Part 32

You should have seen Marian’s serious face. “Why?” she exclaimed.

“Because you haven’t brought me any paper.”

They all were too busy. But Florence had given Henry a good little talk on the meeting he had missed.

I asked them whether they had enjoyed these meetings on art as much as the first meetings. They all said yes, quite as much. I spoke again of the relation of our idea to art. It seemed to them all that art was the expression of the religious ideal. Virginia said: “It relates us with others and gives us sympathy.” Henry said it was the action of religious feeling.

“Just as,” he added, “it is said one knows a man by his actions.”

“You know what I mean,” said I; “it might be well expressed in a single phrase that would stay in your minds. Art is the symbol of completeness. It must be in itself a tiny world, a miniature universe. Do you remember the delight you used to get when you were little, from a tiny doll’s house, from a little thing that seemed real, that seemed a small, perfect world in itself? This joy you get from every work of art, the joy of a complete world.”

“As in the novel,” said Marian, “which is not like real life, with its incompleteness and distraction, but has within itself all the people and all the things necessary to itself.”

I spoke again of the way in which I meant to discuss questions of conduct according to the rules of art. I said: “Life can be made beautiful and complete in the same way, and by learning these large laws we may avoid the pettiness of moral discussion. You, being a self, are the symbol of the whole Self.

“Now,” I continued, “we will speak of poetry, of painting, of all the arts, and you will see that the laws of all are the same laws. What is the difference between prose and poetry?”

They mentioned various differences, such as subject-matter, form, manner of treatment.

“The chief difference between prose and poetry,” I said, “is that poetry is written in poetry.”

That seemed an evident difference.

“Metre, rhyme, musical measure of the words are qualities of poetry alone.”

“But all poetry doesn’t rhyme,” said Virginia.

“No,” I answered, “but all poetry has metre. Tell me another difference. In what way does poetry affect you differently from prose?”

“I know what you mean,” said Florence. “You mean because it has metaphor and simile.”

“That, too, but something else.”

Marian answered, with some hesitation: “Poetry is emotional. It stirs your feelings more than prose.”

“That is what I meant,” I said; “it resembles music because it stirs you as much by the sound as by the sense. And just because it is more unreal and distant, it seems more real and close and complete in its grip. A thing must be far off to give us the sense of completeness and beauty. Music is to me the art of arts, because it expresses everything and defines nothing; because it is like life itself, rather than a description of life.” Henry assented enthusiastically. I went on: “You spoke of metaphor and simile. We find it not only in all poetry, but in all prose. And what is it but the relationing of things to one another, the likeness and the bond between things unlike? And so keen is it, so natural, so close to us, that we use it every day, we are poets every moment in this respect, for we hardly ever speak without using metaphor. We say a sharp look, a piercing look, and so use metaphor. Do you see?”

Marian said: “When we say in school, for instance, that our teacher looked daggers, we are using metaphor.”

“Yes,” I answered, “and even slang is often good metaphor.”

Alfred asked: “If you call a person a lemon, is that metaphorical?”

“Surely,” I said; “but I think it would hardly do in poetry, because it is too unsympathetic.”

“How about 23 skidoo?” asked Virginia. “Is that simile or metaphor?”

“That,” said I, “is less metaphor than nonsense.”

I said that in the modern play, which could not use the figurative language of poetry, the metaphor and simile were replaced by the symbol. I could not go into this, however, as none of them, except Florence, had read any modern plays. So I spoke of the fairy story, and how it often stood for something which was not itself. “Yes, like Brandt,” said Florence. I did not dwell on this point, but went on to the subject of taking sides in poetry. I said that good poetry could not possibly take sides; that all didactic and party poetry was poor.

“I don’t see that,” answered Henry.

“No,” said Florence, “he wouldn’t let me convince him of it the other day.”