The Shining Pyramid (collection)/The Hidden Mystery
THE HIDDEN MYSTERY
The late Ambrose Meyrick, much of whose work remains unpublished, once wrote a curious article entitled "The Hidden Mystery," which attracted a certain amount of notice, for accidental rather than essential reasons. This article appeared in the pages of a most respectable magazine, a magazine of classic fame which had settled the business of many a young poet far away back in the 'thirties and 'forties. The editor, it is supposed, was attracted by Meyrick's style, and, as it proved afterwards, could not have had any very clear understanding of the subject-matter. The magazine in question has, unfortunately, long gone the way of many worthy fellows; it consistently refused to compete with the new order of "snaps" and "bits" and photographic blurs. Consequently Meyrick's essay remains more or less inaccessible, and I have thought that readers of The Academy might be interested in a brief résumé of a singular argument. I believe Meyrick had originally called his study "A Meditation on an Old Print," for the text that he had chosen was the strange, the almost complete, blindness as to the beauty of Gothic art that prevailed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He showed that even the trained draughtsmen of that period, with, say, Lincoln Cathedral before their eyes, great and magnificent, a very miracle of splendour, were quite unable to draw it correctly, to give any true idea of the real nature of the Gothic mouldings or tracery, or, indeed, of the effect of a Gothic building in gross and mere bulk:
"The print that I am looking at [he writes] has indeed some sort of relation to the Cathedral. There is a nave, there is a choir, and there are the towers. I daresay that if one counted the windows one would find that the number was correct. But there is no true likeness. Stand a little distance away so that you are not disturbed by the detail; you will perceive, I think, that the picture is an odd sort of parody of the building. If a clever boy had some wooden bricks and made a model of the Cathedral with them, then the engraving might very well be a picture of that. And if you draw near, then you see how monstrously the artist misrepresented the great work before him. If the delineation seen in mere mass is a distortion; in little, in detail, in such matters as mouldings and curves and traceries, it is almost incredibly false. It is hard to believe that the artist was not a Chinaman or a Hindoo drawing a cathedral from an Englishman's description. And it is interesting to note at the same time that these bald cusps, these cheap-looking pillars, these cast-iron piers and arches (in the View of the Interior) have very much the effect that is produced by so many of the pieces of the Gothic revival. There is a church in Derby, of which the tracery of the windows is actually of cast-iron, and the result to the eye is very similar to the offence of the old print."
The essay went on to quote from Smollett's denunciation of York Minster as a masterpiece of folly in stone, from Washington Irving's shamefaced admiration for the "barbarisms" of Westminster Abbey. It called many other witnesses to testify to the very singular fact that for more than two centuries men were surrounded by wonderful buildings which they were absolutely unable to see in any true sense of the word. Meyrick also showed that, to a great extent, the same principle prevailed in the regions of literature and painting. He quoted Dr. Johnson's dictum as to Pope's "poetry," his criticism of "Lycidas," pointing out the extreme shrewdness, sagacity, and honesty of Johnson's character; and yet the Lexicographer thought that "Lycidas" was something very near akin to rubbish, and that Pope's admirably clever verse was poetry in its most absolute, perfect, and final form. And in painting were not Giotto, Cimabue, and Botticelli regarded as semi-barbarians? At the same time the essay went on to show that it would never do to say that the eighteenth century was deficient in the sense of art:
"In that art which is of all the arts most pure and exalted, which, above all, is freed from the errors and muddy confusions of the logical understanding, this age of Smollett and Johnson attained the greatest and sublimest heights. Literature, if it is fine literature, speaks ultimately no doubt to the soul, but by necessity it expresses itself through and by the logical sense: it must be capable of logical analysis. An incantation, which does address the pneuma (or rather, perhaps, the psyche) directly is not literature. Painting, again, if it be great painting, makes its appeal by a magical arrangement of line and colour. Here, again, the summons doubtless sounds to some mysterious inner habitant; but, again, painting must be the likeness of something, of some form or forms which are capable of logical description; and by the same law, though the Venus of the Louvre is not beautiful because of its anatomical excellence, yet sculpture cannot refuse to be judged by the laws of anatomy. But music alone moves in its own world of pure beauty; and though we are compelled to use the language of the intellect when we speak of it, though we talk of 'a musical idea,' this is mere poverty of speech, since the sphere of music and the sphere of the intellectus are apart and not interdependent. In this most pure art, then, the eighteenth century has excelled every age. Let us remember that the days of the early Georges were the days of Pergolesi, Handel, and of John Sebastian Bach. This was no time of artistic inhibition; the world may be glad when it has equalled the work of these men, and of many others of that time who made music as easily and as sweetly as the Elizabethans made verses."
