3 Impressions and Comments （Ⅰ）

Henry Havelock Ellis

1）Two Styles of Writing

There seem to be two extreme and opposed styles of writing：the liquid style that flows and the bronze or marmoreal style that is moulded or carved. Thus there is in English the style of Jeremy Taylor and Newman and Ruskin，and there is the style of Bacon and Landor and Pater，the lyrically-impetuous men and the artistically-deliberate men.

One may even say that a whole language may fall into one or the other of these two groups，according to the temper of the people which created it. There is the Greek tongue，for instance，and there is the Latin tongue. Greek is the embodiment of the fluent speech that runs or soars，the speech of a people which could not help giving winged feet to its god of art. Latin is the embodiment of the weighty and consecrated speech which is hammered and pressed and polished into the shape of its perfection，as the ethically-minded Romans believed that the soul also should be wrought. Virgil said that he licked his poems into shape as a she-bear licks her cubs，and Horace，the other supreme literary artist of Rome，compared the writing of poems to working in bronze. No Greek could have said these things. Whether Plato or Aristophanes or even Thucydides，the Greek's feet touched the earth，touched it lovingly，though it might only be with the pressure of a toe，but there were always wings to his feet，he was always the embodiment of all that he symbolised in Hermes. The speech of the Greek flies，but the speech of the Roman sinks. The Roman's word in art，as in life，was still gravitas，and he contrived to infuse a shade of contempt into the word levis. With the inspired Greek we rise，with the inspired Roman we sink. With the Greek poet，it may be any poet of the Anthology，I am uplifted，I am touched by the breath of rapture. But if it is a Latin poet — Lucretius or Catullus，the quintessential Latin poets — I am hit by something pungent and poignant （they are really the same word，one notes，and that a Latin word）which pierces the flesh and sinks into the heart.

One resents the narrow and defective intelligence of the spirit embodied in Latin，its indifference to Nature，its refusal to hallow the freedom and beauty and gaiety of things，its ever-recurring foretaste of Christianity. But one must not refuse to recognise the superb and eternal morality of that spirit，whether in language or in life. It consecrates struggle，the conquest of brute matter，the perpetual and patient effort after perfection. So Rome is an everlasting challenge to the soul of Man，and the very stones of its city the mightiest of inspirations.

2）The Delight of Mirrors

Is not a certain aloofness essential to our vision of the Heaven of Art？

As I write I glance up from time to time at the open door of a schoolhouse，and am aware of a dim harmony of soft，rich，deep color and atmosphere framed by the doorway and momentarily falling into a balanced composition，purified of details by obscurity，the semblance of a Velasquez. Doors and windows and gateways vouchsafe to us perpetually the vision of a beauty apparently remote from the sphere of our sorrow，and the impression of a room as we gaze into it from without through the window is more beautiful than when we move within it. Every picture，the creation of the artist's eye and hand，is a vision seen through a window.

It is the delight of mirrors that they give something of the same impression as I receive from the schoolhouse doorway. In music-halls，and restaurants，and other places where large mirrors hang on the walls，we may constantly be entranced by the lovely and shifting pictures of the commonplace things which they chance to frame. In the atmosphere of mirrors there always seems to be a depth and tone which eludes us in the actual direct vision. Mirrors cut off sections of the commonplace real world and hold them aloof from us in a sphere of beauty. From the days of the Greeks and Etruscans to the days of Henri de Regnier a peculiar suggestion of ?sthetic loveliness has thus always adhered to the mirror. The most miraculous of pictures created by man，“Las Meninas，” resembles nothing so much as the vision momentarily floated on a mirror. In this world we see “as in a glass darkly，” said St. Paul，and he might have added that in so seeing we see more and more beautifully than we can ever hope to see “face to face.”注1

注1“as in a glass”，said St. Paul ...至句末：關于St. Paul，見《說閑》一文篇中注。“as in a glass”與“face to face”見《新約·哥林多前書》8章11—12節（I Corinthians，11-12），那話是，“When I was a child，I spake as a child，I understood as a child，I thought as a child：But when I became a man I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass，darkly；but then face to face：...”

There is sometimes even more deliciously the same kind of lovely attraction in the reflection of lakes and canals，and languid rivers and the pools of fountains. Here reality is mirrored so faintly and tremulously，so brokenly，so as it seems evanescently，that the simplest things may be purged and refined into suggestions of exquisite beauty. Again and again some scene of scarcely more than commonplace charm seen from some bridge at Thetford，or by some canal at Delft，some pond in Moscow — imprints itself on the memory for ever，because one chances to see it under the accident of fit circumstance reflected in the water.

Still more mysterious，still more elusive，still more remote are the glorious visions of the external world which we may catch in a polished copper bowl，as in crystals and jewels and the human eye. Well might B?hme among the polished pots of his kitchen receive intimation of the secret light of the Universe.

In a certain sense there is more in the tremulously faint and far reflection of a thing than there is in the thing itself. The dog who preferred the reflection of his bone in the water to the bone itself，though from a practical point of view he made a lamentable mistake，was ?sthetically justified. No “orb，” as Tennyson said，is a “perfect star” while we walk therein. Aloofness is essential to the Beatific Vision. If we entered its portals Heaven would no longer be Heaven.

這兩則隨筆都寫得很有情致與詩意，而且富于智慧，屬于這位心理學大家的一點閑筆剩墨。這位作者除心理學方面的成就外，又是希、羅文學的專家與西歐古今文化思想的研究者，其代表作The Dance of Life 可說是近代文化史研究方面的一部classic，書中泛論了歐洲古今文化思想的特征與發展變遷，語言也相當不錯，具有一定的文學價值（甚至即是文學作品）。