We may view in a similar way many of the Xenien of Goethe and Schiller, those sentences edged in part with scorn, but as often the mere vehicle of good spirits, which were flung at the public and its weak authors in particular. Take the pair of distiches which follow, as an example:

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Stille kneteten wir Salpeter, Kohlen und Sewefel,
Bohrten Röhren, gefall' nun auch das Feuer work euch!

Einige steigen als leuchtende kugeln und andere zünden,
Manche auch werfen wir nur spielend das Aug' zu erfreun[100].
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Ay, we have in truth seen not a few rockets of this order changed to dull ash, to the exceeding entertainment of the better half of public opinion, only too delighted when the rabble of commonplace and miserable quality, which had for a long time spreadeagled it far and wide and laid down the law, received a genuine smack in the mouth and a bucket of cold water over its precious body into the bargain.

(_β_) In these last examples there is, however, already a _second_ aspect brought to view, which in our consideration of the image should be emphasized. In other words the content is in these cases an _individual_ which acts, brings before us objects, experiences specific states, etc., and then is reflected in the _image_ not as such a subject, but merely with a reference to his particular actions, workings, and experiences. The individual himself as subject is, on the contrary, introduced without an image, and it is only his actions and relations strictly viewed which contain the form of indirect expression. Here, too, as in the case of the image generally, it is not the _entire_ significance which is separated from its mode of embodiment, but the subject is alone set forth independently, while the definite content of that subject receives at the same time the form of an image; and the result is that the subject is imagined in such a way as though it was itself the means which supplied the imaged form of their existence to the objects and actions in question. The metaphorical relation is, in fact, ascribed to the individual subject expressly named. This confusion, or at least interfusion of the direct and indirect modes of expression has frequently been the subject of adverse criticism, but we do not find very solid ground to support it[101].

(_γ_) Orientals are to an extraordinary degree distinguished by the bold use they make of this type of imagery. They will unite together and intertwine in one image entirely _independent_ forms of existence. Take for example this sentence of Hafiz: "The life-course of the world is a bloodstained dagger, and the drops which fall therefrom are crowns." Or that other: "The sword of the sun drips in the red of morning with the blood of Night, over which it has won the victory." Or again this: "No one has yet drawn aside the veil from the cheeks of thought as Hafis since the day when the tips of the locks of the Word's bride were curled." The meaning of this image may be apparently thus expanded. Thought is the bride of the word; so Klopstock calls the word the twin-brother of Thought, and since this bride has been adorned by man with delicately turned words, no one is likely to be more competent than Hafis to suffer the thought thus adorned to appear in the clarity of its unveiled beauty.

(_c_) _The Simile_

From this last type of imagery we may proceed without a break to the consideration of _simile._ For in the image we already find the initial appearance of the independent and imageless expression of this significance, the subject of the image being here designated. The two types are, however, distinguished by this that in the simile everything which exclusively manifests the image in a figurative form is furthermore able to receive an independently subsistent mode of expression as significance, which thereby appears alongside of its image and is placed in comparison with the same. The metaphor and image declare the significances without making that declaration explicit, so that it is only the context, in which either metaphor or image occur, which shows without disguise what their meaning veritably is intended to be. In the simile, on the contrary, both aspects, image and significance, albeit no doubt we find at one time it is the image, and at another the significance which is most clearly and fully emphasized, are kept completely apart and set forth each in its isolation, and only then, and in such severation are related to one another in virtue of the similarity of their content.

Viewed in this relation it is possible to characterize the simile as to some extent merely a vain _repetition_, in so far, that is, as one and the same content is reproduced in a twofold, or it may be threefold or fourfold form. In part, too, we may even see in it a frequently wearisome _superfluity_, for the reason that the significance is already there as an independent factor, and requires no further mode of figuration to render it intelligible. The question consequently presses upon us here with even more insistence than in the case of the image and metaphor, what essential interest and object there may be in the employment of isolated examples or a whole number of similes. For their use is not to be justified on the commonly received ground of mere vivacity, and the contention that they increase the lucidity of expression will assist us just as little. On the contrary similes make a poem only too frequently insipid and overweighted, and an image or metaphor by itself can possess a clarity fully as pronounced without there being any previous necessity to attach the significance to either as something still outside.

