Shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?"
Such is the normal development of all imagery; its actuality limits it,
and in becoming remote it grows flexible. It is only by virtue of this
that man can retain the vast treasures of race-imagination, and continue
to use them, such as the worlds of mythology, of chivalry, and romance.
The imagery is, in truth, a background, whose foreground is the ideal
meaning. Thus even fairyland, and the worlds of heaven and hell, have
their place in art. The actuality of the imagery is in fact irrelevant,
just as history is in the idealization of human events. Its transience,
then, cannot matter, except in so far as it loses intelligibility
through changes of time, place, and custom, and becomes a dead language.
It follows that that imagery which keeps close to universal phases of
nature, to pursuits always necessary in human life, and to ineradicable
beliefs in respect to the supernatural, is most permanent as a language;
and here art in its most immortal creations returns again to its
omnipresent character as a thing of the common lot.
Pages:
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189