Then Meyrick went on to speak of the great painters that adorned the period of Johnson; and even in architecture St. Mary-le-Strand was, after its kind, very near to perfection, while one judged the majesty of St. Paul's by the feeble, barbarous, hideous exercises in the same genre that our own days have perpetrated. "Such," he says, "as that ugly joss-house known as the Brompton Oratory:"
"Compare, too, the house that a wealthy Manchester man would get built for himself c. 1860 with many a dull street in Bloomsbury built c. 1760. Rather dingy and uninspired are these streets, but they are neither vulgar, flatulent, nor maniacal. They will hardly enchant any man, but they will never fill him with disgust and horror and contempt, they will never fill his heart with a wild desire to escape to the architectural civilisation (by comparison) of a central African village of bee-hive huts."
But then, on the other hand, the essay continued, How are we to estimate the attitude of the period towards Nature, the visible universe generally? Clearly, the Augustans and their successors looked on the world as men blinded, stupified, utterly befogged. Meyrick noted how the trees and streams of that spiritual man Berkeley were taken out of Plato's "Dialogues," while the "poets" went to Hampton Court Gardens and to the famous Maze for Nature. They called a wood a "bosky shade," and Johnson and Boswell, who had but a lukewarm relish for the beauties of Greenwich Park, were interested in the wild Hebrides as one is interested in grotesque oddities from the South Sea Islands. Then—to take another region of the soul—nearly all of these men, most of them acute and intelligent in a high degree, were firmly convinced that the blessings of the "Reformation" were so clear, palpable, and certain that there was no room for argument on the matter. Warton, certainly, had hinted that the Reformation had not had the best effect on the Arts, Johnson (probably for sport) had taken the unpopular side in occasional conversations with Boswell; but in the general opinion of the cultured the debate was as clear as the addition of two and two: "Popery" was wholly wrong, "Protestantism" was wholly right.
It seemed, then, to follow from all these instances that whole generations of men, no more stupid or ignorant than their ancestors or successors, might be absolutely blinded as to matters that were, literally and physically, before their eyes; there could hardly be more conspicuous objects than Lincoln Cathedral, a forest, or a mountain, or a Botticelli; and, in the region of literature, there could scarcely be a more potent evocation of beauty than that of "Lycidas." And many of the men thus blind were of very exceptional ability and acuteness on other points, and even on points of art. It was as if a man walking in a wood admired the loveliness of the oak trees, and at the same time wondered why an all-wise Creator had fashioned the grotesque ugliness of ash and beech and yew:
"And so, since intelligent and thoughtful men were obviously blind as to the clear and manifest beauty displayed in Visible Nature, Gothic Architecture, Elizabethan and Caroline poetry, Catholic Ritual, etc., etc . . . . is it not at least highly probable that men no less intelligent, no less thoughtful, are at the present moment blind as to certain matters which may not be so obvious—which, it should rather be said, seem to us not so obvious? Is it not possible that while we look down on the Augustans with pitying superiority, we ourselves may be sunken in darkness as to certain things even more vital, more important than literature and painting? This may be difficult to realise: to us Dryden's 'improvements,' on Chaucer seem incredible, and Smollett's desire to replace York Minster by a neat Grecian room appears pure imbecility—but, after all, Que sçavons nous? Unless we take up the position that we have attained to final and absolute and universal perfection; that we have surpassed all the wisdom of the wise, all the art of the ages, all the visions of the seers; that compared with us all precedent humanity is, in all things, as a schoolboy in the multiplication-table to Sir Isaac Newton; that the supreme goal has been attained, the race won for ever—unless we take up this highly ridiculous and impossible position, we must confess that there is at least a great probability that we in our turn are blind to many sights, deaf to many sounds, ignorant of many wonders, nescient of many mysteries."
The essay shows the probability of this thesis by many analogies drawn from things of the mind and from things of matter. It instances the laws of logical science, latent in men's thought from the very beginning, and yet not clearly perceived or demonstrated till the day of Aristotle. Here was a mystery or magistery that had been visible and yet invisible for countless ages, that had been before the intellectual eyes of myriads day after day, hour after hour. The veriest savage who used stone arrows to shoot prehistoric game must have been familiar with "Barbara" and "Celarent," and yet he knew it not, though he won his dinner and preserved his life by this knowledge that was concealed from himself. The analogies were indeed innumerable. How many apples had fallen to the ground before the law of gravitation was enunciated? How often had the power of steam been perceived before the obvious application was disclosed? And man had gazed at the earth and sky, at the clouds and the woods, the seas and the rivers for innumerable ages before the mystery and the beauty of the world were really manifested in the work of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Turner.