We must consequently conceive the object of the simile to consist in this, that the subjective[102] imagination of the poet, however much it has brought home to the artist's consciousness the content, which it seeks to express, with distinctive emphasis according to its more abstract generality and expresses it in this universal aspect, yet it finds itself equally under a constraint to seek out a concrete form for it, and to envisualize for itself in the phenomena of sense that which already is clearly before the mind as its significance. Looked at in this way we shall find that the simile is, no less than the image and the metaphor, indicative of the bravery which invariably distinguishes imaginative power when it faces its object, it matters not what, it may be a single object of sense-perception, a definite condition, or a general significance--the enterprise, that is, to bind together with its own activity that which lies remote from it in its external environment, and by so doing to carry away by force objects of the greatest variety, and unite them to the interest which its unified content possesses, and generally to annex to the matter in hand a whole world of diversified phenomena. And this power of the imagination continually to find out the new plastic shape, and cement together heterogeneous material by means of the relations and associations of sense is, in general terms, also the rational basis of the simile.

(_α_) In the _first_ place, then, this impulse to compare can find satisfaction simply by virtue of the demand which it satisfies, without bringing to light, that is to say, anything else in the brilliancy of its images than the bravery of the imagination itself. And this is but the same thing as that revelry[103] of imaginative power, which, more particularly in the East, with all the easy-going tranquillity of the South regales itself in the wealth and splendour of its images nor seeks any other object, while it seduces the hearer to give himself up to the same spirit. At the same time we are frequently astounded by the amazing force, with which the poet surrenders himself to ideas of the most startling contrasts, and displays a cunning of combination which far exceeds all the effort of mere wittiness as an indication of genius. Calderon, too, supplies us with many comparisons of this type, more particularly in his pictures of important and splendid pageants and festive processions, in his descriptions of chargers and cavaliers, or in his reference to ships, which on one occasion he calls "birds without pinions, and fish without fins."

(_β_) A _second_ and more intimate aspect of these comparisons is that in virtue of which we find them to be a _tarrying by_ one and the same object, which becomes thereby the substantial centre of a series of other ideas remote from it, by pointing to or illuminating which the interest of the content compared receives a tangible increase.

This protraction of the interest round one centre may be explained in several ways.

(_αα_) As the _first_ we may draw attention to the _absorption_ of the soul in the content, which is the source of its _animation_, and which attaches itself so intimately to it, that it is unable to detach itself from the permanent interest thus excited. We may at the same time observe that a fundamental difference once more asserts itself in this respect between the poetry of the East and the West resembling that we have already adverted to our discussion of Pantheism. In other words the Oriental is in his absorption less dominated by the personal relation, and consequently without the languish and yearning of self-interest: his longing, such as it is, remains a more impersonal delight in the object under comparison, and consequently more of a contemplation. He looks about him with a free mind, sees in everything which surrounds him, everything which stirs either his mental faculties or his heart, an existing image of that which actively concerns his sense-life and his spiritual forces, and with which he abounds. This type of the imagination which is free from all mere self-obsession, delivered, I mean, from all morbid introspection discovers its satisfaction in the figurative conception of the object itself, and most of all when that object, by virtue of the comparison instituted, is extolled, exalted, and declared in line with that which is most glorious and beautiful. The West is in its general contrast more remote from this impersonal spirit, and in its grief and pain more inclined to languish and yearn itself away.

This dallying, as we may call it, is then pre-eminently an interest of the _emotional_ life, more particularly of love, which delights to take refuge in the objects of its suffering and its raptures; and as often as it finds itself unable to break loose from such feelings finds naught that is wearisome in the task of repainting the object ever anew. The lover is above all things the prodigal in wishes, hopes, and ever changing conceits. Among such conceits we have to reckon the simile, to which love and the emotions generally have recourse, all the more readily for the reason that they take up and absorb the entire soul, and are themselves the independently motive source of comparison. Whatever is their immediate content, is, that is to say, a beautiful object arrested in its singularity, whether it be the mouth, the eye, or the hair of the beloved. In such a state the human soul is active, restless, and the states of joy and pain are neither without life nor in repose, but full of activity and motion, are up and down, which at least is continuous in this that it is for ever bringing all material of whatever kind into relation with the one emotional centre of the world of the heart. In other words the interest of comparison has its root in the feeling itself, which is insistently conscious of the fact, for example, that there are other objects in Nature which are beautiful, or have given rise to pain and so on. Consequently love draws these objects with the aid of the simile into the sphere of its own content, and makes the same wider and more universal thereby. If the object of the simile is, however, entirely _isolated_ in its _material_ form, and brought into juxtaposition with objects of a similar nature, we shall find, and particularly so where similes of this sort are piled one on the top of another, that such a composition is due to emotion of a still rather superficial order, and to reflection equally wanting in depth; the result will be that the variety which merely plays round an external material will readily appear to us insipid and of no vital interest, because we have here no spiritual relation interpenetrating it. We may illustrate such an effect from the fourth chapter of the Song of Solomon where we find the words: "Behold thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks; thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing, whereof everyone bear twins, and none is barren among them. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks. Thy neck is like a tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies[104]. Until the day break and the shadows flee away." This _naïveté_ is to be met with in many of the comparisons of Ossian. Take for example the words: "Thou art as snow on the heather; thine hair is as mist on the kromla, when he curls himself up on the rock, and glistens toward the gleam in the West; thine arms are as two arrows in the halls of the mighty Fingal."