At this point Meyrick paused for a while in his main argument to follow a curious byway of thought. How far, he asked, were we to suppose that much that was not expressed was still felt and experienced—suppressed perhaps out of deference to convention, or from fear of consequences? Here was an obscure point which seemed to invite end less inquiry, on which it was impossible to dogmatise. For instance, you might investigate the marriage customs of some race more or less primitive, you might satisfy yourself that to all intents and purposes marriage and giving in marriage in the race in question were as prosaic, as much a matter of business as pig-dealing in Wiltshire; and yet from the heart of this tribe of chafferers in women there might surge up a song that expressed all the mystic passion of love. "Sometimes, perhaps, they simply bargain for a snug homestead, for well-roofed barns and a pot that shall always have enough of common food within it; and, amazed, they find themselves denizens of Paradise, partakers of magic food and enchanted drink." In a sense, the courtship of Portia by Bassanio was a squalid fortune-hunt, and yet there were lines that spoke nobly of the latens deitas. Perhaps there were many men of the eighteenth century who were thrilled to the heart by the ineffable mystery and beauty of the Gothic work, but they were ashamed to make the confession, to write themselves down as lovers of ignorance and barbarism in art. It was odd, by the way, to note that a sham love, a sham appreciation of the Gothic was a worse foe than blank ignorance and contempt; nothing could have concealed or depraved the true mystery so effectually as the fooleries of Horace Walpole, nothing could make sensible people long for a square meeting-house with square windows so effectually as the ghastly modern parodies of Pointed architecture which had been sown broadcast over England. And the "restorers" had done more harm to the work that they professed to love than all the villainies and wreckings and profanations of "Reformers" and Puritans, than all the centuries of contempt, and whitewash, and neglect. Here Meyrick has pencilled a brief note on the margin of the article:
"Qy. I wonder whether this is not more important than it appeared to me when I wrote this essay. For instance, is there not some analogy between 'Walpole Gothic' and the work of certain erotic poets?"
Proceeding in the main argument, Meyrick argues that it is hardly conceivable that the heart of man had remained cold to the great sacrament of the world till 1790; the glory of dawn and sun set, the terror and splendour of mountains and seas, the shadow of the woods in summer, the incantation of scented nights could not have been wholly without witnesses. No doubt there were hints of this universal mystery written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin; still, they were but hints, and the full expression—or, rather the approximately full expression—had been reserved to a late day:
"And yet; how many men and women must have felt all this—all that Coleridge and Wordsworth, Keats and Tennyson have written—and have lacked words or courage to express it. I wonder how much treasure we have lost, how much treasure we lose daily from this lack of courage, from this fear of telling the great and incredible dreams which apparently contradict sense and experience, science and convention; reason itself; and yet are perfect wisdom, perfect beauty. Tertullian's Credo quia impossibile is not merely sound theology; it is the basis of all true sapience, of Life and of Art alike. The Knight Errant's adventure of the Magic Boat without oar or sails is but the type of all true thinking, of the only adventure of life that is worth experiencing. In the Eastern Tale Joudar was assailed by all sorts of terrible phantoms, by wild beasts and armed men, who threatened him; and his quest was hopeless if once he forgot that these things were phantoms. Last of all came the appearance of his own mother pleading with him; her, too, he was to neglect and pass by. Here be symbols for them that can understand."
So the essay moves to its extraordinary conclusion, the high probability of a universal, or all but universal "ignorance" or "blindness" being, in the writer's opinion, established by the arguments that have been indicated; Meyrick urges that all manner of mysteries, splendours, beauties, delights may be—nay are—present to us, before our eyes, heard with our ears, sensibly and physically apprehended by us—and yet the Object or Objects which we see and apprehend after a certain sort are strangely withheld from us: we behold and see not, hear the Nuptial Song of R. Eleazar as savages would hear the symphonies of Beethoven, lay hands upon incredible treasures after the fashion of thieves who throw precious antique work into the melting-pot; and read at last the Great Incantation by which the worlds were made as a Recipe in the Cookery Book:
"We may be sure of this, at all events, that the matter of the great work (to use the terms of the spagyric art) is no strange rarity hidden in some most secret corner of the world, or in some concealed corner of the mind. Though it be secret, yet it is everywhere seen, though it be occult, yet it is not to be sought amongst 'Occultists.' It is rather, to quote the alchemists again, the most common thing in all the wide world, and though it be hidden from all, yet no man is ignorant of it, no man can fail to be possessed of it, and, being possessed of it, truly to comprehend it if light be given him. It is everywhere spoken of, yet everywhere ignored, everywhere it is worshipped, and everywhere defiled, everywhere it is sought, and they that seek turn their faces away from it. They dig for it deep in the earth, and in digging trample it under foot; they would place it in a shrine, and they cast it forth into the mire; they strive to make them vestments for a high service, and appear in foul rags and wretched nakedness. In one place chiefly the word of it may be learnt, and in this place least of all does any one hope to behold it. But he who holds this treasure has conquered the world. It is given to the simple."
The article appeared, as has been said, in a magazine of the highest respectability; it was a good deal noticed and commented on as "a passionate and eloquent appeal for the appreciation of beauty in common things." It was only some year or two later, when Meyrick had published his first story, the "Rosa Mundi," that people began to put two and two together, and it was generally felt that his ideas were "not quite nice." It must not be supposed that the theory of the essay was at all understood, but in certain instances there were i's in the article and dots in the romance, and the most unpleasant conclusions were drawn.