Of the same kind, only here in wholly a rhetorical way, are the following words Ovid places in the mouth of Polyphemus (Met. XIII, vv. 789-807): "Thou art more white, O Galatea, than the leaf of the snow-white meadowland; more blooming than the fields, more slender than the elm; more brilliant than glass, more arch than the tender little roebuck; smoother than the shell ever-polished by the sea; more dear than Winter's sun, or the shade in Summer; nobler than the fruit-tree, more comely than the lofty plane." And so on through all the nineteen hexameters, a description not wanting in rhetorical beauty, but as the presentation of an emotion, which rouses little interest, itself equally lacking in interest.

We may find many examples of this style of comparison in Calderon, although a halt, by the way, of this kind is more suitable to lyrical emotion simply, and fetters the march of drama far too insistently, if it is not actually motived by the subject-matter. Don Juan, for instance, during the progress of the action, describes at length in this way the beauty of a veiled lady whom he had followed. This is what he says to a third person:

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Natheless in despite and often
Through the gross and barriered darkness
Of that intranslucent veil,
Flashed a hand of sheen most splendid,
Mistress pure of rose and lily,
Princess, to whose matchless glory
E'en the snow's gleam paid obeisance,
Slave all murk of Aethiop moulding.
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The matter is wholly different, however, when any one capable of _profound_ emotion, expresses his life through images and similes, in which the most secret folds of spiritual feeling are unveiled, the soul here either identifying itself with some scene of external Nature, or making such a scene the counterfeit of a spiritual content. We may cite Ossian once again in illustration of this better use of image and comparison, although the range of objects which serve him in such similitude is jejune, mainly restricted to clouds, mists, storms, trees, streams, thistles, grasses, and other facts equally obvious. Here is one of them: "The Present[105] brings joy to us, O Fingal; it is as the sun on Kromla, when the hunter has mourned its absence a whole year long and now it breaks forth from the clouds." In another passage of the same writer we find these words: "Did not Ossian hearken but now to a voice? Is it then the voice of the days that are no longer? Ofttimes, oft as the evening suns, comes the memory of times that are gone into my soul." And for another instance take this bit of narration: "Pleasant are the words of song, saith Kuchullin, and dear to the heart are the tales of times far away. They are as the quiet dew of the morning on the hill of the roe-deer, when the sun trembles faintly on his flank, and the pool lies motionless and blue in the dale." In the case of Ossian this halting by the same emotions, and their similitudes expresses the attitude of an old age which out of weariness and exhaustion turns to sorrowful and painful memories. And generally a recourse to comparisons is evidence of an inclination to melancholy and effeminate emotion. The desire and interest of such a soul lies far away and foregone; and for this reason we find as a rule that, instead of bracing itself up manfully, it yields to its longing to lose itself in something else. Many of the figurative expressions of Ossian consequently are quite as much a response to this wholly personal mood as they are a reflection of ideas mostly of a mournful colour, and of the restricted circle beyond which he is unable to pass.

But, conversely, it is quite possible that _passion_, in so far as it is able to concentrate its forces on one content, despite its own unrest, with the object of finding a counterfeit of the soul in the natural world around it, may fluctuate to and fro in a variety of images and similitudes, which are all purely conceits of the fancy over one and the same object. A fine example of this we have in that monologue of Juliet from "Romeo and Juliet," in which she apostrophizes the night as follows:

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Come, night; come Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven's back:
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow'd night,
Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
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